Wednesday, December 30, 2009

A Time to Rest, A Time to Blog

Posted by Bruce Miller
Well, it's Dec 30. Time to stop singing "Christmas is a-comin' and Bruce is getting fat." More to the point, time for me to stop eating til it hurts.

Here I am, back on the blog--someplace I haven't been for a while. I'm not sure why I went on hiatus, or even if that's what I went on. It's quite true that my computer at work decided it would no longer allow me to post anything onto the Barkdale Buzz, period. And my brand new computer at home refused to let me create a document in Word and then cut and paste it into Blogger. All blog posts now have to be created in Blogger itself, which is a bit of a pain.

I have no earthly idea how to fix either problem.

And then there's the whole issue of Blogger spam. It started about four months ago over at the under-used Theatre IV blog, and I just ignored it. Then, about five weeks ago, spam-a-plenty decided to attack the Barksdale Buzz with even greater ferocity.

Most of the spam is in Chinese, but a fair amount of it deals in English with bizarre subject matters that are best left undisclosed. Every day Satan's little spam-meisters send three or four comments to the blog. I have to read (at least a little) and reject them before moving forward. It's all a little depressing. Again, I have no idea how to make it stop.

Most of all, I just haven't been waking up during the last five weeks thinking, "Gee, I want to write about ..." I've been waking up thinking about the four mainstage productions we opened since Thanksgiving, and the seven shows we sent out on national tour. I've been worrying about ticket sales and snow cancellations, reviews and re-subscription campaigns at Hanover Tavern, end of the year contributions (or lack thereof).

Now the new year is upon us, and once again my typing fingers are beginning to tingle. So I hereby resolve to fix the computer glitches and seek help to get rid of the comments from Spamalot. 2010 is going to be Barksdale's best year ever, and, I hope, a banner year for all of Greater Richmond's theatres.

I hope to see all of you soon at a theatre of your choice.

--Bruce Miller