Two weeks ago my partner and I finished first. Last week we finished last. This week it was all going so well right up until the last table when it just went to … well, you get the idea.

This morning at the grocery store I saw a pack of napkins emblazoned with this image:

I don’t know what bothered me more, the fact that they wanted $5.00 USD for twenty cocktail napkins or the fact that the company producing them has reason to believe a market exists that consists of women of legal drinking age in this country that are not offended by being called, “Princess”.

I was at the store, in part, to buy a new automatic shower cleaner as otherwise the death of my old one left me with two ugly choices — either I could let my bathtub host the war to end all wars between soap scum and mildew or I could start cleaning it myself the old-fashioned way.

I had noticed a few months back that there was a “new and improved” version on the market that had not just one, but two sprayers. The package promises that the second sprayer targets “the grime zone”. Imagine my dismay to find that I had let my grime zone go unmolested all this time. I was tempted to upgrade then, but I decided instead to see how long the original one held out. Now I suspect this might have been a scheme to keep us early adopters from feeling bad about shelling out $14.95 USD for a new unit when our old ones went off to the big shower stall in the sky. Still I feel better knowing that when next I step out of the shower and activate the new unit the grime zone will face the fury of the scrubbing bubbles.

Under an overpass I drive by on my way home from work, there is a fairly extensive camp site. This morning I distinctly made out the silhouette of an upright vacuum cleaner.

My recent efforts have apparently sated the bridge gods, at least for the time being. Last night I had my very first, first place finish at the bridge club. I got a print out of the score sheet and .6 master points as a souvenir.

This story by the San Francisco Chronicle concerns the the water quality at a Superfund site near Redding, California. It documents that the water at this location can eat a hole through a pair of blue jeans and that a pen dropped into the water will soon be covered in copper. (I’m not sure what a pen becoming coated in copper means scientifically, but it can’t be good. I do know I would not be retrieving said pen from the aforementioned fluid; it can keep my pen.) But is it really water that is dissolving the stitching in boots? Surely this particular feat is to be attributed to something in the water. I tend to think that once water is described as being “much like battery acid” it is sort of disingenuous to continue calling it “water”. In any case, don’t drink it.

It is raining outside, and, if the forecast holds, it will be raining for most of the day.

There is a lone duck floating in the middle of the pool.

I can almost hear it laughing at all of the kids who won’t be allowed to go swimming today.

When I looked at my Netflix queue today, I noticed that there was an extra DVD listed as having been sent to me. Above that there was a link that read, “Why do you have an extra DVD?” which was great because I was wondering the same thing. I clicked on the link which opened in a small separate window, “We have sent you an extra DVD rental from your queue.” Below that, it was noted that to receive my next DVD I would need to return two, but that was the only explanation provided.

Update:

I received an e-mail from Netflix explaining that one of the DVDs they had sent to me was coming from a different shipping facility and would take longer to arrive, hence the extra DVD is to compensate me for the delay.

This morning I dragged myself out of bed to attend a children’s production of “Alice in Wonderland” at the Ritz Theater. I was wary because nothing good can come of a live theatre performance at ten in the morning, but I was not quite wary enough.

I was relieved upon seeing the minimalist set. I couldn’t imagine the budget and effort required for something other than that going into a run of five performances, it would have ended very badly indeed. Unfortunately my relief was short lived.

I’m not a purist. I was not offended that they chose to introduce a narrator in the form of an effeminate wolf called “Ritzy”. Apparently this is a reoccurring character that they use in all of their children’s shows. I was also not offended at the idea that the script was primarily improvised allowing for them to include a lot of audience participation, but it soon became clear that the improvisation was necessitated by the actors’ complete lack of familiarity with the text. The actors had, however, seen the animated Disney version. I wonder if they paid royalties.

Even still there were erroneous references and errors of judgment throughout. For example, Ritzy referred to “the Marsh Hare” and got his way, over the actor who had it correct, by referring to the hedgehog repeatedly as a “groundhog”. Also the only actual dialog directly lifted from the original, again by the wolf, was the Twinkle Twinkle recitation and in that he replaced “tea tray” with “teacup” and for some reason that isn’t nearly as funny as the original.

As for the errors in judgment, those were all over the place and seemingly committed by everyone involved, but the worst examples all seemed to fall during the Mad Tea Party. There was a funny and very age appropriate discussion of the two meanings of the word “mad”, but it was a total loss because the actor portraying the Mad Hatter played the angry version as real angry by screaming at Alice. Fake angry, with a waving of a fist and a stomping of his hat, would have made the whole thing work quite well. To make matters worse his version of mad, as in crazy, was to play the character as gay, which is pretty offensive especially in front of an audience of children. That scene lost the kids entirely with dialog that amounted to gibbering and repeatedly going back to the “everyone suddenly switches places” well — which might have worked three times, but didn’t work six, and wasn’t ever explained in any event. (In the book, they switch places to avoid cleaning up afterward, shaky logic, but better than random behavior.)

The props department got in on the bad decision making as well. The first of which may have been a wink at the adults in the audience, or it may have just been lazy (I’m not sure which) but the “Drink Me” bottle was actually a flask. Later during the croquet scene the mallets were small, dark pink flamingos with whirly-gig wings, but they didn’t much resemble anything in particular from the audience and I only recognized them because of my familiarity with both the story and the item in question. A child going into this performance without those two points of reference would not have known what it was they were using, not that they would have much cared at that point.

I have no problem with children’s theatre retelling classic stories to make them more engaging for kids. I think that audience participation is fun and I really liked that they brought some children up onto the stage to help paint the roses and to pose as the playing card croquet hoops. The actors were good sports about working with the kids, some of whom were quite young. I also think casting a small, energetic child as the groundhog hedgehog was brilliant. All that being said though, they used the fact that this was a production for children as an excuse to be lazy, which is inexcusable.

Reading the book would have presented a challenge for the actors in that it would have been difficult to decide what to include and what to exclude. Should the Mock Turtle be included since he talks about school and the kids might relate to that? Is the Caterpillar smoking on stage appropriate? What about the moral center of the story, the trial of the Knave of Hearts? As it is they chose to exclude everything save the White Rabbit, the Mad Tea Party and the Queen of Hearts and her game of croquet rendering the plot inane. Lewis Carroll said, “Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves.” Unfortunately, this show was just noise.

Today at the nail salon I saw the first few minutes of a soap opera episode and it was possibly the most absurd thing I have ever seen on television. I’m including the Russ Dalbey “Winning in the Cash Flow” scam infomercial immediately preceding it, though it was striving hard for the honor. For one thing none of the clients testifying were paid actors, but one would have to then assume that the trip to the resort at which they were filming and the bowl of uppers passed around prior to each take did not constitute payment. Secondly, if I stumbled upon a quick and easy way to make hundreds of thousands of dollars in a few hours a day I too would certainly opt to instead make my living selling my secret at the low low price of $39.95 including free shipping and a special thank you gift worth over $200. Moving on …

To set the scene, a comely young brunette is in a morgue pointing a gun at a young man with a ponytail and a five o’clock shadow darkening his face. The man slaps the gun away from the girl and wrestles her down over a shiny autopsy table. Just then they are interrupted by another man, this one also with long hair, but clean shaven and shirtless, leaping feet first from one of the body vaults in the wall. Shirtless man then grabs the girl and holds her protectively, shielding her from the man who now has the gun pointed at both of them. Suddenly the shirtless man lurches forward, and the two men begin to wrestle for the weapon. The girl flails about and helplessly looks at the camera until a shot is fired off-screen. (Though in defense of her cowardly actions, had she intervened she most certainly would have ended up in a coma having taken a bullet for whichever of the two men is her beloved.) It was, even (or, perhaps, especially) rendered silent, absolutely and completely unintentionally hilarious.

On Sunday I could not sleep, so in the great tradition of things I do when I can’t sleep, I went off to see a movie in the afternoon. Because the place was crawling with children, “Up” was just flat out of contention. I decided on “the Brothers Bloom” because I’ve wanted to see it ever since I saw the first preview for it way back when.

I really enjoyed it, the lukewarm reviews I had read were only partly correct in saying that the plot fell flat midway. I agree that toward the end they were stretching it for all it was worth and really they could have ended it a good 20 minutes earlier, but the whole thing was so beautifully shot I don’t begrudge them wanting to pull the story like taffy. (You can see the opening sequence here.)

The acting was superb, so much so that I was having a hard time reconciling Adrian Brody’s onscreen persona with the arrogant prick who kissed Halle Barry during the Oscars. In this movie, he was the very portrait of a sensitive, vulnerable soul lost and confused in the midst of his brother’s machinations. Which brings me to Mark Ruffalo who I first saw in “My Life Without Me” and since then in seemingly countless secondary parts that he always manages to fill with concentrated life. It was so nice to see him in a leading role, and he did not disappoint. He played the part as a writer who found the act of writing too sedentary and instead chose to live his surreal masterpieces, one performance at a time. An aside, I enjoy movies that make crime look fun.

Speaking of secondary parts, Rinko Kikuchi as the Japanese weapons expert, Bang Bang, was absolutely hilarious without saying much or anything at all besides, “Campari” and really with her skill set one doesn’t need much in the way of language skills, except that she really is just choosing not to say much of anything. I found myself laughing aloud at one scene in particular during which no one else in the theater was laughing, but I like to think they just didn’t get it.

Which brings me back to how beautiful this film is. Every time I see a film shot in Prague I find myself thinking that it must be one of the most beautiful cities on earth. The whole of the film was shot in Eastern Europe, including, apparently, the scenes set in New Jersey (I thought Jersey was looking awfully well). Also I would now like to visit Montenegro.

I noticed that throughout the movie the two title characters were fond of throwing cards literally away (and out to sea in most cases). It turns out the film was narrated by Ricky Jay which I thought was a nice touch. (That’s why it pays to watch the credits, people.)