'Boarding,' call you it? I'll be sure to keep him above deck.

"In humbler dwellings, matters were generally about as simple as they could be. The dining table was a plain board called by that name. It was hung on the wall when not in use, and was perched on the diners’ knees when food was served. Over time, ‘board’ came to signify not just the dining surface but the meal itself, which is where the ‘board’ comes from in ‘room and board’. It also explains why lodgers are called ‘boarders’ and why an honest person -- someone who keeps his hands visible at all times -- is said to be above board."

Only two chapters in, but mostly digging it. Having the complex history and evolution of such basic things explained is wonderfully illuminating -- you'll never look at the world, and your home, quite the same way again.

If you happen upon the book it, at least check out the introductory page about the church graveyard. Fuckin' A.

~

2.06

Spike Japan:

Once you start searching for the atomized society, you can find it everywhere: in the remodeling last month of my local branch of cheap-eats chain Yayoiken, in which all but a couple of the tables for four were ripped out and replaced by tables for two or counters for solitary diners; in the fresh-off-the-press 2010 census, which reveals that the average Tokyo household size is now just 2.06 people and poised to fall below 2 by 2015, as low as anywhere in the world, and which helps explain the rash of micro-condos for singletons that have been hastily erected in my neck of the Tokyo woods in the last decade; and in the alarming collapse of domestic shokubunka food culture.



One 33-year-old mother boasted, “I’ve got a Seven-11, a Lawson, a Family Mart and a Ministop convenience store near the house, so I can really vary where I buy my meals and not get tired of them!”



Perhaps this is how the world ends, with people grown too isolated from each other to even meet and procreate.

There's no music news to blog about!

~

L O S T Japan

“We knew help would come eventually,” said Osamu Abe, 43, one of the leaders who emerged to organize the 270 survivors. “Until then, we had to rely on each other to survive.”

Severed From the World, Villagers Survive on Tight Bonds and To-Do Lists
By MARTIN FACKLER

HADENYA, Japan — The colossal wave that swept away this tiny fishing hamlet also washed out nearby bridges, phone lines and cellphone service, leaving survivors shivering and dazed and completely cut off at a hilltop community center.

With no time to mourn for their missing loved ones, they were immediately thrust into the struggle to stay alive in the frigid winter cold, amid a hushed, apocalyptic landscape of wrecked homes, crushed vehicles and stranded boats. They had scant food and fuel and no news from the outside world — not even the scope of the devastation.

On Wednesday, after the Japanese military finally reached them for the first time since the tsunami struck 12 days ago...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/24/world/asia/24isolated.html

There's even Others: "Although they were cut off from the rest of Japan, they made contact with five other nearby refugee centers, with another 700 survivors."

reviews: children of bodom & straight line stitch (2011)

Children of Bodom Relentless Reckless Forever 2011

Straight Line Stitch The Fight of Our Lives 2011

Both these albums fucking rip! Just try the first track on each.

With CoB it's a reinvigoration of their classic sound plus one; their last two albums I essentially ignored (they felt old, cliched, by-the-numbers) but not this new one!

With SLS it's just more of the awesome they started with their first album (and the EP prior to that): heavy, grooving, part snarl, part croon-and-swoon that only girl metal singers can pull off, and less predictable/repetitive than most of their classmates... Though I have a sense that the tracks in the latter half of the album are a bit weaker this time around.

rating :) + :)

a tribute to doing it wrong

~

Oh shit: it's the world's first real-time tactical action shooter for the iPod Touch...

It doesn't look that impressive, but it does represent the potential to shift from PC gaming ($59 games, at home only, requiring honking desktop setups) to iPod Touch games ($6.99 games I can play when I take lunch, that fit in my pocket)


BUT: watching video this makes my thumb joints hurt. And it seems like I'm spending more time telling teammates to shoot guys than actually shooting myself.

And the iPod FPS demos I ~have~ played... well... I ain't ever even considered buying a' one of 'em. (Even that... CoD Zambies one?)

Maybe when it's on sale...

From Luna Sea for Japan - 東北関東大震災「新曲配信募金」

Luna Sea Facebook:

"New Song Download Fundraiser" for Earthquake Relief

As we hope to contribute to a fast recovery and revival of the damaged areas, we have decided to make a brand new song in 10 years available for download in which all of the proceeds will be donated to earthquake relief.

After a thorough contemplation, all the members agreed that we shall generate support through music because music is the reason of our presence and our lifetime mission.

We are preparing the new song now and trying our best to bring it to you as soon as we can. We will update the details as soon as they are available on our official website. We ask of your patience until the new song is ready.

thx bobert!

If you don't buy this song -- if you download it illegally -- you suck!

~

interview: Hizumi on Quitting Despairs Ray

notafanboy.lj.com:

Q: When you could not sing the way you wanted to, did it ever cross your mind to quit it altogether?

Hizumi: It did. I thought about it many times for the past two years. I felt very conflicted, for example, during the recording, about the difference between the best quality of the singing I wanted to achieve and what I could actually do. Where do I compromise? It is about my pride as a singer. However, you know in the end I thought it was going to get better somehow. No matter how bad my condition got before, I had always managed to recover so I thought it was going to be just a temporary thing. But still it became something that lasted for years so I was probably wrong there.


Q: When the thought of quitting the band crossed your mind, what kind of a different life did you think about?

Hizumi: A different life?... The moment I start thinking about it, I am going to end up doubting: “What can I do?” and that’s when it ends. The thing is I have never done anything but sung in a band. What else can I do? That’s why when I think about it, it is something like: “Will I play guitar?” or “If I just shout instead of singing then I should be fine” (laughs). Well, I have never seriously thought about it. Instead of thinking about looking for another job, I have thought a lot more often if it was possible that I would always have to deal with this condition. For example, if it is going to happen that way then even if we have to change the style of our music I still want to sing.

-- ROCK AND READ vol. 034

thx reitsu!

~

review: homefront (pc) (2011)

homefront

THQ
2011

A couple hours in and every mission is:

• follow-the-NPC crapness
  
• feels identical (shoot the pop-up bad guys... ohh but now it's daytime! ooh now it's night! ooh now they're behind cars! ooh now the'yre behind fuel barrels!) There's ZERO A.I. -- its all predictable and robotic.
  
• I'm constantly thinking "Don't die, or you'll have to sit through that awful scripted set-piece intro again!" Because anytime you die, you have to sit through the NPC's idiotic dialog. (This was written by the Red Dawn guy? No wonder he hasnt done anything else since the mid 80s...)
  
• You're forced to wait for NPCs to catch up, your gun and ability to move is stripped away routinely, multiple times per level, even in the MIDDLE OF GUN BATTLES
• There's an escort mission to protect AN INANIMATE OBJECT!
• Said inanimate object is some sort of amazing battle machine, comedically nonsensical for any suburban rebel force to have the capacity to equip or maintain.
  
• I hate that the crouch/duck button is NOT toggle-able. Slows the action almost as much as the shitty scripted events do.
• A lot of this feels like a half-assed Half-Life 2: the defeated populace, the town battles, sneaking then attacking (tho unlike HL2, never under your own horsepower, always following the dipshit NPCs), the countryside skirmishes... EXCEPT it's done with 1/10th of HL2's style and panache. Nay, 1/100th! Fucking SHITTY this game is.
  
• It's more like watching an interactive movie -- a lame one -- which occasionally lets you participate in it. I am literally typing this while the game continues to run its course without me.

I ignored this clue to the game's lameness. You could just say "Home is Where the War Is" and most people would know you were riffing the "Heart Is" line of yore. But THQ assumed you WOULDNT be able to make that easy leap, and so they wrote the original line, then crossed out "heart", and with that hand-holding mindset, why would you expect a game with a character YOU could actually CONTROL on your own?! It's OBVIOUS, in hindsight!

$50 down the drain.

That's $130 I've wasted on shit I hated recently -- COD:BO, BFBC2:Vietnam, and now this.

Not buyin' nuthin anymore, not til BF3.

review: luna sea | "luna sea" (2011)

luna sea
luna sea
2011

I have positive associations with/to many of these songs ("Moon", "Precious", "Fate"...). And like a lot of Beatles songs, I can understand the appreciation and admiration these early Luna tracks have earned.

But I don't like any of them. (Maybe "Moon" is okay.)

Listening to this CD was a chore! (I know, I know! But it is what it is.)

So I don't enjoy the songwriting, but what about the performances and production?

Well, they're alright, but I don't feel like they've installed any more energy or deeper meaning or alternative interpretation to the words or music. The production definitely SOUNDS better than the 1991 original recording, but that isn't hard, all you have to do is occupy some frequencies that DON'T mimic tinnitus.

I realize this was probably more of a warm-up exercise for the planned "new" album, but it's being sold as a real album (which it is, kinda sorta) and on that measure it doesn't stand up for me at all, no matter how much wishful thinking the fansites or fans try spewing!

So since it's neither awesome nor assaultingly awful, it gets the stamp of mediocrity that is THE YELLOW SMILEY:

rating: :/

Scorcese's "Grand Theft Auto IV: The Trashmaster"

REALLY well done film, the camera, the editing... I'm only 20 minutes into it, but already it's clearly a winner. I would not be surprised to see the creator get a Hollywood directing gig on the strength of this.

It's VERY Scorcesean, so if you like Goodfellas (and who doesn't)...

~

The Stoner Arms Dealers

Rolling Stone:

How two American kids became big-time weapons traders

"I didn't plan on being an arms dealer forever -- I was going to use the money to start a music career. I had never even owned a gun. But it was thrilling and fascinating to be in a business that decided the fate of nations. Nobody else our age was dealing weapons on an international level."

via longreads

Posing for photos with fingers on the triggers...

~

Police aren't the only ones on patrol since the earthquake hit.

slate:

Police aren't the only ones on patrol since the earthquake hit. Members of the Yakuza, Japan's organized crime syndicate, have also been enforcing order.

All three major crime groups—the Yamaguchi-gumi, the Sumiyoshi-kai, and the Inagawa-kai—have "compiled squads to patrol the streets of their turf and keep an eye out to make sure looting and robbery doesn't occur," writes Jake Adelstein, author of Tokyo Vice, in an e-mail message.

"The Sumiyoshi-kai claims to have shipped over 40 tons of [humanitarian aid] supplies nationwide and I believe that's a conservative estimate."

One group has even opened its Tokyo offices to displaced Japanese and foreigners who were stranded after the first tremors disabled public transportation.

"As one Sumiyoshi-kai boss put it to me over the phone," says Adelstein, " 'In times of crisis, there are not Yakuza and civilians or foreigners. There are only human beings and we should help each other.' "

Even during times of peace, the Yakuza enforce order, says Adelstein. They make their money off extortion, prostitution, and drug trafficking. But they consider theft grounds for expulsion.

Ah they're not ALL bad I guess...

review: luna sea | "luna sea" (2011) (pre-review)

luna sea
luna sea
2011

Still thinking about it!

rating: !?!

The Yoshiki Is So Benevolent and Generous and Unselfish!

Most people don't announce it to the world when they donate money to charity, Yoshers...

B'mouth:I

n addition to raising money by auctioning his "crystal" piano, Yoshiki will collect donations for the Japanese disaster relief through the Yoshiki Foundation America...

The Yoshiki Foundation has already donated to American organizations such as the Make-A-Wish Foundation of America, the Grammy Foundation, and St. Vincent's Meals on Wheels.

thx Darkshadow!

Remember when Johnny Depp gave $100 million (?) to that UK hospital, and visited sick kids as Capt Sparrow? No press release required.

Remember when I donated _____ to _____ and ______ to _______? Of course you don't, I didn't fucking ~brag~ about it!

The System Has Worked

kalzumeus:

...an unceasing drumbeat of everything going right.

This was largely the story up and down Honshu. Planes stayed in the sky. Buildings stayed standing. Civil order continued uninterrupted.

On the train line between Ogaki and Nagoya, one passes dozens of factories, including notably a beer distillery which holds beer in pressure tanks painted to look like gigantic beer bottles. Many of these factories have large amounts of extraordinarily dangerous chemicals maintained, at all times, in conditions which would resemble fuel-air bombs if they had a trigger attached to them. None of them blew up.

There was a handful of very photogenic failures out east, which is an occupational hazard of dealing with large quantities of things that have a strongly adversarial response to materials like oxygen, water, and chemists. We’re not going to stop doing that because modern civilization and its luxuries like cars, medicine, and food are dependent on industry.

The overwhelming response of Japanese engineering to the challenge posed by an earthquake larger than any in the last century was to function exactly as designed. Millions of people are alive right now because the system worked and the system worked and the system worked.

Have you guys put together some go-bags and shelter-in-place emergency shit yet???

~

Might As Well Jump

Rolling Stone:

"Our new manager, Irving Azoff, agreed to hold an intervention with Eddie. He brought a big, beefy security guard and met Al and me at 5150.

Eddie walked in, carrying his wine bottle.



Irving did all the talking. He told Eddie the [2004] tour was going to be difficult, that he needed to go away for a week or two, that we could postpone some dates if we needed. We all agreed Eddie needed to clean up.

He smashed the bottle. 'Fuck you,' he said. 'I will kill the first motherfucker that tries to take this bottle away from me. I left my family for this shit. You think I'm going to fucking do this for you guys?'"

From the forthcoming book RED: My Uncensored Life in Rock by Sammy Hagar. Copyright © 2011.

thx, tom!

Book comes out tomorrow.

I wouldn't've expected to care (VH hasn't been on my radar since the mid-90s) but I'm looking forward to it.

The Steven Adler bio wasn't that great, the Mustaine one was awesome... I'm getting in to rock autobios I guess. Wasn't Handy Manny from Dead End/Creature Creature doing one too?

~

JaME Global VK Survey

Swedish, Polish, Dutch, Italian, Greek, French,
Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese, German, Russian

No Japanese option!

Anyway, it's not toooo long but you are required to answer EVERY question, and even though it's ~anonymous~ there's a few dodgy questions that, if one had a healthy paranoia, one might prefer not to answer... but then again, the data coming out of it might be interesting...

Worst Quake in 100 Years Hits Northeastern Japan

NHK:

Japan's Meteorological Agency says the quake on Friday afternoon had an estimated magnitude of 8.8, making it the most powerful one to hit the country since record-keeping began in the late 19th century.

The quake struck at 2:46 PM local time, off the Pacific coast of Miyagi Prefecture, at an estimated depth of 24 kilometers. Tremors in Miyagi registered an intensity of 7 -- the maximum level on the Japanese scale of 0 to 7. Strong tremors were felt hundreds of kilometers away, including in Tokyo.

Several magtitude-7-class aftershocks continued off the Pacific coast.

The Meteorological Agency has issued major tsunami warnings to broad areas, from Hokkaido in the north, to Tokushima in the west. The agency says these areas could see water levels surge by more than 10 meters.

At 3:50 PM Friday, a tsunami surging higher than 7.3 meters struck Soma Port in Fukushima Prefecture. A 4.2-meter tsunami hit Oarai in Ibaraki Prefecture at 4:52 PM, while tsunami more than 4 meters high struck Kamaishi and Miyako in Iwate Prefecture at 3:21 PM.

The Meteorological Agency is warning of more possible tsunami and aftershocks. It says people in areas where major tsunami warnings are in effect should evacuate to safer ground.

Friday, March 11, 2011 20:37 +0900 (JST)

So we wake up to this 30 minutes ago immediately try calling Kayo's parents and sister (and three year old niece!) in Tokyo, while watching horrible images on ABC of black waves crashing through cities and farms and of fires and huge fireball explosions and CAN'T GET THROUGH.

But the email works.

They're all okay. It struck in the afternoon when everyone was at work, and knocked out the train system, so Kayo's sister (and millions of other parents) had to walk (and run!) miiiiiles to get their kids and get home. So that was scary. And of course, once home, every cup and plate was on the floor, broken.

Hope you guys in Japan are okay.

Homesharing is Caring

Yanno what i like about the iOS 4.3 update? The homesharing. Turn it on n' everything on your PC/Mac is now on your iPhone/iTouch/iPad.

I predict a lot of regret when people get their new 64gb iPads home and figure this trick out. "Awww I coulda saved $200!"

L’Arc~en~Ciel, MUCC и girugamesh в App Store

In case your iOS device just has too much damn free space...

aziastreet:

A couple photos, promotional BS, and a link to their official twitter/facebook/etc feeds doth not a good app maketh. It betrays a complete lack of comprehension of the medium, in fact. These things will sit unused for a while, only to be deleted after a very short time.

WHY BOTHER?

At least L'Arc has the excuse of age... and Gilgamesh the excuse of narcotizing stupidity... but Mucc, c'mon! You guys are on the ball, you know this is lame, fix it!

it ain't an advertisement if i post it outta the goodness of my heart! (hearjapan free music)

hearjapan.com/Japan_Nite 2011_Free_Download (reg. req.)


DANGER: ALL THESE BANDS ALMOST CERTAINLY SUCK DONKEY NADS
moreso if they are inclined to use all caps:

Imperfect Conflict, Vampillia, Suck Piggy, Ydestroyde, ZUKANASISTERS, sonodaband, DJ TERAOKA AND THE REVOLUTION, Lolita No.18


March 17 (Thu) Austin @ The Grackle
March 18 (Fri) 　Austin @SXSW Japan Nite
March 20 (Sun) New York @ Bowery Ballroom
March 22 (Tue) CHICAGO @ Empty Bottle
March 23 (Wed) SEATTLE @ Chop　Suey
March 25 (Fri) Las Vegas @ Count's Vamp'd
March 26 (Sat) LA @ Viper Room
March 27 (Sun) SF @ The Independent

sxsw-asia.com/JapanNite2011


i think this is the worst formatted thing i have ever posted

Yoshiki likes Marilyn Manson because he looks better when standing next to him?

"don't make me eat your arm."

"Ladies and gentlemen, The Golden Girls' Bea Arthur, resuscitated for your amusement!"

thx darkshadow!

review: rie a.k.a.suzaku | "messiah" (2011)

Rie a.k.a. Suzaku
Messiah
2011

This chick can rock. I'm tempted to upload the song "End of the Darkness" with Exist Trace tags, just to be a bastard and sow confusion, because it sounds like ET but with a chorus more off a Nanase Aikawa or Tommy Heavy Febby album... (ET@1:00, Nanase@1:11...)



The other six songs on the CD are less ET/VK and more j-metal, with clean female vocals that are good but generic and instrumentalists who shine, including a solid rhythm section with plenty of unexpected twists.

She looks better without makeup!

I'm also gonna mention that I hear a lot of In Flamesy elements, and hope no one misinterprets that and expects to hear melodeath because this is mainly just a hard rock/metal CD with both pop and epicness and very conventional -- except when Rie surprises you.

rating: :)

I post this because it will motivate me to post other stuff in an attempt to push it down the page as quickly as possible (but also like it!)

Predates Lo/Rez by a couple years :)

Rockstars of Science!

rockstarsofscience.org:



I don't know what this is all about, but I dig the collision of my two favorite things. :)

~

New iPad2 Smart Cover is a Japanese Bathtub Lid!

Asiajin:

“Kanzen-ni Icchi” means “Completely Identical”, a popular web meme (see Google Image Search “完全に一致”)

When I watched the keynote, I ~knew~ the smart cover reminded me of something!

Also, lol @ the completely identical meme:

Help Sol Ardour Get on the Warped Tour

http://www.battleofthebands.com/u/SOLARDOUR

I met Artemis at one of Dir en grey's early NYC gigs (Nokia '06?) and he's cool. He's one of us. So effin' help him get on the Warped Tour!

I know, I know, registering is a pain (they want your email address, a quick password, a captcha, and then verifying it) but c'mon, it's 45 seconds and then you can post what number you were here and then we can all cheer and all day you can grin, confident in the knowledge that you helped somebody out. :D

Kishidan's Nazi Gaffe

Fuck, I thought the uproar was just over an update to their usual rainbow-trimmed outfits, but THIS is like, full-on historical-accuracy dickishness!

BBC News:

The management of a popular Japanese boy band has apologised after they appeared on national television dressed in uniforms resembling Nazis.

The band, Kishidan, wore the uniforms - complete with iron crosses and red armbands - for an interview on MTV.

The broadcast on 23 February prompted a complaint from the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

The Jewish human rights group said it highlighted the ignorance of many young Japanese of German war-time atrocities, as well as those committed by Imperial Japanese forces.

"Although it was not meant to carry any ideological meaning whatsoever, we deeply regret and apologise for the distress it has caused," it said.

thx LeSilv!

Part of me is like, don't you have anything more pressing to focus on? Is anti-Semitism so thoroughly vanquished throughout the world now that we can turn our attention to second-rate J-bands?

Then another part thinks, "Well, it's also a fair point that the youth of Japan lack any deep awareness of how shitty Nazism is. And calling them on it might slow the rate at which it seeps into the same 'harmless fun' category that pirates or vikings currently occupy, because you know someday in the not-too-distant future there'll be a children's anime with a Nazi as the hero, and it'll seem as acceptable as having your hero be a pirate or whatever..."

~

New Sandy Branch Chess

thx cliff!

If anything, I feel sad that the band is wasting valuable time re-recording these songs, where better production will only amplify the guilelessness of the songwriting.

Want NEW stuffz!

~