You know, I’ve had this blog since Feb 2009 and I still haven’t wrote about a topic that always comes up in those interview-style introduction meetings I have whenever I meet a stranger; what’s your favorite movies/music? Yeah, its a really boring topic cause everyone asks it, but surprisingly I haven’t posted this on my blog yet.
I’ve been kind of on a Disney marathon these days; I’m really into the older hand drawn Disney animations and prefer them to the CGI ones. My first Disney film was Oliver and Company:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb7kJ-j_dKA
Very underrated movie. I would say my top Disney films are in order:
1. Emperor’s New Groove
2. Hercules
3. Oliver and Company
4. Wreck it Ralph
5. Big Hero 6
You’ll notice no Pixar films on here; I like Toy Story 3 the best but they don’t compare to these 5. Surprisingly I would put Wreck it Ralph and Big Hero over any Pixar film. The only film from the “Disney Renaissance” I listed is Hercules, since I loved that film as a kid. I’ve never been the type of person to like “mainstream” stuff so there’s no surprise here. No Frozen, no Lion King, etc.
As for other films here they are in order:
1. Rush Hour 2 (watched this like 20 times with my brother)
2. Office Space (watched 20 times as well)
3. Airplane!
4. Harold and Kumar go to White Castle
5. Grandma’s Boy
You’ll note these are all comedy movies; I have a strong preference for light hearted movies and dislike Horror because they are the opposite. I watched Groundhog Day three days in a row with different people a few weeks ago just cause it a movie I could watch over and over again. My favorite Action movie is probably X-men First Class believe it or not. And for Sci-fi the clear one being The Matrix. Favorite drama movie is Shanghai Kiss (its an indie movie). Again, I like blockbusters like Inception, Avengers, Titanic etc too but I’m judging movies based on how often I rewatch them. And clearly, the ones I listed I watched the most.
As for musical tastes, I like everything, and my youtube clearly shows that influence. I play songs from every genre. I started with Blues and Rock when I first started playing guitar in 2005. Led Zeppelin, Hendrix, Cream, Pink Floyd, Guns N Roses were big influences. Then moved on to pop-rock led by John Mayer (still my favorite artist) in 2006. In 2008, I started playing piano a bit with my friend and was very influenced by classical music a la Chopin and Liszt. I also started getting alot into Taiwanese pop like Jay Chou and Wang lee hom at the time. Then in 2012, I got very influenced by pop thanks to a renewed interest in The Beatles, and bought an Acoustic guitar and started playing alot of pop songs. I also got very interested in Korean pop like Wondergirls and Girls Generation at the time. Then last year I was influenced by Jazz (Larry Carlton) and deep blues (Michael Bloomfield). So my musical interests are very diverse.
Here’s my favorite and most influenced artists by the date I started listening to them:
2002: Linkin Park, Blink 182
2005: Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Eric Clapton
2006: John Mayer, Stevie Ray Vaughan
2008: Chopin, Liszt, Jay Chou, Wang lee hom
2012: The Beatles, Wondergirls, Girls Generation
2013: Bruno mars, 90s pop
2014: Larry Carlton, Michael Bloomfield
As you can see, very diverse.
Now, a different topic…
Koreans love drinking games. I remember one house party in Incheon I went to in 2013 where me and my Korean friends drank until 6am. We played board games for drinking. My Korean ex-gf introduced me to some Korean drinking games back in 2012;
-Baskin Robbins 31, where each player names 1,2 or 3 numbers sequentially until they get to 31 and the person who says 31 has to drink.
-007 where a player points a finger at another person says 0, that person says 0 and points to another person and that person says 7 and says Bang! to another person and the people beside that person has to raise their hands up else they drink.
-Soju drinking game using Soju bottle cap. Every Soju bottle cap has a part that can be twisted, and each person takes turns flicking the twisted part of the cap until it comes off, then that person (or the people beside that person depending on which rules) has to drink. There’s also a number thats inside the cap. Each person takes turns guessing that number and the person who saw it has to say ‘high or low’ and the person who gets it right has to drink (or the people beside that person depending on which rules).
-the hand rhythm game.. I don’t how to really name this one, but each player has to do a series of movements in rhythm, first put their hands on their lap, second they clap their hands, third they make a thumbs up with their left thumb, fourth they make a thumbs up with their right thumb. The player who starts does these movements in rhythm then the last 2 movements (third and fourth) they say ‘player name’ on the third beat, and a number (1-4) on the fourth beat, then that player has to immediately keep the rhythm by saying their name 1-4 times. The number has to match the beat, so if its 1, then the player just has to say their name on the fourth beat. But if its 4, then that player has to say their name on beats one to four. This is hard to explain and maybe I’ll do a video sometime showing foreigners how to do this.
-The image game is a very popular one. Each person holds up five fingers on their hand. And then someone starts by saying an observation that applies to people in the group and whoever its true for has to put down a finger. So for example, if there were 5 people in the group and 3 were wearing glasses, the person would say ‘who here is wearing glasses’ and 3 of the people in the group has to put a finger down. Then it goes on to the next person. Whoever has no fingers up has to drink.
Me and my friend invented a game back in elementary school that can be played anywhere without requiring any object. It can be applied to all competitive situations and can be used for drinking as well. Its a game of knowledge, rather than physical skill. I personally like it since I read Wiki articles a lot and have a good breadth of knowledge. The rules are:
-A person picks a category. An example could be countries, states, colors, capitals, presidents, famous scientists, video games, programming languages etc I’ve even played this with the topic of Dinosaurs before.
-Then each person has to take turns naming one of the things in the category
-Each person has 30 seconds to think of something
-If a person names something wrong, or goes beyond the time limit or something that was already said before, they lose (or have to drink)
Its easy to play, and it tests a players knowledge rather than relying on pure skill. Try it out sometime with your friends next time you go to a bar or lounge!
