Ain’t technology grand. Today, I looked at my stats again. I found somebody has accessed this lonely little blog on their blackberry. I’ve seen people stopping by that use Windows, Macs, Linux boxes and other PC systems, but I don’t recall seeing anything from a phone. Amazing. You can now read complete drivel, on the go, with your phone. (yes, I do think this blog is complete drivel, I’m only emptying my brain, I try to keep the good stuff in.)

So for my information, what type of device do you use to blog or read them? I’ve only used my windows laptop. Multiple Web browsers, but I keep trying new things. Really I just want to know who used the blackberry? Curiouser and curiouser.

Last night was the theatre’s (check out the new and improved website) annual awards night and it was filled with comedy, excitement, and a few tears.  The group lost a great asset this year and there was a fine tribute given in her honor by the interim president… very few dry eyes remained after that.  Conveniently, our fantastic host chose this moment to have an intermission. I think it was a fantastic touch to honor a lady who along with her husband have added so much to our group.

One of the highlights of the evening was a skit showcasing some of the characters from the past season as well as inserting themes from a 2002 production of A Christmas Carol which I was not a part of but have heard a great deal about.  This was also written by the talented MC who also provided a series of Jib-Jab videos on the projection screen for even more hilarity.

Another bit of humor was provided by the adorable couple who entertained with a parody of the song “One Day More” from the musical Les Miserables.

Overall, each of the awards were very well received.  However, I must say that i am biased when it comes to the special awards given out.  Justj and Carol each continue to go totally above and beyond.  J has been our unofficial videographer for several productions and single-handedly repaired the large, leaky roof which was so prominent during our summer production.

I would say that Carol is one of several ladies who act as honorary mothers to the group.  I had the profound honor of working with her backstage during The Nerd in September.  She was a great help in bringing the food used on stage, cleaning up cottage cheese, and helping keep a certain young boy under control backstage.  Both of these honorees exemplify the hard work and dedication necessary to keep a small community theatre afloat.

This brings me to daughter of one of these award winners (and she knows this is coming).  The director of the upcoming production of Over the Tavern is looking for someone to fill the role of the 16 year-old daughter, Annie.  Megan is about to turn 21; however, those around her and especially myself (as she will attest) feel that she would be wonderfully cast.  She agreed to read the script but made sure to voice her concern that she has at least one evening class during the week.  I proceeded to remind her that she bailed on our trip to Florida in October but the play is right in town and I’m sure the director would work around her if she fit the part.  Megan has constantly said that she has wanted to get back on stage and this would be a fine opportunity 😉  Ok… i think that is enough prodding.  Anyone else care to join in?  Maybe this will encourage her to comment.

Finally, the evening wrapped up after a group of us again congregated at the host’s home.  I have not laughed and had such a good time in awhile.  i also got to see many friends I have not seen in quite a while including a former co-worker whom I have not seen since last New Years.

An annual event for our little community theater is our award banquet. Fun time with good food, fun skits, and of course, awards for the actors and shows.

It is always fun to be involved in a show. At the time it is a lot of work and it takes up quite a bit of time. But when the show is over, there is always a let down of sorts. For me, this award show brings back all the good memories of the shows, but the time and work involved is a lot less (unless you are setting up the show).

I won’t go into all the awards won. My memory of who won what and what show it was for, and how to spell the names is lacking at this hour of the evening. Even with that, I would ask them first before putting their names in my blog.

Me, I wasn’t in any shows this year. I didn’t design any sets. I wasn’t a director on any show. I wasn’t expecting to win any award. I did!! Shock of shocks. It was an award that is decided on by the president of the playhouse trusties. Big honor I will have to say.

Winning this award got me thinking. I have strange thoughts all the time, so this was no exception. After the show was over, everyone was congratulating everyone with an award. The common phrase heard was: “You deserved it.” Of course most if not all were well meant. But in common, polite society would we ever say anything else? Would you say: ‘Why the heck did they give that award to you? So and so did much better, they should have won.” (of course behind the scenes, they are saying those words to so and so.) No, polite society will generally refrain from those remarks, until enough booze is swallowed. 😉 Polite society will refrain from making comments other than the ‘congratulations’ if they feel the award was not deserved, or they won’t say anything.

Why did I think of this, well I got a large number of those “You deserved it.” comments. Being the humble person I am (no that isn’t meant to be a joke), I was caught off guard again. Then again, thanks to the training my wife gave me, I can read body language very well (my secret is out now, oops). The language of the bodies, and the words said were matching up. The people saying the words, meant the words. Wow again, I was humbled.

Over the years people have done more for the theater than I’ve ever done. This year there were people that did more than me. But the big thing for me is this one little fact. The theater has done more for me than I’ve ever done for the theater. Little things here and there, now and then, have kept this old soul in good health. The people in the theater were there at my darkest moments. Outside of my daughters and others in my family, the theater was an anchor to sanity. For me, that was better than any award they can give. I cannot say thank you enough for that.

All this from one little theater group. Wonderful therapy for a grieving widower, and good shows too. Is it any wonder I keep going back?

There is a new Batman animated series on Cartoon Network.  Batman: The Brave and the Bold takes its name from a series of comic books that featured various heroes teaming up to battle evilness.  The first two episodes featured Batsy meeting Aquaman and Red Tornado, respectably.  The animated series itself feels closer to the 60s television series or the Superfriends cartoons of the 70s-80s.  A much lighter tone than the recent movies but kind of fun.  The tone is also exemplified by the casting of Diedrich Bader (Oswald of The Drew Carey Show and Jethro from The Beverly Hillbillies movie are among his credits) as Bruce Wayne/The Masked Manhunter.

The obligatory holiday episode features Red Tornado searching for inner Christmas spirit.  I for one was not familiar with the character until his few appearances on Justice League Unlimited.  In this episode, we learn that the hero is a robot who poses as a professor of archeology when not fighting crime.  He informs an inquisitive student that the subject is mostly books and very little field work (hmm.. sound familiar?)  After rescuing a pair of siblings from an out of control delivery van, Tornado is wished a Merry Christmas.  However, being a robot, the greeting does not compute.

The evil villain named Fun Haus (definitely a second string Scrooge-inspired baddie) arrives on the scene with his arsenal of destruction causing toys, flying saucers, and hundreds of giant Santas which cause pillage and plunder and wreak havoc on Gotham City causing a most un-Holy, non-Silent Night.  Red Tornado joins the cowled hero to bring down the no-Good Nick.  In the end, the robot does experience a tingle of sorts.

The episode also reflects upon the World’s Greatest Detective’s own melancholy during the holidays.  How one unappreciated gift led to the most life-altering event in the young life of the millionaire heir.  Not sure if the details were invented for the show, but as I have previously noted, backstories are contantly changed to either reflect the culture of the time or to aid in story telling.  I like the new series as it brings back memories of past incarnations even if it is geared toward a younger audience not yet old enough to experience the dark atmosphere of the movies (although…).

This morning while wiping the last of sandman’s dust out of my eyes, I turned on the local news.  One of the segments was a live broadcast from the area Children’s Wonderland attraction.  This followed a description of last minute book ideas for the last-minute shopper.   Well, the remote interviewer decided to get into the act complete with rim shots from a snare drum.  Try these titles:

• Danger by Luke Out
• Robots by Anne Droid
• You’ve Got to be Kidding by Shirley U. Jest

Thank goodness the large display of decorations and exhibits was much more entertaining than the puns and took me back to the number of times the family ventured to the city to walk through the wonderland.

My weather day turned into a day to install my new router. This now allows all the computers in the house to access the cell modem at the same time. Yes, this does slow down from the direct connect speed just a bit, but if only one person is on, I didn’t notice any difference. But I will be able to work, my daughter will be able to do homework, and I’ll finally be able to get to the internet from my linux box.

I also found out that I can IM multiple daughters at once. Could be fun if they are ever online at the same time.

Things just moved fast when I was able to get my high speed cell modem. And the speeds are getting faster every day, well almost every day.

Then on to a party with the people I work with. It was a fun time.

A few weeks ago, our kids were chronically misbehaving.  Our oldest, a tween, was sassing back and saying “no” too much, her younger sister (the “spirited” one) was throwing lots of tantrums and trying to cause trouble with her sisters, and our youngest daughter was constantly upset and insecure about the continuous chaos in the house.  Desperate times call for desperate measures, so one day while the oldest kids were at school and the younger ones were sleeping, my husband took off work for an afternoon of “toy culling”.  This is a drastic discipline measure we only use in emergency situations.  It is time-consuming and intensive labor for the parents, but well worth it, at least in our house.

Toy culling consists of us going into the girls’ room (the three oldest girls share one big room, and our baby boy isn’t yet old enough to cause trouble) and taking out every toy.  We leave the tv, computer with educational games, books, and the clothes and board games in the closet.  Everything else goes – dressup clothes, doll clothes, dolls, stuffed animals, all the little miscellaneous toys that can really junk up a child’s room quickly, etc.  If you have lots of time, you can sort it all by what you want to keep and organize the rest, but we are very busy people and so we just took all their junk and put it in our son’s room for now.  He’s a baby who wakes in the night so he’s still in our room.  When it’s time to move him into his room, we’ll have to clean it out obviously, but for now it was a means to an end of the horrible behavior of the girls.  We leave the board games, and they know that they take one out and put it away when they’re done, just like the books that are left.  If the rules aren’t followed, anything that’s left on the floor in subsequent days gets culled.  You need to check their room everyday, and it’s imperitive that you follow through with rule-enforcing.  And for some reason, this process really works.  I don’t know what it is…  Perhaps a feng shui effect where the much more pleasant ambience of the room and the mucho extra space is what leads to the kids being in better moods and hence, less trouble and more obedient.  It could be the fact that there are less toys over which to fight.  Maybe they’re happier not having it constantly hanging over their heads that they’re going to have to clean their room.  But I don’t care what the reason is, the toy culling has worked wonderfully the 3-5 times we’ve had to set aside a chunk of time to do it.  My kids are now putting their dirty laundry in the hampers that are provided, and their trash is going into garbage cans.  Also, their room is staying clean, and I don’t have to worry about it staying that way because they don’t have anything with which to mess it up!  And, as the behavior improves, they can earn their toys back – you don’t have to spend money to get them any special reward PLUS the kids feel senses of accomplishment = WIN/WIN.  Toy culling proves that less is more, and it helps put a damper on the sense of entitlement that can cloud the good attitude of even a generally well-behaved child.

I think I first read about the method in a parenting column in the newspaper.  I’m not sure which expert gets the credit, but I do know that I highly recommend toy culling!  And oh yes, early December is a perfect time to do this – makes room for the burst of new things they might receive for the holidays!

I decided this morning to take a day off of work instead of trying to travel the snow and ice covered roads. I’m fairly certain that if I took it easy, I would have been able to make it to work, but it didn’t make sense to me to risk it.

My truck is covered with about 1/2 inch of ice and snow, mostly ice. This type of precipitation continues to fall even as I type this. I guess I’ll build a fire in a bit, sit back with a cup of coffee or cocoa and just relax.

Maybe time for a holiday movie or two. I do have a few versions of “A Christmas Carol” I could watch.

Perhaps the most enduring fixture in the world of Star Trek was Majel Barrett-Roddenberry.  She was in every incarnation of the universe.  She played the role of Number One in the original pilot entitled “The Cage.”  However, the role was scrapped when television censors first viewed the show as the role was too progressive for a woman (this was the mid 1960s after all).  When the series was relaunched, the wife of series creator Gene Roddenberry was given the part of Nurse Christene Chapel who had an unrequited attraction to a certain Vulcan first officer.  After the series ended, Mrs. Roddenberry would be heard in the animated series as Lt. M’ress as well as the voice of the computer in all future Star Trek series and later films including the new movie coming this summer.

However, my favorite role portrayed by the actress was as Lwaxana Troi who was the mother of Enterprise councellor Deanna Troi on Star Trek: The Next Generation.  Mrs. Troi would make periodic appearances not only to the Enterprise but also on space station Deep Space Nine.  Part of the fun of this character was her hilarious flirtatious advances toward Captain Jean-Luc Picard.  Unfortunately for the captain, Lwaxana is a full telepath able to read the thoughts of others.

On December 18, 2008 Mrs. Roddenberry lost her short battle with leukemia a disease I know all too well this year.  May the great bird of the galaxy watch over her and those she left behind.  Total coincidence that two postings in a row have a common theme.

It’s my favorite contemporary classic Christmas tune, yet I can’t find the original version that made me fall in love with the song, “Please Come Home for Christmas”.  I spent much of yesterday evening downloading different samples of the song; it seems every famous recording artist from the past few decades covered it.  The musical acts that were sampled were very diverse: Aaron Neville, Sawyer Brown, Bon Jovi, Vonda Sheperd, Gary Allan, the Drifters, Lonestar, Toby Keith…  Twenty renditions later and I still haven’t found the original version I heard – my favorite one to date.  I heard it in the 80’s or early 90’s, and it was the most popular version they would play all the time on the radio; country and easy listening / rock.  It’s sung by a male artist or group…  if anyone has any suggestions of who it might be, I might be up to fishing through a few more versions of the song.  That is, unless any of them are as bad as Toby Keith’s.  And this is coming from a country music fan!