Broadway at the Paramount 2009

The Paramount announced their 2009 Broadway Season last week, and it looks like it should be another interesting one:  

The Lion King (February/March) - I missed this last time it was in town.  By all accounts this will be a Broadway spectacle beyond all measure.  Looking forward to this one.  

Cats (April) - This is a one-week engagement, not part of the regular season.  Another I've never seen, but tempting to get tickets to this one since it is indeed a Broadway classic now.  

Frost/Nixon (May) - Every so often they throw a non-musical play into the mix, and this is the most recent.  From the synopsis:  "Direct from Broadway, Frost/Nixon tackles the question:  How did David Frost, a famous British talk show host with a playboy reputation, elicit the apology that the rest of the world was waiting to hear from former President Richard Nixon?"  Tony Award nominated, should be interesting, if also from a historical prespective.  

RENT (June) - Yet another return engagement, but this time Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp, from the original Broadway cast, return to reprise their roles.  I always say this is a must see everytime it comes to town, and this is definitely no exception.  

Wicked (September/October) -  Returning again after just two seasons ago, but this time for an entire month.  This received an "unconditional 5 out of 5 stars" in my previous abbreviated review, and you absolutely must see this when it comes to town.  If you don't like it, there's something wrong with you.  

August: Osage County (October) - Highly praised, yet I've never heard of it.  Probably because once again, it's not a musical.  Read your own reviews.  

Fiddler on the Roof (November/December) - Numerous classic songs in this, from "Tradition" to "If I Were a Rich Man".  Hard to argue with this one as another great one.  

Should turn out to be a heck of a season, I'd say.  

Local News Close to Home

All over every major Seattle news outlet today, but as KOMO puts it "Newborn Baby Abandoned at Federal Way Church".  Early this morning, a baby just hours old was left on the doorstep of the church.

Why it's interesting to me is... that's my church!  Well, the one I grew up in anyway, and my parents still go there.  Interesting seeing the bizarre stuff hit so close to home.

Obviously there are worse places you can leave a baby than a relatively protected front door of a church on a Sunday morning, but still... I guess it's hard to find logic in anything connected to abandoning a baby in the first place.  

A mile isn't as far as it used to be... UPDATE

Updating my previous article on changes at Alaska Airlines, the airline announced today a slight amendment to their changes set to take effect on November 1st, based apparently on numerous complaints from customers:

Money and Miles Award changes The "AS50" Money and Miles award will continue to offer a 50% discount up to $250 for 15,000 miles round-trip; however, these awards will only earn 50% of the miles that they earn today. These miles and 100% of the segments flown will count toward MVP/MVP Gold qualification. The change will apply to all Money and Miles awards booked on or after November 1, 2008.

This amends the previous plan which was that using the AS50 discount would earn no miles at all on the flight. While I did say this was reasonable all things considered, this is a far better solution in my book, and added bonus points to Alaska for listening to customers and a willingness to compromise.

Sound Transit - Round 2

Despite the economic downturn (or perhaps partially because of it), Sound Transit has opted to come back to voters once again this November in an attempt to get a light rail system in Seattle off and running.

As most know, I'm a strong proponent of anything that will improve the public transportation infrastructure in the greater Seattle area, most notably light rail. While I did support last year's Roads & Transit measure, based solely on the light rail portion of it, I'm pleased to see that Sound Transit is coming back with a transit-only package that hopefully will appeal to a wider audience who believes as I do that the solution is not adding more lanes onto freeways, but rather adding more mass transit options.

The new 15-year plan includes a good compromise on time-to-build vs. reaching the most people. The features include:

• Increased ST regional express bus service.
• Increased Sounder commuter rail service.
• Light rail north to Northgate by 2020 and to Lynnwood by 2023.
• Light rail south to north Federal Way (272nd) by 2023.
• Light rail east to Bellevue by 2020 and to Overlake by 2021.
• More potential expansion planning and design and right-of-way purchase.

This adds on to the existing approved (and under construction) light rail service from downtown to the airport in 2009, and to the UW by 2016.

The cost? Not exactly cheap, but it's all relative. A half-percent increase in the sales tax in the Sound Transit RTA (most of King, Snohomish, and Pierce counties). This will bring the sales tax from the current 9.0% to 9.5%, a difference to the average consumer of about $69/year (depending on who you consider the average consumer, but remember folks, state sales tax is also now a deduction on your IRS income taxes).

I'm all for this, but I must admit the timeline is always a bit daunting. The first of any of this additional light rail won't be functional for 12 years, but if things are this bad now, can you imagine what traffic will be like 12 years from now? Yeah, exactly.

I know there are plenty of people who don't think light rail is the answer, for any number of reasons. Certainly there are plenty more who don't like the idea of more sales taxes. My perspective continues to be that if we don't start now, we'll never get anywhere. The time isn't going to get shorter, and the costs not cheaper. See what happens.

More details about the new plan are at future.soundtransit.org.

A mile isn't as far as it used to be...

For many of us air travellers in Seattle, Alaska Airlines is our local airline of choice and where we choose to bank all of our frequent flyer miles. Not surprisingly, in the current economic downturn and sky-high (pun intended) gas prices, all airlines seem to be making changes. Alaska has bucked the trend of charging passengers for their first piece of checked luggage, but has instead decided to take a more reasonable approach and changed their frequent flyer plan.

Yesterday they announced Upcoming Mileage Plan Changes on their website, effective November 1st. I've always thought Alaska had some of the few really outstanding deals for frequent fliers, and that doesn't seem to be changing, but it does appear they will be somewhat less outstanding. I'll review some of the more notable changes below.

• 25,000 miles for a free round-trip flight in the continental U.S. Previously for a mere 20,000 miles, and suitable planning, you could fly anywhere in the U.S. (except Hawaii) for free. Virtually no other airline had such low mileage redemption levels, most in the 25,000-30,000 mile range, but not Alaska will join the pack. Still a good deal if you're flexible and have good planning.
• 3 award levels instead of 2. It used to be there was "Peak" and "Saver" awards, now we add a third class in the middle called "Choice" and rename the others "Full Flex" and "Super Saver". What does that mean? Nobody really knows, other than there'll be three buckets of availability to work with, and you can hope the flight you want has some "Super Saver" awards still available, or your 25k round-trip becomes 40k miles in Choice or up to 55k miles in "Full Flex" with no restrictions.
• New Intra-State Awards. Fly round-trip to any airport in the same state for just 15,000 miles in "Super Saver". This is probably a great deal for states like California, where you could fly from the Bay Area to San Diego cheap, but for those of us in Seattle, we're limited to Spokane and/or any podunk towns in eastern WA. I guess those who frequently fly to Yakima or Tri-Cities on Horizon could cash in on this, but it might be nice if they decided to include Portland in our WA Intra-state awards.
• No miles on the 50% award. A unique award in the Alaska lineup, any fare Alaska offers can be slashed in half (up to a $250 discount) for just 15,000 miles. The one difference from conventional awards was that in this case, you still received the actual miles flown for the trip. As a frequent user of this award, I've always been somewhat surprised by how I can save $250, but then get miles anyway, effectively making the mileage cost of the 5,354-mile Seattle-Honolulu round-trip just 9,646 miles for $250/off, a value of about 2.5-cents per mile. The new changes eliminate this loophole of sorts, which caps the value at 1.6-cents per mile, which still seems reasonable to me if you can take advantage of it, especially given the new award levels.
• $25 fee for redeeming partner awards. Using your miles for flights on non-Alaska flights? Expect to pay a $25 surcharge. Seems a small price to pay for the flexibility and advantage of cashing in your miles for some big-ticket flights on other airlines. Again, a reasonable change.

An important note that none of these changes take effect for flights booked before November 1st, so if you have your travel plans for the next year already lined up, book those tickets before then and save over the higher rates. Of course it's disappointing Alaska has had to raise rates, nobody likes that, but thanks to them for resisting the urge to take the nickle-and-dime approach like other airlines are doing.

Me Talk Good English

I read an article today ["Bad English confounds Beijing teacher"] about how in preparation for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, there is a big push among the Chinese to improve their rather poorly translated English signs. I actuall recall many bizarrely worded signs when I was in China back in 2001 and doubt they can possibly fix them all in any reasonable amount of time. Some of them just have misspellings and typographical errors on them, which aren't such a big deal to me. The amusing ones are the complete mistranslations that occasionally could be read quite differently by a native English speaker. These signs are widely collected online, so I decided to post a few of the more entertaining ones I found here, with my own commentary added. Enjoy!

But speaking cellphone on a sunny day is perfectly fine... I wonder if cellphone sounds a bit like Swahili?

Your guess is as good as mine.

Who's Carefully? And why was he standing so close to the water?

... or it might chase after you.

Please confine your frolicking to the kiddie pool.

"You need a breath mint."

You is valued neighba.

I took a picture of this one (or one like it) in China too. "Please keep your graffiti neat."

Very important. I do this every time I walk out on the curling ice.

... and don't you forget it!

Yeah... and no free refills on your Diet Coke either!

Truer words have never been spoken...

Nor will it ask you for spare change...

I actually had to look this one up. A "balustrade" is a railing supported by a bunch of columns (balusters) that hold it up, like you usually have on the side of stairway or balcony. This begs the question... how is it that these people who can't make a correctly formed sentence have a better vocabulary than I do?

Yeah... do something with your life and get a real job!

As opposed to the alternative... ?

I'm just trying to figure out which of the Chinese symbols stand for "deformed man".

Sign outside a Xenophobics Anonymous meeting.

... and please, no smorking within 25 feet of any doorway.