The Natsu Bashou has come and gone once again and all that's left is to check the scoreboard and see how our favorite rikishi did and flip a coin to guess which of the Mongolian Yokozuna took the prize once again. But what's this?! There's a giant caucasian sitting on the throne?! Yes indeed for the first time ever a European has won the Emperor's cup and that person is the very quiet, and very, very tall (6'8") Bulgarian Ozeki Kotooshu (koto-o-oshu). Congratulations big guy!

Kotooshu's father flew out for the last few days of the matches when it became obvious his son might actually win. Since most people's eyes were still on the Yokozuna they didn't really notice Kotooshu's dad in the crowd and when Kotooshu clinched the tournament on the 14th day his father exploded with joy and stood up waving the Bulgarian flag and shouting.

At first the people around him just thought he was an over excited fan, but it quickly became apparent that it was indeed his father and the Japanese audience rallied behind him and gave his father a giant round of applause! The Japanese sport audiences remind me a lot of the French in this way. Although they completely support their hometown favorites, they just love upsets and underdog wins and will quickly support outsiders as long as they show determination.

Along with the win comes a bevy of fun things of course...

A parade! Every victory gets the usual big parade to display the winning banners and to give everyone who didn't attend the tournament a chance to come out and demonstrate some support for the winner! Unfortunately just a few minutes after the parade started it began to rain and poor Kotooshu and company had to roll up the windows and put up the roof in order to escape the weather.

Curse you Odin!

The up side to this is that the people who came out to show their support for the Ozeki didn't run from the weather. Despite the fact that Kotooshu had to wave at them from a tiny window they firmly withstood the weather and cheered their man on all the way home to his stable. Kotooshu was said to be overwhelmed with emotion at this demonstration of support and Kotooshu is not a man to demonstrate any kind of emotion.

Alright fish! Yes indeed these are mighty good luck fish that only winners of the yushou are allowed to hoist in such an ostentatious manner! Bow down your mighty Bulgarian fish-fisted master! Bow I say!

Then of course a nice hearty handshake from your boss to end an incredibly long day of a thousand cups, banners, and sponser prizes! I'm not sure why they decided to go for a photo op in front of what must be the angriest painting of a sumo wrestler...EVER, but who am I to judge? Perhaps it's another one of those mysterious closed-door hush-hush good luck sumo things. >_>

This gentleman's name is His Excellency Demon Kogure. As you might have guessed he is indeed one of those big production heavy metal perfomance artists in which all the members assume an identity to be something other than human much like the band members of GWAR.

Although he may seem a tad over the top to be involved with Sumo he is actually very knowledgable and has been following the sport for some time. The Sumo association, starved for attention and desperately wanting new younger fans, enjoys having him stop by to do additional commentary from time to time.

This time however he chose to throw everyone a curve ball and he decided that he wanted to sit in the booth doing the English commentary. Apparently he's been working very hard at learning English and he jumped head first into an opportunity to try out his skills. Although his abilities didn't quite match his enthusiasm, the English folks (and yes, quite a few of them are British) were keen to help him express himself properly so it was all very entertaining and fun. Kogure, or "Kakka" as he likes to be called, is very blunt in his criticism and does not pull punches. I look forward to seeing more of him in the future.

The rikishi Ama was a big spoiler in this tournament and he took down a lot of wrestlers along the way. He still has a little ways to go to stay consistant enough to make the Ozeki rank, but for now he remains the stand out guy that nobody wants to wrestle. In the match pictured above, He turned a costly mistake of a perfectly defended throw attempt by winning at the edge of the ring with a perfectly executed Utchari (backward pivot throw) move.

His opponent, the Russian Wakanoho, was having a very up and down tournament and desperately needed more wins. He was sure that he had victory in the bag when he perfectly read Ama's throw attempt and blocked it and got him up against the edge of the dohyo -- just one more inch and...victory! But instead all he got was another defeat.

This door paid the price for Wakanoho's loss.

You can watch the whole thing here in the replay from the broadcast which, somewhat humorously, begins with Wakanoho's immediate reaction once he was away from the crowd as he walked over to the replay monitor. Enjoy at Ama's ability to instantly shift and change with his opponent!

There was a somewhat ugly incident on the very last match of the tournament. The two Yokozuna's met up for the last match but a win or a loss was meaningless at this point as Kotooshu had already won the tournament and had beaten both of them. Asashoryu won but as Hakuho was going down and Asashoryu was beginning to mount a further attack in case he did not, Asa's momentum carried him into Hakuho's back into what Hakuho perceived as an extra shove (which Asashoryu has been known to do to lesser ranked opponents).

Now as you might have heard me said before, Mongolians are "Mui Macho" people especially with each other, and Hakuho is a Yokozuna no less. When Hakuho arose he shouldered Asashoryu hard and glared at him as they both walked away. Luckily, Asashoryu attempted to play it off as an accident (which is debatable) so at least the main ugliness came from just one man but still it left a somewhat sour note in people's minds.

Both were reprimanded by the way.

Not the prettiest tournament, but a strange one that ended in a unexpected manner which was nice for a change.

Death came and spread as silent as the wind -- a hot, very focused wind. The air itself, the very air that provided life to man and plant alike became the enemy of the very stuff of happiness and joy. The figurative metal which bound that happiness and joy was slowly weakened over the years. Slowly that figurative became a literal and the metal foundation of Daemon's happiness cracked -- just a tiny crack mind you, but that was more than enough to end it all.

Yes indeed dear readers, I have finally been struck by the three rings of death and my beloved 360 is now silent and probably a lot cooler than it's ever been. I suppose I'm rather upset but not for the reasons you're probably thinking. Sure, sure...I'm annoyed that I can't currently fire that baby up and play a pile of great games. Indeed, it is annoying not to be able to annoy people with my inability to compete competently online whilst we chat it up. Yes, yes...of course I miss all those little online games that I became so happy to play around with.

What really gets me is that it happened to me. You see, while so many units have heated up and broken over the years mine has never had even the slightest problem. This is despite the fact that I pretty much abandoned my other gaming systems for the 360 and I bought it just a couple of months after the launch. All those long, long hours of gaming for the last two years and not even a hint of trouble. I always enjoyed being the guy who got to annoyingly pipe in on 360 death threads with a hearty "mine is rather old and is perfectly fine" but that's all at an end. Now here I sit. A commoner.

*sigh*

I've had pretty good luck with consoles in the past and I still have a 1st generation PS1 that were also supposed to overheat and die at an alarming level -- or did everyone forget that? Yet there it is, sitting underneath my dresser working perfectly fine every time I have to pull it out. I was hoping this would be the case with my 360 but alas it wasn't in the cards. It's been a few weeks but I just keep putting off calling up those folks at MS to get myself a send off box for no particular reason. Sure I've been busy with insane stuff at work but I just keep putting it off.

So what have I been doing?

Yay it's Wii time! A friend of mine bought me one a few months ago but I really don't play it much. I've been trying to get into it and have a good time and all that jazz but...it's not really working out. I honestly don't care for the system cute though it is. Honestly, if it wasn't a big deal of a gift from a close friend I probably would have sold it by now. I'm going to keep at it and try to have some sort of fun with it, but the hate keeps building and I really think more than likely that I'm just going to end up back playing with my PS2.

The upside is that I've certainly had a lot more times to devote to movies which is a very big passion of mine. I've been watching an incredible amount lately and I suppose I should post some reviews of them here instead of just always in Fozzy123's movie threads just so people will see I'm not dead. Also I apologize to my other blogging and Myspace peeps as I just haven't been checking in lately.

So here I sit in a prison of my own making -- sulking and watching movies.

"You are next!" Those words crippled the lengthy diatribe that was building deep within my frontal lobe. "You are next!" Those words laid to waste all thoughts of attempting manual projects immediately exposing their inherent uselessness. "You are next!" All personal matters were cast aside! "You are next!" Every deed, object, person and thought (metaphysical or otherwise), were summarily expunged and all that was left was a singular specific task! "You are next!" A grand moment of sharply defined clarity was thrust upon me once more! "You are next!" "YOU ARE NEXT!" "YOU ARE NEXT!"

"YOU ARE NEXT!"

One moment I'm enjoying a nice, not altogether too lengthy sit down after a long day of book management and suddenly I spy a tasty new blog amongst my somewhat hesistant Gamespot running crew and there it is in black and white (unless of course you pay for Gamespot and have wacky colors selected for your text), I have been "tagged" once more! My task this time out: Name 7 songs that I've been listening to this fine day or/and night.

The tagger? That rascally bon vivant and otherwise fine upstanding fellow book dealer/ellipses abuser/NIN expert fan-type person Samwel X who I always envision wearing a fine bowler hat because I'm a hairy American transplanted from Europe and that's how we roll. Don't shatter my dreams!

1. Nine Inch Nails - The Slip

First up is Trent Reznor's newest effort The Slip which Mr. Reznor has kindly made completely free to download in yet another attempt to further distance himself from the giant crumbling machine known collectively as "The Music Industry". He knows he has enough fans to support him when he eventually releases the album on hard copies and that they will eagerly snatch up his uber-expensive special editions as well as his super super super special editions. Did I mention the even more special edition that's better than the super super super uber edition? No?

I'm currently still spinning the...um, hard drive and listening to the music and ruminating on the album as a whole so I haven't really attached myself to any particular song but "1,000,000" does stand out as a nice chunk of music.

2. The Grates - Gravity Won't Get You High

Next is the fine Australian group The Grates. Another one of those little indie alternative poppy rock bands that seemingly I'm the only person that listens to them much like the brilliant pop band Blood Red Shoes. They haven't really done much since 2006 which kind of makes me wonder if they're ever going to release another album. I know they're still touring so there's always hope but it always kind of makes me sad when groups put out albums that I can't seem to stop listening to and then they just up and vanish. Speaking of vanishing...

3. Queen Adreena - The Butcher and the Butterfly

Back in the late 80's a strange little band was formed called Daisy Chainsaw. They were a very odd noise punk/feedback/distortion band that easily stood out from the crowded alternative radio and college scene. They had a modest hit with Love Your Money but then they just up and disappeared.

A year ago I went digging through my old cds and ran across my Daisy Chainsaw cd. I kind of wondered what had happened to them and when I went looking I ran smack into Queen Adreena. Apparently there had been some personal problems in Daisy Chainsaw and after some years apart the singer and the guitarist from that band, KatieJane Garside and Crispin Gray respectively, decided to start up another band called Queen Adreena. Out of curiosity I went digging for it and what I heard I really liked.

4. Charles Mingus - Cornell 1964

Although I'm not particularly knowledgeable in Jazz I am a big fan of the genre specifially from the 50's and 60's. I've been trying to expose myself to more and more of it as it's much easier to get ahold of these days via the internet and I'm enjoying every second of it. Charles Mingus is one of my favorites and I've really been enjoying the Cornell 1964 album of his. It's music like this that really makes me wish that music stores still existed and I really miss working in that environment.

*sigh*

5. Stereo Total - Monokini

I honestly can't remember how or why I came to gain knowledge of the band Stereo Total but somehow I did and there you are -- the damage has been done. An odd cookie of a band that Wikipedia describes as "...a humourous mix of synth-pop, new wave, electronic, punk, and pop music." They also hit the 60's retro vibe on all cylinders so chances are if you like quirky bands that just do their own thing regardless of any particular scene then you will probably enjoy Stereo Total.

If you click on their name then please to enjoy THE MOST AWESOME VIDEO EVER! By the by, just for comparison's sake here's the original video for that song which is amusing but not nearly as completely awesome as the old people dancing. Just goes to show you that sometimes simplicity will snuggle up with synchronicity and create something amazing.

6. Panther - Secret Lawns

It's pretty hard to describe Panther AKA Charlie Salas-Humara. He kind of came out of nowhere when I was channel surfing one day and I just had to run out and tell my friends about him the next day. Just click on the link and be ready to be surprised/angered/annoyed/happy or any combination of those ingredients. In case you're interested, here's the original video that I ran into late at night called How Well Can You Swim.

7. John Lee Hooker - Blue King Pins collection

A nice collection of early John Lee Hooker songs that I borrowed from a friend some time ago and yet I still appear to have it as I threw it in the player once again today. Perhaps he'll read this and realize that he needs to put it back in his car from whence it came. Although come to think of it, I actually own the car that the cd came from when he owned it orginally. So if I put the cd back in my car I actually am putting it back from where in originally came. Hmmmm.... >_>

I understand my task was to name songs but I'm just not a song oriented person. I much more into albums and if I can't get into an entire album of a particular artists then I will most likely stop listening to them forever. I'm not big on collections of hit songs. As for who I tag I suppose I go with the following peeps:

MoonFoxx, JustPlainLucas, telvisnostic, Creeping Wolf, & Irkenechidna.

Don't feel obligated to participate however, just do it and have fun or ignore it and have even greater fun knowing you saved valuable time away from the internets.