Beauty and the Heat
*Rachel voice* Nobody LOVES me! *sniff sniff* A whole two weeks with only two comments from one person . . . well, at least I have Rae . . . drat the rest of you. You’d better comment THIS time, or I’ll start quoting cheesy X-Men lines at you unceasingly. And believe me, you don’t want that.
ANYWAY . . . so the past two weeks and this week so far have been crazily exciting. On Sunday night we rehearsed again, as those of you who read it would have gathered from my last post. I don’t recall Sunday being TOO terrible, but it was still ridiculously hot.
Then we had rehearsal on Monday, when we finally had the right lighting (well . . . theoretically, anyway) and makeup. But, I’ll let you in on a little secret . . . *whisper* The entire week, I never wore any makeup! Not a bit! And nobody cared! It made me very happy.
The biggest thing I remember from Monday is that the lighting, as they say, SUCKED miserably. Which was distressing to those of us with scene changes. It’s harder than it looks to run up a four-foot platform, place a giant dome on a table (in the dark), then run down the four-foot platform while three people in giant costumes are coming up it . . . all in about four seconds. And of course Wayne, being Wayne, yells out to me and Sarah, “That’s gonna have to be quicker! You have to get it done before the lights come up!” Not realizing that the lights barely even went out . . . *SIGH* Alas.
But then on Tuesday, the public dress rehearsal, they changed it, so not only was the lighting much better, but I didn’t even have to do the scene change anymore *rejoice rejoice* So that was cool.
Tuesday was mildly depressing at the beginning . . . it was the first time I’d ever performed in front of such a huge crowd, so I was starting to get majorly excited, and I got quite a rush from the applause after “Belle.” And then Wayne comes back stage and says, “Alright, reset yourselves, we’re starting the show over.” *cue “GLOOM” appearing above my head* It kind of broke the spell for a while . . . until Gaston, where of course the applause was simply deafening.
The dress rehearsal went marvelously after that, and so we got Wednesday off. Oh, and did I mention that it was ridiculously hot again on Tuesday night? My gosh . . .
But then Wednesday, things really got interesting. I woke up with a bit of a fever, a sore throat, a clogged-up nose, and a cough. Joy. The first time I get to perform in front of an audience of like 6,000, and I of course magically get sick right in the dead of summer that week.
To make matters worse, Wednesday was the only day for a really long time that we’d be able to go to the DMV and get my Learner’s Permit. So I had to sit, sick, in the DMV for an hour and then take a test. I was pleasantly surprised that it was only an hour, but still. It was dismal. And I passed, so I now have my Permit . . . although I can’t use it until I take the first day of Driver’s Training, which probably won’t be until next Friday or so at the earliest. But oh well.
Thursday, I was feeling a little better, but my throat was still dismally sore. Which wasn’t good, because Beauty and the Beast is a musical. Thursday’s show, despite my condition, went brilliantly . . . and, although we didn’t know it at the time, would be the only show that wasn’t fraught with peril . . . (and there, dear brother, is some better foreshadowing for you)
The show went well, but it was still REALLY hot . . . REALLY hot. I think it was around 108° when we started. Great fun.
Friday. Ohhhhh, accursed Friday. It was (I think) 111° at 8, and something happened that has (as far as I know) never before happened at the Bowl: the dimmer switch overheated and actually had to turn off to avoid exploding. As a result of this, for those of you who (like me) have no idea what a dimmer switch is, none of the lights were automated anymore, and had to be operated manually. They also had two positions: “on” and “off.” They couldn’t be gradually brought up or gradually fade out. As a result of THIS, the show was delayed.
As 8:15 came and went, 8:25 came and went, 8:30 came and went, the cast and the audience grew more and more apprehensive. Wayne told us later that they came “within an eyelash” of calling the show, and he was walking up to the stage to inform the audience as best he could about what was going on. As he passed by the grassy area, he heard a little girl say to her mother anxiously, “. . . but they ARE going to perform tonight, right, mommy?” This, he said, melted his ice-cold heart (okay, the “ice-cold” part was me), and he decided that, gosh darnit, we were going to HAVE this show, if we could use only the spotlights to light everything.
And so we did. We had a bit more lighting than that, but it, as they say, SUCKED majorly. As the show went on, things cooled down a bit (the sun going down and the influence of coolant such as CO2), so they added more lights, and by the end we were back to the same as always. But for a while it was miserably lighted and it took the sheer genius of Dustin’s brilliant stein-dance to keep the audience cheering. Well, that and Megan yelling “YEAH!!!” at the top of her lungs after every scene.
Then came Saturday. Saturday was a big day for me, because not only were Mom and Dad coming, but AJ and Rae were coming down from Fullerton and Stephen was coming from Hisperia to see it. I woke up and felt miraculously better, with very little trace of my sickness remaining. Which was cool.
Then I heard it — thunder. I looked outside, and it was cloudy and gloomy. Wayne had told us weeks ago that it has never, in thirty years, rained on a Bowl production. I was afraid that this would be the exception.
When we got to the Bowl and had the cast meeting, Wayne said, “I’m fully expecting a hurricane tonight, folks. I woke up this morning thinking, ‘Well, we had the overheat last night, what could possibly happen?’” (And so that my dear mother/teacher won’t chastise me for my ignorance . . .) The man had, apparently, not done his research on the weather. If he had, he would have realized that there ARE no hurricanes in California, and that we are inland far enough that we probably wouldn’t have had to worry about it anyway.
In the end, it didn’t rain, but the wind was a’blowin’ somethin’ fierce. And yet, even with the breeze-that-was-a-wind, it was STILL around 110°. I was with my parents in the audience before the show and AJ called, and one of the first things he said to me was, “It shouldn’t be allowed to get this hot. Seriously, like, there should be a law. This is ridiculous.”
Someone’s (I can’t remember who) comment on the problems we’d been having: “It’s a good thing this is the last show, ‘cause if we had another one, we’d probably summon the apocalypse or something . . .”
The show went very well despite the wind and heat, however, so it was cool. And afterwards, we had a cast party type’a thing which was attended by AJ, Rae, Stephen, and David (as well as the cast, of course). They fed us pizza, there were emotional speeches, an emotional song, and the claiming of steins by the cast members as souvenirs.
Afterwards, we came home and Stephen left, then I hung out with AJ and Rae in our family room for a while (and Jersey, although he was mostly with Rae). We talked about Pirates II, and Stargate, and (mostly) M. Night Shamylan (sp?). Then they left, and I went to bed.
The next day, I joined my family (minus AJ) in going to a much-needed vacation to Palm Desert. My friends (specifically David and Sarah) didn’t understand why in the world we would go to the desert in the middle of the summer. Which is understandable. But you know what? When we got there, and I got out of the car, I said honestly, “Ah, this isn’t too bad . . . no hotter than backstage.”
It was a wonderful vacation. We were in the Willow Creek Golf Resort, which had a little condo-thingy for us to stay in, a pool, and a free arcade. Most of the games in the arcade were pretty bad, although Dad and I played a golf one several times. I’m proud to say that I set a record on that game: I shot a +34, thus setting the record for the worst round ever played on that course.
So basically we spent the week reading (mostly by the pool), swimming, eating out, watching TV, and watching movies. As far as TV goes, I saw for the first time in my life Monty Python’s Flying Circus. I was a bit wary of it, afraid that it would lean more towards And Now For Something Completely Different than Monty Python and the Holy Grail in terms of the humor. It pleasantly surprised me by being very clean and absolutely hilarious. (Guy 1: “I’m here for flying lessons.” Guy 2: “Okay, okay. Get up on the desk.” *Guy 1 does so, obeying all instructions* “Now, flap your arms good and hard. Harder. HARDER! There you go. Now jump!!!" *Guy 1 does so, landing with a crash on the floor* “Wow . . . that was bloody rotten.”) The best part of it was that every time the characters walked by an animal, the camera would zoom in on the animal, and the animal would then explode. It would then (usually) go back to the characters.
As far as movies go, we saw Superman Returns in the theaters, and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, DareDevil, and Sky High in our room. (I won’t review Narnia or Sky High because I’ve seen them both before, but I recommend both of them. Sky High is a stupid comedy but it’s really funny, and Narnia you of course all know about.)
Superman Returns: One of the best superhero movies I’ve seen. The character of Superman isn’t as interesting or as cool as, say, Spiderman or the X-Men, and since he’s kind of all-powerful I could see it getting boring after a while. But the movie was very well-made, very well-directed, and VERY well-acted. If I may, for a moment, compare it to X-Men 3. My initial thought in this area is that Bryan Singer should’ve stayed and done X-3, because then it would’ve rocked. As good as it was, it could’ve been much better. The high point of X-3 for me was Ian McKellan (who I love . . . as an actor, not as a person) as Magneto, and I thought that for sure no villain in superhero movies could ever effectively counter that performance. I was wrong. Kevin Spacey was AWESOME as Lex Luthor, playing him as a fairly likeable guy for much of the movie, letting glimpses of cruelty shine through occasionally, and then at the climax became absolutely despicable. It was a glorious performance. Superman was pretty good, Lois Lane was okay, and I really liked the kid and Richard.
In short, go see it. It’s really good. But if you haven’t seen Pirates II, see that first.
DareDevil: This movie wasn’t nearly as good as Superman Returns. It required more of a suspension of belief than most superhero movies (because it didn’t explain how DareDevil acquired his powers, so I got the impression that he was just a normal guy with sharper hearing than most). As a result of what was mentioned in the parentheses, it seemed as though you had a regular guy — a regular BLIND guy — doing all these incredible things. The high point of this movie was Colin Farrell as Bullseye. Not on level with McKellan or Spacey, but still brilliant in its own way. Because the character of Bullseye obviously has issues, and Farrell played it that way. He didn’t play the character (as I think many would have) as a secure crazy assassin-man who had occasional outbursts of problems, but he played him as a sort of nervous, twitchy, wacko who also happened to be crazy good. (“DareDevil . . . he made me . . . *twitch twitch* MISS.”)
So the movie was a lot of fun, but not great as a movie. If you have the opportunity to watch it, I’d recommend it, but just remember that it’s just basically a mindless action movie. But it has Evanescence, so that’s gotta count for something.
As far as eating, we went to (if I can remember . . .):
~ Red Robin — in Redlands, before we left . . . great burgers
~ Pat & Oscars — AMAZING breadsticks, really spicy wings . . . there’s one in Redlands
~ Mimi’s Café — good bread, good burgers, good meatloaf, good pot roast
~ La Casuelas — Probably the best Mexican food I’ve ever had
~ California Pizza Kitchen — Better than Gourmet Pizza Shoppe, same type of place
~ The Elephant Bar — food from around the globe . . . the burger I had was good
~ The Olive Garden — great Italian food, though their breadsticks are inferior to P&O
~ The Cheesecake Factory — save room for dessert, period
~ IHOP — great omelets
As far as reading, I finished Eragon, got about a quarter of the way through Eldest, read the first few chapters of Theater and Incarnation, and read the entire Essential X-Men: Volume 1.
I’m currently reading X-Men Volume 2, and I feel that there’s a good chance I’ll become mildly obsessed with X-Men. So be prepared for random references to it whenever you’re around me.
We also did some shopping (mostly Mom), and I got an awesome dolphin statue and a fish cup to add to my collection of fishies.
On Sunday, we came home. I just laid around for the rest of the day (after picking up Jersey). On Monday, I was settling in for some serious time-wasting, maybe even some blog-updating.
But then I got a phone call from Tracy. “Hey,” she said, “Are we picking you up for camp today, or do you have a ride?” My response: “Uhhhhhhhh . . . camp?”
She was referring, of course, to the Lifehouse Musical Theater Camp, which I had agreed months ago to be a counselor for. I had forgotten about it, and even having forgotten about it I thought it began next Tuesday. It turns out that this is not the case.
So I’ve spent the bulk of the afternoon of the past two days doing that. MTCs are alternately fun and infuriating. It’s kind of cool to have 30 kids watching you to figure out what they’re supposed to do, and to have stuff demonstrated for them, but it’s also really annoying having to deal with 39 screaming kids for three hours. Especially when one of them absolutely refuses to obey . . .
The most fun thing we’ve done so far (for me, at least), was this: Didi wanted to play a theater game, and she called the counselors together to demonstrate it. The game was entitled “improv.” Basically, we were supposed to improvise a scene, having been given a fairy tale to choose a scene from.
Our (the counselors’) fairy tale was Cinderella. Being the only guy, I was (of course) the Prince. Dimyana was the Queen, Rachael was Cinderella, Tina and Bethanne were stepsisters, and Erin was the stepmother. It was a lot of fun. It actually turned out pretty well, although I utterly failed to waltz (which was not surprising to me).
Then we had the kids do it, in groups of five or so with a counselor in each. I was with a group of five doing The Three Little Pigs. You’d be surprised how hard it can be . . . think about it. Who’s the fifth character in The Three Little Pigs? There’s only four . . . we ended up having a narrator, but it didn’t go so well . . . it was going okay (although there were several long pauses), but then our third little pig said to the wolf, “Okay, come on in.” It’s rare that I honestly want to slap my forehead, but I came darn close to actually doing it there.
The only other thing that’s happened was last night, when Sarah came over. We just hung out, watched Wolf’s Rain and FullMetal Alchemist (which was . . . different), and then I introduced her to MST3K, which she seemed to enjoy thoroughly.
Other than that, nothing to report. *there is a spurt of flame and the smell of brimstone, and Mark is . . . elsewhere . . .*
Comments:
Rae: Heh . . . yeah, Shel rocks . . . that must be interesting . . . and obviously, I’ve already come to your blog.
Freakin’ COMMENT this time, people!
ANYWAY . . . so the past two weeks and this week so far have been crazily exciting. On Sunday night we rehearsed again, as those of you who read it would have gathered from my last post. I don’t recall Sunday being TOO terrible, but it was still ridiculously hot.
Then we had rehearsal on Monday, when we finally had the right lighting (well . . . theoretically, anyway) and makeup. But, I’ll let you in on a little secret . . . *whisper* The entire week, I never wore any makeup! Not a bit! And nobody cared! It made me very happy.
The biggest thing I remember from Monday is that the lighting, as they say, SUCKED miserably. Which was distressing to those of us with scene changes. It’s harder than it looks to run up a four-foot platform, place a giant dome on a table (in the dark), then run down the four-foot platform while three people in giant costumes are coming up it . . . all in about four seconds. And of course Wayne, being Wayne, yells out to me and Sarah, “That’s gonna have to be quicker! You have to get it done before the lights come up!” Not realizing that the lights barely even went out . . . *SIGH* Alas.
But then on Tuesday, the public dress rehearsal, they changed it, so not only was the lighting much better, but I didn’t even have to do the scene change anymore *rejoice rejoice* So that was cool.
Tuesday was mildly depressing at the beginning . . . it was the first time I’d ever performed in front of such a huge crowd, so I was starting to get majorly excited, and I got quite a rush from the applause after “Belle.” And then Wayne comes back stage and says, “Alright, reset yourselves, we’re starting the show over.” *cue “GLOOM” appearing above my head* It kind of broke the spell for a while . . . until Gaston, where of course the applause was simply deafening.
The dress rehearsal went marvelously after that, and so we got Wednesday off. Oh, and did I mention that it was ridiculously hot again on Tuesday night? My gosh . . .
But then Wednesday, things really got interesting. I woke up with a bit of a fever, a sore throat, a clogged-up nose, and a cough. Joy. The first time I get to perform in front of an audience of like 6,000, and I of course magically get sick right in the dead of summer that week.
To make matters worse, Wednesday was the only day for a really long time that we’d be able to go to the DMV and get my Learner’s Permit. So I had to sit, sick, in the DMV for an hour and then take a test. I was pleasantly surprised that it was only an hour, but still. It was dismal. And I passed, so I now have my Permit . . . although I can’t use it until I take the first day of Driver’s Training, which probably won’t be until next Friday or so at the earliest. But oh well.
Thursday, I was feeling a little better, but my throat was still dismally sore. Which wasn’t good, because Beauty and the Beast is a musical. Thursday’s show, despite my condition, went brilliantly . . . and, although we didn’t know it at the time, would be the only show that wasn’t fraught with peril . . . (and there, dear brother, is some better foreshadowing for you)
The show went well, but it was still REALLY hot . . . REALLY hot. I think it was around 108° when we started. Great fun.
Friday. Ohhhhh, accursed Friday. It was (I think) 111° at 8, and something happened that has (as far as I know) never before happened at the Bowl: the dimmer switch overheated and actually had to turn off to avoid exploding. As a result of this, for those of you who (like me) have no idea what a dimmer switch is, none of the lights were automated anymore, and had to be operated manually. They also had two positions: “on” and “off.” They couldn’t be gradually brought up or gradually fade out. As a result of THIS, the show was delayed.
As 8:15 came and went, 8:25 came and went, 8:30 came and went, the cast and the audience grew more and more apprehensive. Wayne told us later that they came “within an eyelash” of calling the show, and he was walking up to the stage to inform the audience as best he could about what was going on. As he passed by the grassy area, he heard a little girl say to her mother anxiously, “. . . but they ARE going to perform tonight, right, mommy?” This, he said, melted his ice-cold heart (okay, the “ice-cold” part was me), and he decided that, gosh darnit, we were going to HAVE this show, if we could use only the spotlights to light everything.
And so we did. We had a bit more lighting than that, but it, as they say, SUCKED majorly. As the show went on, things cooled down a bit (the sun going down and the influence of coolant such as CO2), so they added more lights, and by the end we were back to the same as always. But for a while it was miserably lighted and it took the sheer genius of Dustin’s brilliant stein-dance to keep the audience cheering. Well, that and Megan yelling “YEAH!!!” at the top of her lungs after every scene.
Then came Saturday. Saturday was a big day for me, because not only were Mom and Dad coming, but AJ and Rae were coming down from Fullerton and Stephen was coming from Hisperia to see it. I woke up and felt miraculously better, with very little trace of my sickness remaining. Which was cool.
Then I heard it — thunder. I looked outside, and it was cloudy and gloomy. Wayne had told us weeks ago that it has never, in thirty years, rained on a Bowl production. I was afraid that this would be the exception.
When we got to the Bowl and had the cast meeting, Wayne said, “I’m fully expecting a hurricane tonight, folks. I woke up this morning thinking, ‘Well, we had the overheat last night, what could possibly happen?’” (And so that my dear mother/teacher won’t chastise me for my ignorance . . .) The man had, apparently, not done his research on the weather. If he had, he would have realized that there ARE no hurricanes in California, and that we are inland far enough that we probably wouldn’t have had to worry about it anyway.
In the end, it didn’t rain, but the wind was a’blowin’ somethin’ fierce. And yet, even with the breeze-that-was-a-wind, it was STILL around 110°. I was with my parents in the audience before the show and AJ called, and one of the first things he said to me was, “It shouldn’t be allowed to get this hot. Seriously, like, there should be a law. This is ridiculous.”
Someone’s (I can’t remember who) comment on the problems we’d been having: “It’s a good thing this is the last show, ‘cause if we had another one, we’d probably summon the apocalypse or something . . .”
The show went very well despite the wind and heat, however, so it was cool. And afterwards, we had a cast party type’a thing which was attended by AJ, Rae, Stephen, and David (as well as the cast, of course). They fed us pizza, there were emotional speeches, an emotional song, and the claiming of steins by the cast members as souvenirs.
Afterwards, we came home and Stephen left, then I hung out with AJ and Rae in our family room for a while (and Jersey, although he was mostly with Rae). We talked about Pirates II, and Stargate, and (mostly) M. Night Shamylan (sp?). Then they left, and I went to bed.
The next day, I joined my family (minus AJ) in going to a much-needed vacation to Palm Desert. My friends (specifically David and Sarah) didn’t understand why in the world we would go to the desert in the middle of the summer. Which is understandable. But you know what? When we got there, and I got out of the car, I said honestly, “Ah, this isn’t too bad . . . no hotter than backstage.”
It was a wonderful vacation. We were in the Willow Creek Golf Resort, which had a little condo-thingy for us to stay in, a pool, and a free arcade. Most of the games in the arcade were pretty bad, although Dad and I played a golf one several times. I’m proud to say that I set a record on that game: I shot a +34, thus setting the record for the worst round ever played on that course.
So basically we spent the week reading (mostly by the pool), swimming, eating out, watching TV, and watching movies. As far as TV goes, I saw for the first time in my life Monty Python’s Flying Circus. I was a bit wary of it, afraid that it would lean more towards And Now For Something Completely Different than Monty Python and the Holy Grail in terms of the humor. It pleasantly surprised me by being very clean and absolutely hilarious. (Guy 1: “I’m here for flying lessons.” Guy 2: “Okay, okay. Get up on the desk.” *Guy 1 does so, obeying all instructions* “Now, flap your arms good and hard. Harder. HARDER! There you go. Now jump!!!" *Guy 1 does so, landing with a crash on the floor* “Wow . . . that was bloody rotten.”) The best part of it was that every time the characters walked by an animal, the camera would zoom in on the animal, and the animal would then explode. It would then (usually) go back to the characters.
As far as movies go, we saw Superman Returns in the theaters, and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, DareDevil, and Sky High in our room. (I won’t review Narnia or Sky High because I’ve seen them both before, but I recommend both of them. Sky High is a stupid comedy but it’s really funny, and Narnia you of course all know about.)
Superman Returns: One of the best superhero movies I’ve seen. The character of Superman isn’t as interesting or as cool as, say, Spiderman or the X-Men, and since he’s kind of all-powerful I could see it getting boring after a while. But the movie was very well-made, very well-directed, and VERY well-acted. If I may, for a moment, compare it to X-Men 3. My initial thought in this area is that Bryan Singer should’ve stayed and done X-3, because then it would’ve rocked. As good as it was, it could’ve been much better. The high point of X-3 for me was Ian McKellan (who I love . . . as an actor, not as a person) as Magneto, and I thought that for sure no villain in superhero movies could ever effectively counter that performance. I was wrong. Kevin Spacey was AWESOME as Lex Luthor, playing him as a fairly likeable guy for much of the movie, letting glimpses of cruelty shine through occasionally, and then at the climax became absolutely despicable. It was a glorious performance. Superman was pretty good, Lois Lane was okay, and I really liked the kid and Richard.
In short, go see it. It’s really good. But if you haven’t seen Pirates II, see that first.
DareDevil: This movie wasn’t nearly as good as Superman Returns. It required more of a suspension of belief than most superhero movies (because it didn’t explain how DareDevil acquired his powers, so I got the impression that he was just a normal guy with sharper hearing than most). As a result of what was mentioned in the parentheses, it seemed as though you had a regular guy — a regular BLIND guy — doing all these incredible things. The high point of this movie was Colin Farrell as Bullseye. Not on level with McKellan or Spacey, but still brilliant in its own way. Because the character of Bullseye obviously has issues, and Farrell played it that way. He didn’t play the character (as I think many would have) as a secure crazy assassin-man who had occasional outbursts of problems, but he played him as a sort of nervous, twitchy, wacko who also happened to be crazy good. (“DareDevil . . . he made me . . . *twitch twitch* MISS.”)
So the movie was a lot of fun, but not great as a movie. If you have the opportunity to watch it, I’d recommend it, but just remember that it’s just basically a mindless action movie. But it has Evanescence, so that’s gotta count for something.
As far as eating, we went to (if I can remember . . .):
~ Red Robin — in Redlands, before we left . . . great burgers
~ Pat & Oscars — AMAZING breadsticks, really spicy wings . . . there’s one in Redlands
~ Mimi’s Café — good bread, good burgers, good meatloaf, good pot roast
~ La Casuelas — Probably the best Mexican food I’ve ever had
~ California Pizza Kitchen — Better than Gourmet Pizza Shoppe, same type of place
~ The Elephant Bar — food from around the globe . . . the burger I had was good
~ The Olive Garden — great Italian food, though their breadsticks are inferior to P&O
~ The Cheesecake Factory — save room for dessert, period
~ IHOP — great omelets
As far as reading, I finished Eragon, got about a quarter of the way through Eldest, read the first few chapters of Theater and Incarnation, and read the entire Essential X-Men: Volume 1.
I’m currently reading X-Men Volume 2, and I feel that there’s a good chance I’ll become mildly obsessed with X-Men. So be prepared for random references to it whenever you’re around me.
We also did some shopping (mostly Mom), and I got an awesome dolphin statue and a fish cup to add to my collection of fishies.
On Sunday, we came home. I just laid around for the rest of the day (after picking up Jersey). On Monday, I was settling in for some serious time-wasting, maybe even some blog-updating.
But then I got a phone call from Tracy. “Hey,” she said, “Are we picking you up for camp today, or do you have a ride?” My response: “Uhhhhhhhh . . . camp?”
She was referring, of course, to the Lifehouse Musical Theater Camp, which I had agreed months ago to be a counselor for. I had forgotten about it, and even having forgotten about it I thought it began next Tuesday. It turns out that this is not the case.
So I’ve spent the bulk of the afternoon of the past two days doing that. MTCs are alternately fun and infuriating. It’s kind of cool to have 30 kids watching you to figure out what they’re supposed to do, and to have stuff demonstrated for them, but it’s also really annoying having to deal with 39 screaming kids for three hours. Especially when one of them absolutely refuses to obey . . .
The most fun thing we’ve done so far (for me, at least), was this: Didi wanted to play a theater game, and she called the counselors together to demonstrate it. The game was entitled “improv.” Basically, we were supposed to improvise a scene, having been given a fairy tale to choose a scene from.
Our (the counselors’) fairy tale was Cinderella. Being the only guy, I was (of course) the Prince. Dimyana was the Queen, Rachael was Cinderella, Tina and Bethanne were stepsisters, and Erin was the stepmother. It was a lot of fun. It actually turned out pretty well, although I utterly failed to waltz (which was not surprising to me).
Then we had the kids do it, in groups of five or so with a counselor in each. I was with a group of five doing The Three Little Pigs. You’d be surprised how hard it can be . . . think about it. Who’s the fifth character in The Three Little Pigs? There’s only four . . . we ended up having a narrator, but it didn’t go so well . . . it was going okay (although there were several long pauses), but then our third little pig said to the wolf, “Okay, come on in.” It’s rare that I honestly want to slap my forehead, but I came darn close to actually doing it there.
The only other thing that’s happened was last night, when Sarah came over. We just hung out, watched Wolf’s Rain and FullMetal Alchemist (which was . . . different), and then I introduced her to MST3K, which she seemed to enjoy thoroughly.
Other than that, nothing to report. *there is a spurt of flame and the smell of brimstone, and Mark is . . . elsewhere . . .*
Comments:
Rae: Heh . . . yeah, Shel rocks . . . that must be interesting . . . and obviously, I’ve already come to your blog.
Freakin’ COMMENT this time, people!
posted by Darth_Harbison at 9:21 PM
6 Comments:
:::::COMMENTING:::::
1) Heh. I don't know if Wayne's heart is ICE-cold... (c'mon, somebody's gotta stand up for the guy).
2) The correct spelling is "Shyamalan."
3) I'm impressed you thought so highly of Superman Returns. Most of the reviews I heard were negative. But I've been going to a glut of movies recently (though still not Pirates, as of yet), so maybe I'll get around to it.
4) So... those MTCs need any new songs by brilliant up-and-coming composers looking for money? :D
Argh! Forgot my signature!
AJ
<><
The show was fun. I'd comment more, but I need to finish catching up from 1.5 weeks with no internet before passing out...
HAZZAH! I made it into the first paragraph! yay me!
I read all of it but the movie reviews since I have yet to see them... and I don't like reviews previous to viewing... something like a... preview?
Isn't the magic of uncanny unfortunate events beautiful? I'm glad... I mean... overjoyed that you felt better by the last show! You forgot to mention the trees dive-bombing people prior to the show.
I have to admit... sitting there in heat, never knowing that a wooden bench could get that warm... I secretly wanted it to rain... but then I pictured Belle getting poured on, and although it was slightly humorus I didn't want that to happen. So in the end I am ___ it didn't.
On second thought, I think I would have wanted to witness a huricane in redlands.
FYI "and now for something completly different" is from flying circus. Was it on TV? If you ever want to see a particular skit, my dad has the entire collection. I highly suggest "cheese shop", "lumber jack song" and "the spanish inquisition"
well I'm off to bed!
I apologize for all the misspelled words... I have a monster headache and don't feel up to double checking. Maybe AJ will do it for me for fun.
WHOA! The blogs gotta pic! Marks goin all out! :D
Well, I thought that rolling on the floor, laughing my swords off was fairly clever and individualized. But I guess not...
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