Old Blog Entries (archives)
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Fort Minor – Kenji
You might not have heard of Fort Minor, it’s a side project of Mike Shinoda’s (lead man of Linkin Park). In 2005 they released their first (and to date, only) album, The Rising Tied. In my mind this is one of the best hip hop albums released in semi-recent memory (which isn’t saying much, I’ll admit – the golden days of hip hop died with the Walkman). I bring up the subject of Fort Minor because I’ve recently been in contact with former Japanese American internees and their children who wanted more information on posts I’ve written here on internment. Anyway, the subject came up about internment in popular culture…
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MTV redux
So MTV has somewhat atoned for the past decades of sin by finally providing… music videos! I browsed around for an hour and realized it’s literally been 20 years since I’ve really watched music videos… And it’s telling to see the #1 watched video on the site (I swear the kids linking to that vid must think Wang Chung is an Asian porn site). Some of the videos seem to be in fairly high def as well. Go check it out; mtvmusic.com
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Literal Video Version: A-Ha
For the 80’s music video nerd in you: I recently had an 80’s themed dream: Adam Ant and Robert Smith were inventing Jolt in Charlie Sheen’s backyard as a sort of before-its-time Junkyard Wars competition. That is all.
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Maxie Update
We are settled into a private room at the private hospital on the street behind Serm Thai shopping center in downtown Mahasarakham. The facilities are better than the VIP room at the provincial hospital where we stayed after Max was born. Max has an IV in his arm and he’s doing fine. He’s been fine the whole time, actually. This whole week he’s been coughing and getting stuffed up, but never stopped playing or smiling. It was heartbreaking watching him being held down by nurses and getting stuck in the arm with a needle. He cried LOUDLY and shook his head back and forth in pain and frustration. He actually…
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Murasaki Inu
A lifetime ago (13 or 14 years ago to be a bit more exact) I sat in a stuffy classroom in Tenri, Japan, and started penning my first essay in Japanese. Not having yet learned any kanji, I wrote it entirely in the phonetic alphabet known as hiragana. It began something like this: One day I walked to the main worship hall and saw a purple dog… Thus, the legend of the murasaki inu (purple dog) was born. It was a recurring theme in later essays (four years worth to be exact) as well as many blues/enka jams (anata ha tashika ni aru / watashi no murasaki inu) when Cosmic…
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Takemoto Piano MP3
Max has kept us up for most of the last few nights… So it’s the perfect time to test an old theory. Can a musical television ad for a Japanese used piano company really make babies stop crying? It’s time to find out with an mp3 ripped from the source vid. I hope he’s old enough to appreciate this.
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Ancient Photo Generator
Use this ancient photo generator (in JP, but a cinch to use) to give your photos that certain Edo look. Here’s the results using a photo of the plot where we built our house from my post the other day:
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ubertunez
On ebay: The World’s Greatest Music Collection 3 Million Records, 300,000 CDs, 6 million+ Song Titles “Every recording in the collection was purchased by the collection’s owner over the past fifty years and represents a lifetime of work and his desire to see the music preserved for future generations. Advancing age and health concerns are forcing the owner to sell… The new owner of this magnificent collection will also acquire (1) the rights to Spin-Clean, the owner’s patented vinyl record cleaning system, considered the best on the market by audiophiles the world over, (2) the rights to Discmist CD cleaner, (3) CD Saver 2-part archival CD storage sleeves, (4)Yellow Jacket…
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Tribute to stsanders
You might remember a quick post I wrote a couple months ago about some awesome guitar hero parodies that were getting a lot of attention on YouTube. I hope you got to see a few of those hilarious vids, because they’re all gone now: Copyright Vampires Delete Guitar ‘Shred’ Videos from YouTube Here’s a followup article as well: Humorless Metalheads Shut Down Popular YouTuber ////////////// As a side note, I can’t believe that wankorama-master Yngwie Malmsteen indirectly made my blog twice in a single month.
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David Palmer for President
It’s been so long since I’ve posted about 24 (and after seeing last season’s wussification of Jack, perhaps that’s a good thing), but I knew the silence had to be broken when Sammy sent this link: DENNIS HAYSBERT – ‘PRESIDENT’ HAYSBERT: ‘I’VE PAVED THE WAY FOR OBAMA’ “The actor thinks his role in the hit television drama gave Americans a taste of what the country might be like if a black man was in charge – and they liked what they saw.” You know, you really can’t make stuff like this up. If Jack Bauer’s popularity actually sways the political course of our nation – I’m almost happy, by comparison,…
