Remember that CNN.com article I wrote about the unusual names? The article spotlighted a little girl named Indiana Elizabeth Jones and her brother, Dow. Well, this post is not going to be about them.
Rather, it’s an excuse to post a cute photo of my 4-year-old daughter wearing an Indiana Jones-like costume. For the real buffs out there, I know it’s not exact, but it’s still cute…
Went to a show today. The WCCT put on their version of “Don’t Hug Me”. I can’t remember the last time I laughed so much and so hard. Our little theater knows how to put on a good comedy, and this show just hit the right cord for me. I don’t think there was a time during the show I was without a smile, and most of the time I was laughing.
Now most of my family and a lot of extended family was there. Three of 4 daughters, 1 son-in-law, 1 fiance, 2 grandparents, and my sister-in-law enjoyed the show. I was able to see friends before the show and during intermission. Fun time and a good show, good friends and family, can you ask for more?
After the show the family went to the local Pizza Hut and enjoyed more good times and food. We spent over an hour sharing Pizza, and family stories.
We then went to a Christmas Cantata that was being performed at my daughter’s church. I’m not the most religious person in the world, but I do enjoy watch my daughters sing. The youngest two daughters have a wonderful presence when they sing, and it all starts with a smile.
So my day was full of family, friends, fun and music. Not a bad way to end the weekend.
I am not a huge movie buff. Sure, I enjoy movies, but it is not my primary form of entertainment and a good 80% or more of movies I read about in the paper are just a big yippee in my book. That said, every once in a while a gem comes out that almost requires me to buy the DVD, er- if I actually bought DVDs (let’s just say I’m chea-, um… frugal and leave it at that 😛 ). The movie I’m referring to is titled August Rush. Released in 2007, it stars Freddie Highmore (Spiderwick Chronicles, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Finding Neverland) as a Evan Taylor, a musical super-prodigy who seemingly puts ordinary prodigies like Mozart to shame. Any instrument he picked up in this movie he was able to play just a short time later. He never saw musical notation before, yet started writing music while the girl who brought him in at one point was at school. Wait- why wasn’t Evan at school? Well, this is a key point of the story. He is a runaway orphan. Only he shouldn’t be an orphan. Conceived in a one night affair between two musicians (Keri Russell and Jonathan Rhys Meyers) his father never knew about him and his mother, through the machinations of her wealthy father, though he died at birth. Evan ran away to find his mother, who he believed he could find through the music he could hear in his mind. Not unlike a certain Charles Dickens tale, he finds himself in the big city of New York and meets a child street musician who eventually takes him in to meet the Fagin of this movie, Robin Williams as the Wizard, who quickly latches on to Evan as a means to make money once he becomes aware of Evan’s talent at playing the guitar in a .
Continuing the Oliver Twist Theme Evan soon finds himself under another roof, and a bed that clearly makes another connection to our 19th century story with a sign above it that says “God is Love.” Here his composing talent is now discovered by a minister who wastes no time getting him into Julliard where Evan composes a symphony. However, remember what happens to poor Oliver after he gets himself away from Fagin’s gang? Well, Evan is found by the Wizard, who claims to be Evan’s father and promptly removes him Julliard, though the symphony he composed is still set to be played in Central Park (I think that’s the park).
What about his parents? Well, neither of them found happiness and in fact quit their music shortly after their fling. Twelve years later they find themselves in separate parts of the country, neither place New York where Evan is. Meyers’s character gets an urge to find his lost love again, and after finding her phone number but not being able to get a hold of her, and going to her home where she is nowhere to be found, he tries New York since that’s where they first met. And where is she? Come on now, just one guess. That’s right, she went to New York too, but for a far more logical reason. Her dad finally ‘fessed up to what he did and she is searching for her child who of course had already run away. By the end of the movie it turned out Evan was right- through music, his music, he found his mother. Or rather, she found him. And she in turn was found by her ex at the same time. He must have been shocked to find out that he had a son (who he coincidentally had met just a short time earlier- see picture above- as he was playing with his guitar, having no idea just who he was talking to).
I guess I enjoyed this movie so much in part because of the ties to Oliver!, which was at one time my favorite musical. Plus, it deals with music which I understand, having been a musician of sorts since 5th grade. The road to their eventual but clearly obvious meeting kept me glued to the screen as well. The plotline was a little ridiculous at times- I mean, his gift is really a bit over the top, and neither the preacher nor the staff at Julliard called the police or child services after discovering him which would realistically set them up on some sort of criminal charges- but then they do call this movie an urban fairy tale so a little unrealism is expected. If you enjoy music, Oliver Twist, or stories of separated people finding each other, see this movie. If you don’t, then see it anyway. 🙂
You are all alone, and there is a light, from what looks like a campfire, in the distance….
That is how the evening started. As I expected, the group of theater regulars were up to the task of playing a character. In that there was never really a doubt in my mind. The problem for all came when the small polyhedrons were needed (variety of dice for those not in the know). The comments, “Do I use this? No, that one. This one? No the one just in front of that.” were in common usage the entire evening.
All of this is common when starting this type of game. There are 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 and 20 sided dice used in this game. Knowing how and when to use them is a bit of a learning curve. It seems that teenage boys and some young adults are much better at learning this, just like video games. 😉
Well, I think most of the group had fun. I certainly had fun. It has been than a few years since I ran any sort of game, and I certainly had fun doing it. Thinking on the fly, running people through a part of a world I created are enjoyable to me. But the complexity of the characters, and multiple dice rolling, sometimes slows down the game play. What to do, what to do?
Me, I started thinking of games with no dice at all. There are a few on the gaming market, but the character creation is just as complex if not more complex. How do you determine winners and losers of confrontations without randomizing effects of cards, spinners or dice… How complex do you make your rules?
Well, I’m thinking of just such a game. Role Playing for the actors in all of us, and no dice to confuse the situation. Designing it in my head as I write this. In few weeks, I will be looking for a group of volunteers to run through this game.
For those who want to know the setting. Think current time period, and ghost hunters…
Last night was my first foray into the world of role-playing games. It was really fun not knowing what you are doing at first but diving right in and going with it. Our leader (who instructed us and narrated the adventure as well as assumed a role… although he was limited to what he actually did) has been doing this for years although life has limited the amount he has been able to participate in groups. He even said that one game lasted from the time he was 18 until he was 25. NOW THAT IS A LONG GAME (not all at once, but still…).
The role I decided to tackle was a thief in the medieval time of the Dungeons and Dragons setting. I chose the name Zarf. The quest led the players on the search for an old man’s daughter. We eventually came to a large, battle-scarred castle and soon became separated. After climbing down a seemingly endless flight of stairs, my three companions (the strong Ivanhoe, the cleric Lothario (I think he was a cleric), and Faramir – the damsel’s intended) and I came to a pit. We discovered that the route we had taken was totally useless and we ended right back with the other players.
There were battles aplenty with goblins, hobgoblins, and wererats. Magic (of which I had none). Secret passages and lots of other exciting elements involved. Now if I could just learn to throw something more than a 1 on an icosahedron (my new 25-cent word for the day)… although I do recall throwing at least a 10 on a few occasions. But happily, we all survived the quest and rescued the fair maiden. Even if Lothario denied my gift (and they say there is no honor among thieves) of rocks for his sling (which eventually broke.. HA!) A great intro into what appears to be a fun world. I’m curious to actually see a centagon…
Ah… The Simpsons
I was given a challenge. To come up with an simple Dungeons and Dragons adventure that could be finished by novice players in one evening (around 2-3 hours).
There are a few ways to go about that.
1) Make it so simple, it will not give a good indication of how the game works
2) Make the area to be explored very small — again lose some of the way the game works
3) Heavy Non-Player (game master run) character guidance — See above.
4) Come up with something where the primary objective is straight forward, but allow some side paths that will allow players to make their own choice. But the path to the true objective is easily found if looked for. Do this to make sure as many aspects of game play are introduced. Fights, parleys, retreats, find paths, avoid pitfalls, ect.
And of course don’t start with, you all meet in a tavern…
Guess which one I chose?
To make it easier, I also generated some characters with survivable statistics. I know more people who dropped the game just because their character didn’t survive the first attack. No overpowering characters, but they aren’t slouches either. Given a good selection, they should survive the first adventure (unless they try to combat the dragon).
Those that decide the game is worth playing could continue with the characters they are given for many further games. Those who want to give up the game, can. If they don’t like the type of character they have, they can change after the first game.
It has been fun getting back into the swing of running even a game. I was hoping to run a tournament module for some more experienced players in the future, so this should give me a bit of practice to get back into the swing of things.
I do have a tournament module that I designed years and years ago for low level characters
, but that is/was an experience in survival. It ran under 3 hours most of the time, but it was because the characters were all killed. Survival to the furthest point in the game was the object. I was told is was a lot of fun for players used to running high level characters to step back and see how well they can survive with the low level again. All the playing experience, with a rookie character for backup…
The next adventure shouldn’t be an experience in survival, but it could turn out that way. Make an incorrect decision and oops.
Wow – what happened here? Due to a props department mix-up, an actor was doing a suicide scene with a real knife instead of a fake one. Luckily, he wasn’t killed, but this qualifies as a bit more than a simple mistake, wouldn’t you say? Perhaps I’ll think twice about offering to stage manage anything in the future – apparently there’s a lot at stake. And for you actors who read this, how much trust do you have in your props people? And how much will you trust them after reading something like this?
From Time.com
by Adam Smith
Try this for an Agatha Christie plotline: performing on stage inside Vienna’s Burgtheater, one of Europe’s oldest and grandest, an actor takes a knife to his throat in his character’s desperate attempt at suicide. As audience applause fills the opulent theater, blood pours from the actor’s neck. But something’s not right. Buckling and staggering his way off stage, the actor collapses to the floor. That’s because the knife, and the harm that it’s done, are both tragically real.
Unfortunately for Daniel Hoevels, a 30-year-old actor from Hamburg, those pages from a murder-mystery came to life last Saturday night during a performance at the Burgtheater of Mary Stuart, Friedrich Schiller’s play about the wretched life of Mary Queen of Scots. Rushed to the nearby Lorenz Bohler hospital having sliced through skin and fat tissue but thankfully not his main artery, Hoevels was fortunate to survive. “Just a little deeper,” said Wolfgang Lenz, a doctor who treated him, “and he would have been drowning in his own blood.”
The police investigation into the calamity points more to a foul-up than foul play. Viennese police say they’re not probing the possibility of attempted murder; press reports had speculated a “jealous rival” could have had a hand in Hoevels’ injury. Instead, investigators are focusing on possible negligence within the props department of Hoevels’ Thalia Theater ensemble. According to local media, the company picked up the knife in Vienna to replace one brought from their Hamburg base that was then found to be defective. One possibility: that props staff forgot to blunt that new blade, which, police say, still had the price tag on it.
Hoevels himself seems to have put the snafu behind him. “I am now absolutely fine again,” he told local media, “but I will always for the rest of my working life have a strange feeling about this scene.” After reprising the role Sunday, albeit with neck bandaged, Hoevels headed back to Hamburg Monday in preparation for his role in Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther. In that play, the long-suffering title character winds up shooting himself in the head. Someone might want to double-check the gun.
I’m not entirely sure if I have posted on this event that happened about 25 years ago, but it stands out as one of those unforgettable experiences that will stay with my family forever. It will definitely be passed on to at least the next generation. It just happened to come up at work today as we were unloading a truck, but it made the manager shake her head in disgust and hide. Ironically, right after relaying the tale, I pulled a case of cat litter off the track.
Anyway, for those not in the know, when I was younger I had a snow white cat named Snowball. It was my cat and I was in charge of feeding, cleaning the litter box, etc. I came across the kitten while outside playing and she came upon me and I had to go pet it. Then, she followed me home much to my mother’s chagrin… she wanted NO MORE CATS in the house. We had already had two that used all of their nine lives. One used to enjoy leaping into the washer and going for a spin; however, this one later tried to cross the street at the wrong time.
Snowball’s demise was far more gruesome. One summer evening, my siblings and I were home while the parents were away. My oldest brother was doing a load of laundry. Unbeknownst (says he) to him, the cat hopped into the dryer. The clothes must have smothered the pleas for help or else she was ko’d shortly after start up.
My parents arrived home early the next morning and immediately called the 4 of us downstairs. They had discovered the most awful smell anyone should ever have to experience of which we were about to be introduced. My mother, armed with a trash bag, rubber gloves, clothes pin over her nose, handkerchief over her mouth, and shovel, opened the dryer door and started scooping it out. This was after the idea of calling the fire department was abandoned. The entire bag of clothes, and remains was buried in the back yard. The next day, we went shopping for a new dryer. Years later, we still like to bring that skeleton out of the closet 😉
I just remembered what prompted the story. The truck driver used a power pallet jack to move the pallets around. Everytime he used it, it sounded like a dying cat and I mentioned that I know a thing or two about dying cats. My helper said that she knew the tale; however, the boss (who is the owner of two cats) did not. So surprised by that, I told her the macabre tragedy.
animals. Animals are my favorite things. If I’m bored – yeah, right, with 4 kids, when does that happen? Ok, if I were ever bored, my activity of choice would be to visit a zoo, wildlife park, pet store, or anyplace I could see animals. Without leaving the house, I can also research animals on the internet. One of my favorite animal sites is the University of Michigan’s Animal Diversity Web. It’s amazing how much they’ve changed the taxonomy (classification of animals) from when I first started doing research on the subject not more than 10 years ago, but it’s true – this field is one that’s ever-changing.
Every now and then, I think I’ll choose an animal to share on my blog. Today’s animal is the pangolin. What is a pangolin, you ask? Well, it’s a mammal, and it’s not a marsupial, a group which contains some of the lesser known species. See, in the classification of mammals, you begin by separating them into placental mammals (live birth) and marsupials (young live in the mother’s pouch – all but one type live in Australia). Of course, there is also a third category – egg-laying mammals, but we won’t go there because I don’t want to lose people’s interest by getting too complicated.
So anyway, the pangolin is a placental mammal, yet it’s scaly. The scales are actually made of a hair-like material, thereby preserving its status as mammal. Check this out – does this thing look prehistoric or what?
But they’re not prehistoric; they still exist today – I wonder how come I’ve never seen one at a zoo? I guess it’s because some animals do better in captivity than others, and I applaud the zoo community for recognizing this.
Interesting tidbits about pangolins, as stated on the Animal Diversity Web:
Pangolins are a small group (seven living species placed in one genus and one family, Manidae) of mammals that feed mostly on ants. They are found in the tropical regions of Africa and Asia. Pangolins are conspicuous and remarkable because their backs are covered with large, overlapping scales made up of agglutinated hairs. But they are strange in other ways as well. Their tongue is extraordinarily long and muscular, arising from the pelvis and the last pair of ribs deep in the animal’s chest. As a result, the tongue and associated muscles are longer than the animal’s head and body, allowing the tongue to be extruded to an astonishing degree. Pangolins lack teeth. Instead, the the pyloric part of their stomach is thickened and muscular, with odd keratinous spines projecting into its interior. It usually contains pebbles and seems to be used for “chewing” in much the same way as a bird’s gizzard. Pangolins have the ability to close their ears and nostrils as well as eyes, presumably to keep ants out.
In short, pangolins are fascinating animals that are closer to you and me on the taxonomy tree than most people would guess – they are mammals, after all. Yet they are a mammal that most people have not heard of, and surprisingly, there are more than a few mammalian species that have this in common – I will try to share little known facts about little known mammals in my blog.
And oh yeah, since there was a complaint in the comments of another tangents.org blog about this – the song I quoted in my title is “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music.