Saturday, May 29, 2010

Star Wars In Concert @ Orleans Arena


Some culture for us tonight - so I kept trying to sell it to ABH. A symphony orchestra, playing in their tuxedos, enchanting an audience of dedicated......Star Wars lovers. With C3PO (Anthony Daniels) doing the commentary. What more could you want? Ummm how about free tickets. Hooray!!! Through ABH's work we had box seats for the show and showed up with the Hills and Hogie.

From high up we didn't have the best view of the huge screen that was playing the different movies' footage while the orchestra played. It was a few songs in before the feed to the TVs in the box worked and added the visual to the audio.

The show took us through all 6 of the Star Wars movies, with the highlights being the original score, obviously, and at the start of Darth Vader's theme, where a bunch of about 20 friends sitting together lit their red light-sabers.

What tonight also taught me was that I am not the huge Star Wars fan as I thought I was. Yeah I've seen the original movie at least 300 times and have 5 t-shirts, but the rest of the crowd were over the top. There was hardly a character not represented in people dressing up. (my fave was the father / son Obi Wan Kenobi team). We also shared the box with someone in full Darth Vader outfit, which was a hit with everyone during intermission - and he was a good sport about it all.

She won't admit, but ABH had a fun night, as did I. Star Wars is the greatest movie ever, as far as I am concerned. But 33 years after it was made, it is amazing the cultural impact that it still has on the world. The amount of people here tonight that weren't even born when the 1st trilogy came out at the movies speaks volumes for the legacy of these great films.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Sage & Viva Elvis @ Aria

For our 8th Wedding Anniversary ABH and I had a fantastic night staying at Aria (thank the lord for free stuff).

We checked into the hotel mid afternoon and, while our room was beautiful, we preferred to lazily spend our afternoon by the pool. Within hours we were both completely relaxed.

We chose Sage for dinner, as it is the best restaurant in Aria to offer ABH vegetarian options. And, boy did we make the right choice. The food here is amazing. I had a lobster ravioli (which was one of the most delicious foods I'd ever tasted) as well as the Kobe flank steak. This beautiful dining room was the perfect setting for our anniversary dinner. Again our server was fantastic and I feel that in the space of five hours since we had checked in, we had settled into our overnight staycation quite nicely. We had a quick drink at American Fish after dinner and before we went into Viva Elvis.

I was a little hesitant to see Viva Elvis again. I had seen it before we opened the hotel, and they needed to work through some kinks. Well they did! And this is has improved the show infinitely. We had a blast! Not as Cirque-y as their other shows, Viva Elvis is a fitting musical tribute to the King. It was not just us who thought so. The whole audience was having a great time, and the standing ovation at the end was well deserved.

Happy Anniversary Wifecicle. Hope you had a great night!