Another weekend come and gone, but I got some stuff finished that has been on my list of things to do. Having a week filled up with theatre doesn't help you get much done at home.
I finally got the end doors for my cabinet finished. Well, sanded and installed, I still have to take them off and Urithane them. I have the center doors to do next and then the cabinet is fini!! WE got some new fish (but I think I've mentioned that already)and Darrell popped up to Sussex and got some coral frags from a guy we know up there. We also got a new beer fridge for downstairs. Greg Hemmings gave it to us, and it's an actual beer fridge like you would get from a bar, with the glass door, proper shelves, and light at the top. We should have lots of fun stocking and RESTOCKING it...hehehe.
We did our part for Earth Hour on Saturday. Darrell napped (which saved considerable energy hehehe) and I went downstairs to watch the fish and practice my guitar. It was extremely relaxing and I think I may have to incorporate it as a regular part of my routine.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Friday, March 28, 2008
Long long week
This has felt like a really really long week. The constant snowing doesn't help it go any faster either. I'd bitch about it, but Mother Nature doesn't have a complaints department. My internal clock is allout of whack out on this side of the Country. My body tells me that the end of March is spring, and this snow is really starting to wear on me, and make me depressed.
But if you want to talk about depressing.... I spent the last two days at Rogers in the controlroom, running the feed for the Tom Young Show. There's six hour of my life I'll never get back. It was a lot like being back in radio, and I remember quite well now, why I quit radio. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't that bad, it was just brainless button pushing. It would be nice, if someone would tell the men in the world, Canada especially, that Sports are not news. It is called the Afternoon New with Tom Young, not the entertainment file, or sports world, so it baffles me why he yapps on and on about baseball and hockey. Half an hour on the phone yesterday about baseball, and an entire hour today about the Toronto maple Leafs. Why I find the saddest part of it all is the Maple leafs discussion was actually sandwiched between interesting and evokative topics that deserved to be discussed. He had a guy on who wrote an article for report on Business, about Bottled water, and another guy talking about the use of water in the Alterta Oil sands operations. Two guests who could very easily have filled an hour with some phone in questions... but no. They did their half hour each one on one with him, and then it was on to the great "Distractor" Hockey. really that's what it is too, the Great Distractor, because if the intelligent, analitical people, I heard calling in talking about strategy, and trades like they actually meant something in the grand scheme of things, actually started consentrating on, and analizing things that matter; like how to improve their community, Province, Country... then the corporations and politicians wouldn't be getting away with half the crap they are getting away with. People would actually take a little action. Unfortunately we're all distracted by useless crap, like hockey, Canadian idol, facebook, etc etc etc.
I'm not sayig Hockey isn't a great time waster for those that enjoy wasting their time, but it isn't news. It is entertainment pure and simple, and doesn't deserve an hour on a "NEWS" show. If that's what passes for news, how about an hour about the Fiasco with the three directors of the Stratford Festival, or an hour about how Madonna has managed to maintain a career spanning Nearly three decades, and at 50 years old, somehow manages to remain relevant in a youth driven industry?
Okay, Now I have that off my chest, before I end my bitching and ranting let me add that Waterloo Street has a very bad traffic problem inthe form of a Tim Hortons Drivethrough. The city needs to force them to do something about it or shut it down.
Done ranting. Looking forward to a relaxing weekend at home, where I can finally get back to working on the finishing touches for my cabinet downstairs. I got the doors built, but haven't had a free moment to sand them or finish them, so fingers crossed they can be done this weekend so we can finally put a period on that portion of our reno and start the next phase.
But if you want to talk about depressing.... I spent the last two days at Rogers in the controlroom, running the feed for the Tom Young Show. There's six hour of my life I'll never get back. It was a lot like being back in radio, and I remember quite well now, why I quit radio. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't that bad, it was just brainless button pushing. It would be nice, if someone would tell the men in the world, Canada especially, that Sports are not news. It is called the Afternoon New with Tom Young, not the entertainment file, or sports world, so it baffles me why he yapps on and on about baseball and hockey. Half an hour on the phone yesterday about baseball, and an entire hour today about the Toronto maple Leafs. Why I find the saddest part of it all is the Maple leafs discussion was actually sandwiched between interesting and evokative topics that deserved to be discussed. He had a guy on who wrote an article for report on Business, about Bottled water, and another guy talking about the use of water in the Alterta Oil sands operations. Two guests who could very easily have filled an hour with some phone in questions... but no. They did their half hour each one on one with him, and then it was on to the great "Distractor" Hockey. really that's what it is too, the Great Distractor, because if the intelligent, analitical people, I heard calling in talking about strategy, and trades like they actually meant something in the grand scheme of things, actually started consentrating on, and analizing things that matter; like how to improve their community, Province, Country... then the corporations and politicians wouldn't be getting away with half the crap they are getting away with. People would actually take a little action. Unfortunately we're all distracted by useless crap, like hockey, Canadian idol, facebook, etc etc etc.
I'm not sayig Hockey isn't a great time waster for those that enjoy wasting their time, but it isn't news. It is entertainment pure and simple, and doesn't deserve an hour on a "NEWS" show. If that's what passes for news, how about an hour about the Fiasco with the three directors of the Stratford Festival, or an hour about how Madonna has managed to maintain a career spanning Nearly three decades, and at 50 years old, somehow manages to remain relevant in a youth driven industry?
Okay, Now I have that off my chest, before I end my bitching and ranting let me add that Waterloo Street has a very bad traffic problem inthe form of a Tim Hortons Drivethrough. The city needs to force them to do something about it or shut it down.
Done ranting. Looking forward to a relaxing weekend at home, where I can finally get back to working on the finishing touches for my cabinet downstairs. I got the doors built, but haven't had a free moment to sand them or finish them, so fingers crossed they can be done this weekend so we can finally put a period on that portion of our reno and start the next phase.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Saturday
I don't usually post on a Saturday, but I thought I would share the review of "Tuesdays with Morrie" from the Telegraph Journal Online. I am getting ready to head into town for today's matinee, and tonight's final performance....so if you haven't already seen it, make sure you don't miss out. Plus tonight is going to be the last ever cast party at the SJTC Loft, try and drop by if you can.
I bolded a section...because....How often does the sound guy get a shout out in a review?????
Here's the Review:
Well Taught Life Lessons
SAINT JOHN - There are many life lessons to be found in Tuesdays With Morrie. Actor Bob Doherty, who plays the title character in the Saint John Theatre Company's production of the play, said in an interview earlier this week that the one that resonates most strongly with him is Morrie's advice to forgive everyone everything.
"When you're where I am, it won't matter who is right," Morrie tells Mitch, his former student, from his deathbed.
It's appropriate Doherty chose this aphorism as his favourite of Morrie's many, considering the highly sympathetic performance he gave on opening night, Wednesday at the Imperial Theatre.
As Morrie Schwartz, a 70-something professor stricken with ALS or Lou Gehrig's Disease, Doherty exudes the loving benevolence and peaceful wisdom that so endeared Morrie to readers - and there are tens of millions of them - of Mitch Albom's best-selling memoir.
Doherty's Jewish New York accent is pitch-perfect, his comedic timing spot-on, his quips eliciting plenty of laughs from the audience made up mostly of local students Wednesday night.
It is a sentimental role, to be sure, one that could easily drown in its own bittersweetness, but Doherty nails it.
Unless you've been living in a cave, you likely know at least the broad strokes of Tuesdays With Morrie. First published in 1997, the book tells of the reunion between teacher and student 20 years after Morrie taught Mitch sociology at Brandeis University in Massachusetts. As so often happens, promises to stay in touch after graduation fell to the side as career and adult life intervened. By chance, Mitch rediscovers Morrie when his old professor has just months to live, and begins calling on him every Tuesday. These visits became their final class together. The subject: the meaning of life.
Jeff Smith is well-cast as Mitch in the SJTC production. Cocky, ambitious, work-obsessed, Smith is tasked with a character who is far less sympathetic than Morrie. A successful sports journalist who says things such as "You've got to hustle if you're going to stay on top," he is brisk and sarcastic, impatient with that "touchy-feely" stuff.
In contrast, when we first meet Morrie he is a healthy senior, an old man with lots of life and fun left in him as he gently soft-shoes it across the stage, unabashedly dancing by himself, mixing goofy jazz hands with a solo fox trot.
Doherty does a great job charting Morrie's decline, as the degenerative disease takes away his ability to dance, to walk and, eventually, even to breathe. The momentum is never broken with no intermission in the 90-minute play.
When Morrie receives the prognosis that he has just months to live, he quickly decides to embrace the time he has left, to observe his death and share what he sees.
"I'm not quite alive, not quite dead. I'm in between," he tells Mitch. "I'm going to take that journey into the great beyond. People want to know what they should pack."
One particularly well done scene smartly illustrates Morrie's increasing influence on Mitch and the frantic pace of the young sportscaster's life. Busy reporting at Wimbledon, the sound of a tennis match bouncing around the theatre is joined by a ringing cellphone and Morrie's voice in his head, asking Mitch if he's happy, if he's living life as he should. The tempo grows frantic, the sounds cacophonous, and Mitch reaches his breaking point, shouting out.
The show's simple set - a backdrop of old leafy trees, an old leather recliner toward the front of the stage, a piano to the other side that Mitch plays a few times during the show - doesn't detract from what is essentially a character study that needs no embellishment.
Those of you who read - and loved - Tuesdays With Morrie will likely delight in the sharp dialogue of the stage adaptation and its fidelity to the memoir.
But even if, like Mitch, you don't have much time for that "touchy-feely stuff," the show is still a worthwhile outing if only for the chance to enjoy some great local acting. Who knows? You may even take away a life lesson of your own.
The Saint John Theatre Company's production of Tuesdays With Morrie opened Thursday at Saint John's Imperial Theatre and continues tonight at 8 p.m. and Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Tickets, $16, $24.50 and $27.50, are available at the Imperial Theatre Box Office or by calling 674-4100.
* Okay so it wasn't a direct mention of me as the sound guy...but it did mention the sound effects in "One Particularly well done scene".....which incidentally is a pretty hard scene to do, and we should have it perfect by Sunday.
I bolded a section...because....How often does the sound guy get a shout out in a review?????
Here's the Review:
Well Taught Life Lessons
SAINT JOHN - There are many life lessons to be found in Tuesdays With Morrie. Actor Bob Doherty, who plays the title character in the Saint John Theatre Company's production of the play, said in an interview earlier this week that the one that resonates most strongly with him is Morrie's advice to forgive everyone everything.
"When you're where I am, it won't matter who is right," Morrie tells Mitch, his former student, from his deathbed.
It's appropriate Doherty chose this aphorism as his favourite of Morrie's many, considering the highly sympathetic performance he gave on opening night, Wednesday at the Imperial Theatre.
As Morrie Schwartz, a 70-something professor stricken with ALS or Lou Gehrig's Disease, Doherty exudes the loving benevolence and peaceful wisdom that so endeared Morrie to readers - and there are tens of millions of them - of Mitch Albom's best-selling memoir.
Doherty's Jewish New York accent is pitch-perfect, his comedic timing spot-on, his quips eliciting plenty of laughs from the audience made up mostly of local students Wednesday night.
It is a sentimental role, to be sure, one that could easily drown in its own bittersweetness, but Doherty nails it.
Unless you've been living in a cave, you likely know at least the broad strokes of Tuesdays With Morrie. First published in 1997, the book tells of the reunion between teacher and student 20 years after Morrie taught Mitch sociology at Brandeis University in Massachusetts. As so often happens, promises to stay in touch after graduation fell to the side as career and adult life intervened. By chance, Mitch rediscovers Morrie when his old professor has just months to live, and begins calling on him every Tuesday. These visits became their final class together. The subject: the meaning of life.
Jeff Smith is well-cast as Mitch in the SJTC production. Cocky, ambitious, work-obsessed, Smith is tasked with a character who is far less sympathetic than Morrie. A successful sports journalist who says things such as "You've got to hustle if you're going to stay on top," he is brisk and sarcastic, impatient with that "touchy-feely" stuff.
In contrast, when we first meet Morrie he is a healthy senior, an old man with lots of life and fun left in him as he gently soft-shoes it across the stage, unabashedly dancing by himself, mixing goofy jazz hands with a solo fox trot.
Doherty does a great job charting Morrie's decline, as the degenerative disease takes away his ability to dance, to walk and, eventually, even to breathe. The momentum is never broken with no intermission in the 90-minute play.
When Morrie receives the prognosis that he has just months to live, he quickly decides to embrace the time he has left, to observe his death and share what he sees.
"I'm not quite alive, not quite dead. I'm in between," he tells Mitch. "I'm going to take that journey into the great beyond. People want to know what they should pack."
One particularly well done scene smartly illustrates Morrie's increasing influence on Mitch and the frantic pace of the young sportscaster's life. Busy reporting at Wimbledon, the sound of a tennis match bouncing around the theatre is joined by a ringing cellphone and Morrie's voice in his head, asking Mitch if he's happy, if he's living life as he should. The tempo grows frantic, the sounds cacophonous, and Mitch reaches his breaking point, shouting out.
The show's simple set - a backdrop of old leafy trees, an old leather recliner toward the front of the stage, a piano to the other side that Mitch plays a few times during the show - doesn't detract from what is essentially a character study that needs no embellishment.
Those of you who read - and loved - Tuesdays With Morrie will likely delight in the sharp dialogue of the stage adaptation and its fidelity to the memoir.
But even if, like Mitch, you don't have much time for that "touchy-feely stuff," the show is still a worthwhile outing if only for the chance to enjoy some great local acting. Who knows? You may even take away a life lesson of your own.
The Saint John Theatre Company's production of Tuesdays With Morrie opened Thursday at Saint John's Imperial Theatre and continues tonight at 8 p.m. and Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Tickets, $16, $24.50 and $27.50, are available at the Imperial Theatre Box Office or by calling 674-4100.
* Okay so it wasn't a direct mention of me as the sound guy...but it did mention the sound effects in "One Particularly well done scene".....which incidentally is a pretty hard scene to do, and we should have it perfect by Sunday.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Update
Not a lot going on, but lots going on...you know what a mean. Busy, busy, same old, same old.
I'm very nearly finished the doors for my cabinet, and will soon be able to move onto other things. Darrell was in Halifax for the weekend doing a video shoot with Greg and the guys. He brought back a bunch of corals from a guy selling off all his softies, so they are a nice additon to the tank. We have a J&L Fish order arriving on the plane tomorrow, so we'll finally have most of our fish... we are very close to putting a period on this whole project...yay!!
I have the week off from the school, so I can do sound for Tuesdays with Morrie at the Imperial. I still so very unprepared it scares me. Hopefully it will all come together at the cue to cue tonight.
We had a birthday party for Colin at Brian & Helen's yesterday afternoon. We spent the day doing crafts which was a lot of fun. We decorated picture frame with a variety of different fun items, I went completely overboard with sparkly things and feathers...it's very Dame Edna. Then I was off to the Theatre to do some recording with Richard for the show. Today I am still editing all that I recorded and it is 4:15 as I type...so time is ticking.
I saw a few Youtube videos that totally made me pee...they are so funny. I don't watch Jimmy Kimmel so I never saw the first two when they were actually played, and didn't really know the "Backstory" but it's all pretty self explanitory in the videos. The last one is Alanis Morrisette Making fun of Fergie....so bloody funny!!!!
Sarah Silverman & Matt Damon's gift to Jimmy Kimmel
Jimmy's response
Alanis Morrisette "My Humps"
I'm very nearly finished the doors for my cabinet, and will soon be able to move onto other things. Darrell was in Halifax for the weekend doing a video shoot with Greg and the guys. He brought back a bunch of corals from a guy selling off all his softies, so they are a nice additon to the tank. We have a J&L Fish order arriving on the plane tomorrow, so we'll finally have most of our fish... we are very close to putting a period on this whole project...yay!!
I have the week off from the school, so I can do sound for Tuesdays with Morrie at the Imperial. I still so very unprepared it scares me. Hopefully it will all come together at the cue to cue tonight.
We had a birthday party for Colin at Brian & Helen's yesterday afternoon. We spent the day doing crafts which was a lot of fun. We decorated picture frame with a variety of different fun items, I went completely overboard with sparkly things and feathers...it's very Dame Edna. Then I was off to the Theatre to do some recording with Richard for the show. Today I am still editing all that I recorded and it is 4:15 as I type...so time is ticking.
I saw a few Youtube videos that totally made me pee...they are so funny. I don't watch Jimmy Kimmel so I never saw the first two when they were actually played, and didn't really know the "Backstory" but it's all pretty self explanitory in the videos. The last one is Alanis Morrisette Making fun of Fergie....so bloody funny!!!!
Sarah Silverman & Matt Damon's gift to Jimmy Kimmel
Jimmy's response
Alanis Morrisette "My Humps"
Monday, March 10, 2008
Need an 8th Day
I don't seem to have any time to just "be" anymore. We've been slammed at work with projects and it's only going to get busier in the coming months, three nights a week I teach, and then every spare minute I can find I am trying to finish up the build on my cabinet and get the rest of the renos done, not to mention we're about to bring Tuesdays with Morrie into the theatre so I will actually have to start working a lot harder on that than I have been.(since I haven't actually been doing much on it at all to date.)
I had someone drop by on the weekend to see our new aquarium setup and while we were sitting there looking at it, I realized I haven't spent too many minutes sitting down looking at it since getting it all set up, and I thought "What a waste to be working so hard and not actually take a few hours to enjoy the fruits of that labour." I managed to actually take an hour and just sit and watch the fish swim around. It's a very relaxing experience, because it requires quiet and stillness... I found it very theaputic.
It would be so cool if we could occasionally add an 8th day to the week. Nothing regular mind you, or we'd just fill that up too, but something that happens every couple months and you don't know it's coming until the news or the radio tells you it's about to happen. That would be cool.
I had someone drop by on the weekend to see our new aquarium setup and while we were sitting there looking at it, I realized I haven't spent too many minutes sitting down looking at it since getting it all set up, and I thought "What a waste to be working so hard and not actually take a few hours to enjoy the fruits of that labour." I managed to actually take an hour and just sit and watch the fish swim around. It's a very relaxing experience, because it requires quiet and stillness... I found it very theaputic.
It would be so cool if we could occasionally add an 8th day to the week. Nothing regular mind you, or we'd just fill that up too, but something that happens every couple months and you don't know it's coming until the news or the radio tells you it's about to happen. That would be cool.
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Finished...Mostly.
We are onthe verge of being completely finished our reno/upgrade....well the basement part of it at any rate. I got he canopies finished, and Darrell installed all the lighting, then we spent Saturday slowing moving all the rocks, fish and corals to their new nine foot long, 233 gallon, salt water home.
Behold...Before:
... After:
I don't want to come off like I'm blowing my own horn or anything, but these pictures really don't do the setup justice. It is quite spectacular to in person. I am actually quite shocked at just how grand it all seems, and I've been working on it since July. OMG I've been working on this since July.
I still need to build the doors for the cabinet, and trim out the room. Then I have to build a new canopy for our 77 gallon tank, and paint the upstairs. Then the 77 gallon has to be set back up and the snowflake eel and maroon clown(soon to be clowns) can be moved to their new homes. Then we can get on with our other plans outside of the aquarium hobby.
The picture set documenting the entire process to date can be found here:
Photo Set
Behold...Before:
... After:
I don't want to come off like I'm blowing my own horn or anything, but these pictures really don't do the setup justice. It is quite spectacular to in person. I am actually quite shocked at just how grand it all seems, and I've been working on it since July. OMG I've been working on this since July.
I still need to build the doors for the cabinet, and trim out the room. Then I have to build a new canopy for our 77 gallon tank, and paint the upstairs. Then the 77 gallon has to be set back up and the snowflake eel and maroon clown(soon to be clowns) can be moved to their new homes. Then we can get on with our other plans outside of the aquarium hobby.
The picture set documenting the entire process to date can be found here:
Photo Set
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