Archives For Fun

Has people ever ask you what’s your type? In terms of the people that you like, and you really have no idea because you’ve never really talked about.  I wondered if I could see a pattern in the people I like on-screen, so I made a list of women and men — 25 picks each — and placed generally okay photos of them to see if I could see any characteristics they shared.

A few rules- it has to be people that you follow — not randoms that you just find hot. Sofia Vergara is hot but I haven’t seen her outside Modern Family or Chasing Papi. And it also isn’t about talent… completely. It’s people that you would somehow, if given the chance, do / be with / however you want to call it or do is.

Also, photos should generally be color and looking to the front-ish. Natural looks favored, but since it’s a type thing, I suppose you can use any photos you find your subject attractive in.

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I ran into this article in Japanese that talked about the heat wave in Japan and how the shaved iced business has increased (to like $40B USD worth or 4000億円) with a brief mention of Yu-chan. Because Yu-chan LOVESSSSSSSS shaved ice. Even has her own machine at home, and writes monthly articles and whatnot, and apparently that’s a thing with other young women who eat their shaved ice while walking back and forth.

Yu has also talked about the perfection that is the shaved ice parlor in Taiwan. Dude, she’s serious. Taiwanese shaved ice is serious business. My Mandarin teacher told me he missed them because the raspadillas [1] here are so wishy-washy. Then I saw Taiwanese shaved ice.

mango-shaved-ice

The mango shaved ice that I saw in one of the brochures is still in my to-eat list. but I’m still scared of going over there in the summer season, because I’m a total city wuss that can’t take extreme weathers. I’m one of those lucky ones that can only take temperatures between 14-27 Celsius without complaining. LOL

Russian be gone! xD I’ve spent the last week watching Bollywood films!

First official Indian films with musicals, excluding A Wednesday (which didn’t have musical numbers, but does star Anupam Kher), Slumdog Millionair (which isn’t officially Indian), and some random Punjab film that I caught once when I was living in Vancouver and randomly watched the Punjabi channel. LOL

First thoughts? I’m loving it. It cost me a bit to get accustomed to the 3hr running time of most films, but I think I don’t care… that much any longer. Fluff musical numbers are still fluffs, and that’s what irks me the most… but at least they’re good for exercising.

It’s been my first week and I’ve already seen a couple of few Shahrukh Khan films, and I’ve already learned Kajol and Rani Mukerji’s names. Already reviewed Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, and this is my second time watching Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. I think I took to the song because it’s one of the few that I can actually pronounce. LOL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-j5pzoN670

I love the complicated melodrama they get into. I can totally get why people in Peru are into Bollywood films and numbers.

lmgtfy-ashida-mana-google

Well, something worth pointing out from the Pacific Rim fans. How awesome is “let me google that for you” ??? It’s awesome. And perfect. So for those people that might be wondering- no, she’s not a newcomer, you guys.

Here

Okay, I gotta admit South Korea- I’m jealous.

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.

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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.

yu-aoi-galileo2-ep08-048

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.

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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.

Well, I think it’s time, no? This has been my Chulpan Khamatova’s journey so far. Surprisingly, most of the films that remain hard to find (and hence are not subtitled in other language) have been my least favorite. It could be a case of lost in not-translation, but I’m confident in my non-subtitled watch experience to trust my instinct.

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