Copabananas

Town Video Going Out of Business

I was shocked and bummed today when I drove down Valley Road and saw the huge going out of business signs at Town Video. I have gone there for years and always appreciated the fact that they were an owner-operated business and not a chain video store. I've never even considered joining a mail-order dvd company. I'll miss that shop. I guess I feel so badly because I relate to closing shop sooner than you anticipated. As rewarding as it is to be in business for yourself, it's also very challenging, especially in Montclair.

Are YOU Smarter Than A 5th Grader?

Today I took Abby to the NYC auditions for the tv show Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? I was completely expecting it to be an all-day-wait-in-line fest and it was. I kind of expected it to discourage her from wanting to go to any more auditions, but surprisingly it didn't. Gratefully our friends Ale and her sister, Moni, came with us. We cracked each other up and took turns running for coffee and food and bathroom breaks as we waited on line for 8, yes I said 8, hours. Like I said, it was everything I expected it to be. The doors opened at 8am and we arrived around 8:30 to a line up the front of Javits to the entrance. It took 1 hour to get inside the building and we were hopeful since we moved relatively quickly. But once inside we saw that the line went down the escalator, all the way to the back of the hall, across the back, and then back up to the front of the hall. By 3pm we had made it to the curtained warm-up area. The warm-up was done by the line producer who took questions from the kids. Abby asked the following: "My mom told me that the kids' lines are all scripted. Is that true?". He said "Where's your mom?" but by the time he turned around to look at me I had grabbed the poster sized sign we made last night that read "ABBY IS AWESOME! PICK HER!". It was hysterical! He read it out loud and answered her question, no, their lines are not scripted. They were finally ready for us in the audition room and our group of 15 kids and their friends and family went in for the audition. The kids were supposed to prepare a little presentation about whatever they wanted. Abby talked about the parody skit of the show that she and her friends did for the school talent show and had a large mounted picture of all the girls on stage doing the skit to accompany her speech. She was called last from the group and her feet had fallen asleep from sitting on the floor so by the time she stood up she was a little wobbly. But she did great and we were all proud of her the entire day! They had 500 kids altogether and only 4 will be picked for call backs in Los Angeles. We had a great day! Here are some pictures.

New Uglydolls

Ooooooh! New Uglydolls! Meet Abima, Deer Ugly, and Gato Deluxe! So ugly! Just the way we like them!