I really had a great time yesterday at the Shaw Festival! It was amazing getting to listen to Tadeusz Bradecki (the director) talk about the choices and dilemmas he and the creative team faced in trying to take on The Crucible. Even more amazing was to be seated in the same rehearsal hall they were using to rehearse the show. The stage manager's binder was ENORMOUS and I wanted to desperately look through it all, but alas, I tried not to let curiosity get the better of me. I did manage to take a few pictures though [ ] but unfortunately some of them just came out too blurry. Here's a couple though that looked okay (you can click on the thumbnail below and it should take you to the full-sized image):



Some research material in the rehearsal hall.





Set design for The Crucible (Shaw Festival 2006). The large wall-like structure will rotate to different positions for each new location. Tadeusz called the structure "God's Mill," a continually rotating structure that "stops occasionally" to allow the action of the play to take place.

Tomorrow I'm off to attend the Shaw Festival's Spring Teacher's Day in Niagara-on-the-Lake. I'm attending a full day workshop called "The Crucible In The Classroom" being run by the director of the Festival's production of The Crucible this year. It has been 10 years and one month since I performed in my last show at UW, which just happened to by The Crucible. Needless to say I am excited about the workshop, and just as excited to be out of the classroom on a Friday. It should be a nice day weather-wise so it will be great having lunch on the lawn at the Festival Theatre.

I've found another great music blog called Marathonpacks, and yesterday he/they/it/?? posted a full set of early demos by Talking Heads for CBS Records circa 1975. The 'Heads would go on to sign to Sire eventually, but this is probably the earliest recordings the band ever made, and I think they sound great. If you're familiar with any of their work, you might like to hear how some of the songs gestated and developed from these first recordings to the versions that eventually made it to mass market ("Psycho Killer" sounds like it's just taking its first tentative steps to greatness). Hope you like them.

I saw this on Alan Gentry's site, and thought it would be a good excuse to use my new phone's camera feature and configure it so I can send a picture via e-mail. So here for your viewing pleasure is "What I Look At While I Blog."

Not quite as detailed when the photo shrinks.

SPECIAL NEWS: Welcome to the world, Lucca Zanuttini, born on my birthday, April 22! Congrats to Janet and Chris on their new bundle of joy, and Emile's little bro.

Just a quickie here: Almost two weeks into the Game and no major changes. Some fluctuations in weight by a few pounds but other than that, I haven't come any closer to my targets. I think I've tried to bite off more than I can chew here (no pun intended). I've been talking to folks and looking things up, and the target I wanted to hit and the timeframe I was looking at are a bit unrealistic, but if I can get any change at all by the target date I'll be happy, and that will be motivation enough to keep going. Life conspires though... things are chaotic at work, and I feel slightly out of my head about 70% of the time. It comes with the territory, and I should know that this time of year is crazy, but it always seems to creep up on me and take me by surprise... kinda like my weight. Gotta stop, a bit depressing.

Do you think a cell phone could get wedged between the armrest and the seat?

I'm guessing no.

The web site MacZot promotes Mac specific software and I guess occasionally does what they call a BLOGZOT: get as many Mac bloggers to mention the deals on MacZot as possible, and with each mention, MacZot knocks the price of the software down in increments. Today's BlogZot 2.0 on MacZOT.com software is SubEthaEdit from CodingMonkeys. If all goes well, MacZOT and TheCodingMonkeys will award $105,000 in Mac software. That's kinda cool, don'tcha think? I'm all for sharing info and resources, and never would have heard about the promotion if I hadn't been reading another Mac users blog. It's awesome that MacZOT offers deals like this for such a specific community, and I will definitely be adding them to my Regularly Checked Sites list (do they have an RSS feed??). I think you should all go out and buy Macs, so you can participate in this fun at MacZOT.com, too. Go buy one. Now. I'm waiting...

And now a conclusion (sort of) to the saga of the missing cell phone:
I was sitting at my desk at work today just a bit after 11:00 am, when I rolled backwards to get a book from the shelf behind me and I heard something fall and hit the floor. When I looked down, there was my "missing" cell phone. I was stunned, shocked, and then stunned some more. I still don't fully know what happened to it, but there's two theories: a) the phone somehow fell out of my pocket when I put my jacket over the chair last Thursday and became lodged between the arm rest and the seat (the chair is a typical rolling office chair). It stayed lodged there until somehow I dislodged it this morning, which means that it was there all along, even while I was whipping the chair around on Thursday afternoon looking for the phone under the desk, and all day Friday while I sat in the chair. *OR* b) Whoever took the phone from me wedged it in there to make it look like it was there all along. Regardless, I have it back now, and I've returned the replacement phone, so I'm not out the extra money for the second phone. I'm glad this little episode is over, but I still want to know what really happened to it--was it there all along, or was it placed there to make it look like it was? I'll have to use the camera on the phone to snap some pictures of the chair so you can all be the judge.

Not only should you go out and hug a tree today in celebration of earth Day, but you should also go out and hug me, in celebration of my birthday (or, as I like to say, my BEarthday)! I actually had a really good day today, topped of with a nice gathering of loved ones at my home. I don't often entertain here (OK, I never entertain) so it was great having people around.
Last night I decided that I wasn't going to let a bad thing get me down, but I would let it get me a little poorer: I went out and replaced my phone. Bell Mobility said they were sorry to hear about my situation, but that I was pretty much SOL because I signed a 36-month contract, so my only option was to get the same phone and pay list price for it, or buy a cheaper phone and have it assigned to my new number (by the way, I have a new cell number for those of you privileged to that info--contact me and I'll give you the new one). So once again, I said, 'what the hell, it's my birthday," and I got the same model as before. Here, as promised, is actually a pic I took with the old phone, but it's now the screensaver on my new phone. Ain't my boy Rufus adorable?

I beg your pardon for not going into great detail, but I've done that enough today with others already. I had the phone with me at work this morning, it was in my coat pocket (or so I believe) and at the end of the day it was not there. I have some investigative work to do when I get in tomorrow, and if nothing turns up then I guess I'm out $200 bucks for a new phone. !@#%$#@!! Pardon my language, but !@#%$#@!! !@#%$#@!! !@#%$#@!! !@#%$#@!! (For those now keeping score, that's five post titles in a row in the first-person, I just wish the title could be "I still have my new cell phone and it's not missing".) What gets me is not even that someone violated my personal space (which I hate) but that I bought the phone for myself as part of this self-motivation plan; an incentive to go and do what I want and not over-analyze and procrastinate--and hell, it was an early birthday present to myself. Damn! DAMN! DAMN! DAMN! DAMN! DAMN!

01. I bought myself a new cell phone on Monday and I love it! It's a Samsung SPH-a920, otherwise known as a JIVE. I can watch TV on it and listen to music, I can take still pictures with it or video clips, it's Bluetooth enabled, which means I can sync my Mac's Address Book with the phone instantly so I don't have to sit and push all the little keys trying to enter people's names and numbers, and it even let's me make phone calls! I'm still trying to get the hang of everything, but so far so cool (yes, I love my little "toys") The picture quality of the camera is pretty fair, too, so as soon as I snap some shots I'll post some on here.
02. The Game Update: Things have been going okay since Friday, considering it was a holiday weekend, but I've been feeling a bit under the weather the last few days. I hit the gym on Saturday, Monday, Tuesday (bad headache, had to quit early) and today, and plan on going tomorrow, too. Either Friday or Saturday I'll post updated statistics and see how the first week went.
03. Here's an odd little coincidence I just noticed: the title of the last four posts all start with "I" or "I'm". Very first-person of me, isn't it?
04. I've been reading a music blog called Said the Gramophone and last week they had a post about the band Bishop Allen. It seems Bishop Allen are releasing a new EP at the end of each month for 2006. Although the idea is not original (the Wedding Present did it in 1992 with a single a month) the songs are really great, and I especially liked March's title track "The Monitor". Give it a spin.

Awhile back, my sister was telling me about a segment she saw on Primetime all about Game Theory. In essence, game theory is an applied mathematical concept studying strategic situations and the decisions players make to maximize their return. The program seemed to focus more on the biological aspect of game theory, tapping into the innate human ability to meet an impossible challenge placed in front of them when faced with a deadline or a consequence. John Nash, he of A Beautiful Mind fame, is a Nobel-Prize winning game theorist.
There were two examples she told me about that I found fascinating. In the first, pairs of people were released onto Manhattan island and given the task finding another pair involved in the experiment. The pairs had not met the other people previously, and had no idea what each of the participants looked like, so in effect they were looking for two other people who were looking for them. The result? By noon, the pairs had all found another pair. They all had similar "An Affair To Remember" ideas--some met at the top of the Empire State Building at noon, others in Times Square holding signs. Game theorists argued that the key to success was human instinct, and thinking the same way the other people in the experiment would. These people used the same strategies: using noon as a standard meeting time, and famous landmarks as their meeting place.
The second experiment has more to do with the real reason I'm posting today. In this experiment a number of people who had been battling weight issues and continually failing were given a challenge: lose a set amount of weight in a set amount of time, or photos and video taken of them in skimpy bathing suits would be made public. The result? All but one met their goal, and the one who didn't was shy of her mark by only 2 pounds. The reason theorists gave for their success is that in previous weight loss attempts, their was no consequence for failure. Which explains why people who go on television and swear to lose the weight often succeed--failure now becomes a public experience, so they chose instead to work at success. Fascinating.
So in the spirit of game theory, I'm setting a little game for myself, and here is the scenario:

I have 31 days (until May 14th)
to lose 25 pounds,
10 inches from my waist,
and at least 10% of my body fat
(according to my Tanita scale).

The consequence if I don't succeed? I will post a "before" photo taken of me only moments ago with my shirt off on this site for all of you to see. I can't fake my success, since some of the people who read this blog see me on a regular basis. I can't very well say I've met my goal and hide out in cyberspace. An in order to be perfectly clear and transparent, here's where the numbers sit as of this morning:

WEIGHT: 222 lbs
WAIST INCHES: 47
% BODY FAT: 40

It was a few years ago, on the Easter weekend, that I first started to do something about my weight problem. At that time I was able to drop almost 30 pounds, I began working out for the first time EVER, and generally felt good about myself. Since then, I've let things go, let the lack of consequences got the better of me, and made excuses for why I shouldn't care so much about myself. It's time to start feeling good again. Wish me luck, and keep me honest. I'll post updates in a new category called the Game.

I watched American Inventor tonight, catching it about half way through the episode. I've never seen it before, and probably won't make a habit of watching it, but gosh darn it, those TV producers got me crying! All these people out there, bearing their souls, staking their very existence on a single idea--that's freaking scary, if you ask me. I can't imagine the level of self-commitment it would take to stand behind your idea and see it through to the end. I can't even get dressed in the morning without second-guessing my wardrobe choices, let alone trying to pull off something like this. It will be interesting to see what tonight's final twelve inventors do with the $50 000 they were each given to refine their product, so I might have have to keep an eye out for that episode. So, here's an invention that apparently isn't available yet, but sounds interesting nonetheless. Check out the short promo video that describes what MUSICMARKER does.

I got my latest copy of Under The Radar yesterday (still a great music magazine--all killer no filler) and was flipping through it earlier when I cam across an interview with a band from Austin with one of the best names I've ever heard: I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness. The review section provides a couple of differing opinions on their debut album Fear is On Our Side, but I was at their record company's web site (Secretly Canadian) and got a download of a pretty cool song. Definite 80's synth/goth influences going on here, but like that's a bad thing. Check out "According To Plan" here. And I love the album art, too! It matches my site's colour scheme (almost). What a great logo! What a great name! What a great day! Isn't everything so GREAT? [don't ask, it's just one of those moods, it will pass]

I partook in the spectacle that is The Lord Of The Rings musical in Toronto last night. On the play: if you are a fan of the trilogy, you will be mesmerized by the show; if you are a fan of theatrical productions, you will be awed by the the intricacies of the production; if you don't fall into either of these two camps, you're bound to be a big cynic anyway, so we won't bother listening to you when you go on about how "overrated" it is and how it can stand to lose about an hour's worth of material (which it can--come on, it's three and a half hours long!). I'm not a Tolkien fan, and though I do like the spectacle of the theatre I enjoyed this show for completely different reasons.
As I sat down in my seat waiting for the show to begin, I flipped through the program as is my custom, and was utterly surprised and thrilled to find that the part of Merry the Hobbit was being played by my former University of Waterloo classmate and unofficial roommate, Dylan Roberts! I was thinking of Dylan just the other day when I caught a glimpse of another classmate of ours, Anand Rajaram in a promotional ad for Toronto tourism (Anand is part of the Second City show The Second City: Reloaded). It was great to see Dylan after the show last night, and a great cap to the entire week for me. I've been complaining/blogging a lot about what it means to go out and live your life fully; take charge of what happens to you and do the things in life that make you happy, and give your life purpose. Face the fears, face the music, face the inner you. I remember many a conversation with Dylan when we talked about the availability of roles for "guys like us" who don't fit the leading man mould. "Our time will come," we'd say, and it really has for Dyl--I can't think of a better role for him than a Hobbit, and I mean that with the utmost sincerity and respect. Of all the people I have performed on stage with over the years, Dylan is by far one of my favourites. He truly is an actor's actor, and the man I played opposite in one of my most favourite scenes ever (The Dining Room, 1995, UW).
So, what am I waiting for? It's time to take the lead role in my own life. It's time to look at myself in the mirror and say, "What are you going to do today?" I can't wait to tell you all about it; it's going to be so much more than "just being here."


The Dining Room (University of Waterloo Drama, 1995)
L to R: Jim Di Gioia (me), Jennifer Clarke, Dylan Roberts, Josh Bateson, Stephanie McCarthy, Penney Shore.

"I Will See You In Far Off Places" is the title of the lead track on Morrissey's new album Ringleader of the Tormentors, and apparently it's also the only way his Canadian fans will have a chance to see him perform his new material live.
This was his statement, dated 27 March 2006 on http://true-to-you.net:
"We will not include any Canadian dates on our world tour to promote our new album. This is in protest against the barbaric slaughter of over 325,000 baby seals which is now underway. I fully realise that the absence of any Morrissey concerts in Canada is unlikely to bring the Canadian economy to its knees, but it is our small protest against this horrific slaughter - which is the largest slaughter of marine animal species found anywhere on the planet.
The Canadian Prime Minister says the so-called "cull" is economically and environmentally justified, but this is untrue. The seal population has looked after itself for thousand of years without human intervention, and, as the world knows, this slaughter is about one thing only: making money. The Canadian government will stream all of the pelts into the fashion industry and this is the reason why the baby seals are killed with spiked clubs that crush their skulls - any damage to their pelts is avoided. The Canadian Prime Minister also states that the slaughter is necessary because it provides jobs for local communities, but this is an ignorant reason for allowing such barbaric and cruel slaughter of beings that are denied life simply because somebody somewhere might want to wear their skin. Construction of German gas chambers also provided work for someone - this is not a moral or sound reason for allowing suffering. If you can, please boycott Canadian goods. It WILL make a difference. As things stand, Canada has placed itself alongside China as the cruelest and most self-serving nation."
It's good to see that his sense of perspective hasn't been hindered by early onset dementia, seeing as how on 13 and 14 March, 13 days earlier, he played two concerts in Tulsa, and Oklahoma City, U.S.A. Where George W. Bush is president. The one who's at war in the Middle East. The "weapons of mass destruction" guy. I'm sure a fun time was had by all. I bet backstage everyone was joking about how they're "going to stick it to those crazy Canadian barbarians" by not playing there, and getting people to stop buying maple syrup. I wonder if they stopped to consider how many albums they'll sell on 4 April (today) when the album is released in Canada (I quote his Mozziness himself: "this... is about one thing only: making money). Not many is my guess, judging by this review at HMV.com.
It's sad when your heroes turn out to be utter and complete jackasses, isn't it?

OK, so this probably means very little to very few people, but I just wanted to post and let everyone know that this is the last posting before some of the aforementioned changes will take place. As of the next post, this page become the sites home page, and I'm guessing the RSS feed link will have to be changed too. I've been fiddling a lot with the CSS codes for the site (CSS = Cascading Style Sheets; it's the code that makes the site look the way it does) and am kind of happy with the changes (for now). It's nothing too drastic, but I'm learning as I go along and this is supposed to be a work in progress. So, if all goes well, sometime tomorrow night there should be another posting on here, in the new design. Please be sure to check back, and update the RSS feed. And by the way, for you non-RSS feed users: If you click on the little button that says RSS in the sidebar and bookmark the page it links you to, you can get a continuously notified of when I make any changes (that is, of course, only if your web browser supports RSS feeds--if it doesn't you should download/switch to a great free one like Firefox). Thanks.

Happy April Fool's Day. It's been awhile since I posted last, but then again, things have been busy, and there hasn't been a lot to tell you. I am still working on updates to the site, so for now things are status quo here. However, I didn't feel like waiting any longer to post something so I thought I'd take a few moments this morning and do so, but it's been one of those weeks (or two) where there just isn't anything really on my mind. Work is work, and I don't like to post about it here, I've been spending most of my free time working around the house or taking care of some family business, so I just haven't felt like there was time for me lately. Which I guess can become the moral of this post--you need to take time out and do stuff for yourself, indulge your pleasures. Which I actually did last night when I stayed up a little later than I should have to watch the 1983 teen-anst/sex comedy Class starring Rob Lowe and Andrew McCarthy (another odd Zip.ca choice). Sure I was falling asleep in the last 20 minutes, but hey, I decompressed after a long week, and I slept in 'til past 9 (which is another nice indulgence) so I'm probably all the better for it. Besides, we'll lose an hour of sleep tomorrow when the clocks move up, so I just made up for it now.
So since it's April Fool's, I thought we could "take the piss" as the British are so fond of saying, and post a track here that I've been digging for the last little while. I'm no hip hop fan, but The Street's style of English beats (get it?) is so unique and charming, I dare you not to fall in love with "When You Wasn't Famous". (WARNING: Album version contains coarse language)