All the State's a Stage

Back from TTA. Don't click on the link - no, don't!!! It's not current. A lot of changes were made to the board of directors over the weekend, and yours theatrically has yet to make the changes.

A weekend with theatre people is an interesting experience. While you may have your own images from personal experiences of "theatre" people, there are few groups of professionals that are nicer, friendlier or more outgoing than those who have either dedicated their lives or a substantial portion of their lives to the stage. And you'll also find a wide variety of interests and experiences in all aspects of life. Most obvious is the range of skills exhibited by everyone - directing, acting, lighting, sets, costumes, producing...everyone has a niche of some sort (except me, who does a little of everything and nothing good of any one thing) which makes conversations interesting.

I saw several great shows presented, one being Moliere's The Misanthrope by Austin Peay State University. Another which I can't praise highly enough was Servant of Two Masters by Knoxville's own Pellissippi State Technical College.

I also was privileged to see some outstanding high school productions being presented, including Exonerated and Oh, What a Lovely War, which will be going on to compete at SETC in March.

Theatre is a life of contacts, and knowing the right people can be very important at different stages of your career. I've been fortunate in that my time involved in TTA has allowed me to meet and become acquainted with a number of theatre professionals across the state (and across the country) which has opened up several new doors for me to music direct. I met several more folks this weekend that, if I'm lucky, might allow me to do some directing, acting and possibly some drama instruction. Which is great, because it's what I love to do.

If I could direct or manage a theatre full time, and make enough money to keep supporting my family, I'd do it in a heartbeat. That's what I love, and I love the people that I get to work with. Maybe someday that opportunity will come my way.

Maybe.

You Can't Get Away From It...

I'll be in Cookeville, TN till Sunday with the Tennessee Theatre Association annual conference. See you then!

Origin of a Legend

Richard Head, Pat Summit's father, dies at age 83

The print version mentions how Pat Summitt's father put up a basketball goal on the family farm's hayloft in Henrietta, TN, where Pat would play against her brothers after they finished their chores. Mr. Head later moved the family to neighboring Cheatham County so Pat could enroll at a high school with a girl's basketball team.

Knoxville residents have long known the legendary story of how Pat Summitt rose to the pinnacle of women's basketball fame. All I hope is that someday a movie is made of her life, dedication, heart and commitment to her players and the excellence inside them. And I hope that Richard Head has a prominent role, since that's where it all began.

Any casting choices?

Haloscan Fix

For those of you using Haloscan for commenting and currently experiencing a frustrating comment outage on your site, here's a fix:

1) Log into your Haloscan account
2) Click on "Settings"
3) Click on "Beta Features"
4) Scroll down to the heading Spam Filters - Change "Enable Redirect" from YES to NO.
5) Save your changes

Your comments will now work, although it may be a little while before the number of comments entered register on the main site.

Note this will only work for the comments on your own site, not someone else's. They'll have to make the change to their own Haloscan account for your comments on their posts to show up.

I would recommend keeping an eye out for when Haloscan fixes this problem (if ever) so you can change the Spam filter setting back to YES, but this should work in the meantime...

Casual Curiosity

Instructions: Give your opinion on each of the 5 subjects below. What do you think about...

# the use of corsets

Infinitely uncomfortable and ultimately dangerous to a lady's health, but from a male's perspective...um, yes. Thank you.

PIRATE: I'm going to teach you the meaning of pain...
ELIZABETH SWANN: You like pain? [hits pirate in the head with a pole] Try wearing a corset.

-- "Pirates of the Caribbean"

# Star Wars, the movie

I'm assuming we're talking about "Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope" here. Which, given that I can give the full title, should tell you something about how I feel about the movie... Quite simply my favorite movie and set of movies of all time. I could go on and on, but I won't.


# the possibility of a bird flu epidemic

Scares the crap out of me, but somehow I don't see it happening any more than the big SARS epidimic that was supposed to sweep the planet ever did. It first has to mutate from a animal-human transmission to human-human transmission, and while many scientists believe it's inevitable well...so do those that think another huge terrorist attack is inevitable. And neither have happened yet. So I'm a bit comforted by that thought, and the thought that our medical technology is better in this country than most of the rest of the world. We were supposed to have a huge flu outbreak last winter, assisted in part by the shortage of flu shots and due to increased awareness and personal vigilence I believe the season was even less serious than it would have been with the flu shots...


# actor Kelsey Grammer ("Frasier")

There have been some people that tell me I resemble Kelsey Grammer in some ways. Umm...maybe. We have about the same hairline, which I conveniently hide under a baseball hat fairly often. I like him, I think Frasier became a one-note character more or less, but after seeing him in other roles I enjoy things he does. He has a warmth when he gets serious that's compelling.


# Horror fiction

Stephen King is a master, and writes a level of horror fiction that rises into a separate level above all other horror writers, including Dean Koontz, etc. "The Dark Tower" series, while not specifically "Horror" was a masterwork and his other novels, novellas and short stories continue to set the unattainable goal of quality writing in this area.

University of Tennessee Volunteers

Bah.

Diary of a Music Director - Part II - "You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile"

Week one of rehearsals for "Annie" is done. Just vocal instruction so far, where I teach and work with the cast on all the songs - choral, solos, whatever. Blocking starts tonight and I'll be there, plugging away on the piano whenever a song is being choreographed.

Period shows like these often use names, places and events from the past that have little resonance with today's audiences. I remember we did "Bye Bye Birdie" in high school, and at one point in the show the main character, Albert, is talking on the phone to someone from the media about his client, superstar Elvis-clone Conrad Birdie. It turns out the caller is not "Mr. Loos" as Albert first thinks, but he's corrected by the caller and repronounces it...um, well, "Mr. Luck". He hangs up the phone and we go on, the audience not have a clue what the whole bit was about. Except even the director (who should have known better) get it wrong. It wasn't "Mr. Loos" or "Mr. Luck" it was Mr. Luce, aka Henry Luce, the legendary creator and publisher of Time Magazine. But since nobody in the cast knew who Henry Luce was (why would we?) and apparently the drama teacher never bothered to look it up, it was mispronounced and the joke fell flat. Later I looked it up myself and figured it out.

So a little research is sometimes pretty important when you're presenting a historically set piece in the present. Sometimes it doesn't have to be a historical play to trip you up - when I did "Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris" this summer, not only was the show several years old, the songwriter that the work is based on was a Belgian/Frenchman churning out popular tunes in France in the 1960's. So there were a number of cultural and temporal anachronisms I had to research and clarify to the cast before we could go forward.

Which returns us to Annie, and an amusing story I found online of an actor who ran into a similar problem when they were learning a routine from the show in a revue. Well, read about it here and you'll see what I mean.

Oh, and you may need this link to help you out: Beau Brummell.

Enjoy.

Friday's Feast

Feast Sixty-Seven - Friday, October 21, 2005

Appetizer - Do you button shirts top-to-bottom or bottom-to-top?

Top-to-bottom. Except when I'm not quite awake and put it on backwards, then it's tough to button it at all...


Soup - What is your favorite sandwich?

I've recently revived a childhood obsession with pimento cheese sandwiches - that's all I ate when I was at Myrtle Beach last week. But other than that, my favorite is just a sliced ham and American cheese with mayo and mustard. Sometimes grilled. Of course, no peanut butter for me as it is the spread of Satan.


Salad - What was a family project you helped work on as a child?

Um, Mom and Dad I'm embarassed but I can't really remember a "family project" we worked on. Are we talking like when the Brady's built the dunking machine in their backyard, or filmed a Pilgrim movie? Sometimes it was a project just getting out of the house in the morning...


Main Course - When have you acted phony?

I hate how I'm expected to act around "important" people, i.e. higher ups in our company or elsewhere. You're expected to turn on the uber-outgoing happy face, which, while I am usually uber-outgoing and happy it's with a fawning deference that turns my stomach sometimes. I like to think that while different people have different levels of experience and responsibilty, everyone deserves the same levels of respect and attention - from the top-down, to bottom-up.

Hey, I think I answered the shirt question again...


Dessert - Do you write letters or postcards? If so, to whom?

I haven't written a physical letter or postcard in many, many years that I can recall unless it was on a birthday card. I e-mail quite frequently, and like it or not it's taken the place of physical written correspondence to a large percentage of society.

Cruisin' the Jungle

You know, I really do think I missed my true calling.

What a life to be able to ride around and crack bad jokes all day while working at the Mouse House.

Here's a full script, though it's a bit dated and I think the original link is dead (but archived).

Bringin' Down the House

Sorry, Tommy.

Ever since 9/11, I have found it difficult to watch disaster movies.

One of my favorite movies for a good while was Independence Day. While high on the cheese factor, the aliens' attack on Earth, specifically the landmarks such as the Statue of Liberty, the White House and whatever that first building was they hit in NYC were fun to watch - because it was fiction.

I find after seeing the real thing happen, and watching the Twin Towers fall crashing to the ground on live TV, that watching similar things in the movies just isn't much fun anymore.

I think I'm at the point now where I will probably watch it again someday and not worry about it too much. But, of course, disaster movies still survive and thrive.

In the last few years we've seen The Day After Tomorrow, which featured the destruction of the Hollywood sign (a popular casualty of disaster movies), and the flooding of Manhattan Island up to the armpits of Lady Liberty. 1998's Armageddon deep-sixed the Chrysler Building. And so on.

We as humans (and Americans, I suppose) love disaster movies. We love to see calamity after calamity befall Bruce Willis, Dennis Quaid and Will Smith. We also enjoy seeing our favorite, familiar landmarks bite the dust. And I was no exception.

Until 2001.

And what bothers me today is this quote from the makers of the new TV disaster miniseries Category 7: The End of the World, airing soon on CBS. Apparently a sequel to last season's Category 6: Almost But Not Quite the End of the World, But Pretty Darn Close and Just Wait Till Next Year, it details killer hurricanes that wreak havoc upon humanity and its creations.

From Sci-Fi Wire:

The Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, the Great Pyramids, Mount Rushmore and the Arc de Triomphe are some of the world's great landmarks that the CBS digital effects team takes great delight in destroying in the upcoming miniseries Category 7: The End of the World, visual effects supervisor Craig Weiss told SCI FI Wire during an exclusive tour on Oct. 14.

...

Only weeks before the miniseries' Nov. 6 and 13 premiere, the digital team is working on destroying some of the world's most recognizable landmarks. The first one, the Eiffel Tower, is struck by lightning and sucked into a tornado while diners are blown off the structure and a car smashes into one of the legs of the tower.

...

In another nearly completed sequence, the Arc de Triomphe is struck by lightning in the heart of Paris and comes crumbling down."

It's all well and good to delight in the imaginary destruction of real things. As a kid I know I built towers out of all sorts of things, imagined they were big buildings and had Godzille (or King Kong, or the Death Star, or whatever) knock them down. It's a recurring theme to see mankind's greatest constructions taken to the cleaners at the whim of mother nature, alien visitors or horrific accidents.

But after you've seen two of the world's tallest buildings destroyed before your eyes - not by nature, but by pure malevolant evil, evil that continues to look for more ways to bring about your and your family's demise every day - and realized what actual death, destruction and chaos occur during such an event, it becomes a lot less enjoyable and more tragic.

I'm not calling for the end of disaster movies - we all need our releases. I just wish the public and filmmakers would be more cognizant of what's real and what's fantasy.

Image Scavenger Hunt

Here's an interesting little meme I found. Just answer each question below by Image Googling, and post the first picture that comes up (if appropriate). Enjoy.


- The name of the town where you grew up



I swear, this is the first picture that comes up. Darn. This is Miss Knoxville 2005 Rachel Parsons. Hi, Rachel!


- The name of the town where you live now



Same town, I just picked another picture on the page. This is the Flagship Knoxville, a restored 1940's era DC-3 in the American Airlines Museum.


- Your name



My self-titled debut album from 1973. Bet you never knew I once worked the reggae circuit...


- Your Grandmother’s name (pick one)



Edna. Oh my, someone got caught by surprise...


- Your favorite food



MMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Except I don't like the veggie stuff on it - just meat.


- Your favorite drink



Black Cherry Soda. Hey, this looks good - I haven't seen this brand before. My favorite is IBC Black Cherry.


- Your favorite song



"The Long and Winding Road" is one of my favorite Beatles songs. I don't know if this painting was titled after the song, but it doesn't really fit.


- Your favorite smell



The name says it all :)

Diary of a Music Director - Part I: "Annie"

The first week - actually, only two days - of "Annie" rehearsals are over. For those of you who might be curious, we've now gone over about 3/4 of all the songs in the show.

The way that it works is certain members of the cast come to the rehearsal at different times and I go through each some with them. I teach them the notes if they need it, work out parts, and generally work out the tone and feel of each song. In the case of soloists, we work together to find the easiest way to sing certain passages or work on breathing and phrasing. A big problem doing music in East Tennessee is the dad-gum Southern hills accent we have here. It's more prominent in women than men, that I can tell, and is tough to work around.

(Basically, the "ahs", "oohs," and "ehs" are very flat and drawn out, to create a drawl. Since few musicals outside of L'il Abner are set in the South, it's very noticeable when you hear some young East Tennessee girl sing, "To-Mahr-ah, To-MAHR-ah, ah'll love ya, To-Mahr-ah...." I have to get them to consciously round their "ohs" and make more pure sounds. I'm sure this is just terribly interesting to everyone :) But it's something I have to work with folks on.)

We also work through the big company numbers, assigning individual parts to members of the chorus and working on dynamics and such.

I'm lucky, because "Annie" is a fairly straightforward, simple musical. The music's fun, but not complicated and we knocked it out pretty quickly.

One section features an Andrews Sisters-esqu trio that will probably be the toughest thing we work on, due to the tight harmonies. But even after just working yesterday and today, the trio of young women is about 75% of the way there. They just need to be familiar with it, and confident. It's a kick watching and helping people learn music, mold it and eventually make it their own. I love it.

So next week we'll finish the learning process and review with memorization. Then blocking will be ready to start.

-- To Be Continued

Friday's Feast - And More!

Feast Sixty-Six - Friday, October 14, 2005

Appetizer - Who is someone you would consider to be a calm person?

My boss. I've never seen her get riled up or upset by anything, and she takes almost any situation with a smile and a wave of the hand. It must be nice to be that unstressed about your work...


Soup - What was your last "gut feeling" about? Were you right?

Well, I had a gut feeling we'd get spanked by the Georgia Bulldogs and I was right. But it was also kind of a no-brainer, so it doesn't count. Actually, I rarely am right on my gut feelings so I've learned to not listen to them and do the opposite.


Salad - List 3 words that you really don't like how they sound.

1. vomit
2. disembowel
3. FloridaGators

Main Course - What kind of shampoo and conditioner do you use?

Pantene Pro-V 2-in-1. I suspect the 2 ingredients are rock salt and a light balsamic vinaigrette.

Dessert - If you found out that you definitely do have a guardian angel, what would you name it?


We get to name them? Oh boy, oh boy. I think I would call him Harvey - and that name has resonance on so many frelling levels... Wait - how about Al? That would be fun, cause when I talked to him people would assume I was Leaping. Then there's Obi-Wan, but you can see right through him--

Oh, but that's of course assuming all these guardian angels are male.......... Hmmmmmmmm


Looks like the Friday's Feast lady has added a new meme, so in honor of her fine service lo these many years, I'll do it as well. Collect'em and trade'em with your friends!



Instructions: Give your opinion on each of the 5 subjects below. What do you think about...

the board game Trivial Pursuit

One of my favorite overall board games. Laura and I are known far and wide as a team you do NOT want to play against in a game. I've spent my life gathering useless trivia on facts far and wide, and she...um, well, she fills in the gaps I guess.

Yeah, that's getting me the couch when she gets home ;)


the state of Kentucky

Random Thoughts: Border state to Tennessee; state my dad visited on business trips many times while I was growing up; state where one of my best friends from high school now lives and raises horses; bluegrass/whiskey/play very good basketball (can you guess the movie that's from?); UK is an annual whipping boy for our football team


the astrological sign and constellation Pisces

My dad's a Pisces, so it's one I learned a long time ago. Now my wife is one too, so I'm kind of surrounded. It's always had a calming sound and image to it, for some reason. Maybe due to the fact it's the twelfth and final sign of the Zodiac.


Winnie the Pooh, the fictional bear

I can do his voice, and most of the other characters from the Disney Movies when I read to my daughter. I always thought he was a little too dim, though, for a character that's supposed to contain such deep wisdom...


Castles

Love'em. Want to visit one someday, a real one in Scotland or Ireland. Also a fun board game.

Life's a Beach...

...only it's overcast and slightly drizzly.

Well, somewhat. Actually it was nice and warm, although not a lot of sun. Well, enough to give my chest a nice crimson glow...

Just got back last night from Myrtle Beach, where the Innfolks and I have been wintering the past several days. Actually, only half of us are back - Laura and Tink are still there, womping and fwolicking in the water. They'll be back on Saturday, while BrainyBoy and I drove back last night.

Ok, I did all the driving. Well, most of it. Ok, all. Seven hours worth from Myrtle back the Knoxville.

Being in fourth grade means more homework, more responsibilities - plus I start rehearsals for "Annie" tonight (music only) so we had to come back early.

Myrtle Beach in October is not what I'd call...high summer. It was still feeing the effects of the Tropical Storm Tammy, who slouched through the previous week. A little grey, a little wet, occasionally sunny but still fairly warm. Not too bad, but we did get some great pictures that I'll post when we get them back.

BrainyBoy's thirst for science continues unfettered, and I hang on for the ride. On Monday we visited Alligator Adventure, which contained - I kid you not - 1,200 alligators. Not to mention these, these, these, and these. And, oh yes, UTAN, the largest croc in captivity.



Later that evening we went to this place: MagiQuest, a very cool interactive magical playground/activity area that was great for kids and adults who never grew up (me). Apparently the only one is in Myrtle Beach - anyone wishing to establish a franchise in Gatlinburg, please contact me because I want to invest. It's that cool. I may do a separate blog post about it, because it was so detailed it's impossible to summarize.

So here we are, two days sans wife and daughter/mom and sister. What will we do?

Same thing we did last night - scrounge for food, since the pizza I'd expected to heat up for dinner was rock hard and I ended up giving BB a frozen kids meal. I think I had a bag of popcorn, cause it was like, 10:00 by the time I got to eat last night.

Well, here's to the rest of the week. Cheers.

Oh, did UT win last week? I think I'm out of it...

From the Archives...

Found a Big Stupid Tommy's

The meme is to:

1. Go into your archive
2. Find your 23rd post.
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.
5. Tag five other people to do the same.

My 23rd post was called, "A Peaceful Day in Gotham City" (1/18/03) and contained the sentence:

Then together with kid sister E., all bundled up and looking like the little brother on "A Christmas Story".

I'm not going to tag anyone, but instead offer this challenge: Follow the meme, then use the sentence you find in an interesting but totally unrelated short little story.

My name is Palmer. Dirk Palmer, and I've worked the private eye biz on this side of town for 10 years now. Chicago's no better now than it was then, but the class of bums seems to be worse. 5 years of Depression'll do that to a city, but even then people still lose stuff. Wives, husbands, hundred-dollar-bills. You name it, they lose it, I'll find it.

It was only a couple nights ago that she walked into my life - tall, leggy, wearing a tan overcoat that suggested there wasn't much to imagine underneath.

"Mr. Palmer?" she said, breathlessly. I could tell she was hiding something behind her back, but it was too big to be a heater. I looked up from my desk in the mangy hole I call an office and glanced her over.

"Yeah, I'm the guy on the door...what can I do for ya?" I stood up to take a closer look. The look got better the higher I stood...

"Mr. Palmer, I need your help to find something. Something I've...something I've lost. You see...I have two children, and one of them is missing."

Well, I'm all for finding little kids that's lost, but I said, "Why don't you go to the police, Mrs...?"

"Henderlight," she purred, "Sylvia Henderlight. But you see, Mr. Palmer, I can't quite go to the police... my children - well, my children..." She stepped to the side to reveal a small bundle of clothes standing behind her. A little duck about 3 feet high and sucking a lollypop. "My children are in the country illegaly - their father brought them in from Lithuania for a visit, but he died while he was here, and now I can't find my son....Pavlov."

She said this strangely, as if she were making up the name on the spot.

"I last saw him playing in the street outside my townhouse on the East Side. Then together with kid sister E., all bundled up and looking like the little brother on 'A Christmas Story' they both disappeared."

E? I thought to myself. What kind of a name is "E" for a little girl? No stranger than Pavlov, I supposed, and what the heck was "A Christmas Story?" It wasn't even September yet. But she was continuing...

"I found her looking into a sewer grate on 16th and Grand, but Tom--, er, Pavlov was nowhere to be seen. If I go to the police once he's found, they'll be deported back to Romania--"

"Lithuania," I corrected.

"--Lithuania," she continued, not missing a beat, "where they'll be forced to live with their grandparents the Duke and Duchess of Fordingham for the rest of their lives, working in the barley fields...."

She paused, milking the moment. For some reason there was something about her story that didn't ring true...

Update: Ok, guess nobody wants to be creative...

Committing the Cardinal Sin

I did it. I'm guilty. Lock me up in irons, drag me through the streets in chains and pour hot coffee all over my lap.

Bless me father, for I have sinned - I have broken your most sacred rule, and violated the trust. And for this, I should be punished by eternal castigation, torment and scorn.

I admit it, after all these years of looking down upon those who would break the honorable barriers due to their lack of control. I did it for only the best of reasons, honest, but in the moment of truth I was weak.

What horrible crime have I committed? What terrible offense have I perpetrated upon polite society?

I yelled at the ump in BrainyBoy's baseball game last night.

*cringe*

I know, I know... I'm sorry. Truly. It was a moment of madness. Utterly caught up in the spirit of the moment, I let my true feelings be known to the poorly paid, undertrained, disinterested and apparently severly nearsighted umpi--

Sorry. Let me start again.

BB's a big guy, and this being his first year back in baseball he's having to learn how to swing and hit like the big kids. And subsequently he's been having trouble, having struck out each time this year. But he's been hitting hot in the batting cage with his coach, gotten some new hitting tips and was ready to go. "Bring it on, pitcher!"

"Strike One!"

Crap.

Ok, hang in there bud. Look sharp!

*CRACK*

A sharp, sharp hit down the third base line! It's near the bag - will it stay fair? Will it? A small puff as the ball hits the base and continues on down the foul line. I immediately stand and cheer with the rest of the parents crowd, until I hear the ump say the dreaded words...

"FOUL BALL"

I sink down to my seat in disbelief. "What??" I point out to third base and call out, "It hit the base!" I couldn't believe it - such an elementary baseball rule, and the ump missed it. "It hit third base!" I continued to allege - everybody who knows anything about baseball knows that the bases are fair territory, and a ball that hits the base before crossing foul is a fair ball...

"It's a fair ball!" I try, not realizing I've stood up.

"Sir," the ump said, walking over to me from his normal position behind the pitcher, "I can't see that far from where I am and your coach made the call."

GULP. I look over to see our head coach standing near third base. Apparently in this league where there is only one ump calling the game, they are allowed to defer to a coach on either foul line for a judgement call. It is just pseudo-Little League after all.

I sank to my seat, staring at our coach in disbelief - how could he do it? How could any of them do it? How could they deprive my son of his first hit? What were they thinking??

"STRIKE THREE!"

However, as I searched for intelligent life in the universe, the game had resumed. There was no joy in Knoxville, for Mighty Brainy had struck out.

I was ready to sink under the bleachers and live out my existance as a troll, but was afraid I'd scare little kids so thought better of it. The coach came over later after the inning was over and apologized, but asserted the ball was just b-a-r-e-l-y foul, and he couldn't cheat and say it was fair. Which was absolutely correct, and I thanked him for being honest then and now. Then I went over and congratulated my son on his great (almost) hit.

"Dad, I'm hungry," he said.

Well, that was weighing heavily on his mind.

But I had done the deed. For years I read disdainfully about "those" parents who verbally and sometimes physically abused umpires and referees because little Timmy got a bad call, when a player from the other team sneezed in the direction of their precious little Kristie. It was something I would never do, because I - as a student of the game - was better than that. I understand the pressures umpires are under, and certainly they know the game better than I. So I would take any real or imagined slights in stride and deal with them calm and rationally.

Ha.

High emotion is a killer. I wanted him to get his first hit so badly, I let it get away from me. I felt bad about it later, and wanted to apologize to the ump but he seemed to have more pressing matters to attend to and left the game 15 minutes before it was over, passing off to another ump who had shown up.

Yeah, he just didn't want to admit to me he'd blown a call....

Wait'll next time, BB. Wait'll next time.

If you swing it, it will hit.

The Test

When in doubt, do a meme.

Actually, I think I've done this one before. I'll dig around and see if I got the same result before...

You are a Social Liberal (65% permissive) and an... Economic Moderate (41% permissive) You are best described as a: Centrist You exhibit a very well-developed sense of Right and Wrong and believe in economic fairness. Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

The Blogdrums

I just don't have it right now. Don't have the urge to wax poetic on the news of the day or comment on the passing scene.

We cast "Annie", for the most part. Still looking for a couple people. Rehearsals start next week.

Sorry for the 'tude. Just don't feel it. Anyone have anything interesting to talk about? It's Open Comment Tuesday....

Friday's Feast

sorry i'm late ;)

Appetizer - When was the last time you visited a hospital?

Since I actually design websites for a healthcare system that includes five acute care hospitals and my wife also works for the same healthcare system, it's not unusual for me to have a meeting at one of the hospitals from time to time. Or in this case on Friday night we ate dinner in the Fort Sanders Regional cafeteria before going to see Wizard of Oz downtown. (see how I slipped in that self-advertisting link!)

But the last time I was actually in a hospital as a patient...well, I had a minor procedure about four years ago, and that's all I'm going to say about that...


Soup - On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being highest, how ambitious are you?

I'd say about a 5 - I'd like to do other and bigger things, but my life is good right now and I don't want to risk too much.


Salad - Make a sentence using the letters of a body part. (Example: (mouth) My other ukelele tings healthily.)

"Sorry, tomorrow only means a cold heart..." I have no idea what that means...


Main Course - If you were to start a club, what would the subject matter be, and what would you name it?

The Get Off Your Butt and Get Back to the Gym Club, which forces all members who belong to a health club to quit making excuses and go.


Dessert - What color is the carpet/flooring in your home?

Beige. Not counting the kid/pet spots.