Title: 藍より青し～えにし～劇盤ー’竹’ (Ai yori Aoshi ~Enishi~ 'Bamboo') Drama CD Vol. 1
Original Creator: 文月晃 (Kou Fumizuki)
Release Date: 12/20/2004
Catalog No.: GNCA-1009
Rating: 3/4
To Purchase

Like the drama CDs from first season, this CD has a few song tracks and a few drama tracks. There are a total of 10 tracks, 1,3,5,10 are drama (the last one is a commercial for the other CDs), and 3 songs, both vocal and karaoke. The songs are sung by Tina, Miyabi, and the Chika-rins (Chizuru and Natsuki included).

The first track is the standout track of the CD. It's a 20 minute episode where Kaoru appears on a parody of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" with questions from the manga. He answers various questions to reach the goal of winning one million yen. He gets three lifelines, the audience, phone a friend, and a confidential Aoi video. The best is the phone a friend. Question is, "In chapter 89, while Kaoru was sleeping, what did Tina do to him?" The phone a friend goes to the Sakuraba mansion where Tina, Chika, and Miyuki are waiting. Miyuki freaks out at the question and demands that Tina explain herself. Final Aiao?

The second drama is the first out of four segments. Chika is a "has been" idol until she gets brought back in to team up with Natsuki and Chizuru to form the Magical Idol Unit, Chika-rins. The second segment has them being double booked to do an opener for the season's first baseball game with the other idol in town, Miyuki. In order to settle the score, there's a baseball game between the two magical idol factions. I never really enjoyed the Magical Chika stuff, even from first season. However, I really like their theme song, which is one of the included songs.

While I don't like Chika's voice in the song, the melody to the Chika-rin's theme song is pretty catchy. Tina's song is okay, but her song from first season is a lot better. Miyabi's song sounds like she was singing at a karaoke bar.

Totally.

Submitted my taxes, both Federal and California, just about an hour ago. Because I only started work last September, I rank in the low income category and my tax percentage is pretty low. JPL deducts a lot for taxes, so I'm getting quite a bundle back.

The second item is that I filled out my absentee ballot. So here we go:
(I'm registered Independent, but asked for a Democrat ballot)

President: John Kerry
This was a no brainer. Wesley Clark is on the ballot, but it wouldn't be much filling in that box. I still have some reservations about Kerry, especially the fact that he's rich as hell and related to some of the biggest wigs on Wall Street, but he's the best so far. FRUCKIN' NADER. I understand that choice is a good thing, but when you're trying to attack something, it's sometimes best to do a direct hit (i.e. 1 contender), rather than a spread out one. If he really wanted Bush out, he should know better.

US Senator: Barbara Boxer
Running unoppsed.

US Represetative (17th District): Sam Farr
I'm still registered to vote in Santa Cruz, so he's the guy. I'll re-register after this election.

State Senator (11th District): Joe Simitian
A tossup. Ballot landed faced down.

Alright, on to the fun part, the propositions.

Prop. 55: YES!
Schools need money, is there anything more that needs to be said. I am a bit surprised that the final price tag more than twice the principal, but I believe education is something worth getting into debt for.

Prop. 56: HAI!
If you don't do your job and pass a budget, you don't get paid. Same in industry, should be same in government.

Prop. 57 & 58: SI
I had to think about this for a few moments. On on hand, it is true that if you're in debt, you really shouldn't get into more debt (there are exceptions, like education). However, do I think that the government is able to recoup from just cutting services? No. Bush is already putting an extra burden on states since he doesn't fund anything but the military (and NASA, I admit). So in the meantime, this seems like a good temporary fix by borrowing some more money to pay off current debts.