Random Thoughts: The Return
- Thread starter flowersofnight
- Start date
What's the deal with E+Z anyway? Is it just the "plugged-in" equivalent of Kozi's unplugged shows, where he does pretty much anything from his career?
Most likely, yeah. And he might actually have written some of the music for this live (which was 3 songs in total).
TBH I am not super familiar with his discography, so I can't really tell you, especially given that he has about 10 million bands lol. But yes, it is 'plugged-in' and he ended his set with Color Me Blood Red, which I got really hyped for.
I did buy their merch (which was a flash drive with E// +Z lives etc on it... 3000+yen), so I'll report back with some sort of insight.
I know, I know, shelling out my hard-earned money for a FLASH DRIVE is fucking nuts given that it's over 3000yen, but that was the only thing they had. :p Had they had anything else like a shirt or something, I would've just bought that lol
So I had more than a bit of a scare today: got in a painting of an archangel in the Cuzco style here, and it arrived in grievous condition:
It was covered in some sort of scuffing or scraping:
But it turned out that it was actually just dirt that could be carefully wiped off using some makeup pads and distilled water:
And in fact the entire painting seems to have been covered in more of that same grime, just not as obviously. I wonder if it was cigarette smoke from a century in France or what. After cleaning it fairly thoroughly, the final result turned out quite well:
I was lucky though - nobody seems to know anything about how to clean unvarnished oil paintings, it's effectively luck of the draw. Older paintings such as this one (19th century) are fairly indestructible, but modern oils seem to be capricious and poorly understood. It's an active area of research just to figure out whether water or mineral oil is the best thing to use on contemporary paintings.
If it happens to be varnished, on the other hand, you can scrub it down with any number of commercially available salves, like so:
The moral: varnish your paintings, I guess. It was never an option on this particular piece though, due to the impasto elements.
It was covered in some sort of scuffing or scraping:
But it turned out that it was actually just dirt that could be carefully wiped off using some makeup pads and distilled water:
And in fact the entire painting seems to have been covered in more of that same grime, just not as obviously. I wonder if it was cigarette smoke from a century in France or what. After cleaning it fairly thoroughly, the final result turned out quite well:
I was lucky though - nobody seems to know anything about how to clean unvarnished oil paintings, it's effectively luck of the draw. Older paintings such as this one (19th century) are fairly indestructible, but modern oils seem to be capricious and poorly understood. It's an active area of research just to figure out whether water or mineral oil is the best thing to use on contemporary paintings.
If it happens to be varnished, on the other hand, you can scrub it down with any number of commercially available salves, like so:
The moral: varnish your paintings, I guess. It was never an option on this particular piece though, due to the impasto elements.
I actually saw an understudy get called in today - went to see Bernard Shaw's "Arms and the Man" and the lead actress just keeled over in the first act. They had to bring up the lights, call for a doctor from the audience, and so on, and the understudy performed the rest of the role.
It seemed almost like it was a known possibility - the other actor very quickly gathered her up and carried her offstage, without all the fumbling and bumbling and "Are you OK?" you'd expect after a surprise collapse. At any rate, she was supposedly fine in the end (although that was the last we saw of her) and would be resuming her role this evening.
It seemed almost like it was a known possibility - the other actor very quickly gathered her up and carried her offstage, without all the fumbling and bumbling and "Are you OK?" you'd expect after a surprise collapse. At any rate, she was supposedly fine in the end (although that was the last we saw of her) and would be resuming her role this evening.
Local Boomer recycles hoary old yarns about the time Mana moved to Tokyo:
https://nitter.net/vaba_Sexer/status/1735868086421799404#m
Seriously, never become a boomer, never run out of yarns, or if you do, maintain what the Buddha called "noble silence".
https://nitter.net/vaba_Sexer/status/1735868086421799404#m
Seriously, never become a boomer, never run out of yarns, or if you do, maintain what the Buddha called "noble silence".
Nitter is down:
https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/issues/1150
Seems like they were hosting their domain through some "privacy registrar" with odd political alignments, who actually take ownership of your domain when you run it through them (?!) And then if something goes wrong they never give it back (?!?!) Something to be aware of, I guess, if you want to do anything other than the simplest, most boring shared hosting (which is what we do here).
(EDIT: seems to be back today - for now)
In other administrivia, I already had us blocked from ChatGPT, but now I added Google's equivalent as well.
https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/issues/1150
Seems like they were hosting their domain through some "privacy registrar" with odd political alignments, who actually take ownership of your domain when you run it through them (?!) And then if something goes wrong they never give it back (?!?!) Something to be aware of, I guess, if you want to do anything other than the simplest, most boring shared hosting (which is what we do here).
(EDIT: seems to be back today - for now)
In other administrivia, I already had us blocked from ChatGPT, but now I added Google's equivalent as well.
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aw man with chatgpt and the state of, uh... "x" it really feels like the endtimes for someone like me who grew up on the internet, it feels like in a while 80% of the internet to just be robots talking to each other. as for the other 20%, well, that'll be 10 dollars a month please 
It already is, largely. Email has been 99.99+% spam for decades (mostly filtered out by computers before any human sees it), and everything else isn't far behind.
The reason nobody runs forums anymore except weirdos like me isn't just because everyone moved to poisonous social media platforms. It's that automated and semi-automated spam wrecked everything about 10 years ago, and comprehensive solutions to this are out of reach for small operators. The only difference between now and 10 years ago in that respect is that some of the copy/paste work done by third-worlders for pennies a day might now be done by ChatGPT instead.
Our solution to the spam problem is just being too small to be a real target, and having all registrations require a real email address ("Click the link in your email to verify") and then being manually approved. But that wouldn't scale up very well.
my wishful thinking is that small forums will come out on top in the end, however unrealistic as that is
speaking of verification, I recently discovered a wiki that apparently eliminated bot activity by setting this as it's captcha:
speaking of verification, I recently discovered a wiki that apparently eliminated bot activity by setting this as it's captcha:
From now on you can't sign up here unless you can say it 
Any of our Japan hands ever go to the opera over there?
It seems like they have some interesting productions going on:
https://nikikai.jp/lineup/tannhauser2024/
https://nikikai.jp/lineup/deidamia2024/
But this is way, way over into "can't justify" territory, even with plane tickets only $1000. I mean, not unless I found a whole bunch of other things going on at essentially the same time.
It seems like they have some interesting productions going on:
https://nikikai.jp/lineup/tannhauser2024/
https://nikikai.jp/lineup/deidamia2024/
But this is way, way over into "can't justify" territory, even with plane tickets only $1000. I mean, not unless I found a whole bunch of other things going on at essentially the same time.
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I had to install the software for managing my Kobo eReader recently and it uses system icons from back in the Macintosh days rather than the regular OS X (or is that Mac OS now?) ones. Certainly made for an unexpected blast of nostalgia.
So I went to this ballet (which will remain unnamed) and it was, how does one say, rough
It was a community theater sort of production held in a church basement (but a fancy one with pro lighting, motorized curtains, theater seating, and so forth) But...
- The mics were all way too "hot", almost to the point of feedback, and they forgot to turn them off when actors went backstage
- The curtains never worked right the first time when opening/closing
- All the music was prerecorded and cued up one clip at a time, but it seems like nobody quite knew how to operate the sound system. Lots of prolonged DEAD SILENCE when the next clip didn't load. At one point I actually heard someone saying "Where are you????" from backstage
- During the big finale where the protagonists were going to be executed, the gallows' crossbar fell down and hit someone (they were OK)
- The director's iPad was stolen during the first act (!)
AND... there was a kid in the audience talking out loud the whole time. And at one point some ballerinas came out wearing fox ears and tails and the kid was like "MAMA LOOK, THEY'RE FURRIES, LOOK, THEY'RE FURRIES"
This was being livestreamed too, but I think it's too much to hope that there was some other weirdo like me out there who just felt the Hand Of Fate guiding them to record the video live.
It was a community theater sort of production held in a church basement (but a fancy one with pro lighting, motorized curtains, theater seating, and so forth) But...
- The mics were all way too "hot", almost to the point of feedback, and they forgot to turn them off when actors went backstage
- The curtains never worked right the first time when opening/closing
- All the music was prerecorded and cued up one clip at a time, but it seems like nobody quite knew how to operate the sound system. Lots of prolonged DEAD SILENCE when the next clip didn't load. At one point I actually heard someone saying "Where are you????" from backstage
- During the big finale where the protagonists were going to be executed, the gallows' crossbar fell down and hit someone (they were OK)
- The director's iPad was stolen during the first act (!)
AND... there was a kid in the audience talking out loud the whole time. And at one point some ballerinas came out wearing fox ears and tails and the kid was like "MAMA LOOK, THEY'RE FURRIES, LOOK, THEY'RE FURRIES"
This was being livestreamed too, but I think it's too much to hope that there was some other weirdo like me out there who just felt the Hand Of Fate guiding them to record the video live.
I went to Paris to see Dir en Grey (this is my "fuck it" year, i dont have enough money saved up for important real-life/adult stuff, so im gonna spend it on old vk men before they die). And I had the most amazing time with @faith !! but we did forget to get any sort of photographic evidence and I still owe her for beers
Anyway, next stops are Berlin for Kamijo, Santiago for Mana, Közi and Kaya and Tokyo for m10m and Közi in October!
and I still owe her for beersAnyway, next stops are Berlin for Kamijo, Santiago for Mana, Közi and Kaya and Tokyo for m10m and Közi in October!
They're not that old
If anything I'd be more worried about them running off to get corporate jobs (or at least BMW sales gigs) than dropping dead onstage XDYour travel schedule sounds incredible though
She told me she had a great time, and she practically never has a great time XD
Yeah, these days we do it on purpose
They're not that old
Theres a very small age gap between our old men and Sakurai Atsushi, Issay and Heath :/
Their sudden deaths kind of put it into perspective for me tbh
also i dont think they'd go into corporate jobs at this stage xD maybe 10-15 years ago? what japanese company would hire 50yr old highschool dropouts with no experience? :p but Közi having a freak accident down some stairs while drunk (again) seems MUCH MORE LIKELY!
Tanaqro, apparently
Apart from selling The Ultimate Leasing Machine, it seems kind of like dead-end musical louts go into the "studio musician" line of work and just play for hire. "Local Boomer" Vaba is in the studio all the time playing drums for nothing-and-nobody-in-particular.
I'll never stop regretting missing out on the "Broken Butt X-Ray" t-shirt
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Curious note from Japan Post that due to a strengthening of customs and imports, mail sent to Brazil lacking tax identification number or passport number of the addressee will be rejected. https://www.post.japanpost.jp/int/information/2024/0326_01_en.html