The show, while keeping many of the signature pieces that have made “Blue Man Group” who they are, has been entwined with topical bits that are a sensory dialogue on the current obsession with electronic gadgets. “We are always updating and tweaking the shows,” said Staton, “and these devices are changing our lives.”

The show will feature an over-sized tablet device called Gi-Pad, or Gigantic iPad. The device stands more than 7-feet-tall and is intended to allow the user to share the tablet experience with his closest 100 friends. The Blue Men use wit and humor to open a conversation with the audience about living within the two-dimensional world of tablets and smart phones and asks the question, “Is it too much?”

In one scenario, the Blue Men engage each other in a texting conversation. Huge screens above their heads show the audience what is being typed across the phones as they argue whether this conversation would be better held in the three-dimensional world of reality. Insulted, the Blue Man texts another friend telling him of the great insult lampooned upon him of being pulled from the comfort of his smart phone screen to engage in a face-to-face conversation.

This foray into the new technological reality we live in is just part of the “new feel” to a show that has been a staple in the Universal Orlando audience for four-and-a-half years. The entire theatre has been re-done. The stage was pulled out and replaced with completely new materials to give it a fresh look and feel, and the theatre was fixed with new decorations and props that allow the audience to be more interactive and involved then ever before.

“Our team of artists at Blue Man Productions has created fun, even astounding new visual aspects of the show,” explained Chris Wink, another one of the original Blue Men and co-creators. “And our music team has given us a great new sound; we are really excited to incorporate these elements into the show.”

While a new show experience was developed and new acts added, the Blue Men want to remind their faithful fans that the signature moments that they have come to be known for are still in the show, although in most cases they have also been updated.

“Many of our audience’s favorite pieces will continue to be a part of the production,” said Stanton. “The things that are more timeless and tribal in nature, such as paint, drums and light [are there], but we have developed some brand new elements of the show that provide a larger-than-life, rousing, interactive experience that I hope will really speak to all cultures and give some of our most devoted fans a new reason to check us out again.”

For all the lights, sound and sensory overload, the stars of the show are still the blue painted, poker-faced comedians whose job it is to keep the audience’s attention for nearly 90 minutes. “The heart of the show is, and always has been, the Blue Man and his inquisitive, wide-eyed take on the world,” said Wink.

Throughout its run at Universal Orlando the show has had several different renovations to the act and the stage, but Stanton advises that there is one thing that has not and will not ever change: “The first few rows will still need to wear ponchos.”

The Knights won both of Saturday’s doubleheader, 9-1. Preseason Conference Player of the Year, D.J. Hicks, led the offensive strike in both games. Hicks hit two home runs and ended the series with .538 and a seven RBIs.

“It’s all about the first one. As soon as you can get the first one out the way you can slow down,” said Hicks after the game.

During the first game, Hicks’ two-run double created a gap early in the game, which the Blackbirds couldn’t overcome. In the last game, he once again created similar gap when he hit two home runs.

Even though the Knights won the Friday opener, they struggled to win.

“Yesterday we did not really play well fundamentally,” said head coach Terry Rooney. “We need to play fundamentally sound. We have a very talented team but we have to play the game. When we don’t play the game you can see what happened last night it was back and forth tied in the seventh inning.”

That was not the case during the doubleheader on Saturday. The Knights won both games with a big lead.

“As far as getting the kids the amount of innings what we are looking for when you go into the weekend you want your starters to get five innings you hope with the sixth inning as a bonus,” said Rooney. “Chris Matulis did that. Ben (Lively) got five and Chris got six.”

Pitcher, Matulis won his first game as a Knight. During the last game, Matulis allowed four hits, one run, and stuck out five.

“It felt pretty good pretty anxious in the beginning. After that first hit and that first run I had to calm down then just relax,” said Matulis following the game. “I haven’t been pitching normal in almost three years. It feels good to be healthy again.”

The St. Louis Cardinals in the 29th round of the 2011 MLB Draft drafted Matulis.

Rookies such as, James Vasquez, Eric Skoglund, and Garrett Nuss were a big part of all three games.

“Eric Skoglund and Garrett Nuss in a lot of ways the future of our pitching staff,” said Rooney. Freshman pitchers Nuss and Skoglund made their UCF debuts and pitched two innings and struck out three batters.

“There were a lot of great individual performances. As a group and as a team we played better today than we did yesterday,” said Rooney.

No. 21 Knights will travel to Gainesville Wednesday to play No. 1 Gators at 7 p.m.

“We are excited to go up on Wednesday and play the No. 1 ranked team in the country it should be a great ball game,” said Rooney.

Sophomore pitcher, Ben Lively, threw five strong innings, and only allowed one run on three hits.

Lively allowed the lead-off hitter to reach base three times, but managed to work his way out of jams unscathed, in all but the fourth inning.

A pair of UCF pitchers made their college debuts Saturday afternoon, as Eric Skoglund and Garrett Nuss each threw two innings to finish out the game.

Right fielder Alex Friedrich went three for four with two doubles and a triple, and scored three runs.

Leadoff hitter Darnell Sweeney ripped a triple down the right field line on the first pitch of the game, and was later driven in by Ronnie Richardson, who already has six RBIs this season.

One dark spot, on a relatively flawless afternoon for the Knights, was their base running.   With bases loaded in the first, Nick Carillo hit into a rare 1-2-5 double play, due to a base running blunder by Chris Taladay, who rounded third a little too hard.

UCF was also unsuccessful when it came to base stealing. They failed at both attempts Saturday afternoon, which drops them to three for eight on the season.

In order to avoid the rain on Sunday, these two teams will play a double header Saturday. The Knights will go for the sweep in game two, which is scheduled to begin an hour after the final out of game one.

Starting pitcher Chris Matulis will be making his UCF debut in game two. Matulis was drafted in the 29th round of the 2011 MLB Draft by the St. Louis Cardinals.

UCF had an early lead, but ended up being tied 7-7 in the seventh inning. Two runs during the seventh inning, along with four other runs during the eighth, helped the Knights win their season opener.

“No matter what, win the last three (innings),” said head coach Terry Rooney after the game. “The first six are important, but no matter what happens if you are down, you have to have confidence to battle your way back, and if you are up, you have to have the poise to hold onto it. We did that tonight. I told our guys that we did a good job of battling back. The reason we did that was because of our confidence, but play much better fundamental baseball.”

The Knights drew 19 walks, which broke UCF’s previous record of 16.

“It was opening night, in a lot of ways you could see it,” said Rooney, who has won every season opener with UCF.

Junior Ronnie Richardson said, “Everybody was game ready, everybody as a little nervous we have a lot of new guys out there.” The top five newcomers were Eric Skoglund, Garret Nuss, Roman Madrid, Nick Carrillo, James Vazquez, and Tommy Williams.

Former Knight Beau Taylor, catcher from 2009-2011, threw the first pitch and was honored before the game. Taylor was drafted by the Oakland A’s in 2011.

An additional 1,100 bench-back seats along the first base line were opened as part of Phase I of UCF’s “Step Up to the Plate” campaign.

“All of the stadium renovations is all part of building a program and continuing to enhance it. We had a good crowd tonight I hope they keep coming out,” said Rooney. Phase II construction will be built following the 2012 baseball season.

Knights will play a doubleheader Saturday starting at 1 p.m. with an hour in between each game, due to expected weather on Sunday.

“I feel very proud that it’s been so successful,” said Richard Sansone, a professor of Portuguese and English as a Second Language at Valencia and organizer of the event. “It brings together the Brazilian community and gives the community at large a chance to understand Brazilian culture.”

The first film featured in this year’s multi-day festival was “De Pernas Pro Ar,” which translates into “Head over Heels.” This film, which contained an advisory that viewers be at least 14-years-old, was marketed as a sex comedy.

The film stars Brazil’s much beloved comedic actress, Ingrid Guimarães, who plays a determined businesswoman having trouble balancing her personal and professional life.

She finds herself at a crossroads after her husband leaves due to a lack of attention, and loses her job because of a major mishap at the office. She then finds herself going into business with a former rival in an adult sex shop. Throughout the film there is constant humor from the clumsy and sexually inexperienced protagonist.

She fights to rebuild her family relationships, all the while dealing with her surprise success in the taboo market she finds herself in. The film has some nudity and skates the line of what is acceptable for young viewers with many occasions of heavily sexually charged situations.

To say this is a cultural shock to more conservative audience members would be an understatement. It’s apparent that this film would easy be rated R by American standards with a large number of stimulating adult sex devices, scantily clad ladies showing off their goods, and even a few simulated orgasms. There is so much sex throughout this film, that any foul language and excessive nudity would easily bump this film into an NC-17 rating.

This film was wildly successful in Brazil and is considered highly marketable as a sex comedy that focuses on family issues. Sex in Brazil isn’t viewed so much as pornographic, but instead is approached as getting a full experience out of life.This confronts the cultural difference of American standards of what is tolerable to a family or younger viewers. While American audiences are shocked by high sexual content in films, foreign audiences are just as shocked by our accepted level of graphic violence in films..

“I’ve always wanted to come out to this film festival but couldn’t make it before. I’m real excited to share that connectivity with my Brazilian family,” said student Mariana Brum.

The rest of the films in this year’s festival are just as diverse, culturally rich, and offer much for lovers of foreign films to enjoy. The Oscar nominated documentary “Waste Land” was on the list of films this year, and the festival will end with a world premiere called “Matraga” at West Campus on Feb. 17. This film has not been screened outside of the Rio International Film Festival where it won several awards.

Students and the general movie going public that came out for this event were treated to not only a free movie, but also live entertainment and free Brazilian delicacies. There was the sweet passion fruit dessert of mousse maracuja, chocolate treats like brigadeiros, different types of the popular coxinha, and much more. All this along with refreshments were provided free to guests by a new Brazilian restaurant near West campus, called Silva’s Market.

Word about the festival has been spread through advertisements in local Brazilian businesses,  attention grabbing spots in several publications, and even was on the local Telemundo station. Along with word of mouth and social media, this event has never seen bigger crowds and is sure to set a new record for funds raised for the Valencia Foundation.

“This is a great event every year and the movies they show are very good,” said SGA president at West Campus, Patrick O’Connor. “Great writing, great actors, comedy is there, and action is there. You really get to see prime examples of another culture.”

The film ended with an engaging question and answer session between members of the audience and professor Sansone, with special guests Brazilian film producer Elisa Tolomelli and director Mahr De Martino. They spoke in great detail about the film and answered questions about the different cultural standards in Brazil.

The Brazilian film festival at Valencia College strongly reflects the driving desire of international understanding and cooperation with the world community. It all can start with cultural events like this festival, and the several study abroad programs that Valencia is internationally known for providing to students.

I kid, I kid. Of course there are things I love.

Most readers of the Voice have never seen me in person (I’m always available to sign autographs!), but I’m kind of a big guy, so it’s quite apparent that I love food. I’m not Italian, but I’m crazy for a good lasagna.

I adore Stouffer’s original lasagna, and might well be willing to consider violence if they ever change the recipe. Chef Boyardee changed the recipe for their canned lasagna a few years ago, and my life has never been the same.

I, like many others, also have an unhealthy relationship with Oreo cookies. I finally came to the realization that they were also single-handedly the worst thing a person can put into their body via the ham-hole, so I quit them. Haven’t eaten an actual Oreo in over five years. Those things are basically a liposuction in reverse.

I also love Diet Dr. Pepper. It’s kind of a half-assed attempt at curbing the calories, but really it just means that instead of being a 35-year-old man, I’m actually a 65-year-old woman. Oh well, with the amount of sodium benzoate I’ve consumed, I’ll at least live to triple digits.

I’m also a huge animal lover. Not to the extent of joining PETA, mind you, but definitely to the extent of filling my house with things that basically just eat money and excrete nightmares.

For starters, we have three cats. I do like cats, but I’m not exactly a cat person. I like the idea of having a cat, but three has been a new experience for me.

The oldest is a grey mix named Sparklebug. Short version is we thought she was a male at first and named “him” Sparkplug. It didn’t take long for us to discover our mistake, though, and rather than give her a new name, my nutty mom decided to just “girlie” the name up, and now she sounds like a reject from “My Little Pony.” Bug is bulimic, and reacts to anything she doesn’t like with regurgitation. She’s ralphed on everything from brand new clothes, all the way up to a perfectly good Xbox.

Then there’s the twins, Nathan Explosion and William Murderface. For simplicity, we call Nathan “Binky,” because he’s the runt of his litter and very small, and William goes by either “Yum-Yum,” as in Will-YUM, or “Shrimpkins,” because of his extremely long tail which curls under like a shrimp.

All three cats were born to one of the 27 million strays living under my mom’s house in the country, and it shows. They’re like something out of “Deliverance.” William even has a Southern drawl when he speaks, and it sounds something like “me-y’all.” Nathan, on the other hand, has this surprisingly deep voice, and it’s startling to hear something resembling Barry White coming out of a cat the size of a field mouse.

It’s a good thing we rescued them, because none of them retained anything remotely close to a hunting instinct. Nathan accidentally killed a lizard that had somehow snuck into the house, and required therapy for months.
I’ve always been a dog person. Over the years I’ve had numerous dogs, mostly border collies and German shepherds, but for some reason, I’ve always been a sucker for the “underdog,” so to speak.

We’ve recently added a new addition to our household. We had been planning on getting a dog for some time now, and finally adopted one from A New Beginning in Altamonte Springs. They had so many wonderful animals needing homes, from Labradors to a charming little dachshund/mini-pinscher. So what did we pick? The 6-month-old beagle with a skin disorder… and we named him Dr. Egon Spengler.

Contrary to popular belief, I also do love movies. I’m a movie snob, though. If I’m going to pay to see a film, I want to know that at least some talent and effort went into it. For example, I’ll watch anything the Coen Brothers release without even seeing a trailer. At the very least, it needs to feel like someone had fun making the movie. I’m one of a small percentage that liked “Cloverfield,” and it may be because they went to great lengths to make the audience physically uncomfortable to the point of yakking all over the theater.

I’m also a sucker for “cult classic” films, almost to the point of annoyance. I love everything from “Rocky Horror,” to blaxploitation films like “Foxy Brown,” to campy weirdness like Roger Waters’ films, even down to pure cinematic feces like Tommy Wiseau’s “The Room.” The annoyance comes in when I pretty much force most of my friends to sit through these films. Hell, I’ve lived in Orlando for a couple of years now, and I still haven’t been to “Rocky Horror” at CityWalk.
I love gory horror films, the more gross-out, the better. I’m the kind of guy that can eat a big bowl of spaghetti while watching a grotesque ax murderer slowly eviscerate some hapless co-ed. The talent, effort and fun rules still apply, though, because I thought the “Hostel” movies were garbage.

Hollywood has kind of neutered the horror film these days, to the point where many studios are releasing PG-13 rated “scary” movies, which are, of course, all bad. But luckily, there’s still a huge back catalog of great horror classics, like Lucio Fulci’s 1979 movie, “Zombie,” in which a zombie actually fights a gee-dee shark! Or Dario Argento’s 1977 movie, “Susperia,” which is basically “Black Swan” with better acting and Satanists.

So it’s plain to see that I do have plenty of capacity for love, and I do love many things. It’s just that all of the things that you like are crap.