Weekend Assignment #309: Get in Line!

It took me a while, but I came up with a Weekend Assignment that relates to the Doctor Who convention I just attended without getting too obscure for everyone else:

Weekend Assignment #309: Nobody likes standing in line, generally speaking, but sometimes you have to wait around to get what you want. Are you one of those people who avoid lines as much as humanly possible, even if it means doing without? Or do you accept the need for queues, and simply try to make the wait as painless as you can?

Extra Credit: Do you see the problem of waiting in lines as getting better or worse in recent years?

As I may have mentioned before, my husband John is an absolute line-hater. He will avoid most restaurants because he can't stand the wait to be seated, and barely tolerates the lines at Disneyland, a place he loves in other respects. Lines stress him out and make him cranky.

Tommy Knight chats with fans as they move through a Friday autograph line.  From Gallifrey One: Blackjack 21

But I'm not too bothered about lines myself. I won't go so far as to say that they are actually fun, but many times the prize at the end (a steak dinner, an autograph, a driver's license renewal) is worth the tedium. At Gallifrey One last weekend, I waited in all six autograph lines, two each on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. At the end of each wait was a row of tables, filled with actors, writers, directors, an artist or two and a costume designer. Each Doctor Who celebrity was armed with Sharpies and a silver marker to sign your photo, book, magazine or what-have-you. There were a few people whose autographs I didn't ask for, mostly people who wrote or illustrated books or comics I haven't read. But I tried to say something friendly and intelligent to everyone, and to come up with as many appropriate items to sign as I could without going completely overboard on my purchases.



Above you can see the signed photos I ended up with, but they're just the souvenirs of the overall experience. For me the real hook is to have a brief conversation with people I would not get to meet otherwise. I asked Louise Page about the ripping of the Tenth Doctor's suit in "The End of Time," since it was one of only four brown suits made and irreplaceable. She confirmed that it was a wrench to half-destroy it for the shoot. I chatted with Nick Briggs about the on-screen character in Torchwood, and showed Deborah Watling what I wrote about her character Victoria on the back of her Cornerstone trading card back in the 1990s. And so on. I could not have done any of that without standing in some rather long lines.

The end of the line to be seated for the Masquerade. It wound though
the corridors and out onto this patio, where it had been raining.
I was lucky: I got to sit on a wall, under a giant leaf.

Still, there are ways to make lines go a bit faster. For quite a few years now, Disney has had a system called Fastpass, which gives you a ticket to return at a certain time rather than wait in line from the beginning. You still end up in line, but not as long. This year, Gallifrey One instituted "Flyaway Autographs" on a similar principal. Show up at a given time, and you got a ticket with a group number on it, based on when you show up and how many people were ahead of you. Then you could go do something else until the session started, or even a little while after the session started. But the convention had over 1500 attendees this year, nearly double what it had to accommodate for most of the con's history. There was no way to get that many people through the autograph lines without a protracted wait, even with the flyaway system.


And there are things the person in line can do to make the wait less tedious. I'm pleased to say I overcame my shyness enough to chat with a number of people in line this year. In the line to be seated for the Masquerade (costume contest) I was reunited with a woman who, like me, failed to connect with the group on fans making an run to to In-N-Out Burger on Friday night. She in turn with taking to someone about Chicago schools - not a thrilling subject for me, but it was something to pass the time. In the autograph lines I was one of a number of fans who were quite impressed with something one particular guy was getting signed, a Hard Rock Cafe shirt with over 100 Doctor Who-related autographs dating all the way back to 2000. It was fun to listen in as he talked about who was on the shirt and tried to identify some of the less legible signatures.

More on the convention in my next entry. Meanwhile....

For Weekend Assignment #308: Chick Flicks Or Guy Movies?, Carly wanted to know what kind of movies we gravitate toward. Here are excerpts from the responses. Click on the name to be taken to the person's blog and read more.


Carly said...

I think in our house the choice of movies is pretty evenly split. Way back before Alan and I started dating, back when we were best friends, we made a deal to alternate which movies we watched. It's a custom that we still do to this day. Although, there was one recent exception... I couldn't get him to go to the theater to see the Sex and the City movie a couple years ago. Nope. No way. Not gonna do it! LOL. I didn't push, but man I wanted to see that movie. When it finally came on HBO, Alan did graciously agree to watch it with me, and he actually enjoyed it! LOL. I knew he would.

Glenda said in comments...

Worst movie EVER - Disney's Fantasia ... First movie (and only one of two) that I have ever WALKED OUT on.

As for Chick Flicks and Guy Movies, I'm a big fan of both. Love action/adventure as much as romance.

I love Against All Odds, Overboard, Ever After, Shakespeare In Love, The Bourne series, The Net, War Games, Fast & Furious ... way too many to mention.

Florinda said...

It's interesting; my reading interests tend to women-centric, but when it comes to movies, I'm really not all that much for the Chick Flick. ... Basically, I prefer movies that aren't strongly marketed to one gender or the other, and my husband feels the same way. Most of the time, we agree on the movies we want to see, and that does make things a lot easier.

Mike said...

Yes, I'm a fan of action flicks and Sci-Fi flicks. Mixing the two together is ideal, but it doesn't always work. I can list all the movies that I've seen that mix these two and end up being terrible. I will still watch them, but they are bad, bad movies. Look, Armageddon is a load of garbage, but I'll still watch it when it comes on. Maybe I think that one time when I watch the movie it will magically be better. Also, I like to laugh at it.

Karen said...

Of the two general categories in the assignment title, I suppose I must choose chick flicks, but really, that's not how I classify films or what I look for. ... If you think about it, the Peter Jackson-directed Tolkien films are both chick flicks and guy movies, having the romance between Aragorn and Arwen (and the love triangle with Eowyn), and lots of battles and fight scenes. It's even a buddy movie, with the two pairs of hobbits and the friendship and rivalry between Gimli and Legolas.

Paul said in comments...

The worst movie I ever saw was Master of Disguise, starring Dana Carvey. My son thought it was great, but I got tired of the recurring fart jokes.

OK, sorry, I didn't actually answer the question. We're solidly on the guy movie bench here at Casa AWV. Fav movie is probably the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and we also have the Star Wars films and the Indiana Jones movies in our DVD collection. We're also huge Disney animation fans. Unfortunately, almost all of those we used to own on VHS and we sold them at a garage sale because we never watched them any more.

Come along with us now, and tell us what you think about standing in line. Here are the guidelines:

1. The deadline is 6 PM PST on Wednesday, March 10th (my birthday!).
2. You may answer in the comments below, or, even better, write an entry about it on your blog. If you do write a blog entry, please mention the Weekend Assignment and link back here.
3. Use of the Weekend Assignment graphic on your blog is encouraged but not mandatory.
4. Please make the rounds of other participants if you can. That's half the fun, and your fellow bloggers will appreciate it!

Got it? Good! See you over on Carly's blog Ellipsis next Thursday for a roundup of this Assignment and to read what the next one is.

And don't forget our other memes:


The Round Robin Photo Challenges. 
Next Challenge (to be posted Saturday, March 13th):
Round Robin Challenge: Look Up/Look Down

Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot (hosted by Carly). 
This week: EMPS #79: Numbers

Come play with us, won't you?

Karen

Weekend Assignment #308: What Kind of Flicks?

For Weekend Assignment #308: Chick Flicks Or Guy Movies?, Carly wants to know what kind of movies we gravitate toward. Of the two general categories in the assignment title, I suppose I must choose chick flicks, but really, that's not how I classify films or what I look for. Here are the sorts of films I'm most likely to pay money for:

1. Fantasy. We're talking Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Narnia, Stardust and so on. I don't automatically like every fantasy film - it has to be well-written, exciting, with great characters, humor and preferably ideas worth thinking about long after the movie is over. If you think about it, the Peter Jackson-directed Tolkien films are both chick flicks and guy movies, having the romance between Aragorn and Arwen (and the love triangle with Eowyn), and lots of battles and fight scenes. It's even a buddy movie, with the two pairs of hobbits and the friendship and rivalry between Gimli and Legolas. Personally, I love the visuals and the character stuff in the Jackson films, but the battles bore me to tears and I resent major character bits from the books being omitted, such as Eowyn and Faramir falling in love, some of Merry and Pippin's adventures and the Scouring of the Shire.

2. Science Fiction. Again, I don't automatically love it all, but I'm a sucker for a good time travel story, Star Trek, Buckaroo Banzai, Galaxy Quest and some other films. My criteria are the same as for fantasy, and again, some of the best films have both action-adventure and a degree of romance. But they don't have to have either for me to like them.

3. Disney. One of my all time favorite films is Mary Poppins, and another is Lilo & Stitch. And yes, you can class those as fantasy, but really, when it's done right, there's something special about a Disney film.  These, too, can be action adventure, can be buddy movies, can be romances, but that's only part of what they are.

4. Romantic Comedies.  Aha!  Yes, you got me. I admit that I like the classic chick flick category, too, but it doesn't usually drive me to the theatre, and it pretty much has to be humor-based. I've still never seen Titanic, I hate stuff like Wuthering Heights and so on. But something by Nora Ephron or Jane Austin is another story altogether.

For the extra credit, Carly wants a mini-review of the worst film I ever saw. I have to go with the one we drove away from, The Legend of the Lone Ranger - terrible writing, wooden acting, a complete misread of the character and what made him a legend. But it's not my most hated film. I utterly despise Lord of the Flies with its relentlessly negative view of humanity in general and children in particular, and would unsee it if I could. Kill Bill and The Watchmen draw a similar reaction from me. John watches them in the next room and they upset me. Sometimes I make John put on headphones, or wear earplugs to avoid them! I hate depressing, nasty movies. But that doesn't make them objectively bad. Evil, perhaps, but not bad.

The next Weekend Assignment will be posted here tomorrow. I also have a Gallifrey One convention report coming, probably in two parts.

Karen

EMPS: Still Life with Steak

D'oh! As busy as I've been at this Doctor Who convention, I almost forgot to post my entry for Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot #78: Still Life featuring Food.  This is my shot from Friday's dinner at the Champions sports bar inside the Marriott LAX. It's a steak salad. This seems to me a very odd concept for a menu item, and is also quite expensive ($17 or $18 I think), but I love it so much I've had it twice this weekend.  Those are the only two proper meals I've had since Thursday lunch, unless you count two fish tacos (with fries? really?) from Del Taco.



In haste,

Karen

Round Robin: Bright Sky, Warm Water

When I packed up my laptop yesterday to post my entry for the newest Round Robin Photo Challenge from a Los Angeles hotel room, there were several difficulties I forgot to consider. I knew my Vaio was slowly dying, but I refused to think about what would happen if it didn't work at all. I knew the LAX Marriott had WiFi in the rooms (for a hefty fee), but didn't consider that it might not actually work, or that my computer wouldn't cooperate with their network. And even if the computer worked and the network worked, there were still two problems:

1. All the photos I've taken since October are on the other computer at home, except this week's photos still on the camera.

2. The laptop no longer has any photo editing software except the bare-bones Picasa 3.

I don't mind telling you that I had kind of a difficult day today, and computer problems were part of that. I first tried to get online in my hotel room, but my computer wouldn't stop trying to load some other page long enough to let me agree to terms with the Wi-Fi ISP. I took the computer down to the lobby, where the Wi-Fi is supposedly free, but it couldn't even find a network down there - well, maybe an unnamed, local-only one, but what's the good of that? So I hauled the computer back upstairs, found a little wireless access switch that had been turned off by accident, opened Explorer because Firefox was still stuck trying to open two useless, non-functioning tabs -- and voila! Success!

And as it happens, my camera did have some photos still on the memory card to fit the topic Round Robin Challenge: Blinded By the Light, as suggested by Vicki of the blog Maraca. On Tuesday afternoon, finished at last with a difficult and time-consuming project at St. Michael's, I took off with the dogs, hoping to take them someplace interesting. Our first stop was at PetSmart, for dog food and to trim Cayenne's nails. Then I drove north toward the snow-dusted mountains. Starting out from PetSmart instead of from home, I missed a turn and ended up on Houghton Road, miles from anywhere. But getting lost is one of my favorite ways of finding stuff, and Tuesday was a prime example of that. Entirely by accident I came across a sign for Agua Caliente Park, a place I hadn't visited in 20 years or more. So that's where we went!



It was late afternoon. The sun was shining through the trees and across the largest and wettest of the three ponds.



The sun was very much in my eyes, so when I took this photo I tried to cram the sun behind a tree. And it almost worked!



Look how lightstruck the old palms are, and the brightness of the ground in between the late afternoon shadows.



Agua Caliente Park has a long and interesting history. It was originally the site of two springs, one hot (100 degrees F) and one cold, and is thought to have been used by local inhabitants for thousands of years. There was an army encampment there by the late 1850s, and a few decades later became a ranch and health spa, where people could "take the waters." Possibly so that there would be more waters for people to be theoretically healed by, owners dynamited the place, combining the hot spring and the cold spring into one warm one. Nowadays it's a county park, known mostly for its birdwatching and nature programs. Nobody takes the waters anymore; no swimming, wading or drinking of the spring water is allowed. Traces of the past are very much in evidence, though, including the very old and very large non-native palm trees and the ruinous bridge in the photo above.



The water table around here has fallen quite a bit over the past century, leaving less water above ground than there once was. This large, vaguely mushy field is technically a pond. But even though it had rained heavily just a day or two before, little water remained in evidence on the day of my visit.

Now let's see how everyone else saw the light!

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Karen

EMPS: Sammy Safety Cone and Friends

How did Carly know what would happen on Wilmot Road this week? For Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot #77: The Cone Zone, she asked to see road construction - traffic cones, works crews or other inconvenient-but-necessary evidence of our highway safety dollars at work. A few days later, I reached the end of Calle Mumble and was greeted by this:



(If you lived in Tucson and were familiar with my part of town, this shot would be a dead giveaway of exactly where "Calle Mumble" is. But ah, well.)



This continued all week, slightly different stretches of the right lane closed off while crews tore up three patches of pavement and laid in three large metal plates, the kind that require an orange sign marked "BUMP."

But that's not what I wanted to talk about today.



It was probably close to ten years ago that John applied for a job as a graphic designer for the Pima County Highway Department. In order to show them what he could do, John created an animated GIF and other graphics featuring an original character he created, Sammy Safety Cone. He also made a fun animated GIF of toy Chevron cars driving down the street. He didn't get the job, but I thought he definitely should have. Although John doubts he even has a copy of those graphics files any more, they live on in my memory. And when I'm not too busy being annoyed and inconvenienced by the many road construction projects that impede my progress across town, the sight of a Sammy Safety Cone in the real world still makes me smile.



One of the reasons Tucson needs so much road work, aside from an ever-growing population driving over the same old streets, is the extremes of weather we get here. In the summer we get our famous "dry heat," followed by the summer monsoon rains that regularly flood the city streets. Then in the winter, if we're lucky, we get the milder "winter monsoon," with less thunder and lightning, but lots of rain, some flooding, and a good chance of snow in the mountains. The pavement expands in the summer heat and then cools and contracts, creating potholes and sinkholes and cracks for the flooding to fill and make worse.

Yesterday was a prime example of Tucson flooding. I had just worked around the clock - twice, almost - from early Friday afternoon to late Saturday morning with a half hour off for dinner before I returned to preparing all night long, despite significant computer issues, for two important meetings at church on Saturday morning. When I finally got home around 11 AM it was time to pick up my friend S. for our promised trip to the Animal Fair at Reid Park, there to find a new cat to replace the recently-departed Luna. And it was starting to rain.

We carried on anyway, got a neighbor to help life her mobility scooter into the trunk of my car, and headed over to Reid Park. When we arrived it was pouring down rain, and dozens of people and their dogs were starting to leave. After a week of 70 degree whether it was cold and windy, and S.'s umbrella quickly blew inside out. But we made it into the flimsy tent of one of the rescue groups, where we were immediately greeted by a very nice woman who was cuddling a black and white cat so similar to Luna that he could be her younger brother. Shamrock is a Turkish Van, according to the rescue group volunteer. When she let S. pet Shamrock, he snuggled into her and reached out to clutch her jacket with his front paws. We'll take him! She has to wait for several days while they get him neutered and chipped, but she'll have her year-and-a-half old, beautiful and affectionate new cat by the end of the week.

But I digress.

Coming back from the park, I drove through badly flooded streets as my trunk lid bumped up and down over S.'s scooter. My jacket and sweatshirt were soaked through and the driving was hairy. S. told me that many years ago, she saw a picture of people waterskiing on Alvernon Way, before they installed better drainage on that road. It still floods, but not quite that badly any more.



But there are compensations for weather like this. The ever-changing view of the Catalina Mountains in my rear view mirror can be dramatic and wonderful. And yesterday I saw a long orange pipe along the side of Wilmot, where Sammy and his friends were this week. Maybe they're working on the drainage.

Karen

Weekend Assignment #307: Eight Days a Week

This Weekend Assignment entry will be brief, for reasons that will become apparent.

Weekend Assignment #307: Common wisdom, these days, backed up by actual statistics if I had time to look them up, tells us that as a nation we've been working harder in recent years just to maintain the same level of financial solvency. Recession-related unemployment and u8nderemployment aside, do you find this is true for your family?

Extra Credit: Is overtime something you take on willingly? Why or why not?

I mention all this because this is the busy time of year for accountants, even underemployed ones like me. I've been working many more hours recently, and if I get the temp job I applied for today, I will be working a full time job and a part time one on top of that.

And I don't mind. Yes, I have to watch out that I get adequate sleep, but to be honest I kind of enjoy wrangling with numbers at 1 AM. And if I can make a decent income working two jobs after all these months of spotty employment, it should help our finances quite a bit!

Still, I believe that the underlying point is true. Maybe it's naive of me, but I suspect that there was a time when people worked from 9 to 5, went home, and aside from a little dinner discussion left their work behind until morning. Now I think we as a workforce are expected to work as many hours as possible for as little money as companies can get away with. In some cases, it's because the company itself is struggling, especially these days. In others, it seems to be more a case of the people at the top raking in the bonuses and letting the underlings struggle a bit. I've worked in both situations.

What do you think? You have until next Wednesday at 6 PM to give us your thoughts, either as a blog entry or in the comments below. If you do write a blog entry, please mention the Weekend Assignment, and leave a link to your entry in the comments thread. Here are last week's links. Click on the name to see the entry!

Last week's Weekend Assignment was:

Weekend Assignment #306: You're A Famous Author, What's The Name Of Your Book?

Karen (that's me!) said...

I'm famously allergic to cats, and almost as famously uninterested in cooking. My unlikely bestseller, therefore, is a cookbook for cats. I had a different title for it last night, but then I talked to John and had a better idea. Now the title is:

The Cats' Cookbook:
Fabulous Foods for Felines and Friends

Florinda said...

Here's my bestseller:

Southern Song: A Romance, by Elizabeth Penney (You don't think I'm writing a romance under my real name, do you? That's another part of the fiction!)

Mike said...

My book is a young adult romantic fantasy novel. I named it "We'll Meet Under the New Moon at Harry Potter's House." I figure this might draw some attention on the shelves at the bookstore. Not a bad idea, am I right.

 Next week's entry will by hosted by Carly. See you there!

Karen

The End of Lunacy

It is exceedingly rare for me to get a phone call after midnight, even through everyone knows I'm likely to be awake well past that hour. When a call comes in that late at night, it can't be good news.

Sunday morning, 3:45 AM. My cell phone rings.

I know what it's about. Just not the details.

"Hi, it's Karen."

"This is Dr. ___ from Valley Animal Hospital. I'm looking for S___, Luna's owner. Is she there?"

"No, this is her best friend." I verified that the other phone number they had was S's number, the only phone number she has. The vet explained that Luna wasn't breathing on her own, "so we're breathing for her." I offered to drive across town and wake my friend up, but the vet said she'd try the number again, and hung up.

At least Luna was still alive. For the moment.

I checked S's number on my cell phone, since I don't have it memorized, and called back to verify that they had it right. They did, but the call wasn't waking my friend up. Probably just as well. Luna was back to breathing on her own, so the immediate crisis was over. But it didn't look good.



Since Luna's cancer surgery on Wednesday, the cat had hardly eaten at all. When I took S. to visit her on Saturday afternoon, they had a heat lamp on her and were talking about putting in a feeding tube. The hope was that if she got some nutrition, she might grow stronger, possibly strong enough and well enough to eat something.

Luna hardly moved for the first few minutes of our visit, and didn't respond to S's attempts to cajole a meow from her. But she purred when gently petted, and raised her head a little, just before we left.



As S. spent these precious minutes with her beloved, dying cat, I visited a little with the few animals in the other cages. One cat, labeled as feral, meowed defiantly at me whenever I came into view. The other cat was curled up in the back of the cage, as was a dog labeled as "aggressive animal."

The other dog was named Magnum, a chocolate lab or Weimaraner or something along those lines.The card said he was brought in by FAIR (Foundation for Animals In Risk) with gunshot wounds. Somehow I doubt poor Magnum was named after the Tom Selleck character. When someone came to take Magnum away, I said,"Why would anyone shoot a sweet dog like that?"

"Why would they shoot anything?" she replied.

Anyway.

The rest of Sunday morning went by without further news. S. knows better, usually, than to call me during church. But in the afternoon she called. Luna died during the night.

The animal hospital had asked her about disposal of the body, and she didn't know which option to choose. I recommended cremation. Neither of us has an appropriate place to bury a pet, and digging more than a few inches into the ground here is exceedingly difficult. I went through that with Jenny Dog many years ago, and ultimately had to hire a handyman to dig. Never again. So I told S. about the nicely labeled white plastic boxes in which a local service delivers cremated remains to Tucson vets. "Tuffy and Noodle are on my desk right now," I said.

"That sounds nice," S. said.

So I went over to the animal hospital, about two miles from here, paid our share of the bill and told them to do the cremation. The portion of the bill that S. now owes to the animal welfare group is over a thousand dollars, twice what it would have been had Luna died on the operating table. I figure it will take S. about two years to pay that off out of her Social Security disability. The vet's office called S. again four or five hours after that, asking again about the body disposal. Tearfully but politely, S. again made her wishes known.



Next weekend is the Animal Fair at Reid Park, a giant adoptathon for practically every animal rescue group in Southern Arizona. S. will be looking for a year old cat this time, not an older cat like Luna. She cannot be alone, and she can't afford another week like this one, financially or emotionally.



But I don't regret that we went ahead with Luna's cancer operation. At least we tried. There was a legitimate chance of saving Luna's life, and S. would have been wracked with guilt had we denied her that chance. This way she knows she did what she could for her furry friend. She also had a week to prepare emotionally for Luna's death, something she didn't have when her previous cat died a year ago December. In my experience, when a loved one dies after a long illness, the grief is a little blunted with relief, that the long ordeal of worry and suffering is at an end.


Karen