does anyone know why coldplay has a book
out after two albums ?? i know they always put out books about bands but come on. the author of the book was on kevin and bean this morning and he spoke of how coldplay was up there with U2 status. what ?? after two albums.

i read some random message posted on Insound on how good bands are being played on bad radio stations. in this case it was the massive hit "float on" by modest mouse on some pop station 92.5 fm. i have noticed a growing trend towards embracing this cool new "indie" music. in the july 9th issue of entertainment weekly (michael moore on the cover) they do an entire article about "the return of (good) alt-rock. the article goes on to list must have albums for any indie loving kid - franz ferdinand (too poppy for my taste), death cab for cutie (lead by the indie kids messiah mr. ben gibbard), modest mouse (how many albums did they have out till they got popular ... like 6), yeah yeah yeahs (pretenders wanna bes), interpol (joy division copycats though their new album i think they are trying to find their own sound which is good), the postal service (see death cab for cutie), the shins, and the killers who sold out all three of their LA shows in seriously 10 seconds. i find all of this relatively funny because ... well it is just another trend passing through until the next big wave of music cool comes along ... after all at one point limp bizkit and linkin park were once the coolest bands ever. enjoy the time in the spotlight indie bands !!

speaking of indie ... i got to see a one day in advance (since the film opens in limited release tomorrow) of garden state, the new zach braff movie, hosted by indie 103.1 fm. i won't go into long detail about the movie but i will say for a directorial debut zach braff did an excellent job. i liked the way he shot the film and how quiet some scenes were. the plot is simple and the pace of the movie is slow but it works. natalie portman is good, her role in this film was different from her other work. i personally think zach braff is better comically then as a dramatic actor but who knows. the movie reminded me a lot of punchdrunk love, simple with a love story and a comic actor (adam sandler) playing a serious role. just my two cents. grade: B+

ituning: this morning - the cure :)

Pigern, I can't believe that guy said that to you. Some people are so ignorant and will never know any better. You should have told him Chinatown is right around the corner from his house in Asshole Alley. Pffttt.

This weekend, I saw Steve Burns at Spaceland. For those of you who don't know, he is the ex host of Blue's Clues. I went bc my friend wanted to go and so I tagged along. I had never even seen a single episode of Blue's Clues. Anyway, the crowd was sooo random. Spaceland is in Silverlake, so you expect trendy l.a. hipsters right? Wrong! I think the 909 was sponsoring a field trip bc everyone there looked like they belonged in Fresno or Fontana. Some people looked like they were supposed to be at Dublin's. Yeah, I don't know. Anyway, I think Steve Burns was attempting to come across as artsy and abstract (he had a projection screen behind him w/ audiovisual images and video clips), but it was just plain annoying. He was trying too hard.

Oh my racist. I'm getting ice cream with my friend and a man intercepts us and asks, "Where's Chinatown?" So I pause thoughtfully and tell him, "Well, if you take the 110..." And he laughs and says, "No no I'm just kidding. Get it? Haha." Because my friend and I were both Chinese. My friend had walked away ignoring the man while I was trying to give him directions. I guess I'm just gullible. I told him, "That's not funny" with a dead serious expression and he replies, "Yes it is!" as he walks away. I'm always shocked when I experience something like that.

dang i'm pretty sleepy but tomorrow is friday so i'll just blog ... and i'll do it in list form:
1. work is the same except i got into a little "agrument" with my boss, that was ugly.
2. parents gone for a few days ... how will i fend for myself :(
3. getty's photo exhibit will be ending this sunday .... and i still have not seen it
4. i want to go on vacation ... oh hk and spain i miss you
5. six feet under season 4 is so weak right now
6. they came out with new ipods .... 5 more gb than mine and the same price, but alas i already have one ...  hmmm but i could always use another, hee hee
7. dodgers are playing their little hearts out
8. i love carpet, i love desk, i love lamp .... which leads me to my second part of my blog

movie reviews (due the hour and time i won't write up huge reviews ... sorry):

anchorman: the legend of ron burgandy - one word ... random. another word ... weird. that movie made little to no sense AT ALL. it had its moments of humor but it was quite strange. after all the movie had a 30 sec animation scene and subtitles. wtf i know. but it does have great characters ... my personal favorite was brick tamland because he ate a big red candle. ha ha. grade: C+

napoleon dynamite - okay, not bad but not great. no where near as good as some strange people seem to think it is. nothing original being done or said and you never know if you are suppose to like or dislike any of the charactes. two things saved the movie for me .... 1. tina majorino who played deb because she is so cute and she was the little girl from corrina corrina and 2. when napoleon dances at the end of the movie .... WOW i can watch that 50 times over and over. love it. grade: B-

muriel's wedding (netflix) - more serious than i thought but good. brenda (rachel griffiths) from six feet under is in the film which is cool but toni collette is awesome in it and i LOVE the abba songs. grade: B-

the station agent (netflix) - good strong character movie. nothing much happens but you get a chance to know who these people are and actually care about them. peter dinklage who played finbar gave a great performance. i wish i had a chance to catch this movie when it was in theatres but no harm done. grade: A

triplets of belleville (netflix) - great animation, story a bit odd and kooky but it works. the triplets are great and the music was wonderful. i thought it was funny how i was watching it while the whole tour de france thing was beginning and stuff. ha ha. grade: A-

I heard on the radio and then read online today that some of the spectators at the Tour de France were spitting at Lance Armstrong as he rode by. Hey way to go classy french people, lets spit at someone who happens to be an american who is winning your race. The man was on his death bed at one point and has overcome to become one of the greatest atheletes today. The millions of dollars he has raised for cancer research and the thousands of cancer patients he has visited in hospitals i guess just doesn't mean so much anymore. Way to go frenchie....good gosh

It's been horribly hot these past few days. You know it's bad when you sit still and still feel sweaty.
Dorkus, I read your brief summary about your Philly trip on myspace. It sounds like you enjoyed yourself. : ) And it just heightens my desire to go travel somewhere. Preferably somewhere cooler than here. Ack. Too hot.
As for films, yes, Darth would see both Anchorman and Dodgeball, which seem like the same film with a few costume changes. They're all cookie cutter comedies. I mean let's see something with heart. Like Cinderella Story. C'mon people. Haha.
If anyone wants to check out a great live band: Monday night, 7/26 The Blood Arm plays Spaceland. Oh so much fun. And it's free so you can't argue about the price.

Hey Party People whats up? I'm bored at work today so I guess I will blog. I was on vacation last week and I'm sure all of you missed me right? Nothing big just drove up to Santa Cruz to spend time at our old cottage which i haven't done in a few years. Got off to a great start as I got a nice speeding ticket on the 101...apparently you can't go 96 mph up there? odd i know...haha, but yeah i'm waiting to see what the damage will be when the bill comes, anyone want to take any guesses? Went to see a Giants game at SBC park in San Fran too, I really liked the stadium, it felt small and very close to the field, which i enjoyed, I highly recommend everyone to check it out, I liked it better than Petco in San Diego. Quick movie reviews:
 
Dodgeball: 7.0 its pretty funny and gets the usual cast of characters together. Its somewhat predictable but is still very entertaining to watch just cause Vince Vaughn gets to play a challenging part....himself..haha
 
Anchorman: 7.0 I laughed harder for this movie than I did for Dodgeball, but it didn't have much of a story, but movies like that are usually based upon the funny one-liners. Will Ferrell is great, and the cameos had me busting up.....I love lamp.
 
Went to the Espys last night thanks to my friend, had great seats, so good that I actually got to sit in back of a huge star..Lebron, nope, Denzel, nope..tom cruise..ha you wish, i got to sit in back of Jenna Van Oy, thats right Six from Blossom, I so wanted to yell WHOA!!! when someone won, but i didn't, darn.
 
Softball season is off to a pretty sad start, we easily could be 2-0 but instead we are 0-2. Last week was quite depressing, as one of our team members was illegally run over by the other team and the correct call wasn't made which set off lots of yelling and swearing and thus the attitudes dropped as we did the game. We have a rematch this sunday so you can all come out to watch, i know you are dying too!!
 
Anyway thats about all for me now. Hopefully I can put some pictures up soon. Hasta

Well, Hedwig, New Wave did her Cure squeal upon seeing your post. Ha. That's a pretty good shot though. Your trip sounds amazing. I wish I could experience all that.
At the risk of whining, I went after work to run some simple errands and the whole trip turned into an ordeal. While in line at Target, the woman in front of me was on the phone and would not put it down ... even as she had to enter her pin number. She just kept talking as the screen prompted her. Hello? People are waiting! And then at Coffee Bean there were five people working that shift but only one person making the drinks. Does that make sense? The drinks took forever as the other four employees shifted around and took up space.
Anyway, it was all just a waste of time.

i took this in vienna for new wave.... 

Hey New Wave, I just saw Dodge Ball this weekend! I thought the movie started slow but it got better when the characters started their "training". So i went to my first office party. It was on a 3 hour cruise around Newport Harbor. 30 mins into the trip, I decided I really didn't want to be stuck on a boat with people from work. I think it's because most of them are either too old, too old and single, or just too boring...even with drinks. Anyway....can't wait till the Christmas party.

so the cure wasn't at the warped tour rancid girl ??? ha ha. excellent about the wasted girl and the bj. class act.

so not much to report ... but when is there ever. ha ha. i'll just make this a blog about movies i've seen:

dodgeball - not as funny as i thought it could be but still some good stuff. vince vaughn isn't really acting in this film so much as just being himself, it is almost like he is saying hey can i have my paycheck for reading these lines. ben stiller was good but after awhile his character gets tiresome and repeative. it was good to see stephen root (the guy who plays milton from office space) in there, the dodgeball battles, and jason bateman as a commentor. ha ha. grade: B+

spiderman 2 - better than 1 but that's not saying much because i was not a huge fan of the first one. much like most sequals this one went right into the story and didn't spend the first hour explaining all about the characters and their relations to each other. i must say i'm still not a fan of kristen dunst or her work but she does pull off mary jane. i never was a huge marvel comic fan aside from x-men but spiderman 2 is entertaining. grade: B

fahrenheit 9/11 - go see the movie, form your own opinions and have a good discussion with other people about how you feel. grade: B

frida (dvd) - a biography movie about the artist frida kahlo, good movie, strong characters and all around great acting from salma hayek and alfred molina. grade: A-

bad santa (dvd) - nothing clever but still entertaining, the characters are all hatable yet you root for them esp. billy bob's character, the young boy who befriends billy bob is sweet ... ha ha and fat. if anything the movie is a good for the anti christmas message it brings. grade: B-

chocolat (vhs) - slow, very very slow and slightly long, judi d. seems to play all the same roles, juliette binoche was good but seriously the movie is so misleading because johnney depp was hardly in it. boooooo. and what is up with carrie-anne moss looking all lady-like. hello that is trinity. ha ha. anyone noticing an alfred molina thing going on here. grade: B-

i'll see more movies later ....

my computer is broken so i've been using whatever computers i can get my hands on. in this case my dad's. (sigh) i really don't want to buy a new computer but i'll have to. wtf. oh well.

sorry i haven't blogged. i'm in europe...amsterdam to be exact. yes i went to a coffee house and yes i had a space cake and then some. all in good fun. just wanted to write a quick hello and give greetings from the land where bikes always have right of way above everything including people, where you can go window shopping for women 24 hours/7 days a week and where the MJ is tolerated/legal. here's one interesting part of my tour; last night i watched a live sex show. and that's exactly what it was....it was live, there were people having sex on stage for show. pretty crazy. i watched people on stage having sex; different people....for a whole hour. there were strippers also.

highlights of the trip: white water rafting in austria, staying on top of mount pilatus in switzerland-the view was awesom, Paris-all of it, Italy-all of it, the friendly people in the Netherlands

sucky things on the trip: shnitzel(me no likey), veal sausage(blech), all french food that is bland as all hell, walking an hour to find a crappy place to eat, paying for water and getting irritated at your friends cuz you've been on the road for 21 days.

going home in 2 days!
take care all

I went to the Warped Tour on Friday and it was okay. The line was really really really long to get in. I waited for about 2 hours! There was this drunk girl infront of me who served as comic reflief. She was totally wasted. At one point, she proceeded to give her guy friend a blow job!! It was great! There were actually a lot of parents at the warped your which made me feel old. My "groupie" moment was shaking hands with the lead singer of Stretch Armstrong. I wanted to buy their cd, but why bother? My friend has their cd already; I can just burn a copy.