dear lazy-localweb

Does anybody have a nice color printer available either today or tomorrow for to print out something for me? I have a single-sheet file in either EPS or big fat JPEG format and will buy you a beer or a Spike's dog or something if you can print it and meet up with me at some point, either this afternoon or next, I'm not picky. Though this afternoon might work better so we don't have to TRUDGE THROUGH THE ARCTIC SNOWDRIFTS tomorrow.

merci,
Spat

ch

whoa how did you get here

office flora

A little bit after lunch I ran into our receptionist (bam! ouch!) who mentioned I had a package waiting for me in the mail room. "I think you have a Vaaaaaalentiiiiiine!" she said. So I went over and found the box and took it back to my cube.

Inside were a little over two dozen carnations in the most amazing shade of purple you've ever seen on a carnation. And they came with their own glass vase, which is also wonderful because I've been needing a nice vase for a while. The deep purple combined with the green stems are neat, and it goes so well against the backdrop of an industrial drab cubicle wall.

I have a Vaaaaaaalentiiiiiiiine!

The card attached read, in part, "Why? Because guys don't often get flowers; they smell nice; they make you popular with the ladies and gossips in the office; I wanted to."

The third part sure is true, everybody is going "oooooOOOOoooh!" as they pass by. And the flowers have now pretty much opened up fully and look just wonderful.

R Jo, you're just wonderful. Thank you so much for putting a permagrin on my face today. You are the ginchiest, babe.

I've got a huge mistake feeling about this

Fans of the Bluth family may think this could very well be one of the coolest pictures ever.

A valentine song from 1928... well, sorta.

The Drowsy Chaperone, for a show under two hours, has a whole biplane-load of catchy, singable songs with some clever word construction and whatnot -- a blindfolded bridegroom on rollerskates, for example, singing "I'm An Accident Waiting To Happen." Or his bride-to-be, a Broadway star who's giving it all up to marry him, singing a song about how she no longer wants to show off... but of course, she ends up showing off in a big production number. And then there's Adolpho, the Latin lothario who wants to make sure joo know his name, and that he can sing his name very fast -- adlfo! -- or very slowly ("I would do eet now, but eet would take hours.")

One of the sweeter subplots (if indeed this show can claim to have "plots" whatsoever) is the budding romance between Mrs. Tottendale, the aging dowager who is hosting the wedding at her palatial estate, and Underling, her faithful and somewhat appropriately-named butler. Mrs. Tottendale is ... not quite with it. Her elevator hasn't gone to the top since the elevator was invented. In the show-within-the-show, Mrs. Tottendale is played by the former vaudeville star Ukelele Lil; in our reality, or what passes for it, Georgia Engel plays the role on Broadway. She's also known for playing Ted Baxter's dimwitted wife Georgette on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and, appropriately, Mrs. Tottendale is an older verison of Georgette: sweet, kind, and innocently stupid. Underling, of course, is the right and proper butler type, who often gets frustrated at Mrs. Tottendale's complete lack of understanding... well, anything. But he likes her anyway.

Of course, they have a lovely duet in the second act where they finally realize they have a thing for each other. Originally, the duet was a ditty called "I Remember Love", which had cute lyrics ("I remember 'oink' / I remember 'moo' / I remember petting something furry at the zoo / And I remember love -- at least, I think I do") but wasn't quite enough. The replacement song, "Love Is Always Lovely In The End", is much more charming, full of delicious internal rhymes, a sweetly warped premise and has one of my favorite off-handed jokes in the show (the 'tragedy' exchange.) I'll throw the lyrics in under the cut. I'm not sure why there's a big block o' whitespace before the table; but hey, that's love LiveJournal parsing HTML for you.

( and I won't mention the long, drawn-out spit take scene )