Music & More

Met this friendly fellow while walking in my neighborhood the other day. Such a sweet dog. Not a bark or a whimper...but he is DYING for some lovin'. Something else that made me whip out my phone was this.


That's a big cone y'all. What else can be said....really.

And now for something completely different.

I have been on a CD buying bonanza as of late. I haven't been buying music all that much these days...compared to when I lived in NYC. In those days it was at least 1 or 2 albums a week. Since I moved to Japan, it is way less. Most of the time the time that is...


Lilly Allen first. Before her album dropped I heard a bunch of her singles here and there on the WWW. I was liking them but not really sure I would buy the album till I heard this one.

Lilly Allen - Alfie


My favorite track by far. The rest of the album is good and enjoyable. But that song is where it's at for me. In this age of single song downloads, complete albums are a rarity...but this one manages it. The same can not be said about the Rhymefest album. It is close to complete...but there are a couple songs I skip every single time. But 3 bad tracks on a 16 track album is not bad at all. I don't regret the purchase at all. The good songs on here are REALLY good. For example:

Rhymefest - Fever


I love how he seems to bounce and skim over that deep beat. It is my fav on the album right now. The video ain't worth getting excited about, but the song is!


After much hype and promotion the Timbaland album finally drop a couple weeks ago. On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd say it's so so. A couple of hot bangers, a bunch of decent stuff, and a few crapsters in there. This is an album that works well with some iTunes editing. Sadly for people in the US, it seems the best track was a bonus track for Asia and Europe only. Here it is. [audio only]

Timbaland & M.I.A. - Come Around


I'm not disappointed by the album. I just feel like he is kinda all over the place...and not in a good way. But I still love those good tracks. Easily worth the junk tracks. Seriously...who likes R&B anyway??? There is no kinda "all over the place" atmosphere on the Redman album. It is focused to the extreme: all East Coast joints one after another. If it catches you in that mood, it's perfect. If not...it is a tad monotonous. And one other sad thing, the 1st single is the best track on the album, which is always a bit dissapointing.

Redman - Put It Down


But any hip-hop album that can combines good slamin' beats with insults and jokes by Redman is all good in my book.


I also picked up some mixed tapes. The Junglist Now! has some good old jungle tracks on it. But damn!!! One key point for mixed tapes is to showcase the ability of the DJ, right? Not so much here. This has to be the worst mixed tape ever in that department: beats not matching, tracks dropping in and out almost at random, abrupt change in BPM or style. Yeah...it's got them all. BUT...the tracks themselves stand up to the non-stop assult they recieve.

The I LUV Baile album is very different...the DJ can actually mix! And who doesn't love some Baile Funk! I need more. For more info on Baile...which...if no one told you, is the music of the future, click HERE, HERE, or HERE.

And on this post rolls on with yet another non sequitur.

There is a holiday in Japan coming on May 5th which is Koinobori or Children's day or Boy's day...depending who you ask. It's mostly for the boys. And the main element I can gather is that you fly carp flags everywhere. Like this thing


Why am I talking about a kid's holiday when I don't have any kids you ask. Here is why.


[source]

A sneaker is the reason, of course! Loved these when I saw the sample up in MITA a couple weeks ago. They are Nike 360's as part of the Koinobori pack. They are hands down the best in the pack. I tried them on and they looked pretty dope. But the price and the brightness of the 3M all over was more than I could handle. In addition to that, I have my eyes on some future releases that I need to remain faithful to. That being said, I did pick up something else over the weekend which will be revealed soon.

Hold Tight

(ps. That there's a hint to what I bought last weekend.)

Ahoy matey

As I have mentioned many times, I lived in New York City for a good portion of my adult life. (8 years if you're askin') I have many memories of this time. This is one of them:


[source]

I was walking to work in the East Village around 11am on a sunny spring day. I was thinking deep thoughts when a delivery van drove by me pretty slowly in anticipation of a red light. I didn't really notice him until I heard "Arrr, arrr, arrr" coming out of the driver. That made me look up in a hurry. I only caught a glimpse of what could only be described as a pirate: big beard,captain's hat, big gut, tall black boots, the works. I was shocked. I think might have even stopped walking. But quickly I hurried up to confirm my suspicions and check if he had a parrot on his shoulder. The light changed, but I was able to get one more quick glance and I confirmed that I had seen correctly. A pirate was riding around NYC delivering crap.


I called my brother right away, to report the breaking news about pirates in NYC. He was totally into it. He was all asking if he had an eye-patch or a peg-leg. I think he always had a soft spot for pirates.


Did you all know pirates had a holiday. To be more precise, it is "Talk Like a Pirate Day". OK, so it might not be a nationally recognized day yet, but it's doing a lot better than "Talk Like a Bandit Day".

So what does this all have to do with me...now, in 2007. Well, Nike has been pushing the skulls as of late. I came across these nice samples the other day. I like them a lot.


[source]

They are called "Wheatskulls 90s" I like the color combo...but still can't get past the leather toebox. (Me = broken record) But, unless you got eagle eyes, you might be wondering why the name includes "skulls". How about a close up of the mudguard.


[source]

It is a nice skull in my opinion. But not quite as nice as the skull I showed in the last post. For those of you who have a short memory, here it is again...in the other colorway.


[source]

Oh...you wanted to see the WHOLE shoe!!! My bad.


[source]

And to wrap this skull themed post, we at last arrive to my latest purchase. The ones that stopped me from buy the very nice shoe above. A teaser shot.


I have been shopping at Mita Sneakers for a minute now: let's call it just under a year. I strongly believe it's the best kix spot in Tokyo. They might not get every single Nike, but they have lots of exclusive deals with New Balance and others. Plus it is a big shop in a sketchy old build in Ueno...off the well beaten track of Uruhara. And to top it all off...the shop staff have always been welcoming and helpful.


I even made a friend there a while ago. We exchanged emails a couple times and we chatted every time I went. Nice guy, with good English...which helped a lot. Anyways about a month ago I stopped in and he said he was movin' on up to bigger and better things and he introduced me to my new personal shopping assistant. What my new guy may lack in the English department he more than makes up for in his customer service.


I went there Sunday morning with some bills in my wallet, ready to bring these home with me. Even though their retail price is no joke: ¥18,900 ($155). So I tried them on and told my man to wrap them up for me. He brings over the calculator and shows me ¥17,900. Discount! Score! I was pleased. I said thanks and got my shoes. How can you not LOVE the good customer discount?!?! I knew I had good taste in picking my favorite store.


I like these shoes a lot. I like the badassness of them. All dark and brooding. That blue really pops! But, maybe not as much this.


Love that 3M with the blue laces. I don't imagine I will use the brown laces in there a lot. Maybe I will try some black at some point. So back to my story. After I bought the shoes, I had a bit of time to kill in Ueno, so I checked out some of the other kix shops in the area. I found something that reduced my high a bit. A shop had the same shoes for ¥18,000. So, after all that rejoicing, I got a tiny ¥100 discount. But it's the thought that counts. My thought of being given a "bro discount". I'm keepin' that thought damn it. Click HERE for some nice pics of the other shoes in the pack. The full name of the pack is "skull crossbone / clash". The skulls part of the name is easy to understand. The "clash" part might be harder to explain. Let me try.


[source]

I first heard about it HERE. It sounds like a pretty brutal race. It is between Oregon and Washington runners. Held on Nike grounds. And the best part. Well...actually. You can read this from one of their websites.

* The Race: A cross country meet between the best runners in Oregon and Washington to determine the top running state in the Northwest. Washington leads the series 4-2.

* Participants: 160 athletes--top 40 boys and top 40 girls from Oregon and Washington (based on state meet performance)

* Race course: 4.2k course on grass and chip trails around the scenic Nike World Headquarters Campus.

* Start: “Braveheart” style start, with each team on separate starting lines, running directly at each other for the first 100 meters, then merging onto the course.

[source & source]

So that explains the green and blue: state colors. And it also explains the badassness of it. A "Braveheart" style start!!!! Come on...that is bananas! All this talk of running almost wants me to get off my ass and run too. Almost being the operative word.

Later all.

Food & Shopping or "How I Spent My Weekend"

I love good food. There is nothing quiet like wrapping your mouth around a tasty morsel of food. We paid a visit to Canoviano Tokyo on Sunday for dinner. We being my girl & her Sis...forever known as S.B. It was S.B.'s birthday in Jan, so we decided to take her out to a fancy dinner.


This was one fancy Italian restuant. We were pampered and taken care of from start to finish. I am usually pretty cavolier about taking pictures. But this was not a place I felt comfortable doing that. Therefore most of the pics have low light and some are downright out of focus. I tried to clean up the pics and remember what each course was. Let's get to the first appetizer.


This was fresh salmon with basil sauce on a pie crust stick. It was delicious. A really nice mix of flavours and textures.


Worst.Pic.Ever. I know, but at the same time....this might have been my favorite thing of the entire night. Before we got any food, the head waiter came over to inquire if there was any food we were allergic to or didn't care for. The first anit-pasta was supposed to have octapus, squid, and scallops. I was eager to eat the scallops but could do without the other two. So the chef whipped up this amazing number for me and my girl. S.B. had the seafood thing, ours looked better. It is layers with fancy corn chips, parmesian cheese, with white fish paste and raw shrimp. It was so good. Some of the best bites of food I have ever tasted!


This was my least favorite. But both of the ladies loved it. I think most people would have liked it...it is just my taste is not very rareified. It was sea urchin pudding topped with nanohana with fritter of soba flour batter with fish egg paste inside. This was all covered with a fish and consome soup broth.


This one made me pretty nervous at first. But, I was sold after the first bite. It was 4 cocoa ravioli stuffed with marscapone cheese and quail meat. They were topped with fried quail eggs and a Kyoto carrot paste sauce. Damn tasty!


Then we got to the main course. It was a worthy end to all of those dishes. It was wild boar cheek meat with a red wine sauce and raddish sorbet. To be clear, the raddish was fresh but frozen. It was melted by the heat of the meat and grilled mixed vegetables. So tender and delicious. Loved it!


Now let's hit some desserts. I was full by this point, but ready to try to squeeze in some sweet stuff. This one was mine. It is a white chocolate crème brûlée with rasberry sorbet. Of course I picked the best one...but I will show you what my dinner partners ordered.


My girl choose this one. It was good too. It was a chocolate soufflé with ginger flavored orange sorbet and chocolate icecream. My girl really liked it. So much so that I only got one bite. Oh well...I wasn't about to share all that much of mine either.


S.B. got this marvoulous looking thing. It was a banana tatin tower with bay leaf icecream. Me and bananas don't like each other so I have can't say if this was good or not. She said it was good, if that means anything to you.

A very enjoyable evening for sure. The chef came out at the end to have a chat. Nice guy, if a bit nervous for a chef. Relax! Anyways, we plan to go again sometime and try the a la carte menu. If you come to Tokyo and you got cash to throw around and you want Italian food, you should check them out.


Today was a train heavy day. I was going all over the place. First I went out to Chiba to visit the outlets. It is stressfull out there for me. I want to...scratch that...I'm desperate to find something when I go out there. There is a lot of pressure becuase it takes so long and the train aint free! I usually find something I like at either Nike, Adidas, or New Balance. Today I was only feeling Nike. My first consideration were these.


[source]

I have almost bought these Air Max Ones's before and I almost did again. Almost being the key word. The price was more than right: ¥5600 ($46) But what stopped me was the leather toebox. I like everything else about the shoe, but that. The same thing happened with these...


[source]

I love the orange. I love the Safari print on these Oasis Mids. I love that they are Asia exclusives. I love the price: ¥9800 ($8200) But I can't get past that huge expanse of leather out there in the front. Yuck!

Then I ran into the shoe that made me go on a search for an ATM.


[source]

Love them! They are a beautiful combination of art and technology. I have been looking to buy them for a while. I have been waiting for the price to drop. And it did...a little. But there were two problems: the price didn't drop enough. Still a steep ¥17,990 ($150) The other problem being that since I already have one third of this "Air U Breathe" pack, if I got another pair...then I would be forced to finish the pack with these beautiful shoes.


[source]

And someday I intend to. But right now I can't get wrapped up in that mini project. I will keep waiting for the prices to drop. So I bought two t-shirts and left Chiba. I was sad that I could't find a pair of kix to sink my teeth into today so I decided to head to Ueno to see what was boppin' there.

When I got there, I tried these on.


[source]

Love these a lot. I like the ripstop toebox in blue and the orange accents. Nice price too: ¥11,900 ($100) And the best part...


[source]

Nice skull. I was almost convinced I had found my Moby Dick of the day. Two problems: my jeans covered the skull making it useless. The other problem being they had some samples of what was coming out next week...and boy does it look the business in person. The online pics don't do it justice.

Hold tight.

One Time Only

Today was a rainy day. I was caught out in the rain with the wrong outfit on and NO umbrella. I was none too pleased. Luckily, I ate enough delicious food to give the day a little balance. It was a pretty chill day, not at all like yesterday.


[source]

Yesterday was the release day for the One Time Only pack. It was a big deal. TONS of web hype. I totally got sucked into the hype. I was like a CIA agent compiling all the relevant info. This is some of the info I found out in preparation for the big day: they were only going to be sold at six stores in Japan, only 2 in Tokyo, and most likely all shops would be getting very little stock. I read on one site that some stores would be only getting one shoe per size per style. This was not good news for me. Sadly, I had to work that day and both shops in Tokyo opened at 11am, that being the same time I start working. So...I couldn't go buy them before work.

I was not happy about this at all because even though there were lots of styles in the pack, 12 to be exact, I had fallen in love with one (or two). The Original Air Max 90 (first love). But, over the last week or so, I had become very hot for the Clerks 90, (the temptress). All the others were fine, but not worth the price they would charge. [link to pics of all 12]

So, I made a plan to go to Field in Shinkjuku during my lunch break. I work in Ginza, so it is not that close at all. And this would be totally out of character, I very rarely leave work to do personal stuff. It's just too risky and makes me feel all edgy. My break was not until 4pm so I was quite nervous they would be sold out. To say I was nervous is actually a large understatement, I was sweating bullets. I could barely concentrate. And according to some pics I found on the ATMOS site much later, my fears were well founded.


[source]

So, I was ready to make a break for it at 4pm and just cross my fingers. But, the gods smiled on me and by a complete stroke of luck, I was able leave just before 3pm. I was very happy. I walked quickly to the train, I didn't run. More good luck; a train was arriving as I bounded down the stairs to the platform. After a 15 train ride to Shinjuku I booked it for the nearest exit, and again, thank the gods, it was the closest exit to the store.

As I walked into the shop I could see clearly that some of the styles were sold out already. But as I got closer I could see that both the Originals and the Clerks 90s were there. I just about tackled a shop clerk and asked for both shoes in my size. I still was undecided. After a short wait, he came back with one box. I knew the decision had already been made for me.


As you can see from my pics, it was my first love, the Originals. I bought them and raced back to work. There were no problems with the trains or at work. It was perfect. After I could think clearly again, I saw that they had given me a free gift. It is an orange furoshiki, a large piece of material, with a nice print of "One Time Only"on it. Overall, it went way too smoothly.

I am a happy man (in Tokyo)

ps. If I had any money left. I would be getting these Air Stabs from Mita Sneakers tomorrow. But I don't. So I can't.


[source]

Outfit 06.09.11.

This t-shirt came from my brother. I saw him sporting this bad-ass shirt on one of my visits to my family in Boston. Now a word about my brother: he is a difficult case. I'm swear that he spends almost no time thinking about his clothes. I don’t think he buys a lot of clothes and he hates shopping. On the other hand, he does get a lot of free clothes from his band’s sponsors and friends. And over the years I have hooked him up with some nice t-shirts and shoes. But still, every time I see him he is rockin’ some ill gear. I know that he just grabs whatever is around, but man...do clothes look good on him. It's kinda annoying actually. Anyways...he shows up wearing some Easy-E on his chest. It looked real nice. Come to find out he got it for free. I quickly demanded he hook me up with one. And he came through for me. I don't wear this one very often because it's a little hardcore for an old man like me, but I do like it a lot.


Now on to these gems. I got them this weekend. I had been keeping an eye on these through various sneaker sites, waiting for a confirmed release date. It was Saturday, but sadly I had to work. So, Sunday morning, bright & early I jumped on the train up to Mita Sneakers and picked up a pair. I was a tiny bit worried they would be sold out....but it looked like I had nothing to worry about.

These Air Stabs are part of“Nike Air You Breathe”pack. It features three designers coordinating a shoe and some matching apparel. All of the products are killing it. I was really drawn to the Air Max 360 and the wind-breaker that goes with it, but for now I am happy with my Stabs. If I can, I might pick up one of these t-shirts, but only time will tell. [more info & pics]


Purple is the new black.

ps. My ipod project is no more. I had been holding off posting more "Chronicles of the ipod" while I looked for a way to include audio clips in my posts. Of course I was still listening to a lot of tracks and being very careful not to blow it. My goal was to go through all 2300 tracks on the random setting. On Saturday night on my way home, I looked down at my ipod to see what track number I was on, thinking I would see some where around 800-900 of 2300. But no. I saw 33 0f 2300. Fiddlesticks. I must of let the battery die at some point. Extremely disappointing. I will have to look for a new way to dish out the tunes.

Outfit: 06.08.11.

This was a good day outfit wise. I have decided to only post the good outfits. Who wants to read about some mediocre crap....and more to the point.....who wants to write about it!

So, t-shirt first: repping a little Dutch love. You know how I do! I just had to represent the motherland during the World Cup. (A lot of good it did!) I picked up this Nike t-shirt in Boston just this past spring. I went into Niketown on a whim, just see if they had anything I needed. And they did! It was cheap, like $20, and the perfect orange. Strange but true: I wear size small in Nike. Bizarre, cause I am not small.

On to the shoes: These are my most recent acquisitions. I picked them up about 3 weeks ago. They are 1 of 3 pairs included in a “Clerks Pack” from the shoe store “Size?” in the UK. When they first came out, about 2-3 months ago, I only had eyes for another pair in the same pack. I bought them instead. I passed up on my chance to get these and I have been thinking about them since. I was finally able to find them at Mita Sneakers in Ueno. I even picked them up on sale. Nothing wrong with that at all.

There is a nice balance between the gray and black. And plus, I just love the orange highlights. From what I found online, these are rain proof, which is nice. I'm not sure I will be putting that to the test anytime soon, but it's nice to know.

I like them a lot. Sadly, not one person I know likes them. But its cool, cause I don’t get upset. I kick a hole in the speaker, pull the plug, then I jet. (A little Rakim for all y'all)