Fear.

Someone at EMI's pressing plant needs to loosen up the hubs in their CD trays a bit. I just picked up Hank Mobley's Workout tonight and boy was the disc in there tight. It took me a few minutes to get loose, as I didn't want to get too forceful and snap the CD in half. Incidentally this is a just released remaster of this album, part of the ongoing Rudy Van Gelder reissue series remastered by the man himself.

You Can Call Me Reverend Gueguen.

I was just checking out my e-mail, and noted a message with the subject line "GOOD DAY Dear REVEREND." It turned out to be another scam letter, this one claiming to be from the son of Jonas Savimbi. The text of the letter indicates that its not a case of the writer not knowing what the term reverend means, as it talks about the supposed money in question being used to build places of worship and winning souls to the Lord, and their desire to find a suitable clergyman to work with. Why the scammer decided to try the reverend schtick is beyond me. Is there someone out there in cyberland who has the utterly mistaken impression I'm a man of the cloth? I just hope some naive pastor doesn't let visions of expanding his congregation short circuit his common sense and end up in big trouble because of these guys.

Loss.

Yesterday I picked up an extra dollar and five cents by happenstance. Today this was balanced out when I lost one of my Staedler Lumocolor permanent markers that I use for bill marking. Worse, I think the price on these has gone up, so they sell individually for 2 bucks or so with the tax. Looks like I may have to consider buying them in cheaper packaged sets, if I can find them, or switch to the competing but easier to find Sharpie brand markers.

Calories.

I ate way too much today. Way too much. Anyone who knew me in my school days would likely be surprised how much I weigh these days since I was such a skinny little freak. I keep telling myself I'm going to cut back on some of the overindulgence of food, and seriously, I must get a handle on it. At least I did some walking around today to burn off some of this week's calories. Tomorrow will be better, that I know.

Bonus.

I was walking by a Coke vending machine today and noticed the display said 1.05. Out of curiosity I pressed the coin return and out popped 4 quarters and a nickle. I could only wonder why whoever dumped that buck five in there didn't get their coins back, but their loss was my gain. I sincerely doubt they were going to come back and get it if I just left it there.

Beverage vending machines, specifically soft drink machines, make up the majority of product vending machines in public locations in Saskatoon. There are occasional food vending machines, such as on the University of Saskatchewan campus, but they're very uncommon. Why this is the case is something I won't speculate on.

Hello Japan.

Things sure have been busy here today, especially compared to yesterday. For the first time ever its not hits from the US or Canada that are predominant, but Japan. A couple of Japanese visitiors were quite interested in the blog today, pushing up the hits, and a couple more have just been visiting. Most interesting.

Slow Day

Everyone must have decided to stay offline today, as my hits went way down. Of course it didn't help that I didn't post anything until now. I just didn't have anything worth writing about.

Bad With the Good.

Looking at the forecast you can tell spring is on the way for Saskatoon. But unfortunately with the warm weather comes the bad. For some its worrying about their basements and so on flooding. There's all the snow you need to shovel off your lawn so it melts quickly. But most importantly the most annoying facet is the return of insects. I just smushed one in my bathroom a bit ago, a silverfish or whatever it was. And soon we'll have to start thinking about the camelback crickets that appear in our basement every summer. At least we didn't have any mice visit us this winter, as they sometimes have in the past.

Buck Owens, RIP

I seem to have been making a lot of posts over the past few months about celebrity deaths. Unfortunately I have another to report. Country music legend Buck Owens has died at 75. Owens was considered one of the key players in developing the "Bakersfield sound" associated with California country music in the '60s and '70s. It was more gutbucket version of country at a time when Nashville had already become quite slick in so many of its productions. Unfortunately Owens is probably better known these day as the long serving host of the show Hee Haw than for his music.

Magazine on YouTube.

Time for some more YouTube links. This time its to some vids of Magazine, Howard Devoto's late '70s New Wave group. First up we have "Model Worker," where you get to see a glimpse of John McGeoch's famed MXR Flanger on a stick. Next is "Shot by Both Sides." I was hoping to find the video for "Feed the Enemy" since the Launch online video service used to have it, but no such luck.

More Caganism.

I know. I know.

Tough luck.

Anyways, here's Josh Cagan's MySpace page.

Hmmm, perhaps I should write something about John Cage one of these days.

Toppamono, a review.

Today I finished reading Toppamono: Outlaw, Radical, Suspect. My Life in Japan's Underworld by Manabu Miyazaki. Its the story of the first 50 years of Miyazaki's life. Born into a Kyoto yakuza family Miyazaki has been a leftwing student radical at one of Japanese top universities in the turbulent '60s, a freelance journalist, head of his family's demolition firm, a bodyguard, a participant in the real estate boom of Japan's late '80s "bubble economy," and a suspect in one of Japan's most notorious extortion cases, the Glico Morinaga affair. Toppamono is his first hand account of these adventures and misadventures. Originally released in 1996 it sold more that 600 thousand copies in Japan, and has now been translated into English.

Its an entertaining book. Miyazaki makes no excuses and gives no apologies for spending much of his life on the wrong side of the law. He also provides a glimpse into a part of Japanese society unfamiliar to most foreigners, and probably unfamiliar to many Japanese. He became interested in Marxism as a teen and you can see hints of it in some of his comments on Japanese society and economic structure. Conversely his interest in Marxism may have been fostered by his yakuza background given that members of Japan's underclasses, ethnic Koreans and the traditional Burakumin "untouchables," frequently end up as yakuza given their limited opportunities in Japanese society. The reader is likely at times to shake their head and smile at the brazeness that Miyazaki often used in his business dealings, like selling the same load of scrap to two different people, or literally making a neighbouring gravel pit vanish when the one his firm was using ran out of materials.

One thing I would have liked was some pictures, especially of the immediate post war period of Miyazaki's childhood in Kyoto. It would have been especially helpful regarding a poignant scene when Miyazaki returned to Kyoto in the late '80s after a long absense. Getting off the train he found that the area around the train station, where he had spent much of his childhood, had been flattened and turned into a concrete barren by the very real estate speculation he was involved with at the time. It would also be interesting to be able to compare the Miyazaki of the mid '80s with the "Fox Eyed Man" sought by police in the Glico Morinaga case.

Oddly the book doesn't really go into the details of Miyazaki's adult family life. He was married to the same woman twice, and had at least one son with her, but they only come up when Miyazaki sent them to Tokyo during some of his legal troubles in 1980, and he sees his son's first day of school at an exclusive Tokyo grade school when it is shown on TV. Nor does he discuss whatever other romantic involvements he might have had. Perhaps his intent was to protect his family from public scrutiny regarding events they had no actual role in.

Despite these shortcomings Toppamono is recommended to anyone interested in Japanese culture beyond its traditional arts, high tech wonders, and glossy pop culture.

Miyazaki has official websites in both Japanese and English, although the English on the latter can be a bit funky.

Spelling Annoying.

Looking back at my old posts I notice places where things are misspelled and find it rather annoying. Unfortunately they're usually things that a spell checker wouldn't catch, like quite for quiet. If I was using nice fifty buck words like mesothelioma or antidisestablishmentarianism all the time I wouldn't be all that annoyed at the errors.

Yes, Yet Another Undergrads Post

Don't worry, those of you uninterested in this series. This should be my last post about it for a bit. Well, maybe. In any case since I've mentioned Pete Williams online activities I'd be remiss if I didn't post a link to Josh Cagan's blog. Its not exactly the most frequently updated blog on the planet, but Undergrads fans might be interested. BTW, if you're passing through and have a blog or webpage related to the series(especially if you were involved in making it) leave me a note in the comments section of whatever the latest post is and I may post a link to it. Emphasis on the may. If your page is a massive collection of your nude fanart of the pizza guy with the high voice I doubt I'll be posting it.

Pete Williams on MySpace

This time there's an actual Undergrads related post to go with this picture. In his ongoing campaign to generate some action regarding the series Undergrads creator Pete Williams has set up a site on MySpace. He seems really determined given how active he currently is online.

(Yes, I know the picture doesn't really go with the post. I just wanted to use it since I went to the trouble of grabbing it.)

A Different Kind of Casino.

Its been a while since I've posted a random Japanese culture link, and since I'm bored I'll post one here. Its for cotton & billawtm web, the homepage of Cotton Casino and Bill Lawton. No, Cotton Casino is not a place but a person, the former synth player, beer drinker, and cigarette smoker for Acid Mothers Temple and the Melting Paraiso UFO, the Japanese neo-psychedelic group. No, I don't know why she calls herself that. Its probably none of our business.

Cards

Posting about King of Vegas got me thinking about cards, but not gaming cards. Rather it got me thinking about all the cards we all seem to carry these days. In my own wallet I found:

A Rogers Video rental card.
My University of Saskatchewan ID card, 1985 vintage.
My Social Insurance Number card.
My dad's old CAA card.
An M&M Meats Max card.
My Saskatchewan Health Services card.
My Visa credit card.
My Saskatoon Credit Union bank card.
My Saskatoon Public Library library card.
My Air Miles card.
And my Shoppers Optimum card.

And I'm travelling light compared with some folks. Just imagine how many barrels of oil a day go into just producing a bunch of stupid cards we don't really need.

Addenda

A quick check shows there will be a King of Vegas 2. I guess that means the ratings must have been good.

The King of Vegas Is Crowned.

Tonight was the final episode of Spike's King of Vegas. It turned out I was half right about the outcome. For a while now I had suspected that Alan Borman would be in the final showdown. But I had expected it to be with Hollywood Dave Stann, a professional blackjack player whose primary mission seemed to be to be as annoying as possible to everyone. Stann and Borman didn't like each other, but then who did like Stann, other than maybe David Williams? Their climatic battle actually turned out to be last week, and Borman took out Stann. So the final 3 were Borman, David Williams, and 83 year old Vegas fixture Jerry Goldberg. Williams had a string of bad luck tonight, but with a couple of his moves you almost have to wonder if he didn't deliberately lose. As a gambling pro Williams has already made close to 5 million bucks at a mere 25 years old, and can easily make the 1 million bucks he would have won tonight elsewhere. So the final battle was between Borman and Goldberg, with it all coming down to a final hand of Texas Hold 'Em poker where both players bet all their chips. Borman ended up with a pair of aces and won, becoming the first King of Vegas. Not bad for an amateur.

In a "blink and you missed it" moment I'm sure I saw Jon Finkel in the crowd at the start of the show, no doubt there to cheer on his friend Williams.

If Spike produces another season of King of Vegas episodes my suggestion is that they drop the horse race betting. Personally I found it the least interesting of the games shown, and I suspect the producers may have realised that as well since they only used it twice. At least they didn't do something really silly like having a slot machine segment.

How About Some Fresh JFK Ideas?

I was just reading a bit from a thread on Usenet on some Kennedy assassination program. One of the posters claimed he was killed by Lyndon Johnson and the Mob conspiring together. How dull. You'd think after all these years someone could come up with some new suspects. How about:

Aristotle Onassis? After all Jackie eventually ended up as his wife. Perhaps he decided years beforehand she had to be his, and his first move was to get rid of the competition, JFK. If anyone could arrange a hit and get away with it one of the world's richest men could.

Jackie Kennedy? Yeah, even "Saint Jackie" would get pissed off at his roving eye sooner or later. Maybe she finally had enough.

The French? Lots of Americans currently hate the French. I'm sure with a little bit of work somebody could come up with some nefarious reason De Gaulle wanted Kennedy wacked.

I'm sure with some work someone could come up with all sorts of interesting candidates. And given the funhouse mirror quality of the Kennedy assassination fandom, which arguably you could call what the debate has become, anyone who comes up with a new theory, no matter how outlandish, will find the evidence, and the "evidence," proves their theory.

(Of course now someone will tell me there is an Onassis theory, or a Jackie theory, or a French theory floating about. It wouldn't surprise me in the least.)