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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Nathan's LiveJournal:

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Monday, August 19th, 2019
12:00 pm
My tweets
Sunday, August 18th, 2019
8:47 pm
Cenobite Me
 This past weekend was the Monster-Mania Convention in Cherry Hill. Beth and I go to these regularly. For the first few, we went on all three days; but after a while they started only really having events on Saturdays, so there isn't a lot of point to going to the other days. For us, that is; other people go in order to meet celebrities and get autographs, and I'm sure that's the bigger money-maker for the convention. The night before, we stopped at Red Lobster on the way down from Brooklyn. I don't think either of us had eaten there in two years or so. It's still good, but not good enough to go there that often. She tried a Crabfest special, while I stuck with shrimp. On Saturday, we drove to the convention, and fortunately they have a dedicated parking space aside from the one at the hotel itself, which fills up really quickly. This time, they reduced the length of the daytime panels from an hour (well, generally less than that, really) to a half hour each. It moved things along quickly, but there were some guests I might have liked to hear from a bit more. The first panel was with Shawnee Smith, who was in the original Saw movies. Then came Beverly D'Angelo, who had some interesting stories.

When someone asked about her appearance on The Simpsons as Lurleen Lumpkin, she mentioned that she wrote "Bagged Me a Homer" and never signed over the rights, so she continued to get residuals for it. She sang much of it, too. She also discussed how she lived near Frank Zappa, and she met Matt Groening through him. His house was since bought by Lady Gaga, and there are always a lot of cars outside. Next was Kathy Najimy, who mentioned having been a big fan of Bette Midler some time before starring in Hocus Pocus with her. (That's a movie I still haven't seen. Beth saw it at the theater with her uncle.)

She also talked about how Peggy Hill's interest in Boggle came from her, and the character's bad Spanish was how a lot of Americans in California spoke the language. The last of the daytime panels was Devon Sawa, and I didn't know much about him, although I did see the original Final Destination some time ago.


After a fairly long wait, here were two later, hour-long panels, the first being several of the actors who played Cenobites in the Hellraiser movies: Barbie Wilde, Nicholas Vince, Simon Bamberg, and Doug Bradley. Clive Barker also showed up for part of it, although he left early.

He and Doug knew each other from way back when they both lived in Liverpool. Doug addressed the story about how he was offered the part of either Pinhead or the mattress delivery man, which is technically true, but it was always intended that he play Pinhead. There was just a moment where he thought maybe he should take a role where you could see his face. Some other discussion involved how there might have been more to the story of the second film if they hadn't run out of money. The final session was with Robert Englund, who talked about how he wouldn't necessarily mind playing Freddy Krueger again, but knew he couldn't do it for much longer, and thought they should go with someone younger.

He said he'd heard a rumor about Kevin Bacon taking the part (or maybe that was just Robert's own suggestion; I can't recall for sure), but as a guy mentioned afterwards, Bacon is only eleven years younger. I wouldn't be surprised if they do make another remake at some point, although the 2010 one with Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy got bad reviews (and deservedly so, in my opinion). I should mention that we saw someone dressed as Falkor from The Neverending Story, not really horror-related, but a great costume.

Dave Hagan, who runs the convention, said that next year he wants to try having a sort of spin-off highlighting other pop culture, because he's had guests who were interested in attending but didn't fit the theme, not that I'm entirely sure what Beverly D'Angelo has to do with horror. Dave also wrote a novel, which I bought for Beth. Our tradition is to eat at Friendly's afterwards, although we go there quite often when we visit New Jersey anyway.

Today, we went to a birthday party for Beth's young cousins before returning to Brooklyn. They have four dogs there, and they all want to be around her uncle Harry, even though two of them technically aren't his dogs.

Now we're back home again. We don't like to leave for long, because the cats like to have people around. I understand yesterday was Black Cat Appreciation Day, and we weren't even around ours.
12:00 pm
My tweets
Saturday, August 17th, 2019
12:00 pm
My tweets
Friday, August 16th, 2019
12:00 pm
My tweets
  • Thu, 12:08: "Moderate" is a tricky term anyway. I mean, I'd say for-profit health care is a pretty radical idea, but it's also… https://t.co/8VaoozJEs9
  • Thu, 13:32: No one ever slides into my DMs. Maybe I need to wax the floor more often.
  • Thu, 22:46: I'm straight but I'm also not a fan anymore. https://t.co/ZNYtW7tKTi
  • Fri, 07:24: George W. Bush: "You work three jobs?...Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that. Get any sleep?"
Thursday, August 15th, 2019
12:00 pm
My tweets
Wednesday, August 14th, 2019
12:00 pm
My tweets
Tuesday, August 13th, 2019
12:00 pm
My tweets
Monday, August 12th, 2019
6:53 pm
Please Use a Coaster
 Beth and I were originally thinking of going to the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens this weekend, but since there was planned subway work, we instead did something else we'd been planning on and drove up to Playland, an oddly but appropriately named amusement park. This was our third visit there, and it was nice outside. The park recently introduced their mascot Coaster, an updated version of the dragon who's been on the logo for years, but redesigned to look friendlier.

The Dragon Coaster, opened in 1929, is one of the oldest rides at the park.

The new Coaster is featured on one of the park's newest rides, the Dragonator, which spins around and moves back and forth on a track.

I believe it was also the first time we rode Super Flight, a suspended roller coaster that flips you around horizontally like you're flying, similarly to Superman: Ultimate Flight at Great Adventure. It ended up being rather painful. Overall, my body just can't take amusement park rides like it once could, although they're generally still fun. The only thing we rode twice was the Whip, one of Beth's favorites. I've mentioned after earlier visits that the park has two dark rides, and they even used the same "I will destroy you!" soundbite in both. There's also both a Thunder Bolt and a Music Express, and they're basically the same ride, although the former has suspended cars and hence doesn't move as quickly. There was also an art exhibit called the Floating Forest, which consisted of a bunch of jellyfish, on the beach outside the park.

Neither of us had eaten anything before leaving home, so we got some food at McDonald's on the way there, then hot dogs at the park.

There really isn't much more to say about this past weekend. I did watch the second episode of Lost in Oz, and played a bit of Dragon Warrior III. Maybe Coaster would get along with the dragons in that game.

One thing I heard on TV (but not on Lost in Oz that struck me was that there are apparently still people who think everyone is just so mean to Donald Trump. I thought his appeal (and I don't see any appeal at all to the guy, but obviously some people do) was supposed to be that he said what he wanted and damn the consequences, but he also whines about the consequences. Is he a tough guy who flaunts his power or a pathetic victim? As someone mentioned when I tweeted about this, Trump supporters obviously don't feel the need to be consistent. I'm not even sure they remember anything from day to day, considering how often Trump denies saying things he's on record as saying. And really, I feel that the media are generally being really nice to Trump. They criticize him, sure, but no more than they did any other President. It's certainly nowhere near the level of Trump himself laughing at the suggestion that his supporters should murder immigrants.

Current Mood: okay
12:00 pm
My tweets
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Sunday, August 11th, 2019
12:00 pm
My tweets
Saturday, August 10th, 2019
12:00 pm
My tweets
Friday, August 9th, 2019
12:00 pm
My tweets
Thursday, August 8th, 2019
12:00 pm
My tweets
Wednesday, August 7th, 2019
12:00 pm
My tweets
Tuesday, August 6th, 2019
12:00 pm
My tweets
Monday, August 5th, 2019
8:41 pm
An Exhausted Report
 Is outrage fatigue a thing? I have to suspect Trump and his followers are counting on it, because there's something terrible happening every day. There being two mass shootings this past weekend is disturbing as hell, but sadly not too shocking anymore. Not that Trump directly caused the shootings, but his racist rhetoric is empowering white supremacists. Maybe they're hoping we'll get desensitized to it. It is, however, not true that ICE was arresting people in the aftermath of the El Paso shooting. At this point, I can believe pretty much any racist thing happening. And there are still people blaming domestic terrorism on video games. Dudes, Space Invaders came out over forty years ago. You can't keep pretending they're something it's safe to blame for bad things because only the kids understand them.

As for what I personally have (or, in some cases, haven't) done recently, Beth saw Ben Folds with the Violent Femmes on Thursday, and I chose not to attend. I also turned down the chance to see Weird Al a few weeks ago, although that was the weekend it was unbearably hot, so I can't say I regret it. I just don't have the energy for concerts anymore. It helps when I buy tickets well in advance, so then it would be wasteful if I didn't go. I have tickets to see Robyn Hitchcock with Tanya Donnelly in November. He always seems to play in Brooklyn around my birthday, although I didn't go last year. For that one particular concert, though, I was still pretty tired after OzCon.

Meme by Erica Olivera, from a picture by John R. Neill
I did, however, go with Beth to see Michael Ian Black on Friday evening.

His opener was Maggie Rosenquist, who had a similar style of humor, very sarcastic.

Michael told his shaggy dog story about Subway, which I remember him doing at a different show a while back. He called the Italian BMT a "garbage sandwich," but that's what I often get there! But I do agree that saying the letters stand for "Big, Meaty, Tasty" is pretty gross (not to mention slightly pornographic), and I don't think I knew that before. It's actually named after the BMT subway line, which was sold to the city in 1940. I bought a Subway sandwich for tonight, and it's just ham. I don't get vegetables on my sandwiches like some kind of nineties sketch comedian.

On Saturday, Beth and I both slept until evening. Then someone who recently followed me on Instagram tried to convince me to have kids, which was pretty bizarre. It would be strange enough even if it were someone I actually knew. I can't recall there ever being a time when I wanted kids, and I'm pretty sure humanity will live on anyway, unless we all die of global warming or nuclear war. Beth and I had dinner at Pizzeria Uno, and she brought a little bit of lobster home for our cat Reagan, thinking it would be a special treat. Rea didn't even touch it. What the hell, cat? Here she is looking at me from the arm of the couch.


Current Mood: exhausted
12:00 pm
My tweets
Sunday, August 4th, 2019
12:00 pm
My tweets
Saturday, August 3rd, 2019
12:00 pm
My tweets
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