Archive for the ‘ Thoughts ’ Category
As I’m sitting here happily munching on caramel popcorn for dessert and feeling bits getting stuck in my braces, I can’t help but wonder:
What’s worse for your teeth, salt or sugar?
It’s really hard to Google that question, I keep getting responses about health and dieting instead of teeth XD
I would love to see Romeo and Juliet rewritten, then performed in pig-latin. Just thought I’d point that out before I start working on my Macbeth IA…
I call it: PEROGYKINESIS. The possessor of this mega-awesome super-power can… you guessed it! Communicate telepathically with perogies!
I should totally start writing a comic. I mean, I’ve got my protagonist, Perogyman, and his trusty sidekick Sauerkrautlad, I could write about their misadventures throughout the world… WHILE CHASING THEIR NEMESIS, THE MAD MAID *cue lightning strike*
I’ll make a cover when I have the time.
Well, yesterday was Mother’s day, so my mom wanted to go out for a walk with the family (minus daddy, who got whisked off to Germany because of work >.<) and then stop by a restaurant. As we were walking by some Anglican church and retirement home, I was watching the robins and grackles as they randomly took off and landed, and noticed a little pattern in their method of landing, which has lead to the question:
Do birds think like right-handed people?
See, I noticed while we were walking that every time the birds would spread their wings and tail feathers out for a landing, they ALWAYS turned to the right to slow down. Now, I’m no avian psychoanalyst or something, but that little pattern’s gotta mean something, right? I could write my thesis on this in university… wait, I refuse to endure another year of biology and think psychology is illogical madness since there’s no numbers involved, maybe that’s a bad idea for me XD Ah well, maybe I can suggest that to someone studying as a vet or something someday.
*I POSTED THIS BEFORE I FINISHED IT BECAUSE I GOT BORED*
I dunno, I was listening to some good ol’ Arashi (Tokei Jikake no Umbrella ;)) and I suddenly felt myself wondering:
Really, what parts can be combined to make a good vocal group?
So, I’ve decided to look at a few groups in an attempt to figure out what minimum 5 parts can be factored into an equation to determine the general goodness of vocal groups. The groups I’ll be examining are: Arashi, B2ST, f(x) (pre-NU ABO, I can’t discern any vocal talent out of any of the newer stuff anyways), DBSK, MBlaq, SHINee, SNSD, Wondergirls, 2NE1 and 4minute. Anyone who wants to disregard my opinion because I’m only looking at Asian groups, shut up and go away… Just kidding~ *hugs* I love you too, I just don’t care much for English groups anymore XD
I’ll split the elements and trends I find into “factors,” since obviously not all bands will contain all these “factors” or may contain a person that could be a mix of “factors.”
Let’s face it, in most vocal groups, the leader ends up being good at freaking EVERYTHING. Now, obviously being good at singing is the main criteria here, but the leader is often also good at: dancing, rapping, being beautiful (if that counts XD), or all of the above.
Examples:
This is a commonly recurring factor among K-pop groups today since companies are demonstrating a trend of spewing out groups with only 2, 3 years of training as a group, and as a result there’s often really good and really bad people. Sometimes they’ll just pick the eldest of the group to be the leader and not ask any questions (*COUGH* 4minute *COUGH*), sometimes they’ll be smart and hold some kind of friendly competition among the members, but regardless, there is almost always a singer that will be at par or beyond the leader’s singing ability.
Examples:
It’s nice having rappers in a group to keep things interesting. That, and usually some kind of epic rap can be found at the climax of nearly every pop song in existence. This person’s usually got some decent vocal skills to boot too.
Examples:
Sometimes I wonder what talent scouts/producers/directors/whoever the heck puts people in a band were thinking when they put these kinds of people in a band. Then I remember it’s because they look good on promotional posters, in commercial appearances, or something else. Often this person’s talent will be slightly above that of an average person, but really nothing spectacular. A lot of the time, they can’t even perform well. Other times, it’s just some really young person that everyone goes “OMG THEY MUST BE SOOO GUD IF THEIR IN A BAND” over (which really annoys the heck out of me, frankly). I’d just like to point out right here that so far I’ve been having a lot of trouble finding this factor in a boy band.
Examples:
This is the one in the band that can get away with screaming into the mic, but somehow managing to keep that screaming in tune and musical. And I don’t mean a little scream like “YAOH” and move on, I mean like an epic, long scream like Max’s “YEAAAAAAAAH” in Mirotic. This person is usually male too, guys screaming in that distinctly manly way is something that for some reason doesn’t always work for us gals x.x
Examples:
I dunno, I’ve noticed there tends to be someone with this distinct breath-y sound in some groups. I actually kind of like that sound to be perfectly honest, it’s so… well, distinct, compared to everyone else XD
Examples:
Wait, it is time for my randomly selected 7 songs of the week, right? Ah well, not like I’ll have time to do this tomorrow so I might as well do it now 😉
1) Truth – Arashi: I just started watching Maou, and I already thought the song was awesome, but Maou’s intro just caused the awesomeness of Truth to increase substantially.
2) The Phantom of the Opera: it has taken me… 3 or 4 months to figure out what the lines “I am the mask you wear/It’s me they hear” meant. Somehow it becomes easier to appreciate the work put into a song when you actually understand the lyrics.
3) Revolution – The Beatles: I dunno, this just sorta jumped out at me as I stared at my iTunes library trying to think of more songs to put here.
4) Dreams Come True – 4minute: this song is a refreshing break from 4minute’s (almost annoying) synth-pop style, taking a more rock-y mood instead. Not to mention their actual vocal talent can actually be heard in this song. It’s pretty good, it’s not really easy to get stuck in your head, but it would be nice if 4minute kept this style going.
5) Piano Man – Billy Joel: I like how this song tells a story and maintains coherence. Billy Joel’s pretty dang awesome too; writing his own songs, singing them and playing the piano…
6) Feel Your Breeze – V6: bah, I’m tired, suddenly I’m feeling too lazy to actually write a description for this… bah, who am I kidding? Those of you who have seen Gokusen will know this song and acknowledge the catchy-ness of it. But it is a nice song; V6 is an interesting band.
7) Perfect Man – Shinhwa: God, I LOVE the intro to this song. The perfect manipulation of stereo sounds and beautiful opening vocals literally send shivers down my spine. Unfortunately I tend to stop caring about the rest of the song and only listen to the first 7 seconds, but the rest of the song is okay too XD
I was staring at the blog’s sidebars when I noticed something random.
Why do diagonal lines look so much cooler than horizontal and vertical ones?
Well, I guess that doesn’t really apply to clothing, I only really find horizontal lines appealing on clothing…
Speaking of clothing, I had random inspiration for a costume a while ago. I might as well put it here so I don’t forget it… okay, and so people can read about it too, but mostly because I don’t want to forget it: I have this white fedora with gray (DIAGONAL!) stripes, so what I wanna do is get a white suit jacket, white dress pants and some light gray dress shirt and be all like “I’M AN INVERTED BLUES BROTHER. I’M A BLUES SISTA!” But wait, what would I do for footwear? Black doesn’t go with the ensemble and white gets dirty easily… gray shoes sound kinda weird though O.o Not to mention I’d have to wear matching socks… ew >.>
As I was at the dentist’s getting my braces tightened, a strange thought struck me as I was waiting for the dentist to come, watching one of the nurses working on another man in the room across from mine:
Does it feel weird when dentists work on people with mustaches? What about beards?
Speaking of teeth-stuff, I got super-awesome news while I was getting my braces tightened: since I’m being a good girl and wearing my elastics every day, my teeth are moving even faster than expected so I might get my braces off a few months early 😉
I dunno, I find this whole Windows-Mac-Linux fanboy rivalry thing kind of weird. Maybe it’s because the whole idea that everyone should just freaking get along is an idea that I’ve had since I figured out I could think for myself.
For the technologically unknowing, you’re probably using Windows XP/Vista/7. And that’s fine, I’m chill with Windows. There’s a lot of software for Windows, but the abundance of viruses kind of sucks. There’s also two other operating systems other than Windows out there:
1) Mac OS X: it’s even glossier than Windows. Dunno if it’s really faster or better or anything, but the smaller proportion of viruses is kind of nice. For some reason it’s considered gay by some people, but I could care less, I’m chill with Macs too. Even if the machines are ridiculously overpriced compared to what they’re actually worth and Apple is kind of a corporate a- okay, let’s go to Linux.
2) Linux: Linux users enjoy bragging about how they don’t need antivirus because there’s practically no viruses for Linux. There’s also practically no good programs. Thought I’d just point that out. Even though I’m still chill with Linux. And considering Linux is open-source, someone with a lot of free time could search for something ridiculously exploitable at any time. But usually Linux users have a clue what they’re doing so maybe that exploit wouldn’t get around. Who knows.
It’s not that I’m biased for Windows, I’m just biased against everything. Is this even a rant? I dunno, I’m not really in a rant-y mood. Just thought I’d spill my thoughts on operating system fanatics. I’m not all “Windows 7 4 life” or anything, I just don’t really care what anyone thinks makes their OS so much better than everyone else’s. Fanatics bug me.
Jess' Centre of Randomness 