my.bicycle

Labels: music

The sci-fi monster (called Gojira in Japan) went on to star in more than 27 films, many of them featuring (Akira) Ifukube’s music. He also created Godzilla’s roar - by rubbing a resin-covered leather glove along the loosened strings of a double bass - and its footsteps - by striking an amplifier case.
(...)
In 2003, he received a Person of Cultural Merit award, one of Japan’s highest honours.
—Telegraph | News | Akira Ifukube

Labels: video

(...) there are “seven riddles” about this underground world, a secret Subtokyo of tunnels; the parallel subways were only mystery number one: “The second reveals a secret underground complex between Kokkai-gijidomae and the prime minister's residence. A prewar map (riddle No. 3) shows the Diet in a huge empty space surrounded by paddy fields: “What was the military covering up?” New maps (No. 4) are full of inconsistencies: “People are still trying to hide things.” The postwar General Headquarters (No. 5) was a most mysterious place. Eidan’s records of the construction of the Hibiya Line (No. 6) are hazy to say the least. As for the “new” O-Edo Line (No. 7), “that existed already.” Which begs the question, where did all the money go allocated for the tunneling?”

Shun even claims to have uncovered a secret code that links a complex network of tunnels unknown to the general public. “Every city with a historic subterranean transport system has secrets,” he says. “In London, for example, some lines are near the surface and others very deep, for no obvious reason.”
—BLDGBLOG: Tokyo Secret City

Labels: flash, video

Labels: games

• “O One” by Chris Roberson
  
• “Red Hands, Black Hands” by Chris Roberson
  
• “Pictures on a Cafe Wall” by Damian Kilby
  
• “The Dog Boys” by Tim Pratt
  
• “Bleeding West” by Tim Pratt
  
• “The Man Who Wasn’t There” by Gregory Benford
  
• “Remade” by Charles Stross
  
• “Daydream Nation” by Paul Di Filippo
  
• “Angel of Light” by Joe Haldeman
  
• “Operation Terror” by Murray Leinster
  
• “Goliath” by Neil Gaiman
  
• “I, Cthulhu” by Neil Gaiman
  
• “The Case of the Four and Twenty Blackbirds” by Neil Gaiman
  
• The Spriggan Mirror by Lawrence Watt-Evans (novel)
  
• Murder in the Gunroom by H. Beam Piper (a mystery novel)

The future’s getting weird and scary. My futurist friend Matt Jones said to me the other day that, in one sense, the future is a race between the Bright Spime Future and what other smart friend Dr Joshua Ellis has termed the Grim Meathook Future. What’s the Grim Meathook Future? Take a look at New Orleans -- what is now called the K-Hole, the hole that Hurricane Katrina left in the United States. Everyone knew in advance that the 2006 hurricane season was going to be a freak one. The K-Hole is the remains of a massive system failure. That’s the Grim Meathook Future: infrastructures that cannot cope. Dead bodies laying for two weeks on the streetcorners of the most powerful nation on earth: that’s the Grim Meathook Future. Things turning backwards. I live on an island that’s just been informed that there’s probably not enough water to go round this summer. Turn that sentence around in your heads a few times.
—Warren Ellis, THE MINISTRY 03 - What Goes Into the Sausage?

Labels: comic

Labels: video

Labels: games, nsfw

“They also distract victims by spraying tomato sauce on their clothing or dropping bundles of banknotes on the ground before grabbing valuables and fleeing.”

Saturday, a 55-year-old man lost a bag containing $40,000 in a shop in central Hong Kong while trying to pick up three $100 bills left by a gang of four South American men, it said.
—Oddly Enough News Article | Reuters.com

Labels: video

Japanese publisher Yuke’s announced that they will establish a US branch called “Yuke’s Company of America” this month, and will begin to publish game titles in North America. The first game will be the PS2 racing simulation game D1 Grand Prix, coming in summer 2006.
The-Magicbox

Labels: games

Labels: video