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Last night we saw Tori Amos perform at the Davies Symphony Hall. It was our first concert at Davies, but not our first Tori concert. I have been to a handful of her concerts at various venues. It never ceases to amaze me how such a tiny, seemingly fragile woman could have such a powerful voice, and play the piano with such extreme passion.

The original tickets we got from [ticketmaster.com] where in Tier H, seat 2-4. But on the Friday before the concert, I went online on a hunch and tried to see if there were any better seats. Sometimes tickets (and better seats) are released closer to the performance date. I took the chance and scored orchestra seating, about 15 rows back!

Surprisingly, finding Davies Symphony Hall, parking near the Hall, and getting the will call tickets was very easy. I wouldn�t mind seeing another performance there. Anyway, here was last night’s set list. My favorite song from last night? “Sweet the Sting” which I think is Farrah’s current favorite song on the album.

Set List (04.24.05 - Davies Symphony Hall)
Original Sinsuality
Little Amsterdam
China
Goodbye Pisces
Space Dog
Seaside
Icicle

Father Figure (George Michael cover)
Moonshadow (Cat Stevens cover)

Marys of the Sea
Marianne
Mother Revolution
Mother
Bells For Her
The Beekeeper

1st Encore

Sweet The Sting
Purple People

2nd Encore

Cool On Your Island
Leather

Ok, a moment to reflect on last night’s concert.

This was the sixth time seeing U2, but my first general admission experience in seeing them.  The first time I saw U2 was from behind home plate at the Oakland Coliseum on the ZooTV tour.  The Pop tour came next, the first time seeing them two shows in a row.  This experience was unique in that the first night Farrah, Doug and I had seats way up high in the 200 section (again at the Oakland Coliseum), then the next night we were in the 5th row!  Talk about being able to get an overall perspective of the show.

I was lucky enough watch U2’s Elevation tour both at San Jose Compaq Pavilion (with Doug) and Oakland Coliseum Arena (with Farrah) for two different shows.  When I saw them in San Jose it was towards the beginning of their tour, the group was energetic.  Later in the tour, two months after 9/11,  they came to Oakland a bit more subdued and somber.  But this concert they came out rocking.  Here is the list of songs they played:

• Love and Peace
• Vertigo
• Elevation
• Cry / Electric Co.
• An Cat Dubh / Into the Heart
• City of Blinding Lights
• Beautiful Day
• Miracle Drug
• Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own
• New Year's Day
• Sunday Bloody Sunday
• Bullet The Blue Sky
• Running to Standstill
• Pride in the name of love
• Where the Streets Have No Name
• One
• The Fly
• Mysterious Ways
• Original of the Species
• All Because of You
• Yahweh
• 40

The open act was the Kings of Leon, who didn’t sound half bad. From their interaction with the crowd, it seemed as if they had a rough night the previous show.

Just got back from the U2 concert at the HP Pavilion. I’m still a little jazzed from the experience. I’ll probably be really tired some time tomorrow. I’m winding down right now to last night’s episode of Law and Order: Criminal Intent. I’ll write more on the concert later.

I haven’t been feeling too well, especially since last night. I had that itch behind my nose feeling on last Saturday. Sunday it was the same as well. I took my Claritin but no use. I think it’s a cold, because others at my work (in my row!) are sick. Great.

Insight / joke forwarded by Tage (and worth sharing):

A Spanish teacher was explaining to her class that in Spanish, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine.

• "House" for instance, is feminine: "la casa."
• "Pencil," however, is masculine: "el lapiz."

A student asked, “What gender is ‘computer’?” Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two groups, male and female, and asked them to decide for themselves whether “computer"should be a masculine or a feminine noun. Each group was asked to give four reasons for its recommendation.

The men’s group decided that “computer” should definitely be of the feminine gender (“la computer”), because:

1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic;
2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is impossible to understand for everyone else;
3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later retrieval;
4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.

(No chuckling… this gets better!)

The women’s group, however, concluded that computers should be Masculine (“el computer”), because:

1. In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on;
2. They have a lot of data but still can't think for themselves;
3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem;
4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer, you could have gotten a better model.

The men won.

… for Latin American Spanish (la computadora). In European Spanish, it is masculine (el ordenador).

Well, I’m no longer an AT&T Wireless customer. I’ve made the switch to Verizon. It wasn’t as painless as the [previous experience] for Farrah’s phone, but I think it went as smooth as possible.

The main selling points with Verizon for me were (1) the good rating for Nationwide reception, (2) the good rating for customer service, and (3) it wasn’t Sprint or AT&T. I’ve never considered T-Mobile or Cingular for service. I don’t have a good feeling about them, though Dave is on T-Mobile and he finds it good for his use.

Of course I wanted the latest and greatest phone. Problem was the Verizon stores don’t get them for a couple of months after their release, but they are available online. The phone I wanted was the [LG VX8000]. I wanted this particular phone because (1) it was new, (2) it was bigger than my current phone - which to me is a little small, and (3) it has a color screen. I didn’t necessarily want to take pictures with a phone, but it seems almost impossible to find a phone that doesn’t take pictures.

I tried to order the phone online, along with another phone for my mom. I kept running into a problem with porting over the two phones. It was ok to port a single phone/single phone number, but the ordering flow didn’t accommodate moving over two or more phones. Time call and test their customer service.

I got a really nice sales rep on the phone who understood what I was trying to do, and was able to answer any question I had without a single hesitation. Do this phone include Nationwide long distance? Yes. Do the IN-Network minutes apply to all phones in the family plan? Yes. How long does it take for the phone to be delivered to me? Two days by FedEx. Again, so the IN-minutes aren’t restricted to the primary phone? Yes, that’s correct. Simple.

A day and a half later the phones arrived at my work. I had them up and running later that night. I did run into a little delay on the phone in activating them. I was on hold for about a 30 minutes with apparently no end in site. But my subsequent call to customer services was another good experience.

I wanted to analyze our phone usage for all three phones to determine if were were on the right plan. The rep was helpful in suggesting the right minute plan and also said I could save a little more by being under the family plan. And if it didn’t work out switching was too difficult.

What this whole experience has boiled down to is just good interaction with a large company. As long as this level keeps up, and the phone services is good, I don’t see switching phone companies for a while. But if that comes to that I need to I do like that you can bring your phone number with you now. No more telling family and friends, “Hey my new number is….”

More random thoughts:

Here’s a list of things I’ve heard said or were said to me:

• "It's good to see some CEO's here today." - Said by a priest to his parishioners (as relayed by Evan - because I don't really go to church myself). CEO means Christmas Easter Only church goers.
• "Stuck in the pad." - Said by anonymous. Literal meaning: a fart that is trapped in a menstrual pad. Other meaning: thoughts that can't be converted to sentences properly (see also brain-fart).
• "No, there is no room for advancement." - Said by my supervisor, regarding movement into a different position.

Rating: ***1/2 (out of 5)

Quick Shot: A blind masseur is more than he seems.

What I liked about the movie:  There are about three or four subplots in this film, woven together with Zatoichi in the middle.  It’s done very well.  Plus you can rarely go wrong with Beat Takeshi.  Just remember, it does get a little bloody in this film.

What I didn’t like: It took me a while to get adjusted to the cinematography/look of the film.  It was very ‘clean’ and modern, not helping to take the viewer back in time which made it distracting.  Once the action started it was an after thought.  The dance number - yeah, there is a dance number - was a little out of place for me as well.  After reading the [IMDB trivia] about this movie, it made a little more sense.

Recently I saw a long preview commercial of NBC’s [The Office], which premieres in March. The original version, which you can watch on [BBCAmerica] or on [DVD], is a very hilarious comedy, with uncomfortable comments and silences being an important part of its charm. I don’t think the American version can compare, but I am just basing this on what I saw in the commercial. Then again, there is past evidence that translating shows from BBCAmerica hasn’t worked before:

• [Coupling] is a smartly written comedy about a couple and their friends. Sexual frankness is part of the reason for it's success, and it's lack of frankness might have been why it failed in translating in it's American version on [NBC]. Other people's comments on the [Coupling differences].
• [What Not To Wear] is a much better show than it's [TLC] counterpart. On BBCAmerica it is a half-hour show with two women helping out those who are inept when it comes to fashion/style. On TLC it is an excruciating hour of annoying hosts trying to help others. As you can tell I'm not a fan of the TLC hosts. They just don't have personality and lack the same frankness that the BBC hosts do. I know there are only a few shows of the BBC version, but it is a much better show overall.
• [Changing Rooms] had a change of titles when it made it's way across the Atlantic. Over here its American counterpart is called [Trading Spaces]. Trading Spaces is the most successful translation of the BBC shows I've mentioned. Some of the designers I enjoy (Vern and Genevieve), but again the BBC version has a better overall feel to me.

For the past three days, including tonight, I haven’t been able to go to sleep until after midnight. I don’t know why. I’ve been very busy at work, stress-fully busy, the when-is-this-day-going-to-end busy. To top it off I am restricted to the eight hour work day to complete my work. No overtime, no extra time to get things done. You would think with all that I would be sleeping earlier.

I think I’ll surf a while until I can fall asleep.

Wordpress has this cool feature where you can post an entry by email submission. I guess it’s pretty cool to do this is (1) you are traveling and access a public computer, so you access your email to post instead of the site itself, or (2) you can send a text message via phone or Blackberry and have it posted.

Well, let’s see if this post works. Pressing send now….

Everyone have a lovely Valentine’s Day. I know it’s a Monday, but try to enjoy it anyway.

It’s been one of those weeks. one of those weeks where the days last longer than they should. I wish I could write, put down what is on my mind right now, but I can’t since it’s about work. At least I can’t write about it this instance.

The blogger I mentioned in an earlier post was actually [fired from Google]! It has come to that in this high-tech society. Sure I can write in generalities but I’m sure someone from work who stumbles upon the site would know who or what I’m writing about. Ugh, need to think of a new subject to write about.