i haven't pen a travelblog since the trip to brisbane-goldcoast-sydney,feb2007 and bali,jun2007 (more bullsh*t under 'travel' tag).
So allow me to start again, please dont bear with me.
a historical odyssey into the Ancient Greek Civilisation and Turkish Ottoman Empire
- 02:19 Mighty good name! 'Ndamukat'! RT @BigRedinTejas: The evenings events have left Ndamukat completely worn out. tweetphoto.com/6814522 #
- 03:44 Back from late night stop at the food library. I prefer going late at night, no crowds or traffic. #
- 04:06 Although your big plans could run into a wall now, with intent... More for Sagittarius twittascope.com/twittascope/?sign=9 #
- 14:52 Indeed! RT @nepatriotsdraft: Ballgame. Thanks Wes! #
- 14:57 Pats 9-5, 1st in the east. Need Tennessee to beat Miami. #
- 14:57 Crap, Miami scored #
- 14:57 Stop the 2pt conversion! #
- 14:58 Seriously? #WTF #
- 15:05 @TheFisherbabe - I agree. #
- 15:10 @TheFisherbabe - now that IS great news! :-) #
- 15:11 Tennessee is in FG range with the phins penalty #
- 15:12 Not sure why they didn't run it up the middle #
- 15:12 There we go #
- 15:14 @TheFisherbabe - how's the day so far? #
- 15:15 46 yard attempt #
- 15:15 It's good!!!!! #
- 15:15 #Dolphins lose! Sweet #
- 15:19 Watching the #eagles #49ers game #NFL #football #
- 21:35 @MonasApple - I want to watch A Christmas Story #
- 21:37 @Amethyst7123 - because he's 40, I think 40 is the new 40 right after 40...lol #
- 21:41 @Amethyst7123 - L....40.....O.....40.....L #
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I've appreciated music for years, I played guitar as a kid but walked away from it once I hit high school because I was wrapped up as a 3 sport athlete. There were times when I'd still pull out my Ibanez DT-350 and pluck away at songs I knew. At 18, my parents sold my guitar and while upset, I didn't try to pick up the guitar again. It wasn't until the first Guitar Hero hit that it rekindled my interest in playing. I collected all the games because of the wide variety of songs on each setlist that the user can play. The game did help me with coordination and finger dexterity using the controller. That's it. I loved just playing the game for the sake of it being a game, but it felt as if something was missing. So, I bought a couple guitars and started to play again. I think had it not been for each gaming franchise, I never would've taken the initiative to start playing again.
The games offer the music to the gaming masses, it can help introduce people to other forms of music (rock, classic rock, metal, ect..). Maybe it can even help bring people over from gaming and into music (like myself). I think the dumbing down of music lies in rap. The same autotuning crap, recycled beats and nursery rhyme style lyrics into some non-coherent 'song' with the person talk-singing, that's not music.
Originally published at diaper bag princess. You can comment here or there.
what are some of the things you like doing to make you FEEL productive?
do you have any favourite chores/things you like to do in your home?
I totally should be working on etsy today but I just REALLY don't feel like it.
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The Zatoichi series ran 26 movies (1962-1982) and a television series ran for five years (1974-1979). Twenty years later, Takeshi "Beat" Kitano reinvented Zatoichi with his version of the character. This was easily one of my favorite movie at the time, I saw it at the independent theater twice in 2003 and ordered a region 3 release of the DVD as soon as it was available on import. Incidentally, to show support for the US market, I also bought the US edition of the DVD, which came with a bonus Sonatine movie (which was originally released in the states by Quentin Tarantino's Rolling Thunder productions).
Considering the movie did quite well, critically and (I'm assuming) in sales, I was hoping for a follow-up movie by Kitano, but unfortunately there's no such plan. However, interestingly enough, one of my all-time favorite Japanese director, Takashi Miike* directed a stage adaption of Zatoichi for live performances in 2007.
I'm happy to report that, I saw a very good re-imagined of the familiar character, reinvented as a female protagonist, called Ichi. I wish the producers had kept the brand of "Zatoichi", as people who hear "Ichi" does not always associate the name with the blind swordsman. To be fair, Ichi is the original character's name. The term "zato" means low-ranking blind person (low-ranking in the Todoza guild). Logically, they could've named this movie Gozeichi, because Goze refers to blind musician women of that time period.
Anyway, beside my gripe about the Ichi name as the movie title, I also didn't like the idea that a model (Ayase Haruka) is playing the part of the protagonist. All that was really not worth worrying, because the whole movie is quite entertaining and enjoyable, and there is only once where Haruka is seen 'dolled up' for a music performance (most of the movie, she's covered from head to toe in dirty rags). However, there are at times when the director Fumihiko Sori choose to stay too long on Haruka's beautiful unblemished face. We get it, she's cute.
The story is uncomplicated, Ichi wanders into some town with an inept sword-drawing samurai Toma (the name is close to a slang "tonma" for idiot or fool). The town is in trouble from the Banki gang, and in Zatoichi fashion, Ichi and Toma saves the town. During the course of the film, there are the tried-and-true Zatoichi moments like slashing out the lights and Ichi triumph in complete darkness, the use of sound to throw Ichi off, and, of course, the Cho-Han Bakuchi dice gambling.
What made the film interesting, at least to me, is that the soundtrack is by Dead Can Dance's Lisa Gerrard! So throughout the movie, you do hear that ethereal vocals, similar to her efforts on Ridley Scott's Gladiator. I suspect she only wrote the vocals, the credit I have for composer is Michael Edwards, who previously worked with Gerrad on her solo material. The soundtrack was a bit of a surprise to me, generally these J-movies' music and production team are usually kept inhouse. Although, having said that, the one outro credit song is by Korean J-Pop singer SunMin.
Ichi the movie will be made available in the US market via Bluray and DVD in two days (December 22nd), just in time for last-minute xmas shoppers. Hopefully those Best Buy tonmas will be smart and order some copies for their store (however, if it costs over $25, I'd rather order it online, or not own it at all - hey times are tough!).
* I love all three billion of his movies! Audition, City of Lost Souls, One Missed Call, Ichi the Killer, Fudoh, The Happiness of the Katakuris, Zebraman, Sukiyaki Western: Django, etc.
12/20/2009 02:06:34 ♥ vu (
) ♥funimation.com/ichi
- 00:25 @HANNAHMORGAN1 - I would, but I'm at work. :-( #
- 03:50 Soooooo I may be heading to Vegas. I might go with a friend to the #AVN should be interesting. #
- 03:51 Meant #AVNAwards #
- 03:57 You always like the idea of doing something adventurous with y... More for Sagittarius twittascope.com/twittascope/?sign=9 #
- 14:59 @dearbarbz - congratulations! #
- 18:15 Browsing news online while shopp ing for furniture on IKEA's site #
- 18:26 Watching American Ninja Warrior. #
- 19:43 Still browsing online, #Saints game is on in the living room #
- 21:17 @ckelpin 23-3, XP pending #
- 22:29 That's game :-( #
- 22:56 Watching The Wedding Singer #
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Haven't seen one since 1993.
Originally published at diaper bag princess. You can comment here or there.
Probably should preface this with I AM NOT LOOKING FOR A NEW JOB.
For the past two weeks or so, I've been having completely outrageous dreams. Last night it had to do with being drug addicted, having a man who was 33 want to date me, and needing to learn Ruby on Rails. A while ago I dreamed that Richie left me, took Cary, and I had to live in an apartment with my mom who insisted that the reason Richie left was all my fault. And then Shylo and Porsche ran away from home - everyone was leaving me!
I remember, when I was thinking I had to learn Ruby on Rails in my dream, how hard it was going to be. When I was about nineteen I thought I'd be brilliant and teach myself ColdFusion because hardly anyone knew it, and I thought it'd be an asset. Well that went down in a brilliant cloud of smoke, lemme tell ya. I couldn't get anything to work in CF.
I've had lots of work to do lately, which is why I think this Ruby on Rails nonsense came up. Lots of work, and I've been thinking in/about code and wondering the validity of jQuery (it's good, just want to put that out there) and that under "programming" on my resume, that PHP and ASP seem kind of lonely by themselves. Not a whole lot of people know Ruby and I guess my brain immediately went to Ruby because it'd already failed with ColdFusion.
See, the thing is, I already get a lot of syntax messed up when I go from PHP to ASP. I add semi-colons all over the place, use curly brackets in my if statements and in general make a mess of ASP. Once I'm in ASP, though, it's fine. Once I've wrapped my head around Microsoft's easy, but limited, programming language that requires 37 times more code than PHP to accomplish the same task, I'm all right.
Do I REALLY want to add Ruby into the mix? do I actually NEED Ruby? Would I ever, in my wildest dreams, ever get a client ask me, "So, can you program me this entire site using Ruby on Rails?" The answer is probably no. I've never had anyone, at any job or project, ever ask me if I could program them something in a specific language.
Maybe my brain is trying to trick me into learning something else so I can forget a bad thing that happened a long time ago.
With all this said, I should have probably saved this post for my portfolio. My super-secret-not-yet-available portfolio. It'd make much more sense over there anyway.
Also, has anyone upgraded their WP lately? Are they HATING it? Tons of my plugins are all wonkified now!
