Hello readers and fellow Gaki fans...
As you may have noticed, I have not put any new reviews up in about two weeks. That is because my computer with all my movies on it decided to blow up. So, I've decided to inform you on the status.
If you want to read a long, pitiful rant, feel free to click the "Read more..." link below. If not, just feel free browse around or hit the Back button in your browser or something like that.
The tale of my computer is an interesting one. I had a laptop during my first year here at college, and somehow the little headphone jack got broken. The computer would no longer would play sound at all, since it thought that the headphones were always plugged in, but the jack was broken so sound couldn't get to you if you plugged headphones in.
My aunt, who had just left her job of almost 20 years for a higher paying one, had more money than she essentially knew what to do with. She was now working for this new job with great pay, and her old job gave her a severance package, paying her for several years after she'd left.
Out the combined deepness of her heart and her pockets, we went online to Dell.com and picked out a nice, new, shiny laptop: the Dell XPS M1330. As my aunt wanted to spoil me, she decided that money was not an object and just started hitting the upgrade options left and right. One of those upgrades was an nVidia graphics card.
The catch, and general punchline to this story is that the graphics card has apparently had a glitch in it, that tends to cause the card to fry itself and sometimes the motherboard with it. That's what happened to me. So, I took my non-functional laptop to the library to do some research on what could be done. Apparently, this is a common issue for this model of laptop and graphics card, and usually happens fairly early into the life of the computer. I saw reports of people's computers biting the dust only 14 days after they got it. So, I think about contacting Dell to see what they can do about it, and having had my computer for about a year got me thinking, "Holy crap. This better be covered in my warranty."
Punchline number two: My warranty expired just two weeks before the thing tanked. I call Dell anyway, where I'm referred to the Out-of-Warranty service department. The person working the phones actually recognized the symptoms and said that I was "lucky" to have gone so long without that thing failing. Apparently, so lucky that I new have to pay to get it fixed. The lady on the phones told me that service was $199 dollars, and that covered everything, including plastics and keyboard should it be needed... And that should the motherboard or screen need to be replaced, that'll be another $299. So doing the math and taking into account that more than likely this video card has made my motherboard go kablooey, I'm out $500 dollars because all my stuff is on this laptop. I've sent it off to them, and they gave me the usual "7 to 10 business days! Enjoy disconnectivity, and I hope you backed up your files. :D" schtick, and I'm stick walking across campus in the snow (yes, it's still snowing here. -_- ) to use the library computers every few hours to check my e-mails, with no guarantee that the files that I'm really shelling out this money to keep are going to be there when this thing gets back to me.
So, the moral of this story is: If you buy a laptop, (not just a Dell or Windows PC, as this same card is screwing over Mac users too) get an external hard drive and save all your important things on there, just in case your laptop craps out and you have to explain to your blog readers why you ain't bringin' the funny. :(
Alright. Enough about me and my computer. I'll see you guys again soon, hopefully with a laptop full of Gaki videos that I'll be able to review and post here.
Read more!
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Monday, February 2, 2009
山崎邦正 七変化!!
(Yamazaki Housei Shichihenge)
Whoo… Sorry it’s been so long since my last post. Life has been getting in the way. Anyway, I think I will try to post things on a regular schedule. Right now, it’s looking like it will be Sunday nights. Well, I guess it’s early Monday mornings, as it’s about 1 am now.
The Shichihenge series is another legendary part of Gaki’s legacy. Shichihenge(七変化) translates roughly to “the Seven Shapeshifters” or “The Seven Apparitions”. The point of this game is fairly simple. The Gaki members, producers and general staff higher-ups have a planning meeting. Whoever’s turn it is to do the shichihenge-ing leaves the room and returns seven times, to try to make the people in the room laugh. Each time someone laughs at one of the gags, they have to pay a penalty fee of 1,000 yen (which ranges anywhere between USD $10-12, depending on the exchange rate) which is donated to charity. So, doing the math, since there are ten people in the room, with seven gags at a penalty fee of 1,000 yen, the maximum amount earnable is 70,000.
Today is Yamazaki’s turn to take on the Shichihenge. So far in the history of the show, I think there’s been three other shichihenges: Heipo, director Sakamoto, and producer Suga. If anyone out there can correct me on this, it would be greatly appreciated. I can’t find the dates or episodes for those three, so I don’t know for sure when they happened. None of them really did well, but they decided to let him go anyway.
Matsumoto starts out with by saying he wondered what would happen if he let Yamazaki do this. Yamazaki explains that he’s studied, thought about it carefully and come up with several gags to unleash on the crew. Let's take a look at how Yamazaki, who I generally don’t find funny, did.
Henge 1: Yamazaki walks into the room mostly naked, in what I think is supposed to be a play on the stereotypical mermaid outfit. He’s got shells over his nipples and only-God-knows on his crotch (Thank you, censors). He brings in a mirror to set down on the meeting table, so he can check himself out.
Who laughed?
Me: No.
Staff: No.
Henge 2: Yamazaki walks in carrying buckets of live fish, and wearing a stopwatch. He starts and stops his stopwatch a few times, then grabs a fish from the bucket and puts it in his armpit. The fish flops around and gets away, so he grabs the buckets and leaves. There was no mention of him picking that fish off of the ground (which will probably upset you more if you’re in PETA), but I’m pretty sure that one of the staff picked it up, as it isn’t there for the next henge.
Who laughed?
Me: No.
Staff: Heipo.
Henge 3: Yamazaki comes in wearing a burglar outfit, with a stocking over his head. For those of you who are familiar with Japanese comedy, you know that the stocking over the head is used fairly often as it just warps the wearer’s face into funny shapes. He faces everybody with his little toy knife, and nobody laughs so he leaves. He stops in the doorway on the way out and breaths heavily, which produces a Darth Vader-ish noise. This cracks Matsumoto and one of the directors.
Who laughed?
Me: No.
Staff: Matsumoto and some staff member who I can’t remember right now.
Henge 4: Okay. This one was kinda funny. Yamazaki comes in dressed as an office lady. He unzips his/her briefcase and starts typing away on a laptop. A cell phone call comes, which he answers with “Hello?... Hello?.. Oh… Georgia… Okay… Michael… Okay…” He cracks Matsumoto. This also cracked me, but for different reasons. One, if you watch enough Gaki, you’d know that Yamazaki touts himself as being good at English, but he’s only good at imitating things he hears. If you watch some of the “Yamazaki Produces” episodes of Gaki (which I guess I will do here eventually) you’ll see that he tries to write songs in English, but completely mangles grammar. Thus, when he speaks English as jokes and such, it’s usually small one or two word phrases, or longer phrases that they teach students in school like “Nice to meet you.”
Who laughed?
Me: Okay. Yeah, I did.
Staff: Matsumoto.
Henge 5: Yamazaki comes in dressed as a superhero. He cracks Hamada right off the bat, and then complains about it being cold, which then gets Matsumoto. He punches some staff with his big foam hands, then leaves.
Who laughed?
Me: No.
Staff: Hamada ,Matsumoto and that producer whos name I’ll figure out later.
Henge 6: Yamazake comes in “dressed” as a baby, carrying a baby doll. He puts the doll on the desk, and then stands on the desk two in the position that the doll is in. As you can see, this resulted in people sitting in the room seeing more of Yamazaki than they’d really care to. Nakedness though, really does get the job done when it comes down to making people laugh.
Who laughed?
Me: No.
Staff: No. (Although, I will say, that I would have ruled that Matsumoto laughed.)
Hrm… they stop there. Now I’m glad that I’m actually blogging this, as I’d never noticed this before. It looks as though either Yamazaki didn’t do a seventh or it was generally too stupid or too vulgar to be broadcast. That’s interesting. Maybe I could do some research and see what happened.
Anyway, the money was totaled, and Yamazaki earned a measly 7,000 yen for charity. That is a mere 10% of the maximum total possible. That score was the lowest score for a long time as far as shichihenge goes, and stayed as the low score for several years. It may still be the lowest score ever. That really must be a huge blow to the pride, when you call yourself a comedian or entertainer, and your score for making people laugh is being resoundingly beaten by the producers and directors on the show you work on. That’s why I gave this episode a 2-star rating. It was just lame. Okay, the talk wasn’t bad, but I hardly make it to the comedy talk on this episode because I usually turn it off during the shichihenge.
Read more!
Whoo… Sorry it’s been so long since my last post. Life has been getting in the way. Anyway, I think I will try to post things on a regular schedule. Right now, it’s looking like it will be Sunday nights. Well, I guess it’s early Monday mornings, as it’s about 1 am now.
The Shichihenge series is another legendary part of Gaki’s legacy. Shichihenge(七変化) translates roughly to “the Seven Shapeshifters” or “The Seven Apparitions”. The point of this game is fairly simple. The Gaki members, producers and general staff higher-ups have a planning meeting. Whoever’s turn it is to do the shichihenge-ing leaves the room and returns seven times, to try to make the people in the room laugh. Each time someone laughs at one of the gags, they have to pay a penalty fee of 1,000 yen (which ranges anywhere between USD $10-12, depending on the exchange rate) which is donated to charity. So, doing the math, since there are ten people in the room, with seven gags at a penalty fee of 1,000 yen, the maximum amount earnable is 70,000.
Today is Yamazaki’s turn to take on the Shichihenge. So far in the history of the show, I think there’s been three other shichihenges: Heipo, director Sakamoto, and producer Suga. If anyone out there can correct me on this, it would be greatly appreciated. I can’t find the dates or episodes for those three, so I don’t know for sure when they happened. None of them really did well, but they decided to let him go anyway.
Matsumoto starts out with by saying he wondered what would happen if he let Yamazaki do this. Yamazaki explains that he’s studied, thought about it carefully and come up with several gags to unleash on the crew. Let's take a look at how Yamazaki, who I generally don’t find funny, did.
Henge 1: Yamazaki walks into the room mostly naked, in what I think is supposed to be a play on the stereotypical mermaid outfit. He’s got shells over his nipples and only-God-knows on his crotch (Thank you, censors). He brings in a mirror to set down on the meeting table, so he can check himself out.
Who laughed?
Me: No.
Staff: No.
Henge 2: Yamazaki walks in carrying buckets of live fish, and wearing a stopwatch. He starts and stops his stopwatch a few times, then grabs a fish from the bucket and puts it in his armpit. The fish flops around and gets away, so he grabs the buckets and leaves. There was no mention of him picking that fish off of the ground (which will probably upset you more if you’re in PETA), but I’m pretty sure that one of the staff picked it up, as it isn’t there for the next henge.
Who laughed?
Me: No.
Staff: Heipo.
Henge 3: Yamazaki comes in wearing a burglar outfit, with a stocking over his head. For those of you who are familiar with Japanese comedy, you know that the stocking over the head is used fairly often as it just warps the wearer’s face into funny shapes. He faces everybody with his little toy knife, and nobody laughs so he leaves. He stops in the doorway on the way out and breaths heavily, which produces a Darth Vader-ish noise. This cracks Matsumoto and one of the directors.
Who laughed?
Me: No.
Staff: Matsumoto and some staff member who I can’t remember right now.
Henge 4: Okay. This one was kinda funny. Yamazaki comes in dressed as an office lady. He unzips his/her briefcase and starts typing away on a laptop. A cell phone call comes, which he answers with “Hello?... Hello?.. Oh… Georgia… Okay… Michael… Okay…” He cracks Matsumoto. This also cracked me, but for different reasons. One, if you watch enough Gaki, you’d know that Yamazaki touts himself as being good at English, but he’s only good at imitating things he hears. If you watch some of the “Yamazaki Produces” episodes of Gaki (which I guess I will do here eventually) you’ll see that he tries to write songs in English, but completely mangles grammar. Thus, when he speaks English as jokes and such, it’s usually small one or two word phrases, or longer phrases that they teach students in school like “Nice to meet you.”
Who laughed?
Me: Okay. Yeah, I did.
Staff: Matsumoto.
Henge 5: Yamazaki comes in dressed as a superhero. He cracks Hamada right off the bat, and then complains about it being cold, which then gets Matsumoto. He punches some staff with his big foam hands, then leaves.
Who laughed?
Me: No.
Staff: Hamada ,Matsumoto and that producer whos name I’ll figure out later.
Henge 6: Yamazake comes in “dressed” as a baby, carrying a baby doll. He puts the doll on the desk, and then stands on the desk two in the position that the doll is in. As you can see, this resulted in people sitting in the room seeing more of Yamazaki than they’d really care to. Nakedness though, really does get the job done when it comes down to making people laugh.
Who laughed?
Me: No.
Staff: No. (Although, I will say, that I would have ruled that Matsumoto laughed.)
Hrm… they stop there. Now I’m glad that I’m actually blogging this, as I’d never noticed this before. It looks as though either Yamazaki didn’t do a seventh or it was generally too stupid or too vulgar to be broadcast. That’s interesting. Maybe I could do some research and see what happened.
Anyway, the money was totaled, and Yamazaki earned a measly 7,000 yen for charity. That is a mere 10% of the maximum total possible. That score was the lowest score for a long time as far as shichihenge goes, and stayed as the low score for several years. It may still be the lowest score ever. That really must be a huge blow to the pride, when you call yourself a comedian or entertainer, and your score for making people laugh is being resoundingly beaten by the producers and directors on the show you work on. That’s why I gave this episode a 2-star rating. It was just lame. Okay, the talk wasn’t bad, but I hardly make it to the comedy talk on this episode because I usually turn it off during the shichihenge.
Read more!
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