Some stuff about youtube and Japanese videos

You remember that LOOONG list of youtube links I posted a while ago? I did eventually download all of them, and kept them on my hard drive planning to watch them “some day.” That day turned out to be yesterday and I started working my way through them but… why do I have so many Gackt videos!? He’s so annoying. They’re interviewing him and he’s got his sunglasses on and his chin in his hand like, I dun wanna be here. They ask him a question and he can barely open his mouth to answer, “mutter mutter mutter irrelevant comment mutter mutter.” Get off my screen already.

Then I watched a skit with Ayumi Hamasaki riding bicycles (these are all Hey! Hey! Hey! clips, btw). That girl has the worst screech in the history of the universe. My ears were bleeding, man. And she looks funny, and she can’t sing. I think the story behind her popularity is more the idea of “There’s hope for us all” rather than any real talent. That, and marketing. Oh yeah, then I watched an interview with Amuro Namie, talking about the ways in which she’s a complete bitch to her manager and she’s like “yeah, we totally don’t get along.” Hey, at least you’re honest, right?

Sorry, hating on “tarento” is a hobby of mine. “Artistes” and “talents” like that exist in every country, probably, but it’s only in Japan that they’re shoved relentlessly down your throat everywhere you turn. It makes it all too easy to get sick of them. My favourites are the ones you don’t see every single week on every channel, shilling every single product under the sun.

Watching the clips really helps in a way that radio programs can’t manage, because the visuals and the subtitles keep you focused on the screen, instead of trying to type up an e-mail and open up two documents at the same time as you’re listening to some boring presenter drone on about environmental problems in Japan. I’m making it a daily habit from now on to watch at least 10 clips every day till I work my way through every video on the list. Wish me luck!

Sorting out a huge SRS backlog

By putting a temporary freeze on new additions to my SRS, I was finally able to bring my backlog of reps to a manageable number. This morning, for example, I only had 27 reps to do, quickly gotten out of the way. And when you have a nice small number you can take your time and write out most, if not all of them, perhaps even read a few out loud.

 So I just finished all that this morning and decided to get some more listening practice in. I remembered picking up a link to a podcast with some girls talking, probably from AJATT somewhere, so I went through my bookmarks and dug it up: Mariemo podcast.

Three schoolgirls from Hokkaido spend 10-30 episodes talking about nothing much. It’s…not very interesting and like all the other Japnese podcasts/radio programs it soon put me to sleep. But I shall persevere. I need listening practice badly because, not to boast or
anything, but my reading ability is nearly “there” while my speaking ability lags pitifully behind. Still, I don’t think Mariemo is the way for me.
I think there was some mention of Bakushou Mondai or something a while back, maybe that might be a more viable alternative.

Why backsliding is dangerous

That week I took off took a bigger toll on me than I had expected. You see, when you work behind a computer everyday, you kinda get into a groove, you know? First this site, then that site, then let’s see what X site has to say, and I mustn’t forget Dear Abby, and while I’m at it gotta check that site… force of habit is stronger than you think. Before I went AJATT I had a large number of English blogs and news sites I used to visit every morning before settling down to work. I thought I had them conquered, but in just one week they took over my computer again! And to be honest, I’m not sure I want to stop… but I must persevere!

I found a direct download site for Raw Manga so I’ve been downloading like crazy the last couple of days, but apart from flipping through a few ones, I haven’t really settled down to read anything. Kenritsu Chikyuu Boueigun (Prefectural Earth Defence Force) looks the most interesting so far. I’ve always been more interested in older manga that in the newer, posher stuff anyway. It seems to me like manga back then contained less “fluff” and “eye wash” than manga today, but that’s probably just me.

I’m still studying Japanese!!

Just because I haven’t posted anything in a few days doesn’t mean I’ve been spending my time reading Dear Prudence archives or anything like that <_< >_>…yeah. I finally got my M3 Lite to overcome the dreaded “Write PSRAM fail! System wil be shut down!” problem (more on that some other time) so I’m happily continuing with Fire Emblem DS and Rune Factory.

Today I’m super happy about the news that my favourite anime, Hajime no Ippo, will be getting another season next year. So I’m spending the day reading articles about the series, starting with the wiki entries! Yay!

And I’d post more for today but my head is full of Dempsey Rolls.

Slacking on Japanese

I haven’t posted in a while because I haven’t studied Japanese in a while. I read a bit of manga last week and I’ve been keeping up with my SRS reps, but apart from that it’s been English media all week. I could blame it all on the lack of decent coverage of the US elections by the Japanese media, but I’ll just be honest and say I was lazy. Still the week off has given me a bit of fresh perspective …who am I kidding? I took the week off Japanese and now I’m back, end of story.

Mort was good, though. It was the only Discworld book I hadn’t read (apart from the two most recent ones, which I don’t particularly want to read). It made me pretty nostalgic, really. Right now I’m strongly, strongly resisting the temptation to read Small Gods again.