We See Spider-Man--Turn Off the Dark

Shane and I went to see Spider-Man today and it is not as bad as recent critics would have you believe. It wasn't the greatest show either, but it was not boring.

If you are a kid expecting non-stop action, you may be dissapointed.  It is a musical after all and they stop the action for a U2ish song every once in a while. There were lots of restless kids in the crowd  making lots of noise--mostly from eating and drinking during love songs.

What I did like was the staging. I sat in the front row of the lowest balcony, aka The Flying Circle. Several times during the show Spidey would fly across the orchestra seats and land on a platform about 6 feet away. That was pretty impressive. The sets were pretty amazing. One especially amazing one was a horizontal skyscraper showing the street below as if the audience was hanging out the window. It was worth seeing the show just for the visual effects. I assume that is the work of the director, Julie Taymor.

A few of the songs were fairly good. You could easily recognize they were Bono and The Edge songs a mile away. They often started with the familiar U2 intro. Although, one of the best musical moments in the show is the Green Goblin singing "I'll Take Manhattan," not a U2 song. I won't be buying the soundtrack.

The show is too long and the story ends with a whimper when it should have some sort of twist or surprise. The story could be much better.  There is not even a point when Mary Jane learns of Spider-Man's identity. The first act is much better than the second.

I wouldn't see it again, but I'm glad I saw it. I'm glad I had the seat I had--it was a great seat. Shane sat in a side box and he also liked his view. I was worried whether he was going to like the show, buy i think he liked it more than i did.  If you go, don't get a rear orchestra seat or you'll miss a lot of the action. I would recommend the Flying Circle, side boxes, or front center orchestra--in that order.

Elaine's Doesn't Serve Lunch

We are in NYC for the day and Shane wanted to take a cab up town so we
could eat at Elaine's. Perhaps he should have done more research, as
Elaine's is not open for lunch. He and my two nieces, Megan and
Nicole, can't hide their disappointment.

Lunch with Mom in Havre de Grace

I had the day off today, so I took the train north last night to visit my mom. I took her to the Tidewater Grill on the river in Havre de Grace, MD. This shot was the view from our table. We both had crabcake sandwiches. It was good! Those are real geese. Shane is coming up and we're driving up to New York City to see Spider-Man on Saturday.

The Human Centipede--Yes, I Really Watched This

I'm not proud that I watched this movie, but it was available for free on Netflix, so... what the hay. It was the only film I've seen available on Netflix that had a one star rating. It is such a ridiculous film that it is hard to really not laugh at it. The movie is chocked full of cliches... the trampy girls whose car breaks down outside the evil doctor's home... the evil laugh of the crazy doctor at the suggestion he is crazy... the Japanese man who regrets that he can't hold in his BM when the girl surgically attached to ass is forced to eat the result... all that sort of thing. It was a train wreck I had to see.

Don't Look for Me on Jeopardy

I love trivia.  I play Qrank everyday and have been known to enjoy a game of Trivial Pursuit.  It should come as no surprise that I like to watch the occasional episode of Jeopardy.

Several weeks ago, Jeopardy promoted that you could try out for the show by taking the contestant test online.  I thought, "what the heck."  So, I signed up and took the test last night.

It consisted of 50 questions in which you had to type in the answer within 15 seconds, including reading the question.  I'm not expecting a call to try out for the show.  I did horribly.  I'm not sure how many questions I got right, but it wasn't that many--maybe 20.  It was hard.

I had seen the movie, District 9, but I couldn't remember the country in Africa where it took place.  It was South Africa.  I am very familiar with the choreographer of Chicago and subject of All that Jazz, but couldn't think of his name in 15 seconds--Bob Fosse.  Some of the stuff they asked, I just had no idea.  If they asked about TV sitcoms, I might have had a chance.  So much for my dream of being the next Ken Jennings.

New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #275

Stop that bangin' or that will be the only bangin' you'll be doing!  

This is my submission for the the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #275.  Let me know if you come up with a caption too! 

Breakfast for Dinner Undoes Gym Workout

I love pancakes!  The lighting in the restaurant don't make them look as delicious as they were.  They were delicious!  The scrambled eggs and hash browns also were delish!  We ate at Ted's Bulletin on 8th Street, SE.  It's sort of a diner.  Shane had a burger of course.  Food is good, but the place is loud.  I went to the gym and ran 3 miles today too--a lot of good that did.

Super Shredder Sunday

Shane and I spent most of the day... I'm talking HOURS... going
through our files and getting rid of old papers. We bought a new
shredder yesterday and gave it quite a workout. We have generated six
large garbage bags of shredded trash--I'm talking big black Super
thick trash bags. The Super Bowl is on this evening, but on Super
Shredder Sunday, we get rid of some of our clutter. Shane just found
another pile to go through. Woo Hoo!!!

Sand and Water by Beth Nielsen Chapman

Zack Wahls' Speech Defending Gay Marriage

Skippidy Doo Dah, Thank You Lord for Big Love

Big Love is back on HBO for its final season.  We love this show.  Spoiler alert if you haven't seen the first two episodes of this season, but Bill got his wives each a new gun for Christmas.  I'm guessing one of the kids finds one of the guns and creates some havoc before the series ends.  
This is one of our favorite clips from the show.  Rhonda sings the Donna Fargo hit, "Happiest Girl In the Whole USA."  It was quite a while ago in the series.  Rhonda's foster mother (playing the piano) persuaded her to make the appearance to talk about polygamy.  Roman is recovering from being shot by lackeys of Hollis Greene -- who believed it was Roman who poached Weber Gaming, when it was in fact Bill.  Bill is sleeping alone because he had a fight with the wives.

Today Maude Was My Co-Worker

This was the first day I have ever teleworked.  I spent most of the day working in bed on my MacBook.  I was amazed at how much work I actually got done.  The only distraction I had was a yellow ball of fur sleeping most of the day next to me.  Maude (above) certainly enjoyed having company all day.  The only downside was that by the end of the day I was going a little stir-crazy from lack of human contact.  Overall though, I liked working from home and hope I get to do it more.

Finally Purchased Office for the MacBook

Althouh I've had my Mac for more than 2 years, I finally purchased the
Office 2011 suite of software for it today, including Word, Excel, and
PowerPoint. I had Office on my desktop PC, and managed to survive
with that, but I'm going to be working from home tomorrow and didn't
want to be leashed to the desktop in our upstairs closet. I plan to
work very hard with my laptop in bed.

New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #274

Sorry bud, it's not a tutu for one special.  

This is my submission for the the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #274.  Let me know if you come up with a caption too! 

We Got Tickets to the Spider-Man Broadway Musical

We bought tickets to Spider-Man, Turn off the Dark for Saturday, February 12.  The tickets aren't together, but they are better seats than we could have gotten if we had sat together.  One is in the first row of the Flying Circle, which is the closest balcony.  The other ticket is in a side box balcony.  According to @abroadwaycritic who I follow on the Twitter machine, the balcony is the best seat in the house to take in the flying sequences. You can see his review of the show here.  One of the reasons I wanted to see it was this quote from that review:  "First things first: get your tickets to see Spider-man: Turn Off the Dark as soon as possible. It’s worth every cent." Hope nobody gets hurt.  

The Heat Is On

We have eternal problems keeping our lower level warm since our
furnace is on the roof. The furnace can't seem to manage to make the
heat go down there since heat rises. We've tried a variety of
different space heaters to supplement the furnace on our main level.
I bought this heater today at the Costco. It does throw out the
heat. Let's hope it helps.

Dinner at an Italian Restaurant--Trattoria Alberto

Shane and I went to our corner Italian restaurant, Trattoria Alberto, tonight.  It is one of our regular places we like to go out to in our neighborhood.  We took Shane's sister, Cherri, there last year and saw soon-to-be House Speaker John Boehner eating there.  We have since learned that it is one of his favorite haunts.  According to Time magazine, they even have a dish named after him.  I haven't noticed it on the menu.  We didn't see Boehner tonight, but we were ready to burst into tears to make fun of his tendency to do that at the drop of a hat.  Several years ago, we sat next to Senator Lindsey Graham and his all male party (staff?), the Republican closet case from South Carolina. Where do we have to go to see a Democrat in this town?

What A Difference A Day Makes

Tuesday I was in Florida and Wednesday I was back in DC in time for the snow. The good news is that I only had to work two days this week and we got 2 hours off both of those days because of the weather. This shot is out our front window from Wednesday evening.

La Cage Aux Folles -- Best of Broadway

The 2010 revival of La Cage was one of the best things we saw last year on Broadway.  Shane got the soundtrack for Christmas and we've been wearing it out.  Fair warning though; you onlt have a few more weeks to see the show starring Kelsey Grammer and Douglas Hodge (their last show is Feb 13).  Jeffrey Tambor and Harvey Fierstein take over the roles on February 15.  I want to see them in it too.  This montage of various scenes of the show made me want to see it again.

Those Crazy Academy Award Nominations--A Rant

The Academy Award nominations were announced this morning and I have a few thoughts on them.  Here they are.

This is the second year that there were 10, count them, 10 nominees for Best Picture.  All the other categories have five or less nominees, but in an obvious ploy to get more people to see more movies, they have 10 nominees for this category.  I think I saw maybe two movies in the theater last year.  I did see True Grit recently and I again swore I would never go to another in a movie theater.  People just do not understand they are in a public place and not their living rooms.

In this instance, Shane and I got to the theater early so that I could claim my favorite seat--back row center.  It prevents me hearing people behind me chit chatting or whatever.  Anyway, even though we were among the first ones in the theater, it filled up enough so that someone ended up sitting right next to me.  This lady constantly popped her gum and occasionally talked to movie.  It drove me crazy.  I would have said something, but her gentleman friend looked like he could have possibly been a professional football player.  I didn't think it was worth a brouhaha.  Anyway, my point is that I will not be going to the movies to see the other nine films nominated against True Grit.

The other movie I saw from last year was Harry Potter.  Poor Harry has never been an Oscar darling, but he did manage to wrangle two nominations this year--Visual Effects and Art Direction.  Luckily, Harry does just fine without the Oscar buzz other films seem to need.

My favorite thing about the nominations is how, out of all the movies released in the year, the technical awards also seem to also go to the films that end up being the best picture even when it doesn't make any sense.  For instance, True Grit got nominated for Costume Design.  Costume Design?  It was a western! The costumes were barely designed.  I liked the film very much and the costumes seemed very appropriate, but the best of any picture for the whole year?  That seems odd to me.

Also, I would like someone to explain to me the difference between sound editing and sound mixing.  How is it that some films were nominated in one of those categories and not the other?  You would think they would be dependent on each other.  Also, is there someone out there that is convinced to see a film based on these nominations?  "I wasn't very interested in Salt, but I see it got a sound mixing nomination, so perhaps I will see what all the buzz is about."

My only complaint about the nominations is that Matt Damon did not get included in Best Supporting Actor for True Grit.  He should get a special award for schooling Glen Campbell on how the role should have been played.  Campbell in the original version was so bad, that he nearly ruined the movie.  I know Campbell is not an actor and he just got the role because he bought the ladies into the theaters, but my God he was bad.  Damon wasn't anything more than adequate in the role, but when you compare it to how it was played previously, it was quite an accomplishment.

I used to be very into the Oscars, but lately I can't seem to be that interested in them.  Why do I care what films when awards?  It doesn't really affect my life.  I get an occasional award for working in the Government, but millions of people don't want to watch my performance appraisal.  I probably would work harder if it was televised.  I would dress better.