broom's blog

Broadway on Broadway

We went to “Broadway on Broadway” free concert last weekend. It was a public show in Time Square, right at the cross of 46 St and Broadway. The performers are all from broadway musicals, basically one song for each show. There are more than 10 songs this year.

We arrived there 10 minutes before the show started. It was quite crowded already, and we could only stand by the TKTS glass stairs. From that place we could barely see the stage, but had to watch LCD screens all around us. The streets and audience area got much much more crowded after the show officially began, because so many passengers and tourists stopped for it. This is how it looks

The TKTS stairs are actually a good spot to watch the show. But at first it is only open to some people. I guess they were members or bought some ticket. After the show started for about 10 minutes, the staff began to let other people in because there was still lots of space on those stairs and probably no one will buy ticket anymore. We were pretty lucky and got 2 seats :)

The show was very nice. It’s not an anytime opportunity to take a peek of lots of famous musicals on the stage. Though most performers are not wearing the costume, and the stage was not specially designed, it’s still a quite different experience to watch them there than on YouTube. I mean, much better. It’s a smart advertising way.

One of the most impressive shows that day for me was “MoTown”. It’s about to hit the stage in NYC in 2013 spring, so now it’s just a preview. The black girl singers and dancers were so energetic and vivid. It’s not easy to stay immune to their radiant performance, if possible. “Once” and “Spiderman” seem targeting teenagers. The female singer of “Scandalous” has an amazing voice. “Mamma Mia” and “Chicago” are 2 shows I watched, which I still recommend.

Considering to Get A 11” Air

Really attracted by this article http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3237-a-few-product-recommendations

Any suggestions? I think 11” is big enough for vim.. Will check it out in Apple Store.

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Checked the actual machines in an Apple store yesterday. The width of the screen is actually more than necessary at most times, so the height matters. 11” has 15% less height than 13” (768 vs. 900). With 14pt font, the size I’m used to, in maximized Terminal 11” can show 42 rows while 13” can show 49 rows.

Not sure if the further portability of 11” really matters to me, who just carries the laptop for commute and has been carrying 15” MBP for years. So probably I will go for 13” for this time.

Here is a reference link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_displays_by_pixel_density#Apple

Barbarian D3 1.0.4体验

Paragon level 2了。1.0.4上手感觉不错。

总的来说就是容易了很多，以前在a3基本只能用双旋风solo，其他打法都不大行。现在一边尝试build一边就可以往下打了。精英怪hp和damage下降还是很明显的。

几个主要加强的技能（Bash, Cleave, Hammer of the Ancients, Rend, Seismic Slam)都值得一试，变废为宝了。调整思路很明确：让资源（怒气）的产生和消耗有用起来。之前的双旋风build仍然可以用，但是不见得效率最高了。用怒气来实实在在的打人还是比跑步放屁爽一些。。。视觉效果上调整最大的是Rend，流血效果挺酷的。可惜这个技能伤害不能叠加。

Overpower的反弹伤害不再能触发Life on Hit了，于是这个神技正式作古。。1.0.3时代拿瘟疫熔火亵渎来加血的时代一去不返。另一方面我觉得Life on Hit对于bb的重要性也下降了很多。

游戏里面怪物的各种技能调整也很迎合玩家。无敌小怪没了，护盾基本废了，恐惧有了6秒的间隙，射线和火链的伤害降低，远程兵不会跑那么远了。。打起来会爽很多。加上取消了之前一些比较过火的设定比如精英怪瞬间回满血之类的。我觉得这游戏设定终于从1.0.3那种对玩家的仇恨当中解脱出来了。

Zarkana

昨天去Radio City Music Hall看了Zarkana。不同于多数的百老汇音乐剧，这是一出Cirque de Soleil（太阳马戏团）表演的杂技为主的show。作为从小看CCTV和春晚的人，这些惊险杂技并没有特别特别的impressive。不过看真人表演跟看电视录播还是不太一样的，更紧张些。比如空中飞人就还是让人提心吊胆的，而最让我紧张的其实是第一个扔球的节目，把球扔到柜子里面和桌子下面反弹两次再回到手里实在是很可怕，随时会让人想到这demo失败了怎么办……

这个show虽然杂技难度并没有高到让人觉得闻所未闻的程度，最多也就是个四层叠罗汉，妖人表演很变态的手倒立以及空中飞人转体1080度之类的。主要好看之处是和杂技配合的音乐，布景和氛围。每个节目舞台都会变换主题，有几个使用了大量投影的犹为出色，大概可以类比最近一次春晚的那个投影效果吧。。现场看看还是感觉不错的。

这个Zakarna的票我是在LivingSocial上看到之后买的，49$一张比较后排的位置，很便宜。我感觉买票另一个很大的原因是我经常在地铁里看到这个show的广告。来了美国以后我觉得广告对我的影响明显变大了，比如之前去AMNH看Creatures of Light，买PayExpress的地铁卡，以及去超市买广告里见过的薯片……而在国内看到广告通常都会格外小心感觉基本都是骗钱的，对打广告但不是很有名气的东西反倒会特意回避。不知道这只是我个人的区别还是一个普遍的差异。我一直觉得美国社会人与人之间的信任度要高于中国的，从我个人的感觉来讲，这个会直接影响投放广告的效果。

It’s Summer

Went to Jamaica Bay in Saturday. It’s interesting that you jump onto a subway, after 30 minutes you’re at the beach. Surely it would be nicer if I use a car, because some places are still not very accessible by subway, for example the Wildlife Refuge I wanted to go at first. However the beach is close enough to the station.

The Rockaway beach is for surfing, so lots of people were surfing there. Waves are not strong when we were there, so most people were just playing with the surfing board for fun, not really “professional” surfing. That made us think maybe we can get a surfing board and play a bit.

Went to Whitney Museum today, for the “Fireflies on Water” special exhibition. We arrived there at 1pm and saw a long line at the gate… And today’s special exhibition tickets were sold out already. This museum opens at 11am. I was quite impressed by how popular it is. Before going I guess there wouldn’t be many people because most tourists go to MET and other famous museums. Well, seems I was wrong. Need to go to this place at an earlier time.

So we ended in MET for the afternoon. MET was also crowded but at least we could get tickets and enter in 5 minutes. After that we had Japanese BBQ at Gyu Kaku. This BBQ is pretty famous and really good, especially in happy hours. Beef tongue is the best I’ve ever had.

I switched to unlimited ride metro card a few weeks ago. It indeed help push me to go outside and visit the city. That’s the way to enjoy summer time. Maybe I should buy one for xw too.