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August 2nd, 2009
03:29 pm
awww keita and jaejoong.
w-inds was only the first japanese boyband i ever liked <3 they were so precious.
i was just dancing along to paradox the other day =D
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July 18th, 2009
11:23 pm
started watching mr brain tonight, and i had to suppress a giggle when gackt appeared in episode 2, even as it was during a particularly disturbing opening scene. it was a nice personal tumble down memory lane myself, back to the days of high school when gackt-sama was our 'god', but thankfully not in the sense portrayed in the drama.
oh gackt, how we adored thee~
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July 5th, 2009
12:57 am
jay's sydney con was a great show, as expected! thanks for coming, jay!
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May 11th, 2009
02:03 pm
[funny comment at work over the weekend]
molly: here are your two cappucinos, one on decaf.
customer: thanks - super and unleaded huh?
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May 7th, 2009
12:30 am
awwwww i was there! still remember it quite clearly. we were surrounded by japanese girls and this was the only song they could sing along to completely!
in other news, i saw xmen origins last tuesday. everyone gushes over hugh jackman, but daniel henney served as much better eyecandy for me. this clip of snsd all over him says it all =D
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April 23rd, 2009
07:59 pm
i don't know about japan, but indecent exposure is a criminal offence over here in aust. i'm still so bewildered by this news. it's absolutely bizarre. i can't even begin to fathom how huge the repercussions of this would be. the article already suggests that its impact has extended into the political sphere. it could get worse. for some reason i'm getting images of riots on the streets, chaotic protests, and civil war. lol.
this just goes to show how a couple drinks too many could ruin everything you've ever made for yourself. who would have thought...honestly.
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April 16th, 2009
02:32 am - epik high again...
the best thing about being independent? you can post links to fancams taken of yourself without worrying about your recording label or production company chucking a spazz over it. imagine being the fan whose video tablo has embedded on his blog? i'd be pretty damn proud. rofl all the suju and eunhyuk-loving comments are cracking me up.
what i really love about japanese and korean artists, is that they actually put in the effort to update and maintain personalised blogs for their fans (and the world, i suppose). they don't get some unknown representative to update it for them, and that really makes all the difference. yamapi is one hell of a busy guy, but he could still take time to update his jweb every day for the past 5 years? 6 years? that sort of sincerity is something which really calls for respect.
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April 13th, 2009
06:21 pm
recently, i began reading jodi picoult's latest release - handle with care. while i wouldn't call myself a huge picoult fan, i have read several of her books and have really admired the way she deals with sensitive, moral issues in a legal realm. in particular, her my sister's keeper is one of my favourite books of all time.
so when i saw that handle with care has a similar premise and looked just like my cup of tea, i was so excited to read it. but when i actually began reading it, i can't say that i wasn't disappointed. the book was written in a style so similar to my sister's keeper, that i couldn't help feel that she was riding on its success, and recreating the whole story with just a little tweaking of the characters and plot.
i'm not against the similar use of the fundamentals of the book, but rather in the way it was written. recently, in my intellectual property class, i've been studying the dichotomy between an idea and its expression in relation to copyrights and such. there's nothing wrong with copying an idea, but there's everything wrong with copying an expression. in a nutshell, my sister's keeper is about a 13 year old girl who was conceived as a genetic match for her leukemia-striken elder sister, and had spent her whole life donating parts of her body for her sister's medical sake. she decides to sue her parents for the right to make decisions about her own body. handle with care tells the story of a mother who gave birth to a girl with brittle bone disease, and in order to obtain enough money to provide a comfortable life for her daughter, decides to sue her obstetrician on the basis that had she known about her daughter's disease earlier on, she would have aborted her.
so the premise is the same - there's a controversial medical issue, a family, and a court case. that's fine. what really irked me was that my sister's keeper stood out for me because picoult had taken her plot bunny, knowing it's controversial in every sense, and wrote the book from the perspective of EVERY party involved. a fantastic and original idea and i thought it really worked. but now, in handle with care, she's doing the same. this blatant recyling just doesn't sit well with me.
in other news, our jay tickets are confirmed! rumours were running rampant about how fast the tickets were selling out, so i'm relieved now that i know they're in the bag. BUT, what i'm not relieved about, is why the event is still not listed on acer arena's official website. the acer is a huge indoor venue - our biggest actually - and it seats 21,000 people. i know jay is popular, but is he REALLY popular enough to sell out the acer? or at least sell enough to recoup the expenses of hiring the place and not have obvious clumps of empty seats in the stands? rain performed at the acer a couple of years ago, and while fan accounts have said that it was a spectacular show, he apparently couldn't even sell out half the stadium.
granted, the organisation for the rain concert was pretty screwed up. there were last minute date and venue changes and just general disarray. aish, i know i'm just a huge worrywart. everything should be fab.
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April 10th, 2009
01:03 am
jentertainment just fails to do it for me nowadays. i haven't seen a good jdrama since 'bloody monday', and the majority of je just isn't interesting anymore.
except for arashi. arashi will forever be awesome. other boybands may rise and fall, but arashi could beat the odds and rise again. they've been together 10 years and they've just had the best year of their career, and show no signs of slowing down.
having said that, i wonder what k8 are up to these days. they always made me crack a smile with their crazy.
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April 9th, 2009
03:40 pm
jay chou is finally coming to sydney, for the first time in his 8-year career. hmm that might have came out a little bitter, but it's really not. i'm excited and brimming with anticipation, especially because i had the most awesome time at his concert last february in tokyo. everyone knows who jay chou is, but a lot of people have fallen out of his fandom. it just happens when you've been around for so long. i, on the other hand, grew to like him a lot more after seeing him live. he was such an amazing performer and now i believe he's worth every dollar i spend.
it's still a cruel and hard fact that artists take a million years to come to australia, even if they have an established fanbase here. i suppose we're so far away from the rest of the world, that we just don't rank very high in the grand scheme of things. epik high has a world tour coming up, and while i may still have a glimmer of hope that they might include sydney on their list, i try not to entertain that thought too often because it's almost certainly going to crash.
in other news, i've gotten back into the suju fandom since their comeback. these boys really are amazing - they just get stuck with the worst circumstances.
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April 8th, 2009
02:07 am
well, the boys asked their fans to spread the word, so here i am~
honestly ppl, these guys are just awesome. i don't necessarily agree with everything they say and everything they do, but music-wise, they're just sensational. the more i listen to their stuff, the more i like it. you just can't get sick of their music.
so what epik high's done here is, they've gone against convention and have decided to distribute their most recent release all by themselves. what this means for them is a lot less promotion, air-play, tv appearances, the like. but it also means lower prices for the fans, and more control over the process for them. i don't know if this is the best idea in the world - as a fan, i want to see them hit the top of the charts, and win awards, and get the recognition they deserve. but what they're doing is genuine and sincere and considerate and it isn't just about making a statement.
there's no way this would work for every artist out there. the boys aren't even sure if it'll work for them and epik high's got a huge fanbase. but that shouldn't stop us from giving them a helping hand.
mapthesoul.com
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April 2nd, 2009
06:28 pm - is this tablo? tablo, i want my t-shirt with YOUR FACE IN IT!
bought the new epik high special album last night. and their skit track is just made of awesome:
i'm curious as to what proportion of their fans actually got the gist of the humour. english-speaking asians mock asian accents all the time - it's funny stuff and i love it. but there really aren't too many of us out there, and we probably make up an even smaller proportion of those who listen to epik high. i doubt their korean fans would've gotten the kick i got out of listening to this 'track'.
"who is this man with the huuuusky voice?" is just GOLD.
as for the rest of the album, it's got some nice tracks, but i didn't like all the recycling they did. i want to hear brand new material from them, so that's what i'm going to be looking for when they release their actual official 6th album. this cd was a bit lacking when compared to say, pieces.
but since they're not getting the promotion they used to get for their previous releases this time, i'm gonna pimp them and tell you all to go buy their new release, because they've made it easy for us this time by releasing it on itunes. if you're a new fan, it gives you a good idea of their style, which i just love. i can never finish listening to an epik high song without grooving along.
sample: scenario
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March 25th, 2009
09:09 pm
i've had these thoughts for quite some time now, but it's taken me a while to actually feel enough frustration for the whole issue to blog this.
i'm one of those who didn't get into the twilight phenomenon, but not for lack of trying. i read the book last june for our monthly book club, before the movie was released, right before it became a worldwide sensation. we had a general concensus that it just wasn't a good book, not for the hype which surrounded it. before reading it, i was so excited about it, because i just love its concept. i always have had a soft spot for romances that shouldn't be, but are meant to be.
but the book was so badly written, with such an amateur style (even considering its target audience), so unengaging, that i had read up to the last few chapters and just couldn't find it in me to waste anymore time on it. people have compared it to the harry potter series, and i feel so strongly turned off by that comparison, because harry potter is a masterpiece in its creation and its execution (at least, it was for the first half of the series). twilight...i felt like i was reading sweet valley high, only with vampires, and at a much slower pace.
i just can't see how a mediocre book like twilight (i refrain from saying series, because i haven't found the courage in me to read anymore since the first) could be such a huge hit when much better-written books out there with a similar premise and a similar target audience...aren't. like the night world series wendy got us into during high school. WHY ISN'T A MOVIE(S) BEING MADE OUT OF THIS?!
i just had to get this off my chest when i heard a girl, same age and uni as me, gush about how fantastic the book was on the bus. it just...argh.
i haven't seen the movie, but i don't doubt that it could make a pretty entertaining chickflick. this whole vent is just about the book and its undeserved success.
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March 5th, 2009
09:14 pm
there's been some awesome sm-ness in recent days, and suju's eunhae dancing with their american choreographers just makes my day. it wasn't really the moves which impressed me - they were smooth, but it wasn't particularly awe-inspiring. no what i loved about it was the mutual respect. you could really feel that the choreographers were having fun with the boys, which i'm rather pleasantly surprised by.
one of the things i love in my asian pop fandom is seeing these artists interact with western celebs. at the same time however, there's always this element of anxiety there, a worry that the asian artists will get the shorter end of the stick, really. and most of the time this is true - they're usually star-struck by these western superstars that deign to meet them, and at best what they get in return is reserved politeness.
that anxiety is particularly prominent when it comes to boybands, because the truth is, the western ideal of boybands just isn't...ideal. it's almost like an ugly word. i certainly can't expect those who aren't 'in' on the asian boyband industry to know the way it operates. that you don't necessarily have to be a good singer to succeed. that there is the concept of the all-round entertainer. that these artists audition at a young age and go through years of hard training to even stand a chance of being able to make their mark.
so it was good to see these blokes actually enjoy their time with suju. i mean, suju is a 13-member boyband - that's always going to invoke at least a raised eyebrow.
while we're on this note, i recently watched an old clip of an avril interview with the japanese tv personality, becky. now becky is bizarre, in the most awesome way. avril is giving off that terrible attitude in the beginning, but becky isn't even fazed. in fact, she turns the tables on avril and totally makes her squirm by the end with her crazy. ooooh it just made me feel GOOD.
now on a completely different note, i'm totally digging the chorus of the opening theme of the new tvb drama sweetness in the salt. i find myself continuously humming it around the house. pretty catchy.
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March 4th, 2009
01:59 am
omg. cute!
there's been so much dbskXje activity recently. something must've happened. it'd be nice to get some insider information.
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February 12th, 2009
01:12 am
the fires are still burning but the heat wave here is finally over. my skin can stop breaking out and i can stop feeling disgustingly sweaty all the time. bah. i'm so tired of this place. i only got back a few weeks ago and now i want to get away again. why so remote, australia?
i've observed (under the influence of BOF i swear!!), that korea has way too many boybands, but ss501's songs are actually pretty decent. they're catchy and i find myself cringing a lot less compared to, say, super junior's music. probably because they don't do that asian rap thing too often. my eye only twitches at the appalling use of english, but it's not TOO bad - years of listening to jap engrish have built up my tolerance!!
have a listen yourself: here, here, and here
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February 2nd, 2009
01:05 am
i'm back from europe a few weeks ago but have been completely cut off THE WORLD after moving house and waiting an eternity for our isp to reconnect us. that means i've been spending all my time watching the australian open, which i do watch every year but usually not until the quarter finals.
( the open and the dorama )
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December 6th, 2008
01:18 am
it's funny how my journal is most active only during exams, and now that they're over i've gone back to neglecting it.
in real life news, hmmm well i'm going to europe next wednesday!! this is it, the one trip i've been slaving away all year for. it should be exciting - christmas in amsterdam, new years in paris. i'm just giddy with anticipation. hopefully the floods in venice would have receded by the time we get there...
in other news, i've started watching bloody monday, for miura haruma at first, but it's such a tightly woven edge-of-your-seat drama that i'm actually watching it for the plot now!! plus it's got a great cast of actors, which has actually overshadowed the rather typical (read: boring) hero that miura plays, unlike gokusen 3, where he was the one who stole the spotlight.
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November 12th, 2008
09:36 pm
it really is a guys thing. koyama and shige went on a spur-of-the-moment overseas trip and there was only one double room left. look at the lengths they went to to avoid the awkwardness of sleeping in the same bed!!
we go through the same problem with our male friends on various trips. is it such a taboo for two straight guys to sleep in the same bed together? everyone would love a single bed to themselves but EVERY TIME us girls would have to share beds just because the boys can't handle the thought of sleeping next to each other. it still makes no sense to me (the only explanation we could come up with was that they were all somehow insecure of their sexuality).
haha i'm suddenly strongly reminded of the contrast with super junior's 'super adonis camp', where they had three guys sleeping in the same bed. and entirely comfortable with it too. oh goodness xD
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November 8th, 2008
01:00 am
spent all night youtubing chris brown's performances because i'm a little sore that i'm missing out on his (and rihanna's) sydney act. he seems like such a gracious and sincere performer - a rare commodity these days. look at him here - the crowd's all over him and you can tell he's loving it but there isn't a touch of arrogance. it's like he felt sorry for not being able to get closer to the fans. aww what a sweetheart.
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