Refraction

The little girl who lives down the street and who my mother babysits occasionally, is SO CUTE. She’s playing outside her house as I walk by. When I stop and say to her dad, she turns, looks at me, points, and yells “??!” (“Auntie!”)–her name for my mother. She shuffles over to me and says, “????!”‘ (“Wanna go to Auntie’s!”)

The day before, I had arrived at home to see her there, and was told “She’s been here an hour or so–saw ?? on the street and followed her home, and wouldn’t go home with her dad, either.”

SO. CUTE.

I think the world record thing is kind of hokey, but… it is Firefox we’re talking about, after all. 😀

Help set a world record. Download Firefox 3.0.

EDIT: I enjoy Firefox 3.0. It’s faster, and I haven’t encountered a single bug so far! It’s like Firefox 2.0… but a little older, wiser, and with a few battle scars. I kind of miss my unbeveled menus.

Several notes from the concert last night:

• I can see why the act at 7 has won Félix awards. He’s got a very rich voice; unfortunately, I wasn’t as able to appreciate him as fully since I was really waiting for those who’d be taking the stage at 9.
• I think it’s also kind of amazing how any Francophone accent he has completely disappears when he’s singing in English.
• Fifteen minutes of speeches before the main attraction is not a good idea. Especially when your first two speakers don’t speak French all that well. (The Francophones behind me were snickering–as was I, admittedly, having been caught at this very error once–at the pronunication of “qualité.” En français, on dit “ka”, pas “kwa”.) There was also his infamous “Dansons! Chassons! Mangeons!” (“Let’s drink! Hunt! Eat!”)
• That being said, the third speaker was able to read the growing impatience, and said: “J’ai préparé un long discours, mais devant cette foule, je n’ai plus de discours.” (Cue cheer from the crowd.)
• Concerts are bad for me, as I tend to spend way too much money at them. Still, the tickets were cheap–$25–and I only picked up two CD’s and a shoulder bag (and a couple pins….) I suppose this does mean I don’t need to buy a bag anymore!
• I admire the trust of the lead singer, who stage-dove and crowd-surfed in the middle of the set. This is a big man, too!
• The bassist had good taste in shirts. It’s a takeoff of the old stick-in-rink Canucks logo, but with a guitar instead of a hockey stick. I can only assume he’s aware of the reference.
• The kids to my left (and yeah, they were kids, no more than 13 or 14, if that) were a bit annoying. At one point a beach ball was being passed around, and they wanted to over to the side, where they were–so I kept hearing cries of “ici!” and “hé, le ballon!” as well as near-misses as they tried for the ball which remained desperately out of reach.
• Security was quick! Towards the end of the night, a guy jumped onto the stage and was immediately whisked away by two guards. I didn’t even see where they came from.
• There was a bizarre call-and-response sequence which I think ended with us chanting “Roberto Luongo”.
• This was an outdoor concert. I kind of wonder where the residents of the nearby retirement community were yesterday evening.

This (ad? publicity spot? something else?) video is quite hilarious.

I’ve finally upgraded my WordPress installation from oh–two years ago, when I first moved my blog to undreamt.org. Please let me know if you encounter anything amiss.

I’ve also just realized that I’ve had my blog for close to six years. Ah, memories. I feel old.

My three-finals-in-four-days streak is now over, and now I have two-finals-and-a-French-assignment-in-seven-days to look forward to. That being said, here are some more ramblings from me (since when do I do anything else?)

1) Went shoe shopping today and was witness to the most blatant customer-hitting-on-sales-associate incident I’ve seen in a while. At the end of it the poor guy was literally hiding from her and whispering, “Oh, please just leave.”

2) This also implies that I bought new shoes (not from the cute sales associate, alas.) I like my new shoes, a green pair of peep-toe slingback wedges. I usually rag on peep-toe quite a bit, but I figure, ah, I wasn’t a huge fan of wedges either. Very spring-y and really the first pair of non-neutral coloured shoes I’ve ever bought. (Unless you count those pink flip-flops.)

3) The shoe shopping was retail therapy, all right? >_>

4) So Gmail says that many Gmail users don’t archive their e-mail. I admit that I used to fall into this camp and let everything pile up in the Inbox. Hey, it worked in Hotmail, right? I don’t see how heavy users can NOT archive their mail. I’ve grown to like an empty-ish inbox, with the only e-mails sitting in there a kind of to-do list (oh yes, I need to reply to that e-mail, get clarification from that person, think up a witty reply to that Facebook message). It’s handy. And by archiving my e-mail, it’s all still there, satisfying my packrat tendencies.

5) I have decided that there needs to be some karaoke soon. Since I’m kind of tired of singing the same songs everytime I go (no, really–I haven’t bothered to listen/learn anything that might show up at karaoke) I have resolved to learn “GLAMOROUS SKY” and “HEART STATION” so that I can successfully fool people into thinking that I know the words. (…Naturally, this means that no Japanese speakers can come. Or, if they do, they’d do best to either a) help me out or b) keep their mouths shut.)

6) I have been getting up at like… 4:30 each morning. Actually, strike that from the record, I’ve been waking up at 4:30 each morning and not rolling out of bed until 6:00 am. I then catch the bus at 6:45-ish to make it to the library at about 7:30-ish and settle in for a day of studying. Woo-hoo.

7) Seeing everyone’s grad photos and everyone on Facebook is a little… sad. 🙁 I wish I were graduating with everyone else but then I realize that I wouldn’t really be graduating with anyone, since all those people on Facebook are high school classmates and I haven’t seen a number of them in years. Literally. Most of my chem friends are not graduating until next year, anyway, so GRAD 09 FOR THE WIN. 😛

Soooooo I’ve kind of been listening to Hikaru Utada’s new album, Heart Station. I don’t like it anywhere near as much as ULTRA BLUE, but there are still a few repeat-worthy songs on this one. Among them:

• “HEART STATION”
  

  心の電波　届いてますか?
  罪びとたちのHeart Station
  神様だけが知っている
  I miss you

  This song reminds me a lot of some of the songs on ULTRA BLUE, but a tad more melancholy. I also like the punning (or possible punning, I haven’t really looked at the lyrics) on heart/hertz/station. That’s mostly just a language geek thing, though. 😀

• “Prisoner of Love”
  

  I’m gonna tell you the truth
  人知れず辛い道を選ぶ
  私を応援してくれる
  あなただけを友と呼ぶ

  This wouldn’t sound too out of place on Exodus. Actually, who am I kidding? This song is better than most of the songs on that disk, but I’m kind of at a loss to explain why I like it so much.

• “虹色バス” (Niji-iro Bus)
  

  愛する人へ　想いを寄せて
  Everybody feels the same
  Everybody feels the same
  虹色バスで　虹の向こうへ
  みんなを乗せて　青空PASSで

  Although it’s upbeat, the melancholy that permeates this whole album (except for “Boku wa Kuma”) seeps into this one too. I almost dismissed it as “too cute” on first listen, but there’s such a good beat! As the last track (next to the bonus track), it actually lifts my mood a bit. 🙂

I’m currently listening to Duran Duran’s “Ordinary World” right now, and it struck me that there’s something very familiar about the chorus. I suddenly realized that it reminded me of LOVE’S (Fukiko Nakamura) song “Trigger.” (Go to her myspace page to preview. Do you agree?)

This seems to happen to me a lot, and not everyone agrees with me: my brother likes this song whose opening reminds me forcefully of Nickelback’s “How You Remind Me.” Naturally, he doesn’t hear it at all. To be honest it’s maybe just a couple of bars, but every time I hear it, I think of Nickelback’s song first.

“Cloud 9” by Maaya Sakamoto and “Une héroïne” by Laurent Voulzy kind of seem similar too, although I can’t really place my finger on what’s so similar by the two songs.

The opening chords of sagayuuki’s “Hatsuyuki” also inexplicably remind me of Green Day’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”. This connection is so tenuous, though, I’m tempted to say it doesn’t really exist.

Ooooookay, so on a bolt of inspiration, I stumbled on LinkedIn.com and searched for my former supervisor. He’s found a new job, so–good for him! I just find it a little odd, to be honest, that someone else he used to work with is also working there… hmm…

(I tried searching for two other group members as well, but their profiles are closed off. Wouldn’t it be odd if they were all working together?)

[/stalker]

I lately have fallen in love with the Japanese vocalist サガユウキ (sagayuuki). Unfortunately he’s one of these up-and-comers and so I haven’t been able to find much. I’m thinking pretty seriously about ordering his album, but to tide me over until then, I’ve been listening to the stuff on his MySpace page.

I hadn’t realized the extent to which artists use MySpace. (I hesitate to say “indie” because some, like サガユウキ, are actually signed to major labels.) So…. all those artists I always wanted to hear more from? MySpace’d.

So, I now recommend for you:

Josée Allard: Bilingual singer-songwriter. Her music’s fun and light (most of the time). On her page she’s only got the French stuff, I think, but they’re worth a listen even if you don’t understand the lyrics.

Bevlyn Khoo: A multilingual singer from Singapore. Some of her music reminds me a bit of Ariane Moffatt; it’s a very soothing, pleasant sound. In the mood for French? Mandarin? English? Bevlyn does all three.

Ellery: Mellow pop-folk sound here. Nothing groundbreaking, really, nor too challenging, but good easy listening.