review: sai | "avantgarde" pv (2009)

thx anon!

I think it's cool that these guys are a real band living outside Japan, but have fully embraced the Japanese indie VK aesthetic (and less fully, the sound of VK guitars and vocals)... and it's a tough thing (as I'm sure we're all painfully aware!) for gaijin to break the "Only Japanese Can Pull This Look Off" rule.

I'd be curious to hear about the japanese VK scene reacts to them.

Song's okay, but not enough that I'd bother talking about it otherwise.

The unfortunate thing is that none of these guys seem to have any charm or pizzazz. They're just STANDING THERE and look as bored as I feel.

I guess they ain't done many videos , but I'd really like to see 'em screw up some courage and just go for it, yanno? Engage us, we want to be engaged! Even though we'll mock you for it later!

rating: :\

Twisted Princesses, or: How I Got Sued Into Oblivion By Disney Corporation

If you despise the infernal, inescapable and amazingly anglo-centric-for-the-21st-centuriness of Disney Princesses, you'll love Jeftoons!

Twisted Princess: Cinderella

Twisted Princess: Jasmine

Twisted Princess: Belle

Twisted Princess: Ariel

Twisted Princess: Snow White

jeftoon01.deviantart.com/gallery
via reddit

review: "quantum of solace" (2009)

The intro car chase is shot & edited in a wonderful comprehensible-yet-whiplash fashion, very Bourney-o, and the footchase & fight that follows shortly thereafter was also brilliantly executed.



Then it gets really boring for an hour, and weaksauce villains and uninteresting (but true!) plots emerge. I felt no peril, partially because I am not one of those South American Indians who wear bowler hats. The CIA dudes seemed spot-on, tho (not that I would know). The opera house battle with the slow-mo galoreness and operatic music on top stopped being cool a while ago.



Then there's one last big fight scene involving the Least Desirable Hotel Location in the World Hotel that is sad and underpowered because the villians suck so bad that they practically kill themselves (one stands in an explosion, another forgets that glass is sharp, a third cuts open his foot with an ax!)... then we see a touching yet out of place coda at the end that allows 007 to re-enter the fold.

And fade to black and you're left wondering: When is this movie gonna start?

rating: :\

Save Money with $100 Bills

TIME:

According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, shoppers are less likely to spend their dough if they are carrying cash in large denominations. This so-called 'denomination effect' can be a powerful predictor of consumer spending habits.

"People tend to overvalue bigger bills," says Joydeep Srivastava, a marketing professor at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business and a co-author of the study. "There's a psychological cost associated with spending a $100 bill that's not there with spending smaller bills."

If only I had had a Benjamin instead of those damn Jacksons in my pocket when I poked my head in that used Wii game store the other day!!! [shakes fist at the gods]

reviews: red steel (2006) & okami (2008)

You know what would make Red Steel a better game? A fucking miracle.

Imagine holding a gun in your hand. Now imagine that this gun controls you instead of the other way around; the gun walks you like a dog, it pulls on your nose to make you look up and down and left and right, and to zoom in on a target, what do you do? Why, you shove the gun forward like you're offering the enemy a plate of "horselaughs"*!

*(I meant hors d'oeuvres but my Firefox spellchecker preferred "horselaughs" and so do I.)

The controls are abysmal. I don't care if it was the first FPS on the Wii, five minutes of play time should have highlighted how bad the controls were to even the most aesthetically-challenged of game engineers.

The plot and characterization are likewise executed with all the eloquence of a man-eating elephant's BM.

rating: :(

The good news is that I had already read about Red Steel's sucking, so when I bought it for cheaps at a local store one day, I also knew to get: Okami .

Now THIS is a nice game. Beautiful to look at, sufficiently intuitive movements... the brush was a little tricky at first, but Kate likes to just romp around barking cutely and smashing clay pots with her head (in the game, not real life), and I'm having fun with it too. Stuck on the first level already, though (everyone's turned to stone, and thinking about Jizo statues, which I assume we have to find and smash but where the hell are they?!)

EDIT: after some more playing, I'm beginning to realize that the chattering little thing on my back is not gonna shut up after the tutorial-ish beginning is done. There is WAY TOO MUCH TALKING/READING going on in this game, I am bored to tears by it and unlikely to bother finishing. The script is like something an eight year old would write, and I CANNOT TAKE IT ANYMORE.

We also got Wii Fit set up this morning, and I'm trying to figure out how to plug my progress into the blog here -- it will be funny in a painfully embarassing way -- but am failing so far.

And Kate is already shooting par in Wii Golf. :)

revised rating: :\

Te no...

New dog tags :)

This Is Who You Should Like

The Jrock Choice Awards 2008 [checks watch]:

Best Album
MUCC - Shion

Best Breakthrough Artist
Deluhi

Best Mini-Album
9Goats Black Out - Devils in Bedside

and so on...

thx anon!

I've always found it helpful to be told what to like.

Especially by anonymous strangers, and super especially when their questionable tastes are filtered by businesspeople with a vested interest in certain properties making the list!

If you're an individual, with a blog, and you want to tell me who/what you liked best, that's fine.

But stuff like this, and the Webbys, following in the goosesteps of the Oscars and Emmys, defy the core principles of the free, open web and injects the unpalatable tang of organized cronyism and elitism into a genre which has up to now successfully shunned such crap.

VK & the heavy J-rock is not about awards, it's about being an OUTSIDER, rejected by the establishment, gawdammit!

Just one of the ginormic asseries that make the VK scene so unpalatable sometimes

May I ask: what kind of idiot organizes music files by FORMAT?

Date-first (by YEAR, not DAY as above!) would be fine, band-first would be fine, even title first I could understand if not personally agree with. But by FORMAT?!

It's like going into a bookstore and instead of subject sections, they organize the books by fucking square inches. "Hi, I'm looking for a book that's 5.25x8.0 inches, please?" / "Your homework this week is to read a book that is 3.5x5.5 inches and write a report!"

Cat Shit One

thx prototype!

I didn't know what to think until the one dude threw down his jammed machine gun and whipped out the pistol.

Then I thought, "MOAR PLEEZE."

And also: "This is like Wonder Pets."

Rin Togaroo Shiguremeshu

Voters overwhelming favor the Hepburnized "Rin Toshite Shigure" over the band's own chewing-on-tinfoil-esque rendering, "Ling Tosite Sigure"... [see poll at right]


But the count was a virtual tie between "Gilgamesh" and "Girugameshu"!

What is your explanation, j-rock community?

Manicures by Kate

Protip: use purple Crayola markers for the most glamourous results.

Miyavi Got Married Today...

Fuck you, marry me!

Sponichi:

ロックミュージシャンの雅―ｍｉｙａｖｉ―（年齢非公表）と元歌手のｍｅｌｏｄｙ．（２７）が結婚したことが２６日、明らかになった。ｍｅｌｏｄｙ．は妊娠している。このほど友人ら親しい関係者だけで結婚パーティーが開かれた。雅は来月５日に東京・日比谷野外音楽堂でのライブでファンに直接報告するとみられる。ｍｅｌｏｄｙ．は１月に歌手活動を引退し、ファッションデザイナーに転身した。

thx 789!

I will never understand why a 30-ish rock star would ever get married. Date, live together, sure, but why tie the knot?!

Oh, nevermind... the blurb says she's preggers! The pitter-patter of little meevers underfoot soon!

As for baby names, I recommend... hmmm.... Qoo.

I thought lingerie was supposed to ~cause~ arousal

Complex:

At the Japanese final of the Triumph Inspiration Awards, students of Tokyo’s Bunka Fashion College outfitted a crew of models in the country’s most innovative undergarment designs.

The cast of the Japanese version
of Lost assembles in Tokyo on March 9.

The winner, Midori Matsuo (whose design is seen on the third model from the right), will be going to Beijing on July 31 for the international final, where her skimpies will go head to head with entries from 29 other countries.

Whatever happened to good old-fashioned rope?

How to Make Children Swim Faster

CNN: (Oct. 1998)

...Davies says he lets his swimmers dive into the pool first. Then, he tosses in the crocodile.

One young girl described the experience as "absolutely terrifying."

Davies says he checks the croc's swimming speed first, and makes sure the swimmer has enough of a head start that the crocodile can't really catch up.

"I don't know why the urine content of my pool has risen so dramatically," Davies said.

review: gazette | "distress and coma" (2009)

gazette
distress and coma

KICM-1274 | -91274
King/PSC/CLJ
2009.03.25
¥1200 | ¥1785

Three tracks on the CD-only "auditory impression," only two on the CD+DVD "optical impression"... even four or five years after this sales model became popular, it still infuriates.

The title track holds grandeur in its extended hands, and the main riff (most easily heard under the limp solo @ 3:05-3:25, but also in the clip above @0:25,0 :34, etc) has an awesome two-second bit @ 3:07-3:09 that escalates the whole song into awesomeness, and will send fans reaching for their guitars to learn it and play along. It's one of those fun to play riffs that you can repeat for an hour while watching all the TV shows that now pale in comparison to BSG so badly that you might just stop watching television altogether.

I'm remembering Helena Bonham Carter at the end of Branagh's Frankenstein...

"Headache Man" -- have I heard this song before? where?! -- is heavy and singalongy-chorusy in a 90s Marilyn Mansony style. Which I guess am good...

"Without a Trace" (not available on the CD+DVD version) starts and returns to a sweet acoustic guitar & orchestra strings section, segueing into slow & hard balladry; it's alright but hiding it as a b-side on a single sorta emphasizes how even the band knows it doesn't quite hit all its marks -- it's not as powerful or emotional as it needs to be. (I blame the too-loud, too-thick, undynamic production).

Gazette are still: Yuki (v), Aoi (g), Reita (b), Kai (d) & Uruha (g).

In the end, I'm still not much of a Gazette fan; I used to admire slickness and polish, but now I prefer things more raw and natural, which is not how they operate... so don't be sad if I give it a...

rating: :\

Change Yer Win7 Logon UI

Within Windows explains how here.

Boom! Double-up! Boom! Boom!

Yahoo News:

Tsutomu Yamaguchi (93) was in Hiroshima on a business trip on Aug. 6, 1945, when a U.S. B-29 dropped an atomic bomb on the city. He suffered serious burns to his upper body and spent the night in the city.

He then returned to his hometown of Nagasaki just in time for the second attack, city officials said.

And still he lives! "In my day, we had to WALK to school uphill both ways through radioactive ASH! And be home in time for business trips."

reviews: D, Uverworld, & Matenrou Opera

D | genetic world (2009)
Mostly, I feel like I've heard all of these songs before. The exceptions to this disappointingly predictable rule are the thundering slow grooves of "Colosseo", the unarabesque thick grooves of "Arabesque", the thrashy, throat-ripping "Meteo", and the L'Arc'y slow-rockin' ballad that closes the disc, "Rakuen."

As okay as those tracks are, none of these songs re-ignite any desire to mitigate my waning interest in Asagi & friends... The production does seem wider and a little more resilient than past discs, however, which keeps 'em feeling fresher than they might have otherwise.

And WHAT THE FUCK is with that cover art? Has Toshi w/ T-Earth taken over the art department over at Avex? "Needs more tundra!" :\

~

uverworld | awakeve (2009)
i only bothered to check them out because they employed Elec in a PV. ANd they're cool! They're like "Dogfight"-era Move combined with High & Mighty Color; hard rock guitars and danceable (yet human!) drumbeats, catchy as hell, some digitalia sprinkled about low in the mix for spice... but first and foremost a rock band, surrounded by skilled producers and engineers.

The poppier "99/100 damashi no tetsu" is probably the best track, but "Harujion" (makes me think of Takeshita Dori but populated by post-apoc battle-dinos) wins for best riff (the intro/outro one). :)

~

matenrou opera | acedia (2009)
the first and last track are cool but forgettable poppy metal, still reminiscent of classic Raphael; the middle track on this single, "Faust", though, oh man, what a groove. Chunky and purposeful, with an Exist-Trace-like vocal and overall vibe. :)

As flies to wanton boys is Wii to the gods

Just bought a Wii, and Wii Fit! Mostly because K's getting more and more pregnant and stuck at home, but also 'cos Kate doesn't play outside every day and I feel bad about that.

(Also, it finally became available at normal channels like Newegg & Amazon without having to wait six weeks and/or pay $100 extra for "shipping & handling".)


Of course, I need component cables to hook it up, so we haven't actually ~played~ the goddamn thing yet... just ordered some last night after a trip to Chinatown and a call to Kimax, the local video game shop (how does that place stay in business?!) yielded nothing.

I'm thinking of getting another pair wiimote/nunchuk for two-player-rific-ness, and maybe a lightgun?

Okami

And when Sports & Fit wears off, I might order Twilight Princess and Okami. But probably nothing Mario-based (I hate that guy!)

What a 4-year-old would dig?

Can a US Wii play Japanese titles?

(What if I modchipped it?)

My college. My mission. To decipher email.

(This is a Test ) Strange Order at [New York Structural Biology Center]. Leave the building. Updates? E-mail, Web home page, 315-268-2020.

show details 2:22 PM (19 hours ago)

Private Targeted Notification
Safety - Hazardous Material

THIS IS AN ACTUAL EVENT

Issued By: CUNY - The City College
Affected Jurisdictions: New York County

Headline: (This is a Test ) Strange Order at [New York Structural Biology Center]. Leave the building. Updates? E-mail, Web home page, 315-268-2020.

Alerts ("/News/AllHazardNewsList.aspx?newsType=ALERT" target="_self") There has been a report of [STRANGE ODOR] on campus at ( New York Structural Biology Center]. Emergency personnel have been notified and are responding to campus. Please evacuate the area if possible. Public Safety has provide an inner/outer perimeter please avoid this area so emergency vehicles can respond. Remember this is only a test of the system no actual emergency exist. This again is only a test of this system

If you are in immediate danger, need assistance in evacuation, or need to report an incident, please call Campus Safety & Security at 315-268-6666. This is only a TEST please don't PANIC you may Call CCNY Public Safety dept 212-650 -6911 to confirm TEST.

Audio Recording URL: http://www.nyalert.gov/getFile.aspx?subPortal=ALLHAZARD&ID=2827&isTemp=0

THIS IS AN ACTUAL EVENT

I feel so much safer and more confident in my university's ability to respond to emergencies and to communicate simple concepts in a coherent manner.

That

was

GREAT.

review: scandal | "doll" pv (2009)

Scandal's "Doll" PV

What I dig about this video is that they're not trying to be cute, they just are. By acting more or less like a normal band, their natural cuteness is emphasized, and instead of being pawns they become empowered brokers of their image.

The white-background shots with the mics aimed at cross purposes is also pretty cool.

I'm gonna go watch teh BSG finale now.

rating: :)

book review roundup

I love John le Carre, but A Most Wanted Man was like fucking a chick you don't know or care about to a dispiriting, unfulfilling climax. It coulda been so good, but....

Every character save for maybe the good-guy spy's secretary was an oversimplified husk of stock photocopyography, so I didn't care what they said, what they did, or what happened to them. And like I said, the predictable ending sucked. :(

Wastelands was a collection of post-apocolyptic fiction that had only one or two barely interesting short stories in it. I am an extremely picky reader, so I'm not not recommending this, I'm just warning off any future me's that might encounter it to save it for a really, really rainy day when you're stuck in a hospital room chained to a tank of oxygen and possessing bones so brittle and a mind so calcified that you wouldn't notice how uneventful these apocolypti were. :\

Eric Haney's Inside Delta Force was really fun, going into detail about the formation of the 1st SFOD-D, the selection process, the personalities inside... it also makes watching The Unit (the series inspired by this book) more interesting, as you'll be able to see hidden nuggets that the average viewer can't. I actually bought this book (in paperback for only $7) just to have it around. (All these books are library books. Only the choicest one gets boughted1!1!!) :)

Memories of a Survivor had some nice prose but after a dozen pages of nothing happening, I quit. :\

Dhalgren I can't remember a thing about, except that I started to skip around fairly quickly, and finally just stopped. It's one of those "landmarks of the genre" that aesthetically challenged sci-fi nuts praise, so you know it's a chore. :(

And finally, The City's End by Max Page is a waste of fuckin' paper. It's about the many (fictional) demises of New York in book and film throughout the last century or two, and while the earlier tidbits are almost barely vaguely interesting, most of it is just pictures of movie posters and clipped plot summaries and shit you could get off Wikipedia or even Amazon.com. I can't imagine working so hard to make a book that serves no purpose at all -- it's the analog/text equivent of those "link lists" that were popular on teh web before Google came along. :(

Yo!

Kate digs teh Yo Gabba Gabba!

Six Pack o' Reviewage

Rin Toshite Shigure
(discography)

I shouldn't like them, because they are noisy, unproduced alt-punk incarnate, but I do. There's a certain energy at work, and some effective dynamics and memorable melodies shining through all the crap. And it's... honest. Not lies and pretension, like so much other music. (but if you ask me in public about them, i will vehemently deny having ever typed this.) :)

12012
Mar Maroon (2009)

There's parts I dig the (verse riff in "System Down", the solo section and chorus in "As", what they do with the guitar tone on "Merry Go Round") but nothing here is breathing new life into the band. :\

Sadie
Master of Romance (2009)

Devastatingly heavy at times, and more of a bluesy rock at others, and then a bunch of ballady parts too, all written and recorded thgouh a VK filter, with nice wide, clean production. I like the riffs in "Shingai". Singerboy gets a little to Kyoey, and some songs don't blast off, but it's a good disc. :)

Kei
Silk Tree (2009)
More or less, he sounds like the Beatles with 21st century production methods. Six tracks I could dig, ten is a little too long, but that's just me. :\

Clash
Rock of Ages (2008)

Mellow-to-hard traditional rock Thai band with a mild post-rock tang that I only grabbed because of the name. :\

Billy
Bright (2008)
It took me four months to spend any time on this, and that was only so I could get rid of it without feeling guilty. Standard mid-tier VeeKness. :(

unBSG

bigpicture:

The show will be represented at the UN by stars Mary McDonnell and Edward James Olmos, and producers Ronald D. Moore and David Eick.

The panel will also consist of Radhika Coomaraswamy, special representative to the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict; Robert Orr, assistant secretary-general for policy planning, executive office of the Secretary-General; and Craig Mokhiber, deputy director of the New York office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

...the panel will not be open to the general publick. However, Sci Fi Network says that it will be recorded and a complete transcript will be available online "when the content becomes available."

It happened yesterday, so hopefully it'll be online in short order.

Coomaraswamy: "Thank you for your rambling and useless insights into robot uprisings, but we have to get back to some real work now, we have many long, angry follow-up letters to write to dictators who ignored our first three long, angry letters."

Moore: "You should have them delivered by sexy blonde and azn robotz!"

The One with Four Arms!

lawl

Strawifying!

Definitely check out Jimi's newest live report about his big gig in Shimokita with Chemical Pictures!