Random Shots In Tokyo

You saw the pictures with a story now I am just going to post the pictures I liked for some reason (probably without much story).

This might be my favorite. There were vending machines in every nook and cranny but this one at the end of the alley seemed so forlorn.

Lonely vending machine:

The sumo arena:

This was taken across the street from our hotel. Although we had some friction with the hotel people it was in a fantastic location.

Shinjuku street scene:

This was in the electronics district mentioned previously.

Train and bridge:

I have to take a list one shot of the subway:

From our hotel window:

Suntory:

An umbrella holder:

A human mass:

My other favorite photo of a mother and her kids.

Umbrellas:

Girls And Guns In The Land Of The Rising Sun

As I am heading to Korea soon I thought I should get all the pics up from my last international trip.

In that vein you will see something like a post spew in the next couple of days as I post a ton of pics. These here are from the fair city of Tokyo. My overall impression of Tokyo was a little negative but there were a lot of really interesting things. This post will try to focus on those.

One of the places we stopped by on our wanderings was Harajuku. This is a bridge made famous by randomly garbed people and Gwen Stefani. I am guessing that it was probably the birthplace of the term cos play which means dressing up in really complete costumes that look like either anime figures or babies of some sort. To me it was a lot like goth but slightly more original. The amount of time people must put into these costumes has to be huge. unfortunately when we showed up there was only a British kid dressed as a zombie. Not quite overwhelming.

However it did enable us to see this sign which had me smiling for the rest of the day.

After the Harajuku disappointment we decided to take a short jaunt across the city to see the one and only sumo arena in Tokyo. We looked at the tourist map and the subway map and determined that it should be about a 20 minute train ride. Unfortunately Tokyo is huge beyond born in Lansing Michigan concept of huge. It ended up taking us 90 minutes to get there and the longest we waited for a train was 5 minutes.

Fortunately when you got off the train you immediately knew you were at the right stop because of these awesome cut out photo things.

We knew we were on the right path because we kept seeing random sumo paraphernalia like these many sumo bobble head dolls.

When we finally got to the stadium though we were in for the biggest disappointment of the day. It was closed due to National Marine day. On top of being really annoying this left me wondering for the rest of the trip whether it was marine in the sense of people with blue suits and swords or marine in the sense of nautical. I have still never been able to find out which, it haunts me to this day.

We did get to take some nice pictures from outside the fence.



On the food front, there was a lot of good food. When we arrived Sander was a little under the weather and decided to get room service. The meal he got included a $14 orange juice which is pictured below. The whole meal cost around $30. This alerted us to the fact that Tokyo is on a whole different level of expensive.

Of course if you looked you could still find the occasional ghetto spot:

Walking around we found this place. If you look closely you will realize that every plate in that window is of a pork dish. Gots to love the swine.

The Japanese have also decided to one up the Americans in making it easier to drink beers. Making a full twisting motion to get the bottle cap off is too tiring. It should be as easy as opening a pop can.

Another trip that we decided to take was to the electronics district so Sander could find old Nintendo games because this one area was supposed to be the mecca for such things. On the subway over we found this sign which we could only determine meant that if you missed the train you would die. Hence the xx's in the eyes.

Once we got to the district we found that it had at one point been the place for video games. Now it was primarily shitty electronic components and porn. Oh they also had a lot of fake guns. Like in this picture, girls and guns:

On the way out of this district we had some fun with the cameras on the street. See if you can spot Marcelo.

And this did not actually take place in Tokyo but happened in Beijing before we got to Tokyo.

Me giving the large blow up doll some love:

Scooter Trials

Last Friday we had some people over for a night of homemade pizza, high stakes gambling and drinking.

We decided to cap the night off with a full race time trial style on Divya's scooter.

Here is the group that started the racing.


With Casey giving some help to Eric


And the race coordinators leading the way to the race course


Ryan on a practice run.



Any night where you go through 24 beers on a city street is fun but throw in a scooter and that makes it an order of magnitude better. Thanks to Divya for letting us all take some time on the scooter.

The Kitties Decide To Do Pollack

Random Loves From The Interwebs

I have been thinking about the Joshua Bell thing and reflecting on beauty a lot recently so a post might come from those gestations.

In the mean time I decided to post what the the interweb is best at, random funnies:

Will Ferrell:


Office Violence:

Too Busy For Beauty?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html

A really interesting article on a social experiment that took place in DC involving Joshua Bell. It makes me wonder how I would have acted in the same situation.

So busy and so isolated we can be.

The Exciting Metropolis of Bellevue

Is where I spent my week so far. I was at a management conference / event and it turned out to be really interesting, enlightening and fun. To be honest I am pretty surprised at how much I enjoyed and got out of this training. It had all the necessary components of an awful week, a random hotel in a suburb, no communication with others, lots of opportunities to "open oneself up to the experience", only Microsoft over-achieving managers, etc...

Instead I learned a great deal about myself and the way I approach random situations. I won't bore you with all the details as they are probably not very exciting but I am glad that I did not waste a week of my life. It is funny how jealous of my time I have become recently. If I had not gotten anything out of this training I think I might have gone slightly crazy.

I am happy to be out of Bellevue though. The time spent there made it even more apparent that I am nowhere near ready to spend any significant time in a place such as that. The one advantage of the project I picked is that it involved a food bank in the U-District so I got to spend a lot of time there and in various areas of Seattle that I have never been too. Overall it was a great week and I am sure you will hear me mention it at some point. Feel free to tell me to take a little shut the hell up though if I babble on too long.

14 / 14.85

I am back alive and completely without pictures. I fooled myself into thinking I would be able to take some shots while in Vegas but it did not work out quite like I imagined. Sorry for the delay in posting since I got back but one of the numbers in the title is how many hours of sleep I got in 4 nights of Vegas. The other is how much I walked home with in gambling.

That was the first big surprise of the weekend, I actually won money in Vegas. Not a lot but enough to be positive for the first time in my life. I was lucky enough to find a 4-8 limit table with poker players even worse than myself. I also made my first (and maybe last) sports bet. That shit is addictive. I know just enough about sports to make it feel like I could make a killing in sports betting but would probably just end up getting killed.

The rest of the weekend was chock full of firsts. First time shooting guns. I know I have sold out and am going to a special hell where I have to listen to gun control advocates tell me about the dangers of guns for eternity. Shooting was a lot of fun. I fired a M5, shotgun and glock .45. It was fun in a video game way though. I still am not really sure why guns are necessary in real life and what would be hurt by completely preventing them from existing (Not possible I know).

I had another bunch of clever firsts but it is getting late and this is the latest I have been up since last Saturday. Maybe I will remember them and you will get the unique pleasure of hearing them live and in person. Feed me alcohol and at least I will make up a good story.

Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

I do so I am heading to Vegas and plan to to win enough gambling to cover our condo and a new car. I am not coming home till I have won this amount.

Actually I am just going for a friend's bachelor party and will spend all my money on the things Vegas offers (Maybe even the pile marked "Do you really need this?"

If I do win tons of money I will take everyone who reads this blog out to dinner when I get back (Google web crawler I'm talking to you).

A Coma Of Some Kind

Last weekend was a crazy drunken (On both food and alcohol) haze. The perfect way to warm up for Vegas this weekend except for the plague I managed to catch Thursday night which I am predicting will be with me longer than it takes the Piston's to win their next championship.

Friday started off with a BBQ on top of my apartment that turned into more of a boil-a-que when we found that the grill the building provides ran out of propane sometime much earlier. After drinking an incredible 12 of the 36 beers we had among 15 people we headed down to catch Grindhouse.


It turned out to be a pretty amusing movie but the highlight of the night was Marques almost taking himself out on the banister in the theatre. His leg fell asleep and he realized this only after he tried using it to walk down the stairs three at a time.

We finished the night out at Shorty's in their very swanky new back room which impressed me with both comfort and at least one Tom Waits CD in the jukebox. The walk home was epic as usual with a rousing edition of the sign game.

Saturday we celebrated Shahaf's 30th birthday at another BBQ place which turned out to have all their shit in order. Ipanema Grill never seemed to run out of propane or if they did they still managed to make an incredible selection of delicious meat. Any place that feeds you meat even while you are in a coma (They teach the waiter to open your mouth and massage your throat) gets at least one comatose thumbs up from me.

Afterwards we headed to Zig Zag and started taking birthday shots in earnest. There was a slight miscommunication between Shahaf and myself which led to about 14 more shots of Crown than I expected so we had a lot of drinking to do. Eric and Marcelo came through like champs at our table by cleaning up most of the left overs. After some 86'ing and general rowdiness we decided to head back up the hill.


On the way there we came across the saddest dog ever. I am not sure why this dog was so sad but I am guessing it had to do with being a killer trained to enjoy its job and its keeper's callously locking it to the door handle instead of allowing it to fulfill its most basic urges through rampage.


Sunday was a magnificent Easter feast that lived up to that designation more than any other meal I have had the pleasure of having in anyone's home in Seattle. The companionship was exquisite matched only by the food and settings.


This is a shot of the kitchen that produced a portion of the wonderful food and how full it was. Teresa won the civility award for the evening by managing to kick everyone out of the kitchen in a most polite fashion.


As you can see it was an undertaking of significant proportion and went of without a noticeable hitch (Except for perhaps the poor design of boxed wine).


Overall a most enjoyable weekend.

A Small Triumph

For anyone who watched the recent spate of college basketball with me you might have heard me complaining about Billy Packer being a horrible announcer. He has been around forever and seems to love minutiae of the game more than the game itself. I find him pretty boring and just annoying especially considering how long he has been commentating the final four (21 years nonstop).

It looks like my wishes might be granted for next year. Below is Packer's comments to Charlie Rose before the last game (Thanks Eric for sending this my way)

Our Little Babies All Grows Up

Today I went to find the best taco truck in Washington for lunch aka Taqueria Guadalajara only to find that it no longer existed in truck form.

Turns out they retired the truck and opened a restaurant with chairs and tables and free chips. It is even better than the truck. They kept all their old favorites (at the same $1.25 price) and added a bunch of amazing looking entrees which I partaked in today.

I talked some with the owner's son and it sounds like they are doing really well. He was pretty excited about the new place as well he should be. If you ever have the misfortune of being stuck on the Eastside at lunch time you should be able to alleviate some of that by stopping at Guadalajara's.

Spring Love

No real content just wanted to share that I am loving the weather recently and hope it is improving everyone's days in the same way it is mine.

Outdoors basketball twice in as many days and pleasant walks around wearing only a t-shirt and being comfortable. I am so glad to see the shit weather behind us.

If it does go back to the rain though I might be forced to jump off a bridge now.

UPDATE: After leaving work and coming home, it looks like I will be throwing myself off the Aurora bridge tonight. Stupid Seattle.

Good Times in the Mountains or Switchback Driving with a VIP Cake in the Back

These are from my sister's awesome wedding last year in the middle of the mountains Colorado.

The wedding was a whole bunch of fun and I can only hope that mine matches up to hers. All the involved families got there early and spent time hanging out in the cabins, spending time with one another and playing a little golf. For a fun little game try to determine which of the people I am related to in the following pictures.


The one thing that I failed to remember about being in the mountains though is how much closer you are to the sun and how much quicker my already fair complexion burns. I managed to survive though through a self-medication regime that involved wine, good food and lots of time in the pool.


Another thing about the altitude was that it made my camera unusable for all but some random five minutes a day.

It decided to work again at the BBQ rehearsal dinner where the food looked awesome and from what I heard it was. It also included some great picture slide shows that everyone enjoyed immensely. Much props go to Kip's sister (Kip being my sister's husband) for putting those together.

A good picture of the womans before the camera started to go.


And my uncle's and aunt as the camera started giving up the ghost.




And then the camera pretty much gone:


Overall it was a great weekend and everything worked out more well than could be imagined at least from my perspective.

The only potentially fatal flaw was making me drive up from Denver with the wedding cake in the back with only Morgan's friend Becca to secure it.

We managed to keep it pretty unbattered though.

Smile

Last night was the Lily Allen show and contrary to Yachi's preconceived notions it was not full of 14 year olds. Wait until next year, right now Ms. Allen is still on the taste maker curve so it was just a lot people our age in nice clothes.

I thought she performed very well. The fact that she had a full horn section definitely added to that opinion. Also her drummer was pretty great as Eric said not too over the top but played everything excellently. Her music has enough nods to great English bands so that you like it without any thought. The high point of the night was her acknowledging this by bringing out Lynval Golding, the guitarist for the Specials. The Specials started the ska revival in England and apparently had a great impact on her music.

The second great thing about the concert was her choosing Heart of Glass as a cover for an encore.

I was impressed with how candid she was and her choice of banter in between sets. Chris was slightly less impressed. In five minutes she went from stomach trouble, to belching, to her disgust with our president. She does not fit easily into the female pop star box which is refreshing. It will be interesting to see how her career progresses.

Playing Dad

Tonight I got a chance to help a friend change their blown-out tire and it made me feel like a father.

For some reason I learned how to change a tire when I was 12, oh wait I remember it was switching from snow tires and back again twice a year. Any ways it was fun getting to go out and teach someone else how to do it, even if the car did fall off of the jack and almost crush my feets.

But overall my feets are intact and another person knows how to change their tire. Also I learned that BMWs do everything short of changing themselves. They have a tool kit that is better than the one we have at home. Apparently it is for changing tires and applying dry wall.

Biggie Memoriam

Stupid Blogger, anyways this is the second version of the post so it might be a little rushed.

The anniversary of Biggie's passing was earlier this month with the Fader hosting an hour long show dedicated to him on their Let Out podcast. It is one of the best hours of music I have heard in a while. What makes it so great is it is all the hard to find yet awesome Biggie stuff that you used to hear and spend weeks trying to find. When put together like this it is staggering how much quality shit he had that was not on any given LP.

You can find the show here for at least a little while. If for some reason it is gone when you try to access let me know and I can send it to you.

While you are at EVR you should sign up for just about every other podcast they offer as there have been no bads ones I have heard, just too much competing for my ears.

Here is the only video I could find on Youtube (Stupid Viacom) of the Notorious:

Beer, Beef and Nipples

It was St. Patty's and the night started off pretty well with MSU doing well against the #1 seeded NC (until the last 5 minutes when they basically fell apart). Combine this with corned beef cabbage and booze and you have great beginnings.

After finally winning in cribbage it was on to dominance in beer pong. I had never played this yet somehow managed to destroy the other team in the first game. In the second I was not able to make the clutch shots but it was a valiant effort.

It was on to an English bar for an Irish night which I think I would have protested more vehemently had I realized it at the time.

For much talking, drinking, and mugging for photos.



Apparently at some point the rain followed us in prompting the unfurling of the umbrella at the table which started a great chain reaction of beer glasses falling all over.

There also was a couple of random nipple sightings. Mine, of course, showed itself

But we also got to see Ming's

Then the night was over and I had to show my unhappy face

Getting Old

5 years at Microsoft will get you the following:


I remember when I started work saying to myself I would be here 4-6 years then on to bigger and better. I wonder what that is going to be?

Bring on the Leeches

I have debated actually posting anything about this but as I finished squeezing the pus out of my leg I decided to share because I love you all just that much.

I have somehow grown a dime sized growth on my leg that is basically a volcano of pus and blood. I have pictures but they do not belong on the internet. If I really love you maybe I will show you offline.

It is interesting seeing how knocked out my body is though by an infection in my leg. Having said that though I am pretty ready for everything to be better so I can walk normal again and get back in the pool.

Give me some sympathy when you see me as this is just a cry for that.

Not Cause I Hate the Macs...

...but because it is funny. Any criticism of blind faith that is done well is going to make me giggle and this is no exception.

What makes it funnier to me is that I have been using a Mac at work and find myself wanting to be part of this big beautiful Mac community. They do just work.

The Wonders of the Internet

Wonder #1

A photographer that manages to get a lot of photos of musicians. He has shots of artists from Jean Grae to Fantômas. My favorites were the photos of Slick Rick as the exactly captured what I always think of when I think of Slick Rick. There also is a crazy shot of some kids blasting on someone or something that looks pretty authentic.

Wonder #2

A podcast that has provided me with lots of amusement. Grammar girl is all about (surprise, surprise) grammar. Her style of explaining things is really listenable and she always manages to mention something that I had not know before about why grammar is the way it is. Besides each segment is only about 3-5 minutes. Worth listening to if you like knowing why splitting infinitives is OK to do in today's society.

Acting Up

I was going to post on some random internet funs but got the fever for some activism instead.

It looks like Gizmodo is trying to stand up to the monster that is the RIAA. Info here and much more eloquently stated than I could. It is about time that someone tries in whatever way possible to take this stand and hopefully have people realize that they do not have to put up with such a bullying organization.

Here are some quotes from the manifesto that caught my attention:

The goal of the RIAA's lawsuits is to make people so afraid of being sued that they will stop downloading music. However, in their lawsuits they circumvent the law and extort money from people who haven't been given the benefit of a legal trial...

it's worth noting that issues such as the underpayment of artists and album price-fixing are quite serious and should be considered as good a reason as any to keep your money from going to their pockets. Two articles worth reading to study up on how major labels screw over the artists they claim to represent are Courtney Love's speech to the Digital Hollywood online entertainment conference and The Problem with Music by Steve Albini.

The first step Gizmodo wants people to take is to boycott all music that comes from an RIAA label. [Website that will tell you if a piece of music is money in the RIAA's pocket or not]. A lot of my favorite groups are on an RIAA label and it is going to be hard not to buy any music from one of those labels but hopefully it will make the message more powerful.

The second message I got today was from the showbox and I thought it was good timing as the issue had come up at lunch today. We missed the meeting but an email to a council member can still help:

As you know, many of Seattle's neighborhoods are thriving and attracting more residents, businesses and bars, nightlife. This growth is a welcome indication of Seattle's economic vitality and cultural vibrancy. Some might argue that nightlife is what drives new residents and businesses to many of Seattle's neighborhoods, and is necessary to keep attracting a vital young workforce to the City. We definitely know that neighborhoods with lots of bars and clubs have seen corresponding dramatic increases in condo prices.

Unfortunately, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels has tried to divide residents and the nightlife community, and has proposed an oppressive new ordinance that threatens to kill nightlife in Seattle. This ordinance won't solve the issues that come with increased nightlife and residential housing, it won't address the lack of Police and other services the City provides at night, it won't decrease street crime, it won't help solve the issues of drug gangs selling crack on the street, it won't decrease noise coming from people on the street at night. It WILL kill healthy clubs. It will keep new investment from opening new bars and clubs in Seattle. It will ultimately harm the nightlife scene and especially the live music community.

We need you to speak out against this ordinance now.

The City Council's Economic Development and Neighborhoods Committee will have a public hearing on this legislation on Thursday, March 1st at 9:30 a.m. The hearing takes place at City Hall in the Council Chambers (600 4th Ave, 2nd floor). If you're interested in making sure Seattle has a safe, vibrant nightlife and music scene, this is an opportunity to voice your opposition to The Mayor and this horrible legislation.

If you can't make the meeting, be sure to write the Council to let them know how you feel about this ordinance and the need for nightlife and music in Seattle. The more personal emails you write the better - let them know your positive experiences, how music and nightlife benefit you, and solutions you think could happen differently than the Mayor's ordinance. Check out more info on nightlife and music issues at www.seattlenma.org.

Please email the following people as soon as possible:

Michael Gilmore (michael.gilmore@seattle.gov); Jan Drago (jan.drago@seattle.gov); Richard Conlin (Richard.Conlin@seattle.gov); Richard McIver (richard.mciver@seattle.gov); Peter Steinbrueck (peter.steinbrueck@seattle.gov); Nick Licata (Nick.Licata@Seattle.gov); David Della (David.Della@Seattle.gov); Tom Rasmussen (tom.rasmussen@seattle.gov); Jean Godden (Jean.Godden@Seattle.gov); Sally Clark (sally.clark@seattle.gov); James Keblas (james.keblas@seattle.gov)

Do what you feel is right.

The Big Guns

I thought tonight would be a good time to bring out the big guns, i.e., the mask photos.

Although the questions these photos will bring up might break up happy relationships and cause people to see the world in an entirely different light I had a morale duty to share them with the world. Questions such as:

- Where do I get one?
- How come I don't look that sexy in a Mexican Wrestler mask?
- Who is that hunk of burning love in the mask and where do I get me one of those?

THE MASK

Representing the D

Getting some feline love

Chilling with the homies (Corey Hart?)