Nikkatsu, Barricade, and Mas School

So, today after class Audrey and I went up into the East side of Midtown to Japan Society. It was the opening of a film series, "No Borders, No Limits: 1960's Nikkatsu Action Cinema," that's looking at the old Nikkatsu action films from the 1960's (tad redundant taint we?). This being during the Japanese New Wave period in cinema. I personally love the films from this period, with films such as "Branded to Kill" and "The Pornographers" (a must see if you haven't seen it go watch it now, now I say, you can finish reading about what's going on in my daily possibly not so interesting life later. Don't forget to come back and comment mind ye).

So, the first in this series was "A Colt is My Passport." It was awesome, it had the lead actor from "Branded to Kill" as well as it is directed by the same director, Seijun Suzuki. There is a lot of reflexivity in the film upon its own events. Like there is one scene that has the main character trying to figure out what weapon to use in a confrontation, then we see the opposition pondering what weapon he might use, that is then being watched by the main character by some binoculars. Oh, and don't forget awesome timing with music cues that are trumpet heavy, so heavy and melo-dramatic at times that you half expect a trumpet player to come marching in the room. Also, the end awesome, some McGuyver stuff goes down and the main character essentially sticks a time bomb on the bottom of a car as it is attempting to run him down, which then explodes.

They had a reception after the film, the food was so good, we didn't have to get any dinner. Two words, beef rolls. They were so good. Oh and guess what, they got student rates as well, oh yah!

In other news I got books in the mail and my so-called gift to myself for my b-day, the Deluxe Transformers Barricade. That thing was nigh on impossible to find. I never saw it in a store, Amazon is trying to sell this 10 dollar toy for 60 bucks. Insane hey? Ya, I was able to get it much cheaper which was good, otherwise I wouldn't have gotten it. It's really nice and looks wicked as you can see.



School has been marching on and with it so has my life and my time, oi. I've been forced to cut back my hours at Tekserve, two days a week now, we'll see how that works out. The globalization/hybridization class continues to get better and more interesting along with fun digressions like the movie Red Dawn, GO WOLVERINES SAVE OUR MCDONALDS FROM THE COMMIES! Last week in Media Change I presented on a chapter from Flusser about looking at the camera as an apparatus, made me think about Web 2.0 and issues of power, who really has it, (hint it's not the users). That assertion heated up the discussion, and lately I've become the real Web 2.0 basher. It's become my deal almost that and issues of power, the real and post-modernity all of which came up within the mapping class. I feel with that class, it could be a lot more interesting or could become it if people wanted to engage more thoroughly the issue of power in relation to the practice of mapping or its inherent presence. Oh well, I get my presentation in two weeks on the manipulative aspects of mapping, exactly what I'm interested and doing. That brings me to the NNW, I have now integrated the FBI's to wanted terrorists and domestic terrorists into the word list. There's so many aliases for everyone, it's insane, not to mention what people are wanted for.

Anyways I need to get up tomorrow to go to work, oi. So, laters.

Car Sounds & 50 Years with the M16

So, I've never heard this guy Michael Winslow before, apparently he's a stand up comedian who makes noises and such. His car noises, damn. Just listen because it's really ridiculous. He does a Led Zepplin guitar solo at the end as well.



The News Hour on monday did an interview with Jim Sullivan one of the original people working on developing the M16. It brought up the concern and question about certain priorities of the U.S.' military procurement process. The M16 of course is a rather old gun, since it began development in 1957. The issue is that the U.S. has not moved forward with technology at all in regards to the rifles issued to troops on the ground, whereas those who they are combating have rifles that are much more contemporary and functional. Functional in the terms of the operation of the weapon, with the M16 still apparently suffering from problems with jamming and the like even under light circumstances versus the rugged and nearly indestructible Kalashnikov. Back when the M16 was adopted the military fought it in every way possible and was later investigated to be almost criminally negligent to be equipping soldiers with older rifles. I wonder if this may deemed the case with the current state of the M16 in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, food rations have improved tremendously apparently.

Colin & Other News

First off, I want to pay some respects to Colin McRae (1968-2007). For those of you who don't know who Colin McRae is, he's a Scottish rally driver. He won the World Rally Championship in 1995 for Subaru. He was runner up in 1996, 1997, and 2001. Known for being quite a fearless driver which resulted numerous times in offs, crashes, and the like due to pushing just a little to hard. Always haven driven flat out there was no toning down his tenacity. I had the chance to see him in 2006 at the X-Games, the first year they held a rally event. He was well out front of the competition, however he landed wrong after the final jump and rolled his car. He landed wheels down and took off as soon as they hit the ground and finished only a tenth of a second shy of 1st place. I was utterly shocked and amazed that he could pull off almost winning even after rolling his car. Here is a video from that day.



It's been a very rapid ascent this fall semester. right off the bat during the first week and continuing on I've had on minimum 150-200 pages of reading. Now this ain't your light reading it's all freakin' dense as hell. A lot of modernity, postmodernity, globalization, hybridity, economics, cultural relations, and the list goes on. I had two presentations this week and a paper due on top of that so I'm pretty spent. The paper and conjoining presentation was rather interesting material. It was a response to chapter by Flusser on the camera as an apparatus. Talked a lot about power relationships, medium, the "program" or design, and the entrapment of apparatuses. One of the examples I threw out during my presentation was the fallacy of power afforded by the Web 2.0 phenomina. Some people had some ardent arguements about that. My teacher backed me up on it, but it was definitely interesting discussion. However, all this left me very tired. I do have to say it's all very interesting reading and I enjoy it even if it's utterly draining sometimes. I find it will probably come in handy during thesis time this coming semester.

I am still coveting the blasted iPod Touch, but seriously, I need to know if it can be jailbaited before I buy one. I'm telling myself I want it for the N.N.W., but another part is I just want it. Really it's just trying to justify the means. Oi! Maybe I should take up a collection for "The Buy Emery an iPod Touch Foundation." I've also begun to eye the Logitech Revolution MX mouse, it feels so good, nice and heavy, and really nice ergonomic fit in the hand. It's got a place for your thumb. It feels real nice. I have to see if I will need it for the amount of time I'll be on the comp. We'll see. That one is a lot more in reach than the Touch.

On the 14th, "Death, Destruction, and the Weather Coming Up Next" screened in Milan, Italy at the Milano Film Festival. It was part of the "Different American Cinema" program. I'm still really shocked that it made it there. Sometime in this week or next week it will be getting shown in Taipei, Taiwan, at the Taiwanese International Animation Festival. I guess it has a hint at having legs.

Anyways I got more reading to do, so I'm gonna head back to that. but before I go here's a few little random tidbits. The first from the military industrial complex, of Russia. The other from the G-Train stations. Enjoy.


Amazing jet the Russian SU35.



"Me and Pookie put something special in the 'Special Sauce.'"