Random Spell
Helpful Tips to Avoid Being “That Guy” at Your Office Christmas Party (link)
Jack Bauer Interrogates Santa (video)
Reindeer STD (video)
Dangerous Wands (video)
Incredible Tape Measure Tricks (video)
Cliche Sitcom Goodbyes (video)
Canadian Ice Fishermen (video)
Surprise High School Reunions (video)
Ninja Sex Party 2: “The Decision” (video)
10 Quirky Science Tricks for Parties (video)
Woman Handles Traffic Stop Poorly (video)
PacMan vs Super Mario (video)
Movies I’ve seen recently…
Avatar (2009) A-
When Director/Writer James Cameron spends $300+ million on a movie, it shows. In the case of “Avatar” in IMAX-3D, it REALLY shows. This movie surprisingly lived up to it’s 10 years of development and hype, with it’s ultimate strength being the gorgeous visuals. This isn’t another typical CGI effects heavy movie, this was an incredible visual experience (or a 2 1/2 hours thrill ride). Avatar is complete eye candy (especially in 3D), and it’s not hard getting fully immersed in this alien world, as well as these completely believable alien beings called the Na’vi; which are the most realistic CGI-made humanoid characters I’ve ever seen in movies (love the close ups and animation). Sure the plot isn’t exactly the most original thing out there, feeling closely like a “Pocahontas” or “Dances With Wolves,” but it’s told well enough. There’s humor, drama, romance, science-fiction, fantasy, adventure, and action mixed here, as well as an overall theme about appreciating nature, spirituality, and living a virtual existence outside of your body (hello video games). James Cameron’s “Avatar” is undeniably a must-see film, as well as a taste of what the future of movies might be like. Be warned that if you do see this movie in 3D, there are a few scenes that might cause some motion sickness, but besides that, most of the scenes are just… WOW.
Up In The Air (2009) A
I never thought I would watch a great movie about a man whose job is firing people for a living, but “Up In The Air” is that film. Directed and co-written by Jason Reitman with a very strong performance by George Clooney as Ryan Bingham; a guy who lives most of his year constantly traveling via an airplane, this is a movie that captivated me throughout. From the lovely “from the sky” visuals of many different cities, the montage of how Bingham has his own system on how to travel in the most efficient way, conversations about how many prestigious membership programs somebody has, to how to “properly” fire a person, I couldn’t help but be absolutely interested and fascinated with everything this movie offered. Although some may fault it, it bears to mention that the movie is somewhat divided into two parts, the first part being the more humorous side, while the second part deals with the pathos of the whole thing. There is also a general theme about having or not having a committed relationship, which is played humorously in the first half, but more dramatic in the second half. With a great cast that includes Vera Farmiga; as Ryan’s “friend with benefits,” and Anna Kendrick; as the young upstart learning the craft of firing people, “Up In The Air” is a strong character driven film that I enjoyed quite a whole lot.
The Road (2009) A-
Based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy of the same name, “The Road” is a tale about a father and his son, trying to survive in this post-apocalyptic world. To say this movie is depressing to watch is a bit of an understatement, and truly that’s what director John Hillcoat and writer Joe Penhall set out to do with this film. This is after all a world where animals are long gone, nothing can grow anymore, and your life also means trying to avoid other people who most likely have turned towards cannibalism in order to survive. That’s the general plot of this movie, a father and his son, travel from one location to another, towards the coast, encountering danger and despair at every turn. Some can argue that there isn’t enough plot to justify seeing this movie, but those people are ignoring that the point of this film is to observe the characters of the father and the son themselves. This is a character study at how hardened a man’s soul can be in a bleak situation such as this, while trying to protect a young boy who is genuinely still innocently looking for the good in a hopeless world. Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee does a splendid job in the role of the man and the boy, and the visuals can be both beautiful and depressing to see. “The Road” really is more of an experience, than another simple movie.
This past night me and a friend of mine got to once again see another live performance by the lovely, personable, and talented Marie Digby! This time she was performing at “Saint Rocke” in Hermosa Beach, California, which is roughly an hours drive away from where I live. I haven’t been to that venue before and if you’ve been reading my concert posts in the past, that means that parking is always a little bit of an adventure for me in new places. We got there a little after 9PM, and as soon as we entered the designated parking location for the venue, it was already full. To top it off, I had to do a 3-point turn in that small road to get out, because it becomes a one way street past that parking lot. Using the GPS I had as a guide, we decided to investigate the neighborhood for local non-meter parking. The first place I looked was that residential area where that one way street was behind the venue, and it had non-meter street parking available. The signs said “No Parking Wednesdays,” but it was Thursday, so score! We were roughly half a mile away from Saint Rocke, but it’s okay, and walked down hill to the place.
By the time we got in the venue, opening act “Jane Carrey” was already performing, so I apologize to her for not really seeing her set. My friend’s cousin was already there with her friends, so we went to look for the table that they were sitting at. For the most part we really were just waiting for Marie Digby to get on stage, so we just chatted, had a drink, snacks, etc… Saint Rocke isn’t really primarily a concert venue either, it’s a combination of that, a bar, and a restaurant. There were people who weren’t even there to see the concert, so I’m pretty sure that there’s going to be background chatter and noise when the bands are playing, which I’m hoping won’t be too much of a distraction (more on that later).
The following act got on stage and it was another band I’ve never heard of; “Alpha Rev.” At first the jokes about “they sound like Coldplay or The Fray” is a little too obvious, but upon really listening to the band, they actually weren’t bad at all. In fact they were pretty good. Since we were at our table in the far corner of the venue, we weren’t really directly looking at the band at first, and we didn’t even know who was singing. Turns out it was the guy behind the piano, which somebody pointed out looked like actor Joel McHale in one particular angle that we saw. Alpha Rev did a cover of Tears For Fear’s “Everybody Wants To Rule The World,” which sounded great. Overall, I liked their sound.
From that point on, I decided that I’m going to get closer to the stage as I had it in my mind that I was going to get all of Marie’s songs on video. Sure that meant that I was going to have a lack of photos to take and if you click on the link below this post, you’ll see that there definitely weren’t a lot of good shots at all (sorry). Another thing is that I’m going to be closer to the speakers, so I’m hoping the my camera’s mic handles that well. Speaking of sound, sure enough the background chatter became a little bit of an issue, but not as much as these two drunk girls who talked a lot during Marie’s performance (which is obvious to hear on my videos).
Marie got on stage about 11PM, which admitedly was later than scheduled, but whatever. She seemed genuinely excited to be there and announced how this was the last show of this tour of hers. One of the best things about going to a Marie Digby show is how she interacts with the fans so well, and I love the stories she tells us about how her songs came about or her experiences during this tour. At one point she talked about how she started drinking shots during the tour and somebody in the audience offered a drink for her, which to her surprise she actually got that drink and did the shot on stage. Go Marie! At one humorous moment, Marie almost did the Little Mermaid song “Part of your world,” which I kinda wish she actually did the whole song. Overall, it was another great memorable Marie Digby concert.
After her set ended, me and my friend got in the line to meet her. We had two goals to do that night, one was to get another “action pose” with her like last time, and the other was to give her gifts (as it is X-Mas). Almost about an hour since we got in line, it was finally our turn to meet her. To my surprise, she actually recognized our faces and gave us a hug (I love how friendly she is). We did our new action pose, which was us doing a kung-fu stance, which I thought turned out pretty well. We gave our X-Mas gifts to her, which she really appreciated. My friend got his copy of her Japanese album signed, and after chatting a little bit, we ended our meet & greet. Me and my friend stood outside, as we wanted to wait around for the Digbyholics interview that I thought was going to happen (it never did). However, while we were outside, I was able to chat with Marie’s sister Naomi, who is a really cool lady. The meet & greet line already ended at one point, but the Digbyholics and us were still there, just hanging out with Marie, her family (sisters, mom), and her entourage. Before Marie left, I quickly handed her my snowman necklace that she told me looked really cute earlier during the meet & greet, and she seemed genuinely surprised and thankful for that last second gift of mine. We all said our good byes, and by 2AM, me and my friend were on our way home.
We love you Marie, hope to see you again real soon!
* click here for the photos I took *
* click here for the videos I took *
Random Voice On The Radio
Nicolas Cage clip from Kick-Ass (video)
Lebron James Steals French Fry (video)
Tarzan Toy Fail (video)
Cat Makes Amazing Discovery (video)
Double Jointed (video)
End of the World Parody (video)
12 ‘Sexy’ Ads That Will Give You Nightmares (link)
Iron Man 2 trailer now officially online (video)
Olivia Munn’s Avatar Parody Trailer (video)
Google’s Nexus One Smart Phone (video)
You Hate The Holidays – K&B show listerner call-in (audio)
an interactive version of the map of Springfield (flash)
- Have you ever stalked the mailman before? Well the answer to that question should be NO, but the funny thing is that I “kinda” did that. Me and my wife was driving to the post office to drop off some mail, but we noticed the mailman’s vehicle parked at the local mailbox and decided to stop next to it, so that we can just directly hand our mail over to that person. The thing is that the mailman was going to leave already, so we decided to drive to the next mailbox and wait over there instead. However silly me, I drove right past the next mailbox and instead stopped at the one following that. So I popped a U-Turn to go back to the mailbox I missed, but the mailman’s vehicle drove right past that one and did not stop. At that point my wife was thinking “hey, he skipped a mailbox,” but I was thinking “crap, he probably thinks we’re stalking him and trying to steal his mail, so he’s trying to avoid us.” It is the Christmas season, and there have been reports of people stealing the X-Mas gifts that the mailmen are delivering for people. Thinking that the mailman probably thinks I’m some kind of stalking thief, I did not want to bother dropping off our mail to that person anymore. However out of curiosity I popped another U-turn to drive by where the mailman is, and sure enough he came back to the mailbox he purposely skipped to avoid us. As we drove by I was joking “oh no, he’s probably writing down our license plate number, to report us as possible mail thieves.” Then we just drove to the post office. lol
- Being that this is the season where the “Oscar bait” films are being released, there are now a great amount of quality movies that I need to see by the end of the year. Movies like “Brothers,” “Up in the Air,” “Serious Moonlight,” “The Princess and the Frog,” “Invictus,” “The Lovely Bones,” “A Single Man,” “Avatar,” “Crazy Heart,” “Nine,” “The Young Victoria,” “It’s Complicated,” “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus,” and “Sherlock Holmes.” The problem here is that several of these movies are in “limited release,” which means that in many cases they are not locally available for me to watch. I have to drive as much as 40 miles for some of these films, and it’s because they are literally just leaving their mark as a movie released in 2009 for Oscar consideration. Once that’s out of the way, the studios can spend the money early next year (or after the Oscars has been shown) for a wider release. Sure I can just wait for the wider release, but being that I consider myself a movie buff, I’d like to see them as soon as possible. Along with that list above, there are still movies from November that I have yet to see as well. Good time to be a movie fan, but damn that’s a lot of movies to see in just a few week’s time.
- For my regular blog readers out there, I’m sure you’ve noticed the lack of updates lately. The truth is that I’ve been really really lazy in writing my blogs this past week (or two… or three), and have more or less been “cheating” by posting a temporary private post to be edited at a later time for public viewing (that’s my OCD not wanting to break the pattern of a blog post a day). I want to go back to my regular blog posting habit soon, but I honestly can’t give any promises right now….
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What I’m listening to this week…
1) SModcast – 100 : the yardstick
2) Carrie Underwood – play on
3) Flyleaf – memento mori
4) Jimmy Buffett – buffet hotel
5) John Mayer – battle studies
6) Metallica – S&M
Random Traffic
a day in the internet (image)
Student Brings Typewriter To Class (video)
The House of C’mons (video)
tv3 news simpsons parody (video)
Jodie Foster VS. Robocop (video)
Dan and Jen Save the Date (video)
Team Avatar: Pandora Police (video)
Are Women As Horny As Men? NSFW (video)
Well that took an incredible turn for the worse (link)
How to Fire Someone in Gotham City (pix)
Tiger Woods Saga Tribute Song (video)
Fast Food Tricks (video)
That above there is the back of my neck. No I’m not trying to impersonate Marsellus Wallace, that’s some medicinal patch to ease the aches I have on my neck. This is a result of too much head banging from the Metallica concert. I’m able to move my head and all, but it aches/hurts a bit when I turn it sideways or try to look down. This isn’t the first time this has happened to me from a Metallica concert, but I never seem to learn. Signs of my age creeping up on me I guess.
Yesterday at the Anaheim Honda Center, I got to see Metallica in concert once again; as I always make it a point to see them every time they are in town. The night started off with one memorable moment when we were still in traffic just outside the Honda Center. We were waiting to move on the streets to get into the venue parking, when some jackass in a white SUV was trying to do an illegal U-Turn in front of us. My friend was driving and sped up to stop him, forcing him to move forward with the traffic. That jackass started giving us dirty looks, which prompted my other friends in the back seat to start heckling him. At that point I was thinking “okay, gotta prepare to get into a fight when we get out of the car.” Luckily it didn’t come to that, and we didn’t see him or his vehicle after we parked.
The lines to get in was really long at the side of the Honda Center where we walked by. I needed to get tickets at Will Call though, and there were no lines for that. The entrance to get in the Honda Center right next to the Will Call window ALSO had no line. This was pretty sweet, as it wasn’t a hassle at all to get in. Checked out the merchandise booth, but the clothes were unfortunately much too expensive for my taste, so we proceeded to find our seats. We may not have tickets to the floor, but our view from our seats wasn’t bad at all. BTW, I did not bring my trusty camera, so no zoomed in photos or videos this time around, as I had to rely on my BlackBerry Storm.
We did miss the opening band (still don’t know who it was), but we were there for all of Machinehead‘s set list. The band was baddass and at one point played Pantera‘s “Fucking Hostile” as a nice tribute to guitarist “Dimebag” Darrell, who died five years ago this week. There was also one cool moment when the drummer threw a drum stick to somebody in the audience during a particular pause in his drumming, but that somebody immediately threw it right back, the drummer catches it, and immediately starts playing drums again. Staged? Dunno, but really cool to see. During their performance however, me and my friend could tell that the audio level wasn’t tweaked well enough for those of us in the upper deck of the Honda Center, as there was too much bass drowning out the guitars and vocals. The sound check before Metallica’s set helped a little bit, but I’m afraid it still wasn’t tweaked enough to my liking.
Metallica actually got on stage pretty late, During the 45 minutes after Machinehead ended their set a little before 9PM, and Metallica got their set going, the audience was getting a little jumpy. Any small hint that the show was going to start, the audience would start getting all excited, but then a few seconds later would settle down from the false alarm. This happens several times, which is unnecessary since it’s obvious that the house lights need to turn off first before the band gets out there. Since Metallica did start late, the gaps between the first encore and the second encore was significantly reduced. No stalling seems to be the goal, and they ended their set just about exactly at 12 midnight.
Speaking of which, it needs to be said that this is after all a continuation to their “World Magnetic Tour” that kicked off last year, so the content of the show itself isn’t too different at all to when I saw them last year for this tour (Dec 12, 17, 18, 2008). The stage is still set “in the round.” They still have those giant coffins floating over the stage. Laser lights extravaganza during the first song. Pyrotechnics. Those Metallica beach balls that they drop on the audience during the final song. James Hetfield once again does most of the talking with the audience, with Lars Ulrich joking around once in a while (he wore a Disneyland Mickey Ears hat at one point).
A constant thing during this tour is that Metallica continues to play tons of the old stuff, and in my show they did Trapped Under Ice, Shortest Straw, Fade To Black, etc…. Kirk Hammett still does his two guitar solos sometime during the setlist. Before the final encore songs, they still jam out to part of a Metallica song to tease the audience. There are still parts on their set list that are interchangeable every show, and they at least do one cover song (Motorhead’s “Too Late Too Late” this time around). The regular songs they’ll play every night are That Was Just Your Life, The End Of The Line, Broken Beat & Scarred, Sad But True, One, The Day That Never Comes, Master Of Puppets, Nothing Else Matters, Enter Sandman, with Seek & Destroy always being the final song.
So it was a pretty standard Metallica concert, and there weren’t any surprises really. However this IS Metallica I’m talking about here, so the fact that they are just doing what they do best is more than enough for me. By the end of the night, I had a sore neck, tired body, and my voice was practically gone. I haven’t headbanged, thrashed around, sung that loud (screamed) in a concert in awhile, and I was feeling the after effects. Wow was it great though. Metallica, you rule!
* click here for the photos I did take with my phone *
* purchase the audio from the concert at http://livemetallica.com *
Random Girlfriend
This Is How the Mysterious Giant Spiral Happened (video)
Trailer Cut – Volume 1 (video)
Batman Parody: The Dark Knight is Confused (video)
pretty neat Google Chrome ads (video)
Massive iceberg is heading directly for Australia (video)
The 7 foods, experts won’t eat (link)
The Tetris God (video)
Google Android Blackmail (video)
Glued iPhone Prank (video)
Beatles 3000 (video)
Rachel Bilson’s Deleted Sex Scene (video)
Ledge Fighters (video)
