monday

takahashi sensei was absent today...wonder what happened?

there was a little scuffle between hara kun and takamori kun. what was interestin' was that the teachers weren't really doin' anything. they were lettin' them handle it themselves. it's funny to hear how they spoke to each other.

since it's finals week, there's no sport clubs. guess i might have to run sometime this week to shed all weight i gained from the weekend.


tuesday

takahashi sensei didn't come again today....

only had 2 classes today. all we did was some review for their final exams. i joked to them about if they're havin' a problem understandin' now, wait til they take the exam! all of them got all worried, a pretty funny site to see!

had a meetin' w/mr. miki about my trip. we got all the details worked out. looks like it gonna be a crazy time!

cooked some spaghetti for dinner...i think i made too much. only ate like 1/4 of it. guess i have leftovers for the 2 days.


some things to check out

- splinter cell pandora tomorrow
this game looks sick!!! go d/l some of the trailers...i can't wait for it to come out.

- well i finally seen pics of this jake shimabukuro character that all my students and even some of the faculty think i look like. you be the judge.

- here's a koo little helicopter flash game for ya'll to try out. not quite as fun as pinguin, but it's something you can mess with if you're bored @ your desk! btw, so far tri is the guy to beat @ 1443 pts.

- the maker of dvd-duplication software was ordered to stop selling its copying products in one week. still, 321 studios vows to continue selling the software sans descrambler, and begin directing customers to other sources for similar tools. read more here

- here's a cool site for you die hard nintendo fans.

- the newest apple store is openin' in san francisco on saturday, the 28th of this month @ 1000.

friday nite

met up with yu and his parents @ magomezawa eki. yu's mom made a slammin' meal. masumi showed me a matrix trailer....on his gba!!! man, that guy knows a lot of stuff bout electronics. there's no better guy to ask 'bout info, prices, etc... especially now that he works in the mecca which is akihabara.


da weekend in ito

this weekend the nikkei crew in tokyo set up this onsen trip to ito for andy (dr. andy to be exact, really smart guy, undergrad caltech, cal grad school, engineer, makes chips for phones and stuff) and mutsuko's farewell trip. they'll be movin' to los gatos in 3 weeks. 10 people total: rick & mika, sean & misuzu, andy & mutsuko, bryan, junji, bryan nose and myself.

met up with bnose (bryan nose, from da bay, played j-league, works for nova) @ nishifunabashi. when we got to shinjuku, man...we got lost. not that rick gave us some bad directions but shinjuku station is crazy. probably one of the busiest places in the kanto area. there are so more exits than you can imagine. but anywayz...

we finally met up with them after wanderin' around the station for like 40 min! it took about 2 hours by train w/some transfers to get to ito. we had a nice view of the pacific ocean while ridin' on the train. got to our ryokan and chilled for a few hours before dinner.

dinner was right across the street. it was recommended by rick and mika, who have been there before. we had some bomb @$$ food there: tonyuu nabe, tai, pork, stir fry and even some boar along with it's head!!! we all took pics of this monstrous lookin' thing. you just have to see it to fully understand what it was like. bryan tanaka was constantly fallin' asleep @ the table. we made sure to get pics of that.

after dinner, we stopped off @ the local family mart to get some ice cream. went back to the room, inhaled the ice cream and chilled a little bit before goin' to the onsen. since junji, bryan and sean were all passed out, they didn't go until after we came back.

the next day, we hit up the onsen again. almost walked into the womens' one cuz they switch the baths everyday. luckily rick was there to let me know. after that, we went to eat breakfast and then packed up and headed out. we decided to stop off at these cliffs with this suspension bridge. we overlooked the pacific ocean and it was beautiful to just chill on the rocks. took a cab back to the station and we all went back home.

bnose and i had some more problems gettin' back but it's all good. the fact that we got back to funabashi was all we needed.

this weekend trip was something i totally needed. to get away, breathe fresh air & go to an onsen with your crew...all the stress/worries/etc never crossed my mind once. it definitely recharged me for the next comin' weeks. this trip will go down in the history books! pics will be uploaded shortly...

ps. shouts out to mika for organizin' the trip

next trip: hokkaido baby!!!

thursday

a pretty laid back day @ school. only had a couple of classes.

came home and called my mother. just tryin' to get the logistics down for when yu goes out and when my dad comes in.

met up w/ko for dinner. he gave me some hiroshima okonomiyaki chips! we went to this new place in tsudanuma. it's in the same buildin' as the new entertainment center (pachinko, slots, arcade, karaoke and tons of restaurants). this play is known for their grilled food and their homemade tofu (made daily). we talked a lot bout bball and baseball. i even proposed a trade to him...which i might take back due to the fact that ricky davis might be startin' now.

afterwards we went to a cyber cafe. i've never been to an internet cafe before but this place was pretty dope. first off, you go in and pick where you want to sit. next, we got some slippers and some free drinks. there was probably over 10,000 manga which were on 3 of the 4 walls! they have dvds for you to watch, magazines/newspapers to read. in your cube, you have a computer w/t1 connection (though it was winme), tv, nice recliner and a ps2 to play dvds or games that you bring in. while ko read some manga, i ended up checkin' out x2 (xmen 2) cuz i haven't seen it yet. i must say that it was pretty good...and like tri, i liked it better than the first one. i kinda wish kelly hu had more lines than just "hey, what are you doin' here!?" but she did put a whippin' on wolverine! the special effects were also pretty impressive. the movie was longer than i expected, i endin' up catchin' the 3rd to last train home.

friday

well...woke up this mornin' to see an email on my ketai from tri w/the subject line "newton is bruised". my first reaction was "omg, i've read that some ppl have received bent/bruised/cracked powerbooks but i never thought it would happen to me!". so that was downer #1. downer #2 came when i opened up my email to see a message from sis that ross is havin' surgery for a retinal tear. i feel sorry for my sis who has to be the person to keep ross from not gettin' back onto the court sooner than he would like.

right after that...sent an im to tri in a tone like "wtf!!! are you serious!!!?!!??"

he replied back, "the apple has fallen from the tree and newton's head got bruised...but the apple is fine!!!!"

whewwwww!!!!! thank god for that. tri was even nice enough to put up his webcam and show me my baby!!! my powerbook arrived safely from taiwan (no idea why it comes from there, but i could care less now) @ 09:02, 02.19.04.

so i guess it was actually only one downer today.

it was goin' to be a tough day today but it turned out that takeuchi sensei cancelled all my 8th grade classes. so i'm, kinda in a way done for the day!!! but i'll have to stick around til like maybe 1700ish.

goin' to have dinner w/yu and his family tonite. have to give him my notebook bag and some cash for my pops.

kaz out...

aite, back by popular demand and pesterin' from tri...i finally updated my pics page! so check out some of the pics since september! will upload more but i'm too tired right now!! so deal with it, rock 'n' roll!!!

in other news...

japan beats oman, 1-0 @ saitama stadium!


kaz out...

tuesday

was able to go the last 9th grade english elective class which was fun cuz i haven't been able to go lately. we had them write a summary about the class and when i read them, i kinda felt bad for them cuz they wanted to be able to talk to me more. but hey, it ain't my fault. it's "who who's?" (kuroda sensei) fault. i haven't taught in the 9th grade class since like june!

went to ikko to have dinner w/: ken san & kumi san, minoru san and chi mama, mama and nakayama san. we were supposed to have nabe, but it turned out to be a tempura/sushi party. mama hooked up a super phat feast. found that ken san and kumi san haven't yet met nakayama san. nakayama san even drank (he doesn't drink @ all!) cuz it was their first meeting. it's kinda funny how nakayama san never goes to ikko...but knows pretty much the whole crew cuz he watches all the videos from all the parties. we also got to hear a tape he made playin' the piano. he's pretty good for only pickin' it up recently. we also watched the video from the weekend trip to narita san. for dessert we had some cantaloupe! my first japanese cantaloupe and it tasted pretty good...given the fact that it probably cost $50!!!

wednesday

it's the city wide junior high school meetin' today so the schedule is cut short. takahashi sensei and i ordered our favorite bento, yaki niku from miyagokoro. we're not goin' to the meetin' cuz we have to work on the final examinations. aite...gotta go to class!

some other interestin' news

- got word from my mom that kelli (the og x) had a baby girl. on feb 2 @ 1548

kimiko ayumi aoki

- yoko san wins 100,000yen ($1000) on a 100yen($1) bet @ the horse races!

- cingular to buy at&t wireless for $41 billion

- apple says it has 100,000 orders for ipod mini

- alienware signs to build amd-based research computer

- apple fans sneak peek at the new store in sf

- tivo gets huge horsepower boost

a-rod to the yanks!?!?

well...it looks as though the yankees have pulled another rabbit out of the hat. a-rod goes to the yanks for soriano. my hatred for the "evil empire" has probably reached its max now. check out this link, pretty interestin' breakdown of how much team salary the yanks have.

isiah makes another move!

guess it must be a new york thing. in an interestin' 3 team deal between the bucks, hawks and knicks; the bucks get keith van horn, hawks get micheal doleac, joel przybilla & 2nd round pick and the knicks get tim thomas & nazr mohammed.

should be interestin' to see what's goin' to go down in the next few days as teams make their final offers before the trade deadline.

da weekend

well well well...the weekend turned out to be pretty chillin' yo.

on saturday, chilled @ home, did some cleanin' and of course got caught up on my espn bball season. then headed out to ochanomizu to meet up w/kaoru, ikko, hide and his g/f. turns out that hide's g/f didn't come out :(. all good...we headed out to tiki tiki...the same restaurant that we took tri too. it's a hawaiian themed restaurant where every hour they have hula dancers come out and perform. on their last set, each of the girls gets one of the guys to come to dance with them. w/o hesistation, i motioned over to hide's direction. so he, while bein' pretty yopparai got up and shaked what his mama gave him. of course, i got it all on camera! kaoru and ikko gave me and hide chocolate for valentine's day and hide got me this new toy for my bday. it's not popular right now...but will soon be. hide knows what's up cuz he works for a toy company. he also got me some of the 5th volume of frogs that we all collect. he gave me king frog and helmet frog. i hella want the sho chu frog and sumo frog. guess i have to go to the gachapon to complete my collection. after that, we were plannin' on goin' to sing to karaoke but ikko had to get home early to take care of her grandmother. so we called it a night @ around 2100. took the train back to funabashi and decided to drop by ikko for some ocha.

upon enterin', shacho comes in after no more than 30 seconds after i enter. everyone thought that we came together. when shacho entered, we all were totally surprised to see a big 'ol gash on the left side of his head, bleedin' profusely. bein' in da drunk state that he was in, he constantly turned down all the recommendations of goin' to the byoin (hospital). mama was so concerned that she called his daughter and granddaughter to come by and take him home. we all headed home shortly after.


sunday

had to wake up early cuz i was goin' with mama and nakayama san (her husband) narita san (narita mountain temple). nakayama san drove and it took only about an hour to get there. man...narita san is huge!!! we walked all around while nakayama san took video the whole time. as we were comin' down, this mother and daughter asked me to take their picture. afterwards, mama and nakayama san explained to them that i'm not japanese japanese. they were totally surprised cuz i totally look japanese. of course i do, i'm 100% japanese yo!?! anyhow we went to one of the famous restuarants there and had a total feast. started off with some koi koku (carp miso soup) and i was totally surprised that you can eat the bones. the place we went to was known for their unagi, so nakayama san and i both had unagi jyu (unagi over rice) which was off da hook! we also had some crab dish that was off da hook. chou tabesugidatta (totally overate yo!). i tried to pay for my lunch but mama wouldn't except it. i slyly saw the bill and it came out to be around $150!?!?! she's definitely my japanese mom! afterwards we went to all the little stores around the temple and mama bought all kinds of tsukemono and senbei. we headed home and mama invited me over for some tea and oshinko. chilled @ her place til about 1500 and went home to rest. got a text from sakamoto kun (my "older brother") and he told me to come by ikko. went there and chilled til 'bout 2030 and afterwards, headed to asano w/hashimoto. it was my first time there. after hearin' sensei rave bout their tonkatsu, i was totally stoked to finally get to try it. the tonkatsu is probably the best that i've ever had. we also had some grilled pork which was off da hook. the master and his wife are very friendly and kept the restaurant open for us after hours. they want to take me to their son's aikido dojo. mark this up as another restaurant in my area that i will often go to. when we finished, it was a little hard gettin' home (even though it's only like 1 min to my apt). came home and instantly crashed out.

monday

got to school just on time for the teacher's meetin'. i had to book to make it. ran thru the signal and everything. a normal day @ school. the new cafeteria lady is lookin' cuter and cuter everyday. especially when i see her outside of the cafeteria when she doesn't have a mask on. before i continue...ya'll are probably thinkin' "yo kev, wtf!? why are you checkin' out the cafeteria lady!?" well...lemme explain it to ya. our original cafeteria lady had to take time off to have a kid so we got a temp replacement but that lady only stayed for like a month. then we got this new one who will be at the school til the end of the semester. now, let me tell ya that this new one is totally different than the others. 1st of all...she's only 23!!! (the others are way into their 40's) 2nd...she's cute!!! (i don't think i have to explain this one)

played bball today and it went well. 5 9th grade girls came out along with one 9th grade boy, tsukasa. i was teamed up with jitsu and nakayama. we took it to all the teams.

headed to ikko after work and had a feast! i was the first one there and later: takahashi, kita, yuasa sensei, her daughter seiko (not kiyomi), jomi, mori and sensei. i ate so much and drank quite a bit and mama only charged me 1000 yen!?! can't beat that anywhere! mama also invited me for nabe tomorrow night, even tho ikko is closed, she's havin' ken and her husband over for nabe. should be good times yo! nakayama san is so koo!!

upon comin' home...and writin' this blog, saw sam online and we decided to have dj battle thru yahoo instant messenger. he showed me how to play beats thru it. pretty dope feature. we were playin' all these old school tracks. him and i combined probably have like over 100 gb of music. i have to give it to sam though...he brought shiet out that i haven't heard in ages! we brought stuff out like hi 5, janet jackson, young mc, tlc, bbd, paula abdul, spandau ballet, martika and the list goes on and on. sam got's some taste for an australian by way of england and thailand.

well it's gettin' late and i need to go to bed now....

kaz out...

yesterday...cont

headed over to ikko and spoke with mama. guess everyone was a little too drunk to remember exactly what happened. everyone's story is different. had some dinner and then headed home and played a couple of games of my season and then went to bed.


friday

no 8th grade classes today. taught a couple of 7th grade classes but really didn't do too much. lunch was pretty darn good today.

with the recommendation of tri and mark, installed firefox as my browser. still tryin' to figure everything out...first impression is that it's a lot cleaner and faster than ie.

also got a text from yu sayin' that he's not goin' with much to the states, so he'll have room for my pb. maybe i'll order it tonite if tri's online....

upon leavin' school today, as i went to get my shoes out of my locker, i noticed a little bag. it was chocolate and a note from osawa chan. see, in japan, valentine's day is for the guys. girls give chocolate to guys. but, on march 14th (white day), guys are supposed to give the girls (who got them something on valentine's day) something white...usually white chocolate. kinda weird, but an interestin' little custom, no?

i finally did it!

after comin' home, noticed tri online and we decided to go thru with the purchase of my pb. it's a done deal now...

well...gonna go cook dinner now.

kaz out...


friday funnies

things that make you go hmmm.....(bringin' it back to the arsenio hall days, yo!)

Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, "I think I'll
squeeze these pink dangly things here, and drink whatever
comes out?"

Who was the first person to say, "See that chicken there...I'm
gonna eat the next thing that comes out of it's butt."

Why do toasters always have a setting so high that could
burn the toast to a horrible crisp, which no decent human
being would eat?

Why is there a light in the fridge and not in the freezer?

If Jimmy cracks corn and no one cares, why is there a song
about him?

Can a hearse carrying a corpse drive in the car pool lane?

If the professor on Gilligan's Island can make a radio out of a
coconut, why can't he fix a hole in a boat?

Why do people point to their wrist when asking for the time, but
don't point to their butt when they ask where the bathroom is?

Why does your Obstetrician/Gynecologist leave the room when
you get undressed if he is going to look up there anyway?

Why does Goofy stand erect while Pluto remains on all fours?
They're both dogs!

What do you call male ballerinas?

If Wile E. Coyote from the Road Runner show had enough
money to buy all that ACME crap, why didn't he just buy
dinner?

If quizzes are quizzical, what are tests?

If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from
vegetables, then what is baby oil made from?

If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from
morons?

Is Disney World the only people trap operated by a mouse?

Why do the Alphabet song and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star have
the same tune?

Stop singing and read on . . . . ..

Do illiterate people get the full effect of Alphabet Soup?

Why do they call it an asteroid when it's outside the hemisphere,
but call it a hemorrhoid when it's on the outside of your a--?

Did you ever notice that when you blow in a dog's face, he gets
mad at you, but when you take him on a car ride; he sticks his
head out the window?

Does pushing the elevator button more than once make it arrive
faster?

congratulations to masui chan. she got 5th place (in the nation) in the 800m.


tuesday

classes went well. the students always have something interestin' to say bout everything. hung out with aki and asuka in the music room. they showed me how to play some of the instruments. got a call from a non supported number (aka private number) and was a little hesistant to answer...then i realized that most of the time it means that somebody from the states is callin'. so i pick up and say hello. the female voice says hello back. now i'm really confused cuz i don't recognize the voice. after a while, she introduced herself and i was surprised that it was katsuta san. she and atsuko san are makin' dinner and want me to come by. man...and i was gonna have to cook tonite. what great timin'!!!

on my way home, stopped off to get some wine. tried this new italian sangovese. it was aite...still prefer chile or australian wine. after that, biked to atsuko's mansion. both her and katsuta san were makin' a feast. katsuta counted all the different kinds of food they used and it came out to be like 20 different kinds. it was a feast. the three of us killed 2 bottles of wine which made me really sleepy, so i took my normal position on the couch for a quick kyuukee (break) and ended up takin' an hour nap! yanase came home and we chilled some more. finally went home @ around 2230.

came home and got a lot of games in on my season. still haven't caught up to the real season yet...but should by the end of the week.


wednesday

slept in a little bit and then headed out to starbucks @ 0I0I (marui). rina invited me to the tastin' party there. got to try all kinds of different coffee and learn bout the processes of how they make it and the proper way to drink it. they had this little quiz too and they gave prizes to the people who answered correctly. rina also introduced me to her co workers who all thought i was japanese at first but once learnin' that i was an american, they spoke to me in english. stayed there after the tastin' party and read about 100 pgs of snow crash. it was a nice relaxin' time, drinkin' tazo tea and readin' a book.

@ around 1530, went to gap and jusco to look around. on my way home, headed over to ikko and was surprised to see chi mama workin'. the whole crew: yoko, sensei, takahashi, ryuko, kita, ozaki, junko, nakamura, ezure, shacho & bara. kinda don't remember the time i came home cuz i went straight to bed.


thursday

came in early today for work. found takahashi sensei and kyoto sensei tryin' to figure out what's wrong with the stove in the back of the teacher's room. the stove (heater, not sure why they say stove in japan) was just blowin' out this vaporous gas. now abiru sensei and takahashi sensei have taken it apart. hopefully they can fix it cuz it's pretty darn cold in here.

ha san went back to korea for a week and brought back some omiyage for takahashi sensei and me; korean nori! my favorite!! gonna have to thank her for that later.


kaz out...

ganbatte!!!

just wanted to wish masui chan good luck @ the zenkokutaikai in osaka (national championships of japan). she's a long distance runner. she gots skillz yo...remember her name.

mon

another day @ school...cough kinda came back a little bit. had lots of classes today, especially with the dreaded 2-4 zoo...i mean class. takes a lot of energy out of ya when you're constantly havin' to tell the students to be quiet or try talkin' over them. hmmm....i don't think i was this bad as a junior high school student...or was i???

decided to take a day off from ball. was still tired from yesterday. went home early and played a little bit of my espn season before meetin' up with mikie for dinner. i took her to okonomiyaki place in front of yakuendai station. just had some okonomiyaki and some yaki udon. yoko was playin' 80's music the whole time from her laptop so it very natsukashii to hear all those old school jams. anyhow...came home afterwards and played some of my season before goin' to sleep.

news

nba news
big trade between the hawks and blazers. blazers send r.wallace and w.person to the hawks for s.abdur rahim, t.ratliff and d.dickau. this is gonna mess with my fantasy team a bit.

video game news
nintendo says next gamecube to be ready in '05, '06

oh yeah...snow crash is gettin' good. probably gonna read a bit tonite. aite ya'll i'm headin' home. pz!!!

kaz out...

da weekend

friday @ school was a chillin' day. had some classes with the 8th graders and 7th graders. i was still coughin' up some phlegm here and there. didn't play any bball.

left school promptly @ 1700 and went home to do some final cleanin'. mikie called me up @ almost 1900 and dropped off the portable stove and some other little things. then we headed to matsukiyo for most of the groceries. met up with natsuyo and junko but i didn't notice them cuz i was expecting to see just junko. i thought natsuyo was comin' a bit later. headed to the 99 shop for some things and saw miyuki chan (one of my students) there. she was pretty surprised to see me.

got back to my place and all the girls were totally shocked to see that i had a kotatsu. they kept tellin' me that i was japanese. as for preparin' the food, i really didn't have to do a thing. just showed them where everything was and they got down to work. all i did was put some music on and make tea. the nabe was especially good because of the cold weather. after we ate up all the nabe, we put ramen in the aji. for dessert, i busted bout the bonpeiyu (sp?; a circular, small sized watermelon, very similiar to a grapefruit) and all them didn't know what it was. this fruit doesn't grow in kanto area. mama said it's from kyushuu. anyhow...the skin of this fruit is hella thick yo!!! maybe 10cm (about 4in) thick. but the actual fruity part was pretty good. not too sweet, not too sour. then i brought out some ice cream which they devoured. i pretty much got rid of a lot of my snacks that i've had for a little while. thanks to mikie also, most of my beer is gone now too. since junko and natsuyo don't drink that much...mikie and i killed a bottle of kubota. anyhow...time was gettin' late and took junko and natsuyo back to the station. chilled and talked in the cold for almost an hour afterwards before makin' plans to have okonomiyaki on monday.


sat

slept in, cleaned up, did some laundry & of course, played some more of the espn season. was plannin' on goin' to akihabara but found out that there's an apple store in ginza. so i decided to go there instead. the directions said to get out @ the A13 exit and i walked up the stairs in ginza (first time walkin' thru there durin' the day) and bam! the apple store was right there!

man...the store is really new...only two months old. i immediately bypassed all the g5s and ipods and made my way to the 12" powerbooks. man...they're way doper in person. after doin' research for the past 3 weeks, seein' them in person was such a treat. asked a sales associate for some help and was surprised that all of them can speak pretty good english. he was extremely helpful and was able to answer all my inquiries. got to test out the bluetooth k/b and mouse, scalin' feature in conjuction with the 20" cinema display (a feature that's a must see) and of course expose. walked upstairs and saw the genius bar, photo/music/video centers. the 3rd floor is the theatre where they classes. 4th floor is the software and accessories. saw a pretty dope bag that i'd get. compact and aesthetically pleasin'. i spent about 2 hours there lookin' at all kinds of stuff. @ around 17:45 got back on the ginza line and headed to shibuya.

was supposed to meet up with bryan @ the hachiko koban (police box) @ 1815. me up with him, his buddy shintaro (studied in london for 5 years, has an english accent, works for fujitsu) and scotty (j/a from hawaii, we play ball all the time together, works for vodafone). we waited @ the restaurant and waited for ken's (j/a from la, married to japanese girl, accountant) sister-in-law, ryoko, and her 3 friends. the restaurant was pretty nice, wouldn't expect it to be like it was judgin' from the outside. 3 girls only showed up first, ryoko, yoko and rie. nao came a little bit later. kinda weird how we were situated because the guys all sat at the ends w/the girls in the middle. luckily for me the girl who can speak english sat next to me. i didn't really get a chance to talk to the other girls as much, but bryan, bein' the comedian that he is, got everyone to talk to each other with his jokes and stuff. we finished up @ around 2300, just enough time to catch the train home. was supposed to kick it with yu
and his friends..but i don't think i could have pulled an all nighter and play bball the next day. so i went home. as i got off the train @ jr tsudanuma, i saw all these people runnin' towards the shin tsudanuma station...so i decided to run too. when i looked @ my watch...i had about 2 min to get from station to station in order to catch the last train. luckily i just barely made it within about 10 seconds!

on the way back, stopped off @ serenade to say hi and was shocked to see that ito chan and mina chan were there. chilled there for a while and then headed home @ around 0300ish.


sun

slept in til around noon and then did some more laundry and went grocery shoppin'. had some sashimi, gobo & potatoes for lunch. watched bowling for columbine which i thought was pretty good. played a couple of games of espn bball and then made the trek out to shibuya to play some bball with the fellas.

only about 13 guys showed up. scotty brought his buddy from work, a tall german guy, who timo could talk to in german with. for some reason...i started to cramp up again during the 3rd game. i don't know what it is. on the other court, there was bout 30-40 kids, dressed all streeted out, playin'. some of them had some pretty good playground moves, they probably been watchin' and1 videos and playin' nba street 24/7. but it was interestin' to see how these kids have grasped the streetball culture. kinda weird to see these people, dressed and play the way they do outside of the states. decided to skip gettin' food with the guys cuz i wanted to get home. man...i kinda realized it a bit of a pain to go out to play bball in shibuya. from my house, take shin keisei to shin tsudanuma eki, then walk to jr tsudanuma eki, then hop on the rapid sobu to kinshicho eki, transfer to the local sobu to ochanomizu eki, then transfer to the rapid chuo to shinjuku, then walk to the shin keio line and get off at the 2nd station which is hatagaya.

got home around 2230, took a shower, checked some stuff online and then went to bed.

aite...gotsa to get goin'

kaz out...


news

After two years, Microsoft's home video game system has failed to make a splash in Japan -- maybe free "love pillows" will be the answer. read more

More and more bars and restaurants scan patrons' driver's licenses, ostensibly to verify age. But the licenses contain lots of valuable information, and the temptation to use the data for marketing is hard to resist. read more

Spider-Man, the X-Men and Marvel Enterprises's other superheroes will soon be faced with deadly new enemies being dreamed up by video game publisher Electronic Arts Inc.read more

gettin' better

wellz...i'm feelin' a lot better now. still coughin' up a little bit of phleghm here and there but for the most part...i'm not tired anymore and have my voice back.

on wed., mama hooked me up with this drink/medicine called tamagoozake which i think was one of the reasons i got over this little bug. coupled with some miso shiru & buri teriyaki, i'm ready for the long weekend ahead.

lately...the only surfin' that i've been doin' is research on the 12" powerbook. i've pretty much just narrowed it down to a test run, which i tried to do last night...but no computer stores in tsudanuma carry macs. guess i'm gonna have to go to akihabara. once i get a hands on trial, i'm gonna make the purchase...well...have somebody else make the purchase for me.

well...hope ya'll have a good weekend. til then, enjoy the news/links below and pz out!!!

kaz out...


bball news

congrats to: cassell, artest, redd & kirilenko for makin' the all star team. not sure how the hell AI and VC became starters and as much as i'm down for the asian cause...yao ming doesn't deserve to start, nor does shaq. i really think that cassell should be a starter over francis. where's francis' team at? last time i checked, they're in 8th place in the west...where's minnesota??? 2nd!!! kinda wanted randolph or boozer to get voted on...but they're still young...i guarantee next year they'll make it.

tech news

aim 5.5 is out. allows video conferencin' (about time!) d/l here.

nintendo announces new handheld.

microsoft expands xbox live in asia

playin' games with voip

tivo: somebody is watchin' you

random stuff

got this from tri: maybe gettin' a real tow truck could've prevented this. (big file...approx 14mb, so if ya ain't got dsl/cable/t1, don't even bother)

another link from tri: this hand dandy website tracks where you've been in the states and world and conveniently draws a colored map for ya.

as you can tell...i haven't been to too many places... :( but that'll soon change!



create your own visited states map
or write about it on the open travel guide



create your own visited country map
or write about it on the open travel guide

aarrghh

after a long streak of bein' healthy...i've come down with something. so bad that i had to take a day off today. all i've been doin' is restin', drinkin' tons of liquids and of course catchin' up on my espn bball season. hopefully i'll be better by friday and the weekend. we'll see...

kaz out...

update

friday nite: kicked it @ ikko with the fam. headed to masumi w/hashimoto then to serenade.

sat: slept in, did tons of laundry/cleanin'. had dinner w/mark and then headed to ikko for some tea.

sun: played bball in shibuya. only 11 guys showed up. started to cramp up after the first game. no more drinkin' the nite before playin' bball!

afterwards...headed to ann miller's @ shinjuku opera hall and had dinner w/bryan, rick and andy. was supposed to hang out with a-chan in shibuya but i was way too tired. went to ikko for some tea. think i'm comin' down with a little sore throat.

mon: natto for breakfast, chillin' day @ school. played bball. went grocery shoppin' then headed to ikko for dinner. you can't beat a feast for about $9! found out mama has kept most of my folded hashi holders since i've been there. on some of them she wrote the date and what we did. she keeps them in this little box. when i leave japan, it's gonna be one of her gifts to me. :b

my espn 2k4 season is goin' pretty well. miller just came off the d/l, but camby and bowen are hurt.

tue: chillin' day...throat is kinda sore. hard for me to talk. but we'll see how the rest of the day goes. aite...gotta go to class

kaz out...