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Showing posts from October, 2005

lord katori shingo

My favorite member of SMAP (a J-pop band about which I am otherwise unmoved), Katori Shingo takes on the Power Rangers , including Pink Ranger Rina Uchiyama, the only Pink Ranger I'd take over JP.

art... kinda.

Masahiro Fukuyama : Samurai fuzzies, or plushie codpieces? I, for one, welcome our new samurai muppet-cock sexuality-exploring overlords. — jwz

there may come an empress next

BBC NEWS — Japan panel wants women on throne : The Imperial Household's main succession hopes lie with Akihito's eldest son Crown Prince Naruhito and his wife Masako. But analysts believe the pressure on Masako to bear a male heir contributed to stress-related illnesses which stopped her fulfilling official duties for more than a year. If the rules were changed, her three-year-old daughter, Princess Aiko, could succeed instead. How cool is that?

dim and distant stars

Lone Star Statements , by Matthew Baldwin : The following are excerpts from actual one-star Amazon.com reviews of books from Time’s list of the 100 best novels from 1923 to the present. Some entries have been edited. (...) Lord of the Flies (1955) Author: William Golding “I am obsessed with Survivor, so I thought it would be fun. WRONG!!! It is incredibly boring and disgusting. I was very much disturbed when I found young children killing each other. I think that anyone with a conscience would agree with me.” The Lord of the Rings (1954) Author: J.R.R. Tolkien “The book is not readable because of the overuse of adverbs.” ( mckenzee )

woo hoo!

Apparently I get a cameo in Cory Doctorow’s latest work, a serialized novel at Salon called Themepunks : He hopped to, quickly moving to an older man, tapping him on the shoulder, whispering in his ear. Andrea squeezed Francis's hand as the fire chief approached them. She extended her hand and talked fast. "Andrea Fleeks," she said, and took out her notebook, the key prop in any set piece involving a reporter. "I'm told that you are going to let those homes burn because someone representing himself as the title-holder to that property has denied you entry. However, I'm also told that the title to that land is in dispute and has been in the courts for decades. Can you resolve this for me, Chief ...?" "Chief Brian Wannamaker," he said. He was her age, with the leathery skin of a Florida native who spent a lot of time out of doors. "I'm afraid I have no comment for you at this time." Andrea kept her face deadpan, and gave Francis...

very short stories

Friend of this blog, Amy Kelly, has created SPASMS Project , a collection of very short stories at a rate of a story-a-day for over a year. “I can’t help it, words are interesting. What if they weren’t called fingers, they were called something else? Would that change my fingers? Would it change how I used them?” “Other mothers have daughters who want to talk about ponies and princesses,” Mother chuckled. “What if ponies and princesses were called zounds and zebras?” “They’d still be the same thing, Vivian.” She rolled her head around to look at her mother. “How do you know?” “These, for instance. What I’m holding. What are they?” “Pruning shears.” Mother shook her head. “‘Pruning shears’ is a label, words we use to mean something. You should never confuse a label with what it stands for.” “But they really are pruning shears.” ( more )

doomed

The DOOM movie is out, and Rottentomatoes currently has it at a stinking rotten 20% . Even the good reviews top out at “easily the best videogame movie adaptation yet” — which is roughly the same as saying, “easily the most attractive burn victim supermodel yet (barring advances in radical plastic surgery).”

pi

Pi, the video ; with wizards and robots. I was a fan of ZOOM back in the day; The Electric Company , too. Spidey was great. (Thanks, The Other Michæl )

“if you were here right now, i would totally high-five you, while winking”

Comedy Central is hosting clips from The Colbert Réport (the “t” is silent) featuring Tip of the Hat/Wag of the Finger . Colbert’s onscreen persona is similar to his instance on The Daily Show, with a few extra pinches of self-righteous O’Reilly thrown in for good measure. Where the Daily Show hits the news stories as I'd like to see them covered, Colbert instead mocks the format of News/Opinion programming personalities. Brilliant!

slick but disturbing

Stunningly well integrated CG composited with real footage creates a believable dreamscape of plants with roving eyes . ( jwz )

i have no tongue yet i must scream

A flea-like parasite that bites and leeches from the tongue until the tongue dies; at which point the parasite becomes a surrogate tongue, stealing its host’s precious humours of mucous and blood. I’m just going to go collapse in a quivering, shuddery pile now. ( boingboing )

“you never know whats inside?”

It has been over a year since I last mentioned Spamusement , comics inspired by the subject line of spam emails, so hopefully it is OK to trot it out again. (thanks for the reminder, JP)

McDS, or, “losing my religion with bbc”

BBC NEWS: Nintendo in McDonald’s wi-fi deal Nintendo has joined forces with McDonald’s to offer free wireless internet access in the US for its DS handheld games console. The service means McDonald’s customers will be able to play selected DS titles against other gamers around the globe. Rivals Sony and Microsoft already offer online gaming on their game consoles. Could that last sentence be any less without point? Could it be any more misleading? It makes Nintendo sound like they are pulling up to the game late. It reads like they are responding to something that Microsoft and Sony have established. It’s not. What Sony and Microsoft have, in their home consoles is the ability to connect one’s home system to one’s existing internet service. So these are stationary machines in people’s homes that they can connect to the internet service they are already paying for on their own. With Sony’s PSP, and its built-in 802.11g wireless capability,...

waffler!

After promising to fire anyone found to have leaked the information, Bush offered a more qualified pledge in July, saying, “If someone committed a crime they will no longer work in my administration.” Asked on Monday if he would expect members of his administration to resign or take a leave if they were indicted, Bush said: “My position hasn’t changed since the last time I’ve been asked this question. There’s a serious investigation. ... I’m not going to prejudge the outcome of the investigation.” Reuters.com

things i sometimes forget, in my enthusiasm

WikiHow: How to Communicate With a Non Native English Speaker Avoid touching your listener. Even if you want to nudge them in the right direction or encourage them with a friendly pat on the back, your gesture may be misinterpreted. Many cultures view personal contact very differently and your friendly touch could be seen as aggressive or overly familiar. And, no, “avoid touching your listener” is not a euphemism. The rest of the advice on that site is also quite good; I find I follow most of it already when trying to communicate in English here in Japan.

strings

The Spaghetti Western String Co. makes charming and intimate acoustic music. Several MP3s are available for free download at their site to promote their CD , and another track to be found at the site that directed me to them, music.for-robots .

the two largest game retailers have completed their merge, and announced restructuring, layoffs

GamesIndustry.biz - GameStop, EB merger results in job cuts and warehouse closures Hundreds of redundancies and EB outlet closures planned until summer 2006 Having just completed its acquisition of Electronics Boutique, videogame retailer GameStop has announced the intended closure of EB's Philadelphia headquarters, resulting in hundreds of redundancies. In other news, E3 2006 expects a 50% decrease in sullen, rude, retail register jockey attendees next year.

iPr0n

HOWTO Put Porn On Your iPod : Grown men grunting over their new, video equipped iPods is not an image I needed when looking for a tutorial on getting DVD content transferred . Yeesh.

the new ipod does video

So it is ALL over the web already, but Apple’s new iPod does video, and the new iTunes allows purchase of videos; here is a shot of ABC’s LOST for a buck-ninety-nine. Holy COW is that cool or what? Here’s a link to Jobs’ keynote address covering the other announced products.

music, community

somesongs [list songs] : welcome to somesongs. this is a community-based site for sharing homemade music. it works pretty simply: a person makes a song and posts the mp3 on his/her website and then posts the link here. then the users of somesongs rate the song (good, okay, or bad) so that other users will have an easier time of finding songs they'll enjoy.

cownan

( warren ellis )

alright, who’s the dic?

Google Video is hosting some, um, fan-created stories featuring Zelda characters. They start off as trite just prior to starting an uncontrollable slide into madness and pwnage . There is a weird backstory to it. (thanks, colin)

pIG

SNK Playmore is partnering with Production IG to bring King of Fighters to TV anime . That’s almost as exciting as the Blood+ anime that is starting up weekly broadcasting next weekend. It looks like a sequel or re-interpretation of Production IG’s earlier movie, Blood: The Last Vampire .

muchos marios

Geek on Stun presents spritely Mario in Cosplay . ( waxy )

not what the blog’s title seemingly implies

Old Grandma Hardcore chronicles the reactions and attitude of a very sassy grandma while she plays videogames. It took Grandma a long time to get through Chapter 9 in the game. Her surprise was in the effectiveness of blade weapons over rifles against her enemies. She could target them much easier, finish them off without worrying about the awkward reloading vulnerability period or running out of ammo. She could focus on what is important in life: killing the undead. “No!!! Fucker! ...got me with a FIREBALL, where the hell am I supposed to RUN?” “.....SHIT! No, RELOAD. ‘B’ Button! BEE BUTTON!!! I pressed the fucking thing!” “Fuck this I’m using a sword.” 2nd best grandma, evar .

gorillaz inaction figures

Here’s a link to shop . Sit down before viewing price information. (via larking through Flickr: Photos tagged with ‘gorillaz’ )

director walter hill on the warriors

Hill: I had a very simple thing at the beginning of the movie which [Paramount] wouldn’t let me do which was a legend that said, “Some time in the future.” The great minds at the studio thought that was too much like Star Wars. I thought the movie was close to being incomprehensible without that because it always seemed to me to be a science fiction movie. The FADER Magazine - New York Mythology Hill also notes being influenced by his love of American comic books in structuring The Warriors . Between science fiction, and comic books, I think I am happy with the way that it came out more than what Hill proposed. It is easier to think of The Warriors as taking place in some parallel New York than it is to deal with what would have been perceived as half-assed post-apocalyptic vision. I am unclear on how much of The Warriors meme-boom is due to marketing efforts on Rockstar/Take 2 Games’ part, how much is synergy between the two studio and Take 2 to celebrate the ...

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(jwz)