Romance of a Long Night

This song is my favorite Chinese song of all time. Sung by Andy Lau 刘德华, called Romance of a Long Night 长夜多浪漫。 I finally decided to actually learn it, because I had no idea what he was singing about. I thought it was about a guy spending a great night connecting with his girl, but thats completely wrong haha. After a few hours of google translate, I found out the meaning of the song. It's about a guy that just got left by his girl, and he's coping with it. Telling himself that it's not the end of the world, he doesn't feel grief and he's happy for his newfound independence. And he's taking it all in by spending a quiet night by himself under the romantic stars. coolcool

I couldn't find any translations or pronunciations for this song on line, so this has got to be the first! I dedicate this translation and phonetic writeout to my two cousins Dyshlong and Dayfut. For their similar undying love for the movie Truant Heroes, from which we all first fell in love with this song. And! also to anyone that wants to learn some cantonese :)



A1:
孤單的一晚但仍燦爛
Gu don dik yut mon don ying tzon lan
It's a lonely yet beautiful night

妳去了我 卻心不冷
Ley huy liu ngo cup sum but lang
You've left me, but my heart is not cold

陪著我走 總有心裡空間
Puy jerk ngo jow, jong yao sum lei hung gon
The thing that accompanies me, is the freedom (space) in my heart

這麼的一晚 自由懶慢
Je mo dik yut mon, jee yao lon mon
On this night, feeling independent and carefree

愛去了我己經不挽
Ngoi huy liu ngo yi ging but won
Love has gone, but I'm fine (let go already)

寧願看星 怎會孤單
Ling yuen hon sing, jum wuy gu dan
Rather look at the stars, how can I be lonely (stars are keeping me company)
(1st time continue to A2)
(2nd time jump to B2)

A2:
天空是清冷
Teen hong see ching lahng
The sky is clear and briskly cold

但我心 偏感覺溫暖
Don ngo sum been gum gok wun luen
But my heart feels a warmth

人沒妳沒有酸
Yun moot lei moot yao shuen
There's no pain living without you

沒有感覺哀怨
Moot yao gum gok ngoi yuen
Not feeling any sadness

B1:
長夜多浪漫
Cherng ye doh long mon
In this long night, there's much romance (referring to the stars and his peace?)

縱也有點不慣
Chong ya yao deem but guan
A little not used to it

喜歡 這心空間 仍是冷
Hei foon je sum hong gon, ying see lang
Enjoying this freedom (space) in my heart, even though it still feels cold

長夜多浪漫
Cherng ye doh long mon
In this long night, there's much romance

妳去了這一晚
Lei huy liu je yut mon
You've left this night

喜歡 這心空間
Hay foon je sum hong gan
Enjoying this freedom (space) in my heart
(1st time continue)
(2nd time go to last line C)

誰願意妳那舊情
Sui yuen yi lay la gou ching
Who will want your old feelings?

再教我心作繭
Joy gao ngo sum jok gum
Of which would teach my heart to 'cocoon'
(Go to A1)

B2:
酒杯是溫暖
Jao buy see wun luen
This wine glass is warm

在我心找不到嗟怨
Joy ngo sum jow but doh je yuen
In my heart, I'm not finding sadness

明日妳若再返
Ming yut lei yu? joy fon
If you came back to me tomorrow

未會因妳改變
Mei wuy yun lei goy been
Won't mean I would change my heart for you
(Go to B1)

C:
熱愛漸冷
Yeet ngoi jeen lang
Warmth of our Love has become cold. 
(Repeat B1)

Skrillex

Wow the last time I blogged was in October, which was also about the last time I worked out.  Yesterday I finally went to the gym, and today I'm blogging again! Wooohoo!  What a two month funk, I'm gonna chalk this one up to winter hibernation.

Don't you love it when you're expectations get blown away?  Yesterday I went to go see Skrillex and the Roseland and my mind was blown.  It was so fun raging to dubstep, my buddies going to Wobbleland are in for an epic night. 

I was skeptical at first about this event, cus it was all ages, small venue, and Skrillex only had a 1 hour set at the end.  I wasn't sure how big dubstep was in Portland, but the place was packed! 

DJ Craze was so good, he's a 5 time DJ World Champion and he's ridiculously versatile.  He played everything: hip hop, OG rap, dub step, DnB, house, and his specialty Miami bass.  True master at the turntables man.  I'm so glad I got to see this guy, I didn't even know who he was.  He definitely made up for the fact that they only had 1 hour sets. 



Skrillex was a blast.  The day before, I just stayed up till 5am blasting his music.  It just makes it so much better when you know the songs for the event.  He started off with "Rock N' Roll" and it was mayhem from then on.   The cool part was it was his birthday! 

The "Little Gremlin" as Deadmau5 calls him haha

10 minutes left, they bring out a cake with 20 something candles, and we all sing happy birthday to him.  He holds a balloon over it and it pops, blowing out all the candles.  Over the mic: "Portland you guys are awesome! I'm gonna play a song that nobody's heard before!!"  *YAHH!!* Over the mic: "and heres the drop!" BoOM WOOBWOBWOB.  Skrillex grabs the cake, and tosses it into the crowd.  People go apeshit.  He steps up to the edge of the stage and dives into the crowd.

4 minutes left, he ends with his remix of La Roux - In For the Kill.  I can't believe this ends at 1am lameee.  We chant "1 more song!". They promoter gets him to come out, but they already cut the power and everything.  That just made us chant harder.  The mic comes on again :"sorry guys, they cut my controls, I can't do anything. the cops are waiting outside".  But Skrillex aka Sonny Moore was a leadsinger for his Screamo band so he just belts out over the mic "HEY SEXY LADAYY"  crowd goes wild, the controls kick back in, and his remix of Hey Sexy Lady drops with perfect timing.  Ahhh it was crazy.  My neck hurts from headbanging now haha.

iSquare - Hey Sexy Lady (Skrillex rmx)


La Roux - In For the Kill (Skrillex rmx)

2 Talented

Just spreading some music around.  This guy, Matt Cab has been going around in the FB/Youtube-sphere and I just can't stop listening!  I'm not a Bieber fan, but here's Matt's cover of his song "Somebody to Love".




wow, he just owns the song, puts Bieber to shame.  When he sings in the higher register its oh so silky.  I remember back in highschool when he sang for the talent show, and I wish him success 'cus he's legitimately good.  Thanks Fishy for passing along the vid.

Then I went on the usual Youtube surfing and found a video of the guy 'Snuggles' who beatboxes for Matt.  He's beatboxing 'A milli' by Lil' Wayne.  Now, I am not only not a fan of Lil' Wayne, but I think he sucks ass.  However, Snuggles just makes the song sound siiiick. Check it out:



Oooh and there was another vid of Matt behind the scenes producing one of the tracks on his up and coming album Ryan Leslie style (or Han style).  

Spreading the Miyavi Looove

My brother's been listening to mostly JRock and Visual Kei bands for the past few years, and I never knew what the fuss was about.  I mean there were some good X-Japan and LunaSea songs, but I never really went out of my way to listen to them.

Then he with my cousin to this Miyavi concert recently, probably their first one?  And I'm like who is this guy? I never heard of him, and shrugged it off.  Then a few days later I hear some funky junky guitar coming from the other room and found myself bobbing my head.  This shit was FUNKY, and I was really digging it.  Hey Wilton! who is this?  MIYAVI.



Miyavi
"God of Guitar"
Age: 28
and yep, he rocks, and he's always having fun doing it.

Man I love listening to funky music, and he also incorporates a lot of blues rock and rock guitar in there too.  I've browsed through some of his other songs, and they all have a different feel to them.  He draws from all kinds of musical styles and elements and FUNK. 

I wish I was at the concert, he passed by SF on 6/15 and Portland on 6/19.

Tracks I'm currently Digging:
Miyavi - Survive : Rock Guitar style playing plus catchy rock vocals
Miyavi - Selfish Love : Funky Blues Rock Guitar, with bluesy vocals
Miyavi - Itoshii Hito (My Beloved One) : Acoustic Slow bluesy song
Miyavi - Are You Ready to Rock?:  This one is just fun! check the vid. 

Beardyman

ahh.. just finished my obligatory nighttime cup of milk.  It's my obligation to drink it because I foolishly bought two gallons of milk because they'd be 1.99 each thinking "sure, I could finish this no problem!".  And now I'm in a tight race (gallon challenge?) against the rapid rate of bacteria growth in that last jug.  This ain't the first time I tried this either haha, I'll never learn!

 What's up with these new milk jugs? They pour so awkwardly

Have you ever come across something or someone awesome on Youtube, and just devote the next few hours scouring all the related videos?  I just found out about this beatboxing dude called Beardyman.  I was into some beatboxers back in the day like Rahzel and LeeJay where I was trying to find all their videos, cus they were so mindblowing!  Haha, LeeJay actually went to UCD and I walked past him at work once and I thought "man he walks like an asshole".  Anyways, this guy Beardyman is pretty sick.  Beatboxing tends to get old and repetitive pretty quick.   But he takes it to a new level with crazy sound effects, DJ equipment, and comedy.  He's pretty funny and entertaining to watch.  Check it:


He gotta do more of this! 


pretty cool, yea it's old 2007 I think I even watched it back then.  Oh well, i think it's awesome.

Fun Random Night

I hope you had the time of your life

That was the song that I last heard from Andy's car (reminder: get Andy's CD), and we were karaoke-ing the hell out of it.  It also wasn't the only song that we karaoke'd.  We sang a crap load of songs throughout tonight.  Man today was a regular day that turned out to be one of the funnest random days I've had.  I wouldn't say it was the time of my life, but it was pretty damned awesome.  And I'm sure Andy, Gary, Henry and Kevin can vouch for this haha.


Mundane Morning
Morning for me these days is pretty much after 12PM haha so bad.  I was planning on going to this WIA orientation at one of the EDD One Stop Centers to find out more about government subsidized training, but... I arrived late.  Poo.  When I got to the area (that Market, Mission area that confused the hell out of me) I hella couldn't find the place.  So even if I had skipped my "morning" shower, I probably wouldn't have made it.  Oh well.  Henry got off early, and Gary took the day off and it was a sunny day so I wasn't really kicking myself.  We ended up playing Altered Beast and River City Ransom at my place, fun!

Four o' Clock Fro-yo

It was a pretty warm day for Autumn so we met up with Mel for fro-yo at Lakeshore Plaza.  Something like Nuubi Fro-Yo? I think it was new.  It was selfserve and I went way overboard on mine.  There were like 12 flavors! So I just went crazy.  I had 5 different flavors and 5 different toppings.  Total cost? $4.49  oops.  Next time I gotta control myself.

Spontaneous, Ambitious, Delicious
Hmm.. that spells SAD.  Which is what we would have been if everything didn't fall into place like it did tonight! (heh maybe)  So at Lakeshore, Henry get's the ambition to be spontaneous and buys a set of Boxing Gloves and Mitts too (relevance).  Here's when the day started getting fun.

I was originally planning to eat at home, but Andy mention's Chinos and cleverly lures me to eat at Henry's house.  We ate some, played some rockband, and we started boxing!  I had brought my gloves too, so now we had two sets.  Perfect for some light sparring.  This is what lured Kevin to Henry's house haha.  It was a lot of fun sparring with each other.  We got to test our own fighting skills (since training mitts don't really do that) and just randomly fought each other.  I felt so uncoordinated in a sparring match! And it's actually pretty hard to get a good hit on the other guy.  I think I fought Gary and Henry, and man when you get hit in the gut you feel it.  But the gloves give good enough protection to not do any lasting damage.  I'm so glad that everyone was so into it! Good investment.


Gary decided to go to Safeway and buy some Wine haha.  So random.  I felt like it turned into a Ladies Night: Men Edition.  Wine and Boxing? Great times!  While we were sipping on the Reisling (quite tasty, sweet and sour, i like!) Gary bought, we watched Man Vs. Food on the Travel channel.  I swear the host is going to die of some heart disease.  A 4 patty hamburger thats got the diameter of your head? That can't be good. 
 
Then this show Meet the Natives came on, and it was actually pretty entertaining and interesting!  It's about 5 tribal natives from an Island in the South Pacific coming over to the US to see what life is like here.  Those guys are so naturally funny, and they're really looking at our world with virgin eyes.  They described a sleeping bag as a "tube" and have never seen a snake (which one of them was terrified of ).  In a way, this show may be exploitive, but I think it's always interesting to see cultures mingle (why travelling is so fun!).  They were exposed to cattle ranchers, New Yorkers, and even "the Orange County people".  Man those people are so superficial it makes us look bad.  The OC'ers explained to the natives that they had a lot of mirrors around the house, because "you always have to make sure you look good in Orange County".  They even brought them to a Botox injection appointment, which was pretty cringe-worthy.

But the most interesting part were the questions that the tribe wanted to be answered during their 5 ambassador's vacation.

1. Why are we so obsessed with money and possessions?
2. Why do we allow pollution even though we know its bad? 
3. Why do we treat our pets better than some of our fellow citizens?
4. Is the United States still a peace keeper? Do we look out for others? 

Very interesting perspectives coming from a tribe that has never been exposed to our kind of society.  It's pretty cool how people exist in a society that is entirely untouched by "modern" technology.  It's also refreshing to see the happiness the guys had living a simpler life. 

It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time!!  So another food program comes on showcasing different unique restaurants around the country, and by now all our mouths are watering.  This one restaurant in LA I think serves only Peanut Butter Sandwiches.  Once we see the Peanut Butter/Marshmallow Fluff sandwich, we start looking at each other.  We're like fuck it, we gotta hit up Safeway again and make us some peanut butter sandwiches haha.  It was SO worth it! and this was when we were all buzzing from the wine.  We picked up bread, Peanut butter, Strawberry Jam, Marshmallow Fluff, Condensed Milk, Nutella, M&M's and Lactose-Free milk (to prevent Andy's lactose farts, which happened anyway).  Haha yea, we went all out on creating many different combinations of PB sandwiches.  I only had room for 1, so I made the PB and Marshmallow.  It was sooo delicious! Really hit the spot.  Some other combinations we made were: Jam and Marshmallow, Jam and Condensed milk, Jam, PB, and Marshmallow, and Andy's famous, PB, M&M's, condensed milk, and Jam.  (need to grab pictures from Henry's camera)


It's Karaoke Time!
Lol for some reason when we got back from Safeway with the sandwich ingredients, we were breaking into song left and right for the next of the night.  It was hilarious and felt great to belt out our favorite ballads.  I think we were buzzed and hyper from all the sugar.  Lol we were so ridiculous.  We also streamed Karaoke from Youtube on Henry's big screen TV.  I swear we never have to hit up a Karaoke place again. We sang 

• Unchained Melody - Oh, My Love, My Darling, I Hunger for your touch
  
• You've Lost that Lovin Feelin - You never close your eyes, anymore when I kiss your lips
  
• I'll Make Love To You - Close your eyes, Make a wish, and blow out the candle lights. 
• Nice and Slow - It's seven o clock on the dot, I'm in my drop top cruisin the streeets
  

Top Gun - You've Lost that Lovin' Feelin

Man it was so awesome, we let it all out with no care in the world!

Gary said it best: "Should this be a Thanksgiving tradition?" aha maybe, maybe not.  But I'm down for more nights like this.  Good clean random ass fun.

Today is Thanksgiving, and I'm thankful for all my friends (you know who you are!)

Sorry for such a long post haha.  I mostly write about events for myself to remember later down the road.  And today was a memorable day.  If you made it to the end, you are awesome!! 

Double Dressup Party Weekend

Just had a really fun weekend.  It's so much fun dressing up for parties, because everyone's in a silly mood having a grand ole' time. 

Lumberjack Party
So Gary got us these suspenders to go with our costumes, and when we first put them on they were WAY too tight.  We had to "pick a side" to get comfortable, if you don't understand its cool don't worry about it :)  It was funny because Andy was just wearing his regular everyday clothes, so it was pretty much a Dress Like Andy's party.  I love walking around in public in costume though, we went to Delano's to get some whiskey and beer and got some funny looks haha.  The house party was great! There were so many costumes that I didn't expect.  Like Tiana's bear costume! That was hilarious, she actually gutted a stuffed teddy (Albert?) and wore it like Ben Stiller in Tropic Thunder. 

LumberJacks

With Forrest Gump, Babe, the Log, and Bear! Sweet costumes

90's Party
For Mel's bday we all dressed up 90's style and headed over to Club 1994.  The music was pretty friggin' awesome man, it was a really fun night.  It was fun singing along to all these middle school hits  "everymornin there's a halo hangin from the corner of my girlfriends four post bed"  "I...like.... big butts and i cannot lie you other brothers can't denyyy"  major karaoke fest, it was a blast!    There was also a bunch of friends and friends of friends out, which was awesome.

Highlights:
- Seeing Gary the Hoff's doppleganger (blondie wearing a red top)
- the boy band screams, it was like I was at a real concert
- Leslie rapping to Gangsta's Paradise, she's a G

Duct tape Wayne's World hat yayeerr..

Misc.

Haven't really had a main topic these days, but I got some notables!:

On Tuesday: 
Hung out with Andrew to watch the WSOP Final Table.  It was pretty damned amazing watching 21 year old Joe Cada win it all.  At one point he only had 2million chips with the blinds at 500k/1mill, so he was pretty much hanging by a thread.  In my view, he won this tournament because he was lucky, but congrats to him being a millionaire by 21 wow.

Got introduced to Metric by Anju!  Yea, a lot of people have been talking about them and I actually recognized some songs, but I never consciously listened to the lyrics.  But Cora's cursory analysis, opened my eyes (ears?) haha, i also learned some vocabulary reading that post haha.  Anyways, I shall be getting myself acquainted to Metric these couple of weeks.  (favorites so far: Help I'm Alive, Sick Muse, G G and G)

Wednesday: 
Had Kitaro for lunch with the Gary and went to Ross to pick out some Lumberjack wear for Tiana and Paula's House Partay.  It should be fun! Too bad I didn't grow out the facial hairs for 3 weeks like Halloween.  It's actually much more appropriate for this event! darn.

Accomplished one of my "goals" from way back!  I can now play SNES, NES, GENESIS games directly off of my WII!  I revisited some of my favorite games: Tetris Attack, Zelda: Link to the Past, Super Bomberman 5, and Rivercity Ransom.  Nostalgic funblastastic!

Thursday:
Lazy procrastination's got the best of me.  I gotta stop staying up till 3-4AM! I wanted to go down to Sunnyvale to finish step 2 (verification of UI benefits) and step 3 (talking to career counselor about the PM program), but apparently you have to show up before 10:30AM.  Otherwise they run out of time slots for the counselors.  I pretty much wasted my time and gas today for like 2 minutes to complete step 2 blah.  So.... who thinks I can wake up at 7AM tomorrow? hahaha

Michael Jackson Video Game?!?!

I wasn't gonna blog this until I wake up, but what the hell.  I got trashed today playing Tower and Kings Cup and I just don't want to sleep yet.  I don't wanna fall asleep with a throbbing headache, and I want to talk about my video games!

So the day I got to Eugene David's roommate Simon shows me his modded X-BOX loaded up with pretty much ALL THE GAMES in the world ever made! (NES, SNES, GENESIS, ATARI, MAME (arcade), XBOX, N64) Ok, maybe not all the games, but it's pretty sweet.  I was planning to just KO once I got there, but this was just too awesome.  I need something like this soon, imagine playing the following games, without getting up to change the cartridge or powering up another console.

1. Sunset Riders
2. Tetris Attack  (my favorite game of all time)
3. Mario Kart 64
4a. Goldeneye
4b. Perfect Dark
5. Halo 2
6. Michael Jackson's Moonwalker (?????)

Wow that last game was the most ridiculous yet fun game I've played.  Haha so you play as Michael Jackson, killing bad guys.  And Michael Jackson has "The Force" (the lightning thing that comes out of your hands in Star Wars).  Powerups? A monkey shows up, and when you go up to it, you transform into a robot Michael that shoots lasers?!!?   And the most hilarious and mind-boggling part is the end when you win.  Michael morphs into a jet airplane and flies away?! WHAT!?  Oh yea, his special move is him pulling off moves from Billie Jean, Thriller, or Smooth Criminal, and everythign on the screen just dies lol.  The best part of the game in my opinion is the music.  Beat it, Smooth Criminal, Billie Jean, BAD, Thriller.  awesome. 

Enjoy, and crave this game :)


The Ending, Skip to 2:50

Solo Roadtrip to Eugene!

It was pretty fun overall, I really like driving long distances.  It's pretty peaceful and kinda liberating.  All you need is your favorite music, and its a go! I definitely want to do a cross country roadtrip some day.  


Playlist:
1.  Live 105 - Best station in the Bay, started off with IINTERGALACTIC PLANETARYY
2.  Beatles Love Album - road trip singalong, i need to see the Cirque du Soleil Love show
3.  Infected Mushroom - Vicious Delicious
4.  Never have I ever played Never Have I Ever on the phone, until now. thanks Meg! that was a good hour killed.
5.  Across the Universe Soundtrack - More singalongs :)
6.  The Hush Sound - So Sudden, Like Vines, Goodbye Blues - great roadtrip albums!
7.  Tiesto Kaleidoscope
8.  Daft Punk - Alive 2007 - RoooBooot


Food:
-Virginia's Veronas, nomnomnom
-Beef Jerky Original (peppered is so much better, or Jamaica Me Crazy!)
-Japanese snack mix, nomnom
-V8 Fusion, water, Mt. Dew 


By The Numbers: 
Minis Spotted: 2 :)
Cops Spotted: 4
Mini to Cop Ratio: 0.5 :(
Max Speed: 95 mph
Avg Speed: 63.8 mph
Miles, Davis to Eugene: 466 Miles
Gas used: ~14.0265 gallons
Fuel Economy: 33.22 mpg  (supposed to be 32 Highway, pretty close)
Rest Stops: 1
Caffeine drinks: 1 (mountain dew)

Highlights:
+ Taking a 3 hour pit stop in Davis and having a bomb ass burrito at Davis Taqueria with Franky. 

+ Playing Never Have I Ever on the phone with a drunk friend haha, it sure helped me fight the deadly burrito food coma.
+ That IS300 (Brian?) after the Oregon Border.  He creeps up behind me really fast and passes me, and I got this sudden urge to keep up with him.  Right then, it was the mountain twisties and man it was fun.  Put a smile on my face!
+ Making it to Eugene from Davis on 1 tank of gas! I swear it was on the brink of empty.  When I reached the gas station, it said estimated 1 mile left O_O.
+ Getting to David's apartment at 2:30AM at the tail end of a college drinkfest, and staying up playing video games until 5 o clock! (DIY, Video Games, blog post coming soon)

WTB: Yamaha

Imagine if it was all black, or all white.  mmm.. sexy.

Anyways, this is something I've wanted since... last year? But its hefty price has kept me from owning this beautiful beast.  Electric Violin!! how awesome would that be!!?  It all started when I was playing in my room to relieve some stress.  (dont take that out of context)  And my roommate yells at me to shut my door and keep it down.   At first I was pissed off, but then it dawned on me that not everyone likes classical music.  If only I had a violin only I could hear!

Tada! introducing the Yamaha SV-150.  I like the looks.  I mean its modern looking but still retains the classic violin shape.  I'm not into the awkward Quasimodo shaped electric violins that are out there, too craasyy.

And not only does it let  you practice silently, you can hook it up to an amp, to your computer to record, but the best of all is the control module that lets you add effects for fun!  Man it would be so cool to fake a rock guitar solo on this baby. OO! after watching the below video, it also lets you load MP3's and jam to them.  c'mon.. lottery!

Demo at the NAMM show!

Goal: 2 Songs to Learn

Once in a while I get inspired to learn a song. Actually it happens a lot, but I rarely follow it through, so I'm gonna make these my goal so I actually do it.

1st song!: Flight of the Bumblebee

This is a great violin piece, and I wanna learn it. Who cares if its insanely hard, who cares if it'll take me years, I needa learn it! Here's world record holder David Garett playing it:



Heres some reasons I wanna do it:
1. I've lost my finger speed, and want to get it back
2. I have horrible spiccato, and this is pretty much all spiccato. (Wiltron needs to work on his spiccato too!)
3. It's short!

2nd Song: Piano Man
Okay, I may be cheating cus I've started learning this maybe a month or 2 ago, but I haven't learned it all yet. I got inspired by Andy to play this song, and I was like hey! why dont I learn the piano, and you learn the harmonica part! Dude learns it in like 2 hours. He's still waiting on me (yeeeesh).. maybe ill have it by christmas? haha

Billy Joel Ladies and Gentlemen (don't mind the mustache):


I'm maybe 70% done agghh. I always learn about that much of piano songs cus they make the endings so damn hard. I'm a pianoob.