Holy shit.

Guitar hero fans. Eat your hearts out.

Welcome To The Jungle by Guns N’ Roses

Mother’s Day!

Hi everyone!

Happy Mothers day, in case any of my readers is a mother! Check out the mother’s day thing @ Rhapsody.com

It’s really cool. There’s a bunch of like relevant mother-ish songs that you can send in a card or dedicate using the Rhapsody dedicate a song feature, or with an actual hallmark card!

Rhapsody holiday page, mothers day today!

Dedicate a song page! Send it one page!

…Or do it through hallmark with a nice little ecard!

Hope none of you forgot about mother’s day!

First Album Review! Rhapsody’s Front Page Tori Amos!

Hi everyone. I’ve been thinking to myself lately about the amount of exposure I get to outside influences of the artistic sort. Ever since I did PROJECT X (I’ll do a post on it later) I’ve been really inspired by a few of my fraternity brothers who are much more musical than I to let myself have more exposure to the “artsy fartsy” side of the world. What I mean by this is that I want to start listening to more different kinds of music and maybe reading more creative writing or looking at art or something. Ok, so I dont really know what I’m going to do precisely just yet but I figure it doesn’t get as easy as listening to an album of something I’ve never heard or heard of before.

Rhapsody does this cool thing on their home page where they have this fancy slide show thing that shows their newest and most featured artists and albums and tracks and stuff. I have NEVER actually used this but today, right now, I decided to click on what is most unappealing to me…Tori Amos… I have no idea who she is or what kind of music she makes so I figure, lets do it! Lets go!!@@!

Tori Amos – American Doll Posse

So in a nutshell (thanks to Rhapsody) this is some background info on Tori Amos.

“Tori Amos is a songwriter in the classic ’70s sense. Creating meaningful, emotional songs that incorporate acoustic guitar, piano, and strings into elaborate and evocative compositions, Amos’ fragile voice carries with it all the strength, emotion and sensuality her intelligent, poetic lyrics allow. Her complexity as an artist comes from her ability to display womanly vulnerability and subvert it with raw sexuality and intimidating, thick-skinned ire, embodying it all with startling honesty.”

I guess this is all true as the melodies are elaborate and evocative so to say, but the key question is, Do I like it? The answer is No, not really. Too bad too because I usually like what I listen to but in this case the music is just a little too “bouncy” and erratic for me to really enjoy listening to in my everyday life.

Example : Bouncing off Clouds by Tori Amos

Its not really good for relaxing, dancing, or working out to. There are a couple good slow tracks on this album…

Digital Ghost by Tori Amos …

Anyways, I listened to a bunch of the other songs and they pretty much all rubbed me the same way so I think I’ll pass on Miss Tori Amos next time I have the opportunity to listen to her music – Fat Slut by Tori Amos

Still though, I think this a good first new step in opening my eyes to more creativity and such in my life. Its nice that with Rhapsody I’m able to listen to all these things that are recommended by professionals and all for free and unlimited so I don’t have to download a bunch of software or buy a bunch of stuff for music I’m not wholly committed to. Thanks Rhapsody!

I’ll leave you with one of the better songs on the album….Good feeling, sad feeling?
Father’s Son by Tori Amos

Spider-Man 3 – The Review of the Century!

Hi! So today I’m going to talk a bit about my feelings on Spider-Man 3. Almost all of Phi Delta Theta fraternity went to the IMAX with me on midnight opening night and it was a fantastic time. We all got pretty good seats and the theater was totally packed with Spidey Fans. All in all it was a pretty awesome night but thats not what I’m here to talk about. I’m here to review Spider-Man 3 the movie.

Before I get started, lemme give a little background information. I HATE it when people give really critical and negative reviews not because I don’t like to hear it but rather because it seems so pointless to give out a blanket statement that the masses are supposed to read and take into account when deciding to see a movie. Movies are kind of like music in some respects, how the heck are you supposed to review something when everyone on earth is going to have a completely different feeling and background going in? I guess it’s tough but a necessary thing.

Anyhow, I believe MY opinion in particular matters when it comes to a Spider-Man review because I have loved Spider-Man ever since I was a tiny kid. When it comes to comic movies a lot of non-readers look to me for my interest level in order to determine how excited they themselves should be. In other words, comic fans are thought/opinion leaders when it comes to comic related movies. With that being said, this is my OPINION on the movie.

Spider-Man, unlike X-Men maintained a fantastic director throughout the trilogy and has long been praised as the best comic book movie series in the history of comic movies. I tend to agree with this as Spider-Man focuses on the individual man’s struggles in the everyday world (paying taxes, girlfriend issues, school etc) so more people can relate to it. So without further Adieu (or however u spell that) I give you my review of Spider-Man 3 (SPOILER ALERT)…

YO HO FIDDLE YEE DEE!!

I must post this NOW. Enjoy.

Most Excellent Videos of the Week

Everyone loves funny videos and I have a knack for finding the good ones so here are a couple!

Haloid

If you a gamer you must watch this. One of the best fan made videos I’ve ever seen in my whole life. I won’t ruin anything but you should definitely watch until the end.

George Washington

Washing-ton Washing-ton, Six foot Eight wieghs a fucking TON.

Dear Sister

Hilarious, spoof of the O.C. season finale of second season where Marissa shoots Ryan’s brother. Hilarious even if you haven’t seen it.

And a last one thats not a video … trust me. its good.

http://jibberjabba.ytmnd.com/

That’s all for this week, god damn i’m good.

Sound familiar?
Gimme Some More by Busta Rhymes

Rhapsody.com New features!

Something that I’ve wanted to make a post about for the last several months is the sweet new features in Rhapsody.com. It’s been a few months of using them and I’m really starting to like all these sweet new features! I absolutely love it when online technologies move forward like this and actually help me with everyday things like blogging and such. Here are some of my favorite new features! Or you can check out their list of new stuff!

New Look!

The new look is MUCH more user friendly than before. They use tabs at various places throughout the page to make the whole interface much more intuitive and informational. Not just that, the interface just look nice! All the roundness! All the Shininess!

MP3 Player integration

Rhapsody has a partnership with Sansa and they have made a pretty unique thing. It is called the “Rhapsody Mp3 Player”. Its actually quite nice, very functional, and pretty attractive. It has a definitely solid build a little thicker and larger than the iPod nano. It’s able to play video and AM FM radio, which is AWESOME. I run at the club near my work and they have these TVs but you cant hear anything unless you have a radio that you can tune into the station of the TV. This sucks because everyone has iPods and not those older crappier players that just play cassettes and radio. The best thing about these bad boys though is that you can use your Rhapsody subscription with it. This means that you aren’t limited by the songs that you have. You are limited only by the number of songs that are available on Rhapsody, which I’m quite sure is more than I could ever listen to. You can also download entire radio stations onto the player so thats also awesome!

Music Videos

I haven’t used this feature extensively yet but I’m quite thrilled to use it later! Basically, whenever you search for songs or keywords or whatever, they automatically return relevant music videos at the bottom. I mean, that doesn’t really sound amazing but u know, its like 2 searches in one! You can search something, add it to ur playlist (more on that later) and then watch the video, all from one page! The search results page! I mean, I know I know, I’m a nerd, that’s not actually that cool but just wait. You’ll find yourself using it at some point or another, and then you’ll come back here and try to give me an eProp. But then you’ll realize you cant because this ain’t xanga. =P

Top tracks list on home page

Little change. You can now access top albums, artists and TRACKS on the homepage. Thats Niiiiice.

Quick Playlists

This is by far the coolest bit. Everywhere on the entire site now, where ever there is a link to a song, there is a Plus Sign (+) in addition to the play sign (|>). If you click this + then Rhapsody will automatically pop up a little box that will allow you to add it to a playlist you already made or make a new playlist which you can name on the spot. This is AWESOME!!!!!! Combined with the instant listening benefit of Rhapsody, this is just so cool! You don’t even have to drag and drop, you just click and click on a playlist!! I really dig this feature! Definitely go try it out! Here’s a screenshot:

Improved MyRhapsody

Much better central place for you. It looks now really similar to the downloaded Rhapsody client instead of just a random collection of information. Check it out!

Sharing Capabilities

Now, also in addition to the play button and the (+) button, there is a share button which allows you to email, embed or instant message the rhaplink to the song or album or artist to any email, webpage, or im window. Its very cool actually. Not so much some mindblowing new world thing but SUPER SUPER convenient, which is all I’m really looking for you know?

Anyways! Until Next time, Please enjoy this song which I’ve shared before: I just watched the 2nd one like 2 days ago. And its on my mind. =D

Pirates Of The Caribbean by City of Prague Philharmonic

First of many new updates to come!

Hi All!

I’m sorry I havn’t been keeping this page updated but my life got super busy over the last couple months! I missed the blog and so now I’m back!

I’d like to give somewhat of a summary of my life over the last 6 months or so, a LOT has happened.

But here are the main points

• I finished up my presidency at Phi Delta Theta. I think of this as one of my proudest achievements in my life so far. I learned a ton about interpersonal communication, leadership, personal responsibility, and organizational behavior. I am proud of what I’ve done throughout my presidency and I’m sure that my successor (joe) will do a great job as he has been doing since I’ve finished up my term.
• I got myself an internship in Microsoft IT. I work in the IT Showcase team doing process improvement. It’s not exactly my specialty by any means but I am eager to see it through it. Its been almost 4 months since I started this 6 month internship and I am really hoping to land a full time position after my internship ends. So far I’ve been doing well and thus… i’m not afraid!
• I am still happily dating my lovely girlfriend Vy! We’ve been doing very well. I <3 her!
• I have started being more health conscious – I’ve been running more often and eating pretty healthy (for the most part LOL). I feel much less sickly than I have before I started doing this and I feel much HEALTHIER (obviously but there’s just no other way to put it!)
• Vy, Elitza,Tako and I went to Mexico for our final college spring break. We lived at the Pueblo Bonita in Mazatlan. It was AMAZING. Hands down the best trip of my life! In total I ended up spending about a grand on the trip but it was totally worth it to get out of the US for a couple days and sit by the pool, feel no pressure to do anything and just eat, drink, play, eat, drink, play, and enjoy life. I couldn’t take that kind of thing for more than a couple weeks but for the 4 days that we were there, Amazing. IN FACT!! Enjoy some pictures hosted by my new favorite google service… Picasa & Google Web Albums

Thanks readers! I’ll be blogging more now I promise! In the meantime, enjoy some tunes by my favorite…

Now Listening to: Snap Yo Fingers by Lil Jon

My Birthday Dinner with my family

Last night my mom took my, and my whole immediate family out to dinner at Teatro Zinzanni. It was an absolutely awesome time. I don’t want to spoil anything for anybody that may want to go but for a special occasion like an anniversary or a birthday or something for someone special this is definitely a great place to take them.

In a nutshell Teatro Zinzanni is a Magic show, an acrobatics show, a circus, and a musical show all in one fantastic three hour program. The food is amazing and plentiful served over the course of the entire show as well as being incorporated into some of the skits. The servers are all in on it too as in they go around and dance and stuff while they serve you the food. The performers, unlike at a usual circus, will go around to each indivudual table at some point during the night and do fun stuff as well. The acrobatics is amazing,  the magic show is performed by a guy named Voronin

who looks like he was born to be a magician. His tricks are all very orignal and goofy. The entire show has a great sense of humor and you’ll find yourself laughing as many time as you are amazed by the talented cast.

The price I’ll admit is a bit steep but well worth it if you are in the right crowd of loved ones to share the evening with.
http://www.zinzanni.org/

Music Ive been Listening to:

Hey there again everyone!

I just wanted to go through my recent song list, which you can see =========> right there on the side and do an individual review on each song, the artist.. blah blah you know give the music a little love. =P For starters the list to the right of my most recently played songs is ACTUALLY a list of my most recently played songs. If I listen to a song right now, it automatically gets added to that list and updated live everywhere on the Internet where I’ve used that feed (this is the only place.) without any sort of coding or anything on my part. So by the time you read this that list may be different!

Oh SHOOT! Out of the last 10 Songs I’ve listened to, 9 are all by the same artist! Oh no! Oh well, I promised what I promised, lets get started.

The Seed 2.0 by The Roots

This song was referred to me by the lovely Vy Duong. I’ve never heard any of the other songs by this artist before (at least I don’t think…) but I am impressed. For rap, I consider it very difficult to come up with innovative new beats and such that have not been totally overused (for instance After in da club every artist started using the orchestra thing in at least one song) but this song genuinely has a really sweet beat. It make you kinda just wanna dance some cool dance that an Asian such as myself could never be capable of. Seriously though, great beat, great chorus and pretty cool lyrics. Plus when I listen to this song, it reminds me of Vy doing her little finger dance which is always a good thing and cheers me up a bunch even if I’m already ecstatic! Wunderbar if you ask me, straight up wunderbar. Anyway, click on the link above to listen in on the Roots!

Phrenology

The Roots

For the next group, since I listened to practically one of their entire albums, I’ll just combine all the songs into one “review”. The City of Prague Philharmonic. Particularly big movie box set. To give a little bit of a back-story before I delve into this awesomeness: Pablo and I were working at his place on Alki…we’re talking about how much we both like Pirates of the Caribbean the first one (i haven’t seen the second yet so its not like i dislike it) and how much we particularly love the music of that movie. How it actually makes you wanna like jump around with a sword, maybe punch some sailors, get thrown in jail, slit some throats, that sort of thing!

So i decided to look up the song on Rhapsody to stream some of the music and I stumbled upon this wonderful collection. The City of Prague Philharmonic basically “redoes” pretty much ALL the great movie/TV show/whatever songs that we all know and love. This particular album I was listening to specifically focuses on classics starting from movies such as gone with the wind all the way to recent masterpieces such as harry potter and pirates and of course everything in between. They also have box sets focusing on different themes and such for instance an entire album dedicated to TV Show Theme Songs or All the Superhero Movies music or even something generic like the box set for “Epics” like Ben hur and what not.

One of the best things about this group is this : you know how you watch a movie like pirates for instance and theres all those parts where you’re like I like this music now, and this and this, and this, but to listen to the actual OST would be like an hour or something? For instance when he’s running away from the British sailors in the beginning to the part when Elizabeth is on the Pirate ship and sees them all as skeletons for the first time or when they are doing the underwater march, all of those pieces are great. City of Prague Philharmonics helps us out! They combine all those songs into one extended 7-8 minute song so it honestly is like watching the whole movie in your head!!!!!!!!!!!!! Insane in the membrane right? Seriously.

The Incredible Film Music Box
City of Prague Philharmonic

So if you like what you’ve read here, head over to Rhapsody.com, get a free trial (no spyware or malware included) and listen to 25 perfect quality streams for free! Honestly Harry.

Now Listening to: Pirates of the Caribbean by City of Prague Philharmonic