Archives For Books

Hate the World Today!

November 24, 2008 — 1 Comment

ARGH! >,<x

So the apartment where me lives is getting new paint, so me is crashing on the other side. They painted the ceiling today, and ARGH!! The paint splattered all over my graphic and photography books… of all the books I had, it had to stain the graphic and photography books. WTF! It splattered all over my Juri Ueno A Piacere, it stained my Yu Aoi Travel Sand and Dandelion… lucky for Yu, those two have plastic cover and they covered the Kaiten TABURU PB… but my Juri PB wasn’t so lucky… neither was my Mario Testino book, or some of my other heavily graphic books.

I thought you’re supposed to cover all stuff with plastic… so how the xxxx do they splattered on THOSE books.

Someone must pay! 8-S Someone’s tainted my PBs…

In Books, English, Rants
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Good Taste is DEAD.

November 23, 2008 — Leave a comment

… or at least scarce.

First, with Maca’s announcement that Twilight earned a little over $70M this past weekend… which isn’t really surprising considering the amount of promotion they did trying to shove it down my throat. Ugh.

If I want smut, I’ll head over to read smutty fanfiction on HP characters, thankyouverymuch.

If I want a broody dark vampire to save my life, I’ll love Angel forever and always. If I wanna rough it up with a bleached rockish vamp with a ‘tude, I’ll pick Spike. If I wanna watch/read an interesting vampire story, I’ll watch/read Let the Right One In (Låt den Rätte Komma in)… and please, NO REMAKES.

THEN! It gets WORSE. UGH! I just read that Pushing Daisies is over. EF it ABC – what the heck, they keep on stretching pretty stupid uninteresting Grey’s Anatomy’s storylines… go wacky with Lost, which I never enjoyed, and you kill Pushing Daisies. WTF! Shut your Pie Hole ABC… >,<x

In Books, English, Films, Rants, Television , , ,
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Toda Mafalda by Quino

November 23, 2008 — Leave a comment

Toda Mafalda by QuinoWell, just finished reading Toda Mafalda by Quino, which my mom owned but we never bother to finish reading. I only ever read Mafalda on the single strips that are featured on the newspaper, so it was a fun delight to read it all in one go! ^^

Some of the strips are far more fun than others, but nonetheless I enjoyed reading the whole thing as a sequence. I love that while going from vignette to vignette, I could picture friends and members of my family being a little Mafalda inside, as well as a little Manolito, a Susanita, little Felipe… we all have a little Mafalda character inside xD

Though… a big THOUGH – I found the paragraphed text on the history of Mafalda, and other extra info VERY hard to read because of layout, and size of font and amount of info displayed in one page… that’s perhaps the biggest NO in the book. However, doesn’t make it unreadable… if you enjoy Mafalda on your newspaper, you’ll probably enjoy it here as well.

In Books, Comics, English, Fun, Graphics, Reviews, Sharing, Spanish
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The Sally Lockhart Mysteries by Philip Pullman

November 8, 2008 — Leave a comment

It took me 3 months (almost 4) to finish reading The Sally Lockhart Mysteries series – shameful I tell you! Four books in that time, shameful!

Thank you, Diana, for letting me borrow these. ^^

So Sally… from the books by Pullman that I’ve read, I noticed that I like his style. Though the more you read him, the more you can predict… guess it’s always like that. The first book on this series, The Ruby in the Smoke, was quite interesting in story and themes. I highly doubt they would’ve let me read this book in school, which deals with the opium trade, dealing, and usage… stuff like murders, extorsion… LOL’ not your very typical ‘children’ literature.

The next book, The Shadow in the North, went sort of the same path with murders and extorsion, but focused a lot more on the financing aspect. However the book wasn’t as good, even though you get to care a little bit more about the characters, and grow up with them. There is also a eh… bedroom scene? xD It reminded me of those PG-13 fanfiction stories. It was intimate on its own, awkward… but you know, it does its purpose for the next book~~~ xD

Book 3, The Tiger in the Well, has some very interestingly written chapters… or maybe just paragraphs. However, by this point, I was beginning to think it was so predictable. I clearly remember I began reading the first chapter, and said out loud “I bet this and that is the one behind!” and then BAM! “I knew it!“. Despite the no-surprise, I enjoyed reading this even more than TSitN… Perhaps it was because it was more complex to me, and I enjoyed Sally discovering how as herself she was a lady, but as someone else she was just a woman… and yes, everybody seemed to be lusting over her. LOL’

Finally Book4, The Tin Princess, which is not really a Sally Lockhart mystery… she’s barely in it. This one was okay, I have nothing against Adelaide, or Becky… and I do like Jim. There are some very well written parts in this one two, but I often found myself skimming. The ending… the ending? I didn’t care enough to… care?

You know how His Dark Materials has sort of a bittersweet ending… more bitter than sweet? This one has a bittersweet ending sweeter than bitter~ LOL’

In Books, English, Reviews, Sharing , , ,
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Digital Content Question~

November 5, 2008 — 3 Comments

I do… I do like digital downloads, but can’t figured out WHY an eBook is as expensive as buying a book. Also, can’t understand why digital films are as expensive as buying a cheap DVD… and don’t get me started on music~~

Also… region restriction? Sucky. Digital should be for all.

Does anybody know good online stores for digital content available internationally?

*EDIT*
For eBooks, I seemed to have found ebooks.com, who answered my email wondering if international users have access to the books there. They told me that some books have region restrictions, but that most are available to anyone.

Continue Reading…

In Books, English, Films, Music, Rants , ,
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Kyoto (The Old Capital) by Yasunari Kawabata

September 26, 2008 — Leave a comment

Actually name of the book in Spanish is “Kioto,” but I can never get used to writing Kyoto with an “i” –  I don’t think I can write “Tokio” either, there’s just something odd for me…

Anyway, I bought this book on Monday… short one, “The Old Capital,” it’s called in English, from the original Japanese title “Koto,” referring to Kyoto which was Japan’s capital back in the day~ xD – I bought this book because I’m superficial and buy books by their covers. LOL’ ~ I had seen a bunch of books in the store, and read a bunch of synopsis, but eventually returned them to the rack… but not this one, because I liked the cover. xD

Written by writer from Osaka, Yasunari Kawabata, who won a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968 (First Japanese, and only?). In fact, this was one of the books mentioned (but I didn’t know this) … sadly, he killed himself 4 years later.

Kyoto (sorry, can’t type it with an “i”) is a book about nothing. There’s no BOOM by the end of the story, but yet it is a surprisingly good read. You know? Like one of those films that is about a little about everything, but nothing at all? Just like that. But just so you know exactly… the back of the book says it’s about a 20-year-old girl named Chieko in Post-War Kyoto, daughter of a Kimono maker, who discovers she was an abandoned child, despite her ‘parents’ story. Then one day, she discovers something while attending one of the many festivities in the city.

When I first began reading, I had a picture in my mind of how Chieko looked like (you may have an idea of who)~~ But then, I decided to look it up online, and found out that there was a made-for-tv-movie done for this, and OH SADNESS! I was kinda disappointed with the choice of Chieko~ T_T

Though the Spanish translation seems good enough, it does lose some UMPH… and it makes me wonder how it would look with the use of Japanese Honorifics. I mean, they already used words such as geisha, and maiko… so why not keep the honorifics too? I think it would’ve been a better read…

The book gets very nostalgic at points, there’s also some funny moments here and there, and there are parts that I don’t think I really got… which requires me to read it again. xD All in all, this book is a keeper~ and I want to check out other books by Kawabata.

In Books, English, Fun, Japanese, Reviews, Sharing, Spanish
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Some Teasin’ from Hayato Ichihara

August 28, 2008 — Leave a comment

hayato-ichihara-personal-photobook

So… Hayato Ichihara also has a Photobook of his own. It came out in 2006 and it features photos by Yoshiaki Sugiyama of a 19-year-old Hayato… there’s even an image reminding us of his debut of All About Lily Chou Chou (in which he shared the screen with Yu Aoi)~~

Well, you can get his Photobook in here:
beNippon.com [minimum shipping $8 I think…]
YesAsia.com [free shipping when reaching $90 for International orders, and cheaper for US, Canada, etc]

The book features 90+ pages of Hayato being silly, included rabbit costume photos (like the one on the cover), making faces with an oba-chan, and even a naked butt…. LOL’

But don’t worry, it’s not only fun and games~~ there’s also some artistic shots of Hayato wearing his traditional Japanese clothing, some with a tux, and some very cool black and white shots. And I will be posting a teasing image… no, it’s not the butt. It’s a really nice shot of Hayato in Japanese outfit running up a stony set of stairs~~~

Hayato Ichihara - Personal Photo Book Scan

As with Yu’s Travel Sand scan, I’ve added some photo and PB credits~~ It’s a wallpaper sized 1680x1050px, there’s also a more ‘squarer’ version of it (fullscreen one sized 1280×1024) if you are interested. Just leave a comment either here or Flickr.

In Books, Celebrity, Japanese, Photoshoots, Sharing , , , , , ,
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Juri Ueno – A Piacere by Kentaro Shibuya – WANIBOOKS

August 20, 2008 — 2 Comments

3 of 3!

This time with lovely Juri Ueno~~ Rocking photos by Kentaro Shibuya. First time i find a portfolio online…

Anyway, as the name suggests… A Piacere, is a pleasure… a delight. It’s got 50+ photographs of Juri-chan visiting Kodaira (Tokyo), Okinawa, Yokohama and Ebisu (Tokyo). Moreover, Juri’s photobook is western. LOL’ It begins from the left to right like any regular books you buy in America or Europe, and there’s a lot of easy-to-read info (like the cities, and people involved names).

Juri Ueno - A Piacere

PLUS, there’s an interview with Juri and Kentaro Shibuya. I didn’t get much of what was going on… since they didn’t talk much about food (and the interview is in Japanese), and food talk in Japanese is what I’ve been practicing. But they did talk about Juri’s musical projects, relating it to some of the photos of Juri playing the guitar. So a little bit of Swing Girls talk, then some of Nodame Cantabile… and they even get to talk a little bit about Niji no Megami (Rainbow Song)…

If you doubt whether to get this or not, photos are REALLY worth having, many of them have a natural lighting style that remind me of some Mario Testino photographs. Anyway… some photos of the photos ahead!! You know the drill!

Continue Reading…

In Books, Celebrity, English, Fun, Japanese, Photoshoots, Products, Reviews, Sharing , , , , , , ,
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Yu Aoi – Kaiten TEBURU wa Mutsukashii by Ivy Chen – Media Factory

August 16, 2008 — 9 Comments

#2 of my 3-part order!

Yu Aoi - Kaiten TABURU wa Mutsukashii

Now, don’t ask me what the name of the book means because I haven’t the faintest idea. From what I could find out is something about a Rotating Table… which kinda makes sense ‘coz of the food rotating tables, and the whole food take on this book. And apparently, Mutsukashii means ‘difficult’ – a title that makes no sense to me xD…. Difficult Rotating Table?? xD

If I read correctly… photos taken by Ivy Chen, who apparently was the on-set photographer in Yu Aoi’s participating films All About Lily Chou Chou, as well as Hana and Alice.

This time around, Yu goes to Taipei (Taiwan) for a full-on Foodie trip. Yup, that’s right… if I thought her Travel Sand, and Dandelion photobooks talked a lot about food~~ well, I read a lot more food paragraphs and saw a whole more food photos on this one. There’s also a WHOLE lot more text, which would be ubber cool if I could properly read. LOL I read… I tried to read. I swear~~

Also… I was ‘reading’ and noticed Peru. Can someone help out? Plus, I’m looking for a reliable Japanese translator to have on call for projects (maybe even paid) ~~ So it’ll be good if you can drop a line~~ Here’s the text, I hope I typed correctly~~

フィアンセ　の　”ペルー”　を　呼んで、　みんあ で ご飯  を　食べた時　は、　幸せな　気持ち に なりました。

Sorry, don’t wanna transcribe everything, takes me too much time. LOL So, does it say something like Ivy Chen’s fiancee is from Peru? And that they were calling out for lunch time, and that they’re happy? LOL Just wanna make clear, coz I get giddy each time I read Peru in something not remotely Peruvian.

Who else thinks Yu Aoi should visit Peru for some Foodie trip??? Anyway, photos of the photos ahead!

Continue Reading…

In Books, Celebrity, Fun, Japanese, Photoshoots, Products, Sharing , , , , , , , ,
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Yu Aoi – Dandelion by Yoko Takahashi – rockin’ on

August 14, 2008 — 22 Comments

Sorry that I didn’t post last night! Olympic fever is madness~~~ My YesAsia order arrived yesterday! Sugoi NE! Photobook Fever at its MAX~~~~~ I devoured Dandelion, you wouldn’t believe it. I saw the photos, swooned over many of them, and went mad with super concentration to try to read. Because, as you know, Amy doesn’t read Japanese.

Yu Aoi - Dandelion Photobook

Photos of the photos ahead! Like before, I doubt I will be posting scans… support Yu, people! ^^

Continue Reading…

In Books, Celebrity, English, Fun, Japanese, Photoshoots, Products, Russian, Sharing , , , , , , , , ,
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