It seems that things have been going great for one of my favorite star, Avril Ramona Lavigne. She got married to rocker Chad Kroeger, the lead of Nickelback on July 1st & have just released her self titled album recently. 

As opposed to Avril's previous album, Goodbye Lullaby, which is pretty mellow & romantic, her latest one is fun & happy.

The theme of the album is staying young & happy, reminiscence of happy teenage moments. Songs like Rock n Roll, Here's to Never Growing Up, 17, Bitchin' Summer, Bad Girl & You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet are all very fun to listen to & put me in a good, lively mood.

Because of that, I think the cover doesn't really reflect the album. It's should be replaced with a more cheerful cover, reflecting how young hearted & wild Avril really is.

Among the tracks mentioned earlier, I think I like You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet the most because of Avril's beautiful runs at the second verse. "Yeah yeahhh not yet~ Yeah yeahhh not yet~ Yeah yeahhhhh not yet~"... I love it!

Bad Girl is also one of my favorites because it rocks! Marilyn Manson is featured in it! MARILYN freakin' MANSON. It's not as disturbed as most of Marilyn's songs but the rock n roll sound is there.

Well, not all of tracks are happy go lucky sort of songs. There are other genres also. Avril tried to mix it up this time, making her music more interesting to listen to.

My other favorite track is Give You What You Like. Listening to this one made me imagine myself being at a gloomy, lonely bar, sipping whiskey with a love interest... or having sex in a dark room lightened only by blinking colorful neon lights from a liquor store across the street. Yeah. That's it.

Besides that, Avril also experiments with techno in the track Hello Kitty. This can be considered as a tribute to her Japanese fans. "Mina Saiko! Arigato! Ka ka ka kawaii!!"... I like this track because it adds variety to the album. It's quite refreshing & cute.

Hello Heartache is also quite intriguing to listen to because of the eerie background sound. "La lalalala lala"... You gotta listen to it yourself to get what I mean.

Avril also paired up with dear rockstar hubby, Chad to come up with Let Me Go. In my opinion, it's quite mediocre compared to my favorites. I love the instrumental sound though. It makes me imagine myself standing at the edge of a canyon, being epic.

Avril ends the album with a couple of slow paced, mellowdramatic songs. Falling Fast & Hush Hush are my least favorite but these two still pass as good songs.

All in all, Avril's self titled album is very fun & perfect for those who wanna stay young, foolish, rebellious & happy. Avril also experiments a bit with her music, making the album more diversed in terms of genre.





I would like to say that despite her saying that she's still rock n roll, she's actually more of a pop artist. Don't you agree? Love her though!

Yes, I am slightly ashamed to admit that I'm addicted to playing Candy Crush Saga... At first, I didn't wanna play it because I just knew that I wouldn't be able to prevent the addiction from taking over my body & soul... It had happened before with Angry Birds. 

I managed to ignore it for months... That was until I saw my sister in law played it on my mother in law's phone. It seemed fun. So, I took over the game when she shifted her attention to Aqisse, our baby niece. 

Bad mistake. 

I was hooked immediately. I downloaded the game on my phone & unblocked it from my Facebook. Swoosh swish and about a month later, here I am... struggling at level 275. Damn this level is hard. 

I don't wanna brag, but this is my accomplishments, so far... 

Yes, folks! I'm the champion of all the places I've been in the Saga! Hehe... Managed to collect more stars than all of my Facebook friends. 

It's been a slow journey for me because I'm not just aiming to pass all level. I'm also aiming to be champion at every Saga. That means I collect stars. That makes the gaming experience more rewarding for me. 

I know that there's currently more than 500 levels. So, I'm about half done with the journey. I'm in no rush though. Just wanna be the very best. Like Ash Ketchum. 

I think what makes this game & other games like it such as Angry Birds so addictive is the fact that it's simple but can be very challenging. People would be like, "Hey, it's simple enough. I can beat this shit." and then after playing for a while, "DARN IT!! I WON'T GIVE UP! THIS GAME IS TOO SIMPLE TO GIVE UP!!"

The developers are also very smart by incorporating the limited lives thing. People have to wait 30 minutes to receive a new life. That means, it's hard to be bored with this game because you play it for a short while & then have to wait for new lives to play it again. As you wait, you got to do other stuff. If you just play it for hours non stop, eventually you'll lose interest. 

However, I know how to get extra lives without waiting. 

If you're playing the game via phone, then to get more lives, you can just speed up the phone's clock. For example, if the time is 10.30 pm, if you change the time to 11.30 pm, you'll get two more lives. The drawback to this is, when you change the time back to actual time, the game's clock will be messed up & you'll find yourself having to wait thousands of minutes for new lives. If that happens, you can just uninstall the game & reinstall it. Your progress won't be lost because it's been saved on Facebook. Plus, when you reinstall it, you'll receive five new lives. 

Here another way to get more lives. You can create a fake Facebook account. Yes, ladies & gentlemen, boys & girls. A fake Facebook account. Then, you can request lives from the fake account & send lives to yourselves. No more waiting for your friends to send lives to you. 

What's better than a fake Facebook account? Well, of course, THREE fake Facebook accounts! Then you won't have to request level passes from other people. This way, you get to another level in no time!

I know having fake accounts seems desperate but hey, it's better than having to wait for days for your friends to send you level passes & play the same levels over & over again. Right? Hahaha!

I hate how they make chocolate the enemy. I love chocolate.

Now, excuse me. I got more levels to pass.

God, I need a new hobby.

Julian (Ryan Gosling) & his brother, Billy (Tom Burke) were drug dealers in Thailand. Billy was killed by a local policeman, Chang (Vithaya Pansringarm), for brutally killing a 16 year old girl. Crystal (Kristin Scott Thomas), Julian's mother, urged him to avenge Billy, thus resulting to series of clashes between drug lords & merciless cops. 

Though the synopsis seems quite intriguing, but the pacing of this movie is rather slow... Yes, there are gun fights & fist fights but they're really scarce. 

I wanted to watch this movie for two reasons. Nicolas Winding Refn, the director & Ryan Gosling, the lead. I expected that this movie would be as good as one of my favorite flicks & also Nicolas Winding Refn's work, Drive. 

Well, it certainly brings the same feel as Drive. The characters don't really say much, the music helps a lot in setting the mood & Ryan Gosling is handsome as fuck. 

However, compared to Drive, this one lacks narration... Most scenes start & finish rather awkwardly & abruptly. Besides that, there are many times when a characters are shown being still & emotionless... for no reason...

I think it's the director trying to be artsy... Well, it's screened at Cannes & we all know only indie & artsy stuff are screened at Cannes.

This movie was booed at Cannes.

If you don't like Drive, then you should definitely avoid Only God Forgives... If you love Drive, don't expect this movie to be at the same par.

I personally like this movie though... But, not as much as like Drive.

There are a few moments that are very interesting to watch like the way Julian fantasize about sexual stuff & some short moments of intense action. This movie is weird in a way that I like. Maybe I'm a bit mentally disturbed.

If you've watched this, I wanna ask you... Where did that badass cop hide his evil blade? In his shirt? Behind his back?

James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) & Niki Lauda (Daniel Bruhl) were rivals in Formula One (F1) racing... The story revolves around both of them; how the first started, how they met & became rivals, how they went neck to neck with each other to find out who's the best among them. 

True story.

I was first introduced to F1 racing when I was in secondary school... The principal decided to install televisions at the school canteen right before an F1 season (I can't recall what year) started... So, both teachers & many students (mostly males) took that opportunity to watch the races during recesses... I initially joined them because I was wondering what's so fun about watching this sport... At that time, my family couldn't afford a satellite dish & therefore, I was not exposed to most kinds of sports such as tennis, golf & motor GP.

My first reaction was... "Meh..." 

or was it, "ZZZZZZZZ"?

Yeah, I thought that it's a boring kind of sport... Watching cars go round & round a circuit for hours wasn't fun for me... 

A friend of mine at the university tried to talk me into watching F1 once... He talked elaborately about G-force, precision, stamina & what shit but I didn't give a damn... Totally not into F1. 

Because of that, when I learned about the existence of this movie, Rush, I thought, "Nahhh... Not gonna see this".

What changed my mind was the amount of good reviews it got from amateur & professional movie reviewers... Looking at how it received high ratings from most movie buffs, I decided to just try & watch it. 

Damn. It's brilliant. 

I love this movie! 

It's the kind of movie that win awards... 

The picture is so beautiful... The story is set in the 70's & therefore, the producers tried to give an old school feel by sort of Instagraming the whole movie... It's so beautiful & artful, I love it! I also love the close ups of engines, the working components of engines when the drivers revved up, the first view look of the races, the shaky cams, long shots, and many other camera techniques used. Damn, the movie is just beautiful... Damn beautiful. The director, Ron Howard, surely knew what he's doing.

I was very very intrigue by the story! The races, the neck to neck battle, the love lives, the fallouts... Damn damn damn, I wished the movie never ended. I truly did. Even after two hours of watching, I thought, "Gosh, please don't end now... I wanna see more of the rivalry & drama."

I walked into the cinema knowing nothing about the story... It didn't occur to me that it's based of real life events... and I think it's better for me that way! Not knowing about how Hunt & Lauda's story of rivalry goes made the movie more suspenseful for me... "Is he gonna crash? Is he gonna die? Is he gonna win??" Damn, I was literally glued to seat...... Okey, not literally... 

I found myself rooting for Hunt at the middle... but at the end, I thought, "Hey, Lauda is very cool too!" I cheered for them! The story & the way how wonderfully the characters are introduced & developed made it easy for me to either love or hate either one or both leads. I was really connected with both of them!

If I have any complaints, well, it's gotta be this : 

I fuckin' wish Lauda would just hug his lovely wife! 

Damn, if you watch the movie, you would probably understand what I'm trying to say... Dude, just hug that nice, loyal lady of yours!

Huuuuuu.......

Okey, all in all, this movie is grand! I love the cinematography, the camera techniques... I love the characters... I love the story (altered or not). I love the races! I love it I love it IloveitIloveitttttttt!

5 Stars

I still won't go & watch actual F1 race though...