You know, somehow I wasn’t convinced we’d actually run out of hurricane names this year, even though it looked possible. But the National Hurricane Center has just named tropical storm depression Alpha, marking the first time more than 21 tropical storms have been recorded in the Atlantic in one year.
Author Archives: Kelson
Singing Monkeys on Stage!
Just got an email from Disney on Broadway (I assume I must have given them my email address when I bought Lion King tickets several years ago) offering me advance tickets to their new Broadway show, Tarzan.
WTF?
Admittedly, I thought The Lion King was an odd choice for a stage musical, and it turned out to be quite good. But Tarzan? I mean, it’s a weird enough choice for a musical in the first place, but Disney’s cartoon wasn’t even really a musical—it was a movie with a Phil Collins soundtrack.
I wish I could remember exactly what Aimee Mann said last week when she introduced “Save Me.” It was something like “Yes, this is the song that lost the Oscar to Phil Collins and his cartoon monkeys monkey love song.” (Katie remembered it.) Apparently she says this regularly.
Bleah. I’d rather they put together a new tour of Beauty and the Beast. With any luck it’ll still be playing when we finally get around to visiting New York. (I honestly didn’t know it was still playing now until I went to look at the Tarzan info.)
Bon voyage, mon appetit!
One look at this, and you’ll say goodbye to your appetite! Wait, I’m sure that’s not what they’re going for…
(On another level, the reflected palm trees fit in with the travel theme.)
Which way do I go now?
This is a traffic signal on the Jeffrey off-ramp from the northbound 5 in Irvine. The ramp is 3 lanes wide, and the middle lane can go either way. It’s not often that you actually see a double arrow like this, though.
It’s times like this that make me wish I’d taken a picture of the “U-Turn Only” sign I saw a few years ago. The street it was on has since been extended, and the sign is long gone.
Scool Zone
Bad enough that they misspelled “school,” but “development” as well? You have to wonder who’s managing their signs. (The underscore used in place of a dash bugs me, but not as much.)
And yes, this is the same elementary school that was “cloced for repairs” one time we drove past it.
I’m seriously reminded of the photo (even if it’s probably staged) of workmen painting “SHCOOL” on a road.
Wet Floor: This Means You
I have to wonder, were people ignoring the Caution sign until they scrawled “for you” on it?
Edit: I also can’t help but think of Something Positive’s emo catgirl drawing.
Lightning Storms and Aimee Mann
We drove up to UCLA last night for an Aimee Mann concert, and somehow, despite all the rain on the way up and back, we managed to not need our umbrellas at all.
The concert was great, and very different from the last concert we saw at Royce Hall just by virtue of having a full band behind her (Tori Amos performed solo last time we were there). It was also very different from the last time we saw Aimee Mann, at the House of Blues last summer. For one thing, she was focusing on songs from her new album, The Forgotten Arm.
It was also much more interactive than either of the other two concerts. What stuck in my mind was the request section. She had everything set up so that people would write the request on a piece of paper and leave it on the stage, but when she got to the break, people were shouting out titles. One guy came prepared with what looked like a balsa glider and wrote his request on that, adding that it was his birthday. I don’t remember his request, but she improvised “Happy birthday to the paper airplane man.” I’ve seen singers who get talkative, and singers who improv silly songs, but it really felt like the house was much smaller than 1800 people. (Of course, you could still make a drinking game out of the number of times she says “Thank you so much” after a song.) Continue reading