Yep, it’s about that time. This week we are kicking December off proper with Dubwar resident Dave Q. I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I am for Dave Q to play TURRBOTAX® after watching him Destroy the Dancefloor at Dubwar last week.

All of the info on the event, flyer, Facebook invite, etc, can be found HERE:

See you Thursday!

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Japan’s biggest news agency Kyodo News and Mainichi Newspaper Co., the country’s third-largest general newspaper, said Thursday they agreed to form a comprehensive media and business tie-up beginning in April. The alliance between the news agency and the nationally circulated newspaper also covers Kyodo’s 56 members — mostly regional papers but also public broadcaster NHK and The Nikkei business daily — bringing their combined circulation to exceed 30 million. Established media companies are desperately trying to stay afloat as their advertising sales plunge amid the economic slump and tough competition from the Internet. Under the deal, the Mainichi will become a full-fledged Kyodo member beginning April 1 and use Kyodo’s domestic and international news reports for its newspaper. The newspaper and its alliance partners will also jointly sponsor symposiums, athletic and cultural events, while cooperating in printing and sales to optimize business. The Mainichi, along with the Asahi and Yomiuri — two nationally-circulated mainstream newspapers — had downgraded their relationship with Kyodo in 1950 and have received only limited news service from the agency. Founded in 1945, the nonprofit news agency has a work force of some 1,700 and provides news stories in Japanese, English and Chinese. Mainichi, established in 1872, has about 2,850 employees

http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=527274&publicationSubCategoryId=200

Check out XLR8R’s post about the December TURRBOTAX® featuring Dave Q (Thursday, December 3rd) RIGHT HERE.

Full info and Facebook invite HERE if you haven’t RSVPeed.

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You can see photos From the Goliath x Hennessy Black: Drinks On Us Party HERE

Thursday night in East Harlem, Goliath celebrated another year at the shop. The good folks from Hennessy Black, Pepsi, Asahi, Yume, and Nice In Harlem, help bring this event to life and it was an event to remember. Hot music, gift bags and free fitteds was dished out during the event. It was hot as hell in there but that didn’t stop us from having fun. There was a lot of love and support for the homeys. Check out the photos from the night.

A hell of a lot more photos after the jump…

Almost that time again.

December 3rd is the next installment of TURRBOTAX®, this month with Dubwar’s Dave Q!

If somehow you haven’t made it out to Dubwar, Dave Q is one of the best of the best. We are really looking forward to him smashing up the dancefloor in December.

Once again, we are sponsored by the good folks at Asahi who will be providing complimentary beers from 10-11pm and 1-2am and of course XLR8R Magazine.

Facebook invite: HERE

PS: Hugs is changing their name to The Cove, so it’s the same venue, just a different name.

See you there!

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Japan’s number one premium beer – brewed in Faversham by Shepherd Neame for the Japanese brewer under very strict quality controls – is an interesting lager with a crisp, clean flavour. It is typical of the Japanese style, with a very dry feel to it. The label makes claims of refreshment which the beer struggles to live up to. At 5%, the beer has sufficient flavour to satisfy but is unlikely to set the world on fire!

I have very fond memories of Asahi. Though Asahi dry is not my favourite, Sapporo gold cup is. The only problem with that is that ‘Gold cup’ comes in this huge pint can. It’s a little too much to drink in one sitting on my own. More about Japanese beer can be found here.

Seen on a pallet at the Home plus in Cheong-ju, were the Asahi and the imputis to make me buy a six pack. I had intially wanted to buy just a single bottle of Hoegaarden.

Photographed by cactusmelba

hungry as usual, and playing to the camera in the vague hope of cuteness causing an early feed…

– License

Check out photos from the November edition of TURRBOTAX® HERE.

Thank you to everyone who came out last night. Big up to Dre Skull and Alex Lemire from Lemonade for playing amazing sets.

Save the date for December: Thursday, December 3rd!

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Woooooooooooooo!

Special surprise guest for the November edition of TURRBOTAX® – this time Alex Lemire from the one and only band of tropical bass badmen Lemonade will coming through for a set of rarities and exclusive remixes.

All the info on the event is HERE.

Looking forward to tomorrow.

See you there!

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November TURRBOTAX®!!!

That’s this Thursday.

This one is gonna be big; Dre Skull, TURRBOTAX® DJs, a surprise guest, and FREE ASAHI!

Complete info HERE.

See you Thursday.

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Mark your calendar in pen.

It’s almost that time! Next Thursday is the November TURRBOTAX®, this month with the one and only Dre Skull!

Facebook Invite:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=160577556244&ref=nf

See you there!

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It’s time to present some screencaps from mendol – ikemen idol! episode 2. So, let’s just post’ away shall we?

Nami and Hinata, ugh sorry, I mean Kai and Kuu, checking out the newly introduced Katsuyuki-san, aka Music Producer and Eye-candy. The oh-so-down-to-earth Asahi/Riku is thankfully, there to keep them in their places. From now on, btw, I’ll refer to the girls as Riku, Kai and Kuu when they’re in their persona outfit, and Asahi, Nami and Hinata when they are in their regular clothes.

Later on that day, the president and Maririn takes them down to Monkey Pro Studios, where Sarukawa president has a special surprise for them! Enter: The super charismatic songstress: Ray!

…Who turns out to be QUITE the bitch. Have no fear, Kai, defender of justice is here!

Asahi meets an old friend…or shall we say…flame? Jiro, the photographer who wants to win a pulitzer, but who’s currently working as a paparazzi.

Katsuyuki takes them to a party that very same evening, and being minors, they’ll miss out on all the drikin’ fun! Or…?

It’s not as fun the morning after, mind you. Oh and there’s some romance going on between Riku and Katsuyuki on the rooftop, while Kai and Kuu are chuggling down units of alcohol. While the girls are busy with their hangover, the scary snake-man has come across some pictures to help him in his search for the cell-phone Puri-puri thingy.

Kai seems to be needin’ some fresh air, and so she heads out on the rooftop of the studio. Ah, what’s with the rooftops in this show? Well, guess what? Ray is back, and she wants to talk to Kai about what she said to her earlier…(Man, this is confusing! the whole she, her, the girls/guys etc.)  Episode 2 is a very good episode, and as you’ll see, the ending of this ep is rather interesting. Shoujo-ai, anyone?

By the way. These two post have been quite Kai-centric. For that, I apologize. I will even it out a bit more, I promise! But, haha, this is hilarious, poor, homophobic Nami finds herself pulled into the world of L’s, as she so nicely puts it herself. Hah! Hah I tell ya, hah!

Yeah, so I’ve decided to make an episode to episode review of Mendol, just ’cause the show is way too awesome. I’ll be adding screencaps as well. Mendol needs some attention people! So if you don’t want me to ruin the episode for you, don’t read on. There may be spoilers, no. There WILL be spoilers, especially in the later episodes.

Here we go.

Asahi, Nami and Hinata, our heroines, have a dream of becoming idols.

Sadly they’ve failed all their auditions, Asahi is at her 50th, Nami at her 38 and Hinata has over 100 auditions behind her! After being rejected again, Hinata gets a callback from one of the producers, while Asahi and Nami finds a cellphone thingy on the ground. Unfortunately, som really creepy and dangerous men are after the very same mobilephonethingy.

To get away from these scary people, Asahi and Nami dress up as boys. They can’t seem to shake them off, and once the scariest of the scary men catch up with them, they are saved by a weird L producer. The L producer gets the name “L” because Asahi and Nami ealier walked in on her and her girlfriend. Saeko (the producer) sees a potential in Asahi and Nami, and signs them as idols! There is only one catch.

If they want to be idols, they have to dress up as guys. Reluctant at first, but they soon understand that this is the only way for them to reach their goals. Riku and Kai are born. Meanwhile, Hinata’s meeting with the manager turns out to be a rather unpleasant one, as he hits on her.

After some really hard practice, its time for Riku and Kai’s first debut, as the band “Persona”. At first, their performance isn’t going very well, as the crowd finds them kinda lame. But then, Hinata turns up, saying that she wants to kill hersef. Oh noes! Thank god, Persona is there to save the day! After saving Hinata, the crowd really likes them. They even manage to get the attention of Japans number 1 diva, the super charismatic songstress Rei. After the show, Hinata turns up again, and asks to join their band. Persona har now three member, Riku, Kai and Kuu.

Ah, such a good first episode. Yay Yay Yay! Their song 3 seconds is also extremely catchy. Go see, go see!

Check out XLR8R’s post about the November TURRBOTAX® featuring Dre Skull (Thursday, November 5th) RIGHT HERE.

Also, the Facebook Invite is HERE if you haven’t RSVPeed.

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Facebook Invite: HERE

More info about the November TURRBOTAX® on 11/5 w/ Dre Skull in THIS POST.

Save the date!

November 5th is the next installment of TURRBOTAX®, this month with Brooklyn’s own Dre Skull!

Facebook Invite:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=160577556244&ref=nf

See you folks there!

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PS: THIS is what you missed last time.

Oct.13 – ASAHI introduced the result of IDC’s Cloud Services Forecast that describes the cloud market to achieve 442 billion dollars and 10% of whole IT investing by 2013.

In the Japanese market, it’s very rare that major common paper to focus on such buzz word. Also, the paper picked up some key words such as Amazon EC2/S3, private/public, internal cloud and external cloud and so on.

J <http://www.asahi.com/digital/cnet/CNT200910130002.html>

I’m confused. I always thought you weren’t supposed to drink and drive.

But then what’s the message these traffic cops in Phnom Penh are sending out? Their guard house clearly displays an advertisement for beer.

It’s sponsored by Asahi breweries. The company is based in Japan and just trying to get a foot in the door in other Asian countries.

Aaccording to the company website, Asahi’s corporate philosophy is:

The Asahi Breweries Group aims to satisfy its customers with the highest levels of quality and integrity, while contributing to the promotion of healthy living and the enrichment of society worldwide.

Ah, so that’s what all this is about: not drinking and driving, but “…the promotion of healthy living“.

In that case: cheers, officer!

The past weeks have passed with the speed of light, leaving me and my mind running somewhere far behind, huffing, puffing and feeling desperate.

I started some new hobbies, including parkour, classic yoga and asahi (a tai-chi -like exercising form invented by two finnish guys). Incredible craziness with my cordination skills, but I was/am hoping it might better due to these hobbies. Parkour seems hopeless, yoga I haven’t given up yet, asahi is awesome (surprisingly; it’s said to be suitable exercise for everyone, including elderly people…).

I’ve also been busy with my game researcher -aspirations. On the side of the obvious stuff (lectures, exercises etc.), I’ve participated in numerous great events, partially thanks to the people at my faculty. First was MindTrek09, which seemed a bit fruitless at first, but turned out to be worth my time and the efforts of the people who got us students there without having to pay the fees. Inspiring.

Even more inspiring was a panel discussion in an event called manSEDANse09 . With the topic being “Games as Art” I obviously had to be there. The discussion itself didn’t give me too many new perspectives or information, but the resulting conversation with a peer and the thoughts it provoked were definitely priceless.

I also have to mention one study-related ‘event’, although there have been quite many of these outside the usual stuff. The thing is, I finally played my first traditional text based rpg (role playing game), due to a course I’m having at the moment. Yes, we actually have a course where it’s compulsory to participate in such a session. We got to decide the game and gather up by ourselves, and chose the legendary Call of Chtulhu. Obviously not with the original rules. The experience was very immersive and enjoyable, definitely more my thing than any tabletop or live -rpg ever. My imagination needs plenty of space for immersion to work, although this doesn’t seem to apply to digital games…

Also study-related, I participated in the opening of the new research center that resulted in the coalescense of the former Hypermedia Laboratory and Faculty of Information Studies. Plenty of lectures, some very inspiring and good, others not so. The new name of the fusion was also revealed: TRIM – Tampere Research Center for Information and Media. After the formal part, everyone got to see the new premises of the faculty, with the zest of an excellent buffet, some Beatles Rock Band and so on. Unfortunately, I was forced to leave after quickly munching a bit of everything in the buffet and singing “A Hard Days Night” in the latter.

I say unfortunately, but it’s possible I actually had more fun at the next place. I was invited to the 7th anniversary of the biggest console gaming magazine in Finland, Pelaaja, by the main man, Thomas Puha. A great party in all possible aspects: good music (due to people playing DJ Hero), good gaming (they had Tekken 6 there!), good food (and a totally awesome and huge tiramisu-cake, Thomas seems to have an excellent taste with desserts) and great people (both charcteristically and gaming business -wise). On top of everyhting else, I finally got to meet some of the people I work for/with, and they turned out to be even more awesome than I had expected. Plus, I had some interesting conversations and played Rock Band til the break of dawn. Perfect.

Whew. I didn’t even tell about evertyhing I’ve done during the past few weeks, and the upcoming weeks don’t seem much quieter. My birthday is coming up this saturday, which means travelling back and forth for the next two weeks, plus I have to finish some courses during that time too. Plus a ton of things I don’t even want to think about yet. Don’t get me wrong though, this is absolutely great. I’d just require an extra me to have some time for resting too.

PS. Check Teething Trouble goes Master Thesis for some more profound and research-oriented writings of mine.