no airplay

the new site no airplay, check it out.

gonna do it

i've decided to move the blog over to wordpress. it's time, I think
that many things have changed in my life since I started this back in
2006. hey, it happens. I think the blog is gonna take a bit of a
different direction, but just a bit.
I haven't posted anything on the new blog yet, probably get started
tomorrow, and I've decided not to import these posts over to the new
blog. I tried it, but it didn't seem right. think theses posts should
stay here. the new blog is gonna keep the same name and there will be a link on here once I get going over there. pretty easy to find it
though, if you've found this.
talk to you soon, more to come...

this is great if you've never seen it.

another baby!

seems like everyone is having babies these days, this time it's round-
face! his baby is a darling(apoc's is too)! congrats big-daddy!

moving?

I'm thinking of taking this show on the road. I've thought many times
about moving this blog to a different site (mostly wordpress) and in
fact I signed up for a domain at wordpress a long while back but just
never got around to doing it. think there was a slight fear of losing
readers but, hey, who am I kidding? no one reads this. also since I
pretty much stopped doing podcasts I don't really care about trying to
set up a new feed for iTunes. I'm also thinking about not even
carrying previous posts over to the new blog, just starting anew.
we'll see. I'm gonna look a little closer when I get home and decide
what i'm gonna do then. one of the main reasons I'm thinking about
leaving blogger is because the three other sites I had on here (and
dude?'s) are all pretty much dead, but mostly because of the iPhone
integration. I mostly just post from my phone nowadays and posting via e-mail makes it look all funky. also, the blogger app is stupid and I don't want to pay to get the full version. wish I would just pay for a square space account but I really can't justify it.

frontale...

2 games left in the season. today is huge. last week, frontale lost to
the lowly Trinita stoping them into second
place, 2 points behind kashima and just ahead of Gamba Osaka. today Gamba and Kashima play eachother and we are praying that Gamba wins.
but we really need Frontale to play well.
in a year where nearly every team I've ever rooted for has
disappointed me (the huskies still have a shot at redemption if they
beat WSU tomorrow and go CWU!) I need Frontale to win!!!

gamesradar

gamesradar.com is a stupid site. what kind of site would hit you up with an ad before you even hit their homepage? I understand trying to get ad revenue, but save it until I`ve found something on your site that I want to see. stupid. doubt I`ll be back there.

holland???

Who gave the Dutch courts the authority to rule on copyright cases on the internet? just curious...

thanksgiving!

yesterday was thanksgiving here in Japan. didn't know? it's by far my
favorite holiday, love it! unfortunately I couldn't spend it with my
family, (miss you guys!) but I did get to spend it with the wife : )
after a morning out in Hiroo shopping and walking we made it back
home, took a break and got to cooking around 7. I was only responsible for one dish, something I've never cooked or eaten, green bean casserole. normally, I guess, it is made with French fried onions (?)but I don't eat onions so I tried some daikon. it worked alright, ended up a little soggy (think they are supposed to be crisp) but well enough. mornin liked it very much, I thought it could have been better. mornin handled everything else; pumpkin pie, mac & cheese, mashed potatoes, biscuits, cranberry sauce and gravy.
it was awesome!
I ate a ton and gained 2 pounds... gotta work in that. I love thanksgiving! we also watched some Charlie Brown thanksgiving special.
man that animation is terrible!

happy birthday!

congrats to Apoc D on the birth of his baby daughter! and, お疲れ
さま to his wife K for 34 hours of labor!!!

too many games...

It's a hot time to pick up some sweet games. Recently I picked up Borderlands, Fifa 10, Forza 3 and Modern Warfare 2. All of them are highly recommended! Problem is that I don't have time to play all of them. Also I've gotten back into Fight Night Round 4. So much good stuff! Good thing though is that I think there's not really anything that I'm looking forward to between now and the end of the year. I should have over a month, and maybe a bunch of time during the New Year's break, to get my fill.

Chrome/Football

The clock's ticked over to Sunday for me, right around 2:15am now. And it's time for some football!! I've got "the game" (Ohio St. vs. Michigan) going in a Firefox window but I'm writing this in a Google Chrome window. I think I might be switching to Chrome. It's pretty good. I used it briefly after it first came out but kinda fell back into Firefox. But now? There are a couple of things that I still seem to need Firefox for, but we'll see how that all goes. Oops, Mich. just fumbled, TD Ohio St.
This is a rivalry weekend for many schools (biggest one though is next weekend, the Apple Cup!) but the game I'm most interested in is Central Washington University vs. Tarleton State. Now, I'm pretty good with geography but, I've no idea where Tarleton State is... let me look that up... oh, Texas. Well, anyway, it's a big game! It's the second round of the division II playoffs and my school CWU is playing at home and ranked #1 in the country baby!!! Stupid daylight savings has pushed all the games back an hour for me putting the early games' starting times at about 2am and the CWU game at 5am now... I'm not sure if I'll stay up for it, but I may, and the best part is that I can check out the game live through the Penn Atlantic website. I've never watched a game on it before but a couple weeks ago I listened to a CWU game on there. It's great because it's free, but the sound quality was a bit iffy on the radio broadcast, wonder how the video will be... Oh well, go Wildcats!

Man, it's been a long time to post something on here from my computer, it's a bit weird...
couldn't leave without a picture, just looked naked, here's something:

grad

here's a picture from mornin's graduation.
gorgeous!

work?

what's up with my schedule lately? I'm getting worked (pun)! recently
about 2 or 3 days a week (especially Friday) have taken a huge hit.
I'm getting crushed! the late starts are much better than the long
breaks (both today) but, you know what's better than both of those?
money.
my theory is that part of the reason for the current slow schedules is
that the 英会話 (English conversation) industry lags behind the
real economy because most students are locked into contracts often
around a year or so. we are right around a year after last year's
economic colapse now and I feel like I'm being hit now. luckily, I'm
still one of the more popular teachers and I'm still getting more
lessons than most of the other teachers I'm working with but it's
gonna be tough if this continues too much longer. hopefully people's
situations will get better soon and they'll be able to invest in
English again, and of course, I'll get paid! dolla dolla bills
y'all!!! and I won't be so bored...

today's tanakaya haul

the best iPhone app for studying/using Japanese

if you have an iPhone and you are at all interested in Japanese, buy
this app. it's simply called "Japanese." best features are its ease of
looking up Kanji and it can help you study for the JLPT. it's a little
expensive, 2300 yen, but well worth it. I used to use a different
dictionary but I will never again. Japanese has tons more words and
tons more functions an is tons easier to use, get it!

is pepsi out of their ever loving minds?!

yes. the latest in the pepsi flavor series, which has included; ice
cucumber, blue hawaiian, and shiso flavors, comes Azuki Pepsi. this is terrible. by far the worst tasting of the bunch. if you've never had
Azuki (or anko) just imagine dumping a bunch of sugar in a batch of
homemade refried beans, that'll give you an idea of the taste and
texture. it's bad.

So much stuff to catch up on...

that I think I'm gonna skip most of it for now. This is like my "6 months lost" phase. I'm not gonna promise to get to any of it for now, i might, but most likely I won't. Think I'll post some of the better pictures on my phone from so of the stuff I haven't posted about sometime. But I think if I wait to post about what I've missed, I'll never get around to writing anything and this page will be stuck in stasis for a long time. Think I'll just go from here.

I'm pissed that today I don't start work until 6pm. Finish at 9:20. Means that I'm gonna travel 2 hours round trip for about 3 hours of work. Stupid. One good thing i guess is that I have to head into Ikebukuro to pick up a present that I had made for mornin's b-day. Took 2 weeks! Ahhhhhhh!!! Her birthday was actually last Tuesday and I ended up giving her 8 consecutive days of presents. The sad thing is that the best present will only be finished today, nearly a week late, but it will be worth it!In other news, hooked up the old laptop to the TV and now I can watch streaming video stuff on the big screen and it is awesome! Lately I've been listening to more music that I had been. I'd gotten into a podcast only rut for awhile but music is great. I forgot how much good stuff I had. I've also gotten some pretty good new stuff recently. Picked up the new Pearl Jam and Weezer (haven't listened to that yet) and also got a special edition of Pablo Honey that has about 20 extra tracks. It's much like High School again.

I finished playing Uncharted 2 and I must say that that is a really really good game. It's everything that Assassin's Creed could have, and should have been. Highly recommended. I ordered 4 games on Play Asia that I'm waiting for because I was tired of going all the way to Akihabara and being disappointed. Also, the most reliable store for import games has closed. A sad day.
The four games I'm waiting for are:
FIFA 10
Forza 3
Modern Warefare 2
Borderlands

Now some of them aren't out, but I can wait. Don't think I need all of them now anyway, don't have that much free time. I think FIFA 10 should be here tomorrow. Also should be getting Windows 7, hopefully tomorrow and I'm pretty excited to never use Vista again! Don't care if Windows 7 isn't the greatest thing in the world, I just know that it can't be worse than Vista.

Yesterday my sister-in-law (SIL) and her husband (HIL) came over and mornin and I made fajitas for them. Good times! They liked the food a lot and we had some wine and beer (got some Red Hook for my b-day) and played a little Wii.

Kawasaki Frontale sit in first place by 1 point and we are coming down to the end of the season! Next weekend might be my last chance to see them play this year so I think we might be heading over to Todoroki to see them take on JEF united Chiba. SOBs.
Guess that's enough for this post.
later

catchin up!

so I know that there is a ton of catchin up I need to do, namely the
great Silver Week trip, and I'll get to it soon, don't you worry! just
haven't been in a sit down at the computer mode recently, pretty much
only been using it to get new TV episodes, movies, podcasts and to
watch sportscenter lately. probably find time this weekend, maybe not,
but for sue by Thursday next week. another thing on the list is
mornin's graduate school graduation! that was hot! stay tuned!

couple updates

USC won! wahoo!
also, the controversial "finish" to Frontale game was voted on by the
J-league and the game will be played from the point at which it was
stopped! that means with Kawasaki up 3-1! beauty!
last thing is that mornin and I are heading out to meet dude? and his
lady out in Osaka, kick around there for a couple days and thenall
head off to Hiroshima for a couple days. pray for good
weather!