National Geographic programming usually shifts from interesting to completely eye-roll worthy, but this particular special on these three particular transgender people — simply titled American Transgender — is something I’ve seen a couple of times. I think that when it first aired, I saw it twice in a row. I think it might have been because LGBT media, especially in regards of transgender people, is just really downright depressing, so it was surprising to see something quite uplifting. I mean, Claire, Jim and Eli are damn lucky and it’s so good to see.
How many times do you get to see a wedding? A boy became a woman, and the girl became a man. They met, fell in love, and got married. How perfect is that? Overcoming struggle, and the importance of the support of family. Fiction will never be as good as that.
Some of you may complain about the political implications of choosing Park Geun-hye’s party, but you’re getting the cake. This is coming from someone less privileged than you in terms of political options. I don’t want to talk about my current president, but since President Park Geun-hye just made a splash on my TV speaking Mandarin at a speech she delivered just this week at Tsinghua University during her visit to Beijing [1], which apparently is self-taught [1][2] (that’s even way more accomplished!), I want to give a good mention to my Ex-Pres.
A couple of years back, when (now Ex-) President Hu Jintao was visiting the country when Alan Garcia was still president — and he gave us THIS SUPER AWKWARD photo of himself trying to hug/kiss Hu — Alan had the BRILLIANT idea of giving HIS own speech in Mandarin, even though he knows a lick of any Asian language (I doubt he knows anything about Asian culture outside what to eat at a Chifa [1], explaining why he tried to hug/kiss Hu, LOL).
The end result is, of course, madly hilarious if you speak Spanish.
Besides trying to sound out Mandarin, which you know it’s nearly impossible, he sounded out some “words” that sounded similar to other words in Spanish, included the now political-satire-classic “Soy chanchin,” which is a cute modification to the word “chancho,” meaning “pig.” So basically it sounded like he said “I’m a little fat.” Hilarious history in the making right there.
Surprisingly, Hu had the biggest poker face EVER. He didn’t blink, snorted, NOTHING. He’s either the best politician in the whole wide world, or his team warned him about this Garcia Mandarin stunt and he turned off any of his hearing aid, if he used any.
I still haven’t been able to locate a photo of me as a child in my family’s house garden waving the yellow and lime green plastic Sword of Omens I had as a child. However, these guys are designing weapons or designing pretty awesome real props, and have made my dorky childhood dreams come true.
Its amazingness is beyond words.
And YES. Even though Thundercats aired in the mid-80s, I saw them in the early 90s in their dub version, and it was still pretty goddamn awesome.
A long long LONG time ago (actually, about three years ago), I made a rough list of Yu Aoi films I had watched and ranked them on MUBI (then TheAuteurs). Since I’m way too lazy to bother adding films to their database, unless I really REALLY wanted the films to be on their database, I’m just gonna work on the ranking here, like I started with my Russian fandom love Chulpan Khamatova.
You know, since Yu’s Itoh website re-vamp, the site sucks. They haven’t updated since forever, and they took out the section where Yu sometimes did short postings. However, the biggest drawback has been the lack of updates, and this is why I found out that Yu was on one of the episodes of Galileo 2 through tweets mentioning it (on June 3rd). So… nobody knew, I suppose?
So I had to catch up with Galileo 2 episodes, since I wasn’t watching the show due to the lack of much Shibasaki Kou, and was conveniently waiting for the subtitles (and a blank space in my schedule) to actually watch Episode 8.
I had missed Yu-chan so much.
Busted!
As you know, or maybe don’t, Yu’s been improving her cold-heart crime-committing girl persona. She did pretty great in her guest in Unubore Deka, and was great in Shokuzai. She’s actually been doing her bad girl characters a lot more interesting that her good girls (Double Face, Mottomo Toi Ginga). In Galileo 2 she’s playing an actress who’s obsessed with- hmm… let’s call it ” hardcore method acting,” so she’s obsessed with recording every bit of conversation she has in every day life, as well as her experiences, including how it feels to get away with 1st degree murder.
Though the episode seems to play straight-forward with a locked-room case and Yu’s character having the motive and access to commit the crime, there’s a twist- which is pretty obvious when you re-watch the show haha (the framing shots give it away), but with Yu’s acting going from calm to elated (for getting away with it), from elated to poker-face, to poker-face to complete hysterical satisfaction and landing in cruel reality… I don’t think I’ve ever seen Yu go through so much in one single sequence.
I wasn’t too enamored by Pixar’s Monsters University even though Monsters Inc. is one of my favorites (or maybe BECAUSE I liked that one so much?), but this clip of the Japanese-dubbed version popped up in my YouTube feed, and it’s just tenfold the cuteness that the original audio track was because- well, because Japan is so damn hardcore about their dubbing [2].
Plus, Disney (and as an extension, Pixar) are the kings of international dubs [1][2].
And they also do worldwide releases pretty okay. Except when Japan has to wait AGES to get some stuff — but serves them right, when they make us wait for everything they do for ages as well.
Guh. I can’t. I’ve been trying to fight it, really. For YEARS. But a while back, Gee made it into my iTunes library just because, and instead of staying in there, it migrated into my iPod.
And, it was sort of alright. Then I did my trip and Taiwan was obsessed with Kpop, so it was Korean varieties every night at the hotel (if it wasn’t Taiwanese food shows), and Taeyeon was in so many of them. And “that chick from SNSD” came to have a name, despite all of them meshing together coz they’re just so freaking many. And then, she’s just so damn funny.
I don’t have any opinion on her singing or dancing, though I think she’s above average singing- especially in the group. So I’m unwilling to add any of those tags. I also don’t think of her as particularly oozing sex appeal, but she’s very pretty. Like in Hyori’s case, I prefer her casual.
In regards of that Family Outing episode, though. I still would pick Hyori ;)
I was deciding if he looked a little bit like Josh Hartnett mixed in with a little Chris O’Donnell but immensely more attractive. And luckily, age-appropriate as well!
Though it seems, somehow, that the people at WordPress want to turn itself into “an operating system,” — I can’t really see how, coz I don’t use WordPress for anything else other than blog — some very smart and all tech-wiz group of people have put together a blogging platform they’ve named Ghost. The biggest change is the way they handle your data dashboard.
They recently completed a successful Kickstarter campaign, and for 10 pounds you could get a digital download of Ghost (I suppose for install?), though the video to promote the project and some of the benefits of the campaign make it seem like you can also sign up for usernames (like WordPress.com?). Some of the stats displayed on the dashboard seems to suggest some time of system connectivity.
The other exciting aspect is its Markdown feature. The video makes it really really appealing to see how you can do almost magic to format and make your post pretty.
Of course, there’s also theme customization and the way it handles data, it seems that Ghost will work out across platforms and layouts. Flip it, turn it — just basic fluid design. Front-end and back-end. It seems that Ghost will let you work on post through your tiny mobile devices quite flawlessly, which isn’t one of WordPress strongest features. Then again, I hate having to whip something out on a smartphone or tablet.
You can check the Ghost features on their site, though it’s not yet available.
Or, at least, you got your first steps into the door.
Yes, Shiina Ringo music videos are being uploaded on VEVO accounts, as well as Tokyo Jihen ones, at 360p or 480p- BUT, baby steps. They’re pretty good 360p videos, though. They look better than some HD versions unofficially uploaded and ripped from the net. I’m not picky as long as Japan lets me watch the music videos of the artists I like and stops me from worrying whether the video I’m posting is gonna disappear in the next few days.
