Just came back from a Jens Lekman concert at Neumo's, but first I need to tell you about the weird warm up act -- the Honeydrips. Note the plural. In actuality, just one guy. And a MacBook Pro with iTunes. Which was his band, and his backing vocals. He did have a guitar which he picked up, but never actually played. He was okay, he had a sort of New Order-type sound at the beginning, then it was kind of all over the place... I think I was distracted, watching him intently to see if he was actually going to pluck some strings on that damn guitar.
Jens though was awesome. The main draw of his songs (aside from their 50's - 60's infectious pop vibe) is the sweet lyrics, the story that he tells in each song. Even more so that, during the set, he would occasionally provide even more back story to fill in the gaps -- e.g. Postcard to Nina, in which he describes how a lesbian friend convinces him to beard for her when visiting her family in Berlin. The audience was clapping along, even whistling... Jens displayed an understated showmanship that you appreciated as something a little out of the ordinary; through his story-telling you definitely felt more connected to the guy on stage than you might otherwise.
Oh, another point in his favour: Wikipedia claims he moved to Melbourne in early 2008 :).
Barack Obama gave an excellent speech today on the race issue in the fight for the Presidential nomination. I started reading the transcript, and although it ran to seven pages felt compelled to read it all. It was a thoughtful, honest, and -- yes -- inspiring speech that addressed in very frank terms the racial divide that still permeates this country. What is most impressive is that he did so without condescension, without flinching from difficult subject matter, and without attempting to simplify what is a very complex issue.
The speech reminded me a lot of Kevin Rudd's address to Parliament earlier this year apologising to the Stolen Generation, in the sense that it tried to be bigger than the pettiness and cynicism that typifies the current state of the debate, in order to bring the country forward with solutions rather than go through an exercise of apportioning blame and recriminations. Unfortunately, there are still those who can only see the fact that Obama has refused demands to leave his church (for those who haven't kept up with the latest mini-scandal, Obama's former pastor is all over YouTube with footage of him damning America and calling it for example the USKKKA).
Visit Barack Obama's website yourself to check out the speech.
A few new photo galleries now up on Picasaweb:
1. More photos of the Grand Canyon: http://picasaweb.google.com/alecsiu/GrandCanyonII
2. Hoover Dam: http://picasaweb.google.com/alecsiu/HooverDam
3. Las Vegas: http://picasaweb.google.com/alecsiu/LasVegas
It took me a little while to sort them all out using Picasa, but they're now there 3 weeks later :).
Hoover Dam was a mighty impressive piece of engineering, especially when you consider the conditions and speed with which it was built -- searing temperatures in summer, with little in the way of safety equipment, and not much in the way of rest and relaxation. It was a logical stop en route to the Grand Canyon, 1 hour from Vegas and sitting on the border of Nevada and Arizona.
Vegas, the first stop of the trip, is a strange kind of city. It seems to be built entirely on gambling and tourism, and the industries that support it. The original downtown, which is where we stayed, is a shell of its former self. There are still quite a few casinos in that part of town, but the buzz (and hence the tourists) has surely drifted to the Strip, where all the super-casinos that are made famous on TV are situated either side of a 10-lane monster of a road.
You have the Luxor, the hotel shaped like a pyramid clad in glass on all sides, with a giant sphinx reposing in its forecourt. You have Paris, complete with Arc de Triomphe and Eiffel Tower. New York, New York, with a replica of the New York skyline (I wonder if they had the Twin Towers originally). The Venetian, with its set of canals along which you can take a gondola ride... And the list goes on and on... We stopped at most of them, to oooh and aaah and gawk at the extravagance and kitsch. Some casinos don't really have a 'hook' as such, like the MGM Grand, or Mandalay Bay. I'm sure they have some kind of 'theme', but eventually all casinos start looking the same from the inside.
Las Vegas is also not a cheap city. If you use the Starbucks Latte index (far more important to me than the Big Mac index), Vegas is up there with NYC -- we're talking $3.25 (+ tax) for a tall latte on the Strip, and certainly not even a good one. I admit though that we didn't exactly attempt to be frugal.
Food-wise Vegas won't leave you hungry if you're prepared to spend. We tucked into the all-you-can-eat buffets that Las Vegas casinos are famous for, first at the Luxor (good but not great), and secondly at Paris, reputedly one of the better ones. You definitely need to walk in with an empty stomach because there is a hard-to-ignore temptation to sample every morsel from every station -- salads, pasta, carvery, "Asian", seafood, desserts... And you end up waddling out but definitely with enough calories to last you the remainder of the day.
We also paid homage to Emeril (who I'm not really a fan of, but hey his joint was reasonably priced, didn't need a reservation and was in the same casino as where we were going to see a Cirque Du Soleil show), by eating at ummm "Emeril's"? I can't even remember the place, but I had a nice grilled salmon dish with what was essentially a fancy version of barbecue sauce! Just goes to show, fancy food is all in the presentation!
The Cirque du Soleil show we saw, Ka, wasn't bad. $75 a pop for a 'martial arts' extravaganza, although the only real martial arts style acrobatics were at the beginning. It was still impressive though, with an amazing set that rotated in three dimensions and high-wire tricks played out on platforms stretching out over the audience area. I didn't quite understand the storyline, mind you, but I suppose it doesn't really matter :). You have to admire Cirque du Soleil though -- it's its own mini-industry: they have half a dozen shows to choose from, each playing at different casinos and at varying prices ($75 is at the cheap end!) and from what I could tell, our late show at 9.30pm was as good as full. If you do the math, CDS must make a handsome profit indeed!
All in all, a great trip considering we only had 4 days -- it's amazing what you can fit in when you try. Now the question remains of where to go to next :).
Oh-oh I'm behind already in my blog updates... more Las Vegas/Grand Canyon photos to come but not this time...
Just came back from skiing with Hugo and Atul, leaving behind Tommer, Beau, Kieran and Wu to enjoy more of their snowboarding up at Snoqualmie. We stuck to Central (there's also West, East and Alpental), which has quite a few beginner and intermediate runs (which suits me just fine). Lesson for me: stick to greens and easy blues for now! I bet my legs will be sore in the morning but it was good to get out there for probably the last time this season before...
I start work with my new team in Windows Mobile on Monday. I can't really say what I'm working on (I've always wanted to say that), but I think it's going to be exciting coming almost full circle from when I first got out of uni working for Ericsson in Melbourne, to finally being able to work with the mobile devices I always dreamt about. The best part is that the office will be moving to a new building in South Lake Union in May, which will cut down my commute dramatically!
Okay time to go, I'm about to head out to a Missy Higgins gig at the Tractor Tavern... It's funny, I've probably seen more Aussie acts here in Seattle than I ever did back home (at least pro rata); off the top of my head: Ben Lee, Bernard Fanning, Cat Empire, Tim Finn, JBT... Now Missy Higgins, and probably The Waifs soon too!
