Start spreading the news: New York here I come!

Last night was Sweet 'n' Hot's final performance at the fabulous Silver Screen Christmas event, and boy what a great experience it was being in the show. Kim the bubbly MC and event organiser always chirped "It's the stars of our show!!" every night when we turned up backstage, which was quite lovely! Everyone working on the show was awesome, and we met a bunch of great folks who, hopefully, we'll be able to work with again in the future.

The event went stupendously well and we were really pleased with our performances, and received tons of great feedback from the audiences and staff - we really couldn't have asked for it to have gone any better. A nice way to finish off the year.

So today was spent packing, packing, packing and tomorrow morning we're off to New York City for the Christmas and New Year's holidays.

Sadly due to the terrible NZ/US exchange rate I've severely capped my shopping budget, and will be on the lookout for the PERFECT dress and PERFECT pair of shoes as I'll probably only be allowed one of each. Let the hunt begin!

But really we're going to New York to experience things, not to buy things, and we've got a huge list of activities lined up (shows! shows! shows! dancing! dancing! dancing!) that I'll try to put up some posts about while we're stateside.

I'll post again once we're in the Big Apple and have found internet connectivity. We're bringing a laptop with us so hopefully that should make life easier.

Merry Xmas to me: Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers DVD box set (aka "Yes, I caved and ordered it!")

So even though I'm spending a huge chunk of cash to fly from NZ to New York City for Christmas and the New Zealand dollar is at a 6 year low against the greenback, I still caved in and ordered the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers DVD box set from Amazon as a 'Christmas gift to self'.

It was just too good to pass up, even with the crappy exchange rate - I'm still getting 10 movies for less than NZ$100, which is a bargain in anyone's book.

Interestingly, I ordered it from Amazon a couple weeks ago (it's already sitting in my sister's apartment in Manhattan waiting for me!), but it appears that Amazon isn't selling it directly any more as I checked Amazon today to discover that it's only available through affiliated 3rd party sellers.

As a vintage poster collector, I was excited to learn that the box set came with 4 full-sized Fred Astaire reproduction movie posters, and indeed the page listing on Amazon has a photograph of said posters and they looked fantastic! Sadly though, my sister has reported that when the box set arrived it came with a mail-in voucher for the posters that were part of a special offer that expired a year ago. So no posters for me. You can't even get full-sized posters of Swing Time or Shall We Dance from allposters.com. Feh!

The glorious full-sized movie posters that are not to be mine. *sigh*
If anyone out there has spare copies feel free to drop me an email...

But the good news is that I've got 3 weeks of holiday time in New York and a box set of Fred & Ginger waiting for me there which means the Fred Astaire Filmography Challenge can continue while I'm stateside. Stay tuned for reviews of more Fred & Ginger movies, plus reviews of NYC attractions including South Pacific the musical (Bali haiiiiiiii!!) and the Swingers and Flappers ball.