Hitchhiker's on tv

We've been watching the episodes of the original Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy tv show. The production quality is fairly low, and some of the alien voices are a little difficult to understand. But in a lot of ways it reminds me of when I used to watch Dr. Who on tv, the production quality is about the same as that.

I really like the way they've handled doing the Guide itself. There are animations and text that come on the screen when the Guide is talking. The voice and the pictures and the words all sort of compete for your attention, but it stays very clever and amusing. The humor of the books is still present, and they've managed to include some visual gags that couldn't really happen in a book. Overall I'm very glad to get a chance to watch it, although it's not something I think I'd feel a need to own and watch again.

Accidental Tony Watching

So, I didn't intend to watch the Tony's last night, but I did after all. I forgot that what I like about the Tony's is seeing the musical performances that happen, always so much fun. And this year was especially exciting if you follow theater in Chicago. Chicago Shakespeare Theater won the Regional Theater Tony. And Steppenwolf's August: Osage County was up for 7 Tony's. They won quite a lot of them too (5), and I definitely felt very proud for them.

There were other great moments, one of the most impressive being the original cast of Rent all coming on stage and singing Seasons of Love together with the current cast. That was very impressive.

One of the things that seemed to confuse and impress the audience in the theater (and certainly me) was the acceptance speech by Mark Rylance, who won for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play.

“When you are in town wearing some kind of a uniform is helpful, policeman, priest, etc. Driving a tank is very impressive, or a car with official lettering on the side. If that isn’t to your taste, you could join the revolution, wear an armband, carry a homemade flag tied to a broom handle, or a placard bearing an incendiary slogan. At the very least you should wear a suit and carry a briefcase and a cell phone, or wear a team jacket and a baseball cap and carry a cell phone. If you’re in the woods, the back country, someplace past all human habitation, it is a good idea to wear orange and carry a gun and, or, depending on the season, carry a fishing pole or a camera with a big lens. Otherwise…I will wrap it up now very quickly…otherwise it might appear that you have no idea what you are doing and you are merely wandering the earth, no particular reason for being here, no particular place to go. Thanks very much for this.”

It sounded off-the-cuff, it sounded rambling, and strange, and beautiful. And it turns out to be a prose poem by Minnesota Poet Lewis Jenkins (minus, clearly, the inserts based on time and thanks). It was certainly different, and held your attention. And was a little less scary than Patti LuPone yelling at the orchestra to not cut her off...

Shopping Lists and the Local News

I glanced down to see a shopping list on my desk that reads:
-catfood/litter
-shopping cart
-recycling
-steering wheel

The good news is that we managed to accomplish all of those things this weekend. ehs took in the recycling when he helped Dan take in his electronic recycling. ehs came home and said, "I just want you to know, I failed you." Although he had successfully dropped off our glass and aluminum recycling, he had managed to come home with one of Dan's electronic items destined for recycling. Oh well, apparently we can use it, and it doesn't take up very much room? These things do happen.

The steering wheel mentioned is for MarioKart for the Wii, which we are having a lot of fun with. ehs got it for his birthday, and we decided to get more wheels so it's even more fun for multiple people to play. I'm usually pretty terrible at racing games, but I can be Baby Peach and drive either a stroller or a motorcycle with training wheels. They both don't have a lot of speed, but have GREAT handling. So I spend a lot less time falling off of the race course.

The shopping cart is a folding cart so I can go get groceries on the bus when we sell the car. We still have to assemble it, but we went with a less heavy model. Hopefully this is going to work really well.

On Sunday we had planned to do some of this required shopping and then there was a major rainstorm. The sky turned dark in the distance, then all the buildings on the horizon disappeared, and suddenly there was rain. The rain started by slamming sideways onto the windows and then we realized it was actually coming IN the windows. So after some excitement involving towels, we made lunch and decided to postpone our shopping. After a while the rain was gone and the sky was basically blue again so we headed out. We crossed the street behind our building to wait for the bus and saw huge tree limbs down all over the park. Then we saw an entire tree that had blown over and we realized that ABC7 news was there filming it. They asked if we'd talk to them about the weather and the damage, so we talked to them until we had to run for the bus. It was a little strange, it made me feel very shy but ehs did a good job. And they put us on the news! People at work told ehs they'd seen him on the news that night and the next morning. He says how sad it is that the tree is down and that he'll miss it, and I just look at him smiling. It's very sweet.

first hockey game of the year...

So there was a Stanley cup game last night, Detroit Redwings and Pittsburgh Penguins. Sadly, it was the only hockey game I watched this entire season. It was not as fun to watch a single game, not knowing the history of the teams, the players to watch. Luckily we had picked up some of that information from people who had been following the seasons as well as from the ever-present announcers.

As a kid I really liked the Penguins. But who didn't when Mario Lemieux was playing? Apparently since he stopped playing the team has been really weak and bottom of the pack. Which is actually not a terrible place to be, as it meant they got a lot of first round draft picks over the last several years. They now have a very young, but very strong team. Their goalie is only 22, and in game 5 he blocked 55 shots. They also had a 19-year-old playing.

Detroit on the other hand had 7 guys over 35. And their experience showed. The ice was pretty bad due to the humidity in Pittsburgh, and the Penguins looked tired after the triple overtime game on Monday.

The biggest problem with watching hockey for me is that it really makes me miss playing it. And the thing that makes me happiest about watching hockey is when all the players shake hands at the end. For being such a violent and emotional game (there are no fist fights in football...), it's amazing and wonderful to me that at the end they all line up, shake hands, and say good game. I wish all our sports teams did this. It shows respect and sportsmanship, which is something every sports fan of all ages could benefit from seeing demonstrated.