A good day

May be headed to the west coast for an exciting opportunity... more soon.

Keep you fingers crossed!

Bullets

• LDI was great, thanks ETC!
• Speaking of which, sending a special package out on Monday.
• There's a chance one of the best shows I've ever worked on is getting revived... cross fingers.
• I'm a little over Cirque's hiring practices right now. Also quite underwhelmed by the people I've met that work for them, save Jeanette.
• Turkey = awesome.
• Just saw Lions for Lambs -- I think I liked it though it was basically a film version of Accidental Death of an Anarchist
• Super Mario Galaxy is out, I can't wait until I have time to play it.
• Inching closer to 800 visits!

26,999 plus Me

Screamscape.com:

"IAAPA - (11/21/07) IAAPA reports that this year’s tradeshow in Orlando drew in 27,000 people from 98 different nations, with attendance up a huge 30% over last year’s show in Atlanta. While I know I skipped out the last two years in Atlanta, whenever the subject of how this year’s show was compared to Atlanta came up in conversations, everyone said they were glad to be out of Atlanta and hoped IAAPA would never return there. IAAPA will be back in Orlando once again in November 2008 and move the show to Las Vegas for the first time ever in 2009. "

I went on Friday because a) I'm addicted to theme parks and b) my LDI pass got me in for free! Good thing too, if I hadn't gone they wouldn't have that nice, round 27,000 number to throw around ;-)

I ran into a good friend-- Lenny Larsen who's doing amazing for himself as a show designer with Landmark Entertainment Group. It was great to see the amazing things he's up to and he's always good for some life and career advice.

Only in Texas... I wish

By MICHELLE ROBERTS, Associated Press Writer

"SAN MARCOS, Texas - Mike Guzman and thousands of other students say the best way to prevent campus bloodshed is more guns.

Guzman, an economics major at Texas State University-San Marcos, is among 8,000 students nationwide who have joined the nonpartisan Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, arguing that students and faculty already licensed to carry concealed weapons should be allowed to pack heat along with their textbooks."

For anyone who is actually willing to click this link, I'll be happy to NOT have you on my blog:

Students for Concealed Carry on Campus: http://concealedcampus.org

Buddy B-day

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOSH!



Even though you don't read my blog... asshole.

WYSI-what?

Today's schedule was dominated by a full day of WYSIWYG class. It was decent-- definitely picked up some new tricks.

Some surprising things that WYSIWYG can't do:

• Draw an ellipse
• Create multi-line text
• Save workspace set-ups

I've currently just come from happy hour at my hotel which includes, wait for it, free beer and wine and a selection of appetizers. Awesome.

My brother's showing up with his new beau around 9pm for dinner and activities. Life is good.



Tomorrow's Itinerary:
Backstage tour of SeaWorld Orlando courtesy of ETC

Arrival

Just arrived in my room in Orlando. Wait, do over...

Just arrived in my Suite in Orlando.

ETC has hooked my up with a room larger than the upper floor of my house in Pittsburgh. Free Wi-Fi, 3 televisions, 2 bathrooms. Awesome. Date/Time of partay to be hosted here TBD.



Tomorrow's Itinerary:
9am-5pm WYSIWYG Class

Separation of Church and State

Just when you think the Church has the most fucked up news of the day, a government (this time the British one) decides not to be outdone:

"How would you feel about this: Tracking chips in kids' school clothing so that school officials can know their whereabouts during the school day?

Oh, it's happening. Ten students in a secondary school in the United Kingdom are being tracked through RFID implants in their school uniforms in a pilot program. Information Week reports that the kids attend Hungerhill School for ages 11-16 in Edenthorpe, England.

Add the RFID chips to increased video surveillance and fingerprinting of kids, and this is a heavily tracked generation—for safety's sake. That extra peace of mind for adults comes with a heavy loss of privacy for kids."

Buddy Christ

Just when you thought all lawyers were jewish...

"On questions relating to the Bible's treatment of family and morals, one might expect assurance, if not rigidity, from Evangelical Christianity. So, it may surprise many to learn how "live" the topic of divorce remains in Evangelical circles. Last month, the cover story of the monthly Christianity Today was titled "When to Separate What God has Joined: A Closer Reading on the Bible on Divorce." The heated controversy provoked by the story showed how Biblically flexible some Evangelicals can be - especially when God's word seems at odds not just with modern American behavior, but also with simple human kindness.

As the article's author, the British Evangelical scholar David Instone-Brewer, points out, for most of 2,000 years Christians have viewed divorce through two scriptural citations. In Matthew, the pharisees ask Christ, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause?" Jesus refers to the Old Testament and then replies, "Whoever divorces a wife, except for sexual indecency, commits adultery." The apostle Paul adds in the book First Corinthians that a Christian is "not bound" to a non-Christian spouse who abandons him. Simple, right?

Instone-Brewer radically reinterprets the first passage using, of all things, quotation marks. The Greek of the New Testament didn't always contain them, and scholars agree that sometimes they must be added in to make sense of it. Instone-Brewer, an expert in Jewish thought during Jesus's era, writes that Christ's interlocutors were not asking him whether there was any cause at all for divorce, but whether he supported something called "any-cause" divorce, a term a little bit like "no-fault" that allowed husbands to divorce wives for any reason at all. Instone-Brewer claims Jesus's "no" was a response to this idea, and that his "except for sexual indecency" condition was not a statement of the sole exemption from God's blanket prohibition, but merely Christ's reiteration of one of several divorce permissions in the Old Testament - one he felt the "any-time" advocates had exaggerated. Finally, Instone-Brewer tallies four grounds for divorce he finds affirmed in both Old and New Testaments: adultery, emotional and sexual neglect, abandonment (by anyone) and abuse."


What a religion.

Countdowns

• T- 33 hours until Accidental Death of an Anarchist opens
• T- 7 days, 4 hours until LDI
• T- 3 weeks until Thanksgiving
• T- 5 weeks, 6 days until Christmas break