Last Fringe post of 2004, I swear. (Otherwise known as Part IV)

Yes, Frenchman, this'll be the last one...

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Where was I? Oh, right. Wednesday eve was over and done. Although I now remember, we were a little over in time at this concert, which pissed off the father of the juggling busker family, since we took a bit of HIS time.

(Seriously, guy. You had the final show of the evening, so you could afford to go a bit over in your time slot. Besides, I've seen the show. People weren't missing much. As Dev had said on the first day of Fringe, "That's an outdoor stage show? When we got there, I was wondering who had given an audience member the mic!")

So, Thursday's show was not hugely memorable. No huge epiphany moment like the night previous, where something special was happening.

Still, a non-descript show is still a solid show where we had a small crowd, sold some merchandise, and ended up with a decent haul of cash.

No, wait. This concert was memorable because I sold the hoodie off my back afterwards. It was cold, so I decided to wear the hoodie again, but I also added my shiny green shirt to give myself the attitude I needed after so many shows. Time to start showing off my quirky side once again.

After the show, Canton yelled over to me, "Hey, Jago! This girl wants a hoodie! Can she have the one you're wearing?"

I said, "Sure. I guess. If she's wanting it, by all means. Does she want it NOW?"

So, I pulled it off, thankful I had an overshirt I could button up and use as a shirt instead of being half naked for DieNasty.

That afternoon, Canton, Marie F. and I went to Rigoletto's downtown for lunch. Pretty good stuff there. I had the Chicken Parmigiana, with a great side of steamed vegetables with sort of a spicy marinade.

That night, Canton, Marie F., D! and I went to Hudsons' for a mighty large plate of nachos for D! and I to share. And then I had the beef dip.

(Yeah, this quickly turned into the week of eating at a crapload of places I've never been. Jago's taking chances foodwise. Sorta.)

Friday afternoon, Canton and I went to Von's, a place he's never been, for a great lunch (New York Steak Sammich for me.), followed by a concert.

Then we went to see Waiting for Her Beau, a parody of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot written by a friend, Teri.

It was a good play. Not quite Real Time, but a fun play nonetheless.

My prodlem with the play stems from the source material.

Don't get me wrong, I love Samuel Beckett. Absurdist theatre is fun to read and did do new things on the stage.

Still, have you read some of his stuff? Like Krapp's Last Tape? If I had seen it, I'm sure I wouldn't have enjoyed it that much.

The thing is, absurdist theatre is SUPPOSED to challenge you. And I know the play Waiting for Godot, although I've never seen it. It's easier to laugh while reading it in thirty minutes than to watch it with all it's pauses and repeated lines in the space of an hour and a half.

And then the play is rewritten to be about two girls waiting for a guy to call a pay phone? A parody of absurdist theatre is STILL absurdist theatre.

At the 45 minute mark, I was almost falling asleep, thinking, "God, they've got another day to go through, and it's the same thing that happened the day before!"

So, good performances by the people involved, but otherwise, it was okay. Nothing special to really recommend, especially if you're not in the mood for nouveau Beckett.

Friday eve, we went to see Die-Nasty again, and before the show, A-lo was acknowledging me again. Which is a relief, since I had no clue if I had done or said something wrong between Rich's wedding and now, or if I had not said or done something I should have...

Sigh. In any case, nothing's wrong here. Which is something to be glad about.

Saturday: D! wanted to go pick up a new PS2 to replace the one that crapped out on him a few months back. And his mom was involved in the dragon boat races.

So we got to the river to see Maman D! cross the finish line in the rain with her team.

Afterwards, we decided to have a lunch. So D!, Maman D!, D!'s brother's fiancee and I went to Bistro Praha.

Now this was some great Euro cooking! The entrees were a bit pricey, so I went with a salad and some side pan-fried potatoes. The salad had greens, onions, tomatoes, and ham drenched in a lemon oil dressing that was to DIE for. And the potatoes were also excellent.

And the waitress was very lovely as well. I think I'll be going back there at some point.

Then D! and I went shopping downtown, he bought his PS2 and a shirt, I bought a new video game and some manila envelopes (both to be described a little later...)

That night was a late night concert after the stages were opened up after the rain had stopped.

It was a cold, dark, wet night. We got on stage and had about ten people in front of us.

Man, did we BUILD that crowd! It was very cool to see the audience swell to about eighty strong with us just rocking the house. Since there was really no point in doing things half-assed, we had no fear (a common theme throughout this Fringe) and just gave it as much as we can.

Girls were dancing on the side of the stage, Dev would jump out into the audience and dance with them, it was great.

At this point, so many shows into the Fringe, we had realized what songs were and weren't working, so we finessed our set into a bunch of songs that people wanted to hear more of.

Hell, on Saturday, we even brought out Sub-Zero, a song we haven't sung in years, mostly because I'm still dragging my ass in re-arranging the music for it to fit five people. I sang it in all it's campy goodness.

Then the rain started. But we still sang, and, for the most part, people stuck it out, either running to the gazebo or just standing where they were, getting drenched.

I figured we should end off with Spider-Man, just so we'd have a rocking song to finish with, and so I could run around and keep warm during it.

I ranted on about seeing the Spider signal in the sky, realizing it's just the spotlights for the Armoury, and ranting about how much I love having the crappiest nightclub ever a few blocks away from where I live. I ranted about how cold I was. It was just a really fun show to perform, and I think it showed, over than us losing our energy at some points.

And then we went to see the last show of the night. And found the members of Hoja, drunk as hell, in the line.

At this point, Canton's and my opinion of their behaviour plummeted. During the show, they'd yell out things to the actors performing, completely disrupting the show. And the fact that I was sitting directly in front of them made me want to lunge for their throats more than once.

Like the time where the lesbian European character and the goth girl character were acting, the guy behind me yelled, "Grab her boob!"

To which Sheri, the actress playing the lesbian, said, "Man, there's a whole bunch of drunken idiots on Whyte Ave. at this time of night, isn't there?"

Aside from the Ho-Jackasses, it was a fun night.

Sunday, our show was cancelled due to rain.

That, in a loooong winded nutshell, was Fringe.

So, how did Kow do? We beat last year's cash totals, with fewer shows. We got little in the way of publicity this year, other than our friend Dave talking us up on CHED radio with Leslie Primeau.

But we made a lot of new fans, sold a few t-shirts, sold OUT of the Kow hoodies (which was a great judgement call by Canton, although he knows he won't be making executive Kow decisions without the rest of us again...It was a gamble that worked, although Dev and I were skeptical that hoodies would sell in August in a hot time of year. Good ol' rain and Edmonton nights proved us wrong.)

And we grossed a good $400 more than last year, almost hitting the $3000 mark in busking revenue (not including the merchandise)

So, this year was another success. And the many shows really helps us out with the stage presence, as Ms. Jones had remarked to me later on. I'm looking forward to doing it again.

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I have a new obsession, thanks to my impulse game purchase. Prince of Persia: Sands of Time is one of the most addictive and easy to play games I've done in a while. It makes a worthy addition to my (mostly) Nintendo-centric GameCube library. [I've only got one other game that is a third-party game. That means, NOT made by Nintendo. That being Wrestlemania 18, of course. My other games I bought for the system? Mario Sunshine, Animal Crossing, Metroid Prime, Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (including the bonus editions of Ocarina of Time that came with). All first-party games.]

Seriously, this game won Game of the Year for almost all the systems last year. And by putting it in my GC for the first time, I can understand why.

You run up walls, dodge spikes, battle zombies with your sword and dagger. Make death-defying jumps at every turn.

In the first ten minutes, in a battle against three villains, I disabled one of them, backflipped OVER the guy behind me, and before I hit the ground, I slashed him in the back, taking him to the floor.

I was giddy with excitement.

THEN! Later on, you get the Dagger of Time, a great weapon that, get this, lets you reverse time and replay the moment when you would have died. It's saved my life many a time, reversing the fall to my death I would have otherwise suffered, let me play back battles that I could have done better, etc.

I've only got a ten-second timeframe I can play with, and only so long as I have sand in my dagger.

Then I learn new moves like being able to slow-mo time, strike at enemies and freeze them in time, just so I can focus on the guy behind me with the pike who's about to impale me.

Oh, this is a game and a HALF! And I have fallen in love with it hardcore.

Axler watched me cry as I saw visions (which happens at every save point) of running over collapsing bridges, jumping from falling stalagtites (those are the ones that point down, right? Yes, they are. I checked.), and other various portents of me having to use the Rewind feature a lot. Oh, did I say a lot? I meant a lot.

Man, this is one game I'm glad I shelled out $30 for.

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I sent in my resume and clippings to the Calgary Sun today. Here's having my fingers crossed for this job. Because I really would like to be able to use my diploma in the one field that I always wanted to get into.

I'll keep you posted.

But now, sleep, since I open tomorrow.