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Just closed Little Shop. Have several backlogged blogs on myspace to upload in the next day or two. Its just easier to do on the blog interface on there rather than publish with HTML on here. But, TDF isn't going away.

Yippie for our five readers.

If you read this, leave a comment NOW. Let me know you exist and aren't just some hornball srilankan looking for porn.

Peace...

New Gig!

I am a very happy man this morning...

As of last night, I am officially the Vocal/Music Director for Cupertino High School's production of Little Shop of Horrors!



I am seriously stoked! I can't remember if I had mentioned before, but I have parted ways with CMT so getting this gig is great both monetarily and artistically. We are having auditions in a few weeks, so I get to fly through the music for Monroe and then focus on Cupertino.

Great start to 2006!



Butt dance, butt dance... like the rhythms down your pants now... Peace...

2005 Go Bye-Bye

Quite an interesting year I must say. Away we go...

Seeing Chicago with Niamh, going to Bear Valley to do very little skiiing and a lot of partying, doing Smokey Joe's Cafe with WVLO, performing with Company One, vocal directing Flapper in Gilroy, getting my first professional show with Cabrillo Stage and working with my professor on stage, throwing a great surprise birthday bash for Niamh (gotcha baby), one-year anniversary in Capitola, having my own surprise thrown on me backstage at Cabrillo for my birthday (got me baby), Niamh moving to SF, teaching with CMT (not anymore!), getting engaged to the most wonderful woman on Earth, Company One again, playing Gaston in Beauty And The Beast, a road trip to Oregon and a wonderful Christmas.

Those are just the highlights. Amongst all that are countless nights of shooting pool and eating killer nachos with Dave at South First, rocking with RoShamBo, nights on the town having a drink or two with Chenoah, cozy evenings in with Niamh, getting a new kitten, getting a new car and many other little moments that made this a great year.

As for next year, vocal directing with Monroe Middle School and possibly vocal/music directing for Cupertino High School, auditions galore, planning the wedding and hopefully taking a trip to Milwaukee to show Nicole around a bit. Should be a great year. Hope your 2005 was memorable. If not, you still have 36 hours or so to go out there and make it so! Have a fun, save New Year's Eve folks. See you in 2006. Peace...

'Tis The Season

Well, Christmas 2005 has come and gone. Another year of egg nog, mistletoe, crowded malls, irate FedEx workers, credit card abuse, and other tidings of the season. But amidst all this cliche comedic fodder, there are also many great things that happen. Heres the tally...

1181.3 miles driven.
A great trip to Oregon to see Nicole's parents and grandmother.

Nine different highways in two different states.
See above... Did I ever mention that I-5 is the most boring highway on Earth? I loved the Lake Shasta area, but when there is even a little cloud cover, you can't see crap anyways.

Five gas stops.
Did you know that it is illegal to pump your own gas in the state of Oregon? Well, I sure as hell didn't. Three gallons into a stop in Medford, the attendant comes running out in a panic telling me he is gonna get fired if his manager saw. He was really cool about it though. (Thanks "V".) Nicole and I went in to get some coffee and a Sobe. While we were paying, some homeless guy was buying scratcher tickets and he won five bucks...

Homeless dude: I won FIVE BUCKS! (coughs raspily)
V: Yay!!! Go take a shower...

Oregon is a weird place man. Really pretty in certain places, but the gene pool there is definately a bit more narrow than one would expect. Moving on...

Three new books for my collection.
Thanks to Nicole and her family, I have a little more eye candy for my shelves. A leather-bound edition of The Selected Works of Mark Twain, a 1931 print of The Adventues of Tom Sawyer (both from Nicole's parents), and a hardcover, embossed collector's edition of The Lord Of The Rings Trillogy thanks to my wonderful fiance Nicole. She also got me an original vinyl print of Bon Jovi from 1987 which has Wanted Dead Or Alive and a few other classics on it. I love you Niamh.

Two slabs of killer prime rib.
The typical fare at our house on Christmas. My dad's pride and joy. Good times.

And finally,
ONE NEW COMPY!
Yesserie. Yours truly finally got a new PC. It has been a need as of the past three years or so since the old compy had been freezing up a lot. Trying to run 2004 programs on a 2000 computer will do that. So now, I have all the cool bells and whistles that new PC's have, but I find myself loving the smaller features more...

-Won't lock up while I type a blog.
-Doesn't take ten minutes to boot up.
-Can run more than one program at once.
-Doesn't tout a BetaMax drive as a feature.

Thanks Mom and Dad.

With the new compy, I can do more pics and stuff that I actually promised before. Loading them up on the old one was such a chore. Ahh, I love new technology. Wow, long one today! That is all though. Maybe something more for NYE, so wait and see. Peace...

Turkey, Guacamole, Chocolate Soy Milk...

It is one of the things that my friends and my fiance love about me...

...the joy I find in the simple things in life.

People who let you merge, people who wave "thank you" when you let them merge, people who hold doors, belgian chocolate chip cookies, old NES games, an old song on the radio you miss hearing, your favorite movie coming on TV at the precise moment you are settling down to relax for the night, cartoons (and I mean GOOD ONES), purring cats (bite me guys, its cute)...

There are many more, but thats just what came off the top of my head. Hope all is well in your worlds, folks. Come check out Beauty & The Beast if you can. We open on Thursday and run through Sunday. Only one weekend... Call (408) 866-2700 for tix.





Great times this Thanksgiving with the family, friends, and Nicole. Partied it up at the Brit afterwards, great times. Pics of that later this week. The RoShamBo shots are going bye-bye for now.

Have a good one folks. Peace...

Rockin' The Fall

I have been meaning to post a blog about this for a long time, but stuff kept coming up that just added more to it that I held back to now.

This fall has truly been a revival of my passion for rock. I have had a blast doing theatre and I still do, but my love of rock and playing guitar has been rekindled.

In the past several months, I have had a lot of really cool moments where I felt this incredible surge in me to play again. A couple times hanging around Dave and the guys from 5606, chilling with them while they rehearsed for their gig at the Roxy a few weeks ago...

...Getting into talks with local band The Cyn Project, which didn't pan out due to scheduling but thanks to them for inviting me to jam!

...Seeing a bitchin' Less Than Jake concert!

...and most of all, sitting in for a few gigs with RoShamBo on lead vocals, which has now earned me a spot in the band as their keyboard/rythym guitar/backup vocalist as well as filling in on lead vocals every now and then!

Continuing the trend, I am singing lead again this Saturday at 5th Quarter in Almaden. Come check it out! See RoShamBo's site for details, and let me know if you are coming by! Return of rock? Indeed. Peace...

RoShamBo Halloween Party!

Took out the picture marquee... Too much bandwidth... See the Thanksgiving post above for more shots! Literally and figuratively. Peace...

Caffinated Ramblings

Ahh... 9am, MLK Library, Rockstar in hand and away we go.

The motorized blinds on the window slowly lower in their timely fashion, bringing a dull glow to the computer niche on the third floor. The view outside is gorgeous with the ivy colored Tower Hall and the main lawn and palm trees on the horizon against the eastern foothills. Ok, enough poetics.

Today is one of those days where you just look at humanity around you and shake your head. Every computer has someone on it, and I must say that today more than any other day that I have been in there in the past several years... there are more inconsiderate idiots than ever.

People talking full-out on cell phones, eating and leaving their half munched pop-tarts and crumbs all over the stations, watching anime on laptops at insane volumes... Just wanna give the whole room a collective smack up-side the head for good measure. Gah...

And this plague isn't just hitting SJSU. Up at SFSU, there are recon reports of bad punk-drumming in a residential zone... an offense punishable by vaseline on a front-door knob at the very least. Stinky gutter punks should be seen and not heard, especially when they can only manage to garner the musical talent of a one-armed chimp with a wooden spoon and a saucepan. Double gah...

One "gah" too many. Thats all for today. Peace...

A SPECIAL NOTE

The next three posts (Flashback, Lucky Man, and Frontman...) are postdated. I was just lazy on uploading them to TDF from MySpace. They are dated at the time they were published, so those three are new to you if you only read TDF here! Peace...

Flashback

Howdeee... Just dropping a little quick one before I jet to Company One rehearsal.

I was just in Tully's in the MLK grabbin my caffeine fix, when I noticed on the radio they were playing "Jump, Jive and Wail" by the Brian Setzer Orchestra. I think "Wow, this takes me back to high school..."

Right after that, on comes Semisonic with "Closing Time". A double shot of Late '90s nostalgia. Makes you think about how much has changed since that song was cool. Wow.

Oh, and adding to reoccuring theme of weirdoes in the library, there is a very odd looking fella across from me at a computer who wreaks of Pinaud Talcum Powder, and insists on rustling about a single sheet of paper as he types one click at a time, somewhat desperately trying to figure something out on his terminal.

This is definately an interesting place to people-watch. Between homeless vagrants, stressed out masters students, and caffinated co-eds, you get a great cross section of SJSU in here on the third floor. (post publish add on: A guy sat down kitty-cornered to me at a terminal and is muttering at the computer as he picks his ears... gah!)

That about does it for me today. Have a good one folks... Peace...