As those of you who care about me will recall, I joined the James River Ringers as part of my first anti-lethargy list early this year. Next Saturday finally marks the first major performance since I've been a member, and it'll be...interesting. There are a dozen (give or take a couple) selections total in the concert, including a level 5- piece, a level 5 piece, a level 5+ piece, and a levelless piece that consensus says is more difficult than any of the aforementioned. (I am not part of the consensus; that said, I have the easiest part in the levelless piece and one of the more difficult parts in the level 5+ piece, so I am not exactly unbiased.) I still hear a fair number of mistakes in the two compositions mentioned in the most recent parenthentical, but I'm certain I'm more picky in that regard than the audience will be. The other pieces are all fine: It doesn't take much work for the JRR to have a good handle on most anything level 4 and below. Should be fun.

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True bell-ringing joke of the week:

Director: This section needs to stay at a consistant speed, and any time you start play stacatto notes, you start picking up the tempo. Does anyone have any ideas to fix this?

[pause]

Me: Stop playing the notes stacatto?

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What I learned -- through personal experience -- about the Astroturf on the field at Skydome last weekend:

It is very springy. Surprisingly so. It has much more give than dirt plus grass does.

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What I learned -- through personal experience -- about Canadian curling magazines:

They do not exist. At the very least, they are not sold at major bookstores. However, two different magazines about Manchester United -- no, not just about British soccer; about that specific team -- are. I have lost some of my respect for Canada.

"In an effort to pull the long-running, Emmy-winning legal drama ['The Practice'] back to budget, creator David E. Kelley has announced that a half-dozen key players--Dylan McDermott, Lara Flynn Boyle, Kelli Williams, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Chyler Leigh and Marla Sokoloff--will not be back in court. McDermott may be back for a four-episode guest stint, but his $300,000-an-episode-and-rising price tag worked to eliminate him from full-time 2004 employment. In fact, only legal eagles who will be back for certain are Steve Harris, Camryn Manheim, Michael Badalucco and a few 'Practice' newbies, like Jessica Capshaw."

I mean really. Once you've ditched two-thirds of the cast, what's the rationale for keeping the show?

Thanks to the latter co-author of this lovely book, I have tentatively gotten Eileen moved to the so, so, so, so, so much more convenient time of 9:00A Saturday. Please come up with new, less convoluted plans for your cinematic attendance. (However, no comps for anyone, including me.)

As you will not recall, last year at this time, I correctly (more or less) predicted how The West Wing finale would end (with C.J.'s quasi-boyfriend dead). Since that time, I have also correctly guessed what college Rory would choose to attend (Yale, because it was the only one that would allow her to return home on a regular basis), correctly hypothesised the exact final shot of the "Ed" finale, and correctly predicted the "shocking ending" to more than a couple Law & Order episodes (greatest acheivement: figuring out that the dead guy hired a hitman to kill himself -- a suicide by proxy, so to speak).

So. Let's see what we can do with a few upcoming season finales:

"The West Wing": All of you either know or don't care what happened in the last episode, so I feel comfortable mentioning it: Zoë, the president's youngest daughter, was kidnapped after her boyfriend stuck a mickey in her drink. (Pretty awful plot turn, but never mind ‘bout that.) Sorkin's sadistic streak in having characters killed or nearly so in season finales, plus the fact that he's not in a good mood after being forced off the show, means that Zoë will either (a) be killed by the end of the episode or (b) Zoë will be in a hospital bed, in critical condition, or (c) whoever kidnapped her is going to say something like, "Give me 1000 nuclear warheads or your daughter gets the bullet in the brain." Given all the hints that were thrown about in last episode regarding retribution for something the President had done earlier in the year (an assassination), I'm voting for (c); specifically, that's going to be the last minute or two of the episode.

"Friends": A few different possibilities for finale directions: The major storyline has been Monica and Chandler trying to conceive, but there's also Joey plus new girl, Joey plus Rachel, Ross plus Rachel, Ross plus new girl, Phoebe plus Hank Azaria, Phoebe plus whoever her old boyfriend was, Rachel plus Phoebe, Ross plus Joey, Ross plus Monica, etc. Given the show's out-of-left-field season finales of late, I vote for either (a) Ross marrying new girl, (b) Phoebe marrying not-Hank-Azaria, or (c) an exact replica of last season's finale, except with Rachel (intentionally) proposing to Joey. My best guess: (c).

"Gilmore Girls": I haven't seen any of the season finales of this show yet, but I'm going with some low-key ending that involves Paris going to Yale (please, let Paris stay on the show!), crossed with Lorelai's part-time beau/Rory's teacher leaving to go...somewhere, crossed with Rory ending the year unattached.

"Law & Order": Someone will be killed. The police will think they know who did it, but it will turn out to be someone else.

I am sorry that I have not been writing substantial posts as of late. I am spending my lunches calling builders and subdivision developers and whatnot so Kim and I can sign contracts and add closets and frolic on the plateau of dirt that is our likely future lawn. So I have neglected you, and you are sad, and you are angry, and you write nasty e-mails to me using words I do not like to see, such as "disillusionment" and "repulsion" and "antifrolicness." I will be better. Like William Bennett and Larry Eustachy, I am now a new man. I have seen the light.

The light tells me that I must work on my screenplay for "[sic]" and post it as I write. I have an idea. A strange idea. The idea goes like this: During the French opening segment, I have numbers flash on the screen -- one through seven, say. And then after the opening segment, I have the closing credits. One thinks. After the closing credits, I return to the numbers one through seven, now described (somehow) as "footnotes." And all the rest of the film is those footnotes -- likely some sort of "humorous" deconstruction of the joke at the beginning of the film. Perhaps I would even call the film "Footnotes." But that might be too obvious.

Tell me if this is a good idea or me trying to be too clever.

Also, I am reading David Mamet's intriguing On Directing Film -- thanks Ed, Beth-Annie -- and I am going to try to integrate some of his methodology into the film, such as hiring Rebecca Pidgeon.

Essentially, here is a summary of what has happened with Kim's and my house-hunting adventure: (a) Kim and I decided, based on prices in the Richmond area, that we were going to get a new house rather than a used one. (b) We narrowed our choices down to two subdivisions, which I will give unsnazzy names to: The Disc Golf Course Subdivision and the Close To Our Old Apartment Subdivision. Both are virtually brand-new: Old Apartment has four or five houses partially finished out of (I think) 80, and Disc Golf won't start building any of its 45 houses until July at the earliest. (c) After a bit of deliberation, we tentatively decided to go with Disc Golf, despite not yet knowing specific house prices. (We did, however, know the range of prices the developer was considering, and they were very much in line with Old Apartment, which we did [and do] have prices for.) (d) We thus decided to put a $500 deposit down on our favorite remaining lot in Disc Golf, which is refundable if we decided not to by a house in the subdivision 30 days after getting final prices from both the builders in the subdivision. (If you buy a house, the $500 goes toward closing costs.) (e) Using the cost of houses in Old Apartment and a couple other subdivisions, I made an estimation of the price of the model that Kim and I were most interested in. Let us call that price $x.

That brings you, dear reader, up through yesterday. Yesterday, Kim and I went to the developer's office to get the finalized prices from one of the two builders in Disc Golf -- specifically, the builder who was building the model we were most interested in. And how much did that price come out as? $x + $30,000. (We temporarily believed it was $x + $40,000, until we realized that price included a finished third floor.) (While we're on parentheticals: For those who have very little idea how much house Kim and I can afford, be assured that x is not 800,000 or even 400,000, where perhaps a $30,000 difference is relatively negligible.) So we were floored -- especially since the subdivision was supposed to top out at $x + $20,000 -- and now we are confused, and now we are very, very curious what prices the other builder in Disc Golf is going to come up with.