Monthly Archives: January 2011

Several folks wrote to ask me why the script for Toy Story 3 was nominated for an Oscar in the category of Best Adapted Screenplay. That question and other mysteries of the recent Academy Award nominations are answered here. (Looking back, I see that the screenplay for Godfather, Part 2 was also nominated as an adaptation because it was a sequel.)

Remember our post about how Disneyland was going to restrict its walkaround characters to certain areas of the park in order to maximize the need to pay for photo ops with them? Well, that's apparently not happening now. There's some difference of viewpoint on the web as to whether the plan was never quite as bad as it seemed or if Disney has decided to back off that plan due to outcry. Either way, it does not seem to be happening now.

Attendee registration for Comic-Con International 2011 will open this year (again!) at 9 AM Pacific Time on Saturday, February 5. Here is the information you'll need to know.

If you're thinking of going but aren't sure, consider this. The con will sell out and it will sell out very quickly. If you decide in May you want to attend…well, it won't be utterly impossible but it'll sure be difficult. After they officially sell out, some badges will become available as their purchasers cancel and get refunds but I sure wouldn't count on being able to snag one of those.

Also, the convention has been cracking down on folks who sell badges on eBay or elsewhere, some (maybe most) of which are counterfeit. There was criminal prosecution last year of some who sold them and there were people who bought badges via bootleg methods who showed up and were rightly denied admission. That will be all be policed with even greater efficiency this year. Don't even think of going that route.

I'm well aware it may be tough in February to know if you'll be able to attend in July. Will you be able to afford it? Will your employer let you have the time off? Will you be able to find lodging? You may not be able to answer those questions right this minute or even by the time the badges are all gone. All I know is that if I had the choice, I'd rather be someone who had to get a refund later on, as opposed to being someone who decided to go and couldn't buy an admission then.

Every few days, someone writes to ask, "You still feeding all those animals in your backyard?" Yes, I'm still feeding all those animals in my backyard. Carolyn and I have taken to chasing off the raccoons whenever we can but food is still put out for four feral cats who either reside in my yard or are never far from it.

The most familiar is the ironically-named (by us) Stranger Cat. That's the Stranger Cat in the above photo. An older creature of great nobility and friendliness, he's around for maybe twenty hours of the day, most of which are spent either napping or staring at his reflection in the pool. It's almost pointless, by the way, to put out dishes of water for these cats. They've decided my swimming pool is naught but a giant water dish I put there for them and they prefer to drink from it.

Sometimes, we let the Stranger Cat into the house. He walks in, inspects the kitchen, then goes to each spot on the kitchen floor where he can recall being fed something wonderful in the past. He checks out each of these spots to see if they still have any such fine treats, then he wanders over to a towel by the stove, lies down and goes to sleep.

Two of the other cats venture in on occasion if the patio door is open, which it rarely is. Max is on an eternal quest for food and if he doesn't find any outside, he's likely to pound on the glass impatiently with one paw. If one of us has left the screen door ajar, he'll come in and stalk around, looking to see if the food is inside. Lydia may also come in cautiously to check for dinner. Lydia, you may recall, is the cat I trapped and took into a vet where her pregnancy was aborted and they fixed things so she can't get that way again.

The only cat that won't come inside — won't let me get within two feet of her, usually — is Sylvia. I suspect but don't know for certain that Sylvia is a daughter of the Stranger Cat. If she is, she sure didn't inherit her father's friendliness. She's terrified of everyone and no matter how often I feed her, she still sits a few feet away and stares at me with wide, accusing eyes. She has that look that says, "Hmm…maybe this is the time when instead of giving us all this wonderful food, that tall creature will swoop us up and eat us." It's probably the same look I have on my face when I venture onto the Disney lot. Only once or twice has she come within petting distance and I suspect she was stoned on catnip those times.

Every so often, a guest cat appears for a day or three… The latest is a brown-and-white, possibly preggo feline who's shown up a few times to snack on some Friskies. Her very presence causes Max to emit a low, pained moan. I'm not sure if he's afraid she'll take a bite or two of his food or fearful that she'll slap him with a paternity suit…but he makes that weird noise and they go away. I wish I'd learned it in 1983. It would have helped with one woman in particular.

Do you know about paperless boarding passes? I have no experience with them since the last few flights I've been on have all been on Southwest and that airline isn't plugged into the system yet. But I'll bet they're the norm with most airlines and airports within the next few months.

Robert Blake has disappeared from the guest list for the Hollywood Show, the autograph event in Burbank February 12 and 13 that I wrote about here. I know not why.

As I explained here, I have discovered the joys of the Jennie-O Turkey Pot Roast. It takes ten minutes to prepare one — from fridge to microwave to your plate — and they're really good. I'd even buy them if they didn't fit so neatly into my life.

Ever since my weight reduction surgery, it's vital that I control when I dine. I eat a lot less but I need to eat at certain moments or nagging headaches can result. The more say I have over when that happens, the better…ergo, having a couple of Jennie-O Pot Roasts on hand is a good thing. Lots of quick protein and it ain't fast food. When my day gets out of my control as it sometimes does, it's nice to have something that's easy to prepare, healthy and inexpensive. I get 4-5 meals out of one and a whole one costs about nine bucks. The Jennie-O company makes them for sale at Costco…and at the moment, nowhere else.

So everything is great, right? Nope. The Costcos in Southern California have all put this product on their "deleted" lists, meaning they're no longer ordering 'em. I found this out today by talking with a vast number of Costco employees at both their corporate offices and at individual warehouses. Of the five Costcos nearest to me, four stopped carrying my beloved Turkey Pot Roasts a few months ago….and now the fifth has joined in, opted out, left me roastless. In a semi-panic, I called around today and a nice lady at the Costco in Hawthorne checked her computer and told me it was a deleted item and that they had their last 22 in the display case. I said, "I'll come by tomorrow and stock up."

She said, "Don't dawdle. We started the day with 30 and we've sold eight so far." Well naturally, I decided not to risk waiting 'til tomorrow. I hopped in my car and sped to Hawthorne.

When I got there, I hurried directly to the rear of the store. I was afraid that if I stopped to look at anything else on the way, I'd get to the refrigerated section only to find someone putting the last T.P.R. into his or her cart. As it turned out, I arrived none too soon: They had but ten in the display case. These things are selling pretty damn well for an item they've decided not to carry…though that may be because they have the market cornered in this part of the L.A. basin. My phoning around did also yield the information that there were 15 still in stock (their last fifteen) at the Costco in Van Nuys but I went to Hawthorne because it was closer and because they had more.

Hawthorne now has zero and I have ten Jennie-O Turkey Pot Roasts in my refrigerator. That's about a two month supply for me…one which coincides nicely with the "Use by this date" sticker on them. Unless I find a new supply, I will exhaust my supply the final week in March. Perhaps I will enjoy my last-ever Jennie-O Turkey Pot Roast with a bowl of the Creamy Tomato Soup which will be a soup of the month at Souplantation in March before it too becomes unavailable again.

Still, all may not be lost. The Costco folks told me that other Costcos — ones not convenient to me — are ordering more Turkey Pot Roasts from Jennie-O. You may want to find out if one near you carries them. I did not know until today how easy it is to phone the Customer Service people at your local Costco and ask them to look up their current inventory on any product they carry. If you inquire about the Jennie-O Turkey Pot Roast, you can speed things along with the Costco item number, which is 39249. If you like them, tell the folks at Costco. It can't hurt.

Obama spoke tonight of "this generation's Sputnik moment." Fred Kaplan recalls an earlier generation's Sputnik moment. Theirs was actually about Sputnik.

Five prominent theater people debate the question of what is the greatest musical ever done for the stage. There's no hard answer and eventually they don't even come to one…but the discussion is interesting, especially the defining of what is and isn't a musical.

For what little my opinion may be worth, I would have argued for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum followed closely by My Fair Lady. Both are dismissed by the panel for being too dependent on great stars…but that's an arbitrary disqualifier. I would certainly disagree with the claim that casting can't ruin Guys and Dolls. If you wish to debate that point further, I will take you in my time machine back to a production I saw starring Milton Berle as Nathan Detroit and I will win that argument.

Anyway, read what they have to say but don't send me your votes. Thanks to Ira B. Matetsky for telling me about this.

Because the idea sounds good at arm's reach and polls well, we're apparently going to hear a lot of demands that this country pass an amendment to the Constitution and require a Balanced Budget each year. These demands are already coming from legislators who don't want to actually propose a balanced budget because it would probably mean tax hikes and certainly wouldn't allow more tax cuts for the wealthy. Bruce Bartlett explains why this is all a bad idea offered just for show.

As Jonathan Chait notes, there are several proposals out there which could tweak the Affordable Heath Care Act in ways that would eliminate some or all of the saner Republican objections to it. As he further notes, Republicans are so fired-up to repeal the whole thing, so determined to score an "all or nothing" victory on this one that they'll never go for those proposals. I did a Tweet the other day that I still think is not as silly as it may look at first glance. It read, "Solution to health care dilemma: We repeal Obamacare, then Repubs pass the exact same thing but call it GOPcare. Everyone happy."

Here's a report on the status of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark on Broadway. The article wonders just what it is that's driving audiences to see this show and make it a sell-out in its never-ending previews. I suspect for an awful lot of those folks, the motivating factor to buy tickets is to be able to say to their friends, "I saw Spider-Man."

The piece also notes skepticism that it can ever recoup its costs and show a profit. In addition to the extraordinary expense in mounting the show, there's the fact (unmentioned in this article) that many of the traditional ways a Broadway show can make money are not available to this one. First and foremost, its elaborate special effects make it impossible to mount a number of touring companies…perhaps not any. Spamalot, for example, is now touring America with at least one production that can go into a city, set up and do three or four nights before moving on. If you simplify this Spider-Man show down to make that possible, you remove most of what people might pay to see. In theory, you might be able to set up another production in another city that would stay put for a few years — Las Vegas is the most obvious choice — but it sure sounds like a risky and unlikely investment. Overseas, maybe.

A lot of Broadway shows go into profit because of a movie sale…but someone already owns the film rights to Spider-Man. It's doubtful there can be a movie and even if there ever is, the money for the rights would not all flow back to the producers of the musical. They'd probably see a small fraction of it. They also probably have to share the merchandising income from t-shirts and such to a degree that other shows do not. It's pretty much going to come down to selling tickets on Broadway and hawking the CD. Most shows don't go into the black on those alone. And of course, most shows don't cost what this one does just to run each week.