What is up with 2009? ? It looks like the Grim Reaper decided to work overtime and rob us of some of the biggest and most well-loved stars we know.

Park Jaebeom, ex-2PM

As a music blogger, I’m ready for change (although I really love my dollars). So if I must understand the allure of K/J-Pop, I must then, delve right into the belly of the beast. And since the lovely boys from 2AM performed at the MTV World Stage Live In Malaysia’s post party and were ever so charming, I raided one of the designers’ desk and absconded with 2PM’s “2:00 Time For Change” (how apt!) and 2AM’s “Time For Confession” and attempted the impossible – Fall in love with K-Pop.

And while I was looking through the elaborately designed CD sleeves and trying to tell the boys from 2AM and 2PM apart, someone shouted over the desks and disrupted the peace of the day: 2PM’s leader, Park Jae-beom, has quit the group!