Battlestar L'Arc~en~tastica

GALACTICA:

Ken does the ending theme for BSG-J.

I love when something I like in Japan and something I like in America combine. "You got your peanut butter in my chocolate! You got your Ken in my BSG!"

And look how GOOD THIS SHOW IS:

"Gah there's a giant Youtube play button inflating out of my nostrils grrrrr!"
[Japanese Galactica trailer]

What happened to THAT show? I want THAT SHOW BACK!

BSG 4x17

Even half-nekkid Sharonness couldn’t totally save YET ANOTHER BORING EPISODE OF GALACTICA. But god, at least there was a little bit of intrigue this time. (Cavill's master plan, Aaron clocking some 8 with a spanner...)

The Millionaire, and His Wife

Toshi (X Japan)

Toshi's next single will be a duet with his wife Wanku (ugh! Wanku?!) called "Daichi wo Shizumete" (ugh! Calming of the Earth or Sinking of the Earth, take your pick), sure to be a giant hit that will bring man's interaction with the Earth back into harmonious balance.

via Yahoo!ニュース

Why the Japanese Hate the iPhone

Wired:

"What's wrong with the iPhone, from a Japanese perspective? Almost everything...

...Carrying around an iPhone in Japan would make you look pretty lame..."

In America too. ^_^

I'm tellin' ya, my cell phone bill is now $100 every 5~6 months (yes, just $200 a YEAR) using the T-Mo's pay-as-you-go option. No web access -- unless texting Twitter & Google Price Check count -- but I don't miss it.

The New York Times wrote about Virgin & Boost's pay-as-you-go plans being pretty decent too, except all their phones look like they were built in the 1990s.

new Dir en grey Live DVD

Special Edition DVD Artwork!!!

Tracklist [direngrey.co.jp]:

1. SA BIR
2. OBSCURE
3. GRIEF
4. AGITATED SCREAMS OF MAGGOTS
5. DISABLED COMPLEXES
6. Merciless Cult
7. 蜷局
8. 艶かしき安息、躊躇いに微笑み
9. AGITATED SCREAMS OF MAGGOTS -UNPLUGGED-
10. CONCEIVED SORROW
11. 凌辱の雨
12. DOZING GREEN
13. audience KILLER LOOP
14. LIE BURIED WITH A VENGEANCE
15. THE DEEPER VILENESS
16. CLEVER SLEAZOID
17. REPETITION OF HATRED
18. undecided
19. 悲劇は目蓋を下ろした優しき鬱
20. GLASS SKIN
21. HYDRA
22. 凱歌、沈黙が眠る頃
23. 朔-saku-
24. THE IIID EMPIRE
25. 羅刹国

thx revengebaby!

Not crazy-excited about it, but look forward to hearing the live audio for the new tracks. I tend to latch onto the live versions of songs more/better...

Another Movie Review Roundup

Lookout (2007)
Noir-ish crime flick, one of my favorite genres. Reasonably smart and decently contstructed, and ever since JGL starred in Brick [review] I've had my eye on 'im. Lookout ain't as good as Brick; it's watchable but not even close to being must-see, unless you're a big fan of Geddy Lee.

Also, JGL is apparently playing Cobra Commander in the new GI Joe movie... :\



Hellboy 2 (2007)
The first Hellboy was pleasant enough, and the second one had a certain coolness to it as well (the Elf Prince Dude was pretty badass, like they hired a real, trained fighter rather than trying to fake it with an actor, for example). But I always apply logic (and evolutionary psychology) to movies I watch, and when watching a fantasy movie like this, the logic fails a thousand times per hour, weakening the story and characters, reducing my level of enjoyment. Great production values, though, and I loved when Hellboy got beat up by the lockers, 'cos it was so completely out-of-nowhere, belly-laugh-funny. [youtube]

I'm also less of a fan of the dangerless "haha, guns!" action-comedy genre than I used to be, where there's no real danger to the main characters, and they wiggle guns around like it's just an extension of their open palm and all that. Used to love it, but now it feels contrived or self-conscious. :\



Sleuth (2007)
A remake of a 60's(?) film I never saw except now Michael Caine is playing the old guy instead of the young guy. And there's only the two guys, and the only setting is the house, so it's very play-like.

And directed by Kenneth Branagh, so I was expecting something cool. Instead, famed playwright Harold Pinter and his DAZZLINGLY IDIOTIC, SELF-CONSCIOUS DIALOG ruined everything:

"Ruined everything you say?" "Yes, ruined every thing." "How did it ruin... every... thing?" "Why, through vapid repetition, I expect." "Through repetition then?" "I'd say so, yes." "Everything was repeated, you're telling us?" "That's what repetition means, dunit?" "And vapidly, too?" "Indeed!" "Yes, well I suppose you're right. This is pretty... repetitious." "What is?" "This dialog. Vapid, too." "Yes." "Hmm?" "Yes, that's what I've been saying all along." "Whuzzat?" "That it's repetitive by half." "...And ruined everything, you said." "Quite." "Yes." "Vapidly, too." "Indeed." "Yes." "That too." "Right then." "Cheers." "Cheers." "You fucking moron." "Whuzzat?" "Hmmmm?" [grumbles, shooting]

I mean, it was like the best SNL sketch you've ever seen, until they kept talking and talking and talking and TALKING, and your jaw dropped more and more and your eyes widened from the shock. FUCKING. AWFUL! :(

Proof That Not All Women Are Insane

TheWildhearts.com:

2/24: Ginger here ... demos for the new album are all complete ... great to be back in NYC ... had a blast in Finland recording at Seawolf studios...

The styles are very mixed up ... only one song exceeds the 3:30 mark... the album is very melodic and very riffy ... some very bizarre arrangements on this album, something I really wanted to happen.

(Some) song titles are 'Some Days Just Fucking Suck', 'You Took The Sunshine Out Of NYC', 'Vernix', 'Plastic Jesus' and 'You Are Proof That Not All Women Are Insane' ... expect the album around the end of August.

~

Hitting NY & NJ in two weeks:

13/03/09: Maxwells, Hoboken, NJ

14/03/09: Bowery Ballroom, NYC

HearJapan / Japan Nite US TOUR 2009 Free Tracks Sampler

Japan Nite US TOUR 2009 Sampler
Various Artists
February 19, 2009
J-rock
HearJapan Promo
¥000 | $0.00 | €0.00

Nathan's offering up some free Japan Nite tracks (registration required) over at HearJapan.

1. Metropolis "SAIHARA" / quaff
2. Day Walker / Dirty Old Men
3. Tokyo Sabaku de Jidanda / Asakusa Jinta
4. ALL MY LOVE FOR YOU / THE EMERALDS
5. SPARKLE / HONEY SAC
6. KOKIRIKOBUSHI (VIDEO MIX) / OMODAKA

All of them are predictably terrible in the magical Japanese way only Japanese bands are capable of, so get 'em while they're~ ripe~!

And in case you've forgotten, the tour start in three weeks...

• March 20 (Fri) Austin,TX @ Elysium
• March 21 (Sat) Austin,TX @ Elysium
• March 22 (Sun) NEW YORK @ Bowery Ballroom
• March 23 (Mon) Cambridge, MA @ T.T. The Bear's
• March 24 (Tue) CHICAGO @ Empty Bottle
• March 26 (Thu）DENVER @ Bluebird Theater
• March 27 (Fri) SEATTLE @ High Dive
• March 28 (Sat) SF @ The Independent
• March 29 (Sun) LA @ Knitting Factory

• March 16th (Sun) NEW YORK @ Knitting Factory
• March 17th (Mon) Cambridge, MA @ T.T. The Bear's
• March 18th (Tue) CHICAGO @ Empty Bottle
• March 19th (Wed) DENVER @ Hi-Dive
• March 20th (Thu) SEATTLE @ High Dive
• March 21st (Fri) SF @ Independent
• March 23rd (Sun) LA @ Knitting Factory

Prices (mostly $10~$12) and other info @ sxsw-asia.com(2009). I still intend to attend the NYC one, as penance apparently.

Wallander

Wallander is a BBC mini-series, set in Sweden, starring Kenneth Branagh as a melancholy Swedish detective.


Apparently it's based on a series of best-selling books that I've never heard of.


There’s three 90-minute standalone episodes (so maybe mini-series isn't the right word; it's more like three television movies) ...with more in a couple years maybe (after Branagh finishes directing the Iron Man-connected Thor.)


Each shot is like a painting; it’s a great looking, mature production, the kind of thing you might catch on PBS here in America...


I hesitate to lump it in with Poirrot and similarly dull Britishy shows, because this one, while not exactly speedy, seems to move at a decent not-snoozy, non-snooty clip. I mean, Branagh shoots at least one person per episode!

rating: :)

Did Last.fm Just Hand Over User Listening Data To the RIAA?

techcrunch: Did Last.fm Just Hand Over User Listening Data To the RIAA?
last.fm: No! No! No!

But I'm probably gonna pull the plug on my audioscrobbler anyway. I enjoy seeing how many times I listened to something, but since it doesn't count my Zune (or my former Creative mp3 player) plays, it's inaccurate, and it's nothing actually USEFUL, and nothing I couldn't have intuited myself:

1. さまざまなアーティスト
2. Dir en grey
3. The Wildhearts
4. Mechanical Poet
5. Megadeth
6. Crucified Barbara
7. Def Leppard
8. DéspairsRay
9. Pelican
10. Kagrra,
11. D
12. Danko Jones
13. ムック
14. RENTRER EN SOI

This Big Brotherly threat had occurred to me before, but I started to seriously consider dropping the service when Nathan (of hearjapan) wrote that post about Xodiack piracy, and looked at Last.fm data to support his argument.

It wouldn't be a big leap to expect the major record companies to do exactly the same thing.

And as Techcrunch just reminded us, Last.fm ~was~ bought by CBS a couple years ago...

So if the RIAA or JASRAC isn't looking at your data already, they will be by this time tomorrow! And I'm not comfy with that level of scrutiny. So...

Farewell, last.fm!

Despairs Redeemed!

thanks asari!

Now that is how you make an awesome PV.

Favorite part: the first shot of the two white rabbits(?!) which I thought were Karyu and Zero but now I'm not so sure.

There's also something cool about having them all Mad-Max'd up and blindfolded; it focuses your gaze on their body language, kinda.

But the real best part was the cut from the scribbling/ripping paper to the scribbling/picking hand of Karyu on his guitar, like the director was saying something about ...something. That had me nodding and smiling inside, like, "Whoa... deeeeeep!"

rating: :)

review: vidoll | "puzzle ring" (2009)

vidoll
puzzle ring
CRCP-10213/12
wint
2009.02.18
¥1260/¥1800

The usual con: the CD version has two tracks plus an extra b-side, "Gaga Syrup"; the dvd-version has two tracks and no "Gaga" but does have a PV.

"Gaga Syrup" could've been awesome had they decided to produce it, because it's got all kinds of crazy VKisms going on. But it sounds like a crotch smells; maybe they couldn't reclaim the magic when they tried to re-record it?

"Nausea" is heavy and well-produced, but mindlessly stuck in the fastfastfast trap that so many songs fall victim to. The chorus has some cool riffing, but it's hard to tell where the guitarists end and the Pro-Tools begins: the digitally flavored precision is un-rock'n'roll.


"Puzzle Ring" PV
And then there's "Puzzle Ring," another easily discarded whiff of breeze. The gnat-like guitars, the cotton-candy rhythms, all utterly done to death by a thousand bands before, provide much aid and comfort to the enemy we like to call BOREDOM.

rating: :\

Is Scandal the Real Deal or Just the Best Fake Sim Yet?

Scandal's "Sakura Goodbye" PV

I can't figure out if this is a real rock band composed of dedicated musicians, or a completely artificial, stage-managed business enterprise in the grand corporate J-pop tradition.

Because on the one hand, this video is uber-slick and they're all a little too cute to have the pent-up grrr that powers most rock bands; but on the other hand, they played Japan Nite last year and you can sorta smell The Ramones on their breath...

thx ryan!

Shirokumachan no HOTTO KEKI!!!

review: crucified barbara | "til death do us party" (2009)

crucified barbara

til death do us party
2009.02.11
GMR
€13.99

It's been a long wait -- nearly five years -- since Crucified Barbara released their debut album, In Distortion We Trust. YouTube wasn't even around when it out. Neither was Kate! Been a long wait.

Ida Evileye (b), Klara Force (g), Mia Coldheart (v/g) & Nicki Wicked (d) are CRUCIFIED BARBARA.

So this could have been a real fucking disappointment, but, praise Allah, Til Death Do Us Party is even BETTER than their awesome debut! Straight-up kick-ass hard rock all over your face!

The riffs and rhythms positively drip with sweat and beer. Each of the 11 songs possess a different vibe connected by precise, in-your-face production and songwriting that just barely clings to the railroad as it barrels down the tracks.


The "Sex Action" single is fairly representitive of the band's sound and style.
It's hard to recommend any one song or cite specific song parts because this is one of those rare albums where every cluster of muscle and every chunk of bone is healthy and strong. But check out the video to see if it's the type of hard rock you're into... and if it ain't, YOU SUCK! :p

God I hope they play New York.

rating: :)

iPhone Crysis

Netbooks could drive production of even crazily cheaper, lighter-weight computers. “If everything you’re doing is online, then the netbook becomes a screen with a radio chip. So why do you need a motherboard?” OLPC designer MaryLou Jepsen says. “Especially if you want the batteries to last. Why not just make it a screen and a really cheap $2 to $5 radio chip?”

The cloud is also probably going to get powerful in ways that now seem like fantasy. AMD is working on an experimental 3-D graphics server farm that would run high-end video games, squirting a stream out to portable devices so you could play even the most outrageously lush games without a fancy onboard processor.

Patrick Moorehead, AMD’s vice president of marketing, recalls that in 2007 gamers had to buy special powerful desktop machines loaded with RAM and $600 graphics cards to play Crysis: “Now imagine you’ve got servers running Crysis and streaming it to an iPhone or a netbook, sending just the vectors that let you navigate the game.” [wired.com]

This would be pretty cool, if NYC ever wires up the subways so I *could* play Crysis on an iPhone underground...

Well, not Crysis, because it sucked, but HL2, or BF2, or L4D, or other random letter/number combinations... :)

How My Love Affair with Girls Generation was Derailed Before It Really Had a Chance to Flourish

I watched this PV like a dozen times already -- it's a masterpiece of kinetic editing and vivid directing, and all those flat tummies and clear skin definitely catch the eye...

But my mind gradually categorized these girls (most are 19) as "daughters" rather than "fuckable hotties." Part of that is because Asian girls always seem to appear a few years younger than they actually are, which serves them well in their 30s and 40s but kinda makes you feel creepy when watching dance about in their early 20s. Another part is that they are making the faces of lovestruck 12-year-olds in this video, which I gather they find humiliating.


So although the song and video are still undeniably fun, and it's a pleasure to watch their coordination while they dance, a certain sense of urgency has evaporated from the proceedings.

New Nanase Aikawa Wallpapers (1680x1050)

1680x1050, Right click & Save As
(screencapped from the flash intro to her site)

review: nanase aikawa | "reborn" (2009)

Nanase Aikawa
Reborn
AVCD-32118/32119
avex trax
2009.02.18
¥3800 / ¥3000

She's back! And worse than ever, no surprise after last years beastly "Circle of Life" single...

None of the tracks on this CD are rock. They are dancey clubby stuff. And I'm no expert of the genre but even I can tell that the majority of these songs are ridiculously behind the times and pale imitations of the cool shit happening in that scene.


"Yume Miru" PV
As a lover of her first couple albums, which I played backwards and forwards for years, I greeted the news of a reworked version of "Yume Miru" with hostility. It's since grown on me, largely because it's almost totally new, with only the chorus and post-chorus remaining recognizable (and even then, the guitars are now keyboards, and the notes are strobe-like rather than held)... it's more like a sample or an homage than a redo. And although the picture in your mind will seem hopelessly sad, I can imagine really enjoying this in a deafening Tokyo club at three in the morning and drunk off my ass, except no club would play this, except for the ones that would let in ~anybody~ (like me). ;^_^

"Keep Singin'" could have been kind of rock-ish, but keyboards and effects overwhelm the buried guitar. A guitar solo is planted towards the end to convince us that Nanase is still rock, but I ain't buyin' it.

"I Love My Way," feels like Justice, except that Nanase's vocal melody and delivery are pedestrian, uninspired, phoned-in. The bridge has a nice build but again, dull vocals on top. The chorus, cookiecutter soaring. Zzzz.

One cool thing: the digital download "Prism" is on this CD. It's eh.

"Come Closer" is a nice piano-based ballad that harkens back to her earlier stuff. I like hearing her sing ballads in Japanese; reminds me of the wife singing Kate to sleep.

The title track is a mess of beats that don't match the vocals, and vocals that don't match the beats.

Halfway through the album, and still no real drums, or non-sampled-to-death guitars. Then "Goodbye Yesterday" makes a stab at being an actual rock track, but ain't. So distant in the mix, like they just bled in from the neighboring studio!

"Dark & Bright" is gallopy dancey. "Glorious Night" is happy dancey. Both remind me of Madonna in the 00's, clinging to relevency, wallowing in mediocrity.

And the album closes with another ballad, this one piano and strings, and it's okay, but again, a style heard millions of times before.

Ten tracks, 43 quick minutes, no rocking to speak of, epic fail, total drag.

.
"Prism" and "Sukidayo" PVs

For an extra $8, the DVD version includes the aforementionedly beastly "Circle of Life" audio track and a bunch of live songs you have from other live DVDs she's done. But also a live version of "Prism" that you don't have.

And... PVs! (Her label's site calls them "music clips" because their marketing department is apparently unaware that on the internet, "clip" means "30-second sample.") Of "Prism" and "Sukidayo." (Of course they're on YouTube, what kind of question is that?)

Reborn is clusterfuck of disappointment.

rating: :(

Pierrot's Top 3

My three favorite Pierrot tracks:


Creature was the first song I heard by them, and its breakneck pace still takes over my brain and makes me bob my head to the beat.


Dramatic Neo Anniversary is off their last really good album. The main melody is very sticky and like being in ~the future!~


Adolf (live) drips with VK cliche and awesomeness. Impossible to not swing your arm along with Kirito and the rest of the Budokan when this one comes on. (I only saw Pierrot once...)

The Unit 4x14

Eric L. Haney, one of the first Deltas, and who wrote the book Inside Delta Force that inspired the series The Unit, was in Sunday night's episode, which was otherwise mundane. But you can watch it like I did at cbs.com anyway? Rousing endorsement!

review: mucc | "sora to ito" (2009)

mucc
sora to ito
UPCI-9532
universal
2009.01.28
¥1500

"Sora to Ito" is such a dicktease!

There's a little taste of metal at 0:27-0:30 (in the video), but then the song transitions into the sort of track you'd expect to hear in a bubblegum commercial, all happy and major-key'dy.

Mucc's excellent "Sora to Ito" PV

It's not til the halfway point that we hear THE METAL again, and Tats starts yelling at the inky black balloons floating into his sightline ("For fuck's sake you're amateur!")...

Then there's a satisfying solo, then back to the happier choruses, til the same heavy riff shows us to the door, with track two waiting on the other side. Track two is "Kanaria."

"Kanaria" is jazzy swing-time crap.

The other b-side, "Kikanetsu," ("Vaporization Heat") is experimental like a 70's prog track, trying to balance uniqueness with accessibility. Overall it's light and fun and sturdily constructed so that the unusual parts don't send the whole structure collapsing in on itself. Pretty cool.

rating: :)

Cure Magazine - USA!

jrockrevolution:

"You can't see my baldness from this angle, right?"

"...the latest Visual-Kei rock bands as well as fashion and styling tips, just like the original CURE you know and love. Need a little more? We have an excerpt from their interview with YOSHIKI of X Japan in their very first issue!"

Errr, does anyone ~see~ an interview excerpt on that page?

"The music of "X JAPAN" has surpassed national borders, race, and time."

Well, X Japan's concert scheduling certainly does! Glacial Epoch Time for the win!

I can picture VK fans buying this to read and then tear up to hang pics on their bedroom walls, but I also envision the whole enterprise dying after three issues because there will be no advertising money coming in to pay a staff, which will lead to poor writing/editing/layout, which will lead to fewer sales because really, everyone owns a color printer and can just print any damn pic they want to hang on their walls already, right? I dunno, we'll see.

thx iori!

Peter Griffin vs Christian Bale

from last night's Family Guy...

review: mass of the fermenting dregs | "world is yours" (2009)

mass of the fermenting dregs
world is yours

XQEH-1004
wint
2009.01.21
¥1700

In how many ways can a band suck?

1. Record 22 minutes of songs and call it an album.
2. Call yourself a band when it's only two people.
   
3. Produce your drums so it sounds like you mic'ed the kit with a single $9 Radio Shack mic.
4. Play repetitive licks in a jangly manner.
5. Avoid shoes and style your hair to look like mops.
   

This CD is 10% decent songwriting and 90% crappy aesthetic choices designed to improve street cred and/or alleviate the stress of making decent music.

MotFD are Natsuko (v/b) and Chiemi (g).

There's definitely an audience for this kind of stuff, but it's generally composed of guys who unthinkingly accord too much respect to bands made up of vaguely do-able young female Asian "musicians" who dress like the Salvation Army exploded all over them.

Get this shit outta here, and get me the new Crucified Barbara album! [throws entire computer out the window]

rating: :(

review: abingdon boys school | "strength" (pv) (2009)

My favorite snippet is at 1:30, when they double Mr. T -- and it has teh feeling of something that happened accidentally, and the editor decided to keep it.

Mostly though, the video relies a little too much on the spin-around-the-band trick, and the director really failed during the chunky breakdown in the solo, where nothing happens!

It doesn't help that the song never seizes the day either, delivering a mostly tepid listening experience, with no grab-onto-'em riffs or melodies, and so much piano (both too high in the mix and too often used) that I'm reminded of the salt shaker at a Denny's that I went to after a concert once, which, rather than dusting my fries, decided to go all Niagara on them.

rating: :\

review: bsg 4x17

I hate John Hodgman so bad. I'm just glad they put him in the shittiest, talkiest, actionestless episode ever so I never have to fucking watch his disjointed, incongruous performance ever a-fucking-gain.

Obligation Chocolate

about.com:

Don't get too excited when you get chocolates from Japanese girls! They might be giri-choko (obligation chocolate).

In Japan, it is only the women who give presents (mainly chocolates) to men on Valentine's Day.

The chocolate companies in Japan sell more than half of their annual sales during the week before Valentine's Day. [more]

But since we're in America, I got the wife a gold, um, "pendant." Chocolates we buy for each other the day after, when they're half off. (If your relationship isn't strong enough to weather the cultural taboo, keep looking.) :P

My Interview with Hiroki (D) in the New "Askew"

I'm pretty pleased with my short interview with Hiroki from D in the new issue of Askew. (Favorite answer: "They took Hide-zou in for questioning.")

Thank you Laura for setting it up! Download the whole mag for free! (Or subscribe...!)

Japan's Self-Defense Forces forswear body armor in favor of T&A.

How long til we can get away with doing this in a mosque?

asahi.com:

A planned anti-piracy law will expand the Self-Defense Forces' authority to use
weapons to thwart pirates...

oh shit!

...and to protect foreign ships that do not carry Japanese nationals or cargo,
an outline of the bill showed.

ohhh thaaaat piracy [phew!]

Boy George LIVES! Thy Name is Elec!

This is the greatest minute of music video ever.

[Elec's post]

And:

How to deep link your Youtube embeds:

1. Grab the embed code from the youtube page as usual.
2. Add &start=90 to both links in the embed code, where "90" is the number of seconds deep you wanna go. (Note that a ~link~ still uses the #t=1m30s code at the end of the url; the ~embed~ requires the number of seconds.)

Jrock City

Hello, brand new, logically organized, and fast-loading replacement for Tonberry and Tainted!

jrock-city.com

What a Nice Night for an Evening

Doesn’t “A Threevening with Kevin Smith” sound like three nights of Kevin Smith? It’s actually just the third evening though – the first two having come out, like, in 2002 and 2006.

I saw the 2002 one and was impressed (the highlight: he goes to see Wild Wild West, and… giant mechanical spiders.”)

I don’t like the guy’s movies – Dogma was only okay, while the trailers for all his other stuff have been enough for me to know that I should just stay away – but he’s a talented enough storyteller, and in Threevening, he regales the Count Basie Theater crowd with some cool insider perspectives of the movie business, which make the talks at least as educational (“We didn’t get anything done today; it cost us $125,000.”) as they are entertaining.

You also get the feeling that he’s just a weeeee bit telling tales out of school, like these are the things Hollywood would prefer he not talk about so openly with non-Hollywoodites.

And mostly, he’s off the cuff – though you sense a few bits (“We should do a movie sometime.” [drops microphone] ) were rehearsed.

He also talks about anal fissures and jury duty and his two dogs and before you know it, the thing is over, and he’s only answered like three audience questions, and you wish that instead of a film coming out every three years, this thing was just a weekly half-hour podcast, HINT HINT.

rating: :)

Sleep, Data.

Is your PC waking up when it's not supposed to?

Go to start menu > command prompt, and type powercfg -devicequery wake_armed to see what devices have permission to wake Vista/Windows7 up.

(For me: my Logitech USB Mouseman Wheel+, my Standard PS/2 Keyboard, and my Attansic Ethernet Controller.)

Now type powercfg -lastwake to see which of those things most recently woke up your computer.

(For me: "USB Root Hub," implicating my USB Mouseman.)

Now we just need to deny permissions!

Go to Device Manager, right-click on the culprit, and do something like I did when I clicked: Mice and other pointing devices > Logitech USB Mouseman Wheel+ > Properties > Power Management > UNSELECT "Allow this device to wake the computer."

I also denied the Attansic network adapter, leaving my keyboard as the sole waker-upper. Boo-yah! Now you're thinking with portals!

review: lucy | "the disorderly world" (2008)

Lucy
The disorderly world
DAKDOLUC-2
Daiki Sound
2008/12/24
¥1260yen

The title track being one of those songs that sounds AWFUL the first time you hear it, but gradually reveals itself to you as being pretty fuckin' cool. It's got a thick spaciousness going on that you assume is being done badly but no, it's just a little off the beaten path, with an uncommon arrangement, and vaguely fascinating.

I hate the ape-woman's look.

"Tight Rope," the other song (and note the change in meaning with it being two words instead of just one) is your usual mature-ish VK ballad, but the bass/vibe makes me think of Lunacy-era Luna Sea, with a mellower Kyo (Deg) on vocals. That ain't too shabby. And this is only Lucy's second single.

rating: :)

nevermind...

I organize my photos by date:

2008 > 2008.12.25 Xmas > sany1783.jpg

It makes for very easy backups; I just drag the latest folders over to the backup hard drive.

I organize my music by artist:

pierrot> 1999 - finale > 02 - haruka.mp3

It makes for very difficult backups, requiring apps like SyncToy or ViceVersa to analyze and compare every. single. folder.

So I thought to myself, "why not re-organize my entire music collection by date?" It'll make easier to listen to new stuff, and much easier backups OH WAIT no it won't, because sometimes I get a CD from a non-current year like 2003 or 1996 or whatever so fuck, at least I figured it out before I went through the trouble of implementing the idea. Gah.