SUBLIMINAL

There was a press conference about the "success" of them putting sea water on the overheating reactor to cool it down and prevent a nuclear incident, radiation levels have reportedly lowered.

Let's all blame the entire population of countries everywhere for something their great (great great great great etcetc) grandparents did years ago and forget the many, many horrific things our own country has done. Let's show the world how historically intelligent we are. Every German is a descendant of Hitler. Every Japanese person bombed America I am Stalin's child.

What the fuck is wrong with these Americans? Uneducated morons. Disgusted that people like that even exist.

Earthquake at magnitude of 6 in Fukushima reported. This Japanese stream mentioned 10,000 people missing and NHK said "30,000 something" These are just speculations, though. This stream is quite interesting, people ask him questions and he answers them in English for everyone.

Could basically quote all of this. Maging it up, bro.

Where have you heard 80,000? That hasn't been reported here yet as far as I can understand. A couple of British news reporters, namely the BBC and the Daily Mail. They said 80,000 are suspected missing in the Miyagi prefecture and that 200,000 have fled their homes. I'm not sure what to believe in regards to numbers when information is coming in from all angles, but even so to trivialise this because Japan was "prepared" for it and claiming it's not that big of a disaster seems... so horrible when a staggering amount more could be dead. Also, @sai... The last I heard no one was harmed in Hawaii because everyone was evacuated inland. One died in America and three were swept out to sea, but on the news there were images of people just staying on the beach to photograph it/riding their bikes by/generally ignoring the threat, which sort of makes a mockery of the disaster itself.

Japanese authorities said 80,000 people are missing and fear the death toll will rise dramatically in the coming days. Rise dramatically from 1300+ confirmed dead.

This. Really. The disaster was not that big even though people are really trying to make it sound so. Of course I feel sorry for everyone who died or got seriously injured or lost someone important there, as always with big nature catastrophes, but still. Maybe you misphrased this, but... "the disaster was not that big." Uh... • 8.9 magnitude earthquake, one of the biggest, most devastating earthquakes in a century. Just because Japan is equipped to prepare with this, does not mean it wasn't jarring or devastating for everyone who experienced the earthquake itself or any of the 100 aftershocks at magnitudes of 6 and above. The quake was one of the sixth largest of all time and the worst to hit Japan. • 10ft tsunami that not only virtually destroyed an entire city, killed well over 1000 people, but spread from Japan to Russia to Hawaii and the West Coast of America, where people also died. Thousands of people have died. That means thousands of families have lost loved ones. Hundreds more are still missing and unaccounted for. Thousands of homes are destroyed. • A six year old girl was crushed and killed by a roof caving in. Men, women, children, animals have drowned in the waves that swept across Sendai. • Citizens have had to worry about threats of nuclear explosions and meltdowns all night and all day today. Nothing is likely to happen, but try dealing with that all weekend. Millions were without electricity or the ability to contact familiy in the North. Loads of people are still without electricity, gas, water. The word is millions lack the latter and shelters are too full. Just because Japan is used to earthquakes does not lessen the severity of this. It could have been much, much worse but that does not lessen the serverity of the disaster either. It was still huge. And no one expected the earthquake nor the tsunami. Sendai sure looked well prepared.

Nuclear experts think a nuclear disaster is unlikely and the situation is contained, but are still keeping an eye on everything.

I don't think there were many casualities in Tokyo, so a large portion of musicians should be fine. Karyu just blogged about there being the possibility of toxic rain and then deleted it and said that he may have been mistaken, but for everyone to expect the unexpected. 1,300 reported dead, more earthquakes/aftershocks are supposed to be coming. I've been following this intently and donating money, it's so devastating and the power of mother nature terrifying. Anyone joking about this is a despicable human being.

WHAT AN AWESOME NAME.

New Cat fisT, new Awoi, Lillies and Remains upcoming album, D'espairsRay album/DVD/photobook, Boris's album (one of them, anyway, the "poppier" one), 8-eit. Echoing the mention of GHEEE. I won't list releases that aren't Japanese because there are too many.

Both. If you want to be immersed/involved in the story and since if I'm not mistaken DA2 makes a lot of references to the first game, I'd suggest playing that one first before buying the second one. But DA:O requires quite a bit of skill/tactics to complete, its' your typical tactical WRPG. But it also has a lot of DLC to play if you want to "get" the depth of the story. So if you want to just jump in, probably DA2. DA2 is supposed to cater to a more "casual" audience, at least on consoles.

Not fair that Europe has to wait. My life. I hear it's getting all round perfect scores virtually everywhere, though.

Wait, so they disbanded because someone is gay!?

It's not difficult to be better than anything Nicki Minaj has done. Cow dung is better than anything Nicki Minaj has done.

inb4 disbanded.

I was totally in the chat when that happened! Brad is so ridiculous.

I personally don't see the difference. I find I have more in common with friends on the internet, partially because we bond over these interests rather than at school or college or work. I don't feel that someone is less important or less of a friend because you met them over the internet. If that were the case, a dear old friend who has migrated thousands of miles away will never be the same friend again because the only means of communication you have is the phone or the internet. I moved away from one of my old friends, who I used to go to school with, and we've kept in contact all these years afterwards via facebook and the telephone. That's remarkable to me. Because I'm so uselessly awkward over the phone. If we didn't have the internet, we'd probably not be friends anymore. Additionally I met my best friend years ago on the internet. She lives in Canada and I adore her. We've been friends for years and have met many times and in person we're as comfortable with each other as we are on the net. Within minutes of meeting one another for the first time, we were hugging and laughing and sprawling out over a sofa bed watching movies. It was like we'd known each other all our life. Sometimes the lack of physical communication is bothersome, and you can't always pick up on certain neccessary nuances. There are creepy/nice people on and offline. At least online, if you happen to meet someone creepy, you have distance and a computer screen between you. Meet someone creepy offline and you might have to see about getting a restraining order. (Which I also did with an offline friend. :X)

Hizumi can't really handle a whole section/solo right now even if he were to be invited to.

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum use a plethora of uncommon instruments in their music (trombones, lutes, glockenspiels, the bulbul, off-key violins) and typically they're homemade, such as their spring-nail guitar, trash can lids, viking row boat, and a contraption made of piano strings that gets beaten with two sticks and "slapped" at the same time, like a bass guitar. Tin Hat Trio are cool too. Inextremo use historical instruments like bagpipes, harp, hurdy-gurdy and shawm. Didn't Agalloch use a deer skull once? (Not specifically or for every song, obviously, but I remember it being in a couple). Since this is in the Japanese rock section, though, which I just noticed... Vampillia have three vocalists, two guitarists/violinists, a bassist, violist, pianist, drummer and a DJ. And although they're not a band that is known for unusual instruments, per se, but Tsukasa from D'espairsRay plays traditional Japanese drums, as well as the sax and bongos. Then there's 五人一首. Boredoms? I see someone already mentioned them.

Ha, I was right about Hizumi being involved then! Don't particularly care about many of the other musicians, though, so I guess this will be a one-off listen for me.

Can I list bands I know of that are conjoined twins?

Dragon Age: Origins (and Awakening) for the 9000th time. Want to get all of my achievements and view all the endings before the new one is released, so I have... about four days!

LOL FOREVER. Seriously, though, I read about this a little while ago and it made me cry.