Biblio Boy

The West Wing come to life

2008-02-28T07:50:00.000-08:00

The last season of "The West Wing" was all about the presidential election, where a darkhorse candidate prevailed in a extremely close primary against the party insiders and then in the general election against a moderate Republican. Sounds pretty familiar, huh? It did to me. I had remarked on this to some people, but the connection hadn't made the press. Until now. This video really highlights and explains the similarities between the TV show and the current campaign. It's worth noting, however, that originally, Jimmy Smits' character was supposed to lose the general election. It was only after John Spencer's (he played Leo) death that the producers decided that it would be too depressing to have Santos lose his running mate and the election in two weeks. Hopefully that's one thing real life can skip over.

Pragmatism At Last

2008-02-27T06:52:00.000-08:00

There's an article in the New Republic yesterday that I thought was among the most informative and hopeful reads I've had in a while. It describes the policy-making wing of Obama's campaign. People who aren't ideologues or partisans, who are more interested in purity of thought or (worse), winning in a struggle against the other party; but people who are complete pragmatists. Thinkers who are most interested in what solutions work, what steps that would make the most benefit for the most people. It's not the most exciting thing a candidate ever had, but it so perfectly meshes with Obama's soaring rhetoric. He talks in speeches about bringing people together, well, I think that most people don't care about who's winning, they care about making their lives easier, and pragmatism is the ultimate way to go about that. I'm an Obama person, but I can see how some people would have trouble with him. They think there might be no there there. This article, however, gives me a lot of, yes, Hope (TM) for what a President Obama would be able to propose and get accomplished.

Wii Much?

2008-02-07T21:01:00.001-08:00

I can't believe I haven't blogged about the Wii yet! It's probably among the best electronic inventions of the 21st Century. Take that, iPhone! And it'll probably be the best invention until jetpacks are perfected. It's a little silly to love playing it so much, but the idea that you don't have to push a bunch of buttons, but can wave a remote and the figure moves... it's just amazing to me everytime I turn it on and it responds to where I'm waving the remote.

Really, though, the big key to this thing is going to be later this year when LucasArts come out with the Star Wars game. A lightsaber handle is included with the game. It's ridiculous, but every 30-something gamer is going to buy it and instantly become the Star Wars Kid... and love every minute of it.

It turns out that Andrew McCarthy is NOT dead...

2008-02-05T07:24:00.000-08:00

He's in a show on NBC with Brooke Shields, Lipstick Jungle. Now I'm not going to be watching this show (it's a semi-knockoff of Sex and the City), but he was just mentioned to me this week as a former leading man who. He's now second fiddle to Brooke Shields and two other, random women, while his co-star James Spader has awards and a starring role on that Boston Legal show. Poor Andrew... at least his career isn't Molly Ringwald-ized yet. Anyway, he's posting a blog at Slate.com about getting the show off the ground and it's a pretty interesting backstage look at how a TV show is produced and the intricacies in putting a new show on TV. Check it out!

Also, today's voting day, so if you're in a state that's holding a primary today, get out and vote!

Strike over?

2008-02-04T13:32:00.000-08:00

Really?

I see that some media outlets (TV Week, Deadline Hollywood Daily) are reporting that the Writer's Strike is over. I hope it's true, the idea of a season of retreads of fantastic movies like "The Eye" and "Fool's Gold" is truly horrifying. And that's just the movies, TV has it much worse. Since pilot season is over, there won't be any new shows unless the strike is settled. I dearly hope that this strike has broken the pattern of upfronts (where the networks present their new fall seasons to advertisers and reporters in May). The upfronts were hugely expensive and wasteful and in the internet age, you don't need to gather people in a big hall to make a presentation, it can all be done online. With more money available, there'll be more money for better writers and thus, better shows. Ideally. I'm sure that we'll still get a full crop of schlock reality shows and hidden camera exposes. Ugh. Give me a good scripted drama every time.

Anyway, if it's true and it's not certain, but if it is, it's time for some restrained rejoicing. I'm not talking V-E Day or anything, but maybe something on the order of your niece's high school graduation: a long, boring experience followed by a pretty good party, but don't get too crazy, there's kids here.

"Hitler wears old Cowboys jerseys..."

2008-01-23T13:54:00.000-08:00

I know I'm not the first person to post this, but I saw this and it made me laugh. I always knew there was something strange about that Hitler fellow.

Since TV sucks now, here's something to fill your empty days

2007-12-17T20:53:00.000-08:00

I saw this referenced in a TV column I read. This woman is among the more funny people I've ever seen. I first saw her on a direct-to-video DVD called The Comedians of Comedy. She holds her own with some truly funny people. She's not so much a comedian as she is an actor. She creates these characters right on stage and puts them in hilarious situations.

Well since the writer's strike has been going on, the comedy websites like funnyordie.com and superdeluxe have gotten smart and have put together packages of these five minute shorts as series. They've gotten very smart indeed if they've given Maria Bamford a platform like this to perform on. The series starts with an introduction of this character: "Maria Bamford" who had a breakdown on stage and moved back into her parents' attic. The show is her telling stories about her life in Duluth and doing impressions of the people she interacts with. My favorite is her mom. Favorite mom quote (after seeing Maria come out of the shower): "Oh, I didn't realize you were... oh honey, if you want to get breast implants we'll support you. Not financially, but, you know, emotionally."

This show is great, click the link and try it out. She's well worth a try.

Goodbye to All That

2007-12-08T14:47:00.000-08:00

Goodbye to All That

This is an article by Andrew Sullivan, a well-respected conservative pundit and blogger. He describes not just the benefits, but the necessity of an Obama presidency for the United States to move beyond the Baby Boomer politics that have so polarized the country and made the Bush presidency possible and the Clinton presidency a disappointment. If you read one article on politics this year, make it this one. When I read this I was still leaning towards John Edwards, but now I'm starting to see that Obama is the only one who can re-estabilish the bonds of the US polity. Any other candidate, Republican or Democrat risks tearing the country even farther apart.

Dogster - Get your own Dogster badge

2007-12-06T12:31:00.000-08:00

Dogster, for when you're not proud enough of your dog. Still, Chewy is awesome.

Join the Dogster community

I now blame my parents' VW bus for my criminal ways

2007-10-24T08:45:00.000-07:00

Idea Lab - Clean Air Act - Environment - Pollution - Lead - Gasoline - Crime Rate - New York Times

Now that I've found out that the lead in the gas my parents used to fill up their cars is the cause of both my criminal ways and occasional insanity, I feel so much better. Like any human, all I want is something to blame that isn't me.

Wilco at the Crossroads

2007-10-15T12:28:00.000-07:00

Wilco at the Crossroads was a great show! I didn't get down there until the opener was almost done, the Mizzou game was running so long. Boo Sooners!

Wilco played a fantastic show, though I thought it was odd that they opened with such a mellow start to the set. "Via Chicago" from Summerteeth was the first tune and it's a very slow song. It didn't start the night off with a bang, that's for sure.

The crows was huge though, and the energy was fantastic. Many thanks to Doug for getting me a beer when I realized I was out of cash. I wish they had Boulevard down there, but the only choices were Coors, Dos Equis and Heineken. That's so strange that there wouldn't be a local brew in the Crossroads, where hipsters and us older folk meet to groove out. Hey Stretch, get Boulevard in there!

Wilco played for more than two hours. At times Tweedy gave a shout out to the Elton John concert at the Sprint Center, though he called his audience a bunch of jerks. Then he said "I totally hope he hears that". The crowd loved it and loved him. One thing I thought Tweedy did that was kind of odd was when he said that the audience was the best audience of the tour. I don't know what bands hope to get out of it, but it works every time, the crowd went nuts. Who knows, it was a good crowd. Maybe the rest of the tour has sucked, but I know they played Columbia and they have a good history there, so the crowds couldn't have been too awful.

The Pitch has a good review of the show on their Plog. They also link to this video of some kids playing some old song.

Oh, as an aside they use a really good ticketing system at the Crossroads called Front Gate. There's about 66% fewer fees than those jackholes at Ticketmaster.

Futurama - Benders Big Score - DVD-Trailer

2007-10-08T07:46:00.001-07:00

This is coming soon! I can't wait for it to be broadcast on Cartoon Network since those bumbling morons on FOX can't tell a good show from crap like "Back To You". Buy It Buy It Buy It

Bad Dates Ultimately Delivers

2007-09-26T20:35:00.001-07:00

Bad Dates by Theresa Rebeck
Kansas City Repertory Theater
Copaken Stage

I saw Bad Dates on opening night last night. The wife and I trundled downtown to the almost-finished Power & Light District for a night of theater. The district itself is taking shape quite nicely and I expect it to a great, glittering destination when it’s finished later this year. If you’re a Missouri Tiger fan, come on down for the big pep rally before the MU-KU game at Arrowhead.

Anyway, Bad Dates is a one-person show. It’s about a single mom’s dating life in New York City. With that one sentence synopsis I was thinking that this would be an onstage "Sex and the City". Then we walked into the theatre and took a look at the stage. The set was an apartment’s bedroom: bed, closet, dresser, vanity, lounge chair. Above the bed were five pictures declaring the inhabitant of this room to be a Cool Mom. The most noticeable thing about this set was the shoes. Shoes were strewn everywhere; on every flat surface, over the closet door and exploding all over and out of the closet. It’s an interesting look to see a set that was mostly bought, as opposed to built. I had a small tremor though, that this might be even more of a confection of a show than I had previously thought. Forget SATC, think "Caroline in the City".

The show is carried on the shoulders of the only actor, Rebecca Dines. Ms. Dines is an Australian actor with a substantial list of credits. When she appeared onstage, however I had a bad feeling. Her American accent seemed muddled and imprecise. It was only later that I realized the degree of difficulty of the accent she did, both American and Texan. With that taken into account the occasional peeks of her Antipodean origins are understandable. When the show goes on for a bit, her language settles down more. Honestly, I wondered why she just didn’t make the character Australian and speak in her normal voice.

Ms. Dines has an appealing energy onstage, but in the entire first half of the production that energy seems uncontrolled, wild, as if her arms and legs are separate actors in the show. She flies around the stage and tries on many different outfits and shoes and directing her monologue at and interacting with the audience. As the show continues though, her true abilities as a performer are revealed. When the director allows her to, she can deliver a strong performance as this harried, charming, insecure woman. The entire first half of the show, unfortunately, she is less the character and more the dervish. I suspect that this was a direction choice and the show is poorer for it. When Ms. Dines, in the second half, is allowed to stand still and show the character and not the movement Bad Dates is an enjoyable piece of theatre.

Another issue with the directing is that whenever Ms. Dines would come to a point in the show where she would get to speak a truth about her character, she would come downstage and the lights would dim behind her. It’s such an obvious choice to highlight her with technical elements, rather than let the actor’s performance speak for itself. Why not give her a chance to connect with the audience on her own without hitting us over the head that now an Important Speech is coming?

The script by Theresa Rebeck has some unusual twists that can be incongruous, but I think the show hangs together well, albeit in two distinct pieces. Ms. Rebeck is a former writer for "Law & Order", and it shows in a lot of the characters that are introduced in the script. There are many small touches that become significant later in the show, which I thought was a nice touch.
Even though Bad Dates starts out as a light, airy piece of theatre, the second half of the show is real and left me with an overall positive feeling about it.

Bad Dates runs until October 21st at the Copaken Stage at the H&R Block Center, 13th and Walnut, Kansas City, MO. Tickets can be purchased at 816-235-2700 or online at http://www.kcrep.org/.

Kitchen Nightmares on Fox

2007-09-24T14:12:00.001-07:00

Fox’s remake of Chef Gordon Ramsay British program “Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares” is remade for US broadcast. “Kitchen Nightmares” (Wed. 8 PM on FOX) fits with the traditional reality makeover scenario: struggling *blank* meets successful *blank* and with some tough love, tears and a makeover, the struggling *blank* can meet his/her/its potential. It’s the same whether its “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” or “Nanny 911”. The formula is comforting and successful and “Kitchen Nightmares” is a fine example of the genre.

Programs of this nature start with the star/host. In this case it’s Chef Gordon Ramsay, a Scot with a three-star restaurant and a profanity-laden vocabulary, fresh from his stint this summer in the second season of FOX’s “Hell’s Kitchen”. In the first episode, Gordon visits a small, family-run Italian restaurant in Babylon, NY called Peter’s. The family who runs Peter’s is in danger of losing the restaurant and their livelihoods. Gordon comes in to try to help them.

The first thing he does is sample the food. His meal is execrable and he shares the cold crab cakes and uncooked pasta with the camera with disgust. You can see just how unappetizing the meal is. The camera catches Gordon’s anger at this substandard meal both visually and in his comments like “the crab cake is *bleep*ing frozen in the center”.

Next, he goes into the kitchen and discovers a kitchen stuck in time. The walk-in freezer leaks like a sieve, food in them is rotting where it sits and the ovens are broken and being used to store dirty aprons. Gordon tells the manager, Peter, a hulking, balding, self-important gladhandler that his restaurant will be famous very soon; for poisoning half of Babylon.

Gordon soon discovers that the whole problem is Peter. He’s spent the family’s money on a flash car, expensive watch and new suits for himself. It’s become such a problem that the restaurant has bill collectors coming to squeeze money out of Peter even while the cameras are rolling. One collector takes Peter out back and while the camera catches every word, threatens his business.

Peter won’t refit the kitchen so the chefs are doing the best they can with broken equipment. Gordon sees that the only way to fix the problem is to force Peter to work in the kitchen for a night. Peter is quickly revealed to be the weak link. He can’t cook on the equipment and is constantly coming up front to ask for cappuccino or whine about how things don’t work back there. The kitchen staff and Gordon all gleefully commenting in confessional-style shots about what how awful Peter is when forced to actually work. It’s compelling TV to see such a character hoisted on his own petard, which, of course, is the producers’ plan all along.

After showing Peter the error of his ways and forcing him to change at a blistering staff meeting after Peter’s disastrous night in the kitchen, the next morning finds Peter hard at work trying to repair the neglect that his mismanagement has caused. He apologizes to the wait staff he’s terrorized and cajoles a repairman to fix the walk-in box that same day.

With Peter’s new attitude now comes the makeover. Chef Ramsay sweareth at you, and then he gives you a whole new kitchen. This is the payoff for all the travails that Gordon puts his subjects through. The kitchen is completely redone with gleaming new state-of-the-art stoves and ovens. The prep area is revamped to make the food flow much faster from cooking to prep to tables. Gordon gives them new flatware and plates and, most importantly, a new menu. He takes Peter’s to a family-style menu with the emphasis on traditional Southern Italian dishes like lasagna and fettuccini alfredo. Of course, the staff is thrilled with the makeover, but Peter is not sure that it will work. Gordon opens the restaurant’s doors wide and, when the menu is a huge success, takes his accolades from the staff and family. The final scene is Gordon cautioning them that only by pulling together and everyone pulling their weight can their restaurant achieve its potential, but if they do, that potential is virtually limitless.

On the whole, this was a satisfying show. It has all the familiar elements, protagonist, antagonist, conflict and resolution. The show rests firmly on Gordon Ramsay and he shines in the spotlight, narrating what the audience is feeling, albeit with more profanity. His dialogue is bleeped at least once every time he opens his mouth, but he carries such authority in the kitchen that rather than blanching at his cursing, you agree with what he’s saying. I’ll certainly be set the DVR for this one.

***

Ratings:
***** - Worth a viewing party with your friends, bring popcorn, blog about it the next day
**** - Record it for later, but don't miss it
*** - Fine if it's on after a show you really like
** - A perfectly fine show, TiVO it, but if it's deleted, no biggie
* - Ugh, why is this on the air?
No Stars - Write the network and scream at them for wasting the public's airwaves

Reviews

2007-09-24T13:55:00.000-07:00

I haven't been updating much (or at all), so a friend of mine suggested that I blog about media I consume. Since the fall TV season starts this week, I'm kicking off my new show reviews. I'll only review shows that I watch, but I'm giving a try to a lot of shows this year. I'll also try to review Kansas City theatre. I go to a lot of shows, both professional and community, so if you do theatre and I review your show, feel free to comment back. Also, if there's a show you think I should see, let me know. I'll give it a try and review it here.

Here's a listing of the new TV shows I'm watching this year:
Monday
Aliens in America - CW (great, though slightly cliched, idea. Execution looks good)
Chuck - NBC (appealing cast and fun premise, widely praised by critics)
Journeyman - NBC (lead actor is talented, execution may not be great)
Tuesday
Cane - CBS (Jimmy Smits and a fine cast make this look good)
Reaper - CW (looks hilarious, despite some vocal opposition people I know)
Wednesday
Kitchen Nightmares - Fox (see review)
Pushing Daisies - ABC (fun conceit and production design make me look forward to this show)
Bionic Woman - NBC (reimagining of 70's show from producer of Heroes)
Life - NBC (features Damien Lewis, who was great in Band of Brothers)
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
Viva Laughlin! - CBS (this show is a musical produced by Hugh Jackman, star of film and Broadway. He also has a small role. If it gets three episodes I think that will be longer than anyone expected it to run)

Also coming up this week: Bad Dates at the KC Rep. Seeing it Wednesday, so look out for the review later this week!

Game Downloads - download info

2007-05-16T13:45:00.000-07:00

Game Downloads - download info: "http://free-game-downloads.mosw.com"

Da Visual Artz

2007-04-19T13:46:00.000-07:00

I may not know much about art, but I know one thing: if there's such a thing as high art, this is it.

Of course, it'll never be as good as this:

Art with Candy - Marshmallow Peeps!

2007-04-12T13:46:00.000-07:00

If you like the marshmallow peeps, check out the link in the title. The Washington Post has some good items. My favorite? Say Anything or Luncheon of the Peeping Party.

A Harris Pizza

2007-04-12T10:01:00.001-07:00

This may be the lamest commerical I've ever seen, but the pizza rocks!

The Bear Cub and other Cuteness

2007-04-05T08:45:00.000-07:00

You might have heard of this guy. Knut, the polar bear cub who lost his mother and lives at the Berlin Zoo. Here's the latest picture of him. He's sitting next to some jerk:

He's cute, there's no doubt of that, but that's him when he's little. He's going to get bigger and then he'll be a killing machine. Let's turn to Stephen Colbert. Since he's put bears on notice, he won't be seduced by the insane cuteness of the bear cub:

Damn! Even he can't stand the insane cuteness that is this bear cub! Well, I can counteract that with the cutest dog that ever lived. How will the bear cub deal with this:

Now that's my cute dog sitting in the sun. Since it's so cold here in April (!) he's looking for the most heat. I should get him a black pillow to absorb all the heat. Of course, since global warming is going to make it unbearably (heh) hot soon, let's enjoy the cold while we can.

Speaking of global warming, the latest Time has an article that discusses 51 things you can do to combat global warming, with an index on each one that tells its immediacy, impact and feel-good factor. #1? "Turn Food into Fuel" Ethanol made from things like food waste, corn husks, wood pulp and municipal waste. Strange, but I thought that this was happening already. I know that biomass was supposed to be one of the ways we could make energy back when I was in junior high. I remember reading about it in the Weekly Reader. I miss that publication, although I did suffer one of my greatest humiliations of junior high at its hands. Or rather, pages. I couldn't pronounce "Ueberroth". Awful, I can still hear the boys in the class shouting it at me. Of course, now I know he was a jerk and a failed politician, so I don't feel so bad. Also it's been twenty years. You'd think that'd be enough.

Groping for words (or the expanding universe and metaphorical problems)

2007-02-06T09:40:00.000-08:00

What's funny is that this is just a short post about how I'm having trouble these days coming up with good metaphors. I was trying to describe expansion (in relation to my waistline, unfortunatley) and spent five minutes trying to come up with something better than 'like a balloon' or 'like the universe'. The first one is overused and the second is pretty obscure. I would bet that no more than 1 out of 10 random people you asked would know the universe is expanding, not unlike my belly, though I'd say that my belly is markedly less studied. Hopefully.

By the way, the picture is of the galaxy M100. The Spitzer telescope (currently orbiting about 520 miles above the Earth) took this picture. It shows how the universe is expanding by observing distant lights in other galaxies and monitoring how fast they move away from other objects. By measuring the distance they travel scientists can find out how fast the universe and everything in it is spreading. Freaky!

Like a Fortune Cookie, just add 'Embed'

2007-01-25T12:12:00.000-08:00

This is my first attempt at posting an embedded video from YouTube. I've seen it done, but I'm anxious to try it myself. This is an old ad for Carlton Draught Beer (it's from Australia) and it's just very amusing. Let's see if it works!

Dog or Cat? or Taking a break from parking

2007-01-25T07:59:00.000-08:00

Perhaps you're familiar with our dog, Chewy?

This is him sitting in the sun at our house. I think that he may be a cat in a dog suit. He likes to sit in the sun and just chill...

But I think that this is the thing that clinches the "Cat in Dog Suit" theory. He REALLY loves climbing up my arm and laying on my shoulders. I've never seen a dog do anything quite like this. What a crazy dog!

Thanks

2007-01-19T07:52:00.000-08:00

For your comments on that last, looong post. It was a bit of a struggle to write and I realized that I was giving a lot away on what is essentially a public forum, but it seemed important at the time. I'll just have to post a lot more often to put that very, ahem, revealing post into the archive.

So, here's an update: when I got home the day I was going to deliver the letter I had a small confrontation. She was going West and I was going East on the same street. We faced off at the stop sign, since I was turning and she had no turn signal I waited for her to go. She just sat there and we waited for a while. Finally I just turned left with the intention of backing into the space that we argued over. Well, I had to wait as cars were going down the street and I couldn't get through the intersection backwards. She, on the other hand, went the wrong way down a one-way, turned around and parked in the spot. She, of course, didn't leave enough room for two cars, so I had to park in a less desireable spot. Oh well, it's 15 extra steps to the front door.

By the time I had parked and was out of my car she was already inside her house. I put the letter in her mailbox and walked to my house. Then the weekend happened and I put it out of my mind. Of course, I did see her scraping her walk (with a car scraper) on Sunday. She did the section between her front steps and where she wants to park. And not well, it's still ice-covered. Nothing else, even though she's got about 50 additional feet to scrape. She gave me a dirty look as I was bringing in the groceries. I guess my efforts have failed.

Of course this week I've been able to park in the spot at will. I think she's out of town so there's no struggle. We'll see what happens when she gets back and will try to park there. I've done my bit for peace. If she wants to struggle and be a pain the ass, let her. We'll play it like the Law of the Jungle, and I've got lion blood in me!

Good Parking Makes Good Neighbors

2007-01-11T13:13:00.000-08:00

Well, we had our first visit from one of our neighbors in Hyde Park last night. My wife and myself were hanging out after dinner and the dishes, just relaxing from the stresses of the day when the doorbell rings. We both go to see who's at the door. It's our neighbor to the West at 701, a nice lady named... something. When she intoduced herself from 20 feet away it sounded like either "Leticia" or "Latifah". Could have been either.

Well L (as we're going to call her) had a problem because the first words out of her mouth to me were: "Don't park in my spot!". I responded with my usual aplomb: "With the what now?"

I was taken aback, you see because I wasn't aware that I had parked in anyone's spot, I had parked on the street. Here's a diagram to help you visualize what's happening here:

As you can see, my car was parked at the corner of a public street, but she's under the impression that it's "her" parking space.

When I indicated that this was not the case, the a public street isn't anyone's space she proceeded to inform me that since we were new we wouldn't know this, but she's been parking there for five years and that I would have to find another place to park. L told me that it was an "unspoken arrangement". Of course it is. So unspoken that when I ask people about it they have no idea what the hell I'm talking about.

So, L tells me again not to park in her space. I just don't respond well to this kind of browbeating. Now, maybe she's just had a bad day and didn't want to walk the extra 10 steps that she had to take from where she parked behind me (see "Her Car" in my awesome diagram) to her house, but I think that it's pretty ballsy to knock on someone's door and demand they not park on a street. My response was pretty much the same the whole time: "Well, it's a public street", meaning "I'll park wherever the hell I please. I got there first and I'm parking there and if you don't like it you can sit and spin. Now that you bring it up and come to my door at night you just make me want to park there more, maybe get my friends to come over and park in all the spots around our houses so that you'll have nowhere to park". But that wouldn't be politic of me, so I just reiterate that it's a street and anyone can park there. You know, I may have considered not parking there if she had just been polite about it, but that demand out of the blue was just so off-putting that I couldn't agree.

I wish that I was more articulate in these situations because that's not the strangest part of this. L has a garage on the side of her house that faces Holmes! She never uses it, so maybe it's chock full of dead bodies or plague-infected or it's where she spins house records, but it's a garage. We don't have any usable off-street parking so this is doubly weird that she wants me to park farther away from our house than she parks from hers. Odd people. Anyway, I forgot to tell her that when she was right in front of me, but Tricia mentioned it to me after L had left.

Well, this morning I go to make sure that she doesn't have the right to park there. I mean, maybe I'm missing something here. Maybe she's got a dispensation from the city and it's unmarked because some angry dogs tore down the signs. So, I call the Department of Parking Control and speak to a very nice woman named Yolanda (as an aside I can't hear that name without thinking of "Pulp Fiction". Amanda Plummer's character was named Yolanda, but you might remember her as Honey Bunny. She was robbing the coffee shop with Tim Roth). Anyway, Yolanda just about died laughing when I asked her if people could claim a piece of on-street parking for themselves. So the answer was a qualified no. She can't do that unless she was handicapped. Then the city comes out and puts down some signs specifying that only handicapped people can park there, but even still, that's not for your exclusive use. If you had that space designated handicapped if I had the little wheelchair tag or plate I could use your space if I wanted to. It's not exclusive to you, it just makes it a lot more likely that you'll get a spot to park in if you're disabled.

So, L is not allowed to claim that spot for her own. But to be sure (and to start some documentation if this thing escalates) I email the neighborhood police officer to ask him the same question. He says the same as Yolanda and offers to come down and talk to L about public thoroughfares. I decline for now, but tell him I may need his help if things go pear-shaped.

With the surety that I'm in the right here, today I wrote L a letter offering a compromise. Not much of one, I'll admit, but one that's legal, sane and, best of all, equitable. I'll post the text here with some portions like addresses and names X'd out. Post your comments about it, maybe I'm being condescending to her, but isn't ok when you're in the right?

__________________________________________________________________
January 11, 2007

To: L
From: Josh
Re: On-Street Parking

Dear L:

[Apologies if I spelled your name incorrectly. I’ve never seen it spelled out and really only heard it once, when we first moved in]

Thanks for visiting yesterday. It seems like people in Hyde Park don’t talk to each other very much. I meet very few people in the neighborhood, so I’m glad to have received the chance to speak with you.

I’m sorry that we’re having this dispute about parking. I have to tell you that I was shocked that you were upset that I parked at the corner of Holmes and 41st Street. I know I’ve parked there before and it didn’t elicit comment from you previously. I wish you had said something then, so that this wouldn’t be an issue now.

The reason I parked there is because when I leave for work in the morning I go West down 41st Street. Since there are few spots on 41st typically, I usually look for a spot on Holmes near to my house. That spot on the SE corner of Holmes and 41st is ideal for me. It is 50 steps from my front door and I don’t have to cross any streets. I’ve parked on Holmes North of 41st, but that is much less convenient, as I’d have to either go around the block back to 41st or back up onto 41st, which can be quite difficult at time.

I know you feel that that is ‘your’ space, but I did some checking with Kansas City’s Dept. of Parking Control. I spoke with Yolanda Perry and it seems that the only way they reserve spaces on public streets is if a person is handicapped. There’s an example of this on Charlotte Street, right around the corner from where we live. Those spaces are clearly marked and regardless, they are not reserved for any single individual. If I had a handicapped tag or plate I could park in such a spot!

I noticed this morning that you parked your car immediately behind mine on Holmes (just North of your driveway). It seems that since there’s room for two cars there wouldn’t be a need for any dispute. If we both want to park on that part of Holmes we can, one car in front of the other. So, I propose this solution that I think is quite fair: we agree that we may both park on that section of the street, that it’s not anyone’s property or exclusive right. Whoever gets there first will be able to park in the Northerly-most part of the curb and the second person will get the Southern part, or vice versa, as long as the person who parks there first leaves enough room for two cars to be parked there.

Being good neighbors means being willing to work with those around you, making reasonable requests. I feel that this is a reasonable solution to any dispute that has arisen between us. No one has exclusive rights to any part of a public street. My solution is fair and equitable and enables both of us to park in close proximity to our homes.
___________________________________________________________________

What do you think? Think this will get out of hand?

Hmm. I didn't get that. Did you mean: Caveat Emptor?

2006-09-20T13:59:00.000-07:00

If you've got AT&T, get rid of them. Banish them from your lives and walk into the light. They bill themselves as this great company with a tradition of customer service. My friends, let me tell you, the truth is that they are nothing of the kind. They're a bunch of creeps there who wouldn't give you the time of day if you worked in a watch factory.

"Hmm. I didn't get that. Did you mean: Bite Me?"

As frequent readers know, I've had some problems getting internet access in my new house. It's frustrating to not be able to access the internet. Oh sure, we've got a dial-up connection, but after years of high-speed, there's no way to go back. A dial-up connection now is like trying to live on a trickle of water when you can hear a river behind some inaccessible wall. You know there's more, so it's torture to try to subsist on what you can have.

"Hmm. I didn't get that. Did you mean: Sucker?"

Well, I finally called up AT&T today to scream and shout at them to fix my internet connection when I got Caitlin on the phone (after, of course, numerous voice prompts. And AT&T doesn't have the prompts where you 'Press One' or 'Press Two'. No, they have actual VOICE prompts. You SAY the option you wish to use. That's the most annoying thing because you can't even talk while you're trying to reach a live person. You have to stay quiet or the computerized woman's voice says something patronizing.

"Hmm. I didn't get that. Did you mean: Go to hell and die?"

Anyway, back to Caitlin. When I got to her I was prepared to scream at her, but she solved the problem instantly. When you disconnect service at one address, you have to call in to AT&T to re-register your service. It would have been nice to know this when I set up the move, rather than having to call in and listen to... HER:

"Hmm. I didn't get that. Did you mean: Spawn of Satan?"

Well, I'm going home tonight to set that up and it's going to be the last time I listen to that terrible AT&T woman. There has to be a better option than dealing with a company that has such obvious contempt for it's customers.

"Hmm. I didn't get that. Did you mean: Cable Modem?"

Exactly.

New Home

2006-09-18T08:43:00.001-07:00

The wife and myself bought ourselves a new place to flop:

It's a good little place, about 100 years old and it shows in lots of little places. But, more importantly, it's the place that we can have our dog come live with us. He's been in foster care for the past few months while we've been looking for a house. Now we've got it, and he's going to be our puppy! It's very exciting!

Of course, the home search process was excruciating. We'd been looking since March of this year for a home that suited us. We had exacting standards; so much room, so many amenitites, this neighborhood but not that neighborhood. Not in the suburbs.

Honestly, that was my primary concern. I just didn't want to have to look for homes in Kansas or Independence or one of those other places that's so far from the city. I crave that excitement of being in the thick of things. I know a couple who bought a house way East. They don't come in to the city except when they absolutley cannot avoid it. Their horizons are trammelled, these formerly exciting people are now wholly different type of people: suburbanites!

Not that the suburbs are that bad, but I know that I wouldn't have any fun out there. We live in Hyde Park South, very near the Nelson and the Art Institute and the theatres on Main and the KC Rep. The cultural heart of the city is mere blocks away. When you get used to that, it'd be difficult to think about moving away. At least, for me.

Anyway, we got the house and after a few weeks of preparation, we're now moved in. It has been a rough couple of weeks before we moved, however. When you've lived in a place for six years, you accumulate quite a few things. When we packed up the apartment, there was a mountain of boxes in the living room and dining room; floor to ceiling, 10 x 8 feet square. That was something to see. I'd go to bed at night and listen to them groaning downstairs. We tiptoed around during the day in case we caused a boxalanche. That may not be a word to you, but when you live in fear of being buried in boxes, you get to make up a word for that fear.

The other issue that is bothering me about this move is the phone company. They are our provider of DSL access, a service that I've had for years. When I informed them of our impending move two weeks before we were supposed to move, they told me that everything would be ready on the day we moved. The phone and the DSL would be set up for us that day. Well, the phone was set up, but the DSL was nowhere to be found. When I contacted AT&T to find out what happened, they informed me that they had screwed up and not put through the transfers for both the phone and the DSL. It would be 10 days before we would have internet. This was just stupid! It's the press of a button! 10 days to get someone to push a button is just the most idiotic thing I'd ever heard. Well, after three phone calls I couldn't get them to push up the date, but I did get a free month of DSL. I'd rather have had the access at home all week, but it's better than nothing. The worst thing is that those three phone calls each took about an hour each. Why is it that companies that have these voice menus? All they do is make it harder to get service. I think the companies rely on people hanging up and not complaining for their profit margins. The worst thing is that I would have handled it via email, but without internet, there's no damn email! Ugh, the tech on the phone tried to tell me that I could still use dial-up internet. I told her I had no modem and she tried to tell me what a damn modem looks like. Here's my recommendation: if you have AT&T, get rid of them. They've got a dead technology that can't last too much longer. Get Time Warner Cable Modem. It's faster and you'll get more value and much easier tech support. Screw AT&T.

Rocky Mountains

2006-07-27T12:04:00.000-07:00

It's a lovely day in the lowlands. Hot, humid and rainy. It's just not a pleasant time to be in Missouri. On the other hand, in the Rocky Mountains, it's a gorgeous day. I never knew that the mountains could be so freaking awesome, but let me 'splain.

My friend Tim is getting married in a couple of weeks, so Chuong and I decided that he'd have to have a trip to the mountains before his wedding. We got Gear and rented a car and headed off to Rocky Mountain National Park. We left after work on a Thursday and drove all night through Kansas and Colorado until we got to our friend Becca's house. She was gracious about putting up four boys in her little place (even when we got there at 4 AM) and made our stay there really fun. Many thanks to Becca!

Anyway, the next day we got up and headed to the park. We hiked some trails, saw some rapids and found the thing to do that day: hike from the Glacier Gorge trailhead up to Alberta Falls in the Eastern part of the park. We hiked for a lot of the afternoon and got to the top of the falls in two hours (only about 1.5 miles, but a long way up).

Here's the falls. If you're ever there, they are well worth the trip.

What's funny is that this is probably the most documented trip I've ever been on. All four of us (five on Saturday, when Becca was with us) were carrying cameras so there are almost 2000 pictures between five cameras of that trip. There are many shots where a picture was taken of people taking a picture. At one point we stood in a large circle and took pictures of each other taking pictures. It's all to get a panorama shot. It looks freaky, but it works, after a fashion:

I like it (though I'm the dumbass who had his finger in front of the lens) and I'd like to try it again, the next time I'm at a place that needs a good panorama. Maybe the top of the Liberty Memorial?

Anyway, this all brought to mind how many chapters of our lives aren't documented. College, for myself. It was a very formative time, but there's nothing but the recollections and a few pictures here and there. On the one hand, that's too bad. We don't have the photographs of the times when all we had to do was bond. On the other hand, that's good. We were too busy living those bonding times to worry about documenting them. Either way, I'm glad they happened. If they did. There's no record, after all, and a lot of the people might have difficulty remembering them, whether from poor recall or legal reasons.

Hey Buddy!

2006-07-10T19:59:00.000-07:00

So, the Olathe Community Theatre Association's season ended with their annual award show and banquet, The Buddies. The theme this year was "A Prom Gone Wrong". And it did. It was a silly affair, attended by silly actor types, giving each other silly awards, but it was fun. What's even sillier is this ------------->

I won a dang award for Best Character Actor for my part in "Fools". Don't get me wrong, I had a good time with the role, but I don't think it was particularly award-worthy or anything. It was just a fun, funny part that I had.

So, of course, it went right to my head and I now refuse to do anything but prestige projects with big-name directors. In fact, I'm now so big that I don't do my own blog posts. I have people for that. That's right, this is ghost-written!

Seems like Old Times

2006-06-23T08:56:00.000-07:00

It's been nine days since I've updated this. I'm probably going to have to send out a email to let people know that there's new postings. I've got a bunch of stories to tell so I'll start with the one that happened first and work my way up from there.

First, Tricia bought a new car. It's a Toyota Corolla, probably the most ubiquitous car on the road among us white, college-educated, early 30's people. The process of buying a car is so excruciating. If you do research on what you're buying then you know what to pay, but going to the dealer and getting that deal is such an agonizing day-long struggle. I'd done the research on these cars so I knew what to pay and what the dealers were likely to say to get us to up our price. I used the Consumer Reports Used Car Buying Guide to get the range of prices that the dealers ask and what we should pay and CarFax to find out if there was anything wrong with the cars we looked at. The two together were very valuable. I recommend them both to anyone who wants to put one over on used car dealers.

The first dealer we went to was in the Northland, Bob Sight Ford. They had three Corollas on the lot, virtually identical except for color. All 2005's, all within 5000 miles of each other and all with the same features. We went there on a Saturday morning, early, and drove the one with lowest mileage. It went through its paces well, but was a very boring "Champagne" color:

Probably the most boring thing on the road, but it would be reliable. We weren't too excited about this car, but the price would be right.

The salesman "Flick" (his real name was something like Dick Flickerton, which sounds like the car dealer equivalent of Biggus Dickus) sat us back in the little grimy cubicle that they sit you in to test your patience. We proceeded to haggle. I mentioned a price, which he refused and waited for me to negotiate against myself. We went back and forth, him getting up "to talk to his manager". I hate that they make you talk to someone who's not empowered to deal. He asked about a trade-in. They use this information to see if there's a way to get you to accept a higher price and make up the money with the trade-in. Since Tricia and I had discussed what to do if they asked about a trade-in, we both ignored his question completely. We finally agreed on a price, $10,700.

Then "Flick" brought out the deal sheet, which had a $199 'documentation fee'. When I told him that he should pay the fee he got the manager. This guy had to be the dumbest person on the block. I knew it for certain when he said to me "This is a Toyota Corolla, you won't find these for sale". I smirked at him and showed him the information sheets that I had compiled on seven other cars that we were going to look at. That wasn't counting the hundreds of other Corollas for sale all over this town that didn't meet our standards.

Well, by that time all trust had gone out of the bargaining. We left with an offer on the boring car, but when we talked about it we decided that their patronizing tone and moron salesmen had soured us on the whole deal. We left, never to return. So, if you're in the market for a car, avoid Bob Sight Ford in the Northland like it's got the plague, rickets and avian flu.

There's more stories to tell, I'll post more later today, I think. One concerns an award show!

(that's called a teaser, it supposed to bring you back for more. Let's hope it works)

Favorite Spots

2006-05-16T07:46:00.000-07:00

It's Clio season, which means that the advertising community is giving out awards for the best spots from the previous year. Clios are given world-wide, so a lot of the best spots aren't things you can see on TV. Here's a selection of things that I thought were fantastic.

Of the Clio winners, this one is probably my favorite. It's a spot for Carsburgh Draft beer that's a great parody of all the overblown movie trailers you've ever seen. It really made me laugh when they draw out the word "bloody". Supposedly the advertising professionals just loved this one as well, but mostly because it celebrated everything they like. Great concept, exotic location and very, very expensive.

This ad for Sony BRAVIA tvs just blew me away. They took a quarter of a million superballs to the streets of San Francisco and just let 'er rip. This is just the kind of thing that appeals to me, the visuals are just stunning and I've got enough 10-year-old boy in me to love the sheer beauty of potential energy in action. I'm not saying it makes me desperate to get a new TV or anything, but I think that the best advertising doesn't go out of its way to force a brand on you. The ad barely mentions the brand. Advertising is omnipresent enough these days without being beated over the head by ads. Unless it's done ironically.

This American Express Ad is probably one of my favorite things on TV right now. It's part of their series of short films by famous directors about thier lives and passions. It's got all the hallmarks of a film by Wes Anderson; fantastic art direction, self-referential parody, sly humor and Jason Schwartzman. It's a great ad for American Express, though it really isn't until the end that you're really aware that the product being advertised. Someone wrote that this is the best Wes Anderson film they've ever seen, mostly because he didn't have enough time to indulge his faults like clunky characters and too-clever setups. I don't know, I quite like Wes Anderson films. Give me "Rushmore" anyday!

If you've got a favorite ad, I'd like to know about it. Post me a comment!

Show Update

2006-05-14T20:27:00.000-07:00

It's Mother's Day. I was able to call my mom despite having a matinee of "Fools" at 2 PM. The call to be at the theatre was 12:30 PM, so that led to a quite truncated morning. The wife and I were able to get the grocery shopping done, thankfully since the forthcoming week also promises to be a hectic one. But more on that later.

I haven't posted since we opened our show in Olathe. The opening night was great, we had a whole crowd of theatre people who were a great audience. After two weeks of running the show without any kind of response to the jokes and such we were putting out into the dark theatre it was a real relief to have a roomful of people. The show really went well that night too. Though I hate to brag, it was a small triumph. Of course, the Saturday show was quite a letdown. The crowd was smaller and much less responsive. It's extremely difficult to do comedy without an audience that laughs. It was almost payback for having such a good opening night. I said to Tricia then that my worry was that we'd had our best audience too soon.

The next week was action-packed, though the show was dark. Tricia's car broke down (distributor) and she decided that she'd like to have a new car. It would have cost about 25% of the car's total value to fix it. She drives a 1997 Civic, so it's most likely time to get her a new car. It's frustrating because I have to wonder how that will affect our ability to buy a house this year, but she does need a car. We've been shopping as we can, given the schedule that's going on. She's decided on a Corolla, so that'll be one more Toyota Corolla among the people I know. It seems like all the people I went to college with around here have Corollas in their lives. Hopefully we'll get a different color than "Ubiquitous Blue". I hope we can get a good deal. If you have any pieces of advice on bargaining with the dealers, please post a comment! I'll post the details of what happens here, since it's likely to be a great story, win or lose.

This weekend we had the show again, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It was a very tough run and I'm very tired tonight. The Friday house was good, responsive at least. I think part of that was that the cast was glad to be back together. We worked well together and made the show great. I was pretty happy with it. Then the Saturday house was great, as was the show. It was one of those nights where the audience and the performers are feeding off each other. The director hugged me that night and told me that I had been "on fire". High praise and I hope I warranted it. Today's matinee was tough to get to, but we made it happen, despite being at the most 75%. I think today was a occasion of the audience feeding us. There were several people who really, really enjoyed the show. That made us (well, me certainly) want to give them more. I think it was a good show, with a party afterwards at the director's house.

The house, unfortunatley, is in Spring Hill, KS. You may not know where that is, so here's a map from the Plaza to help illustrate the point. Quite a long way away. I wasn't even aware that KC had a 210th Street! The party was good, Tricia got to see the director's family's horses, which made her pretty happy. I'm glad we went, but I'm more glad to be home now. It's time to relax for tonight and get ready for the week. I hope it's an easier one. To all you mothers out there, Happy Mother's Day and I'll post again soon.

Little Dollop of Heaven

2006-05-03T11:59:00.000-07:00

Today, at work, I got a present, a small box, but what it contained was just enough to make a rainy, gloomy day beautiful. It was a box of 12 small jars that contained the best mustard that was ever created. It's Boetje's Dutch Style Mustard! It's without a doubt my favorite condiment in the whole wide world.

Boetje's is a mustard, stone-ground with only five ingredients: water, vinegar, mustard seed, sugar and salt. I tend to think that they forgot one: angel dust, because there's something in this mustard that makes it taste so heavenly. This mustard goes great with any kind of sandwich, and since I eat a sandwich every day at lunch, this is serious business for me.

I ran out of this mustard just this week, but the good people at Boetje Foods in Rock Island, IL came through for me like nobody's business. Ordered through their website (http://www.boetjefoods.com) on Monday, and here it is Wednesday and I've got the goods. You can say that there's better brands of mustards, but you'd be wrong! I've tried to find a similiar mustard in the grocery stores here in Kansas City, but I've only found pale imitations. Even the Hickory Farms people have nothing that's even a shade as tasty as this mustard. If you like the taste of mustard with real flavor behind it, I can't recommend this enough.

Hell Week

2006-05-01T11:51:00.000-07:00

It's called that because it's the week that includes tech week and dress rehearsals and they're all in the week right before the opening of the show. So it's quite a few days without a break in the action.

"Fools" opens at OCTA on Friday and the cast is all very excited about it. It's Tech Week though, so that means that it's very busy. Tonight we're doing pictures for the show, so we all have to be there early, 6:30 PM. When it takes 30 minutes to get to the theatre and you get off work at 5 PM and you have to cook dinner in that time, it doesn't leave a lot of time for introspection, or you know, bathroom breaks. It's a hectic week, but you hope that it all pays off at opening night when you put up the best show you can. I'm playing the heavy, the villian. It's a role I don't get to play very much, so I'm pretty happy about it. I think the show is funny and I hope our audiences agree. The theatre out there is supported by the community fairly well, so I imagine we'll have some large houses. Of course, when I was in "Glengarry Glen Ross" out there we had only moderate houses. I think that audiences look on dramas as "vegetable theatre", where they only go out of a sense of obligation. It sure seems that a company can put a crappy musical up and it'll have huge houses, but when you put up a very good play you're rewarded with small, but appreciative houses.

My sister-in-law is in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" out in the Washington, DC area. I'm envious of her because while I'm in a Neil Simon comedy, she's out there doing Albee! I'd love to have that kind of opportunity. Doing Mamet was great, and it's something that won't come around again, so I treasure the experience, but I want more! More dramas, more characters that you can sink your teeth into, more anguish and despair and vindictiveness and mendacity! I'm looking to be in a show like that.

So, if you've got a theatre and you need someone to portay the myraid panes of the human spirit, let me know. Oh, I'll do commercial work as well. *wink*

Four-Day Delay

2006-04-25T13:33:00.000-07:00

I can't believe that it's been so long since I've done any kind of updating to this thing. It's been a busy few days. Let's start with the weekend, shall we?

We had rehearsal for "Fools" at Olathe Community Theatre on Friday. The show had two acts and we ran the 2nd act twice that night. I got several notes that I wasn't doing the character to the director's approval. It was very frustrating that I wasn't able to get it, but I also think that some of the criticism wasn't warranted. Two differing visions of the character, I suppose. It was very hard to deal with, and I walked out of rehearsal not feeling very confident. That's happened a lot with this show and it may just be that I don't have a handle on this character as opposed to some others that I've played, or it may be that it's been so long since I've done a show that I'm completely rusty, or, and this is the worst, maybe I'm just creatively dried out on acting.

That's a scary thing to say because performing is something I very much enjoy, but this show hasn't been an exceptional experience. I'm hoping that as the rehearsal period comes to an end and we're able to get in front of an audience that the whole experience will change. I just don't know.

Saturday afternoon was our poker tournament. It lasted a fairly long time, from about 12:15 to 5:00 PM. I finished 2nd and increased my standings in our tournament points totals. I'm now leading due to my two first place finishes and my two second place finishes. The next tournament will be #15 and the last under the old points regime. We'll crown a winner and start everyone over at zero points. If I can beat the 2nd place person I'll walk away with the funny hat of victory! I also found out who is posting to this blog as Tall David. My apologies for not realzing who you were. Thanks for the tip about Mentos and soda, we tried it and it worked pretty well. I've got an idea for a loader that I think will get the whole package into the bottle quickly: rolled-up paper. I'm going to try it soon.

Sunday was another busy day, a birthday celebration at the Westport Flea Market. That place is hard to describe to people. I don't really enjoy the food there, but I sure do enjoy the atomosphere. I love to go there because they have my favorite beer on tap, some of my favorite bands on the jukebox and the best bar game ever invented: shuffleboard. If I ever had the desire to open a bar, I'd like it to be something like that place.

That night was rehearsal again and it was another frustrating time. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of good things about this show. Tricia is hilarious in it, as is Bob Hart and the lead. If I weren't in it, I'm sure that I'd go see it. It could be as simple as a lack of confidence on my part that makes these rehearsals so difficult for me. Tonight we're going back to the 2nd act. I hope it'll be much better for me, and excellent for everyone involved.

Inexorable Turn of the Cards

2006-04-19T12:33:00.000-07:00

The clock on the screen says 1:14 AM. I'm staring into the display with the fevered glare of the truly insane. My opponent is taking his time to decide whether or not to call my bluff. It's just the two of us and the match has gone on for four hours. Finally he throws down his cards and I rake a pot that means the difference between elimination and a precious victory. The chair-hopping half-strut that I do only accentuates the feeling of adrenaline pouring through my veins.

I play a fair amount of poker, as some of you already know. It's such an engaging game. I've been playing it for years, since the old college days when we'd play for hours with laundry money. We'd play nickel-ante and quarter max bet. It was such a simple time. If you'd won, you'd come home with your hands smelling with the sharp tang of metal. I always loved that odor, the smell of coins. Why does money have such an evocative scent? It's been said that the religion of America is money. I can believe it, money comes with its own incense!

Poker is something that's so easy to play now. The recent boom and TV exposure has really increased the number of outlets you can try your hand at. Here in town there are four companies that bring poker tournaments to bars. Seven nights a week you can leave the house and play cards for free. Prizes are pretty pedestrian, chip sets, card markers and playing cards. My wife always tells me to "win lots of t-shirts" when I go out to play because there's always some point when they give away a $1 t-shirt. You can see the business model in this, of course. You get 50 guys in a bar playing poker on a Monday night, they're going to increase your business. So by the time you've won that $1 t-shirt, you've spent $20 in alcohol and food. Not me, of course. I'm the guy who drinks one diet soda and gets refills all night.

There's a tournament this weekend that I'm co-hosting. This is our 14th tournament. We've got hosting down to a science and I like to think that we're successful at it. 14 tournaments is a pretty good barometer of success. Of course, people are so busy that it's hard to get the tournament to grow. Even though we have regulars we're still stuck at 17 being the most people who've ever played. At one point we thought we could get 36 players. Now I realize that idea was a pipe dream, who would want to play at something so crowded and unwieldy?

I've won the thing twice. So far, I'm the only person to do it. I'm hoping that this weekend I can make it three times. I think I'm a pretty good player, but I know there are players who are better than I am. It's a fact of life; no matter how good you are at something, there's always someone better. I'll just do the best I can and try to sneak by under the radar, that's the way to win.

Our Dumb Leader

2006-04-18T18:38:00.000-07:00

I won't call this a political blog because it's not primarily about politics, but I do have an interest in current events. I read quite a few newspapers each day because of my job, so I like to think that I'm reasonably well-informed. At least, more so than the average American, who gets the news from god knows where since so many people are willing to believe in things like creationism, despite the evidence to the contrary. Maybe they hear it all in bars.

Like I said, this isn't a political blog, but I just read something that's so scary-idiotic that I have to comment here. Our president has decided that the best way to get the Iranians to give up their nuclear program is to refuse to rule out attacking them with nuclear weapons. So, the way our leader has decided to prevent nuclear spread is to threaten to use them again. It just seems like when people decided to vote for this alleged leader Bush, they forgot that one of the primary things we should have in a leader is intelligence. I don't think Bush has any conception of what would happen after he used nuclear weapons on Iran. I can imagine that he thinks that after the bomb is dropped the Iranians suddenly see the error of their ways, rather than, as is incredibly more probably, the entire Muslim world arises in fury and plunges the world into a nightmare of collapse.

There's nothing wrong with negotiating with Iran closely. I think we should be over there talking and get them to stop their nuclear program. It's in our interest to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of religious fundamentalists. But threatening Iran before the talking begins only hardens every position and makes it more difficult to achieve our goals. Actually using nuclear weaponsgives the Muslim world its very own "date which will live in infamy". Let us sieze the moral high ground and use our nuclear arsenal in an intelligent way, a way which gives us the advantage. A way that puts the Iranians in a place where they want to give up the weapons. Of course, that'll take intelligence. Maybe someone can keep President Bush busy for a week or two and the adults in the White House can take care of this. Get that man an XBox 360!

Lazy Easter Sunday

2006-04-16T19:49:00.000-07:00

It's Easter and it's a day for family. I talked to my parents and, amazingly, my oldest brother. I only say amazingly because it was fortuitous that I should be on the phone with my parents when they stop by for dinner. I also found out that he reads this blog, so: Hi Bill!

It seems like all my friends are with family today. I wonder what the call is on Easter that makes people decide to come together with relatives? I don't think the religious aspects of Easter are what drives the need to gather together with their family. Too many people I know are post-Catholic (thanks to Tracy for the term) to have that be the reasoning. I suppose that it's just a convenient time to get a group of people bound by love and blood around a table. Family maintenance, I guess. Bonds fade if they're not renewed. And that's it. Renewal. The central theme of Easter, from the Christian tradition of Jesus' resurrection to the Anglo-Saxon rituals celebrating the return of Spring. It's comforting to know that today's observance of eating ham around a table extends as far back as the 7th century.

As an aside, I'm also pleased that a stream-of-consciousness paragraph can elucidate such a revelation (to me at least, those of you who figured that out before me can leave deragatory comments if you wish) about the observance of Easter. There may yet be hope for me...

Well, I wish you all a happy and healthy Easter. I've got an oddly optimistic view of Spring this year. It makes me wonder if there's something in the air besides pollen...

The Bands of My Youth

2006-04-14T07:55:00.000-07:00

I'm reading Greg Kot's "Wilco: Learning How to Die" this week. It's a short book, a history of the band Wilco (one of my personal favorites. Right before I started this blog I went to their show at the Uptown, which rocked hard). The book is more like a biography of Jeff Tweedy (the leader of Wilco) than being about the band itself. The early chapters deal with Uncle Tupelo, probably one of my favorite bands of all time and definitely the best band to come out of Belleville, Illinois, ever. The book is not what I would call well-written, the writing can be flat and uninspiring, but the story is very compelling. Of course, it could just be the personal feelings I have for Uncle Tupelo that make it so engrossing to me.

Which is probably why, when I got to the part of the book that dealt with the breakup of Uncle Tupelo, I became so incredibly sad. I was reading late at night in bed (couldn't sleep, but that's an unrelated issue) and had to put the book down. I couldn't read anymore. I had to go downstairs and listen to some of the albums and just listen. Recapture the feeling I had when I first heard those tunes on No Depression, the feeling that someone finally was saying what I had felt. They were speaking to me through my stereo, they knew what was missing for me for all those years in high school. It was great, and it was melancholy, because that music's gone.

I guess I shouldn't be too sad, the two guys seperate and find their own identities in their own bands. Both excellent bands, that put out music that I love, but sometimes I just wish they could have worked it out. It's an elegy for what might have been. Now I'll throw on some Wide Swing Tremolo or Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and celebrate that these guys are still young, still prolific and have grown as artists apart from each other. Besides, they're still speaking to me through the stereo. As they've grown, so have I. I hope these conversations go on forever.

Working for the Man

2006-04-10T17:56:00.000-07:00

Sometimes when I'm working hard all day I start thinking about my old boss, Angie. She was disorganized as hell and didn't do a whole lot of actual work, but when she left she said she was going off to start her own independent research company. Since that's basically what I spend quite a few of my days doing, it makes me wonder if I could do something like that. I know I've got mad skillz as far as finding things. I mean, I've been able to pull proverbial needles out of excessively large haystacks before, so that wouldn't bother me, but what I do wonder about is the amount of time spent working versus the amount of time you'd spend pimping yourself, and that doesn't just include the time spent blogging about how good you are (I don't like boasting like that, in fact, that's one of the things that turns me off to hip-hop, the constant boasting. Just an aside, or as it should be more properly known, a tangent). I wonder if Angie was able to make it work. I don't think so, because the last thing I heard about her was that she was back to working for the man, at the public library.

So, to put a cap on this thought, working for the man can suck, but working for yourself and failing doesn't sound like any kind of picnic either.

Went out into the woods yesterday and it was beautiful.

I think Spring has come for us and I'm oddly happy about it. Usually I'm kind of down when it gets hot because I like Winter's starkness, but this year I feel pretty good to be walking around in the warm sunshine. I highly recommend it to anyone who gets down about impending Summer.

Stan the Man Glazer!

2006-04-08T20:44:00.000-07:00

So Tricia and I were grocery shopping today at the Hy-Vee on State Line.
As we were leaving the store, I look over and I see a care that looks like this:
[Edited to remove the picture. It was messing with the formatting. Suffice
to say that it was a ridiculously expensive Mercedes R-Class]

It's being driven by this guy:

I don't know if you know who that is, but it's Stanford Glazer. The reason I knew it was him was that on the side of this (very) expensive car there was one of those magnetic stickers. It said in huge blue and red letters:

STANFORD GLAZER

FOR

MAYOR

It was the most ridiculous thing I'd seen in probably a week, since I stopped paying attention to FOX News. Stan, driving around in his Phallo-mobile, that he's decided to take a deduction on because he's driving around in it to get groceries. If he runs for mayor again I hope he gets two votes, one from himself and one from the person impressed with his stupid $50,000 car.

Crazy Strange Day

2006-04-08T16:38:00.000-07:00

Today, Tricia (wife)'s mom came to visit, she was going to be here around 1:30 PM, so we got up early (...ish, 8:30 AM. Early for the weekend, anyway). We got the grocery shopping done. This was also early as this is usually a Sunday chore. My internal clock is all messed up! With that and the time change last week I hardly can tell if I'm coming or going.

Tough Rehearsal

2006-04-07T19:20:00.000-07:00

Tonight was a Friday night rehearsal, which I'm never in favor of, but that's the way the schedule worked out. It was a frustrating rehearsal for me, I'm pretty low-energy and that's death in comedy. I wound up getting a ton of notes from the director, which I knew that I needed. It's hard when you know that you can do better at something, but your body and mind won't cooperate and make it happen. This role needs levels and the right attitude at the right time and I was trying to force it the whole night. If this is going to work out, I'm going to have to find a way to make the character more consistent.

Part of the problem is that I haven't been to rehearsal since Monday, so the work we did that night has dissipated over the week. This week is not much better, since the next time I have rehearsal is one week from tonight. I'm going to have to do a lot of script study and get all my lines memorized. Hopefully I'll be spot-on next week. Hopefully.

Theatre News

2006-04-06T16:57:00.000-07:00

I'm currently in a show at the Olathe Community Theatre. It's Neil Simon's Fools and it promises to be quite funny. I play Count Yousekevich, the villian of the show.

Today, the director sent out an email letting us know that our cast is now complete (we were missing an actor after the person who was cast went out to do a paying gig). The last person cast is someone I've never done a show with, but he's positively hilarious and will be a great addition. I'm very excited to be doing this show, but then, I was excited even before Bill was cast since I get to do a show with my wife and this director, RickL.

My wife just reminded me that our bios are due. I'm terrible at these things but she's always on top of these things. Dammit! I always write something dumb about 'glad to be in the show' and 'favorite roles'. I need something creative. Maybe I'll put that I'm glad that the rest of the cast can support me. ;-)

Issues

2006-04-06T16:41:00.000-07:00

This Slate.com article details a day spent patrolling the border country in the South of Arizona with the Minuteman Project. If you don't know anything about these people, they're a group of (mostly) men, white and over 50 who fear and detest the people whe come into this country illegally. It disturbs me that these people can't get the idea through their heads that there's very little they can do to stop the onrush of immigrants, and more importantly, there's little that they should do. Immigration is what feeds this country's growth. Undocumented workers (to use the current political jargon) do a large number of jobs, create wealth in their home countries and subsidize our Social Security system. Without that large amount of money flowing into Social Security, the people out in the desert couldn't cash their Social Security checks to keep themselves out there.

Of course, they feel that they're out there strictly to make a point, but I have to think that that viewpoint is held by a minority. You don't get the number of people they have there (500 or so) if they don't feel they can do any good. It's the same impulse that drives people to get a lynch mob together to take care of the local "trouble-making" minority.

This kind of thinking incenses me. What is it about Mexicans coming here that makes old white people crazy? What's disturbing is that the people who are coming across the border only want what the people watching them already have: a better life for themselves and their families, freedom to live the way they want, free from the crushing poverty at home. America's promise has always been that people can work hard and get ahead. Well, if the illegals want to take jobs that are offered them, who can argue that they're doing exactly what the Minutemen's ancestors did only a few decades ago? The only reason to be out in the desert is to close the door of opportunity. This has been tried before and always fails. I like to think that America's ultimate sense of fair-play will overrule these idiots in the desert. Let them sit there until they sweat through their wife-beaters and camoflage pants*.

*ok, that was uncalled for, but what's a blog without a little unfair humor?

Frothy Meta-Entry

2006-04-05T13:17:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I wonder what's an appropriate topic for a blog entry. Some of my life seems so trivial, and I'd hate to have this become a diary of the mundane. But then I look at what some other bloggers and proto-bloggers (historians call them 'diarists') have written and it occurs to me that the important thing isn't to say something profound, but to have said something at all. It's like I wrote at the beginning of this blog, I want to be able to keep this up because I think it's a useful tool to get my thoughts out of my head and also to let people who read this (hopefully it's family and friends, but if there's others out there who are interested, you can know too) what's going on in life. That's got merit in and of itself, even if I don't have something to be angry, irritated or informed about.

So, to that end, I'm doing well and expect to be able to continue to do well. Here's what's on my mind at this very moment ----->

That's right! Probably my favorite drink in all the world. I mean, regular water's great and all, but there's just something so good about the taste, sound and even feel of a can of Diet Dr Pepper. It's got a special taste that can't be found in any other drink. You can keep your fine wines, your martinis and your 20-year-old scotches. I'll take my carbonated companion here any day of the week.

Now there are those who will tell you that it's better out of a fountain dispenser, but they forget that you're at the mercy of the operator to get the CO2 and syrup mix correct. When I worked at a softball diamond back in Rock Island, IL, I would get there early before anyone else had opened to ensure that the mix of CO2 and syrup was just right. Extra bubbly! Otherwise all you get is the sweet and none of the subtle nuance of flavor that comes from the proper mix. That's why I prefer the cans. Not only are they more portable, but the mix is so very consistent.

Oh, and it has to be in a can. The plastic bottles don't transfer the chill of the ice/refrigerator properly. The can is just the optimal unit of storage for soda.

Ok, that's enough on that subject for now. Tomorrow promises a return to narrative, but today is about refreshment.

Explosion and TV 5

2006-04-04T14:52:00.000-07:00

There was an explosion at the West Edge building site about 4:00 PM today. I both heard and felt it. My co-workers and myself were at the south facing windows almost instantly, trying to figure out what happened. It couldn't have been more than 15 minutes before there was a TV truck there. Who else would it be but Channel 5. "Live, Late-Breaking, Investigative". They forgot to add "Lame" and "Lousy" because they break the regular newscast to report that one person was injured, not seriously in a planned explosion at a construction site. She's an employee at JJ's Wine Bar, and was hit in the head by some flying debris. I hope she's ok...

Voted Today

2006-04-04T11:31:00.000-07:00

Well, I went to vote first thing in the morning. There were two questions on the ballot, neither one of them worth anything. The stadium questions #1 and #2 were the only thing at my polling place (other places have school boards and other elections on their ballots). I, of course, voted 'no' because I think that teams that profit in the 10's of millions, but haven't had a rent increase in 30 years don't merit $500 million of taxpayer money. For a very balanced viewpoint on the stadium questions check out this link. I saw on Tony's KC Blog this link. Which has my favorite quote on the whole thing:

"It galls me to think that a minimum wage worker buying store-label soup at an inner-city grocery store will be subsidizing an SUV-driving Johnson Countian who thinks he believes in self-reliance."

HA! Too right! Of course, it also pisses me off that the pro-tax crowd thinks that we're so gullible to the idea that the teams will leave that we'll do anything to keep them here. I say, I wouldn't mind if they'd tried to bribe the city; maybe with lower ticket prices or, say, (in the case of the Royals) a winning season or (in the case of the Chiefs) a team that wouldn't fall apart under pressure and lose easy games. But this blackmail crap is for the birds. The public deserves better, especially from a city that seems to support them wholeheartedly.

First Post

2006-04-03T13:29:00.000-07:00

I'll start here by saying I hope I'm able to keep this up. I like the idea of blogging, but like so many ideas, it's hard to maintain the follow-through. Like Homer Simpson, it's not my strong suit.

Speaking of the Simpsons, I was pretty annoyed with FOX for hyping "an announcement of epic proportions" when it's for a 10-second trailer for a movie that doesn't even come out for 15 months. It seems to me that the Simpsons have been on for 17 seasons. If anyone who's interested hasn't watched the show by now, I'm guessing they won't be too interested in the movie. Lousy FOX network, I can't stand them since they killed off Arrested Development. Check out the link in this post to see how it's so incredibly unlikely that the show will ever be seen again. I loved that show, and it would have paired nicely with "Weeds" on Showtime. Dammit.