Archives For November 2008

Weeee! Juri Ueno and Aoi MIyazaki (among others) have been named Women of the Year! Read more about it on Juri’s LiveJournal Community

Vogue Nippon - Women of the Year 2008

From left to right – Edo Harumi, Yukari Ichijo, Yukiko Ueno, Aoi Miyazaki, Kanako Higuchi, Juri Ueno, Mieko Kawakami, Suzanne, and missing Jakucho Setouchi.

Cute kimonos xD I especially love Aoi Miyazaki’s one just because I’m not a very colourful person, despite my colorful blog.

A little about the film:
(from Wikipedia)
It’s a 2006 Japanese-award-winning film based on true events of a small coal mining town facing the shut down of the mine, and looking at the loss of +2000 jobs. While all the grownups seemed to be fuzzing about the future of their coal-legacy, a young group of girls see a gleam of hope in the opening of The Hawaiian Center, and hula dancing.

Genre: Drama, Comedy and dancing!
Starring: Yasuko Matsuyuki, Etsushi Toyokawa, Yu Aoi, Eri Tokunaga, Shoko Ikezu & Shizuyo Yamazaki
Duration: 2hrs

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So coming month… what to watch?? Forgive if times are funky, blame the cable mag for that…

Yu Aoi will be on cable this month!!! With a showing of Hana & Alice, as well as Hula Girls!!!

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Jinseitte Uso Mitai, or Life is like a Lie, is the first 3-episode-chapter of the Yu Aoi WOWOW drama Camouflage (previously known as Aoi Yu x 4 Lies) which aired at the beginning of the year, and it’s already on DVD. Finally saw! WEEEE – I waited… what, 6 months??? And still haven’t finished ‘coz no one is translating, and my translator bailed on me… dunno where he is.

So I re-watched the three episodes last night, though the 3rd episode only had subs in the story and not on the introductions (in which the director and writer explain a bit), and the ending (where the photographer shows and explains the photos taken), so kinda missed some of the episode.

Anyway…

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la-bailarina-de-izu-kawabata

Also known as Izu no Odoriko, or The Izu Dancer is the first published work (1926) to achieve popularity and acclaimed by Yasunari Kawabata. The book, very much like Kyoto, is about nothing at all… in fact, this is just a compilation of stories put together.

The first one, which gives the name to the book is one of the few interesting ones, as well as Diario de mi Decimosexto Año that tells some of the moments of Kawabata’s dying grandfather. Some other stories I liked were La Princesa del Palacio Dragón, El Camino de Monedas, and Una Oración en Lengua Materna.

Despite that, the just over 200-page book seemed to be a very long and slow book, compared to the reading time it took me to finish Kyoto. If you are a fan of Yasunari Kawabata’s writing about a time and a place and the people, you might enjoy this compilation of stories. If you’re looking for an introduction to him, or an epic tale about Japan… you might want to skip this one.

Bibifying One Person at a Time

November 26, 2008 — 1 Comment

Half a year ago… I did my fair share of RASUTO FURENZing people, now it’s time to Bibify people! As a gift, I gave my friend NOW & WOW for her birthday… last I checked on the Bibi Facebook group, she’s been Bibified. And I have not only Bibified her… she’s only my latest Bibifying…

I have also Bibified my dad (he says Bibi is my ringtone on his cell), my two older cousins are also Bibified as well… are you ready to be Bibified?

When I watched Memories of Matsuko, there was one scene when Matsuko’s life was already going to the gutters, she was lying on the garbage bags, and she was watching TV. I immediately recognized the song as an Okaasan to Issho song… today I decided to look for it, and found it!

Okaasan to Issho 1999 song, at first I thought it was a Takoyaki Mambo song, but I was lucky enough to find it on a website listing all the songs. Video and Romaji after the break!
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Let’s try some Sling.com embedding…

As some of you know, The L Word is making its final showing this coming January (woo! exciting!) – Promo looks good, as in it looks pretty. Not sure about the “killer’s look” – I wonder… will they give me Sholly? I saw the poster, and Shane was licking Jenny… are they trying to throw me an anvil? ARGH, I hate anvils… they bring bad memories to my shipping heart.
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Always the same old problem… I was reading about the new Sling.com, so I visited to test. However, the same with Hulu… other streaming sites and even YouTube, content restrictions.

Sling.com - Not in your Region

And this is why illegal viewing can’t still be overcome.

The other day my friend sent me the Robyn – Cobrastyle link on YouTube, but it turns out that I can’t view any of Robyn’s official video releases, I also couldn’t view the Lady Gaga official releases – I could understand the content restriction on the shows YouTube is showing, but can’t see the point in making music available by regions… bloody stupid.

This is why illegal viewing will continue growing. If you don’t let people see your video due to content region restriction, they will look somewhere else…

Yay for no “this content is not available in your country” messages. Britney and IMEEM team up and have released Circus for preview one week ahead of it’s official release on December 2. I was actually kinda worried that I might not be able to listen to it (like I can’t see some official video releases on YouTube), but thank you IMEEM for letting me sample.

— EDIT 2012 —

IMEEM doesn’t exist any longer, so here’s a photo of Britney!

Don’t have an opinion yet… I’m on track two. Anyway, you too… listen to this.