Blog - August 2012 Archives
August 2012 Archives
Index
.26 Weekly revue: 2012 week #34 (August 18 to August 24)
.18 Weekly revue: 2012 week #33 (August 11 to August 17)
.11 Weekly revue: 2012 week #32 (August 4 to August 10)
.04 Weekly revue: 2012 week #31 (July 28 to August 3)
August 26, 2012
Weekly revue: 2012 week #34 (August 18 to August 24)
Food & cat: - Went to Komeda's Coffee for the first time, a chain from Nagoya that has been expanding in Tokyo lately, it seems. Nice! And their signature "shironoir" danish with soft ice cream on top is great!
- Had great South Indian curry at Cochin Nivas, in Shinjuku.
- Met a friendly cat named Tora-san at girly accessory shop Alice in Tinyroom, in Harajuku. It's been living there for a little while, but walks around the area freely too.
Music release news: Frenesi, Perfume, Gotye (Cornelius remix), akiko
Playlist: Frenesi, Teams, Modern Choki Chokies, Chiroline vol.2, Kyary Pamyu Pmayu, Crue-L Grand Orchestra, Milton Banana Trio, Recoride, Tokyo Panorama Mambo Boys, hitomitoi, Dorian, ...
Tech: I participated to an event at work where those who want to can spend 2 days concentrating on making anything they want. I made a feature that combines photos and GPS in a way I like, and thanks to everyone's votes I got the 2nd place!
This week's videos:
Shonen Knife "Ghost Train" (from latest album "Pop Tune")
They're as good as ever! As says the song, keep on rockin'!!
And here's a great TV commercial for "Mon Petit" cat food :)
Posted on August 26, 2012 at 01:33
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August 18, 2012
Weekly revue: 2012 week #33 (August 11 to August 17)
New music: Lately I've started to buy a bit more digitally, so this week I could enjoy a bunch of new music that I felt I had missed upon.
- I saw Nakano Aya last week, she was hosting the free event that featured (Small) Sally Soul Stew and DJ Hase Hajimu. That's what made me check out her cover album "zurui hito that's produced by Hase Hajimu. It's a jazzy album of well-known songs, mostly Japanese except for a cover of "Fall In Love" sung half in Japanese.
- I think I've caught Miyauchi Yuri live twice (at Enban Jamboree and a I Am Robot And Proud show if I remember right), but I had yet to hear one of his full albums. His latest features Cornelius on guitar throughout, so this was the perfect right time!
- Also Recoride's new "Sasaki EP" reminded me of their recent album I was really curious about. Got both and they're really great! If new wave/synth-punk sounds like your thing don't miss this!
All of the above seem to be available on iTunes worldwide, so no feeling left out!
Music release news: SMAP (track by Konishi Yasuharu), "WITS Compilation Vol.3", Yakushimaru Etsuko, Polysics, milk, Recoride, lyrical school, Being Borings
Playlist: Chiroline ver.2, hitomitoi, esu-efu, Chocolat, Luvraw & BTB, Towa Tei, Pyokn, "Crue-L Café", The Aprils
Tech: I finally started using ZNC, an IRC client that acts as a proxy. It keeps me online and logs everything, letting me even write shell scripts to monitor the logs and do things automatically. Fun! :)
This week's video:
milk "The Recipe Song" (from album "greeting for the sleeping seeds"). Cute clip, and the cupcakes featured are from my favorite Sunday Bake Shop!
Posted on August 18, 2012 at 14:39
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August 11, 2012
Weekly revue: 2012 week #32 (August 4 to August 10)
Outing: - Last weekend was Tanabata matsuri in Asagaya, held every year around August 8. The arcade mall that goes south from the station gets packed with people who go to look at the papier-mâché sculptures made by each shop. Many are good (some not so good) attempts at recreating some famous characters.
Music event: - On Wednesday was a free event at small club The Room in Shibuya, organized by label Vivid Sound, and featuring a sized-down version of Sally Soul Stew, DJ Hase Hajimu, and also singer Nakano Aya (album "zurui hito" produced by Hase Hajimu)! "Sally Small Stew" featured Sally Kubota with Lemon and Nakamori Yasuhiro, and they played 5 songs including 2 Wada Akiko covers. :) Had a lot of fun!!
- AND, there I got to meet 3 members of the Scooters!! Thanks to super-kind Sally for introducing me! I even got a photo of me with them, which I'll refrain to post because they don't aren't wearing their wigs, ha. :) They were all so nice!! By the way, Sally plays bass on all songs on the Scooters' new album "Une Manche et La Belle", and there will be a show on October 10 at Shibuya WWW.
New music: I've been all over Chiroline ver.2's album "Chit Chat Chiroline" this week. I've had it on repeat a lot! Chiroline was a band that had a few releases in the mid-to-late-80's produced by Okada Tohru (Moonriders, now of CTO LAB.). Now Okada-san formed a new band of 4 different young girls, made them record covers of the old Chiroline songs and adding some new ones too. This new album had the help of other members of CTO LAB., and also contains a new song written by The Aprils' Imai Kentarō, and one by Urbangarde too! Great stuff!!
Music release news: Okada Tohru, Recto Berso, TRI4TH, Rocketman
Playlist: Dorian, novaFASE, Aprils, coltemonikha, Cotton Candy, CTO LAB., Sally Soul Stew, New Castle, Chiroline ver.2, Scooters, "Motivation - Driving Sweets"
Tech: - Following my "mixi Check for Flickr" user script for Flickr from last week, I made a "mixi Check for Twitter". :) This one adds a neat "mixi Check" button on all retweetable tweets on the PC Twitter site! It works nicely for Firefox and Chrome, so try it!
(Side note: I'm especially happy to have been able to adjust the mixi Check icon's color to fit any Twitter page's theme, by calculating and rendering the icon's color table on-the-go. This had me look into the GIF89a and data URL scheme specs.)
This week's video:
Perfume "Spending all my time", new single coming August 15! This track with English lyrics sounds more like capsule to me than the usual Perfume. Weird and cool clip too!
DadaD "Mermaid". Here's a good new clip from latest album "mission passion".
Posted on August 11, 2012 at 01:45
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August 4, 2012
Weekly revue: 2012 week #31 (July 28 to August 3)
Well I turned 34! I prefer to write 0x22 though. :)
Food: - On a hot weekend afternoon we went to line up at recently opened kakigōri (shaved ice) shop Niccori~na in Sasazuka. I had one of strawberries and condensed milk. It was quite big but it takes almost no time to eat. :)
- As a birthday present a few days early, I was taken to Ukai Toriyama in Takao. Ukai is a Japanese restaurant, and the branches in Takao have really nice gardens, plus it's the right season to see fireflies there! We saw a lot! The food was very good too of course!
- Also I had the best birthday cake, a homemade black forest cake (my favorite!) :) It was delicious of course!
New music: - novaFASE new digital EP "Opportunities" from Flawless World! While novaFASE (unit of Tanaka Tomonao and Groove Unchant) aren't really back, these are some brand new 2012 mixes! Some of the most fun danceable stuff I've heard of late! In promotion, there are also two bonus remixes up on Tremorela's SoundCloud that you can download for free.
Music release news: "WIRE12 Compilation", Takahashi Yukihiro tribute album (O/S/T & more!), Sawagi, Yellow Magic Orchestra, COMA*
Playlist: hitomitoi, esu-efu, Nomiya Maki, Scooters, Takanami Keitaro to Playtime Rock meets Shibata Kenichi, dahlia, Vanilla Beans, "Dekawanko Original Soundtrack", Teams, ...
Tech: - I made a userscript (aka Greasemonkey script) that can be used with Firefox and Chrome. It adds a "mixi Check" button to Flickr's photo pages, together with the other share options. If you're a mixi user please give it a try! :) Instructions are here.
- Also I noticed that my very old Flickr photos on this blog were all broken. Turns out that Flickr's very old domains (photos##.flickr.com) are out of order. Rest of story hidden, click here to read it...
This week's video:
Sawagi "kyakkya" from upcoming album "Punch Games"
Posted on August 4, 2012 at 10:19
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