Dell Urban Challenge

Earlier this week, my sister Amy told me about a promotion Dell was putting on called the Dell Urban Challenge. It sounded like a lame attempt to do an Amazing Race-style competition in 9 cities across the country, Seattle being one of them. I was reluctant at first, but seeing as I had nothing better to do, I decided to be her teammate for the race.

The race began last night with an e-mail clue to where we needed to be by 9am this morning to officially start the race.

Find the Dell Lounge at this nightclub where the main, blue, and card rooms come
together to complete the triad.

Amy easily determined this to be the Trinity Nightclub down in Pioneer Square near 1st and Yesler. She picked me up this morning and we arrived at Trinity around 8:30am. We were the first participants to arrive. We got all registered and had our first real chance to understand the complete rules of the race.

As teams registered, they would be assigned a color group and given corresponding t-shirts. The colors, coincidentally, corresponded to the 8 colors available in Dell's new line of laptop computers, consisting of white, black, yellow, red, blue, green, brown, and pink. Each team would be competing solely against the other teams of that color group on a race around the city. At the start of the race, each team would receive a series of 8 riddles, or clues, to locations around the city. At each stop, you had to get your gamecard stamped with one of the 8 stamps (each again, a color of the new laptop line) and the first team from each color group back to the starting line with all 8 stamps would win 2 brand new Dell Inspiron 1521 laptops, in any color they choose, valued at $1,253 each. Additional rules: any mode of transportation is acceptable, only one person from the team is necessary to get each stamp, but both team members must reach the finish line together.

We were assigned the color Blue and proceeded to wait around while the other teams arrived. We had no clue how many teams would be participating, and heard anything from 100 - 300 teams had pre-registered, depending on who you talked to. We proceeded to scope out the Blue competition, determine who the real threats were, and were convinced that these two bicycle messenger guys looks like the most difficult competition. Around 10am the teams were all assembled at the starting line (a Windows Vista "Start" button, classy), and we there had to have been no more than 30 teams total. That's not much competition! But we identified 5 Blue teams, including ourself, which doesn't take a math genius to determine we had about a 20% chance of winning. Not too bad. Red group was the first to start, 4 teams assembled at the starting line, and off they ran! Next up was the Brown group, but only 3 teams this time! Amy flexed her muscle with the event organizers and the Dell reps there, pointing out that there were 5 blue teams but only 3 or 4 each of the other colors. In the interest of fairness, (or something like that ;-)) Amy and I switched colors to the Yellow group which only had 3 in it. Brown started, next up was Yellow. We threw on yellow t-shirts over our blue ones and lined up at the starting line with the other 3 teams. AND WE'RE OFF!

Having arrived so early, we had parked at a parking meter just across the street from the club. We had the plan, Amy would drive, I would jump out and get the stamps as necessary. The 8 clues were as follows:

Come find this f-oto studio in Pioneer Square, take some pictures and show
your top model flare.

You might understand why there is such a demand if you come to this "Marine
Michaelangelo's" land.

Dancing, drinks and hanging bras; bull riding and cowgirls. Yeehaw.

Its door is one less than four with jazz music that's played around great
decor.

The name is the color of some types of grapes, and grapes are the ingredients
of some of its tastes.

This famous wall of stickiness was created because of this theatre where
patrons waited.

On your Qwest to the next location: you'll find us where you can buy sports
gear of the animal that can fly.

In the midst of the busy downtown, just a step off the street; find your Zen
in this small park-retreat. Think water, trees and concrete.

A few were easy, but we wanted to hit them in the most efficient order to save time. Our modus operandi was to keep moving, figuring out the next clue while we're driving to the ones we know. Fortunately, we had both secured our "phone-a-friend" lifelines to handle any Google searching we needed. Amy's friends proved one thing, they can't Google worth a darn. Fortunately I called upon my long-distance phone-a-friend Andrew all the way in Birmingham, Alabama to save the day and do research on those clues we didn't know.

Flying down to 1st Avenue, clue #3 was obviously Cowgirls, Inc. a club Amy knows well, we pulled up to the stop light, I jumped out got the stamp and jumped back in before the light turned green. Following down to the Seahawks team store at Qwest Field, Amy pulled a questionably-legal left turn around a car waiting in the turn lane to knock off clue #7. After a quick spin around back to 1st Avenue, we headed towards the Triple Door jazz club (clue #4) on 2nd and Union, but on our way Andrew decrypted clue #6 to be a reference to the Gum Wall in Post Alley at Pike Place Market. I jumped out and ran a few blocks around to cover the length of Post Alley on foot, only to have that "duh" moment when I realized the clue was referring to the Market Theatre which is at the other end which I later tracked down. We continued up to knock off clue #4 at the Triple Door (which we were the first team overall to reach, always a good sign), and then zigzagged a couple blocks down to 4th and University where Amy knew of a wine bar named "Purple" which was the solution to clue #5. We dropped back down to 1st Avenue, and caught the Wyland Gallery (Wyland is a marine life artist known as the Marine Michaelangelo) which Andrew pointed out was about a block south of the Seattle Art Museum around 1st and Seneca as clue #2. As we were driving south on 1st Ave. we were stopped at a light and looking everywhere, until we looked right to the side of us and saw the trademark lime-green shirts of the Dell challenge workers. I jumped out and got the stamp while Amy maneuvered over to the curb. Back to the car, with only 2 clues left, which we determined were both in Pioneer Square, we high tailed it back and tracked down the Waterfall Park (clue #8) on 2nd and Main. Andrew's incredibly resourceful google searching decrypted clue #1 to be "The F-Stop" photo studio about a block from the finish line. We decided to drop back and park in the same place we started, and while Amy parked the car I ran out to track down the final stamp. After running up and down the block, Amy came back and met up with me, finish line clearly visible across the street, all the staff cheering us on, and we finally found a small non-descript sign above a door. We went down the stairs and found the final stamp there (and much to our surprise, found out that we were the very first team to find it). We got the stamp and raced back across the street in glorious Amazing Race form, to the thunderous cheers of the green-shirted staff waiting to validate our results.

AND IT'S OFFICIAL! If Phil Keoghan from the Amazing Race were there it would go something like this... "Joe and Amy... you're the first team to arrive!" We not only were the first yellow team to arrive, but also the first team overall, defeating both the Red and Brown teams who started before us. Right on our heels the first Red team arrived and Brown shortly thereafter. Much celebration occurred as we all would be the proud recipients of new Dell laptop computers.

The organizers severely underestimated the resourcefulness of the Seattle teams, as they had expected the challenge to take 90 minutes or so, though after our team starting at around 10:12am, we actually finished shortly after 10:45 about 35 minutes later. We have to send in notarized affidavits of eligibility this week and then sometime after will receive information about how to order our new laptops. Woohoo!

The Dell marketing reps who attended the competition were pleased with the results and the excitement of the event. They were in communication with the events going on concurrently in New York, Miami, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Austin, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, and apparently heard similar positive reports from the other sites (and also a lot more participation than Seattle). Amy and I may have to participate at the next challenge. :)

I don't think we would have been nearly as successful without the successful team of Amy's mad driving skills and her maneuverable Dodge Neon, my crazy running all over, and Andrew's amazing puzzle solving and Googling skills. Andrew will receive an appropriate reward for his services. :)

Much video and photos were taken, and we were told to expect to see a fair bit of post-event promotion on the Dell Lounge website in the coming weeks and months. I'll be sure to post some updates if it appears.

Will It Blend?!

I was introduced to a most outstanding website today... www.willitblend.com.

All I can say is... GENIUS! The site is produced by this company called BlendTec, who coincidentally enough, makes high-quality blenders. It appears that their marketing department decided to backup their claims that their products can "blend anything" by doing just that, blending everything!

They have a series of nearly 60 short episodes of a show they call "Will It Blend?" The episodes fall into two categories "Try this @ Home" and the far more entertaining "Don't Try This @ Home." It is hosted by a man who is purported to work in their labs, and I wouldn't doubt this to be true. But he is the epitome of a cheesy mad scientist. What tops it off is that the episodes are professionally produced and edited, complete with ultra cheesy (and oddly catchy) theme music.

Must see blends:

iPhone
EZ Cheese
Glow Sticks
Magnets (not so much for the result, but for the comedy)
McDonalds Extra Value Meal (again, not for the result, but this time for the yuck)

Until next time folks, keep it smoothie!

Sing That Tune!

It was an inevitable combination, the beloved pastime of karaoke meets game shows. What couldn't be expected is that two networks premiered different karaoke-themed game shows the same week.

Last night, NBC premiered "The Singing Bee" hosted by former boy band member-turned-dancing star Joey Fatone. The format is much as the title implies, like the familiar spelling bee. A panel of contestants move on by correctly filling in the missing lyrics, or if they miss they're eliminated, until there is one. The winning player plays a "bonus round" of sorts where they can earn the top prize of $50,000 for correctly answering 5 out of 8 missing song lyrics.

The concept is good, and fits well within a half-hour format, and is actually surprisingly entertaining to watch. Joey Fatone is no great host by game show standards, but he is entertaining and fits well with the excitement and theme of the show.

Tonight, not to be out done, FOX premiered "Don't Forget The Lyrics!" hosted by another man known for music, Wayne Brady. While it also has its roots in karaoke, it is vastly different from "Bee". First, it uses the familiar money ladder ripped off from Millionaire, with the top prize of $1,000,000 if you answer 10 missing lyrics correctly. You also have 3 lifelines, or as they are called, "backup singers," if you need help along the way.

Wayne Brady does a decent job and is pretty funny, though you know he just wants to join in and start singing along with them. Also in a half-hour format, it would fit much better stretched into an entire hour. The premiere's contestant only made it through 5 lyrics before the episode completed, and you can't really expect to watch every episode to keep up. If you're going to have a half-hour show, at least finish a contestant in a half-hour.

Despite the differences, there are a lot of similarities between the two shows. First, both feature live bands, though the Bee's house band was far superior. The songs used were all hits that most anyone would know, and the missing lyrics weren't too obscure and usually came from the chorus. Though I don't find it particularly compelling splitting hairs about every "well", "and", or other extra syllable in the lyrics. Don't Forget did a much better job of handling this, by limiting the answers to a small set of words that usually didn't involve such minor bizarrities.

One of my biggest issues with Don't Forget is that the contestant sings the entire verses leading up to the missing line. I do NOT need to hear a bad singer trying to muddle her way through a song, if I wanted that I'd watch American Idol. Fortunately Bee resolves that by having professional singers as part of the band, who sing everything up until the missing lyrics along with the contestant, who you can barely hear. This makes it much more like listening to a great cover band than a bad karaoke night. Seriously, karaoke is all about hearing people you know sing bad, not people you don't know.

The Bee also included some gratuitous dancers, who I think were all previously laid off from Shatner's short-lived "Show Me the Money." While I didn't really understand the purpose, they certainly added to the exciting and upbeat setting of the show.

Overall, I think The Singing Bee comes far closer to the mark than Don't Forget The Lyrics! does. Neither is perfect, but I'll actually set the DVR for the former.

Headlines

Just a few random articles in today's news media:

Hypocricy Lives On - ["Bork v. Bork" (Editorial), New York Times, 6/14/2007]

No Nuts for You! - ["German squirrel on a rampage injures 3 people", MSNBC, 6/14/2007]

Satisfaction Guaranteed! - ["Man in pants lawsuit: Customer is always right", MSNBC, 6/14/2007]

Put it in your radiator, just don't put it in your mouth - ["Counterfeit Colgate toothpaste recalled", MSNBC, 6/14/2007]

Update, Vegas, and More

It's been a rather busy past two weeks, which requires a bit of an uber-update. This update is brought to you by Google Calendar... the only way to remember what I did the past two weeks.

West Side Story

Went and saw West Side Story at the 5th Avenue Theatre last Tuesday. As expected, an outstanding show which was worth of its own entire writeup, but I was a slacker. Few people don't know at least one song from the show, and hearing it all live was quite the exciting experience. I had very little to complain about, and much to praise. The original Jerome Robbins choreography was performed with oustanding athleticism and skill. What can I say?

Music - 5 stars, with an outstanding full orchestra to boot!
Cast - 4 stars, some great performances by some great actors.
Technical - 4 stars.
Overall - 4 stars. Nothing to complain about, but it wasn't quite as polished as you'd expect from a major Broadway production. That's not to say it's not worth seeing, even more than once.

Las Vegas

In what seems to have informally become an annual pilgrimage to Las Vegas with my Dad, this year my sister decided to come along too which was fun. In my many Vegas vacations, I've determined that 3 nights is too long, which is why I opted for 2 nights this time, which decidedly was an excellent plan. However, the adventure began somewhat slowly with the plane out of Seattle boarding about 40 minutes before the scheduled departure, only to depart 1 hour behind schedule. You do the math. It seemed everything was working against us. First the original pilot apparently became seriously ill, and the replacement was stuck on a ferry trying to get to the airport. He arrived shortly thereafter. Then during the pre-flight checks, they found--and don't miss the direct quote here--that "the plane came straight out of the hangar, but they forgot to change the blue water" that is used in the toilet system, and thus we had to wait while they serviced that. FINALLY we were ready to go, and the man on the push tug that backs the plane up had a broken headset so had to get a replacement before he could push the plane out. Something was working against us, but we finally got out and off to the desert.

Amy and I decided we wanted to go see The Beatles' LOVE, one of the newest Cirque du Soleil shows in Vegas, and bought a ticket for Dad for Father's Day. On Sunday night we went and saw the show, and it was ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. I've seen one other Cirque show over 10 years ago, Mystere, which was the first show in Vegas to feature that crazy Canadian acrobatic troupe. Much of the same bizarre antics were seen in LOVE, everything from bouncing off trampolines, dangling from ropes, and countless other amazing things that make you even more impressed once you realize that those spinning things dangling from the ceiling are actually people. LOVE is unique in that it feature zero live music. The entire soundtrack was developed from original Beatles master tapes and assembled specifically for the show. The advantage here is that you know most of the songs right off the bat, unless you've been living under the rock of pop culture for the past several decades. The creative visual interpretations of the music in the show would be exciting whether you're a Beatles fan or not, but even more so if you like the music. As most shows in Vegas go, it's worth every penny, though it'll cost you a whole lot of them to see it. I'd absolutely see it again.

As for the rest of the vacation, it was a good time. As usual, I redistributed money within Vegas by winning from the rich and losing to the richer. Not very Robin Hood-like, but tis better than losing to everyone. :) But on the other hand, I'll be heading back to work tomorrow... no life-changing jackpots for me... but having a nice relaxing vacation was more than sufficient.

Now back to the daily grind. And I've spent too long writing this, and it's time to sleep. :)

Alaska Airlines - New Hawaii Service

Alaska Airlines announced new non-stop service from SEA-HNL and SEA-LIH (Lihue, Kauai)starting in October. First of all, for anyone from Seattle who likes to travel to Hawaii, this is a great deal.

More importantly, they've released introductory fares for the routes. SEA-HNL service starts October 12th with Mon-Thurs fares at $236.30 Round Trip after all taxes. What a steal!

Anyone who knows me knows I'm less than enthusiastic about Hawaii... but more enthusiastic about a huge fare sale. I've decided to go down for the UW/Hawaii football game on December 1st this year, leaving Thursday returning Monday. Can't beat that.

Imagineering the Music update

Avid blog readers will remember my post from a couple weeks ago regarding the talk I attended with Marty Sklar of Walt Disney Imagineering. Well, Disney news and information is one of the hottest blog topics on the net it seems, and my brief recap was recently picked up by The Disney Blog, an outstanding resource which seems to scour the web for Disney bits and bites. (And scour he must, especially if he found my little home on the blogosphere.) While I follow a good number of Disney blogs, I'm ashamed to say I never previously encountered The Disney Blog, though have quickly added it to my daily blog roundup I check everyday.

It makes me wish I had more to say about the talk... but alas, I have a horrible memory and didn't write much down. Next time I have the opportunity to see something through, I'll certainly have to take better notes to share with the blogging world. :)

Random updates

It's been a while since I just posted a random collection of bits of things that have been happening lately... so here it is:

On the apartment front, I had a note on the door this morning that due to the construction on the street the power will be out today from 9-2. While this won't really affect me since I'm not there, it's nice short notice for those who perhaps, work from home? I'm not sure if it has to do with the impending repaving work on the street (they've been working on curbs and street corners nearby), or the house that they totally demolished across the street to make way for what appears to be yet another giant mixed-use commercial/residential building, probably exactly like the other one they're building two blocks down the street or the two they just built two blocks up the street.

Also included on this notice was that within the next 60 days they will be starting construction on my own building. (?!) They will be replacing all of the carpet in the internal hallways of the building, as well as completely remodelling the front entryway and lobby. This isn't a bad thing I suppose, though the carpet isn't exactly falling apart, and the entry is probably better looking than many other buildings I've visited, so I have to wonder. Are they just beefing this place up so they can sell it? Are they doing this just to have something to point to when they raise everyone's rent again? Or perhaps they just want to keep the building in good shape. This is, afterall, the same building management who replaced my water heater two years ago, not because it had stopped working, but because it was "old and should be replaced". So it could just as well be their routine maintenance on the building and I shouldn't really worry. Time will tell.

Today at work is a complete wash. We've got meetings most of the morning, then this afternoon we have a big off-site release party for our latest software release. Fortunately, I don't mind a day of complete unproductivity. :) In related news, this month I completed 4 years with the company, which normally wouldn't mean much, but in this company it means that I now get 4 weeks of vacation per year. To steal a phrase from my sister, "I love me my vacation." Now I just need to figure out what my next big vacation will be.

Back to not working...

Webapalooza I

Realizing there are some web sites I frequent but nobody else has ever heard of, I introduce Webapalooza, a brief introduction to sites I think are great and worth knowing about.

Travel-related web sites:

Kayak - www.kayak.com - One of the best airfare search engines out there, though also does hotels, cars and more. Unlike some other travel sites, Kayak does no booking, but rather helps you find the cheapest flights then takes you directly to the site to book it. Similar to some others out there, but I find Kayak far superior. Definitely worth checking out.

Travelocity - www.travelocity.com - I'm not a huge fan of these consolidated booking sites, but I do use Travelocity for one good feature they have. If you are simply looking to find what the cheapest airfare to a destination is, regardless of when you want to go. To find that, enter the origin and destination, but instead of entering dates click "Flexible Dates". You'll get a list of all airfares on all available airlines. If you're looking for the absolute cheapest fares, this is a good place to start. Never book it on Travelocity though, go directly to the airline's website.

FareCompare - www.farecompare.com - This is a relatively new site on the web travel landscape. It's unique in that it keeps a decent airfare history for every route, which helps you know how good a good deal really is. It seems to have much the same use as how I use Travelocity, and may be a bit better.

SeatCounter - www.seatcounter.com - SeatCounter is designed for one specific purpose, to see flight availability by fare bucket. This is useful mainly to figure out availability for frequent flyer award tickets and such, and really you have to deeply understand how airfares work to find this site useful. :) But I use it.

Site59 - www.site59.com - The place to look for last-minute airfares. If you're looking to book tickets for travel within the next 3 weeks, you can get some incredible deals here. One caveat is that you must either get Air+Hotel or Air+Car together, but even at that it's usually cheaper than buying the exact same airline ticket alone from another site.

Disney-related web sites:

MiceAge - www.miceage.com - THE definitive site for the latest news on Disney theme parks. A lot of underground Disney news breaks here before it even publically released by Disney. Other news and reviews from a great team of reviewers and reporters. I keep it on my daily web rundown.

MouseSavers - www.mousesavers.com - This site always has the latest Disney deals and discounts. I mainly use this to keep up on the latest deals for Disney parks, but it also has deals for other Disney-related merchandise, as well as the other theme parks around. Definitely a must-see next time you're trying to plan a Disney vacation.

AllEarsNet - www.allearsnet.com - A one-stop shop for all things Disney World. They have a bit of a section on Disneyland too, but are much more focused on Orlando. This is one of the oldest web sites dedicated to WDW, and as such has a HUGE amount of information, all consistently updated.

Imagineering the Music

Tonight I attended a talk at the EMP with Marty Sklar, former president of Walt Disney Imagineering. Talk about a man with some stories, he has worked at at WDI for over 50 years, and started way back as a writer for Walt Disney himself. You quickly realize that he's been involved in some way with nearly every project that Disney has ever undertaken, and certainly has plenty of stories to go along with them.

He began with a perpared multimedia presentation, including some talks about the history of Imagineering, but then the second half of the presentation really focused on the music used throughout all of the parks. Several themes came through during the presentation, most notably his real love for Epcot, the park that he really shaped. I think there were little bits from nearly every ride's soundtrack at Epcot. It was really a well-imagineered presentation.

But then following his 45-minute or so presentation, he took a few questions, that actually amounted to at least another 45-minutes. Fortunately there were quite a few good questions that came from others in the audience, and Marty had a story for every one of them. One of the more entertaining quotes was in response to a question regarding the relative failure of Disney's California Adventure:

"You can't build a park with 18 attractions next to Disneyland with over 70 attractions and charge the same price. People are too smart for that."

I really got the impression that those in Imagineering really care about the work they do, it's really what you expect. They've proven time and again that if you build it well, people will come, but if you cut corners like the executives with MBAs seem to like to do to save a few bucks, you'll lose in the end. Funny how that seems to be a common trend you see everywhere.

It was a fascinating and entertaining talk, and since I'm an EMP member it was free, except for the $6 I had to pay for parking down at Seattle Center. Oh well, it was still worth it.

Rent

A belated review of last Wednesday's performance of Rent at the Paramount. This is the fourth performance of Rent I have attended, all of which have been on the various touring productions that have come to Seattle over the past 10 years, which seats it firmly at the top of my list of most-viewed musicals. As such, this review is going to be a bit more detailed than most of my other musical reviews, and most of my references will probably only make sense to those who have seen the musical before (or to some extent the movie, which does the musical no justice whatsoever).

As always, Rent draws quite the diverse audience, including many of the non-regular theatre goers. In this case, quite the younger crowd was represented, with many high-school and even younger kids attending a show which would easily get an R-rating from the MPAA (though notably, the movie received a PG-13 rating, no thanks to editing a lot of the dialogue and scenes). Despite this, I think most of the younger crowd dressed more appropriately for the theatre than the "Seattle casual" some of the older folks tend to wear (as I've ranted on in previous blogs). If only their theatre ettiquette matched their attire. But overall, I wasn't bothered too much by the audience around me.

As for the show, overall I'd have to say it was probably the weakest of the productions I've seen. That's not to say it was bad, I just have a lot to compare it to. Of course, there are some constants that don't change, including the script and scenery, all of which has been the same across all productions I've seen. That leaves the differences to the band and the cast, which I will detail now:

Primary cast -
Mark: Good work, I enjoyed his performance... I thought he really captured the demeanor of the character better than some others.

Roger: Came to the tour straight from the London production... and it shows. London audiences probably think nothing of the fact that he has a British accent, in a musical set entirely in the slums of New York City. I wasn't at all impressed with his performance. It was obvious he had worked hard at covering up his accent with a more American one, but frequently it would come through. I also noticed his singing was a bit reserved, which surprised me for such a dramatic and frequently angry role. I wanted more edge, but consider the possibility that in giving more edge, he would be unable to cover up his accent as successfully, thus he toned it down. Whatever the reason, I wasn't as thrilled by his performance.

Collins: Absolutely outstanding performance. This is the role pioneered by Jesse L. Martin (who popular culture knows mostly from his current role as Detective Green on the original Law & Order series). This role is consistently one of the strongest actors in the cast, and this one was probably the finest I've seen.

Angel: By far the most athletic and energetic performance I've seen... which many may say is what the role calls for. Personally, I think it was overdone. It was so overdone it was distracting from the dialogue/music to me.

Benny: Eh, something about him didn't thrill me. His role is designed to elicit a loathing from the audience, and this time he especially succeeded. Maybe he was too good. Either way I wasn't thrilled.

Maureen: A bit of background... the first time I saw Rent, Maureen's big protest scene was probably my least favorite part of the entire show. (In contrast, for most people it's quite the opposite reaction.) Each time I've seen it it has grown on me, and in this performance, it was absolutely hilarious. The actress who played Maureen did an absolutely outstanding job. She seemed so completely ditzy... it fit the role perfectly.

Joanne & Mimi: Both of these were good, and didn't stand out as better or worse than I've seen previously. They just didn't stand out at all.

The band: The music had a bit of a rough start. For most of the first act it felt like the band was pushing the tempo the entire time, and it was just causing a bit of tension between the music and the singers. This came back together towards the second act, but even then, the music just seemed a bit off balance at times, and while the artists were incredibly proficient, I wasn't as impressed as previously.

Overall rating: 4-stars. This is with a musical that would easily receive 5-stars from me on any other day. It definitely won't stop me from seeing it again every time it makes a stop in Seattle.

Spring is here

[4 blogs in 3 days... enjoy it or hate it while it lasts... either way, it's sure to stop soon.]

Spring is here... the sun is out and the weather is warm. I did a bit of spring cleaning today, and in the process realized that I have way too much junk, and nowhere to put it. Until I realized my laundry room was full of no fewer than 15 cardboard boxes of all shapes and sizes. They are now in the recycle bin, and lo and behold, I have space! It's a miracle!

And the surest sign that spring is here... I took the extra winter blankets off the bed.

Google hits the mark once again

I'm a devoted skeptic. And in the land of skeptics, Google is an easy target. Google defies all logic, all business sense, anything you could possibly believe to be a success. Other companies have tried and failed at creating a truly free-to-the-end-user service supported entirely by advertisers, but somehow Google has succeeded. Not only succeeded, they have blown the market apart. This is a multi-billion dollar company, funded by the advertisers (and a healthy endorsement by Wall Street investors), that founded the simple principle "do one thing, and do it better than anyone else." They hire the brightest minds in computer science (though given their rapid growth these days, I can only assume the bar is slightly falling as a result), who create amazing products, that cost the general user absolutely nothing. And those I know who work there have (usually) nothing but good things to say, though seem to work far more than I would care to on a given day. But despite all of this, they have moved from simple web searching to an armada of services, all of which have that same principle "do it better than anyone else". And with the latest services I've started using, they've done it once again.

Web Search - Still the best out there to find what you're looking for. "Just Google it!"

Gmail - The push to take e-mail from the desktop to the web started with the likes of Hotmail and Yahoo. But Google found the deficiencies in those (not enough space for mail, not as many features as available in desktop clients, etc.) and rose to the challenge. Now it's as fully-featured as most other non-web e-mail applications out there, gives you as much space as you should reasonably need, and is accessible from anywhere in the world. Your one-stop shop for e-mail. You really get the impression that the people who design Gmail are actual users who use the thing, and have built the features that they want to see. I transitioned to using Gmail for my personal e-mail over a year ago, and wouldn't go back.

Google Maps - MapQuest started the trend, and once again Google made it better. They harnessed the power of modern web browsers as no other mapping service had before, and just made it work the way you'd expect it to. Nothing's perfect, obviously, but 99% of the time you get where you need to go.

Google Calendar - Take the gold standard of the Microsoft Outlook calendar, and put it on the web, make it sharable, and accessible from anywhere. I just migrated my calendar over to Google this past weekend, after the frustration of being at work and not being able to check my calendar at home. Now it's all in one place, and I can see other people's calendars (who have chosen to share them with me) without having to ask them "are you free on Wednesdsay night?" This is a young product, and they definitely have some work to do before it really purrs... but it's a step in the right direction and I'm sure they're plenty receptive to enhancement suggestions from those early-adopters currently using it.

And finally...

iGoogle - Throw the old minimalistic Google search box out the door. OK, wait, don't throw it out completely. There's still a place for that. Enter iGoogle, your one-stop custom home page for everything you need. It takes all of your Google and non-Google services and combines them into one easily-customizable home page that takes the place of the classic Google search page. (Don't worry, the Google search box is still front-and-center at the top of the page.) You can add literally any blog to your page (may I recommend this one? :)), or many other useful little widgets. Truth be told, I haven't really road-tested iGoogle, and may have complaints that make me switch back to the classic quick-loading favorite. But it's something to try for a while.

To be completely fair, even Google makes mistakes... and some of the projects that come out of Google Labs (their playground for new and in-development projects) range from total disasters to downright ridiculous ideas. But I guess ideas have to come from somewhere, and sometimes you have to have a dozen bad ideas before you find one winner. I'm interested to see what else Google comes up with... though have to admit my skepticism tells me as soon as the revenue from advertisers stops coming in, someone's going to have to pick up the slack and what's free now may not be free forever. I hope this is never the case. I just know my experience is that I see the advertisers everywhere on Google products, but am I ever clicking those links? Rarely if ever. Hopefully I'm in the minority, or else these advertisers may get the clue and decide they do just as well without Google's help.

A Cabaret Evening with Betty Buckley

Three words: Oh... the... pain.

I was expecting an evening filled with fun and exciting music sung by a talented singer. As the lights went down to start the show, a quick perusal of the hall saw a lot of empty seats. This is never a good sign. My first thought was, "what do they know that I don't know?" The answer soon became all too clear.

Ms. Buckley came out on stage, with a four-piece combo of saxophone, bass, drums, and piano--her personal backup band--along with a subset of the symphony. In reading the program notes, she obviously has quite the acting resume, including a Tony award for her starring role in the musical Cats. This should have been the recipe for an outstanding musical evening. Unfortunately, like tossing a clove of garlic into the chocolate-chip cookie dough, there was a disastrous error.

As Ms. Buckley explained in her brief comments between tunes, she was asked to program a "cabaret" evening of music, and as part of her interpretation included an array of sultry or lounge-style songs. In principle this was reasonable, unfortunately it was all to obvious that this is neither her forte, nor what the audience was hoping to hear. After the first 30 minutes, I began too compulsively check my watch. After 45, and a rendition of "Cry Me A River" that one could barely recognize as such, the agony was setting in. Judging by the lackluster applause from the rest of the audience, I doubt I was alone. Wrapping up the first act, she threw the audience a bone and sang a few show tunes from Sunset Boulevard and My Fair Lady, with full accompaniment of the symphony. A level of applause unheard to that point led us into the intermission.

The performance really shined at the close of the first act, but the mere thought of having to sit through another hour of pain was too much. I made my way to the exit, and in the elevator down to the parking garage was joined by several others who had the same reaction I did. A steady stream of cars cascaded from the parking garage.

It was a disappointing evening. I was looking so forward to a great show, but unfortunately, I guess you can't win them all.

Weekend adventures

I decided to actually do something productive today, so that's what I did...

I started by hopping the bus downtown, and walked over to the grand reopening of the Seattle Art Museum. They're open 35-hours straight and free all weekend. I actually arrived just about 45 minutes after they opened and had no wait at all to get in. The museum was... much as it was before the remodel, if you ask me, only it looked a bit newer. :) I definitely noticed much more in the way of contemporary or modern art than your classical oil paintings from centuries ago. For the most part, modern art doesn't really thrill me. But also quite a dedication to Northwest artists (and thus a lot of Native American art as well). I tend to have a rather short attention span at art museums... I pay lots of attention to the art for a while, then it all starts looking the same and I digress into just wandering through the galleries. It's always fun though. I had an odd fascination with the "porcelain room", which I can describe best as a walk-in china closet. Surprisingly interesting to see all kinds of plates, vases, jars, uh, and everything else made of porcelain.

After the art museum, I walked down the street to the market, watched some fish fly and grabbed some fried chicken for lunch. Then I walked up to Westlake and went shopping at Old Navy, bought some new clothes that I needed, then hopped a bus back down to Seattle Center. I FINALLY went to see the Disney music exhibit at the EMP, that has been open since November, but I have STILL never had the time to drop by and see it. It was most excellent, not too large of an exhibit, but very interesting (well, to me at least, but I have a small obsession with Disney music). The exhibit will be open until September, and I'll probably have to take another stop down there sometime to see more.

Then I headed home and watched the Most Exciting Two-Minutes in Sports... the Kentucky Derby. And for once, it actually was rather exciting. Almost exactly one year ago I was at Churchill Downs and now I can watch and say I've been there. Even the Queen of England took some time to stop by and watch the Derby... she looks rather British. :)

In other news, I got a flyer in the mail that they will be repaving the street in front of my apartment building between now and July. I suppose that's a good thing, because there are a few ruts in the road that could use some work. They've been working their way across 45th for quite a while now, and I suppose they'll turn the corner and head my way once they get here. Hopefully it doesn't cause me too much frustration having to get in and out of my building.

Tonight I'm off to the final pops concert of the symphony season, A Cabaret Evening with Betty Buckley. Ms. Buckley is a famous Broadway vocalist (whom I've never heard of, but I'm not much for names), so I can only assume some high quality showtunes tonight which will no doubt be stuck in my head the rest of the weekend. Full report will probably come later tonight or tomorrow. Until then...

Murder, By the Numbers...

So I signed up for NetFlix and maybe will actually watch some movies this summer when I'm bored. Though I seriously doubt I will actually get into the habit of watching movies on any regular basis. But in addition to the movies, of course, I noticed the plethora of TV series now available on DVD, including one of my favorite old shows, Murder, She Wrote. I remember we would watch Jessica Fletcher solve murders every Sunday night, after Andy Rooney went on some bizarre ramblings at the end of 60 minutes... it was one of those shows the whole family liked to watch. Over the years you begin to learn that every episode is basically the same, but with different people and a different setting:

Scene 1 - We meet the characters, whether at home in Cabot Cove, Maine, or somewhere else in the world. Somehow Jessica Fletcher knows people in literally every city in the world, whether it's London or Little Rock. Plus, everyone has read "all of her books" and recognize her presumably because of her picture on the book jacket, even though they've never met her. Sure, why not. Pay no attention to the fact that people die wherever she goes.

Scene 2 - Two characters get into a big fight, with plenty of witnesses, where one of them shouts, "I'm going to kill you!" The person ends up murdered shortly thereafter.

Scene 3 - The law is called in. The one who shouted it all is the prime suspect and all evidence points to him. [Note: the accused NEVER actually did it.] If we're at home, Sheriff Amos (or Sheriff Mort, depending on what season we're in) call upon Jessica to help them solve the crime. If we're off elsewhere in the world, the local detectives just want Mrs. Fletcher to butt-out. [Apparently the detectives aren't big readers, because they seem to be the only ones who have never heard of her.]

Scene 4 - Jessica gets in trouble with the law, or in some other awkward predicament, as she zealously investigates on her own. Throughout the episode, just watch for the camera to zoom in one some seemingly unimportant object... those are the clues that she will tie together in the end.

Scene 5 - Finally after everyone's finally concluded that the prime suspect didn't really do it... Jessica has it all figured out with a "He didn't do it, but I think I know who did..."

Scene 6 - The real murderer is caught in an elaborate trap set up by Jessica. She connects all the dots, and the murderer confesses (this isn't Law & Order, no time for a trial here). "Thanks Jessica, you saved the day!"

Change the scene, change the characters, and you've got an entire new episode. So it went for 12 seasons. Which brings me back to the inspiration for today's blog: how long would it take to watch every episode of Murder, She Wrote? Let's go to the numbers...

Seasons of Murder, She Wrote = 12
Total Episodes = 263
Length of each episode (w/o commercials) = 44 minutes
Total running time = 11572 minutes = 192 hours 52 minutes

At this point, only the first 6 seasons are actually available on DVD, but ultimately, if you were a) insane and b) obsessed and c) unemployed, you could watch every episode of Murder, She Wrote end to end in 8 days and 52 minutes. Oh, we can't forget the 4 made-for-tv movies plus the 2-hour pilot episode, which makes it 8 days, 8 hours and 12 minutes. And really, once you've watched MSW for 8 days straight, what's another 8 hours?

So who's ready to get started?

April Update

Seeing it's the 25th of April and I have yet to make a post since March 31st, we'll call this the April update, and I will endeavor to give a whirlwind tour of the month so far.

I made it back safe and sound from the bonspiel in New Jersey. (Pictures are up in my photo album.) The trip was a lot of fun, but always nice to get home from far away. Being my first trip to the East Coast (besides Florida, which everyone agrees does not count), it was quite a bit of fun. I need to go back to NYC sometime soon.

Curling wrapped up another year of fun and excitement. I curled in three different leagues this year, and my respective teams did reasonably well in all three of them. My Sunday night team was runner-up in the B division, which was a victory considering how bad we did the first half of the season. My Thursday night team won the C division, and my Friday night team won the A division. [A note about the divisions: the general pattern for curling leagues are that at the beginning of the season, teams are randomly assigned into pools and play teams in their own pool. Half way through the season, for a two-division league anyway, the teams in the top half of each pool are put into the A division, and the bottom-half of each pool become the B division. That way in the second half, theoretically you're playing teams that more closely match your skill level. Still, winning the B division is vastly preferred to, say, coming in 5th in the A division. :)]

Now that curling is done, I'm finding myself with quite a bit of spare time on my hands... which is both nice and not. It gets a bit boring sitting at home all the time, so I have to find other things to do. My current goal is to go to the driving range at least once a week and get my golf skills a step-up from deplorable to respectable. :)

I've had such a terrible track record seeing movies I want to see. I think I'm going to get NetFlix for a few months and catch up on my movie watching. For the past, oh, 2 years or so I've consistently had movies that I've seen previews for and been "I want to see that", but never did. And considering I NEVER seem to go rent movies, I think having NetFlix will convince me to actually watch them occasionally and catch up seeing movies I've wanted to. The big challenge will be setting up my queue and trying to remember all the movies I've wanted to see. We'll try it for a month or so and see how it works out.

Last week I went and saw The Light in the Piazza at the Paramount. This will be an abbreviated review, which is probably what the show deserved. I think this show is hit-or-miss as far as the audience goes... and I think it had its fair share of misses. I've determined there are really three distinct audiences for the theatre... first, people who see theatre as an art form, meant to inspire, intrigue, and promote intellectual discussion on a social commentary of the world. Second, people who want to be entertained, whether in comedy, music, lavish scenery, fantasy reality, or any combination of those. And third, people who have such low standards they would give Rachael Ray microwaving a hot pocket a standing ovation.

I definitely fall firmly into the second category, but if the show crosses-over to cover both the first and second categories, I'm just as satisfied. I don't mind the occasional inspiration, but I definitely want to be entertained or awed by a show. I WANT to be humming a tune for a week after the show. The Light in the Piazza missed the mark with a lot of the audiences. While the show loosely may have inspired or intrigued someone, I don't think that's what it was trying to do, and if it was it failed miserably. I sat next to an older lady who came in by herself, and not to stereotype, but appeared definitely to be in the first category of audience I described. About halfway through the first act I looked over and she appeared to be in the most excrutiating agony and/or half asleep. She did not return for the second act. The music was very operatic in nature, which in turn made it difficult to understand a lot of the words during the songs, as well as just wasn't toe-tapping or hummable music. I think it missed the #1 or #2 audience hits, but there are plenty of #3 audience types who were on their feet at the end as usual.

As for my ratings:

Cast - 4 stars. My lackluster satisfaction with the show was, as usual, no discredit to the actors. Outstanding cast, and well performed.
Script - 3 stars. An interesting story, though nothing spectacular.
Music - 2 stars. The music wasn't bad, but did nothing for me. What would have been a good play without music was just muddled up with added music.
Technical - 3 stars. Not much more to say about that.
Overall - 3 stars. Probably more like 2.5 stars, but I'll round up in this case. I've seen it, it was worth seeing once, but I don't need to see it again in the future.

With that review out of the way, I'm caught up to this week. Not too much going on at all. I should get back to work, then figure out what to do with the rest of my day.

Adventures in New Jersey

Our first night of curling was, shall we say, less than stellar. We lost in spectacular fashion, no doubt attributed to our incredibly poor team play. Our second game wasn't until Friday night, so during the day on Friday we took the opportunity to explore New Jersey. One of the other people I came down here with has some friends who live in Western New Jersey so we went out and visited them. We ate lunch in the nice little town of Clinton, NJ. I took quite a few pictures of the adventure, and once those get up it will be a bit more interesting.

Eventually we made it back and played our second game, which we played far better than the first game, but ultimately came up short in the last end. After two losses, it was time to win. So today (Saturday) at noonish we played our third game which we played spectacularly well and won. Now we're relaxing back at the hotel before we go back to play our next game at 6:45pm. Tonight is also the big pig roast, vegetarians need not apply. This annual event we're playing in is called the Plainfield BonSqueal, the highlight of which is the pig roast feast on Saturday night. I must say, it's starting to smell mighty tasty outside the curling club now.

Last night on the east coast, then back home Sunday evening. Just when I've finally gotten adjusted to Eastern time, I'll have to shift 3 hours back again. Monday's going to be one great day at work.

Whirlwind tour of NYC

After spending Wednesday travelling on what felt like a relatively short 5-hour flight direct from Seattle to Newark, today we don't have our first curling match until 9:30pm or so. So we ventured into the Big Apple for a whirlwind touristy tour of NYC.

We headed over to the Edison, NJ train station and took the train into the city. About 45 minutes later we arrived at Penn Station in New York City. Really, we had very few actual plans for our day, deciding rather to just go with the flow and see what we find. This worked out well, until we decided to actually try to find specific things and were thwarted at every turn. :)

From Penn Station we ventured north, past Macy's and on up to Times Square--not as thrilling as it looks on TV. After we saw what we needed there, we continued on up to Rockefeller Center and decided to take the tour up to the observation deck at the Top of the Rock. From there we had a spectacular view of the city, in all directions. We took lots of pictures, and tried to avoid being blown over by the high winds up on the roof. After that we decided to try to go out to the Statue of Liberty. Here's where the plans started to go awry.

A lady at 30 Rock told us to walk two blocks over to 49th and 7th and catch the R subway train down to the water. This we handled with relative ease. Once we were there we walked along the water until we made it to the mayhem of the Statue of Liberty ferries. Ultimately, we could easily get on a ferry out to the island, but there was no chance of actually going into the Statue of Liberty because all the tickets were gone. Apparently while it costs money to take the ferry out to Liberty Island, the actual tickets to go inside the statue are free, since it's a National Monument. Had we known this, we could have reserved tickets online before we left, but we knew not. After decided it probably wouldn't be worth it to just go over to the island, we instead decided to go visit the USS Intrepid museum, where the WWII aircraft carrier the Intrepid is docked. We took the #1 subway train back up to Times Square, then walked for what seemed to be an eternity (but in actuality about a mile) over to the water where the museum was. Continuing our bad luck, little did we know that the Intrepid museum closed back in October for a 2-year rehab. Ouch, that hurt.

Having had enough of that, we walked back to Penn Station (about a mile and a half adventure) and caught the first train back to New Jersey. That brings us to now, and it's resting time. It was fun, though definitely looking to have a plan of more things to do next time I come to NYC. This was a good once over to get my bearings and understand how the city is laid out and all fits together.

Tonight is our first game... hopefully we still can curl after those miles and miles of walking. Woohoo.

Write it on your hand!

Ever have one of those days where you just seem to forget everything? I'm having one of those weeks already, and when you're getting ready to go on vacation for the rest of the week, forgetting things isn't high on your list of things to do.

Yesterday I had 3 different things I was supposed to do, all of which I completely forgot about. None too critical, I guess, but still just stuff that makes me rework things later to make it all fit.

Then this morning I somehow came to work and left my cell phone at home. So this is probably the least of my worries, but it just feels like I'm missing something without it.

Oh... wait a second... there it is. I just had forgotten which pocket I put my cell phone in. Well, now I'm just an idiot. See how easily I could have just gone back and deleted that last paragraph and you wouldn't be the wiser? But no, because I'm here for you, my avid blog readers, and I wouldn't want to let you down. :)

There are several things I have to remember before I leave for New Jersey tomorrow. One of which is that I don't have an e-ticket, but rather a free paper ticket I'm using from a previous bump on Alaska. Must not forget that... maybe I should write it on my hand. But will that really do anything? I never look at my hand anyway, so how am I supposed to use that to remember? Anyone have a good way to remember things? I forgot all of mine.

It only took a month...

I hope you're sitting down... I don't want you to be too shocked, but I finally have my vacation pictures from California online. It only took a month or so... that's pretty good I guess. :)

Joe's Photo Album

Twelve Angry Men

Broadway doesn't always mean musicals. This is the perfect example. Tonight I attended a performance of Twelve Angry Men, the story of a jury dileberating on a death-penalty homicide case. Picture if you will... one scene, no music, no intermission, and an hour and a half of non-stop dialogue. It was quite an interesting show, and oddly capivating despite the fact that I'm much more interested in the musical theatre, which this definitely was not.

The jury foreman was played by George Wendt, who will probably forever be better known as Norm from Cheers. I think everyone in the theatre was collectively ready to yell "Norm!" as soon as he walked in the door of the jury room, but fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately) no one did.

The show had all the drama of a Law and Order episode, complete with emotional outbursts and characters you love to hate. The story alone, however, was pretty predictable once you got your bearings and figured out where it was headed. This would have made for a rather boring show, except for the outstanding acting. All twelve jurors were absolutely amazing, without any weak links whatsoever.

Ratings for this will be short and to the point, yet somewhat counterintuitive.

Cast - 5 stars. These are top-notch actors with a top-notch performance.
Script - 3 stars. A good story, but the strength is really in the character depth.
Overall - 2 stars. It was a good show, but I probably wouldn't go see it again, nor would I have sought it out had I not had season tickets. Ironically enough, the overall rating wasn't saved by the strong marks for cast and script.

Monopoly Money

[This is going to be one of my rare educational blogs where I provide useful information which I have synthesized from across the vast resources of the Internet.]

It's not often I travel outside the US, so until California falls into the ocean and starts printing its own currency, I don't have to worry much about exchanging money. But as the avid readers of my blog may have inferred, I don't like wasting money, or giving more money to "the man" than I absolutely have to. So on my recent trip to Canada, I examined the several ways to pay using their 'monopoly money' (either cash or electronic), to determine the most fiscally-responsible way to beat the system.

There are three main ways to pay for things internationally, cash, debit card (check card), or credit card. As anywhere else in the world, cash is king... assuming you have the local currency in hand. Once you have it, you're all set. Everyone accepts it, and you don't have to worry any more about exchange fees. But how do you get it? There are several options:

1) Exchange your currency for their currency. This is good, in principle, until you look at the rates. Consumer exchange rates are ridiculously high compared to the wholesale exchange rates banks use. For example, last weekend when I was in Canada, the US dollar had a wholesale rate of about .85USD/CAD, but the consumer exchange rate (what you'll likely pay if you walk in off the street) was over .92USD/CAD, a difference of about 7 cents on the dollar! In the short run for small things, probably doesn't make a huge difference, but in the long run, ouch!

$100 CAD = $92.00 USD

If you really want to have the cash in hand as soon as you arrive, you might consider changing it before you go. At home through your bank or online, you'll have the flexibility to shop around for the best rate. You're still going to be paying the inflated consumer rates though. Non-cash options include pre-paid cards (like Visa Travel Money) you load up with money before you go. Though they sound good in principle, but they kill you with fees. First a fee to get the card, then more fees for using it at ATMs, plus the standard exchange fees when using the card. Still a good option if you need lots of money that's safer than carrying around lots of cash, but if you already have a credit/debit card, I'd stay away from it. As far as Traveller's Cheques go, yuck. You'll pay the exchange rates either when you buy them or cash them, plus who uses cheques anymore? People will look at you funny. Cash is king, remember.

2) Use your US ATM card at their ATM. Depending on your bank, you'll pay a flat International ATM Fee, plus a International Transaction Fee for converting the money. For myself with Bank of America, that adds up to a flat $5 USD for the ATM fee, plus 1% of the USD conversion amount for the transaction fee. HOWEVER, you're taking the conversion at the bank wholesale rate. At a Canadian ATM:

$100 CAD = $85 USD + $5 fee + $0.85 (1% fee) = $90.85 USD

This equates to an actual rate of around .91USD/CAD, still cheaper than I could do converting cash. Fees vary widely among banks, and it's really hard to find the right information short of calling your bank and asking them what their fees are. One added bonus with Bank of America is that they are a member of the Global ATM Alliance, which is an alliance between banks in the US, Canada, Mexico, UK, France, China and Australia/New Zealand, allowing fee-free ATM use among those banks. In Canada, the alliance member is Scotiabank... so I could use my BofA card in one of their ATMs and get cash for only the 1% conversion fee.

$100 CAD = $85 USD + $0.85 (1% fee) = $85.85 USD

This roughly .86USD/CAD rate is far and beyond the best you're going to be able to do internationally to convert cash. [Note: Bank of America is very vague as to whether or not the 1% fee is charged for Global ATM Alliance withdrawals. I'm assuming it is, and it's just the $5 fee that's waived, just since past experience is that BofA isn't up on giving up too much money.]

3) Use your US credit card to take cash out. This is a bad idea in the US, let alone internationally. Most credit cards charge up to a 3% fee for the conversion, plus cash advance fees and instant interest. I won't even bother with the numbers, it's so ridiculous.


Once you have local currency in your hands, you're all set. But make sure you don't convert more than you need, because the only way to get the cash back to USD is to pay the consumer conversion rates I outlined before. Better off saving it for your next trip, or if you're not going back anytime soon, go on a souvenir shopping spree.

But what if you need to pay for bigger things, perhaps a hotel, or other expensive things that you don't want to pay with large wads of cash. Just like back home, plastic is a good option. But again, most people have multiple options here too:

1) Use your credit card. Visa or Mastercard are accepted in all the civilized parts of the world. Your exchange rate will be the wholesale rate plus a fixed percentage assessed by your card issuer. Most banks charge between 1% - 3% for this fee. My Bank of America card is 3% on international transactions:

$100 CAD = $85 USD + $2.55 (3% fee) = $87.55 USD

This is still significantly cheaper than any other option, short of the fee-free ATM that we found above. Card fees vary widely, however. Visa is actually converting the money, and charging the issuing banks 1% to do so, however the banks then "pass the savings on to you" by charging you anywhere from 1-5%. However, some cards, such as Capital One's credit cards, actually absorb the 1% that Visa is charging them, and have completely fee free cards. This means with one of those you would pay:

$100 CAD = $85.00 USD

That's it, just the straight wholesale rate and nothing else. Makes it almost worth it to put one of these cards in your wallet if you are frequently travelling abroad, or plan on taking a long trip.

2) Use your debit/check card. Oddly enough, I found it nearly impossible to find information about this for my BofA card. Some references show this as just the 1% fee, others 3%. As with most of my other data, you just have to try it and look at the numbers to figure it out. Your mileage may vary. Either way, I wouldn't expect it to be any worse than using your credit card, if not better.


In summary, know what you're paying before you go. Ask the right questions to find out the right answers about the fees you'll pay outside the country. Also know where you're going. The guidelines I found really only apply to the industrialized world, and may not apply if you're travelling to the middle of nowhere. As I constantly implore, cash is king, and there's probably few places in the world where you can't use a US greenback. I'd always keep a few dead presidents buried in that secret spot in your wallet in case of emergency. When changing money, everyone's out there to take a piece of the action... make sure they don't take too much of yours.

What's so wrong with a $1 coin?

This will serve double-duty of recapping my past weekend, and promoting the widespread use of the newest $1 coin. The connection will be made clear shortly.

I had a long, yet exciting weekend this past weekend as I went up to Victoria, BC for a curling bonspiel. Though I had to get up at about 4:30am to get out on the road and head up to Canada, at least I didn't have to drive, so it was a much more relaxing trip. We got on the road at about 6:00am and made it to the border by about 7:30am. There was only one lane open at the border crossing, but fortunately since it was so early even at that there were only 2 cars in front of us in line. I went up with three other guys, one of whom is actually Italian and a student doing his graduate research at the UW. As a result, we were stopped at the border and had to go inside so Canadian immigration could check out his paperwork and US Visa. I don't think they were particularly concerned with letting him in, as much as they wanted to make sure the US would let him back in when we came home. All went smoothly, and we made our way up to take the ferry across from Tsawwassen to Vancouver Island.

Curling went well, we managed to win our first game which was nice, but ultimately ended up 2-3 for the weekend. All close matches though, so we were pretty pleased, especially since the Canadian locals were far more adjusted to the ice than we were. (The differences in the ice make a huge impact on the game.) Our hotel was only about 3 blocks from the curling club, so we could walk back and forth as needed. We had a few spare hours one day that we used to walk down to the inner harbor, er, harbour, which was fun. All in all, a good weekend. We had about an hour wait at the border coming home, despite our best efforts to avoid it. We came across the truck crossing instead of the main I-5 Peace Arch crossing, which apparently had about a 2.5 hour wait. Lots of people trying to come down to the US on Sunday afternoon.

As always happens when I go to Canada, I am reminded how great the $1 and $2 coins are. The US is the only major country in the world to still have small-demonination bills in circulation, but oddly enough, most people seem fine with that. Even with the recently improved Presidential $1 coin that is now available, people still aren't using it. Some frequently-cited polls report that something like 75% of the US population prefer the $1 bill to a $1 coin, but I don't buy it. I think it's just we're stubborn and hate change... in every sense of the word. :) I for one rarely carry any change around whatsoever... but in just two days in Canada I adapted and was carrying change with me because I had to, and you know what, it wasn't that bad. Who really needs their grungy $1 bills anyway? Use the coin! I'd use the coin more, but nobody gives them as change ever, and cashiers look at you funny when you give one to them. Really, I think it's just a vocal minority opposed to eliminating the $1 bill (the same minority who are opposed to eliminating the penny, though I don't mind the penny). I say let's get rid of the $50 bill and 50-cent piece while we're at it... talk about a superfluous piece of money.

Amazing Race 11

[spoiler alert - if you're behind on your TiVo watching of Amazing Race 11, proceed at your own discretion.]

Those of you who have been watching this season of The Amazing Race will appreciate this more than others... but...

ROB AND AMBER GOT ELIMINATED! YES YES YES YES YES YES YES!

Once again, the double-crossing, two-faced, lying, cheating, claw-your-way-to-the-top team fails to prevail! I was convinced I was going to have to suffer through another season with "the team you love to hate," especially after they not only survived but came in 1st place in the first 3 legs of the race. Even when it became apparent that they were going to come in last place this week, I was dreading that it would be a non-elimination leg. But it's all good! Of course, those of you who followed my Amazing Race 7 Travelblog know my fond feeling for Rob and Amber from their first appearance 4 seasons ago.

As for this season of the Amazing Race 11: All Stars edition... I must say it's actually keeping me captivated and watching far more than the previous several seasons have. It's almost even inspiring me to start an AR11 Travelblog... but I think perhaps these commentaries will suffice. And if you're not watching the Amazing Race, it's never too late to start [CBS, Sundays at 8pm]. The excitement really starts to heat up in the second half of the season. There are 12 legs in the race and we're only on the 4th. I have been prediciting for several seasons that an Amazing Race will finally take a trip down to Antarctica, and at the end of the 4th leg of the race they are currently sitting on the southernmost tip of South America. Sounds like a good possibility to me!

Commonly misused phrases? I could care less!

Picture with me now... a dramatic moment in your favorite reality television show. A contestant is fed up with his opponents, and in a moment of high drama, cutaway to an interview clip where he exclaims, "I could care less what they think of me!"

... and... SCENE!

Last night I was watching my DVR'ed episode of The Amazing Race from Sunday and this exact thing happened. All I wanted to say was, "You're an idiot."

Let's face it, we all stumble over words occasionally. And as much as I wish the real world had a backspace key to clean up those little errors, it doesn't. But consider how useless some of these commonly used words and phrases have become. If I were parsing the phrase--not that I do that, well, not too often anyway--I would take "I could care less" as one big chunk and give it the part of speech "meaningless idiom." Phrases like that are so overused, nobody takes them literally anymore. Certainly if they did they'd be as confused as anyone. "So wait a minute. If you could care less, you must still care some."

Now I'll try to assemble as many misused, useless, or generally redundant phrases as possible:

I literally flew off the handle when I couldn't eat nor sleep forever. Like I eluded to prior, it was a very unique experience, most everybody would agree. Due to this affect, I am a man who will be easily aggravated in the forseeable future.

See how many you can find in there. :)

Abusing the system...

Since what seems like the dawn of time, Costco has had an absurdly liberal return policy for products bought from its warehouses. Basically, you could return anything, anytime, even years after you bought it, for a full refund. Well, thanks to the actions of a few who have taken advantage of this policy, Costco has been forced to change it's absurdly liberal return policy to one that's only reasonably liberal. [Costco tightens its return policy -Seattle PI 2/27/07] "Anytime" has essentially turned into "within 90 days", though has been supplemented with a new 2-year warranty. Of course, this wouldn't have been an issue, if not for the abuse by some unscrupulous customers who would buy a $2000 plasma TV, only to return it 6 months later only to turn around and buy a brand new model for half the price. As ridiculous as it sounds, it was fully within the letter of Costco's policy to do so, though certainly not within the spirit of it. It has become so commonplace that one customer, as noted in the PI article, even went so far as to refer to it as Costco's "free TV upgrade policy." As a result, the majority of honest customers to whom Costco has always tried to provide outstanding customer service are being penalized. Now I believe that their new policy is still FAR more than reasonable, and better than you'd find anywhere else, it's the principle.

The "abuse it because you can" philosophy stretches far beyond Costco, or even retail stores in general. It's an epidemic in American society. Cable television, cell phones, any service-providing company is a victim of this. I know people who call and haggle with Comcast over their cable bills every month, not because they aren't satisfied with their service, but just because they know if they complain about something they'll get months of free service or other discounts. When I've questioned these people in the past, it's always rationalized by "they charge too much anyway, it doesn't cost them anything to give me a discount," or "that's the way the game is played." The problem is that it IS costing the company money, and it's also costing every customer in a lack of quality customer service and companies standing by their products and services.

I believe that most companies genuinely want to keep their customers happy--it's in their best interests to do so. It's just that most often, they've been burned so many times in the past that they are skeptical of every complaint that comes in. They start assuming that the majority of customers complaining are just trying to get a free lunch, and as a result crack down on their policies and customer service. Who really suffers is the honest customers, who do in fact occasionally have legitimate complaints or problems. Take my recent bout with Nissan's customer service regarding my broken window regulator on my car. [previous blog thread] I don't believe I was at all unreasonable in my complaint and request for a repair, and ultimately I was able to convince Nissan that I wasn't just trying to get something for nothing, after which they stood by their product and fixed my issues. But no doubt they are inundated with requests from customers expecting them to fix problems due to normal wear-and-tear and the like, that no reasonable customer would ever expect a company to do. I could tell this just from my conversations with the customer service representatives I talked to. As a result, a company who genuinely cares about its customers ends up unintentionally driving away exactly the good customers it wants to cater to.

The value of knowing your customers personally, and customers knowing the company personally, is never to be underestimated. If the company knows you are an honest and valued customer, they are far more likely to help you out when you have a problem. It's a compelling argument for perhaps paying a bit more to buy a product or service from a more reputable vendor, though I definitely don't offer a blanket endorsement for the mom-and-pop electronics store either. Large or small, you just have to know who's standing by your products.

Sure there are unscrupulous companies and salespeople who try to take advantage of the honest, good-intentioned customers... but that's another rant for another blog.

Music from the Stage and Screen

Continuing with my apparent string of great performances, tonight I went to the Seattle Symphony Pops concert featuring Marvin Hamlisch and an outstanding musical lineup of great movie and Broadway show music. I must be on a roll this week, because this was probably the best Seattle Symphony concert I've been to all season. Marvin Hamlisch has of course scored countless movies and 8 Broadway shows, including A Chorus Line, and is an outstanding pianist. That in itself should make for a great performance, but what wasn't expected was that he's probably funnier than even many professional comedians I've seen. I should have expected an entertaining night as soon as the symphony opened with the distinct screeching strings from Psycho. The evening included the symphony performing from various movie scores, and shows such as My Fair Lady and Phantom of the Opera, featuring an outstanding tenor. Hamlisch provided the interludes and introduced each tune, telling various stories and even throwing around some Victor Borge-eseque piano humor. All this from a man who has 4 Grammys, 4 Emmys, a Tony and 3 Oscars (and took plenty of opportunity to joke about the Academy Awards, and his losing to John Williams several times, claiming all John has to do is pound on the piano and he gets an award for it). Absolutely outstanding... another 4+ star performance. Certainly as long as there are plenty of good shows, I won't be complaining. :)

Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story

Tonight I attended Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story at the 5th Avenue Theatre. One day after returning from an extended vacation, I nearly decided not to go--what a mistake that would have been!

Buddy is based on the life of Buddy Holly, famed rock and roll pioneer who died tragically in a plane crash on tour with The Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens in 1959. I was expecting a good show, considering the quality and familiarity of many Buddy Holly songs, but was skeptical of this recent example of the aptly dubbed "jukebox musical" which have left me less than satisfied in the past. Complete enjoyment of such musicals rely heavily on one's recognition and familiarity with the associated songs. Fortunately for Buddy, it would be a challenge to listen to any oldies radio station for an hour and not hear at least one tune used in the show.

Understandably, the quality of the performance depends heavily on the quality of the music and musicians. There was absolutely no disappointment. If you came expecting above-average cover band material as I did, you would be completely blown away. Every one of the actor/musicians was absolutely amazing. Combined with the excellent script and production yielded an unexpectedly outstanding overall performance. My only real complaint was that the majority of the second act became just a rock concert. It was as if the writers had a set lineup of songs they wanted to fit in, but ran out of story halfway through, so decided to write one scene and just throw everything else in it. I was momentarily disappointed by this, but was quickly re-energized by the once again amazing musical performance.

As for the ratings:

Music - 5 stars, without any reservations whatsoever.
Technical - 3 stars, good all-purpose sets and lighting, without interfering with the great music.
Cast - 4 stars, at least half the cast were obviously accomplished musicians in addition to being excellent actors. It's always nice to see musicians out of the pit and on the stage.
Script - 3 stars. Good avenue for telling the Buddy Holly story.
Overall - 4 stars. The 4 that's closer to 5, rather than closer to 3.

"Buddy" was a late substitution in the 5th Avenue's season lineup after the Broadway-bound "Cry-Baby" was delayed out to next season, and as such I think has suffered a bit in its promotion. Quite a few different ticket deals have been released in an apparent effort to fill seats after lackluster ticket sales thus far, but it should be a crime to have empty seats for this show. Its three-week run continues through March 4th, and I highly recommend finding some tickets if you have the chance.

California Adventures, part 1

Avid readers of my blog (if such a thing exists) won't be the least bit surprised at my latest vacation ramblings from Disneyland. But since this trip will likely sound much like the last one this past October, I'll spare the mundane "here's what I did" laundry-list of details. Right now I'm partially soaked after riding the Grizzly River Run which is one of those white-water rafting type rides over at California Adventure. Actually, I didn't get nearly as wet as I expected, I've been on similar, yet far worse rides, where you are drenched by waterfalls and the like. Not a fan of gratuitious drenching... but incidental drenching is fun and part of the ride. :)

Due to the disappointment that the perpetual favorite ride Splash Mountain is currently closed for refurbishment, this trip's Thrilly award for best ride goes to... The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. It's hard to beat the outstanding theming and excitement of a 13-story more-than-freefall in a runaway elevator. :) But while we're discussing it, this is the only place I prefer to be in any sort of runaway elevator.

Tomorrow after a morning in the parks, I'll pack up and drive over to Santa Barbara, potentially during a LA Friday afternoon rush hour. Me thinks it will be quite the adventure... fortunately, I brought my tunes with me... because I'll need it.

Pictures to come, including some pictures of the fabulous Grand Californian Hotel, if I remember to take pictures around here... which is no certainty at all.

Memories of Grandma's House

Like most people, I always have fond memories of going to grandma's house. I was lucky enough to have grandma's house no more than about a 5-minute drive from our own, so much time was spent over there. Of course, grandma and grandpa had a big house, with a big backyard, and there was always something fun to do over there. (Oh yeah, and they had cable TV, which growing up we never had at home, which made it bonus fun.) Sure, the house had a distinctly straight-out-of-decades-past look, but that's what you expect when you go to grandma's.

But I'm not just waxing nostalgic for no good reason right now. First a bit of history... a few years back before my grandma died, she moved into an "old-people apartment" and we sold her house. I would have kept the house and lived in it, but alas I was just starting at the UW, and really wasn't in the place to live in a house in Federal Way. So what can you do? The house was sold to a nice couple who did some renovation work on the unfinished basement and (though I have never seen it) apparently did some nice things to the house. But last year or so they sold it. And that's about the last we heard of it... until my parents were talking to some friends who still live in my the neighborhood where the house is and we come to find out that the new owners were, how do you say... on the wrong side of the law? Apparently they bypassed the electrical meter and added some new lighting downstairs in the basement. Yes, that's right folks, grandma's house was turned into a illegal marijuana growing and distribution shop.

I recently stumbled onto a press release from the US DEA, ["Marijuana Manufacturing And Distribution Conspiracy Shut Down"]. The address is clearly listed on the press release, where apparently they found 394 plants and $35,000 in cash. Now there's something you don't see everyday.

Grandma's house, it is no more.

If this is vacation, why am I so tired?

va·ca·tion (vā-kā'shən, və-) n.
A period of time devoted to pleasure, rest, or relaxation, especially one with pay granted to an employee.
Hard to believe I call this a vacation so far. I have spent the majority of the last 6 days putting in about 12-16 hours per day volunteering my time officiating for the 2007 US Junior National Curling Championships which have been held this year at our curling club. It's been a pretty exciting week actually, though with four draws a day at 8, noon, 4 and 8, it's been a loooong week. The only reason I'm not up there tonight is that the 4pm and 8pm draws were for tie-breakers (if necessary)... fortunately, they were not necessary. All that's left are two semi-finals tomorrow afternoon and the finals Saturday morning. While it's been a lot of fun, the long days have not exactly been the definition of pleasure, rest, or relaxation. More like stress, drama, and sleep-deprivation. That's why I was smart enough to plan a real vacation for next week.

And that, I will talk about more later... now I'm too tired.

Vacation + Sick = Bad

There's nothing like waking up the last day before you start a 2-week vacation, only to feel like you're starting to get sick. There will be NO sick while I'm on vacation.

I REPEAT... SICKNESS IS NOT AN OPTION.

It's not too bad right now, and hopefully I can ward it off. I'm kicking up the immune system and seeing if I can knock this off early. We shall see.

HP Mania!

The mania has begun... you can't go two minutes without someone going "Hey, did you hear the new Harry Potter book will be out on July 21st? I have to get it as soon as it's out!" Oh the pain...

The book isn't going to be any different whether you get it one day or the next... so what's the big deal, folks? Sure, I'm interested to find out how it's going to end too, but geez. Why don't you just pretend the book will be released on 7/22/2007, order it on Amazon, and when it arrives you'll be like "sweet!"? Then you won't be disappointed. It's like people who set their alarm clock forward 20 minutes so when they ignore it and wake up 20 minutes late they're suddenly right on time. (Which, by the way, I never have understood, because 99% of the people who do this, KNOW that their clock is 20 minutes fast, and intentionally plan that into their day, so it really defeats the purpose.)

Sure, everyone wants to know what's going to happen with Harry Potter... they've been chomping at the bit for the past year just waiting for the finish. Maybe it's a sense of "beating everyone else to it"... so they can be the first on their block to know what happens. In this case, I wouldn't stand a chance regardless because I read slower than two turtles chasing each other across fly paper.

Myself, I plan on just waiting a week until everyone I know have each read it about a dozen times, then I'll borrow it and read it when I get the chance.

Please do not discard.

Have you ever noticed how mass mail marketers try so hard to make their mail look like real important mail, that usually it's even easier to pick out? It's funny, for years I would never get any sort of useless mail, now I must get at least half a dozen pieces of junk mail a day. However, I've gotten really good at sorting it out just by looking at the envelope. To share in my wisdom, I've compiled a handy little junk-mail identification guide.

1) If the envelope says "Please do not discard" it's probably junk mail. Every time I've received something like new credit cards, tickets from TicketMaster or anything else that I really shouldn't discard, it always comes in a completely nondescript plain white envelope with nothing but a pre-printed return address. These are ones I don't discard.

2) If the envelope looks like something incredibly important, especially if it says "Important!" on it... it's probably junk mail. Get real... you're not that important to receive mail like that.

3) If the envelope is any color other than white, and it's not Christmas, your birthday, or your wedding... it's probably junk mail. Real mail comes in white envelopes.

4) If the envelope has what appears to be a handwritten note scribbled on the front... it's probably junk mail. High-class junk mail, but still junk mail.

I'm not complaining too much though, recycling junk mail is as easy as hitting the delete key on my e-mail. But unlike e-mail, there's nothing worse than going to the mailbox and finding absolutely nothing there. At least junk mail makes my trip to the mailbox worth it.

Sunday's over... I'm ready for a weekend...

Is it a good sign when it's Sunday night and you're thinking "when does the weekend start?"

OK, so it's not quite as bad as that, but still. I feel like it's been pretty much non-stop for the whole long weekend. Friday night I had my regular curling which wasn't so bad, but I just really wasn't much in the mood to curl. Then Saturday was another full day of curling with the mixed bonspiel. Unfortunately, that required playing 3 games on Saturday, of which my team lost all three games. It was fun, but by about 9:30 when I was done, I just came home and crashed. Sunday, well, it was a pretty normal day. Went to church in the morning, then came home and had a little time to relax before, yes, yet another night of my regular Sunday night curling league.

Last week one of my coworkers gave me a box full of old piano sheet music that she acquired when cleaning out her mother-in-law's house. Tons of sheet music with lots of classic songs from the 1920's-1960's mostly. So part of my Sunday afternoon was going through this box and finding all kinds of fun music to play on the piano. I was extra pleased to find a fair share of showtunes and movie themes, but upon further reflection, that's not too surprising. Most of the popular songs of that era were specifically from musicals and movies. What happened to that trend? Somehow I don't think 60 years from now someone will be going through a box of sheet music and stumbling onto last year's Oscar winner for best song and going "Hey, remember that classic song 'It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp'? Those were the days, they just don't make songs like they used to!" No thanks, I'll stick with "There's No Business Like Show Business" that I found in the box. :)

Ah well, time for another week of work I guess. So long weekend, it feels like I hardly knew you.

And believe me, I know toasted...

Have you seen the Visa commercial where everyone's getting lunch at the cafeteria and everything is moving like a well-oiled machine... then someone throws a wrench in it (in this case, paying with cash instead of their Visa Check Card(tm)) and everything falls apart? [Visa Commercial: 'Lunch'] I like this commercial, mainly because it is the perfect dramatization of how you get into a regular routine, and the smallest change can throw you completely off.

This is especially apparent when you live alone... rarely do things change without you actually changing them, so you can neglect common double-checks you might normally take without fear of anything unexpected happening... until you have guests (like my freeloading sister a few months back). The differences can manifest themselves in the most unusual places... like the toaster.

Have you noticed that most people, whether they realize it or not, have a very distinct preference for how they toast their bread. Some people like it blackened (or as I would call it, 'cajun style'), others just warm enough that it's a bit crusty, but not a hint of brown anywhere on it. Still others prefer it somewhere specific on a scale between those extremes. Myself, I prefer it, as Alton Brown would say, "golden brown and delicious"... no black, but enough that it's just a bit toasty. The problem is, few toasters (and certainly not my classic 1980's stainless steel model) have any sort of custom presets like a car radio to set how toasty you want it. Instead, I have to rely on my experience to get the lever set to exactly the right toastiness, and trust that once I get it right it's not going to change. It's a time-proven system... until someone touches it. On several occasions when I mindlessly dropped my bread into the toaster and pushed the plunger down expecting "golden brown & delicious" toast, I ended up with extra dark and over toasted toast. Such a disappointment. After the first such occasion, I traced it to my fine freeloading sister who had monkeyed with the toaster (and then later claimed that I need a new toaster... totally bogus). It just goes to show that sometimes your routine can get the best of you.

[Editor's note: I had this rant probably 3 months ago, but as usual forgot about it everytime I was trying to think of something to blog about until now.]

Me Talk Good English

I read an article today ["Bad English confounds Beijing teacher"] about how in preparation for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, there is a big push among the Chinese to improve their rather poorly translated English signs. I actuall recall many bizarrely worded signs when I was in China back in 2001 and doubt they can possibly fix them all in any reasonable amount of time. Some of them just have misspellings and typographical errors on them, which aren't such a big deal to me. The amusing ones are the complete mistranslations that occasionally could be read quite differently by a native English speaker. These signs are widely collected online, so I decided to post a few of the more entertaining ones I found here, with my own commentary added. Enjoy!

But speaking cellphone on a sunny day is perfectly fine... I wonder if cellphone sounds a bit like Swahili?

Your guess is as good as mine.

Who's Carefully? And why was he standing so close to the water?

... or it might chase after you.

Please confine your frolicking to the kiddie pool.

"You need a breath mint."

You is valued neighba.

I took a picture of this one (or one like it) in China too. "Please keep your graffiti neat."

Very important. I do this every time I walk out on the curling ice.

... and don't you forget it!

Yeah... and no free refills on your Diet Coke either!

Truer words have never been spoken...

Nor will it ask you for spare change...

I actually had to look this one up. A "balustrade" is a railing supported by a bunch of columns (balusters) that hold it up, like you usually have on the side of stairway or balcony. This begs the question... how is it that these people who can't make a correctly formed sentence have a better vocabulary than I do?

Yeah... do something with your life and get a real job!

As opposed to the alternative... ?

I'm just trying to figure out which of the Chinese symbols stand for "deformed man".

Sign outside a Xenophobics Anonymous meeting.

... and please, no smorking within 25 feet of any doorway.