She's back!

Tara shows us how to distinguish a motorcycle brand by the sound of the engines. It's not really the joke but the delivery. haha!! If you knew her you'd know why we're laughing so hard at this one. Glad to have you back, dude!

I'm sure it's definitely...

This barista is truly one of a kind. Inartehan pa niya eh. It's either:

a) he's being creative

b) he's bored so he tried to do something different from the usual

c) he's too lazy to make the extra stroke that would make a Y.

d) he inferred that if Joy rhymes with Koi then perhaps, it's spelled like Koi.

I wonder if he even thought about it, like "Is it Joy with a y or with an I? She looks like it's an I. So, Joi." haha. I would've been more impressed if he frenchified it by adding an E. Joie.

Of course, it has been done before.

yet most of you thought it's genius.

Where do you, AI boys, really get your ideas, huh?

Here's a clip of the band Simple Plan (not exactly one of my favorites) doing a mash-up of Stand By Me and Beautiful Girls sometime 2007:






And now, the crowd-favorite "Archulets" in American Idol. Cue to girls: swoon at 1:34:



So because he didn't make me swoon, I'm not a girl. And I don't know why I'm so anti-idol. Glad the show's ending! Hahaha (evil laughter). But just my two cents (of course I have an opinion about everything!), if that guy David Cook aspires to make it as a rocker, he shouldn't win this thing because then he'll be typecast... I think no AI winner will ever be appreciated as a legit rockstar. And if he wanted to be a rocker, he shouldn't have joined this in the first place. And if there were still Rockstar (INXS/Supernova), he wouldn't win it because he's bordering somewhere pretentious. Haha sorry. I look at him kasi like the Nyoy Volantes and Paolo Santoses... But David Cook does well in reviving the songs and owning them. I like his version of Hello and Hungry Like a Wolf, after some friends advised that I should check it out on youtube. I'm the only one I know who's not so crazy about the Mariah remake. It's nice, it's okay, different, great to sing along to... but I'm getting tired of it.

I also liked Daughtry but I found out he was from AI so I sort of wrote him off but I do find myself singing along to his songs once in a while. I think if he won AI, he won't receive as much attention from the listeners he's targetting. So yes, I'm biased. I'm probably the one stereotyping here but you can't blame me!

It'll be better if the other David won... then we can position him as a young achiever, teenager following his dreams... that sort of thing. It just makes for a better story. Yon. I'm not even going to make a comment on their singing skills because I don't really watch. I just get to read about it in the papers.

They're the reason I have silver chucks.

The elements that make a live performance really cool are not just a good band (with great showmanship) and really good music but also the showcase of lights and sounds. Think U2 concerts - they have floor to ceiling led screens as background, words and images flashing as they perform the songs. I've mentioned before that the concerts I had gone to earlier this year both had amazing lights, especially Incubus whose lights were so well-choreographed with the songs (mygod when will I ever stop talking about that show!). Maroon 5 brought a quite simpler set but very very lovely. However, the one that tops my list I didn't see live. In fact, I just saw it on MTV earlier tonight and I was blown away. As in woooooow. Galing! Not to mention it's by a band I really adore :-)

Here's a pixelated clip from youtube (couldn't find a really clear version) of MUSE performing Starlight at the MTV Europe Music Awards. Take note of 1:29 onwards - that's when they totally rock! Laser lights are the bomb. 2:31 - the "starlights" are truly cosmic!!!

Campeon de la liga!!!

Victory is sweet sweet sweet!!! Real Madrid are the champions of the Spanish League again!

I wasn't a fan of football before because I thought it was boring. A bunch of guys kicking the ball around... it's not as eventful as say basketball. I got to know more about it when a friend of mine explained the dynamics of the game at the poolside of the condo where we stayed at in college. It also helped that we got to hang around with the soccer varsity guys we met in one of our prod classes. Next thing I knew I was watching college football and following the leagues on TV. I was also caught in the world cup and euro cup frenzy that I'd wake up diligently in the wee hours just to catch a game or leaving my TV on at CNN waiting for updates. Except for the English Premiere League, ESPN or Star Sports doesn't show live games and I also rooted for teams like Barcelona, Real Madrid (La Liga), Juventus and AC Milan (Serie A) so I relied on the Internet a lot, CNN and BBC.

I so miss the days when I had so much time I don't know what to do with it. Hayyyy.

During that time, Real Madrid was the type of team that was always almost there but never makes it. And I always believed that one day, they'd finally emerge victorious. I mean, how could a team made up of galacticos not be able to secure a championship? They're like the dream team. Almost all of European football's superstars were in that team, at the same time. Back then, they had a formidable, supposedly unbeatable roster: Ronaldo, Luis Figo, Roberto Carlos, Raul Gonzales, Zinedine Zidane (!), David Beckham (he hasn't conquered America then), Iker Casillas, Michael Owen... How could they go wrong, right? Wrong. There was too much ego. They were all superstars and everybody wanted a larger piece of the pie and so teamwork suffered. There were too many poster boys, not to mention really mean crowd! Could you imagine the same home crowd cheering for you and booing you when you missed the shot? Tough love. But they've obviously figured out a way around that now... love ittttttttt.

A couple of years at work and I kind of forgot about football altogether. So when I turned to the sports section of the newspaper yesterday and saw this really big, big, victorious photo of RM celebrating... I was so happy!!! AGAIN?!!! Back-to-back?! So this all happened when I wasn't watching. Been waiting for it and didn't see it... For the past two years that I wasn't following football, they're actually winning titles.

I can hear Alanis Morissette singing... "It's a traffic jam when you're already late, a no-smoking sign on your cigarette break. It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife..."

Take me to your leader.

What if your brain, unexpectedly and suddenly, picked out things to flip around and view a lot differently?

Slip inside the eye of your mind...

My friends and I had originally planned to go to the beach over the long weekend but the odds went against us, it just wasn't meant to happen (bummer!). I needed to find something to preoccupy myself with so I went to the music store to see if there was anything new. Less than 5 minutes had passed when my eye caught the Oasis DVD, "Lord Don't Slow Me Down." Although it wasn't really new (released in 2007), I got a copy, went home and watched it.

The DVD included concert footage in Manchester about a couple of years ago. I turned up the volume of the speakers that were hooked to the TV, imagined that I was at the concert and found myself singing along to the songs I knew. I have to admit I can get pretty squishy sometimes. Wonderwall is my all time favorite Oasis song and I was so feeling it when it came on. A couple of songs later, Liam just left the stage and I actually thought he was throwing tantrums again but no... the band broke into "Don't Look Back in Anger" with Noel on vocals and I was totally floored. I got chills and teary-eyed when I heard the crowd belt out the song with so much feeling. There's just too much emotion coming from them... I can imagine the natural high that like, for 5 minutes, they're in the happiest moment of their lives. Here's the exact DVD footage from Youtube. Sound and video quality is of course much better on the disc where you can hear the crowd so well.

Definitely a classic. Priceless.

Lucky are they who know what they want.

Music has always been my back door to life. It is important for people to find something that excites them. I like the concept that if you do what excites you, you will be rewarded generously, whatever form reward takes, which is not necessarily money.

-Brandon Boyd

Incubus actually started making music some 15 years ago, when they were still highschool teenagers in California. Fast forward to now and six studio albums to their credit, they still continue to make music together. It's interesting that after all these years, they only got to top the Billboard Chart for album sales with their latest record, Light Grenades. Its precedents, A Crow Left of the Murder and Morning View, both debuted at #2.

The boys are no longer teenagers. In fact, they're in their 30s. But the celebration isn't really because of the fact that they finally hit #1. "To me, the celebration is that we're like all 30-ish and we still don't have to have real jobs," Boyd joked (during an interview with MTV).

In the same article, bassist Ben Kenney quipped, "Yeah, that's the cool thing about being a band that's been around. For new bands to be #1, they can be hot and be like a flash in the pan — that can happen. But to have been around, for this band, that's really cool. That means that people still care, and that's important."

It's one thing to make hits and another to stay relevant. And it's really amazing how some people are so passionate about the things they love to do that in a sense, it loves them back. It must be really cool to work on something and make money, and still not feel like you have a job.


Hey, just in case (just in case lang naman) there's Internet in heaven, Happy Birthday Kuya! :-)

On AI and Shiz

Long post, beware.

I was never hooked on American Idol eventhough everybody's talking about it and I also don't understand why the show draws so many people to it. Perhaps it's the idea of regular joes making it big...

I've seen a couple of recent episodes and those from way back and I agree that there is talent. It just that the concept puts me off in a way that most people probably think fame is easier achieved if you make it to these shows, that in less than a couple of months you transform from a nobody to somebody. Although I've also got to hand it down to those people who made the cut from the hundreds or thousands who auditioned, they're fortunate to be among the hopefuls and I have nothing against them. I actually admire them for going after their dreams and doing whatever it takes to fulfill them, for looking out for and grabbing these opportunities.

It just doesn't take talent or skill to make it big in the music industry (or in most entertainment/artistic fields) so to speak and joining shows like AI is no guarantee. If you don't work hard enough, get good advisers and work with the right people, chances are you'd be forgotten as soon as a new season premieres. Maybe I'm just so not into it but I can barely recall AI winners who are still as big now as they were at the height of their AI stints. There are a handful and most of the rest just faded away. It was probably worth the ride or the 15 minutes of fame... but the goal is to not just make it big, it's to sustain it and it takes more than talent / skill or charisma to achieve that. I mean, there are the one hit wonders and there are those that last and most of the latter are the ones who worked really hard, started from scratch and climbed the ladder. Then again, there are those who are simply blessed to be born with it.

Music is art and to me, more than anything else, for people to become really successful, there has to be that intense desire to create, move others, put yourself out there and express who you really are. I guess this is what I don't see in AI. I find it most of the time unoriginal, add to the fact that some of them don't even do justice to the songs and I understand that -- those are just not their songs. Some of them even get credit for covering covers (imagine how many layers there are - a cover of a cover!).

Case in point: David Cook. He did a pretty good job interpreting the songs but most of the time, the audience were under the impression that the versions he did were his own only to find out eventually that they're not. Cook did admit that his version of Billie Jean was 'inspired' by former Audioslave frontman Chris Cornell's cover but that was after people began noticing the semblance between his versions and other artists' renditions of the songs. Prior to his Billie Jean performance, he also did a rock version of Lionel Richie's Hello which some people say was copied from Incubus, and of course, a cover of Eleanor Rigby which a band called Doxology claims was their version. Cornell remarked in one of his interviews relating to this incident that he thought Cook sang the song remarkably but he also found it unfortunate that Cook did a play-by-play of his version. I mean, c'mon. If you're really that good, you could have 'cooked' something up on your own. Although I'd have to disagree with critics on the "Hello" cover. I'm familiar with the Incubus version and it's nothing like David Cook's. Cook might have been inspired by it (the idea to do a rock version) but he didn't copy it.

On the flip side, there's nothing really wrong with covering a cover so long as you do it well because by imitating, you're actually acknowledging the great work that these musicians had done. After all, this is a contest of covers. It's just so much better if you acknowledged that you're doing someone else's version everytime you do it. After all, this is a competition that focuses on your singing talent over everything else so why sweat it, right? Singing wise, you'll still get the credit for doing a good job all to yourself because those that you mimicked are not competing with you. And you also get extra brownie points for researching and finding that these versions exist.

On another note, Reynaldo Lapus may fare even better than any of the hopefuls now. Sure he doesn't have so much to be proud of singing wise but the fact that he got so many people hooked on his original song says a lot.

I remember liking Rockstar INXS back then. I know it's somehow similar to AI but the difference was with R, viewers got to see the creative process and they were even encouraged, most of the time, to create their own save for specific challenges that would require otherwise. A lot of good interpretations/renditions came out of that show and I loved that JD won. Why? One of the reasons was because among the loot, he was the one who can create the best.

I believe in shared experiences in terms of expression and original composition. Somewhere out there, someone is also going through the things that you're going through. Someone will always understand and relate to you and nothing feels better than knowing that you're not alone in your troubles (or joys) so there's no reason why we should hold back expressing ourselves. It's just that some of us are good at it while some aren't.

This is probably why I'm drawn to music. If I can't let it out myself, I find that others can speak for me and express the sentiments that I couldn't. I know we all cherish lines from a favorite song (or poem/movie, etc), lines that hit home at specific situations. I anticipate those lines in a song and with right timing, I close my eyes and sing along.

I sound like a fucking cheeseball but hey it's my blog and if you don't like it, you can read someone else's. :-)

His pen is pistola

There's a blog somewhere that's rocking society and I feel that it's just too much. There's such a thing as freedom of speech, moreso in cyberspace where where there's hardly a law anywhere that protects individuals from malicious defamation online, but I'm not a believer of abusing this freedom to the detriment of others, even if only to express one's opinion. Personal thoughts, when paraded as facts, could mislead the public into believing that they are true. And through choice of words and presentation, bloggers can also shape the mind of the unwitting reader and get him to empathize with them.

That blogger has made it obvious that his expose is an act of desperation and he has chosen a very powerful medium. He wanted to tell the world of his tales of woe so he involved the public and indulged us with generous doses of scuttlebutt. He was bringing attention to his cause through putting the spotlight on the personal affairs of certain known personalities at their expense.

The question is, do those involved, other than the primary offender, really deserve this?

and, do we really need to know?

This also puts forward an issue on trust. Scandals and exposes abound the blogosphere so you could just imagine having someone around and getting the scare of your life when the relationship turns sour. You don't want to wake up one day and find yourself the subject of such controversies.

We should all wear a pair of eyes in the back of our heads because we'll never know... but that would be tantamount to a life in paranoia. Then again, my life is too boring for me to become entangled in a mess like this so I've got nothing to worry about. I've already had my picture taken by the Associated Press and had it plastered all over the WWW and nobody gave a damn. haha.


That's just my two cents. Hugs not drugs.