As I mentioned in my previous blog post we went to see Wicked on Saturday night at the Orpheum Theatre. The Safeway Employees’ Association (SEA) was one of the group sponsors that night so there were a bunch of people from Safeway. Before the show we went to Osha Thai for dinner which was really nice. We sat in the balcony which ended up being great. I never once thought we were sitting too far away or it was too difficult to see what was going on. Even though I wasn’t allowed to take pictures in the theatre I was able to go to the Orpheum website and get a virtual view of our seat location which is shown below. The theatre was spectacular, but I am easy to impress being that I don’t go into buildings like that every day.
I expected to not like it as I was fully expecting another rendition of The Nutcracker (sorry hate it) but was pleasantly surprised to find that I actually loved it. It wasn’t boring at all, the singing and dancing was good and most importantly I was engaged which isn’t always easy being that I have the attention span of a two year old sometimes. We got there a few minutes early and talked to the usher for a few minutes about the show. She told us Elphaba (the Wicked Witch of the West) was being played by Vicki Noon who is an understudy but was better than the person who normally plays her so as she put it: “we were in for a treat”. Elphaba (Vicki Noon) rocked it, I loved her singing. The show was funny in parts, the costumes were great, the stage was all decked out (awesome dragon hanging above it), the acting was great, the sound was awesome, and if you ever get the chance you have to see it. Who would have thought I would ever say that!
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Went to Tully’s this morning a little after 10am and read for an hour which was nice and relaxing and am a little more than half way through The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris. I am really enjoying the book and am taking a ton of notes which I’ll be posting in a week or two (have to finish the book first). I’ve been reading a little before going to sleep at night and it is going slower than it should because I take notes on things as I read them so I probably should have already be done by now but I like to analyse things a bit more than normal I suppose. Then we went to the Farmer’s Market, went to lunch, and walked around. Going to dinner in the city and we are going to see Wicked tonight (hence the title of this post) which should be interesting so I’ll have a full review here shortly.
I found this video on YouTube and have to say it is very interesting. Langan has one of the highest IQ’s of anyone ever measured, one which even exceeds Einstein’s. Ironically he worked as a bouncer in Long Island and when you see the video you can understand why he may have chosen that as his career. His story very much reminds me of Good Will Hunting, a movie about a genious who decides to be a janitor and cosntruction worker despite his intelligence. You can watch part two and part three of the video but for some reason I found those videos to be a bit disturbing because he starts to compare himself to God and discusses people’s right to breed (woah you are taking things a little too far in my opinion). I mean yeah I have heard people joke that some couples in the world shouldn’t have children but where do you draw the line and who are we to say they can’t? I understand his theories about keeping “mutations” out of the gene pool but it got a little Hitlerish for me and lost interest and frankly some respect for him. If you watch all three videos let me know what you think, maybe I am missing the point (I’m no genius). Interesting stuff, hope you enjoy the video.
A new report from Forrester Research estimates that approximately 2.2 billion people will be online over the next few years – an increase of over 45 percent. Analysts at Forrester forecast that, by 2013, 43 percent of that 2.2 billion will be based in Asia, with 17 percent in China alone.
In 2008, the United States was home to the most Internet users, followed by China, Japan, Brazil, and Germany, Business Journal reports, quoting the Forrester research. By comparison, in 2013, China will be in first place, followed by the US, India, Japan, and Brazil.
“While per capita online spending is likely to remain highest in North America, Western Europe, and the developed markets of Asia throughout the next five years,” Forrester Research Senior Analyst Zia Daniell Wigder wrote in a statement, “the shifting online population and growing spending power among Asian consumers means that Asian markets will represent a far greater percentage of the total in 2013 than they do today.”
Forrester also predicted that Middle Eastern and African countries, which currently represent only 8 percent of the global online population, will have very high growth rates in coming years. In that region, Nigeria, Iran, and Egypt are expected to see the biggest increases.
