the groundhog day project

Many people thought I would run out of things to say about Groundhog Day long before Day 365 (another 2 weeks away). This evening, as I sit down to watch the film and write something about or inspired by it, I have an inkling not that they are right, but that I had too much other stuff to do today. Work on my card game, work on my short film, a trip to the science center with my daughter. And, I didn’t even get to revising my paper to be published or prepping lesson plans for my speech class for the fall, or even going over a lesson plan for the speech practice this Wednesday. Made dinner, got Saer to Improv class, and now here I am… sitting… with nothing particular to say. I got out my Chekhov book so I would remember to read one of his plays. I’ve got 2 outings of a sort in the next couple weeks (before the Day 365 party) for this blog, but I cannot do either of those at 10:00 P.M. on a Friday. As for topics at hand, my folder of unused Groundhog Day -related articles has a handfu...

This blog entry begins late--1:27 A.M.--because I've been playing games. Played some Tsuro , some Carcassonne , some Munchkin and some Monster Fluxx . Two members of the speech team are here at this point to watch Groundhog Day . Victor has seen the film before, even used it in an Impromptu round (like I have ) at Districts this past March. Tracey has not seen the movie before... so figure most of what follows will be descriptions of her responses, if any. For example, but not a very interesting example, she laughed at Larry's "Home Shopping Network" line. And at Phil imitating Rita in the van. (An aside: I was asked two nights ago what my (current) favorite scene in Groundhog Day was. As I hesitated in answering, Dr. Classen (who taught the class for which I wrote my Christ-figure paper) suggested that maybe that would be like picking a favorite child. Still, I tried to answer. I didn't go with my favorite per se, but a scene that is still consistently ent...

I'm in a thoughtful mood tonight. As Groundhog Day started tonight, I was eating a piece of cake with my face on it. That's not why I'm thoughtful, but it seemed like something worth mentioning. The entire cake had a group photo of our speech team on it. Tonight was our end-of-the-year banquet. It was just like the banquet at the end of Groundhog Day , if Phil were actually three coaches and a team president and the people talking were not approaching to thank him (them) but to, well, sort of roast them. And, instead of auctioning people off, our head coach handed out a few awards and we had cake. And Tracey, Vice President of the team for next year after only one year of doing this, performed an awesome piece with us coaches as birds (first eagles, then phoenixes--our official mascot is the golden eagle), the students as, well, the birds we're raising up to be eagles. I can't do it justice here. I don't know if any of my fellow coaches (who are graduating...

Part two: written not in a hotel room but a university auditorium in Salt Lake City, waiting for awards after today's tournament. Had Groundhog Day on out in the snow... well, snow on the ground, not in the air. Anyway, movie was on during the lunchbreak. I even made a round of After Dinner Speaking wait an extra minute as the movie finished. (For the record, I had walked, with movie still playing in my hand, to the room and let them know of the delay and the reason why. One guy's response: "you got to have hobbies." A better response I got from another guy when I told him I've been watching the movie every day for 170 days was that I was awesome... I believe he called me "a gentleman and a star." So, I got that going for me.) But anyway, yesterday, I wrote of "watching" the movie in the van while still on the road. Had to do that again later yesterday--which means I have watched at least part of Groundhog Day in California, Nevada, Arizon...