Wendy and I find ourselves with one extra ticket for “Aveue Q” at the Hobby on Saturday, Oct 27^th. Free to a good home — the only proviso is that you’d be stuck sitting with Wendy, Katie and me.

For those not familiar with the show, it’s basically, as Wendy puts it, “The Muppets do ‘Rent’.” It’s a show done with puppets, but it is definitely not a children’s show. Examples: one of the songs is “The Internet is for Porn” and one of the characters is named “Lucy the Slut.” Enough said.

Yesterday was a very unusual day. The temperature inside the house was cooler than the temperature outside the house. So Wendy and I decided to open a few windows to get some fresh air (well, as fresh as Baytown gets, anyway) circulating through the house. But when I raised the blinds in the kitchen to get to the window, I saw that I can caught a “friend.”

I could never have done it intentionally (I’m nowhere NEAR that coordinated) but somehow I managed to time it so that, when the blinds collapsed as they were going up, they caught this guy’s tail. So it was just hanging there, trying to do it’s best impression of a drawstring. I tried to catch it so that I could let it go, but that threat gave it the impetus it needed to escape the Venetian Blinds of Death ^TM and scurry up between the window and the screen. I ended up having to take the screen out and shake it rather violently to get our visitor out into “the wilds” of our yard.

We’ve been getting quite a few visitors of this sort recently. Anybody with kids who need to do a science project on reptiles, amphibians, or arachnids need look no further than our back yard.

President Bush Discusses Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Legislation

Nobody who’s read this blog for a while can have many doubts about my feelings on the current president and his policies. Here’s another example of what I don’t like. The President is pushing for a renewal/beefing up of something called the “Protect America” act which I guess semi-legitimized the illegal surveillance  his administration had done in the past. Now he wants his “get out of jail” card made permanent.

In particular, look at this paragraph:

The final bill must meet certain criteria: It must give our intelligence professionals the tools and flexibility they need to protect our country. It must keep the intelligence gap firmly closed, and ensure that protections intended for the American people are not extended to terrorists overseas who are plotting to harm us. And it must grant liability protection to companies who are facing multi-billion-dollar lawsuits only because they are believed to have assisted in the efforts to defend our nation following the 9/11 attacks.

(emphasis added)

“Protections intended for the American people?” I thought we were a nation that believed in and valued basic human rights, not basic American rights. That’s the same logic allows immigrants, illegal or not, to be treated more like objects than people. So we don’t protect people, but we certainly do protect huge corporations from litigation.

I believe very strongly in America. That’s why I oppose so much of what this administration stands for.

According to the story above, it’s apparently common practice in the Texas legislature to vote multiple times on the same ballot initiative. They use an automated system for casting votes, and, if the desks near your own happen to be unoccupied at the time the vote is called, it’s a scramble to see who gets there first to cast some extra votes.

I believe the woman they interview, who was supporting the practice, was a Republican, but I’ve no doubt the Democrats are equally guilty of the practice. How are we supposed to respect and support our lawmakers when they consider themselves above the law?

Wendy and I have been going a bit overboard recently buying new “toys.” OK – I’ve been going overboard buying toys. Happy, Wendy?

On Saturday I bought the new TiVo HD PVR. It was more work than it should have been to get it “talking” with Comcast, but that was Comcast’s fault, not TiVo’s. It’s working fine now, and I can make sure I never miss another episode of “The Colbert Report”.

Then, last night we were at BestBuy because we need to pick up a new laptop for Katie (who’s coming home this weekend to get it – yeah!) While we were there, I noticed that they had a stack of Nintendo Wii consoles available. It wasn’t even the bundles I’d seen other places, with extra controllers, memory, and games. Just the basic console. Well, ever since we’d played it at the Haney’s house, we’ve joked about getting one. Yesterday we did. We were both soon laughing quite a bit. Neither one of us are particularly coordinated, so it was comical to watch us attempt to figure out the games. Especially in the tennis game, when Wendy’s mii kept falling over trying to hit the ball. I also ran through some sort of “age test” game. You’re supposed to work to lower your “age” which means your getting healthier. Well, first pass through, it calculated that my “game age” was 47! I object – I won’t be 47 for 2 more weeks!

So come on over some time and play with the Wii. We don’t have any games get but the one that came with it, but it’s still a lot of fun.

Those of you who have been to our house may or may not have noticed that we have a haunted refrigerator. I kid you not – when it’s quiet in the house, you can hear it moaning in the background. It can be a little creepy when you’re in the house alone at night.

Anyway, it finally decided to “give up the ghost” so to speak. It still runs, but does a very poor job of cooling/freezing things. So we loaded everything into the garage freezer and a cooler, and called GE (it should still be under warranty, we think.) They gave me a confirmation number, and told me to expect the technician Friday, Aug 24th, between 1:00PM and 4:00PM. When nobody was here by 4:00, I called. Their automated system very kindly told me that I had an appointment scheduled for Tuesday, Aug 28th, between 8:00AM and 5:00PM!

I was not a happy camper.

When I finally was able actually to speak with a human being, she informed me that it must have been a miscommunication. How do you get confused between “Friday between 1 and 4″ and “Tuesday between 8 and 5?” The woman I spoke with today said she would try to get somebody out sooner. She promised to call me back before she left for the day.

I’m not holding my breath.

So it looks like we’re without a functional refrigerator until Tuesday. At which point they’ll probably say they need to order a part to fix it.

*Sigh*

Now you know why all sorts of bad things happen. It’s those damned gays getting married. Or maybe old people.

This is from the video that Dustin Butler shot during the dress rehearsal of BLT’s production of Titanic at Cedar Bayou Junior School on Thursday, July 26th. The song is “Remarkable Age” and I’m the gray-haired guy who starts the song.

There are still two weekends left in the run of the show. Come out and see it! If you’ve already been, then invite your friends, and/or come back and see it again. We need your support.

(There’s a slightly higher quality version of this video on Facebook, but you need a Facebook account to see it. You might also need to be my friend, though I’m not sure about that).

Baytown Little Theater’s production of Titanic, the Musical is about to open. We’re still feverishly working to complete sets, props, costumes, etc, but we will open as scheduled on Friday, July 27th. Because of the accident at the theater, we’ve had to change venues. We’ll be at Cedar Bayou Junior School in Baytown. That means that, instead of our normal 135 seat arena, we’ve got about 400 seats to fill for each performance. I’d like to see as many of those seats filled as possible! Not only because it means more money for the theater, so we can get started on our rebuilding, but also because a full house makes for a better show, by energizing the actors on stage.

So get your tickets now! You can call the box office at 281-424-7617. Leave a message with your name, number, and date(s) and number of tickets you want.

I’ll see you on the Titanic!

(link to poster)