H went into surgery about 30 minutes ago. I'm glad he's finally getting relief. I am in the waiting room @Cambridge hospital eating junk food and watching Oprah. The secretary has the tv remote so Octomom it is.

Hey folks. Not a whole lot of excitement going on in my neck of the woods as of late, so I haven't been feeling motivated to post as much (or as often). My day-to-day routine revolves solely around little G with maybe one day a week to spend a few hours alone with H. My only true "me time" is after G is in bed (after 7:30-8), so I find myself staying up late to do what I want to do. This ends up biting me in the ass, because G gets up between 5-6am.

So.... I am running on 4 hours of sleep last night (1-5am) but I am surprisingly well despite not having any coffee yet! I just was about to leave to get a mocha iced coffee @Honeydew, but my brother-in-law is on his way over to pick up some wire. He'd better hurry his ass up. :P

G made artwork for me to share. He did it with his butt!

Someone's getting Doumyouji's hair.

Happy Monday, peeps! I hope you're all getting through the morning ok. G is napping and I'm sucking down my second third cup of Eight O Clock coffee. Yeah, the cheap stuff. I've discovered that the Colombian Blend is actually not that bad. The Original Blend tastes like cat piss, though. Unfortunately, I bought that first so I need to finish it. Ewww.

To all of you artsy computer-skilled folks.... are any of you willing to do me a huge favor? I will compensate you with a gift for your trouble. The gift will probably be Japanese-y, if you're into that sort of thing. I need an excuse to go to Tokai Gifts in Porter again, so it will probably come from there. :) I really want to make a cool invitation for G's first birthday bash. I'm thinking about using a vintage Japanese Godzilla poster and modifying it for a birthday invitation. Something like: Greyzilla Turns 1! or something. I was going to do it post-card-style and put the details on the back.

If I were to put this task out there, would you be willing to try to dazzle me? I can make it a contest if more than one of you bite. I know you guys are busy, so I don't want to waste anyone's time.

Please let me know if there is any interest. :)

Now that y'all are moving to Dreamwidth, does that mean I won't see your posts anymore? ;_; Should I cave into peer pressure and sign up, too?

Thank you, tacohime, for making me aware of Kotobukiya's closing this week, otherwise I would have gone there in a week and they would have been already gone. I am so deeply saddened by this. Since Yoshinoya closed a few years ago, this has been my haunt for my monthly trips to the Porter Exchange for Japanese groceries. There is only one more truly Japanese grocery store left on Newbury Street (Cherry Mart) and it does not have the same magic as these 2 other establishments did.

I am going to make a trip there today to bid them adieu. This is so unfair. ;_;

I have managed to procure a Little Tikes Activity Garden! I did not end up winning the one on eBay. While I was in FL, my father-in-law was secretly bidding on another one. He ended up paying way too much for it, but it was very sweet of him to get it for G. It arrived yesterday and despite having been used, it is in nice shape (this is the manufacturer's photo):



This morning, I spent some time wiping it down with warm soapy water with a little bleach. I just hosed it off and it is now on my deck drying out in the sun. I've also soaked the little veggies and "letters" in warm water with bleach and rinsed those off. Once everything is dry, we should be good to go! I can't wait because he is so active now that I could use ANYTHING that can keep him still, even for a little while.

I'll probably post photos of him using it this weekend or something.

ps> They also threw in the Little Tikes Buzzzzz-About Mailbox. I haven't gotten around to cleaning that up, yet. Maybe I can send it over to Grandma and Grandpas.

While I was in Florida, we went to a flea market there called "Fleamasters" in Ft Meyers. It is basically a crappy flea market (most stalls were empty, due to the economy, no doubt) selling lots of useless things of poor quality. When browsing around, we came across a game stand selling used video games of all platforms. The prices there were like, insane. We had no interest in buying, but he did carry some imports, so I thought I'd take a peek.

He had a mint copy of The Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Do you Remember Love? for the Japanese PS1. He wanted $65 for it, which I thought was kinda nuts. Upon further inspection of the discs, I discovered that he only had disc 1 and 2 when it was a 3-disc game. I alerted him to that fact and joked that for that I would give him $5 for it.

I didn't think he took me seriously at first, but a few minutes later, he said I could have it for $5! I bought it and found out when I got home that disc 3 was only a demo CD, so I have the complete game!



H loves Macross and shooter-games (and this one is!), plus it has movie footage throughout the game. It really was a wonderful find!

On a slightly related note, Grey has a strange affinity to game controllers and my PS2 (no matter how I hide it with pillows, he finds it and keeps opening the CD tray). I may have a future gamer in the works!

Why hasn't anyone killed/overthrown Kim Jong Il yet?

It is a shame that a nation must suffer just because he has a microscopic dick.

I've found that the channel list with Keyhole resets and clears when it gets to be too late timewise in Japan, so you don't get to watch things that normally show at 12am-5am. I've found that as long as I keep the channel open before that happens, the channel does not reset and I can watch the programming. Of course, if I close the channel, I lose it until they open it up in the channel list again. Good to know!

I've discovered that during late night hours, some channels do 30 minute spans of just commercials. It is neatto.

BTW, I DO get NHK (2 of them, in fact), despite what I've heard in the past. I also get TBS and TV Nihon. Good stuff. :)

This has to be one of the most disturbing things I've seen in a while. I was watching a late-night variety show and this guy came out wearing nothing but a G-string. He then bent over (as pictured) and spat out 3 ping pong balls.



.....he didn't win.

I have been watching Keyhole TV and I've really been enjoying it. I am especially having fun watching all of the Japanese commercials. For some reason, it plays really well on my older laptop and it plays absolutely crappy on my newer pc (choppy/pixely picture, skipping frames, Japanese text not showing even though I have it installed). No idea why, so I am sticking with my laptop since I have no desire to update my computer with everything under the sun to get it to work.

I found a very bad thing online - Ichiban Kan. I guess they carry stuff from the 100 Yen store overseas and they ship within the US. They have tons of bentos, bento lunch-making cutesy things (animal-shaped cutters, nori punches, cute paper cups, etc.) all for around $1-$2 each. They also carry many other things like food, housewares, cosmetic items, giftware and the like. I already spent $25 there and have a long wishlist going. Like I said, a very BAAAAAD thing.

Has anyone tried Keyhole TV before? I've read that it allows you to watch streaming Japanese tv (except NHK). Of course, I DL'ed it and it's offline until tomorrow. If this works, I am going to be very happy!

*edit* No wait, I did even better...



Party of 443? Pffft! >;)

I am completely addicted to Yo Gabba Gabba on Noggin. It is the most cracked-out shit you'll ever watch. Greyson even likes it, even though he is way too young to understand what's going on.

Check this out: THERE'S A PARTY IN MY TUMMY!

You may end up singing this over and over again once you see this. You've been warned.

Someone from my August '08 mommy board posted this. She got this toy from her husband's co-worker and she said, "I'm not blowing this toy up for my kid!"

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dena,

It's FESTIVALE at ACCF! :)

Did anyone else see this clip from The Soup"?

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!