Oblivion to befall a Eurovision winner?

Hey guys! I'm really supposed to be working on my defense slides, but I feel like taking a break at the moment. Some of my friends have already got their defense schedule, some have even survived their defense and are officially Masters of Science in Terrorism Studies, but I haven't got my schedule...Here's hoping it's gonna be the last defense day (July 2)!

Anyway, I feel sorry for Lena-Meyer Landrut, winner of the 2010 Eurovision. The gorgeous German hasn't got one single catchy song since "Satelite", which earned her Eurovision win. Two years on and her singles have been boring ones, as follows...



This one is actually not bad, love the old-school Bond feel.



Not bad either, just far less memorable than "Satelite"...



Just can't stand listening until the end!


Lena just needs songs that will do justice to her outstanding vocal. Ones that will catapult her to international fame. Many Eurovision winners, with the exception of those who had already been famous pre-Eurovision, just fell into oblivion after winning. Does that sound familiar?

NKOTBSB, concert and Old Navy...

I went to a NKOTBSB concert here in Jakarta on Friday, June 1. The concert was awesome, the kids and boys (ahem, men) are amazingly talented. It was good to re-live a fond part of my childhood, as I came to see NKOTB live in concert also in Jakarta in February 1992. By the time Backstreet Boys came on the scene, I was over boyband music, but I had a good time singing BSB songs on top of my lungs at the concert - something I'd never be caught doing during the band's heyday. The best part of the concert was the reunion with cousins and old friends. I came with a friend and my sister-in-law, before the concert I met another friend and some girls I went to school with. After the concert I met many of my cousins and a friend I went to diploma studies with.

The NKOTBSB concert was the first I came to in eleven years. The last concert I saw was The Corrs'. I have to be kind of fanatical about a musician before I go to his/her concert. That being said, the next concert I'll go to is most likely Debbie Gibson's, if she ever comes to Jakarta or wherever I'll be in the future.

Anyway. That's not what I really wanna talk about in this post, if you know me. Still in the light of the NKOTBSB world tour, I bet at least some of you have noticed that Jordan Knight is in the latest Old Navy commercial.



Taurus pride! Hahahahaha.

While I think Jordan looks great in the super cute commercial, a random search on Twitter makes one wonder if his appearance in said commercial is a sign of "how the mighty has fallen." One twit from a Twitter user I'd undisclose is particularly telling to me...

What the...Jordan Knight in an Old Navy commercial?! He couldn't be that hard up for cash...could he?

Hmm. Correct me if I'm wrong, but even during the heyday of NKOTBS the Kids were hardly in any commercial. The good thing about seeing Jordan Knight in an Old Navy commercial is that it shows he's still relevant to today's youth demographic...I think the target market for Old Navy is younger than those who actually grew up listening to NKOTB (again, correct me if I'm wrong.)

You know what I think really signals Jordan's fall from grace (and I thank heaven this is a thing of the past!)? This article, dating back to January 2006, which shows a drunken Mr. Knight amidst attempts to market one of his solo albums, "The Fix", and someone had to hail a taxi for him in the end. It's equally sad that in order to re-establish a successful solo career (he achieved success on his own in 1999), he had to turn to old material after "The Fix" on "Jordan Knight Performs New Kids On The Block" and "Love Songs" before, of course, reuniting with NKOTB in 2008...

On licking one's own saliva...

Back in early 2008, the daughter of two famous designers in NZ said in a posh life style magazine that you "shouldn't wear cardigans unless you're 150 years old." She had started a "career" as a celebrity stylist, dressing the likes of Mischa Barton, about three years earlier so it looked like she had some credibility to denounce cardigans.

Now that cardigans have come in many variations, no longer restricted to the button-up design (which she probably associated to grannies), I wonder she's stuck to her denunciation...

Marie et Mere

If you grew up in Indonesia in the mid 1990's (or Japan in the 1970's), chances are you remember "Rose of Versailles", Ryoko Ikeda's serialized books on Oscar de Jarjayes, the fictional personal guard of Marie Antoinette. I recently found out that in 1978 it was adapted into the big screen by Kitty Production (a subsidiary of Toho) with an all-European cast, making it a joint production of Europe and Japan. In the lead role is British actress Catriona MacColl. The movie is called "Lady Oscar", just like the anime that was aired in Indonesia in the '90s.

After "Lady Oscar", MacColl has so far starred in indie productions, some of which are slasher horrors. Her latest appearance is in a 2011 slasher "The Theatre Bizarre", where she plays a character called Mere Antoinette. I've done my research and found no evidence that "Mere Antoinette" was named after Marie Antoinette ("The Theatre Bizarre" is indeed inspired by Grand Guignol in Paris). But whether or not "Mere Antoinette" was named after the French queen, it's noteworthy that MacColl played a character alongside "Marie Antoinette" early in her career.

Wish granted from beyond the grave...

Hey guys! Blogging from the office for the first time. I'm waiting for my two presenters Bonny Symons-Brown and Ruth Rosa to finish copy-editing today's news texts, then I can compile and insert the CG. My show is called "The Morning Show" and basically it's an English program with politics, business and entertainment news from Indonesia and beyond. If you have time, tune in to it every Monday to Friday 07:30 AM Western Indonesia time (WIB) on channel six First Media. For those outside Indonesia, the show's available for live-streaming at Berita Satu TV website.

Ads done, now news on yours truly! To keep it short, I submitted my thesis last week and am now awaiting oral defense, which will be sometime in late June. It's been postponed from April 30.

Hokay, now what I really want to blog about. You know my mild obsession with Brandon Lee...I think I've watched all the Brandon Lee videos on YouTube except the fan-made tribute ones. Recently I found this. Wonder what took me so long to search for it on YouTube...



That's Brandon's cameo part from a Swedish indie film "Sex, Lies and Video Violence." The film was shot circa 1993, but for some reasons it wasn't released until 2000. Now if you will, you can look up Brandon's interview with Paula Yates (RIP) on YouTube and see that Brandon says he'd like to "flip flop back and forth" between action, mainstream and indie movies. The interview was filmed circa January 1993, just before Brandon started filming "The Crow", which would be his first and last "mainstream" movie (by that I mean a stretch from his usual action fares.) So he got to flip to the mainstream. Seven years after his untimely death in March 1993, his only indie film was released. So his wish has been granted - appearances in action, mainstream and indie productions.

And that huge earring in the cameo! Look up a clip from his 1991 movie "Showdown in Little Tokyo", where Brandon compliments co-star Dolph Lundgren's character on his endowment ("You have the biggest dick I've ever seen on a man.") Furthermore, look up a clip of his interview in Germany where he swears at a journalist for asking about his dad. I wonder how Bruce Lee would have reacted to all this...