I LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!!!!!!!!

Well . . . it HAS been a while, hasn't it? You're probably wondering why it's been so long. Short answer: very little has happened.

Long answer: it's kind of difficult to write about the stuff that has been happening . . . shows and stuff. I mean, there's lots of stuff that happened, but it is either hard to describe or really inconsequential. It may have seemed important to me at the time, or been fun, or whatever, but it's difficult to write about. If you understand me.

So basically, this'll probably be a slightly shorter post than you're used to. Actually, from here on out (at least for a while), they'll probably be shorter, because less stuff will be happening, because Oliver will be closing this weekend *sob*

Come to think of it, my next post will probably be pretty long, containing an account of the final weekend and the cast party and what-not.

So anyway, after blogging last Monday, I did indeed install some STAR Torrey stuff. I didn't really accomplish much, actually, because I was in kind of a bad mood for some reason, and I couldn't get on to the program, and I was too frustrated to try to figure out why. So I installed it, but I didn't actually get it to work.

If I recall correctly, the rest of Monday was just sitting around wasting time and doing nothing. I'm trying to get lots of that in these last two weeks, because school starts next Tuesday *sob sob*

So pretty much that was the rest of the week, although on Tuesday I was able to get the STAR Torrey thing working. But yeah, I really didn't do much of anything. Actually it got kind of depressing as the week went on, because it began to feel like my life had no purpose. And because of some other stuff that I really don't feel like talking about.

I don't think anything else really happened until Friday, when we had fencing/stage combat. Doug joined the class, and Michael was there, so we had five people, and having uneven members isn't cool, because one is almost always doing nothing. For the most part, that one person was me or Doug.

Anyway, to start things off, they were teaching us fun things to do with rifles. They taught us various disarms and ways to actually dis-arm the person who is holding the rifle. It was a great feeling knowing that if I pushed just a little harder, I could break Michael's arm. I've always wanted to do that :P There were also some cool things involving broken necks, jaws, and ending up with a bullet in your stomach. Fun stuff.

Then David and Josh started doing . . . something, I don't remember what. Michael decided it might be cool to teach Doug and me how to defend against someone attacking us with a belt. That was cool, too, knowing that if I pulled just a little harder, I could choke Michael.

In case you can't tell, I like the idea of causing immense pain to Michael. He's one of the people that is on my list of people to kill. . . . Hey, wait a sec, I didn't just say that, did I? Curses . . . well, there goes my secret . . . okay, well, I'd explain it, but I'm not very good at it. But I suppose that the maybe one or two of you who didn't know I was evil know it now :P

ANYWAY, after a while of working with the belt, Josh suggested that he and I and Doug work on fencing. I, liking fencing, thought that sounded cool. So we were working on that for a while, and it was cool, because I was better than Doug :P It's amazing how quickly your arm get tired, though. I mean, you pick up the sword, and it's like, “oh, wow, this is really light,” and then you fight for like ten minutes and you're like, “AAAAH!! This thing is HEAVY!!” Of course, it was better this week than last time, so I'm sure eventually I won't even really notice, but . . . it really starts to hurt after a while. And you get hand cramps.

But it was fun. And Josh taught me and David some cool guards that I never knew existed. I'm discovering that there's a LOT of stuff I didn't know existed. And there's also some cool little thingies that seem to serve no purpose, but actually do. It's fun stuff.

At about 5:15 or so, they started working on flips, and I wanted to join in (or at least watch David trying to flip himself), but I had to go eat. So I went out to the back patio and had a lonely dinner, then came back and joined the arriving Oliver cast. I had an interesting discussion with Amanda about “balancing” the Force.

Eventually Wayne showed up and we started the pre-show meeting. I don't recall anything really interesting happening on Friday night or Saturday afternoon, but I'll give an account of the dinner break on Saturday because I feel like it.

As usual, I was staying at Lifehouse, and I went out back, and Jake and Josh B. and Taylor and Jazzi were already there. So we went through the usual . . . sitting eating and talking about how awful Taylor and I are. Then Jake found a 3-month-old apple in his knapsack, which was really gross . . . Then Davis and Raven came in and started talking about random stuff, and it got disturbing so I went inside. (Taylor went inside, too, but I didn't want to say “Taylor and I went inside” because then it would sound like we went in together.) I deposited my dinner stuff in the dressing room (and yes, Megan, it was all eaten and drunk, there was nothing left to make Wayne angry), then went into the rehearsal hall seeking company. I found Taylor and someone else (I think it was Spaghetti, but I'm not sure), and we were talking for a while, then a bunch of other people came back and they joined in. Then it was time for our pre-show meeting, and then the show.

Now, you should know that I'm keeping score of how many times I hit Nick and Megan with the shoes. At that time, it was 6-2, Nick-Megan. So I was getting frustrated because I hadn't hit Megan since like the Friday after opening. And so I was determined to hit her. And she walked by me right before that scene (on her way to her entrance) and said something to the general effect of “Nyaah nyaah nyaah, you can't hit me.” So I, of course, replied with “You are going down.”

The scene came. They did the dance. Nick yelled “this life's for me!!” I came out of the window, cocked my arm back, and let fly. BOOM. I hit Megan in the shin. It was all I could do to stop myself from celebrating right then onstage. Megan snarled at me a bit more than usual.

Nick yelled at me, saying, “Yeah? I dare you to try that again, you cranky old bloke!” I tried it again. BOOM. I hit Nick's arm. After the last few seconds of the scene, I retreated back into my window. I sighed. A perfect scene. 7-3. After the scene, when Megan came off stage, she came back and “yelled” (in quotes because we have to be quiet backstage) at me for hitting her.

The rest of the show was pretty uneventful, actually somewhat of a let-down after that. I mean, you just can't beat Townsman whacking both Bet and Dodger (ironically) with thrown shoes.

Anyway, let's jump to Sunday, shall we? Naturally, the day began with a trip to church. If you didn't know, my church always begins with a breakfast. So at breakfast, dad was pouring himself a cup of coffee, and as he was lifting the coffee pitcher (I know they have a name but I can't remember), the lip of it hit the cup. The cup tipped over. The coffee spilled all over the counter and began to drip onto the floor. It was pretty funny. So Dad goes through this whole thing and cleans it up. Then he moves to the other side of the counter and pours himself another cup of coffee, and he takes a sip. Then Josh V., who is reaching for a pen to label his cup, knocks it over. The coffee spills all over the counter and the floor and Dad's shorts. Twice in as many minutes. Everybody started cracking up (except Josh, who felt pretty bad about staining Dad's shorts).

After that breakfast went without incident, and then it was time for worship. Our worship leaders are away, and since our reserve worship leader lives in Fullerton (*cough cough*), we had to think of something else. But Brian (who leads our church) found these cool worship DVDs. It's basically a worship band playing the worship songs, but it's done like a kid's sing-along tape, but it's worship songs with really cool pictures of mountains and stuff behind it (and “God of Wonders” had cool pictures of outer space). They were pretty cool.

So then we had sharing time, then began the study. We talked about the passage where Jesus appears to the disciples while they were fishing. There was some interesting stuff in there. Like when Jesus asks Peter three times, “Do you love me?,” in the Greek, Peter changes the wording in his answer of “you know I love you.” It goes from God's love (in the question) to a friend's love (in Peter's answer). Which I thought was interesting. We went on about that for a little while, but I don't feel like going into it for some reason. Ask me later if you want to know.

Upon finishing the study, we had to leave immediately to insure that we got to Lifehouse on time. So we went through the Wendy's drivethrough to get me lunch, and took off. We did end up making it on time. And we did something interesting at Lifehouse. Instead of a standard open prayer time, John went around the room and had everyone say one thing (at least) that they were thankful for, and one thing (at least) that they wanted God to bless. Which was pretty cool. Kind of scary to, when Melody mentioned that she was thankful that she didn't die last week. 'Cause she had some kind of fluid loose in her somewhere, and she said that the doctors told her that people have died from the problem she had. So it was cool to know that she didn't die. (I mean, I already knew that, obviously, but hopefully you know what I mean.)

The show went pretty well. The cast party was supposed to be on Sunday, but Steve changed it to next week (which was good, since I haven't even blocked my skit yet). So we didn't have the cast party. And again, the only interesting thing that happened happened in the shoe scene. Before I throw the shoes, I'm supposed to yell at Dodger and Bet to be quiet. So I'm up there in my window (behind the curtains), listening to the song and getting into my angry character. Then I happen to glance off to the side of the stage, where Bill Sikes enters moments later. And there's Jason, decked out in his full murderer's attire, dancing to the song like an idiot. With the perfect stupid smile on his face. I started cracking up. Right before I had to yell at Nick and Megan. I had to stretch my acting abilities to the max just to keep a straight face, and farther than ever before to actually be angry. In the end, I was only able to do it by being angry at Jason for making my life so hard. The second before I said my line I said to myself, “I'm gonna kill Jason.” But it was soooooo funny.

One thing I've found is that it's really interesting to observe characters as the people who play them. For example, in stage combat class, Josh and Michael were trying to figure out some gun takeaway, and I happened to be standing in the angle that made it look real. So I watch as Josh has a thoughtful look on his face as he gets whacked in the head with a rifle ten times. It's hilarious.

Anyway, after the show, Megan happened to be next to me and said that she was going to Oklahoma (like, immediately), and that I should go. She dragged me offstage, totally bewildered, and explained it to me. So I thought, “Ah, what the heck? I know half the cast anyway.” So I went back and got changed and stuff, then remembered that Dad was preaching at The River that night. I didn't have to go, but Mom had said she was going, so I would have no ride to Oklahoma. Which kind of made me unhappy, because I had just begun to get excited about going. So then I was talking to Megan, asking her if she could give me a ride. As it turned out, she wasn't even sure if she was going. So she said, “Maybe.”

In the end, she couldn't give me a ride, although she could go. So I was unable to go, and was rather sad when I got home. I didn't blame Mom or anything, I was just disappointed that I didn't get to go. So I'm at home doing something (catching up on the weekend's bloggings, I think), and all of a sudden Megan appeared on my iChat buddy list. And I was like, “What the heck??” And I IMed her, saying just that, and it turned out that her parents suddenly decided that she could go. So neither of us went, and we complained about it to one another for a while.

Then I spent most of the rest of the night watching Return of the Jedi as a substitute. Afterwards, it was like 9:30, so I decided to go on the computer for the last half an hour (only 'til ten because I had to get up for dance on Monday). Then I got talking to AJ, and I went to bed at like 1:30. I was talking so someone else, too, but I don't remember who it was.

Then I finally went to bed and got up at 8, and was very tired. As a result, I hit my snooze alarm more than once, and was running late. Which was not good, since David was picking me up to take me. So I was rushing through breakfast, afraid that he would ring the doorbell at any moment, when the phone rang, and it was David, telling me that they too were running late. So it all worked out fine, for me at least.

Dance was fun, nothing really out of the ordinary happened, I don't think, other than my suggesting that David and I practice quarterstaffing with a big stick that was lying there, but he declined.

Speaking of which, I think I forgot to mention it, but Josh taught me the basics of quarterstaff fighting at fencing, and AJ was right. They do rock. Hopefully I'll get to work with them a bit more next week (anything to have an excuse to swing something heavy at David's head . . . GWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!!).

Anyway, back to the present, I think the rest of yesterday passed without incident. As did much of today. But at 12:30 today the STAR Torrey Academy had a second Breeze test (the program they use for the online stuff), to insure that everyone's mic was working. You may recall that in the last Breeze test, mine wasn't. Today, it was working, but I was breaking up terribly. So I had to stay late with two other guys to figure out why. In the end, it turned out that I simply had not configured the program properly, and after I did it worked fine. Yay.

Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that all that stuff I said about this being a shorter entry at the beginning was a load of crap. You're right. It took a lot longer than I expected. In any case, on to comments:

Eleanor: Well, of course, I can never compare the darkness of my blog to yours' pure light. It's just that mine is superior to Stephen's, because mine is on blogger. : )

Rae: Well of course it was fun seeing the show! I was in it!! :P Seriously, though, I'm happy you enjoyed it.

Megan: The conversation about communism, and who is a communist and who isn't . . . I assume you remember it.

Rachael: No, I do not count the number of posts, blogger does it automatically. And no, I've never seen “Miss Congeniality 2.” I've never even seen the first one.

Stephen: “Sith Happens” . . . that ROCKS!!!! I WANT THAT SHIRT!!! And how, pray tell, would I retrieve this conversation if I never saved it? (And yay for Star Wars freaks!!)

Rachael again: Thank you, thank you. And Megan, just so you know, if Rachael's mom says you have a good voice, then you have a good voice. And no, I'm not aware of a way I can give you folks spellcheck. You'll just have to proofread everything yourselves.

Mark's Blog: Episode 50

Before we get into my real entry, I just wanted to note that this is my 50th post on this blog. Yay for milestones!

Okay, first off, Rachael, shut up. I happen to actually have stuff to do now and then, so I can't post every day . . . and you think MINE is bad . . . check out Rae's some time. Or the Train Station. Or Jessica's . . . but then, she doesn't come on here any more, so you wouldn't be able to find hers probably, unless you were looking for it. Because I only give links to people who visit my blog.

So anyway, all this to say, don't be angry. Because that's not fair. As a wise man once said, “It is better to live life than to spend hours writing about it.” Or something like that.

Now, we left off last week with our hero returning from Dance, after discovering that there was a surprise recital the next day. This week, we continue our story, jumping ahead to the next day, and the dance recital itself . . .

It was a cloudy, gloomy day in Redlands. In the early morning, a red car arrived at our hero's driveway, to take him to Yucaipa to perform a tap dance for children.

Then, suddenly, our hero decided to revert back to normal typing.

Anyway, after Rachael and her mom picked me up, they took me to Heartland Player's Theater in Yucaipa, where Didi was doing a theater camp for children. We were to perform for them.

If you were unaware, my dance class consists of two classes: Jazz & Tap and Ballet. I, however, am not in Ballet. So, since we have these two classes, we have two routines. The ballet routine was performed first, so I got to watch, point, and laugh. No, seriously, they did a good job. But I did get to watch, as opposed to actually doing anything.

Then it came time for the Jazz & Tap routine. Since that class is kind of two classes in one, we just picked one of the two styles to do a routine of. It happened to be Tap. So yeah . . . there's really not a whole lot to tell. I suppose it went well . . . I messed up miserably, but no one noticed (except probably Katrina, our teacher, but she was nice enough not to say anything). I actually asked several people if they'd noticed my mistake, and I got a “no” from all of them.

So yeah . . . not really anything else to tell there, except that Dr. C took me home, but that trip was rather uneventful. Due in large part to the fact that Dr. C actually has a sense of direction . . . *sigh* It's no fun that way . . .

Anyway . . . nothing else really happened until Thursday. On Thursday, Biola had orientation for the STAR Torrey program, which is the High School thing I'm doing, if you didn't know.

Dad was down in a place called Sun Valley that day, which isn't too far from Biola, so he was just going to meet us there. Mom and I left around 2:15, intending to get there at about 3:15 or so, be bored for three hours (and eat dinner), then go. But we wanted to leave that early to avoid traffic.

Didn't work too well. We got there at about 4:00, so Dad was there grading papers when we got there, and said he'd been grading and walking around for like two hours (he had gotten there early . . . poor him). We decided then to drive around and see what there was for dinner.

So we went to this shopping center nearby, which had a Sizzler, a Carl's Jr., a Subway, and a Coldstone. We weren't, however, hungry, so we thought, “well, let's drive around a bit more and see if we can find anything better and get more hungry.” So we did one biiiig circle and ended up in the same place, half an hour later, to eat at Sizzler.

We ate there, and it was good, and then had nothing else to do. Then, suddenly, I remembered something. “Rae said that Kent did a mural at Biola,” I said. “We could go see if we can find it.”

For those of you who don't know, Kent is a muralist that Rae was working for over the summer, and will be working with during the coming school year. I think. AJ or Rae could explain it better than I. In any case, he's a very famous muralist, apparently, and since I had no idea that he was, Rae suggested that I look at the mural he did for Biola.

I was expecting it to take us quite a while to locate it, but it turned out that Dad knew right where it was. So there went my plan to take up a lot of the remaining time.

Anyway, we found the mural, and I was impressed. It's called “The Word,” and it's a picture of Jesus holding a Bible. And . . . yeah. It was really cool. He's kind of looking up into the sky, and somehow the eyes really seemed powerful to me. And . . . well, it's hard to describe. It was really good, though.

So we stood there looking at it for a few minutes, then decided to just go to the place where the orientation was and wait. We waited for maybe 20 minutes or so, then at long last they said, “Okay, make a line right here.” We did. We waited maybe 10 minutes or so, then someone appeared at the head of the line, and it began moving. We were, thankfully, near the front, and got in pretty quickly. We then went to get our packet from a girl who reminded me of Rae. Then we sat down and started looking through it.

It contained a handbook, a bunch of papers, and a CD-ROM. We looked at it for a while, then concluded that everything was there (there was a checklist on the screen at the front of the room).

The orientation was supposed to start at 6:15. That time came and went, the room not even half full. Finally, at 7:00, it began. Pretty basic stuff, they were just telling us to talk to other students with respect, giving us the general idea of what we were going to be doing. And telling us not to start The Fellowship of the Ring the night before class. Which was a good idea.

Anyway, after a while of that (which was pretty boring, although it was informative), they called up the Tech guy to teach us about the website and stuff. He rocks. I wish he was a tutor. At the start of his speech, he actually gave us permission to throw stuff at him if he got boring. How awesome is that??

Anyway, he was a really funny guy, who made lots of entertaining comments as he explained all this stuff to us. He also informed us that our writing lab was not going to be graded by the tutors, but by cold-hearted Slovakian mercenaries. And, to demonstrate how it worked, he submitted “blah” as a term paper topic.

The orientation ended at about 9:20 or so, and we took off. Dad went straight home, but Mom and I went to Fullerton to see AJ. We got there and went to Target to get them a housewarming gift, then called them to insure they were home.

It turned out that they weren't. They were driving home from Ikea. So we hung out in our car for a while, then parked, then hung out on the sidewalk for a while waiting for them. They pulled into a parking space about twenty feet from us, then called us to tell us they were back.

Oh, by the way, “they” is AJ and Doug. In case you were wondering.

So anyway, AJ told me on the phone to go over to them if I could find them. I replied that I was staring straight at him. He hung up. Then we basically watched them unload one thing, then saw their new furniture, then left because they needed to unload and set up their stuff. So it was really exciting.

On Friday, not much happened until that night, which was, of course, the start of a new weekend of Oliver. On Friday night itself, there wasn't a whole lot that happened, at least not worth writing about.

Saturday, however, now that's a different story. AJ, Rae, Jessica and Tim (who I'd never met) were coming to see the evening show, which of course makes the day worth writing about in and of itself. But wait, there's more.

After the first show, in which nothing out of the ordinary happened, we had a dinner break. As usual, I was staying at Lifehouse eating food brought from home. So I was hanging out on the back patio eating, with Taylor, and Spaghetti and Amanda, and Justine, and Jazzi. We were talking about random things (mostly Taylor and I telling horror stories about the other to the other people there) and eating. Then . . . THEN the cool thing happened. Jason (who plays Bill Sikes, if you didn't remember) went out to dinner, but came back quicker than usual. And he brought with him something very cool.

Jason, like me, and Spaghetti, and so many others, is a Star Wars freak. He showed this by wasting $300 on really fancy lightsabers. Sure, it's a waste of money. But holy cow, they were awesome. He had two (which sold for $120 each, so it was slightly less than $300). It probably seems to you that anyone who paid $120 dollars for a toy lightsaber is insane. These, however, were not mere toys. Well, technically, I guess they were. But they were the closest thing you can get to the actual props they used in the movies. They're exact replicas of the lightsaber handles, with polycarbon blades that lit up. And the really cool thing about them is that although they are just solid colors when looked at regularly, if you take a picture, then they look like real lightsabers, with the white center and everything. So we were watching Jason spin them around through a camera phone, and it looked like he was spinning a real lightsaber. It was so freakin' cool.

Then he decided to be nice and let some of us play around with them (after making us agree to the contract of “you break it, you buy it”). They rocked. I still can't get over how cool they were, obviously. And, as if that wasn't enough, I was the only person there (other than Jason, of course) who could twirl them properly, so Jason thought I actually knew what I was doing. Which, compared to a lot of the other people there, I did.

It would've been indescribably awesome if Taylor hadn't come in and chastised Jason for letting me use a weapon, then take up half the stage dancing and preventing us from messing around properly. Seriously, though, it was awesome. It was also cool to get a picture (although it was someone else's phone, so I didn't get one, but I got to see it) of Jason cutting off Doug's head with lightsabers.

Actually, one of the coolest things was just looking at certain people holding them. Dave (who plays Fagin) looked like a stereo-typical Jedi Master, with the white, somewhat messy hair, and the beard. He looked awesome. Doug looked very evil with the Darth Vader one (there was a Darth Vader and an Episode V Luke). But the coolest one of all was Katrona. She's a little . . . um . . . 6? 7? Somewhere around there-year-old girl. She picked up the Vader one and started swinging it around. It was so funny to watch (in a cute way, not a making fun of her way).

Then, to top things off, Wayne walked in and Jason immediately held both lightsabers to his neck and freaked him out. That, too, rocked.

Eventually Wayne cut in our fun and made us put them away, but it was still fun while it lasted. Then came the second show. Which would've been good, had it not been for the fact that I had to use a different pair of shoes, and they were a weird material, and slipped out of my hand. I had been hoping to hit Megan and Nick when AJ was there, but I failed. *hangs head in shame*

Anyway, other than that, it went really well. Well, that and the fact that Jessica didn't come for some reason. They never did tell me why . . . in any case, after the show we took the cast picture (it was quite funny, actually . . . AJ & Co. only left when Wayne made an announcement basically telling the audience to scram). I guess it was fine, although it meant staying in the horrendously hot Sowerberry costume. But I survived anyway, somehow.

Then I went home and slept. The next day, which was Sunday, the house church was meeting in Big Bear, so there was no way I would make it back in time to get to Lifehouse, so I finally agreed to bow to my friends' requests and go to Trinity. I went and sat with a bunch of Lifehouse people, then went out to lunch with them.

But first thing's first. I know that at least one of you (*coughAJcough*) wants to know how Trinity was, so I'll tell you. I'll describe it the way I described it to everyone else: I was both impressed and disappointed at the same time.

I was impressed because it was a far more personal atmosphere than I expected from such a big church, and I really liked the speaker. But I was disappointed because of the way they did things. They had different services for different age groups. They had “Big Church” (I think that's what they call it . . . Megan or David or someone can correct me if I'm wrong), which was a regular church service, then they had “Body of Believers” (or BOB) for high schoolers (and I assume similar divisions for younger children and college students and so on). So it seemed more like a youth group meeting then a Sunday morning service to me.

As I said, though, the speaker was really good. He had recently graduated from college, I think, based on what he said. So he related with the age group well. And for some reason it took him like four tries to say “citizen” . . . but it served as a handy icebreaker.

The worship wasn't that good, I didn't think . . . although I must admit I've never heard an electric guitar solo in church before . . . but I didn't know any of the songs they sang, and I only really liked one of them.

So, to sum up, I enjoyed it, but I prefer the house church. I probably will go again, though, sometime . . . whenever the next time is that the house church isn't meeting or I can't be there for some reason. To be honest, I liked it better than the River, so I'll probably be going there instead when the aforementioned times happen.

After church, I went to lunch with Megan, Rachel, Sarah, David, Jeremy, and Katrina. It was . . . interesting. Jeremy managed to humiliate all of us by standing up to clean himself three times, and by spilling cracker crums all over the table . . . and I tell you, there was something in those crackers . . .

Anyway, after lunch, Rachel, David, Sarah, and Katrina went home and Megan's dad took her, me, and Jeremy to Lifehouse.

Then came the show. Again, nothing really out of the ordinary . . . although Megan became overly obsessed with making the perfect batch of blood and then showing it off to everyone . . . in any place other than Lifehouse, I would've been very disturbed by it. “Hey, look! It's the perfect blood!!”

After the show I went home, and Dad and I got pizza and watched The Matrix. Then I spent the rest of the night messing around wasting time.

Today I got up really late and have done nothing of any lasting value, save write this entry. Soon I shall probably start installing some of the STAR Torrey stuff on the computer.

But first, comments:
I HAVE RETURNED, AFTER A LONG ABSENCE . . .:
Rae: Oh, gee, thanks . . . it means so much to me to know that I have friends who are willing to take my stuff . . .

Stephen and Cormack: Well, next time I see you, I'll be happy to show you all that I know, but it isn't a whole lot.

Rachael: First off, thank you for your compliments on my poem. However, it was not referring to the Earth in general . . . And secondly, all I meant by my remark was that you have a very unique way of talking, one that can take some getting used to. Which isn't a bad thing at all, it just takes us lay people a little while to get it.

AJ: Yes, I read The Last Question, I forgot to tell you. I really liked it. I'll talk to you more in detail when you're there to respond. . . . I want to learn to fight with quarterstaffs, but they're relatively advanced, I think, so Josh wants me to learn more basic stuff first. . . . I meant to categorize it, but I forgot, that's all.

ONE OTHER THING:
AJ: Thank you, thank you . . . and don't be mean to Rae, she had no way of knowing what it was REALLY about.

Rae: Then again, maybe there WAS a way for her to know . . . I'm a bit confused.

Rachael 1 and 2: Boy, sometimes Mark wonders if one has a life other than reading his blog . . . And yes, I've seen The Incredibles. I own it, as a matter of fact. . . . And I'm afraid that the semi-intelligent discussion happened online, so no, there's no way for me to prove that it happened, other than to present you with a witness. *gestures* Megan? Care to back me up on this?

Stephen: Ah, but who'd want to read YOUR blog when it is so overshadowed by the brilliance of MY blog? . . . sorry, that was a bit mean, even for me . . .

It's coming . . .

Yeah . . . since you all (and by "all" I mean Rachael) seem to be upset about my not updating here for a while, I figured I'd better put something here. I can assure you, a real update is coming, tomorrow at the latest. So yeah. It's coming, and this is basically to let you know that I'm still alive.

One other thing

I added a poem to my xanga, so yeah. Read it. Right after you read the post right below this one.

I have returned, after a long absence, to find my blog full of comments . . .

Howdy one and all. No, I am not dead. Sorry to disappoint. The fact of the matter is, I won't be posting at all on weekends for the next several weeks . . . that pesky little thing called “Oliver” takes up all my time.

As for not following through on my expectation to update on Thursday, that was because nothing happened. I told you I had been invited to a fencing class, if you'll recall. Well, as it so turned out, the guy who was giving both me and the teacher a ride got a migraine, so he couldn't drive, so nothing happened.

However. They had also planned to have fencing on Friday, and I got a call at about lunchtime that day informing me that it was still on (well, technically, he just asked if I was going, but it worked as information as well).

So since I had a show on Friday night, and fencing was from about 3:30-5:45 (which was call time), I figured “well, I'll just pack a lunch and cut out of the class fifteen minutes early or so.” Heh. Well, that didn't happen. I was expecting my ride at around 3:20 or so, and at 3:02 or so there was a knock on the door. Inwardly, I went, “oh, crap, he can't be here already, can he??” Turned out he could. So, since I hadn't been expecting him for another twenty minutes, I had just began getting ready. So I didn't eat dinner Friday.

It worked out all right, though, because I wasn't really very hungry, and I got to learn some fun fancy footwork that I wouldn't have learned otherwise.

So, how was it, you ask. It was a lot of fun, and I really hope that I'll be able to go more often. I feel kind of bad, because I'm obviously the worst in the class (having just started), so the teacher has to spend pretty much all his time on me, teaching me stuff that the other two people already know, so they just kind of do random stuff (like choreographing a knife fight). And one of them is leaving soon, too, so I don't know what's going to happen . . . unless of course the number of people changes on a classly basis, in which case things might turn out okay.

And as you might be wondering because of the knife fight, it turned out to be not just fencing, but stage combat in general, although fencing was my favorite of the stuff he taught me. Knives were pretty cool, too. He had quarterstaffs, too, but I didn't learn about those. But that was okay, because my head was still spinning from all the instruction on fencing, knife fighting, fist fighting, club fighting, and gun fighting. Although those last two were basically just disarms. It was still cool, though.

But as I said, fencing was my favorite. Probably the most practical, too, in terms of theater. There's not a whole lot of knife fighting in theater, in my experience, and not a whole lot of quarterstaff fighting, club fighting, and gun fighting, either. Although I will admit that there is a lot of physical combat (well, not a lot, but more than the others). But fencing is cooler. The question now is, will I remember everything? The answer is, more than likely, no. But that's okay, because it was my first day, after all, and the teacher even told me that he didn't expect me to remember it all.

Okay, what's wrong with me? I keep referring to him as “The Teacher,” like he's some high and mighty stage combat guru. In actuality, he's a 17-year-old guy who just happens to know more about it than we do. His name is Josh (like so many other people at Lifehouse), and from here on out he'll be called that (or Josh M., if necessary).

So anyway, I think that's pretty much that. As the class got towards the end, the Oliver cast began arriving and watching us. Megan was trying to throw shoes at me when he was teaching us how to disarm someone with a club *rolls eyes* Some people just can't let something go . . .

Anyway, eventually Wayne told us to stop so we could start Oliver warm-ups, so we did, and Josh and David and Brandon (the other people in the class) went backstage, and I sat down in the seats for Oliver.

And once I sat down Megan did throw those shoes at me . . . I was going to keep them and sell them on ebay, but Wayne found them and sent them backstage. So that idea was pretty much shot, unless I can get her to throw them at me again. Which actually probably won't be that hard . . .

Anyway, the show. Right. Well, I don't think there were any majorly interesting things that happened on Friday night . . . nothing that wasn't supposed to - well, okay, to be honest, it wasn't exactly our greatest show ever. Heh. During one of the merchant scenes, our chestnut vendor was a bit close to the stairs, and a townsperson brushed up against her, and all of a sudden we had a combination of cobblestone and chestnut roads. And then there were lots of minor things . . . and a prop that flew into the audience. One lucky member of the audience that night got a fake orange peel. Yay.

I don't think there was much else worth writing about on Friday, I don't think anyone I know came . . . if they did, they didn't talk to me. So let's move on to Saturday, shall we? Oh, well, no let's not. First let's talk about after I came home on Friday night. I came home to see AJ fiddling with boxes in the office. I said, “Hey, what's with all this?” He replied, “I'm packing, dude. You do remember that I'm moving tomorrow, right?” *lightbulb goes on above head* “Uh . . . yeah.”

Oh, man, and I forgot to mention the even that happened on Friday morning . . . wow, I must be really out of it or something . . . anyway, you might recall the whole Biola thing I talked about. Well, on Friday morning, we had a test to see if the program worked. So we went on, and had the test and . . . yeah. My microphone doesn't work with the program. Fun. So we're kind of unsure what to do . . . I tested it again with iChat, and it works fine, so I emailed the guy and he said it might be because I have a Mac. JOY. So he has no idea how to fix it, so some interesting things are going on regarding my future high school education, and I have no idea how it's going to turn out. So yeah, this'll be fun.

So anyway, back to the time at hand, which I suppose is now Saturday morning. I got up earlier than I otherwise would have, because AJ wanted to read me a science fiction story that was “the coolest thing ever.” But in the end, because he was packing at the last minute, I spent most of the morning playing Fire Emblem, and waiting for him to have free time, and then going to Lifehouse. So I never did get to hear the “coolest thing ever.”

Saturdays are always fun because we do two shows, with a dinner break in between. It also turned out that this particular Saturday night show was video night. And it also turned out that over the dinner break Matt was finally going to take me out to dinner and Starbucks and give me my birthday present. Which was a drink at Starbucks. But hey. It was fun anyway. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The first show went pretty well, all things considered. A few minor mishaps, I think, but nothing serious. And Maria and Dimyana came to see it, so that was cool. Maria told me that in Mr. Sowerberry I'd found my calling, and that I now have no choice but to become an undertaker when I grow up. So I told her that she has to be a genius when she grows up. So then came dinner break. Matt and I and a guy named Patrick went to Fazoli's, where Maria was to meet us after taking Dimyana home. After that we were supposed to meet Megan and a bunch of other Oliver people at Starbucks. Well, it turns out that Matt is a really slow eater. So we got to Starbucks right as everyone else was leaving. So basically we just got our stuff and rushed back to Lifehouse.

Naturally, the second show came after this. As I said, it was video night. Now, for those of you unfamiliar with Lifehouse, video nights are jinxed, and something terrible simply has to happen. In Wizard of Oz, for example, they accidentally lit the Tin Man coming on stage, so it was pretty darn obvious he wasn't actually rusted solid. So in Oliver, they accidentally went to a blackout in the middle of a scene. So there'll be a random blackout on the video. Yay. That, and Fagin tripped over a certain shoe while entering, so there's a random shoe out in the middle of the stage for a while. Megan also invited me to go to Trinity during the show, then changed her mind and decided I should go next week instead.

So I went home and went to bed, then got up and went to Church yesterday. We talked about Thomas and his doubting the resurrection, which was interesting, but there wasn't really a whole lot I hadn't already thought of myself. It was nice to hear someone else confirming it, though. (And our group leader did say one funny thing: “Yeah, spending a week with Thomas probably weakened [the disciples'] faith in the resurrection. I mean, they see him, and they're all excited and pumped, and then Thomas comes along and goes 'You guys are idiots.'”)

Then we had Sunday's show. That was interesting. They were training an new tech guy, and someone had the following brilliant idea: “Hey! Let's train him during a show!!” So they did. We had a few blackouts where they weren't supposed to be, one that was supposed to last for more than double the time it did (interesting sight there, the audience saw Bill Sikes pulling Mr. Brownlow's house in half). And a song ended in the middle, then started up again, then a very important voice-over was a few seconds late. So yeah. Lots of fun stuff. Other than all that nightmareish stuff, however, it was a pretty good show. We (the actors and such) did fine. It was just the blasted tech crew.

So after the show I didn't really want to go home, because the previous week I had gone through Lifehouse withdraw, and I wasn't looking forward to it happening again. But there was nothing else to do, so I went home.

And sure enough, less than two hours later, I started missing everyone. *sigh* What's wrong with me? How is it even possible to miss people that soon after seeing them??

So yeah . . . I spent most of the rest of Sunday online talking to Megan and Rachel and Seth and Doug. And I think there was one other person. But I don't remember.

Then today I had to get up early for Dance, and I guess it was fine, but we “decided” (as in “were told”) that we were performing for a drama camp at Heartland tomorrow morning. So I have to get up AGAIN. *sigh* Sometimes life just sucks, doesn't it?

So I think that's pretty much it, then. So, onto comments we go (I skipped a few, sorry):

The whole Iceberg thing: Couldn't we bring it down with two big ships, one to move it and one to stop it? Then we wouldn't have to run it into the mountains. And we could use it to destroy the giant fire dude who's attacking us.

Cormack: Curses . . . I meant to do that. Sorry. The problem is that I don't know how long it's going to be until my next update . . . could be as few days as one, could be as many as 7. Who knows. Not I.

Eleanor: I would be honored to receive a letter from France to spice up my “mundane existence.”

Rachael: You know . . . I think that you, having been in only one show, should lay off on the derogatory comments about Lifehouse. As for the books, it's much easier for me not to read them and to read the books that Sarah crams down my throat. It's a lot easier to answer to you then to deal with her trying to kill me. And I am NOT a Communist. Megan and I actually had a very long and semi-intelligent discussion on that topic a while ago, and decided that I am not a Communist, despite what you may think.

Rae: Don't worry . . . “Cilla Anne” takes a bit of getting used to. I had trouble, too, the first few months after I first met her.

Rachael again: Yes, you knew it was David, and I knew it was David, but some people might not have known, and it was courteous of him to let them know. And I wasn't ignoring you, I happened to actually have stuff to DO.

Rae Again: Hey, what am I, chopped liver??

Aim for the Skies!! (just a stupid title)

Hey hey hey, I'm back, and have another great post for you all to read. I didn't actually expect to post again until tomorrow, but something happened so I will.

Tuesday pretty much passed like your average summer-break day, at least for me. Lots of ToS (even some getting stuck in ToS and emailing Sarah for help), some computer, some reading, and so on. But then, just as I was being online and getting kind of bored because Sarah hadn't emailed me back, I received a phone call. A phone call that changed my night forever. Or at least until 11:30 or so. As is sometimes my procedure, I shall relate the phone call in script form (David, correct me if anything is drastically wrong, but keep in mind that I'm paraphrasing).

FADE IN
MARK is sitting at the computer, with a somewhat bored look on his face. He's checking out some websites and listening to his new Caedmon's Call CD. The clock shows 8:35.
The PHONE rings off-camera. DAD picks it up.
DAD: (still off-screen) Hello? Oh, hi . . . yeah, he his, hold on a second.
Mark's face has not changed at all, although his hands have been moving as he travels from screen to screen. Dad appears at door with the phone in his right hand.
DAD: (holding out phone to Mark) David C.
Mark looks somewhat perplexed, shrugs, and takes phone.
MARK: (into phone) Hello?
DAVID: (on other side of phone) Hi, Mark? I was calling to see if you wanted to go see a movie tonight . . . you know, to kill time, spend money, support our good friends in Hollywood.
MARK: (laughing) Yeah, goodness knows they need it. . . . Well what would the movie be?
DAVID: Well, I was thinking along the more intellectually refined lines of Sky High, but if you wanted to see War of the Worlds, or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, or March of the Penguins . . .
MARK: (laughing again) Yeah well you know, I've just been DYING to see March of the Penguins.
DAVID: I think Sky High is the shortest, if we wanted to get home at a Godly hour . . . or at least some minor-deity hour.
MARK: (laughing yet again) Yeah, well I'd love to, hold on, let me ask my mom.
Mark cups his hand over the phone and walks out of the room. He has a brief conversation with MOM, but then gets tired of writing the script.
FADE OUT

So basically, Mom said that yes, I could go, so I did. We did indeed end up seeing Sky High, which I shall review in a moment.

But first, the previews. The only ones I remember were Lion Witch and Oliver Twist. And the only reason I remember these is because I'm starting to see a pattern here. I was in Lion Witch, they're making a movie. I was in Pollyanna, there's already two movies. I'm in Oliver, they're making a movie. Pretty soon we'll be seeing “The Hiding Place” and “Tom Sawyer.” Although I'm not sure I'll be doing Hiding Place. I'll have to ask around and see who else I can get to do it with me.

Anyway, on to the review, which I will attempt to make a bit more organized this time:

Basic Story: The movie takes place in a world where super-heroes fight villains on a regular basis. The world's two greatest heroes, The Commander and Jetstream, got married and had a kid, Will. The two heroes are real-estate agents as a cover. Anyway, for high school, all super-hero kids go to Sky High, where they learn to use their powers for the greater good. Since Will's parents are the greatest super-heroes in the world, everyone expects him to be amazing. There's just one problem: Will doesn't have any powers.

Basically, the story is how he gets his powers and then the terror that strikes the school and how he takes care of it. Pretty clichéd story.

I was expecting this to be the story, and I was expecting the movie to be a cheesy super-hero movie, with the new twist that it happens at a high school. So I was expecting a mediocre movie.

I was wrong. As far as it went as a super-hero movie, it was pretty much what I expected. But the nice thing was that it didn't try to be a super-hero movie. It was a flat-out comedy set in a super-hero story. And it was hilarious. It was one of the funniest movies I've seen in quite a while.

For example, (although this might not be too funny in writing) when they get to the school, they have to be sorted into “Hero” or “Hero Support” (aka sidekicks). So the first thing they do is they get up on a podium and show “Coach Boomer” their power. So he has certain things to help along. The first kid he calls up is named Larry, and he's the stereotypical geek: afro, geeky thick glasses, short, dazed look perpetually on his face. So everyone's expecting him to be a sidekick, And he gets up there and becomes the Thing. The Coach, however, is unimpressed. So he decides to test Larry. He says “Car” and a car just randomly falls out of the sky onto Larry (who catches it). Some of the powers are really stupid, too. Like there's this one girl who can turn into a guinea pig. And this one guy who melts into a puddle. He doesn't turn into water, he just melts. And then this other kid who glows green, but only when he's terrified.

Some of the powers, on the other hand, are really cool. My favorite character, for example, can light himself on fire like Johnny in Fantastic 4. And my OTHER favorite character has what I think is the coolest power in the movie: she has power over plants. She can make them do pretty much anything she wants (except produce lemons). It's awesome.

Anyway, the acting was also pretty good, although the main kid kinda bugged me. But I guess he was okay. I was also kind of bummed because the main character has a really boring, over-used, and over-rated power: super strength. I mean, I guess it's okay, but it's really not that great. Think about it. What if you're a super hero, and you have super strength as your power. Then one day you have to fight this giant fire monster. What good is your strength going to do you? If you sock him, you'll just burn yourself. Although I suppose in that situation the plant power wouldn't be too great, either . . . how WOULD you fight that guy? I guess if you had like water or Ice power . . . or laser vision or something maybe.

Anyway, yeah. It was really funny, it had some great one-liners . . . like in one scene, a bunch of the main characters are taking a quiz at home (and they're sidekicks), and one of the questions is: “Your archnemisis is flying south at 30 MPH, and your hero is flying north at 60 MPH. Assuming your hero has x-ray vision, how long will it take your hero to realize he's going the wrong way?”

Also, the special effects were good. Realistic looking electricity, fire, blah blah blah. Nice throwing a kid through the window. Anyway, it had good acting, good special effects, and an okay story. Plus a very high entertainment value.

So critically speaking, I'd give it a mild thumbs up. However, I'm not speaking critically, I'm speaking as some one who has seen it and is reviewing it for fun. So I give it a big thumbs up and recommend it to anyone who is in a lighthearted mood and/or a depressed mood and wants to laugh.

So after that David took me home and I messed around for a while then went to bed. Today was a pretty regular day, lots of ToS and general time wasting. I also wrote a poem, which I plan to put on my xanga later. So if you have time, check it out. Don't worry, it's a lot shorter than this post ; ) And this is one of my shorter posts, anyway.

Tomorrow I have something else happening, so I'll probably update again tomorrow night, or if not some time on Friday. I was invited to a fencing class tomorrow, so that should be fun. In any case, on to comments:

Rae: lol . . . I see. So you weren't actually trying to get me to respond or anything. Well, I'm happy I could cause you the fun feeling of being back in middle school :P

David, Timorous, David, David: Oh, didn't know that about SNAFU, sorry. Although I doubt the “N” stands for “noraml” :P Uhh . . . about the Sasha thing . . . I have no idea what you mean. Care to explain? And yes, I have labeled that moment as one of the wonders of the modern world. I only I'd had a camera . . .

Eleanor: Who were the others you woke up?

Rachael: Well I'm sorry, but I can't write about every little conversation I have, or these posts would be even longer, and I would suck up your whole lives. Which I don't plan to do until the rest of my plan of world domination is in motion. And cut me a little slack, will ya?? Not everyone cares as much about proper English and stuff as you . . . and even the best of us make mistakes . . . and by the way, I have about as much desire to read The Secret Garden as I do to read the Anne books. I've read A Christmas Carol, too, if that makes you feel any better. And Tom Sawyer. And The Wizard of Oz. Oh, and thanks for complimenting my performance . . . although it comes about 6 months too late . . .

Cormack-Rae-Cormack: Would it help, Cormack, if I gave you kind of a reading plan? Like if at one point in the post I would say “End Cormack's reading for Day 1, begin reading for day 2.” Would that be sufficient?

(Final Count: Pages: 4, Words: 1741)

Oliver! Oliver! Oliver! It has opened at last!

My apologies for not updating yesterday, I had an unexpected engagement after the show . . . plus I was pretty darn tired, and happy just to enjoy being in my house again after such a long absence. :P

Anyways, I believe I left off before Friday's rehearsal, correct? Yeah. Just checked, yes I did.

Okay, so Friday's rehearsal . . . hmmm . . . if I remember, the rehearsal was basically just running through the show again (as usual), only with more of an excitement around because everyone had the thought, “We're opening tomorrow! We're opening tomorrow! Yay! Cool!” Unless, of course, you're Megan, who had the thought “We're opening tomorrow! Yay! Oh no! My first main part!! I'm so nervous I can't even breathe . . .” (sorry Megan, couldn't help it)

Did have one interesting thing happen, though. I called home to tell my parents that I was ready to come home, and some creepy dude answered the phone. He was speaking in a whisper, trying obviously to disguise his voice. I was just starting to settle into the whole thing of him being some robber or something, and then he has to go and ruin it by saying, “I'm commenting on your blog.” *sigh* AJ, why don't you ever do anything fun? Haha j/k :P

Okay this is weird. A few minutes ago, I was in a pretty bad mood . . . not like I was mad or angry, I was just lonely, because I've grown accustomed to hanging out with Oliver people all the time, and now all of a sudden I'm not going to see them until Friday. So I was really lonely, and I actually got on the computer because I was hoping that someone would be on AIM that I could talk to . . . But alas. And now, all of a sudden, I started writing and now I'm in a really good mood. Yay for blogging!

In any case, Megan and AJ and I had had multiple discussions about his meeting her (because we know they've met before, but he couldn't remember who she was). So Megan hung around until he showed up to take me home, and then the three of us were talking for a while (and Wayne called me “polite” and “brilliant” and then took them both back :P).

Eventually we got home, and I looked up something online, and was talking to some folks online for a while, then I went to bed. My AIM message for the next day was, “*chants* It's opening day! It's opening day! It's opening day!” So, of course, I was very excited. I seriously hadn't been that excited for an opening since Tom Sawyer . . . Jeremy suggested it was because I hadn't been in a show with a Prince since then (although I don't think that's true). I think it's probably two main reasons: 1) Lots of my friends have main parts (Nick=Dodger, Megan=Bet, Jeremy=Oliver, Dave=Fagin, Tim=Mr. Bumble), and 2) I have two of the coolest parts ever in Mr. Sowerberry and Townsman (aka Stupid Shoe-throwing Man).

So, what exactly happened on Opening Day, you ask? I answer: I got up, showered, ate, etc., then went to rehearsal (daytime rehearsal to prepare for nighttime show). The rehearsal actually felt like a show, although not an opening show. Anyway, it went well, and we went on dinner break excited and ready for opening.

For dinner, as usual I stayed at Lifehouse, talking with Josh B. and Jake for a while, then Taylor joined us, and so Josh and Jake started talking to their parents and I started talking to Taylor. And for a while it was like Pollyanna again, the two of us constantly hurling vicious insults at each other . . . ::sigh:: Ah, for the good old days . . .

Eventually we returned to the auditorium to begin warm-ups for opening, the excitement level rising. Then, all of a sudden, I realized why the excitement level was so high: twenty little kids had just drunken Starbucks!!! Not like any of you will understand the analogy, but it was like having twenty Prestons!!! Scary times, scaaaaary times.

Anyway, we got going and had announcements, prayer, and warm-ups. Then we went backstage to begin getting ready. As usual, I was ready at least 15 minutes before the show was supposed to start, so I hung out in the makeup hall and the surrounding area, telling people who were nervous not to be. I also spent several minutes trying to calm Taylor down (she was feeling extremely stressed out because she's basically in charge of Fagin's gang), but she ended it by stomping HARD on my foot and walking away. ::sigh:: I hate it when I try to help people and that kind of thing happens . . . especially when the helpee is wearing heels . . .

And OH MY GOSH, was Megan nervous. Oh, stop glaring at me, you were. But I don't want her to be mad at me, so I'll stop now before I say something rash.

Okay, so since there are no Milligans in this show, Taylor is the headset person (the person who confirms the cast is ready to start the show). Which of course only added to her stress. Especially because no one would listen to her. I got in trouble for helping her, too . . . since no one in the makeup hall was listening, I spoke in a slightly-louder-than-normal voice (which did get the wanted response), and Larry was walking by, and wasn't too happy about it. Taylor did have the courtesy to thank me, though, which was nice.

Finally, the call from Taylor came: “Places.” And the overture started. I climbed up the ladder and into position. Wayne's voice concluded his announcement: “Ladies and Gentlemen, Lifehouse productions now proudly presents Oliver!” The crowd went wild. It's so nice having tons of parents and Lifehousers there, they cheer so loudly . . .

Anyway, from the first “Buy my bread,” I knew it was going to be an awesome show. And, of course, since I know all, I was right. There were a few minor snafoos (such as Mrs. Bumble calling Mrs. Sowerberry my maid instead of my wife), but on the whole it was really good.

And the best part . . . I laugh just remembering it. Okay, well obviously you all know about me throwing the shoes at Megan and Nick. Because I keep talking about it. Well anyway, we were approaching that scene, and Megan came up to me freaking out because she was so excited (“The song's coming up! Just me and Dodger!! AAHH!!!”) (Okay, I added that last part). So I laughed and climbed up my ladder (yes, it's MY ladder) into my house. They came dashing down the stairs, and did their song (they did an awesome job, as usual). The audience seemed unsure whether or not to clap, so I gave them an answer by leaning my head out of the window and chucking shoes at two certain trespassers.

And OH MY GOSH, the audience loved it. No exaggeration, it was the loudest applause any part of the show got. Even bows, even when OLIVER bowed, he didn't get as much applause as the shoe scene did. I seriously closed my window, made a fist, pulled my arm back and mentally yelled “SCORE!!!!!!!!!”

So after that it was kind of downhill, because of course nothing can top that. But the show was awesome, as the audience would tell you. At least, they had better tell you. Or they'll have a shoe coming through their window.

Anyway, the show ended, and we bowed, and were hanging out on the side of the stage for autographs and stuff. And man, it was HOT. The AC wasn't working again, and . . . yeah. 4 black layers. Sitting in front of a blazing light. Wasn't fun. Well, it wouldn't have been fun, but Rachel came by so I was talking to her, which took my mind off of it.

I should probably explain something before I go on to the next part of the story. At Lifehouse, we've always enjoyed being loud and obnoxious and just hanging out late into the night. As a result of this, they started a tradition a long time ago of having an after-opening party. Often times, people will offer their houses for the night. But more often, we have to find somewhere else to go. Naturally, we can't just hang out at Lifehouse, because that's just not cool. The only place in the immediate vicinity that's open 24 hours is a Denny's. So we spend opening nights making the Denny's waiters wish we weren't there.

So after the show we went to Denny's. I invited Rachel to come along, even though she wasn't in the show, because she's cool and everyone knows it. She caught a ride with us, and Doug needed a ride, too, so he also joined us. We, of course, were the first ones there. So we just hung out on the waiting bench for a while waiting (ironically) for the rest of the cast to arrive. Finally, after about 10 minutes or so, Tim, Amanda, and Nick finally showed up. Actually, a few minutes before that some audience members who we knew showed up and told us that the best part of the shoe was the shoe scene. Again, I inwardly yelled “SCORE!!!!!!!”

Anyway, once we had a fair amount of people we got our seven tables set up and sat down. Zach was there, and . . . well, let's just say that this drama thing he did messed up his mind a bit. He spent half of the night with a napkin in his mouth.

Megan was deserting us to go to a birthday party, so I was kinda bummed because I wanted to give her the traditional Denny's applause for a main character (well, honestly, it's usually just THE main character, but I wanted to be nice, it being her first main part and all). Then, all of a sudden, she showed up. Zach was talking to his dad at the time, so she just kind of took his seat while we all kind of stared at her with a “What are you doing here?” look on our face. Which is like the worst grammar in the world. But who cares

When I had overcome the shock of her arrival, I actually asked her what she was doing there, and she basically said she had just decided to come for a while. I asked her if she was ditching the birthday party, and her response was, “Are you kidding me? I wouldn't miss a birthday party for you guys.”

You know, I really should stop talking about Megan. Because I've probably already earned myself a good amount of slaps from this entry. So I'm just going to fast-forward until after she left to go to the party.

After Megan left, not a whole lot changed, other than the fact that with one less person at the table I had a bit more leg room. Zach kept being an idiot, we kept having totally pointless discussions about even more pointless subjects, etc. etc. Although Zach and Doug began having a phone picture war, which was interesting. Although Zach would claim that he won, I think that Doug clinched it with his picture of him and Jason (Bill Sikes) having a lightsaber duel on the stage.

Eventually, alas, pretty much everyone left, and it was just me and Rachel and Doug again. So we went out to wait for our rides outside the door, and Doug kept on talking non-stop about Homestar Runner and how his friend is the most awesome person and how the two are somehow linked . . . Oh, and cars. He also talked about cars.

Then my dad came and I went home, only to find that my house was full of college students. Most of whom will probably be reading this, and will hopefully be amused by my telling of the events after my return from Denny's. Oh, and also, one of them was named Doug, so keep in mind that when I say “Doug” in this next section it's Doug the college student, not Doug the guy who kills me in Oliver.

So it turns out that all of these college students know my brother, and that as a result of this I've met most of them. So I walked through the door, and met Doug and Stephen standing in the hallway. Doug asked me how the show went, then began guessing who I was. “Dodger?” “Oliver?” “Orphan #12?” “Dancer #4?” “Vegetable Seller #2?” After laughing at this, Stephen told him that if he would read my blog, he would know. To which Doug made some lame excuse about having restricted internet access or something.

After that, Doug went away to do something like set up the room he was sleeping in, and I was left to talk with Stephen. Oh, and just so I don't get yelled at, Rae and Eleanor both popped in and said hello during the time I was talking to Doug.

Anyway, since Stephen and I had never been formally introduced, I formally introduced myself, and we then began talking about Star Wars, not surprisingly. Actually, it basically consisted of him talking and me listening and nodding and asking a question here and there. And Stephen, I promise you, I WILL read those books! And actually, I had forgotten at the time, but I did read the first X-Wing book. I'm not sure if you knew that or not, but now you do.

After talking to him for about 45 minutes, AJ cut in and told us that we had to go to bed. So I went upstairs to find that Eleanor and Rae were staying in AJ's room. But in any case, talking to Stephen had made me remember something, so I was writing some stuff down for a while, and I think that either I was hallucinating, or Eleanor and/or Rae were trying to do something . . . get me to open my door, maybe, or say goodnight, I couldn't tell. If they were truly speaking, I couldn't understand what they said (which is why I didn't answer). Then, at about 2 AM I was about to go to bed, so I opened the door into the bathroom hall, and Rae (laying in the bed on the other side) literally jumped . . . which was quite amusing. She then began cracking up, and I shut the door so she could fall asleep while I took my makeup off and my contacts out . . . but obviously it didn't work because after I retreated back into my room, I heard the door open and she said “good night, Mark!” So I returned the good night, then went to bed.

Which brings me to Sunday. We didn't know where church was, so we didn't go and slept in. I got up, did usual morning things, and went to Lifehouse for the second show. Which pretty much passed without incident . . . other than, once again, extreme heat, as the AC wasn't working nearly as well as it should have been.

Well, okay, I lied. There was an incident. Through the entire thing, Megan kept asking me if I was coming to her dance recital. Since I hadn't known about it, I didn't know whether or not I was aloud to go, so the answer she kept getting was “I hope to.” But she didn't seem to be satisfied by this, and kept asking. So now she'll probably slap me again.

After the show, I made a complete idiot of myself and probably significantly lowered myself in the esteem of some people. Well, probably not the people who actually knew me, but the people who had never met me probably thought I was a total jerk and an idiot. Which I suppose is true. But I don't feel like relating the story. Sorry.

Anyway, on the way home from Lifehouse, I asked Mom if I could go, She said yes, so I basically went home and kind of crashed for two hours or so, then went back to Lifehouse to see the recital.

Which was, in a word, amazing. I was very impressed by it on the whole, although some of the dancing wasn't exactly my style. No offense Megan, some of the stuff just . . . yeah. Seemed a bit out of place in a Christian theater. But mainly just the one dance, most of it was fine. And again, other than that one dance, I thoroughly enjoyed it. After all, seeing Michael Milligan kissing a girl has to rank among the most awesome things I've ever seen. Heehee . . . never thought I'd see the day.

So then I went home and crashed for a while, then went to bed. Which brings us to Monday. Basically, Dance and wasting time. I actually had kind of a bad day, because for some reason I'm missing the people in Oliver more than I usually miss casts during the week . . . and if it seems pathetic that I'm missing them even knowing that I'll see them again soon, you try being in almost constant company with someone for two weeks, and make great friends with them, then all of a sudden don't see them for a week.

But like I said, this is affecting me more than it usually does, I don't know why . . . maybe the menacing shoe-throwing content of my blood is just low.

I'd go into more detail about Monday, but I'm really tired and have lots of comments, so suffice it to say that I basically wasted time all day and wrote this, which I obviously finished on Tuesday, in the very early morning.

Comments:

AJ: The shocker in the HP book . . . oh, you mean where that one guy does that one thing to the other guy? Yeah. That was a pretty big shocker all right. No, seriously, it was. Zach said that he bought the book just so he could read the ending and run around telling people. He got lots of people mad at him.

Rachael: I'll have you know, AJ is the best speller I know. Okay, on to your second comment, here we go: Yes, I read Pollyanna. I never have had and probably never will have any desire to read any of the Anne books. Canada's healthcare has nothing at all to do with Anne. I absolutely HATED Latin, forgive me for trying to help you. Obviously your darn academic-ness has already taken over, and so there is nothing more I can do.

Dr. C: thank you, thank you. I rather liked the cape myself. Although I must ask, what is it with your family and “dashing?”

David's Three: Really? Well if you like wandering around . . . I've always wanted to go to Alaska. Maybe sometime I'll just get you up there when you're supposed to be in ballet :P And assuming your talking about what I think you are, the moment that incited the “Ol' Trouble 'n' Strife to kill” you was when you turned left. And thank you. I love that you call her “Dr. C.”

Rae: I read the abridged version, and trust me, I don't think you want to read the regular version. The Italics you mentioned were his telling you what he took out, and there was nothing in there that I wish he had left in. It was all stuff that I would've found very boring. And, if it makes you soften up to him any more, the guy who did the abridgment is the same guy who wrote the screenplay for the movie.

I think AJ's comments speak for themselves.

Stephen: You should've told me you hadn't read it while you were at our house. You could've borrowed my copy. I feel guilty because you lent me all those books and I didn't give you anything in return . . . In any case, I hope you have a lot of time on your hands, because you've got quite a bit of blog-reading to catch up on ;)

(Final Count: Pages: 7 (barely), Words: 3426)

A heck of a post for Heck Week

So with my last post, I left off at the beginning of the horror we call Heck Week. So there I shall begin.

It began alright, we had Dance. Well, wait a second, what am I saying? It was bad from the beginning. So we have Dance on Monday, and Mom's working, so I call David to ask for a ride. He, being the nice guy he is, agrees. (Idiot . . . j/k David :P Well . . . then again . . . considering what happened, maybe not) So, since David and Sarah are in ballet, they pick me up early so that they can go to ballet. So I'm sitting outside waiting, the time I expect them to arrive comes and goes, and I begin to wonder if they have forgotten me. Then, their van pulls up, I hop aboard, and off we go to Didi's.

At least, that was the plan. What actually happened was something different. Once I was aboard, David says “So I go back the way I came, right?” I, stupidly, say “yes.” In actuality, the way to Didi's lies on the other side, but I of course was forgetful of this.

So we're cruising down Lugonia, and David asks me if Highland intersects with it. “I think so,” I say. Well, it turns out it doesn't. So we're just going along . . . and along . . . and along . . . and finally David says “Any of this looking familiar?” “Yes,” I say, “but not for a trip to Didi's.” David wasn't overly thrilled at this. He decides to take the next left, only to find that the next left is a long time coming. We end up at the end of Lugonia, in San Bernadino (quite far from where we were trying to get). Ballet was already supposed to be starting, so Sarah called Didi to tell her they'd be late. It was actually an amusing conversation (mostly because of David constantly yelling “It's Mark's fault! It's Mark's fault!”), but I choose not to relate it here because I don't remember it too clearly, and I don't want you all to grow old reading this.

So anyway, after driving for a short while, we end up in Loma Linda. David seems to know where we are, much to my relief, because I'm still totally lost. He makes a few turns, and all of a sudden, there we are at David and Sarah's house. *humiliated sigh* So basically, we start over where they began in the first place, and now someone who knows where to go is directing (namely David).

Now, added to all of this, their van has no AC, so they had the windows open, and it was windy anyway. Generally speaking, I'm not too concerned about how my hair looks, but . . . oh, man, it looked horrible. It was uncomfortable, too. Sarah told me the windswept look was good for me, but . . .

So anyway, we finally get to Didi's, about 25 minutes late. So I successfully cut down the time I had to wait for my class to start from 45 minutes to 20. We enter the house, and everyone yells, “You're here!” As if they expected me to keep them lost forever . . . which I probably would have, knowing my skill with directions. We began to tell the story, and everyone thought it was hilarious . . .

Eventually, everyone calmed down, and ballet began again, and I sat down to read. I finished The Princess Bride. Then time came for Jazz & Tap (aka my class). Pretty routine, until we actually got to doing the routine, at which point we were already all dripping sweat (it takes place outside . . . ugh). So we did it a few times, then Katrina (the teacher) told us what we were doing with the traveling timesteps we'd learned the previous week. So after staring at her feet with a “You want us to do THAT?” look on our faces for a while, we tried it. Turned out to be slightly (SLIGHTLY) easier than we expected. At least, it did for me. I can't speak for everyone else. In any case, it's still really hard, but thankfully I'm behind Sarah so I can just watch her and mimic her exactly . . . since she's like the only one who actually got the whole thing . . .

Anyway, after class ended, David and Sarah were also taking me home (surprising they still agreed to it, considering our previous experience). And so my hair was messed up for the third time that day (wind, sweat, wind again). The trip home was actually pretty painless, other than a certain even that I won't mention because Sarah would probably want to kill David all over again, and then I won't have him as an option for a ride to future dance classes. Although, as previously mentioned, it's highly possible that I don't anyway, because of what happened.

So once I got home things were good for a while, then came time for rehearsal. And just to let you know, they call it Heck Week for a reason. The good rehearsals are from 5:45-10, and the worse ones are 5:45-2 AM. Well, okay, I'll be honest, that's only happened once. But still.

In any case, I arrived at LifeHouse, and was told two very important things: 1) Get into costume and be back in the seats by 6:10, and 2) The AC wasn't working. WONDERFUL, I thought. So I had to get in a Sowerberry costume with 4 layers of black clothes and a hat, and no AC. So yeah, that was fun.

So I was thinking about how awful it would be when it came time for the Sowerberry scene, then John says that we're doing Act 2 first, and inwardly I rejoiced. Two reasons: 1) A long period of time offstage to just hang out and get used to the head, and 2) Now Sowerberry scene in Act 2. No, in Act 2 I'm the shoe-thrower. (I found out later that I'm Sowerberry for the finale, since that's who I'm going to bow as, but at the time I didn't know.)

As it turned out, we didn't run Act 1 at all on Monday night, we ran Act 2 twice. It went pretty well, nothing too interesting happened. Except for a very sad moment after we finished.

You know the scene where I throw the shoes at Nick and Megan, well . . .th-they . . . here's what John said: “When you throwing the shoes, throw them offstage.” I was so sad!!!!!!!! It made it so I couldn't throw the shoes AT them anymore!! Inwardly, I wept. They also told us that Larry would be there on Tuesday to choreograph A) the finale and B) Dodger and Bet's song right before I throw the shoes (sob) offstage.

Then we all went home, and before I knew it, it was Tuesday. The day was spent in wasting time, on the computer, playing ToS, etc. etc. Then it was time for rehearsal.

And I must mention . . . Wayne has a way of giving us his notes in the form of a newspaper every night, and he always comes up with stupid alliterative names for it. For example, for Lion Witch it was the Narnia News, for Heidi it was the Dorfli Daily, for Anne of Avonlea (he couldn't quite get this one alliterative) it was the Avonlea Inquirer. But I think that for Oliver he's really gone down a notch . . . we're getting the Dickens Daily, which I honestly think is the stupidest name of a paper ever, even for Wayne. (When I told him this, he said, “Well, I was going to call it the Pickwick Papers,” but I didn't think too many people would get it.” I sighed and wished he'd called it that.)

On Tuesday, we did indeed begin with choreography. Nick and Megan got there at 5 o'clock to do their song, and they were finishing when I got there. Honestly, I think it's the best-choreographed song in the show, and they do it really well. And Larry has officially become awesome. Because not only is he a good choreographer, but he obviously choreographed this particular song with my best interests in mind. As I said earlier, this is the scene in which I throw shoes. Well, you know how John (who is the co-director by the way, I don't think I mentioned that) told me to throw them off-stage? Well, Larry specifically choreographed it so I could throw the shoes at them!!! THEY GAVE ME BACK THE POWER TO THROW AT THEM!!!!!! I almost danced with joy.

After that, Larry did the finale, which was . . . interesting. It consisted mostly of lots of little kids (aka Fagin's Gang) running around and set pieces moving. It was confusing. And later, they actually changed it and made it much simpler, which is very cool.

Anyway, after all this we were told we were going to run the show. So we went back and got into costumes (AC still wasn't working . . . and this time we were running Act 1). We ran through Act 1 with what seemed like little incident, but apparently it looked worse than it felt. Because we never got around to Act 2, we just did Act 1 twice. Then we went home.

I apologize if it seems like I'm robbing you of interesting anecdotes, but there really wasn't a whole lot happening that would be interesting to someone who wasn't there. On Wednesday you'll get a little something, but not a whole lot.

In any case, Wednesday passed without incident until rehearsal, as usual. (I'm going to have like nothing at all to write about once we open . . . no more rehearsals, and shows only on the weekends.) On Wednesday night, the AC was apparently fixed (thank the Lord), and we did a complete run-through. The run-through wasn't really anything special (I mean, it wasn't bad, but nothing happened in it worth recording). But what I do want to talk about happened backstage . . .

Okay, so first a little something about LifeHouse in general. One thing that LifeHouse prides itself on and is famous for is close-knit casts that are like a family to one another. Probably one of the most drastic examples of this would be when one family's house burned down (this was before I got involved with LH), and the cast did something to help them, I think they gave them money and meals and helped them salvage stuff from their house. So they really came together to help this family. Billy Fernandez, who is an LH veteran, been in tons of shows, said that the house burning down was just a larger example of the little things that happen at LifeHouse every day.

I had always heard about this, but the first time I actually saw this type of thing happening was in Lion Witch. One of our cast members (who will remain anonymous) was going through a very hard time, and it was amazing to see what the cast did . . . I don't know if she felt it the way it looked like, but it was just amazing to watch . . . I don't think there was one person in the cast who didn't give her a giant hug and offer help or prayer or whatever they could. They did all they could to help cheer her up, to try to take her mind off things and enjoy being there. (And yes, I was in this cast, but I'm referring to them as “they” because A) I don't think I did as much as most of them to help her, and B) Because I certainly felt as though I was watching this happen, not necessarily actually being a part of it [although I might have been, I don't really know].)

So that was something that I found amazing. And on Wednesday night, I saw the same thing happen again, only slightly different . . . this same girl was going through another struggle, and she was talking to me about it, just kind of sitting off in the corner with me unloading. And she started crying, and I still am amazed at what happened. Every single person in the room, without exception, even the people just walking by, every single one came immediately up to her and started hugging her and telling her it would be all right. Even more amazing was the fact that they didn't even know what was wrong, they just knew something was and immediately tried to comfort her. No one asked what it was, no one pretended to know, they just offered her comfort asking nothing at all in return. Of course, this might not sound as impressive in writing, and maybe it was just something clicking inside me personally, but I was just amazed at how caring these people are . . . and that's not the end.

The girl, who obviously appreciated the comfort but who wanted to talk to just me (I was also touched by the fact that I was the person she came to), thanked them, but asked if she could talk with me privately. Immediately, without hesitation, everyone patted her on the back, stood up and walked away. No mutterings of “why does she want to talk to just him?” no sense at all of feeling left out, no sense of her not appreciating their comfort, they just all complied with her request and left. Again, maybe this doesn't seem like anything special, but it just really struck me as amazing that these people surrounded her with so much love and comfort and everything and weren't offended or put out in the least by her asking them to leave. I guess it just really hit something in me, I don't know . . . I was just amazed by it.

And even after that, after they'd all left, after she'd finished talking to me and was getting ready to go on, one of the people that had left when she asked them to came up to me and asked if she was okay. He didn't ask what had been wrong, just if she was okay. The whole thing just struck me as . . . well, I've been using the word a lot, but it struck me as amazing.

So anyway, other than that the night passed without much incident. Which brings us to yesterday. Again, I shall skip ahead to rehearsal. And again, there isn't a whole lot to say. We ran through the show, and I think it went pretty well.

After running the show, when everyone was going home, Steve and Larry selected a few people to do a special re-enactment scene (basically, there's a long monologue, so they wanted something happening other than just talk). I was chosen to be the guy who gets killed. So we were there another 20 minutes or so learning this and, in my case, getting killed many times.

Then we all went home. And I had an interesting experience at home. As I'm sure you all know, the sixth Harry Potter book came out recently. I was reading it. I started it on Tuesday, I think, after finishing The Princess Bride. It's easy reading, and it's good, so I was moving through it pretty quickly. Last night, however, I reached a very exciting part and decided “Well, I'll read for a little before I go to bed.” This was about 1:30 AM (I had been doing some other stuff since rehearsal). So I got in bed to read. Next thing I know, it's 5 AM and I'm finished the book, having read at least 150 pages in the one sitting. I laughed at myself, then went to bed. The book was really good, but also very sad . . . saddest ending by far to a HP book.

So today I got up really late and have been wasting time since. And now I write on my blog (well, okay, actually in Word, but for my blog). And now it is time for comments:

Rachael 1 and 2: Well, I'll have you know, I typed it on Word, and Word has a very cool thing that counts the words for you, so I didn't actually go through and count. Even I'm not that stupid. And as for the Canada thing, here's my answer: Canada has cleaner air as a result of less pollutants from cars and such because there's not too many people there. As a result of this, not as many people breathe in bad things that cause disease, therefore there aren't as many serious cases, therefore healthcare costs are lower. Happy?
And I purposefully didn't respond to the Pollyanna & Jimmy thing, because I didn't want to offend you, but since you brought it up, I thought that it was pretty darn obvious from the original book that they were going to get married later on.
As for the make-up hall water . . . again, no offense, but I've been in quite a few more shows than you, and I am perfectly confident that the water there is healthy. I have replaced it myself several times in the past. Happy?

David: What Rachael said . . . you can get a detailed account a few posts down.

Cormack: Yep. Reminds me of something that happened earlier: Stephen: “I'm scared of what you mean by a super-long post . . .” Rae: “Just know that you can count it as your summer reading for this year.”

Rachael 3 and 4 (mainly 3): Well, here's my answer to your accusations: I sometimes purposefully make myself appear to not know all, because people sometimes get freaked out by it. So I'll pretend not to know something to make myself more like you poor pathetic mortal beings.

(Final count: Pages: 6; Words: 3041)

NOTE: my next post will probably be on Sunday, covering tonight's rehearsal, Saturday's rehearsal, opening, the after-opening party, and Sunday's show.

Well, I promised a long post, and you got it.

Okay, well, I'm back now, officially not ticked off at my blog anymore. Of course, by now I probably forget everything that happened, but hey. That means more free time for all of you, right?

Okay, so I left off two Sundays ago, at the time of my update. I don't think anything major happened for the rest of that day, although I probably advanced in Tales of Symphonia some.

On Monday, we had Dance, and I know I was there, but the only thing I remember is being told that we were going to be doing those evil traveling timesteps really fast in our routine . . . ugh. After Dance, I think I was just online for a while, and playing ToS for most of the day. Also, since we were going on vacation the next day, Mom called Coventry (the “pet resort” where our dog was to stay). She discovered that, hey, Jersey was behind on his shots, and couldn't be boarded until he was caught up. So that meant that our departure on Tuesday was delayed until we got all this taken care of.

Naturally, Mom called Banfield (our vet) immediately to try to get Jersey an appointment immediately, but discovered that we were unable to take him in until 2:00 on Tuesday.

So we were all kind of bummed about that, and then rehearsal happened. I got my schedule out when I was writing the post that got deleted, so you don't have to wait any before I figure out what happened. We were running act two that night (which was July 25, so that you know I'm not talking about this week). It was the second time we'd run act two while I was there, and thus the second time I got to throw shoes at Nick and Megan. Which was made even better by the evil genius known as Melody. I'm standing up in my little loft place, prepping for the scene and listening to Megan and Nick singing their song, when who should be coming up my ladder but Melody herself. I gave her a somewhat bewildered look, as if to say “What the heck are you doing??” She shoved something into my hand and said “Throw these!” and then hurried back down the ladder. I looked at the shoes I was now holding in my hand, and I started cracking up, and I'm kind of surprised no one heard it. In any case, The song ended, and I stepped out onto the spot where I was throwing shoes from and said my line about them shutting up. I then pulled my head back into “my house,” and they finished their little thing that gets me even more upset. I take a step out onto the loft. I let the first shoe fly. A silent pause. Steve starts laughing. Megan starts laughing. Pretty soon everyone was laughing, except for Nick, because he had the next line. He said it, I threw the second shoe. Nick picked it up, and everyone started laughing again.

“Ha . . .now I . . . have . . . a . . . new pair.” He says, holding up the ballet shoes I've just thrown at him.

Probably, you didn't find that funny at all. But it was hilarious. Even Steve thought so (Steve is the director, if you've forgotten). After the run-through, we were sitting in the seats discussing shoes. The costumer said “Any questions about shoes?” Melody raised her hand, clutching the ballet shoes. “Can I wear these?” Steve replied, “No, because Mark is going to throw them.” Which of course got everyone laughing again. *sigh* Good times.

Now. On to Tuesday. Tuesday dawned with the bright promise of going on vacation. However, there was also the grim prospect of taking Jersey to the vet. Why was this a grim prospect? Let's examine what his chart says: “Jersey Harbison: CAUTION CAUTION CAUTION MUZZLE MUZZLE MUZZLE BE CAREFUL.” “Muzzle” is written three times because he has a nasty habit of taking muzzles off, so they have to get three ready.

Anyway, we got there, and he had his shots and stuff, which for some reason took half an hour, and put us behind schedule. Then we took him to the Coventry Pet Resort, where he greeted the lady with a “Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.” And had “caution” written on his chart. But we left him there. Perhaps, if I feel like it, we'll return to him at random intervals throughout this entry, and I'll make up fictional stories about what's happening. But probably not.

After we'd dropped him off, we finally, at around 3:15, began our trip down to Newport Beach and the Hyatt Hotel. (Isn't that such a cool name? They Hyatt Hotel . . . Wayne would love it.) It was a shorter trip than we anticipated, and we made it there by around 4:00. So after checking in and such (and a very humorous experience that was, as you shall see), it was 4:30. Ah, but I'm getting ahead of the story . . .

We got to the Hyatt (after much argument between Mom and Dad as to whether we were heading the right way), and were greeted by a valet. We aren't used to staying in fancy hotels, so from the start we were totally out of place. The valet told us to stop, and we got out. He said “Valet or Self-park?” Dad, having as I said no experience with such things, replied “Uhh . . . self-park.” He expected this to mean that we would park the car ourselves. So we get out, stretch, put our luggage on one of those cart thingies, and all of a sudden the valet is driving off with our car. Now, since Dad said Self-Park, we had no idea what was going on. (As it turned out, he was just moving it so other cars could get through. But we didn't know that.) So we stood there bewildered for a moment, then decided to check in. Which went, amazingly enough, somewhat smoothly. By this time the valet had returned our car, so Dad went to park it, and Mom and I went to find out room. Another hotel working pushed our cart for us, and eventually ended up leading us. (Mom: “Uhh . . .” Guy: “I was wondering if you knew where you were going . . . this way.”)

He lead us past the first of the Hyatt's three pools, which was heated and also in the same area as a shuffleboard court and two ping-pong tables. We continued past the soda and ice machines, and he told us of a secret passage behind them leading to the lobby. Then we caught sight of the second pool, also heated but without the frills of the other pool. As it turned out, this pool was about 20 feet from our door. Which meant we could almost literally roll out of bed and into to pool. Which rocked.

So then I went back to the lobby and got Dad, and brought him back to our room (after a bit of a misadventure in which I forgot our room number and was hopelessly wandering around when Mom opened the door). Once he got there, it was, as I said, about 4:30. Too early for dinner, but too close to dinner time to do a whole lot. So we decided to take a walk around the grounds, and we set a tee time for Wednesday at the Chip and Putt Golf Course.

This walk took us about a half an hour, and so at 5:00 we decided that we were all moderately hungry, and so we decided to go out to dinner. “Hey,” we said, “How hard can it be to find a restaurant?” Pretty hard, apparently. We drove around for at least 45 minutes, and ended up at the Fashion Island mall, which was (humiliatingly) about 2 minutes from the hotel. We drove around in there for a while, after my declining to eat at “Ray's Hawaiian Fusion.” Finally we saw Flemings, a Steak house, and so we parked at went in to eat, all starved at this point.

Since it was a steak house, I was expecting an Outback-y type of restaurant. Nothing could've been further from the truth. Well, I suppose if I'd been expecting McDonald's, that would've been a bit further. But I digress. Anyway, it turned out not to be just a steak house, but a steak and wine house. So there were people there in suits (we were in shorts and T-shirts, but they let us in anyway), and it was dark and had a very rich, elegant, sophisticated ambience. But that all was forgotten when we saw the menu.

It was one of those places where nothing comes with anything else. So if you wanted a salad, you bought your entrée and a salad, and whatever side dish you wanted. So that alone would've been expensive. But add to that the fact that the cheapest steak was like 20 bucks, and the most expensive one 39 bucks.

Our tip was $25. Our final bill (including the tip) was $150. But man, was it good. Best Caesar Salad I've ever had. Best Pork Chop (didn't feel like steak) I've ever had. Superb Baked Potato.

So after dinner we walked around in the mall for a while, and Dad and I bought sunglasses, and I realized that I'm already on Page 3 in Word, and am only on last Tuesday.

Anyway, after the mall we went back to the Hyatt and swam for a while, then watched TV for a while, then went to bed. Wednesday the 26 was our only full day there, so we decided to milk it for all it was worth and do some serious relaxing. We went out to breakfast at Coco's, then went to Albertson's to get stuff for lunch. Mom got drinks while Dad and I walked across the parking lot to a deli, where we got subs. An interesting experience. It was an Italian sub place, but it was run by a Chinese guy. So it was somewhat difficult to get subs. Guy: “Swalmipepprohnki?” Dad: “Yeah.”

When we came out and met up with Mom at the car, she asked what we had gotten. Dad: “No idea.” In the end, it was Salami and Pepperoni with lettuce and tomato and mayo, and was actually really good.

Upon getting back to the hotel, we decided to spend the day out by the pool, either in it or reading by it. I read quite a bit of The Princess Bride, which was a really good book, which was written by S. Morgenstern and abbreviated by William Goldman. The movie was better, but the book was a bit more interesting (the Pit of Despair plays a bigger role, and is much cooler). After lunch I went swimming for a while, then Dad and I played ping-pong (Final scores: Dad 21, Mark 6; Dad 21, Mark 11; Dad 21, Mark 15). Then at 4:00, we headed out to the gold course while Mom went back into our room to read some more.

If you aren't familiar with Chip and Putt golf, it's basically like real golf only much shorter (holes from 50-100 yards), and you only need a Putter and a Chipping Wedge. This particular course also had only 9 holes, not the traditional 18.

It was a lot of fun. The highlight of the vacation. Not surprisingly, I was awful, but so was Dad, and we didn't keep score so it didn't FEEL like we were doing awful. My best shot came on Hole 2, when I hit the ball off of the tee and onto the green about two yards from the hole. This was in front of Mom, too, which was very cool. I about 10-putted, but hitting the first shot was fun. In the end, we skipped hole 8 because we lost like 4 balls there, so we just moved on to the last hole, where Dad almost killed himself by hitting the ball off the tee, into a tree, and right back nearly into his head.

So after that we went out to dinner, which wasn't as much an adventure because we just went to Fashion Island's food court. They had a Philly grill there. Dad asked the guy if it was really Philly Cheesesteaks, and the guy's answer was, simply put, “no.” (We're from Philly, if you didn't know, so we knew what real cheesesteaks are.) There was one cheesesteak there . . . the Southpaw, I think it was called . . . but it was a cheesesteak, using Cheese Whiz as cheese. Which is like the most pathetic thing ever. Dad and I got Rocky Balboas, which were basically just regular cheesesteaks. Mom got some gross pasta thing with Shrimp and some other gross stuff I can't remember.

After dinner, Mom wanted to walk around, so me and Dad took our places at a nice place with fancy chairs and read. Actually, before that, I accompanied Mom to the Apple Store where we bought . . . COMPUTER SPEAKERS!!!! YAY!!!!!!! The difference is incredible . . . it's so much better sounding it's hard to believe. We also got a cool pilot headset thingy, which some of you have experienced me using. We got this stuff because I'm taking online courses for school next year, so we needed this stuff (seriously, it was actually required, I didn't just use it as an excuse) and DSL, which is allegedly coming.

So after that I did sit down and read for about an hour, which ended up including my favorite part of the book. Then we went back to the room, and Mom and Dad read, and I played Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, then we all went to bed.

On Thursday, we had to check out at 12 noon, so we got up early and Dad and I we golfing again, which was pretty much the same as Wednesday, only we played the 8th hole this time, and I actually hit my best shot on it. Then we went back to the room, and swam for a short time, then checked out and headed home. We reached home at about 1:30 or so, and went to Mimi's for lunch. Then we crashed for the rest of the day and Friday, as well. We had decided that we were going to be out of communication with the outside world (save lifehouse) for those two days.

Note, however, the “save lifehouse” in parentheses. I had rehearsals on Thursday and Friday night.

Thursday. Larry was there, choreographing some stuff we hadn't finished yet, then we ran Act 2. Actually, the choreography took longer than expected, so we didn't make it all the way through. But it was all right. (Nothing interesting really happened.)

On Friday, we had a mini vocal rehearsal, then started at the top of the show and didn't make it quite to the end of Act 2. But I discovered that on Tuesday night, when I wasn't there, Larry had totally changed the opening scene, so I felt like a total idiot. Thank the Lord for people like Melody and Jeremy who were looking out for me and telling me what had been changed. So in the end it turned out all right, although I was in the front for one part, so there was no one to tell me that I was doing it wrong, and I was frozen and everyone else was dancing . . . that was unpleasant. Mercifully, it was easy, so now I know it and look like I wasn't missing.

Then came Saturday. Since AJ had ditched us to go to a Caedmon's Call concert while we were in Newport, we decided to go to Long Beach and take him along. So on Saturday morning we all piled into the car and drove up to Fullerton to pick him up and see his apartment. That was an adventure in itself. First, we got off the freeway, and Mom says “Okay, now turn right and it's right there.” So Dad turns right and we drive for about 5 minutes until the road dead ends. So Mom has to call AJ and find out where we went wrong. Which, it turns out, was the right turn. Had we turned left, it would indeed have been right there. So finally we found the apartment complex, and parked. AJ had told us earlier that his room was number 508 (cue laughing from those who can already predict what's coming). So we go in and march right up to room number 508 and knock on the door. No answer. Since we had just talked to AJ, we didn't know how this could be. So we knocked again. No answer.

After knocking maybe four or five times, Mom finally called AJ and said “We're standing at your door knocking, but no one's answering.” We could hear AJ talking, saying “Well I don't see you at the door. . .” So then we realize the truth. It isn't room number 508. AJ just happens to not know his own address, so we went to the wrong room, and so where we were actually supposed to be was 507, the room just downstairs. *giant sigh*

So we were there for a little while, AJ and Doug showed us around and we met Jake, and discovered that much of their furniture was taken from the garbage. Which of course didn't go over too well with Mom. She prescribed Lysol.

After all of this, we finally just took AJ and went to Long Beach. Our original plan was to go to the Aquarium of the Pacific, but we decided to do that on Sunday instead, and so we went on a boat tour of Long Beach Harbor when we got there, after eating (and spending half an hour finding a parking space).

The tour was cool, we got to see all kinds of interesting things, from the Queen Mary to THUMB Island. It would've been great had it not been for what happened immediately before it. We boarded the boat, and every minute or so for at least 20 minutes, someone would call out “This is the LAST CALL to get tickets for the tour!” Then, a minute later, “This is the LAST CALL to get your tickets!” Finally, however, the person shut up and we went on the cruise which was cool, as I said.

After the cruise we walked around for a while, and just missed a band playing Beatles songs. There really wasn't a whole lot of interesting stuff (although I saw a leprechaun hat that I almost got for Doug Miller . . . which probably only Megan will find funny, if even her). Then we went and checked into our hotel, and were going to go swimming, but there were between 20 and 40 Asian people in the pool playing water polo or volleyball or something. So we decided not to go swimming just then.

We watched TV for a bit, and walked around some more (desperately trying to find some stores, but failing). Then AJ and I did some walking on Treadmills, then we went to Islands for dinner, which was very good. AJ and I also played Ghost for a long time while waiting, I won about 3 rounds. Rounds, not games. As in, AJ got about 3 letters over the course of about 45 minutes.

Then we went back to the hotel and showed Dad Legendary Frog's The Matrix has You. We also showed him some Homestar Runner stuff, but Dad didn't seem to like it too much. Then we slept.

In the morning, we went to the Aquarium (we never did get around to swimming). It was very cool, except for the creepy Jellyfish. My two greatest fears are spiders and jellyfish. Just thought you should know that to understand why I didn't like the jellyfish too much.

We saw some cool fish, though, and AJ took lots of pictures, although since there was lots of glass I don't know how many of them turned out well. The sharks were cool. But the whole thing is kind of hard to describe. So either ask AJ to see the pictures, or ask me to show them to you once I talk to AJ and remember to get them onto our computer.

After the Aquarium, I think we just ate lunch and went back to Fullerton, and dropped AJ off, then went home and crashed and wasted the rest of the day.

Then, come the next day, a horrible, terrifying thing happened. Yes. Heck week had begun. (For those of you not familiar with Lifehouse, that's the Lifehouse name for “Tech Week,” the last week before the show opens).

I'd be more than happy to tell you about Heck week, but this post is already too long, and it's almost 5, so I pretty much have to eat and go to rehearsal. So tomorrow I shall continue this post with Monday, and cover up to tomorrow. Deal? Good.

Comments:
NOTE: Since there are so many comments to cover, I may be skipping some that I think are either answered by other comments or repeating another one. Just so you know.
COMMENTS ON “…KEEP DOING THAT SPOON THING.”
Stephen: Well, sorry I ignored you, but it isn't my fault that I'm already writing my next post by the time you posted your comment . . .

David: lol . . . I'd love to see which princess Sarah is. I'll have to give it to her, if Megan ever finishes it.

Rachael: Firstly, why should I not bug you about not being at dance, when everyone bugged me about it? Huh?? Give me ONE good reason. Hmmmm? I'll be waiting . . . (and the water in the Makeup hall is filtered and perfectly sanitary, thank you very much).

Megan: Good. Hopefully it'll be done now, a week later . . .

Rachael again: Okay, I was tired, give me a break. Plus, I've been reading Rae's stuff too much (“yeah, that perdy bore me to death”) :P

COMMENTS ON “SHORTEST POST EVER BY ME”
Stephen and Rae: Well, you can now see for yourself.

COMMENTS ON “WELL, HERE IT IS”
Rachael: A) There's no way to program it that way, no, and B) Take it up with Mrs. Perry.

AJ, Rae, Stephen: Yeah, I did this one on word, thanks for the suggestion : )

Eleanor: lol . . . yeah, that just might work. Too bad it's too late now. Well I'll remember that for the future. And thank your for the compliment about the headset . . . although I'm rather surprised no one has ever done it in your presence before . . . I'm happy I could introduce you to this incredible concept.

(Note: Final count: Pages: 7, Words: 3859)