Baby, it's now or never

It's a bit late (early?) for a full-length blog post but I thought I'd just write a little ditty on my latest foray into K-Music... C.N. Blue! A few days ago I wrote about newly discovering F.T Island and although I've been looping their Cross & Change album since then, C.N. Blue has really impressed me with their mini-album Bluetory. In all honesty, solely based on these two albums, I like C.N. Blue's music more than F.T Island's so far. But I haven't heard much from either band yet, so we'll see how it goes, especially since the styles are a bit different.

I've also been looking at some of their performances on Youtube, as well as their covers on radio shows. The lead singer, Jung Yong Hwa, is really talented and his English is pretty good (in fact, their first mini-album in Japan was all in English). I've heard him and the guitarist, Lee Jong Hyun, cover The Calling's "Wherever You Will Go", Incubus's "Drive", and Jason Mraz's "Geek in the Pink"; Lee Jong Hyun is pretty talented (he sings in addition to playing guitar), and Jung Yong Hwa's voice is surprisingly versatile.

The one thing I'm a little disappointed about (plagiarism issue aside, which isn't even their fault), and this goes for F.T Island too, is that they don't play their instruments live (specifically the Korean music shows). It would be nice to hear them play live more often because I don't doubt that they're hella talented. At least the singing (and apparently the drumming?) is live, and I have to say that Jung Yong Hwa's voice is great live.

C.N. Blue is still newly debuted (less than a year since their debut in Japan, less than a month since their debut in Korea) but I'm definitely looking forward to their future releases (faster faster faster!). Even if they're still a little green right now, I'm sure that they'll improve as both entertainers and musicians.

Also, I realised that F.T Island's Lee Hong Ki mostly looks like Super Junior's Kang-In (but skinnier). Not a bad thing, I think Kang-In's cute.

Haha, this turned out to be longer than I expected... goes to show how much I'm liking this band right now. ^^

Listening to now: C.N. Blue - Now or Never (Korean version)

Regrets?

I used to say that I never wanted to regret anything in my life (even though there are a lot of things that I do regret). I'm sure mostly everyone feels this way, and I kind of feel like it's just a cop-out half the time. "Oh well, what's done is done and things didn't go my way, I should tell myself not to regret it so that I don't feel like crap every time I think about it" sort of thing.
But I digress. I think one of the things that I regret the most is not being able to hold onto some friendships that I've had. Sometimes they died because of irreconcilable differences, and sometimes I did something stupid and killed them. I was looking back at some pictures on Facebook from when I went on a trip with a few friends whom I'm not as close to anymore, unfortunately. Anytime I look back at those pictures I feel really happy, and I can see that I was really happy too back then. But it's a bittersweet happiness because I regret not having that anymore. I don't know if things would have turned out differently had the situation been different, or if this would have been the inevitable conclusion since I believe it was due to "irreconcilable differences".

That bittersweet feeling might also be due to the fact that I looked hella cute back then compared to now (probably because my happiness level plummeted thereafter).
I know, I'm shallow.

Listening to right now: F.T. Island - Boy Meets Girl

No pain, no gain

I think it's somewhat sad that walking around in my new pair of boots hurts more than snowboarding. It's amazing what we humans do for the sake of fashion. On the bright side, the boots are hella cute and I look good in them.

I've been listening to a few songs by the Korean band F.T. Island. They're not bad but I haven't formed an overall opinion about them yet. I watched a few of their performances a couple of weeks ago and their lead singer (Lee Hong Ki) is really charismatic on stage; I really enjoy watching him. The other members looked a little awkward but I think those were the older performances... in the more recent ones they looked much more confident. I just started listening to their 4th album So Long, Au Revoir and apparently it's in Japanese? I wasn't expecting that... not an entirely bad surprise but I was hoping to hear more of their Korean songs.
What I especially like about them is that they're an actual band, i.e. they play their own instruments. Most of the Korean artists I've been listening to lately have been just singers, not bands. Plus, F.T. Island have a little more of a rock feel to their songs (though still definitely on the side of pop). And I like when the other dude (sorry, don't know his name ><) raps or whatever in the middle of the song instead of the lead singer carrying the whole song.

Lee Hong Ki also looks a bit like the actor Jang Geun Suk, at least in a couple of F.T. Island's live performances. Funnily enough, they both starred in a 2009 Korean drama, 미남이시네요 [You're Beautiful]. Sometimes he looks kind of a mish-mash (can I use mish-mash to refer to people? lol) of various people though, like Brian from Fly to the Sky and maybe G-Dragon from Big Bang? I bet it changes depending on the hair. I tell you, those hairstyles are like Clark Kent's glasses or something (I mean really, you can't tell it's Superman under those things?)

Listening to right now: F.T. Island - 바래 [I Hope]

Edit: He also looks a little like Solbi (pre-plastic surgery) when he cross-dresses. XD

Exercise for the year, check

I went snowboarding for the first time yesterday and although it was a tonne of fun, I woke up this morning afternoon with my whole body stiff/sore. I'm sure it would hurt less if 1) I could stop falling on my butt every few feet and 2) if I actually moved more on a day-to-day basis. It was definitely worth it though, and I'm glad that I got the chance to try it out.

I also started watching プロポーズ大作戦 [Proposal Daisakusen] with Yamashita Tomohisa after losing interest in 아가씨를 부탁해 [Take Care of the Young Lady] with Yoon Eun Hye after the 3rd episode. I was hoping the latter would be good after having watched 커피프린스 1호점 [Coffee Prince] but it actually wasn't all that interesting. I've only watched the first episode of Proposal Daisakusen so far but it seems like it might be cute. Not quite as impressed with Yamashita Tomohisa's character as I was with Kurosagi but we'll see how it goes.

I saw a clip of Kim Hyung Jun pretending to be his younger brother Kim Ki Bum (of U-Kiss) on some show, trying to get screen time as usual but it was so hilariously cute! The crew was there to interview Kim Ki Bum and instead found Kim Hyung Jun who tried worming his way into replacing his own brother. Which failed when Kim Ki Bum walked up and asked him what he was doing haha.
I also saw a preview of his upcoming appearance on Progamer (not 100% about the name) and he looked really good. Maybe because he seemed more relaxed? Changed his hair? I dunno, but whatever it is I hope he keeps it up. Otherwise I'll have to think about switching favourites. Just kidding, of course! ^^

Listening to right now: SS501 - 넌 나의 천국

My dedication can no longer be questioned muhaha

... Not that it was ever questioned before (at least not to my face, anyway).

Still, nothing like a 15-hour day in the lab to make you relish your life as a graduate student. Who needs a boring 9-to-5 job when you could spend your entire day from 8am to 11pm coaxing bacteria to grow and poop out some protein?

Listening to right now: too tired to put on music L'Arc~en~Ciel - C'est la Vie (this post label reminded me of it ^^)

P.S. Just to be clear, bacteria do not poop out protein.

"Oh my god, I feel like I just found out that my favourite love song was written about a sandwich."

In a continued Herculean effort to stop wasting money every month on Netflix and actually borrow a worthwhile number of movies, I watched 27 Dresses last night. It wasn't bad, actually. Typical romantic comedy where you can see who gets together with whom a mile away but then again, that's the charm of romantic comedies, right? I, for one, happen to like cheesy romantic comedies because my own love life sucks so bad they're light-hearted and usually fairly shallow, therefore require very little thinking. I really liked James Marsden's character, and the witty banter had its highly amusing moments (see this post title). I also watched all the special features, etc that were included on the DVD (gotta get my money's worth) and I gotta say, a couple of those bridesmaid's dresses weren't half-bad, despite the director saying that the costume designer was supposed to find the ugliest dresses in existence. Makes me question my own her fashion sense.

Also been hearing a lot about Kim Hyun Joong's controversy that stemmed from his attendance at the former South Korean president's birthday celebration. I don't feel like ranting a whole lot on his situation and everyone's reactions (including his own) but I will say this. Fangirls are annoying. Off-topic? Not so much. I dislike the fans who will defend their idol's actions and remove all blame from said idol as if he/she can do no wrong. Judging from what I've read about this former president (and I am in no way even pretending to know a thing about Korean history), it was a big deal that Kim Hyun Joong was at his birthday celebration and congratulated him. Saying that "he's an idol, not a politician" is a weak argument. Just because he's an idol doesn't mean that he's devoid of political opinion. And just because he's the oh-so-awesome Kim Hyun Joong does not mean that "he couldn't have been there intentionally" (even though it turned out that he wasn't there intentionally... but I'm targeting those who said this even before that fact came to light). And even though he was understandably upset at the controversy that his appearance caused, Kim Hyun Joong (based on the translated message that he posted on DSP website) should know that as such a popular entertainer, obviously people would jump on his back about this. As an idol, he should almost expect it. I mean, come on, haven't we heard enough accounts about how ruthless netizens and anti-fans can be?
And on a final note, to those who kept saying that him showing up at this guy's birthday party and congratulating him was no big deal and why is there this huge controversy, etc etc (historical background aside)... the sheer fact that numerous news articles came out about it obviously shows that there was more to it than it being "some dude's birthday party". And slightly off-topic, just because you don't see why a controversy in another country/culture is a controversy doesn't mean that it's not a valid one. Different culture, different values, and no, yours is not the better one.

Did I say that I wasn't going to rant a whole lot about this? ><

Listening to right now: Tim - 사랑합니다

Is the shiz, homeskillet

So I finally got around to watching Juno which I've been meaning to watch since September last year. It was pretty good, very witty and amusing, and at times touching. I liked the dialogue as unrealistic as it probably is (or maybe people really do talk like that and I just don't know about it), and I think Ellen Page did a great job as Juno.

I also recently watched The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus which was also really good. Of course, having Heath Ledger, Johnny Depp, and Jude Law all at once in the same movie (sorry, not a Colin Farrell fan) is drool-worthy but that aside, I really liked the cinematography etc. There were a couple of things that I didn't think were too clear in the movie but 1) I don't remember them, 2) they didn't detract from the overall film and 3) they probably didn't matter anyway.

And last but not least, I just started watching a 2006 Japanese drama called クロサギ [Kurosagi] which stars Yamashita Tomohisa and Horikita Maki, both of whom starred in 野ブタ。をプロデュース [Nobuta wo Produce]. I liked Yamashita Tomohisa when I saw him in Nobuta wo Produce and seeing him again in Kurosagi makes me want to watch all of his dramas and movies. I'm not a big fan of his music (either solo or NEWS) but I think his acting is really good. He adds a nice quirky twist to his characters (at least the ones I've seen so far) and I'm looking forward to seeing more of his work as an actor. It also helps that he's HOT.

Listening to now: Yamashita Tomohisa - Loveless

Jung Min's image is too sexy

I just watched the episode of 강심장 [Strong Heart] that aired on December 15th 2009. It's the second episode that had SS501's Kim Hyun Joong, Park Jung Min, and Kim Hyung Jun as guests. Hyun Joong is hella funny as usual (can that man ooze any more charisma than he already does?), and Hyung Jun is as desperate as ever to show himself off lol. Of course, that's part of Hyung Jun's charm... trying too hard and looking immensely proud of himself afterward. Ahh, so cute.

At the same time, there's something off about him lately, appearance-wise. I don't know if it's his hair colour, make-up, clothes, weight loss, old age or what but he doesn't look as smoking hot as he did during the U R Man promotions. I was watching the Japan mini concert that the SS501 project group (Young Saeng, Kyu Jong, Hyung Jun) held in March 2009 and Hyung Jun looks so much more carefree and... yummy. And just generally, his personality on variety shows is different compared to before, much more seemingly forced than it used to be.

That being said, I enjoy watching their old M!Pick episodes, mainly because all of the members are very open and carefree, being on the brink of debut and at the very beginning of their career and also because it seems like there's SO MUCH Hyung Jun. Everywhere. Always talking. And it's awesome.

Listening to right now: Maroon 5 - Through With You

P.S. The title's misleading isn't it... I haven't mentioned Jung Min at all in this post. He didn't really have too much face time in this episode of 강심장 (there was more of him in the previous episode) but I liked his indignation at Hyung Jun's choice of Hyun Joong for reincarnation, to which Hyung Jun's reply was along the lines of "Jung Min's image is too sexy; I'd be tired of doing waves everyday." It's probably true. XD
[Translation credit to: Six Angels Production]

2010, baby!

Happy New Year!!

Rabbit rabbit, bring me good luck!

I was skimming my old blog on MSN Spaces that I had stopped writing in like 3 years ago. I gotta say, my entries used to be a hell of a lot more interesting and excited-sounding. What happened? Old age? -_-;

Maybe my New Year's Resolution should be to improve my blog-writing skills...?

Listening to right now: EXILE - 優しい光 (not gonna lie though, the intro for this MV is annoyingly long)

And just for fun, a random flower pic I took at Hershey Gardens: