One Way Ticket to Bonerville

Tour dates for the Summer 2009 Blink 182 (aka One Way Ticket to Bonerville) Tour has been announced. I will be attending:

07/24/09 w/ Motion City Soundtrack, Chester French @ the Joint in Vegas (First show of the tour!)
09/13/09 w/ Weezer, Taking Back Sunday @ the Shoreline Ampitheater (Hopefully!!)

I could not be happier. I've turned back into my thirteen year old self. However, I'd like to talk about one of Blink's first performances on Jay Leno a couple of weeks ago: their "All the Small Things" performance specifically. (see below)

Why, Tom, why?! His Angels and Airwaves voice has only taken over and he probably will never be able to come back from that. Other than Tom and his terrible (this is nothing new, guys) live playing + Angels and Airwaves voice, I found it to be a very solid performance. I know nothing about playing live music, but it sounded about 90% cohesive. Mark has always been a solid musician, besides the fact that Blink tunes are nothing extraordinary. Travis is the great musician and is extraordinary on the drums.

The current tour is supposed to be designed by the guy who designed Nine Inch Nails and Kanye West sets, so the look of the show should extraordinary as well. I can't wait for this summer!

Soon, my friends, soon.

As of late, this blog has been defunct due to my laziness/business (you choose!). However, I will post something soon!

(Not that anyone is reading. I am literally writing this to the audience of myself!)

Review: Late Night With Jimmy Fallon

This probably isn't the best review coming from me, a biased Conan O'Brien fan, but hey, I'll try to be as honest as possible.

I was pretty sad to hear that I would be Conan-less for about three months while he transitions from Late Night to the Tonight Show. However, I was satisfied to hear that Jimmy Fallon would be replacing Conan. I was a fan of Jimmy's work on Saturday Night Live as the Weekend Update co-anchor and as the crazy Red Sox fan. After Conan's departure, I wasn't really able to catch Late Night with Jimmy Fallon due to having class early the next morning. Although, since this past week, I've been on spring break and have been able to give Late Night a solid chance.

Beforehand, I read reviews saying that Jimmy was a disaster and I thought that it just couldn't be true! Well, I was wrong. One thing that Jimmy and Conan have is bad writers, but Conan can deal with that. Conan can make a bad joke funny just by reacting to it and realizing that it wasn't funny. Jimmy tries to do the same, but doesn't seem to have the charisma that Conan does. Another thing, Jimmy mumbles everything! I cannot understand thirty percent of what comes out of his mouth. Also, his interview skills are lacking. He can't transition from subject to subject.

Now, I had hope in Jimmy as the new Late Night host, but so far he's been lacking. He's only been on for a month, so hopefully he'll pick up just like Conan did when he first started.

03/31 Edit: I caught another episode of Late Night last night, and you can actually here no one laugh during his monolagues, and he notices it to. The thing is, he has nothing to follow up that awkward silence. I feel a little bad for the guy, yikes!

Review: Slumdog Millionaire

I'm obviously not one to comment on the greatness of movies and to be honest, I can count on one hand how many Oscar best pictures winners I've actually seen, but for some reason I really wanted to see Slumdog Millionaire. I heard many reviews saying that it was an excellent from family, friends, and yes, the ever-so-hated critics. I heard about the plot, I thought it was a rather interesting plot, but I still wasn't interested in going out and paying ten bucks to see it, but I just kept being bombarded with "go see Slumdog!" and by watching the Oscars, I couldn't escape it. That's where I became intrigued (Yeah, I guess it doesn't take much to intrigue me) and what made me want to watch it. I mean, it's also not your typical Oscar winner of a movie either, which I rather enjoyed. It's not a 3 hour period piece. It's definitely an all around movie, and here's why:

Slumdog has elements of everything. It's intense. You see slum children having to watch other children their age getting their eyes burned off. You see kids being chased through the slums by officers who are trying to keep their private areas safe. You see a child see Jamal's mom getting hit to death and falling into a puddle. It's sweet. Jamal spends the majority of the movie trying to find Latika. It's clever. It's about a game show and this kid from the slums knows all the answers, but how does he?

Also to note, the cinematography was beautiful. The portrayal of the slums may have been beautified, but the movie's point, I feel, wasn't necessarily to put you in the slums and the plot is unrealistic, sure, but that doesn't make it bad. The direction from Danny Boyle was marvelous, you felt that you were there watching the whole thing. The acting wasn't necessarily the best part of the movie, but the children from the slums were infact good actors for never acting (or probably even watching a movie) in their lives. Dev Patel and Freida Pinto gave rather satisfactory results for having little to no career before the movie either.

Sure, their were flaws, but this was the first Oscar winning movie to me that was all around good and had many elements to it other than just drama.

Acting: 7.5/10
Directing: 8.5/10
Story: 9/10
Overall: 9/10

2004 Me IS Stoked!

God, I never vowed to use the word stoked in my life, but I think it is pretty necessary in this context. What is this context, you ask? This.

Oh hell yes. I am writing this blog because.... (drumroll, please)....BLINK 182 IS BACK, MY BITCHES! (Yeah yeah, a little unprofessional for a blog, but whatever.) That's right. Four years without purely simple and fun pop punk, but it's back now!

They announced it over the weekend at the 2009 Grammys, which basically meant that I was forced to watch the Grammys, where Grammy awards do not measure good music, by the way! Anyway, Mark, Tom, and Travis walked out together for the first time since 2004 to present best rock group. Travis exclaimed "We used to play music together, and we decided we're going to play music together again," and Mark shouted "Blink 182 is back!" Oh yeah! Although, it was a little awkward while Tom stood off to the side (I still have my doubts about him, but another story for another day.)

Anyway, why does this all matter to me? Well, to put it simply, Blink 182 was my life from the ages of 12-15. (If you know me, I could say that they were my Alkaline Trio of my early teens.)
You could bet that if I had headphones in my ear, they were sceaming out the lyrics "Bouquet of clumsy words a simple melody, this world's an ugly place, but you're so beautiful to me." They completely represented me. I just liked to have fun, careless about the world around me, etc. but they were nothing more, and they shouldn't be. They're a band to be taken as fun, making your day. They're not deep, so don't judge them on that. [/schpeel]

After their reunion at the Grammys, I couldn't have asked for more, but I checked their website. Revamped with a new picture and message stating:

" Hi. We're blink-182. This past week there’ve been a lot of questions about the current status of the band, and we wanted you to hear it straight from us. To put it simply, We're back. We mean, really back. Picking up where we left off and then some. In the studio writing and recording a new album. Preparing to tour the world yet again. Friendships reformed. 17 years deep in our legacy.


Summer 2009.


Thanks and get ready..."

A complete hell yes. Touring and a new album! I cannot wait for the summer of 2009. I do not care how much money I will have to lay down.


Welcome back, blink 182 and get ready for ME!

School, cake, & competitive eating...

... is exactly what will go in this post.

January 26th marks my first spring semester in college, and I'm excited! Sad, you may say, and it's true. However, for the past month or so I have literally done nothing. Waking up at 1PM and sitting on the couch and watching TV all day. I mean who wants to do that for a month (give me a week in school and I'll be complaining again.)? So I'm glad to be back at school.

My schedule is as follows:
Mondays, Wednesdays &, Fridays.

• English 114, 10AM-10:50AM. I'm not the biggest fan of English class, but I do enjoy writing essays with interesting topic (sans book reports). Although give me a book, and I'll most likely not read it. Good thing the book I got seems to be more of a text book.
• History of Asian Americans, 12PM-12:50PM. Now, this class comes with a chapter book. No fun, but I choose this over History post reconstruction, wouldn't you?

• Algebra 2, 1PM-1:50PM. Don't judge me, I realize that I'm in college taking algebra 2, but if you were taking a test to see what math class you would fall into on a Saturday at 9AM and had the choice to leave when you were done, you would rush through it too.

Tuesdays & Thursdays

• Communications, 8AM-9:25AM. Jesus Christ, two things I hate in an hour and a half: being awake at 8AM and public speaking. Just kill me now, alright?
• Journalism & Mass Media, 2PM-3:30PM. Five hour break inbetween classes. How very exciting for me, but this class sounds fun. Writing and media, my two favorite things combined, wahoo!

Now I'm excited for school and all, but what's more exciting than food? Especially when it looks badass and is being consumed in mass portions. Right, RIGHT?! Which brings me to my two favorite shows at the moment: Ace of Cakes and Man V. Food.

(Alright, the rest of my post will be in italics, damn blogspot sometimes, seriously.)
If you don't like Ace of Cakes, then you're just weird. I recently found out their cakes cost a minimum of 1000 dollars, but the creativity with their cakes is flawless and they can pretty much do anything you ask. So I'll take an Alkaline Trio heart/skull multi colored patterned cake with three teirs, thank you very much. Plus, Chef Duff is hilarious cause he's kind of a dork and quotes movies like I do.

My love for Man V. Food knows no bounds. I don't know why I enjoy this competitive eating so much, and it can be pretty disgusting to watch a guy eat a burger with eight patties, but I got to say, this show makes me hunger for all large foods. Jumbo ice cream sundaes, a giant steak (he ate a 72 oz. steak in 29 minutes, that's just unhealthy.), or some buffalo wings (to not as a spicier extent though). And I'll admit that this Adam Richman fellow can be rather cheesy, especially with the Q&A's following his latest food conquest, but why should that matter when the food looks delicious, albeit most of the time rather unhealthy.

Got slapped by Marshall so hard he died...