Stratovania

Merry Christmas to anyone who celebrates, and I guess anyone who doesn't as well, although maybe you prefer not to be reminded of it! It's weird to think about how Christmas traditionally had twelve days, but for me it's basically over on the first. I've even seen some people doing Twelve Days activities that END on the twenty-fifth. We do still have to exchange gifts with my family around New Year's, though. Since the last time I wrote a life update, we saw the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, got our own, and attended a holiday concert by the Brooklyn Chamber Orchestra.

I've already written about most of the stuff we watched this year on WordPress, although there were a few repeat viewings as well, including Rudolph, Frosty, Garfield, the Grinch, Claymation, and Home Alone. Beth got the complete DVD set of Tales from the Darkside for her birthday, so we watched the Christmas episode of that first.

Called "Seasons of Belief," it's about a dad telling his kids (one of whom is Six from Blossom) a story he makes up on the spot about a monster called the Grither, who lives at the North Pole and goes after anyone who says his name. The kids' mom and uncle join in on scaring the jingle bells out of the children, even improvising lyrics about the monster to the tune of "O Come All Ye Faithful." SPOILER AHEAD! It ends with the Grither showing up and killing the parents, the implication being that belief brought it to life. You only ever see his arms, which are gigantic. END SPOILER. Earlier on, the mom mentions that, if kids don't believe in Santa Claus, then their toys will break, which is much more subtle a punishment than being hit with a switch or stuffed in a bag. Tavie and Sean came by on Thursday, and we watched Whoever Slew Auntie Roo, a rewatch for Beth and me. They gave me a DuckTales T-shirt, which reminds me that we still need to watch the newer series.

On Christmas Eve, we saw the Christmas episode of The Odd Couple, "Scrooge Gets an Oscar," where Felix really wants Oscar to play Scrooge in the play he's directing, but Oscar wants nothing to do with it, as he and his ex-wife were married on Christmas Day. Of course he changes his mind after having a Scrooge-themed dream.


We'd tried two other times to go to the Creamy Acres Night of Lights, but Beth's mom was sick the first time, and the second it was sold out. We finally went on Saturday evening. During the pandemic, they changed it from a wagon ride to a drive-thru, but more recently they've had both. I don't really like driving through, though, as the view isn't as good. The wagon takes the same road as the cars. Most of the lights were the same this time, but they're always fun.

The music played during the ride included a Christmas song adapted from the Flintstones theme, even though they could have chosen from a few actual Flintstones holiday songs instead.


They had a giant inflatable Bumble near the entrance, and a Grinch a little further on.

I also noticed some rather sinister-looking decorations inside.


Beth and I tend to sleep late when we don't have to get up for work, although I sometimes find myself waking up and doing something for a little while before trying to get back to sleep. I played a little bit of Animal Crossing, and delivered presents for Jingle, the reindeer who comes to visit for Toy Day. As with Easter and Bunny Day, it's an equivalent of the Christian holiday that only keeps the more secular elements. Santa Claus is mentioned, but doesn't show up.

Anyway, we didn't open our presents until afternoon. Beth gave me tickets to see Spamalot in January, as well as a CD of the original cast recording.

That's something that's likely up my alley, but I hadn't really thought about seeing. Along the same lines, Uncle John gave me a set of Song of Ice and Fire books. I remember starting to read the first one and not being that invested in it, but I'll definitely give it another chance. Then maybe I'll need to watch the TV show. We'll see about that. I'm late to most popular things. Nellie enjoyed playing with the wrapping paper.

She's staying back in New Jersey for the next week. And tomorrow we have work, because we don't do Boxing Day in this country.

It's been a pretty busy week, and a pretty rainy one as well. On Monday, Beth and I went to see The State perform live at the Palladium in Times Square, which I believe is where they filmed their show back in the 90s. Eight of the eleven are part of the Breakin' Hearts and Dippin' Balls Tour, and the new performance was a mix of sketches from the show with some new material, or sometimes old stuff repurposed for a new context, like the sketch about a college dorm safety lecture from people with tape on their faces instead became a talk about theater safety, Barry and Levon tried to sell reverse mortgages, and an expanded "Froggy Jamboree" gives the characters a dark backstory.

Older sketches included Louie at the Last Supper, the mailman who delivered tacos instead of mail, the Bearded Men of Space Station 11, and "Porcupine Racetrack," which was the closer.

While changing scenes, they played some bits from the CBS special and a pre-State project where they reenacted weird stories people told them. Since Michael Showalter was one of the members who wasn't there, they made a joke out of getting an audience member to play Doug.

Before the show, we ate at Jollibee for the first time, and I liked the chicken and the peach and mango pie. I wonder what their spaghetti is like. Beth saw the show again on Tuesday, while I stayed home to watch Clone Wars episodes (I've now finished watching the sixth season), play Animal Crossing, and write a post about monster shamans. Less exciting, to be sure, but I've come to appreciate evenings where I don't have to do anything, even if that thing is purely for fun.


Thursday was the fall event at Green-Wood Cemetery that I think we've been to twice before, but the name isn't always the same. This time, it was Nightfall: Danse Macabre. I can't say it was much different from before, but a lot of what you see depends on timing. Some performances repeat with only short breaks in between, while others are only at specific times. We saw fewer of the circus performances than in previous years, although we did see some fire eaters and someone playing what sounded like music from the Legend of Zelda soundtrack on a harp.

There were two different theremin performers, and a shadow puppetry performance about a girl who befriends some crows.

As usual, getting around was a little difficult, as it was dark and the paths at the cemetery twist all over the place anyway. There were lanterns marking the proper roads, but it was still hard to figure out which way we were going, even with a map.


On Friday night, we went to see the Middle Aged Dad Jam Band at City Winery. The band has David Wain on drums and Ken Marino on lead vocals, plus some of their friends and collaborators. Craig Wedren, who did music for The State and related projects (and is married to Thomas Lennon's sister), plays guitar, David's son Henry saxophone, and Amy Miles does backing vocals and some percussion. It's all very casual, but still sounds really good, and some of the people involved are professional musicians even if the leads aren't. They play covers (mostly from the sixties through the eighties, although a few later songs made their way in) and make a lot of corny jokes. They also had several guests who did a song or two, including Paul Rudd playing Gerry Rafferty (it didn't make a whole lot of sense even in context), David Yazbek, Kevin Allison, and, most exciting for me, John Flansburgh, who sang "Born to Run."

Amy introduced him as a friend of hers, and I actually was first aware of her because she and Flansburgh's wife Robin Goldwasser were in a band, The Last Car, that opened for They Might Be Giants a few times. I believe David met her on the set of Wet Hot American Summer; she was married to actor A.D. Miles at the time, although they've since divorced. In terms of connections, it's also interesting that Yazbek did a song from an upcoming musical about Elmer McCurdy, who was already the subject of one by frequent TMBG collaborator Brian Dewan. I've heard that Joe Lo Truglio had played Rafferty before, and that Weird Al has played with the band. It was a surprisingly long show, about three hours long with one fifteen-minute intermission. And it was mostly standing room (there were seats, but they cost a lot more), so it wasn't too kind on my feet. I also had my backpack with me because I brought it to work, but I might have used a smaller bag that day if I'd remembered about the standing.

I find myself not wanting to use Twitter that much these days, even though I still have one-off thoughts that seem well-suited to that format. It just seems like nobody reads my tweets, and my feed is a lot less interesting. I don't think Elon Musk directly messed up my personal experience, but his general toxic, chaotic management has driven a lot of people away. Or maybe it's just my own perception that's changed. The change from the cute bird to a letter of the alphabet doesn't help matters; it just seems a lot less friendly now. I have a Bluesky account, but I'm not following that many people (and even fewer are following me), so it's kind of slow. I've also read some stuff recently on how Google (and probably other sites as well) has basically sold out to advertisers and donors with particular agendas that you don't even necessarily get results for the words you actually typed. Apparently you're more likely to get popular results that are sort of related to your search. It seems similar to how YouTube and apparently Tiktok have algorithms that constantly suggest related things that are selected more for being popular than relevant, and are sometimes actively dangerous. It appears to be how Musk wants Twitter to operate, too. I'm sure that, at times, it's just the computer program not working very well, but I think there's an undertone to the whole concept of not trusting the user to seek out these things themselves.

I feel like there's a general trend on the Internet of homogenization, like you don't see as many personal websites anymore. Of course, a lot of these sites were terrible and boring, but they were still personalized in a way that things really aren't these days. This makes it easier, in that users don't have to learn even the tiny bit of HTML I did in order to put stuff online, so it's not all bad. There's somewhat of a pattern of increased corporate control, but not always in ways I can specifically identify, so it's more of a general feeling on my part. And there's the current obsession with the word "content," as if writing, art, research, music, etc. are all just commodities these days.

Personally, when I make posts on my WordPress, I do so casually, but I want the information to be accurate and fairly thorough. Too often, I'll do a Google search and it will result in the Wikipedia page, some other sites that just copy Wikipedia, stubs on wikis, and unsourced conspiratorial stuff. I realize I could do some more thorough research, as I did learn something about that in school, but it's probably not worth it for a short post that will get maybe ten readers. I just feel that some of this can't be so obscure as to barely register on the whole Internet.

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.

Last weekend was the Monster-Mania Convention in Cherry Hill. Beth and I have been to most of these, and there's not as much to say about them anymore. It does seem like they're downplaying the question-and-answer panels, and while I get that this is time when the guests aren't able to sell stuff, they've always been the main thing we do. The first three were only a half hour each.

First was Roger L. Jackson, the voice actor behind Ghostface in the Scream films, as well as Mojo Jojo in The Powerpuff Girls, Doc Brown's father in the Back to the Future game, and the talking mucus creature in Mucinex commercials. He actually did voices throughout the panel, which was pretty cool. I've only seen the first Scream, and there are supposed to be more guests from the series next time, so maybe I should get caught up on that.

Next came Ray Santiago and Dana DeLorenzo from Ash vs. the Evil Dead, which I've never watched. I'm not against watching it, as I liked the original Evil Dead movies (Beth didn't, for what it's worth); but as it was, I didn't get much out of the session.

Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton, who were in Re-Animator and a few other films together, did the next panel. Barbara was in the back of the room (with her daughter, I think) before it started, and she walked past Beth and said, "Excuse me" on her way. We saw Re-Animator, but it's been a while. What I remember best was Jeffrey talking about how they were filming Castle Freak in Italy around the beginning of the O.J. Simpson trial, and there was a headline referring to O.J. as the new Othello. There was a wait before the next panel, and everyone who wasn't a VIP had to line up in the cold. I suspect they didn't alter the plans after they found out it was going to be below freezing. Fortunately, it wasn't for that long.

The panel for Dexter, had Erik King, C.S. Lee, and David Zayas, but not Michael C. Hall, even though he was there. Although I didn't actually look around the autograph rooms, apparently Anthony Michael Hall was at the convention as well, and I have no information as to whether anyone mixed them up. I remember, some years ago, someone told me I looked like Michael, which probably wasn't meant unkindly, but I'm not sure what I think of being compared to a guy known for playing a serial killer. I've never seen Dexter, but the panel was a pretty big draw.

Finally, we had four people involved with the Friday the 13th franchise: Warrington Gillette, Derek Mears, Steve Miner, and Kane Hodder. Warrington was the original Jason in Part 2, but the story I've heard is that he didn't want to do the stunts, so Steve Dash took over the role. Dash was a pretty regular Monster-Mania guest until his death a few years ago, and I don't think Gillette was before, and I have to suspect that wasn't a coincidence.

Masks and vaccinations weren't required at the convention, and I'm not sure that was the best idea, especially considering how tightly packed the seats were, but the authorities have long since stopped pretending to care. I didn't particularly want to wear a mask for that long anyway, but I would have if it had been recommended; I don't feel qualified to make these decisions for myself. As of last week, we no longer need to wear masks at our desks at work, although they're still required when dealing with the public and recommended in the hallways. The desks aren't that close together, and there aren't that many people in my office, so that's probably a good compromise. They still require masks on the subway, but I miss when they were uncrowded, although I guess the MTA wouldn't. It's weird how, even though mask rules stuck around for a while, everybody basically just stopped insisting on social distancing, I guess because it was difficult to enforce. I'm sure it was pretty much impossible on the subways.

Today is Pi Day, and five days ago was Mario Day, although both of those only work with the American way of writing dates, which really doesn't make a lot of sense. Speaking of things we do differently here, I just recently saw something online about how the letter pi is actually pronounced pretty much the same as our P in Greek. I've also seen people insist that omicron is pronounced with a short O, but Duolingo always uses a long one. So does Lrrr, for that matter.

Of course, it's pretty standard for foreign words to be pronounced differently when incorporated into another language, but while it's sometimes because a sound really isn't used in the new language, other times it seems totally arbitrary. But since the English P can also be used as a variable, maybe pi is pronounced differently on purpose. I didn't think until today to look up why that's what the number is called, but according to Wikipedia it's short for periphereia, meaning periphery or circumference. By the way, I also understand they skipped over xi when naming COVID variants so people wouldn't associate it with Xi Jinping, even though it's pronounced totally differently. They only ever talk about the really prominent variants on the news anyway, so it kind of seems like they went right from delta to omicron.

I actually did play a bit of a Mario game on Mario Day, specifically Paper Mario: The Origami King. I beat the Scissors on my second try, took a few to get through the first-person shooting segment with the airship cannon and the paper planes, and still haven't gotten through the part with a bunch of origami troops chasing you through a volcano.

There are too many ways to die instantly in this part of the game. Still, I haven't totally given up. I mean, I eventually finished that river rapids section. I realize that trying something until you get it right is a standard part of video games, but it can be so frustrating. In Animal Crossing: New Horizons, I finally managed to get some star fragments after looking up how to wish on shooting stars. I also have some Pisces fragments, but Celeste hasn't given me a recipe that uses those. I checked up on where I left off on Final Fantasy IX, and I'm up to Deathguise, one of the last few bosses. He totally kicked my party's butts, though, so I'm going to have to level up some more before trying that again. From what I've seen online, he's kind of a wake-up call in that respect. And because I apparently don't have enough games already in progress, I started on Dragon Quest Builders, which Beth gave me for our anniversary.

We've been pretty busy recently. This past Thursday was my birthday, but I couldn't think of anything to do, and figured it was one of the few days I didn't have to go anywhere. What do people do for their birthdays anyway, other than going out to eat? I think the last time I had a birthday party was when I turned eight. Not that I really want to, but at the same time it makes me sad to think of how there's hardly anyone I could invite. The day before that, we visited the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, where we saw a lot of fall foliage, including in the bonsai room at the conservatory.

The rose garden had several non-rose plants, but there were a few roses still blooming.

They had a few things set up for the upcoming Lightscape, which we should be seeing next month.

On Friday, we drove down to my dad's house. His girlfriend's birthday is the same day as mine, and my nephew's is the next day (he's four now), so he invited us down there to celebrate. Not that we did that much celebrating, but I did see people I hadn't seen in a while. My uncle was staying there, and my brother and his son came over. My dad had also raised the possibility of going to Hersheypark, which I agreed to. This makes four amusement parks for Beth and me this year.

They had started up the Christmas Candylane thing, so they had some decorations around the park, and the Carrousel was playing Christmas music.

I always feel a little weird doing Christmas-related stuff before December, although I guess that's kind of an arbitrary time limit. It was more crowded than we would have thought, and also colder. In addition to the Carrousel, we rode the train, the Claw (a pendulum ride), Wildcat, Wild Mouse, Whip, Ferris Wheel, and Laff Trakk.

My dad, his girlfriend, and my uncle arrived later than we did and left earlier, but we did ride two rides together. We didn't really know what the Laff Trakk was, and the line was slow-moving, with funhouse mirrors on some of the walls the line wound past. It turned out to be an indoor roller coaster with cars that spun around sometimes.

That sure is a visible uvula!
It was similar to the Exterminator at Kennywood, but nowhere near as rough. The Wild Mouse was the roughest thing we rode that day. A lot of the rides weren't even running, although maybe the Comet could have been if Santa hadn't chosen to land his sleigh there. What were you thinking, St. Nick?

Come to think of it, Comet is the name of one of the reindeer. After leaving the park, Beth and I ate at the Cocoa Diner, where we'd also gone last year. We met my mom and sister for dinner the next day, and my sister-in-law was at my dad's earlier that day. As far as presents go, I got a Kindle Paperwhite from Beth, a stuffed Wiggler from my brother, and a book of Kirby art from Beth's Uncle John.

Yesterday, we had tickets to see the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall. We went with Tavie, and none of the three of us had seen it before. My dad was talking about how he saw the show when he was a teenager. I expect it's changed some since then, but I don't know that the sensibility has; it's pretty old-fashioned.

The Rockettes came out in a few different outfits, the weirdest being a group of toy soldiers who were eventually shot with a cannon and...killed, I guess. It ended with them all slowly collapsing. Kind of dark, really. Another segment had a bunch of dancing Santas. We'd been previously alerted to the meta-referential nature of part of the show, with Santa saying at the beginning that he had to go to Radio City, and the set including a facade of the outside of the building. The whole "New York City is awesome!" angle makes it seem like it's mostly geared to tourists, which Beth and I would have been before 2015. There were a lot of projections, and a scene with Santa flying in his sleigh was in 3D, with glasses provided. Another oddity is that it was secular most of the way through, then suddenly at the end, they had a nativity scene and Wise Men. We were originally supposed to sit in the balcony, but when we got there they upgraded us to the orchestra, presumably because not that many people want to see the show before Thanksgiving. The angle where I was sitting did cut off the R when they had a light-up sign reading "Rockettes." Would the Ockettes be Dr. Octopus' dancing girls? When we got home after the show, we found out they were going to do work on the garage in our building, so I had to find a place to put my car until after work today. I drove around for a while looking for a space on the street, then Beth suggested I use a nearby public garage. I don't know how people who regularly park on the street manage it. I didn't even keep my car in the city until we had a permanent parking spot, except occasionally when I needed to drive and would sometimes spend over an hour driving around the streets, which I had to repeat if they were doing street sweeping.

Today has been pretty uneventful, which gives me a chance to catch up on a few things. Well, "catch up" might be a bit generous. I've had little time recently to play video games, practice guitar, or write posts; and I've done a little of all three this evening. I did have a birthday party in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and I'll try to participate in the Thanksgiving dinner if I have time. There's a mythology post I've been working on but haven't finished, and there are new They Might Be Giants and Tori Amos albums that I've listened to but haven't had the chance to fully absorb.

On Wednesday, the day of the equinox, Beth and I attended Moonrise, a fundraiser at Green-Wood Cemetery.

They had musical acts and refreshment stands throughout the place, and you could go inside the catacombs and a mausoleum.

The music in the catacombs was pretty weird, avant-garde stuff with the performers coming and going. At one point there was just a trombone, then a bassoon and some other woodwind instrument were added in.

It was kind of difficult to find the way around. Staff would give directions, but since all the paths there wind around a lot, they weren't always easy to follow. And while most of the ways to relevant places were lit up, not all of them were.

Occasionally there were signs that just said "This Way" and nothing else, like we were in a cartoon.

The Bindlestiff Family Cirkus performed throughout the evening, and we saw some contortionists, acrobats, and a sword swallower.

We also got to ride the trolley, which is actually a bus made to look like a trolley, as there aren't any trolley tracks. Wine tasting was included with the price of admission, but I generally don't care for wine and Beth only wanted a little bit, so that wasn't of much use to us in particular. They did have Pepperidge Farm Chessmen, which reminded me of my childhood. I think I used to like them more for the design than the taste, which isn't to say they were bad; they're just pretty standard butter cookies. I still eat cheddar Goldfish crackers all the time. Pepperidge Farm has its headquarters in Connecticut, but they actually used to have a factory in my hometown, although it's long since closed. I'm sure they remember.

Futurama did this joke first, but it was all audio.

We haven't really done much of anything this weekend, as Beth isn't feeling well and I usually don't go out on my own unless there's a really good reason. I've started going into the office full-time again, and while I'm sure I'll get a little more used to it over time, it now kind of feels like I've been working a week when it's only been a day or two. And it's not even the work itself that's tiring, just the whole production. I did want to mention my weird dream last night about Animal Crossing. There was some argument over Thanksgiving dinner (I saw a picture on Tumblr yesterday with the turkey character from the game, so that might well have inspired this part), so Tom Nook trapped everyone, including my character, in a pit. There was some way to manipulate things to flood the town, and it ended up not hurting anybody but just changing the landscape. I still play New Horizons when I get the chance, but since I've paid off my house and built the necessary bridges and inclines to make everything accessible, I'm not totally sure what to do other than just wander around. I probably should reorganize my house sometime; it's a shame that even in a completed house, you can only display a little bit of everything you collect. I also haven't collected any bamboo or star fragments, which are necessary for some do-it-yourself projects.

I'm sure anyone who cares knows that they released a partial cast list for the upcoming animated Super Mario Bros. movie, and the general consensus I've seen on social media is that it's annoying how they mostly chose celebrities over professional voice actors. And Chris Pratt isn't too popular a choice since it's come out how he's a right-wing homophobe, but I'm sure the majority of moviegoers neither know nor care about that. It is kind of difficult to imagine Charles Martinet's Mario voice being used throughout a full-length picture, but I'm also not saying he couldn't have done it.

Source
I do like that Foreman Spike is in it, as he's a bit of an obscure pull.

There seems to be a major trend these days of people guessing what will be in upcoming media based simply on a trailer or even less, and while I have no problem with people doing that if it's fun for them, I feel such articles or videos have a very short shelf life. I did notice that most of the characters confirmed so far are from earlier games, which COULD mean it's only going to cover things up through the first SMB game, but that's a huge supposition at this point. As a connoisseur of Mario-related media, I have to say that most of it isn't, strictly speaking, all that good. But a lot of it is still FUN, and I hope the film is as well.

For our third day at Walt Disney World, which was Leap Day and our anniversary, we visited Epcot, which is officially no longer spelled with all capital letters. I had remembered it from the last visit as involving a lot of walking, and while that was still true, it seemed easier to get around than the others. Hollywood Studios is the smallest park, but I found myself getting lost all the time there. Anyway, the first thing we rode was Soarin', which was there in 2008, but I didn't get to go on it then. It's reminiscent of earlier virtual reality rides and IMAX movies, but with better effects. Patrick Warburton does the introductory video, and the ride itself gives the illusion of flying over places around the world. You get really close to a lot of people and animals just going about their business, which would be pretty terrifying for them if it were real. Then we rode Living with the Land, an environmentally themed boat ride sponsored by Chiquita, perhaps as consolation after they lost the Adventureland frozen treat contract to Dole. A lot of the food they use at the parks is grown or raised there, at least if the narration was accurate. When they said that about the fish, I couldn't help thinking, "One day when de boss get hungry, guess who goin' be on the plate." I like fish, though, and shellfish perhaps even more. I just think Disney sometimes sends mixed messages. Then came Journey Into Imagination, a multimedia ride hosted by Eric Idle and a mischievous little dragon named Figment.


I believe we went into at least one building in every country at the World Showcase on our first visit, but since we had a FastPass for Spaceship Earth and a dinner reservation at the Coral Reef that evening, we skipped some of them this time. Sorry, Mexico! I wouldn't have minded doing the Three Caballeros boat ride again, but we weren't sure about the timing. We remembered the bake shop in Norway having good pastries, so we got some this time as well.

I'm bothered that they replaced the Maelstrom, the troll-heavy boat ride, with a Frozen-themed one. Sure, Arendelle was INSPIRED by Norway, but it isn't really the same place! And yeah, I know they have Aladdin-themed stuff in Morocco when Agrabah would pretty much have to be in or near Saudi Arabia (although the original Aladdin story is set in China and mentions Baghdad), but it's not as heavily emphasized there. Dorothea suggested that Japan might be the most fun for shopping, and they also had a kawaii exhibit that had a few things relevant to my interests, including Tom Nook and a Dragon Quest Slime.

We saw the movie at the American Adventure, which had apparently changed since last time, although I don't remember it well enough to say how. Probably something to do with the Native American complaining about how white people ruined the place, when most of it seemed very much in favor of European colonization. The Canada film no longer has Martin Short narrating; I don't know if his contract ran out or what.
It turned out that we really didn't need the FastPasses for Spaceship Earth, as there was hardly any line at that point, but how would we have known that a month in advance? We didn't go on Test Track or Mission: Space this time, and Ellen's Energy Adventure is no longer there. At the Coral Reef, I actually had cioppino for the second time that week, although it had some different stuff in it.

I first saw this restaurant on Full House, which kind of sucks, as I kept thinking about Joey being afraid to get out of the fish tank.

Don't ruin my experience, crappy nineties sitcoms! Right near there was The Seas with Nemo and Friends, the last thing we did that day other than trying to watch fireworks that ended up being too far away.