Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz!

So the following are the songs that haven’t gone stale in my mind, and is the music that I am yet to get sick of despite the overplay on the radio or through my ipod. So without further ado, here’s my best and worst in music for the year 2008

Top 5ive albums of the year:
1. Day & Age – The Killers (must listen: Spaceman)
2. 808s & Heartbreak – KanYe West (must listen: Paranoid)
3. Year of the Gentleman – Ne-Yo (must listen: Miss Independent)
4. Viva La Vida – Coldplay (must listen: Viva La Vida)
5. We Started Nothing – The Ting Tings (must listen: That’s Not My Name)

Best album of the year:
Basically a hybrid of the sounds of their first and second albums, both of which I enjoyed, so obviously, I loved their newest album also. Notable tracks also include; Human, This is your life, The world we live in, I can’t stay)

Most disappointing album of the year:
Brass Knuckles – Nelly.
After a long lay off in the music scene, was this the best he could do?

Top 10 released tracks of the year:
1. American Boy – Estelle Feat. Kanye West
2. Forever – Chris Brown
3. Viva La Vida – Coldplay
4. That’s Not My Name – The Ting Tings
5. No One – Alicia Keys
6. Everybody Knows – John Legend
7. Everyone Nose – N.E.R.D.
8. Love in this Club – Usher
9. Miss Independent – Ne-Yo
10. Spaceman – The Killers

Best track of the year:
Originally a weird track off Will.i.am’s Album, it became a mega hit of Estelle and Kanye’s

Best songs stuck in obscurity (albums)
1. You Know What – N.E.R.D.
2. Paranoid – Kanye West
3. Quickly – John Legend Feat. Brandy
4. Make My Day – Common Feat. Cee-Lo
5. Coldest Winter – Kanye West
6. Lovers in Japan – Coldplay
7. This Is Your Life – The Killers
8. It’s Over – John Legend Feat. Kanye West
9. Strawberry Swing – Coldplay
10. Pretty Please (Love Me) - Estelle Feat. Cee-Lo 

Most overhyped act:
Pink. 11 concerts?? Are you serious?

Most underappreciated act:
John Legend.  Just not enough exposure in Australia, even with his most mainstream release to date.

Most surprising act:
The Ting Tings – This band really turned around for me, the first song I listened to of theirs was fruit machine…of which I still don’t like all that much to this day…but their song Great DJ got me listening, and That’s Not My Name had me hooked. Their music kind of reminds me of children’s music, but it’s been made for adults. I love it.

Top 5ive videos of the year
1. Flashing Lights – KanYe West
2. Heartless – KanYe West
3. The Ting Tings – Shut Up & Let Me Go
4. The BPA [ft. David Byrne & Dizzee Rascal]: “Toe Jam” [Keith Schofield]
5. Common – Universal Mind Control

Best video of the year:

Worst video of the year:
4 Minutes – Madonna & Justin Timberlake; make that 4 mintues of cringe.

Best new talent:
Lady Gaga – Not the biggest fan of her music, but I like her style. She might be in mainstream pop, but her style’s pretty out there. Just watch her videos, I heard she makes her own clothes too.

5ive most guilty pleasures:
1. No Air – Jordin Sparks & Chris Brown
2. Hot & Cold – Katy Perry
3. Just Dance – Lady Gaga
4. I Hate This Part – Pussycat Dolls
5. Elevator – Flo Rida

Worst album cover: Madonna – Hard Candy. CRINGE.

And that’s that. Let the hate begin.

2008′s Best
1. The Dark Knight
2. Burn After Reading
3. Be Kind Rewind
4. Wall-e
5. Iron Man
6. Traitor
7. The Bank Job
8.Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
9. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
10. Hancock

Honourable Mention:
Horton Hears a Who!

5ive Movies of note that I am yet to see:
Australia
Doubt
Choke
The Reader
In Bruges

5ive Movies that Disappointed (or were just really really bad):
The Love Guru (really really bad, can people stop letting Justin Timberlake act?)
Quantum of Solace (disappointing)
Tropic Thunder (disappointing, really thought it could have been funnier)
Don’t Mess With The Zohan (disappointing AND bad)
Body Of Lives (Disappointed; Leo + Russ + Ridley Scott, thought it was a surefire winner)

Come to think of it, I don’t think I saw all that many movies this year.

Till next time.

All the best to you in ’09!

And to those that I know, or did know; you have all made an impact on my life, great and small and I have learnt from you in some way or another.

So thank you, and you’re welcome!

Roby.

Length of stay: 6/12/08 – 11/12/08

Accommodation: Tan Hai Long hotel 3 for all 5 nights at US$40 a night.

Food & Water: approx. AUD$15 per day

Day 6 of my Asia tour and I arrive in Vietnam around 7pm only to be jibbed by the cab driver on the way to hotel. Great first impression.

The hotel was leaning towards the expensive side of things, and we originally thought we’d switch hotels in a couple of nights, but we eventually couldn’t me bothered so we stayed there our entire stay in Saigon. We also got a US$5 discount on our room when we upgraded, it had free Internet and wifi and was very clean, so we didn’t mind paying a little more than needed. Especially when food is so cheap!

Vietnam is the stereotypical depiction of an Asian city from my mind.  Lots of people, heaps of scooters zipping around, tonnes of dodgy people (asking me to take a ride on their scooter to a “massage parlour”), cheap and awesome food, and full of pollution.  So no real surprises, English is mostly understood, and there’s always the old “point to what you want” method to really get your point across.

Our first full day in Vietnam was pretty laid back, we walked through Benh Thanh market had a meal there (more expensive than at the place near our hotel) but some pretty good food nevertheless.  We eventually headed off to a travel tour office that my sister recommended and booked ourselves into a couple of tours, those being the tours around the Meekong Delta and the CuChi tunnels.

Eventually we found our way onto the tourist precinct and bought “The book” as we now refer to, as we bought a Lonely Planet guide to Vietnam that we neither needed or ultimately used.  Good stuff.

Within the tourist precinct is like a large versing of the Malaysian markets, with lots of people hassling you to buy things off them that you either don’t need or want, and then if you give them a price and they match it..you feel obliged to buy; see: “the book”.

We visited this place called ‘Dung’ and bought suits there! Prices start from US$70 per suit (more for branded/nicer material) and US$12 a shirt! ALL custom made!! Probably the best purchase I’ve made so far on this trip! (I bought 1x suit and 5x shirts)

For the tours, they were pretty good value for about AUD$15 incl. lunch for the full day tours, they picked us up from our hotel as well, which made things easier.  I actually ran into one of my friends on the tour! It must have been one of the THE MOST coincidental things that has ever happened to me in my life, but apparently these things happen…despite the unlikely odds.

All in the all, the tours were decent enough, with Cuchi tunnels being a lot more interesting than the Meekong tour, firing rounds from an M16 is always  fun,  and the anti-american propaganda always good for a laugh, “those evil americans…”

I quite enjoyed Vietnam.

Length of stay: 2/12/08 – 6/12/08

Accomodation: Berjaya Times Square Hotel – 2 nights on the couch, 2 nights on a small mattress = sore shoulder

Food & water: Around AUD$20 per day (I drank mostly bottled water)

On the second day of my Asia tour quite a few things could have happened.

My iPod applications decide to stop working, i realise that choosing a budget airline for a four hour flight is a bad idea. I endure a three hour bus ride; which should have only taken one hour, leaving my friends worried sick about us as they were unable to connect to my phone. And when me and my mate finally escaped this cruel and unusual punishment, and were able to dump our stuff off at the hotel, we set off for dinner ordering pork, squid and a BBQ selection. Unbeknown to us, the restaurant turns out to be vegetarian, but hungry and silly us don’t realise till halfway through our meal.

But all that never happened…ahem

As for Malaysia, the place itself wasn’t as interesting or I guess as lively as I had hoped.

I still had a great, great time, but I really think it was more to do with the people I was with than the city itself.

Malaysia, being quite westernized, only gives you a taste of Asia, and to me, isn’t truly all that Asia. The main night market closed at 10pm most nights and only about an hour later on a Saturday night; the quality of its products were pretty good though. None of the attractions were really ‘must-see’ but were interesting enough. We visited KL tower, the aquarium, independence square, Batu caves and most of the main tourist spots.

Where Kuala Lumpur really delivers is it’s giant shopping malls, I didn’t spend huge amounts of time in them, but I’m pretty sure there are plenty of bargains to me found.

In the end, when I think of Asian countries I think of dirty streets, awesome street food, night markets that live through the night, culture shock, and for the more modernized countries; outrageous shopping malls. Kuala Lumpur delivered on a few of these things, but really teased me and gave me a taste of things to come.

Speaking of culture shock, Vietnam was next on my itinerary.

Arriving in Manila was relatively easy, it was hot and sticky even at night, but that was to be expected, and the airport was pretty close to where we were going to stay.

In a sentence, Manila could be described as a city that’s cleaning and building towards modern urbanization with it’s many and new malls spotted throughout the city, whilst being extremely americanized with it’s multiple mcdonalds, KFCs, starbucks and pizza huts located everywhere, often all together; like an obese person’s wet dream.

I was lucky enough to stay at my friend’s aunty’s house whose family was very welcoming, also lucky enough to have Internet and air-con which is always nice. However, I was unlucky enough to have a shower lacking in hot water or any water pressure at all, my friend ‘forgetting’ to warn me beforehand.

I think it’s an Asian thing, but traffic and driving in Manila is simply chaotic. It was a public holiday so we missed much of it, but it’s not to say that they drive within the lines or that people give way, because they don’t, it’s mostly ‘just honk the horn and get the hell out of my way’. Vietnam’s supposed to be worse, so I can’t wait for that.

A problem we ran into happened at about 7am this morning when my friend’s uncle burst into our room asking where our flight was from. Of which we said ‘clark’ airport? Unbeknown to us, Clark airport was 90kms away from the city of Manila, as opposed to the airport we came in from which was much closer to Manila.

So within minutes we were sprinting towards this airport in the middle of nowhere, but we made it with time to spare only leaving us to wonder why would have happened had we been in a hotel needing to catch a cab to the airport.