For the second time this week, I was woken up by my phone going off at a time beginning with "6" and ending with "AM." At least this one was ":58" instead of ":10" but still. And at least my mom's message - as headdesky as it was - was because of some concern for me. This one was from a housemate, saying, "If I say yes to Secret Santa, can I find out who my person is now? Because I'm shopping..."

Roomie and I organized a little Secret Santa within the Ihouse, and sign-ups ended on Wednesday. A "If I say yes..." text at 7am is not appreciated. D<

Now off to Sacramento... woo. hoo.

Thanksgiving was as epic as it usually is at my house, from the waking up early (almost 45 minutes earlier than my alarm, in my case - and I'd had a dream that I was hosting an X'mas party and running late and stressing out >.>) to the day of cooking, to the awesome appetizers, which are different every year, to the predictable tastes of everything we had for dinner, to the massive pile of dishes afterwards... and now the sleepiness. XD It was generally a lot of fun, though. Everyone all got along and my spacey grand-aunt wasn't too out of it this year. Last year, she was almost falling asleep at the table. This year, though, she even remembered that Saemi had been with me last year, and asked where she was. :O

I made two and a half icons today, which is, aside from the turkey day-related things on my to-do list, all I was able to get done... Tomorrow is a trip to Sacramento to visit Evil Gramma, which will be So Much Fun. I wonder how many bushels of various bitter vegetables she'll try to give us. >.> Oh, and I posted some drabbles I'd written on the train for my first post evar at je100 (finally), so that was productive and not on my list at all. Saturday will have to be my Really Productive day, then.

Mmm, in shiny news, Rui has an amazing ability to look pretty in all sorts of hairstyles, the most recent being dreads, which many Jrockers seem to end up using as a pineapple impression. Are jealous. Especially because he has popped up with a new style (that looks like an old style, but shh) and a lighter color, and it looks lovely on... at least the left side of his head. And okay, I'm a sucker for those... mini-cornroll things. Whatever you call them.

The first picture is from his blog, and the second is from Haku(-sama)'s. Haku's the bassist for Canzel. I am sort of surprised I'd never heard of the band before... or it was just the name in passing and I don't remember it. Anyhoo.



Pretty! Haku's got a cute little smile, too.

...and I'm really way more sleepy than thankful, but it's Thanksgiving, so what the hey. XD

Gotta say, it's a bit discouraging when you are the maker of three of four entries in an icontest and the fourth icon wins. XD It's a nice icon, so I'm not bitter or anything, and well, it's just an icontest. It's just kinda funny/sad (especially because I was joking with my roomie about me losing), since I rather liked all three of my entries.

I am home for Thanksgiving now. We went out for Chinese food tonight at the restaurant I've been going to since... birth, probably. Their cha siu wonton is probably one of my most favorite foods ever. ♥

Got lots of work to do on this break: cooking, writing papers, doing projects for the Ihouse, and being a good Faniminion. Some of these assignments are more fun than others. :P

To-Do, Turkey Edition
Shoosh, Ameba doesn't have a turkey and the only chicken was a baby >.> Snickerdoodles?
Be a Kitchen Grunt
Laundry! Also, don't forget formal dress.
EDAU 172 - Website homework - due... 12/1
COMM 174 - Research intercultural conflict in the US!! - due 12/07
LING 123 - Paper on apes vs. humans! - due 12/3
EDSP 162 - Discussion question #5! - due 12/2
I-HOUSE NEWSLETTER ILLUSTRATION
Monitor Secret Santa :D
Clean kitchen more x__x (...in general, since I am obvs not at school to do it now)
Google shtuff.
Holiday cards!
Icon NaNo!!

...yokay. That is totally all do-able. \o/?

And Lee Joon has swine flu, poor bebe. His bandmates may have it as well. >.>

I Come With the Rain was posted up at jdramas, so I watched it today. And now I am highly recommending it. With some caveats.

If you are easily squicked, this is definitely not a movie for you. One of the characters makes sculptures out of human body parts. There is a lot of violence, some gore, and a scene with bugs on Kimura Takuya's pretty face. Personally, I thought the level of gore was really good. Nothing was too graphic - the bits that would've been were off-screen or hidden by camera angles/props - but there were definitely moments where I cringed in sympathetic agony. Lots of moments. But in a good way.

On the shallow upside, Josh Hartnett spends about half the movie shirtless (...though occasionally bloodied at the same time), and Lee Byung Hun, KimuTaku, and Shawn Yue are all shirtless at least once within the first hour. :D? And you get to watch them all speak English. Even Josh Hartnett! XPP And that KimuTaku dude.

Overall, I thought the movie had a great sense of tension. Even when you know what's coming - the director liked to draw some moments out a lot - there's more of a feeling of, "Oh crap oh crap oh crap" than "blah blah blah." Some themes were pushed a bit too hard, I felt, but it wasn't so relentless that it ruined the movie by any means.

The music was done by Gustavo Santaolalla and Radiohead. Personally, I could've done with less Radiohead and more Gustavo, but the score went well with the movie. Stylistically, it took me a couple minutes to get used to the pacing and the filming style, but it fits the story as well. This director is the one currently signed on to adapt Murakami's Norweigan Wood, and I will tentatively say I think his style will work with Murakami's quirkiness (though obviously, it's a bit different adapting a book to screen than directing something that's purely script), which makes me happy.

And it was generally refreshing getting to see Asian actors with Western actors in a movie like this. Specifically, it was awesome getting to see KimuTaku ~the idol~ playing the character he does. I haven't seen anything from his filmography but MR. BRAIN, but this doesn't strike me as typical idol fare. XD

I really hope it gets a wider release (i.e. one in the US at all?). It'd be great to see it in one part, instead of two. Plus, the sound on the jdramas version would fade in and out sometimes, and I couldn't quite tell if/how much of it was intentional for Dramatic Effect, or if it was due to the rip, but either way, it was a bit distracting. And, of course, it'd just be nice to see Asians in American-released movies in a "cool" movie like this one instead of seeing Americans in American remakes of "cool" Asian movies. :D

Also, I was halfway through that last sentence when I noticed that nihongofrancais had posted a reviewflail about this movie too. Granted, her's is a little more spoilery (on a certain scale of spoileriness - she doesn't give a blow-by-blow account, ofc XD), but see, I am not the only one who recommends it!

Let's get the -_- news out of the way first. I e-mailed to get a permission code to add Neuro next semester and got this in reply: At this time, we are not giving add codes for students wishing to retake a course.

I have sent a reply asking when/if there will be an announcement about those, or if I should just be annoying about it later (not in those words, ofc), but the office woman wasn't in on Thursday and Friday was a furlough day and now it is the weekend, so *twiddles thumbs*

Moving on! It is Rui's birthday now~ Birthday messages are fun to read. XD Yuh and Tomo both posted exactly at midnight, and Rui posted at seven minutes to with this post:

Tick tock tick tock.

(´_`)

Dork. XD Also, look at my amazing translating skills! Ha.

I dragged myself into consciousness to buy Utada tickets (swtjemz, I have yours!) this morning, which wasn't too bad since it wasn't earlier than when I normally wake up for classes, and for some reason, I woke up at 7:30 (again - I've woken up at 7:30 three or four times this week), and then maybe 8:30. Plus, even though LiveNation did not send me a presale code, it wasn't hard to find online. I figured she wouldn't sell out in five minutes but this is part of the fun. Even if I sort of want to go back to sleep.

Tickets were a little more expensive than I thought they'd be, but still not bad? I guess? My view of expensive has changed since getting into Jmusic. XD It's really just the processing fee that makes them seem expensive. That, and for me, having six tickets on my credit card. :P

Ahh, my social life woke up last night again. A few of us went to Gary's for dinner before he heads to Hong Kong for a few weeks. There was a lot of Japanese being thrown around, but it was pretty simple so I understood most of it. \o/

And to end with another topic jump: the line-up for Gackt's next PV is interesting! And pretty. XD I wonder if Tsukasa (and Shun?) was recommended by Yoshiki.

Bass: Ni~ya from Nightmare!
Drums: Tsukasa from D'espairsRay!
Guitar: Shun from Duel Jewel!
And our YOU from GACKT Job.

The exclamations and lack of enthusiasm for You (XD) are from Gackt's OHP, not me. Well, I suppose this is a good way for him to worm his way into the ears of fans of those bands who don't listen to him.

Vict is leaving LiZ at the end of the year, along with Yuu. ;_; Still waiting on a better translation for Ryou's post, but from what I got through (which was, admittedly, not the entire thing), the remaining three are going to continue with the band. Though he could just mean that LiZ will continue through the end of the year, since I could be missing some context due to lack of reading-the-whole-thing.

Well, I hope they stick around, and while it makes me sad to see Vict and Yuu leave, perhaps they'll get a new member or two who can pick the band up and maybe give them whatever it is they need to move towards an album release, or another mini-album, even.

Also, this came up on my Facebook feed today:



Last year, some of the film students at the I-House put this funny little mock-reality show together as an entry in the campus film festival. It revolves around a paranoid American, a womanizing Frenchman, and an incomprehensible Englishman who pines for a Chinese girl (...and IRL, when I first met Suraj, I could not understand him at all). It turned out pretty well, and I think we made it to the semi-finals - plus, there's some nice nostalgia for me. XD

...I was going to work on icons today. Oops. That will have to start happening after lunch. >.>

Another amusing tidbit: It'd figure the pretty heavily-tattooed bassist for xTRiPx would be the one to make a post about Kimutaku and SMAP. XD

So far today:

I woke up and thought that today was the 5th.

Then I went and got my toothbrush out of my closet, turned around, and slammed the left side of my mouth into the doorframe hard enough that it went numb and I started crying. I have such special skills. So now my lip is swelling a bit, and painful and numb at the same time.

Now, I will go to lunch and hopefully be more productive and less self-injurous after that.

/o/ Yosh~

Though I did help Hitomi proofread something, so yay. And I was told that when they watched Spirited Away last night, every time Kaonashi did something, they'd go, "No, Liz, don't do it!" XD

None of the recent J-dramas have really jumped out at me as MUST-WATCH-NOWs, so I went and watched Kisarazu Cat's Eye a couple weeks ago, and started Akihabara@DEEP last night (partly because of back-burner curiosity, and partly because pashoshi recently pointed out the unfortunate lack of Kazapon love in the world). I totally want to take Page home and feed him cookies or something. So adorable. ♥ Also, if I was a bit nerdier, I would think up therapy techniques to help him with his stutter, but I am not. >.>

I tried fruitlessly to download the second episode allll afternoon, and it is finally done now. Yay! But I have been distracted by the first episode of MBLAQ's "Art of Seduction" show, and the dancey dorky Korean boys have won for the moment. I still die a little inside when I realize that they are all younger than me, and especially that Mir is the youngest (for some reason, I thought it was Thunder? Maybe because people keep mentioning that he's Dara's younger brother, so he seems like the baby XD) and still only eighteen. Though it's still not as weird as knowing that all of Big Bang is younger than me - not by much, but... o_O;

"Oh Yeah"'s lyrics don't match their dancing at all, and I feel like I lose brain cells when I listen to it, but I can't stop. Korea > Liz.

I do feel enthralled is a bit of an exaggeration, though... XD

Roomie and I both did this together. It's fun having a roommate on LJ sometimes. XD We can bitch at each other about fandom and iconing and we totally understand what the other person is talking about, even though we're not in the same fandoms.

My LiveJournal Trick-or-Treat Haul
liangzhu goes trick-or-treating, dressed up as Kaonashi.
coiled_iris gives you 16 red evil-flavoured jawbreakers.
dammitliv gives you 4 pink tropical-flavoured pieces of chewing gum.
elagnithgins gives you 7 teal chocolate-flavoured gumdrops.
karinberry gives you 12 light green orange-flavoured gummy bats.
lucentstreak gives you 15 light green strawberry-flavoured wafers.
musikologie gives you 2 dark blue lemon-flavoured pieces of chewing gum.
nihongofrancais gives you 7 brown banana-flavoured jawbreakers.
slytherisa gives you 5 blue grapefruit-flavoured gummy bats.
swtjemz gives you 11 blue strawberry-flavoured pieces of taffy.
velvetgunfire tricks you! You get a rotten egg.
liangzhu ends up with 79 pieces of candy, and a rotten egg.
Go trick-or-treating! Username:
Another fun meme brought to you by rfreebern.

And now I have... one minute to finish my costume, figure out my alternate costume, and take a shower. >.> *zooms*

For one week, recommend / share:
→ Day 1: a song
→ Day 2: a picture
→ Day 3: a book/ebook/fanfic
→ Day 4: a site
→ Day 5: a youtube clip
→ Day 6: a quote
→ Day 7: whatever tickles your fancy

From O'sensei Ueshiba Morihei's collection of doka, little sayings that apply to the practice of Aikido:

Large does not always defeat little.
Little can become large by constant building;
large can become little by falling apart.

I ran across this while going through the doka for a paper I had to write on them. Unlike most of them, which tend to be 'deep' or have this sense of serene balance, this one seems kind of cute to me as well. Maybe it's just because I'm little. XD It does reflect that sense of balance that O'sensei liked to stress, though, and the general sense within Aikido that being big and strong doesn't automatically make you the winner. If you're small, but able to use your opponent's strength against them, there's no reason for you to lose. :D

In other news, welcome back to the world of catchy poppy Korean songs, SS501! Rebirth is a good mini-album title, especially since because everyone went and changed their hair, I had to actually concentrate to figure out who was who the first time around. >.>

....I should've learned from last night to go to sleep before or at the same time as my roommate. >.> At least I'm definitely more tired tonight, even after a nap, so hopefully, I'll be able to sleep more tonight.

Pancake Breakfast was a lot of fun, but in different ways from last year. I saw a lot of friends from Coffee Night and elsewhere, and felt like I did less work than the last two times. It took me around half an hour to get my yukata on; I think the first step of just tying the thing closed was as hard as tying the obi. XD But Hitomi thought I was a genius, so yay~

I didn't take many pictures, but there are about a million floating around and I will get some. During George and my performance (with Arash, for two songs), there were so many camera flashes going off, and there were photographers like, crouched on the ground right in front of us and you could hear the clickclickclick... I wanted to laugh because it had such a celebrity feel to it. XD Ah, today would've been such a good day to start that photo-meme that's going around again... it'd cover Pancake Breakfast, International Quiz on Friday, the Halloween party on Friday night, and actual Halloween.

My parents came by, and BROUGHT ME A PUMPKIN. ♥ Actually, they brought a large pumpkin for the house, and a small pumpkin for me (which I discovered after I left), a pot of mums, and a carving kit. And also the stuff roomie and I ordered from HMV, some cough medicine, and vitamins. >.>

For one week, recommend / share:
→ Day 1: a song
→ Day 2: a picture
→ Day 3: a book/ebook/fanfic
→ Day 4: a site
→ Day 5: a youtube clip
→ Day 6: a quote
→ Day 7: whatever tickles your fancy

I really want to just rec this channel, but まるです。 (I am Maru) is a good starting point. Maru is a big fat cat with adorable sock-mitten feet and an awesome, quirky personality that shows in cutehilarious ways (Maru loves boxes) and who lives in Japan. ♥ If he was my cat, I don't think I'd ever watch TV... not that I watch TV on the TV much these days anyway, but you know what I mean.

Maru also has a blog with nice pictures and other little characters like Harry the stuffed hedgehog and a giant Kapibara-san! Eee.

In other news, between my GPA, my lack of previous clinical experience and the fact that the clinic applications apparently close twelve hours before the time stated in the e-mail sent around, I will definitely be here another semester to take clinic. -_-; You can submit a late app if there's still space in clinic, but the only thing I really have going for me is my senior status, and if I have to retake classes like I think I do (but I don't for sure, because the head of clinic hasn't gotten back to me yet), I don't even have that. >.>

We had to scrap the Secret song (a song from the Jay Chou movie, Secret, that is) because I failed at it once we moved from the basement to the actual 'stage.' I don't know what happened exactly (I know what I did wrong, but I don't understand why I lost my sense of counting so badly), but I'm disappointed, even though in reality, I know that I only learned the song - without sheet music, too, which I'm pretty dependent on - two days ago, and George went and changed all of the rhythms today. >.>

So we're playing Pachelbel's Canon and "Memories" from Cats with Arash, and the short violin duet we played last semester; actually, it's all from last semester. XD But it's fine. We didn't know we'd been automatically signed up to perform until less than a week ago.

I still don't really feel ready. I hate that whenever I perform, regardless of how well I've tuned beforehand, I always feel like I'm wildly out of tune. x_x

Well. I'll wake up at 8 to get dressed, practice with George at 8:45, and then be ready for my shift at 9:10... this weekend feels like it's been non-existant, which always happens with PCB. It just takes over.

For one week, recommend / share:
→ Day 1: a song
→ Day 2: a picture
→ Day 3: a book/ebook/fanfic
→ Day 4: a site
→ Day 5: a youtube clip
→ Day 6: a quote
→ Day 7: whatever tickles your fancy

Day 4 already? o_O Hm. A site, eh? How about Denshi Jisho? Sometimes, I feel like their definitions for words are really, really broad or really varied (which may just be the word, but I dunno), but I generally find this site pretty useful. As in, I depend on it for word lookups when I try to translate. :P

I really like their Kanji look-up system, where you can select any/all of the radicals in a kanji and - usually - find it, and also that you can get sample sentences using the words you look up, though the results of that can be hit-or-miss, depending on what you're looking up. Also, when I just want to get hiragana for something, I like that I can type the romaji into the search box and it gets turned into hiragana.

...I can still hear snoring even with my headphones in and music turned up about four times louder than usual (yes, I know this is bad for my ears >.> I seriously cannot sleep with snoring, though; I'm just waiting for it to stop for a bit).

To end on a good note, Korean pancakes = excellent. The kimchi ones are bright orange, and have just the slightest bite to them at the end. XD

Pancake Breakfast rehearsal was today, and it was extra-chaotic. Every semester, things seem to get more (unncessecarily) complicated, so that was fun. >.>

Good news! I did a lot better than I thought I would on my midterms! There was one, all essays, that I took while sick, and I pulled off a 95%. How, I don't know, but I am not complaining. XD

( Bad news! Eh, you don't need to read about it~ )

Oh! More good news! I get to help Matias make the prize baskets for the International Quiz on October 30th. Fun times ahead. :D Also, roomie and I are full of creativity and making our Halloween costumes this weekend. /O/

For one week, recommend / share:
→ Day 1: a song
→ Day 2: a picture
→ Day 3: a book/ebook/fanfic
→ Day 4: a site
→ Day 5: a youtube clip
→ Day 6: a quote
→ Day 7: whatever tickles your fancy

This one is surprisingly hard, not in the least because I have been failing at reading new things this year, and I'm so indecisive I can't pick a book to recommend. It usually depends on who I'm recommending a book to, but! I'll try with: a comic book!

Marvel 1602 (it's Wiki, so it does have the entire story written out for the spoiler-phobic who take this rec seriously XD) was written in 2003 by none other than Neil Gaiman, and illustrated by Andy Kubert and Richard Isanove. It basically took the Marvel universe, and placed it in, well, 1602, during a time where the 'witchbreed' - mutants - are being hunted down and killed.

One thing I really like about 1602 is the variety of characters Gaiman packs into eight issues (though for me, it's one hard-cover book XD). There's Charles Xavier and the original five X-men, Daredevil, Magneto, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, the Fantastic Four, Dr. Doom, Stephen Strange, Nick Fury, Thor, Captain America, Hulk and others, all renamed to be a bit more period-appropriate (I suppose), of course, as well as several historical figures. There's a departure from the typical Marvel illustration style, which is also nice; it looks more hand-drawn, more hand-colored, and less flat, somehow.

Gaiman doesn't really have much time to establish different personalities with the 1602 versions of the Marvel characters, but it's not really necessary. The plot is interesting and different just because of its context, but isn't particularly innovative or 'new.' But 1602 is really just a fun spinoff with a few twists thrown in. From a company where most spin-offs take place in roughly the same time as canon, just with different people in different configurations, it's a really nice alternative.

I had to clean up the messes at the bottoms of two of our three fridges downstairs. So gross. I've already shared all the details with my roomie, so the flist is spared. Also, someone who was probably here during the summer left a bin with food in it which has since molded and leaked (luckily, just into the bin) and was basically turning all sorts of interesting colors and textures. *gags*

When I went home last weekend, I once again really wanted to move out. I love having 'my own' kitchen (or a family kitchen, at least - not a kitchen-shaped room for 72 people and their friends); I actually feel like cooking.

This cleaning is in preparation for our semi-annual Pancake Breakfast, which will be happening this Sunday, at the I-House! I was automatically (-_-) signed up to perform with George, so we will be playing Pachelbel's Canon with Arash on piano again, as well as a song from Secret, adapated from piano for violin and viola (George figured it all out tonight). As always, I would love to see any local LJ friends there, if you can make it. ;)

For one week, recommend / share:
→ Day 1: a song
→ Day 2: a picture
→ Day 3: a book/ebook/fanfic
→ Day 4: a site
→ Day 5: a youtube clip
→ Day 6: a quote
→ Day 7: whatever tickles your fancy

Please to be clicking for the full-sized one. :3 This picture was taken by Hiroto from Alice Nine and posted at his blog (warning for streaming sound/tiny video clip), and though there are many other skyscapes I pondered, this one had grabbed my attention the most when I first saw it. Hiroto seems to really love, and draw inspiration and strength from the sky, and I think it shows in the pictures he takes - well, the sky-rambling he does on his blog helps, too.

Time to start plotting my version of NaNo this year... along with making my Halloween costume, and, of course, figuring out if I can graduate in May, or at least only one semester later. >.>

I have a batch of icons up for voting at pickmybest (...which seems to be dying, but what the heck), and more opinions would be lovely if anyone has time/interest. But no pressure, really. XD


Over heeere

It's a mix of V6 (for jmusic50, Versailles, with a few of Uruha, Gou from Megamasso, KAT-TUN, Ayabie, Vistlip, and GLAY. If you'd like to vote, please pick your top five (from 5th to 1st) and say why you like it; it can be something simple, like, "Nice crop!" but a bit more detail is always more helpful. XD

I will probably crosspost this to dammitliz, so... yeah. Sorry for the repetition. :P

And now, I'll start this meme, even though Thursday is a weird day to start on (especially when it's only been Thursday for twenty minutes - I still haven't decided if this still counts as Wednesday):

For one week, recommend / share:
→ Day 1: a song
→ Day 2: a picture
→ Day 3: a book/ebook/fanfic
→ Day 4: a site
→ Day 5: a youtube clip
→ Day 6: a quote
→ Day 7: whatever tickles your fancy

Like zenni, I can forsee myself having trouble sticking to one rec per category, so I'll start off on a good foot, and go with two. Ha.

This is the song I was originally going to link, because I have been listening to it a lot lately, and I am still in awe of V6's sex lyrics. >.> Maybe it's because they're a senpai band in JE, but I was not expecting this from them at all.

V6 - Voltage

The lyrics are here if you're interested. It really is about sex, I swear.

But this song was playing when I was pondering this meme, and I thought it'd be nice to also actually rec someone less well known (though among Johnny's, V6 is not a frontrunner among LJ fandom, at least), so:

Def Tech - Future Child

Def Tech is a Japanese-Hawaiian group that pioneered their own genre they dubbed "Jawaiian," - Japanese-Hawaiian reggae. This song shows off their style pretty well (and they use the word Jawaiian in it!); it's not for everyone, and I can't listen to them all the time, but they're good if you're having a good day. XD Kinda funky, kinda weird, but fun.

Watching May 18 (화려한 휴가) was probably not the best idea for a pre-bed movie. Tonight started out well; I watched WALL-E again, since Iris's flailing about it when she watched it made me want to see it. Watched the October 11th episode of Shokura, as mentioned in the last post.

Moved on to most of Coming Century's most recent live tour (okay, I kinda sped through a lot of the songs in search of ones I knew, MCs, and VTRs but I will watch the rest some time), which was predictably entertaining (and had unexpectedly fail costumes at some points - really, V6 had been doing so well). Okada really does love his skinship. XD He managed to grab both Go and Ken's asses at different points; with Go, it was pretty quick since they were walking, but Go still noticed while Okada pretended like he hadn't done anything, and with Ken, he used the ass-grabbing to push Ken along the stage, and Ken told him to not do that. XD

And then I watched May 18, since it had finished downloading. It's a Korean movie, based on the brutal crushing of a supposed civilian uprising in May 1980 by a somewhat rogue military force. I guess I kept comparing it to Tae Guk Gi in my head, since that's the other Korean war movie I've seen, and both have main characters who are brothers. This one is not quite as gory as Tae Guk Gi, but just the fact that it's not about two armies fighting one another - it's about the military vs. civilians/a civilian militia made it - I think - more poignant for me. Well, I feel like I cried through a good quarter of it.

They had random comedic characters in it, which was a bit unsettling... since, ultimately, you know there won't be a happy ending, and at least one of the funny guys was more of a caricature than a character, so it was hard to match that with the context of the movie. The main character's arc was pretty predictable, as well, but there aren't too many different directions one can go in a movie like this.

At any rate, I generally liked it, but it's not the best movie to sleep on.

So now I have screencaps from the Kamisen tour final, their first in six years. :D

( Illustrations of the things mentioned above, plus a VTR bit )

And sleepiness just hit me like a ton of bricks. Wow. *blinks* Time for bed, hopefully without dreams of bloodshed. >.>

As much as I will miss Yone's blankface and his love for chibi Juniors and when they make him do silly things in the Jr. game segments, I am seriously loving that Goto Hiromi (I wish his name was easier to write: 後藤泰観 XD) gets some of the spotlight now. He's been around for awhile as a sort of unofficial part-time-ish member of Question? (from what I've read, at least - that link is a sort-of-mini pimp post, go click :D), and I am completely totally biased towards strings and think that adding a violin/viola/cello to a regular four/five-piece rock band is pretty much always awesome. Especially when the musician is pretty. Yeah, shallow, but in this case it's JE and therefore allowed. :P

*____*

It doesn't hurt that he reminds me of a mix of Kagrra!Shin and someone(s) else I can't figure out.

I am home for a couple days to lurk around and pick up my package. With what feels like half the house in Seattle/Vancouver this weekend anyways, it's not like I'm missing anything. My parents are off on a two-week trip too, though, so home!home is pretty quiet (and more importantly, there is no food ._.), but it's nice. Yaaay, baths!

added: Onto the "Beast Soul" performance now, and I am glad that Goto's singing has improved. XD Still reminding me a bit of Shin. Like, a cousin, or something. Maybe I just have some sort of PSC/Question thing going on, since my first association with Fujiie was Hiroto (not so much these days, but I can still see the resemblance).

*pets Yody*

Ooh. Mini-solos, yay!

Er, I are spammy today. I am catching up on Moran news, and it seems they've had a really bad year... Their music didn't grab me as much as I thought it would, but I like their image, and I follow Soan on Ameba.

First, their bassist, Zill, was really sick - to the point where he took a leave of absence for three months and had his spot filled by the former bassists for first Babylon, and then Sugar. He returned in August, and then in early September, it was announced that Velo, their guitarist, would be leaving the band in December (another one!), which would go on an indefinite hiatus.

This hasn't been well-translated yet, but it sounds like Hitomi is sick, now, too. He has a "broken voice," whatever that means. Since Soan is the only one who's mentioned it, I don't think it's too severe (perhaps just a cold), but still. I feel bad for Soan, since while nothing has happened to him personally, he's still had to cope with all of this, plus Jasmine You's death, which he took really hard.

Ah, and LiZ's announcement regarding Yuu's departure has been translated. My translation was similar, which makes me feel better about my translating (...i.e. dictionary-ing) skills, at least. >.>

Okay, this post is pretty pointless and also not picking me up after the revelation of the last post. :P I'm really kinda just occupying myself while seeing how much I can download before I get so tired that I fall asleep. The Internet has been somewhat faster than usual, and I am definitely going to take advantage of that. XD

WARNING: This post is all fandom. XD

Reason #483902 Why Yuuto Should Not Leave SCREW or Why SCREW Is An Awesome Band (take your pick; though I'm sure SCREW can be awesome without Yuuto, he is an integral part of this!):



Please to be noting where Jin's right hand is. For those who would like to be noting, but don't know SCREW, Jin is second from left. Yuuto is far left, then (a strangely short) Byou is in the middle, followed by Manabu and Kazuki.

I don't think much more explanation is needed. Jin doesn't lie when he says Yuuto is his. ♥

Also, Kisumai + Abake = EXTRA extra chipmunky voices. I love how Fujigaya is totally identifiable even with his voice changed, and Kitayama is a ham, and Senkaido are extra bratty, and Yokoo is just crazy and sharky and awesome, and Miyata wins, and Tama-chan doesn't really get exciting tidbits but is adorable anyways.

Inori with chairs and canes is... hang on, I think I'll need some more time to process this as it's not computing and I can't stop picturing Tama-chan doing his little bodyroll (seriously, it took me three tries of rewinding to even pay attention to Nikaido because I kept getting distracted).

I need to sleep earlier. >.>