Xmarks (originally Foxmarks) was a cross-browser bookmark sync service that I used for a long time to keep Chrome, Firefox, IE, and Safari on multiple computers using the same set of bookmarks. It almost shut down in 2010, but LastPass bought it and moved to a freemium model, which they kept running until May 1, 2018. By then it had been flaky for a while:
Anytime I came back to a system without using it for a while, it would have trouble syncing and have to re-download everything.
Sometimes it would get confused by the different folder layouts.
After Firefox dropped their old extension API, the new extension never worked well with my scheme that drops all cookies when I close the browser except those on sites I want to stay logged into.
These days I use Floccus to sync bookmarks across browsers, which has the added bonus that I get to choose my own storage.
The cold-war musical Chess works surprisingly well set in the present day.
UCI Drama’s production is a concert staging of the show, with the orchestra and choir onstage, and the actors carrying handheld microphones with minimal props. It works well, especially for the more 80s-pop numbers like “Nobody’s Side” and the big ensemble songs like “Merano” and the chess games, though it gets a little awkward when the characters are singing to each other with microphones. (The show features two competing styles of music, achingly 80s and classical musical theater.)
The show’s structure is fluid, with vast differences between the original London and Broadway versions and later productions, and just about every version tweaking the story and moving songs around. This version largely follows the London stage version, with a few key changes:
It’s set in the present day. This updates the USSR to Russia and drops the CIA vs KGB elements of the background game played between Walter and Molokov. Florence is the daughter of Hungarian refugees, rather than a former child refugee herself (Budapest 1956 is the only fixed date in the story.) The political stakes may be a bit lower, but the personal stakes work just as well.
Several roles have been recast as women, including Molokova and the arbiter, which makes the show even more “alto-licious” (as Katie puts it).
The second act drops a lot of the connections between songs (it is done as a concert, after all), which means you don’t see the breakdown of Anatoly’s and Florence’s relationship, or Anatoly cracking under the pressure, until he finds his “one true obligation.” You get the before and after but not the process.
The performances were all solid, with Molokova in particular as a standout.
I’m still not sure how well “Someone Else’s Story” works for Svetlana, but that ship has sailed. And “One Night In Bangkok,” despite being instantly recognizable to anyone who lived through the 80s, is cringe-worthy now. For this production they downplay the stereotyping by playing up the fact that it’s seen through the perspective of a total lout (Freddie). It’s still cringe-worthy, but at least it’s a character statement rather than a narrative one.
Great performances from the leads. Belle was a little more brassy than I’m used to, but it worked. The scenes with her and Maurice at the beginning had a nice geeky-family-hanging-out feel to them. Gaston’s performance actually reminded me a lot of Captain Hammer.
It was interesting to see how they worked around the lack of an understudy for Lumiere. They said he (and the actor playing Chip) had been delayed by a car accident, which may have been one he was involved in, or may have been the multi-car fatal collision and fire that shut down the 5 freeway for the whole day. They pulled an actor from the ensemble who had never rehearsed the part, and while he knew a lot of it, they still had to work around things like the dance steps in “Be Our Guest.” (Belle stepped in and offered to lead.) The regular actor made it there before act two and stepped back into the role.
Incidentally: Chip is a thankless part. You have to sit inside a cart wearing a giant teacup on your head the entire time you’re on stage. Though I’m impressed at what it takes to play Mrs. Potts: You need to hold one arm up the entire time (or else wear a very unbalanced costume on your shoulder, which I can imagine messing up your back), and push that cart around one-handed, with choreography. I hope directors/costumers are willing to adapt the costume for the actress’ dominant hand.
Anyway, it was a good production, and an interesting live-theater snafu. Sadly, I was the only one flu-less enough to go, and it was the last weekend of a short run. One of these days!
It never occurred to me in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast that Belle was giving up her dreams of adventure in the great wide somewhere to be with the Prince Formerly Known as Beast. She gives them up at the beginning of the story to save her father, but by the end, what’s she done?
Joined a society of transformed humans in an enchanted castle.
Fought wolves in a snowstorm.
Held her own against a ferocious Beast and changed him.
Saved her father’s life and freedom, and the life of the Beast.
Escaped that poor provincial town (and that boorish, brainless Gaston)
She’s had a big adventure…and now that the prince is human again and she’s cast her lot in with him, she has the resources and freedom to have more.
That’s why I can’t stand “A Change in Me,” the song that was added to the stage musical a few years in. It takes a criticism that I always thought was unfair — that she’s OK with giving up her dreams to be with a guy — and makes it canon.
Doma Kitchen started serving eastern European food in a tiny converted house with only outdoor seating on a small, triangle-shaped lot in Redondo Beach across one street from Whole Foods and Rite-Aid and the other from a psychic reader. They closed to look for a new location – I forget whether the owner of the lot had already decided to redevelop it or if they just wanted more space – and did the occasional pop-up event in the meantime.
It was great. The lamb stroganoff and kasha with bratwurst were both different takes from what you usually find and very good. There’s a good variety on the kids’ menu too.
The look of the place is a lot different from the old Redondo Beach location. It’s more trendy than homey, but that goes along with the bigger kitchen and menu, so it’s hard to complain. (It’s also a lot quieter when dining outside than it was when they were right next to a major street.)
It wasn’t long before the mall decided to raze the building and put in a parking structure. They moved to Marina Del Rey in 2017, opening in a strip mall connected to a grocery store. I can’t remember if I ever got around to visiting that location, though I used to visit a Japanese restaurant in the same strip mall with coworkers from time to time. Sadly, it closed permanently on the last day of 2019.
