5 posts tagged “blogging”

I've abandoned this blog and moved to a new home at intlwota.com/metalhead. Please go there for all the new posts.

If you're here to see my blog's humble beginnings and you want to read all the posts I didn't bring with me to the new blog, I made a handy tag for you people to find that stuff easily. Click here for all the posts I will keep exclusive to Vox. I have to warn you, though, it's mostly shit. But hey.

Yeah. This is the end for the blog. This will be my last post.
To everyone who enjoyed reading my posts and were looking forward to seeing more from this blog, I apologize.

I will still keep this account online, mainly so I can go back and reread the comments you people left me, and also so I can comment on other peoples' posts.

Before I bid you farewell though, would you care to check out my brand new shiny blog of exactly the same title as this one? Check it out at intlwota.com/metalhead and update your RSS readers please! I'll see you there.

Thank you and sorry. :)

Yours truly,

Henkka.

There's been some reminiscing and self-criticism happening in the IW blogroll lately. Well, I've noticed some posts anyway. I want to do something a little like that as well, if you don't mind. I like reminiscing, too!

H!P Metalhead has been around for about eight months now.

It's my first and only blog, so I wasn't sure at all how it'd work out. The origins sure were humble. I originally just started it to make this post. I wanted to list my favorites from 2007 in detail. There was no master plan aside from that, I just wanted to do that and hopefully get it up on IW and hear what people thought, see if anyone agreed on my choices. Well, it's been a great source of entertainment for me, this whole blogging thing and being immersed in our little blogosphere. It's been a fun ride.

The quality of the blog itself... Ah man. You know, I could be happier with it. I never reread my old posts, but if I did, I'm pretty sure I would call much of it just shit, the critical bastard I am. While I surely think I'm now a better blogger than when starting out back in December, one thing is for certain; I have not reached the level of writing of my favorite blogs. You know, the great ones. No, I haven't come close to that, not even once. And I'm the first to admit that about my blog. But that is my goal. That has been my goal since the beginning and I'm still striving to make even one great, simply flawless post for you people to read, one that some of my favorites have no problem delivering each and every time they post something. So far there is not one I am completely happy with and that's a little depressing to me.

Look at this. "H!P Opinions of a Metalhead is a new blog with a different take." It's the first write-up about me on IW ever. You know, I don't know if this is something I regret or not, but my blog didn't quite turn out like I thought it would. I thought it would be more... well, you know, "brutally direct and sardonic in its wit" just like Ray put it! I never quite delivered on that front. I thought I'd be a fucking angry blogger, because as we all know, metalheads are pissed off at everything. Right? Nah, but instead my blog became pretty damn mellow after all. I mostly only talk about things I like and don't even bother with stuff like disappointing new single releases. Really, maybe a name change is in order for me. Any suggestions? H!P Opinions of a Spineless Pussy Who Appears to Like Everything?

That reminds me of something funny. I originally wanted my blog to be referred to as HPOM, kind of like Your Opinion Doesn't Count is called YODC. Thank god that never caught on though, as Ray came up with H!P Metalhead which is way better. HPOM sounds disgusting.

I've made lots of new friends, or if not quite friends, at least great acquintances. And it's thanks to my writing. I must've written something at times that made someone want to comment and thus get to know me better as time went on. You all know who you are. Also, regardless of what I think about the style or quality of the blog myself, damn, I must've been doing something right when Ray contacted me personally to ask me to become a Contributor for IW which is still a big deal and an honor to me to this day. Sure, I kinda say it like it boosts my ego... and that's because it does! I think that was genuinely cool.

And then, just a few days ago, I was made an Editor. Now it appears I'm "on the same level" as the other editors like wu-san, Jim Haku and Celestia which is just crazy to me. While I think the admins have gone mad for thinking I'm worthy, I won't say I'm not happy with their decision. No, quite the opposite. I really, really enjoy working on IW, and that's mostly because hell, it's a great site, and especially because the crew behind it is amazing. I'm not even kidding. It's an awesome bunch of skilled writers and it has been great to work with people like Ray, pengie, wu-san, broomhead, CJ, maiZe... and hell, everyone. All the contributors too, every single one is likeable and a pleasure to work with.

And hey, if you want to, why not approach one of the admins and tell them you'd like to be a Contributor? I'm not sure if everyone is let in, but chances are if you don't suck, your blog is alright and you're a fun person to work with, you will gladly be taken in. I can think of lots of great bloggers that I would love to see try out contributing for IW. What, you want me to drop names? You do? Fine. HarimaKenji. Magi-Kat. Andra. あさり. aiwish472. Kuri. I'll stop now, but the list goes on and on. There's countless. So hey, if any of you or anyone else I didn't mention here wants to, give it a shot. I think IW always needs more contributors, especially if they are solid writers.

Speaking of which... I have to apologize, both for being so inactive with IW AND my own blog. While everyone always stresses that there is absolutely no minimum of write-ups you have to do, no quota, recently I've just been slacking off like hell and what's bad is that I don't even have an excuse. I haven't been doing anything worthwhile, or even anything non-worthwhile. I've been sitting on my ass and just lazing around. Doing nothing. And so again, I apologize for that. There's a reason for it, though.

I'll admit, I've been feeling uninspired this summer. So very uninspired. Truth be told, I don't know what direction I will take this blog when my top 5 series is finished. I've no clue.

However, next month is going to be largely time off for me. Not only from IW and my blog, but I probably won't even have access to a computer for most of the whole month of August. Maybe on the weekends. I have a pre-recorded podcast I did earlier this month that I will post, but other than that, I don't think I'll do much anything until the end of August. For more info on what the hell I will be doing in August, do check out the podcast I'll post in a week or two.

I do not think it's time for this blog to go yet. You know why? It's because I'm not happy with it. If I just closed it at this point, it'd feel like an utter failure to me. I've yet to accomplish nearly anything with this blog. What I'm hoping for is that after this vacation of sorts, I will feel rejuvenated, inspired and ready to work on both IW and my own blog again. That's what I hope for.

So hey. Starting September, I hope to be working as an Editor and as a much more active crew member of International Wota than before, and also finally kick my ass into doing an acceptable number of posts for my own blog. I want to say yoroshiku onegaishimasu and ganbarimasu, but fuck that, man, that'd be cheesy as hell.

These are my answers to broomhead's survey.

Originally I just sent this to broomhead's email and wasn't going to post it here, but since people like HK and CK posted theirs... might as well. It's very interesting to read others' thoughts about blogging by the way, I can't wait for broomhead to finish his next post on the subject. Oh, and a special shoutout to broomhead: keep going man! Just do what you always do, or hell, do something new if you so wish, just keep going with your blog! You're great! We all love you and your blog! :)

 

Goals:

Why do you blog? - I want my writing and opinions to be read and hopefully commented on.
What do you want to gain out of blogging? A creative outlet? Praise from others? Personal satisfaction? Money? - The first three all apply to me. First and foremost though, personal satisfaction, but I would like to gain a large readerbase.
Do you feel that your blog should meet a requirement for amount of entries? Do you feel any particular entry should be a certain length? - The answer to the first question is no. However, about the second one, I guess I could say yes. Sometimes I feel that what I'm saying on my blog is not remarkable or interesting enough and thus I make a conscious choice to try and make my posts longer than (what I perceive to be) the average to hopefully make it seem somehow more worthwhile. I believe I've succeeded in that fairly well thus far. I don't know, it just feels much more satisfying to make longer posts in all respects.
For any particular entry, what motivates you to start and finish blog posts? - The wish for my writing to be read.
Do you actively consider long term goals for each individual post? - Occasionally.

Subject Material:

What do you blog about? - Hello! Project and other Japanese music reviews, hoping to expand to drama, anime and possibly manga reviews at some point.
Would you be keep a blog even if it wasn't about the subjects you tend to cover? - No.
Do you write about the material to promote it to others? - No.

Readership:

How much do you care about readership? - Very much. It is very important for me to know there are people reading and especially knowing I might have one or two fans.
Does it satisfy you to know people are reading, even if they don't comment? - Yes, but receiving comments is ten times nicer.
What effect does receiving a comment have on you? - I strive on feedback and comments, so usually it always makes me very happy, especially if the person has clearly studied well what I've written. I can't stress this enough; there's exactly two things that keep me going with my blog, and those two are the IW write-up and the comments from my readers. If I get no write-up and zero comments, that feels pretty much like a failed post to me and I'm always discouraged by that.
If there are any lurkers out there reading this who like my blog or like it even occasionally, I sincerely request that you leave me comments sometimes on my posts, no matter how small or big that may be. If anything I say makes you think or want to say something, just say it; you'll make my day for sure. :)

Community: (The International Wota section)

If International Wota didn't exist, would you blog? - Definitely not.
When IW covers an entry of yours, are you encouraged to blog more or less? - Usually more.
When IW does not cover an entry, are you encouraged to blog more or less? - Neither, but I do feel disappointed.
How often do you read other blogs? - Several times a day.
How often do you comment on other blogs? - A couple of times a week.
If another blog cover a topic that you wanted or wished to cover, do you still blog about that specific topic? Why or why not? - Yes if I still have something meaningful to add about the topic.

Commitment:

How serious is your attitude towards blogging? Do you consider it just as something to do for fun? - While I do not take it a 100% seriously, I must say it does not always feel so fun as it used to. In fact, sometimes it feels like work! That might be the reason why I don't blog as often as I'd like to. This is a little worrying as I haven't even been blogging for that long...
How often do you blog? How often would you like to blog? - I blog maybe three or four times a month. I'd like to blog two or three times a week or so.
What priorities do you or have you put aside in order to blog? Why? - Not much. Sleep, every once in a while. :)
Do you see yourself blogging in 6 months? Why or why not? - I think I'll still be blogging, but I'm unsure. I think my interest in Hello! Project might be fading a little.* Still, I'm pretty sure I'll still be blogging.

Personal:

Would you say you blog for yourself? - Yes.
What is your feeling after posting an entry? Is it relative to the time and effort you put in an entry? - It feels good especially if I feel I've created something exceptionally good. It is relative, yes.
Do you consider yourself a writer? - Nah.
Do you consider yourself good at writing? Good at blogging? - I'm not very good, but I think I manage to hide it quite well. I have a wish to improve, though, to hopefully one day be thought of as one of the great, known ones in the Int'l Wota community. A pretty ambitious goal, I know; I still have a long way to go. :)
How much of your personal life do you share on your blog? If none, why do you leave this out? - Not very much at all. Sometimes a few quick notes here and there, usually for humor. I have no real interest in blogging about my personal life, at least not for the moment. I hardly think my personal life would interest anyone.

 

* = Bleh, I don't know. Maybe that's just my recent France Gall addiction speaking. Life would feel incomplete without France Gall.

...are of course H!P-related Vox headers! (and typing out some random, mindless thoughts about being a H!P blogger :))

I was wondering if I should change my current header (even though I personally think it's awesome, beautiful picture of Miki) and so I went and made a shitload of them, 16 to be exact. Do you think I should use one these instead? Think any of them would sort of fit with the theme and colors better?

So what do you think? Time for a change? Personally I think they're all more or less awesome. Excellent pictures. :o Oh and yeah, that is only 7 of the promised 16 banners. Scroll down and you will find the others which I scattered around to make this post less boring and more readable. :)

 

Anyways... how's life going for you all then? Christmas and New Years is over and H!P is coming out with lots and lots of very promising and exciting releases in the next coming months. Hopefully there are some in there that inspire me to make a post about it and review them, be it their awesomeness or utter crappiness that inspires me; honestly, Dschinghis Khan could go either way for me, I can't tell at all right now. 

So this is, by the way, the 10th post of my blog or at least close. I'm too lazy to count, could also be the 9th or 11th, but anyway. How has it been so far, the blog I mean?

• Good?
• Not good?
• Pretty awesome?
• Utter shit? 
• Decent?
• Humorously awful?
• Pretty bad?
• Fine?
• Honestly not that fine? 
• Horrible?
• Fucking awesome? 
• Absolutely pathetic? 
• Worst/best/the most mediocre blog you have ever seen?

Personally, reading my old posts, I'm a little disappointed with my writing quality so far. Well, not so much the quality but the content. The reason being that, when I visited my introductory posts again, I realized this was supposed to be a metalhead's blog about H!P of all things, now it seems like just a... uh, general one. I feel like that trademark "metal toughness" or badassness or that good old, pure manliness just doesn't shine through enough in this blog. I mean, I'm not the girl-type blogger who dances to Berryz Koubou choreographies in between of making new posts, never fails to buy all the latest H!P products and digs EVERYTHING Tsunku puts out; no, I'm headbanging to the Egyptian-influenced death metal of Nile in between of new posts, I rarely buy H!P products at all and I don't.. dig QUITE everything.. Tsunku.. puts out... uh.. Err, wait, I was trying to prove a point here, a point that I'm more METAL than this, so let me try that last part again: FUCK YOU, Tsunku! Your songs are pure shit! The only thing worth listening you ever created was those double bass drums on Miki Fujimoto's Namida GIRL! Give me a double bass drum-only instrumental version of that already, you... pedophile!@#¤

Well, alright, I was kidding, metalheads aren't that idiotic. Not the cool ones anyway, the cool ones like me. But anyway, maybe you get my point. When I say I want more of my metalness to shine through in the blog, I mean among other things that sort of... cold-hearted honesty metal fans are known for. Never shy to admit right away if a song is simply awful. Saying it like it is without prettying it up for people, you know? That kind of stuff. Or, like Ray on International Wota put it when talking about my introductory posts, "... The writing style is quite strong - brutally direct and sardonic in its wit ...". Yeah! That kind of thing! Those are the keywords; Strong! Brutal! Direct! Sardonic! Wit! Or, to sum those words up; Metal! Yep, in my opinion, Ray pretty much summed up this whole "metal" thing right there. That's not just what he thought my introductory posts were like, I think those are also pretty much the exact right words to describe your average metal fans personality. 

And that is exactly what I want my blog to be more like. Like, take, for example, MorningBerryz. Personally I'm a fan of his and actually his blog is one of the main reasons I even created my own blog (and wanted to host it on Vox), but personally what I had in mind when making my blog is that I wanted to be nearly the exact opposite of Mr. MorningBerryz. My image of MorningBerryz is that he is without a doubt a huge, huge long-time fan of H!P and that he pretty much never dislikes anything put out by H!P. "So hey, the new Berryz single sure is bad, huh? Let's see for fun what MorningBerryz thinks... Oh look, he liked it! Surprise!" or "Wow, the general consensus sure seems to be that Hana wo Pu~n is an awful piece of shit! Let's see... haha, MorningBerryz liked it and bought seven copies of all possible versions of it! This guy is amazing!" He could even be one of the biggest fans, but unfortunately there is no known device to measure ones fan-ness. :P

In any case, I'm guessing when people think of MorningBerryz, they might think "A hardcore H!P fanatic of the highest caliber! A Wota-God among men!". Now, when people think of me and my blog (that is, when or IF someone actually knows who the hell I am or that I even exists ;)), I would want my "image" in the H!P-blogosphere to be something like "That damn cynical bastard who calls himself 'Henkka', pfft! Who does he think he is, saying shit about all my favorite (crappy) Momusu/Berryz/°C-ute songs!!! He should cut his damn hair too!" OR, depending on the reader of course, "Hooray, new awesome single by <insert group here>! Better go check out if Henkka has anything to say about it... Kind of looking forward to see if he loves or absolutely hates the song! Please be your usual, sharp self, Henkka, and see the greatness of the song like I do!" Yeah, something like that.

So, I shall definitely try to work on that aspect in my writing this coming year. The whole silly metal thing. Maybe you could call it a sort of new years resolution...

And sorry, the Wota-God among men MorningBerryz, for using you as my example and also if you were offended by any of that as that wasn't my intention at all. Like I said, I'm a fan of you and your blog so nothing bad was meant by any of this! :) And besides, your extreme fan-ness is awesome in cases like Hana wo Pu~n when everyone hated the song but me and I was really looking for some people to share my views of it being great. It comes in handy. :)

Anyway, it's been a pretty long time since my last proper post. I'm really itching to make a new huge one, but I'm just lost on what I should make it of... Help me out here! HarimaKenji suggested doing a review of my Morning Musume First Live at Budokan DVD but I'm too lazy for that right right now...

With this blog, when starting out, my main objective at first was to get the acclaimed "Recommended reading" title at International Wota. As I was new to blogging, I thought it'd take me quite some time to achieve that status and I was prepared to work long and hard for it, but surprisingly I already achieved it with my first "real" post. Naturally I was happy for a minute, I thought to myself "Yeah! I'm 'recommended reading' on International Wota, bitches! YEAH!". I felt like a real rockstar for about two and a half seconds. But, after going through the severe heroin addiction, selling myself on the streets for cash, losing all friends, family and everything I have due to drugs, alcohol and depression and, you know, the usual whatnot that comes with unexpected, massive internet fame which dispels almost as soon as it had appeared, I found myself lost... it was like my blogging attempts and my life itself seemed just unnecessary and depressing... like I had no direction in my life whatsoever. I mean, what's the point? Been there, done that, right?

But then, I discovered something. I discovered I hadn't even nearly achieved the top status one can get at International Wota... You see, while browsing the site, reading articles Ray, wu-san and others had picked out for me, my eyes ran across some words which gave me unbelievable newly found hope. It was like a bright, shimmering light was instantly lit at the end of my tunnel of depression at that very moment...

"Highly recommended reading."

Holy shit! Hooolyyy shit!

And so, that shall be my new objective, to achieve my other two and a half seconds of – admittedly – imaginary fame. So you really should help me out now and think of a subject for me to write about so I can get to my new objective already, alright? Thanks!

Oh and yeah, instead of recommending me them, if any of you really, really want to use one of these banners yourself, feel free to. They're all the right size to be a Vox header (940x200). But if you do use one, please do tell me in the comments so I can see the "finished product" decorating your blog! :)