It's funny, actually, all my life I've wanted to work at a Theme Park.  I guess it started when Cyclone Joan took me to Disneyland as a kid.

All the magic!  All the life sized characters!  I actually got to HUG MICKEY MOUSE!!!  Can you believe it?  I still cant believe it, and I'm 30 bloody years old!

Growing up, I always wanted to keep that excitement in my life.  I did work-experience at a theme park on the Sunshine Coast, and when they asked me to stay on afterwards I felt like I was the Shiznit.  Ok, so I wasn't dancing about on stage, and I wasn't painting faces, nor did I have a particularly cool uniform.  But god damn it, I was the best bloody Parfait Maker the Big Pineapple has ever seen.  I could make Parfaits that would make a diabetic die right on the spot.  Sadly, I never got promoted from behind the Parfait counter.   

When I graduated high-school, I had to hang up my ice-cream scoop.  I moved up to T-bar, of the Twoomba region and started studying techy crap, so that I could design awesome special effects for movie sets - aiming to live in Hollywood, which is kinda like some massive great big theme park with its own postcode.  Sadly, time passed, and dreams faded - and I never got to work in a theme park again. I never got to paint faces, nor did I ever get to join the local Wiggles-wannabe band.

Now, however, the time has arrived.

I am going to finally fulfil one of my childhood dreams.

I am going to dress up as a Stormtrooper at Dreamworld.

Be still, my beating heart.  I mustn't cry, as my makeup will run, and I'll start looking like a Gothtrooper.  Oh my dear lord.

On the 27th December 2010, I will be somewhere in Dreamworld smiling my face off.

The Redback Garrison (Brisbane's own 501st Legion team) will be showing up at Dreamworld to raise money for the Starlight Foundation.  We'll be having professional photographers, donation tins, charity fairies, and of course, a billion characters from Star Wars wandering around the park and terrorising the local wildlife.  Kenny Koala…. back your boxing gloves baby!!  There's going to be a Dress Up Show Down.