Museum Fun!

 It's the end of June once again!

A few weeks back, I managed to go back to the American Museum of Natural History in NYC for the first time since 2013!

I actually remembered to get off at this station this time. I remember overshooting by a stop the last time I was there.

Got to see this guy in person again.

Had to go see the dinosaurs!

Then went to see the cool exhibit on elephants. The highlight being this lifelike wooly mammoth model.

And it taught the difference between mammoths and mastodons. It's mostly in the shape of the tusks and the skull.

Even got to the exhibits I wasn't able to see last time, like the famous big blue whale model.

The night mode on my phone camera is unreal.  That diorama is completely dark (and it's why it's the only one in the museum not behind glass). This is the famous Squid & The Whale that inspired the movie of the same name.

I love this shot. There are a LOT of dioramas at this museum, and all of the animals are real taxidermy. They're posed in such a way that you're sure that they'll come to life the moment you're not looking at them.

And speaking of which, here's good ol Teddy Roosevelt, waiting for Ben Stiller to have some fun after closing.

I almost forgot about this display that added disclaimers about the horrible racist inaccuracies that made headlines with the "everything is woke" brigade a few years back.

And since the last time I was here, they opened the Gilder Center, this really weird looking atrium that has neat exhibits on every floor.

On the bottom floor was an Insectarium. There were lots of neat models and displays of mounted insects, but there were...plenty of live ones.

Gonna admit, bugs creep me out. Not all of them, mind you. If they're tiny. I'm fine with them. But if they're like, the size of my finger, that's when the anxiety goes into overdrive.

And when you're at the Natural History Museum, you have the get the dino nuggets. And they give a good amount for how much they have the audacity the charge you for...

But this is what I went there to see! They renovated the Halls of Gems & Minerals a few years ago and I finally got to see it!

The thing about that day was, for whatever reason, the museum closed two hours early and I was NOT aware of it. I didn't check out the entire hall on my first pass, so I ran back to it as quickly as I could to see the rest of it before they kicked everyone out.

Here's some pictures of it.

There was also an exhibit of hip-hop jewelery that I snapped a few pics of.

And then after I was shown the door, I took a few shots around the museum.

You don't get those shots every day.

And since it was right across the street, I took in a little of Central Park before it got too hot to stay outside.

And before I left, I managed to catch the giant dragon they put on the Empire State Building to promote House of The Dragon.

And now I realize I had a completely different plan for this month's entry. Guess I'll wait until next time?

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Reunion of The Nerds!

 It's always a good day when The Aquabats releases a new song.

And just a few weeks ago, I went to Cradle Con at the Cradle of Aviation Museum!

Normally it's just a tiny convention, but this year they managed to get some headliners: the very first 40th anniversary reunion of Revenge of The Nerds!

Sure, a good chunk of the movie aged like milk, but it still holds a dear place in my heart.

I managed to get a bird's eye view of everyone at their tables. From Bottom to top (or left to right): Robert Carradine (Louis), Curtis Armstrong (Booger), Donald Gibb (Ogre), Brian Tochi (Takashi), Julie Montgomery (Betty), and Andew Cassese (Wormser).

Since it's been 40 years...they got old. But I can say they were all still real nice and friendly.

Even got a pic with Curtis Armstrong! I knew I'd find my real dad eventually.

He was really touched when I told him I loved Dan Vs. (He played the title character. There was a guy cosplaying as Dan walking around, but I didn't get a pic of him)

And of course, there was a panel! They had lots of great stories, especially Brian Tochi and Don Gibb. Someone asked about uh, certain scenes that didn't age well, and I'm really not gonna repeat Robert Carradine's answer to that. It was 1984, sexual politics were much different back then.

What I WILL say is that to this day he is a lot like Louis in the movie: he almost didn't do it because he's "not a nerd," even though, let's face it, he's the king of the nerds. He told a fun story about how he went to an optometrist office to find nerd glasses, but they only had a box of engineer's glasses and that's what you see him wearing in the movie. And of course, he did the famous laugh.

And I'll show off what I got at the con!

Signed stuff!

Pins! I don't think you'll find four pins that are more in character for me than these.

This comic! I told the guy I had to grab it or else I'd probably never see it again. Oh, if only I found it before Paul Reubens died and got to show it to him.

And I got this comic signed! I found this (and issue 1) at a local shop during Free Comic Book Day, and found that former Marvel editor Jim Salicrup wrote the stories. He was at the con, and I had to jump at the chance to have him sign it.

What's the story behind this particular comic? Well, I think I'll set that aside for next time.

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Let's look at the eclipse!

 Did anyone catch that eclipse a few weeks ago?

Well, no, not that one.

Here's what it looked like where I was. I was at 88% totality, so it wasn't gonna get dark. And if you had the special glasses like I did, you saw an actual moon covering the sun. It was really weird, but real cool. What I liked the most was everyone going out into the parking lot to stare at the sun for half an hour to not miss this once in a lifetime event.

And then there were the people that didn't care. Well, it was their loss.

I also went to see the Mission Hill live show in Brooklyn! 

It's been 25 years since the little show created by former Simpsons writers and showrunners Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein premiered on the WB during that post-King of The Hill/South Park boom of adult primetime animation. It was a glorious year and a half before the rise of Who Wants to Be A Millionaire and Survivor killed them all off. Yes, that includes Family Guy and Futurama.

I'll admit it took several cycles on Adult Swim before I checked it out, and I'm sad I didn't watch it sooner. It's charming as hell, hilarious, and has a great art style (you can thank Lauren MacMullan for that). It was criminal that WB killed it so soon, it had amazing potential, and what we got was already great.

What was special about this show was that we got to watch three episodes in HD with all their music intact: One Bang For Two Brothers (the one with the knife in Gus's head), Day of The Jackass (The Crisis episode), and Andy vs The Real World (Andy is cast on The Real World). To be completely honest, those were the three I was hoping to see, and boy was I insanely lucky.

Andy vs The Real World seems to be the one episode that was played at every show on the tour, since every show screened different episodes. Mainly because it featured REM's "Everybody Hurts", completely intact this time. The only way you could've seen it without pirating it was here, and if you managed to record the few times it was on TV.

It was a real trip to watch these episodes not only with a crowd, but with people who were able to quote along with the episodes. I'd do that for Simpsons episodes, frankly it's surreal seeing that from a bystander's point of view.

Bill Oakley with the special guest star of the show: Michael Panes, writer and voice of the Republican Vampire.

And here's Josh Weinstein as the real Andy French.

We were also shown concept art from the potential Gus & Wally spinoff. I took pics of every single slide, but this is all you're gonna see here. (Check my twitter feed for the rest of them)

It was probably a good thing it was never picked up, since it would've been axed during one of Zaslav's many purges. Everyone booed the WB logo at the end of every episode. too, in case you wanted to know.

We WERE some of the first people to see rare behind the scenes pics that were unearthed from an old hard drive days before this show, so the people who went to the earlier dates didn't get to see these. (again, you can check my twitter feed for the rest of them)

This was a pic of the two of them cutting the ribbon of the Mission Hill offices. 

We also got to see pictures of Stolie, the dog that inspired Stogie in the show. (He was supposed to be named Stolie like the real deal, but since it was the name of a vodka brand, WB put the kibosh on that)

And then there's everyone's favorite part: the swag! I won this sweet tote bag because I posted Instagram stories while at the show.

It was either that or a signed poster, and I already bought two of them.

The 2024 poster. I realized too late that I could've gotten Michael Panes to sign this too, since the Republican Vampire is on this. (He's sitting between Ron and George in the second from the top row) Alas, I didn't have a sharpie and I don't think anyone else did, either.

And the Vegas poster from the 2023 tour. I'm glad I bought this one at the beginning of the show, because it sold out pretty quick.

I also could've met Bill & Josh myself, since I'm an avid follower of them on social media. But I am many things: cheap, shy, and anxious since I had a very small window to catch the train back home. (Seriously, I managed to catch my transfer home at Jamaica with a minute to spare because that train was ALSO running a minute late)

All in all, a good time was had. I'll be honest, a lot of anxiety I'd been having for the past several months stemmed from coming and going to this show. I had to switch trains, take the subway, made sure I had the day off work so I could see it, the whole nine. But since that's come and gone, Anxiety Brain's been standing around wondering what to worry about now. It's weird.

Until next time, May the something be with you!

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