Love Psychedelico

Recently all I've been listening to in the car is my Love Psychedelico III album.

I'd forgotten how good it was and how much I enjoyed their music!

Kumi, the singer, was in a Japanese soap opera while I was over there - called something like 'Pet Daughter in a Box' (obviously that's the English translation can't remember the Japanese title). While none of us (my two roomies Ked and Lucy) could understand a word of what was going on (other than the common phrases we had picked up - greetings, please, thank you, etc), in the dramatic and predictable way soap operas are presented, we were able to piece the story line together on our own. We'd rush home each night that it was on after our shift ended at 9pm to catch it. The show was about these two sisters and one fell in love with a gaijin (English = foreigner) - horror of all horrors! But Keith-san was cute and once in a while spoke a word or two in English. Sadly that was enough to keep us watching week after week.

Anyways, Kumi did the theme song for the show - "My Last Fight" which is how I learned about Love Psychedelico. I've been a fan since. The half English, half Japanese lyrics don't bother me. Some songs are written mostly in English while others only use a few words of English. It's just a different sound and I like it.

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Love Psychedelico
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

LOVE PSYCHEDELICO is a Japanese band, widely popular in Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan.

The band was formed in 1997 by singer Kumi (born April 11, 1976 in Chiba Prefecture) and guitarist Naoki Sato (born July 21, 1973 in Shizuoka Prefecture‍[1]),while studying at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo. They signed with major label Victor in 1999. In Japan they are often called Delico for short.

Their first album, The Greatest Hits, sold over two million copies.[2] Their second album Love Psychedelic Orchestra, released in January 2001, sold 90,000 copies.

They have released two albums since, Love Psychedelico III, in early 2004, and compilation album Early Times, in February 2005. This best-of compilation received a positive response in the Taiwanese J-pop market and the group visited Taiwan in June of that year. They held a concert in Taipei on June 22 where many fans gathered, including a sizable number of celebrity attendees. It proved to be a very successful concert for the duo who do not usually appear publicly.

Love Psychedelico also toured extensively through the club and bar circuit in the United States, garnering largely positive reactions. American cities the band has said to have enjoyed playing were Nashville, Austin, and Kumi's childhood home of San Francisco.

Style

Stylistically, Love Psychedelico is highly reminiscent of the British Invasion of the late 60s, both members having cited The Beatles and Led Zeppelin as influences, though the influence of American folk and blues are also present (Kumi having claimed Janis Joplin and Sheryl Crow, and Sato Bob Dylan, as influences). To pay tribute to their influences, Love Psychedelico sometimes borrow song titles from the bands that influence them.

Kumi's lyrics are a mix of English and Japanese, a phenomenon common to popular Japanese music, but uncommon in that significant amounts of the English lyrics are comprehensible and well-crafted, rather than simply employing a few catch phrases as so many J-pop idols tend to do. Kumi often attributes her skillfulness in the English language to spending much of her early childhood in San Francisco.

If anyone is so inclined, you can browse through some of their lyrics.

Roadtrip Update

Met Jamie-Lee at her work at 7:30pm in Gravenhurst. Our plans for the weekend, while not fully planned out, start Friday night when we'll go out for a bit, for dinner and/or drinks with Derek (her fiancee) and some of his friends and then back to hers for the night. It makes sense since she lives in Bracebridge and we are taking the top way over, as opposed to the 401 route. We'll head out around 4am so that we are there at a decent time.

We're both excited. Depending what we feel like doing Sunday we may stick around Ottawa or venture out and see something different. Either way Saturday we are both excited for the markets and music and whatever else we come across! Should be good!

As we were discussing our plans we went for a drive. First drove up the back way to Bracebridge then down through Port Carling, around Bala and back into Gravenhurst. SUCH a pretty drive! The area is SO beautiful! This one street was amazing. The trees created a full canopy over the road, so everything was green and as I've said just beautiful! I think it was yesterday I mentioned that I LOVE driving.

Back in Gravenhurst after our drive we ended up down at the Wharf, they had the grand opening last Saturday, but stuff is still far from done. But I must say, it is actually looking quite nice. They've done a nice job of the buildings they've put up. Kind of sad that they put a Boston Pizza down there (while it is always busy, and I do like it Boston Pizza in general), something a little classier would have been nice, with a huge patio on the water would have been lovely!

I think, just think, that I might be getting over my dislike of Gravenhurst. Doesn't bother me too much to go there anymore, hell I've even gone purposely a few times on my own recently. Well on my way of my 30th birthday goal to be over that! :)

Woohoo!! Road Trip! (In the planning)

Waiting for Jamie-Lee to call when she gets done work. We’re going to go out to plan! Plan our last minute decision to go to Ottawa for Canada Day weekend. We have no details planned as of yet. Just that we are going.

I’m so excited. I love going new places!! Yes, it’s sad, I’ve visited several different continents, numerous countries, but never have I been to Ottawa! It’ll be a short trip, and I won’t get to see all that much, but I don’t care. It’s going to be awesome! I miss Jamie and the crazy fun we always used to have! After being back almost one and a half years I’ve still only seen Jamie a handful of times. So this will be good!

I’ve been getting out loads on the new blades. Heather and I have pretty much gone every day up until yesterday when it was raining, and today, because it’s still raining. That’s one good thing about Orillia, the trails are fantastic!

This past weekend was good too. Saturday I slept in until noon (Asili hates waking up in the mornings now so we get along perfectly!), met Heather at noon and we went on a 12 km blade, then back to hers exhausted but decided to take the bikes out for a ride, so around the block we went…took maybe 20 mins. I went home, did some laundry and watched the Season Finale of SNL (well most of it before passing out). Sunday morning I headed down to Brantford to visit with Jamie (the Lee-less kind aka ‘Checkers Champ’). Him, his friend Brooks and I went to the Mongolian Grill in Cambridge and went and saw “Cars” – which is quite cute! Later in the evening we went for a rollerblade and I headed home. Great tunes in the car. I love driving! I have this horrible habit of looking in people’s cars though when I pass them. Does anyone else do that? Heather says she avoids looking in cars. I think it’s fun…I like the friendly ones that smile and you can wave at and show them some of your dancing moves.

OMG I don’t know what was wrong with Heather and I yesterday. But from the time she came to the mall at 5pm so we could head to Barrie, we were both on crack full tilt. The thing is though, I don’t think anyone else would have found us too funny. And in retrospect I don’t even think we were that funny. But a good time was had.

Alright, I’m going to end this for now, I had so much to write but none of it is coming to mind at the moment…off to meet with Jamie-Lee in a few anyways!

Weekend

Saturday morning my sister came by with Ty and Nate to pick me up to go to Couchiching Park. We had planned to go there on Friday night. Last year we used to go every Saturday morning.

Tyler rode his bike, Nate was in his stroller and I wore my new rollerblades! Well Ty needed a little help with his bike, so I pushed the stroller. Perhaps this was a good way to go rollerblading the first time – was able to keep my balance and look kind of like I knew what I was doing. Nate loved it too! Whenever I’d get going pretty fast he’d start giggling.

Ty did amazingly well! He only toppled over once and actually rode his bike around the full loop.


After we got back to the house I went swimming with the boys. Ty absolutely LOVES the pool and Nate enjoys it too! I then had a nap, took Asili for a walk and watched the game (WooHoo Oilers!).



This morning I went for an hour long hike with my sister on the Hahn Trail in Gravenhurst. The trail is actually quite nice, pretty hilly but has some nice views. So hot today! But in the bush it was actually quite nice and because most of the trail runs along the rock cliff there was a nice breeze. Though after the hour we were done. We went to the Timmies in town for an ice cap. We go through drive-thru and I ask for 3 ice caps (we decided to be nice and take one back for my brother-in-law) and the Timmies’ employee tells us that the machine is broken. I say “Ok. No problem, we’ll just drive thru.” I guess the guy behind us in the truck only wanted ice caps too and started honking his horn because he wanted to get around me and the car in front of me currently at the drive-thru window. There’s no way the guy could have made it around in his truck. So leaving Timmies at the stop sign I purposely make sure to completely stop, look both ways about three times and take my time just to piss him off. Well he starts honking his horn again so my sister and I both give him the finger. What a jack ass. I hate the summer tourists!!! Arg, and to think this is just the START of it!

So we stop at the Timmies on the highway just outside of Gravenhurst. Again at the drive-thru I order the 3 ice caps and conversation went like this:

Verena: Can I have three medium ice caps please.
Timmies Employee: I’m sorry we decided to turn the machine off today.
Verena: Um (gave my sister a confused look). You decided to turn it off today?
Timmies Employee: Yes (She was big on detail).
Verena: On a hot day like today?
Timmies Employee: Yes.
Verena: Because…
Timmies Employee: Well, it wasn’t working right.
Verena: Ok. Thank you.

What the fuck? I’m sorry we decided to turn the machine off today. Why the hell didn’t she just say that the machine was broken?

At any rate I then dropped my sister back off at her house and went home ice cap-less.

Went swimming then with Ty, though the water felt FREEZING despite the thermometer saying that the water was actually 24 degrees. My sister and Del then came over. The afternoon was spent outside (though we had to move inside a few times during the rain showers). I dyed my sister’s hair and we played a round of Kanasta. My sister, Del and the boys left around 8:30pm.

Random Act of Kindness?

I had some running around to do at lunch today (had to get gas, go to the bank, etc), so I decided to go to Timmies for a coffee and a tea biscuit. I went in as I didn't know what kind of tea biscuit I wanted. Just as I was walking in (this is irrelevant to my original story) a girl dropped a whole stack of plates! That absolutely could have been me, but no one got mad about it, they all just kind of laughed and joked with each other over it (I think that's the right kind of attitude to adopt, I mean what would getting angry have accomplished aside from making someone feel bad?). I ordered my coffee (with milk) and a cheese tea biscuit (buttered but not heated - I would heat it when I got back to work).

Leaving Tim's there were two elderly women coming around the corner from the parking lot. I waited and held the door for them asking if they were heading in for a coffee...the one woman said "Well isn't that a random act of kindness?" I just said you're welcome and that I hoped they enjoyed their coffee. I wouldn't say that was a random act of kindness at all, really it was just common courtesy. Letting the door shut in someone's face has got to be one of the rudest things ever. Ok, had I not held the door it wouldn't have shut in their face seeing as they still had to walk up 20 ft or so, but no matter how much of a hurry I am in, I always check behind me when I walk through doors to see if anyone is coming.

Same thing (well kind of the same thing) goes with smiling at people when you walk by them. Why not? There are very few people who won't smile back if you smile at them when you pass them. It especially pleases older people. I love the mall walkers who sit around in the food court after the mall opens. They are always laughing and carrying on, you can't help but walk by them and smile. I'm sure some people coming into the mall (meaning the majority of costumers who don't know I work for the mall) wonder why I always smile and say hello when I walk by them. Meh, I just think it's polite.

Not even sure where I was going with all this, or if there actually was some other point behind it other than to say that it's the polite thing to do.

Besides today was a good day. I was happy despite not feeling like working. How can Friday not be a good day? Plus, Glenn called to tell me that my skates were in, and I could stop by after work and he would wait until I came by so he could fit me. I felt a little bad because I didn't get there until nearly 5:30pm (it's just one exit further down the highway) because I was helping my boss' son with some excel graphs that he needed to do for his math project. I tried them on, loved them, he showed me how to brake one final time (haha guess it looked like a needed a refresher) and also explained how to rotate the wheels. I however must apologize, the rollerblade picture that I posted in the last blog weren't actually what mine look like. They are a little different, same basic idea though...soft boot, gray and blue mix...

I then jetted up to Gravenhurst for my 6:15pm hair appointment (with a brief stop at my sister's to use the washroom since it was on the way). Getting your hair washed at the hair dressers has to be one of the best things ever. I also had a conditioning treatment done. My hair ended up a little shorter than I'd have liked, but I told her to cut off whatever she needed to in order to get rid of the dead ends. I told her not to worry about drying it, wasn't going out tonight so didn't care what it looked like. But when I got home (of course the window was open in the car) it was all puffy and kind of looked like the mushroom cut I had in grade 7. I've since discovered it's JUST long enough to still pull back in a small pony tail. Besides, I'm sure if I properly blow dry it, it'll look much better. But it does feel SO much better now. I also bought the hair treatment to take home with me. I now have treatments for the next 5 weeks. I LOVE the Matrix Biolage line! It's definitely worth the money, and it really does last a long time! Each bottle of shampoo and conditioner lasts me several months. It's fantastic!

Seems I've been in a bit of a rambling mood the past little while...now if only I actually had something interesting to say!

Random Stuff

It’s been a while since I’ve written again...long enough for my bruises and scrapes to pretty much disappear…well my knee is all scabby still and not nice, but am healed for the most part now.

Asili went in to be fixed yesterday. I took her in to Gravenhurst first thing in the morning; the poor thing was so excited to get into the car only to be taken to the vet. When my mom picked her up in the afternoon the vet told her that she cried the whole morning after I left. She hardly moved at all last night and when I woke at around 4:30am (I had passed out earlier in the night watching the game) she was a little more alert. But it wasn’t until 7:30am when I could convince her to go outside.

Now today she is better, still quite calm and quiet for her, but she has eaten, goes out regularly and is super sucky. At her weigh in yesterday she was up to 28lbs.

On Tuesday night I went over to my sister’s house to watch Nate for a few hours while she and Del took Tyler to his last swimming lesson. Nate is getting so big! He now has 4 teeth and is so strong! I missed all this with Tyler since I left for Japan when he was just 2 months old. While I was at their house I had taken off my sweater as I was getting quite warm, later in the evening though it was getting cooler so I wanted to put my sweater back on. Well I did and it took me about 10 minutes to figure out why it felt so strange, not to mention the fact that I couldn’t figure out why the sweater was suddenly so short. Well eventually I realized that I had put the sweater on upside down! LOL, not inside-out or backwards, but actually upside down. It was one of those sweaters with a very wide neck, but again it takes someone like me to put a sweater on upsidedown.

Tyler went to the Zoo yesterday with my sister and her friend, today he’s told me all about the monkies with the red bums. And some story that I couldn’t quite figure out. It had something to do with a worm that got to the other side of the fence and they had to catch him. I asked if it was a snake that escaped but he said no, I’ll have to ask my sister when she comes to pick the boys up tonight.

Looks like I’m still at the mall for a while. I didn’t get the Brock job. After all that they decided to hire someone internally. I had even emailed the office and asked if they were hiring someone internally first...ah well I guess it wasn’t meant to be. But it really sucks because I would have LOVED the job, and it suits me perfectly. But for now I’ll continue at the Mall because it really is great experience. Right now it’s slow for events so I’m working on my 2007 budget (it’s due to head office at the end of July) and my promotional calendar as well as creating a Marketing Procedures Manual as one of my 2006 corporate goals.

I went and looked at some rollerblades with Heather last Friday (I think it was). I had to wear a sporty helmet to roll around the store. The salesclerk taught me how to brake (haha I always just slow down if I have to stop – so stopping in a hurry is obviously out, or I use the arms outstretch method, grab onto whatever is handy) and made me try on several pairs so I could find the ones that are most comfortable for me. I have a pair of Rollerblade rollerblades on hold (and they are purple!), but I’m waiting for a pair of K2’s that were super comfortable even though they were 2 sizes too big, to come in from the Windsor store. Then I can try them in the proper size and see if I like them better than the Rollerblade ones. They were supposed to be in a few days ago, but the Windsor store just ended up sending them today...so I am still waiting. Glenn, the salesclerk, told me they should hopefully be in tomorrow afternoon. I hope so! Here’s a picture of the K2’s that I’ll end up getting, should they ever arrive in Orillia. I know lame, but I keep looking at the website while I wait for the real ones to get here! I was so ready to go rollerblading on Monday already!



Here’s a picture of Ty and I taken tonight; looks like we both need a hair cut..I’m going tomorrow after work for a cut and a conditioning treatment...woo hoo!

I'm special.

Today I had a classic “Vern Moment”.

A “Vern Moment” is defined as something that only I could possibly end up doing because well, I’m “Vern”. Or well at least in these “moments” I’m “Vern”. Don’t ask me to explain any further because I probably couldn’t, either it makes sense or it doesn’t. Anyways, the bottom line is that these said “Vern Moments” are usually pretty stupid.

So today, after getting home from work, somewhat later because I dropped my car off at my sister’s house on the way home (she is using it tomorrow to go and write her CGA exit exam – Good Luck Tanja!!), I take Asili outside and we are playing with her squeaky hot dog running around the pool, up and down the hill, and it’s almost 8:00pm and almost time for idol, so I say “Come Asili – It’s Canadian Idol ti---“. Never quite finished my sentence as I went to jump up the deck stairs and in mid-flight thought it would be a wise move to change my direction as to avoid something that was on one of the steps.

From my own “Vern” experiences it is never a smart decision to rethink something or change the plan in the middle of doing something, especially not something that involves coordination. So my foot doesn’t land on the second step where I intended it to and instead I end up hitting various body parts off the wooden steps. Just below my right knee is banged up pretty nicely, got a 2 inch long scrape, bump and soon to be bruise – now hurts to bend the knee. At the bottom of my left leg I have a scrape that stretches horizontally across my leg about 3 inches above my ankle. The heel of my left hand is really sore to move and is bruised. And I’ve also managed to bruise, though not scrape, my left cheek bone. All in all it’s a pretty impressive bang up job, at least just for jumping up some stairs!

Aren’t I special??

Sunny Sunday in the Park

Asili and I met up with Daisy and Heather this morning at 11:30 to head to Orillia to go to the park. We started at Tudhope Park and walked the Trans Canada Trail which runs alongside Lake Couchiching. They found a few balls along the way and made some new friends.

We then went to Timmies for an iced cap and then went down to the boardwalk at Couchiching Park. They played in the water and chased each other like mad.



On the way to drop Heather off we found a turtle crossing the road, so we pulled over to pick it up and put it in the ditch. But not before taking a picture! (Yes, there really isn't much to do up here!)



Asili wasn't the only one tired after our half day at the Park. When we got home shortly after 4pm, we both had a two hour nap. Tyler and Nate were still here (racing was cancelled yesterday and rescheduled for today) so after waking I BBQed dinner and watched some Treehouse with Tyler and played dinky cars. His new thing to say is: "That's Awesome!" or "That's Cool!"; he'd say this when launching the cars from the ramp he built.

Pretty boring blog, I do realize, but I did have a good day.

Back to work tomorrow morning, going in early as it's our annual Seniors Fair.

Unlucky Friday

My Friday morning started with a big scare! I’m getting ready as usual only to look across the room to see a HUGE spider crawling towards me. And I mean this thing was HUGE. I’m not exaggerating. Other than the picture of the absolutely gross spider I took a close up shot of on Melissa and mine’s tour through Thailand, this is the biggest one I’ve ever seen. It looked like a tarantula!! Yes, a smaller one, but hairy and brown and black just like one. I froze for a second, then looked around for something that was close and big enough to kill it with. “Mein Kampf” was still sitting on the night stand so I picked that up and quickly dropped it on top of the spider, took a few deep breaths and after a few minutes jumped on the book to make sure it was well squished and dead. I couldn’t bring myself to move the book so I threw the empty laundry basket upside down on top of it and left it there for the day.

I was then a few minutes late leaving for St. Catharines, which was fine as I was leaving with plenty of time anyways.

The drive was pretty uneventful. Mind you when I started the car the “Check Engine Soon” light came on and I thought that was strange so I backed up then turned it off and restarted thinking that might do the trick. It didn’t so I left as planned anyways. Fifteen minutes down the road I called my Dad to ask him if it was ok anyways and he asked if it was driving normally, etc. and it was so I continued on my way. The whole engine light thing was kind of funny (ironic?) because I had just taken my car into my Dad’s shop the night before to have him look everything over. Anyways made a quick stop at Timmies in Orillia and a gas stop in King City then continued on my way. I worried about myself a little when I was driving through Hamilton/Burlington (which ever it was always mix the two up on the QEW – how long did I live down there and I still don’t know) and found myself thinking that Lake Ontario smelt good. Hahaha, never had that before, but it made me think of the ocean.

Got into St. Kitts at about 1pm (interview wasn’t until 2:15 so I went to Stamford's Deli and picked up their absolutely magnificent rum balls and more eucalyptus candies, then another quick stop and then I went over to Brock. Found parking in front of Schmon Tower so that was great.

Anyways, the interview went alright, not sure how I feel about how it went. It lasted about 50 minutes; they had 3 full pages of questions. At any rate I’ll find out next week.

I then stopped at a Timmies and a convenience store, got back in my car, sat for a few minutes texting and then discovered that I couldn’t find my keys. Sat in my car a few minutes longer thinking that was strange and looking on the seats, the floor and the dash to see where I could have put them, and then a tow truck driver came out and asked if I was missing something and I said yes, and he told me the store clerk had them inside. Yeah, that wasn’t my brightest moment.

Then went to Whitby to have dinner with Bobbi. We went to Ajax and had dinner at Casey’s and had excellent calamari and shrimp skewers and we both had the philly cheese steak sandwich which were excellent! So the bill comes and I go to get my wallet from my purse only to discover that it wasn’t in there! Luckily Bobbi had money so we paid and left. Looked through the car then tried to think of where I could have left it and we decided it must be at Bobbi’s. So we went back and found my wallet in the kitchen. I obviously wasn’t having a good day.

Then finally took Bobbi to Yorkdale to catch the subway down to Brian’s. It was raining pretty hard but it let up. So I get onto the 401W from Allen which takes me directly onto the Express lanes, so I end up missing the 400 exit which is pretty much right after you merge onto the left lane, couldn’t make it across the 3 lanes of traffic so had to take the next exit to get back onto the Eastbound 401 then get the 400 exit. Arg, at this point I’m getting pretty frustrated with my luck. Then it starts pouring again and was really foggy so I had to drive pretty slowly…only then to come to a complete standstill. I’m in the right hand lane and as I very slowly make progress I have to merge into the middle land and then the left lane because two of the lanes are closed. Turns out a truck had rolled and caught fire. Ambulance and Fire were already on the scene, but it looked pretty nasty. After that the rain let up and the rest of the drive was uneventful.

Got home around midnight.

So with all my bad luck that day I’m hoping some good comes out of it. Keep your fingers crossed.

Today I met up with Jamie-Lee and we went down to Barrie and had lunch and then went to the park in Gravenhurst despite the rain and had a good chat. I’ve got to say she’s a kick-ass standard driver now! I’ll take some credit for that! Back in high school I used to give her lessons. We weren’t too smart about it mind you. We’d practice in the Segwun parking lot on the waterfront. More than one time I thought she was going to drive my car straight into the water.

Got home and spent some time with my nephews who are here for the weekend, and then took Asili for a drive and went to Timmies. I got a coffee and Asili got 2 timbits. Now I’m just enjoying my coffee and am shortly going to give Asili a bath. I know, what an exciting Saturday night! But I did have a good day!