An Honorary Spanish Diva, I am

How come people when using their ATM cards, they say "PIN Number"?

PIN stands for "Personal Identification Number"..isn't it a bit redundant to say PIN Number then if the "N" in PIN stands for "number"?

Just a thought. I always just say "PIN".

Well kiddies, the end has come for this year. And let me say it's been an interesting one for me. Its definitely far from being the place that I thought I would be when thinking about it but you know what? I'm healthy, young and full of love and thirst for life so I shall go places. It's also been a year of firsts for me. This is the first year that I've held on to ONE job, believe it or not! I know it sounds awful but every year I switch jobs. When I was younger it would be because I get bored of them..but my last 2 jobs have been "involuntary lay-offs". I don't see it as a travesty but moreso God's way of telling me something. What that is I have yet to find out. I'm not going to lose any sleep over it though.

My favourite moments of this year...

* Meeting Bibi Gaytan
* seeing Shakeaspeare again and havign Chus play with that cute Maltese
* Discovering Raquel Olmedo's singing career!!!!
* Seeing Tiffany again with Joe and she in turn baptizing herself as "our Godmother of love".
* Being alive, healthy and employed
* Getting my Daniela Romo debut LP after years of searching for it.
* Meeting Chava in person

In no particular order, these were my highlights. This year has been a good one for me with music. I think. Working at Tower did have a benefit, I would get free Cds!

My favourite CDs this year, in no order.

HEATHER HEADLEY - IN MY MIND


Fantastic fantastic R&B record. Its almost "AC RnB" but it never gets sappy like Natalie Cole or Vanessa Williams records. And her voice is lovely.

JOHN LEGEND - ONCE AGAN


Wow, John really knocked me out with this record. I was a fan of his debut album but this record exceeds it as it does not have that overdubbed Kanye West touch of his record. Here its smooth 70's soul that will tickle your fancy

BELINDA - UTOPÍA

I can't stand Belinda..and as much as I wanted to not like this CD, I couldn't. Its fantastic teen pop but everything is done right. The vocals, the 80's tinged pop, the songwriting, everything is perfect and its a shame this little girl has done a better pop album than established acts in Mexico. Keep it up!

GWEN STEFANI - SWEET ESCAPE.

Say what you will, Gwen's one of those artists who likes to have fun with her music. Gone are the whiney "you broke up with me, I hate you" songwriting of her No Doubt days. Selfless fun!

THE PRESETS - BEAMS

This Australian band has yet to cause a stir in the USA, but their song "Are You The One?" captivated my attention. Its total electro and its fun music when you need to be active around your house or out running.

NELLY FURTADO - LOOSE

As much as I liked Nelly's first 2 albums, I really never expected her to adopt the RnB stylings she did on this record. And wow did she surprise me! She totally made it work for her and never sounded off. Probably the best pop album this year

LETOYA - LETOYA.

I first downloaded this CD jsut to hear and never did I think such a talent existed in Destiny's Child (her former group). This CD oozes with soul and Letoya's voice is fantastic! She is much better at singing than Beyoncé. I can see why Matthew Knowles never let her sing lead, she would have outshined her gorgeous daughter.

NOELIA - 40 GRADOS

Here's another person that I did not care for at all yet delivered a good album. Her early albums were borderline ethnic pop and ballads..then for a while turned to Reggaeton and Urban rhythms. With this CD she hooked up with Mexican producer great Adrian Posse and adopted the "rock pop" sound of Avril Lavigne and Kelly Clarkson. But she did it right! I don't think she's ever sounded as good at a genre as she does here.

JESSE & JOY - ESTA ES MI VIDA

Though I just discovered this CD, I must say its been one of my frequently listened to albums. This bro and sister duo from Mexico creates great Brit Pop and Joy, the lead singer, has a great soulful voice. So Elan was right, there is soul in Mexico. :)

MORNINGWOOD

This CD came out in the early part of the year and became one of my frequently listened to. Its fun upbeat music with heavy guitars. You would probably recognize the songs, they whored them off to TV commercials and shows. Anyone know "The Nth Degree" and "Jet Setter"?

CHRISTINA MILIAN - SO AMAZIN'

2006 just hasn't been her year, poor thing. But this CD is really good. Its her most solid effort to date and its a big mixture of Hip Hop and RnB stylings of Ciara. I think she has yet to find her own style but still, the CD is not as horrible as people made it out to be. The title track could have been the jam of the summer, but Def Jam dropped her. Oh well.

And an honorable mention to Rihanna..whose CD I hated but "S.O.S." was stuck in my head all year.
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So there you have it folks, my favourites of this year. I'm sure 2007 is going to look great for me. I turn 25 and things can only get better. I love you all out there who read my blog and give me your love through kind wishes and thoughts. Your positive energy is appreciated. May you all have a great ringing of the new year and I hope to still see you all here!

Ciao!

Omg..as u may have read on my previous post, I have been playing games online with Emulators. But I came across this particular one for the old Atari 2600 System. It's called "Custer's Revenge". The object of this game is to fuck an Indian woman tied up to a pole! I'm not joking! Its hilarious! Apparently according to Wikipedia.org, the feminists jumped down their throats in 1982 when this game was out. This game is sooo wrong yet I still play it!

Just had to share. Here's a pic.

So folks, the end finally came for me at Tower Records. Its been an exhausting and interesting 3 months to say the least. I really really didn't think I could make it through for all this torture but I did. I'm a survivor.

I'll really miss Tower Records. Not so much the fact that I was working there, but this was a great place to find any type of music, even if it was overpriced. Especially for LAtin music, finding catalog albums is going to be incredibly hard to find physically in a store. No other store will carry CDs by all my old broads like Tower used to. Oh well :(

But now that its over, I'm going to relax for the rest of the year! I'm so excited even though I know I shouldn't be. I feel like I'm getting a Winter Break.

With this situation..there are 10 words I never ever want to hear again

1. Liquidating
2. Percent
3. Close
4. Lively (creepy liquidator guy's name who was there EVERY FUCKING DAY)
5. Debit and Credit
6. Validate
7. In Stock
8. Forty-Nine (long story)
9. Fixtures
10. Discounts


These are words I would use EVERY day and make me cringe at thinking about them. *Shudder*.

Well folks, thanks for all the kind wishes and believe me, I shall be triumphant and find a better job.

Howdy!

This is exciting in a way...my last week of work. And I have absolutely no idea what I will be doing in 2007. I'm going to enjoy living in ignorance for a while. I have full checks coming, plus my one week of vacation pay and then eventually my tax refund. And if worse case scenario I'm not able to land a job somewhere, I'll try my best to file for unemployment though I have a feeling I may not be eligible (long story folks). So I should be OK.

Anyway, enough of that. Being that I've been taking it easy, I've finally entered the world of GAME EMULATORS. Ever since I first got a computer, I've known about these programs that can emulate old video games and even arcade games yet I never really fully understood how to use them. They don't require alot of memory but on my PC I tried when I got the internet and it never worked.

But on Macs, everything is incredibly easy and after a while it was a matter of finding the programs for Macs, dragging them on and alas, I was ready to play! Amazing! So for the last 2 months, I downloaded nothing but Nintendo, Sega and my favourites, the Turbo Grafx-16 games! My god, so many games that I used to play as a kid at my fingertips! This provides hours of entertainment for me. I've even stopped downloading other crap and focused all my free and wasteable time to these games! Most recently though, I've been addicted to this one space shooter game for the Turbo Grafx 16 called "Blazing Lasers".


However, it wasn't all entirely easy and I am taking the liberty of writing this all out should there be other Mac-users who had this problem. Now mind you, I'm new to all this yet I was able to patiently figure out all these details. That is a testament to my ability to learn anything at all as I am a patient person and a fast learner. First, when downloading these programs, I was unable to use full screen and to configure my keypad. So I had to do another search and try to get help and I found that to do this I had to find an "Emulator Enhancer". Now what this does is it adds extra features to your emulators. So I did and then I had to go to my system folder and drag the program to the "application support" folder. Now it added all the features to every single emulator, including the ability to plug in a USB controller!

Yep, you guessed it. As soon as I learned this I ran out and bought the cheapest most plain USB controller I could find! I was so excited, I would be able to play my old nintendo games with a controller! So I bought this "Logitech Precision Gamepad" for 9.99 and checked that it was compatible to Macs. I plug it in and..well it does nothing! The system recognizes the controller but nothing was happening. After doing yet more extensive research, I learn that Logitech controllers are NOT compatible with game Emulators for Macs but do work for everything else. I was mad, pissed and dissapointed. I was so excited! So for 2 months I went on.


THEN..I don't know what I did, but I downloaded a Super Nintendo Emulator (Snes9x) and somehow I was able to configure the gamepad for all my emulators!! I don't even know what made me check back after I had given up on it, but I did!

I went in to my emulator options and on the tab for "joysticks" where before I wasn't able to make anything set, I pressed the "set" button for the individual button I wanted and pressed the button I wanted to set on the controller and it recognized it. So I set up all my emulators with this joypad control and was able to play!!

I'm so excited! Now I've moved on to the next level and downloaded an Arcade emulator. This one is a little more complicated than the rest. Its not a matter of finding the program and then the games and that's that. You have to find the program and go through the system folders and install the actual game programs into the folders. Once you're done, you turn on the application (which is like a mini arcade machine on your screen) and if done right, the game appears as an option to the left. I think for the most part, I've had success in installing things right but again I didn't know anything on how to do this yet I was able to figure it out. So now I am enjoying the coin-op versions of "The Simpsons", "X-Men", the Capcom fighting games ("Street Fighter, Marvel-vs-Capcom) and my favourites, Bubble Bobble, Ghosts N Goblins and DonkeyKong!

So yes, I've been quite geeked over this. Hehehe. Thanks for reading!

Hola!

This has been happening alot lately at work and it doesn't really get to me but it does annoy me and I thought I should address this. Being that the whole buisness is going under, why do some people find the need to ask you "so what are you going to do?".

1. You don't know me, who the fuck are you?

2. Get another job, what do you expect?

3. If you're not paying my bills, I don't see how that's any of your concern. Unless you got a job for me or something.

4. Why should I tell you anything?

Seriously, why do people even ask these questions?! And then the worse is when people are "Well I hope you get another job!""Good luck!". Ugh that annoys the shit out of me. Because apparently I really really am retarded and can't do anything else.

I usually ignore people and stare blankly. And I say something like "Good look to you in life! I hope you find a good place to spend your money!". :P God I hate people.

Well to be completely fair, some people, though not alot, are genuinely sympathetic. Like they'll say things, "well that sucks! Damn capitalism.". Or even the consumer reaction, which is the same one I have..."where am I going to get my import CDs and singles from?!". That is OK. But once you start poking areound in other people's business making insensitive comments is where I draw the line. I don't even tolerate that from my own mother, now a complete stranger. Fuck off.

Sup folks!

Nothing new from my end. Just riding out the clock at work and waiting things out. I'm just going to try to have a merry Christmas and a happy 2007.

So today is La Virgen De Guadalupe's birthdate. Or the day she was discovered by Juan Diego, I forget. I'm sure people hung around in the underpass in the wee hours of the morning today at Fullerton, lol.

Oh well folks. Anyone seen any good movies lately? Other than Almodovar's Volver (which I give a 8/10), I haven't.

Well I promise yo write to you guys later. There's tons of things to discuss but I have to be at work in 30 mins. Ciao!

Thank you so much to you guys who read my blog. So sorry for the delay, thanks for the patience


So its been a while since I wrote. Not sure exactly why. I've been busy looking for work, having family drama, being deppressed at my circumstances while trying to balance the good I have with my partner, my dog, my health and my music. All this can be exhausting so I think I didn't have time to write. Sorry! But I'm back! Happy december

Other than the usual, I've been the same. Have any of you guys heard any good new CD's? Being that I no longer work for a real record store, I don't get much new music and I don't make enough money to go out and physically buy albums. I have to resort to whats online. The CD's I recommend are the new John Legend (bloody fantastic RnB), Jesse & Joy (new Mexican bro-sis duo) and believe it or not...the new Gwen Stefani album


Its a crap album, but then again so was her last! That's what was appealing about it, the lack of seriousness. In all fairness, I initially despised Gwen's debut for those reasons..but after being shoved crap like Kelly Clarkson, M.I.A. and even worse (especially being gay, its a sin to not like it), MADONNA...I came to appreciate a mentally unchallenging album like Gwen's. Its a nice vacation from real music. So this new records pumps up the crap and the charm as well! But fags be warned..there is no "What You Waiting For?" electro on this record. Its more in the vein of "Hollaback Girl".

Christmas is coming up..and I don't have a job! I still don't know if I can get unemployment (long story). I'm rather excited actually! I had to work last year so this will be a nice vacation.

There's plenty more to come, I promise to write at least 3 times a week from now on. Believe me, I need the release of these thoughts. Not just for you guys to read..but writing it and just having come out is necessary. Letting u in to my little void is a nice dessert. I appreciate the feedback.

Ta ta!