Yummy

So these days I've been trying every singaporean/malaysian restaurants that I can think of. So I tried Coconut Grove, a singapore/malaysia/thai diner at Great Mall, with andrew, he had nasi lemak, i had chicken rice which is better than Shiok's but I wouldn't call it chicken rice. There's another s'pore/malaysia restaurant somewhere around san jose-milpitas call Banana Leaf. What's up with all these fruit names??? There's another one at Milpitas Square call Penang Garden. But my favorites are still Layang Layang and Shiok, but the chicken rice at Shiok is not chicken rice at all. Merlion, the Singapore fusion bar-restaurant opposite of cupertino square is too expensive and the food is...er...not worth it. I had char kuey teow and it sucked. It's more for high class drinking. I like the hokkien mee at Shiok, and planning to try their chili and pepper crab.

I've been writing papers these days. Mentally straining. I did them last minute so my heartbeat went faster too. Helped my friends with their filming last Saturday. I'm also having ideas for a simple short. I want to develop a serial character and make many series of shorts based on him/her, like what Bill is doing with el gato diablo (devil cat). I have some character ideas that I'm developing..

Watched the pink panther on wednesday. Er...it can't fill in for the classic pink panther with Peter Sellers. But still...not too bad.

Slumdog Millionaire won the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) award for Best Picture (best movie). The awards is British equivalent to the American Academy Awards (Oscars). Danny Boyle also won best director. That leaves Slumdog to be the overwhelming favorites to win Best Picture at the oscars, since they won best picture or it's equivalent at every other major awards that I can think of. Heath Ledger is also winning best supporting actor at every awards.

15 Steps and Twilight

I'm surprised that 15 Steps was on the end credits of the movie Twilight. I mean...a radiohead song in a teen flick? I was even more surprised that Twilight fans like the song, and Radiohead earned new fans who are most probably into pop/rock or straight forward hard rock. In my mind Twilight fans and Radiohead just do not match. It's good that they do know how to enjoy "weird music". Here's a link for 15 Steps with Twilight scenes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIE9U5nPzB0

Sir Paul McCartney of The Beatles said that he likes radiohead a lot. You have good taste Paulie.

http://www.nme.com/news/radiohead/42627

Grammy Review

It's been a week since the grammy awards were handed out. What happened?

Robbery happened.

First of all this is my first grammy viewing in 5-6 years. The Grammy Awards has been my source for knowing new musical acts and some of the acts I love right now were first introduced to me or further cemented my attention on those artists by the awards years back when I was in middle school (Radiohead, Beck, Smashing Pumpkins, Jewel, Norah Jones, Alicia Keys, White Stripes, Kanye West to name a few).

I didn't care about the Grammy ever since 2003. Why?? It keeps going to U2! I like them but come on.. It also got more and more into commercialized acts. However, I do follow the album and record of the year as well as Best Alternative Music Album every year. But I had better things to do..like facebooking, whenever the event was on tv. So why did I watch it this year? The guy in the link summed it up for me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpcTKaW7-n4 (the segment about david bowie is cool too)

So the album of the year went to Robert Plant and Allison Krauss - Raising Sand. Radiohead and Coldplay were robbed. Critics are saying it's what the Grammy always do. Sympathy over artistic. Raising Sand is a good album, I believe in that, although I only listened to a few songs. But radiohead (In Rainbows) and coldplay (Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends) have more artistic albums in the nominations for this year's event. Lil Wayne's The Carter III should be next in line. Plant and Krauss did an upset, and even Plant was bewildered himself.

What more must they do to win? They might come up with another masterpiece (In Rainbows is not really a masterpiece though) but one veteran singer will have a comeback album and snatch album of the year, as well as every other award he/she could be nominated in. The same situation was with the collaboration of Norah Jones and Ray Charles a few years back. They won everything, due to some artistic credit but lots of sympathy.

John Mayer did the double by winning both the Best Male Pop Vocal Performance (for Say) and Best Male Rock Vocal Performance (for Gravity) in the same year. Michael Jackson did the treble in 1984 for Thriller and Beat It respectively, as well as Best Male R&B Vocals (Billie Jean) in the same year. Maybe other male artists won it before, but that is as far as I know. Congrats to Mayer. I like his voice and the way he sings. Probably my favorite male solo music act in the past few years.

But to be fair, grammy members' favorites The Eagles did not win any for their comeback album. AC/DC, R.E.M and Oasis were all shut out. Or maybe they released their albums after the eligible date (like Guns N' Roses). I'm lazy to find out. Indie acts that the critics put at the top of their lists of '08's bests, TV On The Radio, Fleet Foxes, Vampire Weekend and MGMT were all shut out.

Metallica won Best Metal Performance. Is that a surprise? No. Congrats.

Coldplay won Song of the Year and Best Pop Group Vocal, both for Viva La Vida, and Best Rock Album for Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends. They were, however, robbed in the Record of the Year category. I don't really like Viva to want it to win record of the year, but there's no way Krauss and Plant should win it with Please Read The Letter. The best single of 2008?? I'm not the only one puzzled.

Kings of Leon won Best Rock Group Vocal Performance for Sex On Fire. They deserve it. Congrats Kings.

Lil Wayne swept the rap categories, winning Best Rap Album (The Carter III), Best Rap Song (Lollipop), Best Rap Solo Performance (A Milli), and Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group with Jay-Z, T.I. and Kanye West (Swagga Like Us).

Best New Artist nominee The Jonas Brothers gave a great performance with Stevie Wonder. I hope they'll break out of the Disney box and become a "real" pop/rock band soon. I was hoping they'd win but they didn't. Adele did.

Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift performed...not my type. But good for them.

I was quite impressed with Carrie Underwood's performance. The only country performer that kept me interested. Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, T.I. and Kanye West did a take with the pregnant M.I.A. Blink 182 appeared and announced that they are back together again. Green Day presented Album of the Year.

Radiohead's In Rainbows won Best Alternative Music Album, their 3rd win in this category, joint most wins with White Stripes.

Gwyneth Paltrow introduced Radiohead and described them as "one of the most influential, adventurous, and thoroughly artistic musical groups of all time".

Radiohead performed "15 Steps" with the University of Southern California (USC) marching band. But only Thom Yorke (lead singer) and Johnny Greenwood (lead guitarist) was on stage. The performance was a little disappointing, yet epic. Besides not having all the band members on stage, Thom was all crazy and ...lost himself, it was cool for the fans but new listeners could have enjoyed the radiohead mood with a slower tempo. Johnny's guitar sound was not clear and lots of instrumentation from the CD version were missing in this live performance. The marching band's "Eh!" shout doesn't bring the same mood as the kids in the studio version. The song could have been performed at a slower tempo. Nevertheless, it's Radiohead's first grammy performance even though they have been nominated and won several times.

Congrats to the winners. Now off to the Oscars.

Album of the Year

hahahaha. I knew it. Alison Krauss and Robert Plant's Raising Sand won album of the year. Oh well...Grammies are gonna lose more viewers I think. Coldplay and Lil' Wayne not winning would turn many viewers off. Radiohead is becoming the Kate Winslet of Album of the Year. Nominated multiple times but never win.

Grammy Awards

I'm watching Grammy Awards now. Radiohead is going to perform. Woo hoo. The revered but reclusive band.

Oscar Nominations

Late response but...

Woo! Slumdog Millionaire is nominated for Best Picture. Slumdog has 10 nominations, second only to the curiously long Benjamin Button with 13 nominations. The Dark Knight has 8 nominations.

Best Picture

The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button

Milk

Frost/Nixon

The Reader

Slumdog Millionaire

This is a two horse race between the Curious and the Millionaire. Hands down. And Slumdog is the favorite. Slumdog just picked up Screen Actors Guild Awards for Outstanding Performance By a Cast in a Motion Picture, It's equivalent to Best Picture. Slumdog picked up Best Motion Picture at the Golden Globes as well. Two major awards down, Oscars to go.

Both the best actress and actor categories are interesting.

Brad Pitt is nominated for Best Actor. But Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler) or Sean Penn (Milk) would win it.

Kate Winslet and Meryl Streep are nominated for Best Actress once again. But hey, Anne Hathaway is in it. Angelina Jolie is also nominated for The Changelin. Melissa Leo rounds up the best actress category for her role in Frozen River.

Heath Ledger is very likely to win Best Supporting Actor for his performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight, which was shut out of Best Picture, director and screenplay. The Dark Knight has 8 nominations, but they are technical categories, but hey, they are important in filmmaking. Let me guess, it'd win Sound Editing.

Best Director should be between Danny Boyle (the Millionaire) and David Fincher (the Curious)

Adapted Screenplay is once again between the Curious and the Millionaire. Original Screenplay might go to In Bruges. Wall-E is nominated for Best Original Screenplay and Best Animated Feature.

Let The Right One In is not nominated for Best Foreign Language Film. The Class (France) is probably the favorite.

Prata and Lemons

Lemons! The lemon tree at my house is producing quality lemons for this season. It hasn't been like that for over a year. So I made fresh lemon tea!

Last week we made Burmese-Indian roti prata. It's the same prata you find at s'pore roti prata outlets, but the chicken curry is thicker, almost the same flavor. No Coconut Milk! Instead of dipping the prata into the curry, we pour curry over prata. Two kinds of curries could be used, one is chicken curry with tumeric, masala, garnishes, and another kind of curry, which is in the picutre, is ground nut curry. O course potatoes are a must for both curries.

We used to have Roselle plant. Pan-fried roselle leaves and roselle soup are Burmese delicacies. Heavy flavored/salty meat broth are added to Roselle dishes to contain it's extreme sour taste. Pan-fried Roselle leaves with bamboo shoots is fantastic. And so is the soup with Okra/lady fingers and bamboo shoots. Americans would like it. Tea Leaf salad is the popular dish in Burmese restaurants for Americans here. Tea Leaf salad is bitter-sweet. Americans like sour. Now the plant is dead.

We had green pepper plant, dead. Tomato, dead. Now only lemon and mint leaves.

Asian supermarkets and restaurants are dull.

Yesterday watched 3 movies in the morning/noon on comcast's IFC channel and On Demand. The Cars That Ate Paris, Wall-E and "I forgot the title". I didn't concentrate on the first two movies. My mom was watching The Cars That Ate Paris so I joined in after breakfast at 10+ for the later parts of the movie. I was also reading Sula for class, so I didn't pay much attention. The plot was interesting. Cars accidents delibrately caused for business but there's always someone to ruin the party eh.. the hero. The next movie was about the protagonist and his wife trying to survive dirty bombs in LA. I didn't concentrate on that either because Milan vs Fiorentina was on. Milan won 1-0 courtesy of Pato's goal. The movie wasn't that good anyway. After that I watched Wall-E and fell asleep. Almost finished reading Sula, a dark story with poetic writing.

So today's agenda: Read finish Sula, think of a thesis for my Sula analysis paper, write more pages for script, study for f/tv 10, and watch harold and maude (again), million dollar baby, let the right one in, hitman and any other films on cable. Grocery shopping too.

Trader Joe's makes grocery shopping fun. It's smaller, more cosy, and offers free coffee for shoppers!

The Week

It's Saturday. This week, had a farewell dinner for Ryo on Wednesday night. He left for Los Angeles/Northridge area on Thursday. I plan to visit there, since I have loads of friends there, it'd be even better if Mao comes back from japan when I visit. So my road trip would be stopping by at santa barbra to visit yuichiro, then to northridge area, and la/hollywood for screenplay library and job research. We ate at Yume Sushi on El Camino then went to Break Time at cupertino village for dessert. Went to Break Time again on Friday to talk with Cam and Andrew. They are doing 4 projects together for directing class. I recalled the time I took it, there were Alison, Ryo, Massimo, Rita, Gustav, Bill, Mark, Sree, and another Indian guy I forgot his name. Time flies quickly. I could recall the time Bill and I talked for the first time. And watching Rabbits In Your Headlights music video during the first lesson. I think, of all the films I made in that class, The Deal was to most fun to film and Love Train is people's favorite, especially Asians (cos it feels like a japanese/taiwanese drama). The Procedure is the most presentable, and my favorite, because the production value looks better, and less technical mistake in it.

This week just hanging at cafes and only meeting friends for lunch.

I forgot to register for the seminar by a writer. It's a 6 hours seminar, next saturday, don't really want to attend.

Last Name

Argh!!! Guys, Guys, Girls, my last name (surname) is not Maung. Officially, it is Maung in my Identification registrations but Maung is not even my name.

First of all, Burmese do not have a surname. We don't use father's name strictly either, like the Malays, Indians and some Scandinavians. The mother and father will give offsprings similar names and often takes from the father. An example would be:

Father: Soe Myo Min

Mother: Su Nandar Win

Son: Aung Kyaw Min

Son: Aung Naing Min

Daughter: Moe Moe Win

Okay, these names don't make sense, but they are examples.

Although the word Maung could be part of a real name in Burmese culture, Maung also means young Mister. Older adults will be called U (pron. as Oo). For females, young miss is Ma and elder miss is Daw. So if your name is Joe Vladimir and you are 14 years old, you'd be called Maung Joe Vladimir. If you are 40 yrs old, U Joe Vladimir. It works like San in Japanese, not totally, but that's the idea. So if your name is Min Htun, you'd be called Maung Min Htun or U Min Htun.

You do not have to include Maung or U in IDs, although it's normal (thought optional) in Myanmar. My Dad put it in my name. So my name became Maung Hein Htet Soe. There's also a @ with my original name Hein Htet Soe. In Singapore, teachers go by the latter, and from primary 2 to pri 6, they call me Htet Soe, because they thought Hein is my surname as chinese culture has the surname infront. Htet Soe doesn't sound right.

My name is easy to pronounce, at least to my friends in US, surprisingly. What makes it hard to pronounce is that it's hard to know the right way to say it from the way it's spelled. If I tell you how exactly, verbally, you'd find it rather easy. But when I was young, I was shy, I dun like to correct all my teachers and schoolmates who got it wrong. So I let it be... but I was frustrated with that, so in primary 6 I introduced the name Sean. But I remember one of my closest friends since pri 2, Wilson, pronounced Hein Htet Soe correctly, very well.

When filling in immigration papers, for some reasons, Maung became my last name, Soe became my middle name, initial.

So I don't have a surname. I'm happy to make either Soe or Hein as my last name. I have to convince one of my friends in US so hard, you know who you are, that Maung is not my last name. And it's not because I don't like it, or because it got arranged wrongly. It's not part of my name in the first place. It's mister. Not my name. Soe would be my sensible surname because it's part of my father's name. But for now, I'm trying out Hein as my last name.

I do have a chinese name, with the surname Song. Actually the name is formed to sound like my burmese name. Song Hai (Sea) Te (Special), Soe Hein Htet. My tuition teacher formed it for me in primary school. So in chinese class I go by Hai Te.

Football and the Globes

Man Utd 3-0 Chelsea. Rubbed my eyes. Didn't watch the game. Man U not only gained 3 points, they also took points away from Chelsea, a team above them in the league standings. That's a kind of win which I'll call The Win in sports. I watched milan vs roma, becks debut with milan. It was 2-2. Roma scored first, Milan equalized then took the lead before Roma equalized to tie the match. Milan dominated possession but their defending was bad and their attack wasn't as sharp as they used to be 3 years ago. Seems like Roma's attacks were sharper even though they didn't have much possession especially in the first half. It was good to see Becks in milan jersey, my other favorite team.

Slumdog Millionaire swept Golden Globes. Won Best Motion Picture (Drama) the biggest prize, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Score. Good good. Do the same for Oscars.

It's 5:29am, going back to sleep.

Lunacy?

What's wrong with female students in campus these days. While my friend and I were exiting the school's parking lot, we saw a female student showing the finger at another driver. I didn't see what happened before that. On one other day, as I walked to my car, I saw a female student shouting at another driver, it goes something like "Can't you see I'm backing out, don't you know I'm backing out? I'm backing out. Can you reverse, make space for me?" I've also noticed other female students going berserk. Must be this lunacy kind of aura going on. I didn't notice the moon though.

Is playing cards the only game?

Two weeks ago I went to a friend's 22nd birthday party. His cousins and nephews were at that party and we played games, the ultimate winner of each game got a prize. So we played Apple To Apples (a board/card game for a play group), Uno, Twister, and some video games, had pizza, corn bread etc. His cousins were middle schoolers, for s'poreans, it means secondary 1-2, and it was good to hang with this age group because I've never had a first hand experience of the american teenage lifestyle. It's the same as what we did in singapore, love the same things, same games, same cartoons, same shows, same expressions, same jokes, same laughter. The only thing different is that they tell the jokes and express themselves in american accent and slangs while singaporean 13 yrs olds would use singlish, the accent and all the slangs like wah kao! Or they would use mandarin, with all the hokkien words, if they are mandarin oriented. That's the only difference.

I felt real good playing with them. I like board games, or in other words, a game that is not played with a computer/tv but with a group of friends, sit around, play/think/talk/drink (any drink). I like that feeling. Wait wait...I'm not talking about gambling. Besides Danny (20s) (who likes monopoly and scrabble) and my chess loving friends in singapore, majority of my 18-42 yrs old friends in usa and especially the 20-27 yrs olds i hang out with on regular basis, do not play board games. So the only game of such, that requires the group to sit around a table, talking, enjoying each other's company as we play a game, is....the one, the only...poker. Okay, I'll call it cards. So it's poker, Thirteen (DaiDee) and such and such. Cards. Wait, is it maturity? Is it age? No way. More than half of these so called matured 20s, play all sorts of "childisher" games online, all sorts of pc games, and all sorts of video games, or any game that has cute little creatures jumping over a cliff. Oh, and they love all sorts of anime. Mature, I'd say. I wanna play monopoly, I wanna play scrabble, I wanna play Risk? I wanna play Apples to Apples (by the way, this game is better for adults or late teens), I wanna play chess, I wanna play Dungeons & Dragons, but I can't find anyone who could enjoy them like me. They prefer video/pc games. They prefer technology, I prefer humans.

I love the feeling of sitting around with friends, drinking something, playing a game, especially one that requires discussion and thinking, and talk, laugh. In America, this is also known as gaming. But in a funny way, it is more popular among older adults, 30s and above. They have gaming sessions on weekends, with their family and friends. So it's not about age, I just don't know why my friends are not into them. They are too practical I guess, or they don't like company. To them, shooting someone on the head in a video game is more fun than chatting and drinking with friends.

So we played Apples To Apples. This game needs general knowledge, experience in life, and sense of humor. For once, it's not poker.

Tired

Tired to blog.

Who's Your Papa?

Bought a beard papa, vanilla, today. But saved it for tomorrow's breakfast...
This winter is gonna be a busy season for me for all sorts of reasons. Besides term papers, I'll have to finish an entire feature screenplay for class, and since it's in the hope of submitting to places, it's also part work. The story is...secret. And a friend asked me to help in 4 of his short films for directing module, plus, another friend is also taking that same class (I took it in spring 07), and although it's not sealed on paper, it's understood I'm open to help both and maybe more. So I might end up doing more than 8 projects, that are not mine, this winter. It's fun. And I want to finish a big production of a short film, that is in post production hell for almost a year.

Although I was mentally busy, I also procrastinated in dealing with editor issues. We got to find another editor due to our original editor's withdrawal. But our posts on craiglists were always flagged. Now I sort of found out why. And the editors that replied didn't work out either. So that I gotta finish. Lots of people put in a lot of effort in that production, can't disappoint them, already did, but not longer. And, the cultural documentary-comedy andrew and me were planning is in pre-production block. We are both waiting for each other to do something. I handed him a rough beginning of the script, he gave me comments, I'm waiting for him to write his version, but he's waiting for me to write more.. Plus I'm also gonna get a part-time job for some money. So many things to do...

Lost

Earlier in the night, I picked up Andrew and went to try Shiok! The Singaporean restaurant at Menlo Park (About 20 mins drive). Okay...it was dark..we were going the right direction, until we couldn't find Chestnut drive! WTF is Chestnut drive? We followed exactly what google driving directions shows. Exit freeway at Alpine Road, turn right into Alpine Road, continue on Santa Cruz Ave, turn left at Chestnut drive. There was no Chestnut drive. Santa Cruz Ave eventually became Alameda/something Ave. We drove along dark rich residential area. Something like Winchester, or maybe Berverly Hills, those dark deserted roads, mansions by the side. We U-turned, V-turned, turned here and there, couldn't find Chestnut drive. So we finally headed back to Cupertino, and ate at Layang Layang (Malaysian restaurant). I was hungry for a s'pore/malaysian style hor fun. So I had Hor Fun, pretty good. Andrew had a very spicy mee goreng. We also had pandang fried chicken as appetizer and we both had cendol drink. Next time, I'll go to Shiok in day time.

Chat

Been chatting with an online friend today, Roxanne! Shout out to you! For almost the whole morning. I dunno whether I wanna go to LA... argh! Can't decide. If I go to LA right now, I won't be able to enjoy fully because my mind would be on other things to do.

Thinking of trying Shiok! A Singaporean cuisine restaurant in my area. I've heard about it since long ago but never tried it. Also wanna get a frame for my Chelsea players autographs. Terry's, Robben's and Ferreira's. One of my closest friends in Singapore inspired me to frame up "valuable" stuff and decorate my room and home office. Personalize it.

Watching youtube. Found this music critic, I have no idea who she is, but she tops MGMT on her best albums of the year list! I'm loving her for that. Also she did justice on Kings Of Leon and Vampire Weekend. But not Fleet Foxes! #7? Come on. But she's right on "psychedelic space rock doesn't get much better." MGMT always places on almost every critics list, but never #1, so I'm happy for them although, who the heck is she?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zwo_pYqEbYo&feature=channel part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iveE_xB0shc&feature=channel part 2

Looking for the best blogskin.

Favorites of 2008 in Entertainment

Music

I may be majoring film, but I've been into music since I was a kid, and I did reviews for amateur webbies. It's just that I can't make music, but I can make awful films. I tried to write songs but they were failures of epic proportions.

So how do I listen? I listen to all genres, even some country, not traditional country, but country fusions. My main genre is probably alternative rock, with an empahsis on psychedelic rock. For people who don't know what is psychedelic music, it officially means creating a mood that could be triggered by drugs. For me, psychedelic music is dreamy, ambient, floats me to another world. I also like jazz, blues rock, pop/rock, some pop, some hip hop and some r&b.

So I follow magazines to discover Indie (independent) acts. Like Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, Mojo, to name a few. I will sample online those that are new to me, sample them, if I like them, I'd download/save them onto cd or whatever I could use to listen on the go in the car. I'm into relaxing coffee-break/cafe-mood music recently, that doesn't mean jazz or slow pop, some alternative music would fit this mood, oh and...Norah Jones of course.

In recent years, I've been keeping a personal record/diary for memory on what I liked for each year, but I never told anyone since it's me, not a magazine. Who am I anyway? But here's this year's, officially, on a blog. (As if anyone cares).

Top 7 Favorite Albums of 2008

1. Oracular Spectacular
MGMT

Genre: Alternative, Psychedelic, Healing, Electronica

This Indie duo signed with major label Columbia to release this experimental record that is relaxing, hallucinatory/psychedelic, and danceable. This critically acclaimed album is making MGMT a new force in the alternative music scene. From the feel I get while listening to it, I think the concept they are trying to pull is...a group of "youth" in fantasy/beach clothing, get stranded on a magical island. While they are there, they discover and celebrate "youth". Okay, I'm not making any sense. I'm more musically minded than lyrically.

I got to know MGMT through my local alternative station, with the catchy single Time To Pretend. It's now featured in many television series including Gossip Girl. I liked it at first listen but was skeptical of the band and figured it's not something I'd listen to everyday. Then I heard "Kids"! I was anti-techno. I do listen to electronica like Depeche Mode, Chemical Brothers, Fat Boy Slim, but I kind of ignored Kids though it's catchy. It gets so much airplay that I got into the mood of it. Although it seems like a danceable-pop sounding track, it has an alternative attitude, like The Killers' "Human" or Depeche Mode's "Precious". I read that it's featured in FIFA '09. I was hooked to Kids, listened to the rest of the album online and got the CD through a gift card. As a psychedelic music fan, the album suits my taste. I'm very fond of Weekend Wars. Love the dreamy tracks 4th Dimensional Transition and Of Moons, Birds and Monsters. For the latter, I like the long instrumental sequence at the end. The Handshake would probably be my second favorite track on the album. It has 5 segments of different tunes. Also drawn to the Oasis-sounding verses on Pieces Of What. Electric Feel, Future Reflections and The Youth are good too. That probably sums of the whole CD. A very tight album. The creative duo spent the year opening for alternative giants like Radiohead and Beck, but now they are headlining music festivals, winning lots of fans and impressing lots of critics.

Tracks That Matter: All?

Personal: Weekend Wars, The Handshake, Kids, Of Moons, Birds and Monsters, Time To Pretend, 4th Dimensional Transition, Electric Feel, Future Reflections

Commercial/Radio/Pop wise: Kids, Time To Pretend, Electric Feel

Time To Pretend live http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIZ2RUxOiK0&feature=related

2. Vampire Weekend
Vampire Weekend

Genre: Alternative Rock

The band's name is misleading. I thought it's a hard rocking punk band when I first saw the name. They turn out to be a band that makes relaxing punk music that mixes collegiate punk with african-beats and classical instrumentation. This debut album fits my coffee break, relaxing, soothing, and makes me feel like a college student in a South Africa based British university. I'm fond of this cute album.

Tracks That Matter: Walcott, A-Punk, M79, Oxford Comma, Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_i1xk07o4g Oxford Comma.

3. Glasvegas
Glasvegas

Genre: Alternative Rock

This new Scottish Indie band made one of the best debut albums of the year. I love Geraldine. Fantastic track. Love the sad/dramatic/emotional/amusing lyrics and guitars in the album. The soap operaish song, It's My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Cry is probably my favorite track on the album. The lyrics are emotional but cute and amusing at the same time. One line from the song "Liar, liar, liar, liar, liar, pants on fire." comes after attractive rhythm guitars. There's also a version of the famous tune "you are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make happy when skies are gray" at the outro of Football And Flower Tops. Interesting vocals. There's spoken soap Stabbed, which goes "run rabbit run". And another soap, Ice Cream Van, an ambient dramatic track.

Tracks That Matter: It's My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Cry, Ice Cream Van, Geraldine, Daddy's Gone, S.A.D Light, Stabbed, Football And Flower Tops, Lonesome Swan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf_YTwlD6aw&feature=related It's My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Cry (live recording).

4. Microcastle/Weird Era Continued
Deerhunter

Genre: Alternative Rock, Psychedelic Rock, Ambient, Experimental

Fantastic ambient record. Starts off with a Radiohead-ish tune, Cover Me (Slowly) and keeps on attracting my attention throughout the album. However, they need more catchy tunes even for experimental. It gets a little boring in the middle of the album but peaks again near the end. There are many short ambience tracks that make the record an album-enjoyment.

Tracks That Matter: Agoraphobia, Never Stops, Nothing Ever Happened, Twilight At Carbon Lake, Green Jacket, Saved By Old Times, many more, generally the whole album brings out the mood, not single tracks.

5. Chinese Democracy
Guns N' Roses

Genre: Hard Rock

Ah! One of my favorite bands of all-time releasing an album after about 14 years. This reason is enough for the album to be on this list. Not the same members from Appetite of Destruction and Use Your Illusion eras. It's more like Axl Roses's original work, and it's missing the melodies of Slash. As a fan of Slash's solos, I'm disappointed in the solos in this album. Some of my gn'r-fans friends couldn't enjoy this album as much as I do, but some enjoy it more than I do. I guess I'm somewhere in the middle, don't like it too much but don't hate it in anyway.

Tracks That Matter: Madagascar, Street Of Dreams, There Was A Time, Catcher In The Rye, Better.

6. Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends
Coldplay

Genre: Rock

I prefer Coldplay's tunes in their debut album Parachutes. More alternative, Radiohead-ish. Coldplay got more and more pop with each album, but although this record is not totally my type, I think it's their best achievement instrumentally. Anthemic catchy tunes. I love the outros that bring a different tune from the rest of the song. I'm drawn to Yes.

Tracks That Matter: Lost, Yes, Violet Hill, Lovers In Japan, Viva La Vida

7. In Ear Park
Department Of Eagles

Genre: Acid Folk

A very good and underrated psychedelic folk album. I like the title track. The intro for Waves Of Ryes is great for soundtrack. It's Radiohead+Fleet Foxes.

Tracks That Matter: In Ear Park, Phantom Other, Waves Of Rye, No One Does It.

Other notable albums I listened thoroughly, or not so thoroughly...

Narrow Stairs - Death Cab For Cutie

We Started Nothing - The Ting Tings

Dear Science - TV On The Radio

Dig Out Your Soul - Oasis

Volume One - She & Him

Third - Portishead

Modern Guilt - Beck

Day & Age - The Killers

and somemore...


Single of The Year

Weekend Wars (it wasn't released as a single, so I'm cheating.)
MGMT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_-Gld700LE&feature=related

Favorite Book
(I don't follow books like I do with music, so it's a book that I read in the year, not released in the year.)

Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks
It teaches you how to survive a zombie invasion in your neighborhood. Educational.

Yeah... the main department, Movies.

Top 3 Favorite Movies of 2008

1. Slumdog Millionaire (view my Slumdog Millionaire post)

2. The Dark Knight

3. Wall-E

Past Years

2007

Albums
1. In Rainbows - Radiohead
2. Mirrored - Battles
3. Icky Thump - White Stripes

Single
Icky Thump - White Stripes
A creative noise rock, my style of rhythm guitar, Jack White's madness.

Movie
No Country For Old Men
I love chase films. Though The Duel remains my favorite chase film of all time, and No Country is not too great, Javier might be more impressive than the truck.

2006

Albums
1. Black Holes And Revelations - Muse
2. St. Elsewhere - Gnarls Barkley
3. Carnavas - Silversun Pickups

Single
Crazy - Gnarls Barkley
Ignored it at first, but it caught on. Does that make me crazy?

Movie
Little Miss Sunshine
Great screenplay, greatly deserves the oscar. Great characters. I'm more into the screenplay than the movie itself. Besides, Michael Arndt is a friendly dude.

Done.

New Year Day

Today is New Year! I'm not going out. It's already evening. I stayed home, bought a Princess Mononoke framed poster online. I wanna decorate my room and home office. Watched the ending of A Fistful Of Dollars, a Spaghetti Western film, starring Clint Eastwood as the Man With No Name aka Joe. Pretty cool. Clint wore a long scarf, I'll call it a blanket, and he shoots real fast and accurate. That scene probably made me a fan of western gun showdowns, but I'm still not a fan of an entire western film. I remember on of the Back To The Future editions did a parody of Eastwood in Fistful Of Dollars. I forgot whether it is Back to the Future 3. Let me wiki it...hmm...yes, it is Back to the Future 3.

Marty Mcfly (Michael J. Fox) with the blanket over his chest and shoulders.

Mad Dog: What's your name, dude?

Marty: Uh.. Eastwood. Clint Eastwood.

Mad Dog: What kind of stupid name is that?

Happy New Year everyone!

New Year's Eve

On Tuesday, met Ryo again and watched The Spirit and dinner at Pot Sticker King. I went into the theater expecting the movie to be a serious superhero flick, so I was disappointed to find that it's cheesy and campy, with weak storyline. The scene sequences, dramatic struture and plot set ups in the movie are not something script readers would like and it's not what we are taught to do. As the movie goes along, I think of it as a comedy and was able to enjoy the rest of the film. Think of it as a campy superhero parody.

So yesterday, New Year's Eve, I stayed home all day. My mom took one of her vacation leave days, since she can't carry them to next year, and came home half day. We watched movies on cable. I couldn't remember what I watched, but I liked it. I'm not making a lame joke here like I often do. I really can't remember. I remember that I was enjoying myself in front of the tv, but I can't recall exactly what I watched. Moving on, I watched the countdown at Times Square, New York City. The Ting Tings performace of That's Not My Name was quite good, and Katy Perry's performance of I Kissed A Girl reminds me of Karen O of Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Enjoyed the recap of affairs in 2008. Slept early after the countdown.

Monday

On Monday, helped Ryo learn driving, then we had lunch at mistuwa. We went to GameStop beside Barnes & Nobles on Stevens Creek blvd. Ryo wanted to trade-in for a nitendo. It was sold out. I'm interested in Red Alert 3 but I don't wanna spend money these days. So we had coffee and hot chocolate at B&N starbucks, and read some magazines. Ryo looked for a novel to buy, but he couldn't decide. I read Catcher In The Rye, and bought it since it's $6. I love the narration in it. There's a new special edition of To Kill A Mocking Bird. I already read the novel and own a worn out old copy. It's one of my all-time favorite novels. I do not want to waste money buying another copy, but it's good for a gift.

We went to GameStop outlet at Valley Fair. The nitendo set Ryo wanted was sold out there too. Then we had dinner at Khan's Restaurant, one block away from Santana Row. It sounds mongolian, but it's a Vietnamese restaurant. I prefer the Pho (beef/chicken broth with rice noodles) there to the Pho at neigborhood Pho outlets. I think they use less MSG and put in more effort in making the broth, which I read could be delicious without using any MSG. Same thing for burmese fish broth with rice noodles (mone hin ga). Mone Hin Ga is to Burmese like what Pho is to Vietnamese and Ramen is to Japanese. Although diners use MSG to enhance taste in mone hin ga, one (like my mom) can cook it without using any MSG and still taste very good. I don't know whether it works for Ramen, because I know Ramen is heavily dependent on dashi, which is an indirect MSG.

We went home after dinner. I watched Gnarls Barkley's live performances on youtube. Their performance of "Crazy" at MTV Movie awards was hilarious; they dressed up as Star Wars characters. Cee-Lo was Darth Vader, who was unmasked to sing, and reportedly, ex-Nine Inch Nails drummer Chris Vrenna, who is a Gnarls Barkley's freelance associate, played drums as Chewbacca. He must have felt real hot in that Wookiee costume, but he looked so funny. Didn't know Darth Vader could sing. Here's the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HvTNAXqB88

The following is something for both film majors and people who doesn't know that there is such thing as film major in universities, or have no idea what we do, although it's a comedy and more of screenwriting department. How George Lucas found inspiration for Star Wars.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2i_nLClAUU