Its late, I'm tired, and I'm sure no one will read this until tomorrow.
But I would like to write about the show. Here are the skits I have something to say about:

Spring Nite o' Mime 2007
Opening/Closing: Typically, picking the theme for this is easy. But while we decided, there was an argument about what the theme might be, culminating in one of the more awkward meetings to date.

Are You In?: Mary's. Simple, no real plot. And yet really effective.
An Honest Mistake: It's a Mary-thon. Typically, we vote on skits before they go in, but Mary forgot to share this one. When she brought it up again, it was agreed among all that it should be in the show.
Corn Stalk: Spencer wrote this. I am not kidding you when I say that the Baker's Dozen has written their fair share of corn skits. We have a lot of skits relating to corn. Maybe five.
True Love: Tyler's. Based on a tryout skit that he did.
Moccasin: Another one of Tyler's. Another awkward Mary/Tyler moment probably made the show better - and another Mary/Tyler as sinner/priest moment too.
Different: The audience laughed at first. Then they realized it was a serious skit. As Kari said, "They proved our point."
The Adventures of Ms. Monocle: Spencer's. I really liked this one.
Childhood Lost: Mine. I got the idea only a few days after my first-ever show. This was the skit I was worried about, but I think it turned out fine.
Baby Boomers: A Jordan/Mary/Thomas skit. "Hmm," I thought after this skit. "Baby abuse seems to be a common theme in this show."
Picture This: Luke's. A few of us liked pretending the lyrics from the song were not "awake on my plane, my skin is bare", but instead "where go my airplane? My skin is burnt." Anyway, it was a very cool skit and some great work was done by the techies to bring it to life. Mary summed up the skit well: "It's not a funny skit. It's not a sad skit. It just is."
Mentos: The End: I think this was a Tyler/Spencer collaboration. Yes, it is the last Mentos. More great work from the techies.
Ballad of the Blind Man: Kyle's skit - his very first show and his first skit in a show. And a great skit it was too. I kind of wish you could have seen him sharing it - he sold it to us.
Life Cycle of a Universe: Another Luke skit. I would have liked to have been in the audience for this one - it looked cool. Another skit that "just is".
Inappropriate Music Quickies: I got the idea over the summer at 2 AM. For an hour I browed iTunes for ideas. It simmered until this show. Oh yeah, I believe it was Kyle's idea to kiss me and Luke's idea to move my arms and legs.
Au Natural: Tyler was hilarious at the end.

No, we are not going to talk about Runway.

Storybook: Rob to Jordan and I before the show: "I heard from [an administrator] that if you guys get enough votes, you'll win. It's in the Valley constitution." We were excited. What a novel concept. You get enough votes and as a result, win? Cool! Thus we capitalized on it.
Oh yeah, it was first performed very shortly before the show.

Hmm. We already talked about closing. I think that's enough for tonight. I am tired.

I will post more soon, but I would like to give appreciation and thanks to our seniors, a congratulations to our ex-baby mimes, and a big congratulations to our new president and vice-president: Mary and Jordan respectively.

The last post was very poorly written. Just goes to show I should not write blog posts late at night.

Anyway, the skit in question from last night's post is all figured out and better now.

The show is better too. Tomorrow (that's Thursday), 7:30 PM, VHS Auditorium. Its free. You already knew all of that. But be there.

Expect a write-up of the show as soon as Thane writes his.

It turns out Thane can't make it to the show. So expect a write-up soon after it happens...assuming I'm not insanely tired.

Day two of mime rehearsals.

We're getting more and more done. Skits are really starting to be fleshed out.

The only complaint I have is with one of the skits I've written. The idea and the skit look great in my head. The mimes with parts in my skit are doing a fantastic job. The techies working on light and sound cues are doing everything correctly as well.

However, its still not clear to those who have watched the skit as to what is going on. That's not good. The problem lies in my directing of the skit (or, rather, my inability to) and the structure of how I've written it. Since (at this point) I haven't done a good job of these things, what's going on in my head is not going to the audience.

Maybe that's why I liked Epilogue, a skit I wrote for last fall's show. Not only were the mimes onstage and lights and sound perfect, but the pacing of the plot and its exposition portrayed my idea to the audience just like I intended it to.

I really want to get this skit looking good - I would rather have not have this skit in the show than to have it in and bad, and taking it out at this point is not an option.

Maybe this is the tiredness and stress talking. Maybe I should also eat and finish a class project and mix the show music and sleep too.

Day one of preparing for the mime show. And I'm proud to say that things are going very quickly. We are getting things done.

I just finished mixing the CD of music for the show. And looking at all of the songs, I can't help but think: wow. What a strange collection.

You really should come to this show. I think you'd like it.

I don't think I'm going to continue yesterday's post until later.
If you really want to see the end of it, you can tell me Thursday/Friday/Saturday.

I just wanted to say that no one should expect any posts until later on in the week. Why? Because I'll be busy with...

SPRING NITE O' MIME
When: March 29 at 7:30 PM
Where: Valley High School Auditorium

I rarely heavily plug stuff that I'm involved with on this blog - but this is well worth plugging. Everyone involved in the making of this show - the mimes, the tech crew, our sponsors - is intelligent, funny, and amazingly good looking.

I'm not sure what else to say other than it will be a strong show. We would love to see you there.

"Do you want to go lamp shopping?" my dad had asked me today. I'd wanted a lamp for my room for some time.
"Sure," I said.
"I'll be waiting in the car," he told me.

A bit later I went to the car. My dad was in the driver's seat. I opened the passenger door, sat down, and slammed it shut.
What sounded like a DJ scratching a record came from the back. It surprised me a bit. Hoping to stop it, I shut off the radio.

The DJ scratching sound happened again. I turned back, looking for the source.
"It's a squirrel," my dad said.
I turned forward. Did my dad just say "it's a squirrel"?

"It's a squirrel," he repeated, answering my question and bringing up a few more.
"What?" I said. I laughed a bit while saying it. How is one supposed to react to that phrase?
"Don't worry," my dad said, smiling. "He's in a trap."
This was a little reassuring, but there was still one more question to be answered.

"Why is there a squirrel in the back?"
"To let him go."
"Oh," I said, wondering to myself why my dad would catch a squirrel just to let it go - or why he would catch a squirrel for any other purpose, anyway. As far as I'd known, my dad was not (and had never been) a recreational squirrel hunter. "I see."
"Chhhhhh!" The squirrel said that part.

"He's a little agitated," he explained.

I wondered what sort of sound squirrels made when they were happy. Or if anyone besides squirrels could listen to sound samples of squirrels and say "he's hungry" or "he's horny". I read somewhere that they had made this electronic device that translates a dog's bark into a phrase in english. Maybe one day they could do the same with squirrels.

"I can see that," I said, still wondering about the expressive abilities of squirrel's larynx. I'm now taking a moment to wonder if squirrels have larynxes.

Anyway, we drove in silence for a bit, interrupted by an occasional squirrel cry - a cry which I assumed to mean "fuck you both".

Occasionally I have realizations that let me see how a particular moment I'm in will affect the rest of my life. These times really let one see how each individual event is a part of a huge picture.

I didn't have one of those moments. But I did think this:
"My dad put a pissed off squirrel in the back of my car. And now he's driving us around."
It seems like a pretty shallow thought now, but man, at the time, it was revelatory.

This thought made me ask him this:
"Where are we taking it?"
"To Clive Parks and Rec," he said. "They have a squirrel recycling department."

The only thing left to do was to play along.
"Oh," I said.

Typically, I would save this as a draft, but I never seem to finish any of my draft posts. I'll finish the rest of this later.

Words fail me...and Arnold too.

I don't know what the future has in store. But I hope dancing robots are involved.

A robotics team has been working on a robot called Keepon. Keepon has a camera in each of his eyes and a microphone in his nose - and with this microphone, he can determine the beat of a song and dance along with it. I never knew robots could be so funny - and dare I say it? - kind of cute.

I found two old Beatles albums - "Sargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and "Magical Mystery Tour" - at Half Price Books. They were four bucks each and, to be honest, I bought the albums intending to frame them since the walls in my room are kind of bare.

Just out of curiosity, I played one of the records. I found myself just sitting there and listening and staring at the record as it spun. Kind of a weird experience.

I don't think it would be possible to have such an experience with a CD. From my little experience, I discovered that record covers are big. And occasionally, they contain extras - for instance, "Magical Mystery Tour" has a big color picture book in it that could kick a CD inlet's ass. It gives one something to look at while the album plays.

Speaking of things to look at, watching a record spin as good music plays is kind of hypnotic. As a fan of iTunes, I know well the joy of the "visualizations" option (aka acid in a computer). Watching a record spin as the needle approaches the center of a record is strangely relaxing.

Also neat: skipping songs is nearly out of the question. Yeah, with a record, one can lift the needle and put it onto another track (so that's why they call songs tracks), but this takes effort. Maybe its just me, but it kind of breaks the zen of the whole moment too.

But with a CD, skipping songs requires the press of a button. A record almost requires one to build patience for a song one doesn't like.

Yeah, the sound quality was terrible (maybe it was just my family's record player) and I can't imagine having a record player in a car. But above all, it made listening to music more of an experience and less like something going on in the background. I'm not sure if I could do that with an iPod or a CD player. It also made me appreciate a good album - a collection of good songs with a bit of continuity by one artist.

We live in an age of playlists, downloadable songs and shuffle mode - and I'm thankful for that. Maybe its just me, but it'd be nice if our generation could sit down and listen to a great album straight through.

Or are we already doing that just fine? Your thoughts?

Things I would like to mention:

• I got Girl Scout Cookies today. There was a new kind that intrigued me - "Little Brownies", I think they were called. They are little, but they are not very brownie like. They're crumbly and the texture of them remind me a bit of dog food. Plus, while inspecting the box, there was a little star after one of the ingredients that said: "EXCESS CONSUMPTION MAY HAVE A LAXATIVE EFFECT." Awesome. I mean, I didn't experience the effects first-hand, but still. Awesome
• Google introduced themes for their homepages today. Most of the themes are landscapes and change depending on the weather conditions of where you are - for instance, earlier in the day my Google homepage displayed cloudy skies and rain while it rained outside. Not terribly useful, but neat.
• Spring break. Few people are in town. It is a good opportunity to read. Things I read:
• "Born on a Blue Day" by Daniel Tammet: To make a long story short, he has autism, synthesia, and savant-like abilities. On second thought, "has" makes this all sound kind of negative - "blessed with" is far more appropriate. This guy memorized and recited 22,000 digits of pi. He also learned Icelandic - considered to be one of the hardest languages to learn - in just a week. He talks about his abilities and his experiences in interacting with others. A really interesting look into how this guy's mind works.
• "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" by Dave Eggers: Dave Eggers is responsible for putting together McSweeny's, a humorous literary journal for people who don't like literary journals. I didn't get very far, because I was distracted by the very long foreword/author's acknowledgments/whatever. At first I thought he was joking when he said it would be a good idea to skip it - and many pages later, I realized he wasn't. I'm sure its a good book, but I got distracted by:
• "The Tao of Pooh" by Benjamin Hoff: My mom had to read this for a class she took in college and really liked it. Junebug recently recommended it to me, so I picked it up. Either it's very short or very readable - I finished it in two sittings. I'd recommend it too. Some great philosophy is explained in pretty basic terms. I enjoyed it and now I'm interested in reading through the Tao Te Ching.
• Watching my Dad play Wii Sports is way more entertaining then it should be. Playing it with him triples the entertainment value.
• I believe this is the 835th post. Can we reach 1000 by 2008? I kind of doubt it.
  
• One last interesting thing: the Alphasmart Neo. It's sort of like a laptop, but all you can do is write with it. That's it. It's got 700 hours of battery life when powered by 3 AA batteries. You can hook it up to a computer to further edit and print out work. Now, allow me to explain something: I write best when I type. I have terrible handwriting and when I do write, it's messy and my hand cramps up. I type much faster than I will ever write - so typing means one less step between my ideas and getting them out of my head. Now, the problem with typing is that I have to use a computer - and using the computer means being able to use the internet. And the internet is a wonderful vehicle for wandering minds. Thanks to the internet, I can find connections between any number of things. This means distraction. With the Neo, all I could do is type. It's like a typewriter without the whiteout and paper jams and broken keys. Yeah, it costs $250, but that's what eBay is for.
  

Anyway, I hope you are enjoying your break.

Today's awkward moment: wondering if the door I was walking towards was automatic.
And it was too late when I realized it wasn't.

This video, which tries its best in five minutes to explain how the internet is changing, is thought-provoking, fast-paced, and kind of reminded me of The Matrix.

Spring break begins and here I am at home.

Zefrank's "The Show" ends tomorrow. It doesn't seem like it's been a year. For what might be the hundreth time: if you haven't seen seen The Show, please take note. Zefrank is a very smart, funny and creative guy, and he deserves to take at least three minutes of your life from you.

I watched "Stranger Than Fiction" today. Basic gist of the plot: man realizes he's a character in a woman's novel, and the author has destined him to die.

I enjoyed the movie, but I wasn't satisfied with the ending. There are two ways the movie could have ended: the protagonist dies or he doesn't die. Now that I look back on the movie, though, I realize that either way the movie played out the ending would fail to satisfy me.

More news: according to Sinbad, he is not dead.
The first article Google News linked to, provided by Fox News, said that Wikipedia had yet to apologize to Sinbad for the inaccuracy.

Conclusion: Either someone at Fox News doesn't get how Wikipedia works (which wouldn't surprise me), or they needed to somehow make a story about Sinbad more juicy (which would surprise me even less).

You may be familiar with the song "Flathead" by The Fratellis since its been used in an iPod ad as of late. I got the song a while ago and got something of an addiction to it - not only is it catchy, but it goes into a 7/4 time signature during its chorus. Exciting stuff for music geeks like myself.

Anyway, I picked up their entire album (it came out today and was available for cheap at Best Buy) and so far I'm pleasantly surprised. The songs are a nice blend of pop and rock, catchy, and there are plenty of little tidbits that make the music geek in me go "neat" (like a few chord changes). Its very Beatlesque stuff.

Anyway, if you're a fan of good rock and pop and you have $8 to spare, pick it up.

A few months ago I posted this video. In it I am attempting to breastfeed a baby. I'm also three years old, if that makes any difference.

Posting the video spurred what might be the best comment I've received on a YouTube video:

"Is that kid fucking retarded? That is clearly not a real baby. Teach him better you abusive piece of shit. My bad, that was in 1993 so he is probably in a mental home by now. If we had internet back then and you would have posted it at the time I could have maybe saved the situation, but obviously not."

Personally, if I were to complain about the video, I would focus on the fact that I appear to be male and I'm still attempting to breastfeed the baby - the fact that the baby isn't real seems to be the least of my problems.

It's possible that you've seen this already, but thanks to a teacher, I'm now aware of the adventures of Charlie the Unicorn.

I had dinner at Perkins tonight. As my mom, sister and I drove out there, we saw that a major interstate was closed. It was completely empty and covered in snow. The sight was a little bizarre and eerie - maybe even a little apocalyptic, if you just kept focused on the interstate.

Sitting nearby our table were two teenage girls. The waitress went to get their order.
"How did you guys get out here?" the waitress asked.
"Oh, we just drove," one of the girls said.
The waitress was at a loss for words. The girl wasn't joking.

"No," the waitress said, "I mean, what road did you take?"
"Oh!" You could nearly see a lightbulb flash over the girl's head. "We just took Jordan Creek Parkway."

After the waitress had walked away, the silent teenage girl spoke to her friend.
"What did you think she was asking?" the girl asked.
"I don't know!" said the friend who had misspoken. Her friend started mocking her.
"Yeah, we got here on a unicycle," she said in that low voice one uses when imitating someone stupid.
"It was an unspecific question. Shut up," said the girl, attempting to defend herself.

(Footnote: If there are any other NPR nerds out there who read this blog, please take a look here.)