Random Snowflakes

David Archuleta Top 3 night

Why, yes, I've turned into fangirl mush. Seriously.

It's common knowledge that I'm a David Archuleta fan. And it's also common knowledge that most of his performances make me grin like a doofus, but MAN. This one takes the cake! David A sang And So It Goes (Billy Joel), With You (Chris Brown) and Longer (Dan Fogelberg) for the Top 3 night.

David's performance of And So It Goes was brilliant! GENIUS. Mhay ghulay, muntik akong maiyak sa kinauupuan ko. Paula, thank you thank you for choosing this for him! The song is already beautiful, and I've always like Sara Gazarek's version, but David's rendition was... was... ARGH! (I would've liked David to linger a bit more on the pauses, but, hey, that's just me.)

With You was okay. My favorite fast-paced song for David still remains to be Shop Around (60's week), though.

Longer pales in comparison to And So It Goes, but I'm not really complaining.

That kid had better win, I tells ya!

Labels: american idol, david archuleta, music

Posted by sarah at 1:46 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

fare thee well, my friend

This morning, a tragic thing happened.

One of my earrings fell down the drain.

Okay, before anybody laughs at me (although I'm pretty sure someone already did), let me explain the significance of this loss.

First of all, it's a starfish earring. A starfish. Most people know by now—and if you don't, well, now you do—that I absolutely love stars.

Secondly, I like that earring because it's small, and it works with whatever I wear: be it office clothes, formal dresses or the all-around shirt and jeans power combo.

Thirdly (and most importantly), it was given to me by Lori, one of my best friends.

Rawr.

*sigh*

Well, at least I still have one of the earrings... I guess I'll just look for another star earring with which I can match the remaining starfish.

I'm lonely. Meneeds a hug.

Labels: life, randomness

Posted by sarah at 11:05 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

iBlog4 ramblings

Just got home from iBlog4... Sorta. Actually, I've already taken my shoes off, sighed the Metro Manila pollution out of my lungs, and gobbled up (literally) my dinner. Sorry, but I was hungry. I didn't even know I was that hungry until I noticed that I was stuffing my mouth with food in a really Eun Chan-ish way, which is totally NOT what I normally do.

So, anyway. iBlog4. Good talks. Friendly bloggers. Organized...organizers. Fun event.

When I got to the venue, I scanned the room to look for familiar faces only to find...none. Well, actually, Tess was already there, but I guess I missed her the first time I looked. I got a seat and, while waiting for my friends to arrive, I got my camera out to take photos of the venue.

Except my camera's battery was, as it turns out, empty. Argh # 1.

Read full post...

A little past nine the event began, and still my friends who were supposed to come with me weren't there. Ah, well. The guys beside me (Vincent, Arthur and Josh of ChickenMafia.com) and I talked a couple of times, a couple of sentences a time, anyway, so... Yeah.

In between speakers (the first ones were Charo Nuguid and Brain Gorrell), bloggers were allowed to pitch for their blogs, and one pitch that stood out is a girl (can't remember her name!) who advertised her brother's site, PinoyIdol2008.com and SurvivorPhilippines.com. Haha! The guy is a genius for getting those domain names first before GMA Network did.

By 10 AM, we had a 30-minute break. While I was writing notes for this blog post, this cameraman began taking a video of me. It was hard to pretend not to see the camera when the spotlight was glaring straight into my eyes. Haha!

I went outside to look for people, and saw Tess and AJ, whom I've only talked with on Twitter but never met personally.

The break ends, and we go back in to listen to Pinoyblogero Karlo, who slipped and disclosed his online earnings when his mother was in the audience(Haha! Bye-bye allowance from the parents?) and Juned, who kept fishing camera after camera out of his pockets (how on earth he fit all those in his pockets, I cannot imagine). Juned made me want to buy a fisheye camera. (As If I can afford it.)

Just as Jonas Diego started on web comics, my laptop's battery died. Argh # 2. And then my power cable's adaptor wasn't in my bag. Argh#3!!! And I wanted to read his comics, too! I shall do that after I finish this post.

Beth arrived during lunch break. Strange that she wasn't included in the participants' list, when she was in the list online. Hmmmm. She didn't get an ID. Too bad.

After Marcelle pitched for his blog he did a magic trick (by popular demand). I think this is now a staple in blogger events. Haha!

The afternoon went by pretty quickly: Aileen and Coy's amusing informative video/talk on podcasting and vlogging, the three speakers on Blogging and Elections (Luz Rimban, Manuel Quezon III, and Janette Toral), and Atty. Disini's open forum on legal concerns in blogging. All three talks were interesting and important ones, but I just have to say that Atty Disini's portion got my attention the most. Hehe. Copyright infringement and such.

We had another break (I just stayed in my seat and closed my eyes) before Noemi Dado's talk on blogging for a cause.

The last speaker of the day was Ria Jose from Davao, on the Mindanao Blogging Experience. It was a really fun talk, and it SO made me want to go ahead and try making a blog on Quezon City (or any niche blog, really) like what the Mindanao Bloggers did. Hmmm... I'll think about it and weigh the possibilities. It was a really fun talk, methinks, and the Mindanao people were a fun bunch, even from where they sat.

And, my goodness, the whole of Davao has free WiFi?! ARGH! Why can't it be like that in Quezon City?!

Aaaaanyway. The iBlog4 came to a close with me winning an iBlog4 shirt (along with 50 other people), and all the (remaining) participants climbing on the stage for a group photo. After that photo session, I got to have a picture taken with Arthur in the Chicken costume. Dude, you rock!

I was beside Aileen (in a rocking Pinoy Blogger shirt) and BA during the stage photo... Seeing him now (and comparing how he looks like now to how he did during the last time I saw him, which was in the first Blogger Food Fest in MOA) made me realize how long I was absent from offline blogger events. Yikes. I should go to more events and meet my blogger friends!

...I say that, and yet I didn't go to the after-event party at Katipunan. Haaaay. It's so hard to be in demand and I have to be in several places at once. Hehe.

Wrapping up, again, I say: iBlog4. Good talks. Friendly bloggers. Organized organizers. Fun event!

Labels: blogging, iblog

Posted by sarah at 7:03 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Nodame Cantabile TV

Since my HanaKimi TV post last year has been, as it turns out, helping a lot of people in deciding which HanaKimi rendition to watch, I thought I'd write a similar post for another one of my favorite manga, whose TV renditions I absolutely adore.

I've written a short Nodame Cantabile review, actually, so let's consider this a part 2.

Extremely talented pianist and naturally gifted conductor. Another extremely talented pianist and your all-around weird girl. Put them together and what do you get? An impossibly addicting manga on classical music, love, and the love of music. And, yes, it's hilarious, too.

Obviously, the main ingredient of this manga is music, but non-musicians should not shy away! No, no, you won't drown in jargon, and, believe me, this series will enrich your knowledge in music. Also, there is an ample amount of comedy and a dash of romance to taste. Read full post...

Nodame Cantabile is originally a manga by Ninomiya Tomoko, running since 2001 and is currently ongoing. It now has a J-drama adaptation, an anime series, and a handful of OSTs. The anime and regular J-drama season both take from the manga's first to ninth volume. The J-drama, though, has a Special, which follows the manga a little bit further.

Most people know that I usually say that manga is the best, and, I guess, I think the same applies for Nodame Cantabile. But I think both the anime and the J-drama are a couple of must-watch renditions. Both have their pros and cons, though...

Cast and Characterization
Both anime and drama were SUPERB. I mean, seriously. The art in the anime was easy enough to adapt from the manga, but I just have to say that the voice dubbing was excellent.

As for the J-drama... ARGH! PERFECT! When I first saw the photos, I was, like, "Whoa! Nodame came to life!!!"

But it doesn't stop there. When I watched the J-drama, right from the first episode, Ueno Juri and Hiroshi Tamaki (and everybody else, really) acted exactly as I imagined Nodame and Chiaki (and everybody else) to act. Not only did they capture the characters' look, but also their personalities, attitudes, mannerisms, speaking patters, everything! Kudos to the cast, and especially the director, Takeuchi Hideki-san!

Plot execution
The anime is, from start to finish, faithful to the manga; the pages were literally transferred to the screen. As for the drama, it's also as faithful as live dramas can go. Okay, sure, there were tiny tweaks here and there (some characters appeared earlier than they should, some events were merged into one, some pieces were performed at a different time) but I suppose it's understandable, since they had to make adjustments to fit 9 volumes of manga into 11 episodes. Still, there's only a hairsbreadth of difference, small enough for me, a purist, to actually let it go. About the J-drama Special... Hm... Now this one takes more events out of the plot, but, again, I'm willing to let it slide, since the parts they focused on were important, and the story flow wasn't disrupted.

Music
The drama, I think, is the best version to watch the performances. Not only do you actually see them playing the instruments, but the emotion is also seen better in the performers' faces. But in the anime, since it's understandably hard to animate people to move as they would in real life, the majority of the performances are just stills of the musicians playing. There are, however, exceptionally amazing concert sequences where you can really see the musicians' fingers hitting the right keys at the right time in the right tempo. Those are awesome, awesome sequences, but they rarely happen. In the anime, though, the shown/played excerpts of the music pieces are longer than the ones in the drama's regular season. (In the Special Lessons, though, the musical sequences are longer. Wheeeee~)

In summary:

The anime has 26 episodes (about 25 minutes each ) plus one Summer Detour (15 minutes). The drama has 11 episodes (about 1 hour each) plus 2 specials (about 2 hours each).
The anime is exactly the manga, just moving. The drama changes a few things here and there.
The anime characters can't really move like real people all the time. The drama's cast is composed of real, living, breathing people (like, duh).
The music is the same.
The story is the same.
The level of comedy is the same.

"So," you ask, "which do you recommend I watch, Sarah? Anime, or drama?"

My answer: BOTH.

I mean, really. I've read the manga, watched the anime, and watched the drama. And I still laugh. Every. Single. Time. Although, of course, you can chalk it up to the fact that I love the series, but it's just that each version offers something unique while still remaining so very... Nodame.

So, really, whichever rendition you pick, as long as it's Nodame Cantabile, I guarantee enjoyment. ^^

Labels: anime, manga, nodame cantabile, reviews, tv

Posted by sarah at 5:24 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

The Life Before Her Eyes preview

Because of my Across the Universe review, someone emailed me—hi, Anrdrew!— about their new movie, The Life Before Her Eyes. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Laura Kasischke, and stars Uma Thurman and Evan Rachel Wood.

I know nothing about the book, really. But, judging from the trailer, it looks interesting... I'm always a sucker for creative story-telling. Hehe. Read full post...

Release date: April 18th in New York and LA, and wide on April 25th. I'm not sure when it'll open in the Philippines... I guess I'll have to wait.

Synopsis:

Imaginative, impetuous and wild Diana (Evan Rachel Wood) can’t wait for her adult life to begin. Whiling away the final days of high school in the lush springtime, Diana tests her limits with sex and drugs as her more conservative friend Maureen (Eva Amurri) watches with concern. But Diana’s aura of invincibility is shattered when a senseless act of violence erupts at school, forever changing the lives of the two best friends.

Fifteen years later, a grown Diana (Uma Thurman) is still trying to come to terms with the traumatic events of that fateful day.

On the surface, the adult Diana has made a picture perfect life for herself. She’s still living in the sleepy Connecticut suburb she grew up in with her husband Paul, a professor at the local college. Her beautiful young daughter, Emma, is smart and creative, and possesses a fiercely independent streak reminiscent of her mother. But all is not well—as the anniversary of her adolescent trauma approaches, the darkness that Diana has tried to escape closes in. Meanwhile, her husband has become increasingly absent, her daughter has taken to hiding from teachers, and worst of all, Diana’s own grip on reality is starting to falter.

Moving seamlessly through both stages of Diana’s evolution, THE LIFE BEFORE HER EYES delves deep into the crossroads that we all face -- where a simple decision can change the course of everything to come, and where a lifetime can be encapsulated in a single moment. With THE LIFE BEFORE HER EYES, Vadim Perelman, director of the acclaimed HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG, has established himself as one of America’s greatest young directors of serious, probing drama.

Official website: http://www.lifebeforehereyes.com/

Labels: movies, reviews

Posted by sarah at 6:08 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post