Tiger & Dragon

Status: 11 Episodes (complete & subbed) + 1 special episode(subbed)

Synopsis: This award winning drama series tells the story of a yakuza[Japanese mafia] member Toraji, whose job was collecting debts. He encountered Ryu, a clothing store owner who's also the estranged son of a rakugo story teller[rakugo is the art of telling Japanese comedy stories while sitting down i.e. sit-down comedy]. He decided to quit yakuza and learn rakugo. However, there's one problem. He looked so scary that people were afraid to laugh at him. Plus, his jokes were always lame. Finding the rakugo stories 'old' and incomprehensible[well, he's a bit of a baka haha], he decided to tell rakugo using his own style. He modified the stories to fit in with modern times & events that happened around him.

Eye-candies: Nagase Tomoya as Toraji [He's the bumbling guy masquearading as a cool singer in Mukodono], Okada Junichi as Ryu...

Why you should watch: This is a unique drama. Who would expect that it actually contains elements of traditional Japanese culture? I certainly enjoyed watching how the writer managed to modify the traditional rakugo stories to fit in with modern times. Each episode is about one rakugo story intertwined with events happening in Toraji's life. Basically, you get two version of the story. The traditional one, and the modern yakuza-flavoured version as told by Toraji. It does help that the events are usually hilarious and the dialogues are funny.

I think this drama is not everyone's cup of tea. But give it a try. When have you ever watched something that is educational yet funny at the same time? heh this was one of the few dramas that I managed to watch twice. [An incredible feat considering I've only finished 50% of the drama series that I started..]

@ Arfah - Ader rumours Tiger & Dragon 2!

Soccer?

Surprised? Suddenly I have the urge to write updates. We'll see how long I can keep this up.

Well, since World Cup is going on right now, this is the obligatory post regarding the tournament.. Forgive my limited knowledge of football, but this matter seems to be stuck in my head since yesterday.

Soccer - only the Americans would call this game as soccer. They use football for a game where they don't even play with their feet? Hahah.. Somebody tell me why they are ranked 5th?[Only knew about this yesterday..] Ahead of teams like Spain, Germany, Italy and even England?

Read HERE and be amused. Go read the comments for more insights into American's view on soccer. Hahaha I have to admire their sense of patriotism[Or is it a case of being too full of themselves? Or showing their blatant ignorance of the game?]. I don't think Malaysians would be thinking like that IF we made it to the World Cup. Well, this was before they were beaten 3-0 by the Czechs.

And read HERE for a more hilarious take into watching World Cup in the US.

Random trivia - Did you know FIFA has more members than the United Nations? Kohfi Annan even wished that the UN would be more like the World Cup [from an article in NST..can't remember when..].

Termites attack...

AAaaaaaarghh... Termites attacked my books!!! I hate termites! Luckily, those books were not the latest ones. Mainly a bunch of kiddies stuff..but still, I love my books. And a LOT of them were eaten/destroyed. It's like an entire wall of books..Those who have seen them would know how many books there were. Urgh...now I have to rebuild my collection again...

Home~

Home at last... No jetlag this time around. Could be because my sleeping pattern was already screwed up even before I stepped on that plane... Talking about planes, I really enjoyed flying with SIA. Their in-flight entertainment was superb. The first thing I did when I got to my seat was to grab the in-flight magazine..60+ movies? Heh I wish I had slept the night before. I think I managed to watch 5 movies? Fell asleep thru a couple of them. Ouh and SIA kept serving us food & drinks. Sandwiches, apples, TimeOut bars...Journey back was delayed a couple of hours due to a missed connection. But hey, every cloud has a silver lining right? And the silver lining this time turns out to be a breakfast voucher worth SGD8.50. Might not sound like much, but we did have a hard time trying to use it up hahah..

Among the movies I watched were

Pink Panther - Good for laughs. Think 'Senario'. That's the kind of comedy I think this movie delivers.

Summertime Machine Blues [or something like that] - Japanese flick about high school kids who found a time machine in their clubhouse. Interesting? Maybe.

Ultraviolet - Sci-fi flick about mutants i.e. humans with homophages disease, turning them into some kind of vampire. Not that interesting, but the fight scenes did keep me awake.

The Professor and His Beloved Equation - My favourite out of the 5. About a maths professor with a memory of only 80 minutes. Told from the viewpoint of his housekeeper's son. The professor fueled his love for maths. I found out lots of interesting maths facts from the movie. [haha I sound like a geek :P].

Hoodwinked - Spoof animation on Red Riding Hood. Funny. Gave a twist to the classic fairy tale we used to read as children. Red Riding Hood is a cookies delivery girl, the grandmother is an extreme sport freak, the wolf is an investigative journalist, and the woodcutter is a wannabee advertisement actor..

And I watched X-MEN The Last Stand today with my sister. So-so. Previous installments were better. I wanna see Gambit! Angel is a bit funny/weird? Urgh they made us stay 10 minutes for the credits to end, and the extra scene was like 1 minute? heh...

To my housemates, THANK YOU!! So sweet of you guys to give me early birthday presents!

Yay! Spain won 4-0!

Finals and Finales...

Yeay! I'm done with my exams! What a relief. Now I can go back to my daily activities i.e. watching stuff on my laptop without any guilt haha
The papers were tough..Urgh I don't even want to think about it..

Finale season is here. I think all the series I've been following had their season finales during my exams. Hish..

Amazing Race - They DID go to Japan at last! Hahah Yat and I have been wondering whether they'd go to Japan or not, and voila~ Final leg was in Japan! I'm glad the hippies managed to win this season. We were rooting for them from the start. The frat boys were annoying at times. What's up with their mission to sleep with girls? I doubt it was successful.

Medium[I doubt anyone else is watching this] - Hmm nice finale. Kind of a 'what might have been' episode. It's like an alternate universe altogether where Allison ignored her powers and me a successful lawyer. What intrigued me most in this story is, even though she followed a different path, she still ended up with Joe[her husband in the series]..Hmmm are the writers trying to say that if he/she is your soulmate, you'll find him/her no matter what?

CSI - Huh? <-- that was my expression when I finished watching the finale. Since when? Hahah it was quite a surprise. No, this has nothing to do with any of the cases they were working on. They showed the personal side of Grissom. I bet you guys would be surprised. On second thought, I should have seen it coming. It was not a secret after all about somebody's attraction to him hahah...

CSI:NY - Hummm can't remember much about the finale. Something about a schizophrenic bomber in NY? I prefer the episode where they showed what happened to Aidan. An apt ending for a character I guess.

Grey's Anatomy - One of my favourite finale. I hate it at the same time because this just made me impatient for the next season. To gamble her career and internship for her love... and for her chance at happiness to slip out of her grasp when it was so close... that was so cruel... And Meredith still can't make up her mind? Come on!

Lost, Prison Break, Supernatural & Numb3rs are still on my laptop waiting to be watched..Those would probably be in my future entries, if I can be bothered to write about them hahah..

Hmm I'm currently watching a concert. Nice touch when they played old videos of the singer and he sang along to the videos. Kinda like he was singing with himself? Haha I'm bad at description...If anyone's wondering, it's the actor who played Asou-kun haha..