Another late post. That's what a busy Friday at work will do to ya.
Last weekend (and by "last weekend", I'm actually referring to the weekend of July 22-23) was a big weekend for City of Heroes players - Double XP weekend! Level up twice as fast! Woohoo! I would have played COH all weekend, but other plans intervened.
The Capital Fringe Festival was also going on last weekend in DC. This was kind of like a film festival, only with plays being performed at various theaters in DC. M knew someone in one of the plays, so we went. To make the trip worth our while, we got a 6-ticket package and went to see the play before and the play after her friend's play at the same theater (2 people + 3 plays = 6 tickets).
The first play was at 11 AM. We were running late, partly because I was so tired from playing City of Heroes late into the night, and we were worried that we might not make it in time. We did make it just in time, and that was a good thing because we were the only two who had bought tickets.
The audience totaled three people, actually, because the guy who wrote the play also sat down to watch it. It wasn't that great of a play. It involved two brothers stuck in the middle of nowhere talking about their problems. Then a crazy guy wanders by and talks to them while munching on cicadas (the role of cicadas was played by cricket sound effects and mini-rice cakes). One of the brothers was gay, pining for his Marine boyfriend in Iraq, and apparently the two brothers had fooled around in the past, and the straight(er) brother doesn't want to do that anymore. Now, I'm a live-and-let-live guy, so I don't necessarily begrudge these characters for dabbling in gay incest, but it would have been nice if the play had been better written and acted. The guy who played the crazy guy did a good job of acting crazy, at least.
After that play, we went to get some lunch. On our way back, a couple of girls asked us if we knew where F Street was. This was on the corner of H Street, and we told them that we had just been on G Street, pointing in the direction of G. Apparently, that was insufficient information for these alphabet-deprived girls, so we elaborated that F Street would likely be the next block past G.
The friend's play was next, and it was much better. A little too feminist, especially considering that they were probably preaching to the choir, given the demographic that would attend the Fringe Festival, but it was well acted. Afterwards, we met most of the cast and the director, who went to my high school.
The last play was a series of Dick Cheney themed vignettes. Some of them were funny, some of them somber, and some of them kind weird (such as Dick Cheney and a young Russian Princess Anastasia in a bunker as the Iranian crisis turns into all-out nuclear war - odd because Anastasia would be about 100 years old by now, assuming she really did survive Bolshevik execution).
All in all, I'd say it was an interesting experience.
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As you no doubt recall, I saw a Secret Screening at the Maryland Film Festival (see this post and this post if you don't remember!)
I can finally reveal what movie it was: Little Miss Sunshine.
It had played only once publicly, and that was at Sundance. After that, Fox Searchlight chose to use the marketing strategy of keeping it under wraps (other than a theatrical trailer) and letting the Sundance buzz and the mystery surrounding its secrecy work their magic. But someone high up at the studio was from Baltimore, so the Maryland Film Festival people were able to talk them into letting it be shown there, on the condition that nobody talk about the movie to the media until it got released.
That release happened on Wednesday (albeit a limited release), so now I don't have to keep it a secret anymore!
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My professional life is in a rut. I've been working at the same place for 8.5 years now, working with people I'm not all that crazy about and commuting 60 miles (120 miles round-trip) everyday to work with them. But the work is easy, I'm getting paid pretty well (especially for the work I do), and it's just comfortable to keep the status quo.
That, however, is gonna have to change. Besides the obvious reasons (did I mention the daily 120 miles to work with people I don't like?), I'm going to have to find a new job because my current job is moving out of state. I stuck with them when the commute went from 5+ to 100+, but not this time. Unfortunately, my skills aren't what they could or should be, because my job hasn't been particularly demanding for the past 6 or 7 years. Everything I know, I learned the first year there. So I need to get more marketable.
The good news: Johns Hopkins University has a Computer Career Institute that teaches all I need to know about graphic and web design (and video and 3D CGI), along with how to get a job. 7 months of Mon-Fri classes, and I'm all set to get a good job.
The bad news: If I do the whole kit and kaboodle (graphics, web, video and 3D), it will set me back about $23,000. At the very least, it would cost me about $11,000 to do just the graphics classes. And I'd have to quit my current job if I were to do the day classes. Night classes would be feasible, current-job-wise, but I'd be looking at 2 years if I did everything.
So I gotta figure out how I'd pay for all this before continuing. There are loan plans, some of which defer payment until after I've completed training and, in theory, have a great paying new job to cover the loan payments. I'd rather not go that route if I don't have to, but it's there if I need it.
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My brother is in his new house now, and it's a very nice house in a nice neighborhood. I feel a little bit better about the whole situation knowing that at least he got a nice house. Not as nice as the old house, but still pretty good.
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I went to the dentist recently. Now, I'm not what you would call a regular flosser. I just can't ever get myself into the habit. I'm very good about brushing and the occasional hit of Lysterine, but I very rarely make the time for a good flossing. So the hygenist found it necessary to bring out some big guns to take care of those in-between areas that had become less-than-healthy. It was one of those metal hooks you see so often in dentist offices, except this one vibrated. So much so that it requires a steady stream of water running through it to keep it from overheating. At the time, I misunderstood the hygenist's explanation, and I thought that it worked by shooting a powerful spray of water. Once it got working, however, I decided that it hurt way, way too much to be just water, no matter how hard it was spraying.
In the millenia that torture has been used, I don't know if anyone has come up with as effective a device as this dental tool. At one point, I half-expected Laurence Olivier to show up and ask me if it's safe. I told the hygenist state secrets that I didn't know were even true or not. I'm pretty sure I agreed to subscribe to Grit and buy a few cases of Girl Scout cookies too. I've blocked out most of my memories of that time.
The moral of this story, kids, is to floss as often as you can!
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Brain Age Update: I got my score down to 22 Wednesday night! Since then, I've scored a 27 and a 36. I was pretty tired when I got the 36.
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Elmo Update: The balloon is deflated (I think it was last week too, actually), but he's still up there, and probably will be until we get some extra heavy winds.
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iTunes
1. "Lay All Your Love On Me" - ABBA
2. "The Girl With Far Away Eyes" - The Rolling Stones
3. "Punk Rock Girl" - Dead Milkmen
4. "Caroline" - Fleetwodd Mac
5. "Firestarter" - Prodigy
6. "Hell" - Squirrel Nut Zippers
7. "It's A Living Thing" - ELO
8. "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" - The Beatles
9. "That's All" - Genesis
10. "China" - Red Rockers
11. "Lyin' Eyes" - The Eagles
12. "Go Your Own Way" - Fleetwood Mac
13. "La Isla Bonita" - Madonna
14. "Sympathy For The Devil" - The Rolling Stones
15. "Cecilia" - Simon and Garfunkel
16. "Whitechocolatespaceegg" - Liz Phair
17. "Bring Me To Life" - Evanescence
18. "Shout It Out Loud" - KISS
19. "Brilliant Disguise" - Bruce Springsteen
20. "I Know There's Something" - Frida
21. "Ninja" - 7 Seconds of Love
* I may have mentioned it before, but it bears repeating. "Punk Rock Girl" is one of those rare punk-polka hybrids, and I like it a lot! I've been trying to re-write the lyrics to make it about my wife and call it "N'awlins Girl", but after over 2 years, I remain mostly unsuccessful.
* "Caroline" still reminds me a little of doing fact sheets about U.S. Presidents for 11th grade Social Studies. I did all 40 (Reagan was President at the time) over the course of a few months, and I almost always listened to the Tango In The Night album while doing them.
* This might be the first time I've listened to "Whitechocolatespaceegg" in this century. I guess it's about as good as I remember it.
* I may have mentioned this before too, but the one of the few highlights in the movie Daredevil is when they play "Bring Me To Life" and Elektra goes all Rafael on the sandbags in her gym.
* Every morning around 7:40, the local Classic Rock station plays the first few seconds of a song, and you have to guess what the song is. One of the few times I knew the answer was when they did "Brilliant Disguise". It's probably my favorite Springsteen song.
* I discovered "Ninja" on a website that does Flash animations, mostly involving singing cats. The guy who does the site started up a band, so now a lot of his stuff is essentially videos for their songs, and this is one of them. It always cheers me up. You can see the video at www.7secondsoflove.com/ninja/. It's full of happy, bouncing people! My nephews love it! (Note: other things on that site aren't as kid-friendly, so don't let your young'ins surf too much unsupervised!)
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