Music review: Do As Infinity - Get Yourself

Artist: Do As Infinity Members: Tomiko Van, Ryo Owatari, Dai Nagao Album: Deep Forest Release date: 9/19/01

English translation: Losing myself, I grope around in darkness... It's all reckless trial and error.

I wonder how everyone else is doing?

Let's get yourself -- Let it reverberate, your soul at its utmost limits. Try again -- Break that wall down again and again.

Getting what I deserve, being forsaken -- Changing myself now is better late than never.

Are we OK just being here?

Let's get yourself -- Scream until you break down and Change your way -- Head into the changing future from your past.

Let's get yourself -- Let it reverberate, your soul at its utmost limits. Try again -- Break that wall down again and again.

Let's get yourself -- Scream until you break down and Change you way -- Head into the changing future from your past. About the song: Definitely not one of my favorite DAI songs. It has a good sound but it's a bit strange. A lot of DAI's songs have this smoothness to them that is missing here. The song is a little on the jerky side which makes it difficult to get wrapped up it. This would be one of those songs that you put on when you don't really want to listen to the actual song but you need something upbeat to keep you going.

Christmas cards

It's that time of year again! When everyone starts collecting addresses and buying their Christmas cards. At my full time day job, we've already bought our corporate holiday cards. I believe we got Patriotic Christmas Cards this year. Luckily, I'm not the one in charge of purchasing the annual holiday cards and gifts for our clients. The Gallery Collection is having a Christmas cards scholarship contest for high school and college students. The contest runs until January 15, 2008. You can submit artwork, photographs and computer graphics for your entry. I know I have some creative readers out there. I hope some of you qualify for this contest. It would be really neat to know someone who made the artwork on a greeting card.

Not Just Mama!

Tina, who is a really awesome Australian stay-at-home mom, runs NotJustMama.net. With a husband and five kids running around, she has the typical "I'm more than just so-and-so's mom!" syndrome that I think all mothers go through. (I know I have!) So she started her blog to help her remember who she is. I wish her a lot of luck. Not just with finding herself but also taking care of five kids full time!

Game review: Val'Gor - Dark Lord of Magic

A couple of days ago, I played Val'Gor - Dark Lord of Magic. This is a Spot The Differences game with a couple of mini-games tossed in. Some of the mini-games include putting a puzzle together and word searches. I really did not like this game. As a matter of fact, I disliked it so much that I didn't even finish the 60-minute trial version. I quit at about the 30-minute mark. Some of the Spot The Differences parts aren't too bad but some of the levels are almost impossible. There are "cursed" levels where Val'Gor shows up and makes both pictures pitch black. While this makes a hidden object game a little more difficult, it makes trying to find differences between two pictures impossible. You have to memorize the pictures in order to figure out where the little tiny difference is. And since the difference is usually a shadow, the blackness of the level makes it frustrating to play. There must be some other way to make this type of game fun and exciting without driving the player away.

Vacations on the beach

I absolutely love traveling. Sadly, I don't get to do it nearly as often as I'd like to. I think taking a trip for some Egypt holidays would be pretty cool. I've never been outside the United States so pretty much any trip to another country would be interesting for me. How awesome would it be to be relaxing on a beach in Greece? Then again, my husband doesn't really like warm weather so he'd probably hate a week on a beach. Though it's not like we'd spend the entire week being beach bums. There's always shopping and sight-seeing and all that fun touristy stuff. I can't wait until we're in a better spot financially so we can travel all over the place.

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JDorama review: Hanazakari no Kimitachi e

Title: Hanazakari no Kimitachi e Also known as: HanaKimi Translation: For You In Full Blossom Broadcast date: 7/3/07 - 9/18/07 Genre: Romantic comedy Cast: Horikita Maki, Oguri Shun, Ikuta Toma Plot: Ashiya Mizuki (Horikita Maki) is a Japanese girl living in America. When her idol, athlete Sano Izumi (Oguri Shun), stops competing in the high jump, she moves to Japan to attend his all-boy high school in order to make him jump again. What is good: Ikuta Toma steals absolutely every scene that he is in. What is bad: It seems that Oguri Shun can only play one type of character. Letter rating: A Overall: I really enjoyed watching HanaKimi. While I started watching the show because it starred Oguri Shun, Ikuta Toma stole my heart. He was able to pull off goofy yet heart-warming at the same time. I'd like to see him in a ton of other projects. I was a little disappointed in Oguri Shun's performance. I've seen a couple of his roles now and they all seem to be exactly the same - a cute yet distant loner. It would be nice if we could try something a bit different for once. Sadly, I don't have much to say about Horikita's Ashiya. Sure, the character was determined and charismatic but she just didn't seem to come together totally. It was almost as if we, the audience, were missing something about her.

I would like to see a special episode though. I won't give away the ending for the show but it definitely leaves an opening for an awesome one-shot special. This is definitely a show that everyone should check out.

Game review: Fashion Fits!

I wasn't planning on playing Fashion Fits! based on just the name. It sounds like some sort of fashion designer game. Well, it's not. I decided that I had to jump into the game and if it turned out to be terrible, I'd at least be able to warn you about it. Fashion Fits! is a time management game based on the exciting world of retail. Your heroine, Francie, gets a job selling clothes at a big box store. You get to do thrilling things like stock the floor, empty the fitting rooms of leftover merchandise and ring up customer purchases on the register. Unlike a normal retail peon, you do get to make choices on upgrades for the store. However, some of the upgrades seem to give you more work to do.

While this isn't a bad game, it isn't particularly exciting either. It's basically the same annoying jobs you can get in real life without getting money in your pocket. There are different types of customers which, obviously, require various levels of service. A lot of the customers leave clothes in the dressing room for you to clean up while a few of the customers pick what they want and try to get out as soon as possible. It's your job to try to make sure that you, as the only employee of the store, can make everyone happy while keeping the floor stocked with product. I found it rather difficult to juggle absolutely everything. You can upgrade the floor displays to hold more stock and you can add more fitting rooms but that really just leaves you with more displays to fill and fitting rooms to clean. None of the upgrades I was offered included hiring an extra employee. You can make Francine walk faster but that doesn't accomplish a whole lot when the sales floor is filled with demanding customers.

You might want to give the game a try if you like time management games. It is possible that I just hate retail so much that it has seeped into my opinion of it. However, I don't think I've ever had to work a busy sales floor on my own without any help from anyone. That would completely suck and this game proves it.

Car insurance

My husband and I went shopping for a new (used) car this morning. Our current car is having some problems and we can't afford to keep throwing money into it. Of course, car shopping means shopping for car insurance too. Right now, our car insurance and home insurance are with the same company. Sadly, I don't pay too much attention to them. I just leave it up to my husband. I am always telling him that we should compare car insurance every few months to make sure we're getting the best deal we can. No one wants to pay an arm and a leg for insurance, right? As far as I know, we're getting a really good deal on our car insurance. Buying a new car will make our rates go up a bit since the car will have to be financed. That's the part that always hurts. We own the current, dying car outright so we pretty much have the absolute minimum required by the state. Having a car that is financed means that we're going to need collision and all that fun stuff. Since we're not planning on keeping the current car, we won't even get the multiple car discount. Hopefully our rates won't go up too much.

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America's Most Smartest Model - episode 6

There weren't a lot of surprises this week. I was completely shocked at the end of the episode but we'll talk about that in a bit. The Edge Challenge was deceptively difficult. Our eight models had to split into four teams of two. Extremely intelligent Daniel made a huge mistake by taking on extremely stupid American!Rachel, Pickle paired up with Brett, Angela agreed to work with dominant Andre and Australian!Rachael went with VJ. The teams had to draw six shapes using specific angles and lengths and whatnot. Not very difficult, right? Neither American!Rachel nor Andre were able to create any shapes. (Andre blamed the metric system for his problems. Rachel is just dumb.) VJ came very close to winning but when guest judge Santos (from the second season of Project Runway) told him that one of his measurements was incorrect, Pickle snuck in and nabbed the win.

For the Call-Back Challenge, the models had to design some clothes. The winning team, Pickle and Brett, got to dole out shapes to the other teams while they were able to use the entire six-shape arsenal. They gave Australian!Rachael and VJ a circle, Andre and Angela got a triangle and a rectangle while they took pity on Daniel and American!Rachel by giving them the rhombus, pentagon and trapezoid. Overall, I didn't think any of the designs were absolutely terrible. None of these people are fashion designers. Pickle and Brett took the win for this challenge with a boxer-themed sporty trunks/skirt with a hooded robe.

This is where the surprises started. Immediately after the winners of the Call-Back Challenge were announced, Mary Alice calls American!Rachel up to the runway. After a bit of scolding, Mary Alice throws the dumb blonde out of the house. She didn't even make it to the very end of the episode where they are supposed to get rid of people! So Mary Alice dismisses everyone with the promise to see them later.

Would Mary Alice toss another model out of the house? If she does, who would be the next to go? At the elimination, she calls up Australian!Rachael, VJ and Daniel. Daniel gets a scolding for being a nice guy and picking the dumbest person in the house to pair up with. However, he refuses to put his integrity on the line and Mary Alice sends him back to the fold. VJ was called up for....I'm not really sure why he was called up. Mary Alice basically praised him for playing the game well and asked him if he really wanted to win. It's obviously a bad thing to come in second place in Mary Alice's book. Finally, she gets to Australian!Rachael. She gets Mary Alice's wrath for not having her heart in the game or something? Mary Alice doesn't think Rachael "wants it enough." If this is the case, why isn't Angela up there? Angela seems to have the personality of a brick wall despite having some book smarts. Anyway, no one else gets kicked off and they all go back to worrying about the next challenge.

Music review: Madonna - You Must Love Me

Artist: MadonnaAlbum: Evita: Music From The Motion Picture Release date: 10/25/96 Video link: via YouTube

Lyrics: Where do we go from here? This isn't where we intended to be We had it all, you believed in me I believed in you

Certainties disappear What do we do for our dream to survive? How do we keep all our passions alive, As we used to do?

[Bridge:]

Deep in my heart I'm concealing Things that I'm longing to say Scared to confess what I'm feeling Frightened you'll slip away

[Chorus:]

You must love me You must love me

Why are you at my side? How can I be any use to you now? Give me a chance and I'll let you see how Nothing has changed

[bridge] [chorus]

You must love me About the song: Evita is a stage musical written by Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice about the life of Eva Peron. This song was specifically written for the movie version of the play. It had been thirteen years since Weber and Rice wrote anything together.

Lyrically, this is a heart-wrenching song. It comes at a point in the movie when Eva is at her lowest yet she finds out that her husband truly does love her. Throughout their entire relationship, Eva believed herself to be nothing more than a political tool to get her husband, Juan Peron, into the Argentinian presidency. It is only when she is on her deathbed that she realizes how wrong she has been.

You Must Love Me is a great emotional song but it's not something I'd recommend listening to if you are sad or depressed.