Archive for the 'Culture' Category

Page 35 of 37

Static X – Cannibal Killers Live

Published on October 16, 2008 in Culture and Review by risu. Closed

Wow!  A DVD/CD set with live concert footage from the “Cannibal” album tour, a pile of original music videos, and a CD with the audio from the live performance on the DVD.  You like Static X?  Then you better go out and get this right away!

Concert audio on the CD and DVD is reasonably good.  There is some ringing resonance and muddyness here and there.  There are apparently multiple camera angles, but I haven’t messed with that yet.  On the performance of “Black and White”, Wayne’s voice breaks up, and he can’t really hit all the high notes.  The speed-vocal sections seem to elude him also.  Considering that this specific performance was the best one taped from all the instances that the concert tour was recorded, this song must have been at the end of the set on a regular basis.  

It’s good to see Koichi Fukuda back, but it was a little disturbing to see Tripp Eisen in videos of songs that I was under the impression were recorded during the first Fukuda era.

The DVD is all-region, and for some reason is in 4:3 aspect ratio.

MSRP around $24 USD/street price around $17 USD

Recommended

Four out of four skulls

Half-Baked Manapua

Published on October 16, 2008 in Culture and rant by risu. Closed

Sorry – no. This manapua is raw, and nobody has any idea what to fill it with. At least with electric trains, there is the possibility of using any of a variety of renewable sources of energy, many of which can be fairly quickly implemented here. This ridiculous BRT idea relies on diesel, which is not specifically a bad thing – in fact diesel is probably the way things will have to be in the near future – but with the insistance of the current powers-that-be to race headlong down the dead-end street of E10 and E85 because of the Corn Lobby, development of biodiesel technology will be delayed about 10-years in the USA.

Once again, everyone who thinks BRT or Lexus lanes will solve the problem forgets the most important caveat: Where the F do you plan on putting all those cars and buses once you get them into downtown?

Death Note II

Published on October 15, 2008 in anime and Culture by risu. Closed

For those who will be on O’ahu today or tomorrow, the Regal Dole Cannery 18 theaters will have a special screening of the second live action movie from the Death Note franchise. There will be one screening each day, at 19:30.

Mr. and Mrs. Scat

Published on October 13, 2008 in bike and Culture by risu. Closed

Congratulations!

Jason and Tracy got hitched this past Saturday at a nice outdoor service at the Honolulu Academy of Arts.

Go Team SNM!

Published on September 26, 2008 in Art and Culture by taro. Closed

Not a bad showing by the SNM boys!

http://www.okinawanfestival.com/Photo%20Contest/OFPC%202008/2008photocontestwinners.htm

I think this is the second time I ever got money for photos. Good for some beer money, or 1% toward the Canon 5DmkII.

Dragons and Beer

Published on August 26, 2008 in Culture and Food by taro. Closed

This past saturday, August 23rd was a culture day, albiet a late start culture day. The plan was to check out the Dragon Boat races. Gave Derek a call and didn’t end up at Ala Moana until noon. This year’s event was rather ill publicized and I would never have known about it, and it seems neither did anyone else. The park was filled with a usual weekend end of summer crowd. When I got to the center area, other than participants there didn’t seem to be anyone else there for the races. It was lunch break time so nothing was going on at the moment. I decided to stroll on down to McCoy Pavillion where the Greek Festival, which I did know about from radio spots and print media. Continue reading ‘Dragons and Beer’

Let’s the Translating!

Published on June 30, 2008 in Culture and rant by risu. Closed

Huh? What?

This container has been sitting on the kitchen counter for over a week, but in the morning fog, I never noticed the label beyond the bold print. I caught the “Japanese character…” part and was getting ready to Fight the Power. What are they going to say about the character of the Japanese People? Oh… okay… wait…

Huh? What?

Attempting to rationalize the text and try to figure out what was going through the mind of the copy writer would really take away from the bizarre humor of the label. I would venture a guess that this product was originally made in the PRC to be sold in Japan. The US distributor who is probably loosely associated with the Japanese distributor probably approached the PRC factory to produce the same product for the USDM with an English label. Someone at the US distributor told the PRC manufacturer, “just put English where the kanji on the label is,” and instead of just Romanization, they got exposition.

Search For Squeezo (Squeezel?) Part 1

Published on April 16, 2008 in Culture, Food and Travel by derek. Closed

So anyone thats a fan of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations must be familiar with the Vietnam episode where the guide takes him to a remote village and says about the dish of the day, “I think in your language you call it Squeezo.” Theres been a lot of chatter about Squeezo/Squeezel, but it got forgotten until I recently had a conversation with someone about Kopi Luwak, the expensive coffee that comes from Southeast Asia, famous because its pre-digested by Civets (that is, its eaten as a berry, then crapped out and collected as a bean). After looking over that Wikipedia article about Kopi Luwak, Dave wondered aloud if the Civet was the elusive Squeezo, as the Civet is a common food item in that region. Reminding him that the stew had pokey quills of doom, it launched The Search fo Squeezo…

Sayonara 101.1?

Published on April 2, 2008 in Culture and rant by risu. Closed

As of Tuesday, 01  April 2008, there is no daytime Japanese-language programming on 101.1 FM.  The 101hawaii.net website is still up, as is the DJ blog, both with entries up to last weekend, but there is nothing but bad jazz on the air.

Did their contract expire at the end of last month?

Of Culture & Otaku

Published on March 16, 2008 in anime and Culture by taro. Closed

img_0108b.jpgFinally made it to a Honolulu Festival, having missed quite a few past cultural events. I like going to the Convention Center venue, hate to admit it, because it’s air conditioned. And something different this year was the inclusion of a performance by Haruko Momoi, a popular anime voice actress. She had along a good sized group of her fanclub too. It was entertaining, and I mean that in a good way, not a cynical way. A tiny peek into otaku-dom, got a taste of the energy and enthusiasm without being swamped by massive crowds of a true hardcore event. img_0157b.jpgAnd her performance was good, I honestly have to say she sang better than a lot of other big name J-Pop acts I’ve seen televised live. I do wonder what kind of toll this takes on her voice, unless it really is how she talks.

http://www.right-gauge.jp/

Having arrived late on Sunday and not seeing any of Saturday, I missed a lot of the performers, but still got to see a lot of vibrant performances. Go to see an aboriginal Taiwan group, interestingly it had a very native american Indian feel. And I hoofed it on over to Waikiki to catch the Grand Parade. It seems I kind of choose my position poorly. If I were being hardcore photog I would have roamed the street, but I wasn’t feeling that. I just parked in one spot and dealt with it. Didn’t even move when the finale Daijayama dragon rained sparks chasing everyone around me away. Anyway, I’ll get pics processed and posted sometime, I’m pretty pooped.