Comcast is taking away AZN Television!

NOOOOOO
Ok, now I can officially call this a bad day. I mean, as if v-u-den disbanding wasn’t bad enough.

Ok, so, I guess I never blogged about this, but starting about…2 months ago maybe…I’ve been watching AZN Television’s Sunday night line-up. 7:30-9:00, Music
Bang, which shows Asian music videos- usually they don’t show anything that good, but they’ve shown BoA a couple of times- it’s always nice for some background music. 9:00-9:30, Japonica Logos, which is kinda like a variety show based off of the Japanese language. It’s great, and it’s really funny. 9:30-10:00, Ainori, which is TEH BEST, my favorite non-anime show by far. And then 10:00-11:00 is some drama, it was Abarenbo Mama when I started watching.
It’s become somewhat of a weekly tradition for me, like Saturday night anime. Especially Ainori, that’s something I always look forward to every week.
And so now, AZN Television is being taken off of Comcast…
I mean, I can always download Japonica Logos and Ainori, but it’s just not the -same-, you know? Watching stuff on TV is much better than watching it on the computer.

At least I have until April 9th. Then I guess I have to just download them instead…sigh. >_<

I can’t spend this much money, dammit!

Only like two weeks after I purchased $95 of CDs from Yesasia, here I am with $180 of music in my cart again. I’m honestly not sure who I should blame for this. I think it’s a combination of Hello! Project deciding to release both Buono!’s and Ongaku Gatas’ debut albums in the same month, the Prince of Tennis rerelease spree, and the fact that they’re both happening at like the exact same time. That’s HELLISHLY bad timing!
Curse whoever came up with the idea of limited editions and limited releases. As always, everything I want is limited, so there’s the chance of it selling out if I don’t get it now. But there’s no way I could spend $180 right now. I mean, yeah, I have the money, but 1) I have to go through my mom for purchases because it’s through her credit card, which means she can say ‘no’, and I get the feeling she will because of how expensive this is, and 2) I have no income, so I can’t spend so much money each month. =P

Anyway, this is what I want to get:
Buono! – Renai Rider (limited edition)
Buono! – Cafe Buono! (limited edition)
Ongaku Gatas – 1st GOODSAL (limited edition)
Kai Yuujirou – Valentine Kiss (limited release)
Inui Sadaharu – DISTANCE (limited release)
Echizen Ryouma – future / WHITE LINE (limited release)
Hyoutei Eternity – Fujouri (limited release)
The Prince of Tennis op.REQUEST (limited release)
The Prince of Tennis ed.REQUEST (limited release)
3 Guava Trio – BRAND NEW DAY (limited release)

I -guess- I could cut the op/ed REQUEST CDs out if necessary, along with Fujouri- they’re not too high on my priority list, I just really want them because the op/ed REQUEST CDs are opening/ending theme compilations (which I love) and Fujouri is the only seiyuu theme song I’m missing…
I just kinda get the feeling that the H!P CDs are going to sell out way faster than the PoT CDs, but I’m still worried that if I cut any CDs from this order they won’t be available by the time I make my next order.

So, I had the bright idea to look on CD Japan, cause the prices are much lower there, right? I actually did a quick price comparison for all of the CDs:
Buono! – Renai Rider: $17.49 (Yesasia), $13.89 (CD Japan)
Buono! – Cafe Buono!: $32.99 (Yesasia), $31.49 (CD Japan)
Ongaku Gatas – 1st GOODSAL: $33.75 (Yesasia), $30.87 (CD Japan)
Kai Yuujirou – Valentine Kiss: $9.99 (Yesasia), not listed but presumed to be $6.85 like all previous Valentine Kiss singles (CD Japan)
Inui Sadaharu – DISTANCE: $7.64 (Yesasia), $5.56 (CD Japan)
Echizen Ryouma – future: $10.75 (Yesasia), $8.82 (CD Japan)
Hyoutei Eternity – Fujouri: $9.25 (Yesasia), $6.88 (CD Japan)
The Prince of Tennis op.REQUEST: $25.49 (Yesasia), $24.70 (CD Japan)
The Prince of Tennis ed.REQEUST: $25.49 (Yesasia), $24.70 (CD Japan)
3 Guava Trio – BRAND NEW DAY: $7.25 (Yesasia), $4.90 (CD Japan)

Total: $180.09 (Yesasia), $158.67 (CD Japan)

So, after looking at that, you’d think CD Japan would be the obvious choice, right? Then you take a look at shipping.

Shipping: $0.00 (Yesasia), $35.20 (CD Japan)
Total with shipping: $180.09 (Yesasia), $193.87 (CD Japan)

And that’s the CHEAPEST shipping option, which I’d never use. GODDAMMIT CDJAPAN. >_< The prices are so low and appealing, AND THEN THE SHIPPING PRICES ARE HELL. No shipping should ever be $35.
So anyway, Yesasia’s still somehow the cheapest choice. If only CD Japan had free shipping, or at least -cheaper- shipping. I mean, I’m aware that their shipping depends on how much the package weighs, and this order does contain quite a few CDs, but STILL. $35.

Actually, either way, I’m not making this order until mid-February because I just ordered some stuff two weeks ago. All I can do is hope for a sale or something…

CURSE YOU, TOKYO KID!

Dammit. I’ve known something was up with their CDs for a bit now, and I stopped buying CDs from there a couple months ago just in case…
I was reading a guide to bootlegs (procrastinating, basically) and it mentioned three particular CD bootleg brands. I didn’t recognize any of the names, but then it showed the logo for Alion, and my only reaction was-
SHIT.

Yeah, um….
Daaaammiiitttt……

I’m not at home right now (and I won’t be until Friday night, unless we get really lucky and there’s a snow day on Friday due to the snowstorm coming up), so I can’t -actually- look through my CDs, but I have pictures from that post back in August where I sorted my music by release date. That was when I made the decision to stop buying CDs from Tokyo Kid, I think, so…
Well, let’s see which of my CDs are actually bootlegs! Yay! [/sarcasm]
-Hamasaki Ayumi – I am…
-Kingdom Hearts OST
-Utada Hikaru – DEEP RIVER
-FFX-2 OST
-Naruto OST
-Naruto OST 2
-Shimatani Hitomi – Tsuioku+LOVE LETTER
-Naruto Best Hit Collection
-Hamasaki Ayumi – MY STORY
-Do As Infinity – NEED YOUR LOVE
-NANA OST
-Tamaki Nami – Single Collection Vol. 1 (actually, I knew this was a bootleg from the beginning, like an hour after I got it while I was leaving PortCon Maine I was like “wait why the HELL did I buy something that obviously isn’t official…?”)
-Kingdom Hearts II OST
-NANA starring MIKA NAKASHIMA – THE END

Oh, and I think my Naruto OST 3 and PoT OST 2 + 3 might possibly be bootlegs too, but they don’t have the logo or anything on the obi so I’m not 100% sure…

A quote from that old post:

Everything I got at either Anime Boston, PortCon, or Tokyo Kid (the closest anime store) seems to be some sort of overseas version…I can’t tell if they’re bootlegs or legit overseas releases, like some of the earlier CDs I got off of Yesasia- I always used to go for the overseas versions cause they’re cheaper. Hopefully the latter. I mean, that’s 21 of my albums/soundtracks right there. o_o

Sadly, it’s the former. Except the Anime Boston stuff. I can’t tell for most of those, except the Ishida Yoko CD I got in 2005, that was the official English release.

I can’t say I’ll never buy from Tokyo Kid again (they have teh good Japanese candy), but I’m definitely NEVER even looking through the CD section again. I wanna know why I never -realized- until now. I mean, I had no idea what record label anime CDs were released under, but DAI? Ayu? The logo should have been an immediate tip-off, but sadly, I never even realized it. Oh well, nothing I can do about it now…

My external hard drive died again.

God, these things are too easily breakable. Ok, the first two I had both fell off of the top of my computer. It’s understandable that they kinda died after that, cause it is kinda high up. But the one that just died this morning? It was on the floor, on the carpet, and it just kinda softly tipped over. It was my fault that it tipped over (I was watching anime in bed and I must have accidentally pulled a cord or something) but why the hell did it break from just that? It just softly fell over onto the carpeted floor- nothing should break from that! D: This pisses me off so much, it’s the third one that’s broken- I got the first one around the beginning of summer, and I’ve gone through three since then. I mean, I know they’re all kinda my fault, but seriously, they’re impossible to keep safe. I seriously have nowhere to put it that it isn’t in danger of falling over and breaking- I thought keeping it on the floor would help, but apparently it can break there too! DD: The cords are so annoying, in order to plug it in the cords have to be right in front of my desk so it’s so easy to accidentally pull one and make it fall over. Actually, it even happened to my LAPTOP once cause the power cord for that has to go in the same place. Thankfully even though my laptop fell, nothing bad happened.
All I can do right now is cross my fingers and hope that my mom won’t get uber pissed at me- she didn’t the first two times, but…

Now I have no Ainori to watch to make up for the fact that it’s not on TV tomorrow…
And I was in the middle of a Gintama episode when it died…it was the Densha Otoko parody episode, too…

grr.

I’m seriously like depressed right now, for the stupidest reasons too. D:
There seriously needs to be a Japanese bookstore somewhere around Boston. I mean, seriously, I NEED the new Prince of Tennis 40.5 Fanbook. Like, now. xD Or within the next couple of days.
But, of course, guess what? The only way for me to get it is to buy it from Yesasia. And not only does it say “Usually ships within 21 days”, (I never thought it really took that long, but the fact that the first volume of Sket Dance actually took like three weeks proved me wrong) but then it’ll take like two weeks just to fucking get to my house! DDD: For god’s sake, that’s totally not fair, I need to see all this new stuff, everyone’s posting tons of stuff on the Tenipuri LJ community and it just makes me depressed cause I feel like I’m like the ONLY one in the fandom that doesn’t actually have it. T_T
Cause of course the closest Japanese bookstore (that I know of at least) is in fucking New York City. I hate living in Massachusetts sometimes.
There WAS a Japanese bookstore in Boston, but they closed down, and now they’re only operating online. Which totally sucks because that REALLY doesn’t change my situation at all, it’ll still be AT LEAST two weeks before I could get a copy.

I was thinking maybe they have it at Tokyo Kid, but honestly, even though they’re the best around, they really don’t have that good of a selection. And since it’s in Cambridge, which is pretty far away, the chance of them having it is too low to actually warrant going there. I mean, I’d go either way, but my parents see things kinda differently…and I just went two weeks ago. So I’m really just screwed…

EDIT: WAAAIT
I was looking at the Kinokuniya website, and if I’m understanding the Japanese correctly, it’s $7 shipping and it’ll take 2 days to ship to MA. =D OMG YAY
Though I’d be much more confident about buying it if the website was in English…I double-checked some translations with an online translator (just to get the rough idea) so I’m %100 I have all the right options and stuff, but…xD;;

Broken headphones, connections, and a little bit of angst

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Grr, my headphones finally totally broke this morning on the way to school. They were at least usable before, but now the left headphone doesn’t work at all and the outer part of it is like GONE…what a horrible time for my headphones to break, now I have to live with these all week until I go home for the weekend. My mom’s going to buy new headphones from the Apple Store, but yeah, I still won’t get them until the weekend.
I use my headphones so much during the week too- I can’t fully wake up in the morning unless I listen to my iPod from breakfast straight through until assembly, and since I have such weird music tastes (well, to the normal American world =P) that once I’m back in my dorm room I have to listen to my music with headphones rather than just using my computer speakers. This is definitely going to bug me all this week…

Connections: Well, I just had teh uber shocking discovery. I was listening to Ibu Shinji’s first character single from the Prince of Tennis anime, Can See the Light, and looked it up on Yesasia to add it to my cart cause it’s a great song, and then I noticed that Yesasia said that it was by Moriyama Eiji. Ok, I definitely recognized that name, so I went to look him up on Wikipedia, and I found out- he’s Momo’s first-cast actor in the Prince of Tennis musicals!
What the hell…? So then I redownloaded the full single (I lost it when my hard drive crashed a while ago, but the song was still on my iPod) to listen to the voice message, and sure enough, as soon as the seiyuu started talking I immediately recognized him as Momo. It’s so hard to tell though, when he’s actually voicing Shinji! I definitely would -never- make that connection…
Moriyama Eiji as Ibu Shinji in the Prince of Tennis anime – Can See The Light
Moriyama Eiji as Momoshiro Takeshi in the Prince of Tennis musicals – Ore wa Momo-chan ~ Seigaku no Abarenbou
Seiyuu Voice Message from Shinji’s CD- the first voice is Moriyama as himself (which is basically his voice for Momo) and then he has a ‘conversation’ or something with Shinji (aka, himself but with a different voice)…xD
Moriyama also plays Renji in the Bleach musicals, but I haven’t watched that yet. I seriously need to, cause NAGAYAN (aka the cutest Eiji actor ever) PLAYS HITSUGAYA ASASDFKAJESLRIJASDLKFJASDKLFJ

And last but not least, I’m having an angsty moment on the inside cause my Yesasia order with my precious 3 copies of Mikan hasn’t even shipped yet. It’s been almost a week since Mikan was released~! DDD:
And since I chose free shipping, it’ll be another week after it ships before it arrives at my house! And knowing my luck, it’ll end up arriving on like a Monday and then I’ll have to wait until the weekend before I actually get it. *sob*

roar @ Yesasia

I really really want my copies of Mikan…but it still hasn’t shipped out yet. T_T I didn’t think it would take this long to find a copy of the first Sket Dance volume…grr, now I know not to put a manga volume in the same Yesasia order as something I’m uber looking forward to…
Hopefully it’ll ship out soon, then it’ll arrive next weekend or so. I really don’t want to have to wait ANOTHER week…even if it comes on a Monday, I still won’t get it until that weekend since I board…D:

Well, guess it’s time to start from scratch…

Ok, so…
My external hard drive just died. Like, COMPLETELY FUCKING DIED, as in, I CAN’T EVEN GET MY FILES BACK.
GODFUCKINGDAMMIT

I guess I’m not really starting from scratch. I still have everything that was on my desktop (THANK GOD for that, considering all of my j-pop’s there and if I lost that I’d diiiiieeeeeee), and the things that were on my laptop’s main drive.
But still…I’m uberly distressed right now. There goes so much stuff.
I mean, I don’t even know everything I had on there, really…I know I definitely lost all the PoT musicals, EVERY SINGLE FUCKING POT CD THAT TOOK ME OVER TWO FUCKING WEEKS TO DOWNLOAD (except a couple of the opening/ending CDs, since I had started to organize them and I had decided that I should stick the opening/ending CDs on my main drive), the last 78 episodes of PoT, the entire PoT OVA series except the latest two episodes that just came out today (those are on my main drive cause my hard drive stopped working last night), the entire first season of Heroes, lots of Gintama, lots of Lucky Star, lots of Naruto, some One Piece…and some j-pop. I don’t remember which j-pop releases were on there, it was just a couple of recent releases…

At least I still have all my manga…? xD;
I have to redownload everything as soon as I get a new hard drive…and I was planning on having a PoT musical marathon this weekend, too. T_T Now I don’t even have any of them…

So, the internet signal sucks at my new house.

Especially considering I have the room farthest away from the router. Sigh.
It’s fine normally, but I’m trying to upload Hamasaki Ayumi’s Memorial address for someone on LJ, but the upload always dies halfway through! >____< wtf…no matter which site I use, it always stops in the middle saying “the connection to the server was reset while the page was loading”.
>__< It’s so frustrating…