Fun...

Yesterday we went down to Escondido for the afternoon & evening to see the RiffTrax guys, famous for their long-running TV show 'Mystery Science Theater 3000' tear up 'Reefer Madness'. Rich Kyanka from Something Awful hosted it, and the live show we attended was then broadcast live nationwide to hundreds of other theaters.

It was great fun, we laughed so much our faces hurt. Lowtax had taken several of his 5 year daughter's stories and together with Schmorky, made some animated shorts with her narrating--they were very charming, had that typical young kid imaginative stream-of-conciousness-jump-cut thing going...and she's freakin' adorable. There were also a couple of shorts from the RiffTrax crew--one from the '30's on the dangers of using a pan of gasoline for home dry-cleaning (WTF?! Really, '30's housewives?), a VERY creepy cartoon featuring a father who allowed his son to die then rifled his pockets for change and went on to eat one of his shoes, until the kid popped up again...but was later fed to a polar bear by his father. The makers claimed it was an Aesop's Fable, but damn, it was more like Aesop's fever dream. Strange what people in the 30's thought was funny. And that old-cartoon bouncy, rubbery dance the characters always do is creepy, Jesus.

The real jewel of the evening was a short educational film about the wonders of grass. Not the kind you smoke, but that weedy shit that grows in vacant lots. What the guys did with that had us howling and practically lying in the aisles.

Afterwards we all went to the Stone Brewery in Escondido for dinner, the kid had some awesome penne Alfredo while J. and I got some absolutely lovely roasted garlic/smokey cheddar cheese soup. Great, now I stink and am addicted to a soup that is no less than and hour and a half from my house on a GOOD traffic day.

The only bummer was the drive down, at least till we got to San Juan Capistrano. Traffic was thick and the weather was nearly-ungodly hot, and it took us a full two hours to get there. But the kid got to see some military helicopters doing some manuvers as we passed Pendleton, including one helicopter crew that circled quite low over our open-topped convertible and waved back at us. :)

Since they filmed the show, we'll have to see if we are in the DVD when it comes out. The next one will be in October when they do 'The House On Haunted Hill'. Hopefully it will again be somewhere on this coast where we can attend. We didn't get back home intil nearly midnight, but damn, what a fun night!