Urara 6 Reunion!

At least it felt like it. I had rehearsal with Utaurara today for the first time since December! They've actually had one rehearsal since then, but I had to work late that day so I couldn't make it. Anyway, it was good to sing again. Nothing has really changed in the meantime, though - Kern was sick, as usual, and Lito hadn't practiced his music, as usual. :P

We had a good rehearsal - practiced choreography for our show next Sunday, worked on some new songs, and had a nabe party afterwards! Right around then is where the T3A list starts:

#3 - Valentine's Chocolates!
So the Urara 6 ladies were really nice again this year and got Valentine's Day chocolates for the guys (Japanese tradition dictates that girls give chocolates to guys for Valentine's Day, and then the guys give girls chocolates one month later, on "White Day"). Here's how the distribution of the chocolates went:

"Kern, here's a very special present just for you. We know you'll love it!"

"Lito, here's something for you, too - we looked all over and we found the perfect thing for you!"

"Dylan... oh, you can just grab a generic gift out of that bag over there. It doesn't matter which one."

...

Yup, I guess that's me right there, your run-of-the-mill everyday average Joe, nondescript, generic, and replaceable. Ha ha.

Revenge comes on March 14.

#2 - Walking and Soujing

I've been cleaning up my apartment lately, or at least talking about cleaning it when in reality all I'm doing is blogging. :P

Anyway, it turns out that I had left my broom in my old apartment, and thus needed to purchase another one. I found a cool broom at one of the stores in my area. It comes as a set with a dustpan, which has a long handle so you don't have to squat down to use the dustpan when you're sweeping. The best thing about it, though, was the label:



For those of you who don't understand that, "souji" is the Japanese word for cleaning. They don't usually put "-ing" on words, though, even when they "Engrify" them, so I thought this was interestingly original.

#1 - Very cool interactive radio website

Philo emailed me a link to this: http://www.musicovery.com/. It has a very interesting interface, distributing music in a 2D space based on how energetic or calm it is, and how dark or positive it is. It also represents the song on a timeline, showing when it was created, and there are a number of other controls based on genre and other factors.

It also gives you a 2D space to move around in, showing where your song is located and plotting a path through other songs that seems to be kind of like a playlist trajectory. You can scroll around the space and click on other songs, too.

Anyway, don't just read my description of it... try it out! If nothing else, it can bring a little glimmer of user interface joy to your life.