Thursday, December 31, 2015

Sexy Gay New Year

                Have a very sexy New Year!


 

Thursday, December 24, 2015

Monday, December 21, 2015

Thursday, December 17, 2015

Bait and switch at Hotel Pennsylvania

We took a hotel room this past NYC visit I did with my friends.  It was easier to stay in Manhattan that importune on a friend's hospitality.

We booked at the Hotel Pennsylvania near the Penn Station in Manhattan.  It was centrally located and the pictures on their website were nice.


Upon checking in, indeed the lobby was very high end looking.  High ceiling and spacious looking.  Plenty of seats for guests to relax.  The holiday decorations were classy.  There were 10 elevators which made the waiting almost negligible.  But all these good stuffs stopped at the lobby.

Upon reaching our 9th floor, I noticed the carpet very dingy and old.  The high ceiling and wide hallways were not able to compensate for the lack of visual appeal.  Judging from the wide hallways with high ceiling, it became apparent to me that this building was built back in the days when these were the standards.  So the building was built like a hundred years ago and it looks like they never remodeled since then.  Then there were these protrusions on the doors that looking like upright coffins.


Entering our room did not improve my negative opinion formed at the hallway.  The carpet was just as old.  It was a small room as expected.  The beddings were old and worn out looking.


Our bathroom had old tiles.  The shower head was was too short.  The door of the bathroom had a cheap door knob and it would not even close properly.  There were paint chips and small termite holes at the bottom of the door.  Then the TV at first was very cloudy.  We had to call front desk to have it cleared up.  Although there were perks like Wifi and free gym use at the Bally's next door, it came with a "resort fee".

To sum up my thoughts, this is a perfect "bait and switch".  The hotel bait consumers with the website pics and amenities offered.  Then the consumers ends up with a lousy room and extra fees.

Saturday, December 12, 2015

Les Miserables at the Imperial Theatre





On the first day of my Broadway Extravaganza trip to NYC, we saw the new Les Miz with Alfie Boe as Jean Valjean.  First and foremost, let me just say that Alfie was magnificent.  That voice was so full and moving.  And the one who played Javert was Will Swenson.  He was very good too.  I was very happy with those two lead roles.  Our Fantine was Montego Glover.  She was good with a strong voice as well but we is black so it kind of threw me off to see her as Fantine who is traditionally white.  Lea Salonga played Fantine too and she is Asian.  It would have been weird for me to see her in that role as well.  I do not care for blind casting.  It is like watching Color Purple with white people.  I prefer the race of the actors matches the race of the characters.  Another unusual casting done was little Cosette being a black girl and the grown up Cosette was a white woman.  Then the little Eponine was white and the grown up Eponine was a black woman. That was just too weird for me.  Our Marius was Chris McCarrell.  His dark haired young handsome appearance looks appropriate for Marius but his voice was not powerful enough.  It was almost like a head voice.  When he sang Empty Chairs at Empty Tables, it was not a riveting as I hoped it to be.  It was still sad and poignant but I would have been in tears if the voice was better.  Thenardier, Gavroche and Enjolras were all very good too.  So pleasant and entertaining to watch. 

This production was faster paced and the whole show was shorter than it was traditionally.  I like it although if I was not familiar with the story, I would have been confused by it.  The set was grand and it conveyed the scenes properly.  A very gratifying show to watch in general.  I give this a 4 stars out of 5. 

Monday, December 07, 2015

Force them to learn English.

A lot of my clients are latino and a lot of them don't speak english.  And the majority of those who speaks english are the younger generations who were born and raised here.  Those who only speaks spanish, majority of them have been in this country for several years already and yet they have not learned english.  I blame it on the fact that our society accommodates to them instead of them accommodating to the new life here they choose to adopt.  There are plenty of spanish speaking TV stations and radio stations for them to patronize.  Many business establishments hires bilingual people.  Government offices offers spanish interpreter or spanish speaker.  Even I have to learn spanish so I can work with them.  So if I were a latino migrant on this country, why do I have to learn english when everybody else will speak spanish to me anyways.  There is no incentive for me to learn english at all!  They won't learn english, we speak spanish to them so they furthermore won't bother to learn english.  The cycle repeats itself.

Although I must concede that some of them realizes that learning english will open better employment opportunities beyond being a housekeeper, janitor, factory worker or farm laborer.  So some of them makes an effort to learn english.  I had the pleasure of working with one actually.  Her name is Maria Ortiz.   I applaud her efforts to learn english.  She has the right attitude that many of her cohort fails to grasp.  Unlike Maria, many of migrant latino just simply expects everybody else to speak spanish to them.  Even worst, some demands that somebody should speak spanish.  Yeah I have seen those kinds too.

I feel this is the problem with these migrants.  They don't speak english so they get low paying jobs.  Low income leads to more socio-economic problems.  So if I am a person who can change this, I would have them learn english.  Nobody else should be trying to accommodates to them and speaks spanish to them.  That way, they will be forced to learn english by talking in english and listening in english.  That is how language is learned.  Other migrants are forced to learn english that way.

To be fair, this problem is not unique to latino migrants.  I have seen this amongst chinese migrants who lived all their life here in china town.  They barely speaks any english despite living in America for many years.  So sad...

Thursday, December 03, 2015

Beauty and the Beast at the Pantages

This is my second time to see Beauty and the Beast on stage.  I do not remember much from the first time since it must have been 15 years ago.  I do remember how awed I was when the beast was transformed into a handsome prince at the end.  He floated up the air then several flowy sheets wrapped around him.  When the sheets were unveiled, a handsome prince was revealed.  It was so spectacular that I was so looking forward to see it again.

Saw it again at the Pantages theatre for an evening show.  Perhaps I was tired but I felt almost bored half of the time.  The plot pretty much followed the animated movie version.  They did add several songs but there was no major changes.  The characters were mostly played with a comedic tone but it did not bring me to laughter.  Perhaps I have to be 10 years old to laugh since there were several children just tickled to death.  Lefou had a slapstick 3 stoges kind of comedy that was just not my cup of tea.  Gaston was sort of funny.  He made me smile several times.  There were some very entertaining moments. Most notable was the "Be our guest" number.  It was colorful and lively.  Good choreographed dancing are always a hit for me.

Another thing I have to complain about was the stage set.  I have to use a lot of imagination for the different scenes they were portraying.  I suppose it was hard to have a nice realistic stage set to portray the outside and inside of an enchanted castle.  And the stage set to shot the village was rather disproportionately small.  And when the opening number "Belle" was going on, there was lot of moving around of the village buildings that was distracting.

I feel the Beast could have been played by a more handsome actor.  That way the transformation from beast to prince would made a bigger impact.  And speaking of the transformation, it did not live up to my memory on how it happened.  The beast did float up but instead of magical sheet covering him, this production used blinding flashing lights directed at the audience.  So when our vision regained, the prince was already there.  A let down I say.

I would give this show a 3 stars.  I honestly do not recall how many stars I would have given the earlier production I saw in Chicago.  Just suffice to say I left the theatre underwhelmed by this production.