Month: January 2009

Feed the World.
See below.
The Daily News

1 So...Billy Wilson walks into a bar...
2 Any time a 49er walks into a bar, it's a loss.
3 See ya Billy Boy.
4   And so it goes...
5   Moving on: Amazingly absent from the past week of DN's was any mention of Governor Rod Blagojevich.
6 Two reasons, really.
7 1) I don't like writing about crazy people. And
8 2) I can't pronounce his name.
9    I know. I'll refer to him as "Footnote".
=
10 Because he is simply a footnote. He won't be remembered, just like Ol' Wuzhizname.
11 You remember. Spikey hair. Striped shirts. Always carrying his coat by it's neck.
12 Gary Condit. Yeah. That guy.
13 He's the guy who probably offed intern Chandra Levy.
14 Same kinda guy.
15 Butt head.
16 It's Frideeeeeeeeeeee!
17 Not much news out there. That's always good.
18 Slow news is good news.
19 The Drama Department at the Chill is putting up Dracula tonight and tomorrow night at 7 p.m.
20 I decided to give my students extra credit for going.
21 But then I thought, "Do I also give them extra credit for the next music concerts in March?"
22 I say yay.
23 Support the arts.
24 Moving on, Part the Second: Here's something that has been sweeping the internet lately. If you click on the link below, you will begin contributing free rice to hungry people all over the world.
http://freerice.com/
25 I didn't believe it either; in fact, it sounded like a classic issue for Snopes.com to investigate.
26 Turns out that it's not only legit, but that instead of the 10 grains of rice per question, it has upped the ante to 20.
27 I was at a technology meeting yesterday afternoon when the teacher next to me, a young gal who can get pretty mischievous, started whispering to me to go to a website called freerice.com. I laughed, because she and two other teachers joined in an began getting addicted.
28 She kept telling me to do that, but I wanted to be a good boy and follow the technology lesson that the teacher was giving to us.
29 I got home last night, hopped on the Freerice website, and began feeding the hungry by answering questions. Most of them were vocab and grammar, so I racked up a ton, and donated thousands of grains of rice to the needy.
30 It turns out that some computer guy named John Breen got it going back in January of 2007. According to Snopes, "On 7 October 2007, the first day of the site's operations, only 830 grains were donated. As of 17 November 2007, the number of grains of rice given away amounts to 2, 457,120,420...The rice is distributed by the United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP), an organization that in 2006 reached 87.8 million people in 78 countries."
31 So now I don't know what to do with it. You can learn and feed people all at once! But when do you stop? How do you stop? Why do anything else?
32 I have no answer to those questions, but it sure is a fun thing, isn't it?
33 Well, I think I'm going to go cook a pot right now and settle into the evening.
34 Meanwhile, feed a few people this weekend.
35 Couldn't hurt.
36 Peace.
~H~
www.freerice.com
www.xanga.com/bharrington
The Daily News

1 I made the mistake of taking American Idol seriously.
2 Yeesh.
3 If you're a teacher, Am Id (if I may) parades the absolute worst contestants out to the American public for sport.
4 Never you mind. That was among my worst moments.
5 I keep trying to knock the DN out in three simplistic moves and I keep not being able to do that.
6 Makes for great drama.
7 Speaking of which: Yesterday I received applause for a lesson in which I acted out the tale of Pyramis and Thisbe.
8 I absolutely had to. The students had no idea of the magnitude of issues that would come down the pike with a study of Shakespeare.
9 I wound up playing both roles in which I became each character, including the lion.
10 I was really trying to make the stuff a bit more engaging, but in so doing became each character.
11 The original intention was to eat up some clock in a lesson that was doomed to time factors.
12 I assumed correctly that if I did a mini-play rather than a straight lecture, the students might become engaged and actually enjoy their learning.
13 Sometimes, boy.
14 I got so into it that I even over-did the lion, which is supposedly a more humble part.
15 As a [former] director, I either over-emphasized the part of the Lion, or I got completely into the part of Bottom. We had these block schedules which insisted.
16 Somehow I got absolutely absorbed.
17 I really needed to get through a long block, and was essentially holding on for dear life.
18 So I went under.
19 I once had some Olympic ice-skater who wrote me an essay about how each season she would learn how to "go under" during the trials.
20 VERY inspirational, even though I can remember neither her name or her event.
21 When I met her I knew she had no business in my stupid class.
22 She told me about her daily regime, which consisted of putting on ice-skates at around 5 a.m. and proceeding to skate until around midnight, every single day.
23 ...Which sounds inhumane until you see the average schedule of any college student these days.
24 Yeesh.
25 In a way, I believe I will leave it at that on a random Thursday. College students will know instantly what I am saying, and most others will "get" it.
26 I'd better go now.
27 I have more hoops.
28 Live life, love life.
29 Peace.
~H~
www.xanga.com/bharrington
The Daily Newzone

sorry haven't written.
got a few things on my mind.

peace.

~H~
The Daily News

1 Have you ever been so mad at a product that you start yelling at it just because it happens to be in your hand?

2 That happened to me on Saturday night.

3 I was in the midst of one of the most SENSATIONAL weeks of my life, all ready to celebrate with popcorn and a movie and all when I went to the cupboard.

4 No popcorn. Well, a quarter of a bag that probably was there from the 80's. No bag.

5 Now understand this. I LOVE popcorn. I'm a HUGE PC fan. It's a PC world, if you ask me.

6 You get relaxed, you get some popcorn, you pop in a movie.

7 Sometimes it's the little things.

8 But wait!

9 Hearken!

10 I went to the cupboard but there was no popcorn! Well again, there was some, but it was that sticky old bag stuff that's been sitting around for years. This translates to no popcorn. No REAL popcorn.

11 I don't mean that fake microwave stuff.

12   I'm talking the real deal.

13 A classic bag 'o' popcorn.

14 The kind that is all fresh kernals in a plastic bag.

15 Nope.

16 REAL popcorn has to be cooked in a pan with a little oil heated up. You heat a kernal and wait. Once the little guy blows heat, you pour in about a fourth of a cuppa the real stuff.

17   That stuff has to steam, pop, clang, spew oil, and make the whole place smell like a movie. It should look full and fluffy. Why it should be the very essence of a feast!



18 It should be dangerous enough that when you get to the bottom of an old-school bowl, you chip a tooth for your kernal greed.

19 I'm happy to say that out of the teeth I've cracked and lost, popcorn was responsible for about half of 'em.

20 Someday when I look like Mammy Yokums, I'll smoke a corncob pipe and then toss it into the pan right before I go.

21 I'll have one tooth left.

22 I'll start chomping on the corncob, and some hidden kernal will catch my last tooth and send it to its doom.

23 I'll cackle, and then I'll expire.

24 It'll be a peaceful departure.

25 At the moment I expire, the Grateful Dead's Good Lovin' oughtta play.

26 My eppytaph will read, "I told you I was sick."

27 Yeah.

28   Anyway, if you've ever had a steaming bowl of real cooked popcorn, then you know that microwave popcorn is a cheap imitation.

29 So here go: Why I Was Mad: Aight then so I hit the cupboard lookin' for a bag.

30 I had a bag I had carried through the decades because it was Truth.

31 At least I thought I had. I tore the cupboards looking for it. I mean, come on, you KNOW when you have hauled some treasure with you through time. I thought I found this popcorn Ark of the Covenant in the far reaches of a corner of a cupboard in the kitchen.

32  What I found was some old sticky bag which I thought was that vintage, but what turned out to be a bag I think I got at Lucky's, circa 2006. Not a good year for corn.

33 I cooked it anyway. I poured about a half bag in the pot, which shoulda cooked enough to fill three rooms.

34 But once I put the pot over the fire, there was nothin' but empty clangs and thuds.

35   I think it was Mammie Yokums who once said, "Well, intermittent means 'taint no good!" This stuff was pitiful.



36 I looked around for a bag of micro, which in my frenzy I likened to poking around for an old bag of skunk.

37 Useless.

38 I decided to go to good ol' Walgreens.

39 I think somewhere in my family history someone knew Mr. Walgreen.

40 Where I come from, the Walgreen's in Millbrae is to Millbrae what the Tower of London is to London. I remember some old Millbraen saying, "We love our Walgreens". Must have been it's ghostly history.

41 Well this wasn't in Millbrae. Or even London.

42 But it WAS good ol' Sannozay.

43 I hopped in the TOOOOOONDRA and flew over to our local Walgreens.

44 I KNEW Walgreens would come through with the real deal. After all, it was Walgreens, one of the defining edifices of 21st century funk anyone could hope to bear. I came to a screeching halt when I saw the clerk. He was a perfect cross between a panda bear and a fish lure. I knew instantly I was in trouble. He had some tiny key ring hanging off his lower lip. I stoutly shook it all off as prejudice, and I approached.

45 I asked, "Where's your popcorn?"

46 I tossed a glance down the beans and macaroni aisle, ny eyes darting around figuring this guy was going to lead me to the microwave stuff. I knew instinctively he had no clue about REAL popcorn.

47 He pointed at the snack aisle. "Aisle 5."

48   "Fookin' imbecile, " I thought, because the longer I live, the more I realize that most people are fookin' imbeciles. In a way, it was a compliment, 'cuz I was essentially sayin, "Fookin' average guy." An eighty-year old woulda known what I wanted. I wanted a dollar bag of popcorn so I could cook enough to feed a platoon. He was pointing to Microwave popcorn. Limp. I headed to aisle 5 just so the guy wouldn't be offended, then jetted over to aisle 7 when the guy wasn't looking.

49 I ran down aisle 7, the beans and macaroni aisle.

50 No popcorn.

51 I figured I'd have to settle for the skunk.

53 I skidded past this display of mico popcorn and saw like about 7000 bags for $5.99.

54 I grabbed it, slid it across the scanner, paid and bolted.

55 When I got home I looked more closely. I had inadvertently purchased Act I Mini-bags. I threw the first one in the micro and in burned up around 43 seconds in. Musta been designed by NASA.

56 Turns out that Act I made these "mini-bags" that are only 100 calories each.

57   The Diet Age had finally burned me. Act I had made these bags that had about twenty pieces of popcorn in them and could cook in a minute, but to make enough for a group was going to take the rest of the night.

58 So there you go. I cooked 40 bags, ten apiece for a houseload of 4. I might as well have prepared a turkey dinner for all the time I spent in the kitchen.

59 Yeesh. I wanted the guy who designed that stuff's head on a platter.

60   So I want to sponsor an INTERNATIONAL boycott of Act I mini-corn.

62 I can ony have popcorn one time outta the year, because I figure the amount of teeth I have is equivalent to the amount of years I have left on this planet, so I wanna protect my teeth. I wanted the real deal, not some fake diet stuff marketed to imbeciles.

63 But I settled. So there you go. One time a year and I had to eat these little mini-bags that are insulting in their concept and tasteless in so many other ways.

64   Popcorn should have three main things: a) oil, b) butter, and c) salt. Anything else is an amenity.

65 Who'd know, and who'd care anyway? This was Saturday.

66  This is Monday. What's past is past.

67 Fly low.

68 And yeah, you guessed it.

69 Peace.

~H~

www.xanga.com/bharrington

Is Romeo and Juliet losing it's luster?

The Daily News

Lady Macbeth

1 I have to think that one of the greatest things about teaching is keeping in touch with alumni. I learn more things from former students than all the supposed teaching I do in a year.

2 After having conked out last night really early, I awakened to a new dawn, only it was again 3 a.m. I had to run outside barefoot on the cold concrete and wheel the garbage out to the street, got back in, poured a cup of chicken soup I never got around to eating earlier, and cozyed up to the DN.

3 My usual ritual involves checking my mail and chuckling over all the stuff people send me, writing the DN, and then answering things.

4 So here are a couple of fun things that have rolled down the pike:

Chicken Wing shortage: Can you "wing it"? Or will your
feathers be ruffled? (I stole all that nonsense from CBS News)

5 First, if you don't know, chicken wings are now a rarity, so get your Super Bowl order in now. The company that provides most of the chicken wings has gone bankrupt, which has "ruffled the feathers" of a lot of chicken-wing affectionados.

6 I wasn't sure of that plural, but I hope I landed it. Too tired to care.

7 Cindy Barrett just wrote me about love stories and Romeo and Juliet as a love story, which is great because just yesterday I told my students that R & J was the greatest love story ever written, if you dismiss all Korean dramas. I looked back upon yesterday's DN and realized that I had declared Romeo and Juliet the greatest love story ever told, which is clearly not true.

a news 1 summer scent
Song Seung Hun and Son Ye Jin in the
immortal Summer Scent.

8 The greatest love story of all time to me is unquestionably a Korean drama called Summer Scent, about a girl who is about to get married, gets hit by a car and killed on the way to her wedding, and dies. Her heart goes to a heart patient. Years go by. Her fiance moves on, gets a degree, becomes a hotel designer, meets with a millionaire (maybe a billionaire nowadays) who has arranged for him to design a beautiful resort, and he meets the billionaire's wife who, you guessed it, is the girl who got the heart. They become soul mates.

9 It's a slow roll, but a gorgeously painted love story for the ages.

10 If you've never seen a Korean drama, find that one and watch it this weekend. It takes about twelve years to watch, but you'll do nothing else in that time. It's absolutely as addicting as chicken wings. And it's gonna rain anyway.

11 It has subtitles, but takes about four seconds to get used to.

12 Ya gotta love it.

13 Cindy brought up this concept, which I thought was great: Macbeth is a greater love story than Romeo and Juliet. Two dumb psycho kids who think they've fallen in love and ultimately kill themselves is basically stupid, and I quite agree. Cindy argues that Lady Macbeth's love and loyalty is much more real than the goofiness of two idiotic teenagers. Great point, and it should hit the classroom sometime soon.

14 It used to be tough to teach about Macbeth because a goodly amount of my teaching took place in the Theatre, where you aren't to even whisper the name of that play. It's purportedly cursed, and I'll never be one to argue.

15 Anyway, interesting stuffs.

16 And Paul Long, one of the key stars of the Heidi Chronz, sent me this poem about how absurd the English language is. The fact that the author wished to remain anonymous is pretty telling, but I loved it Here go:

English Pronounciation

Author unknown

Multi-national personnel at North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters near Paris found English to be an easy language ... until they tried to pronounce it. To help them discard an array of accents, the verses below were devised. After trying them, a Frenchman said he'd prefer six months at hard labor to reading six lines aloud. Try them yourself.

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sleeve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?

Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!

17 Great stuff on a Friday morning.

18 Big Events: Get your tickets to Fleetwood Mac ASAP. They're coming to the Tank on May 21 with a tour called The Hits. Looks like the lineup is John McVie, Stevie Nicks, Mick Fleetwood, and Lindsay Buckingham (one of the most underrated guitarists walking around). Noticeably missing is the wonderfully awesome Christine McVie, so that's a hit that is missing, but otherwise a pretty solid group.

19 If you can't afford it, then my advice is to buy the DVD Fleetwood Mac, The Dance, which features the USC marching band jamming to Tusk, and Don't Stop (Thinking about Tomorrow),on of the best live DVD's ever.

20 And for you older set who realize that the Grateful Dead remains one of the most poetic and influential bands ever, their 2009 tour called Dead '09 goes up at Shoreline on May 10. Tickets go on sale Sunday morning at 10 a.m. at Livenation.com.

21 So that's it.

22 Somehow I made it through the most absurd week of my life, and the DN remained unscathed. Go figure.

23 Plenty to do this weekend, so either go do it, or grab Summer Scent and strap in for the rainy weekend.

24 Thank you Paul and Cindy for some great items. I can't wait to get to class this morning and share both.

25 And thanks to all the DN readers for abiding with this nonsense each and every morning of the school year.

26 Keeps you young, or maybe glad you're old.

27 Have a great weekend.

28 Peace.

~H~

cool guy 2

www.xanga.com/bharrington

The Daily News

1 Hey I made it through my "all-nighter" yesterday pretty famously.
2 The difference between being a student who does an "all-nighter" and a teacher who does is one of peers.
3 College students in particular see it as almost a Rite of Passage. You have to do a certain number of these things to show that you have the fortitude to conquer anything.
4 Teachers look at teachers who do "all-nighters" as guys who procrastinated and are getting exactly what they deserve.
5 The thing is, I actually had NOT procrastinated for the first time in my entire life. I just had tons to do for three-weeks running, and I had planned much of it so I could pace myself.
6 I just fell short by around twelve hours.
7 Anyway I survived and even made it yesterday all the way to 9 p.m. from 6 a.m. the day before!
8 Of course, I still need to get through today, because I woke up at 3 a.m., wrote TWO DN's, and this is my third.
9 The first one sucked. I talked about this group of students who decided to play poker while I was trying to introduce Shakespeare.
10 The height of that DN was that I didn't throw a desk through the cathedral windows when they pulled the cards out the second time.
11 The thing is, they sat right next to my podium.
12 Ah, freshmen. The Ears-and-Braces circuit.
13 Fortunately I'm not the knucklehead I used to be, or someone might have been ducking from a flying dictionary.
14 I just calmly took the cards away, slipped them into my pocket, and kicked the table over. "Um...now that I have your attention, will you kindly open your books to the greatest love story in history, Romeo and Juliet?"
15 Nah, just kidding.
16 Some of you what knows me believed that without blinking.
17 I like it like that.
18 I've mellowed, honestly.
19 Anyway, just thought I'd check in and letcha know that I'm still alive, making it through this past week of utter madness, and am still able to land the DN on your doorstep, as annoying as that can be.
20 Moving on: I must say that the tale end of an "all-nighter" led me to Save Mart last night, where this HUGE lady jumped in front of me in the express line. She had WAY more than 15 items, but I smiled along.
21 I kept glancing down at her items, which I love doing. Not one healthy thing, I swear. I then found myself counting the beeps as the indifferent clerk slid each item across the item-counter laser thingy.
22 I had NO idea why I was counting. I guess because I love goofing on imbeciles.
23 She had 26 items, for the record.
24 Imbecile.
25 Then she wanted to put sixteen dollars on her card and pay the rest with cash.
26 I rolled my eyes, as though it was the most irritating thing of the last hundred years.
27 Then it occurred to me that nobody was in line when she got there, and she probably just wanted to go home. Times are tough, so using as little of your bank account as possible is a sign of the times.
28 I smiled, knowing that we're all just trying to get by.
29 Maybe things are changing.
30 Who knows?
31 So this DN is merely me checking in and letting you know that I'm still able to get things done and keep the good ol' DN rollin' along.
32 I'd better get some sleep. I just realized that I need to wake up early, like in about two hours, so I can plan for the day.
33 So I'm gonna do that.
34 You guys have a great day. Hope it rains and rains.
35 Peace.
~H~

www.xanga.com/bharrington
The Daily News

1 What a day. Bet they sold a LOTTA Pepsi yesterday.
2 Amazing, all of it.
3 AND the Sharks won!
4 Obamamania has struck.
5 I heard some guy singing a song he called "Oh Bama" to the tune of "Oh Donna" by Ritchie Valens.
6 I heard some Jesus freaks singing:
Obama hey Bama, Bama Bama O Bama hey Bama O Bama,Hey Barack Barack
get us out of Iraq Bama O Bama hey Superstar!
to the tune of Hosanna from Jesus Christ Superstar.
7 All right I made that up.
8 Still, it really got exciting watching them go into seventeen-hundred different ballrooms and dance to Etta James' At Last a thousand times.
9 Who did the programming for THAT?
10 Didn't matter.
11 Great moment.
12 Wish I coulda captured it a little better on the DN, but grades are due today.
13 I'm officially doing an "all-nighter".
14 I gave these bums WAY too much homework this year and they all double-crossed me and DID it!
15 So I had to take a break. Been trying to hit this deadline for three weeks now and it's one of those jobs that is like Autumn leaves. As soon as you're finished a bunch more swoop down on you.
16 That's directly from Moliere, by the way. Imaginary Invalid, a classic. The lead character complained of everything, but used that analogy when talking about bills.
17 I also love the teacher who came up to me about a week into working at the chill, threw a Cheshire cat smile my way and said, "Are you up to your ears in alligators?"
18 Uh...
19 Anyway, I'm clearly into an "all-nighter". It wasn't really even a lack of planning, more like a marathon race and the finish line is in sight.
20 For the record, I've NEVER really done an "all-nighter". I always thought people who did that were just doing the 2000's brag rag.
21 Evidently it's pandemic among the college set, of which I am now officially a part.
22 I'm in college for one week and already doing this.
23 Anyway, I'd better get back to it. I have to calculate 3000 more little squares, clean it all up, check the accuracy, and THEN plan block classes, which begin at 8:15. I will have had no sleep.
24 Wish me luck, youse guys.
25 I appreciate what you "all-nighter" sorts have gone through. I do get the afternoon off, so that's why I'm not minding, but I still think it's a WAY stupid way to approach things.
26 First one ever. And the irony is, I actually have been working morning, noon and night to hit this deadline.
27 Yesterday I cut my nose off in the shower.
28 It's okay. It just rolled around and sneezed now and again.
29 It popped right back on, and blended well with my bloodshot eyes.
30 I'm thinking of taking up sniffing glue.
31 Nah.
32 It'd just keep me up.
33 See ya.
34 Peace.
~H~

www.xanga.com/bharrington
The Daily News

The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

--Robert Frost
Now the time has come; there are things to realize...
---The Chambers Brothers, Time Has Come Today

~H~
www.xanga.com/bharrington

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nuiIqMQ4sA&feature=related
Godspeed.
The Daily News

1 So...Ariana Marie Sanchez enters the Earth.
2 My niece Amy had a baby yesterday morning so we're all pretty excited and running around like fools.
3 So welcome to the world Ariana! You're already cool, and I heard you have some pretty good pipes.
4 Good times. Looking forward to sharing the good times with you, kiddoo.
5 Moving on: Did anyone see the smog layer lying low in downtown San Jose yesterday? My lungs felt like a rusty cheese-grater. I enjoy the warm weather, but I do miss the rain and snow, which we dreadfully need. When I glanced down from the hills, it looked absolutely scary.
6 Pretty toxic sight.
7 Moving on, Part II: If there's anything I love it's kicking it after a long day and settling in to writing the good ol' DN. Somehow I made it through a crazy week, received my first college grade in years (a 100%, whatever THAT means), hit every DN deadline, AND am buzzing over the new baby. One of those things that just keeps coming back and making me smile.
8 Ah, ya can't beat it.
9 Well.
10 Right now there's some show called the Best Damn 100 Mind Blowing Moments in Sports. Jordan's shot was there, as was Gibson's home run, Larsen's no-hitter, the "Catch", the Immaculate Reception, Starkey's call on the "Play", hole 16 of the Masters and a bunch of others too numerous to mention. I enjoyed it the way you would enjoy sitting in front of a fire on a frosty evening.
11 It glowed, flared up, calmed, became spectacular, and eventually settled into a very mellow purple burn.
12 I worked on stuff for 11 hours yesterday so it felt really nice to lie back and relax.
13 Ever just do that? Work yo ass off for around sixteen hours and then stretch out and let your spirit leave your body?
14 I swear I began levitating by the end of the day.
15 Hard work has its rewards. Cliche' yes, but SO on the money.
16 The show ended with Michael Phelps' amazing performances this past year, and it ended with the Miracle on Ice. Here are the final 10:
10: Music City Miracle
9: Fan-Man @ Bowe vs. Holyfield
8: Boise State's TD at the end of the 4th quarter vs. Oklahoma
7: The Play - California/Stanford
6: Tiger Woods - Hole 16 - 2005 Masters - Crazy Ass Putt
5: World Series Game 6 1986 - Buckner, lol
4: Douglas vs. Tyson - 1990 - wat
3: Manning's SuperBowl throw to Tyree to beat the Pats
2: Michael Phelps @ The Olympics 2008
1: Miracle On Ice
17 Miracles.
18 I guess it's been a day of Miracles.
19 Welcome little Ariana.
20 Something's right, I'll tellya that much.
21 Peace to all.
~H~
www.xanga.com/bharrington
The Daily News

1 Sooooooo...
2 It's almost more than a person could take.
3 Patrick McGoohan walks into a bar.
4 Ricardo Montalban walks into a bar.
5 Same bar that everyone else is chillin' in.
6 I imagine that once we all leave this madness, it's going to be a heckuvva party.
7 Yeesh.
8 Moving on: Here's a Dear Abby Not to be Missed:
Dear Abby:
Is it proper for a married woman
to go out to eat alone when her husband
refuses to take her?
                                                      Solo in Sherman, Texas
Dear Solo:
Absolutely, if she can afford to pay for it
and there is enough pet food in the doghouse.
9 Sometimes Abby is right on the money.
10 So it's American Idol season once again.
11 If you've ever taught performing arts in any capacity, this becomes one of your favorite shows. This is across the board.
12 Why would that be?
13 Because all performing arts teachers have seen it all. We have seen WAY more wannabes than we have genuinely talented people.
14 That being said,we've also seen some AMAZINGLY talented people over the years.
15 They usually had a first class ticket to our Talent Shows.
16 HUNDREDS were good.
17 Five were awesome.
18 And so...
19 My absolute favorite in the history of the Workshop is...
20 Drum roll...
21 Matt Paguio, somewhere around 1998,
22 If ANYONE is still in contact with Matt, PLEASE tell him to audition for American Idol.
23  Nobody in my entire career of teaching matches his talent. Anyone who ever worked with him knows this.
24 I remember the first time I met him. Fina Pengosro, one of my faves of all time, introduced the guy to me. I knew Fina to be not only awesome of her own volition, but also a trustworthy judge of talent.
25 She introduced Matt to me. He had Coke bottle glasses and looked everything but sensational. I don't remember why I didn't listen to him live, but Fina stuffed a tape into my hand this one fine morning and told me to go home, have a glass of wine, and listen.
26 Clutching the tape plus Fina's advice as a perfect excuse to get a little tipsy, I popped Matt's tape into a tape player.
27 Okay, so those of you wondering, tapes were quite the thing back then.
28 I popped Matt's tape into the tape player and it absolutely put me in orbit.
29 Matt had the same exact style as Sinatra and Buble, a tremendous sense of jazz and swing, which has always been highly unusual for a high school student.
30 Matt went on to win the AMTSJ High School Honors Best Actor award out of 28 schools the year in 1997, the year we did The Show. He sang Aquarius from Hair and then took it home with his rendition of the classic song Hair from the show of the same name. To this day I consider Hair to be one of the most underrated musicals of all time. Astoundingly entertaining songs, and a fun script to boot. And what a song! Here's a 'cerpt:
                                         They'll be gaga at the Go-Go when they see me in my toga, my toga made of long blond brilliantined ,Biblical hair. My hair like Jesus wore it
Hallelujah! I adore it, Hallelujah Mary loved her son, why don't my Mother love me?
31 Matt took that number home. I recently found a boxload of old shows and haven't had the pleasure yet of popping The Show into my VHS, but I'm guessing that I'll be doing that pretty soon. Like later today.
32 If anybody out there is in contact with Matt, PLEASE tell him to audition for American Idol.
33 He remains the best I ever worked with, and was a gentleman and a wonderful friend to boot.
34 Just a quick side note: Matt later sang some blues song with me at a YB Talent Show and later in the evening came out on stage looking completely 40's, Sinatra at YB, crooked hat, the whole schtick, and blew everyone out of the Theatre with his rendition of Sinatra's Come Fly With Me.
35 Time stood still.
36   When true talent speaks, people listen.
37   We have our moments. That was one.
38 That's my DN for today.
38   Peace.

~H~
www.xanga.com/bharrington

bharrington's Xanga Site

Month: January 2009

English Pronounciation

bharrington

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Categories