Entertainment – Page 9 – Mom's Guide to the Galaxy

Well, that was unexpected.

Sometimes, life throws you for a loop; other times, it feels like you’re being hit by full-on plot twists, like a sudden death or an unexpected pregnancy. It can feel like stepping sideways into your own life, as things shift around you that you never saw coming.

For Vin, the main character of Side Life, by Steve Tougonghi, it’s worse than that… he flat out doesn’t remember some of the loops (a cat?), and would swear the plot twists were exactly the opposite (why doesn’t his best friend’s phone number work?). It all started when he was forced out of the software company he founded, and his father referred him to a house sitting opportunity. The house, and the opportunity, don’t seem quite… right.

Vin does what any bored genius would do… he obsesses about the issue. With nothing else holding his attention, he delves into the mystery of the house and it’s owner, Nerdean. To his credit, he doesn’t climb into one of the caskets he finds in the secret basement immediately; he waits until he can log into the computers and get some information about the caskets. When he does experiment with the casket’s basic settings, his reality shifts and confusion reigns as he tries to understand what’s happening to him.

I can’t say much more without getting into spoilers. Suffice to say, I recommend this book; it will be released on May 8^th. This book will keep you guessing, including deciding whether you like the main character or despise him.

Capricon 2018

I’ve attended some large conventions – Origins, DragonCon, GenCon – and they’re certainly fun, but when it comes down to it, the smaller conventions, like Capricon, are my favorites. While the large conventions focus more on seeing the big names and meeting many of your fan favorites, the little conventions are about interacting with other geeks and getting to know them. And because geeks are such a diverse mix, there are many different ways of doing that at a convention. For example, here are some of the options from last weekend’s Capricon:

Panels – these are a great way to join topics or activities about esoteric geeky (is that redundant?) topics, such as learning Circular Gallifreyan, discussing computers before computing, or even a coloring workshop for adults.
ConSuite – smaller conventions like to make sure people eat during the weekend, and provide assorted food options, along with space to socialize.
Gaming – an opportunity to meet people in a casual setting, where you can play a short game (Loonacy or Fluxx, for example) or settle in for something longer (like Terraforming Mars). You learn a lot about a person when you play a game or two with them. And you might find some new games you like.
Parties – the effort geeks put into party themes is fairly impressive. One party group was handing out surveys Thursday and Friday nights to prepare for a Saturday night ~~Family~~ Fandom Feud, with questions related to assorted fandoms. Whether you’re interested in drinking, dancing, trivia, books (& beer), or just talking, there’s a party for that.
Faramir, my cute shoulder cat, riding on my (surprise!) shoulder.

Dealers’ Hall – oh, the shopping! Blissfully smaller than the dealers’ areas at big conventions (you really need at least a day to get through GenCon’s), the dealers’ hall at local conventions tends to showcase a good variety of fandom wares without being overwhelming. That’s not to say there aren’t too many choices, there’s always more options than I have space or money to bring home. This time, I brought home a cute shoulder cat from the fabulous ladies at Bast’s Garden. And because I like crossing my fandoms, I named him Faramir. The vendors are friendly and outgoing, and you’re likely to join random conversations with people about what you see.

While the large conventions are good fun, the little ones – this was just over 1,100 people – are the place to go to see friends and generally appreciate your own geekiness.

It was a super blood blue moon!

Some mornings, I feel like I’m using a cattle prod to force a sloth into motion. “Get dressed! Come to breakfast! Finish eating!”

And then there are mornings like this Wednesday, when it was in an astronomy geek’s best interest to be up and moving. In this case, it was to see an eclipse, when we were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the super blue blood moon.

I first heard of blue moons in elementary school… “once in a blue moon, a new smurf is born.” Yes, really, I remember that episode, though their blue moons seem to be a bit too close together. Not surprisingly, my actual understanding of a blue moon – the second full moon in a calendar month (since 1946) or the “extra” full moon in a year with 13 – came much later.

Super blue blood moon — The super blue moon before the eclipse started.

What made it stunning was the “super” part – the moon looked larger than normal because of it’s proximity to the Earth. Amusingly, I just saw the technical name for a supermoon (perigee syzygy of the Earth-Moon-Sun system) as part of a trivia question earlier this week.

“Blood Moon” refers to the moon during a total lunar eclipse, so named because it can look red. I don’t think it look particularly red here. Unfortunately, it was also sinking in the horizon as the sun was rising, so most of my attempts to photograph the eclipse part are obscured by trees. It was awfully pretty, but not particularly photogenic, at least not on my point & click camera.

We escaped!

We had talked about trying an Escape Room for a couple years; my work department finally got together for an outing recently. We split into two teams and did two escape rooms each at Mastermind in Schaumburg. Our organizer picked the two easiest scenarios – Sorcerer’s Secret (35% escape rate) and Lost in Time (42%).

I’ll be honest, I had no idea there were that many different kinds of combination locks available. In addition to the standard locker combination lock (3 times to the right to the number, 2 times to the left to the number, and right to the last number), there were luggage-style locks with anywhere from 3 to 5 numbers or letters needed, including some that had both letters and numbers on them, and what I can only describe as DDR locks – the options were up, down, left, and right.

Mind you, the locks weren’t the puzzles. The puzzles gave you the answer to the locks, assuming you could figure out which one to use where. There were also a few physical puzzles that required team work, like a maze where the person with the magnet couldn’t see the maze and had to be talked through it. And that’s about all the details I can give without spoiling things… I will say that there’s an Easter egg in the Lost in Time puzzle for Doctor Who fans.

I will also say that LARP experience helped, if only because of the number of puzzles involved in those games, particularly at the Whately LARPs. If you get stuck, you have clues available that you can spend points on, with a finite number of points (100) before it counts as a loss.

Both teams escaped from both puzzles… I guess that’s what happens when you put IT problem solvers in a room.

Driving in a snow globe

One of the thrills of winter is, of course, snow. The first snowfall of the year is always exciting, the effect on the landscape is dazzling. The effect on driving… well… you get all the slipperyness (is that a word?) of driving in rain, but in the right conditions, it looks pretty even if the drivers are crazy.

When you move north, nobody warns you there are different types of snow. It’s akin to rain in that sense, quite literally, except for the part where it’s frozen. You can have anything from a light drizzle to a downpour of white, wet and packable snow (great for building, bad for shoveling) to dry, lightweight snow that blows all over the place (especially back to where you just shoveled it from).

It can fall straight down, as if someone just flipped the snow globe over and back again. But sometimes, that snow globe is slightly askew instead, and you get to experience the effect of walking or driving into the oncoming snow. In a heavy snow, that’s obviously a bad thing, with windshield wipers working furiously to keep up.

Holiday lights — No, I wasn’t driving when I took this photo. It also wasn’t snowing yet.

In a light snow, however, it has an idyllic effect as white bits swirl around you, paths altering with the wind impacts of vehicles around you. That is when it feels like you’re driving in a nice snow globe, and you decelerate as you pass decorated houses to appreciate the holiday season.

Visiting the Blue Box Café

I don’t recall when I first heard about the Blue Box Café (BBC, because that’s a great acronym in context); it seems like it opened ages ago, I kept wanting to go. With a late Saturday afternoon free, we ended up there for an early dinner recently. For anyone not familiar with the source material, “Blue Box” refers to Doctor Who’s TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space), a machine capable of traveling through time and space that is permanently disguised as a British police box.

Me, a TARDIS door, and some Doctor Who clothing.

There’s nothing particularly fancy on the menu, though some of the items bear Whovian names; what we tried was delightful. The attention-getters are the decor and merchandise, all Doctor Who-related. In addition to the usual collectables (K-9 bobblehead!) for sale, there was a book about the show by a Midwest author, and several pieces on the walls were fan creations. And who can resist taking a photo by the Blue Box mock-up? As we left, employees were setting up for an evening of live music – be sure to check their event schedule before you go!

I normally chat with my companions at meals, but we were both distracted by an episode of Doctor Who that was playing on the televisions. We eventually pulled ourselves away mid-episode (we have seen it before), stopping outside to admire the Blue Box bench before heading home.

Million Dollar Quartet at the Paramount

We’ve had season tickets to the Paramount Theater in Aurora for a few years now (since the year they had Cats and Les Miserables on the schedule), so I think it’s fairly significant that Cassandra declared Million Dollar Quartet as her favorite so far. It even beat Aladdin, which we saw in Chicago last December.

The Million Dollar Quartet was made up of Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Elvis Presley, and is set entirely in and around the Sun Records recording studio in Memphis, Tennessee, on the one day that the four performers happened to be there. Jerry Lee Lewis was the new face in the studio, the hotshot kid who was (in the musical, at least) impressed by the indoor toilet at his hotel and the famous musicians he was meeting. At the same time, he was eager to declare that his would be the next gold record on the wall. Elvis Presley was searching for happiness at a studio that didn’t understand him, and the other two were hoping for their next big hits.

Imagine, if you can, the amount of talent that was gathered at Sun Studio on December 4, 1956. Then imagine what kind of talent you need to reproduce that sixty years later, including capturing the era in the set design.

The Paramount nailed it.

This show is definitely worth seeing. It’s probably worth seeing again, though I suspect my opportunities to do that – at least during this run – will conflict with my karate schedule.

Time for the Brookfield ZooRunRun!

Or as I prefer to call it, the ZooWalkWalk. That’s what I usually do at Brookfield Zoo’s annual 5k, though this year included a little sprinting as well. Several years ago, we happened to arrive at the zoo as their ZooRunRun was finishing, which is how it came to my attention. By the time it rolled around again, we were already learning karate and hustling up the Hancock once a year; walking a few miles on a fall morning seemed like a nice addition. Consistently scheduled for early September, the zoo has a knack for perfect weather for the event.

The runners start first, split into groups by their expected mile time (self-assessed), followed by the walkers. Everybody is timed automatically based on the bibs, and you can scan the QR code on your bib to retrieve your time. Alternately, you can queue up for the lone laptop (there used to be more) and enter your bib number. In addition to the traditional water and banana handouts, there were two different samples this year to help with recovery – BarkThins and Kind bars.

As a walker, I slowed down occasionally to watch animals that usually rest in the heat of day – both the warthogs and wallabies were unusually active this time. After the race, the wallabies had already settled into their normal lounging by the time we walked by again. In fact, one of the biggest benefits I see to the ZooRunRun – other than supporting their conservation efforts – is the opportunity to wander the zoo before it officially opens. The faster you move during your walk or run, the more time you have at the zoo with reduced crowds.

The Five Doctors, with running commentary

I’m not a bit fan of talking during movies, especially at theaters where it might disturb other people. When you’re already paying someone else to provide a running commentary, it suddenly becomes appropriate.

I somehow missed the Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) Kickstarter back in 2015, which brought the show back with 14 new episodes. Having grown up^* on Doctor Who, I was excited to learn about a RiffTrax Live event for “The Five Doctors,” a 1983 special that brought together the first five regenerations and some of his companions. Without commentary, “The Five Doctors” is the epitome of classic Doctor Who – campy effects, BBC set budget, interesting costume choices (“Snuffleupagus pelt”), and some fairly obvious plot twists.

With commentary, you can still enjoy all those things – though some of the original dialogue becomes lost – and appreciate mocking yet another timeless classic. (It also allows you to appreciate just how far Doctor Who – and the BBC’s budget – has come.). But first, we were subjected to a British safety video from the era, with commentary, of course. Rest assured that nobody who watched it will play anywhere near power lines, power stations, or a poorly animated owl who lectures an equally animated bird about the danger without making any effort to stop the children who are about to be injured or killed (poor Jimmy!).

Actually, that was second. The usual pre-movie ads and trivia were replaced with comical ones – obvious anagrams that were translated into entirely different, but related, terms (instead of Cars 3, it read Buy More Toys), fake trivia, and other entertainment. Arriving early was a fortunate choice.

The extended episode itself was a barrel of laughs with the MST3K crew clearly enjoying themselves with a live audience. There were a plethora of comments on the fashion choices, particularly on the Gallifreyans’ parts. The rile of Sarah Jane Smith was reprised by Elisabeth Sladen, with a brief appearance by K-9, perplexing viewers by her ability to fall down a minuscule slope and needing a rescue from it. Sarah Jane is far better written in future appearances. Eventually, the Doctors pulled together and saved the day… not exactly a spoiler three decades and several regenerations later.

The real advantage to a live MST3K performance was the timeliness of the jokes, such as comparing the Tower of Rassilon to the current Dark Tower movie. I’m hoping for a DVD or download release, so my daughter will forgive me for seeing it without her.

* It’s a relative term.

Taking a trip back in time

“It’s hot, over-priced, and historically inaccurate.”
“But it’s fun.”

I went to my first Renaissance Faire in Ft. Lauderdale during college. We borrowed my Dad’s minivan for the hour drive from Miami, spent a good part of the February day at Faire, then went home and had a pool party. Because you can do that in Miami in February.

When I moved to Chicagoland and discovered there was a nearby Renaissance Faire that lasts two whole months, I was delighted! So delighted, in fact, that I’ve only missed it one year since I moved here; my daughter was born mid-season.

Dirk & Guido, the Swordsmen — Dirk & Guido, Bold & Stupid Men

Cirque du Sewer, during a rat’s performance

Bristol Renaissance Faire has so many choices, you can’t possibly cover it all in one day. I think the perfect day at Bristol includes seeing a classic performance and trying something new. Examples of Bristol classics would be The Mud Show (dirty, yet kid-appropriate), Dirk & Guido, the Swordsmen (Bold & Stupid Men! I have the button that says so), Adam Crack’s Fire Whip show, or even the Joust. (By no means is this a complete list.)

Which shows we see varies on each visit, partially dependent on who we’re wandering the Faire with. Last year, the new act (for us) was The Dread Crew of Oddwood, and oddly entertaining music group that describes itself as “Heavy Mahogany debauchery from Southern California.” This year, as we wandered between lunch and shopping, we encountered a lady with a rat, hawking her Cirque du Sewer show. It was delightfully amusing to see how well the cat and rats have their human trained.

Bast's Garden — Bast’s Garden, a menagerie of winged plush

Twisted Spiders — Beautiful spiders dangling from the ceiling.

And then there’s the shopping. The shopping opportunities are extraordinary, from apparel, jewelry, decorations, books, games, and more! We always visit our friends at Bast’s Garden, which usually results in yet another winged plush coming home with us, and I like stopping at the game store (just in case I need more dice). This year’s new find was Twisted Spiders, a booth dedicated solely to beautiful spider jewelry and adornments.

It’s never a dull day, and if you’re lucky, you get perfect weather too.