RUR or R.U.R
Rehearsals are underway for the next play I got lucky enough to be cast in. R.U.R. or Rossums Universal Robots. A Czech playwright named KarelCapek wrote it in the 1920's and was ostensibly the first commercial coinage of the word ROBOT from the czech word robota or robotnik. You can read more about it
here.
While Kapek envisioned biologically grown organic robots it was Huxley's, Brave New World that first realized the C3PO idea of robots popular today.
I play Dr. Hallemeier the psychologist that programs (patterns) the robots brains. I'm a hedonistic character who is ultimately undone by his desires, or at least one of them. Once again I am lucky to have two of my offspring, the two oldest fruit of my loins in the production. Josh plays Radius, a robot who has a discipline problem and Cara plays Helenova, the robotic equivalent of Eve. It looks to be a good production and if you are interested in tickets contact
Appleseed Productions. The adaptation we're doing is by
Lee Shackleford of University of Alabama, Birmingham and is Lee is planning on attending one of the performances. Should be a hoot.
ba
Own Horn Tootage
Okay I realize a fair number of the regular readers of this blog will be underwhelmed by this news but ba has been published. A short review (called a sneak) of a centrally managed defragging software package in Network Computing Magazine.
Here's the
LINK.
Yes they speeled my name wrong in the beginning. But how many of you have been published ? It was a great opportunity offered by a former student who went on to work for the magazine after he graduated. Thanks Mike.
ba
Problematic Prophesy
Yes, once again. It seems I can't leave
Best Buy without coming upon this scene and each time I do I'm reminded of a particular gift I have, no, a curse actually.
It all started many years ago when public schools were the testing grounds for many types of standardized testing. I was given a test from a battery of exams called
Iowa's (so named for the wonderful college they were born out of) and one particular section of the test was called Maps and Diagrams and it involved lots of very nice pictures and questions like;
If Gear A turns clockwise which way will Gear F turn ? Sorta like this but more complicated.
There were other questions about the pretty triangles, circles and squares with various of shapes inside and we had to determine which on came next in the sequence.
(Google let me down after a massive search for an example) There were coordinate questions like finding a city using grid lines on a map. All kinds of great stuff that I found very easy being a very visually stimulated mid-pubescent young man. So.... While the other children slowly banged their heads on their desks or went screaming out of the room I calmly calculated the answers and scored in the top 1/300th percentile in the country. Hmmm in retrospect, I'm pretty sure my guidance counselor said country not county. Anyway I figured this was a huge deal because I actually got called out of class, Miss Stavish's class, just to be told this. Miss Stavish was the one teacher that almost every school has who was so beautiful that rumors ran rampant that she gave up a career as a
Playboy Bunny to come and teach us social studies... or was it english ? no.. wait math? Okay so I don't really remember learning much in her class
* but I do remember walking back to class and thinking "dang it, did I miss anything?" Meaning of course a dropped eraser, reaching up to latch those really tall wooden windows or maybe a test being returned with that all wonderful personal review that happened at our desks?
The realization of the curse aspect of my gift came upon me slowly as it took me some time to learn that 99.7% percent of the population being spatialy challenged will attempt to fit a boxed 32" TV in the rear seat of a Volkswagon Beatle. However, since I'm spatial I know better. I know now your thinking I road the spatial bus to school. The curse ? Well it seems likely that I missed an important lesson early in life (possibly in Miss Stavish's class) and have only figured out in my later years. Males who have this spatial relations gift don't tell other males that don't have the gift when they stupidly are attempting to put a 32" TV in a VW Bug. You also don't apparently tell other guys that the waterbed headboard simply won't go up the stairs and make the turn. You also don't tell other guys that the couch is too long to for the wall if they want to put the end table next to it. Neither do you tell guys (this one particularly if their wife is around) that the tree will fall in a particular direction (not the one their thinking) and it will reach the brand new octagon shaped picnic table and will reduce it to kindling. Prophecy regarding space, angles, directions and size is best kept to yourself.
ba
* - see previous note about visual stimulation
Back to the NYS Fair
I have some other pictures I'd like to share with you guys from the Fair. This first one is of an apparent lack of equal opportunity or discrimination or something that should bother someone enough to get mad as H-E- double hockey sticks, blame George Bush and Dick Cheney and go on a cross country bus ride.
(remember you can click on the pictures to make them bigger)
Sorry for the blurry picture but when you are taking a picture of the entrance/exit of public restrooms in the Dairy building of the Great New York State Fair you kinda have to be quick about it. Notice anything
odd, dissimilar or disturbing ? That's right. No where does it tell men that they have to ship or dump their milk at the parlor. Are women the only miscreants ? Let me tell you if this sign wasn't in the Dairy building I'd have other concerns.
Speaking of the Dairy Building it has a lot of these in it. Cute little fellar huh ? Wonder where the
tenderloin is ? Beef - it's whats for dinner.
Finally I commented back in August that I thought the whole American Chopper thing had gone to far. Here's more proof.
ba
Moving creates opportunities
I was remarking to a dear friend the other day that moving can create exciting but scary opportunities. Well our office move has done just that. It has created a moral crisis that I face every morning until I get back into making my own coffee. I've been going over to
Slocum Hall for coffee since we've moved and each day I come upon this scene.
Click on the picture if it is too small to read the center coffee urn label. For those to lazy to click it says "
Fair Trade", "
Organic Coffee".
Now I'm not too sure what either of these mean to me and even though I've watched the Lion King enough times to know life's not fair everyday I feel compelled to put my cup under the one labeled "FAIR TRADE". You see like most people I want life to be fair and I figure that maybe by drinking "FAIR TRADE" coffee I'm halping to balance out some cosmic fairness counter like the points counter in at
Hogwarts. Sadly every time I try I end up succumbing to another sense fairness and I only put in a half a cup of "Fair Trade" coffee and the other half normal red blooded American, Juan Valdez (you know the guy who ran the
oil tanker aground up in Alaska) coffee.
ba
balaams_ass live
Yes indeed you can now get a live look at balaams_ass......
CLICK HERE !!!!
Not a joke a real webcam. It's up 24x7 but I'm not. Currently it resides at work. When I'm away I try and rememeber to point it to my
Lava Lamp.
ba
It's a great State Fair.....
Yep it's true another year has slipped by virtually un-noticed. Un-noticed that is until it's time to head out to Solvay and visit the Great New York State Fair. Like every year we did all the standard stuff. Started out, as always, in Center of Progress building. Never been ? Well simply picture every infomercial you've ever seen on TV crammed into booths in one building. Miracles brooms, miracle cookware, miracle fudge, miracle windows, miracle rubber band shooting guns, miracle water treatment, miracle satellite TV. So many miracles you'll think you've died and gone to a very crowded sorta smelly,
little scooter ridden heaven. We moved on to the Womens building. So named because it's Hillary Clinton's starting off place when ever she visits the fair which seems to be the same day we pick every year. This year I asked a few of the State Police officers that were working directing traffic and people when The Honorable Senator from Arkansas ummm errrr I mean New York was attending. To a man they all indicated they didn't know but would like to take the day off if they did. Sure enough as we left the Womens Building there was a small crowd of people near the Empire Resturaunt doorway. I asked one middle aged women who looked so excited that I am guessing she luckily had attended to necessary bodily functions earlier as she squealed with delight "
Hillary Clinton is here today". Alright I'm making some of that up. Literary license and all that......
We wandered all about, sand sculpture was focused on SU football
and the butter sculpture was focused on broken families (are they considered broken anymore ?) I assumed this since it was a dinner table with mom and 2 kids and only 3 chairs. Dad ? Other mom ? Concubine ? Live in ?For me the most compelling place at the fair is the 9/11 memorial.
It
juxtaposes a huge range of emotions in my heart and mind. Sadness, rage, frustration, fear. I walk away with tears in my eyes every time. Like most Americans I will never forget that day.
ba
I play Dr. Hallemeier the psychologist that programs (patterns) the robots brains. I'm a hedonistic character who is ultimately undone by his desires, or at least one of them. Once again I am lucky to have two of my offspring, the two oldest fruit of my loins in the production. Josh plays Radius, a robot who has a discipline problem and Cara plays Helenova, the robotic equivalent of Eve. It looks to be a good production and if you are interested in tickets contact Appleseed Productions. The adaptation we're doing is by Lee Shackleford of University of Alabama, Birmingham and is Lee is planning on attending one of the performances. Should be a hoot.
