Weekend Update

[I wrote this originally on Sunday night, but apparently it didn't post. Pretend it did.]

What a busy weekend! Friday night I met up with a group of friends to go to the Seattle Symphony Pops' Sci-Fi Concert. We met for dinner at Rock Bottom downtown beforehand and had a good dinner before heading over to Benaroya Hall for the concert. The concert was outstanding. The main focus of the concert was the music of John Williams, including much music from Star Wars and Superman, as well as selections from Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Harry Potter. Though not exclusively John Williams music, the show included music from the various Star Trek series, as well as a medley of themes from TV shows spanning the past 40 years, from The Twilight Zone to the X-Files, and many others inbetween.

The show included a "laser light show", which frankly I could have done without. It was somewhat interesting, but entirely unnecessary, and on the whole unimpressive and hokey. They could have taken the $1.99 they spent on the laser show and put it to better use elsewhere.

Additional features included George Takei, Mr. Sulu from the original Star Trek series, who was "narrator" but really only played a small role by providing a few anecdotes prior to the Star Trek theme medley, as well as narrating the opening into to Star Trek. While we would have liked to see a bit more of him, he still was a good addition. A featured soprano, complete in uniform, was the highlight of the Star Trek medley as she adeptly sang the wordless melody to Star Trek. Overall, an outstanding performance to one of the more packed houses I've seen at Benaroya.

Saturday I met up with Kristen, Mark, Annie and Adam in the afternoon before Cat and Aaron's wedding. The wedding was at 6pm at Cat's church over on Queen Anne. It was a very nice ceremony, about an hour long but didn't nearly feel that long. The reception was downtown at the Women's University Club, a very posh social hall down on 6th and Spring. I have to say the reception, in addition to being in one of the classiest settings for a wedding reception I've seen, was also one of the most smoothly run. An emcee kept the entire reception moving, and it all went splendidly and was a fun event with fun people.

Sunday was a good day to relax. I was considering being productive, but afterall decided to stay around, do some grocery shopping and laundry, then watched the first episode of Ken Burns' new The War documentary. Now for another week of work, well, 4 days at least before I take my weekend trip to Disneyland this coming weekend. Hopefully it's not a long 4-day week.

I am a blogging slacker!

You know how it is when you get out of the habit of doing something, you tend to forget about it completely. Yes, such is my blog. When I'm not on vacation, I tend not to remember to put anything interesting here. BUT... today I shall change that. Today is the first day of the rest of my blog. Or something.

Did you notice how in that entire first paragraph, I had a lot of words and almost zero information. That's space filler, folks. Now for a barrage of updates:

• Since I never really wrapped up my last vacation blog... yes, I made it home from Upstate New York. I posted the last few pictures I had previously forgotten to upload. Really nothing other than some long plane riding adventures complete the trip blog, and I actually do have one final blog entry that I scribbled down on a piece of paper while sitting on the plane on the way home. I'll probably get that posted in the next couple of days.
• Speaking of vacation, while posting the last of my vacation pictures, I also threw in some pictures from work I took one day when I happened to have my camera. Not too enthralling, but if you've ever wondered where I spend at least 40-hours a week, that can serve as a little glimpse into my world. Also on the topic of pictures, I still have a slew of pictures from Emily and Nathan's wedding in Yakima that I have yet to post. Maybe by their first anniversary I'll get around to that. Hmmm.
• Speaking of weddings, yet another wedding in the "Year of a Million Weddings" continues this weekend with Cat and Aaron's wedding. Fortunately, this is one of the few that don't require me travelling long distances to go to. And this time, lots of people will be in town this weekend for the festivities. Plus, on Friday night myself and a bunch of friends are going to the Seattle Symphony for their Sci-Fi Concert featuring music as expected, plus a laser light show (in Benaroya Hall, that should prove interesting) and narration by none other than George Takei, whom I last saw at a Husky halftime show riding around in a cardboard USS Enterprise that made me fear for his safety. Hmmm... should be interesting.
• Speaking of football, another season of Husky Football is once again upon us. After a 2-0 start to the season, the Dawgs had a sloppy game against Ohio State to come back to 2-1. Though overall, I'm not too disappointed about the game. We still look far better than any team that's taken the field the past several years, and good potential for a decent season.
• Speaking of a decent season, another year of curling is fast approaching. That chilly pasttime that seems to consume at least 3-nights a week, 6-months out of my year, is back again. This will be my 3rd year of throwing rocks at houses, plus to add to the mayhem, I agreed to take over as the league manager for the Friday night league. That should actually be more fun than not, though of course, yet another thing to add to my plate of things to do.
• Speaking of things to do, next weekend (after this one) I'm heading down to Disneyland for the weekend. I'm trying to squeeze out a bit of extra mileage out of my Annual Pass I got last October, and found next weekend to be the best time to do it. Not sure who else may show up as well... Amy may go down if she "has nothing better to do," and Heather may drive down from Encino to hang out with me for one of the days. But of course, it'll be fun no matter what. It's actually often easier to get around by myself, when all is said and done. :)
• Speaking of being done, I think that's the last of my updates for now.

Lakes and Falls

Saturday brought about a good day to drive around and see part of the scenery around Rochester. We drove up to Sea Breeze, NY, which as the name might imply (and might not, for that matter) is right on Irondequoit Bay up on Lake Ontario. We did some letterboxing in a park nearby and then continued around to see (a very small part) of Lake Ontario.


Then we went to the DCA Drum Corps World Championships, right down the street at Paetec Park in Rochester. The DCA is apparently the level below the self-proclaimed "major league of drum corps" which is DCI. But it was fun to go watch. We heard some good bands, and saw some good performances.

Sunday we headed over to Buffalo and then up to Niagra Falls. The falls were spectacular. The funny part to me is how the American side of the falls is a state park, with lots of green landscape and trees, whereas the Canadian side of the falls is mass commercialization. We started at the Horseshoe falls on the U.S. side and proceeded to walk all the way around through the crowded Labor Day Weekend masses, to the American Falls, and over the bridge to Canada. Most of the pictures you see of the falls are all taken of the American Falls from the Canadian side. But once you cross into Canada you feel like you've walked onto the Las Vegas strip, with wall-to-wall stores, Hard Rock Cafe and Planet Hollywood, wax museum, well, every other tourist trap attraction you could imagine. Nice to see capitalism is alive and well in Canada. We walked past most of that and walked up the Canadian side of the river, then turned around and headed back where we came from. Noticing the final insult, a 50-cent toll to leave Canada and get back into the U.S., we made our way back and after spending about 4 hours exploring the falls, headed back home.

A note of warning to those viewing my online photo album: there are about 3 dozen pictures of Niagra falls, from all different angles. No, I don't expect anyone to think half of the pictures are any different from the other half of them, but hey, some turned out better than others, why be picky? :)

Monday was Labor Day, though having a holiday in the middle of a vacation doesn't really feel much different than anything else. Today we went to a minor league baseball game between the Rochester Red Wings (AAA-Minnesota) and the Buffalo Bisons (AAA-Cleveland) in Rochester. Yes, that's bisonS with an S on the end... apparently rules of plurality don't matter when it's a sports team. It was a fun game to go to, about 10,000 fans showed up for the final game of the season, where neither team had any chance of making it to the playoffs, but the home team Red Wings were victorious 8-5.

After we returned we had dinner with some friends of the Gingras' from their church. And now it's time to wind down and get things ready to head home tomorrow night. It's been a nice vacation, but it's about time to head home, me thinks. Hopefully my airport adventures aren't too adventurous either.

Rochester to Syracuse

The day started with what you're supposed to do on vacation, sleep until you can't sleep any more. So that's what we all did. Once we got up in the morning, er, afternoon, Andrew and I headed over to the George Eastman House. As the name implies, it was Eastman's mansion he built in Rochester with all his money he made from the Kodak company. A slightly eccentric, slightly insane person, if you ask me, he had lots of pretty crazy ideas. But he also was a big fan of music and, well, photography obviously. His mansion, however, was like walking though a real life game of Clue. Every time I went into a room, I half expected to see a dead body on the floor. Fortunately, we did not find any. Nor did we find any secret passages, which I have to say was quite a disappointment. There was also a special exhibit of Ansel Adams photography. While some of that was interesting, I have to say that of all art forms, photography is probably the least thrilling to me. But it was still an interesting place to visit.

After that we walked back to Andrew's parents place, and got ready to head out to Syracuse for the football game. It took a good 2 hours to get out there, both with the traffic, waiting at the I-90 toll booths (yes, it seems wrong to me too), and passing by the New York State Fair which was going on just outside of Syracuse. We made it through the sea of orange everywhere and pulled into a parking garage, we made our way up towards the Carrier Dome, walking past the Sheraton where the UW Warm-Up party was. The band had just played and was hanging out on the lawn just past so we stopped and said hi to the few remaining people we knew, as well as Brad and the crew. We made our way across the Syracuse campus, which is actually quite a nice campus, and over to the Carrier Dome for the game.

The Carrier Dome reminds me of the Kingdome, in as much as it's a big, round, cement monstrosity with a domed roof. OK, so not quite as big, but still a monstrosity. But we found our seats, near the back of the UW section, just behind and to the side of the UW Band. The game was quite an adventure, but a rousing success with a 42-12 UW victory. Looks like some good potential for the UW season, now we'll just have to see how we do against Boise State and Ohio State in the next two weeks. Some of the non-game highlights were watching the Syracuse fans filter out and become virtually non-existant by the time the game was over. Before the game started, the Husky legend, the Dawgfather himself, Don James, comes and takes his seat in the UW section, as thunderous applause comes from the rest of the Husky fans in attendance. Though apparently, Real Dawgs Wear Yellow, as DJ decided to wear a canary yellow polo. :) I guess he can wear whatever he wants.

The band made quite a post-game performance to a vastly empty Carrier Dome, as the UW fans started to filter out. Syracuse's band wasn't much to be impressed by, at least by Husky Band standards. Though Syracuse band members seemed to enjoy the Husky Band's post-game performance too, as they watched on.

After the game, it was another 2-hours or so getting back to Rochester, with a late night stop at McDonalds for some much needed food. Then much sleep ensued. All in all, a highly successful day of vacation.

Time to Play!

Today I am fully adjusted to East Coast time. Woke up around 8am, and after lazing around all morning long figuring out what we wanted to do, Andrew and I went over to Rochester's own Strong National Museum of Play. That's right, of play. It's not exactly a full-fledged children's museum, but it's mostly a place where parents with children would go. Fortunately, Andrew and I like to play nearly as much as little kids do, so we fit right in.

Words can't exactly do the place justice, so I'll refer you to my photo archives for a detailed trip report. But some of the highlights included:

• Sesame Street - a reasonably accurate replica of Sesame Street itself, complete with lots of interesting history and facts about the show, and of course hands on fun for the kids.
• National Toy Hall of Fame - some of the finest collections of classic toys and games you'll ever find. We had fun walking a Slinky down the stairs, as well as building some fine Lincoln Logs and Tinkertoys stuff along the way. Fun stuff.

After spending close to 4 hours at the museum, we left and came back home. The rest of the evening was pretty laid back, relaxing and pretending we're on vacation. Sometimes vacations can just be relaxing.

Tomorrow we will eventually head over to Syracuse for the big game. Game starts at 8pm Eastern, so it will be a late night getting home. Hopefully a victory for the Dawgs, but then an hour and a half drive back, will be nothing short of a late night arrival back in Rochester. Saturday should be a somewhat recovery day before we head up to Niagra Falls on Sunday.

Until then... Go Dawgs!

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo. Yes, that's a complete grammatically correct sentence, and a fitting start to my Upstate New York trip blog.

It was the best of flights, it was the worst of flights. It all began with a red-eye flight out of Seattle on Tuesday night. My $200 roundtrip flight to Buffalo, NY makes up for the fact that it was a) a red-eye, b) Seattle - Buffalo, with a 3-hour early-morning layover in Atlanta, and c) AirTran Airlines. All things considered, it worked out pretty well. My flight left on time, if not a bit early at 9:45pm on Tuesday night, and it was a pretty peaceful flight, on which I sat in the exit row next to the window. This has its advantages, and its disadvantages. I had plenty of leg room, so could easily stretch out and not feel squished in like sardines. However... being next to the window exit, way up in the sky it was surprisingly cold. Which was fine until you leaned against the side of the airplane, and nearly froze your leg off. Either way, after arriving in Atlanta a full 30+ minutes early (not exactly an advantage when you already have a scheduled 3-hour layover), I wandered around the surprisingly busy airport at 5:30am, found myself some early morning Chick-Fil-A breakfast, and pretended I wasn't really still awake at 3am Pacific Time.

Truth be told... I was really still awake at 3am Pacific Time... and 4am... and 5am, when finally my flight from Atlanta to Buffalo left. As I boarded the plane and made my way back to my seat in 18A, a little boy was sitting in my seat next to his mom. She asked if she could trade seats with me so she could sit next to her son. I was happy to help, and she gave me her seat in 1C, at the very front of the plane in "Business Class". Honestly, I would have probably traded seats with her regardless of where her seat was, but this was just icing on the cake.

Now, AirTran's "Business Class" is nothing to be too excited about. The seats are larger and have a bit more leg room (though probably no more leg room than my exit row seat did on the previous flight), and you get free booze. Well, that's great, but at 8am EDT, or 5am PDT, I was not really there to take advantage of the free alcohol. I did, however, sleep almost the entire 1.5 hour flight to Buffalo.

All in, I probably slept about 3.5 hours over the course of the night. I made it to Buffalo, and Andrew, who had coordinated his flight from Birmingham to arrive nearly the same time as mine, arrived shortly after, and his mom had come to pick us up from the airport.

We drove back to Rochester, though I saw no winged buffalo along the way, and then spent the day exploring around Rochester, and going grocery shopping. Normally grocery shopping isn't too noteworthy, but we went to Wegman's. Now, Wegman's is a chain of grocery stores that started in Rochester, but now has stores as far south as Virginia, and is often ranked the best supermarket chain in the US. We went to the Cadillac of Wegman's, their flagship store. This place is like a Costco-sized Whole Foods, only not quite as creepy as either. I took a handful of pictures, before they threw me out of the store for taking pictures. OK, I didn't quite get thrown out, but they man at the Cheeses of the World counter told me I couldn't take pictures in the store. I still never understand why some stores have those silly policies, but I guess whatever makes them happy.

Back to the house we came. Now, the best way I can describe this house is if you've ever seen a classic brick rowhouse somewhere in New England, with all its old-world charm and style, like you'd see on an episode of This Old House, but before it gets renovated. :) This specific 3-story house has been turned over the years into a 3-unit building, with Andrew's parents currently residing on the first floor. It's actually a pretty nice place, though Norm Abram and Bob Vila could turn this place into a palace, if they really wanted to.

After dinner, my lack of sleep from my travels caught up with me, and off to bed I went. More days of vacation to come.

Young Frankenstein

Tonight I went to see Mel Brooks' new world premiere musical Young Frankenstein at the Paramount Theatre. In a rare, yet becoming more common, pre-Broadway premiere here in Seattle before it heads to New York, it proved to be all that you would expect from a Broadway musical.

Based on the classic movie created in 1974, it is typical Mel Brooks vaudevillian, often slapstick comedy filled with innuendo, repeating gags, and one-liners. Now, this doesn't typically fall into my preferred comedic genre, but I still found it quite entertaining. As expected, near constant laughter filled the theatre. A Broadway-caliber cast including Megan Mullally, best known as Karen Walker from the sitcom Will & Grace, was one of the headliners, though really only because she was one of the biggest names in the cast. Her actual role was incidental to the plot, and in fact she only was on stage for perhaps one-quarter of the entire 2.5 hour show. The real showstopping performance for me was Andrea Martin, who may not have much name recognition, but made a big name for herself as crazy Aunt Voula in My Big Fat Greek Wedding. She provided and outstanding and absolutely hilarious performance in her supporting role.

The music, also completely composed by Mel Brooks, was as unique as the dialogue. However not particularly diverse in its style. With many recent musicals trying to set themselves apart from others by using unique styles and themes, this was a refreshing return to more traditional musical numbers. The emphasis is on the words, not the music. Though filled with musical numbers, the music isn't what defines this show.

As for the technical aspects of the show, it was probably one of the finest I have ever seen in Seattle. Its Broadway-bound budget was apparent throughout, from the sets to the costumes, and especially in some not-to-be-missed special effects that several times made me believe I was watching a movie, rather than a musical. I had several "how'd they do that?" moments.

And on to my ratings:

Script - 3 stars - I can't say I'm a big fan of this story. The movie has achieved cult-classic status, which is probably the only reason this story was compelled to become a musical.
Cast - 4 stars - This is the epitome of a Broadway cast. With a bonus 5th star to Andrea Martin.
Technical - 5+ stars - One of, if not absolutely, the finest technical production I have seen.
Music - 4 stars - Filled with songs, but none of which meet my primary criteria of being stuck in my head as I left the theatre.
Overall - 4 stars - I can't say I'd pay to see this again. The show wasn't particularly compelling to me. But it was so well produced I can't say it's not worth seeing once.

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.