Summer Breeze in Japan

Posted on August 2 by admin

Japan in the summer

When it takes half-a-day of travel (~12 hours) to get somewhere, and half-a-day of travel back (~10 hours because of a nice tail-wind) there must be lessons-learned and experiences to share. Taking into account the obvious items such as the travel itself and those experiences, there is always something particularly special when traveling to Japan. This week I was fortunate to travel to the great country of Japan again, and in particular the Yokohama area. The fantastic Japanese spirit is so infectious that I wish to share with everyone reading this message.

My Colleagues

First, and foremost, I should acknowledge my fantastic co-workers. They are simply the best; period! They make every trip to Japan work so smoothly and they are the team the truly makes everything successful. The cooperation and teamwork among the team is fantastic. I am so grateful to work with such a talented and gracious team.

Lesson Learned
The weather. The Lesson Learned is that in the summer time period in Japan make sure “Cool Biz” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_Biz_campaign) is acceptable. It basically means that in hot weather, shirts with short-sleeves or other comfortable clothing is acceptable in these conditions. Cool Biz serves a few important purposes. First, it allows workers to be comfortable during their work. Second, Cool Biz helps conserve energy due to less demand on air conditioning in the aggregate of all businesses.

Food

It’s unbelievable but every visit to Japan is a culinary delight because of the incredibly diverse food items available in Japan. It might be assumed that every Japanese meal might be Sushi but that is really not the case. With nearly all meals you have a choice of conservative food, moderate food, or extreme food.

I enjoyed two especially memorable dinners for this quick trip and one was to Korean BBQ and the other was to Yakitori. For Korean BBQ it’s basically a do-it-yourself type dining. They bring various meat and vegetable items and you BBQ them yourself. It’s quite fun even though you do a majority of the work! We had a great time and these types of experiences always produce great memories.

Also, for this particular trip we were treated to Yakitori (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakitori) which is everything Chicken! It was so delicious and such a fabulous experience. Again, there were many great memories created at this dinner while we consumed everything Chicken!

Summary

Of all the segments of Food, Lesson Learned and My Colleagues in my most recent trip to Japan there is a clear winner. That is My Colleagues. Clearly, without a doubt.

Arigato,

Kevin

Rush – Their debut album

Posted on August 1 by admin

Rush recently celebrated the 40^th anniversary of their debut album, ‘Rush’, as well as their first tour to promote the album. In honor of such a great memory for this fantastic band I offer my review of Rush:

Prelude to Rush album

The self-entitled album, Rush, released on March 1, 1974 is still my personal favorite Rush albums among all the other great Rush albums. In retrospect, later Rush albums are still absolutely great but there was a different sort of energy to those masterpieces versus ‘Rush’. One of the main reasons why this album’s sound, lyrics and attitude might be slightly unfamiliar to a casual Rush-fan is the fact that Neil Peart was not the drummer on this particular album. Yes, that’s right, for any Rush fans that are reading this now and might be in shock. John Rutsey was the drummer on Rush and he’s clearly got mad-skills as you can hear on the album before leaving the band with complications due to diabetes. John set the bar extremely high and, of course, Neil has proven over the years that he is one of the world’s finest drummers himself but all-due respect to John.

Rush album

This album was the perfect debut that any band could have hoped. It was loud, obnoxious and bold. If there was one word to sum up this debut it would be ‘Sexy’ which is not very Rush-ish these days but this album certainly was that. A song list is listed below and even some of the song titles give you a hint into what I mean by ‘Sexy’.

Source: Wikipedia

Side one
	Title	Length
	“Finding My Way“	5:03
	“Need Some Love”	2:16
	“Take a Friend”	4:27
	“Here Again”	7:30

Side two
	Title	Length
	“What You’re Doing”	4:19
	“In the Mood“	3:36
	“Before and After”	5:33
	“Working Man“

Rush’ing ‘Till the End

“Take Yourself a Friend, Keep ‘em Till then End, Whether Woman or Man, It Makes you feel so good” is part of the lyrics for song #3 (‘Take a Friend’) on ‘Rush’ and probably accurately represents the great positive overall attitude of this album. The lyrics and sound of Rush are simply majestic, although raw. The song and sounds blend perfectly. ‘Rush’, the album has the highest rating of all time for Steeler Star ratings and the band ‘Rush’ is a required activity to go-see if they are ever near your vicinity.

Overall listening to ‘Rush’ is a great experience. ‘Working Man’ clearly became one of the most popular rock songs of all time but the seven other songs on this album all had similar pedigree. They were worthy as well. This is certainly one of those times where any sort of Music Review does a serious injustice to the power of the music so, therefore, I would just suggest listening to the title track ‘Finding My Way’ and see if this kind of music is of interest to you.

Enjoy and congratulations to Rush on 40+ great years,

Rush Fan

‘Wake Up Dead’ – Megadeth (Music Review)

Posted on July 25 by Kevin

The song ‘Wake Up Dead’ by Megadeth has been a favorite of mine from the first time I heard it. As the lead track for Megadeth’s ‘Peace Sells… but Who’s Buying?’ album, ‘Wake Up Dead’ was not the most popular song on the album due to the smashing success of other singles such as the title track, ‘Peace Sells’. However, ‘Wake Up Dead’ certainly does not disappoint heavy-metal header-banger enthusiasts in the least.

As always Megadeth delivers a great sound for the song that is groovy if you like heavy metal music but this song has particular harmony among the sound and lyrics that is uncanny. The song itself is a short-story about someone getting home from a late-night of drinking and crawling into bed with a wife that might bit a tad upset (to say the least).

The sound: While ‘Wake Up Dead’ has all the common attributes of the Megadeth sound, there certainly is a unique rhythm and cadence of this particular song that flows beautifully with the lyrics. It’s almost as-if Dave Mustaine himself had lived some of these described life events personally:

“I had too much to drink,

Said I was out with the boys,

I creep in my bedroom,

I slip into bed,

I know if I wake her,

I’ll wake up dead”

The lyrics: The tone and demeanor in which ‘Wake Up Dead’ is performed by Dave is what I personally love about this song. Definitely check-out some of his YouTube performances if you have a chance because these videos much better capture the spirit of the song. For some reason to me the word ‘ironic’ wants to be an appropriate one-word description of ‘Wake Up Dead’.

For the great combination of ironic lyrics and incredible sound, the song ‘Wake Up Dead’ by Megadeth deserves highest possible KevinNeal Steeler Star rating of ten-out-of-ten stars!

KISS ‘Room Service’ for 10 hours!

Posted on July 21 by Kevin

Riddle me this…

Question: What possibly can be worse than being trapped on an airplane for 10+ hours while you travel overseas?

Answer: Being subjected to listening to KISS’s Room Service song 10 times is what!!!

When you have a long plane ride obviously you prepare well for a variety of activities such as do some work, read a book, play videos games and listen to the airplane audio track, of course. So after I was done doing some work, after reading for a bit and then after playing a few video games it was time to chill and listen to the airplane’s classic rock station on my headphones and relax.

So I plug in my headphones, dial-in the classic rock channel and crank-up the volume! We were off to a great start with Jimi Hendrix’s ‘All Along the Watchtower’, then Neil Young’s ‘Down By The River’ and third was AC/DC’s ‘Hells Bells’. You would think all was good in my world, right? Well, it was, until the KISS song ‘Room Service’ started blaring through my headset!

Don’t get me wrong, I love KISS for the most part and have for a long time but this song, which I had never heard before, was the most juvenile attempt at lyrics ever. I mean seriously, like ever! The music itself was groovy but even on the first playing of the song I was somewhat applauded at the lyrics. By the tenth time it played on my 10+ hour flight I was transformed! Transformed from applauded to a closet-secret lover of this horrible song.

As soon as I came home guess what the first thing I HAD to do? Take a nap? No. Feed the dog? No. Get on YouTube and share ‘Room Service’ with the wife? Yes!

And as she so eloquently put it, “because you had to suffer, I have to suffer?”. Well, “Yes, of course” was my answer and in the true spirit of sharing I proudly present to you, my loyal KevinNeal.com readers, KISS’s ‘Room Service’:

“Room Service”

I’m feelin’ low, no place to go
And I’m a-thinking that I’m gonna scream
Because a hotel all alone is not a
Rock and roll star’s dream

But just when I’m about to shut the light and go to bed
A lady calls and asks if I’m too tired or if I’m just to dead for

Room service, baby I could use a meal
Room service, you do what you feel
Room service, I take the pleasure with the pain
I can’t say no

My plane’s delayed and I’m afraid
They’re gonna keep me waiting here till nine
Then a stewardess in a tight blue dress says
“I got the time”

But just as I’m about to take my coat and get my fly
She says “Oh please”, she’s on her knees
And one more time before I leave I get some

Room service, baby I could use a meal
Room service, you do what you feel
Room service, I take the pleasure with the pain
I can’t say no, no

In my home town, I’m hangin’ ’round
With all the ladies treatin’ me real good
A sweet sixteen lookin’ hot and mean says
I wish you would

But just as I’m about to tell her “Yes, I think I can”
I see her dad, he’s getting mad
All the time he knows that I’m in need of

Room service, baby I could use a meal
Room service, you do what you feel
Room service, I take the pleasure with the pain
I can’t say no

Room service, baby I could use a meal
Room service, you do what you feel
Room service, I take the pleasure with the pain
I can’t say no, I can’t say no

Room service, baby I could use a meal
Room service, you do what you feel
Room service, you take the pleasure with the pain
I can’t say no

Room service, well maybe baby, room service

Tower Heist (2011)

Posted on July 20 by Kevin

Tower Heist is worthy of watching and it’s worthy of eight out of a potential ten Steeler Stars so that proves just how worthy this flick is worth watching. Have I said ‘worthy’ enough already??? Sheesh.

Anyhow, I had no preconceived notions going into this film when Brandee flicked on the Roku. As the intro’s began to roll I saw that Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy were featured so I immediately downgraded my Steeler Star-rating by two full stars! While I like both actors too often their movies become too slap-stickish for my tastes, however, Tower Heist was just the right mix of slap-stick but also serious action and drama. It worked well.

The movie had a lot of big name actors aside from Ben and Eddie including Matthew Broderick, Alan Alda and Judd Hirsch, among others. I think they all played their characters extremely well and they were absolutely believable. Most of these guys are known for their previous comedic roles in TV and movies so Tower Heist had the potential to be a corny disaster but it turned out surprisingly well. There was actually a good plot with many twists-and-turns. I felt it never went overboard on some of the quite hilarious jokes. It was simply the right mix.

In the end the combination of good actors, good story writing about corruption and greed, as well as a great moral about finding decency in people packed into this 104 minute entertaining movie makes Tower Heist a wonderful investment of your time.

Kevin's Barnhouse

Technology, Movies, Life and Family!

Summer Breeze in Japan

Rush – Their debut album

‘Wake Up Dead’ – Megadeth (Music Review)

KISS ‘Room Service’ for 10 hours!

Tower Heist (2011)