Miyazaki Aoi vs Ichikawa Yui PART 1

Before i get to the main topic of the post, just thought that i would share some of the pics taken during my last karaoke session with Andrew, Eugene, Nigel and Melvin. No Superstar contest this time but it was just as fun cause during the latter portion we were all quite into it and standing on the sofa and singing. And it seems to be an unspoken tradition to group-sing "朋友", "笨小孩" and "对面的女孩看过来" during a karaoke. At least that's what i notice.

Nigel struts his stuff..i mean his voice.

Not to be outdone..

Nigel does his best to come in between Melvin and Eugene's duet.

Caught the trailer for Nana 2 yesterday night (movie's been out for a few months i know..poor outdated me). I knew since long ago that Miyazaki Aoi was going to be replaced by Ichikawa Yui in her role as Komatsu 'Hachi' Nana. But only after seeing the trailer did i realise how irresitibly cute/well casted was Aoi in her role as Hachi. Of course to fully appreciate her acting you have to follow the NANA manga, anime and movie (which i have been doing). Ichikawa Yui is cute and sexy in her own rights that but she looks too 'bitchy' (for lack of a better word than 'slutty') to play Hachi. And she doesn't radiate the innocence, childishness and sweetness of Hachi as well.

Anyway Ee Wei took offense when i mentioned she looked more 'slutty' as Ichikawa Yui is one of his favourite bikini models actress. For the record i have yet to see her in a non-skimpily dressed picture online (not that i'm complaining mind you). But for the purpose of partialness i have found some pictures to compare the 2 actresses. Make your own mind up on who is more suited to play Hachi.

Komatsu 'Hachi' Nana (from the manga)

Comparison 1 (Left = Miyazaki Aoi; Right = Ichikawa Yui):

Scene from Nana (L) and Nana 2 (R)

Comparison 2:

With co-star Mika Nakashima.

Comparison 3:

Ok i couldn't get much screencaps from the movies. Anyway this is also from the movie press conference.

Just to add this in.. Nana 2 bombed compared to the first movie. Not to point any fingers but you can guess why.. Aoi ditched the 2nd movie to act in "Tada, Kimi wo Aishiteru", again looking immeasurably (i ran out of suitable adjectives to precede the word 'cute') cute. And she's an '85'er too. Want to get this movie when it's DVD is released in March. Despite all i've said about Ichikawa Yui, i also want to get Nana 2's DVD when it's out, cause i love the series. And to be fair to Ee Wei, i'll do another comparison (PART 2) on 'Who is sexier?' between the 2, with pictures of course.

Miyazaki Aoi in Tada, Kimi wo Aishiteru

How Many More Times

Just finished day 3 of my mini-soccer marathon. Played on Wednesday at NDU's basketball court, Thursday at Tuas (but only for 10mins cause got called back to man the phone) and today at Temasek Club (7pm to 11pm!). And this will be really stating the obvious, but i suck real bad at soccer. Day 1 i thought i was just rusty cause i had not played for a damn long time, but day 2 was equally bad and soccer today confirmed that i have lost whatever iota of skill i once had. It's not a question now of what i can do when i have the ball at my feet, but of when i will lose the ball eventually. But it was nice to meet up with Ken, Yong Quan (wonder if he has forgiven me for the GB incident...) Clarence, Siew Rong (thanks for always booking the court for us) and Ah Boon. Always fun to play soccer with them, especially at TC where the shower facilities are excellent. (Except tonight someone vomitted at the shower room entrance. And it stank of red wine. And it was damn gross) For most of the night i had Duo Teng, Sau Kit and Victor on my team so we still won 90% of the 4v4 matches played. But they could have just replaced me with any Tom Dick or Harry on the street and we would have still won anyway.

Had late dinner at Al-Ameen after the game. This is the first time Duo Teng did not manage to finish a jar of green chilli on his Nasi Goreng Kampung. I have also yet to see him order anything else but that as well. I really pigged out tonight, had a packet of roast chicken before soccer, and ate 1 plate of 5-star Hainanese white chicken rice while waiting for my 4 kosong pratas after soccer. On top of that i drank 1 can of 100plus, 1 cup of home-made barley, 1 teh-tarik ice and 1 Seasons ice lemon tea during the Al-Ameen trip. But hey! At least i didn't eat unhealthy fast food right? Actually i think in Singapore, mainstream food outside of fast food joints are just an unhealthy. So as long as i eat out i think i just increasing my cholestrol levels. Unless i eat just order porridge or some vegan dish. But I think my stomach must be feeling damn confused by all the rojak i mixed inside tonight. Hope my tummy doesn't get upset in the middle of the night.

Karaoke (again..) tomorrow night is set! This is like the 3rd time within the last 30 days i have been to a KTV. All 3 times with a different set of friends. Anyway i got my PSP all charged up and ready to record any singing we do tomorrow. Hope Matthew can make it cause i need someone to sing English songs with me. Anyway tomorrow we will be up against our NMS Talentine Winner Eugene. So must really try to knock him off his perch and stake our claim as the next NMS superstar..

Most likely i will be getting 2 new games this weekend at Funz Centre, "Battlestation Midway" and "Winning Eleven: PES 2007" for my X360. Yup, it's payday tonight and i want to spend it all! Even though i still have so many games i'm yet to complete at home. But i'm just greedy for new stuff i guess.

Crying in The Rain

Watched finished "Be With You" yesterday morning at 3AM. Very beautiful heartwarming show. I cried alot during the last few scenes till my nose got blocked again (still not 100% recovery from the flu). The pacing of the movie (1HR58MINS long) is steadily slow but i think it's appropriate for a drama. But if it were that similiar pace for an Action movie then i would just fall asleep. The ending song is "Hana" by Orange Range(whose only other song i know is "Asterisk" from "Bleach"). Maybe it was the momentum of the movie but i also shed a few tears when i read the lyrics (translated of course) of the song during the ending credits. It really captures the feelings of the movie's main characters. I went to find the song immediately after the show ended and it's been been repeating on my PSP ever since.


Hana Single Cover - Orange Range. Nice orange peels petal.

Also went to learn more Jay Chou songs by finding 2 of his albums Still Fantasy and November's Chopin. I dislike all his R&B songs in which he raps, he has a lazy way of slurring his words that just irritates me. His ballads however are very catchy and the lyrics are pretty good as well, but i'm probably a poor judge cause i hear only a little Mandarin songs.

I was looking for this movie "Sky High (2003)" but this morning when i checked my download it was actually this "Sky High (2005)". I'm trying to find "Sky High (2003)" because i like the director Ryuhei Kitamura. He directed "Azumi" (not "Azumi 2" which sucked) starring Aya Ueto and also "Versus" which i am trying to find so i can bring to office to screen during VA. He was also involved in directing the cutscenes of the remake "Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes" for the Gamecube. To me his trademark is making low budget action flicks look good and gory. Too bad i don't see many of his DVDs for sale in Singapore. I wouldn't mind collecting his shows. For the time being i don't know what to do with "Sky High (2005)" that's on my HDD. Should i take a risk and waste one and half hour of my life to watch an American High School Comedy or just delete it? Hmm...

Love Flies Away

Yay! Aston Villa will be sponsored by Nike from next year! This is a pleasant change from the Hummel jerseys i have been buying the past 3 seasons. I hope the price don't increase so much just because of the branding. I kinda like Hummel actually. Mainly cause it's fun to hum the 'Humm' in 'Hummel'. I hope we get a better sponsor next season as well. I don't like being a walking advertisement for an internet betting company's on my jersey.

After reading Ming Wei's blog, I realised that people will seldom talk about relationships in front or with me. I guess it's because the only relationship i can share about is that with my games and consoles (Tip#37: Long hours invested in a game doesn't neccessarily mean you will get a happy ending). I can also discuss fictional relationships that happen in Dramas, anime or videogames. I like love ballads with meaningful/sad lyrics. But when it comes to real love and problems i can't be really bothered listening, giving advice or sharing. Is that sad? Well to each his own. I get as much satisfaction and enjoyment doing what i like to do. Plus i think maintaining my 'relationships' is much, much easier.

And we finally took our branch's photo today. I'm just waiting to see how bad i will look in the photo. I think i'm terribly unphotogenic. Or maybe cause i actually look bad in real life and i don't notice it.

Made a poster last night that i'm gonna try to get signed by this year's Singapore AFC squad. I hope i didn't miss out anybody in the poster. I love making my own stuff to be signed. Anyone can get an autograph, but my poster + autographs will be one of a kind. I also have another one of a kind signed poster of the 2004 squad. But i have to say my design this year looks hell of a lot better than my previous design. Going to print it on A3 when i get the chance.

And by popular demand i decided to upload another karaoke video of everyone (but me) singing "Don't Cha". CPL Fan was especially enthu' during the 'Don't Cha!' part.

Monkey Wrench

Left office at 5:30pm and went cycling with my dad at Upper Pierce Resevoir. Cycling itself was uneventful, except that i suprised myself being able to push hard despite my bout of neverending flu. I had to spit out alot of phlegm while riding though. It seems anyway that the roads have been overrunned with monkeys waiting for some idiot(s) to feed them. It wouldn't be so bad if not for every damn monkey standing in the middle of the road and not budging till you are about 5 feet away from them. Then it's a matter of reacting to them dodging left/righto at the last minute and praying that i don't run one over. Actually i have no qualms about running over a monkey. Except that i would have to pay a fine. It's understandable if i ran over them while i was cycling in their forest but this is a freaking road! Shouldn't there be a grey area where i should be allowed to kill the bugger if he runs into my path all of a sudden? I can't rely on my spider-senses all the time to dodge every single last one of them on the road.

But what really irks me are the stupid idiots who feed the monkeys and cause them to gather on the roads waiting for more food. There was this stupid malay driver and family throwing bread to the monkeys as i was riding towards them. They stopped for a while and pretended to drive off when i approached but as soon as i passed they stopped and started throwing bread out again. Ok, maybe they didn't know that they shouldn't feed the monkey but wait! There's a bloody BIG POSTER (10 feet wide 4 feet tall) pitched right beside their car saying "DO NOT FEED THE MONKEYS!" (in 4 langauges). Anyway i quickly turned around and shouted "OEI!" and they quickly drove off again. For the record, the car license plate is SFV 2767 X. A blue Nissan Sunny. Next time i'm around there i will be sure to pay extra attention to spot this supremely inconsiderate idiot again. Maybe i should just find some coconuts and durian and throw them at his children's face when i see them. "I'M JUST FEEDING THEM WAT! There's no sign that says i can't feed your children".

Watched "Super Size Me" today. Ah Chew was trying to put across that i should cut down on fast food. Appreciate the thought. But why am i the only one being singled out? It's as if i am the only one in the branch who eats fast food. He should tell Ming Wei to cut down on food, period. Wee Kim needs to actually eat more fast food so he can gain some weight and so his body fat % will rise above mine (boasting rights). Herbert needs to drink more fluids cause he sweats (from his hands) so much. Ee Wei needs to stuff his mouth with food so that he will crap less (today i realised out that Straits Time actually censors the word c*ap) Anyway, I am actually actively but slowly trying to make my lifestyle more healthy:

1) I don't frequent fast food joints that often *no evidence to back this up, you have to take my word for it
2) When i remember i will take off the skin from my chicken
3) Cycling to work whenever i can
4) Less midnight raids to 7-11

That's all i can muster for the time being.. Vegetables are still a no-no. Oh ya, my mom touched my skin yesterday and said it felt like a 40 year old man (probably she used my father for comparison, but my father is 45...Hmm). So she gave me a bottle of "St Ives Intensive Healing Advanced Therapy Lotion" (it says on the bottle "FOR SEVERLY DRY SKIN" yikes!) to moisturise my skin. I have to admit that by comparison her skin is damn soft and smooth compared to mine, even though she's twice my age this year (44 x 22). Going to have to diligently apply this after baths and before sleeping.

Take That Thailand!

What a heart-stopping Finale to the 2006 AFC...Singapore looked like they were going to collaspe anytime under the Thai attack (match report) but somehow (as always) we managed to come back from an early goal down to defend our title as ASEAN Champions (1998, 2004, 2006 Winners!) I guess the turning point of an otherwise torrid match for Singapore was when Noh Rahman managed a superb last ditch block on the goal line to deny Thailand their 2nd goal (70+min). After that the Thai attack started to sizzle out and Singapore managed to get their foot back in the game, ending in a fantastic strike by supersub Khairul Amri in the 81 min. Wow, me and my dad nearly had a heart attack when Amri scored. But i think we were the only one in my whole street watching the match cause it was so quiet all around except for the both of us screaming our lungs out (alot of old folks living around our house..i think we might have woke some of them up). I think i shed some tears of joy while celebrating. I think Thailand mentally cracked after such a later hammer blow cause they seemed to just give up from that point on. Indra also did his part while on the bench to irritate the Thai players (earning himself a yellow card) by holding on to the ball and delaying play during the last couple of minutes.CONGRATS to Singapore..even though we had a bad game but we showed them 30,000 Thais our never-say-die spirit and deservedly defended our title. Really looking forward to the Lions victory parade in Orchard Road when they return. I'm already planning a new poster to get autographs from the team.

Met with Alex Wu (my best friend from BMT) yesterday for a drink and dinner to catch up. He shared this very funny YouTube clip with me (view here). If you have been following the news or forums you would have heard of this. Basically it's just some chinese guys going to an Indian (Halal) food shop and ordering pork as a prank. Hilarious stuff.

Borrowed 3 DVDs from Video EZY yesterday, Seven Swords (七劍), Be With You (いま、会いにゆきます, Ima, Ai ni Yukimasu) and Taegukgi: The Brotherhood of War. Watched about an hour and a half of Seven Swords and then stopped cause i couldn't handle how corny the movie was. And this is coming from someone who enjoys watching corny and B-list shows. The seven swordsman are so powerful that its not even cool when they manage to destroy the bad guy's fort of over a 1000 people. And all the villans always talk big about taking the head of the heroes but they are so weak compared to them i actually feel sorry for them. I was hoping that at least one of them will kill one of the hero in the first part but alas, no such luck. Unless the storyline starts twisting for the final hour of this show, i will probably rate this as one of the WORST asian movie i have ever watched. I have no idea what the reviewers on IMDB were talking about when they said it is a masterpiece. Bleah..

The 2nd DVD i skimmed through was Be With You (starring the lovely Yuko Takeuchi). I just watched the Trailer for the show under the Special Features and i already cried a whole bunch of tears. Better ready my tissue box(es) when i actually start to watch the main feature.

Be With You (いま、会いにゆきます, Ima, Ai ni Yukimasu)

How Do You Mend a Broken Voice(box)?

Went to PartyWorld at Park Hotel yesterday night after a super long day at work. Initially we booked a room for 10pm, which was then pushed to 10:30, then 11, then 11:30 and would have been pushed later had D.Law not dropped all 5 of us off in town in his Honda Jazz. Good thing that none of us are obese (like the many U/M screenees that came that evening). D.Law was worried that his car's suspension would spoil under our combined weight but i assured him i would help him zhng his suspension if that were to happen. And Ming Wei chose to wear his No.3 out to town and karaoke...I think he must really want people to know that he is a Navy CPL so for the remainder of this post i will refer to him as CPL Fan.

CPL Fan tries to maintain his professional image in his No.3 uniform while everyone else is busy making fools of themselves. Thankfully i am on the other side of the camera.

Our karaoke session started slowly cause i think everyone was a little shy about singing out loud. At first we booked the room for only 3 hours but when we neared the 3 hour mark we decided to extend another hour cause we were so into it. CPL Fan suggested that for a big finale we would all choose one song to go solo in the last half hour (after we all had lost whatever voice we had) to decide a "绝对SuperStar" winner. For the record no verdict was returned after the session (in fact no one was even designated as judges) so i don't know who won the contest. But anyway we took video of each of us singing so you can make your own decisions. Comments from myself about the singer below each link:

M01 - Ee Wei singing "一首简单的歌"
Ee Wei must have thought that the song title literally meant that the song was simple to sing. It sounds damn hard to me. Much like how he likes to fake people with his cock and bull story, throughout the night he was trying to fake us into singing the wrong key for every song that we duet-ed with him.

M02 - CPL Fan singing "我可以"
I think CPL Fan must have taken it to heart after D.Law warn him not to do anything to disgrace the Navy in his No.3 uniform as he sounds rather serious while singing this song.. If i am not wrong he chose this song 3 times tonight...Apologies to CPL Fan cause i kept mumbling in the video background.

M03 - Me singing "退后"
My voice is flatter than my tummy throughout. My chinese pronounciation is worse than rojak. My body movement is super stiff. Alot of the lyrics that i couldn't read i just mumbled through. This performance is so bad that Herbert had to ask "why no one clapped?" at the end. Ee Wei was trying to distract me by saying that Hebe act cute in the video but i think he pitied me after hearing my singing so he stopped his crap. Ok, i think i insulted myself enough.

M04 - Wee Kim singing "Only Love"
Wee Kim thought he would stand out to the judges better(if there were any) by choosing an English song while everyone sang Chinese songs. But i guess he didn't know that you were supposed to sing only Mandarin songs on ""绝对SuperStar"..Thus, automatic disqualification..

"M05 - Herbert singing "温柔"
Herbert can falsetto his voice into a range that i think i can reach by screaming when someone kicks me in the groin area, as evident by his truly entertaining rendition of "One Night in Beijing". He was supposed to be contestant M01 but he got saboh-ed by Wee Kim (paused his song) and CPL Fan (skipped his song and put him last instead) so i think that threw his rhythm of during the Finale.

I Need a Fix

Came back from the Singapore vs Thailand Finals yesterday night after midnight so i was too tired to write anything about the match. And judging from what i was reading from the papers/internet and hearing from everyone else, i think there's nothing new i can add to what's already been said, but i wholly agree that everyone involved in that facade should be fined and banned. Thailand next time if you want to stage a walk-out, for goodness sake do us a favour and have the balls to actually WALK OUT. Don't waste our bloody time. My compliments to Thailand No. 23 who was the only who was sporting enough to shake hands with our players after the final whistle. Not like the rest of his teammate who saw it fit to surround and harass the referee after the whistle for who knows what reason? You want to act tough and bully the referee at least do it during the match and earn your red cards like a man. I can only assume the referees in Thailand have NEVER made a wrong call and so Thailand didn't know how to react after one.

Can you spot all the losers in the picture?

"Their testicles shrunk after all the vehement booing from the crowd, the Thais meekly re-entered the pitch with their tails between their legs."

Our department is going to PartyWorld at Orchard tomorrow after screening the new U/M tomorrow to de-stress after a super tiring week of VA (I'm feeling shagged even though i did the least work..). I've been nursing (nursing as in still eating my regular junk food + some Panadol Cold) a cold/flu/sore throat since last Friday and it hasn't improved till tonight. Going to 2 matches at the National Stadium and screaming my lungs out probably wasn't the best track to a quick recovery. I hope i can squeak out some sound to sing tomorrow. Otherwise the rest of the KTV party are going to know the true meaning of Zhao Xia tomorrow night.. Oh yah, this would be the first time i will be going to a PartyWorld karaoke, so far have only patronised K-Box. Hope they have more variety of songs but i think i promised i would only sing Chinese songs tomorrow, so i guess i will be singing the usual 伍佰, 周華健 and 周杰倫 songs. Ee Wei passed me some 王力宏 songs just now so i will be trying to learn some new stuff to add to my (extremely) limited repertoire.

Tomorrow is also our department's long awaited/postponed photo-taking session! Weee! We were supposed to take from last week but only reminded again on Wednesday (when Ming Wei forgot his No.3) and then today (when *D. Law went AWOL when we were free to take the photo and we fell asleep and got caught by *Ah Chew for taking a well-deserved nap). Before we left today *D.Law told us to polish our boots tonight for the photo-taking. I am half expecting to witness the unveiling of some super-camera tomorrow that can capture how shiny our boots are during a photograph. I hope me and my Kiwi-shined boots won't be disappointed. And i hope i don't look too cock or too white in the photos this time.

* Not their real names. Duh..