Is it me or has the standing ovation become a meaningless show of approval at entertainment venues? Just as a person can’t just order a “small” coffee at Starbucks, people can’t just clap without standing at a show anymore. It’s worse than grade inflation at Harvard. Last Friday, Melody treated me out to a showing of Les Miserables, which despite being one of my favorite musicals, I’ve actually never seen before. The show itself was well done, but the true star was Randal Keith who played Jean Valjean, the role for which he was also chosen for the final Broadway cast back in 2003. Of course, despite our hopes of reserving our standing ovation for him, we found ourselves sitting among a sea of standing audience members clapping and cheering loudly. And since we couldn’t SEE anything sitting down, we both stood up, and so goes the entire theater giving a standing ovation. Nevertheless, the show’s popularity is well-deserved, and I was glad we caught it before its limited 2-week engagement at the Opera House was over. My parents also visited for the weekend, resupplying us with more delicious home-cooked goodies. Unfortunately, the comments for our manuscript has just been returned, so I’ll probably be quite occupied for the upcoming weeks.

When the cat’s away, the mice will play – especially when the cat happens to be an evil, draconic slave-driver. With the man away last week, the atmosphere in lab turned instantly lighter. We even revisited Hong Kong Eatery for some savory comfort food to celebrate the occasion. And with Melody off from her last call night of the week, we were able to spend the full weekend relaxing. Since the most important part of President’s Day weekend is President’s Day sales, we spent most of our time shopping and eating. I also found an interesting new website at Pandora.com. After 5-years of development by the “Music Genome Project”, the site offers a simple way to discover new songs tailored to your musical taste – perfect for those of us who feel jaded by the same collection of mp3s. Anyway, in case you’ve forgotten what we look like, I’ve also posted new pictures in our personal and rats categories.

I’ve never been big into watching the Winter Olympics, but the chilly weather and foot of snow this past weekend pretty much sealed our fate and made TV our sole source of entertainment. The opening ceremony on Friday night was quite a show, though it was sad that the country had so little star power after Pavarotti and Sophia Loren that they had to resort to a Ferrari Formula One racer drifting on stage as one of the “performances”. So far, there haven’t been too many upsets in the events, perhaps except Michelle Kwan’s dropout. Otherwise, the weekend was quiet and cozy with steaming home-cooked Vietnamese bun rieu – one of those noodle dishes that makes winter snowstorms completely worthwhile.