i've been plunged into the dark ages

Because my computer just died on me and I'm too broke to fix it now.

Moving house was a bitch.

Not only did it take multiple trips from the summer apartment to the new house, I also spent more money in making life to come more comfortable. Like I bought two new pillows, a new chair, an ottoman, a full length mirror, a fan, speakers, a printer, a desk lamp, a dustbin. However ever ever, I hate my sheets. I thought it was greenish but it looks more like yellow under the light. I'm going to change it tomorrow. The rest of the decor rocks though. There's stuff on my walls from all over the world-- rug and cowboy hat from Peru, posters from Paris, calendar from Greece, subway map from London. Travelling pays off.

Moving done, I disappeared to NYC for the weekend. That was great fun. And Karen, the Hudson Hotel is indeed designed by Philippe Starck. That place is chic. It has a nondescript entrance backlit by my favorite shade of green, a chandelier with holograms, an outdoor garden with a big watering can, and a lounge set in a library with a whole tier of books and creepy cow pictures on the walls. Oh yeah, you can play chess on the table while drinking too. I wish I could hang out at such places every weekend.



Other NYC stuff:

• Pub crawling around East Village is an awesome exercise. My legs hurt from walking so much after that. But it was still worth it.
  
• Momofuko has really good ramen. I tried the somen, which is thinner than ramen. The cold broth is yummy and the portions are generous. Also try the steamed buns.
  
• Nyonya. Oh. My. God. Even better than Penang.
• I think the underground 24 hour Apple store is overrated. It's a Lourve rip off, down to the circular elevator.

I miss the city already. It's my favorite city in the world, hands down.

The thrill of Prison Break did make my life happier after I got back, for at least one hour on Monday. Oh, and Snakes on a Plane too. I'm sad to report that it didn't really open huge last weekend. So much for it being the biggest movie of summer. Actually, hyping it up was half the fun of it. Unfortunately there were only 20 people in that cinema and they weren't that enthusiastic. I was laughing at all the nonsense though. Actually I laughed at everything, from the bad acting to the hilarious dialogue. (17) I cried with joy when Samuel L Jackson finally uttered the immortal line. I should have watched it in Manhattan, preferably with a whole bunch of drunk people, but then I wouldn't have been able to catch Zaha Hadid's exhibit at the Guggenheim. Did you know that she was said to hate her own show? "Too cheap," she said. She's such a diva. My idol. But Prison Break was good. Kind of slow opening episode, but they delivered the goods. A character gets offed, Michael still has one look-- that brooding look, and the new inspector is pretty damn smart. Next week's preview looks exciting as well.

Oh and I'm seriously domesticated now. Now I know, Gstar jeans are the hardest to iron.

(17) "That's great news-- snakes on crack."
"It's amazing what a man can do with one hand."
"Hurry up, time is tissue."

it's a slow news day

[ Threadless is having $10 back-to-school sale! Save me, I'm on fire. I just bought 4 t shirts. ]

[ Uncrate is my dream come true. It's like all the useful stuff from men's magazines condensed, without all the distracting advertisements. ]

[ Crazy angry women are so sexy. I mean it. ]

[ And another tshirt appreciation site. Because you can never have too many tshirts. ]

[ Bob Dylan name checking Alicia Keys in a song? (16) ]

[ Find the hottest picture of Britney before she tanked. ]

[ Weeds is back. They put 'the herb in surburb'. The best part about this show is that I like the characters, even though they are so dysfunctional. Unfortunately, showtime is not on regular cable. Fuck. ]

(16) I was thinking about Alicia Keys, couldn't help from crying / When she was born in Hell's Kitchen, I was living down the line / I'm wondering where in the world Alicia Keys could be / I been looking for her even clean through Tennessee.

no diggity, i try to bag it up

[ Stream Paris Hilton's album here. I think it's a grower. ]

We're reaching a milestone here. Three years this blog has survived! Well, I think I've come a long way. HAAH. I'm glad I was doing this before the blog explosion. Shortly before anyway. So I didn't jump onto the bandwagon. (14) Back then, I was typing in lower case, there was more personal stuff and Blogger didn't have a click and add picture function. You have no idea any idea how inconvenient it was to post a picture using flickr or the bloggerbot tool.. I have to confess, though, I have always portrayed my life here in a really flattering light. I have like, no life really.

And of course, it's been one year since I landed in I-town, fresh off the boat and looking like a jet lagged piece of shit. It doesn't seem so long ago actually. I wanna meet the freshmen NOW (15) and stop studying for the 325 finals. If not for that class I would have been doing the orientation right now. I can still remember every single thing from the first day. How I flew into the county airport on a really small plane. The tiny airport. Ian fetching me to some other people's house to stay for the night. Then moving stuff to the dorm early in the morning and checking in. Meeting the prepare people. Talking to the RAs. I don't remember the rest though. Some part of me wants to redo the dorm life thing again. I think dorm life would have been more fun if I weren't so busy with my classes.

Back to work.

(14) More street cred for me then.
(15) I hope I bond with the cool ones.

woah it's already time to wear a jacket at night

The new house is still relatively uninhabited; I haven't even started packing my stuff in my summer sublet place. The dining table's rotting, so we'd have to get a new one, and shift the sofa over so that we'll have dining space. We're going to get a tv in time to watch prison break's new season. We also have magnetic poetry (13) on the fridge. I would love to put a couple of disco balls up on the ceiling and have lights shining down from the 2nd floor balcony.
Anyway I live down in the dungeon and I want to decorate my room. I think I'm sick of the Weezer and Trainspotting posters, so I'd donate them to the staircase. And I need more cushions and pillows and stuff.


(13) The sexual innunendo version. I think I need more words though. Probably get the romance version later.

summer is one long boring weekend

[ Who knew? Before there were snakes on a plane, there was Scooby Doo on the plane? I'm not a huge fan of Ms Swan in MADTv but she is funny in this airplane skit. (11) ]

[ And just because I love lists of all kinds, Television Without Pity's tubey award winners (the more interesting ones, to me that is):

Best Performance by an Inanimate Object... Arrested Development - Franklin (Runner-up House - Cane)
Best Villain... The Colbert Report - Bears
Best Attention to Continuity... Arrested Development
Worst Network Meddlers... FOX
Best Hell Yeah! Moment... Anderson Cooper 360 - Anderson's smacks down Senator Mary Landrieu as she tries to thank everyone for doing such a swell job after Katrina
Best One-Liner... Arrested Development - "Are you forgetting that I was a professional twice over — an analyst and a therapist. The world’s first analrapist." (Tobias Funke)
Best Sidekick... House - Wilson
Most Redemptive Character in an Otherwise Sucky Show... Desperate Housewives - Bree Van De Kamp (Runner-up The O.C. - Summer Roberts)
Best Cast... Arrested Development
Least Favourite Character... The O.C. - Marissa Cooper
Favourite Character... House - Gregory House (Runner up Arrested Development - GOB)
Most Overlooked Show... Veronica Mars
Most Overrated Show... Desperate Housewives
Most Guilty Pleasure... America's Next Top Model
TWoP Show with Highest Actual Quality... Battlestar Galactica
Best Competitive Reality Show... Project Runway
Best Drama... Battlestar Galactica
Best Returning Show... Battlestar Galactica (12)
Best New Show... The Colbert Report

So, have you been watching the right shows? ]

[ I've been sitting on this for some time-- Great picture of the Guggenheim New York. ]

[ Plus! Have you watched Justin Timberlake portray Elton John? ]

(11) Via Entertainment Weekly's popwatch.
(12) Even the South Park guys love BSG. Boy, I'm really advertising the show in every other post aren't I?

i <3 my new house

[ 10 years from now, I predict that cities on earth will have their own virtual counterparts, which are their own living and breathing entities. Buildings, people, traffic translated into bytes. You would no longer have to travel to places physically. This is a preview of a new computer game:

Via Digitally Distributed Environments, which also documents efforts underway to further enhance google earth and other Microsoft projects. ]

[ After inventing the term truthiness, Stephen Colbert coins a new term-- Wikiality. He added false data to the encyclopedia during his show and asked viewers to do the same, causing chaos and prompting Wikipedia to suspend his account. ]

[ Don't usually like cats, but this video is hilarious. Cat clearly suffering from OCD flushes the toilet repeatedly. Remember I once had this great idea about taking a picture of yourself for ten years and making a video out of it? (9) I wasn't alone. ]

[ Really good jokes about McGyllenStrong. All you people who fancy celebrity gossip blogs, check out goldenfiddle.com and the uber cool shirt they are peddling: Namibia is for Lovers! I felt like buying it but it's sheer. ]

[ The artist behind Cloud Gate comes to New York. A 3 storey high mirror is bound to attract tons of tourists, including me. Do not underestimate the power of huge reflective surfaces. ]

My new house rocks. Pictures coming soon.
And if you're not on my msn, this is what the italic print reads:
2 weeks to prison break! 1 week to snakes on a plane! (10)

(9) You don't? Try looking up in the archives. Damn, do I remember the trash I'd written.
(10) And sadly, 3 weeks to turning 22. That's like, real fucking old.

So, apparently,

I can't influence anyone to like my music.

The late great DJ John Peel was well known for his eclectic taste in music, and he's been crucial in bringing many unknown bands into the mainstream. I happen to have a compilation he did, the only one he did, and at the very end of the cd he slipped in his favorite song of all time-- Teenage Kicks by the Undertones. I have never heard the song before, but the way he felt about the song struck a chord in me. In 1978 he played the song twice on the show, back to back. He had wanted his tombstone to read: "Teenage dreams, so hard to beat," a line from the lyrics. And most telling was his quote on the song: "I can't listen to it now without getting all dewy-eyed. And if I play it on the radio, I have to segue it into the front of another record because I can't speak after I've heard it." (7)

Well, for the record, my desert island song would be The Maker (8) by Emmylou Harris. If there is one song that can make me smile, cry, get my mouth agape in awe and my hair on the back of my neck stand, all at once, it is this. In fact, make sure it gets played at my funeral. Go to my house to take the cd if you have to.

(7) All taken from Wikipedia. It's scary how much I rely on it for information.
(8) Though I have no idea why I picked such a thoroughly christian song. I guess it's the way she pushes her voice to the limit on lines such as 'I can't work the fields of Abraham and turn my head away.'

the sugar loaf mountain

First things first, a mixtape for you to download.. Songs (4) perfect for a warm balmy night like this, or a romp on the beach. An ode, if you will, to the ending summer, to our dreams of lounging about in Rio, cocktail in hand, gawking at the Sugar Loaf mountain.. and lastly, to more days of hedonistic pleasure. I so want to go to a water theme park right now. Screw 325!

ANTONIO CARLOS JOBIM - WAVE
ANDREW BIRD - SKIN IS, MY
JACK JOHNSON - GOOD PEOPLE
LILAC SAINTS - JAMAICA
CASSANDRA WILSON - LOVE IS BLINDNESS
CALEXICO - ROKA
GILBERTO GIL - OSLODUM
STONED REVIVALS - GOODIL
SUEDE - EVERYTHING WILL FLOW
ANTONIO CARLOS JOBIM - CHEGA DE SAUDADE
IRON & WINE AND CALEXICO - HISTORY OF LOVERS
CAETANO VELOSO - NAO ENCHE
FEIST - MUSHABOOM
CAKE - NEVER THERE
SISTER HAZEL - HAPPY
CAETANO VELOSO - BILLIE JEAN
BECK - TROPICALIA
IRON & WINE AND CALEXICO - 16, MAYBE LESS
CAETANO VELOSO - SAMPA
GIN BLOSSOMS - UNTIL I FALL AWAY
THE OBSERVATORY - ASK

Please give these songs a chance.

I had a little spiel about filial piety vs going back to Singapore but there's no time to write that now.

[ This article about web design circa 1996 is absolutely hilarious. (5) ]
[ More trailers: Babel, Children of Men and Running with Scissors. ]
[ There seems to be many recipes here, especially for entertaining. I'd try out some of them if we have a housewarming party. (6) ]



Not much to see here, it's where we went to last weekend. The best part is when the path in the gorge winds behind a waterfall. How cool is that.



This mofo is rockin' a class of 2009 shirt.

(4) Of course, these are for evaluation purposes only. If only I could do mixtapes for a living. I have a bunch of ideas. Here's one old one-- a sountrack to space travel. I already did that, back in the CDR days. Here's one new one-- 90s nostalgia. Gosh, those halcyon days. I think life was simpler back then.
(5) Via kottke.org. Best links ever.
(6) Complete with fireworks! We so need to celebrate national day.