Go away pimples!

Like a lot of people, I've been looking for natural acne treatments. I don't have terrible acne but the problems I do have bother me a lot. But I don't want something that will take a ton of time or effort. That's asking for a miracle, isn't it? At least I know I'm not alone in my search. If television commercials are any sort of judgement, tons of people are looking for good cures for acne. So, if you have any good suggestions, please comment away!

Website of the Week: D-Addicts

For people interested in Asian dramas, D-Addicts is a great resource. They even have a Wiki so you can easily find information about all of your favorite shows and their actors. The site isn't just limited to Japanese dramas either. You can also find Taiwanese, Chinese, Korean and Hong Kong dramas. D-Addicts has helped me find a lot of the older dramas that newer fansub groups haven't picked up. They are definitely one of my favorite resources.

Game review: Haunted Hotel

Haunted Hotel is basically a hidden object game. However, between each hidden object level, there are a variety of mini-games you need to play before you can move onto the next level. The mini-games range from catching energy balls to a match three game to moving pieces of rope so they don't overlap and more. I had fun playing the hidden object parts of the game. In each location, there are three bonus items you can find that will give you additional time. These bonus items are not named, like the rest of the objects. You have to match the shadow with the item. As for the regular list of items, they are just difficult enough to make the game fun but not so difficult that you get aggravated.

The mini-games, however, are another story altogether. Personally, I'm not very good at the rope game. I never have been. So it annoyed me that I had to spend a lot of time trying to figure it out and there isn't any way for me to skip it. Most of the other mini-games aren't particularly difficult, they are just annoying. Especially if you downloaded the game aiming for a hidden object game.

As a whole, Haunted Hotel wasn't bad. It would just be nice if we could skip past the mini-games and move to the hidden object games. I understand why they were put there but they are completely unnecessary.

Jewelry

My daughter got her ears pierced about a month ago. So recently I've been looking at earrings for her. I keep coming across various pieces of religious jewelry though. I don't wear things like crosses myself. I'm not of any "traditional" religions so they've never appealed to me. I'm not really sure that my daughter would want to wear something like that. She hasn't shown any interest but it's not like she's exposed to many religious symbols. I'll just have to ask her opinion the next time I looking at earrings.

JDorama review: Nodame Cantabile

nodame.jpg Title: Nodame Cantabile Broadcast date: 10/16/06 - 12/25/06 Genre: Romantic Comedy Number of episodes: 11 Cast: Ueno Juri, Tamaki Hiroshi, Eita, Koide Keisuke, Takenaka Naoto Plot: Noda Megumi, despite her extremely unusual behavior, is a piano prodigy. However, she wants to become a kindergarten teacher. Chiaki Shinichi is a musical perfectionist and Nodame's (Noda's nickname) next door neighbor. Nodame falls madly in love with Chiaki but can he ever accept someone as strange as this girl? What is good: Ueno Juri and Tamaki Hiroshi both shine in their respective roles as Nodame and Chiaki What is bad: There wasn't anything particularly bad about the show. Letter rating: A Overall: From the first episode, I was hooked on this series. Besides having a good mix of comedic and romantic moments, there was some really good classical music. My favorite moment was when the S-Oke performed "Rhapsody in Blue." This is the first time that I have seen Ueno Juri (Nodame) and Tamaki Hiroshi (Chiaki) perform and, I must admit, I was impressed by their acting abilities. There are quite a few sight gags that require a lot from the actor. Both of them pulled it off very well. I'm looking forward to watching the specials as soon as I can.

Music review: Arashi - A*RA*SHI

arashi.jpg Artist: Arashi Members: Ninomiya Kazunari (Nino), Ohno Satoshi (Leader), Matsumoto Jun (MatsuJun), Aiba Masaki, Sakurai Sho Album: Arashi No.1 Ichigou Release date: 11/24/01 Video link: Performed on the One Tour (Surprise additional video! A music video directed by Hideaki Takizawa of Tackey and Tsubasa)

English translation: Pop it yeah! Honesty good! The heaviness from that boo! That's all right! Yet we will shape the world yes we are super boy! We are cool Even if something unpleasant happened, we show it off We'll do what we can, can't we? It's all right to have a dream, right?

You are my soul! Soul! You always are here with me I can't give it away. No one can get in our way. Congregate the wind and wind it all over my body storm storm for dream

Today again, they are saying in TV They are saying how miserable the world has become. I am always looking for looking for a gigantic love and ambition Everyday! Everybody! The world hasn't end yet Why don't we start from here? Let's get on! Let's get on yea!

Step by step instead of bursting, go for it naked Day by day I want stimulation rather than boredom Let's open our huge wings up

You are my soul! Soul! You always are here with me I can't give it away. No one can get in our way. Congregate the wind and wind it all over my body storm storm for dream

Catching the harsh storm with your both hands Be brave, let's fly Aim the heaven and unbeatable cloud Fly away

Step by step instead of bursting, go for it naked Day by day I want stimulation rather than boredom Let's open our huge wings up

You are my soul! Soul! You make me strong Tears are tommorrow's energy Aim the future, let's go for it. Storm storm oh yea!

You are my soul! Soul! You always are here with me I can't give it away. No one can get in our way. Congregate the wind and wind it all over my body storm storm for dream

Today again, they are saying in TV They are saying how miserable the world has become. I am always looking for looking for a gigantic love and ambition Everyday! Everybody! The world hasn't end yet Why don't we start from here? Let's get on! Let's get on yea!

You are my soul! Soul! You always are here with me I can't give it away. No one can get in our way. Congregate the wind and wind it all over my body storm storm for dream About the song: As should be fairly obvious, this was the first single released by Arashi. The word 'arashi' means storm, which is why it sounds a bit weird in the translation. I think the lyrics intended to reference the band and not a weather pattern.

This was the perfect song to use for the debut. It not only highlights Ohno's amazing voice but it also has some really good raps for Sho and the boys can show off a bit of their dancing skills too. It's easy to see why it's still one of their most popular songs.

I suck with tape.

Back when I was in college, I used to work for the K-Mart warehouse. It was my job to fill the orders that specific stores sent us. This meant that I got pretty handy with a box cutter. However, I have a difficult time with the hand tape dispensers. To this day, I still tape up the box then use a box cutter to slash the tape from the roll. We use those types of tape dispensers in the shipping department at my current job. Luckily, I don't have to use them very often. It's probably not particularly safe to cut tape with box cutters.

Game review: Coffee Rush

Coffee Rush is a weird sort of mash up between a time management game and a match-three game. Your customers come up to the counter and request a specific drink. In order to make the drink, you need to collect a certain amount of each ingredient. The ingredients are collected by matching three like items in a row. Once all of the ingredients for a drink are collected, you click on the drink to serve it to the customer. I found this game to be extremely annoying. Mostly because there are certain ingredients that are impossible to collect, which results in ticked off customers. If there were more opportunities to match three of an item, it wouldn't be so difficult. For example, the sugar ingredient pops up all the time so you can have tons of sugar. However, the whipped cream item doesn't pop up very often so if your customer wants something with whipped cream, they will have to wait a long time for three of that item to come together.

This is definitely an interesting concept for a game. I wouldn't mind seeing more of these sorts of mash ups between different types of genre. However, the developers need to make the games fair. If you're going to force us into creating recipes with specific amounts of specific ingredients, give us the tools to make it happen. Don't let the player flap in the wind, hoping that what they need pops up now before the customer storms off.

I have talked before about needing more indoor lighting in my house. After looking around a bit, I'm trying to figure out if some sort of ceiling light would be better for my living room instead of a floor lamp in the corner. It would light the entire room, after all. On the other hand, we don't want too much light or it'll put glare on the television. This would be a whole lot easier if the room would just kinda light up on its own but just enough so we can see but not too much. Argh!