Stratovania

It's past Christmas, so here's a post on what we've been up to. I should start by mentioning that Beth's mom had a heart attack this month, which was very disturbing. She's back home from the hospital now and recovering well, but that definitely affected our plans.


On Wednesday the seventeeth, Beth and I went to Lightscape at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. I think this is the first time we went there when it had recently snowed, but it wasn't as cold as it had been in previous years. One installation they hadn't had before was a set of lights representing an orchestra, with the appropriate ones lighting up at different parts of an instrumental version of "Sleigh Ride." There was a podium where you could pretend to conduct, which I did.

They also had giant lilies, butterflies, and birds.

I had a hot apple cider and a soft pretzel while there.

That same week, we set up our Christmas tree.

We'd bought real ones for the past few years, but this time we borrowed an artificial one from Beth's mom's house, and it was over thirty years old. It's nice not to have to worry about the tree shedding needles or requiring water. Felix still likes to sit under it.


This past weekend, we visited my dad in Pennsylvania, and my sister, my brother, and his wife and son stopped by as well. We exchanged gifts while there, and we watched a movie that I'll share my review of shortly. I used to visit my mom while I was in the area, so it made me sad that I can't do that anymore. We drove back on Sunday, and the following day after work, we saw John Waters at the City Winery.

I had thought most of the previous shows of his we'd seen were fairly similar, but this one had a lot of new material. Much of it was non-stop and rapid-fire. He mentioned something about how the worst plot device (or something like that) in one of his movies was the revelation that Tab Hunter was having an affair with Divine's mother in Polyester, and that did seem rather out of left field. He also commented on appreciating the work that went into Wicked, but that making the Wicked Witch of the West, one of his favorite characters when played by Margaret Hamilton, into a singing chanteuse doesn't work for him. He then repeated something I'd heard him say before, that he asked a kid if he liked The Wizard of Oz, and the child said it was mostly just walking. That's even more true of the book than the movie, but I think I've just come to accept that a lot of classic fantasy is mostly travelogue.


For actual Christmas, we visited Beth's mom and uncle, and did our present exchange there.

Among other presents, I received a stuffed Mario Kart banana peel, a T-shirt with Luigi running from a Boo, Rosalina's Storybook, a book on Celtic mythology and another on John the Baptist, a Lily Allen album, a Kent Brockman figure, Mario and Luigi: Brothership for the Switch, and Nostalgia for the DS.

The turkey we were going to have for dinner was frozen solid, so we had take-out Chinese food before we headed back to Brooklyn. And today we both worked, but I got to go home early because of the snow. There were things we had meant to watch before Christmas, but we didn't get around to it for various reasons. We did do our annual viewing of Home Alone, and afterwards Beth watched something online (I just heard the audio) about deleted scenes from the movie. There was a mention of a theory that Kevin gave the police the neighbors' address and then lured Harry and Marv there because he was still afraid he'd get arrested for accidentally stealing a toothbrush, which I guess makes sense in little kid logic. As it was, it seemed weirdly unnecessary, and doing the phony voice might have made the cops suspect it was a prank call. For that matter, not only did he have no guarantee that the burglars would chase him, but they received so many blows to their heads that a normal person probably wouldn't have been conscious enough to run after him. And Home Alone 2 gives no impression that his family ever found out (from the cops, the neighbors, the news, or whatever) that several houses in the neighborhood were robbed while Kevin was home alone, let alone he had a run-in with the robbers.

Christmas is over now, so I should probably write something about it. We were at Beth's mom's house again, and the cats came with us. It was the first Christmas Felix spent with us, and he seemed to enjoy it, except when he hit his head on the coffee table because Nellie popped out of some wrapping paper and surprised him.

They were also playing with one of the bags.

Not all of our presents had arrived by Christmas Day, but between then and now, I received the Dragon Quest III HD remake, Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime, a book publication of the Super Mario Adventures comic that ran in Nintendo Power, The Annotated Phantom Tollbooth, Volume 2 of Kirby Manga Mania, Andy Partridge's My Failed Songwriting Career Volume 2 (I don't have the first one yet, but I don't think you have to be familiar with that to listen to the second) and My Failed Christmas Career, a movie-style Cat Mario figure, a T-shirt with Bowser from a series where I already have the Luigi and Yoshi ones, a soft Koopa shell, a Ruby Slippers mug, and some Marvin the Martian socks.

I was trying to make a Bowser face, but I suck at imitating facial expressions.
I also gave Beth a similar big, soft Mario-related thing.

I ended up getting some duplicates, but I supposed that's likely to happen when you send the same list to different people who aren't coordinating with each other. I feel like there was a lot of stuff I wanted to do but didn't, and I know it's the same way with Beth. It seems like a lot of my holiday memories, even dating back to childhood, are of things I thought of but never did. I'm a procrastinator in general, and it's hard to get in the mood to prepare for Christmas when both of our birthdays are in November. Aside from the new Ben Folds Christmas album, I didn't even listen to holiday music from my own collection (as opposed to the stuff on the radio and in stores; I heard plenty of that). We did do our annual rewatch of Home Alone, as well as seeing the original Grinch, Frosty, and Garfield Christmas. A lot of the latter is the Arbuckle family doing the same stuff they do every year, even if it's silly and doesn't make sense, because that's just what they do. I can relate to that to an extent. It's not like Home Alone is even that great of a movie, but it's become what we do.

In other news, we bought a new car, as our old one seemed to be on its last legs. The new one is a Hyundai Venue in a color called green apple (not to be confused with candy apple red with a ski for a wheel), and we had to wait extra time to get it. Next year's green is a different color that looks more like gray, so there weren't a lot for sale. It's technically an SUV, and I've generally been kind of against those, but it seemed the most practical choice. It's not much wider than the Honda Fit, and our parking space in the garage is pretty narrow. It wasn't a Christmas present and didn't have one of those giant bows from the commercials, but I did want to buy one before I had to get another emissions inspection on the Fit. We'd had the Honda since 2009, so the Venue has features that are new to me but probably pretty standard now, like a backup camera. It also has a moonroof, which Beth is excited about.

Anything else I should mention? We did go to the Nintendo store in Rockefeller Center and saw the tree there, although we planned it poorly and had to go around the block to get from one to the other.

It's now that weird period between Christmas and New Year's that doesn't entirely feel like it should exist. It was one thing back when I was in school and had the whole week (and change, depending on when the holidays fell) off, but working over this period makes me more aware of it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I wonder if they know Kabumpo.

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

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

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

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

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

Upstairs, they had some original art.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

We drove down to Pennsylvania last weekend, and went to Hersheypark on Saturday, as we still had extra tickets that we bought in April. I think it was the next to last possible day we could use them. It was cold, especially for my toes, but still not AS cold as you'd expect for that time of year. We got there quite a bit later than we wanted to, as the valve came off one of my tires when I was trying to put air in it. Fortunately, we were still near my dad's house, and he and Margaret were able to take off the tire and bring it in to get it patched. After that, however, the tire pressure warning light on my dashboard stayed on, even though the air level was fine. I'd just gotten my car serviced, but I waived the suggestion to have the tires replaced, as it was expensive, and would probably take a lot of time as those tires are hard to come by. I brought it in again today to have that done. We probably should get a new car soon, as I've had this one since 2009, but that's a big decision. But anyway, we rode Wildcat's Revenge for the first time, as it was still under construction on our last visit.

It's a refurbished version of the wooden roller coaster Wildcat with steel parts added, like what they did with Twisted Colossus at Magic Mountain.

They still had the Christmas decorations, a little awkward to see after Christmas, but it's technically still Christmastide until Epiphany.

The Dry Gulch Railroad was lined with lights showing the gifts from the Twelve Days of Christmas.

Afterwards, we ate at the Cocoa Diner, which I guess is somewhat of a tradition now, mostly because it's open late and has a very recognizable name. I've never bothered to check whether cocoa is actually on the menu there.

On Sunday, we exchanged gifts with my family. My siblings and my brother's wife and son were over at my dad's in the afternoon, and we had lunch with them; and later we had dinner with my mom. I was pretty late getting some of the presents, as I'm a terrible procrastinator. That said, even if I'd bought them early, I'd probably still feel like I was doing last-minute shopping. I received copies of Lin Carter's Dragonrouge (the sequel to Kesrick), Mark S. Smith's The Early History of God, and of Super Mario Wonder. I suspect Beth would be better at that game than I would, but I'll give it a try. My sister also gave us a stuffed cat that wasn't originally intended as a gift, but her cat inexplicably hated it.

We showed it to Nellie, and she seemed pretty indifferent. We rang in the New Year at Beth's mom's house, which didn't involve that much ringing, but Nellie did have bells on her collar.


Last night, we went to see Spamalot, which was a present for me from Beth, along with the soundtrack album. As you probably know, it's Eric Idle's reworking of Monty Python and the Holy Grail into a just as meta-referential Broadway musical. From the little I've read, some of the other Python members were confused by the whole thing, and I know Neil Innes took issue with not getting royalties for the songs he wrote, "Knights of the Round Table," "Brave Sir Robin" and "Run Away" (the latter was cut from the movie, but is in the show). I'm not sure what the royalty situation was for the Finland song, which I understand Michael Palin wrote. I found it very enjoyable, although it seems like most of the best jokes were the ones everybody already knew from the film, and expanding on some of them didn't make them funnier. Some of the adaptations to a different medium worked, however, like the Holy Hand Grenade exposing the killer rabbit's puppeteer, the expanded cast of French stereotypes, and how the Holy Grail was found (which of course it wasn't in the original). It also worked in a lot of other classic Python references, which is understandable. The story was streamlined a bit, with some of the side characters becoming the knights (as opposed to just being played by the same actors). The main new character was the Lady of the Lake, presumably because there weren't any significant women in the movie, and she was played as a total diva. There were a few more topical references as well, including George Santos appearing in a list of famous Jewish people involved with Broadway.

I guess the first thing I should mention is that we sort of have a new cat, and I say "sort of" because she's not living with us yet. Beth's mom got a kitten from her sister's farm, intending to give her to us, but we should kitten-proof our apartment before bringing her to Brooklyn. Anyway, I named her Nellie, and so far she mostly seems interested in running around and playing. She's very active, and hasn't yet shown much interest in just sitting with people. She doesn't seem afraid of anybody, though. I feel bad that she wants to play with the dogs, but they're not interested.


Beth and I both had our birthdays last week. On the day after hers, we had a pretty busy day, visiting the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, eating at a cafe, attending a lecture at Green-Wood Cemetery, and seeing a movie.

The lecture was about cremation, including its history and how it was done at that location. It's been standard in India for ages, but it took some time to catch elsewhere, including in the Americas. Even though the Pope has said it's okay, it's apparently still not popular in Catholic families. There was a time when there was a theological debate over whether bodily resurrection would be possible with ashes. Now it's probably just a matter of tradition. They also mentioned that it's not very energy efficient, and involves burning fossil fuels. I don't see any reason to preserve my body after I'm dead, but I guess that's more a decision for anyone still alive who might care than for me. I haven't yet made my post about the movie Thanksgiving, but I should have it up soon. I didn't do anything on my birthday except going out to eat at the Olive Garden; I feel we went out to do stuff so often in October that I was a little burned out, and didn't have any ideas anyway.

Presents I received included two Carl Barks collections, the newest Belle and Sebastian album, and the book Fight, Magic, Items by Aidan Moher, which is about Japanese role-playing video games from a Western perspective.

Beth also bought me the Switch remake of Super Mario RPG while we were at Target. I finished the original back in the early 2000s, and I remember it being frustrating in parts, but I'm sure it'll be fun to revisit when I get around to it. I kind of got stuck in I Am Setsuna, so I've put that aside for the time being. And I started Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, but haven't gotten very far as of yet. It's cute, but I've had a little trouble with the battle system. And I'm still playing Animal Crossing, and I did the Turkey Day thing on Thursday. I realized I hadn't planted any white pumpkins on my island, so that's been taken care of. I also got "K.K. Birthday," which I think is the last of the K.K. Slider songs in the game, but I don't think there's any reward for that.

Super Mario Wonder looks fascinating, but as much as I love Mario, I'm not great at platform games.

Beth's mom made Thanksgiving dinner for us, and we were originally going to go to Creamy Acres for the Christmas hayride on Friday, but she wasn't feeling well. We'll try to do it some other weekend. We did have lunch with my mom, sister, sister-in-law, and nephew today. I've done a little bit of Christmas shopping, but not that much.

It's been a pretty busy week, and a pretty rainy one as well. On Monday, Beth and I went to see The State perform live at the Palladium in Times Square, which I believe is where they filmed their show back in the 90s. Eight of the eleven are part of the Breakin' Hearts and Dippin' Balls Tour, and the new performance was a mix of sketches from the show with some new material, or sometimes old stuff repurposed for a new context, like the sketch about a college dorm safety lecture from people with tape on their faces instead became a talk about theater safety, Barry and Levon tried to sell reverse mortgages, and an expanded "Froggy Jamboree" gives the characters a dark backstory.

Older sketches included Louie at the Last Supper, the mailman who delivered tacos instead of mail, the Bearded Men of Space Station 11, and "Porcupine Racetrack," which was the closer.

While changing scenes, they played some bits from the CBS special and a pre-State project where they reenacted weird stories people told them. Since Michael Showalter was one of the members who wasn't there, they made a joke out of getting an audience member to play Doug.

Before the show, we ate at Jollibee for the first time, and I liked the chicken and the peach and mango pie. I wonder what their spaghetti is like. Beth saw the show again on Tuesday, while I stayed home to watch Clone Wars episodes (I've now finished watching the sixth season), play Animal Crossing, and write a post about monster shamans. Less exciting, to be sure, but I've come to appreciate evenings where I don't have to do anything, even if that thing is purely for fun.


Thursday was the fall event at Green-Wood Cemetery that I think we've been to twice before, but the name isn't always the same. This time, it was Nightfall: Danse Macabre. I can't say it was much different from before, but a lot of what you see depends on timing. Some performances repeat with only short breaks in between, while others are only at specific times. We saw fewer of the circus performances than in previous years, although we did see some fire eaters and someone playing what sounded like music from the Legend of Zelda soundtrack on a harp.

There were two different theremin performers, and a shadow puppetry performance about a girl who befriends some crows.

As usual, getting around was a little difficult, as it was dark and the paths at the cemetery twist all over the place anyway. There were lanterns marking the proper roads, but it was still hard to figure out which way we were going, even with a map.


On Friday night, we went to see the Middle Aged Dad Jam Band at City Winery. The band has David Wain on drums and Ken Marino on lead vocals, plus some of their friends and collaborators. Craig Wedren, who did music for The State and related projects (and is married to Thomas Lennon's sister), plays guitar, David's son Henry saxophone, and Amy Miles does backing vocals and some percussion. It's all very casual, but still sounds really good, and some of the people involved are professional musicians even if the leads aren't. They play covers (mostly from the sixties through the eighties, although a few later songs made their way in) and make a lot of corny jokes. They also had several guests who did a song or two, including Paul Rudd playing Gerry Rafferty (it didn't make a whole lot of sense even in context), David Yazbek, Kevin Allison, and, most exciting for me, John Flansburgh, who sang "Born to Run."

Amy introduced him as a friend of hers, and I actually was first aware of her because she and Flansburgh's wife Robin Goldwasser were in a band, The Last Car, that opened for They Might Be Giants a few times. I believe David met her on the set of Wet Hot American Summer; she was married to actor A.D. Miles at the time, although they've since divorced. In terms of connections, it's also interesting that Yazbek did a song from an upcoming musical about Elmer McCurdy, who was already the subject of one by frequent TMBG collaborator Brian Dewan. I've heard that Joe Lo Truglio had played Rafferty before, and that Weird Al has played with the band. It was a surprisingly long show, about three hours long with one fifteen-minute intermission. And it was mostly standing room (there were seats, but they cost a lot more), so it wasn't too kind on my feet. I also had my backpack with me because I brought it to work, but I might have used a smaller bag that day if I'd remembered about the standing.

I find myself not wanting to use Twitter that much these days, even though I still have one-off thoughts that seem well-suited to that format. It just seems like nobody reads my tweets, and my feed is a lot less interesting. I don't think Elon Musk directly messed up my personal experience, but his general toxic, chaotic management has driven a lot of people away. Or maybe it's just my own perception that's changed. The change from the cute bird to a letter of the alphabet doesn't help matters; it just seems a lot less friendly now. I have a Bluesky account, but I'm not following that many people (and even fewer are following me), so it's kind of slow. I've also read some stuff recently on how Google (and probably other sites as well) has basically sold out to advertisers and donors with particular agendas that you don't even necessarily get results for the words you actually typed. Apparently you're more likely to get popular results that are sort of related to your search. It seems similar to how YouTube and apparently Tiktok have algorithms that constantly suggest related things that are selected more for being popular than relevant, and are sometimes actively dangerous. It appears to be how Musk wants Twitter to operate, too. I'm sure that, at times, it's just the computer program not working very well, but I think there's an undertone to the whole concept of not trusting the user to seek out these things themselves.

I feel like there's a general trend on the Internet of homogenization, like you don't see as many personal websites anymore. Of course, a lot of these sites were terrible and boring, but they were still personalized in a way that things really aren't these days. This makes it easier, in that users don't have to learn even the tiny bit of HTML I did in order to put stuff online, so it's not all bad. There's somewhat of a pattern of increased corporate control, but not always in ways I can specifically identify, so it's more of a general feeling on my part. And there's the current obsession with the word "content," as if writing, art, research, music, etc. are all just commodities these days.

Personally, when I make posts on my WordPress, I do so casually, but I want the information to be accurate and fairly thorough. Too often, I'll do a Google search and it will result in the Wikipedia page, some other sites that just copy Wikipedia, stubs on wikis, and unsourced conspiratorial stuff. I realize I could do some more thorough research, as I did learn something about that in school, but it's probably not worth it for a short post that will get maybe ten readers. I just feel that some of this can't be so obscure as to barely register on the whole Internet.

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our poor cat Reagan isn't doing very well. She has high blood pressure, and we found out that this led to her having detached retinas. Apparently they can sometimes reattach, but there's no guarantee. We took her to a feline opthomologist, not an easy thing to find, and they said it would be maybe a fifty percent chance. We hadn't noticed earlier because we thought it was something wrong with her legs. She really doesn't jump anymore, and that means she can't demand attention like she used to. Instead, she spends most of her time sitting on a rug in the bedroom. She's now on medicine for blood pressure, in addition to all the other stuff she's taking. We were away for the weekend, so we had to take her with us so she wouldn't miss any doses; and that meant she was in a place she wasn't used to. Today is the day we decided was her birthday, so she's now officially seventeen. It's also L. Frank Baum's birthday.

Beth and I actually both saw our mothers on Mother's Day, which wouldn't have happened if my sister hadn't planned out part of it. I also got the chance to play a bit of Live A Live, which I hadn't in a while. I still usually check in on Animal Crossing twice a week or so, although I guess I don't need to get any more K.K. Slider songs on Saturdays for a while. If what I looked up is accurate, I have everything except "K.K. Birthday," and I can't get that one until November. Unless I cheat, which doesn't seem worth it. It's weird how some collections are just way harder to get than others. I don't have all of the artwork, but I have enough of it that everything Jolly Redd brings are either duplicates or fakes. I assume the real ones are just authentic reproductions, right? Or is this con artist somehow getting hold of the original versions of classic art? I also have never been able to catch a scorpion, and I'm not even sure how I can get more than two kinds of fruit. I collected all the fossils pretty early on, though. I've been spending much of my time trying to see if I can close some of the tabs I've had open for ages on my computer, only to sometimes find myself opening new ones.

I guess I'll write about what I did for Christmas, because I'm sure everybody wants to know. On Saturday, Christmas Eve, Beth and I met my family (my mom, sister, brother, sister-in-law, and nephew) at Jimmy John's in Pennsylvania. This place isn't affiliated with the sandwich chain, and I think actually predates it by a long time.

I'd gone there several times when I was a kid, but not in a long time. Their main thing is hot dogs, and they have thick skins, which took me a little getting used to but I got to like them. They have several model trains set up in the place.

And they sell Desert Storm trading cards, which seems kind of bizarre to me, but what do I know?

All of the presents I gave my nephew Calvin were bug-themed, and my sister gave him a bug thing as well. That was kind of a strange coincidence. I received a Wizard of Oz board game and a DVD of the two Tom and Jerry/Wizard of Oz crossovers. I'd heard about them a while ago, but have never seen them. That evening, we drove through the Night of Lights at Creamy Acres, along with Beth's mom, Uncle John, and cousin Dorothea. I prefer doing that on a wagon, since you really don't get as good of a view in a car, and it's much harder to take decent pictures. They were only running the wagons on certain days, however, and that particular day was so cold that I wouldn't have wanted to ride in one anyway.

The previous night, my fingers had gone totally stiff while I was trying to put air in my tires. Then we watched some Christmas-related television, which I already wrote about.

Presents I received on Christmas Day included the first volume of Kirby Manga Mania, Kirby: Planet Robobot for the 3DS, Edward Einhorn and Eric Shanower's adaptation of Euripides' Iphigenia in Aulis, and a little book of Sports Illustrated swimsuit models, which was...kind of a joke, I think? I'm still not entirely sure. Beth gave me Kindle versions of some books about fairy tales, and today I received some other things from her, a T-shirt with Luigi and some Koopa Troopas, a Mario star light, and a stuffed Polterpup. I also got a Porcupuffer from my brother.

I think the cat in the picture is for Beth, through process of elimination, but it's there anyway because it's cute. Maybe someday I'll be able to get all my Mario stuff organized, but we don't have a whole lot of room.

Beth and I both had birthdays last week. She's now forty-three, and I'm forty-five. Too bad that's a number that's now closely associated with Donald Trump. I understand some people find birthdays depressing because they're an indication that you're getting older, but that doesn't bother me so much. What does depress me somewhat is that I feel I always let my birthday go to waste, like it's a day when I'm allowed, to an extent, to make things about me and do what I want, but for the most part I don't. This year, we went to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden on Beth's birthday on Tuesday. Strangely, there were still some roses blooming, if usually only a few on an otherwise barren bush.

And there were a lot of squirrels around.

I often find myself taking pictures of plants that have unusual names, or at least ones I consider unusual.

There's a kind of rose called Peach Drift, which makes me think of Super Mario Bros. 2.

After the garden, we went to eat at a Georgian restaurant. We'd ordered from there before, and I really liked the Acharuli Khachapuri. This time, I had Khinkali, dumplings with beef and pork filling; and while the meat was spicy, I still would probably get them again. I guess I tend to associate "spicy" with "hot," as is often the case with Mexican or Indian food, but that's not always the case when it comes to...west Asian? I'm not quite sure what you'd consider Georgia and other nearby countries in that respect. My birthday was Friday, and after work, we went to a Hard Drive comedy show in Manhattan. A lot of the jokes were video game related, including a presentation of world events interpreted through gamer culture, but the comics covered other topics as well. The music before the show included the training music from Punch-Out!! and the surf version of the Chocobo theme.


I'd looked up the guitar tabs to that, the main Super Mario tune, and the overworld music from Super Mario World; and play them occasionally for fun. It might not be a bad idea to get a video game music book. I got Beth Mario and Zelda piano books a few years ago, but we don't really have room for a keyboard right now, and the notation doesn't really translate well to a different instrument, or at least it doesn't for me. I'm still technically taking guitar lessons, but scheduling problems means I haven't actually had one in a while. The place I go, which is right down the street, is more focused on kids, and there's a lot of turnover for the instructors. Anyway, after the show, we ate at Katz's, which was nearby. We'd only been there once before, although I've occasionally gotten food at their stand in the mall in between. It's kind of stressful with all the different lines and instructions, and both times it was so crowded that we had to hold our trays for longer than I was comfortable with. That said, it was much less crowded than it had been when we passed the restaurant on our way to the show, and there were lines outside the building. The food is quite good; I had the same thing I think I did previously, a half pastrami sandwich and chicken noodle soup.

We had another sort of combined birthday dinner yesterday at the Olive Garden. As birthday presents, she gave me a kalimba, the new Pixies album, and the Super Mario Bros. Encyclopedia.

Last week was kind of a weird one at work, as my office is changing locations. The new place isn't far away, and it's actually one subway stop closer. I know I'd heard about the move prior to the pandemic, but they had to delay it a few years. Aside from that, I'm constantly wishing for more free time, then wasting it as soon as I get some. It's kind of annoying because there's so much I want to do and never get around to. That's especially true of writing. But I think a lot of it isn't just having time, but the general idea that there isn't anything I have to do for a significant amount of time. I'm so hung up on upcoming obligations even if they don't turn out to be anything big when they actually happen. I've gotten back into playing a lot of Sims 4, and one of the expansion packs I installed gives all of the Sims fears that don't always make a lot of sense. I'd kind of think only the ambitious ones would be concerned about being in dead-end jobs, but no, it's all of them. Interesting idea, I guess, but not all that practically executed. I try to check in on Animal Crossing once or twice a week, preferably on Saturday evenings so I can get a new K.K. Slider song, but as of late I've often been busy around then. I feel like I've gotten to the point where I just keep seeing the same stuff over and over again, except for the few things I still need to complete collections. I didn't get a chance to play on my birthday, but the neighbors did wish me a happy belated one yesterday.