So, here we are…another year…another update on the house…

But before we start, I’d like to plug the latest show I’m working on. “Epic Proportions” opened this Friday January 21 at the DAC Weatherstone in Darien. My good friend Dan Friedman is directing a great and talented cast. I’m running the sound for the show and Tash is back stage keeping the traffic flowing with Frank Gaffney.

The show is a comedy about the making of a Biblical epic in the Arizona desert in the 1930s. Being a Biblical epic the film must have a cast of thousands and we’ve got that…except they’re played by 4 people (there are 6 other parts in the show) with more costume changes than anyone should be allowed to do in 2 hours.

Anyway…it’s a fun night out and I’d recommend it to all of you in the area. Because of the snow we’ve added two performances to make up for two cancelled ones. We have three this coming weekend (8pm Friday and Saturday, 2pm on Sunday) and a final one on Friday February 4 at 8pm. If you reserve tickets in advance and pay by credit card, you’ll save money. Call 655-5414 for tickets.

As I sit here in the house writing this, I can hear the workmen maneuvering cabinets and appliances in the kitchen. After being in Napa for two weeks and coming home to the workmen being a week behind schedule, the dust has settled (mostly…and it’s about an inch thick) and the sheet rock’s up (all over the house) and the floors are down (well…in the kitchen at least). And now it’s like watching them put together a puzzle as they assemble the kitchen. I figure by week’s end it’ll be as done as it can be with what’s currently here (cabinets & appliances). Fixtures and electrical work will probably be smoothed out next week and hopefully by then we’ll have settled the counter top & back splash issue. Meaning all that will be left within three weeks is painting the walls and staining the floors. Woo Hoo!

Of course, to get that done in three weeks, they’re neglecting the rest of the project for a bit. The Master Bedroom/Bathroom suite still needs some work (the bathroom needs a lot of work…they’ve been ignoring it in order to get the kitchen done). And the front entryway has now become part of this monster project. We’ve got some new carpeting coming soon for the three rooms that were badly affected by the renovation (basement, den & master bedroom). And when all of this is done, we’ll need to redo a room for the baby (after what we’ve been through a newborn’s not gonna live in a room with old carpet that has G-d knows what in it).

So those of you asking about us traveling to your neck of the woods any time soon…we’ll be broke…so it’ll be a while…

Anyway…one of the things I’ve just started to realize now that there’s a baby on the way is that my desire to see certain movies when they open is pretty much a dead issue. As I was looking over the big movies that I’d have an interest in seeing and when they open (as I usually put them on the calendar), I quickly realized that there’s a very good chance that “Star Wars Episode III” will be the last film I get to see when it opens for quite some time (of course, I’m assuming I want to see it when it opens…right now I’m convinced it’s just a reaction to not being able to see other things and not any real desire to see what I know is going to be crap because George Lucas couldn’t tell a good story to save his life).

Take, for example, “Batman Begins”. It opens June 17. The baby’s due date is June 19. Anyone want to do the math on that one (although the idea of dragging Tash to see the film, assuming the baby hasn’t arrived yet, and having her give birth during it does kind of make me a bit giddy…in a perverse kind of way). And we’ve already had the “I’m not leaving a 2 week old with a sitter even if it’s your parents so we can see “Fantastic Four” discussion….so it’s become a matter of adjusting priorities…

Luckily, some of the theaters around here have “Movies for Moms”…so we can still get our fix…it just may be a bit later than I would have normally done…oh well…we make sacrifices and adjustments I suppose…

Anyway…today’s brief review is of “Battlestar Galactica”. This re-imagining currently airing on the Sci-Fi Channel picks up exactly where last year’s mini-series left off (and that’s available on DVD). We’ve had three new episodes and I have to say that not only does this show blow away the original version, it blows away most recent sci-fi shows and easily ranks up there with the best of them…yes it’s as good as “Babylon 5” and “Farscape” (which means even though it has amazing ratings and a great following look for Sci-Fi Channel to cancel it well before they should).

On a final note, today I’d like to toss out another opinion poll/question like I did right before the election…this one’s more important as far as I’m concerned and will no doubt produce many varied and passionate answers…but it’s not politically motivated, so any opinions and advice would be welcome.

What vacuum cleaner do you use and what do you like about it? (We’re in the market for a new one as our Orek to quote Bart Simpson “both sucks and blows” and the online research route I took for the new kitchen appliances is producing wild, varied and unhelpful results for vacuums).

That’s all for today. I’ll be back next time with more of the same boring crap that most of you just quickly peruse anyway ;-)

Be seeing you

Spleenless Joel