SingStar

After having a karaoke/watch Dollhouse session with 2 of my coworkers, I decided to look into the PS3 version of SingStar. 500+ songs convinced me to go out and get it. I found 2 versions at Gamestop, which I bought both, without any regards as to where my SingStar mics were.

The mics? MIA. I looked all over the place, and obviously I’m not looking hard enough as I still don’t know where they are.

Step in my karaoke coworker, who was nice enough to lend me his for a day or two.

So now I have borrowed SingStar mics, sang a few songs, and looked at the SingStore. I think I’m liking the online selection enough to keep one of the discs. I’m going to return the volume 1 of the PS3 disc and keep volume 2. Since I only really wanted to access the SingStar online store, I don’t really need both.

Tomorrow, I’m giving the borrowed microphones back to my coworker and look harder for my mics.

Hobbies

Every time I see my dad when I get home from work I ask him how his day went. His answer is usually something along the lines of, “it was another boring day” or “I’m still alive.” The same old, same old.

Most days he spends his days reading a book, the internet, watching TV, or sleeping. Sometimes he goes fishing in the morning. He said that he wants to do something new, but isn’t quite sure what. His English skills aren’t that great and add to that poor hearing… Well, I think you get my drift.

I suggested a few things to him. My first one, I jokingly told him he should take up what I always suggest to my mom: ikebana. Um…. I don’t think he will. Maybe even write a novel? He isn’t very good at composition (like me), and he doesn’t want to write something that no one will read. Oil painting is a pain (I agree). I don’t think he sees the beauty of watercolor painting (sad). He is, however, interested in acrylic painting and sculpture modeling. There are classes at El Camino that he can take, but alas, we come back to the English as a second language problem that he has. :\

Oh, well.

Bulding Up the Core Muscles

For the last several weeks my lower back/tailbone/hips has been hurting. Late last week I figured out why. It’s because I’ve been doing core exercises, namely the plank, that work out areas that I never knew existed. Last night I went to bed with Salonpas and Thermacare on my lower back in hopes that it’ll help prevent soreness. It didn’t quite work out the way I hoped, but it felt good.

When I weighed myself this morning I was almost at my college graduation weight. Woohoo!

Comic-Con Registration

I found my Comic-Con verification code in my pile of mail. I am now officially registered. My sister is my free guest and my bro-in-law is my paid guest. Hotel room is booked as well. I had Laura work on that on Thursday morning. I gave her my credit card number so she can use it to charge the room on it.

It’s going to be a very geeky weekend.

Ugly Bento, the Reality

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Ugly Bento, originally uploaded by mouriran.

So here it is, folks. The ugly bento I was talking about. The koya tofu was pretty nasty and ruined the flavor of the rice. I tried to make a face out of the radishes and the tomatoes, but it didn’t come out right. The konnyaku should have gone in the middle so they’d look like brown teeth. It didn’t help that the radishes look like freakin’ boobs. 


Oh well. You learn from your mistakes, and I surely did on this one.

Ugly Bento

I made an ugly bento lunch for tomorrow.

When I made this bento earlier this week, I noticed during lunch that I didn’t put any protein in it. That was no good. So this time I decided to add something. What did I choose? Koya tofu. Yes, the tasteless spongy freeze dried tofu. I even tried to add some flavor to it by sautéing it in a bit of soy sauce and mirin.

I don’t think it worked. The koya tofu still tasted kinda nasty. So I arranged it so it’d look like it has an ugly face on it. I’m hoping the taste will mellow out during the night, but it’ll probably still taste gross, too. I’ll find out for sure tomorrow when I eat my lunch.

Gero Onsen Bath Salts

While surfing the web, I came across Gero Onsen bath salts. I was like, COOL! That’s where I went to for my hot spring experience while in Japan.

I might have to pick a package up if I ever come across it while shopping.

However, I’ll probably feel guilty about using that much water, so I’ll probably only use once in a while.

Bleh Day

Today was one of those days. You wake up knowing it’s going to be crappy. You go through the day and crappy things happen. Some things resolve themselves, but not before you feel like bashing your head into something. And the day ends, with the crappy feeling intensifying simply because crappy compounds hourly.

For some incredibly shortsighted reason, default coverage for vision during the insurance election process was set to waive IF you wanted something other than basic HMO. Let’s also tell the employees that enrollment in vision insurance is automatic, which is contrary to what actually happens. It’s an awesome move if you want to make sure the nearly blind employees who like PPO insurance don’t get any vision insurance. It’s not awesome if you have an eye doctor’s appointment the next week. So that’s what happened to me. Eventually, it got resolved, but not before I felt like bashing my head into something.

Ugh.

Like my friend Ardith says, tomorrow is a new day.

The Star Spangled Banner

Say I have a beautiful voice and I’ve been asked to sing the national anthem in front of a group of people at a college basketball game, do I accept or do I decline? The correct answer is, if only I know how to sing the Star Spangled Banner.

So today, the singer with the amazing voice did not know the Star Spangled Banner. Now, if you’re a normal regular person with a crappy voice like me, one might expect you to at least recognize your own national anthem. Knowing the lyrics wouldn’t be an important part of your daily routine. However, if you’ve been asked to sing the national anthem in front of a few hundred or more group of people, then I think it’s very important to know the lyrics. Just because you’re a good at karaoke doesn’t mean you’re a good singer. It just doesn’t work that way. I’m sorry.

If you don’t know the lyrics, then there’s this nifty site that’ll search the lyrics for you. Also, ‘o’er’ isn’t pronouced as ‘and’. It’s ‘over’ but without the ‘v’ sound.

Once, there was a singer that asked me to play the B or some random note on my flute right before the basketball game. I’m like, uh, sure. I play the requested note and move on. A few minutes later, the lady the asked for the B note goes to the center of the basketball court to sing a horribly off key rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. It was embarrassing to listen to.

First of all, every single version of the Star Spangled Banner I’ve played is in the key of B flat, not B. For those of you who read my blog and don’t know what the difference is, the key of B flat has 2 flats: B flat and E flat. The key of B has 5 sharps: C sharp, D sharp, F sharp, G sharp, and A sharp. I imagine the lady listened to the B note, went to center court, and then had wild internal conflicts with all the B flat versions she had listened to in the past.

Hey, it’s not my fault the lady needed a note played to her to figure out where to start. If she was a professional, then she wouldn’t even need such a thing.

For those of you that are wondering, I can play the Star Spangled Banner by heart on my flute AND I can sing the lyrics. However, if I knew I had to play/sing the song in front of a huge audience solo, I would be practicing until it’s completely perfect in every single way, as flubbing is not an option.