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valius
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Name: Kevin
Location: Illinois, United States
Birthday: 8/16/1985
Gender: Male
Interests: Programming, writing novels, Japanese animation (anime), Chinese dramas, International Music, Aikido, Pump It Up, Chinese and all kinds of Asian languages, and possibly theater and musicals...
Expertise: Okay at computer programming, okay at Pump It Up, able to read Chinese newspapers okay, oh heck, I'm not much of an expert at anything really... I'm just an intermediate I guess
Occupation: Student
Industry: Computers (Software)
Message: message meEmail: email me
Member Since:
1/20/2004
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| Ah rhythm games... you never fail me. I haven't felt like blogging, and don't feel the need to do so, but I guess I'll humor you all about what I've been doing.
Currently been playing beatmania IIDX and PIU a lot in my spare time... PIU less, since that actually requires stamina and speed, which means only an hr. of play a day! IIDX... ugh so addicting, since I can play it a lot more than I should, since it's just press buttons with fingers really quickly. Oh right, what's beatmania IIDX? beatmania IIDX involves a controller with a turntable and 7 keys you press or move according to notes; it's REALLY difficult and brutal on beginners, but once you get what the notes go to, it's just a matter of practice. I don't know if EVERYONE can play it though, since you've got to have a good ear for the subtleties in each composition or else it feels like you're mashing to nothing; the point of the game is to "complete" the song by hitting the right key to produce the right sound to complete the song. You'll notice this immediately when there is silence if you don't press any keys at all... it's nothing like PIU or DDR, since those are just moving your feet to the rhythm of the song and not PLAYING the song like you do in IIDX. Oh yeah, and PIU stands for Pump It Up, the worldwide rhythm game that requires you to dance using 5 buttons... there's a World Pump Festival coming up and there you can see the best of the best.
Anyway, other than that I'm taking a Public Speaking class, looking for a part-time job, and also watching anime... no news on the romantic front. :D Anyway, I'm looking forward to getting out of this break from NU and returning to NU... I really miss everyone and I just feel out of the loop these days. Anyway, take it easy everyone. I'll probably post if I pass Dignity Crazy mode! Or if I pass the HSK exam (Chinese proficiency exam)...
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| Well... sounds good to me. But me.. adventurous? Maybe in
food or in Warcraft... but I probably need to go out more if I wanted
to make that trait a little more accurate. Practical?
What??? I always thought I went emo a lot more than most
guys? No wait... I don't listen to emo. Well, whatever they
say. However, my "perfect"
match sounds almost right, except for the Athletic part (I truly don't
care about it as much). So, yes, eligible bachelorettes, now you
can examine yourselves and see if your worthy of the great
Valius! Mwahahahaha!!! Err... okay, maybe not. I
think I'll go back to work now. *closes Warcraft III, StarCraft,
Stepmania, and Pump It Up all @ once* Anyway, hope you all are
doing well, and I'll make a real update later.
Your dating personality profile:
Practical
- You are a down-to-earth individual who is not impressed with material
excess. You care about the stuff of like that really matters.
Religious - Faith matters to you. It is the foundation that you build your life upon. You trust that God has a plan for you.
Adventurous
- Just sitting around the house is not something that appeals to
you. You love to be out trying new things and really experiencing
life. | Your date match profile:
Religious -
You seek someone who is grounded in faith and who possesses religious
values. You believe that a religious person can enhance your life.
Shy
- You are put off by people who are open books. You are drawn to
someone who is a bit more mysterious. You want to draw her out of
her shell and get to know what she is all about.
Athletic - You aren't looking for a couch potato. You seek someone who is active and who keeps her body in top shape. | Your Top Ten Traits
1. Practical
2. Religious
3. Adventurous
4. Athletic
5. Big-Hearted
6. Intellectual
7. Shy
8. Liberal
9. Traditional
10. Wealthy/Ambitious
| Your Top Ten Match Traits
1. Religious
2. Shy
3. Athletic
4. Conservative
5. Traditional
6. Adventurous
7. Practical
8. Funny
9. Wealthy/Ambitious
10. Big-Hearted
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Take the Online Dating Personality Quiz at Dating Diversions | | |
| This is the second of three entries. This entry is about how cool
music is and about cool music I've found. If you don't find this
at
all interesting, go read the first or third entry if you want; maybe
you'll find something there. This will probably be a shorter
entry than everything else.
First off, I'd like to spam how much I love the Japanese female singer
we all know as Hamasaki Ayumi. I recently obtained a collection
of songs by her, and I just love them! She's a very unique singer
with a powerful range, and she has the ability to sing in very, very
different styles as evidenced by the differences between songs like
Depend On You, Dearest, and Endless Sorrow, which is a testament of the
versatility she has. Now, although her lyrics have no politics
involved and don't talk about anger and madness and hate, her lyrics
are intelligent and poetic and don't suffer from the awful overplayed
lyrics of boy bands and girl groups which are annoying. Sure, she
sings love songs like Dearest (which is a very awesome Japanese slow
song that should be played at formals to get that romantic mood going)
which talks about love, but sometimes it'll be something completely
different like M, which points out something about society, but yet
gives a sense of hope. There are many songs, but I wouldn't be
doing her justice if I described the lyrics of all those songs, since
it's better if you heard it (or looked it up) yourself. The best
way is to listen to her and enjoy. Some of the songs I recommend
listening to are Dearest, Endless Sorrow, M, Boys and Girls, Surreal,
Vogue, and Moments. All these you can find on my iTunes if you
want, or you can ask me. :) By the way, the music video for
Endless Sorrow is one of the most memorable ever and only rivals the
video for Yu Seung Jun's Wish You Could Find for most movie-like video
ever.
You know, it's amazing how music can be so diverse. It can
express so many different things and forms of it can be utterly
different from each other. That's the beauty of having lots of
different kinds of music: you can feel all different kinds of
sensations, see how a different culture works, and you can have the
music reflect your mood whenever you want. I mean, the fun part
is playing a song completely different from the previous song,
traveling throughout the world. You can play a song from a Korean
group that remixed a Korean traditional song, then switch over to cool
German rap for a change of pace, then all of a sudden play some Latin
Music, then to a female Chinese girl group that sing sweet songs, then
over to Hamasaki Ayumi for a switch of styles, then whoa! back to
Korean jazz, and then to a Japanese composer composing beautiful music,
then to Rammstein, then over to Usher for some chilling, then to
Michelle Branch for an awesome singer who sings her own songs, then
over to Jay Chou, the Chinese pop star who sings about the randomest
things ever, then to some Hindi music from Bollywood, then to Kenny G,
then to Bob Marley... oh man, the list can go on and on. I think
that's the fun part about music... seeing how different cultures and
different people can twist the gift of music and make it into
completely different products with completely different effects.
It makes listening to music that much more fulfilling, and makes the
listening experience always fresh and exciting. That's why I love
the gift of music; so different yet so similar, providing a channel for
all kinds of things, ideas, everything in life. Don't you love
music now? Collect all different kinds and see what you
like. Personally, I'm trying to boost the Latin, Hindi, and
metal component of my playlist, and then my playlist will give me more
world channels. :) Ah, the joys of collecting music.
*edit*
Anyway, here's my list of Asian music that I recommend you try for
yourself, if my opinion matters, even though there's other stuff the
artists themselves have done, which are comparable to what I've listed:
Chinese music
Lin Jun Jie - Jiang Nan
S.H.E - Hua Dou Kai Hao Le and Ai Qing De Hai Yang
Cai Yi Lin (Jolin Tsai) - Kan Wo 72 Bian
Faye Wong - Jiang Ai and Kong Cheng
Jay Chou - *He rocks, just try everything, since he has too many good songs*
12 Girls Band - Miracle, Freedom, and Shangri-La (My favorites!)
Sun Yan Zi - Green Light
Dong Yang Jin Ji Ta (Eastern Sea Golden Guitars) - Zhu Ni Xin Fu (very old style band that play Chinese oldies, quite relaxing)
F.I.R - Lydia (theme song of the drama Dou Yu, which isn't that great, but whatever)
Zhang Hui Mei (Ah-mei) - Jie Tuo
Japanese music
Hamasaki Ayumi - Surreal, Dearest, M, Moments, Vogue, and Boys and Girls
Die en grey - To The Core
Korean music
Crying Nut - Circus Magic
Crash - Dignity
N.Ex.T - Lazenca Save Us and Trash Man (very old school band, that is the predecessor of Novasonic)
Novasonic - Cordiality, Slam, and Empire of the Sun
Lee Hyun Do - Sajahu, Typhoon D.O., and Pierrot
Banya - The Final Audition and First Love
U'Two - Guilty Conscience
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| Whoa! I haven't updated in what? 4 months? Is that
totally possible? I guess it's just my lazy self showing yet
again. Oh man, all the things I could say that happened in four
months... but all that would take nearly an eternity to write, and does
anyone really want to hear all the excruciating details? Thus I'm
going to make a series of three entries which will probably make
reading WAY easier for you reading this junk.
This is the first of the three entries, and it's all about the cool
anime, movies, and shows I've seen over this month. So if any of
this incomprehensible to you, please feel free to go over to the second
or the third entry, which you may find far more interesting.
I have watched so little anime in this period of time. There's so
much to watch, but the difficulty lies in determining what is worth
watching. But I guess with lack of quantity comes quality, eh?
I watched an anime OVA (three episodes) called Read or Die. Weird
title, isn't it? I can't say it was the greatest, greatest anime
movie I've ever seen, but it's actually kind of interesting. The
characters aren't kind of quirky in this anime, since this focuses on a
special team of "book preservers" that try to protect important books
and documents and manuscripts, one of which would be Beethoven's lost
"Death Symphony," which does not exist in the real world in
truth. Our story revolves around an agent in this team, a girl
named Yomiko, whose code name is "Paper." Yomiko's a nutcase for
books. Rather than spend time socializing or doing anything else,
she'd rather absorb herself in books and go on shopping sprees for
books. She even protects all her books and would probably cry if
one of her books were damaged. We also find out that her special
power is the ability to, well, manipulate paper into weapons and shield
and other inanimate objects which may be useful to the situation, such
as, say, a rope. I can't really say much else about this movie
without spoiling too much, but in a sense, this is how Yomiko begins to
gain a better touch with reality, by realizing that the idealized
worlds of books which she has fallen in love with just cannot compare
with the happiness and love gained in reality. Through the other
main character Nancy, she begins to learn the value of learning about
real people rather than just real people in books, and it seems that
eventually Yomiko may have developed sisterly love (though some surmise
it as a homosexual love, which is also plausible) for Nancy. The
action is also a little strange to watch, since I've never ever seen a
paper sword in action, or women slipping through walls and fighting
each other before, but hey, it makes the series that less
monotonous. One thing I liked was the fact that Yomiko develops
very rapidly as a character but yet at a pace that made sense given the
circumstances. In short time, we find a lot about the two main
characters quickly, but it didn't feel rushed. And all the
surprises and all the tension in the third episode just throw you for a
loop, since it's very unexpected and keeps you on the edge of your
seat. Oh, and history buffs will enjoy the historical references
that will occasionally remind you of some piece of history you forgot
some time ago, since much of the time is spent looking for and
recovering manuscripts. The ending was very good, since it gave
you a sense of closure without feeling overly rushed, though I'm sure a
series will probably come out of this? And in fact they have, but
I haven't seen it, so I can't say anything about that. Overall, I
recommend watching this OVA if you haven't, and it's good subbed AND
dubbed (though Dara-chan will probably disagree).
The other anime I recommend watching is called Midori no Hibi (Days of
Midori). Of course, my review may be very positive due to the
fact that I came in with VERY low expectations. The gimmick of
this series is that it's about a boy who has a girl on his right
hand. You're probably asking, "What? A girl on his right
hand? What do you mean?" Yes, I'm serious! He has a
girl on his right hand! I thought, "Wow, this series must be
extremely stupid." Boy, was I in for a surprise, as this series
proved me wrong. All right, I'll give you a brief intro to the
story. Sawamura Seiji is an average 17-yr. old high school
student, and a character who I can very much symphathize with and whose
pain I myself feel as well. Basically, he is a delinquent student
who gets into lots of fight (and wins!). Because of his great
ability to his fight, he is nicknamed, "Mad Dog Sawamura" and his fist
has the fearsome name, "The Devil's Fist." Unfortunately, as a
result of his bad reputation, Seiji doesn't exactly attract many
girls. The viewer gets a glimpse of his many attempts at asking
girls out, but all of them end in rejection. In fact, he gets 20
rejections in a row, the fact of which is emphasized in episode
1. He begins to feel extremely annoyed at his situation, and
fears that he may end up with only his right hand as his companion for
the rest of his life. Unfortunately, for Seiji, this prediction
may very well come true, for he soon discovers that his right hand has
been replaced by a fist-sized girl! This girl's name is Midori,
and for a very long time, she has been an admirer of Seiji from afar,
and she has always wanted to tell him her feelings but never had the
courage to. At first, Seiji is flattered to have been liked by
someone, but quickly realizes that his right hand liking him just
doesn't cut it. And soon begins the misadventures Seiji and his
right hand Midori go through. I'd tell you way more but that'd
spoil the story, and part of the fun is the humorous moments that all
the characters go through, particularly the parts where Seiji has to
try to keep Midori's existence a secret. I particularly love the
line when he says, "Finally! After 17 years, springtime has come
for me at last!" (Seiji thinks a girl finally likes him, of course,
it's not true.) The scene which came with the line was just
classic, and perhaps I'll be saying that line soon, "Finally!
After a whole 19 years, springtime has finally come for me!" but we'll
see. Throughout the series,
there's enough humor, drama, and romance to keep you laughing, but yet
it still has that touch of reality that makes the series worth
watching. As you watch, we begin to learn more about both Seiji
and Midori, and see as they both learn more about love as they go
throughout daily life. I can't tell you how the series ends, but
I can tell you that it will be a heartwarming ending. The story
makes a believable pt. and the drama that begins to mount near the end
of the series will just give you a sense of great joy, and you'll begin
to understand how this incredulous situation came about, and you'll see
how much just Seiji and Midori have grown since they first mat.
Of course, I got this all through watching the series,
and I'd ruin it for you if I said anything more. The
other characters are very interesting, though occasionally annoying at
times (e.x. Shiori and Rin, for having their traits played out a
lot). Some people complain about certain characters as being
inconsistent, but isn't that how humans are anyway? I think the
fact that there are so many traits to a character make the character
more unique and interesting and unpredictable rather than the boring
predictable characters which would make a series uninteresting.
The only problems with the series is the occasionale excessive
"fanservice" and the lack of screentime for certain characters.
When I mean "fanservice" I mean the occasional but very, very brief
nudity scenes (though they are few and far between thank goodness)
which I felt where excessive and unnecessary, though, perhaps it was
somewhat necessary for right-hand Midori, to answer any inquiries of
how exactly Midori is attached to Seiji. All the other scenes are
rather excessive and unnecessary, I felt, and that really bugged me
(though knowing that the audience was originally teenage boys, I could
understand), but they are bearable. The only thing that really
bugged me was in episode 3, where the nude scene was obnoxiously
long. I felt I had to close my eyes for most of that episode,
just because it was unpleasant to look at (I'm sure even perverts would
agree, you have to see it for yourself). Also, Miyahara, one of
my favorite characters, doesn't get nearly as much screen time as he
should, since most of the time he's just getting beaten up, and the
other characters such as Ayase and Shiori don't get nearly as much
screen time as they should. However, I suppose that that's the
sacrifice in order to keep the pace of the series interesting, which
the writers did a very good job at. :) Any longer and the series
would have felt extremely dragged out and overdone. Overall, I
recommend this for both guys and girls, since it has an awesome overall
story and an interesting yet humorous teenage drama plot that'll keep
you coming. It wasn't life-changing at all, but it was very good
and may even give you something out of it! My only caveat for the
girls is the unnecessary nude
girl scenes. Definitely a must-watch. Oh, and read the
manga too, since it's even better, since the characters are developed
far more in those, and you'll have even more characters to read about
(but most of the characters in the manga that didn't appear in the
anime are kind of annoying and overplayed, IMHO, and don't do much for
the overall story, Kouta is also way annoying in the manga, and is much
more likable in the anime). Go, watch some Midori no Hibi!
Or borrow the CDs from me! (And please, please don't watch it
dubbed... you'd just ruin the series that way)
There are so much anime to see. Good anime such as Cowboy Bebop
and Wolf's Rain. And I could rant on and on about Witch Hunter Robin
and how I STILL have not seen last exile, but that would make this
Xanga even longer. I plan to post anime reviews on my Web site
someday, so you can see me review other stuff other than what I've
posted here (if you think my opinion really matters, that is).
Anyway, yeah, go see some anime, and that's it for now. :)
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| Hey, this is my first post on xanga. Yes, this is really late,
but I've finally decided to write a little about my experiences here at
Northwestern University. I'm from an island called Saipan in a
group of islands called the Northern Marianas Islands. It's a
group of islands a little to the east of the Philippines. It's a
U.S. territory that was acquired way back in WWII, so if you go there,
you'll see plenty of indicators of that past war.
The strange thing is, I applied to many difficult schools, and in the
end, Northwestern was the only one who accepted me. I was totally
unprepared for a trip to a place called Chicago. Well, it's been
a year since I've been at Northwestern. Even now, I'm still
learning a lot about the middle American culture. It's so strange
to me, since the culture here is different from the laid back, chill
culture of Saipan. I have friends here to help me, but being the
only Saipanese on campus does feel a little weird. I must admit,
though, learning about wider places and different people is so
thrilling, that every day is like an adventure. Of course, I'm
still encouraging more of my Saipan friends to come here, so I won't be
the only one who's seen Banzai and Suicide Cliffs and Bird Island as
well as a little tiny place Managaha, and islands such as Rota and
Tinian, the island from which the Americans launched the atomic bomb.
So what have i been up to now? Well, lately, I've been listening
to a composition by Banya called Final
Audition. Yes, some Pump It Up songs (the dancing pad game I play
quite actively) are based on it, but the full
version of it blows all the edits in Pump It Up away. There's
violin,
electronic instruments, and percussion all mixed together to form an
amalgamous whole, and the end product is so... beautiful sounding, it's
genius. It's hard to believe that Yahpp of Banya did this all by
himself. It's amazing!
*sigh* I've really been inside too long. The allures of
IM
and hacking projects have caused me to almost forget my real friends
here at school. Hacking Pump It Up files and encryption is a lot
of fun for me, and being on the verge of a discovery is too... but I
can't forget about true human contact, I can't become a socially inept
person I already am. I can't make myself
forget friends over silly projects. I probably should consider
playing more Ping Pong, or going out to Evanston, or inviting people
over to play Pump. Sad thing is I'm beginning to lose touch with
some of my out-of-dorm friends and Campus Crusade friends... it's like
I'm too lazy or something. Better get to work on this.
Anyway, Chinese New Year's coming up... can't wait for the good food
I'll eat that day! We're gonna watch some Jet Li... and maybe
chill out in the lounge. I'll probably bring down my computer and
maybe we'll play Pump afterwards  jk jk, as one of my favorite
female friends would say.
Ugh, but most of all, I need sleep. Can't stay up too long. Time for me to sign off now.
Sweet dreams,
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
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