through the looking glass

HYDE is coming back around and he’s teamed up with Oblivion Dust’s K.A.Z. in their joint project VAMPS.

I’ll be checking out the San Francisco show.

VAMPS tour dates and performance locations are as follows:

Saturday, July 11, 2009:
New York NY:  The Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza

Sunday, July 12, 2009:
Hartford CT:  Warped Tour New England Dodge Music Center

Tuesday, July 14, 2009:
Columbia MD:  Warped Tour Merriweather Post Pavilion

Thursday, July 16, 2009:
Baltimore MD:  Sonar Baltimore

Sunday, July 19, 2009:
Seattle WA:  The Showbox at the Market

Monday July 20, 2009:
Portland OR:  Hawthorne Theatre

Saturday, July 25, 2009:
San Francisco CA:  Regency Grand Ballroom

Monday, July 27, 2009:
Las Vegas NV: Wasted Space at the Hard Rock Hotel
“VAMPS Official Party”

Wednesday, July 29, 2009:
San Diego CA:  SOMA

Saturday, August 1, 2009:
Los Angeles CA:  The Wiltern Theater

US site: www.vampsliveusa.com

Official: www.vampsxxx.com

Press Release Below

Read more

This beautiful life size RX-78 Gundam recently erected in Odaiba has been photographed for our viewing pleasure. Apparently it will be gone after 2 months (before Char gets wind of it’s location). Check out its majesty!

Assembled Life Sized RX78 Gundam

Had a quick hands on with the Pre in store. The sharp edges are freaky, but only when you fondle them, with general use I didn’t really notice them. WebOS is very nice, fast, can’t wait to see how it matures. The size and feel was surprising, like a small stone, though it does feel kinda like a toy with the light plastic. Camera was quite clear. Keys are too small for me personally, though my typing test was successful with very few miss strikes.

Overall not bad, just did not win me over as there are still more devices to feel out this year.

Apple finally catches up with copy/paste, video, 3m cam, and mms (but ATT drops the ball on actually providing it). No flash. But hey, for the past 2 years ago they didn’t have these standard features so I guess that’s a big plus for them!

3GS, the S stands for speed, as in ‘getting up to’.

Low price point for the old model is a plus, though being shackled to ATT is definitely a deterrent. My desire for consumer to demand a higher stand from the hardware manufactures is trumped by the gouging the carriers are doing.

E3 is over. Currently spending a little time with friends and family here in Los Angeles.

A friend introduced me to this wonderful piece.

(C) MAVERICK

ムック will be releasing their 8th full length album, 球体 (’kyuutai’ but listed as Sphere on their English site), this March in Japan. 球体 will come in three flavors, vanilla, and two limited versions coupling with a DVD of a documentary or live footage of the Irving Plaza, New York live on Dec 7th 2008. No word yet on international versions at this time.

Track list:

1. 球体
2. 咆哮
3. アゲハ
4. ハイドアンドシーク
5. 陽炎
6. レミング
7. オズ
8. 浮游
9. 讃美歌
10. 空と糸
11. ｈａｎａｂｉ

Upcoming lives:

Nippon Budokan (Japan) on March 15th

Metaltown (Sweden) (with ギルガメッシュ) on June 27th @ the Tent Stage

Tuska Open Air Metal Festival 2009 (Finland) (with ギルガメッシュ) on June 28th

BENTEN announced the return of Japan Nite Tour, featuring artist from Japan. Check out the tour when they drop near your town.

Japan Nite Tour 2009:

3/22 sun  NY    @  Bowery ballroom
with:  detroit7/SA/SPARTA LOCALS/FLiP/Omodaka/
+GRAPEVINE  and  ASAKUSA JINTA

3/23 mon  Cambridge /MA  @ T.T. The Bears
with:  detroit7/SA/SPARTA LOCALS/FLiP/Omodaka +THE EMERALDS

3/24 tue  Chicago   @ Empty Bottle
with:  detroit7/SA/SPARTA LOCALS/FLiP/Omodaka/

3/26 thu      Denver   @TBA
with:  detroit7/SA/SPARTA LOCALS/FLiP/Omodaka/

3/27  fri  Seattle  @ High Dive -
with:  detroit7/SA/SPARTA LOCALS/FLiP/Omodaka/
Opening band:  The Slants

3/28  sat  SF  @ Independent
with:  detroit7/SA/SPARTA LOCALS/FLiP/Omodaka/

3/29  sun  LA @ Knitting Factory
with:  detroit7/SA/SPARTA LOCALS/FLiP/Omodaka/

SXSW info:

*3/20  Fri Japan Nite 1  @ SXSW Austin TX
with: FLiP/ Dirty Old Men /HONEY SAC/ SPARTA LOCALS/GRAPEVIE/detroit7
*3/21 Sat. Japan Nite 2  @ SXSW Austin TX
with: Stereopony/SpethialThanks/The Emeralds/SA/Asakusa Jinta /quaff

Artist Info from the PR:

*detroit7: Edgy hard rockin’ trio led by bare footed left hand female guitar.

*SA:   The King of Japanese punk.

*SPARTA LOCALS: Post-punk and new wave influenced indie rock band.

*FLiP:  All girl band from Okinawa

*Omodaka:  a seamless mixture of Japanese traditional-flavored folk song
and Electronic music.

Announced this morning, Anime Expo 2009 has stated that their first guest of honor for this years gathering of otaku tribes will be none other than the all-girl singing sensation Morning Musume. These love machines recently accepted two new members from China into their once soley Japanese ranks, tackling the great wall of China with their youth enhanced song and dance numbers. Morning Musume will be saying ‘Hello!’ to stoke your moe flame this July 2nd through Jul 5th at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Photo by: Cicel C ZETIMA

Valve has announced DLC for the good time that is Left 4 Dead. Included in the package will be the inclusion of the two remaining campaigns for Versus mode as well as new mode dubbed ‘Survival’. Also rumored to be added is an achievement called ‘Outbreak’, which requires players to catch an infection and spread it to another player. Details about availability for Xbox360 and PC to come, though slated for Spring 2009.

Source: Left 4 Dead Mods

The FPS genre is a cruel beast, prejudiced by stereotypes, solo games where the run-and-gun style got old a decade ago, team games where everyone forgets they are on a team, and plagued by some of the most douchiest douche bagologist within the community (not all, but you know you’ve met plenty of these guys in Halo and CS). Valve on the other hand has a history of enriching the FPS genre with intriguing stories, unique game play additions, puzzles, and thorough play testing and tuning that maximizes fun and balance. This is how Left 4 Dead is a FPS game like no other.

Gameplay: The action is intense with well placed/paced moments of calm that build up anticipation yet simultaneously providing relief. You never really feel safe in the game and often won’t believe how you could have survived the previous encounter despite endeavoring it with your own hand(s).

In this game, it’s all about being a team. All the best things in life are those which you can do with others. Left 4 Dead encompass’ everything a FPS game is, with a team element, and makes the game play revolve around staying and working together, all while increasing each individual’s level of entertainment the more they work with others. The AI is made to overwhelm the individual, and quickly assisting one another makes progress smoother, satisfying, and most importantly, more fun.

Example: Bill get pounced by a hunter zombie, Louis rushes in to melee the beast off, while Francis (and his shotgun) keeps a zerg of zombies from getting any closer, while Zoey bandages Francis’ wounds. Now if Louis decided to not help Bill, and run off and be a one man army, a Smoker zombie could have bound Zoey, trapping her and leaving Francis wounded and probably gonna die soon, while poor Bill is mauled to death.

Everyone keeps everyone else alive. L4D has many events where one player cannot survive and needs another to assist them. Help each other and you live, and get to blow stuff up more. By and by, you can also play as the zombies. That’s right. Even playing as the undead, team work is still integral to succeeding.

Xbox Live match making and setup is a breeze and setting up a multi-player game is as easy as hitting the A button three times. I have yet to try the PC version but with Steam being what it is I will risk assuming it’s just as easy. With the game play being so team play centric, the douche bag factor is nil, most random games I joined were populated with fun and playful gamers such as myself (so I assume they are well attractive too). Maybe I got lucky, but finding mature and fun players on Live is like searching for an unconscious smoke inhalation victim in a burning apartment building.

Oh, I should plug my XBL Gamer Tag here now: honeys dead

If you’re awesome and we have the same games, let’s play! Being cute is a plus. Just kidding…

Oh! Valve jumped on and played their own game with the common folk. The XBL community and myself had the pleasure of kicking zamby arse with Brian Jacobson and Kim Swift. Brian was fun and laughed (nervously?) at our jokes, and made as much effort as he could to join as many game invites as he received, such a bad ass. Kim was quite kind. She endured a plethora of questions regarding game design, even staying later to answer as many as she could. Intelligent + Fun + Artist = Yours Truly raising an eyebrow. Too bad she’s so nice, I’m sucker for bad girls ♥

My thanks goes out to you Devs for your time and art!

Back to it. L4D is all kinds of cool and pays homage to Night of the Living Dead and 28 Days later, combining those two films with Fear, Counter-Strike, and Gears of War. Sound fun? Hell yeah it is. Get it on Steam or for your Xbox360 home video game console.

TLDR: Resident Evil Outbreak wanted to be this amazing survival horror game.

Ex-Luna Sea member Sugizo toured with electronic artist Juno Reactor, stopping by my neighborhood (literally) to preform at the Independent in San Francisco on September 23rd. The room was packed as Juno Reactor throbbed bass and shook the walls with four percussionist on modern and traditional skins as well as two vocalists, whom wailed intermittently and at times together, as synths, horns, whistles, and guitars clamored along. Sugizo’s ambient guitar play and experimental style meshed seamlessly with their trance grooves of Juno Reactor (whom, I must admit) I haven’t listened to since my early high school years. The entire band gave so much energy and the air of genuinely enjoying the night as the room danced along the evening.

Click here for photos of mic stands taken by me and Vanessa Antonio’s super high tech mobile phone cameras

Also check out an interview with Sugizo that occurred backstage prior to the live where he drops that super band project S.K.I.N. may continue: SF Weekly Interview.

While running through my neighborhood, I ended up in Golden Gate Park and while there discovered the Flower Conservatory. Outside of the conservatory is a beautiful garden of dahlias. I decided to return the following day with a camera and share them with you.

My Gallery of Dahlias in Golden Gate Park

ムック will be returning to the US for two dates!

2008.12.07 Irving Plaza / New York
2008.12.10 House of Blues / Los Angeles

Following the recent release of the single アゲハ will be several items in the coming months:

Dec 2008 New DVD Release
Feb 2009 New Single Release
Mar 2009 New Album Release

Source: Official Web and Visunavi

OVER SEAS (US/CANADA) TOUR08 THE ROSE TRIMS AGAIN

Gary Gygax, one of the co-creators of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, died Tuesday morning at his home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, according to Stephen Chenault, CEO of Troll Lord Games.

RIP Gary, thanks for the good times.

WIRED

Penny Arcade Tribute

Huge update: My first trip to Japan.

Read more

12012 vocalist Miyawaki Wataru was arrested on charges of assaulting a young woman. After a bout of drinking with several friends said woman states she was later strangled by Miyawaki, with wounds taking over a week to heal. Currently Miyawaki is in the process of reconciling with the injured woman, reaching a settlement out of court, and being acquitted of the charges.

Source

Updates coming soon! Things have been moving fast in news and at home. More S.K.I.N. and maybe get some game coverage back in this piece. Also, thanks to all for the great birthday wishes!