We're getting rickrolled as a country.

Yesterday I discovered something that made me stop me dead in my tracks, do a double take, and ultimately look like an idiot laughing out loud and slapping my knee in public.

Look who's coming to Manila.

LOLOLOLLOLLLOLLOLOLLOLLLOLOLLOLOLOLLLL XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

*wipes tear*
Oh lord. That kills.

Ehrm. General Admission seats go for a little less than Php600, so if you have that kind of money to waste, may I suggest pulling off The Ultimate Rickroll? Get tickets, then blindfold someone and tell them you're taking them on a SURPRISE date. If they get anxious about where they're going just tell them to relax because you're never gonna let them down. :D (And please, if you do pull that sort of thing, don't forget to tell me about it. It will amuse me greatly.)

Pop-up pirate!

Last week I got a hold of a bunch of magazine scans of one of my obsessions du jour, Kis-My-Ft2. Since it was basically photos of hot guys (occasionally without shirts on), I had already expected my jaw to drop at one point or another anyway, but then something else totally bowled me over:


See that pirate toy thing they're playing with? I had that when I was a kid! 8D

Turns out it's called the Kurohige Kiki Ippatsu (I didn't know what it was called back then). My sister brought home one of those from one of her first few times going to Japan, 1989 or '90, I think. The game starts with the pirate inside the barrel, then you stick the little plastic knives into it. But one of the slots will be a random trigger that'll make the pirate pop up. And because I was a nervous little wuss as a child, it scared the hell out of me so I hated playing with it. XD

Oh, hey--if the cute little pirate doesn't do it for you, try the Hard Gay version:

Oh, admit it. You think it's cute, too. XD In an unsettling sort of way.

Daisuki!

My fangirling is getting out of hand. It's just that I've recently realized how beautiful Fujigaya Taisuke is. I used to think his hair was odd and he looked like a girl, but now I can't concentrate on anything other than his pretty, pretty eyes.

JE groups are like opium for the boy-crazy.

ALMOSTPR♥N! :D

Good thing Shonen Club's on tomorrow night. Yay. That's one of my few ways for getting my JE fix, apart from my DVD of the SC Christmas Special which I swear is going to break from overuse. Especially since Animax suddenly had the brilliant idea of not showing Music Station for a couple of weeks. Grr.

In other, saner things--I finally saw just how crappy my site (and my Myspace, and my Friendster, for that matter) looks on resolutions wider than 1024. I should... probably consider trying to get around to fixing that.

My top 5 geek-TV crushes.

They're smart, talented, funny, crush-worthy... and hugely underrated, if you ask me. In random-ish order:

Grant Imahara, Mythbusters. Grant is Mythbusters' resident electronics and RC expert, but even if you don't watch the show, you've probably seen some of his work. Past jobs include operating R2-D2 and creating the mechanism for the Energizer Bunny. He and his robot Deadblow competed in my favorite spectator sport (BattleBots); he even wrote a book on combat robots called--can you guess?--Kickin' Bot. How can I not love this guy?

Tory Belleci, Mythbusters. He's an expert model maker and prop builder, and has worked on films such as Star Wars and Terminator 3 for Industrial Light and Magic. On Mythbusters, apart from building rigs, he also does many of the more dangerous stunts (like wakeboarding behind a cruise ship. That was awesome.)

Chris Hardwick, Attack of the Show. This former DJ and MTV host is now half of the music comedy duo Hard 'n Phirm. You can also see him on AOTS, where he occasionally guest hosts and reviews gadgets for Gadget Pron.


Mike Rowe, Dirty Jobs. So he's too macho to be called a geek. I just think it's nice to see a man who isn't afraid to get dirty. (And it's is on Discovery anyway, so it counts.) On the show, he's been a septic tank technician, a sludge recycler, a pigeon poop cleaner, and lots of other jobs that many guys would never man up to. The show's great in itself, but his good-natured sarcasm is what keeps it so fun to watch.

Danny Forster, Extreme Engineering. First of all: yeah I watch Extreme Engineering, get over it. I'm sold on any show that has fun with tower cranes and forklifts. And I don't know if it's just the dorky way he hosts the show--or the adorable hard hat--but I think he's kind of cute.

Ok, now these are just my picks, not based on a real set of criteria or anything, so feel free to disagree. Think I missed anyone?

The Forbidden Kingdom: (not surprisingly) kickass.

So yesterday I yanked my dear mother out ouf bingo to watch The Forbidden Kingdom. She loves Jackie Chan too so it was pretty easy.

(SPOILER ALERT, though I'm not giving away the ending.)

The Forbidden Kingdom. Was. AWESOME. An easy addition to my list of favorites. The nod to Drunken Master was very very cool, and let me tell you: just the fight sequence between Jackie Chan and Jet Li was worth the price of admission. It was long, brilliantly choreographed, and showed off the different styles of two equal fighters. In fact, it was so evenly matched, it was almost as if to mock those fans that still won't abandon the age-old debate over who can kick whose butt.

Of course I didn't like everything about the movie--to be honest, I would've liked it better if they'd just done away with the whole subplot about the kid, whose personality borrowed a little too much from Karate Kid's Daniel-san. Not to mention he looks almost exactly like Shia Lebouf. I have nothing against Shia Lebouf, he's just not my idea of a kung fu warrior.

But the subplot didn't get in the way of the ass-kicking, so the movie is overall still a winner. The fact that it was so over-the-top in some parts (Monkey King!) just made it even more fun to watch, and right for the genre. (If you want something believable, go watch that Patrick Dempsey wedding movie, you pansy.) There was plenty of comic relief. And the fight scenes were pretty frigging sweet.

If you're a fan of both Jet Li and Jackie Chan... you don't need to be reading this. If you're a fan of either one, you'll end up loving the movie and liking them both. And you saw the trailers and the posters, right? Proclaiming the two masters, brought together in a movie--"Never before. And maybe never again." Maybe never again. So start placing your bets on when they'll come out with the sequel.

Back with Blogger.

And this time, seriously, I'll try to stay put. I really will. It's just that Wordpress isn't all that fancy unless you self-host, which I don't think I'll be doing for a while. And now that I'm with the "new" Blogger, I think it should be easier to customize the layout without doing a lot of code monkey work (I don't think I have the skillz no more). XD

[EDIT] Ok I think I'm more or less settled in. :D I finally got the design looking a bit more... me, with minimal tinkering under the hood. The background is recycled from a MySpace design I did a while back. Probably looks like crap on anything wider than 1024 pixels though. XD

QUESTION? - not (entirely) your typical Johnny’s Jr. band

It’s no secret that I’ve become a big fan of Johnny’s Jr. groups recently. But my current favorite, the band Question?, is a lot different from the rest of the pack. For one thing, none of them is jailbait. And they don’t dance.

Now, while this should be enough to set them apart from the rest of the Jrs.–who are generally associated with flamboyant interpretive choreography, boppy songs laden with Engrish (”So glooming night, glooming night…“), and cute but unsettlingly underaged boys–musically, they’re pretty different too. Instead of dancing, they play their own instruments, and have a noticeably more mature sound compared to the other groups. Check out some of their songs: “Beautiful Mind” and “Naked“, a collaboration with ABC (the Johnny’s Jr. group responsible for the Engrish metioned earlier). And my favorite song from them: "Head Banging Boogie". I swear, give it a listen. It’s an antidepressant. XD

They sound pretty good and I think will only get better as they mature. But since being cute is pretty much mandatory in Johnny’s Jr., the Question? boys aren’t lacking in the looks department, either.
The group comprises: Yonemura Daijiro (23) on guitar and vocals, Ishigaki Daisuke (22) on keyboard and vocals, Yodogawa Yoshihiro (24) on drums and vocals, Fujie Kazuyori (23) on bass, and Igo Akun (20) on lead guitar. See? No minors. :P

Fans of the anime Naruto Shippuuden might recognize one of their songs, “Mezamero! Yasei”, which they did in collaboration with Kondo Masahiko forming the temporary unit MATCHY with QUESTION?. (As far as I know there's also a version of this song performed by the band alone.)