Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in sjung5150's LiveJournal:

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Sunday, July 26th, 2009
12:04 pm	Weezer - July 24th 2009 (Jisan Valley Rock Festival) Man, I haven't posted here in a LONG time. (I think Facebook has kinda made me lazy with this whole blog thing, but the Weezer concert warrants a new post.) So I love Weezer - been a fan since their first album came out all the way back in '94. But never saw them in concert in the States, so nothing was gonna stop me from going to see them here in Korea. Jisan Valley Rock Festival is an inaugural three-day music fest held outdoors at the Jisan Valley Resort - during the winter, it's like a ski resort, but it's really nice right now too. (The annual rock fest here was the Incheon Pentaport Festival, but management split up and one half decided to do this Jisan thing. The Pentaport fest is also going on this weekend - I think the deftones are one of the headliners.) For this inaugural Jisan Valley festival, they got Weezer, Oasis, Jimmy Eat World, Starsailor, Fall Out Boy, Jet, Airborne Toxic Event, Patti Smith, among others to participate. I shelled out 98,000 won (about $100) for the 7/24 ticket to see Weezer. I figured traffic would be a bitch, so I decide against driving and choose the shuttle bus route. I get to the shuttle bus stop, and of course there's an obnoxious white fuck (don't get me started on English teachers here in Korea) drinking straight from a bottle of soju complaining that the bus isn't leaving immediately, despite the fact that the bus schedule states that they leave at the top of the hour, not whenever a stupid-ass white boy tells the bus to leave. Anyway, the shuttle bus arrives at the resort, and I notice there's plenty of parking available. Balderdash. The first thing I notice is that there's a shitload of white people there - not good. (Nothing against white people, but the English teachers here have in their heads that they're above the law and pretty much do whatever they want. This is a cultural/social debate that I don't want to get into during a Weezer concert review.) I'd say the audience make-up was about 95% Korean and 4.9% white and .1% black (I saw about five black people). When I got to the main stage, Fall Out Boy (can't say I'm a big fan) was closing out their set. Next, I went and got a beer and saw most of Crying Nut's set (a ska/punk Korean band that's pretty popular here) from a distance. There was an old lady near me covering her ears complaining that it was too loud - I'm pretty sure she either worked at the resort or was a resort visitor. As the Weezer soundcheck is going on, I make my way up front and find me a decent spot about 30 yards from the stage. Lights go down, and the band walks on stage, with Pat Wilson (the drummer) getting lead guitar duties. They break into "Seven Nation Army" which segues into "Undone The Sweater Song". The show itself was awesome (with a slight drizzle at the beginning) - Pat handled most of the lead guitar duties, with a fella by the name of Josh Feese handling most of the drums. The setlist itself was great - "Say It Ain't So", "Photograph/Song #2", "The Good Life", "Perfect Situation", "My Name Is Jonas", "Beverly Hills", "Troublemaker", "Pork & Beans", "Island In The Sun", "Hash Pipe", plus three new jams "The Girl Got Hot", "Can't Stop Partying", and "I'm Your Daddy" The only thing that made the concert unplesaureable was some fat white fuckface - it's okay to bounce up and down during rocking parts of a tune, but it's totally unnecessary to lean your fat sweaty-ass body into people, especially if you have your fucking shirt off. This fuckwad had douchebag written all over his face. To piss me off even more, he wasn't even watching the concert - he was too busy either leaning into people or doing his sexy-man dance for god-knows-who. And then there was that one dumb-ass black fuckwad (obviously not a Weezer fan but came b/c all his other English teacher friends came) who kept leaning into people for no reason. You both need to get your visas revoked so you can go back to waiting tables at Olive Garden. Throughout the show, Rivers kept breaking out the Korean, which wasn't bad - "감사합니다", "따라하세요", "참 잘해요", "사랑해요", "하나, 둘, 넷, 셋". ("Thank you", "Do it with us", "Very good", "We love you", "One, two, four, three"). The encore was muy cool. "Keep Fishin" segued into MJ's "The Way You Make Me Feel", then segued into Katy Perry's "I Kissed A Girl", then segued into "Poker Face", which finished with "Oh Pilseung Korea", the Korean national soccer team fight song written by YB Band. They finished everything off with "Buddy Holly", which is the song that made me a fan 15 years ago. I'm horrible at estimating crowd numbers - it could've been anywhere between 5,000 and 15,000 people there. And the weather was cool, thanks to the overcast skies. FYI - there's a shitload of clips from this concert on YouTube already - search "Weezer Jisan". (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, April 26th, 2009
8:58 am	Back in Korea from Houston So the whole Korea work visa being non-valid (without me knowing) ended up as a blessing in disguise since I got to spend a week off of work in Houston for a week. Of course, the long-ass flight (13 to 14 hrs!) between Seoul and Dallas sucks ass, but all in all, the trip was totally worth it. (Note to international travelers - if everyone's asleep on the plane, please do not hold 14-hour chat sessions with your friend OR keep opening the window covers to see what's outside of the plane - there's nothing out there except sky and clouds!!!) Key observations from stay in Houston - 1) I don't hate babies anymore. Taking care of a baby (like strapping him in the car seat or putting his socks on, etc. I said "strapping") made me realize that babies aren't monsters that I'd previously thought them to be. I guess it's mainly because I'd like never handled a baby before. That and I'm told that James Aaron (said baby) is a relatively well-behaved baby. In fact, I miss Aaron already. Anywho, here's hoping that Aaron gets to see the Astros win the World Series before he graduates from high school (which will be like 2015~2016). 2) I decided to hit the beach (Galveston) and the zoo. I've said it before and I'll say it again - whenever I visit the States now, I'm amazed by how blue the skies are. (Skies in the Seoul metro area can't be blue due to all the pollution). Blue skies allow plenty of sun rays to come through, which means I got a nice Hank Hill-style tan going. I noticed that there were still Ike damage leftover in Galveston (like knocked-down signs), but besides that it was still same ol' beach. There were actually alot folks fishing (and actually catching fish). The zoo kicked ass - it'd been renovated since the last time I went (which was like 2003 or so). One thing though - for a city that's got a shitload of land to play around with, I find the actual size of the Houston Zoo to be pretty small. The actual size of the Seoul Zoo is bigger than the Houston Zoo, if you can believe that. Anyway, still got to see all the requisite animals, plus the added bonus of the zookeeper feeding Jonathan the lion. 3) There are three things I miss the most about being in the States - the food, friends, and TV (especially sports). So it was very important that I satisfy these three needs during any visit to H-town. - Food: So I craves the barbecue and Mexican food, and said cravings was sastified. The only two unsastified cravings were Arby's and gyros - I know they got gyros here in Seoul somewhere, but Arby's will have to wait until my next visit. - Friends: Saw the crew at Cahill's on Wednesday and drank an unnecessary amount of booze. Wish I could've seen more of y'all more often, but I totally understand the wife/kids at home thing. Still, it was good seeing Da Crew. - TV: There's nothing I love more than having the choice of turning on the TV and having the options of watching either baseball, basketball, or hockey. And if all three aren't to my liking, then I also have the option of flipping over to VH1 Classics, MTV, Spike TV, Comedy Central, or Food Network. 4) One thing that I was not pleased with - the state of Houston radio. It sucked before I left, and it sucks even more now. First of all, the "alternative" station's music director must pick the playlists from my personal "this music sucks" bin, because I did not hear one song that I liked on 94.5 my entire time there. I mean who the fuck still plays Limp Bizkit???!!! And I realize this is a sign of the times/demographics and shit, but man, there are ALOT of radio stations en espanol in Houston. Like 1 out of 3. I will admit, 104.9's music selection is better than 99% of the radio stations en ingles. Three stations were satisfactory - two old buddies (97.9 The Box and 97.1 Classic Country) and that new top 40 station (95.7?). ======================== To sum it up, I think my stay in Houston was WAY too short. If it wasn't for a customer (Sprint) visit this week, I think I could've convinced my bosses to let me stay a bit longer. Again, special thanks to Elliot, Liza, and Aaron for the hospitality. (Comment on this)
Monday, March 16th, 2009
12:34 am	Andrew "Test" Martin, R.I.P. http://www.abcactionnews.com/news/local/story/Former-pro-wrestler-found-dead-in-Tampa/6e18yKZvqUGHxundwCNxug.cspx Holy Christ - I don't think there's any other profession with a higher death rate than professional wrestling. I was never a big Test fan, but he was part of a great storyline during the late 90's/early 00's peak - the Stephanie McMahon / Triple H storyline where Test was supposed to be Stephanie's "fiancee". This of course led to the Triple H / Stephanie vs. Mick Foley and The Rock that ruled late '99/early '00. And of course my favorite Test-related quote courtesy of Mick Foley (who was commentating a match) - "What kind of stupid name is Test anyway?" Jesus, look at this list of wrestlers who have died in the past five years or so (and this is just off the top of my head) - Test Eddie Guerrero Chris Benoit Big Bossman Mr. Perfect Curt Hennig British Bulldog Mike Awesome (After writing this list, I googled this topic, and the list is mind-bogglingly long.) (Comment on this)
Monday, March 9th, 2009
11:15 pm	Oscars Yes, I know the Oscars were like a month ago, but - Mickey Rourke was robbed. But I gots to admit I'm biased since I love wrestling and "The Wrestler" was like the only Oscar nominated movie I saw. (Actually, I take that back, I saw "Dark Knight"...twice. Now that's a damn good movie.) But you know who should've been nominated for Best Actor? The dude that played Biggie Smalls in "Notorious". And Best Supporting Actor should've gone to the dude who played Puff Daddy in "Notorious". Now, that's what you call a cinematic masterpiece and the only reason it didn't get nominated for Best Picture is because The Man doesn't like rap music and/or rappers that much...yet. Speaking of cinematic masterpieces, there were two brilliant comedies last year - "Tropic Thunder" and "Role Models". Both highly recommended. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 18th, 2009
8:57 pm	2/18 Update Man, it's been a long-ass time since I posted... 1) Conan O'Brien - So it's Conan's last week in New York before he moves to L.A. to take over for Leno. Here's hoping that the show doesn't change. Conan has always been my favorite late night show, mostly because of the insanely stupid skits, like the moving lips interviews (especially Bill Clinton & Arnold), "Inappropriate!", the Robert Plant impersonator under the federal witness protection program, "Actual Items", and on and on. I'm proud to say I was a fan of the show from the very beginning, back when Conan's ratings were apparently pretty shitty. It was my freshman year, and since it was 1993 (and little/no internet), I had no way of knowing that the market response to his show was bad. I personally thought it was hilarious. I read later that the viewers that kept the show afloat in the beginning were college students and insomniacs. Anyway, he's come a long way and now he's a bonafide star. (Shit, I can't believe his show's been on for over 15 years...) Good luck in L.A., dude. 2) The Simpsons - The intro has finally been updated after all these yars...I think it's because of HD or whatever. Now here's a show that's been a part of most of my life. Wow. 3) Family Guy - Stewie's "G-chord" song, the "Everything I Do" video, and the Christian Bale tirade thing were all brilliant. Needless to say, I love this show. 4) No Way Out - Been downloading WWE PPV's...thought the HBK/JBL payoff was pretty lame considering the build-up. (Comment on this)
Sunday, January 18th, 2009
8:18 pm	R.I.P. Ricardo Montalban & Patrick McGoohan Two actors that had an indirect impact in my movie and music upbringing passed away this week. Most knew Ricardo Montalban from Fantasy Island and Star Trek. But since I've never seen an episode of Fantasy Island, and I'm not a big Trek fan, Sr. Montalban to me will always been Mr. Vincent Ludwig from Naked Gun. And since I consider Naked Gun to be one of the top five comedies of all time, Montalban will always hold a special place in my heart. And as for Patrick McGoohan, everybody knows him as the star of The Prisoner. But I never saw a single episode of The Prisoner, so my knowledge of The Prisoner is limited to the Iron Maiden song. The spoken intro is performed by McGoohan ("I am not a number, I'm a free man!"). And since I consider The Prisoner one of my top five fave Maiden songs of all time, McGoohan will always hold a special place in my metal heart. (Comment on this)
Thursday, January 1st, 2009
8:55 pm	Recent movie viewings So I downloaded and watched a couple of movies that's made all the critics' "best movies of 2008" lists - "JCVD" and "The Wrestler". I don't normally agree with critics and shit, but both movies are highly recommended. Best line from "The Wrestler" - Ram Robinson (Mickey Rourke) and Pam (Marisa Tomei) talking about music (and while Ram is "dancing" to Ratt's "Round & Round") and how awesome the 80's were and how bad the 90's sucked. "Guns N' Roses, Crue, Def Lep...it was cool until that pussy Cobain came along." Basically, the entire movie's score is 80's metal. Good stuff. A couple of movies I saw recently that I DO NOT recommend - - "Twilight": unless you're a tweener girl, avoid this movie at all costs. - "Disaster Movie": I normally dig parody flicks, no matter how shitty they are, but this went beyond shitty. God, this movie sucked. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, December 19th, 2008
10:24 am	Sad... http://houston.astros.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20081217&content_id=3720365&vkey=news_hou&fext=.jsp&c_id=hou One of my favorite Astros from my childhood. R.I.P. (Comment on this)
Saturday, December 13th, 2008
6:48 pm	Just for the hell of it... Here's the songs from my iTunes library with the highest play counts: (I'm pretty sure it counts both the times it was played in iTunes AND my iPod.) You may be wondering - why the fuck is Simon putting this up on his blog? To answer - I have no fuckin' idea. But I think it's still pretty cool. And it let's you, the readers, delve into my musical tastes, which some would say is sort of insane. Enjoy! 1) Why Bother - Weezer 2) Photograph - Weezer 3) She's Crazy For Leaving - Rodney Crowell 4) 사람이 꽃보다 아름다워 - 안치환 (Korean song - "People Are More Beautiful Than Flowers" - Chi-hwan Ahn) 5) Niteclub - Old 97's 6) 오늘은 - 윤도현밴드 (Korean song - "Today" - Do-hyun Yoon) 7) Fool Hearted Memory - George Strait 8) Raining Blood - Slayer 9) 돌고돌고돌고 - 윤도현밴드 (Korean song - "Round & Round" - Do-hyun Yoon) 10) Fernando - ABBA 11) The Gambler - Kenny Rogers 12) Clavado En Un Bar - Mana 13) Facet Squared - Fugazi 14) Don't Talk To Strangers - Rick Springfield 15) Runaway Train - Rosanne Cash 16) Home To Houston - Steve Earle 17) Am I Too Late - Old 97's 18) Barrier Reef - Old 97's 19) Just Can't Get Enough - Depeche Mode 20) Melt Show - Old 97's 21) Wild Wild Life - Talking Heads 22) Long Distance Love - Loudness 23) Here Comes Your Man - Pixies 24) Shake Your Rump - Beastie Boys 25) The Final Countdown - Europe 26) Don't Tell Me You Love Me - Night Ranger 27) I Love NYC - Andrew W.K. 28) There's A Kind Of Hush - Carpenters 29) Smallpox Champion - Fugazi 30) A Fire I Can't Put Out - George Strait The rest to come in a future post... (#25 is a shock to me as well...) ======Quick comment about post====== I noticed that this list has no songs by bands/singers who I would consider my faves - Van Halen, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Ozzy/Black Sabbath, Metallica, AC/DC, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, Johnny Cash, N.W.A., Pantera...Kinda interesting... (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, December 7th, 2008
10:58 pm	From "A Colbert Christmas" Stephen Colbert on musical guest Elvis Costello - "For you young people, he's like a male version of Avril Lavigne...except instead of singing about skateboarding, he sings about people dying in shipyards." Awesome. A few other highlights - Willie Nelson as the Fourth Wiseman - "Stephen, I'm so high right now, you're hallucinating." John Legend as the Forest Ranger - "Serving eggnog without nutmeg is like serving turkey without a duck and a chicken stuffed inside it." But the highlight of highlights was the Toby Keith song about the war on X-mas. I wouldn't be surprised if that song was being played on country radio right now, and if it was, a majority of the audience wouldn't get the joke. (Comment on this)
Saturday, December 6th, 2008
3:36 pm	iTunes Genius feature Most of the reviews about this Genius feature seem pretty negative. I personally find it pretty cool. I have over 50,000 songs in my iTunes library, and sometimes I have no idea what I want to listen to. Recommended for those of you who haven't tried it yet. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008
8:19 pm	December update 1) It's December, but the weather here in Seoul is unseasonably warm. According to my iPod Touch weather application, it's supposed to be get up to 53 degrees(!) tomorrow. Global warming, folks. Even Koreans can't escape that shit. But apparently it's supposed to get down to the teens(!) this weekend. Time to go into Eskimo mode. 2) Speaking of my iPod Touch, I've been watching movies on it like a motherfucker. I don't like the hassle of having to convert all vid files to mpeg4 format, but GOM has a pretty easy-to-use converter. (GOM, by the way, also has one of the best media players out there - it supports a shitload of different kinds of files. It's made by a Korean company, but it supports multiple languages. Highly recommended.) A quick rundown of movies I've watched recently: - Tropic Thunder: great flick (I think I reviewed it on this blog, or thought about reviewing on the blog and never got around to it.) - Don't Mess With The Zohan: good to see Sandler back to making comedies. I love the way they made up Israeli stereotypes - like the obsession with Mariah Carey, disco, and that one drink. - Blair Witch Project: finally got around to watching it. (Yeah, I'm a few years late on this one.) Don't see what all the hoopla around it was. The bad - three very annoying white kids / The good - they all die. Watching "Invincible" right now - the Mark Wahlberg/Greg Kinnear movie about the dude who tries out for the Eagles and makes the team. Pretty good so far. One of them feel-good sports flicks in the vein of "The Rookie". 3) More proof that the current South Korea (2MB) administration is benchmarking Nazi Germany. They are forcing textbook companies to make history books more conservative. Due to this government pressure, the textbooks have agreed to make the changes since they'll go out of business if the government doesn't certify these textbooks. The changes are being made without the consent of the authors. 2MB is doing this while the Korean economy is going to shit. Auto manufacturers are at a standstill right now due to slow (or no) sales. Real estate is tanking. The exchange rate is shit. (1,500 won = 1 dollar right now. One year ago, it was around 980 won.) And don't get me started how 2MB has directly affected my family. Props to American voters for finally realizing that blind right-wing Christianity-based ideology is NOT the way to run a nation. South Korea, unfortunately, has five more years of this 2MB douchebag. (FAQ: 2MB = Myung-bak Lee, the current president of South Korea) 4) The new Killers album is excellent. I dig this band. If somebody asks me who my favorite band is, I probably won't say "The Killers", but just a damn good rock band. The trio of "Reasons Unknown", "Bones", "Read My Mind" from "Sam's Town" are just awesome. Awesome. (Comment on this)
Monday, November 17th, 2008
10:02 pm	Random cool song I can't say I'm the world's biggest Brad Paisley or Keith Urban fan. I did know that Brad Paisley could smoke on the guitar, but I never knew Keith Urban (a.k.a. Mr. Nicole Kidman) could play guitar pretty good. I think this song was pretty popular on country radio, which is cool b/c it's refreshing to hear that a song featuring some cool guitar work was actually on the radio in 2008. (I'm a sucker for any kind of harmony lead guitar.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEoWrMEpvZ8 This song's on Brad Paisley's latest album called "Play: The Guitar Album". The dude is a damn good guitarist. There's a couple of songs on this album ("Departure" and "Cliffs of Rock City") that aren't country by any stretch of the imagination - more like some old school Joe Satriani or Eric Johnson-type instrumental jams. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, November 2nd, 2008
12:32 pm	2008 Postseason and other thoughts - I was lucky enough this year to be in the States during the latter part of the Division Series and first part of the Championship Series. It was cool seeing live postseason on TV for the first time in like over three years. - Major, major props to Brad Lidge. Couldn't have happened to a better dude. - Now that I think about it, I wasn't in Houston for the top three moments in Houston pro sports histoy - the Rockets championships in '94 (interning in Seoul) and '95 (stuck in St. Louis for summer school) and the 'Stros making it to the World Series in '05 (living in Seoul). Bummer. - Two shows I'm religiously Bit-torrent downloading as soon as I can - Heroes and The Shield. - Lastly, in a couple of days, we could have a black U.S. president. I wouldn't have dreamed of this four years ago or even two years ago. (Remember that "what do you call a black president" joke?) This really is one of the greatest things to happen to like the history of earth. Now let's hope something fucked up doesn't happen again like the bullshit in 2000, when the guy who got less popular votes got to be president for 8 years. (Comment on this)
Sunday, October 12th, 2008
10:27 am	Post from Kansas City From Springhill Suits Marriott in Overland Park, KS - 1) Major props to Mack, Colt, and the rest of the Horns for the win today. The Texas Tech game could end up being HUGE. 2) That Viagra commercial with the "Viva Las Vegas" remake is...disturbing yet pretty funny. "Viva...viva...Viagra!!!!" 3) I was at Subway earlier buying dinner, and check out these songs that played on the radio while I was there - - "Run to You" - Bryan Adams - "Whoop There It Is" - Tag Team - "No One Like You" - Scorpions Awesome 4) I'm totally rooting for the Dodgers in the NL right now (mostly due to Chan-ho Park), and the Rays (mostly due to the Rays being underdogs and the general I'm-so-goddamn-sick-of-hearing-about-the-Red-Sox). But I would love to see Manny come up to bat in Fenway during the World Series. (Comment on this)
Sunday, September 21st, 2008
10:14 pm	Judas Priest - Seoul 9/21/08 Comments: 1) This was my fourth Priest concert - saw them in '92 at The Summit twice (Painkiller tour w/ Megadeth & Testament, and Operation Rock & Roll tour w/ Alice Cooper, Motorhead, Metal Church, Dangerous Toys), in 2005 in The Woodlands (w/ Slayer & Zakk Wylde). I also saw Fight, Rob Halford's solo band after he quit Priest for a while, back in like '95 or '96 at Mississippi Nights in St. Louis. 2) The place was your run-of-the-mill round shaped arena, which probably seats about 15,000 at full capacity. There were I'd say about 10,000 people at this show. I was about 25 rows back on the floor. ($120 ticket) 3) Your usual variety of random metal shirts - obviously alot of Maiden & Priest, but also saw Whitesnake (some white dude was wearing this shirt), Slipknot, Metallica, Stratovarius. Unfortunately, didn't spot any Loudness or EZO shirts. 4) The setlist was chalk-full of deep cuts - Priest tracks I never imagined I'd ever get to hear live. Here it is off the top of my head (songs are right, but a couple maybe out of order) - Prophecy - Metal Gods - Eat Me Alive - Between The Hammer & The Anvil - Devil's Child - Breaking The Law - Death - Dissident Aggressor (!) - Angel - Hell Patrol - Hellion/Electric Eye - Sinner - Rock Hard, Ride Free - Painkiller Encore #1 - Hell Bent For Leather - Green Manalishi Encore #2 - Another Thing Comin' 5) As everyone knows, when you go to a Priest concert, you're supposed to chant "Priest! Priest! Priest!" in a manly grunt. There was some dude behind me screaming that in a real high-pitched voice and yelling stuff like "God bless Rob Halford!" and "We want one more!" and other very un-Priest concert-like behavior. 6) All in all, a kick-ass show by one of the all-time greats. Now we need to convince Maiden and Van Halen to come to Korea. ------------------------------------------------------------- You know, the Astros having to play in Milwaukee those two games totally fucked shit up. I'm convinced that if those games were at home, the outcome would've been different. Well, I still wanna give'em props for not giving up and making a run at the end. Teams I'm rooting for NOT to win the Series - Red Sox & Cubs. If it ends up being a Sox (Red or White) & Cubs World Series (which I'm SURE the networks and MLB wants), I will refuse to even acknowledge that there is a World Series going on. I can totally see the Angels winning the whole things anyway, since nobody's really talking about them right now. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 26th, 2008
11:09 am	Rockets stuff I know Ron Artest was a part of THE greatest moment in NBA history, but does he really warrant a welcome-to-Houston rally??? http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/sports/5965068.html And I think it's pretty cool the Rockets traded for Darryl Strawberry's son. For those of you who ain't in the know, Strawberry was hitting 30 HR's a season in an era when hitting 30 HR's was a big deal. From the mid-to-late 80's, I say that he was definitely in the top three most-feared hitters in the NL. (Totally off the top of my head: Strawberry, Mike Schmidt, Dale Murphy) Which brings up a fun game: an all 80's NL team (again totally off the top of my head) C: Gary Carter 1B: Keith Hernandez 2B: Ryne Sandberg SS: Ozzie Smith 3B: Mike Schmidt OF: Tim Raines OF: Darryl Strawberry OF: Tony Gwynn SP: Dwight Gooden RP: Jeff Reardon (Comment on this)
Sunday, August 17th, 2008
8:14 am	Update from Kansas City So I'm here on bidness in Kansas City (been here since 8/10 Sunday), and I gots to say, I'm enjoying being in the U.S. The weather is nice, the air is clear, the skies are blue, and the rock radio stations here in KC are pretty damn good. In fact, there's this one rock station that plays mostly the good stuff: I've heard alot of Def Leppard on said station, as well as a nice pastiche of Van Halen, AC/DC, Bon Jovi, Quiet Riot, etc. (And there's a song by some new band that I heard that absolutely smokes. I'm trying to figure out which song it was except that since I can't remember any of the lyrics, I can't do a Google search. Damn it.) Two things I haven't enjoyed while in the U.S. - the overcoverage of that missing Caylee baby and the sports media fellating of Michael Phelps. Okay, so he won some gold medals. Good for him. But there are WAY more important things going on right now, like the MLB pennant race and the impending start of football season. I've enjoyed my stay thus far so much that I asked my boss if I could stay a little longer. He agreed so I'll be here all of next week as well. You know, Kansas City (I'm staying in Overland Park) is pretty white, but I gots to say everyone's been pretty damn nice and not all like - "where you from, boy?" Oh yeah, how come my hotel's cable service doesn't have all the channels that I used to watch? (MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, SciFi) Shit, if they somehow got VH1 Classics up in this bitch, then I wouldn't leave my hotel room. BTW, Overland Park is alot like Houston suburbs (the ones out west, northwest, or southeast). The major difference is that it's very white here - don't see no esse vatos or bruthaz around. Or Asians for that matter. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, August 7th, 2008
10:19 pm	Just another day in the Jung household... http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/302902.html This whole thing shows any resemblance of common sense or democracy for that matter is pretty much null and void in Korean politics these days. Even Bush didn't pull crap like this. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, August 4th, 2008
8:41 pm	8/4 update 1) Journey (yes, THAT Journey) released a new album about a month ago (available ONLY at Wal-Mart!!!) with a new singer named Arnel Pineda. Neal Schon apparently saw clips of Pineda singing 70's and 80's rock cover tunes (including Journey tunes) on YouTube, and invited homeboy to join the band. Anyway, the new songs are okay (well, the 1st single, "Never Walk Away" is AWESOME), but the second bonus CD is the kicker. They're re-recorded versions of classic Journey tunes with the new singer, and I love'em. Pineda has an awesome set of pipes (I said "pipes"), and since the songs were re-recorded, the music doesn't sound dated at all. New song "Never Walk Away": http://kr.youtube.com/watch?v=0eeZraZhP-Y And the greatest Journey song EVER with the new guy: http://kr.youtube.com/watch?v=lUkksIV8dC8 (Did you know that Journey's bass player, Ross Valory, tunes his bass strings down from EADG to BEAD?? Pretty goddamn revolutionary...) 2) The great thing about downloading stuff for free is stumbling upon old bands that I wasn't into during their heyday but their stuff is good enough that it sounds fresh to this day. Case in point: JAMC (Jesus And Mary Chain) - only heard of them but never heard any of their songs until like recently. "Just Like Honey", "You Trip Me Up", "Happy When It Rains" should be a part of any rock fan's iPod playlist. Something beautifully absurd about all that feedback and noise on top of simple pop melodies. "Happy When It Rains" 2007 concert footage: http://kr.youtube.com/watch?v=7xTMmaWx2vM (NOTE: JAMC in concert doesn't really have all that background noise & feedback. But still pretty cool.) (NOTE2: Jimmy Eat World, in their song "Authority Song", gives them props: "The DJ never has it, JAMC "Automatic") 3) Mummy 3 wasn't that good. Good premise, horrible script. Special effects were cool (the Yeti's kicked ass), but thumbs down overall. 4) Superhero was okay. If I to rank parody movies, it was better than Not Yet Another Teen Movie, but not as good as Spy Hard or Hot Shots! 5) I'll be the first to admit that I give Metallica a hard time for their work post-Justice For All, but then vid clips like this reminds me why I love'em so fuckin' much. I've never seen them perform this song in its entirety EVER. And it's always been one of my favorite Metallica songs. Major props to them for pulling this one off (I said "pulling this one off"). http://kr.youtube.com/watch?v=KSndn8E5FRY (Comment on this)