bonski’s box

I enjoy music, it keeps me sane and gets me in the groove of things like preparing for a presentation, coding furiously and analysis. Depending on the situation, the music that listen varies: pysching myself up:Rock/Alternative, pushing the envelope:ear drums bashing with Dream Theater’s drums, or relaxing:Jazz/Instrumentals(mostly John Williams.) That’s why I missed the radio stations in the Philippines(Joey, Killerbee, Crossover) in Bacolod, this stations were basically my buddy during college, always there for me.

Here in the Middle East, the radio stations here are for the most part basic, it means that sometimes they play good songs but most of the time they don’t(country yuck!!) Good thing I chanced upon Bitstop’s(a Philippine ISP) eradioportal which streams most the better radio stations in the Philippines. I can now listen music and even AM, real-time. It was great and all, but sometimes their Media Streaming server isn’t working and sometimes I don’t like the music that they play(choosy little devil.)

Then I stumbled upon Pandora(isn’t the Internet great?) which is basically an Internet radio which streams audio to users. Now the concept isn’t just playing music but rather playing music or artist that you like. If you’re familiar with tags in blogs, it acts basically the same to connect Artists and music together but instead of tags it uses(I think) music genres to connect each other. So it seems you have a seamless stream of music of the Artists plus music/artists of the same genres. The good thing about it though, although they’re of the same genre you might not like that song given to you, you can flag the song "I Don’t Like It" and it will move along the next song. I think the purpose of this service is to have the artists new and veterans alike to have a wide variety of audience and make those audience aware of some of their songs. That’s why the menu also shows buy from ITunes or Amazon, nice marketing tool. Every search, will be placed on your separate "Station", although I think in the long run it will become un-wieldy when you have a lot of stations created, I don’t see any sort of maintenance section of the flash application.  Nevertheless, it’s now goodbye (for now) to my MP3 collection as I tune in to this free service, as I discovered new artists/songs as I "stream" along this cool internet radio.

I have always been a Sci-Fi kind of guy, dreamt that I was Luke SkyWalker; wielding the ever so coveted Light Saber, flying the X-Wing to the heart of the Death Star and "Use the Force Luke" destroyed it(several times in-fact). Fan of Sci-Fi movie(s) like: Contact, Battlestar Galactica, Tron, Alien and a whole lot of others, with exception of Star Trek, never really clicked with me, must be the tights they’re wearing hehehe.

Well, imagine me getting hooked with Gilmore Girls, I have my share of drama series mostly foreign(the only local drama series I watch more is Malaala mo Kaya) the likes of ER, CSI, Boston Public among others, which although are drama series are not perpetually melodramatic as our local shows which does nothing but make housewives cry heheh(no offense.) We never really took notice with GG before but we(me and my wife) sort of got hooked as the season progressed, must be the storyline and the characters themselves. To those not familiar with Gilmore Girls a little overview of the show and the characters:

* Gilmore girls is the story of single mom Lorelai Gilmore(Lauren Graham) and daughter Lorelai "Rory" Gilmore(Alexis Bledel) sometimes whimsical struggle at life, living at the now mythical place called "Stars Hollow" supposedly somewhere near Connecticut. Lorelai who got pregnant in her teens, chose to be independent from the suffocating tentacles of her domineering Mother Emily Gilmore(Kelly Bishop), and tried rearing up Rory by herself by dropping out of college and started working as housekeeping at a small Inn, which she managed later after several years of working there. Rory had wanted to go to Harvard all here life and be the next "Christianne Amanpour", in order for her to do that she has to go to a reputable prep school, Chilton, so Lorelai swallowed her pride and asked for her parent’s help. The parents who are very well off agreed, actually it was sealed by an actual contract, to pay for Rory’s education provided they will come every Friday night for dinner with her Grandparents. Of course, Lorelai dreads every Friday night dinner, but has come to terms of the inevitable, although if she can come up with an excuse not to be there she would. Basically, that’s where the story took off, Rory’s early struggle in Chilton, Lorelai’s trouble with finding a partner she can keep or in the later Season(4) she would be managing her own inn(The DragonFly Inn), Rory’s change of mind of going to Harvard and instead choose Yale, among others.

What amazed me was that how fast this two girls(ladies) talk, most of it with wit and humor although sometimes the sardonic kind. What impressed me most is Alexis Bledel who is not a native English speaker but a Spanish speaker(she hails from South America), and had to learn English in school, deliver those lines with the finesse of a native speaker. Their relationship are more of buddies than mom-and-daughter, although it’s cool it sometimes is a hassle for Lorelai on where to draw the line. Each season(I’ve watched seasons 4,5,6) could stand on its own without you even watching the previous ones, you can pretty much catch up with the story. The stories are down to earth, and mostly what would happen in such scenarios, although sometimes they(writers) mix some ridiculous character(s)(Kirk, Taylor) just to keep it from being stale. I just watched the 5th season, that was the first time I’ve seen a big friction between the 2, where Rory got involved with her old flame, Dean(Jared Padalecki ) who was already married, the two didn’t spoke with each other until Rory realised her mistake during her Euro trip. The budding romance between Lorelai’s long time friend, Luke, began to blossom during this season and I think in Season six there’s wedding bells in the offing, I have yet to watch this season with my wife. Season 6 been sitting on my laptop for some time, but as always I wanted to watch it my wife since she loves this show as I do.

Lauren Graham has been nominated several times already, sadly no awards yet, reward or no reward though she’s just the epitome of a Lorelai Gilmore; the production would be hardpressed to find an alternative should she leave, which I think she won’t. Alexis Bledel is just so angelic, which could be both good and bad for her, good because she really looks and behaves the part of Rory but isn’t credible enough for other roles(her role in Sin City still reminds me of Rory not Becky the prostitute) and could be typecasted. She still doesn’t look like 25 years old, she’s just too baby face for mature roles, although it didn’t stop Winona Ryder. Hopefully she gets a meatier role next time.

We’ll start watching Season 6 this Friday(Nov 17) during my wife’s day off, and spend another day with the Gilmores.