Dreamer of the Day

Philosophy and Paintings

2009-11-27T23:52:56Z

I was talking to someone via email (someone who has been the subject of a prior post) and the subject of my philosophical attraction to water came up. I realized I've never posted about this, but that it's something fairly relevant to my life right now, and decided that I should take the part where I explained it and turn it into a blog post.

To give some more context than the post provides, the reason it came up is because I'd like to get a tattoo that symbolizes some of this sometime in the near to medium future. I have grand plans of doing a shoulder sleeve based on the theme somehow, but that's too ambitious for a first time tattoo I think. Also too expensive for right now. So I'm thinking of getting a simple small one on the opposite shoulder (by which I mean upper arm shoulder, not upper back) I'd eventually like to sleeve. I have a small sketch of my own that's derived from the alchemical symbol for water (which is basically an upside-down triangle) and more literal gilding and colouring. I'll post that at some point later.

For now, this is the painting I'm talking about:

There's a painting my grandmother made when I was a kid of a scenic river view on the top going into a dark waterfall on the bottom and somehow this painting resonated with me really strongly. The contrast between the bright top and stark bottom, the powerful flow of water, etc. That and the fact that my grandpa was very very dear to me, and the painting brings back good memories, means this painting means a whole lot to me.

I loved this painting so much I made sure that I got it when my grandma sold her house and needed to get rid of things. It hangs above and to the side of my TV now. I don't really know if she knows how much this painting means to me as I don't really talk to her very much these days. Which is something I should probably change.

A long time later I read the Tao of Pooh, and while the book is just an introductory text on Taoism (and given the subject matter and such not to be taken entirely seriously) a lot of it resonated with those earlier feelings. Water is, by my understanding, of great symbolic importance in taoism as a shaper. Go with the flow, let the water carry you, shape you, etc. I've found that whenever, in my life, I try too hard to go against the natural flow of things, that's when things become complicated and difficult. Oddly, I feel like I'm doing that right now in my career, and I'm feeling that result a lot lately. I'm trying to find a way to get what I want *and* go with the flow and it's proving difficult.

I don't consider myself taoist by any means, since I know very little about it and tend to think of myself as a very unspiritual person, but learning about it has helped me be able to express fundamental things about myself, my personality, and my life that I might not have otherwise been able to. The symbolic power of water struck me long before I was able to express it, but reading that book focused it for me.

To hair is human, to bald divine?

2009-11-17T23:23:17Z

So I inherited an unfortunate trait from my mother's family: Male pattern baldness. I have a very visible receding hairline and some noticeable thinning on the crown. So far, my response to this has been to let my hair go shorter and shorter, but it's getting to the point where there may need to be a final solution: Go completely bald. I've resisted this a long time, probably mostly out of fear. So the question is, should I do it?

I'm very likely to try it out when I go on a family vacation to the Dominican Republic over Christmas either way, but I'd like to gauge what people think of the possibility. Especially people who know me in person, but random input is always welcome. There's also the question of how facial hair fits into this, as I'm exceptionally lazy about shaving I alternate frequently between beard and clean/stubbly.

View Poll: Shaving

Love and Marriage

2009-10-04T19:29:35Z

So Nancy and I went to a wedding yesterday. A big, all-day, grand affair with five course meal, open bar, lots of dancing, etc. It put me in mind of how my feelings about relationships and marriage have evolved over the years. Nancy and I were married just over 8 years ago (8 years as of June) and it's been interesting. We married young, compared to our peers, but our marriage has not, as yet, evolved into the nesting/kids/house in the burbs kind of thing that most people seem to consider their wedding a declaration of intent to do. It's possible we never will reach that stage, as I have serious issues with the concept of suburban living and Nancy has serious issues with the idea of using her body as an incubation device.

To put it in perspective, we were married (just) before 9/11. Much as I hate to say it, the world did seem to change with that event, if not in fact then at least in perception. Since then, our society has seemed to stratify along religious lines in a way that didn't seem to exist before, or at least was more subtle and unquestioned. In a way, I credit that stratification with the rise of the gay marriage debate (where the non-religious, emboldened by the emboldening of the religious right, felt a need to push back with their agenda), which has had a huge impact on my views of marriage. It made me question a lot of things about the institution, its origins, and its value.

The honest truth is that if I could go back, I would not have gotten married. Looking back at it, I can see the societal pressures that led us to make that move: the desire for acceptance and confirmation from family and friends as to the validity and maturity of our relationship being the prime motivator, with general background pressure along the lines of that it's just what you do when your relationship gets serious. We had no big proposal, no real idea of what this meant on a core level to ourselves, it was almost entirely motivated by external forces.

Which is not to say that I don't love Nancy, or that we're breaking up or some such nonsense. I'm as committed to Nancy as I ever have been. She's my right hand in all my endeavors and the most important person in my life. I don't see that changing any time soon. But in the end, that has nothing at all to do with the fact that we're married. It has to do with how compatible we are, how much we care about each other, and how devoted we are to making it all work. Those things exist whether or not you get married.

Seeing and recognizing that there has been, all along, an entire community of people relegated to not having this societal validation of their relationships has somewhat permanently damaged my impression of the institution. That that community is not far removed from me, being married myself to someone who is bisexual (and who was or believed herself to be gay before we fell for each other) and knowing a lot of gay people, means this is a somewhat personal concern for me. Though I believe strongly in marriage equality, I would honestly be just as happy with the abolishment of it as a legal construct altogether replaced completely with common law shared domicile benefits and a simple procedure for establishing someone as power of attorney and visitation rights. That'll never happen, but it would work well enough for me.

The fact that I came to a realization several years ago that I don't buy into monogamy as a concept, to the point that we consider ourselves polyamorous in theory if not always in practice, also factors into this. I won't go into too much detail about that here, since I usually lock posts relating to poly more tightly than I intend to lock this one. If you're curious about details on this, let me know and I can add you to the filter or answer any questions you might have.

Interestingly enough, while I feel negatively about the institution of marriage itself these days, I actually really love the idea of weddings. In reality, they take many forms aside from celebrations of legally empowered marriages: commitment ceremonies, handfasting ceremonies, anniversary parties, etc. Everyone loves a good party, and a declaration of love is as good a reason to throw one as any. Though I would never throw one as extravagant as the one I went to last night (unless I got rich enough to throw them as a matter of course), I certainly appreciate the idea of them, and think there should be more of them.

So basically, if I could do a Quantum Leap kinda thing into myself at 19, I'd go for the wedding, but screw the marriage. My feelings for Nancy are none but my own, and I don't need a piece of paper to prove it.

Oh, and it's a hell of a lot easier to dance at a party where you don't know anyone there. That was a good self-discovery too.

Fringelog 2009: Won't be here

2009-08-15T21:57:32Z

I'm moving my yearly fringelog off my LJ and onto its own blog. You can check out http://www.goestoshow.com for my reviews this year.

I'll probably post some summary posts with links as I go, though. So far, I've reviewed the following:
Addition: An Unconventional Love Story *****
Sex-Bot ***
Douche//Awesome ***1/2
LOVEHATEKILL *****
Bashir Lazhar **1/2

The Fringe, Philip Glass Buys a Loaf of Bread, and Chasing the Unique Experience

2009-07-24T18:03:08Z

(originally posted on my other blog, which is mostly for more professional content. This has an element of both, kind of, so I'm crossposting it here)

A few things converged to make this blog post happen, and it is a strange and mysterious convergence. First of all, the Fringe is coming up in a few weeks, and I'm super excited about it (more on that in a few paragraphs). Second, Mack Male posted a blog post to titled Discovering Live Theatre describing his early experiences with the Fringe festival. And then, last but not least, someone on an IRC channel I sit in mentioned that he saw Philip Glass today.

To which I answered, "did he buy a loaf of bread?"

Explaining this strange response requires going back to August 1997 or so (might have been 1998). You see, my father worked in Edmonton while our family lived in Red Deer. One thing that could always be counted on in those days is that my father would be out experiencing the Fringe Festival in late August. His claimed record stands, as I understand it, somewhere north of 30 plays in one season. This is a lot of plays to take in in one week. I thought it was a strange habit and didn't really get it at the time.

Well, I was up in Edmonton visiting him and at the same time getting my first taste of the Fringe experience myself. One of the plays I saw was this one, as part of a series of shorts (don't worry, it's not long -- just 5 minutes. Stick with it to the end):

This play, and all the other David Ives' plays that were performed as part of this set entranced me. It was probably my first real experience with stage performance, and it was love at first sight. I've since seen a lot of plays, both at the Fringe and outside of it, and my love of stage theater has only increased since that experience. Especially small, short, quirky plays like this one. This play makes words dance in a way I'd never thought possible, and that is very powerful to an avid reader like me. It's like interpretive dance (which I can't get into at all) but for book nerds.

I've been back to the Fringe at least 5 of the intervening years, seeing anywhere from one play to my record of somewhere around 20 a couple years ago. Every year when I get my grubby hands on the Fringe guide, the first thing I do is search through it for any sign of a David Ives' set. Someday, someone will do it again, and I'll be there day one to see it.

But this leads to the really interesting thing I've learned about the Fringe, as well as myself, in all these years. I should explain that in the printed form, this play is very vague. There's little stage direction, mostly just words. This leaves it highly open to interpretation. I suspect that every performance of this play is quite different, and looking at all the different youtube videos that suspicion seems to be the case. The one linked above is the closest to my fragile memory of what is to me the original of this play, but others may find other versions superior.

What I've learned is this: The beauty of the Fringe is the unique experience. No other entertainment venue I've ever experienced is so thoroughly dedicated to providing new, fresh, and unique experiences. Films are mass created for a mass market pretty much by nature. Music is likewise generally created always with the goal of the mass market in mind, and festivals around music are generally designed to pick out the next piece of the collective unconscious and give it wider voice.

But not the Fringe. Although I'm sure fame and glory are in the minds of more than a few of the playwrights, performers, etc. at the Fringe, it seems there's an effort to create something special and unique, often deliberately designed to not function well as a mass market piece. The actors and playwrights may go on to bigger and better things, but their little Fringe plays rarely seem to. In that sense, it's a venue for talent and not so much for product.

And that's what I love about it. That's what gets me back every year. It is my little rebellion against the collective consciousness, seeing things very few other people will ever see. Even fellow fringe lovers are unlikely to have seen the same segment of the hundreds of plays on offer as I did.

I'm gonna warn readers of my blog now: In a couple of weeks, there'll be a lot of posts about plays I'm seeing. I do it every year, and this year will be no exception.

Participatory Democracy and Twitter

2009-05-27T19:32:35Z

I was up late last night (not unusual for me lately) watching something kind of amazing unfold. The Alberta Legislature was debating a new version of their human rights legislation that included two major changes:
- on one end of the spectrum, the addition of sexual orientation to protected status'. Technically, this was just a gesture, as sexual orientation has been a protected status in common law for years due to being read in by the courts.
- on the other end, they added the rights of parents to remove their children from classes with content relating to religion, sexuality, and sexual orientation. A right that, by my understanding, was already present in the school act.

Now, Alberta's legislature is a perpetual majority government by the Progressive Conservative party, and that party is capable of essentially controlling all legislation that passes through the house. They really wanted the latter and seemed to think the former would be a good olive branch to prevent argument.

But that's all politics as usual. Simple background information. What happened last night was that somehow, people on twitter were rallied to watch the debate unfold over the streaming video the Alberta government provides of legislature proceedings. If it had just been people on there bitching and moaning, it also wouldn't have been very special.

But last night, there weren't just average citizens participating. There were actually MLAs on twitter discussing and debating with the twitter users. Granted, most of the MLAs participating were backbenchers or otherwise not taking direct part in the debate on the floor, but they were there and they were talking to the very people they represent while making law.

I know that there are people concerned at adding distractions to people on the floor of governing bodies, but I honestly think this should be encouraged. I couldn't help but think I was seeing some element of the future here, where people are moved closer to their representatives in government and able to influence them more directly. And anyone who's ever watched CPAN knows there's plenty of zoning out, reading magazines (one MLA last night was reading a magazine while the MLA next to him was debating), chattering, etc. If their time is going to be wasted, I'd rather it be wasted on us.

I do think the MLAs could stand to learn some of the twitter conventions a bit better. If they'd used hash tags, it would have been easier to follow their discussions. Also, if more of the left side of the house (Libs and NDP) had been on that would have been nice too. I'm a little shocked to see the Conservatives on the forefront of this trend.

If you want to read the discussion on twitter about bill 44, you can go here.

Review: A Year of Winter by Scott Sharplin

2009-03-29T02:50:13Z

I went into A Year of Winter not really knowing what I was getting into. I went largely on the basis of the author, Scott Sharplin. I have not seen a lot of his plays, but I have found it fascinating to follow his career since I found his blogs about touring his show, Inferno Sonata, on the Fringe circuit last summer. Although these two plays (the only of his I have seen as far as I know) have been quite cryptic, Scott's openness in talking about the process behind the plays he writes (even the ones I haven't seen) has been absolutely fascinating and enhanced my experience as a theatre-goer. I wish there was more of this out there. Maybe there is and I just haven't found it.

A Year of Winter worked really well for me. It's set up in two very clearly delineated Acts, a year apart from each other. A particular mental breakdown sets the two acts apart and it is almost as if it was two short plays rather than one long play. It's hard not to point out that I preferred the first act to the second, for its bare, no punches pulled, portrayal of mental illness and its inextricable relationship to the act of creation in the form of art. But I also don't think it would have been complete without the second act to give us perspective on the insanity. To show us the schizophrenic break that precipitated act 1.

Two devices were used in the play to facilitate hiding the truth the play draws towards. First, the masks. In his blog, Scott Sharplin seemed very worried that the masks would seem pretentious or draw people out of the play. But I think in the end, the way he brings them into the story long before their use helps avoid either of those pitfalls. It also helps that the first use of a mask to denote a character shift is an over-the-top caricature of a radio personality. It's hard to worry about the mask when such a flamboyant character is on the stage. And by the time a more reasonable, understated character is on the stage using a mask, it doesn't matter anymore.

The other device is portmanteaus. The characters in the play have their own little language made of joining words together into new or existing words. It's a code that only they understand and that the audience is forced to learn as the characters rediscover their lost meanings. It also lends a realistic playfulness to their relationship that, in moments of clarity, contrasts the starkness of their illness.

Although the ending was touching and very powerful to me, I think it could have been improved. The first act has us looking at the inside of this relationship. From the point of view of the people inextricably entwined in schizophrenia, one way or another. Act two starts off by giving us an outside perspective, showing us the view from outside. Through the masks we finally see characters who were only presented off stage left, never seen, only occasionally heard or heard of. But in the final part of the second act, we seem to shift back to the insane point of view, and the shift is jarring.

The other downside to this play, from my point of view, was that while it seems well researched (mentions of an actual modern drug for treatment of schizophrenia in addition to the believable presentation of paranoia help lend credibility to the research) it does seem to skate the edge of an age-old misunderstanding of the disease that I won't explain here (as it would be a bit of a spoiler). I do not think this is intentional, but it could be taken that way.

The acting was all around quite good. Garett Ross as Terry and all of the masked characters pulled off the switching of characters well, doing each of them convincingly even if a couple of them were (necessarily) a little over the top. Tracy Penner as Alice did a good job as well, though in moments of non-lucidity had a tendency to play things a little over the top. She also seemed very familiar, though I can't remember where from. I didn't recognize any of the plays listed to her credit in the program, but perhaps she was in a fringe play I've seen.

Overall, I was quite impressed. The play ran the gamut of emotional responses, hitting the funny bone and plucking the heartstrings equally and appropriately. It kept its secrets well until the 11th hour and then revealed them with resonance. I anticipate Scott's next play, about Louis Riel and the Northwest Rebellion (the name escapes me at the moment).

Thinking of starting a blog about off-season fringing. Maybe it'd get me comps heh.

2009-02-15T07:43:16Z

So, tonight Nancy and I went to one of the sets of the New Works Festival's plays at the UofA. It was only $5 each, which is a pretty amazing price for four plays. Given the price, and the fact that it was student-run, my expectations weren't very high. But I was actually blown away by them. I would have easily been happy with paying Fringe rates ($10-14) for each of them (except the short one at the start, but that's not because it was bad but because a 5 minute play can't stand alone).

The first short one was called Vin-Oh by Anna Paquin. It was basically about a guy who like home-cooked traditional desserts like his mom makes, and his girlfriend who prides herself on making fancy chef-style desserts. When she finds out, she's disturbed that he goes elsewhere for his desserts. It packed a lot of innuendo and funny into a short package.

The second one, Pomplemoussy was by Elena Belyea. It was about a girl who's questioning her sexuality when she suddenly finds a boy she kind of likes at a gay party. In a lot of ways, it's a lot like Chasing Amy told from the girl's point of view. It had some pretty funny moments (like her first viewing of a penis "It's really funny looking, isn't it?"), and was overall very good. The only complaint I'd have is they were too ambitious with their set design. Too much shuffling things around before the show and between scenes. It really broke up the play and killed the flow. Overall it was pretty good.

The third play, All Matters by Peter Takach, was absurdity personified. The message seemed to be something along the lines of that words are more important than money, no matter what they are. I'm not sure I really 'got' it, but it was fun anyways. It reminded me incredibly of old LucasArts adventure games (made even more glaring by my recent playthrough of Day of the Tentacle). To the point that I think whoever wrote it could probably write a damn good absurdist adventure game centered around a Janitorial Administrator at a major company with big office. Damnit, no more new projects!

And last but not least, Electra by Morgan Smith was a modern retelling of the part of the greek epic cycle that concerns the various insanities of the Atreidai family after Agamemnon's return from Troy. It's a fairly loose adaptation, if I remember the story right, but interesting none-the-less. Interesting to see this kind of Greek story modernized, actually. Seems like the ones that involve family-sex, rape, and patri/matricide are left in their original greek form, or ignored altogether. It was easily the most well produced of the four, with a distinct intensity to all the performances that kept the audience rapt. The gunshots were a bit loud, but that may have been a really good thing. One should probably jump when one hears a gunshot. They also didn't always go off at the right time, but I imagine timing pre-recorded sudden sounds to a live performance is fairly difficult.

Overall, very impressed. Impressed enough to be seriously considering going to see the other four that are on tomorrow. I'm quite pleased. So far, what little off-season fringing I've done has been very successful.

God help me I'm using twitter

2009-02-13T23:08:24Z

So wow, lot's of stuff going on. For the last two weeks I've been working on a major component of the big picture that is my future plans. It's called CloudBridge, and I think it's pretty awesome. It's also effectively done, though still needs some polish.

I've also launched a site, called oncloud.org, which uses cloudbridge to basically act like a dyndns service for rails apps but with less in the way of firewall headaches. It is also pretty awesome.

And I've gotten onto twitter (late to the party on something yet again) and am enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would. It's a lot like IRC, except it's like if you got all of efnet on one channel and had an opt-out ignore feature instead of opt-in (reverse those if the way I said it doesn't make sense to you).

I'm also now working only 3 days a week at nex, and that leaves me on day 2 of a 5 day 'weekend' (which really means 5 days of working on the important stuff).

I'm hoping I can find some time to start contributing to some other interesting open source projects as well. Drizzle looks really interesting. As does the just-barely-announced TinyRB.

Anyways, yeah. Interesting times. For the first time in a really long time I'm actually excited to be working on things, and am really interested in communicating about the things I'm working on. It's pretty awesome.

Meme-age and life update.

2009-02-05T08:50:02Z

So, since I last updated, a lot has firmed up about where I'm going for the next little while. Part of that has meant getting back into coding in C++. And in fact, what I'm working on right now causes some flashbacks to something I was working on just before I got hired at Nexopia. I called it cabal back then, now I call it cloudbridge. And it is pretty awesome and part of a major shift in how web application serving works.

But that's only a piece of the puzzle of what I'm doing now. Not quite ready for the full reveal. If all goes well, I'll be able to say more at the end of the month.

But since I've been tagged several times now, I may as well do this damn meme that's going around. I have to admit, I think it's a pretty interesting one compared to most.

Rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.

To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app), and then click publish.

1. I decided in January '08 that I needed to start planning to get away from my job.

2. I told my bosses in about July or August '08 that I intended to leave by some time in the next year. Was this a crazy move? Perhaps.

3. I finally took the plunge in the last month, and somehow managed to stumble into ways to stretch the money we have into almost a year of security space.

4. I know what I want to do over that year, but I'm not telling what it is yet (though if you asked the right people, you might find out).

5. I just managed to stretch 1 thing into 5. I'm clever like that.

6. I'm often sarcastic (today it was described as 'snarky' to the point that I alienate people. I TEASE BECAUSE I LOVE, PEOPLE. ;P

7. I have a deep seated desire to embrace my bohemian side, but don't think I'd cut it as a bohemian.

8. I bought my condo at the wrong time and sometimes feel kind of stuck with it (despite the fact that I love it, and especially love the facilities that come with it).

9. I have only been in one really serious relationship in my life. The difference between that one serious relationship and the next most serious attempt at one is shockingly large.

10. I can bake a damn good pizza, when I have the right ingredients. I think my best pizzas are better than from pizzarias.

11. I can not, however, bake a good ciabatta loaf (aka panini bread). I want to blame the arid humidity of central/northern alberta (humidity does make a difference), but I probably just haven't figured it out yet.

12. I don't really remember anything in particular about my life before I was about 12 or so. The age beyond which my memories stonewall has been creeping upwards over the years too.

13. I really don't feel like my age.

14. I think that eggs are the perfect atomic unit of food. Delicious, versatile, and aesthetically pleasing.

15. I like physical activity in the form of sprints. I don't do well on endurance, but I can draw on good reserves of energy for 20-40 minute bursts. I could probably change this, but I actually enjoy it.

16. Every now and then I get a really bad crush on someone and then act like a fool about it. This is probably somehow related to #9.There is, actually, almost always at least one person I am crushing on to an unhealthy degree -- and they usually don't know it. Sometimes they don't even know me.

17. I feel my enjoyment from video games diminishing every year, and this makes me kind of sad.

18. I've never been outside of Canada and the US. I'd kind of like to, but it's not really high on my priority list.

19. I fully intend to someday move to somewhere without winter (as we know it here). California or Australia are top on my list. It will happen sooner or later.

20. I am really bad at making friends. I don't know if that's just because I don't try very hard or because of some inherent personality flaw. To date, I think the only really lasting friendship I've ever had has been with Nancy.

21. I feel like I'm writing a BASIC program. Which really takes me back.

22. My first computer was a TRS-80, inherited from my grandfather (who worked in telecom and had access to a lot of early computer equipment. I mean mainframes, not TRS-80s). My second computer was a Tandy 1000 (8086) inherited from my family. My third computer was a Tandy 3000 (80286), also inherited from my family. I had all these computers after they were the new hotness (in the TRS-80's case, long after), which means my education about computers is similar to that of someone who started with them in the early 80s, instead of the late 80s/early 90s when I actually did start.

23. I managed to get Windows 3.1 running on my Tandy 3000, even though it wasn't supposed to be able to run on a 286. There was a secret flag to make it happen that an MS tech support guy told me. That was the last time in my life calling tech support wasn't a frustrating experience of trying to convince them that I actually know more about their shit than they do.

24. I have read nearly every book I own, and I don't do the thing some people do where they buy stacks and stacks of books in advance of reading them. I buy books as needed, usually in bunches of 5-10, and have usually finished them all within a week.

25. I have this compulsion to know more about any subject I get vaguely interested in. This also extends to fiction. A book will have to be really really bad to make me unlikely to read the next in the series. I watched pretty much all of the american-released Sailor Moon for reasons that were, and still are, completely unfathomable to me. It was awful, but I just couldn't stop watching.

I tagged some people on facebook and I'm way too lazy to figure out people on my friends list here to tag.

Big Changes

2009-01-26T22:16:16Z

So... I have officially quit my job as of a couple of weeks ago. It's been an incredible ride with Nexopia, but things change. My plans to leave have been in the works for over a year now, with my original departure date planned for about now, then pushed back to the summer, and then pulled back to sooner. Officially my end date is mid-february, but I'll be taking severance to the end of March, and I'll probably really just be going gradually off the clock more and more over the next two months as I prepare what's next.

And what's next? Well... I'm working on it. And by it, I mean a lot of possible things. So until one or more pans out a bit more, I don't really want to talk about it much. But I do intend to blog some more. I don't do nearly enough talking about the things I work on or the industry I work in, and I should really change that.

Crazy times, I tells'ya.

I am so glad youtube wasn't around when I was a teenager...

2008-11-24T07:21:20Z

I am really amused by this video on so many levels.

iamo @ 2008-11-04T22:28:00

2008-11-05T05:28:37Z

Ok, so did anyone else notice that the music they played after McCain's concession speech was the music from Crimson Tide? I found this weird at first, but then I realized there's some interesting symbolism in that choice.

In the first scene where that music plays clearly, the crew of the boat yells out a chant:
"GO 'BAMA -- ROLL TIDE"

Also that the movie is about a young black guy stealing command from an old white dude, but whatever.

Prediction: Landslide for Obama

2008-11-04T22:42:31Z

I'm no pundit by any means, but I figure I should get my prediction out there now before real numbers come in. I think it'll be a huge win for Obama. I think the polls weren't reflecting the number of new voters who are voting today, and that most of those people are out for Obama.

Good luck, Americans!

Last Fringelog: Reiner Hersch

2008-08-25T04:22:34Z

Last play of the normal fringe! Well, this one was a good one to end off on. It was hilarious. It was so funny I bought the guy's album for $20. It was a humorous take on music history and a bit of theory.

It's one of the holdovers. If anyone still wants to see any more fringe plays, I recommend looking into this one as a holdover.

So yeah. This year I went to 23 shows, 20 of them unique. It's a record and I don't think I'll try and beat it. Any more and I'd forget 'em.

Theatre-geek friends

2008-08-24T06:35:45Z

I think I need to make friends with some theatre geeks so I can keep up to date on theatre stuff all year instead of just packing it all into the week of the Fringe. Anyone know any local theatre people I can friend on here?

Incidentally, I find it funny that I can tell I've spelled theatre right when the spell-checker tells me I spelled it wrong.

More Fringelog

2008-08-24T05:14:40Z

Occupied

Wow, this was a really strange play. It was kind of a wildcard in my lineup, as it got mixed reviews and unlike most of the rest I went into it knowing pretty much only what was in the fringe guide description.

But I was impressed. It had pacing issues, and they could have tied a couple of plotlines together a bit better, but in the end it was good. I really liked that the (obviously) fake accent was a plot device, because otherwise I'd have been wondering why on earth they bothered.

I don't think I've seen a lot of 'twist' plays that really worked at the Fringe in the past. This one pulled it off.

Anime!

Well, it wasn't what I expected. I'm kind of glad I didn't actually get a lot of people to go, because the play I sold was not the play it was. There were a few funny things, but not many -- and certainly not in satire terms.

Still, for what it actually was, it was really good. Excellent choreography, brilliant timing, great use of AV equipment and the club space, and they even managed to make the play watchable from seats that surrounded the 'stage' (actually the dance floor + the stage of New City) by around 270 degrees. It also really played out a storyline with the pacing and structure I've come to expect of actual Anime films. It seemed like a cross between Ghost in the Shell and Paprika. I'm not a big fan of that plot structure or pacing, but this got it all bang on.

Apologies to Brenna and Rachelle, who did not end up staying for the whole thing. I do wish I'd known better what it was going in.

Teaching the Fringe

Oh wow was this ever funny. The actor/writer of this is incredibly good at keeping the audience engaged and laughing, even when talking about very serious things. I really wish I'd seen the plays that inspired the letter he got implicating him as someone who was out to teach people to seduce their students now. I'll have to keep an eye out for him now.

Only one more left! My only regret is still not seeing any Die-Nasty. Ah well. Maybe I'll try to catch it during the regular season this year.

More Fringelog

2008-08-22T02:03:44Z

Inflatable Buddha: Bigger Than Jesus

This was really excellent in a lot of ways. I kind of wish I'd had someone more musical along for it, but oh well. I especially liked the girl (sorry, I'm terrible with names) with the upright bass. She did a really good song that I enjoyed a lot. This play was a study in how to engage the audience with a music performance. They managed to get the audience dancing and singing along (I suspect they've had more engaged audiences, but it was still pretty good at this one).

I'd probably see this one again, but there aren't a lot more showings of it I don't think.

Dead Lover's Day: A Musical

So I saw this play because the girl who wrote/stars in it was in Sad Victoria and I was impressed with her enough to see the thing she wrote (er, and she's cute). I wasn't disappointed. There were definite technical issues (which were apparently worse opening night, as See Magazine gave it 2 stars and it appears to be entirely because of the sound levels being wrong), volumes going wrong and stuff like that.

Most of the singers were passable (I think they're mostly performers first, singers second). On the other hand, Alexandra Mihill, the writer/star, was incredibly good. Her voice filled the theatre even as she was running from one end of the stage to the other.

The play itself was essentially what Corpse Bride should have been. It was all very burtonesque and pulled it off really well (even the set design, spare though it was, evoked Burton).

I think this might have been one of my favorite plays so far.

The Shakespeare Show or; How an Ignorant Son of a Glover Became the Most Famous blah blah blah

Whatever truth there is to the claim that Shakespeare didn't write his own plays (the claim being that the Earl of Oxford did), this was an amusing portrayal of a version of history. According to this version, Shakespeare believed his horse was writing the plays and giving them to him. More physical comedy than I expected, but I can't complain about that. Overall this was a good play. And because it's a BYOV play, it's playing pretty consistently throughout the rest of the week.

Green Eggs and Kerouac

I expected this to be all funny rhyming and mixing of poetic style. It wasn't that, but that's ok because what it was was fantastic. It was funny, it was sad, it taught me about Dr. Suess (and a little about Jack Kerouac as well). I was definitely impressed.

Rocket Sugar Factory

This was probably the best improv show I've ever seen. Although some of that was probably because the phrase I put in to be used: "I've got a fish in my vagina" was the first card they picked. And they did a good job with that, and I'm very impressed that they did (seems like it'd be really easy to just give up and not use it).

Was a lot of fun and I highly recommend it.

Gordon's Big Bald Head

I was groaning when the play they picked out to spoof/do their own version of was some opera at a BYOV. It seemed unlikely that this would go well. But it definitely did go well and it was pretty hilarious. Best parts I can think of:
- Discussion about thought bubbles/comic-book-style emotion signs (question marks, anger vibrations, etc) coming off the characters' heads.
- The crazy twisted woman-murders-everyone plot they came up with.
- The use of a lesbian affair as part of said plot (in an improv done by all men)
- General hilarity

I don't usually go in for improv, but the two I've seen this fringe have been really good. One of the guys from Rocket Sugar Factory was also in this one.

The Movies (abridged)

Last year (or was it the year before?) we saw The Bible (Abridged) and I think we liked it. I was less impressed with this one, though. There just wasn't enough funny to sustain the little movie skits they did. The connecting plot was weak until the end, where it was a little fun but not really worth the rest of the play.

It's funny, though, since this is a really well-reviewed play. Just goes to show, I suppose. Can't trust the reviewers.

On the other hand, it DID get that song from Pulp Fiction stuck in my head, and I appreciate that as it's one of the better songs I've had stuck in my head lately.

Fringelog to date

2008-08-20T19:49:58Z

So I'm posting my impressions of Fringe plays on Facebook primarily, but I figure I should import them over here periodically. This post will be big, since I've seen 9 plays already. I'll cut tag them individually so they're still accessible but don't take up too much room.

25 Plays About... Love

Finally, my first Fringe play of 2008. My favorite parts of this play were:
- The giant pink elephant in the middle of the room that no one talks about.
- The old gay couple.
- The 'other woman' being confronted by the wife.
- The pikachu DDR dancing.
- The man who takes polaroids of his hot dog while wearing nothing but an apron.
- (fill in more later)
- The kinda cute girl sitting two rows in front of me.

So yeah. Good play. I'm very happy that my first play of this year was a good one.

The New Step

A play written by Leonard Cohen... Well, he writes plays about as well as he sings. I gotta say, this play made no fucking sense. Two roommates alternate between consoling and interrogating each other about their lovelives, interrupted by a member of an Obesity Society woman who wants money ($5 is just right, $2 is just rude, $20 would be too much...). Not worth seeing. It's also less than a half hour but still costs $12 ($14 with the Fringe's bullshit 'fee').

Saw this with Nancy.

B-List

So, during this show, one of the biggest lightning storms ever struck and both the Yardbird Suite and the Catalyst Theatre were deprived of power. They got through about 5 minutes of the show before the power outage, and that 5 minutes was pretty good. One of the 'girls' memorized everyone's name (the show was not packed. It was the front row and a couple of stragglers in the back. I suspect the freak storm had something to do with this).

But the 20 minutes after the power outage, which basically amounted to an impromptu pow-wow between the actors and the audience, was awesome. I always say the thing I want out of the fringe is the unique experience, and tonight I got about as unique as you can get.

Apparently we can get a refund. I haven't decided yet if I'll go for tickets to see it again with the refund money. I'm leaning a little bit towards yes.

The Overnight

Just saw the overnight and am now waiting to see Liink and Zellda. I love the whole 'before the show' thing some plays do. The overnight had the main guy in the play just sitting sleeping at his radio board while everyone got seated and the play started when he wakes up. This one has the original Zelda overworld theme going.

Anyways, the Overnight was really good. They did an amazing thing with the secondary characters being behind a screen as silhouettes so they didn't have to do rapid fire costume changes, and it worked really well. Especially when the crazy stalker lady was on the phone and she played the seductress. The main plot is a guy juggling his career ambitions with a relationship, which is pretty typical plot fodder for fringe plays. It excelled at doing it all in an interesting way, though. This is one of the two plays I'd be willing to see again so far.

Liink and Zellda

Well... they tried. This honestly could have been much more awesome than it was. Basically it came down to a play about the time between Zelda games. With Link and Zelda fighting (and swearing at each other) in some kind of post-moved-in-with-each-other-non-bliss.

There were nice touches, but they weren't worth the whole play. The use of real zelda music was amusing. The part with Tingle was appropriately creepy/funny. Mario and Peach being Ed and Trixie to Link and Zelda's Ralph and Alice was good (and Mario flirting with Zelda, too).

But in the end, it was pretty weak.

Next up is the only play I'm scheduled to see that's gotten full stars on a review I've seen. I hope it lives up to it.

See Bob Run

This play would have been really good... if it were my kind of thing. Unfortunately, the results of childhood rape are kind of not that exciting to me. There was good (but minimal) use of sound effects and song to punctuate the play, the performer was good, and the venue wasn't stiflingly hot for once (every other time I've been in the Yardbird, it's been really hot).

So yeah. Good play, not my thing.

The Pumpkin Pie Show

They have a list of plays they can perform, each about 15 minutes by my reckoning, that they perform based on random draw at each performance. They pull them out and perform them at random. The girl's (Vagina Dentata and Suicide Bomber) were both hilarious and awesome. The guy's (Poor Man's Mermaid, Oldsmobile, and Late Bloomer) were ... enh. I couldn't get into his performance style, where he alternated between sounding like Christopher Walken and a whiney old man.

But I'd see it again. I like the randomness, and I like collections of one-acts. This one worked for me.

Sad Victoria's Pelican Day

I had high hopes for this play, as Bryce Kulak's music seems to lend itself really well to narrative. Unfortunately, it turned out to be more of a Bryce Kulak performance with interpretive dance as a visualization. It was pretty good dance, though, and it did manage to pull off a narrative structure that made sense with no actual dialogue. So although it didn't live up to my expectations, it was quite good.

I was also impressed enough with one of the dancers/actors to decide to see a musical she wrote today even though I haven't heard any buzz about it.

Nancy also managed to arrange an interview with Bryce for her radio show on Thursday, which is cool. He even recognized her from back at Fyrefly quite a long time ago.

Coffee Dad, Chicken Mom, and the Fabulous Buddha Boy

I'm not entirely sure I got the title right here, but it's close enough. This was a Trevor Schmidt/Nick Green play. Those two are people you hear about at every fringe as they're involved with usually several plays at the fringe. Generally ones that tackle gay themes and issues.

Well, this one was definitely about those types of issues (which I was actually not expecting). It's basically 3 segments, each dedicated to one member of a family that's falling apart due to the various usual life issues you can imagine (including the son being gay).

There is a definite element of mysticism to each of the plots in this play. The father believes the messages on his coffee cups (think Jones soda lid kind of thing) are telling him things that help him in his life (see Joan of Arcadia/Wonderfall). The mother seems to use "Why did the chicken cross the road?" jokes to help her process her life. The son is inspired by a boy who decided to go off and meditate for 6 years, and wants to learn to meditate and elevate himself above his painful memories.

All in all, it was definitely not a happy play. It was good though. I would have liked more cohesiveness between the three plots (eg what DID the father 'remember' to bring flowers for, anyways?), but it worked well enough.

Oh, and one note: Women do not talk like stereotypical gay men. I find this a lot in plays where a man is playing a woman. I know it's hard to portray yourself as a woman when you're a bald heavyset man wearing a button-up open to your chest, but still. They do not talk like that.

I'd just like to say...

2008-07-08T05:52:04Z

Diablo II is still awesome.

Who wins the google fight...

2008-02-04T06:51:18Z

Jackson 5 or Hanson?

This Year & Next Year

2008-01-01T00:57:31Z

I don't believe in new years resolutions. At least not as traditionally practiced. They're just sound bites to make it look like you're moving forward.

But I do believe in goals and plans. Last year, I decided to make a plan (not a resolution) while we were down in Vegas. I set a goal to get myself into shape. I planned to use the weight room and stationary exercise bike I had access to in my apartment building every day. And when summer came around, I planned to get a bicycle to keep that going. When we went out to buy a condo, I made it a primary issue that the place we buy have a pool so I'd have something other than weights to do this winter. I also planned to change my eating habits so I wasn't consistently overdosing on calories (no major changes other than that), first step being to cut out all sugar drinks altogether (yes, even juice).

I did it. Aside from a few weeks where I didn't make any serious progress (including most of August and last week), I consistently went down in weight and developed my muscle strength by a measurable amount. I'm not quite to my final goal (which is more of a body shape than a number), but I'm so close that I can taste it. And I did it without any really unhappy lifestyle changes.

I've lost approximately 60-70lbs in the last year (I only started keeping serious track in late May, so I don't have the exact starting point number except in memory, and that's a bit fuzzy). Which, for anyone who worries about this stuff, is within the 1-2lbs/week range that's considered safe. I did lots of homework before I started getting into this seriously. :)

I didn't post about it until August, because I didn't want to set myself up for public failure. It seemed more valid to make a goal and keep it to myself, because then I was doing it *for* myself. This year I'm changing it up, and I'm actually going to say my goals on here. I've gotten a lot of confidence out of achieving my goals last year.

So, my goals for this year are:

Finish the weight loss, and then maintain the body shape I want.
- This one's just a continuation, so I don't need to do a lot of planning for it.
Start my own business.
- I need to figure out project(s) I want to start as a business by the end of January
- Determine the funding and/or time I need to pull it off
- Get the funding and/or time I need
- Do it
- (incidentally, if anyone's interested in helping with this one, or knows someone who might be, in whatever way possible for them, please do let me know)
Learn to play the violin (cwazy, huh?)
- Figure out as much as I can on my own, by learning some songs (currently working on The Godfather theme)
- Take a few lessons to correct whatever I inevitably learned wrong and what I can't figure out on my own
- Pick back up on my own

So that's my recap of 2007, and my plan for 2008.

Happy New Year, everyone.

So that thing...

2007-12-30T09:23:09Z

You know that thing where people go on facebook and put in names of people they knew 10-15 years ago and find them through it?

Well, that just happened to me for the first time. He was one of my best friends from grade 6 through grade 8, which is also the only period of my grade school education I remember very well.

But.. he's apparently pretty religious. Not surprising, as his parents were as well and he was a bit of a momma's boy. I... well, I am not. Not only that, but I openly scoff at the sanctity of marriage and all that. So the question is, does it even make sense to contact him? Is the gulf of years and religious views between me and him likely to be too wide to even bother?

Here's to new traditions

2007-12-22T05:24:29Z

This is the first step in building our own Christmas traditions.

Old sci-fi breeds depressing sci-fi.

2007-12-17T09:10:56Z

I've been reading old sci-fi short stories as an interim between reading actual novels. It's kind of amazing how the mood of sci-fi shifts over time. World War II and the atomic bomb had such a massive effect on science fiction mood that it's impossible to escape. The stories written between about 1950 and 1970 are so convinced of a dismal human future that it challenges the notion that science fiction is 'escapist.'

But I guess it's also inspiring. Because tonight I wrote a little short story of my own. For the first time in a long long time. And boy is it a sad one. I'll see about posting it if I still like it tomorrow.