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January 30, 2007
American Chameleons
The Yomiuri Shimbun picked some great cartoons for its awards this year, though bigger resolutions would have been nice. This one's titled, "Trouble."
Posted by b-applegate at 7:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Lennon put Grandpa in prison
Doing nothing to help the current image of copyright alliances as full of huge dickheads, the JASRAC (the Japanese RIAA) has sent a 74-year-old bar owner to jail for 10 months for letting local college students who play classical piano part-time at his bar take requests for the Beatles and other more modern musicians. Fortunately he's got three years left to appeal, but yikes. It doesn't get much worse than slapping the cuffs on someone who could die tomorrow because he helped out a few music majors and liked listening to Hey Jude.
Posted by b-applegate at 7:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 29, 2007
More on "The Truth About Nanking"
The film Web site is here, and it contains a video of the press conference by the director, calling the planned Chinese documentary propaganda based on historical misunderstanding and saying Japan must communicate the correct history to the world. All the typical garbage.
What I want to know is, couldn't they think up a more creative title than "The Truth About Nanking?" I mean, that's not just revisionism, that's lazy revisionism. How about "We Didn't Kill Your Grandmother" or "Japan: We Didn't Do All That Stuff We Did"? The Yogi Berra reference would at least lighten things up a bit.
Posted by b-applegate at 1:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 27, 2007
Ahmadinejad's Japanese soulmates
So there's a Japanese right-wing revisionist "documentary" about how the Nanking Massacre never happened coming out. One of Ishihara's buddies. These guys really need a visit from Mr. Peabody or Dr. Who or whoever it is takes you back in time to show you the error of your ways these days. Just goes to show you that denying horrible war crimes isn't just a hobby of the developing world.
The below item appeared in Daily Variety.
Docs offer rival visions of Nanking
Mizushima, Leonsis take on massacre
By MARK SCHILLING
Satoru Mizushima's docu will refute 'Nanking.'Helmer Satoru Mizushima
will make a documentary correcting what he describes as the "myth" of
the Nanking Massacre.
Click for the rest.
Mizushima is irked by the spate of docs about the 1937 event in which
Japanese soldiers killed 200,000 Chinese in the city, also known as
Nanjing, over eight weeks.
These documentaries include "Nanking," produced by AOL vice chairman
Ted Leonsis. Fortissimo acquired rights to that doc at Sundance on
Wednesday.
Mizushima announced his plans Wednesday at a Tokyo hotel, surrounded
by right-wing politicos and others backing the production. His
supporters include Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara.
The massacre has long been a matter of dispute between China and
Japan. Japanese revisionists set the numbers of dead far lower than
Chinese figures, while exonerating Japanese troops of atrocities now
accepted as fact by the vast majority of Chinese.
References to the massacre have been cut from Japanese school tests
despite vigorous Chinese protests.
Mizushima claims Leonsis' doc is "based on fabrications and gives a
false impression" of the Japanese military's actions.
He plans to release his pic, with a distrib yet to be announced, to
coincide with the 70th anniversary of the event.
China plans its own anniversary release with a film jointly produced
by Gerald Green's Viridian Entertainment and the Jiangsu provincial
government.
Hong Kong action director Stanley Tong and London's Transworld
Pictures also have announced projects on the subject.
Posted by b-applegate at 5:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 21, 2007
Reasons I Like the BBC
One of their longest-running and most successful TV programs is about a kindly old man who travels through time in a phone booth.
The BBC gave the Goons, Monty Python and Douglas Adams money before they had careers and didn't care what they did with it.
Two words: Radiophonic Workshop.
And finally, they credit the writer. It's [episode name], BY WRITER GUY. None of this bury the credit next to grip #5 crap.
On the other hand, they show things like this.
Posted by b-applegate at 11:22 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
January 11, 2007
Things I thinking
Syrian is cool.
Wow. These programs are hard.
This oatmeal package emphasizes that the health benefits of oatmeal remain whether it is eaten cooked or uncooked. Hm.
This taste must be why horses always look so despondent.
Even on a crappy streaming Web site, Cowboy Bebop is awesome. I should totally make my computer sounds be from that show.
My computer sounds are awesome now.
Does buying the three-disc Janggun eui adeul box set make me an old man or just a huge nerd?
Whenever I see "Taehung Pictures" I think it means "well hung" because Im Kwon-taek obviously is. "Tae" means "big," right? I am culturally insensitive.
Maybe I should write a Dungeons and Dragons campaign based on these books I'm translating. That would be cool. I can do that. It doesn't involve modulating orchestral hits.
I could totally get a job at Random House.
On the other hand, I could totally get a job here.
Or I could go back to school and seriously learn Korean.
Hmm... nah.
Neverwinter Nights 2 is so cool.
I eat too much pizza.
Real life isn't really all that different from college, except that it is.
Girlfriends are the best thing in the universe, except when they're the worst, but that's only once a month so I can handle it.
I'm so glad my girlfriend doesn't read this blog.
That I know of.
Hm.
Posted by b-applegate at 8:10 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack