It’s official – I’ll be attending Launch Pad this year!

I’m incredibly excited about this, and seriously cannot wait for July. Stars! (I live in New York; if you ever see a decent night sky in New York City, something is horribly wrong and you should try to leave that parallel universe immediately.)

(You know, out of context, that title sounds like something Gilgamesh would say, and not a way to instantly get me to quote that film in its entirety.)

A week ago, I passed a little hobby shop that had Galaxy Quest miniatures in the window. I did a double-take, walked back, pressed my face to the grate until my face looked like a waffle iron, and generally pined for them. It took me a week to get back there at a time when they were actually open. But I did, and now I own this:

Box is labeled “Standard Thermian Issue.” APPROVED.

You’d think that owning this, and being able to take it out of the packaging any time I want, would be the best thing ever. (Collectors, please put down your mint-in-box weapons – the bottom of this box is so damaged there’s no point in keeping it pristine. It’s seen better days; it might as well live out its life being carried around on a belt loop as I cosplay as Brandon-at-home-just-as-Jason-calls-him or something.) However, it turns out that this is NOT, in fact the best thing ever, because as I went looking for pictures of this thing, I found a website that has this on it:

Found on The Questerian.

I don’t care if this is the real Japanese poster, or a fan graphic, or a total hoax, because whatever this is, it is the best thing ever. (That gun is shooting “Never Give Up, Never Surrender,” you guys. YOU GUYS.)

My mom’s reaction when I told her I’d bought Thermian away-team gear: “Well, you’re outside.” (This nerd apple did not fall far from the tree.)

I went home last weekend to visit the family, and as usual, I tried to clean up a little of the driftwood of my young life that remains in the house, so that eventually it will stop looking like a teenager with no social skills lives in their house. (Now she lives in New York, where no one even notices social skills because they’re too busy avoiding being hit by cars. Upgrade!)

There are some really telling things in that house, some of which indicate I had taste (a silk kimono owned by my great-grandmother) and some of which indicate I had, well, questionable taste. (Uh, no comment.)

The thing I took back from this trip was my box of comics.

When I was, oh, 11-ish, I got into the X-Men in a major way. I read up on Uncanny, I devoured X-Men, and my passion for them lasted until one of those impossible crossovers a few years later where I was trying to get hold of 15 books a week just to find out who won the Shi’ar gladiatorial games when some mutants were kidnapped and something something Savage Land something and Genosha whatever and five THOUSAND people got involved. I was young, and I had no money. Eventually you just cannot cross over one more time, you know? EVEN IF ROGUE IS INVOLVED. (Sorry, Rogue. Nobody loved you more than me, I promise!)

To be fair, though, my comic-book habit was greatly aided and abetted by my dad, who tended to swing by the comic shop on a regular basis and bring home a comic for me. (At the time I assumed it was because of my grades, but looking back on my childhood I think he just wanted to prevent me from going outside and hurting myself, which is also good parenting, so, well done Dad!)

He knew X-Men was my book, and he knew I loved Rogue, so he was always on the lookout for her. Unfortunately, he never quite grokked what exactly Rogue looked like (the ever-changing costumes probably did not help), so my white storage box is about 70% X-Men comics and other random comics featuring Rogue, and about 30% old X-Men reprints that featured Kitty Pryde, in whom I had no interest, but about whom I ended up knowing quite a bit, just by accident! (Brunette X-Men Unite, I guess!)

I had forgotten the Kitty Pryde books, but when I got home there they were, filed quietly in the back of the box, bearing the evidence of one read before they were taped back in their sleeves and hidden away. I saved them even then, because I thought my dad was pretty cool for supporting my comic book habit, and when I opened the box, it was confirmed.

Uh, in other news, I will be carving out time this weekend to slap some Roxette on the tape player, shove my hair into a scrunchie, and read some comics.

So, doubtless ill-advisedly, I’ve started a Tumblr: Questionable Taste Theatre!

No worries about cross-posting; as with my Twitter, I try to limit overlap. On the other hand, this Tumblr will probably have stuff like one-off movie costume commentary QTT movies I abandon (like the one I tried where Alec “Maud’Dib” Newman is a stockbroker-slash-jazz-pianist and Amy Adams stands on the street corner and sings with him every night even though They Are Strangers and He Must Find Her and I just couldn’t, you guys, seriously), which this LJ probably won’t have. So, if you’re dying for a picture of that movie that I scribbled all over in MS Paint, tune in to Tumblr! (It deserved it. It was awful.)

In other news I couldn’t discuss until now, I got called up for jury duty! I heard a lot about the importance of being fair and unbiased, and then they piped in Fox News all day long. (Oh, court system, you’re a gas!) I didn’t get chosen for an actual jury because I had past circumstances that rendered me ineligible, etc. However, I was one of the last called for this jury, so I got to watch the selection process for a good long time. Turns out, you can practically see a Sims diamond appearing over the heads of those who will eventually be chosen.

Unrelated anecdote: I was walking home last night, catching up with my parents, and a cab did an illegal U-turn in the middle of the intersection and nearly hit me (like, “I had to jump backwards to avoid being struck by his rear-view mirror” nearly). I proceeded to give him an incredibly loud and colorful* explanation of pedestrian right-of-way; he sheepishly tried to take his foot off the brake and roll out of the situation (hilariously), but was too nervous to actually hit the gas, so I just walked alongside him until I was finished.

Then I remembered I had been doing the Nun Point with my phone hand, and my parents were still on the line.

* I would like to pretend this was badass-profanity colorful, but it was mostly, “Do you know what a WALK sign looks like? It looks like someone walking! Like I’m walking after you right now because YOU ARE TRYING TO ROLL AWAY FROM ME.”

It’s good to know that as I’m working hard on my projects, carefully trying to establish narrative, comedy gold is happening by accident in my backyard.

The Musical Theatre Neighbors are having their first afternoon party of spring. They have foregone the usual show tunes, however, and are instead dancing very seriously to what sounds like 1993-era house techno…all six of them. It’s like when Middleman went to the debauched sorority party, and it was two dozen extras holding balloons and red cups and vaguely shimmying. Cool it down there, you Dionysians!

(Oh, Musical Theatre Neighbors, Never change.)