This weekend was the California Gift Show (CGS) at the LA Convention Center (LACC). This show is open only to the "gift" industry and being that my mother owns a retail bushiness I was able to attend. This show is where all the companies from around the globe show off what is going to be the new trends in collectibles, interiors, art, and fashion. The show is also spread across to the LA Mart (interiors) and the California Market Center (fashion). On the note of the CMC, this year instead of having those mini shuttles to take you form the LACC to CMC they were using streched Hummer Limos. This was my first time in one of those monstrosities and most likely my last. I don't know why but I was expecting more room inside them? Anyway it looks like, based on the buying trends I saw at the show that "ethnic" is going to be in for the next six months or so. Mainly styles influenced by Middle Eastern and Asian fashion and art will be carried over into American Fashion and Interior design. Otherwise I didn't see anything that really struck my fancy, this might be the reason that I did not buy anything.

The CGS ran form 8am - 6pm so what did I do after 6pm well theme parks of course. That's what the idea was at least. Saturday night we stopped at Knott's Theme Park, however we were all so tired that all we did was buy our chicken and go home. So Sunday evening after all was said and done we all headed over to the Mouse House, that's right the Disneyland Resort. This is where life got sad, well as sad as I ever could be considering I was at the Happiest Place on Earth. The plan was to ride Monsters Inc, take a bunch of photos, eat something and come home. Well the Monsters area was closed to the public when I got there because it was the press event for the official opening of the ride. Oops, I forgot that the ride has been soft open for a month and now it was official. If I had stuck around I could of see all sorts of B list actors and other assorted semi-famous people. But to be truthfully honest I don't care about most of them. The last time I was at DCA and a "famous" person was there was when Raven said the notorious Six Flags is better comment. So with no Monsters we all headed over to Disneyland with no real focus on where we were headed we found ourselves in New Orleans Square and inside of Le Bat 'en Rouge. For those who don't know I often wear a "Button Hat" that is covered in buttons from the Haunted Mansion and Nightmare Before Christmas. Well they had a set of new buttons that I had not seen before so I set out to make my purchase.
As the people in line before me were gathering up their stuff the young lady started ringing up my stuff and some how the topic of how in less than two weeks the shop would be closed, all NBC merchandise will removed from the parks and Haunted Mansion Holiday will not return in '06. This was really sad and shocking to me and the people who were in front of me and the ones behind me who started gathering up as much nightmare stuff as their credit cards could afford. For those non believers, whom I seem to be finding a lot lately, who believe that I just made up this rumor or that this was just a rumor of one CM who did not know what she was saying I did verify this with many other CM's around the park and they all knew the exact same thing. Tim Burton was not happy with how Disney had been portraying his NBC in regards to Haunted Mansion Holiday and considering that the contract between Disney and Burton for the rights to use the characters in the park expires about now, Burton just refused to renew the contract, there for no more NBC at the parks. I didn't realize how odd it was until I noticed how all the NBM and HMH pins were all gone and all the merchandise with Jack on it were rather scarce. The rumor I heard this morning is that all the NBC and HMH merchandise they have left will be sent to the "warehouse" which most likely means the "Character Warehouse" for liquidation. So the evening was ended with a mad dash across the two parks to gather up as much NBC stuff as I could, too bad all the good stuff was gone and I ended up only getting the buttons that I had originally got in line for.

Back at work Monday, it was a funny day, I had students and faculty both who thought that Monday was the first day back to class (bad considering that there are still two weeks to go). Other than that life has been somewhat uneventful.
Well my brain has said it's peace and I will say later all.