I’m writing this entry because I am having problems with blogging. I tried to inspire myself to blog, and it didn’t work. I tried to get some other bloggers to inspire me to blog, and it didn’t work. I tried to get a solo Kanna Arihara DVD to inspire me to blog. Well, I liked that, but it didn’t get me blogging.

I’m going to go over a few points initially, but the purpose of this entry is the survey at the end of it. I would like to get answers from all different bloggers and perspectives, even from people that dislike this blog. I care what other people have to say because, as I loosely connect before the survey, blogging and community go hand-in-hand. I didn’t write out a reasonably argued thesis on the subject, but I believe it to be true.

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I decided to not doing any links for the weekend. I may change my mind on that in the future but I’m not gonna push myself. I can be like the USA Today compared to Intl Wota, if Intl Wota were a real newspaper.

I still have not watched this week’s or last week’s Haromoni or made any progress on the TLS March April Madness. This is the week for that! Well, so long as no H!P scandals pop up (when’s your yearly scandal coming Nacchi??). I’m using this category as a sort of quick State of the Blog or where I’m at in blogging post. I like keeping things in nice categories… and State of the Blog should be for big news!

I only want to talk about one blog today. And that is ★ ☆ yossha yossha YOSSHA! ☆ ★. Yoshimi’s writing rubs some people the wrong way, I’m sure she is aware of that. I’ll even say myself that I don’t like it all. But there is something underlining with Yoshimi, behind all the threats of violence to Risako. When she likes an idol, she REALLY likes an idol.

The whole point of the wota-idol fandom is for this type of fan connection. It doesn’t have to be the level that some of the Japanese wota take it. However, if you can claim that you are dedicated to a particular idol, no matter what happens to that idol or their career, then you are exhibiting the type of connection intended. I think it is clear that, when it comes down to it, Yoshimi has this.

Now, she recently said that she is done posting pictures of JunJUn. I admit, I’m selfish. I’d rather her keep up with JunJun than with who she replaced JunJun with, Maasa Sudou. But I’ll admit that this is a good idea for Yoshimi.

hi, minnasan (JunJun posts) and now chotto matte (Maasa posts) provide a nice contrast to the combative style in some of her other posts. It’s variety within a blog, and I love variety. It almost makes sense for her to promote less popular H!P members as she slags on the more popular ones.

Even if it isn’t for everyone.

I did not have a Daily Links post yesterday in order to create a schedule for this feature. My first post (on the 22nd) was late in the evening and I’d prefer this to be posted in the morning hours. No specific time - just the morning hours.

I picked a lucky time to start looking around at other blogs. Right at the top of my most recent feeds was Tokyograph reporting that Ai Kago is going to be in a Hong Kong film. I like to joke around about dropping SCOOPS for International Wota - and I outscooped them all today! As for the news, it’s way too early to pass any real judgment. She could have a legit role or just a quick cameo - who knows at this point? I’ll be interested in what everyone else thinks of this though and I’m sure tomorrow’s Daily Links will be filled with Aibon reactions.

Maize of fields and maiZe and berryZ was the first one to tell me, but lots of blogs have information on Berryz Koubou’s 17th single. You can read it up at Just Another H!P Blog, some boys! blog, Strawberrie or Totally Hello! Project - they all have pretty much the same information. I’m pretty happy about this because it’ll mean a final end to Dschinghis Khan videos at the end of H!P programming. This is also big news for Berryz Koubou as it’ll push Berryz Koubou into a tie at 3rd place for sheer amount of singles released under Hello!Project:

Number of Singles Released (5 or over):
Morning Musume: 36
Aya Matsuura: 21 (20 released, 1 announced)
Berryz Koubou: 17 (16 released, 1 announced)
Maki Goto: 17
Melon Kinenbi: 17
Mini Moni: 12
Yuko Nakazawa: 12
Country Musume: 11
Natsumi Abe: 10
v-u-den: 10
Taiyou to Ciscomoon/T&C Bomber: 8
Tanpopo: 8
Yuki Maeda: 8
W: 7
Miki Fujimoto: 6
C-ute: 5 (4 minor)
Coconuts Musume: 5

While it is conceivable that Melon Kinenbi will get another release, Berryz Koubou will most likely take sole possession of 3rd place by the end of the year. Aya Matsuura’s releases have slowed down considerably - 4 in the last 3 years - so it should only be a matter of time until Berryz passes her. As for one day taking the #1 spot, I would imagine that BK would break up before that point.

Looking the list over, can you believe that Yuko Nakazawa has 12 singles or that Yuki Maeda has 8?

To finish things up today, everyone visit wotachat! It is pengie’s (of unchained) hosted chatroom. She wants to populate it even more so I’m passing along the word of my own will and volition (read: forced). I’m usually there at some point every day and many IW bloggers/contributors make a daily visit at some point. It’s pretty fun - although the conversation always starts getting bizzare when a certain resident of Hawaii shows up.

As this is the first entry of this style, I want to catch up on a week of entries instead of just the most recent. I’ll be focusing on the last few days if I can. Furthermore, I have a lot of blog reading to catch up on. I’ve been working on the new theme today so I’m pretty far behind.

There is a new wave of podcasting in our International Wota community. My Pleasant Vista, Pink Wota, Stuck in a Pagoda with Motoko Aoyama, The H!P Opinions of a Metalhead and Raid My Minibar all have new podcasts within the last few days. It is a much more personable style that lots of IW bloggers have taken to. I really am interested to see not only who keeps at it but who else decides to try their hand at podcasting.

As for the current podcasts, I have to admit that I’ve skipped over the music that is played. I either know the song already or would rather listen to the suggested music at my own leisure. I wouldn’t suggest to anyone that is going to be podcasting to completely drop the idea of playing music. It depends on what type of audience you want. Personally, I love talk radio. Therefore, I am going to enjoy the parts where the host is talking more so than the music the host plays.

The big news today that I want to share comes from wiki.theppn.org, which has the sales charts for Oricon Week 17. What’s important to me is Perfume and Morning Musume.

Morning Musume clocks in at 3rd with 48k sales. Is this good? I think lots of fans will definitely be happy. I wouldn’t call it a resurgence yet though. It’s an improvement in sales but that’s only because Mikan sold so horribly on the Oricon chats. It’ll be interesting to see where RB goes from here and what style Morning Musume uses for their next single. With Kanashimi Twilight and now Resonant Blue being reasonable successes (at least compared to other recent MM singles), it wouldn’t make sense to switch things up again.

Perfume’s GAME sold 154k and is #1 for the week and I am so happy about this. When I first became a fan of Perfume, I never expected such things. I am under no illusions that they got #1 because of a relatively weak competition in albums this week. However, 6 figures is still 6 figures. Perfume’s popularity can be maintained if handled properly. Releases from the group have been spread apart, so overexposure doesn’t scare me at this point. I do know that the higher they climb, the harder they will fall.

Hey everbody…. If you come to my placeholder today, you probably had a good laugh. How come all my friends in wotachat didn’t tell me this? I guess they liked me looking like a fool…

It is time for another new theme here at True Life Seek. My excitement over the last theme wore out quickly. I can’t really put my feelings into words - I just didn’t like the theme anymore. This new theme is the same theme that’s used for Nocchi Drives Me Wild. It is simplistic like the original TLS theme, but also makes more effective use of browser space. My previous theme was very disappointing in this regard.

I am hoping that TLS will get a bit of a spark from this change. TLS hasn’t been completely stagnant in the last few weeks but the lack of entries is noticeable. I have topics that I have been planning or written up the beginnings of a draft to - Kaela Kimura, Namie Amuro, Perfume - but finishing entries has become more and more difficult.

Finishing March April Madness is a priority at the moment. I apologize for abandoning the project. Truth be told, I got burned out on it after doing so much in such a short time. For next time, I plan to space entries further apart. Labeling it “March Madness,” while good for posterity, is also unrealistic.

There will be a new feature to TLS: a Daily Links category. I am aware that I blog for International Wota. I have a few reasons for wanting to try this with TLS.

Philosophically, the purpose of Intl Wota entries is to share a particular blog entry. The purpose for linking blogs on TLS is so that I could respond personally to certain entries. This will mean that there will be some instances where I am talking about the same entry on TLS and Intl Wota. I’m also sure no one is going to complain that their blog gets more exposure. I’m not sure how I would I respond to that…

Furthermore, it is not just blogs that I’ll be linking as I have no reason not to link media - pictures, video, etc. - as well. Don’t be surprised if there is a ton of links to hello-online’s picboard.

I am always willing to try out new plugins, so any suggestions of plugins that you love would be helpful.

Regarding a style of entries, I am not planning on honing that down just yet. I actually like that some entries will contain nothing but pictures and others will be semi-researched pieces. Some days I will continue being absolutely negative (whenever I watch Haromoni) and other days I will have nothing but positive things to say (when I listen to Perfume).

Lastly, thank you to people that keep reading TLS! There are times when I slow on responding to comments. I feel bad when I see them coming from the same people and I don’t give any response. I might as well call some of them out now. 5 of them come to my mind: renaye, Yoshimi, Chris, Vee and Andrea. Thank guys! I appreciate anyone that comments but I realize that there are lots of readers who simply like to read and not comment. I don’t comment all the time on other blogs so I understand this line of thinking.

As you can probably tell, the TLS Decorative Decor Committee decided that it was time for a change in our humble abode.

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My first official H!P photos:

I decided to buy something off of American Wota’s marketplace. I’m not sure why I decided to go with Konno. I wanted to make sure whatever photos I got were flattering to the girl, as these are to Asami. The Hawaii text are a definite reminder of where they came from.

I had no idea what to expect from official H!P photos. The “Kodak PerfectTouch Paper” logo on the pack of the bigger images definitely give off that ghetto vibe to it. The smaller ones were apparently printed through Amada Printing. The ink is of good quality and should last a long time. However, unless Ray or someone else starts selling some Kanna Arihara photos for A) cheap and B) easy, I think I might be better off printing my own.

Paul Thomas is a TLS HERO! I’ve been holding off rankings for a while. But I have no reason not to now.

Also, I know that Paul is going to do rankings based on everyone voting in his poll. However, I am interested in my rankings compared to other International Wota bloggers. Therefore, I’ve figured out which bloggers have the closest rankings to me.

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I never meant to stay at Livejournal as long as I did. There were two outcomes. Either I was going to forget the thing existed or move beyond the limitations of Llivejournal. I knew that if I was going to keep a blog for the long run, I’d want to have some control over how it looked. Paying to use custom themes on LJ and Wordpress.com seemed silly when I could just run everything myself.

So this is truelifeseek.com. I kept the entries because I don’t really see this as a new blog or venture. It is merely a continuation of what was already started. The only change will be the (hopeful) increase in amount of entries.

I wanna thank Ray from American Wota for his advice on setting up the site. Everyone reading this should go to his forums, sign up and participate in the 2007 PV Challenge. The nomination phase is almost complete but it is dragging on and on.

I’m expecting to get into the swing of things within the next few days. I hope you all enjoy the new joint!