Normally I’d quickly brush off why the monthly posting is late, but this time there was a real reason for it. I purposely put it off. While I was gearing up to write this at the end of April, I came to a very cruddy weekend. It’s not that something horrible happened (nothing did so don’t worry). It was a weird time for me to be semi-reflective of a few things. I didn’t leave the house all weekend (Friday-Sunday) and I was actually at the house alone the majority of the time. I had a weird mix of being lonely, but not wanting to see anyone. I really don’t know how to properly explain it, but it wasn’t it wasn’t one of those “I need a friend” situations. It was more of the “I need a girlfriend” instances. I know I really don’t talk about something like this in these entries, but I didn’t want to be cryptic about it.
I wasn’t moping around or anything. I just felt a strange sensation of emptiness to the side and I knew what it was. It’s been a while since I had been in a relationship and I really do miss it. I’m not going to get into details about the facts of that 5 year drought. It’s not like I haven’t pursued anyone in that time span because I have and have not been successful. One of those years doesn’t count since I made it a point not to try for anyone for a full year and I achieved that.
That whole weekend wasn’t all bad. I kept myself entertained and found hidden bits of joy that actually made me smile and made my heart feel great. So to sum up the lateness of this April edition, I did not want to write an entry with a heavy heart. I felt if I did that this entry would not be in a positive light or enjoyable to read. I apologize for the lateness, but I hope you can understand why. Also, to those that wanted to do things over the weekend, but I refused to, this is why. Sure, it might have been the obvious answer to not feel lonely by hanging out with others, but I didn’t want to spread that negativity or be the clichéd stick in the mud. Also, I was being short with my answers to some people I was talking to online or just tried not communicating much because I felt I’d say something dumb/wrong/offensive. So more apologies to those that might have thought that to be weird/odd. I’m good now though. Cinco de Mayo helped.
We’re pretty much a week into May, but I’ll leave out any of the May stuff (like Cinco de Mayo) until the next entry (if I remember). And now, onto the news. Get a drink or snack ready because this will be a long one.
=====Work=====
Again, we’re still taking our mandatory 2 days off per pay period. From what I last heard, we’re trying to pay off a loan. Not sure what the loan was for, but…eh.
Here’s a stupid incident that happened at work. The identities of the people will be protected and be referred to as Man and Woman respectively. So it’s about 15 minutes into the work morning and I’m doing my work when Woman comes into work late and says “whose car is that in my parking spot?” Man, who also just came in late, replies with “sorry, Woman. I didn’t see your name on it.” A minute or two later, Man comes into my office to tell me something about the next day when Woman comes in and starts to gripe to Man about the parking spot. Before it started to escalate, I said “not in my office. Go argue somewhere else.” Woman replies with “I don’t care” and continues on with
I was supposed to go on a shoot for Fiesta (supermarket, not the celebratory meaning). I was only going to be a grip and not film anything. I was fine with that. I was feeling the need to be able to escape the office for a couple days. And if you haven’t noticed, those last 4 sentences all started with “I was.” I was pulled off of it. Not only that, but I was pulled from shipping that I do every Monday and I was asked to come in on Friday instead of take my mandatory day off. The reason for all of this was because of a project involving Vertical Streaming. Vertical Streaming has been uploading and hosting our videos online for us. They were also to put up Q&A for each video, but they haven’t been great at that as there were many errors found over the course of time. I probably had mentioned it before, but I took the load of correcting all of those. And since I was the one doing that, I was needed to do another large load of them. I think it was 110 Q&As that I had to put up (10 x 110 = 1100 individual questions and answers). The owner wanted it done ASAP and that’s why I was pulled off of everything. He thought it would take all week. That sucked because for once I actually had plans on that Friday I was going to take off. So what was supposedly a week project took me 2 and a half days. Everyone was surprised because I was saying with confidence when I would be done with it. My motivation was to have that Friday off still and I was given it. Unfortunately, all that hard work led to all my plans being cancelled that Friday and that was the start of the cruddy weekend mentioned at the beginning of this entry.
=====Video Games=====
I didn’t buy any new games in April. I did end up beating “Castlevania: Rondo of Blood.” That was a nice accomplishment. There was DLC for “Mega Man 10” that I purchased and beat. Some of that leaked into May…darn Mega Man Killers. I played a little more of my WiiWare version of Phoenix Wright when I felt like it to kill time. I also downloaded and beat “Mega Man 4” when that was available. So there are no reviews this month.
I did purchase 2 Classic Controller Pros for my Wii. I bought a white one and a black one. For those that play a lot of Virtual Console games on their Wii, I highly recommend getting this. While the normal Classic Controller was fine, the Pro is just better ergonomically mainly because of the grips added towards the bottom of the controller (similar to a Playstation controller). It just feels better while playing those old school games.
For May, I have “Super Mario Galaxy 2” and the last Phoenix Wright WiiWare title to buy. I would like to get “Trauma Team” also, but it comes out too close to Mario Galaxy 2. When Mario Galaxy 2 comes out, my gaming time will be devoted to that.
=====Video Projects=====
First off, the Pink Martini contest video was scrapped. While I liked my idea and concept, I couldn’t find anyone that was either not busy, willing to act how I needed them to, or be in front of the camera. And it is true that I might not have asked a few people, I just knew their answer ahead of time and didn’t bother. Oh well.
Other videos that are pretty much scrapped is the Good Work video. I really don’t have the motivation to want to make that work. If it was planned ahead of time, I could make it work, but I just don’t see it happening with this. Who knows, I might be utterly bored one day and attempt to do it, but right now I don’t want to. Same goes with the flag football video. At the least, I’ll splice the clips together and cut out a lot of dead air to make it look cool to watch. Adding fancy stuff to it…don’t know.
As far other video projects, I was on a roll this month. Don’t know what it was, but I was knocking out videos one after the other. I did the Music Video, made a highlight video of the wedding RFM did (will talk more of it later), the Food Day outing we had, and the outtakes video from the music video. These videos will be at the end of the entry. I also finished the XMAS Bash video. It’s not ready for broadcast, but I have all the clips cut and spliced the way I want them. Later on, I will go back and add things to it to make it cooler/fancier. Obviously, my previous software issues have been cleared.
The music video shoot was a learning experience. I don’t want to speak for everyone, but I think we were all in for more than what we originally thought. I understand that the participants had been busy leading up to that day so preparation time was not the same for everyone. Our original timeline of how this would flow was obliterated by a few hours due to multiple takes and preparations and note giving on individual performances. I myself wasn’t perfect either. I took 4 takes total. The photoshoot was probably the easiest part for everyone as it was less stressful and more relaxed. We all had nerves when we took our turns to film our parts.
There was always a line I did not want to cross and that was from it being a fun to being work. I didn’t want to be a tyrannical director and constantly giving notes and demanding better performances. The thing is that I want their best performances. That’s going to make them look good and the entire end product great. So…I want these to be fun, but I am going to be expecting a bit of professionalism from participants. I want them to be prepared, I want them to look good, and I want them to have fun while being able to do their parts seriously. My attitude for future projects will take a different approach for the benefit of those being involved. That might mean me being stricter about things, but I’d like to avoid wasting mine and others’ time. I can go on longer about this (trust me), but I’ll spare the readers their time. Bottom line would be if you want to be involved in these then you need to be serious about it so that you yourself and the overall product will turn out great.
=====Royal Flush Media=====
The website for Royal Flush Media is up and running now! Tell your family and friends.
The wedding video I did for Natalie was very simple. While I have been criticized about it (being told what brides want/expect), those words didn’t matter to me. Really, how could one bride say what any other bride wants? What Natalie had said about it was passed along to me and she loved it. THAT is all that mattered to me. The person I did this for was the one that loved it. I could tell she showed her family it because the views for that video jumped to 50 in a matter of hours. Sure it was simple, but they weren’t expecting anything at all. I am very proud of the video I made and I am glad Natalie loves it.
Here’s to more RFM work in the future.
=====2010 Formal=====
We’re ready. Still a few more backstage tweaks to work out, but we will soon reveal the information to the masses for them to know what’s coming to them.
=====Fanfics=====
While I might have been swamped at times at work, there are also stints of almost nothing to do. I’ve mentioned it before, but a lot of the things I do are automated. I set those up and then do non-automated work on another computer. That computer is also where I check my email, check a few select sites, and talk with friends if they’re on and not busy. The past month when I hit those patches of nothing to do, I found myself reading my fanfics I wrote back in 2003 and 2005. They were dedicated to BabyVoX as they were my main interests in Korean music at the time. I wrote 2 fanfics using myself and them as the main characters.
“Rurouni Angels” was about Arnell and Lee HeeJin as a couple. HeeJin was always my favorite in BabyVoX. Reading it over again, this could easily have been translated to a daily drama. There was love, conflict, action, twists and turns…the typical things you could expect from a drama. It went on for 100 chapters and I read all of them. As I read them, I could recall what I might have actually been doing in my life at the time. I would think about my frame of mind as I was writing these and why I wrote what I did. Other times, I just found myself caught up in the story and anticipating what was going to happen. Sure, I knew what was going to happen, but the journey there was interesting. There were a lot of key points where I thought to myself “I can’t believe I wrote that.” When I read the vows I wrote for each character, I was really touched. The one I wrote for myself, I think those words would still ring true to whoever I end up marrying. I would just have to take out the part about “being a fan,” ha. I love the vows I wrote for HeeJin to say. One line made me laugh and actually tear up a little and it was “I didn’t need to marry a smart man.” Funny that the next line describes that others laughed at that line also. I think that when I get married, if my future wife took those exact words I wrote for HeeJin and used them as her vow without me knowing she was going to do that, I would eternally love her.
“Somehow, Somewhere” was more action oriented. It centered on Arnell and EunJin together as a couple and the troubles they had to endure from a vengeful ex-friend and his lover. Tons of action. I could see it being an action-drama. It was only 25 episodes long, but it was a good lengthy read, especially the last few episodes. I remember when I wrote this and posted them, my online friends questioned why my character was with EunJin and not HeeJin and wondered where the HeeJin character was. They questioned the motives of a lot of the characters (some being actual online friends) and all the mysteries that were not revealed until the latter part of the story. Needless to say, none of them were disappointed when everything unraveled itself. One thing to note was that this was at the height of my TechTV fandom. Adam Sessler and Morgan Webb were characters in it and there were a few mentions of Leo LaPorte in there. As I read this one, in my head I knew what was going to happen. From reading each introduction, I knew what was going to happen, but not all the little details. That was apparent when I was reading the fight sequences. The dialogue was more familiar in my head than the fight sequences. Again, I was touched with a few things I wrote. Most of that was because of the HeeJin character.
While reading both of these, I tried to picture these scenes in my head. It was a bit tough since I had not seen or heard much from these characters in a long time. I was also listening to BabyVoX’s music through the majority of reading these to kind of at least have their voices/personalities in my head. It’s hard for me to recommend these to read to just anyone. I had an audience back then and that was other BabyVoX fans. Me recommending reading these comes with a note. That note would be to picture other people in these roles as opposed to who they really are. It would be easier to do that with “Somehow, Somewhere.” “Rurouni Angels” has some real references to BabyVoX’s activities as well as a few other Korean idols that are involved in the story. For those that want to give it a try, you can find them on this forum:
http://s2.zetaboards.com/KoreanMusicRealm/forum/462/
You don’t have to register to read them. You can view them as a guest. There are some other members’ comments sprinkled about in some of them. You can also find a couple of short stories I wrote there also.
=====Final Thoughts=====
I’ve been meaning to say this for a while now, but I always forgot. I seem to be getting more spam emails this year than I ever have before. Don’t know why. I also get a lot of spam posts on my Rated CBAM review site. For some reason, most of those are in my review on “Mario & Sonic At The Olympic Games.” My guess for why that is because of the names of Mario and Sonic. Anyways, boo spam. The only spam I like comes in a can.
I’m 100 episodes into “You Are My Destiny.” Since it’s already May, I’m 105 episodes in as of writing this. I like.
Oh, how I enjoy Salsa classes. I keep saying it, but it’s such a great stress reliever. And it’s fun. And I get to dance with girls. And Lucia is HOT!
Another nice stress reliever is randomly going to a karaoke bar with friends. Going unplanned and staying longer than originally thinking was awesome. That also marked the first time I ever sang an SNSD song at karaoke, Genie. Adding to that being so awesome was the fact that the actual MV was playing along with Romanized letters for those that can’t read Korean like me. So nice we sang it twice and it was awesome. Very memorable night. And yes, that’s the most I’m mentioning about SNSD in this post. Shocking.
I know I have mentioned this before, but I really miss Cheon Sang Ji Hee – The Grace. CSJH was one really big reason I got back into the Kpop scene. It’s weird for some people to hear that I like them more than SNSD (especially since they’re my current favorite) and that I like them more than BabyVoX (my past favorite). The only Asian music artist they haven’t surpassed in me liking is BoA. So that makes CSJH my second favorite. There are a lot of reasons why I like them. KT members had a chance to read about why in a 4 part blog post I made dedicated to them. Those really curious can still read about it (while they have the chance, uh-oh). I have to remember to copy those posts for myself to keep. But those that know how much I like SNSD now and how much I love BabyVoX back then should have a small understanding that for CSJH to be put above them that there is something special about them to me. If you check my iPod, only CSJH and BoA are outside of the normal categories I have set up. Me mentioning them every now and then in posts also shows how much I’ve missed them. Another fact would be that they’re still the picture at the bottom of this blog. They have been away from the music scene for a couple years now. There are rumors of them coming back this year, but I’ll wait for some official word before getting excited.
Anyways, there were a couple of videos that a user had posted on YouTube of some of their performances. I mentioned one during the February entry. I found it again, but the user won’t allow embedding for it. Fortunately, the user posted up another performance for their song “Girlfriends/Girl Talk.” It just happens to be my favorite performance of that song. This came along during the cruddy weekend mentioned earlier. See, there were sprinkles of delight during that weekend. Anyways, I was smiling the whole time when I watched this performance. It was great to see them dance and sing. I love their voices. When Lina (my favorite) hit her high notes, she gave me goose bumps. I was a very happy man during that 3-4 minutes.
And that happy note brings us to the end of the April entry of this continuing blog. In Microsoft Word, that was 6 pages to read through. Now we come to the part of the entry that I’m sure readers enjoy the most; the videos. 4 video projects and the CSJH performance I mentioned earlier. Please enjoy them.
Miss You (MV) - 04.03.10
The Wedding of Natalie and Erich - 03.13.10
The King of Iron Chef Tournament - Kite Flying - 04.25.10
Miss You (MV) - Outtakes and BTS
CSJH The Grace - Girlfriend (Chattering of The Girls) - 07.14.07
Thank you for reading this April edition of “Just Like Coffee That Has Cooled…” Take care. Mmbyeeeee.
