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Welcome to The Genre Traveler! Please sign up using the form to the right so that you'll get all the latest updates to the site. You also might want to sign up for the RSS feed, which you can do via email or your favorite RSS Reader. Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. So in honor of that occasion I made a special recording for you:

For more information about International Talk Like a Pirate Day, visit the official website at www.talklikeapirate.com.

The Corsarios Kids Club at Tesoro Manzanillo resorts in Mexico now offers a special pirate-themed camp for kids, aged 7 to 12 years, every Saturday.

Activities include games, ghost stories and local legends, marshmallow roasts and treasure hunts around the camp fire.

“We wanted kids to get excited about Tesoro’s pirate theme, and what better way than to tell ghost stories, have treasure hunts all with a bonfire on the beach,” says Tesoro Manzanillo General Manager Francisco Zuazua. “In the meantime, parents get the night off to enjoy a leisurely dinner or the evening show knowing their children are in safe, capable hands.”

Registration of the child’s full name, allergies, and room number helps locate parents immediately in the event of an emergency or if the child simply wants to turn in early before the night is through.

For more information, visit www.TesoroResorts.com.

Anyone who knows me, knows I have a weakness for Asians. Maybe it was all those Starman, Godzilla and Ultra Man movies I watched growing up. In fact, my most adorable husband is from Singapore. Anyway, I got a press release in my email about the 2007 AZN Asian Excellence Awards and just had to share it with you.


What:
The 2007 AZN Asian Excellence Awards presented by JCPenney.

When:
May 28 at 8pm ET/PT on AZN Television

An hour-long special featuring red carpet arrivals, behind-the-scenes excitement and highlights from the event will air on E! on May 24 at 6pm ET/PT. In addition, E! will provide information and updates on the network’s website, E! Online, including exclusive, behind-the-scenes footage on the popular broadband channel, The Vine @ E! Online.


Why Should a Genre Traveler Care?
Hosting the show will be Daniel Dae Kim, who plays Jin Kwon from Lost, and Grace Park, who plays Lt. Sharon “Boomer” Valerii on Battlestar Galactica. In addition, Actor Chow Yun-Fat (Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award. According to the release, "He began his career in Hong Kong acting in TV and film. After receiving acclaim and numerous awards for several roles in the early '80s, he captured the attention of John Woo, who cast him in the fast-paced gangster film Yin hung boon sik (aka A Better Tomorrow), which went on to be an enormous commercial success. A string of other John Woo films escalated Chow's popularity even higher. With the global interest in the Hong Kong action genre, he was lured to the US and appeared in The Replacement Killers with Mira Sorvino, The Corruptor with Mark Wahlberg and Anna and the King [with Jodie Foster]. He returned to Asia in 2000 for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, a huge global success. Currently, he stars in the third installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End."

Where:
The 2007 AZN Asian Excellence Awards, which debuted on AZN last year, will be taped live on May 16 at UCLA's Royce Hall in Los Angeles.

My two favorite rides at Disneyland have always been Pirates of the Caribbean and The Haunted Mansion. The former celebrates 40 years today. Wow! That means its only a few months younger than me. My how time flies.

Anyway, according to a press release, the ride has hosted nearly 315,000,000 guests. I wonder how many of those guests were me?

I digress again -- I've had a cough all week and I'm a little loopy on cough syrup. (And don't even ask me about my day job!)

So, back to this post.

Of course Pirates of the Caribbean isn't just one of my favorite rides. Its a lot of peoples' favorite rides, which is why it

• Has generated pirate-themed attractions at the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla. (1973), at Tokyo Disneyland (1983) and at Disneyland Paris (1992).


• Inspired a movie franchise with the Walt Disney Company's Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003 -- which I have on DVD) and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006, which I'm still dying to see). The franchise's third film, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, will open in May.


• Initiated the creation of "Pirate's Lair on Tom Sawyer's Island" in Disneyland's Frontierland. The reopening of the Island in May, timed to the next film's opening, will provide guests with interactive Pirates-related experiences, new special effects, live entertainment and other atmospheric elements.

What's more, the song that plays while you go through the ride, "Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life for Me)," is now an integral part of pop culture. The songwriter, X Atencio, was involved as a creative contributor from the beginning of the attraction's inception.

"After the script was done, I said to Walt that I thought we should have a little song in there," he is quoted as saying in the press release. "It's amazing to me how the show has lived for 40 years. It gets stronger every year. It just blows my mind."

The press release provides this background on the ride:

"Pirates of the Caribbean was first conceived by Walt Disney in the late 1950s when he wanted to create an attraction based on pirate adventures. Initially, it was envisioned to be a wax museum and then as a walk-through adventure as part of a new land themed to New Orleans. But ultimately, it was actualized as a ride-through adventure that utilizes the type of boat system that the "it's a small world" attraction employs. Pirates of the Caribbean was the last theme park attraction that was personally supervised by Walt Disney before his passing a few months prior to its official opening."

The annual Fell’s Point Privateer Day is almost upon us. On August 12, the Broadway Square in Fells Point, a neighborhood of Baltimore, will fill up with privateers, pirates, sailors, wenches and more and people gather to celebrate the maritime history of Fells Point, Baltimore's original deepwater harbor and ship building Mecca.

The event begins and noon and ends at 6pm. Activities and features include:

• Living History Characters dressed in period costumes
• Ships of all sizes from toy models to the real things
• A Town Crier with the actual daily news of the War of 1812
• Sample food from local pubs, taverns, and restaurants
• Walking and guided tours
• Storytelling
• Face painting
• Grog Crawl sponsored by Miller Lite
• And more!

Costumes are welcome – encouraged, in fact – as long as it reflects “whoever you think you would have been more than 200 years ago.”

For more information, visit www.fellspointdevelopment.com/privateerday.html.