Toren Atkinson

I recall hearing that Journey is on tour. I don’t know when or if they’re coming to Vancouver, but Journey is a big name act that I think would both be hilarious and awesome to see. I bet it would be one of those gigs that would be impossible to get tickets for if you aren’t obsessively on the ball. As a member of LAF (Loafers Against Furor), my philosophy is any show that you can’t get tickets for the day after it’s announced is probably not going to be an enjoyable show. But I still want to see Journey.

On an un-related note, what is the crass-hilarious ratio for making a mock website that riffs directly on the PETA website, only everything is related to vegetables and it’s called petv.org?

And yet, when done well, the abstract can be quite enjoyable:

This is from 1963. I had to watch this kind of crap in school and also on, god bless it, the CBC. Mel Brooks says what we’re all thinking:

On an unrelated note, this one’s for Deanna:

“Cause: Connection closed by foreign host.”
What does that mean?
Still having internet problems, if any techies want to give a poor artist a helping e-hand.
It gives me this message about 30-50% of the time when I try to send email through my Eudora program.

The cartoon party was hours of sugar-high fun, as usual. I think this was the lowest turnout for a cartoon party but on the other hand that meant everyone had a good seat. As usual, people came and went throughout the morning and afternoon so that as someone left their seat, another came to fill it. We had 21 boxes of cereal and only a few diabetic comas.

My secret plan was to schedule the first cartoon at 8:45 that nobody would come for it and I could sleep in until nine. But Mike Demers foiled that as he showed up no later than 8:35, the madman! The Hulk was ridiculous as usual, full of ostentatious costumes and sexual repression. My favourite part was how the hulk turned from announcing “THE HULK NEEDS NO ONE” to “The Hulk needs Rick Jones!”

Next on the menu was Justice League with the ever-popular cowboys riding big robot dinosaurs followed by the always-agonizing but mandatory episode of Rocket Robin Hood.

Thundarr was full of Jack Kirby goodness and LRTs-transformed-by-wizard-into-deadly-snake-monster action.

The Herculoids was a cacophony of the finest voiceover actors that 1967 had to offer. I think I know what I’m going to get Mike for Christmas – a Zok action figure which I will run around the house with screaming “RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

The Dungeons and Dragons episode had the singular distinction of having a frame with a nazi holding a unicorn, while The Ripping Friends was redolent with hilarious weiner jokes and teleporting poop thanks to Future Cat.

It was revealed that Superman is the greatest mass-murderer that the universe has ever known in the episode “The Krypton Syndrome” where he saves and then subsequently unsaves the past Krypton from exploding, and everyone rightfully enjoyed the Bob Clampett classic Looney Tunes episode where we find Bugs burying Elmer alive in the year 2000. I had set up the Treehouse of Horror episode “Time & Punishment” expertly by showing an episode of Peabody & Sherman earlier in the morning (“Quiet, you!”) and then we visited one of my favourite Duckman episodes.

The mandatory The Tick episode fit in nicely and then we watched one of my favourite episodes of Samurai Jack, where Jack protects a city of robots by possessing an ancient stone samurai warrior and fighting a giant robot – beautiful direction and sound design on this episode.

The Powerpuff Girls had a cool sequence where the animation style changed dramatically while they were inside the time machine, and also a hilarious sendup of the old “public service” films of the 50’s.

Deanna and Sam both got to see their very first episode of The Venture Brothers. I had been grooming Deanna towards it by showing her some Jonny Quest episodes. Now Deanna at least is hooked – another cunning plan come to fruition!

I love Freakazoid! but nobody here has seen it outside of my cartoon parties because it was never broadcast in Canada.

Finally we ended with Futurama and the second parts to the two 2-part episodes that I played earlier in the morning of JL and Ripping Friends. Normally I would never do two-part episodes but since the theme of the party was time it seemed appropriate somehow.

It’s official: my cat is a psychopath. Kodos has gone from “just” attacking the other cat to attacking my roommates. The adjustment is not going well. I know what you’re thinking: how can a cat so cute be so evil? I don’t have an answer for that. Things seemed to be getting better for a while and I was letting him out of my room for hours and hours at a time, but now I’m loathe to let him out at all whenever anyone else is home. I’ve never seen any of the attacks but last night when I was having people over he sat under the table growling and hissing. It was certainly unexpected because Kodos and Zuul (Marlo’s cat) lived in complete harmony for weeks, though that was on Kodos’ home turf at the time. Kodos attacked Max (Mike’s cat) twice as far as I know – once when Max was walking by outside my room and once when Max trundled into my room. Now Max avoids Kodos like a dog plague. Luckily Kodos is a ground cat and Max is more of a climber and even a one foot difference in elevation keeps them from interacting – Kodos the idiot generally doesn’t notice Max unless Max moves. Just like a T-Rex, if Jurassic Park is to be believed (Sam Neill wouldn’t lie, would he?). Anyway, I’ve been looking into solutions for problem and here’s what the internet has to say:

Fearful or Defensive Aggression

Defensive aggression occurs when the cat perceives itself to be under a threat from which it cannot escape. This type of aggression may be recognized by the typical body postures which accompany it: crouching, flattening of the ears against the head, hissing and spitting, piloerection (hair standing up). These are all signals to the other animal or person that further approach is likely to lead to a defensive attack. The defensively aggressive cat only attacks when approached, it does not seek out the source of the threat or pursue it if it withdraws.

The best way to deal with a defensively aggressive cat is to avoid the cat until it calms down. You should not try to comfort the cat by approaching it or picking it up. The cat should be left alone until it relaxes enough to eat, play, or show affectionate behavior. In some cases, several hours or more are required for the cat to settle down.

It is important to minimize any behaviors that would frighten the cat (eg., loud voices and quick movements) and at the same time encourage a nonfearful behavior in the cat (eg., eating or playing). Ask your cat-friendly acquaintances to sit on the couch or even better, on the floor after entering your home. Give them your cat’s favorite food treats which for training purposes, will only be offered by guests, not the family. If the cat will not approach the visitor, it can be tossed to him. A toy attached to a long fishing pole is another way to win over a reluctant puss. When Kitty begins to connect good times and good food with people who come through the door, the hissing will be replaced with purring. Patience and persistence, as always, pay off.

To this end I have bought some treats – which I normally never give to Kodos – for my roomies to give to Kodos whenever they like. Additionally:

The phenomena of redirected aggression can be puzzling and frightening to cat lovers. It occurs when a cat is highly aroused and in an aggressive state (for instance, by the sight of an outside cat, by just having been in a fight, or by a loud, disturbing noise), and the cat attacks a person or another animal within reach. Generally, cats do not redirect aggression unless they are touched or closely approached by another animal or person.

If a cat is in an aggressive state or mood, it can be very dangerous for the owner to approach it, or try to pick it up. The owner should wait until the cat has changed its mood before interacting with it. The state of arousal can last two hours or more, but in most cases is over within thirty minutes. After the cat has engaged in another behavior, such as grooming, playing, or eating, it is usually safe to approach it.

To treat this type of aggression, the arousing stimulus must be identified so that it can be eliminated. For example, if the cat is upset by looking at other cats through the window, the outside cats should be kept from passing near the window or the resident cat’s view should be obstructed by pulling a shade or keeping the cat out of the room with the windows. If the triggering stimulus cannot be removed, [in this case it can’t because Kodos and Max have got to live in the same house] then the cat should be systematically desensitized to it.

If the owner is the victim of redirected aggression, it is important that he not retaliate so strongly that the attacking cat develops a fear of him and becomes defensively aggressive toward him, thereby creating another, more difficult problem to solve. Keep in mind that it is the cat’s predatory nature that enables it to concentrate so single-mindedly on a particular object (or animal) of interest. This all-consuming focus of the cat’s attention is not easily transformed into a recognition of the touch of an old friend–so don’t take it personally!

Even so I’m definitely going to get a spray bottle or gun to exercise some damage control when Kodos starts trying out for the next video of WHEN HOUSECATS ATTACK.

After we came out of the exhibits at the Royal BC Museum, we got our bags out of coat check. I wasn’t sure where I put my camera so I dug around, but couldn’t find it. We turned over the couch we were on and one of the ladies at the coat check noticed and asked if we had lost something. I told her I had lost my camera. She went over to security to ask if a camera had been turned in while we continued searching in vain. She came back to tell us it was so, and I went over to claim my camera, which I did after describing it rather poorly (turns out it’s an Olympus, which I’ll have to remember for next time). This means someone found my camera, and instead of keeping it, turned it in to the lost and found. I will never know who that person is but I will keep his or her spirit alive and will from this day forward not take things that don’t belong to me. Actually, I have been doing this for years and I am glad that I’m not the only one. This is how society is supposed to work and I take it as a step forward to a Star Trek-like utopia where money does not exist, until the Ferengi are introduced at which point it becomes an important plot point every week.

of cereal from the Saturday Morning Cartoon Party

And now, click this link for the punchline…

Now edited with words!

So, thanks to that Jesus guy I didn’t have to work on Monday, and neither did Best, so we booked a hotel and hopped on a ferry for Victoria. The bus trip was long and arduous, but we read comics and ate cafetorium food on the ferry and managed to ignore most of the children so the boat trip was quite nice. Some of us also drew secret comic book stuff. It’s taking me forever to read Top 10.

This is Deanna’s “I just got roofied” look.

This is Deanna’s “I’m a pixie!” look.

This is us FINALLY getting to the Royal Museum. There wasn’t anything good playing at the IMAX theater. We saw ammonites and mastodon teeth and squid and lots of other cool natural history stuff, plus we speedwalked through the native peoples floor. Though there was lots of interesting stuff there, I felt like I’d seen most of it at the UBC Museum of Anthropology. They did have a 50mm scale replica of a native american village which made me want to get out my d20.

This is my gay Rocket Robin Hood pose.

That purchase has served us well on the long bus ride home.

We went the Victoria Bug Zoo and it was great. There were a lot of kids asking irrelevant, stupid questions but the guide was great and answered my questions, and I got to show off to Best with my entymological knowledge, which totally made her want me. The Bug Zoo would have been a perfect opportunity for Best to deal with her fear of centipedes and millipedes, or possibly to have it compounded, but she just pretended they weren’t there.

Take that, Deannosaurus!