July 2005 Archives

Today, we're doing something amazingly local and seriously goofy--the New Jersey Festival of Ballooning. Having never been to anything like this before, we decided to go on a friday evening with the hope that the kids will make it OK into the 6:30 balloon inflation and then the 6:45 balloon ascention. However, there are a number of other "events" that should prove interesting.

First of all, these festivals are never complete unless they have "headline entertainment." In this case, that means a concert at the end of each day, but you KNOW they're never going to get the Rolling Stones or U2 at one of these things--not, at least, until those bands have been broken up for years and some pathetic lone member is trying to relive glory days by performing the band's music solo with a backup band. The towering lineup of talent is as follows:

Friday night, 8 PM, Herman's Hermits, featuring Peter Noone. Yes, that's right, singing their one pointless hit about Mrs. Brown's daughter, Ole' Peter will be dragged out of mothballs to croon like the washed up flowerchild he is. The kids will see some of that, and, I'm sure, wonder what's wrong with Mommy and Daddy when they are, invariably, unwillingly, singing along anway.

Saturday night, 8 PM, Dennis DeYoung, former lead singer of Styx, will run through the songs that I used to like...in 1975...without the rest of his former band, all of whom are probably doing the same exact thing at OTHER ballooning festivals. At least this will sound like Styx, although I'm guessing at his age, it won't sound like anything to him.

Sunday afternoon, 3 PM. The grand finale. The Doobie Brothers! Now, I remember the Doobies being old when *I* was a kid. They must be ancient now, but at least they have some pretty good songs, if they still remember them.

In addition to the huge concert events, there are a number of smaller events going on around the same area as part of the festival. Who could say no to "The Music of Dr. Planet" or "Patriot Media Kachunga and the Alligator Show" (I have NO idea what that last one means). There's a visit from "Jay Jay the Jet Plane" and "Belmont - A Special Kind of Magic! " Oooh...a Special kind!

There are also "smaller" concerts, e.g., people without quite the star power of the above mentioned performers, including the "Suzanne Carrington Band" and "Brian Fitzpatrick/Jimmy Vigilante." I just LOVE the idea of a singing vigilante. Reminds me of Alex from A Clockwork Orange. Maybe we'll get lucky and Jimmy Vigilante will sing Beethoven's 9th while kicking Suzanne Carrington for our enjoyment.

If this sounds like your kind of fun, by all means stop by! On a nice hot day, there's no better place to be than the tarmac of a local airport.

See you there!

There's a new site that I quite liked the idea of, www.lastminute-auction.com where, basically, this search bot crawls over ebay looking for things that have less than an hour to go and are priced at less than a buck. That's a neat idea for buyers--the sellers might not be so thrilled, however, as that means they have to either a, start the price higher, b, set a reserve, or c, do what this POS scam artist is doing which is sell a crappy little MP3 player for $.98 and hope they get a bid with no reserve. Why, you might ask, would they want to sell their amazing electronic hunk of junk for less than a dollar? Well, that's because apparently, the shipping/handling and insurance costs a total of $80.

My guess is that this is a really kick ass piece of hardware that is, unfortunately, being shipped from Mars. Hey, they have to meet expenses, right? A Martian has the right to earn a little scratch too, no?

Right on schedule. Two weeks ago, I relisten to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Excellent book. Then I jump into a relisten of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Also really good. Now I'm all ready for the new book, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Ah, yes, I'll download it when it comes out, have something to listen to for weeks. SO looking forward to it...and then....

Audible. Ugh. They don't carry ANY of the Harry Potter books!

Weeping. Gnashing. Uttering words that my children shouldn't hear.

The horror. The horror.

Today is July 4th and the obvious thing to do would be take the kids to see fireworks, right? Well...perhaps if Katie was a bit older, then fireworks starting at 9:30 would be OK, but still at 4 it's just too late for her. She might not even like them because of the noise. So, instead we did "TV Dinners" as the kids call watching a movie while eating dinner. Some picnic fare (fried chicken) and a really good movie and we were all set.

We watched a movie a friend of mine has been recommending for a long time, and one I think the kids really liked, called "Kiki's Delivery Service". It really was beautiful. It's a Japanese import from the master of Anime, Hayao Miyazaki, about a young witch who starts a delivery service when she needs to essentially do her internship to be a witch. It's really gorgeous and lush and very very sweet. We all loved it.

Of course, about 2/3 the way through it, Ellen got up and started for her Game Boy...I put a stop to that and she settled in to watch, and enjoy the rest. No idea what that was all about, but I think she just got distracted. Anyway, a definate recommendation for kids 5 or 6 and older. Katie was spellbound for most of it.