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.

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.

So far this month, we've seen a concert, gone to two amusement parks, and done a few Halloween activities, so I might as well write about them now. We also got stuck in traffic a few times and got COVID and flu shots, and I had bad side effects from medication. Those aren't as enjoyable to reminisce about, however.
On the first Sunday of the month, Beth and I went to Tarrytown to see Neko Case, which ended up being a strange and kind of disturbing experience. The opener was Amaad Wasif, who, during one of his songs, apparently decided it would be a good idea to go into the audience and sit in people's laps. I didn't see any of this from the balcony, but from what we saw online afterwards, one guy objected to it and pushed him away. He then returned to the stage and said someone punched him, which the guy and other people sitting nearby insist he didn't. I don't actually know what happened, but he left after that, and Neko didn't come on until about an hour after she was scheduled to do so. She was angry, and while she still did the show, she never explained what was actually bothering her. I'm sure it had to do with what happened to the opener, but neither she nor the venue provided any details, and the guy who pushed Wasif had already been kicked out. Is the whole audience being punished, like some kind of Full Metal Jacket crap? She still performed well, and seemed to calm down a bit over the course of the set, but it ended up being quite short. They apparently had a fill-in bass player who didn't usually play that instrument, and this was the first time we saw her with a saxophone player, although he mostly played keyboard. Somehow we ended up sitting in the exact same seats as we did when we saw Ben Folds at the same venue. Since it's October, they had a lot of Halloween decorations up in town.
We had some pizza before the show, and the window of the place had this monster slice on the window.

The following weekend, we traveled to Pennsylvania to visit two amusement parks, and a lot of stuff went wrong. Knoebels was doing Hallo-Fun, and we left home later than we'd wanted to. Then there was a long line of cars just to get in, as it didn't seem like the traffic lights were set up to handle that much traffic. We were there for two hours or so. It was pretty fun when we actually got inside, but we didn't have time to do that much.

We rode the Rock-O-Plane, an old sort of ride that was new there this year. It loads sort of like a Ferris Wheel, with only a certain amount of cars low enough at any time for people to get in and out of them. The cars rock around, although you can stop them from doing so with a brake.

I believe it was also the first time we rode their Tea Cups, which were the same sort of ride that Beth knew as a Crazy Daisy.

And the line for the Phoenix had this graveyard for old rides.

We didn't get a chance to go on the Haunted Pioneer Train, which had a really long line.


Dorney Park, which we visited on Sunday, has Halloween Haunt, and I took another picture of Beth with the puking pumpkin.

They have a new ride, the Iron Menace, a roller coaster with a straight vertical drop.

The park has a backstory for this ride involving the fictional McTavish Steel, whose owner died under mysterious circumstances and went on to haunt the old mill. There actually is a McTavish Steelworks in Manitoba. To fit the theme, they also redesigned the nearby glider ride and changed the name to MT Buckets.

We also rode the Cedar Creek Cannonball, which last year we hadn't realized was going to close early for the Halloween events.

And it was the hundredth anniversary of the Thunderhawk. We visited two of the temporary haunted houses, Blackout and Blood on the Bayou. The former was introduced as a candy factory, but was really just a bunch of dark rooms. I guess the introduction was just misdirection, although a candy-themed haunted attraction could have been interesting. The latter was based around a pop culture representation of Louisiana that's probably nothing like the actual place, including alligators and fortune tellers.

And we saw part of a show by a group called the Spectral Sisters, who were pretty similar to the Puppini Sisters, doing swing versions of pop songs, including 10,000 Maniacs' "Because the Night," Heart's "Crazy on You," and Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon Rising."


Thursday the seventeenth was Nightfall at Green-Wood Cemetery, which includes a mix of things, both displays and performances. It seemed like there wasn't as much as in previous years, although that could have just been our timing or the paths we took. The ways through the graveyard are marked off with lights, but some of them do branch off. There were performers from the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus, a one-man band who played "Tequila" and a sword swallower.

Morbid Anatomy did a series of lectures, of which we heard the one about Ra's journey through the underworld in Egyptian mythology, as told in the Amduat; and another on symbols of time and mortality in funerary decoration. And a band was playing songs from the earlier part of the twentieth century, the ones we were there for being from the 1910s and 1930s, with a different lead singer for each.


We visited South Jersey this past weekend, and did a few Halloween-related activities while there.

On Friday, we went to the Creamy Acres Night of Terror, which consists of a hayride and three walkthroughs. From what I remember, it was pretty much the same as last year.

There was a drive-through called Glow in Washington Township, which was a bunch of light displays loosely themed around old Route 66, although some of them didn't seem to relate to much of anything.

It had monsters and other seasonal stuff, but wasn't scary in the sense of people jumping out at you or anything; you just drove through and looked.

And that night, we went to Terror at the Junkyard for the Scullville Fire Department in Egg Harbor, which involved driving along a lot of dark roads, rather scarier than the maze or hayride, but obviously not as theatrical.

One performer seemed particularly into his role, stomping on the wagon and singing a song about waking the dead. And that's about all that's worth writing about for now, but there should be some more later in the month.

Beth and I did some other things in California besides OzCon, so here are a few of them. We flew into LAX on Tuesday, and stayed at a motel within walking distance of Knott's Berry Farm, which we visited on Wednesday. The park is surprisingly close to Disneyland, and not far from Kellogg West. Too bad we had to go to Culver City in between the two. It's very common for amusement parks to have an Old West area, and at Knott's, it was probably the biggest section in the park.

You could even sit on a bench with some hookers. Well, dancers, anyway.

They also had parts with fifties and Mexican themes, as well as Camp Snoopy for kiddie rides. I think it might have been the first park to license the Peanuts characters, although they're at a lot of them now. The only berry-themed ride was the seemingly obligatory one where you shoot stuff on a screen, in this case to help bears get stolen pies back from some coyotes.

The guns had pull strings, and it was hard to tell what you were shooting. I kind of wonder why the bumper cars weren't called Traffic Jam. They had several roller coasters, including the Pony Express, the surf-themed HangTime (which included a part where we were suspended at the top of a hill for a little while), Silver Bullet, Xcelerator, and the wooden GhostRider.

That was our last ride of the night, and we were on the last train they ran that day, about an hour after the official closing time. Another coaster, Jaguar!, was closed. The carousel had a lot of unusual animals. We rode ostriches, but I was also fascinated by the cats with fish in their mouths.

The Calico Mine Ride was pretty cool, featuring old animatronics. That was also the one with the know-it-all kid in front of us in line. We rode the Calico Railroad, and a guy dressed as a bandit called me "Bowser" because of my Super Mario hat. We did not, however, have a chance to ride the stagecoach.

On Thursday, we ate breakfast at Denny's, then went on the Sony Pictures tour, checked in at Kellogg West, and ate at a fast food hot dog place called Wienerschnitzel. We also went to a Circle K for the first time in our lives. After OzCon, we met with Stephanie and her dog Chelsea on Sunday and went to the John Waters exhibit at the Academy Museum, which had a good collection of props and memorabilia, including stained glass pictures of some of his characters.

After that, we went to the Oracle Mystic Museum in Burbank, which had an interactive exhibit with moving parts based on horror movies.

The neighborhood where it was located had at least two year-round Halloween stores that didn't allow photographs, and also this elephant.

I wonder if they know Kabumpo.

Before catching our plane back east on Monday night, we stopped at two other museums and a mausoleum. The Bunny Museum in Altadena was something Beth found out about on Reddit, and someone there said they found it disturbing.

It's a small building, but it's absolutely packed with stuff, all rabbit-related. Of course, it came nowhere close to being exhaustive, as bunnies are very heavily represented in our culture. I think humans are genetically inclined to find them cute. One room was all holiday stuff, including Hocus Pocus from Frosty the Snowman.

A kitchen and patio had relevant stuff, and another room had creepier and more adult stuff, like Frank from Donnie Darko, Playboy Bunnies, and weird old masks.

I particularly liked the red guy with horns. Another reminded me of my mom's rabbit mask that I wore when I dressed as Wag for the Munchkin Convention, which apparently Johnny Galecki also owns.

This might have been why the museum was listed as unsettling, although when you're dealing with old toys, some of it is going to be disturbing to modern audiences even when it wasn't intended to be.

Upstairs, they had some original art.

Bugs Bunny, the Trix Rabbit, the Quik Bunny, My Melody from Sanrio, the Energizer Bunny, Harvey, Rabbit from Winnie-the-Pooh, Roger Rabbit, the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, and the bunny suit from A Christmas Story were all represented as well.

And they had two sets of the Uncle Wiggily Game, which I played a lot as a kid, and which is similar in structure to the Wonderful Game of Oz.

There were also some informational signs, on such topics as rabbit-related expressions, anthropomorphic bunnies, the origins of magicians pulling rabbits out of hats, someone in a bunny suit who followed David Bowie around in 2004, and the meaning of the name of Spain.

I would have liked to have seen some of John R. Neill's rabbit pictures, but no such luck.

After this museum, we visited the Mountain View Mausoleum, which had some cool art and a pretty garden.

Both that and our next destination, the Museum of Death in Hollywood, were suggested by a couple we met at OzCon.

The Death Museum didn't allow pictures, so you'll have to trust me when I say it was very graphic. It included exhibits on serial killers, death cults, taxidermy and preservation, car accidents, and cannibalism. They had a taxidermied dog who had died with Jayne Mansfield. One of the employees had a lot to say about Heaven's Gate, and another was impressed that Beth was able to correctly identify the film Orozco the Embalmer.


That's mostly what we did in California, but I'm also going to include our activity from yesterday, Kevin Geeks Out at the Nitehawk in Williamsburg, which is difficult to reach from where we live and work. We actually ended up being a few minutes late. The theme was twins, also including doubles, doppelgangers and clones. David Gregory (not the one from XTC) talked about the many Bruce Lee imitators who starred in rip-off movies, and co-host Chris Cummins discussed the various imitations of Archie Comics. Tenebrous Kate discussed the Barbarian Brothers, twin bodybuilders who were somewhat popular in the eighties and nineties, including starring in a movie that was largely a Conan rip-off. Another presentation was on Waluigi, and what the deal was with him, which I don't think anybody knows for sure. He's pretty much only ever around for sports and party games. There was a mention of how, according to Nintendo, he and Wario aren't even related, although since Nintendo went back and forth on whether the Koopalings were Bowser's kids, who knows what their current story is? He does seem to have gained a certain amount of popularity, although that could be BECAUSE of how bizarre and relatively obscure he is. One bit was on Alice Cooper, and how he criticized conformity and then became pretty conservative. I'm not sure I knew that he recently made a transphobic comment, but I do remember him speaking positively of George W. Bush. And Kevin Maher showed clips of characters realizing they were clones or duplicates. The Kindest Cut for the night was of Big Business, a twin mix-up comedy starring Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin, which Beth saw when Clementon Park was closed for rain.

We're getting another cat! We were supposed to bring Nellie to meet another cat or two at a shelter, but they had a sickness going around, so that happened today instead. The cat we met today, Felix, was shy but affectionate, really leaning in when we pet him. Nellie was nervous, but didn't appear to have any real objection to him, no hissing or anything. We could have brought him home today, but he's getting another vaccination tomorrow, so the new plan is to pick him up on Friday. Nellie still seems out of sorts; she hid under the bed for a while when we got back home.

In other news, Beth and I have now been married for sixteen years. And since we got married on Leap Day, you could say we've had four actual anniversaries, if you wanted to be weirdly technical. It's a most ingenious paradox. We didn't actually celebrate on the day, though, aside from going out to eat. Instead, we took the day off on Friday, 1 March, and went on a tour of the catacombs at Old St. Patrick's Cathedral.

This isn't the same as the St. Patrick's near Rockefeller Center, although they're related; that one was built as sort of a replacement, although the old one is still open. It's on Mulberry Street in Nolita, and it's where they filmed the baptism scene from The Godfather.

John Hughes, the Archbishop of New York, was the one who proposed the building of the new cathedral, and also founded Fordham University. He was nicknamed Dagger John due to his aggressiveness.

The catacombs weren't as expansive as I might have figured. That's not to say they were small; I think they were about the same size as the church. It's just that, when I hear "catacombs," I kind of think of an underground labyrinth.

We were considering going somewhere else afterwards, maybe a museum or something, but it was already evening when we had finished with the tour. So instead we went to a few record stores and had dinner at a place called Bastard Burgers, mostly because Beth liked the name. It was one of those places where they smash the beef patties, and while I'm not entirely sure how that affects the taste, I did like it.


Last Saturday, we went to the Monster-Mania Convention in Cherry Hill, as we generally do twice a year. This one was Number 58, but that's counting some in other locations. Still, we've been to a lot of them. As usual, we mostly just attended the celebrity panels, although we did take a look at the dealer rooms. The first panel we saw was a cast reunion for Starship Troopers, which I did see in college, but don't remember particularly well. While I think I realized it was satirical, it was still too much of a war movie to really hold my interest. The room was already packed by the time we got there, so I didn't get any pictures of this one. Next was Michael Gross, whom I knew as the dad from Family Ties, but he was also in the Tremors films, which neither of us have seen.

Among other things, he talked about Tom Hanks playing his alcoholic brother-in-law. Then came actors from the 2013 version of The Evil Dead, another one neither of us have watched as of yet.

The first panel in the larger room was with Brad and Fiona Dourif, and I'm not sure we'd seen any other father and daughter sessions, although maybe I'm forgetting something. Somebody in the audience had him do the Chucky voice, even though he didn't want to, which I feel wasn't fair to him.

And the reunion for Children of the Corn, which we just saw, had John Franklin, Courtney Gains, and John Philbin.

After the convention, we ate at Friendly's. They brought back the mini mozzarella sticks, but they're even smaller now.

I hate that there are a few stories I have largely planned out, but trying to actually do the writing just feels tedious. But then, I've also pretty much finished with a few things and haven't done anything with them yet. I guess I haven't been particularly motivated, but I also feel there are ideas I want to get out and haven't figured out how to do so in an interesting way. Does anyone else know how that is? There's stuff I thought of when I was a kid that I think might be usable, but maybe I'm flattering myself.

I suppose an overview of what Beth and I have done recently would be appropriate right about now. On Wednesday, the last day of November, we went to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden for Lightscape, which is where the place has many different lights illuminating the flora, and several art installations, some specifically themed toward the season. They don't often photograph that well, especially as a lot of them keep changing, but I did take some pictures.

Chandeliers? Outdoors? Whatever!
There's also music accompanying many of the installations. Near a giant Moravian star (which I guess is still very tiny compared to actual stars in space), Elton John's "Rocket Man" played on a loop.

One part was the Kaleido Circle, which had, as you could probably guess, a kaleidoscopic pattern surrounding a tree, accompanied by hip-hop music.

Not a Kalidah Circle, fortunately.
One exhibit near the Japanese Hill and Pond Garden is called Antares, which is a star in the constellation that's our birth sign. We ate at the cafe there, where I had a ham sandwich with cheese, mustard, and honey. It was good, although the honey didn't really fit with the other stuff. That was where we heard a song about a guy wanting a piece of pork for Christmas, which fit with the sandwich. They also had hot apple cider.

The following Wednesday, we saw a performance of the Nutcracker by the Brighton Ballet Theater at Kings Theatre in Brooklyn. Due to unforeseen circumstances, we got in late, and missed part of the first act. One particularly noticeable part of this performance was the presence of large animal costumes, first for the Mouse King, then later for some of the dances associated with various nations: a bull for Spain, a tiger for Arabia, a unicorn (or was it a Qilin?) for China, and a bear for Russia. Most of them just stood in the back, but the bear hammed it up a bit. The whole performance felt pretty quick. Speaking of which, we also received a Nutcracker-themed postcard from Jay Davis.


Then on Thursday, there was a Kevin Geeks Out show at Nitehawk Cinema in Williamsburg, which is kind of annoying to get to.

It included a discussion on Dolly Parton's latest Christmas movies, an Eartha Kitt song about cha-cha heels, a Kindest Cut of the Wonder Woman Christmas episode (which I have seen before), and an edit of Charles Bronson's role in Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus, interspersed with clips from the Death Wish movies. The cha-cha heels song was apparently originally supposed to be performed by Divine, as per his role in Female Trouble, but he died before it could be recorded. The video ends with a guy who tries to steal the shoes being forced to dance uncontrollably, perhaps a reference to Hans Christian Andersen's "The Red Shoes." Tavie won the game Ott or Not, about whether various movies received better IMDB ratings than an Edison film a few seconds long with someone named Fred Ott sneezing. And the final clip crossed over Ott with Santa Claus. Another game involved guessing what a presenter's husband had put in a box, and the winner got what was in a similar box, which was definitely NOT the same item.

We brought Nellie to our apartment last night, and so far she's mostly been hiding. I feel bad for bringing her to a new environment, even though that was always the plan. A lot of noises have startled her. She has come out and played a bit, but I don't have any real evidence that she's been eating or drinking, so I'm worried about that.

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.

On Saturday, 16 September, Beth and I made our third annual trip to Dorney Park, where they had just started their Halloween thing. None of the waits were bad, but they did close some of the rides early, and we hadn't been aware of that ahead of time. They also closed off some of the paths through the park after dark, and there were a lot of kids running around recklessly. I don't think we rode anything new this time, except for the Cedar Creek Cannonball, which wasn't running on our previous two trips.

I might have ridden it as a kid, but I can't remember for sure. The park has two train rides, but I've never been there when both were operational. I did get a little sick, not seriously so, but my stomach felt uncomfortable. I think one of the worst rides for my general health is the Revolution. They had a lot of advertising for the Iron Menace, which is scheduled to open next year.

Last Saturday, we visited the Creamy Acres Night of Terror again.

The Moon was pretty cooperative. I understand we missed the Harvest Moon by one day.
It was mostly the same as last time, with a hayride and three walkthroughs, including one with 3-D glasses. The ground was muddy, but that wasn't anyone's fault. They had a flood warning in New York the day before, but fortunately Beth and I were both working from home. We posed for some pictures with a skeleton, who was pretty big, but not quite in Gashadokuro territory.

We also went to a Spirit Halloween, where the main things I wanted to photograph were costumes with off-brand names.

I don't even really understand the Serpent Queen, since I'm pretty sure "Medusa" and "Gorgon" aren't trademarked. We bought some T-shirts there, but haven't worn them yet.


Monday was Kevin Geeks Out at the Nitehawk in Prospect Park, which is a lot easier to get to than the one in Williamsburg. It was on fast food, and included a good mix of stuff. Emily Menez talked about vegetarian options at fast food places (there aren't many) and compared them to ones in fiction. Michael Williams did a pre-recorded bit on Australian fast food, and how it's common to have beetroot on burgers there. Sounds gross to me, but I usually get fast food sandwiches without any of the vegetables anyway. KFC in Australia tried having cartoon mascots for a brief time, a fox and a chicken hawk with Southern (American) accents.

And I really don't know why Burger King is called Hungry Jack's there. Audrey Lazaro discussed Jollibee's and its mascots. Mr. Yum struck me as being similar to Wimpy, with his suit and tie and association with hamburgers.

They kept the character, but made him younger and less formal.

Wimpy does have his own restaurant, although I've never been to one. Popeyes, the chicken place, was apparently not named after the sailor, but did use him in advertising up until 2012.

Co-host Camila Jones did a match-up between pizza chain founders. Burlesque dancer Perse Fanny did a McDonald's themed striptease. And Max Bank did a bit as advertising executive Donny Deutsch, whom I'd heard of because he used to have a talk show on CNBC for some reason, which included a part about coming up with Uncle O'Grimacey. The Kindest Cut this time was the 1978 movie Starhops, which not only has a title presumably inspired by Star Wars, but even opens with a parody of its crawl. There was a bit about how Clara Peller from the Wendy's "Where's the Beef?" commercials did a rap with Coyote McCloud that seemed very similar to an earlier song using Rodney Dangerfield clips, and Adam Bernstein recorded his own parody for this show. And Kevin made a non-canonical but valid point about how Ronald McDonald is Grimace's best friend, but Grimace isn't Ronald's. The Grimazuzu picture is from a bit that was never fully developed, but I have written about both Grimace and Pazuzu pretty recently. We didn't actually eat fast food that day. The grilled cheese sandwich I had at a nearby café was made pretty quickly, but I don't think it counts. But then, Pizza Hut qualifying must be a pretty recent thing, as I remember having pretty long waits there when I was a kid. Or maybe they just felt long because I was impatient.

Two weekends ago was Monster-Mania. The problem is that we usually spend most of our time there at the question-and-answer panels, but due to the writers' and actors' strikes, people weren't allowed to discuss their work. They could still be there and sign autographs, but there weren't any panels. Beth had already paid for it, though, so we still went, but didn't spend a lot of time. We walked around the dealer rooms and bought some drawings from an artist named Jen Tracy. She got a haunted one, and I got Tik-Tok.

I also thought her Medusa drawing, which we didn't buy, was really cool. And we watched part of a game show called Curse Your Luck, a play on Press Your Luck with horror movie characters instead of Whammies.

There was a trivia part, but it was difficult for the audience to play along. The screen was too small to read, and the hosts didn't finish the questions if a contestant answered them before they were done reading. We did learn that Friendly's has the mini mozzarella sticks again, at least at the location we went to, although Beth says they taste different than they did before. It's hard to tell, as it's been so long, but I think I got what she meant.

This past Wednesday, we went to Playland, where we both felt kind of sick after going on some pretty tame rides. Beth swears by motion sickness pills, and thinks the ones I bought just weren't up to the task. I also bought more pizza than we could finish, because I wasn't sure how big the personal ones were. And I'm usually capable of eating a lot of pizza. But anyway, it was pretty fun, but there wasn't anything new, although I think it was the first time we rode Catch a Wave. There used to be something quite similar at Clementon Park, where it was called the Falling Star.

I mentioned last year that the Derby Racer seems slower now, and one of the employees confirmed that, although he didn't know the reason why that happened. His guess was that there was an injury. I also mentioned the Old Mill, actually the first thing we rode on our first visit to the park, but I didn't talk about the sign that says it has a "dark and forbidding atmosphere."I guess things have changed since 1929, and dragons aren't as scary when they audibly creak anyway.

I always like to take pictures from the Ferris Wheel, and I guess it's a good thing I'm calm enough about it now, because I used to get really nervous when that kind of ride (not this particular one) would stop at the top to load more people. I'm still kind of scared I might drop something, though.


We've been watching the new Futurama episodes, and from what I've seen and the descriptions of the ones that have yet to air, it kind of seems like they're overdoing the commentary on current events. They've always done that, but not quite that often. I'll wait until I've actually seen the entire season to pass judgment, though. Also, I downloaded the Steam version of Final Fantasy X some years ago and decided to check it out this weekend. There's a guy who ends up 1000 years in the future and befriends a guy voiced by John DiMaggio, which is pretty familiar. I'll probably write more about the game once I've gotten a little further into it or it becomes too frustrating for me to want to continue, as FF8 was.


Finally, tomorrow is Ozma's birthday. How are you going to celebrate?

There was a Sparks concert at the Hollywood Bowl with They Might Be Giants opening, so Beth and I made the trip to Los Angeles (the one in South California, not the one in South Patagonia). Fortunately, we were able to stay with our friend Stephanie, who put us up and put up with us. Her dog Chelsea was also very friendly, and it was nice to have a pet around after losing ours. When we got in on Thursday, after sleeping for a while, we went to a place called Vidiots for a screening of Gigantic, the TMBG documentary. I hadn't actually seen it straight through since when it came out in 2002. It's a little weird, because it kind of skips over most of the nineties in terms of the band's history, or at least feels like it does. Afterwards, director A.J. Schnack was there with Johns Linnnell and Flansburgh to ask some questions.

They mentioned how Mink Car, the album they were making when a lot of the footage was filmed, was kind of a lost album that had apparently gone out of print. It came out on 11 September 2001, and the label that released it went out of business not long afterwards. Flans said something about the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Swatch Watch campaign being the major turning point in the music world, and the Sid and Marty Krofft special with the Brady Bunch kids. And he mentioned The Truth About Cats and Dogs being the median between good and bad movies. I've never seen it, but I do remember thinking Janeane Garofalo was more attractive than Uma Thurman at the time, although that may not still be the case today. They had done a long interview earlier that day, so they didn't take audience questions, but I couldn't think of anything to ask anyway. The next day, we did karaoke. Beth sang Sparks' "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us," I sang Frank Black's "Headache" and the Monkees' "What Am I Doing Hangin' 'Round?", and we both did the Human League's "Don't You Want Me" with the genders switched. I didn't think that it would have been appropriate to do Frank's "Los Angeles" instead. On Saturday, we had brunch with three of Stephanie's friends, who were pretty elegant. I had the berry French Toast.

The place we went had its own hens, and I tried to get some pictures, but they didn't come out that well.

And in the evening, we saw Pee-wee's Big Adventure at the Alamo Drafthouse, the first time I'd seen it on the big screen. They had a replica of Pee-wee's bike in the lobby, so finally it really IS at the Alamo, or at least was for a while.


Sunday was the day of the show, and we had box seats, yet it was still the farthest Beth has been from the stage at a Sparks concert. TMBG opened with "Damn Good Times," which had been in my head before that, as it mentions karaoke.

The trio of horn players joined them for a few songs, including "When Will You Die," in which Linnell worked "the horns" into the lyrics about the band.

That's not the song they're playing here, though.
During the improvisation at the end of "Spy," Linnell did a bit that sounded like it was from a commercial for a record of 1930s music. There were no surprises in the set, but I understand they'd been playing "Authenticity Trip" at recent shows, and that mentions the Hollywood Hills, so it would have made sense in that respect. Of course, it's also pretty obscure, being on an album that I don't think was released to stores. Every show of the Sparks tour has the same setlist, although they cut out two songs this time, specifically "The Toughest Girl in Town" and "Escalator." Stephanie mentioned that they're very strict about curfews at outdoor venues in the area. Interestingly, Russell did do a longer introduction for "We Go Dancing."

The Maels talked about how they'd seen the Beatles play at the Bowl when they were kids. It's interesting that the backing band for Sparks is kind of hidden in the background. Russell does introduce them, but they're not showcased. The Johns give a lot more attention to their band, although they still don't generally participate in the creative process...except on the children's albums, for some reason. A few people left the show early, including the other people in our box and the ones in the next box over. It's an unusual venue in the sense that they let you bring in food. Beth bought some Sparks souvenirs that hadn't been sold at other shows on the tour, plus a TMBG Hollywood sign T-shirt and a Flood tote bag. I got some Flood socks, so now all I need are some Flood pants.


Our original plan was to go to Magic Mountain on Monday, but that's difficult to get to without driving, and I had forgotten to bring my glasses. So we went to Universal Studios instead. I had wanted to see Super Nintendo World, and it does look really cool, but it's very small.

Most of the individual themed areas at the park are pretty small, but especially that one; and there really aren't too many rides in the place. The first thing we rode was the Simpsons Ride, a motion simulator with a narrative about Sideshow Bob trying to kill the family at Krustyland, and then elsewhere in Springfield.

In the line for the ride, TV screens show clips from various episodes, most of them related to amusement parks, plus a few bits recorded specifically for the ride. There do seem to be a surprising number of theme parks in the Springfield area, although Itchy & Scratchy Land is a few days' drive away according to its debut episode. There's a reference to how the Simpsons Ride replaced the Back to the Future one, with Professor Frink going back in time to try to stop Krusty from buying Doc Brown's lab, and Christopher Lloyd did the voice. The Mummy ride is a roller coaster with a lot of stuff to see, and at one point little tentacles grab at your feet, while Jurassic World is a log flume with dinosaurs, and the Transformers ride shakes you around a lot. I thought the voice for Wheelie sounded like Rob Paulsen as Yakko Warner, but apparently it's really Tom Kenney. That one requires glasses, presumably so you can see more than meets the eye. It's funny how many rides there and at the Disney parks have narratives about the ride going wrong. The only ride in the Nintendo area was the Mario Kart one, and it malfunctioned when we were close to getting on, although we did eventually get to ride. It was fun, although rides that are also games can be a little overwhelming. They put a LOT of work into the decorations you see when you're in line, starting with Yoshi's Island stuff and then making its way into Bowser's Castle.

I'd previously seen pictures of the bookshelves, which have many interesting titles. Who knew the Koopa King was that avid of a reader?

There were games in the Nintendo area you could play for an extra fee, mostly geared towards kids, but we didn't participate in that. A lot of Super Nintendo World kind of looked like one of those clocks with a bunch of stuff happening, in that everything moves around in a preset pattern. I wouldn't have minded getting a picture with Princess Peach, but our timing didn't work out. We did, however, get to meet Scooby-Doo, and with hardly any line.

Turns out it was really the guy from the amusement park.
Aren't the Hanna-Barbera characters now owned by Warner Brothers? I'm sure there are all kinds of complex licensing deals involved. The Simpsons are now a Disney property, but that didn't happen until some years after the ride opened. I remember when Scooby was at Kings Dominion in Virginia back in my childhood. We didn't realize that the studio lot tour ended at 8:15, so we missed that, and it was one of the things that interested me the most. I was less excited about the Harry Potter area, as it's hard not to think about J.K. Rowling's bigotry, but we did go on the two rides there. Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey is a virtual reality thing with appearances from many of the actors in the movies, and it was the roughest thing we rode.

The other, Flight of the Hippogriff, is a short roller coaster. For some reason, the train you ride in is made to look like wicker, which is pretty cool. Beth got a T-shirt with a Chain Chomp on it; while I bought some Mario Kart boxers and magnets, and a Bowser keychain. And I got a sunburn on the back of my neck. I understand it's even easier to get burned in Southern California than it is where we live, as there are hardly any clouds. Where's Lakitu when you need him?

We're back home now, but we'll be going to California again soon, as the events we wanted to attend there were too far apart. The next trip is for OzCon, but we'll also try to visit Magic Mountain.