vovat | Entries tagged with travel

Is it just me, or do I look deranged here?
Beth and I have been pretty busy as of late. On Wednesday, we saw Neko Case at the Beacon Theater.

The last time we saw her, there was some issue with the opener, and she was really irritated. This time, she seemed pretty enthusiastic. She introduced "Baby, I'm Not (a Werewolf)" as being about menopause, which she had a surprisingly positive attitude about. And "That Teenage Feeling" was inspired by the guitar player, Paul Rigby, whom she considers one of the most un-jaded people she knows. She did the drum solo during "Oh, Shadowless." I mentioned to Beth that her sets generally don't include anything from her first three albums, and she thought it was because she hadn't really developed her sound back then. The opener was a band called Des Demonas, and they were all right, but I had trouble understanding the lead vocals. EDIT: I forgot to mention that the pre-show music included "The Rhythm Thief" by Sparks, "Melt the Guns" by XTC, and "Green Green" by the Young Fresh Fellows. I wonder who chooses those. Neko did not perform her Sparks cover in the show, however.

The following day was Kevin Geeks Out at the Nitehawk in Prospect Park, and the subject was John Carpenter. We've seen several of his movies, and not surprisingly, there was a good amount about Halloween, including a guy playing Dr. Loomis undergoing an ethics board review. Another was a discussion of how Michael Myers seems to like clean laundry and hate messy sheets. One presentation was a supposed defense of Ghosts of Mars that turned out to be anything but, as it's a film that takes place in a matriarchal society, but isn't actually that progressive in its treatment of women. That's a movie we haven't seen, and I'm not sure we need to. At one point, Kevin Maher asked whether The Thing was a hangout movie, while admitting that he's not entirely sure what one of those is. I don't think I'd ever even heard the term before, and it's not clear whether it's the audience or the characters who are supposed to be hanging out. Maybe both? Somebody made the point that it might be more of a workplace movie, since it's not like the characters were at a research station in Antarctica just for fun. The Kindest Cut was of an episode of Star Trek: Voyager that was basically a take on Christine, but with a spaceship that had a psychic link to its pilot instead of a car. And Cece Dynamite did two burlesque performances, one as Michael Myers and the other as one of the ghosts from The Fog.

We drove to Pennsylvania on Friday night to visit Knoebels on Saturday. The park didn't open until 2 PM (except for some kids' activities), and we had to check out of the motel at 11 AM, which meant we had time to kill. Beth found a place in the area where you could ride a cart into a defunct coal mine, so we did that.

The mine cart thing was interesting, if rather bleak in its discussion of mine work. The guide talked about how dangerous it was and how the mining companies arranged things so the workers had no real take-home pay.

He also said his son worked in the mines (they're still in operation in the area, although that particular one isn't), and while I'm sure it pays better and has more safety precautions now, I still wouldn't want to do it. We saw a petrified tree, which was where the coal came from in the first place, and part of which had been donated to the Smithsonian.

And fortunately, we didn't have to jump from one cart to another because the tracks were broken.

No bananas, either.
They also had a steam train people could ride, but we didn't have the time. As it was, we didn't get to Knoebels until around 3:30.

This weekend was the last one for the Hallo-Fun event, and it was probably the most crowded it's been while we were there.

There are two rides that have total makeovers for the season, the train and the antique cars, and both have long waits. We missed the train ride both last year and this one. They stop the line when they think people will no longer be able to get on before closing, but if you're not there, there's no way to know that they're doing so. We did ride the cars, however, and several other things besides. The Whipper had some flashing lights for the occasion, and the Phoenix had some Halloween decorations as well. I appreciated that they had skeletons set up next to the pool, which was obviously not open.

We often go to Dorney Park after Knoebels, since it's basically on the way home. The route the GPS told us to take this time was mostly back roads that were quite dark and winding. It did give me the occasion to learn that my car has a setting that will turn off the brights automatically if it senses another car coming. What can't modern cars do? Set the clock ahead for Daylight Savings Time, apparently. I guess it will be correct again soon.

The park was open until 11, but we didn't stay anywhere near that long. I think we were both pretty tired after everything else.

There are a few things I would have wanted to ride if I'd had the energy, but I'd ridden them all before, so it was no big deal. One of them was Steel Force, which was temporarily closed when we got to it, and didn't reopen until we'd gone to a different area. We didn't do any of the mazes they had set up Halloween, as they cost extra. We watched a performance by the Spectral Sisters, and while I think it was the same as last year, we missed the beginning that time.

A bee joined us for part of that show.

And we got a picture of Beth with the puking pumpkin, which has become a bit of a tradition.

I posed in front of a witch's house and a pumpkin dwelling, which I don't think was Jack Pumpkinhead's.

I believe Dorney might have the only Ferris Wheel I've been on that had seatbelts. It really seems like the rules for safety restraints vary a lot. I noticed in the early 2000s that carousels started getting belts, although they don't always seem to be enforced.

Current Music: Space Zone from Super Mario Land 2

We're back from California, and I'm rather exhausted. We flew in very early on Sunday, and spent the first few nights there with Stephanie. On Monday night, we went to the LA Haunted Hayride, which included several mazes as well as the hayride itself.

They played clips from Elvira throughout, many from her Mistress of the Dark movie, and there was a haunted house devoted to her. Another was Monae Manor, which had clips and samples of Janelle.

There's a video where she's beheaded. I wonder if there's any connection between the two of them, aside from being queer and glamorous. The other maze was some hillbilly thing. And the Scary-Go-Round was a carousel with flamboyantly attired bone horses.

They had hay bales to sit on, and in one area they were made into chairs, which of course made me think of the Scarecrow's straw throne at the Tin Castle, because I'm like that.

On Tuesday, we saw Sparks at the Greek Theatre.

Fortunately Russell Brand wasn't there, at least as far as I know, but Russell Mael definitely was.

I don't think that, when that movie came out, I even knew the Greek was the name of a venue, although it didn't take me long to figure it out. I also didn't notice any Dionysus or comedy and tragedy masks, so should they really even get to use that name? We were in the standing room area in the front, and I don't really mind standing during a show, but I do mind when WAITING for the show. This was the last show on the tour, and the setlist was the same as all the others. I did notice that Russell waved his finger while singing the chorus of "Reinforcements."

Ron was wearing bright red Air Jordan shoes, and he actually talked a little bit towards the end.

His dance during "The Number One Song in Heaven" wasn't as long as it was last year, but he is eighty now.

That said, I have no idea how they stay in such good shape. Is it really just diet and exercise? Beth and Stephanie showed up in the picture the band took after the show, but I'm obscured, probably somewhere behind Ron's arm.

We rented a car on Wednesday and drove out to Santa Clarita so we could go to Six Flags Magic Mountain the next day.

It was fun, and not very crowded. There was only a short wait for most of the rides we went on. We rode on Goliath, which was closed the other time we visited; and on the Teen Titans Turbo Spin, which is like a Gravitron that tilts.

The Riddler's Revenge is a standing roller coaster that seemed similar to Green Lantern at Great Adventure, which was taken out last year. It kind of hurt my head, and wasn't too comfortable in the crotch area either.

The swing ride was called Swashbuckler, which is confusing, as that's the name of a totally different ride at Great Adventure.

This looks like it's from a Decemberists album cover.
You'd think they'd at least keep these things consistent across Six Flags parks, or at least I would. They did Fright Fest at night, and one of the scare zones was sort of a steampunk dark Wizard of Oz kind of thing.

They had creepy Winged Monkeys and some factory-themed stuff, as well as a Wicked Witch on stilts.

I do seem to recall they had a lion with an axe, though. Isn't that mixing characters?

There was also what seemed to be sort of an Alice in Wonderland area with scary playing cards and chess pieces.

The next evening, we went to Knott's Scary Farm, the Halloween event at Knott's Berry Farm, which we could walk to because our motel was very close by. The motel had some interesting garden statuary, a combination of (what at least I thought was) traditional Indian stuff and more modern things.

Maybe the owners are Buddhist, although my mom also had a Buddha statue in her garden and she wasn't. As opposed to the previous evening, the park was very crowded, and it's probably just going to get worse as the season goes on. The waits for Xcelerator and Ghost Rider were well over an hour, although the one for the mine ride wasn't that bad. The haunted walkthroughs were included in the admission, and we went to two of them, one Old West themed and another based on slasher movies and theaters.

The latter kept playing that "let's all go to the lobby" jingle. And we saw a show, Le Magnifique Carnaval di Grotesque, which was mostly dancing and circus-style acts, but there also seemed to be a bit of an attempted story about a girl trying to find the ringmaster's magic staff. That bit wasn't even introduced until after a harlequin had danced and silently (well, mostly) joked around, though.

The show also included a guy balancing on a gradually increasing pile of stuff, which Beth said stressed her out.

The meal we got at the barbecue place was a surprisingly large amount of food. I had rotisserie chicken with macaroni and cornbread, and I didn't finish all of it. But then, the sides weren't really that good. Still, it definitely filled me up.

On Saturday, we met Paul and Carolyn to visit the Medieval Torture Museum on Hollywood Boulevard. It has both models of torture implements and graphic depictions of their being used on dummies. There's also stuff you can interact with, like some kind of morbid Franklin Institute. One of the first things we saw there was an iron bull that, according to legend, was heated up to torment a person inside. The model, at least, is surprisingly intricate. If all you're going to use it for is to kill people, why bother giving it such detailed features?

But then, a lot of this kind of thing was spectacle. I can't even imagine watching a public execution. The late Charlie Kirk apparently thought children should see them. Even the stocks, which are pretty minor as far as these things go, seem incredibly hateful. Why would I want to ridicule someone because they broke the law?

It was probably mostly just people who didn't like the prisoner for some other reason, but the authorities encouraged it. Along the same lines, the museum had a weight that went around a person's neck and a barrel that people would have to sit inside for a while, both punishments for public drunkenness.

My gut reaction was that the star was some kind of antisemitic thing, but I guess not.
The informational plaques did say that the pendulum like in the Edgar Allan Poe story was probably not really used, and that the iron maiden (also called, as I found out at the museum, a Nuremberg Virgin) didn't exist in the Middle Ages.

There was an exhibit about execution by saw, which was what happened to the prophet Isaiah according to apocryphal sources, as well as something Art the Clown did in the first Terrifier movie.

These scales were based on the idea that anyone who weighed less than a certain amount was a witch. I think the other categories are just fun additions, although I'm intrigued by the idea that angels are particularly heavy. Maybe it's like how Rosalina is a heavyweight in Mario Kart. I guess this must be where Monty Python got the idea for the bit about a witch weighing the same as a duck. And there were these face hole cutouts of a sexy dominatrix and a slovenly man with his gut hanging out, which I think says something about sexism in society.

I won't say they weren't funny, however.

Our plane was scheduled to leave before 9 at night, but it ended up being delayed. The particularly annoying thing is that we didn't find this out until after everyone had already gotten on the plane, and there were announcements that there was a malfunction with a fire alarm, and it would have taken hours to fix it. Obviously I'm no expert, but doesn't this seem like the kind of thing they'd find out before letting anyone board? I normally don't even mind airports or flying that much, but I hate how slow everything is. And someone said something about having to exchange our tickets for new ones, which ended up not happening, but it made me feel helpless and trapped. I also kept getting updates on my phone giving new departure times, which would come and go with nothing really happening. Can't they wait to make these announcements until they're certain, instead of constant guessing? It would still be frustrating, but less confusing. Anyway, we're back at home now, and went back to work today. Right now, I'm doing the laundry.

Current Music: Dukes of Stratosphear: 25 O'Clock

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.

Watch on YouTube

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.

Current Music: Rasputina: Any Old Actress

My aunt died on the fifteenth, and we drove down to Virginia for the funeral this past weekend. I hadn't seen her in a while, not since my grandmother's funeral about six years ago. And this was just a few months after my mom died. My Aunt Toni was the oldest, four years older than my mom. And today is actually my mom's birthday, so that's weird. The funeral was yesterday at a small church, and I believe it was a natural burial as well. This hasn't been a great year so far in several respects.

I had originally thought we would drive the entire way down on Saturday, but I changed my mind and booked a motel in Maryland, which turned out to be a good idea. Driving gets so tedious. The motel still used actual keys instead of cards, and it had pictures of animals up in the room.

For some reason, the toilet paper was in front of a zebra.

I would think they should have at least used zebra-striped paper in this case. The motel also had real animals, as we saw three cats in a window near the office, and I think the people staying there also had a dog.

The next day, we went to a café in Baltimore, and drove by a book and music store that looked interesting because it had a big stuffed Heathcliff with a banjolele in the window.

There were other decorations inside, and we ended up buying four used books between us.

Across the street was this tea shop with a giant carrot stuck through it, or at least that was what it was made to look like.

That evening, we ate at the Longhorn Steakhouse with some of my relatives and other people. I don't think I've been to one of them before, although I get it confused with the Texas Roadhouse and Lone Star Steakhouse. I'm pretty sure that last one doesn't exist anymore. Regardless, I liked it, and they gave large portions. I had chicken instead of steak, though.

In terms of other stuff that might be worth mentioning, we visited the Brooklyn Botanic Garden on Wednesday the sixteenth. A few of the cherry trees were blooming, but most of them were still bare.

The magnolias by the conservatory were in blossom, however. And I noticed this Shinto-style shrine at the Japanese Hill and Pond Garden for the first time.

We were at Beth's mom's house for Easter weekend, but didn't really do anything for it, although she did give us Easter baskets, and we ate at the Olive Garden.

And last Tuesday, we saw John Waters at the City Winery in Manhattan, and that was pretty enjoyable. It was his seventy-ninth birthday that day, which means he outlived my mom and aunt.

Current Music: Magnetic Fields: Love Is Like Jazz

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.

Current Music: Rasputina: Rose K.

I guess I should say a bit about the places Beth and I visited this month, which really aren't that out of the ordinary. On the Thursday before last, we met Tavie and Sean at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. There wasn't much there that was particularly noteworthy, but it's always pretty. I have to say this cactus looks like it wants to dance.

And I thought this picture of the fountain outside the conservatory turned out pretty well.

And we went to Playland last Wednesday, which coincidentally was Ozma's birthday, and it seemed like a lot of stuff didn't work correctly.

There was no music on the carousel, and the animatronics in the Old Mill weren't running.

That's a really old ride and they're probably difficult to maintain, but still. And I noticed the censored picture at Zombie Castle has been sloppily painted over entirely.

I believe this marionette ride was new this year, but it wasn't running.

We visited Beth's family in South Jersey over the weekend, but my car stopped running correctly after leaving the New Jersey Turnpike, and I tend to panic when I'm in situations like that. What made it even worse was that we were bringing the cats down with us. Beth's uncle picked up Beth and the felines, while I waited for the tow truck. Since it was late at night, I was worried about finding a repair place. But it actually turned out somewhat easier than I had feared, as the tow truck driver was able to take it to a dealer not too far from Beth's mom's house and leave the key in the drop box with my phone number. It turned out that one of the engine coils wasn't firing properly, so I had to get that fixed. But I've had the car for fifteen years now, and it's probably time to get another one. The air conditioner rarely works, and it would have been prohibitively expensive to get it fixed. And there's a tire pressure warning light that won't go out even after I've put air in the tires. Anyway, while we were in the area, we went to Clementon Park, but didn't stay that long.

Only a few rides were running, and we both felt sick after a while. I have to wonder if I should mostly retire from amusement parks, but we do still have Great Adventure season passes that we've only used once, and Beth thinks the problem might have been the off-brand motion sickness pills we took. I do like that they have a Pizza Hut in the park, and we split a personal pan pizza. Pizza Hut is nostalgic for me, despite our now living in Brooklyn where there are pizza parlors everywhere.

I'm back on the medicine that lowers my blood sugar quite a bit, but also suppresses my appetite and upsets my stomach, which I'm sure didn't help at the amusement parks. I wasn't able to finish the omelette I had for dinner on Wednesday, and I suspect it's no good now. Also, while I'd been working from home two days a week, that's been suspended until the end of the month, presumably because a lot of people are on vacation. And I'm still wondering if I should go to the Oz Convention in North Carolina next month. I feel like I should, and I'm sure I'd have fun, but it sounds so complicated. For that matter, I'm not even entirely sure I can get the time off from work. Oh, and the vet estimated that Nellie was born last August, so I guess she's fully grown now.

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Music: Talking Heads: Life During Wartime

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.

Current Music: Sparks: I Wish I Looked a Little Better

Last weekend was our trip to Pennsylvania. The original plan was to drive to Pittsburgh on Friday, go to Kennywood on Saturday, and then to Knoebels on Sunday. The thing is, Knoebels was only open for four hours on Sunday. We'd checked it before, but got confused. So instead, we went to Knoebels on Friday, when it was also only open four hours, but late hours rather than early ones. It was also raining on and off all evening. Still, we managed to ride most of what we'd wanted to. It was the first time either of us had ridden a Roll-O-Plane, which they called the Satellite.

They've also installed a Rock-O-Plane, but they haven't trained the employees to operate it as of yet. This is something Beth has been looking into recently, and she told me that these and the Loop-O-Plane are three different kinds of old rides, but the Roll-O-Plane is sometimes called the Salt and Pepper Shakers. I'm not sure how that name makes sense, but I guess the "shake" part is accurate enough. We also rode the Flying Turns, which is sort of a combination wooden roller coaster and bobsled track. On the sled parts, it rides up pretty high on the sides. They had scales set up to make sure the cars balanced out properly. I forget which ride it was that made me feel a little queasy. Beth said the Impulse bothered her, but I was fine with that one. The Antique Cars had a special setup for Halloween, as did the Pioneer Train.

They call this time of year "Hallofun," and while I probably would have included the W, nobody asked me.

Kennywood is 125 years old this year, and has a few attractions that are billed as the last of their kind. The Turtle was closed, but we did ride the Kangaroo for the first time. The gimmick to it is that part of its cycle goes over a ramp to produce a hopping effect. It also makes springing noises.

Noah's Ark is a walkthrough that's also the last of its kind in operation, and we did the Halloween version that was entirely in the dark with people jumping out at you.

I felt they let us in too close to the people in front of us, so most of the scares were spoiled. On the other hand, we could follow their voices, so it was a mixed blessing. Ghostwood Estate is a haunted ride that doesn't only run during Phantom Fall Fest (their name for the Halloween season), where you're supposed to shoot at targets to scare off ghosts. I wasn't very good at it. There's a guy who guides you through it named Lord Kenneth Ghostwood, but did he have that name when he was still alive? There's a new ride called Spinvasion, which has an alien theme and cars that swing while the whole thing spins around.

We walked through two of the haunted attractions, the zombie-filled Kennyville Cemetery and Malice in Wonderland Unleashed. What we didn't get to do was ride the Auto Race, which broke down while we were in line.

They had a lot of Halloween decorations, and these prizes at one of the games kind of reminded me of Dragon Quest.

I guess there's nothing particularly DQ-related about spherical creatures, but that's where my mind went.

I had originally wanted to drive maybe halfway home after this, but since it was an exhausting day, we instead stayed in Altoona and went most of the way on Sunday. We did stop on Saturday night at a place called Dean's Diner, after ruling out an understaffed Denny's and a closed Applebee's. I overheard a kid at the diner mention that there was a shooting in Indiana, which is where I went to college. We ate on Saturday afternoon at a cute restaurant called Fox's Diner, which served only breakfast on weekends.

And on Sunday, we had a meal at a surprisingly crowded Perkins. And I guess that's just about it for amusement parks this year, although we do still have tickets to Hersheypark.

Current Music: Decemberists: The Engine Driver

Our second trip to California was primarily for OzCon, but we did a few other things as well. Beth and I flew in last Thursday, and I rented a car through Turo, which we'd heard about from Stephanie. It was my first time using it, and it's weird, because you're just renting some other person's car. For some reason, that makes me more nervous than getting one from a rental place, even though it's cheaper. I'm not even sure how insurance works; they tried to sell me some kind of extra protection, but since I couldn't figure out exactly what it entailed, I declined it. It worked out all right, although the car wasn't great on hills, of which there are a lot more in the Los Angeles area than where we live. We got in pretty early to have the chance to do some stuff before the convention, but we really didn't. I did stop to do a bit of laundry at a place called Laundry 2000, but we couldn't find anything else that had convenient parking, and we were both tired. A few hours later, we ate at a diner called Norm's, an area chain that I'd never heard of. While driving back to Pomona, we crossed a street called Lark Ellen Avenue, which was weird as there was a character with that name in The Mysterious Chronicles of Oz. I looked it up, and it's the nickname of an opera singer, Ellen Beach Yaw, who lived in the area. On Sunday after the convention, we drove to downtown LA and went out to eat with Stephanie. Her original plan was to eat at a fancy place on a rooftop, but since it was so hot out, we ended up just getting drinks there and eating at the IHOP nearby. Stephanie said she hadn't been to one of those in a long time, but she liked it. As someone who likes to eat what's familiar, I'm a fan of chain restaurants, although I get why people want to try local things when on vacation. I was glad to see that Denny's is apparently still thriving in the area, even though we didn't go to any of them. Around here, a lot of them have closed, and the open ones no longer serve food all day.

On Monday, we went to Six Flags Magic Mountain, as we'd been planning to do on our last trip until I forgot my glasses and couldn't drive there. It's built on an actual mountain, although it's not as vertical in its layout as Universal Studios. I understand it's also the Thrill Capital of the World. It's been very hot recently, and I'm sure that wasn't good for us when we were outside all day. I don't usually get sick from roller coasters, but I did a few times on that day. And, as it's a Six Flags park, they definitely emphasized the coasters. The only non-coaster things we rode were the carousel and the train.

Their carousel doesn't have its own music, which is kind of disappointing. Since it's a Warner Bros. park, they should at least have a particular song playing when it isn't running.

The first thing we rode, the New Revolution, appears in the movie Rollercoaster, and both that and Twisted Colossus are in National Lampoon's Vacation.

It was just the Colossus back then, though; the Twisted part is due to a 2015 remodel that added steel to the wooden frame. There are some steampunk-type things in and outside the waiting area.

We also rode X2 (formerly just X; did Elon Musk name it?), Viper, Tatsu, Full Throttle, Scream, and Wonder Woman Flight of Courage.

Viper was the same as the one they used to have at Great Adventure, which was really rough, and was removed some years ago.

The name of Tatsu made me think of Shredder's henchman in the first two Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies, but it's really just Japanese for a dragon. It's like Superman Ultimate Flight at Great Adventure in that the seats turn you into a position with your back parallel to the track, but I found it more intense. The ride's slogan is "fly at the speed of fear," similar to "travel at the speed of fright" for the now-defunct Big Bad Wolf at Busch Gardens in Virginia.

Wonder Woman is a single-rail coaster.

A lot of them were running only one train at a time, which was frustrating despite fairly short lines. There were a few others that were either closed or we just didn't have the time and/or energy to ride. It's kind of confusing that Six Flags parks will use similar names for different rides. At Great Adventure, there's a Wonder Woman pendulum ride, while one of the coasters at Magic Mountain that was closed was Superman: Escape from Krypton. Yeah, there's more to the names to distinguish them, but still. The tickets we bought included parking, unlimited refills on drinks throughout the day, and food every hour and a half. We didn't really take advantage of that last one, due to time constraints and several food places being closed, but I did get pizza at two different locations.

We're back home now, and it's still strangely lonely with the cats gone. I went back to work yesterday, and I've been feeling kind of awkward there recently for a few reasons I don't want to go into just now, and that probably don't really matter in the long run. I did learn that we'll be able to work from home two days a week starting later this month, although it's different days every week. The problem is that the work laptop has such a tiny screen, so it's hard to switch from one thing to another. Maybe I could hook it up to my computer monitor. I'm also wondering if I should just stop using Twitter. As far as I can tell, changing its name to something really dumb hasn't changed the interface or anything, but there just doesn't seem to be a lot of interaction there anymore, except from the all too numerous spambots. Mark Zuckerberg is probably even worse than Musk in some ways, but he's more behind the scenes, so I don't have to think about how much of a jerk he is every time I open Facebook. Twitter was just so convenient when I had one-off thoughts, though. Musk is like Donald Trump, not just in that they're both bigots, but that they presumably have enough money that they could just live a life of leisure, but instead insist on playing businessman. I guess they crave the power and attention. And I'm still not sure how constantly making things less convenient for users is supposed to make money. It's probably related to how stock prices apparently have very little to do with whether companies are producing anything, but just about the whims of investors; and how every other ad online is about a vague concept instead of a tangible thing.

Current Mood: melancholy
Current Music: Human League: WXJL Tonight

Since we were married on Leap Day, Beth and I celebrated our anniversary on the first of this month, and went to the orchid show at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx.

The orchid part was all indoors, much of it in a simulated tropical environment. I can say I didn't know that much about orchids, but there are a lot of different kinds, in many different colors.

Also in the conservatory was a cactus that looked like a bunch of snakes, although snakes usually aren't that scary.

The rest of the garden was, not surprisingly, pretty chilly, and not a lot was blooming. We did, however, take a tram ride around the place. I also thought that this rock looked like it would have an item inside or under it.

Maybe if Link were there. The NYBG is bigger than the one in Brooklyn, but not as big as Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania. It contains the last vestige of the forest that once covered much of the area. Afterwards, we went to eat at the Olive Garden. The last few times I've been there, I've gotten rigatoni with five-cheese marinara sauce and sausage.

This past weekend was the Monster-Mania Convention in Cherry Hill, and while we were on the way there, we stopped at a kitschy candy store called Rocket Fizz.

Maybe this woman made her family disappear.
Tavie had taken some pictures there, and Beth found out that there was one in Marlton.

There's a lot of interesting stuff, including the kind of potato chips my teacher gave out in elementary school and a bunch of socks with brand logos, including Diet Coke, Bubble Yum, Swedish Fish, and Froot Loops.

None of those were anything I felt strongly enough about to want to wear on my feet, although I do drink a fair amount of Diet Coke, and I used to eat Swedish Fish in high school and college. They also had a lot of weird themed sodas, including a Monkees banana nut flavor that we bought, as well as tributes to Ritchie Valens, Rowdy Roddy Piper, and...Fidel Castro?

Beth also picked up a Zagnut bar, Jimmie Stix, and some Dutch licorice cats for her mom. I ended up getting a blueberry muffin Kit Kat, a little Pac-Man machine with some kind of candy that I haven't checked out yet, and a deck of Wizard of Oz playing cards with no candy involved at all. I had a pack of cards like those before, except with those it was just one picture on the backs, and here it looks like there are other images from the movies on the card faces.

I did notice a few items that appeared to be pro-Trump, although they had stuff that made fun of him as well. I remember, a few years ago, passing a souvenir shop in Manhattan that had both MAGA and Black Lives Matter hats. I guess that's what you could call mercenary merchandising.

As for the convention itself, I've noticed a gradual decline in the number and length of events that are free with admission, like question-and-answer panels and film introductions by people involved with them. There are still a few, though. The first one on Saturday was with Amie Donald, who played the titular robot girl in M3GAN, but didn't do the voice.

She has a New Zealand accent, and I'm not sure how well that would have worked for the character. Then came Adrienne Barbeau, followed by Brooke Smith, the woman who rubbed the lotion on her skin in Silence of the Lambs.

There were two bigger panels in the evening, the first featuring final girls from the Friday the 13th series, with Adrienne King, Amy Steel, Kimberly Beck, and Melanie Kinnaman.

And the one for the Terrifier films had several people on the production side as well as the actors.

Before it started, Leah Voysey sang the relentlessly catchy Clown Cafe song, with Elliott Fullam accompanying her on guitar.

David Howard Thornton, who played Art the Clown, did a pantomime of killing someone.

I also bought some Mario-related pictures from Dallas Pritchard of Studio 327.

On Sunday night, we got home in time for Beth to watch the Oscars, while I sort of half-watched them. As usual, I hadn't seen most of the movies that had been nominated for anything. We did see Elvis and Tar, and Turning Red was in the animated category. I do think I should probably see Everything Everywhere All at Once, and I'm sure I'll see Black Panther: Wakanda Forever at some point, although I'm behind on the Marvel movies. From the online comments I've seen about the ceremony, yeah, a fat suit probably shouldn't be winning any makeup awards; a commercial for The Little Mermaid during the broadcast is weird, but the whole thing is kind of a commercial anyway, so whatever; and Warner Bros. taking credit for movies they bought the rights to but didn't make seems rather similar to Elon Musk paying to call himself the founder of Tesla. I have no issue with Florence Pugh's outfit, though.

I guess I think she's just generally cute, though. It's weird how Janelle Monae's dress looked red on stage, but pretty bright orange elsewhere.

It stands out a lot more when the orangeness is obvious. And speaking of unusual colors, I have to give props to The Rock.

I haven't gone to the movies that much recently, but Beth was talking about wanting to see Scream 6, and there's the Mario movie coming up. From what I've seen in the trailers, it almost looks like they're throwing in too many references, although we don't know that everything there will be included, or will be particularly important even if it is. I guess it's just kind of weird to me because, from what I understand, it's loosely an adaptation of the original Super Mario Bros., yet they're including stuff that wasn't introduced into the series until decades after that. Then again, I'm pretty sure that, even if the movie is really successful, they're not going to make one based on each and every Mario game. I mostly like the designs, although Peach's head and eyes look kind of disproportionate to the rest of her.

I guess it's not the first time she's been depicted with a strangely large head for her body, though.

I have an ultrasound coming up on Thursday, and the cats have to go to the vet on Friday. And I'm not entirely sure how we're going to work out our summer plans, since Beth and I both have things we want to do in California in July, but in different parts of the month. For now, here's a picture of Reagan as a bat.

Current Mood: unprepared
Current Music: Battle Theme from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

Beth and I saw Neko Case twice last week, at White Eagle Hall in Jersey City on Tuesday, and Brooklyn Steel on Thursday. Neither place was that convenient to get to, and both were standing room only. The thing is, I believe the last few times we saw Neko, which admittedly were a few years ago, pre-pandemic, they were at seated venues. I guess she has to take what she can get. Getting home from Jersey City was particularly annoying, as the PATH trains run very rarely at night. I'm not entirely sure, but I think this might have been the first time we saw her live without Jon Rauhouse being part of the band. Carl Newman, Paul Rigby, Joe Seiders (mostly on drums, but on accordion for a few songs), and Nora O'Connor were all in it, though. We had seen Nora perform with Kelly Hogan a long time ago at the Tin Angel in Philadelphia. The setlists at both shows were pretty similar, although there were a few differences, with the Tuesday show being slightly longer. "I Wish I Was the Moon" was the closing song at the first, and the opening one at the second. Thursday was actually Neko's birthday, and she did acknowledge it. She said something about preferring her fifties to her forties. I suppose I'll find out about that eventually. I always like her banter during shows; she seems to mostly just say whatever comes to mind. She mentioned that "Favorite" was the first song she wrote on guitar, and "Maybe Sparrow" the first one she and Paul wrote together. She had recently put out a collection, which I think is mostly already released stuff, although there's one new song on it, "Oh, Shadowless," that she did at both shows, playing the drum during one part of it. Beth has recently really gotten into Sparks, so she was excited that "Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth" was part of both sets. Neko doesn't like people taking pictures at concerts, so I didn't. I will, however, say that she wore her skeleton pants at both shows. I'd heard of these before, but I don't think I'd seen them in person before this. She wore a skeleton outfit in a Maow video back in 1996, but I don't think it's the same; she says she bought the pants for three dollars at a Halloween store. This picture is from 2017.

Current Music: Kim Boekbinder: Animal (not the same as the Neko song)

Today is Beth's birthday, but we're not doing anything special today. We do have a lot of stuff planned for this week, though. I think it's going to be exhausting. My birthday is coming up on Thursday, and again, no particular plans for that day, aside from my weekly guitar lesson. We didn't do anything on Halloween either, although we did go out the night before to see the Brooklyn Chamber Orchestra perform at a church. They played the fourth movement of Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique (the march to the scaffold), Saint-Saens' Danse Macabre, Liszt's Totentanz, and Boito's "Prologue in Heaven" from Mefistofele. The last one was accompanied by a chorus, with the bass singing the lead part of the Devil. We got tickets to see some other performances by the orchestra.

This past Saturday, we went with Beth's mom and uncle to Cape May to ride the Revolution Rail. They have these in other places as well, pedal cars that run on abandoned railroad lines. There was a lot of wind, so it was pretty chilly. Apparently there's sometimes wildlife, mostly birds, that can be seen from the tracks, but we didn't see any.

We stopped at a nature preserve along the track, where they had an insect hotel and lots of milkweed for migrating butterflies.

They also have bald eagles there, but again, we didn't see them. At the terminal where we boarded the cars, Beth and I posed in a face cutout thing that was clearly made with smaller people in mind.

After the ride, Beth bought some stuff at a peanut butter store, and we had dinner at a diner that was also a pizzeria, although none of us got pizza. I was considering having stromboli, but instead I chose a pizza steak, and Beth's mom and uncle also had cheese steaks. I remember the grocery store nearby having good stromboli, but we haven't been shopping in a while, at least not properly. I mostly get stuff from bodegas and drugstores these days, and that's probably more expensive.

Current Mood: hungry
Current Music: Tori Amos: Ocean to Ocean

My dad is staying in a rental house in Delaware near the beach, so we decided to go down there for the weekend. It was a really big house, three floors with a lot of space and multiple balconies. It had a lot of games and toys as well as knick-knacks, and really, if I owned the place, I'd be afraid someone would break my enormous dollhouse.

Rental properties are such a weird concept to me. I mean, I know how they work, but I can't imagine doing that myself. You have to keep a house clean but don't get to live in it? But that's probably good, as that way lies bitching about eviction moratoriums (or moratoria; both are correct according to dictionary.com). The place was next to a salt pond, and we could hear a kingfisher out there. My dad's girlfriend, her stepdaughter and her husband and kids were there when we were, and my brother and his wife and son were going to visit on Saturday but couldn't. We didn't get the chance to do much, but Beth found a farm nearby that had fall activities, so she and I went there.

Called Mr. Pepper's Pumpkin Patch (is he related to the Sergeant, by any chance?), it had a hayride and a corn maze, but they weren't spooky. The hayride did actually have hay, however. It was our first time in a corn maze, or at least a proper corn maze, as we've been to some haunted attractions that called themselves corn mazes but really only had one way to go. This had branching paths and occasional bridges to look out from.

On our way back to the house, we stopped at a toy store that I noticed had what looked like an off-model Mario in the window, but it was actually an on-model Mario that had gotten faded on the front, but was fine in the back.

We didn't get anything at the store, but they had a lot of interesting stuff. We ate at Friendly's on the way to Delaware and Applebee's on the way back, because chain restaurants are usually familiar and reliable. They both have good mozzarella sticks and marinara.

I haven't been playing video games that much recently, although I have been watching some playthroughs of games. I did get the chance to play Animal Crossing during the weekend, and my neighbors all wondered what had happened to me. In the game, I mean. I don't think our actual neighbors would notice. I've still been taking guitar lessons, but it's frustrating, because I've had two teachers leave the place I've been going. It's mostly for kids' classes, but they do adult lessons as well. I feel this is impeding my progress, as different teachers emphasize different things, and a new one isn't going to know my strengths and weaknesses or what I've learned. I probably should say something to the director, but I'm nervous about it. I recently found guitar tabs for the Super Mario Bros. theme, which is pretty fun. I've been looking for other stuff I like, but often even when it's written out in an easy way, it's still beyond my skill level.

Current Mood: anxious
Current Music: Robyn Hitchcock: Goodnight I Say (live)

So, let's see. I guess I should start this last weekend, when we went to the Creamy Acres Night of Terror in Mullica Hill, New Jersey. We'd done this for the past few years, and it was pretty much the same. There are four different events that they arrange one after the other: a hayride, a corn maze, a house with psychedelic clowns where 3-D glasses enhance the visuals, and a haunted house. It's kind of weird that they still call them hayrides when I don't think I've had one that involved actual hay in years. That's probably a good thing, but they still use the name. I always have trouble finding the way through some of these things. While kids seem to get through them just fine, I have to make the actors break character to show me the way. Last year, I ended up wandering backstage at the clown house. We were close enough to the people in front of us that it didn't happen this time. That's still my least favorite part, though; I know creepy clowns are all the rage these days, but they just don't strike me as appropriately Halloweeny.

On Wednesday, we attended another event that was basically the same as last time, the Great Jack O' Lantern Blaze in Croton-on-Hudson, near Sleepy Hollow. It's always impressive, but it no longer has as much novelty.

I believe the model of New York City was new, though.

Then, on Friday, we saw Robyn Hitchcock in Montclair with Tavie and Ade.

It was just him solo; apparently Emma Swift, who performed with him the last few times I saw him, has been taking a break from singing. It was mostly on acoustic guitar, and I noticed he did a lot of finger plucking, something I've only recently learned how to do. He played harmonica on "Olé! Tarantula," and mentioned how much he liked hearing recordings of Bob Dylan concerts where he'd switch and test out different harmonicas.

He also did two John Lennon songs as it was the evening of John's birthday, and he mentioned that "Somewhere Apart," which he played on piano, was his attempt to write a Lennon song. For "Victorian Squid," about the repression of the Victorian era (which Robyn admitted was mostly mythical anyway), he mentioned bathing-machines, which I actually knew about from Alice in Wonderland and The Hunting of the Snark. And with "Sinister But She Was Happy," he talked about how Donald Trump never seemed happy, as if part of him knew how terrible he was and wanted to escape, and contrasted him with the Joker. That's definitely something I noticed about the former President. He was kind of a hedonist, but never really gave the impression of LIKING any of it; it struck me as entirely performative. Anyway, other songs I remember him playing were "Flavour of Night" (on piano), "Chinese Bones," "Vibrating," "Madonna of the Wasps," "Cynthia Mask," "Saturday Groovers," "I Often Dream of Trains," "Adventure Rocket Ship," "I Pray When I'm Drunk" (appropriate since the show was in a church), "Mad Shelley's Letterbox," "I Saw Nick Drake," and "Queen of Eyes." After the performance, I bought a copy of Robyn's illustrated book of lyrics and the live CD of I Often Dream of Trains.

We ate at a diner afterwards, and I was somewhat fascinated with the kids' menu. Such places will often give the children's meals names of cartoon characters, but they often end up really confusing, either because I don't know what the character has to do with the food or I do but it comes off as disturbing. I mean, I get the connection of the Little Mermaid to fish, but Ariel was horrified that humans eat animals she was friends with, so I wouldn't say it's entirely appropriate. And I hope Disney doesn't see that illustration. Was Mickey turkey just because the words sound similar (T-U-R-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E!)? We got a ride to Jersey City, but it still took us forever to get back to Brooklyn, due to all the late-night maintenance and service changes. Yesterday, we saw The Many Saints of Newark at the theater, and I've already written about that. I would like to mention that the hot dogs at Alpine Cinemas are surprisingly good.

Current Music: Robyn Hitchcock: Up to Our Nex (live in New York 2008)

Well, at least I was. After our first road trip to Pennsylvania to visit amusement parks, we did another one this past weekend, going to Kennywood. The name is kind of confusing because Dollywood exists, but it had that name for more than thirty years before Kenny Rogers was born. Beth had been wanting to go since childhood, when she saw a documentary film called Kennywood Memories, which she showed me a few weeks ago. It was made in the eighties, so obviously some things have changed since then, but many were still there. I hadn't been in western Pennsylvania since graduating from college, and I very briefly considered visiting my old school, but it was out of the way and I don't know what I would have done there anyway. We did stop to see Beth's relatives who had bought a bed and breakfast, where they still live, but they don't take guests anymore. We spent Friday night at a motel, then drove to the park on Saturday morning.

We were able to go on most of the rides we were interested in, the main exception being a roller coaster called the Skyrocket that's right near the entrance, but we decided to save for later. This is one of those parks that closes everything before the official closing time, so we ended up not being able to. The first thing we rode was the Old Mill, a classic dark ride that's been changed a few times. For a while, it was Garfield-themed. Currently, it tells the story of a skeleton in the Old West, complete with appropriate music. The skeleton's name is Harold, which is my dad's name, and that made it more entertaining. There are three wooden coasters, the Jack Rabbit, the Racer, and the Thunderbolt.

It's a little confusing when parks give different rides the same names. Clementon Park also had an old wooden coaster called the Jackrabbit, but it wasn't the same. And I've seen Thunderbolt used for the ride that's like the Musik Express except the cars are suspended, and a relatively new coaster at Coney Island that neither of us have ridden yet. The Racer runs two trains at once, and they end up on opposite sides during the course of the ride. I'm sure it's based on a simple principle, but I haven't looked into how it works.

Phantom's Revenge was originally the Steel Phantom, but was renamed in 2001 after significant renovations. I'm not entirely sure what the Phantom is getting revenge for, but there you go. Another coaster, the Steel Curtain, is themed around the Steelers.

I'm not a sports guy at all, but it was amusing that they had sportscasters doing the safety announcement. That one has a really steep first hill. The Exterminator is a Crazy Mouse sort of ride, but indoors and largely in the dark. It was a lot rougher than I expected.

By the way, it's not far from the Black Widow (not affiliated with the Marvel character), so I suspect the Exterminator isn't doing their job. The Whip and the Turtle were both installed in the 1920s.

The former has sixteen cars instead of the twelve I've seen on other Whips, and is out in the open air.

The Turtle was originally the Tumble Bug, which used to be a pretty standard ride but is now the only one still operating. What's less old is the sample of Dana Carvey saying "turtle" that they play during the ride. Also worthy of note is Noah's Ark, which is a walkthrough but presumably still counts as a ride because the boat park rocks back and forth.

You enter through a whale's mouth, and there are a lot of animal props, as well as some trick floors. According to the documentary, the air jets were originally installed to blow up women's skirts, but I'm not sure that would be legal anymore, even though I doubt too many people still wear skirts to amusement parks. The park has two kiddie sections, Kiddieland with smaller versions of the classic rides, and Thomas Town that's based on Thomas the Tank Engine. They made a big deal in the film of the Potato Patch, which sells fresh-cut French fries with various toppings. The wait for this was worse than most of the rides. Aside from that, Beth had a corn dog and a funnel cake, and I had a stromboli and a water ice.

After leaving the park, we went into Pittsburgh to ride something else, the two inclines on Mount Washington. We parked into a garage for the Monongahela, and a lot for the Duquesne. There might have been a lot for the former, but I didn't think to look for it before driving there.

Called funicular railways, they counterbalance by having one car coming down the track while the other is going up. The gift shops weren't open when we got there, but I noticed that some of the merchandise for the Duquesne Incline had a cute anthropomorphic version of the car.

I'll admit to having a rather irrational fear of heights, but only when I can really process them, so not on roller coasters or planes or anything. I'm less afraid that I'll fall than that I'll drop something. But I did get some pictures of Pittsburgh from above, including the confluence of the three rivers.

We spent that night at my dad's house, which he just bought last year. The next day, my brother and his wife and son were over at my dad's for a little while, and I finally got to give them the Christmas presents I'd bought months ago. Then we met my mom and sister for dinner at a place called Snap Custom Pizza in Exton, where they'll make a pizza to order, sort of like a Subway sandwich.

I have to go back into the office full-time on Monday, which is annoying. I don't have any particular safety concerns, but since working from home was apparently effective for a while, why is it necessary? I've heard something about wanting to justify the cost of the subways, so if that's the reason, I guess it ultimately comes down to money over people. I suppose I should be glad that this was delayed for over a year, but it just feels like a case where we're given a better option, then it's taken away with no given reason.

Current Music: Blur: Come Together

This weekend, Beth and I visited two different Pennsylvania amusement parks, Knoebels north of Harrisburg, and Dorney Park near Allentown. Neither of us had been to the former before, and the last time I went to Dorney was around thirty years ago. Knoebels is a small, rather quaint family-owned park with a lot of older rides, which started in 1926. Their mascot is a chipmunk named Kosmo, and other cartoon animals could be seen around the place.

Admission to the park itself is free, and you can pay either a flat rate for unlimited rides all day (which is what we did) or buy individual ride tickets. One particular ride, a dark one called the Haunted Mansion, requires separate admission, and I'm not sure why. We did go on it, though. A few rides were closed, including the other dark ride, the wooden bobsled roller coaster, and a water ride called Sklooosh!, the latter of which I didn't particularly want to ride anyway, but the name is fun to say. It looks to have a Viking theme.

We did ride the newest steel coaster, Impulse, and two wooden ones.

Twister, from 1999, lived up to the name, and was rather rough. We weren't chillin' with that Twister. The Phoenix was built in 1947, and moved to Knoebels from Texas in 1985. I can't even imagine how you'd go about transporting a roller coaster, but it happens much more often than I would have thought. The Grand Carousel was the first one I remember riding that still had brass rings, although they were only accessible from the outer row, where the horses didn't move. We went on the Motor Boats without really knowing how they worked, and it turned out that you had to steer them yourself. I'm not sure if we got a bad one or I just couldn't figure it out, but it responded very slowly and I kept running into the sides. The Pioneer Train was for all ages, but the seats were small, so I felt like Ian Maxtone-Graham in his tiny car while riding it.

I suspect some people would be too tall for it, especially as it goes through some low tunnels. The Cosmotron is an indoor Music Express kind of ride with a laser show on the ceiling. The building it's in looks like a shack with a satellite dish on top. Is it supposed to be some UFO enthusiast's cabin in the woods?

The Scenic Skyway is a chairlift that runs up and down a nearby mountain. I'll admit it made me a little nervous, not because I thought there was a chance of a person falling off, but because I was afraid of dropping something and then never finding it. I have a fear of heights, but generally only when I can really process how far up I am, so it's not like tall roller coasters or airplanes bother me that way. We had dinner that night at an affiliated restaurant called the Nickle Plate, which unfortunately was not affiliated with the Tin Woodman, then drove on to Allentown. We tried to buy tickets to Dorney online, but apparently they sell out, and then you have to pay an extra twenty dollars per ticket at the park itself.

I can't remember exactly the first time I went to Dorney, but I know Hercules, at the time the tallest wooden roller coaster in the world, was new then, so it might have been 1989. That one lasted until 2003, when it was deemed too costly to maintain, so it was replaced with one called Hydra the Revenge. I appreciate the mythological reference there, as it was the Hydra coming back to get revenge on his killer. The traditional account of Hercules' death is that he put on a coat soaked in Hydra venom from his own arrows, so it's even somewhat accurate.

They had stuffed Hydras at the gift shop, but they only had one head.

I also went to Dorney on a class trip in junior high, and maybe one other time? In addition to Hercules, I remember a small, fast coaster called the Laser, and I understand it's now touring around Germany. I tended to think Dorney was somewhat less enjoyable than the other parks I visited as a kid, with fewer good rides and no real themes to anything. Beth was interested in it as she has an interest in classic rides, and among other things they still have a Whip from 1920 in operation.

By the way, the one at Knoebels was called the Whipper, so is there a Whippest anywhere? I believe I'd ridden the other wooden coaster from 1924 back in my youth, when they'd first named it Thunderhawk. It's still there, and we rode it.

Dorney was also where the scenes of Sonny Bono's segregated amusement park in Hairspray were filmed, so even then it must have been considered old-fashioned. They've added a lot more stuff since my last visit, but there are still a fair number of classic rides, or at least newer versions of classic rides. My tastes have changed since then anyway, partially as I've reached the age where some of the rides make me queasy or hurt my head, which pretty much never happened in my childhood. I'll still ride pretty much anything, but the good rides are now not the thrilling ones so much as the ones that don't cause pain. I was worried that the park would be really crowded, since it was a Saturday and all, but it really wasn't. Beth figured most of the people were at Wildwater Kingdom, which makes sense as more people showed up once the water park closed. Dorney itself closed at 7 PM, their explanation being that they couldn't get enough people to work there, which often translates to their not paying very well. But anyway, we got to ride most of what we wanted to. Steel Force and Talon are pretty cool coasters, and the Demon Drop is basically the same as the now-defunct Stunt Man's Free Fall at Great Adventure.

There are two train rides, one of them, the Zephyr, reviewing some park history. There was another blast from the past after we left, because we ate at Perkins, and I haven't been to one of them in years either. Now I can't help associating them with Tiger Woods having an affair. I had pancakes and an omelette, and I brought home some apple pie for later. We got back home late last night, and I'm still pretty worn out.

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Music: Posies: Chainsmoking in the U.S.A.

I haven't written here in about four months. My general rule is that I use this for posts that are more of a run-down of things I've done than examinations of a subject, although it's sometimes difficult to make the distinction. The thing is, I haven't done much worth talking about in the recent past. Yesterday, however, was an exception. John R. Neill's introduction to The Wonder City of Oz, the first Oz book he wrote as well as illustrated, says, "We live on the top of the Schooley Mountains and the Jenny Jump Mountains are really truly mountains right next to us. They are wonderful mountains for fairies to hide in." So I decided Beth and I should visit both places, as they're not that incredibly far away. We'd been meaning to go for a few weeks, but we'd had to put it off because of a recall on my car. But now the car has been deemed okay, so we made the trek yesterday. On the way, we stopped to eat at Panera Bread. I hadn't been to one since we lived in Secaucus, and I was annoyed by those commercials they had that referred to "clean food," as if every other restaurant serves filth. I mean, some do, but I figured that was the minority. But it's really not fair to let bad advertising sour me on something. I wouldn't have drunk Red Bull even if they didn't have those painfully unfunny ads. But anyway, Panera is one of those places where they don't tell you on the menu everything that's in each sandwich, which is frustrating when you're a picky eater. But they do now have flatbread pizzas, and the one I had was good.

I read online that the house Neill lived in from 1936 until his death in 1943 was at 94 Tinc Road in Flanders, New Jersey. That's a very narrow, windy road; but fortunately there's a sidewalk along the relevant part.

I wasn't sure whether the same house was still there, but this drawing from Neill's 1941 Christmas card definitely looks the same as the one I photographed.

Picture source: Bill Campbell's Oz Enthusiast blog
I don't think the property is as big now as what the illustrator owned, though. Neill called the place Endolane, but I have no evidence that this name is still in use. When I looked at the Endolane tag on Instagram, most of it was for a farm in Rhode Island. The street that branches off from Tinc Road right near there is called Neill Lane after him.

It's spelled with only one L on this sign, but it kind of looks like they just ran out of room. Perhaps this is the lane with the farm at the end o' it that Neill's name referred to, but I can't say I have any idea what the street layout was all those decades ago. I've seen Ruth Plumly Thompson's house in Philadelphia before, and I don't think any of the places L. Frank Baum lived are still standing.

Jenny Jump is a state forest in the mountains with an address in Hope Township. Some sources I looked at say that there's one particular Jenny Jump Mountain, but I don't know which one this is. There are several trails through the forest. We walked the Swamp Trail (although neither of us saw a swamp) and then tried the Spring Trail, but when we realized there was a very steep, narrow, rocky incline not far from where it started, we gave up.

We then drove to the ominously named Ghost Lake on the even more ominous Shades of Death Road.

I can't say the part we drove on had any noticeable shades of death, although it did have a big sod farm. The scariest thing I saw in the area were Trump signs and those thin blue line flags. I'd seen those flags for some time before I knew what they were for, but even then they looked dystopian. Even putting aside the racism, why would anyone want to advocate for a police state? I guess it's not a surprise that a rural area would be largely Republican, which isn't to say that it makes sense. And it's not like I don't see some of that same stuff in Brooklyn. Anyway, Google Maps showed a place called Faery Cave next to the lake, but we couldn't find how to get there. According to the comments, the trail is pretty overgrown, and it's not really that interesting anyway. But it does bring to mind Neill's comment about fairies hiding in those mountains. I wonder if the cave had the same name back in his time. I didn't see any leprechauns there either.

In other news, I'd been going to the office two days a week, and working from home on the others. Starting next week, I'm going to be in the office three days every other week. I liked working from home, but my office was so reluctant to do that in the first place that I'm not surprised they're phasing it out as soon as possible. It's not even being in the office that bothers me so much as the necessary preparation and getting up an hour earlier. I also wish they'd waited until masks were no longer recommended indoors. Yeah, I know there are jobs that always require masks, but I'm not used to it, you know?

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Beatles: Oh! Darling

We'd been planning to do the Creamy Acres Night of Lights for a while, but positive COVID tests got in the way of that. Last weekend, everything worked out all right, so we finally went. Due to social distancing restrictions, we drove through instead of taking a hayride. As such, I was only able to get pictures from my side of the car, and a lot of them came out blurry.

I know Beth took a few other ones, but I've been having trouble transferring pictures.

On Monday, we did some shopping at the Nintendo store in Rockefeller Center, and saw the tree while we were there, albeit from a distance.

Then, on Tuesday, I attended a virtual get-together with Michael Booth and some other Oz fans, which was fun. A few people read some of L. Frank Baum's Christmas-related stories.

We spent Christmas at Beth's mom's house, but it was just the two of us and the two people who live there, so I don't think it counts as a superspreader event. (That term doesn't even really sound bad. It just sounds like people are trying to see who can butter their bread the fastest.) Stuff I received included three Carl Barks collections, a book of art from the Mana series of video games, a copy of Vampires and Oz, Robyn Hitchcock's Perspex Island, Janelle Monae's The Archandroid, and Mario and Luigi: Paper Jam.

We also got a new kettle, as our old one just stopped whistling this week.

Beth was telling me about how Christmas Day is always disappointing after the buildup, and while it's not as bad for me, it does kind of fizzle out. For me, I guess I kind of feel on holidays like I'm supposed to be doing something special, so I feel a little guilty when I just do the same stuff I do every day, although I generally do anyway. We're probably going to visit my family next weekend, but I haven't made any specific plans.

I'm still playing through Dragon Quest XI for the Switch. I finished what I guess is the main game, defeating Mordegon and seeing the credits, but there's still more to do. Basically, you go back in time and try to fix the mistakes you made the first time, and also beat the evil being behind Mordegon.

I finished the first challenge in Drustan's Labyrinth, but haven't managed to take out the powered-up Arboreal Serpent. The only other Switch game I currently own is Paper Mario: The Origami King, which I started but haven't played much of. There's still a fair amount of DS/3DS stuff I need to get back to.

Current Music: Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians: Ride

If you follow my other social media, you might be aware that Beth and I went to Hersheypark yesterday. My dad lives near there, so we stayed at his house, and my siblings came to visit, along with my sister-in-law and my nephew Calvin. He's still not really talking, but he did bring toys to every person in the room. When we went to the park, my GPS directed us to the service entrance, and it took a while to get to the actual parking lot. We did get to see a bit of the town, with its chocolate-themed street names and Hershey's Kiss streetlights. We passed the Chocolate Workers Local union building, and I have to wonder if the Oompa Loompas are aware that such a thing exists. Seriously, I looked it up, and the union was formed in 1938, the year after a violent strike at the factory. Since it was the off season and there are still social distancing regulations (we had to make reservations in addition to buying tickets), we didn't expect it to be that crowded, but it kind of was. We didn't get to ride that much stuff, but it was fun. Beth had never been there, and the last time I went was in 1999, when the Great Bear was new. There have been some significant changes since then, mostly with the entrance area, as they merged the old areas with the German and Tudor architecture and added Chocolatetown. The Minetown area was also rebranded. I guess they're phasing out the historical Pennsylvania stuff that they installed in the seventies.

They moved the Carrousel (that's how they spell it, anyway) right near the entrance, so that was the first thing we rode.

The band organ was playing all kinds of Halloween-related tunes: "Witch Doctor," "Dem Bones," "Purple People Eater," "This Is Halloween" from The Nightmare Before Christmas, Chopin's Funeral March, Bach's Toccata and Fugue, and the Munsters, Addams Family, and Scooby-Doo themes. Some of the horses, including the one I rode, were pretty jingoistic in design.

I believe they're all hand-carved. Then we rode Candymonium, a new roller coaster that reminded me of Nitro at Great Adventure, although that one opened nineteen years ago.

According to Wikipedia, they're both in the hypercoaster category. It's interesting to me that, for all the Hershey's chocolate theming in the park, most of the rides don't have anything to do with candy. This one is an exception.

We also rode the Tilt-A-Whirl, the Monorail, the Pirate (although we probably wouldn't have ridden that one if we'd had more idea of how long the line was), the Dry Gulch Railroad, the Whip, the Ferris Wheel, and Fahrenheit. That last one is a roller coaster installed in 2008, with really steep drops and a lot of inversions. On our way out, we overheard some guy saying he hadn't eaten any Hershey's chocolate that day, which honestly isn't surprising. They sell it everywhere, but if you're busy riding rides and such, when is there time for a snack? I did have a soft pretzel after Candymonium, and we ate at a nearby diner after leaving.

Today, we visited my mom on the way back home, and then had to drive in the rain on highways where the lanes weren't that clearly marked. We're back home now, though. There were a lot of Trump signs in rural Pennsylvania, which was disturbing but not surprising. I guess people are still clinging to their guns and religion.

Current Mood: tired

Sunday was our last day at Walt Disney World, and we visited the only remaining park (not counting the water parks), Animal Kingdom. It looks like I didn't really say much about this one on my last visit. While the actual animals are obviously a major part of the draw, it also incorporates a fair number of imaginary and extinct animals, the latter being showcased in Dino Land U.S.A.

The first thing we did at the park was watch It's Tough to Be a Bug at the Tree of Life, then use our FastPass for the ride simply called Dinosaur, to tie in with the 2000 movie that I'm not sure anyone remembers now. A lot of the rides have narratives that they present before and during the action, and in this case it's Wallace Langham wanting to bring back an iguanodon from the very end of the Cretaceous Period before the meteor strike that killed the dinosaurs, against the wishes of his boss, Phylicia Rashad. Why is he willing to risk his job, and possibly the lives of passengers, to bring back this one particular dinosaur when he could easily try to take one from a less dangerous time? I'm sure I'm overthinking it, but that's what I do. Our next FastPass was for Expedition Everest, but since that was close by and we had some time, we rode the TriceraTop Spin. Each triceratops that passengers ride has two switches, one in the front to raise and lower the dinosaur, and one in the back to tilt it.

Expedition Everest is, as far as I could tell, the same as it was before, but that's fine as it's a lot of fun. It features one of the imaginary animals, a yeti. Other fictional animals are presumably seen in the Pandora section, but we didn't get the chance to go there. I've never seen Avatar anyway, but I've heard the rides are good. We walked on a trail to see some animals, and rode on the African-themed safari tram.

I couldn't get good pictures of all the animals, the elephant being one who eluded me, as was the nursing baby giraffe. It's hard when the tram is pretty much always in motion. There were a few rhinoceroses quite close to the vehicle.

I also got a pretzel shaped like Rafiki's drawing of Simba.

None of us got pictures with costumed characters this time around, but I would have liked to if we'd been less pressed for time. While entering Dino Land, we saw Scrooge McDuck and Launchpad, who would have been pretty exciting to pose with, but they weren't even meeting people at that point, just walking from one place to another. There were a lot of meet-and-greet areas where the lines weren't that long, though. Maybe next time, if there is one.

We ended up having to call a Lyft from Animal Kingdom, as the bus back to our hotel wasn't showing up, and we needed to get back to take the Magical Express to the airport. So that kind of sucked, but the flight and all that went off without a hitch.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: She Makes War: In This Boat

Stratovania

The Greatest Kingdom in the Stratosphere

Entries tagged with travel

Navigation

Carpenters and Miners

I'm on Guard Again, But Unprepared to Fend for Myself

Losing California

Carry Me Back

Skeletons, Spirits, and Haunts

Take Me for a Ride

Berry and Bunny Blast

Ark in the Dark in the Park

Thrilling, Isn't It?

Who Don't Like Orchids?

Hey There, There's Such Dandy Wolves Round the Town Tonight

Riding the Rails

What Did Della Wear?

See the Pumpkin in the Dark and the Pain in Its Eyes

I'm Not Dead, I'm in Pittsburgh

The Knoebel Thing to Dorney

Jenny Jump for Your Love

Wrapping Up Christmas Present

Candy Most Dandy

The Birds and the Beasts Were There

Profile

December 2025

Syndicate

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags