Stratovania

After OzCon ended on Sunday, we rested for a while back at the motel, and then went to get dinner at a place called Joey with Stephanie. I had a crispy chicken sandwich. She wasn't feeling well, and we were still tired after all that Ozzing, so we went our separate ways after that. We did see her dog Chelsea for a few minutes, though. On Monday, our flight was late at night and we had to check out of the motel at 11, so we stopped a few places mostly to kill time. One was a comic shop in Burbank called House of Secrets, which we'd seen on the way there.

It's at the intersection of Lamer Street, which must have been some jock's idea. (I'm kind of behind the times with my jokey stereotypes, aren't I?)

Comic stores generally tend to have interesting decor, a mix of various pop cultural figures.


Moe Szyslak was scowling at customers next to a Rom the Space Knight omnibus, and there was stained glass window of Mjolnir.

I bought two Disney comics before leaving. Then we ate at a Sizzler, another restaurant we used to have in the northeast, but not anymore. I remember going to one near Sesame Place. And this child on a poster was right about the cheese toast.

There was a convertible with a teddy bear in it in the parking lot, but we never found out any details behind it.

Our next stop was the Travel Town Museum in Griffith Park.

It's focused on the railroads of the area, and is mostly free, although the train ride does cost money. It's not an actual historical train, but more like one at an amusement park.

There was an exhibit on Fred Harvey, the train hospitality magnate, and there's kind of an Oz connection there as Judy Garland was in a movie called The Harvey Girls.

The song "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe" was written for it.

While there, I bought a bottle of orange cream soda. Later, we stopped at a game store called Geeky Teas and Games, which is also a cat rescue. There was a sign on the door of one room that said not to meow at the kittens, and I assume it was meant for me specifically.

Tabletop role-playing was something I always thought I'd probably have gotten into if I'd had friends growing up. Dungeons & Dragons has been so influential on the fantasy genre that concepts from it are pretty much unavoidable for me. I ended up buying Mille Bornes, a game I played a lot as a kid, and an Owlbear charm.

That kind of seems like a creature that would appear in an Oz book, doesn't it? No tea, geeky or otherwise, however. I overheard someone mentioning the Magic: The Gathering/Final Fantasy cards, for which I've seen a lot of cool art online recently.

Then we met up with Paul and Carolyn, whom we met at OzCon last year. They also brought dogs, three of them in fact. We got pizza and visited some filming sites in the area, specifically Michael Myers' house from Halloween and Pee-wee Herman's from Big Adventure, both of which had since been painted.

On the way back to the airport, we stopped at Randy's Donuts for the first time.

The doughnut that Homer Simpson used to stop the monorail is based on their sign, but I didn't know that back when that episode aired. We got to the airport later than we intended, and as it's difficult to sleep on a plane, we were awake for a long time before finally getting home. And it's way hotter here in Brooklyn than it was in LA, so we probably should have just stayed, but I do have a job, and my stuff is here.

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 spent our second day at Walt Disney World at the Magic Kingdom, the keystone of the place. We did a fair amount, although it's disappointing that there was so much we didn't get to do. For one thing, we couldn't go inside the castle. Other things we missed include Dumbo, Pirates of the Caribbean, Under the Sea-Journey of the Little Mermaid (not to be confused with the similarly named Voyage of the Little Mermaid at Hollywood Studios), the Seven Dwarfs' Mine Train (we knew we wouldn't have time for that one, but still, I'd like to ride it someday), and the Jungle Cruise. Speaking of that last one, we heard a boat sank there the previous day, and people were calling Dorothea to see if she was all right. Of course, we were at a different park that day. I think ducks sank the boat, so now I guess they'll have to add a scene where ducks attack the Rock and Emily Blunt in that upcoming movie. There were technical difficulties on several rides, although they didn't last long and I don't know how often such things happen. The first thing we rode was the Haunted Mansion, and people were leaving because they'd heard it broke down, but they had it up and running again pretty quickly.

There's a store near the Mansion called Memento Mori, where Beth bought a new collar for Clancy.

Their specialty seems to be the ghosts in bottles, but we didn't get any of those. Our FastPasses were for the Mansion, Space Mountain, and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. After the first ride, we went to Mickey's PhilHarmagic, another multimedia show with 3D glasses (or, as Goofy called them, "opry glasses").

Despite the name, Mickey Mouse only appears at the beginning and end. Most of it centers around Donald Duck borrowing Mickey's sorcerer's hat without permission (which is what Mickey himself did in Fantasia, but maybe he's gotten his own since then), then having to chase it through recreations of famous musical sequences from animated films. We had lunch at the Pinocchio Village Haus.

Why the German spelling for a place that serves mostly Americanized Italian food and is based on an Italian story? I guess it kind of goes along with the movie, since Geppetto has an Italian name but a bit of a German accent. Next came the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, which had a long wait for a short ride. There's an application that says how long the waits are, but it was off for this one, and I'm not sure why. They did make an effort to make the line interesting, though, with a lot of stuff to see and a place for kids to play.

For the ride, you take a honey pot through a retelling of the Blustery Day cartoon that made up part of Many Adventures, and was in turn an amalgamation of a few different A.A. Milne stories. It includes Pooh's Heffalumps and Woozles dream, a psychedelic scene very reminiscent of Dumbo's pink elephants. Pooh was pretty much the first franchise I was a fan of, so I'm glad I got to go on this even though it was hardly one of the more exciting attractions.

We'd somehow missed the Carousel of Progress the first time Beth and I went, although she did go on it on her second trip. It's narrated by Jean Shepherd, the guy behind A Christmas Story, and she was excited about that. Originating at the 1964 World's Fair, then moved to Disneyland and Disney World after that, the seats move between stages with animatronic families of the 1900s, 1920s, 1940s, and the twenty-first century. I believe it was last refurbished in 1993, but I have to wonder when the future segment first mentioned laser discs, which is pretty funny in retrospect. Of course, we do have media discs read by lasers, but the format specifically known as Laserdisc was a flop. The song for the show, "There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow," was written by the Sherman Brothers and was covered by They Might Be Giants for the Meet the Robinsons soundtrack.

Getting back to my mention yesterday of places at the parks with the same themes, I sometimes mix up Tomorrowland with Future World at Epcot, not that you can really have too much sci-fi retro-futurism. What exactly IS a Space Mountain, anyway?

A mountain IN space? A mountain TO space? We also rode the Tomorrowland Transit Authority, It's a Small World, and Splash Mountain; and visited Country Bear Jamboree and the Enchanted Tiki Room. While I'd been to the Tiki Room before, that was when they'd added Iago and Zazu to it, and they're no longer there, so it was largely a new experience anyway. And I got a Mickey waffle with strawberries and whipped cream at Sleepy Hollow, and we had some Dole Whips from Aloha Isle.


By the way, it was just two days after we left that they opened a new ride at Hollywood Studios, Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway. We also noticed that they were building a new roller coaster (or at least that's what it looked like) at the Magic Kingdom, but I'm not sure what that one will be. If/when I go back, I'll have to try to spend more than one day at the Kingdom.

Today is our cat Wally's sixteenth birthday. He had to have dental surgery on Monday, for the third time in his life. He'd already had his fangs removed. On the same day we brought him in, a person jumped onto the subway track and died. If they ever invent force fields, the MTA should be the first ones to use them. I hear about deaths on the tracks way too often. Anyway, this meant a long delay in the only train that goes close to home, so I eventually ended up walking to a station I knew had service. We picked Wally up that evening. He's not supposed to have hard food for five days, and the first thing he did when he got home was try to eat some dry food. We usually have it out all the time, so I think he's bothered by its absence. And when I give the cats canned food, they scarf it all down right away. Wally had to take a few medicines for the next few days, and he's still on thyroid medication, which has been effective. Our other cat, Reagan, is still getting shots for allergies. She's less adverse to that than to taking pills. And she still has her whiskers broken off, and I'm not sure how. I guess she rubbed them off, but that seems hard to do. Speaking of pets, we partially chose our current building because they allowed dogs, and now they aren't going to anymore. I can't say I understand people who insist on telling other people not to do something just because they don't want to, but obviously it happens a lot. Having a dog in the city does seem a little difficult, as Beth's family always had a yard to let their dogs into and such isn't the case here, but plenty of people seem to manage it.

I haven't been blogging that much recently. Part of it is just because I can't think of anything worth writing about. I do have an Oz post in the works, but not much else. I've also been feeling generally overwhelmed and bored recently, and I'm not sure why. This past weekend, I had the kind of boredom where it's not that I didn't have anything to do (as long as I'm at home, there's always something), but that everything I can do seems uninteresting or uncomfortable. Sometimes, when there's way too much to do, I feel like I can't even do the parts I normally could. I was dreading going grocery shopping yesterday, but it was no big deal when I did it today.

Dewey was the first dog I knew for his entire life. I was afraid of dogs as a kid, but Beth had dogs her whole life, so I started to get used to them when I stayed with her. Now I'll try to make friends with dogs on the street. Beth adopted Dewey after her previous dog, also a dachshund, died, about two years after we'd started dating.

He was very loving, and while Beth was his favorite (at least when she lived with him; more on that later), he was friendly with pretty much everybody.

He loved being under the covers, and one time when he was a puppy and there were no covers on Beth's bed, he tried to crawl into a pillowcase. He also used to be able to grab on to a set of toy rings and hang by the strength of his jaw, something he obviously didn't do for that long, but it was impressive. Dachshunds have a reputation for being smart and stubborn, and Dewey could definitely be both of those. He had a bark that he only used when he wanted to come inside. When Beth would play her clarinet, he'd howl along. And I don't think it was because he didn't like it, as he'd go right to her when he heard her playing.

He also liked to wear costumes, and we'd try to take him out for Halloween. In different years, he was Freddy Krueger, a pirate, a bee, and the Big Bad Wolf.

It's not uncommon for dogs to enjoy dressing up, but it's probably best not to try that with a cat. When Beth and I moved to Secaucus, we tried taking Dewey with us, but he was too set in his ways. I think it was confusing to him that we didn't have access to a yard, so he couldn't go outside whenever he wanted. So we brought him back down to Beth's mom's house, but he always loved seeing us when we came to visit. Four years ago, he was diagnosed with congestive heart failure, and Beth's mom gave him pills. Not only did he manage to live another four years, but I'm pretty sure he's the longest-lived dog Beth's family has had. As you can tell from the dates, he died a few days after his sixteenth birthday. Last weekend, we took him on a car ride and gave him ice cream, two of his favorite things. I think he appreciated that. He died in his sleep yesterday morning. It's going to be so weird not having him around.

This past week or so has been fairly eventful, at least relative to the rest of my recent life, so I might as well give an overview. On Wednesday evening, Beth and I went to Rye Playland, and what a wry playland it was!

Admission was half price after 5 PM, but to get there we had to take the Metro North from Grand Central to Rye, then catch a bus at the train station. We were afraid we might have just missed the bus, but actually it was running a bit late. We went there before four years ago, and it hasn't changed much since then. One of the rides I mentioned back then, Ye Olde Mill, was still there, but not running that day. We did go on a few others I can't recall having ridden before, including Sky Skater, the Crazy Mouse, and Starship 2000. The first one was pretty tame but also painful, while the last of those is more commonly known as a Gravitron. I'm always amused when amusement parks and other attractions have knockoffs of licensed characters, and I'm never sure whether they just hope the copyright holders won't notice or they change them just enough to get away with it. One of the dark rides, the Flying Witch, had Ersatz Freddy Krueger outside and Knockoff Pinhead inside.

Ersatz Freddy says, "Welcome to evening television, bint!"
And do you think the Beatles would have something to say about this kiddie ride?

We're floating along in a yellow boat, a yellow boat, a yellow boat...
I mentioned before how there are pictures of Thor on the Thunder Bolt, but it's actually inclusive of different pantheons.

Zeus and Pegasus are also there, as are possibly Apollo and Artemis, even though they don't traditionally use lightning. Why not Raijin or Indra? Did they not have enough commercial appeal?

I already talked about seeing 31 on Thursday, so I guess I'll move on to Friday, when we visited Beth's aunt's house and saw the new puppy. They had just gotten a new Miniature Pinscher named Sadie not long before that, and then they adopted her brother Tiny as well.

The other two dogs there, Ruby and Ricky, belong to Beth's uncle Harry. Ruby was in the same litter as Clancy and Mabel, and her fur was much darker when she was a puppy. Our friend Stephanie was going to Atlantic City on Saturday, and invited several people to go with her, but it ended up just being her, a friend of hers I don't think we'd met before, Beth, and me. This was the day when the wind from Tropical Storm Hermine was affecting the area, and there was also a policeman shot outside Caesar's early that morning. It was pretty uneventful for us, although we noticed that the part of the Boardwalk where the casinos had closed down (the Showboat and Revel are out of business, and I understand the Trump Taj Mahal will be soon as well) was pretty much covered by a miniature sandstorm. I guess there wasn't as much there to block the sand from the beach. We ate brunch at the Continental, a restaurant in the mall that used to be called Ocean One, and I think is now just the Shops at Caesar's. It had a beach theme and bathrooms with plastic curtains instead of doors. Speaking of Atlantic City, I've always been interested in themed attractions and the names they use. I know the casinos aren't going for authenticity, but if the Taj Mahal is supposed to be India-themed, why is the entertainment venue there called Xanadu? That's a European name for Shangdu in China. Caesar's has the Circus Maximus, which is thematically appropriate, but isn't that where gladiators murdered people? It's weird that are generally a fair number of Indian patrons at a casino with a tacky India theme, and also that the guy who wants to ban Muslims from entering the country named his casino after a building commissioned by a shah. I don't believe Donald Trump owns the casino anymore, but it's still appropriate that another business with his name on it is failing.

We returned to Brooklyn on Sunday, and attended Stephanie's party in the evening. This was the same Stephanie we met in Atlantic City, but not the same one who saw 31 with us, although that Stephanie was also at the party. There are several people we really only see when we're invited to a group event and I wish we could see more often. I'm glad Stephanie invites us to stuff. She has a lot of other friends, and is good at making everybody feel included. Wednesday was the last evening that the Brooklyn Botanic Garden was open this year (the garden is still going to be open, but not at night), and our free passes for the year are going to expire soon, so we stopped by for a few hours.

Parts of it were really dark after the sun had gone day, enough so that it was difficult to figure out where to walk. I'm making it sound worse than it was, but I would have thought they would have had more lights. And I suppose that's pretty much it.

Happy rebirthday, Jesus! bethje and I are back in Brooklyn now, after having dinner with her family in southern New Jersey. Yesterday, we took Dewey and Clancy to Batsto Village, a nearby historic site where dogs are allowed.

They don't get out much (neither do we, really), so it was pretty exciting for them. What was annoying was the dearth of trash cans, which made it more annoying cleaning up after the dogs. Also, I somehow dropped my cell phone on a trail, and I have no idea how that happened. Fortunately, I remembered it making the low battery warning sound when I was on a certain trail, so finding it wasn't too hard. I'm lucky it was still there and hadn't been crushed or anything, though. We're actually supposed to get new phones soon, but we haven't decided on the particulars yet. Do they still make cell phones with keyboards? I find them convenient, but I get the impression they're kind of obsolete. Honestly, I find touch screens awkward, but it's not like there's that much choice. If it comes down to a touch screen or not using the Internet at all, I'll go with the former. Anyway, my pictures from Batsto are here.

Dinner today included ham, pork, and lasagna; but I only ate the first of those three. I did also have some rolls, a deviled egg, and a piece of cheesecake as well. I generally tend to associate ham with Easter, although I'm not entirely sure why. Then again, I guess I'll eat ham on pretty much any day. Now I have my car in Brooklyn, which is something else to worry about. I have to go back down to New Jersey when my glasses are ready, so hopefully that will come sooner rather than later. If they aren't ready by Thursday morning, I'm going to need to move the car because of street sweeping.