August 14 – August 20 (2023)

RANDOM PIC OF THE WEEK

Every once in a while I see a meme on-line that pretty much sums it up.

Back in the 80s the Moody Blues had a few great songs we used to play on the radio all the time. When “Gemini Dream” came up on my device this weekend, it brought back a few good memories, so of course I had to crank it up!

Monday the 14th – HOTTER OUTSIDE, COOLER IN – My first stop of the day was at the bank to make some deposits. Since the weather was pretty hot I decided to drive and not walk. Then I headed over to Staples to drop off a return package for Amazon. Staples is one of their drop-off locations for returns, and since the two new fans I bought for my computer system were too small…back they went. I hit Carny’s for a hot dog, fries and a Diet Pepsi, and ate them in my car while I listened to toonz. I got some groceries on the way home, and headed back to Planet Wallywood to put everything away. I did some work around the house. I noticed that my computer WAS running cooler, thanks to my pal Joe coming over to help me clean out all the vents and ports. Obviously my computer system is getting better ventilation now. I recorded my auditions for the evening, and then my old pal Emma stopped by to go grab dinner. We had a nice time eating outside at Coral Café and enjoying the evening. The crickets were chirping loudly and the weather was perfect! Later I took a WOG (walk/jog) through our complex in the middle of the night, and I relaxed with an ice cold iced tea in my anti-grav chair and looked at the sky. I came back inside and typed out Wally’s Week.

Tuesday the 15th – PLANET WALLYWOOD UPGRADES! – Since I needed a specifically-sized shelf to hold the paperback books in my new James Bond display, I had my pal Kyle at Plastic Depot whip one up. I stopped by his shop in the late afternoon to pick it up. It was the exact dimensions I needed and it was perfect! Custom-made stuff is always best; more expensive, but worth it. Since I was in the neighborhood, I stopped by the Alex in Wonderland shop to drop off some new F3 fleece I had just bought. The other fleece she tried to dye didn’t come out well because of a flaw in the weave of the fabric. Hopefully this new F3 will dye beautifully and we can get the perfect lavender shade we need to get started on The Count replica. I drove deeper into Burbank and hit the Ikea location. I enjoyed a Swedish meatball dinner, and then went shopping. I wanted to buy three more lighted LED head displays for my Muppet caps. These lamps are shaped like a human head, but have a color-changing LED lighting system inside. The lights will change colors, or you can settle on one color. For my four custom Muppet caps that I made, I wanted to have each of them on a colored head display, but each character would have their own specific color. I also picked up a few other items, loaded them into the Gray Ghost and I was on my way home on a VERY warm summer day. I recorded all the auditions I needed to do for that day, and then installed my new custom-made Plexiglas shelf in my James Bond display. I needed to drill a few extra holes for added fortification, as the shelf was a little “teetery.” I added an extra support mechanism under the shelf with armature wire, and it worked perfectly! I moved the Roger Moore figure down from the upper part of the case, and added him to the rest of the Bond figures. To place him next to the other figures, I drilled a hole into the base, put in a T nut, screwed in the support rod, and affixed Mr. Moore to the base. It looked fantastic! I organized everything one final time, cleaned the glass doors, and sealed up the display. Perfect! I dug out my “Spinal Tap” figures from my main showcase (they had been buried so far underneath everything I doubt anyone ever realized I had them) and put them in the three empty spaces on the top of the figure cabinet. I was saving two spots for a forthcoming set of Laurel and Hardy figures, but I was notified last week that the company producing them had gone out of business, and the pre-orders would not be fulfilled. Since I moved Roger Moore down below, I now had three available spaces for figures; perfect for Nigel Tufnel, David St. Hubbins, and Derek Smalls! I posed them and mounted them on the base and they looked amazing! In case the shelf from Plastic Depot didn’t work out, I bought two acrylic display shelves on Amazon a while back. Since the Bond shelf worked out great, I took the acrylic Amazon shelves and put them up in the kitchen to display cereal premiums; the little prizes you used to get inside cereal boxes. I particularly used to love things called “Springies” – which were little figures of Rocky, Bullwinkle, Lucky the Leprechaun, and Underdog that more resembled erasers than anything. But we used to collect and trade them in elementary school. I spent a goodly amount of time looking through my hardware drawer to find the perfect screws to hang the shelves on my wall. VOILA! I found them after an exhaustive search. Once I got the shelves hung perfectly I was ready to throw the box in which they came in the trash. I heard a rattling inside. RATS! The shelves came with their own screws! I completely wasted my time looking for screws on my own! That’ll teach me to search the entire contents of the box when I get a shipment! As I stood in the kitchen admiring the new addition, I heard a rattling that I couldn’t identify. I thought, “Uh oh. What now?!” I opened the blinds to discover that it was rain tapping at my window. IT WAS RAINING! What? I had no idea it was even supposed to rain. But it didn’t last long. Good thing I didn’t go out for my nightly WOG! I finished up writing Wally’s Week, which was delayed a night because my webmaster Scott was out of town. But now that he’s back I spent all night finishing up my material to send to him. Whew! What a busy night!

Wednesday the 16th – E.L.OOOO.M.G!!! – Since it was a hot, breezy summer day, my pals Edi and Sara met me for lunch on the patio at Paty’s. It was a very pleasant afternoon of good food and fun conversation! On the way home I stopped at Baskin-Robbins and got some ice cream to cool the day. This Veteran’s Day in November, Joe Walsh from the Eagles is having his 7th annual VetsAid concert, and this one is in Chula Vista, down by San Diego. Appearing on the bill will be Jeff Lynne’s ELO, which will be their first concert appearance since 2019! I saw them three times in 2017, 2018 and 2019 and they’re fantastic! I told my pal Officer Mark about it and he scored four really great tickets using a special code that was given out via Jeff Lynne’s Instagram account! It worked! Now I just have to convince my old pal Scott Maguire in Sioux Falls to come out and join us! When I got home I started plotting the lighting scheme in the Puppet Room. I only have two outlets in the Puppet Room that are switched from the wall switch, and I like all the lights to come on at once when the switch is turned on. That means I have a lot of lights running off the same outlet, and much of the lighting scheme was assembled as an afterthought; as I had added lighting effects over time. But now that I have everything set the way I like it, I broke it all down to streamline it considerably. I got rid of all the extension cords and multi-plugs, and did a complete redesign. I need one of those large 10-plug power strips to really make the whole thing work the way I’d like it, so I’ll pick one of those up at the hardware store tomorrow. But I got the lighted LED heads from Ikea all hooked up and it looked great! It was nice getting rid of a lot of the old-fashioned halogen puck lights in the displays, and replacing them with cooler LEDs that use less power and aren’t as hot. As I broke them down I noticed that the bulky transformers on the lights had melted a little bit because of the heat. NOT GOOD! I’m glad I’m getting rid of them all. I’d like to replace every halogen light in Planet Wallywood with LEDs, but some areas just aren’t possible. Some of the lights have been built into cabinetry and they would be near impossible to remove! I guess when my contractor Terry and I made them we didn’t think far enough ahead to anticipate that they’d need to be replaced someday. I did a lot of labeling of cords and cables so I know exactly what I’m dealing with and everything’s clear as day when I start hooking things back up. I had enough lighting to replace the puck lighting in the Hanna-Barbera case, but I needed to order some extension cables for the lighting in the Kermit and Animal cases. This will involve removing everything from the upper shelves (including the entire “Wizard of Oz” bust display!) and installing the new lights, but it’ll be worth it. Plus, I can clean everything once it’s down and make sure it’s free of dust before reinstallation. The four Muppet caps looked great on their lighted heads! I took a WOG and then spent some time outside looking at the sky in my anti-grav chair. Then I came back inside and did some writing.

Thursday the 17th – LET’S GET LIT! – Before I took off for my Voice Over session I did a little work around the house. Then I drove to Voice Trax West to do a short session for Voice Director Bill Black. Afterwards I stopped at CVS to get a prescription, got some groceries, went to the post office to drop off some bills, and then hit the hardware store to get a giant 10-outlet power strip; a big one! I got home and went upstairs to the Puppet Room and plugged everything in. It looked perfect, and now it’s streamlined and clean! I’m just waiting for my extension power cables to show up to put on the finishing touches! The nice thing is, I have room to grow if I want to add anything else. And these new LED lights don’t draw the amount of power the old lights did, and they’re much brighter too! Later I did an audition, took a WOG and tried to spend some time in the anti-grav chair outside, but it got too cold. I came back inside to do some work.

Friday the 18th – HURRICANE? HURRI-LAME! – Everywhere I went there were tropical storm warnings everywhere. But California doesn’t usually get hurricanes, as a rule. What they’re expecting is a lot of rain, some flooding (because our drainage systems in L.A. are all crap), and some possible wind. I did some work around the house until the maids arrived, and later Angi came over. We headed to Paty’s for dinner and ate on the patio. It was a beautiful, calm evening. The normal channels on their big screen TVs were overtaken with a static screen of storm warnings. Was it really going to be all that? We’ll see. I got back home and relaxed, but once again, it was too cold outside to enjoy time in the anti-grav chair. I decided to get ahead of the game and record all my auditions which were due on Monday. I made a salad and watched an episode of “The Incredible Hulk.” I also spun around on the TV dial and came across a 3 hour Def Leppard concert that was shot in Las Vegas. I like this band, but it seemed like a lot of filler. Many of the songs I didn’t recognize at all. I was hoping against hope that they would do the song “Promises,” which I absolutely adore! I kept switching back to the channel to see. Sure enough, at one hour and 20 minutes into their concert, THEY DID IT! It sounded amazing! What a great song! I goofed off all day and didn’t end up getting to sleep until around 3 on Saturday afternoon! My sleep schedule was all screwed up, but that’s OK. I have the entire weekend off!

Saturday the 19th – HIBERNATION MODE?! – I slept all day on Saturday, got up for a bit to feed Spook, and then slept again. Am I in hibernation mode? It sure felt good catching up on rest.

Sunday the 20th – HURRI-QUAKE! – After a marathon sleep session, napping in various locations around the house, I finally got up for good around 7:30 Sunday morning. The heavy rain was supposed to start around 11 that morning. I kind of wanted to be awake to see just how bad everything was going to get. When I woke up I was very hungry, and I was craving a Lumberjack Slam at Denny’s. So I ordered one on-line and headed over to pick it up. Was I going to eat it while watching my usual Saturday night episode of “The Saint?” Was I going to have to rename it a “Saturday Night Super Saint SLAM?” Naw. It smelled so good on the way home I decided to eat it as soon as I got back. It was delicious and hit the spot! It was kind of nice and nostalgic eating a breakfast like this on a quiet, rainy morning. When I was a kid, my grandpa used to get up early on a Saturday morning and head to his job at the local college to put in half a day’s work doing his custodial duties. His old jangly alarm would wake us up at 5:30 and we’d head down to a local truck stop called “Night And Day” in his Model A Ford. He and I would have a nice breakfast together, and then head over to the college to do some work. I remember it being rainy and overcast many of those mornings. Spending a fun morning with grandpa at the college is one of my fondest memories, and this morning was giving me that nostalgic feeling! When I finished breakfast I started working in the “breakfast nook” in my kitchen. I decided to break down one of the displays on the corner shelves and clean everything. I also figured out a way to display a Quisp watch I had bought back in the 90s, along with the Quisp cereal boxes. It was another one of those items that had been shoved all the way back in the bottom of my main showcase, but now that I was doing a breakfast nook redux of the items, I felt it deserved to be more prominently displayed. I got it affixed to the shelves and it looked amazing. Late Saturday evening my parents had returned from their four day vacation across South Dakota with my sister Peggy and her husband Jeff. I decided to call them and chat with them a bit about their trip. Even though it was now Sunday afternoon (and not Saturday night) I watched an episode of “The Saint,” followed by an episode of “Have Gun – Will Travel” that I recorded. But as I was watching TV I felt the Tranquility Zone starting to move! On top of the “hurricane” we were having, we were also having an earthquake just for good measure. (A HURRIQUAKE maybe?) Great. Just what we needed. While the rain that was coming down wasn’t really any worse than what we experienced this past winter (lots of rain and flooding this past year) it sure made for a nice, sleepy Sunday afternoon. I enjoyed listening to the rain while I moved in and out of sleep. Later I did some work around the house, and I decided to start working on my vintage Laurel and Hardy marionettes to get them restrung for display. They needed to have all of the old string removed, as it was decaying quite badly, and I wanted to put in a new set of monofilament strings. I had considered replacing them with black cotton string, like the originals, but after talking with some of the puppeteers at the Bob Baker Marionette Theater a few weeks ago, they swore by monofilament! There are little round, metal “string anchors” sewn into the hands and feet of the puppets, and those needed to be removed. I had to cut the stitches delicately to remove them, throw away the remnants of black string, and restring them with monofilament. It wasn’t easy, but it was very rewarding. I stitched the new strings through their cloth hands and feet and now I’m ready to attach the strings to the controllers. The hard part for me will be to close the incisions in the seams when everything is done. It’s too small of a job to bother my seamstress Maggie with, so I need to do it myself somehow. This will be an awesome display once I get the Puppet Room retooled to my liking!

And how was YOUR week??!!

PIX FROM THE WEEK

The additions to the 12 inch figure cabinet are complete! Spinal Tap have taken their rightful place on the top portion, and the Bond display has been nicely finalized down below!