Everything's Better With Musical Numbers

Last night Heather and I saw Evil Dead the Musical at the lovely and intimate Theatre On The Square in Indianapolis. It ran for years in Toronto and this was a civic theatre production. The cast was excellent and really went all out. The show was wild. Full of in-jokes and profanity, it was everything that great theatre should be. As a brief example, there's a great song early on called "What The Fuck Was That?"

The best thing was that it reminded both Heather and I of how much we both love live theatre. We'll definitely be back at that theatre, and we also made plans to see some of the shows at Purdue.

Just In Case You're Getting Too Much Sleep

Like pretty much everyone these days I'm figuring out that our country's (and the planet's) economic problems are going to define a significant portion of the next few years, if not the rest of my life. I try to stay as educated as possible on as much of it as possible, and these are my three main sources:

Jon Taplin's Blog

I like Taplin a great deal. He had a career in the entertainment industry, then a career in the investment world and now he's a professor of Communications at USC. I find him to be level-headed and cautiously optimistic. He writes about more than just economics, but it's all excellent.

Mike Shedlock's Blog

Shedlock is an investment advisor, and he backs up all of his posts and predictions with lots of charts and data. He's very pessimistic about where things are heading and makes a nice balance to Taplin. He also LOVES to say "I told you so" whenever his predictions are right and the common wisdom is wrong. And he gets to do that a lot.

NPR's Planet Money Podcast

This is a fantastic daily podcast. The hosts really go out of their way to translate any economic jargon and make this extremely complex topic palatable to a wide audience. Definitely worth the 15-30 minutes a day.

You stay classy, Fox.

Another fantastic idea from the people who canceled Firefly, Wonderfalls, and Drive.

Doesn't this sound like a plot from a bad comedy? A down on his luck Jamie Kennedy with one too many parking tickets is pulled into one of these stings, but then his paperwork gets crossed with the murderer's (Sir Ian McKellan, collecting a paycheck) and he ends up going to PMITA prison where hilarity ensues until the lawyer with a heart of gold (Katie Holmes, in a Post-Tom comeback?) gets him out and they live happily ever after. Hey, that's not too bad...certainly better than some crappy remake.

I'm Going To Have To Start Carrying A Digital Recorder

Jane and I drove to Mom's this evening. Here is our actual conversation:

Jane: Is this the way to Evan's house?

Me: You could get to Evan's house this way, yeah.

Jane: I thought so. I remember all these trees in this specific order.

(Less than one minute later)

Jane: You know those two big circles in front of you? [The Speedometer and the Tachometer]

Me: Yes.

Jane: They look like eyes. And those three circles between them look like a unibrow. I know what a unibrow looks like because I made one with ketchup on my giant chicken nugget at lunch today.

So Close To Great

Dan In Real Life has some really, really wonderful moments. There are a lot of very believable family moments here, where the adults have the type of complicated adult relationships that real adults have.

The problem, and it pains me to say this because I'm a huge fan, is Steve Carell. More precisely, it was the script that wasted Steve Carell. I simply did not believe that his character had been a father for 17 years and still made so many huge parenting mistakes. The way he treated his daughters was ridiculous. Maybe it's because the father he portrays in this film is so different from me and he treats his kids so differently than I treat mine, but I don't think so. I just didn't see any respect from Dan to his kids. And that's just not right.

The other major problem were the points in the film where it was clear that the suits said - "Hey we've got Steve Carell - he's got to do something crazy." Each of those spots just fell flat.

Those things are really too bad. Because the parts of this movie that are good are so very good and so very touching. Some more judicious editing and a little script work and this could have been a film to remember.

Another Nice Moment

Almost exactly three years ago I wrote about the nice moment when I finished my first round of final exams. Well, today it was overcast and the Beatles instead of sunny and the Dead, but it was the last round of finals. At long last I'm done with school.

I Got Tagged

Here are the rules...

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
5. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.
6. Let your tagger know when your entry is up.

Here are my random things:

1. I started college 14 years ago, and my last final exam is tomorrow.

2. I should be studying for that exam, but I'm having too much fun playing Grand Theft Auto IV. (Hey, I'm not playing it when Jane's awake because of the constant stream of foul language/over the top violence and since I'm home alone I'm going to make the most of it.)

3. I have nine perfectly normal toes, and one that refuses to bend.

4. I am an absolute TV junkie, could not give it up, and have been going through serious withdrawals the past four months as I watched almost no TV to ensure that I passed all my classes.

5. I have an 11 year old daughter who now spends more time on the computer than I do. I did not think that possible. (Yay for computer nerds!)

6. I read exactly one personal blog and she already tagged me, and since I'm pretty sure that this is one of those no tag-backs things, my branch of her meme ends rather abruptly.

To J.J. Abrams, Re: Your Babies

Were it medically possible sir, I would have them.

For anyone who has not yet seen Cloverfield, I must recommend it. I find it to be the sign of an excellent movie when I have to remind myself to blink.

For some insight in to why Abrams is the man, watch this video: