Above, Yuu Asakura with "The Monster Movie Fan's Guide To Japan." Photo by Armand Vaquer.Happy New Year.
Thank you for father's message on the birthday.
Above, Ai with "The Monster Movie Fan's Guide To Japan." Photo by Armand Vaquer.
Above, Miki Hayashi with "The Monster Movie Fan's Guide To Japan." Photo by Armand Vaquer."The Monster Movie Fan's Guide To Japan" Available at L.A. Comic Book and Science Fiction Convention January 15
Author, Armand Vaquer will be attending the January 15 Los Angeles Comic Book and Science Fiction Convention at the Shrine Auditorium Expo Center and will have available "The Monster Movie Fan's Guide To Japan."
Los Angeles, CA, December 31, 2011 --(PR.com)-- Armand Vaquer, author of "The Monster Movie Fan's Guide To Japan," will be attending the Los Angeles Comic Book and Science-Fiction Convention on Sunday, January 15, 2012 at the Los Angeles Shrine Auditorium Expo Center at 700 West 32nd St., Los Angeles, CA.
Vaquer will have available "The Monster Movie Fan's Guide To Japan," the world's first and only Japan travel guide targeted to fans of Japanese science-fiction and fantasy movies at the convention. The travel guide provides information on movie locations, nearby attractions and accommodations.
"I will have a booth at the convention so fans can purchase the travel guide," said Vaquer. "It is a fun convention featuring comic books, movie memorabilia, collectibles and panel discussions featuring celebrity guests."
The Los Angeles Comic Book and Science Fiction Convention is a one-day event held near the University of Southern California campus.
The celebrity guests include actor Ron Ely (Doc Savage, Tarzan), actress Yancy Butler (Witchblade) and stars of the Adventures of Superboy.
Admission to the convention is $8.00, five years and under are free. Show Hours: 10:00 A.M.-5:00 P.M.
"The Monster Movie Fan's Guide To Japan" covers locations and landmarks shown in Japanese science fiction movies featuring Godzilla, Mothra, Gamera and others.
Above, the Wako Department Store in Ginza. Photo by Armand Vaquer.The JR Kanto Area Pass is a discounted pass for unlimited rides in Tokyo and the surrounding Kanto area. Valid for three days, the pass is good for unlimited rides using reserved seats on ordinary cars on Shinkansen, limited express and other trains. The JR Kanto Area Pass makes it easy to visit popular tourist destinations such as Mount Fuji, Izu and Karuizawa.
Above, Haruo Nakajima in 2008. Photo by Armand Vaquer.
Democrats argue that voter ID laws are designed to disenfranchise poor black voters, the voters least likely to have photo ID and most likely to vote for Democrats. They've been referred to as "a return to the Jim Crow era," Wasserman Schultz calling them "a full scale attack on the right to vote."
Republicans counter that the laws are designed to prevent voting fraud. The Supreme Court upheld (6-3) an Indiana law stricter than South Carolina's. Not only did opponents of the law fail to show that it systematically disenfranchised any group, they failed to show that it disenfranchised anyone at all.
The issue isn't fraudulent voters or disenfranchised voters - those are partisan boogie men designed to galvanize the troops - but uninformed and stupid voters. Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain. Against ignorance, we're too lazy to contend.
Nevertheless, a website of the Democratic National Committee refers to the photo ID push as "GOP tactics" and says: "Photo ID mandates are the most pervasive new restriction on the right to vote. ... They are costly and unnecessary and they disenfranchise voters."
The site goes on to say, "voter fraud is rare."
That is an assertion Republicans ridicule.
"We did a quick study," Norcross said. "In last 10 years, there have been voter fraud convictions in 46 states."
Spakovsky notes that just in April, "a local executive committee member of the NAACP was sentenced to five years in jail for voter fraud in Toneka County, Mississippi."
Above, an Asakusa, Tokyo toy store. Photo by Armand Vaquer.CHIBA — The transport ministry is thinking of launching random body searches at international airports in April to bolster counterterrorism measures, airport sources said Sunday.
Departing passengers who set off metal detectors during screening are usually asked to submit to a body search. Under the proposed procedure, about 10 percent of all passengers would be randomly selected for body and baggage checks, the sources said.
Exactly how people would be searched was not specified.
Above, Yuu Asakura with "The Monster Movie Fan's Guide To Japan." Photo by Armand Vaquer.
Jebediah Nightlinger (Roscoe Lee Browne): [praying to God before he's about to hanged by Asa Watts (Bruce Dern) and his gang] I regret trifling with married women. I'm thoroughly ashamed at cheating at cards. I deplore my occasional departures from the truth. Forgive me for taking your name in vain, my Saturday drunkenness, my Sunday sloth. Above all, forgive me for the men I've killed in anger...
[eyes shifting to Asa Watts]
Jebediah Nightlinger: ... and those I am about to.
Above, Ginza Crossing in Tokyo. Photo by Armand Vaquer.The Japanese currency traded at 77.86 per dollar and 101.78 versus the euro as of 11:38 a.m. New York time. For the year, the yen advanced 4.2 percent against the greenback and 6.7 percent against the 17-nation currency.
Above, the Ginza Mitsukoshi Department store in Tokyo. Photo by Armand Vaquer.Back in October, Japan’s national tourism agency floated a plan that seemed an ideal remedy to boost flagging visitor numbers in the wake of the March 11 disasters. Free flights to Japan in 2012. A full 10,000 of them.
Now, as the country crunches through the detail of tight budget numbers for next year, the hope many had for visiting Japan in 2012 has evaporated into a pipe dream: There won’t be any free flights next year, period. The budget for them has not been approved.
Whatever tourism authorities thought a good idea, Japan simply can’t afford it, the government’s budget planners have concluded.
Above, the Imperial Palace's Nijubashi Bridge. Photo by Armand Vaquer.
Above, the Godzilla statue in Hibiya, Tokyo. Photo by Armand Vaquer.
Criterion's presentation of this classic Japanese film is leaps and bounds ahead of Classic Media's presentation (see review here). Not only are detail and clarity dramatically improved, but there are entire sequences where it literally feels as if a filter of some sort has been removed - the effect is most obvious during the nighttime sequences, even though Criterion's high-definition transfer is notably darker than the one used by Screen Media (compare screenshots #5 and 7 with screenshots #1 and 3 from our review of Classic Media's Blu-ray release).
Located in California’s Central Valley, 45 miles south of Fresno and 60 miles north of Bakersfield, just off Highway 99. Airfields are located in Tulare, Visalia, Fresno and Bakersfield.
World Ag Expo is the largest annual agriculture exposition celebrating 45 years of innovative agriculture with:1,600 exhibitors displaying the latest in farm equipment, chemicals, communications, and technology on 2.5 million square feet of exhibit space.
Free seminars on a variety of topics important to dairy producers, farmers, ranchers and agribusiness professionals.
Cooking demonstrations by chefs from California’s top restaurants in the World Ag Women Pavilion.
Above, the Wako Dept. Store with Christmas lights lighting up the clock tower in Ginza. Photo by Armand Vaquer.Although it is said that most Japanese are Shinto and Buddhist, few people are aware the Japanese also participate in "commercialized Christianity" in order to take advantage of those fun Christian holidays.
Christmas, with its sparkly, over-glitzed trees, a cherry-cheeked Santa Claus and the ritual of gift-giving is irresistible to the Japanese who have taken to celebrating Christmas on a superficial level. You can hardly blame them for wanting to participate in such an entertaining religion.
But the Japanese have adjusted Christmas to their own liking. Santa-san enters the house through the window and brings one gift to each child on Christmas Eve, which he leaves on the child's bed.
In the movie, one of the Rodans is being pursued by the Japan Air Self-Defense Force over the Sasebo City area. During the pursuit, Rodan flies over the Saikai Bridge. The wind turbulence from Rodan's fly-by causes the bridge to collapse into the strait in one of the most convincing miniature effects by Eiji Tsuburaya.
Left, Haruo Nakajima and Miki Hayashi at Monsterpalooza. Photo by Armand Vaquer.
Above, a streetcar approaches a stop in Nagasaki. Photo by Armand Vaquer.Nuclear radiation may be even scarier than violence, and that was the grim aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami that crippled Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant, leading to the world's worst nuclear disaster since the 1986 Chernobyl accident in Ukraine. Japan has addressed the damage from the quake and tsunami, but the area around the damaged reactors remains cordoned off for 12 miles in all directions, a necessary precaution that casts a pall over the entire country. In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, arrivals from the U.S. fell by more than half. The numbers are beginning to come back, as consumers come to realize that Japan's major attractions are unaffected, but for Japan's tourism economy, it can't happen fast enough.
...Meet Bob-Zilla. I created him a few years ago after watching a bad Japanese movie left me with unexplained cravings for a Bob's Bigboy "Double Decker" combo. Mmmmnn!
Above, Mayor Itoh being administered first aid by paramedics following the shooting.
Above, the front of Mayor Itoh's campaign headquarters, where the Mayor was shot two days before. Photo by Armand Vaquer.
Above, Kim Jong-Il's "Pulgasari."
Above, a Korean Air Lines jet being prepared for a flight to Japan. Korean Air had the lowest round-trip fare I found. Photo by Armand Vaquer.
TOKYO—The Japanese capital is all dressed up for the holidays and people are bundling up to head out and enjoy the sights. Many flock to the brick-lined Yebisu Garden Place to see its solar-powered Christmas tree, hear live music, and marvel at the Baccarat Eternal Lights chandelier. Five-metres tall, three-metres wide, and adorned more than 8,400 crystal parts and 250 lights, it’s a mesmerizing display, symbolic perhaps of the hopes people here have for the future. After the pall that fell over this country following the March 11th disaster, most are looking forward to a brighter 2012.
That includes the folks who work in tourism. The Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) says foreign visits dropped 73% in the days after the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear accident. But with time, and thanks to a Herculean effort to salvage a $19.4 billion (CAD) industry, travelers are returning. As of October, visits were only down about 15% overall.
