Don't Feed Them After Midnight

AND NEVER GET THEM WET!!!!

You can all sleep better - after many years of prayer, letters to your senators, millions of signatures on a petition, and billion person march.... TACO BELL IS OPENING ANOTHER STORE IN MEXICO!!! 15 years after the last expansion into Mexico, we have finally won the battle and there is fast food mexican available innnnnnnnnnn MEXICO!!! DUH!!! What better place to open a Mexican restaurant than in Mexico itself? Why not? This is the new "American Way". There are New York Style Pizzarias in New York, Chicago Hot Dog stands in Chicago, California.... um.... gun stores.... in California, and Minnesota restaurants that sell Minnesota Wild Rice soup! So let's keep those letters and petitions coming so maybe we'll start opening China Ones and China Stars in China! Or a Benihana Japanese Steak House in Japan! Or maybe even a Subway in the Subway of Moscow!!! Ok, that last one wasn't very good.

I also give up on Wall Street.... looks like making money and showing year to year growth is enough to take stock down almost 4 points. Don't understand that one bit.

Not sure what I've done lately to get some bad karma, but I've heard two different NKOTB songs two different times on two different radio stations this past week. Hangin Tough and Step by Step.... videos linked there for your viewing pleasure!! Just curious how the boy bands of the 80s differ in "coolness" from the boy bands of the 90s, and now in the 2000s..... they all sucked at the time, as they suck now.

I've caught up on most of my shows that premiered while I was in NY. Family Guy Star Wars episode was a classic and a great start to the new season. I am caught up on My Name is Earl (Earl works his karma while in prison for a crime he didn't commit.... an interesting twist to the usual plot of the show that I think they'll do well with), The Office, and Simpsons. BTW - for you fans of The Office, I think the barbershop serenade last week by using the speakerphones was one of the funniest moments from that show so far.... anyway. I'm enjoying the shows so far, but come January, we add American Idol back into the TV watching mix!!

Concert in La Crosse this weekend. We're playing a compilation of songs written for The Lord of the Rings, playing Respighi's Pines of Rome (or Pini di Roma for the Italian enthusiasts), Faure's Pavane, Wagner's Overture to Rienzi, and Haydn Trumpet Concerto. Yeah, a weird mix of music that covers Baroque/Classical era, Romantic, Modern, and even MOVIE era (I think that's the newest era of Classical music) but it actually works well together somehow. In the Pines of Rome, there is a part written for bird sounds in the 3rd movement. Some symphonies use a recording to pull off this part, but in rehearsal last week, a couple of us were whistling bird noises at the correct time. It was decided to use this in rehearsal... so now I'm covering two different parts for this concert!! It's about 20 seconds worth and it's subtle. No, I'm not nervous. Here's a Wikipedia description of the 4 different movements that will be played.

Haiku of the Day
Waiting for someone
New to lead our Symphony
8 more concerts left!!

Entertainment of the Day - I've said before that the best ABBA song is Take a Chance and that was the best part of last week's The Office.... never would have considered it a serenading song though but hey, it worked well! But that's a song that gets stuck in your head very easily! Still going through mine today.

Weblink of the Day - 30 second bunnies have released Kill Bill Volumes 1 AND 2!!! 2 movies in 30 seconds for your enjoyment!