Monday, July 31, 2006

Not Quite A Ninja

As you may have read my wife and I are going to dress as Ninja's for the Yosakoi Festival in August in Japan, after recieving the costumes it quickly became apparent that wearing the full suit would prove to be extremely HOT, so we had to come up with solutions to the problems, which are numerous,
1 the actual costumes are quite thick = we can't do much about this
2 my costume is black which is the worst colour to wear in the sun= cant do anything about this
3 the tight fitting elasticated inner hood/face mask is extremely hot = I can do something about this

Here are my solutions:
1 Modify my costume so that the arms are shorter and I won't wear the gauntlets/hand covers.
2 Nothing
3 Wear a cycling air filter mask with either the outer ninja hood or a fishermans straw hat or alternately wear a black veil

the problem with these solutions is they don't look quite authentic on the Ninja front. So is it a case of boil to death or be a sudo-ninja, well I believe that the answer lies in the fact that Ninja's would probably wear what was necessary to do the job, so uniforms would not be so strict, hence forth I will be a cyber Ninja and damn tradition hahaha.

Sad News

Today I heard some news that made me feel a little empty, my favourite author of all time died last Friday(28th July). His name was David Gemmell and he wrote fantasy novels. In my opinion his work was better(for me) than Tolkien's work, in fact for me he was the best Author I had ever read. I would like to send my condolence's to his family. There is a beautiful comments page about him on the BBC website, some of the comments are very moving and it is fitting that such a wonderful man has a fitting tribute. I once had the pleasure of meeting David and I still treasure the book he signed for me. I always looked forward to the release of his next book and now sadly the expectation has been taken away. Rest in the Hall of Heroes David, you will be greatly missed. If anyone reads this go and get yourself a copy of Legend and witness for yourself how good a writer David was. Quite emotional at the moment, it really feels like I have lost a friend, and I am sure many of his fans feel the same. LOVE HONOUR PEACE AND PRIDE.

Sunday, July 23, 2006

Yosakoi Dancing

Well I am off to Japan in 2 weeks time, and it is my favourite time of the year to go to Kochi City in Japan as they hold a dance festival called Yosakoi which is a beautiful thing to watch. It is made up of various teams wearing marvelous costumes and generally thrilling all the spectators for 3 days during August(10th,11th,12th) most of the dance troupes practice for months and some of the dances are very very intricate, last year I took part in the festival in a dance troupe made up completely of tourists(mainly Japanese) and learnt the dance we had to do in about 1 hour (it was a very simple dance that I still managed to get wrong on several occasions) anyway this year my wife entered us into the festival with a dance troupe one of her blog friends told her about, basically we had to register online and then watch the dance on the website and try and learn it that way, to any Japanese viewers of my blog you would probably recognise the dance as a traditional one but to me it is completely alien... HELP... No matter how hard I try I cannot make my moves look less feminine I look like a really CAMP fat old man, I am starting to panic, my wife may of come to the rescue because she noticed on the site that there were no dress restrictions:P so she said we could dress as NINJA'S and hide our faces I think this is an utterly brilliant suggestion and it could be the answer to hiding my shame. I really want to get the dance right, the reason is this, when the dancers dance down the streets, judges walk with them watching for people who they are impressed with and award them with a medal, I WANT TO GET ONE, this is my dream, but with my luck I will end up forgetting the dance completely and just look like a demented drunken Ninja, oh God nightmares are made of this........So if anyone reading this happens to be in Kochi for Yosakoi and they see a round wobbly ninja causing havoc in a dance troupe ITS NOT ME ITS SOMEONE DISGUISED AS ME:)....
P.S. Obachan I have your tea:)

Monday, July 10, 2006

Sleepy

Yawn.... I am too sleepy, actually more like exhausted, I have worked for 22 days straight now getting on average 6 hours sleep a day, luckily I will not be working on the upcoming weekend, BANZAIIIIIIIIII :) anyway its bedtime here so goodnight (oyasumi nasai) sleep well everyone, have sweet dreams, love honour peace and pride.

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Whats in a Lyric?

"Did I disappoint you or let you down?
Should I be feeling guilty or let the judges frown?
'Cause I saw the end before we'd begun,
Yes I saw you were blinded and I knew I had won.
So I took what's mine by eternal right.
Took your soul out into the night.
It may be over but it won't stop there,
I am here for you if you'd only care.
You touched my heart you touched my soul.
You changed my life and all my goals.
And love is blind and that I knew when,
My heart was blinded by you.
I've kissed your lips and held your head.
Shared your dreams and shared your bed.
I know you well, I know your smell.
I've been addicted to you.
Goodbye my lover.
Goodbye my friend.
You have been the one.
You have been the one for me.
I am a dreamer but when I wake,
You can't break my spirit - it's my dreams you take.
And as you move on, remember me,
Remember us and all we used to be
I've seen you cry, I've seen you smile.
I've watched you sleeping for a while.
I'd be the father of your child.
I'd spend a lifetime with you.
I know your fears and you know mine.
We've had our doubts but now we're fine,
And I love you, I swear that's true.
I cannot live without you.
Goodbye my lover.
Goodbye my friend.
You have been the one.
You have been the one for me.
And I still hold your hand in mine.
In mine when I'm asleep.
And I will bear my soul in time,
When I'm kneeling at your feet.
Goodbye my lover.
Goodbye my friend.
You have been the one.
You have been the one for me.
I'm so hollow, baby, I'm so hollow.
I'm so, I'm so, I'm so hollow."

Monday, July 03, 2006

What the Heck

I love Gamera, in fact probably slighty more than Gigan (only due to the fact Gamera has his own movies), well to say I love Gamera I mean the Heisei period Gamera, you know the mean looking mother of a turtle, so imagine my excitement when I found out they were making a new Gamera movie, then I saw the title and became slightly worried Gamera: Little Braves surely not. The Heisei Gamera was quite a dark series of movies showing what a Keiju should really be like, Gamera was portrayed as a defender to humanity who occasionally had to sacrifice some for the protection of the many, and above all he looked HARD as ROCK. See one mean looking Kaiju (not like Mothra who looks effeminate)
Next we see an image of the Gamera from the new movie

What the hell's going on here thats not a Kaiju, thats a pet turtle, in fact if you look closely Gamera looks more like one of those damned Ninja Turtles as you can see in the evidence below

GAMERATELLO

ARGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHH no please don't let this be so, please let there be a real Gamera in the movie, the Heisei period of films won high acclaim both in Japan and abroad due to its darker approach, it was fresh and appealed to a wider audience than was usual for Kaiju films, sadly it looks to me as though Gamera Little Braves is aimed purely for the child market, this is a sad day for me:(

Saturday, July 01, 2006

Inspiration

Two off my favourite bands of all time are Nine Inch Nails and Bauhaus so when I found out they were touring together I was excited but quickly got depressed as I realised that it was an American based tour and they were unlikey to appear in the UK together:( But then Trent Reznor (NIN) announced on his website that there were going to be radio broadcasts of himself and Peter Murphy (Bauhaus) so I could hear my two favourite artists perform together. Then even better than this the NIN website has put videos of the performance on this page http://www.nin.com/current/radioshows/index.html check it out, probably not to everyones taste but for me it is joy to my ears:) . Its rare that I look up to people but these two guys are amazing, and both are older than me which gives me hope that I still have time to learn guitar and make music (in my dreams but still hope). Anyway to Trent and Peter best of luck guys, thanks for the music.........

Love honour peace and pride