I just watched that new HBO series, True Blood. It was cooooool!

Botox?

Not living with my grandparents, may as well be the same.

I got to pull weeds for two hours today! Why is that a rave? Because I didn't really pull and I got to use this.


So much fun.

Man, no one would ever give me one of those to play with

Oh my god, that is so awesome!

I thought the same thing, then I lit a fire, and just watched it burn for a while, on some of the wild grass on the property. No reason to, just felt like it.

I just watched the new show Fringe. It was cooooooool!

My rave is that I like Noola's signature, with a link to her adult dragons. It makes me think if I click it, I will get to see pornographic dragons in compromising positions.

So I had my highland dancing and colour guard auditions today.

Note that I have zero previous experience in both.

Holy crap I love university.

Tomorrow, heading to Rutland, Vermont for the first show of Shakespeare & Company's tour of Hamlet.

Got interviewed by my college's Job Placements Office today.

They accepted my resume and interviewed me. I'll be working there from now on. On top of that, they said that if I'm a good worker, they'll pay me. Pay me a base of $10/hr.

What do I have to do? Data Entry. And I type 80 WPM with 97% accuracy. Booya.

At last, the end of the tunnel! I finished that god-awful extra speed translation commission that has been keeping me away from all that is good and pure (like Lusternia) for days on end.

I bet that salamander broiler will haunt my dreams regardless.

A cookie to whoever knows what that is.

My wife, who never actually lets me have any money of my own out of my check bought myself, her, and our son tickets to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra on Dec. 26th

My van did me a favor by breaking down and forcing me to ride the bus! REALLY!

Ike has up gas prices. I'm watching the news and they just said that gas prices have jumped from $3.49 average this afternoon to $3.99 this evening, all across the state. One viewer emailed a picture of a gas station that had set their regular unleaded price to $4.95.

The Attorney General has threatened to fine and arrest folks for price gouging.

Yay public transportation (even sucktastic public transportation! )

The play, naturally, rocked utterly. But something else very cool happened too.

Back in 1991, my wife and I lived in Juneau, Alaska, home of the highly acclaimed Perseverance Theater. Two extremely talented thespians who worked with Perseverance were forming a community theatre company called Theatre In The Rough, which is still going strong, doing some amazingly creative stuff often with very unique and minimalist staging. For their first production, Talley's Folly, they needed a stage manager, and my wife ended up being it. My first exposure to the theatre was their second production, a mish-mash of Peter & The Wolf with a bunch of Russian folk-tales and other works by Prokofiev; I was roped in to run lights, and also did the desktop publishing for the posters and programs. My first exposure to Shakespeare (outside of high school) was their third production and the final one of that season, A Midsummer Night's Dream. One of the actors in that show was a young man named Jake; it was his first-ever performance, and he was in one of the major roles (Lysander).

We stayed on with Theatre In The Rough for the following season, working with Jake again on The Phantom Tollbooth (he played Tock), then finishing up with an amazing production of Henry IV Part I. We only left because we were moving to Vermont (and the crew helped move us, they were all such sweethearts). The posters for the five shows we worked on are still framed on my wall. My wife also worked on the crew of one of Perseverance Theatre's productions, but otherwise our only involvement with Perseverance was as frequent audience members.

After settling in Vermont, we tried to get involved in community theatre again, but our efforts were disastrous, so we kind of fell out of the scene and our only involvement with theatre has been from the audience. But most of the time when we're waiting for shows to start, we wonder how everyone we knew has been doing. Just so tonight, while I was reading the program, my wife was wondering about how Perseverance Theatre has been. The program of course listed the actors and for each one said what they'd worked on and with what company, and all but one, it was all Shakespeare & Company. The one exception was Perseverance Theatre, and I read that just as my wife was wondering aloud how that theatre was doing. So I said, "maybe you can ask this person". I didn't recognize the name, but my wife wondered, will it be someone we recognize?

Well, it was the same Jake, and of course we recognized him instantly -- it's been 16 years but he looks exactly the same. (He played Horatio, and wonderfully.) What an amazing coincidence that here we'd run into him 4000 miles away from where we met! We sent a note via the ushers to him and after the show he came out and chatted -- indeed, he remembered us and was thrilled to see us. This was actually his first show with Shakespeare & Company, which is also pretty amazing, since we were there for his first show ever, and now got to see his first professional show with this company. He only had a few minutes (they were literally loading them on the bus to head to the next show) but he introduced us to a few people and we exchanged contact information.

Did I mention that the show absolutely rocked?

Threatened? That one had better be followed through on...

I'm sure it will. They gave out a hotline and email address to report gouging.