For years, I've had a bug zapper in the attic. It keeps wasps colonies from forming by eliminating any workers that blunder into my attic. However, for some reason it has been busy lately. Large numbers of wasps are appearing in the house, and I hear it zapping away. Yesterday, it was particularly busy, so I braved the attic to make sure things were okay. There are a lot of diptera (flies), hemiptera (shield bugs), and hymenoptera (wasps) up there! The zapper looked fine, but badly wants a cleaning. Later, when it was time to leave for my flight to NYC, I did a quick check before I left the house. Oops, the cat was missing! Sure enough, the attic door hadn't latched, and she'd gone up there. I took my electric flyswatter and braved the swarms to seek her out and haul her back downstairs.
Unfortunately, this made me late to the airport. So I decided to give the Black Diamond security line for expert travellers a try. Wow. Zero line. I breezed through that in no time, and made my flight easily. I'll say JetBlue knows how to run an airline. After the Angelika theater took their sweet time to make tickets available for the
Repo: The Genetic Opera premiere, I ended up buying plane tickets on Thursday for the Friday flight. For $130 roundtrip (well, plus $37 more in taxes, tags, dealer prep, and extortion). I was travelling light for the overnight trip, so I didn't bring along headphones. However, they'll sell you a nice set for $1 if you forget, and they're quite handy when JFK gives you a ground hold after the plane is loaded. Because JetBlue offers free DirecTV and XM radio at every seat! The plane itself is a nicely-appointed Airbus A320. We finally got off the ground after 4 for a 3:05 scheduled departure. Our scheduled landing was 4:33. We came in at 4:37. Good trick! Since I hadn't packed toothpaste (to get through security faster), I appreciated JetBlue giving me a free tube of travel-size toothpaste. At JFK, they have their own brand spanking new terminal, and even thoughtfully placed checkin machines at the end of the slidewalks.
I took the subway to the theatre, and figured I'd walk down there to make sure where it was before I went to look for a snack. There was already a crowd outside. It turns out that Jean-Claude Van Damme was scheduled to be there promoting his new film (JCVD), so there was a bunch of people there for him (he was unable to attend, however). But the rest of the crowd, many in costumes from the film, was there for Repo! I palled around with them (fun people, they were impressed I'd flown in to see it) while we waited to be let in. One of the people had a very distracting chance resemblance to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
keighsie, amplified by the flashy shiny black leather pants she was sporting.
The film itself was a bit of a mixed bag. The cast was a lot of fun, and it was an interesting story. However, they'd elected to film the whole thing in an artsy soft-focus, high-contrast style that I found offputting. The musical numbers were rousing and fun, the SFX were interesting, and the audience was really into it, singing along, waving blue lightsticks everytime Zydrate was mentioned, and really making it a fun viewing. When Paris Hilton's face fell off, she went to pick it up, and someone yelled "five-second rule!" to general laughter. Perfect Rocky Horror type fodder, some of the music has a similar feel, the plot is campy enough, and the film style gives it a look like it was filmed about that time.
Then I journeyed back to jiapa's place to spend the night. She was catching up on her conference presentation, some
Arisia work, packing, and various other things. Even though she was busy, we got to chat and catch up on things, and I even got to help her design some business cards to bring along. I also got to enjoy her cats, and had a cozy night of it in her loft.
Today, i went out to C'est Magnifique, a wonderful jewelry and curiosity shop with things from around the world and a really cool staff. I always find fun things when I'm there. This time, I found a stylized fire charm for fizzygeek, an Egyptian pendant ymasen would totally love, and a miniature carved warrior to decorate my home office. The store has been cleaned up some, so it's easier to see the wares, but the wonderful old feel is still there. Addtionally, the wonderful old cat is still there. Reportedly, this cat wandered in 22 years ago, and has stuck around ever since. She's getting old, and is missing a leg now, but is still just as friendly.
I'm impressed with the navigation available these days. You can pick a couple of spots on Google Maps, and ask for a route via public transit, and it'll figure it out for you, giving you alternate choices and travel times. They'll also include MTA notices about delays and service changes, which are hotlinks to the MTA site, which helpfully explains how these changes actually affect your travel, and where to transfer to get around them. NYC still maintains a world-class public transit system that utterly shames the DC Metro and Boston T.
thoughtful![[info]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fizzygeek and I will be there to see him Saturday with bells on!
cynical
impressed
excited