Some People Have a Hobby Like Tennis or Philately

Just to absolutely secure my nerd/geek status I've decided to take up stamp-collecting. I bought myself a little album and a few sets of commemorative stamps to go in it. Here's one set.

Power Tools!!!

Well actually only one power tool: the Bosch IXO cordless screwdriver. We've decided to finally dismantle the monstrosity of a jury-rigged bed in our second floor room, and we bought the IXO after getting blisters from manually unscrewing a bunch of tightly and crookedly screwed screws. It's only a teeny little 3.6V driver, but it's a ton of fun! God, I love power tools!

Rather Puzzling

Recently Sho-chan and I have gotten into jig-saw puzzles. We just completed a 1000 piece puzzle a few weeks ago, showing the famous Blue Mosque in Turkey. After we finished it we glued it and framed it and hung it in the classroom.


Here is Sho-chan's hand putting in the final piece!

Our next project is a 450 piece of the Sagrada Familia church in Spain designed by Antonio Gaudi.

And in other news...

With all the excitement about the new baby I almost forgot about our other news.

For ages and ages we've been dying to get a new TV since the old one had worn out connector ports making it nigh on impossible to watch videos or play Wii. We had to tape down the cables so they'd stay at the precise correct angle, but if they got joggled even a bit we'd have to do it all over, so we finally just got rid of our ghetto-ass TV and got the lovely red model you see pictured above. It's also digital-compatible, so when Japan makes the switch to all digital broadcasts in 2011 we'll be ready!

We picked up an el-cheapo DVD player to go along with it since season 2 of Heroes is now at the video stores in Japan. (Don't even get me started about the British samurai dude's Japanese; it's rubbish). But Hiro is as cute as ever and I'm happy to see Sylar didn't really croak, he's such a fun villain. Also, did anyone else notice that Bob is Ned the insurance salesman from Groundhog Day? Probably not, but I recognized his voice right away. For some reason Groundhog Day is one of my favorite movies ever!

There's a Party in My Nose

I had a bit of a cold this week, so I tried this:



Hyuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu! This is the feeling of the nose-stick delivering a concentrated blast of eucalyptus oil directly to your nasal passages. I'm afraid I've already become a nose-stick addict! (Or, to quote google translation "I'm me, but I have already nose - Stick with addictive!")

Purikura Addiction

Help me! I think I'm addicted to purikura.

プリクラ三昧 (Photo-stickers A-go-go)

I recently made a great discovery! The photo-sticker machines (called purikura) you find in all the arcades in shopping centers in Japan now come with a new feature. You can download the pictures you took to your phone almost instantaneously using the infared beam! Naturally I lost no time in taking advantage of this and I now present you with a bunch of silly purikura I took over the New Year's vacation.


This picture is my friend and former student Naoko, and her friend Shiho (who I actually taught a few times at Sakasegawa NOVA) . We went to AEON Mall and took a whole bunch of pictures, but I think this one was the best.


This is another one from the same batch, the Japanese writing says "I love my hometown."


I sent this pic to Sho-chan at work and he said 'Your face looks scary.' I guess it kinda does, but I still like this pic.


Finally there's me and Sho-chan looking SEXXXXXXXXXXXY!

PS I finally updated the 'What I'm reading now' section. I haven't been reading Persepolis all this time, I've just been too lazy to change it. (I've actually been reading a crap-load of Agatha Christie to which I've become hopelessly addicted.)

Got Wii?

Well we do! This weekend Sho-chan and I went into Osaka and bought a Wii as an early Christmas present to each other. We were originally thinking of getting matching DSs, but when we saw the Wii demo at the shop we couldn't resist. The new Mario game, Super Mario Galaxy is AWESOME! It's totally fun to play and the cordless controller is wicked easy to use. I've found a new addiction!

Would you like some celery juice?

Some of my former students Yuka, Yumie and Kayoko got me and Shoichi some gift cards as a wedding present. We had been wanting to get a new vacuum cleaner because the one we have now sucks (or rather doesn't suck ha ha ha!), so we headed over to Midori Denka to pick one out with the gift cards.

We looked at the various vacuums they had and we ended up getting a very nice green one, but more importantly we got: A JUICER!!!!!

Let me just say that ever since I was a little kid and I first became aware of the existence of juicers, I have wanted one. They're so cool. Put in any fruit or vegetable, push down, whirrrrrrrrrrr, and Blammo!: out comes juice. Pretty much the awesomest thing ever, right? It is to me anyway.

So, I've been experimenting with the juicer and seeing what kinds of juice I can make. My first experiment was grape juice. Kayoko, Yumie and Yuka brought over some really nice grapes with them when they came to visit, but we didn't get to eat them, so....into the juicer they went! The grape juice was very yummy, but a little too ordinary, so I decided to put in what other vegetables and fruits I had lying around. And that is how grape-carrot-celery juice was born. I quite liked it but Sho-chan thought it was gross. (He doesn't really like celery to start with though.)

I also made grapefruit-carrot juice and plain ruby-red grapefruit juice both of which were FANTASTIC.

However, I just want to warn everyone as a Public Service Announcement; NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER try to juice an onion. I know that no one other than me would actually be stupid enough try this, but on the off chance that there are equally crazy people out there, let me just repeat: NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER juice an onion. For starters it will make you cry just like cutting onions will, only worse. For seconds it smells like, well..., like onion juice. And for thirds if you are extremely extremely brave or stupid like me, and actually try to drink a sip of it, you will most likely die right on the spot. Even if you don't die, your mouth will taste like onion for about 10 hours, no matter how much other juice you drink, or how many times you brush your teeth. For the last time: NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER try to juice an onion.

Thank you and goog niter.

PS Thank you very much Yumie, Yuka and Kayoko for the juicer and the vaccuum, please come over again and I will make you some fresh juice. (No onion, I promise!)

More Lego Action!

Here's a pic of me and Shoichi happily doing Lego together. Awwwwwwwwww! We are such dorks! (but happy dorks).

We'll probably go out and get more Legos soon, this looks like it might be the start of a serious addiction.

♪ Beck, Beck, She's a Lego-maniac ♪

Yesterday Shoichi and I went to the Kobe Porto Bazar (only one A for some reason) outlet mall and we got Legos! I got the awesomely realistic helicopter you see above and Shoichi got a Ferrari race car pit-stop set. Pretty sweet!