Sand and Water by Beth Nielsen Chapman

Zack Wahls' Speech Defending Gay Marriage

Skippidy Doo Dah, Thank You Lord for Big Love

Big Love is back on HBO for its final season.  We love this show.  Spoiler alert if you haven't seen the first two episodes of this season, but Bill got his wives each a new gun for Christmas.  I'm guessing one of the kids finds one of the guns and creates some havoc before the series ends.  
This is one of our favorite clips from the show.  Rhonda sings the Donna Fargo hit, "Happiest Girl In the Whole USA."  It was quite a while ago in the series.  Rhonda's foster mother (playing the piano) persuaded her to make the appearance to talk about polygamy.  Roman is recovering from being shot by lackeys of Hollis Greene -- who believed it was Roman who poached Weber Gaming, when it was in fact Bill.  Bill is sleeping alone because he had a fight with the wives.

Today Maude Was My Co-Worker

This was the first day I have ever teleworked.  I spent most of the day working in bed on my MacBook.  I was amazed at how much work I actually got done.  The only distraction I had was a yellow ball of fur sleeping most of the day next to me.  Maude (above) certainly enjoyed having company all day.  The only downside was that by the end of the day I was going a little stir-crazy from lack of human contact.  Overall though, I liked working from home and hope I get to do it more.

Finally Purchased Office for the MacBook

Althouh I've had my Mac for more than 2 years, I finally purchased the
Office 2011 suite of software for it today, including Word, Excel, and
PowerPoint. I had Office on my desktop PC, and managed to survive
with that, but I'm going to be working from home tomorrow and didn't
want to be leashed to the desktop in our upstairs closet. I plan to
work very hard with my laptop in bed.

New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #274

Sorry bud, it's not a tutu for one special.  

This is my submission for the the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #274.  Let me know if you come up with a caption too! 

We Got Tickets to the Spider-Man Broadway Musical

We bought tickets to Spider-Man, Turn off the Dark for Saturday, February 12.  The tickets aren't together, but they are better seats than we could have gotten if we had sat together.  One is in the first row of the Flying Circle, which is the closest balcony.  The other ticket is in a side box balcony.  According to @abroadwaycritic who I follow on the Twitter machine, the balcony is the best seat in the house to take in the flying sequences. You can see his review of the show here.  One of the reasons I wanted to see it was this quote from that review:  "First things first: get your tickets to see Spider-man: Turn Off the Dark as soon as possible. It’s worth every cent." Hope nobody gets hurt.  

The Heat Is On

We have eternal problems keeping our lower level warm since our
furnace is on the roof. The furnace can't seem to manage to make the
heat go down there since heat rises. We've tried a variety of
different space heaters to supplement the furnace on our main level.
I bought this heater today at the Costco. It does throw out the
heat. Let's hope it helps.

Dinner at an Italian Restaurant--Trattoria Alberto

Shane and I went to our corner Italian restaurant, Trattoria Alberto, tonight.  It is one of our regular places we like to go out to in our neighborhood.  We took Shane's sister, Cherri, there last year and saw soon-to-be House Speaker John Boehner eating there.  We have since learned that it is one of his favorite haunts.  According to Time magazine, they even have a dish named after him.  I haven't noticed it on the menu.  We didn't see Boehner tonight, but we were ready to burst into tears to make fun of his tendency to do that at the drop of a hat.  Several years ago, we sat next to Senator Lindsey Graham and his all male party (staff?), the Republican closet case from South Carolina. Where do we have to go to see a Democrat in this town?

What A Difference A Day Makes

Tuesday I was in Florida and Wednesday I was back in DC in time for the snow. The good news is that I only had to work two days this week and we got 2 hours off both of those days because of the weather. This shot is out our front window from Wednesday evening.

La Cage Aux Folles -- Best of Broadway

The 2010 revival of La Cage was one of the best things we saw last year on Broadway.  Shane got the soundtrack for Christmas and we've been wearing it out.  Fair warning though; you onlt have a few more weeks to see the show starring Kelsey Grammer and Douglas Hodge (their last show is Feb 13).  Jeffrey Tambor and Harvey Fierstein take over the roles on February 15.  I want to see them in it too.  This montage of various scenes of the show made me want to see it again.

Those Crazy Academy Award Nominations--A Rant

The Academy Award nominations were announced this morning and I have a few thoughts on them.  Here they are.

This is the second year that there were 10, count them, 10 nominees for Best Picture.  All the other categories have five or less nominees, but in an obvious ploy to get more people to see more movies, they have 10 nominees for this category.  I think I saw maybe two movies in the theater last year.  I did see True Grit recently and I again swore I would never go to another in a movie theater.  People just do not understand they are in a public place and not their living rooms.

In this instance, Shane and I got to the theater early so that I could claim my favorite seat--back row center.  It prevents me hearing people behind me chit chatting or whatever.  Anyway, even though we were among the first ones in the theater, it filled up enough so that someone ended up sitting right next to me.  This lady constantly popped her gum and occasionally talked to movie.  It drove me crazy.  I would have said something, but her gentleman friend looked like he could have possibly been a professional football player.  I didn't think it was worth a brouhaha.  Anyway, my point is that I will not be going to the movies to see the other nine films nominated against True Grit.

The other movie I saw from last year was Harry Potter.  Poor Harry has never been an Oscar darling, but he did manage to wrangle two nominations this year--Visual Effects and Art Direction.  Luckily, Harry does just fine without the Oscar buzz other films seem to need.

My favorite thing about the nominations is how, out of all the movies released in the year, the technical awards also seem to also go to the films that end up being the best picture even when it doesn't make any sense.  For instance, True Grit got nominated for Costume Design.  Costume Design?  It was a western! The costumes were barely designed.  I liked the film very much and the costumes seemed very appropriate, but the best of any picture for the whole year?  That seems odd to me.

Also, I would like someone to explain to me the difference between sound editing and sound mixing.  How is it that some films were nominated in one of those categories and not the other?  You would think they would be dependent on each other.  Also, is there someone out there that is convinced to see a film based on these nominations?  "I wasn't very interested in Salt, but I see it got a sound mixing nomination, so perhaps I will see what all the buzz is about."

My only complaint about the nominations is that Matt Damon did not get included in Best Supporting Actor for True Grit.  He should get a special award for schooling Glen Campbell on how the role should have been played.  Campbell in the original version was so bad, that he nearly ruined the movie.  I know Campbell is not an actor and he just got the role because he bought the ladies into the theaters, but my God he was bad.  Damon wasn't anything more than adequate in the role, but when you compare it to how it was played previously, it was quite an accomplishment.

I used to be very into the Oscars, but lately I can't seem to be that interested in them.  Why do I care what films when awards?  It doesn't really affect my life.  I get an occasional award for working in the Government, but millions of people don't want to watch my performance appraisal.  I probably would work harder if it was televised.  I would dress better.

New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #273

We're going to need a bigger snow thrower. 

This is my submission for the the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #273.  Let me know if you come up with a caption too! 

A More Practical Purchase--It's a Maytag!

We decided against buying the art we were considering yesterday.  We were more practical since the washer we have here in Florida has a major problem.  When you wash stuff, it can leave oil stains that weren't there when we put it in the washer.  That makes in not a washer, but a dirtier.  Anyway, I read up on the problem and there seemed to be any number of things that could cause the problem.  So we decided it would be easiest to just get rid of the problem and buy a new washer.  So, instead of the lovely painting of irises we were considering, we're getting the above Maytag washer from the Home Depot.  Problem solved!  It will be delivered in a couple weeks.  The Home Depot will install the new washer and take away the washer that dirties.  

Don't Try This at Home (Or On Your Home)

Irises In Window

It is a chilly, windy day in Florida. I flew down this morning and
Shane met me at the airport. He had been traveling on business in
Atlanta this week, but flew down to Florida Thursday night. Since the
weather was icky, we traveled north to Sarasota to look at some
galleries. We are thinking about this painting we found by Karin
Riccardi. We're on the fence.

Knowing When to Leave from Promises Promises

Shane and I saw this show last August on Broadway with Kristin Chenoweth and Sean Hayes.  Shane actually saw it twice.  He saw it with my sister in September.  He really liked it. This is the best song from the show.  This is a homemade vid someone made with personal pictures and the song from the soundtrack.  It was a great show, but it has closed, so too late for you.  You can still buy the soundtrack though.  I love the Burt Bacharach songs!

Interestingly, at the end of the video, there are related videos listed, and one is another version of this song sung by Betty Buckley.   Very cool to contrast and compare them.

British Animal Voiceovers Viral Video

New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #272

On the bright side, at least they weren't triplets.

This is my submission for the the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #272.  Let me know if you come up with a caption too! 

Where In the World Is Shane?

Shane is on travel for work this week and this is a picture he took outside his hotel room.  Be the first to guess what city he is in or near, and you win a brand new car*!  Since this might be a tough one base the fact his hotel isn't realy close to the cityscape, here's another shot out anotuer window of his hotel below.  Good Luck!

*The stated prize of a new car may be substituted for another prize or no prize at all.