TTS Ownage Streak!

Ok short one, news on SNSD's TTS! As of today's win on Inkigayo, they've completed a super combo of 4 hat tricks! What's this? No they don't play soccer :P What I mean is they've completed triple crowns (3-in-a-row-wins) on all major music programs! 

TTS on Inkigayo!

Congrats to the girls! :) They've really worked hard... in addition to their promotions, they're currently doing their SMTown World Tour as well, and just last week there was that concert at google... It's amazing they're still so energetic and upbeat ^.^ Power too them all!

Speaking of being hard working, I read on the weheartiu that aside from preparations for her concert... ie prac dance, singing, special stages, covers etc, she's hard at work filming for her japanese mv for You and I. The filming started at night on the 25th, and went all through the night. When she last posted at 5am, and the sun was coming up, she was still filming... Haix. Even though I do study through the night sometimes... but to act, sing and dance throughout the night seems to be much harder don't you think? I'd probably get so grouchy I'd bite some fingers off... :\ IU gambatte-kudasai ne!

That's all for now... I'm supposed to sleep early... :\ Gonna receive my results tml... wish me luck...

Ray

Soshi VS IU on Music Bank! Sketchbook! T-ara's new song?

It's been awhile... I'm back in reservice, and I still have 16 days to go... 

I keep telling myself that I may be the crap-cleaner, but I needn't let myself feel that way for the whole thing... :\ Praying for a safe and uneventful 2 weeks.

To topic, I briefly saw this (the title) tweet by Squishyblob on my phone during the day and was dying to find out what it was about :P

When I finally got home (after an amazing evening hanging w bei, bear and jh :) we should totally go out more), I found out basically TTS' Twinkle mini-album and IU's "Spring of a Twenty year old" had a showdown on Music Bank! Haha so exciting!

120525 Music Bank Results Announcement!

Twinkle ended up winning in the end! By quite a margin too! :) The girls have worked really hard, promoting nearly daily on all the music shows! Its a job well done, and a win well deserved ^.^ Congrats!

Turns out it was actually a hat trick by TTS with their win tonight on Music Bank too, since they won on Show!Champion and M!Countdown as well. haha and this just adds more icing to the cake~~ Plus they've been winning for 3 consecutive weeks already! Touche! Take that you haters haha.

Cute msg from TTS after the performance, credit to Soshified.

“Twinkle~ Three consecutive weeks on first place!!Thank you very very much~!
We decided to take one trophy each!”

IU lost! Haha but considering she didn't promote at all, the fact that her album is competing head to head with Twinkle with such unbelievable statistics is in fact a statement of her popularity. It almost seems unfair even haha >.< 

Either way, I'm super happy! Haha 2 of the 3 kpop artists I'm supporting are pwn-ing the music shows for weeks on end! Keep it up!! :D

Some little things going on with IU! 

As I came home I managed to catch Squishy just as he/she was posting about IU's performance on YHY Sketchbook. As a result I finally managed (thank God for Squishy) to hear IU's 3 lvl note again live :) Though it was for a remixed ver. of Good Day. It's been too long since we heard it. I've always had the impression that such bypasses were kinda like... cheating. Though I'm also torn by the prospect of IU damaging her voice :\ It's a dilemma...

Good Day (Concert ver) on YHY's Sketchbook!

This ver sounded.... quite weird at first, but after watching the vid I was like "whoa this is awesome" :P Ah... wonder if I should dl and keep >.<

Song can also be heard here! :) 

Then there was something I felt was a little weird! 

IU dancing to Rainism!

My first thought actually wasn't "ahhh. she's improved hasn't she!" though I strongly feel that was the reaction IU had in mind when she took on this challenge, and I certainly did have that thought later on. Instead, I totally just thought... "she totally looks like Michael Jackson in that hair and glasses" -.- I wonder if that'd be a compliment for her or not? lol :P

Either way, I hope she doesn't go the way most idols do... :\ ie sing and dance is both emphasized. Dancing is fine and all, but frankly, IU isn't really that kind of idol. Focus on the voice please! >.<

IU performed Peach for the first time live during this show as well! Loving it to death ^.^

IU with Peach, live on YHY's Sketchbook!

I don't really know Korean, but apparently she changed the lyrics slightly during that ad lib portion, thus the huge reaction XD Gif translation here! Ah really love the song~~

Moving on... T-ara (kinda) suddenly released a song titled "Round and Round", with no prior promotion (there still isn't any now o.O) or noticeable announcement. And the song is kinda... meh.

T-ara - Round & Round

MV ver 1

MV ver 2

The song sounds like it's for the oldies... as in I feel that the older generation people would probably love it, but for T-ara's main fans... not so much. Which is kinda sad. :( They really need a new song already. You can only perform a song so many times before it kind wears out... and they seem to have been doing Roly Poly and Lovey Dovey since forever already...

Conspiracy me wonders if it's the same thing again... deliberately assigning/forcing crappy songs to be produced -> lower popularity... earlier this week apparently the 9th member, some 14yo girl was revealed to be the 9th member to join T-ara... and they're still saying that the additions have been revealed, but that there may still be internal movements :( Is this bullying I wonder... :( 

Conspiracies and unhappiness on the issue aside, isn't the 2nd MV just so much better? Pardoning the song, there're just sooooooooo many scenes of Jiyeon and Boram, it's making my heart throb >.< haha. I wasn't planning to keep it originally, but for Jiyeon, I just migh....

Alright it's been a long day. Though it's probably the best week in ages. USS with ben, gordon, sarah, yong jie (and later dinner with jeannel, zz, jt who joined later) last fri, read "Socrates meets Jesus" (ie personal time) on tues, badminton with hui lin on wed, talk n dinner with Emma on thurs, dinner with bei, bear, jh today, not to mention i hung with wei ming and jackie... I realise I've actually had a really good week (not to mention the stuff I have to blog about haha). Thank God ^.^

I really wanna meet fred, syl and zhi ying... it's been too long... 

Still looking for people to go to Carnivore with >.<

Bahh going to sleep :) I have to remember to post about the other 3 films too, on top of those other events :\

Goodnite!

Ray

haha song in is my head, of course... ^.^ 

IU - Every end of the Day/The Day's End

love the lively beat that's similar to Good Day

it's now my wake up alarm!

it literally gives me the strength to get out of the bed's morning-gravity-field 

and face the crap that will come as i trudge through reservice...

IU <3 ^.^

thx for energising me!

Things happening lately & IU's New Mini Album!

Ok first I'll share this first to get this over with. It's too cute to not share. :P



Love this to bits. :D

Ok next! In complete contrast, something quite horrifying that happened in Singapore lately.



Has all the elements of a drama. Society that's currently quite xenophobic, especially towards those from China at the moment, with a mini-election over the horizon. Rich China immigrant with a Ferrari dashes a red light, smashing into a cab. Kills the Singaporean cab driver, who is sole bread winner of a family with 3 children, as well as the Japanese passenger. The China immigrant also dies. As a side act, somebody robbed the dying Japanese lady after the crash.

Articles in Stomp. Original incident. Family and friends of the immigrant says this. Other opinions, here, here and here.

I wanna write a short reflection on the incident.

1. The Farrari driver is clearly in the wrong. He reached the junction 4 seconds after the red light came on. There is absolutely no excuse for his actions. He simply and clearly did not intend to stop. And no, don't even say the taxi driver wasn't careful. In his shoes, anybody else would also have died. The current system works because every driver trusts other drivers to follow the traffic rules. Additionally, the cab driver had no room to maneuver. So NO! The accident is in no way the fault of the cab driver, and responsibility rests solely on the Farrari driver's shoulders.

2. As one can see, the articles written on Stomp and TemasekTimes are completely biased (ie tends to wards raising a hoo-ha and anti-government respectively) and are of low quality. It worries me, cuz these two sites actually get a lot of traffic, and irresponsible reporting often leads to a lot of other bad shit. Not to mention the amount of critical thinking in the comments is really disturbing as well.

Why are they bad you ask? You want examples you say?

Count the number comments that bring in the Nationality and social status of the Farrari driver as a basis to insult him. How are these factors even relevant to his crime? Do only rich people cause traffic accidents? Do only China immigrants cause such traffic accidents? By all means accuse and rage, but kindly rage objectively, and factually.

Stomp titles their article such that it implies that the Farrari driver's family is rebellious and unremorseful for the actions of the Farrari driver, when it actuality, the family members are only protesting the irrelevant insults  and untruths projected on the Farrari driver. Further, the family of the Farrari driver also experienced a loss. The Farrari driver was dear to them as well. They would naturally be upset. Can they not protest? And wrong though the Farrari driver may be, it doesn't give us the right as observers to insult and "add charges" that are clearly irrelevant to begin with.

I can't even bother with the temasektimes... sigh.

3. Immigrants are not the enemy. They are people as well, and people who've had to leave their homes to make a living. Stop placing emphasis on irrelevant things and instead spend time on bettering one self.

4. Singaporeans are a loo...ong way off from being a gracious society. Sigh at the comments... and good lord for someone to even conceive stealing when the Japanese woman was dying -.-

Alright, after that bit of black stuff, I wanna rescue this post, so...



Cutie bomb!! XD

Ok back to IU!

IU's new album's been released! She's got a super long MV this time! It's nearly half and hr >.< keke

At the End of Each Day

Full MV

There's so much footage here of IU cuteness haha. Like it ttm :D

Song only MV :)

The song's really nice! It has the same feel as Good Day, and is really energising for me. Listening to it non-stop already :)

Just one question. WHO IS THE GUY!!!? (Rumor has it~~ It's just manager oppa XD)

I actually want to end this post already, but I'll give a bonus for this post! Delved into it kinda late but, it's still something crazy that happened. :)

Not subbed by me, just something I found. 23rd April episode of KBS Hello. The crazy stuff starts at around 6 mins.


[ENG] H3LL0 Part 1/6 by shiningsalamanders


[ENG] H3LL0 Part 2/6 by shiningsalamanders


[ENG] H3LL0 Part 3/6 by shiningsalamanders

Are you like that as well? :D

Cheers,

Ray

The Avengers (2012)

About time I posted my next movie review.

I actually have 4, but I'll do it one at a time, or it'd be abominably long.

The Avengers (2012) by Joss Whedon

Scores: Audience, Critics

Imdb: 8.8/10, 69/100

RottenTomatoes: 96%, 93%

I didn't watch this via rental from VideoEZ of course. Watched it the first Friday after it started screening in the local cinemas, with long-time-no-see buddies iz, nanaka n duck.

Anyway, story follows the establishment and coming together of the Avengers, consisting of, Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Black Widow and Hawkeye by Nick Fury, to combat the likes of Loki and an invader army; how they have their contrasting and thus often conflicting personalities drive them apart, but finally putting aside their differences and working together for the greater good.

There... frankly isn't much to say about the movie from an artistic perspective. The movie was distinctively... like shonen, for lack of a better word. It has everything you could want in such a genre. Simple plot. Lots of action scenes, starring brawling muscle men, energy blasts, high tech equipment, and enemies that are gross and huge beyond belief, to the extent that, despite their track record, our heroes are still somewhat the underdogs in that situation. Not to mention you have the Black Widow in her tight black suit... :3

But don't be mistaken, I did enjoy the movie. This movie is better than most of the shonen out there, for the following reasons.

The writing for this movie was unbelievably exceptional. Though simple, the jokes were exceedingly witty, both building on existing material and creating new perspectives. Furthermore, if handled badly, jokes tend to ruin the pace/atmosphere of the moment. Instead, the jokes in this film contribute fully to plot development, the setting and raising of the atmosphere, and pacing of the film. With this cast of heroes, made up mostly of volatile/serious/emo/uptight heroes, jokes are probably not very forthcoming. And yet, most of the jokes fit... pretty well :)

**Spoiler alert**  Don't watch this if you haven't seen the film.

** Spoiler end**

Meh. Couldn't find the exact clip from the film. Those copyright people are doing a really efficient job these days...

Probably the my favourite scene in the film :) In fact, the scenes with the Hulk in this film were all great! The previous movies didn't really do well in terms of portraying the Hulk, and it became more of a demolition fest than anything. Here though, Mark Ruffalo did such a stellar job of portraying the Hulk that, I'd actually put it out to say, I couldn't imagine anyone else as the Hulk. He was that good! The Hulk wasn't a disease. It was a part of Banner, an extension of him, and should be treated as such. Ruffalo enacted the Hulk with that thought in mind, and the outcome was outstanding.

I don't really need to mention Robert Downey Jr. aka Iron Man. He's basically the embodiment of "the party " in the Avengers. No Tony Stark = No jokes, no wisecracks, no funny stuff... etc. His charisma practically powered the movie. Need I say more? 

Some flaws...

There really isn't much to say about the other characters. Thor was suitably over-powered, since he's supposed to be a god. The others though were, kinda underwhelming. Their capabilities were far too insignificant as compared to Iron Man, Thor or the Hulk. The film did well to ground the movie with each character's properties, and utilise them suitably, but for me, I kinda had to make a conscious effort to suspend disbelief.  

Loki was, on the whole, lame. His plot was simple, for a god who was supposed to be full cunning. He was practically incapable of fighting himself. Altogether kinda disappointing in this respect.

I want to give a paragraph here to a side character... Clark Gregg aka Agent Coulson. To avoid spoilers, I won't write more about his exploits, but to this character, insignificant though his role is in this film, if Hulk was awesomeness and Iron Man was the wise cracks guy, Coulson was the one that the film that little bit of soul it needed to differentiate itself from the other *boom boom* *smash smash* films. Whedon did well to give a side character such a surprising role, and he's become one of the most endearing characters in this film.

Overall, this is one of the best films I've seen this year. Equal parts cool, funny and exciting. I'm totally gonna buy the dvd when it gets out :P 

Alright cya for now!

Ray

Camera :D

TTS Comeback & IU's Single! Also T-ara's Plight!

Exams are over!! Whoopie! And my first year in NUS has ended! It felt really fast~ And it has been a fruitful year :) Hope next year will be just as exciting and fun ^.^

Anyway, more happy news! ^.^ Its a great period for me keke~~

TaeTiSeo's Twinkle mini-album's released! It's really catchy! Haha it got stuck in my head after the first time, and I was unconsciously nodding my head to it.

Soooo sassy :P Taeyeon & Fany looks gorgeous in the vid~~ ^.^

I still think Seohyun looks rather awkward though. Like she doesn't really have the confidence to pull it off.

hmm.

One thing though... it was really obvious they were acting? Since it didn't really look like they were trying even when they were shooting those high notes... so much so that it wasn't believable :P

Happy for them that they totally topped the charts with their album upon release though ^.^

So then they performed on M!Countdown! And I was slightly disappointed, but above all quite... worried.

Twinkle on M!Countdown

Baby Steps on M! Countdown

Though it wasn't a bad performance as a whole, and Twinkle was alright, they didn't really pull Baby Steps off that well, though it's a nice song, but I kinda got bored. The dancers were really distracting... and they didn't really look all that confident.

Haha I would like to, at this point, point out the super manly fanchants xD

Also, totally could tell Taeyeon wasn't quite able to hit some of the notes and was pushing it, especially in Twinkle. She probably already strained her voice somewhat after this performance. It's quite worrying since they have a string of promotional performances coming up on the various music programmes like Inkigayo and Music Core... Not to mention Taeyeon would still be promoting her "Missing You Like Crazy"...

Check 2:43 for Baby Steps, 2:40 for Twinkle for an example...

Really just hope they'll take care of their voices yea...

Next, IU also just released her single "Peach" ahead of her mini-album! Another really well done song :) The lyrics are so cute keke... and I guess the guy fans can totally relate to the lyrics :P The tune's really nice and peaceful, and I'm really liking it :)

Peach - IU

The recorder tune's so nostalgic :) 

Haha so Peach also topped the charts. Like, totally topped it. #1 in all boards. And since we know no 2 songs can be "top" at the same time, it seems like at the moment IU has trumped SNSD lol. Kinda have mixed feelings about that haha >.< Hwaiting both of you XD

Looking forward to her full album release, as well as vids for her concert and birthday celebration :)

I also have something about T-ara! Haha as you all know after Heroes I'm also following Jiyeon. So I just found out there's an individual ver thing for their Roly Poly jap ver.

Roly Poly in Japanese - Jiyeon Ver.

Dies from cuteness overload XD

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH! haha. Slightly upset that I can't find the dl for it hrmph. :P haha.

Hmm while I'm on the topic of T-ara, I'd like to say I'm really upset with their CEO. Read this.

If one follows T-ara, one would actually realise how busy they are every single day. There was this variety show that's like an expose of the daily schedules of the T-ara members, and they are just so very very busy. Its practically one schedule after another, and they only get something like 2-3 hrs of slp per day? When asked what they would do if they had a holiday, they actually said to just sleep and sleep some more :\ For girls at that age... kinda sad isn't it?

And yet the CEO keeps trying put pressure on them. I wouldn't mind if it's more schedules, since it is in their interest. But no. He announced an upcoming change to the group members of T-ara, claiming it would raise competition among the members and keep them on their toes, even threatening to say that if they become complacent any of the members could be removed. More recently, under the guise of "giving them a holiday", he sent T-ara "to help an upcoming girl group with their debut photoshoot". So after helping them... this upcoming girl group, apparently had the nerve to declare that they hope to beat T-ara. What kind of backing does one need to say that I wonder?

Yea frankly, they should just up the whole thing as a group and go elsewhere. This, _|_, is for the CEO. I just hope things will go more smoothly for them...

Oh last thing I wanna write about! I was watching Strong Heart, Ep23, and K.Will was featured as a guest. I've been wondering about him, and omg he sings so very very well. Totally recommend listening to his songs. I'm gonna go looking for his albums soon too :D

Haha well that's it for now :D Gotta start packing and move out of PGP! keke cya all soon!

More IU goodness :)

Just want to post a song today! More IU goodness that you can't find in any OST! 

Dreaming - IU - Dream High

Keke her voice is so nice I'd rather listen to her ver of "I need a boy" than Big Bang's >.<

Ah well... Back to studying! Last paper tomorrow >.< Wish me luck!