Sing Along with Buffy!

Those of you who have known me for a while may recall my years of obsession with the TV program "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". Perhaps obsession is too mild a word. At the suggestion of my older daughter, I somewhat passively tuned in one night in early 1997 to catch the first season episode entitled "I, Robot... You, Jane". Life would never be the same! I was intrigued by the cast (of course), the witty dialogue, the bargain basement special effects, and of course, the soap opera that was to become the seven-season plot.

So I found it quite interesting the other day when, wondering what had ever become of our heroine Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar), I came across a current picture of her, decked out in Chanel, on the InStyle magazine website. The very next day, in one of those rare coincidences, I received a call from my friend Tanya who told me about an upcoming event to be held the following evening, a Buffy Sing-Along. Voila! What could be a better way to spend a Saturday night in the ATL?

This past Saturday, my younger daughter, a friend of hers, and I headed out a special showing of "Once More, with Feeling: The Buffy Musical" at Atlanta's Plaza Theatre. "Once More" was a special episode aired during the sixth season of BtVS (for those of us hardcore show fans) in which a typical demon-comes-to-town story is set to rollicking show tunes -- our version was complete with a bouncing ball and subtitles. On the way into the theatre, we were handed kits of goodies, including soap bubbles, a finger puppet, fake vampire teeth, and crackers, all to be used in a sort of Rocky Horror audience participation adventure.


And participate we did! When Spike appeared, we yelled "Hotness!" Whenever Buffy's younger sister Dawn tried to get a word in edgewise, we would all say in unison, "Shut up, Dawn!" And when Tara levitated above her bed in a trance-like state of euphoria, we pulled the string on our crackers, filling the theatre air with the smell of exploded caps. It was divine.

Now, we're just waiting for the return. Next time, I'll take along more of my middle-aged friends and probably a few more youth. We all have one thing in common -- love for Her Royal Highness, the Buffness. And let it be known that this presentation is making its way across the U.S.A. -- before you know it, it'll be in your town as well. Click here for the website, with this season's complete schedule.

Grrr...arrgh! (Inside joke for you BtVS fans...)

Rico =:)

Light in August?

Many years ago on a warm summer night, famed Southern novelist William Faulkner was sitting on the porch with his wife Estelle when she commented on how light in the South during the month of August seemed to exhibit a most peculiar quality. Faulkner liked this idea and soon renamed the novel he was writing from its working title of Dark House to Light in August. Perhaps you have that book on your shelves now.

Certainly, here in the South we have had light in August this year. Light, and heat...extreme heat. I have lived in Atlanta for most of 25 years, and I have yet to see a summer with such protracted high temperatures. We were driving a car without air conditioning for a few days during the hottest of the weeks, and it was practically unbearable.

Yet I recall as a child in Memphis that we did not have A/C everywhere. In fact, our schools were not air conditioned. We had these tall chrome-plated fans that pushed the hot air around our high-ceilinged classrooms, while dark green shades would be pulled down during the day to reduce the sun's glare and heat. At the same time, school officials deemed it distasteful to allow young men to wear shorts at school (girls could, but they had to be "culottes"). Still, I don't recall being particularly hot during the day, which says something about how we've acclimated to climate control over the years.

Air conditioning is often credited with spurring at least part of the growth in the Sun Belt in recent years. Indeed, if you have to work over a weekend in a modern office building without A/C, you will soon see how these buildings could never have been built in this part of the country without it...the air becomes stale in short order. Of course, we could open windows in the "old days", and that helped to some degree. Nowadays, if you live south of the Mason-Dixon line, it is hard to imagine living without "air" during the summer months.

But the temperatures appear to be abating -- today's forecast calls for a high of only 98, and that's not bad. One day last week when I headed home from work, the car thermometer registered 111. Yes, it's definitely cooling off.

Dil Se - Chaiyya Chaiyya

What can I say? Total entertainment! I am still very much on my Bollywood kick, and at this point, it shows no signs of slowing down, much less stopping. Many of my friends are now either providing me names of movies to watch or the DVD's themselves. I'm loving this!

The other day, I came across one particular video which caught my eye. My apologies to my Indian friends, because I know that this is somewhat dated, but here in the US, we just don't see that many videos filmed on top of moving trains! Enjoy!

Wired in the ATL

I heard a story on National Public Radio today about how Atlanta now ranks as the top city in the nation for frequency of email checking. I believe this. One of the factors cited was the increased use of Blackberries and other mobile devices, and another was the long commutes that many of us experience every work day -- drives so long that we somehow feel we have to stay in touch or get a jump on the day ahead.

I own a Windows Mobile smartphone. It's a lot like a Blackberry, only smaller, and with a Windows interface. I know that I must check email at least twenty times a day, and that doesn't count text messages and real honest-to-goodness-people-on-the-other-end cell phone calls. I receive email from four different sources, each with its own separate email address. Oh, yes...I am definitely one of the guilty ones.

Here's an example of how geeked-out things can get: At an after-work P-Council libations session the other night, we took a cell phone picture of our friend Sonya, who had procured some pink Wellington boots to match her pink De La Hoya-Mayweather boxing match baseball cap. Ensuring that the picture met with Sonya's approval, we then Bluetooth-beamed the picture around to each of our phones. We did this in a public place. High nerd mode at its finest. Of course, in the picture, Sonya is talking on her own cell phone. It never stops.

So when I hear that we are way wired down here and that we're always checking email (even in church, according to the radio story), I have to laugh and plead insanity. But I've gotta say...it is kinda cool. Spin my propeller... =:)

Monsoon Season

It may be common in India, but in Atlanta, it is odd. We get our summer rains, of course, but not quite like the ones we've experienced for the last two weeks. My work compadres and I sit on the third floor of a modern office building, directly beneath the roof. It started raining off and on about two weeks ago, and it shows no signs of stopping. Every afternoon, a torrential rain comes along and washes the place clean.

Several days ago, while taking the stairs to get a little microcardio workout, I noticed that the building roof sits only a foot or two above our floor. Maybe this explains why storms have such an impact. Whenever it rains, we hear a gentle roar from the roof above, but in more severe thunderstorms, it sometimes sounds like the place is going to come apart.

I don't see evidence of any roof leaks at this point, but rest assured that I'm ready to bring in a poncho if necessary.