Britney on Japanese TV

This is the time of year when I get to watch all the end-of-the-year musical shows that are on Japanese TV every year. Ayumi always performs on all of them and I get to see all my other favorite Japanese singers, so I always enjoy seeing them. So far I've watched 3 of them and I'm still downloading the 4th one. I was surprised to see Britney Spears perform on one of the shows and I was even more surprised to see how much they love her in Japan. Even the other performers on the show were really excited to see her. Basically she came out and lipsynched a song, as far as I could tell, then said a few words through her interpreter and everyone was just going nuts over her. She was the second-to-last performer on the show and Ayumi was last. They always save the best for last. :)

I also recently got to see Ayumi's annual Countdown Live concert from New Year's Eve. Her Countdown Live from last year was probably the worst concert I've ever seen from her, so I wasn't sure what to expect with this one, but she sounded pretty good. It was a live TV broadcast, so there was no editing, unlike her concert DVDs.

I've been working on a website with all the Ayumi desktop wallpapers that I've made, but I still haven't got the layout quite the way I want. I have about 80 desktops that I want to include, and I haven't really had time to upload them, either. You can see what I have so far here. Ayumi is often featured in Japanese magazines, so I find the scans online and use them to make the desktops.

Monday B and I went to see a movie, which is the first movie we've seen since we moved. I wanted to see The Day the Earth Stood Still, but it was no longer playing at the one theater in town, so instead we saw Marley & Me. Oh, my goodness, what a freaking sob fest. We were originally going to have dinner after the movie, but neither of us were hungry and we couldn't stop crying, so we just went home. I hate that I cry so easily at stupid stuff like that. It kills me that, in the logical part of my brain, I thought the movie was kind of corny and definitely not cry-worthy, but yet I cried anyway and I couldn't not cry. Believe me, I tried. I never used to cry when I was younger, and then suddenly it was like a cry-switch was turned on and now everything makes me cry. It's so unfair.

Yesterday I had some time to kill while waiting for my prescriptions to be filled at W@l-mart, so I browsed through their books and ended up getting two; Duma Key by Stephen King and The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski. It's been a long time since I read anything by Stephen King and I always enjoyed his stuff, so I decided to try this one, and the other book was voted one of the best books of 2008 at Am@zon.

B had to start some new hours at his job yesterday. Apparently his employer is having to pay more for their insurance, so they're requiring everyone to work 8-hour days, instead of the 7-hour days they used to work, and B is having a really hard time with it. He's talked about going to part time so he doesn't have to work 8 hours (but he can if he wants), but then we'll lose our health insurance. He's expressed his misgivings with his supervisor and she suggested that he just stay clocked in during his breaks to get the extra time in, but this is something B is struggling with because he feels the need to be working while he's clocked in, plus he's automatically clocked out after 15 minutes of inactivity.

In terms of the actual amount of work he's required to do, he can get that done in 5-6 hours, so it's frustrating to have to be chained to his computer for an extra 2-3 hours a day. He's talked about looking for another job, too, but for now he's going to try it and see if he can make it work. If he can hold out another 6 months or so, he'll then have 2 years experience and a lot more doors will be open to him.

Here's a clip of Britney performing at the Japanese show I mentioned. You can see how excited the other performers are to see her at the beginning of the clip.