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. 

Motivation by Humiliation

So I was just kickin' it with my cousin Dylan one day, you know driving around having the same old "let's get back into shape" conversation we've had many, many times before.  The main problem with trying to get into shape is staying motivated.  Last time we scheduled a fight against each other as motivation.  This time, we're going another route.  Instead of our pride on the line, it's humiliation.

Deadline: August 1, 2010

His goal: Lose weight
How much? ~ 8 lbs.  He has to weigh 160.7lbs or less during weigh-in, wearing nothing but boxers. 
What's on the line?:  If he weighs 160.8lbs or more, he's going to have to shave one leg and leave the other leg unshaven for 1 month.  Doesn't sound humiliating right? Well his reasoning is that, he plays basketball almost everyday, and he'll definitely get heckled on the courts looking like this:

yes he's that hairy.

My Goal: Perform 60 clean, steady paced pushups (not pounding them like a jackhammer).  Perform 15 clean pullups with no jerking or swinging. 

How Much?: 60 Pushups, 15 Pullups

What's on the line?: haha i feel like the sucker of this deal.  If I can't reach my goal by August, *sigh*.  I will have to shave half of each of my eyebrows.  That's right.  But what's motivation without extreme humiliation right??  K, readers: in case of my failure please choose my fate

So.... which one will get the ladies? 

hahaha oh man. I feel like working out now. SO BAD

You Don't Look Like You Sing

Have you ever heard a song on the radio and have a mental construction of what the singer looks like, only to find out later that the singer looks completely different than what you had in mind?

Wrong Ethnicity
For example, one of the first ones for me was back in highschool when I heard Paperboy - Ditty.  I totally thought it was an Asian rapper for some reason.  Probably because Viet Rap was all the rave back then.  Does anyone agree with me though?  I swear it was Paperboy's sort of higher-pitched, softer rapping style plus the minimally produced backtrack.  Reminded me of the poor quality self-produced azn rap songs. no? maybe this was a bad example. In any case.

Wrong Gender
How about Nick Pitera?



Yeah, it's a little bit different with video, but if you had your eyes closed you wouldn't doubt it was a girl singing.  Pretty damned impressive.  Props.

Just Plain Wrong
This post came about because of a song by Tracy Chapman - Fast Car that I heard on 96.5 (Lite Rock Less Talk).  I've been listening to this song for years now thinking that it was some white dude in the country singing about wanting a new life, right?

ANNKKK wrong!  check the music video:


Little did I know, Tracy Chapman is a black woman!  That just blew my mind.  Whaaaaaaaaaat. I couldn't believe it, I got both the gender and ethnicity wrong on this one. Nonetheless, it's a great song and great artist.

Wrong.. Species? 
haha just for fun, i'll throw this one in.  Ever heard of Vitas? Skip to about 1 minute. 




Doesn't it remind you of the Diva from The 5th Element?!

Honorable Mentions: 

Charice Pempengco - Little girl sounding like a grown ass woman
Lin Yun Chun - Boy sounding like a grown ass woman

So yea it's pretty interesting how dynamic or different people's vocal tone and range can be.  How do people, especially impersonators manipulate their vocal chords to sound like someone else?  Crazy. 

Terry Fator doing a puppet doing a woman's voice


Skills... so much skills!!

haha man i'm digressing, but here's the extent on vocal chord research we are currently at. LOL HAHAHA i can't get enough of this:


And this concludes my Youtube vomit

Retrospect: SF Weddings!

I know, it's been over the month since I've posted, but it's because I was having too much fun back home.  Now I'm doing a couple of posts in retrospect to reminisce about the good times in June.  The main reasons I came back were because of two weddings.

1.  Xiao's wedding

Wow.  This was the first wedding I've been to without my family, and it was so beautiful.  I remember driving up the windy road through the vineyard hills and seeing the building appear ahead.  Wow.  The word Tuscany came to mind.  I didn't even remember what Tuscany was at the time!  But now that I googled it, I totally agree with what my subconscious blurted out.  I wish I took a picture coming down the road, but here's a close up shot i took.

 The wedding photographer (http://www.dannyphotostudio.com) took a much better picture (snagged from fb)

 Ain't it beautiful? The wedding ceremony was even more awesome.  It was outdoors and they had a harp!  Man the harp was my favorite part.  The harpist just seamlessly and subtly switched from wedding song to wedding song.  I felt like I was in a movie or something.  Actually my favorite part was when the flower girls came through, it was hilarious!  This little 3 year old girl comes in and instead of throwing the petals on the carpet, she tries to plant them into the dirt off to the side!  She totally stole the show and I wish I got it on video. 
 
2.  Leeme's Wedding

I was stoked for this wedding because a bunch of my closest friends were going too.  Originally my brother and I were supposed to play as a duet during the ceremony, but plans were changed.  Oh well, maybe next time! (taking reservations from friends, will play for food haha).  This wedding was also at a vineyard, so it was also very classy.  Hors d' oeuvres and open bar, what more can I say?  We all knew it was gonna be a kickass time, and everyone looked smashing in their get-ups (I heard someone was gonna come in jeans?).



Highlights:

1. The Decor: It was really nice inside the banquet room.  The lit flowery walls were a very nice touch, and it just made me feel classy.  The running slideshow was really touching, back-in-the-day pics are awesome!
   

2. Father-Daughter dance:  Man, I don't see myself as someone who'd cry at a wedding.  Maybe it was too much champagne? too much other misc. drinks?  But when Leeme and her dad started dancing, it hit me like a ton of bricks.  Tears started pooling up in my eyes, and I had to look away to compose myself. I'm feeling it a little even right now godamn!  I think it was the look papa Luong had in his eyes, pure joy and pride.  wah wah wah moving on. 
3. Food:  Leeme did a great job planning her wedding, and the dinner was delicious.  Family style, what a great idea!  Steak, Fish, mash potatoes, pasta, she sure knows what a man likes to eat.  Then there were tacos, sliders, and candy afterwards.   She's a genius.
4. Shenanigans:  I know from past weddings that the dance floor is always slow to start.  Not this time!  Readers listen, if you wanna have a poppin' wedding, you have to invite a guy named Hiep Dang.  Best part was watching him groovin' with the mature ladies haha, I bet it was the time of their life! 
5. More Shenanigans:  We were definitely the younger rowdier bunch.  The Mike! chants, the Lee-ME! chants, the Isn't She Lovely crooning (i think it happened like 3 times, I know theres a video out there somewhere).  Hilarious times. 
6. The After After Party: we all know what went down.  Smell my breath?

 Thanks for the invite buddy, I had a blast!

Who's next?!

(thanks Hen for the pics)

Chadillac the 2nd year.

June 20th! Two years ago I picked up my beloved people mover from the dealership.  I still remember it vividly, hands at the wheel in the showroom.  I was scared to death, because I had to drive through the narrow-ass showroom door.  It was just there taunting me, being extra narrow, impossibly slim.  "You can't get through me!" "You barely know how to drive stick!" "You're gonna scrape your paint the 1st 5 minutes you own this car".  The dealer hands me the keyfob and mutters something like, "Turbo eh? I know how you kids are like with these cars, just be careful out there".  I chuckle and smirk at his snide comment, thinking "kid? f-ing asshole, i'm a college grad".  Then I looked back at the narrow path to freedom. With sweaty palms and a racing heart I slowly creep out into the sunlight.  YES! FREEDOM!! VROOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM (displaying my middle finger through the sunroof in full fury)

Okay okay,  that last sentence was made up, but that woulda been sweet. 

2 Years by the Numbers

• Miles Vroomed:  24,304 mi. 
• Fastest Vroomed: ~112 mph? (on the track! I only go 65 mph on freeways, officer, i swear.)
• Gas Consumed: 803.304 gal. 
• Longest Tank: 462 mi. 
• Best/Worst/Avg mpg : 33.98/22.45/28.99 mpg  (compare to 32/26/29 EPA estimate, the average is dead on!)
• Total Gas Cost: $2452.51

Just for kicks, the price of gas over 2 years.  That spike is filling up at the track with ultra high octane gas. Can you believe gas was under 2 bucks?


Battlescars - I'm way past the honeymoon period, no more worrying about that 1st scratch.

1. Windshield crack - still lazy to fix, someday
2. Various Rear bumper parking nicks
3. Large but unnoticeable recession in the back right corner from a basketball.  

Is it weird to have a car birthday? I don't think so, I love my car and I'm planning to keep him for many years.  The thing is, I still haven't found the right name yet.  Toyed around with Mickey (the boy Minnie, get it?) one afternoon, but it was quickly shotdown by sundown.  For now, keep on truckin Chadillac the 2nd.

Still giving thrills, holla.