my bum knee and a semi failed T.O.C.

so it's been a few weeks since i went ice skating and suffered a stupid knee injury causing me to refrain from jogging until it healed. it had progressively gotten better and for a couple of days i thought it would be back to 100% shortly. however, starting Friday night and continuing through today the pain is back... f.
on a lighter note, i had no real plans yesterday so i decided to get drunk and what better way to do so than to play video games while i did it. thus the T.O.C. was proposed and i accepted. this time's T.O.C. was a bit different than normal seeing as i wasn't restricted to sports games. this time i chose to play all the games i haven't yet finished, which amounted to 10 games in all. here's the games:the tasks varied from completed levels to number of races to challenges etc. i didn't complete my mirror's edge task because i got stuck again and i ended up skipping fable 2 because after a fantastic tortilla soup dinner, made by mornin, i apparently passed out for a couple hours on the couch, oops. i totally don't remember lying down... i did end up finishing 8 tall boys and 8 challenges+. however i think i gave up on assassin's creed too because i got totally lost about what i was doing, oh well, at least i made some progress in some games that i haven't been playing really. i think that starting tonight I'm gonna get down to business with fable 2 and get that shit done! it's just so hard for me to get into RPGs... I'll try.

did you ever know that you're my hero?

OOOOOOOHHHHHHH baby! Did you hear the news? My idol growing up(aside from Edgar Martinez and Steve Largent) has returned! Like Moses! Like N.K.O.T.B.! I'd been following the story for awhile and last I knew he had basically inked the deal with the (hated) Braves... but it's not so now! So here he comes, back to Seattle, bring back memories of the Kingdome, the yellow "S" on the cap, and the '95 miracle season. Did that 2nd picture make you cry a bit? Oh wait, who dat cheater hanging on my man?
F the Yankees by the way!

really?

so Austen Powers is a person's name? And he's playing ball out of that Sea-Town? Obviously he wasn't named after the movie character, "Austin Powers," but I can't tell if this is a cool thing, or is it really lame?

episode... feb. 17th

an epic break today. but it was actually an hour shorter than I thought, good thing I went back to work early! Disappointment all around, didn't get a jersey (Lions) and didn't get my tickets (Frontale). I did kill some time though.
Here's my sweet new dictionary!

yo

This morning I made a sweet design for my board that I can use in Skate 2.I haven't been able to get it to go actually in the game, but I'll work on it tonight.

I also finally got that elusive picture of a guy with his boots outside his pants. What a jerk!I actually got this picture a few weeks ago, but just got around to putting it up now.

建国記念日 rocks!

This year's 建国記念日 was off the chain! I got up early because I had to work (boo!) and mornin got up even earlier, she had to cook. She made a very nice traditional Japanese breakfast consisting of natto (納豆), rice (お米), miso soup　(みそ汁) and some salmon　(鮭) (for me).After breakfast I headed off to a boring day at work where I tried to convince all of my students to celebrate the holiday like myself to mixed responses. I also wore a silly 鉢巻き that says "神風." No good pics of that though.
6 o'clock came and I was out the door and off to 新大久保 for the evening's rock! Envy was playing and they played hard! They sounded great, the sound system wasn't the greatest and the place was tiny! But once my ears were a bit numb, it all sounded a bit better. They played for about 2 hours, a lot of old stuff too. The place was a little strange and the stage wasn't very elevated so it was really hard to see anything going on on stage if you were more than 3 people back. At one point in the show the singer said something funny as I was taking a drink and thus I spit water all over the people standing in front of me, sorry! The show was really really good and I can't wait to see them again in April!Yeah, that's the best/only picture I took of the show.
After the show it was back to tradition and mornin and I headed to 五反田 to hit up the standing sushi bar. It was really good and I tried a bunch of stuff I haven't before. Here was some of the goods:Finally we headed off for カラオケ and rocked out for a bit, but I lost my voice a bit from screaming at the concert and then after my first couple songs so I couldn't really sing near key for most of the night.
It was a good day.

Amongst the Bamboo

I think it's about time to introduce you all to a new character in the Yukigaya family. He's probably the biggest pimp in all the land, and for the sake of argument we'll call him T-fizzle. He's probably un-employed, think he's retired but he's the only person that can rock long-johns all day then throw on a turtle neck, some slacks, grab his cane and hit the town for the evening and not come back until the weeeee hours. I know all of this because we share a schedule. Don't know why, but I see him about 50 times more than anyone else in my building. Nearly every morning he's rocking (struggling in) the bathroom when I am also there. I see him all the time, I always feel the need to buy him a fedora and a gold chalice.
Here's to you T-Fizzle!

Oh A-rod!

So we all know that "A-Rod" is probably the worst name in all the history of nicknames but did you also know he used steroids? If you didn't, you're silly. Oh A-Rod, you should have just stayed in Seattle.

it's days like today...

It's days like today that make me hate my job. I arrived at 1:00 to find my schedule half empty. Well, more than half empty. I'm scheduled from 1:20-10:00 and during said time I have 6 classes. That equals 240 minutes of lessons. That's terrible. I'm dead bored already. It doesn't help that of my 6 lessons, there is not a single student that I find "interesting." There are several nice students, but they are far from personality having. Such a shit-storm of a day. Half my classes are finished for the day, in the middle of a 3:20 min break... I almost recorded a show, but as I took the recorded out of my pocket I realized I had nothing to talk about. Seriously. Just been playing games a bunch, cooked some sweet pizza the other day. Mornin made some sweet Mexican yesterday. Yup. I am psyched for Wednesday. It's a national holiday (建国記念日) which is my favorite holiday in Japan, see this post to find out why. This year I have to work. Normally we have national holidays off, but this time our boss said we could stay open because it's been pretty slow this year. At least I get off early, and after work mornin and I are going to the ENVY show in Shin-Okubo (新大久保), psyched for that! The next 2 days aren't so break heavy so at least I'll be making some paper.

superbowl sunday-monday

The super　bowl has come and gone, almost a week ago now, and i thought it was time to getting around to what happened.
my super bowl started around 7:00 Sunday evening, i started drinking. i didn't stop drinking until about 15 hours later. around 10 that evening melvis showed up and we went to an an with mornin. about an hour later, mr. infidel came around, already blitzed, and after finishing dinner we headed back to the pad, played some games (winning 11 demo, bomberman, ncaa, nhl 2K9, let's tap etc.) drank a bunch more and waited for kickoff. although the plan was origionaly to stay up all night, i was the only one who actually did, i knew i wouldn't wake up if i took a "nap." i did get the chance to take a couple candid pics and to see a nice sunrise.











shortly before kickoff, i woke everyone up and the boys all went to McD's for breakfast then we headed back for the game.The game itself was pretty good. 3 quarters of it were somewhat uneventful, save for Harrison's int return at the end of the 1st half, but the 4th quarter was very exciting. i almost nailed the score (1 point away) but i chose the wrong winner (actually i thought pittsburgh would win, just was pulling for the cards). there were some questionable calls in the game, but the most astounding one had to be not reviewing the final cardinals play. even if it remained a fumble, you gotta go under the hood on that one... Probably the worst part of the super bowl was the horrible, horrible color commentary by Sterling Sharpe (I think that's who it was). What a tool. I venture to say, he was on par with John Madden.
>next i took a good, long nap! after getting up, mornin and i went over to akihabara so i could pick up winning 11 09 (pro evolution soccer 2009) and skate 2. both games are awesome! i highly recommend them. mornin and i created a team and have been playing 3-4 league matches a night since we got it. it was a rough start, but our last streach has been good, 4-1-0. currently in 4th place baby! dude? and i have been playing skate 2 quite a bit too, Thursday night i went to bed at 4am. there you go.
Addition:
This year (since I came back from Seattle) mornin and I had been tracking the NFL standings using a kind of board and helmets that I got while I was home.One by one, teams that didn't make the playoffs, or got taken out in the playoffs were doomed to spend the off-season in "the closet!" You don't want to go in the closet, you shan't return... until about August. The only helmet that gets to stay out all year is the Steelers', and it gets to ride on the head of Buddha.

...

you know, I don't want to sound conceited or elite or anything like that but after viewing peoples' photos on site such as facebook, I've realized that either people don't care what pictures they post or that they just have no sense of what a good picture is. Just a social commentary. Learn to take a picture. I know that my pics aren't the cream of the crop, usually because I know I should crop them, but I'm too lazy, but seriously people!

a difficult Super Bowl ahead...

So I've been debating, and deliberating all week. The Pittsburgh Steelers vs. the Arizona Cardinals match-up tomorrow is one the most difficult picks I've had to make in a long time. There are reasons for, and reasons against both teams. Almost all of them are emotional for me. I don't care about the skill of the teams on the field, that's what ESPN is for. I just want to figure out who I'm rooting for...

Pittsburgh Steelers
The good:
As a kid, much like many of my generation, I was a fan of the Steelers, namely because they won the super bowl the year I was born. As I got older, I still liked them, especially because they had the last "great" white running back, Merril Hoge. Not that I didn't like African-American or African running backs (I was a huge fan of Walter Payton, Barry Sanders, Bo Jackson and Christian Okoye just to name a few) but it was that I was a white kid who was dying to be a running back in the NFL at that time. I thought I had a shot. I've always thought that the Steelers organization was good, and the coaches that they've had have all been very respectable. I love Heins Ward, I love his passion. I love the way he plays the game.
The bad:
The Steelers beat the Seahawks in Super Bowl XL. That's it. That is pretty much unforgivable. Oh, they also have the dumbest mascot in all the land.

Arizona Cardinals
The good:
Oh, this is tough, think I should say the bad first.
The bad:
The Cardinals suck. I've never liked them very much. They are also in the same division as the Seahawks and until this year, they were a doormat. I really appreciated that. This leads me to the good...
The good:
If the Cardinals win, it will be that much sweeter when the Seahawks beat them next year. I really like Larry Fitzgerald.
The bad:
If the Cardinals win, they will have done it before the Hawks...

who to choose...
I normally root for the underdog...
I would love a tie...
man I can't decide...
I really just want a good game, but I guess, if I have to choose...
OK, 26-23 Cards... Don't know if I'm actually rooting for them though.