Since watching “Revenge of the Nerds” last week I’ve had this song in my head. It’s from the classic scene in the film where the nerds enter the talent competition to win control of the Greek Council. Tell me you can listen to this and not laugh (or at least smile!)! It’s called “They’re So Incredible” by Revenge.
Monday the 23rd – READY FOR VACATION! – Even though the 2 week hiatus for “The Tonight Show” started on August 16th, this is the first time I’ve had a chance to get away for a few days. So I was setting the wheels in motion for a two day trip to San Diego. While I had to miss the San Diego Comic Con this year due to work, I still wanted to do my annual visit to the loveliest city on Earth…San Diego! I have certain traditional things I like to do during my trip to San Diego, and I couldn’t let the summer go by without doing them. I did take time to hang out with my friend Dan Roebuck for awhile, as he brought a few friends over to Planet Wallywood for a tour. His friend Dante is going to restore a few of my vintage latex rubber masks in my collection. That evening I finished up Wally’s Week, and then I scanned some checks that I planned on depositing into my bank account on Tuesday before I left town. It didn’t take me very long to pack luckily, since I was only going to be gone for a few days, and mostly planning to wear shorts and sandals.
Tuesday the 24th – VACATION BEGINS! – In the morning I had some ADR to do for “Avengers.” ADR means Additional Dialogue Recording. Sometimes during the animation process there are things the character does that weren’t anticipated during the original voice recordings. Mostly effort sounds and the like. So I got to Studiopolis Burbank at 9am to do two hours of ADR for Ant Man and Giant Man. We finished early, which was good. Because I had to hit the road for my San Diego trip around noon. I stopped by the drug store to make sure I was stocked up on SPF 70. I also hit the post office to drop off some mail, and then visited my bank to grab some traveling cash. I swung by my mailbox to check mail, then I met up with my housesitter GloZell to go over the animal care procedure for Sassie and Spooky. Sara and Edi dropped by to start the trip. Sara went with me and Edi took her own car. But on the way down the 5 freeway, Edi lost her way and texted us that she was lost. She got on the wrong freeway somewhere, but she got turned around and caught up to us shortly. As is tradition with my San Diego trips, I always stop half way at a Dairy Queen and have lunch. Edi met up with us at DQ and we had a great lunch of chili dogs and banana splits. On our way to the freeway, we went through the Krispy Kreme drive through and got donuts for later. We got to the hotel around 4pm and got checked in. As I had requested, I got a room on the 18th floor with a balcony overlooking the bay. BEAUTIFUL!! We put our swimwear on and hit the pool. We had drinks and quesadillas by the pool. There was a watchful seagull on the roof of the restroom, waiting for us to throw him some scraps. I threw a few in his general direction, which he enjoyed. But the most amazing thing happened. I took a large piece and hurled it at him WHICH HE CAUGHT IN MID-AIR! I’m glad there were witnesses, since nobody would have ever believed me otherwise! Fantastic! Then I went upstairs to grab a quick nap. When I got up later we walked over to the Spaghetti Factory for dinner. I had been looking forward to this for a long time, since the Spag Fac had been closed in San Diego for a couple of years. So the usual sojourn to Spag Fac during Comic Con hasn’t been possible in recent years. It was under new ownership, and had a slightly different (not as gaudy) design. Which was disappointing because I used to like all the gaudy purple velvet furniture. It was part of the charm. But we had a great dinner and then went to the hotel to relax. At the bar, they were kind enough to sell us some water crackers. One of my favorite things to do in San Diego is to go into Seaport Village and feed the ducks popcorn. But by the time we got to the duck pond, the popcorn cart was closed. So we fed them some of the crackers and they went nuts! I vowed to be back early enough the next night to feed them popcorn. Just before bed, I ate the Krispy Kreme glazed cream-filled donuts I had purchased earlier and stood on the balcony in my pj’s enjoying them as the full moon shone down on the balcony. It was beautiful!! And very peaceful and relaxing! It was a great trip so far!
Wednesday the 25th – OFF TO SEE THE WORLD OF SEA WORLD! – We got up in the morning and drove over to Sea World. But we were too late to feed the dolphins…one of the things that I normally like to do. They have changed the feeding procedure there since I was there last, and they cut off the line a lot earlier than usual. So we went to the Sea Lion exhibit and had a great time feeding them. I was buying tray after tray of dead fish to feed them, and we were having a blast. We got some great shots and great video. Then we went to the Sea Lion and Otter show, When that was over it was time for lunch. Then we hit the Blue Horizon show, which integrates dolphins, birds and human acrobats in a stunning presentation. Fantastic! We got to the penguin exhibit and I love that because it’s air conditioned and always cool to be in. Plus the penguins are so cute! The shark exhibit was next. We were joking around and talking “overly loud” that we couldn’t wait for the part when they fed a live kid to a shark. Not sure if anybody overheard us or not, but we were laughing at the idea that kids who may overhear us would start worrying. We wanted to go to the Pets Rule show, but the last Shamu show for the day was at the same time, so we headed over there. We sat down close, but not too close. We estimated that the row we were in was just out of the splash area, so when Shamu came by to splash the crowd, we’d be high and dry. But yet we were still close enough to get a good view of the show, which is always a crowd-pleaser! Then we headed over to the Pets Rule show, and had a great time! That is one terrific show, and they use ALL rescued animals! We were about ready to go, but we wanted to hit the manta ray and bat ray exhibit first. We got a few more trays of food (chopped up squid…ewww!) and Edi and Sara had fun feeding the bat rays. Sara got spooked when a bat ray poked its head out of the water and made a sucking/sploosh noise. They are amazing looking creatures! We stopped off at the Sea Lion exhibit one last time and bought more trays of food. While Sara was holding a fish out to feed to a Sea Lion, she looked over at me to get some video. But a daring seagull swooped in and stole the fish right out from her fingers! She got spooked again. She said she could feel the wind of his wings…he was that close! I enjoyed feeding the egrets that were hanging out there to get residual fish. They have amazing eyes…and when you’ve looked into an egret’s eyes you just feel good. So I threw a fish to an egret, who caught it in mid-air. But the seagull standing next to him didn’t like that so much, so as the egret was retreating, the angry seagull grabbed a beakful of the egret’s tailfeathers! The egret escaped, but the seagull had a bunch of feathers in his beak. Hilarious! We got back to the hotel to relax, and I went to the jacuzzi. We got dressed and went to Seaport Village and got some Italian food at one of the restaurants there. Then we got Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and walked over to the popcorn cart. It was still open for another hour. So I got a bag of popcorn and sat on a bench by the duck pond. Soon, I had about 25 ducks surrounding me all busily quacking for popcorn. It was great! Some would take the popcorn right out of my fingers! A few of the ducks were getting aggressive with each other, so I tried to make sure there was plenty of popcorn for everybody. Edi and Sara soon joined in after I bought another few bags of popcorn. Little by little the ducks got full and started to head back into the pond for a swim. We saw a lot of little ducklings as well (very cute!). We went through three bags of popcorn feeding all those ducks. It reminded me of that nursery rhyme “yes sir, yes sir, three bags full!” Some of the timid ducks that stayed out on the fringe early on, were now coming up to get their fill. Feeding the ducks in Seaport Village is one of my all-time favorite things to do in San Diego. We went back to the hotel and sat at the bar for awhile. What a great day!! Check out these great pics!
Edi and Sara by the pool get ready for a dip! (And NO, the dip’s not ME!)
Edi, Sara and I get ready for our day at Sea World!
Hungry (and noisy!) sea lions gather for fish
A piniped friend calls out for more grub!
Sleepy, sunbaked sea lions sit saucily on a single stone.
Shamu gives the crowd a smile!
Thursday the 26th – BACK HOME AGAIN! – We got packed up and hit the road around 11am. I had to be back for a gig for HH Gregg at 3 so I left a little earlier than I wanted to. I would have loved to have stayed for lunch in the Gaslamp District, but duty calls. So we stopped at the DQ on the way home, had lunch again (and another banana split!) and headed down the road. I got back in time, did the gig at Voice Trax West, and then got home and collapsed. I took a nap for awhile, and later Sara came over to watch “Hawaii Five-O” on DVD. I got energetic though. I did some rearranging in Planet Wallywood. I cleaned off my Spider-Man figure and mounted him atop my action figure cabinet. The Vanessa Fembot used to be there, but now she looks better standing up by Darth Vader and Iron Man. Particularly since I’ve put up the new background panels.
Friday the 27th – A DAY OF REST! A DAY OF CLEAN! – After the busy week, it was good to just have a day of absolute nothing to do! I woke up early afternoon to have the carpet cleaners come over. I needed to have my living room and office area carpets cleaned. They weren’t smelling as good as they should. So I spent a few hours on the computer answering e-mails, then took Sassie upstairs so she’d be out of the way of the carpet cleaners. They finished about a half hou before Sassie’s groomer came. She had been needing a bath for awhile, but this was their first available time. It had cooled down somewhat from the previous days’ heatwave, and it was nice. The a/c hadn’t been running as much as it had in the past few days. It was a goo day! While they were busy with Sassie I spent some time in the Chaney Room putting away all the costumes that needed refiling. Between those I took out for CONvergence, and those I lent out for Comic Con, I had some major work to do. But I made some major headway and it’s finally starting to look like a usable room again! Sara brought over the Super 8mm editing system again so I could spent some time splicing together my aunt’s movies so they can eventually be transferred over to digital. I unpacked my suitcase from my San Diego trip and got everything back where it should be. Then in the evening I took a nice long nap! I really needed it. Later that night I spent some time just enjoying being home. Don’t you love that? And while I enjoyed having two weeks of a lighter workload, I was anxious to get back to “The Tonight Show” on Monday the 30th when hiatus was over!
Saturday the 28th – POWER OUT! – For some reason, the power went out on my block Saturday morning. Of course all my clocks and other electrical stuff in my house got zapped and reset to a blinking 12:00! I had plans for the day, but slept through the opportunity to do them! I called the stupid power company and all they said was that there were some power lines down. There was no wind or weather problems in the area, so I’m thinking somebody might have hit them with their car or truck. Anyway, the power was restored by the afternoon, so I spent most of the day resetting all my electrical appliances. I also had some time to cut together my uncle and aunt’s Super 8mm films from the 70’s into big 400 foot reels. I rented a Super 8 editing system again, and once I have all the reels cut together I’m going to have them all digitized to a DVD for their amusement. I finished up just in time to have the gang over for Saturday night movie night, which included two more episodes of “The Prisoner” from the 60’s, as well as the Robert Downey Jr. film “Sherlock Holmes.” Fun night!
Sunday the 29th – COOLER SUNDAY! – The hot weather had broken and we enjoyed milder, cooler weather. It was a nice break from the 99+ temps earlier in the week. I did some stuff around the house, then went to evening church. After church I went out to Jerry’s Famous Deli with my friends Chris and his girlfriend Colleen, Edi and Sara. Then we all went to Chill for some frozen yogurt. When I got home I finished up some things around the house, spent about an hour and a half doing auditions and e-mailing them to my agent, and writing Wally’s Week. I also did some prep for the forthcoming week, and was really looking forward to starting back on “The Tonight Show!” I missed it!
And how was YOUR week??!!!
