The Fun Zone

So, in the last few days before the birth of The Kid, Stefanie agreed to let me audition for the play being produced by our church's Theater Arts Ministry. It's an odd name for the group, as they don't seem to produce particularly religious plays. It's more of a community theater group that happens to be affiliated with the church. And is located in the church. And has a cast mostly made up of church members. But I digress.

Stef knew that I had be kind of itching to get back on stage, and when we found out that the group was really gunning for me to try out, she graciously insisted that I go for it. To make a long story short, I got the part of Tony in You Can't Take It With You. It's turning out to be a fantastic experience. I'm really enjoying getting my stage legs back, and it's looking like the show itself is going to be a real hoot.

For those of you who are interested, and in the area, the show will run Thursday, Friday and Saturday, April 10, 11, and 12. The second and third performances will include dessert. Let me know if you want to come, and I can get you ticket information.

What? Fine. Here's another set of pictures of The Kid:

"Seriously, Dad? You're singing 'Baby Beluga?'"

"This is the dad I'm stuck with, huh?"

...and a bonus COMBAT PUNCH!

Enjoy.

Oh hello there!

Just a quick note to say that the second of my "Name That Game" puzzles is part of the current episode of The Spiel (Episode 48: Worker Bees). This one's a bit more tricky than the first. Hopefully, I'll stump a bit more listeners than last time.

So, with all of the business going on lately, I didn't notice right away that things were looking a bit screwy around here. Comments were appearing where they weren't supposed to, strange characters started showing up, and some of my back-office functions were no longer working. It was probably a corrupt file around somewhere, but rather than just reinstall the same version, it seemed like a good time to upgrade b2evolution.

So, I'm up and running with the new software, but it'll take me a bit to sync my custom skin with the new version. I don't want to just slap it on, 'cause I may lose some of the upgraded functionality. That may have to wait for the weekend. For now, maybe I'll try out a new look.

UPDATE: Ah, couldn't wait. I just slapped the old skin back on. The only thing I don't think crossed over is the nifty new b2evolution logo, but I'm willing to live with that. If anything doesn't work for you, please let me know.

Some Time Ago, in my review of the most recent Dr. Demento Basement Tapes, I rejoiced at my discovery of Mr. Jonathan Coulton, and his zombie ballad, re: Your Brains. I declared that I would be following the output of Mr. Coulton closely, and that I would soon have more of his music in my grubby little hands.

That was last March, I believe.

It took the actions of my lovely wife, in the form of a wonderful Christmas gift, to bring me back into the JoCo fold, and I'm so glad she did. Coulton has that elusive quality that I feel is crucial for a quality novelty artist: you actually enjoy listening to him. In fact, some of his music is so catchy you barely realize that it's humor.

Smoking Monkey - This is Coulton's album from 2003, and it has a number of very strong offerings. By far, my favorite is IKEA, a love poem about everybody's favorite furniture warehouse. It's more than that, though. Coulton's scope is epic:

Long ago in days of yore,
It all began with a god named Thor.
There were vikings and boats,
And some plans for a furniture store...

...Ikea! (Ikea!)
Just some oak and some pine and a handful of Norsemen,
Ikea! (Ikea!)
Selling furniture for college kids and divorced men.
Everyone has a home,
But if you don't have a home,
You can buy one there!

He goes on to extol the virtues of meatballs and Allen wrenches and low-priced kitchen tables, and you just can't help but sing along. There are several gems here, but even stronger is my second acquisition:

Thing A Week One - In 2005, Coulton quit his job and started producing music at the rate of one song per week. This series is the output of that year: 52 tracks of oddities. Some, like See You All In Hell, or Sibling Rivalry (which appears to use samples from an ESL course), are more strange than funny, but others are just plain brilliant. Shop Vac is a lovely commentary on the banality of the suburban lifestyle, and My Monkey is one of Stef's favorites. His cover of Baby Got Back alone is worth the price of admission. As an added bonus, the cover notes are written by none other than John "I'm a PC" Hodgman, whose relationship with Coulton must go pretty far back, as one of the tracks on this disc, Furry Old Lobster, is a reference to an element of Hodgman's book, The Areas of My Expertise, or perhaps vice versa. 'tis a tangled web.

All in all, I'm feeling pretty well stocked in the novelty department. That's not to say I don't want to hear more from JoCo. Thing A Week Two is on its way as we speak.

Happy Listening!

Link: http://www.boardgamenews.com/index.php/boardgamenews/comments/battlestar_galactica_the_board_game_coming_from_fantasy_flight/

No, you got your component-heavy board game in my re-imagined 80s space opera!

Two great tastes... etc, etc.

Fantasy Flight Games has announced Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game.

It's based on the current series.

It's Fantasy Flight.

Players work together to solve the socio-political challenges facing humanity's last Colonial fleet.

But some of the players might be Cylons.

My Geek Meeter is going crazy right now.

Story here.

Link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ssummerer/sets/72157603760449731/

Yeah, yeah... I know. No pictures in a while. Here. Here's a link to Stefanie's flickr directory. You happy now? Huh? Okay, fine. ONE more:

The Kid is doing well. It was a little hairy for a bit, as he didn't want to eat as often as he was supposed to. This forced us to supplement his feedings with a method called "finger feeding," where I would stick my finger in his mouth, he'd suck on it, and I'd insert an eye dropper in there so he'd get enough to eat (or drink, as it were). It was a big pain, and a lot of unnecessary stress. Now, though, he seems to have gotten the hang of it. We do bring the occasional bottle into play, on those feedings when he just doesn't want to cooperate, but in general he's doing very well. At his two week checkup, he had returned to his birth weight, which is a good sign. Plus, he grew an inch!

I'm bummed that his eyesight isn't all that great yet. It kind of limits his baby toy options. I shook a little stuffed bunny with a rattle in its head in front of his face for like 10 minutes, and the best I could get in the way of interaction was a sort of wary sideways glare. "I don't know what your deal is, rabbit," he seemed to say, "but Daddy thinks you're important, so I'll keep you around. But I'm watching you..."

At this rate, it's going to take me forever to teach him to play Power Grid...