Basketball Bender

My excuse for not really blogging last week revolved around the start of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. As a college b-ball fan, this is my favorite time of year. I used two of my vacation days so I could gorge myself on the sport. I bounced back and forth between my TV and the computer in order to catch as many games as possible. I think I ended up watching about 44-ish hours TH-SUN. It's been awhile since there have been that many overtimes and games won by a basket at the very end.

I'm happy to see the Duke is still in it. I nervous about their game with Baylor later today, but I think they have a good shot at going to the Final Four this year. As long as the big three all hit their season averages, and we keep up inside, I think they are there.

When I haven't been watching basketball this week (I can't even tell you how tired I was after the double OT Xavier/K-State game), I have been enjoying/subjecting myself to local high school theater. More frighteningly, musical theater. Those of you with whom I have discussed theater, know how much I don't really like musicals. They make almost no sense to me. I find it annoying that suddenly everyone in town breaks into song and dance.

There are exceptions to my hate. If the story itself has something to do with music, I'm usually cool with it. I love Hedwig and the Angry Inch. I enjoy Grease. I liked Rent, but that's probably more because of how contemporary the music was.

I also dig The Music Man. A good friend of mine teaches English, Writing and a few other things at a local high school. He is the director of the fall play and co-director of the spring musical. He has been into theater all his life and has an extremely supportive wife, so he really pushes the high school theater program as close to a college program as possible. I think he is safely into JuCo range. Anyway, I saw his production of The Music Man on Friday night and was really impressed. The sets looked way beyond what most high schools do. The staging was really good. The choreography rocked. The kids all acted well and pretty much everyone who had a singing part had a solid voice. One of the side players did such a great job with her small part, I actually felt compelled to tell her in the "meet and greet" afterward that she was my new favorite person.

The flip side of this was a production of Once Upon a Mattress that I saw last night. Can I just say can't see the point/logic of writing a musical where one of the main-ish characters is MUTE!!! Seriously! The songs the mute king participated in almost caused my soul to leave my body in hopes of finding shelter. I don't blame the kids really. They are only performing what has been written and acting the way they are being directed. It was like watching a really bad game of charades with some music tossed in. For some reason, at the end of most of the songs, the kids were doing the thing where they face the audience and as they are hitting that final note, lifting one arm out from their body. Eh? Okay for swing choir maybe, but not a good thing for musical theater...unless it's a big, everybody is in it, finale sort of song where choreography has been involved, then it is a little more understandable.

Here's a couple of random blurbs about the office:

Worst recent quote from the guy in the office next to mine (on the phone to a customer I believe):

"When someone drops a deuce, it kills the whole hallway."

Sadly, he is correct about this, but still. For some reason, the boys can't figure out that the Lysol disinfectant is not the same as air freshener.

I think I have decided to change the name of our "let's be best friends" lunches from Hands Across the Office to That Time Of The Month. Why I didn't come up with that the first time I don't know.

Okay, games are gonna start soon and I still have to make lunch.

GO DUKE!