1988-1994
I started getting into rap music at a young age. Maybe 7 or 8. I started off listening to my brother’s LPs and CDs. I remember it was a big deal when my brothers first got their record player. I wasn’t allowed to touch it. I distinctly remember the Bobby Brown Don’t Be Cruel LP and the MC Hammer U Can’t Touch This LP. I loved those albums and I remember my brothers and their friends would watch me do an imitation of the Hammer shuffle. I was also huge fan of Another Bad Creation and Kwame and would listen to their CDs nonstop. Kid rap groups were my fave; with their songs about schoolyard puppy love.

As I got older I learned how to operate our tapedeck and I started making my own mix tapes. By this time, my brother Tim introduced me to Run DMC and Kam got me a mix CD with lots of hits. These two CDs really shaped my appreciation of hip-hop. I was able to recite almost the entire 15 minutes worth of the Super Rhymes song. From old school hip hop, I got into gangster rap; listening to my brother’s NWA and Ice-Cube CDs. Kam somehow got a bunch of demo tapes and I remember one of them was the first Bone Thugs-N-Harmony EP.

When my mom was driving me around, I would listen to whatever I wanted. Mostly Run DMC and sometimes Bone Thugs. Thinking back about how she put up with the silly gangster rap and incessant rap, makes me really appreciate how awesome my mom was. I was just a barely pre-teen punk kid getting driven around by mom, ejecting her Chinese music and then blasting Bone Thugs and Run DMC in our Volvo 200DL (see picture). I didn’t dare listen to NWA around her though; I knew that much.

Mom freaked out when “No Surrender” came on because it started with siren sounds

It finally came! The wait was well worth it! The day the package arrived I was nervous and giddy like a schoolgirl. I could barely keep my hands from shaking as I un-boxed the long awaited custom stick. It came wrapped in layers of protection. Words simply couldn’t describe how I felt as I marveled at the craftsmanship and attention to detail. I was simply blown away. Everything I had asked for, Godspu delivered on and exceeded expectations. It might be the pride of ownership in me, but I must say that this stick is his best work yet.

I asked for a dual console custom stick with round edges, similar to the glossy simple black stick he made before. But I wanted to have it in a pearlescent white, and incorporate some LED lighting elements into it. Godspu offered some suggestions like the plexi side panels so I trusted his vision of the project and it came out looking awesome.

The details:
+MDF construction
+White base paint with pink pearl flake
+Dual console (Xbox360/PS3) – Madcatz SE PCB, Toodles Chimp Board
+Sanwa JLF stick
+Seimitsu PS-14-G-N buttons
+LED lit buttons and case
+Xbox microphone jack
+Seimitsu bubble top
+Anondized aluminum shaft cover
+Removable cord

The paint job was professional and perfect. Pictures don’t do the paint job justice. I went with pink pearl since I had some pink Sanwas I was going to re-use (but ended up getting the Seimitsus since I needed screw-ins)

Clean clean clean wiring and attention to detail

LEDs lit up

And it plays like a dream too. Having the stick farther away from the buttons makes it more comfortable than the TE.

I have no reservations whatsoever about recommending Godspu for any custom joystick or even modification work. He was incredibly easy to work with and very responsive. He even obliged me with work-in-progress pictures.

The current duo:

More pictures here

Great memories. Sony MZ-R50.
Back in high school my friend John showed me his cool MD player he got from HK. I had to have one too. It was way smaller than a CD player and had tons of skip-protection. Bought one in Japan during my home stay in Ishigaki-shi. I was dumb and bought an optical cable to try to record stuff, but stupid me, I couldn’t figure out why the optical cable wasn’t working in the stereo mini-jack. I bought a bunch of MDs (even the cool clear cased ones) and started making my own mixes from CDs I would rent from the music store there. Came back to the US and showed all my friends the wonders of Jpop and MDs. Some got really into Jpop and one guy even installed an MD deck in their car. I’ll save the Jpop memories for another time, but I loved that MD player. Thought it was the shit with the remote that would display the tracks and the twistable knob to skip tracks. Would clip it to my shirt with the display facing out. Hot stuff.

Then one day in Japanese class my MD player was stolen off my desk. I was crushed. It was substitute teacher day so he didn’t care about it. I thought I only had friends in that class but I guess that was the life lesson. Maybe the sub stole it. No idea. The MD loader mechanism was kind of busted anyway; and I hope whoever stole it liked the mix of Cocco, Speed, and Brilliant Green. Never bought another MD player to replace it though. My next music player was a Rio PMP 300. What an awesome piece of crap that was.

Speaking of my Jpop-crazed era; interesting factoid: “Rise” came from the name of a Speed album, my favorite Jpop group back in ’98. 1998 was the best year of Jpop ever. Loved those days. EFnet #jpop #jpopmp3 #jrock and on and on

My favorite SPEED song “Alive”

Fell in love again. Listen to Stars. More energetic than In Our Bedroom After the War. The Five Ghosts is an easy instant favorite.

Reminder to self, they’ll be in Seattle Nov 6th. Louis CK will be here Nov 12th.

Thanks to this blog post, CopyTrans is the answer.

Here’s the 758mb file video:

Click image for full res

I’ll miss my skinned gameboy iPhone though. Good bye love, I hardly knew ye

Update: Due to lameness/laziness, I forgot write about the wonders of the Octopus card and how the MTR is so not the same. So instead, check out The Book on Flim Flamming to read about how convenient and awesome the Octopus card is.

What else did I do in HK… mainly just eat and hang out. So much has changed since I last was in HK 16 years ago. Tons of new malls and buildings were erected; but at the same time it feels it hasn’t changed much. The same ol’ MTR, the same trams, buses (all AC’d now), and taxis. I didn’t remember seeing so many Westerners in HK back then. It seemed like 1 out of 5 people was a whitey in Central. Almost everyone is capable of speaking English now.

Me and Dad at Stanley, on the first day I arrived

A rare clear view of HK from across the bay. This was taken from near the pier.

The pier keeps getting extended out as they add in more landfill. Kowloon and HK are getting closer and closer. Here’s a pic of the fill from the American Club in Central. The road, and everything to the left of it is new. When I was a kid, I don’t remember having to walk a long walkway to get to the pier. Very few people take the ferry now anyway.

From the tram

Wasted a day looking for joystick parts, only to find they aren’t sold in Mong Kok or Sham Shui Po computer centers. Didn’t see many places selling MadCatz sticks either. Most were selling Qanba sticks.

Hung out with long-time IRC friend Guillaume and his girl Helen. Spent a lot of time in arcades. Last time I was in HK I wasn’t old enough to get in. Kicked ass and got my ass kicked at SFIV, he beat me ez at KOF.

Nasty arcade controls at an arcade that allowed smoking

Some para para pros at the huge Kowloon Bay arcade in Telford Plaza:

I tried to find this coin-pushing game I saw in Japan, but didn’t see it in HK

We went to Wong Tai Sin temple and also the Peak

iPhone HDR app not bad

Caught World Cup fever and over paid for it:

Really weak stinky tofu from a stand in Mong Kok, the Taiwan stinky tofu is way better (and stinkier)

Cheesey eggettes from Mong Kok

Hunan Sour and Spicy noodles in TST

McDs delivers if you over more than $66 HKD. After 9pm they have double filet o fish.

Rest of the pictures of HK are here

We started the tour with an hour or so at the Venus plaza/Toyota showcase. It was ok. Some locals were in line there to see Mika, but other than that it seemed like a mediocre tourist stop on the way from the airport.

The first meal was terrible but edible Chinese/Western/Japanese buffet. Bad sign when all the patrons were other Chinese tours and all the staff were Chinese speaking as well. The mall it was in was totally dead as well. Complete tourist trap. I bet some Chinese businessman owns the whole building. All the restaurants there were advertising buffets.

The view from the buffet place, bridge is famous, or something:

Checked into the Keio plaza hotel after that. Hotel is nice. Rooms are small and furnished from the 80s/90s but that was expected. Walked around Kabukicho by myself at night and got solicited by a guy hostess. Dad is snoring like a Harley so I took an ambien and hoped for the best.

The busy streets of Kabukicho:

Front of Shinjuku station:

Gave up on updating daily so here’s some ramblings:

Tour Guide:

Our tour guide (TG) was really funny and very talkative. There wasn’t any bus rides where wasn’t telling us about the surroundings, Japanese culture, history lesson, etc; except for the one time he let us sleep.
Other notes about him… divorced a Japanese stewardess. He courted her for 6 months before she would go on a date with him. They divorced over something gambling related. Not sure whose. He might be harboring some ill feelings toward the Japanese. Says they are selfish and heartless but “they have their reasons” or “it’s just part of their culture.”
He told ghost stories about haunted hotels. How one time he was in an old hotel and a couple of school girls got on the elevator at 11pm to go to the bottom floor. He checked with the receptionist to see if there were any school tours going on, and was also told that everything on the bottom floor was closed.
Gave us an education about WWII and somehow parlayed it into a sales pitch for magnetic bracelets and necklaces. Says the roads in Hiroshima were paved with natural magnets that’s how come they recovered so quick. The rocks or whatever soaked it all up. And he only needs to sleep for a few hours when he wears them.
Also gave us snacks on the bus and offered to sell us some to save us the trouble of buying on our own.
Most of his amusing stories turn into sales pitch for something. Face masques and “horse oil” for skin, says it’s their secret to good skin.
“Japanese will respect anyone who can beat the crap out of them: America, Bruce Lee, etc.”

The Food:

Further into the tour the food has been getting better. I’m really sick of sashimi now. Even though all the places we’ve been are hot spots for tourist groups, I understand it’s tough to find a good restaurant for large groups. Most of the meals were set meals, had a little hotpot, soup, rice, fish.

One of the restaurants near Lake Kawaguchi that could seat many people, where we had the sushi boat too:

Typical set meal:

We added onto our set meal twice, once for sushi boat and another for long legged crab sashimi/hotpot. The sushi boat we had was really good, with raw lobster too. It was delivered from a separate restaurant.

The raw crab was really good too. Sweet and not very ‘fishy’ like Alaskan crab would be.

And the sashimi and hotpot portions:

We ate fugu, the poisonous fish which only a specially licensed chef could prepare. We had the sashimi and also hotpot. The hotpot was in a wooden basket lined with wax paper on an induction heater. At the bottom of the paper was a piece of metal, which was transmitting the heat.

The fish says hi:

Fugu sashimi, texture was crunchy, like calamari or tendon. The cooked meat was crunchy as well.

The hot pot for the other fish parts (mostly bones):

Earlier into the tour, my dad and I had a free day in Shinjuku so we had to eat on our own. Our first meals (besides the hotel breakfast) was at some really crappy and cheap sushi belt place. Horrible. Then we treated ourselves to some expensive Unagi don.

Here’s a 3670Y unagi don (it was 3 huge pieces, and the unagi was much better than frozen):

The Lodging:
One word: SMALL. Imagine a 1/2 of a size of an American hotel room and half the size of the bathroom. First place we stayed at was the Keio Plaza Hotel, a short walk from the Shinjuku shopping area. Our TG hyped it up as a 5 star hotel, but besides the fancy looking lobby, it’s more like a 3.5 star hotel by American standards. Oh yeah, and there’s NO FREE WIFI. Anywhere. I checked plenty. My friend said Japan is in 1998 when it comes to the internet. The only way I got internet was by paying 100Y for 15 minutes at the public use computers in the hotel lobbies.

Keio room, two singles. This was the best lodging that we stayed in during our trip. This was it, there was only a foot or so more on my right:

Our second lodging place was at the New in Shizuoka. This was was a hot spring resort, not sure if it was a natural hot spring or a regular bath house. I think it was a regular resort hotel that also featured a bathhouse. The bathhouse experience was interesting. Nakedness abound, but I didn’t find it that awkward. I didn’t have my glasses on, but I swear the other guys facing us in the bath were staring us down. Everyone was weirdly deliberate/confident, like some Yakuza movie where everyone struts around naked.

The New Akao hotel:

The rooms were small, Japanese style. Smelled like old rice and moldy tatami. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was moldy since the air was very salty wet. Every room had a view of the sea and we could see the waves crashing on the rocks from our room. Very cool views. Getting over the fact that the hotel decor and facilities were from the 70s/80s, it was interesting sleeping Japanese style on futons and stuff.

Our room. Tiny bathroom area, we didn’t shower since we used the bathhouse.

View from our room:

The “resort” also featured karaoke rooms, an old arcade/slots/pachinko (which some older lady and husband were playing for tokens), hotel shops, a few restaurants, and live entertainment. It was amazing how many people worked there considering how few patrons there were. Walking the old hallways was pretty creepy.

Our dinner came with cheesy live entertainment. Non-Japanese singers sang some English songs and some classic Japanese songs. They had crib notes to help them with the Japanese songs. It was all very cheesy at first, but the view, atmosphere, and a ‘go with the flow’ attitude really helped.

Nice view of lighted cliffs from the restaurant at night:

Entertainment “MINNA SAN KONBANWA…MINNA SAN ARIGATO…HOWS EVERYONE DOING TONIGHT”

After that we stayed a night at the Prince Hotel hotel. Even smaller than the Keio hotel room. The bathroom seemed like one piece of fiberglass. One nice thing is that almost every toilet I used had a bidet. This made me very happy. I wasn’t hesitant to drop a deuce at all. Every toilet felt like home.

There was an arcade near the hotel. It had a cool Gundam game with a pod you sit inside and a screen that wraps around.

The Sights:

Mt. Fuji was cool. We went to a tourist destination nearby that featured Fuji water in separate mini-pools, or springs. The water was very clear and had fish in there. We even drank some of the Fuji water; it tasted like water. My taste buds were messed up though since I took Lunesta the night before and my mouth had a metallic taste for the day.

Fuji-san

Fuji water, with various other pools, filled with water:

Fish

For drinking

No littering sign, notice the Chinese is larger than the others

Lake Kawaguchiko, nice view, ate sushi here, left on the bus

At the prayer monument for peace in Shizuoka

We took a ski lift to the top of this extinct volcano. Our TG kept hyping up the lift as being scary, but it wasn’t even more than 4 ft off the ground. There is an archery range at the bottom.

Went somewhere nearby that featured seven small waterfalls

Ginza was pimp. Huge golden Cartier building. Tons of mainlanders buying luxury goods.

Entrance to Tokyo Imperial Palace, nothing to see here really. A huge park with tons of homeless. TG said the homeless were called “trash” and were kicked out by their wives/families because they couldn’t earn any money. They have lots of luggage and possessions.

Gomi fabulous

Other Notes:

People on our tour:
Young 30s couple who talk with their mouth full and smack their lips when eating.
Old old man and young wife and 26 year old son. When my dad met them he asked if he was her dad. How embarrassing.