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Ok, so after the previous post MT began to get more and more wonky. My wonderful host/tech support guru, tried to help and between the two of us, MT broke.
Tonight, after a good hour on the phone (mostly me sounding like I knew what I was talking about and Reddz getting work done) MT got up and running and now things are more or lest back to normal.
Cant think of too much to talk about right at the moment, so I will have to say good night for now.
Ok. So as you can see, the site is now up and running and looking dapper in its new digs.
The switch over has caused a few aches and pains and I do seem to be having some trouble with getting the stylesheet down, but other then that...well...there is a bit of trouble with a plugin I am desperately wanting to work.
I dont like the way the site looks at all and thankfully the Six Apart crew have finally released more then three styles for MT, however I can not for the life of me get them to work. So to help people like me get these styles working, they released a Plugin to get the styles working. Except I cant get the damn plugin to work right.
It's getting very frustrating. So if the site looks damn well messed up over the next little while, I apologize.
Tonight was our night to have dinner with a friend of Shauna's. Shauna or I usually make dinner and he brings pop, salad and some movies for us to watch. Tonight it was Sin City and, get this, ROCK AND RULE!
I know! I couldnt believe it. I was telling Dallas that its been at least ten years since I had seen Rock and Rule and watching it tonight proved it was still as good now as it was then.
Rock and Rule Home Page is here.
IMDB is here.
This is one of those movies that I absolutely love, but can't really describe why I think so. Check it out and enjoy.
For dinner shauna made her most excellent soup/stew combo and we over stuffed ourselves.
Sigh, full stomach plus busy weekend makes Andrew a very sleepy boy. More tomorrow.
The last week at work has not been fun. In fact I think I could go so far as to say that it was a piece of shit week. Our full time onsite technician is away on holidays and the secondary onsite tech had to take care of the extra work. To top it off, the last two weeks have been SUPER busy. I dont think we have had a solidly busy week like this in a long while.
On Thursday / Friday, everything came to a head and almost killed someone. The secondary onsite technician is not the best and in fact he has pissed off most of his coworkers including myself. In fact I could go so far as to say that he has pissed me off regularly since he joined ther service department. This kid, and I call him a kid even though he is 21, has time and time again dropped the ball and proved to myself and the other technician that he is unable to do his work. He has trouble understanding when someone is genuinely upset with him and this causes further trouble for him. On Friday I spoke with my boss and other coworker about this idiot. My boss listened to me and my coworker rant about this kid for 45 minutes and didnt really say anything, but the frown on his face got longer and longer and longer.
I can only hope that come Monday morning, this kid has either gotten a huge reprimand with the fear of being fired added on top or he has in fact been fired. Now this may sound mean and cold hearted but I can not get across here what this kid has done wrong. In here it's hard to get across the subtle but bad things he does on a moment to moment basis and some of the things he does wrong, only someone who works with computers and in retail would understand.
The only unfortunate thing of this whole debacle is that my boss' bosses are hindering him from trying to make things better in the service department. Its fairly sad to see the act of trying to save a few bucks per hour, drive at least 4 people crazy to the point of wanting to quit.
I will post again when I know whats happening with the wonder kid.
Well, the new version of Movable Type is now out and in use. MT 3.2 shows a vast amount of improvement over 3.1 and I am glad that I got it installed.
Now.
It appears either I have gotten dumber in the last year or that this version of MT has gotten harder to mess around with. Since I got Reddz to install it last night, I have managed to break it once and break the look of the site at LEAST 5 times.
I finally got it back together and not looking like a dogs breakfast for the moment and I will leave it alone until I can get a grasp of what the hell I am doing. Perhaps over the weekend I will be able to get this figured out. Six Apart solved the one thing with this new release that was bugging me before, a lack of default styles. Now they have gone and solved that issue for me (and won me away from Word Press for good) they have gone and made it ten times harder to install default themes.
I will post much more often as the weekend goes along.
Is finally out!
Yay!
In the past, I have mentioned software that I use or have used for various purposes but I dont think I have ever really posted a concise list of programs.
1. Obviously the first thing listed should be the operating system that I choose to use. I have in the past, experimented with several versions of Linux, namely Red Hat, Mandrake and Suse (only once and it didnt work out that well between us). 99% of the time, a version of Windows has been installed on my computer. I use Windows XP Pro currently and I am happy with how it works and what it does for me. Being in the industry I am in, I know that there are better operating systems out there. However, I also do know that a vast majority of computer owners use Windows. I choose to use, recommend and repair Windows rather then Linux or Apple's OS' simply due to the sheer proliferation of the market by Windows.
Windows
Red Hat and Fedora Core
Suse
Mandrake
(I just found out that Mandrake is now called Mandriva after a company merge).
2.After the operating system choice, the next program I would recommend is an email client. Now again I am going to go with the Microsoft product. I use Outlook for my mail. I have in the past tried Thunderbird from Mozilla and I have tried and used Eudora for my emails, but neither product seemed to really do what I wanted and they seemed to have a slightly less then polished look. Many people have said that Thunderbird is the email program to use and several times I have given it another chance, to see if perhaps I didnt give it enough time to grow on me, and time and time again I go back to Outlook. I suppose that I choose Outlook for the fact that Microsoft has thrown a lot of development into Outlook. But mostly it just seems to be personal preference.
3.A game is my next often used program. World of Warcraft has dominated my computer for almost a year now. Taking over like a big fat sumo wrestler in a sushi shop. Shauna now plays the game more then I do, but I do manage to get in an hour or three a week when I have the time.
4. I have already recommended spyware and adware removal tools for you to use and I think that anti-virus software comes down (in part) to personal preference. Norton products work well for most folks, but older machines have trouble with Norton. I have in the past suggested AVG as an alternative to Symantec products. AVG is a good solid tool for keeping viruses off your computer. AVG has a small footprint and tends to run well on almost all machines regardless of system resources.
Well thats a lot of chatter for this morning. I think I will end this post here and get back to work.
20 desktops waiting to be worked on
+
14 Laptops waiting to be worked on
+
Two technicians who are frustrated with how things are going
+
One Tech who no one likes
EQUALS?
Murder, death and mayhem.
Coming soon to a blog near you.
Stumbled across this in some blog rambling today:
The other day an ex-girlfriend called me up after a couple of years of radio silence. She said, I wanted to apologize for how I treated you. I was so angry. I smashed a plate after we broke up. I never broke a dish before or since. And I said, well, you did treat me badly. And you were hard on plates. But I don't feel any anger. People don't mean to do that shit, but they do. I've done it too.
I felt a little righteous, because while it does stroke the smug part of the brain to hear that you were wonderful and she was wrong. But I didn't feel that way for long, because righteousness is not much in comparison to the feeling of resolution that came because I knew that I had given another person some peace. I've been forgiven for things as well, some pretty dreadful, violent things, and it's hard to be forgiven but there is nothing like it; once, after being forgiven, I walked out into the sunlight and the world was stripped of predators, and I no longer was waiting for retribution from mystical forces I do not believe in. So hell, I said, take all the forgiveness you need. We hung up and I thought for a while, and told my girlfriend about that phone call because telling everything is a way to keep the lines crossed, tangled, and braided. She understood, and the focusing ring on the inner camera turned a little more, the picture resolved, a little sharper. Which is what I want for year 31: more resolution.
Found Here.
I want to say that I have done some pretty bad things in my life, but it would be closer to the mark if I said "I've done one really bad thing in my life followed up with some minor offenses to keep it company". The above blogger and his post hit the mark with me today. I dont think the person who I offended and hurt understands the hold that she has over me. The denial of forgiveness can do one of two things, it can snap the desire to be forgiven and make a hard edge to the sores inflicted or it can leave the wounds open and make them sore all the time. I want to be forgiven and the person who could forgive me has chosen to not speak with me nor let me make any attempts at ammends.
I have to admit that a part of me is angry at this. Almost seven years ago now, I made my mistakes. Huge ones and people got hurt both mentally and physically. Since then I have made repeated attempts to ammend and repair the trouble I caused.
It is hard to express how I feel about my friends now. I miss them terribly, I am still greatly remoseful for what I happened, but I am also angry, that they wont even try. Therapy and water under a million bridges wont really fix it. A hello from them, unsolicited from me, would do more then they know.
Is it really so much to ask for?
Purchasing
Rule 1: Research. Do lots of research. You need to know what your looking for before you buy it. Most salesmen are not crooks, but rather just trying to get the sale. So they will try to sell you what they can, not what might be best or best for you. If you walk into a computer store knowing what you want and why you want that particular item, then your ahead of the game.
Rule 1b: Know what your buying. If you dont know what your buying then you might as well buy a typewriter.
Rule 2: Be prepared to spend more then you initially thought. If you planned to spend say $1,500, then you will more then likely spend about $500 more. Not because your getting screwed over, but because of some of the things you might have forgotten about. Dont walk in and force the sales person to get you a whole machine and all the parts for EXACTLY that amount. If you do this, you could end up getting parts that are not the best for you. Purchasing a new computer is an expensive ordeal and has to be done carefully or else you could end up with trouble down the road.
Rule 3: Get the longest most comprehensive warranty that your computer store sells and then get them to spell out EXACTLY what it means and what its limitations are. You must know what your responsibilites are as a owner and what your store will and most importantly, will not cover. You need to understand your computer has hundreds and hundreds of moving parts and that anything with a single moving part has the chance for failure of some kind. When a part fails, it isnt that your computer store sold you a piece of junk, but just that a group of moving parts failed to keep moving properly.
Owning A Computer
Rule 1: Keep it clean. You as a computer owner, like a car owner, have a responsibility and obligation to keep your computer clean. Your warranty for both your car and your computer can be voided if you dont do regular clean ups. Once a month, purchase a can of compressed air and use it to blow out all the dust in your computer. Put the nozzle that comes with the can into any hole in your computer case you can and blow. If you feel confident enough, take the side of the case off and really clean out the insides. Two things to be careful off; any place where you have a fan that moves, try to avoid moving them with the compressed air. Moving these fans in the wrong direction can ruin them and possibly kill your computer.
Rule 2: Keep it Clean. Keeping your computer clean of viruses and sypware/adware will help you enjoy your computer longer. Using some of the tools that I discussed last week, you will keep your computer free of most problems if not all. Part of keeping your computer virus and spyware free is knowing what your installing. Many programs that "look cool" or that are fun to use, have something in them that might not be good for your computer. Incredmail is a prime example. This is a popular email program. However, it comes with some advertising programs that while in themselves are mostly harmless, they do in fact let in other bad things and then its all down hill from there. Incredimail, in and of itself, is no bad thing, but it does allow more problems in later.
Rule 3: Keep your computer updated. Regularly head over to Microsoft's web site and look for recent updates and security patches. By keeping your computer up to date and all the security holes filled up, you help save other computers. When your computer has a security flaw in it, your computer have the ability to reinfect other clean computers. Your computer can act as a infection point for hundreds of thousands of other computers.
These are pretty simple rules and are easy to follow. Following them can help keep you and your computer happy for the years that you own it.
Is not as close to the end of my week as I want. I still have to come into work tomorrow. (Insert Sigh here). Tomorrow is the last day that I need to come in extra to make up for holiday time that I took and got paid for.
I am feeling kind of off this morning. I drank some Neocitron last night before I went to bed to help me sleep and keep my cough down and this morning I am kind of a little medicine head-ish. I wish this cough would go away already. I think this weekend, when I am not at work, I will spend as much time as I can sleeping and resting under warm blankets and eating soup. Maybe that will help get rid of it. It has seemed to me lately that the last year has seen me fairly ill to slightly ill quite often and I am a little worried about it.
I am still eagerly awaiting the new version of Movable Type 3.2. The more time that I spend waiting for it to come out, the more I begin to want to do more with my blog and with what I write here. You can already see that since my return from the Fringe, I have been writing almost every day and most posts have had a sizeable amout of content. I would like the blog to contain intelligent posts about what I know, which is Theatre, History and Computers. I have yet to really post anything serious about history on the blog here and I guess that's partly due to time restraints. I wont put any content on here that I'm not 100% sure is correct.
For sure as the new MTC season progresses I will post show reviews and there will be a long review of Dracula when the Ballet does its performance and perhaps Shauna and I will make a trip to the opera once more. I think as well that I will try and take in a few shows that are not MTC related. I know that the University of Winnipeg does at least three shows a year and that Winnipeg Jewish Theatre does two. I wouldnt mind expanding my theatre season a little bit to more then just MTC.
Well, I think thats enough for this morning.
Well, no new MT today.
But I thought I would take the time to link to a few tools and web sites again for those folks who come here.
Ad-aware is probably the best spyware/adware removal tool out there. Ninety percent of all trouble people have with their computer that is software related comes from spyware and adware. Most spyware comes from general internet surfing. While surfing on most pages you will pick up at least a dozen or so tracking cookies per page and if you head to any sites that sell items or do some heavy advertising, you could pick up something more.
(Begin aside)
Today, tomorrow and Saturday are our Customer Appreciation Days and I have been given a god awful red t-shirt to wear today. I thought it was bad enough to wear the blue shirts they make us wear but I was so wrong. Already there have been two people making "red shirts from star trek" jokes and I have no doubt I will hear it a couple times more from some customers. Sigh. I hated having to wear stupid uniform stuff when I was at the Bay and now I have to wear _this_. Damnit.
(End aside)
Using Adaware at least every other day, will save you from a huge amount of trouble. If your like me and you surf a lot to a lot of different pages, then you may want to use it a little more often.
You can down load Ad-aware here.
Another good tool to use is Spybot. Now when this tool first came to my attention it was something that I have to admit, I scoffed. I didnt think that it was a good tool and that using did more harm then good. Well I was wrong.
When doing a large amount of surfing to sites that will obviously generate spyware trouble for you or if you have been surfing for a long time and you notice that you are having trouble, you can use Spybot AND Adaware and do a much more thorough job. Now, both of these tools will not clean your machine completely, but it should do a good enough job to get you up and running and back on the internet and into more trouble.
You can get Spybot here.
Check back for more useless crap from my head.
This is cool.
Sometimes I wish I could say this to customers.
Go here for the latest information about the new Superman movie.
Just found this theatre blog!
Ok....
Rant Time.
The idiot that I work with fucked up again and it made me look bad. On Friday, when I was both ill and attending a funeral, a customer came in an enquired about a machine. I was working on it but didnt have it finnished. He told her that it would be ready on Monday. Not only was it not ready, I had NO idea that the customer had even been in at all. So the customer showed up this morning and asked for her machine.
I had to tell her it wasnt ready yet and that it was a mistake to tell her so.
I hate that. I hate doing it and the customer hates hearing it. They wasted their time coming down to our store to get their machine and they dont like having to go home empty handed.
So I am a very unhappy camper.
End Rant.
I liked the sound of that. Kind of sounds like a horror movie.
Hmm, work as a horror movie. It certainly sounds like this place.
Ok, so today sucked a lot. Kevin is away on holidays, Jeff is due back tomorrow and Ray has spent all of today out doing onsite calls.
Despite being swamped with phone calls, paper work and customers dropping machines off, I did manage to actually get some stuff done today.
I am now very eagerly awaiting the release of the next public version of Movable Type. 3.2 is due out very soon, as the final beta release was put out yesterday or the day before. With the release notes for the final beta version was the statement that they were eagerly looking forward to the public release which they hoped would be very soon.
I am beginning to feel that perhaps I would like to get into the meat and bones of the blogging tool I use and the actual act of blogging a little more. I want to try and make this (waves hands around blog) something more serious. I will turn on comments again and track backs and try and get them managed a little better. The only real drawback to me blogging all the time is the look of the site. I dont like it and I have never found a look that has kept me happy at all. There are a couple web sites out there that I desperately wish I had the skill to duplicate.
Well, its look like my day is wrapping up here. Time to escape as best I can.
Don't you hate it when you come into work on a Monday (or your equivalent day of the week that comes after your days off) and you hit the ground running? I love it! (NOT)
The minute that I came in, there was a LOT of stuff to take care of. It is now one hour later and the shit is starting to pile up and I am ALL by myself. Two tech's are on holidays, one of whom is back tomorrow and one is gone for two weeks. The ONLY other person that is in service to help out is gone ALL morning and it's really pissed me off.
The Sunday was ok. I slept in till 10 and spent most of the morning playing on the computer, something I havent done in a long, long time. After a few hours of that, I got tired and had a nap until about 5ish.
Sigh...work calls, more later maybe.
Sometimes you have to pay the piper.
While working the Fringe I asked for an extra two days off from work, paid. My manager, who is a great and excellent manager, gave them to me with the understanding that I would come in and make up the time. So, here I am at work on a Saturday morning, the first of two.
The funeral yesterday was pretty tough. My mom and my cousin were very close and my mom doesn't handle funerals very well. My other cousins (direct brothers and sisters) were VERY heart broken and did not seem to be doing well either. My cousin Wendy was very close to her family and it showed very much yesterday.
After the funeral it was a typical family get together. There was food, family and talk. Lots of talk. Most of the time my moms side of the family doesnt get together except for funerals and weddings and it can be years between seeing people.
Time to get to work.
Well, I knew this was coming for a while now (400 comes around eventually) and here it is, the 400th post, and I dont really have that much to say. So I think I will do the usual and ramble on about a series of unrelated things and see where it ends up.
I got a call last night from my mom letting me know that one of my cousins had died of cancer late the day before. My cousin Wendy and I were many years apart and she was closer to my mom, who always said Wendy was her favourite niece, then she was to me. Wendy was diagnosed with cancer almost two years ago and had been making a really strong go of it, but there really wasn't any hope of beating it full as they had caught it too late. The funeral is on Friday afternoon and I will be taking time off work to go. Even though Wendy and I were not close, she meant a lot to my mom and it will be good for her to have me there.
I am still coughing and sniffling today (is it getting worse maybe?) and its getting tiring and annoying. I want to be better and not trying to cough up a lung every hour. I am trying to take it easy and get lots of rest each night and I am drinking litres and litres of water each day (dont they say you need lots of liquids?) in hopes of drowning this damn cold. I know I usually get this cold after the Fringe and in years past it has been a LOT worse (a couple of years ago I got a very, very nasty case of strept throat and was laid out for a whole week). Part of it is also that I am worried that this will hang around for a month or two like the last time I got a cough.
The software that I am using to write this blog has a new version coming out in the near future and while I initially wasnt looking forward to it, I am now. Part of what I like and don't like about Movable Type is its complexity. Movable Type (or MT) is super complex, it has tons of features and is very flexible. While most of the time this kind of software is referred to as "Blogging Software" MT is actually "Content Management Software". With MT you can manage most information and have it accessable over the internet or an intranet if you so wish.
I use MT to write this blog and have been doing so for about two years now (give or take a month or two) and so far my only real complaint about the software has been that it lacks a selection of themes or layouts to make it look nice. I have little to no skill in writing up a css layout for anything and the few attempts I have made have never made me happy. The look of my blog has always played a part in how often I write and in the past I have attempted to over come that, but without much success. Well, it looks like with version 3.2 of MT, there will finally be the addition of some new themes. The other thing that makes me happy about the new version of MT is that the makers of the software are making all the templates and css layouts uniform across the board on all their software. So three different blogging tools (all of which they own) will have the exact same substructure and will allow the sharing of themes across each of the three tools. Which is a very good thing.
Thats enough for this morning. I will write more later.
They took away my msn.
The network guy at work here finally got around to blocking msn messenger and now I cant chat in the mornings, which sucks (for me, not for work).
I am trying to think of something to write here, but to be honest, I am pretty bored today and its being a pain in the ass to thing of anything.
Perhaps something will come to me later.
Something things are a given: The sun rises and sets east to west; The moon always rises and the wind always blows; and I always get a cold at or after the Fringe. Always.
It has everything to do with coming and going from super cooled air conditioned venues and out into the super hot humid Winnipeg weather. This has happened almost every year since I started the Fringe without fail.
I took a sizeable amount of NyQuil last night (capital N, small my BIG FUCKIN Q, I love that Q dont you????)and I have some considerable medicine head this morning. Everything feels different and all I really want to do is go back to sleep.
Anyway, thats it for morning ramblings, I think I will write something computer related later today.
(Edit: Post failed to publish the first time, so a second try was needed)
...wish were a Sunday, thats my fun day.
Oh well. Another Monday. You would think that after 30 years, I wouldn't be so surprised that after yesterday, today would be monday. But here it is again, Monday, come up like a deadly thing, with like claws and stuff, and it's pounced on me and like made my day suck.
Although if we got rid of Monday's wouldnt we just then hate Tuesday's for the same reason? Probably.
I can appreciate Monday's when I don't have to be at work that day, but being up and at work by 8am is not really my idea of fun.
Ok, that covers my obligated rant about Monday mornings. I'll write something more interesting later.
I am very glad that I chose not to come back to work on a Monday, I honestly dont think I could have handled it. The mentality of the people around here is different then of Theatre people. Customers are customers no matter where they are or what they are doing, but the people you work with and the things you have to do for your work are another thing.
Theatre tech's have a hugely different attitude about everything they do and everything they are involved with then the tech's who fix computers. The work mentality is different. When I am on a theatre call and working at a light hang, while hanging lights I work as hard as I can and as fast as I can. I do this because (thinking about it now) I know that I have 3 hours to hang 100 lights and focus them in the last hour. But when a theatre tech isnt working, he looks like the laziest person ever. But ask him or her to describe what they did during their last call and it would make your back hurt just to think about it.
When working in the service area here, fixing computers, its a little different. While it would be nice to think I work at a break neck speed here all the time, the truth is, I dont. If loading a truck during a theatre call is 100%, then I would say that when working on computers, I tend to work at a solid 75%. Not because I am lazy, but more because there is an allowance to work at that rate. I still get computers back to customers at a rate that makes them happy, but I am not working at a break neck speed.
Not sure where I was going with that, so I'll just leave it alone.
It's Friday, I am almost done for the day and I am glad for it.
Enjoy your Friday.
The Fringe has come and gone and another year is over with. This was a much quieter year for me then in years past. This year a couple new things were in store for me, even before I saw any shows.
This year, for the first time in all the years of the Fringe Festival, there was no venue at the Planetarium. Since the Fringe began in Winnipeg Venue 4 has ALWAYS been at the Planetarium and for the last 6 years I have been one of the techs in the venue. This year, however, there was no venue at the Planetarium. Due to increasing cost for the venue, the Fringe chose to choose a new place to have Venue 4 in rather then pay the raising rent. I however was destined to be in Venue 11. A new venue meant a new partner as well. Venue 11 was located at the downtown campus of the Red River Community College. The venue was small, only a hundred seats in all, but still a nice one.
I had the usual amount of shows this year (five shows in all) and I had only one show that wont be worth commenting on.
My favourite this year was "Antoine Feval" with annual Fringe celebrity, Chris "Hilarious" Gibbs. Chris' site can be found here. This show kept me laughing each and every time I worked the show. The basic plot of the show is thus: It's Victorian London at the beginnings of Sherlock Holmes' popularity and somewhat slow witted Barnaby Gibbs is a huge fan. Barnaby becomes friends with the enigmatic "detective" Antoine Feval and the show is about their adventures together.
It's always a pleasure to work with Chris is a very humble guy and thusly hasn't gotten a huge head after all the acclaim he has gotten in the last couple of years. I look forward to working with him again next year.
Another show I did was "Love, Hate and Lemon Pie". I had expected to have this show fall into my list of shows I have seen or done but had no really feelings about it one way or the other, but I was wrong. After a couple shows it began to grow on me by leaps and bounds. Love, Hate and Lemon Pie is the story of two sisters stranded in Climax, Saskatchewan (a real place I swear). After Kate's car breaks down, she and her sister Leslie are forced to spend a few days together in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do but work out their problems. Leslie is on the verge of growing up and Kate is afraid to let her. The show was at times hilarious and heart warming and I am sure brought tears to some audience members eyes.
The two girls in the show, Erin and Andrea, were absolutely wonderful to work with and were so happy to be doing a Fringe show that it was impossible for me to be anything but happy around them. Erin and Andrea's stage manager was an old friend of mine who I hadn't seen in some time. Ray was a member of the comedy troop The Spleen Jockeys and someone who I went to University with for a few years and it was a pleasure to see him again.
Every year it seems that I have a kids show or a clown show to work and this year was no different. The Polly show was my kids show this year and unlike in years past, this show was a pleasure to work on. The Polly Show was a one girl show about a cleaning woman with dreams of joining the Rocket League. The show takes kids through Polly's adventures and watches her get her Rocket League stars.
While I must admit that I am NOT a fan of childrens theatre as a whole, I did enjoy doing this show immensely. The show was short enough to not bore the kids, but long enough to be worth the admission. Dianna, the star of the show, is immensely talented and it showed through her use of several stage props and physical comedy pieces. Off stage, Dianna was professional and polite at all times and it was an immense pleasure to work with her and hopefully Winnipeg will see her again next year. You can find her web site here.
The last show that I worked on was "Changling". This was a one man clown/improv/drama show. During a summer school class we see into the lives of 6 students and their teacher as they tried to learn poetry. However the class falls apart and does not end well for the students.
The actor, Thomas Jones was a skilled fellow showed a lot talent, but his show was in a very rough phase and he spent the Winnipeg Fringe rehearsing his show. I enjoyed working with him and I wished him well as he went on to the Saskatoon and Vancouver Fringes.
This Fringe was a whole series of new things for me. I spent less time out drinking this year and more time at home. I spent less time in my venue then ever before and I spent less time out on the square between shows. I wasn't working with my long time venue 4 partner, Wayne Buss!, and I found myself being more social with my actors between shows. I can't say that this Fringe was better then any other but it wasn't a bad year and I enjoyed myself.
Next Fringe is coming up fast and I am looking forward to it.
Don't you just love coming back from holidays and having that first day suck?
Back to work today and things are crappy right off the bat, but I am not surprised by it so it isnt that bad of a deal. I am going to try and get that big Fringe write up done sometime today (if I have the time while I am at work or perhaps later tonight).
There is a lot of computers on the incoming bench this morning and it looks like I will be by myself for most of the day, which is something that just warms me down to the bottom of my tummy.
Off to work, more later.
Has the drought ended? Not sure. Like a farmer in the middle of a long dry spell, I know one day of rain doesn't make anything better. It needs to be consistent and over the long run.
Sometime this week, a longer post will appear about the Fringe. After that I will put up a post about a book I am reading.
I would like to think that maybe after this dry spell, more things will come along and I will write more.
Who knows.
But right now one of the cats is telling me that its time for bed.
The festival ended on Saturday night with a MASSIVE thunderstorm and many people got VERY wet.
I had a couple excellent shows in my venue which were a pleasure to do and I will write more about them at a later date. Today is the pool party at Sue's parents house and that means steak and beer and sun. I am looking forward to it.
Expect a longer more detail fringe report in the coming days.