Performance

* Katherine had her end-of-the-year ballet recital last night. She's been taking classes through the local rec center, and while there are many criticisms to be leveled against Philadelphia's Parks and Rec department (and I say this as an employee of said department), it's hard to beat $150 for 9 months of perfectly decent ballet lessons, costume included.

I don't think I'm just being a fond parent when I say I was really pretty impressed by Katherine's class, which was 6 and 7 year old beginners. Watching the classes, which ranged in age from 3 to teenagers, I also started feeling a lot less guilty about not managing to get Katherine in dance classes at four or five when she first started asking. There were talented outliers, of course, but it looked very much like six or seven is the dividing line between "able to listen well to instruction and learn how to dance" and "flailing around to music, sometimes deliberately in unison (or a semblance thereof)."

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We actually made it out to a movie a couple weeks ago! And it wasn't rated G! It was Iron Man 3, as a matter of fact. To give a quick, spoiler-free review, I was really impressed, and think it was actually better than Iron Man 2. Rather than do the action movie franchise of simply rehashing what worked before but ramping it up by making it BIGGER! and MORE EXPLOSIONS!, they tried something different and focused on actual character development. I was also impressed that they took what was a racist villain in the comic and completely turned the concept on its head.

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On a final note on the topic of performing, on a whim recently, did a Youtube search on the Not Ready for Bandai Players, the name that the Champaign crowd gave our cosplay group that competed in the cosplay contest at Anime Central for several years. And there are actually two of our performances on Youtube. Sadly, not our award-winning Ranma 1/2 / Lupin III crossover sketch, but I'm glad to see our Maison Ikkoku/Excel Saga crossover is being preserved. What really surprises me is how non-embarrassing it is to watch them. Not just that the dialogue holds up well and is still funny, but watching myself isn't cringe-inducing. And even more astonishing, all of the comments are positive. Really, a pleasant surprise all around.