Kennywood's Open!

This past Sunday, I actually did something fun. Dinosaur Adam took me to Kennywood Park, a local amusement park that I used to frequent often as a child. I haven't visited it in a decade or so, and it has changed ownership. There have been wild rumours circulating about how much has changed. Thankfully, however, so much of my childhood still lives and breathes in that place.

Kennywood has earned the title of being the rollar coaster capital of, I don't know, the universe or something. It's certainly a deserved distinction; Kennywood was probably where I rode my first coaster, and Sunday I remembered falling in love with them at the age of four.

BILLY MAYS HERE...FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE!

 

True story: Billy Mays was from the Pittsburgh area. My sister's friend went to his funeral and returned covered with various buttons and pins. "Yeah," she said. "It was weird. The pallbearers were wearing polo shirts, and they were handing out samples of OxyClean to everyone. The family said it's what Billy Mays wanted."

The end of the zoo posts.

There's some funny things at the zoo. Like a gigantic mantis statue that's basically there for no reason.











I actually tagged this as "Slenderman" on Facebook. I wonder if Slenderman actually swims?



Rule 34?

I always tried to keep myself tied to this world.

I am slowly growing more suspicious that the building directly next door is synthesizing itself a nervous system, but I don't have the heart to tell it that neurons should never be an external feature. It's not befitting of a lady.



 

My pantry isn't as stocked as it was a few weeks ago due to time and financial restraints, but that didn't stop me from cooking a satisfying dinner tonight. I asked Dinosaur Adam (yes, that's an obvious nod to The Tick) to pick up some beer on the way home, and I used it to bake some bread. He selected some Sam Adams blackberry concoction. I've never tried it before, but the result was a slight berry tone, so it was a nice touch for a peaceful summer evening.



There is no better -- or more agonizing -- smell in the world than bread baking in the oven when one is hungry. In the end, though, it was a success.



 

I've been listening to this song an awful lot lately:

http://youtu.be/woIiLtWzXAQ

I'm not sure if it has more to do with the sound itself or the multitude of happy, nostalgia-tinged memories attached to it.

Almost finished!

After this, there should only be one more zoo post.

Zelly managed to sneak one in here. He was sitting in an elephant jaw.

Onward with the zoo pictures

I'm actually making all these zoo posts at once and scheduling them to post. I don't want to overload them with images; I'm running out of things to say. So, there aren't many words for today's entry.

The zookeepers got really mad when he kept slobbering all over the glass.

Zelly is really good at getting his picture taken. I'm not sure if that applies to all Lovecraft monsters or not. Notice how sad he appears when looking at the penguins. I think he was reminded of the time he was an intern for the Elder Gods in Antartica and got to eat albino penguins for lunch every day.

You suck, Aquaman.

As I said in my last post, all the creatures in the aquarium were strangely accommodating to Zelly. Well, except for the jellyfish, but jellyfish essentially lack complex nervous systems. Also, jellyfish are dicks.

Ia! Ia! Cthulhu, Jr. Fhtagn!

The coolest thing happened at the aquarium. Well, two cool things and one really crappy thing. The sea creatures were working in my favour somehow, and I ended up with some amazing Cthulhu shots. Unfortunately, I can never figure out the lighting in that place, so a lot of them are blurry.

However, the amazing part is this: When we were over at the jellyfish tank, the octopus next door started going crazy. I've only ever seen this creature sleep (much to my overwhelming disappointment), and suddenly she's all over the place in a frenzy of froth and tentacles.

For those of you who are stumbling upon this blog for the first time: Hi! And here's some background: Nearly a year ago, I had started a casual photo/writing project on another site called "Cthulhu and Me", which basically chronicled the adventures of myself and Zelfthilfygnan "Zelly" Cthulhu (Cthulhu, Jr.). The character has developed into something I've truly grown to love, so much that it's actually kind of rare to catch me without him stowed away in my bag (except at work, due to a combination of I was getting made fun of too much and he was scaring the children).

I thought it was the perfect photo-op for little Zelly -- you know, a great postcard for him to send home to his father -- and that seemed to push the octopus right the hell over the edge.



I really wish the lighting conditions hadn't been working against me. But it was one of those things that was happening so fast that I didn't have the time to play around with settings -- It was one of those once-in-a-lifetime kind of moments. So, yeah, I'm aware that the following photographs are like a half-step up from being total crap, and the only reason they aren't is because they're so unbelievably awesome.





















A friend on Facebook said "Wouldn't that be sort of like Jesus showing up for us?" I guess I can't argue with that. So, if the cephalopods rise up and start killing us all, I apologize in advance.

To top it off, there's a vaguely Lovecraftian symbol that takes up half the wall. It didn't used to be there. Zelly and I proudly posed in front of it.