Archive for December, 2009

Don’t get me wrong. My Christmas was wonderful, however, at the same time, quite bittersweet.

When I got home from work mid-afternoon on Christmas Eve (I had half-day, which was good), I was really pumped up for Midnight Mass choir, simply because I had enough sleep (and more sleep on my 45-minute train commute) and that there were a lot of good people arriving at the same time. Early night we went to my uncle’s house for our Christmas party. Because it was close to the church we thought it was a good idea to hold the party at his house so that we can just drive straight to church for Midnight Mass later. We played games, talked about life, and even talked about a good friend and fellow choir member who was diagnosed with the killer liver cancer. Because liver cancer killed my cousin-in-law two years ago, I was already expecting that friend to die sometime this month, but at the same time I prayed it would be after Christmas. At least he would be able to spend his final Christmas with his family before he goes.

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• Currently Drinking: AriZona Iced Pomegranate Green Tea
• Currently Eating: Barbecue PopChips, Barbecue PopChips
• Currently Listening: My Doo-Wop Radio Channel @ Pandora
• Currently Reading: The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

Avatar

Genre: Sci-fi Drama
Release Date: 12/18/2009 (U.S.)
Starring: Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Zoe Saldana, Giovanni Ribisi, Michelle Rodriguez (and more…)
More Info: Wikipedia

Plot:
In the year 2154, a private corporation mines for a valuable mineral in a lush, Earthlike-moon known as Pandora with the assistance of scientists and former marine mercenaries to support and protect the exploitation project. What stands in the way of the mineral mines is the population of the indigenous peoples known as the na’vi, blue-skinned and tall humanoids with cat-like features who are resisting human presence in order to preserve their lands and their ecosystem.

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• Currently Eating: Honeybaked Ham
• Currently Reading: Evolution's Edge by Graeme Taylor (homework!)
• Mood: Exhausted

First and foremost, I would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. If you’re one of those extremely politically correctness-conscious people, I’ll do you all a favor. Happy Hoildays (even many of my non-Christians or non-Christmas-celebrating friends think the greeting is just ridiculous).

Next, got a few things to babble about as we close this year— finally. Personally I look forward to leaving 2009 behind as I would define this year as the worst year I’ve ever had in my life. Few reasons why:

• Unemployment for the first half of the year.
• Financial problems due to said statement before.
• Seems I made more enemies than friends this year.
• Lack of creativity with everything due to the said statements above.
• Current events and inspirational and the passing of legendary and inspirational individuals that influenced the world altogether if not the every single individual.
• … life in the 2000s decade sucked? As one issue of Time had the headline: Decade from Hell.

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PRECAUTION NOTICE:

If you are sensitive to direct rant blog entries in general, the door leading to the exit is at that red X button at the top right corner or at the browser tab itself. If you are sensitive to a direct rant blog entry that may possibly be directed at you (though all of my rants are always general anyway), you can do the same with that X button. If you are looking for a good laugh, you can proceed to reading this, but I doubt if it would make you laugh.

But if you have an open mind, then please feel free to read. It may somehow be directed at you, maybe not. Either case, keep in mind that I’m not out for blood for this one, but rather, just another person writing her own opinions based on observation. I’m not hating on people, therefore I’d like to hear your opinions too and share your words regarding the subject matter. Good discussions and debates are always welcome, but please do not take this personally.

Lately in the Japanese entertainment industry there have been many foreign talent, or gaijin tarento to some people as of late. I’m not talking about Japan-born and/or U.S. military brats like Crystal Kay or may-j or BENI, but I’m talking about the ones who were born outside Japan that happened to have the opportunity to succeed in the Japanese entertainment industry. It’s only natural for many of us as Hollywood always has a lot of foreign talent making it in the American entertainment industry from year to year, but when it comes to the industry in other countries, most notably Asia (in this case, Japan), it seems that foreign fans (who are NOT from Japan) seem to get negative comments about these gaijin tarento.

So I ask myself, why? In fact, I ask myself more of a so what? rather than why are so many foreign fan(girls) are being haters towards foreign (as in non-Japanese or non-Japan-born) talent? Now, I will have to admit something that’s quite factual that many (and yes, many) fan girls around would want to have their chance to be on the Japanese entertainment spotlight for God knows what reason. Most likely, they want to get close to their favorite idol or something, but if you think about it a bit further, Japan (or just Japanese showbiz in general) have some kind of an invisible charm that ensnares the foreign eyes in to something new, something cool.

That’s just how it is, people. Japan, or rather, the people in the industry, are very predictable when it comes to recruiting foreign talent and make them famous in the industry. Not all minds are the same with each other. It’s like in Hollywood where someone gets “too” popular and the “general public” (mainly girls… again) start to do the hating on that someone simply because that someone is becoming a lot successful in that person’s career. Sure, each person has their own preferences, but now it would be like if one person is hating on that particular personality, then everyone else starts hating too. I mean, really. We may not like what we see, but this is reality. It’s just how things go, sadly.

I mean, really. Why not use whatever time you’ve got to spend actually flailing over something you like instead of leaving hate comments on some community journal on a news article about a particular foreign talent? Apparently the industry has seen something special within these individuals and the haters didn’t.  Seriously if you’re annoyed by seeing all these foreign talents in news articles, seriously, just ignore them. Those who are getting annoyed with all this hating going on would truly appreciate it. Everyone’s different as well as their opinions, but jeez louise, the hating is really unnecessary.

It’s late night here and I’m not thinking straight. Maybe I’ll do a bit of editing with this entry when I get to it. If not, I’ll just move on and leave it as is.

Eh.

• Currently Drinking: AriZona Peach Iced Tea
• Currently Listening: Blame the Other Duck by SNRG
• Currently Reading: Badass by Ben Thompson
• Mood: sleepy

DUDES! DUDES! DUDES! This is for you all, yo~!

I was digging up old files from AMNOS.net when I viewed the content of one of my old mySQL databases that I downloaded for safekeeping and backup. The data that I viewed were content from my first few visitors who visited the first version of the site and left comments in a guestbook that I designed and installed (I even forgot the guestbook script too, but I remembered that it was also a Japanese-made guestbook script). There were two or three visitors who happen to be Japanese dudes (kinda weird, one of them wrote in not-too-fluent English but understandable enough, two of them wrote in Japanese) who actually asked me if I knew the process of becoming a Johnny’s idol. I was a total noob fan of Johnny’s back then, but I did some extensive research and asked a few friends who are general Johnny’s fans if they knew the process. I was able to actually aided those guys, though I’m not quite sure how old they really were.

So for those dudes who wishes for love of the female mass, here is a comprehensive guide that I was able to dig up. I don’t know if this process is still intact today, but keep in mind that the following process was effective back in 2002.

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