Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Wii be done

so ive beaten all of the wii games i have, overall they were a lot of fun
even the broken Red Steel where glitches make it so they can hurt you
but you can't shoot them, or you get locked inside an invisible/ transparent
box, then you get the bad ending because you just want it all to end.

Zelda is a ton of fun but same as pretty much every other zelda, too easy.

rayman is fun, and definitely has replay/fun value that neither Zelda or
Red steel have. At least there's always Wii Sports, roll me some bowling balls

so as far as worth playing, Zelda-yes, Rayman-yes, Red Steel - does anyone want my copy?

Monday, January 22, 2007

as usual not much going on right here right now, killing time before i start to get ready for work, hooray, you should however look at Jo's Blog to see some silly pictures of her from when we went snowboarding, the place was decent sized, the weather was warm and the snow, wet and ice chunky in areas, but overall it was a sunny fun day.

that's all for now.

Thursday, January 04, 2007

I'm still alive!

and this will be very, very brief:

pictures from the vacation to Okinawa (Japan's HI)
We went to Naha, Ishigaki, Taketomi, and Iriomote.
We camped for about 5 days, hotel for two and a little
house type thing stay for one.

I have to go back to work tomorrow and right now Jo
is hogging the Wii playing Zelda. here are the photos!

Okinawa Pictures

there are a lot of them and as it went on i got less picky about
which ones made the cut and the descriptions they got

if you are into it check jo's site

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

hankerin for a less civilised spirit

not much to report, in fact a huge lack of things to report.
work is in a rut, although my kids classes seem to doing
better as far as teaching them. the business part is really
just a thorn in my side, super obnoxious. that's life, more
and more often i find myself counting down the days until
July. Funny how things always get into that sort of a pace.

like i said a huge nothing about nothing. So i'll default to
the usual. The Wii is super cool and i highly reccomend it
to anyone and everyone.

that'll do, time to go

Monday, December 11, 2006

shout out from the land of the little people

that is supposed to be referring to Ireland, but Jo kinda missed it
she's ok though, she's testing her Wii Sports fitness level, talking
back to the machine and cursing up a storm as she can't quite pick
off that spare in bowling.

anyway, back to the whole point of this blog:

I hate Verizon Wireless. When i had them i could never pay my bills
or do anything useful online, then when i made sure to cancel before
they automatically renewed my contract by asking the customer
service women 4 times that it would be ok and i wouldn't be charged
after my termination date, i got a bill for the next month, and then i called
to make sure that it was a mistake, and after an hour or so on the line it was
worked out, or so i thought until the same bill came the next month
again a phone call and much wasted time, i resolved it, think they gave me $5
credit. they are still jerks.

which brings me to the real point: Verizon Wireless are jerks

click this link and listen to this guys struggle to explain that he's being
wrongly charged, its the difference between a fraction of a dollar and
a fraction of a cent. check it out, it's long but worth listening to the whole thing

Verizon Wireless are jerks

now i need to give a shout out to the man who brought this to my attention

Thank you Damien Conlon!!

peace.

this stories also on Slashdot

by the way, juice and Bush
what are your Wii numbers

my little Wii plaza is so lonely its just jo and i
and this other guy i made up to add to the mix

dave = 2646 0218 8983 8991

Thursday, December 07, 2006

that's right

wii = awesome,
and not hot dog awesome

awesome.

that is all

Monday, December 04, 2006

wii

so, thanks to multiple people, sister and parents

my wii is in Nagoya, great news.
bad news is that work wasn't open when the fed-ex guy came around

so they left a notice and by the time I found out it was too late to get it
on Monday. which is ok considering it wasn't supposed to be delivered
till tomorrow, tues Dec 5.

first class is 1230 and last class ends at 9, then it'll be playtime.

should be a fun night

take care all

Saturday, November 25, 2006

new rules

starting now you need to register in order to post a comment
don't worry, its free and quick and easy, its just that i dont really
want to hear about how anonymous made $900 dollars last month
on some spam scheme, there wont be any room for anonymous.

so it's easy, click the comments link at the bottom of the post
then click the sign up button, or sign in using a google account
and wallah. its all set and i get to know who is leaving the
comment at the sametime, sorry if this is a pain, but
too bad ^o^
so a certain clare said
===================================
so dave, you know i am just back from your home country ( it says hello by the way) and for all those in new york im sorry if there is nothing left in the shops !!. when we were there it was the run up to thanksgiving, is that something you would have celibrated at home and did you carry on the tradition in Japan ?
===================================

now at home, home being in WI, id goto various relatives' houses and enjoy the feasts that they prepared, if i were in MA id partake in the feast that myself and my amigos had prepared, both amzzing experiences , in japan on the other hand, as there is no turkey as well as no ovens in which to cook them, a small group of Aeon staff etc went to the Outback Stekahouse in Sakae
i know its seems pretty lame, but it was a good time and i had BBQ chicken and a half rack of ribs and some chips ( fries) over all a good time. so hope that takes care of it for you clare, but essentially, as soon as it was halloween it was christmas here as far as the locals are concerned

a certain qualiajunie said
==================================

Davey, I;m up in Maine. It's getting cold. As always, questioning life, and it has given precious few answers. We had friendsgiving last weekend. It was nice, but missing some key people. You should meet me and potter in europe this summer.

Ok, you should see this video if you haven't already.
http://youtube.com/results?search_query=Hurra+Torpedo&search=Search

A~

=========================================================

i looked at the video, and well, why?
thats really all ive got,..... is why?
3 guys banging on old household appliances
correction, 1 guy with a guitar and 2 guys on
appliances, very strange, but comical none the less
and i wonder who taped it as it seemed to be in a studio
so maybe Mr. qualiajunkie can enlighten us....?
regardless, it was great to hear form you A!!!
keep me posted on the Euro events to come!

a DJ N had this
=========================================
DJ N- is picking the bones out of the Turkey broth, just as Renumerator taught him two years ago at 250. But DJ N- has revised the method slightly--by using chopsticks, he can pick out all of the unwanted parts without getting his hands elbow deep in turkey grease. Despite now having a European girlfriend instead of an Asian girlfriend, DJ N- is still very proficient with chopsticks.

Much of the Turkey was consumed yesterday, along with homemade pita bread, Tabouleh, and other traditional multicultural thanksgiving dishes. This was followed by a long night of playing Wii sports, followed by a severe case of Tennis elbow by certain participants.

DJ N- has lately been craving Mr. A's Chili, and would like to know how it's made.
==========================================

1st off, why do you get a Wii and Wii sports and I dont???
well i guess its cuz im in japan and they dont release the Wii till DEC
fair enough.
chopsticks / hashi rock the world, no doubt
take core of that there tennis elbow DJ N
and play some Rayman Raving Rabbids,
it looks uber super duper awesome
style

peace, and keep em comin,

Friday, November 24, 2006

i double dog dare you

so, the fun part about this blog is you get to learn about me
what i'm doing,. where i am, me me me me, blah

I'm sick of me, so start leaving comments about YOU YOU YOU

i dare you

question from renumerator 42

so! one renumerator42 had this :
============================
Davey! What's the weather like? Is it getting cold there? In the old days it was all rice paper walls and charcoal braziers, but I'm sure that's different now. Do you freeze your butt off all the time? Have you seen any cherry orchards and been to the cherry blossom things? (guess that probably happens in the spring).
============================

first, lately its been basically sunny, but it has been getting colder and its been averaging 11 deg C
roughly 50 deg F, so not too bad yet, especially if you were raised in the middle of WI, its nice actually.

Having said that, there is a huge difference between Japanese housing and American, INSULATION, not much in my apartment building, so that means night gets cold
for those of you who know, its like 250 state and then some worse, but i have 2
mega thick blankets and nothing has gotten through em so far, im trying to see how long
i can put off using the heat, yeh, stupid i know, but whatever
so thats that on the current temperature situation

on to the spring bit, yes cherry blossom viewing does happen in the spring
it's called はなみ for those of you who dont see the japanese hiragana
its ha-na-mi, means cherry blossom viewing parties etc. if you've ever been
to Washington DC and seen the cherry blossoms, well, they were a gift from Japan
and its a big deal here and i intend to get in on the fun next spring, We arrived in April
and thats towards the end of the hanami season.
but we did get a nice bit at Nagoya Castle on our first day in japan

one of the lesser defense walls

i know its not the best picture, i'd recommend checking jo's photos
they are beautiful andits great weather.
I've touched on the fact that the Japanese work hard, but they do know
how to kick back and really enjoy life.

so, that was fun, please keep the questions coming, that way, you get to hear things you want
to hear,

SO COMMENT, i won't quote your name if you dont want to
even silly questions could be fun, ask me stuff, why not
its good times! rock out

Sunday, November 19, 2006

jingle

Look kids! it's dave's amazon.com wishlists,
yeah there are more than one, a different one
for each platform, i should say that i dont have
an xbox 360, ps3, or a wii, so i guess you should ignore those
i do have a ds!
happy hunting!

My Amazon.com Wish List



I'm not expecting anything, but its fun anyway!
and dont forget to sort by priority!

this = awesome

crazy fun rabidds

you should watch the videos, looks great, wish i had a wii

Saturday, November 18, 2006

Talia, who i know from back in the day at Hampshire
asked
"ok so heres a cultural question. youre teaching younger kids, right, like elementary school? what are the school like over there? I taught K-6 here for a year and im curious to know...."

funny you ask, im in an after school type conversation school so its nothing like the real deal
but i am teaching an elementary school math teacher "english @ work" for school teachers

so i have a bit of an idea,
==========================================================================
disclaimer::: this is my opinion/what ive
figured out and may not be at all true or real
==========================================================================

first and maybe coolest, all the kids get colored hats, like yellow or green or pink or baby blue
it corresponds to their class and they wear them when they walk to and from school, its cute
especially when you see a huge group on the train, sometimes they say hello and giggle when
you respond, japanese kids = uber cute.
school kids outsdie Osaka Aquarium
and as i learned most schools in japan have pools, they teach swimming in pe during the summer
how cool is that. the school day is pretty early and afterwards kids either have clubs (baseball drama soccer etc)
or goto JUKU (cram school) to prep for school exams which they take to get into the next level of schooling
basic subjects are math, history, home ec, japanese (sometimes Kanji, the cool characters that camefrom china, sometimes
writing/composition) english (focus on grammar and i think often memorizing, not speaking so much)
they have test weeks where everyday multiple subjects are testing and the kids work really really hard
some kids do real school then juku then english conversation then school clubs then home homework tv or games and bed
average up time that ive gathered from my students is 6 and bedtime is about 11, and its pretty go go go during the day
the school week is mon-fri but most kids have clubs juku or english on saturdays

they love their tests and even the youngsters come in to take the jr step, an english measure test

i know this seems like they are all work and no ply but that's far from the truth,
that being said, when you ride the train, adults and students alike are more often than not
passed out asleep, even when standing

back to schools, im terrible at remembering how its laid out but you've got
grades, and jr high, high school and then college/uni
the STEP test is huge here, it measures your ability with English
and step 2 is the big miilestone, there are 7 levels: 5,4,3,pre2,2,pre1,1
5 is the easiest and 1 is college/university level
at level 3, i think, there are 2 parts a written and an interview
its pretty intense

on the flip side there's my school, which is an english prep school
we specialize in conversation but do offer test prep etc
its basic, we do infant through anyone classes
at one point my youngest student was 2
and in december i will have a class of 4 1 somethings and their mothers
for adults we have 2 options, grammar or conversation
i teach 30/40/50 min lessons
today i talked about making complaints, asking where you are going, world religions
nuclear power and its place in the world, " if i were you i'd...", questions with do
and adverbs of frequency, expressing feelings and... that was it for today
youngest student was maybe 8 oldest maybe in their 40's/50's

im not sure if that helped or not, but i hope it did.
ask more questions and get more answers
this is kinda fun!!

Friday, November 17, 2006

say what?

so a certain Ms... wait a second, i do believe she's married now...

anyway a Mrs. Seidel, stated that she checks this ole blog out
fairly often,

well then, who else checks this thing?

ever hear of leaving comments???? well you should

in fact please leave questions for me about Japan

food, drink, clothes, karaoke, customs, language

ANYTHING, especially since no one's ever going to visit

leave question, its always good to hear from people

Thursday, November 16, 2006

dave = slacker

i know i know iknow,

its been ages since a post of any real quality

and it may be ages more

short: we went to osaka 2 weeks ago

it rocked, check joes blog for the skinny

and go here for my pictures

Osaka pictures

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

and here's ...

Makiko, Nana and Mario!

click the picture for more halloween pics

Monday, October 30, 2006

2 words ON SEN

some of you may not know about the world of Japanese

ONSEN!

and its too bad. at the most basic level its like a bath house
but so much more.

On the last Saturday of each month some friends of ours who own a
Chinese restaurant throw a party and its always a great time.

At some point, i think around midnight the idea of going to an onsen
came up, and we piled into the car and off we went
it was great.

first i went into the sauna area that was furnishes with plush soft
carpet rugs and a massive plasma screen tv, i watched soccer, then i
went outside into the open air pools, there were hot, around 40c/100f

then i got up and went back inside and took a refreshing sit down in the
26c/78f pool before trying the 16c/60f and who could forget the room where i
almost passed out and took a nap. it was dark, nice traditional japanese music
a flat rock bed with a lump for your kneck that had warm water running under you
from head to toe
wow
after that i sat down at one of the washing stations and then headed out
where Satoshi and i got a beer from the vending machine and waited for everyone else to get out.

the onsen would have cost 750yen/$6.30 but one of the other guys bought us all tickets.
a great way to spend an evening

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

toyota

work to do, halloween costumes to get ready,

so heres a quicklink to some of the photos from the visit to Toyota City

Toyota Pics

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

spoonman or crazy men with nukes

one of those days really, i'm sick, busy, behind on all that i should be caught up with
have done a complete lack of a scrap of work tonight after work,
just dont want to give in to letting it rule my waking hours again.

the news isnt really comforting, North Korea is equipped to a certian exent and
will retaliate, how did they put it, with merciless blows. and since Japan just happens to
be one of the countries that is A) really close, B) imposing additional sanctions to that of
the UN. Just lets me sleep a little better i guess.

i'm sure itll all work out for the best and worst case, well not really worst case
becuase enough pop-culture knowledge mixed with science has led me to not
really look to the actual worst case. well a flight from NGO to chicago is only 2.5 grand

doubt itll come to that.

guess this is part of the fun, if the us would for some reason decide that it wasnt safe for americans here
then id most likely be the hell out, but i dont know if the irish would do similiar things, this is really just a
rant of the late night exhaustion.

in brighter news, tomorrow ill start my language partner exhange thing,
basically ill help someone with english and theyll help me with japanese
which should be good, im nervous because her English is well above that of my japanese
she's at the level where she can talk about most anything
whereas im limited to hobbies likes and oh wait i cant remember because i forgot everything i
might have learned so far!
hah!

good morning