Don't you just hate it when...

The antagonists are more badass than the protagonists, but they can't win in the competition because they're not the 'good guys' and good guys must win at all costs?

Move like Jagger!

For those who are wondering what happens to Jagger after Australia's Got Talent, he's got his own Youtube channel that you can follow if you want.

Korea's Got Talent 2011: Choi Sung-bong

PSY (With MC Hammer) - Gangnam Style (Live 2012 American Music Award)

One commenter says it all: There's so much awesome in one performance!

My mind is blown.

I can't believe Alexander Vlahos only has ONE season in Merlin. I weep at the unfairness of it all. The 5th season hasn't even been here yet and it's all over now! *wails*

In a scene that has him with Merlin, my eyes keep drifting to his face. My loyalty to Merlin has been compromised. Nobody has ever managed to steal my attention away from Merlin when he's on-screen before, not even Arthur.

Bradley James has said that even if there would be a Merlin movie, most likely he won't be in it, for whatever reason. I think the crazy fans put a pause in his enthusiasm for being further involved in the show (he deleted his twitter account).

British actors are different than American ones, folks. Don't expect them to deal with the same shiz you throw at actors living in your backyards with the same aplomb and hunger for more attention. They're quite reserved about their private lives and usually treat acting as a job. One that they're passionate about, but it's still just a JOB. You know...as in: "Being an actor is my job, it's not who I am" sort of thing? So stop with the buggering of their private lives stuff. I know this advice would fall on deaf ears but I thought I should give it a try anyway. Meh.

Anyway, here's the official version from them on why Merlin should not be continued for the 6th season or for any movie: Merlin series 5 confirmed to be its last

I'm sad that Merlin is over, but am also quite excited to see what their (Bradley James & Colin Morgan) future projects are. However, if they do more theatre works, I'm afraid I'll be out of the loop as there is no way I can go to where they are to watch the plays. And I'm usually the type of fan who will be done with a show once the show is done.

Am still making my sad face at arse o'clock in the morning. I should just go to sleep and stop mourning. Life goes on after all for everyone, even for little old me.

Season 5 is THE END for Merlin!

I wonder why there have not been many sad posts on this news. Or maybe I haven't been an active participant in Merlin forums so have missed the collective wailing that went up when it was announced on Nov 26th.

Am sad. See my sad face.

But Colin was all smiles, as usual. I wanna kiss his 'old Morgan' face! I wonder what his next project will be.

How Bradley James (Merlin TV) got his thumb ring.

Watch it fast before someone takes the video down~

Kim Hyun Joong's new album is coming out! 12.12.12

お楽しみにしていてください！

Hyung in a Japanese band, being a rocker and playing a guitar. I don't know what else I want in life coz I think this pretty much makes my life perfect now as it is.

George Watsky 1986

Yep, another 1986 wonder. I dunno why I get attracted to guys born in that year (Colin Morgan, Kamenashi Kazuya, Kim Hyun Joong). Maybe it's destiny? Or maybe that year is when awesome guys were meant to be born? (Colin Morgan was born on 1st January, as if he just had to start existing within that frame of time)

I found Watsky while I was looking up Beau Sia. I saw a youtube link in Sia's channel to this video...

...and would you blame me if I immediately got hooked on him?

So, I looked up a bunch of youtube links and peeked around in his website. And I found out that he put up his album for free download. I mean...whaaa? How more awesome can a guy get??

go to page to download NOW!

Am listening to it right now and it sounds gooood~~~

Nasyid: Rasulullah

Album : Secercah Pewarna
Munsyid : The Zikr
Dari - http://liriknasyid.com


Rasulullah dalam mengenangmu
Kami susuri lembaran sirahmu
Pahit getir perjuanganmu
Membawa cahaya kebenaran

Engkau taburkan pengorbananmu
Untuk umat mu yang tercinta
Biar terpaksa tempuh derita
Cekalnya hatimu menempuh ranjaunya

Tak terjangkau tinggi pekertimu
Tidak tergambar indahnya akhlak mu
Tidak terbalas segala jasa mu
Sesungguhnya engkau rasul mulia

Tabahnya hatimu menempuh dugaan
Mengajar erti kesabaran
Menjulang panji kemenangan
Terukir nama mu di dalam Al Quran

Rasulullah kami ummatmu
Walau tak pernah melihat wajah mu
Kami cuba mengingatimu
Dan kami cuba mengamalsunnah mu

Kami sambung perjuanganmu
Walau kami dicaci dihina
Tapi kami tak pernah kecewa
Allah dan rasul sebagai pembela

Kim Hyun Joong - Heat

You know what would be much cooler than this? Him on the guitar playing his own song.




I'll get back to you next year, hyung. In the meantime, stay awesome.

And this single is to be the result of my first foray into buying digital CDs in the iTunes Store. Love it!

This reminds me of...

Austin Power.

Jessica Rabbit.

[Artist Discovery] Pixie Lott

Caught her performance on my telly tonight. Loved it. If she has a full album out, I may want to buy it.

Bought both!

[Investigation File] Repeat versions

Case File 1

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.

[Artist Discovery] The Ting Tings

I caught their SXSW performance on the iConcert channel. What I like about them:

1. Their lyrics don't make me cringe at all, in fact they're rather wonderful
2. The girl singer is not obsessed with her 'assets', instead she was really just into singing the songs (you may understand  this relief if you've spent so much time listening to songs you like being sung by half-naked or even quarter-naked girls and you can't recommend them to any of your family members, like I did)
3. I dunno much about music so I think the sounds are deceptively simple, but anyone who can make songs that catchy and interesting with only two major instruments must be really talented
4. I can't believe she'd actually sing that ah, ah, ah, ah thing all the way through instead of putting it on a digital loop like everyone else does nowadays. It's impressive.

And of course it's my favourite in the set.

Bought the digital album!

[Rock Your Day] SPYAIR - Last Moment

I found them in the weekly Korean music chart show, of all places. I don't know what they're doing in M-Countdown, but their image during the performance lulled me into thinking that they were a k-band. Well, I was listening to the 4 Non Blondes in my laptop at the time, while watching M-Countdown on TV, while burning files to a DVD...hey, multitasking is the mode of the future~

Anyway, the words filtered through my headphones enough to make me realize, wait a minute...these are japanese words I'm hearing. So I listened and thought they're pretty good. Then, as is the natural progression of how these things are done, I went on the net and googled them and was pretty pleased that they're indeed j-rockers and not a k-band belting out their japanese release.

They've been around for quite sometime, although I haven't got to finding out whether the band still has the same members or they've been playing that musical chair sorta thing like all the other jrock bands I've liked previously (i.e. disbanding > forming new bands > shuffling members around as they pleased. I mean, look at the updates in this blog today...this band and that band are disbanding, what even *facepalm*).

Here they are: SPYAIR with a theme song from an episode of Bleach, my (only) favourite shonen manga~

Celebrating my New Year with Kim Hyun Joong~

Let's see, what was he up to after winning Best Male Solo Artist in MAMA11 and KIA Soul People’s Choice in SIA11?

Lots! Hyung has been beeezzzzy... so I have to pick and choose. I haven't been updating as diligently as I should, but there are better blogs that are more dedicated to hyung out there, so I'm not inclined to feeling guilty  about this.

In SBS Gayo Daejun alone he gave us many performances:

29.12.11

 

He's owning this performance now. 

Love the show, hate the lighting (arrgh, my eyes!). Anyway, I've never heard this version of the song before. Or maybe it's in the LE, you know... that LE that I've had for months now still within the bubble plastic it's wrapped in. Uhuh. He looks like a Vampire Prince, or Alien Prince, or something ethereal and not of this earth. I think he should totally play a cold-blooded psycho killer in a movie some day, he'd be perfect for that role. 

Hyung's getting all the gurlz! First, it's Miss A (Suzy), now two After School ladiez (Nana and Kahi)! Oh, and I vote for no glasses in all hyung's later shows, unless they're the stylishly classy transparent kind. Did you see those eyes?? They're not meant to be covered, dude. Let us see them next time, kay~

I found this video. Thank you, fellow fan koreanlover1fan2.

I purposely put the opening teaser last coz hoshizlookathim *jaw dropped*. He looks very good in black. Or in anything and nothing, I guess. Yes, I'm remembering that shower scene right now.


30.12.11

I think this is the performance where I've seen him smile the most and the longest. And he's very playful towards select members of the audience, namely pretty ladiez. Sorry boys. This one likes us too much to swing your way. Of all his performances, I like Lucky Guy the best (esp when coupled with Do You Like That). And of all his solo songs, I like I'm Your Man the most.

I knew this performance is going to go somewhere! I made a post about his Rainism dance in my blog, and I'm so glad he's showing it to us again. You know what will top this? The Baek Brothers dancing to Rainism. Oh oh, better yet: Hyung and Rain perform it together in a concert...his or Rain's, I don't care. That'll be epic. At least, for me it will be. I wish the lighting here is brighter though.

If I miss any other video from the SBS Gayo Daejun, please lemme know.

O yeah, just wanna say that even though I'm not a Seung Gi fan, I thought he's holding up the SH show really well without Kang Ho Dong. He's really good at this hosting thing. I found hyung's subbed cut in a recent ep:

That's it for now. Happy New Year evewwyone! *confetti* \(^o^)/

Another shining gem of Ireland

Dr. Crane just pops out and grabs your eyeballs, doesn't he? The first time I saw him, my jaw dropped and then I was sputtering completely incomprehensible words. Or maybe they were squeaky noises, I dunno.

He has that dark hair, pale skin, piercing eyes thing that is sorta familiar to me by now, ever since I got a bit obsessed with Merlin. I mean, it's either that or flaming red hair, pale skin and piercing eyes with the Irish lot I get on my TV. I wish I had done the whole road trip bit in Ireland when I was studying in the UK. But hey, poor student equals no money nor time for traveling. Meh.

There were these two guys in my class in univ that caught my eyes, and thinking back... I think they're probably Irish lads. What is this? Am I psychically geared towards being attracted to Irish guys? :P

Anyway, here's a bit about a film where his character is a transsexual woman. I have to admit, even I don't move that femininely (and was in awe when I was watching the clip). 

Isn't Cillian Murphy delicious? I shall never be able to input into my head that this is a husband and a father of two.

I have no idea where to get the film here, and short of downloading it, I'm not sure I'll be able to buy it online coz I'm on a tight budget in 2012... want to start saving again (I want to buy a Mac~~) so am cutting a lot of my entertainment budget since I have been spending like a headless chicken this year. 

O hey, look. Tomorrow is the last day of 2011!!!

Sukkie in drag! MKMF 2007

Hey thar, pretty~

 

Well, for someone whose all-time favourite picture of Gackt is that one with him dressed as a blonde geisha, it's easy to take this in my stride. Jrockers are usually heavily made up and as pretty as a pretty thing anyway. But it's funny looking at the audience. Some looked overwhelmed, poor guys. The girls all seemed really excited though... :P

Happy Belated Birthday to Me!

Let's celebrate with cake!



Well, since hubby did not fulfill his promise of buying me cake and a big bunny stuffed toy by conveniently falling sick after he got back from a 3-day work thing, I'm rebelling by staying down here with a muted Harry Potter movie on TV and 5 lovely men topped with icing.

Why is he so quiet? I'd better get back upstairs and see if he's still alive.

ETA:

He's not even feverish. Men are such babies. I'm cooking his comfort food and then I'm off shopping by myself, if it doesn't rain, that is. After so many years of being married, I still find my own company more exhilarating. How sad.

Belated birthday wish time! Things I want to have by 45, if I'm still not dead yet (what is the point, I'm asking ya??).

1. Manga Cafe
2. Japanese degree
3. Translation diploma
4. Some kind of Arts certificate (not sure about how and what to get, must do more research)
5. A published fiction (self-published is also okay)

I didn't even complete my Nanowrimo...heh. I feel like I have no business concocting goals in my blog coz that's a rather surefire way for me not to go and accomplish them.

Real life feels so much more exciting when they're captured in a 31" monitor and compressed to 1/3 of a billionth its size.