Pimpin' and Linkin' Archives
On a number of people's recommendations, I decided to try out a new artist recently. Her name's Shena Ringo (I've seen her name romanized a number of ways, but I'm sticking with this one for now) and she's quite different from what I expected. Far too many Japanese female vocalists sound too much like American pop female vocalists, which I loathe. I'll admit that quite a lot of them have good voices, but the music is uninspired and trashy. However, Shena Ringo's completely different. I really like her sound. She can really screech, too. :) Samples of her stuff can be heard here.
Posted on August 16, 2001 2:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Woo hoo! My Goonies DVD shipped from Bestprices.com. I can't wait to get it. It's been a while since I've seen it, but I remember one time when I was younger, we rented it and watched it about 4 or 5 times straight. The disc has all sorts of goodies on it, including commentary with the kids. For more information about the DVD and about this classic movie, check out this excellent unofficial site.
Posted on August 21, 2001 9:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
I signed Sarah and I up for a cooking class at Kitchen, Etc. This should be interesting. It's a 2 hour class and this one's on Indian cooking. I'd like to see exactly how a class goes, since it might be nice to take a few of them if it's any good. It only costs $20 and they give you a $10 gift certificate to the store, too, so it's really not a bad deal. We'll see how it goes. :)
Posted on August 21, 2001 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Coming next week on DVD (unless it's delayed), an old favorite of mine... Space Camp! Back around the time the movie was made, I was really into astronomy and space stuff. Though I still have an interest in astronomy, I long ago realized that there was too much math involved and that my viewing area was rarely good enough for me to be able to make out the constellations well enough to memorize them. But back then, I just thought it was cool. :) I would've loved to go to Space Camp, but it just wasn't possible and I probably wouldn't have been any good at it. The movie's pretty cheesy, yeah, but it's a lot of fun and I still love it, even if just for the nostalgia. And besides... this is the movie that, all at once and all by its lonesome, started my teenage crushes on Kate Capshaw, Lea Thompson, AND Kelly Preston. Meow.
Posted on September 18, 2001 2:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
It saddens me that things like this continue in this world. On the one hand, it's really awful that the South Korean people don't really give Koizumi a chance. On the other, I can't believe that the Japanese people won't admit to their wartime atrocities, going so far as to print blatant falsehoods in their history texts. Now, I understand that, no matter what his position, Koizumi's hands are tied. Post-war Japanese prime ministers are a short-lived breed and it's almost certain that he'd be ousted before he even got a chance to accomplish anything. He's one of the more popular and promising prime ministers of recent years. But I doubt the older, entrenched politicians would ever allow a change, even if it meant a better relationship with Korea. I honestly can't remember what Koizumi's personal position is on the issue, but it really doesn't matter.
It really IS too bad that such things happen in the world today.
Posted on October 15, 2001 2:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Just got the latest Innocence Mission disc, Small Planes, in the mail. I like it. It's short, clocking in at just over a half hour. But it's good. I like it better than Birds of My Neighborhood, though not as much as Glow. Good stuff, though. Didn't get everything in the mail that I wanted to, but there's always next week. And I can understand the mail being a bit slow with all this anthrax stuff going on.
Posted on October 19, 2001 3:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Ah... thank heavens for The Onion.
Posted on October 28, 2001 12:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
My sister-in-law is getting her first novel published this month. Unfortunately, as she isn't a blood relative, the getting-stuff-published gene isn't also in me. But... eh... think about buying it. Just for me. I'll... uh... make it worth your while.
Posted on October 30, 2001 1:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Halloween fun with The Spark!
Posted on November 1, 2001 1:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Have you ever seen people spell something incorrectly so often that you start wondering if you were spelling it wrong the whole time? Thank heavens for Merriam-Webster Online. It keeps me from slipping further into insanity.
Posted on November 2, 2001 10:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
On Friday, Sarah and I went to see Amelie at the Cinema Arts Theatre in Fairfax. If you get the chance to see it, definitely go and don't let the subtitles scare you. This is a charming, hilarious film with some very fine acting and cinematography.
And don't just take my word for it. Head on over to the new ADDmovies to see reviews of this and other movies.
Posted on December 10, 2001 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Just finished reading the first non-fiction book I've read in a long time. Yes, I know it's just past 2am, but I wasn't feeling tired. :P The book is David Gerrold's Worlds of Wonder: How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy. Definitely an interesting book that I'd recommend to any aspiring writer, whether they want to write science fiction, fantasy, or anything else, really. Though the book is geared towards science fiction and fantasy writing, there are a lot of great tips and insights in there for everyone.
Posted on January 26, 2002 2:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Just have to give a shout out to Scott. After languishing for weeks below the 100 mark, he's finally posted his 100th review on ADDmovies.com. Congratulations, little trooper!
Posted on February 2, 2002 12:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
A few days ago, Sarah and I took our first trip to the new Trader Joe's in Reston. It was actually rather cool. We picked up some crumpets, which I'd never had before. Among some other things we got, I also picked up a couple boil-in-a-bag Indian foods. Some lentil dish and a potato dish. The lentils were surprisingly yummy and cooked up in 3 minutes. Great for a nice, quick meal, over some basmati rice.
I went back recently to try to grab some shelled, roasted, salted pistachios for Sarah, but they were all out. They only had the unsalted kind. Fortunately, the trip wasn't wasted, since they had some challah there that looked very tasty.
Kinda nice to have an occasional alternative to the Giants and Safeways of the northern Virginia area.
Posted on February 11, 2002 12:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Finally one of my all time favorite fantasy movies is coming to DVD. Yeehaw.
Posted on March 11, 2002 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Now this looks like fun. :) The article I read in the paper also said there'd be Tuvan throat singers there at some point, which would be pretty amazing to see for real. Now let's hope I don't manage to miss it.
Posted on April 24, 2002 12:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Though he somehow managed to avoid being in the picture in this article (despite being seated between the two guys who actually ARE in the picture), my younger brother's quoted in this Christian Science Monitor article. His paragraph's the very last one. Go, John! Teach them students!
Posted on May 15, 2002 4:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
I'd mentioned this before, but it's coming up soon, so here's a link to some great information about this year's Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Sounds awesome.
Posted on June 11, 2002 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
In case you didn't know, Blogathon 2002 is on! I may not be participating, but Ryan is, so go check him out. It's for a good cause and everyone's a winner!
Posted on July 27, 2002 1:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Shortly after I watched and reviewed Red Beard, I read this Washington Post article about the AFI exhibiting all of the Kurosawa films that Toshiro Mifune was in. This is so cool. I hope I can make it into town to at least see all of the movies I haven't seen yet. I especially want to see Throne of Blood, as it looked very interesting in the clips they showed in the Kurosawa documentary on PBS.
I encourage anyone interested in movies to check it out.
Posted on August 4, 2002 2:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Here's a site that I think most of you will get a big kick out of. I haven't even looked at everything on there, but you could really waste a LOT of time there if you wanted to.
Posted on September 8, 2002 8:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Though this is a fairly old site now, I'd never seen it before, and it had me on the floor. Laughing, not bleeding or anything. Get Your War On!.
Posted on October 2, 2002 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
If it's true, this kind of thing makes me almost physically ill.
Posted on January 13, 2003 2:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Well. I promised a li'l review on my blog when I listened to it, so I'm giving it. Keep in mind that this is my opinion only slightly biased by knowing the man and that my musical tastes are rather different from his. But anyhow... :)
On January 1st, Urban Ambiance re-released the Lyrical Prophets' 1997 release Flipyawig, this time on CD. It also includes two bonus tracks. Woo! I happened to be the first person who ordered it. Woo! Anyhow... I got the chance to listen to this on the way to and from work today. Here's my impression.
For me... the album is like a rather attractively curvaceous woman. It starts off good, blossoms at track 4, thins out a smidge at track 6, expands around track 7, then tapers off a bit to a nice pair of legs starting with track 9. The album is solidly built. Definitely the stand-out tracks for me are the title track, Supa Man, and Nitty Gritty. I'm definitely not saying that the others are poor, but I really enjoyed these. The CD's lyrically clever, musically rich, and just oodles of fun. And, honestly, I've never heard Ryan cuss more in my life than on the bonus track Stuck. Yikes.
So, ladies and gents, go buy it. And, while you're at it, buy some stuff. Listen to the album and quiver in ecstatic anticipation as you wait for the forthcoming follow-up, Prophecy Manifested.
Posted on January 14, 2003 8:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Huh. Hadn't heard about this before. I want my $5!
Posted on February 11, 2003 9:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
This is pretty freakin' nasty. Yuck.
Posted on May 1, 2003 2:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Oooh. Go check out laze's site redesign. It's so pretty it makes me cry. And it looks a hell of a lot better than my pitiful attempt at making this place look a little nicer. The code is just so clean and lovely. It almost makes me want to finally take the time to figure out how to do this stuff properly. Almost.
I was also glad to see that he'd already taken it upon himself to be guinea pig for the new version of PhotoStack. I probably would've just gotten frustrated with it and wouldn't have had any idea what was going wrong.
Posted on July 28, 2003 5:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
This is some of the best news I've heard all day. Sure, it's only 10am, so maybe that's not such a big deal, but still... this is big big good news.
Yes, I'm a geek.
Posted on September 26, 2003 10:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
One of the books that I got for Christmas was Napoleon's Buttons: How 17 Molecules Changed History. Though I'm not a chemist and never was all that great at it, so some of it's a bit over my head, it's a great read. I don't read much these days and very little non-fiction, so it's rare for a non-fiction book to grab me this way. It's interesting to see how things could've been different without the discovery or synthesis of certain molecules and molecular compounds, what these discoveries influenced, and how the tiniest change in molecular structure (even as simple as, say, a bond being a double or triple bond instead of a single) can change a chemical from benign and useful to something incredibly lethal. Great book and I recommend it to anyone.
Bought the Concert for George CD for myself after Christmas, since I had to return something. Excellent CD. Methinks I'll be checking out more George Harrison stuff soon. Though I always loved his Beatles tunes and I liked the solo stuff of his I'd heard, I never really got into George, but there are some great covers on here that make me think I'll really like it.
Posted on January 5, 2004 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
One nice used DVD find I made recently was WWII in Color. I caught part of the end of a similar show narrated by Martin Sheen on PBS when it aired, but then I forgot to look to see if it had come out on DVD. I was lucky to find this, which I've read is a much better documentary.
The bits I saw in the PBS version gave a fresh perspective on the war. Something about the black and white footage always seems a little fake. It FEELS like a movie. But this feels so much more real when you see it. I haven't watched all of it yet, but what I saw was rather graphic, as well, and I hear the battle scenes can be pretty graphic.
I'd recommend this to anyone, though maybe the faint of heart should look away during certain scenes. Especially with the glut of WWII PC and console games out these days, sometimes it's easy to forget what it was really like.
Posted on January 21, 2004 1:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Remember... January 23rd is National Pie Day. So... remember to eat a pie. Or somethin'.
Posted on January 21, 2004 2:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
This Valentine's Day, send a loved one VD (link provided by Sarah).
Posted on February 9, 2004 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)