November Concerts

My November was filled with great music and memorable concerts. I think I may have even logged more hours in front of my computer downloading and re-tagging music in preparation for the concerts than on Facebook. And we all know how much I'm on Facebook.

The first concert I went to was the Jason Mraz concert at the Greek Theater with Kevin. I had been wanting to go to this concert since I first heard about it in September but the tickets were already sold out. When Kevin offered up a ticket I was so excited to go!

I've developed a strong liking to Jason Mraz over the course of the autumn season. A lot of it had to do with the sentimental way I was introduced to Jason Mraz's music, a couple of months before I'm Yours hit the radio waves and became the song of the summer. In addition to his laid back musicality I just fell in love with his quirky lyrics and wordplay. There is a soothing tonality to his voice that makes his lyrics linger in your mind as you go through his melodies.





The Greek Theater was an interesting venue. You have to drive through a block of (nice) houses to get to the theater and the entire seating area is outdoors, very similar to the Hollywood Bowl. I was worried about the concert because it had been raining earlier in the day. We were sprinkled a little during one of the songs but the rain subsided for most of the concert.

The next show I watched was the 2008 Hotel Cafe Tour at the Music Box (Henry Fonda Theater). I was browsing the Hotel Cafe web site the day before the concert when I saw the list of performers. I had to see Rachel Yamagata live. I convinced Max that the all-girl lineup won't be so bad and we bought tickets. It was a very casual, standing-room only show so it didn't matter that we bought tickets so late.



Rachel Yamagata has the most amazing, husky yet sultry voice. One of my favorite songs this year is "Meet me by the Water"... I was hoping that she would perform either that song or "Over and Over" but she didn't. She did sing one of her new songs, "Elephant" a capella and it was so moving and powerful the entire theater stood still for a few minutes.

I also discovered two new female artists that I absolutely love, Meiko and Lenka. The cool thing about this concert is that for certain songs, the other girls would come out and sing backup. Here are a bunch of them helping Thao Nguyen out on a song:


A couple of memorable things happened that night... We got there pretty early so we were literally 1 row away from the stage, before I got claustrophobic (drunk) and almost fainted and had to go to the back to get fresh air and lost our spot. =( And then of course the most memorable part of the night, running into Ted Mosby! Or Josh Radnor from How I Met Your Mother. He passed by us twice and has a big head.

Then on November 25th, Yona and I went to the Honda Center to watch Coldplay. I wasn't expecting such a huge production, it was a nice surprise. The stadium was pretty packed:


It was such a long wait for the concert... we arrived just as the opening act was finishing up and had to endure an hour set of a random DJ while watching a psychedelic cartoon on a screen. It was long and boring.



Yona, however, was more cheery than usual.



They started off the concert with Live in Technicolor which sounded so good live.


There were a lot of cool lighting effects including lasers and blinky things (forget what they are called). Some of the songs were performed in the dark with backlights silhouetting the band.




There was a cute song they did on the stage extension, in the middle of the floor:


And they performed The Scientist, my favorite Coldplay song, unplugged in 4 random stadium seats near the back:


By the end of the concert I realized boys in henleys and military jackets are hot. Oh, and Chris Martin looks like House.

I wonder...

So I noticed today at work that the bathroom lady replaces the toilet paper roll when it's at least half-used. (Uncomfortable story actually, she replaced my roll as I was using the toilet since they reach in and replace it from the other side of the stall)

I wonder what they do with all the less-than-half rolls?

Happy Thanksgiving!

I was walking around the neighborhood with Lulu one day and noticed this blue door.



It was just one of those things that make you stop and pause for a second to reflect how such a random sighting can offer insight to something you are experiencing in life. The reason why I stopped to do a double-take, is that at first glance it seems like the door is standing on its own, not really serving as a doorway to anything. To the casual passerby it was a random blue door.

In my mind I pictured a random door, standing alone in a desert scene. It was almost like a music video. It made me think about how people perceive doors, in the conventional sense. When you approach any building or place, your natural instinct is to head straight for the door since that is almost always the single point of entry. So what would you do when you are faced with a door and nothing else? Disregard it and just walk by? Or would you feel compelled to walk through the doorway?

Most people think of doors and doorways as points of entry or openings to other spaces. I've been feeling recently that doors are more of a "closing" mechanism, moreso in the sense that a lack of a door fosters a sense of insecurity for me. Maybe this developed over the last few months because I don't have a door to my bedroom and always go to sleep with a sense of discomfort, a figurative fear of things spilling out of my room.

What am I getting at?

ROFL

I was cleaning out my inbox today and came across a series of e-mails from Vina. I vaguely remember these as "current events" reflections I'd asked Vina to send to me as a daily homework assignment. I re-read them just now and can NOT stop laughing.

Solar Flares
One of the largest solar flares in history has erupted from the sun on Tuesday. It is said that it can hit earth midday tomorrow, Wednesday. This solar flare has been the third biggest in record. If it is headed our way, it can disrupt communications satellites and power grids. When solar flare hits earth, it can cause electrical trouble. "The eruption was positioned perfectly. It's headed straight for us like a freight train," said John Kohl, a Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics scientist, in a statement. "A major geomagnetic storm is bound to happen." It feels to me like the earth is going to end. At first, there were the gigantic flames, burning across the lands, and now a solar flare is headed our way. What more can happen? It feels like everything is happening on purpose instead of an accident.

SoCal Fires
The monsterous flames in Southern California, has already burned up 300,00 acres of land. At least 14 people had been killed, and more than 1000 houses burned downed. Three main fires have been going on, having two of the fires set up porposely. The third fire was set up by a camper, who got lost. He thought that setting up a little fire would help him be found, but instead the fire grew and spread. More than eight thousand firefigthers are trying to fight against the flames, but it didn't much effect. Several schools are being shut down, with some small airports too. I'm beginning to feel really sorry for the people over there. How tens of thousands of people had to be evacuted from their homes. Memories from the past, are all getting burned up in the houses. Before i didn't care as much, because i thought that fire can always be put out sooner or later, but this fire and been going on since Saturday, and its spreading more and more. I hope rain comes to put out the flames.

Spontaneous Sex Changes in Lower Aquatic Species
Alot of sex change is more common in lower aquatic species. Researchers have found out that most species have a sex change after the grow up to 72% of their maximum body size. Sex-changing creatures such as fish, worms, shrimp and mollusks and all of them followed the same rule when altering their gender. Half of the creatures will change from male to female and the rest will switch the other way. Regardless of which way they change, the gender-altering creatures can still successfully reproduce afterwards. I think that this is very funny, how animals can alter their sex change. It is as if they don't want to be a boy, they change themselves to becoming a girl. It is also interesting how they can be both father and mother in their life time. I wonder if they start acting like the gender too.

Solar Flare #2
The solar flare that traveled towards earth yesterday, hit Colordar today. The made a spectacular light show right before dawn. Researchers had observed the sun more, and found that another strom will erupt from the sun again. They estimated the probability of where its going to go, and its heading for earth again. The last one didnt cause too much damage, but this one might strike harder on us. It is going to go in a fast speed, and might hit us tomorrow during the afternoon, or later on during the day. The world is seriously coming to the end. With the sun sending solar flares to earth, it seems that it really wants to damage earth badly.