How’d they hella do that?

Remember Where in the World Is Carmen San Diego?

That show freakin’ rocked, especially the oh-so-cool Rockapella group that sang the theme song (“Well she sneaks around the world from Kiev to Carolina / She’s a sticky-fingered filcher from Berlin down to Belize”). Seriously, how’d they get their voices to do that? As a kid, I thought that music was called Rockapella instead of a cappella. In Northern California, though, it’s called HellaCappella.

Don’t expect to hear versions of “In the Still of the Night” sans instruments by the collegiate groups on Friday at UC Davis. I checked out the Stanford Harmonics’ version of “Soul Meets Body” by Death Cab for Cutie on MySpace—it hella rocks.

So, I Googled a few other groups that’ll perform at the event and found some awesome tracks: UC Davis’ Spokes singing “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz; the UC Santa Cruz group, Cloud 9, singing “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley; and UC Berkeley’s DeCadence singing Ben Fold’s version of “Bitches Ain’t Shit.” Maybe one of the groups will sing “Where in the World Is Carmen San Diego?” for … uh, for the kids.

Speaking of kids, Daniel Handler will be at the Crest Theatre tonight at 7:30 p.m. Name doesn’t ring a bell? How about Lemony Snicket? Yep, Daniel Handler is Lemony Snicket, the author of the children’s book collection A Series of Unfortunate Events. A few years ago I didn’t know much about the books, but my little sister explained everything: “They’re depressing stories about three orphans and a count who keeps trying to kill them for the family fortune. They’re great books.” Hmm, OK: wholesome family fun. I still don’t understand how Handler sold millions of copies of depressing children’s books. Maybe you can ask him.