Caroline’s new obsession

Four year old Caroline was down in my office yesterday, and she came running up to me waving a DVD box. “Daddy…I found TREASURE!” she informed me and handed me her discovery: A set of Rankin-Bass Christmas specials, most prominently being “Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer.” Caroline had become intrigued by Rudolph, you see, because the Build-A-Bear catalogue had arrived here the other day and she’d become enchanted by their Christmas offering of a plush version of the R-B Rudolph (not to mention Clarice.) She thrust the DVD box at me and said firmly, “See Rudolph, please?”

I shrugged and said, “Sure.” She hadn’t watched much TV that day and it would keep her entertained while I continued work on the “Iron Man” novelization.

She watched it. Then she watched it again. And a third time. She would have watched it a fourth time if we’d let her.

In the meantime last night Kath swung by our local DVD shop and picked up “Ratatouille,” a collection of all the Pixar shorts, and “Shrek III,” all DVDs we’d been planning to get for a while.

This morning Caroline came downstairs and announced she wanted to watch “Rudolph.” I pointed out all the new DVDs we’d acquired. “I want to see Rudolph” she said firmly. As of this writing she’s on her second (and I swear last) viewing for today.

And I have to say, it sure brings back memories. I still remember being utterly terrified as a kid of the Abominable Snowman, even though the character design is truly ludicrous. Hëll, I even remember the commercials with elves riding on electric shavers. Still, I have a feeling that I’m going to be well and truly sick of this special by Christmastime.

PAD

United Fan Con–the Final word

PAD Fozzie Will Robinson.jpg

We had a great time.

There’s just no other way to say it. Kathleen, Caroline, Ariel, Ariel’s friend Marina and I, after all the sturm and drang, had a great ol’ time at UFC. A decent number of appreciative fans (hard to determine exactly how many, but it seemed like a few hundred), smoothly run programming (I mean, yeah, the Saturday night banquet started fifteen minutes late, big deal), hanging out with old friends such as the peerless Bill and Eileen Mumy, Grace Lee Whitney and Tracy Scoggins, and making new friends such as BSG’s Nicki Clyne, Dr. Who’s Wendy Padbury, and–‘eeeeyyyy–Henry Winkler.

Bob Greenberger braved near hurricane winds to come up Saturday afternoon to hang out, which was great. Pocket Books was kind enough to send me one hundred copies of my brand spanking new Trek novel, “Before Dishonor,” which I gave out free to the first hundred people who came by my table. At the evening cabaret I read the first chapter of “Tigerheart,” Wendy did a reading of Doctor Who’s long-lost diary which was hysterical (I totally forgot to ask her if she wrote it because it was marvelous) and Mumy did a terrific half-hour set that he himself described as “schizoid,” a fair description of a set that includes heart-felt ballads, a song about the nightmarish blending of Will Robinson into Lennier, and ending with an audience singalong of “Fishheads.” Bill then continued the set out into the lobby, seated at a piano, dueting on some Barnes and Barnes songs with a hardcore B&B fan and even singing the theme to “Space Cases.”

Sold a bunch of stuff, made a decent amount of money, so that was good too. My sister Beth and her family came up as well on Saturday, so Caroline had an opportunity to hang out with her little cousins. Henry gave a terrific speech on Sunday: I missed the first half because I was signing, but Mumy said it was fantastic and inspirational (Kath took the above picture of myself, Henry and Bill afterwards.)

If they have the con next year and invite us up, yes, I’d be there.

PAD

Democrats blow it again

Displaying a staggering lack of sense of humor, the South Carolina Democratic party voted 13-3 to keep Stephen Colbert off the ballot. Their claim was that they were concerned Colbert would make the entire thing come across as a big joke.

Okay…first of all…the Democrats ARE a joke, and I say that as a Democrat. Second, lack of voter turnout in this country is a huge problem. Colbert would have fired up interest in the electoral process. Third, I think their REAL fear was that he would win.

PAD