The Cookie Jar

I have no idea what's going on here, but it's fabulous!

Previously, I posted a video of a guy trapped in an elevator for 41 hours. That's just shy of two days. There was an accompanying article that talked a lot about elevators, but basically boiled down to how angry the guy was (and rightfully so) and how he quit his job and sued and basically screwed himself with an overly long pity party over the experience. Then there's this lady who was stuck in a much tinier elevator for FOUR DAYS at the ripe old age of 85!



And did she flip out and sue somebody? No, because she's a nun and she's grateful for the experience! If only we all could keep such a cool head. You don't need to be a nun to handle a situation gracefully. It's a shame that grace is such a lost art these days.

So, mom got a puppy for her birthday. Here's a video I took of him a little after he and Niku met. Niku is more interested in his toys than she is in him. His name will probably be Ziggy, but mom is still deciding.



I have a few pictures but they're all fuzzy. I'll post a few later anyway. Little Ziggy has puppy breath and keeps nomming on me. And his nose is sooo flat. Smooshy face!

ETA: WTF! 13 views on my video and some jackass already "disliked" it! Normally I don't pay attention to that shit, but that's dick. Nobody should dislike new puppy videos.

Let me introduce you to my newest addiction. I lay a lot of blame for this at the feet of Bento who randomly introduced me to the interesting world of Vocaloids quite some time ago. Vocaloids are voice synthesizers used to sing songs. And since it really took off in Japan, they have cutesy mascots for each specific singer. And since there's a cutesy mascot, there is a big fandom.

What's fascinating about Vocaloids is that it's users who create the music and then have the vocaloid sing it. But then it gets more interesting. Fans of the songs will make art and create videos to go along with their favorite songs so you have a very organic sort of music experience. It's just some guy that composed the song and just some fan who drew the art and created the video.

The thing about Vocaloids is that they're just programs. They work really well in Japanese given that all words are composed of smaller syllables. The English language ones are far more lacking. Even so, while sometimes they can fool you into thinking you're listening to a human sing (and indeed the vocaloids are sampled from real singers) they still have a distinct computerized sound. It's pretty cool, but I could only take it in certain songs.

Circle Me, Circle You ended up on my favorite list because it's a pretty creepy song where the haunting computerized voices really work well. It really gets stuck in your head! The video is quite macabre if you do decide to watch. Another one that I liked, more for the video than the song is Trick and Treat the Reborn version. Someone took the video and changed the characters from the vocaloids to Reborn characters. It's very cool. The song is pretty catch too.

At the time I listened to a few other songs, but it didn't really catch on with me and I moved on. But Bento kept favoriting stuff and I found Nico Nico choruses on her favorite list on youtube. Nico Nico Douga is a Japanese video sharing site where vocaloid videos and pretty much every Japanese video gets posted. It's their youtube. Fans weren't content to just listen to music, they wanted to participate. They all record voice tracks or even instrument tracks and post them and people mix them together to form Nico Nico choruses. So now you take the very organic user generated music add in regular fans singing put it on a video that is remixed for that particular chorus and you've got a really unique music experience.

When I first listened to a few, as before, I was like "This is pretty cool" but it didn't really catch me. That's probably because Bento has an obsession with the Black Rock Shooter song and I was about ready to shoot myself in the head after three or so choruses of that. ^_^;;

But recently, I was poking around on Crunchyroll and they had this video posted Just Be Friends by Rapbito & Zebra. It's a rap remix of a Just be Friends sung by one of the Vocaloids. The video just happens to be very poignant I think. The art is really pretty. The Rapbito video was similarly remixed and it's really awesome.

After watching that one, various choruses were suggested for me to consume and consume I did. And that's when it happened! I found some really good Nico chorus singers and suddenly I'm addicted! And even though you end up listening to the same songs over and over by dozens of different people, you can't stop. You want to hear the other versions. Some of them make you wince, but some are really good.

I've started compiling a decent sized playlist of some of my favorites. There are a few repeats and a few flat out Vocaloid songs mixed with some choruses and single chorus singers. One of the first ones that really sucked me in was a chorus version of Imitation Black sung by Clear, Dasoku and Valshe. Having pretty bishies singing about a love triangle in the video helps (even if Valshe is a girl, she's singing a guy's part).

I sortof went crazy with Clear. He has a really nice voice. I think he showcases it well in Last Night, Good Night. It's usually sung by females. I heard him in a chorus version, but the horrible girl voices had to go. Glad I found the single version. It seems that Clear will be putting out an album of his covers soon. Valshe already has one. I guess it's the thing to do once you've got enough popularity.

Anyway, moving on, the fun thing about having all these individual voice tracks to play with is that people can make duets (or choruses) that wouldn't usually happen. So when a sexy song like Magnet comes out, it's easy to hook two gorgeous voiced young men together for a scintillating duet! *purrs* And let us not forget the ladies. There seem to be about a million versions of Magnet out there, some better than others.

Those are all songs with only a singer or two. For larger choruses, they'll choose a photo to represent each singer and have them flash on the screen when they sing, like in this super catchy song World's End Dancehall that I stole form Bento's favorite list. That's a pretty simple video. Some of them get pretty complicated. The sheer amount of musical mixing and keeping the tracks straight and matching them up with their photos is amazing, especially in the larger choruses. This version of Fire◎Flower is pretty involved. I can't even keep track of how many people are singing in this version of Meltdown x_X

And the Japanese can't keep all the fun to themselves! Here's a Russian girl belting out Love is War in Japanese. I'm trying to find some English translated covers that don't make me wince....I'll keep working on that. This version of Just Be Friends has decent singers. The main problem is that singing it in English makes it really awkward. They lyrics don't fit the music as well and the singers try to cram them in there. The guy's solo version of this song is better. I think I'll stick to the Japanese ones though. I don't need to understand the words to enjoy the pretty music. Not to mention a lot of these lyrics are nonsense anyway >_>

There are some down sides. Singers with different singing abilities being the obvious one. Just one bad apple can ruin a good chorus song. Singers can be out of sync since their tracks are recorded individually and then put together. There can often be a noticeable difference in sound and mic quality from singer to singer that is sometimes distracting. As mentioned, sometimes the songs don't make any damn sense if you translate them. Regardless though, I can't stop! I even hunted down a handy dandy website that lets me rip mp3s of songs of Nico Nico Douga :D I already have a program to rip mp3s from saved youtube videos, but Nico Sound is so much more convenient. ♥

So there you have it folks, I am strangely addicted to nico nico singers and choruses and to a smaller extent, vocaloids. Not that I'm complaining. Musical addictions are delicious. I leave you with this very pretty video I just stumbled upon.

Wow, another embedded video. I couldn't help it though! You need to see this!



More info from the band on the situation is here. And unsurprisingly, once the song hit the airlines did a massive backpedal which the singer talks about in this video response. Well United, that's what you get for fucking around with people. And there's still two more songs to come. HA HA!

You guys look like you could use some Niku cuteness. :D

Dear Damien Rice,

Cut it out! What's the deal with having the last track on the cd be a zillion minutes long? Once the song ends you go off into over ten minutes of silence until some "bonus" pops up. No! Having all that dead silence is punishment. I hate "secret tracks" like that. The one on the first X-Files has to be the worst. You have all the music, then silence, the suddenly some freaky guy starts talking about aliens and scares the shit out of you!

Back to Damien though. On both the cds I have, O and 9, he does that. So I'll be listening and if I'm not paying attention when the song ends I have all that annoying dead air. Sometimes I'll realize the music died and other times I won't until suddenly "Surprise!" There's more music now after all that silence! Fuck that shit. Just stick another track on there and cut the crap.

No Love,
For-Chan

As long as I'm talking about music, I want to inflict two of my new favorite people on you. First, there's Duffy. Yeah, the name is kind of silly. It makes me think of Duff beer from the Simpsons or Buffy with a D. But it's easy to get past that since she has a great set of pipes. I first found her on youtube singing Rain on Your Parade which I fell in love with. And after listening to her other songs, like Stepping Stone, I just needed to have her album. She made it to the 30 slot in Rolling Stone's Best 50 Albums of the Year where they call her a modern-day Dusty Springfield. Her song Warwick Avenue also hit 41 (out of 100) on their Best Singles of the Year list. You may have even heard her. Around Valentine's Day, her song Syrup and Honey was used in some soppy Hallmark commercial.

Next, there's Jack McManus. He rocks his piano in the upbeat ballad You Think I Don't Care. He has a silly curly whiteboy fro, but he's very endearing. He had a good voice and really, I love a guy who rocks the piano. And he really has fun with his piano. In Bang on the Piano they have a wacky size changing piano with moving keys. It's just fun. He has some great serious songs too. Amy is a "boy falls in love with untouchable girl from afar" type song. It has some great strings in it. I love the line "I'm gonna dance with her someday." It just makes it so sweet and poignant. So check out Jack. He's a very sweet guy with a piano and some lovely songs.

Scutter emerges from the dangerous under the bed caves and makes her way through the fallen cover obstacles only to stand triumphant before them. As her partner, Niku, joins her, they both activate their most powerful weapon! Puppy Dog Eyes! They want one thing and one thing only! Dinner!

XD I love watching Scutter crawl out from under the bed. Not only is she part pig, but it appears that she's part mole as well. So I have a mole pig dog!

The heroic background music is "Kibou No Hoshi O Mezashite" from the anime Megami Kouhosei aka Pilot Candidate.

Youtube had featured a video of a vegetable orchestra playing vegetable instruments. I wasn't too impressed. Yes, they made the veggies make noise, but most were used as percussion and not turned into traditional instruments as the name orchestra implied to me. There was a link on the related videos of a broccoli ocarina. I clicked. I didn't think it would be real...but it was! Go watch this guy's videos! He makes all sorts of actual playable instruments out of his veggies and plays little tunes, sometimes accompanied by his wife and daughter. It's so cute!

Hey! Look what I stole. Click it!



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Also, if you're like me and didn't give a shit about the Super Bowl, but were somewhat interested in the advertising, just not enough to watch, you can go watch them at youtube.

This Garmin ad is definitely one of my favorites. Come on Super Sentai! What's not to love? And if you check the rest of the videos they've submitted, there's behind the scenes interviews and the full music video. And this Snickers spot is just so wrong and awesome. Visit the website to see alternate endings and vote on your favorite.