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I might as well sum up the rest of our October experiences. There was a Kevin Geeks Out on Thursday the 15th, and it was about creepy kids in media.

There were presentations discussing several topics involved with this, including the different types of children. And one presenter made a case for wanting to hang out with the Shining twins (forever and ever and ever, I suppose). Another made a montage of the supposed ghost from Three Men and a Baby (actually a cardboard cutout) showing up in other stuff. One bit was about how often we see kids in movies drawing disturbing pictures. Another discussed adults dubbing kids' lines, which worked in The Exorcist, but usually sounds really weird. And sometimes it's only very specific lines. The song "Pretty Fly" in Night of the Hunter, which I originally heard on a Mono Puff album, was dubbed. There were questions about whether people who became vampires while still young should be allowed to date humans of that age, since they're adults in terms of how long they've actually lived. The conclusion was that most of these vampires are stuck in permanent arrested development. Jon Schnitzer told some spooky stories, one of which was enhanced by his hiding a talking doll under one of the seats in the audience. The Kindest Cut was of Mikey, a movie starring Brian Bonsall from Family Ties as a kid who not only murdered several adopted families, but made it even worse by creeping on the teenage girl next door.

We went to the Creamy Acres Night of Terror on Saturday. We've done this several years in a row, and a lot of it is always pretty similar, but they do switch it up a bit.

It's a hayride and three walkthroughs, all of which are fairly long. I found the one house rather frustrating in terms of figuring out which way to go, as we kept hitting dead ends.

Thursday the 22nd was Nightfall at Green-Wood Cemetery. In previous years, this event included circus performers and presentations. This time, it was scaled back somewhat, which did make it easier to navigate the whole thing, but I missed seeing some of that stuff. It still had musicians, light displays, and films.

When we passed a gravestone with a bear on top, some people there said they thought it looked like a pig. I probably only knew otherwise because I remembered it from an earlier tour.

And Rye Playland had Scared by the Sound, which we visited that Friday.

There was a long wait for it, which I guess was foreseen as they offered express tickets, but we didn't get those. It's a pretty elaborate haunted house, with actors who do a fair amount of talking and interaction.

Jon Schnitzer had announced he was doing a show at Soho Playhouse on Saturday, and we ended up attending. It was pretty fun, a combination of spooky stories and comedy bits, often at the same time. He did the bit with the talking doll again, and also showed off a talking Pee-wee Herman doll that had Freddy Krueger's voice box. He said he actually talked to Paul Reubens about this, and he explained there were about 200 of these mix-ups at the factory.

A lot of Jon's stories were about his family, several relating to an invisible friend his grandmother claimed to have. He talked about how, after she had died, the family had a seance and ended up seeing and hearing the invisible friend. Another involved multiple members of his family sharing the same dream. I don't know how much embellishment or straight-up fabrication there was to these, but I'm not sure it really matters. After the show, we tried to find a place to eat in the area. There were quite a few places open, but they were mostly crowded and noisy bars. We ended up just getting pizza.

We went to see the original Halloween at the theater on Friday the 30th, then on Halloween itself, we visited Dorney Park.

We've been there for their Halloween Haunt for the past few years, but never on the day itself. I was afraid it would be really crowded, but it actually wasn't at all.

Hey, it's a cephalophore!
We got to ride pretty much everything we wanted to, and see a few shows besides.

The Spectral Sisters did the same performance as before, and another one had a violinist and several people who did percussion with stuff like shovels and oil drums.

I had taken pictures of Beth with a puking pumpkin several years in a row, but this time we couldn't find it, or indeed any of the jack o'lanterns that were along the path from the entrance towards the area with Iron Menace and Steel Force.

What is this popcorn so angry about?
And the next day, we did something that wasn't Halloween-related, seeing Kevin McDonald at Union Hall. He did a show about his career, mostly with stories I hadn't heard him tell when we'd seen him previously.

There was an opener who did a short set, and coincidentally, Beth had once sat next to him at a Sparks show.

That's all for now. Remember to vote if you're American and haven't done so yet!

Current Music: Sheb Wooley: The Purple People Eater

October tends to be a busy time of year for us, as Beth likes to do a lot of Halloween-related activities. I do as well, but I'm sure I wouldn't do as much if it were just me. To start with something unrelated to the season, I got a massage for the first time ever, after Beth had one and recommended it. It was definitely relaxing. A woman did hers and a man mine, and I wonder if that's how they always do it. If so, what if the customer doesn't identify as either one?

We were thinking of going to Creamy Acres on Friday, the second of the month, but we wouldn't have been able to get there in time, so instead Beth found a different hayride in Hackettstown. I immediately thought of the titular character in Lucky Bucky in Oz saying that Hackettstown had pies just as good as the ones on the floating volcanic bakery. It's not too far from where John R. Neill lived, but I can't speak to the quality of its pies. It was quite way out of the way, and we had to go down a lot of dark, twisty roads to get to it. The ride was different from other ones I've been on, because we just sat on the edge with our legs dangling off. There were some quite talkative kids on there with us, but at least they weren't making a big deal of not being scared. At one point, the ride stopped for a little while, and we were given doughnuts and apple cider. There were two additional attractions as well, but we got there so late that we were the only ones doing either of them at the time.

There was a haunted house with a tour guide who said it was her first time doing it, and the actors seemed not to be totally prepared, but it was fun. There were some references to Annabelle, which I don't think the guide had seen, and we haven't either. Less fun was the corn maze, because I'm apparently incapable of remembering where I've already been, so eventually the scare actors just gave up and led us out.

On Saturday night, we went with Beth's mom and Dorothea to see Micky Dolenz in Atlantic City. It was at the Borgata, and I think a lot of shows in casinos are cut short to encourage more gambling.

The concert was a celebration of sixty years of the Monkees, and he performed them mostly in chronological order.

For "I'm a Believer" and "Daydream Believer," the band started playing them, but Micky stopped them to save them for the encore. Other members of the band did lead vocals on songs Micky didn't sing. The drummer, Rich Dart, gave very enthusiastic performances of "Your Auntie Grizelda" and "Peter Percival Patterson's Pet Pig Porky." And Micky did "Shades of Gray" with his sister Coco.

Most of the banter was stuff he'd done before, but that's how he does things. I did think it was funny that he's still including the bit where he tells the kids in the audience that he sang "I'm a Believer" long before Shrek, when that movie is now twenty-five years old.

On Sunday, we went to Great Adventure. It was drizzling and there weren't a lot of people there, so we should have been able to ride several rides, but unfortunately we both felt pretty sick after riding Batman. We did see a short parade signifying the change from the more child-friendly Boo Fest to the later Fright Fest.

Another show called Blade Drummers had heavy metal music played by a band with up to four drummers at once, and also a lot of fire. People were eating it, juggling it, and even setting the drums on fire.

We also got to ride the Hypno Twister for the first time, and rode the Carousel (sorry, SCARE-O-Sel) backwards, so it's not like it was a total waste.

This past Friday, we drove to Knoebels.

We were planning on having a few hours there that evening, but between leaving later than we wanted and bad traffic, the park was only open for two more hours when we got there. That was enough time to ride the Haunted Antique Cars and see the end of a circus-themed dance show.

The following day, the place was open from 2 to 10, and we stayed the whole time, but didn't get a chance to do all that much. It was really busy, and lines for many rides stretched out way past the entrances, so the only way to tell what a line was even for was by following it to the end. It felt really awkward. The Pioneer Train Halloween Express tends to have the longest wait, and they'll cut it off before closing time. Fortunately, we made it there in plenty of time.

And for part of the time in line, we heard two people playing spooky songs on accordions.

We rode the Looper for the first time. You sit in giant wheels that hold two people each, and rock them back and forth. It's possible to turn them all the way around, but I couldn't figure out how to do that. Or maybe there was some reason it wouldn't have worked anyway. It didn't help that the attendant gave the instructions before we got on, and they were difficult to hear properly. We also rode the Paratrooper, Roto-Jets, Tea Cups, Whipper, Skyway, Phoenix, and Giant Wheel.

And this time, neither of us felt sick. We also saw a marionette show that was kind of a goofy take on scaring people straight. A fairy giraffe tells a naughty boy that he could end up going to Hell, or Heck, as they called it in the show.

Heck is portrayed as a circus (I'm noticing a theme here), with a devil on a trapeze and a clown who juggles his own eyeballs. The kid learns that his fate in the afterlife would be to get shot out of a cannon every day. For the park, you can buy individual tickets or a wristband for the entire day. Personally, I feel like the wristband is worth it even if it ends up costing more money, just for peace of mind. We heard a lot of people talking about having to buy more tickets, and that sounds frustrating. Of course, we couldn't get the bands for only two hours on Friday, and you have to buy separate tickets for the Haunted Antique Cars anyway.

Current Music: XTC: Poor Skeleton Steps Out

We saw two different live performances last week. The first, on Sunday the thirteenth, was a live performance by Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits at the Mayo Performing Arts Center in Morristown, New Jersey. We've seen him a few times before, but it's been a while since the last one. He does a lot of Herman's Hermits songs and some covers by their contemporaries (keeping in mind that a lot of Hermits songs were covers anyway). He also does a lot of comedy bits, many of them the same as in earlier performances, although he switches them up a bit. He did a few different songs that incorporated the name and location of the venue, including "Travellin' Light" with it awkwardly worked into the lyrics, and a bit of "Morristown" to the tune of "Barbara Ann." He sang a little of "I'll Be There" with a weird Michael Jackson impression, and started the lyrics to "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" at the beginning of "Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter." He walked out into the audience for a few numbers, and he did the Freddie during "I'm Telling You Now." Towards the end, he showed that he was wearing some Union Jack socks that were on sale at the merchandise table.

The closing song was "There's a Kind of Hush," which still makes me think of the Simpsons scene with Lenny singing it to his bowling ball.

On Tuesday, we saw The Rocky Horror Show (no "Picture" in the title since it was live) at Studio 54.

I hope that awning on the left isn't referring to the temperature.
I don't think I realized the movie was originally a stage show when I first saw it, but it makes a lot of sense. It kind of operates more on stage logic as far as character actions go. Beth was interested in it anyway, but especially so when Jake Shears started playing Frank-N-Furter. Rachel Dratch was there as the narrator. It was quite enjoyable, with all of the expected spectacle.

The actress who played Janet was really frantic, and Dr. Scott, played by the same actor as Eddie, only sometimes slipped into a German accent. Rocky actually had lines. From what I understand, some of these things were always part of the play, but didn't make it into the film for whatever reason. There was a shrine to Tim Curry in the lobby, but I didn't get a picture of it.

Green-Wood Cemetery had an event this past weekend called Mortal Matters, which focused on discussions of death and how to cope with it. There were a few death doulas there, when apparently there aren't all that many of them in operation. We were considering going all three days, but we were too exhausted, so we just saw two programs on Friday, both of them involving astronomy and couples. Matteo Cantiello and Maria Di Paolo compared the life and death of stars to that of humans. I'm kind of impressed that I remembered a lot about the life cycle of stars from elementary school. At the other presentation, Kathryn Johnston talked about galaxies and how they essentially cannibalize each other while moving through space. Sasha Bogdanowitsch played some music based on the themes of space and mortality.

We didn't do a whole lot else this weekend, but we did have some frustrating experiences. We ate at Applebee's on Saturday night, and it was considerably more expensive than it was two weeks ago. On Sunday, Tavie was getting rid of her dad's stuff from his place on Roosevelt Island. We'd been there before, but this was our first time driving. You can only drive there from Queens, and the public parking garage is only accessible from the bridge. We didn't realize that, so we spent way too long trying to figure out how to get into the garage, which is very visible but didn't have any other way to get in and out, or at least no other way for the general public. We only found out the way when we'd pretty much decided to leave.

I can't think of anything else to write about just now, so I'll close it out now. To the rest of you in the Northern Hemisphere, enjoy your autumn!

Current Music: Tori Amos: Wampum Prayer

It's Labor Day, and Beth and I attended a funeral service for Tavie's dad. We'd met him a few times, and he was always quite friendly and enthusiastic. For the past two days, we had been in South Jersey, and we brought the cats with us.

The cats in their natural habitat, our cluttered apartment
We hadn't done that in a while, since they hate the trip and it's a hassle to get them ready, but they do seem to enjoy it down there. Nellie has gotten even worse about being put in the carrier. She scratched me both times I was trying to pick her up for that, and she's also gotten heavier. It's weird that, when we brought Felix back, he decided to sit in a carrier. I guess it's okay as long as he knows nobody is going to close him in there. Anyway, while down there, we went to a Spirit Halloween. They've gotten more licenses for characters than they used to have, so there aren't as many with weird names, although those do still exist to some extent. One section had some actual Mario characters, but also Green Gamer and Mushroom Queen.

Something about those mustaches seems off, although I guess they're about as accurate as you can get to the game renders.
Another Spirit brand costume was called Empty Soul Girl on a Swing, which just seems like very awkward phrasing.

Going back a bit, on Tuesday, 4 August, Beth and I saw Les Miserables in concert for the fortieth anniversary of the musical.

It had costumes, but minimal props, and some parts of the libretto were left out. Alfie Boe played Jean Valjean, and Philip Quast, who had been Javert in multiple productions, was the Bishop of Digne. This is in line with how someone who had played Valjean on the stage was the Bishop in the movie version. The Thenardiers were pretty hammy, as is often the case, with a bunch of asides. It was a very powerful production, and I noticed quite a bit of harp.

We didn't buy any, but they were selling teddy bears of Valjean, Javert, and Enjolras.

Last Thursday, we went to the New York Botanical Garden. They were having a Moomin exhibit, and I've read some of Tove Jansson's work, so that was cool to see.

They had a big sleeping Moomin you can take pictures with.

This caterpillar was also in the Children's Garden, but I don't know if it's related to anything else.

I believe I first heard of the Moomin books through The Dictionary of Imaginary Places, which I've been skimming again as of late to see if there's anything else I should read.

There were also some Flower Power exhibits with hippie themes, including some psychedelic buses in different places and a giant peace sign at the Reflecting Pool.

This pool still reflects, unlike the one in Washington.
We got some food at the Pine Tree Cafe, and since I'm a picky eater, I just got a plain cheese pizza instead of one of their strange combinations. I thought the tomato sauce was quite good.

I believe our next major event will be seeing Peter Noone next Sunday, so I'm sure I'll write a bit about that.

Current Music: Sparks: Over the Summer

On Friday, 26 June, Beth and I went to a show at Radio City Music Hall. The Human League was the headliner, with Alison Moyet and Soft Cell opening. I can't recall having heard any of Alison's songs before, although Beth was familiar with at least one of them.

I know Soft Cell from their cover of "Tainted Love" that gets played a lot, but based on what they played, I don't even think that's representative of their work. Well, it is in that it's synth-heavy, I suppose. They had some fun songs, one of them called "Danceteria" after a club in New York in the eighties and nineties. Apparently Madonna just put out a song about the same place, but the Magnetic Fields also had one in 2015. After their first song, "Memorabilia," which I quite liked, they played a bit of "Holiday" and "Get Into the Groove."

Their main songwriter, David Ball, died last year. We'd seen the Human League play before, but never a full set.

It was Phil Oakey on vocals, Susan Anne Sulley and Joann Catherall singing and dancing, and two guys on keyboards.

When we were talking after the show, Beth admitted that she didn't think they have that much going on lyrically, but their songs are fun. The set included "The Lebanon," which was written about a 1982 massacre during the Lebanese Civil War, but it seems like it's still pretty relevant today, what with the United States involved in bombing that country. I was also reminded of the edit someone made of "Don't You Want Me" where all the lyrics were "working as a waitress in a cocktail bar."

On Saturday, 18 July, we went with Beth's mom and uncle to Atlantic City. They stayed at the casino for just a little while, and Beth and I went out in the rain. She tried to win a Care Bear in a claw machine, but didn't.

What's more interesting is that, on the way there, we ate at the retro Pizza Hut in Egg Harbor. Most Pizza Huts now are just small places mostly for takeout with nothing much inside. This one was a throwback to when they had the stained glass lamps and red cups, which I miss.

I had a personal pan pizza, and they're still quite good.

This past Friday, we went after work to see Tori Amos at the Beacon Theater in Manhattan. We ate at a place called Gray's Papaya, which is different from the Papaya King franchise, but also has hot dogs and fruit drinks.

While we were eating in a little park nearby, we briefly met a woman who was taking her daughter to the same show. Then we went to a nearby bakery located in a small basement, and it was pretty crowded, so there were a bunch of us waiting on the steps. This is not at all unusual for New York City, but it was a little disorienting for me. The opener for Tori was Bartees Strange, who wasn't bad, but I don't really have anything to say about him.

Tori has been posting the setlists for every show on her Instagram, so here's what we heard:

Her sets are different every night, although I think the first two songs are always the same. I noticed that "Shush" was the only one from her new album, In Times of Dragons.

She was accompanied by a bassist and drummer, as well as a trio of backing singers called the Angel Witches.

Tori often tends to embellish her songs live, and I think she did this even more than usual with the extra vocalists involved.

She did "Me and a Gun" solo a cappella. I hadn't seen that one live before, and I don't know that I necessarily wanted to, as it's so viscerally disturbing. It was definitely impactful, however. "Little Amsterdam" isn't one of my favorites from that era, but I was thinking of it because there's an Amsterdam Avenue near the theater. And I was a little surprised to hear "Yo George," since it kind of seems like songs criticizing George W. Bush have gone by the wayside now that we have an even worse President.

At one point during the show, an alarm went off, and it was a while before the staff got it turned off. I think someone must have opened an emergency exit. Tori said something like, "Must have been a Republican," and while I'm not entirely sure what that meant, Republicans do have a tendency to think the rules don't apply to them. Then she improvised a song about harmonizing with the alarm. We didn't get tickets to this one until pretty close to the show, so I'm glad we got to see it.

Current Music: Thrush Hermit: We Are Being Reduced

My brother was planning a trip to Disneyland with his family, and my dad decided he'd rent a place to stay nearby, and invited Beth and me. We'd visited the Los Angeles area in the past few years for OzCon or Sparks shows, but neither of those were taking place this year, and we ended up going back there anyway. It worked out that we were able to go to Stephanie's birthday party at a karaoke bar, although we got there late as there was a significant delay to the flight, and neither of us sang anything. The delay actually worked out in a way, as we were on our way to the airport when I realized I'd forgotten my glasses. Anyway, on Sunday, we went to Knotts Berry Farm.

None of the rest of my family went there, but it's covered by our Six Flags season passes, so it made sense. I was considering going to Magic Mountain as well, but I don't think that would have worked out. Even one day at an amusement park is tiring nowadays, and we had three. I think we only rode two things at Knotts that we hadn't before. One was the train in the Camp Snoopy area, as it's not just for kids. It took us through a bunch of displays of Peanuts characters doing camp-related things, with narration by Linus.

The other was the stagecoach, which is drawn by actual horses and closes early. Unlike stagecoaches back in the day, however, it had seatbelts. We rode backwards on top of it. We went on the train ride where they try to rob you, and the mine ride with animatronics.

I had remembered the latter as being more depressing, but maybe I was confusing it with the time we visited a real (defunct) coal mine. I noticed that a little kid in our car looked like she was staring at her mom's phone the whole time instead of looking at the ride, and what's even weirder is that it looked like it was on the lock screen the whole time.

Monday was our first day at Disneyland. It was our second visit, and it's still overwhelming. We knew we wouldn't be able to do everything we wanted, but it's hard to prioritize when you just keep walking past stuff that looks appealing, then realizing that there are entire areas you haven't been to at all. The first thing we rode was the King Arthur Carrousel, which I guess is Sword in the Stone themed, yet a lot of the pictures on it were of stuff from Sleeping Beauty.

While we were in Fantasyland, we ran into Alice and the Mad Hatter, who did a tea party bit before taking pictures. A kid who was also there had one of those autograph books, and it made me wonder if every costumed actor has to have an in-character signature. As someone with messy and distinctive handwriting, I don't think I could pull that off. We'd been on the Small World ride at Walt Disney World, but not the Disneyland one.

I think I remember there being some consternation over Disney deciding to add some of their licensed characters to the ride, and they were certainly there, but I can't say they bothered me.

I was mostly interested in the oddly-colored animals.

I bought a set of figures at the gift shop that includes the pink hippopotamus.

When we last went to World in 2020, they were just about to open Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway, and I guess the Land version was from about the same time. That was also right before the pandemic.

It starts with a bit of a short about Mickey and Minnie going on a picnic with Pluto (who's treated rather harshly), which results in the screen being broken, allowing access to the actual ride part. I'm not sure how the hole in the screen is accomplished; it's probably way simpler than it looks, but it was cool. The ride takes passengers on a train driven by Goofy through several cartoon settings. Come to think of it, why is the ride attributed to the Mice when Goofy is the one running the railway?

The waiting area for this one has a lot of stuff related to Mickey's history, including recreations of items from various cartoons.

There's also a series of posters advertising non-existent movie parodies featuring animated characters.

We even get some DuckTales characters!
Right next to that is Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin, which wasn't running last time we visited.

It's a similar ride to the Runaway Railway, but not as well-realized and without as much of a coherent story. Why was Jessica hanging out with the Weasels who were torturing her husband? Is this some role-playing thing? We had dinner reservations at the Plaza Inn as part of a package deal, and I was disappointed that we couldn't choose what to eat. The food was very good, but I like having choices. The package allowed us to get good spots to watch the Paint the Night Parade, which had some similarities to the Electrical Parade.

I didn't realize Tigger and the Genie knew each other.
Space Mountain was closed for part of the day, but we were able to get on soon after it reopened, which meant a short wait.

That might be my favorite ride there, but it's hard to say. We then rode the Monorail, and took the train over to Tiana's Bayou Adventure, a redesigned Splash Mountain.

After that, we were able to ride the Haunted Mansion and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad very quickly before closing time at midnight.

We had a California Adventure on Tuesday, and there's not as much to do there, but there were still some things we were interested in riding but didn't. I understand the Spider-Man ride is one where each person has to do a specific job, and while that's an interesting idea, I find it tends to make the experience more stressful. So maybe it's okay we missed that one this time. The Golden Zephyr also wasn't running, at least not when we were near it; and the Silly Symphony Swings have been closed for a while. We did ride Soarin' Over California, the Pixar Pal-A-Round Ferris Wheel, Mater's Junkyard Jamboree, and Luigi's Rollicking Roadsters for the first time.

I noticed that the latter two had a few different songs that played while the ride was running, as did Jessie's Critter Carousel.

Beth rode the backwards skunk.
We had dinner with my family at the Carthay Circle Lounge, and we got to take pictures with Oswald the Lucky Rabbit near the entrance.

The last thing we went on was the Guardians of the Galaxy ride, which I'm pretty sure was the longest wait of the day.

And we watched the World of Color show that ran past the official closing time.

Beth and I spent much of Wednesday in bed, but we did go out to eat at Bob's Big Boy, which they don't have in our area anymore. There are a bunch of them in the area, but somehow we ended up at the same one we ate at last year.

And on Tuesday, we visited the Square Enix Cafe in Little Tokyo, which was another fortunate coincidence.

While on the airport shuttle, I saw on Facebook that this place was having a soft launch that week. That meant a limited menu, and the only entree I was interested in was the Midgar Fondue Pizza, which they didn't have that day.

So instead I had the Slime Pancakes, which are considered a dessert.

The menu box was edible. I think it was a rice wafer.
I had the Squishy She-Slime to drink.

In addition to Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy, the main game series represented there was NieR: Automata, which I know pretty much nothing about. I wonder if I should try playing it. All three items Beth got were NieR-themed, the tortilla roll, coffee, and parfait.

We got some placemats and coasters with the food, and I bought several other items as well, including a stuffed Slime Knight and Moogle. I now own three T-shirts with Slimes on them, and I appreciate that this one also has a Khalamari Kid and Robbin' 'Ood.

We visited the Last Bookstore, where I bought a few things.

Later, we met Stephanie and her boyfriend Ryan at Vidiots to see a screening of Brain Candy, followed by a question-and-answer session with Scott Thompson.

Before the show, they played some songs that were in the movie, but also ones that fit the general theme, like Bow Wow Wow's "I Want Candy" and, more relevantly to my own interests, the Dukes of Stratosphear's "You're My Drug."

On Friday, we met Paul and Carolyn at the La Brea Tar Pits, although they were running late, so we saw most of it without them. It's still an active dig site, but I don't think anyone was doing any excavation then, as it was a holiday. The museum has both fossils and recreations of animals that were found there.

People love dire wolves these days.
The sculpture garden for the Los Angeles Museum of Art was also quite close by.

We ate that night at Sizzler, another place we used to have in the northeast but no longer do. And that's pretty much it, really. The flight back on Saturday went all right, or at least as well as could be expected. I think it was appropriate that I got the airship in Final Fantasy VII while on a real airplane. We got home around 1 AM.

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Music: Corn Sisters: Howling at Midnight

We didn't do a whole lot that I thought was worth writing about most of this month, although there were a few things. This past week, however, was very busy, so this might end up being a pretty long entry.

Beth had heard about a show at the Bell House on Sunday the third with several comedians we like. Called Pineapplefest, it was a benefit for Olive Hui, who is not someone I knew. She had been hit by a car, and her partner John Wlaysewski had played guitar for Kevin McDonald before.

So Kevin hosted the benefit, and several other comedians also participated, including Dave Foley and David Cross.

Kevin and Dave read some sketches that had been written for the Kids in the Hall reunion a few years ago, but hadn't been used.

One was about a woman obsessed with stealing trauma blankets, and another a guy who keeps hiring people to move his books around. There were also some band performances, including Wheatus, a band I was vaguely aware of but I'd seen at another show with Kevin. Loudon Wainwright III did a few songs, and I'd never seen him before, but had seen all three of his children do so at some point or other.

One of Wainwright's songs was a diss track about an airport employee who broke his guitar. Trudy Carmichael did some improv lounge music, so I guess that combines both featured media, as did Kevin's own songs.

The final act of the night was Late Cambrian, which John and Olive are in. I assume she must have recovered pretty well, as she was dancing a lot.

The whole thing ended up being about four hours long, on a night before we had to go to work the next night, and of course the subways run less often after midnight. It seemed like a lot of it was done on the fly and there were some technical issues, so I can't really blame anyone for that. It did feel like it had weird pacing, though, like the musical acts felt longer and slower than the comedy. I don't know that they actually WERE, but that's how it felt, and again I'm not blaming the musicians for this.

The cats had their dental surgery. Nellie didn't need to have any teeth removed, but they took five from Felix. We had to give them antibiotics, and that's always a struggle. I feel bad that Beth is always the one who administers the medicine. It's the unfair burden of being better at holding cats. I gave them soft treats afterwards, usually Li'l Soups or broths, but Nellie stopped eating them for a few days. Apparently the antibiotic does sometimes cause cats to lose their appetites. She did get it back eventually, but we were worried about her.

We went to Great Adventure on Saturday the fifteenth (L. Frank Baum's birthday), but we weren't there for that long. We rode Medusa, which I don't think we'd done since they briefly repainted it as Bizarro.

There's now a story on signs in the waiting area, but since the lines were short, we didn't get to read all of them. The way things worked out, it's now kind of way over by itself, with the closest other ride being the Runaway Mine Train. It was also the first time we rode on Tango, which spins around. They're putting in some rides in the midway area, but they're not done yet. They did have some Looney Tunes characters near the park entrance.

Last Tuesday, we went with Tavie to see Cats: The Jellicle Ball at the Broadhurst Theatre, which was pretty fun.

It's the same songs and mostly the same plot as the regular Cats, but it's reimagined as taking place in the New York queer ballroom scene. I can't say I was familiar with that, but it's a subculture that derived from drag balls in the late nineteenth century. Since the performers in this version aren't supposed to be actual cats, they wear a greater variety of costumes, mostly bright and colorful, and many of them gender-conforming in some way. The songs are accompanied with dance contests. Andre De Shields plays Old Deuteronomy, so I guess that's the third time we've seen him perform. The show did not include "The Awefull Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles" or "Growltiger's Last Stand," but I don't think the latter has been in any recent performances of Cats anyway.

On Wednesday, Alison Stewart was doing an event at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library as part of the Get Lit program. We went primarily because They Might Be Giants were playing a short set. The literary part was that Stewart interviewed Tom Perrotta about his book Ghost Town, but we hadn't read that, or anything by him, so that was generally lost on us.

TMBG did five or so songs, with John Flansburgh on guitar, John Linnell on accordion, and Marty Beller on a small drum kit.

Flansburgh mentioned at the beginning that he had thought they were going to play during the interview with Perrotta, so they chose numbers that were more or less relevant, but it didn't work out that way. I like "How Can I Sing Like a Girl?" with accordion, which I think was downplayed on Factory Showroom. For "2082," instead of the single note at the end, Linnell played a brief fanfare.

Stewart did a short interview with the two of them, during which they talked about how popular and underground culture were both very important to them growing up, and that Flans had an ABBA T-shirt.

TMBG had three shows this week at Brooklyn Steel, a standing room venue in East Williamsburg. We'd seen a few things there, but it's not the most convenient place, especially when the subway isn't running on the usual schedule. There's something that feels wrong about going from Brooklyn to Manhattan and then back again. Beth went to all three, but I didn't think I would have the energy for that, so I only went to the one on Friday.

All three had opening sets mostly themed around one album, and the one I saw was Factory Showroom. They played everything on it except for "Your Own Worst Enemy" and "I Can Hear You" (and "Token Back to Brooklyn," if they even count that anymore). I know "The Bells Are Ringing" is one they have very rarely played live. They've done it four times so far this year, but only twice in about twenty years before that. "Exquisite Dead Guy" is another one they hadn't performed in years, and even then they didn't actually sing or play it. The three-piece horn section joined in on "Exquisite Dead Guy," "Metal Detector," "James K. Polk," and "S-E-X-X-Y." For that last one, actually the first song of the night, the horns played the string part at the end, with Linnell on clarinet.

Not that there were any horns on these songs on the album. Really, it feels like Factory Showroom was an attempt to get away from both accordion AND horns. Aside from the FS songs, they played a good mix of stuff from throughout their career, including "Shoehorn with Teeth" with Marty Beller playing the glockenspiel note on an old school bell.

Dan Miller usually plays keyboard on "Doctor Worm" so Linnell can do his part on the accordion, but this time he also played on "You Probably Get That a Lot," with Linnell just singing.

"Stuff Is Way" is a fun one that I don't think I'd heard live before. Strangely, they only played three songs from The World Is to Dig, the new album they're supposedly promoting, and I don't think they did any more at the other two Brooklyn Steel shows either. Incidentally, the featured albums for Thursday and Saturday were Apollo 18 and Lincoln.

Current Location: Camper Van Beethoven: James River (live)

I'm going to write a post about what I've done recently, since I've actually done a few things that involved going places other than home or work within the past week or so. Other than that, I haven't felt all that motivated to do much of anything other than reading and playing video games, which are probably less productive than many other things I could be doing, but they at least FEEL like I'm making progress on something. And I can write about them afterwards.

On the Sunday before last, Beth and I went to see John Waters for his eightieth birthday, which was actually on Wednesday. A lot of it was pretty similar to earlier shows, but it was entertaining. Beth made a point that he obviously liked alliteration. He seems pretty spry for his age.

Thursday was the Kevin Geeks Out show about dolls at the Nitehawk in Prospect Park. It included some questions as to what toys actually count as dolls. While I guess any human-shaped toy could more or less count, stuffed animals and puppets tend to be considered something different. And a lot of toys geared more towards boys are generally called action figures instead, although that's really more a marketing thing than a technical difference. I feel like gendering everything is damaging to kids, because they tend to mock those who don't conform. I'm sure the toy manufacturers would be fine with anyone buying anything, but that's not how it works out, and it's basically letting corporate interests determine gender identity. And I guess it doesn't always apply to the genders of the toys themselves, like Ken is a doll and She-Ra an action figure. One presentation was about the movie Small Soldiers, and how it was an example of Joe Dante working within the corporate system but still criticizing it to some extent. I have never seen that nor any of the Annabelle films, although I did see The Conjuring. Apparently the timeline is really convoluted. It came up that the original Annabelle was a Raggedy Ann. Jeremy Workman discussed his film about a guy in Maine who did a lot of photography with Barbie dolls, and pronounced "Barbie" with a strong accent. Someone talked about Stretch Armstrong, how he was introduced in the seventies and revived in the nineties, and the different characters in his line. There was an Incredible Hulk that used the same model without permission, so it didn't last very long. Coincidentally, I saw an image of Stretch X-Ray the next day on a Tumblr page.

These toys are full of corn syrup, and she told a story about hiding hers under the couch after she broke it. Unfortunately, the talk on American Girl dolls had to be cut short.

Both cats have to go in for dental surgery tomorrow, as the vet has said they both have bad teeth. After that they'll have to eat soft food for a week. I'm so used to just refilling the dry food whenever it gets low, and I don't think I'll be able to do that with the canned stuff.

Current Mood: lethargic
Current Music: Young Fresh Fellows: Killing Time in Union Square

On Saturday, 28 March, we went to Haunted House of Hamburgers on Long Island, a themed restaurant where Beth had been wanting to eat. It has a lot of horror-themed decorations both inside and out.

This is some fine Art.

Are these the hungry ghosts I've heard so much about?
I got a picture with the Bride of Frankenstein sitting on a bench out front.

The menu items also all have spooky names, which is always fun. We both got mocktails, which came with gummy eyeballs on toothpicks.

Neither of us ended up getting hamburgers, haunted or otherwise. I got a Flatbread Fright, and Beth the Terror Tenders, with a Jack O' Lantern Jumbo Pretzel as an appetizer. It was all good, not the best we've had and more expensive than many other places, but certainly tasty.

We went to Beth's mom's house for Easter, but it was pretty uneventful overall. We brought the cats down for the first time in a while, and I think they enjoyed having more room to run around and places to lie down.

Beth's mom hadn't gone out to eat in a long time, but she went with us to the Olive Garden on Saturday. She cooked some ham and turkey on Sunday, and then we went back home. And while I'm on the subject, here are some Easter decorations I saw at various places, even though they're out of season now.

Yesterday, we went with Tavie to see Chess at the Imperial Theatre, specifically having chosen to go on a day Lea Michele wasn't performing. Beth had been interested in the show for a while, having discovered the music video of Murray Head singing "One Night in Bangkok" years ago. We listened to the original 1984 album recording in the car a few times. The music is by Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Anderson of ABBA, with lyrics by Tim Rice. It's about two chess tournaments between grandmasters, focusing mainly on the behind-the-scenes scheming and politics, and the connection to Cold War politics. There isn't really one official version of the show, with the basic structure remaining the same but the plot, order, and which songs are used changing constantly. This is the first time I'd seen any version, but one thing that was particularly noticeable about it was that a narrator, played by the same guy as the Arbiter, kept making modern topical references and comparing everything to stuff that's happening today. I'm not even sure having a narrator at all was necessary, as most of what goes on is explained. You probably wouldn't be able to figure out the plot just from the songs, but it's not difficult with the dialogue included. And while some of the topical bits were funny, they were a bit overdone. It's like they didn't have enough confidence in the show working without constantly telling the audience how it's still relevant. They could save that for the reviewers. Apparently that's become more common with media these days. The narrator pointed out how the American player is named Freddie Trumper, but the show was written in 1984. It's not like Donald Trump wasn't known then, and his father's name was Fred, but there's no specific connection that I know of. The character is inspired by Bobby Fischer, who like Trump was a bigot, but unlike him was actually good at the game he played all the time. (Speaking of probably unintentional connections, was Murray the Skull from the Monkey Island games named after Murray Head?) Despite my complaints, it was a quite entertaining performance, both visually and auditorily.

Afterwards, we ate at Junior's, which was quite crowded. Beth and I had eaten at the one in Brooklyn before, and I thought I remembered getting pancakes and eggs when it wasn't morning, but I didn't notice anything like that on the menu this time. I got a big hot dog, always a fairly safe bet, and I still have some apple crumb cheesecake.

Current Music: St. Vincent: The Strangers (live)

Back on Valentine's Day, which was a Saturday and part of Presidents' Day weekend, Beth and I went to Longwood Gardens. She wanted to see the winter exhibits they had, so it seemed as good a time as any.

A lot of it was still covered in snow, and the ponds were covered with ice except for an occasional circle with bubbling water.

I think the last time we visited was in 2007, and three treehouses were installed the following year. One of them, the Canopy Cathedral, has a Norwegian style, made out of fir and cedar.

There's even a carved dragon.

It's not a very large building, but it feels open. We also visited the Lookout Loft, which is apparently in Adirondack style.

It has a good view of the surrounding woods, but what I particularly remember is that a kid who was up there at the same time we were asked if the Grinch was still there.

Maybe he was around Christmas? I don't know. The Children's Garden at the Conservatory was also quite interesting, with its animal fountains and other decorations.

There are parts where people taller than kids have to duck.

There's also a Chinese dragon statue with an open mouth accompanied by several giant toothbrushes. We didn't brush its teeth, but that is a creative idea.

We left to have dinner at Applebee's, and there were so many people there when we got back when it was dark that we had to park in a special lot.

The winter exhibits were in and around the Conservatory, with a display of bubbles outside.

Inside, there were hanging plants and a spiral chandelier, as well as some backlit bonsai trees.

And I like how my eyes look in this picture, although I'm not sure why.

We saw Tavie that Monday, and were finally able to exchange Christmas gifts. I got one of the Fantagraphics Uncle Scrooge books, and she also had a gift for me from Beth, a book on Celtic mythology. We walked in Green-Wood Cemetery a bit, and it also had an iced-over pond with a bubbling hole.

We didn't do that much for our anniversary, but we did go to New Jersey to see a double feature of The Exorcist and Beyond the Door. Before the show, a guy played some music on the organ, which was pretty cool.

We had both forgotten that, towards the end of The Exorcist, Lieutenant Kinderman mentions Wuthering Heights, and of course there's a version of that out now. I don't think it has Jackie Gleason and Lucille Ball in it, though. We hadn't seen Beyond the Door before, but I wrote about it last week. It was quite late by the time the second picture ended, so we ended up eating at a diner that was still open.

I can't think of much else to say, but I do want to share this picture I took of a snowman someone built on the sidewalk in our neighborhood.

And I started playing Final Fantasy VII (the original, not the remake) again this past weekend, since I never finished it back when it was new. I almost escaped from Midgar, but the Motor Ball took out my party.

Current Music: Sparks: Beat the Clock

This past week, we had some pretty significant snowfall, enough that I was allowed to work from home that day. Beth still had to go to her office, though. While I see plenty of snow, this is the first time in a while that I noticed it really sticking around for a while. It's been very cold this week, so I'm trying not to go out any more than I have to.

One time I did go out was on Tuesday, when Beth and I went to see Nellie McKay at the Laurie Beechman Theatre on 42nd Street in Manhattan. This was a small venue with tables and chairs, pretty nice and not cramped like some other places with tables. Nellie played every song from Get Away from Me in order, accompanied by piano and videos that sometimes had technical issues. Some of them were directly related to the songs, but other times I'm not sure what she was going for. The one for "Ding Dong" had a cat walking around; "Clonie" used a montage of Godzilla, which kind of makes sense in a bizarre way; and "It's a Pose" had clips of "The Aristocats" which did fit the rhythm pretty well.

Footage of salads accompanied "Sari," and she even said at the end, "Let's go get some salad!"

She forgot the words a few times, but was usually able to recover very quickly. And some of those songs really are quite lyrically dense. I believe she was trying to work the names of the tech people into "It's a Pose," and that tripped her up a bit. The Mitchie in that song is her A&R guy, but I don't know who Nathan is. My name isn't in all that many songs, aside from the one from Guys & Dolls and Allan Sherman's "Sarah Jackman." There were also a few covers in the set, opening with the Doors' "People Are Strange," then after the album songs playing "The Best Things in Life Are Free," "Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag" (with the lyrics changed to be about Iran, as they were last time I saw her), and something else I can't remember right now, all accompanied by ukulele.

I got a picture with Nellie after the show, and she said she liked Beth's scarf, although she didn't seem to understand that it was merchandise for the band Franz Ferdinand. Beth did enjoy the show and remembered a few of the songs from when I used to play them years ago, so that's good.

Current Music: Robyn Hitchcock: Dr Sticky

It's past Christmas, so here's a post on what we've been up to. I should start by mentioning that Beth's mom had a heart attack this month, which was very disturbing. She's back home from the hospital now and recovering well, but that definitely affected our plans.

On Wednesday the seventeeth, Beth and I went to Lightscape at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. I think this is the first time we went there when it had recently snowed, but it wasn't as cold as it had been in previous years. One installation they hadn't had before was a set of lights representing an orchestra, with the appropriate ones lighting up at different parts of an instrumental version of "Sleigh Ride." There was a podium where you could pretend to conduct, which I did.

They also had giant lilies, butterflies, and birds.

I had a hot apple cider and a soft pretzel while there.

That same week, we set up our Christmas tree.

We'd bought real ones for the past few years, but this time we borrowed an artificial one from Beth's mom's house, and it was over thirty years old. It's nice not to have to worry about the tree shedding needles or requiring water. Felix still likes to sit under it.

This past weekend, we visited my dad in Pennsylvania, and my sister, my brother, and his wife and son stopped by as well. We exchanged gifts while there, and we watched a movie that I'll share my review of shortly. I used to visit my mom while I was in the area, so it made me sad that I can't do that anymore. We drove back on Sunday, and the following day after work, we saw John Waters at the City Winery.

I had thought most of the previous shows of his we'd seen were fairly similar, but this one had a lot of new material. Much of it was non-stop and rapid-fire. He mentioned something about how the worst plot device (or something like that) in one of his movies was the revelation that Tab Hunter was having an affair with Divine's mother in Polyester, and that did seem rather out of left field. He also commented on appreciating the work that went into Wicked, but that making the Wicked Witch of the West, one of his favorite characters when played by Margaret Hamilton, into a singing chanteuse doesn't work for him. He then repeated something I'd heard him say before, that he asked a kid if he liked The Wizard of Oz, and the child said it was mostly just walking. That's even more true of the book than the movie, but I think I've just come to accept that a lot of classic fantasy is mostly travelogue.

For actual Christmas, we visited Beth's mom and uncle, and did our present exchange there.

Among other presents, I received a stuffed Mario Kart banana peel, a T-shirt with Luigi running from a Boo, Rosalina's Storybook, a book on Celtic mythology and another on John the Baptist, a Lily Allen album, a Kent Brockman figure, Mario and Luigi: Brothership for the Switch, and Nostalgia for the DS.

The turkey we were going to have for dinner was frozen solid, so we had take-out Chinese food before we headed back to Brooklyn. And today we both worked, but I got to go home early because of the snow. There were things we had meant to watch before Christmas, but we didn't get around to it for various reasons. We did do our annual viewing of Home Alone, and afterwards Beth watched something online (I just heard the audio) about deleted scenes from the movie. There was a mention of a theory that Kevin gave the police the neighbors' address and then lured Harry and Marv there because he was still afraid he'd get arrested for accidentally stealing a toothbrush, which I guess makes sense in little kid logic. As it was, it seemed weirdly unnecessary, and doing the phony voice might have made the cops suspect it was a prank call. For that matter, not only did he have no guarantee that the burglars would chase him, but they received so many blows to their heads that a normal person probably wouldn't have been conscious enough to run after him. And Home Alone 2 gives no impression that his family ever found out (from the cops, the neighbors, the news, or whatever) that several houses in the neighborhood were robbed while Kevin was home alone, let alone he had a run-in with the robbers.

Current Music: Beatles: Things We Said Today

For Thanksgiving, we considered eating at Wo Hop in Chinatown, but since there was a line, we instead went to Wo Hop Next Door. For some reason it's hard to find information about what the difference is, but apparently the Next Door place does have different owners. I had shrimp lo mein and Beth sweet and sour chicken, and we shared an appetizer of fried wontons.

After the meal, they gave us fortune cookies and orange slices, and while there's nothing that special about the latter, getting them out of nowhere is a pleasant surprise.

This mural wasn't at the restaurant, but it was nearby.
We had a more traditional Thanksgiving meal, with turkey and ham, at Beth's mom's house on Saturday. Felix was very interested in the turkey. Nellie not only doesn't care about people food, but doesn't even want cat treats, which seems weird. That evening, we all went to the Creamy Acres Night of Lights, as we have for the past few years.

It's a hayride through a lot of holiday lights, and there's also some stuff to look at inside.

Thursday before last was the Kevin Geeks Out Christmas Show. The first of these shows we saw was a Christmas one, so I guess it's become a tradition of sorts, although we attend all of these when it's feasible.

Steve Young, a former writer for David Letterman who had presented at an earlier one, did two segments this time. One was on a celebrity bowling Christmas album, which was mostly just clips from the show, a strange idea as there's no way to tell who the celebrities are from how the ball and pins sound. It also has a version of "Jingle Bells" made up of falling pins, although the technology they had really only gave them two notes to work with. The other presentation was about how jingle bells have become a symbol of winter jollity when they were originally intended as a warning. I know I pretty much always think of jingle bells as the sound of falling snow, even though I know that doesn't really sound like anything. There's a Minus 5 album, Let the War Against Music Begin, which has dark lyrics but mostly upbeat music, and a lot of the songs use jingle bells. Another presentation was about how eating KFC on Christmas has become a tradition in Japan, dating back to when some tourists introduced the custom in the early seventies. There are even commercials that play "My Old Kentucky Home" like it's a holiday song. Instead of a movie or TV show, the Kindest Cut this time was a collection of weird holiday-themed commercials, including an infamous coffee ad with incestuous overtones. Another presenter discussed Scrooge McDuck, and how he loves the character despite hating actual billionaires. One bizarre bit of trivia he included is that, in the movie The Last Days of Disco, Chloe Sevigny claims to find Scrooge sexy. I messed up on the first entry in the Santa suit game this time, which I believe has happened before, but somehow I once managed to win it.

The show this time was at the Nitehawk in Williamsburg, which is difficult to reach by subway from other parts of Brooklyn. Google Maps always tends to recommend going from downtown Brooklyn into Manhattan and then taking the L train back into Brooklyn, which might well be the fastest, but is remarkably inconvenient, so I usually take the G. There's a horror bookstore in Brooklyn, the Twisted Spine, which Beth had been wanting to visit, so we went there before the show. Beth ended up buying something there. I'm not a big horror reader, but I do read it sometimes, especially when it's mashed up with fantasy or science fiction. There were several things there that interested me, and I wouldn't mind going back sometime.

Nearby were a video store and a place that sold tabletop RPGs.

Last Monday, we saw a Paul Williams show, part of a lyricist series, at the YMCA on 92nd Street in Manhattan. Beth was originally familiar with him because he appeared on an episode of The Odd Couple where Felix's daughter wanted to follow him around on tour. We watched that episode the night before. He also wrote (or co-wrote) a lot of familiar songs, and worked quite a bit with the Muppets, including co-writing "The Rainbow Connection." I also thought he and John Denver, who also collaborated with the Muppets a fair amount, had kind of Muppet-like floppy hair. The show started with Paul emerging from a casket, and he went on to do a few bits and sing some songs, although the main vocalists were four theatrical performers. The set included the Monkees' "Someday Man," the Carpenters' "Rainy Days and Mondays" and "We've Only Just Begun" (the latter originally written for a bank commercial), and a medley of several songs from Phantom of the Paradise, which we just watched not that long ago. "The Rainbow Connection" was the last set of the night. Paul said something about how different it was to work with Jim Henson compared to Barbra Streisand, which I would certainly imagine is true.

Current Music: Pinataland: The Settlers

We've done several things I thought were worth writing about so far this month, so here's an overview. On Sunday the 8th, we went to see Micky Dolenz at the City Winery in Philadelphia, which is just as cramped as the one in New York. Beth's mom really enjoyed it, and she and Micky's sister Coco apparently coordinated their outfits.

Most of it was the same as what Beth and I had seen before, including the between-song banter. He did include "No Time," however, which he'd done with other Monkees, but not by himself when I'd seen him. There's one song he always does that Beth and I didn't know, and Beth's mom recognized but didn't know the name of. Beth looked it up, and it's "Gimme Some Lovin'", originally by the Spencer Davis Group.

Both Beth and I had our birthdays recently, her on the fifteenth and me on the eighteenth. I am now four dozen years old. For hers, we went to Great Adventure.

They were only open until 7 PM, and we ended up only spending about four hours there.

It wasn't very crowded, so we were able to ride most of what we wanted to. We went on the Flash for the first time. It's one of those roller coasters that goes back and forth to build up speed, with part of the ride being backwards. It's all right, but not one of the better coasters there. Several of the rides were closed, and others closed down early, with a lot of food places doing the same. We had a meal plan, but didn't get to use it. We did eat at the Olive Garden on the way home. On my birthday, I had to go to an interview. Okay, I guess I didn't HAVE to go, but they could have scheduled it for a different day. It just felt kind of wrong. Beth gave me three presents, Princess Peach Showtime for the Switch, the first volume of the Animal Crossing manga, and a digital copy of one of Amelia Carruthers' fairy tale books.

This past Saturday, we went to the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, as I was interested in the Jim Henson exhibit.

We ended up not spending a lot of time there, since we mistakenly thought it closed later than it did, but we saw a lot of what they had. The third floor detailed the history of moving image technology, including magic lanterns, zoetropes, and old video cameras.

I'm not sure I realized how big television cameras were in their early days.

They had a lot of stuff in the Henson exhibit, obviously including The Muppet Show and Sesame Street, but also items from Sam and Friends, Labyrinth, Fraggle Rock, The Dark Crystal, and the very short-lived Land of Gorch from Saturday Night Live.

I think the Swedish Chef puppet is the one that the museum originally received without hands, as the puppeteer would just use his own hands.

By the way, Beth hates the Chef, and she's seen Fraggle Rock but I haven't.

She'd also seen some of The Great Space Coaster, which I don't think was mentioned at the exhibit. We did the thing that records you with puppets, and I made an Anything Muppet.

I had forgotten that Henson died in 1990; for some reason I thought it was slightly later than that. Another exhibit had merchandise, including a Barney Rubble ashtray and Bugs Bunny dolls where it looked like he was wearing a superfluous rabbit suit.

There was some stuff from The Exorcist and Nightmare on Elm Street Part 4, which are favorites of Beth's.

And there were a few props from the film version of The Wiz, including a camera suit that I think appeared in the Emerald City, which definitely fit with the museum's theme.

We stopped by Nintendo NYC in Rockefeller Center, and while we didn't buy anything, I do tend to like their holiday decorations.

Finally, yesterday, we saw Robyn Hitchcock at the Bowery Ballroom. He did shows two days in a row, and I can't remember why we chose the second. The opener the previous day was his wife, Emma Swift, but when we saw him it was a band called Sharp Pins. I think this was the first time I saw Robyn with a full band.

His voice was hoarse from the previous day, but he was still able to make it through the set. And he did his usual bizarre between-song banter, talking about how his grandmother wore Ray-Ban sunglasses before they were popular, how he considered "Alright Yeah" to transcend good and bad, and that he saw the Balloon Man as an innocent figure, but the Shuffle Man as a villain. The latter was one of the newer songs they played, along with "Socrates in Thin Air." Also included was "America," and I think of the lyrics to that one occasionally. Emma joined the band to sing on "So You Think You're in Love," "Flesh Number One," "Oceanside," and "Queen of Eyes."

One of the earliest recordings of Robyn's I ever heard was a live album recorded in 1998 that was on eMusic in the early 2000s, and "SYTYIL" was on that, as was "Driving Aloud," which was also part of the set. I believe it was also the first time I saw "Brenda's Iron Sledge" and "Insanely Jealous" played live. Lenny Kaye, whom I don't really know anything about but apparently worked a lot with Patti Smith, joined on guitar for the encore, which consisted of "I Wanna Destroy You," the Beatles' "And Your Bird Can Sing," and Bob Dylan's "Maggie's Farm."

Interestingly, the Beatles song was also played on the PA right before the show. It looks like the setlist from Saturday was very similar, but they got better covers for the encore. Oh, well.

I waited too long to request the day after Thanksgiving off from work, so the current plan is to have dinner with Beth's family on Saturday instead. I don't know what we'll be doing on Thursday, but probably not much.

Current Music: Space Vixen: Suck It Fascists

They were only open until 7 PM, and we ended up only spending about four hours there.

This past Saturday, we went to the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, as I was interested in the Jim Henson exhibit.

I'm not sure I realized how big television cameras were in their early days.

I think the Swedish Chef puppet is the one that the museum originally received without hands, as the puppeteer would just use his own hands.

By the way, Beth hates the Chef, and she's seen Fraggle Rock but I haven't.

She'd also seen some of The Great Space Coaster, which I don't think was mentioned at the exhibit. We did the thing that records you with puppets, and I made an Anything Muppet.

There was some stuff from The Exorcist and Nightmare on Elm Street Part 4, which are favorites of Beth's.

And there were a few props from the film version of The Wiz, including a camera suit that I think appeared in the Emerald City, which definitely fit with the museum's theme.

We stopped by Nintendo NYC in Rockefeller Center, and while we didn't buy anything, I do tend to like their holiday decorations.

Finally, yesterday, we saw Robyn Hitchcock at the Bowery Ballroom. He did shows two days in a row, and I can't remember why we chose the second. The opener the previous day was his wife, Emma Swift, but when we saw him it was a band called Sharp Pins. I think this was the first time I saw Robyn with a full band.

His voice was hoarse from the previous day, but he was still able to make it through the set. And he did his usual bizarre between-song banter, talking about how his grandmother wore Ray-Ban sunglasses before they were popular, how he considered "Alright Yeah" to transcend good and bad, and that he saw the Balloon Man as an innocent figure, but the Shuffle Man as a villain. The latter was one of the newer songs they played, along with "Socrates in Thin Air." Also included was "America," and I think of the lyrics to that one occasionally. Emma joined the band to sing on "So You Think You're in Love," "Flesh Number One," "Oceanside," and "Queen of Eyes."

One of the earliest recordings of Robyn's I ever heard was a live album recorded in 1998 that was on eMusic in the early 2000s, and "SYTYIL" was on that, as was "Driving Aloud," which was also part of the set. I believe it was also the first time I saw "Brenda's Iron Sledge" and "Insanely Jealous" played live. Lenny Kaye, whom I don't really know anything about but apparently worked a lot with Patti Smith, joined on guitar for the encore, which consisted of "I Wanna Destroy You," the Beatles' "And Your Bird Can Sing," and Bob Dylan's "Maggie's Farm."

Interestingly, the Beatles song was also played on the PA right before the show. It looks like the setlist from Saturday was very similar, but they got better covers for the encore. Oh, well.

I waited too long to request the day after Thanksgiving off from work, so the current plan is to have dinner with Beth's family on Saturday instead. I don't know what we'll be doing on Thursday, but probably not much.

Current Music: Space Vixen: Suck It Fascists

Is it just me, or do I look deranged here?
Beth and I have been pretty busy as of late. On Wednesday, we saw Neko Case at the Beacon Theater.

The last time we saw her, there was some issue with the opener, and she was really irritated. This time, she seemed pretty enthusiastic. She introduced "Baby, I'm Not (a Werewolf)" as being about menopause, which she had a surprisingly positive attitude about. And "That Teenage Feeling" was inspired by the guitar player, Paul Rigby, whom she considers one of the most un-jaded people she knows. She did the drum solo during "Oh, Shadowless." I mentioned to Beth that her sets generally don't include anything from her first three albums, and she thought it was because she hadn't really developed her sound back then. The opener was a band called Des Demonas, and they were all right, but I had trouble understanding the lead vocals. EDIT: I forgot to mention that the pre-show music included "The Rhythm Thief" by Sparks, "Melt the Guns" by XTC, and "Green Green" by the Young Fresh Fellows. I wonder who chooses those. Neko did not perform her Sparks cover in the show, however.

The following day was Kevin Geeks Out at the Nitehawk in Prospect Park, and the subject was John Carpenter. We've seen several of his movies, and not surprisingly, there was a good amount about Halloween, including a guy playing Dr. Loomis undergoing an ethics board review. Another was a discussion of how Michael Myers seems to like clean laundry and hate messy sheets. One presentation was a supposed defense of Ghosts of Mars that turned out to be anything but, as it's a film that takes place in a matriarchal society, but isn't actually that progressive in its treatment of women. That's a movie we haven't seen, and I'm not sure we need to. At one point, Kevin Maher asked whether The Thing was a hangout movie, while admitting that he's not entirely sure what one of those is. I don't think I'd ever even heard the term before, and it's not clear whether it's the audience or the characters who are supposed to be hanging out. Maybe both? Somebody made the point that it might be more of a workplace movie, since it's not like the characters were at a research station in Antarctica just for fun. The Kindest Cut was of an episode of Star Trek: Voyager that was basically a take on Christine, but with a spaceship that had a psychic link to its pilot instead of a car. And Cece Dynamite did two burlesque performances, one as Michael Myers and the other as one of the ghosts from The Fog.

We drove to Pennsylvania on Friday night to visit Knoebels on Saturday. The park didn't open until 2 PM (except for some kids' activities), and we had to check out of the motel at 11 AM, which meant we had time to kill. Beth found a place in the area where you could ride a cart into a defunct coal mine, so we did that.

The mine cart thing was interesting, if rather bleak in its discussion of mine work. The guide talked about how dangerous it was and how the mining companies arranged things so the workers had no real take-home pay.

He also said his son worked in the mines (they're still in operation in the area, although that particular one isn't), and while I'm sure it pays better and has more safety precautions now, I still wouldn't want to do it. We saw a petrified tree, which was where the coal came from in the first place, and part of which had been donated to the Smithsonian.

And fortunately, we didn't have to jump from one cart to another because the tracks were broken.

No bananas, either.
They also had a steam train people could ride, but we didn't have the time. As it was, we didn't get to Knoebels until around 3:30.

This weekend was the last one for the Hallo-Fun event, and it was probably the most crowded it's been while we were there.

There are two rides that have total makeovers for the season, the train and the antique cars, and both have long waits. We missed the train ride both last year and this one. They stop the line when they think people will no longer be able to get on before closing, but if you're not there, there's no way to know that they're doing so. We did ride the cars, however, and several other things besides. The Whipper had some flashing lights for the occasion, and the Phoenix had some Halloween decorations as well. I appreciated that they had skeletons set up next to the pool, which was obviously not open.

We often go to Dorney Park after Knoebels, since it's basically on the way home. The route the GPS told us to take this time was mostly back roads that were quite dark and winding. It did give me the occasion to learn that my car has a setting that will turn off the brights automatically if it senses another car coming. What can't modern cars do? Set the clock ahead for Daylight Savings Time, apparently. I guess it will be correct again soon.

The park was open until 11, but we didn't stay anywhere near that long. I think we were both pretty tired after everything else.

There are a few things I would have wanted to ride if I'd had the energy, but I'd ridden them all before, so it was no big deal. One of them was Steel Force, which was temporarily closed when we got to it, and didn't reopen until we'd gone to a different area. We didn't do any of the mazes they had set up Halloween, as they cost extra. We watched a performance by the Spectral Sisters, and while I think it was the same as last year, we missed the beginning that time.

A bee joined us for part of that show.

And we got a picture of Beth with the puking pumpkin, which has become a bit of a tradition.

I posed in front of a witch's house and a pumpkin dwelling, which I don't think was Jack Pumpkinhead's.

I believe Dorney might have the only Ferris Wheel I've been on that had seatbelts. It really seems like the rules for safety restraints vary a lot. I noticed in the early 2000s that carousels started getting belts, although they don't always seem to be enforced.

Current Music: Space Zone from Super Mario Land 2

Last weekend, we finally brought the cats back from Beth's mom's house. I kind of wonder if they like it better there, as they have more room to move around. It's not a big house, but it's still quite a bit bigger than our apartment. They have both been lying in bed with us, if not always for very long, but I think it's a good sign.

On Thursday, we went to Nightfall at Green-Wood Cemetery. I think this is the fourth time we've gone there, although the name has changed at least once. There are several lectures and performances throughout. Near the entrance, there was a guy in a Baphomet costume singing opera.

I initially took another costumed figure as a depressed rabbit, but what I thought were ears were actually small hands, and he grabbed at people's heads, including mine.

As usual, the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus was there, including an acrobat on a rope, a yo-yo juggler, a tightrope walker, and a knife swallower.

One performer started by stripping down to a skeleton costume, then doing tricks with multiple hula hoops.

There were also some fire jugglers in the same area.

I wish we'd caught more of the Morbid Anatomy talk on witches and healing. We did see one on writing condolence letters, however, which was worth watching, if not as relevant to my own interests. The presenter said that she thinks you should never say you know how the other person feels, but she gave a few examples of famous writers who did exactly that. We also saw a bit of someone doing taxidermy on a bird, which was fascinating to watch, although I can't help finding taxidermy a little sad. That doesn't mean it doesn't look cool sometimes. I guess it's sort of the same sort of combination as having entertainment at a cemetery.

Last night, we went to a haunted house called Scared by the Sound, as it's on Long Island Sound, specifically at Playland. I think it was at a different place on the same sound last year. It's a rather good pun, but I'm not even sure what a sound is. Apparently it connects two wider bodies of water. We didn't get the chance to go to the regular park at Playland this year, but I understand a lot of rides aren't running anyway. There was some kind of issue with the previous owners. Anyway, it was a pretty elaborate attraction. Several of the actors involved got a chance to talk for a significant amount of time. There were a few longer bits, like one with a fortune teller, that somewhat undid the employees only letting in one group at a time at the entrance. I ended up running into a person in the group in front of us once. I've noticed quite a few walkthroughs like this have you walk on a bridge through a tunnel that's spinning around you, and usually they don't particularly affect me, but in this case the two they had made me feel a bit sick. They must have created better illusions than usual. The end of the attraction was outside, with a graveyard.

This next week is going to be fairly busy, so I'll probably have more stuff to write about soon. The current plan is to go to two amusement parks next weekend.

Current Music: Neko Case: An Ice Age

We're back from California, and I'm rather exhausted. We flew in very early on Sunday, and spent the first few nights there with Stephanie. On Monday night, we went to the LA Haunted Hayride, which included several mazes as well as the hayride itself.

They played clips from Elvira throughout, many from her Mistress of the Dark movie, and there was a haunted house devoted to her. Another was Monae Manor, which had clips and samples of Janelle.

There's a video where she's beheaded. I wonder if there's any connection between the two of them, aside from being queer and glamorous. The other maze was some hillbilly thing. And the Scary-Go-Round was a carousel with flamboyantly attired bone horses.

They had hay bales to sit on, and in one area they were made into chairs, which of course made me think of the Scarecrow's straw throne at the Tin Castle, because I'm like that.

On Tuesday, we saw Sparks at the Greek Theatre.

Fortunately Russell Brand wasn't there, at least as far as I know, but Russell Mael definitely was.

I don't think that, when that movie came out, I even knew the Greek was the name of a venue, although it didn't take me long to figure it out. I also didn't notice any Dionysus or comedy and tragedy masks, so should they really even get to use that name? We were in the standing room area in the front, and I don't really mind standing during a show, but I do mind when WAITING for the show. This was the last show on the tour, and the setlist was the same as all the others. I did notice that Russell waved his finger while singing the chorus of "Reinforcements."

Ron was wearing bright red Air Jordan shoes, and he actually talked a little bit towards the end.

His dance during "The Number One Song in Heaven" wasn't as long as it was last year, but he is eighty now.

That said, I have no idea how they stay in such good shape. Is it really just diet and exercise? Beth and Stephanie showed up in the picture the band took after the show, but I'm obscured, probably somewhere behind Ron's arm.

We rented a car on Wednesday and drove out to Santa Clarita so we could go to Six Flags Magic Mountain the next day.

It was fun, and not very crowded. There was only a short wait for most of the rides we went on. We rode on Goliath, which was closed the other time we visited; and on the Teen Titans Turbo Spin, which is like a Gravitron that tilts.

The Riddler's Revenge is a standing roller coaster that seemed similar to Green Lantern at Great Adventure, which was taken out last year. It kind of hurt my head, and wasn't too comfortable in the crotch area either.

The swing ride was called Swashbuckler, which is confusing, as that's the name of a totally different ride at Great Adventure.

This looks like it's from a Decemberists album cover.
You'd think they'd at least keep these things consistent across Six Flags parks, or at least I would. They did Fright Fest at night, and one of the scare zones was sort of a steampunk dark Wizard of Oz kind of thing.

They had creepy Winged Monkeys and some factory-themed stuff, as well as a Wicked Witch on stilts.

I do seem to recall they had a lion with an axe, though. Isn't that mixing characters?

There was also what seemed to be sort of an Alice in Wonderland area with scary playing cards and chess pieces.

The next evening, we went to Knott's Scary Farm, the Halloween event at Knott's Berry Farm, which we could walk to because our motel was very close by. The motel had some interesting garden statuary, a combination of (what at least I thought was) traditional Indian stuff and more modern things.

Maybe the owners are Buddhist, although my mom also had a Buddha statue in her garden and she wasn't. As opposed to the previous evening, the park was very crowded, and it's probably just going to get worse as the season goes on. The waits for Xcelerator and Ghost Rider were well over an hour, although the one for the mine ride wasn't that bad. The haunted walkthroughs were included in the admission, and we went to two of them, one Old West themed and another based on slasher movies and theaters.

The latter kept playing that "let's all go to the lobby" jingle. And we saw a show, Le Magnifique Carnaval di Grotesque, which was mostly dancing and circus-style acts, but there also seemed to be a bit of an attempted story about a girl trying to find the ringmaster's magic staff. That bit wasn't even introduced until after a harlequin had danced and silently (well, mostly) joked around, though.

The show also included a guy balancing on a gradually increasing pile of stuff, which Beth said stressed her out.

The meal we got at the barbecue place was a surprisingly large amount of food. I had rotisserie chicken with macaroni and cornbread, and I didn't finish all of it. But then, the sides weren't really that good. Still, it definitely filled me up.

On Saturday, we met Paul and Carolyn to visit the Medieval Torture Museum on Hollywood Boulevard. It has both models of torture implements and graphic depictions of their being used on dummies. There's also stuff you can interact with, like some kind of morbid Franklin Institute. One of the first things we saw there was an iron bull that, according to legend, was heated up to torment a person inside. The model, at least, is surprisingly intricate. If all you're going to use it for is to kill people, why bother giving it such detailed features?

But then, a lot of this kind of thing was spectacle. I can't even imagine watching a public execution. The late Charlie Kirk apparently thought children should see them. Even the stocks, which are pretty minor as far as these things go, seem incredibly hateful. Why would I want to ridicule someone because they broke the law?

It was probably mostly just people who didn't like the prisoner for some other reason, but the authorities encouraged it. Along the same lines, the museum had a weight that went around a person's neck and a barrel that people would have to sit inside for a while, both punishments for public drunkenness.

My gut reaction was that the star was some kind of antisemitic thing, but I guess not.
The informational plaques did say that the pendulum like in the Edgar Allan Poe story was probably not really used, and that the iron maiden (also called, as I found out at the museum, a Nuremberg Virgin) didn't exist in the Middle Ages.

There was an exhibit about execution by saw, which was what happened to the prophet Isaiah according to apocryphal sources, as well as something Art the Clown did in the first Terrifier movie.

These scales were based on the idea that anyone who weighed less than a certain amount was a witch. I think the other categories are just fun additions, although I'm intrigued by the idea that angels are particularly heavy. Maybe it's like how Rosalina is a heavyweight in Mario Kart. I guess this must be where Monty Python got the idea for the bit about a witch weighing the same as a duck. And there were these face hole cutouts of a sexy dominatrix and a slovenly man with his gut hanging out, which I think says something about sexism in society.

I won't say they weren't funny, however.

Our plane was scheduled to leave before 9 at night, but it ended up being delayed. The particularly annoying thing is that we didn't find this out until after everyone had already gotten on the plane, and there were announcements that there was a malfunction with a fire alarm, and it would have taken hours to fix it. Obviously I'm no expert, but doesn't this seem like the kind of thing they'd find out before letting anyone board? I normally don't even mind airports or flying that much, but I hate how slow everything is. And someone said something about having to exchange our tickets for new ones, which ended up not happening, but it made me feel helpless and trapped. I also kept getting updates on my phone giving new departure times, which would come and go with nothing really happening. Can't they wait to make these announcements until they're certain, instead of constant guessing? It would still be frustrating, but less confusing. Anyway, we're back at home now, and went back to work today. Right now, I'm doing the laundry.

Current Music: Dukes of Stratosphear: 25 O'Clock

We're going on a trip tomorrow, so I thought it would be appropriate to write a bit of an overview of what's been going on with us. Really, it's not all that much. Beth has been working a temp job, and she's been dealing with weird hip pain. I've been concerned about how it feels like the Internet just isn't as interactive as it used to be, although that could be based on false nostalgia on my part. That's just how it feels to me, like no one will really engage with anything anymore, and it's something like talking into the void. But maybe it's just that I'm boring or annoying, and I've been worried about that before I'd ever gone on the Internet.

Beth and I went on Monday, the eighth of this month, to see Sparks at the Keswick Theater in Glenside. It's interesting how the place is mostly surrounded by residential areas. The band played several songs from their latest album, as well as an assortment of other songs from throughout their career.

They did three from No. 1 in Heaven, which is half of what's on that album. Russell introduced "Please Don't Fuck Up My World" as a song that's even more relevant now. I suppose "Goofing Off" would be considered a klezmer song, and "Whippings and Apologies" is one Russell sings in a weird voice I don't think he uses elsewhere. And "Reinforcements" was fun.

For "Suburban Homeboy," Ron talk-sang all except the last verse, on which Russell joined in.

He also danced during the break in "The Number One Song in Heaven," as is standard.

He was quiet throughout most of the show, though.

The main set ended with "Lord Have Mercy" and the encore with "All That," songs I associate with each other due to their grand, sweeping kind of sound. Beth went to three other Sparks shows without me that week, and we're both going to see them in Los Angeles.

Yesterday after work, we went to Great Adventure. It was already pretty late at that point, and the traffic was pretty bad, so we were only there for maybe three and a half hours.

And we spent part of that time in line for two rides that shut down due to technical difficulties while we were waiting, the Flash and Sky Screamer. We did ride Skull Mountain, Batman, the Ferris Wheel, the Carousel, and Houdini's Great Escape.

The Carousel was running backwards for Fright Fest. There weren't a whole lot of people there. We also caught the tail end of a husband and wife freak show where she swallowed swords.

Our main purpose in going there was to get our season passes. Six Flags bought Cedar Fair last year, and they're offering passes that are good at their parks as well. We're planning on visiting Magic Mountain and Knotts Berry Farm in the coming week, although I don't think the passes cover the Scary Farm events. It's one of those things where it's irritating that a few corporations own pretty much everything, but there's a temporary benefit in it for us.

I don't have a whole lot to say otherwise, although I should mention that we visited the marsh trail in Secaucus on 23 August, and we saw a little deer. It was eating grass near the trail, and didn't seem to notice us. It must have eventually, but even then it left pretty slowly.

Current Mood: nervous
Current Music: Space Vixen: Saline Neon

Last Tuesday night, we saw Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark at Terminal Five in Manhattan. I didn't know a whole lot about them, although I had heard some of their songs before, and we listened to some of their other stuff recently in preparation for the show. We were actually supposed to go in October, but Andy McCluskey had to get surgery, and now he has titanium in his knee. And he's still very active on stage, dancing around when he's not playing bass.

His voice also sounds exactly like it did back in the day. The band's music tends to be very energetic snyth-pop, and most of the songs had videos playing on a screen. Before playing "Tesla Girls," Andy made a point of saying that he wasn't going to get political or mention Elon Musk. "If You Leave," the one we both knew best, was preceded by a mention that it was in a John Hughes movie. So was "Tesla Girls," actually. Other ones I recognized were "Joan of Arc," "Enola Gay," "Electricity," and "Pandora's Box," the latter of which is about Louise Brooks.

Wasn't there also some news story recently about the name of the Enola Gay being censored? They didn't reference that one.

The opener was Walt Disco from Scotland, and while nothing they played stood out for me, they were pretty good.

Yesterday, we got last-minute tickets to "Weird Al" Yankovic at Madison Square Garden. This was the first time I'd been to that venue, but Beth had been there before. This was part of the Bigger and Weirder Tour, which had a larger band than the standard four-piece that's played with Al for decades, including two horn players.

That allowed them to include songs in the set that weren't normally played live, including the They Might Be Giants style parody "Everything You Know Is Wrong" and the Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young take-off "Mission Statement."

The extra members all joined in on the costume and theme changes as well.

And backing vocalist Monique Donnelly dressed, sang, and danced as Lucy during "Ricky," which apparently hadn't been played live in forty years prior to this tour.

I remember Al saying before he was retiring his Michael Jackson parodies due to the allegations against him, but they were both back for this tour, "Fat" in its entirety and "Eat It" as part of a parody medley. The medley also included "It's All About the Pentiums," and the allegations against Diddy are more relevant today than the Jackson ones. I don't think I'd ever heard "Stop Forwarding That Crap to Me" live either. I get the impression that dumb forwards are now more common on Facebook than in email, or at least they are for me, but the song is still relevant otherwise. For "Polkamania!", they did the usual thing of showing sped-up versions of the original videos on a screen.

One thing I wondered about recently is why "We Don't Talk About Bruno" from Encanto didn't come right after the Bruno Mars song, but I know there has to be a flow for the medley to work. As with the stripped-down tours Al did earlier, each show includes one straight cover, in this case Paul Simon's "You Can Call Me Al." The opener for the show was Puddles Pity Party, an abstract performance art kind of thing with a sad clown singing a strange mix of songs. This included an old non-Al parody, the Gilligan's Island theme to the tune of "Stairway to Heaven" (this kind of thing works with pretty much anything in common meter), with an interlude about Kevin Costner. I was wearing a TMBG T-shirt and Beth a Sparks one, and we both got compliments.

There isn't too much else I would consider worth mentioning. We did meet my sister at a waffle place in Cherry Hill, where the owner said he used actual Belgian dough. That's probably not the kind of thing I'd notice myself, but some people who probably know better than I do say it makes a difference. They did have quite good food. I had a breakfast waffle with ham and eggs, and a sweet one with strawberries and bananas.

Speaking of food, I don't think I've written on here about how we've been getting meal delivery kits for a while now. We originally tried Gobble, then switched to Every Plate, which is cheaper. Beth never learned to cook and I can only make a few things, so we mostly had frozen food and takeout prior to this. It's annoying because it's an extra thing to do on work nights (not every work night; we get three meals a week) and it means washing a lot more dishes (or, more accurately, the same dishes over and over), but I'll definitely say it's improved my diet, although I still do tend to leave out onions when they're part of the recipe, as well as hot ingredients because we're both wimps in that respect. We've both noticed that the potato wedges tend to be quite good, even though all I really do is cut them, add some oil, and heat them in the oven. And I tend to be pickier about potatoes than most people I know.

Well, I'll see ya. Sayanora, sayanora, ayonawa, adinawa.

Current Mood: hot
Current Music: Stan Freberg: Heartbreak Hotel

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