cognitive_buzz

I received the album last Saturday in my mailbox, but I’m already listening to the leaked mp3s some days way before 3rd June (official release date).

This album was supposed to be released on the 20th May but due to lyricist of (Discotheque and Cosmic Love) got arrested for drugs. Cosmic Love which was originally to be included in the album has to be removed from the album and another song as used to replaced it. Hence 2 weeks delayed.

But somehow, I dunno if the delayed did a good thing; Mizuki Nana is made the first seiyuu in history to reach No.1 spot in Oricon Weekly Album Chart. (Can check Oricon website for weekly album chart within this week). YIPPPEEEEE~!! That’s great news for her special なな目 album. Coz her name 奈々when pronounced, also sounds likeなな/七 which means 7. So number 7 is like her special number with 特別な(special) meaning.




Front and back of the thick cover used to hold her CDs and booklet. I guess this is going to be the same style of packaging going to be used for future albums perhaps? "THE MUSEUM" and "GREAT ACTIVITY" has similar packaging just with slight size differences.


( Thoughts about each songs in the album )

Overall: Different feel from her previous album GREAT ACTIVITY. It packs more different variations in terms of styles and flavours. But it still does not beat MAGIC ATTRACTION as my No.1 favourite Nana album. I think it might come in a close second after MAGIC ATTRACTION to replace GREAT ACTIVITY. In terms of quality of songs, it is actually very good. There aren’t many songs to skip, most of them are pretty good to listen to unless you hate Nana.
Probably 7.5 or 8/10.

Sorry for the late post, been having flu/cold for the past few days (which was right after my primary school gathering) so I’m either sleeping or half-dead most of the time. Plus job hunting since I’m now officially graduated. So I think I should do a giant post and mix everything I want to say here.

( I got my results on the 29th May )

( Mag’s lunch birthday )

After walking around Orchard with those two, I went to meet my primary school friends at Somerset for long await gathering at Shokudo @ Heerens, and later for Kbox @ Cineleisure.

( Primary school gathering )

Yeah I appeared on TV.

Program: 我猜我猜我猜猜猜 就是愛搓! 麻雀美女 telecast in Taiwan on 2009-05-23. Sorry no subs.



See if you can spot me. I'm sitting on the left side of the stage where screen will open.

You can watch the whole thing @ http://sugoideas.com/guess-guess-guess-2009-05-23/

Screencaps + photos will come soon after the weekends.

And everyone got to see Nobuo Uematsu, the composer who was sitting in the first level some rows nearest to the stage. I was sitting in the Circle 2 seats with my friends so I got to see Nobuo waving to everybody in the concert hall.

Think I shouldn't give too much spoilers for those who are going for the Distant Worlds Final Fantasy concert tmr. The orchestra and choir were good, but so-so for the vocalists. Music of coz is 100% good.

There is a post-show dialogue session where the audience can ask Nobuo-san and the conductor questions and also an autograph session after that.

I'm still waiting for photos from the Taiwan/Taipei trip from friends so that I can do some posts about the places I went. I have some my own, but my friends got moooooreeee.

So I'll be off to Taiwan, Taipei for about a week from 9th May to 15th May. Should be back on 16th wee early mornings. so that I can attend Japanese class in the morning. I'm going with my university friends so this will be like a graduation trip.

Does anyone needs anything from Taiwan? Hopefully I can find the things you want as I will not just be shopping all the time. Going places of interests, restaurants, etc. Of coz shopping included.

Hopefully all goes well (due to the fucking SWINE FLU); no cancellations of trips, no quarantines after trips or whatever. Else I gonna kill that fucking SWINE FLU for destroying my already long planned trip.

Done with the last paper. I only have one paper this semester.

Done with uni.

Officially unemployed.

Come to my commencement (graduation ceremony) on 11th July (sat)?

:(

Must be I dao too many people, so people are dao-ing me back. Retribution it must be.

It's painful to be ignored. Really.

I can't be cheerful and happy. I can only be sad, grumpy and left alone so that they will be happy.

I guess they are happy already.

Angst at this sort of age. It's bad.

Guess we all are just not meant to be friends.

I'm still alive, just not posting. because I just have no time or no energy for it.

So I'm typing this in a sleepy state, in the midst of thinking of a right phrasing to some rather difficult simple assignment.

No use telling me to go to sleep, or play, or relax, or watch stuff. It is approaching to that critical 'busy' crazy state in every single NUS semester I've been through. This one last semester and is no big difference with last one, or the last last one. Whatever, let's just say I really hate this period. People around can so freely-wily enjoying their life/weekends, while I'm toiling my life my away doing every single projects/assignments going to be due. (sounds like I have already said that many many times. I'm getting quite grumpy already.)

Things need to be done:
1) Special Effects project update report
2) NM5210 assignment (application finding)
3) NM5210 reflection + readings
4) NM5211 final project topic (think?????????)
5) Special Effects car animation
6) Accounting stuff (tutorial and project)

woot~ that's the spider dolly that is being used to shoot movies. Our group for CS5245 (Special Effects module that I'm currently taking) is borrowing the equipment to shoot a short segment for the special effect video we have to do. It's quite an old photo taken a day before V-day, I just didn't post it in the blog as I'm already in a state of fatigue to even think of what things I should post about. Projects and assignments are still sucking my life force away. No, I'm not that hardworking. I'm quite slack one. Being busy because everyone else around me are also in a state of busyness, probably even more than me, so I have to follow suit.

The spider dolly is the only one bought by the faculty. Costing about 10k++ (in SDG) in total including boxes and other miscellaneous stuff that come with the dolly. Heavy equipment, during the day of filming, my group (my other member is the skinny guy standing in the photo, Nelson) is also filming together with another group (the pair in the photo below, Jack and Penny), the guys have to carry the parts we need in a big trolley whom the lab tech (Mr Chow) kindly lent it to us.

( An entry is never interesting without pictures )

On the day of filming, (which is Monday) we took the equipments with the loaned cameras from the lab tech and started filming from noon. We had to move the trolley that has one rubber track, the already screwed up spider dolly and one tripod; one black box with another rubber track and one short stand made for the low angle shot from AS6 level 4 to COM1 basement and then move it to a big carpark beside Business canteen. Moving such heavy equipment down a huge flight of stairs from Biz canteen to the carpark (my grp main filming area) wasn't an easy feat. It took almost 2 hours by just moving the equipment and setting up the dolly and tracks correctly for the filming. By the time we shot half-day, it started to rain heavily and we had to take shelter in a nearby research facility and trapped in the rain for some time delaying the filming time. We got ourselves a cab to get us back to COM1 and continue filming another grp's video.

We didn't finish in time and had to continue the next day (Tuesday) and managed to finish filming everything. After many different filming experiences that I had, it's one of most tedious so far and not so much laughter. Although the video is only 1 minute long.

The next 3 days in the week, I had project meetings and more meetings. Yeah busy life.

I passed my JLPT 3 with 370/400. Higher than my JLPT 4 one. Most probably aiming for level 2 this year.
Vocabulary: 96/100
Listening: 87/100
Grammar: 187/200

My CDs came from CDJapan. Mizuki Nana's Shinai and May'n's May'n☆Street. Thinking I will only get them by the end of this week, surprisingly it was already in the mailbox since Saturday or Sunday and the house mailbox was opened only last night.

( Welcome to my Space☆ )

First post of the year, Shinai PV from youtube below.





( delicious screencaps and more… )

Other songs in the Shinai single going to be released on 21th Jan 08.

1. 深愛
2. PRIDE of GLORY (radio rip) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFyLd3G4sCQ
3. 午前0時のBaby Doll (from Gold Rush radio rip) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiqzlGRFFqY

Unrelated, I can graduate successfully after all. (Appeal approved today, and filed for graduation.

Must see trailers



The main female character is designed to be the female version of Cloud.



FFXIII Versus is way way cooler.

19thシングル「深愛」
発売日：2009年1月21日
発売元：キングレコード
品番：KICM-1270
盤種：CD Single
価格：￥1,200(税込)

Mizuki Nana's new single going to be released on 21st Jan 09 which happened to be her 29th birthday and also this blog too, but it was a coincidence.
That is so far one of the nicest single cover, and some more it's a close up shot. The similarity of the black background and flowers reminded me of one of Gackt's single cover "No ni Saku Hana no Yo Ni". But of course Nana one is nicer.

I don't know if I should really get the CD single as I tend to get album to save money. Maybe I should due to the nice cover. May'n is also releasing her mini album "May'n Street" on the same day too. It is a good excuse to get the single together with the album huh.

On daily note, I have been marathon-ing China drama version of tenipuri, if you have been following the fandom now and then. What amused me the most is the angst and raw emotions of the characters you don't really see in manga/anime. It's a good thing, though it can get abit draggy at times, especially at Kawamura and his father subplot. It's a drama so it really feel like one. I think I should be posting some interesting screenshots and comments within these few days.

If you are free you can watch it off www.tudou.com. And search for 网球王子真人版. You probably need a plugin called 飞速土豆 to be installed first so that your flash player won't stop loading after a while. It is supposed to help speedup the loading. Else you can try refreshing the page.

http://ent.sina.com.cn/f/v/wangquiwz/shipin/more.html <---- (in chinese) in the making and specials. Or you are lousy with chinese, you can always wait for for the subs.

And I have been playing game too. Playing deBlob on Wii. I don't own it but my bf does. My right arm is aching due to my bad playing oh well. More deBlob.

Arggh, results coming out soon.

If you haven't seen these before, it's Unnecessary censorship of Sesame Street.





I think the Count Song is the best.

The glorious trailer.



I got to admit I quite like the effects used. But in terms of follow the original adaption, it totally failed. I don't like Dragonball. Anyway, it's something coming from Hollywood so it won't definitely follow the original storyline.

Annnnndddd,
Ayumi Hamasaki is going to sing the theme for the movie. Superbly great.

How come I see the pattern of good songs being used for shitty anime/movies? and also the other way round? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm


On another note, I passed my IBM certification test. The testers from IBM came late for 30 minutes and took another 30 minutes to set up and wait for him to key in the private code individually before we could start the test. The best thing was a few of my friends were already done with 20-25 mins as the questions were almost 60%? identical to the few-years-series past exams questions given by another friend who took the same test last time. And we all passed. But I thought almost all of the questions looked the same to me. Lucky I studied the whole ebook and did the past exams questions some hours before the test, so I wasn't so lost in what the questions were asking. But it kinda WTF as you don't really have to tried using the software to pass it, just mug. And I dunno if that will kinda defeat the purpose of the cert. Anyway it's good that I can take the test for free though.

It's another month of holidays before I start my final semester.

No more awesome marks for JLPT3 :( because it's relatively a super easy paper in my opinion and I screwed up a few questions here and there. It's the case of easy pass but difficult to score well thing again. Ah well, it's over. Time to aim for level 2 which is a notch harder and at least it will not so boring.

I still have another certification exams in about 2 days' time and I've yet done finishing studying for it! DAMN.

I need mug one ebook of facts about how to use some software of IBM. *Totally not amused* (Because I have to remember the whole book of facts within 1 week right after the end of my uni exams). And probably still have tutorials, one mock test and hands on on the software. It is something called DB2 and I don't expect everybody to know this so if you dunno is okay. Since I only know of the existence months before I signed up for the test. But lucky I don't have to fork up 3k worth for the certification. Yeah $3k+ just on how to use a software. Not just IBM does that, other companies Microsoft has that too. And why is such certification is so costly?? But I'll have to attend the test in order to get back my $100 deposit. D:

*Absolutely irritated*

... it was a train wreck, seriously.

I don't know if I've had work really hard in all my years in NUS, or it's still a total failure. But there were many nights of not enough sleep though. I'm just not looking forward for the results, somehow.

I don't know if the friendships I've made will be lost in due time or not. I really hope not but my hopes is not that high.

Maybe it's time to apologize and move on. =[

It's JLPT 3 and IBM Database cert studying time.

This is the original coloured draft by Konomi-Sensei being exhibited at a small corner in the Suntec city convention hall level 4. Pretty saddened by the tiny exhibit of the Jump-Festa thing. I needed some expectations adjustment damn.

May'n mini-concert was epic-ly good. Too bad I can't get her autograph. :( Somehow it was already decided when I bought the VIP pass instead of the DIAMOND VIP pass. Oh well, it's another boo-hoo. (plus the extra long queue-ing for the AFA entrance ticket.)

( abit more but I don't have nice photos of May'n being taken because it's not allowed )

Seems like there are some dorama going after AFA'08 regarding the pre-signed white board that the Diamond VIP were given, and they were refused signatures on their CDs and posters by the management. You can read them here, here here and here. (if you're really bored.)

My thoughts on the issue -- whether or not it's pre-signed, I think it's already a privilege to received an autograph from May'n. Especially in Singapore when we rarely have Japanese singers coming. Just think about those who didn't even get chance to get an autograph or even a handshake.

Mizuki Nana's father Kondou Nobumitsu passed away at the age of 75 on Oct 29th due to multiple organs failure. Nana is 28 this year. Here is a translation of her heart wrenching blog entry.

One thing is she won't be posting on her blog everyday, something I always looked forward to on reading her entries. I guess the amount of emotional turmoil she's going through must be really great considering how much she has shown to be respecting and loved her father. Nana doesn't talk about her family, so she actually did well in keeping her private life in private. But maybe it is also is something she won't like fans to worry, and continued to be strong.

:(

Shit, the $118 diamond VIP passes has been SOLD OUT. But the pre-sales only started from today NOON!! Damn the response is really good. I'm now left with the VIP pass ($68) to get. 1/15 chance to get autograph, my hopes aren't that high. :( But then my friend who wants to come along with is broke... if I really seriously think about it: May'n is not my most fav singer, she's no Mizuki Nana, Megumi Hayashibara, Tamura Yukari, Horie Yui, Sakamoto Maaya... I'm wondering if it's really worth forking out $68 for it. but there are people willingly paid $118!

On the other hand, I should be supporting such singers whom the organisers managed to invite to Singapore to hold a live. It's a opportunity not to be miss, seriously. I MEAN SINCE THERE ARE ONLY SO MANY JAPANESE BANDS/SINGERS WILLING TO COME TO SINGAPORE TO HOLD A LIVE. To date only Change & Asuka, Misia to date (so far that I can remember). Even Tenimyu hold their overseas musical in Taiwan and Korea recently (oh dears! I just knew it recently from Kato Kazuki's blog as he was in those musicals! DAMN!), responses were overwhelming of course. (Singapore, you're too SMALL!!).

EMOS.