iSawToday - The Coolest Thing I Saw Today on the Web

Just like MTV stole much of the thunder from the Grammy’s and the American Music Awards years ago, here comes YouTube. Here’s a great way to spend an hour if you’re caught in a spring snowstorm like I am today.

Snowstorm = Milwaukee, WI

Videos = http://www.youtube.com/ytawards07

Have a safe and happy Easter.

P.s. It had been 3months, 10 days, and 3 hours since I last saw Chocolate Rain. Phew!

Back in 1997 I sold ice cream all summer in order to afford a small MIDI sequencer to record my homemade music on. At the time a $500 Yamaha QY-8 was the rage one of several options.

Today, I found this story on Wired.com that details KORG’s plan to release an application for the Nintendo DS that will surpass the sequencing power of my little Yamaha QY-8.

Luckily, my girlfriend gave me a DS for Christmas to ‘train my brain” so I’m ready to go.

Funny, the first and only video game system I’ve ever owned and I still don’t own an actual play-game for it.

Here’s a great article detailing someone’s opinion on how to save money and cut costs while starting up a company.  Having worked for two bootstrapped early-stage companies; one in Internet search and the other in financial software I fondly recall the benefits and disasters that I’ve seen caused by these practices.

Link: Saving Money at a Startup

Well, he finally did it.  Our longtime star quarterback retired today after years of speculation.  Here’s a great video from his first game, have to  love ‘The Juice’s" commentary.

I’m sorry for two theater-related posts in one day but I felt compelled to promote the upcoming production of Les Miserables at the Lincolnshire Theater in Chicagoland.

Although this show is NOT a touring Broadway production it features a very solid Broadway cast and should be an interesting production.

I found very little information on this production so I wanted to link and promote the details I could find.

Broadway-esch Casting Notes:

Valjean - John Cudia (Has played both Valjean and the Phantom on Broadway)
Javert - Richard Todd Adams (Has played Roul in the touring Phantom)
Cosette - Leah Horowitz who just finished playing Cosette in the Broadway revival of Les Mis(closed in Jan)

Here are some additional resources I found:
- Another article talking about the show

As a frequent patron of musical theater I’m always looking for ’secret’ ways to get discount tickets to shows.  Wether it’s checking the local theater’s rush policy(usually half-price tickets 30 or 60 minutes before show time), or searching for Ticketmaster promo codes I’m always up for a discount.  Here’s a great article from CNN that covers a few Broadway tricks.  I’m copying the entire article over because I don’t trust CNN to keep it live and I personally would like to refer to it. So

Read full article at CNN

Crack the codes

When you’re buying tickets online, the major agencies — Telecharge and Ticketmaster — ask for a promotional code, which can shave between 25 and 50 percent off the face-value price. You can find one of these codes by visiting Playbill, TheaterMania and BroadwayBox.com. These sites list promotional codes for many shows, including blockbuster productions like "Hairspray." Playbill and TheaterMania are more comprehensive but require registration. BroadwayBox.com posts a more limited number of codes, but you won’t have to cough up any personal information.

Insider’s tip: If you buy directly from a theater box office, where you can also use a code for savings, you will avoid the fees that Telecharge and Ticketmaster slap on the tickets they sell online.

Try a ticket broker

If you’re gunning for one of Broadway’s most popular shows, such as "Grease" or "Spring Awakening," you’re going to struggle to find discounted tickets from any source. Your best hope is to look for tickets during Broadway’s slow months: January, February, September and October. You’ll most likely find these tickets being resold by respected online ticket brokers, such as StubHub and TicketsNow — often, though not always, at a discount to their face values.

Buck the system at the 11th hour

General rush tickets and ticket lotteries are available to anyone looking to try his or her last-minute luck. Some productions, including "The Color Purple" and "Chicago," sell a select number of discounted tickets, called rush tickets, at the box office on the day of the show. Others, such as "Wicked" and "Avenue Q," hold lotteries in which people go to the theater a few hours before a show and enter their names in a drawing. Rush and lottery tickets usually cost between $20 and $30. Go to TalkinBroadway.com or Playbill.com for details on the rush and lottery practices of the top productions.

Sit onstage

Two popular musicals offer onstage seating at a fraction of the standard prices. "Spring Awakening" sells 26 onstage seats at every performance for $31.50 a pop (which is far less than the typical $70 a seat); "Xanadu" sells 22 onstage seats for every performance at $41.50 apiece. These seats tend to have rear or side views that obscure some of the action, but they still sell out quickly because viewers get to sit so close. It’s best to book "Spring Awakening" onstage seats about four months in advance; "Xanadu" onstage seats require a lead time of a week or two. Onstage seating is available at the box offices as well as through Telecharge.

Take a stand

For theatergoers feeling light on their feet, sold-out shows can be a good thing. Many productions — even hot shows like "Jersey Boys" and "Spamalot" — offer standing room only (SRO) admission when no audience seats are left. Like rush tickets, most SRO tickets fall in the $20 to $30 range and can be purchased at the box office on the day of the show. Find out which productions offer SRO by visiting TalkinBroadway.com and Playbill.com.

Become a member

The nonprofit Theatre Development Fund — which also operates the red-and-white TKTS booths in Times Square and at the South Street Seaport that sell discounted, same-day tickets — has a TDF membership program that offers advance tickets for less than $35 for some Broadway shows (without the hassle of standing in a line). To join, you have to be a student, a teacher, a union member, a senior, a civil service employee, a nonprofit or performing arts organization employee or a member of the armed forces or clergy. There’s an annual membership fee of $27.50, but you can usually make up the difference in a single show, given that the average Broadway ticket goes for $76. Find membership details at tdf.org.

Finally, here is the trailer for the new Indiana Jones movie due out later this spring:

http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/indianajones.html?showVideo=1

My friend Bill pointed this out to me last night as we were watching the Wisconsin basketball game.  Ajaxonomy, a website that let’s you watch a ticker of what people are bookmarking on del.icio.us.

http://www.ajaxonomy.com/deliciousspy/

Back in 2003 I approached my friend and go-to designer Scott about a cooking website and not just any cooking website but one aimed at helping men cook dinner for a woman  the site was called www.dinnerforher.com.  Scott crafted an amazing logo and I started doing some research.  Here are some of the great books I uncovered in the process:

Win Her With Dinner

Cooking to Hook Up

Well, at the end of the day there just wasn’t enough interest in the subject matter for me to continue and the project stands where it is today.  I’m writing on this topic because Techcrunch posted an article yesterday about a new site with a similar goal: Culinary Seductions

Hopefully I’m proved wrong and millions of women will have dinner made for them tonight.

For a long time I have had issues with portable music players.  I put off buying any thing ‘i’ relying instead on my Treo now Blackberry Curve to play music for me.  One problem that has always plagued me is easily controlling the music playing on my home stereo.  I partially resolved this with a D-Link DSM 320 Media Receiver which is OK but not amazing.

Today I read an article that gives me hope that the solution will soon arrive.  Blackberry is making a wireless stereo adapter for it’s phones.  This means that I will be able to plug a small box into my stereo input and control all the music playing right from my Blackberry Curve!  If the ipod had this feature I’d probably have shelled out the $400 for one already but alas.  Now one can only hope for the device to support streaming from other bluetooth 2.0 devices such as my laptop.

Read the full article here