Spring Cleaning

I'm finally cleaning all of the junk out of my house. My husband and I tend to accumulate a lot of stuff. I'm not sure how it happens, it just does. I guess it's because we don't really like to throw things away. Most of my daughter's stuff I can freecycle. I'm not sure how well that will work for our stuff though. Maybe I can sell textbooks that we have leftover from our college years. I can't imagine we'll need those any more, especially considering how old they are. But maybe some collector will want them, right?

Still sleepy

Yesterday was quite tiring for me. My daughter had her annual check-up at the doctor's office. It went well, but there was a lot of running around afterward. Needless to say, I had to grab a little half hour nap in the afternoon. Sometimes I wonder why I get so tired. Do I need a pulse oximeter to check the oxygen level in my blood? I don't think that it's sleep deprivation. I tend to sleep a LOT when I can. I don't want to be tired all the time!

My dream house

Man, it's raining out. On the plus side, I think I have decided what else I want in my dream house! I would like one or two foosball tables in my game room. There will also be a pinball table and a big screen TV set up for the consoles. Of course, it would have to be far enough away from my movie room that the noise from the game room wouldn't bug anyone watching movies. Yeah, it's not likely to ever happen (since I'd probably need a couple million dollars to make it happen) but I can dream, can't I?

Game review: Alice in Wonderland

A few months ago, I reviewed an Alice in Wonderland themed time management game. Despite how difficult that game was, I gave into my love for all things Alice and tried the hidden object Alice in Wonderland game. While the storyline wasn't quite Alice in Wonderland, it was very similar. Your character recently purchased a new house. In the basement, you find a portal to another world. In one of the rooms upstairs, you find a newspaper article about some missing girls. Much to your surprise, you find one of the missing girls in the other world! It is up to you to travel to the strange world and save all of the missing girls.

As should be expected from a Wonderland game, this isn't just a plain hidden object game. Some of the objects need to be put together before you can use them. Some of the parts for these 'bigger' objects aren't even in the same room. However, you do get slight hints when that happens. (The items turn red when you aren't in the same room as the object.) This makes the game a little more difficult, yet not so difficult that it is annoying. There are also a few mini-games - letters that need to be pieced together or gears that need to be lined up. (I fully admit that I sucked at the gears and frequently skipped that part.)

I love when games add little things like these to separate them from the run of the mill games. And I love it even more when they do it well enough to make the game fun and interesting instead of aggravating. I had tons of fun playing and I think you will too.

Bulking Up

Since I asked about the colon thing earlier this morning, I'll continue my 'health conscious' questions and ask if anyone has ever tried any muscle builder supplements? One of my family members has been talking about bulking up and, despite my suggestion of lifting weights and eating the right kids of foods, he keeps talking about supplements. I think it's specifically some sort of protein shake over a pill. Have any experience with that sort of thing?

Music review: Ai Kago Meets Jazz ~The first door~

You probably know Ai Kago, nicknamed Aibon, as the former member of Morning Musume, Minimoni, Tanpopo, and W. Just before the third album from W was released in 2006, Aibon was caught in a smoking scandal. At a mere 18 years of age, she was two years too young to legally smoke in Japan. The tabloid Friday was responsible for publishing the pictures of the teen smoking. As a result, Aibon was indefinitely suspended from Hello! Project. A little over a year after her house arrest began, she was back in Tokyo working behind the scenes for Up-Front Works, the agency that runs the Hello! Project family. Less than a month later, Aibon was reportedly in a relationship with a much older man and smoking again. This time she was released from the contract completely.

Now it is 2010. Four years after her big smoking scandal. Aibon has slowly returned to the entertainment industry. On March 31, 2010, she released her first solo album, Ai Kago Meets Jazz ~The first door~. The 11-track album is almost entirely in English, which was very surprising.

After listening to the album multiple times, it is my opinion that Aibon does much better with the faster songs than she does with the slower ones. "Sunny," an up-tempo ditty, is one of the best tracks on the album. On the other hand, "Blue Moon" makes me want to fast forward to the next song. And, of course, there is "Fly Me To The Moon," probably the most overused English song in Japan. Here's a note to any future Japanese jazz singers - Pretend "Fly Me To The Moon" never existed. We would all appreciate it. However, my biggest complaint is the background music. It sounds like she's singing in front of a midi track instead of a live band. I'm not sure if they mixed her voice with older instrumental recordings or if they did, in fact, record the background music just for her. I firmly believe that the bad songs on the album would have been a lot better if the instruments themselves sounded better.

It is impressive that Aibon took on this project. She has said that she's not particularly comfortable with the English language and singing in English can be rather difficult when it's not your first language. As a whole, the album is good. Even the bad tracks aren't completely awful. I hope that Aibon does another project like this. Not necessarily jazz, but something other than pop. Maybe she should try a big band album next!

Cleaning out the crap

Has anyone ever tried colon cleansing? I know there is a bunch of holistic types out there. Supposedly it will get rid of fatigue and low energy. I don't know that I believe the weight loss claim though. By the time the waste has reached your colon, all of the nutrients and calories have already been taken out. So there isn't really any way to lose weight there. So, speak up. What is the best colon cleanse routine you have done? How did it make you feel? Would you use it again?

Ceiling Down!!

A friend of mine recently had the ceiling in one of the rooms in her house collapse. There didn't appear to be any water damage nor were there animals running around in the ceiling. It just fell for no apparent reason. I wonder if she going to contact her insurance company to see what the home insurance quotes would be for the repairs. We contacted our insurance company we started having problems with our ceiling, but that was due to water damage not shoddy workmanship. (Well, there was some shoddy workmanship thanks to the previous owner thinking he could fix things properly.) I wish her luck getting it fixed quickly and cheaply!