fringe: another night at the musicals

First there was A Night At The Musicals (and again in 2018 to be honest)... this year Le Gateau Chocolat and Johnny Woo return with the very imaginatively titled Another Night At The Musicals.

And as before, the duo proudly proclaim the show to be the place "musical theatre goes to die". And if by die they mean put on a lot of sequins and leotards and have a very good time, then, yes, I totally agree.

The line up is (mostly) new this time around... but I mean you wouldn't throw out Summer Loving from Grease.

But otherwise, this time around Cabaret, Cats, Gypsy, Les Miserables, The Little Mermaid, Grease, Xanadu, Rocky Horror and The Sound of Music all get the Chocolat and Woo treatment.

Johnny did a fantastic version of my favourite Disney villain song, Poor Unfortunate Souls (complete with quick change dress), followed by Chocolat murdering (in the best possible way) Part of Your World as the most fabulous mermaid ever (the DRESS... and the crab bra!). Though, between you and me, one of these days I really want to hear Chocolat demolish Ursula's song, but he was pretty fantastic as Ariel.

Also amazing is his outfit for the Xanadu number, this big pink fluffy tulle coat that is so very extra and so very Le Gateau.

I'm not sure if this is something I just noticed for this new show, but other than the beginning and the end of the show, this is much more of a "hand off" show, where one of them takes centre stage while the other goes off for presumably the next quick change before they swap out. Which isn't a criticism, it's just something that felt more noticeable this time around than previously. And both the beginning and end of the show are awesome, especially that the "singalongability" of the show ramps up as it goes along (honestly though, they had me at Little Mermaid), culminating in The Sound of Music (how the fuck do I know all the damn words to both Do Re Me and So Long Farewell... I mean I know why, but I really shouldn't still know them), followed by the Grease Summer Loving finale.

As I've mentioned on previous occasions, I adore any and all moments when Chocolat goes for "comedy non-vocals warbling" instead of song lyrics... LOVE! IT!

It's camp, it's ridiculous, it's hilarious, it's gorgeous, it's a good old sing along with songs you know. It's always worth the price of admission. Go see them.

yani's rating: 5 unicorn string guitars out of 5

photo saturday: it's (mostly) all white

I get the feeling I'm going to be using the phrase "well, it's certainly been a week" for the entire length of the Fringe.

Because, say it with me... it's certainly been a week.

As always we started with DnD on Monday. And I know I've said this or something similar recently... but I miss running for small groups. Hell, at this point, I think myself lucky when I only run for five people.

Also don't tell my players, but I don't actually get annoyed when they snatch victory from the jaws of defeat or they use that stupid or overpowered ability (well, most of the time anyway)... I don't actually want to kill their characters, but I do want the game to be exciting for them.

Tuesday was Fringe... and a lackluster dining experience. While I'm not naming names, when people who ordered after us get served before us, then we have a problem. And don't throw your new colleague under the proverbial bus... I knew there was going to be a bit of a wait given the people ahead of me, but I think you misplaced the order somewhere along the way. But you did give me a lot of excuses.

And the food was average at best (especially given the price). Plus we had to eat it so quickly in order to get to the show on time that I didn't really taste any of it.

Wednesday was back-to-back DnD again... first with the first half of a two part game I'm running this week and next week, then our usual evening session. Which wasn't perhaps one of the better ones, since everyone (but me really) seemed particularly low energy.

The amusing thing about the Wednesday night games is the others order in food, but I'm a poor scrub, so I generally eat at home first... but about 50% of the time, I end up eating someone's leftovers when they can't finish their food (amateurs)... but this week it was two different people, which amused me more.

Thursday was Haircut Day... so I toddled off up the hill at the allotted time to see Tink.

The whole thing was much the same as usual, only with no actual small children around the house, which was fantastic... the cut and colour were the same, we chatted all the way through and for a while after as usual, then I toddled off down the hill.

And because most of the people I would have given a crap about interacting with at DnD were doing their own preparation thing, I didn't bother heading in for Thursday night.

Then Friday I spent more of the day than I'd intended doing future DnD prep.

Today didn't feel like it was consumed by Ma's house move... I mean maybe a tiny bit, but not very much.

We did the usual supermarket thing, the addition of Fringe time meant that I really didn't end up buying all that much really.

Then it was back here, do the voodoo that we do so well (or, you know, put my things in my cupboards and fridge and whatnot), before heading back out to Kmart again (Ma wanted a second one of the little cabinets on wheels she bought last week)... and that was pretty much all we did there. Then we stopped off at Big W, where I found a freshly opened box of Lego Movie 2 minifigures. I didn't go totally nuts, just half the set, which are the ones I really liked. Like how could you ignore a Lego version of Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion?

And that was it really... we came back here, hung out in the cool for a bit and then Ma headed home, given that we have an evening show tomorrow.

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fringe: quest time!

Quest Time! by Improv Adelaide kind of brings me all the way around to my first experience with both improv and a number of the performers.

It all started with Dungeons and Improvisation Adventure Show in 2013, then Improvise To Go in 2014 and back-to-back Unplotted Potter in 2016 and 2017.

And while all of the shows have had a fantasy vibe of one sort or another, Quest Time is a VERY Dungeons and Dragons based show.

Unsurprisingly, I enjoyed the living daylights out of it.

Of the four shows I've seen, there is just something that happens when Master of Ceremonies, and in this case, actual Dungeon Master, Joshua Kapitza is there (in this case, it's that there was at least a partially coherent story, or at least someone giving them prompts), and I always enjoy his reactions to the insanity that is happening on stage.

For tonight's show, Eden Trebilco, Kendra and Rene were our "player characters", a gnome bard, a gnome fighter and a dwarf warlock respectively (and yes, Rene, while you may not have known anything about DnD including what any of your spells did, you still basically acted like 90% of all the warlocks I've ever had at my table) while Curtis Shipley, Marshall Cowan and Nathan Stavridis were everybody else in the world (or the "non player characters").

The amusing thing was that all three PCs asked for race and name suggestions from different parts of the audience, so they didn't actually know they were going to be the "all short-arse" party until they introduced their characters at the beginning of the show.

Aided by both story prompts and dice rolls from Kapitza (some very, very, very good dice rolls, I will say... I even checked one of his natural 20's when he asked), the merry band of heroes adventured in a bathhouse/day spa, ran afoul of nobles, met some crap magicians, escaped on a boat, set off to rescue missing children in exchange for getting to level 5 "via montage", heard voices and fought a shapechanging monster (in this case a wendigo).

As with all improv shows, your mileage will most likely vary.

I also got a kick out of the references to actual DnD spells... more so when Rene was guessing what they did based on their names, which in some cases, completely reasonable... in others, no way you're ever going to know. I also may have to steal Eden's idea that his character's "healing word" was HEAL, shouted at the injured individual.

Like I said, it was an excellent show... it never went completely off the rails (which I tend to prefer in both my DnD and my improv), and I had a lot of laughs.

yani's rating: 4 hurdy-gurdy out of 5

fringe: box and cox - married and settled

Mr Cox, Mr Box and Mrs Bouncer are back together again. And this time Messrs Cox and Box have found themselves wives.

Maniacal Arts have returned with another farce written by John Maddison Morton in 1852, a sequel to last year's show. Reprising their roles are Jake McNamara as Box, Declan Carter as Cox and Emma Austin as Mrs Bouncer, while the additions of Mrs Box and Mrs Cox respectively are Ashton Koroneos and Tess Branchflower.

And the new ladies definitely hold their own, not least of all Koroneos and her singing voice. They just slot into the cast perfectly and add to an already excellent group.

But I have to say, much like the first show, Austin steals every single scene she's in as Bouncer. Up to and including improvising with the crowd before the show officially starts.

The staging is simple, but effective, and the addition of the window was used well.

I do think though, while it was quite funny (especially for a 166 year old play), the script wasn't quite as good as the previous one... the first one seemed a little sharper somehow.

And there were times when the cast was a little hard to hear, especially in a play with such rapid fire dialogue.

But those are very small quibbles on what was otherwise a very good start to the Fringe.

yani's rating: 3 kidgloves out of 5

photo saturday: succulents

Well I never seized up... that was a blessing.

Although it was a busy week, relatively speaking.

Monday was DnD... which meant me running a full table. As much as a full table is great, I do prefer smaller groups, but the downside of being a popular DM (#humblebrag) is you often end up with a table full of players.

But my players had a good time, even if the session ran a little long and a couple of them had to bail slightly early.

I realised over the weekend that not only did I have a chiro appointment on Friday, but the only day I wasn't doing something else at some point was Tuesday. So without telling Ma, I headed down to her place just before lunch time and put together her IKEA chest of drawers. It wasn't so bad... at least not as bad as the wardrobe, partially because I have a very similar set of drawers (I would say identical since it's supposed to be, but they've clearly changed the design a little in the last two or so years). So I just put on my headphones and listened to a few episodes of 99% Invisible while I worked.

Pretty easy all things considered.

I also put up the curtains I'd brought down, because I figured if she didn't notice anything else, then she would notice bright red curtains.

Then I headed home to see if the woman famous for not noticing things actually noticed things. She did, but not until about 6:30 that night. And she was very happy, which is good.

Wednesday was back to back DnD... I ended up running, just because nobody else had stepped up and there weren't that many of us overall. To be honest, we could have made up one table, but if anybody had showed up a little late we would have had to split anyway. Plus, as I said, running a small table is always preferable.

And it was an adventure I've run a bunch and really love, which is also pretty easy to run. Everybody said they had a good time, so that's really the main thing.

Wednesday night wasn't our regularly scheduled game, but we played our older characters, which was fun, since it's been a little while. Although I will say that the adventure just seemed way too easy overall. But then part of that it that group... but also probably the adventure.

Thursday was a lot of pfaffing about. And I wasn't even sure I wanted to be bothered going to DnD... but I went, and had a lot of fun playing an entirely new character nothing like any of my other characters. Because sometimes it's fun to play big, dumb and friendly.

Friday was the chiro appointment... which I was very glad about. My body had mostly been okay all week, but it was definitely in need of a tune up.

Today, being both the first day of the Fringe, but also the first proper Saturday since Ma moved house, was a bit of a long day.

We did the shopping thing... then came back here before heading out to pick up a few of the things that Ma wanted now that she's actually moved into the new place. Which took us to Kmart and Spotlight and Bunnings.

Nothing super thrilling to be honest, and it was all a little irritating mostly due to people.

But once we were done, we went down to Ma's place to drop off her shopping and for me to do a few things for her related to the stuff we picked up. At the very least it filled the afternoon in.

Also, weirdly, at some point seemingly between getting out of the car at her place and going into her bedroom to open the blind, I manged to cut my thumb. I say "at some point" because I don't remember doing it, I don't even remember hurting it. All I know is that it was a very clean slice, not super deep but deep enough all things considered. And I only noticed when I realised there was blood on my other finger.

We also found blood on a couple of other things I'd touched, but there shouldn't have been anything even remotely sharp that I touched, so fuck knows how I actually did it.

Me and slicing my fingers... what the hell is up with that.

Anyway, we did what we needed to do down there, then packed up and came back to my place before heading out to Grilld at Norwood for dinner.

And then we started our 2019 Fringe (more on that in a bit).

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photo saturday: sharp corners

It's been two weeks... TWO WHOLE WEEKS.

And the last two weeks have kind of been A LOT.

We pick up our hero the Sunday after the last post, making relish. In fact, I took a recipe for peach, nectarine and tomato relish, substituted plums for the peaches (since I had a bunch in the fridge slowly going soft), and handwaved certain elements of the recipe, but ended up with three jars of relish (which tasted pretty good at the time, so I'm sure will be really good once I crack into one of them).

As far as DnD is concerned, the two Mondays were much the same as always, the Wednesday before last I ran a game that I've run a number of times before, and one that I love... and while I've done various voices for the final NPC, I usually err on the "little old lady" route, this time when I opened my mouth a soft "Southern Belle" voice just happened. Which was great and creepy and gave me a lot of leeway for putting my players on edge in the best possible way. And a number of them have since told me that the voice made the character super creepy.

Achievement unlocked!

We only had one Wednesday evening game, the week before last, and my character got to have a full on proper paranoid freak out, which was great, because really he's been through A LOT thus far.

And Thursday games have been pretty good... but not overly dramatic.

Although I drove my friend home after the week before last's game and we ended up sitting in the car having a long discussion, which somehow turned into a three-way conversation between the two of us and another DnD friend with both of us texting her and having a weird hybrid conversation until 3am. It was odd, but also something I think we all needed.

Also, speaking of Thursdays, I came home after DnD this Thursday to discover my slightly creepy, older male neighbour standing out on the landing in the dark, in front of my apartment, smoking... which is bad enough... but also I'm 99% sure, absolutely bare ass naked.

No. Just no. What even are you doing, you creepy fucker.

I had already been intending to contact my land agent about the fact that he smokes around the apartments (which I'm pretty sure isn't allowed), but now this fresh weirdness makes it a certainty.

Last Saturday Ma had her haircut happening, and we really didn't have anything we needed to do. Plus she was still packing up her place in order to move (more on THAT shortly), so she came down briefly and then headed off.

Which was good, because last Saturday turned into the "everybody wants Yani" afternoon, in the best possible way. Lets just say that there are times when you put yourself out there and spend a lot of energy getting nowhere and other times when you're just minding your own business and people come running to you. I like the latter times much better, but they're also so much rarer, but I enjoy them while they last.

So, yeah, basically I spent Saturday afternoon entertaining not one but two gentleman callers (consecutively, not concurrently). Yeah, I'm bragging... but it's such a rare occurrence I feel I'm allowed.

Then we get to early this week, when Ma finally confirmed when she was getting the keys for the new place (Wednesday), and then moving (Friday). If I had known then what I know now, I would absolutely told her to tell them that she couldn't move until next Tuesday at the earliest. Because she was not ready.

But it happened anyway.

So this Thursday she and I went on a trip to IKEA to get her a wardrobe (since the new place doesn't have built-ins for some reason) and a chest of drawers (for essentially the same reason, and the exact same set that I have).

Which was all well and good... and we basically got in and got out relatively quickly all things considered (also, first thing on a week day morning is both surprisingly busy, and the absolute best time to go). The wardrobe we couldn't get into Ma's tiny car, so that got delivered, but we took the drawers straight to the new house.

And I proceeded to drop one of the two boxes, corner first onto my foot. Not enough to say, break my foot, but enough to make me regret all of my life choices.

Ma's new place isn't bad... although I always hate when landlords or housing authorities choose to paint walls that light beige colour instead of just using plain white. White is ALWAYS the right answer... and would have made the place feel a little less... I don't know... "old lady" I guess. I mean that's what Ma is, and the types of people who get put into these houses, but still.

But yeah, it's not bad... as I said to someone today, there are less rooms, but more room, if that makes sense. It's also only a hop skip and a jump down the road from the old place, which is only really relevant during the moving process. And no stairs, which is a blessing.

Then we went back to Ma's current place. And I got a look at how absolutely NOT READY to move the following day she was. I mean I'm hardly an expert (see also January 2014 and February 2016) but just walking into her house, I knew that moving day was going to be a complete and total pain in the ass.

And I wasn't wrong.

But we did some packing and some reorganising (my top moving tip is always: pile all your moving boxes in one area so you can still move around... second only to: put everything the movers are taking in the same room and/or part of the house) before I had to head home... had it not been for the case that my Thursday night DM was running a game specifically for myself and another player who had been there for a number of previous sessions I might have stuck around... and I might have organised it that way if I'd known. But also if I'd known where she was at, I would have made her put off the move to be honest.

And I will be honest, that everything about Thursday just did my head in... we all know I hate moving and I hate change... but as I messaged one of my friends during the afternoon, in response to the question "has it been one of those days"...

"sleep deprived, hot, feeling vaguely ill, dealing with moving stress, dealing with my mother dealing with moving stress, dealing with change... dealing full stop"

Also, thank the gods for that particular friend for keeping me sane over the two days of moving, he was a lifesaver.

Anyway.

Friday morning rolled around, I rolled out of bed, into the shower, realised I didn't have any milk so made cereal using Iced Coffee (weird, but not terrible) and headed down the road. I left a little later than I wanted to, so the movers were already there by the time I showed up.

Why is it always the case that when one half of any two man trademan type team is in their late 50's, early 60's, the other one is always barely 20 and built like a stick insect? I genuinely want to know.

Anyway, I started filling up my car with things that we knew the movers wouldn't be moving (or that Ma didn't want them to move) and did a couple of runs before the movers finished up, then when they were on their way, I stayed at the new house and waited for them. And then when Ma rocked up, I got back in my car and packed up a load of stuff at the old place again.

I did faff about the old place for a while, trying to move as much stuff as I could downstairs to make our lives easier later in the afternoon, but there's only so much you can do when it's a) not your stuff and b) you keep thinking "why the fuck wasn't this already in a fucking box so the fucking movers could have taken it".

So by the time I got back again, the movers were mostly done, I unpacked the car again, and we sent the movers on their way. We also needed to wait for the IKEA delivery guy, who was supposed to show up between 11am and 3pm... and I fully expected him to be there at 3pm... but Ma got the message that he was on the way shortly after the movers left just as we were thinking about lunch options... so at least we didn't have to reorganise the rest of the day around waiting.

We went and grabbed some Oporto for lunch, then back to the old house to work out what the fuck needed to happen next.

The answer was carry a bunch of bullshit downstairs and pack the cars up, repeat until dead.

But we got there eventually.

And after work, one of Ma's coworkers showed up and helped out, which turned out to be somewhat of a godsend, even if he did have a front row seat to the tired and sleep deprived version of the Ma and Yani show. Which is a great show, don't get me wrong, but yeah...

Everything that was left when we finished packing up the cars was either cleaning stuff to be left behind, random shit and probably needed to be chucked and a very small amount of "still need to pack that up" detritus.

We got back to the new place, unpacked everything and then I settled in to build Ma's IKEA wardobe, so her clothes actually had a place to live.

Anyone who has been around should know that I'm pretty fucking good at building IKEA shit. I built 3 Billy bookcases, 3 of those narrower cases that should be Billy but probably aren't, a "cafe/bar" table and two stools, a kitchen workbench, a small chest of drawers and a large chest of drawers. I'm pretty decent at this shit.

The wardrobe kicked my ass more than it should have. I claim complete and total exhaustion... but I had to take the sides off and put them back on the correct way up at one point. And while the doors close, they don't line up and there is a huge gap between two of them that may or may not have been part of the original design (if not, then I have NO idea why it's there). And the nailing the back on was a decided clusterfuck. But it went together and didn't immediately fall down when we put clothes in it, so I'm calling that a win.

Ma pottered around while I did that, and her workmate had to leave for a little while, but came back at a certain point (helped me stand up the wardrobe so I could finish it) and reorganised everything that the movers had put into places that Ma didn't like (mostly the box placement). And he rearranged the furniture in the living room (to the room design Ma and I came up with on the fly) and got things a little better organised so that the "oh god, oh god, oh god" feeling that always accompanies the day after a move when you see the chaos of your life spread across the floor of a new house.

Weirdly one of the topics of discussion was all the possible places we could put the Christmas tree in December... and there were a surprisingly large number of options, which is good.

And it was about 11pm by the time we all called it quits.

I was pretty damn shattered by that point... and driving home was a bit of an adventure... as was the simple act of walking from the car to the house. But I took a quick shower and fell into bed.

And my body pretty much gave up at that point. Everything just hurt. I also think that every time I would have just rolled over in my sleep I woke up because my body went "nup, can't do that boo, hurts too much".

This morning was... an adventure. I was convinced that my back was going to render me a useless lump, and the first steps out of bed were inconclusive. I could walk, but I was basically a little old man. Plus there was the lovely cough, from inhaling all the dust that comes along with a move.

A hot shower and some general movement helped, and I headed out to do my shopping an hour late, but still able to move, albeit a little slowly.

You know how they say "never go grocery shopping when you're hungry"... I would add "or the day after you've helped somebody move house" to that as good life advice. I basically bought frozen meals because I couldn't be bothered... and if I ended up flat on my back, I could at least feed myself to a degree. So the trolley looked a little sad, and I probably bought some comfort foods to just make myself feel better.

And carrying groceries up the stairs at my place was something of a challenge, but not horrible.

But then this afternoon I had a friend's engagement party... which mean I had to dress like a "grown up" for the first time in almost two years, and most of the people I knew at the party had never seen me in anything but nerdy tshirts, so that was amusing.

I basically hung out with the people I already knew, which is usually what happens at any kind of party, especially one where it seems like it's mostly family. But it was nice to be their for the pair of them, because while I mostly know him, she's lovely. I also got to meet his mum after hearing a lot about her, and she's fantastic.

So we hung out, ate some really good food, then made our leave when it seemed like the correct time do to so. I think the standing around was probably better for me than just sitting around the apartment, but I may pay for it tomorrow.

And I came home and had a nap, because I just couldn't even anymore.

But here we are... all caught up.

Now I really need to sleep... and hopefully I'll be a little better tomorrow.

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