Life On the Wicked Stage: Act 2

Happy New Year

2009-12-31T23:33:56-05:00

Posted via email from Warner's Posterous

Best Person of the Decade

2009-12-31T15:49:43-05:00

My wife gets the nod for Best Person of the Decade for many reasons. But mostly because she makes me laugh.

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from Warner's Posterous

JibJab Says Farewell to 2009

2009-12-30T14:43:55-05:00

Lots of fun in only the way the folks at JibJab can do it.

Playing Carol of the Bells with Dominoes

2009-12-30T14:37:21-05:00

Just fun stuff. About Carol of the Bells played by unleashing a domino rush?

Via Neatorama

Make Those Frog Legs Dance with a Little Salt

2009-12-30T14:31:53-05:00

Frog legs aren't everyone's idea of a delicacy. But the can be entertaining as this video shows. Add a little salt and get ready for some dancing.

A New Meaning for Underwear Bombing

2009-12-27T18:13:45-05:00

I'm not sure what it is about Flight 253 and folks from Nigeria, but I'm guessing that flight number is going to be changed pretty soon. After the thwarted attempt on Christmas Day to hear of another disruption today on the same flight was, to say the least, unsettling. From what I'm hearing currently though this was not an attempt to bring down the plane, but a different kind of underwear bomb. Apparently the man who had locked himself in the restroom merely had stomach troubles. Flight attendants pulled him out, no doubt obeying the new 1 hour before landing rule, and he got unruly. I'm guessing anyone in a similar condition would do so as well. Apparently security forces were in full force on landing the plane, but again, although the investigation continues, apparently all is OK, except perhaps this guy's dignity and/or his shorts.

Twitter was alive with all sorts of craziness about this as it unfolded with all sorts of hits at the TSA and its rules both in place and proposed. Jeff Jarvis tossed about a bunch of funny TSA rules and others joined in as well. Even though this is no win situation for anyone who has the guts to be in charge at the TSA because no matter what rules they try to put in place, you can't stop a case of the runs.

You have to acknowledge though that this is the most you've heard about underwear on the news during a Christmas holiday.

Wayside Theatre's Help Us Melt The Snow Appeal

2009-12-27T10:36:44-05:00

This is a letter we've sent out to Wayside Theatre patrons and supporters. It also appeared in the Winchester Star as a Letter to the Editor. Hopefully you'll read it and respond.

Buried!

Last weekend’s large snowfall hit many in the Northern Shenandoah Valley very hard, and Wayside Theatre is no exception.

Wayside had to cancel five performances of its annual Christmas show, Miracle on 34th Street, due to weather and street conditions.

Like most nonprofit organizations and businesses, we simply had no choice but to cancel the shows. We’ve moved some of our customers to other performances through the end of the run on Dec. 27, and we added evening performances on Monday, Dec. 21, and Tuesday, Dec. 22, to offer our customers a chance to see the show. But unfortunately, the revenue we’ve lost is lost forever.

Wayside depends on the revenue from this Christmas show. It typically is about 30 percent of our annual revenue. We estimate we’ve lost around $20,000 at this point. There is no doubt this will affect our plans going forward.

Given the economic difficulties of the last year and a half, we felt we were just about to turn a corner with what had been the success of this year’s Christmas show. But now that corner is covered in snow drifts. Consequently we’re putting out an urgent appeal for anyone who is still considering their year-end giving to please think of Wayside Theatre when doing so. There are three easy ways to help Wayside in this dire time.

Call the box office and make a donation on your credit card.

Visit our web site at www.waysidetheatre.org and use the PayPal button on the home page to make a contribution. These funds go directly to us.

Mail in a check today to Wayside Theatre, P.O. Box 260, Middletown, VA 22645. All donations are fully tax-deductible, and no donation is too small.

We thank you for your support of Wayside Theatre and for your continued support in helping to keep Wayside a viable and important integrated part of our community in bringing the best in theater to the Shenandoah Valley.

The Nigerian Crotch Bomber Lights Up Your Privates

2009-12-27T09:37:22-05:00

It makes you scratch you head in wonder. Or maybe scratch some where else on your anatomy. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, now forever known as the Nigerian Crotch Bomber has proven once again that terrorists can succeed even when they fail. Trying to set off an explosive (PETN) hidden in his underwear on an airplane preparing to land in Detroit he managed only to start a fire that was extinguished by a passenger and he was then subdued. It gives new context to the phrase Sword of Allah. Vague and confusing claims of Al Qaeda ties in Yemen abound and of course new restrictions on airline passengers were immediately put into place.

But his successes are piling up. This is apparently the second time (the Fort Hood massacre being the first) that we've had some sort of warning about an individual. The US was apparently warned in some fashion by his father, who is a former Nigerian banker, that is son's religious beliefs had him worried about his future actions. A file was opened somewhere on the guy, and he ended up on a Terror Watch list, but his name never ended up on a no-fly list. Apparently his name was on the manifest that was approved by US officials prior to the plane's take off. So, his actions show once again that no matter what steps we take (read how much money we spend or how inconvenient we make life for ourselves) to attempt to protect ourselves, it is never enough and never will be.

On one of the busiest travel weekends of the year, Mr. Crotch Bomber has managed to snarl airports, tie the shorts of holiday travelers in knots, and perhaps punch holes in the the consumer electronics industry as well. Word is (although not official as of yet) that passengers on international flights heading into the US are not allowed to use electronics, although whether that is only for the last hour of the flight or during the entire flight is not clear. This is mostly anecdotal at the moment, but there are enough anecdotes to make it plausible. I pity the international journalists and participants about to head to CES2010. Passengers are being told to remain in their seats with nothing whatsoever in their laps for the last hour of a flight. And once again a procedure seems like buying condoms the night after the big date. It's a real pain in the pelvic girdle.

Apparently this is the same technique (hiding a bomb in your underwear) that was used to attempt an assassination on a Saudi prince awhile back. The thinking is that no one will do a pat down search on a Muslim man's crotch area out of respect. Abdul has probably guaranteed that supposedly religious axiom should be gone forever, and now we'll come up with some new, and probably impotent way to search underwear before boarding.

And of course the political dimension is just getting started and will continue once the talking heads finish their holiday vacations. News left to third and fourth stringers when the big guys and gals are off air isn't really news after all, so we'll be forced to revisit this once they all return.

There's no bottom line here as it is still too early to sort through all of this mayhem, but even though there are apparent heroes in this story, the only winners are the bad guys. The bad guys don't have to perform perfectly in order to succeed but then that's what terrorism is all about. Who needs viagra when you can limp your way to this sort of chaos? Unfortunately we seem to be just as adept at proving that ineffectiveness is a two way street.

The only way I can see to stop the Crotch Bombers is for some mullah somewhere to stand up and proclaim that the pubic regions of the faithful are no longer sacred territory. But then again, those following western religions probably have a bigger hang up about that and view nether region searches as more explosive than a potential bomb threat.

Thomasin Goes 3D

2009-12-26T14:06:45-05:00

Yep, we caught Avatar in 3D. Loved it. The most fun though was watching my wife Thomasin adjust to the glasses.

Merry Christmas

2009-12-24T18:11:55-05:00

May you find peace, harmony, and the joy of being in the company of those who love you this Christmas.

Beer Bottle Christmas Carols

2009-12-24T10:07:28-05:00

Now there's something to do with all those beer bottles you empty over the holiday.

Via RexHammock

The Miracle of the Christmas Tooth

2009-12-23T11:12:32-05:00

OK, bear with me here. This story is quite amazing. At least everyone here at Wayside Theatre thinks so. My lovely wife, Thomasin and I, have had quite a year. Mostly it has been dealing with trying to keep the theatre going. This fall she cracked a tooth and had a nasty experience with the dentist in attempting a root canal that failed. I won't go into that full story here because it is ugly. Suffice it to say, this required a great deal of work with some specialists and resulted in her getting a denture to replace the tooth that was eventually pulled. Except for the amount of money we have to spend on this process, all was looking OK. Then last week in one of our typical rushes to get the show up and running for the night, she thought she had either lost the denture or swallowed it about 45 minutes before the show. We put on a frantic search with flashlights and actors looking everywhere.

She gave up the ghost and the tooth after much angst and went on with that show and others. Afraid the denture, with its hooks might be lodged somewhere in her stomach, she got comforting news that if she had swallowed it, there would be no problem. But we were faced with several options moving forward. The original denture cost us a lot of money we don't have (Merry Christmas) and replacing it at the moment was out of the question. Today we started paying on that original work. I joked that after we paid off the original and got a replacement we'd probably find the tooth outside the theatre after all this snow melted in the spring.

We didn't have to wait for the snow to melt. This morning one immediately after Thomasin returned to the office from visiting her dentist who had given her a retainer to keep her teeth from moving, one of our Interns, Aviva, found the original denture. She was sweeping up our concession area and found it on the floor. That room has been swept since the loss and has been filled with customers, so I'm amazed it survived.

As Thomasin says, it's a Christmas Miracle, and given everything we've been dealing with this year, it sure feels like it. So, we're celebrating a little bit while the denture is being disinfected.

Finally Got Some Xmas Decorations Up

2009-12-22T23:29:29-05:00

When youbspend most of the fall making a Christmas show the way we do, it comes as no surprise that we are chronically late decorating at home. But we got there.

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from Warner's Posterous

Top 10 Mistakes of the Decade

2009-12-22T13:42:20-05:00

Here's a list of what the AP thinks were the Top 10 mistakes of the decade. They include Dick Cheney shooting a friend in the face, Bernie Madoff, Mark Sanford, Mission Accomplished and more. I'd add a few more like:

The Crunchpad/JooJoo Debacle
Every attempt by the Pentagon to lie to us about creating a hero or heroine that backfired during the early phases of the Iraq War
The Iraq War
John McCain creating a monster by picking Sarah Palin as a running mate
Michele Bachmann
The Republican approach to the health care reform. It will bite them and us in the tookus.
"You're doing a heckuva job, Brownie"
Although some if not much of it happened in the 90's, the relaxing of regulations on the financial community that led to the insanity that we are all facing.
Orly Taitz

How about you?

Jack Bauer Interrogates Santa

2009-12-22T08:34:39-05:00

Say it ain't so. Jack Bauer gives Santa the third degree.