maiaide

☆ Inoue Joe's new single is going to be a tie-in to a beauty contest on NTV.  Not that he's got any sort of pre-ordained "image" like JE does (wholesome hot boys who don't have girlfriends, what?) but this makes me think he is a huge pimp.  Look at all the boobies!

☆ 五円 (five yen) sounds like ご縁 (karma) so that's why people throw 5-yen coins into the donations boxes at shrines: for good karma!

☆ I have been going through and working on my Clean Up iTunes project.  I didn't realize I had so much alternative rock.  Do you know what nu metal is?  It's a heavy metal subgenre that'sbasically a mash-up of grunge, alt-rock, funk metal, hip hop and industrial music.  It was pioneered by bands such as P.O.D., Korn, Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park.  I feel so hardcore right now.

The more I see it, the more I don't mind it.  I figured out what it is: it makes his face/head look bigger when it's short.  It's styled nicely for MSute tonight.  But Nino's is like a throw back to the monstrosity that was the Step & Go era.  And his jacket looks like a bad leisure suit . :/ 

The first time I remember to watch Music Station in a while and I am rewarded. :D  Oooh choreography!

OMG OMG OMG.  I'm still like :DDDDDD after the concert which is awesomesauce.  I want to blog extensively like I told Lydia I would but really, it's a pretty short story.  I should get to bed ASAP cuz tomorrow is going to suck balls but I need to rehydrate anyway.


OMGOMGOMG!!!

Okay, so I manage to get home earlier than expected, showered, hair curled and all dolled up in record time.  Got to Shindaita at 5:50 and waited for JR, who in typical gay man fashion was late.  He got there around 6:35 and then we went to find some eats and went to the show.  This live house only opened in March so everything is still shiny and new.  It's directly across from the station so super convenient.  There really isn't much else in Shindaita but its only one stop from Shimo-Kitazawa, the old hipster hub of Tokyo, JR tells me.

The first band, Haushinka was interesting.  A mix of punk, rock and metal.  They did some Beatles and Ramones covers, very lively and entertaining.  The second band was Rally the Bird. these two guys, one on drums and one on guitar that were pretty blah.  Pretty nice arrangements and the singer had a nice voice--it's just too bad we couldn't really hear was he was saying.  And pretty much no crowd interactions.  Boo.

THEN JOE! :DDD  I went to the bathroom before he came out the start setting up but JR said all the girls screamed.  LOL  When we got there there was maybe 2 dozen people but there was a fair crowd by the time Joe got to the stage.  He opened with Nowhere and then played Pa-pa-pa.  Then he says, "Where are you guys from?" into the mic after his song in English.  JR and I were the only visible foreigners in the crowd, but we couldn't help but ask, "Who, us?" 
"Yeah."
"Oh, Canada."
"Awesome. Rock on!" 
Though being the only two white people in a sea of Asians, dead centre, is kind of hard to miss.  But it just makes me feels so amazing because that is absolute, undeniable proof that he saw me there and took notice. :DDDD 

And I bet you all the rest of the girls in the audience--ie the whole audience were jealous as fuck!  Especially the one in pink right at the front who spent his entire set waving her hands and jumping up and down.  I guess it's not done in Japan to sing along at shows but I didn't care.  I knew all the words and JR made fun of me but whatever.  He sounds just as good live as he does recorded and he's damn cute.  As if I wasn't already in love with him before.  He also played Closer, Maboroshi and his new song coming out this month, Go.

I had hoped that he would come out and mingle afterwards like the first band (they passed around comment sheets to everyone!) but no dice.  I guess because he's on the up and up he (or his management) doesn't want to mingle with fans for security reasons?  I don't know.  JR and I hung around after a bit, had another beer and played with the door-girl's dog for a while afterwards but no sign of my future-ex-husband. 

All I can say is that he's very personable on stage.  Some of the girls were calling out things, "Kakkoii~", "Ganbare~", "Oishii?" when he took a drink of water, and he just rolled with it.  He hasn't got a big head about his fame (yet) which is nice to see.  I wish all the best for him in the future.  Now I can say I saw him before he got big, from 6 feet away. 

Sweet dreams for me tonight!

1. Fanclub account number - 00180-7-605272.  Align the third section to the left so that the first cell (from the left) is empty.  
2. Total ticket price - [(Ticket price x # of tickets) + ¥500 fee]
3. Payee's name - Arashi Concert Department (嵐コンサート事務局)
4. This is the area you write all your information, as laid out in the instructions sent by the fanclub. It's pretty much the same everytime. You need to number everything as well: (1) The name of the concert/tour, 嵐　国立コンサート2009, (2) FC number - A00000000, (3) # of tickets, (4) You have to write it out that way because the people in the office music be dumb... (Price x # of tickets) + ¥500 = total price, (5) Phone number and/or email address
5. (6) Which show(s) you are balloting for. Sometimes they give you 3 choices, sometimes not. Write the concert code of the shows.
6. (7) Your address, (8) Name, (9) Phone number
7. The stub on the right is your copy but you still should write it out all nice. They change information they want you to write in the tiniest info box in the world but this time they want your address, name, phone number, # of tickets and the concert code of your number one choice. They don't specify more, but there's no room for more.

I'm not going to post this to any communities but if you want to share it around, go for it. 

So instead of doing anything productive tonight (making gyoza from scratch, writing, beta reading), I translated. There was too much "Omfg, I can't believe I have to do this crap," thinly-if-at-all-vieled sarcasm not to. :D

( Ninomiya Kazunari's 100Q where we don't really learn anything. )

Maybe I'll translate the cross-talk from the Everything video shoot next. They talk about how it looked like a skate park and these kids at the location were shouting "Ossan, bye-byeee~!" to Ohno the whole time. XD

As with everything else, everyone's heard of this before me.

After all my classes are done for the day, I check my phone and have this email from Andrew: "Michael Jackson's dead." I was speechless. Apparently it was on the news in the morning, Niwata-sensei said, just a couple of seconds before the caster moved on to some news about Aso Taro. Is that all we can spare for someone, as fucked up as got in his later years, is the icon of a generation (or two)?

I only got to know of Michael Jackson around the time of his Dangerous album, which you could say was the last good work of his career. He ever really did anything phenomenal after that, but I great up listening to his music. Everyone my age (and older) knows the King. Off the Wall, Thriller, Bad are legendary. He's sold (and still selling?) an estimated 750 million records with 13 number 1 singles. He's won 13 Grammys. He's been an entertainer as long as I've been alive. He invented the Moonwalk. He's influenced countless musicians and dancers across the world. I bet you Ohno is pretty upset by the news. It's such a shame that he's going to be remembered as much for his scandals--the boys, the Ranch, the baby-dangling--as he will for his music and career. He was only 50.

I haven't been able to find much coverage on his passing but there are some statements from the executives at Sony on his website on what a wonderful person he was. The cause of death is unknown, but it's presumed to be cardiac arrest. They were scheduled to perform an autopsy today. And just before he was supposed to perform fifty sold-out concerts in London starting next month.

Rest In Peace
Michael Jackson
August 28, 1958 - June 25, 2009

I got the official announcement email from Johnny's web today. I haven't even looked at the comms but this is more for my information than anyone else's. Apologies to anyone for reading this for the sixty-second time.

( Cut to save your flist! )

Well, the fact of the matter is I can't afford to go to the stadium show. If tickets were only 5,000 yen, like they were last time, maybe. But 7,000 is a lot and I'm going to Singapore. I would love to go to Tokyo Dome. It's close to home and I sure that it would just be fantastic show. Lydia will also probably be here! I wouldn't mind go to Nagoya. I've been there once, I know my way arond and what's the best way to get there and back. Tokyo is the most balloted venue, I think so I think there's a better shot at winning Nagoya, but it's the last venue. And the last shows are always the best.

I've got til the end of July to figure this out. I think I have more friends who want to go than tickets available. And I wouldn't want people to make plans to come all the way here from overseas especially for the concert and then have no tickets.

Now that it's official, I really want to go!

I think I've figured out why I don't get Arashi news first (like you think I would, living in Japan)--I don't stalk 2ch or read any of the newspapers. But that's what LJ is for.

I love best-of albums. This one, I will pay money for. I wonder what kind of extra goodies they will include. The last few releases have come with a DVD. Maybe some kind of mini-documentary? And a concert~ I'm not surprised? Well, after the rumors before, it was bound to happen. Rumors don't just start from nowhere. And it's pretty much the same as was reported before. I'd love to stay in Tokyo for a show, rather than have to travel somewhere. But I can't afford a concert in August with Singapore in the mix. Maybe Tokyo Dome? Yvonne won't be in Nagoya anymore for me to crash but if I had a friend or two (or three) to travel with, that would be fun too. We could find somewhere to crash or just take a bus back to Tokyo afterwards. Since I've been to a show in Nagoya already, I know we could make it on time for the bus back. And it's the last show and if all my years in theatre are anything to go by, the last show is always the best. :) We'll see what happens with ballots.

Is it too early to ask who wants to go with me? LOL Never to soon to start planning, I guess. If the first show is in August, then balloting should be starting soon. It's only 2 months away. I'll probably get the FC announcement in the mail in the next few days. Come on, Johnny. I'm overdue to win something!

Long day of grade 6 today. At least they are an energetic bunch for the most part. Some maybe too energetic... At least the day will go fast. And then I have to go pay all my bills. Good-bye, 80,000 yen.

So, I just watched the final episode of The Quiz Show. Need to debrief and decompress. Cut for spoilery goodness.

( Compliment sandwich. )

INOUE JOE JULY 2nd!!!
1,800 YEN!! ANNA IS COMING WITH ME!!

I just have to get tickets on Wednesday. I'm totally going to wake up early and go to Lawson and buy them before work. No joke. There's no garuantee that I'll get tickets for the showcase so I have to go to this one.

Shouldn't get too excited until I have the tickets in my hands.

Breathe, Heather. Breathe.

Okay.

I love myself today. ♥ I wrote. Treated myself to some lunch out. Spent some quality me-time window shopping. I got some お世話になりました presents for Lydia and Tomoko though I want to get a little something more for Tomoko for letting me stay at her place. Got some cinnamon tea which is really delicious (I might get some for Tomoko). Got a straightener with Bic Camera points so it was free. Now I'm watching Nepleague. :)

INOUE JOE!!! :DDDD I HAVE TO GET TICKETS.

Because I was curious.

The Johnny's Family Club for Arashi has approximately 440,000 members. Or at least that's how many memberships have been issued--it's anyone's guess if the person with membership number 00000001 (Johnny-san?) is still active. Like every other institution in Japan, your membership number is your position in the chronology of things, you joined after X people. That's probably why they had to add the two 0's on to the front of the numbers--just in case they got into the millions.

I went to the Globe theatre website and counted the seats on the seating chart. There are 700 seats. So that's 700 people to make a full house. There are 34 performances of Nino's butai. Which means that an audience of 23,800 people will get to see it.

Let's assume that every single number issued for the fanclub belongs to an active member. And let's say the members have even numbers of fans, so that's about 88,000 people per member of Arashi. If all the people designated "Nino fans" in the FC applied for tickets, given that every seat in the house would go to the fanclub, only 27% could win. Out of the entire fanclub, only about 5%.

But the entire house won't be fanclub -- there will be some seats reserved for VIP and special guests. The lottery was also only for the S section, which I assume to be the first floor. This cuts down the number of available seats to 450 (x 34 performances = 15,300 seats), and the chances of scoring a ticket are even slimmer. Out of the entire fanclub, 3.4% of people could have won. The other two sections, the 2nd and 3rd tier, only old 150 and 100 seats respectively so the tickets for those will be snapped up like nothing else when the Playguide goes live.

What odds we face as members of the fanclub... it almost seems easier (or at least more likely) to score tickets in an auction or from a scalper. To those of you gunning for Playguide and what have you, I wish you the best of luck.

I am going to subject you all to a lot of screen caps and my catty comments about the Time con constumes. I only hope to god they don't kill another herd of peacocks for the costumes this year. Alas, I haven't perfected the art of screencapping, so the quality kind of blows. But they are resized so they don't kill your screen. You'll get the picture.

Edit:  I know the costumes are made to be over the top so people can have a chance to see them from the back row (though when you're that far away, you can't see shit).  It's still fun to make fun of the heinousness.  And for the record: I LOVE SEQUINNS.

( Save the rainbow peacocks! )
And I'm spent.  It's 12:30am, and I should be getting up at 6:30am to get ready for work.  Although this totally just pumped me up, I don't know if I'll be falling asleep before 2am.  I am too witty for my own good.