Posts

Hey guys,

I know most of you will remember me talking about my girl Megan who I visit in RI and vice versa.  She and her mother have teamed up to do some crafty craft work and they have really cute stuff such as craft and kitchen aprons, cosmetic bags, totes and pouches.  

Check it out:

Etsy Site

Photos of their work

OK.  Here is my completely biased and somewhat half-assed review of the film Mamma Mia.  I'm in love with the stage version so it was hard for me to go into this movie with an objective opinion.  If anything, I was hoping that they would stay true to the script and the theatrical elements that make the show unique such as sequin jumpsuits and numbers featuring men dancing in wetsuits, flippers and snorkels and they did not disappoint.  As the character Rosie (Julie Walters) professes at one point “It’s very Greek”…and that it is. 

The story - Sophie, beautifully acted and sung by Amanda Seyfried, is a 20 year old woman, raised on a fictional Greek Island by her mother Donna (Meryl Streep) who owns a run-down but charming inn which also serves as a home for the two of them.  Sophie is to be wed to Skye (Dominic Cooper) and has a lifelong wish of being given away by her father, whose identity has always been a mystery.  Sophie runs across her mother’s old diary and discovers that she has three possible fathers.  So instead of asking her mother point blank who the likely father is, she invites all three to the wedding convinced that she will know him when she sees him.  Not so much.  All three arrive, much to the dismay of Donna, and the drama interspersed with Shakespearean-like mistaken identity farce ensues.

All of the performances are solid despite Pierce Brosnan’s so-so singing, but as usual, his acting makes up for it.  The energy exuded by the cast matches the high energy level required of the stage cast, lending to seamless transitions from very natural, conversational dialogue into the flashy yet humbly human musical numbers.  Meryl Steep steals the show as the most down to earth and relatable character.  Her performance is breath taking and her technique is so even tempered that she always makes you feel like she’s just talking…just being there.  This is juxtaposed beautifully by her two wild and crazy girlfriends Rosie and Tanya (Christine Baranski), both of whom are over the top with sincere excitement for their friend.  The dads also have a hand in the wackiness.  Harry (Colin Firth) and Bill (Stellan Skarsgard) provide plenty of comic relief.  For Brosnan, Sam is not a stretch.  He is an average business man with an ex-wife and children.  He’s also the man who stole Donna’s heart 20 years before and never looked back…or so we think. 

The storyline, combined with the zany and mundane characters, Abba numbers, a beautiful Mediterranean setting and a wedding theme makes for an interesting look at family and friendship and the value that these life elements hold.  The six adults and the bride and groom represent many hopes.  Your true friendships will last a lifetime.  Your true love will wait for you.  Love will come to you (apologies to The Indigo Girls).  Out of old connections, new relationships are born.  And upon looking at all of this as a whole, new discoveries are made.  A story such as this needs to be a musical.  Linguistically speaking, consonants represent logic and vowels represent emotion.  The same is true for the musical.  Dialogue is routine communication but when dealing with feelings that are so raw, the only sane thing to do is to sing about them.  Abba’s music is perfect for this because each song tells a story that most can relate to.  

Daddy-issues and all, Donna has raised a bright young woman with a sense of dedication and loyalty to her mother and fiance, the only family she knows.  Sophie sees the lack of a father as a hole in her life and she longs for a sense of knowing who she is.  Syke busts her after he discovers that she has invited her “dads” and says that knowing who you really are "isn’t something that comes from having a father.”  And he’s right.  But the curiosity and somewhat reckless nature of her desire makes for an excellent story.  You’ll be glad she took the plunge. 

Oh and will someone please just give Meryl Streep the Oscar already?  She totally deserves it.

Dammit.  I can't get this song NOR this dance out of my head.  I think I'm going to have to cave and buy the album.  This Leona Lewis chick is pretty great.  Adam's been telling me...buzzin' around about it.  Time to bust out my itunes gift card.

Enjoy the dance...congrats to Chelsie and Mark for making it to the top 6 of So You Think You Can Dance.  This routine shows why you're still around.  (I love the arm slide move 55 seconds in)

I'm going to see OMGMAMMAMIA!!!!11!!11! tonight with one of my best girlfriends/roommate's girlfriend, Eileen.  We're both theater geeks at heart so naturally we're all over this. 

I think that Mamma Mia is one of the best efforts Broadway has made at reviving somewhat of a lost art, the rock musical.   But the genre has been warped into the concept of the "cover" musical i.e. Movin' Out and Jersey Boys, both of which did remarkably well whereas musicals using John Lennon and Bob Dylan's music totally flopped.  

Even though ABBA's music is more similar to pop and disco, it translates on stage very differently.  It doesn't feel like ABBA.  Every song feels like it's own story being told.  In fact, it wasn't until I first saw Mamma Mia that I started to appreciate that ABBA's lyrics are complex and full of relatable emotion making it perfect material for a musical.  I've seen Mamma Mia on B'way twice and I'd see it again in a heartbeat.  So needless to say I'm fucking stoked for this movie.  I have a feeling it will make a smooth transition to the screen because the script sets the play in many places on the Greek Island so the set designers for the staged version created scenery that is suggested whereas on film, everything can be real life - Not to mention freakin' GORGEOUS.  So it's not like Steel Magnolias (which I'm lukewarm about) where they essentially had to re-write the thing to accomodate for multiple settings and male characters that are not seen in the stage version.

Anyway.  YAY!!!  I cannot wait to hear Meryl Streep belt out "The Winner Takes It All", truly the most heartbreaking number in the show.     

Hey kids, did you know it's System Administrator Appreciation Day??  So find your IT guy and give him a BIG hug....unless s/he smells and has cheeto crumbs on their chest or something.  Luckily my IT guys are all really cute and could very likely be spying on me and reading this  *waves*  Hi guys!  Or do what I did and send them a fabulous ecard with a clever pun such as "Happy IT day, enjoy every byte of it."  :)

And now for a funny list, dripping with trademark IT guy sarcasm, courtesy of one of my IT dudes, found here (I think #11 is my fave):

Advice to employees on the proper use of the System Administrator's valuable time

(In following examples, we will substitute the name "Ted" as the System Administrator)

1. Make sure to save all your MP3 files on your network drive. No sense in wasting valuable space on your local drive! Plus, Ted loves browsing through 100+ GB of music files while he backs up the servers.

2. Play with all the wires you can find. If you can't find enough, open something up to expose them. After you have finished, and nothing works anymore, put it all back together and call Ted. Deny that you touched anything and that it was working perfectly only five minutes ago. Ted just loves a good mystery. For added effect you can keep looking over his shoulder and ask what each wire is for.

3. Never write down error messages. Just click OK, or restart your computer. Ted likes to guess what the error message was.

4. When talking about your computer, use terms like "Thingy" and "Big Connector."

5. If you get an EXE file in an email attachment, open it immediately. Ted likes to make sure the anti-virus software is working properly.

6. When Ted says he coming right over, log out and go for coffee. It's no problem for him to remember your password.

7. When you call Ted to have your computer moved, be sure to leave it buried under a year-old pile of postcards, baby pictures, stuffed animals, dried flowers, unpaid bills, bowling trophies and Popsicle sticks. Ted doesn't have a life, and he finds it deeply moving to catch a glimpse of yours.

8. When Ted sends you an email marked as "Highly Important" or "Action Required", delete it at once. He's probably just testing some new-fangled email software.

9. When Ted's eating lunch at his desk or in the lunchroom, walk right in, grab a few of his fries, then spill your guts and expect him to respond immediately. Ted lives to serve, and he's always ready to think about fixing computers, especially yours.

10. When Ted's at the water cooler or outside taking a breath of fresh air, find him and ask him a computer question. The only reason he takes breaks at all is to ferret out all those employees who don't have email or a telephone.

11. Send urgent email ALL IN UPPERCASE. The mail server picks it up and flags it as a rush delivery.

12. When the photocopier doesn't work, call Ted. There's electronics in it, so it should be right up his alley.

13. When you're getting a NO DIAL TONE message at your home computer, call Ted. He enjoys fixing telephone problems from remote locations. Especially on weekends.

14. When something goes wrong with your home PC, dump it on Ted's chair the next morning with no name, no phone number, and no description of the problem. Ted just loves a good mystery.

15. When you have Ted on the phone walking you through changing a setting on your PC, read the newspaper. Ted doesn't actually mean for you to DO anything. He just loves to hear himself talk.

16. When your company offers training on an upcoming OS upgrade, don't bother to sign up. Ted will be there to hold your hand when the time comes.

17. When the printer won't print, re-send the job 20 times in rapid succession. That should do the trick.

18. When the printer still won't print after 20 tries, send the job to all the printers in the office. One of them is bound to work.

19. Don't use online help. Online help is for wimps.

20. Don't read the operator's manual. Manuals are for wussies.

21. If you're taking night classes in computer science, feel free to demonstrate your fledgling expertise by updating the network drivers for you and all your co-workers. Ted will be grateful for the overtime when he has to stay until 2:30am fixing all of them.

22. When Ted's fixing your computer at a quarter past one, eat your Whopper with cheese in his face. He functions better when he's slightly dizzy from hunger.

23. When Ted asks you whether you've installed any new software on your computer, LIE. It's no one else's business what you've got on your computer.

24. If the mouse cable keeps knocking down the framed picture of your dog, lift the monitor and stuff the cable under it. Those skinny Mouse cables were designed to have 55 lbs. of computer monitor crushing them.

25. If the space bar on your keyboard doesn't work, blame Ted for not upgrading it sooner. Hell, it's not your fault there's a half pound of pizza crust crumbs, nail clippings, and big sticky drops of Mountain Dew under the keys.

26. When you get the message saying "Are you sure?", click the "Yes" button as fast as you can. Hell, if you weren't sure, you wouldn't be doing it, would you?

27. Feel perfectly free to say things like "I don't know nothing about that boneheaded computer crap." It never bothers Ted to hear his area of professional expertise referred to as boneheaded crap.

28. Don't even think of breaking large print jobs down into smaller chunks. God forbid somebody else should sneak a one-page job in between your 500-page Word document.

29. When you send that 500-page document to the printer, don't bother to check if the printer has enough paper. That's Ted's job.

30. When Ted calls you 30 minutes later and tells you that the printer printed 24 pages of your 500-page document before it ran out of paper, and there are now nine other jobs in the queue behind yours, ask him why he didn't bother to add more paper.

31. When you receive a 130 MB movie file, send it to everyone as a high-priority mail attachment. Ted's provided plenty of disk space and processor capacity on the new mail server for just those kinds of important things.

32. When you bump into Ted in the grocery store on a Sunday afternoon, ask him computer questions. He works 24/7, and is always thinking about computers, even when he's at super-market buying toilet paper and doggie treats.

33. If your son is a student in computer science, have him come in on the weekends and do his projects on your office computer. Ted will be there for you when your son's illegal copy of Visual Basic 6.0 makes the Access database keel over and die.

34. When you bring Ted your own "no-name" brand PC to repair for free at the office, tell him how urgently he needs to fix it so you can get back to playing EverQuest. He'll get on it right away, because everyone knows he doesn't do anything all day except surf the Internet.

35. Don't ever thank Ted. He loves fixing everything AND getting paid for it!

Barooo!  I learned today that Rookie, Carolyn Scott's beloved dancing golden retriever has passed on.  He was such an incredible dog.  I wrote to her back in April to share the news that she and Rookie had made it to Cuteoverload.com.  I wasn't part of her mailing list so she actually took the time to personally write me back today in response to my email to let me know.  I'm really touched by that.

I feel so horrible for her but I know she can continue on, working with dogs and being an inspiration to people everywhere. 

Enjoy your afterlife in that big ballroom in the sky, Rookie.

This makes me wish I could hug my goldens right now!  *crying*  But I know they're off in Utah running crazy circles on a ranch with my folks, living the life.  May they romp for Rookie!

 

I got my wish!  After I saw a Bollywood routine on last week's So You Think You Can Dance I knew that a group routine must be soon to follow and they did it last night!

Yay!!

Brown Suga - Does this one get your stamp of approval, too?

Finally So You Think You Can Dance took at step up in the world and brought some Indian dance to the show!  YAY!!!!

(Lets see if it gets a stamp of approval from Ms. BrownSuga)