Pan's Labyrinth

I found out about this from a YTMND site, which is also quite well done. In any case, Pan's Labyrinth looks like it could be a very good movie.

High Definition versions of the trailer and teaser are available on Apple's website.

Just in time for Halloween

...and frog. :(


Edit: YouTube removed the video, so I'm embedding from College Humor, where I originally saw this video. Just click on the blank spot to play the video.

Things that make you go "Hmm"...

This image has been circulating the Internet for the past few days... It's of Southern California local reporter Marc Brown, apparently reporting on a rape case where the police is searching for the alleged rapist, with the police sketch displayed... Hmm.

Nobody at the station said anything? Really?

"Happy Sunday"

"Happy Sunday" is an entertainment variety show in Taiwan. There's a segment of the show in which already famous singers will show up to test their skills. They're judged by a panel of three, each of whom have a light/buzzer for when they think something is not "right" or "good." If the singer gets three lights, then he or she doesn't pass the test.

Jerry Huang

Jerry Huang (黃舒駿) is a singer and song writer from Taiwan. In 2001, he wrote a song called "Changes 1995" (改變1995), which was styled as a conversation to his friend and mentor who passed away in 1995. The song recounts the changes and events that have taken place since that time.

I don't know why the video doesn't contain the full song, but it was the only video I could find. The full lyrics are here (the parts missing from the video are in green):

你走了之後沒幾天　鄧麗君也跟我們說再見
張愛玲在秋天渡過了她最後一夜
英國少了一位黛安娜王妃
你最心愛的吉他　現在住在我的房間
我最想寫的那一首歌至今還沒出現
Eagles 在東京開了復出又告別的演唱會
我在巨蛋幫你聽了Desperado
滿臉都是淚

歌壇出了一個張惠妹
王菲變王靖雯又變回王菲
張國榮終於開心的承認他是個 gay

老外告訴我台灣的女孩舒淇最美
Santana 莫名其妙又紅了一遍
Madonna 還是我們呼風喚雨的娜姐
Paul Simon 的臉蒼老的令人心碎
Prince 宣布他這輩子再也不做音樂

世界不斷的改變　改變
我的心思卻不願離開從前
時間不停的走遠　走遠
我的記憶卻停在　卻停在那1995年

現在不用聯考也可以上大學
不用去美國也喝得到 Starbucks 的咖啡
蛋塔紅了100天　忠孝東路挖了10年
諾貝爾給了高行健　總統給了陳水扁

鐵達尼騙了全世界的眼淚
還好我們有自己的人間四月天
星際大戰沒有續集倒是弄了個首部曲
教父第四級的可能性我看微乎其微
男人不再陽萎　女人拼命減肥
愛滋病不是天譴　復制羊長得也不怎麼特別
打哥大越來越小　世界越來越吵　手機卻越賣越好
歌星越來越多　CD越做越好　唱片卻越賣越少

喬丹不再飛　好久不見張德培
老虎伍茲今年才25歲
奧斯卡那天李安用中文跟世界說謝謝
成龍終於用英文　興奮的跟好萊塢說 "I am Jackie Chan"

世界不斷的改變　改變
我的心思卻不願離開從前
時間不停的走遠　走遠
我的記憶卻停在　卻停在那1995年

千禧年地球並沒有毀滅
921大地震倒是把我老家震毀
香港真的回歸　南北韓竟然見了面
我和台中的距離漸漸的比上海還要遠
我還是沒去愛爾蘭　倒是去了紐約
我沒和U2一起表演　倒是看到 Woody Allen 走在45街
全台灣都在 R&B　全美國都在 Rap
只有流行沒有音樂　我看你眼不見為淨也是好事一件
我沒成為你以為的那個人　真的很抱歉
我想我上輩子是國父下輩子是王儲
這輩子最好安份一點　天才就怕不夠天才
壞又不夠壞　天天都想離開
卻不知到那裡才能換骨脫胎

屬於我們的精彩　早已經不復存在
我的她再可愛　只能愛著我的未來
我忘不了你　你卻渾然不覺　小你六歲的我
今年已經和你同年

世界不斷的改變　改變
我的心思卻不願離開從前
時間不停的走遠　走遠
我的記憶卻停在　卻停在那1995年


And below is a more upbeat version of one of his old songs, and one of my favorites.

X3 in a nutshell

I could've sworn that I made a post about this when the movie was first released in the theaters, but I can't seem to find any entries about it.

Anyway, when I re-watched X-Men: The Last Stand on DVD, this was one of the things that kept coming back to me, aside from how much they butchered the original story.

[Russian accent]Here is link


I also love the theme music from the cartoon series.

Black sesame ice cream

So when Greg got back from Taiwan about three weeks ago, he asked me if I've ever tried sesame ice cream. Apparently he's had a chance to sample some during his trip to the far east, and it happens to be one of the things he liked.

Having never tried it, I can't attest to how it should taste, and I doubt I'd be able to find it at a local restaurant, but as I do have my own ice cream maker, I can always make my own, and hope it tastes as good as the kind that Greg had.

The first thing to do--get myself some sesame powder. I'm certainly not about to try and grind my own. Black sesame is often used as a filling in tangyuan, a Chinese dessert, so I guess that should serve as a good indicator as to how ice cream made from the same ingredient might taste.

After blending heavy cream, half-and-half, sugar, vanilla extract, and sesame powder together, it's in the ice cream maker.

Streaks on the china... never mattered before

For some strange reason, the opening theme song for Mr. Belvedere has been stuck in my head for the past few days. It also reminded me of this episode of Family Guy that I watched, in which Stewie was trying to watch Mr. Belvedere, but the other family members kept on talking and disturbing him, so he began to screamingly sing the theme song.

If you're feeling nostalgic, you can listen to the full opening theme (audio only) here.

A no-win scenario

"Looking around me you'd think, 'Sure, I could tap that.' But as you know I'm a merfolk, and so I'm a fish down below..."

And yet another YTMND site reminds us of the mermaid problem. In this edit, we see Disney's Ariel flip open a book to show Flounder an image first found on another YTMND site (though it looks to be from some sort of manga). I first saw an allusion to it from a Captain Kirk/Star Trek/Wrath of Khan site, also pretty funny. The picture near the end has been around on the net for some time, and was also used in some YTMND sites.

The song is made by students of Brown University. They have a clip from The Little Mermaid set to their version of the song.

Atomic watch

Over the weekend, I bought myself a new watch (for about ten dollars cheaper than the price listed at Casio's site). It's the kind of watch I've wanted to buy the last time I was shopping for a new one--a so-called "atomic watch." Which is actually a bit of a misnomer, since the watches themselves are not actually atomic. Instead, they automatically synchronize with an atomic clock through radio frequency.

The reason I didn't get one last time (which was around four or five years ago) was because the selection was very sparse... I couldn't find any styles I liked at the price I wanted. So instead I got a "sports watch" from Brookstone--it was also a digital compass, altimeter, and thermometer. Good for hiking and camping. Except I rarely do either. The watch from Brookstone also had one large fault: the wristband was made out of plastic and/or rubber. It eventually split apart after regularly putting the watch on and taking it off, as I would normally do so at least twice a day. I got myself a replacement band made of metal, but it really didn't fit the watch in terms of aesthetics.

So when I noticed that they now had many more styles to choose from, I decided to get one. I would have liked to get one that was also solar-powered, but could not find one that was a metal band at a lower price. Oh well. I don't really mind having to change the battery every once in a while, it just would have been nice if I didn't have to.

I specifically got a metal band, so that I wouldn't have to worry about the band breaking apart on me (as much), but it also means that adjusting its length to my wrist can be a bitch. I had the Dicken's of a time trying to remove the links from the band so that the watch wouldn't sit very loose on my wrist when I wear it.

Now, my current problem is that the watch has thus far been unsucessful in picking up the radio frequency for it to make its automatic adjustments, and I've also not been able to get it to receive the signal manually. Meanwhile, setting the time manually is much faster than waiting for it to manually receive the signal. Hopefully it would be able to pick up some sort of signal in the coming weeks--it'd be nice not having to set my watch when switching between Daylight Saving and Standard Time.

Hey, what happened to the color?

This was a trailer included in the DVD for the new X-Men movie. Looks to be pretty funny.

Heroes

I've been watching NBC's new sci-fi/drama series, Heroes, through Internet downloads--mainly because I was watching Fox's Vanished on TV, which airs in the same timeslot, with a lead-in from Prison Break. I also felt, prior to the show's premiere, that it might have been too hyped up, and I'd be disappointed by it.

Since I'd heard some good things about it after the pilot aired, and the fact that Ali Larter is in it, I decided to download it and see if I'd like it.

The show is interesting, kind of an X-Men meets Unbreakable kind of story. It is very much like a comic book, or perhaps more akin to a graphic novel, I could almost see the narration text and word bubbles as I watched it. It deals with a group of people, scattered around the world (but mostly in the U.S.) who find themselves with abilities beyond that or normal humans, perhaps making them a step-up from the evolutionary ladder (much like the mutants in X-Men, but not nearly as widespread), most begin to test their powers (like in Unbreakable).

From the promos, it's obvious that not all of the characters with superpowers have been introduced yet after the second episode, and the true identity of the main antagonist, Sylar, will likely remain hidden for quite some time. The show is well-written, for the most part, if not for their blantant misunderstanding of the human brain. Also, if Nora Zehetner's character in the second episode doesn't seem like an obvious plant by the "other side" to gain the guy's trust, I don't know what does.