Christmas in Maryland

Hi everyone! I've been meaning to give an update a while ago, but I kept forgetting. Anyway, I'm back with some things to share. First of all, Nick and I are in Maryland right now staying at his parents place for Christmas. We arrived on Wednesday, and have been enjoying a nice, restful stay...so far. The rest of the family arrives today, so the house is going to feel a bit crowded, and everyone will probably be helping out with the cooking duties and such. I haven't been asked to make anything, and that's probably a good thing 'cuz I don't think I'd handle the time crunch and the stress all that well. And besides, Nick's mom has already ordered a ton of desserts, so why add another?

Yesterday, we went and saw "memiors of a geisha," which was better than any of us thought it would be considering the various negative reviews. None of us have read the book, so we were surprised as the story unfolded, which probably added to the positive experience we had. I was impressed with Zhang Ziyi's English considering that she started learning it about two years ago, and Gong Li plays a very scary character. According to a Time magazine article, during the filming of the movie, one of the children wouldn't stop crying after she looked at her because she had the look of ice (or something like that). Anyway, we liked the movie and that was all that really mattered.

Two weekends ago was the Google holiday party, which was held in the Silent Movie Theatre in Hollywood. It was fun...crowded...but fun. We got to watch two silent movies with a live piano player. Then there was a montage of movie parodies featuring Google employees, and that was highly amusing. And finally, we had the high school photos of various Googlers, but mine didn't make it on there for some reason. And then there were the door prizes: an iHome, iPod video, PSP, and finally, an XBox 360. Neither Nick nor I won any of the four prizes, but that's OK, everyone got a bottle of champagne to take home with them. All in all, it was a great evening.

And that's all that I can think of to say right now. To those of you in Seattle, we'll be seeing you shortly (we arrive on Tuesday).

Jerry Liu

Grammys

Hi! Just a quick post to say congratulations to Kylie for being nominated for a grammy. The song "I believe in you" was chosen to compete for the best dance recording grammy. Her competition:

Galvanize
The Chemical Brothers Featuring Q-Tip

Say Hello
Deep Dish

Wonderful Night
Fatboy Slim & Lateef

Daft Punk Is Playing At My House
LCD Soundsystem

Guilt Is A Useless Emotion
New Order

I don't know any of the other songs in this category, but I've been reading that The Chemical Brothers' "Galvanize" will be stiff competition for Kylie. I hope she wins, of course. This is her fourth straight grammy nomination, so that's an accomplishment, I suppose.

And that was all...hope all of you are doing well!

Jerry Liu

But can they sing?

No! For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, "but can they sing" is a Vh1 show where nine "celebrities" compete in a singing contest...the catch? None of them can sing. I mean really, Kim Alexis's version of "the way you love me" was awful. Bai Ling sang "like a virgin" in a completely different octave, and wore a pink tutu-like skirt which she later took off in order to expose her light pink hot pants. Nick and I believed that Carmine Gotti Agnello would eventually win the show 'cuz the demographic for this show are teenage girls--the same type of people who would vote for him no matter how poorly he sang...and trust me...it was baaaaaaad. Morgan Fairchild was probably the best singer out of them all, and I really wanted her to win, but she had no audience to vote for her. Nick wanted Michael Copon, the original blue Power Ranger, to win, partly 'cuz he could sing, and partly 'cuz he was cute. (If you, for some reason, watch the show and haven't seen the results show yet, skip to the next paragraph). Anyway, Carmine and Michael made it to the final three, along with Morgan Fairchild, which was a complete surprise to both of us, but a good surprise 'cuz she could sing. Unfortunately, she didn't make it to the final two...and Nick and I assumed that Carmine would win, but we were wrong 'cuz MIchael actually got more votes. We were both happy, and it did give the show some credibility that people are actually voting for the competitor's singing ability...but not really 'cuz the final two were two young men flashing their bodies in order to get the girl vote. Anyway, that show has been our (ok, my) guilty little pleasure of the past few weeks.

And now we're watching the top 100 one-hit wonders of all time, and I really don't know very many of them. Right now we're at 49 with "turn the beat around."

Oh, I wanted to tell all of you that if you e-mail me, to please use my gmail account at: ponophobic@gmail.com. It's the only account that I can access both at home and at work, so I can immediately respond to anyone using that account.

And Nick's USC e-mail account doesn't work anymore, and supposedly the system doesn't ping the sender with an e-mail saying that. So in case any of you have been e-mailing him on that account and wondering why he hasn't replied to you, well, that's why. He also has a gmail account: nickwah@gmail.com.

Ok, that's all for now. Hope all of you are doing well!

Jerry Liu