I'm Still in Love...

Yeah, I'm a sucker for duets, and when it's a duet with my one of my favorite guys singing, it's heaven.

This song is from Ray's newest album of which I've spoken of already. At first when I heard it and a female was singing, I was thinking... "huh? This isn't Ray." And so I looked up the album's info and found that Vincy Chan does this lovely duet with Ray.

I'm so happy about it that I just have to post about it. There's also a mandarin version, but I like this Canto version more.

Hehe

Raymond Lam -- Your Love

I'm in love...

If you thought I was an obsessed otaku fangirl weird, then you won't be surprised to see me squealing in delight at the aspect of Raymond Lam's newest CD. I love this guy.

Excuse me while I lapse into fandom and "kya!" like a fangirl.
Your Love is Ray's second album since he stepped into the music industry. The first one with the incredibly mouthful title of Searching for You in Loving Memories or what have you at your own translation, was another milestone of his (and mine) that had all of his fans swooning in pleasure. Both albums are very good, although even as a fan I will admit there are some songs that don't really catch on as quickly and I don't care about. But the majority of the music is awesome.

Frankly speaking, until he released his first album last year in 2007, I'd been anticipating his first step into the music industry because of his incredibly smooth and unique voice. He has the talent to hit all sorts of pitches and sing to all sorts of music, and he had even been given the chance to perform each and every one of his theme songs for series he participated in. Even for Heart of Greed in which he wasn't supposed to really be a main character he ended up striking up a good image as a couple with Linda Chung and so the two sang the sub theme song together.

When other persons had released an album before him, I was disappointed. We will not mention who this "other persons" is because it would just cause fan chaos.

But I'm glad that he now has two albums and many, many other songs to boot. If only I could get a nice compilation of all the themesongs sung by this guy, then I would be in happy fangirl heaven.

"Kyaa..."
Yea, this guy is hot, his acting skills are above average, his singing is incredible, and his potential is continuing to soar even higher. I can't wait to continue watching him go places with his talents and skills.


In other news, Warhammer Online from Mythic Entertainment and EA games has released its open beta this week.



My brothers and I are participating in this and will probably allow Warhammer to become the next shot of "EverCrack2" drug we indulge in for the next few months. Of course, as the official launch of the game is still a few days away, I don't know how long we'll actually play this game. After all, we gave up on Everquest 2 to play Vanguard and that ended pretty badly.

As of right now, I'm giving myself a chance to play the plethora of evil characters available... since my brother wanted to be a squig herder. Don't ask questions, you'll only cry.

While Vanguard lacked a sense of convenience and efficiency during gameplay experience, Everquest 2 had always made up for in that sense. But Vanguard was a wonder world with new adventures and new gameplay deals. Unfortunately, the world was so big that it was overwhelming and frankly a little too easy to avoid playing. Everquest 2 lacked new ideas and new scenery and so became a boring old sport.

Hopefully Warhammer will be able to provide what these two games had lacked... along with fixing some bugs that are quite annoying at this time.


In yet more news, things in the personal life are going quite monotonous right now. Work is work, school work is school work... And thanks to Gustav, we're getting really good weather here in Kansas. My sincere apologies for finding this little bit of pleasure in the grief of those down south, but it really has been sweltering hot lately and I'm glad for the change of temperament in the easily tempered Kansas weather.

I recently watched 'The Bucket List' with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nickolson which was absolutely genius and fabulous. Ever since I saw the trailer I've wanted to watch the movie. A plot with two old dying men living out the last of their days to the fullest through a philosophical "Bucket List." It was very inspirational and very humorous. Morgan Freeman is one of the most talented American actors that I can respect. Jack Nickolson is Jack Nickolson and there's not other way to describe him-- in all his glory, he's a really great actor too.

My older brother has left for Minnesota on his first Operations Manager "mission" and in fact was supposed to go to Lafayette, but due to the multiple hurricane attacks, his destination was changed. He'll be back home on Saturday, so I was told, and then soon he'll be off on yet another building visit to somewhere else. It's a pity that I can't seem to get out of this pathetic city too... no matter how hard I'm trying. And then I got told that I need to just stay in Wichita and stop thinking about going elsewhere. Really now, the only reason I'm looking out of state is because I really want out of here... But no one in his family needs to know that other wise there might be some problems.

So right now I'm stuck in my eternal state of family servitude as the Asian daughter who can't leave unless she can become rich and famous by some miracle. Or unless I can (by yet another impossible miracle) get married an unload a grandchild for my parents to play with in which case they'll be sure that I'll be coming home to remain the servant girl.

As an end note to this semi-fangirl semi-rant post, I make mention that I have once again shot myself in the Writer's Block head and come up with yet another new story idea that I can't finish. On a more positive note, my most recent story which I've designated as a "short" story is being forcefully pounded out onto "paper" a la Microsoft Word glory. I'm going to assume that as soon as I finish it, I'll at least feel like I've made some progress and can edit and re-edit it to death until I've decided that I like it enough to share it with the world... or just to some bored passerby.

Extraordinary Moonlight

I had this sudden need to watch a new TVB drama again after about a year and a half (maybe) and the first one that I chose was the very hyped, very grand production of Heart of Greed's offshoot, a somewhat of a sequel called Moonlight Resonance.

In recent Hong Kong television news, we've been seeing a lot of "Let's use the same cast in this fabulous production and try to recreate the same feel with a different storyline" type of ideas. They did it with War of the In-laws, they did it with Square Pegs, and they redid it over and over again with the War and Beauty cast. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, then it would be a good idea to take a gander over at spcnet tv for a full TVB experience on various series.

But anyway, for a step back into the TVB world is something very rare for me to do. After all, I grew up watching television a la TVB and to tell the truth, I've never strayed away from it. TVB has always been my life because I grew up with them. But for the past year, maybe year and a half, I've been ignoring TVB and found myself immersed in anime other things. I tried to watch series from TVB a couple months ago.

The Seventh Day was going to be a series I looked forward to and would watch until the very end. I like the actors, I like the story idea, and the whole production of the series, though short and kind of tacky, was very beautiful. But I watched the first two episodes and then quit. I haven't touched it since.

A month or two ago I started to watch Forensic Heroes II. I thought, even if I'm not interested in the people or the storyline, I'm at least interested in the things they do. After all, Forensic Science is my forte and I thought I'd get a kick out of watching people try to do this stuff in the fictional world. Ten episodes later, I stopped bothering with it and dropped it completely.

You know, there was probably a reason why I gave up on the CSI franchise as well. No matter how real these people try to make it, they always extravagandize the whole profession to death. It's kind of tiresome to keep thinking to yourself, "You can't do that on a crime scene, it'll ruin the evidence. Where's my trace evidence collector? Where's my sticky tape? Why isn't that stupid hair secured? Quit stepping on the evidence!!"

And everyone else around me decides to start pitching a fit because I won't shut up about it. And so, yea... I'm not really allowed to watch anything to do with forensic science or crime scene investigation anymore. My bad.

But anyway, this post isn't about those two series, but it's been long enough I think I won't be able to talk about my "Moonlight Resonance" experience thus far in full. So let's just cut straight to the chase:

Moonlight Resonance is supposedly the "sequel" to Heart of Greed. Now Heart of Greed was ranked as Hong Kong and TVB's number one series of the year in 2007. Even though the production period was rather blah and little news and media coverage bothered with them, the series hit it off extremely well and unexpectedly became one of the best classic series TVB has ever produced since, maybe War and Beauty in the year 2004. Not too long, but when it comes to entertainment, everything has to be good everyday, or you're forgotten immediately.

TVB's new definition of a sequel, however, could be the traditional kind of sequel, or it could be the new "use the exact same cast members for a similar yet completely different experience in a whole new story" type of deal. The cast of Moonlight are majorly from Heart of Greed, and as a twist, our two favorites from Heart of Greed have taken center stage this time.

Moonlight, like Heart of Greed, is a drama of family, money, and power. In Heart, we had brothers and wives fighting over the family fortune of which was superior in the abolone industry. Four kids living peacefully with each other until the dastardly second wife and blood-related uncle from mother's side of the family decide that they want in on some of the estate selfishly. The family is torn apart and lawsuits ensue. Amidst all of this, the head of the family and his wife are the only two who seem to understand family unity and want to do what they can to keep the family together and at peace. Struggles ensue, deaths occur, and we are left with very tear-jerking moments when nothing seems to go right at all. Surrounding this whole family feud of a debacle, two sets of budding romances take their tolls to add onto the turmoil that is Heart of Greed.

I never got far with Heart of Greed. I never even got into the heart of the feud-- no pun intended. I gave up on watching it after I cried for the second time and couldn't stand it anymore. I also didn't really like the idea of the two romances I had already heard about time and time again. And I especially didn't really want to see all the fighting and the injustices. And most importantly, I DID not want to see the infamous, much talked about death scene of Raymond Lam's wonderfully portrayed character Alfred. I like this guy, he pulls off Alfred's asshole tendencies beautifully. But I didn't want to see him die, because that was his redeeming point and I knew I'd be crying buckets.

And I'm not a normally teary-eyed person who cries if something awful happens. Heart of Greed is indeed an accomplished tear jerker.

Moonlight doesn't stray far from its predecessor. With the notion that Moonlight is supposed to be the happier, more justifying version of Heart of Greed, I conflicted myself about giving it a watch. But I don't like family dramas. I hate it when I'm forced into tears from a mere fictional storytelling because the actors are just so good at presenting all their emotions. I don't like fighting. I watch romantic comedies. I watch adventures where fighting involves fun acrobatics and killing monsters and demons.

What finally drew me to consider watching Moonlight, however, was actually quite superficial: Raymond Lam. I found the subtheme he sings for the series. I listened to it. And then I checked out some first thoughts and impressions from Hong Kong's viewers and their praise. And then I thought about the much better role Ray has been given. And then on a whim, I watched the first episode.

I was amazed. After one, I couldn't stop and kept right on watching through. There's so much beauty to this so called "sequel" to Heart of Greed. Moonlight gives off a feel similar to nostalgia. We keep getting glimpses of very heart-warming scenes of our lovely family from the past. We get a lot of reminiscing. We get a lot of family values thrown at us. And most importantly, character interaction is wonderful. Ray does excellently as the elder brother of the second part of the broken family. Tavia Yeung is wonderful as the adopted daughter who can't seem to figure out her own place in the family. Even Fala Chen portrays her mute youngest sister role adorably.

I've yet to grasp the rest of the family members, but I can sincerely tell that Lee Si Kei is yet again at the utmost best as the mother who just wants to preach family values and keep her children together. Moses Chan's character is creepy, smooth, and hilarious at the same time. Linda Chung hasn't really struck me as anything extraodinary yet, but this is because I didnt' get to see all of her emotional break downs in the predecessor. This is Michelle Yim's second villain role that I am aware of and she is, as usual, excellent with her portrayal. Although she could lose the hair.

I think the main plot of the series has yet to reach its central arc. I look forward to it and I also look forward to how this series will end off. As a hopeless romantic, I also look forward to how the two sets of romances will play off. Our newest TVB golden couple Raymond Lam and Linda Chung are both going to be paired up together as Ah Ho and Ah Chau, but along comes Bosco Wong in his suave and debonair doctor role to sweep Ah Chau off her feet. A nice little triangle ensues, and to boot, Ah Chau and Ah Ho are actualy supposed to be step-siblings! O.o!!

On the other side, adopted daughter Tavia Yeung and eldest son Moses Chan are supposed to be yet another pair a la Ah Yeut and Ah Ka until Auntie Sa's rambunctious daughter Ka Mei comes into the picture.

Looks like we've got quite a bit of romantic, yet socially incestual fun to come. But as long as our favorite characters are paired together, the fans won't really care, right. I'm looking forward to see how these people end up resolving these romantic conflicts as well as bypassing all those social barriers that will be in their way. Ah Yeut and Ah Ka have been siblings since they were little-- how are people going to respond if they suddenly find themselves romantically attached to each other? And as for Ah Ho and Ah Chau, they grew up together as best friends, and then Ah Chau's mother steals the position of wife, thus turning the two into step-siblings of which they never wanted in the first place. Throughout the entire series, they are continuously struggling to overcome this social barrier which they don't even view as in existence. Everyone else around them, however, find it necessary to constantly remind them that they are indeed step-siblings, even if they were separated after custody was given to the parents, and even if they grew up as best friends instead of siblings.

Currently at episode 15, I'm looking forward to seeing more and more of this.

And so maybe I might end up preparing a blog just for TVB... but I really doubt I'll do that.