Neat stuff

 

So before I get to the cute stuff, I wanted relate to you guys something that I thought was just neat.

Earlier on in the week we decided to go out to one of the local shops in town, a normal department store type of thing, just to look around for various things. However, we ended up going into the store shortly before closing time, though we didn’t quite know it at the time. Anyway, so we went through looking at some cute kids clothes and toys for awhile and then a very polite girl came up to us and made gestures while apologizing. Using our deductive reasoning and vague understanding of Japanese, we realized that she was telling us that it was closing time.

And now comes neat part!

So we haven’t been in a department store at closing time before, so when we left, it was quite a bit different than what we were used to. All of the salespeople and workers of all sorts were standing in their designated areas near the walkways and whenever someone(us or one of the other customers) walked by, they gave this huge bow and thanked us for shopping with them. Of course this was in Japanese and they had said other things than just “Arigato gozaimasu!” but you could tell it was along those lines.

For some reason it really moved me, even though i’m getting quite comfortable the japanese way of politeness. Perhaps it was in the way that they did it, and with such enthusiasm. Either way, it was something that I wish was done in the states, but sadly I don’t see it picking up there.

Anyways, onto other things! Today we ended up going to the Daei mall outside of base today and we ran into a nice little sale going on for some festive summer clothing, and of course we ended up buying some after some humming and hawing over it all :-P

picture time!

Rienna in her new clothes. The second photo is a close up of the design. Little fish!

Thian has dragon flies on his.

And me!   I have a face on mine :-)

 

 

Till next time!

Hey…this seems familiar……

 

So we decided to take a trip to Yokohama today to visit something from our pasts…

That’s right! Shakey’s pizza!!!!

We had found the restaurant months ago and we vowed that we would get back to the place before we left japan.

We both have a fondness for Shakey’s pizza since it was the place to go when you had a super duper pizza craving in our youth. However, most stores (if not all) had closed down in Washington state.So of course it was super ultra awesome to encounter a shakey’s pizza in japan of all places. To give a review, I would have to say that this Shakey’s pizza tastes exactly like it did way back when. Although i have to say that only the “Original” pizza tastes the same. The rest of the menu has been given the good ole japanese twist, which of course is good in it’s own way, but really we came for the old fashioned shakey’s more than the “zomg pizza in japan” experience.

On to the pictures!

Mer and the kids in front of the entrance.

Yes, that bottom pizza is “Tuna and Corn” pizza.

We of course had to try the Marshmallow dessert pizza

Yummmmmy!

Overall, a fantastic day trip, and a wonderful blast from the past.

I will leave you all with pictures of the kids(and my wonderful, fantastic wife)  being cute  and trying to do the peace sign to the cameras, Japanese style!

Blogging again?

 

Yeah……We’ll see how this goes again :-)

So after much prodding, poking, shoving, and eventually a kick in the pants, meredith got me to update this thing again :-P

So I will endeavor to update the blog some more.

It’s been a long time, and much has happened. We’re still here in japan, having lots of fun. We just purchased a car over here, a Nissan “Sunny”, the japanese have some cute names for cars here hehe.

Anyways, that’s all for this post, i’ll try to include more “wordy” stuff in the next one i put up. For now, be content with photos :-)

Haircute! :-P (misspelled on purpose )

 

 

Halloween!

 

Sushi kids!

 

Insert coin(s) for witty and amazing title.

 

Hello family, friends, creepy stalkers. It’s time for another blog update!

I know, I know, it has been awhile, but I assure you, nothing big has happened. No big plans, no big changes, nothing out of the ordinary.

…did i mention we gave Thian his first haircut?

anyway onto other things… wait wait wait, ok, I hear you gasping behind that monitor, and I also hear you wondering when im posting picture. Well fine here they are :-P

Before:

 

After!

That’s all for now!

oh, did I also mention we have a super typhoon coming our way? I sure do love the rain :-)

Strange, and yet so delicious

 

So being in Japan for me is like being a small kid in the candy store for the first time. You look around and all around you are strange and alluring objects. Every candy in the store surrounds and swirls around you in a maelstrom of flavor and color. The combinations are nearly endless, nary a flavor left untouched and all of it wrapped into alluring packages whose call rivals that of the Sirens in the tales of old sailors books. As such, I have found myself trying nearly everything I can get my hand on:

Bananas covered in chocolate. Rice crackers. Octopus packed into a small round breaded thing. Sushi of every kind of fish. Flavored sodas and drinks of nearly any type you can think of.

All of this and more! However, it is the latest item that recently tried to attempt to make on my own that I will talk about now:

Coffee Jello!

Meredith had found a Japanese website that was doing a recipe day or something of the like, and it featured the new jello. Instantly I was enthralled with the idea and set out to make it as quickly as possible. It didn’t take much, just some instant coffee, some non flavored jello packs and boiling water. Nothing special, just….coffee jello.

Let me tell you my friends…… it is Delicious.

Now to find the next thing in the candy store :-)

You have gained a level in, Cooking!

 

So I managed to accomplish something I’ve wanted to do for a long long time; Creating my own pretzels!

Everytime I go to the mall, the lure of Auntie Anne’s pretzels is too much and I wind up with like $20 worth of pretzels to eat / save for later. Yesterday I happened to be browsing a food recipe application on my Ipod touch, looking for something yummy to make for dinner when a shiny beacon of tastiness that is Pretzels graced my screen… I was helpless to resist.

Soon after Meredith got home we went to the store and I immediately bought up everything I needed to create the goods. All went well but then I made and error, a very serious and stupid error. In the recipe it called for 1 cup of sugar, 1 1/2 Teaspoons of salt. What I wrote down was: 1 cup of sugar,    1 1/2 salt

As you can probably guess, I put 1 1/2 CUPS of salt in. Yes I thought it was kinda weird for that much salt, but I was drunk of the promise of delicious pretzels and forged ahead thinking I was safe because I wrote the directions down. lol.

Anyway, the cooking process wasn’t so far from normal, although the dough didn’t rise as much as it should have, and it was kinda dry-ish.

Finally I got it all baked and as soon as it was out of the oven, I took a huge bite and, lo and behold, it didn’t taste that bad…… for the first second or two. Then the taste of salt flooded into my mouth and stayed there like an entrenched army. Nearly anything I tried to do could not get rid of this soft, lingering ghost of a salt taste in my mouth.

ugh.

Fast forward to today:

I tried to attempt creating my pretzels, the taste of salt finally had released it’s grip on me and I deemed it time to try again. This time I used the normal amount of salt and I have to report this: They are Delicious!

Not quite as good as Auntie Anne’s pretzels, but still pretty dang good.

Sooooo tired

 

Here’s an email I wrote to meredith this morning, thought it was enough to post up.

ugh, what a night :-(
Here's how it went.
Rienna first woke up at about 2-3ish, complaining that she was cold, ok, ac was on, i'll just turn it off.
*buzzer sound* wrong!
She complained like hell and woke up thian, so I just covered her back up again and tucked the blankets in and went with that, she complained a little but I told her thian was sad, go to sleep and she did.
Went in, changed thians diaper. Now that he was awake he seemed to be having some teeth pain, must be getting a new tooth in, he's been doing that a bit more lately. Fine, got him some tylenol, back to sleep for me.
I wake up again at about 4 this time.
Rienna is up and cranky again. Fine, put her back in bed, cover her up, give her an extra blanket.
In my half awake daze I also try to shut off the AC again, stupid me. This sets off a chain reaction with rienna of whining and eventually I turn it back on. No way to comfort her without it. Odd because just a few weeks ago she was scared of it being on O.o
anyways, I try to leave and now it's the normal bed time " I want a hug, I want a kiss, I moved you need to tuck me in, now I want a kiss, now a hug, I want bear, no I don't want bear, I want baby"
Arrrgghh.
Eventually I get her to sleep and I go back into the bedroom and pass out.
In my dream I faintly hear the alarm, but then it's gone quickly enough.
Eventually I wake up on my own at about 7:10 going WTF something is wrong. Yeah, the whole "not being late" part of my brain was shouting angrily at the rest of my brain for not listening to him....sorry Late Man, I was tired.
Thankfully Rienna was still asleep and as such wasn't downstairs in danger or anything. /sigh of relief.
Crazy kids.
Today, im going to take a nice long bath and maybe a nap.
Yeah...that'll be nice.

Dora the explorer…more like Dora the Thief!

 

 

Heh, ok, so i haven’t written a blog in awhile, I have been really busy with the kids, however, something happened today that I thought was so funny that I HAD to write it down for all to see.

Ok, so here’s how it goes:

I was laying Thian down on the ground and was changing his diaper when Dora the Explorer came on. Rienna got really excited and ran over to the TV yelling, “Dora!!!”

Ok, normal so far. Then Swiper appeared on the tv and rienna again yelled out, “Swiper!”. For those of you who don’t know, Swiper is the Raccoon/fox/whatever the hell he is on the show, and he basically steals stuff, and Dora + the rest of the cast have to stop him before he does.

Anyway, so I’m changing Thian and I barely noticed that rienna was moving really slow, shuffling her feet going past me. Then she comes up around me on the other side and goes right next to Thian. Then, just like in the show, she slowly moved her hand towards the toy I had given Thian to play with and then snatched it out of his hands. After that she started to shuffle away again, but I stopped her, and not picking up on what exactly she was doing other than taking Thian’s toy, said to her, “Rienna! don’t take thians toy, that was very naughty!”. At that point she said, “but im swiper! swiper!”

I just cracked up laughing because it all came together and actually made sense. I tried to explain to her that playing swiper was bad, because swiping other peoples stuff isn’t cool.

Ahhh, children, it’s the small things that turn out to be gems, lol.

My first big trip out without Meredith

 

I know, crazy right?

Hehe, anyway, I went out with the O’neils to go see a festival going on here in japan, and I thought I would pass on a few pictures that I thought were neat.

These guys basically carry around that shrine thing throughout the town. I couldn’t tell you why or what for at the moment, but it’s interesting stuff. It’s also Really really hot here, and it’s grueling work…from what it looks like. Also before these guys start, I believe they have a ceremony where they drink some alcohol first :-)

 

Here’s a close up of one of the shrines(ive no idea if it’s supposed to be called a shrine or not)

Here’s a man doing some sort of play or something. Either way, he has an awesome mask.

 

 

 

The kids, having a nice cold jello drink type of thing to ward off the heat.

 

This mannequin thing was on top of some moveable cart thing with a drum inside.

 

Here’s a video of the guy who was doing that play/dance thing.

 

And here’s a video of the guys moving the shrine along. Like I said, it looks like grueling work :-) Especially since it’s really humid and about 80-90 degrees out. They wear the short and thin clothing for a reason :-P

Ahh I love memes.

 

There’s something about  meme’s that are just fundamental in my life,particularly on the internet. Now, im not particularly talking about LoLCat, but more like casual saying that get passed on by a community that you pick up on. This can be passed on in real life, or, more easily online, since the stigma of saying some utterly redonkulous(can you guess where that’s from?) isn’t as bad as it is when you are face to face with someone.

Let me show you some examples and where they came from. The original source of many of these things can’t be tracked down, so if I say, well this came from this particular place, don’t yell at me if you found it somewhere else.

Eve online:  0/   this is a person’s head with an arm up, waving. A greeting of hello or goodbye.

warcraft: Oh god, so many to choose from but ill just post one for now:    Zomg(it’s Oh my god, with a Z added to the end, for particular emphasis on whatever you are !!!! about)

There’s some other odd ones that generally if you are browsing internet forums you will pick up on.

one is a number like 91k, or 21k, that denotes when you joined or post count, or something, i havent figured it out, but it’s a term of how old you are in the forum, and of course the older you are the better.

Anyway, you get the point. I have no idea what it is about these memes, but it’s like pokemon, i want to collect them all. Maybe it’s just so I understand half of the crap that is posted on forums :-P

On that note, post the ones you know of, and where they are used.

Michael Jackson beat it today.

 

 

Yes, I know horrible joke right? (look at the title of post until you get it)

It’s always sad to see a celebrity go, although with michael…well a bit odd. I haven’t particularly been a fan of Michael, although I have recognized his talent. It seems a shame, it’s almost as if his life was wasted away and he could have done so much more. At least once he started to have the whole life change thing, I can’t put my finger on where it started, but somewhere along the way, I think his train got diverted and it just slowly fell away from the rest of us, in normalacy.

Anyway, he is gone now, and so I will remember him as he was back before all of the craziness.

and who knows, he may just come back as a zombie and start the zombie apocolypse with awesome dance moves.

I have to say, if im going to die by zombie, at least it’ll be entertaining until they reach me.

 

Thrillaaaaa, Thrilla niiightt!

*Boggle* @ Dell

 

 

dell support people are friggin idiots.
They called me and left a message this morning about calling them back so they can check the status of the repair. So i call them up, give them the case number and then just to make sure i go over the course of events in very specific and clear terms.
"I live in japan, so I had to send the laptop to relatives in the states to get repaired by your service guys. Service guy came out to relatives house, fixed laptop, and now laptop is being shipped back to japan for me to verify it has been fixed. When it gets here, i'll call you guys back and let you know how it went."

The guy then says to me, "oh, well we dont ship to japan, let me transfer you to customer service and they can help you out"

uhhhh, wtf, so I repeat back to him and said, no no, the repair is already done, its already being shipped back to me, I will call back when I verify it's done.
"ok, sir, let me transfer you to customer service"

*brain frizzes out from stupidity*
Idiots.

<note: some of that is annotated but not by very much>

Soo Sad

 

Well, one of my worst fears has happened. I dropped my ipod and the screen broke. Yes I know, horrible!  Horrible with a capital H %$#%$#%$#%^#$^^@

The gibberish above is the censored version of a curse that only Cthulu himself could conjure, it is for your own protection that I censored it.

Anyway, so the glass screen broke on the ipod and sending it in to apple will cost a whopping $119 bucks to get it fixed. Very sad indeed.

So far ive turned the ipod off and made myself not touch it, in fear of the glass scratching the lcd underneath, but if I send it in to apple they will end up just giving me another unit instead of repairing the glass.

The funny thing was, it happened the day after I started looking online for a case to protect it against falls

Arggh!

Ah well, yet another thing I will need to mail back to the states to get fixed….le sigh

Broke and strapped for cash?

 

Alrighty, so I haven’t written an update in awhile. Mainly nothing going on with Meredith out to sea for awhile. However, lately i’ve been wanting to write something down so that all of you who follow my blog (and never comment on stuff, ya bastards….this excludes you Cass <3) can get some sort of update that I truly am alive, lol.

Alas, I have as of late been short of material, until now.

On with the show:

As of late ive been partaking a lot of Hulu.com for my tv watching experience while the kids are sleeping, and ive run across something funny enough for me to share.

Yes, it is the show “Get me out of here, I’m a Celebrity”

Basically the show is about a bunch of celebrities dropped off into the middle of a rainforest and they have to go through their fears.

Of course the first thing that comes to my mind is, “my god these guys are really strapped for cash if they are doing this. I wonder how much they get paid”

Most of the celebrities on here are not really on my radar of people to watch, except for two.  Lou Diamond Philips, a great guy, who i really think is better than this show, and Alec Baldwin. However, I have to say, I don’t think a baldwin can do anything that can surprise me anymore.

Seriously, can you think of something, short of murder, that a baldwin hasn’t done yet?

Ya, didn’t think so :-P

Also, let me mention the wife of Rob Blagojevich, the former governor of Illinois. *head shake* The who and the what now?

Seriously, i did not recognize how bad his stupidity in trying to sell a seat on the senate caused so much grief as to make you flee to a rainforest.

I’m sorry ma’am, truly, I did not recognize how bad it was :-P

So anyway, check out the celebrities getting tortured, it’ll at least entertain you for an evening while you are drinking with friends :-)

Get me out of here, i’m a celebrity

Reverse OCD

 

So I think Rienna might have OCD, well, ok maybe not, but it’s about as close as I can explain it in short terms.

Basically, instead of being compelled to clean and put stuff in order, she is compelled to take every bin out of the cubby and empty it’s contents onto the floor. Then merrily move onto the next one.

Lemme show you what im talking about.

Imagine if you will, each of those boxes, maybe 1ft by 1ft, are filled to the brim with assorted toys. Now imagine them on your floor. Imagine all of the toys looking like an odd magma flow of plastic pieces and stuff animals strewn across your floor. Start to feel a bit crazy?

Yeah.. me too.

Man, I do love the kids a lot, but seriously, must you empty out every bin?

oh snap, time travelin again!

 

I was told I needed to do quads this time. :-P

OMG we had double twins!

 

Yeah, so I went back in time and made my little swimmers mutants and we ended up with two sets of twins.

Im just that awesome.

Every so often, my crazy ideas, might possibly be right

 

 

So we’re watching Extreme Makeover: Home Edition(our new tv watching series) and a thought came to me.

For those of you that don’t know, this show is about Ty Pennington going around the country with his trusty band of constructors, building new homes for people in need. It’s a very heart tugging show. I find myself fighting back tears from time to time…it’s that emotional.

But that got me thinking. Ty Pennington really puts the screws to people to get the tears flowing. For example, he’ll be talking to somebody like the mom of the family, about the background, whats wrong with the house, and then all of a sudden he will get this sad look in his face and say something that just tugs at the emotions of whoever he is talking to. Like, “I know, you tried so hard to keep your family safe…and then the fire came…..”

By this time the person is in tears and he looks extremely satisfied. It’s subtle but once you see a few of these shows, you’ll understand and know exactly when and how he’ll start pulling at the strings.

And that brings me to my theory…..Ty Pennington is a Tear Vampire. He lives off of the tears of human beings. Hell even in the beginning, he shows the application video the families send in, and he makes his own people cry!

Anyway, don’t take my word for it, watch the show, and for further evidence, just look at this picture.

 

Just look at that smiling face!

:-P

P.S. This is all in jest….maybe?… :-)   Ty! if you are reading this, you do good work, keep it up

The zombie Invasion is upon us!!

 

Soooooon!!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20090512/sc_mcclatchy/3231765

Here’s a short excerpt.

 

The flies "dive-bomb" the fire ants and lay eggs. The maggot that hatches inside the ant eats away at the brain, and the ant starts exhibiting what some might say is zombie-like behavior.

"At some point, the ant gets up and starts wandering," said Rob Plowes, a research associate at UT.

The maggot eventually migrates into the ant's head, but Plowes said he "wouldn't use the word 'control' to describe what is happening. There is no brain left in the ant, and the ant just starts wandering aimlessly. This wandering stage goes on for about two weeks."

O.o

I recommend getting The Zombie Survival Guide while you can!!