Boot Camp

Jun. 17th, 2012 01:20 am
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The temps got up to around 90° in my neck of the woods today, but the apartment does not get any direct sunlight, so out on the patio it was only about 82, and inside it was mostly 76 since that's when the air conditioner kicks in. It is like boot camp for Thailand. Minus the humidity.

Slept till 9:30, eventually walked a few blocks to the nearest manicure place and my timing was perfect, got my nails done right away, even though only one person was working. Nice little place, probably they have two people doing  nails/pedicures and one or two doing hair during the week. I think it's called Touch of Silk. Manicurist was a very nice middle-aged Chinese-Vietnamese lady who kept up a conversation through the whole time. I'll be back.

Back home, tried the patio for a while but it was too hot. As usual, most of the traffic was families with kids. Boring. Channel surfed and found Ghostbusters II on Bravo, which IO watched because a friend of mine was the person inside Slimer's suit. Funny, at the time I tuned in, the ghostbusters were climbing out of  the sewer covered in slime, and Bravo put up one of their annoying little promo overlays which said "Real Housewives of NYC get some unexpected visitors". LOL. I managed to record that, and Slimer's last 3-second appearance as a bus driver.

Vacuumed, and also shampooed some trouble spots. There is an area I spilled some red Crystal Light or similar house brand drink, and nothing is getting it out.

Made a banana smoothie, this time remembered that the malted milk was the one on the left, the one on the right is Parmesan.

Looked up an article I did in 1974 for the Astoria, OR paper at the request of a friend (via her husband on FB), found the negatives for the photos which went with it and scanned them in with my neat little Wolverine hand-held film scanner. It does a great job, except it expects store-bought film where the gaps between each image line up with the notches on its feeder. But these were hand cut from 100-foot rolls so some of the photos needed the ugly black line cut off. Posted them on FB, instantly got comments from several of her hubby's friends.

At about 6:30 I headed to Palo Alto, got to the theater sooner than I expected, waited in the park for the box office to open and was happy to find they did have a ticket reserved for me. The back to the park with my Kindle. Am now reading Hugo nominee with the unlikely name of The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees By E. Lily Yu. I gave up, sadly, on Mary Robinette Kowal's Kiss Me Twice. Two problems - the mobi formatting was annoying (top and bottom headers are in line with the text) and pdf formatting was unreadable on the Kindle (6 point type. Trying to expand it made the type bigger, but cut off at the width of the screen). Bigger problem is it is awkward, as if she was writing a detective story as a class assignment. The beautiful flow she had in last year's winning story is just not there in this one. Sigh.

Back to the theater, took my seat, and people were still arriving at 8:05. My row was full, as were the rows in front and behind me. Most of the side section seats were empty, as well as the last five or six rows. I made a note to move at halftime.

The play is called The Lieutenant of Inishire, and according to the director's notes, it is an attempt to show through over-the-top humor the insanity of "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland. Had this been produced during the bombings and assorted bloodshed and other nastiness, it might have had a point, but these many years after everything is peaceful, it is just another case of beating a dead horse. And poorly.

I did not enjoy the play at all. Had I been able to understand the words, I may have laughed once or twice, but the cast all talked far too quickly, with way too thick an accent, and mostly talked upstage. It also helps it one opens one's mouth when one speaks.

The first scene takes place in a humble Irish home. The second in a torture chamber, with a victim hanging upside down from his ankles, stripped to the waist, bleeding from under his pants. Several audience members gasped and looked away. This scene has what I took to be light banter between the torturer and the victim, but as I could rarely understand either of them, all I saw was a person hanging upside-down for far too long. I think at one point he was given a choice of which nipple would be cut off, but I'm not sure.

A couple of scenes later, the woman sitting next to me started to snore.

Half the audience did not come back for Act II. As he left, a man in the row behind me said there was still time to watch the baseball game on TV.

The only reason I did not leave is after the play was free food. The play just got worse and worse, in thoroughly predictable ways, except for the next-to-final twist at the end, which I would bet a case of Guiness was thrown in by the author after the play was finished, when he showed it down at the pub to his drunken buddies. The twist at the very end was the expected punchline of the shaggy dog story which the play is.

The sets were okay, scene changes were marred by too-loud, too-cacophonous metalicized Irish folk tunes.

The free food was quite good. I only saw one person from Jeckyl & Hyde (my free ticket was thanks for being in that show earlier this season). Some of the conversation was amusing. One man pointed out that one of next year's offerings, Miss Saigon, is a musical. As if this was unknown previously. But it did make me think that there should be a rip-off musical, Donald Trump's Miss Saigon Universe - The Musical!

Home, unpacked the eBay-bought VCR, and it did not work. It fired up okay, but would not play a tape, fast forward or rewind for more than 3 seconds, and when I started to open it up to see what was going on I didn't - when I saw that someone who did not know how to had already done so, bending one metal part and breaking off a plastic catch. So I sent a nastygram to the seller, and bought one from a repair shop.

Plans for tomorrow:
Take pictures of my eyes
MIB3 - matinée if I wake up in time (not a problem, 3D is at 12:20)
Spend some time at Starbucks
Take the camera out for some GPS testing.
Move two boxes out of the bedroom. One goes into the computer room and gets sorted, the other will probably get dumped. Very heavy metal sections which snap together with plastic connectors, which I stupidly threw away when I moved.
Get a massage, if it cools down.
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Really only did two things today, but both were major. Ye Older Towne Band had its first concert of the year, attendance was less than it might have been, but there was so much else going on, and we'll be back the last Sunday of every month through September. I got there way early and snagged my favorite parking spot - the closest one to the park without being actually in the park - I save those for the handicapped and those whose instruments are too big to carry that far. And there are usually picnickers who are already there.

It was chilly and windy. The wind makes it awkward - we bring clothespins but if a piece is 3 or 4 pages, there's no good way to clip it to the music folder without having to flip it over at some point. Which means missing a few measures of music. It was a shorter concert than we usually do too, so my lip is not as demolished as it might have been. And we played a lot of pieces in which baritones had the melody, which I like.

Stopped at a produce stand on the way home and scored some nice looking 49¢/lb bananas and 89¢/lb red delicious apples. And half a dozen big 6/$1 limes. Next stop was Lucky's. originally just for sourdough slices to go with the goat cheese I bought a few days ago, but decided to pick up some microwave frozen entrees too, which meant no Starbucks stop. Home, had an early dinner, toyed with the idea of going into the city to see the Golden Gate Bridge fireworks, but the news pointed out that there was really no way to get there - the major bus lines were not running, and there was no parking. Tried the goat cheese on the sourdough slices - the cheese was bland and will be recycled, the sourdough slices appear to have been mislabeled, they taste like plain baguette slices. :-(

At about 6:15 I realized if I was going to make it to the show in Saratoga, I had best leave now. Got to the theater at 20 till 7, house manager was my theater son Ed, whose wife was in the show. Box office lady gave me the senior discount even though I'm not their official senior age. This was a special show, one performance only, local actor/director/playwright/song writer Ted Kopulos's Out Of My Trunk, Out Of My Mind - Four Sure. The 4th time in 10 years that he has pulled out some stuff he wrote, found a cast to perform it and made it into a concert-plus. He's an amazing director, and many of the numbers were thoroughly staged. Everyone in the show (10 of them) are excellent musical theater performers, and with one exception were well-rehearsed. Bob Sunshine was the accompanist, I am always blown away by his keyboard skilz. Many of the numbers are Broadway-worthy, a couple should have stayed in the trunk. All of them were brilliantly performed. I had been onstage with four of the cast, worked backstage with two more, and would have been cast in the last show Ted directed for Sunnyvale except tech week was my nephew's wedding. Oh yeah, and they also changed which show they did.

And there was some very confusing theater people drama. cut for boring speculation )

I hope the finale, Now, finds its way to YouTube. Ted wrote a musical called It's Your Year, Charlie Brown for the opening of the Charles Schultz Museum in Santa Rosa, and this was the finale for that.
Home in time to watch the last half of the Golden Gate Bridge fireworks, but my internet signal decided to crap out on me (no one was showing it live, it was streaming or nothing). Meanwhile, a mile away Great America's fireworks sounded like they were in our BBQ area.

Got email from the art show director for the next Worldcon (in Chicago) inviting me to participate. I won't be going to the convention, but I do have a supporting membership which is good enough to be in the art show, but it would mean having the photos matted and paying a $25 fee to have them hung. It sounds like they are doing the U-shaped display which is horrible  for the size prints I do, and difficult to light. And they are restricting mail-ins to 2 panels, when a U is 3 panels. Stupid. Not sure if I want to do that.

Plans for tomorrow:
Many choices. I could catch the death throes of BayCon, but that would be depressing. Maybe there's still some jazz worth going to see in Sacto. Fireworks again at GA? I'll have to check. Hmm. their web site doesn't mention tonight's. Strange.
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Busy day at work.  The CTO gave a presentation on a new device which has been on the wish list for at least 4 years, it was very thorough but easy to understand, and he did a masterful job of showing how the timing is now right to get the intro version on the market ASAP and then ease our way into the full blown dream machine.

Lunchtime I went to the apartment and picked up the new laptop, and shared turkey bologna and Kraft Singles with Domino. Two of the few things she will eat out of my hand.

Back at work, Something Went Wrong with the machine which lets us stream video clips. I have two tests waiting for that to get fixed. Received a new set of dates for two of my projects.

Home, set up the two laptops on one of my spare routers via ethernet cables, turned off wi-fi, and ran Windows Easy Transfer. Both machines are Windows 7, and it was very easy to start, but with about 350 MB transferred, it wanted the "old" computer's password.  I haven't used the password since I first got the machine, because it has a fingerprint reader. I tried all my usual passwords, but nothing. I canceled that part, and left it to grab the remaining 5GB while I took off for the RetroDome and The Game Show Show.

Nutshell: this is the same gang which destroyed You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown last year. A double-wide married couple, he is trained as an opera singer, she is more  of a ballroom dancer/musicals soprano. I thought I was going to see a series of TV game shows simulated on stage, but what I got was a 2-act 3-hour musical similar to the 1940's Radio Hour, mostly backstage soap opera set in a TV game show. It doesn't deserve a full review, so here's the mini:

Leading man has an opera-trained voice and has no idea how to relax and just sing. Leading lady was once a wonderful dancer, but that was 60 lbs. ago. All the people in the show except for The Woman Who Plays All The Small Parts were too old for the show. Audio was way too loud (everyone was wearing a face mike, and there were also hand-helds, stand mikes and desk mikes. Most of it sounded strident.

I almost walked out a couple of minutes into the second act, when spolier ) they went all macho man sexist anti-career woman as their message. If I was the leading lady I'd have clocked the sponsor and stomped out.

The set was well done except for the wheel of fortune being too high for any contestant to reach. They did do three snippets of game show with audience members ;participating. The Match Game section was a hoot. They totally misused [livejournal.com profile] kevin_standlee's mike.

Lots of forgettable music, childish lyrics and most of them went on forever.

The cast was very energetic, and they could all nail all the numbers with one more week of rehearsal. And they could stand to cut four numbers and add another game, and pay more attention to when the applause sign should be tuned on.

Not worth the discounted subscriber price.


I was expecting the show to be over by 10:30, but it was 10:53 when I was out the door, and had just enough time to grab some enteric aspirin and dishwashing liquid from Target across the way which closes at 11.

Then some grocery shopping across the street.

Back home, the PC transfer was done, but it was not complete because of those files which needed the old computer's password. I did the trick on the old computer of adding another administrator account, with one of my more usual passwords, and using that to reset the "howeird" account password. But when I tried the transfer again, it still wanted the original password.

So I am running the system-to-factory-settings routine on the ASUS, will set its howeird account to the same password as the new one on the Toshiba, and try again. Let it run overnight.

Plans for tomorrow:
10 am manicure & haircut
lunch at one of the restaurants near the nails place
Home/nap

Avengers

May. 17th, 2012 06:02 pm
howeird: (Weird Load)

Saw The Avengers in 3D last night. I guess it would have helped if I had been more of a Marvel comics fan. I was raised on DC, and Marvel came around after I was past my comic book phase. 

I enjoyed much of the acting. Whedon did a good job directing his characters in the human. non-action scenes. I especially enjoyed Mark Ruffalo as Dr. Banner, except he kind of blew his last important line by not appearing to be the least bit angry. Robert Downey Jr. had Stark down to a T, including the Black Sabbath T. We got treated to a lot of Scarlett Johansson's butt in tight leather, an added bonus. And the last thing we see in the film is Cobie Smulders's fine bubble butt sashaying away from us in form-fitting pants. Both women also gave good acting performances. Clark Gregg was the ultimate company man, and Jeremy Renner is almost believable as the commando leader, except he's too short. Chris Hemsworth as Thor and Chris Evans as Captain America were not given a lot to work with. Hemsworth made the best of it, Evans mainly came across as a stuffed shirt. Tom Hiddleston as Loki has a scary smirk, but was otherwise unconvincing in the Global Dominator role. Samuel L. Jackson phoned this one in. So did his makeup artist.

Most of my friends tell me The Hulk stole the show, but as far as I'll go is his scene fighting the bad guy was amusing. He's all CGI, and they gave him far more strength in that scene than he had demonstrated to that point. I think Iron Man had the most and best tricks/lines/CGI/plot movement. 

There are two Easter eggs, the first comes right after the beautifully crafted main credits, and was gratuitous. The second comes about 10 minutes later after everyone within 500 miles of the production was listed in ugly 2D B&W text, and was kind of cute, but could have used some dialog. And it was in 2D.

Lots of violence, lots of effects, some superb fight choreography. Plot holes one could drive a mother ship through. Many snippets of excellent dialog. The Stan Lee cameo toward the end is priceless, made me laugh out loud. 

Worth matinee.

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Probably the most powerful thing my father ever told me is that, like us, he and his father did not get along, and one of his biggest regrets was he never had the chance to reconcile with his father. His father was a handyman, and fell off a roof when my dad was 19. It took decades, but by the time my father was gone, we were on good terms with each other.
Someone who had a crush on me when she was in high school (I was 23) is now one of the production staff at Seattle Opera. Over on the Book of Face, she posted the trailer for their current production of Madame Butterfly, as well as an article in a not-quite-local paper about the 6-year-old girl whom she found to play the part of Pinkerton's son. I did not want to be rude to her over there so I'll say it here.

First, there are plenty of boys in Seattle who could have played that part. Plenty of girls too. Okay, so the kid is only from Lynnwood, but that's a nasty commute from the northeast end of Lake Washington to the opera venue in downtown Seattle, at least an hour one way after school.

Seattle used to be a place where young opera talent could get a break, but they decided to cast an older performer (14 years since her debut) as the leading lady. She looks older than that. The role calls for a teenager. The woman has enough vibrato to stress test a 747. The fellow playing playful boyish Pinkerton is a stuffed shirt. Nice voice, though. The mix was horrible - the orchestra in most of the clips was too loud to hear the soloists' words. It does not look like a production I would go out of my way to see.
This morning listening to KNBR, the local all-sports station, they played a Home Despot commercial and an Orchard Supply commercial back to back. OSH was advertising patio and outdoor furniture on sale, and I've been thinking about buying a chaise for the patio, so I went there after work. I did an online search and found nothing I wanted, but often the store has more than the web page. I did find a nice one for $99 at overstock.com. Anyhow, OSH had nothing I wanted. Heavy iron ones for $179 which needed a pad for more $, a horrible flat plastic one in gray, and something called a Zero Gravity Chair which looked a lot like the dreaded Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal. Almost went straight home, but remembered that everything I had planned for this weekend fell through, so I had time to make pickles. Detoured to the produce place and picked up 4x7 pickle cukes. And a nice big celery bunch. And some medium big limes. Celery meant needing bleu cheese dressing, so next detour was to my local supermarket, which did not have the brand I liked but they had "good enough".
Home, the 2012 map from Garmin was under my welcome mat. I'll try it out tomorrow.

Watched the latest episode of Who Do You Think You Are? which followed Quincy Jones' daughter Rashida's search for her Jewish mother's ancestors. It was incredibly moving, I'm pulling it from TiVo onto my PC and will make DVDs for my sisters, and my aunt.
Work was boring. I cranked out a ton of test cases for a new feature, but I think I'm at a dead end for now. Will pursue it Monday.
Lunch was a rare case of me driving the gang, irony being we went to a hole in the wall Japanese place across the street from my apartment. I've eaten there once before and was not impressed. But it was a nice day so we sat outside. One of them has a very loud voice, and is virtually un-interruptable, so it's nice that he has interesting things to say. He does pause from time to time, but not often.
I forgot to go to the PO, mostly because I usually do that at lunchtime.

Plans for tomorrow:
PO, mail the calendar to Michi in Japan
Manicure (my nails have grown way faster this last 2 weeks than usual)
Best Buy - see about having the GPS antenna in the car placed where it gets a better signal
Make pickles. Plan A: 7 jars w/4cukes each. Plan B: same as Plan A, but spears instead of whole pickles. Plan C was pickle chips, but I've already scrapped that.




 

Garbage Day

May. 4th, 2012 12:57 am
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Work was mostly spent on the continuing saga of this week's pet bug. While showing the automation guy the steps to test it, we found it was not working as I thought it was, some video streams did and some didn't. Very puzzling. Spent some time with the engineer, doing the whole matrix grid thing. More later when two new builds are released to QA.

Lunch was at the Valley Plaza Cafe, which is the hotel restaurant for the Embassy Suites hotel. They have had a sign up for a couple of months with their hours, they are almost next door to Sizzler and next door to the old Peppermill (which is trying very hard to be Axis night club) so I pass by twice a day at least.

I had the braised beef rib (singular) which is served on a pile of lovely broad egg noodles. There was also a delicious very sour bread kind of like focacia but better. The beef and whatever they braised it with was excellent. The noodles looked great but were way too salty. I had the opera cake for dessert - $7 for $2 worth of cake. Iced tea was a little bitter, and they had no  sweeteners on the table. All in all a good place to try other items, but skip dessert and go with a not-tea beverage.

Home, took out the garbage, relaxed a bit, took my BP (it was actually a little low, yay!) then went to the local naked women place and enjoyed watching two of my favorite pole dancers. We're talking high quality routines similar to aerial dancing, not some sleazy bump and grind.

Home, smoked turkey leg and steamed veggies for dinner. Chocolate ice cream, sliced banana, macadamias and whipped cream for dessert.

A couple of days ago, a calendar I sent to a friend in Japan in November was returned marked "unknown number". Odd, because at the time it was the address of my friend's parents, well out of the tsunami area. I was surprised it took so long until I saw it was sent by slow boat, and probably returned by slower boat. I asked for her current address, and she replied with one in Tokyo, different from her pre-tsunami Tokyo address. I have the calendar ready to send again, this time it goes air mail.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Tempted to go to the SJ First Friday Art walk.
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Seth Grahame-Smith wrote this thing, apparently one in a series of opportunistic "famous folks from the past meet the undead" offerings.

His writing style is okay, as far as putting one word in front of another goes, but he turns what could have been an action-packed thriller into a moderate-paced narrative.  

The gist of it is someone has found a bundle of secret journals and letters by Lincoln, and gives them to a writer to make a novel from. That novel is the rest of the book. In which we learn how Honest Abe came to be a secret hunter of vampires, and how most of his family dies from vampirism. Seth re-invents vampires as super-human beings with super speed and strength. He gives them knife-like claws and psychic abilities. And the longer they exist, the less sensitive to sunlight they become, and most of the ones in the USA are able to co-exist with the living in daylight, with the help of sunglasses.

The author scrupulously follows real-life Lincoln's time line, but saves himself from having to write action scenes by skipping chunks of years with lame little notes about how Abe fought lots of vampires during those years, or retired from vampire hunting for those years.

Not a compelling book. Definitely not worth Kindle price. Pick it up at a used book store if you feel compelled to read it for yourself. I understand the movie hs gone way overboard on the blood and gore, so I'll be skipping that. 
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Last night's impulse was slogging through horrible rainy night traffic to get to City Lights in SJ because just at the right time someone posted in FB that it was their night of shorts. Five short plays, one scene rather than 1-acts, all by local authors. I had no idea who the authors were, or who was in it, so was pleasantly surprised that my "daughter" Helena, was one of the playwrights. In 1984 she played Charlotte, the undertaker's daughter to my Mr. Sowerberry, undertaker in TheatreWorks' second or third production of Oliver!. We also served on Menlo Players Guild's board of directors together and their play reading committee. We see each other from time to time at The Usual Places.

In the audience was Elizabeth, who was my director's assistant for a show in Santa Clara Players in 2003.

Also there doing some acting were glow-in-the-dark Cindy, one of the folks who kept me from bailing on Lyric Theater's Babes in Toyland a couple of years ago; and Pat, who was in a Santa Clara show in 2003 I ran lights for. The cast party was at her home, and I fell in love with her sister, who unfortunately lives in SoCal and probably thinks I was stalking her. It's complicated.

So, the shorts:
Family Jewels
by H. G. Clarkson
dir. Jeanie Smith
Diane (Lucinda Dobinson) and hubby Will (Chuck Phelps) are dressed in their best for an important appointment. Will convinces Diane to take the shortcut through the dark alley, where they are attacked by a man with a big knife (Keith C. Marshall). Spoiler alert )
A good basic idea, but needs work.

Faith
by Lisa Kang
dir. Jeffrey Lo
An Asian woman (Kymberly Schieferstein) appears framed in a doorway above and to the left of the main stage. She places a bowl on the ground and freezes. She stays frozen until the last line of the play. On the stage, in a livingroom set, are Kalli (Kathleen Park) and her SO Bill (Jason Arias). spoilissimo )

Kathleen rattled off her lines too quickly, and there was not enough connection between her and the old  woman, but other than that it worked well. I loved Jason's performance.


The Devil's in the Details
by Margy Kahn
dir. Cara Phipps
Katie (Mandy Armes), a young woman, comes to old woman Jude's (Pat Cross) house to take some measurements and look around now that the loan approval is in its final stages. spoiling )

Very well written, I love the way Jude remains matter of fact as the plot gets more and more twisted. Pat totally nailed the part.

Club Gastro
by Ross Peter Nelson
dir. Rachel Bakker
It's Julia's (Cindy Powell) birthday, and her Best Friend Suzette (Sara Trupski) brings her to the decadent Club Gastro, where the women are shown by the Maitre D (James Barker)  pictures of the "chefs", and get to choose just one for the evening. They choose older, dapper Devon (Ron Talbot). The rule is "look, but don't touch". We find out this applies not only to the chef, but also Read more... )

The acting was superb. I wanted to take Suzette home with me. Cindy was her usual glowing self, Ron was just perfect as the waiter and James' accent really made the role. I would love to see this as a scene in a longer play.

Minerva And Melrose
by Martin A. David
dir. Linda-Ruth Cardozo
Melrose (Tony Cirimele) is supposed to be sitting on the toilet, next to a padlocked door with a half-window open in it. They did not have a toilet handy, so he was in a chair next to a makeshift toilet paper holder. They also didn't have a door, just a frame. And they did not have anything to be a wall between the toilet and th livingroom. Minerva (Danielle Perata) is in the livingroom.

There is no plot. Minerva is like Lucy Van Pelt, trying out various roles (she starts with radio/tv newsperson) and talking a blue streak. At some point she hands Melrose an apple, which he devours, and apparently that is why there is a window in the door. Read more... )
It was twice as long as it needed to be. Except for the amusing words Minerva invents, there isn't much to this play. Both Danielle and Tony did as much with the script as could be done, and she looked pretty hot in the black stretch pants and neon pink T, but I don't see this scene going anywhere.

All the scenes were entertaining one way or another, and I love seeing new works, especially snippets, so yes, it was worth the trip.

BATB

Mar. 25th, 2012 11:01 pm
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What I said on The Book of Face:
Beauty & The Beast at Irvington HS has unbelievably inventive costumes, lots of clever choreography and directing, the BEST HIGH SCHOOL STAGE CREW EVER, marvelous sets built for lightning-fast changes, and the loudest intonation-free orchestra since The Think Method. Lumiere is brilliant and The Beast is great. So many excellent supporting performances. Unfortunately the female leads were both fighting severe colds, so many of the best numbers suffered greatly. Brave kids - it's scary to open your mouth during your solo and have nothing come out. One more weekend, I hope they are better by then. Note to producer: It's probably better to end Act I with the standing-ovation-worthy production number, regardless of how long it makes Act II.

What I did not say:
The sound person (people?) sucked. Every one of the 6,487 cast members was miked with those annoying, distracting tubes-on-the-face mikes. Maybe three of them were actually adjusted correctly. The mikes on all of the leads were cutting out regularly. At halftime they tried to blame cell phones, but that's a crock - cell phones haven't used those channels in years. And cell phone interference adds sound to the stream, it doesn't make it lose audio.

Two things needed to happen for this show's audio to work:
1. Muffle the orchestra. They were playing too loud by 200%
2. Only mike the soloists. In that theater any three or more people singing together will be heard un-amplified.

What else I did not say:

Gaston was boring. The part calls for over-acting. And it would have been nice if his mike worked.  His sidekick's mike worked, so whenever he was in his sidekick's face, we heard him.

The staging for the title song had Mrs. Potts singing far stage right while Belle and The Beast mimed their parts center stage. Belle's ball gown is blindingly beautiful, and she looked stunning. The Beast's uniform costume was perfectly tailored and he looked stunning too. But I wanted to see the singer as well as the action, and this staging did not let me do that. I might have liked it better if the singer was off-stage. Or upstage  of the table.

The way they did chip was a child was sitting inside Mrs. Pott's cart, only his head from the chin up visible, above an oversized, chipped cup. It was pretty unnerving at first. And at second and third. Like a David Copperfield trick gone horribly wrong. But clever, very very clever.

Some of the more stand-out extras were the cheese grater (beautiful girl, made me wish she was 20 years older), the dresser - who held her pose for about 5 minutes without batting an eyelash, and then came to life just as you thought she might be a mannequin. Salt and pepper shakers looked like twins, simple costumes of one black and one white chef's smock and a mushroom-shaped floppy hat with black spots to indicate the holes. Gaston's four bimbos were loud and giggly and inane, as they should be. There were some beautiful plates.

Several times the director made use of not only the through-the-audience entrance but also we were serenaded in the aisles on at least two numbers. I thought it was a little freaky, I'd rather keep the 4th wall up. It was like gratuitous 3D. But they sang in tune and together, which is hella hard to do with people facing three different directions, 20 feet apart.

If Belle and Mrs. Potts have most of their voices back, it will be well worth seeing next weekend. Thurs-Sat at 7:30 pm. Click here
howeird: (Default)
Today was the 70th anniversary of the first showing of Casablanca, and several theaters held a special showing of a "making of" piece and a restored-by-Turner (no, not colorized) print. I went to the Cinemark in Mountain View, got there 15 minutes before show time and there was no trouble getting a ticket and a good seat. People wandered in for the next 45 minutes, and by the time the film was over it was 3/4 full.

I had never seen the movie all the way through. Certainly not on the big screen. I had seen lots of clips from it, and bits on late night TV interrupted by commercials and bedtime.

It was well worth the special trip, and then some. The cinematography is stunning, every frame of it. Ditto Ingrid Bergman. Makeup is fantastic. Costumes were too except there was one blouse Ingrid wears which seemed out of character. And what a great cast. I had no idea what a superb actor Dooley Wilson (Sam) was. There's a line in Sunset Boulevard which fits him "With one look you'll know all you need to know". Looks, gestures, voice, body language, he was the whole package. In real life he did not play the piano, for the film he mimicked a pianist who sat behind the camera. That's acting.

Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre are all great. And except for Bergman were all playing well out of their comfort zone. Character performances by Curt Bois  as the slimey but charming Pickpocket, S.Z. Sakall as Carl, the Maitre de'. Madeleine Lebeau as Rick's very pretty sometimes girlfriend grabs the most face time in the singing of La Marseillaise. Corinna Mura as the cabaret singer shows off a great soprano voice.

Directed by Michael Curtiz, who did a phenomenal job with what could easily have been a tawdry mess + circus acts. The score by Max Steiner was just right most of the time - now and then there was a gratuitous splash of La Marseillaise and Deutschland Uber Alles, but not enough to want to throw your shoe at the screen. Arthur Edeson  was robbed by not getting the Cinematography Oscar, as was Owen Marks  for film editing. Bogart and Rains were the only actors nominated, but did not win. This was more of a full-cast effort, no one role was really Oscar material. And of course the film won Best Picture and Best Screenplay.

From the "making of" piece it was clear that the script changed constantly, which is amazing, considering all the classic lines which are in it. And there were three possible endings, which were not written until the last minute. I like the one they chose. Especially the last line, which I had not realized the full significance of until finally seeing the 30 seconds of dialog which precedes it.
 
Worth full price.

ASUS Zen

Mar. 21st, 2012 12:54 pm
howeird: (Default)
That was fast! delivered this morning, picked it up from the office at lunch time, and am using it now.
Cons:
heavier than expected
uses a dongle for wired ethernet connection
no scroll function on the touchpad
The "a" key may be intermittent.

Pros:
Very pretty
faster than greased tachyons
sharp display

Time to get back to work, will pound on this more later.

More Shorts

Mar. 2nd, 2012 01:10 am
howeird: (Default)

Tonight was Shorts set #1, last night was #2. Unfortunately I'm booked for the rest of the times they are doing 3 & 4.

This was not as good a set as #2, but it had its moments.

The Barefoot Humanity (L’umanità Scalza) - dir. Americo Melchionda - Italy
Disjointed script which tried to do too much in too little time. Worst writing and least imaginative of all the shorts. Every scene was a WTFBBQ. Subtitles were too small and not on the screen long enough. Completely throw-away ending. FAIL. 

Ethan - dir. Tamir Moscovici - Canada
Just when I thought things could not get worse, they did. The movie was artificially altered to look like it was shot using the exposed ends of 8mm film. I had to close my eyes after a couple of minutes, the searing flashes of red-orange which us old farts recognize as the last frames of a reel were inserted every 10 seconds, or more. Total nonsense, and made the movie un-watchable. There was a very good concept behind the movie, it was trying to be a documentary about a young sk8er boy (who also plays rugby) who thinks he has Tourette's, his mother likes that idea better than autism, but from the interviews they did with the kid, he sounds normal. They only had audio from him and his mother. How this atrocity got into the festival, I don't even want to know.

God and Vodka - dir. Daniel Stine - United States
Finally an excellent picture. Best dialog of the two nights, a charming story about a pair of friends, a man about to be shipped overseas by the army and his long-time best female friend. It is told from the angle that she is writing a story about him and their friendship, and doesn't know where to start or what order to put things in. So we see their life together out of chronological order, but it all makes sense and is very charming. Well acted, good-to-great videography, nice score.

Hatch - dir. Christoph Kuschnig - Austria
Apparently in Austria, hospitals have an open door leading to a hatch with an infant bed behind it, a humane alternative to leaving a baby on a doorstep. A pair of immigrants make the tough decision that they can survive in Austria, but not with a baby. As they are waiting for the bus back home, a man walks into the place and snatches their baby, drives away. He brings it home to his boyfriend, and it becomes clear this was totally on impulse. The ending is heart-rending and sweet. The lighting could have been better, but all in all a worthy flick.

Rhonda’s Party - dir. Ashley McKenzie - Canada
What do you do when a woman passes away the night before her 100th birthday party at the nursing home? The cake is there, the band is on its way, balloons have been filled with helium, party hats are on the table, the residents are gathered. Some of the best acting of the night, it is all supporting roles, no real leading characters. I would have tweaked the final shot a little, a minor nit pick.

Henry - dir. Yan England - Canada
Tour de force showing an old man who had a full and happy life as a concert pianist with his violinist wife, as his mind drifts in and out of the present. Genius editing and writing, in French but you stop noticing. Gérard Poirier plays the old man, he was 81 when they shot it last year, and he is amazing. I cried a couple of times, once at the end when he recognizes his daughter for a moment, then asks if they have ever met, and it is clear he realizes he has lost his memory. He asks her a simple question which sums it all up. I gave this a 10 out of 5 on my scorecard.

Shorts

Mar. 1st, 2012 02:13 am
howeird: (Default)
More on this later, I hope:

Went to see Cinequest's shorts #2, which were all superb, and completely made up for the meh of the night before.

All but one were beautifully shot, one was done on 35mm instead of digital and was a little grainy and in some places fuzzy, and colors were dull. Quickly:

Otto and the Electric Eel - dir. Duncan Skiles, Andrew Zuchero - United States
A man is cooking dinner for his date, it burns, he fires up a boatload of electronics and creates a flying electric eel, which he battles and finally kills - while his date is ringing his doorbell. Cheesy special effects, but a lot of humor with a happy ending.

Smorgasbord - dir. Jennifer Glynn - United States
Two women run a buffet restaurant, and are romanced by customers. The reverse Heimlich maneuver near the end is worth the price of admission.

The Padlock (il Lucchetto) - dir. Ettore Nicoletti - Italy
What starts as a very romantic story about a couple who add their lock to a chain full of lovers' locks around a light pole, turns hilarious. Points for biggest laugh in the shortest time.

Count Back from Ten - dir. Tamar Halpern - United States
Beautifully written and photographed and touching, the dreams of a young girl, with a heartbreaking reveal at the end.

Everything is Incredible - dir. Tyler Bastian, Trevor Hill, Tim Skousen - United States
An old man with polio has been building what he calls a helicopter since 1958, with interviews of his neighbors and relatives.

Reinaldo Arenas - dir. Lucas Leyva - United States
This is a very strange title. The film is about a shark being hooked buy a fisherman, from the shark's point of view. Reinaldo Arenas was a Cuban writer who was jailed for his work against Castro, eventually made it to America and committed suicide when the depression of AIDS became too much for him.

Sterling Hallard Bright Drake - dir. Robert Sickels - United States
A man in Walla Walla, WA has erected his own tombstone near the front of the cemetery, though he is very much alive. It is covered with odd drawings and misspelled quotes. High school classmates are interviewed, and then the man himself. Excellent videography.

Sailcloth - dir. Elfar Adalsteins - United Kingdom
John Hurt stars in this one, about a man who gets out of his nursing home bed, shaves, gets dressed in a suit and tie, sets off the fire alarm and walks out during the confusion. He takes a sailboat, outfits it with two sheets taken from the home, and sails out to sea and a tragic ending. Technically the best of the bunch. Oscar worthy.

In Search of a Donkey (Chasse à l'âne) - dir. Maria Nicollier - Switzerland
This is the 35mm entry. Three Japanese men are served donkey meat by their local chef, and go in search of a donkey to kill & eat. Much hilarity as they see a nativity scene in a shop window and mistake the donkey for a sacred Christian symbol. Adorable film, wish it had better production values.

The Artist

Feb. 29th, 2012 01:51 am
howeird: (Bells)
Should have been called The Actor**. I went to see this film last night with expectations of fine acting and directing, quality B&W cinematography, lighting and makeup, and a highly entertaining script with a fine silent film style score.

None of the above.

There were some excellent 30's costumes, but mostly flapper style, nothing elegant.

Leading lady Bérénice Bejo reminded me of a young Carol Burnett, but with more grace. 90% of the acting skill in the film came from her.

I was disappointed in the huge role they gave John Goodman, who turns out to not be a very talented silent actor. The leading man did not do much acting either. His dog was okay, but had a limited repertoire.

The score was not worthy. Most of the time it did not connect with the action on the screen. It was mostly fluff, with some heavy-handed frenetic bits in a couple of key scenes. No way would it have been played for a real silent movie.

The film stock sucked lemons through a garden hose, and was processed to look grainy and old. The makers obviously never saw the later Chaplin movies. A top draw like the leading man in this film would have rated excellent lighting and film stock. Instead we got drek. Horrible lighting except in a couple of brief outdoor snippets. Makeup was as minimal as they could get away with. Some of the lenses were way distorted on the edges like cheap wide angle lenses. You wouldn't find those in a leading movie studio.

It was a pleasant surprise to see Malcolm McDowell in a cameo.

The dance routine at the end was energetic, but will not wipe Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers off the map. 

I only laughed out loud three times, and two of those times were for cute set and props gags (for example, the leading lady's character name Peppy is spelled two or three different ways on the cast lists and posters). I did not cry at all. I was not entertained.

Bottom line: Meh.

**Yes, I saw the reference in the film, and thought it contrived.

Oscar FAIL

Feb. 26th, 2012 10:14 pm
howeird: (Bells)
I cannot believe that a minimal cast, B&W silent movie won Best Picture for 2012. There are so many aspects of movie making which The Artist did not have to deal with. Ditto Best Director. With all the stunning films and directorial triumphs this year, this film at best wins Miss Congeniality. Best actor? Maybe. If you like mimes. Ben Kingsley not even being nominated for Hugo was a travesty.

OTOH I was very surprised at the spontaneous standing ovation and thunderous applause awarded to Meryl Streep. I had no idea that on top of all that talent, her co-workers also sincerely like the person herself. That's good to know.

The memorial segment is when I tuned in, I saw it all, and was very pleased Elizabeth Taylor, who did so much brave and charitable work in her lifetime, was given the final spotlight. Cliff Robertson would have been better served with a clip from Charlie instead of Spiderman. And maybe Peter Falk deserved a second clip, from The Princess Bride. All the images flashed by too quickly. The chorus, however, was wonderful.
howeird: (Danvers Hookers)
Saratoga drama Group two years ago had the gall to change their name to the grandiose South Bay Musical Theater. There were two excellent reasons for changing the name, but no good reason for the choice of SBMT. The good reasons were:Read more... )

Last night I went to see the final performance of Finian's Rainbow, which has some of the best music and most clever/odd lyrics of all time. Lyricist was Yip Harburg, whom you may know from The Wizard of Oz and the depression era classic  Brother, Can You Spare A Dime. The story is his too, it is horrible, and that's what killed this show on Broadway.

Almost everything about this production was superb. The backdrops were the most beautiful I have ever seen in a community theater production. They had life size trees built on stage, one of which was sturdy enough to climb and swing from. The lighting plot was overly complex, and there were a couple of burps, and a few WTF light changes, but even with a computerized board they did well. Audio was flawless, with most of the cast miked. No feedback ever, everyone was heard when they needed to be, and not when they were off stage.

And the orchestra. Wow. More than 20 people who blended in so well that I almost forgot they were there. In key, on tempo, fine intonation, and a conductor who was clear about what he wanted and communicated it to both the orchestra and cast.

The leading lady is why I went to see the show, she is more than amazing. A natural redhead, she fit the Irish woman image to a T. The fellow playing the male lead had an even stronger voice (I didn't think that was possible) and looked every bit the part modeled after a young Woody Guthrie. The fellow playing Finian I have known for a long time, and while he is a decent actor with a fine Irish accent, I thought he was a mismatch for the part. At times he acted like the character was an Irish Tevye, which Finian is decidedly not. Og, the leprechaun who is changing into a mortal from not being in Ireland and Finain's stealing his crock of gold, started out too strident, but eased into the part so well that by the time he sang I Love The One I'm Near toward the end, he stole the show.

There were more than a dozen fine strong voices in the ensemble, all of whom had their moment in the spotlight. There were many African-Americans in the cast, which was wonderful to see in lily white Saratoga. The main sub-plot involves sharecroppers and Southern racist politics.

The biggest WTF for me was the choreography. It is clear the choreographer was born with Gotta Dance! tattooed on her forehead. It is clear she and the director don't know when enough is enough. Every possible bit of music, including scene changes and "incidental" music, featured the entire ensemble on stage hoofing it. And every production number was drawn out well past its logical conclusion, a couple of them seemed to go on forever. There were dancers in the final two or three numbers who did not know what the next step or formation was - which is typical because rehearsals usually get to the end of the show last, and don't repeat the latter choreography nearly as much as the early stuff. I can say one good thing about the dances is they never repeated a step from one bit to the next. Come to think of it, that's not a good thing. It's better to have a theme.

Corollary to that is the only casting WTF. While Finian was mis-cast, he at least carried the role acceptably (and sometimes well), Susan The Silent, who communicates with dance for 99% of the show and has several dance solos (another case of the choreagrivation mentioned above), the woman cast in the role was not a good dancer. She was not graceful. Her leaps barely left the ground. The foot work which was her language did not flow. Every woman in the dance ensemble (and some of the men) was a better dancer. She was not chosen for her looks, either. Susan is supposed to be almost as pretty as the leading lady - in fact she should look enough like the leading lady to be mistaken for her from a distance. Nope. Not even close. Not that this actress was unattractive, she just wasn't that "notch above", which the part called for. It annoyed me that with all the dance talent SBMT has available, they cast her in this role.

Closing night at this theater usually gets a standing ovation. The only person who stood was one of the rehearsal accompanists in the 2nd row. I blame the over-choreography. It made a simple, light-hearted show into a chore.

Next up at SBMT is Guys And Dolls. I only know two of the cast. The Salvation Army leading lady is on a par with the Finian leading lady, so that will make it worth seeing, but Nathan Detroit, the part I've always wanted to play, was cast with someone who often beats me out on those roles, but IMHO doesn't do as well as I would have. Not a reason to run screaming, though.

Bo Ring

Feb. 14th, 2012 11:01 pm
howeird: (Default)
Woke up sleepy.

At work I went into the lab to finish testing a document I was re-writing. Got 90% of the way through when the machine (running Red Hat linux) decided one of the font files was corrupted and would not come up with the graphical user interface. Gnome, I think. After trying all the tricks I know without having in installation disk, I had to give up and file a trouble ticket, which may never get looked at, let alone acted upon.

I'm not too upset about that, while I was running the tests it looked like maybe that feature is not in the new product, and the old product is going end of life with this release. The document is an in-house how-to strictly for QA and engineering, customers would have no use for it.

Lunchtime I went to the Mexican-Arab market, got some more sale priced pistachios and a bottle of lime juice. Then checked out all the little eateries and decided on  Sushi Blvd. I got the big tempura plate (should have had the lunch sized one) and it was a lot of food. included salad,  miso soup, rice, edama beans too. Tempura was a little soggy.  Next time I'll go for the Nigiri, expensive as it is. Nice place, quick service, sushi bar plus tables.

Home a little early so I could see an apartment rep about changing my lease to one cat. They have pet rent which is monthly per pet. Also picked up two packages - poster frames for the 20x30 and 12x18 prints I'll be showing at the Contact Conference. Spent about 2 hours mounting the 10 big prints. The smaller prints will be done later - I have 25 candidates for 10 frames, so I'll invite the art show director over to help me choose.

Have I mentioned Smash yet? I think not. Several of my musical theater buddies said it is a must-see. I missed the 2-hour special but Tivoed the 1-hour "pilot". Sans commercials it's about 40 minutes. maybe 8 minutes of that was actual performing (singing, dancing) the rest was Bo Ring. Soap opera stuff. Angst. Oh wait, there was about a minute of really fine and amusing acting by the ingenue who is invited to the director's apartment for a special audition for a part as Marilyn Monroe. That was well done.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Thought about going to the skating rink benefit for the local roller derby women's team, but it's 21+, alcohol centric, so no thanks.
howeird: (Deadeye)
That's the name of the new play which was read at City Lights tonight. That's two hours of my life I will never get back.

The blurb says the author is a five-time recipient of the PlayGround Emerging Playwright Award. How many times can a playwright emerge, anyway? Too many, apparently.

I think what we have here is an author who writes a really catchy proposal, and that's where her skills end. The synopsis sounds pretty good, actually. Christopher Columbus makes his first voyage, accompanied by the Virgin Mary, sees all the gold jewelry, and force-baptizes a handful of natives as they try to tell him in their language to go bother the Caribes, who have more gold. He brings them to Spain, where they become pets of Isabella, who has visions of great wealth coming from this enterprise. The native who had been Chris' translator sees through all this, escapes, and becomes a multi-lingual world traveler. He and Chris finally meet in Spain when both are old and feeble. Mary has deserted Chris, who says he did it all for the glory of God.

The writing is tedious. The characters are shallow. There are 14 main characters and 20 scenes in a 90-minute 1-act play. Except for a too-long scene where Isabella plays hackysack with her pet Indian, there is nothing which lends itself to action of any kind.

And of course, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition, but the author has Isabella chatting with Ferdinand and suddenly declaring that all the Jews must leave Spain immediately, and the crown will grab all their land like Ferdinand did when he conquered the Moors.

IRL, the Moors were kicked out of Spain 200 years earlier, the Inquisition was declared by the Church, not the crown.

The reading was not helped by several obviously bored readers.

I hope this is the last we hear of this work.
howeird: (Default)
Up and out by 8:30, spent almost as much time writing up the re-opened bug as doing the nine setups and video captures. And then there were about six test cases to FAIL and reference the bug. Sad, really, because the cases I was testing didn't fail, what happened is something in the way the videos were captured made the analyzer refuse to work on the whole file. Kind of like failing a driving test because one of your blinkers didn't work.

Lunch was at the Korean buffet, China China. I made sure to have some sushi.

At BASFA last night someone mentioned Repo! The Genetic Opera, and a quick check showed Fry's had it, so after work I picked up the blu-ray version. Also got a plain DVD of Nine. I saw a stage version at City Lights a few months ago, and wanted to see what it should have looked like.

Home, watched Repo and was surprised both pleasantly and un. The surround sound, when they used it, came in clearly on all channels, but amplitude was all over the place. The first 5+ minutes was intro, no singing, mostly comic book frames. Each chapter began with a comic panel which was drawn from a live freeze frame. Cute idea. When they finally did get around to singing it was tuneless, and often childish. Toward the end there was actually a bit of melody when Sarah Brightman sang her one number (which was rudely cut off in the middle).

The story goes like this: It's 2030 or so, people have died in droves from organ failures, and a tycoon sets up a company which sells replacement organs, and gets the laws passed to allow the organs to be repossessed if payments are missed. There are two sub-plots. The tycoon has two sons and a daughter who are just plain bizarre and he hates them. He also had a fiancé who left him for a doctor. The doctor accidentally poisons his pregnant wife, but manages to save the baby girl. It is now 17 years later and the wheels of jealousy begin to turn.

Which brings me to some of the pleasant. The cast.
Sarah Brightman is the tycoon's squeeze. She was blind when he discovered her, and gave her amazing eyes.
Paul Sorvino is the tycoon. He has an impressive operatic voice which the score does very little to let him use. He's also a solid actor
Paris Hilton is the tycoon's daughter, and she actually acts! You may not recognize her. The character is addicted to surgery, and she wears many faces (literally).
Anthony Head of Buffy fame is the doctor/repo man. Once again a nice voice but not much material to show it off. Impressive physical acting.
Alexa Vega is the doctor's daughter. They let her cut loose once toward the end to show her chops, but for the most part she sings boring tuneless stuff.

It was almost worth watching. It definitely is not something to watch while eating. Lots of gore and mutilation. There have been comparisons to Rocky Horror but this gem does not even come close on any aspect except maybe cinematography, and I chalk that up to much more modern available technology.

If I'm at BASFA next week, this will be on the auction table. No sense hogging it.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Nine (?) 

Shhhhh!

Dec. 25th, 2011 06:17 pm
howeird: (Domino_yawn)
Very quiet day. Woke up up at 8:30, got out of bed at 9:30. I love my internet wi-fi radio - listened to radio stations in Bangkok, Pataya and Prae. The ads  are still an even split between soft women's voices politely suggesting a product and loud men's voices shouting about everything from a boxing match to a motorcycle to hair goop.

Did not expect anything worthwhile on TV, so sat in the recliner and listened to KLIV's rebroadcast of the Commonwealth club's interview of the guy who wrote the Steve Jobs biography. He had also written best selling bios of Einstein and Ben Franklin. He said Jobs was like Franklin, a design expert with wide-ranging interests while Einstein was a quantum leap ahead on the genius scale.

Finished reading Ruth Rendell's The Face of Trespass, which was a difficult read, especially for Rendell. I don't recommend it. It's a writing experiment, mostly, where Rendell, a logical, concise writer attempts to be inside the head of someone who is scattered, and whose internal dialog is all over the place. The last three chapters were so telegraphed it sucked the mystery right out of it. Loose ends were taped into place rather than tied up.

Spent some of my reading time out on the patio in my Shark's jacket (it was about 50° out) and jumped each time the heater came on (it is a big heater/aircon unit on the patio).

Next up is Terry Pratchett's Reaper Man.

But first, the Packers are about to play Da Bears.

Sayonara.

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