I am Your Sunshine

之前寫了”我記得的2006系列”, 包括“我記得的 2006: 電視”, 結果發現電視非常難寫, 因為與電影 書 音樂(這項我根本沒辦法寫, 平常沒在記, 無從回顧起) 這些可以自己控制的東西不同的是電視是像學期一樣秋天開始初夏結束的. (指的是五大 Network: ABC/NBC/CBS/FOX/CW, 我比較少追 Cable 的節目, 通常是借 DVD 來看. )

所以我決定以後電視也要照一季季來寫. (球季也會比照電視這樣分季而不是分年度來寫喔! )

以下內容將包含 Gilmore Girls s7, Dancing with the Stars s3, Boston Legal s3, House, M.D. s3, Grey’s Anatomy s3, Heroes s1, Shark s1, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip s1, Day Break s1 的雷, 慎入. Continue Reading »

在 CaughtOffside 看到一篇 What’s Wrong with Manchester City. 這個富有歷史 (現在提起歷史似乎有負面的嘲弄意味)的球隊自九零年代之後除了拿過一次英冠冠軍與英冠季軍之外就沒有任何亮眼的成績. 作者在文章一開頭提到 Man City 之於 Man Utd 應該像 Everton 之於 Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur 之於 Arsenal, 然而 Everton 與 Tottenham 即便不若目前英超四強那樣大鳴大放, 也三不五時有亮眼的表現令支持的球迷驚豔 (Tottenham 本賽季還讓 Chelsea 很頭大呢!) 反觀 Manchester City 似乎已經低迷很久了. 說真的, 回頭看 06/07 賽季的戰績, 緊追在 Liverpool 與 Arsenal 之後的正是 Everton 與 Tottenham, 積分不過八分十分之差, 而 Man City 卻被遠遠地甩在背後.

目前的英超仍是一片血紅 (紅魔 Man Utd, 紅軍 Liverpool 與主場紅衣白邊的 Arsenal), 只有 Chelsea 一支皇家藍突兀地插在其中虎視眈眈準備再度奪回聯賽冠軍寶座. 若是有一天 Chelsea 能偕同 Everton (主場藍), Tottenham (主場白客場藍) 甚至 Man City (天空藍) 一起佔領聯賽四強的位置, 將英超一季變色成為藍軍的天下, 一定很有趣. =)

大片只有一個 POC III

小片到是很多, 但都是需要準備好心情才適合去看的…
Away From Her, Jindabyne, Paris, je t’aime, The Wind That Shakes the Barley
上周六本來要看前兩片, 但陰錯陽差之下我們跑回家看了 Under the Greenwood Tree DVD. Paris, je t’aime 去年在台灣上映大受好評, 我想是值得一看. The Wind That Shakes the Barley 片名引自於十九世紀詩人 Robert Dwyer Joyce 寫的一首愛爾蘭敘事曲, 由英國名導 Ken Loach 執導, Cillian Murphy 主演, 是一個關於愛爾蘭工和軍, 愛爾蘭獨立戰爭與內戰的故事. 想來就非常沉重, 得下定決心作好心理準備才行的啊…

{收錄於 The Wind’s Twelve Quarters 短篇小說集}

終於把這篇 Carmen 大力推薦的短篇小說看完, 但與其說 “Omelas” 是篇小說, 不如說是個設定. 其中沒有情節, 沒有對話也沒有特定的人物描寫, 就只是在介紹 Omelas 這個小鎮 (城市?)

Le Guin 的敘述非常冗長, 但在我就想放棄的時候出現轉折, 在最後只佔了全篇篇幅不到1/4的部份揭露了 Omelas 幸福的獨家秘方, 結束後餘韻仍飄盪在腦海中許久不散.

在你讀這個故事之前, 請不要先看任何有關的討論. 就像 Shirley Jackson – The Lottery 一樣, 你知道它大概的情節走向之後, 就無法感受作者細心營造的體驗了. 如此一來, “Omelas” 就只是一個普通的故事, 你就失去一次經歷海底傳來輕震的機會了…

You guys are not gonna believe this!

忘記我有沒有提過, 上周我同事到倫敦出差, 本來很想叫他幫我到 Megastore 搬一點東西回來, 但因不好意思而作罷, 結果周一收到他寄來的 email 跟我炫耀他在倫敦看了 FA Cup! 害我超嫉妒的. 雖然後來證實他並不是在 New Wembley 而是在附近的酒吧看的球, 仍足以讓我十分羨慕. 但是他記得寫 email 跟我炫耀那裡的氣氛有多麼不可思議, 卻竟然沒帶點紀念品給我, 真是太機車了! (後來他告訴我他本來帶了星期天的 Observer 要給我, 體育版內頁有全開的 Chelsea 隊員高舉 FA Cup 的照片, 但不幸地報紙遺失在 SFO… orz)

今天跟他聊到 Chelsea 每年夏天都會來美國暑訓/度假, 我告訴他今年七月中 Chelsea 會對經過 David Beckham 加持的 LA Galaxy, 但是票價太誇張了所以我不會去看. 後來為了找 Chelsea US Tour 的相關新聞給他而跑到 Chelseafc.com, 到了新聞區就看到 US Tour: Chelsea Game Announce for Bay Area. 我揉揉眼睛, Bay Area 是指我現在在的這個 Bay Area 嗎!? 看到內文裡寫的 Stanford Stadium 我才真的相信. 一陣慌亂之下 (研究到底哪個位置比較好, 然後系統發瘋害我以為黃牛在一瞬間把票搜括一空*) 最後成功地買到 110 區**第一排的位子! 到時要買一袋芹菜帶去! :D (美國可沒規定不可丟芹菜吧, jejeje…)

*一方面又不太敢相信, 美國足球那麼小眾, 這黃牛也太沒生意頭腦了吧…
** 淺藍色是最貴的位子, 但我不想坐在中線, 離兩邊都很遠. 選 110 是因為那是靠近 Chelsea supporter 那邊, 進攻時應該看得蠻清楚的, 防守時 110 也比 136 要靠近 John Terry(, supposedly.) 如果要接球的話 203 應該是絕佳的選擇, 不過我想還是算了吧… orz

去年的遺珠之憾之一 (沒人跟我去聽他們的演唱會 ><) 剛在 RockMetal 上看到有人剛發掘 AAR, 大為驚豔, 於是跑上來問有沒有類似的團. (AAR 一點也不是 Metal 啊...) 下面就有人建議他去 ModernRock 或是 punk 板, 會有更多資訊跟同好. 結果, 他把文章轉到 ClassicRock 去了. Orz

一直想把 category 與 monthly archive 改成條列 (像無名那樣) 而非文摘, 終於給我找到適當的 code, 拿來塗塗改改就大功告成囉! 現在點入 Monthly Archive 頁或是 Category 頁會像這樣, 總算是舒服多了~

& Nick Hornby

I was reading Hornby’s The Polysyllabic Spree at Border’s the other day. It’s a collection of his column “Stuff I’ve Been Reading” columns in The Believer. This is just what I’ve been looking for!

With the expiration of my The Economist subscription – I finally made up my mind not to pay $77 a year (man, it’s cheap…) for weekly Obituary feed, I wanna subscribe something that is rich in content in a way that interests me, ie. the likes of Business Week, OUT. I got a couple of issues of Punk Planet at Borders, but honestly, I’m more of a punk rock listener than a punk subculture follower. Punk Planet does provide insightful, underground, more or less aggressive, interesting reports, critics and stories; however, there are a number of things that I’m not familiar with and indifferent to. I thought about some literary magzines, such as book review or genre (mystery) magzines. But they all seem too much, too detailed, too rigid. The Believer 1) has Nick Hornby, a writer I love and hate, as one of their columnist, 2) based in San Francisco and 3) describes itself as

The Believer is a monthly magazine where length is no object. There are book reviews that are not necessarily timely, and that are very often very long. There are interviews that are also very long.

We will focus on writers and books we like.

We will give people and books the benefit of the doubt.

The working title of this magazine was The Optimist.

Sounds good, isn’t it? Still, I want to leaf through the real thing before I endorse my $45 to a year of subscription. (Then again, I sometimes have a meal of $45 and not even wink at all. orz)

btw, I got Lawrence Block’s newsletter yesterday and thus bought his book + audiotape on writing titled “Telling Lies for Fun and Profit”. It’s a spur of the moment thing…

喜鵲一夜易主. 前幾日 Newcastle United 主席 Shephard 才放話說紐卡是非賣品, 接著就傳來 Mike Ashley (最近叫 Ashley 的人還真出風頭) 收購紐卡名譽主席 Hall 手下的股份成為第一股東. 但這真的是好事嗎? 對媒體低調是一回事, 但連現任主席 Shaphard 與新任教練 Big Sam 被殺得措手不及, 好像暗箭冷槍一樣. 加上據說他只是把這項收購當成一個生意, 並沒有表示對喜鵲的特別喜愛, Tooners 本來為了 Big Sam 來臨歡天喜地的心情, 現在又要陷入不安了.

* Mike Ashley 收購過程全用現金交易耶! 真恐怖…

A friend msn’d me just now, Sean, said that he’ll be in Cali from this Aug. Oh, it’s gonna be awesome.

It’s fun how we knew each other. We met at Narita. There were five of us. We were among the unfortunate ones trapped in the airport due to the heavy fog in TPE. (This is the part I never got to in my 19 hrs @ Narita Airport post.) I was traveling alone (yes, again), on my way back home from SFO. I was told that my flight was delayed and I was given a 1500 yen coupon for dinner. I don’t quite remember what I did, so I’ll just jump to the part that I found myself in the boarding area waiting and waiting and waiting, until someone sadly informed us that the flight was canceled (moaning everywhere), we have to go past immigration (入境) and the airline will compensate each of us a couple thousand yen for accommodation, which was apparently not enough to cover a night in a hotel.

Then I started to panic.

Where the heck am I gonna stay? There was one lady I was talking to (I was kinda aware of the situation I might be in before they made it official, so I’ve already started to find some ally.) She’s Taiwanese and married to a Japanese and thus she can simply go home. However, it seemed that she had no intention to help a poor, young girl, with whom she shared the same root. (okay, okay. Who’s crazy enough to bring a total stranger home in the middle of the night? But can’t you see that I’m totally harmless?) So I dumped her without hesitation and started fresh.

I located two Taiwanese-students-seem-to-be and approached them, and turned out that they ARE Taiwanese, not students though. I don’t really care what we were gonna do, find a hotel or stay in the airport if possible as long as I’m not alone. As we carried our crazy three pieces huge luggages (3 each person!) to the I desk for transportation and possible hotel info. I saw Rie and Sean talking, looking as puzzled as we were, so I jumped in their conversation and made a proposition. Not that I’m like to pick people up. It’s just that the money the airline “promised” us (they didn’t even give it to us until we got off the plane the next day) won’t cover a night for a room, and poor and stingy (and experienced) like us (we were yesterday students! how extravagant can we afford to be?) would like to get as many people as possible to share a room so that we wouldn’t have to take money out of our own pockets.

Anyways, that plan didn’t work out, so we ended up staying at the airport lobby, which was actually quite romantic in an exile kinda way. You know, normally you’re not allowed to stay overnight in the airport lobby. But because we were the unfortunate plane-got-canceled people, we were granted the privilege to form our little front – two aisles of face to face chairs with luggage carts as our gates. Airport guard approached us a couple of times and walked away with a sorry-to-hear-that smile after knowing that we were those “we were supposed to be on that plane” people. We were tired but we chatted and chatted (in 3 different languages! We all speak English more or less; Sean speaks both Chinese and Japanese and apparently me and the other two speak Mandarin and Rie speaks Japanese.) We shared cookies and snacks and Choya. And we all dozed a bit and then embrace day break (and, of course, our plane.)

[update]
I almost forgot one thing. Between crackers, plum wine and jokes, the lobby manager emerged with a cell phone and asked if one of us is called Ashley (or Yung-Ching, I don’t remember.) Turned out that it was my mom. She was worried so she called Narita airport from Taiwan and they found me! My mom’s awesome, isn’t she?

So many amazing things happen in Narita, and you’re telling me that there’s gonna be direct flight from SFO to TPE from this June. Are you kidding me? I LOVE transfer at NRT ;)

在好不容易克服他是前 N’Sync 團員的心理障礙之後 (I hate N’Sync), 這季 Joey Fatone 是我的最愛. Joey 與 Kim 是技術+趣味, 娛樂性十足的組合.
以下是幾個我很喜歡的片段: (都是精選中的精選喔!)
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For Love of the Game (1999) A-

Is this not America, Is baseball not America’s favorite pastime?

I love sports movie. It doesn’t even have to be inspired by a true story. For Love of the Game was adapted from a book written by Pulitzer winner Michael Shaara about a fictional 40-year-old Detroit Tiger pitcher Billy Chapel, his pitching career which seemed to have come to an end, his failed relationship and… his love for the game.

Some might look at the unrealistic aspects of this movie and scorn, but remember, it’s just a movie. And seriously, why would we wanna watch it if it’s only an ordinary story about an ordinary day of an ordinary person? I love the flashbacks of this movie. From the very begining, bad news hit him one by one, and he got to the field like a miserable old man. As the game went on, bits and pieces of his relationship with Jane interwove with every pitch he made. My heart beat with him, felt with him and at the end shed tears with him.

I Love it.

上周 Chelsea 拿下 FA Cup 冠軍, 英超板除了驚嘆號之外還給了 ╮(╯__╰)╭ 臉
我看了超不爽, 什麼態度嘛…
結果今天 AC Milan 拿下歐冠, 在英超板也被賞了個 (￣﹏￣|||) , 我終於覺得好過一些.

反正不是你們那些紅色的奪冠就是無聊難看的比賽 就是人家運氣好 就是要給怪表情就對了啦!

嘖

5/25 Nuovomondo (Golden Door)

西西里鰥夫帶著他的家人前往希望之地 – 美國, 在途中遇到一位神秘的英國女子… 最後在 Ellis Island 等待他們的命運. 這部電影在威尼斯影展贏了六個獎項!

5/25 Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End

想到我可能要到六月才看得到就心痛, 因為本周末是 long weekend 要出去玩. POC II 的海鮮大餐讓我看得大乎過癮, 現在到處都是 POC III 的討論, 心癢難搔啊…

6/1 Gracie

美國拍的足球片, 聽起來就很令人害怕, 但是海報卻又讓人充滿希望. 背景設定在 1978 年的 New Jersey, 是根據 Shue (Elizabeth Shue, Leaving Las Vegas)家族真實發生的故事. 那是個還沒有女子足球的年代, 一個生長在熱愛足球的家庭裡的女孩, 在哥哥意外去世之後, 決定加入學校的男子足球隊. 希望是部好看的足球電影!

6/8 Ocean’s Thirteen

好像有點丟臉. Ocean’s Eleven 不像他宣傳的那麼華麗, Ocean’s Twelve 我沒有看, 但這次 Thirteen 的預告片還蠻讓我心動的呢! 先聲明, 不是因為有 George Clooney + Brad Pitt + Matt Damon, 這三人剛好都是我蠻討厭的男星. 預告感覺蠻有趣的就是了.

6/15 Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

Silly it may be, 但 FF 有 Jessica Alba 跟 Ioan Gruffudd 啊! 第一次看到預告時, 全電影院的人都笑了, Silver Surfer… 看起來蠻遜的. 後來不知道在哪裡看到人家說 Silver Surfer 可說是 Marvel 裡最強的角色(!?) 我還覺得不可思議. 直到昨天看到 ABC 獨家預告才知道, 原來 Silver Surfer 每造訪一個星球, 那個星球在八天後就會死掉, 果然是很強啊!

7/4 Trasformers

第一次看到預告時就在想, 不會吧… 是那個什麼卡通改編的電影嗎? (小時候從沒看過) 後來發現是 Michael Bay 拍的耶! 那是一定要看的了! (MB 執導過 The Rock, Armageddon, The Island… 都是我蠻喜歡的電影!)

我的足球季已經結束了, (現在都看起 MLB 了說) 利記跟米蘭誰帶回獎盃對我沒什麼太大差別. 但我一想到那些利記球迷朋友到時跟我炫耀的嘴臉就 #!$%@, 畢竟 League Cup 與 FA Cup 是完全不能跟 UCL 比的啊! 若利記抱了歐冠回家, 再加上曼聯手裡的聯賽冠軍, 我們的雙冠還是有點遜色. 所以我才不管足球回不回家, 今年是不是屬於英超的…

Forza Milan!!!

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哇~~ 我曾侍候過英國國王拍成電影了! 書還放在架上翻都沒翻過耶 orz

Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále by Bohumil Hrabal, 捷克作家, 捷克導演拍成電影. 不知道美國有沒有機會看到. 不過其實我寧願看書 ;)
(因為原作不是用英文寫的, 所以可以理直氣壯看中譯本 XD)

不知為何在我印象裡的 Gin Blossoms 是個 70/80s 的沙啞煽情樂團, 唱些像是 Harden My Heart, Don’t You Want Me 之類的歌. 前幾天隨手挑了片他們的 New Miserable Experience 回家, 一聽卻讓我大吃一驚, 主唱的聲音非常單薄, 而曲風可用清新來形容 (不要想成 indie 的小花小草去了喔!) 這張專輯還算好聽, 但缺少令人驚豔的曲子, 而且越到後面越鄉村(!)

這張專輯裡我最喜歡 Hey Jealousy

by Carefree Chris

貓昨天看了 FA Cup 決賽的台灣首播, 等不及想告訴我她覺得 Cech 有多棒.
如果你不知道 Cech 有多棒, 請看 Carefree Chris 做的 Cech 05/06賽季集錦 (紀念 Cech 1025 分鐘未失球紀錄)

Enjoy~

I was reading Nick Hornby’s (a die hard gooner; still, painfully I have to admit that he’s one of my favorite writer) The Polysyllabic Spree, a collection of his monthly reading column, and in the October piece he mentioned that he’d read Notes on a Scandal by Zoe Heller. He went,

It was moving along nicely until a character starts talking about football. He tells a teaching colleague that he’s been to see Arsenal, and that “Arsenal won Liverpool 3-0.” … And I’m positive that no one has ever said “Arsenal won Liverpool 3-0” in the entire history of either Arsenal FC or the English language. “Beat”, “thrashed”, “did” or “done”, “trounced”, “thumped”, “shat all over”, “walloped”, etc., yes; “won”, no. And I think that my dismay and disbelief then led me to question other things, and the fabric of the novel started to unravel a little.

He then said that it was not just the language, but the facts about Arsenal

說真的, 從九零年到現在(2003) Arsenal 哪次在 Highbury 擊敗 Liverpool了?
3-0? The poor lady had no chance!

Hi-la-ri-ous!

Having read Selina’s review of Notes (the same paragraph was mentioned) made it even more fun to read Hornby’s piece. XD

我喜歡逛書店圖書館挖寶, 有系統地就 genre 來研究來聆聽不是我習慣的方法.

The Strokes 就是我在圖書館被發覺的珍寶.
(雖然我確定在此之前我應該就聽過 The Strokes 的大名)

第一首樂聲響起便非常對我脾胃
我不會形容, 只能說喜歡

然而這張專輯美中不足的是主唱的聲音像是從受靜電干擾的收音機, 或者說像外太空來的雜訊, 遙遠過去唱片鴉鴉傳來的歌聲 (我指的是經過處理後的效果並不是指他的嗓音)
這樣 vocal 跟樂器像是在互相干擾似的
若是能乾淨點就太完美了