Posted by Mike Blake
Mon, 11 May 2009 17:38:00 GMT
Ten Must See Fringe Shows
The Orlando Fringe is just days away. If you don’t have time to hang out at the beer tent to get instant show reviews, here’s a few gems I’ll be attending. I’ll start with the more mainstream picks, shows that should be fun for the whole family, then move on to some picks for mature audiences.
Family Style
The Fringe can get freaky. If your hanging with young ones, or old ones, you may want to ease into any potential culture shock with one of the shows with a “General Audience” Rating.
These clowns are really season veterans from Orlando’s own Sak Comedy Lab who have been honing their craft for years on Monday nights at Taste. With a completely new show every performance, and only $7 a ticket, this show may be the best bang for your buck in the whole festival.
How about the “Best Solo Performance” in the DC Fringe? This presentation of 7 Samurai “complete with peasants, bandits, samurai warriors, and a spectacular fight scene ” will not disappoint!
The talented students and staff of Winter Springs Performing Arts are putting on an all out production they’re calling a “Musical Theater Dramady”. Supporting local artists and showcasing new talent is the Fringe at its best. This show should be very entertaining.
The talented local favorites at Voci Dance team up with NY’s DeXdance team up for an “edgy, intelligent adventure in contemporary dance theatre.” These dancers are pure pleasure to watch.
This is a must see. A fresh look at a refined art form, perhaps the most accomplished artists in the Fringe do the entertaining in this show. Ricardo Garcia’s guitar playing could put this show in the Music category below, but you get the idea. Just see this show.
Did I mention award winning shows? Mevlin Brown has gotten rave reviews from Edinburgh Scotland to Ausin Texas, and a couple of Fringes in between. We’re lucky to have international stars like this here in O-Town.
Heather Henson brings together the best of Orlando’s amazing puppet scene for this all out Puppet Fest. Local favorite Wavey Davey performs Friday the 15th at 6PM. With a different show every night, you may want to attend the Puppet Slam more than once.
Cheeky
Once you’ve started fringing, why not take advantage of the 100% uncensored feature , and challenge your sensibilities? Here’s some shows that should be entertaining as well as a bit embarrassing if you watch them sitting next to your Mom or you local clergyman (or both).
This show’s not really ‘cheeky’ just different. Click on the link above, than click reviews. Even professional reviewers don’t know how to describe this show. I sure don’t, but I’m seeing it again. It’s that strange, and that good.
Posted by Mike Blake
Fri, 02 Jan 2009 16:08:00 GMT
This morning I made a long list of things I’d like to do more, and things I’d like to do less. In the interest of brevity, I decided to combine similar items. Hoping to get my New Years resolutions down to a sentence or two, I did even better. All my goals boiled down to one word. Focus.
This year I will be more focused.
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For instance, I’d like to play more guitar, and exercise more. Obviously focusing on these goals for short periods of time will help.
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Ironically, focusing on the activities I want to do less will also help. My things I’d like to do less are really “Less is More” resolutions. Having my own business allows me to take Fridays off. It’s my way of sticking it to the man. But this year I’m going to take off fewer Fridays. Why? Because when I always have Fridays off I don’t enjoy them nearly as much. That’s just one example, but the “Less is More” maxim applies to any excessive habit. So this year my bad habits will be less frequent, but much more enjoyable. Thanks to my new habit, Focus.
Posted by Mike Blake
Fri, 05 Dec 2008 13:37:00 GMT
The purpose of KPoz sports is to demonstrate a sports rating system that is completely objective. The KPoz model satisfies the required properties of statistical ranking models: transparency, verifiability, and accuracy. The result is that KPoz ratings and point spreads are often more accurate than the prevailing systems. So what does this get us?
Alternative Rankings
The two prevailing Rankings in the NCAA, The BCS standings, and the AP Top 25 are based partly on emotion and human influence. Everyone respects an unbeaten record, but sometimes that’s the result of an easier schedule.
KPoz NCAA Football Rankings have Texas at number one this week. The other two have them at number 3. So how do we know who’s right? Head to head matchups.
Alternative Spreads
The only way to know for sure when a team is better than another is a game. KPoz computes point spreads for upcoming games based on the rankings. When the KPoz spread is signigicantly different than the prevailing spread, KPoz really shines. Take the NFL Office Pool Picks each week and pick the top 5 games whose spreads are the most different than published spreads. You can get all this data in spreadsheet format as well from the Football Statistics page. Here you can compare to other spreads, sort, then make your picks. You’ll be surprised.
Posted by Mike Blake
Tue, 23 Sep 2008 02:46:00 GMT
If the election were held today, here’s the result.
(Analysis of each swing state is below.)
<p><strong>><a href='http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2008/pick-your-president/'>2008 Election Contest: Pick Your President</a></strong> – Predict the winner of the 2008 presidential election and enter to win a $500 prize.</p>
Swing States:
Colorado
Barely Obama’s, and historically Republican, but holding the Democratic convention here turned out to be brilliant. McCain didn’t even get it back during the GOP convention, so I think Obama wins Colorado.
Ohio
McCain’s most brilliant move is the Sarah Palin pick. The Hockey Mom with the folksy accent wins over the suburban Ohio family and keeps Ohio a red state.
Pennsylvania
Democrat in the last four elections, and should stay that way since McCain couldn’t manage to take the lead here even during the post convention bounce.
Florida
No need for Katherine Harris’s votes this time. McCain has a good lead and should keep the Republican trend.
Nevada
Another Republican state, and McCain is hanging on tough here, although a bit closer than Florida, it will likely stay red.
New Hampshire
For every other swing state, I’m predicting a win for the candidate with a slight lead in the polls,and backing it up with historical precedence in that state. That strategy leaves New Hampshire open.Since McCain fared better here in the primaries than Obama did, and he has a slight lead today in this University of New Hampshire poll , I gave it to him. Plus that leaves us with the fascinating result of an Electoral College tie.
Virginia
Although Virgina was tied for a while, McCain seems to be pulling away. And Republican margins of victory in prior elections have been quite large.
Wisconsin
If you border more than one Great Lake, you’re an Obama state. Even taking advantage of delegate strippers won’t change that.
Posted by Mike Blake
Wed, 17 Sep 2008 17:45:18 GMT
I’ve created a new AppTrain blog to focus on my Web Application Company’s efforts. I’ll try to keep posts about Ruby, Rails, and Web Application Development there, and keep Martinicity as what it was originally, my personal blog. Martinicity is a state of mind man.
Please click above to support the rehabilitation of John “Chip” Cusack.
Last week I played four golf courses in Orlando with four of the Cusack brothers. But there was one Cusack brother missing. From the Raffle flyer:
> Last September, John was taking a bike ride in his Northport neighborhood with his son when he fell off his bike and suffered a severe head trauma. He was airlifted to Stonybrook Hospital, had emergency brain surgery and began the long, painful process back.
Posted by Mike Blake
Thu, 13 Dec 2007 17:54:00 GMT
In a freak accident back in September my friend John Cusack fell off a bicycle in Northport, NY and suffered a serious head injury. It’s been a very painful year for the Cusack family and friends. Obviously it saddened me deeply to learn that Brian Maguire suffered a similar injury.
In John’s case, the waking up process was very gradual. After about a week in an induced coma similar to Brian’s, John began to show signs of life. The first sign of a functioning brain was the ability to blink when asked to blink. Slowly, day after day, there were subtle improvements. Response to stimuli, Open eyes tracking movement . At some point John was moved from a ventilator to a trachea. Then there was recognition of friends and family. Eventually there was movement of limbs and talking, (although talking is nearly impossible with the trachea.) . Now after a cranioplasty to restore his skull, John is scheduled to be moved to a Rehabilitation Center today where he will relearn basic muscle movements, and hopefully walk again.
The Cuscacks have set up a site here if you’d like to learn more. John Cusack .
With a brain injury, there is always hope. I pray that good news continues to break for both John and Brian, and however long it takes, I hope I can spend time with them again in this world.
Posted by Mike Blake
Tue, 23 Oct 2007 06:46:00 GMT
Yesterday The South Carolina news station WLTX ran this news blurb about my brothers paper, Columbia Citypaper . It’s really not a big deal on the surface, some restaurant owner doesn’t want the paper there anymore because of the content of an ad. However what’s disconcerting is that the news station itself decides to blame the story on Columbia Citypaper. The first words of the story are “A Columbia newspaper is causing controversy …” Later in the story my brother Paul explains that he got a call a week ago asking him not to distribute the paper to that particular restaurant, and he was glad to comply.
WLTX Generates a controversy
A week later, after the issue has been easily resolved, WLTX makes this their top story. So who’s trying to cause controversy? WLTX is. And they have the audacity to start the story with “A Columbia newspaper is causing controversy ..” a blatant lie. The reporting gets more peculiar as they proceed to air what is a free add for the local restaurant. There is a couple seconds of Paul Blake saying they no longer deliver to that restaurant at the request of the owners. Then Paul does something interesting, and makes an intelligent point right in the middle of their fluff piece. He says “I just don’t think graphic language leads to any irresponsible behavior.”
Biased Flag Waving
The point of course goes ignored. What follows is a tirade about an “argument as american as the flag flying over the restaurant”, completely ignoring the point made by Paul, who happens to have a flag displayed in the window over his shoulder. Columbia Citypaper’s flag gets no mention though. The news station does take another dig at Columbia Citypaper by saying “Check our web site for a list of other sites that have banned the paper.” They fail to mention any of the reasons the other places have banned it. They also fail to mention their source, Columbia Citypaper which playfully publishes a list of establishments that ban them every week.
Speaking of Fuck
This particular ban was due to the use of foul language in an ad. David Heinemeier Hansson, the creator of the Rails web framework (which powers the Columbia Citypaper site) recently made a couple posts about colorful language. He point’s out that swearing at work boosts morale . This is far too interesting though for use on an evening tv news blurb.
An epidemic?
Last week here in Orlando, FL , police arrested employees of The Orlando Weekly because of ads that paper publishes. I’m serious, They were arrested for publishing an ad. Now I’m concerned. Can this happen to anyone who works for a newspaper? Some writers like to imply that the US government is behind
current attitudes towards the media. Stories like the one in Orlando make those arguments more plausible. When is it time to fight back, when you hear about any alleged rights violation? When someone you know has their right’s violated? Or do you wait until it’s a relative?
