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?

I can't say there's been much going on with me as of late. Aside from applying for jobs, which sucks, I've been spending time on the Internet, reading, and playing games. I'm currently working my way through Bill Willingham's Fables series and enjoying it. The most recent collection I read was Volume 13, The Great Fables Crossover, a funny but weird entry in the series that probably didn't affect the overall plot of the series. I'm not sure if I'll read the Jack of Fables spin-off series yet; I want to finish with the available issues of the primary series first. I understand Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion show up in the Jack books, but the former is a hired killer. I've also seen descriptions indicating that Ozma and the Nome King will play parts in the main series pretty soon (as far as my reading goes, that is). I've also been indulging my love of maps of fantasy lands, something that will probably come up in future installments of my WordPress. Really, if you're not reading that yet, you probably should, as I update it a lot more than I do this journal. On the other hand, it's pretty much all topic-specific stuff that you might not care about if you don't share my interests.

I saw the final two episodes of this season of Futurama, although I missed the first few minutes of "31st Century Fox." I'm sure I'll see them at some point, even if it's not until the DVD release. The episode had some amusing ideas, like the robotic animals. I've pondered before about the idea of mechanical horses, as they're such a weird combination of high and low technology. Also, Bender trying to mask his scent with Newmar's Own Catnip was funny. Overall, though, it was pretty weak, which could be why they chose to show it as part of a two-episode block. The other one, "Naturama," was a what-if sort of thing, re-imagining the characters as animals in a nature documentary. Certainly an inspired idea, although it totally dropped the science fiction theme and just focused on the personalities. The parody of documentary narration was great, and if there was a moral it's that nature is often pointlessly brutal. Some of my favorite appearances were Bender as the elephant seal beachmaster and Brrr and Ndnd as bears. I also have to say that the timing was apt for the tortoise segment, as the Pinta Island Galapogos Tortoise went extinct just two months ago.

Finally, here's a survey I found on Tumblr:

List 10 random musical artists you like in no specific order. Warning: Do not read the questions below before listing your favorite artists.

1. Weird Al
2. Young Fresh Fellows
3. Frank Black
4. They Might Be Giants
5. Carolyn Mark
6. April March
7. XTC
8. Neko Case
9. Fastbacks
10. Belle and Sebastian

What’s the first song you ever heard by #6?
I think it might have been "Garden of April."

What’s your favorite song by #8?
I think I might say "Deep Red Bells."

What are your favorite lyrics by #5?
"I set my watch three hours ahead just like the pilot said. So I'm ahead of my time, which would explain the wine I drink when I get out of bed."

What song by #3 makes you the happiest?
I'm not saying it's necessarily a happy song, but I think "Old Black Dawning" sounds kind of cheerful.

When did you first get into #2?
During college, due to the TMBG connection.

How did you get into #3?
Again, due to the TMBG connection. The science fiction themes in his work didn't hurt, either.

What is your favorite song by #4?
Tough choice, but I'm going to say "It's Not My Birthday."

Have you seen #9 live? How many times?
No, I got into them too late for that.

Favorite album by #7?
Skylarking

What’s your favorite song by #1?
"Dog Eat Dog," perhaps?

How did you become a fan of #10?
I can't recall for sure. I think it was because bethje liked some of their music, so I checked them out as well.

How long have you known #9?
About eleven years, which isn't all that long, relatively speaking.

Top 5 by #5.
5. Bigger Bed
4. Catscan
3. The Way Back
2. Don't Come Over Baby
1. Fuzzy Slippers

Have you ever seen #10 live?
Yes, twice.

Have you ever met #4?
Yeah, briefly.

What’s your favorite album by #1?
In 3-D

Favorite lyric by #7?
One that comes to mind is "This is your life and you'll see what you want to be, just don't hurt nobody, 'less of course they ask you."

What’s #2’s best song?
When the Girls Get Here

How many times have you seen #2 live?
Zero, but I've seen the Minus 5 twice.

Which one of these have you known the longest?
Weird Al

Favorite song by #9?
In the Winter

I'm always having dreams about being back in school and missing exams. Just this week, I had one where I was trying to make up one of my missed exams, and I couldn't remember why I'd missed it. I think that was the same dream in which one of my classes involved making clay alligators and bringing them to life, and this didn't strike me as being at all unusual.


The latest Futurama episode revealed that Professor Farnsworth's parents are still alive, no mean feat when the Professor himself is over 170 years old. There must be something about the Farnsworths that keeps them alive and kicking even when old and decrepit. I do have to wonder why, with the family theme, Cubert never showed up. I'm not sure the writers really know what to do with Cubert, who strikes me as never having been a particularly popular character. It's also pretty awkward that he and Dwight are still kids when everyone else has grown older. Well, at least the Professor has, because he turned 160 in "A Clone of My Own" and mentioned about ten years later that he was entered his eighteenth decade. Anyway, exact ages aside, I tend to enjoy episodes that give us some background for the characters, and this was no exception. It's too bad about what happened to the Professor's brother Floyd, though. Okay, we don't know exactly what happened to him, but we know it wasn't good. Also, while I agree with the criticisms of The Matrix, how heavy-handed did they have to be about it?

Finally, here are some recommendations:
The Infosphere, the Futurama wiki that I usually consult for information about the show
Narnia Deconstruction, which I referenced in my latest WordPress post
Jacek Yerka, painter of excellent surreal fantasy scenes

I haven't felt like doing a whole lot as of late. There's some Oz writing I could be doing, but I haven't been in the mood. Yeah, I know writing is all about discipline and sticking to it even when you don't feel like it, but this IS supposed to be for fun. I've gotten kind of bored with Twitter as well, although I occasionally still make comments there. I have been reading the Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter book The Long Earth, which I'm hoping to finish by Monday because that's when it's due back at the library. In terms of blogging, I'm largely drawing a blank on ideas for Oz posts. I have a few ideas, and I'd been wanting to write about the Rain King, a very minor but still intriguing character in the series. I can't find my copy of The Hidden Prince of Oz, though, and that's the only book I know of to have a picture of the Rain King. And in Dragon Quest VI, I defeated Jamirus on the Isle o' Smiles.

The latest Futurama episode, "Fun on a Bun," was better than the last two. It started out with a futuristic take on a holiday, in this case Oktoberfest, and that's usually fun. The plot involved Fry falling into a lost world inhabited by Neanderthals and prehistoric animals that was trapped under ice. Neanderthals were first discovered in the Neander Valley in Germany, so that makes a certain amount of sense. It was funny and used ideas from science fiction, which is what I look for on this show.

So, here's a story of animal abandonment to set the mood for Monday. Some people were renting the house next door to bethje's mom and uncle, and they had a pet pig, some chickens, and a duck. When they were evicted because they couldn't pay the rent, they left the animals behind in a rather shoddily constructed pen. Why would anyone just leave their animals like that? So Beth's family has been feeding the animals, and I saw them this past weekend. The pig, whose name is Nancy, really is very nice. She'll run up to the side of the pen and try to look over if a person comes, so she can see if they brought her anything. The chickens and duck are in the next pen over, and I have to wonder if their wings are clipped, because they never try to escape.

I'm glad Comedy Central reruns new Futurama episodes several times during the week, because the hotel where we were staying on Wednesday night didn't get the channel at all. I actually watched the newest one, "The Butterjunk Effect," at 2:40 this morning. It was basically a throwaway episode, although it did develop Leela's relationship with Fry a little bit, as well as how she gets along with Amy. The idea of the butterfly derby was creative, but not really enough to carry the entire plot. A subplot might have been nice, or at least a little more with what happened to Fry, instead of just having the cop-out "he's back to normal for no reason" ending. It was nice to see Kif's planet and parents again, and I wasn't at all surprised to see the Grand Midwife show up again as well.

One thing I've been thinking of regarding the Colorado shooting is how it apparently affected box office sales for The Dark Knight Rises. I guess I understand this on one level, as it's a bad association, but I really don't think it's too likely there will be another shooting at the same movie. As far as I can tell, this was a lone wacko, not a terrorist organization targeting movie theaters. I actually heard some guy on the radio last night saying that he wasn't going to see the movie, but now he wants to in order to make a stand. Okay, but I don't think the shooter's goal was to stop people from seeing that particular film. I guess it could have been, but I doubt it. The same radio dude compared it to how he immediately wanted to fly after September 11th, but again, I don't think the goal was to stop people from getting on airplanes. Contrary to popular belief, it also wasn't for people not to shop or eat at restaurants. What I've heard gives the impression that what Al Qaeda wanted was to keep the United States from interfering in the Middle East. My advice would be to do what you were going to do anyway, and if that involves seeing the Batman movie, go for it. I'm still not sure whether I'll see it at the theater. Beth wants to, but she wants to watch The Dark Knight first, since we never did before.

It's strange how non-motivating having a lot of free time really is. It's basically what I longed for when I was working, but it's not all it's cracked up to be. I can use the heat as an excuse for not getting anything done, but that only goes so far. It is pretty bad, though, especially living in the upstairs part of a house as we do. And when I say I'm not accomplishing much, that counts things I'm doing just for fun. So what have I been doing? Aside from sweating, I've done some reading and played some video games. I'm still playing Sims 3, although I'm thinking I could use another expansion pack. Unfortunately, those cost money. So do the new Oz books put out by Tails of the Cowardly Lion and Friends. There was recently a Royal Podcast of Oz with Chris Dulabone, founder of the publishing house, which was pretty interesting. While the quality of the books they release varies, I appreciate Chris's desire to put out Oz books by many different hands. I can also identify with his desire for at least a basic continuity between them. And hey, I liked Bucketheads in Oz, although I agree that the sheer number of characters means some get pushed into the background.

On Wednesday, bethje and I celebrated Independence Day by going with some friends to an Indian restaurant. Makes sense, right? I will mention that, even though I asked for mild food, what I had was still a little too much on the hot side for me. I'm not really that familiar with Indian food as a whole, but I do like naan. Maybe next time I should just get a lot of that. {g} After dinner, Beth and I took a train to Hoboken to see the fireworks, but ended up not having a very good view. Oh, well. By the way, the Fourth was also the 150th anniversary of Lewis Carroll first telling the story that would become Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Last night, I finally got around to watching the newest Futurama episode, "The Thief of Baghead." In this one, Bender becomes a paparazzo, which is something Homer Simpson has also done before. That said, while that part of the premise might have been totally non-futuristic, the stuff with Langdon Cobb definitely was. I've found that the weaker episodes of the show are the ones that don't really use the science fiction theme in their plots, and I know I'm not the only one who thinks that, so the plot device of Cobb being a quantum lichen was appreciated. Also to the episode's credit, Bender being the last person to still use film and Cobb's fungal guard dog became significant later on. For what it's worth, I have a feeling we haven't seen the last of Calculon. If nothing else, I suppose he can load his brain into another body. So yeah, a pretty good episode.

I haven't been writing here much recently, but I have basically set this journal aside for stuff about my personal life, and that's been very boring as of late. I still haven't found work, so I mostly sit around all day, and that's not as much fun as it's cracked up to be. bethje wants to go to Applebee's as often as possible, and the rest of the time I'm mostly eaten frozen pizzas. (I mean, I heat them up, but they start out frozen.) We also watched two movies in the past week. One was Crash, not the one about racism (which we'd already seen), but the David Cronenberg one about sex and car crashes. And when I say that's what it was about, I mean it was pretty much the whole movie. People had sex in crashed cars, and one guy (played by Casey Jones from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies) filmed car crashes. It was different from anything else I've seen; I'll give it that. The other was Superbad, which was pretty funny. Much better than The 40-Year-Old Virgin, although now that I look at it, Judd Apatow was only the producer on Superbad, not the director. So I guess there's really no reason why they'd be at all similar.


I am pretty excited about the new season of Futurama. I know "The Bots and the Bees" was advertised as a tearjerker, but while it definitely had a sad ending, it was nowhere near the depression level of something like "Jurassic Bark." It says a lot for the show that we can feel bad for Bender when he's a rotten character in most ways. I liked seeing his parenting techniques. Strange that he wouldn't have known robots could reproduce when he had a son in The Beast with a Billion Backs, but whatever. The episode did try to explain why robots would be made with the ability to reproduce, but it's still weird. I guess that's just the kind of thing you have to roll with even when it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Last night's other episode, "A Farewell to Arms" (now THERE'S a title the significance of which you don't get until the very end), gave us a good take on Fry and Leela's relationship. The plot twist wasn't all that unexpected, as it figures that the Martians would have been more concerned with their world than ours. Doesn't the destruction of Mars change a lot of the status quo, though? The Wongs lived there and made much of their fortune from the planet, and the Professor worked at Mars University. It looks like there's a future episode called "Viva Mars Vegas," so maybe that will explain how everyone is compensating.

Finally, I've had several weird dreams that I thought were worth writing about. In one, I was in high school and something embarrassing happened to me. From what I can remember of what happened, it made no sense. Something involving getting an erection while on the toilet, and it being over some girl I really didn't find attractive. Anyway, I told a few other kids, hoping they'd understand my embarrassment, but instead they spread it around and everyone in the school was making fun of me. Eventually, it switched to an even more nonsensical setting, still at school but where I was riding in an elevator (yeah, because schools can afford them) and I had to reach the eleventh floor to get out of the building. The elevator kept missing the floor, though, and all these other kids kept getting on and mocking me. While the details made no sense, I think it was more or less a reflection of how I usually felt back when I was in secondary school. Later that night, I dreamed about my car breaking down, and it turned out that the last time I'd had it serviced someone had put a wooden frame between the body and the wheels. Yet another dream involved interviewing and hearing a lecture about becoming miners on some alien world, but it sucked because the hours were long and you were only allowed to return to Earth to visit once every several years or something. This one sort of sounds like it could be the germ for a science fiction story, but maybe not. It was followed by a conversation with Beth about how we both had the same dream, but of course in real life we hadn't. Another night, I dreamed I was at some party, and I remember little of it, although the venue kept changing around. I think sometimes it was just my family, and other times a whole bunch of people. I do remember that at one point I was playing The Sims, and there was some bit in the game where a baby was kidnapped and the family had to get it back. The thing was, it was pretty much entirely a text-based interface in the search for the baby, probably inspired by The Sims Medieval. Last night's dream involved an Oz Convention at my high school, and I was attending despite having exams, or something like that. And that's about all I can remember right now.

There really isn't anything worth reporting going on in my life, so I might as well get to some reviews:

Futurama: Overclockwise - With the fate of the show up in the air, the writers decided to come up with a third episode that could be the series finalé if necessary. And like "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings" and Into the Wild Green Yonder, it deals with Fry and Leela's relationship. Not that it really matters, since their relationship seems like it'll be on-again off-again as long as the show is still going on, and it looks like there is another season in the works. I don't feel this one did much to affect the relationship in the long run. That said, it was an enjoyable episode, and most of it focused on Bender anyway. When Cubert figures out how to overclock Bender, he becomes super-intelligent, and even able to predict the future. Mom, determining that Cubert's tinkering violates Bender's license agreement, has him and the Professor arrested. Bender saves them, but at the cost of his new-found intelligence and power. I know Cubert has never been one of the show's more popular characters, but I think this episode did a good job of using him in a way where he never became particularly annoying. I do have to wonder how he's still a kid, though. If he was twelve in 3004, shouldn't he be an adult by the present time of the show (which is presumably either 3010 or 3011)? Oh, well.

Super Mario World: Ghosts 'R' Us - This is the first episode to feature Oogtar the cave kid, yet he's presented as if we should already know who he is. I sure hope someone got fired for that blunder. Wait, the show was cancelled after this season, so I guess that's pretty much the same thing. Anyway, Oogtar is lost somewhere in the Enchanted Forest (presumably the same as the Forest of Illusion from the game), and Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, and the Princess are looking for him. They run into a Magikoopa named Wizardheimer (or is it "Wizzenheimer"?), whose name is never pronounced correctly by anyone but himself. Didn't they steal that bit from Mel Brooks?

The wizard captures everyone but Yoshi, who runs away and finds Oogtar. He talks pretty much the same way Yoshi does, with bad grammar and a habit of referring to himself in the third person. Also, he plays tough, constantly saying he's not afraid of anything but constantly running away from danger anyway. Since Toad isn't in this series and Oogtar has the same voice actor, I get the impression they sort of intended him as a replacement, but I don't think he works so well in that role. He has his moments, though, I guess.

Yoshi and Oogtar go to the Magikoopa's haunted house to rescue their friends, but Oogtar is captured, so Yoshi has to overcome his fear of ghosts to save everybody else. I'm not sure why they made Yoshi such a scaredy-cat in this series, but it's true that he won't go into ghost houses in the game, so I suppose it's consistent behavior. After escaping from Boos in a chase scene during which a song that kinda-sorta resembles "Thriller" (which, by the way, was actually played in the Super Show episode "Count Koopula," although it's absent from the DVD release), Yoshi eats the wizard's wand and frees the others. Oogtar finds a key, which not only gets them out of the dungeon, but also transports them back to Dome City. How ridiculously convenient!

Captain N: Totally Tetrisized - A follow-up to one of the best-remembered episodes from the second season, "The Trouble with Tetris." Kevin and Simon are playing a riddling video game (yes, even though they can live video games, they still sit around and play them sometimes), and right away Simon wins, a garbled communication from Mayor Squaresly tells them that Tetris is in trouble again.

Kevin, Simon, and Princess Lana warp there, and find that what was once a bustling city is now a ghost town. The only visible buildings are the Chamber of Tetris and a new castle. Squaresly is hiding out inside the Chamber of Tetris, and tells the N Team that a villain called the Puzzle Wizard has conquered the world and turned pretty much everybody into Tetris blocks. He goes with the heroes to confront the wizard at his castle, and he turns out to be a flat guy made of puzzle pieces and wearing a fedora.

He plays games with his challengers, including asking Simon the riddle, "If you take two apples from three apples, chop them into four squares, what do you have?" This is obviously playing on the riddle to which the correct answer is "two apples" (because, well, that's what you took), but I'm not sure how the four squares figure into it. Not that it really matters, because the wizard cheats anyway. He turns Simon into a block and attempts to do the same with Kevin, but Lana finds her brother Lyle's ring, and combines its power with that of her tiara in disenchanting Lyle. They then use their combined power to take out the Puzzle Wizard and save Tetris, although we never do see it restored. Chalk it up to the even cheaper animation this season. It ends with a joke about how Simon's blockiness hasn't yet worn off, so they're using him as a doorstop in the Palace of Power. As Simon himself says, "Very funny, Captain N." While the crude style still gets to me, it was nice to see Squaresly again, and the Puzzle Wizard was a somewhat interesting new villain. We didn't see him for long enough to his personality to really be developed, but he has an interesting design. Anyone else who reads Captain SNES may recall that he showed up in that comic, and we find out that he sees his own cheating as an art form.

Yesterday, bethje and I attended the Monster-Mania Convention in Cherry Hill, as we are wont to do. So far, there's only been one of them we've missed, and we even went to the one in Connecticut. Most of the question-and-answer panels this time weren't of all that much interest to me. There was one bit in the Lance Henriksen panel that I found amusing, because Beth is always bringing up this one scene in Pumpkinhead in which Lance's character is washing his son's hands, and tells him about how his grandmother used to wash his hands, and her own hands felt like paper. Strangely, Lance actually brought up this scene when someone asked him about the movie. The most interesting guest was probably Joe Turkel, not a name I'd recognize, but he played the bartender in The Shining.

He mostly talked about Stanley Kubrick (he was in a total of three of Kubrick's films), but it was pretty intriguing stuff. Cary Elwes told a story about Andre the Giant farting, which I can't say I found especially funny, but which is worth mentioning just for how bizarre an anecdote it was. The last guest we stayed for was Sam Trammell from True Blood, a show neither of us had ever watched, but he was a huge draw for the fangirls. Apparently his character on the show is naked quite often, and a lot of the questions pertained to this.

Also, there's this:

Futurama: Tip of the Zoidberg - This episode finally explained why Professor Farnsworth insists on keeping Dr. Zoidberg around despite his obvious incompetence. It reveals in flashbacks how the two of them met as monster hunters for Mom (whose real name is apparently Carol), and gave Zoidberg the chance to be a hero for once. He's somewhat more in his element when dealing with alien anatomy and diseases.

Just finished watching the last two Futurama episodes, and here are my reviews:


All the Presidents' Heads - The show has done a few different time-travel episodes before (even though I think the writers originally didn't want to do any), but this one had enough new and funny material to it to make it worthwhile. In fact, in terms of sheer humor value, it's probably one of the better ones this season. Between the running gag of people in previous centuries thinking Bender was various metal objects, the jokes on different cities and the silly plot devices they used to get different colonial figures into the mix, and the altered British-ruled future, this episode was a lot of fun. We also learn more about how head-in-a-jar technology works, even if it WAS just technobabble. If Professor Farnsworth used up all the powdered crystalline opal in the crew's time trips, does this mean no more heads will be preserved? Well, maybe they'll find another source somewhere. I doubt it will be addressed in later episodes. I wonder how Ron Popeil first discovered its properties of preservation. Also, it was an amusing bit of continuity when Dr. Cahill called Fry Lars.


Mobius Dick - The main impression I got from this one is that it must have been well-paced, because they managed to cram a lot of story into twenty-odd minutes. It was also resolved pretty well at the end. Not quite as funny as "All the Presidents' Heads," but the flashbacks to an earlier time in the future were amusing, as was Leela's Ahab-esque obsession with killing the whale. I'm also glad it gave us a large dose of science fiction themes, particularly the space whale itself and its four-dimensional digestive system. I'm going to have to check and see if any of the spaceships in the Bermuda Tetrahedron were references to anything in particular; I couldn't help feeling that they were, but didn't recognize any of them offhand. Okay, I checked, and they're all listed here, as is a continuity error that I didn't catch while actually watching the show: Dr. Zoidberg was said to have only been working at Planet Express for ten years back in "Insane in the Mainframe." Well, maybe he was fired and rehired. I don't know.