Music Invasion: Love is Over (1982) and 逝去的愛 (2009)

Sometimes I get sad thinking about all the unsuccessful relationship I have had. I think about all the love that I've invested in all those exes and I wonder why nothing ever works out. It must be me since I'm the only constant in all of them. Maybe I'm meant to be alone.

Here's 2 versions of the same song, one in my mother's era and one updated version for me.

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The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon

When Jimmy Fallon first started on The Late Night Show, I wasn't impressed and I didn't know why he deserved The Roots, but overtime he proved himself to be energetic, creative, talented and most important of all... funny. Also, he seemed to be an exceptionally genuine and nice person, pretty unusual for show business.

Mind you, I kinda "grew up" on Leno. When I first came to the States, watching Leno pretty much helped me with my listening skills. Every night, his opening monologue helped me learned the American culture but over the years Leno grew less and less funny and become the pompous ass that we came to know. His bits has gotten old, mostly making fun of the dumb and stupid. The whole Leno/O'Brien thing had left a bad taste in everyone's mouth. Things got even worst after band leader Kevin Eubanks left.

So I'm very happy that Jimmy got the Tonight Show spot, not happy enough to watch his show airing live since I have to go to bed around 11pm to get up and get to work by 8am. And even if I'm up, I would probably be watching Stewart/Colbert but I can always get it On Demand. The show doesn't seemed to be designed for a younger, more liberal crowd. I mean thus far we've seem some recurring skits from the Late Night Show happening here. #Hashtag, the evolution of dance, history of rap. Comparing to Leno, we see a lot more reference to the African-American culture. I mean, sure Leno's Tonight show band were mostly comprised with African Americans as is The Roots, but Will Smith, Roots, Michelle Obama and rap in just the first week? The funny thing is during this clip, Justin and Jimmy went out to the audience who, other than the lady who worked there was nearly 100% white. You can see a 60+ white guy trying to bounce to the rap and you can tell he never had to do that before.

Of course, it's great to see more people of color on TV, I just hope the American population feels the same way.

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Music Invasion: Judith Hill

Haven't posted for a while but I feel like I have to write a post about Judith Hill. Alright shameful confession here, but I watch The Voice. Not religiously, no but when there's nothing on TV I do look around OnDemand and sometime pop in an episode.

I was instantly blown away when I see the blind audition of this lady:



What pipe! Apparently her father is Black and her mother is Japanese and they are both musicians. Judith was selected to be one of Michael Jackson's backup singers for his This Is It tour before his death but unfortunately that didn't materialize. So she's doing The Voice now, I don't know how her opponents don't cower when they get pitted against her. She's downright amazing. He voice is soulful and strong, she got mad skills too.



I was ready to go on iTunes and buy her songs but I get more excited when I see the visual. I hope she wins the whole thing and get to be a big star.

I'm telling you, man. Blasians are gonna rule the world.

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Name Your Own Chinese Restaurant Meme

A few years ago, my friend and I were talking about how the majority of the Chinese restaurants here in the States have common keywords in their name. And that it might be fun to create a random generator online just for kicks. While I lack the proper programming techniques to do such a thing, I got inspired by a meme and decided to use their format, so here we go:

Feel free to add your own dim sum restaurant, seafood restaurant, dumpling house, noodle house, vegetarian restaurant, take out, buffet, bakery or chinese bistro add the end for flares. And in case people find this racist, I did survey over 1000 restaurant names on Yelp over 6 major cities.

And just in case anyone wants to know, mine is Lucky Chopsticks "Bar & Grill"!

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That's What I Keep Telling Myself

I hate sounding like Debbie Downer but I'm getting tired of random hookups, I guess I should have listened to this teenage Asian queen sooner.

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House Hunting

I have always wanted to own my own place. Whether it is a condo, duplex, a trinity or a house, having something of my own had always been a lifelong dream.

Hanging out with my Asian crew, I've learned that owning properties is how people get to comfortably retire. My friend Alan, his wife and their parents invest to buy properties, spend tens of thousands to revamp and then either sell it for profits or rent it out. His retirement plan is to rent out about 6 properties and get paid a few thousand dollars a month, it's definitely more than my salary for sure. Since everyone is moving into the vicinity of my friend and I do want to be able to hangout with them often without being driven back and forth, I'm looking into the neighborhood in deep South Philly.

The couple is wired into the market in South Philly and every time something come into the market, they get alerted and go assess if that's something with investment potential. After telling them that I'm in the market for my first home, they scouted around and found this little gem with a drop dead price. It's advertised as a 3 bedroom with 1.5 bath for $70,000, less than $300 a month. Just for the price, I should definitely buy it. Alan told me that I could rent it out for at least $750 a month. I mean who could refuse earning $450 more a month?

But when I get there to look at the place, I wasn't exactly thrilled. Maybe it's my lack of house-hunting experience or an eye for things. Yes, the structure was sound but the place looks small and older like something from the era I was born in. I'm not into the wood panels and the old appliance, the decidedly small kitchen, the small linen closet size bathroom that opens to the small living room. The unfinished, bang-your-head-to-the ceiling, creepy, scary-movie-ish basement, ceiling fans from another era. The carpet needs to be changed, the neighbor had broke through the fence so his dog can shit on the backyard. When I'm inside the house, I can't help but feel saddened.

Maybe I'm too particular, I refuse to have a basement that's unfinished. It's a damned waste of space. Alan told me that it's a big hassle to finish the basement since there's no easy way to take the dirt outside but carry it one bag at a time. It's going to be a huge annoyance, so I'm really not inclined to buy it. Another friend that came with us thought he'd buy it to rent out so I politely conceded. I just can't imagine living there. Although walking down the street a couple of houses over, there's a family who renovated the whole thing and looked really nice. Maybe I just didn't have the patience or imagination for this stuff. Anyhow, the house was sold in 24 hours to another buyer, so the house market is really jumping right now.

Here's the listing and additional photos.

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The Cancer Scare

So along with the streak of bad luck, this is what happened to me.

I'm prone to have skin problems in the winter, I don't know why. People usually have more skin issues in summer since you sweat more but not me. And since I've been having more gentleman callers as usual, I''m quite a closeted hypercondriac, I run to the doctor's screaming when I see anything unusual. There are some random pimples which I do recognize. Some small bumps near my hands that appears every so often because I do a lot of dishes sans gloves. A few dots on my face where I see the doctor's for thinking it could be herpes but he told me it's nothing but nervous tics. What the hell is a nervous tic and what kinda doctor would give that kind of diagnosis? I think my doctor is catching on to me being a hypochondriac and he took the time to explain to me the various conditions that I'm concerned about and trying to comfort me with reasons which I really appreciate.

And then there's this: Thank god that I'm a chronic masturbator, I'm pretty in tuned to how my body feels like. and about two-three weeks ago, I noticed that something feels different in my inner thighs. Given that my mother had died from ovarian cancer in her mid-thirties, I was a little alarmed. Maybe not exactly alarmed since sooner or later we'll all have to die from something but I was at least, for a lack of a better word, intrigued. It's not like I'm not feeling well. The doctor says it's probably nothing, it could be a lump of fat which sometimes grow on a human body and it's perfectly harmless, but he ordered an ultrasound anyway. When I got to the ultrasound, it's shaped like a small cheetos, it feels like it's made of plastic, as if someone injected me with a scanning tag in a futuristic sci-fi thriller. I was gonna make a "boy or girl" joke to the ultrasound technician, but he looked a bit stern and made me a bit nervous.

The doctor is supposed to call me or send me a letter with the results and I'm not overly concerned. Considering the alternative, I mean do I really want to be deemed so fat that even my balls are growing fat cells now? How do you exercise your balls that I'm not already doing? I rather have cancer.

Life's too short, enjoy your while you can.

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