I saw Rent with Kate, and my sister-in-law-in-law Whitney and her fiance Joe. It was a great show! I'm a pretty big fan of the movie soundtrack as opposed to the broadway soundtrack, but when watching it live the message machine songs and the other little jingles didn't bug me at all. And the two tracks I always skip: "Today for you, tomorrow for me" and "Over the Moon" were much more entertaining than they are on the soundtrack. Good performances all around, with the possible exception of Mimi and Joanne (Mimi was good about half the time (she's no Rosario Dawson), and I thought Joanne overacted most of the time.)

About 1/3 of the way through the show I figured out that I really had to urinate. And my seat was almost exactly in the middle of my row, so it would have meant climbing over 10-15 people. Definitely not ideal. I suffered through it instead. Probably the last 3 songs before the intermission were spent with me thinking "Hurry up and get to the intermission!" I enjoyed the second act much more. Kate was super cold through the show (they were pumping the ac enough so you could feel a constant breeze), but I spent the first act sweating in concentration, and didn't notice it too much during the second act. Joe, who hadn't seen or heard much about the show beforehand, thought it was going to be a tragic play where the characters are killed off by AIDS as it progresses. (Maybe he watched Team America, with their song "Everyone has AIDS") Then he had a little difficulty following the storylines when they were advanced by mid-song events, which is understandable. Before I saw the movie, and had only heard the soundtrack, I thought Angel was two characters, a woman and a man. What can I say, it was confusing when some lyrics referred to Angel as "her" and some as "him". BTW, Angel was super good in this production. Definitely a good show over all.

I've been investing in stocks lately. Well, maybe investing isn't the right word.. I've been slowly trading in stocks. There are lots of articles on MSN money and yahoo finance about building a portfolio, and each one is more full of crap than the last. Diversify your stocks, diversify your mutual funds, diversify your portfolio into markets/bonds/cash, and then don't forget to dollar cost average it in case you're in an upswing in the market. Wow, talk about hedging your bets. Is it just me, or is this like going to the race track and, instead of researching anything about any of the horses, putting a bet on all the horses to show? Or taking a blackjack cheat sheet to a casino so that you know the statistics for maximizing your odds at each combination of cards (ie. a cheat sheet so you win 49.5% of the time). It's a strategy for losing money more slowly. Micros is my stocks buddy, and I've been pretty successful just occasionally bouncing ideas off him. I have a lot of strong opinions about investing, and maybe I'll write more about it later. Actually, at one point I was thinking of starting a separate blog about it because I find myself reading and disagreeing with so much common market sentiment, but that would be too much work for now. I'm pretty busy with my real work these days.

Mitch Hedberg-
If you find yourself lost in the woods, f*** it, build a house. "Well, I was lost but now I live here. I have severely improved my predicament."