blakerson.com

Yeah, he's ridiculous on stage, he goes off-script during charity telethons, or at the VMA awards. And he types like a 10-year-old on his own website.

But at the end of the day, he's actually self-effacing. And I think that quality is endemic of deeper, more respectable qualities like self-awareness and a sense of humor.

Haters start your engines, I hear 'em gearing up
People talk so much shit about me at barbershops
They forget to get they hair cut
OK, fair enough, streets is flaring up
'Cuz they want gun talk, or I don't wear enough
Baggy clothes, Reeboks or Adid-os
Can I add that he do spaz out at his shows?

Sure, he makes most Americans facepalm, but I can't help but laugh a little every time a Kanye track comes on. And not necessarily in a bad way.

I'm really trying to avoid being one of those people who graduates from school and decides they've "grown out" of writing their own stuff. It's one thing to get too busy to do it, but 90% of people who shut down their accounts on Xanga/Blogger/Wordpress/etc. do it out of lack of interest.

Weak sauce, I say. If you want to bring down the number of entries, great, but I think few people have compelling enough reasons to stop being as expressive as they were before. It's cool that newer outlets are making people *more* expressive, too: my brother was never publicly read until he started writing Facebook notes and in just a few entries he's shown himself to be sophisticated, funny, and stylistically very talented. His stuff just screams "diamond in the rough," as if those same parts of his brain got used towards being a musician instead of honing his writing style.

I, on the other hand, have no excuse other than a job situation which is OK with me *reading* anything on a computer, but frowns upon me being communicative or expressive on work time, because that's a giveaway that I'm doing "private things" at work as far as my Japanese superiors are concerned. That alone makes me look forward to getting an American job in a certain respect.

Moral of the story: this blog ain't dead, and while I'm a bit short on epiphanies these days, I'm challenging myself to step up and be interesting.

So, in an homage to my older blogging days, here's what I'm consuming, and maybe you should be too:

What I'm listening to
Lots of hip-hop at the moment. In the last year we've had new albums from Common, Talib Kweli, and Lupe Fiasco, and they're collectively a bit darker, a bit funkier, a bit more grittier than their respective earlier records. But they're all good, so go get them.

What I'm reading
Wired.com is the best reading material I've come across in a while. It's a great mix of internet culture, tech news, and Silicon Valley Doings that's all written by a pretty accomplished collection of contributors. I especially recommend the Autopia, Gadget Lab, and Threat Level blogs within the site, and the online postings of magazine features each month.

What I'm playing
My game habits are thrown out of whack, since my multiplayer abilities are limited out here. If I were in the States, it'd be solid Super Smash Bros. Brawl. But instead, my Japanese Wii looks forlorn as I give more attention to my PS3 (and Gran Turismo 5 Prologue), and even more to my Xbox 360 (Halo 3 is still the multiplayer king). I'm looking forward to getting home so I can catch up on a lot of co-operative games and throw a gaming party or two.

In the meantime, I'm getting some rare single-player quality time. I finally finished the Halo 3 campaign. Call of Duty 4 was the best game of last year. Super Mario Galaxy is a 9 out of 10 - a massive improvement in recent Mario years, but it still doesn't outdo Super Mario 64.

Also, I did something I never do: I preordered a game. Grand Theft Auto 4, the American version, is to be delivered to my doorstep sometime in the near-ish future. I'm going to be massively sucked in.

Where I'm going
Mom's coming to visit me in Japan! It's going to be a whirlwind week and a half covering Tokyo and Kyoto, and long story short we'll basically be seeing everything that you can catch a glimpse of in Lost in Translation. We're even staying in the same hotel. At first, I was unspeakably excited about living like a rockstar with Mom for the trip. She hasn't had a vacation in something like 15 years, so it's all 5-star hotels and first-class tickets. If you know my mom, you get what's going on here. Then it hit me that it's pathetic to be excited for stuff that my mom's money is buying, and I should be much more excited that it's Mom and she's coming to see me. And I have gotten excited about it. I'm happy to be really sharing Japan with someone for once. Konnichiwhoa might be interesting to read once in a while, and the pictures might be cool, but it's a world apart from constantly having to explain things you see on the street, explaining random cultural idiosyncracies, translate everything from ads to restaurant menus to what shopkeepers say. And out of all the people who've had to put up with my Japan fascination, she's had to bear more of it than anyone - she paid for my degree in Japanese, and I had to fight for that. It's going to be an awesome, fun-filled, classy week and a half.

5 years from now, people will record the Daft Punk Alive tour as one of the great cultural events of our time.

People will ask if you went and which city's show you hit. It's the KISS, the Dead, the Stones of our time.

And it deserves to be, when [according to legend] a guy pronounced legally dead in 1986 is the opening act.

And I will answer "Yes, I was there. Tokyo."

Dear friends, I've had a musical conundrum for a while:

I've been contemplating wiping my mp3 folder. Just taking a small handful of albums that are very near and dear to me, and killing off the rest.

That operation will have to go on hold, because The Avalanches are back.

Finally. After like a 6 year wait.

Apparently they're posting their live sets and some new tracks (which are always amazing; they have the best mixing around) over on theavalanches.com, so go grab those.

It's going to be a good year after all!