Caught a Python

Live feed from London. 11:30 am PDT = 7:30 p.m. GMT. I arrived at 11, expecting a line and a fairly full house. No line, maybe only 1/4 full at showtime. Most of the true geeks must have gone to the one across the Bay.

Nutshell review:
Q&A and countdown started at T minus 15 minutes. Video teasers kicked in at T minus 10. Audio was very intermittent, though the video was seamless. Very odd because audio takes almost no bandwidth compared to the video. This means there was an audio problem at the source. But at -5 the theater manager came in and told us they were rebooting their DVR just in case, and have passed word to the distributor people, and he would sit in for 10 minutes of the show and if it was still bad we would get refunds. The reboot showed a Dish satellite system, which told me it was not the local system - even though the weather was cloudy, again it would be video that would glitch first if it was local.

They got the show up and running again just in time, audio settled down a lot, but continued to glitch every 5-10 minutes throughout. But worse than that, there was a horrendous echo, which told me the feed was from a mike at the back of the hall, rather than from the mixer. The echo lasted all of the show. Seriously impacted my ability to understand everything.

But that was the only tech problem. The production was massive, well engineered, very well planned and the many costume changes were timed well.

Two things about the show:
1. The Pythons composed a remarkable number of tunes, in all kinds of genres, all with well-scanned lyrics.
2. They hired a troupe of the most amazing dancers/singers. Normally I would say the show was massively over-produced, but this ensemble was several orders of magnitude more talented than most of what you see on stage. This is factoring in the outrageous lyrics and costumes thrust upon them.

I will look for the original source in a week or two. While it was something to be seeing this at the same time as cousins in Baltimore, and maybe elsewhere, I need to hear it sans audio effects.

---

Met Janice for coffee, was distracted a lot by DDG passersby.

---

Home, it had cooled down a lot, so I shoveled/poured mulch and did some planting. First chore was to pry up the flat of the worst fried iceplant, put mulch under and around it, water it, and mostly cover it with mulch to shade it. The other iceplants are holding their own. Next was mulch on top of the former strawberry plot, being careful not to cover the two remaining strawberry plants. Dug holes for two Verbena Tapien Blue-Violet flower plants to the right, which will shade the strawberries in the afternoon, and put in two India Mint plants on the left, to shade them in the morning. Way to the left, on the other side of the burgeoning common mint plants, two more holes, these for lavender. I forget which of the 2,764 varieties. The mint jungle is thriving so well that while planting the lavender, all I could smell was mint. This is a giant WIN for me. The more mint the better.

---

Dinner, finished a Thai lunch from last week. Popped the Little Shop DVD from the party into the player, confirmed that chapters had been inserted, but she left out closing titles. I'll have to add those to the blu-ray version. Cast, band, crew. Directing staff is listed in the opening credits. Also no TOC on her disk. And the print on the disc is lame, I'll design something better.
And maybe I can add a photo gallery. I have the unfair advantage of time, no deadline. She had lots of time, but the DVD was very last minute.

---

Also listened to Doug's CD, reading along with the script. The 30-minute musical is called Ham and it is an admittedly cheesy take-off on Hamlet. The music is not bad, the CD is technically very high quality. The script needs work. He did not do a very good job of blending original quotes with the modern lines. Tried too hard to crowbar his favorite quotes where they might not belong. But a good effort, 30 years in the making.

---

Took out the garbage & the recycles. This time all the online order boxes fit inside the container.

---

And in other news, all the T-shirts are hung up in the closet, except for a couple in the hamper and one on the easy chair which arrived in the mail.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
BASFA maybe