Today's Out-Of-Context Quote

Not all brooms are for tasting.

Well, That's That...

Just got the email from the group I auditioned for last week, to announce that, yup, I'm not in the show. Not too surprising, since my entire callback was based on one song that I had only seen for the first time 15 minutes before the performance, one that was near the top of my range and for a character that I probably wouldn't have been cast as anyway. Ah, well, I won't miss them, and it'll probably be the last time I audition for that theatre. Barring any vast improvement in the company, I see no reason to go back to them.

So this leaves me with a free summer. Which, right now, is totally fine, but I know I'll be banging my head against the desk come this August. And since I'm moving out of my apartment at the end of September I won't be jumping in to any fall shows, either... Probably... eeeeeeee...

Speaking of, I've more-or-less narrowed my choices down to two this fall: Moving into my own condo/townhouse or moving home for a few months and building up my revenue. I'll hopefully be meeting with the mortgage lady here at work this week to figure out just how worth it it would be for me to get that mortgage now compared to January or February, and will go from there.

Back to rehearsal tonight, thank God. From now till the first matinee on June 12th I'll have one
full day off, so I know I'll be begging for a breather by next Thursday or Friday. But right now I'm just antsy to see how Act II plays out tonight. I'll be bringing a book since I'm only in one scene plus a quick "cameo" appearance.

Finally Cooking

Well, I have enough leftovers to last me a few weeks. I hope. I went to my parents place today, took advantage of their laundry and kitchen, and whipped up some chili, some fajita veggies, and some mushrooms. Plus we went to Doolittles and I have leftovers from there. So hopefully that'll last me till opening night, at least.

Plus I finally got to Coldstones and had my Chocolate/Hot Fudge/Brownie/Peanut Butter ice cream. Big enough where I had to bring leftovers home. So there's another dinner! ewwwwww....

okay, the week begins again tomorrow, so hopefully I have something more worthwhile to speak of then.

Ooooh, Two Geek Updates

There, I found something worthwhile to speak of. Well, worthwhile to me, at least. Bite me.

First off, next month Dark Horse Comics is releasing a new Angel series, continuing where the TV series left off. First series will deal with Angel returning to Romania to get the "true happiness" clause removed from the curse after averting a few apocalypses. Eventually the rest of the cast, Spike, Gunn, Illyria, maybe Connor or Lorne, will make appearances. And since its Dark Horse, there's a very good chance that some Buffy folks may make appearances, too. Probably a lot of it will depend on Whedon's voice in the matter of a Buffy movie, if he wants to leave thse characters separate till a movie or not. Might push these movies forward a bit.

Second, Michael Bay has officially been signed to direct the Transformers movie for next summer. Say what you will about his movies, but the man can direct some damn good car chase scenes, jet work, and fight scenes. And I can't WAIT to see what he does with cars and planes that transform and fight each other!

Another Slow Day

Well, I had more tech today. Spent a LOT of time driving around Maple Grove first, since yesterday's started at 10, and no one was there when I got there. And no one was there at 11. So I bummed around, looked at books and cds and video games till 1.

Wow, I'm REALLY slow at writing. I've just been really off all weekend. Like I probably said in my last post, I attempted to write my next Harry Potter story last night, and got stuck on the first sentence. Ugh...

Anyway, tomorrow's Memorial Day, and I'll be taking full advantage of the day off by doing absolutely nothing before having only one night off of the show between Tuesday the 31st and Sunday the 12th. That's *mental calculations* 12 rehearsals and shows in 13 days!

Oy, I'm gonna stop now...

Blah Blah Blah Blah

Wow, really nothing to report today... my day's basically involved sleep, building a tall platform for my show, then bumming around with a friend for the rest of the day.

Suffice to say, really nothing to say...

Well, except that I tried starting to write tonight and couldn't figure out how to begin, and that I read on espn that a pitcher in the minor leagues got impaled in the arm with a broken bat... good times...

We'll see if anything more thrilling occurs tomorrow... its a three-day weekend, though, so highly unlikely...

How To Run A Callback Badly

1) Don't run any dialogue
2) Don't run any choreography
3) Hand out music that some people know religiously and others have never heard before in their lives
4) Base your entire casting decision on one single performance of said music

That was my experience last night.

Seriously, singing ability and looks have NO bearing on how good an actor is. If that were the case, then any singer who hosted SNL in the past 30 years would be automatically up for an Emmy Award. Well, almost any... yet to this director it seems to be all that matters.

Not that I sung badly, or anything, its just that, like I said above, there are people who listen to Sondheim twice a day, can sing this music in their sleep. And then there's people like me who have never heard it before, and are expected to take some incredibly difficult music and be able to sing it after only a few group runs. Its an extremely unfair disadvantage and at the same time doesn't show how the actor is going to be for the other 90% of the show. It doesn't show if they can emote, or enunciate, or find a character. And it also doesn't show if the person has a snowball's chance in hell of learning choreography in 4 weeks without stepping on their partner's feet.

Yet another thing that's going into my mental tally of "What Not To Do If I Direct Someday."

Anyway, the 3-day Memorial Weekend is nearly upon us. Hopefully my boss cuts us a little slack and lets us out early. Wouldn't do me much good either way, but it'd still be nice to get out of here early. But if not, eh, I have rehearsal tonight, set construction on Saturday and/or Sunday, and otherwise hanging out, doing laundry, and cooking. Oh, I live a thrilling thrilling life sometimes.

Oh, and sleeping, must not forget sleeping.

And video games, many video games. I started up Final Fantasy VI last night, we'll see how long I can focus on that one, plus I'm hanging out with Jenn a bit this weekend so I'll probably be watching/helping on my share of Kingdom Hearts.

Huh... dont know why I started this blog, I'm not exactly hunting Pygmies or anything, am I?

My Very First Snag

For the first time I really don't have much to write about. Yet I feel obligated to post. Is that a sign of addiction, or dependence, or am I just REALLY bored?

Anyway, I was able to make it to my audition last night because all I needed to do at Fiddler rehearsal was walk in, grab my dame, and walk out again. And tonight I'm in Siberia all night, so I can get to callbacks. I shall find out on Tuesday night if I made it or not, strangely enough through a posting on the door of the theatre. Man, it feels like Armstrong all over again.

Otherwise, life be boring. My re-addiction to EBay must be stopped, as I've won one auction (Abenobashi, a 30 dollar anime for 99 cents, 4 dollars total after shipping), and am winning two more (Invader Zim and FF Tactics). I'm sure it'll wear down once the new Transformers come out and I'll have somewhere to put my hard-earned dollars, but for now, eh...

And since all is quiet on the Geek Front (Angel was supposed to be cast for X3 over the weekend, but no word yet) I shall stop writing until something else comes up.

Throw it O'er Your Shoulder

Alright, to quote Jerry Seinfeld "Who Are These People?!?" I was walking through City Center when I came upon a kid walking around with stretched out earlobes, and loops in them that are 2-inches wide, at least.

I can understand tattoos. Sure, feel free to mark up your body, if you decide later in life to be more conservative then it can be covered up or removed. If you don't decide to be concervative, that's fine too, some tattoos are cool, and if you want to be a 70-year-old with a picture of Bugs Bunny on your ass then that's your perrogative.

Wanna pierce yourself? Knock yourself out, those heal over.

But I've never understood the stretched lobe thing. Are they expecting to be that way forever? and if they're not, if they decide one day "eh, I don't like the hoop thing anymore, its so last Saturday," then what happens then? do they buy flesh-colored filler? Do they have their lobes surgically removed? Do they roll them up, or tie them in a bow? or do they just let them blow free in the wind, slapping them in the face with every strong gust to the back of their head?

In either case, if you're all for thinking that making others nautious in your presence is hip, then more power to ya, I suppose. Remind me that I want to get my eyelids removed and get that hot new surgery that allows my intestines to survive outside of my body. That'll show those starched shirts that I AM NOT A ROBOT!

*sigh*

Why Fanfic?

So I had a discussion today with my friend on the bus about books and such, and in the course of conversation I had mentioned that I had written a Harry Potter fanfic. She didn't get the concept, and said she thought we're just leading ourselves up for disappointment when the story continues into anything beyond our ideal.

I tried to come up with a decent response, and ultimately wrote this email, which I thought was good enough where I should post it. So here ya go:

People who write fanfic, for the most part, don't come at it asking "what do I think will happen?" They instead come at it asking "what if this happens?" They know that whatever they come up with probably won't happen, they just imagine a potential reality. Many people do, its just that fanfic writers have to write, its part of what they do. These writers do do their own stories, with their own characters and plots as well, but they write fanfic because they feel that they know these characters, as should anyone who reads good fiction.

Any fanfic story written, whether its for Harry Potter, Star Wars, Buffy, or, heck, I'm sure there's even Charles Dickens fanfic out there, asks questions like "what if Fred Weasley died?" or "what if Harry and Ginny start dating?" or "what if Captain Kirk, Luke Skywalker, and a talking tunafish appear in the land of Oz?" They can get odd, and in the end they're all baloney, they're just people enjoying and identifying with the characters.

But when the next one comes out and its different than what I wrote, I'll say that's totally cool, because ultimately its what Rowling writes that establishes the story. Everything else out there, all the fanfiction, all the discussion that takes place between fans as to "who do you think's going to die in Half-Blood Prince?", its all just fun geek-thought.

So, yeah, it may be incoherant, but, hey, its an email, gimme a break.

Anyway, the car ended up costing me a little under $600 because they needed to replace a few belts, so the victory's not as sweet as it was yesterday, but it didn't hit quad digits, so that's still better than it could have been. That damn "fuel cutout" light is still on, though, even though they didn't seem to see anything wrong at the place I fixed it.

Tonight I dance. Again. I hope. Last night was slightly frustrating, as I missed an audition so I could sit around for over 2 hours before finally spending the last 10 minutes of rehearsal and 10 minutes past the end of rehearsal choreographing a new dance. Now I just have to run it through my head a few times to make sure I have it to show Carol tomorrow. Tonight we do ballet, of which I'm probably only in for 10 seconds, but eh, whatever.

All I know is that its hump-day, and that means we're on the downhill slide towards a 3-day weekend. Which'll be nice, since its my first of 3 3-day weekends between now and 4th of July. Oh, when you're grownup you look forward to the smallest things... *sigh*

Final Damage

Well, not as bad as I was fearing it would be. The final cost on my car is going to be about $400 or $450. It's one of the sad commentaries about life as a grown-up when any car fix under $500 is considered a minor triumph. Plus I've been able to drive my dad's Contour for a bit, which is nice. Feels like I'm driving my old car.

Anyway, the next few days are going to be a hoot. Learning a new dance for Fiddler tonight, and another new dance tomorrow, AND I'm gonna have to find time aside with my partner to work on our previous numbers. Needless to say this is probably one of those rare occasions where I'm better off single, since I'm going to be a very stinky boy these next few nights. But one of the girls in the cast was wearing an "I Heart Nerds" shirt last night, so that's always a step in my favor, makes me feel like there's hope for me out there.

And I've also decided I am putting my EBay hiatus on, um, hiatus for a while at least. I rented Invader Zim a few days ago, and watched the first episode yesterday, and I have decided that I WANT IT! I only wish there was a full season set out there, but right now I guess its just volume discs. Ah, well, if I can find it somewhere for 15 dollars I'm in.

For those who've seen Revenge of the Sith, my friend Carla sent me a blog she ran across by a non-SW fan who saw the movie and enjoyed it. I think. I haven't decided how much of her enjoyment was real enjoyment and how much was sarcastic enjoyment. Anyway, here's the link to the blog, by a Harry Potter Slasher.

It's Always Something

I have plans. Plans to write, plans to get a house, plans to get married. But something always gets in the way.

At least in the case of the first two, something got in the way last night. The third one, hell, things have been getting in the way for a year now, but whatever...

Sunday night decided to be the day my car went on the fritz. As of the writing of this blog I haven't heard back from the car place to hear the cost estimate, but my guess is its going to come down to either repairing it or buying a new car. Either way I've been trying to hold some money for a mortgage, and if this hits 4 digits then that's probably gonna be thrown out the window for a while. I'm probably being pessimistic, but its just the way my life is going right now. More and more I'm leaning towards moving home for a few months while I get the money. It has the potential to drive me nuts after living alone for almost 3 years, but it's a decent alternative to flushing money down the rent toilet for another year.

In other news, I was very impressed with Time Magazine. Their two movie guys just released an unranked list of their top 100 movies. The biggest, most pleasant surprise? Mixed in amongst such classics as Citizen Kane, Casablanca, and It's a Wonderful Life is Drunken Master II, a Hong Kong kung fu movie by a pre-Americanized Jackie Chan. Just a fantastic movie, it was released in America a few years ago as Legend of Drunken Master, and if you get a chance to see it, do, its a really fun movie with incredible fight choreography. It makes me happy just thinking about the final fight in the factory.

Stupid Playstation...

Well, I suppose I probably shouldn't complain, I did buy the thing used...

I try going to play Xenosaga a few days ago and the O button on my controller decided not to work anymore. And since I didn't feel like spending any money on a new one, I get lucky to see that CompUSA had free controllers. Woo hoo! Free = shitty, but whatever... its not exactly like I'm playing Grand Theft Auto or anything, very low impact stuff, for the most part... and I will invest in a second controller eventually, I just don't feel like spending any money.

But if anyone out there has a PS2, yeah, CompUSA, free controller and free dvd remote after rebate. It'll only cost you the price of tax and stamp.

I should probably mention, too, coming off of what was briefly discussed in my last post, I was satisfied by Revenge of the Sith, for the most part. They tied up every loose end that I could think of, and even answered some questions that I didn't think of until they were answered. For example, how did Obi-Wan become a powerful enough Jedi in the 20 years between the two movies in order train Luke without any help from Yoda. Or how Obi-Wan got Anakin's lightsaber to give to Luke. Or how C3PO and R2D2 don't remember Anakin. But it left basically nothing unresolved.

The only floating question could be how Leia remembers Padme, but I don't think that's a big one. Either some piece of the Force in her allows her to have memories from the moment she's born, albeit subconsciously, or she's actually talking about Mrs. Organa, since she never knew that she was adopted. Not a big deal.

And Anakin was only aware that he had one child, so he wouldn't know about Leia, he only assumed that Luke was the only one.

So, yeah, I apologize to anyone reading this who haven't seen the m0vie yet. All I can say is:

Oops...

Geeking Out Part II

Well, I joined the legions last night and went to see Episode III last night. It was a pretty good movie, as far as the prequels go, and I think I like it more than Jedi. Lots of good action sequences and swordfights, really bad dialogue, and annoying political overtures... just what I expected...

Grace Hypothesis

I'm putting it in writing, so when something is revealed in a few months I can see how right or wrong I am. This is probably gonna be a thing with this blog, putting down my useless theories that no one but me cares about! :)

So they cast Topher Grace, like Thomas Hayden Church before him, without revealing the identity of their character. And its known that there will be two villains in Spidey 3. Theories have been swirling around as to who these will be. At first glace, Green Goblin/Hobgoblin was the easy choice, with Harry Osborne taking the mantle from Norman. And when Church was cast, common thought is that he'll be playing Sandman. And then there's those pesky Man-Wolf and Black Cat rumors.

But Grace's casting throws a monkey wrench into this whole theory. A high-profile name like his would suggest that he was a villian of some sort.

So I have a few theories, we'll see which one comes to pass:

1) Grace plays Roderick Kingsley, the original Hobgoblin. Movie continuity could set him up as a friend of Harry's who stumbles upon Norman's old gear after Harry discovers his father's old secret and decides its better left alone. Roderick drops one of the canisters and inhales the stuff, making him crazy and evil, and either teams up with Sandman or becomes a completely separate villain.

2) Grace plays Eddie Brock, who has various histories depending on which continuity you're reading, but always ends up as the posessor of the alien symbiote Venom. Brock can get a hold of it and become the second villain, and that way you can either dismiss Harry's Green Goblin or even make him a heroic Goblin.

3) Grace plays Brock, but is purely there to become set up as the main villain in Spider-Man 4. This way it could be Sandman, with Green Goblin, Hobgoblin, or Man-Wolf as the second villain.

4) The whole Sandman thought process could be wrong. Church would fit easily as Brock, with Goblin or Manwolf as the second villain. This way, Grace would either work as Kingsley, or possibly Cletus Kasady, a psycho who becomes exposed to Venom's symbiote and would become Carnage in the next film.

Guess we can only see what happens.

Geekin Out, Part I

So as a geek its been a very good week for me. First off, they've started casting for the next X-Men movie, with Kelsey Grammer cast as Beast, and Vinnie Jones as Juggernaut. Grammer's an interesting choice, in my opinion, one of those castings that you never think of (my mind was leaning towards a Gary Sinise or John Favreau), but as soon as it happens you say "Geez, why didn't I think of that?" And I also just love Vinnie Jones in everything I've seen him in, so he'll be a fun Juggy.

Oh, and Topher Grace just got put into the next Spider-man movie, but they haven't announced his role yet. I'm very curious...

Anyway, part two of this thing's coming tomorrow, as I'm going to see Episode III tonight. So more later...

A Weird Dream

You ever have one of those dreams that seem so real or so familiar that you swear you had seen it before? I had one of those last night...

When I woke up, and even when I thought about it an hour, two hours later, it feels like I had seen a movie or something that had everything in the dream in it, but I don't remember what it was. All I know was that it involved a group of students, a lobotomy or shock treatment, a girl with bad legs, and a suicide. Very weird stuff. Most of the participants in the dream were people I know, actually people from Fiddler on the Roof, the show I'm doing right now, but another actor in it was the principal from The Breakfast Club. Just odd, yet for some reason everything felt familiar...

it's bugging me, but I'm sure it'll pass eventually...

Breaking Down

Well, I went and did it... I've had enough friends get their own blogs and have had enough time to kill where I finally decided "ah, what the hell..." So here is my blog...

If only I knew what would make for good writing. For someone whose life consists of work and theatre with only about 10 minutes of breathing room and little to no social life, this thing may just end up becoming the place where I comment on every completely geeky thing that comes my way. And if its boring, then don't read it! woo hoo!

So enjoy or don't enjoy or have no one ever read this thing ever again, and we're good!