Thursday Thoughts (or the Lack There-Of)

It’s Thursday- just two days away from my much-anticipated visit to the Volo Car Museum and the kick-off of their Haunted Trolley Tours! I’m looking forward to lurking among the fantastic movie and TV cars, among others- and taking the tour along with fans of the supernatural, at this rumored-to-be-haunted location, where, for decades, staff and visitors alike have had weird experiences! (Does meeting me count as a weird experience?) I’ll see you this Saturday- when I’ll be signing for one hour only starting at noon, then taking the trolley tours at 1 and 2 pm (sorry- those two are already sold out). For more info, just go to www.volocars.com - and, be prepared for more Sven appearances coming soon! Here are a couple food-related things that I encountered recently- first, I had spaghetti with-chicken meatballs (…no, not RUBBER chicken meatballs- though those would bounce pretty well)! I had never had chicken meatballs, but these were quite tasty- with a nice garlic pesto sauce (yeah, garlic isn’t a favorite of vampires- but, hey, I’m part Italian…) – so, add chicken meatballs to my “like” list… The other food-related thing- while having breakfast at a little diner, someone ordered eggs benedict (another one of my “likes”, actually)- and the waitress asked how they wanted the eggs. ”Uh- it’s eggs benedict” we said. I had never encountered a choice of how the eggs are with that- the standard is poached eggs (in Africa, I hear they are really cracking down on egg poachers- how was THAT for a bad joke?) Anyway, apparently, this place gave you the choice- scrambled, sunny-side up, etc. The waitress looked at us as if we were Martians- how could anyone not know that you could choose the style of eggs for that dish?! Anyway- I wanted to ask- is that common? Have you ever been offered a choice of how you want the eggs? Am I just in-EGGS-perienced??? (Pardon my Vincent Price circa the 1960s “Batman” show…) While out of town, late at night I was tuning around the television dial (the basic cable system in the town did NOT include Me-TV- the heathens…) when I stumbled upon the old original “King Kong”- a real favorite of mine, that I first saw on TV as a rather small kid- I remember my folks talking about watching it, and me getting kind of scared-but watching anyway and really enjoying it! I had intended just to watch just a few moments of it, but ended up staying with right through to the end. I’m still impressed by the range of emotions that the stop-motion Kong could convey-not to mention the polar-opposite shifts from terrifying anger to slapstick comedy reactions. There are so many amazing moments in the film (even more amazing when you consider that it was done back in 1933, which makes a lot of the effects even more impressive), a real tribute to the artistry of animator Willis O’Brien and his crew. Another thing I love about the movie is the over-the-top early 30s style of acting-especially Robert Armstrong’s Carl Denham, a wise-cracking sharpie barking out his lines. Sure, there are some inconsistencies, if you want to nit-pick - it seems like Kong changes in size, depending on the situation- he ranges anywhere from 18 to 24 feet tall, and the animatronic Kong parts (depending on if you are talking about the huge head or the massive grabbing hand that was used alongside the human actors) would make him, in scale, either 40 or 70 feet tall! No matter, though- this is truly another classic cornerstone of the monster movies- even if it didn’t come from the Universal fright factory!