Mood:
By French Kiss. Kakko Warui means uncool. So: An Uncool 'I Love You'. This was also Sket Dance's first opening theme song. Fits the anime pretty well.
Kind of a fun song. Here's the full song:
Yay for it still being nice and warm!
Blew the shofar again. I managed to get everything I needed done yesterday. It's been a while since I've done that.
Wrote some more of chapter 14. Then, started that writing vampire meme. Started drawing out the Hetalia heritage meme. Worked on my character and building descriptions. And, drew more of Zero's face. I finally figured out a better design for his hair.
I wasn't really planning it to go this way, but it seems a little bird-like. That fits him even more, since he is a Phoenix.
Cooked the frozen fish sticks, and made a large salad last night. It had lettuce, baby cherry tomatoes, garbanzo beans, olives, green pepper, carrots, broccoli, and snap peas. Really good stuff!
I think we're having ravioli and some sauce from a jar tonight. A nice Shabbat dinner.
Not sure what we'll have for dessert.
Watched the Zettai Kareshi special. Wasn't as good as I had hoped.
They brought him back to life, only to destroy him later. Riiko was engaged to Soshi when they returned to Japan. So, it made things really awkward when he came back. Plus, he came back without any memories of Riiko. From square one. He was jealous of Soshi, and had forgotten entirely about the vow he made with him. Later, he gets all his memories back, and feels guilty about putting Soshi in that situation. And, realizing he couldn't raise a family and grow old with her, he begs them to destroy him. Hey, couldn't they adopt or something? And with the getting old part, once their partner died, they can be destroyed. Wouldn't that be better, than just destroying yourself? But, I was also pulling for Soshi. Riiko and Soshi are perfect for each other. Anyways, it was kind of an unsatisfying ending.
Looked for a new anime for my Friday slot. Watched the 1st episode of Nekogami Yaoyorozu, aka Cat God. Seemed way too childish. Interesting story, but not very well done. I'll try a different anime next week or during the weekend.
Played some more Irish tunes, and some Mozart pieces. The weather, I think, is getting to my reed. It seemed more drier and squeakier than normal. I didn't really squeak, but I could definitely feel it in the back of throat. I can maneuver it a bit so it doesn't squeak when I get that feeling. But, it was weird. Some pieces I was perfect with this time.
Mom just gave me a free High Holy Day album through Jewniverse. It's a new Craig Taubman CD. So far, some are cool, and some I don't really care for. But, it's awesome that it was free.
I still haven't gone through my old Jewish music, and put it to my mp3 player. Some of those songs are really nice. I'll have to go through those soon.
Mood:
Dog's do deserve to have their own day.
This was created specifically in honor of search and rescue dogs at ground zero during September 11th. 300 search and rescue dogs searched through the rubble at Ground Zero. Service dogs are amazing! I've only had one dog, but I loved him just as much as my cats. I don't think I'm either a cat or dog person. I'm both.
It's been another nice and warm day. Hope it continues for a while. Actually managed to get all my walks in today! Wahoo!Trying to get back into it. I feel so much better when I do. Like a natural high.
Did some dusting in my room.
Also, went through a lot of the stuff I had piled on top of my dresser. Threw out a lot of it, and moved some things around. Looks much nicer and cleaner.
Actually found my traveling candlesticks and car mezuzah. I thought something had happened to them.
Not that I need them at the moment, but still nice to know they're there. Also, posted chapter 4 of Alliance to mangafox. A lot of people are reading it on there. Kind of nice to see.
Zettai Kareshi is starting to get tense and sad.
Throughout the episode, Night was overheating because of his emotions affecting his programming. He kept getting 'fevers', convulsed, and fell over a lot. The company lied to Riiko telling her that they'll 'fix' him. And, they weren't sure if his memories would stay intact during the 'repair'. Later, she finds out that they wanted to scrap him. The 2 guys who created Night tried to stop their boss from authorizing it. But, it was too late. They pressed the button already that would erase his memories. Riiko managed to get a spot in the next stage of the competition in Paris, but she was too worried about Night to leave. Weird thing is she also loves Soshi, and told him after he confessed to her. Soshi found out about Night being a robot, but hasn't talked with Riiko about it. Somehow, this feels like it'll end in tragedy.
Heard other people mention that the manga ended that way. So sad! Next episode's the finale, but they have a special after that.
Gintama was hilarious yet again!
It was a continuation from last week's episode. The monkey with the freakishly long name, had ran away from his new owner. He wanted to be with Kyuubei more. (The one who trained him.) He was smart enough to free all the monkeys at the zoo to evade them capturing him. In the end, the monkey was given back to Kyuubei to keep. But, the boy who wanted him, asked if he could add one more name to his full name. They turned that full name into a song at the end. Throughout the episode, there was some really touching and emotional sounding music. But, I realized it was his name they were singing then as well. His name is kind of obscene, so it was hilarious to make it sound like that.
Played the rest of my new clarinet solo book. It's pretty good. Although, there are a couple of pretty stupid songs in it. Most are nice, though. Also, played some Beatles and Duke Ellington tunes. I think I actually sounded better after playing from the solo book. 
Started reading Gate 7 last week. I loved CLAMP's xxxHolic series, so I decided to try this new one. It really is pretty new, and I think their style has changed a bit. Seems even better, almost more intricate and detailed with the art. The story is kind of hard to follow right at the beginning. But, that's because they haven't started explaining things until the chapter I'm up to now. (Which is the 3rd.) I'll probably catch up to the updates pretty quick with this one too. Since it's once a month. The description of this series sounds a bit weird. An innocent sightseeing trip to Kyoto opens up a realm to Chikahito, a high school student. Visiting a legendary shrine, Chikahito finds himself in the mystical world of Hana and her comrades. And, his immunity to their powers leads them to believe that he's not an ordinary person. Protecting our world from violent elemental beasts, Hana and her team welcome the confused Chikahito. Who isn't quite sure that he wants to be caught up in the middle of their war. He's fallen for Hana already. I like her personality.
Worked a bit more on translating the article from You Maga that I'm writing out. It's on cherry sales for June, so far. Also, saw that the registration booklet for the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) this year is up. Can't mail the application in until the month of September. Which is coming up quickly, so I guess it's good to look at for now. The application part looks a bit different than the one that used to be online. Seems more detailed.The whole booklet is about 23 pages. But, they have a copy of the application that's a separate document. So, I won't have to print out all those pages, but it's good for reference. It sucks that the applications will only be accepted by snail mailing them. But, last year someone hacked into their systems, and stole people's credit card numbers. So, I understand why they'd go this route. But, it's more of a pain.
Youtube:
A really cute cat vid:
Mood:
By E-Type. I used to love this song.But, sadly only remembered it after seeing a Russia, from Hetalia, tribute. It so fits the character, too. Didn't realize how old this song is.
It's from 1995. E-Type is still very active. But, seems to not be as popular anymore. His real name is Bo Martin Erik Eriksson, and he was born on August 27, 1965 in Uppsala, Sweden. For some reason this song sounds so much like what Aqua or Toy-Box would do. Just looked it up, and apparently Toy-Box did a cover.I think that was the one I'm more familiar with. (Funny how these 3 bands sound so alike...
) But, good song anyways. Here's that Russia tribute video:
It's still colder than normal!
But, I heard that the next couple of days we may reach it. I'm sorry but high 50s-low 60s, is not summer weather!
We're normally in the 70s. It's kind of frustrating. Today's American Eagle Day and World Refugee Day.
Started Zettai Kareshi, or Absolute Boyfriend on Friday. This is hilarious!I thought I would hate it, reading the description. But, surprisingly I was wrong. Robot maker, Kronos Heaven, finally develops the perfect male humanoid programmed to be entirely devoted and loyal to his lover. The company chooses a temp worker, Riko, to take part in a 5-day free trial. They tell her he's just like a household appliance, and she treats him like one at first. That changes when she realizes how devoted he is to her, and she ends up slowly falling for him. One of her bosses, Soshi, ends up developing feelings for her towards the end of the first episode. Kind of funny, considering she normally has such horrible luck with men.That's why she filled out the company's questionnaire, and she was kind of curious. The robot, named Night, does some pretty hilarious things. It's programmed to know how she's feeling. It's actually pretty interesting.
Started another drama, Nodame Cantabile, yesterday. I was a bit reluctant about this one, too. Another hilarious one!This is based on a very popular manga and anime. Every character seems to have some sort of quirkiness to them. I love that type of thing. Noda, or 'Nodame', is a piano student at Momogaoka College of Music. She's very talented and wants to be a kindergarten teacher. She plays by ear, rather than reading the music score. She's very messy and disorganized, takes baths several days apart, and loves to eat. Chiaki is Momogaoka's top student. Born into a musical family, he's talented in piano and secretly wants to become a conductor. He used to live in places like Prague as a young boy. He's arrogant, a clean freak, multi-lingual, and a perfectionist. He feels trapped in Japan, because of his childhood phobia of planes and the ocean. They meet by accident, but later have to work together on a Mozart piece. And, by the end of the episode, they both learn lessons about each other and how they could improve. Yay for a music based drama!That's the thing, they seemed to be pretty accurate at portraying the musicians. Like how one guy ran out of a practice room screaming because the room was too small. I've had that feeling before, and I don't play timpani.Also, how hard they practice, the music terms, everything. It was cool one of the musicians likes to play the electric violin and is more into rock than classical. Noda was actually based on a real person. She really did have a messy room. Currently she's a piano teacher in Fukuoka.
This has made me feel like playing more. So, I think I'll make my practice time longer, and everyday. Not taking off for the weekend. Once I see this kind of thing, it's like a scratch you can't get rid of, you just have to play.
Went to services on Saturday. The baby naming was in the middle of it. He's such a cute baby!
At one point he looked at the congregation with big eyes. Because of the baby naming, we had a lot more people show up than normal. It was kind of nice. The portion was about the spies or scouts coming back with their report on the land of Israel before they settled there. Kind of a sad one. I didn't quite like the rabbi's drash on it.After the service, there was a lunch afterwards. I grabbed a few things, but ate only a little and took the rest home.
Since, we were going to celebrate Dad's b-day (a little late) at Himalayan Chutney's buffet, I didn't want to eat too much. The buffet wasn't as great as I thought it would be.I did get to try some new things, but there wasn't much to it. Things were dried out too. I think it was the first time I've had their chai. It was really good!
I'm doing a new thing during the weekends. The kanji from whatever article I write out during the week, I'll study them separately. Like this last weekend I studied more meanings, practiced writing, practiced making sentences, and pronunciations of: 詰 直 系 総 仕 機. I think this will be a great help to me. Plus, I can learn more about their grammar, by making those practice sentences. I'm already going over the grammar of the articles I work on, but this way I can have more practice on my own. Don't know why I didn't do this before.
Played a little more of the Sims 2. I made a Russia character.
(Based off of Hetalia.) Some people seem to really like him, some hate his guts. He was a mascot for a soccer team for a while. Now, he's in the minor league. Haven't done the sports career track, so that should be interesting. I decided to have him all alone, kind of to work from scratch with him. I didn't know there was a social bunny. So far he hasn't appeared, but my sim's worried that it'll suddenly pop up somewhere.
I've seen happy the sad clown before, though. He's freaking creepy.
Also, Youtube's been kind of strange with their recommended video section. There are no videos. And, no matter how many vids I watch, it still says watch a video so you can get more recommended videos. It's getting kind of annoying.
I liked that section. It's a good way to discover videos. I looked around online, and a lot of people said that clearing all your cookies from your computer and restarting will get it back. I did just the youtube cookies, but it was still the same. So, maybe I do have to get rid of them all.
But, with just the Youtube cookies gone, I had problems getting into Ikasu Anime forum. I got kind of frustrated and accidentally clicked the facebook connect link. It made another account. And, my pic from FB was on Ikasu. It made me so much more aggravated.
I ended up deleting the new FB connect account, and it allowed me to get my old one.
deviantART faves: If you love deviantart... Windmill- ch2 - Page 29 Gintama- Jirocho Season meme I did not make these! First, a cute pic of a cat on a computer. Second, a page from a manga, Windmill, that one of the artists I watch created. I just love his expression. I've been reading his manga, and the characters are pretty expressive. But, this really caught my eye. Third, an awesomely done drawing of Jirocho from Gintama. I think he looked better when he was younger. Rather than the old guy he is now. Fourth, a meme where you pick your ocs clothes for each season. There was another meme like this a while back, but this seems a bit different.
