Kermopoly Chronicles

Well it's now just three weeks until opening of King Kalimari! Things are shaping up really nicely. We did costume fittings last week and this week we start a series of full rehearsals. Everyone is really pulling together now and I'm so excited and happy to be a part of this show! I'm looking forward to performing and seeing many of you at the shows. I'm also planning on doing a series of updates leading up to the show and once the show starts to let you know how things are progressing for me and the whole production. Thanks to Derek Kent and the whole cast and crew for making this a great time for me!

Gas Watch

Today I was driving past one of my favorite (and by that I mean cheapest) gas stations. It's an Arco station at Pioneer and Slauson in Santa Fe Springs. The low Grade gas (the only one I buy) was $3.03 and 9/10's cent. Also known as $3.04 per gallon. Speaking of that when with the money hungry gas companies drop the insipid pretense of tacking on 9/10 of a cent to the price of a gallon of gas. Back in the (not too long ago) days of under $1.00/gallon gas perhaps 9/10's of a cent made some kind of rational sense as a marketing ploy to charge us a penny more with out really LOOKING like they were after 0.03 and 9/10 (in small print) looks like less than 0.04 cents. But it really isn't! Where else in society do we get charged 1 tenth of 1 CENT less on an price of any producte EXCEPT GAS!!!! This is rediculous and an insult to our intelligence - especially in these days of OVER $3.00 per gallon prices. STOP IT NOW I SAY!

Note to all Gas companies and millionaire abundant Arab countries: Drop the 9/10 cent and just charge the extra 1/10 of a cent. Easier for you, farer for everyone and a lot less stupid looking on gas billboards! Not that I'm promoting higher prices, but let's get real here!

Money Mondays

Hi everyone,

Well it's Monday and I found myself without too much to add to the blog today but I started thinking about money (after a trip to the bank to replenish what I'd spent at the comptuer fair this weekend). So I decided since many of my friends and even myself don't do a good enough job of saving money, I'd spell out a savings plan I'd heard of and have (almost) implemented on a regular basis.

Rule is: Always pay yourself first! The easiest way to do this is to take 10% off the top of any money you make/earn/steal/borrow and spirit it away to a savings account you aren't otherwise going to TOUCH! So, every time I get paid (I'm actually looking into ways to automate this) I try to take 10% (off the top - not after taxes) and put that into a saving account. It's amazing but you barely notice it once it's gone!!! and it's also amazing how fast it can add up in a good interest bearing account! 10% too much you say! Even though many of you will give/tithe that much to God, you can't seem to give 10% to yourself - even though YOU earned it and God loves you as he loves himself (not to get to religious), but you DO deserve that much. If you still can't find it in yourself or your budget to give yourself, start with 5% and work up from there after a few months - once you realize you really CAN give yourself that much. No matter what percent you start with, it's better than nothing and by the time you retire - (you DO plan on retiring with some money saved don't you?) you'll have a nice sum to support you in your 'golden years'.

[Photo by Rex Hoss -all rights reserved]

Even Cooler Virtual Keyboard

Well I have a link to an online 'virtual' keyboard, but I found another one which is even cooler! It has various instruments you can choose from, a chord mode and even a limited set of drum beats to keep you accompanied. It's pretty fun and a great way to find your pitch if you're practicing your vocalizaitons or just need a way to spend some down-time in between inportant web surfing.

Click the link below or in the title of this post to get to the virtual keyboard and have fun!

Virtual Keyboard

Computer Fair Weekend

LA's biggest and best computer fair is this weekend! It's in Pomona, CA so if you're interested and in the area check it out. To satisfy your inner geek they have many computer and oddly some non-computer related items for sale.

Although I've been a fan of the computer fair for many years I have to admit that in the last couple of years the size and variety of the shows has decreased lately. Several years ago they held them in a variety of locations from Santa Barbara to San Diego, but for some reason they've cut back on the number of locations and the number of vendors.

It is still a great place to purchase and puruse computer related items. Examples are, full custom built computers for usually less than your giant retail stores offer them, a huge assortment of individual parts from hard drives to USB drives to CPU's and fans. Some of my personal favorites are their prices on USB thumb drives, and various memory cards. I recentlypicked up a 4 Gig SD card for my Digital Camera at a fraction of the cost I'd pay at a retail store. I also pick up printer ink at a fraction of retail prices! You have to love that.

So, check it out - They hold the computer fair at least once a month in Pomona and some times in Orange County! Its a fun way to spend time looking and buying computer related items.

Enjoy and happy

Saturday Stuff

Just something to make you pause and think, and maybe motivate you to keep trying when it might seem ridiculous to others.

I'm going to post a few things like this in the future. We'll see how it goes.

Here in Van Nuys: Rex Hoss and Daniel Shilleci as Bomb Squad detectives.

Here in Van Nuys: Rex Hoss and Daniel Shilleci as Bomb Squad detectives.

Andrew Hurvitz has put a cool picture and a post about me from a CourtTV show we worked on together a while back! Thanks Andrew!

Friday Photos

Here's a picture I took at the Calico Ghost Town last year. I think it turned out looking like it should be on a postcard, but feel free to let me know what you think.

I'll be posting some of my favorite pictures I've taken to share with you. I may even start another blog with some more 'specialized' photos for those with more decerning tastes - those of you who are, KNOW who you are. LOL Anyway enjoy the picture. Do something fun this weekend - and photograph it!

Friday Free Stuff

I'm just going to mention a great FREE program for web browsing. It's called Firefox and if you don't know about it already, you should check it out. It's got some great features which Microsoft has only recently implement in their latest browser IE7. First and best is Tabbed browsing. For those unfamiliar, it's basically tabs which you can keep various websites open in. This allows you to quickly jump between several favorite sites! Firefox is also, by all accounts, safer than IE, and it's Free. Check out the link to the firefox site and download it. It only takes a few minutes and you'll be on your way to safer, easier web surfing.

Download Firefox

Look for some postings to other free software in the coming weeks!

King Kalimari Update

This week was exciting, we finished up in the recording studio - making a cast album of all of the songs from the musical! I believe it will be on sale at the shows if you're interested. It was pretty great for me to be back in a recording studio after many years away from recording music.

Also, last night we had a costume fitting session, it was fun seeing the cast in various costume combinations trying to find out what was going to work for each character. I got off pretty easy since I'm playing a chef - it's a pretty simple costume. Some of the characters are much more elaborate and fun! Behind the scenes note: It was also interesting to see which cast members are shy and which are NOT! Some felt compelled to change right in front of everyone and others had a lot more 'discretion'.

Next week should be exciting - we're having our first Dress Rehearsal! Get to see all our costumes in action! Check back for more details!

Friday Fragments

There would be nothing to frighten you

if you refused to be afraid.

-Gandhi

Take chances. When rowing forward, the boat may rock. -Chinese Proverb

Day's End

Hi everyone. If you're checking back (or here for the first time) today was my first day for this blog. It's been pretty fun setting it up and getting responses back from many of you. Thanks for checking it out. Make sure you check back regularly. I'm not sure how often I'll be updating it but I'm going to try to keep things interesting for those of you who do check back on a regular basis. Since my acting career is a little slow, I'll probably update you and post things about some of my other interests. Photography is a great hobby for me and I'll probably post some of the pictures I take or have taken that I like. I'm going to also be posting some photos from past acting gigs I've done so those of you who've read my "Shout Out" newsletter might see some old-ish photos from there. At any rate, thanks again for checking things out. If you have any ideas or comments please feel free to comment on any of my posts (try to keep comments relevant). Till next time...

Prize Winning

Back in January, I entered a photography contest and to my surprise and delight, I actually won 3rd place for one of my photos. Check it out

Photochromers

Online Piano

Found this link to a pretty interesting site. It's a virtual piano! It's Java based and pretty simple but it works if you just need to get your "pitch" on!

Play a Piano

More King Kalimari Info

here's the back of the KK postcard.

King Kalimari Update

Hi everyone, here's the flyer/postcard annoucing King Kalimari, hot off the digital press.

Welcome

Hi everyone! This is the official start of my Blog. I guess it's about time a self proclaimed computer geek like me got on the band wagon and created a blog. I just never felt I had anything worth posting on a Blog on a regular basis before. In some ways I still don't think I do, but I'm giving it a whirl anyway.

This is an evolving project so bare with me an check back regularly.