Women in Art

Beautiful compilation by Philip Scott Johnson (eggman913 on YouTube).

500 Years of Female Portraits in Western Art

Music: Bach's Sarabande from Suite for Solo Cello No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007 performed by Yo-Yo Ma

Nominated as Most Creative Video, 2007 YouTube Awards

To see the individual art -- artist and painting -- in this compilation, visit 500 Years of Women in Western Art.

Thanks, Carolann, for sharing this with me.

Wicked

Yes, I finally saw Wicked on February 10, 2009, at the Gershwin Theatre in New York City. I love musicals and this was one that I've always wanted to see. The problem is that Broadway has become very expensive entertainment for 2 hours -- tickets are over $110 -- because I will only sit in Orchestra and maybe Front Mezzanine.

My sister and I did try about four years ago for the lottery they hold before daily to get ticket for $26.25. We did not win.

My company is a member of an organization that gets us discount. They had discounted tickets to Wicked on and off, but it was never a time I would be in town. The stars aligned -- had $64 tickets and I was going to be working from home. Treated my sister and for SIL as an early birthday gift. I thought SIL would say no as she had seen it already. Nope, she wanted to go again.

Our seats were in the Orchestra, Right Side, Row S, Seats 2, 4 & 6. They were GREAT seats. As the curtain came down for the final time, I looked at my sis and SIL and said "I'm definitely seeing this again if the discount tickets pop up again." My sis said she's coming, too. SIL said the same. Me and my sis said she could not come until we catch up to her count *LOL*.

I've loaded some pics I took. Check them out here: Wicked. Yes, a union member friend has told me I should not have taken some of the ones I took. I was a very bad girl. I could not help myself. The phone was in my hand. As you can see, they are crappy.

If you want to check out the show, go to the official site here.

The Cast I saw: Elphaba - Nicole Parker; Glinda - Alli Mauzey; Madame Morrible - Jayne Houdyshell; The Wizard - PJ Benjamin; Fiyero - Aaron Tveit; Boq - Alex Brightman; Nessarose - Brynn O'Malley; Doctor Dillamond - Timothy Britten Parker.

Next show 'cause I got discount promotion: Cirque du Soleil's Kooza on April 24.

Where has the blank line between paragraphs gone?

I'm getting turned off from reading some people's blogs.

A big turnoff for me is a big blob of text that does not use paragraphs.

If you do use paragraphs and decide to left justify your paragraphs, put a blank line between the paragraphs -- hit the carriage return (or your Enter key) twice instead of once. Otherwise, you just have a big blob of text which equates to bypass, go to next blog.

Here's an alternative if you're too lazy to hit the carriage return twice, indent your paragraph -- hit the tab key or the spacebar consistent number of times -- to show that you are starting a new one. Of course, it most likely would not like you doing that as HTML gets rid of extra spaces or does not understand what a tab is.

Starting a new train of thought...new paragraph. New paragraph, hit the Enter Key twice.

Easy peasy. Keep your readership.

PrimoSpot

When I visit the city -- anyone who lives outside Manhattan call it that -- I'm generally visiting my Mom in Chinatown. I drive my car and know where I can park for free on the streets or in a cheap parking garage--$10, can't beat that in the city. When I have to visit anywhere else in the city, I would park my car in Jersey and take the bus into Port Authority.

I got adventurous last year for a book launch at Border's in Columbus Circle and drove my car into the city. As it was my nephew's neighborhood, I asked him what the parking situation was up there. I got there, drove around for a bit and found a spot to park. As there was another book launch at the same place last week, I had no qualms about driving in a getting a spot.

Last year, when I attended NY Comic Con, I did my park and bus thing for two days and had my BIL transport me back and forth on Sunday as he drives to work on Sundays. This year, given my success with parking for the book launch, I wanted to drive my car into the city.

I did some homework on the internet to see if there were cheap parking garages around Jacob Javit Center and came across this brillant site -- PrimoSpot. It gives all the parking signage for the areas in Manhattan I'm interested in. I was able to find free parking on the street for all two of the days I spent in the city. The first day I parked and took the ferry across.

PrimoSpot kind of helped me out again when I went into the city this week to see Wicked. The spots I looked at were not free. As the parking spot I used for the book launch was midpoint between the theatre and the bookstore, I was able to find the same spot free.

In these times, gotta find a way to save the dollars for something else.

Note: NYC is constantly changing it parking regulations so PrimoSpot is good as people helping them keep up to date. Since NYC has starting using those dratted Muni-meters, they can change a block into paid parking very quickly. You have to paid the Muni-meter to get a parking slip to put into your car. City is gradually moving away from inidiviaul parking meter.