So on January 19th, I went to the House of Blues in LA to see Utada Hikaru perform. She was performing as “Utada” to promote her most recent English album and single, but I think the vast majority of attendees (myself included) were fans of her Japanese music first. House of Blues is a pretty small venue, so the tickets turned out to be fairly cheap @ $40 after all the Ticketmaster “convenience fee” BS.

I left work a little past 3 and drove through lots of rain to arrive at Sunset Blvd. in LA around 4:30. Thankfully the rain in the actual city of LA had stopped by then, or traffic would have been even more of a mess -__-. Apparently parking around the area is a complete mess as well, so I parked in the valet at House of Blues for $15 -__-. In retrospect, parking somewhere else within a few blocks and walking would have been a much better idea. Doors didn’t open until 7 but there was already a small line forming. I wandered around for a bit, looked at stuff inside the store, etc., and decided to get a meal at the restaurant upstairs. HoB has a “pass the line” deal where dining at the restaurant or buying $X of junk at their gift shop would let you queue in a separate line that gets to go in before the “regular” line. I didn’t have lunch yet, and if I got in line now, I wouldn’t be able to eat until the concert was over, so why the hell not?

I had a pulled pork BBQ sandwich and a Blue Moon. The sandwich was pretty good (but not amazing), and the price was typical of places like Chili’s, Applebee’s, etc. so I think the whole “pass the line” concept is a good deal if you are watching a show at HoB. The far left side of the restaurant is also connected to the 2nd floor of the venue, but you couldn’t see inside because it’s partitioned off. I got in line around 5:30 and made some random chat with strangers..pretty uneventful until the doors opened at 7. The security guys made a big deal about not bringing in cameras, and did a metal-detector scan on everyone before letting them in, but there were still a TON of videos/pictures taken from this concert popping up around the interwebs after it was over. I’m not an experienced concertgoer by any means so I didn’t bother trying to sneak a camera in.

Unfortunately, after all that standing in line, there was more standing to do before the actual concert began :[ I had a pretty good spot at stage left, about 4 rows of people back. There was a tall white guy who ended up standing in front of me a bit but I still had a good view of the stage. DJ Mike Rizzo came to the stage and started spinning around 7:30, typical remixed top40 stuff. Now, this might've been the wrong venue for club music or the wrong crowd for top40...but the audience was completely DEAD. So many people were standing around awkwardly that it reminded me of a high school homecoming dance. Maybe because most of the kids there were still in high school? I don't know. Some people were booing him as well, which I thought was a douchebag kinda thing to do. Yes, I thought his set was kinda long too. Yes, I don't like top40 either. Yes, I know you aren't here to see the DJ. Still a douchebag move. Moving on...

The DJ set ended at 9-something and we were stuck waiting for awhile longer D: It seemed like there were a couple of "false starts" with the lights dimming, and the band walking out beforehand...and the crowd singing a happy birthday before she was even on stage :| Finally, at 9:30 the concert began and everything after that was nothing short of amazing.

This complete setlist was posted on utadanet forums:
0. Crossover Interlude - the stage was still dark, this was just a recording, to get the crowd to settle down a bit right before...

1. On and On - so the lights flip on and we finally get to see Utada. Wow. I think I realized at this moment how lucky I was to live somewhere where I could see her perform, since this is her first tour outside of Japan and all. There was a lot of cheering at the part where it goes "honeys if you're gay, burn it up..." She also revealed that her famous teddy bear was gay in a recent blog post, so people elsewhere on the interwebs are pretty happy that she's apparently very LBGT-friendly. lol

2. Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence - FYI - this song is one of my favorites from her recent English album, and a lot of fun live. Semi-interesting story about this song - when I first heard the pre-release track snippet sometime in early 2009, I was wondering where the melody was sampled from. It was actually "Forbidden Colours" by Ryuichi Sakamoto, which is part of the soundtrack for the film Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, but the first time I heard it was on a trance track by Watergate, Heart of Asia.

3. Poppin' - not really one of my favorites, but a lot of fun live anyways. Big cheers from the girls (and quite a few guys too) at the part where she goes "girls, you know we have it better than the boys". Does this have anything to do with the gay part from On and On? lol

4. This One (Crying Like a Child) - slowing it down a bit. Crowd mellows out and she gives an amazing and very emotional performance on this song. Right after this one was a small break, I think we sang happy birthday at this point? 1000 strangers singing together was pretty disorganized so she was waving her arms to kinda direct us at the end. lol. She asks "are you ready for some Japanese songs?" Cue intro to...

5. Passion/Sanctuary - holy shit. Crowd goes absolutely nuts. She switches to English at the second verse, and then back to Japanese at the really high part that starts with "zutto..." Also rocking out hard at the heavy bass part ("my heart's a battleground..."). There was a sick guitar solo in here near the end but I was pretty close to the stage and felt like the drums were bit overpowering on this song -__x

6. Sakura Drops - she quietly announces "I'd like to play some songs on piano now" and some stagehands set up her piano on the stage. She didn't sing the super-high parts but it was great all the same. Hearing only the piano and her voice was a refreshing change of pace.

7. Stay Gold - she starts out with the piano on this song too, and the band joins in after the intro. This is the only rock version I wasn't so fond of though, since the original gets so much of its personality from the background music...

She looked kinda confused when the stagehands started moving her piano from the stage, but then it was her band's turn to sing her happy birthday! A staff member also brought out a cake and she blew out the candles. "I knew something like this would happen!" She also made a small joke about how we were being nice by not mentioning her age (she turned 27 on this day) lol.

8. Devil Inside - stage dims and the lighting changes, creating a darker atmosphere. Oooo spooky. Not really one of my favorites either but it was great for setting the mood for the next song...this next one is no surprise at all:

9. Kremlin Dusk - easily my favorite from Exodus. The heavy rock arrangement (I think it's the same one from UU '06) is even better :D

10. You Make Me Want to Be a Man - I think most people know this song by its somewhat goofy name, but the performance was very powerful and emotional. Featured another sick guitar solo and Utada was bashing on some drums at the end with the crowd clapping along.

11. The Bitter End (Placebo cover) - don't know this song at all...I felt like the drums were overpowering here as well :| I probably would've liked it better if I was more familiar with the song. Random unrelated info: I remember reading a Japan Times article that described her as a "perfect rock star if she actually played rock." I think this performance pretty much proved it ;)

12. Apple & Cinnamon - "Now for some...prettier? songs." I really liked the subtle motions and gestures she used here.

13. Come Back to Me - nothing fancy here, just being amazing as usual :]

14. First Love – what can I say about this? The one that began it all…the crowd goes nuts as expected. I swear you could almost see her tearing up from all the heart that she pours into this song.

15. Can You Keep a Secret? – this is one that I don’t know that well but the performance was great. It really seemed like she caught her “second wind” so to speak…it felt like she could’ve sung a whole ‘nother concert after this song (I wish :[)

16. Automatic - probably my favorite performance of the night. Another classic, one of her original R&B-flavored songs. At the beginning of the chorus where it goes "it's au-to-ma-tic" she pumped her fist into the air and the whole crowd joined along. After the song ended, she remarked "can you believe I recorded this song when I was 15? That's 12 years ago! That's like...3 Olympics?" Laughter from the crowd. It IS pretty amazing though. I mean, the rest of us were busy BSing essays in high school when we were 15.

17. Dirty Desire - *gasp* is she allowed to say stuff like that? What if they put the Parental Advisory sticker on a pop album? lol. She said that this was the last song but we knew it wasn't over yet...

Encore:
1. Simple and Clean - "Thank you for calling us back out!" She introduces the member of her band - the lead guitar is the Brazilian guy, followed by the keyboardist/bandmaster who's just a "regular white guy" lol. The regular white guys in the crowd are cheering. I think a lot of the younger crowd first learned of her music through Kingdom Hearts, and it was the first song that really got her a "grassroots international" following, so it's quite appropriate for it to make its appearance here :] The break at the intro sent chills up my spine

2. Me Muero – I love this track because of how different and unique it feels. The live arrangement with the flamenco-style guitar is even better. I think I’ve written that quite a few times already :x But anyways, this was a great song to sorta mellow out and end the concert with. She also threw out some signed foam baseballs with pictures of kumas on them :O Of course I wanted to get one but there were only 12 in total :[ Tall white guy in front of me managed to get one…sucks to be not tall.

So it was actually over this time :[ The HoB staff announced some kind of meet and greet for those with special passes. I think it may have been from a radio station promotion. Most people (myself included) didn’t know anything about it. Boooo.

The valet parking guys were courteous but somewhat disorganized. There was a huge line in front of the valet booth, and they didn’t make it clear that you could drop off your valet ticket and just wait anywhere. It took me nearly an hour to get my car back :|. Driving back through LA freeways with absolutely zero traffic was pretty relaxing though.

Whew. I haven’t written this many words in a long time. Now that I think about it, I might’ve been able to attend the SF and/or Las Vegas shows as well, if I took 1-2 days off from work. We’re supposed be taking our vacation days and not saving them up, too. Kinda regret not doing it now…I have to plan it better next time. One last thing: I am very glad that it took place in a smaller venue instead of a huge stadium-like venue. It really made the performances all about the music, and that’s why your favorite artists are your favorites, right?

It seems like I am pretty stubborn when I play mahjong and I lost a bunch of games last week because of it. Instead of dismantling my hand and choosing a different “wait”, I would rather just throw out the risky tile. I was in a situation where I could choose 2 tiles to throw, and I guessed wrong. On four separate occasions. lol

edit: OK I thought this font was better but it’s not because it still puts spaces in between underscores -____-.

Him: So “J” is the guy who releases games, right? And you’re his backup? Who can work on games when neither of you guys are in the office?
Me: …no one. Well, there might be “R” but then he’s probably busy with other stuff.
Him: So do you guys coordinate vacation days or anything like that?
Me: …nope.

There is actually something else I’d like to write about but I haven’t had much downtime at work the past week.

I’ve never really made New Years’ resolutions, they say that putting it down in writing makes you more accountable (probably not): write here (at least once a week), and find some kind of “legitimate” hobby. Video games and sleeping do not count. The best hobbies are the ones that are completely unrelated to your work, imo.

In a somewhat related thought, I really hate driving now. Driving to work is about an 80-mile roundtrip, which isn’t that much but still enough to leave me feeling pretty tired and irritated when there’s traffic on the way home -__-. It’s possible for me to take the Metro + some local shuttle to work, but there are no trains that leave from West Corona station between 7:50 and 11:14 AM. wtf. Making it to West Corona at 7:50 is kinda difficult because I drive my sister to school in the morning. I also don’t know how late the shuttle runs in case I have to stay late at work.

The fare calculator on the Metrolink site also estimates how much it would cost you to drive between these stations, based on some an AAA formula for driving costs. Think about how much money you could save or spend on stuff you liked if the public transportation in socal didn’t suck so much :| In my recent vacation to Japan, I saw how efficient/convenient/amazing in general a well-developed public transportation network is. At peak hours, the Yamanote-sen which stops at all the major stations and urban centers in Tokyo has trains that arrive every 2-3 minutes. Yes, they are crowded, but missing a train means you would only have to wait 2-3 minutes for the next one. Compare that to a traffic jam anywhere in socal that would delay you for 30+ minutes easily -__-

All of these posts have been uncategorized, maybe I will go back and make categories for them once I have written enough things to be categorized.

I don’t like this font because you can see the spaces between the underscores when I write -__-. bah

So anyways, we took them to the optometrist where I originally got them, and they referred us to a jeweler’s store down the street. The folks at the jewelry store were able to fix it, but warned me to be careful not to bend the frame in any way, because the frame is pretty thin to begin with, and the spot where it was welded(?) back together was still structurally unsound.

A few days later at work I was trying to clean the lens, and of course I break the frame again in the spot where it was fixed -__-. I ended up going to Target to buy some super glue to fix it so that I could see at work for the rest of the day. In retrospect, super glue would have been a better (and cheaper) solution in the first place. I ended up gluing the edge of the lens to the frame in a few different spots, but couldn’t quite glue back the spot where it broke because of jagged edges. It was good enough to last me the rest of the day, but the frame didn’t keep its shape very well so I went back to wearing an older pair of glasses the next day. meh

On a somewhat related but mostly unrelated note, the top drawer in my desk at work had been behaving strangely ever since I started using it. I ended up taking the drawer out and re-aligning one of the metal railing things that it slides on and I felt pretty accomplished. This is why I went to college to get an engineering degree.

Anyways, I know quite a few people at work who regularly work 50-60 hour weeks, so I imagine that the company owes them quite a bit of money. I wonder how the mid-year report is going to look after all these retroactive payments. lol

It is October and I will be making an effort to post more than twice a month. With substantial content. Hopefully.

So anyways, this short post is about one of those days. I forget what the occasion was, but the “special lunch item” was a strawberry milk/smoothie type thing. To make a short story even shorter, a friend and I decided that we really liked this strawberry milk thing, and we wanted more of it. I don’t remember whose idea it was, but we walked around the cafeteria and told random people that it was made from goat’s milk. For some reason, a few people found this “fact” unappealing and gave us their strawberry milk cartons. Awesome.