What American accent do you have?
My result:
You may think you speak “Standard English straight out of the dictionary” but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like “Are you from Wisconsin?” or “Are you from Chicago?” Chances are you call carbonated drinks “pop.”
Well played, internets. Well played.
Live action Katamari Damacy
It was only a matter of time: with the help of computer graphics, someone has recreated a Katamari Damacy “roll up” using live actors. It’s a bit disturbing.
Tokyo subway advertising
PingMag this week has a great article, Top 10 ad-tricks in Tokyo’s train stations. My favorite has to be the giant tea bottles.
via Stylegala
Movie trailers
These days it seems that I never have the time to sit down for a feature length movie (or write a blog post, for that matter). Thankfully I can still satisfy my film craving with Apple’s movie trailers RSS feed. New trailers are posted in excellent quality QuickTime format almost daily.
There are plenty of bad movies coming down the pipe (Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher, anyone?), but if you stick with it there are some gems to be found. Here are a handful that caught my interest this month:
Musical distractions
One of my favorite tracks on my iPod right now is “All Around” from the new Jel album, “Soft Money”. As it turns out, Jel’s official website has made this track available to download for free.
Got your headphones ready? jel-allaround.mp3 [4.6MB]
Man, that’s addictive. By the way, that’s Steffi Böhm of Ms. John Soda doing the vocals. If you dig this stuff, you’ll probably like Lali Puna as well [Flash, sound].
Ooh, tangent: you can hear the wonderful title track of Lali Puna’s “Faking the Books” during this fun slideshow of their Japan tour [more Flash].
Jel probably fits into the category of “instrumental hip-hop”. For more in the genre, take a look at RJD2.
As for the Jel album itself: “All Around” is outstanding, but the rest of the tracks don’t quite stack up (some may disagree with me on this one). Still, it’s definitely worth a listen.
So you want to learn Japanese?
As if learning the language wasn’t hard enough, Japanese classes in America tend to attract the kind of student who makes you wish that a large comet would strike the earth. There are a few basic type of students that you’ll always find yourself running into. These include The Anime Freak, The Know It All, and the Deer Caught In Headlights.
SHINIGAMI ULTIMATE REMIX
Just stumbled across this slightly disturbing Flickr homage to the excellent Bleach anime TV series.
Harajuku Kids
Check out this great Flickr photoset. From the photographer:
Most Sundays, Japanese youth who like to dress up in visual kei, cosplay, gothic lolita, and other over-the-top outfits hang out on the bridge in front of Meiji Jingu Shrine and pose for the numerous photographers and tourists.
Wikipedia has some interesting reading on the subject.
schadenfreude
Watch as this guy gets what he deserves (Google video, requires Flash).
