Stratovania

23 November was the beginning of Great Adventure's Holiday in the Park. They were only open for seven hours, but we ended up coming in about an hour after they opened and leaving before closing. We were both really tired towards the end.

A whole section of the park was closed, but we did go on nine different rides.

I believe Kingda Ka and Green Lantern are closing for good, and the Skyride is no longer operational.

The Teacups were decorated as Gingerbread Twist, but they weren't playing holiday music on the Carousel.

It did play "Dixie," a song that would be fun if it weren't for all the historical baggage. There were several spots where you could take pictures with holiday-themed characters. The ones I had pictures of were the Snow Queen and King and the Poinsettia Prince and Princess, not exactly holiday heavy hitters, but their outfits were cute.


We spent Thanksgiving at Beth's mom's house, as per usual. We didn't really do anything on the day other than have dinner, or at least I didn't. On the following day, we went to the Creamy Acres Night of Lights, which was pretty much the same as usual, although they might have made it a bit longer. We rode in the wagon, and it was colder than I expected it to be. They still had Santa firing a pretzel from a cannon into a bag, which seems like an inefficient way of loading things.

He was also riding in a hot air balloon, playing baseball, and ski jumping.

The guy has a lot of hobbies. There were also some indoor displays, but when I say "indoor," the doors were open and it was cold.

These nutcrackers were certainly feeling it.

This section had a bunch of characters from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and A Charlie Brown Christmas, and a lot of stand-ins (apparently what those pictures with the holes for faces are called).

They were made with little kids in mind, however, so we had to duck down for some of them.

They had some cows and a goat, but they stayed inside their shelters, which was a good idea on their parts.


On Saturday night, we met up with Stephanie, who was in town between flights, and ate at a place called Lulla. I had the agnolotti, which was pasta stuffed with cheese, covered with bolognese sauce. Then we saw a late-night showing of Gladiator II, but I already wrote about that.

We don't have the cats with us here this week, which is weird and kind of sad.

It does mean I don't have to refill the food or water for a while, though. I'm anxious about how many things we have to do in December. On my calendar, I have two doctors' appointments, Kevin Geeks Out, They Might Be Giants, and Micky Dolenz. I also need to get a new car, and while there isn't a particular time period for that as I don't drive that much, it would be nice to do that before the inspection for my current car is due. And that's not counting shopping, or getting a tree, or watching relevant media. Yes, some of those things are for fun, but there's still hassle involved. I've been playing Octopath Traveler a lot recently, but most of it has just been leveling up. There are some major difficulty spikes in that game. I did finally beat Miguel, but most of the other third chapters haven't been working out for me.

It's been ages since I wrote a life update post. I have a draft saved of something I wrote at the end of April, so I'm going to incorporate that, but not lead with it. I think the most significant thing is that Beth's uncle's dog Mabel died last week. She was one of a litter of three, one of whom was adopted by Beth and the third by another uncle; but Clancy stayed in South Jersey when we moved to Secaucus and then Brooklyn.

He's the only one who's still alive, and he's not doing that well. They're three-quarters Chihuahua and one-quarter Jack Russell Terrier, but it's Clancy who shows the latter the most. He's still nervous like a Chihuahua, but he's stocky instead of tiny. Mabel was a sweet girl, if a little too eager to assert her authority when she thought other pets were after her stuff. When Nellie lived there, she took a liking to Mabel and tried to play with her, but she wasn't that interested. So anyway, that's really sad. Poor little Mabel.


The last two times we visited Beth's family, we took both cats down with us. Felix is pretty outgoing when he's down there, but getting him into the cat carrier is difficult. He's surprisingly slippery for such a big cat. The time before last, when we were trying to leave, Nellie hid under a pile of bags, and I'm not sure she would have been able to get out on her own. When she's not scared, she spends a lot of time lying on her side, often in doorways.


On Sunday, 28 April, we made a trip to Great Adventure. We have season passes, and had to get them redeemed. As it was, we got there pretty late, and didn't have the chance to ride much stuff. We were further frustrated by how so many rides now won't just let you leave your stuff on the side when you get on. Two years ago, this was the case with the Joker and Jersey Devil, but I figured that was because they were rides that didn't stop to let the passengers on. But now it's also the case with Superman, which was never like that before. There are lockers you can use at each ride, but they cost money, and that seems like a cash grab. We haven't been back since then, and we need to in order to get our money's worth. The fact that it's been oppressively hot recently has not been conducive to theme park visits. We also want to go back to Knoebels at some point, and to Knotts Berry Farm when we're in California for OzCon.


The Saturday before last was the Mermaid Parade on Coney Island, which we attended despite the heat. It was pretty harsh, but not as much so as I'd heard predicted, so I guess that's something. I always take a lot of pictures and have trouble deciding which are my favorites. I did notice a few recurring themes that I used when sharing pictures on Instagram, including rockets, ships, sharks, environmentalism, and food and drinks.

I recognized the mermaid in the wheelbarrow from last year.

There were also at least two different Ursulas, someone with a bird head and an egg, a family of goldfish, Frog Mario, and Prince with tentacles (Octoprince?).

We had hot dogs from Nathan's before the parade, which worked out a lot better than trying to get them afterwards. There used to be a Nathan's cart near where I worked, but I haven't seen it there since the pandemic. And I saw this guy with Luigi's body and Mario's clothes, but not as part of the parade.

I did get more engagement on Instagram than is typical for me, but I guess I'd also look for pictures of myself if I were in the parade. I'm also on Threads now, although that's basically just an extension of Facebook and Instagram, isn't it? Bluesky is my main Twitter substitute now, and even there I probably post more replies than original thoughts. I pretty much just put links to my posts on actual Twitter these days. (And yeah, I know it's technically not Twitter anymore, but does anyone who doesn't own stock in it call it X?)

I've reached the part in Final Fantasy X where I got to ride an airship and meet this game's version of Cid.

I did take note of something that seems to happen a lot in video games, which TV Tropes calls Gameplay and Story Segregation, where the party's strength in a cutscene doesn't really match up with what happens in battle. You fight several guys with guns on the way to reach where Yuna is being held captive, then one guy with one gun stops the whole group from approaching her. And why do both this and FF9 have a part where your healer is out of commission?

I guess that's all for now. I want to write something about the screwed-up situation in American politics, but that should probably get its own post. For now, I'll leave you with Beth and Slowpoke.

We brought our new cat, Felix, back from the shelter the Friday before last. I assume he's named after the cartoon, but I can't say I know too much about it, other than that he has a bag of tricks. I haven't seen this guy use such a bag, but maybe that's the trick. The first few days, he hid under the bed most of the time, and Nellie was hissing and growling at him. I know that can be a thing for cats, but I was hoping it wouldn't with her, since she was still a kitten and usually gets along with everybody. She did eventually stop, however, and now she tends to follow him around.

He's gotten better about exploring the apartment as well, although I still have an unfortunate tendency to startle him. Beth thinks it's because I move around loudly. If he's in a calmer mood, he really likes to be petted, and will lean into your hand. He's a very handsome cat. It takes a lot of stress off my mind that I know he's eating, drinking, and using the litterbox. I know he eats Nellie's kitten food even though I've put out regular cat food for him, but I can't really avoid that unless I feed Nellie at specific times, and that's a hassle. I don't think it's hurting him to eat kitten food, but it means I have to buy it more frequently.


On Thursday, we saw the Kevin Geeks Out show about mental health at the Nitehawk Cinema in Prospect Park, the easier one to get to. It seemed shorter than usual, and there was no Kindest Cut. Whether it actually WAS shorter, I don't know. But anyway, it was fun. There was discussion on how media, especially back in the eighties and nineties, tended to show mental illness that didn't reflect any actual disorders, or if someone does have a diagnosis, they show totally unrelated symptoms. They also have an uncanny ability and desire to help seemingly normal people. One of Kevin Maher's bits was about psychiatric professionals in horror movies, and how they're usually portrayed as awful, examples being Nightbreed, Friday the 13th Part VII, Cult of Chucky, and Poltergeist III, in the latter being used in a way that pretty much contradicts the first movie. He ended it by saying that the doctor in Nightmare on Elm Street 3 is much better, but also looks like Bill Maher.

One thing I've seen mentioned before that I don't think came up at the show was how fictional media rarely make distinctions between psychologists and psychiatrists; therapists are always prescribing medicine. I guess this is just to make things simpler. Max Bank did an in-character segment as an acting coach who teaches method acting for portraying the mentally ill. Another presentation was about how characters in shows for young children are often way more chipper than they were back in the seventies or so, complete with clips of how Daniel Striped Tiger from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood being incredibly depressed. I'm sure this is the kind of thing that goes in cycles to some degree and doesn't apply to every kids' show, but it was an interesting look. And there was a game where the audience guessed whether a particular brand had ever said anything about mental health on social media.

Beth and I saw two Kids in the Hall earlier this month, and both of them made fun of the other. Kevin McDonald did a stand-up set at the New York Comedy Club on Monday the 5th. He mostly told stories, some of which I'd heard before. According to him, most stories comedians tell have details changed, so they're like making lemonade, while his are just lemons. On Saturday, we went with Beth's Uncle John to the City Winery in Philadelphia, where Scott Thompson did several Buddy Cole monologues, including some new ones that Amazon considered inappropriate for the new episodes they did last year. There was one about drag queen story hours, and how those were two things that didn't go together. I've wondered myself how that concept came about; I have no problem with it, but it does seem to come out of left field. He did one apologizing to aliens, and mentioned the anal probing jokes from KITH, and said that were all by Kevin and Dave Foley, not him. I was curious as to how many people realized that his bit about Ra masturbating out the other gods was a genuine Egyptian creation myth. Probably more than I thought, but I was still kind of proud to have noticed that. The thing about cereal magnate John Harvey Kellogg being fervently opposed to masturbation is also true, and kind of seems like it shouldn't be. On the other hand, "Kubla Khan" was not written by Omar Khayyam. After that show, we ate at a Chinese restaurant, after trying two that were closed. It WAS the New Year, I guess. The one where we ended up going had a robotic podium with a cat face that the staff used. I wanted to get a picture of it, but didn't. I do have a picture of a cotton candy machine from the same place.

I drove into Philadelphia in a borrowed car, because mine was getting repairs. They needed some kind of tool to remove some bolts in the engine, and it must have been really difficult to get, as it took a few weeks. It's probably one more issue with having an old car, although it's difficult for me to think of 2009 as old. I finally got my car back last week.

I started on Mounjaro recently, and it causes me to have much less of an appetite. That's probably good for blood sugar, and for money because I tend to buy a lot of snacks. But when you're used to eating a certain amount and you no longer can, it feels like a waste. I've been trying to adjust somewhat.

We're considering getting another cat to keep Nellie company, but so far it hasn't happened. We visited a cat cafe and a shelter, and were supposed to bring her to see some other cats last weekend (the email called it a "meet and greet," which makes it sound like these cats are celebrities), but they both caught a cold. Nellie tries to play with everything, so a playmate would probably be a good idea, but who knows how she'd get along with another cat? I wonder what she thinks of me. She does sometimes lie next to me in bed and purr, so I suppose that's a good sign. She's not as talkative as Wally and Reagan were, at least as of yet.

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.

I guess the first thing I should mention is that we sort of have a new cat, and I say "sort of" because she's not living with us yet. Beth's mom got a kitten from her sister's farm, intending to give her to us, but we should kitten-proof our apartment before bringing her to Brooklyn. Anyway, I named her Nellie, and so far she mostly seems interested in running around and playing. She's very active, and hasn't yet shown much interest in just sitting with people. She doesn't seem afraid of anybody, though. I feel bad that she wants to play with the dogs, but they're not interested.


Beth and I both had our birthdays last week. On the day after hers, we had a pretty busy day, visiting the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, eating at a cafe, attending a lecture at Green-Wood Cemetery, and seeing a movie.

The lecture was about cremation, including its history and how it was done at that location. It's been standard in India for ages, but it took some time to catch elsewhere, including in the Americas. Even though the Pope has said it's okay, it's apparently still not popular in Catholic families. There was a time when there was a theological debate over whether bodily resurrection would be possible with ashes. Now it's probably just a matter of tradition. They also mentioned that it's not very energy efficient, and involves burning fossil fuels. I don't see any reason to preserve my body after I'm dead, but I guess that's more a decision for anyone still alive who might care than for me. I haven't yet made my post about the movie Thanksgiving, but I should have it up soon. I didn't do anything on my birthday except going out to eat at the Olive Garden; I feel we went out to do stuff so often in October that I was a little burned out, and didn't have any ideas anyway.

Presents I received included two Carl Barks collections, the newest Belle and Sebastian album, and the book Fight, Magic, Items by Aidan Moher, which is about Japanese role-playing video games from a Western perspective.

Beth also bought me the Switch remake of Super Mario RPG while we were at Target. I finished the original back in the early 2000s, and I remember it being frustrating in parts, but I'm sure it'll be fun to revisit when I get around to it. I kind of got stuck in I Am Setsuna, so I've put that aside for the time being. And I started Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, but haven't gotten very far as of yet. It's cute, but I've had a little trouble with the battle system. And I'm still playing Animal Crossing, and I did the Turkey Day thing on Thursday. I realized I hadn't planted any white pumpkins on my island, so that's been taken care of. I also got "K.K. Birthday," which I think is the last of the K.K. Slider songs in the game, but I don't think there's any reward for that.

Super Mario Wonder looks fascinating, but as much as I love Mario, I'm not great at platform games.

Beth's mom made Thanksgiving dinner for us, and we were originally going to go to Creamy Acres for the Christmas hayride on Friday, but she wasn't feeling well. We'll try to do it some other weekend. We did have lunch with my mom, sister, sister-in-law, and nephew today. I've done a little bit of Christmas shopping, but not that much.

Our cat Reagan died this evening. She's been with us a long time, and it's going to be so weird not having her around. Beth adopted her in January 2007 (on my parents' anniversary, actually, although they were no longer married at that point), and I wasn't living with her at the time, but I still visited a lot. Her other cat, Wally, was reaching under the door and meowing when she was isolated in a room. He always seemed attached to her, but she usually ignored him except when they were fighting. Soon after that, when she had her leg shaved for a needle at the vet, Beth decided that, together with her feisty attitude, she was a punk rock girl. We never tested it to see if that was really the kind of music she preferred, but it fit. She had a thick undercoat and shed a lot, and her tail bent in ways I don't see from most cats. It also seemed like she didn't have as much feeling in her tail, as you could play with it and she wouldn't care. She hated being picked up, though. There was a white patch below her chin, which we called her pretty spot (even though she was pretty all over). She was very vocal, often loudly meowing for attention, and purring noisily as well. She really took a liking to Beth's Uncle John, but later on she got really attached to me, getting excited when I was around. That might have been because I was the one who usually bought food, but I'll take it. Between that and her nagging me a lot, Beth told me Rea was my other wife. It seemed like she had more respect for me than for Beth, as she frequently walked over Beth's body, and rarely did the same with mine. But who really knows what she was thinking? She loved people food, and sometimes tried to steal it. It's not surprising that she liked chicken and cream cheese (not together), but she'd also eat muffin crumbs. That said, she could also be very picky, sometimes rejecting foods we thought she'd like, and only eating dry food when there was no other option. She developed some health problems as she got older, kidney issues and a dust allergy. A few months ago, high blood pressure made her retinas detach, and while the ophthalmologist we saw said there was a chance they could reattach, they never did. After that, she had trouble getting around the apartment, and often seemed confused about where she was. While she still enjoyed attention, she no longer jumped up on furniture or came to see us, instead spending most of her time in a bed on the floor. And she was on so much medicine that she resented taking, including subcutaneous fluids. Yesterday, she had an appointment with the eye doctor on the Upper East Side, so we drove her up there, and the doctor told us we needed to take her to an emergency room. She was dehydrated, had low blood pressure, and wasn't able to stand up. So we took her to our regular vet, who is in our neighborhood. After keeping her overnight, he said there was nothing he could do for her, so we had her euthanized. This is the first time either of us had gone through that; all of our other pets had died naturally. It was incredibly sad, but I'm glad we could be there with her for her last moments. We knew she probably wasn't going to last much longer, but it was still quite sudden. I'm not sure what Wally thinks of her no longer being around. He's seemed a bit off since we brought her to the vet for the last time, but he's twenty years old and it's hot and humid, so I don't know whether that's the reason why. I don't think he's used to being an only cat, however. Even before Beth adopted him, he was in a cage with two other cats, presumably his sisters. But I know we all loved her very much.

The weekend before last, Beth and I went to South Jersey, where we saw a movie and went to her cousin-once-removed's fourth birthday party. I don't have much to say about it, but the food there was good. And on Tuesday, we visited a ghost town in New Jersey, but we didn't see any ghosts. Or are you not supposed to be able to see them? I don't know.

The town was called Feltville, because it was founded by a guy named David Felt, who owned a mill at the bottom of the hill, somewhere in the general area of this brook.

There are a few houses that have been preserved, as well as one gravestone that predates Felt, but the mill itself is long gone.

I understand they sometimes rent out the barn for events.

The town was abandoned more than once, the last time being in the 1960s. Several people were walking their dogs there, and at least two of them weren't even on leashes. We also saw Lake Surprise, which was nearby, but we'd prepared for it so the name wasn't accurate for us. We ate dinner at a diner in the area, and ice cream at a place called McCool's. I wonder if it was named after Fionn. I didn't notice any Salmon of Knowledge flavored ice cream, but the polar bear in the window might well have liked that.

I had strawberry cheesecake flavor, which I remember liking as a kid but hadn't had in years. I think it's too aggressively sweet for me now.

We have our reservations and flights planned out for OzCon at the end of July, and I've reread The Cowardly Lion of Oz, which is one of the themes of the convention this year. The other is Oz in animation. Is there anything I should watch beforehand? I believe the Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz series geared toward young kids is only available if you pay for Boomerang. Is the Lion of Oz movie any good? I haven't read the book it's based on either, but I have heard the feature is better than the book. I've also written something for the program book, and I'm supposed to write a quiz. That shouldn't be too hard, but I also have to come up with some kind of prize.

We've been giving Reagan fluid subcutaneously for her kidneys. I don't know if it's related, but in the past few days she's been walking awkwardly and hasn't been jumping. We'll have to take her to the vet if this keeps up, but I'm hoping it won't come to that. It's expensive having senior cats.

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.

On the last Friday in September, we did a Halloween event, which was the haunted stuff at Creamy Acres that we do every year. It's a hayride plus a few walkthroughs, and they insist that you do the hayride first, even though that would probably make for a better cool-down.

See?
I didn't notice any major changes since last time, but it's not like I commit all this to memory. I did think about how, within the context of the fantasy, haunted hayrides are kind of weird. You're riding in this wagon, and the driver insists on constantly stopping where scary things can threaten you and sometimes climb on with you. Is the driver supposed to be in on it, or do they not even enter into the fiction? It's also worth noting that most of the hayrides I've been on in recent years didn't have any hay. The one in Delaware last year was an exception, but that one was during the day and not haunted. When we were in the gift shop, there were three cats just kind of hanging around. They didn't seem to be particularly bothered by all the strange people, although they did run if someone got too close.

A buff-colored cat was sitting on a box that was pretty much the same color he was.


I already wrote about the Oz event I saw at the Groliers Club a week ago, so I'll skip ahead to Thursday, and the Kevin Geeks Out at the Nitehawk Cinema in Williamsburg. I have to say the one in Prospect Park is easier for me to get to. This was the Spooky Spectacular, so presentations were horror-themed.

It started with a supercut of scenes from the Nightmare on Elm Street films involving Freddy Krueger's tongue. Kevin Maher and Joe Dator, who had collaborated on the book Santa Doesn't Need Your Help, did sort of a follow-up with a story of Dracula getting testicular cancer. Other presentations included Adam Howard on what media scared him as a kid, Gwendolyn Baily on how to enjoy Halloween when you have mental illness, Tenebrous Kate on foreign adaptations of Dracula, an animated horror short from Wally Chung involving elk and trolls in the mountains, Twiggs Gorey on Latin horror figures, and a burlesque routine by Persé Fanny based on It. The Kindest Cut was a Halloween episode of Walker: Texas Ranger, and Kevin pointed out afterwards that the pentagram they kept showing in it looked a lot like the Texas Ranger badge.

This weekend, we went to two different amusement parks, Knoebels in Elysburg, Pennsylvania, and Dorney Park in Allentown. We did that same two-day trip last year, but this was the first time we went to either for the Halloween season. Most parks come up with their own name for the fall activities; Knoebels used Hallo-Fun and Dorney Halloween Haunt. I thought about how it seems pretty common nowadays to parse the name of the holiday as "hallo" and "ween," when it derives from "hallow evening." But Beth said "Hallow-Fun" would make it sound too religious, and it's not like it really matters anyway.

Before we went to the park, we stopped at a nearby coffee shop in a converted church, which was surprisingly twee for an area with so much Republican propaganda.

They had a little museum and a music store, although the latter was closed that day.

Knoebels was surprisingly crowded, and Beth said she overheard someone say they'd been there over sixty times and hardly ever seen it like that. There was a really long line for the train, which had Halloween decorations set up, mostly a lot of skeletons. We rode on it once in the daytime and once at night, so I do have pictures, but not of everything being lit up.

The thing is, aside from that ride, it seemed like the lines were mostly shorter after dark. The Phoenix, the last thing we rode, also had some spooky stuff in its tunnel, which had a jack o' lantern face on its mouth as well. They have a ride called the Cosmotron, and their mascot is named Kosmo, so why isn't the ride name spelled with a K? I guess that's just a coincidence. I did think it worth noting that, both last year and on Saturday, they played Justin Bieber while the ride was running. The carousel had a mix of spooky songs for the band organ, but it seemed pretty short, as we kept hearing "Purple People Eater" over and over again.


At Dorney, we rode most of the rides they had, skipping a few that were basically just the same as at other parks, and still left about an hour before they closed.

We rode Possessed, the roller coaster that goes back and forth along two tracks, for the first time. There's a pirate ship outside the ride, but I don't know that the ride itself is pirate themed.

The lines in the daytime were very short, and while it got more crowded at night due to the haunted attractions, it still wasn't that bad. There were a few areas that had fog and employees in costumes, but they also closed a few of the rides that had been running earlier. Dorney is a small park that kind of seems bigger than it is because it has so many dead ends and paths that don't just go straight through like you might expect. That was even worse with the haunted areas set up along some of the paths. I think it was also the first time I'd seen a Ferris Wheel with seatbelts. I wonder if something happened on it in the recent past.