Gackt + Yoshiki + Hamachan + Matsumoto = ROFLMAO

As part of my efforts to ramp up my Japanese input I’ve been watching all those Japanese videos I downloaded from youtube ages ago and rarely watched. I found a couple of vids where Gackt and Yoshiki sit with the guys from Downtown and just eat their way through each others’ favourite foods. Gackt seems to have had slightly too much to drink so he’s really cutting loose instead of with that silly posing and those silly affected manners he always puts on. I like him much better like this. If he’d always have a couple of glasses of wine before showing up to an interview I would like him much better. That was one interesting episode of…whatever it was an episode of. And the food all looked DELICIOUS. Mmm.

Looking on youtube, it seems to have been taken down. This is the only one I found:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DQ7A5yxe3E
Lucky me for dling when I could.

 

Kohaku Uta Gassen 2007

2007’s Kohaku means the one the year before the last. I’ve got the latest one as well, but I’m not in any hurry to watch it. The one I did watch over the weekend was hosted by Nakai Masahiro and some Tsurube guy I had never heard of but who had the most annoying voice I had ever heard. The two of them had ZERO chemistry and Nakai seemed to be frequently frustrated at Tsurube going off on one tangent or another, reminiscing about random things. Nakai himself is a terrible host. His very presence just trivializes the whole event, and those clothes! Ewww.

The show itself was very bland compared to the previous year’s and the one before that. I watched both of those and enjoyed them thoroughly. I got some good songs out of them too, and found out about some new artists I’m still following even today (Tokunaga Hideaki in particular). In contrast the song that got the most rise out of me in this one was “Oshirikajiri mushi.” Let’s see, I also liked Hirai Ken’s song Elegy and the last 4 songs by Wada Akiko, Sakamoto Fuyumi, Mori Shinichi and Itsuki Hiroshi are some of my greatest favorites. Everything else was a complete wash.

While we’re on the topic, I watched an NHK special on B’z the other day. Talk about zero chemistry again, those guys have like, none, and yet they work so well together. It looks like outside of music production they don’t have much to do with each other. Like they respect each other but don’t particularly like each other. Matsumoto came across as rather bossy, Inaba as some retiring mousy recluse. And he’s so thin now, what happened!? Of course it’s entirely possible that NHK edited their footage to make things seem that way. I wouldn’t put it beyond a TV station. Anyway, the title of the special was (I think) 「大ヒットの秘密：２０年目のＢ’ｚ」so they trailed B’z for 6 months to find out their secret. In the end the “secret” to their success is: They work like dogs at it. Gee, I could have told you that to begin with!

I want to get better at Japanese, I’ll need to work like a dog too. And that’s all for today

Listening to lots of music

I just moved all my mp3s to a new computer… wait, I should mention that my mp3 player is caput. It’s a useless POS, stay away from Sony mp3 players… So anyway, moved all my mp3s, and what I hate most is seeing “Play Count 0” next to any song, so I’ve been listening to all my songs compulsively from morning to evening. I have hundreds of hours worth of mp3s, and of course some of them are too good to listen to only once, so I’m getting lots of listening practice…I guess? I also found a copy of last year’s Kohaku Uta Gassen that I downloaded and burnt and never watched, so I think I’ll pull it out for a spin tonight. TBH I don’t like Nakai Masahiro as a Kohaku host. I feel like his mere presence trivializes the whole event, but then again he’s been host for 3 events running so maybe the Japanese like him. No accounting for taste, hmph.

In short I’m keeping at it & hanging in there. And that’s all for today.

Back from an SRS break

Even before Khatz at AJATT put up this post, I was already on an extended break from my SRS. Meaning I was still doing my reps every morning but I hadn’t added anything in weeks. Somehow it just got tedious and unfun so I ditched it for a while. But now I’m back! And over the past 3 days I’ve plundered over 100 sentences from Japanese wikipedia, using the tried and tested “articles on subjects I like” method! This time I read up on my favorite and unfavorite pro-wrestlers from about 10-15 years ago when I used to watch wrestling, people like Bret Hart and Mr. Perfect and Shawn Michaels, etc. Good times, good times. As usual the writing is blander and less opinionated than the English equivalents, but still interesting to read. Next week I might read a bit about legends of Japanese pro-wrestling, like Rikidozan and stuff.

That’s all for today!

Sekai no Chuushin de Ai wo Sakebu book… review?

I’ve been too lazy to post anything, but rest assured I’m still working as hard as ever. Right now I’m reading a Japanese novel, Sekai no Chuushin de Ai wo Sakebu (translated into English as “Socrates In Love“) There was a big fuss over it 2 or 3 years ago so I finally got around to checking it out only to find out it can be summed up as “BAWWW, MY GIRLFRIEND DIED, BAWW!” And she died before he could pork her too, that’s his real beef, I bet. I’m not done yet, about 4/5 in there. It was fun going at first but then the hospital descriptions started to turn me off. I don’t know whether to be flattered or sad that I understand Japanese well enough to be creeped out by Aki’s illness but in any case I’m kinda forcing myself to go through it now. I have to stop myself from giving in and just reading a summary on J-wiki.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been up to for the past week. When I’m done with it, I have some other books I might work on as well. One of them is about Yoshiki. Hmmm… Surprisingly enough, pulling out Japanese books in the bus or car doesn’t attract much attention from the other passengers, which I’m grateful for. Guess I’ll get on with it, then.