We have some fancy new furniture in the restaurant! They are "Taybles". I ordered them from a Kickstarter almost a year go, back when Codeword was still open, thinking they'd go well there. But they finally shipped this weekend, because that's how Kickstarters go...

They have some features that are nice for a coffee table in your home, but less nice when turning our customers loose on them. The cupholders are removable, so I glued those in and drilled drain holes in the bottom. And the "tape" side of it flips open and has a little storage area inside. At home, you might store your remote control there. In a restaurant, that's where drunks will chuck their leftover pizza to rot. So I had to seal all of those openings. Also I put taller, stronger legs on them.

The tape label is a dry-erase surface, but I'm sure it will be unrepairably tagged in no time, because people are terrible. So, I don't expect these to survive for very long here, but oh well, I already paid for them. Enjoy them while they last!

And if the tape comes out, please use a giant pencil to wind it back in.

Upcoming shows of note:

Friday we have Mercury Soul with their cool hybrid of classical music and EDM. Their last couple of events were really fun. There's a nice write-up about this one in 7x7.

And then Saturday we have Koi Division, the world's greatest fish-pun-themed Joy Division tribute band! It's going to be kind of like that time Ian Curtis rode a roller coaster:

Here's something that hasn't happened in a while: Hubba Hubba Revue got a cease-and-desist nastygram from a lawyer for calling their recent animal-themed burlesque show "Wild Kingdom". (Did you know that show is still on the air? Neither did I!) Oh, trademark lawyers. They are so lovely, and not in any way parasitic blights:

Trademarks: the good, the bad and the ugly:

Genericide is rare, though. Microsoft doesn't advertise "google it on Bing!" and Miele doesn't sell a line of "hoovers." Genericide is mostly a spectre, and like all spectres, it serves a purpose.

That purpose? Full employment for trademark lawyers.

Trademark lawyers have convinced their clients that they must pay to send a threatening notice to everyone who uses a trademark without permission, even where there is no chance of confusion. They send letters by the lorryload to journalists, website operators, signmakers, schools, dictionary publishers -- anyone who might use their marks in a way that weakens the association in the public mind. But weakening an association is not illegal, despite the expansion of doctrines such as "dilution" and "naked licensing."

When called out on policing our language, trademark holders and their lawyers usually shrug their shoulders and say, "Nothing to do with us. The law requires us to threaten you, or we lose our association, and thus our mark." This is a very perverse way of understanding trademark.

So we have retconned that show to be called "Hubba Hubba Revue: Cease & Desist: Formerly The One With Animals".

Of which there are photos. But first, the last of the Halloween photos have come in:

And some other recent events too: