Le Reve Show Will Go "Dark" in Two Weeks

I just received new that Le Reve, the (unofficial) and my personal favorite Cirque Du Soleil show which is currently running at the Wynn Las Vegas Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, will go "dark" on March 6th for a whole month.

The show will be back in April, April 5th to be precise. There will be a new pricing structure after the relaunch of the show in April. Here is the current and the upcoming pricing structure in comparison.

Pricing until March 6th		starting April 5th
$79 Rows M-O $99 Splash Zone Rows A-C $119 Rows D-L		$99 Rows A-B $119 Rows C-K $159 Row L - VIP INDULGENCE PACKAGE

No $79 ticket anymore. The cheapest ticket is now $20 or 25% more expensive. The highest price ticket will be $40 more than the current high price tickets, but that is a bit misleading. The tickets that are today $119 will remain $119. What's new is the VIP Package.




The VIP Package includes.

• Seating in the Champagne Circle, which is the back row of the theater, that will be completely reconfigured with very generously-scaled, plush, luxurious seats and loads of leg room;
• One bottle of complimentary Perrier Jouet Champagne per couple (or half bottle for individuals) with exclusive bottle service
• Chocolate covered strawberries
• The Wynn will install video monitors in the Champagne Circle which will give a private peak behind the scenes as well as underwater and overhead angles of the action during the show!
• A "Privileged Access" pass for food and beverage outlets at WLV (excluding Tryst). Packageholders will be given a lanyard at will-call which will identify them and will give them line pass and complimentary access to LURE as well as priority access to reservations and/or seating at the dining establishments on property. These passes will be date stamped and valid for day of performance only and will be distributed at the WLV Box Office within 24 hours of show time;

It seems that the package will only be available for a limited time. From April 5th to June 4th. I assume that after June 4th will the prices return to normal and a VIP pass will not be available anymore.



The offical announcement of all this was done by the Wynn Resort and Casino yesterday. Tickets for the April to June Shows will go on sale online any moment now, but there is an alternative option for anybody who does not want to wait until April or later.

You can get a tast of the upcoming VIP package, if you act quickly. Until the end of February are you getting a complimentary champaigne splash with any ticket to the Le Reve show. Only eight more days to go, so act quickly.

Cheers!
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Now Am I Looking For Some Trouble Via A Controversy

Okay, I just posted my nerdy videos. Now I would like to show you some controversial stuff. Kind of conspiracy theory, but not really.

There is no witch hunt for the secret illuminati or something like that. It's disturbing nevertheless.

America Freedom to Fascism (Documentary, 1h 50min) (c)2006
Written and produced by Aaron Russo.

Things you probably did not know about the Federal Reserve, IRS, federal income tax and more. Hey, based on that, am I (and you) not required to pay federal income tax. Well , the IRS might asked for it nicely ar gunpoint if you start to argue with them. "The one with the gun is right", that's my honesy opinion (at the moment hehe).


IMDB Entry | Buy the DVD | Link to Video



The Money Masters (Documentary in two parts)

Documentary about central banking and reserve banking, debt, taxes and their development throughout the modern world. That's odd. No entry in IMDB and no DVD available at Amazon.com. This documentary is older than the "America Freedom to Fascism" one. They sell the DVD at least at their website.

IMDB Entry??? | Website | Buy the DVD | Part 1 (1h 43min) | Part 2 (1h 46min)

Part 1


Part 2


Have fun watching and thinking about it. Cheers,
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Nerdy Videos For Nerds Like Me

I just did a post at ReveNews on Friday where I showed some of my favorite short movies. Most are related to affiliate marketing, one way or another so I thought that ReveNews would be an appropriate place to publish it.

Now the movies I would like to highlight now are nothing for ReveNews. Why?

1) they are too long
2) are for nerds and not marketers

okay, here it comes.

Pirates of the Silicon Valley (Full Movie, 10 Parts) (c)1999

Rein-acted events of parts of the lives of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs about the beginnings of Microsoft and Apple Computers. This movie is done like a mix of featured film and documentary. It was produced for TV. I own the DVD myself. I actually own all Dvds of the videos/movies I highlight in this post.

IMDB Entry | Buy the DVD

Part one embedded. Here are the links to all parts, including the remaining parts 2 to 10.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part X

Triumph of the nerds (Documentary, 3 parts) (c)1984

The history of the Personal Computer. With original footage. Now this is a documentary to 100% and not a "hybrid" like the "Pirates of the Silicon Valley". It's also shorter.

IMDB Entry | Buy the DVD

TRIUMPH OF NERDS: STEVE JOBS & BILL GATES 1 OF 3

Okay, that's part one. Here are the Links to this part at DailyMotion and to the remaining parts 2 and 3.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Updated, because YouTube videos did not work no more.

BBS The Documentary

Unfortunately not the full documentary. It's a 10 minutes teaser/example of the 3 Discs DVD Documentary created by Jason Scott Sadofsky (c)2005.

The 3 DVDs contain actually over 200 interviews. What is this thing about? About Bulletin Board Systems. Not the one in college, but the computer equivalent of it. I used to be a Sysop of a BBS myself. You don't believe me? Have a look here. You can also access the individual episodes and watch them online here at my website.

Site | IMDB Entry | Buy the DVD

Link to Video

That's it. I hope you enjoy them.
Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

How Could I Miss This?

I had my first anniversary 11 days ago on February 3rd, 2006.

Anniversary, huh? Yeah! This might be not so important to you, but it is, or should be (at least) be for me. Gee, if I forget something like this, what about wedding anniversaries one day.

My future wife is going to kill me.

Well, I am safe today, since I am not married. I am single, busy single single = no girl friend. No valentines day gifts to forget. Yeah, it's today, Valentines Day. You forgot that? I guess you have a wife, fiancé or other long term relationship. You would have remembered otherwise hehe.

Okay, now jokes aside. Ten days ago was my 1st Blogger anniversary.

That's right, One year and ten days ago did I setup my first blog and posted my first blog entry, EVER!

The first blog was this one and it started out as a blog on the blogger.com domain. It moved on the same month to Cumbrowski.com/RoySAC/Blog and in August 2006 to it current location at RoySAC.com/blog.

The Blog got temporarily "hijacked", metaphorical speaking, during the summer last year, when a business issue made me "abuse" my private art related blog (in a broader sense) to discuss issues that are as far off topic as a pork chops recipe on a Islamic or Jewish orthodox blog (conservative and reformed too for that matter, but that's not the point).

I got it back in July and moved my business related blogging to ReveNews.com, a blog dedicated to Internet Marketing and Affiliate Marketing in particular.

I also maintained the ConsumerMatch.com blog until August 2006. Conna Craig took over there for me in October, because I simply did not have the time for it anymore. I might blog there again in the future. Once in a while. May be. We will see.

My business blogging also brought me to SearchEngineJournal.com, which is a blog related to Search Engine Marketing. How all this happened was posted (dah!) at the beginning of this year at my ReveNews blog.

I don't have a precise count, but I posted over 150 entries at the various blogs and I exclude posts at "blogs" like my deviantART Journal, the ReturnOnAffiliate Blog (site does not exist anymore), MySpace and other places.

I don't have to crunch any numbers to know that the graph that shows my frequency of posting at a blog looks like the graph every company loves to see when they review the development of the companies EBIT of the previous months.

I am looking forward to another year of blogging and have to say that it gave me great joy and the opportunity to get in touch with people I wouldn't have connected with, without blogging and the rest that goes along with it.

If you don't have a blog yet and think about starting one, beware, blogging has a tendency not proven by medical studies yet.

It is "addictive"!

Anybody with a blog who caught himself writing a post for the blog in his head while doing something else that is supposed to get 100% attention (and screws it up, because of it), knows what I mean hehe.

Cheers!
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Note: I have not made any New Year's resolutions, but may be this one could be called one: I hope to find Bloggers that have a blog like this one, related to ANSI and ASCII Text art, Demoscene and related topics (in a broader sense). So far was I not able to find anything that comes even remotely close. :(

Keyboard Text Art From Over Twenty Years Before ASCII

The Modern Merchanix Blog published in March, April and July 2006 three remarkable examples of nineteen thritees and fourties typewriter art, also known as keyboard art.

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The artwork was found in various preserved issues of the magazine "Popular Science" from 1939 and 1948. The Popular Science Magazine is still publishing today. They also have a website with a lot of (current ;)) content online. Visit the Popular Science Magazine Website.

The art was created by the artists on classic mechanical typewriter machines. "Personal" Computers did not exist at that time yet, the term computer was not coined yet either and the ASCII standard was still 20-30 years away in the future.

The following example is from 1939. One year earlier in 1938 did Germany’s Konrad Zuse finish the Z1, one of the first binary digital computers and a machine that could be controlled through a punch tape. The project started in 1936 and the Z1 is considered by many the "first computer" and Konrad Zuse the "Inventor of the modern Computer".

Source: Popular Science Magazine,
Issue: 6-1939

Typewriter Artist Produces Pictures Like Tapestry
by Rosaire J. Belanger


Pictures that resemble tapestry are produced with a typewriter by Rosaire J. Belanger, a mill worker in Saco, Me. Belanger first draws a pencil sketch on a sheet of paper, then inserts it in his typewriter and fills in the sketch with various characters to produce shading and outlines. With carbon paper, he transfers the picture onto graph paper, and copies it on blank paper.

Picture Description
George Washington, as pictured with a type-writer by Rosaire J. Belanger. At the left, the artist at the keyboard.




The following two examples are from 1948.
1948 is the same year when IBM built the SSEC (Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator). The IBM computer behemoth contained 12,000 tubes.


Source: Popular Science Magazine,
Issue: 7-1948

Typewritten Flag
by Menno Fast


Anyone can draw an accurate picture of the American flag on a typewriter, according to Menno Fast, a relief worker in Poland.

Fast read a recent Popular Mechanics article on drawing pictures with a typewriter.

He submits a drawing of the flag as proof that it can be made on an ordinary typewriter using standard spacing.

The flag, with a full 13 stripes and 48 stars, appears to be rippling in the wind.





Source: Popular Science Magazine,
Issue: 10-1948

KEYBOARD ART
By Paul Hadley


WHILE purely entertaining, doodling with a typewriter gives vent to the imagination and originality of both the experienced and the hunt-and-peck typist.

Fill-in pictures are the easiest to “draw” with a typewriter. An example is shown in the flower which is made with the letter X alone.

Such pictures, whether a flower or a portrait, are made by using an outline of the subject as a typing guide.

This is done by tracing the outline lightly on paper and backing it with carbon paper to type the picture.

Caricature or cartoon “drawing” combines letters with symbols as shown in the examples below.

Here, half-spacing of the typewriter is required, as in the case of the owl’s beak and feet.

The log cabin shows what can be done in drawing a picture in perspective.

Resources to Computer History

• The History of Computers - A Computer History Timeline at About.com.


• COMPUTER HISTORY - History from B.C. to today by Computer Hope.

Resources to Text Art History

• The History of ASCII (Text) Art by Joan G. Stark


• ASCII art at Wikipedia Encyclopedia


• 100 YEARS OF THE COMPUTER ART SCENE - Transcript (text), presented by Jason Scott and RaD Man (ACiD), Notacon Conference - Cleveland, Ohio, USA, April 23-25th, 2004

I hope you enjoyed the little trip back in time.

Back to ASCII Art Academy

Cheers!
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Cirque Du Soleil Goes Super Bowl with LOVE

I knew about the Pregame show of Cirque Du Soleil for the XLI Super Bowl on February, 4th 2007 between the Chicago Bears and the Indianapolis Colts in Miami Florida, but somehow managed to miss it anyway.

I am German and not a fan of american Football so I did not really care for the game. I was occupied with other things and before I knew it was it too late. Darn.

God bless the Internet. I was able to find a video of the Show and would like to share it with you.

Here it is. Enjoy.



While I was digging for the video of the Super Bowl pregame show, did I stumble across the Gala Video of the Cirque Du Soleil production "The Beatles™ LOVE" which is currently running at the MGM Mirage Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

LOVE is one of the two shows of the Cirque, which I have not seen yet. The Second one is Zumanity. While Zumanity breaks new grounds for the Cirque in regards to Sex and Erotic, does LOVE break new ground or is it old ground? Well the "mushroom heads" were popular in the sixteens when there was no Cirque.

Well, the following Video gives you a glimpse of the show and it's style.

It seems to be a great show for old school fans of Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Star as well as for new school Cirque Du Soleil fans like me. Enjoy the teaser.



Cheers!
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

History of Text Art Video by RaD Man / ACiD

I "messed around" with the Wikipedia article to ASCII art today. Okay, I did not mess with it, but rather cleaned it up and extended it a bit.

This was triggered by a video of a friend of mine who is a well known figure in the underground text art scene with the name Christian Wirth.

Back to ASCII Art Academy

Okay, he is not known by that name, but by his scene "Handle" which is RaD Man. RaD Man was a senior member of the art group Aces of ANSI art in 1989, which is the first known underground text art group on the PC and founded a year after, in 1990, the probably best known and respected ANSI art group with the name ACiD. ACiD stands for ANSI Creators in Demand.

RaD Man was in Finland a couple years ago at the Assembly Demo party and was doing a presentation about the History of Text art.

The presentation is about 1 hour long and covers the early forms of text art starting at the ancient Rome, to Typewriter art, Radio Teletype or RTTY, Atari ATASCII art and C-64 PETSCII art to Amiga 500+ Oldskool art and PC Block or High ASCII art and Newskool. The climax is the presentation of some impressive Textmode demos that are of relative young age (2002 and later).

You can get the video, gigabytes of Text art and related material such as Tools and Editors, DiscMags and Source Code on DVD.

RaD Man published his extensive collection.

The DVD is called "Dark Domain" and you can order it directly from here.

It is only $12.99 plus $4.55 (US) - $9.55 (International) shipping. Quite a bargin considering the amount of content on it.

Here is the full video for free. I still recommend getting the DVD, because the Video is only a very small part of the DVD (which are actually 2 DVDs). To get your head around how much content it is, visit the Art Scene Text Files Archive and look for yourself how much stuff is out there.

There were some glitches during the presentation, but RaD Man is not a professional presenter. So, be a bit forgiving. Great stuff though and worth showing to other folks that are interested in this kind of stuff.

Enjoy the Video! (Backup URL to Video)

Presentation full credits and details.

The ASSEMBLY 2004 demoparty was held at Hartwall Areena in Helsinki, Finland from 5th to 8th of August 2004. The presentation was part of the ASSEMBLY '04 ARTtech seminars.

Presenter: Christian Wirth
Presentation Title: "The Art of Textmode"
Organization: ACID
Position: Founder and President
Homepage: http://www.acid.org
Dark Domain DVD: http://www.darkdomain.org (released 2004)
Email: radman@acid.org
Scene alias: Rad Man




Christian Wirth during an interview by Jason Scott (textfiles.com) for the BBS Documentary film DVD











Back to ASCII Art Academy

Cheers!
Carsten aka Roy/SAC