Humor

Matrix Ping-pong

February 10, 2010 – 18:53

This had my brother and I in stitches!

Matrix Karate was also quite funny. 🙂

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News

The world is getting scarier

February 9, 2010 – 08:46

Headlines such as this used to be like something out of a science fiction movie, just… not anymore.

Pentagon Looks to Breed Immortal ‘Synthetic Organisms,’ Molecular Kill-Switch Included

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Unfortunately I can understand the military’s point of view/reasoning behind research into such technologies.  Namely, if “we” don’t do it, “they” will do it, and we’ll be at their mercy.  It’s always about the race to be the one carrying the “bigger stick”.  You need to be powerful, or have something that others want,  if others are to take you seriously.  Unfortunately, this aggressive streak, while great for fostering survival and competition, makes for a bleak and frightening future if things progress as they currently are.
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Maybe they’ll find a way to eliminate the gene for war/conflict.  Now THAT might be worth it.
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Experiences

A brother’s visit

February 8, 2010 – 09:31

Postings have been few and far between lately, largely due to laziness.  The usual excuse of being busy at work does apply though (my coworker has been away on holiday for the past couple weeks), and I came down with a cough/cold.  But there’s one more  “distraction” – my youngest brother came to visit!

He’s been here in Japan on vacation since January 29th, and will stay till the 11th of Feb (2 weeks).  Unfortunately since my coworker is out of the office I haven’t been able to take off time myself, but at least we’ve had time to hang out in the evenings and weekends.  It’s mostly been a period of eating (I’mma goin’ onna diet once he leaves!), occasionally going out, and playing PS3 (particularly while I wasn’t feeling too well).

We’ve done the usual karaoke (hoping to squeeze in one more session before he leaves), and checked out Ginza, Asakusa, Tsukiji, Roppongi, and Akihabara.  Yesterday we even went for taichi, despite winds that literally almost blew us off our feet (and it was COLD to boot)!

Places we’ve been eating at are:

Between today and Wednesday, we’re going to have at least the following as well:

We have taken some photos, but not too many, simply because it’s just so doggone cold/windy.

Putting up the links above reminds (again) that I need to work on that “places to visit” in Japan section of my blog.  Will work more on that in the coming weeks!

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Food & drinks

A bit more on cookin’

January 11, 2010 – 00:54

Last weekend I suddenly felt like cooking, so for some reason, before I went to bed, I ended up making a large batch of banana bread!

It turned out a little heavier than I would have liked, but it was tasty enough – at least it vanished from the office common area in less than 30 minutes!  I made 2 trays – one batch in a bundt pan, and the other in a traditional pan.  The bundt was the dish I shared at work since slicing was easy, and I…. I confess I ate most of the pan batch myself… (I actually just finished the rest of it today (>_<;

Images below!  (for some reason, it rose extremely well… but after cooling went back down drastically)

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Also, I’ve never realized how much of a difference a good knife makes in cooking.  Yesterday before heading out in the morning for running, I put in the remainder of the Christmas chicken (hey, it was pretty big and took a long time to eat!) into the slow cooker, chopped up carrots, parsley, onions, garlic, and potatoes.  Chopping was EASY!  I’ve always cut my veggies with an old knife that I’ve had for years – and chopping with that could get frustrating because it never sliced straight, and I would always have to put my whole weight down to get it to cut anything.

However, I recently got a new knife from the local supermarket.  They were running a promotion in which every 1,000 yen spent also got you a point.  With 25 points + 2,000 yen, you could get a nice new knife.  Now, I didn’t go and spend 25,000 on groceries just for a knife!  I was lucky – when checking out with my groceries one day, a lady saw me getting my point and offered me about 12 points of her own – apparently she had already gotten her knife and didn’t need these any more – she looked like she had at least 2 kids so I imagine that her grocery bills were much higher than mine, hence why she had so many spare points.

Anyway, I got my knife and boy was I impressed.  It cut through taters and carrots as if they were butter.  It really cuts down on time and frustration!  (“cuts down” eh? pun? Me so witty.. :P)

Doesn’t the pot of veggies look good thought? I let it cook away for roughly 16hrs and at the end also tossed in a can of cream of mushroom soup.  The combo was nothing fancy, but very filling and has already given me 2 full meals – and I’ve still got enough for another one or two bowls.  (unfortunately forgot to take a picture of the finished dish… was too hungry and just dove right in)

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Oh, and also included are some pictures of chocolate chip cookies I made.  A couple of friends had birthdays recently and I figured I’d bake them some cookies.  Not sure why, but the end result (again, forgot to take pics post-baking) turned out really flat… these were the 3rd batch of cookies I’ve made and the first two turned out nicely, shape-wise.  These tasted good enough, but somehow really flattened out.  I wonder if I used different butter than the one I did last time… that’s the only thing I can think of.  I miss easy access to Crisco… (and no I did not eat any cookie dough – WHO WOULD EVER DO SUCH A THING… though it tastes so GOOD… I mean… not that I would know of such a thing, of course…)

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Experiences

*gasp* *wheeze*

January 6, 2010 – 17:47

It looks like I’ll be tackling one of my new year resolutions sooner than expected – that of running a marathon.

One of the folks in the office was lucky enough to have friends in the right places that were able to pull some strings – all the people (who wanted to) in the company running group will be joining the Tokyo Marathon… including me! :0

Information for the Tokyo Marathon can be found here, and as you can see, entry is EXTREMELY competitive.  It looks like over 272,000 people applied – but only 32,000 spots are available.   I actually applied the “normal” way first, by submitting my application online, but didn’t win the “lottery”.  Out of the 6-7 people in the office who applied, only 1 made it.  However, thanks to “connections”, we were lucky enough to be able to apply again (shhhh) and make it in.

So… this means that I’ll have to seriously practice again since the race is in less than 2 months!  After 3+ months of slacking off on running, I’ve got my work cut out for me. (^^;

Actually – I just found out today that I had applied to (and forgotten about) a half-marathon in Shinjuku (21km).  I just got the entry card today, and after a few minutes of head-scratching I remembered that I had applied for this over 2 months ago.  That will be on the 31st of this month.  Good practice for the full marathon on February 28th!

With my weak left knee, my goal is not to win (would probably cripple myself if I tried pushing myself that hard), but rather to feel the satisfaction of actually having been able to run 42km non-stop.  Wish me luck!

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Thoughts

2010 resolution list

January 2, 2010 – 09:22

Happy New Year everyone!  Hope you’ve enjoyed the holiday season and are ready and rarin to get back to work!  No?  I don’t blame you… I’m not quite out of “holiday mode” myself either…

I thought I put up my own small goals for 2010 (how are you going say that – “two thousand ten”?  “two thousand AND ten”?  “twenty ten”?).  These are just off the top of my head (mostly carrying over from last year) so I may make additions at some point later.

  • Get an IT certification – this goal is a carryover from last year, and I’m going to try to get more serious about this..
  • Study Japanese (again) – I’m not sure if I’ll go back to classes, or try to find someone for language exchange, or what exactly, but I would at the very least like to try and improve my conversational Japanese skills..
  • Run a marathon – yeah… that’s 42km, but… at least once I’d like to accomplish that!

And 3 more carryovers (which I plan to make constant every year) are to save, cook, and exercise more.  I’ve never been the most dedicated of “athletes”, but I’ve gotten into fairly decent shape this year (though I have to say that the holiday food has been weighing me down a tad AND I’ve slacked off on running for the past 3 months) so I’d like to maintain this since I know it will be beneficial in the long run.

I also started cooking more this year and find I rather enjoy it.  It’s relaxing, and there’s definitely a feeling of pride when I see people genuinely enjoying something I’ve made (though washing dishes continues to be a constant bane)

And finally, if the economic crisis of 2008 has had ANY personally positive impact, it would be that it has encouraged me to look more closely at how I handle money and the importance of having an “emergency fund” that I can fall back on if things ever go south in terms of employment.  I don’t expect I’ll ever be rich, but at least I hope that I never need to be scared that I may not have enough to pay the rent, buy food, etc.

I think that covers most of my resolutions for now, though I may add more if something comes to mind.

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Food & drinks

Mmm, food!

December 31, 2009 – 20:27

Speaking of holidays and cooking resolutions, I have yet to post what I’ve cooked!

I recently got a Healsio microwave steam oven, and I have to say that I have been very pleased with how it’s working.  I’ll try to do a writeup about it later, but for now I just wanted to put up some images of my holiday cooking.

On the days leading up to Christmas, I’ve made both chocolate chip and molasses cookies, a whole roast chicken, stuffing, and corn bread.  (I also made tons of mashed potatoes as well as gravy but not using the oven)

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On the table we have stuffing in a pan, the roast chicken, clam chowder in a crock pot (though the clam chowder was from a can – I just added raw shrimp), roast potatoes and carrots, corn bread, and molasses cookies! 

More images below, though none are of very good quality – this  represents a full day of cooking and I was pretty wiped out by the time everything was done.

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I actually cooked way too much for just 3 people (myself, S, and her sister), so next time I’ll have to remember to cut down a little!

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Thoughts

Happy Holidays

December 31, 2009 – 07:55

Well,  it’s rapidly approaching the end of 2009 and boy has this year gone by fast.  I think I’ve mentioned it before, but I think life started accelerating once I hit 19 – since then, each year has gone by faster than the last.

2009 has certainly had its challenges, particularly in the workplace after a good  friend and mentor was let go.  Since this is a publicly accessible site, I won’t go into any details, but things were fairly stressful at work for a good few months.

There were also frustrations/uncertainties of a more personal nature, but… sufficed to say that I’m still sorting through those.

In the long run though, 2009 was a year of growth in many ways.  Not that one doesn’t try to progress in some way in any given year, but this year I finally moved to a place of my own.  It’s not the biggest place in the world, nor in the trendiest part of town, and doesn’t have anything especially unique – but it’s my place, the first time I’ve ever been completely on my own… and I’m loving it!

I’m happy to say that I’ve also cleared through most of my (modest) goals for this year as well:

  • Move to my own place – done!
  • Save money so I’m not living paycheck to paycheck – done!
  • Get a driver’s license – done!
  • Exercise – done!
  • Start cooking more – done!

I didn’t get to accomplishing ALL the goals I had, namely:

  • Get an IT certification
  • Improve my Japanese (I think I’ve actually gotten worse)
  • Buy fewer books (But the I’ve bought a Kindle so maybe that balances things out? 😉

I’ll create a new list of “resolutions” after the New Year rolls around, but so far 2009 has been, despite its challenges, a pretty good year.  Let’s see if I can keep up the momentum and do even better in 2010!

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Tweaks & Tech

Spam!

December 30, 2009 – 10:37

Holy smokes, I just noticed that the spam count has skyrocketed – over 600+ spam comments caught this month alone!  It would appear that spammers don’t take holiday breaks – December 25-26 (depending on which timezone you happen to be in) has Akismet catching well over 100 spam comments.  Spammers need to get a life, seriously.

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