Literally Annoyed

I don't care if it's been around since the 18th century, or that Mark Twain and James Joyce used it to mean figuratively. I still don't like literally not meaning literally.

Scary Laws

Intellectual Property Law meets the greed of Hollywood. Be afraid!

"To simplify, any device that can record video will be illegal to import or purchase in a year, if it doesn't obey DRM." [Digital Rights Management, a category of anti-copying rules and software --Cam]

"In plain English, [Copy Prohibited Content] means that your recorded program, should you start watching it an hour after it's done recording, will start to delete itself 30 minutes later. Think of the fun you and your family can have trying to keep ahead of the deletion queue!"

We should all be worried about this because US copyright and IP laws inevitably appear in Canada as well, often in identical form. And we're not big enough to warrant special shipments of electronics, or different DVD releases... for all intents and purposes, Canada is merely another portion of the United States for Hollywood!

To quote simplisticton:

Your VCR: illegal. Your PVR: illegal. Like to watch movies on your PSP or your PDA? Illegal. Video iPod: you better believe that's illegal.

Fucking keyboard.

I just lost a huge post about my audition tonight. I'm cranky now, so I might not bother to retype it. Grrr.

Auditions, 2005 edition

Tonight, Kitchener-Waterloo Little Theatre held auditions for their January One-Act Play Weekend. The alert among you will recognize this as the same thing I auditioned for last year. This year, it's three one-act plays directed by their authors. I had tried googling them but came up empty, which was weird.

First, I read a monologue from Between the Cracks, playing a young and just barely still idealistic parole officer. Then they had me play a far-too-enthusiastic train company employee, creeping out a passenger. Then they asked me to sing. Ack!

One of the three one-acts is a musical. On the audition form, they asked if I was comfortable singing alone (No), or singing in a group (No. Pause. Thing about it. Decide to stretch my limits. Erase. Yes)

I love the idea of being able to sing. I am incredibly jealous of jdhorner's voice, thespos' singing experience, ... I am devoid of musical skills, at least developed ones. I even put a guitar on our wedding registry, and have fooled around with it maybe twice. Kinda depressing.

I have precisely one singing on stage experience in my life. In high school, a group of friends used to attend a Whose Line Is It Anyway? rip-off show at a bar in Ottawa. I got chatty with the producer/host, and the next week he asked me if I wanted to be in the show!!!!11eleven! I took about three seconds before saying yes. It was great fun, and I love improv. But partway through the show a familiar tune started playing on his electric piano, and I said "Oh shit." I had forgotten that most shows included the Hoe-Down! For the unfamiliar, this is a game where each of the four contestants has to sing, alone, a completely made-up song about a topic they've been given only seconds beforehand. Mine was about cows I seem to recall. I survived, but I have no recollection of anything I sang. My friends might. I hope not.

So during the audition, one of the directors says "You say you're comfortable singing in a group."

Well, I say, I'm willing to give it a shot.

"Are you comfortable singing now?"

In front of six strangers? Sure! Umm...

"You can sing any old thing, doesn't matter, just a couple lines. Even Happy Birthday." No royalty payments to Irving Berlin's estate, I note.

Umm... I couldn't think of anything I was willing to take a risk on except Happy Birthday.

So that's what I did. They stopped me after only two lines, hopefully because they had heard enough, and not because of any sort of pain.

All I can think of is Oh god, what if they give me a singing part?!? leapfish still knows and occasionally sings his lines from Oklahoma, but I've got nothin'. We shall see.

Work travel

It's just been confirmed that work is sending me to Vancouver! Wooo!

...for two days. Crazy.