Che Hora Son Mi Corazon

It will soon (well, soon enough) be the evening where I get to see Manu Chao live!! Hola! I found out recently that Manu Chao was coming to Vancouver on May 25, at the Commodore. Vancouver is the only Canadian city on his North American tour. The news spread like fire, it only took 40 minutes for all the tickets to sell out (OK, this is a small venue, but still). I was able to buy a pair through a local reseller, obviously, not at face price, but this concert is going to be so unbelievable, I can't miss it.

And the best person to go see this concert with is my good friend Lara, as she is a huge fan. I told her this morning, it's an early birthday present.

I can't wait!

Ha!

I just downloaded the Platimum Collection of Charles Aznavour and the Greatest Hits of Guns N' Roses... in the same session. I challenge iTunes to map musical preferences to MY profile.

:p

This is the song I'm listening to: Welcome to the Jungle, Guns N' Roses.

Damn you, YouTube!

Someone posted videos from the Madonna Confessions Tour special that was playing on NBC last night.

There goes an hour ;)

She's incredible, 1000% entertainment and visuals, the woman is a machine! She also has amazing dancers on tour. Oh, I wish I was lucky as these two...

All weekends should last three days...

You can get so much more done and yet still relax.

The Zero 7 concert on Saturday night was excellent, this band is really good live. Too bad I was a bit tired, maybe the missing pint of blood had something to do with that (no worries, this was not an accident or a vampire, but a blood donation on Saturday morning). But Zero 7's music is moody and relaxed, which was perfect. No mad dancing around. Just chilling with a few drinks with my ladies Lara and Gerri.

Sunday was nothing special, a lot of reading in preparation for the week to come. And way too many self-assessment tests. I never liked doing these tests, even in fluffy magazines. I especially didn't appreciate having to write them by hand and calculate my score the old-fashion way. The book mentioned that these tests were available online, I think that was a lie. Why am I completing self-assessments? Because my one-week intensive course is about management skills (the ones that you have and the ones that you should have). It's interesting, but there's a limit to how many questions I'm ready to answer with "Never", "Rarely", "Occasionally", "Sometimes", "Often" or "Always". There is never an option for "It Depends".

This morning, I was up at 4. Yes, a.m. and I did go to bed last night. I was volunteering at the Vancouver Triathlon, which was a fundraiser for the WWF. I am a supporter of the WWF and received an e-mail about a week ago about the event needing more volunteers (I guess it's tough to find people during a long weekend). It was a lot of fun, except for the 4 a.m. part when it was dark and cold outside. I was helping in the transition area, where athletes are switching from swimming to biking, and biking to running (basically, the entire area is a big bike rack). I've never seen so many people with wetsuits in my life. Or stripping out of wetsuits... did I mention I was covering the area for the men-under-40 category? :D

More reading today, even if it's a bit hard to not go play outside, it's beautiful.

Copyright

Last night, I was doing a bit of random blog browsing (look in the top right corner, there's a Next Blog button, you click it and surprise! you end up on some random blog hosted by Blogger). It is quite surprising what you can come across. Some bad (pretty bad actually), some boring for anyone else than the author and their family (maybe like this blog for anyone who doesn't care to read about my daily life), some with pretty pictures, some in languages that my browser has a hard time displaying.

But last night, I came across a blog where was posted a control to play a video from Gnarls Barkley's song Crazy. I don't know Gnarls, I don't know the song, but I click play anyways. Thing is, I now realize that I do know this song. It would automatically play every time I would visit Raf's blog for a week or so. Raf had posted a funny video about a kid grooving to this song (and singing along).

The video with the kid singing was annoying, but now that I was listening to the song (with the video that was intended to play along), I actually liked it. So, I searched for Gnarls Barkley on iTunes, find the album with the Crazy song, and start listening to the other songs. I really like his stuff. I buy the album.

Moral of the story: thanks to the copyright infringement of the blogger who posted the Crazy video on his personal site, Gnarls Barkley has one extra album sale.

Varekai

There is nothing ordinary about a Cirque du Soleil show. I had great expectations when I went to see Varekai last night. Indeed, nothing ordinary.

The music in Varekai was not the best I've heard from the Cirque, I still prefer the dreamy soundtrack of Alegria. However, the performers were outstanding, with acrobatics that would seem impossible for human beings to perform. The costumes were outrageous and colorful.

A few parts were less impressive, the trapeze artists focusing mainly on creating shapes with the four bodies and the contortionist adopting poses that I've seen in other shows. However, the flips and twists and tumbles of the performers on the spherical swings were simply breathtaking. I also enjoyed the hand-to-hands while one performer was sitting in reverse on a special chair (bum where your back would normally be) to flip another performer using their legs and arms. Visually, the best sequence was when they pulled a blue surface on the stage, made apparently from a very slippery material. The movements from the 20-or-so performers, sliding past each other, turning on the spot, using their bodies to stop and start, made the entire sequence magical.

Did you know that Vancouver is currently the only place in Canada where the Cirque has a show?

Unbelievable!

Trust my insanely resourceful brother to find two tickets for the Madonna show in Montreal last night. The show that sold out in less than an hour. The show EVERYONE wanted to see (including me). I'm so jealous...

Here's an adorable picture of brother and sister just before the show.


Looking striking for the Material Girl