PRIME Series FALLOUT

Had heard of the game FALLOUT. Seems to have been around forever, but I never bothered to look into it at all.  I think I only noticed the series as it came up on the starting advertisement when I went to watch TV via my Firestick.  

The description seemed interesting. And that was about it for deciding to watch it. The first episode then pulled me in.

"Ned Flanders in the Apocalypse" sums up one of the characters. After watching it all, it has given me a few things to think about, and having seen things been privatized for "shareholder value"  don't see it as too far fetched at all.  Especially with the size of the US Military Budget, getting a slice of that pie is  irresistible for the worse kind.

I will get back to watching HOUSE on Netflix again after this diversion, but after seeing most of the first 2 seasons now, it isn't as new and refreshing as it was initially.  

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Headphones & Earbuds: Thoughts 2024

 

I did an X post on the huge number of earbuds lost at JR stations in Japan and it may have been the most liked and shared thing I have ever put on that hell site.  I assume many have had the problem, but were unaware of the extent of the problem. So something that isn't incredibly trivial (e.g. How dark do you like your toast?) CAN get more than 10 views. 

This comic contains that info and other recent thoughts on headphones and earbuds.  

Open earbuds are "THE NEW THING" at the moment. In one sense, it means selling another set to everyone, but it really depends what your life style is.   If I am not listening to what is going on around me, I am likely to get run into by one of the many bicycles racing on the footpath while walking around outside where I live now. A slight step to the left as you walk along to miss something on the footpath and you are likely to get hit.  The chance of that when I lived in Sydney Australia was zero.  

So open while walking around outside, then noise cancelling or closed back to ride a train, visit a shopping center or cafe.

Even open earbuds for just sitting in the lounge room, where my wife  will start talking about something, and I need to be present, is a good idea.

Update: 2024/4/24

Since writing this comic, I have bought SHOKZ OpenFit, wireless headphones too. And used them for about a week. They do sound great, better than the 1/10 priced Resolve, but I have to use them with my phone's music player.

The first time I went for a walk with them to the shops and back, when I went to take off my mask, the right one briefly disappeared under a seat in our entrance hall. So glad I was home when that happened.  Some black cotton thread has since stopped that from happening twice! Don't know how often the thread will need replacing though or the failure mode.

I wear glasses, so that puts a bit more pressure on them, and they do get a bit uncomfortable on the top of my Tragus.  

They have touch controls to stop/play/ next song back/forward (that you can change in the App), and I find the double tap for stop/ play is detected right about 50% of the time. The sound I use them with gets completely drowned out in the local supermarket.  

If SHOKZ had a wired OpenFit, that would be better for me. That they can get knocked off your ear is a worry, even if less likely than for an Airpod.

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Japanese Musical Instrument Industry. A Brits view 1987

 

In 1987 was invited to have dinner by Ike Ueno (Roland Marketing English speaking musician) with a visiting Brit, Hugh Ashton. This guy was writing a magazine article. The above is it, and I'm the Australian mentioned on the second page. I have no memory if that is what I said or not, or if I was being miss quoted.

I met Hugh again a year or so later when he had moved to Japan and was living in our city Hamamatsu. He must have visited my Roland office. Think he may have been an English teacher at the time. What I do clearly remember is him saying:

 "It must be difficult for an Australian to live in Japan, you don't have any Culture".  

Had Brits say and imply something like that forever, as there were a few expats going to school in Australia as a kid.  

I discovered yesterday Hugh spent 30 years in Japan, has written Sherlock Holmes and other novels, before returning to Old Blighty. From his own Amazon Bio:

Hugh Ashton was born in the UK in 1956, and after graduation from university worked in the technology industry around Cambridge (the first personal computer he used was Sir Clive Sinclair’s personal TRS-80) until 1988, when a long-standing interest in the country took him to Japan.

There he worked for a Japanese company producing documentation for electronic instruments and high-end professional audio equipment, helped to set up the infrastructure for Japan’s first public Internet service provider, worked for major international finance houses, and worked on various writing projects, including interviewing figures in the business and scientific fields, and creating advertorial reports for Japanese corporations to be reprinted in international business magazines.

Along the way, he met and married Yoshiko, and also gained certificates in tea ceremony and iaidō (the art of drawing a sword quickly).

In 2008, he wrote and self-published his first published novel, Beneath Gray Skies, an alternative history in which the American Civil War was never fought, and the independent Confederacy forms an alliance with the German National Socialist party. This was followed by At the Sharpe End, a techno-financial-thriller set in Japan at the time of the Lehman’s crash, and Red Wheels Turning, which re-introduced Brian Finch-Malloy, the hero of Beneath Gray Skies, referred to by one reviewer as “a 1920s James Bond”.

In 2012, Inknbeans Press of California published his first collection of Sherlock Holmes adventures, Tales from the Deed Box of John H. Watson M.D., which was swiftly followed by many other volumes of Holmes’ adventures, hailed by Sherlockians round the world as being true to the style and the spirit of the originals by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Inknbeans also published Tales of Old Japanese and other books by Ashton, including the Sherlock Ferret series of detective adventures for children. He and Yoshiko returned to the UK in 2016 for family reasons, where they now live in the Midlands cathedral city of Lichfield.

He continues to write Sherlock Holmes stories, as well as various other fiction and non-fiction projects, including documentation for forensic software, and editing and layout work on a freelance basis, in between studying for an MSc in forensic psychological studies with the Open University.

He must have worked for Yamaha as a writer.

Many UK and American writers stories about Japan are to make their home audience feel better or superior. I remember clearly in the 1990s telling my Japanese bosses that the foreign press was saying how they were all saying the Japanese Economic Boom is Over, and being told they were just jealous of Japans success. In that case the foreign press was correct and the boom was truly over, but in many other cases they were not wrong of their assessment of Foreign journalists.

I will let you judge if you think any of his article above is condescending or not...

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"LATE STAGE" Life, 2024/4/10

A cartoon on being semi retired, not working fulltime any more, and the things in life you want to do, and those you need to do. I wrote "you" there, but it really just means "me".

I have been doing one of these Just Thinking... comics again everyday for the last week or two.  Even did two on making them, combined here:

A comic on whatever random, incomplete thought I may have just had that morning. But this one about the making of is something have been thinking about for a long time.  

I did a lot of these during the covid years,  some were 3 or more panel strips, others just this single panel. I have bought and used BLAMBOT fonts, I have also looked at his info about lettering comics and his book, but mostly do my own thing, inspired by memes, euro-comics and manga. His lettering comics book seems so American Comic only to me. I guess this is partly as I  never read any American comics growing up, and only see them as a minor arm of the art.  The first comic I ever really read was translated manga THE GHOST IN THE SHELL, then some collected volumes of SPAWN I bought during business trips to America in the 1990s.  Memes, a photo with some text slapped on it, has become a significant format, but I want to do things a bit differently. 

I do these for myself and expect my format will evolve more. Time Capsules for my future self. I may be able to take it somewhere interesting, but may just stop again and try something completely different. It isn't like I have an audience to consider.

Suzume was the TV movie of the week last week, and I recorded it to a BLURAY RECORDER. I useful gadget to have, that I didn't have to buy, as I was given this older model last year.  

Like all this directors movies, it is a Supernatural teenage romance. But the thing that really stuck me, is how beautiful and detailed it makes mundane scenes. Kyoto Animation does the same thing.  Inspiring.

I previously blogged about catching up on stuff I never saw, or never had the opportunity to see.  I am currently watching HOUSE, at one time the most popular TV drama in America.  The first season was really good and I found each episode just really flew past.  The character HOUSE is inspired by SHERLOCK HOLMES, and they are kind of a who done it, except with obscure diseases and medical conditions, so it isn't as if a viewer can guess who done it.  I am on to season 2 now, and some things seem to have changed. Not sure if this is for the better, but still more interesting than most other TV for me at the moment. At least for one hour an evening.

No idea why I never watched it before, and know it was on TV in Sydney when I was there. I guess I just didn't have the time to watch any more hours of TV than I did watch.

A pocket full of music & a coffee is joyous...

You know it to be true 

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Breakfast at GUSTO 2024/4/4

Felt like having unlimited coffee, a hotcake and a boiled egg for breakfast so rushed off to catch the 9:29AM train to the local Mall after getting some 1990 PINK SAPPHIRE tracks onto my X1 mp3 player this morning.

There are regulars at my local GUSTO, and I briefly introduced my self and chatted with one I have always seen there. As above.  I assume he is there every morning, but the most I have been is once a week for a few consecutive weeks. The place is quiet and great value, but I prefer to be at home most of the time.

I was first living in Japan 1987 to 2001, but have no memory of PINK SAPPHIRE's 1990 debut track P.S. I LOVE YOU. It rocks. Even though I bought the CD single of just as rocking LINDBERG'S 今すぐKiss Me earlier that year.  It is just hit and miss what music is around that you notice. So last week in the eclectic Village Vanguard store I come across DJ和 MY-ROCK MIX of J-Rock with 33 tracks.  I recognized some, so bought it.  It is like a DJ mix, with no break between tracks, and just the best bit of each, maybe half.  This CD introduced me to Pink Sapphire and a few other J-rock bands I hadn't known.

Shame to read that the Pink Sapphire guitarist, Taka, died of breast cancer end of 2023, aged 56.  

I am on Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky, Mastodon and Facebook. That is way to many, except Instagram, Bluesky and Mastodon get 0 interaction for me so looking at them at all is becoming less frequent. They are easy to ignore.

Twitter makes it easy to follow a lot of people, and work out which are actually worth following and maybe interact with. There are many non Japanese in Japan that, apparently, know far more about Japan than Japanese do. Experts on everything, all the time.  I only know about things related to me in my own 19 years here.   So...

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