austin_dern

Finally back to Michigan Anthro Weekend. I believe that at some point Friday we tried to get into the Dealers Den, but weren't able to because there was a heck of a line outside the room. We would get in eventually, although bunnyhugger would not a commission in her sketchbook from anyone there. (There wasn't a separate Artists Alley.) She did get some sketches, though, from a sketchbook-swap event that she went to sometime awful, I think early Saturday morning. So not all was lost.

Sometime in the afternoon we split up, with me having a loose idea of getting to ``A Guide To Grand Rapids'', a spoof informative panel. I ended up diverted to the ``Postfurry Party'' thanks to running into MYC and boyfriend and we joined the group that was talking about what the heck postfurry is and what it was about. Happens that I'm in a Discord with some of the original postfurry icons so was able to report that they were not forgotten, just held up as foundational figures of the movement. This also included doing an activity where people folded a paper into thirds and on one third drew the head of a character, on the next the middle, and on the last the legs and tail, without ever looking at what was on the other, passing pages around in a sort of Exquisite Corpse-style game and, yeah, that generated some plausible postfurry characters, figures with seven-eyed heads and appliance chests and an asymmetric set of legs, that kind of thing.

After that bunnyhugger and I found each other again and we went to the My Hoard Is Bigger Than Yours panel. We assumed this to be your basic dragons meet-and-greet, and there was a good concentration of dragons here. But it was more a matter of showcasing collections of easily portable things you might feel willing to trade or give away or pick up more of. That sort of thing. Tragically we didn't know about this or we'd have figured something --- bunnyhugger keeps meaning to bring some of her excess stickers to one of these --- but at least it gave us the chance to see this suiter who'd worked out how to do a (some kind of) trout. This with a head and gloves and a long, vertical fish tail strapped to their back. And a meme-ready hat, ``Fish Love Me - Men Fear Me''. Great outfit.

The dance came much earlier in the night than we expected; it ran 9 pm to midnight, and it went pretty nicely. Good crowd compared to the space available, and the music was more to my-and-bunnyhugger's liking than the usual, and bunnyhugger's Cerberus kigurumi, the only one she'd decided worth the trouble of bringing, was well-liked and even correctly identified by several people.

So, we got out of the dance around midnight, and had time to walk around the hotel and see a good number of people gathering in good, lively bunches, and we had a pretty good feeling. The convention was in surprisingly good order for its first performance, and we had not yet had a serious disappointment.

I know you think you've seen a lot of The House On The Rock but we're not done yet!

We couldn't test this out, but it's a whole coin-op symphony; look at all those instruments. If it works it has to be something unbelievable.

Pretty sure this is one of the Fleischer-era Superman cartoons.

And now we're on to scrimshaw, possibly even the real thing. It's stunning and a little unsettling to look at in any case.

And now to another doll carousel, this one, I think it was, seven layers tall.

Some of the dolls on this second carousel. Yes, I kept checking whether I was accidentally looking at the same one from a second angle.

More of the second carousel dolls, only one of which has passed out head-first in its egg and chips.

Trivia: In 1901, two-thirds of all American businesses with $10 million or more in capital were incorporated in New Jersey. Source: The Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea, John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge. The state had very loose incorporation laws and convenient ferry access to Manhattan. When Progressives took over the statehouse in Trenton and tightened things up so companies had to obey the occasional rule, the companies decamped to Delaware (and other loose states, but mostly Delaware).

Currently Reading: The Chinese Typewriter: A History, Thomas S Mullaney.

Another day without time to write so please enjoy far more pictures of The House On The Rock, a very much of a place:

So you may ask where the House on the Rock got a sabretooth-tiger-taur figure, like, what carver ever made such a thing for them to possibly acquire. Yeah.

Anyway, here's a seahorse and a kiddie-size centauress.

I am genuinely impressed with the work on the camel and the painted dome above.

Zebra, tiger, and oh so very many lights. Can you imagine how much of their time has to be spent replacing burned-out bulbs? Or defective LEDs?

There's that double-hippocampus gondola again, plus, an elephant and an armless kiddie-size centauress.

And with a gryphon mid-stride and another small centauress we close out the visit to the carousel ... for now.

In the next room is this frightfully complicated organ that could also be the control room for a 1970s movie spaceship.

Here's some of the pipes that that organ controls (I believe; there's several controls around).

Got the time? I'm not actually sure I can reconstruct just where I was when I saw this.

I hardly need to explain the ... uh ... nude figure with tiger ... uh ... on a chain? Or something?

And obviously, there's no having a giant clock in a room of multiple giant organs if they're not going to have a row of basketballs.

And now, a moment of calm: a snack bar way off ... somewhere ... in the compound. Unfortunately not serving right now, but at least it was a chance to look at a normal amount of things, and dubiously true inspirational quotes, and go to the bathroom.

Trivia: The United States General Land Office, in its annual report of 1943, estimated the total amount of public lands given to railroads in exchange for construction was 131,350,534 acres. Source: The Story of American Railroads, Stewart H Holbrook. An 1884 estimate put it at 155,504,994 acres; among many explanations for the discrepancy is that land would be allocated but not actually granted for railroads that did not complete their lines. Anyway Holbrook's thesis is that this wasn't all that much land, considering how much mileage got tracked and how cheap the land was. The cost of relocating or confining or killing the people already living on the land was, of course, charged to the Army.

It's the first week since my humor blog reached a milestone and retired from guaranteeing a daily presence! How's that feel? ... Only a little smaller, really. Here's what's been published since this time a week ago:

• MiSTed: All The King's Horses, Part 18: Marrissa, The Pope, and The Other
• Statistics 5,000: To September and Beyond
• Statistics Saturday: Some Ominous Signs (Road)
• What's Going On In Gasoline Alley? Who's this Kevin Brogan guy? July - October 2026
• Vixen Park, S1 E7: I Fought The Fox (And The Fox Won)
• MiSTed: All The King's Horses, Part 19: After The Lunch

In The House On The Rock we're now into the maritime exhibit and you know where that has to be going, right? No? No, you just have to kind of experience it all. Here goes:

So here's the mouth of that whale, which you can see is like four flights up from the ground. I don't know how they keep this thing stable.

A copy of the Dayton Daily News about the Titanic sinking. I'm guessing this is one of the Wisconsin Daytons, but who can say for sure? (They also have, deeper into the exhibits, a large replica of the Titanic.)

And then a much less interesting news day: the Cunard lines' on-ship newspaper for October 6, 1961.

I would have expected the Gaymer's Cyder to be lit in much more annoying colors.

View of the whale and kraken from above. I think this is a floor higher than bunnyhugger felt comfortable going; the uppermost floor feels flimsier than the others.

On to a new room! Here's a bunch of marionettes, including one of Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp and ... is that a Sleestack in the center?

A bunch of Burma-Shave limericks. I imagine these are reproductions, although the rust and bullet holes in the second poem are suggestive of authenticity.

And then here were some pillars filled with cameras. THese were all labelled so for a rare moment we knew what the heck it was we were looking at. It was cameras.

More musical instruments. I also really like the music-notation Dalmatian on the left.

But how about a disco-ball Late 50s Car?

With this sign we see a promised return to musical machines.

OK, so they're musical machines and gnomes, but still, musical machines are part of it.

Trivia: In February 1934 Powel Crosley Jr, as part of a syndicate to buy the Cin[...]ti Reds baseball team, paid $240,000 to buy 3,200 of the 6,000 shares in the team, and a two-year option to buy a controlling share. Source: Crosley: Two Brothers and Business empire that Transformed the Nation, Rusty McClure with David Stern and Michael A Banks.

Currently Reading: The Chinese Typewriter: A History, Thomas S Mullaney.

Back around Anthrohio, as we were regretting how our furry convention season was already done, we noticed a couple flyers for something labelled MAW. More impressively, the M stood for Michigan, a Michigan Anthro Weekend convention announced for early October, and in Grand Rapids. This seemed interesting, if it really happened. Over the months to come we --- I, at least --- started hearing more about it, enough to convince me that it was actually happening, and that it had a clear idea of having programming and events and stuff to do. So, with thoughts of Great Lakes Fur Con (2014 - I am told 2016 somehow) in our heads, we set out making the plans to attend.

By the time I knew where the Telegram group was they'd already closed for panel submissions, so we couldn't contribute any of our usual expertise. They might not have been able to take it anyway, though; they had only two panel rooms, and only a couple other event rooms. I gathered that this was in part because they were, as an untested convention, unable to reserve more space from a skeptical hotel. Even if the space might not have the panels we'd find most appealing, at least there would always be something to see, which was a good sign.

So, I got the time off from work, offering vaguely that I ``hope to see friends''; I don't see much reason I couldn't be more direct but I do want to protect my reputation as the boring one in the work group. bunnyhugger found rooms in the convention hotel, although not in the con block because those were booked in a Pinburgh flash. We had the mail held, but didn't arrange anything special like a house sitter this time. Just made sure the net over the goldfish pond was as high as could be and trusted we'd be back in two days to deal with anything.

Going to the nearest convention we've yet attended --- it's closer even than our most regular non-Lansing pinball hangout --- meant we felt safe to pack light, oddly. bunnyhugger decided to bring just the one fursuit, and just one kigurumi, as did I. (My Stitch's Girlfriend Angel kigurumi still needs some repairs we figure to get to one of these days.) And so we set off for a surprisingly warm, sunny October weekend, ready to discover who knows what ...

Also today (as I write this) I learn from the Anthrohio Telegram group there's a new furry convention starting next February in whatever ``Miamisburg, Ohio'' is. Apparently it's somewhere near Dayton?

That'll be told over the comic week-ish, but for now, how about more House on the Rock, which should also take a week-ish?

And now we're heading back downstairs. There's a shelf up top there that was too high for even me to see, but I could reach up and photograph the top and see there's ... bonsai?

Now that's a big music box! Also you can get tokens; most of the boxes were two tokens a play.

Oh but this? I had this piggy bank as a kid! You put the coin in the horse's mouth, then pulled the rod on back of the base and it leaned forward to drop the coin in the trough. Often, anyway; the coin would get stuck a lot.

And now into the barely-lit indoor 'streets of yesteryear' in a vaguely 1900s village.

That's, I believe, the village barbershop and sarsaparillatorium.

And then lamps. You need some lamps? How about clocks?

Trivia: A member of the Japanese Diet was expelled in 1940 for suggesting that Japan might not have the resources needed to attain military victory against the Chinese Nationalists. Source: The Vulnerability of Empire, Charles A Kupchan.

Currently Reading: The Chinese Typewriter: A History, Thomas S Mullaney.

PS: What's Going On In Gasoline Alley? Who's this Kevin Brogan guy? July - October 2026 in plot recaps, and showing I have held my resolve about the humor blog at least this far.

Apart from Steel Hawg, which name finally connected with the fact we'd passed two motorcycle museums on the way in to make us wonder if there's something about the motorcycle industry in Indiana (answer: I dunno, didn't lok it up), and Cyclone, we would get on all the roller coasters of Indiana Beach. And we'd have good riding, too, a lot of literal walk-ons or ones where we had no important wait. They also had changed the station for Hoosier Hurricane some, putting up plywood and plexiglass obstructing the far end of the station. This configuration seems like it's maybe a temporary thing while they figure out how to make it difficult to drop something from the elevated platform (half the rides at Indiana Beach are above ground) into a new ride below that we never saw running. The ride looks like a more compact version of the Gravitron, with less inclined walls and a narrower diameter, which seem like incompatible design goals. Maybe it runs slower; we never saw it operating or I promise you, I would have ridden it and bunnyhugger would not.

The major exceptions to the short-line-wait were Lost Coaster of Superstition Mountain, as recounted, and All-American Triple Loop, when that finally opened. The line was pretty substantial, reasonably for a still new-to-the-park ride, and moving slowly. The coaster, when we rode it, as Quimera, in Mexico City, had multiple trains of five cars each, so it could dispatch twenty people at once and load up another 20 more before they were back. (Roller Coaster Database says there were three trains but I will bet they didn't all run at once.) Triple Loop has a mere three cars, for twelve riders each, and they were only half-loading the train. One of the operators explained that he had been told not to load more than about 1200 pounds into the car, so, six or seven people at a go. So this is how we ended up spending more time waiting for this ride than all other rides combined.

There were good sides to this, though. For one, while we were waiting, we saw an Eastern cottontail rabbit hop through the chain fence and into the infield of the roller coaster. Guy behind me said we would next see the rabbit running like the dickens out of there when the train started up. bunnyhugger and I, with more experience in Amusement Park Rabbits, said naw. The rabbits would have learned pretty quickly that the roller coaster is big and noisy but will not do anything to harm them, while the fences around it do a good job keeping out predators like foxes and coyotes and such. We would be quietly proven right, when no rabbits fled the next ride cycle, although I did see a rabbit --- I assume the same one --- hopping out from under the ride to exit through the fence on the other side. Might have just been taking a shortcut to Steel Hawg. (Sadly, the rabbit got under cover, and got out again, too fast for me to even try photographing.)

The other good thing is one of the three cars was facing backwards, and if you were one of the six or seven chosen for that ride cycle you could choose to take the ride in reverse. Two of you could; the 'front' seat of the backwards car was closed for some reason (probably the restraints being stuck closed, almost always the problem). It happened that we got to be the first people let onto our ride cycle and bunnyhugger acceeded to my interests in letting us take the reverse seat. We disappointed some kids behind us who, I think, just assumed of course oldies like us wouldn't want the fun seat. The reverse seat --- not something Quimera offered --- was exciting, not just because it's unusual to ride anything that way but also because we remembered the layout of the coaster only vaguely, so we were constantly being surprised and not knowing what way to brace or be ready for. It's probably have been a fun ride facing forward (we had no complaints about it at La Feria, luckily) but it was a fun surprising ride facing backward.

There was also an odd operational bit. They closed the line while we were on it, way too early for a ``we want the last ride of the day to be close to the park closing hour'' line closing. Turns out at least one of the ride operators needed to go to the bathroom, and there wasn't anyone who could take their place, so they were just going to process the line that was there, then all go to the bathroom. You won't find that on the list of Cedar Point Operations radio code messages.

We're just now getting into the House on the Rock. Hope you enjoy pictures that were challenging to take because the light is not abundant here:

Some idea of what we're going to go through here. The covered walkways are what you might think. The big metal warehouse, though? Are you thinking ``Mega-Kraken Versus Super-Whale''? Why not?

Stepping into the House where it's relatively normal and, if you just look to the right side, kind of looks like the 1970s-era building for St Thomas Moore church.

There are abundant lights to try to overcome the darkness and I kept thinking how hard it must be to wire this place.

But here, look just at this and you kind of see a fairly normal mid-century stylish living room, right?

And it even has an adorable bellows to go with one of the estimated 701 fireplaces. Then you look to the right ...

And suddenly you're walking off to infinity.

Trivia: Kathryn D Sullivan's first spacewalk training exercises in the Marshall Space Flight Center's diving tank were done wearing one of Apollo 12 commander Pete Conrad's old spacesuits, as space shuttle suits were not yet ready. She was too tall for it. Source: The Six: The Untold Story of America's First Women Astronauts, Loren Grush. (Conrad was the shortest of the moonwalkers.)

Currently Reading: The Chinese Typewriter: A History, Thomas S Mullaney.

The first thing we did as newly-minted Indiana Beach Season Pass Holders was go to Rocky's Roundup, their (small) kiddie carousel. It's a 1950s ALlan Herschell, although even the National Carousel Association census can't figure it any more specifically than that. (They aren't even sure when the ride came to Indiana Beach or where it was before that.) Rocky, meanwhile, is a raccoon, one of the secondary mascots they've taken up into the park. I haven't seen him in anything but partial view on a couple ride signs, and not in merchandise or plush or anything.

But we did see their primary, long-time, mascot, I B Crow! I didn't know they even had a walk-around suit for it, but there he was, wandering between a couple of buildings near one of the coffee shops. We dashed over after the ride we'd been on, and I B's handler got a picture of me and bunny_hugger together with him. Thus do we extend our streak of amusement park mascot photos.

We also would end up extending our streak of getting souvenir cups. The deal for an Indiana Beach Souvenir Cup seemed good enough that if we got a reasonable number of refills it'd pay off that day. Also we're not sure whether the cup can be used next year; it's not dated and we saw plenty of people with a different souvenir cup design around. Also we discovered we had forgotten the important thing of getting some way to mark our cup to stand out from other people's. Even digging one of my hair bands out of the car wouldn't have helped us here, as the souvenir cup doesn't have a handle, just the tapering cylinder of its main body. We'll figure something out in time.

And now I have to leave off on that as we've just now made the decision to go to a pinball tournament this evening after all, so I don't have time to get more written. Catch you tomorrow.

After Mount Olympus and resting a bit we went to the downtown strip of The Dells and walked around a bit. Here's some pictures of the city by night. Not pictured: searching without luck for a place where we could get quarters for the penny-press machines. We even made small purchases calculated to get change and got back so many dimes and nickels for some reason.

Part of our walk. Much of the main drag looked roughly like this, T-shirt factories (much less to eat than at Cheesecake Factory) and penny press machines and small groups of people walking the summer night.

Nig's is apparently an old-time bar in town and I do like the variety of sign shapes and typefaces and general design. Not the name I would have gone with.

Of course, gentrification is coming to the Dells, in case someone needs a Funko Pop of Pee-Wee Playhouse's Chairry.

Around here's where we turned back; we reached a bridge over the river and saw the docks that boat tours leave from.

Could not tell you how many fudge shops we passed, but this one stands out for two things. One is the great sign style and the other is this detail ...

Official fudge maker for the 1964-65 World's Fair! Say, did you know that in a technical sense there was no 1964-65 World's Fair? But then where did all the fudge go?

Trivia: Chaunce Of The Dyse, written in the early 1400s, is a poem with 56 verses, each verse corresponding to one of the 56 sets of possible throws of three dice. Source: Randomness, Deborah J Bennett.

Currently Reading: The Chinese Typewriter: A History, Thomas S Mullaney.

The last Sunday of September --- and the day after my birthday --- we made a trip to Indiana Beach Amusement Park. We'd wanted to get there before its centennial season ended, and we only just made it. This was the last day of regular operations; they're having a very limited opening of a couple rides and stuff in October. We'd have gone the Sunday before but the weather was cold and rainy and it seemed like too much drive for such marginal conditions. Instead, we got very lucky and had a just-warm-enough day of sunny skies and good riding.

This would be something you'd think would settle a weird, pointless argument that pinball and roller coaster buddy JTK was having over facebook with bunnyhugger. When he first heard of our plans to go in late September he insisted the park was closed for the season already, and tried telling bunnyhugger she must have been reading the open hours for the Indiana Beach's main restaurant, which keeps hours semi-independently of the park. (He had been sure the season always ended on one particular special event day, which day --- and a buyout day --- were in mid-September this year.) He finally conceded that yes, both the park and the restaurant were open both Sundays, but the park must have extended their opening season after he checked the closing dates the month before.

We got there a bit before 1:30, with bunnyhugger already worried about the park's 7 pm closing. Especially since we had some business first. We were becoming season pass holders. This for the 2027 season but, as parks usually do for late-season purchases, this was good for the remainder of this season. If we make one visit to Indiana Beach next year, we'll have earned out. I certainly think one or two visits is easy to do, considering the park is only a bit farther away than Cedar Point. bunnyhugger is less sure, but I'm the one driving.

Getting the passes seemed like it'd go easy enough: we showed the receipts at the gate and they pointed us to Guest Services. They didn't accompany us to make sure we didn't go into the park instead, but maybe they were keeping an eye on where we walked. At the Guest Services building there was a small holdup. bunnyhugger had the receipt of our electronic purchase of passes, but she never got the e-mail that would have a barcode included for some reason. (It is not in her spam folder, please trust that she understands the vagarities of her e-mail server.) The clerk was not able to go from the purchase receipt number to the barcode she needed to activate our passes, but she was able to call someone who could look up the barcode on their computer and send screenshots to her phone. We don't know why the Guest Services clerk couldn't look up the barcodes herself, but had to call someone who could. I think the least implausible is that she hadn't been trained on the process of finding it on the computer system, but who knows?

The process seems kind of hacky, but it succeeded. Once she had the screenshots it was but the work of a moment and we were posing for photographs for our new season passes. Said passes are actual physical plastic cards --- no one even hinted that we might want an app instead --- so we have gone from having a single chain's season pass last year to having three chains' passes now.

And so, newly-validated season passes in hand, we went into the park for the close of its centennial season. bunnyhugger --- wearing her Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk shirt, in honor of Indiana Beach's ``boardwalk'' (it's actually a cement walkway lacking boards) --- was horrified I did something so gauche as to wear my Indiana Beach shirt to Indiana Beach, Ah, but my Indiana Beach shirt is not just from 2016 but advertises it's from the park's 90th season. I trusted that any amusement park enthusiasts we encountered would recognize the age as giving it some special glow. If any did, they said nothing.

In pictures, we're still at Mount Olympus, in the second part of our day after the rain had come through and shut things down for hours.

Finally the park is dry enough and cleaned-up enough that rides are reopening. Here's the early bunch getting onto Zeus, with a waiting time of ``open''.

But for Hades 360 there would be no reopening. Do you see why? ... Not really, because the roller coaster is in the way. But there's cherry-pickers surrounding part of the track there.

And, I promise, if you look past all those supports the reason for Hades 360's closure was clear and irrefutable: a tree had fallen down across the track! So the ride would not get cleared to reopen the rest of our day there.

I would console myself with a ride on Manticore here, while bunnyhugger would console herself with not riding Manticore here.

Just a good light and shadow picture of someone walking past puddles in the afternoon.

And now to Cyclops for some more riding.

Trivia: Some of the buildings in Guthrie, Oklahoma, assembled in the first twenty days of the Oklahoma Land Rush (when what had been Creek and Seminole territory was opened to white colonization on the 22nd of April, 1889) are still standing. Source: Land: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World, Simon Winchester.

Currently Reading: The Complete Pogo Volume 1: Through The Wild Blue Wonder, Walt Kelly. Edited by Carolyn Kelly and Kim Thompson.

I regret not having time to do more than share pictures from Mount Olympus. We'll be back to normal soon.

The return leg of Pegasus, with much of the rest of the park behind it.

Little Titans is the lone steel coaster at the park, and the only one we didn't ride as it's kids-only. We were both kind of okay with that since it looks like a serious knee-banger.

The end of the Hades 360 queue; we were hoping to get a second ride in before the storm arrived.

We failed; they shut everything down or, as the Cyclops queue here puts it, Delayed everything.

And here's someone hustling along through the squall.

Got to be quite wet and quite windy. Notice there's already a bough fallen off the tree in the background.

We were huddled up in the lockers area, which had just enough of an overhang.

People who'd hidden in the picnic shelter taking the chance of a break in the rain to hurry out.

The storm's passed now, but you can see, the park was badly hit and would need hours to get back together. There's that bough fallen on the sidewalk.

We decided to go wait things out in our car, rather than walk around this with nothing to do. At least we could listen to music.

We were among the last people remaining by then.

Us last stragglers. We would end up going back to our hotel room for a couple hours.

Trivia: On George Washington's first visit to Boston as President, in 1789, Massachusetts governor John Hancock feigned an ``indisposition'' that kept him from going to meet the President, although he did extend invitations for Washington to visit him. Washington declined the invitations. Source: The Old Post Road: The Story of the Boston Post Road, Stewart H Holbrook. (Mind, while all agreed the incident was Hancock trying to make himself look bigger than Washington, Hancock did have miserably poor health, and he did send Lieutenant Governor Samuel Adams to meet Washingon entering the city.)

Currently Reading: The Complete Pogo Volume 1: Through The Wild Blue Wonder, Walt Kelly. Edited by Carolyn Kelly and Kim Thompson.

So we've had more stuff going on that I would like to write about, but I don't have time because of even more stuff. So, instead, please have a dozen pictures closing out the trip to the Wizard's Quest roleplaying adventure in the Wisconsin Dells. Tomorrow: something else!

bunnyhugger facing the long walk up to meet The Wizard of Oz himself!

I think these guys were dwellers of the giant trees that are part of the tutorial quest (as well as other stories; every prop is used for a couple things).

This is in the air elemental zone, I believe; I don't think we got to the story with whatever this creature's problem is.

A fireplace with --- hey, we have that Time Life The Enchanted World book series too!

Firey(?) bird(?) creature that I think may have only just hatched, based on the shells beside.

Here in the fire realm is the skeleton of a giant dragon which proved a useful place to shelter from a problem the sky was having.

And here's a monster of the deep reaching out to trap a submarine, in the water realm.

Crew of the poor submarine that's doomed unless you can (spoiler). Also the crew that's able to save the ocean from (spoiler). We did both those stories and failed the first before getting to the second which is logically inconsistent but what are you going to do, have two submarine crews?

Another sea creature; we may have spent the most time in the underwater zones but in our defense they were the most fascinating.

Rune alphabet that's used in one puzzle to figure out where to get the thing to get the thing.

Winged unicorn up in the air realms.

And oh, yeah, this was neat, in the university realms was a mechanical man created and operated by an owl who wanted to be taken seriously.

Trivia: Incoming Secretary of Defense Neil H McElroy was touring the Redstone Arsenal when word came of the Soviet launch of Sputnik. Immediately Werner von Braun began pressing the secretary-designate that they could launch a satellite in only 60 days. When he was finally able to interrupt General John Medaris, commanding the Army Ballistic Missile Agency, corrected that it would need to be at least ninety days to prepare a vehicle and payload. Source: Project Vanguard: The NASA History, Constance McLaughlin Green, Milton Lomask.

Currently Reading: The Complete Pogo Volume 1: Through The Wild Blue Wonder, Walt Kelly. Edited by Carolyn Kelly and Kim Thompson.

This week my humor blog's branched out from talking about comic strips to making a bit of fun of a comic book even the people who created it didn't care about. But I also had one of my stronger subjects for a list of things in the Statistics Saturday post. Here's the evidence:

• MiSTed: All The King’s Horses, Part 16: The Condemnation of Young Mr Boucher
• If the Home Depot Ever Repaves Its Parking Lot I’m in Trouble
• Statistics Saturday: Some Unused Bits Of Folklore
• Robert Benchley: Skol!
• Kind of Lucky Johnny Wasn’t Assigned to Write About the Guano Islands
• What’s Going On In Dick Tracy? What happened to Charles Ettinger? July – September 2026
• Vixen Park, S1 E5: Over The Hills and Fox Away
• MiSTed: All The King’s Horses, Part 17: Just Before Noon

I bring you now the last dozen pictures from the Sanfilippo Estate. After this? Well, you'll see.

Another band organ, in case you haven't had enough facades.

Want another extremely mid-century band organ? Because we've got them.

And since I'm not sure you've had enough yet, here's another!

And these are the books of punch holes for one of the bigger band organs. Fanfold and stiff paper but behind a rope so we couldn't act on the temptation to grab them. Each is like six inches wide, for scale.

They also have a couple of train cars; here's a luxury car that they can't actually hook up to a working engine and send anywhere because the house isn't zoned for that.

Another look over at the carousel from the train cars because I didn't think that had enough pictures yet.

And the inside of the car. Aren't you starting to fall asleep just from the picture?

Beside the car, here's how the fanfold music scrolls go through the organ machinery.

On the one hand, the cards work almost exactly like you'd imagine; on the other, would you ever imagine this was encoded music?

A more ordinary, but still pretty nice, train car that was a gameroom for an English rail line.

A suspiciously well-preserved sign for a public conveyance of 125 years ago. Maybe it was a replica.

They had a couple pieces from the Wurlitzer factory; here, you can see the office furniture which belonged to Farny Wurlitzer. Also, yes,``Farny Wurlitzer'' is something robots say to insult one of their number.

Trivia: In 1935 the NBC Programming Department expressed concern about ``a definite tendency toward effeminate characterizations'' on comedy shows such as Jack Benny's, and recommended banning ``anything of the lavendar [sic] nature''. Source: With Amusement For All: A History of American Popular Culture since 1830, LeRoy Ashby. Ashby notes The Jack Benny Show got more playful and allusive about the aspects of Jack Benny's persona that might read as effeminate.

Currently Reading: The Complete Pogo Volume 1: Through The Wild Blue Wonder, Walt Kelly. Edited by Carolyn Kelly and Kim Thompson. Rereading since I have a digital version now thanks to a HumbleBundle offer.