I'm pretty sure I want to rewatch both Tango and Cash and Top Gun now.

Santoku is a Japanese style of knife blade -- extra thin, which makes them very sharp and flexible. Traditional santokus have flat blades (closer to the shape of a cleaver), but since they became popular over here a few years back, European companies started making them with curved, chef's-knife-style blades so you get the santoku thin/sharpness and the chef's knife curved blade for easy chopability. (Though I don't know whether that's the case with the Henckels ones or not, since I use an old-fashioned Wustof chef's knife.)

[eta: And anecdotally, Henckels as a brand tends to be preferred by large-handed chefs]

I have a Henckels santoku. I couldn't identify the difference from a normal chef's knife, but it (and the other Henckels I have) rocks.

A warning though, once you get good knives, you can never go back.

Yeah, good knives make cooking so much easier.

I'm watching the end of Exodus now. It's gorier than I expected. Also, there are a few scenes in the movie where characters slip through Arab neighborhoods undetected by putting on Arab clothing and blending in. In the book, there were a few times when a particular character did that, but he was a Middle Eastern Jew. In the movie, they've got Ari, played by Paul Newman, doing it. Um, no.

old-fashioned Wustof chef's knife.)

My bro actually recommended Wusthof first, just across the board -- that's the brand he uses. But then he e-mailed me the next day to tell me that he was googling, and saw the Henckels santoku at Target. t edit This one -- it comes with a paring knife as well: [link]

[eta: And anecdotally, Henckels as a brand tends to be preferred by large-handed chefs]

::snerk::

I've got Wusthof and am pleased.

Henckels for steak knives because I asked for cheapies and someone (my parents?) decided to go big-name on them. They rock but I don't get a lot of use out them. Oooh, but I got steaks today (Free Beef!) when I bought tires.

I've got Henckels that my mom bought me for Xmas about a decade back. She didn't get a set for herself and is still jealous over my sister and my sets.

Does “off-book” means memorizing ASAP, Kathy? I am kind of worried about that…

Yep! Unfortunately, I don't really have any good advice on getting the kids to memorize--I was one of those geeks who loved to memorize lines. I still have decent-sized chunks of "The quality of mercy" and "To be or not to be" in my head that I had to memorize for high school English classes, as well as most of the beginning part of the Prologue of the Canterbury Tales (in middle English!) floating in there, too (from college 21 years ago).

Any theater people have suggestions for memorizing?

I think it usually works best to have off-book deadlines for each scene. It breaks it down into more managable chunks.

I've never directed, but I have stage-managed. One thing that I always find extremely helpful is to go through the script and use different-color post-it flags to mark set changes, sound effects, and stuff like that. (If you've got someone stage-managing, they can do all that, but I know that sometimes high school shows have one person doing direction and stage managing.) Also, for one show that had seven zillion props, I went through scene by scene and made a list of what had to be where when -- there were a few things where the only way to get everything where it needed to be was to have characters carry things on and off stage as they entered and exited, and without the charts, it was impossible to keep track of everything.

Also, if you're not having rehearsals on stage, schedule at least a few times when the cast and crew can go to the stage and walk through a few scenes, so that they can get the feel of the room.

It is -11 degrees Farenheit here, according to Google weather.

Daniel just got home. He's wearing a t-shirt.

His coat? He keeps it in the car. No need to bring it in.

ETA: I'm freezing my tush off, it's 65 in the house. I've got a turtleneck and a thermal long-sleeved shirt on, and I'm miserable.

My chef's knife is a Wusthof.