Celebrity Tweet!!!

Oh my gosh you guys!!!!!!  Dominic Monaghan knows my name!  Okay...so he knows my Twitter name.  He tweeted me!!!

Backing up....

Who is Dominic Monaghan?

Merry in The Lord of the Rings:

Charlie on Lost:

Okay, so anyway....a movie and a TV show I've *cough* been obsessed with in the past.  *cough*.  He's an actor I really like, to say the least.

So....I follow him on Twitter.  This morning, he must have been bored, because he was answering questions!  I noticed that they were coming up in real time, so I decided what the heck, I'd send him a question.

Here it is:

The Warbling Wench ‏@MusicaAngelica
@DomsWildThings If Charlie hadn't have died, do you think he and Claire would have lived happily ever after?

I tweeted that at about 9:30 or so, right before I went to work.  Within 2 minutes, he tweeted the answer!

Dominic Monaghan ‏@DomsWildThings

“@MusicaAngelica: If Charlie hadn't have died, do you think he and Claire would have lived happily ever after?” No. He's broken. 

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Totally made my day.

200th Anniversary

Do you know what I just realized?  We have been commemorating several things that took place in 1912 this year (like the sinking of the Titanic), but we have totally forgotten one very important thing!  Two hundred years of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture!  It's only one of the best pieces out there.  Great music...actual cannons.

Wait...what?  It was composed in 1880?  Oh.  Huh...

Well, it's got 1812 in the title.  Why?  Because it was written to commemorate Russian's defense against Napoleon's invading army in 1812.  So hurray for that!  Please take a moment to listen to this magnificent piece:


LOVE IT!! One of my favorite songs I ever played in band. We didn't use cannons, though. I'm pretty sure they frown on that at the UCCC. We used a bunch of bass drums that had one head removed. I have a recording, if anyone ever wants to listen to it. Pretty amazing!

Dumb Moment of the Day

I have dumb moments sometimes.  I don't like it when they happen in front of other people, but if they happen just to myself, I enjoy telling the story...because they are usually pretty funny.

Today I was playing the piano in Primary and I decided to play though all of the Articles of Faith songs in the Childrens' Songbook.  As I was playing each one, I noticed that the music for each song was written by the same lady... Vanja Y. Watkins.  My next thought was "I wonder if the same person wrote all of the lyrics."

DUH!!!!!!!

Yeah, I'm dumb.  Joseph Smith wrote the Articles of Faith, so he OBVIOUSLY wrote the lyrics to all 13 songs.

Wait for it.....

Wah waaaaaaaaaah......

Blog Fail

I am so sick of political ads.  This is the final night for them, and they are so annoying!!!  I'm going to tally all the commercials while I'm watching "Bones" tonight (7 to 8 pm).  Just to prove how many there are!!!

1. Windows Surface
2. Visa NFL Fan Offers
3. Nisson Pathfinder
4. Best Buy
5. Fox on Windows 8

Hmm...no ads.  Did they magically end at 7 pm?  Man, I hope so!

1. Target
2. iPad Mini
3. AT&T
4. The Mob Doctor
5. Pro-Romney
6. Anti-Obama
7. Anti-Romney

I spoke too soon.  The ads are back.  (PS.  The guy playing the butcher on Bones tonight looks like a young Dennis Quaid!)

1. Chrysler 300
2. Tylenol Cold
3. KFC Dip'ems
4. Halo 4
5. Michelin
6. Samsung Galaxy Note II
7. The X Factor

Wow...this blog is pretty pointless now.  (On a side note, Fisher is one of my favorite Squinterns.)

1. Kia Optima
2. Windows 8
3. Sprint
4. The Mob Doctor
5. News promo
6. Anti-Obama
7. Arby's
8. News promo
9. American Furniture Warehouse
10. Pro-Obama
11. Glee

Well, this backfired.  But there are a ton fewer ads than earlier today.  IT'S A GUY FAWKES DAY MIRACLE!!!!

1. Halo 4
2. Skyfall trailer
3. Walgreens
4. Ford Escape
5. Sony
6. News promo
7. The Mob Doctor

And...that's the game!  Total Blog Fail.  I was trying to prove a point, and that didn't exactly work out.  Oh, well...I'm posting it anyway.

Back to School at Emily Elementary

I think my niece Emily, age 7, is going to be a teacher someday.  Last night when I went up to visit for Halloween, she immediately dragged me back into the boys' bedroom and we had to play school.  George, Rebekah, and I were the students and Emily was the teacher.  George, of course, wouldn't sit still long enough for this.  But Becky and I were good students.  We did all of the assignments.  Mine were harder than Becky's, who to to draw pictures of hearts for her first assignment.

Assignment number 1:  Write all the even numbers from 1 to 100.
DONE.

Assignment number 2:  Write five didn't names for 12.
Excuse me WHAT?  I couldn't figure out what she meant by that, but she explained that I could just write the different ways to write twelve.  Um, okay.  So I wrote it in German, Spanish, the word "dozen", 12 tally marks, and the Roman Numeral for 12.

Assignment number 3:  Read a book.
Becky read "Five Silly Monkeys" and I started to read the Disney book "Dinosaur".  Emily interrupted when I was halfway done, because we had to move on to....

Assignment number 4:  Write a letter.
She gave me a piece of paper and I wrote the following:

Dear Santa,
For Christmas I would like $1 million dollars in small, unmarked bills.  If you bring this to me, I will not harm Rudolf.
From Angela.

It was time for dinner and then trick or treating, so we never got to finish school for the day.  (However, I did see her lesson plan, which included recess, THANK GOODNESS!)  But I think it's fairly safe to say that I am a straight A student.

Review of The Music Man

I keep forgetting to post this review we got of The Music Man.  This ran in the Coloradoan last Thursday.  Thanks, Tom Jones!!

A hundred years ago, railroads criss-crossed the continent, taking travelers to faraway places they only could reach by train. Many of these train riders were salesmen, traveling from city to city to sell their wares — from soap to buttons, to amazingly heavy anvils.
 
And some of these salesmen weren’t particularly honest, including a shyster by the name of Harold Hill who claims he could create bands in local communities where the townsfolk would give cash for instruments and dazzling uniforms for their children.

Jordan Centeno rolled into Loveland this week as Harold Hill in Up In Lights heartfelt production of “The Music Man,” the classic musical by Meredith Wilson. Centeno is a natural charmer as the shyster who decides to get off the train in River City, Iowa, to collect funds with the idea he can create a local band. He portrays Hill with a disarming wink, smooth sophistication, super stage presence and fine voice. Unlike most other productions of the show, Hill even dances in this one. Delightfully so, under direction of Britni Girard.

“The Music Man” is composer Wilson’s love song to America of the last century. He captured it all — the wholesome naivety of parents wanting the best for their children, the gossiping women who don’t have a lot to do to meaningfully occupy their time, the school board members who can’t stand one another, the bombastic mayor (played by Craig Johnson) with the over-the-top wife (Paula Satchell) who longs to be a great dancer. And the lonely librarian who finds great solace in the books that an elderly friend left to her, when he left the library building itself to the town.

Wilson takes us to a time when naughty words included “swell” and “your old man.” When the summer ice cream sociable was the year’s highlight. And when first love was found on the bridge in the town park.

He wrapped this tale with great music. It is hard to find a more beautiful song than “Goodnight My Someone” as currently sung by Nattia Trout as the librarian longing for something wonderful to happen in her life. She is surrounded by the love of her widowed mother, Mrs. Paroo, and her withdrawn younger brother, Winthrop, but realizes there might be more to life than her local situation provides.

Trout is a joy to watch, as are Angela Johnson, as her Irish mother with a heart of gold (and an impressive Irish brogue), and Michael Chuevront as Winthrop. Winthrop has a lisp and has become reclusive. Under tutelage of Hill, however, Winthrop has learned a super song with words he can produce, and belts out “Gary, Indiana, with great enthusiasm. Frequently child actors are pleasant to watch, but difficult to understand. Chuevront, however, is a performing natural. Also excelling among the show’s younger performers is Katie Canterbury as Amaryllis.

There are several children in this “Music Man” charmer. They appear to be having a great time performing, and the audience is rewarded with their infectious joy. Talent prevails in the especially large cast of River City citizens — highlighted by the quarrelsome school board. Hill convinces them to turn every possible quarrel into a song. This results in a delightful barbershop quartet that knocks the socks off the audience each time they appear — cantankerous at first, then craving each other’s company so that they can harmonize. The combination of their singing “Lida Rose” in company of Marian’s “Will I Ever Tell You” is especially effective. Adam Goetsch, Brad Redford, Cody Schmitt and Daniel Carey are the melodic school board.

Britni Girard directs and choreographs the wonderful show, with Phil Foreman as music director; Debbie Russell as costumer designer; Kallyah Wood, Morgan Hoog and Rachel Miller as dance captains; and Cole Emarine as assistant choreographer.

The cast is so large that there are possibilities for less-than-wonderful moments. Some of the spoken lines are missed, with need to rely on past knowledge of the show to keep you aware of what is happening. Those moments are fortunately fleeting, however, and the overall experience is one of great affection.

In 1957, the show became a hit on Broadway where it received five Tony Awards, including Best Musical. The original show ran for 1,375 performances.

The best-known song from the show is the rousing “Seventy-Six Trombones,” which appears in the first act and then as a standing-ovation audience pleaser at the end. Yep, it appears that Harold Hill has beguiled yet another town with his promise of putting together a band. This time the happier-but-wiser town is Loveland.