A new wave of Claymania should be in full swing right now in America, with the release of his debut singles - Bridge Over Troubled Water and This Is The Night - today. Pre-order sales have exceeded those of Ruben's own CD by 4 times, according to the New York Times, and with the new "Clay It Forward" movement started on (where else?) the Internet, Clay's position at the top will no doubt be cemented for many months to come.

Yep, Clay It Forward is modelled after the novel/film "Pay It Forward", which had Haley Joel Osment as a young boy with an ambitious mission to create a domino effect of good deeds across the country and the world. With Clay It Forward, Clayfans are buying his CDs in multiple copies, and giving them away to others who haven't discovered him yet. It's a great concept, and I'll very likely adopt it myself when the albums get here. But more importantly, I hope this will evolve into a full-fledged effort, in the form of perhaps a charity foundation. Interested parties can go to this website's forum for more details.

Just downloaded a bunch of priceless demos of Clay's, pre-American Idol. You can get them here. So far, I've listened to My Girl, Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me and Dream Lover. The second's my favourite, and although the background music is cheesy beyond imagination (think of bad karaoke), Clay manages to rise above it with his amazing vocals. He also sounds remarkably young here, though not without his trademark power. A real treat!

And I can finally pick out the best birthday present I got this year -- a Clay Aiken CD, burned for me by a fantastic lady from Florida, containing MP3s of all his American Idol performances, plus the inspirational piece "Go The Distance" and the ballad "On The Wings Of Love". This is the sort of generosity Clay's capable of inducing. Isn't it great? :)


Finally, let me strongly recommend to you "Finding Nemo", which I caught yesterday after my night shift. The Lido cinema was packed, and the crowd intelligent, so all the witty jokes were duly appreciated. Even the kids were pretty quiet.

From the creators of "Toy Story" and "Monsters, Inc.", their latest offering has surpassed all its predecessors, not just in terms of ingenious script, but also in animation artistry. Reviews have been unanimously excellent, and for good reason. The colours are gorgeous, the characters possess more personality than some humans I know, and the humour -- absolutely delicious! Insider movie jokes abound, with scenes from "Psycho" and "The Shining". The action never stops, so watch out for the sharks, whales, jellyfish, sea turtles, pelicans and really scary seagulls.

But ultimately, it's the characters that make this movie extremely enjoyable. Nemo is adorable, Albert Brooks does a fine job voicing Marlin ( think of Beau Bridges or Winnie The Pooh ), and Ellen DeGeneres is a hoot as Dory, the blue fish with short-term memory loss so severe she should be in the sequel to "Memento". My other favourite is Crush the sea turtle, with his surfer slang -- "Hey dude, not on the shell okay? Just waxed it." -- and suitably spaced-out facial expressions. Keanu Reeves, eat your heart out!

This film had me laughing my guts out, but don't be late, 'cos there's a short piece just before the show starts, which was made in 1989 by the then-unknown Pixar team. Makes you wonder why they didn't get discovered much earlier ( "Toy Story" was released only in 1995 ). But then, better late than never. :)