Stratovania

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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