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Rammstein.

Sunday, December 26th, 2010

Cricket, being German, wanted to go see Rammstein in concert. Rammstein, for those of you who do not know, is a German industrial band. All their songs deal with death, misery, sadness, rage and sex. No rainbows, no flowers, no koalas. They had one big hit in the US with “Du Hast” (“You Have”). Rammstein doesn’t like the U.S. at all, so this is their first tour here in about 11 years. Cricket was super-excited. So I bought him tickets (Madison Square Garden sold out in under two minutes!) and we went. We were seated about two rows from the ceiling, so all my pictures are not-so-great. Luckily, other people with better cameras took pictures as well, and I found them on the internet to sprinkle amongst my crappy shots. Here’s a picture of the band for you.

First of all, there were the fans. Almost all white people, mostly dudes. A great deal of black garments, especially those oversized black canvas pants with tons of zippers and latches. A lot of t-shirts featuring Slayer, Lamb of God, Metallica, etc. An ABUNDANCE of piercings. One guy had multiple piercings on his hat. (I wanted to ask him if it hurt, but I didn’t feel like getting killed.) Cricket, in his tasteful zip-up jacket, and me, in my dorky puffy coat, were not the ideal audience. We sat quietly during the opening act, CombiChrist, while people around us drank copious amounts of beer and yelled stuff. And then Rammstein came on (and immediately Cricket and I were in the center of a swirl of pot smoke). Has everyone seen “This is Spinal Tap”? Spinal Tap, the fictional band in the film, was famous for having elaborate, ridiculous set pieces, and Rammstein does the same. They need twenty trucks to go on tour with them to hold all their stuff. And pyrotechnics. Hoo boy. If you type “Rammstein Live” in Google Images, this is what it looks like. FLAMEY.

So, there was steam…

And crazy lights…

And insane amounts of fire.

It’s important to know that I’m not making up anything I say from this point on. Till, the lead singer, comes out on stage for the first song wearing a red leather apron, a hairnet, a red feathered neckpiece, and an apparatus that wraps around his cheek and lights up the inside of his mouth. For the tour, he wears the metal thing that goes into his mouth and lights up, but to film their latest video Till actually pierced his cheek, put a grommet there and wired the light into his mouth that way.

Then, in one of their later songs, the keyboardist, who goes by the name of Flake, comes down and knocks Till over. Till picks up Flake and tosses him into a large metal bathtub. Till then picks up a really weird-looking arm gun and fills the bathtub with sparks. Shortly after, Flake comes out in a sequin-covered suit and goes back to the keyboards, were he walks on a treadmill while he’s playing. None of this has anything to do with the song they’re playing, or any song they’ve ever played, or anything that’s ever happened anywhere, ever.

Then, for the song “Engel” (“Angel”), Till comes out wearing a giant pair of metal wings, which slowly open. Then fire shoots out of the tips of them and sparks fly out of the middle bits.

But, by far, the piece de resistance is during the encore, when they play the song which, for reasons of tastefulness, I will call “Kitty”. During “Kitty”, Till gets on a giant, pink cannon that shoots foam all over the general seating area. Still not making stuff up.

It was a hell of an experience. Aside from the fact that I had to stand the whole time, it was delightful. For pretty much the whole show the guy in front of me was rockin’ the devil-hands, so that was nice.

And the sea of camera-phone lights were beautiful.

The best part was that earlier that day, something called SantaCon had taken place, so many audience members were still dressed as Santa. Very trippy. Here are some pictures of SantaCon.

Here’s a link to their latest video. They filmed it on their travel set, so you can see the light in Till’s cheek, the pyrotechnics, the sequined suit and the treadmill. Also, one of the lines in the song is “barbed wire in your urethra.” Magical, I tell you.

http://www.muzu.tv/sonisphereuk/rammstein-rammstein-ich-tu-de-weh-promo-video-music-video/578200?country=us&locale=en

Posted in Activitays, Music Videos, New York | 1 Comment »

Renaissance Fair.

Friday, September 10th, 2010

About 45 minutes from my apartment is the New York Renaissance Fair. Or the RenFair, as we called it growing up. Cricket had never been, and I hadn’t been since in a decade, so I thought, hey, let’s go pretend we all live in Ye Olden Tymes without those pesky details like complete lack of hygiene and sewage running free in the streets. Now that I have gone, I feel comfortable not going again for another decade.

Many of these photos are mine, but a bunch more are pulled from the internet. So thank you, Internet, for sharing thy bounty with me, prithy and forsooth and all that good stuff.

The RenFair takes place in a forest in upstate-ish New York. They’ve actually built a wee little Elizabethan village there.

And many people come in costume. Some are in period-appropriate costumes, but we did see one guy who was dressed as a Storm Trooper in a kilt.

As we came in, there was a cool bell apparatus on the side. A spooky guy wearing a full-body catsuit and a winged gold mask played the bells using a complicated pulley system.

Cricket was super-exited to try mead, which is a kind of wine, and a turkey leg, which is a famous RenFair food. They are advertised all over the place.

Just so you know, the food at RenFair is depressingly expensive. Turkey leg? $7.50. Funnel cake? $6.00. And this peeved me no end – pickle? $3.00. THREE DOLLARS for a cucumber soaked in salty herb-y water. What do those ingredients cost, like, seven cents, max? Oh, that really bakes my cookies.* Here’s a picture I found when they were only two dollars for a pickle, back in the good old days.

Please note the delightful skull-and-crossbones painting on the end of the barrel. There are a great many hand-painted signs all over the RenFair. Some are extremely well-painted:

Some are not well-painted:

And some are painted with totally unnecessary apostrophes.

Belly Dancer’s WHAT?!?? I feel like I’m missing something. I find it fascinating when people use punctuation where it’s absolutely not necessary at all.

There are a ton of women in costume there. I think many look forward to dressing up in interesting garb, like these women (note the peacock feather lashes which match the purse, FIERCE):

But I think the vast majority of the women just like the opportunity to dress up as the local village concubine with their corseted mammaries shoved up and out.

I’m all for hoisting your petards if you got ’em, but sometimes it’s a bit ridiculous-looking. Like when you get armpit cleavage.

Or this lady in charge of the camel rides who had the word ” T I P S ” written across her chest. Dear Lord, woman, your cups runneth over.

We saw a whole bunch of different shows throughout the day, jugglers and jesters and gymnasts, but my favorite was (surprise!) the birds of prey. But first, the parrots. The parrots were in a huge enclosure near the birds of prey. You paid two dollars (which went to the maintenance and upkeep of the parrots, so I was totally fine with that) and you got to wander around with the parrots and there were friendly little bunnies that the parrot-owners had adopted hopping around eating grass bits. I was very happy.

Right outside that area was the falconer guy with the birds of prey. He shared four with us that day. The first one was a Harris Hawk, which I didn’t take any pictures of because I was too busy staring at Bird #3, which was a Eurasian Eagle Owl named Buddaka.

The second bird was a Black Vulture named Igor, and I managed to snap one or two shots of Igor. Still totally paying attention to the owl.

After Buddaka, there was an Andean Vulture. This particular andean vulture weighs 22 pounds and has a ten-foot wingspan. She was a monster. She looked like a demonic wild turkey. I, of course, loved her.

And that was pretty much it. We watched some jousting on horses, ate some more, and went home.

*Cookies? $5.50.

Addendum: Snorth requested an animation of the two first pictures of the owl, and I am nothing if not amenable.

Posted in Activitays, Beastiesbeastiesbeasties, Nature, New York, Stuff, Tasty 'n' Delicious | 2 Comments »

Mermaid Parade.

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010

I have been threatening to go to the Mermaid Parade at Coney Island for years now, and I finally was free the weekend it occurred, so I grabbed Cricket and we headed down. There’s the New York Aquarium there too, so we figured we’d hit up both that day. In case you don’t know what the deal is with the Mermaid Parade, here’s a description from the official Coney Island website.

The Mermaid Parade celebrates the sand, the sea, the salt air and the beginning of summer, as well as the history and mythology of Coney Island, Coney Island pride, and artistic self-expression. The Parade is characterized by participants dressed in hand-made costumes as Mermaids, Neptunes, various sea creatures, the occasional wandering lighthouse, Coney Island post card or amusement ride, as well as antique cars, marching bands, drill teams, and the odd yacht pulled on flatbed.

Each year, a different celebrity King Neptune and Queen Mermaid rule over the proceedings, riding in the Parade and assisting in the opening of the Ocean for the summer swimming season by marching down the Beach from the Boardwalk, cutting through Ribbons representing the seasons, and tossing fruit into the Atlantic to appease the Sea Gods. In the past, David Byrne, Queen Latifah, Ron Kuby, Curtis Sliwa, Moby, David Johansen and Harvey Keitel have graced our shores, presiding over the assembled masses.

Yeah, it’s similar to the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade. More on that later. But first, the aquarium!

I loved the weathervane on top of the cafe. It’s hard to see, but in the middle is a fish, and then for each direction there is a different nifty creature – an octopus, a seahorse, a dolphin and a penguin. I thought is was terrific and I want one in my living room.

Even though I have a regular average little Canon Elph camera, I got some really nice pictures of jellies in all their stinging diaphanous glory.

One of my favorite things about fish are the names they are given. My favorite of all time is the Picasso Triggerfish because, well, it looks like a Picasso painting and it has a little fin-thing on its back that it pops up and down. Genius. This adorable little feller also has a fun descriptive name.

There was a tank with seahorses and a cowfish. A cowfish is called a cowfish because it has horns. And I call it super-cute because it is super-cute, with its kissyface and its flat bottom. It was also extremely difficult to take a picture of the cowfish because it was in a dark tank and it moved around a lot. But I made a concerted effort.

Here’s a decent picture of two seahorses with the cowfish in the background. As you can see, one seahorse is blackish-brownish and one is much lighter. I learned that they can change color at will, like octopii.

I was very concerned at one point because I passed a tank that said “False Clownfish” and the fishies looked exactly like Marlin and Nemo from Finding Nemo. Then I passed another tank that said “Something Something Clownfish” and these guys were swimming in there.

And I thought, “Are these the real clownfish? Was Pixar not accurate? Is my whole life a lie?” I’m not joking. I had a little knot in my stomach and everything. It was a little touch-and-go there for a while. Today at work I looked it up and breathed a large sigh of relief because apparently there’s a whole bunch of different clownfish and some of them indeed look exactly Marlin and Nemo, so Pixar didn’t lie to me and all is right with the world.

Here is a nice picture I took on the boardwalk of Coney Island. If you close your eyes, you can smell the coconut-scented suntan lotion and the Nathan’s hot dogs.

Now, the Mermaid Parade. It’s not what you would call a real organized thing. It’s kind of like a bunch of art school students got together, picked a theme (the ocean) and made an impromptu parade. Lots of nudity and glitter and whatnot. Here are some of the highlights.

As always, there were a few people who were completely insane and possibly dress like every day but because there was a parade occurring they looked like they fit in. I think this man was one of these people. He was so weird I didn’t even notice the parrot on his head until I got home that night and looked at the pictures on my computer.

There were quite a few children marching, being pushed in strollers, etc. This was a favorite of mine: a child wearing an angry duck mask squirting the crowd with a water gun.

Another group costume I liked was the flea circus. I don’t know how well you can see it in the picture, but all the ladies have antennae on their heads and puffs of tulle on their butt, mimicking flea hinders.

There was rather well-painted fish float/sculpture/thing.

Also in attendance was Wallpaper Squid Man, Screaming Shark Girl and Oyster Boy with Strategically Placed Pearl.

But the reason everyone comes to see this parade is for the boobies. In New York a lady can’t show her nipple-y bits, but she can wear pasties or body paint. So many a lass was rockin’ the starfish coverup or something like it.

It was a fun experience, but I don’t think I’ll go again. It was a long trek getting out there and even longer getting back, so I think I’m good for now.

Posted in Activitays, Beastiesbeastiesbeasties, Nature, New York, Random Art Bloggery, Stuff | 1 Comment »

Peter Gabriel and other stuff.

Tuesday, May 4th, 2010

1. I saw this great shirt covered with long rectangular sequins in a swirly pattern. And in order to keep them from getting hooked on things and ripping off, there’s a extremely fine mesh or tulle sewn on top. I likes it. I likes it a lot.

2. Some mornings I come out of my apartment building and Lawrence the cat is there. I love Lawrence. His owner takes him outside on a leash and and lets him sniff around, eat the grass, barf the grass, whatever he wants. And every morning that I see him is a good day. I pet Lawrence, he ignores me, and I go on my merry way.

3. I walk past a Sephora on my way to work most days, and they are selling some kind of makeup airbrush. Unfortunately, this picture makes it look like they’re selling the face-stretching thing from the movie Brazil.

4. Last night I saw Peter Gabriel in concert. And when I say, “in concert”, I mean it. He had a sixty-piece orchestra behind him. I didn’t especially want to go, but Cricket insisted that I have a life for once, so I went. And I totally didn’t regret it. Well, except for the guy sitting on my left. He looked exactly like The Dude from The Big Lebowski, and as soon as he sat down, a down comforter of pot funk encircled my head and muffled my breathing. It was so pungent, and it reeked of herbs and skunks, or maybe burning tires. It must have been phenomenal weed, because The Dude was clearly having a different experience from most everyone else around him. He was doing a great deal of closed-eyed appreciation, with accompanying hand gestures, like he was conducting. It was hard not to giggle at his earnestness. Anyway, Gabriel is promoting his new album, an album of covers called “Scratch My Back”. He did a bunch of the covers for the first half (which was great). He also performed a song that I knew from somewhere and poked me right in the heart and made me tear up, called “The Book of Love”. The first thing I did when I got to work today was try to figure out where I knew the song from, and it’s from the series finale of Scrubs. I loved Scrubs, so when I watched the finale, I cried like a kid whose large and impressive baseball card collection just fell in a creek. It’s a touching song. See for yourself. Then he took a break and Lou Reed came out and played “Solisbury Hill”, and ruined it. It was loud, and in the key of grungy, and tempo wasn’t his primary focus, and Lou kinda just hollered the song (“Boomboomboom!”). At one point, Cricket turned to me and said, “This is terrible, right? It’s not just me, right?” But then Peter came back out and played his hits, and that was killer. He did “Digging In the Dirt” and “Red Rain” and “Solisbury Hill” (CORRECTLY) and “Don’t Give Up”, all of this with this orchestra playing (so, so good) and then the orchestra started up on something that sounded familiar and then Gabriel walked up to the microphone and sang “Love…” and I flipped out. It was super-great. I cannot wait for the DVD of this tour to come out so I can have this version. So, even though I didn’t get home until 12:37 a.m. and had to go to work the next day, it was still worth it. Just a closing note:

Dear Other People In The Audience,
Peter Gabriel has a set list. He’s not gonna go all rogue with a 60-piece orchestra behind him and play whatever you scream out. So please stop shrieking “BIKO!!” between songs, it’s annoying. Thank you.

Posted in Activitays, Advertising, Apartment, Beastiesbeastiesbeasties, New York, Stuff | 2 Comments »

Wedding in Lake George.

Monday, October 19th, 2009

My co-worker C. got married, and I got invited to her wedding in Lake George Village. Lake George, for those of you who don’t know, is in the upper part of New York State, approximately 90 miles from Montreal. On one of the banks is Lake George Village. It was quite the summer resort town back in the 1950s and 1960s, and a great deal of the buildings are still left over from then.

This is the lake from our hotel room. The area is heavily peppered with hotels and motels, apparently the population goes from about 1,000 to 15,000 in the summer. Ergo, many hotels.

And the stores/restaurants/amusements are charming and quaint and delightful. I took some pictures of the more dated and adorable elements.

You can’t really appreciate it because I was zipping past it in a car, but off to the left of that shot is a wax museum. You can see a bit of it.

And this is supposedly the oldest minigolf course in… someplace, maybe the Adirondacks, maybe New York, something like that.

And I couldn’t get a shot of it, but there is a Tiki Resort right near the minigolf course.

The town just screams, “No one puts Baby in a corner!”

So, the wedding. It was lovely, except for some poor teenage boy who had to read a passage from the Song of Songs that was clearly written with a woman’s voice, so Poor Teenage Boy had to read this whole passage:

Listen! My lover!
Look! Here he comes,
leaping across the mountains,
bounding over the hills.

My lover is like a gazelle or a young stag.
Look! There he stands behind our wall,
gazing through the windows,
peering through the lattice.

My lover spoke and said to me,
“Arise, my darling,
my beautiful one, and come with me.”

Okay, first of all, if I was a socially awkward male heterosexual teenager, this would be torture for me. Second, every time he said, “lover,” how was I not supposed to think of that Saturday Night Live skit? I mean, really. Then the next kid got up for a reading and said it was St. Paul speaking to the Phillipinos. I found that endlessly amusing as well.

The rest of the wedding went smashingly, C. looked gorgeous, and everyone went outside and posed for photos while actively freezing to death.

We all shuttled to a lovely castle on the side of a mountain, where there was dancing and consuming of food and beverage until late into the night.

The best part of dinner was that it was a buffet, so there weren’t herds of waiters tromping around with large trays of food, passive-aggressively deciding when dancing was to cease (“Well, you can keep dancing, but you’re food will get cold. I’m just sayin’…”). You could get what you wanted when you wanted. And they also brought out The Meat.

It took two people to carry it out. It reminded me of those ribs that Fred Flintstone gets and they put it in his car and his car tips over. It was enormous. Really.

Here are children in awe of The Meat. Or perhaps they got sucked into it’s gravitational pull. Can’t be sure.

And then the wedding ended and we went back to the hotel for the afterparty. Here is the beautiful blushing bride playing beer pong with one of the groomsmen, Ham.

It was a lovely wedding experience all around. I went to bed about 1:30 a.m. because I am weak and frail, but from what I understand, the revelry didn’t end until way after the sun came up.

Addendum: Apparently, at 3:00 a.m., C.’s 80-year-old grandma played beer pong as well… with scotch. Gramma is hard-core.

Posted in Activitays, Stuff, Tasty 'n' Delicious | No Comments »

The Meadowlands Fair.

Sunday, July 19th, 2009

Oh, it was bleak. You remember the Bloomsburg Fair I went to back in the day? That had all those amusements and cool foods, but it also had local charm like pie bake-offs and 4-H club. The Meadowlands Fair, however, had none of those nice things. It felt like very con-artist-y and ripoff-y. It was all rides and impossible-to-win shooter games and sideshows. Yes, sideshows. Don’t believe me? I took pictures.

I refused to go into the sideshow, but my friends did and they said it was very, very lame. For example, the two-headed lady? One lady stood in back of another lady and rested her chin on the front lady’s shoulder. But it wasn’t a total loss. I saw an adorable ride in the kiddy section.

Aww, a teeny ferris wheel made from little pumpkin houses. And, of course, there was the food. I learned many new and exciting things. Like KFC did not invent the “meal in a bowl” concept.

And, in keeping with every fair’s policy that food must be served on an impaling device of some sort, there was a booth with some high-class stabbed cuisine.

But the redeeming item at the fair was, without a doubt, the deep-fried dill pickles with horseradish dipping sauce. Oh. Ohh. So good. It was my first time having this delicious fried delicacy, and it was so worth it. It was like the best components of fried food with the vinegary tang of dill pickles. French fries seem so blase next to it.

Posted in Activitays, Stuff, Tasty 'n' Delicious | 1 Comment »

(They do not move.)*

Saturday, May 30th, 2009

I saw Waiting for Godot with Nathan Lane and Bill Irwin and (I am so surprised to say this), it was so very very good. Before we get to the play, here’s a cool thing I saw in New York en route to the theater. In an attempt to curb tie-ups in Midtown Manhattan, Bloomberg has shut down Broadway near Times Square and put out lawn chairs in the middle of the road. Seriously. Cricket and I sat there for twenty minutes just enjoying the breeze and the seven gazillion blinking bright lights all around us. (Photo taken with Cricket’s phone, sorry for the not-so-great resolution.)

I hope they continue this, because it was so lovely. Cricket was miserable because he despises the city and longs to be around trees and no other humans, but I was thrilled.

Anyway, Waiting for Godot. I had to read the play and write a paper on it in college, and lemme tell you, it is a slog to read. Do you know what the play is about? It’s about two guys named Vladimir and Estragon (French for “Tarragon”, I call them Voldemort and Estrogen), waiting for another guy named Godot. They’re just killing time. Waiting. For two hours onstage. You watch them kill time waiting. The end. Here’s a sample of the dialogue.

“What do we do, now that we are happy?”
“Wait for Godot. Things have changed here since yesterday.”
“And if he doesn’t come?”
“We’ll see when the time comes. I was saying that things have changed here since yesterday.”
“Everything oozes.”
“Look at the tree.”
“It’s never the same pus from one moment to the next.”

Seriously, two hours. There are two other characters, Pozzo and Lucky, and they come in and cause a bit of a diversion, but mostly it’s dialogue like the stuff you just read. It is brutal, just brutal to read. However, when put in the hands of Bill Irwin and Nathan Lane, specifically Nathan Lane, it becomes moving, and funny. Nathan Lane can make anything funny. He makes this funny. I don’t know how he does it. If you’re going to see a performance of Waiting for Godot, this is the one to see. Just one comment:

Lucky’s big moment is this long speech in Act I. If taken as a whole, it is complete gibberish. If you break it into smaller chunks. you can find meaning in it. All I could think about while Lucky was doing his speech is how similar it sounds to that famous internet clip of Miss South Carolina giving her answer on education:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww

I cannot use the phrase “such as” anymore. Damn you, Miss South Carolina!

*The title refers to the final stage direction in the show:

Vladimir: Well? Shall we go?

Estragon: Yes, let’s go. (They do not move.)

Posted in Activitays, Movie and Book Reviews. Possibly With Spoilers., New York | No Comments »

Star Trek movie review. Might have spoilers. Prepare yourself.

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

But first, I saw They Might Be Giants again! I wasn’t planning to, but they were playing near my home (Tarrytown Music Hall) and it was only $28.00 for the ticket, so I thought “wot the ‘ell” and went. B. told me they had rewritten “The Sun Is A Mass Of Incandescent Gas” and sho’ nuff, TMBG performed the new version. Turns out they got all the facts for the song (song lyrics here) from one of those 1950s Golden Books everyone had as a kid. And, it also turns out, that in the 1950s, the scientists were wrong about a lot of their sun information. So the new song is sung as “The Sun Is A Miasma Of Incandescent Plasma”. I still like the original better, so even though the information is outdated and incorrect, I will continue to sing it and I hope TMBG will too. At least they have other informative songs, like “The Mesopotamians” and “Mammal” (where I learned the term ‘monotreme’ – Go Echidna!).

Yep, saw the Star Trek movie. In the IMAX, no less. And it was explosionalistical to the max. I was concerned when I went to go see it, because I am not a Star Trek fan of any kind. I know very basic rudimentary information on the show, and here is the length and breadth of it.

James T. Kirk is Captain of the Enterprise.

He’s got a doctor on board named Bones who says, “Dammit, Jim, I’m a doctor, not a (something)!”

Kirk also has a guy on board named Scottie who’s an engineer or something, and says, “I’m givin’ it all she’s got!” in a heavy Scottish accent.

There’s a nice black lady named Uhura who Kirk kissed and it was the first interracial kiss on TV, I think.

Them there’s Spock, who’s a Vulcan and doesn’t have emotions and has pointy ears.

Also, tribbles.

Aaaaand that’s it. So when I went to go see the movie, I was justifiably wary. I think I caught all of it. Here are some things of note:

– Anybody else think the Romulan ship looks like a Bloomin’ Onion as interpreted by Geiger?

– Speaking of Romulans and They Might Be Giants, the actors playing Romulans has prosthetic foreheads on their real heads. Which caused me to sing the chunk of the song ‘We Want A Rock” by TMBG (Lyrics: Throw the crib door wide / Let the people crawl inside / Someone in this town / Is trying to burn the playhouse down / They want to stop the ones who want / Prosthetic foreheads on their heads / But everybody wants prosthetic / Foreheads on their real heads). See, I never got that song. Obviously it’s about Romulans coming and destroying your planet. I understand now.

– Kirk makes out with a chick who’s completely normal-looking, except she’s painted bright green from head to toe. COME ON. Really. She looks exactly like Elphaba in the musical Wicked. There’s no reason for her to look like that, it’s distracting and stupid. She could have at least had funky scales, like Mystique in X-Men.

– Uhura and Spock are clearly gettin’ jiggy with it, which doesn’t make sense for two reasons. One, why would you want to have intimate relations with someone who doesn’t really express emotions? And two, isn’t Kirk supposed to be romantically involved with Uhura?

– I LOVE that Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead) played Scottie. Have you seen Shaun of the Dead? The first half is absolutely fabulous. So, yay, Simon Pegg.

That’s all I can think of. I don’t really get the whole Star Trek obsession, but it was a nice film that had lots of neat-o special effects, and that’s pretty much what I was looking for.

Posted in Activitays, Movie and Book Reviews. Possibly With Spoilers. | 1 Comment »

A Halloween Tale.

Wednesday, October 1st, 2008

I’m listening to The Ting Tings right at work right now. Golly gosh, they’re a peppy band. Especially “That’s Not My Name” and “Fruit Machine.” Actually, all the songs are good so far. If you like boogie-ing around your house whilst emptying the dishwasher, this is excellent music for that.

There’s an email that went around work last week:

There were many responses to this of the “Count me in!” and “I’m there!” variety. And it reminded me of a tale, a personal experience I’ve had with haunted houses. Many of you have heard this tale, but it’s a delightful tale with a moral (don’t pretend to be someone you’re not, because if you do, you’re going to look like a total loser). Gather around children, here we go.

I started dating Cricket in August, so we were still trying to be on our best behavior in October. His ex-wife had mentioned to him that she had gone to the Playland haunted house and it was cool because there were live people in it that came out at you. Cricket said we should go, and I, being a complete and total dumbass, said, “Sure! I iz not fraidy cat!” So we showed up one night and stood in line. While standing in line they had loudspeakers playing the standard horror fare: screams, creepy laughter, creaking and slamming noises. All of that was fine. What really freaks me out is children and anything child-related. You know, when the guy is going into a dark room and they play some notes on that tinkly little kid piano? Or a little kid is singing softly and off-key in the background? Or they show a toy with big staring eyes? AAAAAAhhhhhhhAAAAAAAhhhhhhaaahhhhhh. So we’re standing there paying for our tickets and on the loudspeaker I hear in a sweet tiny voice, “Mommy? Mommy? Where are you, Mommy? Help me find my mommy.” And then with no warning it switched to THE MOST DEMONIC VOICE EVER, all grating and evil, “HELP ME FIND MY MOMMY.”

Oh, that was the end of that. I shrieked, “I CAN’T DO THIS,” and took off for my car on the other side of the parking lot. Cricket grabbed the back of my coat and I shimmied out of that like I was covered in Crisco and kept bookin’ it like my hinter was engulfed in flames. I am not kidding. I ran to my own car, forgetting that my keys were in the pocket of the coat that Cricket was now holding in his hand back at the entrance, and started banging on the windows of my car screaming, “LET ME IN!” My own car. Cricket slowly sauntered over and explained that we had just paid thirteen dollars a person for this and we were going. I looked up and I had crazy twitchy eye going and was shivering with fear and I shrilly and briskly informed him that I would be going nowhere except home and this was not happening and he could take me in there NEVER. That’s when. NEVER. I probably used a plethora of curse words as well. I must have looked completely daft. Cricket, being the frugal creature I have grown to love, informed me that I had to take the tickets we had bought mere minutes ago and sell them to someone else in line. I would have sold a kidney if it got me the hell out of there, so I went back to the line and sold my tickets to someone else, sheepishly explaining my reason. They were cool and by the time I got back to the car (Cricket had let himself in with the keys in my pocket) I felt like a complete tool. Cricket proceeded to laugh at me for quite some time after that. There was much mockery at my expense, which could have been avoided had I just said, “No,” when he asked if I wanted to go to the haunted house.

So children, when you receive an invitation such as the email above, think long and hard about how much of a weenie you are comfortable looking like, otherwise you will have a humbling tale like mine.

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My co-worker’s wedding.

Monday, September 22nd, 2008

My co-worker Mili got married two weeks ago, and it was a hoot. It was on the beach in Long Island at sunset, the gods were compassionate and the sun shone and it was so beautiful. Here, a picture to show the beauty.

And right after the wedding, I took a picture of the seats with the ocean and the sand and the planks – see? SO beautiful.

As soon as they were pronounced man and wife, Mili did a “raise the roof” dance complete with some shrieking of glee, because Mili is a free spirit and that’s how she rolls. Apparently so does M., the groom. Remember that, it comes up later.

Anyway, the ceremony’s over. Time for drinkies, snakkies, ice sculptures, and melons carved as dolphins. Oh yeah, and if you’re looking to host an outdoor event with style, consider gazebo marquee hire perth for the perfect setup!

You need more melons? I’ll give you more melons.

Then it’s excessive dancing and dinner time. I sat with some of my other co-workers. I work with some lovely ladies. Look at how pretty they are.

So thin, so tan. And then there’s me.

There’s me and the Cricket. Note the super-awesome drag queen/Vegas dancer makeup. I was just ROCKIN’ the liner and shadow. The hell with the natural look. For me, the natural look is no makeup. If it ain’t bare, slap on the paint, boys, I’m going to town. Oh, and you can’t really see it in this picture, but I matched my nail polish exactly to my shirt. I’m so proud of myself I could spit.

Moving on. There were a few things at this wedding which caught my eye. First of all, I loved the glowing octopus of lights that softened the ceiling.

The other thing was this girl. She had nice straight hair but she had decided to crimp it, 80s style. I have nothing against crimping, it just… she just stuck the iron in her hair, clamped down and then moved on to a totally different chunk.

See? Confusing. I spoke to Mili later and it turns out that CrimpGirl’s a total Luna Lovegood whackadoo and everyone at the wedding who knew her was just glad she wore a bra. Pick your battles, I guess. But I think it was a wonderful wedding and the food was delicious and the band was UH-mazing (I think AC/DC should from now on be sung only by black women with shaved heads, because that’s what happened and it was phenomenal) and Mili danced with her father to a song I keep insisting on calling Buffalo Kisses, because I am not bright. Terrific evening.

The whole point of telling you about this wedding is so I could tell you about this honeymoon story I heard today when Mili got back. Mili and M. went to Aruba and stayed in a Hyatt because Mili’s brother works for Hyatt and got them a bit of a discount. So the second day they get tanked on the beach and go back to the room and M. decides to dance. But he could not fully express his dancerly needs on the floor, so he proceeded to dance on the bed, where he smacked his hand against the painting above the bed and shattered the glass in it. His hand was fine, but now there’s this painting with a gazillion cracks through it. Mili didn’t want to pay $1000 or whatever the crappity painting costs, and she didn’t want to get her brother into trouble either, so she put the “do not disturb” sign on the door for two days while she thought of a plan. Then, when Mili and M. were on the beach, a guy offered them a cooler full of Heineken. She saw the cooler and was like, “Hello, solution to my problems.” They drank the Heinekens (of course) and then went back to the room, where she moved the bed, then laid a towel down on the floor. M. gently shook all the glass onto the towel, which they folded up and shoved in the cooler. Mili was like, “Good, great, find a dumpster far away and throw it in.” M. complies. He comes back white-faced. Mili asked what was wrong and M. said he carried the cooler out to a faraway dumpster and threw the cooler in, with some towel hanging out the side. Some people walking by looked at him like he was crazy and said something about “Oh my God, a baby in a cooler.” Mili said, “Well, what did you do?” M. said, “I ran.” So they ended hanging out in the room for a whole day, convinced that the cops would be looking for M. as The Cooler-Baby Killer. PERFECT honeymoon story. PERFECT. You cannot write stuff that good.