Oh no It's the Alien!!
Dodd should appreciate this hi-rez image of the alien from the Commodore64 version of the game. Remembering playing this one, running around the Nostromo and always running into this image. Never did manage to flush it out the airlock.
Memory Quiz. Can you remember all the characters names from Alien (without googling it)? One of the names is on the image. And of course one is Ripley. I always miss one.
Went to Korakuen today with Keb, Chris and Sarah. You will probably get a better story at keb's blog about this one. Most notable point: Yelling 'floppy!' on evey ride coz it's scarier plummeting down an 80 meter drop while your body is completely relaxed, than when rigid.
Best ride: The Thunder Dolphin rollercoaster 80 meters and smoooth.
Worst ride: The Fantasy Illusion crappy seat rockin' dome projector crappy crapitty crap ride.
Worst restaurant: The hotdog factory 'coz it's next to the horse racing betting joint and filled with smoking old doods who only order coffee. (sorry guys, my call)
Worst luck: Bumpin into snotty kid students (not mine but Kebs and Chris's)
Best Quote: Kurt after freefalling 80 meters on the tower hacker. I really didn't enjoy that
and of course Floppy!

Merry Christmas to all and Sundry.
We had the usual big christmas party including the long lost Spish and Chris in their debut Japan Gee Chrissie bash. Notable attendants, the ever troubled Nigel made his first appearance since er last christmas. That's consistency for you. And in work attire he was the boss so we had to behave ourselves. Above is a picture of Randy, and no this photo has NOT been photoshopped. He puts my naturally spherized headz to shame. Full points for that hed.
Lisa got, as part of her hoard of prezzies, a four faced rubix cube (pictured). Still not sure if it's rediculously easy or fiendishly difficult. The jury's out on this one as I have only gotten one side one colour yet and only in alcoholically enhanced state. Will reveal results when sober. Thanks everyone who gave cool prezzies. Lisa's favourite is the doggy dollhouse from Randy but loves all of the received toys. Currently playing with the hamster in a plastic ball. Hours of fun for the whole family. In the picture is my latest creation made especially for the party. It was supposed to be a playdoh disco ball but looks more like an alien mushroom or a nuclear explosion but either way,an eye turner. It flashes too! Everyone should have one, impress your friends! Fun at parties! It slices, dices, juliennes and comes in a beaut swuedette pouch. Anyway, tonight for dinner was the madatory leftover turkey in sandwich manifestation and if the natural progression of leftovers continues, will reappear once more as some sort of miced pie in combination with the last stand of Potato Salad and the Vegetable gang at which point we will all rejoice that we have seen the last of said bird and infernal condiments. However we will not grieve their passing but will remember the good times and satisfied stomachs that they brought upon the partygoers lest we take for granted that which David lugged across Tokyo in a dripping cold bag.
Sorry to see Kurt couldn't make it due to the Pox. We all thought about him lying at home in bed watching Lord of the Rings ( a kebber tradition it would seem) and assure him that he was in our hearts and minds and he'd better not use this as an excuse not to give me prezzies! Actually Kurt, if you're reading, I still owe you for 'Electronics for Dummies'. If you are really lucky I may present you with the Playdoh DiscoBall™,

almost there.

Have you ever seen a ruder bike seat? So you can ride it backwards as easily as forwards.
It's almost over. One more working day to go before Christmas. As a celebration I subjected my students to vegemite and strangely most of them liked it. Perhaps because I warned them beforehand that the lovely chocolaty facade harboured a taste that to put it mildly needs to be aquired...at least for non-stralians. I also played them the remix I made of a class conversation tape. The textbook tape conversations are cliche, overacted and sometimes downright racist. One has a black couple trying to convince another black kid to come with them, steal a car and go joyriding. He agrees. Then the same couple ask a nice wholesome whiteboy and he declines, presumably because nice white boys don't commit such heinous crimes. It's so bad I had to mix the dialogue into a hiphop track with scratching, sirens and ghetto sounds. Needless to say, the students liked the new version better. I think I'll send it to the text publisher.
Pin is better. I still have my pain but I'm back at gym, at least for the time being. Pretty sure it's not stones as food does not effect it in anyway. Could be pleuracy since it's around the ribcage, but only on one side, hmmm. I guess the smart thing would be to go to the doctor again. Naaaa I'm enjoying the Housish diagnostics. Actually I am going to the doctor to get flu vaccine next week so kiilin' 2 birds with 1 stone.

In the old days....

Kurt, finding your lack of faith disturbing.
It occurs to me (while watching an Agetha Christie mystery on TV) that when we laugh at our grandmothers for calling our girlfriends Strumpets, Jezebels and Floozies we forget that our grandchildren will chuckle at our accusations of Slut, Slag,and Bitchqueen while they call their promiscuous peers Phoboids, Rhombs and Nimbus (maybe) . Grannies of the later 21st century will have pierced bellybuttons, tattoos and when they hang their G strings on the clothes line their grandchildren will look on in amusement at how big they are. Their undergarments will probably consist of little more than an ideal floating in the ether never to properly manifest on this material plane.
Pin has another fever. If I had 1 cent for every fever Pin had I'd have 12 cents. She says strange things and looks like she is having a visionquest. Delerium can be such a trip. I remember being the same way as a kid and scaring Mum too. One recalls parents toying with the idea of employing the services of a priest to exorcise my tormented soul. Took Pin to daycare with a fever and dropped her off quickly before the minders could reject her. Kind of like dropping off an overdue videotape really quickly and hoping the spotty guy behind the counter won't notice but knowing in the back of your mind that they'll just get you next time. In Pins case later in the day having to go back and pick her up early. Oh well, a few hours of grace, enough to teach my morning class at any rate.
On careful deliberation, I cannot remember once ever paying for school photos as a kid. My mothers ability to evade the school bursar was exemplary. Well, she could always just not go to the school, unlike yours truly who was the buffer and pleaded ignorance.(Which as we know is no excuse) And Bag wonders how I became so good and murkifying my financial position.

She still has all the photos however.

So everyday on the way to my morning classes I pass a park and usually sit in it for about ten minutes to collect my thoughts over a morning canned coffee. This usually prompts a slash in the local public bozzer. So I was quite surprised that someone had left a laserdisc (not cd) above the urinal. No it wasn't Gigli as you might imagine of a movie left in the toilet. It was a karaoke disc. I tried to imagine what songs it might have contained to be deposited in a urinal. David Hasselhoffs Christmas songs? The collected works of Milli Vanilli, Aka Bilk or Billy Ray Cyrus. Or possibly Mums all time fave Feargal Sharkey with 'A good smoothie these days is hard to find'.
Only is Pondenzz I guess.
Pin has a fever and Inson has to stay home tomorrow which means I can sleep in a little woohoo!! I still have my pain but I'm getting rather fond of it. We have been having such intimate conversations.

A couple of scraps of paper that I found in the depths of my wallet that have been there since highschool I guess. 18 years ago? Spish will kill me for this. The chick was just someone out of the paper I liked at the time and the other one is Bag's Uncle as the head that sprouts eyes and legs in the movie 'the thing'. I say bags uncle because he had a nightmare about it years ago. I couldn't let that one pass without some form of pisstake. Although Bag is the only person other than myself that was emotionally scarred by that movie. While everybody else I knew was talking about how scary Evil Dead was, or The Exorcist, I was cowering in corners waiting for the pet dog's head to peel open like a banana and try to absorb me.
BryophytoBagoPhun.
Bag has begun a rival Bloge over at
http://bagophun.blogspot.com/
with some interesting sketches done by yours truly, including the infamous 'Lamonde and the Deslock gun' A definate must see for any Gree aficionado's. I hear much of the Dunny graffiti collection will be on display in the coming weeks. For anyone who doesn't know this is stuff we wrote one the walls of the toilet whilst living at the Fear's (the worm) place. Of course it wasn't on the actual wall but on A4 paper stuck to the walls. There were at least 10 pages I guess and Bag the master archivist has restored and digitally reproduced these precious images for the world to see.
Future displays such as 'degrees of things' and 'Gree soup' are eagerly anticipated.

triplets

Cheese and chive muffins, chicken and corn fratata, ham and cheese parcels

Locks, knobs and knockers
Fit, stain and deliver
Free measure and quote

Sonklara doncaster
Sawadee Middle park
and
Koh Samui somewhere else.

She rolls it and folds it and rolls it again. Layer upon layer upon layer

Peel off to the right, hang on tight and there you are.

It rubs the lotion onto it's skin or it gets the hose again.

f,dup f,dup f,dup In the back of Bags car at the footie.

Playdough lightcycle

If Flynn 'd had a playdough lightcycle he wouldn't have had to worry about crashing into Sark. This one was made to distract Pin from my limited edition collectable lightcycle which she is always trying to cram Brian (see last post) into. Alas, it only works as a decoy if I pretend it's better which I neglected to do and so she saw right through my ploy.
If everyone in the world was me, would I be happy? Don't know but I would certainly be not lacking for amusement. All my mates would be interested in the same thing so we could talk for hours. Probably be trying to outdo each other for rudeness all the time, and the highest salary job in Greeworld would be fast food server, because I cannot think of a worse job. Doctors wouldn't make so much coz most of 'em do it out of some altruistic predispositions. Lawyers love their jobs too much so don't need so much of an incentive to work. The 5.30pm MASH slot would always get the highest ratings, even after 40 years straight. And of course Tron would take out all the Oscars including best picture, best actor and best historical adaption.
My latest self diagnosis is intercostal muscular skeletal injury due to overtraining at gym. The doctors probably gonna do a House on me and call me an idiot and insist on a rectal digital examination and bring out The Latex Glove From Hell.
I have another hobby which is taking photos of gloves I see abandoned by the road. Been collecting for three years now and I have about 150 gloves. I'm gonna put them all together and make a music video with them one day. I found a black leather glove with diamond studs the other day hanging from a bush while with Spish and Chris. It's the holy grail of gloves. If you can top that, without setting it up (that's cheating) send me a picture.
End of Line

Back from Hakone

Ahh, that was nice, two days in the hills away from the smog and crowds, well away from the smog at least although the crowds weren't too bad since they were mostly young women. Tried a wine flavored hotspring, tea flavor, charcoal, coffee, sake, a cave, waterfall, swimming pool sized one and one under a black light. I was happy that the water wasn't too hot this time. I don't have the Japanese ability to boil oneself alive and enjoy it. Overall a great trip. Not as many bikini girls as last time but you can't have it all can you. Pin felt a little sick on the bus down the mountain. Like father like daughter. I remember when I was a kid, it wasn't a good trip if I didn't ralph on the way down the winding roads in the back of Dad's Premier stationwagon. We travelled in style in those days. Lying on doonas in the back all the way from Brisbane to Melbourne with a leg stretch in Dubbo, and always voshing. I remember voshing once coz I saw Dodd vosh. A chain of events as it were. Pin didn't vosh, just looked a bit green faced. Unlike my parents, I pointed out that if you look out the front you feel better and she was fine, with some help from Inson and a plastic turtle named Brian.
Also a picture of my computer space and another of my creations.

Here are a couple of pictures of a computer I made. It's HAL from 2001 made from an old crappy computer case, some aluminium and an old camera lens. It even speaks when you boot it up. Currently running WinXP but soon to be Linux. (when I find the time)
Cutting the Aluminium with a dremel was very noisy and as I don't have a workshop, only the balcony to my apartment, stupidly unsafe too. I solved the noise issue (neighbours in Japan complain if you fart too loud) by timing my cutting to be during lunchtime on weekdays, when I'm home, at which time recently we have had construction workers sandblasting the building across the road. Worked a treat. No complaints and no lost fingers.

electrodude

Ultrabright LEDs for this guy.

Free Time

red and white men
I told you I likes LEDs, well here are a couple of things I've made with them. Red playdough hedz with blue LEDs and a clay head with same. And you thought I was without talent! I've made some other stuff too which I will post in later entries.
I had to do a class yesterday which was on pronunciation but it was abbreviated in the schedule to 'Pron' Much as I'd like to teach 'Pron' to the local girls I think the management would object. Especially the practical application classes.
I've gotta stop watching 'House' and using online symptom diagnosis. I have had mild chest pain recently and these things make me believe I've got a tumor, heart attack, angina, menengitis (despite being a brain disease) bowel obstruction, gallstones, kidney stones, rolling stones, various worms and parasites etc. My doctor says I stress too much. Mum thinks its the gallstones and Pin doesn't care, she just likes jumping up and down said tender areas.
Inson still isn't home yet, Lisa's sleeping and I'm all MASHed out for the night. Might be time to crank up the old mixer and do a bit of musak.
If your interested my music page is

http://www.aten.co.jp/FLAK/

assuming the link will be posted.
See ya later..If I don't have an infarction tonight while sleeping.

Me, after seeing the price of Hotspring packages


So we decided it is time to have a relaxing weekend in the coutry at a hot spring resort to unwind but, as is usual here in Japan, after seeing the prices my blood pressure went up and I ended up more stressed than ever. I could fly to Seoul for these prices!! I've never investigated vacation prices in Japan without being really shocked.
First stage DENIAL: It must be a mistake. They can't be that expensive!
Second stage ANGER: How dare they charge those outlandish prices!!
Third stage BARGAINING: Maybe if we brought PIN in a suitcase and didn't feed her it would be cheaper!
Fourth stage DEPRESSION: We're just never going to have a nice holiday :(
Fifth stage ACCEPTANCE: OK OK , I guess we can afford that. I'll just have to put in a few more hours a day at work for the next year.

And off we go....

The Cage of Rage.

There once was a Budgie named Ritchie,
He bit any finger that came near his cage,
He died unappreciated and unwanted.

Don't let this happen to you.

PIN (Lisa, my daughter) got angry today on the way to daycare because she was trying to put on a pair of woollen gloves and two fingers kept going into one glove finger. Dodd (bro) used to get the same kind of frustration when he was little. It always spirals into utter frustration. She then used the force, became one with the world and the glove slid on like a..er well..a glove.

In the beginning...

Ok. So I finally decided to cave in to pressure and begin a blog. Not so much because my life is interesting or my thoughts profound, or even the fact that the person who amuses me the most is me (Think Nirvana) but because those left behind in Australia wanna know what I'm actually doing here (In Japan) other than spawning semi-indigenous life forms and teaching English to the locals.
So I'm not really sure how this will turn out. Lots of "What I did today's" or maybe more "What I think about's" We'll see. Anyway, on with the show!
So Today was Sunday and I spent it in the house with Lisa (my 3 year old) while my wife trundled off to get a haircut. Recently I've been watching three TV shows, alternating between them. The Excellent House MD, CSI (the original) and MASH. MASH is a little scary because I grew up with it and although I haven't seen it for more than 10 years, I still remember every word before it comes out of Hawkeyes mouth. It's almost surreal.And although completely different it shows many similarities to House MD. Both have Doctors with hang-ups and both include the phrases 'subdural hematoma' and'Myocardial Infarction' despite being 30 years apart. What does this mean? I called Sarah (my sister) in an attempt to find out. She too has been watching House and although she hasn't been watching MASH, she was subjected to the same Pavlovian brainwashing that I was as a child and needs no mental prompting. Alas she could shed no new light on the subject except to note that House uses the term 'vasculitis' quite often along with 'pulmonary embolism' (excuse the heroic spelling) which do NOT appear in MASH , probably due to advances in medical technology in the last 30 years. She did mention however that House and CSI share the expressions 'anaphalactic shock' but that CSI also uses 'blunt force trauma' which House does not. I fear the only way to really get to the meat of the issue will be to type up a multiple choice quiz for those around me and see if their knowledge of inter-TV drama jargon is as complete as mine. Meanwhile Lisa, who I have conditioned to actually tolerate my MASH binges sits quietly coloring in pages I downloaded from the net in the livingroom. Although she prefers the animal pictues to the Tron (disney) ones I found. I guess you can't win'em all.
Dave out.