Karaoke and failure (surprisingly unrelated)

Since that last post, I'm worried I've begun something of a Book of Mormon lottery addiction. On Friday, because the evening performance is an hour later than on normal weekdays and thus I can make it to the lottery without leaving work early--I headed over there yet again. After another unfortunate failure (which actually ended up fine because the backup plan was to see The Artist, which was really enjoyable--definitely recommended), we headed back over there for the Saturday matinee lottery. Another loss. Interestingly, my fascination with the lottery seems to be contagious (although I can't really take credit for that, as who wouldn't want to win front row center tickets valued at close to $500 and unavailable at those prices for 6 months for $32 and a half hour of time?) because while waiting for the Saturday lottery, I ran into a friend and previous lotto compatriot with her family also happy to join the lotto hoards. They didn't win either, which is a shame because her family came all the way from Canada and thus chasing this particular dragon will be a lot harder for them.

I'm not really concerned that it's a serious addiction, although I do plan to keep going back once a week where possible. (I likely would have tried for the evening show today if my boyfriend hadn't pointed out that laundry should probably take precedence). It will really only be an intervention-requiring issue when (not if) I actually win tickets and still can't stop the quiet twitch when 5:00 on Friday rolls around and I'm not heading to 49th and Broadway before happy hour. Until then, I'm counting on luck too prevail--which is a shame because it has only recently come to my attention that I might not be especially lucky. For some reason, I've always sort of thought I was, but racking my brain, the only clear memories I have of winning anything (well, anything that was completely luck) is a cookie at someone's birthday party at a roller rink when I was 7 and $50 from my school's prom committee at our after-prom extravaganza. For lack of luck, I will just have to make do with dogged perseverance. This isn't about the show anymore, this is about winning.

But anyway, unrelated to my total failure at achieving Book of Mormon tickets through the lottery--other than the fact that this is the reason I didn't try for the evening lottery on Saturday night--I celebrated my birthday this weekend with some wonderful friends. My birthday is technically tomorrow, but I figured people don't generally party it up on Monday nights. We got some Indian food and then headed to Korea Town for some karaoke. I'd never been to this particular karaoke bar, but I would go back just for the videos. They left us in the room with a complicated remote and few instructions as choosing songs was largely self-explanatory. About halfway through our time though, my friend found you could switch the back-up videos to odd little dumbshows that had no relation to the songs. There was one of a girl running in a wedding dress while her, presumed boyfriend falls off his bicycle and seemingly succumbs to his injuries, causing the girl in the wedding dress to jump off a bridge leaving only her shoes behind. The weird thing is, while I was able to piece this together as the prevailing narrative, these scenes were shown in indiscriminate order. There was another one of chubby children playing with a bear cub and another of people making out, interspersed with shots of different people (I think) doing karate. My personal favorite story (which, if I remember correctly, was set to Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline") involved a college student moving to some school in rural China that only had three students and winning them over with soccer. He also falls in love with their winsome teacher when they both reach for a nail on the classroom floor at the same time. It's worthy of Nicolas Sparks.

This post needed a photo. Specifically of Dinah.

You may wonder why I am recording all of this, in a post which at this point is quite clearly just a random smattering of recent events with no attempt at structure or relevance. The only reason is for posterity. Yep, playing the birthday card.