Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
When you’re thousands of miles away from a problem you want to solve, you do what you can. Although I live in California, some months ago I had the good fortune, quite by happy accident, to become involved with a book project for Japan March 11th disaster relief called Quakebook. It’s a powerful collection of true stories and images about what people in Japan felt and experienced during and just after the earthquake and tsunami. I helped edit the book, which you can learn more about here. Well, the world spins, and things were more or less settling back into the comfortable routine I had established writing news pieces for this humble website, when another happy accident occurred. Through the friend of a colleague on Facebook, I heard about a project called Kizuna: Fiction for Japan, an anthology conceived by an American expatriate in Niigata, Japan. His idea was to do with original, fictional short stories what Quakebook had done with true-life narratives. And he needed stories. Fast. He had only given himself a few months to put the book together and get it published, first as an Amazon Kindle, then as a printed hard copy. Well, seeing as how I had a short story about Japan lying around, and that the purpose of Kizuna would be to donate all proceeds to disaster-related Japanese charities, I figured I might as well send my story to Brent Millis, the project’s creator and editor, and see what would happen. And I’ll be damned if he didn’t decide to publish it. But for me it got even better. I soon found out that not only was I to be published, but my story would be in some pretty prestigious company. Very prestigious company. We’re talking science fiction and fantasy writers like Michael Moorcock and John Shirley. Yeah, the guy-who-wrote-the-screenplay-for-The-Crow John Shirley, and THAT Michael Moorcock. And these two guys aren’t the only amazing, world-class writers in the book. Some of the writers you may know, many of them you won’t but should. But as I did, I urge you to discover that for yourself. Although I am a contributor to Kizuna, the book is being sold for charity. So I bought the Amazon Kindle for $9.99. If you do the same it will go a long way towards helping charities like Smile Kids Japan give some hope and aid to survivors of the March 11th disaster. Survivors who are still homeless, dispossessed and trying to rebuild their lives. Parts of Japan are still broken and hurting; and like I said, when you’re thousands of miles away from a problem, you do what you can to help. Click on the links below to learn more about Kizuna: Fiction for Japan, and to buy a Kindle copy of this amazing and timely book. Kizuna: Fiction for Japan homepage. Buy Kizuna for Kindle from Amazon.
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Yes, it was number one at the box office, and actually getting high ratings from some of the most fickle reviewers. The star is the Ape – Caesar. I got to see the behind the scenes build up, the marketing angles, the ideas, and also the worry that this film needed some multi marketing from different angles. Ape films haven’t fared well. Imagine, the Mark Wahlberg Ape film and Congo. The marketing folks believe blog posts, Youtube videos and more will help and ultimately it did, but in the end, it still takes a good film and in this case, it needs perfect effects. No one wants to see that talking ape wearing a costume that looks like it was made by a streetwear designer, and even with some star power in James Franco who gets to be the human face of the project, the real hero is a CGI character. Basically it’s a cartoon that rocked to the tune of 68 million so far. It’ll probably go on to get to that half billion mark once it’s done. The true gift of this is the fact that the series is now really rebooted and will have more films to come, and that will be a true challenge since the sequels always get judged harder than the first film and so forth. But their idea for this first reboot was right. The trend of reality filmmaking that probably stemmed from the reality show popularity, worked again even with this supernatural type of story. The mashup video also includes clips from the film spliced with docu style footage. [youtube]Z0Ln34248uc[/youtube]
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D’asses. Yeah I’d like to buy a box of D’asses especially with chocolate poured IN them. The bottom right corner? Japanese poopie like imagery? They have to know what’s up. The Yen is so strong, some Japanese companies can get away with anything. Let’s all sit together and eat D’asses.
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Pictures and stories about weird structures and odd houses are all over the internet. You’ve probably heard about the zombie-proof fortress in Japan, of course, and the zombie-proof house in Poland. And chances are you’ve heard all about various narrow, space-saving houses in Japan, Korea, and even here in the U.S. These things are all really cool and very fun to think about, because pretty much everyone has a fantasy of living in a fantastic place in an unusual and special home. For example, we wouldn’t mind living in a really narrow, zombie-proof house in Shibuya. Or Manhattan. The point is, extreme houses and architecture are relatively easy to find these days. But the odd, interesting and quirky things inside otherwise normal-looking structures are harder to find. And these are what have attracted our attention of late. So read on for brief stories, with links, about some offbeat but interesting homes and the things about them that make them unusual.
This is how the news works when everyone is on the spot. They interviewed this writer about the riots, he gave a strong opinion and viewpoint and it turns out to be one of the great moments where a person got to speak his mind on a controversial topic. The BBC announcers were going for the gold against him, but he stood his ground. It’s not quite a Kanye West “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” moment, but this reveals volumes. [youtube]biJgILxGK0o[/youtube]
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