For one thing, I thought this place was long overdue for a theme overhaul. I was running on the same theme pretty much since this site opened, with a theme that essential brother Ray Mescallado helped modify not long afterward. However, I couldn’t decide on one.

Then, for the second time this year, some scumbags had snuck spam links for illicit pharmecuticals and the like into this site’s HTML, and it was coming up in the reader options on my iPad’s browser – and no doubt on other tablets and maybe even on the RSS feed as well. I was certainly not amused by this development. So, I switched to a new theme that I hope is not spambot friendly and just in case, passwords had to be altered as well. I’m not taking any fucking chances, folks.

At some point I’ll restore the little browser icon Ray made for this blog, but in the meantime, I did what I had to do to keep this blog free of bullshit. If anyone catches any other problems or has a better theme idea that we can use, please do not hesitate to e-mail me.

And so, Reina Tanaka, aka Her Royal Hotness, aka The Wonkylicious One, begins her 22nd trip around the sun today. (Yeah, I know that technically, she’s already been celebrating it for at least the past 12 hours as this is being posted, but since this blog is based in the Eastern Time Zone of the USA, we’ll go with this writer’s location chronologically.) And the 4th Anniversary of this worship blog is today as well. Did I ever think I’d be doing this blog or even my music blog for this long? Quite honestly, I’m glad I am – Reina and her band are one of the reasons this blog and the mothership The Groove Music Life exist in the first place. I am forever in my debt to them.

reina_t_1111: OK, Ceej, level with me here.
minimoniotaku: Oh, you saw what Langdon posted today at YODC?
reina_t_1111: Yeah, nice Photoshop job… NOT!
minimoniotaku: Hey, he’s entitled to his sense of humor.
reina_t_1111: True, but part of him is entitled to something else as well…
minimoniotaku: And that part would be?
reina_t_1111: The part where we have to remind him of a certain legal document from 2008
minimoniotaku: Ouch!
reina_t_1111: Hey, there’s still Risa and Sayumi for him to chase…

I don’t think I have to remind anyone how Reina has been getting better with age. Or how seeing live pictures of her performing makes me want to see the band come to the States and tour (a tangent better left for the mothership). So I’ll just post this recent pic here without comment. Oh wait, that was a comment…

Yes, it’s been a long while since I posted on here. And in the time since the last post, I discovered to my horror that some douchebags had snuck some spam links within the HTML of this site, something I discovered when looking at this site via an iPad reader and saw the screen overloaded with unauthorized links. Apparently said scumbags found an opportunity to take advantage of some sort of crack in the WordPress code. No matter – the site’s system has been updates (as will this site’s template by 11.11.11) and things are back under control. No better way to restart SHSSF than to post a pic related to recent talk of Maki Goto’s visits to her old musical alma mater. Reina has often acknowledged that Maki was one of her inspirations, and with recent rumors/speculation of Maki making some sort of return to the Up-Front Works stable added with her earlier stated desire to take a “hiatus” from performing (until her contract with Avex is up, perhaps?), this pic (found by essential brother Langdon Alger) pretty much begged to be posted.

It’s been, what, two years since the last solo photobook and DVD from Reina? No word about a new PB yet, but news about this new DVD (and I’m hoping for a Blu-Ray edition as well), plus this preview that was posted on Morning Musume’s official YouTube channel, is a welcome sight!

Even though I’ve been a bad boy with not updating this site, my adoration for my favorite member of Morning Musume has not changed. And neither has my desire to see Morning Musume make regular visits to the States (and elsewhere) and see their music get released here by a better independent label than JapanFiles’s rather ineffectual (in retrospect) job… (I’d start mentioning label names again but I’ll save that for TGML…)

Side note: Quick website update happening a little later tonight before the Day 3 post, so if you see or saw things not as they usually are here, that’s why… already done. That, as a certain office supply store commercial said, was easy…

It’s about that time… and I owe my favorite MoMusu a huge fucking apology!

Sorry, Reina. I meant to start a new commemorative series last night, but a couple of things got in the way and it completely slipped my head…

The reality is two-fold and has only a little to do with my marriage… last night was my laundry night (four months into my marriage and already we’ve got some routines going!), plus I had to do a little maintenance on my laptop thanks to a somewhat annoying little gnat of a virus – thank god for Norton pouncing on that fucker), and then the pre-order of Elvis Costello’s new album was waiting for me to download from iTunes… ahh, just bonk me on the head with that thick retrospective photobook of Reina’s that came out a couple of years ago!

It’s not like Reina was completely off my radar last night, though… NaNoWriMo started yesterday and the project involves a character named after and slightly inspired by her. No, it’s not a fanfic (I don’t write those), but it is a new project centered around a character I created for my first, long abandoned novel project Play It All Night Long. (For those of you keeping track, Here Is The Wonderland is still the priority project – this new novella is just an exercise for my inner Snoopy.)

So… with all excuses and explanations out of the goddamn way… we’ll be back on track with Day 2′s post later today – most likely after I get back from voting (Democrat, of course…).

The results for Paul Thomas’ yearly H!P fan poll are in, and Her Royal Hotness placed third again (behind Takitty and Gaki) in the poll for individual H!P members, and Morning Musume also placed on top in the group poll that he set up this year. Good to see that the mothership is still on top. I’m surprised that Buono! placed fourth behind Berryz Koubou and C-ute, though.

On a side note, sorry that this blog has been rather inactive the past couple of months (I’ve only been a little more active over at this blog’s mothership). Outside of my impending nuptials, there’s really no excuse for not keeping up with things here, so my apologies to both Reina and to my fellow Tanakachi fans and followers. I’ll try to make up for it.

Speaking of ridiculous, it’s good to see Reina’s animated doppelganger taking some bumps, even though Chutaro is still getting his requisite share of abuse and Officer Nacchi is still having involuntary Marilyn Monroe moments…

I’ll keep checking for Episode 7 – I haven’t seen a raw version, let alone a subbed one, yet as of this writing.