Worst. Concert. Ever.

On Friday night I took part in the worst concert that I have ever performed in. It may well have been the worst concert I have ever seen as well. Fortunately, I didn't have to watch it, although others that did have confirmed that it was horrible. Even my dad knew something was amiss, so you know it was quite obviously bad.

Naturally it got off to a bad start when the so-called artistic director gave us the wrong opening pitch for our first piece. Then the (actual) director gave us the correct pitch (a third or so lower), but the artistic director didn't notice. So we had quite a few different interpretations of the first couple notes of the piece, but I steered the group back to the correct pitch.

The rest of the first half was fairly shaky. The sopranos were flat. The tenors were not just flat, but tended to fade in and out, lose their place, and just plain sing the wrong pitches. But we got to the intermission without having to stop altogether. In fact, during intermission, I remarked to my fellow singers, "Hey, at least we didn't have to start any pieces over."

Some might say I jinxed things. I would say that what followed was simply inevitable.

The tenors soon missed an entrance. Then another. Whole movements passed with the tenors phasing in and out in loose synchronization. Eventually we got to a movement in which the tenors entered first. Except they failed to get their entrance pitch (C) from the ending note of the intonation (F), and the group staggered along for a few measures until the conductor mercifully cut us off. This time the tenors were granted a fresh pitch from a bell. This wasn't enough to save us as the group again got off track and ground to a halt. The audience was getting restless. Fortunately, the third time was the charm and we made it through the movement.

We struggled through towards the end of the Cardosa Requiem and reached the point where the basses sang the intonations. I was concerned about this section since we hadn't rehearsed it until the day of the concert(!). Of course, I had practiced it, so I was able to shout the other two basses down and get through the intonations ok. Sadly, our conductor had given the higher intonation (which repeated three times at different points) to the tenors. Despite the fact that they had had at least a week to learn one measly line of music, they completely dropped the ball. I was tempted to belt it out for them, but I was so dispirited by this point that pure schadenfreude held me back. Suffice to say that it sucked.

Mercifully, the program came to a close.

There however a few good points about all this:

• I had comp tickets for Susie and Sherwin.
  
• Tickets were only $10 each for my parents.
  
• Some of the people in the group were quite nice.
  
• I'll never have to sing with those clowns again.

Please excuse any typos or grammatical errors as the product of post-traumatic stress.

Do YouCarPlay?

So, I was driving to work yesterday in a light rain when I noticed a bit of static from my stereo. Listening to it, I noticed it was periodic. After another second, I realized that every time my windshield wipers wiped, there was a burst of static on the stereo. That's right. My windshield wipers were interfering with the FM signal being sent from my iCarPlay. Are you serious? My antenna is in the back of my car, nowhere near the windshield wipers. Christ! At least I don't live in Seattle. I mean, sure, I have a CD player in the dash, and a 6-disc changer in the trunk, but I don't want to actually have to swap discs. I want to have thousands of songs at my fingertips, only several dozen of which I actually listen to.

Inbox - Microsoft Outlook

My work email inbox is empty. This is a good thing. I generally use my inbox as a task lisk -- irrelevant emails and spam get deleted, useful information gets filed, and email that requires follow-up hangs around until followed-up (which could take months. Although if I've had an email for months, I usually just get so tired of looking at it that I just delete it). Depending on how busy I am, I could have up to 50 emails or more sitting in my inbox at one time.

Ah, the glamorous life of a contractor. I have nothing to do. In fact, the only reason I came to work today was to meet with my boss's boss about jobs, but he postponed. At least I can use the gym while I'm here. And use the photocopier.

Dum dee dum. Do dee do. Whee.

Hey, there's an incoming message. Oh, it's just spam from Dell.

Dum dee dum dee dum.

Hey, look at the time. Just about time for a two hour lunch. See you later.

Feasting

Well, although test results show that my blood pressure and cholesterol are a tad high, that hasn't stopped me from gorging myself on good food and drink lately. Let's recap:

• Wednesday: Sushi from Ichiban? Iraku? What the heck's the name of that place again? And plum sake at Sherwin's. (Hey, Sherwin, take the sake out of the freezer. It will just turn into sake slush. I know, I've done it before.)
  
• Thursday: Dinner at Cafe Kati (pronounced "Katie," apparently) with Susie. I had the most delicious miso-glazed black bass I'd ever had. Come to this of it, it's probably the first one I've had, too. And half a bottle of Rombauer merlot. Yes, merlot. But not really half a bottle. Technically, more like most of a half bottle.
  
• Friday: Dinner at Aziza with Susie and my parents. Couldn't bring myself to order the vegetable stew, and tried to go light by ordering squab, which ended up rather duck-like. Quite tasty, though. Couple glasses of Dolcetto.
  
• Saturday: 6:00: Dinner at Sociale. Happy Birthday, Mary! The food was better than it was the last two times I was there. Service too. Weird. I guess if you must go, go on a weekend. But don't rely on the heat lamps. You'll either freeze or bake. I only ordered some butternut squash spaetzle (which were quite good), because I had to make it to 8:15: Dinner at Lulu. Dinner was being paid for by the company, so it's too bad we weren't hungrier. We did take advantage of the situation by ordering a $125 bottle of 1998 Tignanello. Yum.
  
• Sunday: Drinks at Lingba Lounge, then dinner next door at Thanya and Salee with Susie, Rachael and Dan. Happy Birthday, Rachael! If you don't know about it, well, it's probably the best Thai food in SF. Great cocktails at the lounge, too. The four of us split the Bowl of Monkeys, which is a large flaming bowl filled with pineapple-and-rummy-goodness. Luckily you get long straws so you don't burn your face off when drinking it.
  

That's about it. Eating healthy starts... now.

Movin' On Up

Maybe Susie felt that it was just time that someone should own condo. Maybe she was jealous (on behalf of our cats) of our other friends' cats, who have cat condos (grammar so confusing). In any case, she had a hankerin' for one while we were at the pet store, so we took it home with us.

Our feline tenants moved in right away.

Welcome to Our 1,000th Visitor!

I just noticed the other day that my unique visitors counter had surpassed 1,000. Now I just have to figure out how to make it not overrun the border. Who the hell reads this thing, anyway?

LOTR

Q: So, what's the word with you joining the LOTR team?

A: Don't ask.

Mursed

While I was shopping on Hayes street after getting my hair cut, I stopped in at Flight 001, a hip luggage store. I was confused and indecisive due to all the different options, but I eventually settled on this Jack Spade bag. I was tempted by a wallet-sling-like thing, but it was really much too small to carry more than 2 or 3 small gadgets. (My current gadget quotient is 4-6.) I was also tempted by a Mandarina Duck bag that was silvery and high-tech and cool looking, but it was a bit bigger than I wanted. I'm happy about my choice; it's small, but not too small; metro, without being... err... too metro, if you know what I mean.

The weird thing now is that when I go into a restaurant, I have to figure where to put it (on floor? slung over chair?), worry about people stealing it, and remember to take it with be when I leave. It's a bit of a transition.

Oh, and I picked up a bottle of plum sake at that sake store on Hayes. Cool place. So I'm stoked about that.

I'm Full!

Well, not "me," per se. But I have filled my wine fridge. That's right, 35 bottles of fermented grape drink, all chilling at optimum aging temperature. Well, actually I had to stick one bottle of white up with the reds since I didn't want to break up my block of 20 Ridge wines.

That's right. I had a gift certificate to Wine Impression (Thanks Bronwen and Michael!), so I picked up another bottle of Ridge -- one that we hadn't seen before. I forget what it's called -- Three Valleys, maybe? Sadly, when I got it home, I realized that its foil didn't match the silver of all the other bottles; it was more of a pewter. Very sad. But at least now I have an even 20. I did discover yet another Ridge I hadn't tried a Whole Foods the other day -- Independence School -- so maybe I'll pick one of those up and "replace" one of the drinkable bottles.

My Bag is Made From Trucks

I think I want a murse. My new phone is fairly large, and tends to fill up my left front pants pocket. I mean, who wants to wear their phone on their belt? I'll tell you who: dorks. However, having phone filling up my pocket prevents me from sticking my hands in my pockets and slouching, as is my wont. Having some type of bag to carry it around seems like a good solution. And that way, I'd have something to carry other stuff in besides my coat pockets, which really aren't a very good bag substitute. Think of all the things I could carry:

• Phone (obviously)
  
• iPod (mini)
  
• CDs (deez?)
  
• Pen
  
• Pencil
  
• Bottle of water (every singer should carry one)
  
• Checkbook
  
• Kleenex (although my consumption of said item is greatly reduced with the new nasal spray -- see below)
  
• Bits of string (never know when they might come in handy)
  
• $40 in quarters (It sucks when you go to the bank for quarters and then realize you have to fill your pockets with 5 lbs. of quarters.)

Anyway, I heard that some Swiss company by the name of Freitag made cool murses. With a little bit of research on their Byzantine website, I discovered that their schtick is that their bags are made out of truck tarpaulins. With an online tool, you can choose exactly which sections of which tarpaulins they'll cut up to make your bag with. Kinda interesting. Very urban hipster. Not me.

This is more me.

My Nose Can Beat Up Your Nose!

So, I went to the doctor yesterday. With all this turning 30 stuff, I felt I need to make sure everything was in working order. I wanted to complain about my allergies as well, which have been horrible this year. I got a prescription for Zirtec, which I had heard good things about. My doctor also prescribed a steroidal nasal spray, which is supposed to work well. Apparently, the idea is your nose gets stronger, and can then beat up any pollen or dust that gets in there, and make it feel bad about itself. Ok, not really. It just contains cortisol, which your body produces as a natural anti-inflammatory.

Just keep an eye out for my nose getting all bulked-up. I don't want it getting roid rage and punching my lights out.

I Want a Lute!

On Sunday, because our talented tenor friend Dan was singing, we went to an excellent concert by Magnificat. They did some excellent madrigals, which really inspired me to be more serious about singing. I've been a choral vagabond for a few years now, singing in different groups just to have something to do. Don't get me wrong -- it's been great for me. I met Susie in Creative Voices, after all. But just singing in a group just to be singing just doesn't cut it for me anymore. I want to actually be in a group in which I can sing what I want to sing. And right now, that's madrigals. So, if anyone reading this knows of a madrigal group looking for a bass, let me know.

Also noteworthy at the concert was the presence of a theorbo player. For the non-Baroque-music-geek, a theorbo is a larger cousin of the lute, with many bass strings. Oh, and it's ridiculously cool. Of course I decided I had to have one. After a little research, I discoverd that not only are they exceedingly rare, but they also cost upwards of $8k. And not only would finding music for it be difficult, but it's also large and impractical to lug around.

A bit more web browsing later, I decided upon another target: a lute. I actually wanted a lute back in the day when I still played my classical guitar. Just never could afford it (or wanted it quite enough to justify the expense). Now, though, I think it would be awesome to have a lute. Not only do they sound cool, but they really are quite beautiful.

One problem with buying a lute is where to start: there are only about a bajillion different kinds of lutes. Six courses, seven courses, eight, nine, ten, eleven, thirteen courses, Renaissance lutes, Baroque lutes, archlutes. Where to start? Seems that a 6-8 course (a course is a single string or pair of strings) lute is good starting place.

Now, lutes can be quite expensive as well. But not nearly as pricey as theorboes. In fact, I've found a few that can be had for less than $450. I'm sure they're crap, but it would be some thing I could start with so I could see if I could justify a bigger expense. Plus it would be cool to be able to say that I own a lute. I'd just have to avoid becoming one of those Renfair weenies.

Goodbye, Alias

After Susie introduced me to it, Alias became one of my favorite shows. No, it wasn't because of Jennifer Garner -- she's an average actress at best, and I personally think she's on the mannish side of attractive. It was just a fun show with compelling characters in ridiculous situations performing feats of superhuman cool. And the Mulder/Scully connection between Garner and Michael Vartan always added a nice undercurrent of tension to the story.

Of course, there have been rumors that Garner, now a producer on the show, had Vartan's character written off because they used to date And all was revealed on last week's season opener.

So, Vartan's character goes to meet with an informer. But suddenly a car pulls up from out of nowhere, a guy gets out and shoots the informer. And now Vartan, this CIA agent who's been shot, stabbed, imprisoned, tortured, poisoned, electrocuted, etc. simply stands there while he's gunned down by a couple of thugs with machine guns. And then he dies in a hospital. And there's a funeral.

I can take it in stride that a 15th century genius could hide secret messages in a genetic code and invent mind control devices, but when a on-screen character is killed for offscreen reasons, it taints every premise that the show is based on.

I suppose there's a chance that his shooting was staged. After all, he wasn't shot in the head. And they could have staged his surgery and resuscitation attempts. And funeral.

Nah.

Damn you, Jennifer Garner! Elektra sucked!