A badge I wear proudly. 

First, let me say it is shaping up to be an incredible season.  Lot’s of truly amazing talent.

And now, in order my picks for top 4, starting at the top.

Adam Lambert

Danny Gokey

Megan Joy Corkrey

Allison Iraheta

Now…  Let me clarify that this is what I predict the outcome to be, not necessarily what I want it to be.  Although I guess the two are not far off.  I think Allison is better than #4, but I don’t think she’ll get the votes she needs…

And although she’s already been eliminated, I really dig

Jackie Tohn

 

Nick Mitchell

Stevie Wright

Tatiana Nicole Del Toro

‘Nuff said.

And I admit to being a latecomer to the party.  I resisted West Wing for a while, then fell in love.  Didn’t know Aaron from Jack.  Didn’t care.  Sure, thoroughly enjoyed The American President.  A Few Good Men was great.  But West Wing…  Oh, West Wing.  And then, in the blink of an eye, it was gone.

Then came Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

Now I must confess that I have always had political aspirations.  In fact, I intend to run for President of the United States one day.  And I always assumed that there was some synergy, something about West Wing that struck a visceral harmonic with me, resonating in my soul, causing feelings to rise within me that I was out of touch with.  It was, without a doubt, the highlight of my life every hour I got to spend being touched in deep and mysterious ways by a man I’ve never met.  OK, that sounds really, really wrong.  But I think hope you get my drift.

Then came Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

And it’s back.  That feeling.  It’s back.  I can’t describe it – an overwhelming sense of joy, of elation, of identification, of passion, of that perfection that I seek as an actor, as a writer, as a director.  It’s all there.  I laugh, I cry, I get goose bumps, I get lumps in my throat, I sit forward in anticipation, I sit back in exhausted triumph.

There are many shows (probably too many, but thank GOD for TiVo) that I really enjoy (Numb3rs, CSI, CSI Miami, CSI NY,  Smith, Criminal Minds.)  There are even a few shows I truly look forward to with eager anticipation (House, NCIS, Justice is intriguing me, Standoff, Ghost Whisperer [Yeah, it's mostly about JLH, but I enjoy the show, what can I say?])

But there have only been three shows that have stood out in recent memory as feeling somehow different.  That I’m being transported.  That I might actually lose a part of me if it goes away.  They are West Wing, Buffy The Vampire Slayer (Hey, say what you want, but it deserves this honor), and now Studio 60.

I don’t know what magic Aaron Sorkin has.  I don’t know how much of it is the writing and how much of it is the acting…  Though I’d wager that both play a HUGE part.  But it is truly magic.  Transcending.

Aaron, I honor you.  I esteem you.  I think I love you.  You bring me joy every week, and I can’t get enough.  If there ever were the right alignment of circumstances and providence, I’d love to work for you.  In the meantime, I will take solace in the vicarious thrills you bring me.  I just ask one favor…  Please…  Don’t ever stop.

It looks fantastic, meets my needs perfectly, is exactly what I want, and yet I don’t think I’ll be getting one.  At least not soon.

$799.99!  Ouch!

That’s what all the rumors were saying, but I didn’t believe it.  Couldn’t.

TiVo has always had great incentives, special deals, etc., not to mention an absolutely compelling product with an incredibly intuitive interface.

I suppose some background is in order.  Flash back to late 2001.  I’m working for Digex (now part of MCI/Worldcom Worldcom Verizon), and I meet TiVo Goddess.  Among her completely unopinionated set of favorites – many of which I would succumb to, begrudgingly, was (duh) TiVo.

I had no interest in a DVR.  Although being a gadget freak, and seeming to have an innate mandate for living on the leading bleeding edge, it just didn’t seem to matter to me.  I had DISH network at the time, and had a DVR from them that never seemed to work, and they didn’t seem to care, and it just struck me as not-ready-for-prime-time technology.  No thanks, I’ll pass.

She persisted, pursued, and persuaded.  I relented.  And then I fell in love.  There are many reasons, but this is absolutely technology done right.  Intuitive, easy, lovely, and transparent.

By this time, I was with Comcast Cable (A rant for another time.  In a word… “DON’T”).  I quickly bought a TiVo Series 1 box with a lifetime subscription.  I then a year later hacked it to upgrade the hard drive, and fell in love again.  This time with the simplicity of design, the openness of the company their “unofficial support” (or at least loving tolerance) for the hacker community.  Could this company do no wrong?

Then my ability to tolerate Comcast was exceeded, and I fired them, opting instead for DirecTV.  We’re now at about late 2002.  I bought a DirecTV/TiVo combo box, with a lifetime subscription (from TiVo) and fell in love yet again.  Dual Tuners, the ability to record two shows live, and watch a third that I had recorded earlier, same TiVo I love.  Did I mention that I LOVE TiVo?  (No, this is not a paid advertisement.  I cannot help but shout from the rooftops when I love something this much).  Subsequently, I sold my father my Series 1 standalone box, and bought two more DirecTV/TiVo combo units (2 of them, Series 2 boxes).

I truly cannot imagine my life without TiVo.  When I travel, I find myself wondering how the modern world survives without it.  (“What do you mean I can’t rewind and see/hear that again?”)

Anyway, modern day.  I am the proud owner (User?) of Verizon FIOS and Verizon VoiceWing (VoIP).  And now Verizon FIOSTV is now available in my area.  AND I WANT IT.

According to my calculations, I am presently paying $58.97/month for my DirecTV.  This includes Total Choice Plus package ($48.99/mo), plus two additional received “Mirror Fees” ($4.99/mo each).

With FiosTV, for the same channel line up, plus all the HD channels (which would cost me extra with DirecTV), I would pay Verizon $34.95/mo (includes a $5/mo discount for having all the various FIOS services).  If I bought three TiVo Series 3 boxes, I could get CableCards from Verizon, so I don’t need separate tuners or set-top boxes (unless I wanted access to Video On-Demand, or Pay-Per-View, which I don’t care about), for $2/mo each (x 3 units, x 2 per unit = $12/month.  If I get my old Series 1 back from my dad, and have TiVo transfer my lifetime service plan to the new Series 3 box, and then pay the “multi-view” discounted price on the remaining two boxes, that would be $6.95/mo each = $13.90.  Total cost = $60.85.  Cost difference = an increase of $1.88/month.

Now…  Why would I do all that?

1) Although relatively infrequent, it’s terribly annoying when severe weather interferes with our ability to receive TV.  And it’s just often enough to irk me.

2) Although I’ve been very happy with DirecTV over the years, I cannot begin to fathom the mindset that caused them to buy the exclusive rights to the DirecTV/TiVo combo units, giving them full, unlimited access to continue to develop, manufacture, and sell these units, and then abandon it completely in favor of their own, internally-developed unit.  At this moment, although you can still find some on shelves in stores, DirecTV/TiVo combo units are no longer being manufactured or sold by DirecTV.  Idiots.  Yes, they will continue to support us “loyal” TiVo customers.  In the same way they have for the past few years – which is to say, not at all.  No updates, no improvements, none of the new features that TiVo has offered (such as Home Media Option, TiVo-To-Go, KidZone, etc.)

I love TiVo (have I mentioned that?), but have come to despise the stupidity of DirecTV, and can abide them no longer.

So…  I have a viable alternative – FiosTV.  I can get better quality, better price, better service, and move to the platform I love, and get full TiVo support.  What’s not to love?

The price!  The stupid price.  $799.99.  Ohmigoshareyoustupidfreakinnuts?!?!?!

If I buy a three-year, prepaid plan, you should offer me some incredible incentive.  Or, go for the extreme…  Lock me in to a 5 year contract or something.  I’ll go for that.  Do something to make my plan, my dream, my vision, my NEED practical.

You’re asking me to spend $800 x 3 = $2400 to replace my existing three TiVo units. Yeah right.

So for now, unless TiVo does something incredible (I wouldn’t be surprised), I must wait.  And drool.  And want.  And suffer.  And brew.

I WANT MY TIVO!  Please, TiVo – I beg of you.  Find a solution.

I propose, openly and before the world, the following:

TiVo and Verizon…  Get together on this.  A cross-promotion.  TiVo – you are pushing for these “House Parties”.  So give me a TiVo Series 3 unit for free, transfer my lifetime subscription from my Series 1 box.  Lock me into a 5 year contract on two more Series 3 boxes, and charge me $199 each for them, plus the monthly ongoing fee.  I’ll host a house party extravaganza, promoting both TiVo and Verizon FIOS/VoiceWing/FiosTV.  This seems like a win/win/win.  Layout the conditions, the terms, and make it happen.  You can do it. (The first person who says “We can help” gets shot.)

Link to TiVo.com | Buy TiVo

I desire to support SMTP, POP3, IMAP4, and WebMail.

I know I could do this with Exchange Server – but that’s a hefty cost from any angle – I’d have to have an Active Directory, and an Exchange Server, powerful enough machines to support those applications, plus the licensing costs. No thanks.

So I am going to give hMailServer a shot.  It looks like it’ll do everything I want (given the addition of SquirrelMail to handle the WebMail piece).

hMailServer requires a database to support it – and it’s compatible with MySQL or MS SQL Server.  I really like MS SQL Server, and am comfortable with it, and already have it installed on a production server for other purposes, so I decided to use it.

SQL Server is set up for Mixed Mode authentication, due to some other applications that need it.  hMailServer, during its installation, wants to connect to the SQL Server and initialize the DB, and it want’s to do so using Windows Authentication.

Note that I DO NOT have an Active Directory in my configuration (again, too much overhead if I can avoid it).

Well, I struggled for a few hours trying to figure out why I couldn’t authenticate.  When trying to establish the initial connection to initialize the DB, the hMailServer kept reporting “Login Failed for user ”.  The user is not associated with a trusted SQL Server connection.”

I felt very DUH when I realized what was happening.  The machine running hMailServer, being logged in as Admin, was trying to perform Windows Authentication to the machine running SQL Server.  The hMailServer machine was in my development environment, since I was building it out, and I had not completed “hardening” it (including renaming the Admin account).  The SQL Server machine had been hardened, since it was already in production.  So the authentication was failing because the username/password that the hMailServer machine was sending to the SQL Server machine was not valid on the SQL Server machine.

Took the step of renaming the Admin account on the hMailServer machine to match those on the SQL Server machine, and all’s well in paradise.

Well, rehearsals have been going well.  We’re finally starting to put together the music/singing, the choreography, the acting, the blocking, and the orchestra.  Oh, and the scene changes.  Wowza.  And we’ve got a MONSTEROUSLY HUGE cast.  Like 55 people or something ridiculous.  Fun stuff.

And the show is looking good.  Tom Jackson – no, not this one… This one! - is really amazing.  Very keen sense of what’s going to be auditorily (is that even a word?) effective – the timing, the enunciation/diction, everything.  As anal as I am about so many things, I can truly appreciate Tom’s retentiveness.

 You can get details on the show here or here.  But definitely come see it.

The songs, unlike the soundtrack I’ve heard from Broadway, are emotionally alive, and gripping (which, frankly, makes it difficult for me to sing, since I am often choking back the tears myself as I do).

The early standouts for me so far are: Christy Stouffer (as Golde), Christa Ladny (as Tzeitel), Olivia Ercolano (as Hodel), Joan Ashwel plays an inspired Yente.  Also, although Chuck Dick (the Director) was my highschool acting teacher, I haven’t seen him act prior to this play.  I am impressed.  At least for this role, he’s well suited.

OK.  Time to try (again) to get some sleep.

Then I happen to look at my blog and see it’s been since MAY!?!?!

Ohmigosh.

I am so lame.

I have this genuine desire to journal.  Always have.  And blogging seemed like such a natural outlet for it.  But – as is my want, I go overboard.  I create – what is it, ah yes – 9 blogspaces – so now I feel pressure to produce, and shame when I don’t.

And instead of using that as motivation to at least post something about how I feel, I instead procrastinate and ignore.

I read somewhere that I should be prolific – try to write something every day, and give myself permission to miss a day once in a while.  Oy, such pressure!  I also read something to the effect that I should basically just commit to writing for about 10-15 minutes every day – whether or not I have a topic to write about or subject in mind.  Hmmm.   I think I tend to favor quality over quantity.

But perhaps there’s something to that approach.  At least it would get me writing.

Do you blog?  What approaches work well for you?  I’d love to hear from you.

Mark.

Friday, everyone seemed to have low energy. Somehow the band got off track in the middle of a song, which really threw Shayna and the dancers off, but they did their best and eventually recovered. I can’t put my finger on it, but the dynamics were just not right all night. Still, got positive comments from the audience.

Saturday was, in my opinion, one of our best shows ever. I felt such energy from it, that it carried over into our Sunday show…

Sunday. Hmmm. Well, on the plus side – good energy, things were going well, my mom and sister showed, as well as my wife (pleasant surprise, since she had already seen it once). Then, at the beginning of the second act, the power went out. We assumed it was a circuit breaker, and went crazy flipping switches, but it turned out to be the entire block. It stayed out the WHOLE second act. But the cast and the band, much to their credit and reflecting INCREDIBLE professionalism, carried on and performed wonderfully. It even gave us some opportunity to snicker at ourselves as we heard ourselves say our normal lines like “Could you hold the light please?” or in reference to taking away all the “magic” of the theatre from Pippin himself, Shayna says to kill the lights. It was fabulous. Like in inside joke that everyone knew. Really great show, in spite of the problems. And – God not being without a sense of humor – the lights came back on just after the theatre cleared.

And I did take the part of the Constable in Fiddler on the Roof with PTC. Rehearsals sart June 1, and I’m getting excited. It will be fun working with them again. I’ll keep you up to date on that as well.

I am now starting to plan a very small musical to direct as a joint Arnold Christian Academy/New Covenant Church production (like I did with last year’s A Tree as high as the Ceiling). Andrea Nebbia (my co-conspirator and producer of ATAHATC) made a great suggestion of a mini-review – recognized snippets from various shows. I’ll be exploring how to make that happen. We’ll probably start auditioning immediately at the beginning of next school year, and plan for a December/January production.

Also, as the director of the CWA Players, a new production company from Christian Walk Alive, the organization that produces A Work in Progress, I am starting to explore what to choose as our inaugural production. I am somewhat set on doing a musical; and am smitten with the idea of a stage adaptation of “Prince of Egypt.” So I need to figure out if and how that can happen.