I know, I haven't posted in forever. I'm not really sure what the point of this post is, but I have thoughts running around in the brain and no one's on AIM. I need an outlet. That's what these blog things are for, right?
This morning, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within came on TV. I hadn't watched it in a LONG time. Five years maybe? I have the DVD, but honestly, it's not that good of a movie. And it's not that I think the CG is creepy, or the story is convoluted, or that it doesn't feel like Final Fantasy - the usual complaints I hear about the movie. No, it's mostly the fault of the characterization (or lack thereof). The only entertaining characters in it were ripped straight out of "Aliens" and those not torn from that movie are flat, uninteresting, two-dimensional, static, everything a film or book character should NOT be. The acting was a bit stiff in places too, but I genuinely think the actors did very well considering what they had to work with. The point is, if your characters suck, I'm not gonna care what happens to them. Whenever a death of a main character happens in the movie, I just don't care. I don't believe any of these people could really exist, you know?
Anyway, I still watched it, and honestly, it was still a geek-out moment for me and I was enjoying the experience immensely, JUST BECAUSE IT WAS ON. I surround myself with Japanese media all the time - anime, dramas, TV variety shows, and especially music. I often forget how rare & wonderful it is that anything from that world comes on TV. I feel like there's alot of Anime on TV, but that's just because I know it's there, I know when it's on. I don't get that excited listening to japanese music because it's really all I listen to on my computer. I can easily download japanese dramas and watch them anytime I want. It's commonplace for anything asian to be on my computer. But FF:TSW is a movie based on a Japanese video game series, directed by Hironobu Sakaguchi, with a freaking L'Arc~en~Ciel song played at the end.
Sure, I listen to L'Arc all the time. They're just a part of my life. But it is still so exciting to me to hear hyde's voice coming from my TV speakers, with the knowledge that this isn't a DVD or video that I'm watching, this is actually on TV right now - someone else somewhere could be hearing it & thinking "hey, this song is pretty cool" and looking at the credits to see who did it. It's not really likely, but it's possible. And the song being played on TV validates the band for me somehow. As though it's proof that they're real, and that there's an audience for them even on this side of the ocean, outside the usual Otaku subjects.
But this movie came out 8 years ago. Why, 8 years later, is this still exciting to me? Why is Japanese music still not getting any attention here? I do two j-entertainment podcasts. J-music is covered on Gaijin Kanpai, and dramas are covered on GK Dorama Club. After 25 episodes, GK has a moderate audience. After 3 episodes, GKDC gets way more feedback & listeners already. Japanese TV dramas have more of an english-speaking audience than Japanese Music does, and I cannot for the life of me understand why. As much as I love being excited to hear Japanese music played during a movie, I don't see why it should still be exciting 8 years after L'arc gets an american movie theme. By this point, J-music should be at least common among music geeks, but it's not. Why?
There have been various attempts over the years to release j-albums legitimately. Two examples I can think of are Mars Colony Music, who released game music, and Tofu Records, who released Sony Music Japan artists' releases. Neither company exists anymore, as the expenses of licensing & releasing the music to its tiny audience here couldn't be recouped. Asian artists who've tried to americanize their sound & release material here, such as Utada, have failed. Asians in general don't get much recognition in the music world save for very tiny underground & indie circles (Pizzicato Five and DJ Krush, for example, have done okay - but very few people know who they are, regardless).
I almost feel like asian media really had a shot to come over here in the early aughts - Anime & games started to skyrocket in popularity. But american-made games by the folks at Valve & Blizzard have pretty much overtaken the asian games by the likes of Square-Enix, and the geekiest of the Anime fans were unfortunately the loudest, so Anime is back to being something for dorks with no lives rather than regular people. Any chance asian music & movies had of reaching the mainstream was lost when anime & games were no longer a curiosity to the general American public.
On the one hand, I would like to hear BoA and Utada on the radio, or see them on TV. But on the other hand, I saw what happened to the Anime industry when it got big here. I no longer feel at home among other Anime fans. Geeks who just wanted to be themselves used to be able to watch fansubs of the newest series in Japan, watch old DVDs of the classics, and make fun of bad dubs together. It was cozy and nice. Now, Anime's just too big - too many series are being dubbed & brought over, and it's not special. So I wonder if I should be wishing for J-music to get more of a fanbase over here. Part of me really likes saying "you probably don't know any of the artists I listen to," and I LOVE meeting other people who know J-music simply because it's so rare a thing to come across. In the earlier days of my anime fandom, I wanted my group of anime-loving friends to grow. Then it did, and I wished it hadn't.
So, while I do want the inherent racism against Asians in the media to go away in America, at the same time, a very big, very selfish part of me wants my small group of j-music loving friends to stay warm, friendly, and cozy. When and if BoA's "Energetic" video comes on TV alot, I know obnoxious 12 year old girls are going to be singing the song in the middle of Claire's or wherever it is the kids shop for little cheap things these days. I want that to happen, but I don't.
I kinda wanna always be excited to hear "Spirit Dreams Inside" when the Final Fantasy movie comes on tv.
But I kinda don't.
Weird.
Weight Loss Ticker!!
OMG I'm actually losing weight again!
Look at the ticker!! LOOK! XD
I went back up again for a little while. (yay holidays -_-;; why must you tempt me so!)
But the weight looks like it's finally coming off again! Huzzah :)
I went back up again for a little while. (yay holidays -_-;; why must you tempt me so!)
But the weight looks like it's finally coming off again! Huzzah :)
10 TV Commercials That I Really Hate
Can I just take this moment to rant about TV ads that I just can NOT stand? Hopefully some of you folks will agree.
1. Glade - all the ads where this compulsive liar of a woman tries to impress her friends saying that her Glade air fresheners are spa scents, french, incense, or whatever else - even when she's on the phone and there's no one else actually around to smell it! One, that woman is annoying as hell and has a serious lying habit that she needs to get professional help for. She's not exactly someone I can relate to. Two, all Glade is saying is "we're embarrassing to have in your house, we know, it's okay to lie." I don't wanna buy a brand that considers itself embarrassing, do you?
2. Sinupret - that mom & daughter? POD PEOPLE.
3. Snuggie, the blanket you wear - You know, this really looked like a reasonable product that I might consider getting, until they showed the family wearing it OUTSIDE THE HOUSE. I can't imagine something more humiliating for a 12 year old boy than having his whole family show up for his soccer game IN BLANKETS. "That's my kid!" "Really? I can't see the resemblance. He's wearing actual clothing, after all."
4. Every Kidz Bop commercial ever - This is really more hate for the product than the ads themselves. Okay, let's take all the crappy songs on the radio and remove everything about those tracks that's somewhat listenable - the bad words, the on-key vocals, all that. It'll be a hoot, listening to a bunch of perfunctory vocals by tone-deaf children! It's like karaoke night without the booze, sushi, or fun of any kind! But yeah, the ads just play clips of this crap, so by default, the ads suck too.
5. Bratz - Bratz, Girls Really Rock. The one with the electrified voice going "Bra-a-atz" and then another sorta, well, bratty-sounding voice going like "BRAAATZ". (I should find youtube videos of these.) The music in this ad is completely obnoxious and honestly kinda creepy sounding. The person in charge of this brilliant jingle is a complete idiot and should be forbidden from working in the trade ever again.
6. Jared - No one gives a shit if he went to Jared. If he went to Tiffany, yeah, I can see people murmuring about it in hushed, excited whispers. Jared just doesn't have that reputation yet. I can understand the "dress for the job you want" mentality the ad agency must have had for this, but when it's your entire ad campaign? Makes you guys look like total posers. Sorry Jared, you suck.
7. Mentos - Thank GOD this one's been edited. Have you guys seen the ad where the guy is in an office next to a water cooler and has some Mentos, and the girl comes up and... well. Right now the ad shows the girl "kissing" the dorky guy, and then for some unexplicable reason she pushes his nose down afterwards. And it has one of those arbitrary, poorly thought-out, could-apply-to-anyone tagline about the Mentos being refreshing. This ad's already a piece of crap, but it's WAY less annoying (and gross) than the original, in which the tagline is "mouthwatering", and the girl is not kissing him, but from the sound effects, she's clearly DRINKING FROM HIS MOUTH instead of the water cooler! WHAT THE FREAKING HELL EEEEWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!! So yeah, I'm glad they changed it to kissing and all, but that commercial just makes no sense now and it needs to be pulled completely in my opinion. Those horrible nonsensical ads from the late 90s were WAY better, and that's saying something.
8. Toyota, Saved By Zero - First off, why do commercials always have these horrible covers of decent old songs? If you can't get the rights to just play the original version of the song, just write a new jingle. (And don't just cheat and change the lyrics to a song we know, write something we'll associate with your brand, dumbasses). So yeah, that bugs me, but to be totally honest, mostly it gives me a headache to try to watch the cars drive by. The obviously sped-up footage is nothing short of headache-inducing.
9. Multi-Grain Cheerios - It's just way too obvious that they've Americanized a British ad. The sync is bad on the dub, as we hear the voice say "bahx" while the mouth says "bohx". The colors on the newly-americanized cereal box are so completely different from the rest of the ad's overall look, not to mention Calories being in the ENTIRELY wrong place for an American box, which cracks me up. It's like they tried to fit pieces from two different puzzles together, and the force is obvious. Jeez guys, Commercial Localization 101. If the edits are gonna be THAT OBVIOUS, just... make a new ad. Seriously. Use the same concept if you want, just re-shoot the damn thing. Ugh. UGH.
10. XBox 360 "Head" ads - There are two of these, one for Netflix and one for just gaming. These are the ones where we see very unattractive people's vacant, spacy facial expressions (they don't even look like they're enjoying themselves, they just look spaced out), and the camera slowly pans to the back of their head which we see is HOLLOWED OUT AND FULL OF PARTY. It is CREEPY AS HELL. These are like, freaky robot people!!! There's something very uncanny valley about the whole thing and I just can't stand it.
Anyway, what are your thoughts on these ads? Any other horrible ads you guys can think of?
1. Glade - all the ads where this compulsive liar of a woman tries to impress her friends saying that her Glade air fresheners are spa scents, french, incense, or whatever else - even when she's on the phone and there's no one else actually around to smell it! One, that woman is annoying as hell and has a serious lying habit that she needs to get professional help for. She's not exactly someone I can relate to. Two, all Glade is saying is "we're embarrassing to have in your house, we know, it's okay to lie." I don't wanna buy a brand that considers itself embarrassing, do you?
2. Sinupret - that mom & daughter? POD PEOPLE.
3. Snuggie, the blanket you wear - You know, this really looked like a reasonable product that I might consider getting, until they showed the family wearing it OUTSIDE THE HOUSE. I can't imagine something more humiliating for a 12 year old boy than having his whole family show up for his soccer game IN BLANKETS. "That's my kid!" "Really? I can't see the resemblance. He's wearing actual clothing, after all."
4. Every Kidz Bop commercial ever - This is really more hate for the product than the ads themselves. Okay, let's take all the crappy songs on the radio and remove everything about those tracks that's somewhat listenable - the bad words, the on-key vocals, all that. It'll be a hoot, listening to a bunch of perfunctory vocals by tone-deaf children! It's like karaoke night without the booze, sushi, or fun of any kind! But yeah, the ads just play clips of this crap, so by default, the ads suck too.
5. Bratz - Bratz, Girls Really Rock. The one with the electrified voice going "Bra-a-atz" and then another sorta, well, bratty-sounding voice going like "BRAAATZ". (I should find youtube videos of these.) The music in this ad is completely obnoxious and honestly kinda creepy sounding. The person in charge of this brilliant jingle is a complete idiot and should be forbidden from working in the trade ever again.
6. Jared - No one gives a shit if he went to Jared. If he went to Tiffany, yeah, I can see people murmuring about it in hushed, excited whispers. Jared just doesn't have that reputation yet. I can understand the "dress for the job you want" mentality the ad agency must have had for this, but when it's your entire ad campaign? Makes you guys look like total posers. Sorry Jared, you suck.
7. Mentos - Thank GOD this one's been edited. Have you guys seen the ad where the guy is in an office next to a water cooler and has some Mentos, and the girl comes up and... well. Right now the ad shows the girl "kissing" the dorky guy, and then for some unexplicable reason she pushes his nose down afterwards. And it has one of those arbitrary, poorly thought-out, could-apply-to-anyone tagline about the Mentos being refreshing. This ad's already a piece of crap, but it's WAY less annoying (and gross) than the original, in which the tagline is "mouthwatering", and the girl is not kissing him, but from the sound effects, she's clearly DRINKING FROM HIS MOUTH instead of the water cooler! WHAT THE FREAKING HELL EEEEWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!! So yeah, I'm glad they changed it to kissing and all, but that commercial just makes no sense now and it needs to be pulled completely in my opinion. Those horrible nonsensical ads from the late 90s were WAY better, and that's saying something.
8. Toyota, Saved By Zero - First off, why do commercials always have these horrible covers of decent old songs? If you can't get the rights to just play the original version of the song, just write a new jingle. (And don't just cheat and change the lyrics to a song we know, write something we'll associate with your brand, dumbasses). So yeah, that bugs me, but to be totally honest, mostly it gives me a headache to try to watch the cars drive by. The obviously sped-up footage is nothing short of headache-inducing.
9. Multi-Grain Cheerios - It's just way too obvious that they've Americanized a British ad. The sync is bad on the dub, as we hear the voice say "bahx" while the mouth says "bohx". The colors on the newly-americanized cereal box are so completely different from the rest of the ad's overall look, not to mention Calories being in the ENTIRELY wrong place for an American box, which cracks me up. It's like they tried to fit pieces from two different puzzles together, and the force is obvious. Jeez guys, Commercial Localization 101. If the edits are gonna be THAT OBVIOUS, just... make a new ad. Seriously. Use the same concept if you want, just re-shoot the damn thing. Ugh. UGH.
10. XBox 360 "Head" ads - There are two of these, one for Netflix and one for just gaming. These are the ones where we see very unattractive people's vacant, spacy facial expressions (they don't even look like they're enjoying themselves, they just look spaced out), and the camera slowly pans to the back of their head which we see is HOLLOWED OUT AND FULL OF PARTY. It is CREEPY AS HELL. These are like, freaky robot people!!! There's something very uncanny valley about the whole thing and I just can't stand it.
Anyway, what are your thoughts on these ads? Any other horrible ads you guys can think of?
The Zero Hit Story
In celebration of my 50th post on this silly blog, the follwing is inspired by the December 3, 2008 entry at blag.xkcd.com, and is made entirely of phrases that yielded zero hits on google. A big "darn it" goes to Avish and Isaleen who had this idea first but I hadn't read the comments that far down before writing a bunch of this stuff. Enjoy!
I just did something vaguely unethical... I put this on the internet first. It's only a matter of time before this shows up on google. (There are no results for this string).
Perhaps I have more important things to be doing right now, but the world needs a bit more whimsy. Ominous fluffy kittens pardon my 1337 5p33k.
I have not had intercourse with your mom. Thermite your mom. I am turned on by smelly toes. Your mom was never good. She smelled like a Star Trek convention - there was no deodorant to be had. Her nudity was terrifying. (It turned out her bottom half was a robot.)
Black hat man is sexy, so I wrote his brain a love note. Minesweeper erotica sex is better than vista... I can't feel my forehead! My cerebrum is exploding! You spilled my calculus! (Search your database, you know it to be true.)
Rented cashews blown to velociraptors and lollipops... I'm totally a velociraptor. Velociraptors can swim faster than Michael Phelps! Let me touch your raptors - I kissed a velociraptor and liked it. Will velociraptors give you up? Will velociraptors let you down? Summer Glau ate my velociraptor, "Velociraptors ate my homework. I can't believe I ate the whole velociraptor." Summer Glau is the new president - raccoon in chief, with a velociraptor trebuchet. Smash, crash, you're dead.
Is that a DNA sequencer in your pocket or are you just happy to see me? (I met my husband on 4chan.) Erotic Feynman diagrams, which is exactly what I expected a female borg to do.
Spockagram!! Barack Obama is Stephen Colbert! Is Obama from space? Obama might be from space. Unlike normal furries, Obama is a Dalek. Obama is a raptor!!!! No McCain left behind.
My girlfriend plays too many video games. I would have fallen in love with you if you hadn't jumped out the window. Did you defenestrate my vodka? Unleash the stickmen!! I miss my gangrene republican flavored soda.
The babel fish ate a violin. Let them eat whatever they'll make themselves. (Make ice cream, not frozen custard.)
Luke, I am your third grade teacher. There is no meat skewer.
XKCD sucks. xkcd is funnier than me.
That's when I hit the grizzly... and thus ended the reign of google.
I just did something vaguely unethical... I put this on the internet first. It's only a matter of time before this shows up on google. (There are no results for this string).
Perhaps I have more important things to be doing right now, but the world needs a bit more whimsy. Ominous fluffy kittens pardon my 1337 5p33k.
I have not had intercourse with your mom. Thermite your mom. I am turned on by smelly toes. Your mom was never good. She smelled like a Star Trek convention - there was no deodorant to be had. Her nudity was terrifying. (It turned out her bottom half was a robot.)
Black hat man is sexy, so I wrote his brain a love note. Minesweeper erotica sex is better than vista... I can't feel my forehead! My cerebrum is exploding! You spilled my calculus! (Search your database, you know it to be true.)
Rented cashews blown to velociraptors and lollipops... I'm totally a velociraptor. Velociraptors can swim faster than Michael Phelps! Let me touch your raptors - I kissed a velociraptor and liked it. Will velociraptors give you up? Will velociraptors let you down? Summer Glau ate my velociraptor, "Velociraptors ate my homework. I can't believe I ate the whole velociraptor." Summer Glau is the new president - raccoon in chief, with a velociraptor trebuchet. Smash, crash, you're dead.
Is that a DNA sequencer in your pocket or are you just happy to see me? (I met my husband on 4chan.) Erotic Feynman diagrams, which is exactly what I expected a female borg to do.
Spockagram!! Barack Obama is Stephen Colbert! Is Obama from space? Obama might be from space. Unlike normal furries, Obama is a Dalek. Obama is a raptor!!!! No McCain left behind.
My girlfriend plays too many video games. I would have fallen in love with you if you hadn't jumped out the window. Did you defenestrate my vodka? Unleash the stickmen!! I miss my gangrene republican flavored soda.
The babel fish ate a violin. Let them eat whatever they'll make themselves. (Make ice cream, not frozen custard.)
Luke, I am your third grade teacher. There is no meat skewer.
XKCD sucks. xkcd is funnier than me.
That's when I hit the grizzly... and thus ended the reign of google.
Wheeeee....
la la la la la.
Okay, so. On my boyfriend's insistence, I've tried for a job at the same Comcast call center where he works, and it looks like I may have gotten it! Honestly for me to not get it, I'd have to fail the drug test after some kind of hilarious mix-up, or... eating too many poppyseed muffins or something.
If I get it, I'll start the Monday after Christmas.
In the meantime, Christmas prep has begun! The stockings are up, there's a poinsettia that I promise myself I'll keep alive at least until christmas eve, there's lights, there's shiny obnoxious garlands everywhere, and my poster of Ayumi Hamasaki above the TV has ribbon on the corners so she kinda looks like a present. ^_^
I have my tree decorated much more nicely this year than the past two years, although this tree is really... like.... Well, it's a $20 drug store tree. And i wanna get one of those 6 1/2 foot tall, 5 foot wide, full-looking trees from Big Lots or Walmart. Next year, though - I've decorated this POS Charlie Brown tree already, I'm invested now.
So some of you may have noticed that my little weight meter has barely moved. What happened? Stomach flu & Thanksgiving, in short. It's hard to find foot that's both atkins-friendly AND Stomach flu friendly (Judee had stomach flu before me and used up all the diet 7-up, and for some reason chicken broth's smell was making me feel sick again). Toast was inevitably ingested, much to my dismay. Took a few days to get back on ketosis again, and... OH GUESS WHAT HAPPENED. Thanksgiving! Mashed potatoes & chocolate pie. *sigh*
I'm back on the wagon today - sugar-free everything (crap i forgot to get jello at the store just now), meat, no starches, the whole ball of wax.
...I really don't wanna think of food as a ball of wax. Whole nine yards. Whole kit 'n caboodle.
Does anyone remember Caboodles? I loved those things.
ANYWAY sorry for rambling. The weight loss meter will start moving again soon.
...although I bet it'll stop again at Christmas - I must not sabotage myself! 185 by New Years!!!!!!!
Okay, so. On my boyfriend's insistence, I've tried for a job at the same Comcast call center where he works, and it looks like I may have gotten it! Honestly for me to not get it, I'd have to fail the drug test after some kind of hilarious mix-up, or... eating too many poppyseed muffins or something.
If I get it, I'll start the Monday after Christmas.
In the meantime, Christmas prep has begun! The stockings are up, there's a poinsettia that I promise myself I'll keep alive at least until christmas eve, there's lights, there's shiny obnoxious garlands everywhere, and my poster of Ayumi Hamasaki above the TV has ribbon on the corners so she kinda looks like a present. ^_^
I have my tree decorated much more nicely this year than the past two years, although this tree is really... like.... Well, it's a $20 drug store tree. And i wanna get one of those 6 1/2 foot tall, 5 foot wide, full-looking trees from Big Lots or Walmart. Next year, though - I've decorated this POS Charlie Brown tree already, I'm invested now.
So some of you may have noticed that my little weight meter has barely moved. What happened? Stomach flu & Thanksgiving, in short. It's hard to find foot that's both atkins-friendly AND Stomach flu friendly (Judee had stomach flu before me and used up all the diet 7-up, and for some reason chicken broth's smell was making me feel sick again). Toast was inevitably ingested, much to my dismay. Took a few days to get back on ketosis again, and... OH GUESS WHAT HAPPENED. Thanksgiving! Mashed potatoes & chocolate pie. *sigh*
I'm back on the wagon today - sugar-free everything (crap i forgot to get jello at the store just now), meat, no starches, the whole ball of wax.
...I really don't wanna think of food as a ball of wax. Whole nine yards. Whole kit 'n caboodle.
Does anyone remember Caboodles? I loved those things.
ANYWAY sorry for rambling. The weight loss meter will start moving again soon.
...although I bet it'll stop again at Christmas - I must not sabotage myself! 185 by New Years!!!!!!!
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