july 28

went to a great local summer festival this week, in honor of Kato Kiyomasa who was a samuri turned shogun turned architect of kumamoto castle (basically a local hero). festival involved the typical japanese summer love, beetles, barbecued squid, lanterns, minimal fireworks, 浴衣(summer kimono), oh and beetles, and squid.

july 27

july 26

went to the beach today, it was hot, humid and hot.

july 25

Big Labowski action figures coming soon. pre-order HERE

july 24

check out this cool rice field illustration. its done by growing a little purple and yellow-leafed kodaimai rice along with their local green-leafed tsugaru-roman variety. lots more photos HERE

july 20

been experiencing this flood of racism/political activism the past few weeks over immigration reform. its seems that closet bigots dont feel comfortable saying fuck the mexicans, but if its in the name of securing the homeland, alls fair. iv heard all the angles, and to be honest im pretty tired of the ellis island flag flapping patriotic rhetoric. iv got coworkers, friends and family, who im pretty sure dont even vote, but are all up in arms right now over juan and jose, but when it was hillel efraim and yaakova i doubt they would have been forwarding bogus emails and letters to the editor

july 17

sorry, im a couple weeks late on this, but it honestly has taken me this long to sift through the whole thing. on july 4th, funk master flex (yeah, that ass who; has/had some show about cars on spike tv, the self righteous dj who loves to talk over EVERY track he has ever played; but who also has been playing hip hop at hot 97 in NYC for 15 years) played 90's hip hop live for FIVE HOURS!! is can be streamed or downloaded HERE . he digs really deep playing everything from tribe, early Wu, mob deep, queen latifa, nasty nAS, brand nubians, planet asia, EPMD, diamond D............and as icing on the cake, the entire 5 hours is in chronological order.

july 15

july 13

july 12

Artist Bill Shannon, born with a congenital hip defect, skateboards, dances, and strikes crazy freeze-frame poses. All with crutches. check out this RJD2 video for "Work It Out"

july 11

i ordered some books from amazon today, i was $.23 away from free shipping, so i was cruising for something cheap to throw in to qualify, and that...that..., is when i found used lip balm for $1.99

july 10

fundamental radicalism

july 9

drove around the country side with my friends today, saw lots of random stuff, a few volcanos, a really odd tunnel with a river flowing through it, lots and lots of japanese summer greenery, ended the day at an internet cafe drinking canned beer watching "unknown", good premise, poorly executed.

july 8

got some great toys today. the knuckle bear, pollution =A

and the new artist bear from be@rbrick series 14 (only a 1.04% chance of that!)

july 6

my 8 year old student showed up to class today with a cell phone!! why you ask? dont worry, i asked myself the same question. keep in mind, that 120 million people live here, and there are 90 million active cellular accounts.

july 5

watched michael winterbottom's "The Road to Guantanamo" today (director of mighty heart, code 46, wonderland,...) a really great docu drama telling the tale of the Tipton Three, a trio of British Muslims who were held in Guantanamo Bay for two years until they were released without charge. this film stirred a lot of emotion from me, mainly embarrassment, not sure if it made me embarrassed to be american, or embarrassed for america? either way, a good watch. its hard to see innocent people treated that way, but i also cant justify guilty humans being treated that way, all in the name of national security. is there any end to a war on terror? seems silly to me, maybe instead of trying to kill or imprison every islamic radical, we should figure out why they want to ensue violence on us, and change their motives. as the famous david cross recently put it, "a war on terror?, thats like declaring a war on jealousy". you cant militarily defeat an idea.

july 4

my friend tried to sell me a pair of vintage levis today for ¥176,400, thats currently $1,441.89!!

july 1

¿sıɥʇ pɐǝɹ oʇ uʍop ǝpısdn pɐǝɥ ɹnoʎ buıʇ1ıʇ ʇuɹɐ noʎ ǝdoɥ ǝɹns ı