Optimus Prime & Megatron discuss the Palm Pre and the iPhone

grab artemis's "atrium" (2009)

Artemis on MySpace:

ARTEMIS
Visual / Rock / Other

Love and Peace!

BRONX, New York
United States

I haven't spun all of it yet, but the pieces I've heard definitely exude a Sugizo-like vibe, in all its many forms. And it's well-produced too, not demoey. :)

Look for "Here's the Atrium Album for download!"
[not directly linking to it here lest I mess up his stats]

I am embarassed to report that I had no idea.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (since when?!) and Obama

New Russians | Foreign Policy:

The krizis, more than any other turn of events, has had a devastating impact on the country's sense of self. The nationalistic, anti-American harrumphing of former President Vladimir Putin's reign has subsided, replaced by a deep skepticism and a fear that Russia is on the verge of a 1998-style disaster that will destroy the ruble and wipe out personal savings.


russian nightclub

Moscow's nightclubs reflect these fluctuations nicely. A decade ago, American men were in great demand. Sometime about five years ago, there was a palpable shift, and expatriates acquired a reputation for being leeches preying on the city's oversupply of beautiful women. Now, Americans are popular again, and where it was once considered imprudent to speak English, it is thought to be chic.

Wait, what happened to Putin!? Apparently I missed an entire national election. :(

Also, "Is next, eveningvare" is part of my cultural consciousness so if I ever use it on you you'll know what the hell I'm referencing:

Sony may boost output of Michael Jackson CDs

lol "may"...



China Post:

TOKYO -- Sony Corp., the owner of rights to Michael Jackson's music, said it may boost production of the late pop icon's CDs after receiving record orders today.

The company's music unit in Tokyo received orders for about 150,000 CDs related to the singer, according to Yoshikazu Takahashi, a spokesman for Sony Music Entertainment Japan Inc. “The amount is unprecedented for one day and we think we need to consider increasing the production of CDs that we plan to sell from July,” he said in a telephone interview.

Jackson's albums occupied all the Top 10 rankings for best- selling music at Amazon.com, Inc. as of 4 p.m. in Tokyo, according to the company's Web site.

I predict cashgrabby repackaginingness on a scale hitherto unimagined, even by Yoshiki!

Altho I think a week from now it'll be too late, everyone's just gonna grab mp3s, legally or otherwisely. (I recommend legally because that way amazon sends me some kickbacks and i can buy a nice kids book for Kate and a nice toy for Jack.)

Kate, Jack; Jack, Kate!

holding him for the first time...

and looking adorable with her new 'do :)

elecdead master!

I pumped my fist into the air upon Jimbo's big reveal!!

thx ryan!

The rest of the "film" (part 3 of 3 anyway, I didn't watch the others, because I still like myself) is the predictable bag of tired vampire tropes and awkward scripting, but the production seems lush enough.

That actor really earned his pay, but it's too bad they couldn't get Helen Thomas for the lead. ^_^

Okay time to attempt to return to some blogging

First some too-true-truth:

Then some good things and some bad things, mostly the latter:

(We were always gonna call Jackson "Jack", but now even moreso.)

Introducing...

Jackson Hiroki, arrr!!!
8lbs, 20 inches, he & mom are doing fine. ^_^m

We're here with Dir en grey and ehh yeah they're from Ja-pan

Best answer: "I'll need a lot of alcohol."


I appreciate that they were trying to blend the Japanese & English answers together to cut down on the running time/boredom factor, but next time maybe they should use a split screen or ANYTHING LESS JARRING.

On another note, I totally remember meeting that translator a few times at shows in Japan, and now she's a translator for 'em, that's pretty cool!

And Joe (from Def Leppard) said there was no soundcheck either. That's kinda scary.

Japan eyes bigger military as tension rises: report - Yahoo! News

The redhead's sleeve claims she's a Lieutenant! That's kinda hot.

Yahoo! News:

TOKYO (Reuters) – A draft of Japan's new mid-term defense policy guidelines is calling for the reinforcement of military personnel and equipment in the face of growing regional tensions... [saying] Japan needs to reverse its policy of reducing its defense budgets in light of North Korea's missile launches and nuclear tests, as well as China's rise to a major military power...

The draft also says there is a need to "secure options responsive to changing situations" of international security, indicating Tokyo's intention of considering if it should be capable of striking enemy bases, Kyodo said.

Japan's pacifist constitution has been interpreted as allowing a military only for self-defense and some experts say a pre-emptive strike doctrine would stretch that too far.

I was gonna try to make a Cheney-flavored "pre-emptive self-defense" joke, but can imagine too many scenarios where it'd be acceptable.

And I'm more concerned after posting the photo above about whether the SDF lets their officers dye their hair! Perhaps only natural colors? Perhaps it's never been a problem so there's no rule at all. Go purple FTW, Admiral Kaoru!

movie review roundup: gran torino, 1408, & push

Gran Torino (2008) is apparently Eastwood's biggest-grossing movie, but what a hamfisted piece of work. At times it felt like a wholesome family sitcom or afterschool special, but infused with buckets of racist language, except the racism never felt real or dangerous. Its attempts to dig deeper into analyses of stereotypes and race relations and family relationships and manhood all fall flat to varying degrees. Most of the acting is high-school-play-like. And the climax is a disappointment. :(


1408 (2009) is pretty rough in the [spoiler!] ha ha we're gonna use your dead daughter against you sort of way. Too easy; it's like the horror equivalent of fart jokes. I also found the main character's mental leap from "it's just a room" to "omg get me da hellz outta heya" to be a little overhyped -- a window slides down on his hand, and then the clock turns to a countdown, and then the front desk calls to let him know they're be a ten minute delay with the sandwich he didn't order and ZOMG YOU WIN, ROOM! But I have to admit that I was watching it one night before bed and decided to stop and continue it in the morning; there's some neat psychological thrills going on. But I was not dazzled -- more like "well that wasn't a total waste of time"-ish. :\


Push (2009) is weird because it sets recognizable Hollywood stars up in Hong Kong style flick, causing causing some mental fibrulations (I wonder if Flame-On Man did his own stunts?)... it's also highly watchable, very fun, and made sense in the world in which it lived as best as it could, which is a world in which telekinetics, telepaths, and shadowy government types fight over MacGuffins. It's different, and sorta makes you wonder if this is the future of movies -- that non-Hollywood output will start to take over more territory and eventually be on an equal footing with the old great studios. :)

An observation

Few activities are more satisfying and rewarding than taking a large, healthy dump followed by a hot, skin-eroding shower, is there?

review: "ghostbusters the video game" (pc) (2009)

You know the old Twilight Zone line "It's a cookbook!"?

With Ghostbusters: The Video Game, your overeager assistant might scream "The video game... it's a fishin' game!" And not an especially good one!

It is not a first-person-shooter, as you might have supposed. Running and dodging is clunky to the point of undoableness. Shooting is just holding the mouse button down and then pulling on the tugging ghost, first with one stream (which causes your pack to overheat, so you have to reload-ishly "vent" your pack), then with another stream, that doesn't require reloading.

It's totally a fishing game and it takes FOREVER to catch a fucking ghost. So you're just standing there, holding the mouse button down, reading a magazine if you're lucky (my new issue of Dwell just arrived...) and/or just checking your watch if you have no reading material and wondering, "is this it?"

And my god, the cutscenes, constantly interrupting the flow, why do we have to stop the game for you to say "let's go here"? Why can't we just fucking go there? Oh, right, you have to jam the once-great (when I was in elementary school!) Ackroyd & Ramis's unfunny dialog down my ears! Dialog either cribbed from the first film (and not funny because we've heard it 10x before already) or childish ("He's into the occult. You know, the supernatural.") or just dumb ("It's a class 7 free roaming vapor!" but there's no difference between a class 3 and a class 7, is there? So why classify them?)

I will confess that going to reclaim Slimer at the Sedgwick Hotel again *was* a good choice for a first mission, though.

But seriously, I have to pick you guys up when you fall down? REALLY? (They fall down A LOT. It's like an escort mission.)

Ghostbusters ~could've~ been like L4D...
(the game is nothing like this image)

What this game IS is a vanity project/cashgrab -- I can only assume that they wanted to make a third movie, but being too old and fat to run around anymore, they opted to use avatars of their 80's selves to do it. And charge $30-$60 for a ticket instead of $8.50.

This game should've been a lot better. (No wonder there's no PC demo out!)

Still, it's sorta pretty, and not completely worthless -- overall it's just a so-so experience. Maybe if you have summers off you might find some time to kill lazily on some too-hot day, but I'd sooner not play any game at all than play this disappointment.

rating: :\

I Suspect Toshi & Yoshiki

jbs.org:

Two men, alleged to be Japanese nationals, are traveling from Italy into Switzerland. Dressed like businessmen, they are carrying a briefcase. And in that briefcase is a secret compartment — containing $134.5 billion in U.S. securities.

...or Tetsuya Komuro and Kisaki. :)

New wave of 'history girls' wooed by warlords' masculinity

Girls, warlords never looked like this, ever, and they would probably just as soon rape you.

Mainichi Daily News:

Young women are flocking to significant landmarks from the Warring States period, and college girls are buying up samurai-themed products. Sales of historical books are up, and there have been efforts to revive the publication of paperbacks on warlords. Behind this craze is the surge in 'reki-jo' or 'history girls.' But why now?

On weekends, Jidai Shobo, a bookstore specializing in historical books in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward, is packed with groups of young women. Most of the shop's customers were men when it first opened in February 2006, but by last year, half were women, of which around 90 percent are in their 20s and 30s.

Stationery and mobile phone accessories with family crests of feudal lords line the shelves, with figurines of Sanada Yukimura, the most popular of the warlords, and others also for sale. 'I like Kato Kiyomasa,' says customer Izumi Sekine, 34, of a warlord who served the shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu. 'There's an almost picture-perfect masculinity about him.'"

I guess they graduate from under-25 stuff like anime and VK to this?

How long until our favorite VK bands are dressing like shogun? (Or have they already? I'm trying to remember that cool D pv... and wondering if Kagrra counts for anything?)

RIAA wins $1.92M judgement... asks for only $5000?

RIAA lead counsel questions defendant Jammie Thomas.

PC Magazine:

A jury ruled Thursday that Jammie Thomas-Rasset must pay fines totaling $1.92 million to the RIAA, as a penalty for violating the copyrights on 24 songs.

The fine works out to $80,000 per song.

"There's no way they're ever going to get that," said Thomas-Rasset, a 32-year-old mother of four from the central Minnesota city of Brainerd, told the AP. "I'm a mom, limited means, so I'm not going to worry about it now."

A spokeswoman for the RIAA said that Thomas-Rasset had been offered the chance to settle for between $3,000 to $5,000, the AP reported.

Wait, offered when? Two years ago when they sent her a letter? Right after the jury reached their verdict? Is that the total or per song?! This reporting blows nearly as much as the RIAA itself!

no multiplayer on pc/wii versions of Ghostbusters...

Maximum PC:

"Multiplayer for the PC version of Ghostbusters is something that Threewave and Terminal Reality always wanted to do. However, our focus was on making the console version the best that they could be," Threewave CEO Dan Irish said.

Ahhhh, that's why the Wii & PC version are only $30 while the Xbox & PS3 versions are $60...

I guess that's vaguely fair, even though SP is more like 10% of a game and MP is the other 90%... and lack of multiplayer is, like... it reduces the resistance one might feel towards pirating it, in a "well if I'm only gonna get 10 hours outta this instead of the 200+ I'd get if it was L4D mp or CoD mp or BF2 mp..." way.

But I guess you can't sell a $60 game for only $10... I dunno, there's not even a demo out so I can see how awesome/crappy the controls feel, or how it runs on my system that I upgraded in Fall '08 specifically for games like Ghostbusters... http://jrocknyc.blogspot.com/2008/08/four-reasons-i-upgraded-my-videocard.html :(

custom made special humongous guitars [noooo]

TED's musical guests are supposed to be god-awful, so what happened? Kaki King is fucking awesome. Kinda like a rockinger Andy McKee; lots of percussiveness to her sound.

I don't want that picture either, Versailles Philharmoic Quintuplets

thx cliff!

:( It's always a bad sign when the director's name is the same size, font, and color as the "directed by" above it.

:) I like that the girl reading the "They have existed..." part managed to match her words to the beat without sounding like she was trying to.

:) The live footage looks pretty damn good, though (if I must register a complaint... and I must, being me) the ratio of close-ups (on hands, faces, guitars, whatever) to medium & long shots seems skewed too much towards the latter. And I don't get the "I feel like I know them better now" vibe that I do from some live videos, the ones that reveal personality better. COuld just be the editing and shot selection, tho. But it still looks like they actually WORKED on this rather than just winged it, which is progress.

So I guess it's not ALWAYS a bad sign, just usually. ;^_^

young japanese men who shun sex, don't spend money, and like taking walks.

Slate Magazine:

Today, Igarashi has a new identity (and plenty of company among young Japanese men) as one of the soushoku danshi—literally translated, "grass-eating boys."

Named for their lack of interest in sex and their preference for quieter, less competitive lives, Japan's "herbivores" are provoking a national debate about how the country's economic stagnation since the early 1990s has altered men's behavior.

In this age of bromance and metrosexuals, why all the fuss? The short answer is that grass-eating men are alarming because they are the nexus between two of the biggest challenges facing Japanese society: the declining birth rate and anemic consumption.

My first thought was, "ugh, losers!" but upon reflection, buying less shit and avoiding chicks would probably double the average man's lifespan, so good on them. Also, I realized that *I* like long walks and not buying crap. ;^_^

review: "prototype" (pc) (2009)

First, imagine GTA4, but instead of driving around, you uberrun, uberjump, and glide, which is great fun for a little bit.

Then add a story that is told through cutscenes instead of gameplay (boo!), a confusing cacophony of soldiers, helicopters, tanks, and skinless giant dogs (how do they protect against infections without skin!?), and -- oh, make sure the enemies are boring to fight after the first couple engagements -- and then make each mission like every other mission (go to blue waypoint, destroy shit, repeat) and you've got Prototype.

Later on, discover that Manhattan isn't really Manhattan (yes there's Times Square and Central Park, and the Empire State Bldg and Times Tower, and a grid of Manhattany streets, but mostly it's Anyopolis), find out the tank driving mechanic is weak (there's no freelook so pointing your turret to look left makes your tank GO left), and that the tank hijack cutscene, while cool the first time, gets OOOOOLD real quick, and also don't forget that the fighting is just a bunch of button mashing combos... doubletaps that only register correctly half the time, seemingly random kicks and other attacks...

What sucks is that the groundwork is there, you can see how this could've been a game-of-the-decade sort of game...

So it gets a B for effort, but a C overall. Won't finish it. (Already uninstalled it, I just realized.)

rating: :\

Neither is "let's try it"

Vanity Fair:

Was there ever a moment where you thought, "I'm reasonably certain that I'm going to be mauled by a tiger?"
There was one scene where my character is supposed to be tossing a steak to the tiger, and Todd (Phillips, the director) says to me, "Try to hit him in the face. I think that'd be really funny." I'm like six feet away from this thing—it's curled up on the floor—and I'm like, "Okay, no, not gonna do that. I'm not going to provoke a goddamn tiger." He was like, "Aw come on, come on!" So I asked the trainer, "What'll happen if I try to throw this steak at the tiger's face?" And the trainer says (in a thick Australian accent), "I don't know, let's try it."

"I don't know" is not something you want to hear from a tiger's trainer.
Neither is "let's try it," by the way.

I probably won't ever see this movie, but not because of this interview. (I just can't recall the last time I laughed with -- as opposed to at -- a comedy.)

Miley Cyrus Follows Trent Reznor's Anti-Scalper Advice

The Big Money:

Many people now see anti-scalping rules as a vestige of quaint reliclike laws barring alcohol sales on Sunday. Several states—including, for two years, New York—have experimented with repealing their anti-scalping laws. If people want to pay a fortune for tickets to concerts and sporting events, why shouldn't we let them?

For the scalpers' business to work, they will often need to limit the supply of tickets—and tear up the extras instead of selling them at face value. Or in other cases, they create a perceived shortage of tickets by dribbling them out slowly at auctions with fans not knowing whether tickets are really available. The result of this is unhappy fans and empty seats. This has some potentially bad long-term consequences.

Crampton argues that one of the reasons that scalping persists might be because venue operators find shady ways to share in the profits at the expense of fans and performers. Crampton notes that Reznor gives one very good piece of evidence that there's something shady going on here: Ticket sellers could end scalping tomorrow by just printing names on the tickets.

That's actually more or less what Miley Cyrus is doing now by selling electronic tickets to her concert.

Higher prices for some tickets and electronic ticketing for most is a kind of two-pronged attack on scalping. In the long run, this may well mean a two-tier market of fans queuing for many seats while a few pick up premium tickets for a lot more money. That's not the golden age of cheap tickets for all that some imagine in a world without scalpers. But it's a fair compromise that balances filling the seats, keeping the fans happy, and letting the market determine how much tickets should cost.

I think a better solution would be to suspend the rights of anyone scalping tickets so that assaults, batteries, and murders upon them could go unprosecuted.

GOD I hate scalpers.

Who's The Boss? or One Way the US/EU Is Better than Japan

twilighthush.com:

There are very strict, unspoken rules of conduct of how artists deal with fans. And usually the rule of thumb is that they don’t deal with fans personally. There is a huge separation of “artist” and “fan” in the Japanese music industry, and that is a relationship they try very hard to maintain due to the nature of the business and the level of discretion that one must have within it. The more famous you are, the higher that level of discretion goes.

Too true.

I despise the bullshitty caste system japanese musicians wrap themselves in. Like, "Oooh, I have my poo surgically removed twice a day."

They're awfully prissy for people who still use hotmail accounts. :p

Ginger of The Wildhearts

Meanwhile, Western artists will generally, genuinely try to communicate with fans; after a concert out by the tour bus, they'll shake hands, sign CDs, stand and ~converse~ like human beings for a fair amount of time, unhurriedly. Even via email. Even via snail mail (I still have a mixtape -- a mixtape! -- Ginger sent me once, in return for a mixtape of Japanese rock & metal I had sent him in '97 or so.)!

[Requisite photo of Yoshinoya]

Not in Japan! In Japan it's all about separating yourself from the "riffraff," keeping isolated lest anyone find out you put your pants on one leg at a time. As if the Japanese musicans, labels execs, etc think ~they're~ the bosses in this situation.

But guess what? The boss is the guy who signs your checks. Last time I checked, we fans were the ones buying the CDs and concert tickets, the t-shirts and posters... so, you know, you might wanna change the "nature" of your bidness, Snooty Japanese Artistes! Treating people like, um, people, and not ATMs, would be a smart place to start.

Nobunaga's Underpants

Examiner.com:

Interest in the civil wars of the 15th and 16th centuries is always high in Japan and this latest underwear craze is capitalizing on this trend.

Spiderman apparently traveled throughout time & space.

A 25-year-old female shopper said she was thinking about buying a pair for her father. "They seem a bit showy but they’re cool," she said.

Kate, if you ever squander $125 on shit like this, i will disown you.

Teach a Kid to Argue

Figures of Speech:

Logos, ethos, and pathos appeal to the brain, gut, and heart of adult and kid alike. While our brain tries to sort the facts, our gut tells us whether we can trust the other person, and our heart makes us want to do something about it. They’re the essence of effective persuasion.

Admittedly, a toddler might find it difficult to apply logos, ethos, and pathos and read a playmate’s feelings strategically, but as with every other useful skill, you have to start young. Instead of “Use your words,” I would say, “See if you can talk him into it.”


When my children made an honest attempt to persuade me to let them watch television, for instance, I gave in whenever possible: The win felt doubly rewarding to them. They got to watch their show, and they enjoyed having earned it.

My kids grew so fond of debate, in fact, that they disputed the TV itself:

“Why should I eat candy that talks?”

“A doll that goes to the bathroom? I have a brother who does that.”

It was as if I’d given them advertising immunization shots.

[via reddit]

I think I'll start Kate on this program straight away...

So Long, And Thanks for All the Data!

Last.fm blog:

"After two years running Last.fm within CBS we feel the time is right to begin the process of handing over the reins. This is the latest stage in a long journey for us founders, which began in a living room in East London in 2002, and took us to the headquarters of one of the biggest media companies in the world."

I am curious to see if people bail now.

Bit disingenuous to claim that they'll "begin handing over the reins" when in reality they're DONE handing over the reins, as evidenced by the fact that yesterday was their last day, and that they've been working with CBS for what, six months, a year? But whatever.

Still dreaming of that standalone app that lets me track my listening habits WITHOUT the need to share it all with various entitieis/conglomerates, if anyone knows of such a thing. Someday someone will make an Excel plugin for Winamp! ^_^

So Cutely Owned!

I gotta say, I'm not big on Colbert's schtick -- I feel like it got old after a couple weeks -- but between that Washington Press Club Dinner he did a couple years ago and the tricky line he's walking over in Baghdad, I have to admit to a deep and growing admiration.

Gilg's new song/PV is the opposite of terrible

girugamesh's "ALIVE"


I dig the groove, and I like that they don't look all visual/suit'd up... they could easily cross over into the mainstream by dropping what little visual vestiges they've got.

Have they looked like this on tour for a while? Or did that GaROOGaMESH fiasco scare them away from us? :)

new Versailles song/PV *is* terrible

You can almost hear the pre-orders being canceled, can't you?

If that's the video everyone's spending $50 on, what a mistake to put it out there.

It's just another collision of unimpressive images, mashed together at speed, and a vapid power metally song that has nothing even remotely special going for it. You've hummed cooler melodies and drummed better beats while absentmindedly waiting for webpages to load!

And: I understand the whole "we wear Versailles-esque clothes and stand in Versilles-esque locations" vibe, but damn, every video is THE SAME VIDEO. I'm not even 100% certain they didn't just shoot a ton of footage one day about a year ago and have been using that footage for ALL their PVs ever since. Half of them could be dead and we wouldn't even know until the footage runs out in like 2012!

thx ryan!

new Plastic Tree Song/PV isn't terrible

I think the title is "Can You Believe I Paid a Hairdresser to Cut My Bangs Like This, and He's an Owl?" (I know, can you believe the Japanese language can cram all that information into one single kanji character?! Japanese is such a nifty language!)


Could do without the hyperventilicious vocal delivery during the last 30 seconds or so... and the warbly intro is annoying. But I can't say I "hate" it...

thx ezra!

Your daughter here the princess left for dead: / Let her awhile be secretly kept in, / And publish it that she is dead indeed;

L4D2 trailer

L4D2 rant!

I'd like to See L4D3 set in Tokyo.

Did I mention there's no way I'm buying L4D2 until they do a half-price weekend?

review: blackberry flip 8220

The Blackberry Flip 8220

Overall, I dig the phone; coming from a Windows Mobile 5 SDA, it's a definite improvement. I learned how to do everything I needed to quickly. But learning the shortcuts (which after four moths I still ain't done) requires sitting for a few minutes a few times a week to actually STUDY like there's gonna be a test.

~Le Bon~

• Flipness means never having to hold a keyboard lock button down for three seconds before putting it in your bag.
• Big buttons for big thumbs!
• Figured out the nav in a day, mastered it in a week (except the shortcuts)
• Does everything I need (wifi/web, alarm clock, media playback...)
• Has survived a couple 5-ft drops onto hard floors with no discernable effect.
  

~Le Mal~

• A lot of tasks feel like they take an extra couple button presses (haven't learned all the shortcuts yet)
• There are many shortcuts to learn
• PC Sync is slow and annoying!
• A tad slow for something from 2008
• Can't listen to audiobooks via bluetooth in-ear... (well, you can, and I have, but your battery will be dead in less than an hour.)
  
• Media playback isn't super-duper, just adequate. (I never know when it will continue to the next mp3 and when it won't; sometimes I'll hit play and nothing will happen; etc.)
• Video plays back in a supertiny window, and you can't turn it to play fullscreen/vertically?
• There's only a few fonts to use, and one of them is ugly/unreadable (and the default for .txt files >_<)

The one downside (and it's apparently true for all BBs) is that the sync is ridiculous, it scans ALL your contacts/calendars/lists fully EVERY TIME, instead of just quickly seeing the two or three new entries and transferring them like my WM5 phone did.

There's drag-n-drop for docs & media as well.

As a side note, I bought mine unlocked off Amazon for ~$350. I'm using it with T-Mobile's Pay-As-You-Go program.

When I'm walkin' about making quick "Need milk / where r u / eta 75min"-type calls/texts, I use the T-Mo network. But for more time-consuming crap (involving being placed on hold by various financial/gov't institutions) I generally make the calls over my wifi, which costs $20/mo but allows for free unlimited calling and also gives me great reception in my not-very-radio-wave-friendly prewar apartment building... which means I spend $30/mo rather than $60+/mo on calls. ^_^

rating: :)

Two Girls One Coffecup (Exist Trace interview)

Miko + Mally of Exist Trace

purple SKY:

Go: What’s your favorite ride?

Miko: (laughs) The coffee cup ride! I’m fine on it, but Mally gets really sick!

[more]

Teacups of Tokyo Disneyland

Coolest Man Ever.

Tank Man, Tiananmen Square, June 5, 1989.

ROCK ON, TANK MAN.

They're Literally 1000 Years Old :) / Maya Koizumi Is Not

Maya Koizumi did not write any of the haiku below, and is actually only adorable in this one photograph (google her!)...

"Be sure to lock up
before bed!" says the thief --
on his way to work.

~

The mother-in-law
takes revenge for her own time
as daughter-in-law.

~

"Dog shit ahead!" --
so the word gets passed on
back down the line.

Justice

Classic Rock:

Recently I heard a great story about the Steven Adler trial (Adler sued the band for wrongful dismissal).

The story went that the GN’R camp offered to settle out of court for a relatively small amount. The Adler camp at first accepted ­ but then Axl stepped in. Axl didn’t want to settle ­ he wanted his day in court, he wanted JUSTICE! (Read: he wanted to humiliate that motherfucker.)

Axl & Adler circa 1987

So the band went to court and while Adler allegedly didn’t have a very strong case, as the days worn on ­ and especially after Axl took the stand (see footage here) a strange thing started to happen: everyone realised that the court battle had turned, as they tend to, into a personality contest. And the cuddly, dumb-ass, shaggy-haired drummer bloke who’d been sacked was much more likeable than the horrible, arrogant millionaire rock star bloke in the pale blue suit wot had sacked him.

So before things got out of hand, the band settled out of court ­ for a considerable amount more than had been originally offered.

Sweet.

Adler's drumming was critical to GNR's success (Sorum's style was always too clinical for the band), and it's such a drag they lost him, and then Izzy, and then everyone else. If Axl hadn't been so repulsive, we fans would probably have five or six really killer albums instead of Appetite and then the disposable rest.

haiku disc reviews: detroit metal city, marty friedman, spinalcord (syu)

In an era when free samples are easily available, long CD reviews seem like a waste, so an artificial limit of 31 syllables (5-7-5 / 7-7 is technically tanka, not haiku, but... close enough) might work...

the spinalcord
spinalcord (2008)
finally Syu has
gotten it right mixing his
power metal roots
with a dash of melodeath
in convenient bite-size size.
:)

try: "Hysteria"

~


marty friedman
tokyo jukebox (2009)
a collection of
covers from japanese bands,
happy like marty,
"heavy but not," an eager
kabuki puppy romping.
:\
try: "Polyrythym"

~

DMC
detroit metal city (for the movie) (2008)
faking metalness
ain't as easy as it seems.
it's not just a matter of
speed heavy speed penis speed:
I dub thee EPIC FAIL.
:(
try: "Urami Harasade Okubekika"

Mr brain more busy than the labouring spider

I get out of the shower this morning at 7am and have to walk past Kate's computer in a towel so I can check the damn crazy weather for today and what should I spy on her screen but a guy in a noose with a black hood over his head and I'm like, "What ARE you watching?!"

The wife, from the kitchen, after a brief description of the scene from me, informs us: "That's Gackt." In the new Kimutaku series Mr. Brain.

Already Kate has surpassed my own coolness! When I was 4, I was watching the fuckin' Great Space Coaster for this lunacy:

Hulu from the Couch (PC & Mac)!

Hulu Desktop

I bought a wireless Kensington presentation mouse back when Circuit City was liquidatin', for use as a PC remote control, and it worked okay with the big button'd GUI in Windows Media Center, but not so well with the tiny GUI buttons in tiny wittle Huwu.

Hulu Desktop will rememdy that.

Now I just need something to watch beside old pre-downturn episodes of House Hunters... ;^_^

Get this muthafucka offa me!

I dislike Sacha Baron Cohen's style of ambush-comedy.

I also dislike Eminem's childish, obnoxious delinquency.

Q: What will happen when these two unstoppable shitbricks collide?!?!

A: I will replay the video 10 times and chuckle heartily like a Jabba Santa Claus at Eminem's plight. Because he definitely needed to be taken down a notch.

Japan Day 2009 @ Central Park

Kate is out to vanquish some dragons... (what video game cover art does this remind me of?)

We arrived around 11:30, along with a sea of others, on a beautiful day, there was a kabuki guy and then a ninja dancing on the stage, and long lines for food and other good stuff, and shorter lines for the less interesting stuff like Shogi and Go ("Introduction to Go, as well as promotion of cultural understanding and international friendship through the game of Go") and no line at all for the Tea Ceremony tent, which might have had something to do with its proximity to the latrines.


There were blank stamp books being passed out, and in extremely Japanese fashion, the deal was that if you went to each of the tents, you got a stamp, and so at the end of the day you'd have a full stamp book and ostensibly would have experienced all the stuff on hand, except you would also have spent 3x as much time in line.

So we just bounced around a little bit, eventually connected with the rest of the "Bay Ridge Japanese Moms" who had all brought their kids and husbands along, the kids played, the women talked, the men prayed for beer from heaven which never came.

K made some onigiri (homemade onigiri is way better than conbini onigiri, btw...) and we had some edamame and fruit to nosh while watching the day unfold around us.

The crowd was about 50% families trying to expose their kids to japanese culture, and the other 50% was evenly divided between couples, some pretty good cosplayers doing characters I did not recognize at all, creepy photographers, and dudes on the prowl.


The big highlight was the bon odori, which sent all the women and kids scrambling down the hill to join in. Twenty minutes later it was over, and an hour after that, right before the concert started, we decided to head home. 90 minutes and four trains later, we were home.

K+K had a great time, and since they had fun I was happy, despite my disdain of crowds and lines and the hot sun ;^_^



Kept my eyes open for, but did not spot, We Are Prototype or his girlfriend in the crowds, which was a bummer. :(