No more Dracula

I like to think that this weekend made up for the Dracula fiasco - yesterday, T and I were able to go see the Trans-Siberean Orchestra play in Albany. We've wanted to go for a while, but we never heard about it early enough to get tickets (they always sell out early!). We lucked out this year, though, and I have to say - it was well worth the trip.

The first half of the show was basically their "Christmas Eve and other stories" CD, beginning to end, but the lights and the personality of their performers made it much more powerful in person. The second half was "new" stuff - classical music that they have re-purposed and will be releasing on their next album sometime in the future.

If you like TSO, their live concerts are fantastic - but be forewarned, their shows are more rock band than orchestra, with lots of pyrotechnics and laser lights. Way fun, though!

To top off the weekend, I got in to work today to find that our reviews (which we turned in way back in August) have finally been processed. That means that I actually got a raise! This is the first one that I have received, that wasn't state mandated, since I started working 11 years ago. Yay!