24 HAS MOVED

Here's the new URL:

http://zb24.wordpress.com

From now on you can find me there. Please update your bookmarks.

ZB24

The Top 5 Songs of April

Here's a recap of songs that I played the most in April. There's no statistics or anything, it just seemed like I played them a lot!

Anyway, here are the songs. The most played songs are at the top of the list. To hear a song, just click on the link. Clicking on the picture will give you a better view of the album art. Make sure that your pop-up blocker is disabled.

1.Se7en - I Know

2. Rain - Ways to Avoid the Sun

3. Lee Soo Young - Grace

4. Yellow Tail - Super Bike (Goong S OST)

5. DJ Sammy and Mos Def - Six Days

There they are! Enjoy.

ZB24

P.S. You can download these too. After you click on the link in the post, look for the download link in the Box.net page it takes you to.

A Glitch In Opera?

I really like the Opera browser and would use it full time (maybe) if it wasn't for this glitch.

Whenever I start typing a long line of text in Gmail, Blogger, or Wordpress, It starts going off of the page. Usually when I get ready to type another paragraph.

Here's a screenshot I took of the problem.

Click on the thumbnail and it will expand.

ZB24

Ji Hoon Jun: a.k.a. Rain/비 (Bi)

Ahnyong-Haseyo!

I was looking at a list of popular Korean singers in Wikipedia's Contemperery Korean Music article. I got a sampling of his songs off of Multiply.com and thought they were pretty good. Anyway, I didn't know how popular he was. I mean, he's everywhere. He's one of the most popular Korean singers of modern day. Times Magazine put him on their 2006 Top 100 Most Influentual People List. In their article about him they said:

"In Hong Kong his concerts sell out in 10 minutes, and across much of Asia, fans snap up pirated videos of his soap operas...Before he visited the U.S., Rain already had a fan base, thanks to Internet music sites, satellite TV and DVDs of his soap operas. Those are the same media that make it easier than ever for growing numbers of Americans to get their fix of Japanese anime, Bollywood films and Korean music—and vice versa..."

Ha Ha! Nope, that wasn't me on YouTube getting those episodes of Full House. Nuh-uh! *blink, blink* ;-)

...ahem...

Anyway, Korea.net said this in their Korean Wave section:

"Korean pop star Rain will spend another year promoting the country in 2007 as the Korea Tourism Organization has appointed the singer a goodwill ambassador for the second time last Thursday (Dec. 14)...As goodwill ambassador in 2006, Rain actively took part in a number of promotional activities to enhance Korea's image and attract tourists to the country."

It's pretty amazing what he's accomplished. Anyway, my favorite song of Rain's is called Taeyangeul Pihaneun Bangbeop (How To Avoid the Sun). It was a single that was released by him in 2003. I've linked it so just click on that title and you can listen/download the file.

I think he's a good singer and actor but I'm not so sure about his personality and morals and such. In his concerts he tends to have scantily-clad girls dancing around him like he's a God instead of alongside him. I don't appreciate that much and don't have a whole lot of respect towards him.

Still, he'll be just as popular as ever...

He wants to become popular in America. Maybe that's why he does this, because various American rappers do it. Still, he shouldn't have to stoop to those levels.

Ah well, I'll find someone else. Ways to Avoid the Sun is really good though, even if you don't like Rain.

ZB24 :-)

Japanese (日本語) Is, Uh, Interesting!

Konichiwa (こんにちは)!

I was reading information about Japanese tonight. It's more complicated then I originally thought. Here is what About.com said:

"Kanji represents blocks of meaning and hiragana expresses the grammatical relationship between them. Katakana is used for foreign names, the names of foreign places and words of foreign origin. Confused?..."

No. I'm not confused. I also found out some interesting facts about Kanji (漢字). I'll just summarize what I've learned here, instead of quoting more articles. I read that most kids' books are written in Hiragana only and that if necessary you can write whole sentences in Hiragana.

After World War 2 Japan made a document listing about 2,000 Chinese characters that they would use in Japan for their writing. About.com says that 50,000 Kanji symbols exist but that only 5,000 to 10,000 are for everyday use. Each symbol in Kanji holds a different meaning. So Japanese kids have to spend a lot of time in School learning a certain amount by high school. It sounds like even the Japanese have a hard time learning Kanji!

I had a lot of fun learning Korean/Hangul and I caught on pretty quickly. I would still like to learn Korean but I'm not sure what all is in Korean and what I would do there for a career. Either way, I would love to visit South Korea sometime and would still have to know some of the language so it wasn't a waste of time for me.

I've always found Japan interesting because of their Technology industry, and it's important to know some of the local language so I think that I'll end up learning some Japanese too.

The Korean singer Se7en knows 4 languages (at least), Korean, Japanese, Chinese (a.k.a. Mandarin?), and English. I know because I've read that in articles, heard it in his songs, and seen it in his interviews. Here's a picture of Se7en if you were wondering what he looked like:

Here is one of his Japanese singles: Hikari (光) which is Japanese for Light. I don't know what a "good" Japanese singer is, but I think it sounds fine. Maybe a Native Japanese speaker can tell me if it's "good" or not. Either way, click on the link in the song name above and you can listen and download it.

ZB24 ;-)

ZB24's Rant on Music

Hi.

I know that I may step on a lot of toes with this article but it's been on my mind for a long time.

Before you all start commenting and bashing me, let me clarify. They type of music that I am talking is what they play in the mainstream media on MTV. I do like some of these songs (last summer, The Fray was popular and I loved their music), but most of the songs now days just leave me puzzled or irritated. Let me address a couple things that irritate me the most in the music industry:

• Bad English

You know, those songs that make you wonder where these people went to school at. Here's a sample if you can't think of any:

MIMS - This is Why I'm Hot:

This is why I’m hot(x2)

This is why(x2) uh
This is why I’m hot (uh)
This is why I’m hot(x2) whoo
This is why(x2)
This is why I’m hot

I’m hot coz I’m fly (fly)
You ain’t coz you’re not (mims)
This is why x2
This is why I’m hot(x2)

Then there's some rapping and that chorus over and over. That's all that the song consists of. I put the worst sentence in bold for you. Hmmmm, I'm not cuz I ain't...

I'm curious to know just what the connotation of "hot" is. From this song, sounds to me like it involves talking like you never got past the 4th grade. If I gots to talks like that then I don't wanna be hot. I guess I just ain't. :-(

You know, there was a day and age when speaking with bad English was a bad thing. Now having bad English appears to be cool. I have to admit! I'm not perfect either! I slip up and use ain't and I say "like", like, a lot. But I don't particularly want to hear that in the music I'm listening to. Shouldn't music raise your standards? You know, like, if you have bad English then listening to a grammatically correct song will help you to see what good English is, but if your saying ain't and the song is saying ain't then someone tell me what the positive effects are. I just can't see them.

• Superficiality

Look at me! Look at my car, my clothes, my house, my half naked woman on my car, my bling, my hair, my shoes, the ground that I walk on.

Personally, for me as a listener, I get sick of hearing about YOU, YOU, You, and U. For a while, can't we here about something else? I'm not saying that I want to hear corny songs about let's all hold hands, stop world hunger, let's all be friends (hmm, let's be realistic!). But, I don't want to hear about just you and what you have!

That's part of the reason why I like Utada Hikaru. She write beautiful uplifting songs and she doesn't brag about herself. Her goal is to entertain the listener, not to brag about what's she got.

You'll get mad and say, "Well what about American music! You can find anyone on this side of Globe?" I can and I do! Here's a list of artists you can look up and they all have productive lyrics: John Mayor, Yellowcard, R.E.M., and Switchfoot.

I like an occasional superficial song too, but I think that people should balance out the Rolls Royce and the conscious thought. I try to do that with my music.

My point: I want to hear songs that make me think. and I don't want to hear about your car and your rims.

There, my rant is finished.

This is why I write,
I write because I think,
This is why I'm not a comatose bump on a log.

How about that...

ZB24 8-)

Six Days of Videos...

I've made another AMV (Animate Music Video). This one is set to the song Six Days by DJ Sammy and Mos Def. It was on the Fast and the Furious - Tokyo Drift soundtrack. I love the song. Here are the lyrics in case you can't understand what the DJ is saying:

At the starting of the week
At summit talks you'll hear them speak
It's only Monday
Negotiations breaking down
See those leaders start to frown
It's sword and gun day

Tomorrow never comes until it's too late

You could be sitting taking lunch
The news will hit you like a punch
It's only Tuesday
You never thought we'd go to war
After all the things we saw
It's April Fools' day

Tomorrow never comes until it's too late
Tomorrow never comes until it's too late

You hear a whistling overhead
Are you alive or are you dead?
It's only Thursday
You feel a shaking on the ground
A billion candles burn around
Is it your birthday?

Tomorrow never comes until it's too late
Tomorrow never comes until it's too late
Make tomorrow come I think it's too late

Here's the video I made:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=p1Q92RbFu9s

The footage is from Final Fantasy VII, X, and X-2. There's also some scenes from Fruits Basket in there because I love Kyo's character. 8-)

ZB24 ;-)

I'm Fast AND Furious

The TV channel USA is running what you might call a Fast and Furious marathon. They played the first and second FAF movies. I really like the serious, mostly because I love a nice car. Yet, at the same time, I'm all for fuel efficiency and Hybrid Cars. So, I can see it now:

ZB24 in a Nissan Versa with a fancy exhaust (w/ flames!), lighting under the car, lots of chrome. Oh! and a paint job with lots of pink and some Sakuras (Japanese Cherry blossoms). I can see it all now!

The Versa, is not a hybrid, but it gets around 38 mpg. I'm hoping that they'll make it into a hybrid though.

Anyway, other then MythBusters and Ugly Betty, I like watching King of Cars with Chop and the Blue Genie. It's a lot of fun to watch. My favorite was with the car hop-off. One car got as high as 41 inches! Is was soooo cool!

ZB24

Where Korea Meets America

Right now, I am watching the Lake House. It's an American re-make of the Korean film Il Mare. The concept is fairly complicated and you have to pay attention to understand what's going on. Basically, there is one house called the lake house. He lives in the year 2004 and she lives in the year 2006. Through chance, they end up writing each other (defying time and space) and they fall in love. I don't know what happens in the end yet because I haven't finished watching it. Here is a trailer from YouTube though that can summarize the movie better then I can:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oi_mplXqYfc

Anyway, it's a pretty good movie. The ending was a little illogical but good. It's really worth watching especially if you like Keanu Reeves (he was so cool in The Matrix).

ZB24

Hangul (한글) Is Just Too Easy!

Because of my recent interest in K-Drama I have naturally become interested in the Korean language.

The Japanese use Kanji for writing out their words. The Koreans use Hangul to write their. ZKorea.com (a very good website that I've found about Korea) says that Hangul is technically one of the most effective languages. And it's really easy to understand! I've figured it out in about 3 days!

Hangul is a lot like English. Each symbol represents a letter (a) or a sound (ah) and when put together they make words.

Here is one example: 사랑 = Sahrang = Love.

When you want to write out the way that a Korean word sounds using English letters it's called Romanization. Here is the link to the Romanization chart on ZKorea:

http://www.zkorean.com/romanization.shtml

I find it very interesting. If there is anyone out there who knows a lot about Hangul I'd really appreciate your tips and comments.

ZB24 :-)