...you haven't seen the ORIGINAL version from when it first opened in 2000!


With the freaking POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE parade loop.

And the golden nugget.

And cloud shoes.

And cloud purses.

And animal hats.

And some random characters like Bernard and Bianca instead of the Three Fairies and the Dragonflies.

And pretty much everyone out of order (or at least compared to Denny's reworked version).


Weird... and sad.


Anyway, someone FINALLY put it up on YouTube in two parts:


..


..



OMFG. WTF?!

At the risk of beating the dead horse...

...what were they THINKING?!

The Swans looked fine dancing to classical music, but you can't say that much for the Algae stilts or Donald and Daisy. Awkward... At least a generic Disney medley is better than Pomp and Circumstance, right?

And it's especially sad because you can tell all the performers are doing their damnest to put on a good show in spite everything. It's not their fault!


Moral of the story: Don't hire the French to create anything for America.

Pavarotti died yesterday after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.

As much as I feel "eh..." about opera, it's sad to see him go.

is going to be on Dancing With the Stars!!!

I am SO excited. I haven't been to Las Vegas since I was, um, 19?

Like when the Aladdin was still new-ish... so good thing I walked through it while it was still open?

(side note: too bad it's being turned into Planet Hollywood shops and stuff, because the Desert Passage shops were freaking AMAZING. I mean like spectacular Disney-level theming.)

Anyway... We're driving since the cheapest plane tickets we found were $140 (our cutoff was around $100), and we're staying at the Las Vegas Hilton for dirt cheap thanks to a couple of my friends who work at the Anaheim Hilton. Yay!



We got tickets to see "Love," the newest Cirque du Soleil show, on Thursday night. It's all Beatles music, so I'm really excited. I've never seen anything live in Vegas before, and I've never seen Cirque live at all. Maybe next time I can catch Phantom?



Speaking of Vegas show tickets... I had NO idea they were so expensive!!!

Our Cirque tickets are $135 each!?!?! Orchestra seats for Phantom are almost that much too, which effectively makes Vegas more expensive than a Broadway show. Maybe I'm naive, but I was sure that it would cost more to see a show on Broadway than at a giant casino... but I was obviously wrong.

So yeah, time to go to bed. Well, shower and then go to bed. John's picking Maile and me up at 11:45am, so I should try to get at least SOME beauty sleep.

Ciao!

(Obviously, this one was ganked from their MySpace page.)

was surprisingly awesome!!!


GO SEE STARDUST. NOW.





The trailer makes the movie look really confusing and convoluted, but all the parts tie together really well in context. I knew it had to have been based on a book (only a sadistic screenwriter would make a 2-hour plot THAT complex), but it was really well-done.


I love Michelle Pfeiffer. Especially when she's a bitchy, kickass villain.

And Robert De Niro is... um... very convincing.

I think I'm going to buy the soundtrack tomorrow when it comes out next Tuesday. It was really nice.


The sad thing, though, is that I'm pretty sure it's going to tank at the box office. Beth and I saw the 8:00pm show at AMC Downtown Disney... it was in the GIANT theater, but we were two of only about a dozen people in there. How sad. I hope it was just a fluke and that everyone in Downtown Disney was busy eating dinner and killing time until the next showing?

If not, then I certainly hope it gets more attention than the live-action Peter Pan did a few years ago (another EXTREMELY well-done movie, but didn't do too well at the box office), but I guess only time will tell?

They're coming.

I finally watched The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring last night.

Well, last night and this morning. I watched the first disc last night and then put in the second disc after breakfast.

Wow.

I wish I would have seen this shit in theaters. Probably the most beautiful and visually-stunning movie I've ever seen.

And this was only the FIRST one?!


Anyway... I went to Costco yesterday looking for a nice tower fan (no central air in the apartment, and our bedroom must be at least 20 degrees hotter than the living room) but, of course, they were sold out. Rats.

So I took my requisite lap around the DVD aisle before heading out the exit and -- lo and behold -- they had a whole row of the LOTR Super Ultra Extended Special Edition DVD box sets...



...for $10.99 EACH!

I stopped and was like "Hum... It's worth a shot. And if I don't like the first one, then it was only $10.99 and I can always return the other two later."


I don't know who put those $40-plus boxsets on the shelf for $10.99, but they deserve a medal. I changed positions on the couch a few times because it's not exactly the most comfortable piece of furniture in the world... but, other than that, I sat through all 208 minutes of the extended-whatever version (well, each disc) without moving. It totally sucked me in!


Oh, and I love Cate Blanchett. Hearing her voice over the prologue was a perfect way to start the whole thing.


And Orlando Bloom looks a lot hotter as Legolas than he did in Pirates. I dunno, maybe it's the elf ears and the girly blonde hair? :-p

Since Jeremy's gone, I've been spending more than a little extra time at the apartment. In my room, specifically. And it's given me a kick to get the last few things straightened up in here.

After having leaned against the wall for months and months, I finally put up my Desperate Housewives and Family Guy posters last week.

I also bought two LACK shelves and a couple NON lights from Ikea a couple days ago...



...and I finally put them up today!


I'll take a picture of it all after work tonight, though, because they're still half-empty now. I still need to put some of my dorky picture frames on the bottom shelf, and I might as well put some music textbooks up on the top shelf so I look edjucated.

Oh wait, I just dragged all that crap home after the end of the semester. Oops. Maybe I'll shlep some books back down next weekend?


Anyway... I was more than a little annoyed about buying a drill, but I found a pretty decent one at Costco for like $40. I could have screwed the shelves in myself, but I couldn't have drilled holes through the shelves for the light cords without, um, a drill. So yeah. Besides, I'm sure I'll use it again anyway, or someone else will need to borrow it anyway, so I figure it was a good investment.

(And maybe it means I can use it to further convince my mom to buy some stuff for the house-house? God knows the computer/Nintendo/spare/junk room is a complete mess and could DEFINITELY benefit from a bookcase, shelves, or ANYTHING up on a wall.)

Damn, every episode of Dinosaurs is absolutely fucking brilliant.

Free admission AND parking at noon?! Score!

Here's what they posted on MySpace this morning:



----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: OC Fair 2007
Date: 13 Jul 2007, 08:52


HELLOOOOOOOO!

I hope you've all made plans to come out to the OC Fair today.
Yes, that's right at NOON we will be officially open! Come celebrate with us.

Free admission and parking from Noon - 1 PM.



OC Fair
July 13 -August 5
Closed Mondays!


Tell Your Friends!

One of my parade friends is hooked on Prison Break.

And she's started calling me "Kellerman" because she and the other 'PBs' (they have Prison Break TV nights all the time) think I look like him.

Do I?

The pictures I've found of him online don't look too good... I know my hairline isn't what it used to be, but it hasn't receded THAT much yet!

is hands-down one of the greatest video games ever made.





That is all.

is taking over the Hollywood Bowl this weekend... and I'm going on Saturday!!!



My uncle's friend Mike called yesterday to ask if Jeremy and I would like to join them at the concert (which would make us the only two under 30 in their group, but whatever)...

...but Jeremy left yesterday for a week-long vacation to a family reunion in Texas and then a few days in Cabo.

Figures. Damn!

So yeah... I don't have the night off (God knows I need at least two weeks' notice to put in the ADO), but I think it's worth calling in. And I'll be back the next day, so whatever.

The best part, though? I'm scheduled for POD Lead on Saturday. Good luck backfilling my spot, suckers!!!

Anyway, here's the program:



The first half is John Williams conducting the orchestra in some old 'golden age' movie music that has inspired him:

ROSZA "Parade of the Charioteers" from Ben Hur
KORNGOLD March from Robin Hood
HERRMANN "Scene d'Amour" from Vertigo
STEINER, arr. MORLEY Theme from Gone With The Wind
STEINER, arr. WILLIAMS Theme from "Now Voyager"
JARRE Excerpts from Dr. Zhivago (with film)
JARRE Excerpts from Lawrence of Arabia (with film)

And the second half is John Williams conducting some of his own film music:

WILLIAMS March from Superman
WILLIAMS Love Theme from Superman
WILLIAMS Escapades for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra - Music from Catch Me If You Can
WILLIAMS Three Pieces from Harry Potter

"The Chamber of Secrets" (with film)

"Aunt Marge's Waltz" (with film)

"Harry's Wondrous World" (with film)

WILLIAMS "Throne Room and Finale" from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope

And yay for playing excerpts of the film along with the music! That was one of the coolest things about the Fantasia concert we went to last summer.

Parking is a total bitch there, but that's what happens when 18,000 people try to jam in for an event, right?

Anyway... Yay for the Hollywood Bowl!

...for the Cast?



Yay for Backstage propaganda.

was really interesting.

(Apparently it's FINALLY back on the air as of this past Monday, but I just watched it on the DVR!!! last night.)

The guy they picked was a surfer who lost a leg in a motorcycle accident (along with his job, his sex life, and everything else that's hard to do without two legs). No pictures of him yet on ABC.com, though.

But the girl, Micha... was one of the saddest things I've ever seen. I can't even begin to explain it. A poor bucktoothed, legally-blind, knock-kneed, inarticulate mess from rural Tennessee whose jaw was broken as a child but -- get this -- the dentist only replaced her broken front teeth because he DIDN'T take any x-rays to discover that the whole jaw was BROKEN!



It was a really, really good episode. The idea of Extreme Makeover made me roll my eyes years ago (looks aren't everything blah blah blah), but they seem to find all these people whose lives really have been pretty much destroyed because of their appearance (or missing limbs, as was the guy's case).

Anyway... Micha almost looked like a completely different person at her reveal.



I mean, you could still tell it was her... but they brought in a speech therapist to help her speak with her repositioned jaw, an etiquette coach to teach her how to walk in heels and eat properly, and the ubiquitous gay fashion consort to make sure she went home to Tennessee with an overpriced dress. But seriously, it all worked spectacularly, and everyone in the room started crying (of course).

Maybe it was the three glasses of wine I'd had by that point, but my eyes watered along with them.

Ah, the magic of TV and how it changes people...

Remember -- Don't drink and drive. Pull over and take sips.


Me? I'm going to have a couple glasses fo Two Buck Chuck Chardonnay and probably fall asleep on the couch.

Maybe on my bed, actually... but it's still pretty warm in here.

That being said, I'm so beat for today. I worked 12:00-22:30 doing Parade of Dreams AND Block Party AND 2nd Parade of Dreams AND EP Lead. Sheesh!

It was worth extending into EP, though, because some of us Leads walked back up through the Park to watch the special patriotic finale after the normal fireworks show.

Holy shit. I'm pretty sure the 5-minute patriotic finale had almost the same amount of shells as the 15-minute "Remember... Dreams Come True" show does. Daaaaaaaaamn that thing was loud!