Proof that if a girl is cute, you can get a guy to watch anything….
MobuzzTV is a vlog (or a video blog) that’s usually about 3 minutes long and is about gadgets and tech stuff. Think Wired News in 3 minutes. It’s direct competitor was Rocketboom until they fired Amanda Congdon….which is a pity since she gave the show alot of personality. But anyway, now that Rocketboom has a replacement….it’s just not the same.
But MobuzzTV is still around and, you guessed it…the host, Karina Stenquist, is just as cute but in a different way.
…I of course watch it for the content….
*ahem*
But today, the vlog consisted of her in her London flat basically deep frying stuff. Yeah. That’s it. But it’s set to funny music and it’s…well….Karina frying stuff. Wooo!
I do recommend the site though. I think I may have written about it once a long time ago. They sometimes miss a day or two but the content is very well put together and fun to watch as well! Check it out! (^_^)
This may solve some of these so called “mysteries” that women talk about in terms of guy’s neurosis in a public bathroom.
Now I don’t follow ALL these rules. However, I would like to stress the “no talking” rule. Please. As my coworker S once said…”Don’t talk to me while I’m touching me”.
Very important.
Key to life.
Now…if only we can figure out why the hell girls go to bathrooms in gigantic groups? Are they giving out free t-shirts? Is there cake? I mean…I suppose they talk in there. Which is okay since girls don’t really use the bathrooms right? The whole digestive system thing doesn’t really apply to girls right? (^_^)
I just happened to catch a shot of a really nice rare double rainbow outside of Heinen’s in Avon Lake when I went there today to pick up oatmeals and such for my worms.
Only had my cel phone handy so here’s a shot from my cel phone camera. Enhanced a bit to bring out the second rainbow on the left.
Ok…so a while ago a friend on another blog asked if we had any so called “guilty pleasures”.
Back then I responded with something lame. But I realized recently that I DO have one….and it’s pretty damn embarrassing…and for some reason, I was reminded of her post so, here it is in all it’s glory!
Because nothing says manly like a public confession…or something….
Most of you know my general taste in music. What’s my all time favorite band? That’s right…the greatest British heavy metal band EVAR, Iron Maiden. I also listen to techno if I like the melody (Orbital, The Christal Method, Propeller Heads, etc…), chick bands have a sweet spot in my heart (Cranberries, Sarah Maclachlan, Garbage - mmmm…Shirly Manson you are soooo yummy….*ahem*…where was I?), I do like a bit ‘o Tangerine Dream, punk rock is always great, and I can’t forget classical music either (Beethoven’s 9th - 2nd movement still up there as my favorite while Russlan and Ludmilla by Glinka was the most fun to play…not that I can NOW but it was back when I had the skillz).
But I have never really embraced my heritage. Other than listening to Seikima-II (just do a search on them….Japanese heavy metal with makeup…rock on!), Japanese rock and pop did NOTHING for me. Especially J-pop. Oh dear god. A bunch of tone def 16 year old lolitas pretending to sing what I can only describe as bubble gum pop with insipid lyrics. Oh, and lets not forget the horrible mangling of English that they sometimes toss in there that makes absolutely no sense and is as bad as some of the T-shirts I have brought back from Japan.
…however….recently a particular artist of that genre has sloooowly and quietly bored a hole into my subconscious. Gah. And the sad part is, the song is catchy and I find it popping up in my head all the damn time. I don’t know if that means I like it but…well…I think it’s sowing the seeds to an uncomfortable obsession.
Her name is Otsuka Ai (or Ai Otsuka in the western way or 大塚愛). She’s the recent sensation of the J-pop producing corporate machine called Avex Trax (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avex_trax). Why is she my guilty pleasure? Because she’s keeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeyuuuute!!!! And I admit…her songs are catchy and totally TOTALLY packed with sugar and so horribly horribly goes against my manhood. But I can’t help it.
Of course this is much to my coworker J’s dismay (she’s Japanese). To her, I swear she thinks this girl is the incarnation of evil. Too peppy. Too cute. And I admit, that voice can probably be irritating as hell if you had to hear it 24/7. But I can’t help it…..
Of course, no pop music obsession is complete without some music videos!
I present to you, her breakthrough hit, Sakuranbo (Cherries in English). The screen shot of her up there in pink is from this one.
Of course, that isn’t the complete version. Oh no. It actually goes for over 4 minutes. If you want the uncut edition, sadly…I have it up on my web site… *sigh*…. You can get it here in all its 60MB glory.
I leave you with one more video for the other catchy song that’s slowly drilling a hole through my head…Frienger, a play on the word “ranger” like the Power Rangers. In this one she has friends all wearing stereotyped ranger masks. The pic of her up there with light brown hair and orange sleeves is from this video.
I really didn’t take much pictures in Vegas this time around. But I did take one panorama picture that came out really really really really nice.
It was taken from the balcony of the Venetian facing the strip towards the Mirage. Treasure Island is on the right.
I have to say, I’m really really proud of this pic. It came out VERY well despite it being the middle of the night. Night shots are notoriously hard to take and even though there are some hot spots like in the neon sign on the right, overall, I think it came out really good! (^_^)
So here you go. There’s also 4 links afterwards. One for each size. Obviously as the photographer, I’d like you to download the original but I warn you…it’s huge and almost 2 gigs in size. Sooo if you just grab the smaller one, I’ll understand.
Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad night. Bad bad bad. From a financial standpoint that is.
3 card poker was NOT nice to me this tonight. Before tonight I was down only $200 or so. By the end of the night? Yeah. Much more. Dammit.
Granted, I paid for 2 cab rides which, with tip, comes out to $30 at least. I paid for a few friends to play some penny slots because we had fun. And then while they were playing on their own, proceeded to hemmorhage cash. Video poker? Nooooooooo luck. Wheel of Fortune? What fortune? 3 card poker? Got my ass handed to me TWICE in two different casinos (considering one was a $5 and one a $10, you can guess how much I lost there). I didn’t dare try any Let it Ride tables tonight with the luck I was having. Bah. And I even dressed nice too…aaaaaaaaaaaah well. Guess this isn’t my lucky shirt…..
The only good thing that happened was I got a “big win” on a Men in Black penny slots machine. But when you win 2500 credits and you realize a credit equals a penny? Yeah….boooooo. So I basically got only sliiiiightly above what I put in. Blah.
Oh well. I knew my luck would eventually run out :(
I did get some nice pics though while I was out. That was a plus. Kinda. Right?
One more day tomorrow. I get to help out in a class room all morning and then be a gunner (I scan the badges of the attendees as they enter the classroom) for an hour in the afternoon. After that I plan on taking a break from all the customer interaction. I’m going to sleep real well on Saturday night I think.
Pics will go up this weekend if I get to it. And I will try to make an effort. Really!
I’m writing from the Mandalay Bay Hotel in sunny Las Vegas.
Got here just fine. Got bumped up to first class so that was nice. And now I’m in the room that I have to myself until Tuesday night when my roommate arrives writing this and also getting ready to work a bit on my presentation for Monday.
The room is huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge in comparison to what I’m used to. Actually, I think my room in Japan will fit in the bathroom of this room. Sad really…. And the casino is gigantic as well. Once I checked in, since I have to work the registration desk tomorrow from 11am to 4, I decided to go find the conference area and see how it looks.
It’s impressive. It’s hard to believe that this company that I joined 9.5 or so years ago has gotten to the point where we can do a user conference in Mandalay Bay taking up a gigantic area on the 2nd floor of the south conference center. It just looks impressive as all getout.
Of course, with the hotel as big as it is, it takes me 10 to 15 minutes to walk there from the bottom of the elevator. Eeeeeeesh.
Going back to the room a sec…I’m obviously rooming with a guy. The bathroom door though is right next to the bed and there’s a jacuzzi and an all glass walkin shower. The toilet is in a small room all it’s own inside the bathroom as if to say, someone can be taking a shower and you can still use the toilet. Yeah. Um. No. I’m not walking in when D’s taking a shower in the glass shower room… (>_<)…
Anyway, on the way back to the room, I popped in a $20 into a video poker machine. Won a bit, lost a bit, and in the end, lost it all. Eh. It happens. :) Then I stopped by the little mini-convenience store to buy some bottled water some cookies and munchies to keep me alert while working on the presentation.
I’m still suffering from sleep issues. I didn’t really fall asleep until around 3am last night but at least I got up at 11am and got some sleep. My flight didn’t leave ’till 6pm so that helped. I don’t know how this 3 hour time difference is going to treat me. But it might help since it’s not even 11pm here yet and I’m already a bit drowsy.
Everything starts tomorrow. First with the registration and then right into the welcome reception. Gonna be a loooooooooooooooong week.
Heeeey, it’s a Friday night! What am I doing? Well…after leaving work around 7 I got home and am doing laundry for my trip to the conference next week. Ooooh yeah. Of course I’m also updating my blog. Because which blogger loves his readers the most? That’s right. Me. You know it. I love you all!
*ahem*…anyway…on to the post.
It’s no secret that Japanese animation is well known for the huuuuuuge eyes. Granted, not all of them have it, Cowboy Bebop for example, but I will admit…many of them do.
This is NOT, as many people think, because we want to be western or we want them all to have western features. This comes about because we find them more expressive. And on a female character, big doe eyes are cute. You get a character, put big eyes on them sparkling with stars, and what do you get? A cute face…or at least to us.
The biggest abuser of the “starry-eyed syndrome” are the shojo-anime or mangas. Comics or animation made just for girls. You can find them for girls of all ages. Young kids all the way to adults. Often, it’s one long drawn out soap opera…but hey….at least if you’re reading it, the characters might actually sound like they have acting skills in your head….
This past trip though, I was at my parent’s house and, while flipping channels, I ran across the BIGGEST eyes I have ever EVER seen in anime or manga. EVER.
This is insane…..
Ready???
Here it is!
It’s crazy….
It’s WRONG.
Yow.
You should have seen her face when they draw it in a more cartoony style….it gets bigger relative to her head….
If this continues, pretty soon all of the characters in Japanese animation and mangas will end up looking like this…
…gah…
(this is Medama no Oyaji from the Ge Ge Ge No Kitaro anime series about a demon/goblin/ghost kid…this is his dad (^_^))
Just watched last night’s Daily Show that I recorded on DVR.
The guest was Maggie Gyllenhaal.
God I love that woman. She was visibly pregnant with her first child…but I swear that made her even hotter. Yes…there was a time when I would have done anything for Gillian Anderson (and in all honesty I probably still will) but…man….what a hottie. Alyson Hannigan is still up there as one of my favorites but…yeah….I think MG is gunning for that #1 spot in my dreams pretty hard right now.
*sigh*….
Ok. Back to actually doing some work…gotta take these tests asap….and this might actually help me sleep for a change tonight.
Next time I swear I’m going to pick up some melatonin. Not for the jet lag when I get to Japan but for this f&%@ing jetlag that I get EVERY SINGLE TIME when I get back to the US.
