Catching Up with Myopic

Happy Labor Day weekend, all. Hope everyone has big exciting plans for the three day weekend. (For those of you who have jobs that honor national holidays, that is.)

Thanks to all of you who welcomed me back with open arms after my missing-in-action period. I was worried that you'd all abandoned me, but I was wrong. Your supportive emails really mean a lot to me. I've had a rough summer, but knowing that people out there are rooting for me makes it a lot easier. Today's mail included a very sweet email from my mom, written before she and my dad left for a week in sunny Florida. I love you too, Mom. You made me cry. Thankfully only Zappagirl was here to witness it.

Oh, who am I kidding? Anyone who knows me knows I cry at the drop of a hat. I sniffle during Hallmark commercials. But it's nice to be crying for good reasons rather than bad reasons.

So, I've got some catching up to do. Where to begin?

First off, my condolences to Musashi in regards to his legal tussle with Toho Co., Ltd. Seems that they didn't findSurvivor: Monster Island as funny as the rest of us, and they sent him an email threatening a lawsuit for infringing upon their intellectual property. He took down al the links and graphics, posted his response to them and created a new t-shirt for The Destroy All Monsters Legal Defense Fund. Big business has no sense of humor, folks. The weekly updates were hilarious, and most people I knew were much more interested in whether Godzilla got booted off the island than which sniping moron made it through another week of the Outback tribal council. I suggest that the suits at Toho go out, buy a dictionary, and look up "parody." Geez.

Apparently Cafe Press has decided to offer messenger bags to all of their stores for a limited time, because suddenly everyone I know is offering screaming yellow bags with their logos emblazoned on the flap. Argh! Which to buy? My basic black bag has seen better days, and it wouldn't hurt to have a new one, but I don't know which one to buy. By the time I decide, they won't be available anymore! Maybe I'll just buy one of each. Right after I win the lottery.

Oh, wait! I get my tax check this month, don't I? Hmmm. Since I've already decided I'm going to blow the entire check on things I want, not stuff I need, I'm makeing a list of places to spend this money that the government was kind enough to send back to me. Geekware. DAM stuff. Cool stuff from Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash - I've been eying the Buddy Christ dashboard figurine for a year and a half now. And how cool is that Clerks lunch box?

Speaking of the View Askewniverse, Zappagirl and I attended a sneak preview of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back a few weeks ago. Omigod. Kevin Smith is soooo my boyfriend. I can't remember the last time I laughed that hard in a theater. (Actually, I lied. It was the first time I saw South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut.)

Not that my love for Kevin Smith is a big news flash or anything. After all, my pager message was Dante's lament (from Clerks) for months. I have the Jay and Silent Bob action figures, still in the original packaging. (But probably not for much longer. Toy geeks be damned, I like to actually play with my toys rather than marvel at the mint condition which the plastic packaging maintains.) And I own two copies of Dogma. One was a previously viewed copy from Blockbuster (that rack is dangerous when I've got extra money), and the other was...ok, I'll admit it. I bought a bootleg from a street vendor the week after the movie was released in theaters. One of those "sneaking the camcorder into the theater" tapes. The quality is awful, the sound is even worse, but it kept me happy until the film was available for rental.

The only thing mising from the new movie was a plot. (Sorry, Kevin. I may love you, but you aren't perfect.) But for fans of the other four movies, it's loads of fun. Inside joke after inside joke, a return of characters from every other installment of the New Jersey saga, and Morris Day and the Time! Whoo!

(Note: If you do go to see the movie, stay until the credits are over. You'll understand when you see it. And sing along to the Afroman song while you're reading who the best boy was.)

Ummm...what else? Oh yeah. After catching VH1 Storytellers and MTV Unplugged 2.0, I am happy to announce that R.E.M. and I are back on speaking terms. I still miss Bill Berry, but I've been guiltily grooving in secret to the stuff they've been doing since I broke up with them during Monster. Thanks to Roger Mexico for showing me the error of my ways.

Speaking of Roger Mexico, I am extremely jealous right now. Since he moved to Pennsylvania, he has been to see Air and Depeche Mode (with Poe) in Philly, and just got to see Coil at Convergence 7 in New York. (This was Coil's first ever performance in North America. Lucky guy.) And in the next month he is going to see Current 93, and probably has his tickets for Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds in October. The only concert I have attended this summer was the Kingston Trio set at Taste of Blue Ash last weekend. The show was great, but the weather was less than cooperative. It rained. Hard. Zappagirl and I looked like drowned rats, but we managed to make friends with everyone sitting around us by offering Riesen candies to the entire crowd in the bleachers. Yes, that's right. Strangers with candy.

I'm serious about this one, folks. You want to get the people at a crowded social event to be nice to you? Offer them chocolate covered caramels. They'll be your best friends for the rest of the night.

The weather looks to be much better this weekend, which is a good thing. Because, as anyone who's ever lived in Cincinnati knows, Labor Day weekend means one thing: the WEBN fireworks.

For those of you out-of-towners who are looking at your computer screen with a perplexed look right now, I'll try to explain. Back in the late 70's, WEBN decided to thank their listeners with a fireworks display over the Ohio River. It was a huge success, and is now in its 25th year. The pyrotechnics are first rate (Rozzi's Famous Fireworks are simply the best in the business), the show is usually about 30 minutes long, and the entire thing is synched up to a specially mixed soundtrack. There's been usually about a million people on the river watching in any given year. It's something that has to be witnessed firsthand at least once to be believed. (If you want to get an idea of how big a deal it is, check out the portfolio on the Rozzi's site. At least 4 of the 6 stills are from past Riverfests, as are both of the QuickTime movies.)

A lot of people are adverse to going to Riverfest because of the crowds. Getting a good spot means getting there early (some people stake out their claims early in the morning), enduring a lot of people, Port-O-Lets, overpriced soft drinks (beer booths were banned back in the 80's after someone overindulged and got himself good and dead), and sitting around doing nothing waiting for 9:05 pm to arrive. I haven't been in almost 10 years, since the year I was at a cookout in Dayton and we decided at the last second to drive down for the show rather than watch them on TV. We broke every speed law in the known universe, but managed to get there 15 minutes before the show started. (And then the batteries in our radio died, since we'd used up all the juice listening to Rob's Xymox CD.)

But despite the claustrophobia-inducing crowds and the ickiness of Porta-potties, not to mention the mind-numbing thought of listening to entirely too much Led Zepplin and Lynyrd Skynyrd, Zappagirl and I will be attending the Boomsday festivities this year. (The bad pun is WEBN's, not mine. Yeah, they still refer to the month after September as "Rocktober," too.) Why, you ask? To entertain you, of course! While we are downtown guarding the small patch of land we will be securing with our blanket, we will be keeping a play-by-play record of the Riverfest goings-on. Hopefully, we'll get it posted on Monday. It'll be just like you were there...except you won't have to smell the ripeness of the crowd after sitting on Serpentine Wall for 6 hours.

So while Zappagirl is at work tomorrow moring, I have to go to Krogers and run errands. Buy bug spray, so we don't get gnawed on by the mosquitos. Stop at Tobacco Discounters and buy cloves, since we're both running low. Get some travel-friendly snacks, so we don't have to pay $3.50 for stale nachos. Find playing cards. Wash out the blanket, which stil smells a little funny after the downpour at Taste of Blue Ash. Find out where the Park and Ride stop is this year, so we don't have to deal with the street closings. Make sure there's film in the camera.

And Riesen. Can't forget the Riesen.