Last year, I went to see comedian Steve Bryne.  After that show, he walked pass me and I kind of froze…shoulda patted him on the back…shoulda talked to him but never did and I’ve always regretted it.

This year, yesterday, to be exact, I skipped portfolio class to check out his new material at the Brea Improv.  Man, he really is hilarious, and most importantly, at the end of the show, I manned up and told him that his new material was awesome, took pictures with him and told him that he was tall (yeah, i don’t know, that’s all I could think of at the given moment).

Also, my monster is complete!

I am probably going to make a layout out of it soon, so watch out for that. I kind of need a new layout anyway because I noticed that I tend to blog more often when the layout is fresh. The older my website layout gets, the less I write. Haha, and I don’t know why.

Update: New layout! Hurrah!

For New Year’s Day, a couple of friends and I went to catch a flick called “The Spirit”, and if you ask me, the movie stinks. I LOVED the visual techniques in “Sin City”, but when it was used for “The Spirit”, it didn’t get the same effect. Because for one, “Sin City” already did it, and second, the visualization in “The Spirit” was messy and half-assed. The entire characters were one-dimensional and spoke in such a completely stylized and slick dialog that you couldn’t buy into it.

Speaking of slick, do you know who’s not slick?

Me.

After the film, we hung out at Pris’s yard, chit chattin’ and what not, and part of the discussion concerned epic karate moves. I was demonstrating to them the art of an authentic roundhouse kick, and my foot landed on doggy doo right after doing it. I was wearing my favorite shoes too.

Instead of getting praises for my roundhouse kick, I only heard laughter for stepping on doggy doo.

Yeah, good one Tiff. No one’s ever going to take your roundhouse kicks seriously anymore!

Stepping on dog shit, or any kind of shit, sucks, but when something like that happens, I usually try to find the bright side of things. In this case, I stepped on a firm, dried up ol’ piece of turd, which is, hands down, way better than stepping on a soaked and freshly shitted mountain mush with steam coming off of it.

Tomorrow will be a better day.

I saw three movies yesterday.

The first was “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button“. This is a beautifully made film. It is so good that I don’t think I can ever describe and capture the true beauty of this film. Everything about this film- the makeup, the editing, the acting, the pacing, the visuals, et cetera is a work of art.

There’s something that films can rarely make me do, and that’s crying. Two films I can only remember that actually made me cry a lot were “The Lion King” and “Wall-E” (“The Lion King” probably doesn’t count because that was in first grade). Now, I can proudly add Benjamin Button to the list of films that jerked my tears, because it did, in fact, made me cry like a little baby. I even bawled in the beginning of the film when I saw Benjamin as a seven year old. Just seeing the image of a child (he was born “old” and ages in reverse) who’s unable to walk or even stand up, because he had a 70 year old something weak and shriveled up body was already emotional for me. I was immediately drawn in to Brad Pitt’s character, and I was convinced that he was an actual child, and not of an elderly man despite his appearance.

Benjamin is physically getting younger and everyone body else around him is growing older, thus making the conclusion of the film to be inevitable. My brother (yes, the guy who didn’t like my Christmas gift) said it was one of the movie’s major flaws, but I beg to differ. Knowing the outcome of the film sure as hell doesn’t spoil shit. It is not the meat of the story, it is how the story evolves is what makes it so captivating.

I would also like to point out the digital effects used in the film; it is so advanced and well made that it doesn’t look like the work of CGI. I mean really it’s flawless. The transformation that Brad Pitt (Benjamin) undergoes through roughly every stage of his life is breathtaking.

The film also offers healthy doses of comedic relief…lightning. That’s all I’m going to say haha.

The ending of Benjamin Button was deeply moving and riveting. It made me wonder about the cruelty of time and nature, and how nothing ever lasts.

The next film I watched was “Slumdog Millionaire“. Before watching this, I read a synopsis of said film and it really didn’t get my attention at all. From what I can tell, it was about a dude who was a contestant on India’s own “Who Wants to be A Millionaire” and he was getting all the answers right and shit. Wow boring! This plot is lame! I was not planning to see this movie, at all, until other people had recommended it to me afterwards.

So I went to see the movie the other day, and boy was I wrong.

Everything about this movie is memorizing and the structure of the story was handled with sheer meticulousness.

I really liked the way modern India was depicted. It revealed the cold harsh reality of child exploitation, greed and violence. And thorough out the film, we see the nation develop into an economic power country. The visuals were vibrant and flourishing; it captured the mountains of garbage and waste, it captured the fast moving trains, it captured the ridged roofs of shanty towns, and other parts of the country where tourists rarely gets to see.

Even the subtitles caught my attention. It was colorful and it popped out in random places, I loved it!

I’ve never seen a movie quite like Slumdog before. The very ending of the film threw me off, but in a good way, kind of like, “What-what the hell are they doing?…Oh ok that’s kind of neat.”

I highly recommend both Slumdog and Benjamin Button, they are both at the top of my list as best movies for 2008.

You know what I don’t recommend? “Seven Pounds“. Hly shit that was the third movie I watched yesterday, and I absolutely hated it.

Since this film failed at being awesome (or even “average”), I will make this snappy and write a list of why it sucked hard:

- There were a lot of flashbacks in this film where you can’t tell if it’s a flashback or not, thus throwing a lot of people off.

- The relationship between Ben Thomas and Emily Posa (Rosario Dawson) is extremely premature that their love for each other did not seem genuine, and it would’ve been considered psychotic and idiotic if it were to happen in real life.

- It’s boring. Ben Thomas (Will Smith) is constantly stalking and harassing people, you don’t know why he’s doing it, and most importantly, you don’t really care to know.

- His motives behind his peculiar actions are finally revealed in the end, and once you find out, it’s like, “That’s it? This is what I’ve been waiting for?”

- The focal point of the story is that Ben is trying to help people. Though he doesn’t seem to connect with the people he tries to help (except Emily), and his actions to “help” others seem impulsive and contrived, and it doesn’t come from the heart.

- This is supposed to be a tear-jerker movie, but I didn’t shed a single tear, in fact, I did the opposite, I laughed.

- Hint: Jellyfish made me laugh.

In other words, don’t see this movie. Check out “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and “Slumdog Millionaire”, you won’t be sorry!

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks

I’m really bad when it comes to reading books.  98% of the books that is currently on my bookshelf has been read…halfway.  Oh I plan on finishing all of them, pages are still bookmarked and everything, but it’s probably not going to happen in this lifetime.  Actually, I really don’t know why I’m asking for another book, but this one’s about zombies man! And believe it or not, I did read the whole book of The Zombie Survival Guide (safety first!), which is also written by Max Brooks, so I think I’ll get into WWZ without a sweat.

Betseyville or Betsey Johnson bag in studded shiny (or not shiny) black leather

I’m really not into bags.  Whenever I go out, I normally take my cards, keys, and cellphone with me, so there’s not much to carry had I use bags.  But if there’s one bag out there that I’d rock regardless of my lack of shit to put in, it would most certainly be the Betsey bags.  Bags designed by Betsey Johnson/Betseyville are straight up tacky and over the top…but I like it.  And I think carrying bags of gaudiness would perfectly balance everything out whenever I have a normal plain ol’ outfit on.

Disney Pixar Ultimate Movie Collection

I’ve loved every movie Pixar has made for Disney, and I still like watching them whenever I get the chance to, so I’m pretty sure this item was made for me. And remember, this isn’t Disney Pixar Movie Collection, it’s Disney Pixar Ultimate Collection. Ultimate. That’s fucking hardcore, man.

Every gotdamn music soundtrack from movies by Quentin Tarentino

I’m not sure if Mr. Tarentino gets to select his choice of songs for every movie he’s directed, but each and every song I’ve heard from all of his movies brings a sweet feeling of orgasm to my ears.  The songs in Grindhouse Death Proof is at the top of my list of most orgasmic.

Marvel Zombies 1, 2, and 3 in hardcover

Marvel Zombies is one of the most interesting reads to come out of comic books.  The concept of Marvel Zombies is genius.  Just imagine a horde of Marvel comic book characters turned into flesh-eating zombies who are able to retain their humanity.  That’s frightening…and pretty awesome.  I’ve finished the first volume, and and the first two issues of the 2nd volume, and would love more than anything than to finish reading all of it.

I just got back home from one of the most kickass experiences in the world that is the Video Game Awards 2008!

Fuck! It was spectacular I don’t know where to begin! The only bad part was just the long, excruciating hours of waiting out in the cold, but it was definitely worth it.

I invited my friend Hai to the awards show, and we took off around noon to Sony Pictures Studio. We ended up getting there pretty early, and so the wait was pretty long…and awfully freezing. We were stuck in a long line in their parking structure for nearly two hours. I forgot to bring a jacket and the air was so cold that my lips were turning purple, every part of my bone trembled, and pretty sure my goosebumps had goosebumps.

Two hours later, our line (there were about five separate long lines) finally started moving first and we were transferred into a large empty warehouse where there was even more waiting. As the minutes started to pass by, more of the people from the previous lines eventually started to come in.

The wait was very long and the weather was still chilly, but during that time, Hai and I met a group who was standing behind us and surely, they were an awesome bunch to interact with. Their names were Leejay, Mike and his girlfriend (I forgot her name!). From time to time, I would turn around and butt in to add in my comments to them every time I overhear something interesting or funny, but eventually the butting in comments turned into an entertaining extended conversation on video games, board games, the brilliant idea of putting donuts in our jackets and discreetly selling them to the audience while they were warm due to our body heat (we were hungry! Hunger causes delirium), how absurdly slow and primitive we are at telling time from a numberless watch, and we talked about a flashy dress a girl, standing next to us, was wearing; it was laden with silver sequence and other silver shiny stuff and we thought it would be cool to point a laser at her dress.

After about a few hours of talking and laughter, we were finally transferred to the actual studio where the awards show took place. In the studio, there were three different sections in the room: the stage, the lounge/sofas surrounding the stage (where the big guns and celebrities are seated), and the behind the lounge were a cluster of transparent chairs for the regular audience. The casting directors did not tell us where to sit so me, Hai, and our new gang of friends took the next best seats in the section for the regular audience. It wasn’t close to the stage, but it was good enough.

It was cool at first. As we were waiting for the show to start, we ate bread sticks that were the size of straws, and ordered drinks for free. But a few minutes later, we noticed that people in our line were starting to get kicked out from their seats, and were replaced by other people. Nerves start to kick in.

A new group of people, who we also made friends with, sat next to us and told us how they were initially kicked out because they were sitting in somebody else’s assigned seats. One by one, people are getting kicked out from their seats, and from there on out, I finally realized that we’re seat fillers, and the good seats we’re sitting at the moment are not going to be ours very soon.

Honestly, I was fucking pissed. This meant that we can only sit in the seats that were not purchased (we got in for free, huge HUGE thanks to Brooke for hooking us up). Those seats are probably at a very shitty way-in-the-back spot, and our group will probably be separated from each other had we sat somewhere else.

I wasn’t going to downgrade and settle for a much shittier spot, I wasn’t. So I came up with an idea. A fucking brilliant idea if I might add. It is possibly the best idea I had ever thought of, because everyone else followed, and that idea lead us to the very front of the room that we could literally touch the stage with our own bare hands and probably watch the sweat roll off of Jack Black’s head.

“The pit,” I thought to myself. Remember how I mentioned about the separate lines we had in the parking structure? Well one of those lines was a “special” line, or a line we’d like to call, “The Beautiful People”, because that particular line were composed of theoretically good looking people who were handpicked by the casting directors to stand at the pit whenever a music artist or a band performs on stage.

I guess we were not beautiful enough to have made it to said line, but after getting kicked out from our original seats, I told Hai and LeeJay that we should join “The Beautiful People” up in the very front and “if they kick us out of there too, then oh well, we tried.” Having said that, I casually walked toward the stage, passed the maze of the lounge, and to the pit, followed by seven other people, and no one seems to notice.

“Look beautiful guys,” said Leejay. Laughter ensues. We made it!

We were only at the front of the stage, or the pit, whenever there was a performance. And when there wasn’t, we were all moved by the casting directors to the side of the room, which wasn’t bad at all.

When the show started, we were first shown a hilarious introduction video of Jack Black (the host) having a hot and steamy “threesome” with a PS3 and an Xbox, only to get caught by his wife, the Wii, along with his son, the Nintendo DS. The sex was actually rather gross (and funny) because it was pretty convincing.  He was caressing them, taking out PS3’s wire and inserting into the Xbox, and then boning them in the end…yes boning.

We watched LL Cool J, The All American Rejects, 50 Cent and his G-unit crew, and Weezer perform, all within meter stick distance. Ah, I couldn’t ask for a better place to sneak to.

Other celebrities I saw and had me in uber starstruck were Megan Fox (I called her name and she waved at me, OMG!), Kiefer Sutherland (photo above, see we were THAT close to the stage!!!!), Mike Tyson, Kristin Kreuk, Eliza Dushku, Doogie Howser, Chris Evans, Marisa Miller, Ben Stiller’s dad, and other celebrities I can’t think of at the top of my head.

It was a very good night. I met six other people there who are seriously awesome in my book. I got to be in a room with people who all have one thing in common: our love for videogames. People saw us on TV.  I got the best seats in the house. And to top it all off, Left 4 Dead won Best PC Game and Best Multiplayer Game. It’s definitely a great way to end the year with. I couldn’t ask for a better night.

PS- Cameras and phones were not allowed, so I was not able to take any pictures during the show. Hmph! So I managed to get a few pictures before the event (photo at the top), and after…which isn’t that exciting since none of it was DURING the show.

I just watched the latest episode of Vh1’s Rock of Love Charm School and I loved it! The girls get to go on speed dating with three guys, but there’s a catch!…They have to get fuglified. The show brought in special effects makeup artists to transform the team of attractive broads into a bunch of repulsive hags you would not want to fuck.

Since their “true” identities are concealed by gigantic moles, hairy warts, unibrows and prosthetic honker noses and double chins, the only approach to get these bachelor’s interests is to use their personality,  intellect, talent, basically anything that doesn’t have to do with showing off their tits.

I wish they could’ve shown more of the dates, but looking back, I’m relieved it didn’t get a lot of airtime because the dates were already so terribly mind-numbing that I rather watch piss land on a toilet seat.

Kristy Joe, the most gorgeous out of the bunch IMO, probably had the worst and funniest makeover because they turned her into a fat middle aged woman! What’s even worst than looking at her lard ass was listening to her talk.  The conversation was so basic and just plain dried that I even remembered the exact dialogue:

Kristy Joe:  You look like that one actor (flaps both of her hands in fan-like motion to ward off mosquitoes…perhaps?), I’m sure you heard it all the time.

Date:  That one?

Kristy Joe: Mm hm.

Date: I could, I could look like that one (brief awkward silence). Ummm…I just gotta puppy. Umm…

Kristy Joe:  Why are you single?

Date:  Why am I single?

Kristy Joe: Mm hm.

Date: Uh ‘cause I broke up with my last girlfriend and that makes me single at the moment.

(Kristy Joe tries to fix her hair, clearly isn’t comfortable with how she looks, so she starts giggling nonstop)

Date: What’s so funny?

Kristy Joe: (Giggling, covers her mouth) Nothing.

Way to hit if off jackass! She even said, after her date, “For the first time in my life I realized I’ve always kinda relied on my looks and now…I’ve got nothin to talk about.”

If there’s one thing Kristy Joe’s right about, it’s that.   Men and women, who are attractive by society’s standards, happen to lack personality and are probably the most boring people to talk to on Earth.

And before you get mad and say, “But that’s not true, Tiff.  I’m hot and I gots smarts!! LOL!!!” I’m speaking in generalities.

I’ve noticed that good looking people can get friends and dates without much effort;  they’ve learned to rely on their appearances so much that they can’t grow until they experience rejection in life, they can’t grow until they realize “there’s more to life than being really really ridiculously good looking,” whereas the average joe has to work a lot harder to be accepted. They don’t have looks to fall back on…