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As of Tuesday, I will no longer be Palatine High School’s Computer Assistant II (CA2) and Webmaster. No, Tuesday is when I start my new job at Conant High School as their Network Technician (NT). With the departure of their previous NT, and the end of the school year being the prime time to start working on hard drive images for the fall, I have to hit the ground running when I start at CHS.

Things are moving quite fast. Two weeks ago the job was posted, and last Friday my interview was scheduled for Monday. By Wednesday I was picked as the new NT. Right now I’ve got mixed feelings about everything. For one, I’m leaving a great family at PHS, and there are many people I am going to miss.

With so little time between finding out about being picked and starting the new job, there is a number of people at PHS I won’t have time to say goodbye to. However, as a CHS alumnus, I know that I’m also going into another family with great people. It’s a different family than PHS, but a family nonetheless. This will be a huge change for me, so I’ve got some anxiety about it all, too. I can only imagine the new frontier that awaits me at CHS.

Damn. Why can’t people understand that ST and SW are two completely different things that can have equal value in pop culture? I love ST:TNG, but the other series just bored me to death. Likewise, I like the back story to SW, but Eps. I and II sucked horribly, and the first trilogy that is really the second trilogy but is still considered the first isn’t all that exciting for the most part.

Likewise, the whole Cubs vs. Sox thing in Chi-town is ridiculous! I first loved the Cubs because they had Ryno and Andre Dawson and Mark Grace. Then I liked the Sox, turning my back on the Cubs, because of the Big Hurt, Ozzie and…I loved the uniforms when they went back to the classic look. I know, that’s kind of wierd, but the black and white pinstripes and the calligraphic logo were so sweet. Then came the strike, which took away my interest in baseball altogether (the same thing happened with basketball a few years later). And now that the Chicago teams are actually getting better again, I wonder wtf is the big deal about being a Cubs fan vs. being a Sox fan?

I think Rich put it best when he theorized that it’s probably just a socio-economic class issue. North-siders get chastized for being Sox fans and south-siders get beat for being Cubs fans; they’re neighbors see them as "one of those." I think the same probably goes for the SW vs. ST debate. The SW fans are all about emotion and the past, whereas trekkers (notice the bias in my vocabulary ) are logical and think to the future. Anyways, this early morning rant has gone on long enough. I should eat some breakfast.

As promised, here is a short review of Wicked, now showing on Broadway in Chicago. I found the show to be technically magnificent, as well as quite entertaining. As Carrie said, the first act was paced slowly, and to me, a little "bleh," but the second act more than made up for that with a great link to the story of Dorothy and her dog "Dodo," as Galinda (the Ga is silent) put it.

The set carried a clock theme, including a giant pendulum on which Galinda rides into the first scene. The dynamics of set were spectacular, from the remote controlled pieces that moved on and off stage to the many backdrops that descended from high above the stage. I especially loved the lighting effects, which made otherwise stationary sets come alive. Our limited-view seats in the dress circle only masked a gigantic moving dragon above the stage and a little bit of stage right. Even with that, we saw just about everything. I believe the only thing we "missed" was the house that fell on Elphaba’s sister – no big deal.

The cast Tuesday evening was an understudy cast, but if I hadn’t seen the insert in my PLAYBILL, I wouldn’t have known. Both Elphaba and Galinda had strong voices, and I got the feeling that both were genuinely enjoying performing that night. It was amazing to hear Elphaba as she was suspended high above Galinda as they sang Defying Gravity, one of my favorite songs in the show. Chris would like to point out that Popular is my favorite, but after that performance, I’m having a tough choice between the two.

Like Les Miserables, this is one of those shows I wouldn’t mind seeing a second, a third or even a fourth time.

Tonight HEHS is going to see Wicked. I’m actually kind of excited to see this, if only for the two tracks on the soundtrack that I know – Popular and Defying Gravity. Thanks to Chris playing them in the car so much, they’re stuck in my head. That’s exactly how songs from Bye, Bye, Birdie, The King & I, Les Miserables and South Pacific got stuck in my head: repitition. Either Chris or I will post something about Wicked soon enough.

I was over at WTMX.com to see some pics of Eric and Kathy’s White Wedding…Why Not? live broadcast. It had been a while since I’d last visited, so I looked around. I found of fun stuff that had a few links to fun stuff (surprise!). One of the links was for an online version of Pac Man, written by Paul Neave. Unfortunately for Paul, Namco asked him to take down Pac Man from his site Fortunately, they haven’t yet caught on to WTMX (although this post might tip them off). So, get it while it’s still up. For a select few of you, you’ll know how to get it for keeps but I’m not telling how.

My sidebar informed me that the Senate unanimously passed the Real ID Act yesterday. What does this mean? CNET’s news.com.com has a FAQ available on their site. My take on it is that it calls for the creation of a national ID card, standardizing identification in our country. This is a good and bad thing.

It is good in that it will allow someone in New Jersey to easily verify identity information from a card obtained in Alaska. This is bad for just the same reason. From page 3 of CNET’s FAQ:

Barry Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s technology and liberty program, says: “It’s going to result in everyone, from the 7-Eleven store to the bank and airlines, demanding to see the ID card. They’re going to scan it in. They’re going to have all the data on it from the front of the card…It’s going to be not just a national ID card but a national database.”

Identity theft should increase quite a bit once this is enacted nationwide. You know how Lane Bryant, Office Max and Best Buy ask for your phone number or ZIP code when you make a purchase? Most people don’t even think twice before giving up such precious information (me, included). Merchants often use such information to help target advertising for geographic areas. Now suppose the Best Buy cashier needs to see your ID card before the corporate office will allow you to make your purchase. Regardless of how I feel about privacy, if I need something now, I might just have no choice but to show my ID card. This is especially true if all merchants adopt a similar policy.

Now instead of just having my phone number or ZIP code, Best Buy will also have my full name, social security number, home address, height, weight, hair color, eye color, retinal scan, fingerprint and shoe size. OK, maybe not that last one, but check this out from the FAQ:

What’s going to be stored on this ID card?
At a minimum: name, birth date, sex, ID number, a digital photograph, address, and a “common machine-readable technology” that Homeland Security will decide on. The card must also sport “physical security features designed to prevent tampering, counterfeiting, or duplication of the document for fraudulent purposes.”

Homeland Security is permitted to add additional requirements–such as a fingerprint or retinal scan–on top of those. We won’t know for a while what these additional requirements will be.

So, ponder that while “gee-dubyah” signs away our privacy.

As an aside: Unfortunately, I didn’t know about the bill until late Monday evening. Whil I’m glad that Sen. Durbin was against it, it’s a shame he didn’t vote against it because it was attached to an Iraq spending bill.

For those of you not in Chicagoland, today was beautiful! At lunch, Bob and I were quickly able to get to Woodfield for me to buy a pair of Maui Jim polarized shades, replacing the ones I bought on the honeymoon and lost last weekend. For dinner, Chris and I went to Macaroni Grill. The night was still young when we finished, so I decided to take us downtown for a nice drive, enjoying the great weather. I wish we brought the camera – there were some great opportunities for night shots of the skyline and Navy Pier, among other things.