Los Angeles Dodgers’ Hiroki Kuroda (2nd L) leaves after pitching against the Philadelphia Phillies during the seventh inning of Game 3 of the National League Championship Series in Los Angeles on October 12, 2008. Dodgers beat the Phillies 7-2. (UPI Photo/Phil McCarten) Photo via Newscom.

Content © 2008 Newscom. All rights reserved.

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JapanToday.com reported, “Actress Rei Kikukawa, 30, says Japan has to improve its on food self-sufficiency ratio. Kikukawa made the remarks at a press conference for “Food Act Nippon” which is organized by the Ministry of Agriculture. Kikukawa said, “Since Japan has four different seasons, I’m very happy to enjoy different foods throughout the year.”

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HIGHLIGHTS FROM WEEK 6 OF NBC’s “FOOTBALL NIGHT IN AMERICA”

“At least the Bengals move to 3-3 – three bad losses, three good losses. In Cincinnati we count that as .500.” – “Football Night’s Collinsworth

“He fires his agent, apparently because his agent demanded 10 percent of his bail bonds.” – “Football Night’s Costas on “Pacman” Jones

NEW YORK – Oct. 12, 2008 – Following are highlights from NBC’s “Football Night in America” studio show, as host Bob Costas, co-host Cris Collinsworth, co-host Keith Olbermann, co-host Dan Patrick, analysts Tiki Barber and Jerome Bettis, and reporter Peter King of Sports Illustrated take a look at the day’s top storylines in the NFL:

COSTAS ON ADAM “PACMAN” JONES: “‘Pacman’ Jones can’t even get along with the people closest to him. He fires his agent, apparently because his agent demanded 10 percent of his bail bonds.”

LADAINIAN TOMLINSON TO ANDREA KREMER:

ON HIS TOE INJURY: “It’s hampering me in certain situations when I have to cut, cut hard.”

ON HIS CRITICS: “Don’t judge me off of four or five games. Judge me at the end of the race.”

COLLINSWORTH ON “L.T.”: “I wouldn’t be playing him. I think it’s fairly obvious he’s hurt. I think it’s hurting their passing game as well. Sometimes as a coach you have to admit that your star player is hurt.”

COLLINSWORTH ON THE BENGALS: “At least the Bengals move to 3-3 – three bad losses, three good losses. In Cincinnati we count that as .500.”

TIKI ON THE RAMS: “When Scott Linehan was their coach, this team would make a mistake, get down and then they would flat give up.”

COLLINSWORTH ON ANDY REID’S PLAY CALLING: “The last couple of weeks we’ve been making suggestions. We don’t criticize on this show, we make suggestions that maybe Andy Reid should try and throw the ball when he gets down on the goal line instead of running the ball and he did exactly that today.”

PATRICK ON DAN ORLOVSKY OF DETROIT TAKING A SAFETY: “Dan Orlovsky, thinking he’s in the CFL.”

COLLINSWORTH ON THE BRONCOS: “Right now the Denver Broncos are not as tough as the Jacksonville Jaguars. It’s as simple as that.”

COLLINSWORTH ON AGONY OF COACHING WITH ALL THE CLOSE GAMES TODAY: “Can you imagine making your living doing this?”

COLLINSWORTH ON THE COLTS: “Marvin Harrison was a different guy today than he was at the beginning of the season. He’s much healthier.”

COLLINSWORTH ON ELI VS. PEYTON DEBATE: “Eli’s coming but is not quite to where Peyton is.”

COLLINSWORTH ON WHY DALLAS LOST: “This is the first time we’ve seen the Dallas offensive line get whipped.”

FOOTBALL NIGHT IN AMERICA:
Michael Weisman is the executive in charge of production, “Football Night in America,” Sam Flood is coordinating producer and Bucky Gunts serves as director.

“Easily addicting and definitely brings back that old school style of gameplay but bringing it to the modern era.  Although the XBOX 360 games has achievements, the Nintendo Wii version is just as fun with single or multi-player and most of all, you can buy it from various stores for only $5″

BUY THIS GAME |

TITLE: GEOMETRY WARS GALAXIES

COMPANY:Sieera

DEVELOPER:KUJU/Bizzare Creations

ESRB RATING: E for Everone.

Retro-Remixed Action!

Classic arcade fans-prepare for re-entry.  The planet’s purest arcade shooter returns with more enemies, bigger power-ups and a brand-new Battle Drone to help you tear through the first-ever Gemetry Wars campaign mode.

• Set a course to more than 60 planets with new and classic gameplay modes to master
• All-new multiplayer modes deliver twice the chaos
• Earn bragging rights with extensive online leaderboards
• Includes the hit title Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved!

I have to admit that I have not jumped onto the “GEOMETRY WARS” bandwagon as my fellow friends.  They talk about this game on how addicting it was but you know, I played the game when it was featured on “Project Gotham 4″ and I played it again when it came out for XBOX Live ala “Geometry Wars Evolved”.

I played it for an hour and thought to myself that it was fun but there is no way I want to relive my Atari 2600 days and play hours upon hours of a game just to get the best points.

Well, not too long ago, during my video game bargain shopping days of checking out clearances, I saw that “GEOMETRY WARS GALAXIES” for the Nintendo Wii was on sale for $5.  Personally, I want to increase the number of games in my collection for the Wii and since everyone loves this game so much, why not give it a try.

One thing that I found appealing was that this game had a campaign mode, so although it has the “score” to beat and you can get the best in points, now you can play and earn Geoms by destroying enemies.  The more Geoms acquired, the more planets and modes to unlock.

GAMEPLAY:

I haven’t done all that great in the game.  I’m not sure if there are levels to beat.  All I do know is that you control your ship with the Wiimote and nunchaku, shoot down enemies which release geoms.  The geoms, depending on the size that you get, can enable offensive or defensive measures.  Offensive by adding extra firepower or defensive by having a drone protecting your ship.  Then there is drones that collect geoms and eventually leveling up your ship.

Of course, part of the fun is that similar to a game like asteroids, there are many things on screen and sometimes it’s hard to navigate.  But there are so many different types of enemies, some that have A.I. that react defensively to your ship and literally your screen is swarmed by enemies that are in various geometric shapes.

But what I like about this game is the ability to earn geoms and the more you earn, the more planets and levels in those galaxies that you can open up.  And the various different stages are quite interesting and see the various enemies waiting for you.

So, if you are in it for the campaign mode or if you are in it to top the leadership boards, the game does offer a lot.

CONTROLS:

My concern was using the Nintendo Wii wiimote and nunchaku to play this game.  I really couldn’t picture in my mind how the controls would be but fortunately I can say that it’s easy.  The nunchaku is used to move your ship around.  The wiimote is used to control your ships line of site and where you are going to attack.

By moving left or right or barely up and down, you cycle your line of site moves in a circular motion.

All in all, controls are easy once you spend a little time learning it.  If there is anything difficult is for those who are not really good when it comes to eye and hand coordination.  Especially when the screen becomes full of enemies.

GRAPHICS:

The graphics are basically geometric shapes but there are really cool lighting effects in this game.  So, definitely makes it quite crazy when all these enemies are swarming all over your screen.

AUDIO:

The audio is OK, I was expecting some hardcore music in a Luminous type of fashion but overall it’s ok.  Nothing that stands out in the stages that I played but perhaps that’s a good thing because I don’t want the music to be too strong or too loud in a game that requires quite a bit of your focus.

I’m quite late in jumping on the “GEOMETRY WARS” bandwagon but you know, this game was quite fun and I didn’t want to stop.

I was hoping it was not a similar experience to my Atari 2600 days of playing games like “Asteroids” or “Tempest” just to play for high scores or to flip a game because frankly, I’m not a gamer that has that much time to play many hours on a game.  So, that is why I tend to avoid games that are all about high scoring.

Outside of campaign mode, there are several modes such as “cooperative mode” (two players), “simultaneous mode” (two players going against each other for the best score), multiplayer mode and also the ability to communicate with someone that has the DS version of the game to unlock an additional galaxy.

Also, the game comes with the “Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved” as well!  So, you really get your money’s worth with this game (especially for what I paid for it).

For the price of $5 (K-Mart clearance) and for the fun that I had playing this game, even though I played several hours so far, it’s definitely addicting. I was very satisfied and I still want to play more.

Granted, I don’t know if I want to spend more than $20 on a game like this but I definitely had a lot of fun playing it!

+ Cheap! Bought it for $5

+ Addicting gameplay and campaign mode adds more depth to the game

- For those not good at games that involve hand and eye coordination, this game may be too difficult for you.

Greetings everyone,

Good news is that I haven’t received any disconnection errors today.  So, that’s great news for us and everyone who has had to deal with it all last week.

Our upcoming special photo feature on SUGIZO with JUNO REACTOR will be posted soon.  This special feature will showcase three of our photographers: Angelo Delos Reyes (in San Francisco), Nergene Arquelada (in Los Angeles) and Mimi Ko (in New York City) who covered all three performances.

It was great to get all three photographers together, especially since they have different photography styles.  So, that should be coming soon!

New York - Tokyo
presents the
International Premiere of

BLOODY SNAKE UNDER THE SUN
at
NYTFGP (New York - Tokyo Film Grand Prix) 2008 Festival
with special appearance by

Lead Actor Shogen and Producer Yamashita

Japan | 2007 | 122 min. | Japanese with English Subtitles

Tues. Oct. 14 -  Doors open 6:30 -  Film starts 7:00pm
Anthology Film Archives, 32 Second Ave, NYC (2nd ave & 2nd st)

Buy your tickets here

BLOODY SNAKE UNDER THE SUN, directed by Yu Nakai,was screened in 2007 Tokyo Film Festival and will be shown internationally for the first time. This film is set in beautiful Okinawa with exotic music and illustrates the tensions between the United States military and the street gangs of post-WWII Japan.

Actor/Model Shogen and Producer Yamashita will be making a special appearance for this film.

Yu Nakai made his directorial debut at the age of 18, filming street performers. From there, he’s worked with many artists on promotional music videos (like Bonnie Pink, The Mods, and others), commercials, major films, and short films. This is his debut feature film.

NYT: Were you concerned about any reaction to the delicate subject matters in this film, dealing with the American presence in Okinawa, post-war feelings during that time, and such?
YN: This film sure describes a touchy theme. I made it because I want people to accept the things that actually happened and ask what we should do from now. I want everybody to think what we should leave it to the children and see our future.

See the rest of the interview with Director Nakai here.

corazon de melon

Todays’ trivia might win you and a guest one of five free movie passes to see BLOODY SNAKE UNDER THE SUN. Respond to film@newyork-tokyo.com with your name, age, and affiliation. Contest ends noon tomorrow, EST. Official rules here.

1. What is the name of the title in Japanese?
2. What occupation does the lead character’s mother have?
3. Who plays Ryo’s (Shogen’s) sister?

Mainichi Daily News reported, “Tokyo taxpayers coughed up a cool 10 million yen for actor Koichi Iwaki’s appearance at a motorbike event on Miyake Island last November from a fund earmarked for local development assistance, it has been revealed.”

“A team of Metropolitan assemblymen from the Japanese Communist Party, who discovered the budget allocation, thundered: “This outrageous fee was paid for with our taxes. This isn’t reconstruction assistance, this is giving top priority to events.”

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Actress Angelika Dela Cruz and husband Orion Casareo had shocking news to give to the media.  She and Orion have been married since August 2007 and that she is three months pregnant.

In an interview with Philipino Entertainment Portal, Angelika told media that she didn’t want to lie anymore and wanted to reveal her marriage and pregnancy and said, “I am very pregnant, I’m very happy and I am very proud”.

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CRIEnglish.com reported:

This fall is concert season in Shanghai, with top stars from all over the world bringing their performances to the city.

The list includes big names such as Kanye West, Arashi and Super Junior. Some veteran singers will also hit the local stage, including Aaron Kwok Fu-Shing, who’s known as Hong Kong’s Michael Jackson for his dance moves. His concert will be held at Jinshan Soccer Stadium next Saturday.

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Japanese singer-songwriter Hamasaki Ayumi is back in town for a concert next Saturday. Since her debut in 1998, the 30-year-old singer has become known as the “Empress of Pop” in Japan for her long-lasting popularity.

She is famous not only for her hit songs and dance routines but also as a fashion trendsetter.

For the 10th anniversary of her debut, Hamasaki will perform all her hit songs.

“This will be a stage for the past 10 years of my career. I will show all of myself - the past, the present and the future,” Hamasaki said.

source