AkuAku SF: Nihon Break Kogyo
posted by Unknown at 1:05 PM
Wednesday, December 31, 2003
D E S T R O Y A L L M O N S T E R S
'WE WILL DESTROY HOUSES! WE WILL DESTROY BRIDGES!'
Demolition company's jingle becomes a smash hit
By YOSHINO MATSUI
YOKOHAMA (Kyodo) One of the hottest companies in Japan today doesn't produce cars, electronics or, for that matter, anything else. Its business is pure destruction, and by singing its praises the tiny Yokohama demolition firm has become dynamite.
Shogo Kurita, a board member at Nihon Break Kogyo Co., displays a CD featuring the Yokohama demolition firm's company song, which has become a hit single.
Nihon Break Kogyo Co.'s song splashed onto Oricon, one of the nation's most influential music charts, on Monday. It is the first time a "shaka," or corporate anthem, has made the charts, according to Oricon Inc., a major Tokyo music information provider.
"Nihon Break Kogyo Co., Shaka" was released Dec. 17 by Infinite Records. It was composed two years ago for business use and was nearly forgotten by the company, until it suddenly entered the nationwide spotlight when it was picked up by a TV program in late October. It immediately created a sensation, mostly with teenagers.
The song ranked 22nd in its debut on Oricon's weekly chart of the top 100 CD singles, just five notches under "No Way to Say" by Japanese diva Ayumi Hamasaki, and five notches above "Rock With You" by BoA, a teenage South Korean singer hugely popular in Japan.
The tune has already been made into ring tones for mobile phones, and two major karaoke song distributors are set to add it to their song books in January.
Unlike the stiff, propagandalike nature of regular Japanese corporate anthems, the up-tempo rock tune, written and performed by a Nihon Break Kogyo demolition worker, sounds like the themes from old Japanese animated films featuring superheroes.
But the humorous lyrics reflect the pure corporate anthem spirit of promoting the company -- "We will destroy houses! We will destroy bridges! We will destroy buildings! To the east, to the west -- Run, Run, Nihon Break Kogyo!"
"We decided to sell CD copies of our company song simply because we didn't want to handle so many phone calls and Internet inquiries any more," said Shogo Kurita, a Nihon Break Kogyo board member.
According to Kurita, the company's phone rang "every five minutes" with calls from people who wanted the music soon after it was featured on Tamori Club, a midnight variety show aired by TV Asahi Corp.
Having to answer some 100 phone calls from nonclients every day was too much of a burden for Nihon Break Kogyo, which has only 16 regular employees.
Some 50 irregular workers are also registered with the company as demolition crew members. The composer of the song, a 32-year-old aspiring musician who calls himself Manzo, is among them.
In addition to the song's unexpected TV attention, its exposure on 2 Channel, a huge Japanese Internet discussion board, fueled the frenzy and led to some 500,000 hits on Nihon Break Kogyo's Web site in just a week after the Oct. 24 broadcast. The total number of hits later topped 1 million.
"The lyrics have an enormous impact. Maybe this song is more radical and aggressive than songs created by mediocre punk rock bands," said a review on Amazon.co.jp.
Kurita said there are roughly 30,000 demolition companies in Japan, but he doesn't really know where his firm stands in the industry.
"I recently saw on TV that our company is around 120th from the top in terms of sales," he said.
Nihon Break Kogyo's business has always been good since its establishment in 1986, and the main purpose of creating the anthem was to improve the image of demolition, which is associated with dirt, dust and noise, he said.
"I think our company song has already achieved its mission," Kurita added.
The Japan Times: Dec. 30, 2003
(C) All rights reserved
posted by Unknown at 12:45 PM
MapoRed.COM - Futallaby
MapoRed.COM - Futallaby: "Futallaby
Futallaby is a PHP-based image board script based on the Futaba script (MySQL version). Some sites using Futallaby include 4chan and 1chan.
Futallaby supports both English and Japanese. A number of improvements over Futaba script are planned."
Futallaby is a PHP-based image board script based on the Futaba script (MySQL version). Some sites using Futallaby include 4chan and 1chan.
Futallaby supports both English and Japanese. A number of improvements over Futaba script are planned."
posted by Unknown at 9:20 AM
Tuesday, December 30, 2003
Sunday, December 28, 2003
Friday, December 26, 2003
Harold von Braunhut, Seller of Sea Monkeys, Dies at 77
Harold von Braunhut, Seller of Sea Monkeys, Dies at 77Harold von Braunhut, Seller of Sea Monkeys, Dies at 77
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
Published: December 21, 2003
arold von Braunhut, who used comic book advertisements to sell whimsical mail-order inventions like Amazing Sea Monkeys, tiny shrimp that pop to life when water is added, died on Nov. 28 at his home in Indian Head, Md. He was 77.
His wife, Yolanda, said that he died after a fall but that the exact cause was not known.
Advertisement
Mr. von Braunhut was to quirky inventions what Barnum was to circuses. His X-Ray Specs, which advertisements said allowed wearers to see through flesh and clothing, are still selling after 50 years of guffaws. Hermit crabs as a pet? Thank Mr. von Braunhut for Crazy Crabs.
And yes, perhaps only this verbally snappy holder of 195 patents could have realized that what the world needed was Amazing Hair-Raising Monsters, which allow a child to add water to a card and watch hair grow on the previously bald pate of the monster depicted there.
But Mr. von Braunhut's pièce de résistance was Sea Monkeys — which come from dried-up lake bottoms, not the sea, and are not monkeys but brine shrimp. His extravagant claims for the crustaceans — for example, that they come back from the dead and that they can be trained and hypnotized — are convincing because they are sort of true. (The shrimp do follow light.)
Billions of shrimp have been sold, not to mention a Sea Monkey aphrodisiac and a wrist watch filled with swimming shrimp. There are Web sites for sea monkey fans; CBS briefly had a Sea Monkeys series on Saturday mornings; 400 million of them went into space with John Glenn in 1998; and, for the lazy, a new Sea Monkey video game allows a player to "virtually" care for a shrimp colony, lest the animals "virtually" die.
Mr. von Braunhut gravitated toward life's crazier edge, racing motorcycles as the Green Hornet and managing the career of a man who dived from 40 feet into a kiddie pool filled with 12 inches of water. He sold invisible goldfish by guaranteeing that owners would never see them.
In a radically different sphere, Mr. von Braunhut's hard right-wing beliefs drew notice. According to a 1996 Anti-Defamation League report, he belonged to the Ku Klux Klan and the Aryan Nations.
The Washington Post in 1988 published an article on him and his affiliations, adding that his relatives said he was Jewish. He himself repeatedly refused to discuss his beliefs on race or his own religious background with journalists, and in an interview on Thursday his wife declined to comment on the subject.
Harold Nathan Braunhut was born in Memphis on March 31, 1926, and grew up in New York City, where he lived until the mid-1980's, when he moved to Maryland and set up a wildlife conservation area.
He may have first noticed brine shrimp being sold in a pet store as fish food, or perhaps in a fisherman's bucket of live bait. In either case, the event occurred in 1957, by which time he had changed his name.
He learned that brine shrimp were a quirk of nature, surviving for years in suspended animation. In this state, they are powderlike and easily packaged. In 1960, he began advertising "Instant Life" in comic books.
In 1964 the animals became Sea Monkeys, because of their long tails. There were breeding improvements, and an ABC News commentator suggested in 1968 that the larger shrimp, now guaranteed to live two years, might be called sea apes.
The Los Angeles Times reported in 2000 that two distributors had canceled their licenses for Sea Monkeys because of discomfort about Mr. von Braunhut's views. The license is currently owned by Educational Insights of Rancho Dominguez, Calif.
George C. Artamian, president of the Sea Monkeys division of Educational Insights, said the earlier companies dropped the Sea Monkey license for business reasons, not the least being that Mr. von Braunhut was "not easy to work with." He said that when his company bought the license in 1995, Mr. von Braunhut promised to stop his public political activities, and that he believes Mr. von Braunhut did so.
Mr. von Braunhut was formerly married to Charlotte Braunhut of New York. He is survived by his wife, Yolanda Signorelli-von Braunhut; a son, Jonathan; a daughter, Jeanette LaMothe; and a brother, Gene.
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
Published: December 21, 2003
arold von Braunhut, who used comic book advertisements to sell whimsical mail-order inventions like Amazing Sea Monkeys, tiny shrimp that pop to life when water is added, died on Nov. 28 at his home in Indian Head, Md. He was 77.
His wife, Yolanda, said that he died after a fall but that the exact cause was not known.
Advertisement
Mr. von Braunhut was to quirky inventions what Barnum was to circuses. His X-Ray Specs, which advertisements said allowed wearers to see through flesh and clothing, are still selling after 50 years of guffaws. Hermit crabs as a pet? Thank Mr. von Braunhut for Crazy Crabs.
And yes, perhaps only this verbally snappy holder of 195 patents could have realized that what the world needed was Amazing Hair-Raising Monsters, which allow a child to add water to a card and watch hair grow on the previously bald pate of the monster depicted there.
But Mr. von Braunhut's pièce de résistance was Sea Monkeys — which come from dried-up lake bottoms, not the sea, and are not monkeys but brine shrimp. His extravagant claims for the crustaceans — for example, that they come back from the dead and that they can be trained and hypnotized — are convincing because they are sort of true. (The shrimp do follow light.)
Billions of shrimp have been sold, not to mention a Sea Monkey aphrodisiac and a wrist watch filled with swimming shrimp. There are Web sites for sea monkey fans; CBS briefly had a Sea Monkeys series on Saturday mornings; 400 million of them went into space with John Glenn in 1998; and, for the lazy, a new Sea Monkey video game allows a player to "virtually" care for a shrimp colony, lest the animals "virtually" die.
Mr. von Braunhut gravitated toward life's crazier edge, racing motorcycles as the Green Hornet and managing the career of a man who dived from 40 feet into a kiddie pool filled with 12 inches of water. He sold invisible goldfish by guaranteeing that owners would never see them.
In a radically different sphere, Mr. von Braunhut's hard right-wing beliefs drew notice. According to a 1996 Anti-Defamation League report, he belonged to the Ku Klux Klan and the Aryan Nations.
The Washington Post in 1988 published an article on him and his affiliations, adding that his relatives said he was Jewish. He himself repeatedly refused to discuss his beliefs on race or his own religious background with journalists, and in an interview on Thursday his wife declined to comment on the subject.
Harold Nathan Braunhut was born in Memphis on March 31, 1926, and grew up in New York City, where he lived until the mid-1980's, when he moved to Maryland and set up a wildlife conservation area.
He may have first noticed brine shrimp being sold in a pet store as fish food, or perhaps in a fisherman's bucket of live bait. In either case, the event occurred in 1957, by which time he had changed his name.
He learned that brine shrimp were a quirk of nature, surviving for years in suspended animation. In this state, they are powderlike and easily packaged. In 1960, he began advertising "Instant Life" in comic books.
In 1964 the animals became Sea Monkeys, because of their long tails. There were breeding improvements, and an ABC News commentator suggested in 1968 that the larger shrimp, now guaranteed to live two years, might be called sea apes.
The Los Angeles Times reported in 2000 that two distributors had canceled their licenses for Sea Monkeys because of discomfort about Mr. von Braunhut's views. The license is currently owned by Educational Insights of Rancho Dominguez, Calif.
George C. Artamian, president of the Sea Monkeys division of Educational Insights, said the earlier companies dropped the Sea Monkey license for business reasons, not the least being that Mr. von Braunhut was "not easy to work with." He said that when his company bought the license in 1995, Mr. von Braunhut promised to stop his public political activities, and that he believes Mr. von Braunhut did so.
Mr. von Braunhut was formerly married to Charlotte Braunhut of New York. He is survived by his wife, Yolanda Signorelli-von Braunhut; a son, Jonathan; a daughter, Jeanette LaMothe; and a brother, Gene.
posted by Unknown at 8:26 PM
Tuesday, December 23, 2003
kuro5hin.org || HOWTO: Get Your Teeth Fixed in Mexico
kuro5hin.org || HOWTO: Get Your Teeth Fixed in Mexico: "
In the United States, major dental work can be financially ruinous. Without belaboring the lively political topic of why this is, I am here to report that it is possible for a US resident to save 75% or more on major dental work by the simple expedient of having it done in Mexico.
Inside, my story and practical details for others whose dentists may be about to give them a nasty surprise."
In the United States, major dental work can be financially ruinous. Without belaboring the lively political topic of why this is, I am here to report that it is possible for a US resident to save 75% or more on major dental work by the simple expedient of having it done in Mexico.
Inside, my story and practical details for others whose dentists may be about to give them a nasty surprise."
posted by Unknown at 1:23 PM
text to speech and wav, voice Recognition, Voice control, email extractor software
posted by Unknown at 9:09 AM
Visual Text To Speech MP3 Homepage - Convert Text to MP3, OGG, WAV, VOX
posted by Unknown at 9:08 AM
Text-to-Speech Software, Text-to-Wav, Text-to-Mp3, Text-to-Wave Converter Software
posted by Unknown at 9:07 AM
Text to Speech - Text to MP3,Text to WAV,Text to OGG,Text to VOX,Text Files to MP3,Text Files to WAV,Text Files to OGG,Text Files to VOX
posted by Unknown at 9:06 AM
Monday, December 22, 2003
Frankenberry Alert...
3 Yemenis sue NASA for trespassing on Mars
They say they inherited it 3,000 years ago
July 24, 1997
Web posted at: 10:44 p.m. EDT (0244 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- No one expects to lose much sleep over it but, for the record, NASA has been sued by three men from Yemen for invading Mars.
The three say they own the red planet, and claim they have documents to prove it.
"We inherited the planet from our ancestors 3,000 years ago," they told the weekly Arabic-language newspaper Al-Thawri, which published the report Thursday.
Adam Ismail, Mustafa Khalil and Abdullah al-Umari filed the lawsuit in San'a, Yemen, and presented documents to the country's prosecutor general which they say proves their claim. There was no word on whether they had paid the appropriate inheritance taxes.
The claim is prompted, apparently, by the exploration of Mars by NASA's Pathfinder spacecraft and Sojourner rover, which have been sending back photos and data for analysis since early July.
"Sojourner and Pathfinder, which are owned by the United States government, landed on Mars and began exploring it without informing us or seeking our approval," the men charge.
They demand the immediate suspension of all operations on Mars until a court delivers a verdict. They also ask that NASA refrain from disclosing any information pertaining to Mars' atmosphere, surface or gravity before receiving approval from them, or until a verdict is reached.
'It's a ridiculous claim'
"It's a ridiculous claim," NASA news chief Brian Welch told CNN Thursday after smothering a chuckle. "Mars is a planet out in the solar system that is the property of all humanity, not two or three guys in Yemen."
Richard Cook, the Pathfinder mission manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, agreed. "It's everybody's," he said. "Mars is for the whole world to explore and to understand."
Welch says a 1967 international treaty holds that everything in the solar system, except Earth itself, is the property of everyone in the world and no one country.
"Just because we land on Mars first doesn't mean the United States owns it," he said.
Welch said he thought the issue could get more serious in the future "when people actually are going to these places and the resources found have some value. ... More complicated issues will have to be resolved between countries, or between companies."
Taking the opportunity to clear the air on another galactic real estate matter, Welch said he knew of no plans to take legal action against a man who has been selling deeds to property on the moon.
Welch said the deeds are as worthless as the Yemenis' claims. "That's why they invented the phrase 'Caveat emptor' [Let the buyer beware]," he said.
posted by Unknown at 7:58 PM
Wednesday, December 17, 2003
Tuesday, December 16, 2003
Wired News: Copyright Doesn't Cover This Site
Wired News: Copyright Doesn't Cover This Site: "To prove that open sourcing any and all information can help students swim instead of sink, the University of Maine's Still Water new media lab has produced the Pool, a collaborati"
posted by Unknown at 2:35 PM
Monday, December 15, 2003
The Infinite Matrix | Chris Nakashima-Brown | Script-Doctoring the Apocalypse
The Infinite Matrix | Chris Nakashima-Brown | Script-Doctoring the Apocalypse: "The artist's studio was in Greendale, an aging suburb just beyond the farthest reaches of the Grey Line. Friedman was in town for a con anyway, providing a convenient opportunity f"
posted by Unknown at 7:30 PM
modchip mod chip modchips ps2 playstation xbox psx modchip ps2 mod chip xbox modchip xbox mod chips PS2 XBOX PSX messiah2 magic 3.6 magic 3.1 playstat
posted by Unknown at 5:06 PM
Xbox Media Player
Xbox Media Player: "CNET Playing for keepsCNET has today posted the first in a three-day report about the multimedia capabilities of todays and future game consoles, including the use of XBMC/XBMP o"
posted by Unknown at 5:00 PM
Strategy: Outside the box | CNET News.com
Strategy: Outside the box | CNET News.com: "Phil seldom bothers with his entertainment center anymore when he wants to watch a movie or enjoy part of his digital music collection.
Instead, the Utah-based software engineer switches on his Microsoft game machine and fires up the Xbox Media Center, an unauthorized piece of software that he helped write and that allows a modified console to play most popular digital movie and audio formats.
'It's a convenience thing,' said Phil, whose hacking hobbies discourage him from divulging his full name. 'All of my movies are organized into categories, and it's very easy to navigate through the menus to find exactly what I want to watch. I have a PC in the basement of my house which stores all of my music and movies, and the Xbox makes it extremely convenient to use them.'"
Instead, the Utah-based software engineer switches on his Microsoft game machine and fires up the Xbox Media Center, an unauthorized piece of software that he helped write and that allows a modified console to play most popular digital movie and audio formats.
'It's a convenience thing,' said Phil, whose hacking hobbies discourage him from divulging his full name. 'All of my movies are organized into categories, and it's very easy to navigate through the menus to find exactly what I want to watch. I have a PC in the basement of my house which stores all of my music and movies, and the Xbox makes it extremely convenient to use them.'"
posted by Unknown at 1:40 PM
JAJSoft - Products - BOOMBox Internet Radio Player / Kazaa FasterDownload Faster Download
posted by Unknown at 11:38 AM
Sunday, December 14, 2003
Saturday, December 13, 2003
Friday, December 12, 2003
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
VB Knowledge Solutions - Home
VB Knowledge Solutions - Home
This could be the way to catalog all those disks full of videos...
This could be the way to catalog all those disks full of videos...
posted by Unknown at 1:37 PM
Tuesday, December 09, 2003
HOWdesign.com - Links - Links to Graphic Design Firms, Design Resources, and more
posted by Unknown at 12:26 PM
Monday, December 08, 2003
Saturday, December 06, 2003
Friday, December 05, 2003
Progency Software - Home Page
Progency Software - Home Page
Freeware...
Freeware...
posted by Unknown at 6:21 PM
Windows XP Home and Professional Service Configurations by Black Viper
posted by Unknown at 10:15 AM
Thursday, December 04, 2003
Animekrazy.com - Your Source to Japanese Anime DVD with a large selection of Anime titles to choose from at great discounted DVD prices.
posted by Unknown at 8:46 AM
Wednesday, December 03, 2003
Winamp Visualizations to DVD
Introduction: "Introduction... This tutorial will guide you through capturing Winamp visualizations to add onto a DVD. The visualizations will be saved as AVI's and will not have audio in them (synchronizing the audio for burning is another tutorial). These are the tools you will needed: 1. Winamp (MP3 Player) 2. Winamp Plug ins (Visualizations) 3. CamStudio (Screen Capturer) 4. KeyText 2000 (Macro Program)
Let's get started¦ The first thing you need to do is find a really cool Winamp visualization which you would like to capture for all your MP3's. I like Tripex3 because there are some cool graphics and it also has a timer in the right hand corner (Figure 1.0). Once you have chosen your visualization your ready to capture it."
Let's get started¦ The first thing you need to do is find a really cool Winamp visualization which you would like to capture for all your MP3's. I like Tripex3 because there are some cool graphics and it also has a timer in the right hand corner (Figure 1.0). Once you have chosen your visualization your ready to capture it."
posted by Unknown at 6:56 PM
Vintage T Shirts by Cotton Factory - Vintage Tshirts, Vintage Clothes, Vintage Shirts, Vintage Clothing
posted by Unknown at 9:10 AM
OKcounter.com
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No find counter mix with your homepage
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This site is made by OKcounter's member..
If you joining okcounter, you will have all this merit "
posted by Unknown at 8:26 AM
Tuesday, December 02, 2003
Monday, December 01, 2003
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