bury me in this dress

I finally got to watch this series and I regret not watching it earlier but it’s now one of my favorites. HYD is based on the popular manga of the same name.

The story is basically about Makino Tsukushi, a commoner, and a group of powerful rich boys called F4. I liked it because it’s funny and the actors are very good. They’re not as beautiful as the actors in Meteor Garden, a Taiwanese drama based on the same manga, but they act better. Matsumoto Jun who plays Doumyouji Tsukasa has terrible skin but is oozing with sex appeal. Yummy boy!

I highly recommend this dorama. If you don’t feel like downloading the series, crunchyroll.com has a streaming video of the series. BTW, if you have a crunchyroll account, add me there. My nick is kareninsilver.

My cell phone accessories arrived today which is a surprise since I placed my orders just last Saturday. I love love love them. Only 1 is for personal use. The others are for the pre-orders from my multiply store. I will order a lot more. I was just testing if I will get taxed for the items. They didn’t tax me. Lucky!

Sorry for the unexpected hiatus. I was sick last week with the flu. I was also absent from work for 3 days. A few things have changed since I last wrote here. I’ll try to them as I write this post.

I don’t think I ever mentioned this but a couple of weeks ago, I fell in love with a pink Anna Sui bag. The initial price is cheap. I think it was 800 pesos. I don’t remember if I was the first one to bid but another girl was wanted the bag too so for several days, we tried to outbid each other. I placed my maximum bid to 2,500. I don’t recall why I was sleepy. Maybe from lack of sleep or I was feeling sick. But I slept early. Like 10 PM. Can you believe that?! 10 PM!!!! So okay, when I checked my mail the next day, I found out I lost the bag. The bitch stole my bag for P2,700. Waaaah! So now I am still obsessed with that bag. In my desperation, I tried to find Ebay Japan but that doesn’t exist. There’s Yahoo Japan though but the site is in Japanese and I found out that the Japanese don’t really like selling to gaijins like me. So I googled for Japan auctions and learned that there are websites which offer bidding services for gaijins who want something from Yahoo Japan. I found a good one, japanauctioncenter.com which offers the service at a cheaper rate than their competitions. I joined the site and deposited a couple thousand of pesos. I saw bags like the one I lost in ebay.ph but they were brand new and expensive. I’ll keep on waiting for a good deal for that bag but for now, I still bid on other Anna Sui products. I actually won a nice wallet. I’m still crossing my fingers for the bag. It’s just like the bag in the photo here except it was pink.

I have 2 Anna Sui bags now which I won on ebay.ph. They’re not as nice as the one I wanted but what can I do?

I am working on a new project. It’s web-related and it’s looking good. I’ll keep that a secret for now.

I just remembered that my driver’s license is expired and I need to renew it. Gah. It expired last Nov. 26. I have to pay penalty fee for not renewing it in the proper time.

I ordered Absolutely Fabulous 1 to 3 and Degrassi Junior High the complete collection on Amazon and I got the DVDs last week. I haven’t started watching them though. Hopefully I’ll find time to watch during the short xmas holiday.

I’m so pretentious. I got myself a moleskine notebook and a large moleskine sketchbook. For those not in the know, moleskine is the brand of notebook Hemmingway, Van Gogh, Picasso, and other brilliant people used. This is what I get from hanging out in philmug.ph. Moleskine.ph overcharges those damn notebooks but I still ordered from the owner who is a philmug regular. It’s just a damn notebook but I’ll keep the illusion that I’m brilliant too because they are expensive. I just got them but I ordered last month. Damn longbeard (the seller). I’m still happy with the purchase though.

I already mentioned about the ibook I have. Well, I bought a bag for it. It’s a Samsonite laptop backpack but it’s way cheaper than the bag I saw in the Samsonite store. I bought mine from istudio in Greenhills. I also bought a…I don’t know what they’re called but they’re stands for the laptop and it’s spherical in shape. That one is expensive but it’s serving me well. I overspent my shopping that day because I also ended up buying an Edifier speaker for my ipod. It’s cheaper than the other good speakers I saw before so I took one.

Great. Most of my activities involve spending. What about me getting money? I hope I didn’t lose any of my regular readers with this update. I would also like to pass around my patented tin can with class? Funds are low once again and sprinking a few $$$ my way would cheer me up in time for the holidays :D

I’m too sleepy now. I could hardly keep my eyes open. Please be generous while I sleep. I’ll post again about the changes in my life when I find time at work.

I’m a big fan of Trevor Brown, an artist known for creating cute but grotesque images. I didn’t know that his art is considered as guro until I went to gurochan.net. For those not in the know,  guro is a type of visual art which combines the macabre with erotica. The movement originated in Japan and can be found in art, cinema, and music. It’s definitely not for the easily offended and weak-stomached. So while browsing around the site, I discovered the art of Yock. He makes great CG art which I guess is considered as guro. I also discovered a great blog which features scanlations of some guro manga. I just read Falling by Junji Ito and enjoyed it a lot.

I really am a sickfuck.

It’s Eiga Sai time once again. I wasn’t able to watch last year’s horror marathon. Boo hoo. Anyway, anybody wants to join me this year?

Eiga Sai (Japanese Film Festival)
Shangri La Cinema 3
Free admission

September 13 (W)

2 PM All Under The Moon (1993) by Yoichi Shi

September 14 (Th)

2 PM Bright Future (2002) by Kiyoshi Kurosawa
5 PM Face (1999) by Junji Sakamoto
8 PM Laughing Frog (2002) by Hideyuki Hirayama

September 15 (F)

2 PM Owl (2003) by Kaneto Shindo
5 PM Nine Souls (2003) by Toshiaki Toyada
8 PM Dora-Heita (2000) by Kon Ichikawa

September 16 (Sa)

2 PM Face (1999) by Junji Sakamoto
5 PM Mark’s Mountain (1995) by Yoichi Sai
8 PM Twilight Samurai (2002) by Yoji Yamada

September 17 (Su)

2 PM Kishiwada Bad Boys (1996) Kazuyuki Izutsu
5 PM Women in Mirror (2002) by Yoshishige Yoshida
8 PM Dora-Heita (2000) by Kon Ichikawa

September 18 (M)

2 PM Twilight Samurai (2002) by Yoji Yamada
5 PM Laughing Frog (2002) by Hideyuki Hirayama
8 PM Bright Future (2002) by Kiyoshi Kurosawa

September 19 (Tu)

2 PM Nine Souls (2003) by Toshiaki Toyada
5 PM Owl (2003) by Kaneto Shindo
8 PM Women in Mirror (2002) by Yoshishige Yoshida

I’m starting to feel better. I guess your replies to my previous posts helped me a lot so thanks much! I feel loved.

I’ve been really busy lately that’s why I haven’t been blogging. Anyway, I was able to get some rest today because I worked from home. I’m redesigning the company stationery and calling card. So far so good but I still have a lot to do. Then tomorrow there’s a seminar at work so I have to be there. I have to QC Hana Yori Dango for Jtv-drama. Yes, that’s a dorama. I don’t know when I’ll be able to squeeze that in. So many things to do for next week as well. Surprisingly, I like working for our company. It’s very challenging.

I finished watching “My Little Chef” last night. I liked the dorama. It’s very charming and not at all mushy. In fact, there’s practically no romance in it.

The story revolves around Seri, daughter of a famous chef, who inherited her father’s talent for making the perfect French food suited for every individual. She and her step sister travelled to Tokyo and ended up working for Petit Etoile, a new French restaurant. Seri was made the head chef and together with the other staff, they try to keep the restaurant afloat.

Each episode of this series showcases French cuisine but since I’m not into that, I never found myself salivating. What I liked were the interesting customers in each episode and their lives are revealed through the food Seri creates for them. Of course, this makes for very touching moments.

I haven’t visited Masamania for months and I missed a lot of his posts. Well tonight I did a lot of catching up and as usual, Masa never fails to brighten my erm…night. Here’s a snippet of his entry…

In Japan, girls hesitate to show their boob in public in addition that showing boob in public is strictly banned. This is the main reason Japanese girls wear shirts even though there is no necessity to hide their boob because of their flat size of boob. And I think that USA girls also need not hide their boob, because no country law banning to hide plastic object. Or they should take off t shirts rather than wearing it because at least t-shirts is made by natural material, cotton.

Brilliant!

I finished watching Orange Days last night and I can honestly say that it’s a good dorama. Very light, sometimes bittersweet, sometimes funny too.

It stars Satoshi Tsumabuki (of the Waterboys fame) and Kou Shibasaki (the crazy girl in Battle Royale).
Here’s the synopsis according to the TBS site which produced this dorama:

Kai Yuuki (Satoshi Tsumabuki) is in his senior year at university studying social welfare psychology. At present, he is in the middle of job-hunting season. He is finding it difficult with no job offers so far.

One day, he meets a girl who is playing violin in the campus. She is Sae Hagio (Kou Shibasaki). In marked contrast to her beautiful tone and attractive looks, her personality is somewhat impertinent. And to top it off, she communicates through very vulgar sign language.

Four years ago, she lost the most important thing for a violinist - her hearing. As a result Sae closed off her inner self from the outside world.
Kai finds himself on a date with Sae, in place of his best friend. Unexpectedly, he comes into contact with Sae’s private side.
Love, job-hunting, friendship… Setting a campus in spring as a dorama`s backdrop, it’s the start of a glittering youth drama.

One of the reasons why I like this drama is the gentleness of some of the characters like Kai, Akane and Keita in contrast with the more in-your-face personalities of Shohei and Sae. They’re all about to graduate and going out into society is a really big step for them so they try to enjoy the few months they have before the graduation where they will pursue their careers. So one of the subtexts of this dorama is the Japanese working class society where in the adults strictly adhere to corporate rules and decorum because if they don’t, they might risk their jobs.

Another reason why I like Orange Days is because I became more aware of the feelings, fears, and struggles of deaf-mutes. Sae is a deaf-mute but she isn’t born that way. She was a child prodigy for violin and was asked to study at Julliard. While there, she caught a rare disease which damaged her hearing. It was a shock to her and the people who loves her. She is used to being the princecss. She’s very pretty, talented, admired by many and suddenly becoming deaf is a huge blow. She misses her old life, she feels so different from those with normal hearing. She’s angry but doesn’t know whom to blame. When she met Kai and his friends, she slowly learned that there are people who will support her and make her feel a part of their group. And through Kai, she learned how to love and to trust again.

However, this isn’t my favorite dorama. I just really enjoyed watching it.