Birthday Eve

Well, tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, as well as being my birthday.  Ever since I first saw the PV for it, I have a little pre-birthday ritual that I like to do.  Namely, to watch Kumi Koda’s Birthday Eve PV on the night before my birthday.  So here it is, for your enjoyment, and you can watch along with me if you like!

My family also threw me a surprise party and gave me the following presents:

• Yuko Nakazawa Mega Best CD
• Natsumi Abe Mega Best CD
• Country Musume Mega Best CD
• Melon Kinenbi Mega Best CD
• Taiyo to Cisco Moon Mega Best CD
• V-u-den Single Best 9 Vol. 1 Omaketsuki CD
• Silverhawks Volume 1 DVD
• Pokemon Diamond and Pearl Box Set Volume 2
• Secret Diary of a Call Girl Season 1 DVD (from my aunt)

My best friend, Trey Krimsin, gave me the following:

• Green Lantern/Green Arrow Volume 1 TPB
• Green Lantern/Green Arrow Volume 2 TPB
• Y-The Last Man Volume 3 TPB

Also, I received four photobooks this year for my birthday.

• Eri Kamei – Maple
• Ai Takahashi – 19
• Mari Yaguchi – Love Hello! Yaguchi Mari Shashinshu
• Mari Yaguchi – Off

The Eri and Ai photobooks were from my brother, and the two Mari photobooks were from Charmy Risuzu of Renai Project.

Although it’s not technically my birthday yet, I already feel as if I’ve had a pretty good one.  Here’s hoping my next 32 years are as good as the last 32!

Mega Update #1

Well, funny how things turn out, isn’t it? Originally, I had planned to get the Tanpopo/Petitmoni Mega Best album toward the end, if not dead last, in my Mega Best Quest. Instead, because I found it cheap on eBay, I went ahead and bought it. It turns out that it arrived the same day as the Special and Shuffle Unit Mega Bests from YesAsia that I ordered earlier.

So basically, it’s three down and five to go. And those five, I’ll be getting for my birthday, along with the second V-u-den album. After that, I’ll probably want to get the fourth C-ute album, the Berryz Koubou Best album, and Kusumi’s Kirarin Best album. I like Best albums, apparently. In truth, I just like albums in general as they tend to be better value for money and often, when it comes to albums from the various groups, they also contain songs featuring the less-featured members of the groups, which is nice. The only downside to this is that the b-sides of the singles usually aren’t on the albums, to the best of my knowledge. If only H!P would do like Soul’d Out and release a collection of b-sides…

Anyway, at some point, I think I need to sit down and take stock of everything that’s currently available or coming soon that I want. It’ll be a while before I get most of them, but it would be good to know exactly how far behind I am. As G.I. Joe used to say, “knowing is half the battle…”

Guess-timation

Over the holiday season, I participated in Hello!Online forum member Himalia’s Annual Christmas Giveaway Games, which allows forum members to win actual H!P merchandise donated by Himalia himself. To my complete and utter surprise, I not only won one of the pre-festivities Guessing Games, but I also came in #13th place overall, thus winning yet another prize in addition to what I won in the Guessing Game. While I don’t know yet what my #13th place Prize is going to be yet, I would like to share with you what I won in the Guessing Game. I won nine Ai-chan photocards! Here they are:

Gorgeous, ain’t they! At any rate, someone finally overtook Eri in the category of “Most Photocards of a Single H!P Member Owned by Pex”. I like Eri a lot, but I do like Ai-chan just a bit more, so I don’t really see anything wrong with that. But now I do need to get a Risa photo or two…Risa’s just under Ai-chan on my favorites list, and it’s a shame I don’t have one of her yet. Oh well, I’ll get around to it eventually!

Please look forward to another future post where I’ll reveal what my #13 Prize was!

Christmas Loot 2008

Just a short note to let you all know what I got for Christmas this year from the world of J-Pop.

Santa brought me the following:

• Berryz Koubou – Koi no Jubaku (single)
• Berryz Koubou – 5 (album)
• C-ute – 3rd Love Escalation (album)
• Heartsdales – Fantasy (single)
• Chieco Kawabe – Candy Baby (single)
• m-flo – Awards Super Nova Loves Best (album)

My brother got me the following items as well:

• m-flo loves Emyli & Diggy-MO – Dopamine (single)
• Morning Musume – Mikan (single w/photo booklet and Eri card)
• Morning Musume – Resonant Blue (single w/ Another Vers. DVD)
• Morning Musume – Pepper Keibu (single w/DVD, not sure which version)
• Risa Niigaki – Happy Girl Photobook

I love everything I got, but I think I’m most happy about Happy Girl. You see, it’s my first ever photobook, and though I’ve seen pictures from a lot of the photobooks thanks to scans posted online, nothing compares to having that big smiling face of Risa’s adorning the cover of my very own copy of the book. I keep catching myself hugging it as if it were a teddy bear or a book I’d treasured since childhood.

Photobooks are expensive things, but I’d like to get more of them in future. In a dream world, I’d like to get them all, but for now I’m restricting myself to either favorite members or really gorgeous photobooks. I’ve been hinting to my brother that Eri’s Maple PB or one with Ai-chan would both be most excellent choices for potential birthday gifts from him (have to start hinting now, since my birthday is on Valentine’s Day). Beyond those, I’d really like to get Mari’s photobooks. I think they are the ones beyond the two I’ve already mentioned that I would like to have the most. Then, a pb from Yuko or Reina. Like I said though, I’d like to get them all eventually, so any that show up as presents would be fine. Of course, eBay might be the way to get some of the older ones. Perhaps if I get any money for my birthday, I might see about treating myself to one (or maybe two). I’m greedy, but the girls are just so purty, I can’t help it!

At any rate, I hope you all have had a Merry Christmas this year! Sorry for not updating this blog very much recently. I shall have to make a New Year’s Resolution to continue blogging more often.

HELLOPROLAND

I’ve just added to my H!P photocard collection. Here are my newest acquisitions, which came in the mail today:

Four photocards (1 Kaori, and 3 Eri in Rakuten Eagles promo shots). I got the large Eri 10th Anniversary Singles Collection promo photo for free.

I got these from HELLOPROLAND. This is a great eBay seller who has always done right by me in every purchase I’ve ever made from him, and when I order photocards, he very often gives me one (or on occasion, two) free. He doesn’t have to, but I think he’s a nice guy, and I like ordering from him. I even feel guilty when I don’t order from him for a while. Yeah, I don’t often have the cash to spend on eBay, but when I do, HELLOPROLAND is the only store I specifically look for. The rest of the time, I just look up the name of the item I want. But with this store, it’s like going into a big toy store, wanting everything, and taking hours to pick out one thing to take home with you. It’s fun like that!

Funnily enough, I notice I bought three Eri cards. I already have two. Originally, I had only intended to get one photocard of each member, but for some reason I keep coming back to Eri. I shouldn’t really. It’s not fair to the others. I guess I just really really like her with that short hair. Or maybe she just photographs really well. Or maybe both. I’ll talk at length about my H!P photocard wants and needs at another time, but for now, I’m just staring at the pretty Eri pics and wondering where to put the big photo. Hmm, if only I had a picture frame…