It Started with a Journal

Saw Wicked at the Paramount on Saturday. It was really great. I seem to have decent luck when it comes to seats for this show; the first time, jade_okelani and I saw it on Broadway in the FRONT ROW and at $25/ticket. This time, I was able to procure some tickets (from the sell-buy list at work) that were in the SECOND row of the theater, right smack dab in the center. They were killer seats. The guy who was selling them asked $200 for both tix; he'd paid over $165 each. I kept expecting someone else to show up and kick us out, lol.

Both leads did really well; Mary Kate Morrissey played Elphaba, while Glinda was played by Carrie St. Louis (she was REALLY good). Initially I was disappointed because Morrissey is the understudy. She did really well, though, and in looks reminded me of Anna Kendrick a bit. Her voice could not compare to Idina Menzel's, but... well, that's a pretty high bar. After the show I overheard someone saying that they'd been to a recent show with the regular Elphaba (Alyssa Fox), and that the understudy actually did better. I later watched a YouTube vid of Fox performing "Defying Gravity," and I thought she was better. But it's a pretty demanding role, so maybe her voice is just giving out at this point and she just needs a break.

In one of my last posts about using the iPhone, I mentioned the "Do Not Disturb" function and how I liked the WP version better, because I could schedule "Quiet Hours." It turns out you can do that with the iPhone too, so that's a relief. It just wasn't spelled out in the settings, so I didn't realize what it was, initially.

Just got Psych: The Complete Series! Yesterday Amazon had it has its Gold Box deal, and was even doing free same day shipping. It's already twice as much today, sheesh. I wish it were available on Blu-ray, but looks like it's only on DVD. I haven't seen the last season (or two), but I've seen enough of it that it's a little embarrassing that I did not realize there was a pineapple in every ep. adelagia had to tell me. No doubt I would have questioned why there was a pineapple on the cover of the set. >.>

OK, very busy work day, gotta get back to it. Needed a little break for my own sanity.

You guys, OMG, Billy Elliot the Musical was SO AMAAAAAAAAAAAZING. Half the cast were kids and they fucking danced (and sang!) their hearts out so professionally and it was so flipping awesome and made me feel so awed over what they've accomplished in their young lives vs what I was doing when I was their age. >.> Faith Prince as Mrs. Wilkinson was wonderful. She's not Julie Walters, but despite that I loved her anyway.

It's the last week of the show but I'm considering getting the cheap $25 seats and going back to see it again. I loooooooooooooooooved it!

So yeah, the tickets K. got on Craigslist weren't a scam. <g> I wasn't really worried about that, but it was a possibility. The bigger concern was what kind of seats we had. The Paramount didn't say one way or another to the ticket winner, and they could have been bad seats. Instead, they were center orchestra, which are normally $80/ticket! So we totally scored on that. Had a great view of everything.

There are 4 different Billys, and we saw Kylend Hetherington, who of the four probably looked most like Jamie Bell (and therefore, to me, the "real" Billy). He was such an ickle woobie and soooooooooo wonderful. He's frickin 13 and has been doing this since he was 12, omg.

Now K. is all into it and is going to watch the movie, etc. Best movie EVAR!

Some of the plot points are different in the musical vs the movie, but for the most part I thought it was very true to the original. The one part of the musical that was different, but that I thought was very well done, was this one scene where Billy is dancing solo, but then an adult male ballet dancer starts to shadow him (they're dancing and spinning a chair at the same time), but the adult dancer is much more skilled/professional, and it was a wonderful way to show us "This is who Billy will become."

SO GOOD.

( I found a sizzle reel! Watch iiiiiiiiit. )

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I've got laria_gwyn and slitherhither into A Song of Ice and Fire now. They're both reading (and enjoying!) A Game of Thrones. YAY!!!!!!!!

While on this topic...

Jon Snow is losing his latest cagematch! Noooooo! Go vote to right this wrong. Or if you're so inclined, contribute further to it. <g>

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Still reading Devil in the White City. Quote from the book:

"I have struck a city - a real city - and they call it Chicago... I urgently desire never to see it again. It is inhabited by savages." - Rudyard Kipling

Which I shared with akscully, and she replied:

"Chicago is unique. It is the only completely corrupt city in America." - Charles Merriam

LOL. I'm so glad I'm visiting!

I caved and bought my flight at the ridiculous price they were asking. Now I'm more motivated than ever to find inexpensive hotels (on Priceline). We're aiming for the N. Michigan/Loop area.

David Lebovitz is in Chicago right now and reporting on the great food places he's going to. It is so nice of him to be my little treasure hunter like this.

ropo, we need to go to Edzo's Burger Shop, Floriole Bakery, Xoco Hot Chocolate (for me, not you <g>), Kuma's (another burger joint), and perhaps most importantly, one of Rick Bayless's Mexican restaurants.

From other sources, I also have these on my list: Girl & the Goat, Publican, and Alinea (if we want to crazily splurge -- but even then, we might be too late as they fill up 2 months in advance -.-).

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I had the nuttiest experience with my phone yesterday. I was working from home because I knew I was going to see Billy. I dialed into a conference call at 9, which ended at 10. When it was over, they hung up, and since my screen wasn't on the 'phone' screen but on my menu page, I just assumed the call had ended.

BUT APPARENTLY NOT. Three hours later, I got in my car and my Bluetooth kicked in and informed me that my music wasn't on because I WAS ON THE PHONE. !!!!!!!!!! What!!!!! Apparently I hadn't hung up the phone and that meant that I had been "on the phone" with dead air for the last three hours!!

My monthly minute allotment isn't that high, particularly given that I am sharing those minutes with my parents (whose phones I am now paying for -- long story), so basically that ate up ALL the "any time minutes" that I had, and it's still not the end of my billing cycle. >< I called AT&T to explain, and they were fairly understanding, and gave me a one-time 1,500 minute rollover bonus to cover any overages. AT&T customer service >>>>>>>>>>> T-Mobile customer service. Not sure if I have ever talked about my horrendous experience with T-Mobile, but it was some of the WORST customer service I have ever experienced. Now that AT&T has announced they're buying T-Mobile (for $39B O.o), maybe they can clean up their act (in more ways than one, since T-Mobile also has a poor corporate reputation for their anti-gay policies).

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I've purchased another TV. It's a Panasonic TC-P42C2 plasma. It's not as big as the TV in my room, it's 42" instead of 50", and it's only 720p instead of 1080p, but at that size and at the distance I'll be watching, 720p is all that's needed. I'm paying a bit more because it's a Panasonic, but I love Panasonic products so it's worth it to me. I don't plan to wall mount it but will keep it on a TV stand. I did a TON of research about this (plasma vs LCD, size, resolution, etc.), so if anyone is thinking about getting a new TV for the moment I am a font of knowledge. In about a month, I'm sure I will have forgotten everything. <g>

Purpose of this TV: to use my Wii Fit. I've had the Wii Fit for like 2 years but have never used it, because with my current TV set up I didn't have enough space to actually do the exercises comfortably. Well I am sick of my excuses for why I don't exercise -- this will take care of that. The TV will go in the living room area, which has plenty of space, and I will have no more excuses as to why I'm not exercising.

This might also mean that I need to get myself a Kinect for Xbox 360. :D

The one thing I am kind of trepidatious about is that I bought it on eBay. Since it's a second TV I really wanted to be frugal. The thing with eBay is that it's almost always fine, but I seem to have bad luck with buying electronics there specifically. So hopefully there won't be any issues. >

Yesterday I was reading up on the Glee cast, and I noticed something: Lea Michele and Jonathan Groff left Spring Awakening on May 18, 2008. Lea had originated her role in 2006 when the musical first went to Broadway. jade_okelani and I were in New York in 2008 and saw 4 musicals, one of them Spring Awakening. So we had to have seen it with Lea and Jonathan! I asked Jade to be sure. She actually managed to find the Spring Awakening Playbill from that trip, and indeed, they were the cast members! She even had her ticket stub still -- we saw it on May 16, just two days before they left the show. I'm 99% certain we didn't see their understudies for various reasons. The sad thing is, we both haaaaaaaaated it. I don't remember ANYthing about it; I just remember being utterly bored and bitter that we had listened to the guy outside TKTS and gotten tickets to this boring show (not that there were many options that night). Jade remembers much more of the details, but basically it just made her want to kill herself. Of course, we might be able to enjoy it more NOW, after Glee, but there's no turning back time. If only we had a pensieve.

The whole experience is a giant blank in my mind. I remember us getting the tickets -- it was like, our first night attempting to get tickets at TKTS -- but nothing else except that I felt the musical was so utterly forgettable. I could not understand at all how it could have gotten the accolades it'd gotten. During that trip we also saw Curtains, which I'd also totally forgotten about until Jade reminded me, and the only thing I remember about that is that David Hyde Pierce was in it.

The biggest reasons why those two musicals were overshadowed was because of the other two shows we saw during that trip -- Avenue Q, which was so f*cking good, and Wicked, which was also f*cking good and for which we had won front-row seats (I don't know if I ever posted about that). Both experiences were so awesome and unforgettable that it probably made the other two pale even more in comparison.

I have made a total impulse purchase: the Actifry. David Lebovitz wrote about it on his blog, and basically what it does is let you 'deep fry' foods -- get the texture of crispy, deep fried foods -- with 1 tbsp of oil. Since I love deep-fried foods and can't stay away even though I know how many calories are involved, THIS IS AWESOME. I just hope it works as well for me as it seems to for other people.

Tomorrow's my first physical therapy appointment for my shoulder. I'm looking forward to possibly getting a diagnosis for what might be wrong with it. It's kind of frustrating that it's been so long that I haven't been able to use that arm normally.

Thank goodness it's a long weekend this weekend. On Sunday I'm going with K. and a few others to an early dinner at Kabul (an excellent little Afghan restaurant in Wallingford; such good lamb kebabs) then to see Sex & the City 2. From the lackluster promos I've seen, I'm not actually that excited about the movie, but so much that's great about S&tC doesn't necessarily lend itself to good clips out of context, so here's hoping.