Flying Monkey Productions - Friday Night Performance

See Saturday's show (7:30 p.m.) if you haven't already. Here are a few shots - the camera's juice failed by the end of Act I. Commentary later.

From "Hairspray": Edna Turnblad (Kyle Hadley) and Prudy Pingleton (Debbie Vanderford) watch TV with the kids, Tracy Turnblad (Julie Soto), and it sure looks like Meghan Vanderford rather than her sister Katherine, as listed in the program.

Mom and daughter: Tracy Turnblad (Julie Soto) and Edna Turnblad (Kyle Hadley), left foreground: in background, the Dynamites (listed in alphabetic order in the program: Kayla Berghoff, Kelley Jakle, and Ashley Mortenson). From "Hairspray."

I know you have your reasons, Roger, but really, what would it hurt to go out tonight? Carly Wielstein, as 'Mimi' and Will Finan as 'Roger': 'Out Tonight' from "Rent."

What's the time?
Well it's gotta be close to midnight
My body's talking to me
It says, "Time for danger"
It says "I wanna commit a crime
Wanna be the cause of a fight
Wanna put on a tight skirt and flirt
With a stranger"

'No Day But Today,' (aka Finale B) from "Rent." Stepping forward, Carly Wielstein as 'Mimi' (left) and Nick Murphy as 'Angel.'

Let Bush Be Bush

"I support the free press, let's just get them out of the room."

Scapegoat Loses Patience

Michael D. Brown, former head of FEMA and national laughingstock after Hurricane Katrina, finally tired of covering everyone else's ass in the Bush Administration (e.g. Michael Chertoff, Andy Card, etc.) and is beginning to fight back.

Car-Surfing

All articles about accidental teenage deaths all sound so similar - all that lost potential. Here's one about car-surfing.

When I was in high school, I remember watching two teenage girls riding on the hood of a car, one on the left side and one on the right. It was like slow motion: the slow-moving car slowly turned left, and the right-hood girl slowly slipped off and bounced on the gravelly pavement. Slow or not, it looked so painful I vowed never to try it myself.

Bait-and-Switch

Aggravating. Today's weather forecast blocks the soft, warm Hawaiian storm from reaching Arizona, and instead replaces it with a harsh, windy storm approaching from the NW around February 16th. My fear is that there won't be much precipitation, and instead, lots of blowing dust.

Work Tales

Every Friday morning at work, we have a staff meeting. As far as story-telling is concerned, the staff meeting usually provides pretty tedious material, but there are exceptions (such as today):

• The company has been doing wintertime smog check testing in Fairbanks, Alaska. One colleague discovered that a hose containing nothing but car exhaust had been diverted into the cab of a truck outside, where people were sitting. They were using the car exhaust to warm themselves up (the dangers of freezing outweighing the dangers of auto exhaust).
• One colleague was watching the live-feed of a stenographer's notes from a court-room deposition. A computer takes the stenographer's phonetic notations and converts them into scrawling text. Sometimes, when the computer can't recognize the notations, it inserts random characters, making it appear as if the witness is cursing.
• After repeated, detailed, technical testimony at the deposition, the stenographer parenthetically noted that this is why she dated her science teacher, rather than bothering to actually learn the stuff.

Flying Monkey Productions - "The Benefit" - Thursday Feb. 9th Rehearsal

I caught a few minutes of the rehearsal for this weekend's Flying Monkey Productions' "The Benefit" (7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday at DMTC's Hoblit Performing Arts Center). Kristin Cunningham, Katherine Vanderford, and Jaie Sacco had the stage at this particular time.

Afterwards, in the DMTC office, I saw Kyle Hadley. There were still traces of makeup on his face, and had the lighting been a soft, incandescent yellow rather than a bright, fluorescent white, I would have found him - how to say? - fetching? (I can't wait to see what he does onstage!)

Kristin Cunningham and Katherine Vanderford (left) singing a duet. Most, maybe even all, of the Flying Monkey Production numbers are from later musicals (this one I didn't recognize offhand, but it sure sounded nice.)


Update: Yes, you were right, Andrea, this is "Angel of Music!"









Ula dance now! Kristen Cunningham (left) as Ula, performing 'If You've Got It, Flaunt It,' from "The Producers."




Katherine Vanderford (above and left) and Jaie Sacco (left) sing from "Phantom Of The Opera."

I Should Have Thought Of That

Six-year-old girl and her dad, preparing to mount their motorbike at a sidewalk curb. The parking meter must have been an irritant because, as her dad busied himself with the motorbike, the girl busied herself by unscrewing the parking meter from its mount in the sidewalk.

Disconnect

Interesting point over at Eschaton. If you detonate a shoe bomb in the vicinity of an airliner cockpit, you are likely to cause the airliner to crash. An airliner that crashes can't be used to fly into buildings.

Keeping Hope Alive

Deborah in Phoenix asks:

My birthday is the 27th--think we can manage rain by then?

I reply:

By your birthday? I'm thinking yes!

It actually appears to be raining today, particularly around Tucson, but maybe where you are too. Not much, but better than zip.

Flying Monkey Productions Presents!

Here is the notice from Steve. Please note that the times are a bit earlier than usual DMTC times. This should be a fun show. Lots of talented people in the cast!

There will be a special production at the Hoblit Performing Arts Center, this Friday & Saturday...many DMTC Teens are involved in this worthly cause...

"The Benefit"

February 10th and 11th, 2006 at 7:30pm
Tickets - $10 (on sale at the door)

The Hoblit Performing Arts Center
607 Peña Drive Davis, CA
Songs performed from Wicked, Hairspray, Mamma Mia, Rent, Phantom of the Opera, The Producers, Avenue Q, and several other Broadway shows.

Performed by local teens and adults to benefit Flying Monkey Productions (a youth theatre company) and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation

Alien Song

Courtesy of Noel, how the 70's disco fad saved us from an alien invasion. This almost worked for preserving American 80's pop music from British influences as well. In December 1999, poor Boy George fell victim, but he managed to 'survive,' so it's not a foolproof method of Homeland Security (I've to get one of those T-Shirts, though.)

From Monday's Rehearsal

Another picture from Monday's "Titanic" rehearsal, featuring first-class passengers. The cast for this show is unusually large, to simulate the crowded confines of the boat.

My theory regarding the Titanic's sinking is that it never struck the iceberg at all: the ship capsized when someone on the deck said "Look, there's an iceberg!" and everyone ran over simultaneously to the starboard railing to take a gander.

I recognize almost everyone here...

Front row of women, left to right: Monique McKisson, Dannette Vassar, Jan Isaacson, Noel Bruening, Linda Abrille, Bridget Maguire, Amber Lidskin.

Back rows, left to right: Chris Neff, Jon Beaver, Robert Coverdell, Rich Kulmann, Jabriel Shelton, Tawny Hansen, Julia Spangler, Mary Young, Alex Powell, Julia Kulmann, Jennifer Bonomo, Brian McCann, Bethany Pedersen, Andrew Lemons, (obscured), Claire Lawrence, Scott Griffith, J.P. Villa, Steve Lemons (obscured), (cut off).

Viewing from the seats: Steve Isaacson (waving his arm) and Ron Cisneros.

Darwin Too

Education can't save you from bad judgment sometimes. Very innovative approach, and unexpectedly effective - terrestrial parasailing:

Gusty winds were blamed for a bizarre accident that killed the son of a local TV weatherman who was parasailing behind a tractor, a family friend said Monday.

...But on Sunday, as Don Greene was driving the tractor with his son in back, the wind proved so strong it picked the tractor up off the ground, Sellers said. That caused the rope holding James Greene to break and he went free-flying into the air, he said.

Misjudging Gases

Darwin Award runner-up: if I don't get run over by a bus first, this is how I'll go:

When a deputy arrived to check it out, he found a white car that showed obvious signs of an explosion. All the windows were blown out, the vehicle doors were bent towards the outside and the roof was pushed about a foot higher than normal.

The deputy traced the license plate to a home in the 3600 block of South Grove Street in Sheridan. Sheridan officers talked to the people inside and a man and a woman admitted that they were in the car.

They explained that they were taking a balloon to a Super Bowl party -- a balloon filled with acetylene, a very explosive gas used in welding -- so they could blow up the balloon while celebrating.

However, on the drive, the balloon rolled across the back seat, possibly causing static electricity, and igniting the gas, causing it to explode.

More Paranoia

The City of San Diego called today, with a few questions about a property I supposedly own down there. I don't own any property down there. Makes me nervous.

Reminds me of when a friend, a lowly college student, received a call from the Bureau of Reclamation, asking to be reimbursed a million dollars for a dam he was supposedly building. Made him nervous too.

Wonder how these things happen?

Grasping At Straws

Both the NOGAPS and GFS models show the development of a storm just north and east of Hawaii on Feb. 13 - 14. The signal is quite strong in both models, so the storm will likely occur in some form. That's quite a while in the future and a long distance away from AZ, but it's the first storm in a long time to be in a place where it might plausibly affect future AZ and SoCal weather. It would take about four days after that to travel to the U.S. West Coast, arriving, say, Feb. 18 - 19, and a lot might happen to it in the mean time, but at least something is happening somewhere.

I was looking at some of the climate forecasts for the SW this spring. Total pessimism everywhere. Not surprising - there is a weak La Niña in effect, and spring is the driest season anyway. Hope everyone is wrong!

Weak La Niña, Strong Drought

The climate people blame La Niña:

THERE IS WIDESPREAD CONSENSUS AMONG DYNAMICAL MODELS FOR BELOW MEDIAN PRECIPITATION OVER LARGE PARTS OF THE SOUTHERN THIRD OF THE CONUS FOR FMA 2006. CCA... ECCA AND SMLR FORECASTS ALSO SUPPORT THE FORECAST FOR BELOW MEDIAN PRECIPITATION OVER PORTIONS OF THE SOUTHERN CONUS. THE STRONGEST INDICATIONS ARE OVER THE SOUTHWEST... IN THE CENTRAL PLAINS... AND IN THE EXTREME SOUTHEAST.

Meanwhile, January temperatures in the Lower 48 were the warmest ever recorded. It's not global warming so much at work here, it's just that January wind patterns effectively prevented arctic air from entering the Great Plains and points south. But the effect was very striking - practically a balmy January in Fargo, N.D.

The Real Story

Naw, this ain't it:

Consumers, weighed down by high debt loads and low savings rates, increased borrowing last year by the smallest amount in 13 years, the Federal Reserve reported Tuesday.

The government said that borrowing on credit cards, auto loans and other forms of consumer debt rose by 3 percent in 2005, down from rates above 4 percent in the previous three years and a 7.7 percent surge in 2001. It was the smallest increase since a 1 percent rise in 1992.

...Some analysts attributed the slowdown to the fact that consumers are beginning to feel a bit pinched with consumer debt at record levels and interest rates rising because of a campaign by the Federal Reserve to slow borrowing as a way of cooling the economy and keeping inflation under control.

...The Fed report showed that the increase last year in credit card debt and other types of revolving credit was just 2.6 percent, the smallest in 23 years.

Ah, here's the real story!:

Analysts said some of that slowdown reflected that fact that Americans have stepped up borrowing through home equity loans rather than increasing credit card debt.

Total Information Awareness

Digby, being (appropriately) paranoid:

Remember: Watergate was about bugging the Democratic National Committee. The "3rd rate burglary" was to replace an illegal bug that had been planted on the telephones of prominent Democrats.

The lesson of Watergate for the chagrined Republicans was that they needed to be more forceful in assuming executive power and they needed to be more sophisticated about their campaign espionage. This is what they've done.

Anybody who even dreams that these guys are not using all their government power to spy on political enemies is being willfully naive. It is what they do. It is the essence of their political style. This is Nixon's Republican party and they have finally achieved a perfect ability to carry out his vision of political governance: L'etat C'est Moi.