I listen to Chinese music all the time. I have heard many Taiwanese singers try to sing in English and fail miserably at it. Until now; I can safely say that I found a nice gem of a singer. Her name is Joanna Wang and her music style is a bit unfamiliar to the normal Taiwanese pop music style. Her English is spot on and her voice is most similar to Nora Jones.
Her album consists of 15 songs with 3 only sang in Chinese Mandarin. All the rest of the songs are in English which definitely makes her stand out and shows her confidence as an English singer. After listening through her album, there are definitely noteworthy songs on this album especially her single, Start From Here. The Chinese version of the song is titled “Maze (迷宮)”. She also sings the David Tao classic “I Love You” redone in English. Another notable song I enjoy is “Lost Tapei”, which gives me a sense of nostalgic feeling from my recent visits back to Taiwan and its hectic nightlife and buildings. If you have not heard of her yet, take note because her music is definitely worth the time to check out.
Continue reading ‘The sultry voice of Joanna Wang (王若琳)’
If you have followed the NBA for the past 5 years, no doubt the most dangerous player in the professional basketball has been none other than Kobe Bryant. The same argument can be said before that, but for the sake of argument; the guy is just simply amazing.
He has had 3 NBA championships, albeit, those were won with Shaq on the roster but that should not be taken away from him. I will always remember the Conference Finals against Portland Trailblazers, where the Lakers were down beginning in the fourth quarter. The play that defined the beginning of the first of three consecutive championships for the Lakers was when Kobe lobbed the pass to Shaq for an alleyoop dunk. Amazing!!
Continue reading ‘KB24 - MVP! Finally….’
I have had an iPhone since October of last year [2007] and even though it was unlocked to work with any sim; I had left it as that. I did not put any extra software since I didn’t have installer. Also, I was still sitting on firmware 1.0.2. I was not all interested in updating the iPhone until there was a firmware worth the upgrade. That is until I saw some of the functions available on the 1.1.3 firmware that I decided to update.
Did I want to take it back to where I purchased my phone for the update? I probably could have taken it there but they would have charged me for it. Also, I would miss out on all the fun of actually unlocking my own iPhone. Since the iPhone came out, there have been numerous development teams out there unlocking and jailbreaking the phone so you run additional applications on the iPhone. I did not know the potential to all this until I actually successfully updated my iPhone and jailbroken it.
Continue reading ‘How I did my iPhone unlock and update to 1.1.3′
The defining speech that Barack Obama made Tuesday morning, March 18, 2008 is witnessed as one of the greatest of speeches in American history. I over heard parts and pieces and actually read through the entire text here. (The video is there as well.) After reading the transcript of the speech, my emotions are a bit unsure. In a way, I am glad Obama decided to have this speech and face criticism and controversies head on. Especiallly the race issue because everyone makes it a larger part than it really should be. Yes it is in the American history. Yes it effects all races. But if we are to be a true United States and to be a real American, we need to stand united as one and not divided.
Opposing views will surface that would like to flank these issues with other issues and make our minds wander and focus on other problems but we should not kid ourselves. We need to pay more attention to what is close to us; home. The great social divide whether it is the old or young, black or white, rich or poor. The looming fear that the economy is going into recession. Health care for the baby boomer generation ready to retire. Real estate industry faltering and financing on the verge of not being able to withstand. Rise of energy costs and the decline of the once proud American dollar. Its not the war in Iraq we should be focused upon as our valuable resources are being sent overseas to what seems to be an endless war like Vietnam.
Continue reading ‘The defining speech…’
After the opening tip; it was clear that the Lakers were disoriented. They straight out looked lost on the court. It was about 4 minutes into the game before either team actually made a basket that went through the hoop. Then Rafer Alston decided to just take the game over with his phenomenal three point shooting.
The game really was not close with the Rockets leading the entire game. Lakers did cut it to 2 points but that is as close as it got. I feel bad for the entire team as there really was a lack on effort and watching Kobe painstakingly try to keep the game close. His game was not pretty either as he hoisted more than 30 shots to just total 24 points in this contest. The other ineffective Lakers were worse as they could not get open or help Kobe out either.
Continue reading ‘Rockets charge towards consecutive win number 22 against Lakers; wheres the defense?’
The hollow stadium with only the sound of winds blowing around. The sun pierces down through the clear skies. Empty rows of empty seats from the upper deck to the lower levels. Dodger Stadium sits, empty with only us tourists visiting.
The weather was actually windy and on my way home it actually started raining; it even hailed. However, too many weekends have gone by where I wake up in the morning and just sit around not doing anything. That has to be a thing of the past especially living in Los Angeles. There are so many landmark locations that growing up over here lets you take things forgranted.
Continue reading ‘Visiting Dodger Stadium’
I was never a really good chess player but I can claim to be a fairly moderate XiangQi (Chinese chess) player. So when I saw this Three Kingdoms themed XiangQi set; it was just too irresistible to not buy it. I have always thought collector chess sets that were being displayed at hobby stores were really cool especially when each figure on the chess set was a different character. I knew I had to buy this chess set and I have yet had a crack at it yet. I need to find an opponent; anyone out there familiar with XiangQi?
Here are some photos of the set (forgive photo quality, not the greatest): Continue reading ‘三國演義 Three Kingdoms - Xiangqi Collection’
I been hearing about it ever since the Xbox 360 was launched more than 2 years ago (?) and even have had friends speak about it. It must have been fate because the night I experienced it, there was an article featured on Yahoo! about the high failure rate of this console. And finally the unholy sight of the Red Ring of Death do I understand what its all about. I may be fortunate that my console is actually about 2 years old and it lasted this long but at the same time; I have played less than a handful of games.
I also have my doubts that the system will be cured of this overheating cause of the red rings of death issue even when I do receive my console back. And I wonder if they will even attempt to fix it at all; since my console in question actually showed the symptoms of the system failure but after several hours of rest; it will actually power up again properly.
Continue reading ‘Doomed… Red Ring of Death to my 360 console…’
