Quizno's Mutants

I don't think Janet Jackson's "reveal" was the most shocking thing to come out of the Super Bowl, I think it's these little guys.

What is it about this animal that is supposed to make a Quizno's sandwich more appealing to me? Or is that even the idea of this ad?

I like Quizno's, but they need to rethink their advertisement strategy. If these little mutants are derived from the likes of the Taco Bell Chihuahua, or even the Blockbuster Guinea Pig, then someone obviously missed the cuteness factor associated with those mascots.

The first time I saw this ad of Quizno's I thought I was having a flashback of some sort, and not a NICE one to be sure. These guys are just plain scary, and if they have those little rodents running around at Quizno's then they can just forget about me eating there again!

Remembering Athena

Athenamama is of course dedicated to my favorite cat, and companion Athena. Athena unfortunately died while I was in the hospital in August of 2003. While it was difficult dealing with her loss, I found comfort in a number of ways including an online virtual pet memorial site at Youns.com.

This site not only allows you to write and post a memorial for your pet, but also includes a photo album you can upload pictures to, as well as a guest book and tribute page. The best part is that your pet's memorial is FREE!

I setup Athena’s first memorial there the very first time I saw the site. I have looked around since and have not seen any site as well done as this one. Not even the pay sites out there compare to Youns.com. While you're there take a look at the Lucille Ball section for a little cheering up.

Another site I found is the Faithful Friends Memorials site which will etch a highly polished granite stone slab with the image of your pet from most any photograph you provide. I bought one for Athena and it looks great.

I know to some people my affection for Athena seems odd. Quite frankly I don’t care. But even I would not go this far. Having a pet stuffed and mounted for all time and eternity is just wrong. I liken it to having grandma stuffed and propped up at the kitchen table. A dead, stuffed pet collecting dust in the same pose day after day would be more depressing than comforting But that’s just my opinion.

Athenamama has a New Look!

Thanks to my great friend Fritz Liess of On the Fritz, Athenamama has a new look. Fritz has been generously coaching me in the ways of Movabletype and website design in general. He used this design as an example, and given that I tired quickly of the rather bland look I had before, I decided to use Fritz's design until I can come up with one of my own.

Just a couple weeks presence on the web and already I am stealing other people’s ideas. I hope you don't mind, Fritz.

My Father

Today my father turned 68 years old today. I cannot sufficiently describe how wonderful a man he is. One day, I will write as much as I can about him and my mother because in today's world they truly do stand out as exemplary people. My dad is a great father, a loyal and loving husband, he is wise, patient, and above all, honorable.

If I ever become half the man he is I will have done better than most men on earth today. I know it sounds like I am bias, but he really is a fantastic guy. If I wasn't his son I am sure I would still respect him and love him as much as I do now.

Happy birthday dad. And here's to many, many more.

Love,

Your son.

I'm Going to DCA!

Tomorrow I am going to Disney's California Adventure for my very first time. To be quite honest, I am not really all that enthused over the idea.

I’m the kind of living-in-the-past sort of fellow who thinks some things should just be left as they were, and Disneyland happens to be one of them. Oh sure, the obvious argument is that Walt Disney himself wanted Disneyland to be “unfinished”, and felt that it should be a dynamic theme park always on the cutting edge of technology etc., and I agree with that to the extent that any additions/enhancements hold true to the spirit and quality of the original Disneyland, but that is rarely true of any aspect of the Walt Disney Company these days much less Disneyland.

But the parking lot was like a whole other Disneyland “land. It was “Parkinglotland”. It didn’t need to be changed save for the fact that Disney wanted to toss another theme park on the property. I used to get a great thrill driving up to the parking lot attendant’s booth, and seeing the park just waiting to suck up all of my money. I could also gage how many people were in the park by seeing how full the parking lot was. And once in the park, I could take the Monorail and play the “which car is my car” game when it passed over the parking lot. (This was easy for me in the late seventies; I had a red 1968 Camaro with a solid white front end. It stood out like a sore thumb.) I could also engage in illicit activities in the parking lot, if I was very careful to not attract the attention of the parking lot patrol. Once, I even relieved myself in the parking lot avoiding those long bathroom lines inside Disneyland. But my favorite thing to do was shaking cars on the way back to my car when leaving Disneyland to see who could set off the most car alarms.

Those days are gone, and now there is a behemoth parking structure lacking any personality or allure, and a lame theme park where once vast herds of contemporary cars, trucks, SUV’s and busses roamed unmolested… at least for the most part.

As for DCA itself, let’s talk location.

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION!

Disneyland was built because Walt felt that the amusement parks of his day were tawdry, and they were. He didn’t care for the carnival atmosphere of roller coasters, Ferris wheels, and attractions of that nature. I know I have as yet not been to DCA, but I do know it has a righteous roller coaster, a Ferris Wheel, and other carnival-like attractions. I can get over all that. I can see the reality of Disney building a park like DCA somewhere, and I can almost understand a theme park highlighting the icons of California. What I cannot understand is why would anyone want to build such a park IN California?

California is a pretty sizable state, and most people who go to Disneyland, believe it or not, live in California. I think it would even be safe to say that most people living in California have traveled it a bit and seen Hollywood, Universal Studios, Yellow Stone, the Santa Monica Pier, and most other places seemingly represented in DCA. So why would anyone pay $47.00 a head to see miniaturized replicas, especially when it is right across from THE most famous of all California tourist destinations, Disneyland?

That must be the single most idiotic idea I have ever seen come out of the Walt Disney Company. (That, and Newsies.)

So why am I going? Three reasons:

1) I am an Annual Pass Holder, so if I go to Disneyland four more times this year, the trip to DCA will essentially be free.
2) The wife and I took my stepson and his friend with us to Disneyland three weeks ago, and I sprung for a “2fer” ticked for the friend. We need to use that ticket before it expires.
3) I want to see Disneyland from the perspective of the parking lot again.

Besides, if I find that DCA is as uninteresting as I expect, the fact that I am an Annual Pass holder permits me to leave that park, and go right on over to Disneyland and see what a theme park was meant to be.

Cruelty to Animals

I'm fully against cruelty to animals. You may have already guessed that being as my site is dedicated to my dead cat.

However, digital animals are a whole different... er.. animal. Ballgame. Whatever.

See how far you can smack the penguin.

Alley Oops

I grew up reading the daily comic strips in the newspaper. I have always had my favorites, and just like I eat my carrots first, potatoes second, and steak last, I read the strips in order of appeal.

Alley Oop has always been in my top five. Even when the local paper relegated the strip to the classifieds for a while, (comics in the classifieds?), I remained loyal and took the extra effort to find the lone strip and read up on what Oop was up to. I have followed that cave man through time for nearly 35 years, and although I love the stories and characters, I must sadly admit it's time for to Oop hang up his Ax, and retire to southern Moo.

The strip’s central character, Alley Oop, travels through time from his home in prehistoric Moo into and sometimes beyond the 21st century by way of a time machine built by his friend Doc Wonmug. Alley Oop has a girlfriend named Ooola, and his friends King Guz and Queen Umpa rule Oops home kingdom of Moo. He has a pet Dinosaur named Dinny, and when in town hangs out with Doc Wonmug and his assistants Oscar and Ava.

Alley Oop has his beginnings in the early depression years; 1933 to be exact, and was created by V.T. Hamlin. Hamlin authored Alley Oop for about forty years, but hired writer Dave Graue to assist him in 1950. Graue continued writing for the strip until 2001. In 1990 Jack Bender became Graue’s assistant artist, and became the full-time daily and Sunday artist in 1991. After Graue retired in 2001, Carole Bender, Jack’s wife, started writing for the strip.

That’s when things started to go bad. The story lines just stared to weaken, and the characters just don’t seem to be themselves anymore. In a recent story line, Dr. Wonmug, (who’s name allegedly is an homage of some sort to Einstein,) couldn’t fix the time machine that he designed and built in the first place. He was so dumbfounded by the problem that he had to place an ad in the newspaper for an IT specialist to fix it for him. Failing that, his cousin from the future, one Dave Wowee complete with a hairdo inspired by the scene the Cameron Diaz flick Something About Mary, also fiddles with the machine unsuccessfully, sending Oop from one lackluster adventure to another all the while frustrating Oop, and the readers as well I am sure.

Alley Oop was once a great strip, but the original author and his competent assistant are both now dead. Bender and Bender should take the high road and let Alley Oop fade into history just as Pogo did, just as the Peanuts will, and just as many other great comic strips have. Very often without the original artists for these strips, there is no life in them, and any attempt by someone else to continue breathing life into them usually results in a soulless mirage of the original.

While writing this I found this site called Alleyoopwatch which describes the deterioration of Alley Oop much better than I did here.

BLEH! Oxnard! Part II: The Big Squish

Looks like someone had a close encounter with the freight train this morning at Rose and Fifth in Oxnard. As I approached the intersection this morning I spotted many flashing red and blue lights. Once there it was apparent someone most likely has greater issues with the train than I.

It doesn't make for a good morning when an intersection is clogged with several emergency vehicles, an idle freight train, and a half dozen fire/ambulance/and police personnel hunched over a lump between the rails.

Oxnard and Camarillo have more than it's fair share of uncontrolled railroad crossings that intersect with farm roads. Most fatal accidents involving vehicle vs. train occur there, but every now and again a pedestrian vs. train event takes place with especially messy results. Hopefully the end was quick for this morning's hapless participant.

BLEH! Oxnard!

I HATE working in Oxnard! Beyond the smell of the onion plant I drive by every day, and the litter, and the graffiti, I totally abhor the damn train that seems to know not only when I am on my way to work or going home, but even worse when I need to get to either destination in a hurry.

Yesterday I had an appointment at 4:30 at the Hospital with my Physical Therapist. (Hi Susie.) I got off work at 3:30, and needed to drive to my home in Ventura, walk the dog, and then drive across town to the hospital. I decided to go up Rose in Oxnard to save time, but NO! As soon as I got to the railroad tracks, a freight train crosses. And it isn't in a hurry. I swear the engineer slows the train down to a crawl as he crosses the intersection. Then, he stops the train altogether. We wait, and we wait, and we wait some more while the train workers look for hobos in on and under the train.

Fifteen minutes later with traffic sufficiently backed up for three blocks in both directions, the train starts moving again, and we all go blithely on our way. (Except the guy next to me who evidently thought honking his horn would prompt the engineer to move the train out of his way faster.)

I'm trying to keep my blood pressure under control, so I pushed the event out of my mind, and drove on. I rushed home, walked the dog, and then made it EXACTLY on time for my appointment, only to wait another half hour before I was seen. My therapist was late because she was in Oxnard, and had to wait for a train to clear an intersection she was at.

Whatever.

Then this morning, I got to see the other side of the train on my way to work.

I wanna retire.

First Impressions

Roy Disney's quest to remove King Michael as head of the Walt Disney Company got me reminiscing about the old days of Disneyland this morning. I’m old enough to remember the days when Walt Disney's influence was present in most every aspect of the park. His mark is still evident, but back then it could be described as pervasive. Further, the park’s essence came from Walt’s soul, and if you were ever lucky enough to go to Magic Kingdom before 1995 or so, you would be able to tell the difference between the Disneyland as Walt envisioned it, and the Disneyland that has evolved under the current management.

So like I said, I was just sitting here thinking of the glory days when I started wondering to myself what is my first real memory of Disneyland? Turns out that it’s the first time I saw the building that would eventually become one of Disneyland’s most famous attractions, the Haunted Mansion. For those of you who aren’t total Disneyland geeks, the facade of the attraction was built in 1963. Walt’s imagineers had been working on the idea for sometime by then, but they ended up being sidetracked by the work needed to be done for the 1964 New York World’s Fair, so even though the Haunted Mansion had been built in 1963 it wasn’t completed until 1969.

During the 1960’s my father was a draftsman with a young family, and by the summer of 1966 I guess he and my mother felt that my brother and I were old enough to appreciate Disneyland, and so the beginning of an annual tradition was born. My father loaded us the family car, and we made the twenty mile trip from Pomona California to Anaheim, home of the Magic Kingdom.

I was too young at the time to know much about the place, so there was no real excitement on my part. In fact, because I was so young I really don’t remember much about the trip at all. After all, I was only five years old in 1966, but what forever imprinted itself in my feeble little five year old mind nearly forty years ago materializes as sort of a mental drive-in movie today wherein my family and I walk up a long walkway that ends at a chain meant to block any mindless guest from stumbling into as of yet unimagineered lands.

I remember that it was early evening, and being that the area of the park we stood in remained relatively underdeveloped it seemed as if we had almost left the park entirely. It was also growing rather dark. I remember the scene being as if it were illuminated only by a full moon. It was quiet and serene, and the only person there besides us was a solitary figure at the far end of that barrier smoking a cigarette.

We stopped at the chain, and looked down the walkway and could see a lone, dark, desolate looking structure nestled in a peaceful setting just off the pathway. The lighting was such that the Mansion looked slightly menacing, and yet also a little inviting. My mother wondered out load as to what it might be, and as my father turned to offer his opinion the man with the cigarette turned around, crushed the butt of his cigarette under his heel, walked over to us and said rather matter-of-factly that it was a haunted house. The man was dressed in a suit, and I remember immediately considering him as an important man, maybe in a small way because of how he was dressed, (In those days it wasn’t unusual for people to dress up for most any occasion, even for a trip to Disneyland,) but more so I think because their was an undeniable authority and confidence which radiated from him. Even at the tender age of five, and across all these years, the manner of this man came off so strong that it seemed a tangible experience.

He continued that when Disneyland was built, a few old farm houses had to be torn down, and that Walt Disney worried that the ghosts of those houses would be left with nowhere to live, so he decided to build them their own Haunted House. He pointed to the dimly lit mansion in the distance and said that it was the house Walt built for them.

He had a velvety yet course voice that he employed in a rhythmic fashion. I felt reassured in his presence as if he were an old family member. However, when he looked down at me his soothing ways started to fade away from me, and I became just a little weary of this mustachioed grownup who was going on about ghosts and haunted houses. But then he bent down and put both hands on his knees, put his face just inches from mine and asked, "Do you believe in ghosts, brave little man?" I instantly felt the reassurance I felt previously, and I replied, "Y-Yes sir, I do!" He chuckled and said, "Well that's fine! That's just fine!"

He chatted again briefly with my parents, and then said good night to us. He walked off down the way we came with his hands in the pockets of his trousers and that is where my memory ends. Still, if that is the only memory I can keep from my first trip to Disneyland, I’ll take it.

First Post

Ok, I think I finally got Movabletype installed, and working properly. Now all I need to do is think of something to post.

I guess I'll be back when I think of something interesting to write about.