I’ve been subbing for a few years, and I have to say that Friday was the first time I ever subbed in the sort of position I was in.  The teacher seemed to be like a glorified teacher assistant, though of course I don’t know the extent of her duties outside the realm of what I did so this opinion of mine doesn’t mean much.  My main duty in the morning was following a diabetic student from class to class.  I had to make sure he got to the nurse as needed.  Apparently even though he’s in 6th grade he doesn’t have a good handle on managing his condition, and his parents I’m told are just as lost in handling it.  In any event, when I wasn’t involved with taking him to the nurse and waiting for him to test himself, snack, and retest, I helped out as needed in the classes.  There were some students on behavior point sheets (including the diabetic boy) and when I worked with them I could easily see why they needed them.  Trying to get them to work was often a challenge.

In the afternoon I wasn’t with the one boy until I had to pick him up and take him to the nurse during the end of a period.  Then, the school being short a sub, I had to sub in an eighth-grade class for one period causing me to lose one break, but that’s the way it works sometimes.  I have avoided working in eighth grade at this school all year due to some troubles I had last year with the then-7th graders, so I prepared for the worst and was pleasantly surprised when it didn’t come.  The read the chapter aloud nicely, then did their work though admittedly some needed prompting.  I ended the day with a tutorial (study hall) with just six students, about half of what one student told me I should expect.  One I knew where he was.  Another was absent.  The rest I didn’t know who they were let alone where they were.  I wasn’t left a class list.

On a non-school note, I have kept forgetting to mention this, but on Wednesday I was coming home from a drama rehearsal when I turned on K-Love and heard a woman telling about a supernatural healing experience when she was being prayed over.  She had lost hearing in one ear and vision in one eye and she suffered pain in that side of her head.  Then this one time she was miraculously healed.  The station started asking her questions about it and then the station just went completely dead.  When it came back a couple minutes later a song was playing.  Was I just going through a blackout area for that station (other stations worked- I checked) or was the evil one trying to keep people from hearing more about this healing?  I guess I won’t know for sure.  I just thought this interesting to mention.

Most memorable movies have at least one promotional ad campaign that features a catchy phrase that in some instances have become ingrained in the world of pop culture.  Some of these are: “A Long Time Ago In A Galaxy Far…Far…Away,” and “Don’t Go In The Water.”  See if you can match the tag with the movie.  Heck, I’ll even throw in the year some of the movies were originally released.  Isn’t that just so nice of me?

1.  “Be Afraid.  Be Very Afraid” (1986…. there may or may not be more than one correct answer so look at the date)

2.  “An Adventure 65 Million Years In The Making”

3.  “The Human Adventure Is Just Beginning” (1979)

4.  “This Time…It’s War” (1986)
5.  “The Adventure Takes Off” (1995)

6.  “He Is Afraid.  He Is Alone.  He Is 3 Million Light Years From Home”

Answers will be forthcoming after enough time has passed to see how many readers attempt to respond. I will try to keep it fair to everyone by monitoring the post and deleting the guesses.  Good luck.

It’s no secret who one of my favorite popcorn munching, thrill seeking, Saturday afternoon movie actors is. However, like most actors worth their salt, Harrison Ford does have a repetoire that extends far beyond two of the most successful film franchises in movie history and as I have been mentioning in probably half of my posts, he will be returning to the silver screen as a certain globe-trotting, snake fearing, bullwhip cracking, Nazi despising archaeologist. Below is a List of some of my other Ford favorites.

Witness: His first and (so far) only Academy Award nomination and it features a very cool song from days gone by.

The Fugitive: The best motion picture based on a television series.  Tommy Lee Jones’ Best Supporting Oscar winning film.  Excellent cat-and-mouse chase of the on the lam doctor and the obsessed federal marshal tracking him down. Also believed to be based on the actual case of  Cleveland, OH physician Sam Sheppard.

What Lies Beneath: Hitchcockian in its suspense without the blood and gore.

The Jack Ryan duology (Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger). Alec Baldwin started the franchise in The Hunt for Red October and Ben Affleck concluded it in The Sum of All Fears.  I know it is another series but Harrison’s two films are the best.

Air Force One: Flawed, cliched, but seriously, would it be so bad if he were our president?  Another good popcorn film.

I know I am forgetting a lot so please feel free to comment on some of your favorite Harrison Ford movies.  Any will do.

Today is the Mother/daughter banquet at church. I am not very thrilled about it. Firstly, because I had to pay $11 for a stupid ticket even though I will not eat the food they are serving. I asked if I could pay for the child’s ticket, since I most likely would be eating the kids food and about as much as they would eat, but of course, that did not go over very well. And I had to buy a ticket because I have to be there! I am in a women’s enasamble at church and we are singing at the Mother/daughter banquet, so it would not have been very good if I did not show up. 🙁 Then I have to wear a dress or skirt to this thing. The theme is God’s Little Princess. Well, God loves us even if we do not wear pretty dresses and stuff. He made us all different and yet, we all are supposed to wear pretty clothes to this banquet. Though it is giving me another excuse to make a new memory with my prom dress!

Though that $11 for a stupid meal is still getting to me! I do not eat very much and I am a very picky eater. I saw the meal menu and what can I say besides… EEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWW!

This weekend at the movies you can either set off the summer blockbuster popcorn season by catching up with the number one movie Iron Man. You can take in the new Ashton Kutcher comedy What Stays in Vegas… or catch the animated series turned big screen live action extravaganza Speed Racer. These are the wide release features. However, if you live anywhere near the burrough of Manhattan you may want to check out the very limited release Poulrygeist: Night of the Living Chicken. It is described by the New York Times as a “satirical sexploitation zombie chicken gross-out musical extravaganza” with such characters as “Wendy,” “Micki,” “Arbie,” “Paco Bell,” (anyone seeing a pattern here), and “Carl, Jr.” (there is a fast food chain by that name, correct?). As the writer who reviewed this fine piece of cinema stated “it is just about as perfect as a film predicated on the joys of projectile vomiting and explosive diarrhea can be.” That sounds like a crowd pleaser to me…. or at least part of a good game of Balderdash.

I have a love/hate relationship with electronic technology.  I love and appreciate the advances that have been made in the world, and I use lots of technologically savvy stuff every day.  But I hate learning the new stuff, and if I procrastinate, it seems that when I finally break down and learn it, something new immediately comes along to replace what I have just learned.  And I am married to a technology addict.  I know it’s a common thing for men to be into electronics and the latest gadgets and all of that, but I think our house is exceptionally up-to-date on the electronic gadgetry, especially when it comes to computers.  My problem with it lies where the technology becomes more of an inconvenience than it is a convenience.  I have a few examples I will share:

1.  Hi-Def Tv – My husband will sit and flip channels in the middle of a show just to try to find the hi-def version of the show.  Of course he doesn’t choose to do this during a Chicago Bears game or something he is inclined to watch.  For those shows, he will actually think about it ahead of the show’s start time.  He’ll sit and flip looking for high-def while I’m watching something, during shows like Dr. Phil or pointless reality shows.  I know, these are dumb shows, so I shouldn’t care about missing them.  But if I’m going to sit and watch something, then I want to watch it, I don’t want to miss any of it, otherwise I’m wasting my time.  So, if I’m watching Dr. Phil, and hubby comes over and tries to find Dr. Phil in hi-def, I might just miss the backround of a guest’s story and not know what is going on for the rest of the show.  Like I said, it’s not like we’re talking about high quality tv here, but who needs Dr. Phil in hi-def anyway?!?

2.  GPS –  I cannot tell you how many times our GPS guy has gotten us lost.  Yes, we have a GPS system in our car with a male voice – he was on sale.  I’ve always thought I was pretty good at navigating; pretty good at being a human compass and learning the layouts of strange cities and towns pretty quickly.  In the years before we had GPS (and kids!) we used to travel by car A LOT, and I was always our navigator.  I’d like to think I got us out of more than a few scrapes with just my sense of direction and an atlas…  But my past experience gets me no where compared to the GPS guy.  He has taken over.  My husband will insist that we follow Mr. GPS’ directions, even while I’m saying they don’t make sense.  For one thing, he’s led us into a lake before, literally.  Well, luckily common sense did prevail there at the last minute…  my husband stopped the car before he drove into the lake, but he was tempted to trust Mr. GPS, and drive into the lake, I know it.  Maybe it sounds like I’m jealous of Mr. GPS, but I’m not, really I’m not.  I just suspect that he might have it out for us, or that he is a practical jokester who gleefully directs us into predictaments just to see how we get out of them…  Kinda sounds like a dumb sitcom – tune in each week to see how we maneuver our way out of whatever mess Mr. GPS has finagled us into this time…

Don’t get me wrong – I do appreciate all the technology most of the time, in a way.  If my husband weren’t so into all these things, I wouldn’t have all the cool gadgets that I have, and I would not know how to use anything, including my computer probably!  But how ironic is it that this post has been sitting in my drafts for weeks now, not getting finished, just because other things kept coming up that I wanted to write about, so I wasn’t getting a chance to finish it.  But how ironic, that today when I went to tangents.org, I got the following message about learning new technology?!?  If you don’t hear from me for awhile, I’m just procrastinating learning the new “back end” of tangents!

Well my friendly bloggers…  I have some great news that is going to make you all very mad!  Yes, you read that right.  Tangents will be updated with the latest versions of the blog software by next Friday and as soon as today (whenever it is released).  Why will this make you mad?  Because the backend you have worked to learn is going to look significantly different.  But don’t worry!  You have the basics down.  Once you take a few minutes to get used to the new layout you will be comfortable again and blogging on Tangents.Org will be better than ever!

Yesterday when browsing my kind-of-local WalMart store in Defiance, OH I noticed something…  They didn’t have the DVD player I wanted.  But what they did have was far more magical, far more elusive, far more expensive…

The Nintendo Wii

Was I dreaming?  Was I hallucinating?  Or was I in reality about to make a big mistake?…  Yep, the third option.

You see, although I was an early critic of the Nintendo Wii (even having never played it — I thought it seemed like Nintendo built a system around what could have been simply an add-on accessory to any system), I have recently been longing for a fun way to get exercise.  I work on the computer all day long and love to eat — and it shows!

I have been able to cut back on my bad eating habits; limiting my pizza intake, eliminating late-night snacking, and reducing my portions greatly.  However, on the exercise front I have done almost nothing.

Sure, my family does go for walks on most days, but not the kind that get the heart pumping.  The kind where you wait for the kids to catch-up and move at the pace of a pregnant woman…  That kind.

I suppose I could just do some standard exercise but I have very little “me” time so when I do have some, I really want to enjoy it and not run on a treadmill, do situps, or go for a jog.  That would just make me crazy.  I like to keep my mind active too!

So, the Wii seemed like the perfect solution.  Not only could I enjoy exercise — I mean REALLY enjoy exercise — but I could play with my wife and kids!  That would just be awesome…  Or so I thought.

So, I took the Wii home with me and and extra set of controllers.  And Mario Kart — my wife and I LOVE all the Kart games and still play them on my Xbox with a N64 Emulator.  Anyway, back to the Nintendo Wii.

We got home and after some time with the kids I excitedly hooked it up to our tv.  I put the batteries into the Wii remotes and fired the little guy up.

SETUP SCREEN >>

Ok, this was expected.  So, I breezed through the setup screen which was simple enough and was ready for some action!

My first game — Wii Sports of course!  This was included with the Wii so it was the obvious choice.

WII SPORTS

The first game we tried was baseball and well, as I already knew, the Wii graphically looked like a last-generation gaming system.  On par with the PS2 or Xbox, although not even that good.  Of course, this was the included game so the graphics on the Wii were probably not being utilized too well.  Back to Baseball.

I was batting first and my wife was pitching.  She made a simple throwing motion and the ball was on its way.  I swung the Wii remote and saw my litte “Mii” swing his virtual bat…  STTTTRRRIIIKE!  It was going to take a little bit to get used to the controls and timing.

After an inning we both had them down pitch…. HIT!  Although this game was very basic, it had some fun to it.  The novelty of the Wii was “hitting” home (sorry for the bad pun).

Next we tried Tennis.  Same thing, different graphics.  Swing the remote, wait, swing the remote.  This is when I began to notice that the Wii remote was more of a gimick than a serious VR interactive device.  I could basically swing the thing any way I wanted and get the same effect — tennis ball hit or missed based mainly on my timing.  Nothing else really.

On to Wii bowling.  Here, the Wii showed me that it was doing more than just sensing if the remote was moving.  The Wii wanted me to make a particular motion and when I did not, it corrected me.  That being said, the bowling was left with a simple make a “bowling like movement” and watch the Wii do the rest.

Boxing however was probably the biggest disappointment.  Why?  Because I had read raves about what a good workout it provides and how fun it is.  To me, neither was true.  I don’t know about anyone else but I could jab and hook my arms forever and they were not getting tired.  Even adding the ducks and weaves were not really a great cardio fix.  But the worst part was the fun factor, or lack of one.  The game only seemed to respond to particular jabbing movements and not to different punches and moves.  If you got really into it, the nunchuck cord would get in the way.  It was very annyong and simply no fun at all for me.  Plus…  I didn’t come close to breaking a sweat.  I guess I might have after playing for 3 hours straight but who has that kind of time.

Wii Fit is due out in a couple of weeks and that is supposed to be all about the fitness; hence the name.  However, at this point I will probably not own a Wii by the time it comes out.  Considering I can score a Xavix system on eBay for under $100 which includes the major workout titles of Jackie Chan J-Map Fitness Studio and Jackie Chan Boxing I don’t see the Wii as being the answer for me.

In the end, the Wii has potential as both a fun gaming system and a entertainment-fitness machine.  However, I am back to my original opinion — if this was a controller for the Xbox 360 I would probably buy one.  The best of both worlds; good graphics and motion-sensing controllers for new interactive gaming.  But for now, the Wii seems to be to be…  Well, old.  Last generation’s graphics and motion sensing technology that was probably already surpassed by the EyeToy.  Yes, I know it is not the same.  But the new 3D ZCam, which will be under $100 and work with real next gen systems will make the Wii look like it already plays — weak.  Take a look at the ZCam…

The Wii uses REALLY OLD technology to track movement.  It really seems like it was a system from 5 – 6 years ago.  I will give it a couple of more days but if something doesn’t change and make me suddenly a “Wii Addict” I am bringing this back to the store for a Wiifund!

Sometimes it is very difficult to find the moment when you know that a show is going to be great (at times, it may seem that the moment never comes). For two shows I was very proud to be a part of the moment arrived quickly. The first time I held up four fingers and cackled for my audition for The Clinic, I knew that Donnie would be a great part (whoever got it 🙂 ). For Idol Night it came when I read aloud the first line spoken by Morat (“HELLO EVERY PEOPLE!!!!”). Tonight, sitting at the theatre reading through lines for Little Women, I thought this is going to be good. We not only read through the first act, but the director kept going back and asking the cast questions to make them analyze the character and scene they were reading. Who is your character? What is he/she trying to say and do? How is he/she saying it… is he confident or shy? Much more fun and productive to analyze as a group instead of alone.

Before we got into all of that, we had an ice breaker of introducing ourselves. Name, part, past experience, and favorite restroom. OK….. so it was not favorite restroom but the director changed it to such after someone misheard him. Guess who?!

My name is….. I will be playing Braxton Prendergast, the evil aristocratic stock villain in Jo’s stories. My favorite experience on stage was portraying Morat Notboratnichkov in Idol Night at the Karaoke Place. My favorite restroom is the ladies room at Ohio Stadium (long story).

The director made it a point to comment that the video is still on youtube…. (I still have yet to learn how to embed videos on my posts as well as other things). So….You a know Morat. It will be a year on Sunday May 11, which ironically enough, I just learned is Morat’s birthday.

Later, we were asked what our own personal goal for the show is. I said to wear either a hoop skirt as some of the cast do or pumpkin pants which I was told I would be doing.

So, it should be another enjoyable month and few days. Aren’t they all though?

Yes, this is my 42nd blog post.  And a great lead into another thing to write about.  Another of my favorite things to do is read.  I am a big time reader.  Most of the time I tend to read fiction.  Science fiction and Fantasy are my favorites, with mysteries coming in a close third.  Believe it or not, I’ve never read the “Hitchhikers Guide”  I did catch some of the BBC radio series, but never got through the whole story.  I can’t remember why it was taken off local radio, but I don’t think they ever finished it.   Someday, I’ll have to check and see if they have it on tape or DVD.   I may have to see the movie and read the books too, but I want to experience the radio show first.

I’ve been hitting the Superhero movies hard for the past few weeks, so I thought I would let some of my other side show. So I thought I would write about Mel Brooks Comedies.

My absolute favorite is Blazing Saddles. A wonderful spoof on almost every western made. I’ve been thinking that this movie could not be made and release today. There were way too many politically incorrect comedy bits in that show. The best part of the show in my opinion had to have been Alex Karras. The part of Mongo and his hitting the horse and of course the Candy Gram. These little things made the movie fun for me. Of course all the puns and movie bits that make most of the Brooks’ comedies fun to watch over and over again. There are seems to be movies I haven’t seen that have been used in satire in these movies.

On to a quick list of favorite in order

1) Blazing Saddles

2) Young Frankenstein

3) Space Balls

4) The 12 Chairs

5) High Anxiety

6) History of the World

7) Silent Movie

8) Robin Hood Men in Tights

9) Dracula Dead and Loving It.

10) To be or not to be

11) Life Stinks

12) The Producers

–Not a movie but it should be in here The 2000 Year Old Man.

— I’m fairly certain I will like Get Smart this summer too. He is a writer for that, and was a writer for the original series.