He's Here! The Phantom of the Opera!

   Show day, at long last!
   Well, actually opening night was yesterday, and we'll get to that in a minute, but still I'm super pumped. This is one of the few performances where I've ever sat as concert master (for those who don't know, that's the first chair violinist) which means I've gotten to play the solos, and boy are there a lot of them. The hardest has got to be the graveyard solo. Not technically hard, but it's tough to follow Christine at that speed.
   While I'm thinking of it, those of you who don't care about Phantom may want to skip the a bit down the page to where I get into my games and the like.
   Back to opening night, boy was that interesting. Let me just say that, with any musical, you're bound to get at least one night where everything that can go wrong does. At least we got it out of the way early, right?
   Everything started out pretty okay, and we were all really excited. It's been pretty rare for us to make it through a run without a major slip up. Things were really looking up right up until the labyrinth scene during the song Phantom. Mr. Bill (our band director at the high school, and organ player for our pit) started organ/misc track for the song a bar too early. In case you weren't aware, when playing Phantom of the Opera, the music comes with some prerecorded spots for the organist, simply because they are just too insanely hard. Even on Broadway they'll use these at times. If you've heard the music, you'll know why. So like I was saying, now we have the recording a measure ahead of the pit orchestra and the vocalists. Thankfully, Mr. Bill was able to fade out the track and, here's the amazing part, actually make up for the slack. I was totally floored. I always knew he was an excellent pianist, but wow.
   After this, we figured we must be in the clear because, come on, what could top that? Well, the boat could, apparently. Later in that same scene, after the Phantom and Christine had disembarked, the remote control boat built by the director, Mr. Brainard (also the former marching band director, and current co-director) decided to start spiraling out of control. They hastily moved downstage so the crew could close the curtain, but they for some reason left the chandelier on, so you could still see the shadow of it twirling. If that wasn't bad enough, it kept banging into the stairs, which on top of making tons of noise, caused them to have to tape the stairs back together. Yes. The ones the entire chorus later has to sit on, that were already pretty rickety to begin with. This, of course led to a hold during intermission so they could repair it for the second act.
   Long story short, I'm really hoping tonight goes better.
   On to the world of gaming. Hearthstone went live a few weeks ago, and it must have been one of the

quietest game launches I've ever seen. Granted, basically everyone who cared already had a beta key, but still very quiet. There was a slight increase in players for a short while as WoW players came for their Hearthsteed (which was awesome, because I just ran over three newbs then hopped back into ranked play), but I don't think we'll see any real player influx until the tablet and phone launches. The tablet version is set to come out in the next few weeks, but even the iPhone version isn't due out until the second half of 2014. As for the Android version, I haven't a clue.Luckily, I'm an Apple fanboy which means I don't have long to wait until I never look up from my iPad again.
   A lot of my PC gaming has taken a backseat to Phantom, but as often happens during times like this, my handheld gaming has picked up. Mainly because I'm never home and it's my only option, but also because there's very little I love more than my Nintendo 3DS.

   This week I finished off Legend of Zelda: Link Between Worlds, and started up Pokemon Y. I must say, Link Between Worlds is without a doubt my absolute favorite of the handheld versions in this series. At first, I was skeptical about the item system, but that weird rabbit fella' really grew on me quickly. I won't spoil anything (although there isn't a lot to spoil), so I'll leave it there. Suffice it to say, that was easily my favorite game to come out in 2013.
   As for Pokemon Y, it's more just because. I've already beaten Pokemon X (I pre-ordered it mere hours after it went up), but I like to collect the games. I haven't been playing competitively this generation, which is weird given how easy it is to EV train, but I haven't been feeling it. Maybe next generation. I qualified for the North American finals with my Black 2, so I guess I'll take a hiatus.
   It's here I'll have to take my leave. I need to finish my dinner and head over for our next performance. Fingers crossed it's a good one!

Tacos.
Gladdstone