So today I registered to get an EIN, which I obtained. Yay. Now I can open a business checking...sweet. Will do that tomorrow with $$ from D and from CBNK. 

Next steps? Registering the name with the state of Ohio since I'm doing business there, but also I guess with KY since I live here ? I mean, it won't be doing business there, so I guess I should actually call the SOS's office and find out for sure about that.

I have the form needed to register with Ohio... it costs $50.00!!! 

Then I need to call the county clerk for Hamilton County and figure out about whether or not I need to file a Certificate of Assumed Name since I am a sole proprietorship operating under a name that is not my own legal name. 

I think that takes care of the licenses, actually... got the EIN, need to register the name (and possibly trademark it to protect it from getting stolen, in Ohio anyway)...need to obtain the assumed name thing. Possibly need a general business license...like some kind of occupational thing? I guess the county clerk can help me with that too. I really hope they are friendly when I give a ring. I also really hope there aren't a million options on the prompter.

Well, now that I have typed that out, it's not all that confusing. I'll make a list though just for fun:

1. Figure out name - make sure it's available

2. Register name with the state, trademark if possible

3. Obtain an EIN

4. Obtain a Certificate of Assumed Name

5. Obtain other necessary local/state licenses

6. Get a business bank account

Woot. Sounds great.

In other news, I visited the office space this afternoon and OMG it is perfection. I love it and am so freaking excited. Here is something I am *not* excited about, though. I checked out Ikea's website for office furniture.... I don't like any of it. I just don't think Ikea is my style. Maybe if I actually like visited there I would feel differently... because I liked the furniture when I was there in person. Who knows.

I really need to buy photoshop ASAP though. I mean, now that I have this office thing figured out, I want to get the new look underway and start planning the colors and the look. 

It's supposed to be so hot tomorrow. It was super hot today, and even more hot tomorrow. It thundered and lightninged and pretended like it was going to rain to relieve some of the humidity...but it was all a fake out. It will probably rain when I'm not here and I'll miss it. I'm leaving on Thursday with mom, dad, Emily and Catherine (I think) to go to TN...Alex has to stay home and watch the puppies because he's working and can't take off any more days :(

Okay I seriously need to go to sleep. I can barely keep my eyes open.

I'm laying in bed right now, and Alex is asleep beside me. Aslan just farted, ugh. Thanks baby. 

But speaking of foul smells... there was a strange one coming from under the bed. I have periodically smelled something akin to cat pee coming from under there... I wonder if there is something under there that he has been peeing on? Or if he's just been peeing on the floor in general. I really want to pull everything out from under there anyway and clean because a couple weeks ago this giant beetle crawled out from under there. Well, it didn't actually *crawl* out. I knocked it out on accident when I was looking for my birth certificate. But regardless...it was still under the bed and that is totally gross and unacceptable.

Mike said that the exterminator guy would start making monthly visits now, instead of like every 6 months or something (I'm guessing what it used to be... I really have no idea) so I am really happy about that. The last roach we had really scared me. It was in the bathroom, in this cabinet we have on a stand that contains all of our like hair products, contact stuff, medicines, etc.... 

I opened the door to get out air freshener and this roach just like crawled out from behind the other door and I screamed SO loud. 

Before that, we had one in the kitchen. And before that there was one in the hallway. They are just SO disgusting, and I know it comes with the territory of living in the city... We only get them intermittently, but it's just bleh. 

Okay, let's talk about something else.

Tomorrow I'm meeting with D about SSE. That should be interesting/exciting. I need to get together some talking points I want to go over with her about the business, but of course on the top of that list is the partner sitch. I wonder what she will have to say about it and all that fun stuff. Then I will also want to talk to her about Maryam and how exciting it is that she has booked SSE for her holiday party again. I swear, I am so pleased about that... I want to express that to her, too, to let her know how much it means to me/SSE. 

After my meeting with D, some time that afternoon dad is going to take me to the new SSE office space. I'll need to remember to bring my camera because I want to take some pictures... like of the carpet and stuff. And the colors of the walls. As well as the entryway, the trim on the windows, whatever else is happening in there. I'll need to find out some info too... like do I get a key, is there a security system, is there parking rules, rules about the conference rooms, can I put a sign on my door, what am I allowed to do with the walls, etc...

I am so excited to start looking into office furniture and buying stuff. Of course I have zero money, and the first purchase should be photoshop. I tried buying it twice today, but Bill Me Later crapped on me both times. I cannot understand what has changed on my credit report between the first 2 times it let me use it, and now. Unless it's just the amount of money for the transaction. I think I have all of my balances paid off.

Credit reports... bleck.

That makes me think of money, which makes me think of the bleck that happened today with Alex's mom and bank accounts and just life in general. But it also makes me think of this plan I started putting together to get the AmEx and Target cards paid off. We just transfered over money from a savings account that we will not, as it turns out, be closing... (said with sarcasm) ... but that money will definitely help with the credit cards. I didn't realize we had that much in that savings account. So I figure I will put $2,600 toward credit cards... that won't completely pay them off, but it will give me some wiggle room on them...and at $100.00 a month after that I will have them paid off in approximately a year and a half. Which isn't all that bad. I might focus more on the Target one though because I really want that completely paid off with personal debt, as it was supposed to be the SSE card. 

OMG. Alicia has a Target account with me. UGH. Maybe I should close that completely and open some other kind of Visa with rewards and stuff. I really like those 10% Target things though. But I don't want her on the account. I think she lost that card anyway. Maybe I can close it for her. I will have to look into that. 

I haven't even had that card for a year yet. It's just really too bad about that Chase one and it's awful interest rate. It has a zero balance right now... it needs to be closed. Or if I'm not going to close it, it needs to have that stupid transaction protection service canceled so that I don't get a finance charge every statement cycle. Hmm..okay well I just did some research and actually I think I will keep it open because the credit on it helps stretch out my debt-credit ratio... so if I closed it, that would decrease and I think my credit score would go up. Don't really want that happening!

I will say, though, that the AmEx I have is super fab. Tonight I was browsing through the benefits... they even have this thing where if you try to make a return within 90 days of purchasing an item, and the retailer won't accept your return, AmEx will refund you the money. Isn't that crazy awesome? Then there are al these discounts and deals and stuff where if you pay with your AmEx you can get money off or a percentage off. And then of course the travel deals they always offer.

MMkay, well enough of this money talk. I am going to go shop at VS online and possibly buy some business suits or something. I think I should have at least 2 right now, for meetings and such. Plus they have a bunch on sale...so yeah. Fun!

Moderar un foro de programación no es fácil, puedo decirlo por experiencia, pero tampoco es agotador. Los programadores somos gente difícil y poco tolerante hacia los "users", o sea, esa gente que usa la tecnología sin molestarse lo suficiente en comprenderla o por lo menos respetar su complejidad (y dejar a los que se dedican a ello preocuparse por los problemas mayores).

En fin, aquí va un pequeño relato de lo que acontece en los oscuros pasillos de internet, donde se trama la conquista del ciberespacio, un bit a la vez.

Dejarse llevar por la corriente lejos del tema de discusión es algo usual. Así es como alguien preguntando por el protocolo bittorrent puede llevar discusiones filosóficas con quotes como el siguiente:

De la misma manera que si un arbol se cae en el bosque y nadie lo escucha no hace ruido si uno comete un delito y nadie lo ve tampoco es delito, ¿no?

Como moderador uno tiene que tratar de contener el tema de discusión en su cauce, aunque muchas veces resulta más interesante ver hasta donde pueda llegar el offtopic. A veces se me va la mano.

Si un árbol cae en el bosque y nadie lo escucha, es noticia en el
diario "El argentino" y la culpa la tienen los gorilas golpistas por
deforestar. Después hablarían de como la redistribución de la riqueza
hubiera salvado al árbol y porque el nacional socialismo es la mejor
forma de gobierno. El diario "Crítica" hubiera titulado: hicieron caer
a un árbol y todos se hicieron los sordos. Crónica hubiera dedicado una
de sus clásicas pantallas rojas y hubiera mostrado material exclusivo
del árbol cayéndose, sin sonido, obviamente, porque nadie lo escucho
caer. Y Tinelli hubiera hecho doble programa del baile del caño, no en
homenaje al árbol caído sino porque tiene que levantar el rating.

Hagansé un favor y dejen al pobre árbol en paz.

Entre otras cosas interesantes que merecen ser comentadas:

Discutiendo cual sería el algoritmo para encontrar el mejor equipo para El Gran DT

Discutiendo sobre los pormenores de mezclar legacy code con generics code en Java5

Una interesante discusión sobre optimizaciones

Preguntándose quien habra sido el infeliz que penso que la notación octal era una buena idea

Tirando ideas de sobre como evitar que un reproductor en un sitio web deje de reproducir al navegar el sitio

Discutiendo sobre los prejuicios hacia la programación orientada a objetos en el mercado de desarrollo de videojuegos

Pero lo mas importante es construir una buena y saludable comunidad, ayudando con lo que uno puede, tratando de enseñar tanto lo que uno sabe sobre programación como lo que uno aprendió sobre como tratarse con los demás en un ambiente donde el sarcasmo es inevitable. Un colega agradecido es la mejor recompensa, aunque a veces se pasen en su entusiasmo

Muchisimas gracias hombre gris ya van varias veces que me salvas los huevos, cuando tengas orientaciones homosexuales llamame :P

I think I'll pass on that....

Y es impagable cuando dos colegas logran resolver sus diferencias olvidando que la web es un espacio plagado de trolls que creen que el "anonimato" les da la libertad para comportarse como completos idiotas. Me sentiría orgulloso pero no es mi logro.

The SSE 180 Corporate Governance Index is a theme derivative index from the SSE 180 Index and the SSE Corporate Governance Index. According to the published index scheme, constituents of the index are composed of the top 100 stocks with large scale and sufficient liquidity in the SSE 180 Index and the SSE Corporate Governance Index. So far, the total market capitalization of the 100 constituents has reached RMB8.5363 trillion, or 66.93% of the A shares' total on the SSE. Their floating capitalization has been RMB2.1439 trillion, or 55.63% of the A shares' total on the SSE.

Source: SSE 27.08.08

I applied for the position, after some debate between myself and myself, and myself and Alex... decided to do it anyway, even though SSE has recently become different and all that stuff. I figured since it was in the wedding industry, it would be an improvement.

I got a call today about the application... the woman I spoke with said the only issue was my schedule specifications.. I noted on the app that I wouldn't work on the weekends. I refuse because that is the only "us" time Alex and I have, because during the week he is always so tired in the evenings, or we're out doing something being busy. So that job ended up not working out...but I'm not really too upset. Actually, I was relieved.

Because soon after that happened, I got my first booking that was recurring (the corporate event SSE did last year booked with me again for this year!) AND tonight I received an email from a woman who is interested in using us for her daughter's birthday party. Awesome!!!!

I really hope we get the birthday booking, because that would be another event...how sweet would that be? I'm not really wanting to focus on birthdays, but I"m not completely opposed to it right now either.. weddings, on the other hand, I am totally NOT drawn toward. I don't think I will be able to do them for awhile. It makes me miss my wedding too much for some reason, and I just can't handle it. I feel kinda repelled by it, actually.

Let's see... related to SSE is that tonight I updated the blog... transferred old entries from a past blog to the new one. That gives me about 16 or 17 entries. I need to make up a blogging schedule, so I'll have to add that to the list for the handbook.

Felt sick today, as another aside. I heard from Y that I may be pregnant... so I went home, did an at-home pregnancy test (the first time I've used one of those) and it came back negative. Actually its exact words were "not pregnant," as if that couldn't be any more clear. I was a little disappointed. But I also realize it isn't time. And I also also realize that pregnancy tests aren't always 100% accurate until after you have missed a period...which I have not yet, so yeah.

Well Alex has fallen asleep on the couch... guess I will wake him up then head to bed myself...

Europe's largest onshore wind farm, able to generate enough power for 320,000 homes, has been approved by the Scottish government.

Announcing the new wind farm approval ahead of the World Renewable Energy Congress in Glasgow, First Minister Alex Salmond said the 152-turbine Clyde wind farm near Abington in South Lanarkshire is "another step towards making Scotland the green energy capital of Europe."

"The Clyde wind farm will represent a very important step in the development of renewable energy in Scotland and in meeting shared European targets," Salmand said on Monday.

Clyde will be built in two phases, with commissioning of the first phase set for 2010 and completion of both phases scheduled for 2011.

The Scottish government has set a target of supplying a third of Scotland's electricity demand from renewable sources by 2011 and half by 2020, said Salmond.

"Today's announcement makes it virtually certain that the 2011 target will be met early and exceeded by the end of this Parliamentary term and represents a significant milestone on the way to achieving the 2020 target," he said.

The Clyde wind farm application was submitted by Airtricity. It became part of Scottish and Southern Energy's development portfolio when the company acquired Airtricity in February 2008.

The development is expected to require an investment of £600 million (US$1.195 billion). Scottish and Southern Energy, SSE, estimates that half of the total investment will be placed with Scottish companies.

SSE Chief Executive Ian Marchant said Monday, "Projects like Clyde are essential if Scotland and the UK are to have any hope of meeting legally-binding EU targets for renewable energy. Scottish Ministers aim to make Scotland the green energy capital of Europe, and giving the Clyde wind farm consent is evidence of a willingness to take decisions which are consistent with that ambition."

The wind farm will be built in clusters of turbines on either side of the M74 motorway in southern Scotland.

Clyde will have a total capacity of up to 548 megawatts of power, more than double the biggest windfarm currently operating in Europe - the Maranchon wind farm in Guadalajara, Spain, which has a generating capacity of 208 megawatts.

Another large wind farm is under construction in Scotland but it will not come close to the generating capacity of Clyde.

Whitelee, on Eaglesham Moor, south of Glasgow, will consist of 140 wind turbines with a total capacity of 322 megawatts once it is completed next summer. It is expected to produce enough power for over 180,000 homes, more than 2% of the Scotland's annual electricity needs, and will hold the title of largest wind farm in Europe until Clyde is completed in 2011.

"Clyde is clearly going to be a major project, with significant economic opportunities for the local community," said SSE's Marchant. During construction, the Clyde project is expected to create 200 jobs, with some 30 staffers employed when the wind farm is fully operational, he said.

"Scotland has a clear, competitive advantage in developing clean, green energy sources such as wind, wave and tidal power," said Salmand. "We have put renewable energy at the heart of our vision of increasing sustainable, economic growth."

Current installed renewables capacity in Scotland totals 2,800 megawatts, while installed nuclear generating capacity is 2,090 megawatts.

"Installed renewables capacity is already greater than nuclear capacity. But this announcement demonstrates that we are only at the start of the renewables revolution in Scotland," the first minister said.

"Combined with the crucial announcement of a new biomass plant in Fife on Friday, the Clyde declaration today makes this weekend one of the biggest advances ever in energy technology in Scotland," Salmand said.

On Friday, the first minister visited the future site of the 45 megawatt combined heat and power biomass plant in Markinch, Glenrothes, where he met with representatives from energy supplier RWE npower Cogen and papermaker firm Tullis Russell.

The joint venture will be built and operated by npower Cogen, the cogeneration division of RWE npower, a UK developer of industrial combined heat and power, often called cogeneration.

It will provide Tullis Russell with steam and electricity, reducing the papermill's emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide by around 250,000 metric tonnes each year.

Approval of the Clyde wind farm means that the total installed capacity of renewable power plants either built or consented and under construction will be 4.55 gigawatts - just 450 megawatts short of the five gigawatts needed to reach the Scottish government's interim target of generating 31 percent of Scotland's electricity demand from renewable sources by 2011.

The Scottish Government's Energy Consents Unit is currently processing 37 renewable project applications - 28 wind farms, eight hydropower projects and one wave power project.

At the half-yearly work meeting of the CSRC this week, a senior official said the regulator will continue preparatory work for the stock index futures under the principle of pursuing high standards and a smooth start, China Business News reported Thursday, quoting a source who attended the meeting as well.
While fortifying operations for existing futures products, the regulator will introduce new trading products steadily, the official said.

Currently, the nation's fuel oil and metal futures contracts are traded in the Shanghai Futures Exchange, while farm produce futures deals are made in Zhengzhou and Dalian.

Established in 2006, the China Financial Futures Exchange will cover trading of Financial derivatives, including the stock index futures. Its virtual transaction is already under way.
Previously, there were market rumors that preparations for the index futures were close to an end and the launch was just around the corner.

Although the regulator has expressed similar expectations on different occasions, the situation has changed beyond the original plan so far, the CSRC official said. He vowed that financial authorities will review the market performance and make relevant preparations.
The official noted that the regulators will carefully consider individual investors'degrees of acceptance in the design of index futures. They will also draw lessons from warrants issued to prevent excessive speculation.

Last week, a source from China International Capital Co said the stock index futures trading is likely to be launched in January of next year rather than sometime this year after the Beijing Olympics.
The source stressed that the authorities deemed it prudent to launch index futures trading in a stable stock market environment with limited daily price fluctuations.

Source: SINA.com, CITIC Futures, Mr. Liang Haisan, 01. August 2008

Sanjay Sharma’s talk was followed by a panel discussion on technology choices for startups. No clear guidance came out of the discussion and so not worth writing about.

Next up was a panel discussion on Go-to Market strategy for start-ups. It was an interesting session where the panelists and the moderator discussed on things like Understanding customers (Awareness leading to Interest leading to Users who turn to remain Loyal), Time to Market, Tackling competition (through positioning) and Keeping the idea secure (Patents)

T.C.Meenakshisundaram of IDG ventures gave a short but effective talk on what is an investment ready business. The key points to consider according to him are:
1. Great team (3-4 founders covering the critical aspects of the business)
- Team should have worked together or studied together
- Have complimentary skills
- Think differently
2. Business Idea
- Disruptive businesses (3-5 companies in the business take 80-90% of the market share)
- Early stage
- Potential to be in top 3 in 24 months
- Faster, better, cheaper/ Taking advantage of intersection fo 2 businesses coming together
3. Proof of concept (have a prototype or early customers or launched with some traction)

So now I have a new seat and I really like it. I am only one seat away form the window and I love to look outside, so this will be so much nicer. I also am only by a few people that are form WC. But not the ones that have much drama.

I am so much happier with my job now, It will be so much better commin in early, and even stayin late. I will not go crazy with DRAMA.

I'll be boarding a plane in a few hours.

I'll be in Korea in a day.

SEE YOU THERE!

P.S. I have a horrendous visa story to tell.  Probably will be my first installment of the SSE.

Hey!!

As you probably know - there is graduation of SSE students this Saturday, June 7, 14:00.

It would be cool to go there all together, so please post here if you are going and we can arrange details afterwards!

P.S. I am going 4 sure :)

London - Scottish & Southern Energy (SSE) will build the world's largest offshore wind farm and has awarded $3 billion (1.5 billion pounds) in contracts to U.S. engineer Fluor and Germany's Siemens.

Despite industry doubts about the viability of offshore wind SSE said on Wednesday it would build the farm off the east coast. Work would begin on the 504 megawatt Greater Gabbard project shortly and power generation would start in 2011.

The utility added it had bought Texas-based Fluor's 50% stake in the project for 40 million pounds.

Earlier this month Royal Dutch Shell said it wanted to sell its stake in a planned 1,000 MW British offshore wind farm project called London Array, raising doubts as to whether that project would be built.

London Array partner E.ON, the German utility, acknowledged that rising steel costs and a tight market for turbines had made the economics of the project challenging, despite government incentives for CO2-free generation.

Falling turbine sales in the first quarter at the world's biggest turbine maker, Denmark's Vestas Wind Systems A/S, added to fears that a boom in wind energy in recent years -- driven by fears of climate change -- may be cooling.

However, SSE spokesman Justyn Smith said that while rising costs were a feature of the wind industry the utility was confident Great Gabbard would "meet our rigorous investment criteria".

Fluor will build the wind farm and the company said in a statement the contract was worth $1.8 billion.

Europe's biggest engineering company Siemens will provide and service the 140 turbines to be installed. The Munich-based company said it would be paid 800 million euros (636 million pounds).

The British government, which criticised Shell's decision to exit London Array, welcomed SSE's announcement.

"The massive potential of the UK shoreline coupled with the right market conditions mean the UK is one of the most attractive places in the world to invest in offshore technology," Business Minister John Hutton said.

The venue was at the Bargehouse, OXO Tower Wharf in Waterloo in what looked like an old warehouse over four floors. Peeling paint, some rooms without windows gave a rustic ambience to the whole setting. Fairtrade Coffee and tea for sale, the Unlimited Garden, the HUB with their straw packed chairs and Greenworks with their furniture for sale also added a real sense of charm and intention for this social enterprise conference.

My job was to bring some energy and focus to the start of each day. I hope I did the organisers proud but to be honest most of the energy was already existant in the attendees who took to the conference like a duck to water!!???

Some highlights for me included
- How to Get Money From Rich People
- Developing Your Brand
- The Hero's Journey
- Energisers from the Kaos Pilots

I also got the opportunity to coach a number of people with regards to growing their business and developed some great business leads and potential future partnerships. There is definitely a buzz amongst social entrepreneurs and more and more people are getting over the issues of making a profit especially when they realise how such profit can be reinvested to grow and perpetuate their cause.

The SHINE unconference was also a fantastic opportunity to network and connect with a lot of people I have met online but not yet face to face. Massive kudos goes out Jess from Germination and the input from the teams at Unltd, School for Social Entrepreneurs and NESTA amongst others.
I am looking forward to next year already.

The duo of Juri and Lisa, aka Kuroyurishimai (Black Lily Sisters), released several albums during the 90s, primarily on the SSE label. Steeped in gothic atmospherics, the music evolved from a vaguely pop-infused debut to progressively more classical in nature. Based primarily on Lisa's keyboards and Juri's words and vocals, the two often included other musicians as well, from bass and percussion to violin and additional synthesizers.

When I call their music "gothic" I don't mean goth as in Sisters of Mercy or any of the electronic crap that's come to own that adjective. I'm thinking more in terms of actual gothic feeling -- this is cathedral music suited for Notre Dame. Perhaps Dead Can Dance aren't so far off, but Kuroyurishima avoid the coffee shop world music air that often plagued DCD. The piano and vocals in these songs reverberate as if in a church setting, with sublime, gorgeous harmonies.

A little while ago I got a copy from Lisa of the "Special Present CD", a not-for-sale collection of tracks from 1990-1996 that appeared on various compilations or were unreleased, including "Blue Forest", which I included on the Land of the Rising Noise Vol 2 CD that I released in 1996. The CD's a short set of 11 pieces, including a number from hard-to-find compilations from SSE. I'm not sure why it's not for sale, since it would be nice for more people to hear this.

Kuroyurishimai haven't worked as a duo for a number of years now, but I know that Lisa at least continues to play, with occasional live shows in Tokyo though no releases recently. I'll try to find out what her plans may be, and what Juri's currently up to. Visit Sibylla for more information including their discography.

Listen to "Under the Moon"

If your compiler has the "xmmintrin.h" header, you can probably use the SSE "intrinsics", a set of functions replaced pretty much 1:1 with real instructions by the compiler. It will also do automatic register housekeeping for you, so it's a vastly simplified way of getting access to SIMD instructions from C/C++.

For our conversion, the interesting instruction is _mm_cvtss_si32. It performs conversion of a single precision scalar with rounding, and should behave similarly to fistp. It's not the absolutely fastest way to convert, but it's a lot better than the standard (int). Going back to the article referenced above, _mm_cvtss_si32 does nearly as well as BitConvert23, yet passes the correctness test!

If you do want truncation, there is _mm_cvttss_si32 which does so, although without performance benefit. There are also actual SIMD versions of the instruction, converting two values at once. This may well be the overall winner, but for a drop-in replacement to (int), here's a snippet that helped speed up my model data load times:

__forceinline int FastToInt( float f )
{
return _mm_cvtss_si32( _mm_load_ss( &f ) );
}

Back in the 1980s, perhaps the most consistently challenging and intriguing label in Japan was Trans Records. I'm not entirely sure how many albums the label released, but nearly every one that I have, some of which were thankfully re-issued in the 90s by the follow-up label SSE, is excellent. Sodom's TV Murder was the second LP released by Trans, in 1985, and is a fantastic blend of punk-industrial, with tribal elements amidst its factory-floor ambience. I have no idea whether any of the members went on to do anything else. The credits list Zazie (vocals), Konan (keyboard & guitar), Hayato (drums), and Bara (bass), with producer M. Kitamura, the head of the label (also member of the great YBO2 and later founder of the SSE label).

Listen: "TV Murder"

Going back to 1994 here, the fabulous SSE label (founded by the late, great Musashi Kitamura of YBO2 and others) released this vaguely mysterious album that nobody seems to have heard of. At first glance, given the band name, title, and cover art you'd be forgiven for expecting it to be an electronic thing, but in fact these six long tracks are a pretty rough sort of post-punk/cosmic rock kind of thing, and respectable indeed. From the aptly-titled opening song, "Headphone Trance" through "Hell Fire" to the concluding "The Devine (sic) Engine," this trio covers a lot of avant-rock ground. I haven't come across the members elsewhere, so I'm not sure what ever happened to them, and as far as I know this is the only release from Houseside: Aya Honda, Hiroki Kaminaga, and Mamoru Shimoshige (no instruments listed). If anyone knows more, please comment! I'd be quite curious to learn any other details.

Listen: The Third Hallucination

This is an appropriate first posting, I think, because YBO2 were one of the earliest bands in Japan that I really got excited about. Back in 1989 my roommate and I had come across artists like Hijokaidan, Merzbow, and Null due to compilation appearances, but it was very hard to find information about independent bands from Japan. We had a few names, though, so when A.J. from Re/Search was going to Japan for a visit we gave her a list of bands to look for. Pretty much all of the albums she came back with were great (more on some of them later, I'm sure), but YBO2's Alienation was an unbelievable find.

Given the lineup, that's not surprising. YBO2 was a band started by SSE label founder Masashi Kitamura; the lineup went through various changes over the years, and Kitamura even brought YBO2 over to the U.S. for a few shows back in 2004. But this initial lineup is pretty hard to beat, since besides Kitamura on bass and vocals, the guitarist was KK Null (later to found Zeni Geva) and the drummer was Tatsuya Yoshida (leader of Ruins).

Perhaps the centerpiece of this album is the epic opener "Amerika", which includes a pastiche of "Scarborough Fair" dropped into it. Rather than include such a long track, though, I'm posting "Ural" here, the album's closer. Null once said that he was intimidated to join YBO2 because at the time he felt he wasn't a good guitarist, and Kitamura and Yoshida were both very technical players. I'd argue that Null's guitar sound, influenced as he was by No Wave and bands like Swans, was what made this album such an incredible combination of intense textures and prog-pop structure.

Alienation was released in 1986 by TransRecords, the pre-SSE label operated by Kitamura. The album was later reissued on CD by J.A.P. Records.

Listen: "Ural" by YBO2