The Whateverlah Blog

Yea, so I thought I’d sneak in one more unabashed lovefest for Stephanie March before the month runs out and I can no longer call it March Madness. (Where the hell did the month go?!)

E!Online apparently got God Executive Producer Neal Baer to talk abit more about who bites the dust at the end of this season. Nothing exciting and every answer he gives is vague and open ended. But there was one bit that I was really thrilled to read:

Neal did confirm that Michaela McManus won’t be back on SVU

Well, sweet lord, the world rejoyeth! This is clearly one of those cases where it’s not that the fans didn’t give the character a chance, it’s the fact that Wolf/Baer made a horrible casting choice, realised it a little too late and had to scramble to save what’s left of this season. I guess in a way we have to thank Michaela McManus in having a hand in helping to bring back Cabot.

I snuck a glance at the teaser for this week’s episode [YouTube]… you know the one where Miss Stephanie was all excited about on The Today Show cause she got to shoot at the UN Building. Looks to be like one o’ them preachy story about some global issue or another. God save us all.

No. Not really.

To the ones that are curious and by chance didn’t notice when Starbuck dialed this in the music was playing… let me help you out:

1123 6536 5321 = (C#) C# D E A G# E A G# E D C#

I put the parentheses on the first note because if you don’t play that, it’ll sound more familiar.

Anyways, on Bear McCreary’s blog, he just posted an entire entry on the scoring for Daybreak Parts One & Two. Scroll down far enough, you’ll see how he had to come up with music that’ll end up being the coordinates Starbuck punches into the FTL computer. Comes with lotsa lotsa musical notation! Being pretty much music illiterate I don’t understand most of it.

I just know enough to heart it. <3

I think fans of Where The Wild Things Are (or anyone who had enough sense of imagination and makebelieve during their childhood) just collectively peed in their pants after seeing the movie trailer for WtWTA.

Oh.my.gucking.fod. Amazing, rite? The color palette is sooooo close to the illustrations in the book.

Where The Wild Things Are comes out in October, so no chance of me seeing it in the theaters.

This is probably an appropriate time to trot out a photo of me taken in NYC by Nana (with Pei giggling off camera) in the hotel corridor.

The story behind it – We were horsing around on our way out… to…  somewhere and Nana thought the wallpaper looked like the trees in the forest in WtWTA, and being the cornball that I am, I was like, “Take a picture of me walking like the Wild Things! Doitdoit do eeeet!”

And so:

Good times.

It’s still frightening how accurate xkcd is…

I have this dream at least once a semester when I was in school, grad and undergrad years. I’d wake up in the early hours of the day, panicking because I thought I’d signed up for a class but haven’t attended since school started and it was the middle of the school year. It usually takes a few minutes for reality to come back.

And then there are the SPM nightmares. These come in a few varieties – sometimes I dream that I’m back in Form Four or Form Five but slowly realize “WTF?! I’ve done this before already… I no longer have to subject myself to these soul crushing years. Wake the fuck up!” (sequence of thought almost exactly like in the cartoon)

There is also the “OMGOMGOMG I’m late for exam!” dream.

All essentially involving panic and fear of failure.

I also regularly have dreams where I’m walking around a school compound and it’s almost always the primary school grounds. No idea what that’s all about though.

There is some irony that a place named Taiping, beautiful, peaceful, mind-our-own-business Taiping is the scene for some political drama in the shape of the Bukit Gantang By Election. Malaysia Today has a page with links to pics and video of the nomination day action.

I’m supposed to be looking for a collection of quotes from UMNO’s GA, already collated, but lost in the vastness of RPKs blog. It’s awesome headdesk/facepalm material. Will add the link later.

EDIT: Okay, can’t find the promised page of quotes. Maybe it only existed in my warped mind. But in place, this one is also worth reading.

Today’s qualifying rounds at Melbourne Park was my first look at the 2009 cars; I like to be surprised what can I say.

Was rather O.O to see (1) the return of slick tyres and (2) those high and narrow rear wings. These obvious to the eye changes really took me back. I mean, waaaay back. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen the rear wing so narrow and slick tyres haven’t been around since the late 90s. Gotta say the cars look kinda weird and clunky, and the new adjustable front wings are especially aesthetically challenged.

Here is the 2009 Ferrari (rear wings almost halfway to drag race setup, no?):

Compared to last year’s Ferrari:

And the Ferrari from 1990:

Looks aside, a whole bunch of changes that have taken place this year is going to make this season uber exciting since the usual front runners choked during quals and the new kid on the block, Brawn GP, made it P1 and P2 for tomorrow. So apologies are in order if I start having word-diarrhea over the season.

March April is a very exciting time. It’s almost time for the NBA playoffs – the only time pro basketball gets even remotely exciting enough to note, it’s time for the new season of Formula One, it’s nearing time for baseball – next few months will be really excruciating to watch ESPN, and best of all… it’s time for spring ball.

At USC, Coach Carroll has made practices open to the public since he took over the program. It’s one of just many reasons to go back to the southland. Here’s the spring practice schedule should you find yourself curious and lucky enough to be in the neighborhood.

There’re some tennis being played but we desperately need an additional slam event to fill the gap between Australia and Roland Garros.

Hoping to catch some billiard action when the Asian 9-Ball Tour starts. Not alot of information coming from the governing body about the where and when so might not happen at all this year. I wanna see Efren Reyes dammit!!

My brother and I are easily amused, as you’ll see from this snippet of our conversation while driving.

Driving past the side entrance of a certain hotel in KL…

Me: Wau, check out those hookers, damn alot of them right?

Bro: For the UMNO delegates mah. [the UMNO General Assembly was going on, in case you haven't heard -ed]

a little later…

Bro: So I guess you can say the pimps are the beneficiaries of UMNO’s largesse lah eh?

Me: Oh, this is what trickle down economics mean then?

*gigglegiggle*

Bro: Yeaahaha… UMNO can say that they are really helping the ‘man on the street’ what!

Me: And women!

*chortlechortle*

See? We’re easy.

Oh, and those hookers were gone after we got done with dinner and drove back around that way.

Aww.. remember this gem of local music? So Julie by Lo. (I don’t get the video either, and others tell me I make oblique expositions).

This one, Operator (The Line Is Dead), is another good one. The video is extra spesial cause I remember being stuck behind the shoot late one KL night. It was a car sliced in half and towed behind a truck… s’all I remember.

Yeah I don’t have much to write about. But I’m hearing a lot of great songs. Simple evocative piano FTW!

Patty Griffin – Burgundy Shoes, 2007

“My friend said ‘What the heck you don’t have any happy songs at all. You really should try to write a happy song.’ So I went home, and this is my first stab at happy song. It goes like this – and of course it’s got to do with shoes. And my mum.”

We wait for the bus that’s going to Bangor
In my plaid dress and burgundy shoes
In your red lipstick and lilac kerchief
You’re the most pretty lady in the world
Sun

Who do they hire as copywriters? You only need to run this sentence through Microsoft Word and it’ll tell you that something ain’t right.

BSG finale. Daybreak, Part Two. So good. Questions unanswered. Don’t care. First hour – the finale everybody wanted and got, second hour – the epilogue every story should have. I’m looking atchu Rowling!

Starbuck was never my girl crush. But for the 10 minutes, with her in a ponytail and bad-assery leaking out of her pores in the assault of that ship, man oh man. Then she lost the ponytail. Oh well.

Once again, I am in awe of the music and what it did for the entire series. Just wanted that on the record.

I got a feelin’ lots of people are going to hate how so many things went unanswered or badly explained. To those, I just have to say, ignore the last 30 minutes of the finale and make up your own stories. The first 60 minutes rocked hard enough.

They did kinda write themselves into a corner with the Starbuck story arch. However, in the grand scheme of all that has been good in this series I will go ahead and overlook that. Besides, after Adama told Kara “You are my daughter” last week, that was enough for me.

Loved the Ron Moore cameo at the end.

I now have a tv void that needs to be filled. Bet it’s not going to come from SciFi… oh sorry, it’s *SyFy* now.

then you’ve been successfully pointed to the new server hosting my blog.

welcome. I’m glad you could make it.

slow changes will take place over the next couple day. before you know it, this place will feel like home again.

…for G, who is still having server issues.

When someone shared this website – quirkyalone – with me, I had a moment there where I felt like the zebra in Madagascar 2 when he arrived at the reservation. Yea, ok, it’s one of those you had to have watched it thing.

So, quoting the site:

quirkyalone noun/adj. A person who has the capacity to enjoy single life (but is not opposed to being in a relationship) and generally prefers to be alone rather than dating for the sake of being in a couple.

It’s kinda nice to know that there are other far more outspoken people than I am about being single by choice and establishing a presence.

What’s really interesting is that Rilke is quoted in the essay that explains the whole… movement.

It quotes Rilke (automatic +10), delineates like-minded people as romantics and idealists and rebels… how could I resist? Labels are so easy, aren’t they?

So, yes. Yes, I think I’ll refer those who give me shit about being single to this website. But no, I don’t really care for labels. No ‘quirkyalone’ on my business card.

And in those moments where I question my values and beliefs, there is now outside validation – it’s important that this comes from people who aren’t friends – and remind me that I’m not completely off the grid.

p.s. – i want to blog about food and stuff that involves lots of photos. but until i fix whatever is wrong with the blog you’re going to be treated to alot of soapbox rants. this is my very own Hyde Park, don’t you know?