Al Badger

They have something in common! Can you guess what it is?

I really, really want the Rugers, but my limited understanding of mechanical physics tells me that I'd be throwing my 85 cents away.

Drunk Badger Disrupts Traffic

Interestingly, if you google "Drunk Badger", this article is at the top, but most of the hits are about Wisconsin football fans.

When mailing kitties, be sure to include the correct number of stamps and a return address. Otherwise, mail carriers may decide to keep them for themselves! New Hampshire postal worker George Knapp, for example, adopted this 8-week-old kitten he found abandoned in a public mailbox in Boston. He's naming it PD for Postage Due.

Postal Worker Finds Abandoned Kitten in Mailbox

For years, I've been of the opinion that, had Apple risen to the place of prominence that Microsoft has, they'd still be a heartless monopoly, but less evil and incompetant.

This was before I had the opportunity to use Apple products.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

The Post Office now describes stamps you have to lick as "water-activated."

You thought it was going to be the Democratic Party rebranding itself as the "Democrat Socialist Party," didn't you? 

A country singer wrote a song that he insisted was about young lovers having an argument on a rainy day. It was used as the soundtrack for a video in which an Elizabethan rogue swings about the Reconstructed Globe on a rope, romancing a series of buxom young ladies. The video went viral, and the country singer had to go on CNN and declare that he was not personally in favor of serial seduction. He spent the rest of my dream on the phone with his mother calming her down.

Which somehow connected with the BadgerDome being chosen for a "reality" TV show in which people with nothing in common moved in with each other -- in our case, two middle-aged "confirmed bachelors" had a devout Christian family with 5 kids move in with them. It wasn't just the family, we also had an acapella singing group move in. It was crowded.

The producers of the show had invented a new type of body mike that was completely invisible. I agreed to have it installed before learning that this involved body piercings, in the tongue, the nose and, well, some more intimate places.

The show was one of those stupidities where they have footage of the various contestant houses, and then vote off one house a week until the finale. We were a lock from the beginning, what with the Christian family vote, the confirmed bachelor vote, and the acapella singing group vote. The adorable curly-haired baby who was just learning to crawl only sweetened the deal. On the other hand, she was also learning how to gnaw on the furniture with her enormous beaver teeth, so she may have cost us votes.

At the big finale of the show, broadcast live from a Hollywood studio, we won, and the entire audience stood up and sang along with the acapella group. It was that stupid song from the beginning of the dream. Then the family and the singing group moved out. I was relieved -- peace again! But the microphone piercings were still in my tongue, my nose, and, well, the more intimate places. I studied them in the mirror and wondered how painful it would be to have them removed.

"Leave them in," Scott said. "You're going to be WAY more popular in certain circles..."

And them I woke up, sans piercings and prize money, but still with the BadgerDome and the exact right number of occupants for it. And my pride. I sighed with contentment.

I dreamed my nephews were looking at colleges. One of the boys was excited about the prospect of going to University in Denmark. He had a brochure that promised only $25 a year for it. He handed me the brochure.

...which was an Army recruiting brochure -- join the Army and they'll send you to college in Denmark.

"You know how you'll see an ad for a really great deal on something, and you go to the store, and the salesman says they're not actually selling that, and tries to fob something inferior off on you?" I asked him. He nodded.

I continued, "And you know how people like your Mom will stand up for themselves and tell the salesperson that they had damn well better get what was advertised, or there will be hell to pay?" He nodded.

"And you know how people like me will just think, the inferior thing is okay, I don't want to make a fuss?" He nodded.

"Well... after you've enlisted, and the Army says, we don't have the college in Denmark anymore, you have to go to Des Plaines Agricultural instead... what would you do?" He thought about it for a bit, but he knew the answer.

I think I saved my nephew from a horrible fate. In a dream.

Busy, busy me, too busy to post on lj for two weeks, too busy to post the limericks I've written (and I have written them), too busy to post about the play I'm appearing in.

But not too busy to post a picture from the photo session for said play. The photo session that denuded me of any pretense that I am in any way the star of this show.

http://davidallen.zenfolio.com/p66717065/h68a1c35#h68a1c35

I'm thinking, I arrived hours early and get three whole pictures of me in the publicity shoot? They don't shoot the bread pudding scene? They don't shoot the scene where I'm confronting Boris? And I get a sum total of one shot of me as Poppa, from the back?

Turns out I'm vain, after all!

Aw, heck, it's always Halloween when the decapitated noggin of Oscar-winner Lionel Barrymore rolls by!

John Waters suggests Pink Flamingos as an opera

And it's not wrong because of the property, it's wrong because of the state of modern opera. Project after project, good idea or bad idea, and the result is always the same -- 3 hours of tuneless, thickly scored arioso, more or less movie music slathered over people singing what they could be saying with more impact. Pink Flamingos might actually make a great opera, but in 1909, not 2009.

Otoh, let Marc Shaiman loose on it, shove it onto Broadway, and kick ass! Getting the dog to perform on cue might be a problem, of course.

Today is the 20th birthday of Spark Plug the Devil Cat from Mars, my bestest buddy(see icon). I helped him celebrate by mopping the bathroom and switching his litter box back to sand, ending the 3-month pine pellet experiment. Later I will throw treats down the hall.

I'm wondering if I should reveal the simple but shocking secret to Sparky's longevity...

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

Hey, it's March! That's Ask Me Anything Month, if I'm remembering rightly. I'm not depressed this year, because I'm taking a prescribed mind-altering substance, so, even though I still have two sonnets I promised from last March unfinished (10 lines for Gary and 8 lines for Mike completed in a YEAR), I think I can make a deal I can keep, as follows.

1. Ask me anything, anything at all, in a comment on this post (or any other post I make this month).
2. In return, I will compose a limerick in response, and put it up as a livejournal post.
3. The limerick may or may not actually answer the question.
4. The limerick may actually raise more questions.
5. I will allow questions to be sent to me via text message, phone call, letter or (in extreme circumstances when no other form of communication is available) face to face.
6. For every question, I will remove one article of clothing.

Yes, that's right, March of 2009 is Strip Ask Me Anything Limerick Month.

No, No, No. It's completely not fair that I should find out, fourteen years after the fact, that Monsterrat Caballe sang the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction" on Dutch TV, and it's not on YouTube anywhere.

On the other hand, there is stuff on YouTube that can keep me happy, alone, by myself, in the dark. Like this.

What an inspiring way to wake up. Stephanie had a bit about Nude Swedish Cops Back in Action ("None of whom were women," says the story), and this inspired me to do an image search on "Nude Swedish Cops." Here's the first thing I came up with. How's about some hot wake-up call! Woo-haw!

Not much activity here for me lately, I've barely even been looking at my friends' posts. I blame society, but also my job (social networking sites blocked), my iPhone (facebook app = jewel, lj app = spoor), and my uncanny combination of weltschmerz and ennui. But if you neglect LiveJournal, you get paid back for it. And I did.

Most recent comment on my celebratory New Year's Day Rant is from badkitty23463, as follows:

Good post
Hello there, you write very good, I like your style.
Have you seen that the president is giving away grant money?
Here is the site you can get it at: Link deleted
I was able to get about 1,500$ in under a week (I earn 50k/yr, approximately)- keep up the good entries and comment me back

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Um, no, I won't comment you back. And I got a similar comment from a "different" user, also ending in 5 digits, on a different antique post. I won't say I'm not tempted to help Barack and contribute to America's recovery... but aren't user names ending in 5 digits supposed to stay on xTube, where they belong?

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In other news, I got the part in the play, and I got the part I wanted. They didn't let me read for the chicken farmer because they'd already decided to use me for that. I will also be the heroine's loving and heartbroken father. No racist banker! We start Sunday night with the first readthrough. You may not see me much for a while

I'll try to be more "here," I promise, but it's so hard, what with the Facebook app on the iPhone being so well set up, and the lj app not at all, and the klunky iPhone "keyboard" making little status observations like "Al needs to work on his Yiddish accent. A lot" so much less hassle than a fully thought-out narrative.

Which is dangerous. If LJ is the story of my life, Facebook is turning into chapter headings in an outline.

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Therefore, the story of tonight's callback... a story of crushed dreams, redemption, dark family secrets, and crap like that, except not.

Well, it was fun to go, and it's always flattering to be asked to a callback; I think I enjoy watching other actors read more than I enjoy it myself. But I was a bit surprised by what i was asked to read the heroine's father, and for the racist banker -- two parts I felt I sucked at on Monday night; but not asked to read the chicken farmer, who I felt I'd nailed. And I really hate the racist banker. I don't want to be cast in that part.

Yet, as I was leaving, I said "yes" when the director asked if I'd take a part if offered. I didn't have the nerve to put conditions on that. And now I'm worried that I will get cast.

On the other hand, there's a stipend! I'm no longer a theater slut, now I'm a theater WHORE!!!!

Originally for Saturday afternoon, but I could barely speak all day Saturday, and Sunday wasn't much better. But today, I had my voice back.

I don't know if I did very well. It might not have been the best idea spending Sunday watching this clip over and over again for acting tips: