Japan spring 2012 - the plan so far

This Japan trip is shaping up to be one of the better ones we've had recently - and really they've all been good, so that's saying something. We don't spend much money on many things, but if there's one thing my wife and I know how to do, it's travel well. We should write a book! But the last couple trips I feel like we've been overconfident, relying too much on our local knowledge and winging it a little too often. I'm not the kind of person who likes to have everything planned out in my life, but on the other hand a) planning for a trip is actually half the fun, and b) it does actually waste a lot of time having to constantly figure out where you're heading the next day while you're there. Last time, we spent a little too much time in our hotel Googling for things to do.

So this time we've got a ton of stuff planned already, and I'm sure we'll come up with more stuff before we leave. Here I am planning our trip:

(Joke, btw. Try to keep up.)

Cities: Tokyo and Hiroshima

Flight(s): JAL (ANA was too expensive this time around)

Hotels:

Tokyo - Grand Arc Hanzomon

This is the same hotel we stayed at last year, though this time, we got a 400 square foot "deluxe" twin (last year was a regular twin):

This hotel is the best deal in Tokyo right now, I think. Great, big rooms, amazing view, basically perfect location, and both times we've stayed they've had great prices too. We put a lot of effort into finding our hotels and we've never been disappointed, but this one's our favorite so far. I still lament the Grand Prince Akasaka sometimes, but alas, it's now sleeping with the fishes. Or six feet under. Or whatever metaphor fits a rotting husk of a former hotel.

Hiroshima - Sheraton

Our first visit together to Hiroshima (my wife's been previously). I obviously wanted to go for the history, and my wife also wanted me to go for the history, which I can understand. I'm sure we'll be visiting the Arizona memorial when we go to Hawaii too (I've also been there previously). Anyway, the Sheraton's one of the newest hotels in Hiroshima, has some of the biggest rooms (this one's 377 square feet), some of the best views and we also managed to find it for an almost comically low rate. I mean you can't stay at some Super 8 motels for the price we paid for this room.

I wrote a whole post a while back about finding hotels in Japan, but really all you need these days is Kayak. And be sure to really look at the pictures there; pay attention both to what they're showing and not showing. You won't find lower rates or a bigger selection, since it aggregates everything. One tip: start looking at midnight. I swear, this really is when the cancellations get put into the system, and they try to refill those rooms as quickly as possible. If you can be the first, you can score one of those cancellation rooms at a ridiculous price. I'm convinced that's how we got both of these rooms this time. (I feel like I'm giving away some trade secret here, which I'm gonna regret next time we book.)

Stuff we've got planned so far:

• Kobe beef restaurant (no, "Kobe style" or "California Kobe" is not the same!)
• Guitar shopping in Ochanomizu (will I buy something??  Hmmmm....)
• Uhh... model train shopping in Akihabara
• Err... maid cafe in Akihabara (we want to try a famous one this time)
• Hooters (not my idea!)
• AKB48 theater show(??)
• Haneda Airport visit (you know, for the food, obviously)
• SCANDAL at Budokan(!!)
• Hiroshima Castle
• Hiroshima Peace Park & Museum
• Possibly a stop on the way back in Kyoto to visit Kiyomizu or another temple

We're also doing some "business stuff" that we want to stay secret but is really going to be a lot of fun, and I know we are both looking forward to it. (It's similar to other business stuff we've done recently.) Hey, it's also what makes this trip a tax writeoff...

That's not a complete list - just stuff we either know we're doing or plan on trying to do. The AKB48 show almost definitely will not happen but we're really actually hoping it does - we requested tickets and now have to wait to see if we win the lottery (literally). Apparently tickets are very hard to come by these days! At least we actually have our Scandal tickets, which we didn't know how lucky we were to get.

My wife wants to visit Haneda airport because she's heard there are a lot of good restaurants there - go figure. I don't mind - I love airports as long as I'm not flying. I can watch planes take off and land all day long, though, because I am a nerd.

We did get a Japan Rail Pass this time, so I'm hoping we're not too worn out to hop off and back on the train at Kyoto and do a little sightseeing there. We had originally planned to spend some real time there again - we love the city (who doesn't??) - but it's spring break in Japan and probably elsewhere in the region and the hotels are all booked up. All that's left are $300+ rooms.

This is our first time to ever get a Japan Rail Pass, which I usually don't really think is worth it (it's certainly not automatically worth it, as some sites say it is; it depends on where you're planning to go and how you're planning to get there to begin with). I'll probably write a post about our experiences with it either during or after the trip. We did get the Green Car version of the rail pass, which I've decided is the only way to travel in Japan. It's really not that much more expensive.

Oh, and if you're a follower of my blog (not that I have many), we did not get Twilight Express tickets yet again... :(  But we've got a lot of things planned to make up for it.

Read more...

FFXIII-2's bullshit ending, and other musings on the series

READ THIS FIRST, AND HEED IT. I've been getting a lot of comments on this post from what are obviously kids that I've apparently personally offended and for some reason think this blog is a democracy where free speech reigns. It is not a democracy, kids. It is my personal blog. If I don't like your comment, I will delete it and I will ban you from commenting again. I will not offer you an explanation. Don't like the policy? Start your own blog - no one's stopping you.
-----------------------------

I'm angry. Angry because I just put 40 hours into a video game and what did I get? I got a big "fuck you" from the game's developers. But let's rewind a bit.

Spoilers follow, obviously.

The era of the CGI cinematic didn't start with Final Fantasy VII, but it was the first game that really got it right. That game used the medium of the CD-ROM to tell an epic story along with its 60+ hours of gameplay, and it rewarded gamers both along the way and at the end with CG animated scenes. Here's its ending:

Crude animation by modern standards, but you can see how this is a fitting ending to a long and in-depth story. I still tear up a bit when I see Aeris in that last shot.

Square started to really perfect their animation skills with FFVIII, a game that was otherwise disappointing but did have a fantastic ending in both content and technique:

You can really see Square hitting their stride here. Still no voices, but they had learned to tell stories through visuals and music. It was like watching a great, modern silent movie. But as good as it looks and sounds, it's what's in that ending that makes it great. It wasn't all wine and roses, either - one of the characters dies, but you can see that her spirit lives on in her daughter. So it's bittersweet, but still satisfying.

And so the series went on like that for a while - I won't post all the endings but you get the idea. Great animation, beautifully told stories.

Even FFXIII still had a pretty good ending, despite being a basically crap game. I'll post that one because it leads directly into FFXIII-2, which is the problem here:

Not quite as emotional as the best FF endings, and a little derivative of FFVII, but not bad. Fang and Vanille save the world, Lightning's sister Serah wakes up from her crystal prison, and Lightning gives her blessing to Serah and Snow's wedding. And everyone lives happily ever after.

OR DO THEY? FFXIII-2: holy crap, what the fuck is this?

If you don't feel like sitting through 17 minutes, you can just fast forward to around the 12 minute mark below, where the real cinematic begins.

Saving the world? Failed. Restoring the timeline? Failed. Saving Lightning, who had disappeared? Failed. The game's main character Serah? Dead. And in the stupidest of ways - standing around fine, then suddenly falls down dead. What, did she have an aneurysm? (The game hinted this might happen but never really explains why.)

And remember that Serah's a newlywed, to a different guy? Yeah, no mention of him either. She even chooses to live 500 years in the future before she dies (with Noel), leaving Snow behind without a second thought! Their love was one of the main driving forces behind the plot of FFXIII, and it's as if none of that ever happened in FFXIII-2.

Oh, but it's "to be continued" - we all know audiences love that shit.

It's as if Square had a brainstorming session about all the ways they could piss people off. Then they put those things in the ending. And purposely omitted resolutions to anything. Not only do you fail at every single thing you set out to do in the game, you actually undo all the things you did in FFXIII.

This is what you should see if you lose the game. Not if you win.

I'm not saying all Final Fantasy games need to have a happy ending that ties up all the loose ends... wait, yes I am. Because we paid $60 for this, and we invested 40+ hours of our lives into it. It's not like a film, where you're a voyeur watching other people's lives for a couple of hours, so you can just appreciate it on a detached, artistic level. Playing a Final Fantasy game can easily take over your own life for a month or more, and during that time you become the character you're playing, on some level. You control them directly, living and acting out events with them; you're not merely a spectator. And there is an expectation that you will be rewarded at the end.

FF games have killed major characters in the past - so that's not really the problem. Aeris dies in FFVII, Tidus disappears at the end of FFX. But those deaths meant something. Aeris dies to enter the lifestream and save the planet (yes, the writers were big Star Wars fans). Tidus has to disappear for the story to even make sense. Serah's death is meaningless to the story, and completely undignified. Why did you kill my Serah, Square?

The dumbest part? You can keep playing as zombie Serah. I assume she's a zombie; she looks the same but she is clearly dead up there. But the game keeps going. And it's not like the world is just still open for you to tie up loose ends, I mean there are whole quests that you actually can't undertake until the story is over. With a dead main character. You are even rewarded with items and materials to level her up after the credits roll.

Supposedly, the "to be continued" refers not to another upcoming sequel, but to downloadable content that you need to pay extra for. You'll be able to download individual character episodes, one of which is Lightning's, which supposedly "completes the story".  Yes, you have to pay extra for the real ending. Maybe. People aren't really sure yet if even that ending will tie everything up, because it's not out yet.

Sorry, Square Enix, this is not how it works. I pay for a game, I get the completed game for the money I pay you. And you give me a proper ending on the disc. If not, I do not buy your next game. Is that clear enough? That's the deal. Pissing off your customers is not how you sell products.

I'm actually going to pretend this ending never happened, and I'll keep playing the game until I'm really done with it, then I'll see what's going on with the downloadable content or a potential re-release of the game (a "game of the year" edition with all the downloadable content is probable). And I will buy one of those, this time, because I invested a lot of hours into this. But this is one of those "fool me once..." things. I'll be watching next time to see if Square repeats this in FFXV or FFXIII-3, and I won't make this same mistake twice. Square, you had better be careful with your signature series.

Read more...

Japan trip 2012, and my first Japanese live concert

Welp, after less than a year, my wife and I are heading back to Japan this March. That's one of the perks of owning a Japanese business! Though it does mean we spend a lot of time working when we're there nowadays - Japan is no longer a vacation for me, it's a business trip. I haven't had a real vacation in years. The work we do is fun, though, so I can't complain. And we still have a few hours each day and a few days each trip to ourselves.

We don't yet have a lot of plans because we're still hoping to do the Twilight Express thing that I wrote about last year (before somehow mistakenly deleting that post), but it's just notoriously difficult to get tickets on that train, especially for the one room we want (the suite in the end car). We're keeping most of our days open for now, though.

One thing I've already mentioned we are doing is heading to NIPPON BUDOKAN (the Budokan) to see SCANDAL, who just happened to schedule their biggest show ever during the week we planned to be there. We just got our tickets! I'm excited - this isn't the first time I've ever seen a Japanese band (I've seen Dreams Come True, Puffy, and Boom Boom Satellites, all in NYC), but it will be the first time seeing one in Japan. Japanese shows always seem totally nuts on the one hand and supremely organized on the other - kind of like Japan itself.

I'm thinking it's gonna be something like this:

This was shot at Animax Musix, a yearly music festival for bands that have sung anime theme songs, basically (yes, this is a thing that exists in Japan). I don't think they could have attracted that big a crowd on their own at that time, but they obviously can now because this Budokan show sold out within fifteen minutes of going on sale to the general public. So even though we have some pretty bad seats, I'm just happy to be going - it's not easy to get tickets to a Japanese show from overseas, and we had to enlist my wife's sister-in-law in Japan to help us. Who the hell knew Scandal were so popular?? I've been following them since they were basically still college students making demo tapes. Now they're this big professional mainstream rock band selling out the 15,000 seat Budokan in fifteen minutes.

This is where our seats are - 2nd level, on the side of the stage. We are on an aisle, at least (I was a little imprecise with my circle drawing).

The system for buying tickets in Japan is pretty complicated, although it actually makes more logical sense than our system, where the general public often can't get tickets to popular shows at all until they pass to the professional scalpers (aka "ticket brokers") who will jack the prices up to ridiculous amounts. I remember the good old days, when that was illegal.

For this show, basically you had to be in the fan club to have gotten decent seats - they got first dibs. Probably the whole floor section is just fan club. Then there were about three other "tiers" that got to buy tickets before we could (people who had previously bought certain things in stores and had a code, or whatever). We signed up for the pre-sell lottery, the final tier before the general public sale. That meant if were among the winners, we were guaranteed seats somewhere. And we did win a spot in the lottery, meaning we didn't have to ask someone to stand in line waiting for 7-11 to open on the day tickets went on sale to the public. But these are the seats we were assigned - probably the best available by the time we were able to buy them. At least we're not behind the stage! Most of the tickets we've seen for sale on Yahoo! Auctions since we bought ours are even worse.

If you're overseas and don't have a Japanese address you can use or know anyone in Japan, then really the only two ways to get tickets to shows there are a) using a shopping service to physically go buy them for you or b) using a shopping service to bid on an auction for tickets after they've already been put on sale. Neither method is really all that reliable and both will cost some money. Or you can just go to a ticket broker when you get to Japan, but I don't think they really have tickets to sold out shows (or if they do, they're probably extremely expensive just like here).

We're actually hoping to go to some more shows while we're there but neither of us can find anything else we're interested in. We're still looking, though. I would like to go to a smaller club show somewhere, if we can find something good...

Anyway, watch for my regular updates on the stuff we're doing while we're there... I admit that I'm losing my ability to see things there from a tourist's point of view (it is my 12th visit to Japan), but I'm sure I'll still find some interesting things to talk about! And no doubt you'll see my Scandal vs. Budokan show report, at least.

I'll close with Scandal's latest single release, as performed on some Japanese TV show recently:

The US needs more all-girl bands. I'm going to have to start listening to The Bangles again.

Read more...

CIJ/MIJ Fender Jazzmaster tremolo upgrade

Another in my surprisingly popular series of posts dedicated to the Japanese version of Fender's most famous "forgotten" electric guitar! How oddly specific.

One of the easiest upgrades that owners of Japanese (CIJ/MIJ) Fender Jazzmasters can make is the tremolo unit, aka the tailpiece. The tremolo in Japanese Jazzmasters is kind of a weak point in these mostly excellent guitars (another is the pickups), but luckily, it's really easy to just drop in an American one.

What you need:

* Fender USA Jazzmaster tremolo unit part #0054466000
* Fender USA Jazzmaster tremolo arm part #0054473000
* If you don't have any, you also need a Stratocaster tremolo arm tip (the Japanese one won't fit. See part #'s here, depending on color).

I found my trem unit and arm on Ebay; they can be hard to find. (Ironically, real vintage ones seem to be easier right now.) Many reputable stores that used to have them seem to be perpetually sold out these days (e.g. Angela.com). Be sure you're actually buying a genuine Fender USA unit; there are a lot of cheap imports out there, many of which are labeled as "for" American Vintage Jazzmasters. That's not the same as saying they are American Vintage Jazzmaster tremolos. You really need to be careful. The label should look something like this:

None of the cheap imports is an upgrade over Fender Japan's tremolos, which aren't that bad as it is; the only real upgrade is an American one. One clue you've found an American unit (though definitely not a foolproof one) is the price - a USA tremolo should be around $60 just for the unit, and $10-$15 more if it comes with the arm. The imports are almost always priced much less than that.

Onto the surgery! Here's a Japanese tremolo unit in place:

Remove all the strings and the tremolo arm (it will be tight, but just grab it at the bend and pull straight out) and unscrew the tremolo unit, making sure to only unscrew the screws along the outside edge:

Here's what it looks like ready to come out:

And it's out! 

If you're lucky (like I was), it won't stick. If it sticks, just try to figure out where it's sticking and gently pry it up with your fingernail if you can. There's nothing holding it on but the finish at that point, so you just want to try to avoid chipping the polyurethane when you pull it out.

Here are the two units side by side - let's play spot the differences!

There's no size difference - they kind of lay at different angles so there's a perspective effect in that photo.  But, there are some actual differences:

* The lock button is nickel-finished on the US unit, the Japanese is chrome
* The metal on the collet (the part that holds the arm) is thicker on the US unit
* The collet hole is round on the US unit, and oval on the Japanese
* Oddly, the Fender and patent number typefaces are slightly different

A more functional difference: the string spacing is correct on the US version, and incorrect on the Japanese.

The base plate is slightly thicker on the US version. Honestly, though, it's not a huge difference, and both units are pretty hefty. (It may even be slightly exaggerated here; it looks like I may have been holding the US unit closer to the camera without realizing it.)

Here's the underside:

US is on the left; Japanese on the right. Again, there are some differences, but they're not really that dramatic. The US one is slightly chunkier in general.

Here are the arms:

US on the bottom, Japanese on top. The US one has a smoother bend and a little less of a shiny chrome finish. Different arms do have different bends so I don't know if this is representative overall. I've seen some goofy looking US arms.

More importantly, the US arm is a little thinner and has screw threads for the tip. A Japanese arm won't fit in a US tremolo, and neither will a Japanese tip fit on a US arm. I had actually jammed a US tip onto my Japanese arm so I was able to just reuse that; it hadn't deformed it too much. (And I had "aged" it in tea myself, so I was happy about that!)

Reverse the process laid out for removal and... done! When you put in your arm, be sure to press it all the way in. Many people are afraid to do this and end up with floppy arms and a sloppy-feeling tremolo and wonder why. Kevin Shields famously used to leave his arms hanging out for a bit more height, but he actually used to have to tape them to the tremolo collet so they wouldn't fall out.

This is all really a five minute procedure - I spent way more time taking these photos for this blog post. Be sure to set up your tremolo after installing it! (The trem arm will probably be very close to the strings if it's really set up properly for the trem lock - I usually keep mine adjusted so the tip is a bit higher, even though it makes the lock useless.)

So, does it feel different, and is it worth it?

As a cheap upgrade, I think it's worth doing. Honestly, I think the Japanese tremolos are not bad, but the US ones are slightly better. Japanese tremolos do feel a little "loose", in that there's a little play in the system where you can press the bar down a half inch or so before it "catches", and if you're hard on it, it'll do so with an audible click. And it does this every single time. I'm not sure what causes that (probably the collet itself), but it doesn't seem to be present in the US version. Also, it's nice to have the correct string spacing, which means the strings aren't being pulled both vertically and horizontally against the bridge saddles. That can lead to broken strings - not a good thing. It also reduces sustain.

I don't actually believe there's anything wrong with the metal itself, or the spring in Japanese tremolos, as some do. My US tremolo doesn't feel any "stronger" than my Japanese did. But it does feel a bit smoother, and I have more confidence in my string longevity, and I do believe I am getting more sustain. Of course, it's hard to objectively measure any of that. But I believe it to be true.

My next upgrade: new shielding!

Read more...

I bought a TiVo! And why other DVR's suck.

TiVo! To some people, it sounds like a throwback. Whenever I mention it to someone, I almost expect them to say "they're still around?"

Yes. Yes they are. And they still make the best DVR. In fact, in all this time, I'm frankly amazed at the fact that nobody else has even really tried to replicate what they do. It's like Apple with the iPod, which stood basically alone for years. The rest of the industry just didn't get it. "But my Rio plays MP3's, you just drag and drop them." Oh, but first you needed to buy a physical CD. Then you needed to rip it. Then you needed to put the files in your folder hierarchy. Then you needed to manually create a playlist. And that's assuming you had some way of finding new music in the first place - it's not like commercial radio's any help these days. If you want to do all that work every time you get new music, great - I have better things to do.

My last DVR was a Scientific Atlanta 8300HD from Cablevision, running SARA software. Holy crap, what a piece of junk. I'm amazed they can still call this current equipment in 2012. It still had a fully SD menu and guide - I mean it was even shown in a 4:3 box on a 16:9 TV.  When you clicked the guide, it would take about 3 seconds for it to come up, then about another 3 seconds to finish populating itself. That repeated every time you changed times or paged through channels. The fonts were ugly, the box was slow, and half the time it wouldn't register any button presses at all for about 2 minutes, then suddenly it would execute every command you'd been trying to send it during that time, all in a row.

And forget about actually helping you figure out what there was to watch. It was basically a channel listing with a record button, which is what most DVR's still are these days. It was a glorified VCR married to a standard cable box.

Frankly, this is still what passes for DVR's on most cable and satellite systems these days. There are a few boxes that try to do more (Moxi is one) but they're all either missing some major feature TiVo has or they cost a massive amount up front. There's also Windows Media Center, but I've tried that and honestly, it doesn't do half what TiVo does and it's not something that "just works" - it takes some doing to get it set up right so you can just come home, turn on your TV and plunk down on the couch like with a real DVR. (It's also not really cheap, once you buy all the stuff you need to make it work like a DVR.)

So what makes TiVo so awesome? It's a cliche, but the short story version is still that it changes the way you watch TV. Most DVR's work as described above. At best, if you're shall we say "fastidious", maybe you religiously check TV Guide every week and so have a mental (or even written) list of shows you want to watch, and you can search for those on your cable DVR and set up recordings for them. I am never that organized. I need a box that can do most of the work.

TiVo does that. TiVo puts everything in one centralized location, independent of its screening time or the service or channel that it's available on. You get a list of available shows and movies broken down into categories and genres, not a list of times and channels (though it has that too, it's just not the central feature of the box). Some of those may be available now (via some on-demand service, or even in your list of recordings), some you may have to wait a little bit for (until their next screening time), but the point is you start by choosing what you want to watch, not hunting around randomly by time on a channel guide or just looking through a small list of things you've previously recorded.

Here's a video I made mostly for current TiVo owners to show them the new 20.2 OS update, but non-TiVo owners might find it interesting as well to see some of how the box works (and this should be more up to date than most pro reviews out there, which are based on the 14.9 OS):

And TiVo is both a curated service and a box that learns your likes and dislikes. I've found many new things on TV that I would never have known about had TiVo not recommended them to me, either through one of its curated "collections" (that's just one of many above) or through its suggestion engine.

TiVo will just record stuff it thinks you might like until it runs out of space (you see it thinks I like science and nature documentaries, which I actually do). These suggested recordings just get deleted automatically if it needs space for shows you've asked to record.

Its show-centrism extends even further:

When you "explore" a show, you can see a list of all seasons and episodes and whether they're available - not just on TV, but also on Netflix, Blockbuster, Amazon or Hulu Plus. (You can turn any or all of these extra services off - I've chosen to ignore Hulu Plus.) I love this feature, because - and Fringe is a great example of this - demands on my and my wife's time mean we often fall behind on shows, stuff gets deleted and we lose our place. It's really annoying trying to figure out where we left off, and sometimes we stop watching shows entirely rather than bother trying to catch up. This helps me figure it out, and I can sometimes even just start off watching again right there - and if not, I at least know what episodes to get. (And - ahem - TiVo can play TV episodes downloaded to your PC. There are various tools to quickly transcode to TiVo, including one officially produced by TiVo themselves, though the official one is payware.)

This is actually my second TiVo - I had my first from 2001-2003, but had to ditch it for HD, which TiVo had no answer for for a little while (they needed to wait for the CableCARD thing to get sorted out).  Today's TiVo Premiere boxes are of course HD, and with CableCARD there is no recompression of the video anymore. In fact, both my wife and I are convinced that our picture quality has improved with TiVo. I think that old SA8300HD just didn't have the horsepower to even display HDTV properly, so the picture would break up during pans or otherwise get pixelated quite often. With TiVo, there is literally no pixelization. It could be our imagination, but we both commented on how smooth the picture became with TiVo. And it's not a softer picture, because on-screen text and graphics are razor sharp even up close, it's just smoother, less glitchy, and less harsh.

When you buy a TiVo, you're buying on the cell phone model - the box is subsidized, and you sign up for a year of service at $19.99. You can also get a lifetime subscription (that's the lifetime of the box) for a flat $499, which is basically like buying an unlocked cell phone - except you still need the TiVo service, it's just free. Some people are annoyed by this, but I don't get that - my far inferior Cablevision DVR was costing me $18 per month anyway ($10.95 for DVR service, $8 for a cable box), so I'm paying just $2 extra for the much better TiVo. The CableCARD also costs $2 per month, so my total's $4 more. I can live with that for what I'm getting. And I own the box, unlike with the cable company - a Premiere is $99, which I think is reasonable.  (The Premiere Elite, which has 4 tuners and a bigger hard drive, is $300.)

I actually can't believe I waited as long as I did to get TiVo again - I should have done it right when the first HD boxes were released. One reason I didn't was the horror stories I kept hearing about CableCARD rentals. See, the cable companies don't want you to rent these things (they want you to rent their own box that they make more money from), and they've done any underhanded thing they can think of to make it as difficult as possible.  Anything from forcing a "professional install" that costs extra money, often with appointments months out (it's literally just sticking a card in a slot), intentionally giving TiVo owners the wrong type of CableCARD and one that they know won't work, telling people there's a six month waiting list for CableCARDs, etc.  But the government's been clamping down lately and honestly, my experience with Cablevision was pretty pleasant - I walked into my local Optimum store, rented a card and was out of there in 2 minutes. I stuck the card in my TiVo, called Cablevision to activate it and was done. Total time investment: maybe 10 minutes. Total cost: $0 up front, and $2 per month.

Now all I need is an exercise bike to keep me from getting fat from all these extra hours in front of the TV.

Read more...

Christmas 2011

So, Christmas! In past years it seems I've written more about it. The truth is I think we're starting to really feel the economy now; our house is worth a lot less than we paid for it, our store is struggling, my wife's union almost just went on strike (and still might), and my freelance hours have been cut. So we're working as hard as we can to make as much money as we can, which means we don't have a lot of time left for anything like holiday decorations, or much money for presents. It's harder to get in the spirit of things...

We bought a tiny little 2 foot treetop a week before Christmas. And put a few little presents under it. That was the extent of our Christmas decorating.

We've gotten into this (bad) habit of buying our own presents and then putting the other person's name on it in the "from" field on the wrapping. I used to like it because it meant we always got what we wanted, and anyway, the money comes from the same place. Every couple has their own way of doing things. But now I miss the anticipation and mystery of not knowing exactly what's under that tree.

Anyway this is starting to sound depressing. Onto the presents! (One is late; I'll update this post when it gets here.)

You're gonna hear my voice on this one, some of you for the first time ever. I did a video review! My wife gave me a watch (I actually bought it, which is why I say that in the video review), to replace the ridiculous Casio digital watch that I bought because it was "retro" but really because it was cheap (you may remember that watch from such posts as this one). I now have a watch that's slightly less cheap but makes me look a little bit less like a hobo, even if it does have a "VII" where the "XII" should be:

"I" also "gave" my wife a watch, though her tastes are a little more mainstream than mine (and she wouldn't mind me saying that) - she chose a Victorinox Swiss Army watch. I believe it was this one. (And no, we don't always have to have the same gift! Just worked out that way this year.)

We do still pick out smaller gifts for each other. It's become tradition, apparently, that every year my wife has to give me a gag gift making fun of what she thinks are my nerdier interests.  This year, it was this:

I swear, she'd better be careful, because she's going to turn me into an actual fan one of these days. The more I'm exposed to AKB48, the less I dislike them. It's a dangerous game she's playing!

Or maybe the gag gift was actually this one:

Which is nerdier for an American guy, a Japanese all girl theatrical pop music act, or trains?

I do love old Amtrak stuff, though, and I had this book on my Amazon wish list (it's long out of print, which is why it's in this condition - I don't care). I started riding Amtrak when I was a kid in the 1970's, and despite the fact that it was a mess of a system, I really liked how riding the trains was like riding on a working museum of all the railroads that Amtrak had absorbed just previous to that point. Books like this one remind me of that time.

One of the things I love about my wife is the fact that she puts up with my nerddom, and actually indulges me in it.

I will say my last gift from my wife is both cool and nerdy at the same time - it's a new tremolo unit for my Jazzmaster. So, guitar: cool. Guitar part: kinda nerdy.

My brother's family and ours didn't really exchange gifts this year (because we're both poor-ish). My mother gave us $40 in cash, which is actually helpful. My stepmother gave us a $50 gift card and some Egyptian champagne flutes from Neiman Marcus.

That was pretty much my Christmas this year. Hopefully next year we can put a little more effort into it; we'll have more money to both buy things for each other and others around us, and more time to get in the spirit of things a little bit earlier.

Read more...

Moulin Rouge

Not everybody appreciates kitsch. And not every film director does it well, even when they're trying for it intentionally. (Some actually do it better unintentionally). Successful kitsch depends on participation by both the director and the viewer; the director has to get it right, and the viewer just has to get it.

Baz Luhrmann knows how to do kitsch. And Moulin Rouge is probably the best example of it there is.

I first saw Moulin Rouge in the theater, with my wife. We are not the kind of people who typically talk through movies, so she thought my constant snickering at the film meant I was not enjoying it, and was in fact making fun of it. She was wrong! Moulin Rouge is such a great film in part because it's so much fun, and I just felt like I was in on the joke. (I could tell not everybody in the theater was.) Every new and creative use of some pop song I'd grown up with in such a melodramatic context made me laugh out loud.  By the time Ewan MacGregor busted out KISS's forgotten 1980 disco hit "I Was Made For Lovin' You" while standing inside a giant elephant, I knew Baz Luhrmann had created something amazing.

But the genius of this movie is that it's campy and kitschy and earnest and beautiful. This film was a prototype for things like Glee, a combination of irony and seriousness that's almost impossible to pull off without the deftest of hands (as Glee has repeatedly proven). Baz Luhrmann's confidence in this style shows through in just how quickly he changes gears, as in this early scene:

And not to digress, but this scene features some of my favorite closeup shots of all time:

Nicole Kidman is more beautiful in this movie than she ever has been before or since. And Baz Luhrmann and his director of photography Donald McAlpine know how to film her. The closeup is a true art form in itself, as it's really the way that characters convey non-verbal emotion in film, and this one should be used to teach that art in film schools. You may not consciously appreciate a good closeup as I do, but their quality and use (or lack thereof) can make or break an entire film.

Luhrmann's known for his lavish sets and costumes, but he's really an actor's director, and he knows that's where the drama is. Without emotion and chemistry between the actors, there is no drama.

Since this film's release, my wife and I have watched it both together and separately probably 50 times through. I guess you could say it's "our movie". (Hey, every couple needs one.) Despite its sad ending, there are moments in it that always remind me of why we got together in the first place, and I feel like we're Christian and Satine. (I don't think I'm spoiling anything - this is a film that telegraphs its ending right at the beginning, and the fun and drama are in the journey getting there.) Especially whenever we're fighting, watching this scene will always start me blubbing uncontrollably:

I swear to God, every time I watch her sing "come back to me and FORGIVE EVERYTHING", I just freakin' lose it right there, and I'm gone for the rest of the scene. (I often have a second breakdown when she says "I love you" - I'm such a sap!) Sometimes, if I'm a little drunk as I am now, just thinking about it will get me misty-eyed.

I suppose posting the "finale" scene might be considered something of a spoiler, but first of all, this film is almost ten years old - hey, also? DARTH VADER IS LUKE'S FATHER. Anyway, this is not even really the end, although often I do stop the movie here because I can't watch the real ending.

The film has actually inspired me to take an interest in the real Moulin Rouge and in fact my wife and I are planning a trip there... soon. (The current show features topless dancers, btw... along with plenty of cheesy 80's-style Solid Gold-esque music and dance.) I actually didn't think the film was in any way close to reality but apparently it actually is - many of the photos from that era do look very similar to the film, and the main hall really was that big! (It seems smaller now.)

Why the hell am I writing about this film now? Well, because my wife and I just watched it through again, and I just picked up the Blu-Ray version. In all honesty, I've had a post on both Moulin Rouge and Rent sitting here in draft mode, unpublished, since 2007. So it's not like I'm just thinking of it now. (I'll get to talking about Rent eventually.)

This film is destined to be a cult classic, and if you can't appreciate it, I really don't think I want to be your friend. If you like it, though, it was practically made for high definition and Blu-Ray - pick it up. But the definitive version in terms of extras is still the Collector's Edition DVD, which also happens to have some of the nicest packaging of any DVD release I own - and it's cheap! Get them both if you're a fan.

Read more...