Of all the places to find fun, who would have thought that middle of nowhere, IN would be such a sight?  Every summer, we meet my mom there about 4 times to swap the kids.  She’ll take them for a week, twice a summer, so because South Bend just happens to be about as close to halfway for each of us to drive, that is where we meet.  We used to meet at a Wendy’s just off the expressway, but our horizons have broadened, and my husband and I have been venturing off the beaten path to discover new things to see and do in the area.  We found a good restaurant called Eleni’s with amazing gyros and saganaki, two of our favorite dishes.  We also found an authentic Greek restaurant called Elia’s right down the street, but oddly enough, they are almost never open.  They have more exotic Greek food like stuffed grape leaves, moussaka, and baklava, YUM!  Their food is excellent, though we’ve only been able to eat there once because of their strange hours and seemingly constant family vacations.  After eating and getting the kids back from my mom, we headed to the Potawatomi Zoo.  The zoo is a really cool size, perfect for our family of 3 small children and a now VERY pregnant woman.  Not much walking to do at all, yet it has a good amount of animals, native and exotic, all types and sizes from lions, tigers, and bears, to monkeys, bison, alligators, parrots, and red pandas.  I wil have to mention that the Potawatomi Zoo did not seem very well-kept.  A gardener in that place could have done wonders as there were many overgrown weeds, trees, and shrubbery, some even blocking what could have been better views of the animals!  One tree was so untrimmed it was blocking a drinking fountain!  But as I said, it’s a very cute little zoo, and they reciprocate with our home zoo, the Toledo Zoo, so our admission price was free and they don’t charge for parking.  I was surprised to see that the zoo wasn’t very crowded seeing as how it was a Saturday in June under 90°…  That zoo could really use a Jack Hanna to fix it up and get the publicity rolling – I see a lot of potential for it, but it does need some work.

After the zoo, we had kids begging for ‘one more fun thing’ (remember, they had been used to the fun of Grandma’s for just short of a week!), my husband whips out Mr. GPS, and apparently he has a phone book feature on him, so from your car, you can find gas stations, restaurants, and most importantly, fun places and attractions to visit!

So KUDOS belong to Mr. GPS this time!  Instead of getting us lost and chuckling at us electronically, he led us right to this strip mall that was like a step back in time, it was really strange.  It looked like it was right out of 1983.  I don’t know how to explain it – we should have taken pictures.  It would have been a great place to film a movie set in the early ’80’s, took me right back to my childhood.  Anyway, in this strip mall was a place called Mega Play.  From the outside, it looked closed down – they really need to get themselves a big bright ‘open’ sign.  But once inside, it was a huge space where they had tons of video games, pinball machines, indoor minigolf, bouncy castles and tunnels for the kids, lots of ride-ons for toddlers, and right out of 1983 – a ball pit!  The ball pit had a pyramid in the middle of it that the kids climb up with ropes and once they got the hang of it, they had a ball – cheesy pun intended.  That pyramid gave me a flashback of playing on the same thing when I was little.  I think they used to have them in KMarts, and my husband agreed.  It was neat to see vintage video games and pinball machines also.  The arcade ATARI games they had in one bouncy castle area were free to play – they had Kangaroo, Pole Position, Asteroids, and some shooting game I hadn’t heard of.  I walked over to the pinball machine area because days earlier, we visited this cool pinball shop in a suburb of Toledo.  The guy started it as a hobby, but it grew into a store, and he had all kinds of pinball machines, new and mostly vintage.  He had titles on display like Demolition Man, Star Wars, The Shadow, and Hercules (an older game – it was HUGE!).  He even had this Looney Tunes racing game (not pinball) that was really vintage and one-of-a-kind…  it was cool to see.  I wonder if the pinball guy outside of Toledo is familiar with Mega Play?  But anyway, back to Mega Play…  it was a huge, wide-open strip mall space that had tons of games, ride-ons, and bouncy castles packed into it – lots of fun there, but still spacey so you didn’t feel closed it.  It was the exact concept my husband and I had in mind for our own business of the same type we started a few years ago.  We ended up having to sell the business because it was too labor intensive for the time and staff we had however.  Too bad Mega Play is all the way in South Bend, or we could challenge our putt-putt-ing friends to the mini-golf course 🙂

After Mega Play, it was time to find something to eat, and before we knew it, we were out of South Bend and into the country.  The kids started getting crazier and crazier, and we vowed to stop at the very next restaurant we found before someone passed out or went insane – and some of us were close to either condition!  So, we stopped at a restaurant called Dakota’s in Elkhart IN, and I highly recommend it if you’re ever out that way.  They had the best cornbread, and their steak and cheese sandwich was simply AWESOME!  They also have barbecue items, and they happened to have karaoke the night we went…  it wasn’t too intrusive though.  They were in another room and we didn’t even know it was karaoke at first until the audience began applauding.  The DJ hosting the karaoke was singing a few songs also, and he was pretty good, so he actually sounded like a recording with a live quality.  I don’t how often they have karaoke there, but their food is great, prices reasonable, nice atmosphere, and the staff is amazingly friendly.  Keep in mind I say this coming from a super-friendly town myself, so we’re used to the usual chit-chat when we go out to eat –  but people in Elkhart were exceptionally friendly.

Overall, not a bad place to spend a day – fun and very inexpensive to boot.  Too bad with gas prices the way they are we can’t consider South Bend for a normal day trip for our family – there is plenty to do!  Maybe we’ll wander around some more the next time we meet Grandma there in July…

With the kids out of town and Friday the 13th upon us, we found it to be the perfect time to break out a game we found at the thrift store months ago – a Murder Mystery Party.  After a check to make sure all the contents were there, we started inviting friends to attend a murder mystery party at our house:

Dear Name of Character Here,
Hart’s untimely death casts suspicion on us all.  The police report has already been filed (see enclosed).  We must meet quickly in order to solve the murder and clear our good names.
Hosted By:
on Friday, June 13 at 6:00pm
Please RSVP by Wednesday, June 11
Please bring a dish to share – no poison

We sent this email to each guest along with the police report detailing the homicide.  We began with our game night regulars, then when some of them couldn’t make it, we tried to cast accordingly.  The casting, by the way, just happened to work out perfectly.  Originally, we were going to have to make a male character female, but once we switched some things around based on which guests were coming, it all worked out.  And in retrospect, the swapping male for female thing would not have worked well at all!  My husband and I were originally going to be the married couple, but those characters were a few decades older than us, and the characters we did end up playing had a secret infatuation with each other, so we were both pleased to discover this in the course of the game.  Unfortunately, when my turn came to come up with a ‘formal accusation’, evidence dictated that I point my finger at my husband, aka, secret crush, but that’s how you play the game.  Each guest came in costume and character and stayed that way for the roughly 3 hours we played the game.  All in all, a lot of fun, and we’ve already had several people who were disappointed that they couldn’t make it.  So, we’ll have to scour the thrift stores and / or the intenet in hopes of finding another one of these Murder Mystery games to play…  providing we can get all (almost 4!) kids out of the house for an evening again…  hmmm, that might be the REAL mystery! 

Recently there was a news item about a train that spilled its cargo – with a twist.  Instead of the usual hazardous chemicals that spill from trains like hydrochlorlic and phosperic acid, acetone, liquid soap, antifreeze, fuel, coal, and herbicide; this particluar train spilled its contents of tallow, also known as animal fat.  Unlike other hazardous spills, this one was dangerous in a different way than possible human ingestion of chemicals.  The fat on the roadway caused it to be slippery which led to numerous car crashes.  To make matters worse, apparently the rush-hour vehicles got the tallow on their tires and tracked it around the entire area, causing more complications in cleanup.  And you thought rush-hour traffic was aggravating enough all by itself!

Animal Fat Leak Wreaks Havoc For Commuters
ELMHURST, Illinois – An eastbound Union Pacific freight train carrying a load of animal fat sprung a leak as it passed through DuPage County Friday, dousing intersections between Elmhurst and Lombard with the slippery goo.

I only got to see one of my 4 daughters today. I did get calls from the other’s and my granddaughter in Florida. So it was a good day. My eldest is waiting to take her old man to dinner, but since I was working on a play, it will have to wait. I am glad to be doing the lighting for “Little Women” at the Williams County Community Theater. If you have a the time to see a show in the next couple of weeks, give this one a shot. Our little community theater does a very nice job on all the shows, and this one will be no exception. If you read this blog, stop by the light booth and say hi to the guy with the beard. That will be me. I’m still trying to reach the many lurkers here, you know who you are…

My youngest has a small role in this. Theater is one thing I share with my two youngest daughters. I’m glad we were able to do that. Running the lights gives me a chance to see her every performance.

Well with less than a week before opening night of Little Women, I must say it has come a very long way even in just the last two rehearsals. Thursday night’s practice did not go well at all (but I have been involved in worse. As our director stated today, it was indeed time for a wake up call. The cast is all wonderful and very professional, but in my opinion the time has come for the jitters to start in for everyone and just need to be reminded that the hard part is over and the fun can begin. We are all ready but it is not time to take that preparedness and have fun, relax, and just do it. This afternoon was actually the first time we had everything in place (cast, musicians, props, set placement, and everything else involved in a theatrical production… including lighting… THANKS justj and Carol). The first act took an hour-and-a-half to complete and the second act just under that. Although I have never seen a production of this show, from reading the script, sitting in rehearsals, etc. I do not see how it can possibly be much shorter. There is very little in set changing so nothing to be done there. But with repetition over the next 3 evenings (we do have an audience on Thursday night for final dress) it will all come together. My big faux pas occurred when Mr. B came and actually PUSHED me downstage to be where I was supposed to be during one of my brilliant scenes, but he did mention that he cracked up at my final stage position (but I will not give that away for those who do not know). I will not forget where I am supposed to be from now on. Nor will I comment on my costume for the show that is a return to some costuming I have undertaken in past productions (and it does need to be altered not the least for a draft I felt). But I do get to play an evil villain 😀 which everyone so loves to hate but am “so good at” (and the last three are NOT my words).
Little Women (Collector’s Edition)

In talking with friend, and of course responses to my other post on time travel, I am recalling more movies and TV shows that involved some sort of time travel.

I’m going to get the various STAR TREK shows and movies that had some time travel in them out of the way now.

I’m just pulling these off the top of my head, so I’m sure I miss one or two (or more), I’m going after my favorites, not all of them (There were many).

Since I had to stop watching the ENTERPRISE show when it moved to cable only, I can’t comment much on the time traveling adversary that was in that show. The last season I saw, had Captain Archer looking at a view of the future… I didn’t see anything after that and I don’t know what happened.

In Star Trek the original series, there were many time travel shows, some with the Enterprise sling shotting around a star or the Sun to go into the past. Others with other agents that allowed them to visit the past.

Of them all my favorites are “Assignment Earth” with Agent Gary Seven. I assumed that this may have been setting up a spinoff show, but I don’t recall anything coming from that.

And the “City on the Edge of Forever”. Going back and changing history based on saving the life of one person. Was this a show to say how important the acts of one could be, or a morality show to say we should not delve into things we don’t comprehend?

That’s enough of the TV shows, my favorite time travel STAR TREK was the Star Trek IV — The Voyage home. Lots of funny stuff in that one. Russian on a US Aircraft Carrier (the Enterprise) during the height of the cold war. Spock with the whales. Scotty giving the engineer the formula for Transparent Aluminum, or trying to talk to the computer. Just a fun show.

Of course the Next Generation got into the act of time travel. I don’t recall as many of those so I guess they didn’t make much of an impression on me. But the First Next Generation movie used the “NEXUS” to travel around time? Of course Kirk was brought to the future to save the day. Then in the Star Trek Next GEN: First Contact. The new Enterprise fights the Borg and goes back in time to the first Faster than light travel from Earth. I found that show very interesting in spots, but generally don’t like shows with the Borg. Just my preference.

One of my favorite time travel Star Treks has to be on Deep Space Nine “Trials and Tribble-ations. Some of the crew from Deep Space Nine go back in time and interact with the original Star Trek Series, Trouble with Tribbles episode. Worf’s line about the Klingons on the space station is worth watching it one more time…

Since I can’t travel backward in time, only forward at a set speed, I guess that’s enough for now. I was just a blogging fool this evening.

Two dreams stuck with me all day in a very short time. This could be an indication that I’m sleeping better, or just my mind needing to work things out. Not sure if anyone got much out of the last dream but since I started blogging to clear my mind, here it is.

Started out as a very mundane dream, I’m driving my daughters (all four of them for some reason) to some University. The name of the University was never brought up, but we were going there to install the youngest in her first dorm room.

While driving I suddenly knew I was going to California. This was because we drove across the old “Iron” bridge around home. The one that “C” would never drive across. For some reason the story of “C” never driving across that bridge made us all laugh. (Side note — This bridge no longer exists in real life, in fact it was torn down well before “C” moved to the area, he never saw it.)

So in California we start setting up the youngest in her dorm room. All the girls are having great fun trying to decorate the room to make it seem a little like home. I tell the girls that since we are there and have a bit of time to spend together we should do a little site seeing. We come across an arts and crafts fair in the city the college is located. Now for some reason, the three oldest girls are no longer in the dream. I’m with my youngest still getting ready for school and her mother and we are touring the arts/crafts fair. Now to steal a line from Dickens, Her Mother “was dead to begin with… this you must remember”… This of course did not seem at all weird in the dream, it was only when I woke up that I remembered that.

Well the three of us our touring the crafs and my dear wife takes us to her table. She always wanted to do a craft table in such a fair, but we never did get around to it. All of her various needle work/sewing, knitting, crocheting were on the table. There were things I remembered, and new things I never saw before.

We are really enjoying ourselves when my wife says it is time to get “B” ready for college.

Here I wake up suddenly. It is almost time to leave to get my daughter to her ACT test. No alarm has rung, and my daughter is still asleep. I wake her up and we get to the test in plenty of time… And still the dream is with me….

Every once in a while a remake is made of a movie. Most of the time it is because the first movie was very good, and they think the remake will be as good. Such movies that come to my mind are “The Thomas Crown Affair” (1999 and 1968) and “Oceans Eleven” (2001 and 1960). Today I saw a remake of an different sort. One that was made because the first movie wasn’t everything it could be. Today I saw “The Incredible Hulk” (2008).

I’m going to try very hard not to give any big spoilers, I won’t tell you the end or anything about the big battle we all know I HULK movie should have. I just want to talk about what was done right this time. The original HULK movie was one I barely mention that I saw. From somebody who really likes comic book movies (see other posts — shameless plug for my own writing), The first Hulk really does not exist for me other than a bad dream.

So what did the 2008 version of the HULK have? Let’s start with the most important need of any movie. It had a very good story line and plot. The action of the plot drove the characters. The characters seemed to react and not act. All the characters, from the leads to the cameos and the supporting to the CGI actors were believable. Could I tell it was a CGI character, sure, but that did not detract from the movie (Its about a comic book, should that really make a difference?) But the CGI characters were believable. They had expression and enough realism to be considered as other parts of the story. This had a lot to do with the quality of the story in addition to the quality of the actors.

Now on to the characters. I’ve seen most of the main characters in at least one other movie. Some of these movies were very memorable. I didn’t see those characters in this movie. Again this is one of my best compliments to actors and writers. I don’t want to see an Elf princess as a respected scientist, love interest in a movie that has no elves. I don’t want to see an illusionist as a studious scientist either. I didn’t see that. They became their characters, and the story drove them, or they drove the story. This would have been a good movie even if the comic never existed.

My rating —- This will be one I see again in the expensive (stadium seating) theater. That, of course, means the DVD will join my collection.

Slight spoilers… Things I liked because I liked the campy TV show…. And I like comics

***************
Bruce Banner’s eyes when he changes to the Hulk look very similar to the old TV show.

The lab equipment that is used to create the Hulk also looks a lot like the old TV show.

At the beginning of the movie, Bruce Banner is watching TV, a clip from the old Bill Bixby TV show “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father” is on.

Bruce Banner using the line or trying “You won’t like me when I’m angry”

Lou Ferrigno’s cameo and his being the Voice of the Hulk.

Stan Lee’s Cameo.

Tony Stark showing up during the movie.

The super soldier serum from WWII is mentioned.

There were others, but I can’t remember them now.

The television series Get Smart was created by Mel Brooks in the 1960s as a spoof of the James Bond phenomenon. Don Adams played the bumbling Maxwell Smart (Agent 86) to the much more competent Agent 99 (played by Barbara Feldon). Originally, 99 was to be Agent 69; however, as many would guess, the name was changed to prevent any sexual censorship.

Each episode finds the CONTROL agents (spies who actually punch time clocks) on missions to thwart the evil plans of counter agency KAOS. Two of the memorable recurring villains was Ze Craw (NO, NO…. not Craw, The Claw) who had a large magnet in place of his left arm and the evil Siegfried (who incidentally was a master magician (who used the “old gun in the rabbit trick.”)

Like Bond, Max has several devices at his disposal (the shoe phone and the inflato-jacket to name but two). The most memorable device is the Cone of Silence that never worked. 86 and the Chief would be surrounded by a large transparent bubble. However, there was a sheet of plexiglass placed between them which made it impossible for them to hear each other.

On Friday June 20, new audiences will be introduced to the characters when the comic genius Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway assume the roles created in the 1960s. This time instead of being the top agent of CONTROL, Max is promoted from analyst to field agent and goes on his first mission. This should matter little since Mr. Smart bumbled his way through 5 seasons on television but somehow always managed to foil the evil plans of KAOS. Facing every kind of danger imaginable…. AAAAND LOVING IT.

Some bits of trivia form the series:

Barbara Feldon was taller than Don Adams. Mr. Adams would stand on platforms to remedy the situation or Ms. Feldon would scrunch or sit down.

The acronyms CONTROL and KAOS actually stood for nothing.

Agent 99’s real name is never revealed.

The Chief’s real name was revealed as Thaddeus.

Get Smart Sweepstakes: Enter to win a free trip to Russia and Finland!

Get Smart – Season 1

While my mom has had the kids this week, we managed to fit in 2 movies of opposite genres: the suspense / horror flick,  Prom Night (2008 remake of the 1980 film), vs. the silly comedy, You Don’t Mess With the Zohan, Adam Sandler’s new movie.  Suspense / Horror wins this time, hands down.

Prom Night  – an easy, old fashioned slasher movie.  I really liked that the villian and his motivations were unveiled in the first scenes of the movie.  I didn’t have to waste the rest of the movie worrying about what was trying to get the victims, why, and how many of them the victims needed to eliminate.  Predictable yet startling – don’t expect too much and you’ll have fun.

You Don’t Mess With the Zohan – ok, I really wasn’t expecting much from this movie.  The previews had basically said it all.  A former Israeli terrorist fighter is looking for a fresh start and decides to become a hairdresser in the US.  The movie is what it is – a really dumb comedy.  As crude as Adam Sandler promises to be, you have to have a certain type of sense of humor to enjoy this movie.  I didn’t have a bad time at the movie, but many of the jokes got old before they were done using them and the humor became even raunchier than expected.  While Adam Sandler does have a few worthwhile movies to his credit (Happy Gilmore and The Wedding Singer are my favorites), this is not one of them.  Oh, well, it was bargain night at the movie theater, so $8 for two of us to see a movie, get 2 pops and some popcorn was well worth it!