Archives For Rants

Who would hack the portfolio of a lame freelancer??? Really.

Any self-respecting hacker would go on and hack Twitter to frak everyone up! Make all the celebrities say eevn more stupid things, I would get that… I would get hacking Disney, or any important website. Hack the Obama sites – but why would they hack me??? I mean, who am I?

Heck! Even hacking a fansite makes more sense, after all… they get a couple hundred thousands visits a day – that makes sense, their “look at me, look at me” attempts wouldn’t be in vain. But my portfolio? Do you really have that much time to just have fun hacking into a poor freelance’s portfolio? Do you get thrills from deleting an index page? Do you even know me? Ugh, completely utter waste of time… wasted my afternoon.

Well, it’s half of 2009 already! CRAP!

Last month I did a 50-post month! One up from the record of 49, LOL.

It’s begun to be a bit chilly on this side of the world, and well… let’s say it’s hard to get out of a warm cozy bed. Also, I will be doing a bit more photographing *crosses fingers* from this point forward. I’m excited about that~

Also, I got bored of my French. *sighs* Marion should really come up with a new French movie, LOL. How do I get out of this business? Or someone please! Begin commenting in some French so I can get into it again…

Also, I still need money. LOL – Oh shit, and I should really call Canada Trust to figure out the business with my credit card. *sighs* things are supposed to be easy when getting your credit card, why does snail mail suck so much?

Also, YAM 004 – it’s coming in some short two-weeks time give or take. This one’s been a tough issue, I need a bump of energy on that too. YAM cannot DIE in just 4 issues. I will make it happen~~~ I just need something to get me by until next award season.

New Buffy Movie?

May 26, 2009 — Leave a comment

Say what?!

with not the original cast, or Joss Whedon??? WHAT?

shoot me now.

I know vamps are all the craze now *coughtwi-hardscough* – right~~~ but, no – as much as I lurvvvvvv Buffy, I’d rather not see, actually… not see THIS MADE unless Whedon gets involved.

I know there’s little to no chance of Sarah Michelle Gellar to join, I don’t have an issue with a new slayer… or many (if you read the comic ;)) BUT Joss and all the original writers need to be involved with this, or is NOT Buffy.

Years… well, maybe a year ago – I ranted Peruvian animation not being compelling enough. I have also ranted about how tired I feel of 3d animation (most of the times), but there are times when I have to talk about things because they are important to note.

Machu Picchu Post is an animated short from Clement Crocq, Margaux Durand-Rival and Nicolas Novali. They are French, and did their whole Machu Picchu Post style reference from research. Research!!! Research is so important, and this is why I ultimately decided to blog them.

I have always found Alpamayo (and most recently, the team in charge of the Dolphin story blah blah) to be lacking research, not storywise (though I beg to differ sometimes) but on execution. Of course, you don’t only research styles, textures, colors, etc… you also research movement, and light quality. It’s not enough to just HAVE the best computer equipment… you also go on field trips, you do experiments.

Anyway, this is my brief rant. French animation students (and now animators) are creating more compelling animations regarding Peruvian culture. Here’s the video:

Norway? Really?? Look, I think fiddling is cool [just look at Mairead from Celtic Woman doing The Butterfly], tiny as she is… she totally pawns this Alexander Rybak dude. So I took the time… REALLY, watched ALL the entries… some where good others were just AWFUL… case and point, Bulgaria. How can Bulgaria do that after having Elitsa Todorova with Stoyan Yankoulov and the song Water in 2007’s contest?

And just to get this out of the way… Sweden, Malena Ernman could totally beat me up with those muscles. LOL

Who I thought was the best? In not a mainstream way…

Slovakia – Kamil Mikulcik with Nela Pociskova – Let Tmou

Who are the rest? And who seem to be mainstream good?

Continue Reading…

Hey, people!! For those of you just beginning to read this blog, the 6-Month-Mark refers to how long my interest seems to last.

I’m sooooo happy to say that it’s almost a year since I first saw All About Lily Chou Chou, and Rainbow Song. In fact, I’ve got my timeline all figured out (thank you, FB hahaha) – It will be a year on the 16th… since I got Asian (Japanese) cinemaphiled… a year of complete Yu Aoi also.

I’m preparing a ‘special’ post for that day, hahaha ‘coz it’s been a long time since I had found a subject to last this long… 3 years, give or take of fluttering fandoms. And because Yu Aoi fandom seems scattered, or very idol-craze sometimes… I have taken as my ‘job’ to create a place where we focus a lot on projects, and work less on icons, banners and graphic making. A place to discuss films, the seldom ‘crazy good’ photoshoots and NOT focus on personal life. LOL

As much as I love reading Lainey every weekday… I will not be blogging about Yu’s personal life. I have decided~~~ Now, you can blame that on two websites I visit (two actresses… one I’m a frequent visitor, and the other I’m even ghost staff almost hahaha). I’ve been taught to respect their privacy, and so I will. *sighs*

I will not be re-branding my site… this will still be my blog, and I will post about any other subjects that I want (specially during Award Season)… but hopefully I will have a good amount of Yu Aoi postings monthly. You may have also noticed that some links to Yu Aoi films are not working anymore, and I doubt I will be posting any film on my own… they are quite easy to find through Google.

I’m not against downloading stuff for distribution sake, I’m also in favor of fansubs… but if you love one of the films, and a release with the subtitles of your liking is officially available, go ahead and buy it. Buy photobooks… and other merchandise you feel like getting as long as it is to support an actor and their work. Don’t go around saying you support someone if you haven’t ever bought one of their films (in any region), or haven’t even gone to the theater to watch their films (in case the film is distribute theatrically), or even spent $20 to buy their ‘official’ calendar.

Yes, I know. Photobooks are pricey, so are Japanese region DVDs (and some don’t even have subtitles!!), but there are other ways you can support someone. American fans can go watch Tokyo! in theaters… they can buy Hana & Alice, or All About Lily Chou Chou, they can also buy Hula Girls. They can also support Yu projects by buying TekkonKinkreet on DVD and Blu-ray… or buying Honey & Clover which seems a pretty popular Yu Aoi film, or the Tetsujin 28 which I haven’t even dared to watch.

As a final note, you can pre-order Tokyo! (if you liked it, I’m not making anyone buy anything against their will) on DVD and Blu-ray discs, which will be released on June 30th.

Quiet Room ni Youkoso - Cast - Yu Aoi, Yuki UchidaWatching Welcome to the Quiet Room, and listening to Yu Aoi’s Miki character telling Asuka she doesn’t eat because whatever she eats means that someone else more worthy doesn’t get to eat it, totally left me cold. I wondered what was the situation of eating disorders in Asia, since it’s ‘common knowledge’ that Asians are genetically skinny.

*sighs* I ended up reading quite a few articles dealing with the issue as far back as 1999 until this year. Throughout all of them, there is  an emphasis on cases on bi-racial young women, or women living in a bi-cultural environment. Taking the example of Chinese-American or British-Chinese women who weren’t as self-conscious about their weight living on this side of the world, but would get ‘picked on’ back in Asia because they tend to be ‘bigger’.

But I wasn’t too interested in those particular cases, I was trying to find how common are these eating disorder cases in other cultures, particularly Asia. I always thought Asians were thin naturally… always thought they’re skinny and love food. That’s what I’ve always seen in my family. It’s also noted on many of the articles that this value for food comes from the terrible years of starvation they went through in countries like China, India, Cambodia… even Peru where there still exists malnourishment. It is a crime to not eat, when there’s people who have nothing to eat. Yes, that’s why Quiet Room totally freaked me out… it was the first time I had heard that reason~~~ So there are eating disorders much more complicated than the “I want to be thin” one, for bi-cultural people is the “I want to be white”, for others it’s the sense of taking control over their lives…

Continue Reading…

Testing it out… you’ve noticed?

Seems to be okay, though I got a bit confused when my Google account wouldn’t let me be my own ‘admin’ automatically… sighs. Just had to sign off completely~~

In case you may be interested… it does seem like it could be a good tool.

Here’s the Google Friend Connect section, and in case you want to implement this with your WordPress, this plugin seems to do the trick for the moment.

So please, if you’ve got a Google account, use it for the comments ;) and subscribe.

So… first of all, this was going to be just a Jean Paul Strauss post, but then… you know. I needed a bit of space to clear things up. I know I don’t particularly talk much about Peru in here (especially with my current obsession with Japanese and Asian) – Anyway, I heard this a couple of months ago… just half a tiny clip on television, so I couldn’t do much back then. Luckily, I decided to try my luck again, and surprise!

Vibra Peru is the album by Peruvian Jean Paul Strauss fusing Peruvian rhythms,folk music and the whole shebang, the result I thought was pretty fun (one of those reasons I also enjoyed some of Gianmarco’s productions). But let me just show you instead of writing about it~~~

[iframe width=”480″ height=”390″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/DrgytdP7xOE?rel=0″]

Now, I’m pretty sure that’s track12 – Huaynos: (Matarina y Mambo de Machaguay). Why? Well, because I’ve heard Mambo de Machaguay before… I knew it when I was a kid because of a sing-along Libro Coquito book that had the music in one of the tracks (La Grua, if you were interested in it… I must have the goddamn tape somewhere). Then, I went all music discoverer, I recognized the tune on the Indian Carnival song by Yma Sumac (track 7) – I couldn’t really remember what the ‘tune’ is called… if Carnaval Arequipeno, or Cajamarquino… but it was a folk tune.

So I ended up on Wikipedia Spanish, and found that it’s called “Mambo de Machaguay” – what it’s missing? Well, it mentions the version by Los Jaivas from ’76, but fails to mention the 1954 use by Yma Sumac, so I just wanted that out of the way since I’m not a Wikipedia editor/user/contributor…

Here’s the version by Inca Son.

I was unsure on what to talk about before going to bed (I’m trying to post once a day, have you noticed? hahaha) – And I was between discussing this topic, and the news of Peru deciding to use the Japanese system of Digital TV [Eng Google Translate] (does that mean I could… somehow get WOWOW??), instead of the European one~~~

Anyway!!! I decided to rant~

[Original Spanish Article] Sorry, any English media DON’T CARE so you’ll have to do with a Google Translate.

I think it’s amazing that an illiterate person who is over 25 years old and Peruvian is legible to work in congress. Baffles me! And I’m sure it baffles many others…

I am in no way calling the congresswoman illiterate, because she reads and writes. Not AT the level that someone who supposedly legislates and works on writing and reviewing law should be, but writes nonetheless.

As congresswoman Martha Hildebrant (a linguist, who could probably insult me and I wouldn’t understand) – Actually, I think I would feel honored to be insulted by her… kinda like Lainey dreaming of Gwyneth being a bitch towards her hahaha – Anyway, as Hildebrant points out~~ people (regular, other congressmen and the media) have completely distorted the article written by the newspaper. They did not mock Supa’s quechua ancestry (that’d be more like mocking us Chinese descendants saying things like “lico alo” when we speak perfectly well. thankyouverymuch. Assholes!) But they did point out that Supa’s Spanish is of the level of someone in primary school, hence the reference to the Coquito books (popular ABC books for children).

And as Hildrebrant also points out in the pseudo-video (because it’s just an audio) is that all congressmen, as public figures, are exposed to being criticized in the labor they do.

As one user states in a comment,

I am a Peruvian from Puno, Quechua-speaker and southern, and I don’t feel remotely humiliated [referencing how the congresswoman feels], au contraire I feel pity for our representative being almost illiterate.

I say this because she’s a congresswoman representing the state, and should be in the position of being criticized or interviewed, but when you’re illiterate – you can’t even do that. She’s fragile and helpless, she doesn’t waste time to play victim and that’s the nature of ignorance. There isn’t the capacity to reflect, they think that everyone is against them or discriminating against them.

All talk on corruption, being honest, pure and holy – that’s simply poppycock.

Why don’t we put virgins in congress already! Geez~~~

Now, if you really wanna support literacy through all economic-social barriers, check out some about The Big Read project… maybe someday Peruvian’s will have a non-illiterate-congress.