What's that cup doing there?

One day last week I went to the office bathroom and noticed that a big plastic Taco Bell cup was sitting on the toilet paper dispenser in one of the stalls. No lid, appeared to be empty. The sight seemed odd at first, but then it occurred to me that someone had probably brought it in with them to use as a tabo.

Yes, I have heard of the tabo. It's not something I use, but it's not a foreign concept to me either. Thing is, this is the first time I've seen that at the office, and quite a few Filipinas have worked here over the years (I'm only part, so I'm not counting myself).

...It just hit me that I've been with this company in one form or another for nearly ten years. That frightens me a bit.

Random Tuesday Music: Romeo and Juliet

Performed by: Dire Straits
Album: Making Movies (1980)

This is one of those songs that grew on me. I didn't enjoy the first few times I listened to it--and I mean really listening, not just hearing it sitting in the backseat of my dad's car as a wee one. It took me a while to get used to the mixture of singing and speaking, but the line "y'know, the movie song" always irked me a little bit. Not quite a Pope in Rome line, but irksome nonetheless.

"Pope in Rome line" is a term I believe I've only used with my father, but I'll explain. Have you ever heard a song that had a line that seemed out of place and/or ruined the song for you? That's a Pope in Rome line. It's a direct reference to the line "'cept for the Pope maybe in Rome" in Joan Osborne's "One of Us". Another example is "when she thought up that I should be with you" in James Blunt's "You're Beautiful". You just hear it going along, whatever, and then that line comes out of left field.

Back to Romeo and Juliet--a play I happen to loathe, but I digress. This song's been covered a few times. The Killers' rendition is the only cover I've heard, and I happen to like it, so I'll end the post with it. :) Going by what they're saying in the beginning of the clip here, it sounds like they covered it for the right reasons.

Shamelessly Plugging Urban Decay

(Some of this was paraphrased from my MySpace blog earlier today. Repetitive, yes, but I don't mind.)

I'm a big Urban Decay fan, and I think their Heavy Metal Glitter Eyeliner is some pretty awesome stuff. However, it's normally $18--yikes--so when I found out that the 3-pc. set they put together (regularly priced at $36) was on sale for $22, I snapped that up...as did everyone else because they appear to be out of it now. :P Uses will be found for the silver and purple liners, but I'm most excited about Stagedive, the turquoise one...I love anything turquoise or teal. Going to Sharks games will include glitter next season. :P Though the Three Piece is out of stock, you can still find three different "Best of Urban" sets on sale for $20...they each include a Heavy Metal eyeliner, an eyeshadow ($16 if purchased alone), a mini 24-7 eye pencil and a mini Primer Potion. I highly recommend getting one of those if you're new to the brand, it's a great introduction. :) The XXX Shine Stash looks like a good buy as well, but I did not partake as I have enough lip gloss and no young female relative/friend birthdays coming up. If those glosses had sun protection, though...I'd have been on it, hahaha.

Since I'm playing more of the "look but don't buy" game these days--gotta save as much money as possible for important future plans--I was thrilled to come across the Best Makeup Under $10 article over at Makeup Geek. I'm interested in the eye makeup remover and maybe the foundation. I don't really use much in the way of foundation, especially when the weather's warmer, I just slap on the sunscreen and go--but this might be worth a try.

Makeup Reviews

I was considering heading down to Burlingame Avenue today to poke around various shops, including the Sephora store they have down there. It ended up being too damn hot. Perhaps next weekend. I'll buy stuff online, usually when it's something I've bought before, but sometimes it's just nice to see the stuff first. I like browsing through their website too, it's put together pretty nicely. The only problem I really have is when you're reading reviews on products like eyeshadow or lipstick that come in more than one color...you'll often come across reviews that say something like "love the color, really makes my eyes pop!" Well, crap. That doesn't help me when I don't know what color you tried out. Perhaps I should start rating and reviewing. I can write pretty decently when I know the topic, if I do say so myself. :P

(I'll leave out the emoticons in my reviews, of course.)

Random Tuesday Music: Gay Bar Part 2

Performed by: Electric Six
Album: Flashy (2008)

OMG I actually posted a recent song this week. :O Ahem. I originally intended to post Dire Straits' "Romeo and Juliet", but...I've yet to do the full write-up for that. Oh yes. There will be a write-up. But enough about that. I posted this song to share with you the Drinking While Listening to Electric Six Game (which is not officially affiliated with anything except my crazy mind). There are two rules / times to drink:


1) During a song, a reference is made to one of their other songs. (Can possibly be stretched to include album titles.)
2) SOLO!


Gay Bar Part 2 is at least a four-shot song. :P

According to the clip description, this was taken from a gig in Portland late last year. (Is Portland nice? I'd like to visit that city someday.) Last year was also when I was introduced to this band's music by one of my friends. While it's fun, I find I usually have to be in a mood to listen to the songs for an extended period of time as it can get repetitive after a while. I guess that goes for many a band/artist, though. Now to finish off, here are two random Japanese songs that have been stuck in my head today:

MAX - Ginga no Chikai
LAREINE - Fuyu Tokyo

Random Tuesday Music: The Waiting

Artist: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Album: Hard Promises (1981)

Hi. It's been a while. I've been a bit occupied lately. This is actually a documentary clip talking about the song; see an actual video here. I have no real thoughts other than that this song's been stuck in my head all day. It was kind of hard to come up with songs just because I hadn't done this for a few weeks (though in my process of figuring out today's song I have two more ready to go for this month, yay). I had considered posting something from Electric Six's "Switzerland" for the sole purpose of posting a quote I just came across from this review of the album:

The more=better strategy can flop in practice, no matter how enticing hyperbolizing your art appears-- it's why so many "Family Guy" jokes tank or why no one listens to Michael Moore.

The review came up in my search for an image of one of their other album covers. I'm collecting octopus illustrations as reference for a little project I have going. I'm also pretty sure that the embedding is disabled for all Electric Six videos.

Random Tuesday Music: Big Bang Mini OST

Artist: Yubaba, Smith & Fortune
Album: Big Bang Mini OST (2009)

Okay, so the clip is actually a trailer for the Nintendo DS game, but it gives you a taste of the ambient qualities of the soundtrack, which can currently be downloaded for free at the Big Bang Mini site. It's rather soothing (which can offset the fact that the game itself can be frustrating at times), and I can tell you that it helps the workday go by faster.

(And no, I had no real songs for this week. Nothing's been grabbing me. Unless you wanted "Can You Keep a Secret?")

Random Tuesday Music: Can't Stop

Artist: Red Hot Chili Peppers
Album: By the Way (2002)

(I started to write this last week, but I fell asleep in front of the computer. Whoops!)
Another live clip...I didn't see the video right away, and if it is around, embedding's most likely disabled. But here is a "making of" the video clip that's pretty cool. Anyway, I've noticed that there are people who listen to songs for the lyrics and others who listen to them for the music itself. I can go either way. I enjoy a good lyric, but I can just as easily love a song where the lyrics are no more than stream of consciousness, provided the music's good. It seems like many a RHCP song falls into this latter category. :P

Random Tuesday Music: Love Machine

Artist: モーニング娘。 (Morning Musume)
Album: 3rd -Love Paradise- (2000)

I had another Morning Musume song stuck in my head last night, so I thought I'd share the pain with something a little more palatable. :P I believe this song is still their best-selling single, and it came out back on 9/9/99. Wow.

Random Tuesday Music: Sly

Artist: The Cat Empire
Album: Two Shoes (2005)

This band is based in Melbourne, Australia. I first heard of them when they performed on David Letterman's show a couple of years ago and thought, "oh, they're fun!" The feeling I get from most of their stuff is very...laid back party music. If that makes sense. Anyway, from there I picked up that album, and I recently bought their latest, So Many Nights. I have been addicted to it for the past week. :P

Random Tuesday Music: Poor Leno

Artist: Röyksopp
Album: Melody A.M. (2001)

I've been slacking again. :P I went on an internet hiatus of sorts, but I'm back now! Had I been online, last week's selection would have been "Ugly Girl" by Fleming & John. Anyway, on to this song. Röyksopp is an electronic duo from Norway. If nothing else, you've likely heard one of the versions of "Remind Me", which was featured in this Geico ad. I've had visions of this video in my head lately due to being addicted to this Bejeweled-esque game called Zoo Keeper. As far as the song goes, I'm hoping something was lost in translation and that the lyrics aren't actually supposed to be, well, creepy:

Poor Leno
where you'll be, I'll go
where you'll be, I'll know
where you'll be, I'll find you

Poor Leno
haven't you been told
being nine years old
means I'll always find you

...at least this is what it sounds like to me. Many lyric sites list the last three lines as "have you due in time, reunite as one, please I'll always find you". Um...yeah.

Random Tuesday Music: Strawberry Sex

Artist: Hirai Ken
Album: Life is... (2003)

This is a silly, silly video. :P As you can see, this song is a few years old, but I just came across it last week and I've been listening to it way too many times. It's bouncy, it's infectious, it makes me want to dance. Enjoy. I'll try my best to throw in an English song next week, but if I don't, please forgive me. I'm trying to be in my happy place as much as possible, and j-pop brings me there.

the rash that wasn't

I was out shopping earlier tonight. My hands were especially dry and I didn't have any cream on hand, which got annoying after a while. So when I was over at Ulta buying my sister's birthday present, I also got one of the many things of hand cream they had at the counter on sale for 40 cents (they were holiday-scented). I applied it right afterward and felt a little better, then I ran my other errands and went home. Later on, I was watching TV and I looked down at my hands to find that my fingers were really red except for the tips, and mostly on the palm sides of my hands. And I mean REALLY red, like I'm-about-to-blister red. I freaked out, thinking I'd had a bad reaction to the cream...but my hands felt perfectly fine. No burning, no irritation. Then I thought about it and looked over at the shopping bags I had carried earlier. Dark pink plastic. The ink had transferred onto my hands.

Bleh.

Fortunately it washed right off.

Random Tuesday Music: Kabutomushi ("Beetle")

Artist: Hata Motohiro

This is a cover of aiko's song performed last year on "Bokura no Ongaku" ("Our Music"). I really like the lyrics in this song, from what I can understand. I'm not sure what that says about me, though.

Happy 2009

Hello everyone. It's been a while.

Some things went on over the past few months that took up all my mental resources. But I have that out of my system now, and I'd like to get back into this. I'd like to get back into a lot of things, like art. My main goal is for 2009 to be the year I start getting myself involved and accomplishing things. To this point, my life has involved a lot of starting but not much finishing. I desperately want to fix this flaw. Also, my heart is suffering right now and I want to channel that into something positive, but I don't know how to do that just yet.

It's late, so I'll end this and write more later. I wish all of you the best in this new year. :)

Random Tuesday Music: Ruby

Artist: Kaiser Chiefs
Album: Yours Truly, Angry Mob (2007)

I linked to a live clip again...this time, the Kaiser Chiefs are performing the song with the help of The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. If you've never heard of them, I recommend checking them out.

Random Tuesday Music: Teardrop

Artist: Newton Faulkner
Album: Hand Built By Robots (2008)

This is a cover of a song that has apparently been covered a few times--here is the original. The particular clip I've linked to above is a live version. Part of the reason I picked it is because it starts off with Faulkner doing a bit of Rusted Root's "Send Me on My Way", "the track with the weirdest vocal you've ever heard".

Random Tuesday Music: Yoshi vs. Eminem Remix

Remix by Adolfo Baez
(Warning: Uh...Eminem song. NSFW language.)

Something a little different this week...basically, this is Eminem's "Without Me" set to background music from the video game Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island. What's crazy about it is that it works.

Random Tuesday Music: Never Tear Us Apart

Artist: INXS
Album: Kick (1987)

I know, I know, everyone knows this song. But I have it on the brain--I referred to it last night when I was writing about wanting to travel to the Czech Republic. They filmed this video in Prague (I think a couple of others too, but I'm sure about this one), so there you go.

Random Tuesday Music: Jolie Louise

Artist: Daniel Lanois
Album: Acadie (1989)

[I'm adding this as a regular feature so that I'll be forced to post at least once a week. Selections will come from all over the map (both figuratively and literally), I promise you that.]

Northern Exposure is one of my father's favorite programs of all time. This song is on the first soundtrack CD that came out, and it had its place in Dad's rotation. I love this song for many reasons. Here are a few:

-It tells a story.
-It's a sad song.
-You can't really tell what time period it's from.
-English/Français mix.

Over time, I learned about who Lanois was, and I ended up getting Acadie about a year ago. (It's lovely.) Here's something I noticed in his bio that seems to be reflected in the lyrics to this song:

Following his parents' 1963 separation, Lanois and his mother moved to the English-speaking suburbs of Hamilton, Ontario.

...So...is the song about his parents, at least in part?