No Paws on the Table

As my sister (who took these pictures of Pushkin and my dad) pointed out, there is an explicit "No paws on the kitchen table" rule at my parents' apartment which is routinely ignored by the 12 feet of cats which routinely roam the abode.

Pushkin has a Papal dispensation, however, allowing him to do whatever he likes without even the stern "talking to" the other cats might get.
And, I suppose, arguably there are no paws on the table. Tail, absolutely, chin, rump, flank... but paws might be safely tucked away.
Last night Pushkin fell asleep on my lap. Which as a normal adult cat he'd never done. Sitting on lap for pettings was more his style. But he's getting old and sleeps a lot more now.

Today in the Pandora Machine

Ironically I'm having the problem with Hulu which is the opposite of what one would intuit. The dang commercials are freezing up when the regular program streams just fine. Unfortunately, Hulu won't let you go ahead and watch the program when the commercials are frozen. I can understand their need for commercials. I just wish that whatever tube they're going through was a bit bigger.
I've been informed by my family's IT department that my father can in fact read my blog. I have sent instructions to mark by blog as "read" so that all posts preceding this one are invisible to him. If he wants to know what his Christmas present(s) is/were/may be he'll have to figure out how to read the entire blog. And that's just not going to happen, no matter how much I tease him about it.
UPDATE: hi Dad.
Here's a sample conversation between me and redacted:
Me: hey that musical project you were working on, there are a couple sync issues.
They: yeah, I know. [The client] re-recorded some vocals because they didn't like the takes.
Me: You mean you shot lip-sync to material which they were going to re-record with different timing?
They: Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.
Me (cracking my knuckles):  Do you need me to choke a bitch?
They: No, no. They haven't made their last payment.

Edana!

I got my Celtic Amplifiers Edana today. It's more beautiful in person than in pictures. Here it is in my ideal setup with the Lil' Dawg Mutt.
This is a quick little recording with this setup -- the amps are turned way down ;-) This is a Gibson Les Paul Custom Shop Custom into an MXR analog delay and thorough a Lehle splitter. The Edana is going to a 12" Celestion Alnico Blue and the Mutt is going to a 10" Weber.
Actually, you hear relatively little of the Mutt in this recording. The mic is an SM57 and we're recording through a Neve 1272 and an Apogee Mini-Me converter.

Darkness is Cheap

Plus he has nice hats.

The deliriously handsome Greg Oliver Bodine is performing his Christmas Carol this year. He's doing the one-man-show at the Workshop Theater Company, not at Theatresource. Last time I saw it I got all sniffly and sobby by the end. It's a fantastic show.

You know the first time I really interacted with Greg I was a total jerkwad to him. I asked if we could borrow his dressing room right at half-hour of his solo show so that Ted Raimi would have a place to dress and try on costumes before we shot Millennium Crisis. Which really is a dick move on my part to make that request. And Greg graciously let us take over his place just before he was to go on.

I thanked Greg at the time but I can't imagine that I thanked him enough. Like you don't have enough to do before a one-man show and now someone is moving into your dressing room? Sheesh.

Go see A Christmas Carol. It'll make you cry. Don't ask if you can use his dressing room beforehand though. I'm the only one allowed to do that.

The iPad

One of the big advantages of your parents not being able to read your blog (unless specifically directed to it) is that one can publish freely about Christmas presents.

My Dad is notoriously difficult to buy for. And I don't know why it took a whole freakin' year, but we finally did a test (using Science™) and found that the iBook reader on an iPad actually gets a font size that's big enough for him to read comfortably (in his words: "I don't even need a magnifying glass!")
The Kindle reader on the iPad seems a bit better to me as the iBook reader expands the space between words in a somewhat unreadable manner when you get up to some big type sizes. Looks like a 36-point type-size is about where my dad needs his text.
As soon as he gets Shelby Foote's Civil War trilogy he's not coming out 'till Spring...

What Amuseth Me

OK, look, I don't know who Kate Gosselin is but her line on "Sarah Palin's Alaska" (while camping in the rain) is the funniest thing I've heard all day:

"Why would you pretend to be homeless?"

That pretty well sums up my feelings about camping.

++++
(For some reason I think I still have the ur-knowledge of how to select high flat ground for a tent, and dig a draining ditch around it with a trowel. For someone who dislikes spiders as much as I do I think I spent a lot of time camping as a kid.)

Three Cool Cats

From back to front that's Meydl, my dad, and Pushkin. Jeanne took the picture with her iPhone.

Learning New Things

Now, I'm not normally considered a stupid guy. When someone accuses me of being smart though I usually reply that it's not that I'm smart so much as I'm paying attention. So when I don't know something it's probably because I've never run across the information before. And here's something I ain't never run across before.
+++++
So here's a question for you. What's the name of the country immediately to the south of the United States? You know the one which shares a border along the Rio Grande (so right, I'm not talking about Cuba).

I'm talking about Mexico.

What is the actual name of the sovereign state of Mexico?

I'm sure I only know one person who would be able to say off the bat what the answer is, and that's my brother-in-law Dave Lewis.

The actual name (in Spanish) is Estados Unidos Mexicanos

In English the name is United Mexican States.

How could I have possibly not known that?

UPDATE: as per Dave's comment below, my childhood friend Todd (being a high-school Spanish teacher) knew the actual name of Mexico. So that's 2 people.

Here's a Notion

OK, the dude on our right is a bit off. But this is something like I think the official Tyrannosaurus Mouse picture should be like.
Now... if I could only grow a mustache...

Betty Ouyang Booyea

At our wrap party we were talking about how many of the actresses we've worked with have disappeared on us -- by going out to LA. Hmm... if they're willing to run that far, maybe we should be a bit paranoid! ;-) In any case, the wonderful Betty Ouyang is one of them. And she sure has been doing a lot of work there.
She's working (or finished) a new picture. They made a "behind the scenes" video of her new movie "Piehead".

EarthWar notion

I do not know what these are other than "Fireball S. G." Presumably that means something to someone. Is that a Japanese anime? A TV show?

Apparently their kits are all sold out.

But for the "dumb" unmanned mech at the beginning of Earthkiller, they look like they might be "easy" to build and operate from inside. Just remember -- guy in black tights makes up for a LOT of potential issues in the joints. Also, the arms wouldn't have to actually work, they could be mounted so high on the body that the operator couldn't work them anyway. A few barrels on a gun and off you go!

Drug Policy

We shoot a lot at my dad's metal shop in Metuchen. Before discovering the joys of Zoloft, drinking was the best way for me to get through the day of directing. I actually direct drunk pretty well. When the damned fog machine is acting up it perturbs me a lot less. In any case, screwdrivers and other fruity cocktails are a regular part of the Pandora Machine experience.
Recently I had this conversation with my father.
My dad says "Is that your bottle of vodka in the refrigerator at the shop?"
"Oh yeah, that probably is."
"You know we don't have alcohol at the shop."
Oops. No. I didn't know that. At the theater we are so not a dry shop. Hell, the place is practically an opium den. For the longest time we gave out beer and wine after shows (for a donation) and would frequently drink hard liquor during the day. There was even a period when vice cops came in (I know, right? No kidding.) And they told us we really needed to have a permit if there was alcohol in a public space so all the whiskey and bourbon got moved into my office for a couple months.
But I should have known better about my dad's shop. Firstwise, it's a metal shop so it's dangerous. Secondly my dad has all his life been a guy who people down on their luck have been able to lean on. In practical terms this means my dad has in the course of his career hired a lot of alcoholics. I mean like "drive the guy to AA meeting, pick him up and bring him home to give him dinner and let him sleep in my old bedroom* so he could get to work the next day" alcoholics.**

Well we in the Pandora Machine have no drug policy. We have a "don't get hurt" policy. Why test people if they have marijuana in their bloodstream if they aren't actually high? And why worry about someone driving a forklift impaired on Jim Beam when they can be perfectly impaired on cold medicine?
So don't be unable to do your job. That's the rule. And if you're an alcoholic, don't drink.
++++
*As a child I would change bedrooms as my older siblings moved out of the house. As they're upwards of 15-years older than me, that process began when I was 4 or 5.
**Fomenting, as it were, my love for Johnny Cash but that's another story altogether.

Vera Cruz

Because Montserrat Mendez told me to, I'm watching Vera Cruz which is free this month on Hulu. That Burt Lancaster is a man's manly man, I'll tell ya. And Mozz is right, Vera Cruz in space could really rock.

I'm Not Mr. Darcy

Do you like Chicago? Do you like style manuals? Then you'll LOVE the Chicago minibook. It's a .pdf. Print it out and give a copy to all your friends for Christmas. (Wait, it doesn't seem to actually work. I wonder if that's part of the style?)

Cornelius is on our left here. I don't look like the dreamy Mr. Darcy.

This is the dude I keep thinking I look like. His name is Cornelius Booth and he played Colonel Fitzwilliam in that recent Pride and Prejudice I like so much. His face is rounder than mine though.