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Drop those chopsticks, is that Japanese restaurant serving authentic sushi?:

Officials in Tokyo are offering a worldwide “authenticity screen” for restaurants that purport to be Japanese. The scheme, they say, may lead to an equivalent of the Michelin star system for the world’s 25,000 Japanese restaurants. The kitchens of these establishments will soon be visited by teams of experts, run under the auspices of Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, who will assess the provenance of ingredients and how far they offer a real taste of Japan.

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(Thanks Murdock!)
(Image courtesy of Flickr user drp)

I’ve heard about Google moving into radio sales with adsense. Here is the first evidence I have found of it.

It’s a matter of time before they hit TV sales too.

I am looking for some good blogs on investing money and stocks. If you know of any, email me or simply post them in the comments.

From The Vacationeers
Two young men take a turn down the wrong street view.

I knew it was going to be a wild night as soon as I pulled up to the Houston Toyota Center. As I was driving through the garage, there was a guy in a Motley Crue Girls, Girls, Girls shirt with some kind of bottle wrapped in newspaper. He was already stumbling and it was only around 6:40 pm.

I went to go meet my friend, who was going with me to the concert, in the Hilton lobby. There were a lot of Van Halen fans gathering there, but also folks from the big Mary Kay convention that is in Houston right now. Those two crowds did not mix. Although my friend did hear one of the Mary Kay reps brag to some Van Halen fans that she had seen Night Ranger recently.

Van Halen sold out the Toyota Center, or it sure looked that way. When the band came out on stage, the audience was actually louder than the music. That’s different from last week’s Houston Foo Fighters show.

The stage was pretty simple. I anticipated something bigger for Van Halen. Like most concerts now, part of the stage came out into the audience. There was a massive HDTV screen above the stage so you could see Eddie Van Halen’s playing right up close. You know about 50% of the audience was wondering what he does on the neck of those guitars. He was amazing of course. This was my first time seeing Van Halen, so I have never seen anything like that. WATCH ERUPTION FROM THE HOUSTON SHOW

David Lee Roth had several costume changes including hats. He wore a lot of sparkles because after all he is Diamond Dave. He did a lot of high kicks and flag waving too. He handled vocal duties well. His voice never seemed to go out. It wouldn’t be a DLR performance without a few stories and he delivered. In one instance he started crying after a story from his youth. You can read more about those in his biography Crazy from the Heat.

Alex Van Halen had a good drum solo and Wolfgang played the bass just fine. I had heard they were going to pipe in pre-recorded Michael Anthony backup vocals and I believe that is totally true. I could swear I heard him in the mix.

Originally I wasn’t sure if I would get to see the band. I figured the tour would fall apart before they got to Houston, but it was really a love fest up on stage. David and Eddie were hugging all night and DLR kept praising EVH.

Through out the show I kept thinking about the time I interviewed David Lee Roth at the studios of Rock 101 KLOL in Houston. What an amazing time. READ MORE HERE

And just for those of you who couldn’t make the show, here are some Van Halen song demos:
- Van Halen - Everybody Wants Some!!(Demo Version) 1980
- Van Halen - And The Cradle Will Rock (Demo Audio)
- Van Halen - House Of Pain (Demo)

Let me know what you thought of the show in the comments below.

RELATED
Van Halen gives, feels the love in Houston

(Image courtesy of Flickr user The Dark Wizard - *image from San Antonio show)

Once again the mighty news media empire calls out for a tech expert and Houston’s Best Tech Geek responds to the call!
Jeff Ehling wanted to come by and interview me for a a story on ABC 13 (KTRK) about about the new music service Qtrax that claims to be offering free and legal music downloads […]

I just sent this one out on Twitter and thought I need to put it on the blog too. This clip is all over the Internet at this point and I can’t get enough of it. I can listen to it over and over.

It’s one of David Lee Roth’s clean vocal tracks from the Van Halen song Runin’ with the Devil. That’s right, there is no music, just him. Some find it to be pure comedy, which it is.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

These vocals do not match up to the album version of the song so I guess these are not the originals.

I can’t even imagine the amount of remixes that are about to hit the Web using these David Lee Roth vocals. Some with talent could mash him into oblivion!

And oh yeah, Scott Weiland and the boys from Stone Temple Pilots are having a reunion tour this summer!

(Image courtesy Flickr user Taylor Player)

The 2008 Houston Auto Show is going on and Friday I took some pictures from the show floor. I focused on the Texas Debuts and concept cars. The Transformers Chevrolet Bumblebee Camaro is even there.

CLICK FOR 2008 Houston Auto Show pictures

Back in the day when I was doing Wake Up And Smell The Coffee on KPFT I discovered a band called Bongos, Bass and Bob which featured magician Penn Jillette on bass, and his friends Dean Seal on bongos and Rob Elk on guitar.
The album was called Never Mind The Sex Pistols and featured a […]

Where is meteorologist Kristine Kahanek of Dallas Fort Worth’s CBS 11 KTVT? She is not on the 10pm news anymore according to Uncle Barky. Larry Mowry of Orlando now handles weather on that show.

Barky says Kahanek is still on KTVT’s early shows.

Here is some trivia. Kristine Kahanek and I both worked at KXXV in Waco, but not at the same time.

(Image courtesy of NWAS)