Tim’s Ramblings

Ack…

It’s seeing videos like this that scares me. I mean…I fly extremely long distances at least twice a month. I’ve had my plane struck by lightening TWICE, I’ve been in landings where it felt more like we fell than landed. Hell, I’ve been in landings where as soon as we touched down I felt the entire plane skid and fishtail. But nothing like this. NOTHING.

What the HELL was the air traffic controllers thinking directing the plane on this particular runway with horrible crosswinds? Kudos to the pilot for somehow getting control and getting the plane back up in the air. I mean, the damn winglet hit the tarmac!!!!

*shiver*

I just had to post this.

It’s soooo cool.

This is Jero. An African American kid from Pittsburg that is tearing up the Japanese enka charts. First off, enka is a very traditional form of Japanese music. Very melodramatic with a distinct style that became popular post war. Even I know a few of the songs due to my parent’s influence and my sister LOVES some of the songs as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enka

This kid though, is just amazing. His voice is perfect for this type of music. His grandmother was Japanese and he was influenced by her and her love of enka and so a few years ago he moved to Japan to study this type of singing and started entering contests. I remember seeing an interview with him on TV this past trip and he finally released his first single. But holy crap…it tore through the charts and is either #1 or #2 on the Oricon charts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oricon). Totally rare for a foreigner and utterly unheard of for someone that’s not Asian.

I think this is fantastic. Japan, as many people criticize, LOOOVES foreigners but only when they visit… We are a mono-race culture on an island…so the term “racist” gets tossed around a lot when people talk about the negative side of Japan. But this is proof that you can break through that. Sure, the first single might be bought out of curiosity but his voice is real!!

As proof here is one if his earliest debut on Japanese TV.

He’s not reading the prompter (the words are there for the viewers) and he is spot on. The song he sings at the end (after you get past the talking parts that only a few of you will understand) is a very very VERY famous song called “Tsugaru Kaikyo Fuyugeshiki” which sings about the meloncholy view of the winter sea in Hokkaido (I too know the song! Get me drunk enough and I may sing it for you someday….really really drunk…) and he does is amazingly well.

Rock on Jero. Good to see someone totally breaking the mold and taking enka to the next level!!

Forgot about this. The new Bad Religion album comes out on 7/10! Nice!

New Maps of Hell. And it’s sounding pretty damn good. Got pretty much the entire album up on their Myspace page at http://www.myspace.com/badreligion.

Personally…I’m saddened that they went all MySpace since their actual web page back in the day had all this great content but…oh well…sign of the times.

Anyway, the songs are…well…it’s Bad Religion. You’re going to get pretty much what you expect. But ever since they got back under the Epitaph label and got their original guitarist back, they’ve been progressively getting better and better. New America, their last album with Sony was…well…bad. But since then they’ve gotten back to their roots. Their last one, The Empire Strikes First had some great songs in there with even some radio friendly pop-punk-ish songs too. Though Greg Graffin hasn’t lost his political edge in the least (^_^)

Here’s one of the new songs off of the new album! (no video - just audio)

Here’s probably the only song from the last album that got any amount of airplay - Los Angeles is Burning

Oh, and while we’re at it, a decent live footage of them singing American Jesus and Generator (with a slower intro)

Apparently they’re on tour with the Warped Tour again this year. Gonna be in Cleveland August 2nd. I saw them a few years ago and it was great though they only played for 30 minutes…. Wish they did their own tour and came to Cleveland so I can hear a full set. Oh well. Anyone wanna go? (^_^)

So…I know I’m very late to this. Many many anime geeks already know about this. But most of you probably don’t.

In Japan over the past year and a half or so, one particular anime has caught the nation by storm. Or at least the anime loving otaku crowd. The name of the anime is Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu or, in the US, it will soon be known as The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.

What’s it about? …eh…not much. But what is REALLY popular is the…uh…dance that they do at the end. This dance has caught on like craaaaaaaaazy. Behold…the ending sequence.

…dear god…

By the end of this year, I shudder to think how many people in the US will be practicing this dance so they can show it off at the anime conventions.

But in Japan, they take it one step further. They got a bunch of people together from a newsgroup called 2-channel and they all got together this past April in the streets of Akihabara on Sunday when the close off the street for an inpromptu song and dance!

The first attempt was broken up by the cops…

But they did it again and succeeded in doing the entire song.

Crazy crazy crazy crazy people…

…though…I will have to admit…the song is catchy in that horrible horrible J-pop sort of way.

This may solve some of these so called “mysteries” that women talk about in terms of guy’s neurosis in a public bathroom.

Now I don’t follow ALL these rules. However, I would like to stress the “no talking” rule. Please. As my coworker S once said…”Don’t talk to me while I’m touching me”.

Very important.

Key to life.

Now…if only we can figure out why the hell girls go to bathrooms in gigantic groups? Are they giving out free t-shirts? Is there cake? I mean…I suppose they talk in there. Which is okay since girls don’t really use the bathrooms right? The whole digestive system thing doesn’t really apply to girls right? (^_^)

Seems like the video for “How to eat sushi” has been taken off of google video.

Soooo, here it is in YouTube :)]

A rare hillarous SNL skit with Paris Hilton.

Sadly I think if this actually were available in real life it’ll be profitable….

(^_^)

This made me laugh when it first aired on the Cartoon Network a few years ago.

Made me laugh :)

God I love these. I hate those Mac ads. About as much as I hated the ones they did a few years ago with all these kids saying how the Mac helped them do sooooooooo much.

Yeah…but you know…a PC works just fine too. Really. Aaaand I don’t have to go talk to some pretentious kid at a Mac store to get anything working…. Of course it doesn’t help that the closet one is a 40 minute drive from me.

But anyway, here you go. I love John Hodgman by the way (he’s the PC in the original commercials). His book is hillarous. 700 hobo names! Come on. Nothing better than 700 hobo names!

This is really really impressive.

Someone took the trailer to the Cowboy Bebop Movie along with some editing of the movie itself and then removed the sound and used sounds, music, and voice acting from the game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.

The lip synching is perfect as is the editing. Someone is very very talented AND has a lot of time on their hands.

I guess this is only relevant to someone similar to me…someone who have played the game AND have watched the anime.

Ah well.

It’s good though if you ARE like me. (^_^)