100th POST!

That's right readers, ...this is home... has hit its 100th entry! Thanks to those of you who've read some, a few or all 100 posts. Who knew my life would be interesting enough to warrant writing about it that much?! Ok, so that was a little self absorbed, but I think that this is an anniversary worth celebrating. Pop the champagne!....and now to our regularly scheduled update...

First, the roommate search is over! HOORAY! A guy came by on Tuesday to check out the place, really liked it, and is moving in over the weekend/next week. I feel like a huge weight has been lifted, and even though it took a lot longer than anticipated, I'm glad that it's finally over. He seems like a really great guy too.

Went to Manhattan this weekend with mom and caught a couple of shows, had two AMAZING meals - one at Bond 45 (even though the service was atrocious), and the other at Tavern on the Green. That's pretty much my favorite thing to do in the city, see shows and have good food. I really wanted to go running in Central Park on Sunday morning, but the weather had other plans, and I ended up not running at all, because the gym at the hotel was $10 - lame. On to the shows.

Caught the matinee of A Steady Rain - the event (yes, event) of the fall- starring Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig. I would say 90% of the audience was there solely to see the two of them. I'd say I was 60/40, I saw Jackman in The Boy From Oz 5 years ago and met him at Cannes, so he's old news (ha), but I was excited to see Daniel Craig. Long and short, they're two Chicago cops who have opposing views/remembrances of a domestic disturbance call that happened during, you guessed it, a week of steady rain. The play itself was basically 6 episodes of Law & Order crammed into 90 minutes (rape! hookers! drugs! domestic violence! murder! gangs! cannibalism(that's not a typo)! ), with Jackman and Craig on stage reciting monologues, that occasionally overlap. It's a masterclass in acting, both of them do wonderful things with fairly weak and predictable material. Of the two, I thought Craig was the standout, his performance was sublime, he brought the right amount of slow burning intensity to make his characters resolutions absolutely cathartic. Jackman has the showier of the two roles, and he, on occasion, over reaches, but turns in a great performance none the less. In the end, it seemed like it was a whole lot about a real little, and I thought about how the two of them would have done with better material.

After an outstanding dinner at the aforementioned Bond 45, we had tickets to the new musical Memphis. It started previews a few days before, so I was a little nervous, and had read some not so encouraging things online about some of the early performances/incarnations of it (it played at Northshore Music Theater (about 4 years ago), San Diego and Seattle before coming to New York). While it wasn't a groundbreaking piece of theater, it was quite enjoyable, and hands down the best of the three shows we saw last weekend. Billed as "the birth of the blues in Memphis" the story centers around white DJ Huey Calhoun and black chanteuse Felicia Farrell and their relationship. Racial tensions no doubt ensue. It works mostly because of the immense talent on the stage, starting with Chad Kimball who plays Huey and Montego Glover who plays Felicia. The two have excellent chemistry and outstanding voices to boot. There were some structural problems (act I was a little clunky and the resolutions in act II were a little too quick and tidy), hopefully those will be worked out, but the physical production is in great shape. While I doubt that this is going to be a runaway hit, there is serious potential, with good word of mouth and decent reviews. I'm crossing my fingers...

My grandiose running plans for Sunday were axed because of the stupid rain. I was really looking forward to running in Central Park, but when I got down to the lobby, the rain was coming down in sheets. If it was just a mist, I would have braved the elements and gone out, but not this. I then attempted to go to the gym at the hotel, but since it was a branch of the NYSC, and seperate from the hotel, there was a $10 fee. No thanks, I'm not paying $10 to use the treadmill for 4 miles. New York City in the rain is no fun, so we hung around the hotel until we went to brunch at Tavern on the Green. I read in the NYTimes a couple weeks ago that it was filing for bankrupcy, so mom wanted to go again in case it was actually closed next time we're in town. Food was excellent, the bloody mary I had was even better.

Final show of the weekend was the revival of Bye Bye Birdie with John Stamos and Gina Gershon. This is the second time I've seen a production of Birdie, saw it last summer at NSMT, and I thought that I'd like it better the second time around. I did not. It felt flat and just plain old blah. Stamos and Gershon didn't really do a whole lot for me. Stamos was worlds better in Cabaret, and the role of Rosie required much more dancing and singing than Gershon could handle. The supporting charters were great (Bill Irwin, in particular), but when your supporting cast is stronger than your "name" stars, that's a problem. There was a cool moving sidewalk type thing built into the stage, which was used for some clever set changes, and a cool entrance for John Stamos, and the train that went in/out of Sweet Apple junction was neat, but that's about all that kept my interest. The set and costumes were so bright, it gave me a headache after a while. My favorite part of the show? Seeing the inside of the complete overhaul of the Henry Miller's theater. Roundabout basically rebuilt the entire theater from the ground up, but kept some of the old parts of it intact (most notably the proscenium of the stage) which was kind of cool to see the juxtaposition of old and new.

My Where the Wild Things Are premier tickets came on Tuesday, I'm really looking forward to it on Monday. It's definitely one of my most anticipated movies of the fall, and even cooler that screenwriter Dave Eggers is going to be giving a q&a after. It will be interesting to see what he did to stretch out 10 sentences from the book into a 90 minute movie.

First band show of the season is tomorrow, but it looks like it's going to be indoors because of the rain, which, for us, anyways, isn't a bad thing. Just finished the show last night, so it might have been a little difficult to get it into show shape during the AM tomorrow.

The B.A.A. Half Marathon is next weekend and I still need help making my goal, I'm at just over 50%, so let's see if you folks can help me raise $250 in the next week. It's an achievable goal!

Check out the 2nd trailer for George Clooney's new movie, Up in the Air, directed by Jason Reitman. Speaking of movies, since I'm going to Where the Wild Things Are Monday, that frees me up on October 16 to see An Education. Crisis averted! I'm going to try and catch Bright Star on Sunday (I hear the performance Abbie Cornish gives is incredible), and hopefully the Cohen bros new flick A Serious Man next week. Movie season is heating up!