A 101 Update

According to my spreadsheet, I am 4.87% complete my 101 goals in 4.80% of the elapsed time. Given that I've already botched my facebook goal, and really don't feel that bad about it, I'm never going to make 100% exactly, but still feels like I'm at least sort of on track.  And a lot of my goals are summer based, so we'll see.

Round 1

This weekend past Amanda and I tackled our first "home improvement" project.  By weekend's end I had been to Home Despot three times.  I had used both of my drills, two wrenches, six screwdrivers, two tape measures, a laser level, and a stud finder.  I had once again discovered what a questionable carpenter I am.  And yet I think it turned out okay.

 

I guess I should have taken a "before" shot.  That hutch was white, not centered on the wall, and had some hideous old knobs.  It was not made with love.

A Weekend in the Theatre

This weekend past I had a little theatre blitz of my own (as I can't afford the real "theatre blitz" and I'm not important enough to get comped, and all my hookups have left the industry).  Friday evening I went down to Inglewood to catch a spirited production of Richard II.  I had been debating all day between a couple shows, I picked Richard II because, seriously, how often does one of the "lesser" Shakespeares get produced in Cow-Town?  It had that kind of old-school community production feel - actors in a wide range of talent levels, a kind of surreal mess of classical and modern costumes and references, and a huge cast.  It also had video clips that were suprisingly well executed given the obvious shoe-string budget, and overall I was fairly satisfied with the show - I pretty much always understood what they were saying and what was going on and I didn't go in with any idea of the plot.

The next afternoon Lady Rose and I went to the pay-what-you-can matinee of "Doubt" at Theatre Calgary.  We blundered into some awesome seats and counted ourselves lucky.  The show-thats-just-been-made-into-a-movie thing led to a lot of buzz about this show, but I have to admit I didn't think that much of it.  Don't get me wrong, I thought the cast did a great job, and the set was pretty amazing, but for all the hype I thought the script was a little weak.  Not, perhaps, the best pick for TC's first one-act in a long time.  It felt like it should have been the first act of a two act play, where the real meat, digging down to the truth of the characters, and facing the real depth of the issue got done in the second act.  As it was, everyone got off a little easy as far as I was concerned, with pretty minor consequences.  Not that you go to TC for heavy psychological drama in general, but when you decide to take the plunge and face the dark secrets of the catholic priesthood you better damn well deliver.  Nuff said.

That evening, we went back to our roots.  A brand new community theatre company doing their first show in the Pumphouse.  David Ives.  Still weirds me out a little since Hidden Insanity's first show was at the Pumphouse and featured a script by David Ives - one of the plays from the set presented this evening.  Perhaps its just the distance of a few years, but I really noticed how painfully shallow Ives is in this production.  The actors did a good job with what they had - nice timing, clear characterizations, good energy and tight physicality.  But its all just hyperintellectual sketch comedy and at that point I'd rather see original work than reruns of the now somewhat dated Ives material.  Still it brought me back to a happy time in my life.  In the last scene one characters prop cokebottle glasses broke on a particularly resounding death-of-trotsky and the audience couldn't help but laugh along as the cast valiantly tried to hold it together to finish the scene.  These little disasters, it seems to me, are as vital as any success in making that show memorable for the company and driving them back to the theatre for years to come.  If you doubt it, ask me about the "fringe flu" sometime.

Daisy Owl

I think I've been there.

The Big Heist

On Sunday I witnessed a crime. Sort of.

We had just walked out of the Best Buy, still on the sidewalk outside, when the door alarm buzzed and a skinny white dude blazed past us with two PS3s under his arms, the boxes still clad in those wired-to-the-outside-of-the-box security tag things. He dove into a shitty looking car which then streaked away into the parking lot while him and his companions in the car hooted victoriously. We looked back at the Best Buy but there was no response.

So this is the state of criminal mastermindery these days, wait until the door is open, then grab what you want and run. I wonder if they even bothered to scout the store ahead of time? When I worked at a chapters I did keep an eye out for suspicious individuals but we had security in the store so I didn't really worry about it much. I certainly wouldn't have chased a thief out into the parking lot. And I guess neither did the Best Buy door person, who had wished us a good day just moments earlier when we walked through those same doors. What is the function of that dude if its not security? Did that make my Best Buy experience any less latex glove?

I was further disgusted by the thought that since loser boy was stealing two PS3s, it wasn't even a case of stealing it in order to play with it, at least one if not both units would likely be on Craigslist by the end of the day. Forget planning your heist, you don't even need a fence anymore.

But then what really brought me low was to realize that I was the one who was in a position to see what happened, but it didn't even occur to me to look at their liscence plate before they were gone. I was busy looking at the Best Buy to see what their response would be. So I'm just another warm body in the herd of slack-jawed do-nothings that feed these parasites with our inaction. And you just know if the Best Buy had tighter security I would grumble about the inconvenience. I want big wide automatic doors so I can stroll in without being delayed, and the Best Buy is so dependent on my good will that they have to tolerate the odd grab and dash just to keep me pacified. And they just roll the cost of those losses onto the sticker prices and so really it costs them nothing as long as us cattle keep buying their "best".