BEDIM 8 - Shuffle Mode

I decided to make myself possibly look super stupid here and post the first 10 songs that come up when I put my iPod on shuffle. I must say that right now my iPod isn't as well-stocked or updated as I'd like, so this list might not represent me all too well at the moment... Here we go!

"The Most Wonderful Day of the Year" (performed by Glee Cast) This is that Rudolph Christmas Special song. If there were ever a Christmas drinking song, this might be it.

"I Cannot See His Color" From The Village soundtrack by James Newton Howard. One of my most favorite soundtracks ever!

"Doctor Jones" By Aqua. Everyone has music guilty pleasures that lasted from their middle school days, right?

"Keep Holding On" (Originally by Avril Lavigne, performed by Glee Cast) This is a good never-give-up song.

"Count On Me" by Bruno Mars. I actually haven't listened to this song more than once or twice, so I have no real opinion about it now. It sounds nice though...

"Dangerous Garden" From the Coraline soundtrack by Bruno Coulais. This soundtrack is so different and fun! It is kinda eerie too, but has some really great moments.

"Nowhere to Now Here" by The Kin. My friend shared this band with me before she left Korea a few months back, and, I must say, they are quite good. It builds up really good; this song is actually my favorite by them. Check it out!

"Something Got a Hold of Me" from the Burlesque OST, Christina Aguilera. I don't remember the song that well from the movie, but I bet she furrowed her eyebrows when she did her runs all over the place.

"Sea of Simulation" from Tron: Legacy, by Daft Punk. I think I liked this movie and its soundtrack more than most people. This song sounds like floating in space while surrounded by space-seahorses with Bob Ross to the side painting the whole thing.

"Kakariko Village" From Legend of Zelda 25th Anniversary album, by Koji Kondo. This is a pretty song that a staple tune from many Zelda games, and this version is very nice.

Whether this represents my musical tastes effectively or not, these are the songs that came up. I bet there could have been much more embarrassing songs to come up, but I also think that there are lots more that could have made me look better.

On a random note, I just Skyped with a very good friend back in the States, and it was wonderful! For anyone reading this out in the world, you should call or write an email to a friend that you don't see too often, I'm sure it will make their day!

BEDIM 7 - I Love Technology

There is something about breaking out a fun old game among friends and playing it till you're mad at everyone. That is why I hate playing Monopoly. That, and that it takes FOREVER to finish.
So instead I like to play games that are easy to pick up and are just as fun to watch as they are to play. Just such a game is Mario Kart 64.
Because of marvelous technologies, a bunch of friends and I were able to hook a laptop to a flat-screen TV and play Mario Kart 64 with Xbox 360 controllers (I'm sure someone is rolling in their grave) for an evening of fun like I've not had in ages.
Battle mode is the perfect chance to get to know your friends: will they take advantage of you when you are vulnerable? Turns out I think they always will. At least in Mario Kart a bunch of friends can still be friends after it's all done.

(The stare-down. Only one will make it out alive.)

And yet again I write about something Nintendo...I swear in real life it's not a regular topic in discussion.

Another great techno-thingy is my iPod touch. The first one I ever saw was in the car-ride home from the airport when I returned from my LDS mission. I thought it was cool, but since then I caved and bought one after my little brother did. 

I've been able to use my iPod - my music player - to call people all over the world, check and write email, take pictures, surf the Internet, play games...It's the best little gadget I've ever had, and it's coming on 2 years old now. I've not caved into a smart phone yet, and I think that's in part to my iPod doing all the stuff I want it to. 

A couple years ago I got a digital piano, and my brother promptly got a headphone adapter for me to use while playing, which made it fun for me and not-annoying for my family. 

I'm rambling. I love technology, but not as much as you, you see. Let me know what I should write about next!

BEDIM 6 - And Today's Random Topic is....

Musical Theme and Variations!!!

I think that most people who know me personally know that I love music and playing the piano (though I think if you DO know me personally then you've probably also been annoyed at me for playing the piano too much), and I love the mechanics of music, its history, etc.... I took Music Theory in college just for fun, and I loved it! I email my friend - and former short-time piano teacher - every once in a while and bombard her with questions and info about random pieces of music and composers and stuff, I'm sure to her annoyance too.
Anyway, today's topic is on musical theme and variation, which is explained by Wikipedia as follows:

"A [musical] technique where material is repeated in an altered form. The changes may involve harmony, melody, counterpoint, rhythm, timbre, orchestration or any combination of these."

An example that came to mind right away was the famous "Variations on a Theme by Paganini" by Rachmaninoff. Rachmaninoff is one of my favorite composers and I just love his music. He did a whole set of variations on a theme created by Paganini, my favorite variation being number 18. In the picture below you can see the original melody was simply inverted (turned upside down) and put in D flat major. It is so pretty!

Here is the 18th variation for your listening pleasure. I hope you love it!

As nice and pretty as that 18th Variation is, there was recently another, modern piece that surprised me with its own awesome variation. As I've said before, I like Nintendo, and I was pleased as could be that the newest Zelda game, "Skyward Sword" came with a really great orchestrated music CD with very well made arrangements from the series' melodies. (Am I a nerd or what?) The last piece on the album is the theme from "Skyward Sword," and it's epic and original. Right? 

To show what I mean, I'm afraid there will have to be a couple more videos to watch (but I promise they're worth it, and not very long either!).

Ok, so this is the theme from the newest game, called "Ballad of the Goddess"...

Okay, so here is one of the main themes from the series as a whole, called "Zelda's Lullaby." It's a simple theme that basically any person who's ever played any Zelda game should know instantly:

(If you want, just listen to the first 25 seconds for main gist.) 

So there we have two songs that don't really seem to have that much in common, right? Let's listen to that "Ballad of the Goddess" again, except this time, played backwards.

Holy cow! When I read that the "ballad" tune was an arranged and modified version of the "lullaby" I hardly believed it, but after listening, I love the music so much more! For accompanying a game that deals so much with time and going forward and backward in time to save the world, this variation fits so perfectly.

So there you have it, some short thoughts on musical theme and variation and my two favorite examples. I didn't think that the random topic chooser would lead me to a post that I liked writing so much. 

So, dear readers, do you know of any other cool themes and variations I should know about? Post a comment!

BEDIM 5 - Children's Day

May 5th is Children's Day in Korea. For what I've gathered from the kids I teach, they love it because they get presents and have a nice holiday (sounds kind of like what I call Christmas), and the English Village I work for is hosting a number of activities today for families. I've heard that it will be extremely crowded and hectic, but so far, it doesn't seem so bad. (True, I haven't yet left my apartment, so we'll see what it's like when I go out today.)
This picture is of a big fake tree decorated for Children's Day at Everland, the same big fake tree that was decked out in Halloween ghosts when I was there last year. I also totally copied and pasted this from Google images.

I'm heading into Seoul this afternoon, so today's post will be rather short as I need to get packing. I did notice, though, that my post from yesterday got about 40 views. That's 40 more than usual. I wondered if the Star Wars related content was the culprit, so I googled "may the fourth be with you" and amazingly my dinky little post was on the first page! I thought that was fun.
Welp, I'm off to Seoul, and I hope everyone has a great weekend!

BEDIM 4 - May the Fourth Be With You

Star Wars Day!
I was one of the kids born and raised in the years after the original Star Wars trilogy, so I don't really have any memory of the first time watching it. I was in Middle school when the prequel trilogy started to release (and therefore too young to yet realize how annoying Jar Jar was, to my everlasting shame), but no matter the love or hate people have for any particular Star Wars movie, I like them all.

Ok, so I'm going to use the random topics generator....and the topic is:
"A Movie Poster that has Affected You"

There is a cool trend/genre in art in which people make their own minimalist versions of movie posters, some of which are really amazing. (Fan art? Did I just admit I like it?) For this topic, the first movie poster that pops into my mind is this one:

I love it! I love how there is an hourglass(for time-travel), full moon (for the werewolf), and the line from MacBeth, which was used as lyrics to a song in the film, and the melody from the song being a significant motif throughout the film score. I feel like Prisoner of Azkaban was a big turning point in the film franchise, and I loved the creativity and darkness that wasn't in the previous films; I feel like this simple poster really captures the feel of the movie (at least for me).

Some of my very good friends worked for the movie theater in my hometown, and occasionally the theater would get rid of their extra posters by just giving them away, and I was able to pick up a few as well. True, the popular posters always vanished first, but I still got a few that looked cool, even if I hadn't seen the movies they were for. I got the full-sized, double-sided posters of Hellboy II, Terminator Salvation, Battle for Terra, Best Dad in the World, and maybe one or two more. As a fan of cinema, just having those few posters is kind of fun. I did use the "Best Dad" poster for a Fathers' Day surprise when I put a cut-out of my own dad's head on the poster and hung it up in the house. It was super lame, but it was fun to make and it saw the light of day for probably the only time in its existence.

So, dear readers(are there any?), has there ever been a movie poster that has affected you? Tell me all about it!

BEDIM 3 - TV Shows and Woes

Back in college, must've been the Fall semester of 2009, I started watching a fun little show on TV called "Glee." I liked it because it was funny and subtle and they used music to tell parts of the plot and develop story lines.
Then it got even more mega popular and it seemed to changed. Now I watch the show because I usually like the music (which doesn't have as much to do with the plot besides the lyrics fitting someone's mood), but hardly care at all about any of the characters. A couple weeks ago, an episode ended with a big cliffhanger when a character was smashed into while driving. During the moments after the screen went black, I was thinking to myself, "I hope she died, I hope she died," and not because I hated the character, but because I was hoping that it would force the show to change things up, to have a different direction for a bit, instead of what seems to have been preachy episodes one after another.
Turned out the character lived. Why can't I just stop watching the show?

Lucky for me - and the whole world - there is another show that is so much more fun and enjoyable, called "Parks and Recreation." Parks and Rec is the happiest show on TV and I have loved it since my best friend introduced me to it a couple years ago. If I have a long or bad day at work, I can watch an episode and feel better afterward. Isn't great that at TV show can do that? If there are other shows that are positive and funny and lovable, I want to know about them!

I just had the thought that instead of blogging every day, exercising every day would probably do me better...

BEDIM 2 - Lady Gaga and Nintendo

Last weekend I went to the Olympic Stadium in Seoul to see Lady Gaga kick off her Born This Way World Tour.
The whole day was long, but pretty fun. There were a couple in the group, but only my friend and I got off work early. He and I went to the stadium and picked up our tickets, and we were there early enough that we were each given a designer water bottle. How fancy of them! We arrived early enough that we had plenty of time to go down a stop and get dinner at Coex (the biggest mall I've been to) and still get back to the stadium with time to spare.
The show was pretty fun. We were dead center, but pretty far back along with thousands of other people, but they were way into the show and it was still lots of fun. The set was a HUGE castle, the costumes were crazy, and the dance numbers were all really amazing. Lady Gaga did almost every single song in her catalog, so there wasn't much to complain about. Sadly I didn't get any pictures during the show because my camera doesn't do well in the dark without a flash.
After the show, we all piled into my friend's car and made the trip home. We made a wrong turn and got to see part of the city twice, and later we stopped at Hongdae for food. We didn't actually get back home until 2:30 am or so.
It was a long day, but so fun!

Here are some pictures I did NOT take of the show:
The set was HUGE!


One of the dozen or so costumes she wore:

The HUGE crowd! I was sitting just about at the left edge of the picture,right above the white row of lights, do you see me?



Today I wore my favorite T-shirt, the blue one I got from Nintendo World in NYC, and the students commented on it all day. Yay me for having a cool shirt!
I love Nintendo! My family got a SNES when I was in kindergarten with Super Mario World. I've played that game so much. I don't personally know anyone better than I am at that precious little game (Youtube isn't personal), but I love to play it with people still. Last year I was playing the original Super Mario Bros. on my Wii with my Grandma (who had the original game on the NES) and it was so fun! I got a little anxious a few times when I wanted to yell "Jump, Grandma! Jump!" but I held my tongue and watched her kill Mario a few times. It was awesome! I also got her to play Mario Kart Wii that same day, figuring that in that game turning the controller actually turns your car too, so it should be a bit easier to pick up. It wasn't, but I still had a great time.
Another Nintendo game that holds a special place in my heart is The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. I spent countless hours with my friends in their basement taking turns playing and figuring out the puzzles and dungeons. There was one time where we decided to make a cake, but for some reason it never reached the oven, so we sat watching each other playing the game and ate the entire bowl of funfetti cake batter. As far as I remember, no one got sick from that either.

Best game ever? Probably.


Ok, so Day 2 has two completely unrelated topics with no segue to be found. I don't have any set plans or big ideas for upcoming days or topics, so if there are any readers that have an interesting topic idea, please message me!
See you tomorrow!