Archives For Television

I’ve got some pretty nice recommendations to share.

yammag-amy-recommendations

When I was in Canada, I spent some of those Sunday nights watching Sunday Night Sex Show with Sue Johanson, and then my mind was blown. With her as-a-matter-of-fact tone, and some of the most bizarre requests [raw meat, anyone? Somebody said Athlete’s Foot?], Sue delivered sex knowledge and opinion like I have never had heard or seen before. It also happened that Sue wasn’t like how the media had made me imagine sexologists were like.

WARNING: This Hot Mix is both HILARIOUS and NSFW!

All the while, coming over down here, I saw the birth of Alessandra Rampolla and her show, which has in part revolutionized Latin America, I suppose. The difference with the both of them is, I suppose, culturally. While Sue’s show was set for call-answering ANY question, Rampolla’s show is set more like a talk show… which is more like a familiar format for the region, but doesn’t allow the same topic freedom that the other format offers.

I like that Rampolla’s way of talking is a lot like a kinder or primary school teacher explaining — still — the finer points of being bisexual to her audience with ease and humor. Rampolla’s style is more like Sexologist 101, while Sue is more Advanced Studies.

I didn’t find any cool YouTube mix of her, so this interview with her by Magaly Medina will have to do. Medina isn’t a sexologist or all that serious when she does her entertainment show, so some of her comments are a bit eye-roll worthy, but Rampolla really is that lovely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtCKegCHxqU

About a week ago Nat Geo was showing a new episode of Tabu Latinamerica, which happened to focus on food. One of my favorite subjects. Thinking about food makes me hungry. But this is Tabu, so obviously we weren’t going to be talking about regular food. While the episode focused on Mexico and Venezuela, with their talks on eating rata campestre (countryside rat??? not from the sewers of course) soup, and… some kind of tarantula/spider?

Anyway, part of the episode also focused in Peru, where they showed a town called La Quebrada, in Cañete, they prepare cat. I haven’t eaten cat — at least, not knowingly… though once while we were eating rabbit chicharron, we suspected we had been given cat because the “rabbit” was bigger and had more fat in it — but I’ve eaten a lot of other things. Of course, guinea pig is kind of a regular “bizarre” food, and I guess rabbit is bizarre to some people. Suri (the worm) is also tasty when fried (it’s almost like crispy pork skin), as well as an assortment of fishes~ Including the palometa (which I’ve heard it’s a piranha’s cousin LOL) and paiche. Shark’s fin soup and swallow’s nest soup apply.

It’s kind of always been common knowledge that people ate cats in Peru- my family (and I’m sure many other people) often joked about it, it’s like joking about everything being chicken, or eating the insides of animals — horror movies and 4D jokes are perfect. Let me tell you, thank you Afro-Peruvians for developing Anticuchos. As a Peruvian who has finally learned to eat without asking (much), and not judge cultures by my own point of view, it saddens me to see people’s comments. Especially considering that we’re all Latin Americans.

Does it feel good to call other people ignorant, or small-minded? Is it wrong to eat something just because you think it’s your pet? Is it not wrong that we eat cow so easily when Indians see them as gods? We’re eating their gods, sending them to slaughter houses, and people judge these people because they eat their pets in a non-industrialized way. This is kind of the same issue I had with The Cove [1].

Back in 2012, during the CCTV Spring Gala, I was marveled watching Chinese dancer/choreographer Yang Liping (杨丽萍) doing her Peacock Love dance. First, I know it was totally not intended considering how visual a male peacock could be, but I loved that figuratively it was two male peacocks dancing a “dance of love” while literally it was a male and a female. ;P

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F54YqlUa60

Then I was shocked that Yang Liping (after I learned her name, of course) was in her 50s. Just looking at the video, I could have thought she was in her late 20s or her 30s. It was definitely a stretch to find her no in her 40s, but her 50s. In a world where people think 30 is too old, I was even more shocked.

CCTV is doing a special these coming weeks, I think she has retired or something? She recently did a Weibo Talk, so I went on a Yang Liping YouTube binge, where I found this fabulous video, and discovered the amazingness that is Dynamic Yunnan (云南印象).

Except for that 3-year break MTV took off the Breakthrough Music Video category, they had continued giving away the prize — which had been given to the likes of Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry and Chris Cunningham — until 2010, when they officially removed the category.

So I ask again, what happened to Breakthrough Music Videos?

As a reminder, I put together a list with all the winners.

[iframe width=”580″ height=”326″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PLE88395EDFAA954B7″ /]

If I had been picking winners (from that past post), I chose:

  • 2006 – U2 for Window in the Skies [MV]
  • 2007 – Tom Waits for Come On Up to the House [MV]
  • 2008 – Bjork for Wanderlust [MV]

For the other two years, you know I’m probably partial to SunnyHill [1], but I’ll go with Salyu’s Tadano Tomodachi [1] concept because it’s much more a production concept than a music video concept. For 2012, despite its serious hard-hitting concept [1], I would have to go with Graham Coxon’s What’ll It Take [MV] due to its imaginative execution using fan footage.

So what are some of your favorite music videos?

I’m in the mood for some Sally singing Susan, The Happy Trotting Elf~

Though, moment starts exactly at 1:11

I’m Susan the happy trotting elf! I trot and trot, and bounce and bounce, and smile a lot, and that’s what counts! I’m Susan the happy trotting smile a-lotting elf! I’m polite so just for clarity, when I’m cross I say “Apparently!”

I have to admit… I’m a little disappointed. Be it choice of script or choice of character — I’m choosing this as punishment from Itoh Company for Yu-chan choosing to cut her hair. LOL I’m uncertain about her hair, it looks real, but at the same time I’m unable to make a clear timeline. Maybe she shot this BEFORE she cut her hair. I would have liked her present-day character to be portrayed with her short hair, and a lot more different.

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Yu-chan, how am I supposed to know you have a new miniseries, if you don’t even update your blog? Like, I was blind. COMPLETELY BLIND about this two-episode series you did for TV Asahi, airing on February 2nd and 3rd. Titled Mottomo Toi Ginga (最も遠い銀河) — translated as The Most Distant Galaxy — the series has nothing to do with space. Instead, it seems to be a detective story, but the AsianWiki Plot/Synopsis sucks.

Still… it doesn’t mean that I don’t want to check it out.

I wouldn’t have heard about it, if it wasn’t for Weibo. I’m supposed to be subscribed to the Yu Aoi/Aoi Yuu and other variations of her name from Tokyohive, but whatever. It seems she has very few English-speaker fans who don’t even bother.

At the moment, this screencaps will do.

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So sue me! I have a Power Rangers tag on my blog.

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I wanted to do a quick ranking for the Time Machine Blogathon, so I thought it was fair to rank only the seasons that I followed, which ended after the destruction of Zordon [1] back when Power Rangers in Space was done. Despite my watching of seldom episodes of Lost Galaxy, and even more random episodes of Lightspeed Rescue… maybe Time Force (can’t be 99% sure if I’ve watched that one), and OBVIOUSLY~ Dino Thunder (because Tommy was in it, xD), I feel the proper thing to do is to rank just those first few couple seasons while highlighting my favorite moments, my least favorite ones and stuff.

First things first~

Aquitar Rangers

power-rangers-aquitar

Though not strictly a season on Power Rangers, I gotta give them a special mention as my least favorite rangers of the ones I’m ranking because I just hated that they had to come in because the others were turned into little kids. I don’t know why I didn’t like the little kids — being a little kid myself — but looking back on it, it feels like a cheap cop-out to have more rangers thrown into the Power Ranger universe.

The only highlight with their inclusion was that the leader was a girl. I haven’t seen that in others (certainly not from the ones I followed), but feel free to correct me.
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I have often questioned Beyonce’s IT factor [1][2]. Whether her choice of choreography always left me cold, what she chose to belt, and how her music seems to be only dance club friendly having changed very little throughout the past decade. However, even I have to admit she broke down the Super Bowl Halftime show this year.

[iframe src=”https://player.yinyuetai.com/video/player/601468/v_0.swf” width=”480″ height=”334″ /]

via YinYueTai.

I mildly regret she missed her first floor-screen mark there and the black silhouette was all empty when she was a mere step away from it. BUT, she did rock that multiple-screen Beyonce performance quite flawlessly. And then Kelly and Michelle (could handle it~). It was Destiny’s Child’s first ever performance in like- FOREVER. And I’m shocked how little Michelle has changed, while Kelly and Beyonce had put on some- errr~ years on them. They all looked so kick-ass with their toned arms, and it was like high school all over again.

My only wish for the performance was that it could’ve ended before Beyonce played Halo, which seemed quite out of place in the show. But I guess she has to fill those 15 minutes? Maybe that’s why there was a power outage afterwards?

My respect, Beyonce. You’ve earned it.