34 posts tagged “v6”

Got tickets to August V6 concert! Wanted Tokyo, but got Niigata. It's a little unfortunate, but Niigata is better than no concert. WOOO V6!

Members of Coming Century drawing dolphins (extremely badly).

A few things:

My herbs are still growing. My sage has blossomed.

I woke up this morning to find that someone (who had either deleted their account, or had their account deleted) had posted a bunch of really mean comments on some of my flickr photos, for no apparent reason.  That wasn't a very nice way to start the day.

Then I had to teach an interminable class with Kowakian Monkey-Lizard, which just made me angry and unhappy.

Then when I got home, some guy with his cat that insists on fucking on my car and keeping me awake at night harassed me about putting out unsorted garbage last Friday, except I didn't put any garbage out last Friday, but PEOPLE SAW YOU, THEY SAW THE GAIJIN PUT OUT THE GARBAGE ! !! and then he continued on about shit I didn't understand.

I've just been in an unpleasant mood since then. :(  Bah.

At any rate, here's a music video for you.

Today is Sunday. I had to work today, though, because it was "The PTA Thinks They Are Important, And Thus Will Fuck Everyone's Weekend Up Whenever They Want To" day.  There was a "You Worked Hard On a Sunday; Let's Eat And Drink" party afterwards that I wasn't invited to. When they started collecting payments in the afternoon, one of the teachers asked me to pay, and i'm like "uhhhhhhh for what?" "The party!" "What party?" "... OH!"  20 minutes later, I Was invited, and initially said yes, but then thought better of it. 5000yen is a lot of money when i'm broke and trying to save money.  I changed my mind and told them I wouldn't come.

After work, I went out looking for plants. You see, yesterday I got this idea that I should try growing plants this year on the windowsill in my living room. It doesn't get much light (only about 40 minutes of direct sunlight in the afternoon), but I figured I'd give it a shot.  Went around to a bunch of places, and they all suggested I go for herbs, since they're the most tolerant of such shitty conditions -- also the most useful.  After stopping at several stores, I finally ended up coming home with: Tuscan Blue Rosemary; Hot Lips Cherry Sage; Silver Lemon Thyme; Sweet Basil; Wild Strawberries; Peppermint; 鷹の爪 (Eagle's Talons, aka cayenne); a rubber tree; and 4-Leaf Clover (or, a good luck plant, depending on where you look).  I doubt the cayenne will fare very well, since they want full sun; the clover, too, will be a bit dodgy.  The rest of them, though, should live well, I hope.  Just have to make sure I actually use my herbs now :).

Do you have a kitchen garden/windowsill garden?  What do you grow? What are the conditions like? Do you have any advice to give? よろしく～.

Tomorrow is my substitute holiday for working on a Sunday, but I can't really relax. I have to go to Toyama City and have the immigration people move my visa into my new passport, and then to the driver's centre to get my international driving permit.  Nothing difficult, but it's time consuming (the immigration stuff can be done 9-12, 1-4, but the IDP can only be done 10-11 or 2-3, sooo -_-).  Assuming I don't get back too late, I'll take some pics of my plants. :)

And now, because it is THE WAY, here's a music video.   This is Made In Japan, what I believe was V6's second(?) single, from 1996.  My favourite part is the rotoscoped flashes of light.

This is the video for the new 20th Century single. It was number 1 on last week's weekly oricon ranking, I think. IT's a good song, but the video is pretty "...... what."  See for yourself.

So here's the thing, and I know I'm a nerdo, but whatever.

Last year, I joined a variety of Fan Clubs, mostly for the benefits they would provide (specifically, fan club preference for tickets, so I could get them at the cheapest price, and not necessarily have to deal with yahoo auctions and other stupid, and pay more).  I joined the Gackt Fan Club, the V6 Fan Club, and the Ayu Fan Club.

Gackt Fan Club
Benefits expected: regular news letters, robust fan site, concert ticket preference, special offers
Benefits received: a mass-produced postcard on my birthday, regular offers to take my money for things I don't want, invitations to $3000 overseas trips with middle-aged housewives for a single hour long concert. No domestic concerts at all, it seems, except for that one retreat-in-the-mountains-of-Gunma one that cost like, an entire month's pay.
Verdict: A waste of my money.  I did get a cool fanclub-only desk calendar for my friend Celeste, but yeaaah.

V6 Fan Club
Benefits expected: regular news letters, robust fan site, concert ticket preference, special offers
Benefits received: news letters, concert (and musical and drama and other such performance) ticket preference (though the archaic postal method of ordering them leaves a lot to be desired). I don't get things I don't want, or that are retarded (like with the Gackt one), but it is missing out on some stuff (easy ticket purchase, fan site, etc).
Verdict: If I only sort of liked the group, probably wouldn't be worth it, but as I DO like them quite a bit, and since the ticket preference has worked out for me in the past -- yeah, it's alright.

Ayu Fan Club
Benefits expected: regular news letters, robust fan site, concert ticket preference, special offers
Benefits received: All of the above.  The news letters are kinda dodgy, and no where near the quality I'd come to expect after being in the V6 fan club for a while, but good. The TeamAyu site has buttloads of stuff -- screensavers, diary entries, photos, information about performances, TV appearances, etc.  Concert ticket preference exists, and you can apply ONLINE.  The V6 one, you have to say "I want tickets for this performance, here's my money", and send it by postal service, and then wait, and then call a line, which you can only call once, and get your "You got tickets!" or "You didn't get tickets!" message, and then wait for the tickets to arrive / your refund to appear.  It's fucktarded.  With the Ayu fan club, you apply online for the tickets you want, you wait a week or 10 days, you check back, and they say "You got tickets to these shows", and give you a number, which you put into a machine at a Lawson Station (that's a convenience store), and then your tickets are printed off and you pay at the convenience store.  Additionally, there are special offers on CDs and things, and special gifts.
Verdict: Of the three, this one is the only one that really lives up to my expectations of what a fan club should be.

HOLY WALL OF TEXT, BATMAN.

Now i'm gonna go hide in my nerdhouse.

But who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Oh wait, I know: a longish day of travel and then Tokyo wooooo.

These tickets are particularly awesome. I catch any train from any station in the area designated as the Takaoka Zone. Once I reach a station on the Hokuriku Main Line, (in my case, Takaoka), I get on any Hakutaka Limited Express that I want.  When I get to Echigo-Yuzawa 3 hours later, I hop on whatever Shinkansen happens to be headed to Tokyo.  When in Tokyo, my return ticket can be shown at station gates for free passage on any JR line in Tokyo, Chiba, Yokohama, and parts of Saitama.  When I want to return, I rock up to any station in Tokyo on the Joetsu Shinkansen line, change to whatever Hakutaka I want, blahblahblah.  Only trouble is, being New Year's-ish, there's a chance I may not get a seat on any portion of that journey, which would suck, but the worst I've ever had was standing from Ueno to Echigo-Yuzawa, which is only like 80 minutes, sooo (shrug).

In other news:

My kitchen garden :D
As you can see, stuff is still pretty much growing. However (1) I'm going out of town for five days, (2) there's no one to stop by and water them and (3) temperatures are supposed to get quite low while I'm gone.  All this means that I will most likely return to dry, dead, frozen plants. :((( I hope not though...

And now, since it's relevant both in a superficial sense (I'm travelling tomorrow) and in less concrete ways, feel free to enjoy the video for V6's "Voyager".

It's Monday, so it's last.fm time.

So let's see... hmmmm... Whigfield I've subjected you to again and again this week... Big Bang is Korean and they're alright, but not really worth mentioning so much... The only "New" appearance on my top 10 is Whigfield, but like I said, I've already driven that into the ground, I think.  So I guess you get to listen to V6 (not that I haven't run that into the ground either) because, besides the new single last week, I also got a hold of the B-version of Good Day! which was released last year.  There were several remixes on it of Tabidachi no Tsubasa, and I thought I'd share this one with you, because I really really like it.  It's mellow, laid back, and it uhhhhhhh features Ken and Go, so how can you go wrong?

(jeez, i'm such a fanboi ._.)

Anyway, here it is.  Vox screwed it up again, in that way it is prone to doing but apparently only for me since anytime I bitch about it I'm told it's my fault or that there is no problem.  But whatever, i think you can still listen to it.

Also today, video fun.  This is "Infection" by Chihiro Onitsuka.