Category Archives: Staycations At Home

Ideas for things to do in and around the house to enjoy with your family and friends, with money-saving tips. The best staycations are at your doorstep.

Danny Elfman’s Nightmare Performance

Entertainment and Media
Danny Elfman
Danny Elfman Performs Nightmare Before Christmas

 

On October 30, PBS is going to present an amazing show in the series “Live From Lincoln Center”.  It’s “Danny Elfman’s Music From The Films of Tim Burton’.  It’s an 88-piece orchestra playing the music from iconic Tim Burton movies like “Batman”, “Beetlejuice”, and “Edward Scissorhands”.  The presentation is done by showing these amazing movies while the orchestra and choir performs the music live.

For me, the crowning moment in this show is going to be seeing Danny Elfman sing “What’s This?” from the 1992 Disney cult classic, “Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas”.  The movie was made during a short period in the history of the Disney Studios in the mid-1980’s when they were producing movies well outside of their normal family-friendly fare in an effort to expand their audience.  They were making a major effort to revive the Animation Department with films like “The Little Mermaid”, “Aladdin”, “Beauty and the Beast”, and “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” – the last of which was a unique collaboration with other animation studios like Warner Bros. produced by a Disney-owned production company they called “Touchstone Pictures”.  Earlier efforts had resulted in major disappointments, thanks to movies like “The Black Hole”, “Something Wicked This Way Comes”, and “TRON” which all lost millions of dollars. Unfazed and unsatisfied, then-CEO Ron Miller created Touchstone.  The new company’s first film was “Splash” starring Tom Hanks and Darryl Hanna, directed by Ron Howard and it was a huge hit.  It was soon followed by a string to successful light-hearted movies like “Down and Out in Beverly Hills”, “Ruthless People”, and (one of my favorites!) “Tin Men”.

My wife and I were instant fans of “Nightmare Before Christmas” when it was released in theaters.  It was visually stunning with intricate stop-motion animation, it had an outrageously clever script, and it was all done in an operatic style not seen since the heydays of Warner Bros. “What’s Opera, Doc?” and “The Rabbit of Seville”.  Best of all, it had that special characteristic shared by all of the most successful animated films – it was thoroughly enjoyable by both kids and adults.  We kept the soundtrack cassette in the car throughout the 1990’s and would play it over and over again on long trips.  Naturally, we watched the DVD every Halloween, too!

So having the chance to see Danny Elfman perform Jack Skellington’s signature piece live on stage will be a tremendous thrill.  There’s a promotional clip for the program on the PSB website at http://www.pbs.org/arts/pbs-arts-festival/2015/danny-elfmans-music/ and it’s easy to see how the sculptors formed the tall, lanky figure of Jack.  And fans of the TV series “Dharma and Greg” will easily see the family resemblence between Danny and his equally-talented sister Jenna.  So mark this one down on your calendar or set your DVR to record this amazing presentation.  It’s a great staycation treat for the whole family.

Mpls. City Council Approves CenturyLink Prism Cable TV

Staycations At Home
CenturyLink Prism Service
CenturyLink Cable TV in Minneapolis

Today, Minneapolis residents got some very good news when the City Council approved CenturyLink’s application to provide their Prism cable TV service in the city.  According to WCCO-TV’s report, it’s been nearly 40 years since there has been any significant competition for cable television in Minneapolis.  It’s little wonder, since cable TV is such a capital-intensive business that there’s been no incentive for cable providers to compete in most areas.  It’s much easier for them to grow through mergers and acquisitions, which have been rampant over the past 20 years.

Comcast has been a magnet for customer complaints over the past decade, so many people will relish having another option aside from sattelite TV or “cutting the cord” and relying on the Internet and over the air broadcast.  If nothing else, the new CenturyLink service brings with it the likely prospect of lower prices.  The cost of cable TV and broadband Internet service has risen to levels that would have seemed ridiculous in years gone by.  I checked CenturyLink’s website to do some comparison shopping.  Since the service isn’t available here yet, I had to check prices for cities in Wisconsin and Iowa.  Their sign-up page features introductory bundles that require a 2-year commitment, so I didn’t get to check CenturyLink’s standard prices.  But if we were to see the same prices here, it looks like I would save 30% or so to get a similar programming package.  The website didn’t make it clear to me whether or not they charged extra for HD-capable set-top boxes, so we’ll all have to wait and see how they set their prices in Minneapolis.

CenturyLink’s programming packages and channel line-ups are very similar to Comcast’s.  That’s largely due to how the content providers are pricing themselves.  So, for example, if I picked the corresponding package on CenturyLink, the only major channel I care about that I’d lose by switching would be BBC-America.  I was glad to see it when Comcast added it to the low-level service tier I buy, but it’s hardly a deal-breaker.  I’m also a fan of the classic movie and TV channels that Comcast has added recently like MeTV, GetTV, Heroes and Icons, Movies, etc.  But Netflix fills in those gaps well enough if need be.  The upshot is that the two companies’ channel line-ups and programming package tiers are essentially identical.  So you’d be able to replicate your current service without feeling you’d given anything up.

CenturyLink has pledged to provide service to at least 15% of residents.  That limitation was to be expected considering the costs involved, but it should still be enough to get Comcast to adjust their rates for eligible residents to a competitive level.  If we’re lucky, they may feel the need to lower prices city-wide in order to discourage CenturyLink from further investments.

In any case, based on nothing but my intuition, I expect it’s liable to be 18-24 months before CenturyLink actually starts delivering service.  However long it takes, it’s going to be fun to watch!