Category: Reading

  • Wow wow wow~~

    Can’t believe it’s almost like >this< to the end of the year on this side of the world… and even less time on the other side of the world. Actually, by the time I wake up again, it will be 2009 on that side of the world most likely.

    Oh, the memories… how time flies by. What have I done? I feel I’ve done so very little…

    One oft he few things I feel I’ve done is YAM [help yourself to some leftover YAM] – and I would like to continue with that. As a special something, this is a little of what we talked on the issue.

    Let the Right One In, the Swedish film… which is probably MY favorite film of the year. Though, I saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button last night and WHOA. Blew me away… but that’s not on YAM. LOL – What’s on YAM? There are also reviews on Blindness, Slumdog Millionaire, and Twilight. Yes, Julyssa decided to review Twilight for us… how brave of her! xD – And yes, please? Go watch Slumdog Millionaire (or Benjamin Button) at least once, instead of watching Twilight for the 20th time… just like Lainey says.

    I also reviewed music… Britney’s comeback Circus, Marit Larsen, Guns N’ Roses, Taylor Swift and DBSK. There are music, film and tv news… also a review on Season 3 of Dexter. PLUS! There’s more! Book reviews!! One of them features Yu!

    Yeah! For Frak’s sake~~ I’m doing what others are ‘afraid’ to do. I’m mixing West and Asian entertainment. LOL’ Not ONLY the stuff that makes it here… but also the stuff that doesn’t, but should~~ So be sure to know that I’ll be reviewing music from all sides of the world, films from everywhere… and maybe even series~~

    So please do! DO READ YAM! And link a post there so more people can read YAM.

    Happy New 2009. Much success to everyone!

  • It’s Xmas, and I’m already late~~

    , but need to share this. LOL’

    yam001_dec08-cover

    Thank you, Nate… for poking my eyes on the voodoo dolls you’ve got stash away. Yes, we’ve done YAM. Please, help yourself to some YAM for Xmas over here…

    Hope you enjoy.

  • Would You…?

    Chuck out +$150 for a PB? LOL

    I just got some PB news, which I will talk in a minute. That made me wonder if Aoi Miyazaki had any PBs, so I went to YesAsia to look it up. Amazon.co.jp has it also listed, and at +$115 … will Shipping get u from behind though?

    Anyway, just read the Juri Ueno, who is planning to release a trip/photobook-y DVD called AO AKUA (YesAsia – Amazon.co.jp) this coming January, will also be releasing a companion PB with the same name. PB will include photos, illustrations and messages written by Juri, who apparently also worked a bit with the designers and had her say in layout, typesetting, and a lot of work. Makes me giddy that Juri did it. LOL

    Also… I found this. LOL

  • La Bailarina de Izu (The Dancing Girl of Izu) by Yasunari Kawabata

    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.

  • Hate the World Today!

    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…

  • Good Taste is DEAD.

    … 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

  • Please, scanlate Osen!!

    Over this past weekend, I decided to look for the Osen manga again… I had tried times before, but ended up in nothing. However, this past weekend… THIS PAST WEEKEND! I found a group that are scanlating Osen!

    Thank you Kotonoha!

    Osen is a 12 volume (and ongoing) manga series, which gave way to Yu Aoi’s Osen NTV adaptation this year. And I liked the series, so I wanted to read the manga… Kotonoha has only uploaded the first two chapters of the first volume, but I am already liking it. MangaOsen is different to JDramaOsen… at first I had an issue with how skanky MangaOsen looked on the cover, but she already has me after the 2nd chapter xD

    So I am hoping they continue releasing scanlations for this one, because I wanna continue reading.

  • Toda Mafalda by Quino

    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.

  • The Sally Lockhart Mysteries by Philip Pullman

    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’

  • Digital Content Question~

    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.

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