Something has to change, so I joined livestrong.com, (one of) Lance Armstrong’s commercial enterprise. It’s a thing where you can track your calorie intake and exercise output, set goals, that sort of thing. (Not to be confused with livestrong.org, his non-profit charity foundation.)

At first, I was tempted to open an account at nutritiondata.com. I’ve had a few interactions with the guy that started that, and really like what he’s doing. Then I found out the whole enterprise was sold to Conde Nast, so I’m not so keen on that any more. Not sure why, really, but there it is. Besides, it seems to track only food, not exercise.

While I’m sure that Armstrong has almost nothing to do with the day-to-day operation of livestrong.com (he has a staff for that), he’s lent his imprimatur to it, and from what I know of him, if it weren’t up to his standard, heads would roll.

That said, it’s a little buggy. As far as I can tell, it’s a website they either purchased or have gone into partnership with called TheDailyPlate.com. The idea, they layout, and the way it works is intuitive and well laid out. One of the buggy features I’ve run into so far is the Recipe creation thing.

What you’re supposed to be able to do is create a recipe of stuff in the database, assign portions and yields. The site calculates the nutritional breakdown of the recipe from the ingredients, then you can track servings of that thing in your meal record. But once the recipe is created, it’s impossible to edit it. I could swear I was able to edit it yesterday, but not today. When trying to add another ingredient, for example, the amount and units fields are not editable, and the new ingredient is not saved.  The same for trying to edit an ingredient already included (to change the amount, for example). It’s not saved. I’m sure it’s a bug, but it’s strange.

Then second weird thing is you can enter new foods that aren’t on your list, which is great. Their database is extensive, but not all inclusive. How could it be? When you add a new item, you either provide them with a scan of the nutrition label from it, or a URL to the manufacturer’s nutrition data. A great way to do it.

But if you don’t want to do that, they have a “generic calorie” which you can add in an ad hoc fashion. I went to the MFA on Friday and had lunch there, so decided just ot ball park what I had based on similar things in the database. Since I don’t plan on doing that very often, and have no way to obtain the nutritional information, it seemed best to do it that way. So I took a guess, and added 350 “servings” of a generic 1-calorie. I came back the next day and the calorie content of the “generic calorie” was changed to 1355, making my 350-calorie item now worth almost 500,000 calories. Yikes! That throws the scale off a bit.

But so far, it seems to be interesting if nothing else. I do like the way it works.  You enter your height, weight, age, and goal (lose 2lb/wk, lose 1lb/wk, maintain, gain 1lb/wk, gain 2lb/wk, &c), and your daily activity level (sedentary, mildly active, very active, &c), and it calculates a calorie goal to achieve that goal. You enter additional exercise above and beyond the “daily activity level” separately.

They also have a lot of advice on other health aspects (sleep, stress, &c) and a youtube channel with tons of videos on eating and exercise and whatnot.

The food tracking thing comes in several flavors that you can switch between. One of them is diabetes specific in which you can track blood glucose. It provides some graphical information that’s really helpful in illustrating how certain foods and exercise affect your BG levels. Very nice.

The side provides a lot of support and interactivity in the sort of social network milieu that I’m not particularly interested in and won’t be participating in, but it does show a commitment to meeting the needs and desires of their user base. This is something the ADA should have done long ago, and they did sort do a half hearted stab at it, but I can’t even find the site any more.

So we’ll see how it goes. It’s been less than a week, but it’s interesting so far.

I knew it. I knew it.

When Verizon cut my line last Friday, and I was able to force him into “fixing” it, he just grabbed any old line and hooked it back up. But, of course, it’s a bad line. The connection has been dropping at least once a day since then. Normally, I wouldn’t care too, too much about it since it’s a drop and quick re-sync.

But now I have VOIP and the line has dropped at least one phone call so far. I don’t use th phone all that much, but when I do, the calls tend to be very long (conference calls, and so on).

So I called Speakeasy to ask what, if anything, could be done about it. Again, they are the best ever. He ran his various tests and found “excessive DC voltage to ground”. I don’t quite know what that means, technically, except that it’s a condition that should not exist. What it also tells me is the guy who cut my line didn’t put any care into fixing his mess.

So now I have to wait for yet another house call from either Verizon or from Covad with a potential $200 charge. (I don’t think the charge will apply, though, because the problem is clearly outside the house.)

Still…

Got my health insurance renewal rates today.

Current plan: $581.20 per mo. or $6,974.40 per year.

Same plan starting 01-April: $662.22 per mo. or $7,946.64 per year.

For those math challenged, that’s an increase of $81.02 per mo. or 14%.

No, we don’t need health insurance reform at all. No. Nope. And it’s really nice to see the Massachusetts universal health mandate lowering insurance costs, as promised.

And it’s really nice to see the Massachusetts universal health mandate lowering insurance costs, as promised. We’ve gone from the most expensive health insurance cost in the nation to …. the most expensive health insurance costs in the nation.

Note this is $50 away from being a “Cadillac policy” which would then be surtaxed at 40%.

A “Cadillac” policy which incurs additional costs of:

• $25 per office visit
• $150 per ER visit
• $15/30/50 per 30-day Rx (generic/preferred/name brand)
• No dental care
• No vision care

This totals to about another $1,000 out of pocket per year assuming I don’t need a new pair of glasses or a filling.

Defining a “Cadillac policy” based on the amount of premiums you pay is insane.

Bought a membership to the MFA yesterday. I haven’t been there in a few years.  I was looking for something to do yesterday so I decided to go check out their new Egypt exhibit “The Secrets of Tomb 10A“.

It was pretty interesting. Crowded. A 1915 expedition uncovered the plundered tomb of a very wealthy provincial governor of the Middle Kingdom. All of the gold and jewels were gone, but everything else was left, although the ransacking had damaged much of it. What was left was acres of supplies (food, tools) and model ships, apparently to convey the dead through the afterlife.

I wonder what ancient Egyptian beer tasted like.

After Egypt, I just sort of moseyed and eventually ended up in Europe. For the last several years, the MFA has come under increasing pressure to investigate the provenance of some of the artwork. Some may have been looted or seized from Jews during the Holocaust.Their answer is the WWII Provenance Project.

It’s kind of hard to say, apparently. It some cases it’s clear, in some cases it’s not. I hadn’t thought of it before, but take the example of one piece. One piece of art was known to belong to a Jewish art dealer at one point. That dealer later died in Auschwitz. The question is: was this art stolen by the Nazis or had he sold it earlier? He was a dealer after all, and bought and sold artwork as part of his business. It’s entirely possible he had bought this piece on someone’s behalf, or possessed it for as little as 20 minutes before selling it. It’s also entirely possible that it was among the items stolen. Theft is one are where the Nazis weren’t as exacting in their record keeping as they were in other areas. Items undergoing provenance discovery are labeled with an informative information sheet describing the situation.

As I think about it, it’s a really difficult situation. On the one hand, if the art were stolen, it should be returned to the rightful heir. But to effect that return, there should be proof that it was actually stolen. You don’t want to give up a multi-million dollar piece of art without some proof. On the other hand, proof may not exist. What to do in that case? Can you just turn over millions of dollars on request? With no proof, how do you know it’s not a fraudulent claim? That’s certainly not unheard of either.

So in the short term, I suppose this is about the best compromise possible.

It was an enjoyable day. I’ll go back.

So this morning, Verizon came out to work on some neighbor’s phone line (it’s in the punch box in our cellar) and what do they do? Cut my line. Dead.

So if a line doesn’t have a dial tone, it’s not being used, right? Dolt.

I had to explain to him how a DSL line without voice works. “I’m an old tip and ring guy,” he says. This will work out well.

It takes him an hour and a half to fix it (luckily I was able to catch him and force him to fix it before he left). He was adamant that he had not cut the line. I told him that that’s what the problem was the last dozen times VZ has been here. When it was fixed, I asked him what the problem was. “I don’t really know.”

Er. Um. You fixed it but don’t know what the problem was. Nice. Clearly he just doesn’t want to admit he screwed up.

Anyway, I lost the whole morning, but I’m up and running again, at least.

OTOH, again, I can’t recommend Speakeasy highly enough You call them, and a person who knows what he’s talking about answers the phone. Very proactive. They talk to you like an adult. Just A+++++ all the way around.

Update: The OnPoint show: OnPoint 20-Jan-10

The ones most likely to take the wrong message away from the result: the republicans.

IMO, this had very little to do with the republican agenda (assuming they have one other than “no no no”). This was meant as a kick in the teeth to the arrogant, ineffective, and insufferable democrats. (And I say this as one.) It’s a slap at the senate’s obscene health care plan that makes sure the drug and medical corps are taken care of, Nebraska has its medicare paid for, the unions are exempted from the insane surtax, and everyone gets what they want except those of us who are struggling to pay for the stuff. Is reform necessary? Absolutely! Is the senate’s plan better than nothing? I’m not so sure.

This is about a $700B bailout to the banks that destroyed the economy who then took that money to give themselves bonuses. Yes, the republicans created this mess over the last 12 or 16 years. But the democrats have only made it worse.

This is about a president who courted and won the gay vote as a “fierce advocate” yet after the inauguration has done less than nothing. Repeal DADT? “It’s not the right time.” Imagine if Truman had that attitude. About Uganda’s “kill the gays” bill he has nothing to say, but sends Secy Clinton to “express concern”.

Where is the leadership? I see none. Where is this generation’s Tip O’Neill? Where is the new Patrick Moynahan? For that matter, where is the republican leadership? Where is the new Nelson Rockefeller? Where is the new John Chafee?

But this is also about local issues. It’s about a legislature that games the system for its own purposes, twice changing the senate succession rules for no good reason. It’s about an attorney general who, in spite of the previous four speakers of the (state) house resigning under indictment, sees no corruption on Beacon Hill. It’s about  city hall and liquor board that has violated, and continues to this day to violate, a whole host of laws, yet she sees no problem anywhere.  It’s about state senator stuffing her bra full of bribe money who is caught by the feds, not by her. It’s about state senate president’s being indicted for bribery and influence peddling, again, by the feds, not by her. It’s about her being able to recover about 2 cents worth of big dig money. The list is endless.

It’s about a campaigner who considers meeting the public and debating issues to be beneath her. Contemptibly beneath her.

This campaign, IMO, had very little to do with Scott Brown. (Note that he never called himself a republican in any ad or appearance.) It had everything to do with the ineffectiveness and ineptitude of the democrats. It had to do with voter anger and revulsion to what’s happening in Washington.

The best analysis I’ve heard to date is today’s OnPoint with Tom Ashbrook on NPR. Their site says they post the recording of the show after 6:00 PM, so I’ll post the link to it once it’s there.

In the mean time:

It took four hours for the Harpoon B2B ride to fill 800 slots!

I got up this morning and there was a message in my inbox that said registration started at 7:00 AM today. I got another one a few minutes ago (11:20) that said it was full.

Pretty impressive!

Some day I’ll do that ride. But it’s always the same day as Outriders which I really enjoy (and stay the weekend). I also think my condition has deteriorated to the point where I doubt I’d be able to do B2B within the allotted time.

Someday maybe. Most of the route is about the last day and a half of NEC (but in reverse), so I’ve done most of it even if I’ve done it in the other direction.

At long last, I am Verizon free! As of last Friday, my VOIP phone was turned with my transferred number. Verizon turned off my dial tone, and I’m free of them. No more taking two weeks and a hundred calls to get a repair, no more letting burglars in the house. Nothing.

I just hope they don’t screw up the final bill.

The really nice thing is that the new service has Caller ID (which I’ve never had before) and I now have the ability of not answering the phone when these pollsters and robocallers try to tell me who to vote for.

Too bad I’m still getting spam about that. At least it’s only one more day.

But YAY! No more Verizon!

Saturday was the latest in our Boston Symphony subscription series.

The program was:

• Mozart
  • Symphony No. 38 in D Major K.504  “Prague”
• Elgar
  • Violin Concerto in b minor, Op. 61

Guest conductor was Sir Colin Davis, guest violin soloist was Nikolaj Znaider of Denmark.

Full program notes

Overall, it was good. It was certainly technically great. But, like the Saint-Saens piece a few weeks ago, it was missing something. Maybe it was the music, maybe it was the playing, but some emotion or something was missing. After leaving the concert hall, neither my friend nor I could hum either tune. Davis has a strange conducting style, and Znaider is, perhaps, the tallest person I’ve ever seen!

Maybe I just don’t absorb melodic music that well. (My favorites this year have all be the out there stuff like Stravinsky’s Petrushka and Bartok’s Mandarin.)

I’m still in awe of Symphony Hall, though. The acoustics are second to none.

We also found out about something the BSO doesn’t really advertise, I suppose because the audience size is so limited, but they have “Chamber Teas” on some non-concert Fridays. I may see if I can get into one of those.

Next up: Debussy, Lieberson, and Schubert. But it’s not until MARCH 27!!! I may not be able to last that long without doing something. And through the absolute worst part of winter, too! I see the Opera Boston is staging a world premier in February. Maybe I’ll go see what that’s about. Or maybe something else is going on.

Someone had the same experience I did.

Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere, looks to be in very, very rough shape after the quake.

There are lots of good charities out there, please consider donating to one. If you’re unsure of one to pick, I’d like to ask you to join me in supporting:

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières

Click->> MSF Haiti Press Conference

MSF have always done and continue to do outstanding work. They’re a responsible, efficient, and effective outfit, with an astonishingly low 13% admin and cost of fundraising (according to Charity Navigator; self reported numbers are slightly higher). Founded in the early 1970s in France specifically to help with the Biafra secession, it is now based in Geneva with 19 “associative organizations” (national branches), the US branch was founded in 1990. They are the recipients of the 1999 Nobel Prize for Peace. They are one of the first, if not the first, organization to respond in a crisis, and are unafraid to enter areas of disaster, war, famine, and drought to deliver acute medical care.

In Haiti, all three of their facilities have been damaged and cannot be used. Supplies  and staff are scarce. Urgent support is needed, and there is no better organization than this one.

Google News

BBC News

Boston Globe/AP photos

MSF You Tube channel

About MSF

Wikipedia article about MSF

So two big baseball stories this week. Both bad ones.

First, Daisuke lied.

Dude, you’re making more than 10 Meeeeellion dollars a year.  That brings with it an obligation to be honest with your team. It is not honorable, noble, or smart to take that money and not tell them you’re injured, and exacerbate that injury in Bud Selig’s stupid-beyond-description “classic”.  You lied to your coaches. You lied to your teammates. You lied to you fans. You looked like an idiot, and it turns out you were.

Second, Mark McGwire.

What can you say about this? It surprises no one, of course. By a stroke of luck, I hit the mlbtv.com live stream of the interview with Bob Costas. While I’m not a Costas fan, that was one of the best interviews of anyone I’ve ever seen. I would only wish that “journalists” interview politicians so expertly.

But anyway.

He just doesn’t get it. Weepy weepy woe is me. “Toughest day in my life.” Cry me a river, mac. The only reason we’re hearing about it now is you want that job with the Cards. If you hadn’t got the offer, we’d have never heard from you.

And the real kicker is he still doesn’t get it. Costas asked him what he thought that meant for his records, and he said (something like) “what you you mean? in what context?” Then going on with crap like “it’s a god-given talent and roids don’t improve hand-eye coordination or the ability to square up on the ball.” Maybe that’s true, maybe it isn’t. I don’t know. But what I do know is it gives you much greater power. How many of those out-of-the-park home runs would have ended up on the track or as doubles or be caught for outs without the drugs? Hmmm? How many? More than ten? I would say so.

Let’s not even think about how much sleazier and slimier Bud Selig can get.

NYT has a little flash application that shows what people in various zipcodes rented in 2009.

The South End has no zip code of its one, but straddles 02116 (Back Bay) and 02118 (Roxbury).

Top 10 rentals for

02116

1. Rachel Getting Married
2. Milk
3. Doubt
4. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
5. Slumdog Millionaire
6. Burn After Reading
7. Vickie Christina Barcelona
8. The Wrestler
9. Revolutionary Road
10. Changeling

02118

1. Milk
2. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
3. Rachel Getting Married
4. Doubt
5. Burn After Reading
6. Slumdog Millionaire
7. The Wrestler
8. Revolutionary Road
9. Vicky Christina Barcelona
10. Changeling

I have a couple other things to write, but wanted to get this down before i forget.

Wednesday night I went to the re-broadcast of the Met Opera’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann.  It was great. Mostly.

I got there a bit late (6:15 for the 6:30 show) and the stadium seating was full, as far as I could tell. I asked one woman “is this seat taken” and she nearly took my head off. I was just asking, you cow. So I ended up having to sit in row two on the down-front part. Not very comfortable. It put me off enough that I’ll have to think twice about going to another one.

I saw a neighborhood woman at the last one I went to and she commented that she didn’t think the fidelity was very good. I think I have to agree. It sounds okay, you can hear everything, but it sounds muddled.

But the show was great, I really enjoyed it. You can read the synopsis for yourself, but the costumes were fantastic, especially the first tale (about the doll). IMO, Olympia (the doll played by Kathleen Kim) was the standout of the show. She never left character, even during the final curtain call. And I liked Hoffmann’s (Joseph Calleja) about the best of anyone I’ve heard so far. And Alan Held certainly looked the part of the Four Villians.

The production was by Bartlett Sher who said he used Kafka as an inspiration. It worked. It was fantastic. The inventor, Spalanzani, look eerily like Doctor Horrible. It wasn’t the over-the-top Met production, the stage was actually pretty spare.

Olympia’s aria, Les Oiseaux Dans La Charmille, was my favorite and Kathleen Kim’s was better than anything I could find on YouTube. (This is okay too, but the inventor needs to be there to wind her back up, she doesn’t look very doll like.)

Then the Barcarolle in Act 2, take a listen to this:
First this (listen to about 10 seconds)
Then this (listen to about 10 seconds)

Hmmmm?

A pretty big year for watching films and stuff though, due mostly to the greatly increased streaming offerings from Neflix. That plus since getting the repairs and painting done to the house, I have yet to hook the TV back up.

The list from Netflix (alphabetical):

• 2010: The Year We Make Contact
• A Mighty Wind
• Aeon Flux: Animated Collection
• After the Thin Man
• And Now for Something Completely Different
• Arsenic and Old Lace
• As Time Goes By: Series 6
• Attenborough in Paradise…
• Auntie Mame
• Avengers ‘67
• Avengers ‘68
• Batman: The Movie
• Bela Fleck: Throw Down Your Heart
• Beowulf
• Bolt
• Bunny Shorts
• Camelot
• Campion: Death of a Ghost
• Captain Blood
• Clash of the Titans
• Cowboy Bebop: The Movie
• Daffy Duck’s Movie: Fantastic Island
• Devo: Live in the Land of the Rising Sun
• Doctor Who: Pyramids of Mars
• Doctor Who: Ssn 1
• Doctor Who: Ssn 2
• Doctor Who: Ssn 3
• Dr. Strangelove
• Eddie Izzard: Glorious
• Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
• Film Noir Collection: D.O.A.
• Flight of the Conchords: Season 1
• Frost Nixon: Watergate Interviews
• Gankutsuou
• Godzilla Vs. Destroya
• Hard Boiled
• Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (series)
• House of Wax
• In China They Eat Dogs
• Jeeves and Wooster: Season 3
• Keeping Up Appearances
• King of the Rocket Men
• Legend of the Red Dragon
• Little Britain Abroad
• Little Britain: Series 1
• Little Britain: Series 2
• Little Britain: Series 3
• Mark Farner: In Concert
• Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman: Vol. 1
• Miss Marple: Col. 1
• MST3K: Laserblast
• MST3K: Ring of Terror
• MST3K: Teenagers from Outer Space
• MST3K: Zombie Nightmare
• Murder by Death
• MythBusters
• Noises Off!
• Nosferatu: The Gothic Industrial Mix
• Once Upon a Time in China 2
• Orgazmo
• Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure
• Peter and the Wolf
• Pingu: Meet Pingu
• Quantum of Solace
• Red Dwarf: Back to Earth
• Red Dwarf: Series 1
• Red Dwarf: Series 2
• Red Dwarf: Series 3
• Red Dwarf: Series 4
• Red Dwarf: Series 5
• Red Dwarf: Series 6
• Red Dwarf: Series 7
• Red Dwarf: Series 8
• Red Planet Mars
• Rick & Steve: Ssn 1
• Rick & Steve: Ssn 2
• Shaun the Sheep: Back in the Ba-a-th
• Sherlock Holmes: Dressed to Kill
• Sherlock Holmes: Terror by Night
• Sherlock Holmes: The Master Blackmailer
• Sherlock Holmes: The Woman in Green
• Singin’ in the Rain
• Six Wives / Henry VIII
• South Park: Ssn 9
• Space Battleship Yamato: The New Voyage
• Spaceballs
• Squidbillies: Vol. 1: Disc 1
• Terry Jones: Medieval Lives
• The 7th Voyage of Sinbad
• The Adventures of Robin Hood
• The Dark Ages
• The Fiction-Makers
• The Friends of Eddie Coyle
• The General
• The Golden Voyage of Sinbad
• The Hard Way
• The IT Crowd: Ssn 1
• The Magic Voyage of Sinbad
• The Maltese Falcon
• The Pink Panther
• The Time Machine
• The Vicar of Dibley: Series 3
• TLG: Series 1
• Vicar of Dibley: Series 1
• Vicar of Dibley: Series 2
• Vicar of Dibley: Specials
• Waiting for God: Ssn 1
• Waiting for God: Ssn 2
• Waiting for Guffman
• Watchmen
• X-Men 3: The Last Stand

If Netflix ever starts charging extra for streaming, I’m screwed.

A slow year for books too. Read next to nothing.

In fact, I recorded nothing though I know I read at least a few things. I wonder what they were.

So I suppose I need to summarize in spite of the fact that I did almost nothing this year but work.

Cycling: way down over past years. In fact, according to the log (which I do update) says I haven’t been on the road bike since June. That’s probably correct.

Only one century this year, the Boston to P-town Outriders ride. I didn’t do the 550-mile Tour de Cure. I’d planned on doing something else at that same time (but that fell through). I did do the Gloucester 100k TdC, though. After Outriders, I did little but tool around on the MTB.

A total of a paltry 577 miles this year with maybe another 1000 miles commuting and around town.

The NHL Winter Classic will be on January 1 when the Bruins will play the Philadelphia Flyers in a specially made rink in the middle of Fenway Park.

Two guys are riding a tandem from Philly to Boston to get to the game.  The “Broad Street Bikers” left PA on Dec 27 and plan to be here here by noon on New Year’s Eve.

Except, like, it’s been about 20 degrees with high wind warnings out all day today, the wind chill tonight and a good part of tomorrow will supposed to be well below zero (not including the added wind chill of cycling), and New Year’s Eve is projected to be a nor’easter (although that’s looking now like it might not hit until game time).

And they’re on a tandem!

Jeepers, I hope they come through it alive.

http://broadstreetbikers.webs.com/

They’re raising money for charity.

(via)

[netflix] [IMDb] (2008)

Bolt (John Travolta), a puppy in a shelter, is adopted by Penny (Miley Cyrus) and becomes a TV superhero who saves Penny from danger episode after episode. The thing is, Bolt believes it’s all real and that he actually has these superpowers.

Threatened with cancellation, the show’s producers introduce a cliffhanger and don’t allow Bolt to see Penny one night. Since up to now, everything always works out at the end of each day, and still thinking it’s real, he freaks out. He escapes the set, and through a misadventure, ends being sent from Hollywood to New York and has to work his way back across the country. To that end, he kidnaps Mittens (Susie Essman), a mangy alley cat, and attracts his biggest fan, Rhino (Mark Walton), a hamster in a ball.

The plot is very formulaic, but works well. It’s pretty much another spin on every buddy movie you’ve ever seen. Travolta was good, Cyrus was okay if nondescript, and Essman was fantastic. James Lipton as the director was awesome and Malcom McDowell, as The Green Eyed Man, is always good. The animation was cliche (at this point) Disney and could have been any Disney movie from the last five or six years.

Lots of fun even if a bit transparent.

[netflix] [IMDb] (2008)

Bela Fleck takes his banjo to Africa to learn about the origins of the instrument. He visits Uganda, Tanzania, Gambia, and Mali and records some of the local music, investigates local instruments, and plays with some of the local artists.

While interesting and certainly worthwhile, it wasn’t what I expected and as a result was disappointed. Of course, that’s no fault of the film. I had hoped there would be more “music” in it. That is, more of his playing with the local artists, but it was mostly just jamming snippets. I enjoy some African music, but it’s not tops on my list and is wearing after a while. The parts that try to trace the origin of the banjo were quite interesting, but otherwise, it sort of left me cold.

I might have liked it better had there been some performance of the music he wrote that came out of the experience. But it just sort of ended.