Yeah, I know. I haven't been around for the longest time. Lots of things in RL happened, both pleasant and non pleasant, but that's life. I don't really have the time anymore nowadays to sit and ponders and actually write about stuffs, sad, but my brain power just evaporated into thin air at night and weekend is spent well... definitely not in front of my laptop writing summary or drama.

But, the point is... what's going on with Johnny's management lately? I don't really closely follow the groups anymore, but man, seems that after they vanquished SMAP, it's going down in spiral. Groups that I thought would really last met its own tumble. Subaru left Kanjani8 and Johnny's altogether. Yamaguchi with his scandal affecting TOKIO and I thought TOKIO as the most senior active group in Johnny's will survive and going on for their 30th anniversary unscathed. These are the big ones, but not to mention lots of funny little rumour tales on the more junior groups like HSJ.

What's up with the management?

It's as if they don't get their shit together at all. OR, they're losing their influence over the media control.

Subaru's departure is surprising to me but not shocking since he wanted to change his career direction, though that means re-establishing what he already built half of his life. He's very brave in making such decision and I wished him luck.

I'm most definitely disappointed with Yamaguchi's conduct. I mean, come on, he should know better, and kudos for TOKIO for handling the scandal in not typical cover up and shoving under the carpet. However, besides that point, and without intention of condoning Yamaguchi's act since it's inexcusable and it's a crime, regardless. I'd expect Johnny's could do better in managing their artists. Maybe time has changed. Maybe media and TV network are not so afraid of Johnny's anymore. Maybe Johnny's still don't know how to navigate the power of Internet (their youtube channel is just an outlet for juniors, nothing else, not impressive at all. They definitely cannot compete with how Atarashii Chizu does with their social media!).

So I conclude... time has changed. Johnny's better get their shit together if they want to stay relevant. Cashing in on Arashi alone is not a forever thing because... we all know the time will come when Sho-chan will leave Johnny's and join the politic rat race (say in 20 years). They don't have the next Arashi still, so... yeah...

Okay, I think now my DW account looks more presentable and I think all the entries from LJ has been imported.
Moving forward I'll do posting from DW, and just linked it to LJ until the day that TOS T&C hits my blog :)

I have some thoughts, since I've been using so many different kinds of skin care (yes I have the itchy hand to buy and try skin care products) over the years (probably the only skincare I haven't touched is SKII, this one is reserved when I hit 50), anybody interested in this kind of posting? I got lots of people asking questions on skincare in RL so thought maybe it'll be useful? But I don't think I'll do those post like demo (like those beauty blogs do) with tons of pictures because I have a completely different view on skincare, and skincare is not make up, so no demo or picture needed, but that's just my opinion.

So, what do you think?

I've been reading these posts on the new user agreement thingy. Yes, it looks dodgy (heck I even read the better interpretation from Tumblr, not from here), and for a person whose part of her job is reading contracts, I have a really hard time understanding what the clauses in that agreement actually means, so this brings the question, should I stay in LJ, or move somewhere else?

I've been using LJ for a good around 7 years, not too long, but long enough to have enough posts that it'll cause a hazzle if I'm going to move (especially those with lots of caps). So, the huge question is if I want to move, where should I move? dreamwidth? wordpress? blogspot? tumblr (I still can't get used to using Tumblr especially to post things, and I hate using tags)?

I know I'm not that active anymore in posting stuffs (those takes so much time and nowadays I just don't have as much attention span as I used to have in making those posts. But, still it's just nice to see the old posts and reference to some old stuffs so I'd still want to keep those (memories, keepsakes, emotional attachments, yes those emo stuffs, you know the drill).

So, back to the question, to stay or not to stay...

Sigh...

Probably this is a way of telling me to get my shit together with my RL too...

i_am_zan knows me so well and that includes my sleeping problem. I've been having sleeping problem for months with sleeping intervals of 2-4 hours (5 hours if I'm lucky), so you can imagine how many hours I actually go on snooze in deep sleep each day despite the effort in sleeping early (obviously I watch so much lesser drama nowadays). I've tried essential oil, which smells heavenly but only works for awhile, unfortunately, but it does make you happier sniffing it; eye mask (those disposable eye masks endorsed by Sho-chan), they're great to make your eyes relax, but it doesn't help you sleep the whole 7 hours non-stop; and the last resort, sleeping pills (I took Benadrill equivalent, which was OK-ed by my bro, the pharmacist). Sleeping pills were a good last resort if you have the entire 10 hours to spend on literally sleeping, because what would happen if you only have around 6-7 hours sleeping time? Yep, you wake up with drowsiness and what do you do for instant recovery? You take coffee, and the cycle continues. I used to be able to sleep despite having coffee during the day (2 cups of kopi-o-kosong aka long black is no biggie for me). However, apparently this ability vanished after I stopped coffee or tea intake for the past 6 months due to my iron defficiency (this effort turned out to be futile as my last test turned out to be STILL in deficit level, boohoo, and now I'm taking iron supplement and awaiting for another follow up test in 2 months time). So, if I take 1 bloody instant coffee now, not even a long black, let alone kopi-o-kosong, I have to be prepared to count sheeps until 2am (or watching mindless youtube clips, or counting more sheeps).

So, obviously my eyebags getting darker and I'm sleep deprived, and work doesn't make life easier, and I'm getting easily provoked and cranky, and my blood pressure rise up (I managed to lower down my blood pressure somehow, a yey at the end of 2016 though, and I pray hard that it remain stable at that level).

Knowing all my health issues (especially when I complain about them every so often, and I do have a lot), and obviously I'm not the only one with the same sleeping problem in my office, my colleague suggested white noise. What's white noise? I also have no idea until I google (hurray for uncle google). The official wiki is here. But in my own definition, white noise is those sounds which are static enough that it can manipulate your psychological mood and lead your brain into a relax and calm state, and without you knowing it, you're snoozing. On top of white noise, there're also pink, brown, and purple noise. What's the difference? Honestly, I have no idea, especially wiki elaborate all those in academic terms. But the gist is, all these noise comes with a function to relax you. Some people use these noises to help them concentrate better and be productive in their study or work... not for me. I tried and I got tired instead, just give me Shinhwa/Arashi/V6 as BGM for my waking up hours, they'll do the job for me. If you youtube white noise, so many things and option will come up, from just statics to rains, nature, fans, water dripping, heartbeats sounds, with 1001 different frequency, volume, tempo, I mean, even rain has so many different sound (with thunder, light rain, drizzles, storms, heavy storms, rain dripping on tile, on tin roof, and so many more) and with duration. I-tunes also have 1001 options for you. And, we also have apps for this where you can record your own white noise, or mix and match and make your own white noise play list (pretty cool, until I don't know how to export the bloody thing into my music player in my phone).

So after 1 week of experiment, I find that I cannot use those itunes music files because they only last for 6-9 minutes and they have the decending sound to nothingness and if you loop it, it'll have stops and intervals. Now I kind of get it why youtube has 3, 6, 8, 9, 10 hours variation of clips. And I need the 10 hours clip to be able to sleep at least 6 hours non-stop. What happen with the shorter ones? I woke up after it finished, and with the looped itunes files, I could feel that the noise is finishing and I ended up not 100% sleeping. I also noticed that I only can take light rain sounds (rain makes me feel cooler, and it confirms the psychological thing when it rains, you just want to cuddle inside your comforter and snooze), and fire crackling sounds at most (it makes me feel warm and toasty, and zzzz). And it has to be in static, simple and stable waves, and no additional bird chirping, thunder, etc. It really goes down to your preferrence. So far, it works, and I hope I can ditch the sleeping pills option with this, and this is cheap and practically free (if you just use youtube and apps).

The clips which are working for me so far are: this, this (my favorite), and this.

I hope by sharing this experience, it can help those who have similar sleeping problems because sleep is important, as important as the rainbow pills in our lives!

And that senile grandma is really so determine in burry SMAP alive. And Arashi get to perform as the last performer in Kouhaku, gee, what a coincidence??? I'm proud for Arashi, HOWEVER, that place is like handed over to them, not achieved by them, and that disappoint me because Arashi will get it sooner or later anyway, but no, that senile grandma must do it this way.

SMAP is a freaking legend, at the very least they deserve to bow out with dignity, not being shunned away (rejecting Kouhaku invitation is just PURE BULLSHIT from Johnny's, who are they kidding? really? really? OK I need to cool down, phewwww) and locked in a box as if it's just a bad memory for that senile grandma.

Not impressed with how Johnny's deal with SMAP because it sets presedence to the junior groups (and it makes Arashi so politically correct now that it becomes boring tbh), and with that I can't really be happy with whatever had happened in 2016 (SMAP ends, Narimiya retires --> this is a very sad news and those tabloid people just need to burn in hell for ruining people's lives!!, and internationally Prince, George Michael, and so many more disappear from our world, plus we have that yellow bigbird as US president, and what happened in the Middle East, good lord, my heart breaks everytime I see the news, and all the stupidity going on in Indonesia, for godsakes religion should not be meddled with the nation prosperity)

NOW, I hope 2017 is better! Better J-drama (I have some expectation on Kimutaku drama, especially with the reunion of PRIDE couple), less angsty and better romcom K-drama, better world, better humanity, better economy revival (I know it's tough, but things need to turn around, else there'll be more horrible labor cuts and that's really bad), less economic greed (seriously, shareholders need to be controlled ethically, it's getting out of control on how companies push for short term profits). I think lots of these are wistful thinking, but we need hope to be living as humans, else we're just living beings crowding and destroying this place called earth.

D.Gray-man... what is this that I've watched??? Kanda was just too pitiful (but white hair Kanda is bloody damn cool!!!), and before we're going to get more Kanda angst, we'll have intermesso of Allen's angst??? Earl, what is it that you actually want? All those sufferings... each episode is just toying my heart. I don't really understand why Alma must kill Kanda though, he kept on saying that if he doesn't kill Kanda he'll... what? WHAT? Sorry, I ain't a mind reader, so just spell it out! In this episode, there's no thinking in Kanda, he kept on charging & attacking and it's heart wrenching. AND, why the hell is that hitler look-a-like dude still alive? The hatred that I got on him is deep, very deep (both his face & character are equally hatred-friendly).

And 1 more day to that harem drama... finally, but I'll wait for subs or maybe after 2 episodes, or maybe 4, but don't think I can last that long wait though. The longer preview just increases the temptation, sigh. This drama is practically a Fushigi Yuugi live action without 4 gods and all the magic, but still have the action. Just look at the princes, the eye candies <3. The me who don't watch Chinese drama purposely watch both season of Scarlett Heart just for this (1st season is good despite the long winded merry go round, that's why it's bloody damn long, 2nd season is meh and pissed me off real bad, no saving grace). The C-version is like watching a pre-set otome game with all the options explored. At this point, I don't really care what the K-version will be like, just look at the visual will make me happy. And since this drama sucks LJG's weight so much (he looks so bloody damn scrawny now, it's freaking me out), it'd better be good.



and I have a swollen toe now. The poor toe just endured the hit of the fallen of a mixing bowl with 1 kg of meatloaf mix. Thanksfully the bone is still in tact!

Last weekend was very eventful, we have the Gold for Singapore from swimming (a very big congrats to Joseph Schooling for his hardwork!!!), and at the same time the legendary Michael Phelps announcing his final bow with the Rio olympic, and so an era has ended. Then the next day we have another legend, SMAP, ending with disbandment by the end of 2016.

While it's kind of expected considering the how hateful that senile grandma towards SMAP, it still makes no sense to me businesswise to kill SMAP. They can be considered as mature product, but nowhere they're at the end of the product lifecycle. SMAPxSMAP is still raking the rating, the members still have CMs every now and then, their concerts is still full house, their albums/singles are still selling (despite the lack of singing, let's be real, they can't sing for their lives) --> still has more sales than V6, so why kill it? I only can see this as the senile grandma's personal vendetta and to set examples to the rest of the herds that she's still in power and it's her company and she can do whatever she wants with it, even sacrificing a marginal income. The only short term gain that we will see is probably the hike of old SMAP albums' sales, but don't think this goes 100% back to Johnny's. As for the marriage thingy, I don't find this as a reason for disbandment. Yes they may want to get married, but the fans age group is also maturing and I don't think the delluded ones make the majority of the pool, and if the management is smart enough they can prepare fans to understand them or do the proper press conference etc thing, whatever. I don't think that's impossible, unless the culture is so hypocritical to maintain the available bachelor image at all times, which kind of loss in translation when the idols are getting older. Still don't find this as a natural case of disbandment as I can imagine the whole lots of batshit office politics going on inside Johnny's.

So what does it mean by SMAP disbanding after 25 years? Other older groups are given the example that the groups' age are capped to 25? Yes they're old but they jolly well still can dance and will probably still be able to for the next 10 years. Look at Madonna, she still kicks ass despite her age. You just should not expect them to do backflips or those tough acrobatic moves. I'm worried of V6 now.

Having said that, thank you SMAP for the long running fun and glitters that you've brought for our entertainment. SMAPxSMAP skits are forever gold!!, Sekai ni Hitotsu Dake no Hana is one of the most memorable songs of all time, glorious concerts that I now will never be able to have a chance to even fantasizing of going (I hope Shingo will direct the kouhais concerts in the future), and many other fun moments. All the best for all members' future endavours. And Johnny's, since you're so shitty as a company, from now on, I'll only support V6 until the day you cut them (the money goes more to AVEX than to you), nothing more.

This is yet another sad reminder that there's no fandom that will last forever, everything will have an end someday, so enjoy it while it lasts.

My interest in anything related to Johnny's has been depleting for quite sometime. I think it started with the SMAP saga and at the same time, there's an over exposed of Arashi and other groups as well, in a sense. It's not about releasing more singles or albums, which I'd much prefer to actually, but it's the exposure in other media appearances which overwhelmed me. I'm not sure if it's actually already going on for quite some time and I only notice it recently OR it started right after the SMAP saga. But, bottom line is, Johnny's as a company has been pushing too many things at the same time everywhere and my imagination says it's their plan B considering SMAP situation now (I'm still waiting for Sep for the conclusion, and in the meantime SMAPxSMAP is not the same anymore to me :( ). This kind of push may not be so apparent if you only follow 1 group, but it's quite overwhelming when you follow afew, let alone majority of the groups, and if you see Johnny's as one company entity.

In dramaland, if you notice, I haven't been writing anything since Winter 2016 season because I only literally finished 1 drama (DameKoi), and for Spring 2016, I haven't even finished any, nor do I even have the will to continue watching them. I feel like I'm searching for the magic and trying hard to find it with the recent seasons of J-drama but the magic is not sparking or there're not even traces of glitters. It's either because my taste changes (which I don't think so, my criteria for drama is still the same), or my mood changes, or the J-drama land just sucks all together lately. I don't think it's the last part (I still have some faith in J-drama) regardless whether it's complex or simple plot drama. But I find that even the rom-com theme is hard to watch. Is marriage that important? seems that TV station is painting across everywhere in their romcom drama that it's a girl's dream to get married. I'd prefer K-drama blatant inserts of girls must be married after certain age culture. It's sexist and equally annoying, but at least they don't try to be passive agressive about it. And to make it worse, I don't really look forward to Summer drama especially after I watched some episodes of Misaeng (yep, the K-drama version of that Nakajima Yuuto's new drama). If J-drama version if going for the same intensity as the K-drama, then it has better be as intense as Hanzawa Naoki (it has similar feels anyway), else, it'll go south, but I'm still waiting to be proven wrong here, because Misaeng has a good theme, which is very relatable to Japan work culture. At the same time, I'll make a note to check out more of TVN's drama. I like Queen Inhyeon's Man and Another Miss Oh (it better be happy end, else I'll be devastated). What about the live actions? I already see 2 adaptations Happy Mari and Seisei Suruhodo, Aishiteru, and to be honest I don't have good feeling for both. I love the manga version of Happy Mari, and though I like Dean Fujioka, I don't think he can do justice for Hokuto. On the other hand, Happy Mari will be a good source for K-drama because it has all the scheming of a chaebol company and inheritance, which are the regular theme of K-drama anyway, and the current K-drama makes more convincing bed scenes than J-drama (not all, but still better), and Happy Mari is afterall, a smut manga, not shoujo, so if J-drama ends up deleting all the bed scenes, then, well, there goes the so-called live action. I haven't read Seisei, but from the synopsis, it makes me wonder, how the drama actually going to turn up as, another boring live action or there's extra effort to it?

All these factors plus limited internet access (cannot download, only can do streaming with plenty of patience), leads me to... Shinhwa blackhole. Yes it's a blackhole because I only started with re-collecting Shin Hyesung's songs. I used to listen to his songs (his voice soothes me), not Shinhwa, and I forgot about him until recently when I started to check out k-pop again (he had an mini album out early this year - and it's a good one, something different from him). And while doing that, I realized why I never really listen to Shinhwa in the past... it's because their old albums have lots of R&B stuffs. Their newer albums (The Returns onwards) are easier to my ears, and now they're already matured and basically can do whatever they want with their song releases (much like the older Johnny's have a say in whatever they're releasing). Since Shinhwa is still active and started from not far from H.O.T era (yeah I listened to T.O.P that long time ago, and that's the only song I know of Shinhwa), their material is equally abundance like V6's (Kpop being Kpop has Youtube to testify for it, not like... Johnny's), and the more I read about them the more I find that they have the V6's endurance, SMAP's brotherhood and Arashi's charms. Their variety show, Shinhwa Broadcast is like 1 hour version of Arashi no Shukudai-kun. I'd think that if Arashi has V6's popularity trend, it'd be exactly like that. Right now, VS Arashi is boring for me (repeatitive), I'm indifferent about Arashi ni Shiyagare (Nino's yelling out answer is getting annoying and I realized I only watch AniShi nowadays for Matsujun's segment), and I only watch Sho-chan's Yakai show if the guests are the ones I like.

So, in the meantime, unless J-drama offer something different, I'll be going deeper and deeper into Shinhwa blackhole...
And I'd kill if V6 does this choreography!!! V6 may not be able to sing as good (cough - Ken's fault), but they jollywell can dance this and main reason is coz I want to see Ken do Andy's part!

This is just something that came across to me when I watching Omotesando Koukou Gasshoubu! and it just made me think again that 'awesome'. Well, actually this is not anything new, and am sure there are people thinking, 'so? what's so great about it?'.

For the popular actors, you get to see them as a lead role in a drama for 1 season, and probably another lead role for an SP in that particular year. Ample of time to adjust, research and work on the character etc. If that people is really awesomely popular and on high demand eg. Mukai Osamu at one point, or now Fukushi Sota, you get a drama lead role in more than 1 season. From the drama that I saw so far though (disclaimer: I'm writing only based on drama that I actually watched), often when those popular ones are cast as lead roles again and again, they'll end up get casted to a mold roles, but still as a lead. Kimutaku is one of the examples in here. He has so many Getsuku drama with lead roles as so many different profession, different settings, but in essence his role is the same, that kakkoii cool guy. It's so difficult for him to break that molded stereotype role, and when he tried to do something different, the rating went down (eg. Ando Lloyd), he got boo-ed. It's good that I think finally Kimutaku is somehow breaking that sterotype mold. Look at Musashi and I'm Home, I'm actually very impressed wiith these 2 drama XD. Fukushi Sota will most probably go down the same path as well, though probably not as extreme as Kimutaku. Mukai has broken down that cool guy stereotype from Kaibutsu SP, and now doing a more random roles. I hope Sakai Masato doesn't fall into the mold roles as extreme character. He's been appearing quite often after Hanzawa Naoki XD.

But what about those people doing supporting roles? Afterall, a drama won't exist with just the lead roles only. That's when we have the supporting roles in the drama. And since supporting roles won't be having screen time in all episodes, a lot of times they'll appear in more than 1 drama in the season, and continuously appearing on the next season drama and the next next season as different people with different profession and setting. The perfect example that I can think of is Takenaka Naoto. He's practically almost everywhere and appearing in 80% of the drama that I've watched, especially after Nodame. In every drama that I've seen, he's different. He can be the very character that you trully hate, or despise to the character that you symphatize and even find it cute. Sometimes he's so subtle that I'm not so sure that it's him until I look up on the Internet. And that's what I always think about the magic of acting, and that's awesome.

Now back to what I just watched. In Omotesando Koukou Gasshoubu! Takahata Atsuko appears as the principal at Omotesando. There's one scene where she had a chat with our heroinne reminiscing how our heroinne sounds just like her mother and gave encouraging note to her. The way she conducts herself is so motherly and kind, just like the ideal principal.

If you watch M-Station religiously, you'll understand better Japanese culture and trend in music. And M-Station has the corner whereby they do surveys every now and then on different generations, different genre etc etc. This is the perfect information needed by marketing people. Roughly you'll know what people like, from different generations, different era, etc etc and that's what makes out of pop culture... to me.

The 5th Sep M Topic had the corner whereby they survey primary kids what's the song that they're currently addicted to. The survey is conducted between 26th Aug to 1st Sep on 829 kids. It's not a large pool, but hey, it's still interesting.

So what are kids listening to?


( Find out here XD )