Do I want to know why there is a guy in a Super Mario suit standing outside the Westin across from my building?

(Especially since I'm sure the princess is in another castle hotel...)

Both in that I need my morning caffeine, and in that a certain Nova-kitty likes to try and drink out of my glasses and mugs.

(I'll note the kitteh in the picture looks more like Luna, however.)

Today was FSGW's Midwinter Festival (formerly the FSGW Mini-Fest) over at Takoma Park Middle School. An interesting mix of stuff this year. We started the day at the Pub Sing, where we stumbled our way through "Old Black Rum" and "Old Dun Cow", respectively. (Neither of us had actually planned to sing anything, but it was a fairly small circle.) After lunch (Subway, serving out of the school's cafeteria line) and some CD- and merchant-browsing (but no buying), we wound up in a doumbek workshop. Thanks to House of Musical Traditions for their shrewd marketing ploy of letting the workshop borrow their stash of doumbeks.

Next up were The Chromatics, who we had not seen in a long time. They have a new album, "Committed", which we acquired. I was amused that their youngest member, whose day job is architecture (rather than astrophysics), wrote a song called "Suburban Dream", a wry look at the ups and downs of suburban living, long commutes, McMansions, and other modern diversions. An excellent set, as always, with favorites like "Doppler Shift", "Buns and Muffins" and "Dance of the Planets" among the songs. Their mid-song antics are getting increasingly creative and amusing. Especially their set-closing cover of "Safety Dance", in which they throw in little tidbits of many other dances including the Hokey-Pokey, Macarena, and Chicken Dance. For those locals not Boskone-bound, they are performing at Farpoint.

After the Chromies set, we hung around the same room where Flawn Williams led an hour of doo-wop songs. This is a workshop that's been smashingly popular at the last couple of FSGW Getaways. Lots of predictable offerings including "Blue Moon", "Under the Boardwalk", and "Poison Ivy". Lots of lively audience participation.

For dinner we went to Sushi Damo, a recent addition to the dining options in Rockville Town Center. It being a cool night, we started with tea and miso soup. Us being hungry, we then proceeded to demolish three rolls: a standard Rainbow roll, a Sakura roll (shrimp tempura and cucumber in the roll; spicy tuna, tobiko and sauce on top), and a Haru roll (Plum, cucumber, and squid in the roll; ooba leaves on top--eat Cthulu before he eats you!).

While dining, we could (partially) see the TV in the bar area showing ESPN SportsCenter, with captions. The anchors, of course, are in Phoenix for the Super Bowl. One of them was expounding on the beauty of the area, particularly a certain well-known topographic feature in the city. The closed-captioner identified this feature as "Campbellback Mountain". *facepalm* *headdesk*

So, a QUESTION for my readers: How many songs can you think of that would qualify as Filk Doo-Wop?

I wonder...if I could strap a pedometer on our kitty, how many steps would she record in a day?

(Nova is currently scrambling around the bedroom playing with the left-over cup from a bottle of cough medicine.)

Went to the local Panera Bread for lunch, as we frequently do. The guy in front of me got order number 666.

Which meant, of course, that I got number 667.

You can imagine what song was floating through my brain the rest of lunch...

While reading job-related news articles at work today, I stumbled across this alleged tale of vampires in Afghanistan. A reporter from Oregon's KPTV FOX-12 and Salem-News.com picked up the tale while on assignment with our troops last winter.

I poked around to see if I could find any other mentions of such a story or folk tale. Didn't turn up much in a brief Googling, but apparently, the folk legend has made it into a comic and a pending movie. Strangely, I don't specifically recall any of the comic or movie addicts on my f-list mentioning either one (although that could be my swiss cheese brain...).

Anyway, figured I'd submit this for your amusement...

Today's spam from Ticketbastardsmaster was advertising tickets for Pop-Tarts Presents American Idol Live!

Insert your own joke here...

Passed on from tth who told me about it at tonight's Balticon meeting...apparently a small piece of space junk has fallen down on New Jersey.

Paging Mr. Burnside-Clapp... 8-)

So there I was, in Lakeforest Mall, engaging in a bit of Mother's Day shopping. And naturally, I stopped in at the Hallmark store to pick up a card. As I entered, I noticed a display hawking a line of musical Mother's Day cards that play bits of songs when you open them.

One of these cards uses "Mother's Little Helper". The Rolling Stones song.

Oh yes, a song about a stressed-out mom who OD's on drugs and dies is exactly how I want to say "Happy Mother's Day, Mom!"

Apparently whoever is designing this line of cards is the same person who convinced Ronald Reagan "Born In The USA" was a patriotic song and convinced Bill Gates that "Start Me Up" would make a perfect song to introduce Windows 95...

One of the things I get to do in my job is participate in the development and updating of various design standards. A packet of information for one standards committee arrived today with a list of suggested items to pursue and topics to discuss at the committee's next meeting.

One of the suggested items was "Correction of typo's in document"

D'OH!