Top 5

If you had to choose your five favorite movies and five favorite music albums (CDs) of all time…what would they be?
No pondering it for a long time…just off the top of your head write them in the comment section of this post.

As for me, I think I’d choose:

MOVIES

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (starring: Jack Nicholson, Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd)

Die Hard (starring: Bruce Willis)

Dirty Harry (starring: Clint Eastwood)

Planes, Trains and Automobiles (starring: Steve Martin, John Candy)

Shaun Of The Dead (starring: Simon Pegg)

…..

MUSIC

KISS "Double Platinum"

KISS "Revenge"

Ozzy Osbourne "The Essential Ozzy Osbourne"

Pantera "Reinventing The Steel"

Queensryche "Operation: Mindcrime"

What are your “Top Five“?

Sonic Boom

As I mentioned last month, KISS is scheduled to finally release a new album soon. (Click here to see that post).

Well, according to the “Heavy Metal Addiction” website, the rumors are true.

KISS have announced that the name of the new album is “Sonic Boom” and it will be released in the U.S. on 2009 October 6 (the date that it will be released in Japan hasn’t been announced yet).

It will contain two CDs and a DVD of a live show. One of the CDs will be the songs from the Japan-only release 「地獄列伝」 (“Hell’s Biography“).

KISS Japan-only release 「地獄列伝」

And the other CD will contain eleven new songs. The new song titles will be:

1. Modern Day Delilah
2. Russian Roulette
3. Never Enough
4. Yes I Know (Nobody’s Perfect)
5. Stand
6. Hot & Cold
7. All For The Glory
8. Danger Us
9. I’m An Animal
10. When Lightning Strikes
11. Say Yeah

ニュース

Some items I’ve heard on the news recently:

• A woman in her fifties asked a man in his twenties to stop playing a noisy video game on a crowded commuter train in Saitama, Japan.
  At which, he became irate and insulting…and began to punch her in the face!
  He managed to break the woman’s jaw before other commuters restrained him!

• Another man in his twenties pushed a elderly woman off of a train platform in front of an oncoming train at 東京駅 (Tokyo Station).
  She was hit by the train…but luckily the train was already coming to a stop and her injuries weren’t life threatening! The man, of course, is being charged with attempted murder.

• Beginning April 1, 2009, Japan Railway (JR) train stations in Japan will become completely “smoke free“.
  Currently, every station has designated smoking areas…but starting next Wednesday (April 1), every station will be entirely “no smoking”.

• There is a new disturbing current trend among teenagers in America. It’s called “Sëxting“.
  “Sëxting” is the act of teenagers (usually girls) taking photos of themselves n@ked or semi-n@ked with their cell-phone camera and emailing them to friends.

• Toyota (currently the #1 car maker in the world) may be forced to help bail-out America’s “Big 3” car makers (Ford, GM, and Chrysler).

• The American rock band KISS is planning to release their first studio album of new songs in eleven years in September 2009.

TSUTAYA Delivery

I wrote a post about the large DVD, CD, manga rental chain called “TSUTAYA” in Japan…(click here to read it).

Well, I just saw a TV commercial for a new service they’re beginning…CD / DVD rental delivery.

To use this service, you would access their website via computer or cell-phone, order the DVDs you want, and they’ll mail them to you…then to return them, you simply place them in a public mailbox (outgoing mail is never placed in home mailboxes like it is in America. Contrary to the picture above, Japan’s mailboxes don’t have flags on them for outgoing mail like U.S. mailboxes do).

There is no membership fee to join the TSUTAYA delivery service, nor any late return fees.
And the postage for both the delivery and returning the DVD is paid by TSUTAYA.

The cost is ¥1,974 / month (about US$21*) and up to eight DVDs can be rented each month. That comes to ¥247 (about US$2.73) per DVD.

How much is DVD rentals in your city? (What city do you live in?) Leave a comment about it.

I won’t use this service, though. For four reasons:

1. I don’t rent DVDs or CDs too often.
2. There’s a TSUTAYA within walking distance from my house…I can just go there.
3. I have never bought anything online yet. I don’t feel comfortable with online shopping.
4. Although ¥247 (about US$2.73) isn’t a bad price for DVD rental…every Wednesday, TSUTAYA rents DVDs for ¥199 (about US$2.20) each (even new ones) at the branch near my house (I’m not sure if all their branches do that).
   So, if I want to rent a DVD or CD, I go there on a Wednesday.

If you live in Japan and you want to use the TSUTAYA DVD Delivery Service. Click here to access their delivery site (it’s in 日本語 (Japanese)).

* (All US dollar amounts are based on the Japanese ¥en → U.S. Dollar exchange rate on February 1, 2009.)

Japanese Books, Snacks, CDs…

I just added a page on my main website called “Japanese Stuff”.

It has links to buy Japan-themed books, snacks and DVDs that I recommend.

On this blog, I’ve recommend books like Jerry Yellin’s book “The Blackened Canteen“, and CDs by Japanese bands like Monkey Majik, and Japanese movies like Quill.

Now, I’ve decided to make it easier for visitors to my site to buy the books, snacks, CDs and DVDs, etc that I recommend by providing a link to buy them from Amazon.com.

Click here to visit my new ““Japanese Stuff“ page.

TSUTAYA

Do you live in Japan? Do you have a Tsutaya membership card?
Tsutaya is the biggest video-rental (I guess I should call it DVD rental now) chain in Japan.
It’s kinda like Blockbuster Video in America. (Is Blockbuster still in America? Is it still popular?)

I’ve had a membership card with Tsutaya for years now…ever since the one near my house opened.

I don’t remember what they have at Blockbuster Video in America (I don’t recall anything except videos)…but Tsutaya in Japan has rental DVDs (used to be VHS), and rental CDs (in Japan, you can rent a CD after it’s been on sale for one year (it used to be rental LPs and cassettes!)), and many branches of Tsutaya also sell CDs, DVDs, magazines, books, video games, etc.

Also in Japan, many credit cards also double as point cards / membership cards for a store. Do credit cards in your country work like that?
I have a Visa, Master Card, and a JCB credit card. They’re all point cards at different stores, too. Meaning, if I either shop at that store or use the credit card, I get points on the store’s membership card!

My JCB credit card is also my Tsutaya membership card. So, anytime that I buy or rent a CD or DVD from Tsutaya or I use the credit card…I get points on the Tsutaya card.

If I get 190 points, I can rent a DVD or CD for free. Recently, I rented the new “Indiana Jones” movie for free (I’m glad it was free! That movie’s a disappointment! 😦 ).

Did you know, though, that Family Mart convenience stores, Lotteria Fast Food restaurants, and a few other stores have recently started giving Tsutaya points to their customers who show their Tsutaya card when they purchase something?

If you live in Japan and have a Tsutaya card, don’t forget to show it when you shop at places that have Tsutaya‘s “T” logo displayed!

(Looks like mine, but this image is from Tsutaya’s website)