#212 - aussie open wrap-up

right now i'm watching the australian open men's singles final... roger vs. rafa, and i realized that i haven't posted at all about the aussie open yet. well, i've been busy these past two weeks (a lot of that due to struggling to keep up with all the tennis on espn as "live" as possible so i don't see the news reports before i watch the matches) so here's my aussie open wrap-up (starting from the beginning), written live while i watch the final match of the tournament.
1. maria sharapova not here! wah. the defending champ is still nursing her shoulder after her season-ending surgery before the us open last year... hope she'll be back soon... really hope.

2. hewitt vs. gonzalez - this was a 1st round match... ouch. tough for both of them, hewitt was a former no. 1, australian, trying to make a go of it in the waning years of his career, and gonzalez was the aussie open runner-up (to federer) in 2007 and played absolutely fantastically the whole tournament. after five great sets gonzalez won it (deservedly) but it was high quality stuff... too bad for hewitt and the homecrowd though.

3. venus loses in the second round. this was a total shocker to me, i thought she had looked real good in the second half of last year (since her win at wimbledon), but she does have some monster upsets in her history so i guess here's one more to add to the list.

4. the very next day ana ivanovic goes out! she was the runner-up last year and so much fun to watch (plus she's pretty...), but she hasn't been doing very well at all after her win at the french open last year so let's hope she gets back on track...

5. roger federer vs. tomas berdych - fourth round match, federer came out flat and dropped the first two sets... when have you ever seen federer down 0-2 (besides against nadal, of course)? but this is not the roger federer of 2008, it's a new year and this is a new roger federer and he comes back to win it in five sets, awesome.

6. jelena dokic - the return of jelena dokic, around the year 2000 she was a great up-and-comer on the women's side, but it was her father that made the most news, he was completely domineering over her and made tons of controversial statements against other players, tournaments and even to their own australian tennis organization. so it was a great story for her to break away from her father, become independent, even start playing tennis again, and here, in her first major tournament back, in her (now) home country, to get all the way to the quarterfinals. nice story.

7. andy roddick - boy is it good to see roddick playing well again. not only playing well but also doing well in a big tournament. this year roddick got to the semifinals, beating novak djokovic (the defending champion) in the quarters and playing well against federer, but federer just had too much game for andy. it's definately a match-up thing with federer, but regardless, roddick should be a serious competitor for every hard court event and it's good to see him back actually making that happen.

8. fernando verdasco - a couple of years ago i watched a davis cup match between roddick and fernando verdasco and i said whoa, this guy's my new second favorite (because my favorite will always be roger federer, of course). but verdasco had game. it took him awhile to put it all together (maybe i saw that match 2 years ago?) but take a look and what he can do now. i love this guy's game, if there's anyone to try an emulate as a young kid playing tennis i'd pick verdasco (because federer's way out of anyone's league obviously, haha). but finally doing well in the big situations, he was the hero of spain at the very end of last year with his title clinching win in the davis cup and i guess that gave him the confidence to let his game explode 'cause he looked fantastic at this year's aussie open. he smashed opponents all the way to the semifinals (beating no. 4 andy murray and no. 5 and last year's runner-up tsonga) and almost beat nadal (and i love anyone who gives nadal trouble) in a fantastically played 5 hour and 14 minute 4 set semifinal (verdasco actually won 192 total points to nadal's 193). this guy's gonna have a great year i hope because i wanna see him make some noise in the big tournaments. he'll be in to the top 10 for the first time in his career next week (at no. 9 probably) and i hope he continues to do well.

9. serena williams is a beast. y'know that picture in my previous post? you gotta see the live action shot of that... scary. seriously though, it's so good to see her dominating again, i want her to dominate. women's tennis has seriously been lacking a real no. 1 since justine henin retired before the french open (when she was no. 1) and since then the power vaccuum that created has been driving the women's game crazy. but here comes serena (finally) to step up, win the championship and retake the number 1 ranking. it's about time. she also won the doubles title with venus... another "it's about time" for them, to be playing doubles, cause it seems like everytime they do, they win the whole thing. *PS - good day for americans in doubles, bob and mike bryan also won the men's doubles title so the williams and bryans sweep men's and women's doubles titles in australia.

10. roger vs. rafa - right now it's the second set... rafa won the first set 7-5 and it's on serve with rafa trying to get even serving from behind at 3-4. and here i am typing and cheering each time roger wins a point. trying to will roger to victory. i mean, rafa just has federer's number, all of his strengths play right into federer's weaknesses and all of federer's best plays are absolutely ineffective against nadal. WOO! okay, federer just broke nadal and he'll serve for the second set at 5-3.

seriously though, in my eyes federer's the greatest of all time, if he wins this title he'll tie pete sampras' record of 14 grand slam titles (neither pete nor roger have won the french open, but roger's been in the finals twice and pete's never gotten close). but this match-up with nadal is just too much for federer. granted, the match-up with the now no. 1 ranked nadal is too much for pretty much everyone on tour, but federer just can't seem to get the wins. WOO! federer just held serve to win the second set 6-3 so now it's tied at 1 set all and we're going to the 3rd set.

whew, i want roger to win this one, and not only that, i want him to turn this rivalry around and start dominating nadal, i don't like that guy. i mean, he's probably a good guy and you can't deny that his game is pretty superhuman, but i just don't like him. i might be the sleeveless shirts all the time (including at wimbledon, tsk tsk), or the girl pants, or the long, nappy hair, he just looks dirty all the time. at least he's wearing a shirt with sleeves for this aussie open, but he's wearing shorts with little rhinestones all over it... what's up with that? girlie. haha, but i don't like his game, or the grunts, or the faces he pulls. all of that is in such opposition to roger, who flies around the court quietly and looks like he hardly ever sweats. roger's game is just so much more likeable to me that i want him to win everytime.

okay, now it's tied at one set all and it's 5-5 in the third set... so i'm gonna quit it with the blogging, post this up and watch the rest of the match, go roger!

#211 - need a weekend

busy past two weeks, for sure. some in a good way, mostly not so much though. well, good in the way that it's a lot of new and neat experiences, but not so much because i need to fit in a little more down time and some of the new experiences were not so great. but, either way lots of things happened so here's the scoops:
1. dork-estra - man the orchestra is a super dorky thing. forget the fact that, number one, it is an orchestra, but you'd probably guess that you could find at least a few normal, nice people in ANY organization right? well you'd guess wrong. besides the fact that everyone is tremendously older than me, they are also massively weird. mostly it's the old (by old, i mean, senior citizen, or at least acting like senior citizens) people who are just old and disgruntled. but then there are the super-into-music nerdy ones (like the one i have to sit next to who says "it looks like tonight we'll be performing the cell phone symphony in d-flat" whenever anyone's phone goes off during rehearsal) who are completely socially awkward, and i want to be nice by making conversation with them but i also don't want to because then i'll be associated with the nerds.

anyway, so the last two weeks i've been having a number of rehearsals for this special one-time mozart concert, which might have been kind of cool, i mean, it was in this cool church (cathedral of our lady peace) and playing in more like a chamber orchestra is a lot different than playing in a band. but alas, it was very far from cool. well, a lot of that had to do with the music, i just can't get excited about this old stuffy music. it's ultra-long (one symphony, in four movements, was fully 30 minutes long, which was half the program), it's mind-numbingly repetitive, and there's just nothing very interesting about it (although, i guess you could argue that the predictability of the musical themes, like how every phrase resolves, etc, is what makes this type of music, especially mozart, so likable to so many people). i'd really love to play something more like songs from princess mononoke or if you're gonna go with the classical stuff at least make it a little more well known. oh well, i only played in the very first song anyway (they didn't make clarinet parts for the other songs) and that was all of 5 minutes long. but i stuck around after my part to listen to the rest of the program, mostly because of the church, i think if it was in a regular building i would've book-ed it way outta there.

but now that concert is over and all i have to worry about again is monday rehearsals (even though those aren't so much fun anymore, for a variety of reasons), at least it's not overload like it's been (6 rehearsals and a concert all in the past 9 days) so perhaps it'll be a little more manageable now. that's what i need, just a casual "sometimes" kinda hobby.

2. unhealthy day - so with all of that busy-ness, i've had to skip a few yogas and some workouts and many hours of sleep, and all that's taken its toll. in fact, on wednesday (the day after the concert was finally over) i had to take an intentionally unhealthy day. last week friday i had mcdonald's for dinner because it was late and nothing was open and the drive thru was on the way home, and then for some reason i've wanted to eat mcdonald's all that weekend, and i never eat mcdonalds, not because i have will power to resist fast food, but because i don't even crave it. and on wednesday all i could think about was chicken mcnuggets and fries. ugh. so i had to take an intentionally unhealthy day, ate mcd's for lunch, skipped the wednesday workout and couch potato-ed it all afternoon watching my dvr-ed tv shows. but that was exactly what i needed. i needed that extra purposeful downtime to get myself recharged and back on track. like brandi commented about wanting to make the most of every day i very often give myself guilt when i don't fill up my days with activities and experiences because i feel like i'm wasting my life or youth or something, but ever since that post when i decided to stop writing down all my daily activities on the calendar i've been much less guilt-riden and enjoying going with the flow of life more, which is a very happy thing for me. so this unhealthy day was desperately needed, it gave me a chance to catch up on...

3. real reality tv - while i do love american idol, i'm even more of a sucker for real reality tv, which is... SPORTS! of course. these past two weeks was the australian open and man has it been great! the return of jelena dokic (a serbian who plays for australia, so the home crowd was way into her run to the quarterfinals after being out of the game for years... like since 2001 really when she was a top 4 teenager). andy roddick playing well again, taking out defending champ novak djokovic and then playing a great match against roger federer in the semifinals. and one of my faves from a couple of years ago fernado verdasco nearly taking nadal out in a 5 hour and 14 minute semifinal (a couple of years ago verdasco played roddick in some davis cup match and i liked his game, thought he'd make some noise sometime soon... well, it took a couple of years, but i think he's on the right track to some big wins now). serena williams playing right now as i type this against dinara safina (marat safin's little sister) for her 10th grand slam title (and 4th aussie open championship) and no. 1 ranking. but the story of the tournament i'm sure is still to come tomorrow night when the now no. 2 roger federer takes on the now no. 1 rafael nadal for the men's title. they've never played in a hard court major (the aussie and us open are played on hard courts) and nadal's had roger's number on clay and then just beat him in that monster wimbledon final last year so this one has got to be awesome. i'm looking for roger to reclaim the top with this win... go roger!

but the problem with this tv is that it's live in australia, which gives the prime time matches a 10:30 pm start time so i've been majorly losing sleep, and that leads me to...

4. need a weekend - i need some recovery time. y'know how when you're training they say rest and recovery is just as important as working out, i mean, if you don't give yourself the time to let your body heal, temper, and re-steel itself then you're not going to see results. and so that's what i need. i finally had some time to get to the gym today and give myself a nice workout, then i ate some good food, nutritioned myself up and gave myself the rest of the day off to recover. of course, it helped that there was UH volleyball on tv (and they actually won! finally, i think they got a good team, but they've been losing a LOT and only ranked 12th... mike wilton's coaching has always been a question mark for me, still, they got the talent to keep it going, like the upset they pulled tonight over no. 2 cal state northridge) and right now i'm watching serena williams dominate safina in the first set of the women's final, she's up 5-0 already, geez, she's a monster, i mean, just look:

5. on the up and up - and i'm going to need this weekend because i definately have a lot coming up, it's an exciting time of year for me because there's a lot going on, things to keep me busy and doing new things and things to look forward to, like:
- volleyball league starting up, i love playing volleyball (even more than watching it) and i so rarely get to actually play so i relish every second of this volleyball even though it's with my dad and all his almost-senior citizen friends, nah, but it's fun anyway
- tennis league starting up, same deal, love playing, don't get to do it much, but this time it's my sister and her friends who are starting a team so i'm lucky i get to join in too, and i get even less opportunities to play actual tennis matches so i love every chance i can get
- weather getting warmer so i can go surfing again, i haven't been in a long time, partly because it's been too big up north (and i've been so spoiled by going exclusively up north that i don't even want to hike it down to white plains most of the time) but mostly because i don't think i'd last 5 minutes in the water when i can't even go outside without a jacket (even though i love the cool jacket-wearing weather)
- UH actually doing good in basketball and volleyball at the same time, well, let's not get too excited, it is still UH afterall, but after being so spoiled by women's volleyball the rush of excitement and anxiety to see if they'll even win half their games is kinda fun
- schedule's kinda back to manageable so i can fit in my workouts and yoga classes along with all my activities, just gotta keep the sleep (or lack of) in check
- and finally... SUPERBOWL SUNDAY! i'm all for steelers, but you gotta credit arizona huh? something to be said about underdogs... and that's why roger federer will win his pete sampras record-typing 14th grand slam men's singles championship tomorrow, believe!

#210 - kaena point

on martin luther king day holiday we took a hike to kaena point from the waianae side. it took super long to get there (both to drive there and to walk there). it was a good hike though, the surf was pretty huge, you can't really tell from these pictures, but we were pretty high up and far away from the breaks so it was a TON bigger than it looks in the pics.
it was like this along the whole way, cliff and ocean on one side, and cliff and mountain on the other, very cool.
keane wanted to climb everything.
a little over halfway through there's this arch that you can check out, we climbed down to see it...
and at the end there's a little beachy, tide-pool area with a couple of seals hanging out, very sweet.

well, it's starting on busy time for me, starting this month my freetime gets very limited, but for a few very good reasons:

1. volleyball - i play volleyball on my dad's team with all his old friends, it's pretty lame, but most of them (even the really really old people) have been playing together for a very long time so they're pretty good for old people. the schedule is kinda random, but we play on some mondays, wednesdays, and thursdays, but i like it so = good.

2. new tv season - american idol, lost, bones, the office, all my shows are back on tv and even though i've got dvr now i have to watch at least american idol when it's actually on so i can talk to everyone about it the next day, haha

3. tennis - hopefully i'll be able to join my sister's friends on their league tennis team, i don't get to play very much, and hardly play matches ever, but i really would like to at least do something competitive with tennis because i kinda feel dumb taking lessons and not having anything to show for it

4. orchestra - wow, so embarrassing... but it's going into full swing now so i'm gonna have to dork it up for a few more months

so, i'm gonna have to cut back on some stuff... yoga's been taking a hit since american idol is on tuesdays. i guess i can cut out some workouts since i'll be doing lots of physical things. but last year what really took a hit was my sleep... i was getting like 6 hours and less a night last year and that was bad. so i'm gonna have to work to keep my sleep tight. blah, what a boring post. i'm in a lull right now... i gotta go to orchestra practice tomorrow and then again on monday and then to a concert on tuesday so i think i'm slipping back into full dork-mode... gotta get out of it... break free...soon...

but, speaking of dorkiness, how much do i love 30 rock right now? uh-duh-ee...

#209 - effort

i think i've been a stout believer in the whole "work smarter, not harder" philosophy. in my head, that equates to doing things in the most efficient way possible with the least amount of effort possible. like even from when i was a little kid i would never take more than one trip between car and house when helping my mom carry in groceries because i believed that it was possible to carry everything all at once (thereby reducing the un-needed extra trip, which mean extra effort to me). and then i'd drop stuff because i was a kid and then i'd get yelled at for not taking two trips, but i'd do it the same way the next time. and whenever i had to set the table i made sure to plan my walks between kitchen and dining room so that my hands were never empty (i.e. i always carried something that needed to be in the other room so i wouldn't have to take a wasted trip back for it). seems ocd, and it probably was a little bit, but that meant that i was being efficient and effective right?

anyway, so i think that way of thinking spread to other areas of my life as i grew older... i did not feel it was necessary to do too much school-work (aka "effort") if i could get a good feel for what was gonna be on the test (because that's all i really needed to know about most subjects). doing that over and over again made me really good at giving teachers what they wanted without having to over-study everything and make myself miserable. so by doing all this, i think i got a pretty good balance between being successful in what i'm doing and also liking it and having fun with it.

so, this brings me to the point of this post... so i joined that community orchestra right? well, i joined it with the intention of it being a pretty casual hobby. a once-a-week kind of thing where i could go there, play a bit, maybe perform once in awhile to give it at least some importance, but after those two hours are over i can go about the rest of my life stress-less.

well, i think that may change... i just finished my first stint with them, it was a short 6 week thing for a couple of christmas concerts, so i guess that's why the music was pretty easy. i didn't practice for it and the rehersals were just fun run-throughs of the songs. but... now they're starting a new round of rehearsals for about 3 months with new songs that are quite a bit harder. on top of that, one of the conductors (who is also my old teacher who plays the same instrument as i do) said that he would like to "groom me" to take over playing the 1st part for when he does his conducting stint (there are three conductors and they rotate playing instruments and conducting). so, now i have to play the 1st part, which is also considerably harder than the 2nd part i was previously playing.

so, this is the problem. i know i have a long time until the concert and if i wanted to i could still just go to the once-a-week rehearsals and not touch the music outside of that and be fine in time for the concert... but, since there are only three of us playing the same instrument and now i might be the only one playing the 1st part i'm very exposed during rehearsals and so i feel like i have to make sure that i know the part well enough to play as if everything was a solo. great. this is exactly what i did NOT want. all i wanted was a casual little hobby that i could do for fun with very little to no stress. in fact, right before he told me that i'd be taking over the 1st part i was actually thinking of telling them that i was gonna take a little break from the orchestra (volleyball season's coming up and some games fall on the same day as rehearsals and i really like playing volleyball and i don't get the opportunity to do so very much so i'm not missing those games). but so much for that plan! and plus, those other guys who play the same instrument as me are BETTER than me, but they just don't come to rehearsals consistently (they actually have jobs and possibly lives... although they're pretty dorky so i'm not sure about that) so that's why i got the call.

ugh. i'm not looking forward to this. how did this casual little hobby turn into something so involved? but that guy who was my old teacher gets so excited now that he has me to talk all dorky music stuff to so how i can disappoint? he's always telling me he wants to conduct this song or that song, and he sends me music by email and tells me to study it because he wants to do that song in the next concert round, and he tells me to go out and buy the cd recording of it to follow along or to buy my own music stand or to buy this or that other dorky music thing and i want to tell him, "y'know, i really don't want to spend any money on this stuff," but he gets so excited about it can't bring myself to kill his buzz.

so here i go. i'm gonna go practice now. ugh. what a dork am i.

#208 - nerd tv

i love nerd tv. its awesome. perhaps because i am a nerd, but perharps because i am actually really super cool and now everyone in the television world is starting to realize that.

haha, actually, i think it's probably because now all the people who grew up with the things that i grew up with are finally old enough to be in a position to effect the media. that and tina fey. here are two examples:

#1 -
kenneth does "top that" from teen witch. if you've never seen this movie, it's hilarious. ultimate corny teen movie from the 90's, my sister loved it and so i had to watch it TONS (feel very sorry for me please). so, there's this "cool" group at school of three guys who "rap," with their boom box and fluorescent clothes (check out the dance moves, HAHAHAHAHAHA!). but the one laugh my ass off part in the movie was when the witch girl uses her "powers" to enable her shy friend to finally talk (or, more accurately, rap) to the guy... here's the clip

"look at how funky he is."


and here's tina fey's shout out to my days of youth by having kenneth reprise the rap on last week's episode of 30 rock:


#2 -
doogie howser, m.d. who knew neil patrick harris has been around so long and is still around?! wow, it seems like he'll be forever connected to our generation huh? first doogie, then rent (which we actually saw with him in it on that pasedena trip, i admit i didn't really like it all that much, but got a huge kick out of seeing doogie in it), and now he's on that other show that's kinda crappy, but he was on snl yesterday so check out this doogie tribute:

love the teardrop right?

#207 - piano

how awesome is this? so the piano i bought was finally delivered and i couldn't be happier. it is exactly what i need to finish off my place, the last piece of the puzzle i think to make my home pretty darn perfect. i think it still needs a little bit of breaking in (and a tuning) because it's a brand new piano, but what a difference it makes being able to play in my own home.
all this time i've been going home to my parent's house to play (and they have a baby grand so it does sound nicer, but i really like the action on this new piano, even though it's an upright) but now i've got a great new hobby to explore daily, sweet.
i can't tell you how awesome it is to finally have a piano in my home, i've been searching for one practically since i moved in and now, a year and four months later i've finally got one... i love it.

#206 - american idol preseason

getting ready for american idol season yet? only a couple more weeks 'til the first episode (also just a few more weeks until new man vs. wild episodes, woo!). is it sad that i'm so into this show? probably, but screw it, letting yourself go with the media flow is healthy sometimes, allow yourself to get caught up in pop culture every now and then, it's fun (and then you have something to talk about to your 40 year old co-workers).

anyway, to warm up for american idol season fox reality channel is showing old episodes of last year's american idol. these are TONS better than those dumb "american idol rewind" shows with all the dumb commentary and "exclusive" interviews. after watching a few of those you start to realize what a crappy show american idol was in the very beginning, or in other words, it makes you realize how great of a show it was last season. not only were the singers pretty great all around, they were very likeable... even the dummies like jason castro had their merits (like i probably would have liked them a lot if they didn't go so far in the show instead of some of my other favorites). in fact, last year i didn't DIS-like anyone in the top 12 and i could've even saved some people from the top 24.

so i had the dvr running 'cause they show a few episodes every day and i just finished watching all the audition episodes and the hollywood episode, i was getting all nostalgic kinda. that's embarrassing. but i really liked all those people. i guess that's really what makes the show huh? i mean, talent is one thing, but you gotta be interested in caring about what happens to the people, and that they definately got right last year. so we'll see what happens when the season starts up again this month...

all that being said... what did happen to all those american idol people? usually i really don't care if any of the past idols and idol rejects "make it" or not, in the past seven years there's really only been two people worth talking about, kelly clarkson and carrie underwood, the rest of them no one cares about anymore. but last year's contestants were actual good people, like they actually liked each other and were pretty genuine and so i would like to know what happened to them all, so here we go:

1. david cook - well he is doing good, of course. i actually bought his whole entire ablum and i really like it. it's in my car stereo right now, in fact. it's got the campy new-rock generic songs as fillers, but there are some good songs in there too and he's got a good voice. so good for him.

2. david archuleta - not so great. well, he went the pop route which was probably a great choice considering the pre-teen audience he's got, and i've heard a couple of his songs on the radio and on itunes previews... and they sound like post-idol pop songs (re: crappy). haha, oh well, i still like him, once he gets past the initial post-idol stuff and starts getting better material i think he'll start doing well.

3. syesha mercado - well, she's got some obscure single out and is "working on an album," eh. don't care much about what she's doing actually.

4. jason castro - y'know, i had forgotten, but he was actually a pretty welcome distraction in the beginning, his performances were wimpy, but they were kinda cool and relaxed so it was good interspersed between all the over-the-top shouting "songs." but, then he just went too far in the competition and therefore i had to hate on him, oh well, i don't care much if he's doing good or junk now, but my research says he's "working on an album" and released "white christmas" on itunes (as a free download, haha). oh but his younger brother auditioned for this upcoming season of american idol and he at least got to hollywood, so that's kinda cool (he also says that his brother is a better singer than he is, no duh, haha).

5. brooke white - i really liked her. she actually had an album that didn't do too well before she was on american idol, so it seems like she's not in a huge rush to make another one. i don't think i would buy it, but i would definately check it out and maybe pick up a single or something on itunes.

6. carly smithson - she also had a record out before american idol, and is also "working on an album." i'd take a preview of it.

7. kristy lee cook - guess what? she also had an album before idol. it didn't do well, of course, but after idol she signed with some county label and put out an album that did okay in the country charts (her single was called "15 minutes of shame..." barf.), but just last month she split with the record label so i don't know. oh well, it's country anyway, who cares about country, haha,.

8. michael johns - surprise, he had an album out before idol also, y'know i really think that this is might be the reason behind the "shocking" early eliminations last year, i mean, even though they didn't do well enough to make a career out of it, people might think that these guys already had their chance, y'know? anyway, he's also "working on an album" and also released a christmas song on itunes (i previewed it, not great).


9. ramiele malubay - she's a cutie. too bad she went off to the philippines, i guess she's doing okay, but it's the philippines right? i dunno, go ask jasmine trias. anyway, she's still cute.

10. chikezie - "working on an album," couldn't really care though.

11. amanda overmyer - "working on an album," don't even want to hear it though.

12. david hernandez - stripping. haha, just kidding, he has two singles, but no record deal. but that's not bad, 11 of the top 12 have record deals? pretty good i guess.

okay, that's enough, after doing all that research i'm completely over the last season of idol now, ha.

so, looking forward to next season, i found out that they're going to run the "semi-finals" like they used to, they're gonna have 3 groups of 12 guys & girls who will sing on the same night, then the next night the top guy, the top girl, and the next highest vote getter (either guy or girl) will be choosen to be in the top 12. after those 3 groups go they're gonna bring back the wildcard episode and the judges will pick the last 3 of the top 12. i like this... i like it because we really don't need an even number of girls and guys in the top 12 and i like the judges wildcard picks, but we'll see what happens... one week to go...

#205 - go bows

yes, this is a post about cheerleading, but wait, i can explain.

now, i don't like cheerleading, but i do have to admit that some of the stunts they do are pretty spectacular. i've never followed any type of cheerleading, but the university of hawaii cheerleaders are really really good. you don't notice it much, but everytime you go to a volleyball game or basketball game at the stan sheriff center and you're watching the game and all of a sudden some girl pops up in your face it's because those cheerleaders are getting thrown around and up and down and all over the damn court! they do some crazy stuff man, nevermind that they can throw some of those girls up into the cheap seats, they do this one thing where the girl does a cartwheel and the guy catches her upside-down and then immediately flips her back right-side up and catches her feet with his palm and she's just standing up there yelling "go bows" or something, it's pretty crazy.

so y'know every once in awhile you'll hear something on the news about the cheerleadings going to national competitions or whatever, but hawaii does really well nationally. they've been in the top 10 nationwide the past five years and have gotten 3rd place in the country twice. they've also been no. 1 in the west region for the past 3 years (yes, it's sad that i know this, but if i'm gonna write about it i should at least do my research right?).

anyway, so you see all these girls flying around on the sideline at the football game and every now and then you're really impressed by it, but you don't realize that you're seeing one of the best in the country. i mean, i thought they were pretty good but i don't really have anything to compare it to. in my mind i figured all cheerleaders could do those stunts, but i just watched paula abdul's cheerleading thing on mtv (yes, that's embarrassing too, but the news said hawaii would be on it and, let's face it, paula on live tv is just too good to miss) and they were miles better than those other university teams (they won too).

so i guess i shouldn't take them for granted at the next basketball game i go to, i wonder if they'll get them a banner if they win the national championship. i mean, really, they're like the best shot for UH right? after wahine volleyball? maybe even before? well, good for them anyway, go bows!

seriously... i mean, you gotta check out some of these stunts:

#204 - red & white

*WARNING* Only click to watch the videos if you are prepared for utter japanese dorkiness.

new year's is the most japanesie day of the year for me, i think. i guess i don't really do that many traditional japanesie things, but one thing i do is watch the red & white every year (and consequently blog about it because of its sheer ridiculosity, i know that's not a word, but i had to make one up to explain how beyond crazy this event is). if you haven't seen it before, basically it's a competition between the most popular male (white) and female (red) singers (and groups) in japan. it's pretty much a 5 hour long, live concert where the performances alternate between male and female and the singers sing their best songs from the year or whatever. at the end a panel of japanese celebrity judges (usually actors/actresses, olympic athletes, other people who made japanese headlines the past year) pick one team and they get bragging rights until the next year. what's really great about it is that they have one every year and pretty much all the big-name japanese singers actually show up (y'know how conformist japan is, you could never do this in america) and sing live (no lip-syncing). not that japanese singers are really that good (or good at all actually, most of them sound very amateur, like one hour of american idol probably has more talent than 5 hours of this stuff), but i like listening to all the enka (that's the traditional japanese singing, like the kind you hear at bon dances). and the singers consider being chosen to be in it an honor, so they're not all egotistical about it or anything. i'm not actually sure how big this thing is in japan, who knows, it could be really popular or it could be like watching the cmt awards, y'know? anyway, like i said, it's 5 hours long and not subtitled at all, so i'll be watching and providing running commentary, just in case you're at all interested in what crazy japanese people do on new years day.

- the first thing you notice is the cutesiness. japanese people love being cutesy. even the men. watching this show makes me so embarrassed to be japanese, i mean, they're just not cool for anything. and then the singers that try to be cool and act tough while they're singing revert right back to smiling and waving as soon as their song is done. too much hello kitty, too little man vs. wild. they even devote a whole long block to children's music, there's a movie company called studio ghibli that's pretty much like disney, they make hit animated movies with great songs actually that both kids and adults like (like totoro, laputa, princess mononoke, spirited away, howl's moving castle, etc.)... actually, they make really good music, orchestral music that is, i have a bunch of piano books from these movies and it's good stuff. still, i don't know what the songs are about, i can only pick out words and phrases, but everyone smiles WAY too much when they're singing, like not ALL songs are all sunshine and roses right? grr... makes me angry.


- the man-lady and the lady-man. japanese people apparently love crossdressers. but the fun thing about these two weirdos is that even though they completely act cross-gendered, they sing in their normal voices, the lady-man makes absolutely no effort to sing high and the man-lady sings rough and low like a man. but while the man-lady dresses in pants-suits, the lady-man has the MOST elaborate costumes, between both the men AND the women.


- horrible dancing. it's like watching rejects from "so you think you can dance." the big group choreographed stuff is like watching 2nd graders at may day and even the hip-hop stuff looks totally weak. hard to imagine because japanese people have some great bboys/bgirl stuff, so why doesn't that translate? maybe this show isn't as popular in japan as it is here (and therefore not exactly quality stuff?)?

- korean imports. whatever more contemporary sounding music/dancing they have usually come from korean imports. which usually are a welcome distraction from the generic-ness of japanese singing (koreans at least use harmony and aren't so nasal), but it's still not great, i'm guessing because the koreans who come to japan probably couldn't make it in korea, so they ship themselves across seas to stand out. still, one year i saw joe's finkl girls and that boa girl too. weird.

- extreme poppiness. every single song sounds like a stage on dance dance revolution. besides the enka music (which i like), everything else is extreme pop. worse, it's not only the young people who sing it. any old people who do not sing enka (and i think that old people should ONLY sing enka) sing super bubble-gum pop, it's gross. and to top it off... they also try to dance... shudder...


- okinawan music. i like traditional okinawan music too, y'know the kind that's all high and twangy with the shaminsen, that kind. here's a bonus shamisen with a GREAT okinawan singer, rimi natsukawa, her voice is super clear, sweet, and cool okinawan melodies.


- enya. enya was on, live via satellite from ireland... huh. well, at least they're branching out. what's funnier is that during each performance they run the karaoke words (or kanjis) on the bottom of the screen, and during the enya song (it was that "sail away" song) they ran japanese words, couldn't they have at least written the english? and they insert all kinds of lyrics too, like this one part enya sang "this is the night, they say..." and the japanese was "konya, kono toki, hito ni itteiru," which doesn't look very long when i type it out, but it was written like all across the bottom of the screen for just a few english words.

- hair. holy crap. japanese people's hairdos are inexplicable. espeically the guys. yes, i am embarrassed for my race.


- jero. here's a new one, there's this half-black/half-japanese guy, his name is jerome or something (his singing name is jero, y'know how japanese people like to abbreviate everything), he's dressed up all with a 59fifty cap and big baggy two-toned shirt with huge CZs in both ears, he comes on stage looking pretty much gangsta (at least in a room full of old japanese people), he explains that his mom or someone was japanese, then they show his mom or grandma in the audience, she starts crying and says "ganbatte jero, utamasho!" or something. then the guy walks to the middle of the stage and starts singing enka! haha, it was great. he was actually pretty good too, still, he did all the japanesie mannerisms and everything, i wished he was little more ghetto, but i guess he really was born and raised japanese. if you closed your eyes he sounded like an old japanese man though. oh well. and, like any good japanese mama's boy, he cried at the end.

- crying at the end of your song. or even during your song, is the very best thing you can do. of course, you have to wait your turn, usually only the last singer is allowed to cry because they are so honored at being chosen to be the last team representative. but if you have another good reason to cry, you should do it, because the judges with think that you've sacrificed so much for your team and you're so passionate about this contest that you absolutely should win.


- angela aki. i like this girl's style. i don't know why, it just seems like if i ever met her i'd like her. plus, she plays the piano, so bonus! she's got a huge-o schnoz though, haha. that's the hapa-ness, well her father is japanese and her mother is american, she even moved to hawaii for a little bit and went to 'iolani high school and then college in washington, dc. here's a bonus:


- reading inspirational letters. i don't understand a lot of it because there's no subtitles, but every once in awhile between songs one of the singers will read a letter from some kid or someone inspirational, and they read it all sappy-like with this tone and rate of speech that is so horridly annoying! i hate it.


- reach and grab. similar to the cry-at-end-of-song, the reach and grab is another dramatic device that is used expertly by some middle aged enka singer named sayuri something. she sings a song of longing or something while looking completely torn and distraught the whole time, then on her very last note she reaches her hand out to grasp some invisible lover or something, but alas! no one is there! and she stumbles forward as her hand grasps at the empty air with tears in her eyes and stares straight into the camera! haha, the funny thing is she does it like every year... the exact same way.


- tendo yoshimi. okay, this lady is good. also, you can't see her eyes ever. she has like all pupil, there's no whites to her eyes, it makes her look uber-cool.


so after 5 hours the very last performer was my sister's favorite, hikawa kiyoshi, a young guy who all the teen girls and old housewives love because he looks like a mama's boy and sings enka. okay, so he sings enka very well, but he's probably comparable to a japanese clay aiken. he even does the hideous hip shakes when he sings, cringe. but, he went last, and he cried at the end, so the men won. as always.

so sad to be japanese...

had to add this on though... jake shimabukuro on the show like 2 years ago? he's pretty awesome i gotta admit, and i love this girl's voice, but not her weird-ass hand motions.