Well, maybe most of you haven’t heard of it, but among rock classics, the one is at the top of the tree, right there with Hotel California and Temple of the King. Back when i was a kid, if you were learning to play the guitar and wanted to sound cool or impress your friends, this is the riff you’d play (there’s actually a scene in Wayne’s World about this). There’s a lady who’s sure, all that glitters is gold And she’s buying a stairway to heaven When she gets there she knows, if the stores are all closed With a word she can get what she came for Ooh,…

Some time back in December when i wrote about my 2009 Book of the Year (it was Neil Gaiman’s Graveyard Book), I promised to write about the runner-up book in the following post. But other things got in the way, never got round to doing it. So before I totally forget about it, here’s my honourable mention for 2009 Book of the Year. No it STILL isn’t Twilight. It’s a wonderful graphic novel called Persepolis by Iranian-born French journalist Marjane Satrapi. When it was first released in the US, there were 2 parts, Book 1 was called ‘Story of a Childhood’ and the sequel was called ‘The Story of Return’.…

You know the cliches – the inflation, balik kampung traffic jams have taken the meaning out of CNY celebrations, CNY is only enjoyed by the very young and very old, etc. But Chinese New Year is still Chinese New Year. Everyone still goes through the motion of travelling across the country (or city, depending on where you’re from), buy the requisite cookies and meats, swap token red packets, endure the family dinners without cringing too much, and the loud gambling (this one is rather enjoyable to most), etc. I guess we Chinese are creatures of habits. We call it tradition, but above anything else, we go through the motions, and…

Opening shot of the vid Ever since Bad Romance was released in October I’ve been continually listening to it. I think the song a fantastic piece of pop music. The music video? Its sheer genius. If you’ve only seen it on MTV, its edited shoddily due to heavy censorship. Yep, that’s the trademark razor shades. with Lady Gaga, there’s no such thing as TOO MUCH make-up You can watch the official vid here on Youtube (sorry, embedding isn’t allowed). I’m a big fan of videos that tell something, either a storyline, a message, or some contextual meaning. So what ON EARTH is Lady Gaga trying to convey in the lengthy…