St-Pierre VS. Penn II

Here we go, BJ Penn/Georges St-Pierre part II, champ vs champ. The hype is that this is the UFC’s biggest fight to date, and I don’t think you’ll find too many people who’ll argue. I’m obviously pulling for BJ, but this should be one hell of a battle. Both guys are a cut above everyone else in their respective divisions, but the fact is that BJ is clearly at his best as a lightweight. Ditto for GSP at welterweight, and given that Penn is the one moving up a weight class for this fight, you probably have to give St-Pierre the slight edge here. It’s definitely hard to pick against GSP given the current roll that he’s on, but the same could be said about Penn. Can’t wait for this one.

Obligatory Sneaker Talk

Oh man, these Huarache Bursts are just insanely sleek. I like how the shoe seems to be simply “inspired” by the XI rather than literally concocted from different parts of preexisting sneakers.



I’m still in the midst of cutting back on shoes so I likely won’t buy them (a mere 4 pairs purchased since September), but they’re looking real, real sexy. I’ve been closer to picking up the Purple Foam 1. I refuse to call them the “Eggplants,” because it just sounds dumb and kind of gross. It took me a little while to really warm up to them, but they’re clearly the best colorway of the Foamposite One since the original.



If I can find someplace that has them in stock, I just might end up passing on the Penny III. Last but certainly not least, further detailed shots of the ½ Cent have surfaced, and it looks like there will be a hologram of LP’s face on the bottom of the heel.



The thing about holograms and visible air units is that they tend to get cloudy over time, and I’m fairly certain that this is the first sneaker to feature both so prominently. In effect, they’re shoes that may not look quite so great 10 years from now, but I’m still all about them.



I mean, damn, those things are almost too good to be true.

Fedor Still Apparently Invincible

A few days late, but I managed to catch Affliction’s Fedor Emelianenko/Andrei Arlovski title fight. Arlovski was looking really good for about 3 minutes and was actually handily winning the fight until he tried to land a flying knee in the corner. Fedor saw it coming and took Adrei out of the sky with a perfectly timed right hook. Arlovski’s biggest weakness is his questionable chin anyway, but that punch likely would have taken anyone out. Despite Dana White’s refusal to acknowledge Fedor as the world’s top heavyweight, Fedor has now disposed of Tim Sylvia and Andrei Arlovski, two former UFC champs, in a combined 4 minutes or so. Josh Barnett looks to be next on Fedor’s plate, and if Brock Lesnar can get past Frank Mir, a potential Fedor/Lesnar bout would likely draw more money than any other fight in MMA history.

We Are All Witness. Unfortunately.

Playing:
Shin Megami Tensei
Persona 4
(PS2)

I was in the midst of a fairly rigorous Persona session on Saturday morning when my doorbell rang. Now, I usually don’t get a whole lot of unexpected visitors, but the optimist in me assumed that it was the delivery guy with a package. I made the mistake of opening the door without looking through the peephole, and was greeted by a pair of Jehovah’s Witnesses as a reward for my stupidity. They proceeded to hook me up with the latest issue of “Awake!” and ask me if I had ever wondered why I was here (on Earth), but the only question running through my mind was why they were here (in Japan). I thought that moving to Japan would mean getting away from telemarketers and Jehovah’s Witnesses, but to my disappointment, it turns out that they’ve got both of those here. The two men were actually quite pleasant and spoke English really well, but I simply wasn’t in the mood to be entertaining visitors, regardless of whether or not they were spreading JC’s word. What’s funny is that I have this sign on my door:



"Earrings off, asshole!!!" The sign is essentially the last thing I see before leaving for work in the morning, and it’s so far served as an effective reminder for me to take off my earrings (asshole). My new friends and I had our conversation with the door wide open, which resulted in several awkward glances - from all three of us - at my little notice. I was hoping that my somewhat peculiar sign might scare them off, but they instead expressed interest in coming to chat about life with me at the same time on a future date. Ah well, I guess I just have another reason to sleep in on Saturday mornings.

As far as Persona 4 goes, I’m about 20 hours into the game and thoroughly enjoying it. It still feels very much like the third installment of the series, although the storyline, at least so far, is somewhat scaled back and not the epic, apocalyptic ride that Persona 3 was. Building social links and fusing personas, the bread and butter of P3, remains the preeminent part of P4, and as a result, the game feels almost like Persona 3.5 rather than Persona 4. That being said, the gameplay of P3 was bordering on perfect, so a new backdrop is really all that fans of the third installment were likely asking for. Gamers who played P3 will likely find the battles somewhat easy and, dare I say, boring, but the real draw of P4 is still the whole social networking and calendar management aspect of the game. Throw in an engaging murder mystery storyline and a cast of likable, albeit familiar characters, and you've got a first-rate package that rivals Persona 3.

Boris Diaw Humiliates Suns

Just days after losing to former coach Mike D'Antoni's New York Knicks, the Phoenix Suns were served a humbling defeat at the hands of Boris Diaw and the Charlotte Bobcats. Often maligned for his inconsistent play during his stay in Phoenix, Diaw reaffirmed what he is capable of when given starter's minutes (26 pts, 11 boards, 10-16 FG, 3-4 from long range), severely outplaying Amare Stoudemire (12 points, 9 boards, 5-14 FG) at both ends of the floor. The other former Sun, Raja Bell, did his thing and held Jason Richardson to 8 points on 3-9 shooting. I'm still fans of both Diaw and Bell, so I'm happy that they're playing well on a suddenly decent Bobcats team, but it's becoming increasingly clear that Suns' GM Steve Kerr has no idea what he's doing.

Not to knock J-Rich, because he's played really well since he's joined the team, but Porter and Kerr seem hell bent on playing a methodical, San Antonio Spurs style of ball. While there's technically nothing wrong with that, why would you trade one of your best post-up players and your best perimeter defender if the intent is to construct a more deliberate, half court squad? To top it off, rumor is that Kerr is now shopping Leandro Barbosa and is open to the idea of trading Stoudemire. If those two are moved, Steve Nash will be the only holdover from the run & gun days. Wow.

Pittsburgh Steelers Back In The Super Bowl

Oh, it’s on. As luck would have it, my team makes the Super Bowl during my first year living thousands of miles away from American television. I really can’t think of a justifiable reason to sweat the Cardinals, but then again, it’s not like I’ve had the opportunity to watch them play at all this season. On paper, it looks like Arizona has the type of personnel to be effective against the Steeler defense, but I wouldn't put money on it. Hopefully Hines Ward's injury isn't too serious, but I imagine that he'll be playing regardless of what the doctors say. Having to track down the game online kind of sucks the excitement out of things, but there’s nothing quite like having your team playing on Super Bowl Sunday.

I had probably the wildest night of my life this past Saturday. I’d detail it for you, but as of right now, I’m not legitimately sure how much of it actually happened. I can’t decide whether or not that’s a good thing.

Dreams Of MJ, The Reality Of The Stormin' Mormon

While playing ball the other night, I accidentally creamed this guy in the face with an elbow. It was totally inadvertent, but I couldn’t help but feel really bad about it anyway. My elbow still hurts like hell, so I can only imagine what that guy’s face feels like right now. You know, I never thought the day would come that I would turn into Shawn Bradley, but here I am, stumbling around the court and taking out people with errant limb shots.

Nothing Quite Like Jet Lag

Listening to:
大塚愛
Love Letter

So on the journey from Hawaii back to Okinawa, I got tagged with a 4-hour layover in Taiwan. I’ve really got no problems with traveling alone, but there’s only so much that you can do when you’re stuck in an airport by yourself. Taiwan is actually a place that I would love to properly explore, so I guess I’ll just jot it down on my list of places to visit while I’m here in Japan. I’ve been thinking about visiting Thailand as well, but I guess the truth is that I’m just a little intimidated about the prospect of traveling alone to a country where I can’t speak the language.



Spending 17 hours straight in airports/airplanes is no joke, so I was both exasperated and exhausted by the time I got back to my apartment. Some pros and cons of flying the semi-infamous China Air:

The Good:

• The price is right.
  
• My flights were probably about 80% full, so I was lucky enough to be next to an empty seat twice. I’m not real keen on sitting next to a potentially large and unhygienic stranger(s) for 10 hours straight.
  
• Most of the flight attendants were quite beautiful.
  
• The Chinese Christmas carols. You haven’t lived until you’ve heard Feliz Navidad in Chinese.
  
• The planes themselves may be old, but they still have those touch sensitive screens that let you watch movies on demand. I never thought I’d be catching up on flicks in the air. Appaloosa, Hellboy 2, and Vicky Cristina Barcelona made the flight a lot more endurable. The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor? Not so much.
  

The Bad:

• Being in constant fear of the plane going down mid-flight. At one point the captain said that we were experiencing some “mild turbulence,” but the cabin was shaking so much that I thought that he had said “wild turbulence.” It was that bad.
  
• The weird sandwiches with the corn in them.
  
• People thinking I’m Chinese, and attempting to speak to me as such.

Inevitably, the fear of dying outweighs the attractive stewardesses, so logic suggests that dropping the extra few hundred to fly JAL is the way to go. On the other hand, I suppose I’m not above risking my life to save a few bills, so you never know.

Top Albums Of 2008

20) Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
19) Superfly - Superfly
18) The Hold Steady - Stay Positive
17) Fucked Up - The Chemistry Of Common Life
16) Fall Out Boy - Folie à Deux
15) GReeeeN - あっ、ども。おひさしぶりです。
14) Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
13) Murs - Murs For President
12) いきものがかり - ライフアルバム
11) Lil Wayne - Tha Carter III


10) Perfume - GAME

check out:
ポリリズム
plastic smile
チョコレイト・ディスコ

Since arriving in Japan, I’ve tried my hardest to hate Perfume. Their songs are featured on what seems to be every other commercial on television, they give the most deliberately ditzy interviews that I’ve ever witnessed, and they can neither particularly sing nor dance. One of my students brought me a picture of the trio and asked me which one of the three was my type, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I could barely tell them apart. All that being said, I still find myself constantly revisiting the album, and have to admit that songs like 「チョコレイト・ディスコ」 are mainstays on most of my playlists. Overall, Perfume's brand of electropop is really, really fun to listen to, and even if GAME isn’t exactly your thing, it’s an album that’s much easier to dismiss than actively hate. Personally? I love the album in spite of myself, and coming from me, that's quite the endorsement.


9) NaS - Untitled

check out:
Sly Fox
Black President
N.I.*.*.E.R.

Although the pre-release hype to the album centered largely around the record’s controversial prospective title and its eventual absence of one, the album itself turned out to be Nas’ best set since God’s Son. Nas is as explicitly political as he ever has been here, and though his views on the war on terror or Barack Obama aren’t quite unique, Nas still comes across as sharp, informed, and calculatedly fierce throughout the duration of the record. To be fair, Nas’ songs are never quite as controversial as the names of his albums might imply (Hip Hop is Dead), but he is still arguably the greatest active MC left in the business, and definitely the one that’s the hardest to imagine the game without.


8) YUI - I Loved Yesterday

check out:
Laugh away
LOVE & TRUTH
My Generation

It was never my intent to become a helpless fan of YUI, but I’ve quietly become so, even making it a point to get a copy of her B-sides album that came out a couple of months back. YUI certainly possesses the aura of a phenom; the quiet, unassuming songstress who unfailingly tops the charts, yet appears as if she’d rather be at home penning a new song than giving an interview on national television. There’s a thick sincerity to all of the songs on I LOVED YESTERDAY, so much so that you can’t help but wonder if YUI’s music will ever outgrow that baby face of hers. YUI’s brilliance primarily lies in her ability to so effectively capture the vibrancy of youth, so although I LOVED YESTERDAY doesn’t denote a huge evolutionary step forward, it does again capture YUI doing what she unquestionably does best: write songs for her generation.


7) Robyn - Robyn

check out:
Konichiwa Bitches
Be Mine
Bum Like You

Technically a 07 release in the UK, Robyn’s self-entitled release made its way over to the states in 08 and turned out to be the best pop record on either shore. It’s still easy to associate Robyn with "Show Me Love," so the transition to “Konichiwa Bitches” Robyn can be a bit of a peculiar one. Critics have been embracing this new breed of edgy yet oddly endearing pop starlet in recent years, and Robyn, much like Lily Allen before her, puts out a record that exudes the type of carefree confidence that is mostly lacking in America’s pop scene. The production here is real slick, but Robyn as a character is a little rough around the edges, possessing just a pinch of undomesticated fire which leads you to believe that her songs will sooner pull hair and scratch than coo and cuddle.


6) Of Montreal - Skeletal Lamping

check out:
An Eluardian Instance
Plastis Wafers
Wicked Wisdom

Where to start here? In a way, the latest album from Of Montreal is the same gaudy, effervescent set that we’ve come to expect from the group. The capricious record is as erratic as it is entertaining, possessing the type of balls-out eccentricity that can only really be accurately conveyed through the nude folks being attacked by demons (or whatever) on the album’s cover. Of Montreal indiscriminately dips and dabbles in different hues, and the resulting experience is something akin to waking up in Candyland with lots and lots of naked people. Kevin Barnes is brilliant here, intermittently tiptoeing a tightrope of strange, but more frequently keeling over into a vast pool of bizarre.


5) 絢香 - Sing to the Sky

check out:
Why
WINDING ROAD (w/ コブクロ)
おかえり

On "WINDING ROAD," a collaboration with コブクロ, Ayaka nearly turns the duo into a sideshow with her potent performance, an episode mostly averted by the fact that there are two of them and merely one of her. Simply put, the girl has some serious pipes, and could make a case as the strongest vocalist on Japan’s pop scene. While it’ll take more than a big voice to sell records, songs like the towering “Why” will keep Ayaka’s releases at the top of the charts for a long, long time.


4) Q-Tip - The Renaissance

check out:
Gettin Up
You
Official

Q-Tip has unquestionably been away from the game for too long, but he thankfully hasn’t lost a step during the 8 years that have passed since his last album released. Fans of Amplified may be disappointed with the record’s lack of a “Vibrant Thing,” but the masterful “Gettin Up,” with its silky, piano-laced beat, is probably the dopest song to come out all year. The whole record maintains an intricate balance of retro and fresh, and there’s something to be said about a guy who can take an 8-year hiatus (we can blame Arista for that) and put out arguably the best hip-hop album of the year. Not sure when we’ll be seeing that new A Tribe Called Quest album, but a new Q-Tip joint is clearly the next best thing.


3) 木村カエラ - +1

check out:
Yellow
はやる気持ち的My World
ファミレド

While the majority of +1's strongest cuts are still rooted in rock, Kaela experiments with dance on tracks like "Jasper" and comes out the better for it. Though plenty eclectic, there was a subdued, almost ethereal quality to last year’s Scratch. With +1, we get a much more kinetic piece, chock-full of riffy hooks and shimmering mid-tempo ballads. Kaela isn’t above singing a love song, but you never get the feeling that she’s helplessly smitten with the object of her affection when she does so. Maybe it’s her somewhat tomboyish air, but one of Kaela’s defining characteristics is that she simply isn’t the head over heels type. I’ve said this before, but if there’s one drawback to the release, it’s the album’s horrible cover. Kaela has many marketable qualities about her, but being incredibly greasy simply isn’t one of them. Brutal cover aside, Kaela’s latest eclectic set is up to par (at least) with her last album, further cementing her status as my favorite solo artist.


2) She & Him - Volume One

check out:
Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?
This Is Not A Test
Swing Low Sweet Chariot

I’ve always been a fan of Zooey Deschanel, so my interest was naturally piqued when I heard that she would be teaming with M. Ward to put out an album. Ward brings his acclaimed resume to the table, but its Deschanel’s homely, warm voice that carries the record. Zooey's transition from big screen indie darling to indie music darling is a seamless one, and you almost wish that she would switch to making music full time. Deschanel’s delivery in the recording booth is in fact quite similar to her delivery on the silver screen: a little odd, always endearing, never presumptuous.


1) Butch Walker - Sycamore Meadows

check out:
ATL
The Weight Of Her
Going Back / Going Home

Walker’s songs are vast, sprawling, and a little murky; a series of reflective confessions that are as epic as they are engaging. It’s a little hard to believe that Walker is responsible for producing pop ditties for the likes of Avril and Puffy, because everything on this record is just so wistful and wonderfully bittersweet. It’s not quite perfect; you can’t help but wonder how that, “We don’t get along anymore/You just take the bed/I’ll take the floor,” chorus made the album, but it’s a rare misstep on a record brimming with sagely soft rock, and at times, an almost gentle sadness. One of my favorite Walker ballads remains “Cigarette Lighter Love Song” from back when he was with Marvelous 3, but even that track seems a little two-dimensional when compared to some of the winding, multidirectional stories that Butch gives us here.

Smart Went Crazy

It's becoming apparent that I'm going to have to fly back home at least once a year just to get some serious shopping done. You know, strictly the essentials: movies, games, gear, sneakers. Before flying over here, I jokingly noted to myself that I would be spending all of my free time at Best Buy, but that turned out to be a lot closer to the truth than I had bargained for. Since I currently reside in the land of 4000 yen DVDs, being able to pick up entertaining trash like Blades of Glory and Clerks II for $5 a pop is like a dream come true. At any rate, I'm ready to get some serious gaming done.

Nike Air 1/2 Cent

Detailed shots of the Nike Air 1/2 Cent have been released, and the shoe is looking pretty incredible. People are throwing fits over the $190 price tag (and rightfully so), but if there's a shoe out there that looks like it'll be worth 190 bones, this is definitely it. To be perfectly honest, I haven't been this excited about a non-retro sneaker since the Foamposite One originally released. Since there's also apparently a murdered out black version in the works, I'll probably be out $380 when these bad boys drop. Ouch. I'm just hoping that I'll be able to get my dirty mitts on them over in Japan.



Sick. I went down to the courts earlier today, and I saw this dude balling in black Penny IIs. It's like, I own three pairs of Penny IIs now, but those things are so ill that they still make me do a double take whenever I see them on someone's feet. I'd never ball in them though. I tore up my OGs on the court back in the day, and I don't think that I'll ever be able to hoop in an Air Penny again. Nowadays?



I'm reppin' Chris Paul on courts in Japan.



And my boy Brandon Roy stateside.

Sproles, Scifres Down Peyton Manning's Colts

Wild game. With LT injured and largely ineffective (as he usually is this time of the year), most people weren't giving the Chargers much of a chance against MVP Peyton Manning and his white hot Patriots. What followed was a gritty performance by an undermanned San Diego, and an early exit for a streaking Indianapolis team that had legitimate Super Bowl aspirations. It wasn't always pretty - the only consistently good looking things about the game were Mike Scifres' punts - but the scrappy Chargers managed to overcome Tomlinson's injury thanks to the diminutive Darren Sproles and his brisk forays into the end zone. Not bad for a .500 team.

I didn't spend all that money to fly home and sit in front of the tube, but damn, I've really missed football. On an unrelated note, I was initially planning on doing another semi-comprehensive top albums of the year list, but 2008 just really wasn't that good of a music year for me. I'll probably have a list up in some shape or form, but I simply don't have the time or energy right now to do blurbs for albums that I thought were merely pretty good. I'll see what I can muster.