Happy New Year!

(Or, for our atheists friends: Happy New Year!)

Did everyone have fun last night? Good, good; glad to hear it.

Other Eric and I went to "A Night in Paris" at the Disney Concert Hall (beautiful Frank Gehry building; very cramped seats). Belinda Carlisle and Rufus Wainwright were performing. Nothing says "New Year's Eve" like Belinda Carlisle singing Edith Piaf.

Other Eric had his usual response to hearing Belinda live: "She was better than I was expecting."

She was singing music off her French Album, "Voila."

Other Eric: "You know why that sounded better than the album?"

Me: "Because it couldn't have sounded worse?"

Other Eric: "No. Because her voice blended in better with the live band."

Sorry; I really like her voice when she's singing pop songs but I just don't think she can sing other types of music. Other Eric enjoyed it.

Rufus Wainwright, on the other hand, was amazing! I loved his earlier albums but I've never heard him live. My goodness, what a talent! Not only is he a talented composer and songwriter, but he also has an incredible voice and he is so entertaining with his banter between songs. I had thought some of his recent projects seemed a little self-indulgent but now I think I could actually sit through him doing an entire Judy Garland concert.

So, we rang in the new year with Belinda and Rufus and it was fun!

Now for my semi-annual bitching about the public transportation system in Los Angeles:

We decided to take the subway downtown so we wouldn't have to drive with all the drunks. But, of course, like most cities, the trains usually stop running shortly after midnight so that people can't use them to get home after a night of drinking. I've never understood that. Anyway, we thought the trains were probably running later on New Year's Eve but we couldn't find any information about it anywhere. You would think that would be something you could find on the MTA website. But I guess if the MTA actually provided information about taking public transportation, people might actually take it and that, apparently, is not what they want. So, after searching the Internet, we finally found a news article mentioning that the trains would be running all night and it also mentioned that it would be free from 9 to 2, something else not mentioned on the MTA site. Even at the subway station there was no information about the trains running all night or about them being free. We decided to risk it and not buy tickets (there are no turnstiles in Los Angeles so we just had to guess that the information we found was correct).

Wow, that was an interesting train ride! The people last night were even weirder than usual. It was kind of fun except that it was so crowded and drunk people were falling all over the place (and there was an old woman who might have been dead, riding around in that seat for days).

Oh, my other complaint of the weekend is that I couldn't put up my review on Tripadvisor.com. I wasted an hour writing and rewriting a review and it kept telling me to enter my password even though I was already logged in. So annoying!

So, my review was going to be of our hotel in Palm Springs, where we had gone for a quick Saturday night stay over. We just went for one night in order to go shopping at the vintage shops and the outlet mall in Cabazon. We still need a few things for the house but we didn't find anything. The stores in Palm Springs used to be much better than they are now. We just didn't find anything we liked. And the two outlet stores I wanted to go to in Cabazon are not there anymore: Club Monaco and the bed and bath store. I just painted my bathroom orange and I needed to buy new towels and a shower curtain. So the whole shopping trip was a bust.

We stayed at hotel Zoso, which bills itself as a four-star resort with the swimming pool but, in fact, it is a four-star hotel with a dipping pool. some day soon it's supposed to be getting a spa but, until then, I don't think it's a resort. Charging a "resort fee" doesn't magically make it a resort.

I got a really good deal on Hotwire so I didn't know what hotel I was getting before I booked, except that I was guaranteed a four-star resort with a swimming pool. I did want to go swimming so I was a little disappointed in the tiny four-foot deep dipping pool. But the water was nice and I had it mostly to myself since the weather was cold so it was OK.

The hotel itself is very nice; the rooms are beautiful and big and the staff are friendly. The location is excellent; you can walk across the street to the downtown village area (oh, there is a yogurt shop called Cactusberry, that is a total rip-off of Pinkberry except that they use Trix as a topping instead of Fruity Pebbles!). So I recommend it as a nice hotel but not if you want a resort.

So, there's my New Year's Day report. My resolution for the new year is to complain more and I think I'm off to a good start!

Have a great 2008! (Hey, that rhymes!)

Dancing with the Stars: Pet Shop Boys at the Wiltern.

OK, So we are watching Dancing With the Stars on Tuesday (I'm actually in the kitchen but Other Eric calls me in whenever Mario starts dancing) and Tom Bergeron announces that the Pet Shop Boys will be performing the next night.

"Wait a minute; they are supposed to be at the Wiltern at 8:00. Check the tickets."

Well, of course they must film the show at 5:00 here in Los Angeles so it can play live on the east coast so they have plenty of time to get across town.

The concert was great! a couple of songs I think are boring, but mostly fun, high energy stuff. Unfortunately the people in the balcony, where we were, sat through the whole first half of the show. I stood up at first but then I felt conspicuous. The second half was much more fun, with most of the balcony up and dancing. There was one person dancing through the whole show. And the entire intermission! it was the middle-aged guy next to me, who apparently thought he was on Dancing with the Stars: he was totally rocking out and spinning and dipping his wife, oblivious to the fact that there were other people around him. I'm glad he was having fun but we eventually had to move because I was afraid he was going to hit me in the face.

Anyway, I think they should have opened with the Sodom and Gomorrah Show but it ended perfectly with Go West!