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wStuff You Don't Wanna Know But Are Reading Anyway |
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I dunno how you found this, but alas, here you are. So enjoy the frightening fruits of my troubled little brain.
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wTuesday, December 29, 2009 |
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feeling: uh... the word has slipped my mind...
listening to: Kuwata Keisuke - Tokyo
Haven't been updating blogs much... not much to post about, I guess. December was busy and crazy, as they always are, but life has now calmed down and I'm going to take the risk of stating, on the third-from-last day of the month, that this is probably the first December in my whole life that I haven't been sick. Knock on wood... *counts down hours to January*
Been playing with a few of my Christmas toys these past few days. >> Such as it is, anyway... mostly cramming things into my new 1TB hard drive and making space on my C drive for all my new Sims 2 and Spore software. Also got a couple of Peanuts collection DVDs, and was amused and delighted to learn that they include Japanese language versions. So yes, I just watched a good dozen '60s and '70s Peanuts specials in Japanese, and somehow I think it was even cuter than the English ones I'm used to.
One of the cooler experiences of my month, though, was when we were driving back north from my brother's house on the 25th, and I looked out the window and saw two bald eagles hanging out in a tree in a field along the highway. o_o I didn't know we had wild bald eagles in Ohio, especially this far south...
And er, in even more random non-Christmas stuff, Yuu's former guitarist Suicide Ali has started up a new band called LIX. (period included, and it's read as "lix altair")... and Noa, former support guitarist for BLOOD, has started a new band called Luzmelt. Both are looking VERY promising as of right now. And I kinda hope we can bring LIX. here to the states sometime, just because their vocalist is really pretty. ¬_¬
Speaking of bands, GPKISM (starring Kiwamu, former BLOOD leader) is coming back for a tour spanning January and February, so I've been trying to decide whether to go and see them at least once. They don't really need me as staff anymore since the other GPKISM member is Australian (hence English-speaking), but it's nice to see Kiwamu and Ai every now and then. Better news, though, is that Suicide Ali is coming back in April, to a convention in Pittsburgh. We may well be on the way to getting them over here twice a year instead of once, just as Miwa was wishing out loud as we were driving them to the airport after Nekocon...
And, uh, if there was something else I meant to write about I can't remember what it was... and this is probably long enough anyway, so I guess that's it for now.
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dragged from Becky's stream of consciousness at 12/29/2009 09:39:00 PM
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wWednesday, November 25, 2009 |
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feeling: groggy
listening to: BLOOD - Obsession
Well... what's been going on...
Went to Nekocon in Virginia the first weekend of November to staff for Suicide Ali in their second US appearance. The result was a huge success, I think. Finished writing my personal reports at least a week ago, but I've spent forever trying to shave them down to one that I can post publicly on LJ. As of now, after so many editing runs I've lost count, it's just over 24 pages... orz
And for some reason, ever since I came back from that excursion, my motivation has been at an all-time low. I don't know why, but it's kind of ticking me off. I still have far too much to do and this constant tired, run-down, sluggishness stuff is not gonna cut it.
I know normally when I go off on a band tour/trip like this, all I want to do for a couple weeks after I get home is work on stuff relating to that band. My own reports, translation work for them, fan translations of lyrics or blogs, etc... so this might, partially at least, be a dragged-out version of that sort of Suicide Ali fangirl haze. Like I said, I finished my con reports last week, and in the week or so before that I finished translating all the SA lyrics I had that weren't done yet and posted them on Taiji Project (the only two I don't have are two that they never released lyrics for, to my knowledge)... so yeah, I kind of ran out of SA stuff to do days ago.
Well, until yesterday. About a year ago I was emailing back and forth with Hiroshi about making an English version of their homepage, but then not long after I got started with it they went through the member change and overhauled their site, so I didn't get far. Then at Nekocon Hiroshi told me that apparently, for some reason he didn't understand either, it would be impossible to build an English version based on the design of their original homepage. But just yesterday I found that the site had been totally revamped so it will finally be possible to make an English version... but it seems they had to sacrifice Goshi's awesome original design to do it. See, Kiwamu made it. Which means it looks exactly like all the other websites he's made in the past couple years. >> Sad that it's lost its originality, but I guess at least more fans around the world will finally have access to Suicide Ali. And I will get to translate the content for it after all, so... yay?
Uh, I think I lost the original point of this post. Not that there really was one, but. Yeah, I should quit while I'm ahead... or... something.
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dragged from Becky's stream of consciousness at 11/25/2009 06:10:00 PM
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wSunday, October 18, 2009 |
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feeling: tired
listening to: Queen - It's a Kind of Magic
Apparently Magnus' sickly spells are coming in some kind of cycle now. After my last post here, he was fine again for about 5 days, but then suddenly started having the same problems again... then about 3 days later he got better, then just today, he started looking miserable yet again. Only difference is that unlike the first spell he had, with these last couple flare-ups he's still been willing to eat. No idea what to make of these little cycles... I've never seen anything like it before. Not nearly this drastic, anyway. Literally, one day he's lying on the gravel panting and dying, and the next he's bopping around chasing my fingers and dancing for kibbles, then a few days later it goes the other way around. Weird...
In other news, Nekocon is coming up... and Suicide Ali's second US live (followed immediately by the third on the following night). Normally I'd be absolutely incurably psyched about this, but this time I'm just... really anxious, for a lot of reasons. To the point where I've actually had nightmares about it. Not like eek-scary-it's-gonna-kill-me nightmares, but the psychological kind.
But anyway, that's not the point... one of the things that makes this time more nervewracking is that I've done a lot more managerial-type stuff than I normally do when BLOOD or Suicide Ali has come here in the past. A couple reasons for that - first being that Kiwamu usually acts as the go-between along with Roger to get everything booked and arranged for them, but Kiwamu has been on a South/Central American (even I'm not sure anymore) tour for like, at least a month now, and won't be back until the end of this month. So instead I had to work with Roger on a lot of the booking and liaison work for the band, their staff, their Japanese fans who are flying here to see them, and our own US staff... which did not get any easier when Roger took off to spend 4 weeks in Japan, leaving me to tie up all the loose ends. Not that I mind all this, of course... it's just a lot more than I'm used to, and leaves me worrying more because if something goes wrong, it's just as likely to be my fault. I'm shouldering a LOT more responsibility than usual with this con - and all of this so far was just the tip of the glacier. The real test won't even start until we actually get to Virginia. It's kind of extremely frightening, and all the other anxieties I have about this con on both personal and professional levels don't exactly help matters...
Oh well... all I can do is buckle down and take things as they come, and just hope it will turn out to be a positive experience.
Anyway, back to spending the rest of the night dead tired but wide awake since I was so tired today I unintentionally took two naps...
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dragged from Becky's stream of consciousness at 10/18/2009 11:33:00 PM
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feeling: sweaty
listening to: Maou BGMs stuck in my head
Been thinking lately that I should keep a college-rule notebook around to make into a sort of daily diary/journal thing. Not because I want to make all my blogging completely private or anything - I don't even have any idea what I would come up with to write in it - but just because lately, on the rare occasions that I do pick up a pen or pencil and have to write/draw stuff, I can actually feel the weakness in my hand compared to, say, when I was in college and wrote miles of notes and papers and stuff every day. I can also feel my lexicon of English vocabulary deteriorating... blogging more would probably help that to some extent, but yeah, the weakness of my writing hand strikes me more, I guess. And I figure forcing myself to write something every day - a diary entry, a vignette, a poem, a kanji exercise, whatever - might help both at once.
I think this hand weakness really hit me a few days ago when I actually did an art project for the first time in years. >.> Nothing major, even - just drew, inked, and colored some puppy paw prints on stationery for a 10 year old kid's gift - but after about an hour (yes, it took me that long to draw a couple dozen paw prints... I'm the slowest artist ever) of drawing, my hand ACHED. And let's not even think about the times when I have to make huge poster-sized sheet music for the children's handbell choir that I've been put in charge of for some mysterious reason. Last time I did that my entire arm hurt for days. I used to call myself an artist... not to mention spent hours every day furiously taking notes in various university classes... seriously, aging is a vicious process (and going sedentary doesn't help either, I'm sure).
Anyway... also seriously considering doing my best impression of a gullible American idiot and signing up with this travel agency-ish site that's holding a contest where a few winners are awarded a trip to Japan. 'Cause yeah, what are my chances of ever getting there otherwise if it's not handed to me on a silver platter, right?
I wish I was tired enough to go to bed... *ponders something to read until sleepiness hits*
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dragged from Becky's stream of consciousness at 10/08/2009 03:55:00 AM
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wMonday, October 05, 2009 |
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feeling: *sigh*
listening to: nothing
So Magnus has taken a sudden turn for the worse. And I do mean sudden; there was pretty much no change in him at all for weeks after I realized he was sick, and just this morning he ate his breakfast and swam around and was fine... but several hours later I looked over and he was lying on the gravel panting, and every time he moves now, it's in unnaturally rapid bursts all over the tank as if his tail was on fire. But the most gravely noticeable change is that he wouldn't eat tonight.
I'll be surprised if he makes it through the night, and even more surprised if he makes it to the weekend. He's acting almost exactly like Pixel did in the last several hours before she died (she was another case of a sudden turn for the worse due to a tumor). And I just ran 2 gallons of water to warm up overnight in preparation for a water change tomorrow, and just bought a new tank accessory for him a few days ago... guessing all that will go to waste now...
I wanted the next betta I get to be a female, but I don't think Petland ever has females anymore. Haven't seen any there since I got Pixel, I'm pretty sure. And if next year plays out the way I want it to, well... I dunno, but after Magnus falls, I might be out of the aquarist hobby for a while... and why is Firefox trying to tell me that "aquarist" isn't a word?
Oh well, back to whatever I was doing...
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dragged from Becky's stream of consciousness at 10/05/2009 10:51:00 PM
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wTuesday, August 25, 2009 |
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feeling: ...
listening to: Monty on the Run music in my head
So it turns out Magnus has dropsy. Magnus, the healthiest, most robust fish I've ever had, most likely 4 years old by now, is finally defeated by freaking dropsy. Back when I was new to fishkeeping, I literally had nightmares about dropsy. I was terrified of the day when I'd eventually have to face it. Now it's here and I just... kind of... don't know what to do.
I don't know whether I should bother to medicate him or not. It's pretty much 100% fatal in little fish like him anyway, because it's not a disease but a symptom of organ failure, and sometimes meds just put even more stress on said organs and cause even more pain. Right now it's not drastic and he still seems relatively comfortable (and hungry)... I guess that's a plus... I just dread seeing it get gradually worse and probably having to watch him suffer worse than any other betta I've owned. Worse than Mitsu with his popeye, worse than Phoenix with his constant bloating issues and prolonged death by old age, worse than Pixel with her tumor... ugh. Seriously, many betta owners get so discouraged watching their fish succumb to dropsy, they end up euthanizing them.
I wonder how much longer he'll hold on to what little spunk he has left...
Anyway, in other news... Suicide Ali has a new CD, and I got my copy today. Haven't listened to it yet, but already I love it. Road of the Wing is one of the songs, which means we finally get lyrics for it (yay!), and the booklet includes really awesome little drawings by Hiroshi accompanying each song. Also, for the first time, they included my name in the "special thanks" section of the booklet. :P Not entirely sure why... but that kind of made my day.
Thought there was something else I meant to throw in here, but now I can't remember, so oh well...
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dragged from Becky's stream of consciousness at 8/25/2009 10:24:00 PM
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wFriday, August 21, 2009 |
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feeling: I wish I were tired...
listening to: Jamiroquai - Canned Heat
Well... here's a bunch of random stuff that doesn't matter...
Last week I got a phone call (which I missed, but it was followed up by an email) from the lady I talked to at YSK last year. Last year. Last April to be specific, when I dropped in long enough for them to practically give me a mini-interview before telling me they weren't hiring and taking my resume. Anyway, she said they're looking for someone local who's available come in at relatively short notice and interpret at meetings, medical visits, and such when she's not in the office. It would still be freelance as opposed to permanent, but at least it's income. I stressed over it for a couple days, knowing I don't have the fluency to be able to handle situations like that but also knowing I need the chance, before finally replying to tell her I was interested in at least trying it. I sent the reply last Thursday after an afternoon spent hovering over the send button.
But I guess I had nothing to stress about, because I haven't heard from her again since. Maybe she changed her mind. Oh well... I couldn't have handled it anyway.
In other... um, whatever... I've been trying something new lately. Something gave me the idea to set little simple day-by-day goals for myself first thing every day, using various methods to motivate myself to fulfill them (writing them down in a place where I can't overlook them, denying myself something until they're done, etc). So far it's actually been working. They're not huge goals - study a page in my kanji book, catch up on emails, start a new project, finish an old project, read a chapter in the Japanese literature book I got a month or so ago, etc. Actually, the primary objective was to get myself studying kanji again. I was up to 370-something in this book of 2000 essential kanji as of last fall, and then I just... stopped. Earlier this year I picked it up and reviewed all those 370-some over again, and just recently finally moved past that point. If I keep it up, tomorrow I'll hit the 400 mark. Which is kind of sad considering I could've been through the whole book by now... but yeah... anyway.
And the final pointless subject of today... I realized something earlier as I was doing some maintenance at my fansub community. I've been doing that stuff for almost 2 years now and it has never stopped feeling weird when those people shower me with praise and adoration and - I'm not kidding - marriage proposals and body organs. It's a daily thing, has been all this time, and it still always feels weird. A couple months or so ago someone on LJ made a meme-type post dedicated to leaving feedback for all the subbers and translators in the fandom I'm most known in... probably a couple dozen of them... and I was one of the two or three with the most comments, but unlike all the others whose threads were at least half criticism and downright complaining, every single one of mine was complimentary or just plain... fangirly. I think that was the day/week when I realized how popular I had become to them. Like... hogawd, I'm internet-famous. Should I be giddy or scared? ...See, that's exactly my point. It still just seems weird.
Anyway, my point is not to brag or toot my own horn or whatever (if all the repetitions of how weird it feels didn't get that point across). The point is that I only recently realized why it still feels so awkward. It's because I expect to hear voices of discontent. I expect people to criticize me, doubt me, hate me, wonder what my true motives are... etc. I expected it from the day I first decided to start sharing my work with them, and I certainly expected it as the community gained more and more members every day. But even now, after just admitting the 5500th member, I still haven't heard a single word of discontent - even when people had the chance to bombard me with it anonymously in that meme, or in the half a dozen "hate memes" that have popped up in that fandom since I got sucked into it. But... why?
It's not that I can't accept their accolades or don't want to. I appreciate their support and encouragement and I feel it's the least I can do to try and be amiable in return. It's just... totally unnatural to me. All I can think is that there must be some members-only forum somewhere, or friend-locked journals or at least IM convos, where some of them rant and moan and groan to each other about me in secret. I just keep waiting for someone to get the ball rolling... or something. I mean, even most or all of the people I've called close friends over the years have done stuff like that, and I definitely wouldn't say I can call all those 5500+ members my "friends." They don't know me. I guess in the end, the reality is that people who do know me are the ones who nurture discontent, and the ones who don't know me just haven't learned what a wretch I am yet. That's the only explanation that even comes close to making sense.
Yeah, I don't really have a point with all this. Just felt like spitting out that thought process while it was fresh in my head. And now I'm finally starting to feel kind of tired, so maybe I'll try this sleep thing.
...Speaking of sleep, my trend this week seems to be celebrity dreams. But not even celebrities that I'm crazy about, or even give much thought to on a regular basis. There was Toshi of the Japanese comedy duo Taka & Toshi one night, and Michael Jackson another night (Thriller era, for the record), and just last night, a Japanese actor I've seen in a few dramas and couldn't even remember the full name of until I woke up and looked it up. In the dream I just thought "Waki-san," I guess, and found when I woke up that it's Waki Tomohiro. But yeah, it's weird... you'd think if I would be having a sudden spurt of celebrity dreams, they'd be celebrities I'm actually a fan of or at least see/think about on some kind of regular basis. I only know Taka & Toshi through a variety show I see them on for a few minutes every week or two, and Waki Tomohiro was in the Gokusen dramas and Maou, none of which I've set eyes on in months.
And why am I still rambling? Didn't I decide to go to bed?...
[Saturday edit: Ok, add Drunk Dragon to the list of celebrity dream appearances...]
[2 weeks later edit: ...and now Mori Kumiko? This is just getting weird...]
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dragged from Becky's stream of consciousness at 8/21/2009 03:30:00 AM
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wMonday, July 20, 2009 |
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feeling: ...
listening to nothing
I've come to a realization. There are people in this world who are generally good people, who are nice to most others around them and do good things for the people they care about and occasionally even for people they don't care about. But even nice people need to break out of the mold now and then, to crush a hapless soul for the sake of letting off steam. But if there is such a thing as karma, it doesn't come back to haunt them because the life they crushed was someone who made themselves an easy target anyway, so it's the target's own fault, not the instigator's. They can chew up that target's soul, laugh at its pain, and leave it to rot in the sun with no need to feel guilty, and then they're free to go on and find happiness of their own and have all their dreams come true, and feel at ease because they got all their life's frustrations out on that one target and will never need to destroy anyone else again.
Maybe this little epiphany was brought on by the dream I had last night of two huge, gorgeous stallions ganging up on a tiny newborn foal and literally eating it alive despite its screams of fear and pain. I dunno.
Ok, well, that's that. Time for lunch followed by an afternoon of mindless gaming.
(No, by the way, the above does not involve anyone who actually cares enough to read this blog. Just an observation.)
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dragged from Becky's stream of consciousness at 7/20/2009 12:03:00 PM
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wThursday, July 09, 2009 |
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feeling: fatigued
listening to: nothing
Tonight, something randomly made me realize that I am relatively young, and barring the onset of some horrible disease or whatever, I probably have another half a century or more of life ahead of me.
And then I thought, augh, that long?
Fortunately, thanks to my genetic makeup, the likelihood of that horrible disease (or collection thereof) setting in is considerably high, so maybe I'll get out of a few of those decades after all.
I often say I'm a walking contradiction in that I can be too lazy to sit down unmoving and stare at the pages of a book for a couple hours. Or too tired to sleep, or too preoccupied to think, etc. But the failure I curse most often is my cowardice. I'm too chicken to even take the coward's way out.
Wonder if the insomnia and headache will shut up and let me sleep yet?
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dragged from Becky's stream of consciousness at 7/09/2009 03:45:00 AM
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wTuesday, May 26, 2009 |
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feeling: ...
listening to: Road of Major - Shin'ai Naru Anata e...
I'm stuck. That about sums it up. So, here are three more drama reviews before I give up for the night.
Love Shuffle
Honestly, I only decided to watch this one because Daigo (a.k.a. Daigo Stardust, a.k.a. that guy who kissed Miyavi *cough*) plays a lead role, but I ended up liking it quite a bit. The premise is a bit confusing at first, or seems like it could lead to a lot of confusion: there are four romantically linked couples, totaling eight main characters. Each one is experiencing some kind of dissatisfaction in their respective relationship, so all eight of them agree to participate in a game they call Love Shuffle, in which they basically switch partners each week. In the end, they might finally see the charm in the person they were originally paired with, or they might find that they were fated to be with someone else.
Sound confusing yet? Four men and four women leads to several possible outcomes and several weeks of switching partners back and forth... all in the course of 10 episodes. But it's pulled off very well; it's got just enough of both realism and drama to make it intriguing, and the plot twists mold together slowly, gradually, rather than springing at you out of nowhere. It's a little more grown up than a lot of the popular dramas out there, with less intensity and more subtlety, but fun and engaging. The cast was amazing too; popular names like Tamaki Hiroshi, Matsuda Shota, and Daigo were probably its biggest draws, but all eight of the leads were very well-played. And on a random note, I was illogically giddy over this drama's idea of playing little blooper reels during the end credits of each episode. Ingenious and adorable.
Proposal Daisakusen
I put off watching this one for a long time, but when I kept seeing so many mixed reviews about it, some full of acclamation and others condemning it as one of the worst dramas in modern history, I couldn't resist anymore. >> And you know... I'm kinda torn. Technically speaking it wasn't that good. But it was cute. And fun. And addictive. Darn it.
The plot itself could be a turn-off for many: Iwase Ken and Yoshida Rei have been best friends since 3rd grade, and it didn't take long at all before Ken fell in love with Rei. But all through school and even college, he never told her, and so at the start of the drama he finds himself standing in the reception hall as a guest at Rei's wedding, kicking himself for letting her slip away. Then all of a sudden, a fairy (yes, a fairy) appears and sends him back in time to replay some of the key moments in Ken and Rei's past, giving him a chance to start over and win her heart.
Sounds silly, and it kind of is. It's also very predictable as each episode follows the exact same pattern: he starts at the wedding, watching a slideshow chronicling Rei's past, sees a picture that he's in with her but where she looks angry or sad, feels a pang of regret, goes back in time to that moment, fights to fix it, returns to the present to see whether the slideshow picture has changed, and then the next picture comes up and it starts all over. But at the same time, somehow, it's an interesting twist on the typical flashback method of storytelling... and yeah, for all the angst, it's still a cute story of love and friendship.
Technical details... good acting for the most part, except, ironically, for the main character. >> Iwase Ken is played by Yamashita Tomohisa, and yeah... I understand now why his "haters" have given him the nickname Dead Fish. He was good as Akira in Nobuta o Produce, but in ProDai... he's totally flat. Even when he's laughing his head off or crying his eyes out, it's like he has zero emotion. Kinda creepy. The other characters make up for it though, and there are some great side stories. Oh, and one thing this drama does have going for it is a brilliant soundtrack. The BGMs, the insert song by an Okinawan rock band, and oh, the main theme by the legendary Kuwata Keisuke... absolute love.
Nodame Cantabile
God, this drama was so massively hyped. All the rave reviews and fangirling and fanboying and geez. The synopses I saw never did much for me - serious classical music student Chiaki Shinichi crosses paths with the crazy-slob-but-piano-prodigy Noda Megumi (a.k.a. Nodame) and hijinks ensue - so I put it off for a long time. But after seeing dozens of reviews saying it was one of the best dramas ever and one of the funniest things ever made, I finally gave it a look. And uh... I ended up kinda torn.
Overall? It's fun, yes. And definitely original. Well, ok, the "odd couple" premise of two exact opposites who end up falling for each other isn't original at all, but the presentation was original, and the musical academy setting and common thread of classical music made it more interesting (if you can get into classical music). And I can see why it was acclaimed as a comedy, but yeah... the biggest elements in its comedic repertoire didn't really amuse me at all. The famous German(?) composer with the idiotic accent, Chiaki's habit of comically beating on Nodame, and the flaming gay timpanist with an afro the size of an Omni-kin ball just kind of rubbed me the wrong way, I guess. That kid who was obsessed with Nanba in Hama Kimi was a much better gay stalkery character. ¬.¬
Anyway... maybe it was just me, because apparently everyone else found all those things absolutely hilarious, but yeah. It wasn't a bad drama though, not by a long shot. The classical music theme was really unique, Nodame's almost-creepy goofiness was actually really cute, and Mine Ryutaro (played by Eita!) was just plain awesome. ♥ Oh, and Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue has been stuck in my head ever since I started on the first episode a couple weeks ago. orz
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dragged from Becky's stream of consciousness at 5/26/2009 01:34:00 AM
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wThursday, May 21, 2009 |
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feeling: sore
listening to: manzai insanity
Heard kind of a sad story tonight. Would be more effective to relate if I had caught all the details, but still sad.
So first, some background: my nephew's other grandma has cancer, and apparently it's advanced enough that some doctor(s?) have told her she might not survive the rest of this year. We all just found out about this... maybe a couple months ago. But sometime in the last week or two, Nephew went to church with his grandparents, and they were talking about someone who had passed away and the funeral was set for the next Tuesday. Well, a few days or so later, someone (I don't know who) was telling Nephew about some upcoming schedule/plan (I don't know what... see what I meant by not knowing much detail?), and his response was "I can't do that! Grandma will already be dead by then!"
He thought the funeral they were talking about was going to be his grandma's, and he spent who knows how long living with the idea in his head that she was going to die on Tuesday.
I felt so bad for the kid at that moment. It's all straightened out now, of course, but geez. What a weight for a 7 year old child of divorced parents to carry.
Anyway... I seem to have two new obsessions this week... a Japanese manzai duo called Kirin and the legendary Super Mario Bros. hack known as Cat Mario. Have spent the past couple days loading up on both - playing Cat Mario, watching it on Youtube (seriously, look it up. it's sadistic and hysterical and the guy narrating it is even more fun than the Mario Frustration guy.) and living with the BGMs stuck in my head... like right now. Ahem. And Kirin... unfortunately the only sources I have to download their appearances are all on Clubbox, so they're ridiculously slow in coming, but I've seen a few now and even begun acquainting myself with the M-1 Grand Prix (big annual manzai competition) for the sole purpose of seeing more of them. They are seriously the most adorable manzai team I have ever seen - and those who know much about manzai will know that's kind of a hard combination to come by. ¬_¬ And lord, Kawashima Akira's VOICE. sdkjaksdf. I die.
Er... yeah. I was trying to take a break from the computer and typing lately since my arm has been especially sore. So I will now return to watching M-1 Grand Prix 2001.
EDIT: And yeah, my Cat Mario@Youtube obsession has branched into a fangirlfest over the user who uploaded it. He is HILARIOUS and his accent is adorable.
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dragged from Becky's stream of consciousness at 5/21/2009 12:35:00 AM
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wSaturday, May 02, 2009 |
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feeling: almost tired but not
listening to: nothing
I've been bouncing back and forth all night between eyes-falling-shut sleepy and twitchy-bouncy wide awake. It's the most annoying thing. So I came here to kill a little time and hopefully wear myself out enough to go to sleep.
Unfortunately, though, my life is boring and I don't really have anything to talk about.
The most noteworthy thing that I've actually physically done in recent weeks was go to the Dogwood Festival last weekend in Piketon, which is one of those little community fairs that hosts local church services on Sunday and has a little parade on one afternoon and primarily consists of a couple streets lined with 80% concession stands and 20% dealers of random stuff. Haven't been to anything like that since high school, I don't think. Salt Creek Valley Festival doesn't count. It's too puny. Anyway, yeah, came home with my shirt stained from a drippy strawberry daquiri and a sunburn.
My freaking Megaupload download is stuck. Great. *starts over*
Downloading a Korean drama called Coffee Prince, by the way. Thus far it has served to maintain my strange conviction that Korean entertainment is weird. Not bad, necessarily, just... weird. I've only seen a few movies and half a drama, yes, but all of it just comes across as weird to me. It's something about the atmosphere, the Koreans' choices of ambience... something like that... I don't know... But anyway, yeah, Coffee Prince. So far it totally reminds me of something that would become an overnight hit if it were a Japanese drama. Youth, life, romance, love triangles, a cute little coffee shop, and the potential to cast at least half a dozen hot popular young actors. Wouldn't be surprised if it's picked up by someone in Japan someday. It has some very similar story devices to Hana Kimi though, so they might give people another year or two to move on from that before bringing in a story with that kind of resemblance.
Also, I guess I should've written out my latest J-drama review the other night while its rough draft in my mind still sounded really cool in my head, even if it was 3 or 4 in the morning and I was already lying in bed. Now I can't remember what I was going to say. It was kinda slick, too. Darn.
Oh well, this blog needed a break from the constant onslaught of J-drama review babble anyway.
But on a final drama-related note, I am currently taking part in my first experience with subbing a J-drama. It's currently airing, and there are already like 3 other groups subbing it, but this team I've been on-and-off collaborating with since last fall expressed interest in subbing it too... and it's a series I was interested in since I first heard about it, so I volunteered to translate it. Thus far 2 episodes have aired, and I translated them both and sent them on to the timer/typesetters within a couple days of release, but they're apparently still hung up in those stages and the third episode comes out tomorrow and eh... so much for getting caught up with the other groups working on it week-to-week. Oh well, was mostly a "just for fun" deal anyway.
...But like I said, a break from the drama babbles.
Actually, I'm sleepy now and my stomach is doing odd things, so I guess it's probably a good idea to waddle back over to the bed.
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dragged from Becky's stream of consciousness at 5/02/2009 03:32:00 AM
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wSunday, April 19, 2009 |
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feeling: Magic 8 Ball says "Ask again later"
listening to: ayaka - Okaeri
When did this become my J-drama review blog, anyway...?
The Quiz Show
It's dramas like this one that make me remember why I got into Japanese dramas in the first place. Not because this was the best drama EVER or anything, but because the world of J-drama never ceases to surprise me. With almost every new drama I see, I think there's no other story like it in the world. So many different genres and formats and stories and ways of telling those stories... and this series, yet again, was another such new experience for me. It was the first J-drama I've ever seen with half-hour episodes (matching the format of its theme, which is, as the title indicates, a gameshow called The Quiz Show), as well as the first psychological suspense drama I've ever seen. Yes, psychological suspense. That means HOLY CRAP THAT WAS ONE TWISTED TV SHOW.
The gameshow at the center of the drama, The Quiz Show, seems simple enough. It's sort of like a mini Who Wants to Be a Millionaire - the contestant wins the big money prize if he answers 7 questions correctly, and he can trade that prize for the chance to answer an 8th question, for which the prize is the granting of his life's dream. The questions start out innocently enough, but after 3 or 4, the host's comments and behavior start to change, and the questions become more and more personalized to the contestant's own life - until, by answering the last few questions, the contestant is cornered into confessing the details of some unforgivable sin he has committed. All of the contestants are people who put on good faces for the public but hide a terrible secret behind them; in fact, each contestant represents one of the 7 deadly sins - pride, gluttony, wrath, greed, sloth, lust, and envy. What's more, the host Tazaki seems cruel and manipulative in his methods of cornering the contestants... but when the cameras stop, we see him tossed into an asylum cell, curled up on his bed screaming in torment as he struggles with memory loss caused by some traumatic event in his past. It seems that he is the one being manipulated by another face behind the scenes, forced to pressure the contestants into exposing their sins... and somehow, each one seems to awaken another little piece of the memory he lost.
I really can't say any more than that without giving away the plot. Even after reading synopses, I had no idea what to expect when I started this series, and the psychological twists and one-of-a-kind presentation continually blew me away. And I can't imagine a more perfect actor to play the host than Katagiri Jin. I had no idea who he was before and still don't know him from anywhere else, but he molded amazingly well into all of the moods and settings and emotions experienced by Tazaki. The dark, heavy, rock-oriented soundtrack was perfect too. Highly recommended series for anyone who likes dark-and-twisted-without-being-gruesome-or-violent stuff.
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dragged from Becky's stream of consciousness at 4/19/2009 06:23:00 PM
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wTuesday, April 14, 2009 |
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feeling: been worse
listening to: some goofy song I just heard on Youtube
Watched another new drama series this past week (actually finished it all within 3 days... it ate my brain...), so here's another review for the review post of doom.
Mei-chan no Shitsuji
Meaning "Mei-chan's butler." Story: the main character, Mei, is a very typical, even dull girl helping her parents run an udon shop in some little town. However, one day her parents are killed in an accident and she's approached by a young guy, named Rihito, who tells her that she is a descendant of the mega-rich and powerful Hongo family, and now that her father's dead, she's the new successor, which will cause certain jealous parties to start attacking her and those she cares about... so he declared himself her personal butler and swears to protect her always. She's also forced to start attending a rich girls' academy to learn how to become a "proper lady" - and as it happens, one mandate of this academy is that each student has her own butler who stays with her at all times. Of course, her welcome to the academy takes the form of constant bullying from the other, richer, more ladylike students... so eventually her childhood friend Kento, who by chance is also Rihito's younger brother, decides to become a butler so he can join the academy too and keep an eye on her.
Weird, yes? Yes. Weird and eccentric and arienai (something in between impossible, unbelievable, and unreasonable). But FAR from what I expected. Sounds like a fluff-fest loaded with cheesy romance and love triangle drama, right? And it does have some of that... but it's also surprisingly dark. This isn't your average high school bullying; we're talking crossbow bolts and kerosene+matches and hired hit men and pointy blades all over the place - people literally trying to kill people. I wouldn't classify it as violence or action or suspense, but lord. Combined with the elements of romance and angst and comedy, the result was definitely one of the most eccentric dramas I've seen.
It was very crowded, though; besides the three leads and a couple other distinctive students and butlers, this drama was PACKED with characters whose names and faces you just can't really learn in one viewing. Of course, the big draw to this series was Mizushima Hiro, who plays Rihito (also played Nanba of Hana Kimi and Soshi of Zettai Kareshi)... but this wasn't exactly the best role I've seen him in. The new face who played his brother Kento was far more interesting. Most of the other characters, besides Mei, were too lost in the sea of prissy girls and butlers to really stand out... except the butler Aoyama, who caught my interest for some reason and I've no idea why since I've never seen him in any other series...
In the end I'd say I liked it though. It was frustrating at times, but horribly addicting - once I got into it, it was hard to tear myself away. Did I mention I watched the whole thing within 3 days? I think that's a record for me (or a tie, at least).
Ok, that's that. Probably won't be long before I finish my next series, The Quiz Show, because I seem to be on another J-drama kick lately. Before Mei-chan no Shitsuji I rewatched Stand Up, and after this next one there are still dozens more I want to see... gah, addictions are evil.
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dragged from Becky's stream of consciousness at 4/14/2009 10:31:00 PM
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wFriday, April 10, 2009 |
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feeling: tired
listening to: Neon Genesis Evangelion - Fly Me to the Moon
Since I'm wide awake...
I never mentioned here that my car finally had its engine replaced and was restored to road-worthiness. The key was returned to me a few days ago, which in my opinion makes it official. However, now it's out of commission again because of some issue with the brakes. >> Supposedly that'll be fixed this evening, though.
So, yay! I have a car again! ...And you know, it's funny how you never realize how active a life you do have (or could have) until you have no car for half a year. As hopeless a slug as I am, even I was ready to gnaw my arm off several times since October when I wanted to go somewhere but couldn't, or had to bum a ride.
...Ok, yeah, that doesn't mean I have a life. But still, it was pretty sucky.
Anyway, um... what else was I going to say?
...
Forget. Oh well. Maybe I'll go get a bowl of cereal or something.
comment! (1)
dragged from Becky's stream of consciousness at 4/10/2009 09:25:00 AM
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wMonday, March 16, 2009 |
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feeling: O_o
listening to: Ohno Satoshi - Kumori Nochi, Kaisei in my head... again
Just a new drama review.
Uta no Oniisan
The title and its connotations don't translate well, but uta means song/music, and oniisan means big brother, or young guy who looks like he could be someone's big brother. It's about a guy named Yano Kenta who was the vocalist for a rock band called Giselle, loving his life and his friends/bandmates and his girlfriend/keyboardist and his music. Then one day, during a Giselle live, his bandmates announce that they're breaking up the band - and they hadn't even told him first. Now Kenta has no band, no job, no friends, no girlfriend, and his family turns against him, declaring him worthless. He's failed a dozen job interviews and is about to give up when he wanders by a TV station and sees that they're hiring for a kids' singing show called "Minna de Utao! Papipupepon," takes the interview, gets hired - and then finds out that they weren't hiring new staff, they were hiring new members. To appear on the show. And sing. Kids' songs. In cutesy animal costumes. Thus, he unwittingly becomes the new Uta no Oniisan. But he's moody and depressed and pessimistic has a bad attitude and hates kids and OH ANGST. How will he survive? Especially when, every time he walks down the hall to his studio, he's surrounded by posters advertising the debut of Japan's hottest new rock band, Giselle?
Yeah... I wasn't sure what to think when I first heard the premise. It sounded like something that would either be majorly cute, or majorly flop. Surprisingly, I was wrong - it was neither. Not bad, not the best; comedic, a little over-the-top at times (ok, a lot), cheesy... almost everything about it felt like one long chain of spoofs. Every episode was filled with references to the actors' real work, the real TV station that aired the drama, cameos by real entertainers employed by said studio... and on and on. Sometimes it got old, but honestly, most of the time it was pretty darn funny. And it wasn't overly toothachingly cute like I expected, but the cuteness came in manageable-sized moments. Like the infamous scene when a little kid finally got Kenta to smile... and honestly, I really liked the crow song. ;_; But yeah, it wasn't all colorful kiddy cuteness; the overall storyline was actually pretty grown-up, and presented well.
Anyway, yeah. The biggest audience draw for this series, without a doubt, had to be the lead actor who played Kenta - Ohno Satoshi. He blew the world away in Maou and was taking a completely opposite kind of role in Uta no Oniisan, and the addition of his second lead drama role to his bio was an event of awesomeness. However, I'm sadly not sure if this series can ever be taken seriously as a credit to his acting career. Not because it was bad, or because he did poorly - in fact, he did an amazing job making such an over-the-top role look realistic - but yeah, the whole spoofy feeling of the series brings down its respectability level, I guess. The acting was reasonably good overall though, not just Ohno's. Especially Katase Nana as the Uta no Oneesan (sister); she annoyed me at first, but she was supposed to be annoying, by the end she was really kinda cool. And I like Katase Nana anyway, so. ♥
Ok, I guess I've rambled all I can about that. Think it's just about bedtime now.
Oh, by the way, I did get an account at Twitter. And in the 8ish hours since, I've updated it 4 times. Planning to keep it going roughly like that, so if anyone actually cares to see how long I can stick out this frequent one-liner-bombing routine, feel free to stalk.
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dragged from Becky's stream of consciousness at 3/16/2009 01:13:00 AM
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wSaturday, March 14, 2009 |
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feeling: awake
listening to: nothing
I'm posting this from Kitty's house. She's in bed and I'm wide awake. Hey, Kitty! Your keyboard sucks! :D
I dunno, I've spent the past hour or so looking at some of my LJ and blog archives and remembering how I used to post almost every day, or at least once or twice a week. I kind of miss having stuff to talk about... or feeling like I did, at least. I don't think I'll ever go back to posting that much, with entries that long, or with any kind of regularity or anything, but... um, actually, I don't have a segue from that line. I just know that I really don't see anything I experience or think about as being worth turning into a blog/journal post.
But I was actually thinking of signing up for that Twitter thing that so many people are getting into lately. It looks like the kind of thing I need to try and get into the habit of doing - just random, tiny blurbs on what I'm doing or what thought just popped into my head or whatever, as many as several times per day... the kind of thing I could do from my cell phone if I don't feel like getting to a computer (wait, did I just say that? yeah, scratch that last part...). Could be the solution to that little hankering I've had for a long time to create a journal/webspace specifically for random pointless one-liners and lots of them. I dunno, we'll see.
In other rambles... anyone remember that post sometime last year where I said I was at a crossroads? Well, I stood there too long staring bedazzled down all the possible routes, and the light turned red and now I can't move. As I suspected would happen. I think I even went backwards a little. But the light's going to stay red for a long time, so if I don't want to backtrack any further I'm going to have to either 1) start running in place to build up the momentum to take off when it turns green again, or 2) try to make a proverbial right turn on red and just hope I won't end up getting lost or plowed over. But I guess getting lost is possible no matter which way you go, isn't it? Unless you just keep traveling the same paths back and forth and in circles all your life, but that eventually digs ruts under your tires that get increasingly harder to get out of.
God, me and my dumb metaphors.
Anyway, more mundane stuff. After finishing my upstairs bathroom, Dad finally found the time to start tearing down my Toyota, and he thinks he found the problem. He also thinks it will cost three or four times as much to fix it as he originally figured it would - running up into the $1000-1200 range. It would be slightly cheaper to replace the entire engine, but apparently engines for Corollas made in that year are astronomically hard to find. And either way, since it's a 10 year old car and I don't have any immediate need for constant reliable access to it anyway (read: I don't have a job), there's the nagging question of whether any of that would be worth it at all. Especially if the route I'm hoping to follow when that light turns green again actually ends up working out... No sense banking on that, though. Like I said in the previous post, as of right now there is no future, right?
Ok, I think I'm blabbed out now. Yay! *publishes*
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dragged from Becky's stream of consciousness at 3/14/2009 01:53:00 AM
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wSunday, March 01, 2009 |
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feeling: conflicted
listening to: Gackt - Tsuki no Uta
Been thinking about some things lately. Things I've known for a good while, but never bothered to talk about or anything, because it doesn't matter. Not even sure why I decided to post about it here. Just bored, I guess.
I outgrow things. A lot, apparently. I always said my life progresses in two-year cycles, but the things in it can stay with me from anywhere to a few months to... well, the longest was probably 6 or 7 years. Which I guess is a long time as it's almost a quarter of my life, but still. Yeah, people change and all that, but I mean... on a larger scale, nothing of the person I was in high school remains in me now. The people, the desires, the interests, the hobbies, nothing. If I went to my 10 year reunion next year, which I won't, none of them would know me anymore. Which is fine with me, by the way. I don't care to know most of them either.
Ok, bringing up high school wasn't the best way to express this.
I mean... I know I've been aware of this for a long time, because it's part of why I'm so passive and indecisive. I know I have a history of changing my mind, of losing interest... of outgrowing. As a kid, I wanted to be a teacher. In high school, I wanted to go into journalism or even radio DJing. When I started college, I wanted to go into a creative pursuit like art or writing. When I was in my second year and still without a major and running out of time to declare one, and Japanese was my top choice, I was already terrified that I would base my entire future around it and then outgrow my fascination with Japanese culture after a couple years, like every other "passion" I ever had. I did not, by the way, outgrow it after a couple years like I feared, but that's beside the point. I mean, throughout most of my life I was known as the best artist in my school/church/social circle/etc... but now? I haven't drawn anything that wasn't a direct copy or trace in probably 2 years or more. That's just one example, not to even touch on the subject of people and desires and whatever else.
I was never one to have goals, or long-term plans, or even to think much about the future at all. Maybe because, when it all comes down to it, the future hasn't happened yet, which means that technically there is no future. But mostly because I just know my habit of outgrowing things... or having things outgrow me. However I look at it, I don't expect anything I have now to still be here after, oh, 5 or 6 years. Nothing significant in my life thus far has lasted longer than that.
I don't know what my point is here. Maybe this is just my way of recognizing the end of another one of those "eras" of my life. Maybe it's because I feel like a whole bunch of "eras" are ending all at once and suddenly I feel like there's nothing left. Maybe it's because I'm scared that the very few things in my life that have been present and consistent for the longest amount of time might finally be falling apart. I just know I haven't felt this empty and void of purpose in a long time.
...What did I come here to ramble about again? Honestly, all that inspired this post was a thought about some random thing I was interested in a few years ago but don't care about anymore, and it turns into all this mixed-up drivel and I've lost even myself. See, this is why I don't post anything but memes and crap in my journals anymore.
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dragged from Becky's stream of consciousness at 3/01/2009 10:47:00 PM
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wWednesday, February 04, 2009 |
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feeling: strange
listening to: BLOOD - Vengeance for BLOOD
Well, it's been a nostalgic night. Spent most of the evening watching/listening to the Tainted Reality live broadcast and webcam hosted by BLOOD, GPKism, and SiSen in Roger's house... in which, of course, all the songs they played were their own and they entertained their webcam viewers by being completely insane and adorable for several hours. I think they're still on it now, playing Rock Band, but I had to stop.
It's a weird feeling. In a way it made me remember all the good times traveling with them and working for them and hanging out with them over the past few years, in a way it made me excited to see them again in a couple days, and in a way it was kind of sad. Not just because BLOOD is disbanding, but because of how much everything has changed. I feel like I should be sadder about their disbandment. Yes, when the news was first revealed (and in the few months before that when I knew before the official announcement), I was sad. Very sad, and for quite a while. Maybe I got it all out of my system then, I don't know. But now, it's just... I don't know... I'll miss them, but at the same time I keep thinking... I haven't been into them as much in the past year or so as I used to be. Their last two albums, I think I listened to exactly once each (I liked them, a lot... I just hardly ever listen to music anymore). I always felt bad for kind of slipping away. They were still important to me, but the more time went by, the less it seemed they needed me, the less they seemed to even be enjoying what they were doing... and the more everything changed.
It's hard to explain. I can't even entirely make sense of it myself. But long story short... I thought the Tainted Reality broadcast tonight would make me more excited about getting to see them in a couple days, or more depressed about it being the last time... but it didn't really do either. I'm just kind of neutral on the whole thing now. Yes, I look forward to seeing them again and I know the concert is going to rock and it'll be a great time, but at the same time there's some kind of... awkwardness... or something...
Agh, I don't know. It doesn't make sense. I give up trying to force it to.
...It did finally make me want to listen to BLOOD's music again, though. Especially when they played Vengeance for BLOOD, which is just plain epic, and a little of the intro to Danse Macabre, which is one of the most fascinating songs I've ever had the pleasure to hear. But yeah, like I said... I hardly ever listen to music anymore. It's ironic, because music is probably my favorite of the arts... I listened to music on a practically constant basis throughout college and the first couple years after I graduated. But now it's like... I can't just sit and listen to music anymore. I have to be doing something while it's playing. Something that doesn't require so much of my attention that I can't focus on the music, but something involving enough to keep me from getting bored while it plays. Good examples are doodling in Photoshop, typesetting my fansubbed videos, and driving (to a point); I can keep at those activities for a long time and keep music on all the while, but they aren't as acutely demanding of my brain power as reading, writing/blogging, or translating. It's not that I find music boring; it's that the rest of my brain gets bored while only my sense of hearing is listening to it. Or something.
Ok, how did I get so far off topic? Stopping now.
Yeah... I wish I could listen to my most recent BLOOD albums right now. They ARE good. I'm just out of the musical loop, as it were. *sigh*
That was all rather pointless and redundant. Hope nobody actually read through all this. I just needed something to do while Audacity exported my mp3 recording of the Tainted Reality broadcast.
...As a matter of fact, it's still going. So anyone mind if I throw in a J-drama review? I just finished a random one a few days ago.
Gakkou ja Oshierarenai!
Roughly translates to "can't be taught by the school." Yes, a school drama, meaning all but about 3 of the characters were high school kids. Was relatively amusing anyway, though, for some reason I can't quite figure out.
Basically it's set in an all-girls academy, which has just decided to start admitting male students. The first year under this new policy, they admit five boys, who are naturally in Hormonal Heaven (or hell, as it were), surrounded by so many girls. When the time comes to join a school club (mandatory in this academy), they don't fit in anywhere, so they're approached by the young lady teacher Aida Mai, a.k.a. Mai-chan, who says she's starting a new club that's perfect for them. She also rounds up five girls who are outcasts for various reasons and couldn't get into any other clubs. And this new club she's forming with these 10 students is, of all things, a social dance club. None of her student victims want anything to do with it, or with each other, but with time (and Mai-chan's coercion) they become friends and learn to treasure each other and their dance partners. But not, of course, without plenty of hormonal hijinks and adolescent awkwardness along the way.
I'm not sure why I decided to watch this drama, of all the ones out there I've been waiting to see... it certainly wasn't the greatest thing ever, and more often than not it was cheesy and over-the-top. I swear at least once per episode, sometimes more, there was a lengthy scene in which one of the 10 students or Mai-chan just stands there explaining to someone else what makes each of the other 10 main characters and the 5 pairings within them so special... the club members reflecting on themselves and each other and etc etc... and it gets pretty repetitive and annoying. But it was entertaining all the same, somehow, and some of the teenage actors did exceptionally well (even though I have no idea who any of them were; interestingly they all seemed to be newcomers). The star of the drama (Mai-chan), however, was played by Fukada Kyoko, and unlike pretty much everyone else in the world, I never really liked her... but oh well. The guy who played the principal was pretty adorable. Ahem... and yeah... the drama was well-paced and technically strong, I suppose, but also really cheesy.
So much for that... oh, and I finally made that list of dramas I hope/plan to watch in the future. Arranged by year of production (generally), they are:
Koori no Sekai
Abunai Houkago
Namida o Fuite
Handoku
Netsuretsuteki Chuuka Hanten
Tokio ~Chichi e no Dengon~
Minami-kun no Koibito
1 Litre no Namida
Nodame Cantabile
Proposal Daisakusen
1 Pound no Fukuin
Ryokiteki na Kanojo
The Quiz Show
Bloody Monday
Room of King
Last Friends
Kaze no Garden
Mendol
Uta no Oniisan (currently airing; watching raw)
Akai Ito (currently airing)
Mei-chan no Shitsuji (currently airing)
Arifureta Kiseki (currently airing)
Voice (currently airing)
Might be a few others I missed, but that pretty much covers it, I think. Well, Mawang isn't in the list, but that's because it's Korean. Dying to see it though. But anyway.
[edit: Ok, now I remember what felt so weird listening to the broadcast last night. It wasn't nostalgia about the past, or excitement or sadness about the future; it was about the present. I expected it to make me wish I was right there with them, since I normally was in the past and could have been this time if I'd wanted to spend an extra $200 or so... but it didn't make me wish that all. That was what felt so weird: the fangirly thrill was gone. Unlike normal fangirls, I'm in a position where I could travel with them anywhere if I wanted and could afford it, so not being able to do that used to make me kind of upset and jealous... but now it doesn't. I'm still excited, but I don't really wish I had been there all this past week. And ok, never before have I rambled so long in an edit note. Shutting up now.]
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dragged from Becky's stream of consciousness at 2/04/2009 12:39:00 AM
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wSaturday, January 31, 2009 |
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feeling: ulcerated
listening to: Gakkou ja Oshierarenai BGM in my head
So I still haven't booked any flights or anything for the last BLOOD tour that's coming up. Or I should say, that's already going on. Originally I wanted to go to as much of it as possible, but someone didn't send me the necessary itinerary-type stuff until 6 days before I'd have to take off for Boston (Feb. 1, two days away now), and even that was only half of what I needed and took two weeks of prodding before he sent it to me... so I figure I'm apparently not really needed that much anyway. Besides, last time I went on a full tour with them, though it was fun, I spent a majority of the time hanging around off to the side by myself, not contributing or being called upon except for random trivial little stuff. Well, besides interpreting a couple interviews.
So yeah, for those and a few other reasons, I decided to only go to their very last show, in Chicago on Feb. 5. But I still haven't booked anything. Can't decide now whether I should fly there or rent a car. Both would cost roughly the same at this point, I think. If I fly, I'll just meet everyone in the airport and run around with them until we all return to the airport the next morning to part ways, and if I rent a car I'll be able to leave a day early, rest the night before in a hotel, help provide transportation, visit Mitsuwa again before going home, and basically take my time. Problem with driving is, this time I'd be doing it alone, which would get really tedious and boring, not to mention easier easier to get lost... and easier to fall asleep at the wheel not having anyone else's safety to stay alert for. Also, of course, there's no telling what the weather will bring then.
So yeah, flying seems like the wiser choice. Just seems like a lot of wasted effort to get to the airport at like 6am for a flight that would only take 6 hours in a car, spend exactly one day there, and fly right back home the next morning. Oh well, I guess that's life.
I feel like I should be more broken up about BLOOD's dissolution and more determined to spend as many days as possible with them on this last tour, and sure enough back when it was first confirmed, that was exactly what I felt... but... I don't know. It just doesn't seem as blindingly awesome to me now, for some reason. And saying I'm going with them as staff isn't worth much since they don't really need me in that capacity anymore. Haven't for a long time.
Anyway... one upside is, only going to Chicago means I can save the rest of my money for something else. Like that trip to Japan I'll never get to make. Or, more realistically, a whole truckload of goodies from Mitsuwa. God, I love that place. I could live there. Seriously, as much as the BLOOD concert, I'm looking forward to eating oyakodon there again. *fails*
comment! (2)
dragged from Becky's stream of consciousness at 1/31/2009 12:16:00 AM
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wMonday, January 19, 2009 |
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feeling: sleepy
listening to: some hymn stuck in my head...
I'm increasingly tempted to give up waiting for Uta no Oniisan to end and just start watching a new drama while I wait for the next episode to air. I dunno, for some reason the idea of watching two dramas simultaneously squicks me. But maybe after watching the first episode of UtaOni and seeing how light and simple it was, and how sufficiently I could follow it, I kinda feel like watching another series in between won't cause my brain too much twisting and writhing.
There are just way too many dramas I want to see, and for the past few days I've been in a mood to watch some, but haven't had any since I finished Tantei Gakuen Q. So why not, I guess. Not right now though. I'm already sleepy and doubt I could keep my eyes open for a drama episode's hour-long duration. I'm only not in bed yet because my cat is hogging it.
Yeah, it's 2 am and my cat is inside and zonked out on my bed, and I'd really rather not wake her. Once she wakes up she'll go downstairs and want to eat, and along the way she's pretty much guaranteed to encounter her psychotic little temporary roommate, at which point the yowling match will wake up the parents and they'll blame the racket on her and throw her out in the below-freezing cold. Yeah, dad says she and Spotty are "getting along better," but I have no idea what angle he's seeing this from. In the course of the week since Spotty came here, Ginger has actually gone from simple growling and screaming at the intruder to actually trying to attack her. I fail to see how this is an improvement. And right now I think the only reason Spotty doesn't bother to fight back is because she's distracted by more primal instincts. Read: she's coming into season. Wonderful.
But yeah. This room is my cat's one safe haven of peace and quiet away from the little pest and potential fights, since for some reason Spotty doesn't come up here. She did a couple times in the beginning, but as soon as she becomes aware of my presence she gets pissy and leaves, and she hasn't been back up here in days now. Perfectly fine with me. Fur won't fly and my fat elderly furball can enjoy a few hours of no fighting and normal blood pressure as long as she stays up here. Didn't really like the little psycho beast getting into my stuff up here anyway. She just about got her nose pinched off by the mousetrap under my dresser early on, which Ginger is too fat to squeeze through the cracks and get to, and my reward for keeping her out of it was more growling and hissing and swatting. This cat is seriously damaging my reputation as a cat lover, because honestly, I kind of can't stand her anymore. The soreness and swelling and bruising on my right wrist left by all her slashes and bite wounds on Tuesday is only just now recovering enough that I can bend my wrist normally. Still hurts to touch it.
Ok, yeah, enough random pointless sleep-drunken ranting. Sorry, Ginger. I really need that bed now.
comment! (0)
dragged from Becky's stream of consciousness at 1/19/2009 02:08:00 AM
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wFriday, January 16, 2009 |
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feeling: annoyed
listening to: nothing
Wait, what? Since when is Japan 14 hours ahead of here? It's always been either 12 or 13 hours difference depending on DST. Hasn't it? Am I that far our of touch?
Ugh. I got up at 11 this morning for nothing. Actually, no, I was awake over an hour before that thanks to one of the felines going insane and hissing her throat out. Whatever. Point is I was all excited thinking I could get up at 11:15 on Fridays and watch Uta no Oniisan, but nooooooo, it was on at 9:15. Screw that. I'll wait a few hours for people to upload it in high quality.
Yes, this was my own stupid fault for not checking ahead. I don't care. I needed to rant.
And since I stayed up last night watching the end of my Kamiki Ryunosuke drama thinking I was pressed to finish it before UtaOni started, I'll go ahead and review it now, I guess.
Tantei Gakuen Q
Or, Detective Academy Q, in which Q stands for "qualified class." It's about a group of junior high kids (and one guy in his 20s) who are in a special "class" training to become the successor to the famous detective Morihiko Dan. The kids are Kyuu, Megu, Kazuma, and Ryuu, and the adult is Kinta; Kyuu is friendly and cheerful and optimistic and brave and all-around cute; Megu is a lot cuter than someone her age should be and has a photographic memory; Kazuma is a computer genius and video game designer; Ryuu is the moody little guy who's keeping a secret from the others; and Kinta is the strong, sharp-eyed big brother figure who looks out for them in his own dorky way.
I only got this drama because Kamiki Ryunosuke, my all-time favorite child actor who's turning 16 soon (God I'm old), plays the lead character Kyuu... so I wasn't expecting much, but it turned out to be really interesting for being centered around a bunch of kids. Which sort of made me feel like a pedophile watching it, but anyway. :\ It was a pretty interesting twist on a mystery/suspense drama, a bit cheesy and predictable at times, but grew more intense with each episode and remained engaging through the end. O-or maybe I was just holding out hope that, by the last episode, Kazuma would take off his hat. *cough*
No, seriously. All these kid actors did a pretty good job. Kamiki Ryunosuke is still adorable, Yamada Ryosuke (as Ryuu) was obviously a Johnny's boy in the making right from his cocky little moody idol strut in his first scene (and sure enough he has since debuted with Hey!Say!JUMP), and Shida Mirai (Megu) is gonna be a gorgeous actress someday, and OMG Kazuma. Something about that boy was sosososo adorable. Besides the hat. *cough* He apparently hasn't been in any other dramas, except a tiny side role in a 2004 one. Hopefully he'll show up more in the future. (Wakaba Katsumi, for my own reference)
And I guess I should do Kiken na Aneki too, while I'm here... it's been a while, but I'll try...
Kiken na Aneki
Means "dangerous [older] sister." The story begins in some remote little boondocks town called home by the Minagawa family, whose father is the owner of a successful and award-winning shochu (a Japanese liquor) brewery owner. His kids are also successes in their own right; elder sister Hiroko is cute, optimistic, friendly, and cheerful to the point of annoying, and younger brother Yutaro is a prodigy who aims to become a doctor. He's elated when he passes his med school exam and moves to Tokyo to pursue his dream... and he's not so happy when, 6 years later, his big sister shows up in his apartment out of the blue, saying their father lost the shochu brewery and then passed away. Hiroko thinks the siblings should stick together at a time like this, and wants Yutaro to help her save Minagawa Shochu... but Yutaro wants nothing more to do with the Minagawa name and just wants to keep his job at the hospital and go on with his own life. So the series is basically about how the impossibly sweet, cheerful Hiroko worms her way into the life of her overly serious little brother in hopes of keeping her father's business alive.
Honestly, while it wasn't a bad drama at all, it just... wasn't particularly memorable. Hiroko was played by the very popular actress Ito Misaki, which was pretty much its one saving point - she was crazy and exaggerated, but formed some interesting links holding together an otherwise bland cast of characters. Overall, though, it was just kind of... there.
I guess that's it for now. Nephew is on his way up for the weekend again. Joy.
comment! (2)
dragged from Becky's stream of consciousness at 1/16/2009 02:48:00 PM
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wSunday, January 11, 2009 |
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feeling: frustrated
listening to: Arashi - Pikanchi
I knew from the start that bringing my brother's cat here while he's in Georgia for 8 weeks was a bad, bad idea. We already have a cat. An old, fat, spoiled, 13 year old cat who hasn't had to share this house with another animal since 2005. And now she's slinking around the house scared to walk around the next corner, never knowing where the temporary invader is lurking, despite the fact that said invader is also so scared that she won't set foot outside the master bedroom during the day when Ginger's inside. They've both always been friendly cats, but now they're both so stressed they growl and hiss and go into defensive posturing whenever even one of us tries to approach. Ginger, my closest friend for 13 years, won't even look at me without growling now, and Spotty absolutely hates me ever since she saw me sitting with Ginger petting her and trying to calm her down during their first yowling match.
This all frustrates me way freaking more than it should. For reasons even I don't entirely understand, and wouldn't feel like spelling out here even if I did.
Instead, since in the process of downloading Kamiki Ryunosuke's 2007 drama I was reminded that I still never wrote a review for Ryusei no Kizuna, I'll try to do that now. Can't promise it'll be as thorough (read: gushy) as my other reviews, but I'll try. Just to work out some frustration and tire myself out enough to go to bed.
Ryusei no Kizuna
This drama was... not the best I've ever seen, not the worst, but interesting. When I first heard the synopsis before it aired - three siblings whose parents were murdered grow up and vow to find the criminal together and kill him themselves - I was expecting a dark suspense-ish revenge story, kinda like Maou but with more of a... family feel? But watching just the first episode proved how very wrong I was.
It was hilarious.
I mean, with a synopsis like that, who would've expected humor? Which is probably what made the humor in it extra-funny, I guess. Element of surprise and stuff.
Anyway, let me expand that synopsis a little more. Koichi, Taisuke, and Shizuna are the children of parents who own a little restaurant, and one night they decide to sneak out to watch a rare meteor shower together (hence the title, which roughly means "meteor bond")... but when they return home, they find their parents stabbed to death. They're placed in foster care and the police, of course, can't seem to figure out who the killer was. Meanwhile the three kids promise to each other on a shooting star that when they grow up, they'll find the killer and kill him themselves. Years pass, they grow up, eldest brother Koichi has taken over the family restaurant (kinda) and Taisuke lives with their little sister Shizuna. Shizuna, as it happens, becomes a victim of fraud and loses... like, 30,000 yen or 300,000 yen or something, I forget... and that event inspires the siblings to get together and form a little swindling operation of their own to get her money back from various gullible people - all of whom remain tied to the story later, of course. Anyway, eventually they single out a young guy as their next target, and Shizuna starts to lure him into security while the brothers coincidentally find out that this young guy's father is the same man they saw leaving their restaurant/house after their parents were killed years ago. So they set out trying to prove this man's guilt, but meanwhile, Shizuna ends up complicating things by developing feelings for his son, her intended fraud target.
Wow, that came out long. But yeah... doesn't sound like it'd be particularly humorous, does it? But oh, the little side stories on their fraud victims are so random and disturbingly hilarious... among other moments. Ahem. Post-its? CONDOMS! ...yeah, I rest my case.
Anyway... yeah. It's weird. The drama was so confusing in the sense that it bounced between vengeance and suspense and comedy and etc, and to be honest it wasn't nearly as gripping as Maou (why I'm using that as a yardstick, I'm not sure), but it was interesting. All the random crazy stuff thrown in, all the dorky cuteness of the eldest brother Koichi (guess who played him? Ninomiya Kazunari, of course. orz), the unexpected twists and wrenches thrown in to their search for the killer... I found that every episode I watched seemed to fly by, and at the end of each one I was quite bouncy for the next to arrive. And even after all this babbling about it, I still can't pinpoint exactly why.
Ok... gonna stop there. Guess my next review will be that Kamiki Ryunosuke series, Tantei Gakuen Q, since I'm hoping to finish that before Uta no Oniisan starts on Friday.
...You know, if I were to make a list of all the dramas I still have yet to acquire and watch, it would... um... be really long. Sorry, my brain died and ran out of amusing segues. Must be time for bed.
[edit: I just realized that I never wrote a review for Kiken na Aneki. Darn it.]
comment! (4)
dragged from Becky's stream of consciousness at 1/11/2009 03:14:00 AM
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