Year of the Pig

New Year's Resolution: update blog more.

Last week was Chinese New Year. I celebrated by going down to the carnival in Sitges. It was fun. I have pictures somewhere. Enough about my inane life though, and onto more pressing matters at hand - like what the heck is going on with Italian politics, why Segolene Royal is tanking, and cheers all round as there is finally a contested election in Hong Kong, albeit one that is already decided.

Awards shows
The great thing about not living in the States anymore is that I didn't have to force myself to watch the Grammys on TV. The bad thing is, because I am obsessed with awards shows, I end up watching them on Youtube anyways. Thankfully, nobody decided to upload the entire ceremony onto Youtube - unlike the Brits - so I only had to put up with the performances and not the speeches.

Some observations:
1. I've said it numerous times before, but Christina Aguilera is amazing, utterly amazing. Not many things on youtube give me the shivers but she absolutely killed (in a good sense of course) that genderbending performance.



2. Mary J. Blige is also quite amazing. Even though she seems to be spouting cliches all the time, all the emotion and power she invests in her singing overrides that and fills me with warm and fuzzy.

3. Having said that, Mary J. fails to rescue Ludacris' attempt to be socially conscious from being tripe. The ending with the little girls and the candles makes it seems like Ludacris has unsavoury messianic pretensions.

4. Why does Justin Timberlake get to perform twice - and three songs at that? Is it because he's willing to whore himself out to a stupid American Idol Grammys competition? And what happened with bringing sexy back? He was anything but sexy - terrible tie, terrible suit + sneakers, terrible closeup, he should've taken his cues from T.I. Also, you must have seen the laughably horrible "What Comes Around.../... Goes Around" video by now, and in case, you are like me quickly losing faith in JT, go download the awesome Sebastien Leger or Wookie remixes now!

5. Chris Brown is a great dancer and all but really if he's not going to be exhibiting that adorable lisp of his then there's little point of him performing at the Grammys. Not only does he not perform the infinitely superior "Yo (Excuse Me Miss)" instead of "Run It" but he also botches the incredible "I can definitely show you things that's gonna have you saying that I can't be 16" line.

6. James Blunt, Rascal Flatts = execrable.

7. Corinne Bailey Rae + John Mayer + John Legend, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Beyonce = snoozefest. Also Carrie Underwood should not be singing anything other than "Before He Cheats."

8. Gnarls Barkley do the flight crew shtick yet again for the umpteenth time.

9. The Police, Dixie Chicks = they were alright.

10. Shakira = yay, even though it is "Hips Don't Lie."

The Brit Awards were an absolute waste of time, although it did expose to the world that stupid people certainly still do exist in the form of Joss Stone.

Oh well, there's always the Oscars tonight.


Great things on youtube
As you can probably tell, I spend an awful amount of time wasting my life away on youtube. This is of course time which I cannot afford to spend, so in the end, I never get enough sleep to be awake during the day.

But it is all worth it for the treasures on youtube:

1. Robin Thicke & Lil Wayne perform "Shooter" on Leno



This is quite old - Rachel Weisz was promoting "The Constant Gardener" - but it's only just been uploaded because Robin Thicke is finally achieving chart success - he's become the first white guy in decades to top the R&B charts - with the sickly sweet "Lost Without You" - sure to be a smash in the bedroom. But "Shooter" totally blows that out of the bedroom. Beau sent an mp3 to me a year ago and since then I've been listening to it every other day, and have been putting my hands up randomly during the day because I'm singing along in my head while I might be in the middle of teaching a class. Robin and Lil Wayne complement each other extremely well, which is evident in this performance. I love it when Robin goes "shoo shoo shoo shoo shoo...ter" and Weezy goes "Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr..."

2. Maneater the way it was meant to be performed



This came from popjustice. Those crazy brits have crazy tv shows.

3. Chalk another up for androgyny