I waited until most of you have gone to sleep to whip out some of my favorite Christmas music. Who would've thought that an atheist like myself would prefer Christmas music about Jesus?
To all of my Vox neighbors, friends and family I hope you find a bit of peace and even some joy this holiday weekend. It's been a tough year for a lot of us and I know many of us won't be spending the holidays with those we love the most. My heart especially goes out to those of you who have lost close friends and family in the past year. Love to you all, Val
Koko~ni click~* to begin your shrine today~♥ ^ ^!
I didn't make it to bed until 1:30 again last night. I know some people can handle it, but I can't. Getting up at 6:15 is brutal. Zombie girl. At least last night I was up making delicious cookies and cookie doughs.
My vanilla bean cookie dough and my Mexican Tea Cake dough are in the fridge, ready to be baked tonight. I did finish my sugar spice cookies (a molasses cookie) and my chocolate chip cookies last night.
I had told Cranky about my vanilla bean cookies and I think she said she hadn't seen a vanilla bean (or maybe that was a conversation with someone else). In any event, it's a good excuse to show you my beans (tee hee, that sounds kinda dirty).
The bean itself is sort of waxy and flexible. It doesn't smell like much, but you can almost smell a hint of vanilla.
Here you can see the delicious and fragrant innards. It's like a gritty, black paste. No those are not giant warts on my thumb, it's flecks of dough.
I want to rename my Mexican Tea Cakes to Val's Tea Cakes - not because I'm PC, but because they took a lot of damn work last night. I know I'm not supposed to use my coffee grinder for my nuts, but I always used my cheap old one and it was perfect (besides, I have no problems with mingling the flavors of coffee and pecan). Not thinking that my new grinder is a burr type instead of the kind with blade, I tried to put my pecans through it. It was pushing 1AM, I was not thinking clearly. Mr. Val took over the repairs on the grinder while I chopped and chopped and chopped and chopped until I had a finely ground heap of pecans. Usually my tea cake dough takes me five minutes (and four of those are making the butter and sugar fluffy with a mixer!!), but last night it took a half hour after battling with the grinder (again, stupid on my part, I know).
Merry Christmas Eve to you all.
~Cute and *sexy~* for Christmas?...I guess this type of worlds colliding truly only occurs in Japan ne~…(^q^)!
The four idols featured in Bomb magazine's Christmas♥gravure special are Yua! Yua! Yua!: (*´艸`) Nitellegenic 2009 & 2005 Seikore Grand Prix top idol~♥, Koizumi Maya: Nitellegenic 2009, Togashi Azusa and Koike Yua: Nitellegenic 2009 & Miss Magazine~ ^ ^。
And you know whenever you glance at those "anketto" survey post cards which accompany most any publication in Japan no matter what the genre~....It would be really wonderful to be able to fill them out and mail them in as presents are always available~! \(^o^)/☆ Most often you'll see personally messaged and autographed Polaroids~♥ as well as signature cards, plushies and a vast variety of other sweet gifts♥ and when it comes to Hello!Project..so many *cute~* presents are given away in their Alo~Hello! series DVDs as well as other shashinshuu releases as you'll see each member purchase a special *present~* at the locale their visiting for their photo shoots~ and towards the end of the DVDs they'll remind you of the (usually first press) post cards which you may mail in for a present of your very own~ ^ ^。The main catch here being that what you see either on screen or in the magazine listed under potential "presents" is the exact number available to fans!!! (・o・) Many times it's a single Item like a Polaroid or a small set of three that are available so the odds of being chosen for these most sought after special "presents" is most tiny as you'll be up against every other post card sent in!!!....tiny yes~ but still just the thought of having a chance is pretty~* sweet ne (*´∀`*)
With a bit of help~ I was able to receive Saitou Yua's♥ 2nd shashinshuu "Kajitsu"'s present~ o(*´∀`)o゛。。。
。。which as written just above was a choice between either a personally signed LE book cover or a Seikore 05 special DVD~! I'm so happy to have received the LE signed cover which is an alternate of the dust jacket cover of the version of "Kajitsu" sold in bookstores~.
The signed book jacket came sealed in plastic with a certificate from Young Jump magazine stating a thank you and authenticating the present's signature~♥...and while the front of the special jacket is a photo included in "Kajitsu", the back cover photo is unique to this LE signed memorabilia~.
Now if only I could get more anketto mailed in ne~ (*´∀`*)♥
This issue of Bomb magazine~ offers numerous *presents~* from many idols and in their "Bikini X'mas Party!!!" special each idol♥ shows her personal gift which one lucky fan each will receive through visiting Bomb.TV's website...such a tiny chance but so *lucky~* if you're the one chosen~!!! The presents include a signed brush~♥...a signed compact mirror♥ as well as a signed pen case♥♥♥ from Yuachan~♥!! o(*´∀`)o゛
~~~~~Just below I've split the Bikini X'mas Party!!! clip into two parts as 50MB is the limit per upload to Vox and had I kept it as a single clip it may have become much *fuzzier* in clarity~ mite ne~ ↓↓↓ for Yuachan♥!!!....um okay for the other three most *kawaii~* idols too ne~ (。ーωー。)。。。
January's disc is noted as being Vol.14 so perhaps the trading photo cards and DVD extras take turns I wonder throughout the calendar year~? (・c_・;)?Here with issue you'll find 16 chapters~!...and 100 minutes~! of idol coverage and an indication that perhaps these included DVD extras are released every few months is that Vol.14 also covers many of the idols seen in earlier issues just released prior to this one~.
....which means.....
The bug thingie which I totally forgot the name of (._.;) is totally icky~ and way too large for a bug to be!!! (・д・`*)!!!。。。eating melon and scaring Manoeri too~ although she does keep saying how *kawaii~* it is (・o・) but there's also Mano♥bucket o(*´∀`)o゛as well as Mano♥laundry to soothe things over after the bug received so much screen time~!…(^q^)! Enjoy the *clip~*.....
..thus Mano♥bucket was born \(^o^)/☆ So what could this all mean?..
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elizabethandthecatapult.com ♥ myspace.com
The last time we mentioned Elizabeth and the Catapult, the song "Race You", went straight to the top ten on The Hype Machine. And it's easy to see why, the song is such a fun and cute pop song.
This Christmas song, "Christmas with the Jews", is also fun and cute (and not to mention quite short). But what you're thinking when you're listening to this song, is "er, aren't you forgetting Hanukkah?"
Maybe you can ask them if you see them live:
- 01/28/10 The Barn Clinton, New York
02/05/10 World Cafe Live Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
02/06/10 8x10 Baltimore, Maryland
myspace.com ♥ twitter.com
When I first heard of The Joy Formidable last year, I was impressed. I said I saw "lot of potential" in this band. Based on the free Christmas song, "My Beerdrunk Soul is Sadder than a Hundred Dead Christmas Trees" (available at musicglue.com), I'm still loving the vocals by Ritzy.
Maybe there was a problem with my download, but the MP3 track is 4:56, where the last 30 seconds of the song is complete and utterly garbage... it sounds like it was encoded in error and not part of the song. I've edited out the crap part for you.
The tour information they sent me is as follows:
- January 2010.
Fri 8 USA New York Terminal 5 w/Passion Pit.
Sat 9 USA New York Terminal 5 w/Passion Pit.
Mon 11 USA New York Union Hall.
Tue 12 USA New York Pianos.
February 2010.
Sun 21 Norway Oslo John Dee w/The Temper Trap.
Mon 22 Denmark Copenhagen Vega w/The Temper Trap.
Tue 23 Denmark Copenhagen Vega w/The Temper Trap.
Wed 24 Sweden Stockholm Debaser Slussen w/The Temper Trap.
Fri 26 Germany Hamburg Molotow w/The Temper Trap.
Sat 27 Germany Berlin Postbahnhof w/The Temper Trap.
Sun 28 Germany Cologne Gloria w/The Temper Trap.
March 2010.
Tue 2 Germany Munich Atomic Café w/The Temper Trap.
Wed 3 Germany Frankfurt Nachtelben w/ The Temper Trap.
themanchesterorchestra.com ♥ myspace.com
We're on Day 10 of the 12 Days of Christmas, so hurry on over if you're a fan of the Manchester Orchestra. Each of these songs are acoustic live versions of their song. My only complaint is that you have to listen to these songs on the computer - so if you've got 30 minutes to spare, sit and listen away.
My favorite track is "One Hundred Dollar", you can simply hear the anger as singer Andy Hull asks to borrow $100. While the song is short and doesn't offer much explanation, you, as the audience makes up your own background to the song. Anyway, the song is from their latest album, Mean Everything to Nothing, they'll probably be playing loads of their new songs on tour:
- 01/29/10
Salt Palace Convention Center^ Salt Lake City, Utah
01/30/10 The Fillmore^ Denver, Colorado
01/31/10 The Black Sheep* Colorado Springs, Colorado
02/02/10 The Marquee* Tulsa, Oklahoma
02/03/10 Juanita’s Cantina Ballroom* Little Rock, Arkansas
02/04/10 New Daisy Theatre* Memphis, Tennessee
^ with Brand New
* with Harrison Hudson
siamusic.net ♥ myspace.com
Finally, we have Sia. This actually has nothing to do with Christmas, unless you count getting a new music video as a holiday gift. But just talking about the video for "You've Changed" isn't enough to warrant its own article, so I thought I might as well stuck her here.
Sia has always seem to me to be this child trapped in a grown-up's body. The latest video is wonderful, it features this weird stop-motion, "dress up" video-gamey feel to it. I don't know who's idea it was, I'll bet it's a combination of Sia's child-mind and director Dennis Liu of @radical.media, but it came together pretty great.
Be sure to watch the high-resolution video of it (you'll need it to read the song lyrics scrolling at the bottom).
12/23/2009 04:58:16 ♥ vu (
) ♥weheartmusic.com♥twitter.com/weheartmusic♥news.weheartmusic.com
~Dream♥Love~ for the the most *perfect* meaning in a name, written。。。夢愛
Saitou♥Yua (齊藤夢愛)my most favorite♥ idol Σ( ̄◇ ̄*)!
”48”。。。for J.J., because you never know..he may suddenly appear in a post here for no reason at all as I become sidetracked (。ーωー。)
The annual seikore auditions culminate in a "Grand Prix" winner~ which can often feature several girls and much of the publicity of these events are featured in Shueisha's "Young Jump" magazine which is published weekly~.
Yuachan♥ won Seikore in 2005 with top honors as "Grand Prix!!!" and has since been featured in countless magazines, released two shashinshuu, released 5 solo gravure DVDs~, released a special box set w/trading cards and additional extras~, released a special graduation DVD, released two calendars, is a regular on two radio shows ("Madamada Gochamaze~!" and "Oshaberiyattema~su"), appears on an array of variety t.v. programs, CMs, acts as a quiz show assistant...and all this in addition to making numerous event appearances~♥!
Soon my love of gathering Yuachan♥ collectibles and event memorabilia inevitably followed and more than any other idol♥ I just adore her so much!!..she has such an engaging personality and feisty~ness! that even a fangirl can go overboard much??! ヽ(。´▽`。)ノ。。!!...a portion of which is just below ↓↓↓
...and I just realized that my camera seems to have decided to not want to transfer photos to my laptop anymore (;´□`) 。。so my cellphone camera has no flash..thus this oh so so dark picture~ (._.;) There are stacks of more magazines, articles, a few signed memorabilia as well as a few trading cards and a tiny piece of Yua♥'s seifuku which aren't in this photo~ and I'll post those up as ~Dream♥Love 夢愛48~ continues here~ ^ ^。
Yuachan's♥ personality embodies so much more than that of the *sexy* gravure idol (+extreme *cuteness~*!!!!) in her which sizzles on the surface~ and in winning 2009 Nitellegenic~!!! so much of her *adorable~* playfulness...her cutely♥rough aura at times and really what I find to be one of the most magnetic~* draws I think for her fans is her very outgoing..friendly demeanor as well as her slightly odd♥ sense of humor and timing~!
While a vast array of idol♥ cuteness~ and talent were entered for this year's Nitellegenic awards only five were chosen for top honors and as aforementioned, Yuachan♥ really shined~* so much in the competition throughout~ (*´∀`*) even becoming one of the leads for Nitellegenic's debut idol♥ song♪~after being crowned!!!The Nitellegenic winners announcement made top headlines in Japan as well...being featured on the front page of their shinbun~!
Idol♥competition~...so many odd games and peculiar ideas being circled around...so odd at times that you really need to watch ne~…(^q^)! So many Yua♥ thingies to present here (*´∀`*)....up next will be Yua♥ in "Bikini Idol Christmas~!" as well as "Idols vs. Tabasco" (・д・`*)...tanoshimi kudasai! \(^o^)/☆
The straitjacket incident was obviously the most epic moment of the night, but the theatrics didn’t end there. There was interpretive dancing, rogue boomerangs, and a pretty intimidating box accordion. Throw in a picturesque stage setting and a watering can attached to the drum kit, and it wasn’t an average Webster Hall show. The band managed to take a spacious, relatively normal venue and shift the atmosphere to match that of the album: warm, enthusiastic, and frenzied.
Frontman, Simon Balthazar, led the charge in a bowtie and further proved my belief that Swedes are musical messiahs when it comes to penning a good pop song. Though he was the lead singer, the audience seemed to focus on the band as a whole as they constantly exchanged instruments and shared singing duties. The arsenal of instruments that night included a banjo, mandolin, violin, clarinet, and a brightly colored melodica – the required instrument for every chamber pop band out there. True, they occasionally succumbed to a few clichés (see: the rampart Arcade Fire comparisons), but their sincerity shone through. When you take away the fanfare, there’s still a pulse to their music that drives it past most conventions. Hence the epic-ness.
With only one album, they had a limited supply of songs to play. My personal favorite, “I’m a Pilot,” drew from the band’s most appealing quality: their infectious camaraderie. This was most apparent during the encore, when they had run out of songs to sing, so they resorted to the obligatory cover, Low’s “Just Like Christmas,” featuring opening band, Freelance Whales. Anything holiday-related is instantly a cheese-fest, but throw in a cavalcade of instruments and a dozen earnest musicians and it becomes easy to suspend any cynicism.
(I really wanted to end this review by writing, “...and by the end of the night, you could say that the entire audience had shed an emotional straitjacket – and put on a fringed vest of love.” But I won’t. Swearsies.)
Photos by Dave:
12/22/2009 00:12:42 ♥ kateg (
)
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♥ myspace.com/fanfarlo











