Far From Miserable

I just came back from the theater, where I watched the 25th anniversary concert of Les Miserables.  It was amazing!  It has been a long time since I’ve seen a musical (last one was Lion King in the summer), and Les Mis is the best of its genre (in my book).  Ok, let’s review.

First of all, this concert wasn’t held in a theater.  It was in some sort of stadium!  Looked like a basketball court.  In any case, TONS of people.  And the set was pretty awesome.  It was a concert, so there wasn’t much set interaction, but the barriers had lights on the bottom and were hung from the ceiling.  They would lower during relevant scenes, and flashed red, white, and blue lights (probably even more colors, actually).  The (huge) orchestra was on stage, above the main performers, and behind that was the choir (much like the 20th anniversary concert), arranged into three groups (red, white, blue).  It was a very impressive scene.

Most of the cast was very good.  Valjean and Javert were as good as you can ever hope for, really.  Absolutely no complaints there.  In fact, Valjean got a very, very long ovation after “Bring him Home,” which I thought was well deserved.  Eponine tends to be a little “squeaky” (Lea Salonga was a notable exception).  This one was at first, but it wasn’t too bad, and it got better as the concert progressed.  Definitely not bad.  The Thenardiers were both good, but to be fair, I’ve never really seen a bad one.  Enjolras seemed to be a tad weak on the lower notes, but was otherwise very good.  Cosette is always a risky one, because her key is very high, and I haven’t heard anyone really pull it off beautifully before.  I felt that this one sang pretty well (can’t really complain about anything), but what really caught my attention was that one of her eyebrows was significantly higher than the other, and it bothered me the whole time.  Bad makeup job?  I’m not sure, but it was really funny.  Lea Salonga was Fantine, so there’s really nothing to say.  She is amazing.  Lastly, I’m not really familiar with the Jonas brothers, but Nick Jonas was Marius, and I have to say, that was a bad casting move.  I don’t really know if the Jonas brothers are good pop singers (never heard anything from them), but I think musical theater is not his calling.  He was noticeably weaker than the rest of the cast, and has almost no facial expressions.  It’s not that he’s a very bad singer or anything, but his voice just doesn’t carry.  There is simply no comparison between him and Michael Ball.

Speaking of Michael Ball, at the end of the concert, the original cast came on stage, including Michael Ball and Colm Wilkinson.  They never fail to amaze me.  Colm is looking quite aged (hair is very white, and scarce), but his voice is amazing as always.  The Valjeans sang “Bring Him Home,” and then the whole cast(s) came together for “One Day More.”  It was awesome, to say the least.  Every time I see/hear Les Mis, I can’t help but fall in love with it again.  What an amazing show.

I found this video on youtube.  Thought it was interesting.   I don’t particularly like Lady Gaga, but I’ve definitely heard this song before.

The Sequel

Haven’t been updating this lately.  Why?  STARCRAFT 2!  Basically, besides eating, sleeping, ping pong, and (unfortunately) working, all aspects of my life have been put on hold temporarily.  So, is it as good as everyone was expecting?  No.  It’s even better.

So far, I’ve only been playing the campaign (and occasionally a 2v2 with my friend against AI), and the campaign mode is simply amazing.  It’s much different from the old missions (the whole style is different), and I think it’s partially because of the new campaign editor, which is apparently ridiculously powerful.  You can create games that don’t even resemble SC.  The story is much easier to follow, and each mission is very unique (not to mention difficult).  I just think everything about this game is awesome, which is exactly what I thought about the original when I first played it!  Unfortunately, I don’t have time at the moment to give a very detailed review or anything, but I can’t recommend this game highly enough.  Go buy it now, if you haven’t already!

Of course, I’m going to post a video about SC (instead of music) this time. Be awed.

A couple words about the video. Probably half of that wasn’t “movie” graphics… that is, that’s how it looks when you’re playing the game. Pretty good, huh? Also, the reason why it’s so Terran-heavy is because apparently they’re going to release 2 expansions (?) that cover the Protoss and Zerg campaigns. The current SC2 (Wings of Liberty) only covers the Terran campaign, centered on Raynor. Of course, Terran has always been my least favorite race (though they have really cool units now), so I’m VERY excited about the upcoming expansions!

Lastly, I have to say, Kerrigan looks way too cool. What a great villain.

Various Updates

It sure has been a while since I posted!  I’ve basically been too lazy to actually post, although there have been a few things I’ve wanted to say.  I’ll start with the TT stuff.

For whatever reason, I was inspired to put my old BW2 on the TBS, with Spectol on the other side.  This way, I could test how the TBS pairs with both pips and Chinese rubbers.  To get the BW2 on it, I had to glue it up like crazy and stretch it a bunch (for whatever reason, it shrank A LOT while it was in storage), and it’s still a little small.  I think that may have accounted for the weird feel (felt very hard with almost no dwell), but I was still able to generate some ridiculous spin with it.  Now, I’m very tempted to switch back to Chinese rubbers, because even after using Tenergy for a couple of months, I still can’t generate the same spin on my loops.  That said, the Tenergy feels very natural to me now.  Sigh, these are tough decisions.  I really want to test out the sheet of Grip-S I have (hoping it will play very similarly to BW2).  The pips felt a little muted (darn arylate), so I think the MJ is still a better pip blade, but overall, the setup worked surprisingly well.  Maybe I’ll put on the Grip-S and test it out on Tuesday!

Aside from TT, I wanted to say that I watched Despicable Me, and it was really good!  I can’t recall if I’ve gone to the theater since Avatar… but anyway, I would recommend going to see it.  I’m also planning on watching Inception soon, so I’ll write about that if it’s worth watching.  Also, I went through a lot of trouble, but finally got myself a video card (preparation for SC2).  I’m not perfectly sure that it’s working 100% the way it should (my power supply is weaker than the one recommended, but I figure my computer has very few parts so it should be ok), but I’m just happy I got one that works.  Also learned quite a bit about putting computers together while I was trying to get everything working.  It was quite an ordeal!

I think that’s it… and if it isn’t, I totally forgot what else I was going to write.

Happy Birthday, Nation!

4th of July!  This is my 101st post!

For TT news, I decided to put the T05 and Pryde 40 on my MJ.  I’ll test it on Tuesday.  I really love the handle on my MJ, although it does feel more head-heavy, since the handle is slightly thinner.  The overall weight should be lighter by a little bit, though.

More importantly, I saw Lion King (again) tonight!  I was in the 4th row, side orchestra (but fairly center).  Great seats!  Again, I really feel like the opening scene was the most impressive, and that’s the one that stuck in my head the most.  From up close, I could see that the costumes were much more intricate than I had previously thought!  The mechanism that moves the lion heads (Mufasa and Scar) is a mystery to me.  I believe it’s somehow controlled by the neck movements, but I totally missed how awesome it is when I saw it in Vegas.  The set isn’t as cool as the one in Vegas (since it’s permanent there), with the biggest difference being Pride Rock.  In Vegas, it swirls out of the ground, but here, it’s moved in from the side.  No big deal though.  The singers this time weren’t that impressive either, but at least Nala didn’t drown out Simba.  Young Simba was a little disappointing, but young Nala was quite good (I didn’t notice the first time, but she ends up being the baby elephant at the end).  Anyway, seeing a show from up close is always really awesome, and especially for a show like this, I was able to tell how much work is involved operating those costumes!

Oh, there were a few things that went wrong (I believe) that I found very funny.  First, when the lionesses start “crying” and pull those ribbons (resembling tears) from their eyes, Simba’s mom actually couldn’t get her right eye tear to come out, so for a while she only had one ribbon.  The other thing is that when Timon fell off the branch into the water, he actually ended up getting caught at the top of the waterfall and didn’t fall all the way down (so he was on the screen at two places).  Lastly, I might have been imagining things, but I believe Scar messed up on his line when he first visited the hyenas, but recovered pretty quickly and fluidly.

So, of course, I’m going to post a song from Lion King today. This version (apparently done for some dancing show in England) is done on a much smaller stage, with very major omissions (Pride Rock and lions), but it’s still a great song!

The Lion King; Pryde Rocks!

The post will be 2 parts.

First, Lion King in Vegas!  It was really good.  This was my first time watching it (my second will be coming up soon, on the 4th), and I’ve heard mixed reviews, although mostly positive.  The show is very stylized to have a more tribal feel, and I thought that was great.  It’s a big change from the movie, although I do think I appreciated it much more because I’m familiar with the movie.  The biggest (maybe only) downside was the flow between scenes.  I had the feeling that if I wasn’t already familiar with the story, it may have been a little hard to follow.  But then again, who hasn’t seen the movie?

Like the movie, the opening was just incredible.  The costumes are VERY impressive, as everyone has told me.  Definitely exceeded my expectations.  Again, the costumes aren’t meant to look like real animals, but have a very distinct style that just makes it even better.  After all, how can you compete with the movie if you just try to make people look like real animals?  It’ll never work.  Overall, the whole show was great, so I’ll just have to point out some parts that stood out to me.  I really like Scar’s costume and character.  He was awesome in the movie, and is also awesome in the show.  The way they made his “mask” curve over his head really helped make the whole “evil” look.  The hyenas were cool, too, and I was surprised at how well they were able to use their costumes, because the actor had to use 2 hands to control 3 parts (2 front legs and head).  It must take a lot of practice and coordination to know when to switch one hand to control the head, or go back and control the leg.  The stampede scene was done very well!  I like how they used bigger and bigger costumes to create more depth.

In the second half, there weren’t as many scenes, but I really liked how they turned the instrumental music from the movie into songs in the show.  Also, they changed the last line of “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” from the movie version to the pop version.  I’m not really sure why, although it really works either way.  Oh yeah, it was also nice to include the scene with Timon holding onto the branch over the waterfall (that wasn’t in the movie).  It really helps with showing how Simba hasn’t been able to get over it.  Adult Nala’s voice was very nice!  It was really deep and rich — very unique.  Unfortunately, she also drowned out Simba when they sang together.  Aside from her, nobody’s voice really stood out to me.  Everyone was definitely good, but nobody was that amazing.  Actually, there was only one point in the show where I was disappointed, and that was during Hakuna Matata, when adult Simba first comes out.  That’s the first time you hear his voice, and in the movie, it’s just beautiful.  In the show, it was ok, but really fell short.

Anyway, this show was awesome.  I can’t wait to see it again in a week.

Now, for the second part of this post, I have to talk about Pryde 40 (fits perfectly into the Lion King thing).  As I’ve mentioned, I took off the BSFX (couldn’t slow it down enough to generate spin), and put on Pryde 40 max.  I was able to hit with it last night, and it was a great decision to switch!  Not only was it able to generate more spin (less tensioned topsheet, I believe), but I had better control in all aspects.  The angle for directional control is much more similar to my Spectol, so I was able to go left and right fairly well.  Blocking wasn’t as fast and deadly as BSFX, but still very good, and I feel very comfortable with it.  I think it’ll be a couple months (at least) before I’ll see any decent results regarding the backhand loop, but doing the Ma Long “swimming” motion with my left hand really helps with the control.  Right now, I’m just having a hard time adding spin without arcing the ball super high.  That is, I need to add spin while going forward, without adding speed!  Easy with the FH, but extremely difficult with the BH (for me).  Still, I’m very optimistic about this setup!

Back!

Hi all, I’m back from Vegas!  I’ll be a little slow getting this updated, as I’ve been busy since I got back, and I think I will be pretty busy until after this weekend.  Also, I didn’t play ANY TT, so that’s pretty sad.  Hope to change that starting tomorrow.  In short, the shows were awesome and the food was awesome.  I’ll go into more detail later.  The only thing that could’ve made this trip better is… TT!

Anyway, here’s the video for today.  I’m surprised Chinese singers are so popular in Japan.  I thought this performance was pretty good, so I opted for this instead of the CD recording.

Vegas

In just a few hours, I’ll be on a plane to LA!  Then, tomorrow, I’ll be heading to Vegas for some shows and food.  Can’t wait!  Planning on seeing Lion King and David Copperfield (I’ll write about Lion King, at least).  Plus, there are so many buffets, with so much food.  Yum.  Also, hopefully planning on getting some chicken and waffles in LA.  Now that I think about it, the main point of my trip is the food.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.  I’m bringing my blade (the experimental TBS) on the off chance that I find some time (and a place) to hit.  If I can’t, that’s a full week without playing (I won’t get back until next Tuesday), and then some, since I won’t get a chance to play until the following Thursday at the earliest.  Oh man, I don’t know if I can deal with that!  Anyway, don’t expect any updates for at least a week.

Since this post is so short, I won’t bother doing the read more thing.  Another Sky Wu song… and I think it’s probably one of his most famous songs.  Anyway, I really like it.

New York, New York

So I think I’ll just talk about ping pong stuff first, so if you aren’t interested in anything else, you don’t have to read the rest.  I visited a club in Chinatown (it’s in the basement of some building… it took a bit of work to find) called NYTTF I believe.  Clubs in NY are so expensive!  It was $12 for a day pass, and most places are much more than that.  They even charge by the half hour.  That’s crazy.  Anyway, I have to say that I was disappointed by the level of players there!  I guess all the higher level players go to more expensive clubs.  Actually, I went to that club twice.  The first day, there was really nobody there who could play at a decent level.  The second time, I played this penholder (Wang Hao style) that was quite good.  Had good basics, better footwork than me (not hard to do at all), and was almost always able to get the ball back fairly aggressively.  I somehow managed to win in straight games, but my friend thought I was going to lose, and it is a little surprising that I won.  Maybe I’m better than I thought!  I’ve found that almost everyone tends to have difficulty with my slow, spinny loops.  It’s very hard to passive block it, which is what people tend to do.  But still, there was nobody there that could’ve owned me.  I thought that the average level would be higher there than here in Portland, but I found the opposite to be true.  Also, the H3 Neo definitely felt a little harder over there, or slicker.  More like TG3 Neo.  And it’s starting to look a little ugly.  I’m tempted to get a new sheet just because the blemishes annoy me.  Whatever, I’ll live.

The rest of this post will be entirely devoid of table tennis.  Read on if you’re interested in other stuff.  Particularly Broadway musicals.

Jesus Christ Superstar

This doesn’t have anything to do with ping pong, but I also happen to be a big fan of musicals, and I went to see Jesus Christ Superstar tonight.  Although I’ve seen both movies (I’m pretty sure there are only two), and listen to the soundtrack often, I’ve never had a chance to see it performed live… until now!  I’m not really sure what to write about overall impressions, so I’m just going to go through my program and write what I thought as I watched the show.

Actually, I lied.  There are some general impressions I had about the overall style of the show.  First and foremost, Ted Neeley (who played Jesus in the old movie) was Jesus in this cast, and I’m really surprised at what his voice can still do at his age.  Aside from him, the cast was relatively unexperienced (based on what they wrote in the program), but their voices were all fantastic.  Lastly, the instrumentation has changed.  I would say that this production was more of a musical, and less of a rock opera, if that makes any sense.  The score was more new age (although it’s still very close to the original score), and on many of the songs, there were some harmonies that reminded me of a capella (thanks to watching Sing-Off).  Overall, I liked the change.  It felt a little more upbeat, and the harmonies were richer.  However, it is, I think, detrimental to the mood, so maybe there should be a balance between the original versions and this new version.  Anyway, now onto the specifics.

The overture was very different from both the movies, so it was very unexpected for me.  Simon (I think) got stabbed by this roman guard, and then Jesus came in and resurrected him.  Oh yeah, when Jesus comes onto the stage (or when he has a solo part), there are all these lights that make him seem godly.  I thought it was pretty funny, but I liked it.  Moving on… Judas was a great singer.  The show really can’t be good if Judas isn’t good.  I actually liked his voice more than either one of the movies, but he didn’t have quite the range of the others.  In general, the singers in this production had more “modern” voices… smoother, richer, not so much traditional broadway.

The arrangement for “Everything’s Alright” was interesting, and I thought it was better than the original version.  When Mary sings “…try not to turn onto problem that upset you, oh,” that “oh” is actually sung by everyone else, and sounds very fun and upbeat.  I almost laughed when I first heard it, because it made the song sound so lighthearted.  Also, the song ends with everyone singing one note and then cutting it off cleanly, instead of fading away, which I liked, because I always thought it went on a little too long the old way.

Caiaphas and Annas had their traditional voices, with Caiaphas being really low and Annas being really high.  However, throughout the show, Caiaphas’s voice kept changing!  Sometimes it would go higher (as in, not super duper low), and then suddenly change to the really low voice.  I’m not sure why… but I think it would’ve been better if he kept it really low the whole time.

Simon had a really great voice, but the background singers drowned him out a bit in his song.  Also, it’s very different from the second movie.  In the movie, his song comes after he and the other followers get into a fight with the police or whatever they are.  In this production, they all hid while the guards came around, and then came out to sing this song after the guards had left, which I thought was very ironic (they left Jesus there all alone and hid away, then they come out and sing about how much they love him).  To me, it makes more sense to put the fight in there, since it can then follow by singing about how Jesus could become so powerful.

When Jesus arrived in Jerusalem was when I realized Ted Neeley still had it.  Wow, is all I can say.  Pilate was good, but not exceptional.  I don’t really know what to say.  He pulled off his part, but didn’t really make an impression either way.  “The Temple” was done very well, since I hadn’t seen it on stage before.  Sounds weird, but all the cripples and whatever begging for Jesus’s help reminded me of the hollows in Bleach.  However, they drowned out Jesus, so I couldn’t really hear what he was saying (if I weren’t familiar with the lyrics, I would’ve had no idea at all).

I really liked Mary’s voice, simply because it wasn’t as squeaky (nasal-sounding) as many of the broadway women I’ve heard.  I also liked the way this song (I don’t know how to love him) was done.  Very direct, and a little faster than usual (I always felt like this song dragged on a little).  Plus, the instrumentation was a little more upbeat, with some new-age piano.

The Last Supper was funny because right before Jesus starts singing (right after the main chorus), they all freeze in the pose of the famous painting.  Other than that, nothing was really noteworthy.  Gethsemane, I hate to say, was a bit of a disappointment.  I really love this song, and as much as I’m impressed by Ted Neeley’s voice, I hate his phrasing, which I’d describe as a severe rubato.  He always slows down until he’s a phrase behind the orchestra, and stays that way for a very long time, until finally catching up really fast at the end.  There is a place for rubato, but this is way too extreme, and just leaves you feeling very uncomfortable.  The rhythm is all wrong, and the music just doesn’t have the same impact that it should.  That being said, his voice is still incredible.

I hadn’t really heard Peter sing until his denial, and he had a really, really great voice.  Very smooth.  The problem is that in this particular show, there really isn’t much of a place for that kind of voice.  He would do very well in other shows though.  Looking at his credits, he played Judas before (I could see that), and also Freddie from Chess (hard role!).  Another funny moment was the beginning of the scene with Herod.  Herod is unaware that Jesus was brought there, so when he turned around, he was shocked and screamed “Jesus!”  Thought that was pretty clever.  His performance was quite good, and was very true to the role.  The 4 backup singer girls were very good at the accompaniment, as well.

Now, strangely enough, “Could we start again, please” was the one song that impressed me the most throughout this performance.  Well, ok, it might not have been the best, but it was the most improved, I think, when comparing to the other performances I’ve seen/heard.  They really used richer harmonies, and the whole thing sounded very full and much more colorful than the original version.  This isn’t a really important song, and there was virtually no choreography or anything, but they really did a good job with this one.

“Superstar” was good because Judas was good.  The only complaint here (once again) is that they didn’t balance the microphones  very well.  Judas got drowned out occasionally, which is really a shame.  Lastly, the end was very strange, and very long (Jesus suffering before he died).  I’m not really sure why the show ends with John 19:41, as it leaves sort of a bad taste in your mouth, so to speak.  In fact, now that I think about it, maybe it would’ve been better to put “Superstar” at the very end.  You just very rarely see musicals that end unmusically.

Anyway, that’s about it.  This was a great experience for me, and I think if I had the chance to see another cast do this, I would go.  It’s really a great musical.  Next up is Lion King in June!  I can’t wait.

Tennis, and other random stuff

It’s been quite a while since I’ve posted!  I went down to California for a week.  Anyway, on my flight down to LA and back to Portland, I watched the Australian Open (Tennis).  Now, I’m not a fan of tennis.  I barely know anything about the game aside from the basics.  However, what really caught my eye was this Czech player.  I think his name was Karlovic or something.  Well, I saw him playing against Nadal (really dang good… even non-tennis people know his name), and it was a really interesting match, in the sense that it changed my overall view of tennis.  What I thought of tennis (based on the very little exposure I had to it) was that it was pretty close to European TT.  Long rallies, not much variation, and everyone plays essentially the same style (pretty much always topspin and power).  I saw Nadal playing some other player, and it seemed to be true.  Nadal was just more athletic… ran faster, hit harder, so the other guy didn’t have a chance.  Now, this Karlovic guy had a massive serve.  He rarely faulted at all, and aced Nadal over and over again.  I’m sure it helps that he’s 6’10″ (seriously), so the ball is probably easily 10 ft off the ground at the point of contact.  I can’t say if his serve was faster than others, but his precision was remarkable.  You think TT was bad when hidden serves were legal?  This is even crazier.  There was just no humanly possible way to get this guy’s serve back unless you predicted where it was going and moved there ahead of time.  It was pretty ridiculous.  But that’s not the only reason this guy was interesting.  He was a chopper!  He would move to take balls with this backhand, and just chop them all back.  However, I think choppers in tennis are pretty much opposites of choppers in table tennis.  This guy definitely wasn’t as consistent in rallies compared to topspin players, and his main strategy consisted of moving Nadal in and out, instead of side to side (which worked very well).  This strategy is usually used AGAINST choppers in TT.  Anyway, he had a very unique game plan, which I think can only pulled off with someone of his height.  As I said, he would use his backhand to chop balls back, varying the depth very well.  Some would go really deep, and some would fall right in front of the net.  When he dropped it short, he would run up to the net, and because nobody’s fast enough to run in and pull off a great return, they would weakly get it over, and he’d smack it right there (not a strategy for TT since you don’t have to wait for the ball to bounce in tennis).  Maybe this kind of player is more common than I thought, but it’s just the first time I’ve seen anything like it.

Well, what does this have to do with ping pong?  Nothing, really, except reinforcing my love for it.  As far as I can tell, height is only an advantage in tennis, and a really big one at that.  In TT, there is good and bad that comes with being tall.  After all, Deng Yaping was a midget and she still owned everyone.  Also, people complain about 3rd ball kills, and how rallies in TT should be longer.  Give me a break!  At least there aren’t 1st ball kills like in tennis!  That Karlovic guy seriously got games from Nadal in 4 straight aces.  Granted, not everyone is that good, but even the best servers in TT can’t pull that off.  I do think that making hidden serves illegal was a good move for the ITTF.  It definitely made serves look more elegant.  Well, I might also be biased since I didn’t start playing until all the most recent rules were in effect (aside from the glue ban).

As far as my recent TT experiences go… I played a couple times down in LA, and I sucked.  I have two theories about that.  First, I don’t think I can play well in the mornings.  Maybe because I’ve only been playing in the evenings lately (actually, I’ve very rarely played in the mornings aside from tournaments).  But it just felt totally wrong.  Secondly, my rubber seemed to have much less grip in the cold weather.  Or maybe it was the humidity.  I’m not really sure, but I wasn’t able to generate much spin, and I could feel the ball slipping off.  In any case, I can tell I’m not playing nearly as well as I normally do (even without those other two reasons), so I need to make sure I start improving before the tournament!