If you are lucky enough to live in the Portland, Oregon area, or happen to have an Internet connection (which I suspect you might if you’re reading this) then you had the opportunity on Thursday May, 6th, 2010 to tune into the Paula’s Picks program on KBOO FM during her program and hear her present “You Have To Be There” performed by Helen Sjöholm from the musical “Kristina.” “You Have To Be There” is written by Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson of ABBA. Paula Small is a friend of mine that I went to high school with and she moved to Portland and one of the fun things she does out there is host a radio program on the first and third Thursdays of every month for KBOO.

The last time I saw Paula was when she was back in town to visit some family at the end of 2008, so I took Paula to see the Xanadu production at the La Jolla Playhouse, and when I saw her online on Facebook and I said hello using the chat feature of Facebook, we ended up discussing some music. I was so excited about the live album “Kristina At Carnegie Hall” coming out and I’d just gotten it in, I sent her “You Have To Be There” to share my excitement about the show. Paula really liked the song and we both commented about how it starts out similar to “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” but ends up being a much more powerful song. Paula thought it might make a great addition to her show the following night.

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Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson of ABBA first let audiences in on their masterpiece, “Kristina Från Duvemåla,” in Malmö, Sweden on October 7, 1995, then record buying audiences were able to obtain the 3-CD cast recording in September of 1996. Almost immediately there was talk about translating the work to English and bringing it to an American audience, particularly because the story of “Kristina Från Duvemåla” (translating to Kristina From Duvemåla) is just as much a story about Sweden as it is a story about America. However, it seems a lot of the work in bringing “Kristina” to America would have to wait due to the surprise success of a little show launched in London in 1999, called “Mamma Mia!” would demand a lot of time and attention for Björn and Benny.

The story for “Kristina” is based on Vilhelm Moberg’s “Emigrants” series of four novels, which follows the lives of a group of Swedish settlers which include Karl Oscar and his wife Kristina, as they make the tough decision to pack up and take their chances settling in the unknown wilds of America in the mid 1800′s. While the books follow the group, the show has singled out Karl Oscar and Kristina to be the central focus of the show. The novels are considered to be some of the finest works in Swedish literature, which is what attracted Björn and Benny to wanting to tell the tale of Kristina. Their earlier musical effort, a collaboration with Tim Rice on an original idea by Tim Rice resulted in the musical “Chess.” As much as “Chess” is praised for it’s incredible songs, it’s also panned for its relatively weak plot, which left Björn and Benny looking for a well crafted story to transform into a musical. Björn and Benny felt for their second musical, they didn’t want plot to be one of the problems to plague the show.

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If you’re a fan of the original Star Trek movies but don’t want to buy the boxsets featuring all of the original Star Trek cast movies or the Next Generation cast movies, then Best Buy as a great deal for you. For the month of May, Best Buy is offering the single title movies for $9.99 each.

Now, not every movie is available as Paramount has only released individually the most popular of the two generations of Star Trek movies. In the William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy era of films, you have your choices of Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, and “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered County (essentially the even numbered movies). In the Patrick Stewart and Jonathan Frakes era of films, the only one available is Star Trek: First Contact. These are considered the best four movies of the first 10 Star Trek movies and in my book are the must own ones.

Take advantage of the tremendous savings and get each for $9.99. To get them, just click on the titles of the movie here and you’ll be taken to a page on Best Buy.com where you can purchase them. Unfortunately, the Blu-Ray for the 2009 J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie isn’t included in the $9.99 sale, but it is on special for $19.99. Click here to get it. Be sure to take advantage of in-store pickup if there is a Best Buy near you. The sale price only lasts until the end of May. (more…)

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It seems when it comes to pizza, you often are faced with several choices, such as New York Thin Crust style verses Chicago Deep Dish style. Then it’s often between mom and pop locations and the “chain” places. And even within the “chains” you get a choice between the cheap and mediocre places, like Pizza Hut, Papa John’s, Domino’s, and Little Caesar’s which are to pizza what McDonald’s is to hamburgers. And there are even more premium chain places like Round Table Pizza, California Pizza Kitchen, Sammy’s Woodfired Pizzas, and Chicago UNO, that offer better pizza experiences. Joining the foray of the premium style chains, one of Canada’s most popular pizza chains, Boston Pizza, are expanding into the United States branding these locations as “Boston’s Gourmet Pizza” and positioning themselves as a restaurant and sports bar offering two experiences under one roof.

You may be asking, if Boston’s Gourmet Pizza originates from Canada, why do they call themselves “Boston’s” instead of some city in Canada? Well the answer to that lies in its history, as Boston Pizza was started by a Greek Immigrant to Canada in 1964. When he was looking for a name for his pizza place that he was starting in Edmonton, Alberta, he felt with The Boston Bruins, The Boston Red Sox, The Boston Celtics, and even Boston Creme Pie, the name Boston was recognizable and established. In the words of founder, Gus Agioritis, Boston meant “Big Leagues.” The company grew quickly through franchising quickly and today has over 325 locations throughout Canada and over 50 in the US since the company first expanded into the US in 1998.

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While out and about on some errands, I came across this public transit bench ad for a San Diego realtor named Mary McTernan, who has elected to promote herself as a “hassle free” listing to sell your home with the tagline “You Can Fire Me Anytime!!” But one has to wonder if this is sending the right message to prospective clients.

I can understand what Mary is trying to accomplish with the ad by indicating that she wants to be one less hassle in your life by making it easy to sell your home. If she’s not able to accomplish it, you can fire her and be on your way, no messy breaking of a contract, and the other messy stuff when you find yourself stuck with a listing Realtor who isn’t living up to your needs as a seller.

However, what the sign could also indicate is that Mary isn’t going too work to hard at selling your property because you can get rid of her anytime and it’s better if she doesn’t . Or it could mean she will work very hard because you could release her at any time. In a way it’s a very mixed message. Personally, I feel the message she is sending out there is that her name is synonymous with disposable. She’s destroying any perceived value of her services and that she’s about as useful as any broken product that is not worth trying to fix and keep.

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If you can find a way to make something most people don’t want to do, fun and pleasant, people will do it. Recycling has certainly caught on in San Diego, but Waste Management has teamed up with Greenopolis to offer a new and exciting way to expand their recycling options. Recycling “vending” style machines (although they’re collection machines, not vending machines) can be situated outside of stores and allow for easy recycling. But what’s the incentive to use these machines? It’s actually a rewards program.

The machines offer little barcode keychain tags that you can get from the machines to help you establish an account to track your recycling. When you step up to a machine, you touch the built in screen and it will ask you how you want to log in, you can scan the barcode on the keychain tag or enter your email address or not log in and get a receipt that you can enter a code from online later on. For simplicity, it’s easiest to use the keychain tag. Once you establish an account to tie your keychain tag to an email account (you can add more account details at home later) the machine asks you start scanning your recyclable materials. One machine handles aluminum containers and glass bottles, the other will accept plastics depending on whether they are PETE or HDPE plastics. Most of these containers the machines will accept will be from beverage containers that deposits were paid for. The machines give you a chance to not only recycle the containers and get the deposit money back, but also earn points that can be redeemed for discounts at local merchants.

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On my way out of Palm Springs along Interstate 10, I found an A&W Restaurant just outside the Morongo Hotel And Casino. This was not a combination A&W store with another one of Yum! brands like Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), Taco Bell, Long John Silvers, etc. This was an A&W restaurant that was just an A&W restaurant. This was exciting since all the San Diego A&W’s were combination stores and all of them withdrew the A&W portion of the stores, it means the only chance to sample A&W is on the road outside of San Diego.

When I got there, it was about a half hour before they opened. I was surprised they weren’t opened earlier as it was 10:30 am when I stopped by. I didn’t want to just find the next A&W because I might not see another one on the road ahead, so I went for a quick fill up on gasoline at Morongo’s gas station and then just waited for the A&W to open. At about 10 minutes left to go before the placed opened there was a line forming outside the door. Apparently I wasn’t alone in my want for A&W Food. Sure it’s not what I really should be eating but it’s an out of town treat.

Once it opened, I opted to get a burger combo and removed the bun, like I usually do at burger joints. But I was interested in the upgrade of the fries to Wisconsin Cheese Curds. Thanks to my friend Caroline Bender for introducing me to what Cheese Curds really are, I was anxious to try these. I had never tried Cheese Curds until Caroline introduced me to them because I didn’t know what a curd was and it sounded disgusting. So now that I’ve been corrected and know that cheese curds are delicious plain, let alone deep fried like they were here at A&W.

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As I was departing Palm Springs, following the amazing concert by Arrival, the world’s best ABBA Tribute Band, one of the things I was amazed to see when I got closer to the Interstate was the amazing sea of wind turbines out in the Palm Springs Valley. This amazing “crop” of machines are using the natural wind power of the valley to generate electricity.

I haven’t the slightest idea how many of these wind turbines are out there, but I was certainly very impressed. The wind seemed ever present in my brief stay in the Palm Springs area and the Interstate 10 just seemed to be a wind corridor, a perfect place for all the turbines, and since the town is built away from the Interstate highway, it’s a perfect place. I’m sure the winds get quite strong out there as there were a few times where I felt like my car was going to get blown off the road and I’m sure that was considered quite mild out there. I would guess those wind turbines are more than enough to generate the electricity necessary for the Palm Springs Valley.

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When it comes to ABBA Tribute Bands, Arrival from Sweden is the world’s best. It is the most authentic recreation of an ABBA concert you’ll ever see, and Vicky Norbäck-Zetterberg, founding member of Arrival, has gone to great lengths to ensure the most authentic show possible, including enlisting the help of ABBA’s costume designer, Owe Sandström, to recreate some of ABBA’s signature costumes and choreography that’s be researched to match how ABBA originally performed the songs live. All the music is created live, unlike some ABBA tribute bands that actually bring recordings to sing to their shows. And who can resist authentic Swedish accents as they are real Swedes who are able to accurately sing the songs the way ABBA did.

Arrival’s performance in Palm Springs was part of the 2010 Evening Under The Stars charity event benefiting Palm Springs AIDS Assistance Program. The event was held on the grounds of the O’Donnell Golf Club, just a short walk away from Downtown Palm Springs. As the event was $395 a plate for the charity dinner, I was attending as a guest of the band. I had the opportunity to hang out with the band before and after the performance along with a couple of other guests the band invited.

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Would you believe, I’ve lived in San Diego since 1986, and not once have I ever gone to Palm Springs? My only excuse is that I never realized how close to San Diego, Palm Springs really is. It’s about 135 miles from San Diego, which according to Google Maps, is a little more than a two hour drive. I never really looked at the maps to see how close it was to San Diego and just always figured I’d end up seeing it sometime, well that sometime has finally come. My reason for going was because my favorite ABBA tribute band, Arrival, from Sweden was going to be performing at the “Evening Under The Stars” charity event for the AIDS Assistance Program and this event is the closest they’ve come to San Diego since last year’s appearance at the San Diego County Fair. (Click here to read my blog entry for their appearance at the San Diego County Fair). I was invited to attend as a guest of the band.

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