This has gotta be the most unusual birthday cake that I've seen and the most extravagant birthday party that I've been to! There was plenty of food, drinks, dancing to a live band and mingling among 300 people on two floors of the historic Harold Pratt House.

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Click here for the videos of dance routines from the second season of the show Dancing With The Stars and vote for favorite couple. That page is also available via a short url dwts.info.

For the first half of our New Year's Eve celebration James, Joanna and I went to NYUSABDA party held at Ballroom On 5th. The party had a buffet dinner so Joanna and I got there right after 8 PM, which is the starting time of the party, to make sure we get enough fresh food. The food was OK, but there were not enough tables for everyone to sit at. Many people had to just put a paper plate on their lap. I did make sure we got a table though by saving the seats while Joanna was changing. The lack of tables made up for some great space for dancing. The party was quite heavily attended by people of all ages - from 20-something college kids to seniors. The highlight of the evening (besides the midnight champagne toast) was a performance by US amateur Standard and UK Open finalists Craig Shaw and Katya Afanaseva. The performed a Waltz, Foxtrot and Tango. Here are some photos from the party.

After the party ended at 1AM, Joanna and I were ready to head home after exhaustive dancing. But James insisted that on New Year's Eve everyone should stay out as late as possible, so we went to a house party that our friend Yan had invited us. Getting a cab at that time was impossible so we walked from 32nd street all the way down to the Village. This was the same party Yan and I went to last year. When we got to the party, it was grooving with some nice club music - a good alternative to all the ballroom stuff we were dancing to so far. My friend Natalia was there as well as Christina who I met at this party last year. We did not stay at the party for too long because Natalia had organized a move to another place - the Italian New Year's Eve Party "Made In Italy" at club Sol. The move there was again hindered by the lack of cabs on the street and trying to organize a big group of people to go there. Joanna gave up on further partying and took the subway home. James, Yan, Natalia, Christina, Jenny carried on. After giving up on the cabs we took the subway to 28th street and then were lucky enough to get the cabs to the club.

There was a relatively small line outside and I am not sure what were the rules of who is going in first... They insisted on checking the IDs and our friend Christina had to drop out since she did not have an ID with her. She went to some other party around the corner though. So James, Yan, Natalia, Jenny and I made it inside the entrance. At that point there were more bouncers telling us to pay the cover. Natalia and Jenny were able to squeeze in without paying. Yan and I paid, but James decided not to go in, so we said goodbye to him and entered the club.

The club was very cool. It was one giant room with a bar in front followed by a dancefloor with a raised stage for those who want to show off or have a better vantage point to find their friends. On the perimeter were couches with small tables to put drinks on. The club had a winter theme to it with big snow flakes hanging from the ceiling, a polar bear and the snow made out of cotton web. The crowd was very festive and nice looking. The music was very good - no hip hop, just pure house and techno - I love being at a European party. At around 4 AM there was more room and Yan and I did some nice improvised creative partner dancing utilizing the open space. We stayed at the club until almost 5 AM. Here are all photos from the club.

With money you can buy a house, but not a home.

With money you can buy a clock, but not time.

With money you can buy a bed, but not sleep.

With money you can buy a book, but not knowledge.

With money you can buy a doctor, but not health.

With money you can buy a position, but not respect.

With money you can buy blood, but not life.

With money you can buy pleasure, but not happiness.

With money you can buy an acquittal, but not forgiveness.

With money you can buy sex, but not love.

Today Joanna and I saw The Nutcracker performed by New York City Ballet. Several weeks ago we saw a parody called Nutcracked at Joe's Pub. After seeing that, it was great to see the original ballet to give it justice. It was amazing how many kids were part of the cast! Surprisingly there was no story mentioned in the Playbill. The story with the appropriate photos from the performance can be found here.

More info in my Dance Blog.

Today we had yet another spacious party at Tim's place organized by Sue. This was one of the longest parties I've been to! It was going from 4 PM until about 1:30 AM - that's more than 9 hours! It was a pot-luck dinner where everyone brought something to eat and as usual there was more than plenty of food for everybody. Instead of bringing food, I brought entertainment with my karaoke system which turned out to be quite a success. People were singing on and on starting from Christmas Carols going into regular songs. Joanna really impressed me with her singing that night. She really let her self go! And she did a great job being a DJ queuing up great songs for everybody to sing.

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To get into Christmas spirit, Joanna and I went to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine for some Carols singing at an event they called "A Festival of Lessons and Carols". The event started at 4 PM, but we got there closer to 5. Only two thirds of the enormous cathedral was open to the public. The high alter area was closed for renovations. The clergy was positioned in front of a giant blue wall separating the area under construction.

We were handed the program with the sheet music and the words of Christmas carols as well as the words that the preacher was saying and what the people are supposed to be saying. Singing Carols was kinda weird with the huge amount of echo in the cathedral. When I tried singing I could only hear my voice since no one around me was singing (loud enough). I felt that I was doing a solo. So it's better to leave it up to the choir in front who I think had microphones next to them and sounded very nice thought the cathedral.

At the end of the ceremony was something that I have not seen in a church before. They brought out 3 giant puppets - first was an Angel, followed by the Virgin Mary carrying baby Jesus. I am not sure who the third puppet was supposed to represent. He looked like Jesus, but then how could he be following his mother carrying him as a baby? They proceeded up the center isle to the exit of the cathedral and stayed there until the end of the event. As people were leaving the kids got a chance to get blessed by the angel extending his giant arms towards them.

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We spent Christmas Eve at my place exchanging gifts under the Christmas Tree and watching the movie It's A Wonderful Life.

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Today Joanna and I went all the way to the North Pole to visit Santa. We took the train from Penn Station to Santa Land. The train passed by several towns. Then we walked through enchanged forests and almost got lost there. We were very relieved when we saw this sign.

All Photos

More info in my dance blog.

40 minutes - that's how long it took me to walk from 52nd Street to Houston Street on my commute to work this morning due to the New York City transit strike. When I take the subway, it take me only half this time. I did walk quite fast through the red lights and passing in front of the moving cars. So walking may not be as bad of an alternative to mass transit given the fact that I also get some exercise.

Today James, Joanna, Julia (wow 3 J's) and I went to see Trans-Siberian Orchestra in concert held at the Madison Square Garden. I've been to it once before, but that was in the Theatre, which seats around 5000 people. This was my first time going to an event held at the arena which is an enormous space capable of seating 18200 people!

The concert lasted for about 3 hours and it was awesome. The band consisted of several guitar players, keyboard players, obviously a drummer, and believing or not... a string section. I have to say though that I could hardly hear any violins which were overpowered by the roaring guitars, but I guess it did a good justification to the band's name. The were several vocalists with voices ranging from hoarse hard rock grunge, to Broadway musical, to opera. The music was very diverse. The program featured many rock renditions of classical pieces by Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and other classical composers as well as arrangements of several Christmas carols. Of course there were also original compositions too. Joan Jett (two more J's!) made a surprise guest appearance singing her hit I Love Rock And Roll.

What made the concert really stand out were the awesome light effects produced by spot lights, strobe lights, lasers and fireworks - all synchronized to the music. This was the first concert at which the audience was asked to turn on their cell phones at one point. This was to make us participate in the light effects show by having thousands of cell phones glow in the dark. It was a very cool effect and it made me see how many people have cell phones these days - a lot!

The video is the best way to describe the concert: I recorded the video with my Casio Z750 and edited with Ulead Video Studio 9.

Concert Photos

Related Links Trans-Siberian Orchestra official website Samples of Light Effects of a TSO concert Trans-Siberian Orchestra Yahoo Group Unofficial TSO Fan Site Madison Square Garden Wikipedia Page

Margaret's and Zia's Birthday Party at Raga featured numerous cupcakes. I was ready to turn it into a karaoke party by plugging my laptop to the sound system in the privately reserved room downstairs, but unfortunately I got a call from my job to resolve an issue with the upcoming release of our software and had to head back home. What a bummer. Anyway, Happy Birthday, lovelies. Will sing later...

If you want to practice your French, you should come to the Jeunes Francophiles coctail gatherings held at Maxime Lounge in Hotel Stanford. The gatherings are held quaterly usually on a Wednesday. The event is free and the atmosphere is very friendly. Most people who come to the meetings are either French or know how to speak French. The conversations are mostly in French, but when people like me come to the event, the conversation in my group has to be in English since I don't know French. After the coctails, people usually go to a nearby Korean restaurant for dinner.

It's a Quadrille Ball tradition to have a special Christmas after-rehearsal party every year. This time it was held at the Hungarian House. The rehearsal also took place there. After the reherasal we had hot buffet followed by Santa reading the traditional funny poem featuring some of the upcoming ball dancers and Junior Committee members. Santa this year was impersonated by Alan F. This was his first time doing this and I think he did not know how to handle the huge beard. It totally covered his mouth and ended up muffing the sound. It was quite tough to hear what he was saying. After the poem the traditional award presentation to the upcoming ball dancers took place. This year the guys of the Junior Committee were serenading to Jill who has gotten engaged and therefore "lost that loving feeling" for the Quadrille and is leaving the Junior Committee. Here is the video: The remainder of the night I spent dancing with Agnieszka and Natalie to the sounds of a live band.

Details in my dance blog