Life On the Wicked Stage: Act 2

Sunday Morning Reading

Some Sunday morning reading to share.

Saul Hansell of the New York Times wonders: Is There a Method in Cellphone Madness? Saul is a brave man as he trys to meander through the morass of billing, costs, and basically anything having to do with costs on phones as we experience them now. He’s brave because I don’t think anyone really understands the pricing plans and economy. It is worth a read if for no other reading that he uses the phrase “avaricious oligopolists.”

The MPAA shuts down a town’s municipal WiFi because someone in the town was pirating movies. It’s a small town (Coshocton, OH) with a small set of users who all used the same IP address but this sort of craziness is nuts.

Carrie Prejean must be really trying to outdo other colossal PR disasters and create a new definition of hubris. How else could she continue to trip over own mistakes so easily. Let’s skip over her early failures. Lately, word surfaced that there was a (GASP) sex tape of her, doing the naughty by herself. She claimed it was the single biggest mistake of her life. Well, apparently that single biggest mistake turns out to be more than single, as more tapes have supposedly surfaced. Larry King must be laughing. Not since Sarah Palin.

Maybe the Tea Baggers movement will end up feuding itself into oblivion. Somehow I doubt it, and I hope it doesn’t. At the moment the Tea Baggers ire is focused on the Democrats. If power changes hands, I’d love to see if the anti-government hysteria would continue.

Joe Hewitt of Facebook, who developed the Facebook app for the Iphone caused a stir when he said he was done developing for the iPhone platform, due to Apple’s crazy policies. Here’s his statement.

The Republican National Committee makes a move that makes them look like the Democrats on a bad day. Apparently if you worked for the RNC, your insurance policy allowed for coverage of an abortion. Not any longer.

The latest Gillmor Gang takes on the Droid vs the iPhone, among other things, and gives new life to the Crunchpad, which surely needs it.

The Ballad of Windows 7.

Newsweek Sums up the Decade in 7 Minutes

Not a bad summary of the aughts from Newsweek, who seems to be the first at coming up with end of decade coverage.

More Voca People

I love the stuff the Voca People do. And finally, there’s another video to share. This one is of them performing live. Great stuff.

Don’t You Wish You Could Do This?

I used to have these amazing dreams in which I could, for all intents and purposes fly by leaping from point to point, or just launching myself in a direction. I remember realizing about 18 months ago that they stopped. Don’t have any idea what that means, but here is an amazing and humbling video of Oli Lemieux practicing on Cirque du Soleil’s trampoline wall. Ah, if only.

 

Via Gizmodo

Friday Fun

Because it's Friday. Enjoy this for its youthful exuberance courtesy of R. Scott.

Here's hoping they don't (or didn't) grow up to be this.

NASA Says Significant Amout of Water Found on the Moon

So, we bombed the Moon with LCROSS, and NASA says the experiment worked, throwing up enough debris into the atmosphere that photo analysis shows that there is a "significant amount" of water buried/present/existing on the Moon.

I'm guessing we're going to see a new space race to claim all that water here shortly. Soon thereafter that we'll start seeing bottled water from the Moon on store shelves.

Girl Sneezes 12,000 Times a Day

This just sounds painful. I say that because I'm both a prolific and very loud sneezer. I've been known to stop traffic and also sneeze myself lame. But nothing like this. This poor young girl came down with a cold and began sneezing. Except when she falls into deep sleep she can't stop. She's sneezing roughly 20 times a minute or 12,000 times a day as her parents and doctors try to figure out how to bring her some relief. She's had to stay away from school and can't stop sneezing enough to eat well.

I really feel for her.

Via The Daily Mail

Google Street View Captures Us Outside Wayside Theatre

I guess it isn’t surprising that Google’s Street View captured me and our two costume designers out front of out place of business, Wayside Theatre. When the weather is nice, heck, even sometimes when it isn’t, we frequently have discussions outside. This shot is obviously from last fall. A larger view of the theatre shows that it was after our renovations were complete. The flower beds don’t have the current foliage of this year. Thus, the WVPT banner means it was taking place during the run of The Mousetrap, a show that WVPT sponsored. And the American flag indicates that it was on Veteran’s Day last year which was one year ago today. Our town places flags up and down Main Street for all national holidays.

So, there you have it, me and our two lovely costumers talking about something important. Well, at least I hope it was important now that it is memorialized. Interesting that the address is wrong though.

Defining Daunting Challenges

I saw this picture on a post about laws in Japan about being overweight. Moving beyond that, it defines so much when you think of any challenge.

Remember

Remember those today who served and thank them for their service on Veteran's Day.