voices worthy of a golden ticket, week 4

It's the last stop of the season- San Francisco, CA. Among the pool of talents, these five really stood out.

MATTHEW NUSS, 25. A musical director. It would be a shame if he didn't know how to sing.

STEFANO LANGONE, 21. Remember Danny Gokey when he first auditioned with Marvin Gay's I Heard It Through The Grapevine? Well, this guy's version is way better. With powerful and fluid vocals, I think he will do well in this competition. And he plays the piano! I'll be waiting for his Hollywood Week performance.

JULIE ZORRILLA, 20. I'm not so crazy about her song choice but I really like the texture of her voice and the way she controls it. She's gorgeous, no?

EMILY ANN REED, 26. She has by far the most original and unique-sounding voice this season- old school and jazzy. Slightly eccentric and has this singer-songwriter thing going on with the guitar an all. But it's just too bad. No folk artist survives the popular standards of American Idol.

JAMES DURBIN, 21. He's the one with Tourette's and Asperger's Syndrome. I've seen the comedy-drama film Adam (2009) and it's about this guy with Asperger's, a high-functioning autism and it looks really really tough to deal with. And to see someone overcome that, have a family of his own, (plus a Tourette to boot) is just inspiring. I really do hope he comes through even though his voice is reminiscent of Adam Lambert. Not a big fan of him.

Hollywood Week tomorrow. I know exactly where my bets would go. :)

threads

The heart writes words unabashed,

Colors washed away by time in flight.

But on tip toe they stand, they sneak

Through fractured walls of thought,

And into a wide expanse of calm

Creating ripples I dared, once fought.

She walked through threads of memory

And broke them with ease.

I followed suit putting it all together--

Find the ends and tie without cease.

My feet finally caught on tangled strings

Stumbled hard on knobby knees

I watched as she walked on,

Eyes locked where time actually freeze.

jamie's best man speech

Brooke is finally married to Julian and while I was watching the episode, my fingers were crossed that out of nowhere, Lucas and Peyton would show up. But they didn't. It was a very emotional installment and the moment Jamie gave his best man speech threw me back to days when One Tree Hill could easily tug on my heartstrings. Haley got it right. It was the most honest and memorable best man speech I've ever heard...

J.K. Rowling once wrote: "The consequences of our actions are so complicated, so diverse that predicting the future is a very difficult business indeed".

J.K. Rowling was right. But what most of you don't know is Julian was able to do it. He knew a long time ago that he would find Brooke. When Julian was my age, which was a very, very, very,very long time ago,he went to a county fair, and he met a girl...not Brooke. But they went on a bunch of rides together, including the Octopus--irrelevant to the story. But that night, Julian felt a crush for the first time, a real crush. Relax, Aunt Brooke. He was my age. So at the end of the night, they decided to break this bumper-car token in half. Julian has kept his half all these years, not because he missed the girl, but because he knew somewhere out there was the other half, his perfect match.And he was right. Today Julian married my Aunt Brooke. She's probably the coolest girl I know and the girl Julian's been waiting for since he broke this bumper-car token in half a long time ago at a county fair. And today Julian gave me this token. He said he didn't need it anymore because he found his other half. Congratulations, Julian. I think it was worth the wait...

the addiction continues...

Just when I thought I am running out of television series to satiate my viewing pleasures, that is when I discovered a faster and more convenient way of downloading from file-hosting sites. The days of using torrent files and purchasing of low-quality pirated DVDs to fulfill the urge are long gone. The emergence of HDTV and Blurays and the fact that they can be ripped and upped made the addiction even worse. There is no stopping now.

Currently, I'm having weekly doses of One Tree Hill, Grey's Anatomy, House, and Chuck (I've given up on Glee. The story is just spinning out of control and writers are stuffing it with celebrity guests which in my opinion is really sucking the potential out of the material. And Smallville too. Is it on its 100th season already? Well, I've lost my appetite for it since Lana Lang got erased from the script). You may think that's too much television... but not for me. My shortening attention span compelled me to start the following series:

DEXTER

If you're feeling squeamish in the sight of blood or mutilated bodies, this show is not for you. The series centers on Dexter, a forensic expert on blood spatter analysis (which I think is a very cool job by the way) for the Miami Metro Police Department, living a double life as a law enforcer during the day and a vigilante who kills at night. The dynamic of the story is how he struggles to balance these two sides of his life. I was really surprised that I could easily relate to Dexter's character (Nope. I am not a killer. I'm a pacifist I assure you). I mean, each of us has a dark side right? And we're doing everything we can, struggling to hide it in plain sight. I'm done with the first two seasons. Three to go :P

THE BIG BANG THEORY

I love geeky comedy and so the reason why I like it is a no brainer! This series is about this four scientists--Leonard, Sheldon, Howard and Rajesh, whose geekiness is contrasted to the social skills and common sense of Penny, a beautiful aspiring actress. I'm still on the first season though.

FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS

Urgh! Need I say more? This is the most emotionally captivating series since One Tree Hill. It's like OTH except the sport is football, it's more dramatic, and everybody speaks with a southern accent. One more thing that did it for me was the music. I can't get enough of the post-rock musical score! I am now on it's 2nd season and they just won the State Championship! :P Clear eyes. Full Hearts. Can't Lose! Go Panthers!

THE WALKING DEAD

Yep. It's a zombie series. I didn't expect to like this but it turned out to be really amusing and simply way better than all zombie movies I've seen put together, except for Zombieland (2009) maybe. That falls into a completely different genre). It is well-acted and its production value for a TV series is quite astounding and great make-up too. They're now on hiatus and will resume airing probably this month.

MODERN FAMILY

It's on the news. It's on blogs. And it won an Emmy and a SAG awards for Best Comedy Series. It's a comedic mockumentary about this three unconventional families. I'm now half-way through the first season and I enjoyed every second of it. I think it's the best comedy series since Friends. I got teary-eyed laughing on an episode where everybody got hung up with Dylan's song for Haley, In The Moonlight, which is needless to say my current LSS! :P

Baby, baby. I just wanna do you, do you.

Baby, you can do me, do me

Hahaha! I'm gonna shut up now. :P

hollow peace

Truth comes from a place of silence. I don't get it because I thrive in chaos. When the loud sounds and the echoes they made finally dissipate, it's like dusts are settling from everywhere. A black night cracks, light seeping through them and revealing the real once concealed. It is in that gap that you can really see, and hear the resounding growls and endless murmurs within. The haunting thoughts sharpen, blades ready to slice through exposed weakened flesh. I'd have to deal with them. But I don't want to. I am too afraid.

And so I would fill my head again with anything to scramble the images, to complicate things, to hide what's really should have been on the surface. It's like throwing paint over a graffitied wall. The walls thicken as a result of the routine leaving splotches everywhere. On the ground. On me. On the people that face the same wall. They don't have the slightest clue of what's really on their faces. And in an act of pathetic display of cowardice, I would shout as loud as I can on the inside, the noise breaking through me and into the unknown leaving in its tracks a buzzing sound of hollow peace-that fragile moment where a strong wind troubles the fine grains of dust back into the air blocking every ugly figment of conscious thought. It is when the eyes lose focus turning everything into bokeh lights, well-disguised and beautiful. A conflicted moment when time stops and days pass in just a few beats of a troubled heart as years grow shorter including life itself and the promise of relief from such misguided deed.