Hung Truong: The Blog!

The Amazon.com Garden Gnome Saga, Part 2

Amazon.com is apparently in possession of a number of Garden Gnomes that it seriously needs to offload quickly. Because they mentioned them again on their homepage:

I can see how you might buy a female Mighican Gnome cheerleader when you buy the male Michigan Gnome, but WTF? 6% buy an Ohio State Gnome with the Michigan one!? Are they trying to cover their bases or something? Honestly, what business does an Ohio State Gnome have being on the same lawn as a Michigan Gnome? Amazon.com, you disappoint me.

Did You Know Amazon.com Sells NCAA Garden Gnomes?a

Neither did I, until Amazon thought it’d be a good idea to notify me of this.

Mega Man 9 Observations

I got Mega Man 9 for the Wii about a week ago. When I first got it I played it for a while and beat no one. Then I tried again today and so far I’ve beat three bosses.

Mega Man 9 was made in the tradition of the old-school Mega Man games. So there’s instant death spikes. Question: Why didn’t Dr. Wily make “Spike Man?” That’d pretty much make it impossible for Mega Man to beat him.

Ingrid Michaelson: Be OK

Ingrid Michaelson just released a new cd: Be OK. This one’s sort of a single-ish one since a lot of the material is either from previous stuff or live recordings. There’s 11 tracks but three are live, and there’s some duplication (live vs. studio, and acoustic). So I’d say there’s more than a single’s worth of stuff but not quite an album’s worth.

Ingrid continues to do cool stuff with her awesome voice and funky phrasing. It’s pretty unique. Her actual songwriting seems a bit amateurish or at least good but not super great. I guess her style is lots of repetition, which doesn’t work when applied to every song. It’s like the “Green Eggs and Ham” of music. But that’s her style so that’s cool I guess.

I also noticed that her style seems to be using more vibrato and running around with her voice. I’m not too impressed by it. It’s especially noticeable on “Over The Rainbow.” She can do cooler stuff with her voice than that, I think.

Finally, I’m kind of disappointed that she’s not wearing glasses on the cover!!! As a glasses-girl lover I am appalled. Well, not really. But I went ahead and threw the album cover into that “virtual try on glasses” thing I used to pick my own glasses:

Much better!

Anyway, there’s some cool songs on here. Plus the proceeds of the CD go to standup2cancer.org which is nice. My favorite song is probably “Giving Up” (which doesn’t sound like it should be on a cancer fighting CD, but whatever).

Also, I am pretty bummed that the tickets for the Ingrid Michaelson concert in Ann Arbor are already sold out! I guess she has a pretty solid fanbase here. Maybe she should book in Detroit or something. *Hint hint*. I already saw her last year but it’d be cool to see her again, especially before she gets uber famous (which should happen pretty soon).

Talking Pokemon With The Kids

I had a chat with my 8 and 6 year-old nephew and niece, respectively, this evening over the phone. They’re really into Pokemon now. What weirds me out is that I was playing Pokemon before they were even born!

Apparently there’s a lot more Pokemon around now. I know the original 151 and some of the ones after that, and I have Pokemon Diamond (or is it Pearl), but seriously, there’s too many for me to remember.

My niece and nephew both have their own favorites. One likes the scary legendary ones (I told him they look scary and he disagreed), Palkia, Dialga and some other ones. And the other likes Togetic, the evolution of Togepi. Yes, I remembered that!

Is it strange to have this much common ground with 8 and 6 year-olds? I guess it’s kind of cool, but sad at the same time. Pokemon is pretty freakin’ rad though, and I look forward to battling them at Christmas time when I see them. Bulbasaur, I choose you!