A great article in the Seattle Times about organic and 'green' products on the market and the consumers who buy them.
Whoa! This's like my smallest post ever. So far....
Saturday evening Hotness & I went to the ballet.
As I've mentioned before, we have season tickets so we go to whatever pieces are being offered for the season (with the exception of the Nutcracker).
This time it was another night of four separate performances under the title "Director's Choice".
No pictures to accompany this post this time, but I'll keep it short so I don't bore you.
The first performance was called "Sense Of Doubt".
It started off a bit slowly but built up momentum and my interest as the piece continued.
The costumes were very unique and I think added to the dancers moves and the music being played.
It's funny how that kind of stuff kind make a difference, but it does.
There was an intermission and then we had the second piece which was "Fur Alina".
From the program notes, this promised to be a sparse musical piece played on the piano for the dancers.
"Oh great," I thought, "Some 'plinky-plinky' piano music. This'll probably be b-o-r-i-n-g."
It actually surprised me and was quite good.
Well, the dancers were quite good anyway. The music was still rather.... eh, 'plinky-plinky'.
A brief pause and then the third piece we had was called "Vespers".
Performed by all female dancers it was meant to evoke the feeling of "urgency & restraint" (according the PNB website), like one would experience during prayers.
I thought this would be rather cool because of the way they described it, but turned out not to be all that exciting... in my opinion.
It received a very enthusiastic applause from the audience, so again, it's just my opinion. Obviously others at the performance felt differently.
Another intermission and then we had the last piece called "One Flat Thing, Repeated".
This is difficult to say whether I enjoyed it or not.
It was a very interesting piece, but I found myself asking "How does this qualify as ballet and not modern dance?"
It was very organized chaos on the stage.
In a nutshell, the dancers dragged out a bunch of tables and set them up equally spaced on the stage. (Table = 'one flat thing' / bunches of tables = 'reproduced'. See? It kinda makes sense after you've been going for a while like we have)
Then they proceeded to bend, stretch, twirl, jump and all manner of types of movement between, under, over and on top of the tables.
It was amazing to see, but as ballet... it wasn't.
And the music. Yeah, this was probably what kept me from really enjoying the piece all that much. It was very discordant and pounding with no real sense of rhythm.
If you know me, you know that I have a VERY broad sense of taste in music. There is little that I will not listen to. But this music definitely falls into the "nope, don't like it" category for me.
I guess I'm sort of a fuddy-duddy, but this just wasn't quite ballet for me.
I have to give credit to the artistic director, however.
He's taken some real chances with the Pacific NW Ballet and tried to appeal to different types of crowds.
While I don't always think that a particular performance is all that great, at least he took the chance to present it and let me make the decision. I've been quite surprised by some of the performances he's offered and each one gives me a deeper appreciation for the dancers' abilities.
We can't always have Swan Lake every year, after all.
That being said, the next performance will be "A Midsummer Night's Dream".
It's more in the classic style and is fantastic. I like it much better than the Nutcracker.
I'm telling you, if you ever want to experience a ballet AND have fun, this'll be it.
After the ballet, we went to Pompodoro for late dinner and then drove home.
Nothing spectacular to report. The food was great as always and I recommend you go there when you get a chance to.
Let me know what you think if you do. And tell them I sent you.
(They know us pretty well there. Just mention "The guy and his girlfriend who brought a bunch of people from a comic book convention". They'll know)
We tried to sleep in late the next morning, but it just didn't work.
The cat walked all over us until somebody finally got up to feed her.
Then Hotness had to go to the barn and tend to her horse while I went and played Heroclix with some friends for the day.
That's about it for the weekend.
Just pretty mellow and laid back.
You know.... with the right kind of spin, you make make anything sound like something it isn't.
And let's not forget these "family classics"
Fistfights! Payday! Near-death collisions! Grilled cheese sandwiches!
With a day involving all of that, it's a wonder I lived to see this morning.
Yesterday started out just like any other day.
Get up, get ready and drive in to work. Answer phones all day and take orders. Blah blah blah....
But it was also payday (finally!) which came at just the right time, since I was out of money and needed to get my comics. It's convenient how that worked out.
During a lull in the day, I managed to post over on the Comic Stop Blog for the Friday Night Fights and get an entry mentioned on Bahlactus's site.
Then after work, I drove over to the Comic Stop to get my weekly dose of four-color crack.
On my way home.... wait. Let me back up a bit.
You know how I sometimes mention that Hotness & I live "way out in the woods"?
Without going into detail ('cause I don't need to post an open invitation to break into my home), we live about 8-10 miles outside a rural farming town. So when I say "out in the woods", it really is.
So, on my way home as I turned off the main road and took the winding road to get home I had to slam on my brakes to avoid hitting a deer that jumped down from the hillside and into the road in front of me. Luckily I missed him (or maybe it was her), but it just stood there for a moment looking at me. I looked around to try and find out where it came from and saw another one sliding down the hillside and on the road beside me.
I proceeded to drive off slowly and continue home.
I got about a mile-and-a-half away from the house when what should happen? ANOTHER deer leaped out in front of me!
This time it leaped over the guardrail from between some trees. SURPRISE!!!
*Screech!!* Go my brakes again and I missed hitting it.
Round the corner, turn at the fork in the road, go up the hill... and what should happen yet again?!?
No, not a deer this time.
A little black duck waddling across the road!
Luckily I was going uphill and was driving much slower than before, so it didn't take much to miss the little guy, but it was dusk and he was a black duck on an asphalt road so actually seeing him there was lucky. Otherwise he'd have been duck pate under my car.
I pulled into the parking area at our house and went inside.
Hotness was already home and I told her how the little forest critters were out to get me, then I started dinner.
Chicken noodle soup & grilled cheese sandwiches. Easy, quick, and filling. Yum!
Later, I got online to check my email and found out that I had the knockout punch for Friday Night Fights and won a hardcover edition of "Marvel Zombies: The Covers" from Bahlactus.
Awesome! Not bad for a first time try!
Then I did my taxes (Yay! I get money back!) and went to bed.
I bought a couple of lottery tickets, so hopefully my luck will hold out this weekend and I can change the name of this blog to "What's That MILLION DOLLAR Smell?"
Don't worry, I won't forget about all of you if it happens.
I'll just have even more interesting stories to talk about. Like almost hitting a herd of zebras with my car while rally racing in the Serengeti. .... It could happen!
Tonight, Hotness & I are going to the ballet.
A post-show review will be forthcoming.
Have a great weekend!
Even the World Wide Interweb knows the awesomeness that is.... CHUCK NORRIS!
See for yourself:
As I mentioned I would do earlier, here I am with more birthday wishes for my mom.... and an embarrassing photo!
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