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I’ve always wanted to watch Annie since it is one of those Broadway ‘classics’, except I wasn’t sure whether I was going to catch this one. The show was in Seattle for a limited time only (Feb 12 to 14) since it is a national touring company, and I was busy the entire weekend. I had to skip a birthday party to watch this show, and even then I wasn’t sure I’d have went until very last minute after I got off work. I ended up watching the show by myself, which worked out because I found out there was student rush tickets 1 hour before the show started, so I got a really good seat (main floor center, 11th row or so) for a really cheap price :).

I thought Annie was like… Rodgers and Hammerstein old (like ’50s) but it ended being more recent than I thought – the musical was written in 1977, and apparently the lyricist is still around and is the director for this national tour.

As expected, the tunes are more classical styled, with lots of reprisals (makes me wonder why newer musicals don’t have much reprisals anymore), and overall the performance was well done as it definitely gave off an uplifting and heartwarming vibe. The plot is set in the Great Depression (1930s) and the plot talks about some of the national issues faced during that era (e.g. high unemployment rates) and how we ought to be optimistic even in tough times – the entire theme seems oddly applicable to the current “Great Recession”. The casting was impressive as well – there were I think 7 children involved in rather important roles, and more impressively, there’s a dog that’s part of the cast and the plot as well.

The musical is around 2.5 hours long with intermission. The encouraging tone is a plus for me, and I’ll give it 3.5 stars.

I am running out of iTunes monies!!!

After being infused with a fresh $20 giftcard about a month ago, I am almost down to nothing due to renting movies, $4.99 a pop! While the price feels steep in relation to buying single songs, it is:
a. in line with renting from blockbuster and
b. super convenient,
You’re able to start the movie about one-minute after you rent because it downloads in the BG, which makes it really convenient (and good for someone such as myself–re: instant gratification). My one gripe is that once you start the movie, you have 48-hours to complete it. I think originally, the time limit was 24-hours, but its been extended to 48-hours, which, still, IMO is a bit short, it’s not like they really need the file back to rent to others, so I’m not sure what the rationale is there.

Well, this was originally supposed to just be a comment in response to yfa’s SOTD post but it became too off topic and long to be a comment..

A strange pick this week. If you watched the pilot of this season’s House, AND stayed around for the closing credits, you’d have heard this already. If not, here it is below (this is different from the one he did with House at the talent show).

Well, I came across such an odd choice because I watched a play this weekend that made reference to Alexander Hamilton, but I didn’t know who he was (aside from the fact he’s an important US historical figure). My friend told me to watch this to learn about Alexander Hamilton, which apparently is a Lin-Manuel Miranda rap of Hamilton (who’s head shows up on the $10 USD bill) that he performed for the Obamas.

Snow Patrol released a compilation album a few months back called “Up to Now”. Apparently it is not their “Greatest Hits” compilation, but more a compilation of songs over their past albums that documents their style and growth for the past 15 years, since apparently they’re going to switch styles and try for some new sounds in their next album, so they’re releasing this as a milestone. 3 new tracks on the CD, 1 of them is a cover, below:

Any one recognize who did the original version of this song? I definitely know the song when I heard it, but couldn’t pinpoint who did the original and where I heard it from since it was somewhat different. Search for the name online if you can’t figure it out… which is what I did eventually 🙂

Saw this on the “vanity card” after yesterday’s Big Bang Theory, thought it was kind of interesting… copied from Chuck Lorre Productions.

CHUCK LORRE PRODUCTIONS, #277

Belarus is a small, land-locked country next door to Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. According to Wikipedia, one of its major exports is cattle by-products. Which begs the question, what horrible shape are the cattle in, if all they’re good for is felt hats and wallpaper paste? But Belarus does have a bustling TV production industry. One of their most recent hits is a sitcom about four nerdy scientists who live next door to a beautiful blonde waitress. The characters are named Sheldon, Leo, Hovard, Raj and Natasha, and the show is entitled, The Theorists. Each episode begins with a rapid-fire montage of images which takes us from the dawn of time to the present moment. Keeping with that theme, the montage is scored with what is probably the worst piece of recorded pop music since the dawn of time. And finally, each episode appears to be a Russian translation of a Big Bang Theory episode. When we brought this to the attention of the Warner Brothers legal department, we were told that it’s next to impossible to sue for copyright infringement in Belarus because the TV production company that is ripping us off is owned and operated by the government of Belarus. Having no other recourse, I’m hoping that this vanity card will be read by the fine folks making The Theorists, and, wracked with guilt, they break down and send us some felt hats. The Kyrgyzstan version of Dharma & Greg already sent me some wallpaper paste.

EDIT: courtesy of sadd3j, you can watch Belarusian Big Bang clips here.