Rapha over at the Athenaeum has once again featured some lore for us!
A new collection of some of my favorite internet videos I have run into lately.
Food Court Musical
An improv group turns a mid-day Los Angeles Food Court into a broadway stage, much to the surprise of the people trying to eat there.
Robot Kid on So You Think You Can Dance
I’m not sure if it’s dancing, but it’s rad.
MacBook Air Parody
I’m not ravenously anti-Mac, but the way that Mac advertises their products irritates me. They are very derisive.
Andrew Johnston on Britain’s Got Talent
Amazing 13-year-old treble opera singer.
Scala on Britain’s Got Talent
Amazing electric string quartet.
The World of the World of Warcraft
The onion spoofs WoW.
Part 1 of “A Storm of Sorrow”, which focuses on the leader of the Ethernauts, Bayle, has been posted:
http://eq2players.station.sony.com/news_archive_content.vm?id=1717§ion=News&locale=en_US
So nine months on Vanguard as an Associate Game Designer before everything went to tatters, and then I started over on Everquest II as an Associate again. But now, just about a year later, it’s finally happened - promoted to a Game Designer! Woohoo!
Lots of good live music the last couple of weekends. First was Nightwish at HOB, which we had a decent little crew for — John and his girlfriend, Paul, Melinda, Tom, and I. They were excellent, once again, though since this was the second time we have seen them on this tour (the first was last fall in Santa Ana), there was nothing new and mesmerizing about it. We hung back this time instead of getting up front, which gave me plenty of room to dance. It was remarked that apparently the lead signer Anette dances just like I do. They would look up at Anette and then glance at me and we’d be doing the same thing. I didn’t notice it, but from what I can remember of her dancing, I believe it.
This past weekend was Beirut. It was my first time seeing them, so I was super excited. Bryan had tickets but pulled out because a friend is moving back to Slovakia and having a going away party, and Tom confessed to preferring to stay home, so it ended up Bianca, her friend Becca, and I. We first went to Alhambra and had dinner at a yummy diner (my annual grilled cheese sandwich) and went to gallery Nucleus to check out an art show — La Femme. There was quite a lot of good art to see in the show and in their store from past shows. A lot of the artists from the comic collection Flight had prints. I almost bought one from Khang Ye, but decided to be thrifty and buy a packet of postcards instead. We stayed longer than we meant to and were no contenders for the first come first serve space right in front of the stage, but we probably would have had to have been there way early to get there, so c’est la vie.
The show was excellent. We only caught one song from the first opener, but it was good. It had a little bit of your high school’s talent band feel to it but they were definitely talented. I was very much into the second opener though, a Kiwi band called The Brunettes. A little poppy but definitely enjoyable. The band had both a male and a female lead singer, and the chick’s voice was very distinct. I had only watched Heavenly Creatures a few days before and was appreciating the New Zealand accents. I was going to pick up one of their CDs after the show but it was a mad house.
Beirut was fantastic. There were two encores, and they played every song I would have wanted to hear, plus three from the new album. What has been branded Zach’s “funeral march” music inspired by time spent in the south of Mexico is promising to be good. My favorite song of his, The Penalty, was gorgeous live. Seeing it like that really captured the whole feel of it. Between this and Brother Israel’s rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”, I’ve decided that the ukulele can be perfect for capturing this sort of warbling, lonely beauty. So watching Zach up there, playing this beautifully lonely little instrument with his lone voice filling the Wiltern, I was filled with this sense of celebration of this individual and their place within the world, which is dually sentimental but also somewhat regretful. And I know the word ’sentimental’ can sort of be seen as a dirty word by many, myself included, but Beirut’s music is sentimental in the best sense of the word because it is very genuine, and not corny, and does not cover up the dirty spots. Beirut’s brand of sentimentality is remembering that family picnic on the perfect summer day and the way the cold watermelon tasted when you bit into it, streams of juice running down your chin and the grass tickling your bare legs, but also remembering the ants you had to brush off the watermelon and the fact it was the last time you were ever able to speak with your grandfather that he could remember your name. And he celebrates every last second of it. It is everything the word bittersweet is meant to convey. And then, a minute and a half into the song, the first instrument of the chorus, the deep, powerful tuba, crashes in, and with it, the rest of the instruments, so that the call of this individual becomes a shared experience, and a celebration, all the yearning is fulfilled but not invalidated.
It was beautiful.
The Wiltern is a beautiful old theater too. It was my second time there, and I was still absorbed studying the details of it between the bands.
For any San Diegans who may listen to the Mikey Show, I’ve started posting on http://www.p1site.com. They seem like a fun group of folks and its fun to have somewhere to react to what goes on, on the airwaves when my fellow P1s on the EQ2 team aren’t at work yet. Also, Woods of Woods and Bauman posts there sometimes, and the show members themselves sometimes drop by (at least to lurk).
If you aren’t familiar with the Mikey Show, it is pretty much one of the greatest radio shows ever, and certainly the best in the San Diego area. I could understand how it wouldn’t be for everyone, but the longer you listen, the more you get to love it, because you really get to feel like you know the people on the show. I really think a single listen doesn’t do it justice, as the more you understand the references and the in jokes, the better it gets. They also have a diverse cast that put an interesting spin on whatever they happen to be talking about, whether it be politics, pop culture, etc. They’re very personable. Shyness plus work commitments means I don’t get out to many of the events they have for their P1’s (priority listeners, which they identify as those who “get to their point, don’t cuss, turn down their radio, listen to the Mikey Show exclusively for long periods of time, and recruit other P1s”), but they really do a lot to make San Diego fun for their listeners. All in all, it’s a gem. Give it a listen.
p1 morgan, ftw!
If anyone is a fan of the band ‘Beirut’, a friend of mine bought a ticket for a show this Saturday in LA but has since found out he cannot go. He’s willing to sell it at a discounted rate (ticket plus ticketmaster fees made it come out to 40) and is considering giving it away if you’re flat broke. So yeah, Beirut is pretty much one of the greatest bands ever and you should want to come with us!
The second and last part of “The Worst Cook in Grobb” (yes, it’s a shortie) has been posted on EQ2 Players.
Edwards says no VP bid for him. So who could it be? Maybe Obama will work things out with Clinton… we’ll see.
From the way all of the articles about Edwards endorsing Obama have been written, and the way that Obama’s website already pictures very well put together, official looking pictures with the two of them together smiling, I am pretty certain we are seeing an Obama-Edwards ticket. Anyone hoping for Obama-Clinton… well, there’s a chance of it, but Obama said long ago it wouldn’t happen (though Clinton had said she would consider Clinton-Obama).
