Thursday, February 28, 2008

vol. 14!

The "hair update" and "Japanniversary" episode! Featuring the newly mixed "32 causes of the frightening increase..." new Wang Bangers? project. Also, for probably the first and last time, background music provided by both members of the Wang Bangers? Brand new "what's that sound?", a review of my blues driver pedal, and a fake Japanese lesson!
Remember!: Do not microwaves!

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

a regular ass post...

just a couple of things today...
#1
Today is the 11th month mark for my sweet ass hair! Which means 1 more month and we will hit a year! Here's a look at it tamed:
And wild!
My plan is to pick up a pair of hair clippers sometime next month and on the 27th of March I will shave it into a huge mohawk for probably just one day, and then go down to the roots and whack it all off! I can't wait! Although I like the sweet locks I just can't stand the hassle of taming it everyday, what a pain in the ass! And I can't fit my head into most of my hats anymore...

#2
Tomorrow is my 2 year "Japanniversary" and I thought that I would be really lame and actually celebrate it. I have no idea what I'm gonna do but I'm pretty sure that drinking will be involved! 2 years in Japan... with no trips home... my previous record was just 10 months, but with one trip home. 2 years...
I'm sure I'll talk more about this tomorrow, so I don't want to spoil the surprise!

That's about it, on Sunday mornin and I went out to Kawasaki to do a little shopping for the first time in awhile, it was a ton of fun, and I came away with this rad picture, enjoy it~

Friday, February 22, 2008

guess what I hate today... #1

Welcome to a new style post here on no airplay! This will be a recurring post mostly because there are many things I hate! Now it's time for the first one...

guess what I hate today... #1: bookstore "tachi-yomi" (standing-reading)!

Ah, this is a doozie! But to fully appreciate it, you must live in, or at least visit a bookstore in Japan. In the U.S. (don't know how it is in other countries) most bookstores provide an area with benches, or couches, or chairs, or even a cafe that people can take books they are interested in to check them out, flip through them and see if they want to purchase them. Nice idea! In Japan there just isn't the space, and, I know that! But people here don't just flip though the books to see if they want to buy them, they f'n read the book! Right in the aisle!
GOD THIS DRIVES ME CRAZY! Look at this example:I took this picture in a Book Off (new and used bookstore) in Kawasaki over the weekend.

It makes it next to impossible to get through the aisles to find what I'm looking for! You have to squeeze past, (lots of kids carrying big ass bags) and climb over, and push through people all the time! One of the worst parts is that many, many, many of the people that do this "tachi-yomi", don't like to take showers/use deodorant. Of course, this is not a phenomenon strictly occurring in bookstores, head to any convenience store around noon, or in the evening and you can see countless people standing around the magazine rack reading fashion, tech, video game, and even porn mags...

Just one piece of advice for all the perpetrators of the "tchi-yomi" evil: STOP IT! BUY THE FREAKIN BOOK!

Thursday, February 21, 2008

vol. 13!

Who'da thought we'd make it this far? Vol. 13 of no airplay comin' atcha hot off the freakin' presses! The greatest news in the show's history! A "what's that sound" answer involving animals, a Japanese lesson, involving animals, and an epic track from Mr. A.O.S. himself "deadly dragon, master slayer" (a dragon's an animal right?)! ROCK!

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Welcome to the hood!

Over the weekend Mr. Melting Faces was officially welcomed to the neighborhood. In the afternoon we hooked up in Gotanda and moved some shit to his new place over in Magome. His place was pretty bare before that, but now it's all homey! It's a pretty nice place, good location, and comfortable, I'm happy to have melting faces in the hood, and I'm glad he's "leveled up" as he puts it. To welcome him we threw a "Nabe" party. Nabe is basically a "hot pot". It's a very common Winter food over here in Japan, just throw in a bunch of stuff, and sit around it, let it boil, and then chow down! We went with a Kimchi nabe, and it was tasty! We also got into some extreme Jenga, involving copious amounts of alcohol. It was a rockin' adventure.

Last night was the much anticipated "Minus the Bear" show in Shibuya. Man, it was great! During the show I contemplated giving up playing guitar a few times after watching Mr. Dave Knudson perform. He is amazing. In my lifetime I've had the fortune of witnessing two amazing guitar players live, Dave Knudson, and Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine/Audioslave) who both can make a guitar do things that most mortals cannot. Some good news though, I'm not gonna give up guitar! I'm gonna rock even harder now!

Finally, I shaved the goatee down to a wicked mustache and combed the hair over (with my fingers since I actually don't have a comb) in an attempt to convey the best 70's porn star/ Mark Twain/ child molester look I could possible do, enjoy!

Thursday, February 14, 2008

vol. 12!


Vol. 12! Rock! Talked some about "Kenkokukinenbi", a wicked useful Japanese lesson, and a new song called "Enchilada" that turned out pretty short because I kept f'n it up, so I gave it one last shot, and that's what you hear... pretty crappy, I'll work on recording a better version for next week's show... maybe... maybe I'll electrify it!

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Happy Kenkokukinenbi to you all!

Sup? Monday was a national holiday over here in J-pan, and the coolest thing about my new job is that I actually get national holidays off! Wahoo~! So what seems like what should be a joyous occasion, seeing as "Kenkokukinenbi" means "National Foundation Day" , is highly uncelebrated. You occasionally see a couple of flags flying around town, but that's about it... So, being the patriot that I am, I decided to take it upon myself to establish some new holiday traditions! This year, only mornin and I took part in them, but I plan to expanded it across the board next year! To kick off the day I thought "what could be better than a traditional Japanese breakfast?" So I ate one! On the menu were 3 Japanese morning staples; Miso soup, rice, and natto (fermented soy beans). Here's what it looked like:

Later in the day, round 6 o'clock to be precise, the next tradition on the list was the time honored Japanese eats known as "sushi!" That's right, with the "!" This was only the 2nd time I've gone out for sushi since returning to Japan nearly 2 years ago, but, hey, it's a holiday right? Here's some of what that looked like:

Along with the sushi, it is now a new holiday tradition to drink some Sake, or more specifically, "Nihon-shu" or "Japanese Sake". The sushi was good, the sake was pretty good, and to cap off the day, what else was there to do but sing my butt? off at Karaoke? And oooooh did we! About 5 hours of singing battles ensued... an epic amount of time for 2 people to undertake I must say. The peak of the evening was most assuredly the singing of Japan's national anthem "Kimigayo" (see No Airplay vol. 7 for reference) which is of course also a new tradition established on Monday. So, all-in-all, I think it was a really good day, I'm pretty happy with the new holiday traditions that were established, and hope to bust them all out again next year, hope I can get alot of people in on it next year, and spread these new-wave Kenkokukinenbi hoiday traditions spread out all over Japan, Happy Birthday Japan!

Thursday, February 07, 2008

vol. 11!

Yo! vol. 11 of no airplay is stuffed to the freakin gills baby! Talked about a ton of news, a quick Japanese lesson, a brand new sound, and a review of "Wii Family Ski"! Song is called "new wang bang stuff". Enjoy my splendor!

re-uninionion!




Wow, what a week! Since I put up the show last week there has been a ton of action, and I thought I'd try and capsulate it all here before I record today's show.




Saturday: After work I headed down to the anus of the Yamanote Line, the great, and famed area know simply as "Gotanda"! The most wonderful place in Tokyo, which is in an unfortunate location on the Yamanote map. Saturday was a re-union of epic sorts. The whole sha-bang was organized by a former student, you might remember her as "Miss Voice Gotanda" and one of my absolute favorite students! She always had questions, and always had input, and always had good conversation for any fortunate teacher to walk into the voice room in the early evening. We all met up at an Izakaya in Gotanda's famous "red light district" known as "Yurakugai". A rough estimation would place about 40 people in the room, probabaly 9 or 10 teachers and about 30 students. It was amazing, it really cemented Gotanda NOVA's place in history as "The Greatest NOVA school in all of Japan" and made me miss the place a bit. It was really great to see everyone in one place again, and Miss Voice Gotanda made a stirring speech to kick off the festivities, very moving! After the Izakaya we headed off for some karaoke to rock the night away. I ended up leaving at about 5 in the morning, and sang my ass off. After a rough calculation (because I have a few lapses in memory) I probably put down about: 3 bottles of beer, 10 glasses of beer, 4 glasses of Umeshu (plum wine) and a glass of Shochu, or something close to that... I woke up Sunday morning with little voice, and only a little hangover. Here's to GOTANDA!

Sunday: SNOW! It snowed again (and has snowed a bit since) but this winter's biggest snowfall was on sunday. It was great! I love the snow! That's about it.

Monday: F'n Super Bowl man! Yeah baby! kick off was about 8:30 am local time, and I had a few people over to watch the big game: mornin, Melvis, D.C. gaijin, A.O.S. and Deuce! Sweet little turnout for a great game. I had a feeling that it would be a lot closer than the point spread suggested, but as you might have heard in the last episode, I did pick the Pats to win the game... well, they didn't! It was a hell of a game, probably the best game I've seen since the Rams X Titans game a few years back. I'd probably say this game was better. The Rams X Titans game was great because it came down to the very last place of the game, but I hate the Rams, and they won... This game was great because, although I don't really care for either team, it was exciting, and full of surprises. One surprise was the outcome, 17-14 win for the Giants, but also the 7-3 (Pats lead) to start the 4th quarter. Really good game, I think I'll probably watch the 2nd half of that game several times before the 2008 season kicks off.

Tuesday: Work :(

Wednesday: Work :( But! before work I headed downstairs and checked my mail as I always do, and in my box (ha ha) I found a little piece of mail that held the results of my JLPT test... I grabbed it and continued walking to the station. On the way I opened it up, and much to my surprise I didn't see my results! At first I thought it was because I failed, then I saw a section that said "request for certificate" which I thought meant that I had to send that in to get the results (I know that doesn't make sense, but I was in a bit of nervous shock). Finally I found a secret compartment on the back side of the piece of mail, and opening it with shaking hands I found that I had passed!
Lets see... there are 3 sections to the test, first is Vocab, 2nd is listening, and 3rd is reading/grammar. First section I'd say I rocked in around a 65% or so, it was alright, on the upper end I'd go as high as 70% I guess. Second section was always my strongest, on the low end I'd go 80% and on the high end 90%. Man, I've got a penchant for listening. I've always been pretty good at it, and wasn't worried about this section whatsoever. The last part was... well... lets say... god awful. Yeah, that's right, going in I needed (according to my rough calculations) about a 50% to pass, and I think I just completely blew the captain on that one. Wow. I really had no idea what the questions were, and what the answers might be. According to percentages, just guessing you'd think I would have got at least 25%, you know 1 in 4 chance right? Well, there's also a possibility that I got 0%, and that's the one I'm thinking that I was closer to. Wow.
This was my immediate reaction to the test. I was pretty close in guessing my score, the first section I overestimated just a touch, I actually came out with a 53%, then a sweet (just about perfectly guessed) 85% in listening, and the last section a shocking 53%! I woulda guessed 30%. I am soooooo very happy that I passed! 61% is passing folks, 1% higher than the required 60% is still passing! Be warned, my buddy, Mr. D.C. Gaijin failed by 1 point! Not 1%, one freaking point! I feel really bad for him, but I also remember that the last time I took the JLPT (6 years ago) I failed level 3, but it was a great learning experience, as it gave me a taste of the style of test and crap like that, and tada! 6 years later, I aced (ha!) level 2! 6 years seems to be a long time, and plenty of time to study, but I probably studied for about a year during that span, so, very happy am I! Hopefully I can spin this test result into a job using Japanese in some capacity, that's the goal baby!