done!

In the truest tradition of dressing twins in matching clothes (no, really, I actually can't stand that), I have now dressed this blog and my tumblr blog in exactly the same outfit! Mostly because I was bored (again) with how this blog looked, so when I saw how nice the background looked on tumblr I decided to use it here as well. Personally, I think it looks really nice for something so randomly cobbled together! I spent only half an hour on the thing, as opposed to my original estimate of 3+ hours. See, getting distracted and carried away with nonsense sometimes ends up with fun results!

Doesn't it look just like soft, colourful snow dancing as it falls? ♥

http://visualbrackets.tumblr.com/ <-- click or die, hoar!

No, seriously. Click it.

Oh, and by the way - I think I've just been given a tangible target, one I can actually aspire to achieve. :)

oh, no.

Okay, crap. It seems that nutnut was right about tumblr.

I didn't really bother at first, but now that I've gone cruising around and found some awesome tumblr blogs to follow, suddenly it's the most fun thing I could spend my time doing. Going on a reblogging spree is fine and all, but surely going on a reblogging rampage is not healthy. And now I've decided my theme is hideous, so I'm making myself a new background... NOOOO!!

I'll be up all night, at this rate! I'm actually opening up Photoshop now, ready to spend the next four hours making a good enough background. Oh, no, crap, no!

*sigh*

Well. You might as well make my work worth it. Come see the result of my toil! ;) brb!

song of the day: Ave Maria! ~Schubert~

I know I said I wouldn't post anything about stuff everyone's already heard anyway, and I know there isn't a one of you who hasn't heard Ave Maria. But humor me.

The version I'm talking about here is one of the covers Hirahara Ayaka has done (she did two, this is the "Schubert" version). For those unfamiliar with her, Hirahara Ayaka is one of those artists that make me feel really proud when I say I am a fan. For comparison, admitting to being a KAT-TUN fan still makes me squirm a little inside. You get the idea.

Hirahara is brilliant, the Japanese queen of classical covers. She also has the most amazing range I've heard from a woman, something you can hear from her debut song Jupiter. She has a lovely style of music, and most of my favourite singles from her are the ones based on classical music. Her song Jupiter is based on the Jupiter movement in the The Planets Suite, and Siciliana's melody is based on (you guessed it!) Bach's Siciliano.

This version of Ave Maria is another great cover. The first one was good, yes, but this second one is the one I'm interested in. It's got a jazzy feel to it, just the kind of sound I've been into lately, and there's a slightly livelier twist that her light voice (wanna hear her "heavy" voice?) works nicely into the song. With all due respect for classical music, I can't help feeling that her covers make it so much more accessible to uneducated, uncultured people like me.

If you still aren't a fan of Hirahara Ayaka, I'm gonna drop my last two bombs here. First; she's the one who performed the theme song for Spirited Away, as well as the concert version of Reprise. Second; SHE PLAYS THE SAXOPHONE. Not just plays; she's studying jazz and majoring in saxophone, for heaven's sake. You can't say that's not cool.

song of the day: Paradise

Download sprees make me happy! But you already knew that, I'm sure.

And what have I just downloaded? It's a nice, cheery song called Paradise by Matsushita Yuya! I feel a bit conflicted being a fan of his, because I don't exactly hide my disdain for Justin Bieber's feminity, but this guy doesn't have a very masculine voice either. Still, leave that for the haters to hate.

Matsushita Yuya may not have a rich, deep voice, but he does pretty well with his mid-range voice anyway. Also, at the risk of sounding very strange, I can't help but think this dude has pretty good control over his lungs. Huh. Well anyway, this song. It's actually just more of his usual stuff; a little bit R&B, with a quick, energetic pace and a voice that sounds happy for being able to sing. What I actually want to rave about is the PV!

What can I say? The dude can dance. I already found his dancing to be pretty impressive when I watched the PVs for Honesty and for Trust Me, and the one for Bird got me really impressed, but this time the PV is so nicely structured! It's got a good helping of his dancing in it, but unlike the others, it's mixed in with some other, more calming scenes so there's a good balance and nice contrast to things.

On the flipside, though, I have this unfortunate tendency to get bored of Yuya's stuff really quickly. I abuse my repeat button for two weeks, then I start looking for another song to go nuts over. But hey, no biggie. It's still good for a casual fandom.

Unrelated note:

Listening to ABBA makes me feel like having big, fluffy hair. Seriously. I have no idea why.

Another unrelated note:

I been spamming tumblr like crazy today! *serious rock-and-roll face*

Last unrelated note:

iLike Thursdays. :3

10 things I love about Kamenashi Kazuya

A rather overdue post that I feel is necessary to explain just why Kame Is Awesome, because my mysterious fandom just popped up one day and manifested itself without so much as an apologetic or explanatory peep. I didn't even have the time to warn everyone I knew, heh.

So I'm doing this as a sort of tie-in event with his birthday today! :P And by the way, these aren't the only ten things I love him for, and neither are they the top ten reasons. They're just ten of the many reasons, off the top of my head at this ungodly hour (what's new there?).

♦ ♦ ♦

#1 No false modesty
Kame knows he has tens of thousands of fans, maybe even hundreds if you include the international market, and he admits he's a bit of an attention whore and that he's always tried to look cool. Which explains his stage persona. You think he looks cool? Yeah, well, so does he. But in a nice way, not quite as obnoxious as it could be. It's rather like he thinks it's cool that he looks cool. Which is cool. Hahah.

#2 Depth
Kame likes photography, which millions of people do, and likes thinking, which considerably less do. It's interesting how his corner in the MAQUIA is such a thought-provoking commentary on the photos he takes, even if he doesn't take such visually stunning photos. What matters is what his photos mean to him and the things they make him ponder, and the way he puts that all into writing.

#3 Sobriety (to a certain extent)
Weird, but yeah. He's the youngest of the group, but the way he acts, you would think he's at least the second eldest. Of course, it isn't so good that he's so serious about work that he's almost perpetually overworking himself, but still. It's not a bad character trait to be hardworking and professional. Though maybe his seriousness is in part due to his inability to crack good jokes. Pfft.

#4 Voice(s)
Yes, the optional plural form is there, very deliberately. I love his voice, distinctive as it is, but his many, er, other voices are also brilliant. Kame does a wicked Donald Duck, by the way, among other impersonations he's demonstrated in public. And he used to mumble a lot, because he spoke too fast (that sounds familiar), but he worked on it and now he's so much clearer. Okay, maybe I should try his verbal exercises.

#5 People policy
Another familiar-sounding trait. It's a known fact that Kame likes company, and gets lonely easily, but at the same time he's mentioned how he is unable to go for too long without some alone time. He needs some time to hang around with himself and he enjoys his privacy and solitude as much as he does his social time. It's a balance thing.

#6 Normalcy
I suppose this isn't really limited as an exclusive Kame trait, but it's still a part of him that's awesome. What really made me realise how normal he was was the way he got so into his interior designing phase, when he prattled about his new sofa matching his home's new theme to anyone who would listen. It's funny and kind of cute, in a very regular way. And he's a confessed shopaholic! X'D

#7 Non-existent drawing talent
Probably the one thing that stands between him and the title of Jack of All Trades. He can't draw to save his life, for reasons best known to himself (and perhaps his parents), though he does have some freaky, avant-garde art style that frankly makes my head hurt. Kame's "drawing" of a cow in a meadow, from one of their field trips for CTKT, was nothing short of terrifying, with his novel idea of sprinkling coupy and scribbling abstract kanji all over his picture. The poem he had written to go with it, however, was great. He's a very good writer, for someone who usually spams emoticons like he's just discovered them.

#8 Acknowledgement where it's due
Kame wants to be learn English. British English, not American English. For this reason alone, I love him 30% more than I did before finding that out. Finally, a Japanese person who is more fascinated with Britain than with the USA, who knows that English came from England (despite how obvious this may seem)!

#9 Self-reflection
I wonder if all 25-year-olds are this reflective, but I've got a feeling that that isn't the case. From all his interview answers and suchlike, you can gather that Kame is constantly monitoring his personal development and evaluating where he is in life, something I wish I could do. He always gives thoughtful, honest answers to questions that don't actually require all that much work, revealing little things about himself that are at times thought-provoking, at times downright hilarious and at times a bit of both. (Like that time he talked about learning to act more masculine because he was born a guy and so had to act accordingly. *facepalm*)

#10 Appreciativeness
This dude is pretty much the kind of person who'd make a good grandma, come to think of it. He's unconventionally nice; what other lead actor runs out of a toasty room during a filming break to go and cook warm food for the filming crew?? And as if that in itself weren't cute enough, Kame's personal Keema Curry recipe requires apples, which he had a hard time finding in the dead of the night. So what does the guy do? Yeah, he went to a restaurant and begged them to sell him some, telling them his son was ill. He's so nice, but in such a weird way!

♦ ♦ ♦

Oops, wrong Kame. LOL.

♥ ♥ Much better. ♥ ♥

:)

Guess whose birthday it is tomorrow.

Shit, what have I become? I am such a fangirl plz. *bricked*

song of the day: Hymn of the Fayth

From Final Fantasy X. It's pretty haunting, but I can't think of much to say about it that the music itself doesn't make clear. Huh.

ITIMLY.

song of the day: Little by Little

To get this straight, this version of Little by Little that I'm talking about isn't the actual song, by Ji-yeon, but rather a cover by one of the most talented voices I've heard on YouTube in all the time I've been using it.

(I know many people get millions of views for their covers, but I feel only half of those people deserve their million hits. Others, like that eight-year-old Philippine/Canadian girl who's crazily viral right now, just don't. That kid is getting compliments like "Wow, how superb! She sings so well!" heaped on her, but to be honest I don't hear anything special in her voice. It's a video of a kid singing, and she sounds like a kid singing. That's it. It's a child's voice, people.)

Vietnamese boy Alan JW N., however, ranks higher in my book, simply because he has such a lovely voice. He may not be at the ready-to-record stage yet, but he definitely has the talent to do so. His cover of Little by Little is gorgeous, uplifting in a moment and melancholy the next, though admittedly the lyrics end rather tragically. It's sung in his lower range, which I prefer to his (much) higher one. He can sound quite unnervingly female if he wants to, I kid you not.

Please, please check his channel out. I gave little Maria a shot; surely you can give Alan one?

song(s) of the day: Lotus and Hazy

I'm gonna start posting about random songs for a bit. What I'll do is keep an eye on which song I'm listening to most on a particular day and then do a little review/recommendation. And no, I'm not J-music biased. I'm just not going to bother with the stuff you've already heard on the radio, because then there'd be no point to this. Cheers. :)

Lotus, Arashi's latest single, is nice and upbeat so it's good for keeping me bouncing on the balls of my feet and generally quite cheery. I suspect it might annoy the heck out of me in a bad mood though. I've only just seen the PV today, too, and it's not bad as far as Japanese PVs go. A pretty piece of work, though I can't tell if there's supposed to be a meaning to the dark rooms and white objects.

Hazy is on the other hand a rather old song, by Rosi Golan and William Fitzsimmons. It's also the kind that some people (cue the dagger-glaring at narrow-minded, underexposed little brother) claim will make them fall asleep. I happen to think it's beautiful. It's soft, calm and composed; the overall feel is that of a rather sweetly phrased question. I especially love how it doesn't come across as your typical love song, considering they never once expressly imply what kind of love it is. It could be a song between best friends or lovers or both, depending on how you want to hear it. Beautiful.

w/o notice??

If anyone even bothered to suffer through the KAT-TUN meme I did earlier this week, they would've noticed the abnormal number of times I cited w/o notice?? as one of my admittedly many personal favourites. I myself didn't really realise I was doing it until I found myself typing the title for the third time. Heh.



I don't know why exactly this song appeals to me so much; but it's just so hard to not include such a happifying song in your favourites! And I swear it's not because of this hilariously cute performance. It works miracles, this song does. You'd think going on a massive downloading spree, watching a cute, fluffy movie and listening to some pretty hardcore rock music would be my ultimate cure for moody moments, but nope. Somehow this light, playful song worked better.

Though to be honest, my real cure-all is a shower. Lol.

none of my business

I'm not angry. I want you to know that. Even though so many times I've felt like I wanted to break things or just scream long and loud, the overall result isn't anger. I'm too tired for that. Instead, all I feel is a sense of hopelessness. Even as I try to explain to you what exactly is wrong, I know it won't make a difference because you're making your disinterest as visible as you can. You simply don't want to hear it. I guess it's because you're at a "rebellious age", when you think no-one who's of a different age could ever possibly understand what you're going through or what you think about things. Although you'll probably disagree with that statement as well.

Fine, I'll admit it. I don't understand. I really don't. I could theorize and hypothesize based on normal patterns to suggest logical outcomes, but I don't understand what exactly you might be thinking that would cause such horrible behaviour. I personally think being rebellious for the sake of being rebellious is a load of bullshit, but hey, lots of teens do it without thinking too much about it. But just one question. Do you really think I would even bother going out of my way just to make you angry, because I and the the rest of the world have it in for you? I don't know what you think I do in my spare time, but I assure you I have much, much better things to do than to piss you off just for kicks.

I give up. I'm tired, sick and bloody tired of trying to explain as clearly as I can to you why you're doing something wrong and why you should stop, but nothing works. Whether I raise my voice to scream or keep it level to talk reason, the moment you sense a serious conversation coming up, you stop listening. You sit there and you hear what you're told, but you don't even try to assess it to see if it might be true because from the very beginning you already believe (whether consciously or not) that it's just another lecture, full of stuff you've heard before and don't enjoy hearing. I don't know what to do. I just don't know.

So I've come to the conclusion that I just suck at trying to teach you your basic manners. I won't blame it on your ability to learn, though the fact that you need to learn at all raises some questions. No, I blame myself for being a terrible teacher. And as such, I give up. From now on, go ahead and act as depraved as you like. Go ahead and grow into that full-fledged Asshole personality that you've been gunning towards. I just don't have the energy or time to deal with this shit. I'll leave you alone starting now. One cold, grey day in the future you'll look around you and see the crap you're mired in - and when you do, don't you dare blame anyone but yourself. Not your parents, not your family, not your friends, not your teachers, not society. You're the one with the problem you refuse to acknowledge, let alone tackle.

But I'm not angry. No, seriously, I swear I'm not. Anger takes up too much energy and is too detrimental to myself more often than not. But I want it known that just because I've decided to stop bothering with anger doesn't mean I've forgiven anyone anything. Let's be clear on that.

field trip

For someone who lived for nearly 15 years in Kuala Lumpur's satellite city of PJ, and whose daily classes are within technical boundaries of the federal territory, it seems unbelievable that I don't know my way around KL at all. (Have I really been living in Shah Alam for four years now?) For the most part, excursions to the city centre were pretty perfunctory - I need to go to Kinokuniya, let's go there and hurry back. I need to visit the convention centre, let's rush there and get everything settled quick. I'm catching a performance at Istana Budaya, no point in hanging around after the show.

Which was all such a mistake, now that I see how little of KL I know. I know KLCC and BNM and nothing else. Starhill and Imbi are vague shapes in my head, with only memories of having been there twice or thrice. How dare I make jokes about there only being one mall in Seremban when I haven't really explored everything in my vicinity? (I must clarify, however, that I do possess some knowledge of PJ's malls, excluding Sunway. That's just too bothersome.)

So today, I worked off a little ignorance. I had an excellent guide, of course, and the public transport system was actually really efficient. And along the way, we found a little time to have Starbucks! :P

my first KAT-TUN meme! :O

Stolen and adapted shamelessly from the KAT-TUN Worldwide website. Kill me :P

long post!

Forgive me if this post comes out not so well finished; I've only just finished watching the footage of the big live tour, the DVD I put aside because of the exams, and I wanted to hurry and get it written down here while this feeling is still at its peak.

Seriously?

cherry tree twisted metal spelling bee.

It's my new Line To Live By - not that I have any old ones, but this one is as good a first as any.

So I'm going through another of those phases where you've got plenty you feel like you have to say or do, but not enough time or energy to do it. Which is what everyone feels all the time, yes, but still.

I might have the tiniest bit of interest in that weird, arrogant jerk of a Glee character. And in the history of Laciel and Lydia from Inotia 3, but this is all of very little consequence.

Library Wars!

Because it's probably the only story that can make a guy shorter than his girlfriend look so cool and dependable. Lol.

I want to go to the bookshop! Well, I wanted to go even before the exams ended, but now I really am quite desperate to go! Watching a show about the beauty of books definitely made it worse. I want shelves and shelves to stroll between! Or just a single, massive one would be nice, too - like the one Joo-won has in Secret Garden. Of course, I don't think it's very practical, and I'd never accumulate that many books, but hey, it looks like something to dream about.

Oh and yes, my copy of Ultimate Wheels finally arrived today! :) I love how nicely CDJapan wraps its stuff, but now from experience I can say that YesAsia appears to be the winner. And whoa, are the go-nin looking crazy awesome in that badass Mafia styling or what? Love love love love love, there's not enough space on the Internet for me to finish expressing it!

...and because I seem to have exhausted my daily quota of exclamation marks at six in the morning, I shall take my leave. Hasta la vista!

festive :)

of exhaustion

I'm back! *insert crazy tapdance*

It's funny how I always feel, during an event, that there're so many things I want to blog about, yet immediately afterward I realise I'm too tired for anything to be worth saying. It's not just blogging either - any activity that tempts me like sin doesn't actually get done as soon as I'm free to do it. Exams ended a good four days ago, and though I was so animatedly making lists of things I wanted to do over the week-long break, I haven't done anything I said I would, except perhaps the shopping... and even that isn't really done yet. I've been extremely unproductive in the face of the massive hordes.

It feels like all that sleep deficiency caught up with me; I've done nothing but sleep and shop for three days now, a horrible state to be in. I still haven't watched the Secret Garden specials, the seven movies on my list, the Summer Premium Live, my beloved DVD, and all those episodes of Chuck, backdated as I am. That's a huge amount of telly-time, isn't it? And when I think about the next DVD which will arrive in a few days...

And books! I've not finished Nation, Sense and Sensibility, Memories of Midnight, The Splendour Falls, The Magician's Apprentice, The Folklore of Discworld... the only ones I finished in single sittings recently are If Tomorrow Comes and I Shall Wear Midnight. That is a pretty massive pile of stuff waiting to be read, since I usually don't start a book and leave it aside for more than a day. I lose the sense of things, you know? So yeah, that's a lot. Not to mention my Complete Japanese book which was abandoned for the sake of the exams.

Meh. I need glasses.