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I had what I hope is my last day of work for this year on Friday. Paula and I are off on a Cruise on Monday. It leaves out of Long Beach and does Catalina and Ensenada then back. It’s a one weeker and the following Monday is Christmas. Our office is officially closed the week after Christmas. We have a ton of work to do but we can’t do any of it unless we get the prices for next season’s shows from NY. If we don’t get them (and I really doubt that we will) then I’m done until after the new year. How great is that. And the cabin is rented the week before New Year’s day. Gotta love that too! Except that we’d love to go there but a rental is a rental.

We are finally getting back in the saddle. I’m directing a staged reading of Sunday in the Park with George. It rehearses in January and performs the first week of February. I don’t have my regular music director on this project. He’s got another gig so I’m not really as confident in the final product, but hey—it’s only a staged reading. Paula is going to work with me on it so at least the organization is going to be top notch. I’m toying with the idea of doing the show to tracks instead of an accompanist. I’ve found a bunch of midi files on line which would make the project doable. Now I’ve just got to find my studio equipment (which is buried in the garage) and see what I can do to pound them into place. It would be more work for me but it would make the project sound a lot better. But its work that I love doing so we’ll see how it goes.

I finally saw Brokeback Mountain last night on HBO. (Am I right up to date on my movies or what!) What a great film! It sure shone a bright light on the last, biggest prejudice still in the American mainstream. No wonder it made such big waves when it came out. I still haven’t seen Davinci yet but I’ve got it on my Netflix.

Let me chime in on David’s Mac vs PC question. I went back to university in 1991. I did all my papers on DOS machines in the business computer lab back then using keyboard command word processing. In those days it was no contest between the ease of use of a Mac and the nerd head geekness needed to run a PC. In grad school I was the supervisor for the Music Lab which was all first generation Mac Power PCs. The Inet was a baby then and the best and most programs were built for the Mac. I was a rabid Mac head then for obvious reasons. In the years after I matriculated two strange things happened. PC’s got easier to use and Macs got harder, and with the advent of Windows 95 and more importantly 98, the functionality of the PC platform was far more versatile than the Mac. I was heartbroken. I had been emotionally involved in the debate and loved the rebel Apple icon opposing the IBM industrial giant PC but the reality was obvious. Then the biggest change that sealed the deal was the acceptance of the Microsoft environment as the standard. That more than anything is my most compelling argument for the PC. I live in the real world and no matter how much I want the Mac to be the most useful, the reality is that programs and files are built for the PC and then modified (if it’s deemed necessary) for the Mac. If I want to work and communicate with NY and Tucson and LA and Chicago or anywhere, I need to work on the standard platform. I’m still completely convinced the Mac is the better machine. It’s better made and the basic machine is more powerful than the basic PC. The Mac will last longer and will give fewer problems than the PC. But it’s just not compatible with the much larger network of machines that you plug in to on the net. And network compatibility is King. I know this first hand because my corporate offices in NY are all Macs, and their lack of progressive capability is made obvious every day. San Diego far outstrips the network capabilities of NY.

Well that’s my computer rant, for what it’s worth.