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For New Years Eve we decided on The Greatest Show on Earth as our evening entertainment. Some of our friends didn’t want to go because it cost $25, but I figure that’s really cheap for entertainment if you drink at home and don’t buy alcohol there. It was well worth the price to see the circus acts and the crazy Bosnian band that I think was called Kulture Shock who was a mix of Riverdance and Rammstein heavy metal. The lead singer wore a silver kilt with his head shaved except for a topknot. There was a stand up base and a violin, but it wasn’t at all classical sounding. There were a few Bosnian guys who sand along and knew all the words. It took me a while to figure out that it wasn’t English.

While the music played some of the circus performers would walk through the crowd on stilts or swing from a trapeze in the corner. Kim did the limbo under a weird Ozzy Osbourne looking fellow on stilts. Not as many people were dancing as I hoped, but some of it was pretty hard to dance to. The techno they put on later got more people dancing upstairs.

Downstairs there was another band playing, but we didn’t see much of them and it didn’t sound like much fun to me. The real fun downstairs started after midnight when burlesque dancers, fire eaters and a striptease act took the stage. My favorite part was the fire eating and spinning. They used fireballs on batons, chains and claws, and all this in a fairly small enclosed space. I think a lot of people thought they were going to set the place on fire, myself included at times. The performers were all from Pure Cirkus, and they said they’d have photos of the night up on their web page, but I’m not sure when.

Unfortunately, Art and Amanda had to leave shortly after midnight to catch a ferry back, but Kim and I stayed to hang out with Jessie until a little after 2.  Jessie left, and Kim and I danced for a while with a guy named John that we’d seen at the climbing gym before who is dating the sister of a girl who is in Kim’s culinary class.  The girl in Kim’s culinary class is dating the guitarist from Kulture Shock.  Weird coincidences, eh?  The after party turned out to be kind of a lame all ages (seemed like a lot of teenagers showed up real fast) bump and grind fest in the basement, so we went home for some much needed sleep.

Kim wanted to purchase discount theater tickets for the musical Sweeney Todd at the 5th Avenue Theater from TicketTicket, but they didn’t sell for that show. Then she found out that if you’re 25 or under you can get good seats for just $20. Awesome deal. I wish I had known sooner. I won’t be able to take advantage of it much longer.

Gabe, Amanda and Art went with Kim and me to the show. It was a fun show to see, although not one of the best musicals I’ve seen. It was a little slow to start and I didn’t care about some of the characters (the sailor Anthony in particular, although I don’t think it was the performer’s fault, I just think it was a lame part). It picks up and gets interesting when Sweeny Todd starts killing people with his shaving razor, and then really gets weird and fun when Mrs. Lovett starts selling meat pies from Todd’s handy-work. I really like the haunting main theme of the show. I wish there was more to it. The ending is dark, but I honestly expected things to turn out even darker than they did.

The music is by Stephen Sondheim. I saw one of his other shows, Into the Woods, on Broadway in New York.

Another concert! This one at the Paramount on Monday night. I’ve always wondered how They Might Be Giants performs since they’re just two guys named John. Now I know. They have a backup band. I somehow thought it might be more exciting.

They were their own warmup act. They performed minute long songs about the venues they had been to. They’re so weird. When they came out for their second set they played just about all the songs I wanted to hear: Sun Song, Dr Worm, Particle Man, Birdhouse in your Soul. They even did Fingertips, the weird mishmash of couple second song blips at the end of Apollo 18. The only song they didn’t play that I wanted to hear was Ana Ng.

Their encore was really short. I don’t even remember what they played.

I saw the Decemberists play in Portland this weekend at the Roseland Theatre. I first heard of the Decemberists when the lead singer, Colin Meloy, was the warmup act for the Violent Femmes, and I really liked the music. The way I understand, the band calls Portland home, although I couldn’t verify that and I know the lead singer is from Montana. Regardless, the show in Portland felt like a homecoming for the band, and the audience was really into it, especially since they were filming the show for a live DVD. There were cameras everywhere, and one was on a long boom arm that hung over the audience. (more…)

Civ 4 is here and I’ve had most of a weekend to play with it.  The most obvious improvement is the graphics.  I’m pleased that with Civ games, graphics improvements add to the gameplay and aren’t just there for show, like they are with most games. (more…)

My coworker Dennis and I frequently have discussions about politics, business, and technology and where all are heading. Dennis raised a good point to me the other day: since he and I are so constantly exposed to ways technology is being used, why aren’t we thinking up some new way to use the internet as a business platform. The main driving force behind this questioning was the book “The World is Flat” by Thomas L. Friedman. (more…)

Stealing the Network: How to Own the Box makes reading hacker literature fun, and you learn a lot about computer networks while you read since the scenarios presented are all realistic down to the screenshots of the tools that are used. (more…)

I never would have expected this musical tour combination. It seems like too much of a coincidence considering that I’ve been listening so much to both Mike Doughty and Erin McKeown lately, and I’ve seen them both perform recently after not going to any concerts for a long time. (more…)

I went to see Serenity at the theaters and am glad I did. (more…)

I enjoyed this book much more than I anticipated. (more…)