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The Perils of Pinspots

At the beginning of the year, Stacy Johnson wrote a piece for Money Talks News entitled "Things Babies Born in 2011 Will Never Know." Among the items he listed on the endangered list were videotape, travel agents, books, magazines, newspapers, movie rental stores, watches, paper maps, wired phones, long distance, newspaper classifieds (my 14-year-old daughter read this and asked me what one was), dial-up Internet, encyclopedias, CDs, film camera, catalogs, fax machines and wires.

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Living on TV Time

Every year, I find myself at some stadium lighting something. If it's not a rock show, it's often the halftime entertainment or pre-game ceremonies of some sporting event. The gigs vary drastically, but the one thing that they all have in common is that it is broadcast on live TV, and you only get one shot to do it right. Plus, it's inevitable that I'm gonna end up gigging with some folks I haven't seen in a long time.

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TSO’s Night Castle: Anything but Silent

When founder Paul O'Neill and tour director Elliot Saltzman first put Trans Siberian Orchestra on the road 11 years ago, the entire production fit in a single truck. Today's TSO holiday shows, which give Christmas-themed orchestral music a heavy metal edge, are visually animated with massive video displays, moving truss, lasers and pyro, and it takes 20 trucks of gear, including one generator truck, to make the East and West Coast shows happen.

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Yapping About Money

There's a small island in the Pacific Ocean called Yap, where very large discs carved out of stone represent a form of currency. Some are six or eight feet across and weigh several thousand pounds. You should see the size of the wallets on Yap.

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Matthew West: The Story of Your Life Tour

Matthew West's Grammy nomination in 2009 was the culmination of several years writing songs and scoring number one hits in the contemporary Christian market and the country scene. Most of his songs reflect his own life experiences, but in 2010 he decided to turn the mic around. He reached out to his fans and asked them to share their life stories. In return, he would write songs that were inspired by those stories.

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Rain: Beatlemania Reborn

Rock operas, jukebox musicals and tribute shows have been bringing the rock to the Great White Way over the last few years, and one of the most striking productions in recent memory is Rain: a Tribute To the Beatles, a tour that has landed on Broadway for a three-month run extended until Jan. 9, 2011.

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