Well, 2020 sure has been an interesting year thus far, hasn't it? Where it seems as if every month will bring a new terrible disaster. We're a little more than a week into may, and the media is going crazy about a new invasive species called Murder Hornets that are killing all the honey bees and quickly becoming a threat to humans as well. To be clear, at the time of me typing this they have found two Murder Hornets. Two. At least with the corona virus still going around maybe people have learned to take better control over this situation to make sure no more Murder Hornets pop up before it becomes another big problem. It's so early on in the game, and it seems the people with the power to help are doing everything they can. Besides that, the panic Americans have been spreading is friggin' ridiculous. Rather than explain and rephrase myself, or worse; copy and paste a copyrighted work and get sued, I'm going to leave this link here. If this page ever goes down, I've archived the page in the Wayback Machine, so you know where to look.
Panicked over ‘murder hornets,’ people are killing native bees we desperately needAlso, it's not even called the Murder Hornet. They're called Asian Giant Hornets. Murder Hornet is just a name the media created to garner more clicks. :\
On a lesser note, remember back in January when people were genuinely afraid that World War III was going to start? All because Donald Trump bombed an Iranian general? Yeah, people (Mostly Gen Z'ers from what I can gather.) were predicting with absolute certainty that everybody was going to get drafted into World War III. For anyone a bit older than myself, remember back in 2001 when Al-Qaeda destroyed two of America's most famous landmarks, killing nearly 3,000 civilians from 90 countries? Because if anybody forgot, not even that started World War III. It led to yet another middle-eastern war, and as far as fighting goes, that's about it.
So, enough with politics. I briefly mentioned in the previous article that I ordered a package from Japan that was delayed like nothing I had ever seen. Well, time for an update, and some context. The pacakge I ordered was a vintage vinyl record called Castle Of Noi by Hirayama Terutsugu. It's a prog-rock concept album from 1983, really cool stuff. Take a listen:
I quite liked it, though even I'm aware there are far better prog-rock albums than this. What really made me buy this, however, was just how cool this is. Aside from the lyrics telling a fantasy story involving cat people at war (I think) it's also just a stunning album to look at. On top of the record itself and the sleeve being in mint condition, the copy I bought came with everything it would have had when it was new. That includes the Obi, the inserts and the full color poster. The record in this state is not rare, but it is quite expensive if you want the pacakge described above. Right now on Discogs there is a copy with similar specs (Though the seller appears quite new to the game, and doesn't have a perfect rating) and the record itself is $55 USD, and shipping a 12" record to the U.S. is $14 USD. This is why I was excited when I found the copy I did, because the record itself was a mere $15 USD, and shipping to the U.S. (Choosing the cheapest and slowest option) was again, $15 USD. Putting it all together including tax, I bought the record for a mere $32.32 USD.
And of course Japan Post in response the the corona virus barred all shipments in and out of the country, and the record was returned to the seller. They gave me the option to do some alternate shipping choice involving FedEx, but I just requested a refund, which I got in full. As much as it would be cool to have the record, there are some other things I need more than an album I can find a CD rip of on YouTube for free.
At the time of this article, the album is rather obscure, but in recent years weird Japanese albums like this have been getting really popular on the internet, jacking up the price of a record that didn't have many copies in circulation to begin with. So if someone in the future is reading this in a time when you would love to have this on vinyl but can't afford it, just remember. There's a nerdy kid in the past who has gone through the same thing, AND had bad luck with it.
Well, that's really all I have to say. I could go on for much longer about other stuff relating to the virus and how nobody in my town is practing social distancing, but my thumb is getting tired from pounding on the space bar of this Model M. So, with that, stay safe, take care and carry on.
Argot
Page created: Friday, May 8th, 2020
Also, I only realised after exporting the HTML file that this is the 20th article. Go figure!