Eurovision 2013 – Final

Despite the absence of Israel and San Marino, I enjoyed the final. The biggest surprise was that the two songs I detested the most in the semifinals–Lithuania and Ukraine–weren’t so bad the second time I heard them. In fact, I put Ukraine into my top five! Compared to previous years, while this year didn’t have any real turkeys, there weren’t any songs that really made me say “WOW! That’s amazing!” I hope there is more variety next year. Here are my top five choices, in order:

My Rank	Contest Rank	Country	Title, Artist
1	9	The Netherlands	“Birds”, Anouk
2	24	Finland	“Marry Me”, Krista Siegfrids
3	1	Denmark	“Only Teardrops”, Emmilie de Forest
4	3	Ukraine	“Gravity”, Zlata Ognevich
5	12	Belgium	“Love Kills”, Roberto Bellarosa

See you next year in Denmark!

Music

Anouk, Belgium, Denmark, Eurovision, Eurovision Song Contest, Finland, Netherlands, Ukraine

2013/05/18

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Eurovision 2013 – Semifinal #2

The second semifinal of Eurovision 2013 was better than the first–there weren’t any songs that made me cringe! It also looked like they toned down some of the camera tricks. Alas, my top two favorite songs (Israel and San Marino) did not make it to the final, for which I’m very disappointed. The singer from Israel (Moran Mazor) seemed far more mature and accomplished a singer than her 22 years would suggest. Here are my top five choices, in order:

Rank	Country	Title, Artist
1	Israel	“Rak Bishvilo”, Moran Mazor
2	San Marino	“Crisalide (Vola)”, Valentina Monetta
3	Finland	“Marry Me”, Krista Siegfrids
4	Switzerland	“You and Me”, Takasa
5	Romania	“It’s My Life”, Cezar

Finland and Romania made it to the finals, as did Azerbaijan, Malta, Iceland, Greece, Armenia, Hungary, Norway, and Georgia.

Watch this blog for my report on the big finale happening this Saturday! And follow me on Twitter @jogolandgroup to read my tweets live!

Music

Eurovision, Eurovision Song Contest, Finland, Israel, Moran Mazor, Romania, San Marino, Switzerland

2013/05/17

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Eurovision 2013 – Semifinal #1

I must say, I was a little underwhelmed with the first semifinal. Too many soundalike ballads and too many songs that sounded like last year’s winner (“Euphoria” by Loreen)–nothing really blew me away. I also didn’t care for all the special effects trickery–like trying to make a live concert look like a music video (for example, having Estonia’s performance begin in black and white). Still, there were a few songs I enjoyed, and I was surprised that my favorite song–”Birds” by Anouk (The Netherlands) made it to the final; it just seemed too alternative a song for Eurovision. Here are my top five choices, in order:

Rank	Country	Title, Artist
1	The Netherlands	“Birds”, Anouk
2	Serbia	“Ljubav je Svuda”, Moje 3
3	Croatia	“Mižerja”, Klapa s Mora
4	Denmark	“Only Teardrops”, Emmilie de Forest
5	Slovenia	“Straight Into Love”, Hannah

Denmark also made it to the finals, as did Estonia, Russia, Belarus, Moldova, Ireland, Belgium, and my two least favorite entries by far, Ukraine and Lithuania.

Watch for my blog entry on Thursday for the second semifinal and on Saturday for the big finale!

Music

Anouk, Croatia, Denmark, Eurovision, Eurovision Song Contest, Netherlands, Serbia, Slovenia

2013/05/14

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I’m 10 weeks old–on Pluto!

To celebrate completing my 48th revolution around the sun, I had to geek out and figure out how old I’d be on the other planets in our solar system.

Mercury	199 years (I would be both dead and sunburned to a crisp!)
Venus	78 years (enjoying my senior discount!)
Mars	25 years (old enough to drink!)
Jupiter	4 years (ready for kindergarten!)
Saturn	18 months (just starting to speak!)
Uranus	7 months (almost ready to crawl!)
Neptune	15 weeks (I can roll over; do not leave me unattended on a bed!)
Pluto*	10 weeks (starting to recognize faces!)

*Let’s not debate whether or not Pluto is a planet; I could’ve just as easily used Ceres or Eris.

Overall, however, I think I’m happy to be 48!

Uncategorized

birthday, planets, Pluto, Solar System

2013/05/03

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ツタヤ と ブックファースト / Tsutaya and Book1st

While watching this video about Tsutaya Books online at Monocle.com …

… I wondered if it was the same bookstore to which I went when I visited Osaka in 2008.  I looked it up and no, the store I went to was Book1st. Book1st was a three-story bookstore, just around the corner from Osaka Station in Umeda.  On my first visit there I noticed they kept back issues in the magazine section, which enabled me to stock up on issues of Tokyo Graffiti, which is hard to find here in the States, even in Little Tokyo’s Kinokuniya Books in Los Angeles.  I made two more trips to Book1st: once on my final day in Osaka to stock up on books and magazines (knowing it would be my last trip to Japan in a while) and once just to chill in the coffeeshop, which overlooked the busy street below.  There was a woman seated next to me with a stack of papers, busily cutting and pasting them into a large scrapbook.  I nearly asked her what she was working on, but she was working so intently I decided not to interrupt.

Definitely, though, the next time I’m in Japan, I’m going to check out Tsutaya!

Japan

ツタヤ, ブックファースト, Book1st, bookstores, 紀伊國屋, Kinokuniya, Osaka, Osaka Station, Tokyo Graffiti, Tsutaya, Umeda

2013/02/08

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R.I.P., Macintosh Performa 636CD

Finally, I got rid of my old Macintosh Performa 636CD, which I bought in the mid-1990s. On it I had Mark of the Unicorn’s Perfomer software, version 5.5. With Performer I recorded all of my albums beginning with 1994′s Oleanders through 2010′s Swing ‘n’ Swive (The Jogovision Song Contest 2011 was recorded with Cakewalk). The computer weighed a ton and the monitor was an old-fashioned cathode ray type, so it too was bulky and heavy. I only kept the computer this long because Performer was such a good MIDI sequencer. Alas, I made the decision to get rid of the computer; in addition to Performa’s cumbersome nature, I was no longer able to print my scores from it, nor export the score images to a flash drive (Performa used floppies and had only a SCSI port!), nor connect to the internet to email the images to myself. This meant I had to transcribe all my music on Performa by hand! The computer had been sitting in a box for two years, but it started right up with no problem!

Performa came with OS 8.0, which I liked much better than OS 10.0 which came with the IMAC I bought in the early-2000s. It just seemed like the IMAC was trying too hard to be like a PC–OS 8.0 seemed far more intuitive to use than OS 10.0.

The other thing I will miss about my Performa is the Chinese Tiles game by Predrag Stanojevic, which is Mahjong solitaire. Oh sure, there are plenty of free versions I can play online, but what I liked about this version was the odd metallic “clonk clonk clonk” sound the game made each time I matched tiles and the crude (by today’s standards) yet charming graphics. Performa also had Photoshop 1.0 (no layers! how did we get by without layers?) and Netscape Navigator 3.04.

Goodbye Performa! You were a good computer and you served me well.

Music, Technology, Video games

Chinese Tiles, computers, Mac Performa 636CD, Mark of the Unicorn, MIDI, Performa, Performer, Predrag Stanojevic

2013/02/02

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“A total performance!”

Exciting news, everyone! I received two emails from NHK World, about Haruka Matsumoto’s video (“Kanashii Uta”), which was featured on NHK World’s recent “We Love Japanese Songs! 2013″ earlier this month. I was informed that Haruka’s song is featured on NHK World Radio Japan’s broadcast (hosted by Michelle Yamamoto and Jeff Otto) and can be heard online here. Here is a transcript of Haruka’s section, beginning at 4:30 in the broadcast:

MICHELLE: Next on our playlist is an original composition by Haruka Matsumoto of the United States [song starts; Michelle continues speaking over the song intro]. This song, in the traditional style of kayōkyoku, or “Japanese oldies”, expresses the sorrow of losing a beloved cat [song continues through first chorus, then fades out].

JEFF: Well, I will have to tell you that i have lost a cat, so I can feel the words. And I just learned that Haruka is actually a male, which is usually a female name.

MICHELLE: And don’t miss Haruka Matsumoto’s video on our website [Joe's note: viewable there through February]. You will see that in addition to composing the music and lyrics, he also made his own costume. That’s what you call a total performance!

Needless to say, I am excited and happy beyond belief at this news! Thanks to Maiko Yamamoto, Supriti, Michelle Yamamoto, Jeff Otto, Yasuko Tsuda, and everyone at NHK World! どうもありがとう!

Japan, Jogoland, Music

Haruka Matsumoto, Jeff Otto, Michelle Yamamoto, NHK, NHK World, NHK World Radio Japan

2013/01/27

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