TRAILER: The Mutant Chronicles (April 2009)

I'm surprised that I haven't heard of this movie before but it looks incredible.

Directed by Simon Hunter, starring Ron Perlman, John Malkovich and Thomas Jane.

White Collar Boxing Fight Night (Mar 26, Intercontinental Hotel, Hong Kong)

Well I didn't win unfortunately, but I was happy with my performance. My opponent was fairly technical and much more aggressive than I ever saw him in training. Having sparred with him before, I knew going into it that my chances were probably 50/50, thus my goal was to fight a good fight, not get pulled into a street brawl. My opponent fought very, very well and I congratulate him for a good win; I also hope he gets herpes.

It being my first amateur fight, I was extremely nervous about pacing and was happy that I did a pretty good job of that and had steam all throughout the three rounds. But I think the last 30 seconds of third round did me in, when my opponent just poured it on and got me with some really good attacks. I wasn't too hurt by any of them to be honest, but definitely gave up lots of points as a result. After the fact it's easy to recall all the defensive training I learned that I didn't use but that's the way it goes I guess.

The worst part of the whole night was being the last fight and the insane combination of perverse and terrifying excitement combined with inane boredom and restlessness. We had to be there at 6pm but my fight wasn't until almost 5 hrs later! Lots of pacing, talking with other fighters about their strategies, laying around and waiting.

But all in all I had a BLAST. Excellent promotion company, an impressive cause, fantastic people and a rip-roaring party during and afterwards. It's probably too soon to say that I'll definitely do it again, but I certainly can't retire with a 0 - 1 record now, can I? Thanks to everyone who supported me leading up to the fight, and a special thanks to those that attended - it means a lot to me.

Anyways, enough of my blabbering, here are the videos, courtesy of my fantastic wife/documentary director (me in the sexy blue trunks):

INTRO:

ROUND 1:

ROUND 2:

Round 3:

Family Guy: Best of Peter Griffin

Peter Griffin - even more obscene, offensive and ridiculous than Homer.

Best lines:

• doing your son?
• that liver's gotta come out, it's been in the microwave for 3 minutes, it'll get dry
• Yah, you're my Chinese Lois
• every American has the right to hang a pair of Bear Arms on their wall, how could that possibly be misconstrued?

Enjoy!

Letterman: Beastie Boys (2007)

Poor video quality but unbeatable live rap performed by the one and only Beastie Boys on Letterman with an unbeatable walk-in intro. Ri - dic - u - lous.

TRAILER: Wolverine Origins (May 2009)

Prequels seem to be God's gift to the movie business lately. Wolverine Origins is no different as it looks bad-ass, with a tangible darker and more grown-up feel. Directed by Gavin Hood and starring Hugh Jackman, Ryan Reynolds, Liev Schrieber and Dominic Monaghan.

Coldplay performing Shiver (KCRW)

I miss a few things from my life in Los Angeles: having a drink at the Dresden Room, some of the best hiking in the world, Mexican food, the inherent coolness emerging out of the tremendous effort that LA exudes trying to be uncool, and lastly KCRW, a phenomenal public radio station run out of Santa Monica Communicaty College with awesome news, music and talk programming. In my mind, it sort of sums up the 95% of all that is good about SoCal. There's a lot of great music sets that get recorded on Morning Becomes Eclectic and this clip of Coldplay recorded 9 years ago is no exception. Enjoy!

p.s. I would be remiss to write about missing LA radio and not giving a shout-out to The Professor, Tom Leykus. He's the exact antithesis of KCRW and the interestingly enough, also sums up perfectly the remaining 5% of what I love and miss about SoCal.

Louis CK "Shameless" Tour (Headphones Material)

Definitely not office material so make sure you have headphones if you listen to it. But freakin' hilarious. I know Louis CK used to have a show on HBO which I've seen a few times, but from all the videso I've seen of his standup, seems like the latter is much better, much raunchier, and more offensive. Coincidence? Maybe I'm just that type of guy.

Louis CK recently was one of the comics that visited US troops overseas as a a member of the USO Tour, read about some of his experiences on his site.

Note to all CEOs: How to Manage B Players

This is a great video which discusses the idea of B-players in business organizations and how their contribution, motivations and value are very often misunderstood by companies and managers. This is a must-see video for all CEOs but really anyone that's managing and wants to improve.

One thing I've very quickly realized in the management experience I've accumulated thus far is that it's tough friggin' work! It's a lot less of getting fed grapes and fanned by scores of minions waiting to honor your every command, and a lot more pride-swallowing and mundanely persistent pushing of desired behavior with little blips of return on your investment of blood, sweat and tears. Managing people is not easy and it's more draining and slow-going than most realize.

But it's all worth it when you get the $10 gift card to Starbucks from your team for your birthday or the holidays.

Rodrigo y Gabriela: Diablo Rojo & Stairway to Heaven

Just insane - I mean, seriously, seriously INSANE that anyone can play the guitar that quickly without their fingers bleeding or falling off as they're doing it, but Rodrigo Sanchez and Gabriela Quintero of the Mexican musical duo Rodrigo Y Gabriela clearly can.

I'm also certain that I like their cover of Stairway to Heaven better than the original Led Zeppelin version. What do you think?

LETTERMAN: Will Ferrell Sings West Side Story

Letterman had Will Ferrell on the March 13th show, and the former SNL cast member gave his rendition of one of the most famous songs from one of the most famous musicals, West Side Story. Truly inspirng and heart-felt.

Check out the first part of the interview here.

U2 - Magnificent - Live From BBC House Roof

Does it get any better than U2? Honestly! How does one compare their brilliance, their loyal following, and the universally held respect for the band's overwhelming musical talent (not to mention records sold), not to mention the good Samaritan works of their lead singer? Togegther, Larry Mullen Jr. (drummer), Adam Clayton (Bass), The Edge (Guitar) and Bono (Vocals) have won 22 Grammy Awards, sold 145 million albums, and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005.

Are they on par with The Beatles yet or have they already surpassed them as a cultural and musical icon? When our children's children's children look back on the 20th and 21st centuries, what other bands will be written about in the same vein as U2? When will it be mandatory for every last woman and child to wear sunglasses inside like Bono?

This is a great clip of a surprise gig that they did on top of the BBC Broadcasting House to promote the launch of their 12th studio album No Line On the Horizon. Enjoy!

Charlie Rose: Marissa Mayer + Eric Schmidt

Never heard of Marissa Mayer? She is arguably the most poweful woman at perhaps the most influential company in the internet's history: Google. She sat down with Charlie Rose the week of March 2nd and discussed her experiences and outlook from where she sits; watch the full interview here. Currently the VP of Search Product and User Experience, she joined in 1999 as the first female engineer. That was obviously a good career choice because she now gets her choice of parking spots at the Googleplex, thanks to her seniority. Oh, and also, she's a gazillionaire. She holds both Bachelors (Symbolic Systems) and Masters (Computer Science) degrees from Stanford University.

I believe Charlie was getting his Google fill this particular week because the next night he sat down with Mayer's boss, CEO Eric Schmidt (watch the full interview here). In the role since Aug 2001, he is well respected in both technology as well as internet circles just as much for his pre-Google work as well as his current gig. He has also served senior leadership roles at Novell Inc. (CEO 83 - 97), Sun Microsystms (91 - 07) and other companies. Schmidt received a BS in EE from Princeton, as well as an EE MS from UC Berkeley.

Brighthand.com: Kindle 2 Review

Amazon has recently launched their Kindle 2, which is crazy since I first heard about it's predecessor, Kindle, just a few weeks ago; I guess I'm not as geeky as I originally thought I was. I've since learned that it's the hottest e-reader currently, and unique in its inclusion of cellular Sprint coverage, allowing a user to purchase books, magazines and newspapers all without being connected through a computer. It's also got text-to-reader features for really lazy readers that still like to "read" books. Downloads are supposed to be super fast (less than 1 minute) and occur in the background. Amazon also allows readers to browse Wikipedia free of charge and the most of the web (though it's unsupported). Retails at $359 USD.

After watching the review, I can definitely see how something like this would be useful for a serious book worm who's constantly on the go as it allows to you to take a lot more content with you in a much slicker way. The down-side ofcourse is that it's much less painful to lose a single book, vs. all of them you're carrying around in your e-reader. And ofcourse, for the super-vain and fake, a bunch of intellectual and artsy books sitting on your bookshelf (none of which you have ever cracked open) looks a lot better and impressive compared to a skinny e-reader with the same content on it resting on the bookshelf. Your guests just won't be as impressed by your feigned bookishness.

Sold? Order yours here.

Sandra Nkake - Happy

This French singer has some LUNGS on her and it's hard not to like this bluesy, soulful clip. My brother first introduced me to her when he sent me a fantastic remix of Sex Friend by Booster that includes Sandra's voice. From her myspace page, it looks like she's touring in Europe but I would love for her to make it over to Asia at some point.

Hudson River Plane Landing (US Airways 1549) Animation with Audio

Watch this 3-D recreation with the real audio recordings from the landing of US Airways 1549 in New York City's Hudson River on January 15 earlier this year. Freakin birds. What's most incredible about the entire sequence (and probably not as well known) is how quickly the events transpired. And yet the Captain's voice sounds cool, calm and professional.

So the next time you think you're dealing with an "emergency" at work, watch this video a couple times and quit yer' whinin'!

Does It Offend You Yeah? - We are Rockstars

Rock + electronic = Awesomeness. Enjoy!

Charlie Rose Interviews Marc Andreesen

Marc Andreesen, co-founder and chairman of NING, as well as an investor in several startups including Digg, Plazes, and Twitter, sat down with Charlie Rose a few weeks ago and discussed with him (1) the logic (and there is one) behind Facebook's current strategy, (2) the intrinsic draw, potential and impacts of social networking, (3) why the iPhone brought mobile to maturity by dropping the industry on it's head, and more. Andressen is perhaps best known as co-author of Mosaic and as the founder of Netscape, and he currently sits on the Board of Directors at both Facebook and eBay. He speaks really really quickly and it seems obvious after watching the interview that this is probably slow in relation to how quickly his mind works.

I do love Charlie but you gotta find it funny how the guy really TRIES to chat on the same level as Marc but clearly is out of his league technologically. But to put it in perspective, I would imagine Andreesen is probably not in the know on a lot of topics that Charlie has to be as a result of the calibre of people he interviews.

Watch the full interview here.

TRAILER: Watchmen (March 2009 - directed by Zack Snyder)

Zack Snyder's last project was 300 which was visually breathtaking and an international box-office success. He seems to like the graphic novel adaptations as now he's set his sights on bringing to life the creative genius behind Allan Moore and Dave Gibbons' 1986 comic book limited series of the same name. Watchmen (view official site here) stars Patrick Wilson, Jackie Earle Haley, Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Matthew Goode, Stephen McHattie and Carla Gugino; it is set for release in March 2009.

The 3rd trailer is also spectacular and worth checking out as it gives a little more insight into the plot for those unfamilar with the comic book series (myself included).

Malkin Akerman, besides being a hottie, also has a few funny bones. Check her out in Heartbreak Kid, and also this clip of her from funnyordie.

Hong Kong Sevens (March 27 - 29, 2009)

The world famous Hong Kong Sevens returns to the city, taking place March 27 - 29. Having sold out in 2 hours, the event (sponsored by Cathay Pacific/Credit Suisse) is one of the city's largest tourist attractions, especially if the tourist is a raucous, alcohol chugging, party-loving, rubgy fan. I have yet to attend this event, although my office is very close to the stadium so I recall seeing plenty of fans walking to the stadium Friday afternoon (they dress up in all types of garb - think Halloween on acid) and see them all across the town over the weekend in various states of sobriety and disarray.

Travel Tip: tickets alone are sold out but there are still travel packages available which include tickets that I've heard can be fairly good deals so check them out if you're interested. Otherwise, I've heard scalping is definitely an option, which may cost you approx $500 HKD (about $65 USD) for a day ticket.


The event's history started back in 1975 when it was thought-up over pre-luncheon drinks (the best kind in my opinion). ADC "Tokkie Smith", the Chairman of the Hong Kong Rugby Football Union was chatting with Ian Gow (tobacco company exec) who suggested sponsoring a Rugby tournament with top teams throughout the world. Less than a year later, the first event was held with teams competing from Korea, Japan, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand and Fiji. I'm certainly not an avid Rugby fan, but from what I've read Sevens rugby is a crucial element in developing world-class players, and many of the top rugy players cut their teeth (sometimes literally I imagine) playing in Sevens tournaments.

I definitely would like to attend a game before I leave Hong Kong. From the stories I've heard, it sounds like your average sporting event, but with considerably more alcohol consumption. Check out this clip of what happened at one of the games with with empty beer jugs.

A friend who's been to a few 7's matches explains that the South Stands are, bar none, the messiest in every meaning of the word. For example, the jugs being tossed in the above video: based on the stories he shared, not all of the beer-colored liquid was necessarily beer. Yikes.

And ofcourse, as is common at sporting events around the world, the Sevens also plays host to streakers, like these two (who I believe are now serving 30 years in a maximum security prison for disorderly conduct):

Ofcourse, the other reason the event is such a tourist attraction is the PARTYING. Combine Hong Kong's never-ending party scene with Rugby fanatics/alcoholics, and you can almost hear the cha-chinging of bar cash registers and loud dance music blaring. The craziest place will undoubtedly be Lan Kwai Fong, which is actually Cantonese for "Vegas on Crack".

We partied here last year and to describe it as shoulder to shoulder is no exaggeration.

I know - crazy right? I can't believe that "The Final Count Down" still gets air time either. Stranger than fiction - you can't make this stuff up.