Failed expectations

Well, after our little talk the other night, S made a point of including me in her announcement of a karaoke outing at the bar tonight. While it was nice to be included, I know now that S was right about me not being included since I haven't been making an effort all month. I got there, and the whole gang was standing clustered around one little table. After a bit of hanging around at the back, without anybody making a move to include me at the table, or even acknowlege my presence, I wandered off to shoot darts. After 2 games, Joe, one of the occasional crew, asked if I wanted a game, I said sure. And after skunking me, he wandered back to his girlfriend at the table. Each time S or one of the other actors would sing, we all would go over to listen. There really are some painful singers out there, so it was quite refreshing to have people with voices sing occasionally. I hung out around the table for a while, but the group had by now gravitated to two or three seperate clusters, one playing pool, one hanging out in quiet conversation by the table, one over by the stage. Since none of our group was singing, I decided to call it a night (I had promised Wife I would not be too late, though even she was surprise at how early it ended up being.). I said goodnight to the one friend I had there, S, and left.
I don't know what I expected, but that sure didn't feel like it. So, with all this going thru my head, I'm not sleeping well tonight (hence the hour of this post), even though I only had two beers at the bar.

My big achievement today was fixing the sink drains at home. The kitchen sink and the bathroom sink share a wall, and over the weekend the kitchen sink drainage slowed, then stopped. Sure enough, bathroom too. All weekend it was persistantly resisting any draino liquid or gel treatments. It needed to be snaked. Monday I brought one in from work, and tried it thru the bathroom drain. It didn't work past the trap and into the wall, to make the right angle down the main. The only way to get to the downpipe was to take the bathroom pedestle sink OUT and run a snake directly into the wall and down. In short, it was a pain in the ass, but I managed it without too much hassle. Getting the sink out was harder than getting it back in. I even tracked down a leak in the bathroom faucet (tracked down, not fixed. The water is coming down the drain lever. I'm not sure how the water is getting to the drain lever, it's inside the faucet. That's another repair for another day). At least now we can do Christmas dinner dishes. Finally.

I know it's late when the bread machine I set to be done by 8 am kicks on while I'm still trying to sleep. Oh well, at least it's in the rise mode now, and not chugging away on the other side of my bedroom wall.

Looking back at some old posts, I realize I've been neglecting my bookmark sharing. Here is one from my museum files (filed under Travel/Leisure). The Vasa was a Swedish ship built in the 1620s. It was a large and very imposing warship, with three gun decks, and lots of carved details and gold trim. It sailed from it's dry dock across Stockholm harbor to it's berth, but a mile from it's berth, a gust of wind caught it just right, and it tipped, putting the lower gun ports below water, and it sank. So much for the future of viking seafaring. It was found in 1961, and slowly raised and housed in a museum built especially for it. (When my dad visited in '72, it was still not totally out of the water yet.) They're doing total preservation, and partial restoration on it.

Typical

So it's pre-dawn, and typical after a night of heavy (?) drinking, I'm wide awake. I vaguely recall having some weird dreams. This is unusual for me to even remember dreaming. I remember that I kept getting pushed around by a woman. Physically. Usually just a jab/push to my chest that sends me flying backwards over a table or something. Sounds pretty symbolic to me. Sounds pretty symptomatic to me too. I'm feeling pushed around and controlled by various women in my life. D with her silent aversion of me, S with her tacit snubbing of me (and me letting it get to me), and my letting-it-out talk with her, and a subsequent email further explaining (hmm, and abasing? gonna have to reread that email) myself.
Oh well. Curious stuff. I am really tempted to order some for S. I know she loves the stuff, and there is some of it with her family name on it in my price range. Wife, of course, couldn't know. I might not even let S know. I like doing shit like that, anonymous gifts. Screw only doing gift things at holidays. As I said before, why should that one (or two) day be any different than any other day. And anonymous gifts let it be enjoyed without any of the ingratiating or implied overtones (such as, why a man old enough to be her father is giving expensive gifts behind his wifes back... yeah, those overtones).

Hey, I just found the little toggle menu at the bottom here to change the time stamp of my posts. Has that always been there? Did I just accidentally turn it off a while back and not notice before now? Hello Captain Clueless!

Oh wow!

Tonight Wife and I dipped into one of my presents, a bottle of Absinthe. Wife ordered a bottle online from some czech place. She picked up a midrange bottle, about $50 (the range is from 30 all the way up to 200! depending on the amount of Thujone, the 'active' ingredient in the Wormwood.) This bottle was 10mg Thujone, and the top end, is 100mg, which approximates the strength of the stuff from the turn of the century (the stuff that made Wilde, Shelley, vanGogh etc go crazy and cut off body parts). The stuff comes at 70% alcohol, that's 140 proof, though the ritual calls for diluting it at least 1-1, and adding sugar to cut the bitterness. But WOW is it still potent stuff. I started with about 2 oz of the stuff diluted 2-1 or so, and after just half a glass I was feeling it. Really strong anise flavor, and fennel, which is similar to anise. The 'ritual' is to either drizzle the water over sugar cubes into the absinthe until it's disolved. The czech method is to dip the cubes into the absinthe, and then light them, and let them melt into the liqueur, then to dilute it with water.
I can see why this stuff was so popular. The fact that it rotted your brain is a plus.

Coolest thing ever

Came across this on Fark. COOLEST thing ever. I want a wooden mouse!

all done

It's now about midnight, after photocall, and I'm still here blogging (but since it records the time I start, it's still yesterday:o)).
Photo call was long and frantic and not entirely productive. Union rules say that they can only go for an hour and a half past show close. We barely made it, and I didn't get all the shots I wanted, ditto for other designers. Boss had made up a list of shots he wanted, and it seems that he ignored our requests for shots (or he figured that we'd work them in anyway).

I got some interesting shots, a lot of them still have the other photographer in them, but I'll look at his shots later. Once again, I got an action shot that doesn't show any faces that looks kinda cool. As Alice falls down the rabbit hole, she gets flipped by ninja-puppeteers.

S also confronted me tonight about the hostility she's been sensing from me lately. We had a long talk about how I've been feeling, and how I see parties and events happening around and without me. She made excuses for some of them, and appologised for others, and basicly said, that since I'd been avoiding them, she didn't think I liked them, so didn't always think to invite me. I explained that since I haven't felt included, I saw no reason to socialize with them. A fine catch-22 situation, which leads to a chicken-or-egg situation. The end result was that we're both going to try to be more inclusive (for my part, as far as I can while avoiding the other crew people who currently hate my guts).

While I'm here, here's a pic of me from the drinks with my friend last week. Suitably nondescript.

Ok. It's after 12:30. I should think about going home. Ok, I've thought about it.

Another photo call

Well, I didn't have to run the show tonight, but the official photo call is after the show, so I need to be here for that, to take my own photos, and to modify any light cues that are too dark or whatever for print (though it isn't as big a deal since the digital revolution). So I'm hanging out at my desk, listening to the show on the monitors. Funny how it seems to go so fast when I'm not watching it as well. I'm also getting a head start on drinking which usually waits until after the show. We'll see what 'accidental' shots come out of this one. There are a couple of scenes that I'd like to get pix of.
I thought that things were begining to change a bit at work; first the invitation to join people for dinner, and then, during the second show, S announced that 'people' were going out to karaoke after the show. I realized that nothing had really changed when 'people' left without saying WHERE they were karaokeing. I went to two of the three places I know S has done karaoke (the third was way north in a bowling alley, too long to go for a long shot), but of course she wasn't there. Oh well.

Finally

Finally got to the Brewery for dinner between shows tonight. The SM asked if I wanted to join her for dinner, so we went there. She had been jonesing for a burger. The odd thing was that the actors were all going out to India House, another of my favorite places (mmm curry!), and S asked if I wanted to join them, but SM had asked me first (and I probably enjoyed myself more). Oh well. Curry would have been good food today.

Funny how a brewpub doesn't serve burgers!

We had sandwiches and two different beers. Both excellent. I had one honey amber ale and a stout. But for such a simple menu, I don't see why they can't open for lunches... they didn't even have a wide selection of sandwiches, only 4 to choose from, and gourmet pretzels (about 8 of those).

Ok, got to gear up for a second show.

My Yahoo hororscope for today

Pisces

Daily extended (by Astrology.com)
You've been minding your own business and keeping your opinion about something to yourself in a very admirable way. But by this evening, your feelings about how to proceed should begin to shift, reflecting a change in the cosmic energy. You might start to see that your opinion is more than valid and it's important that someone involved hear about it. Watch for your opportunity to voice it in a helpful, caring way.

Kinda appropriate, though I don't think I'll be voicing my opinion anytime soon.

Was Thomas Wolfe right?

This weekend was, I'm sure, a strange one for a friend of mine. She moved away some 6 months ago, and came back this week for almost a week. She and I were not particuarly close while she was here, occasional drinking buddies, and she was in our poker circle. But after she left, she discovered this blog, and now knows so much more about me and how I think and feel. And her blog is one of the two that I follow regularly (ok, I usually check it daily, and she's usually pretty good at posting several times a week.) As a result, I now feel closer to her than we ever were when she was here. Too bad it took her moving away for that to happen.
But I've started thinking about homecomings. For her, she's now thrust back into a family that's changing and evolving in her absence. Friends are changing and moving on. Old haunts may be just full of old ghosts, and no new memories. When it happens to me, I always find it strange to discover that people and places that were so stagnant when I was there, have changed so much in my absence. Anyway, between the sheer number of old friends and family that she had to see, and the short length of time she's here, I'm glad that I at least got a chance to have another drink and chat with her. It wasn't the big deal I was thinking (and hoping) it would be, but it was also nice to be able to chat about things I've mentioned in this blog that local friends are unaware of. It usually takes a trip like this to discover where your home really is.

I've been fighting a cold this past weekend, and think I've succeeded in staving it off, despite having to work all weekend, both Alice and closing out Greetings, and doing some loathed shopping. I have also, likely agravated by my feeling crappy, been antisocial again. I realized on Sunday, that I've been particularly negative on headset, the only contact I've had with co-workers. As I've said, part of it was feeling crappy from my cold, but part of it is also feeling crappy from the attitude and treatment of co-workers. And part of it is probably just this damned season. I love (please note the dripping sarcasm here) going out in this 'joyous' season of goodwill towards others, and seeing everybody shopping and driving, all self-absorbed and oblivious of other people and their feelings.
Anyway, I'm going to try to make more of an effort to not let my negative attitude show. Hipocricy: a holiday tradition!

The Forbes Fictional 15 Richest People

1. Santa Claus
2. Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks
3. Richie Rich
4. Lex Luthor
5. C. Montgomery Burns
6. Scrooge McDuck
7. Jed Clampett
8. Bruce Wayne
9. Thurston Howell III
10. Willy Wonka
11. Arthur Bach
12. Ebenezer Scrooge
13. Lara Croft
14. Cruella De Vil
15. Lucius Malfoy

Kinda disappointin'

Didn't get to go see King Kong on Wed., it's opening day. My date didn't want to brave the dodgy wintery weather that had just swooped in, and the group from the theatre didn't ask me to join them. Oh well. The hard part was hearing them all talking about it the next day. I also still want to see Narnia. Maybe Monday we can arrange a date. I'm not getting any hopes up any more.

Last night was the photo call for Greetings. I took some shots on my own (the ostensible reason I got my camera), and will check the official ones when they come out.

My favorite so far, is one of the mistake shots I took. It was after the 'shot' was taken, and I wanted to grab one more, but the actors were all getting up for the next set-up. The only person still seated was the metaphysical-being character in the show, Lucius. It kinda symbolizes how he sees the transitory nature of the world we know ... yeah, that's what it is, it's not a mistake at all, it's symbolic!

Back online

Work is back on the power grid. We had our show today, before a day off. It's good to have a day off, I'm getting irritated with people at work again. I've been rather quiet on headset recently, but today, feeling a bit better, made some comment about the high-priced mediocrity of Starbucks coffee, and was proptly snapped at for voicing "only my opinion". That'll teach me to try to be social. As our SM said, "Life, it's something else."
It looks like tomorrow is the road trip up to Madison WI to visit the Penzeys store. Except for the drive, that'll be fun.

Lets try this again

I was almost done writing a post this afternoon, and the power went out at work, killing my post. The power continued to be out all afternoon and evening. Therefore, no shows. Power went out a bit after 2 and was still out at 5 when I left work. I later got word that the evening show, at 8, was also cancelled. We had the audience gathered in the lobby, along with cast and crew, and waited. Down the street, the big fancy theatre had 2000 people seeing the air force band when it went dark.
So, lets see what I can remember of this afternoons post.
The party at S's went well. I dawdled at work, letting the party get into full swing before I got there. I took a bottle of wine that I know she'll like, and some pretzel munchies. I had portioned off a pint of the Captain to drink there, and I like to have some munchie to help absorb the alcohol, pretzels being my usual fare, popcorn will also do in a pinch. As I only had the pint, I didn't really have any ill effects this morning. I didn't stay long, only an hour and a half or so, and bugged out, but I did get the chance to chat with some of the actors and designers that I don't usually get to chat with. While there, E mentioned that she didn't have any light board ops for her show Greetings this week. Since I was only scheduled to run the first show of Alice, I thought I'd go out and help out and run their second show today. Of course the blackout changed all that, and I got out there for the second half of their first show. Except, of course, E had rearranged the booth so that she could call and run the board both. For me to run the board at this point would have been a bigtime inconvenience. So much for trying to help out.

Well, thats all I can remember now, at midnight. I'm sure that there was more, but if it was important, and if I remember it, I'll post it later. I'm pretty sure there was something in there about going christmas shopping for wife. Maybe later on that, maybe not.

Christmas, a humbug?

Surely you don't mean that, Uncle?
I do mean it! What is Christmas but a time for paying bills without money. A time for balancing books, and finding every item dead against you. A time for finding yourself a year older and not an hour richer.
If I could work my will, every idiot who goes about with Merry Christmas on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart, he should. Out upon Merry Christmas. It's a Humbug.


Several years ago (hmm quite a few now), I realized that I didn't know the meaning of Christmas. I started a soul-search to try to find one. It's been over a dozen years now, and I'm still searching.
What is Christmas, if you don't count yourself a Christian? Unfortunately, I don't have any Jewish friends to tell me how they cope, getting this religious holiday crammed down their throats at every turn. Especially this year with Bill O'Reilly and the Christian Jihadists trying to obliterate any generic reference to the season. I may start vocalizing one of my favorite bumper stickers: How dare you presume I'm Christian?

What is Christmas, if you despise the crass commercialism of the holiday? Buy Buy Buy. The love of/for your family depends on how many toys, how big a diamond, where you shop, how far into debt you're willing to go. Do they love you any less in January when you don't bribe them with STUFF? What kind of love is it when it has to be bought, or reinforced, or reaffirmed with STUFF? If not, why now, and not in January, or June or any other time of the year?

What is Christmas, if you loath the blatant hypocrisy of only caring for your fellow men one day (week? month?) per year? Just watch the self-centered stampede as people storm the stores the day after thanksgiving. You think they're thinking of their fellow man? Just ask any charity how much they take in in December, and how much they take in in February, a month more bleak and cold than December. Where's the goodwill then?

So. I carry on, trying to keep spirits up, trying to at least not think too much worse of my fellow man in this "season of goodwill". Maintaining a hope that, somehow, it'll all make sense someday.

The Onion's Cheap Toy Roundup

You'll have to visit the site for all the pictures (the title is a link), they're worth it, especially the mutant Han Solo toy. I have a particular beef with Christmas, and this is just a part of it. Sometimes you just gotta laugh.
Here's the sampling...

Once again, The A.V. Club presents its annual guide to the best gifts that very little money can buy.

Preeminent Car ($1, from $1.99)
Ah, crappy Chinese knockoffs. What would the annual Cheap Toy Roundup be without you? For one thing, it'd be a lot shorter on hilarious items like the charmingly confusing "Preeminent Car." Silly Chinese toy manufacturers, that isn't a car, it's a little plastic tour bus. Maybe the flowery stickers on the side proclaiming it to be "Beautiful Fashion Set Super Sweet Motorbus" should have been a hint. On the other hand, the manufacturers apparently aren't too alert, as they somehow missed the photos of Barbie on the top of the bus, and enthusiastically labeled Preeminent Car as "100% New Concept." Still, Preeminent Car's best feature by far is the little plastic "Line Control" device connected to it with a wire, so that while your child is pretending she's playing with an actual Barbie Tour Bus instead of a bargain-basement dollar version, she can also pretend it has a functional remote control. But hey, aren't good toys all about encouraging kids to exercise their creativity?

Paw Pens ($1.19, from $3.99)
There's nothing quite as fluffy and loveable as a cute little teddy bear… being impaled on a fuzzy-wuzzy widdle stake that's half as wide as its tormented, distorted body. Or is this adorable little teddy just disturbingly well-endowed? You be the judge.

Fun With Candles
Fun With Sand ($1.99 each)
It's never too early to urge children to take a deep, calming breath and relax. Ergo these two craft kits, which let kids tap into the Zen within. Imagine the palliative effect of molding lightly scented wax into a pretty butterfly. And then setting it on fire. Or imagine the inner peace that comes from carefully pouring colored sand into quaint pastoral scenes. And then accidentally knocking it into the shag carpet. The little ones will be blissed out, while their parents will be extra-nervous.

MegaBloks Dragons: Spell Casters Unleash ($4.79, from $8.99)

The awkward name of this particular MegaBloks Dragons tableau is "Spell Casters Unleash," but it looks more like "Hangover Dragon Disaster." Atop a plastic perch, a shriveled-looking dragon vomits forth a plastic mass of what's probably supposed to be fire, but looks more like a long evening's worth of partially digested Harvey Wallbangers. Below, a bald, irked-looking warrior hides under what's probably supposed to be a magic shield, but looks more like an umbrella, a.k.a. the latest in anti-dragon-barf technology. Not included with this playset: empty booze bottles, a little shriveled plastic AA handbook, and some dragon-sized Alka Seltzer.

Star Wars: Jedi Force: Han Solo With Jet Bike ($6.89, from $10.99)
The Han Solo Jedi Force action figure comes with a sweet-ass jet bike for Han to tool around on as he explores the universe. But in order to accommodate the bike's contours, he unfortunately boasts freakishly large hands, and feet roughly twice as large as his unnervingly tiny head. It's the toy-world version of adaptation taken to its terrifying extreme!

Stretchy Body Bits ($1.19, from $2.99)
In spite of the package's educational, upbeat blurb about the importance of maintaining a "body working as a healthy whole," this sack of miniature rubbery severed body parts—an ear, nose, hand, and foot—looks more like some murderous psychopath missed a few chunks when hiding his latest crop of dismembered corpses in a distinctly unhealthy hole. At least he's an equal-opportunity murderer, judging from the variety of skin colors on display in his leftovers bin.

1 Modern Circle: Barbie Producer ($9.99, from $28.99)
At this point in her auspicious career, Barbie has toiled in every trade short of truck-stop hooker. The 1 Modern Circle Barbie Producer doll thrillingly reintroduces Barbie as an "indie film producer looking to cast her leading man." The back of the box offers a tantalizing glimpse into Barbie's life: "Barbie immediately turns to her trusted assistant Melody and says ‘Melody, your priority is to set up interviews with prospective additional crew.'" Can your child handle the excitement? Producer Barbie, the Christine Vachon of the doll world, comes with a laptop, midriff-baring outfit, and cell phone to hurl angrily at Melody's stupid fucking head after she forgets to pick up Barbie's toy poodle from the groomer.

Clothes That Went To A Party DVD
Film! Film! Film! DVD ($2 each, from $7.99)
Inexplicable, yet appealingly cheap, Media Movies & More's cut-rate DVD collection includes such familiar, beloved, grainily reproduced childhood fables as The Little Mermaid, Snow White, Hansel And Gretel, and, er, Clothes That Went To A Party. No word yet on the availability of the sequel, Shoes That Stayed Home And Got Miserably, Stinking Drunk On Their Own. Attempts to actually view and comprehend Clothes That Went To A Party were baffled by a disc so flawed that it won't play past the first excruciating 11 seconds. Attempts to view another MMM title, Film! Film! Film! (or, as the title song puts it, "Feeeeeeelm, feeeeeeelm, feeeeeeelm!") were more successful in that the DVD played, but less successful in that The A.V. Club actually ended up watching it. Brrrr.

Fairy Princess ($1, from $1.99)
Fairy-princess accoutrements of yesteryear: A poofy dress, a tiara, a wand, maybe some fairy wings. Fairy-princess accoutrements of today: A fake pink plastic cell phone and a couple of hairclips shaped like clunky, uncomfortable shoes. With, um, fairy wings on them. Oh, the magic!

Party time?

Well, S is having a Christmas party tomorrow night. I really hate these. I know I'll probably go, at least for a little while. Do my social obligations, and bug out. I really don't feel comfortable around these people anymore. I know I'm not in their circle, and I don't want to impose. I guess maybe I'm still in my antisocial mood. Or just depressed.

I'm about halfway through with one of the Neil Gaiman books on my list, Stardust. Kind of cool, in a realm of Faerie kind of way. I also need to reread Midsummer Nights Dream, though I've done that show 3 or 4 times already. And our SM has another (probably better) version of Alice that I need to read and get back to her soon.

Still no word on movie possibilities this week. Oh well.

HEY!!

They don't allow you to change the time stamp on your posts anymore. I'm stuck with when I START writing my post, not when I finish it. Lets see if I can find a link to complain to.

dum de dum

No, I didn't work today, but came in anyway. Wife hasn't received the updated schedule with the days I DON'T work on it. Though the girl running the show hadn't run the whole show before, I figured that I'd watch her one last time to double check. And it gets me out of the house. In 4 inches of snow.

I love snow.
It's the shovelling I hate.
I'm more than content to let Mother Nature take care of the snow, as I do the lawn (and we know how well THAT worked out). She just doesn't always oblige me with the warm weather.

Lets see, last post updates...
We got the headsets fixed. It was a bad cable, one that had been sheared by the rolling shop door about 2 years ago, and was taped off, evidently got jostled enough by the set that 2 wires were touching. Why it was still patched into the system is beyond me. Anyway, easy fix.
Opening night for Greetings went well. Great show, great audience, good response. Even the tree-popper (my special FX thingy) worked well, and gave a small flame before going out. COOL! Even the reviewer for the paper said he's coming back with his wife, who HAS to see the show. It's that kind of show. There was an afterglow afterwards (isn't that redundant?) at a restaurant bar. The only problem was that Wife insisted on Pizza for dinner, using almost all my money earlier in the evening. I had JUST enough for a Guinness, using all my bills and most of my change. Then one of the actors bought me another one. It was a fun time, lots of stories of the old days, and other backstage escapades. I miss going out with people. I did, though, arrange for more dates with friend K. There are several movies we want to see. Kong, Narnia, She'd like to see the Murrow thing, I'd like to see Ice Harvest. I told her I'd see any and all of them, just to get out of the house.
Wife never did go out to Penzeys. Her friend said it was too cold for her truck. We may go out on Monday, in my car. Hmmm. I guess.
I've been drinking a bit more again. Perhaps because I'm home more. We picked up some Grey Goose vodka. Not bad, though rather over-hyped. Not any better than Stoli or Absolute. And when Vodka is mentioned, who thinks French? It's a yuppie thing. Also picked up a big bottle of my old friend, the Captain.

Well, it's almost 6, and even Wife will start wondering where I am. I need to go upstairs to pick up my check and then get out of here.

Back at work ... again

Ok, I'm back at work, waiting for TD so we can troubleshoot problems with our sound system.

Greetings last rehearsal went well, and I think I'm finally done with that one, in time for opening night tonight. I'm kind of looking forward to a party, I hope there is one (at least, one that I'm invited to).

Now, back to Alice. Since tech, three weeks or more ago, our headsets that we use to communicate between SM and crew has been on the fritz. Our Wireless packs are fine, they talk to each other fine. But the wired ones are flooie. We hear everybody else faintly (and they hear us only faintly), necessitating the volume all the way up, but then we blow our own ears out when WE talk, and cause feedback with our own earpieces. We got a loaner from the college, but the problem persists, leading us to believe that we have a bad cable or pack causing a short or something. So today is unhooking and rehooking, one link at a time to find the offender. TD had an insight that may well prove the problem. The only thing that's changed since we used them last was the set. And that includes a bunch of things screwed into the stage wall, possibly nicking one of the permanent lines IN the wall. A good a theory as any. So we agreed to come in at 10 ish to check it out. I was late, about 10:30. TD's not here yet. So I thought I'd finish my abreviated post from yesterday afternoon. I hate starting a post and not posting it right away, since most of these ramblings are my mood at the moment, which is as mercurial as the weather.

Oh well, now to make some coffee. I don't really want to be here, since Wife is going out with a friend to a Penzeys Spice store. Grrrr. Much rather be there. Best spice shop in the world that I know of. I got a curry sampler last year. Mmmmm.

Sitting around

I got here to the college (yea for wi-fi!) to do some work on Greetings before the dress reh. tonight, and lo and behold, I can't get to the grid or the booth. Both locked up tight (although acess to one is acess to both). So I sit and surf, or do an entry here. Looks like this wins.
The show is looking really good. I've got some light blending to do, to fix some holes in my coverage, but all in all not bad. Not my best work, but not bad. The challenge in this one was to create an electrical outlet that sparks and shorts out when the tree is plugged in. I found a really cool effect, but since we're in a college setting, and I'm not going to be the one loading it each night, I wanted to stay away from the flash powder that it involved. So the spark is more of a fssst, and there is a puff of smoke that is only seen by a quarter of the audience because of the blocking of the scene (I mean, the guy plugging it in is kneeling down at the outlet just at the base of the tree. Tree blocks half and actor blocks another quarter.) . And as always in this space, you have to watch your angles; too flat and you're in the audience, and the instruments won't focus too steep. There are some things I need to remember not to do next time, and other things that I know work. I also got a hard time last show by using too many lights. This time I think it may have influenced me to the other extreme.
The set designer is also hanging around. He is trying to reupholster the dining chairs, but the staples are locked up. He found a stapler, but no staples. Damn trying to work in an 'other' space. E is out, probably for dinner, and Staff are probably gone for the day.
I went to court today. For not cutting my lawn, of all things. I worked on it on Monday and yesterday afternoon, and got pictures, so it was all expunged. Because my unkempt lawn is so much more detrimental to the neighborhood values than the whores, pimps, and dealers parading up and down the block. And the city's fixed all their other problems, so why not come after the insideous yard scofflaws. Don't get me started.
Alice continues well in my abs

oops, here's the key now.