see you japan

well, so far ive manged a less than amazing grasp of the japanese language and now im moving on to another one, thats right I've almost got the Korean vowels down!
why you ask....?
Jo and I are going to Seoul for 8 days in early may.

me likes vacations

rumble

earthquake today in the low 7's on the west coast of the main island. Jo and i felt it, but everything in our areas seems fine.

we're ok

thank you nipon biru

that's right, all thanks to my good friends asahi and enjuku i have been spotted once again by those rat... well they dont have a russian accent, but im in russia, i think. Oh right, I'm back into Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and im playing rather sloppily right now, which means im typing on a little thing i like to call alert-evasion-caution break. For those of you who don't know MGS is a tactical espionage type game, with heavy emphasis on stealth as you main weapon. Needless to say im not so stealthy right now!... so imagine a large chunk of time went by.
any way check out the photos from Kyoto, some nifty night shots















not sure where any of these are from?
enjoy

check more @ my pics

four?

Things have been quiet on the home front...

only heard from one person about the onigiri...
ah well...

so this time itll be mellow.

so this one is great for anyone who has to travel a lot, as long as you aren't driving.
item one - nintendo DS Lite

i know i know, you don't like games
well, this is where it gets fun.

first game: Elite Beat Agents

this one is a rhythm action game i guess.
you tap or drag along the touch screen to the song following numbered spots, the game has a good number of songs and varying levels of difficulty. The way it works is you find a help spot on the globe and then you watch a comic book style depiction of how someone gets into trouble, whether it be a pug who falls asleep on a pickup truck who wakes to find himself miles away from home or an oil tycoon who needs to rebuild his fortune. The pre-story alwasy ends with the character yelling HELP!!, that's when commander Kahn dispatches the Elite beat agents who jetpack, zeppelin, car, bike etc off to the rescue. During the song there are little story bits playing on the top screen that change depending on how you do touching the numbered circles on the bottom screen, which is where the EBAs are dancing up a storm! The comics scenes are really funny, sometimes a bit rude humor but other than that over the top super fun for all ( rated E for everyone: crude humor, cartoon violence, suggestive themes and lyrics, thanks ESRB!!) This is one of Nintendo's Touch Generations games which means the gameplay focuses on touching and not buttons. you can play this one without touching a single button. It is so so so much fun, here's the track list, keep in mind none of these tracks are by the original artists, but it's not the end of the world.

1. Walkie Talkie Man - Steriogram
2. ABC - Jackson Five
3. Sk8er Boi - Avril Lavigne
4. I Was Born to Love You - Queen
5. Rock This Town - Stray Cats
6. Highway Star - Deep Purple
7. Y.M.C.A. - Village People
8. September - Earth, Wind and Fire
9. Canned Heat - Jamiroquai
10. Material Girl - Madonna
11. La La - Ashlee Simpson
12. You're the Inspiration - Chicago
13. Survivor - Destiny's Child
14. Without a Fight - Hoobastank
15. Believe - Cher
16. Let's Dance - David Bowie
17. Jumpin Jack Flash - Rolling Stones
18. Makes No Difference - Sum 41
19. The Anthem - Good Charlotte

Now some of these songs are unlockables so they aren't available until you sink a healthy amount of time into the game but it goes by fast.

I highly recommend this one to anyone who owns a DS and like music.

there are other games that i've talked about in the past but im done for now!

anyone

is anyone out there bored, tell me about it

no really, tell me about it

leave a comment

RECs n' tasy effects #3

so far i know that at least one person has tried the black bean soup, or thought about trying as it...
anyway, prompted by our dinner tonight, here comes our 3rd rec of the thing with the thing!

onigiri ( oh knee gear-y) = rice ball!

this one's quick, easy, a great lunch and tasty!!!
===========================
First this is what you'll need:
- 2 cups boiled rice
- assorted fillings: ham, shrimp, tuna,
chicken whatever you think BBQ chicken
could be good
- tablespoon vinegar
- salt
- nori (dried seaweed) strips about 8 in by
2 in are fine.
- 2 bowls
===========================

now i know what some of you may be saying, eeeeeeewww
seaweed, ick. to be honest it's only used to keep your fingers
from actually touching the rice while eating, so if you wanted
you could skip it or only use two 1-in squares on either side.
it's not that bad and its healthy
===========================
the how to! how to ... with style!

to do the rice check the packaging,
different types need different preparation.

one thing that most packs wont tell you to do is RINSE the rice, get all that
nasty starch off! so ...
put the rice in a container add water then stir,
drain and repeat until the run off is relatively clear.
about 2 or three times should do it

next, cook the rice! try to be careful not to scorch the
bottom but it's difficult to do, try to keep the heat
lowish.

ok, while the rice is cooking, you should prep your fillings!
for dinner tonight i did fried shrimp with miso sauce! delicious.
here are some other ideas:

ham, scrambled egg, tuna, tuna salad, chicken, salmon...
really anything will work
it's essentially a ball of rice with goodies stuffed inside!

next prepare :
a water vinegar solution, about a tablespoon vinegar to a
bowl of water, this is to keep the rice from sticking to your
hands and to cool the rice so it doesn't burn your hands it'll
be hot when you take it out of the pot

a pile of salt, this is to rub on your hands after the water
to reduce the stickiness of the rice

anyway, once the rice is done,

put some into the bowl 3 - 4 tablespoons will be ok,
the more the rice the larger the onigiri

then put the fillings into the center and cover with more rice.

wet your hands with the water-vinegar solution and rub some salt in
take the rice out of the bowl and start to softly pack it into a ball or a triangle
don't mash it too much and apply water-vinegar / salt as needed

pack until it seems pretty solid, then wrap nori (dried seaweed strips)
around it, or put squares on the sides

repeat until the rice is all used and then enjoy!!!
---------------------------------------------------------------
the results!!!

wonderful!
its pretty simple since you just set the rice cooking, prep some stuff pack it together and
enjoy! Something to note is that the first time we made some we wrapped them and refrigerated them overnight for lunch the next day and the next day they were a little dry from the time in the fridge. so they are best enjoyed later that day or right away! smoked salmon makes one tasty rice ball!

good luck and please try it and let me know what you made, how it went etc etc. i lifted that restriction on comments so anyone can comment again! yay! good luck

help me please

so, thanks to something that i dont like very much and my own stupidity in haste...

can people please please send me an email with any and all contact information you have for yourselves.

I have lost everything/one in my address book.

vcards LDIF and text files are all acceptable and preferable.

If that's confusing then please just send me an email with your info

gimmejunkmale@gmail.com

rec it! duece, ni, dos, do, deux, zwei, II, do ... two

It's back! yay!!!!

so this time part of this rec is stolen / borrowed / something from this handsome gentlemen

And here we go:
(from 250 State Blog)

Big Billy Bob's Buckin'

Black Bean Soup

ingredients:
1 red onion
3 garlic cloves
1 tomato
green chile (amount is totally up to you, canned or fresh roasted and diced is better)
1 veggie bouillion cube or substitute
1 can buckin' black beans (no, buckin' is not a brand name)
1 can hominy
1 tsp cumin
2 tsp cayenne
1 tsp chili powder
chicken or beef optional...

If using meat, cook it first, then add the onions and garlic. Fry the diced red onion, tomato, green chile, and garlic in some olive oil. Add the spices before they turn brown. Then add the beans and hominy (drain the hominy first). Add 3 or 4 cups of water and the veggie cube. Add a bay leaf, and salt and pepper to taste (add more cayenne for more spiceyness!). Basically all of this stuff is variable...if you like thick soup, use less water, if you like it mild, use less cayenne, etc...but don't ever reduce the cumin. Cumin is a carminative or something and counteracts the gas giving properties of the beans. Tomatoes are the same way. Unless you want to ruin your romantic evening.

Best served hot with a tortilla (pronounced "tortiya" not "wrap") with butter.

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

Well thank you to Mr. sunglasses up there. Next up we have a, what's that you say, that's right a DOUBLE feature, in honor of the #2

Shaun of the Dead

Of course i know this is an "older movie" now, but if you haven't seen it you REALLY REALLY should, honestly, a ROMantic COMedy with ZOMbies! it's a flawless recipe with spectacular execution! I'd write more but instead ill refer you to Earth's biggest movie database (insert TM symbol) IMDB .

NEXT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hot Fuzz

Same main actors, same insanity i'm sure, I've seen the trailer
@ Apple Movie Trailers. It looks like it'll be a ridiculously fun
ride with action, satire, sarcasm, and British things!

I'm not sure what the website looks like because right now
my computer decided to say no thank you to any attempt at
upgrading to flashplayer9, so.... i'll be reinstalling my OS as soon as soon as i'm finished backing up, off we go!

So to take a look back for those of you with short memories

we have Black bean greatness
Shaun of the Dead
Hot Fuzz
IMDB
Apple movie trailers

that's a total of 4, wow they just get better and better!
lemme know what ya'll think

look out for robots with swords

Dave's Recs! ichiban

So here's the new deal, i write about something i like, that, well
maybe you haven't heard of before, and i provide some method to
get a taste of it. then you hit the fun little comment button, and
let me and everyone else know what you think. yep, im out of video games!

so todays rec is: Nizlopi

from Nizlopi.com :

Nizlopi is Luke Concannon and John Parker, two friends who’ve been writing and playing music together since their early teens. Luke handles the heartfelt lyrics, the endlessly soulful vocals, and his beloved guitar, while JP sets jaws-dropping with his masterful double-bass playing, his breathtaking human beat-boxing, and a little extra guitar playing of his own for good measure. Together these boys have created a genre defying sound all of their own that’s earned them plenty of love around the UK, and now America and Europe!
---------------------------------------
I first heard of these guys when i was in Ireland
sometime a year or so ago, I actually saw their video for the JCB song you should definitely check it out. The video is super cute/cool and their music
is chill and interesting, different enough to be fresh and similar enough to be easy listening. Right now my favorites are "The JCB Song" and "Freedom", "long Distance" is a fun little track as well and a bit more upbeat.
---------------------------------------
Look out! It's the premiere Rec post double threat!

next up we have a nice little rec on how to further enjoy the sounds!! (those under legal drinking age in their respective country read no further ;-0)
---------------------------------------
Who is this friendly delicious looking bear to our left?
Well let's call him Oscar! And he is the answer to anyone terrified by the thought of the imitation "beer" that WI is so well associated with. That's right, not only does our friend Oscar here have adark, mysterious character & charisma (and weighs in around 4.0% abv) , he's also a WI native. Lets look behind the label. This beer serves up a tasty blend of chocolate and oatmeal, delivering a very satisfying stout experience. For more reviews check out: an online review.

If you are in the Wisconsin area it shouldn't be that difficult to track a bottle down.

I guess this concludes this broadcast day!
let me know what you think

notes from bed

listening to an NPR podcast, sitting in bed, nose running
Jo's sister arrived on friday and we went to Tokyo Sun.
Today, Mon. I'm back home sick with a cold. hooray.

late last week i got another contract offer from Aeon, they are offering
another year... and that's funny, and it's no! we are definitely not staying past
the july extension.

as far as what's next, not sure.

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?

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.

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

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

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

that's right

wii = awesome,
and not hot dog awesome

awesome.

that is all

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

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,