Tartan HK!

No, that's not my tartan although it's adorable but it's the jersey/skirt this lovely Hello Kitty plushie  made by Ty is wearing  that I recently bought. I take it  to work with me to make the groan up side of life a bit more bearable.
You have to be a bit careful with plushies as some of the cheap ones are made from reused materials like hospital waste and not treated so always check they are licensed from the people who have the rights for your favourite character in this case Sanriotown inc.

Also this week I finally school based anime Suzaka of which there is a feature on tagged Anime so just click on the topic index  on this blog to see it. (It doesn't bite you know!)

In other news,several of our group went to camp having a wonderful small time of it as they played  children's games and activities together. One day I may join them, you never know!
Doo joined the gang in chat on Tuesday  appearing to have a good time of it in that great mix of the serious and the random that usually leaves me in a fit of giggles ready to fall of off the chair.

I noticed outside of the usual traffic sources like GT and IK, a few people from Christie Luv's revamped site a paid a visit last week. If that's you by any chance then welcome to the World of Joanne_Chan, bookmark this blog which is super clean and if you wish, formally follow it!

Suzuka

This anime is one I've just completed watching over the last few weeks having bought it a while back.
It's in Funimation's really cheap re-issue series called S.A.V.E and was not issued in it's entirety in the UK as ADV who had a license only issued the first three before hitting financial problems and dropped it.
The best way to describe this anime is really a slice of life school romantic comedy albeit one set around a track and field school club.
If you remember high school you just might recall relationship status and how to improve them figured a lot in your thoughts as well as peer popularity pressure. Our hero is Yamato who has moved to Tokyo to attend high school but is very clumsy with relationships, a bit immature and not to put too fine a point on it a slacker.
Yamato has just moved in with his Auntie at an all girl bath house and he has fallen head over heels in love with Suzaka, the school's number one athlete. One problem - she hardly realizes he exists. In an attempt to try and win over the girl, Yamato tries his hand at sports and finds that he has a hidden talent when it comes to sprinting. Not only this, but he soon becomes the object of love and admiration from TWO other girls at school , while Suzuka battles with her conflicting emotions over him.
It may hardly be groundbreaking but it has a good heart, is hugely enjoyable as RomComs go and shows it's never too late for the loser to be the first cross the finishing line.

Meet the gang!

Roll The Bones

The Hard Rock Canadian Group Rush, this month have a specialty cd reissue out of an album that originally came out in 1991 called Roll The Bones which was the follow up to 1989's Presto, the first for their deal with Atlantic records.
This album saw them move further away from longer compositions, setting the tone for all newer albums such as Snakes And Arrows and Clockwork Angels.

 As you can see it is pressed on gold plated disc for better light reflection leading to less errors on reply that your cd player has to correct.
This edition, mastered using the HDCD process to allow better resolution on equipped players has improved bass definition and better dynamics

New Term at Sanriotown

Yes, we're in that period where school at least in the UK is out for Summer with 8 whole weeks off and so all the people who sell the stuff we and our kids (in some situations) need to have their new wears in.
Stationary is one example and W H Smiths has a new Hello Kitty range in with the Kitty Shades designs covering everything you just might need.
For my new term I bought the new pencils that are double ended with two colours per pencil and some new HK stickers.
See below:

Card Games

Hi folks!

How many of us can remember and for that matter still have playing cards from our pasts?

I sure have!

Some of my earliest memories of playing cards were of playing with Gran, who's sadly passed away several years back, such games as Snap during school break up or when my folks had to deal with groan up stuff and granny had to look after me.

I didn't have much to do with Grampa cos he was a bit crotchety and he couldn't understand my English.

At school recess we also payed card games but from the Top Trump range where from one themed pack you'd choose one subject and whoever got the most  of some criteria or other won the round and you'd begin again.

Actually when was having big problems my school friends took me to a store to buy some to help me re-intergrate with the group.

I stil have those cards and several others I've collected down the years such as these cards from the Fox TV series The Simpsons from around 1990 that came in a set of 88 cards.

The have cartoons on the front and questions on rear to ask your friends about all the characters in the show.

Enjoy.

More classical music

As you'll recall from my last entry on this topic my love of classical music goes back to my childhood and with the advent of the compact disc, I began building my core collection in this format exclusively.

First off, I kind of got off on a lopsided approach to Beethoven, missing out on his Violin and Piano Sonatas completely plowing through the Symphonies and then the Piano Concertos before meeting the Violin Concerto Op.61.

Well, I got the discs in the old DG Galleria series of Wilhelm Kempff's masterful Piano Sonatas cycle from the mid 1960's that as recordings weren't unfamiliar to me as I'd borrowed tapes from the public library of them before. I think there was a big box with all thirty two of them but I kinda thought it would be overkill.

I eventually got the cd in the same series yesterday of Menuhin and Kempff's account of the Sonatas for Piano and Violin numbers Five and Nine from 1970 that remains one of the finest ever recorded. I also picked up used the Violinist Anne Sophie-Mutter's recording with Herbert von Karajan of the Triple Concerto from 1980 which was a full price disc issued 1985 with three overtures tacked on to fill up the disc.

Berlioz and his Fantastique symphony was an early obsession of mine something a psychologist I saw picked up on and I've been hunting for years for a recording I really could enjoy that was in print. I found it although sadly it's not available in Europe on the American arm of EMI Classica 'Angel' in the form of a recording by the London Philharmonic Orchestra from 1960 conducted by André Cluytens a conductor whose records I like.

Dvorák: Well I always had a soft spot from his work but outside of the odd Piano Sonata plus recordings of his Cello and Violin Concertos, hadn't gone beyond his famous Ninth symphony (the New World).

I bought a re-issue of a 1991 cd set packaged in a cardboard box and card sleeves of Rafael Kubelik's complete cycle of nine symphonies recorded 1968 thru'1973 for DG, something I'd always dreamt of getting as a kid which were amongst the strongest interpretations ever and anyway I've always loved theses performances having the Ninth on lp.

I also got a complete set of his Violin Sonatas recently too by the Prague Quartet

Finally to Brahms. Poor thing I kinda neglected him beyond the cat gut works and a recording of his Second and Third symphonies I inexplicably picked up in the early 1990's. I've finally added his First and Fourth symphonies as performed by Herbert von Karajan (1978 and 1988 respectively).

Cross Words

Fairly recently a new Christopher Cross compilation entitled Cross words - The Best of was issued by Music Club a label of Demon Music Group Ltd in the UK.
What is interesting about this release is it is a double cd and a very inexpensive one at that which, wait for it, holds 36 of his songs spread across the discs covering his commercially successful period at Warner Bros.
The tracks cover a wider view of his work and whilst being all properly licensed there is no mention of who did the cd mastering amongst the booklet that has a short biography of the man and pictures of the album covers from which the tracks have been taken
I have to say whoever did the job did a very good job as the sound just expands beautifully on the louder passages as if you bought the records back then you'll know just how engineered the originals were and I'd consider it demonstration worthy.
On cd I only had his first album which is responsible for four singles "Say You'll Be There", " Sailing", "Ride Like The Wind" and Never Be The Same" that all always on the radio in late '79 and 1980 and remain popular.
He was responsible for the song "Arthur's Theme" from the 1981 movie which was a massive seller on the singles chart back then and yes another song still popular with many.
The second album "Another Page" was released in January 1983 and featured "All Right" which was if I can recall correctly the 'lead off' single and "Think of Laura which was popularized in some American Soap - might of been General Hospital - and was a top twenty smash in the late fall of '83.
The original cd of this was not good sounding at all so I tossed mine across the sidewalk and stuck with the lp and 8 track tape which added "Arthur" for programming reasons.
The good news with this set is actually it has every single track from "Another Page" and boy does it sound good and indeed you can having copied the disc to your computer/music server create a playlist for it so it all runs in the right order!
No Time To talk - disc 1 tk5
Baby Says no - disc 2 tk9
What am I supposed to do? - disc2 tk10
Deal 'em again disc2 - tk11
Think of Laura - disc1 tk6
All right - disc2 tk2
Talking in my sleep - disc2 tk12
Nature of the game- disc2 tk13
Long world - disc2 tk14
Words of wisdom disc2 tk 15

For an incredible £4.99 shipped from Amazon UK this a bargain as well as a great introduction to this singer songwriter.

The park is open!

Yes folks our park is indeed open!
Well actually it's been over ten years in the making covering a period when I was a Councillor when the old local authority having been give some money as part of planning permission to build some houses for the Communities benefit and this was earmarked for the upgrading of our local play area which was at the time meant for 4 through 13+ year old children.
It was grotty: The children knew it and as I often did the council paperwork sat there also know it!
For a load of reasons financial and because the Council itself was to be abolished and replaced by another this lead to delay after delay something that in my groan up role at the time really upset me.
You see I and several others had this crazy idea of of talking with children and seeing what they'd really like in the park rather than having these groan ups just plonk any old thing down and to that end spent a lot of time on it.
Equally a number of us for differing reasons were keen on the idea of this area being usable by people over the chronological age of 13+ for exercise as they are getting less fit.
Well last Saturday the local Coalition Member of Parliament, together with the Chairperson of the small local Council officially opened it as a PARK!
Yes the play area was indeed officially a Park for all and to that effect many events like games and a performance by the local Silver Band blowing their instruments was given.
Here's a couple of pictures:

New colourful swings to attract your attention. Maybe I should use them?

Whee! Colourful slides that I'm sure we'd all want to use with safety surfaces to minimize hurting yourself