ya-ha-!

so it's been a good, nearly 4 days since i moved and i haven't gotten to finishing the Hokkaido posts, sorry but i wrote them all at the same time, just gotta sort out the pictures. I've been busy. the new place is super awesome! i f'n love it! it's nice and cool, convenient, and surrounded by nature. there's tons of insects in my 'garden' and last night, i saw a HUGE toad in the front. other than moving, been working, getting stuff for the new place, playing fight night round 4 and call of juarez, celebrating the 4th of July and watching my Frontale come away with a disappointing tie last night...
the Hokkaido posts will be coming soon, but I'm still gonna be pretty busy for the next couple weeks (more on that later) and pretty much for the rest of the month. for now, adieu!

delays...

Sorry about not getting these posts up earlier, just been real busy lately. Work has been busy and home has been busy as mornin and I were looking for a new place and are now getting ready to move... also MJ's death took a toll on me... not sure if I'll be able to put up the last 2 days of the Hokkaido vacation before I move, but I might. If not, they'll be up sometime shortly after moving day, July 2nd! More info on the move after i finish the Hokkaido posts. later,
b

Hokkai-go! day 4

June 5th. the last day in Sapporo was jam packed with action. we (again) got up early and headed to Maruyama Zoo (円山動物園).






it was fairly fun, the walk from the station was nice, the zoo itself was fine, a little sad... a lot of solo animals and all the elephants had died. i did see my 1st タヌキ (raccoon dog) and some other stuff.bad combo...
after zooing out, we grabbed a cab (because it was raining) and went over to the white lover factory (白い恋人). Shiroi koibito is a very famous treat from Hokkaido and it's basically a little sandwich cookie with white (or milk) chocolate. pretty decent, but the factory is set up a bit like a little theme park,no rides, but a kind of animated display about the process of making chocolate and (for some reason) a toy museum with pictures of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa... after the little self guided tour of the factory we went over to the office to have our picture taken for our own box of white lovers (gotta be one of the all time top 10 worst pics of me) and while we waited the 40mins it takes to personalize the tin, we went across the street to a place called Owl's. (click the pic to see it better)Owl's is rad! i highly recommend it if you go to Sapporo. it's named so because the J league team that reps Sapporo (コンサドーレ札幌) has an owl on its team crest. the reason that's important is that the restaurant looks out over Consadole's practice field, kinda where you would expect a press box to be. it's really, really cool! although the team wasn't practicing that day, and the food was just a'ight (i had teriyaki tacos) the location is off the charts! I'd freakin love it if Frontale had something like that!
after lunch, we went back to the factory in an absolute downpour! got our tin of cookies and then bellied up to a cake buffet that mornin was all about! pretty good i must say
after we had our cake and ate it too, the weather had turned beautiful so we took a couple shots amongst the flowers:
we stopped off at the little clock tower (時計台) in town. fairly unimpressive, but historical i guess.
to round out Sapporo, for dinner, we dined at the Kirin beer garden near our hotel where i had crabs!
actually, just parts of one crab... also, feeling pretty bad, i could only muster up about 4 beers :(

Hokkai-go! day 3

June 4th.got up early again and headed to sheep hill observatory (羊ヶ丘展望台) to see some sheep, and then eat them... also saw the famous statue of professor Clark, famous for the quote 'boys be ambitious'.
once we made it back to Sapporo we took a look at the TV tower (テレビ塔) took some print club (プリクラ) pictures, went all up in it, and then strolled through Odori park (大通公園), took a ride on the Ferris wheel (観覧車)and had a cheese packed dinner at Cheese Cheese. we could draw on the table!

Hokkai-go! day 2

June 3rd.
i guess i should mention that the whole trip, i was sick. i had a pretty high fever and a terrible cough. now, nearly 2 weeks later, the fever is long since gone but the cough is still hanging on... but, my spirits weren't dampened! for day 1 in Sapporo we got up early and went over to the Sapporo beer garden (札幌ビール園) to have a delicious lunch and i had some beer! because i didn't feel so well i only put down about 3 or 4 beers (very sub-par for the locale). one of them is only available in Hokkaido, and one of them was only available at the beer garden, the were both pretty good. they also have a museum that was pretty cool and informative, but the cool part was the old style red brick buildings, signature of the frontier days of Hokkaido.after the beer garden we made our way to the Sapporo dome (札幌ドーム) super early to check out the place and get in line.we ended up with pretty good seats (2nd row) and Sapporo dome was pretty decent, wide aisles! but the selection of Carp goods was limited... i couldn't get the road jersey i wanted :( probably gonna have to wait until September.The game was really good, a little back and forth action leading to a 2-2 tie until Brown decided to take Lewis out of the game and our reliever promptly let up 5 runs in the 8th...

Hokkai-go! day 1

how they swangin ya'll? it's been awhile i know, but I've been busy. since i got back from Hokkaido (北海道) first, i bought a PS3 and some games; killzone 2, Afrika, みんなのGOLF5, and ボクの夏休み3. those have taken up some of my time, but the updates and downloads have taken up more (it took around 4.5 hours to download the online golf updates!), PSN sucks! also mornin and i have been looking for an apartment, it's time to move. melvis is apparently looking to move too. enough about that, lets get to why we are here, the Hokkaido trip!

June 2nd.
mornin had to give her graduate thesis presentation (one of them at least) in the morning so sometime in the early afternoon we hopped on the train headed to Haneda 'international' airport (羽田国際空港). i use ''air' quotes' because it's 'barely' international (however it is expanding). to get to the airport we used the monorail, which always reminds me of Seattle, even though I've only used it like twice. we got to Haneda waaay early so we poked around and had a pretty decent lunch, i had a ham and cheese!we had time to get a massage before our flight too! 10min for 200円! not bad.
the flight from Tokyo to Sapporo (札幌) was only about an hour and a half and i actually slept a bit!when you arrive in Sapporo at new Chitose airport (新千歳空港) you realize that you are far from Sapporo! gotta take a train into town and by the time we made it to our hotel near Nakajima park station (中島公園駅) it was nearly 11pm. there were no eateries available around the hotel so we hoofed it to one of Sapporo's most famous districts, Susukino (すすき野). basically the Ginza or Shinjuku of Sapporo. we ended up on a ramen street (ラーメンの横丁) and had to wait a bit to get inside a place called toraya (とらや). it was bitchin!that was about it for the day.

Art Archives vol. 6

I'm off to Hokkaido until the 7th to see some baseball, eat some ramen and attend Tora's (Tigger's) wedding party, so I thought why not take a quick dip into the Art Archives pool? One of my favorites from the BSS days, enjoy, see you back here next week, hopefully I'll have some good pics and stories!

the greatest game ever made!

let me tell you how happy i am... actually, words can't capture how I'm feeling right now. the greatest game ever made, プロ野球チームであそぼう (let's play with a pro baseball team), is up and running! it wasn't until last night that i tried it out. i had tried it on the old Aquos and gave up because the lag made the game intolerable to play. the timing in the game, particularly when batting, is incredibly important. with the new Aquos i figured it would be the same story, however it wasn't. last night, just for fun, i plugged it in and i was off! i love this game so much. I've spent more hours playing this game than any other game in my life. 1st, most baseball games are like the real thing, slow paced. プロ isn't. you can play a normal game in about half the time of something like MLB 2K. there are no replays, cut scenes are few and quick, and the pitcher throws right away. the ball travels quickly and fielding is responsive and because throws and what not aren't canned animations (like every other baseball is) the defensive action is fluid and engaging. one of the best things about the game (and another thing that drives me nuts about 'normal' baseball game) is the camera angles. when batting, the angle is the typical umpire's view but you can also see the catcher's mitt and hand. however, where プロ shines is the defensive camera angles. unlike other games, which just pan out and give you an overhead view of the field making fielding the most boring part of every game, プロ puts you in the action by putting the camera right behind the fielder. if there's a hot shot down the 3rd base line, the camera jumps behind the 3rd baseman and you must react quickly. like real baseball. on a crushed home run the camera goes behind the outfielder as you watch helpless. it's awesome! the only baseball game I've ever played that made fielding exciting. there are so many good things about this game, the fluidity, the pace, the commentary, the atmosphere etc., the single best thing about the game, and only possible on the dreamcast is the pitching/hitting mechanic. when pitching, you look at the VMU to select your pitch then select your location. it's beautiful, it's simple. when playing against a human opponent it's perfect. they can't see where you're aiming! when hitting, after the pitch, the VMU tells all kinds of useful information; pitch location, swing location, swing timing, and power. power is decided by timing. you have to hold down the right trigger to ready your swing just before the pitcher comes forward in his delivery and release to swing as the ball comes in the zone. the better you time the pitcher, the more power you generate. once you figure out a pitcher's timing, you'll be spraying the ball all over the yard. some pitchers have hitches in their delivery that make them really hard to time, just like real baseball. timing. all though the game is now 9 years old, I've never played a better baseball game, and probably another game that I've been so attached to. it's dated graphically, i mean, all the players don't have arms or necks or legs (and that's why it's so fluid) and it's limited to exhibition games, a tournament and a single season mode, but it's perfect. it came out before the exodus of Japanese players to the U.S. so Ichiro (イチロー), and Matsui (松井(both of them, Kazuo and Hideki)) and Shinjo (新庄), and Matsuzaka (松坂) and Sasaki (佐々木) are all in the game along with the best team of all time, the Kintetsu Buffaloes (近鉄バファローズ)! if you can get it, get it!

I`ve done it!

I just googled myself, well, "No Airplay" at least. When I google myself I don`t come up with anything that I would be proud of... I did it, I hit #1! I don`t know how I did it, I guess it`s probably thanks to me. God knows no one else reads this, so following my own links has brought me fame beyond my wildest dreams! #1 on the google rankings! Don`t know if there is anything else for me to accomplish.. maybe this is where it should all end? I guess, might as well just keep plugging along until I reach the coveted Wikipedia page. That spawns the question of which is actually more a nod to "you`ve made it!"? What do you think? #1 result in Google, or your own Wikipedia page? What an age we live in! What a joke of an age that allows my blog to be the #1 result of any search in a world with a population of nearly 7 billion people. In other news, it`s 9 days until mornin and I head off to the great north for a few days of relaxing, drinking beer, eating good food, sightseeing and a wedding party. Also, it is Melting Faces` birthday! Rock! Happy b-day brotha! Cabana Boi! Anyone feeling the Ricky Ricardo vibe? Is that just me?

b?'s E3!

E3 is coming up shortly, actually June 2nd-4th. I'll be out of town so probably can't get too many updates on what's happening, but I'm pretty excited to see what comes about from it. For now, there are 4 games coming out this year that I'm particularly looking forward to.
The only current game I'm thinking of getting is the new UFC 2009 undisputed.
I've played the demo, it's pretty cool, a cross between boxing and wrestling. I heard a bit about it on the giant bomb cast today and watched a review from game trailers and it seemed like it's probably pretty good. I might pick it up this weekend... or maybe when I get back from Hokkaido?
The 1st game I'm looking forward to, Fight Night Round 4, is coming out June 30th. I've been pumped for this game for quite some time as I've been a fan of the series. I played the crap out of Round 2, especially against my brother-in-law, and enjoyed Round 3, but while it took a step forward in the graphics department, I thought that it took a step back in terms of "fun."

Next game on the list that I'm suuuuuuuuper amped for is NCAA 10 on July 14th! What can I say, I've loved this game since the beginning, loved last year's incarnation, but better than last year is the promise of fixed bugs in the on-line fantasy dynasty and the ability (finally, again!) to create your own schools! This was always my favorite part, but it had been taken out of the last couple editions. Welcome back Ellensburg Ragin' Crackers and the Lomita Drunkin' Injuns! Best part of the new "create-a-school" feature is that they are gonna make it available before the game actually hits the shelves. Starting next month, you can go on-line and create your schools and then download them into the game once you get it. I just worry that my two favorite teams won't be PC enough to take on-line...

Red Dead Redemption, Fall 2009. I've talked about this one before, and I'm still looking forward to it.

Finally, I'm very interested to see what comes out of E3 about the new Tony Hawk called "Ride". With its peripheral, it could be great, or it could fall flat...

On a completely different note, mornin and I finished watching the finale of American Idol tonight. It was a good season (not that I can compare it to any other season...) and the guy that I had picked to win it all months ago, Kris Allen, came away as the champion. I feel satisfied. Proven right again!