Let Winterlight Come

So the common unanimous consensus is to keep the boots. \O/ Done. XD

Coupla Shiny Things, now that YouTube/Firefox has stopped being obnoxious by freezing everytime I try to watch something:

1) Park Jungmin - Not Alone
Honest first reaction? I think his face looks longer than usual here. Neigh~ Moving on! *____* I love SS501's use of strings. I love that the string players actually get to be in the MVs, too. More than that (and the obvious pretty), lyrically and message-ly, this song is such a breath of fresh air in light of things like KARA's implosion, JYJ's... everything, Heechul snapping at antis (not that bitchy!Chul isn't awesome in its own way, but ugh drama), and groups/management companies sniping at each other left and right.

2) Jason Mraz & Tristan Prettyman - Lucky
This couple, so cute! I love their older duet, Shy That Way and I was sad when I'd heard they'd broken up - but now they're engaged. ♥ This isn't the best example of her singing, but they're clearly having fun and it is cute. :D

Werk tomorrow, then to San Jose on Thursday to visit people and hopefully get a major haircut.

*does not have a D'espa icon >.>*

Back from D'espa! As things usually go, it went downhill first and then majorly up again. XD They started a little late, and played for less than an hour before having an intermission. The second half was... probably around the same length? There was no encore (unless they're counting the post-intermission part as the encore), but the crowd failed at calling for an encore anyways.

( The good, the bad and the aslfjiweasdflj pretty )

As one of the guys I met tonight pointed out, though, this is definitely a merchandise tour. Maru Music/tour organizers are doing everything they can to sell things, and they had a ton of different merchandise, from shirts, to a hoodie, to a $25 folding fan (pretty, but not even for me the fan collector XD), pins, CDs, an Askew magazine special(?), a poster, a photo set.... If you spent $30 or more you were entered in a raffle to win a signed drumhead, as well. And the band only signed posters (and later shirts, and possibly just whatever merch) that had been bought at the show.

But eh, from a viewer's POV? Totally worth it. Not to mention, because the ticket price was relatively cheap for a Jrock concert, even with the merch I got, it was less than what I spent to go see GLAY, or 2PM/Wonder Girls.

Incidentally, slowly learning 2PM's member's names - still fail at identifying most of them - makes me sadder about missing their bit completely in that concert. Oh well. Next month will be SM Town, which I'm sure will make up for that!

LJ is once again not working nicely for me (and possibly roomie). I'm writing this entry with the ugly Times New Roman-only, no-graphics version of the Post page. -_-;

Blegh.

At least I managed to check my flist, though, so until LJ starts cooperating, I will leave you all with this pic (courtesy of tekaki) of Aki channeling Hyde, which I COMPLETELY approve of.



*____* This makes me keysmash inside, but I can't help but be amused, too, because he tries so hard to be rawr sometimes (not that he isn't succeeding; I mean, it's not like Yuuto trying to be rawr, but it's still cute on some level). XDD

Now back to writing a paper. >.>

I woke up later than I'd hoped to, so now I'll have to go shopping on my dinner break, which will undoubtedly be at 2:30 again. >.> I had a really weird and sort of disturbing dream that combined my mom's nagging, the clay from this Korean program on a potter I was watching yesterday, Fanime and Playzone 2009. It was like we had Juniors (and random Jrockers) at Fanime, and were trying to pull a production of Playzone together. And my mom was the director. >.>

So that was fun. But then I woke up, and tekaki had scanned Aki's part of Rock and Read 28. The whole shoot is lovely... I'm not sure what to make of the shorts he's wearing, but that didn't matter when the two pictures below appeared:



*______* + ahahahaha, tramp stamp. >.> I love his tattoo, really. I love it a lot. ♥ And it's nice to see it.

*rushes off to work with pretty images in her head*

I Come With the Rain was posted up at jdramas, so I watched it today. And now I am highly recommending it. With some caveats.

If you are easily squicked, this is definitely not a movie for you. One of the characters makes sculptures out of human body parts. There is a lot of violence, some gore, and a scene with bugs on Kimura Takuya's pretty face. Personally, I thought the level of gore was really good. Nothing was too graphic - the bits that would've been were off-screen or hidden by camera angles/props - but there were definitely moments where I cringed in sympathetic agony. Lots of moments. But in a good way.

On the shallow upside, Josh Hartnett spends about half the movie shirtless (...though occasionally bloodied at the same time), and Lee Byung Hun, KimuTaku, and Shawn Yue are all shirtless at least once within the first hour. :D? And you get to watch them all speak English. Even Josh Hartnett! XPP And that KimuTaku dude.

Overall, I thought the movie had a great sense of tension. Even when you know what's coming - the director liked to draw some moments out a lot - there's more of a feeling of, "Oh crap oh crap oh crap" than "blah blah blah." Some themes were pushed a bit too hard, I felt, but it wasn't so relentless that it ruined the movie by any means.

The music was done by Gustavo Santaolalla and Radiohead. Personally, I could've done with less Radiohead and more Gustavo, but the score went well with the movie. Stylistically, it took me a couple minutes to get used to the pacing and the filming style, but it fits the story as well. This director is the one currently signed on to adapt Murakami's Norweigan Wood, and I will tentatively say I think his style will work with Murakami's quirkiness (though obviously, it's a bit different adapting a book to screen than directing something that's purely script), which makes me happy.

And it was generally refreshing getting to see Asian actors with Western actors in a movie like this. Specifically, it was awesome getting to see KimuTaku ~the idol~ playing the character he does. I haven't seen anything from his filmography but MR. BRAIN, but this doesn't strike me as typical idol fare. XD

I really hope it gets a wider release (i.e. one in the US at all?). It'd be great to see it in one part, instead of two. Plus, the sound on the jdramas version would fade in and out sometimes, and I couldn't quite tell if/how much of it was intentional for Dramatic Effect, or if it was due to the rip, but either way, it was a bit distracting. And, of course, it'd just be nice to see Asians in American-released movies in a "cool" movie like this one instead of seeing Americans in American remakes of "cool" Asian movies. :D

Also, I was halfway through that last sentence when I noticed that nihongofrancais had posted a reviewflail about this movie too. Granted, her's is a little more spoilery (on a certain scale of spoileriness - she doesn't give a blow-by-blow account, ofc XD), but see, I am not the only one who recommends it!

I am on my new laptop! Woo! The screen is over an inch larger than my last one, which means there's enough space on the keyboard to fit a number pad. It's kinda weird. XD It's still lighter than the old laptop, though. The hard drive arrived yesterday, so I can properly format that, and then spend the next week moving things...

I'm thinking that maybe now is the time to finally move on from Photoshop 7, too. How daring of me. XD

Yes, this deserves its own post.



AUGH. *________________* I want scans of Hiroto from Neo Genesis 36 so badly now. Alien-visual-rock!Pon can replace hide!Pon in dammitliz's layout. :DDDD

I am flailing incoherently on the inside, really. *_____*

Also, the Takagi twins will be guesting on an episode of Meitantei no Okite, Matsuda Shota's detective comedy. And I think they will both be part of Kusanagi's yakuza in Ninkyo Helper. Yay, Takagis! :D

...did not know Yabu was in that, too. And Yamamoto Yusuke! Eenteresting.

EDIT: OH. And I forgot about this yesterday (yes, a travesty, I know)!



HI AKI.

I was reminded of this because someone else (that scan came from sidnad) posted scans of SID, VAMPS and Gackt up at jrock_scans, which therefore included:



*____*

The end. Of the world. How has this post not spontaneously combusted yet?

*_________________________* Oh, Hyde. Playing with cherries while KAZ just gets to try and find interesting poses to strike with a skull. XD

Yes, it was really hard not to make a joke of arguable tastfulness about this picture.

I may have to go buy this Pati Pati. GLAY's shoot is shiny, too, and there's also Mao's... sort of weirdly-soft-looking solo shoot.

EPIK HIGH (+ afterparty!) TONIGHT!! I feel pretty good about my Audiology final, too, so I won't be dwelling on that later. That stupid monthly thing, there may be dwelling upon, though.

...there are suspicious noises coming from upstairs. (/_\) And hey! I think this song has part of my name in the title. Ha. I never noticed that before...

Holy pretty blond Aki. Well, probably not holy, really. Not quite sure what I think of his outfit, or what I'll think when we get bigger pictures, but so far, I like it. XD I'm having flashbacks to when Pon went blond, but not to such a aljfwie;ajwl?! degree. Also, Yuuya: *___*

In more fandom news, xTRiPx has a new single out with a new PV (their second) apparently with it. W00t!

And back to the nutty Koreans, this interview is a bit meh to me - just in that it wasn't particularly eye-opening or particularly cracky, but it has some cute moments (and hey, it's in English XD), like: Mithra->Tablo: Tablo's best quality is that he is crazy. His worst quality is that he tries to hide it sometimes.

On the boyband side (sorry, JE peeps, still Korean!), Jungmin and his narcissism is weirdly endearing. And well, so are his girly wiggles, his smile, his general sparkly ghei and his promises to kill his bandmates. ♥ If Hyunjoong wasn't such an intriguing and quirky person, Jungmin would definitely be my favorite from SS501.

XD Funny, I told Iris a few days ago that I felt kind of like I was sort of... letting down the people who friended me for fandom reasons, since - especially this school year - I've been rambling more about school and RL than fandom things, and I usually tend to flail about fandom to Iris or Liv, depending on who's online. :P But now I'm posting fandom-related things and I feel spammy about it. Though I'd feel spammy posting more than once a day about any topic...

I don't know why I'm still awake. But yay, day off!

I am sick again. I guess the bug from a couple weeks ago never really went away, though this time I started with the hacking cough and have since moved on to the sore throat, runny nose and the new ailment, headache. -_- I am so tired of this. And tired in general. And pretty anti-food, because the idea of swallowing most things makes me throat go, "WAUGH." Though I could go for ramen, or udon or something involving noodles in soup. Oooh, maybe wonton. Too bad I have only tasteless (but healthier) instant noodles.

Thursday had a definite Pro for staying in the Ihouse. I woke up 7 minutes before my midterm started. Didn't have time to brush my teeth, wash my face or put my contacts on, but I still made it in time, which I definitely would not be able to do if I lived further away. On the other hand, I'd probably have just gotten up when my alarm went off an hour before class started if I knew I had to take longer to get to school.

And in the researching (i.e. obsessive Googling/YouTubing?) of the Takagi twins, I found out that Manpei was a power ranger (Sentei ranger, rather) in the original version of Power Rangers: Jungle Fury, and that Shinpei played his evil mirror reflection in an episode. Downloaded that, which of course led to downloading more, because the evil characters are kinda hot. >.> I feel gipped. Our PR villains had the same over-the-top sort of costumes, but were not half as pretty... I remember thinking that the villain for Jungle Fury was bordering on offensive, because he was some sneering young blond guy playing a ninja master.

I'll take Araki Hirofumi (aka Rio, the lion ranger dude thing) instead, pls. And his lovely sidekick, Yuka Hirata (aka Mele, a chameleon-based character):



The original also definitely has more less-hokey violence and more ghei than the American version, both of which I approve of. I find that I even liked the horrible anamatronic animal-people characters and the excessive explosions/sparks (excessive explosions are part of my childhood!).

( And a giant pretty people ramble )

This post was originally going to be a Takagi post, so to not leave Shinpei out (....not that I really mentioned Manpei much, but at least he was in the show!). He, Yuta Jutta (Kiba from Mei-chan) and two other guys did a photobook project under the name of Nachural, and there was a DVD with it, so he isn't without his own squishy pile of fun. Plus, sleeping like tetris pieces. Jutta is pretty amusing, too. XD

....and I think that is long enough. Suffice to say, venturing out of the JE void is a scary and very fun thing. XD

Plus, dragons: