Ever since I heard Namie Amuro's « Alarm », I've been hooked to the Japanese version of hip-hop. Or hip-pop as Namie uses it as her latest album's namesake. Instead of the hook-girl, guy-rapper combo that is American hip-pop, the J take on the genre is more of a dance/r&b fusion with killer beats. And as she self-declared on her most recent release, Namie is indeed the queen.

After performing a feat that was unheard of in the ultra-fickle Jpop industry, Namie defied critics and skeptics alike when she returned to the charts after a long hiatus due to a list of scandals and hardships: from her extramarital pregnancy to the murder of her mother. People thought that her star basically went supernova and vanished, replaced by the reigning Jpop queen, Ayumi Hamasaki. But lo and behold, instead of trying to recapture her J-idol status (which obviously she had succeeded a few years back with her legion of diehard fans who carbon-copied every single style item she wore), she chose to shift genres to the Japanese R&B scene.

First, she participated in the Suite Chic project, collaborating with Japan's foremost R&B artists like m-flo & verbal. That musical path change seemed to work, the album sold well and Namie's back on the map. She then released the multigenre « STYLE », her first hip-hop flavored album to a somewhat mediocre success compared to her previous multiplatinum, straight-to-number-one releases. Nevertheless, she's definitely back in the game. 2005 saw the release of her full-length Hip-hop album « Queen of Hip-Pop » that entered the Oricon Chart at number 2, cementing her comeback.

The single currently on play is taken from that album, a dance-infused track with raunchy lyrics about — what else? — sex. She tapped MICHICO to write the song, japanese peppered with somewhat nonsensical English words here and there which has come to be the trademark of JPop (except for Utada Hikaru). If there are some English lines which you have no idea what it means... your guess is just as good as mine.

« WANT ME, WANT ME »

Want me, want me はじけ飛ぶ, 胸のボタン　焦りすぎて
Want me, want me hajike tobu, Mune no BOTAN aseri sugite
Want me, want me we're so impatient that my shirt buttons pop off and fly
Wait a minute ちょっと待った, 落ち着いて手取り足取り
Wait a minute chotto matta, Ochitsuite tedori ashidori
Wait a minute wait a minute, Calm down, we have trouble
手こずる二人はlike a virgin, でも忘れないでねTrojan
Tekozuru futari wa like a virgin, Demo wasurenai de ne Trojan
controlling our arms and legs, we're like a virgin, But don't forget the Trojan
I am oochie, la la poppin’ coochie, 押さえ切れずに　Want me, baby
I am oochie, la la poppin’ coochie, Osae kirezu ni want me, baby
I am oochie, la la poppin’ coochie, Uncontrollably want me, baby

Oh boy,you are so hot, こんな気分は久しぶり
Oh boy, you are so hot, Konna kibun wa hisashiburi
It's been a long time since I've had a feeling like this
もう何度も繰り返してるのに, Ah, hey, give me one mo' stroke
Mou nandomo kurikaeshiteru noni, Ah, hey, give me one mo' stroke
Already, they're repeating over and over

Ah, ah, I can do you, Yeah, yeah, you can do me

Anything you want me to do, I can do you, I can do you
スミカラスミマデウラカラ, オモテマデドコモカシコモ
SUMIKARASUMIMADE URA KARA, OMOTE MADE DOKOMOKASHIKOMO
From A to Z from front, To back, even everywhere and there
Baby, let me taste it, taste it, 言葉の無い会話
Baby, let me taste it, Kotoba no nai kaiwa
A conversation without words
Up & down, in & out, こうやって　bounce wit me
Up & down, in & out, Kouyatte bounce wit me
Like this bounce wit me

Oh,boy 少し飛ばしすぎ, Why don't we tryna go nice & slow
Oh boy, sukoshi tobashisugi, Why don't we tryna go nice & slow
Oh boy, I'm flying a little too much
1 2 3 4 take a breath, look at my eyes, 刺激に慣れてくるまで slow down
1 2 3 4 take a breath, look at my eyes, Shigeki ni narete kuru made slow down
Until we become accustomed to the stimulation slow down

スミカラスミマデウラカラ, オモテマデドコモカシコモ
SUMIKARASUMIMADE URA KARA, OMOTE MADE DOKOMOKASHIKOMO
From A to Z from front, To back, even everywhere and there
Baby, let me taste it, taste it, あきれるほどに
Baby, let me taste it, Akireru hodo ni
Until it amazes me

Ha, ha, ha, ha, touch it, touch it, touch it
No body can do you, do you like me
No body can do me, do me like you
Ha, ha, ha, ha, touch it, touch it, touch it

On this monday morning, I received a notification on my cellphone saying that I had voice messages. So I press '1', the key that has the little tape symbol, to call my voice mailbox. The computerized voice said, "You have five new messages." I was like whoa... something must be up! 5 missed calls happen from time to time, but 5 messages in a 30-minute period?

So I checked the first message and it was from Benny asking me if I wanted to have dinner tonight, so I asked him online before I checked the other messages and he said, "that was yesterday."

I then checked the rest of the messages and true enough, all of them was made last weekend with the earliest one made by Devmann on Friday! I can't believe this! It's the third time already I got these delayed messages as if they had to route the message through Pentagon and then passing them through a decoder just in case "do you wanna have dinner tonight?" might actually means "do you wanna rig some building tonight?"

It's 2 am and I just got back from catching the midnight sneak preview of Dreamwork's new film Red Eye, all the way in Bethesda. Newcomers Rachel McAdams (Wedding Crashers, The Notebook) and Cillian Murphy (Batman Begins, 28 Days Later) star in this in-flight suspense directed by Wes Craven (Scream trilogy, Music of the Heart).

Lisa Reisert(McAdams) found herself sitting next to Jackson Rippner (Murphy) on a Fresh Air (I'm not kidding, that is what the airline called... Tongue-in-cheek or just plain cheesy? You decide) flight to Miami. Lisa works as a manager of a luxury hotel in Miami while Jackson, well, you're not supposed to know what he does until you find out what he does. It's one of those movies that would be better if you know completely nothing about it, so even though I'm dying now to point out what's great about the film, I'm gonna hold myself. Don't get me wrong, let your imagination plot the unlimited number of possible outcomes on each scenes... this is still, a suspense, and guessing is part of the game. Yeah, since I'm one of those people who always ended up dissapointed by overly-praised films, I'll try to keep my reviews basic and factual, instead of bombastic and emotional.


What's great about the movie is definitely the casting and the script. Both Murphy and Adams delivered top-notch performances, combined with perfect supporting actors doing good job with their roles, the whole ensemble performed admirably. That plus the genius script (smart but real, suspenseful but fast-paced) created one hell of a motion picture. One word to describe what I'm feeling as the end credits rolling up: satisfied.

Red Eye
Directed by Wes Craven
Starring Rachel McAdams, Cillian Murphy, Brian Cox, Jayma Mays, and Jack Scalia
©2005 Dreamworks Pictures

Well, this post should've been written on Monday, but I got so much pending blog entries that this got pushed to now.

Devmann's friend from California, Olivia, came to town and we took her to New York for the weekend. We got in at noon, Saturday, and went back on Sunday night. Manhattan was an urban furnace. Never in my life had I felt such miserable existence than when I had to wait for the train in one of those underground saunas disguised as subway stations. It was plain horrible. 90F something heat plus high humidity -- 80% at least! I never thought that I would say this, but it was worse than Jakarta, or Surabaya, or even Singapore!

So when we got on Broadway to frequent the stores in Soho... we ended up making this survey of the temperature at the stores in Manhattan. We couldn't walk on for more than a couple blocks before having to take refuge at an air-conditioned retail. So what started as a shopping trip, ended up being a census of A/C's in Manhattan retail stores.

Coming on top with an A plus unlimited pluses is Cole Haan at Fifth Ave. When we opened the door, there was this nice, chilly arctic wind blowing out from the store. It was actually so cold that we were freezing our asses off within minutes. It was such an interesting sensation when we got out because we actually welcomed the tropical Manhattan air after that Cold Haan episode.

At the other end of the list, enters Soho GUESS. While other stores were at least somewhat cool, this Soho location of the question mark retailer was above the pretense. I really don't think they put on any A/C, perhaps some exhaust fans were running but no cooling agents could've been at work there. To complete the ambience, they paneled the wall with wood, giving the store an authentic sauna look. Fabulous! Well at least the models on the wall seem to have dressed appropriately, but hey it's GUESS, they always seem to dress for the Bornean jungles.

Close calls with heat stroke aside, I finally managed to have dessert at Chikalicious. After three failed attempts in the past year and a half, I finally came to New York when they are open. I was really surprised to see the sidewalk filled with people waiting for a table, because the last time I went there it we got seats immediately. Well, they do deserve this popularity though, so... good for them!

So just this morning at around 10, I made a resolution to go do cardio at the gym in the morning three times a week. I just realized yesterday that my gym actually opens at 6! Yea, 'been feelin' a bit resolution-y in the past few days since I've been so lazy to pack up lunch and ended up muching on junk food plus the 200-calorie frappuccinos with extra extra espresso shots. On top of that, I'd better start worrying about my love handles before they become permanent...the horror!!

Anyway, so at 10 I said to myself, starting Friday I'm gonna do cardio before work, and really really cut back on sugar during the week. Well, if you know my friends... it would be virtually impossible to follow any kind of diet but the eat-freely-live-happily diet. Then just 20 minutes after, I gave my eyes a break from the radiation bombardment by the LCD screen and gazed at my building's courtyard. And there they were! Those yellow and blue stripes, the harbinger of carbs and sugar binging, the Good Humor (a.k.a Wall's, Ola, and a handful of other aliases around the world) men are here! It's the semi-annual free ice cream day here at the DOT Building in L'Enfant Plaza!

Cut to us, my colleagues and me, 5 minutes later gobbling on 250gr-calorie frozen concoctions with 80 of them from fat plus the additional 130 miligrams of sodium. Life is beautiful, no?

So my friend told me about this magazine called soap that's published in Indonesia. He spoke so highly of it, of how smart the articles were and how stylish the layout were. Well Howke dear, you're half correct — ok a bit more than half, I'll give 70%.

At first look, the men's mag was indeed very stylish. I could see it on the newsstand shelves next to Vanity Fair, ARENA, Details, or Men's Non-no. Then I started reading the articles cover to cover. Whoa... bad move! For just like every other pop culture publications in Indonesia nowadays... we certainly don't lack the creativity needed to pull it off, but we are most lacking in the department of journalism. I can't help wondering what exactly does the job description of a magazine editor at soap entail? Because all the discrepancies and mistakes that I found should have been caught earlier by the editor before he passes it to print. What's most annoying about it were spelling mistakes: please... just turn on your microsoft word's spellchecker, you got the resources already!.

Well I might sound ranty and grumbly at the moment like a sore guy getting rejected from applying to work for soap, but let me give you a few scans of the magazine:

Jason a.k.a Jonathan


Take a look at the 2 underlined names: Jason and Jonathan, they were referring to the same guy. The writer was talking about Jason Schwartzmann, the drummer-turned-actor seen last in I heart Huckabees. How bad is this? The mistake actually changes the content... well unless it was intended to be a brain teaser, find which names don't match!

Apparently Accents Are Optional in Spanish


... and apparently the letter 'c' is used interchangeably with 't' as well! Actually I have to commend them for trying to put the original title instead of just putting in the international one (which what American publications always do). Nevertheless, please take a moment and grab a dictionary, or at the very least, copy it from the source letter by letter including every funny squiggles on, above, or below each letter. This superb film — if I might add — is called La Mala Educación in Spanish, the language it is shot in.


Newsflash: Perfume Pumps Found to Cause Depletion in Ozone Layer
Let me translate this article:

"Spray or Splash? For lazy men who want what's practical, spray perfume is the shortcut they could take. For those that are more concerned about the environment — in this case the Ozone layer etc., splashing your cologne would be the ideal option. But remember, if you pick the latter, you can't be un-hygienic. The cleanliness of your hands is very important in this case."

Hmm.... I guess I must have been living in the most remote part of the world, because the last time i saw a bottle of spray perfume/cologne, it uses a manual pump instead of the aerosol used in deodorants and hairsprays. So how on earth, would that in anyway harmful to the ozone layer?



VJ Catherine takes in refugees


I can't believe this. I would be mad if I were Catherine... this quote was taken from her fashion editorial. Obviously she must have said "Beach and shopping is my refuge from all my hectic world." Well corni-ness aside, she couldn't have said refugee which means totally different from refuge. This is English 101.. I sure hope the editor took it before nailing his job.

A little bit of logic goes a long way
Correct me if I'm wrong, but in that lyric of Janet Jackson's song, "That's the Way Love Goes," doesn't she refer herself as the moth and love as the flame? The snippet was clipped from a profile about a beautiful lady named Marsha Timothy whose favorite song is the aforementioned hit. She likes it because that song is the soundtrack of her life.
Now I see the writer tried to be smart by adding that ad-lib, "Now guys, anyone wants to be the moth?" Hmm.. let's check the facts again, moth = janet/marsha, flame = love. 'The moth is attracted to the flame' roughly means the girl can't help to fall in love. OK, so now... why oh why, would anyone wanted to be the moth? What would her be then? The flame? But the flame = love? I guess she's out of the picture now, oh... tough luck.

Beyoncé's knowledge


OK... so Beyoncé never get a PhD in Nuclear Science, but saying that she knows nothing is a bit harsh, isn't it?

Grammar, spelling, and logic aside, I have to agree with Howke: soap is indeed the most stylish Indonesian mag I've ever come across, especially men's ones. Artistically, it was great... The fashion editorials rock, the reviews are very up to date, and I have to commend the ideas they're trying to push. If only they could hire someone who reads English to proofread the mag before it goes into circulation, that would be very nice.