Author: ryan

Categories
Entertainment Music

Max Raabe & Palast Orchester

Tonight I attended a show put on by the Oregon Symphony (at the Schnitz): Max Raabe & Palast Orchester (more on them at Wikipedia).

Kelly organized a little ‘dress up’ event (involving local vintage clothing shops) to get as many people as possible to dress in 1920’s/1930’s outfits to attend the show. I played my part by buying a fedora, a tie (gasp!) and a new fancy trench-coat from a local haberdashery. There were about 30 of us that met at Nel Centro for some drinks before walking together to the Shnitz. We got lots of looks and smiles from other guests, and since we were instructed to wait until the last minute to walk to our seats our group even got a little bit of applause on our way to our seats. Pretty funny. Oh, the group was also taken backstage during the intermission to have a photo taken with Max.

The show itself was a lot of fun. Not only does Max Raabe himself have the perfect voice to perform these period tunes, the band was fantastic and fun to watch. A little over half of the songs were in German, one was in Spanish, and the rest in English. While I didn’t recognize most of the songs it didn’t matter because the music was great, Max’s banter between songs was hilarious, and the crowd were loving it. A thoroughly enjoyable evening.

Here’s a little sample (performing ‘Cheek to Cheek’). Fun stuff.

Categories
Beer General

A very Spring-like February weekend

The weather here in Portland, unlike the East Coast or northern Europe, has been very spring-like the past several days. Yesterday the temperature reached 61 I think, with sunny skies. It’s hard to believe it’s mid-February.

Taking advantage of this weather, I spent the past couple days outside working on my yard; Pruning, raking, edging, trimming, and filling several yard debris bags. Things are starting to shape up. I’m exhausted, but I’m having what I believe is the best tasting pint of Guinness ever, sitting on the front porch in the sun.

Oh yeah, related to my previous post, I picked up the new keg yesterday. Had I known the old one had so much left in it before Friday I wouldn’t have babied it all week. Sheesh!

Categories
Beer Food

Valentine’s and Vendetta

Last Sunday was Hallmark and chocolate maker’s day (aka Valentine’s Day). During the afternoon while Kelly attended a work event, I spent the day working in the yard and cleaning the house. Later that evening Kelly and I went to dinner at Bernie’s Southern Bistro on Alberta (mmm, meatloaf).

Last night I met up with some friends at Vendetta for a couple of pints. Had a great time catching up with JB, T, and MB. Later Kelly met up and we (along with MB) went to 5th Quadrant for dinner (mmm, burger).

Tonight has been a fairly relaxed night at home. And to my surprise, my keg ‘o Guinness wasn’t as empty as I thought it was; I’d expected to pull one or two pints and have so far pulled five. Hooray(!?), except I’ve ordered a new one to pick up tomorrow so I’m hoping the keg blows soon. Otherwise I’ll be in a bit of a quandary tomorrow. Or I’ll just have to keep drinking. I guess there are worse problems to have.

Oh, and the weather has been positively Spring-like the past week. It was 60 and sunny today. It’s mid-February! WTF? I’ve got flowers blooming and Tulips coming up. It seems way too early for this. On one hand, it’s really nice to have some nice, sunny, warm weather, but it’ll mean a very flowerless Spring in my yard.

Categories
Entertainment Music

Storm Large with the Oregon Symphony

Tonight Kelly and I (along with our friends M & B) went to see Storm Large play with the Oregon Symphony, and it was a blast. Kelly & I have seen her perform before at Dante’s (years and years ago), and I did see a few clips of her when she was on the reality show Rockstar Supernova (check this), so I was familiar with the tall, blonde, kick-ass, rude, beautiful, and powerful rock singer doing rock songs, but I wasn’t prepared for what she was capable of with a full orchestra backing her. She started out doing a few standards, including an awesomely spooky rendition of I’ve Got You Under My Skin, then moved on to some of her own material (including a ‘classic’ Storm song, I Want You To Die).

She managed to keep her rudeness mostly in check throughout the show (cursing only three times, hehe), and her short monologues between songs were hilarious. The crowd (a mixture of old and young) all seemed to thoroughly enjoy the performance, and even songs (like I Want You To Die) where I expected to see the silver haired in the crowd to wear confused or disgusted expressions all seemed to eat the whole thing up. It was a lot of fun, and if she comes back to so something like this again, I highly recommend you buy tickets (and early, this one sold out).

After the show I got to take advantage of one of the little perks of having a wife who works for the Oregon Symphony, and was taken with a group of contest winners back stage to meet Storm. She came into the room wearing her black velvet dress, holding a martini and instantly came to meet the 8 of us in the room. She was very friendly and chatted with the guests for a few minutes before the contest winners got to have their photo taken with her. After that, Kelly and I got our photo taken with her. She’s very tall and she decided to lean on Kelly and give me a goofy look. Makes sense, I’m kinda goofy lookin. 🙂

Anyway, it was a really fun evening.

Categories
Entertainment Movies Television

A long week & The Road

I’ve been very busy this past week with work. I’ve spent many late nights trying to clean up code and finish features (including a marathon on Monday, working until 4:30 AM; I was on a roll and couldn’t stop). I’ve managed to get a lot done, but there’s a lot more left to do. It’s probably going to be a long couple of weeks. C’est la vie! (Ou, c’est la travaille).

In my breaks between working, Kelly and I spent a couple hours at our old haunt Moon & Sixpence on Wednesday for a few pints, and then last night we caught The Road at Living Room Theaters. For anyone who hasn’t read (or seen) The Road, it’s a post-apocalyptic story of a man and his son struggling to survive in a lifeless wasteland. It’s depressing, somewhat scary, and very touching. Kelly hadn’t read the book, but since her reaction was very similar to mine after having read the book, it’s a good indication that the film did a good job adapting the story. Worth watching (or reading).

We’ve also continued to keep caught up with Lost, Heroes, Fringe, and Psych. That’s about it for now.