So I was planning to see "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" on Thursday before MFF, but apparently it's only playing in a few coastal-town theaters right now, and it won't open nationwide until Nov. 25? Furriest movie to come along in a long time, and nobody can see it until after the con?
This does not help the Fun. This is Doing It Wrong. I'm sure the distributors of the film don't know about MFF... but if they did, they couldn't have chosen a better way to say "Screw you, MFF!"
Fine then. Maybe I'll see some other movie. I've been wanting to see "Pirate Radio".
EDIT: wbwolf explains that The FMF has suddenly had to be pushed back to a Thanksgiving weekend release so that nobody mistakenly thinks that Mr. Fox stares at goats or visits any fifty-something-th planets. Thanks for the info, Wilford.
Y'know, other comic strips have been making fun of websites such as MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, etc...
...but at least this one sounds like it was written by someone who actually uses the sites! (There's also been a story arc about Roland Hedley using Twitter... and he's been depicted *actually using* Twitter.)
Also... I don't think (have any reason to suspect) that Alex or any of her friends are furries. Remember that next time you think of dragging out the ol' "FURRY = DRAMA" chestnut.
I see that "The Fantastic Mr. Fox", Wes Anderson's stop-motion Roald Dahl adaptation, is opening on Friday the 13th. (Let's hope Mr. Fox doesn't get stabbed to death by Jason, hyuk hyuk! There, the obvious joke has been made and is done with.) Y'know, I'd like to see it before Midwest Furfest!
Thing is, I leave town for MFF on Sunday the 15th. I want to experimentally take a different route this year; plus I want to arrive a day earlier than usual. My itinerary is as follows:
Sun Nov 15 - Houston to Denton, TX Mon Nov 16 - Denton to Joplin, MO Tue Nov 17 - Joplin to Springfield, IL Wed Nov 18 - Springfield to Wheeling, IL
So for seeing "The Fantastic Mr. Fox", I have three choices: see it on Friday, on Saturday, or on Wednesday or Thursday in Chicago. I don't really like to see movies the day they premiere, or on weekends, because of the crowds. So what I'd like to do is see it on Thursday somewhere near the Westin.
Anyone care to join me? Any locals care to recommend a theater (or warn me away from a bad one)? I will of course have my car and can drive someone there.
EDIT: Ground rules. 1. Anyone wishing to go with me better be ready to go when I am, because I hate missing the beginning of a movie. If you're not ready to go when you should be, I'm leaving without you and you're not allowed to complain about it later. 2. I will ask you before we leave if you have money for a ticket. If you don't, you can't go. 3. I can take a *maximum* of three people, and I'd honestly rather just bring one or two.
Nine pages: Title page Page 1: Flew to Seattle while meeting Devilduk, watching Kiki's (De)Livery Service, and standing in line at the car counter. Page 2: Shopped at Archie McPhee before going to the hotel. Met 2 and Tallyhawk. Visited the hilly 7-11. Page 3: Offered some furs a ride to Denny's and Subafeway. Page 4: Opening Ceremonies. Awesome atrium! Zombies. GOH dinner and roast. 2's show. Page 5: Talk Like a Pirate Day. Variety Show rehearsal. Fursuit Parade led by Alexander J. Adams. Jon showed up! Page 6: Alexander J. Adams's show. Variety Show. Sunday: Lunch at Ivar's. Underwater billboards! Page 7: Ice cream social. Dinner at 13 Coins. Beatles: Rock Band with Jon. Page 8:Sunday: Harmonies tripped me up. Monday: Flew home watching Toy Story and eating at a Subway.
There was this band local to Pearland, TX, called The Judy's. I might have mentioned them here before; they were one of my favorite bands back in college, and when I learned recently that their albums were available on CD, I ordered my own copies. The songs are still every bit as much fun as I remembered...
But there's this one song, "Grass is Greener", that touches on transgender issues, and hearing it again now, though it's still as fun and catchy as ever, the attitudes behind the lyrics are now rather badly out of date. It goes as follows:
Johnny is a boy He wants to be a girl More than anything In the whole wide world
When he's up and able Right off the operating table Where they tuck it in... He'll be a girl.
It's an old cliché Heard it all his life: "Grass is greener on the other side."
Jonna is a girl She wants to be a boy Just the thought of it Fills her with such joy
When she's up and able Right off the operating table Where they sew it on... She'll be a boy.
It's an old cliché Heard it all her life: "Grass is greener on the other side."
They'll never be happy They'll never feel satisfied 'Cause grass is greener on the other side.
Whoa ah oh
The undue focus solely on genital surgery, the failure to adjust pronouns, and of course the false assumption that TG individuals can "never be happy"... it's all wrong! (Not to mention the name "Jonna"; meh, I don't like it!) But still... it's such a catchy tune. Rather than pretend this song doesn't exist and sweep it under the rug, I decided it needed updating, so I've taken the liberty of modifying the words. My version goes thus:
Johnny is a boy He wants to be a girl More than anything In the whole wide world.
When he fills the forms out And takes them to the district courthouse Where they change his name... She'll be a girl.
It's an old cliché Heard it all her life: "Grass is greener on the other side."
Jenny is a girl She wants to be a boy Just the thought of it Fills her with such joy.
With hormones injected Until a beard can be detected, And a change in voice... He'll be a boy.
It's an old cliché Heard it all his life: "Grass is greener on the other side."
And now they are happy And now they feel satisfied Their grass was greener on the other side.
Whoa ah oh
Much better, don't you think? I like to sing my version over theirs when I play the CD in my car.
Y'know what? I've been working on the diary for Rainfurrest, off and on, since I got home from Seattle. But I've been lazy about it; more off than on. Maybe if I set a deadline and make it public, that will spur me on to finish it.
So: I will have the Rainfurrest diary completed and uploaded by Wednesday of next week, November 4. Shouldn't be hard; it's only like 8 pages long. But it will be 8 pages of pure con-diary fun!
In other news, I'm going to spend Halloween wearing my wolf suit and making mischief of one kind and another. Specifically I'm going to write a sequel to "Where the Wild Things Are", in which KW shows up at Max's door, asking to sleep on their couch because she and Carol had a big fight. Max's mom will be the one to answer the door, and not having seen the Wild Things before, she'll be all AIEEEE!
My photo page has fallen so woefully far behind that it hasn't been updated since 2006.
So I've decided it's time to start uploading photos to Flickr. Here's my photostream, which so far only has a few photos on it, from the Cake Wrecks tour.
Oh wait, yes I have. I went and saw "A Serious Man" today. It was good, although I can't help wondering if the ending would make more sense if I were Jewish.
Several people on my friendslist are posting memories of the Loma Prieta earthquake, which happened 20 years ago. So I'll do the same:
I saw it on the news. I remember seeing pictures of collapsed freeways and buildings.
Didn't feel it, of course. Here in Houston, TX, I have never been in an earthquake, nor felt shockwaves from earthquakes anywhere else. The only thing remotely like that that I've ever felt was when a chemical plant outside town somewhere exploded. The windows made a "thud" noise, as if a large basketball had been thrown against the side of the house.
Oh, then there was the time lightning struck a tree in our yard. I was at home reading, and suddenly there was this deafening *BANG* from outside. When I went out later after the storm, I saw that one tree was missing a thin strip of bark from a high branch all the way down to the ground, and there were strips of bark lying around. That tree died and had to be removed.
Other strange things happen around here occasionally. One time there was smoke in the sky from some forest fires in Mexico. Then it rained dirty rain, and everyone's cars got dirty. I had to take mine to the car wash.
The Cake Wrecks event in Austin was fun! I finally got to meet John and see the slideshow, a sort of brief history of the Cake Wrecks blog. Also, I brought sprinkles. Y'know, just in case Jen and John might want sprinkles after all they've been through. They were very appreciative.
While I was at the bookstore, I also bought some other books, such as The Cartoon History of the Modern World by Larry Gonick, I Judge You When You Use Poor Grammar by Sharon Eliza Nichols, and Who's To Say What's Obscene? by Paul Krassner.
After the event, I drove home. It takes about 3–4 hours.
Well, Jen of Cake Wrecks's husband John is out of the hospital and feeling better, so they've decided to resume the book tour where they left off. They'll be appearing in Austin on Saturday at Book People at 2:00. I'll be there!
And I'll only be away from home for one night, so I'm not going to bother bringing my laptop. This means no updates from the road. One oughtn't use a laptop while driving anyway. I mean, if you thought texting was bad...
While driving home today, I spotted a car with lettering in the windshield that spelled "PICASSO" in all caps in Old English script. I know that makes some people cringe, because you're not supposed to use that font in all caps. There's supposed to be one capital letter at the beginning, acting as a decorative lead-in to the rest of the word.
And I thought of an analogy: setting all-caps text in Old English font is like singing a song and inserting a flourish intro before every single word. Like instead of singing:
o/` Dada dada da da, hey! Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb... o/`
...you're singing:
o/` Dada dada da da, hey! Mary... Dada dada da da, hey! Had... Dada dada da da, hey! A... Dada dada da da, hey! Little... Dada dada da da, hey! Lamb... o/`
Now that I'm home, I've read the Cake Wrecks blog and gotten more information. Jen's husband John is in the ICU with a head injury, pneumonia, and a staph infection in his blood. Annnd... Jen herself apparently has flulike symptoms. The entire rest of the Cake Wrecks tour has been canceled. So send them your well-wishes and happy thoughts.
“This is K.T. in Austin, Texas. So, I woke up at nine this morning in Dallas, and hustled to get down here as quick as possible. I had to brave rain, rain, more rain, and one nasty traffic jam caused by an accident. Probably because someone didn't know how to drive in the rain. Lemme tell you how to drive in the rain: CARE-FUL-LY. I had to hurry because I wanted to get to the Book People book store in downtown Austin before three o'clock for the second Texas stop on Jen's Cake Wrecks book signing tour. Well, I made it to Book People with barely fifteen minutes to spare... and then I found out the Austin appearance had been cancelled! Remember when I mentioned yesterday that Jen's husband John was in the hospital? Well, that's why. Now that's certainly an understandable reason to cancel, but... I never got to see the slide show! When Legacy Books in Dallas couldn't get the Cake Wrecks slide show working on their fancy wall-mounted video screens, I thought, "Hey, that's all right, I'll just see it in Austin." Except, NO DICE.
I wonder why John is in the hospital. Was he in a car wreck? Did he get hit by some idiot who was driving drunk or something? Some idiot I could track down and /hit in the face for ruining my sole reason for coming to Austin today?/
Anyway, I heard a guy at the bookstore say the event will probably be rescheduled, but they don't yet know when. I guess I'll have to wait and see. Also, I didn't get any cake!
Oh, then, I drove over here and checked into the Crowne Plaza, and the place looked mighty familiar. That's because this used to be the Red Lion, which was where Linucon was held the one time I attended. I checked into my room and fired up my laptop, and couldn't get the Internet working! Later in the evening after dinner I called tech support, and they tried various things, but couldn't get it working. That's why I'm making a phone post. So instead I just watched some DVDs. I finally got around to watching, [sung] "Help! I need somebody. Help! Not just anybody. Help!" which was fun times with all the Beatles vs. Leo McKern, Victor Spinetti, and Roy Kinnear. Then I watched Toy Story 2. Now I am fully prepared for Toy Story 3 later this summer, or winter, or whatever.
So tomorrow I drive home, where I will get back online and be able see if this phone post is listenable. Oh yes, and have cake. That is all.”
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wbwolf explains that The FMF has suddenly had to be pushed back to a Thanksgiving weekend release so that nobody mistakenly thinks that Mr. Fox stares at goats or visits any fifty-something-th planets. Thanks for the info, Wilford.
