Drizzly Monday morning. And tomorrow's a public holiday too.
Even the roads this morning were pretty clear. Half the world must've taken off today so that they get a long weekend.

Totally no motivation to do any work.  o(_ _)o

But I need to clear a lot of work before I go on leave...

よしゃぁ～ Shall take advantage of the quiet day to get a ton of work done! テンション上がる～

But first! A Shinjiro bloggie post to start the (somewhat-shortened) week! Been a long time since I last copied AAA blogposts, haha.

Oh dear, Shinjiro, say it isn't so. Please, for the love of all that is holy, say that you're not....


...COOKING. (≧∇≦)

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(-(エ)☆)V

2012年04月29日

 

昨日は山梨行ってきましたよ〜！！

もうどこに行っても、AAAのファンのみんなは盛り上がってくれる☆
最高です☆

明日は初関東ライブ！！
楽しみ〜！！

盛り上がって行きましょう(^O^)

ってか、今日暑かったなぁ〜！！
半袖にシャツ羽織っててんけど、それでもちょっと汗ばんだ！（笑）

でもいいね〜この気温☆
あったかいのっていいね！！

そして、今日は早めに家に帰ったので、料理をしてみました☆卵焼きはちょっと食べちゃったけど（笑）
もちろん教えてもらいながら！
やばい。はまりそう(>_<)楽しい☆

まだまだちょ〜初心者やから、みんな簡単な料理教えてください！！

じゃまた来週

投稿者:與真司郎

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And after that, Naoya comes to poke a little fun on Twitter...

(AAA fan): Shin-chan, after you published your blogpost, everyone thinks you have a girlfriend now!!
Shinjiro: It does look like that, huh... haha. But it's actually my mum! She's coming for the show tomorrow, so she came over from Kyoto today~!
Naoya: OH MY GOD~! LOL. But I wonder when will I ever be able to meet someone whose cooking is as good as Shin's mama's... Should I just "attack" your mum? Hahaha.
(NAOYA. How can you say such things...??! (O.O) )
Shinjiro: Then, Naoya would be my new father?? Haha. Are you coming to my house again?
Naoya: If you'll allow it? Haha.
Shinjiro: Sure. Haha.
Naoya: Then I'll come over to eat homecooked food after tomorrow's performance!

Ohh, Naoya. Good grief.
I firmly believe that Naoya is sometimes a bad influence. LOL.


One fan even tweeted this to Naoya after he mentioned "attacking" Shinjiro's mum:

(AAA fan): Naoya! You can't go after a married woman!! Lol. Naoya, you've eaten Shin-chan's mum's cooking before?
Naoya: Yeah, I've tried her cooking lots of times! It's so delicious, I think I'm in love. LOL.

... (-_-;;) Exhibit A demonstrates the popular phrase: "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach."


Oh, and this reminds me of this other Twitter conversation that I don't think I ever posted on here:

Naoya: It's done~! (The picture by the side is what Naoya tweeted.)
Shinjiro: Wow... that looks good!! I should seriously start cooking, huh...
Naoya: STOP!! Haha, no way, that's not possible... haha...
Shinjiro: But I've done it before~ (~_~ ;)
Naoya: You're kidding, right?

I almost fell off my chair laughing when I saw this conversation.
Oh, these two are just too much fun. LOL.

Ahh... lazy Saturday afternoon.

Decided to take the time to sit down and finish off "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time", because really, it's just two short stories, and I should've finished it much, much faster. Except that I pretty much sit and read a heck of a lot of stuff online, so when I actually hop into bed with my bedtime reading, I end up not reading much before starting to fall asleep...(-_-;;)

So, book number 6, "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time", by Tsutsui Yasutaka, is finally finished today!

It's two quirky little stories in the same book; if any of you thinks that the title sounds like a film that you might've seen or heard of somewhere before, that mght be because it is. There was an animated film based on the same story, with the same title.

The ending of the main story reminds me a bit of one of Murakami Haruki's short stories though; how the protagonist only remembers vague promises and fleeting feelings every time she smells lavender. And now I can't think of what the title of the Murakami short is. Oh well.

Makes for good light reading. Give it a try. :)


The Reading List as of today:
1. Wicked, by Gregory Maguire (completed 28th January)
2. Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (compiled in one book), by Lewis Carroll (completed 16th January)
This is listed as book 2, even though it was finished earlier, because Wicked was started first.

3. After the Quake, by Murakami Haruki (completed 12th February)
4. I Am Number Four, by Pittacus Lore (completed 16th February)
5. The General in His Labyrinth, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (completed 18th April)
6. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, by Tsutsui Yasutaka (completed 28th April)
7. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick (still reading)
8. Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keyes (reading; today's new addition!)

Yep, book number 8 is on the list now. :)

Woke up this morning to something awesome. :)

The package with my concert ticket is here, all the way from Japan!

Man, that was fast. I was expecting to receive it on Monday or something.
Thank you, once again, to Connor and Fu Song. :)

And finally, my lovely ticket in all its glory.
(Some details on the ticket have been blurred out in the picture.)

Ah. I think I almost forgot to mention that book number 7 was started yesterday.
The lovely classic, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick.

And just in case you're getting confused as to what I've already finished, because of the way that I'm numbering my books:

1. Wicked, by Gregory Maguire (completed 28th January)
2. Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (compiled in one book), by Lewis Carroll (completed 16th January)
This is listed as book 2, even though it was finished earlier, because Wicked was started first.

3. After the Quake, by Murakami Haruki (completed 12th February)
4. I Am Number Four, by Pittacus Lore (completed 16th February)
5. The General in His Labyrinth, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (completed 18th April)
6. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, by Tsutsui Yasutaka (still reading)

It's been a productive day.

Went to apply for my visa to Japan this morning, and I'll be back to pick it up this Friday.

The efficiency of the Japanese Embassy amazes me; it's the second time I've gone to apply for a visa there, and it is completely unlike any other Embassy/ High Commission I've ever been to.

From the time you step in, take a number, sit down to wait, and then hand in all your documents and are told, "That's all, thank you," it's a grand total of about 15 minutes.

 And since that was sorted so quickly, I took the bus back to Holland Village, had brekkie at the Coffee Bean there, and finally finished Marquez's "The General in His Labyrinth".

So that means book number 5 for this year is finally complete! :)

"General Simon Bolivar, “the Liberator” of five South American countries, takes a last melancholy journey down the Magdalena River, revisiting cities along its shores, and reliving the triumphs, passions, and betrayals of his life. Infinitely charming, prodigiously successful in love, war and politics, he still dances with such enthusiasm and skill that his witnesses cannot believe he is ill. Aflame with memories of the power that he commanded and the dream of continental unity that eluded him, he is a moving exemplar of how much can be won—and lost—in a life."

The synopsis makes me feel a little sad, and strangely, it makes me think of our dear Mr Lee Kuan Yew as well. Singaporeans now seem to be divided between the (fading) generation which remembers his glory days and how much he did, and the younger generation who only seem to be champing at a bit which they can only see as restraining.


5. The General in His Labyrinth by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, completed on 18th April 2012.


And finally, the biggest news of all today:

This is my ticket for AAA's 13th May concert in Shimane. Connor helped me ask a friend of his friend (who turns out to be Ben and Gen's mutual friend! It's an awfully small world!), who bought it for me!


This alone has just made my day, week, and entire MONTH. XD

Look what I found today while we were out for lunch at Vivocity!

The bookmark of my dreams!!!

Yes, it does sound rather nerdy - who on Earth has "dream bookmarks"?? Well, Gerri does. :D

If you can't tell what it is just from the picture, it's basically a large rubber-band-ish thing, with a little hand pointing out the exact line where you stopped reading. It's not too tight, so it won't damage book covers and pages by warping, bending or folding them. And its size should be suitable for most QP-sized books. That means Quality Paperback; books that usually around 20 by 13 cm. That's the term that I know it by, but sometimes these sizes are also called "B-format paperbacks".

And Gerri has always wanted to make a bookmark with a sort of slider thingy, which would slide up and down the vertical page marker, so that you'd remember which line you stopped at on the page.

I've thought of making something like that since I was about 9 or 10? But I didn't know how to make sure that it wouldn't be too bulky or anything. And now there's this!

Oh, I am so ridiculously happy. :D

Only thing is that it's $12.90 each (slight ouch); otherwise, I'd have been tempted to get two instead of one; one for my travel reading book, and one for my bedside reading.

Just in case anyone who's reading this is interested, this nifty little thing is by Fred & Friends; click to get to their website! They've got an online catalogue full of tons of other nifty things! :D

Random little game on the AAA@DW community, which can be found here.

It's basically a sentence, split into four different parts, in four .gif format pictures that cycle through different phrases. Hit the "Esc" key to stop the gifs from changing, and voila, you have your random sentence.

And I got:

Strangely, no one else on the comm who's replied to the post seems to have gotten the "Shh. Don't speak" one for the last picture. Haha.