Thursday, May 29, 2008

voll. 25! crap-a-hoy!!

crappy special 25th episode... started with disappointment, and ended with... well, me recording mornin when she didn't know. It's good, but funny! I was droppin' a deuce! and she was f'n around! Thanks to mornin for the song, and no-thanks to dude? for the not-song. And no-thanks to technology for sucking again!!!!!

sleep...


oh sweet sleep,
dost thou not come for me?
am I doomed to lay here,
in this terrible purgatory,
waiting for you forever?

oh sweet sleep,
YOU SON OF A BITCH!


I can`t sleep again... I want to... this is driving me crazy.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

a death in the neighborhood...

so last night mornin and I headed out to dinner and a series of circumstances lead to the decision to visit Gyukaku (牛角). First, last week while listening to PTI I realized it was Memorial Day this Monday so I suggested going out for some Yakiniku, a bastardized version of a BBQ. I had forgotten about it and since I had decided not to go to work that day I had suggested to cook something for that evening`s dinner, but while walking mornin to the station we saw one of the guys from Ramen 526 (ラーメンこじろ) so we decided to scrap the home cooking in favor for some tasty ass ramen. Flash forward to around 9pm when mornin arrives back in Yukigaya and we head over to Ramen 526 to find it closed for the evening, the reason, not sure but probably they ran out of noodles. Oh well, we thought about heading over to the old standby, Soul Food, but suddenly remembering that it was Memorial Day I suggested Gyukaku so we walked over there... to our surprise there were flags outside saying that they were having a closing sale. And on the door, it said that today was actually the day that it was closing... very sad. In Yukigaya there are a few yakiniku joints, but most are expensive, the best around is for sure gyukaku. It`s tasty, and reasonable. And now it`s gone... pretty sad. I`ve been trying to think positive lately (because I am a horribly pessimistic person) so I`m thinking that something good is gonna take it`s place... what could it be... well, we`ve got tons of ramen shops, and a couple good curry shope, there`s a good Italian restaurant at the next station, plenty of decent izakayas... I hope it`s An An, the best yakiniku place in Tokyo... or... don`t know, just something good please!There were tons of discounts, and the place was packed, so I got my fill and then it was over. Bye bye GYUKAKU! Thanks!

After dinner I took a bunch of pictures of Yukigaya, here are some:

Monday, May 26, 2008

vol. 24.5! hooky!

Happy b-day meltin' faces, and Mr. Round-face! Nothing big today, just talking.

Friday, May 23, 2008

gross...

I have terrible gas! I don't know what's going on, but I've had some wicked terrible gas a couple times in the past week... it just smells god awful! just horrible!

On a lighter note, the TV stand that I couldn't get at JUSCO this morning has been ordered! It'll be arriving at my door next Thursday, wahoo! I'm psyched!
mornin and I rocked over to the sento in Ontakesan this evening and it was nice, very relaxing... when u get in. The anticipation, and anxiety of going in, stripping naked and hanging out with a bunch of old Japanese dudes is about 1000 times worse than actually doing it. And chilling in the hot ass (43 degrees C) onsen fed tub is really nice.

I've been going over my iTunes library, deleting duplicate songs (dude? knows what I'm talking about) today, and I've gone up to the Is and I've gotten rid of about 10 Gbs of excess fat, 18 letters left...

Thursday, May 22, 2008

vol. 24! new!

I love this pic! K looks terrified! And why am I grabbing my nuts? This might be "Ruby Soho" (courtesy of: Hiromitsu!)
Intro is cool, but the song part seems a bit quiet... can`t get my balance right... The background music was a bad choice today because it doesn`t really loop, it more stops and starts. Oh well! *sound* answer! new "*sound*"! The song at the end (edited for time) is called "superFUCKingNOVA!" Tragedy at Jusco! Plans for the next couple months, and sooooooo much more!
Reviews include:
Deca Sporta (again)
Wii family stadium
The Link shooting game
computer
router
and something else maybe...

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

三社祭!

Sanja Festival Time!
On Sunday I headed down to Asakusa <浅草>to check out one of the biggest festivals around called "Sanja Matsuri". It`s pretty intense, tons of people! Not too much to say about it, I`m tired... It`s fairly fun, lots of noise, and people walking around, and many O-mikoshi <御神輿>rockin` their way through the streets! Just sit back and enjoy the pics: 

Monday, May 19, 2008

vol. 23! A.O.S. farewell!

Mega-short show today, but I`ll be back on Thursday with some more content for you! New *what`s that sound?* and a song from A.O.S. My voice is very quiet, so it might be the best show ever! And that`s really about it... oh! and background music!

Friday, May 16, 2008

stadiums!

After work tonight I`m gonna go through some old pics and try and make some pan-o-rammas of some of the stadiums I`ve been to, just made one so far, but I`ll put up the other ones later. Click the image for a larger version, it may take a bit, because they`re HUGE!

Skymark Stadium (Kobe):

guess what I hate today... #2

Computers! I hate computers! To be more specific, the complexity of computers that makes them not "just fucking work!" I got a new computer last week and I love it! It`s sooo much faster than my old computer! I love it! It`s got a huge monitor and just works great! The problems however came before and after...
First: sometime last week all of my ESPN podcasts (the ones I listen to/love the most) stopped downloading... Don`t understand why still... dude?`s still download just fine, but I`ve been around on line a bunch and see many other people with the same problem, many of them over here in J-pon. So, for the past week dude? has been gracious enough to send all of them to me, but, I want them to download like they used to! This is not a problem due to the new comp, as it was happening with the old one...

Second: When will microsoft smarten up and make their OSs multi lingual like MAC? It took me forever to get an English language pack for this SOB!

Third: So, I bought a new wireless router for this thing, and it is such a pain in the ass! It`s eaten up hours of my time trying to figure this shit out and still... It seems to work well unless I run a certain little blue frog program and then it just sucks! The internet just becomes useless! And the downloads take forever! AHHHHHH!!!!!

Fourth: I think the creepy German/Belgian/Austrian guy that moved in nextdoor is sucking the life out of the internet! Everytime he comes home it seems that everything slows down... At first I thought he was downloading a ton of shit or playing some on-line game, and I can see a massive monitor through his door window, but it looks more like a music program... maybe he`s making some Euro-beat crap, and just blocking all internet traffic for fun! What a dick!

Fifth: Why are Japanese keyboards so small?

So, no show yesterday, maybe sometime soon, maybe not till next week, don`t know, I spent all my time yesterday trying to get the router figured out. I`m still trying to find a way to get my "on the road" podcast thing figured out. We`ll see... F`n technology!

Thursday, May 08, 2008

vol. 22! Golden Week '08 rambling!

A wicked long recap of my trip during Golden Week '08! Covered Osaka, Hiroshima, and Kobe! That's about it!
One more thing, the retirement of deuce's ring tone :(

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

GW #5: wrap it up...

So, that was it.

A rough tally of things on the trip:
Train Trips: 25 (4 on the Shinkansen)
Boat Rides: 2
Taxis used: 4
Bike Rides: 3
T-shirts bought: 3
Jerseys purchased: 2
Other fan goods: 3
Pictures Taken: 503
Pain pills: 14
Beers: 40ish?
Mario Kart Wii victories (for me): 17 or so
Baseball Games: 2-1

Great Golden Week! Thanks to dude? and Mrs. dude? for their hospitality! Thanks to the cities of Osaka, Hiroshima and Kobe for rockin'! I hope to visit again soon!

GW #4: Kobe-iton~

神戸いとん~
The 5th and final day of the most epic Golden Week in history began pretty early with me screaming in pain from my still lingering sunburn and mornin's futile attempt to ice my arms down, pain, nothing but pain! Made it up and out of bed and then the bad news came pouring in... rain. I think that the chance had gone up to 90% for rain starting around noon (1st pitch was at 1:00). But, like the troopers we are, we headed out of the dude? hole at just before 10am and worked our way over to Sannomiya (三ノ宮)station in Kobe and picked up a couple of things at the Buffaloes team store before searching around the dirty ass area of town for some beer. The first place we (finally) found was a Family Mart that didn't sell beer... luckily there was a Lawson right next door, under construction... so we finally made it to an AmPm and picked up the beer and headed back to the station and then over to Skymark Stadium! We arrived at the stadium at around 12:00 and found our seats pretty quickly, pretty decent seats too. I was immediately impressed by the stadium as it had a much more sophisticated feeling than most stadiums here, it was spacious, and felt very modern, and was surrounded by trees. One other feature was that the space between rows of seats seemed wider so my knees were never being pressed into someones back! The stadium was really, really good! For sure in my top 5. The only negative really was the concessions, it took 40 mins before the game (and through the end of the 1st inning) to get my giant wiener! All-n-all it was really cool to see Skymark, and it was a really good game to see too, as the Buffaloes scored 5 runs in the bottom of the 8th and held on in the 9th for a 6-3 victory! It sprinkled a little around the 8th inning or so, but that was it for the rain... at the game... Here are some pics from the game:
After the game we jumped back on the train and headed back over to Sannomiya station to... STEAKLAND! Yes! This was one of my goals for the trip,to eat the famed Kobe beef (神戸牛), in Kobe! It did not disappoint! Man that shit was good! All the things you hear about it are true, it melts in your mouth, and it is tasty! We went to Steakland Kobe because it was cheap as hell! Well... in comparison to other places at least, I ended up going with the Kobe-gyu Sirloin steak set which came in at 4480 yen. It was all soooooo good! Here's some pics, my favorite is the fat kid looking on while they cook up our steak!
Finally, we headed over to Kobe station and some place called "Mosaic" to do a little shopping, eat some sweets, spill some beer and re-enact the "proposal scene". It was a nice place, very new, and pretty. We didn't get much of a chance to check out Kobe's famed "night view" because we were in a bit of a hurry to get back to the Shinkansen station to head back to Tokyo, and it started raining too, but it was cool, Kobe was very nice (except for the dirty side streets of Sannomiya) and I'd like to head back sometime and spend a bit more time there. Pics:

GW #3: Hiroshima/Miyajima-nanyo~!

広島・宮島なんよ~
Day 3: May 3rd
Day 3 started butt-ass early as I woke up at 5:30 and left the dude? pad at about 6am. I made my way to Tamade station with the rising sun.I made my way to Shin-Osaka station and got on the first Shinkansen that came along... it was packed!
I got to Hiroshima at a little before 9 am and then headed over to the stadium for my first visit to Hiroshima Stadium! I was super excited and made my way to the line after picking up my new Carp jersey. I got in line at about 10am and waited... for a long ass time... in the baking hot sun! Needless to say, I got a horrible, horrible sunburn! I have pretty fair skin and just got scorched. I forgot my sunscreen in my other bag (the one I left in the coin locker at the station) and mornin' didn't arrive with some for me until around noon. The game was great (Carp held on for a 4-3 victory), and the stadium was great, but it was also really hard to enjoy because I was just scorched! scorched! It was really hot all day... I got some good pics, and here they are:
After the game mornin' and I headed over to the hotel, and I took a nap and then we headed out for some aloe and some of Hiroshima's most famous food; okonomiyaki! We went to a place that was in the Hiroshima magazine I had picked up a few weeks back that was pretty close to the hotel called Rei-chan (麗ちゃん). The line was pretty long, but moved fairly quickly, not quick enough for one screaming baby that ended up sitting right across from me... The shit was really good, again, hard to enjoy with my wicked burn... but, here's what it looked like:

Day 4: May 4th
The day started with the sun coming up (=early). We headed over to the department store down the street to grab some medicine and some breakfast before the big day of sightseeing around Hiroshima and Miyajima. God that medicine was great! I woke up in so much pain (by the way, really just my arms hurt. My face and neck and legs weren't too bad, but my arms...) and after taking some medicine, and smearing on some more I was ready to roll! We took a taxi over to the Carp team store to pick up a couple more things and then walked over to Tokyu Hands to get some sandals and a hat for me (I felt wrong walking around in a red Carp jersey and blue Dodgers hat...) and then took the street car over to the A-bomb dome (原爆ドーム). It was really interesting. Lots of tourists, and that's cool, but it was strange to see so many people smiling or holding up their fingers in a #1 sign when they were having their picture taken in front of that building... Here's some pics: After The dome we headed across the river to the peace park and then to the museum. It was quite a heavy feeling. It was a stark contrast between the glorious day, and the flower festival happening all around and the images that we saw inside the museum. A very interesting place, and an amazing 50 yen charge to get in. I was expecting 500, or maybe even 1000, but 50! That's great! I'm not gonna put up anything from the inside (I only took a couple of pictures of the models of the city that they had, and yes photos are ok, no flash though) because you should go see it yourself, but here's a couple of pics from the park that surrounds it: So after the peace park, and the museum mornin' and I took a short break and then weaved our way through the flower festival traffic and headed back to the street car station and headed on our way to Miyajima...

Day 4: May 4th cont.
After a transfer in Nishi-Hiroshima (西広島〉we made it down to Miyajima-guchi (宮島口) sometime around 2pm and headed straight to an Anago-don restaurant to try Hiroshima's 3rd most famous food (#2 is Kaki (カキ)(oysters)) conger eel(アナゴ). It was really tasty! Here it is!:After lunch, mornin' and I boarded a ship and headed over to the island of Miyajima. It's a very short boat ride but pretty cool, you can get a good view of the island's most famous feature, the Torii (鳥居)in the water, on the way in. The island is pretty cool, after you get off the boat, you take a walk through the shopping streets and then you can enter the shrine for a price... don't remember how much it was exactly, but I think it was 300 yen. The shrine was pretty cool, like others, I guess most similar to Heianjingu in Kyoto, except that it's on the water. The only problem (besides the millions of people that were there) was that we didn't get to the place until the afternoon, so it was low tide and the water wasn't actually surrounding the shrine, and not even up to the famous gate (Torii). As the afternoon went on, the tide did begin to come in, but I recommend going in the early morning so that the tide is in, because the place closes at 6pm, before it's really back in again. Next time... Another cool thing about the island is all the deer that are just roaming freely around, and for the most part are cool with the folks. There are some signs up warning people of the deer, but no one seemed to pay much attention to them and I saw many people f'n with them a bit too much. I was hoping for the deer to start a revolution and kick some ass, but on that day, they didn't :( On the backside of the temple is a street leading deeper into the island and you can find bus that will take you to the ropeway leading to the mountain in the center of the island. At the top of the ropeway is a monkey sanctuary! There are also a bunch of other sight spots up there and you can hike up to the top of the mountain, but I wanted to see some monkeys! Didn't happen... We debated for a bit whether or not we'd have enough time to do it and at last we decided to give it a shot. It's only a short ride up, and we thought about just taking it up and back, but when we arrived at the base of the ropeway there were soooo many people waiting! Of course there would also have been tons of people waiting at the top so we bagged it, and got our money back (I think it's about 800-1000 yen for the trip) and decided that something that can be saved for next time! We walked back through the streets and grabbed some Hiroshima sweets called Momiji-manju (もみじ饅頭). The fried one was actually really good! We ordered 2 cream ones and I accidentally got a An (sweet bean paste) and normally I can't stand the stuff but it was actually good, but mornin' and I switched and I ended up with the cream baby! Tasty! We also got some cold ones with some kind of yogurt stuff in them that I didn't care too much for, but oh well. After that we just walked around, took a few more pictures and then got back on the boat and headed for the mainland, then back to the station to get our bags and jump on the Shinkansen headed to Osaka swollen red arms and all!

Hiroshima was rad, except for the wicked terrible sunburn!

I think I'll put out a bonus Hiroshima/Miyajima picture post, with smaller pictures, after I finish the whole trip update. I got tons of pictures from that part of the trip!