Fabio’s favorites Pabo performed, but unfortunately, paired with some old guys. Perfume got to do a solo, but they were pretty terrible with the synthesized Cher-o-phonic distortion thing going, but they still weren’t as bad as show opener Hamasaki Ayumi. I wonder how long it will take people in Japan to wake up and realize that she really sucks jagged kidney stones? Speaking of suck, NHK resurrected the dead with a performance by washed-up has-beens,Speed. Last year it was TMR who got a chance to reprise his youthful days as a top-selling artist. This year, Speed went on to prove that time and a mediocre wine yield an old, mediocre wine. They were still as bad as they were when they were on the Oricon charts, with flat notes and voices strained on the high-pitched edge of cracking in the same places they have always been. Mikawa Kenichi’s performance was somewhat rudely intruded upon by some gangly tall transvestite. I guess recently, they have felt the need to have something on the shocking side - last year it was that naked fitness dude, and the year before that it was HG. Probably the best performances of the night were the operatic tenor dude and Jero (Jerome Charles White, Jr.). Angela Aki, Aoyama Thelma, and Hirai Ken performed well, although I am not a big fan of their genre of pop. Needless to say ,there was no good rock. There have been rock acts in the past, but nothing harder than L’arc en Ciel. They really needed Krauser II and DMC! Here’s the official site if you’re interested.
Author Archive for risu
Just about now, the sun is rising in Japan for the first time in 2009. On the webcams in Hokkaido, people have been up since dark, getting ready to photograph it at various scenic spots. Being the furthest part of Japan to the East, Hokkaido will get the sunrise first.
Just watching now to see the moment…
Oh… there it goes!
Shin-nen akemashite omedetou gozaimasu!
Whoa!
How does one begin to describe this…
We got lunch from Sugoi’s in Kapalama (near Woodcraft and the Driver’s Licencing office). They had breakfast stuff, so I ordered the “Hash Loco Moco“. Lo, a more amazing thing I have never before had! Imagine if you will, a Loco Moco made with a 3cm thick, 15cm diameter breaded and deep fried corned-beef hash patty instead of the hamburger patty! Essentially corned-beef hash katsu and a fried egg on rice smothered in brown gravy! The gravy was a tad salty, but the hash was very good. Continue reading ‘Sugoi!’
Ah… the holiday season is upon us once again - the time other than late March/early April when we get bombarded by thinly veiled Western religious dogma programs being passed off as “documentaries” on the supposedly historical or learning-related channels. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me, since they have a program glorifying terrorism in international waters…
Usually half-Asian/half-North-Americans have nicer rear-ends, and not the flat, square asses common in their pure-Asian counterparts, but that’s definitely not the case with the new Pontiac Vibe (thought I was talking about girls’ asses, weren’t you!). The designers appear not to have been able to resolve the design beyond the up-sloping C-pillars, resulting in an unimaginitive, rectangular rear hatch glass. Boo. Weak. Looks like a Dodge Caliber if you’re directly behind it. Wonder if it will be sold on the JDM like the Gen-1 Vibe, which was the Toyota Voltz SUV.
Wow, Chain Reaction Cycles is pretty fast considering we’re all the way in the middle of the Pacific and they’re all the way on the other side of the world in Scotland… I sent the mismatched set of shifters back on 14 November 2008, they received them on the 20th, and shipped out a replacement set. Those arrived on 01 December! I didn’t have time to put them on before heading to Japan, but I threw them on Tuesday at McBike along with the new cassette and 9-speed chain. Shifters are quite nice. They seem to stick out more than the XTR’s, but that’s just an impression. I did have to remove the Optical Gear Displays so I could mount the shifters outboard of the brake levers. In that position, the shift paddles line up correctly with my fingers with my hands in the normal position on the grips. More on the shifters in a future review…
There’s an odd silence when you go from the creaking of compressing snow on your heel edge at the top of the run and point the nose downhill into a ghostly white void of boot-deep powder and dime-flake blizzard sky. Silhouettes of trees pass by, appearing and disappearing in and out of the ether. At speed comes the wind noise, but it is barely audible through the helmet earflaps and headgear. There is the dull thump of your front leg knee punching through deep pockets, and the low rhythm of the board surfing through the turns and rolling over the hidden bottom contours like waves. Turning into the wind brings the chatter of snowflakes against the goggle lens. Continue reading ‘Silence’
Arrived in Japan on Sunday and rushed to Immigration in order to pass through quickly and get my bags and get to the kokunai connection in the hour I’d been given. Even though I was the only foreign passport holder on my flight other than the Captain, there was a line at the single open “Foreign Passports” section from a different flight. For some reason, nobody had told these Chinese nationals about customs and immigration forms beforehand, because they hadn’t filled them out, or hadn’t filled them out completely, so the line moved gratingly slowly. When I finally got to the counter, I was in and out swiftly, and off to the baggage carousel in no time. My bags came out reasonably quickly - usually it’s “first in, last out”. Customs was fast and simple. The dude was impressed at my bringing a snowboard for some reason. Continue reading ‘Feet Dry - CTS’