The Last Five Years is a musical I will love for the next 30 years of my life (if I’m still alive after that, I’ll probably be too senile to remember the music and words). I think it’s nothing less than a masterpiece. I’ve already said this before but the first few times I listened to the CD of the soundtrack, I didn’t quite get it. Watching a mini-performance (which wasn’t even spectacularly performed, with the exception of the piano player who was fabulous) of the play from college kids drove the message to my ditsy little brain. When the music finally got to me, it was like I began to hear Jason Robert Brown’s genius in every note. If you play piano, you have to know Jason Robert Brown. If you want to see the original cast perform, click on the link at the beginning of this post.
Here’s Jason Robert Brown on the piano with Sherie Rene Scott singing “Goodbye Until Tomorrow.”
The 2009 French Open is pretty exciting, no?! We’re now in the quarterfinals and the upsets and breakthroughs have been quite staggering! For one, Robin Soderling of Sweden ousted four-time champion Nadal - he who has been declared the invincible greatest claycourt player of all time. Soderling’s now a semifinal contender after a comprehensive win (another upset) over Nikolay Davydenko. That he’s on a roll is probably an understatement. It’s like he has Discover boxes of Roland Garros tricks. We also saw Roger Federer, now the heavy favorite to win his first French Open title, almost blow his chance to Tommy Haas when he lost the first two sets of his fourth-round match. He’s the only one remaining of the top four - Nadal, Murray, and Djokovic are all out.
As for the ladies, I was rooting for Maria Sharapova. I like her when she’s an underdog. She’s has annoying little habits that makes her a target of ridicule sometimes, but I do admire her fighting spirit. If anything, she’s indeed more than just a pretty statuesque figure on a tennis court; she is a real sportswoman, you have to give her that. But then she’s out of the running, too, after losing quite badly in the women’s quarters. The up-and-coming Victoria Azarenka lost to no. 1 Dinara Safina, so I guess I want Safina to win now. At least I prefer her over Serena Williams. I miss Justine Henin.
One of my strange idiosyncracies is my fascination with Exit Signs. Especially those you see inside cinema houses. I think they’re of the type of Self Luminous Exit Signs. They do distract me even from movies I’m watching; I really can’t explain why. As you know, those signs are not even the real exit doors. They are for emergency purposes only. But the Photoluminescent Exit Signs, sometimes in red and sometimes in green as I see them, are just attention grabbers. Well, that’s not their purpose and I’m sure I’ll have no use for them personally, but if you have an establishment or if you’re managing a building that needs those types of signs, there are online stores that sell them.
Exitsigns dot net is one of those companies distributing exit signs and I their web site pretty much has everything you need. You’d think all exit signs are the same but this site claims that their signs were “designed to save lives.” Their product categories are easy to navigate, and you can easily find your choices depending on type or pricing. I didn’t know there are that many types of signages, to be honest! As for any other purchase, quality and value for money are the most important things to consider and I think this site deserves some looking at.
It is the rainy season once again and I’m feeling the hassle and the difficulty of traveling to and from work under heavy rains. Times like these, I always think about having my own car, even if it’s a used car. Nobody would argue about the comfort driving your own vehicle brings; well, of course, there’s the maintenance thing and all the other costs involved, not to mention actually having to dish out a good sum of money to buy yourself a second hand car, but the advantages I guess outweigh the disadvantages. Just last night, I came out of the office very eager to go home and I was disgusted to see the heavy downpour and the quite heavy winds because that would mean I’ll get home soaked and messy again. Just the time I have to stand waiting for transportation would mean time exposed to the elements and nobody enjoys that! And then I have to walk a few yards to reach home, possibly in flooded streets. Am I not whiny now? Sigh. Well, of course, driving a car through floods is no picnic either. Especially if you bought yours from manufacturers of used cars, I guess it will make you pretty nervous about the possible damages of floods. Still, I’m hoping I can seriously consider getting myself my own car in the few years to come. Never mind my fear of driving. Maybe it’s one fear that I can learn to conquer in time. [Related story: When I was in high school, I think I was 15 years old then, my father started to teach me how to drive. We had an owner-type jeep then so it’s a heavy vehicle to try to learn driving but I almost managed to. I remember my problem then was doing turns, keeping the engine on, and shifting gears. Which pretty much translates to I didn’t actually learn how to drive, LOL!.]
I’ve been quite busy the past week. Moving to a new apartment isn’t so easy as it used to be. The first time I did this, all it took was a helpful friend with a car. It seems that I’ve managed to acquire quite a few belongings in the last few years that it took two trips of a small truck to transfer all my things this time around. I was dead tired by the time it was over and before I had to face the process of setting everything up. I missed an entire week of badminton because of that and I was seriously bummed. But my energy was really sapped and I was thinking of nothing but food after all the work, which is funny because the first thing I saw in a magazine I was reading (while trying to rest in between arranging stuff and cleaning the new house) are appetite suppressant reviews. It only made me want to play badminton all the more.
Anyway, because of all that, I didn’t have time to update my blogs. The few topics that went over my head while busy working are gone now so I will have to start thinking up new stuff to write. Hang in there with me, will ya?!
Finally, I was able to get myself a fast Internet connection. Well, “fast” is relative depending on your online needs, but for the price of Php1450, I got a cable TV with decent channels and 1 Mbps internet. I was almost jumping for joy when I did a test and got a 1.2 Mb download speed! Imagine the amount of downloads I can do now (*rubbing my hands together with a foolish grin on my face*). It’s almost like verizon bundles. Well, verizon offers bundled phone, Internet, and cable TV so I am still missing one of those.
Now about the cable TV. The only reason I wanted to have cable TV is because of the tennis Grand Slam tournaments. For the past two years, I was only following the news and online scores and occasionally downloading final matches (if Federer won them). Having a few other channels don’t hurt, but with regard to TV series, I prefer to download so I can watch back-to-back episodes. Unfortunately, the French Open tournament isn’t being covered by any major cable channel so I am stuck with replays at Studio 23, which sometimes fall at a time when I am at the office. At least I can watch the finals on Sunday. For sure, verizon deals have tennis channels, but I’m not complaining too much. I’m sure I’ll be able to follow Wimbledon in three weeks’ time.
