A Quiz to Shake those Day After Labor Day Blues (courtesy of Soozanna):

1. What’s the word that rhymes best with abalone? Macaroni? Bologna? Welsh pony?
2. What territory became a state on September 9, 1850?
3. What monarch was born on this day (September 7th) in 1533?
4. What does the 57 on the Heinz Ketchup bottle represent?
5. How do you say flower bridge in Cantonese?
6. What rock floats in water?
7. And the ultimate, most important question, which I myself cannot answer and will make it my personal quest to find the answer to:

Mister Rogers would come home after work with a suit on. After entering his house, he’d put on a sweater. Where was he coming from, i.e. what was Mister Rogers’ day job?

If you can be the first to answer the last question and provide quality references, I will proclaim you to be Random Ninja of the Month and make you a cake with that as icing. In whatever flavor you’d like.

- Soozanna

Feel free to post your answers here: http://www.facebook.com/randomninjas

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Random Ninjas will be rocking out at the Festival of Philippine Arts and Culture on Sept 11 – Saturday @ 4PM! Make sure to come early and help support the festival!

The festival will be at Point Fermin Park which has a breathtaking view of the coast toward Santa Catalina Island. We are playing on the Generations Stage.

Details
What: FPAC 2010
Stage: Generations Stage
When: Sept 11 – Saturday
Where: Point Fermin Park
Address: 807 Paseo Del Mar, San Pedro CA 90731
Random Ninjas Time: 4:00PM
Festival opens at 10:00AM
$7

For more info on the festival, go here: http://filamarts.org/fpac

See you there!!!

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Hello everyone,

I hope you guys are all doing well. It’s been a pretty slow month for me so I thought it would be a good time to reflect on this first half of the year.

If I can remember everything that has happened so far. I think so far in 2010 we’ve had a pretty productive year. Many first for us, going through calendar I noticed we had our first gig at Hot topic, our first trip to Austin TX and our first gig at the House of Blues on Sunset and recently our first gig at Universal City Walk. I think that’s pretty good for the first half of the year. I think playing at the House of Blues has to be my favorite so far with City walk coming in a close second. Awesome sound and stage at both venues.

Also in the first half we’ve managed to do another music video and go back to play at a few shows in Vegas again. And if we didn’t have any of that going on we managed to fill some of those weekends with Ninja Ballz shows. Kind of hard to believe we did all that in half a year. It will be interesting to see whats in store for us for the second half of the year. We already have our show at the Keyclub coming up so it already looks like the second half of 2010 will be as busy and exciting as the first.

- The Yusuke

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The 98.7FM Rockstar FINAL BATTLE is upon us!

Random Ninjas will be rocking out at the Keyclub at Sunset Strip Music Festival (SSMF) on August 28 – Saturday!!!

We will be drawing for our timeslot on Saturday so we won’t really know when we’re playing until then. It will be sometime between 1pm and 4:30pm.

Unfortunately, there are no single venue tickets. You have to buy the full festival tickets if you want to go. http://www.sunsetstripmusicfestival.com/tickets/

If you are already going to the festival, make sure to stop by!

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About SSMF: http://www.sunsetstripmusicfestival.com/

Sunset Strip Music Festival 2010 artists:
Smashing Pumpkins
Common
Travie McCoy
Semi Precious Weapons
Steel Panther
Neon Trees
And MANY MORE!

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Hey Everybody!

The land of Random is buzzing with busy-ness. Between shows, writing new music, band practices, realities of living, and all that good stuff, we finally shot an official music video for “Tomorrow”. This song is from our first EP that we released last year. Buy it! (you know you want to heh) It’s on Amazon or iTunes.

This music video project is a big band effort, and I’m just the small guy who makes sure it moves forward. I’m grateful to have band mates who give great support.

Anyway, I will talk about the project within my perspective, and I’ll break it down by month. Nothing too specific, but it will give ya’ll an idea.


Late April 2010:
I basically had an idea that’s really simple. Establish the band. I usually do that for first videos to let people know who’s who in the band. My second videos usually get really random.

May 2010:
I started inquiring in my network pool who would be down to help me out. Since we don’t have the money to have too many people on board, I made a list of people who are really reliable and have actual experience. Being a performer, director and producer of this project, I definitely needed a DP. So I set out to find a DP, video editor, multi-role positions, and an operations management team. I’m glad the people that I initially inquired with were down to help me with this project. I even ended up with 2 DPs!

June 2010:
I started looking at potential studios that won’t break the band budget. Personally, I started saving money by cutting back on everything. Band-wise, we cut down on spending application fees for festivals, sending demo packages, and what not. All that stuff adds up. I was pretty happy with the studio we ended up renting.

July 2010:
I officially kicked off the pre-production meetings. I do my best to make sure to put a team together that would have good synergy. Fun is very important in everything we do. If we can’t have fun with these projects, then there is no point in doing them. So anyway, I presented my treatment for the video, and talked about all the issues(technology, budget, logistics, etc..) that might come up. We went over the storyboards(courtesy of AK) to see what is feasible. I do everything I can to solve any potential issues, because I know there will be issues on actual shoot day. I want to minimize them as much as possible.

August 2010:
Shoot day finally came last Saturday. Incredible fun, mental stress and physical fatigue all came to play. Although we were initially delayed in schedule, we ended up being 2 hours ahead of schedule. Having a great crew really helps. Thank you awesome crew! I would also like to thank our friends who showed up to be in the video!

Post production will start soon. I will probably have some behind the scenes documentary up sooner or later. As for the music video, there is no set release date yet, but it will be sometime in September!

- FMN

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Random Ninjas performing “Midway (on either side of the turnpike)” at CityWalk.

Lyrics:

“Midway (on either side of the turnpike)”

Each day he looks across the road
Thinking his life is dull and old
He’s feeling like he might implode
A victim of his own zip code.

She stands across the way and sighs
Watching her life eke slowly by
Too tired to try and to defy
She has to change and start (to fly)

Direction is only one way to progress and (just fly)
Selection the means to the ends (just fly)
Put one foot before you and watch for the semis (just fly)
You know you don’t want to stop
It’s just across the street

A bridge made out of reverie
Brings them together where they meet
Giggling of rainbows and retreat
Floating along above the street

He grabs her hand and they float by
Moving along the open sky
Waving to some, saying goodbye,
At least they now know how (to fly)

Direction is only one way to progress and (just fly)
Selection the means to the ends (just fly)
Put one foot before you and watch for the semis (just fly)
You know you don’t want to stop
It’s just across the street

She sees chimeras in her path
Visions of smoke and fire and wrath
She fights back leaving them to rot
And knows she can be what she’s not

The truth may not be what it seems
Fairytales may be too extreme
But now they know what’s in the sky
At least they now know how (to fly)

Direction is only one way to progress and (just fly)
Selection the means to the ends (just fly)
Put one foot before you and watch for the semis (just fly)
You know you don’t want to stop
It’s just across the street

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Hello ninjas and ninjos!

I want to thank everyone who supported us last Friday at 98.7FM’s Rockstar band competition at Universal City Walk. None of us were expecting to win at all. Yusuke and Cali already took off for the night, Full Metal Ninja, Sooz, Doug and Joey were hanging out with their friends while watching the remaining bands, and I was just walking down from the food court when they called us on stage.

YAY! We finally won something!

The final battle will be at the Sunset Music Festival on August 28. We want that prize!! hehehe (and I want to see Smashing Pumpkins too, weee…).

Hope to see you there!

- Agent Katchu

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We would like thank everyone who supported us at the 98.7FM Rockstar Contest! We now move on to the final battle at the Sunset Strip Music Festival on Aug 28!

Special thanks to the Street Shinobi Team! You ninjas rock!!!

The final battle will take place at the Keyclub!

More info to be announced.

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Dear Apple,

I spent a lot of money on my iPod years ago when the Video iPod was the newest thing and it cost nearly $500 (almost 400 euros). Now that the sound isn’t functioning on it, I am not sure the 10% discount you offered (or the replacement unit for $170) are really very interesting options.

Sincerely,
Dissatisfied Ninja

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Dear AT&T,

I know you’re upset that I changed service, but maybe you could leave the number on long enough to let me port it. Or at least tell me the actual time you’re shutting off my service. Thanks for the future consideration.

Best Regards,
Out of a Phone Number for 2 Days Ninja

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Dear Delta,

Please check if your tail light is working before we board the plane next time. Thank you.

Yours Truly,
Just Trying to Make It Home Ninja

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Dear Chevy Malibu driver,

It wasn’t very nice of you to rear-end me. Now my neck hurts all the time. You should avoid such occurrences in the future or get your brakes fixed.

From Russia with Love,
Injured Ninja

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- Soozanna

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Hey Cali here,

The 4th of July weekend was quite busy. Sure we’re all relaxing enjoying the long weekend only to go back to work on Tuesday, for me.

The past heat wave we all experienced was enough to prevent me from honing the ninja skills in the art of percussive excellence. Nevertheless I need to muster the strength and stamina to decimate the competition for next week’s Universal City Walk battle!!

Hope to see you all there.

Cali

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