Archive for November, 2009

Late to the party

Monday, November 30th, 2009

I was gifted with an iPod nano last week. It’s pretty cool, I like it. I doubt I’ll be taking it to the gym, it doesn’t seem to have much sweat protection. I’ll be sticking with my MuVo for that.
But it’s a cool little gizmo, even if it does come from evil Apple. I never [...]

Symphony: Honegger, Saint-Saëns and Stravinsky

Sunday, November 15th, 2009

Saturday night was the second in our BSO series (warning: autoplay). On the program was

HONEGGER Pastorale d’été
SAINT-SAËNS Piano Concerto No. 2
STRAVINSKY Petrushka (1947)

It was kind of a weird night. The audience was really strange. Lots of blue jeans wearers (which is unusual for that crowd), and lots of picture takers. Not sure what that was [...]

Aida

Thursday, November 12th, 2009

Went to the “encore” presentation of Verdi’s Aida in the Met’s HD series last night (yes, it was a full day). It was good. The screen seemed to be clearer and more colorful than Turandot, but maybe that was part of the whole feed issues Turandot had.
The tale is well told. Ethopians attack Egypt and [...]

Edward Tufte

Thursday, November 12th, 2009

Yesterday, a friend and I went to the Edward Tufte “Presenting Data and Information” course.
On the whole, I’d give it a B+. It definitely worth going and it should be required attendance for every middle manager. The structure of the class was good, going from the specific to the general and back again, covering most [...]

Legend of the Red Dragon

Monday, November 9th, 2009

[netflix] [IMDb]
I watched this on netflix streaming, so the only version they had was the Englsh dubbed one. The wire work and fight scenes were very good, the story was okay, but the dubbing was awful. I think they were trying to make it a hip and happening thing, but it was mostly just embarrassing.
A [...]

Red Dwarf: Back to Earth

Monday, November 9th, 2009

[netflix] [IMDb]
This is basically, a three-episode reunion special, as far as I can make out. And it’s a big disappointment, frankly. 99-44/100ths percent of the time, reunion specials don’t work. To their credit, they were able to get the whole cast back together. The production values are vastly greater than the original show, and that’s [...]

Captain Blood

Monday, November 9th, 2009

[netflix] [IMDb]
I need to catch up a bit on the movie watching reports.
I’ve been watching Robin Hood a few times lately, so I wanted to see another Errol Flynn swashbuckler, so this was it. This isn’t the movie I thought it was, but it was pretty good in spite of that.
Peter Blood (Errol Flynn), a [...]

Turandot

Monday, November 9th, 2009

Saturday, I went to see the HD simulcast of the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Puccini’s Turandot.
I’m not a big opera fan, but I have to say I enjoyed this immensely. We went to the Showcase Dedham and sat in the “Lux” section, so there were big comfy chairs and wait service, which was nice. It’s [...]

Pomplamoose

Thursday, November 5th, 2009

I saw a link to a Pomplamoose video on Ryan North’s Dinosaur Comics today.
I love it! Love. It.
I’ve been listening to their stuff all day. I’ve downloaded all the free stuff I can find and will buy the stuff they have for sale if I can figure out how to do it without signing [...]

RIP Brother Blue

Thursday, November 5th, 2009

Brother Blue dead at 88, was storyteller to generations
He was one of a kind.
http://www.brotherblue.com/

Bad Maine

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

Maine, you had the chance to do the right thing and you blew it.
Shame on you.

Symphony

Sunday, November 1st, 2009

Went to the BSO last night for the first of our Saturday “D” series. The program was Beethoven’s 6th and 7th symphonies.  With James Levine being out on the 45-day disabled list,  Lorin Maazel conducted.
Don’t really know what else to say about it other than it was really good.

Busy, busy, busy doing … nothing much really

Sunday, November 1st, 2009

Work has gotten really weird. Swirls and eddys of political intrigue and outrage seems to be the norm any more. I seem to be getting caught up in some of it, but no one is letting me know what’s going on, so I’m only seeing the result. I suppose, in some ways, it’s better that [...]