JAWing On – Life on Okinawa

I just saw the trailer for the movie ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’ on the Yahoo home page. Based on the well-known book, it looks like this movie will be a must see when it is released in December. The reality of the situation in modern Japan is Geisha are a dying breed. More often than not, all one sees or can afford nowadays are bar hostesses.

Tuesday September 20, 2005 [PC (17/365) LW (10/365) H (13/365) ]

September 2005 Total:
C-cloudy (2/365) PC-partly cloudy (17/365)
D-drizzle (2/365) SR-scattered rain showers (2/365)
W-windy (5/365) LW-light winds (10/365) VW-very windy (2/365)
H-humid (13/365) SH-slightly humid (7/365)

This Year�s (June 3, 2005 – June 2, 2006) Total:
S-sunny (23/365) C-cloudy (30/365) PC-partly cloudy (57/365)
D-drizzle (6/365) R-rainy (4/365) SR-scattered rain showers (11/365)
W-windy (31/365) LW-light winds (59/365) VW-very windy (5/365)
H-humid (53/365) SH-slightly humid (55/365)

Here it is almost two weeks since I last discussed blog search engines. I’ve posted daily, usually more than one post, since that time and what I’ve discovered is the posts don’t always get picked-up by the blog search engines. I believe the best bet in keeping up-to-date with a site or topic you find interesting is by suscribing to that site’s feeds with an aggregator (also known as a reader). I use Sharp Reader. Aggregators also let you keep up-to-date with comments. In some cases, regular blog search engines will not pick comments up because the adminstrator has turned “allow pings” off in the discussion section. To suscribe to a feed of a site you like simply type or copy the URL into the aggregator’s “suscribe” or “open” feed section.

Monday September 19, 2005 [PC (16/365) LW (9/365) SH (7/365) ]

September 2005 Total:
C-cloudy (2/365) PC-partly cloudy (16/365)
D-drizzle (2/365) SR-scattered rain showers (2/365)
W-windy (5/365) LW-light winds (9/365) VW-very windy (2/365)
H-humid (12/365) SH-slightly humid (7/365)

This Year�s (June 3, 2005 – June 2, 2006) Total:
S-sunny (23/365) C-cloudy (30/365) PC-partly cloudy (56/365)
D-drizzle (6/365) R-rainy (4/365) SR-scattered rain showers (11/365)
W-windy (31/365) LW-light winds (58/365) VW-very windy (5/365)
H-humid (52/365) SH-slightly humid (55/365)

I feel that both knowledge and imagination are important in life. While doing some research I ran across this quote that could be the mantra for artists all over:

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited, Imagination encircles the world.” Albert Einstein

Imagination is what seems to have taken on a life of its own with the new JET CD. This project is a first time collaboration of various people whose imaginations are being set free. With that being said, I have been informed that the CD is still going to take a bit longer before its release. We thank those of you who are hanging in there and being patient with us on this.

Sunday September 18, 2005 [PC (15/365) LW (8/365) H (12/365) ]

September 2005 Total:
C-cloudy (2/365) PC-partly cloudy (15/365)
D-drizzle (2/365) SR-scattered rain showers (2/365)
W-windy (5/365) LW-light winds (8/365) VW-very windy (2/365)
H-humid (12/365) SH-slightly humid (6/365)

This Year�s (June 3, 2005 – June 2, 2006) Total:
S-sunny (23/365) C-cloudy (30/365) PC-partly cloudy (55/365)
D-drizzle (6/365) R-rainy (4/365) SR-scattered rain showers (11/365)
W-windy (31/365) LW-light winds (57/365) VW-very windy (5/365)
H-humid (52/365) SH-slightly humid (54/365)

For those of you who are into the mellower side of things every once in a while, such as tunes like “Leaving on a Jet Plane”, a new CD by a young Japanese duo (Nude Voice) will be coming out around the 21st of this month. The CD features the musical talents of various local artists including JET guitarist, Appin, and bassist, Taki.

Saturday September 17, 2005 [PC (14/365) LW (7/365) H (11/365) ]

September 2005 Total:
C-cloudy (2/365) PC-partly cloudy (14/365)
D-drizzle (2/365) SR-scattered rain showers (2/365)
W-windy (5/365) LW-light winds (7/365) VW-very windy (2/365)
H-humid (11/365) SH-slightly humid (6/365)

This Year�s (June 3, 2005 – June 2, 2006) Total:
S-sunny (23/365) C-cloudy (30/365) PC-partly cloudy (54/365)
D-drizzle (6/365) R-rainy (4/365) SR-scattered rain showers (11/365)
W-windy (31/365) LW-light winds (56/365) VW-very windy (5/365)
H-humid (51/365) SH-slightly humid (54/365)

When someone says “Hard Rock”, “Classic Rock”, etc., do you really know what music they are talking about? When someone says Hard Rock in Japan, all that means is rock music with a loud electric guitar. When someone says Classic Rock, do they mean older than 25 years ago? Basically, the music scene has spread out and crossed-over so much that it’s not always easy to decipher exactly what “genre” or “category” is being discussed. Recently I read of a new (at least to me) rock category called “rap-rock”! So to provide some guidance to what I’m talking about when I mention certain terms, here is a basic guideline:

Oldies but Goldies: the stuff where it all began, you know when rhythm and blues had its baby – rock ‘n’ roll!!!

Vintage Classic Rock: the rock sound that most of us who were around grew up within the mid’60s to the mid’70s, with a few sounds from the late ’70s

Classic Rock: this has gotten a little blurrier, but generally early’80’s to mid ’90s

J-Rock: any rock music sang mainly in the Japanese language

J-pop Rock: any rock music mixed with the boy group sound and sang mainly in Japanese

Hard Rock: to me this is screaming vocals and head-banger music (the louder and rougher the better seems to be the theme and direction taken by this sound)

As for Rap-Rock, the only real rock song that I have personally heard that fits into this category is the Aerosmith/Run DMC classic “Walk This Way”! Of course there are several lesser known songs that have come out recently that could almost be classified as Rock-Rap!