Thursday, February 24, 2011

The Second Plague

"And the frogs shall come up both on thee, and upon thy people, and upon all thy servants."
- Exodus 8:4
Just when I thought that things couldn't get much worse than seeing the month of February come to a close with  still more than half a dozen unfinished blog entries, I get to log into my blogger account to discover that a plague of frogs had descended upon the blogosphere for days, as every  blog post (published or otherwise)  that had images hosted on Imageshack showed the image of a frog frozen in a block of ice. Apparently, the powers that be decided that the domain in which these images were supposed to appear  in must be registered, so off I went to the hosting site to get things fixed, unfortunately, the registration link didn't work.

Good thing when I checked this morning, things were back to normal and so the world was spared from hearing my own rendition of Oh! Let My People Go, which brings me back to my main problem---that of coming up with a decent blog post.

The good news is that I've been able to watch a few dramas that took forever to finish. And I'm not talking about just a few weeks or months, but a matter of years. There are some that I lost interest in and didn't care to finish, some that got buried for one reason or another and others that I simply forgot about with the changing of the seasons. The bad news is that unless I make it a point to write something everyday [which is highly unlikely], it'll be impossible to get everything I've seen in this blog and stay sane and/or gainfully employed. Besides, I don't think I'll be able to come up with anything intelligible anyway, so posts for this blog will have to remain as unpredictable as Kimutaku's next project or as sporadic as Nino's gay pervy antics. As part of my ongoing attempt to stave off the growing number of unfinished dramas that now lay siege on my desk, I'll try to come up with some notes on them just to strike them off my list. Now if only the frogs stuck around a while longer, I'd have a valid excuse to put off working on my draft posts...  

7 comments:

  1. Oh that dreaded frog!

    Can't say I am a fan of imageshack, I only ever use it on the random occasion when I know I won't need to trek back the image because it has caused me some grief (mebbe I'm just technologically impaired.)

    I prefer photobucket, have also heard picasa is pretty good.

    Drama completing feels good doesn't it, especially after a long, strenuous haul. Though I don't know about going back to stuff that's taken years to watch, I don't think I have that much goodwill lol. But bravoh to you, woman! (Kinda curious what series made you, er, pace yourself over such a long stretch of time ;)))

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  2. Horrible, right? I actually switched to picasa recently but I still have a number of draft blog posts that have images uploaded to imageshack. :(

    I was on a mission last month to finish off the following dramas---A Star's Lover (took 2 years), Anna-san no Omame (a little over 3 years), Smile and Godhand Teru (both of which took about a year and a half).

    Also covered some dramas that came out last year like Down with Love, Mioka, Chase, Juui Dolittle and Mother. Argh, don't know when I'll get to write about them since I still have unfinished drafts of Zeni Geba, Nanasa Futatabi and Hagetaka but at least I'm through watching them. :)

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  3. Oh I just completed Star's Lover a couple of days ago! Although it only took me 3 or 4 days- not sure how I did it either >_>;;; Have to say Choi Ji Woo & Yoo Ji Tae carried this series like no one has ever had to carry anything before. Especially YJT, the poor guy, must've hurt for him trying to keep his character likable in the last half of the series. Loved the parts when the couple were all sweet & happy & gooey but I will never understand why the writers make Kim Chul Soo turn into a sulky, bitter mess in love when things weren't so smooth-sailing ><"

    bwahahahaha @ Smile. I'm happy you made it out of that weepfest alive. I did think Oguri Shun rocked in this. Speaking of whom, is Juui Dolittle something I should dig into or avoid if I want to continue to like the actor?

    I wanted to give Down With Love a spin because I think Ella but... should I or should I not? Jerry's series post-MG have done absolutely zilch for me *shudders at The Hospital, Hot Shot & StarLit*

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  4. Is Smile really that much of a weeper? I think I acquired the series just 'coz of MatsuJun's character's Filipino connection. Getting myself to watch it is another thing altogether. @_@

    Ditto jicks' query re Juui Dolittle. Any good? 'Coz I'm this close to adding that dorama to my 2011 to-watch list =P

    Re Ella: I'm sorry, but I don't think I can ever stomach seeing Ella in anything that presents her as a female romantic lead. I know that probably makes me a horrible superficial person. Sorry.

    As for my end, I tried giving Yankee-kun to Megane-chan a spin but couldn't understand why this drama charmed the socks off so many people. My Boss My Hero had a 29472x more entertaining opener, and I didn't like that series that much, lol. Dropped Yankee-kun after Episode 1. Should I have?

    Lol this is turning out to be some kind of "what should I watch?" advice column. 8P

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  5. What a coincidence, jicks! I must admit that YJT was a huge factor in my watching it. If it were any other actor I would have just walked away...

    I actually watched till episode 8 of A Star's Lover while it was airing and then stopped when the ghostwriting business reared its ugly head. I only decided to finish it when a friend of mine asked for my copy of it last December, so I scrambled to see the remaining episodes of it in order to say goodbye to it properly.

    I'm with you 100% on how CJW and YJT carried this series, they had great chemistry and looked really good together. I think I enjoyed about 1/3 of the series because of the sappy, romantic scenes between CJW and YJT. :)

    Lol at your Smile comment. I was 3 episodes away from finishing this series when I chucked it into storage. Since watching GANTZ, I kinda felt invincible (or should I say anesthetized to crap) so it was the best time to go through my list of unfinished series.

    To answer E.G.'s question, I didn't think Smile was that bad, it was just hopelessly bloated. It was overly dramatic and having Gakky in it didn't really help Jun one bit. (Blech*) All that crying + the matching cellphone accessories + the "I have a dream" bit = hours of involuntary eye-rolling.

    So yeah, jicks was correct in referring to it as a weepfest. There were like 2-3 episodes that genuinely made me feel bad for the characters, the rest of it felt a bit forced. Thought Oguri Shun did great in it, he was aggressively scary--it was totally believable how Jun's character would be such a sissy next to him.

    Re Juui Dolittle, if you like to see Shun play a stern, no-nonsense character, whose motto in life is that "veterinary medicine is a BIJINESU" then I think this series is a go. There's nothing really special about it, it's episodic and at times emotionally manipulative but if you're an animal lover or a pet owner, I'm sure you'll find room in your heart for this series.

    Down with Love---I enjoyed the first five or six episodes of it because it was a no-brainer. Grumpy lawyer + boyish looking housekeeper/babysitter pretending to be a lesbian + 2 cute kids = a surefire recipe for primetime romance.

    Unfortunately, it didn't sustain my attention since the said formula didn't last long. The kids were in it for like only 4 episodes and then the story kinda spins into an unlikely love triangle/quadrangle/triangle that heads off to Shanghai. Plus, I couldn't help but notice how Jerry's character had too much time on his hands for a big time attorney or how the sign outside his office read, "Law Firn" instead of "Law Firm"... (groans out loud*)

    If you don't have a problem with Ella though, it should be easier to watch than Hot Shot and a tad more fun than The Hospital. ^^

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  6. @ E.G.

    Ah, Yankee-kun to Megane-chan...I honestly feel that it's better than My Boss, My Hero but again, it really depends on how much "high school drama" a viewer can take.

    I've read mixed reactions to this show and it seems to me that the first episode really is a make or break. I kinda get why some don't like it---for one, Nari's too old to be playing a high school kid; two, the classical tracks were no doubt ripped from the Nodame playlist; and three, the fight sequences were slapsticky and cartoonish. They're valid concerns but what I found refreshing about this series was its treatment of stereotypes and how each character was struggling against how they're perceived. I suggest you take a look at another episode or two, if it still doesn't work for you then you can move on to other shows thinking you gave it a fair shot. :P

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  7. Oh kewl, thanks zooey for those solid insights. :-) Smile I'm not touching for the time being. But yeah, maybe I should give YKtMC another shot. For some reason, Narimiya Hiroki never did quite float my boat (probably a major factor why I didn't take to YKtMC as much as some people). Add to that the reasons you already mentioned -- he's just too darn old for a high schooler, the slapsticky fights -- plus the pace of the first ep, which tended to drag in some parts, and that pretty much sums up my disappointment with Ep. 1. But anyway, the treatment of stereotypes should be interesting and I can at least look forward to that. :-)

    Btw "Law Firn"??? Seriously??? "Law Firn"??? Ahahahahahahahahha *wipes tears*

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