"One More Chance" (by will.i.am)

Here comes the moment of truth. At last.

I got my last mid-July CPA exam results; I passed two exams, BEC and FAR, but failed AUD. Shame on me.

So, with REG last May, I got three credits in total. Now all I need is to pass AUD. And Professional Ethics for getting a certificate. But, I will do them after starting my new job. This is the priority.



AUD: Auditing & Attestation
BEC: Business Environment & Concepts
FAR: Financial Accounting & Reporting
REG: Regulation

PS. btw, the pv of "One More Chance" is pretty cool.

"Umbrella" (Rihanna feat. Jay-Z)

Rain, a Korean singer, is not a rainman after all.
Although he was at the Closing Ceremony of Beijing Olympic Games last Sunday, thanks to those cloud-seeding missiles, it didn't rain. Rainman must have hided somewhere else for a while. Tokyo, for instance. We had a week long heavy rain, but thank God, finally had a little bit of sunshine today. Hallelujah!!

made in Tokyo

Now the two-week summer fest is over, but my wife and I must have been out of our mind to buy a JPY12,000 umbrella (picture above) last week. It must be the Olympic fever that drove us crazy!

"20th Century Boy" (by T-REX)

Have just watched "the Dark Knight" at a theater and added it to my favorite movie list. It's now also on my DVD shopping list. The story is as deep and twisted as "Crash", but also dynamic and powerful. This is the heaviest superhero movie I've ever watched.

Comic heroes turning into movies is not something new. "Superman", "Spiderman", "Fantastic Four" and "X-men" have been great box office hits. Another example is "미녀는 괴로워 (カンナさん、大成功です)". This Korean movie adopted a Japanese comic story. I haven't read this comic book, but the film was hilarious.

"20世紀少年 (20th Century Boys)" and "イキガミ (the Ultimate Limit)" are coming soon to the theaters this fall. Can these movies become as great as the original comic books?

Korean HipHop 101

Lawrence laughed at my question: "do you like HipHop?" He then replied, "your question is like, I am asking you if you like rice." He seemed to be proud that African Americans created HipHop music. He then gave me a lecture of HipHop 101 at Argo Tea cafe. It was last May. He would have been even more proud if he had known how such music styles spreaded to another culture.

In my opinion, Koreans have adopted and tranformed the styles very well. Korean HipHop started in the early 1990s when Seo Taiji's "난 알아요 (I know it)", the first rap song in Korea was released. The song was a huge smash hit. However, it was late 1990s, with many Korean Americans back to the country, when HipHop stepped into the Korean mainstream music. The number of Korean HipHop artists mushroomed.

Now I cannot follow who are the hottest, but my favorite Korean HipHop artists are Drunken Tiger, T (Yoon Mirae), Dynamic Duo (or previously CB Mass), Epik High and MC Sniper. For many Japanese, MC Sniper may be a good introductory K-HipHop because his songs cover some famous Japanese songs: Ryuichi Sakamoto's "the Shelering Sky" was arranged in "Baby Don't Cry", and "봄이여 오라 (Come unto Spring)" used Yumi Matsutoya's "春よ来い (Come unto Spring)". Also, a Rocky's soundtrack song is featured in "Better than Yesterday".

With combinations of 21 vowels and 19 consonants, Korean HipHop songs RHYME ALL THE TIME.

"Touch the Sky" (by Kanye West ft. Lupe Fiasco)

Have been to Mt. Fuji (3,776m) last week. It was my first (and may be the last?) climbing.

Lucky to see a sunrise at the top

skywalkers but no jedi

Clouds are covering land just like Caffè Latte's milk foam on an espresso shot.

Back to the Future

So, here comes a deja-vu.

South Korea's President says his country should pursue a future-oriented relationship with Japan. Then Japan unnerves its neighboring country by bringing up a controversial issue. This time, Dokdo (in Korean) or Takeshima (in Japanese), whichever you prefer to call them.

I'm not sure whether the islands belong to Korea or Japan. However, I believe it is not historians but politicians obligated to discuss and determine the sovereignty issue over the islands. It seems to me that this dispute has been unresolved over half a century because of the negligence of politicians and diplomats. Both Korean and Japanese.

share a slice peacefully

Politicians and media in both countries should stop using the islands as political tool. It has always helped boost Korean president's approval rate, though. Or is there any confidential agreement between the two administrations?: Keeping the islands for dispute so that Japanese government brings up the issue whenever the approval rate of Korean president gets closer to the bottom.

When the Korean president talks about its future-oriented relationship with Japan, he always add such that the past should never be forgotten. Indeed, future is merely an extention of present and, past. I wonder if this is what the "future-oriented relationship" really means.

Still, I'm getting sick of watching this political sitcom. As far as I remember, this "Back to the Future" dispute have arisen during the administrations of Lee MyungBak, Roh MooHyun and Kim Young Sam (not sure about Kim DaeJung). Given that the movie series "Back to the Future" ended with the three stories, isn't it time to end this political adventure comedy as well?