Church

i was supposed to meet tony this morning at church to talk about soul purpose stuph. i woke up and looked out one of my windows and just saw a blanket of white outisde. for a moment, i considered wether church was closed or not. regardless, i jumped in the shower to get ready.

the snow is coming down pretty hard. as i was cleaning off my car, it was as if it was just getting covered right back up. i hit the road and it was totally unplowed. even 287 was unplowed.

it doesn't take me that long to get to church. as i pull into the parking lot, i knew it wouldn't be hard to find a parking spot. but most of the spots were heavy w/ snow. i park somewhere in the back and was sure to lift up my wipers so they wouldn't ice up on the windshield.

i wore my cleats because i knew i'd be walking in the snow.

i go down to the cafeteria, not really expecting tony because he lives in jersey city. i sit and chat w/ jamie a bit and show her the script that i'm working on. she commented the we probably wouldn't be able to do "the perfect kiss" because the subject matter was just too sensitive. eventually, tony calls me, and we just have our little meeting over the phone.

as is expected, not many people show up at church. we head up, and most of the english service is composed of the youth. pastor tim speaks and tries to end a little early around 12:30.


soul purpose

although there was an announcement about youth activities being cancelled, i decide that soul purpose should meet anyway.

we only have about half the members and do our best to do a table read. in the middle of the table read, the power went out, and we had no light.

we went throught two reads and then stopped to discuss it. some interesting points came out, but my overall impression was that the youth kids were uncomfortable w/ the script. i don't think it was the content per se, but more of the way the material was presented. they were too worred about the audience and if they would understand, which is a legitamate concern. but based on the reactions of the people who have read it, it seemed pretty clear and engaging.

the other concern was what was the point of it. its almost as if they wanted some deeper meaning or deeper impact from the script. maybe its a lack of maturity or a lack of vision. maybe its too much vision. whatever it was, it was clear that they were just unsettled.

a little before 1400h est, we decided it was time to head out. i drove andrew home and then headed home myself. while i was on bee meadow parkway, i made the slight left and ended up spinning a 360. i wasn't scared, but it was definitely and interesting experience to lose control like that.

when i got home, i gave tony a ring and broke down what had happened at the table read. i had heard andrew read the part of thor, and he was pretty good, but i still wanted to hear vincent read it. we decided to call vincent up and have a read right there on the phone. i read the part of mel, while tony read the part of cassidy.

overall, i was pleased w/ vincent's read. it was a hard decision to choose vincent over andrew as they both did a good job. vincent did stumble over some words, but i think that was more from a lack of familiarity w/ the script, rather than inability. we finally decided to give the part to vincent because of the amount of work that he's been putting into soul purpose as of late. also with the experience that he already had from the previous year of soul purpose, i felt that this was something that vincent could definitely do. vincent also hasn't had much opportunity to show what he is capable of.


triple helix

with the kid's comments in mind, i set out to work on triple helix some more. i tried to incorporate some of the ideas the kids suggested, but some of the suggestions would have required a major overhaul of the entire script. i ended up just adding a few lines which i felt strengthened the central theme and was a good observation by the kids. i also took the chance to clean up some of the dialogue a bit more.

i found that the kids were reformatting the scripts. to stem their efforts, i saved the final version as a pdf, that way everyone would have the same version no matter what. i spent all that time learning about formatting and then correcting it, i didn't want that time to be wasted.


common grounds party

in light of dave's ankle and just everything else that's been going on, i decided to host the christmas party. it's going to be on the 27th, and we're going to play cut-throat santa.


simpsons

the new episode of the simpsons was pretty decint. one of the better ones from the season. it doesn't hold up to some of the earlier seasons, but is definitely one of the best so far.

the best line was when after ned looks at homer jelously, todd asks ned if he's jealous of homer. ned admits his jealousy. in response, todd says, "i'm jealous of girls because they get to wear dresses". when i heard that, i just burst out laughing. it was hilarious. i predict it will be one of those lines that becomes a classic.


hebrew hammer

since alias was a repeat, i watched the hebrew hammer instead. it's about this "super hero" (a term i use lightly) who saves chanakka. it's interesting considering it pokes fun at a lot of jewish stereotypes but i guess since i'm not jewish, i don't really get a lot of them.

one of the most interesting scenes was when the hebrew hammer tries to impersonate a christian. its not so much funny, as it is just kind of interesting.

if you missed it, you didn't miss much.


aqua teen hunger force

usually, when they bring back characters, it's pretty funny. in this episode, they kind of brought back the cybernetic ghost of christmas past from the future, but with a twist. the twist is significant enough that it altars the character almost completely. the original character was a lot of fun and had some great moments.

later on, i realized the reason why this episode wasn't as good as some of the others was the lack of shake. shake is what holds this show together. his irrevarance and selfishness and carelessness really pushes this show to the edge.