Links fo' you

Haven't blogged about anything in quite some time, so here's some groovy sites for you to enjoy:

The Perry Bible Fellowship (Trust me on this)

Pole Dancing kit... for KIDS!

TV In Japan Blog

A direct link to all of KOTAKU's Jack "I'm a Pr*ck Bastard" Thompson's articles.

More Wii experience videos from the Nintendo site.

Firsts (from my MySpace friends)

EVERYONE HAS THEIR FIRSTS

FIRST REAL BEST FRIEND: Scott Johnson (Elementary school in Boulder)

FIRST SCHOOL: Washington Elementary (Boulder, CO)

FIRST CELL PHONE: A first I never intend to have... yup... I'm cell-phone-less

FIRST FUNERAL: Genna Burkhart (my first cousin who was still-born)

FIRST PET: Puck (a guinea pig)

FIRST BIG TRIP: I'm gonna say "by myself" and make it from Boulder to Denver on a Grayhound Bus in the 70's.

FIRST FIGHT: Junior High. First time I ever was in a fight and fought back. I was beat on many times, but it was never a fight.

FIRST CELEBRITY CRUSH: Snow White. Oh... real life? Um... AH! First grade... Jodie Foster...Freaky Friday. I liked how her hair covered one eye...

FIRST TIME OUT OF THE COUNTRY?: Just came back from that. Japan.

FIRST JOB: King Soopers in 1987

FIRST MYSPACE FRIEND: My wife, Jennifer (known as 'Jennifer Valentine' on MySpace)

EVERYONE HAS THEIR LASTS

LAST PERSON YOU HUGGED: My wife... this morning

LAST CAR RIDE: I drove to work this morning too

LAST TIME YOU CRIED?: CRAP! This morning. Weird. Had a bad dream that I was singing the song "Do You Love Me" from "Fiddler on the Roof" with Jennifer (my wife) as we were sitting on the edge of the bed. When we got to the very last lines of the song:

(Tevye)
Then you love me?

(Golde)
I suppose I do

... Jennifer fades away like a ghost leaving me on the bed... alone. In my dream she was never really there... she had died years earlier and what was singing with me was just a phantom of my memories. Her hand on mine is the last thing to fade away. And I finish the song "I suppose, I love you too". I wake up, and I'm crying.

LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED: The Prestige

LAST FOOD YOU ATE: Jalapeno flavored potato chips and a Pepsi

LAST ITEM BOUGHT: Jalapeno flavored potato chips and a Pepsi

LAST SHIRT WORN: The one I have on... DUH!

LAST PHONE CALL: From my wife on Monday.

LAST TEXT MESSAGE: N/A

LAST THING YOU TOUCHED: computer keyboard...DUH!

LAST FUNERAL: see; First Funeral (above)

LAST TIME AT THE MALL: Sunday.

LAST TIME YOU WERE EXCITED FOR SOMETHING: The Nintendo Wii... just a few minutes ago... now, after typing this, I'M EXCITED AGAIN!!!

LAST PERSON YOU SAW: A co-worker

LAST THING YOU DRANK: pepsi.... to go along with my jalapeno flavored potato chips.

LAST PERSON THAT BROKE YOUR HEART: My grandfather... for dying. But, then again, he died of a broken heart when his wife passed away six weeks earlier. I miss him.

LAST TIME YOU WERE REALLY HONESTLY HAPPY?: This morning after the dream and my wife holding me (like the whimpery-soft-hearted-goof-ball that I am...)

Pitagora Suichi

Pitagora Suichi. Literally "Pythagoras Switch". This is the kid's show I was talking about in my blog. Yes, it's really an amazing success with people all over the world!

The Algorythm exercise Jen and I got stuck in our heads. This was done with geisha, ninja, and robot toys in Japan. This is done with PE teachers.

Algorythm dance with ninja...

And with soccer players.

Framy the dog (Jen's favorite)

The show.

Now, the two guys are comedians who are part of a manzai group called 'Itsumo Kokokara' (Always From Here). They recently joined with some other comedians and musicians to form a short lived band (intentionally) called U.N.O. Band.

The rest is up...

At the Japan Blog Site.

Look towards the bottom.

Pictures Part one

Follow the links. All pictures are 800 x 600... so they're big... but I wanted to show you all the detail of the cities we visited.

1059 - One of the streets in Chidoricho (the sub-town in Tokyo where we stayed)
1060 - A car too big for his garage
1061 - A restaurant's plastic food menu. Very inexpensive food.
1062 - A Chidoricho alleyway
1063 - A construction site with pink and white polka-dotted cranes and diggers.
1064 - A normal truck for Japan. Very tiny, eh?
1065 - A nice temple.
1066 - Tall can of Cola, cold tea below, cold coffee (ice-Kohi) above
1067 - Delivery!
1068 - Japanese graffiti
1069 - A shrine in the middle of town.
1070 - Our #1 American Embassy
1071 - Pretty alleyway
1072 - I told you there were electric wires everywhere.
1074 - They rode these motorbikes/mopeds/vespas everywhere!
1075 - They like cold coffee there. Note the Hollywood star promoter in the lower part of the machine
1076 - Ah... our new spokesmodel for a tall can of Pepsi.
1077 - Plastic corgi in the doorway of a house.
1078 - They really try to make their lack of space green wherever they can.
1079 - When they have houses, they make them lovely
1080 - Public open space where people can just be.
1081 - Down the train tracks of Chidoricho
1082 - Green wherever they can put it. This is one community's attempt.
1083 - Train tracks and street
1084 - My feeble attempt to be 'artsy'
1089 - Ma-ku-do-na-ru-do! Our first 'American' meal.
1090 - Ebi Filet O'. Baby shrimp cooked in a patty of batter. Mmmm.
1091 - Everyone recycles.
1092 - The Mc Donald's menu with pricing. It's pretty comparable to America price-wise.
1093 - Ah... SEGA-Land!
1094 - A playground. Note the concrete tubes to crawl through
1095 - The apartment complex here stores each tenant's car on a rotating storage device!
1098 - Picture for Trevor and Max.
1099 - Pokemon Center Tokyo. My poor Pokemon really needed a rest, so we re-charged them here.
1100 - Out hotel room at Ryokan Kangetsu. I won those plushies in a crane game (known as UFO-Catchers)
1103 - The train crossing at Chidoricho
1104 - The train entry/exit point in Tokyo proper
1106 - We move on to Ushiku.This is the size comparison for the Ushiku Buddah statue there
1107 - From afar
1108 - A replica of the head in smaller scale.
1109 - A comparison. Almost no visitors were there that day.
1110 - Prayer boards that people have filled out and placed here.
1111 - Closer look
1112 - Nice shrine item. It was rainy and misty that day, so everything was beautiful.
1114 - The lotus petals at the Buddah's base.
1115 - A side building with a pond of carp.
1116 - Pan & scan
1117 - All 'da carp

My two cents

Ok. This whole Senator Foley thingy has gotten waaay out of hand. He has convinced several people that it was alcoholism that caused him to write the letters to the young pages. Most of us know that was not the case. So, since he needs an excuse, let me give him an excuse:

Being horny.

Yup. Plain and simple.

I for one know of the evils of being horny and how it can make you do things you wouldn't have done normally simply because you (in your depraved little mind) assumed that you might be able to "get some". If anything he is a sex addict and would still be better off getting help at a center... but, even then, it's more a 'habit' or 'obsession' than an 'illness' or 'disease'.

Being horny, as with alcoholism, is not a disease. It's not a disease. IT IS NOT A DISEASE! It is an unfortunate state of being caused by alcohol. You do not go to the bathroom and forget to wash your hands and then contract alcoholism. You have a smoking habit... and you have a drinking habit. But it's NOT a disease (sorry for the tangent, but I needed to get it out).

The fact that he is gay has nothing to do with it. They could have been cute 16 year old female pages with little skirts and the white blouses that subtly pull gently across her pert... um... yeah. SEE? And they would have had the same things happen to them. Doesn't matter.

So, if anything, it would just all have gone away if they nipped it in the bud at the first sign of trouble... but they didn't. Now, he's waking up every morning knowing that his life is over. And, well, it is. He's gotta start fresh, and it's not gonna be easy.

(/rant)

Pictures from Japan

Awright... hold yer horses! I kin only work so fast. It took me all of last night to get the damn things the right size (800 x 600) and dial-up only allows 4 pictures every 8-10 minutes (at the size I made them).

Yes, I suck... but they'll be up soon.

You're the ghost of my indecision...

Myspace is so weird.

I mean, I did a search for people I might have known 1989-1991 (1989 was my graduating year) and I found someone whom I have been thinking about through the years. She was an old girlfriend of mine when I was a senior at Wasson. I have always thought "I wonder how she is. I hope she's doing well. She was a really really great friend."

I'm glad she's well.

I saw one of my best friends from Wasson there as well. He was very near and dear to me, and I really messed up our friendship (I was really a dick back then). It seems that he's happy. I'm unsure if he would appreciate an email from me. I know that time heals all wounds (supposedly)... I don't know.

Living in a world where one can find old friends and lovers is a bit awkward. Do you contact them? Do you let them enjoy their lives without having to remember you? I messed up a lot back then.

Man, am I messed up!

I've had a hard time sleeping since I got back from Japan. I have been waking up at 4 or 5:00am every morning so far (no matter the time I go to bed) and stay awake from then on.

Also, my spine x-rays got back and the doctor told me that I have "mild disk degenerative disease" in my back (thank G-d that my back was good through the Japan trip). I cannot make the rehab they want me to do (3 times a week) because of work.

So i'm stuck taking normal pain medications (Wal-proxin, Aleive, Advil, Ibuprofin). The prescribed muscle relaxers that they gave me make me sleepy, so I don't take those.

(sigh) Yay me.

Collin and my newest blog!

Gamers-Go-Round

Check it out. Collin asked if I would like to help out with this new site, and I said that I would love to. What's the difference between this new game review site and all the thousands of others?

Well... it's got reviews written by Collin and myself. You know us.