Happy Year of the Dog!

May the best of the last year be the worst of this one. : )

You know, it never rains but it pours. It's been awhile since I had anything interesting to talk about, and now I have a bunch all at once.

Personal: Not much to say -- I'm in the middle of a month of stage managing the Second City ETC show. It's a LOT of fun. The show is pretty good, and the cast is a really amazing group. I worked with them back in the fall as well, and they are just great. A real pleasure to be around. It really makes me want to SM more often, despite how tired I am. Also, I got my fake tooth implanted yesterday. Not as painful as I worried it would be, but a LOT more expensive than I had anticipated. Sigh. It's not even gold!

In the news:

I've been a proponent of election reform since 2000, and thought that the worst offenses had passed us by this last time around, but apparently they're just not being reported. I may have to dig out some of my old data on this issue and re-post it here, because it's pretty complex, but the bottom line is that the only companies that make electronic voting machines are controlled by people who are demonstrated activists for the Republican party, and by law there is no oversight allowed of the software used to run these machines. It's pretty scary stuff.

Elsewhere in politics, people are again agreeing with me for all the wrong reasons. Democrats in southern states (GA and AL) are introducing legislation to allow teaching classes on the Bible as literature, focusing on its influence on history and art. I support that idea. I would rather it was part of a more comparative religious literature class, but it's a start. What I don't like about it is their blatant declaration that "they hoped to compete with Republicans for conservative Christian voters." If that's your goal, then the class no longer counts as secular, dumbass. It's one thing to have that as your goal, it's another thing to be stupid enough to say it in the paper. Sigh. Did we learn nothing from Dover?

And speaking of people agreeing with me, here's a really interesting column on health care reform which points out that the biggest problem with health care reform is the classic conundrum that I am so fond of quoting: "Good, fast, cheap. Pick two." The public doesn't want to sacrifice any one of the three prongs, and even the politicians who recognize that you have to do it can't agree on which one to lose.

And speaking of health care, the smoking ban has gone into effect in Chicago! And here's the real kicker: I e-mailed the Department of Public Health, and they told me that smoking is not allowed in theaters, EVEN ONSTAGE IN CHARACTER! I doubt that there will be much enforcement of this, but there may come a day when someone complains, and the city issues a citation, and the theater sues..... I can't wait to see what happens! Also, California yesterday officially declared cigarette smoke a form of air pollution. This should open the door for them to enforce even tougher restrictions on when and where people can smoke (they were the first state to enact a smoking ban).

Now, here's the kind of guy we should be electing! Evo Morales, a former farmer, was sworn in as Bolivia's first indigenous president on Sunday. His first act? To keep a campaign promise and cut his own salary in half. But what's really bold about this move is that according to Bolivian law, no other government employee can make more than the president, so everyone else's salary is being reduced to the same level! Morales says that the savings will be spent on hiring more doctors and teachers. It makes me feel all warm and gooey inside just to read about someone like that.

In entertainment news:

Sharon Osbourne is going to be in "The Vagina Monologues" in England. Man, Rob Kolson would have given his left arm to have her at the Apollo. As someone who's seen the show hundreds of times, I can say with confidence that I think she'll be great. I mean, she's no Kim Fields, but she's gotta be better than Loretta Switt!

Netflix is hoping to expand their offerings to include digital downloads of movies. I think that'll be really cool. I don't want to think about how long it would take to download an entire movie, but I've come to really appreciate the episodes of "Lost" that iTunes makes available, and will support furthering the merger of computers and televisions.

And speaking of iTunes, there are rumors that Google is developing their own music download service. I don't know how I feel about supporting them, however. I used to love Google, but their recent merger with AOL and their cooperating with the government of China to censor search results there have left me with a bad taste in my mouth (hell, even Gmail has been plagued with rumors about its shady EULA since its inception). And I used to dislike Apple because of their standoffishness and refusal to be compatible with anyone else, but having used iTunes for Windows for awhile now, I have to admit that it is a superior program. Add in the whole Pixar side of things and, while I will probably never switch to a Macintosh computer unless forced to, I may have become a closet Steve Jobs fan.

And last but not least, today is the 250th anniversary of the birth of Mozart. Happy Birthday, Wolfgang! Now everybody go out and rent "Amadeus." Ooh, rock me, Amadeus! ; )