Flavor of Life » apple

Utada’s In the Flesh Tour

MK — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 16:28:26 +0000

This is the One, Utada's third english album. Released last may 2009

Hikaru Utada’s been doing another concert tour which launched last Janaury 15 . Her last concert tour was Utada United in 2006 which was held in various locations across Japan, this time though the tour is around the USA!

She’s doing the tour to promote her 2nd english album (3rd if you include her Cubic U days) This is the One. Some youtubers were able to sneak in their cameras and get videos! She sang soem of her japanese songs during the show! She also Sang Sanctuary and Passion together… AT THE SAME TIME! and she sang the backward-lyrics live as well!

I wish I had a VISA right now… I’d kill for tickets to see Utada.

For music interest though, if any of you guys reading this have never listened to Utada before, you should definitely try listening to the This is the One album. Its seriously not a Jpop/anime/asian music album at all and I think anyone and everyone can seriously enjoy it. I have the special edition US retail version (with additional bonus tracks) and its been part of my “study playlist” for quite a while! Some interesting songs to note:

Apple and Cinnamon

A very simple piano R&B ballad. I find it has a good mix of melody, well-written lyrics and deep pulsating beats. A great love song which focuses on a failing relationship with an interesting allusion to apple pie being Apples and Cinnamon work so well together.

Automatic Part II

A direct allusion to her first japanese single AUTOMATIC in 1999. Interesting here is if you compare the two songs and play them one after the other you can really see the difference between Hikki back then and Hikki now as well as how different R&B music was 10 years ago from now. Automatic is less melodic than its predecessor but uses a heavier R&B beat. The lyrics are also… quite provocative with which in part shows how Utada 10 years ago was just a young 16/17 year old girl and now she’s a 27 year old woman.

Come back to me

The first single released for the album. After seeing the epic failure I thought Easy Breezy was as a lead single for an album during her Exodus days, its nice to see a single that reminds you why Hikki is such a powerful artist. Come back to me is a soft sad ballad which is reminiscent Flavor of Life and Prisoner of Love but uses a more western approach and style to the arrangement and treatment. Its a good break considering that I was getting sick of utada’s dance electronica english songs already.

There’s one particular line here I really like. It goes “I wish that I could photoshop all our bad memories” I think we don’t need to ask why

Microsoft Office 2008 vs iWork 09

MK — Mon, 25 May 2009 15:03:30 +0000

I was finishing my JSP 103 final project today when I noticed that iwork 09 dropped the flash export capability that iwork 08 had. This really threw a wrench in my plan since a flash presentation would probably be the best cross platform format I can show my presentation in for my Intermediate japanese class since I’m not too sure if my professor has quicktime. My presentation has a movie file in it so if I export to powerpoint, the movie might not show. None-the-less, I exported it to powerpoint just to have a back and up and tried opening it in Powerpoint. It kept on freezing and freezing and when I reinstalled it, it took almost 3 minutes to open it (around a minute just to load powerpoint alone).

I’m actually contemplating on uninstalling Office 08 all-together now as I find that iWork can more or less do most of the things that Office can do. The only thing holding me back is the Word audio recordings and certain Excel functions (that I might never use anyways). I never really liked entourage and the whole package is starting to become just a big resource hog. Any thoughts on Office 08 vs iWork 09?

Summer Reading List

MK — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 12:05:05 +0000

I started teaching second year high school literature at the TD summer program yesterday. With the job comes the responsibility to actually do just as much work as my students do like re-reading the materials that I make them to read. Second year literature (for the AHS at the very least) requires one to read George Orwell’s Animal Farm and it’s a book that i haven’t touched in ages.

Though I haven’t gone through the entire book again, I do remember enjoying this book quite a lot. It’s weird how the first image that pops into your head when you here the title “Animal Farm” is Sesame Street simply because having animals as main characters sound so kiddie. Though this was my initial impression, I loved animal farm because I like reading about dark shady government conspiracy stories (which is probably why I like Metal Gear Solid so much).

Though Animal Farm is the only actual novel I need to read this summer, I am planning to read a couple more novels when and if I get the time. College academic life usually makes it impossible for me to read for pleasure during the regular school year and summer is just that right time of year to pick up a book while sitting next to the pool on a hot summer day.

Here are some of the novels I want to, at the very least, start reading this summer.

Atonement
by Ian McEwan
Actually, I did get to read this before but I never got to finish and the release of the movie really made me want to find my copy again.
Gathering Blue
by Lois Lowry
The Giver was one of the best required school readings I ever had to read. I simply love the whole conspiracy and dystopian/utopian future setting but the ending has always made me want to know more. Gathering Blue is the 2nd part in the loose-knit trilogy that starts with The Giver and ends with The Messenger.