‘E’S BACK!  Yes, I have returned from the state of Michigan to learn there was a tornado in the area while I was away.  Two towns away, with little damage and no casualties, so not exactly those news breakers of weeks past.  Moving on, in addition to the additions and subtractions they make from year to year (i.e., the Zorb this year replaced mountain biking), there are always differences in the kids and the weather.  Each group of campers is different.  I had ten boys in my cabin this year, and a junior leader who was one of my 4th/5th grade kids at church (not camp) from years past.  I have had the sweetest kids you could know, and some, well, not quite the other end of the scale but leaning that way.  Sometimes strongly.  The most difficult one I had this year was mostly trouble at bedtime, not wanting to stay in bed, his own bed, etc.  During the day he was great to lead.  I originally had nine boys, but one was added at the last minute so in addition to the nine 5th graders, I had one 4th grader.  I won’t be able to form a strong relationship with him however, as his family will be moving out of state soon.  Nor will I have any relationship at all with another, who came as a friend of one of our students.  He has Christian parents however (and he already accepted Christ), unlike another guest I had a few years ago who came from a decidedly non-Christian family, though he did accept Jesus during his week at camp.

One of the new things this year was a talent show.  I made sure to sign up for a skit, though I did come prepared with some songs from Oliver! in case we had to sing.  You see, there was only one slot available each night for skits.  This will have to be tweaked a bit for next year as no one signed up for the first night.  Too little rehearsal time?  Together we decided to do a backstage audition scene, though looking like an Idol episode with three judges holding their product-placement IBC root beer bottles.  We came up with a script the first couple days, tweaking it even at the last rehearsal.  I assigned three judge roles, one being kind of a mean one (yeah, you know…); six contestants in three acts (one became a security guard instead during a tweak); and one cameraman who dropped out when he wasn’t feeling very well on the day of performance, giving me his line which didn’t quite work out as it was meant for a cameraman, not someone yelling from offstage.  The one who didn’t want to even do a skit turned out to do a great job as a judge.  I would say that they wrote half the script adding great ideas like a group doing a purposely bad “pattycake” routine, calling themselves the Pattycake Pros, or PPs for short (remember the audience/participant ages!).  We also had a male diva contestant named Justin B-[eye]-ber, who the judges naturally mispronounce.  The mispronounced name was my idea, but the kids came up with the contestant idea among others.  He was dragged off by the security guard after hitting a judge, only to return later chased by that same security guard.  The kids added being chased by some girls at the end, so we borrowed a few from a girl’s cabin who would chase him thinking he must be the famous pop star, where he once again shouted that he was B-[eye]-ber, not B-[ee]-ber.  The most amazing addition they came up with was changing my generic “Jesus Rocks” at the end of another bad performance (making it a smashing hit in the judges eyes as a result instead of another flop) to a bible verse from the lesson earlier that day about not fearing, finding comfort in God instead.  I believe the verse was Psalm 27:1.  That was the Holy Spirit talking through the boy who came up with that change!

This post is getting kind of long, and I have to get a couple things done before I go to bed, so I will leave you with this video from the Zorb activity.  This answers the question, “Is it safe to be in front of a moving Zorb?”

[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/25643379[/vimeo]

It just figures.  The show I would prefer to be in starts its run first, so it would only be natural that its auditions would be first, right?  Of course not.  The runs are actually close, with the closing weekend of the one being the opening of the other.  If you were to read into that statement you would undoubtedly conclude that no, I can’t just do both shows.  Not that I am in the mind to rehearse two shows at once anyway.  Tried that, not my cup of tea.  Not that I like tea mind you.  So before I get off track, Dracula auditions are- guess what- an entire month before the start of rehearsals.  Interesting- I wonder why?  Oh well, I went ahead and scheduled my audition time, which will be two weeks from tonight.  On recommendation from a friend and fellow blogger, I will try out with Renfield as my primary focus.  They don’t mind singing  a song from the show for the audition piece I’m told- what does that mean though?  They prefer it and are trying to be aloof about it to see what I will choose to do?  Or they would really rather I didn’t?  Well, I could start preparing The Master’s Song, but since I will have an entire week where I can’t practice it, I will probably do something from Jekyll & Hyde for two reasons- I know it well and it is by Frank Wildhorn just as Dracula is.  I’m thinking about two different songs.  Alive is a definite character piece, but the best place to start is after the instrumental interlude which skips any slower parts.  Wait- there are no slower sections in that song…  But- the end of the song goes way up just like the end of The Master’s Song.  The other song I was thinking of is I Need to Know.  Not a character piece, and done by a somewhat sane Dr. Jekyll, but it does have a mix of slower and faster.  In this song I would start with the second verse, so I wouldn’t start with the really slow part.  32 bars would also end before the key change, so I couldn’t really show off range.  Still, it just seems like a better audition piece for some reason.  Which to do?

And what to do if I do make the show, but in a smaller role?  Quitting to be in another show would just kill any future with the group, so making this show in any capacity will certainly mean no to Noah.  That show is, BTW, still a complete mystery.  Four male parts, but at my age would I even be considered for Noah’s sons?  Of course, Noah was a ripe old 600 years old when the floods came, and his sons couldn’t have been far behind.  But still, it’s likely there will be an age limit for them, so that would leave me with a chance for only one role.  I just wish I could audition for that role first.  Maybe the Dracula group will deliberate for several weeks giving time to audition and find out about a role in Noah, and drop out before the role offer comes?  Who knows?  We’ll see.

It is June already and it looks like warm weather is finally here to stay.  Two weeks ago we somberly said goodbye to the 5th graders, sending them off in a prayer as we laid hands on them.  They finished not only the 4th/5th grade ministry, but moved out of children’s ministry altogether to student ministries where they will spend the next seven years.  This weekend, the third grade room remained dark, as it will for the next two months or so as we welcomed them as the new fourth grade.  At our church 3rd grade and up get bumped in June for camp reasons, but the younger kids have to wait until August.  I guess it is a little strange, the first weekend or so in June, to be called a fourth-grader (for example) when many have not yet finished third grade at school.

We also kicked off our summer series, Transformers.  Yes, we are borrowing off of a popular movie theme (yes it was a cartoon first, but seeing as how many of their parents weren’t even grown up at the time, let alone their own existence…).  However, the name is where similarities begin and end.  Unfortunately our worship band moved up with the old 5th-grade or out (the college-bound ones) so we are working on replacing them.  Hmm.  Actually, it was the Saturday night band that is gone, but we still did the song videos instead of the normal worship at 11:15 even though those band members were still present- I wonder why?

Saturday night I think we need guy leaders now in a big way.  I was the only one there, along with two gal leaders.  I know one will be coming back in a few weeks, but we could use more.  My “small” group was twenty-some boys- ideally, groups should be about six or so.  So anyway, the lesson was one on being rooted in Christ, and not comparing ourselves to one another.  As Paul wrote to the Phillipians, he had much call to call himself better than others as he was a “Hebrew of Hebrews,” a Pharisee, and zealous for his religion.  Instead, he counted it as loss, rubbish compared with his identity in Christ.  As His, we are equal no matter our station, our jobs, our finances, etc.

Moving on, did I mention camp?  Oh, yes I did.  Less than two weeks, and I am making trip #7 out there with an all new group!  There is much to be excited about, but one thing tops all others.  Every year we get something new.  In the past additions have included  a lodge building, a zipline, pontoon boats, and a waterslide (thankfully I started there the year after they got permanent showers…).  Well, this year apparently we got something a bit different.  Raise your hand if you ever wanted to be a hamster after watching them roll around in their hamster balls.  That’s right, our new addition to camp is in the form of two giant inflatable hamster, err- people balls called Zorbs.  Here is a random video found on youtube:

and from the inside:

Now that looks exciting.  I hope they don’t roll it down too steep of a hill though.  Imagine what would happen if one got sick in one of those…  Or, best not to imagine.

Anyway, a new year at church, a new post. I hope you enjoyed it. 🙂

I really will try to post at least once more before Camp 2011.  I mean it.  That I will try, that is. 😉

Monday night I was at the library browsing DVDs and such.  I found a few- a reserve waiting for me for season 4 of Psych, ah Megamind- I think I will watch that one, many, many skipped for one reason or other (seen before, lack of interest).  Moving on.  Wait, what’s this?  Should this even be on the return cart?  It should have a reserve list  a mile long.  Ah, I get it- “Here and Now,” meaning that they chose not to allow reserves on it, though no doubt there are a couple dozen copies available for reserve too.  A few copies then to give people a sporting chance without having to wait months on the reserve list.  So which recent blockbuster am I talking about?  None other than Harry Potter  7.1.  The thing is, I have been gambling as it were on a short return to the big screen just before 7.2 next month.  If anyone would do it, it would be AMC, the biggest chain around and with a 30-screen complex about 10 miles away.  But I don’t know if this will really happen- I certainly haven’t heard news of it.  But they have done it before, so…

Yet, now I have a copy in my that I could watch now, for free, in a much smaller and lower-resolution venue as a DVD on a 32-inch CRT TV.  What should I do?  Hmm.

There’s not a lot to write about in my life.  I tend toward things remaining the same in my life, nothing really new that I haven’t already mentioned in other writings (back when I used to write…).  Still at the same job, doing the same thing, going to church, leading 4th and 5th grades, haven’t been in a show since December, still never go out socializing, etc.  As retrogaming me I did get two new products toward that end.  Well, one has been ordered but not shipped yet as they never emailed me on it.  That would be a small bluetooth game controller called the Zeemote that I understand actually works with my phone.  You see, my phone has crippled bluetooth (oddly by HTC, not AT&T) that doesn’t allow most game controllers to function.  People have bought and used Wiimotes with Android, but any phones like mine that use HTC Sense cannot use this and other controllers.  In fact the one I ordered won’t work as a controller, but as a generic input device that replaces the touch keyboard.  As such, it has to be enabled only when used, then turned off when done so the touch keyboard will work again.  Oh, well.  The other item I ordered and have been using is a Supercard DSTwo for my DSi.  This allows me to play older games on the DS, though it lacks good Atari and Genesis emulators, and some emulators don’t exist at all like Intellivision and Atari 5200/7800.  Of course newer devices like Playstation, Saturn, N64 and later generations can’t be reasonably emulated on the DS.

So, other things?  I have my eye set on a musical production called Noah next fall (same group as Wonderful Life), or if not MoS will be doing Dracula the Musical, another co-production with another group like they just did for Jesus Christ Superstar.  Six weekends- wow.  I just went to see it today- it actually wasn’t that bad.  I think they toned down the original to make it less disrespectful of our Lord and Savior, but there were still a few of those elements there.  I suppose there is only so much one can do without starting to rewrite it.  It’s a little surprising though that they did anything at all, not being a Christian group.  Do either of my readers happen to know if there are character roles in Dracula besides the title role?  I fully expect that role to go to their resident lead.  I suppose I am not a romantic lead type in any event, which is part of the role, in a way.  Still, he is part character like Jekyll and Hyde (same writer by the way) so who knows?  Maybe the lead will be busy with other things.

On a similar note, can anyone see me as Archibald in Secret Garden?  That’s a role I still want to do at some point if the show isn’t completely dead.  There’s also Les Mis, but there is truly small hope in that show for the foreseeable future.

and Resurrection Day

In a response to a friend’s blog post and a play on his own title, I got a new toy too- the HTC Inspire 4G (aka Desire HD).  Yep, that means I’m back on contract to AT&T, but I don’t have a problem with that.  I am now Apple-free once again.  Well, I’ll likely still use the iphone as an ipod touch since I have it- I don’t think I could sell a 3G for very much.  Android is the way, at least for the next two years.  Why did I get it?  Well, I thought $20 was not too much to spend on a new phone.  No, a zero isn’t missing- $20 is all I paid.  The phone itself sells for $100 with a contract which is already a nice deal considering what you get in comparison to the iphone 4.  My Costco membership took care of the rest.  I had never looked before at their prices on mobile phones, but wow- they are cheap compared to standard prices even without this month’s special on the HTC.  The Motorola Atrix, a new phone like the Inspire 4G was selling for $80 less than standard.  Nice.

I haven’t played much with it yet, but it’s nice to be on an open system despite the malware scare last week.  Unfortunately, being on OS version 2.2.1 this phone has that very exploit so I will need to be a little careful until the 2.3 update is made available.  Hopefully they fixed whatever hole allowed the stuff to be uploaded to the marketplace in the first place.  Already I like much of what I tried in comparison to the iphone 3G (can’t compare with the 4 since I never tried it).  I did notice though a voicemail downgrade.  Apparently Android doesn’t do visual voicemail yet.  The iphone would have the messages listed and playable right from the phone rather than having to dial up a voicemail number and pressing 1, 2, or whatever to hear the messages, then 7, 9, or whatever to save or delete them.

Like the iphone 3GS and 4, and unlike my 3G, this has a GPS built in.  I should try it next time I’m on the road to see how it compares with the Tom-Tom.  The map application is much nicer too, being based off of Google Maps.  The app store is much faster too.  On the iphone, I would really have to use itunes to get apps since the store was really slow on the 3G, but the marketplace is really quick on this phone.  I wonder if there’s something that will tell me if an app has been temporarily updated/reduced in price like with AppShopper for iOS?  [checks]  Ah, it looks like I found one- AppBrain.  Will look.

The camera is better- has a flash like the iphone 4 (and the requisite flashlight app as well)- and it does 480p and 720p video as well.  Unlike iphone, it can use a memory card (comes with 8GB) and a changeable battery which is just as well since one of the downsides of this phone is the battery life, even without a dual core CPU like the Atrix.

Well, enough for now.  Time for a look at appbrain…

From the dawn of the console video game system- well, from the Atari VCS/2600 anyway, close enough to the beginning in any event- I have been an avid partaker of home video games.  Starting with the Atari, then moving onto Colecovision, NES, Sega Master System & Genesis, then slowing down a little, eventually getting a Playstation, 3DO, and a Gamecube.  Absent from all this was any sort of handheld system.  Well, if you don’t count the single-game LCD games from the early 80s- I did have a handheld Donkey Kong.  But as far as interchangeable handhelds, this era just passed me by.  From the Gameboy and its successors to the Atari Lynx, Sega Gamegear and Nomad (official portable Genesis) I have known of their existence and even played other people’s systems, but as far as owning one…?

A few months ago that changed when I picked up one of these little guys:

Actually, it’s bigger than the picture looks- it’s the Nintendo DSi XL Super Mario Bros 25th anniversary edition.  While others have gaming tastes that lean toward strategy games, shooters, and online games, I have gravitated more toward the Nintendo-esque platformers and adventure games.  That is, Super Mario Bros and Legend of Zelda.  Currently my library consists of just eight games, but I have access to more through my library.  In fact, that got me interested in a puzzle series, “Professor Layton.”  That is one of my games that I have yet to fire up aside from testing.  Besides that game I have three Mario games (Mario & Luigi II, Super Mario 64- an enhanced version of the old N64 title, and Mario Kart DS which came with the system), Zelda Spirit Tracks, a couple Sega titles (Sonic Rush and Phantasy Star 0), and a Konami game collection.  I eventually plan on getting the other Zelda title, the New Super Mario Bros, and the two Atari Greatest Hits collections.

So far, only two have had a lot of play time- two of the Mario games.  I have been playing the Mario 64 title most recently.  This game consists of the original 15 courses and the secret stars, and adds a bunch more.  I believe there are 30 more stars to obtain than the original.  Despite being called Mario 64, you actually get to play as four different characters, another of many changes from the N64 days.  In fact, when you start you can’t even play as Mario- you start as Yoshi and have to rescue Mario, Luigi, and Wario before you can play as them, though on many courses you can pick up a hat to play as a particular character until you get hit and lose the hat.  In the original, Mario got special abilities from blocks such as flying Mario, transparent Mario, and metal Mario (I’m sure I am not remembering the names correctly).  In this game, each character gets one of these abilities from the block, and it adds breathing fire for Yoshi.

To make things more interesting, there are things placed in courses that only one character can access.  There are things in ice blocks only Yoshi can melt with his fire ability, giant black blocks only Wario can smash, and of course the various things requiring the special abilities.  So far, I have completed over half the courses, and a few stars each from a couple more.  I have also collected several castle stars, some of which are not in the original game.  And remember the rabbits Mario had to catch?  Well, they increased that- a lot.  Now you catch rabbits for keys to play mini-games (I haven’t played any yet, but my guess is they are like the Mario Party mini-games) and there are different color rabbits depending on who you are playing as.  There are also eight glowing white rabbits- if you catch all of them, you can open a special door to get who-knows-what.  So far I have only seen and caught four or five of the eight.  I think I have some 110 or so stars, well over enough to do the final battle with Bowser (80 required) though I haven’t yet.

Controls are a little different from the original as the DS doesn’t have an analog control like the N64 did.  Instead, they go back to the classic style with a walking speed, but then you can go faster by holding a button while walking.  There are a couple other styles by mimicking analog via the touch screen, which shows a map throughout the game, but it just doesn’t work for me.  The new 3DS adds an analog control, but it will be a few years before I get one of those.  Anyway, here’s a video you can watch.  It’s the first part of a walkthrough of the entire game:

Here are a few videos for other games I mentioned:

Two posts this month so far!  Okay, that’s the last I’ll say about my lack of posting over the last couple of months.  No essay here like other bloggers, just a news flash.  Last week, less than a week after snowmageddon ’11 (hey, that almost rhymes!), a village employee came a-knocking and informed us that a water main had burst under our driveway.  Yikes.  I knew there was water there, but I thought some of the snow had melted under the beating sun.  In the past, when snow started melting a low point on our sidewalk would become a pond.  The night before I saw this and tried to push the water to the driveway, thinking of letting it have somewhere to go.  Later, I noticed the entire sidewalk in front of our house had become drenched- an obvious sign of something worse than melting, but I didn’t think much of it.  Good thing the neighbors to one side never shoveled their walk, so no one would be walking on our sidewalk anyway.  So back to the village informant, within a few hours they had called several trucks over, waited for the gas company to mark their territory with yellow (paint my friends, what were you thinking? 😆 ), and then dug away with a backhoe and other equipment, a good four feet or so underground.  I was gone for much of this- by the time I returned the hole was nicely dug and they were fixing the pipe.  My guess it was to the fire hydrant by the driveway, so good thing they fixed it quickly- just in case.  Well, they filled it in once finished and satisfied, and went on their merry way.  Wait- what about the driveway?  Well, cold as it was, all they could do was flatten it out and put on a thin layer of asphalt.  Personally, I wish they did away with the asphalt altogether for the time being.  It is really uneven and very rough.  They said they would make a permanent fix in the spring.  Hopefully I will still have tires left come spring…

Oh, one unrelated thing- some might say a certain musical group at a certain annual Sunday event gave a “solid” performance, but I am with the bloggers/twitts (what do you call twitterers anyway?  Not the name I just gave them for sure!) who are, shall we say, in disagreement with this.  I say if the performance was solid, it certainly had cracks or chips in it due to one song.  Let me just say to Fergie of the BEPs, you tried (I’m sure), but you have proven beyond a reasonable doubt that you are no Axl Rose.  Never try to sing a GnR song publicly again please.  Ever.  Thank you, that is all.  I think my ears are still bleeding… 😮

And I won’t even mention another not-quite solid performance by another singer at that same event that same evening…

A new record- yeah, you can figure out what for…  So, what to write about.  The show whose opening weekend I wrote about closed over a month ago with a record number of seats sold causing them to add a performance when no one objected to it.  How about how I am in between shows, and the question of whether or not to try out for the godless JC Superstar was answered for me when I couldn’t sing due to a cold audition weekend?  How my right arm hurts from all the shoveling, including some this morning to free the dryer vent so I can take care of some clothes?  There was the Tron movie I had a countdown to that I still haven’t seen- is it still in the theaters I wonder?  There was our 4th and 5th grade lock-in/retreat two weeks ago.  My team came in last place and I didn’t get sick this year.  There’s work- nah.  Nothing to talk about there.  I think one of the owners may still be snowed in.  The person who normally does her long driveway took one look at it Wednesday and drove away.  She lives in Antioch, an hour north of me.  Gaming and my new DSi XL?  Dunno.  Yes, there’s that first vacation I took in years, outside of the annual summer camp week- the now infamous injurious one for a fellow tangenteer.  It was great to get away.  Someone mentioned to me how he would just stretch out on a beach over there,but I’m just not that type of person.  I enjoy the activity offered at theme parks, talking with friends as we walk from ride to ride.  Of course, I still did not like the one extreme go-kart track at Old Town and am not so into activity that I will waste money on the extreme thrill rides there.  But what I did do was a nice break, and I did miss an extremely cold work day.  Unfortunately I didn’t get out of all those days- this Thursday was pretty bad, and next Tuesday also promises to be brutal.

One day at Universal, I decided I did not want to go on the water ride.  Instead, I sat with the two youngest and watched several people take photos at a photo-op spot.  Having recently seen the movie starring this certain dog, when Phyllis came back after one ride, I had her take this picture (slightly retouched):

Oh, about comics, I mentioned a particular comic strip while I was in Florida- here is a link to it.  It is about a lower middle-class suburban self-important family.  Read on by clicking this link. Now I will think about maybe breaking the two month record following this post… 😛