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The other week Laura gave me tickets to one of the OCT plays, a musical featuring music sung by the cast. There was also dancing. Myself and two of my acquaintances were shown to our seats, front and center two rows back. It was amazing.

Those seats would cost upwards of 4000 dollars in NY. There were however two seats slightly to the right and in front of us that remained empty, the whole of the presentation.

It made me remember all those great movies that used the empty theater seat as a plot device, perhaps overusing the cliche in fact to render it more of a deus ex machina. In Waiting for Guffman, the empty seat is famed critic Mr. X{fact department, please research this and fill correct answer before publication} Guffman who will save all these performers from the dreadful ignomy of living in Missouri. I won't ruin the denoument, but Guffman is in all actuality just some average halfwit who had once been the White Guy on The Jeffersons.
The other famous open seat in a theater set in a movie is from Rushmore, where young Max Rushmore played by that young boy who looks like Tom Cruise but more Jewish attempts to seduce his second grade teacher by inviting her to a play, a play that he wrote. The attempt fails when the empty seat is in turn taken up by the ghost doctor of her former lover. The ghost doctor lover is coincidentally played by the brother of the director, even though I don't think this is mentioned at anytime during the film.


The final famous empty seat is from Kramer versus Kramer. Drew Barrymore in one of her pre-coke binge roles, plays the youngest Kramer who is trying to stop her parents Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep in her first onscreen role) from finalizing their divorce. In a slight differentiation, the empty seat for a performance of the Vagina Monologues is not used to bring her parents together, but Drew cunningly gives the empty seat ticket to Mrs. Kramer's former tennis instructor, played ably by Peter Scolari, who's physical daliances led to the Kramer2 breakup in the first place! The final fight scene is remarkable mostly for it's highly stylized choreography, but also for the security guard that breaks it up, played by a very young Michael Richards, many years before his star breaking turn on Fridays. Astute readers and watchers would simply guffaw at the fact that this makes the scene actually Kramer versus Kramer versus Kramer versus Kramer.

Ultimate Teams Versus Employment

One thing to think about when you've been laid off is the timing.
My timing seems to be pretty similar, and it's not tied into the economy, it's tied into something much more primal. My job fate is tied directly into my ultimate team situation.

The last time I was laid off here in Portland, it was right when Scuber Du broke up. Now that Coltrane broke up, I once again find myself unemployed. I started my first Portland job in mid February 2003, and started with Scuber in March, then got laid off in August 2004, and Scuber broke up in September.
Coltrane pretty much also exactly coincided with my last place of employment, started work in late February of 2005, and started Coltrane in March. Then Coltrane broke up in September, and my work was well on it's way to four day work weeks and random forced weeks of PTO.

Is that coincidence? Or Circadian Rhythms? Or just me wanting to quit Scuber, and quit that shitty job, and then 4 years later wanting to quit captaining but not wanting to get laid off?

A lesser man would consult his tarot cards, read the horoscope, or read the tea leaves to divinate his new surroundings. I merely went into the old office and cleaned out my desk [but not too good, I made sure to leave it messy so they would have to really clean it (stickin' it to the man!)] and stole a box of tea. The tea that I liked, Decaf Earl Gray. I figure what can they do if they catch me stealing tea? Re-lay me off? I guess they could fire me and avoid paying into unemployment insurance for me, or cause my benefits to lapse or something like that. I guess that's why it's important that HENDERSON CONSTRUCTION SERVICES never finds out that I stole from them.

This year, I don't plan on really playing with a club team, but I do plan on working. The question is, will I have to go back on my plans and get onto a team just to make sure I get hired?

this is my twitter

since my figlrfriend is in san farnsisco i am using this time to state my feelings.
i feel that i did not really eat ddinner only some leftover tabouli, so i went to winter league where none of my friends showed up except for easy and sara, so i came home and started drinking bers.
it's not afetr midnigth and i'm eating tha last wo hot dogs.

The High Cost of Living

I recently got this email from my old co-worker Luis. Luis is from Venezuela, and came to Portland by way of Toronto. After we both got laid off last week, we discussed some of the options we have. He obviously has fewer due to his status as a foreign national here on a work visa, but he kind of evens that out since he is good at architecting and I pretty much suck at it.
Anyway, the point is that Luis was evidently contacted by a supposed Government agency that asked him what value he puts on his children. They asked him in these tough times if he were to give up one of his children to be put into a Government Secret Training Program that could potentially endow said child with either super powers or hideous deformities in the name of National Securities and also in the name of Science, which child would he be willing to give up, and how much food would he ask to be bribed in order to give up that child. I did some hacking into the com-puters to find out this data once I heard about it since it seemed so far fetched. Sort of like if 24 was written by the people what write Lost and then showed the show on The Food Network. Here is some of the data I found. The amount of food each family was willing to accept is shown below, along with the preferred family member to be experimented on circled in red. Pretty interesting stuff.



Luis is first.
This is the Anderson household from Boise Idaho.

The Humbertsons from Cobb County Georgia answered incorrectly and thought they only got to keep one kid.

The Hendrix family from North College Hill Ohio tried to trick the census takers and offer up their next door neighbor just to get one more pizza.

The Magnussons from Montpelier Vermont didn't do anything interesting, but the dad wanted a lot of beer to numb the pain.
The Van Wafers of Gross Point Michigan weren't involved in the study, and were just photographed during a garage sale they were having in order to provide a sort of median point for the study.

she said, she said. she said. ooooooo it feel so good.

Yesterday, Lux Interior passed away due to heart problems. He was good at singing.

His band was called The Cramps. He was from Stow, Ohio. He was my second favorite person ever from Stow.



How do you write an obituary?
In my case you do it poorly. I don't know anything about Lux, I just listened to his records. It would probably be even harder if I did know him. Because I'd be sadder. As it is now, he's just a guy I liked that I can't go see in concert anymore. I can still buy his albums because I don't own them all yet. I don't own anywhere near all of them, I only own three. Those three are pretty good. You should get them.

OR, you should get the ones I don't have and then let me know if you like them, so I can get them or if you don't, then you could give them to me.

I won't tell you which ones to get or not get because the one that you should get is one that I own, but if you get that one and don't love it, I can tell you "Aw yeah, you shoulda got the other one." So I don't feel bad.
Or I could say "yeah, you got the good one, and if you don't like it you're dumb." to make you feel bad.