Remember the episode (A Remedy to Cure All Ills) in Merlin where Merlin has to kill the sorcerer who puts a bug in Morgana's ear and then tries to put one in Uther's? Well, I just watched the exact same story, i.e. bug entering a person's ear and nearly causing his death, in an episode (Strategic Planning) of the "Royal Pain". So, I googled about it and found a medical blog connected to the series that talked about that particular story by Dr. Irving Danesh:
While Hank knows that the more common Tick acquired disease is Lyme Disease, there are others including Tick paralysis. Hank decides to investigate this further. Ticks feed on blood. After a tick attaches itself to a host, the female tick feeds for several days to be able to produce her eggs. During this process her salivary glands produce a nerve poison (neurotoxin) that causes the paralysis. This neurotoxin gets picked up in the host's blood stream and causes the ascending paralysis. The trick was to find the tick. After reviewing the game footage, Hank found that Kendrick had landed on the grass ear side down, just a place a tick would love to hide. 70% of ticks are located in the scalp and neck area, but the ears, nose and genital area are also high on the list. Hank removes the tick by first placing mineral oil in the ear canal. This keeps the tick from moving while he is trying to grab it with a tweezer. A moving insect in the ear is quite uncomfortable. Once the tick is removed, Kendrick quickly gets back to doing what he loves, football. Hank has solved another interesting case.
Interesting. So, maybe Merlin writers took a leaf out of a real-life case and turned it into fiction? But the truth is more deadly coz the tick doesn't even need to be magically activated to enable it to cause mayhem. It can do that fine all on its own.
Case File 2
I just watched an episode (Nevermore) in the Warehouse 13 series where Myka's dad gets 'infected' by the ink from an Edgar Allan Poe book he has in his possession. I'm not gonna talk much about the story, just want to highlight how similar the scene where the black inked-words travel across and around her dad's skin with the one in Mushi-Shi concerning the girl that he helps regularly, Tanyuu (starting at 4:27).
There's something mystically intense about blank ink crawling across pale skin. On a girl, it's kinda sexy...but on an old man though, mmmm not so good. I'd like to petition for it to happen on screen to a gorgeous bloke so I can feel less weird about ogling.
Well, I'm not her fan... but I do like her ex-husband's music kind of a lot. Uhuh, apparently the 'Alien' did not appear out of nowhere in 2007 as we thought. I'll just copy-paste what I found this morning here. Ami shock!
Legendary rock star Seo Taiji, known as an iconic musician in the 90s and dubbed by his fans as Korea's "culture president", stunned the public after the daily SportsSeoul reported on Thursday that Seo has secretly been married to actress Lee Ji-ah for the past 14 years and they are in middle of a divorce. (link)
I don't know why the love life of the artists I'm obsessed with should be any of my (or any fan's) concern, but there you go... apparently his fans are disappointed because he lied to them about his status. It's easy to see why he lied, you eejits. Coz else, you people will never leave him and his family alone.
Interestingly, Lee filed for divorce in 2006, about a year before she debuted. Too much stress? It's not easy to be a power couple, I guess. 14 years of marriage and now they've got an alimony suit to show for all the memories they shared together. Divorce proceedings suck.
This is the performance he did when he said in an interview how he wanted to create a 'sexy stage' but he didn't think he succeeded to do it as he wanted it.
This is the 'sexy stage' he created years after that. What do you think? Has he succeeded? (I think he has, but let not my opinion sway your decision).
If you must know, I think the sexiest stage he has ever created to date was when he ripped his shirt off during 'Please Be Nice to Me'. That was... mmm, very nice.
Oh, did you notice he said in the Section TV interview how he's managed to do the 'free stage for fans' performance that he's kept saying he wanted to do ever since his SS501-DSP years? Isn't he all sorts of awesome?? I wish I were part of the audience when that history was made in hyung's life.
Did they co-ordinate their outfits (and performances) or something? Hyung and Yeong Saeng seemed to mirror each other.. the single glove, the sunglasses, black on white theme, shades of gray in alternate places. *ish a happy fangirl*
My most favourite manga of all time. No matter how many times I read it, I still feel so motivated by how Q faces life within and outside of his detective work. If I can say a fictional character is my idoru, that'll be Q... a kid much more alive than the real people I have around me.
I've just finished re-reading all the 22 malay-translated volumes I collected a few years ago, despite having a stack of other still unread manga volumes languishing on my shelves. I wonder what sort of life the japanese mangaka face that they can come up with so many stories that inspire and, at the same time, entertain readers from all walks of life from all over the world. Maybe it's because of that magical place they're living in... Nihonland.
Despite knowing the storyline, I still cried and felt the same emotions I felt when I read it the first time. Will I ever be able to write something this good one day? This time I want to write down the things I 'learnt' from the story. One day, when I re-read it for the 3rd time... will I learn something new?
Raja Hades boleh berfikir untuk bermula semula walaupun umurnya dah sangat tua. Q class semuanya muda-muda belaka tapi mereka yg tumpaskan musuh utama En. Dan sedangkan pembantu-pembantu En. Dan yg pro pun tak dapat selesaikan kes-kes yg dirancang oleh Pluto. Umur memang tak sepatutnya dijadikan sebab untuk mengehadkan pencapaian kendiri
Tak boleh sekali-kali berputus-asa, tapi mesti juga tahu bila tiba masa untuk undur diri. Undur diri bukan setiap masa bermaksud kalah
Walaupun dikelilingi oleh organisasi yang hebat dan sahabat yang berbakat, akan tiba beberapa masa dalam hidup perlu membuat keputusan sendiri dan bergantung kepada keupayaan diri sendiri. Tidak boleh sentiasa bergantung kepada manusia lain
Takut sampai menggigil tapi maju ke hadapan tetap dalam jalan yang telah kita pilih sendiri dan menyelesaikan apa pun masalah yang timbul, itulah keberanian yang sebenar
Walaupun kurang berbakat... walaupun menjadi diri sendiri yang mungkin cuai, suka bergurau, dan kurang berdisiplin tapi walaupun bersifat begini, tanggungjawab yang telah diamanahkan kepada kita mesti dilaksanakan menurut kemampuan sendiri dengan bersungguh-sungguh sehingga selesai
Jangan sekali-kali memandang rendah masalah atau kesusahan yang dihadapi oleh orang lain, walau macamana sempurna pun dia di mata kita (macam Ryu dan Ukon) kita tetap juga perlu bersungguh-sungguh mendengar dan menjadi sahabatnya pada susah dan senang
Walaupun impian kita boleh menjadi bahan gurauan orang lain (macam Q yg nak masuk sekolah detektif padahal keputusan akademik sekolahnya rendah), tetap kena percaya kepada impian sendiri dan teruskan usaha. Bila kita dah berjaya nanti, impian kita tu takkan digelakkan lagi. Oleh sebab tu juga, jangan gelakkan impian orang lain walau betapa tak logik pun bunyinya
Lebih berbakat bermakna kena lebih berusaha untuk menonjolkan bakat supaya dapat mencapai impian (macam Kazuma). Selepas berjaya sekali, mesti nak berjaya beberapa kali, lepas tu mesti nak berjaya setiap masa. Ini lah sifat tidak mahu kalah yang mesti dimiliki
Walaupun dah mencapai kejayaan tahap gaban sekalipun, masih ada lagi kejayaan tahap yang lebih gaban untuk dicapai. Analogi panjat gunung boleh digunakan... dah panjat Gunung Kinabalu, ada lagi Gunung Everest. Jadi jangan melengah-lengahkan usaha. Masa yang berlalu takkan kembali lagi
Even though the malay-translated version I have is complete and can be found in one of my favourite manga shops and can be mail-ordered too, the english-translated online version is still ongoing:
Since I've collected all the 27 volumes of the malay-translated Kindaichi Case Files and several other later Kindaichi volumes as well, I consider myself a fan of Seimaru Amagi sensei's works. But only today I went on the net to know more about him and I found something so shocking that I nearly fell off my chair. He wrote another story I'm interested in under a different pen name. This one:
He also wrote Psychometrist Eiji and GetBackers, the two manga I'm collecting. Is this a coincidence?? I don't believe in coincidences though. I believe that you will always be able to find the things, or people, you're looking for... if you look hard enough. Ma ii ka. I know now that I have to hunt down the rest of sensei's works. Maybe one day if I search hard enough, I'll even be able to meet him face-to-face.... errr, and get his autograph... :P
Other works by sensei I found online are below...
Disclaimer: Please buy his original works. This list is only to introduce you to some of his works so that you'll be interested enough to go and buy them later:
The ones in the wiki list that I couldn't find online (so anyone who have found them, could you please please give me the links in the comment section? Thanks!):
I read someone talked about Kame's performance in Break the Records as if he acted as the man and the woman in the song. Me, I like to interpret it more literally. That it's about the forbidden love of two guys in the year 1582. In fact, if I wanna take this further, I'd say it's a tragic love story between a japanese and a foreigner.. because Kame in the cage wore a western suit, right? But Kame in kimono acted like a warrior... swinging his sword and fighting as if he were in a battle.
If you look up this article, it says that Chapter 2 in the book is about Japan and its Chinese and European worlds (1582-1689) and it's on the foreign trade in East Asia in the seventeenth century. I'm pretty sure kimono!Kame is a taikomochi, or known as otogishu the 16th century, who were 'sounding boards for military strategies and they battled at the side of their lord' (wiki). To further look into my otogishu-european theory, we have to brush up a bit on japanese history.
What happened in the year 1582? The assassination of Oda Nobunaga. From wiki:
Following Nobunaga was Toyotomi Hideyoshi (豊臣 秀吉), who ruled over Japan from 1582 to 1598. Anti-European attitudes began under Hideyoshi, whose suspicion of the Europeans first began with their intimidating appearance; their armed ships and sophisticated military power produced doubt and distrust, and following the conquest of the Philippines by the Spanish, Hideyoshi was convinced they were not to be trusted. The true motives of the Europeans came quickly into question.
Those who converted to Catholicism were questioned about their loyalty to Japan, and in 1597, Hideyoshi ordered the crucifixion of nine Catholic missionaries and seventeen Japanese converts. This was only the start of the hostility towards European influence and interaction; persecutions, beheading, and forced secessions would all but eliminate the Christian community over the next few decades.
I also looked up the translationof the lyrics. I mean, why else would the person singing this song wish (with love) that he will never wake up if he isn't involved in a forbidden relationship? And the uncertainty of their future together is voiced out (Where will we go tomorrow, I don't like it) that probably if he were to live... they will be torn apart anyway. So he'd rather die than stay alive and be separated from him.
I'm pretty sure the water fountain and the scroll at the end meant something important too. I remember Gackt made a big deal out of being able to make 'rain' fall on the stage during the Rain live, so the water fountain in Kame's performance was definitely not just for show. Just using my imagination, I'd say him being pushed upwards on an umbrella by water probably means he was on a ship (travel by sea).
Hmmm, donning a disguise (mask), battling a bunch of people, traveling on a ship... maybe he was fleeing from Japan to meet his lover? What does the spinning upwards in the middle of a fireworks display mean then? That he's in China? Or is it a symbol of his elation at having arrived at his destination? The scroll probably was a note his lover left behind with the fountain a symbol of his tears after he read it (must not be good news then). The fountain formed a wall around him... a wall of misery? Flying from scroll to scroll probably means he didn't know that his lover was dead and he waited for news after news about him. Meh, I'm making myself sad with my own rambling.
Anyway, I just realized that the way I interpreted this... it's like... the lyrics are supposed to be the words from the dying european lover's side while the performance shows the actions by the japanese lover's side. Looking at it like that... ish a pretty awesome concept. Well, unless I was wrong about the whole thing, of course.. haha *hides*
I think the most romantic verse in the song is this:
Even this heart littered with wounds
Is healed by watching you
It's not about desire
I know this even unconsciously
...to me, what he's trying to say is that what he feels is not mere lust. What he feels is a love so strong, even the pain of dying becomes healed just by looking at his beloved. I think it's probably not 'unconsciously' ...hmm, maybe it should be 'subconsciously'? I doubt unconscious people can 'know' anything. Or maybe if we want to stick to the translation, 'unconsciously' probably means he's in a near-death state? I wish I could write something this good one day.
The lyrics and the performance immediately reminded me of Winter Cicada, a story inserted in the Haru wo Daiteita yaoi anime. I checked out the year it was set in and it's in the same period (1862–1869). Look it up... it's a nice, albeit a bit depressing, story.
So, the real question is... was the Kame in the cage the same Kame in kimono, or was it all just camera trick? I think it's really Kame doing both stunts... because of the harness, he could move to span the entire stage pretty quickly. This is evident when he flew with the scroll at the end of the performance (by the way, all the stunts he did here were dangerous so I'm happy that he didn't get hurt). And I know that in concerts, they often dress themselves up in clothes that can be taken off with just one yank. The kimono was worn like a robe and the yukata was probably modified so that a waist string was not needed. The obi probably just needed to be fastened. What I think happened was, the moment the light went out, he flew to the platform... changed into the yukata and kimono... pinned his hair... wore the mask... sat down all pretty with a fan in his hands... and still have a second to spare.
I stumbled on the Korean version when I watched the Making of clip for You're Beautiful. This is another case of 'stumbled on'... a short clip of this was inserted at the very end of Cartoon KAT-TUN ep 36.
Well, if a song is good.. it's good in any language, I guess. I tried to find the original version by Boney M. (supposedly) but couldn't. Maybe it's too old... and I dunno what the title is for that version.
By the time everyone takes off their clothes, I just had to stop dancing and I spent the rest of the time gaping at the TV monitor. Errr.. coz I heard 'hadaka de' being mentioned and thought that I have to concentrate on the visuals instead of prancing around my living room at 2.30 in the morning.. *cough*
Since I just cared about KAT-TUN very recently (thanks to my Kame obsession).. I just stumbled on this. Granted, veteran fans (or those more obsessed than I am) have known about this a gajillion years ago. I just want to record it here in case I go berserk in the future trying to find the evidence again.
..so I thought it was modified from this song, coz it also has that "bounce" thing in its lyrics and since it's such a popular song it's only natural that the style got copied.
...but apparently I was wrong coz there's actually a song called "Run to You". It's by DJ Doc:
I love it when they make pretty girls dressed in sexy outfits dance to a ridiculous choreography while maintaining a totally serious expression throughout the routine. Fun times.
Anyway, enough detective work for this week. Here's the making of to the A.N.Jell parody. I wonder if they really would do a second season of You're Beautiful. Watching this clip, somehow I miss them...
