N&G Secret Santa 2024

Would you be interested in participating in Secret Santa this year?

  • Absolutely

    Votes: 27 77.1%

  • Obviously

    Votes: 4 11.4%

  • Affirmative

    Votes: 4 11.4%

  • No, I am the Grinch

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    35
  • Poll closed .
Waiting on something that should be here tomorrow and then to wrap and ship. I also still have to pack and ship pifsgiving stuff and should get everything out by Monday.

Grading finals has taken my time, but my wife is about to strangle me because of all the mailers sitting by my office for packing.
 
Santa's sleigh stopped by! 🛷🎁

The package contains:

Ippu-Do (一風堂) - Night Mirage
Toshiki Kadomatsu (角松敏生)- Touch & Go

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I'm unfamiliar with either of these albums specifically. However, I am familiar with Kadomatsu's more prolific releases After 5 Clash and Sea is a Lady, with the latter being one of my top10 city pop records. I will go into the Ippu-Do record blind and not look at genre tags ahead of time.

Seeing that both of these are original releases (neither have ever had reissues), I am very pleased that these are in immaculate shape, in all aspects. Jackets are flawless with sharp corners, OBIs present with no wear, original inserts and JPN inners included also with no wear, and vinyl LPs that look like they came off the assembly line yesterday. It is often difficult to find all of these to be the case for an OG city pop/boogie record, so the effort gone to sourcing these doesn't go unnoticed.

As for my Santa, I don't know who sent this to me. Reveal yourself please, and thank you for the records!
Fun fact: Ippudo is also the name of a ramen chain! It originated in Fukuoka (福岡) with four locations in the city, and 46 others throughout Japan. I remember passing by one location when I was in Yokohama (横浜) this year.
 
One of my Records is on its way, not sure how long that will take but we shall see.
A second offering will be posted by myself in the next day or so.
In the meantime i received a second surprise a few days ago, collected from Piccadilly Records Manchester Uk. I was about to start a long take on how the record has been gifted to me and should be in my name. When theSupervisor popped his head around the corner and said “are you Richard Byers?” i took the order !
So nice personal touch in store. 👌
It was nicely bagged up so i’m gonna open and post this one in a couple of weeks closer to the date…… ooooh some added suspense.
 
When your informed delivery page includes packages that you are unsure if they're something you ordered, your wife ordered, or Santa sent your way...

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Rip_City said:
Santa's sleigh stopped by! 🛷🎁

The package contains:

Ippu-Do (一風堂) - Night Mirage
Toshiki Kadomatsu (角松敏生)- Touch & Go

View attachment 220755


I'm unfamiliar with either of these albums specifically. However, I am familiar with Kadomatsu's more prolific releases After 5 Clash and Sea is a Lady, with the latter being one of my top10 city pop records. I will go into the Ippu-Do record blind and not look at genre tags ahead of time.

Seeing that both of these are original releases (neither have ever had reissues), I am very pleased that these are in immaculate shape, in all aspects. Jackets are flawless with sharp corners, OBIs present with no wear, original inserts and JPN inners included also with no wear, and vinyl LPs that look like they came off the assembly line yesterday. It is often difficult to find all of these to be the case for an OG city pop/boogie record, so the effort gone to sourcing these doesn't go unnoticed.

As for my Santa, I don't know who sent this to me. Reveal yourself please, and thank you for the records!
Fun fact: Ippudo is also the name of a ramen chain! It originated in Fukuoka (福岡) with four locations in the city, and 46 others throughout Japan. I remember passing by one location when I was in Yokohama (横浜) this year.
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Santa checking in. Glad you like em!

This was a fun deep dive for me. I have some city pop records (mostly the LITA comps and some albums from the YMO crew), but nowhere near the knowledge of the genre that you do. I basically just looked up “best city pop albums” lists, tried to find stuff you didn’t already have, and then listened myself to make sure I enjoyed it and could vouch for it, and then made sure it was available in good condition. I discovered a lot of great stuff in a short time this way, so overall very enjoyable for me, too!
 
D Jilla said:
View attachment 220860
Santa checking in. Glad you like em!

This was a fun deep dive for me. I have some city pop records (mostly the LITA comps and some albums from the YMO crew), but nowhere near the knowledge of the genre that you do. I basically just looked up “best city pop albums” lists, tried to find stuff you didn’t already have, and then listened myself to make sure I enjoyed it and could vouch for it, and then made sure it was available in good condition. I discovered a lot of great stuff in a short time this way, so overall very enjoyable for me, too!
Click to expand...
Saw your response ~90min ago, but couldn't respond right away as I was DJing at my closest LRS.

Some of those deep cut city pop records are excellent surprises, with many of them < ¥1200 (~$8 USD) in Japan for VG+ condition OGs. I took a chance on a few this and last year without listening to audio and most were great. I'll be sure to do this again at the turn of April next year in Japan when I have some time to explore alone outside of our group of four. I'm sure the two you've selected will fit my library just right.

Thank you again.
 
Hemotep said:
The wife came home with some wrapping paper for my Santee that she said had cute little blue Christmas trees on it.

Reader, the wrapping paper is covered in dreidels. So that's how you'll know I was your Santa 🤣
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Reminds me of when my brother moved from California to Kentucky and commented to his neighbors about how surprised he was with the number of Jewish people there were in KY due to all the Blue and White lights. He got an odd look, and had to be explained to that it was for the University of Kentucky.
 
Hemotep said:
The wife came home with some wrapping paper for my Santee that she said had cute little blue Christmas trees on it.

Reader, the wrapping paper is covered in dreidels. So that's how you'll know I was your Santa 🤣
Click to expand...
As a Jewish person, this is both funny and familiar.

I grew up in CT and a town with a reasonable Jewish population. As I got older and went more places (especially the south and middle America), it sometimes felt like being an ambassador and explaining the basics. Even more so as I had to explain the ethno-religious aspect and that although I am an atheist I am still culturally Jewish (note: I did not grow up an atheist but rather in a conservative Jewish household so the high holidays, Hebrew school, and a Bar Mitzvah were very much a part of my experience).

I did get a little cheeky with it sometimes. In my early 20's I worked with another young person from a small town in Oregon and told her that the main difference between Judaism and Christianity was that we don't refer to God by that name but rather by the name "Beezlebub". She believed me. I had a superior tell me that I should properly correct her lest she go around insisting that Jews worship Beezlebub.

Any way, that wrapping paper mix up is probably the funniest thing I heard today. To be fair, I spent all day writing a paper for work from home so the bar was pretty low. To be even more fair, my significant other fully pissed her pants today leaving the subway on the way to work. Officially, to be supportive, I cannot admit that was actually the funniest thing I heard today. Officially. So dreidel paper it is.
 
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