Stratovania

Beth and I went out to Williamsburg last night to see the Sadies. The venue was called Union Pool, which used to be an actual swimming pool supply store. I tend to associate that neighborhood with repurposed buildings, so why not? It has a regular bar, an outdoor area with a taco truck, and a small stage area with its own bar. And they've apparently had problems with angels having sex in the bathrooms.

The Sadies are a country rock band from Toronto, who play music that has sort of a lonely Western prairie vibe, at least to me. A lot of their work is instrumental, and it kind of reminds me a little of Camper Van Beethoven's instrumental numbers. They collaborated a lot with Neko Case, and we'd seen them supporting her years ago. Brothers Dallas and Travis Good provided vocals, but sadly Dallas died unexpectedly last year. Travis dedicated the show to him, and his picture was on the back of the stage. At this show, Travis sang and played guitar, although he switched to fiddle for one number.

Most of it was done as a three-piece, but they invited opener Carson McHone and her four-piece band to join them for a few songs, so the tiny stage was pretty crowded during that part.

They put on a fun show. It was standing room only and my feet got really tired, but that's not the band's fault. After the concert, we went to eat at the Kellogg Diner, where we'd eaten at least once before. They let me substitute a fruit cup for hash browns with my omelette (it said you could on the menu), and it looked pretty cute.

Since we were married on Leap Day, Beth and I celebrated our anniversary on the first of this month, and went to the orchid show at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx.

The orchid part was all indoors, much of it in a simulated tropical environment. I can say I didn't know that much about orchids, but there are a lot of different kinds, in many different colors.

Also in the conservatory was a cactus that looked like a bunch of snakes, although snakes usually aren't that scary.

The rest of the garden was, not surprisingly, pretty chilly, and not a lot was blooming. We did, however, take a tram ride around the place. I also thought that this rock looked like it would have an item inside or under it.

Maybe if Link were there. The NYBG is bigger than the one in Brooklyn, but not as big as Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania. It contains the last vestige of the forest that once covered much of the area. Afterwards, we went to eat at the Olive Garden. The last few times I've been there, I've gotten rigatoni with five-cheese marinara sauce and sausage.

This past weekend was the Monster-Mania Convention in Cherry Hill, and while we were on the way there, we stopped at a kitschy candy store called Rocket Fizz.

Maybe this woman made her family disappear.
Tavie had taken some pictures there, and Beth found out that there was one in Marlton.

There's a lot of interesting stuff, including the kind of potato chips my teacher gave out in elementary school and a bunch of socks with brand logos, including Diet Coke, Bubble Yum, Swedish Fish, and Froot Loops.

None of those were anything I felt strongly enough about to want to wear on my feet, although I do drink a fair amount of Diet Coke, and I used to eat Swedish Fish in high school and college. They also had a lot of weird themed sodas, including a Monkees banana nut flavor that we bought, as well as tributes to Ritchie Valens, Rowdy Roddy Piper, and...Fidel Castro?

Beth also picked up a Zagnut bar, Jimmie Stix, and some Dutch licorice cats for her mom. I ended up getting a blueberry muffin Kit Kat, a little Pac-Man machine with some kind of candy that I haven't checked out yet, and a deck of Wizard of Oz playing cards with no candy involved at all. I had a pack of cards like those before, except with those it was just one picture on the backs, and here it looks like there are other images from the movies on the card faces.

I did notice a few items that appeared to be pro-Trump, although they had stuff that made fun of him as well. I remember, a few years ago, passing a souvenir shop in Manhattan that had both MAGA and Black Lives Matter hats. I guess that's what you could call mercenary merchandising.

As for the convention itself, I've noticed a gradual decline in the number and length of events that are free with admission, like question-and-answer panels and film introductions by people involved with them. There are still a few, though. The first one on Saturday was with Amie Donald, who played the titular robot girl in M3GAN, but didn't do the voice.

She has a New Zealand accent, and I'm not sure how well that would have worked for the character. Then came Adrienne Barbeau, followed by Brooke Smith, the woman who rubbed the lotion on her skin in Silence of the Lambs.
There were two bigger panels in the evening, the first featuring final girls from the Friday the 13th series, with Adrienne King, Amy Steel, Kimberly Beck, and Melanie Kinnaman.

And the one for the Terrifier films had several people on the production side as well as the actors.

Before it started, Leah Voysey sang the relentlessly catchy Clown Cafe song, with Elliott Fullam accompanying her on guitar.

David Howard Thornton, who played Art the Clown, did a pantomime of killing someone.

I also bought some Mario-related pictures from Dallas Pritchard of Studio 327.


On Sunday night, we got home in time for Beth to watch the Oscars, while I sort of half-watched them. As usual, I hadn't seen most of the movies that had been nominated for anything. We did see Elvis and Tar, and Turning Red was in the animated category. I do think I should probably see Everything Everywhere All at Once, and I'm sure I'll see Black Panther: Wakanda Forever at some point, although I'm behind on the Marvel movies. From the online comments I've seen about the ceremony, yeah, a fat suit probably shouldn't be winning any makeup awards; a commercial for The Little Mermaid during the broadcast is weird, but the whole thing is kind of a commercial anyway, so whatever; and Warner Bros. taking credit for movies they bought the rights to but didn't make seems rather similar to Elon Musk paying to call himself the founder of Tesla. I have no issue with Florence Pugh's outfit, though.

I guess I think she's just generally cute, though. It's weird how Janelle Monae's dress looked red on stage, but pretty bright orange elsewhere.

It stands out a lot more when the orangeness is obvious. And speaking of unusual colors, I have to give props to The Rock.


I haven't gone to the movies that much recently, but Beth was talking about wanting to see Scream 6, and there's the Mario movie coming up. From what I've seen in the trailers, it almost looks like they're throwing in too many references, although we don't know that everything there will be included, or will be particularly important even if it is. I guess it's just kind of weird to me because, from what I understand, it's loosely an adaptation of the original Super Mario Bros., yet they're including stuff that wasn't introduced into the series until decades after that. Then again, I'm pretty sure that, even if the movie is really successful, they're not going to make one based on each and every Mario game. I mostly like the designs, although Peach's head and eyes look kind of disproportionate to the rest of her.

I guess it's not the first time she's been depicted with a strangely large head for her body, though.

I have an ultrasound coming up on Thursday, and the cats have to go to the vet on Friday. And I'm not entirely sure how we're going to work out our summer plans, since Beth and I both have things we want to do in California in July, but in different parts of the month. For now, here's a picture of Reagan as a bat.

I guess I'll write about what I did for Christmas, because I'm sure everybody wants to know. On Saturday, Christmas Eve, Beth and I met my family (my mom, sister, brother, sister-in-law, and nephew) at Jimmy John's in Pennsylvania. This place isn't affiliated with the sandwich chain, and I think actually predates it by a long time.

I'd gone there several times when I was a kid, but not in a long time. Their main thing is hot dogs, and they have thick skins, which took me a little getting used to but I got to like them. They have several model trains set up in the place.

And they sell Desert Storm trading cards, which seems kind of bizarre to me, but what do I know?

All of the presents I gave my nephew Calvin were bug-themed, and my sister gave him a bug thing as well. That was kind of a strange coincidence. I received a Wizard of Oz board game and a DVD of the two Tom and Jerry/Wizard of Oz crossovers. I'd heard about them a while ago, but have never seen them. That evening, we drove through the Night of Lights at Creamy Acres, along with Beth's mom, Uncle John, and cousin Dorothea. I prefer doing that on a wagon, since you really don't get as good of a view in a car, and it's much harder to take decent pictures. They were only running the wagons on certain days, however, and that particular day was so cold that I wouldn't have wanted to ride in one anyway.

The previous night, my fingers had gone totally stiff while I was trying to put air in my tires. Then we watched some Christmas-related television, which I already wrote about.

Presents I received on Christmas Day included the first volume of Kirby Manga Mania, Kirby: Planet Robobot for the 3DS, Edward Einhorn and Eric Shanower's adaptation of Euripides' Iphigenia in Aulis, and a little book of Sports Illustrated swimsuit models, which was...kind of a joke, I think? I'm still not entirely sure. Beth gave me Kindle versions of some books about fairy tales, and today I received some other things from her, a T-shirt with Luigi and some Koopa Troopas, a Mario star light, and a stuffed Polterpup. I also got a Porcupuffer from my brother.

I think the cat in the picture is for Beth, through process of elimination, but it's there anyway because it's cute. Maybe someday I'll be able to get all my Mario stuff organized, but we don't have a whole lot of room.

Beth and I both had birthdays last week. She's now forty-three, and I'm forty-five. Too bad that's a number that's now closely associated with Donald Trump. I understand some people find birthdays depressing because they're an indication that you're getting older, but that doesn't bother me so much. What does depress me somewhat is that I feel I always let my birthday go to waste, like it's a day when I'm allowed, to an extent, to make things about me and do what I want, but for the most part I don't. This year, we went to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden on Beth's birthday on Tuesday. Strangely, there were still some roses blooming, if usually only a few on an otherwise barren bush.

And there were a lot of squirrels around.

I often find myself taking pictures of plants that have unusual names, or at least ones I consider unusual.

There's a kind of rose called Peach Drift, which makes me think of Super Mario Bros. 2.

After the garden, we went to eat at a Georgian restaurant. We'd ordered from there before, and I really liked the Acharuli Khachapuri. This time, I had Khinkali, dumplings with beef and pork filling; and while the meat was spicy, I still would probably get them again. I guess I tend to associate "spicy" with "hot," as is often the case with Mexican or Indian food, but that's not always the case when it comes to...west Asian? I'm not quite sure what you'd consider Georgia and other nearby countries in that respect. My birthday was Friday, and after work, we went to a Hard Drive comedy show in Manhattan. A lot of the jokes were video game related, including a presentation of world events interpreted through gamer culture, but the comics covered other topics as well. The music before the show included the training music from Punch-Out!! and the surf version of the Chocobo theme.


I'd looked up the guitar tabs to that, the main Super Mario tune, and the overworld music from Super Mario World; and play them occasionally for fun. It might not be a bad idea to get a video game music book. I got Beth Mario and Zelda piano books a few years ago, but we don't really have room for a keyboard right now, and the notation doesn't really translate well to a different instrument, or at least it doesn't for me. I'm still technically taking guitar lessons, but scheduling problems means I haven't actually had one in a while. The place I go, which is right down the street, is more focused on kids, and there's a lot of turnover for the instructors. Anyway, after the show, we ate at Katz's, which was nearby. We'd only been there once before, although I've occasionally gotten food at their stand in the mall in between. It's kind of stressful with all the different lines and instructions, and both times it was so crowded that we had to hold our trays for longer than I was comfortable with. That said, it was much less crowded than it had been when we passed the restaurant on our way to the show, and there were lines outside the building. The food is quite good; I had the same thing I think I did previously, a half pastrami sandwich and chicken noodle soup.

We had another sort of combined birthday dinner yesterday at the Olive Garden. As birthday presents, she gave me a kalimba, the new Pixies album, and the Super Mario Bros. Encyclopedia.

Last week was kind of a weird one at work, as my office is changing locations. The new place isn't far away, and it's actually one subway stop closer. I know I'd heard about the move prior to the pandemic, but they had to delay it a few years. Aside from that, I'm constantly wishing for more free time, then wasting it as soon as I get some. It's kind of annoying because there's so much I want to do and never get around to. That's especially true of writing. But I think a lot of it isn't just having time, but the general idea that there isn't anything I have to do for a significant amount of time. I'm so hung up on upcoming obligations even if they don't turn out to be anything big when they actually happen. I've gotten back into playing a lot of Sims 4, and one of the expansion packs I installed gives all of the Sims fears that don't always make a lot of sense. I'd kind of think only the ambitious ones would be concerned about being in dead-end jobs, but no, it's all of them. Interesting idea, I guess, but not all that practically executed. I try to check in on Animal Crossing once or twice a week, preferably on Saturday evenings so I can get a new K.K. Slider song, but as of late I've often been busy around then. I feel like I've gotten to the point where I just keep seeing the same stuff over and over again, except for the few things I still need to complete collections. I didn't get a chance to play on my birthday, but the neighbors did wish me a happy belated one yesterday.

In an attempt to remain somewhat current on writing about seasonal events, I'll start this with what Beth and I did the Saturday before last. There's a Halloween event called Halloween House set up in malls around the area, and it's advertised as being not scary. Of course, what's scary is very subjective, but there's no one jumping out at you or anything. See, this guy is just chilling on the couch.

And this witch looks friendly, right?

We went to the one at the Menlo Park Mall, and walked around for a while before we found it. It has several rooms, each decorated in a different spooky theme. One had witches and potions, others were themed like a pumpkin patch and a graveyard, one was based on Stranger Things (which I haven't seen, but Beth has), and another on The Nightmare Before Christmas.

It didn't take long to see everything, but you could throw bean bags at targets.

There weren't any employees in the individual rooms, just at the entrance, so I have to wonder if kids are touching stuff when nobody is watching. Maybe they have cameras or something. The mall also had a store with Batman holding Pikachu in its display window. Has that crossover happened yet?

And Wonder Woman was getting in on the Halloween spirit.


On Thursday, we went to Green-Wood Cemetery for their Nightfall event, which was pretty similar to Moonrise last year, although we didn't get tote bags and they didn't have any food. While there were lanterns lighting the paths where stuff was happening, it was still kind of confusing to figure out which way to go, and to make sure we weren't just passing the same stuff over and over again.

One person was giving a lecture about ancient Egyptian beliefs on the afterlife, and comparing it to going on vacation. The Bindlestiff Family Cirkus was there again, and we saw a magician, jugglers, a tightrope walker, and a guy on stilts playing the ukulele.

I also went to the eye doctor that day, and it turned out my prescription hadn't changed. That's good, as I only just got new glasses a few months ago.


Friday's activity was the Haunted Junkyard for the Scullville Fire Company near Egg Harbor, New Jersey, which had both a maze and a hayride. What was kind of interesting about the maze was that the way through, while it twisted around a lot, was pretty obvious, except for one dead end near the exit. One thing they did quite a bit in it was to have colored lights to make your eyesight go wonky. There were costumed people sneaking up on customers in the maze and in line. The hayride was fairly standard, except with more old cars and trailers along the route. And this wagon had actual hay in it. Some kid sitting near us kept pointing out that he didn't find it scary, which is annoyingly common on things like that. What, do they expect people to be impressed? That happens at amusement parks, too. Anyway, we went to a Spirit Halloween for the first time this year on Saturday, although we didn't get anything. I noticed they're still really emphasizing creepy clowns. They had several of this guy, whom we saw outside a grocery store in Brooklyn a few days earlier.

Anyone want to stand under a clown crotch? Beth tried it, but the pictures didn't come out well.
And quite a few costumes were identified as "union suits," which really just means it's a one-piece outfit, but some of the labels made me think that maybe animals are starting to participate in organized labor.


That's it as far as actual activities, but I will mention that we've eaten at Panera Bread three times this month, once before Dorney Park, once at the mall, and once yesterday. Beth hadn't even been to one prior to last year. They're kind of pricey, but I do like it. The past two times, I had flatbread pizza and chicken noodle soup, kind of a weird combination, but it worked for me. I remember Panera having annoying commercials where they said it had "good, clean food," as if implying that the food was dirty elsewhere. There's also a billboard on the New Jersey Turnpike (I think) that says "Eat clean, bro," although I can't remember what it's actually advertising. I guess I kind of see it as a combination of shaming people for liking unhealthy food and accepting that something IS healthy because the people selling it tell you it is. But plenty of things are much better than their advertising would suggest.

On Thursday evening, we went to see Kevin Geeks Out at the Nitehawk Cinema in Park Slope. That one is more convenient to get to than the one in Williamsburg. Before the show, we got some food at Dog Day Afternoon, a nearby hot dog place. I had the kielbasa with mustard. Kevin Maher's co-host this time was Amber Dextrous, and the theme of the evening was dinosaurs. Kevin started by listing the various types of media stories involving dinosaurs, including the period piece, the period piece with liberties, time travel, dimensional travel, the lost world, and the dinosaur theme park. The liberties usually mean humans living alongside dinosaurs, The Flintstones being the obvious example, but there were plenty of old movies that did the same thing in a less intentionally comedic way. The example for dimensional travel was Land of the Lost, but I actually thought of the Super Mario Bros. Movie, which was addressed later on in the show. For theme parks, Kevin forwent the one everyone knows in favor of the Martin Short film Clifford. I forgot if there were any more categories; I guess dinosaurs on another planet could be one, but that's kind of just the lost world with space travel. Paleontologist Riley Black, who had consulted on the Jurassic Park franchise, did a remote segment discussing prehistoric animals. Corey S. Powell talked about whether dinosaurs and humans could be friends, bringing up Sleestaks, Barney, and Dino. And Chris Cummins had some thoughts on comics featuring dinosaurs, starting with a batshit crazy Chick Tract that I remember talking about before, and also bringing up how DC's Star Spangled War Heroes series eventually started using dinosaurs. He showed some of his favorite dinosaur-related panels, including Fred and Barney talking about participating in a genocide from the gritty Flintstones comic, and the Kool-Aid Man meeting the Purplesaurus Rex.

I'm kind of surprised he didn't include this Spider-Man one that I see a lot online.

The Kindest Cut was something called Pterodactyl Woman from Beverly Hills, with a medicine man turning Beverly D'Angelo into...well, you can figure that out from the title. They finished with a clip from the last episode of Dinosaurs, where Earl accidentally causes the Ice Age and extinction. I actually saw that one when it was new. Incidentally, they showed a few clips from Tammy and the T-Rex before the show, and I thought the dinosaurs from that movie looked similar to the ones from Dinosaurs. I don't think there's any real connection, but it was made during the run of the TV show.


On Saturday, we went to Six Flags Great Adventure. We used to go there kind of a lot, and even had season passes for a few years in the early 2000s, but it's been a while since our last visit. While we went to a lot of amusement parks last year, this wasn't one of them, even though it's fairly close. It's in central New Jersey, so it's about the same distance from where Beth grew up and where we live now. Fright Fest, their Halloween event, had already started, so there were a lot of appropriate decorations, and at night some employees walking around in costume, many of them dragging shovels along the pavement.

If nothing else, that's certainly a grating sound. Perhaps because it's so long before October, the park wasn't all that crowded, and most of the rides had pretty short lines. The longest wait we had was for Wonder Woman's Lasso of Truth, and that was more because of the way the ride works than because there were all that many people waiting; there's no way the lines can't move slowly for something like that.

It's a park that really focuses on roller coasters, and there are a lot of them there. We rode two that hadn't been there on our last visit, the Joker and the Jersey Devil Coaster. The former is one that not only goes along a track but also flips the cars around, while the latter has a narrow track that's quite twisty.

One weird thing about both of these is that they don't have anywhere to temporarily leave loose items while you ride, so Beth and I took turns on them. If the lines had been longer, I probably would have sprung for a locker. Skull Mountain, Nitro, Superman, and the Runaway Mine Train were all the same as they ever were, as far as I could tell.

Batman: The Ride is the same, but they got rid of a lot of stuff to see while waiting in line, and Alfred no longer does the ride announcements. We'd only been on the Dark Knight Coaster once before, but I remember it as having TV screens along the route, and they aren't there now.

Medusa was briefly rebranded as Bizarro, with a new paint job and some relevant decorations added along the track; but it was later restored to how it was before. I have no idea why the rebrand didn't stick, but I like the classic design better anyway. Presumably because it's right next to where the Joker is now, the small coaster Blackbeard's Train is now Harley Quinn's Crazy Train.

It's short, but they ran each load of passengers twice. I don't know if that's standard practice or just because there weren't many people in line. Kingda Ka and El Toro, which apparently both have a lot of problems, were both closed. We've ridden both before, but the former was having technical difficulties when it was new as well. The non-coaster rides we went on that I haven't mentioned yet were Houdini's Great Escape, the SkyScreamer, the Swashbuckler, Justice League: Battle for Metropolis, Cyborg Cyber Spin, the Big Wheel, the Carousel, and Parachute Training Center. I'd never been on the first one, although it's been there for a long time; I don't think I really noticed it before. The seats move up and down a bit, but most of the movement is illusionary, with parts of the room moving around. The SkyScreamer is like the standard swing ride, but goes up a lot higher; while the Swashbuckler is the kind of ride that pushes riders against the outside.

Battle for Metropolis is the kind of ride that's also a game, where you ride along a track and shoot at stuff on screens, with a story involving trying to rescue some captured members of the Justice League from the Joker and Lex Luthor. I don't think we'd been on any rides of this sort prior to this year, when we went on three (this, Toy Story Midway Mania at Disneyland, and Reese's Cupfusion at Hersheypark). By the way, Six Flags seems to have started doing candy promotion themselves in addition to the Looney Tunes and DC Comics stuff, with Mars as their sponsor.

Ferris wheels used to scare me despite being very tame rides, and I think the reason was that, due to the way they have to load, you're just stuck sitting up in the air for a while. Other rides go a lot higher, but don't stay there long enough for you to really absorb it. But the Giant Wheel didn't bother me this time. 


We don't see a lot of plays, but Beth was drawn in by an online ad for Death of a Salesman, so we saw it at the Hudson Theatre on Monday. She didn't really know anything about it, while I sort of did. I think it was something I was supposed to read in high school and didn't, but was able to gather the gist of it from class. Maybe I would have read it if I hadn't had so many other assignments at the same time. Or maybe I was just lazy. I don't know. Anyway, this production has Black actors playing the Loman family, with Wendell Pierce as Willy and Sharon D. Clarke as Linda, both reprising their roles from the recent London production.

Andre De Shields appears as Willy's rich brother Ben, who pretends to be wise but is really just full of crap, kind of like the Wiz.Its critique of measuring success through money and the American dream is still relevant today, although nowadays I'm pretty sure even a more successful traveling salesman wouldn't be able to afford a house in Brooklyn. Before the show, we ate at a nearby family style Italian place, which was quite good, and not that expensive when you consider that we were sharing the entree, baked ziti bolognese.

Okay, I guess that's all there is for now. It's supposed to get a little on the chilly side this weekend, but our building really cranks the heat up starting around the fall, so we'll probably still need fans and such.

We went to one small amusement park not long ago, and another even smaller one just yesterday. This was Clementon Park, in the area where Beth grew up. She went there a lot as a kid, and we went there together several times as adults. It had closed a few years ago, but was then bought by a new owner. It was always small, but now a lot of it is water rides, so there's even less room for the dry rides. It wasn't very crowded, so we got to ride everything we wanted to, mostly multiple times. There were a lot of little kids, but that was proportional to how many people there were in general. They still have the train, Sea Dragon, the carousel, the swings, and the log flume from earlier.

It's weird how a log flume is technically a water ride, but is usually not in water parks. It's called King Neptune's Revenge, and I've probably said this before, but I'm not sure what he's seeking revenge for. The train is of the C.P. Huntington variety, modeled on the Central Pacific Railroad locomotive built in 1863.

A lot of amusement parks have these, and this one goes along a track lined with animal statues.

Speaking of animals, I appreciate that the carousel has some animals other than horses, including a dragon, a lion, a tiger, and a zebra, although not all of them move up and down.

The lion has an eagle on its back, so I have to wonder if they're the parents of a griffin.

I rode on the rabbit for my first ride, and it reminded me of Peg Amy riding Wag in Kabumpo in Oz.

There's also still the wooden roller coaster they put in to replace the old Jackrabbit, which was previously called the Tsunami and the J2, but is now the Hellcat. Whatever the name is, it's a very rough ride.

And the Ferris Wheel is still there, but it wasn't running that day. The park also got a new Scrambler and Tilt-A-Whirl, and by that I mean they're new to the park; they look and sound pretty old.

For a while, they had a Turtle Whirl, with cars shaped like turtles. The current one is painted purple with green slime.

We didn't go on the new Super Loops, called the Ring of Fire, but we did do the Thunder Drop. They have a Pizza Hut at the park now, so I had a personal pan pizza for dinner. Well, Beth had one slice. I eat a lot of pizza and Beth not much of it, but Pizza Hut is nostalgic for both of us. Yeah, Brooklyn has a lot of pizza that is objectively better, but it doesn't remind me as much of childhood. Oh, and at one of the gift shops, there was this flag with a bird on it. It reminded me of Heckle and Jeckle, and it's not like it's the park mascot or anything, as far as I know.


We'd been going to the Monster-Mania Convention for a long time, so it was surprising that the most recent one made the news, and not in a good way. Gary Busey was a guest there, and there were a few sexual harassment allegations about him. This had nothing to do with us, of course, but it's crazy when something familiar comes up in unexpected places.

We have tickets to see Neko Case twice this week, both at standing room venues. Let's hope my feet will hold out for that long.

This past weekend was pretty busy for us. Beth and I went to see Franz Ferdinand at the Fillmore in Philadelphia. It's a relatively new venue, named after the one in San Francisco and in a building that used to be a factory for a metal company. There's a very industrial look to it, and a lot of open space. This was the first standing room show we'd been to in some time, but we have some others on the horizon. I'd say I'm too old for that now, but really, I was too old for it twenty years ago. I just put up with it anyway because it was the only way to see bands I liked. Seats are generally only for really big or really small venues, and I tend to like groups who draw crowds in between those two extremes. At least now I can look at stuff on my smart phone while waiting, I guess. The opener was a three-man band called Vundabar, whom I didn't find memorable. Franz Ferdinand was there as part of their Hits to the Head Tour, and I think all the songs they played were part of that collection.

I don't know their newer stuff as well, even the hits. That said, I still consider pretty much everything since 2000 as kind of new. Alex Kapranos was very energetic, jumping and bouncing a lot while performing.

During "Outsiders," drummer Audrey Tait started doing a solo, and other band members joined in.

For "This Fire," Alex had everyone crouch down at one part of the song.


On Saturday, we went to the Monster-Mania Convention. It was officially the fiftieth one, but that counts other venues. I believe we've been to all the ones in Cherry Hill except for one. Driving in Cherry Hill is kind of a pain because all the roads in the area have barriers in the middle. I've driven there from Beth's mom's house many times, yet I still have trouble figuring out one particular exit. In case anyone cares, it's where Route 130 intersects with 30, 38, and 70. There are two exits in a row, and the GPS gave instructions I didn't understand. We ended up getting there later than we wanted, but not by that much. We caught the tail end of the question-and-answer session with Greg Nicotero, who's mostly known for makeup and special effects work. After him came Zach Galligan, Billy from Gremlins, who brought along a little stuffed Gizmo.

He talked about how he was working on an animated Gremlins series, and referenced Mountain Dew a few times. Then came Debra S. Hayes, who was in the original Friday the 13th, along with her boyfriend at the time.

The evening program had two reunion panels, one for the twenty-fifth anniversary of Scream, and another for Alien and Aliens. I've seen all three of those movies, but I don't know that I remember them that well, and I still haven't seen the later Scream films or anything past the second in the Alien series. The first panel had Lee Waddell, W. Earl Brown, David Arquette, Jamie Kennedy, and Matthew Lillard.

Neve Campbell was going to attend but had to cancel, and from what I've heard, David agreed to be there on short notice.

Lillard, who went around the room to take questions, will generally talk about how working actors are often between jobs, and the rest of the panel discussed some of the more frustrating parts of their careers. I was kind of thinking David wouldn't have had that since he's a legacy, but that didn't seem to be the case. They also had a lot of stories about how rowdy they were during the filming. Somebody in the audience asked a question about Never Been Kissed, which I mostly just remember as having a plot that didn't really make any sense. But David and Drew Barrymore were in both films together, and they're both from famous acting families. The Alien panel had Lance Henriksen, Tom Skerritt, Jenette Goldstein, Mark Rolston, Veronica Cartwright, and Carrie Henn.

Lance had been to other ones of these in the past, but I don't remember him being quite so talkative at those. They've cut down on the number and length of the panels over the years, which kind of sucks, but I guess I can see why they would. The autograph sessions are a bigger draw and bring in more money.

We often go to Friendly's after leaving the convention, but I'm still a little miffed that they changed their mozzarella sticks due to supply chain issues. Applebee's still has good mozzarella sticks, so we went there. At least that was my reasoning. I had the Double Crunch Shrimp, with broccoli and green beans for sides, kind of weird as I've never been that big on vegetables. But the usual sides are fries and cole slaw, the latter of which I don't like at all, and the former I like all right but tend not to finish, so there's more waste. The vegetables tend to be smaller portions.

We brought the cats to the vet's last week. They're both on medicine, but while Wally will take his pills in those Pill Pocket treats, we have to force Reagan's liquid medicine into her mouth. She hates it so much that she'll often hide under the bed for hours to try to get out of taking it. It's sad, and it means we don't see her as much as we used to, and she loves attention. Wally's health is steady, but Rea is getting worse, and we'll have to bring her in for a sonogram soon. I really hope we don't have to put her on an IV, which the vet did bring up as a possibility.

Wednesday was our last day at Disneyland, and it wasn't even a full day. We returned to the main park, and the first thing we rode was Peter Pan's Flight.

This is another one where you ride past scenes from the movie, this time on a suspended pirate ship with some stuff beneath you.

I do hope whoever designed this sign of a smiling Peter above instructions for adults to supervise their kids recognizes the irony.

It's probably a legal requirement to display such rules, but isn't that against everything he stands for? Maybe they should have put Nana on the sign.

I got some frozen apple cider at Maurice's Treats, and then we made our way over to the lake, which has several attractions that are only open in the daytime. There are two boats you can ride, the steamboat Mark Twain and the sailing ship Columbia. We ended up on the former, simply due to timing.

Next came Tom Sawyer Island, where you take a smaller boat to an island with a lot of steps and some crazy bridges.

And Davy Crockett's Explorer Canoes is one where all the passengers row. I'm not sure whether this is actually necessary, but it's definitely a different experience from most rides. I had kind of a difficult time getting into the correct rowing rhythm. Maybe they needed one of those drums. Our next stop was Galaxy's Edge, and while we'd walked around the one at Walt Disney World, we didn't really do anything there. This time, we went on both of the rides there, Millennium Falcon: Smuggler's Run and Rise of the Resistance.

On the former, the part before the actual ride has the pirate (but not of the Carribean) Hondo Ohnaka recruiting a crew to steal some coaxium fuel, borrowing the ship from Chewbacca.

Riders are divided into groups of five, each with two pilots, two gunners, and one engineer. Beth and I were the pilots. It's kind of like Midway Mania in that it's both a ride and a game, but I think was worse at this one. I couldn't help thinking that, if a group of kids rode this, they could potentially get way too serious about it. The wait for Rise of the Resistance was said to be sixty-five minutes, and you had to pay extra for a Lightning Lane pass, which we didn't do. The ride was having problems, so our wait ended up being longer than that. A lot of Disney rides have an introductory story before you actually board, but this one was even more complex than usual.

You meet BB-8, Rey (in hologram form, albeit much better quality than the ones in the movies themselves), and Lieutenant Bek, an original character for the ride. He's from the same species as Admiral Ackbar.

Anyway, you enter a Resistance ship with a moving floor and windows showing space, then you're captured by the First Order, taken onto a star destroyer, and made to walk down a corridor lined with Storm Troopers.

The Resistance comes to the rescue, and you ride an escape pod all over the place to dodge your captors. Kylo Ren shows up a few times during the ride. I saw a few costumed characters in Galaxy's Edge, but the only one I got a picture of was Chewie.

I noticed some Storm Troopers asking kids to give allegiance to the First Order. We also got Diet Coke in collectible bottles, which we still have.

The final thing we rode was Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and I'm probably more entertained than I should be by the safety announcement, delivered in character in a wacky hillbilly accent. "This is the wildest ride in the wilderness!"

We left the park later than I'd intended, and by the time we'd gotten some food from Monty's Good Burger (the vegan equivalent of In-N-Out; I had the "chicken" tenders and thought they were all right, but the texture was kind of weird), returned the rental car and gotten a ride to the airport terminal, we just barely made it in time for our flight. The flight itself went off without a hitch, but we were both exhausted afterwards. And that's it for the time being, although I should probably go back and talk about some things we did before the trip in a future post.

After OzCon and our visit with Stephanie, we checked in at the hotel in Anaheim. It's one of those ones that isn't on Disney property, but has an arrangement with the park, including transportation as part of the price. It also included a breakfast buffet, including a station where a cook made omelettes and waffles.

Even Beth liked it, and she's normally against typical breakfast foods. Driving around the Los Angeles area is kind of fascinating because of how so many entertainment media are based there, so you come across a lot of place names that you've heard in movies and TV, but were largely meaningless to someone growing up in Pennsylvania. We did a lot of freeway driving during the time we were there, and it's too bad they had to destroy Toontown to build that. We also drove by the Warner Bros. studio in Burbank when we went with Stephanie to a coffee shop near there.

Considering how spread out Walt Disney World is, it's kind of fascinating that Disneyland is relatively small, and there's an IHOP right across the street from the entrance with a sign forbidding parking for Disney.


The first thing we rode on at the park was Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, although we did the walkthrough of Sleeping Beauty's Castle before that.

A lot of the stuff we were most interested in was in Fantasyland. The Mr. Toad ride is one that seems to get mentioned quite a lot. I remember one Simpsons episode with something called "Mr. Frog's Mild Ride," maybe not a great joke but one that stuck with me.

The ride itself runs along a curving track with scenes from The Wind in the Willows, and ends up in Hell.

I guess that's the moral message, that if you drive recklessly and try to outrun the cops, you'll be eternally damned. Was this ride the inspiration for Grand Theft Auto? Other rides in the area had the same basic theme of riding through scenes from an animated movie.

Snow White's Enchanted Wish, Pinocchio's Daring Journey, and Peter Pan's Flight are all right in there together, although we ended up not riding that last one until Wednesday. They all give some sense of the story while you're waiting in line, and I found it strange that the Snow White one didn't even mention the Queen trying to kill her. The poison apple is part of the ride, but the part with the huntsman is glossed over.

The Casey Jr. Circus Train and Storybook Land Canal Boats are right next to each other, and go past a lot of the same stuff, largely miniature versions of places from movies.

When I first saw Monstro, I figured it must be part of the Pinocchio ride, but it's actually the beginning of the boat ride.

The Matterhorn was another one that's exclusive to Disneyland, and that was fun. The theming reminded me of the Germany section of Busch Gardens in Virginia.

I know the real Matterhorn is in Switzerland, but it's close enough for jazz. Or polka. Or theme parks. Apparently the Yeti on the ride is named Harold, and the one at Expedition Everest in Disney World is Betty. Hmm, that's my dad and Beth's mom.

Next, we rode Alice in Wonderland, and had some dinner at the Red Rose Taverne. Beth had a cheeseburger, and I had pepperoni and cheese flatbread. (Is there really a difference between that and pizza?)

After dinner, we rode Indiana Jones Adventure and Pirates of the Caribbean. I'm not sure why it was necessary to add Jack Sparrow to the ride, but I've only seen the first one of those movies. I liked the film pretty well, but there's something to be said for preserving the original layout. And Johnny Depp is rather problematic these days. Then we unsuccessfully tried to get a spot for the Main Street Electrical Parade. Fortunately, there was another one later that night.

The parade has been running on and off since 1972, and still has the relentlessly cheerful yet somehow a bit unsettling electronic music. They Might Be Giants did a cover of it, and it's so well suited to them.

I noticed that the floats included both Goofy and Dopey driving trains.

Also, there were several that had heroes and villains hanging out together. I saw Colin Ayres at the ice cream shop before the parade; he and a few other OzCon attendees were also visiting the park that day, but I didn't run into anyone else I knew. Our last stop before leaving the park was Tomorrowland, where we rode the Astro Orbiter (okay, that one was actually before the parade), Autopia, and Space Mountain.

I believe I'd first heard of Autopia in the NES game Adventures in the Magic Kingdom, which my family rented once back in the day. Space Mountain was different from the one at Disney World.


Next time, we have a California Adventure!