Color spectacular at Penguin Hall!

Fall is officially here and the views in the little valley of Marcellus could not be more beautiful. Warm sunny days and cool dry nights have brought perfect conditions for fall foliage, and scores of drivers along the famed “Gorge road” leading to this charming hamlet have been slowing down just to gasp at the painted hills surrounding them.
Master Ian and Mistress Colleen have been spotted running back and forth throughout the Hall, toting books and sweaters, so it can clearly be seen that school is in full swing now. Between classes and part-time jobs and friends in and out, Penguin Hall has become a regular Grand Central Station. The refrigerator is Information Central, with calendars sporting color-coded legends for quick reference on the inhabitant’s whereabouts and upcoming events.

And the big event on the horizon: Waverly Family Reunion! Coming up in October as always, the residents of Penguin Hall eagerly await shining up the big black car and heading for the Southern Tier. Stay tuned to the Monitor for late-breaking reports and pictures.

Waxing lyrical in the face of doomsday

Tony Soprano said it best about Wednesday, Sept. 10th @ 3:3o EDT: "Everything just goes black."
In honor of the firing up of the Large Hadron Collider tomorrow, the Penguin Hall Monitor is publishing a little ditty:

"Stephen Hawking took a whack

At finding where Higgs Boson's at-

And when his hundred bucks were won,

CERN swallowed Earth and everyone."

Most likely it will just rip open time and space and unleash a flurry of alien head crabs to terrorize humanity. Grab your crowbars now.

Penny Arcade Expo 2008!

Devotees of the digital age agree that that the only thing better than getting six or eight of your closest friends (or foes, depending on the game) together in a room, is getting 50,000 to 60,000 of your closest friends (or foes, depending on the game) together, in a convention hall, wirelessly connected and perpetually communicating; along with the prospect of winning tons of glorious and relatively esoteric swag. That pretty much describes the experience of PAX 08, run by those geniuses at Penny Arcade: Gabe and Tycho. Penny Arcade has been described as equal parts comix and commentary, and has been a staple of the webcomic world for years.

So when Master Chris heard that his old school chum Ted, from RIT, was working it in Seattle this year, he broke out the piggy bank and hopped the first bird to the left coast to be there. The Penguin Hall Monitor does not have enough space to post all the wonderful shots he brought back but can provide these tantalizing snaps of just a few of the great moments Chris enjoyed. Lucky break number one: also playing at the same time as the expo, was a robot exhibit at the Seattle Science Fiction Hall of Fame, which Chris was able to catch. Lucky break number two: Chris scoring the prize of the convention by drawing one of the random winning tickets- for the Vault Boy puppet! While he was dogged with several offers of cash for it all the way up until he boarded his plane home, he held fast, and the relentlessly cheerful little face is holding court over Chris' room as this goes to print. Kudos, Chris!

Convention at the Sagamore

As the Junior Past President of the Onondaga-Oswego Funeral Directors Association (affectionately referred to as "OOF-DA") Mr. H. looked forward to rubbing elbows with directors from all over the state at the NY State Funeral Directors Convention, held this year at the historic Sagamore Hotel in Lake George, NY. The weather was picture perfect, a glowing 72 degrees the whole time, and Mr. and Mrs. H. had a hard time picking their big black car out of the sea of big black cars in the hotel parking lot.While the Monitor will not go into the delicate details of the subjects covered at the seminars, suffice it to say, there were some very interesting moments, including the demonstration by a magician, levitating one of the OOFDA officers on the stage! Mrs. H. was persuaded confidentially by the magician, between speeches, to participate in one of the tricks, and she played her role to perfection.

After the seminars and the exhibits by the sponsors, Mr. and Mrs. Hall strolled the village and enjoyed the waning days of summer by the lake. At eventide, they were invited to join the executives of one of their providers in the Trillium Dining Room; there they swapped stories and managed to exhaust not only the wine cellar but the sommelier as well.

It's Hall Good

NY State Fair

Hot, crowded and wonderful; that's the way Central New Yorkers were describing this year's fair, and the Halls would certainly concur. Going from building to building, seeing and being seen is SOP for Mr. H. Here are some sights from the happy fairgrounds. What fair could possibly be complete without the opportunity to eat anything and everything, then entice you to ride on a multitude of amusements bent on inducing nausea? Every year Mrs. H. likes to try something new; this year she opted for the kangaroo spiedies. Her quote: "While the gaminess complemented the spiedie marinade nicely, it's not something we plan on serving regularly at the Hall." Marcellus residents will be relieved to hear that.