Thursday, December 31, 2009

I Rip It Hard

Like porno flick bitches.

Sitting in my room in Higashi-Ikebukuro (Ikebukuro is a stop on the Yamanote line in Tokyo about 5 stops north of Shinjuku) about to start the future-New Years wackiness in Shibuya, first, bars, and then at least 2 different clubs. Shits gonna be rad over here in Tokyo, just as I'm sure its gonna be pretty heady over there with you guys. Have a good time, yinz, and think about how fucking weird it is that we're about to enter the 2nd decade of the 21st century. I want my lightsaber already.

Happy fuckin' new year!

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

New Internet Sadness

Peter and I have started a message board.

moontownexpress.proboards.com

Join up if you like, if message boards are your thing.

All are welcome.

Tell yr friends.

Friday, December 25, 2009

Xmas in Japan, Vol. 1

Its Christmas over there, now, right? Hope everyone's having a killllller time!

What I did over Xmas Eve and Xmas:

Ate basashi (aka raw horse meat); ate lots of grilled lamb; drank with the owners of a tiny little restaurant in a town called Iwaizumi situated between 2 mountains; got presents from people I don't know; went to Japan's 3rd largest limestone cave, ryusendo, and drank the famously pure water there (tasted like snow...); went to Unoso, a cliff overlooking the Pacific that is apparently very famous as a suicide spot; watched the sunset/moon rise while in a hot spring outside; cooked an awesome dinner.

Christmas Eve






Ryusendo










Unoso









Merry Christmas!

Love,
Barney Claus

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Monday, December 21, 2009

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Vintage Train Tea Party

My crazy family threw a tea party on the old 1930's subway that's running in New York this month.

Jazz, motherfuckers.

Jazz

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

My Super Special Review of Thai Kitchen's Lemongrass and Chili Flavor Rice Noodle Soup Bowl


So
You say you like chili? And lemons in certain contexts, but not as a rule? And noodles in a vague, sort of passive way?
Boy! Do I have a product for you!
We all have the days: you work 10 hours at your marketing job in union square, you're tired but still the best looking guy in miles, and when you come home you look at five different take out menus and you're so indecisive its pathetic and you decide fine, I'll just take a look at what it's the cabinets of my apartment in Astoria, NY because I'm too bored and spineless to make even a laughably simple decision. This literally happens to all of us at least once a week.
That's where Thai Kitchen's Lemongrass Chili Flavored Rice Noodle Soup Bowl comes in! In your cabinet! You bought it some time ago for God knows what reason!
As the water boils, you gaze into the aesthetically suggestive exoticism of the package. It's cover belays a mystery of flavors: will the noodles taste like the dawn atop majestic Fuji? Or perhaps a rain-flecked jungle, deep in the heart of Thailand. (Disclaimer: all thoughts fabricated; you are busy thinking about The X-Men)
Finally the water has boiled! As with most meals, the noodles are prepared by peeling back the plastic cover, pouring in the "flavor" and "oil" packets, and adding boiling water. In 3-4 minutes your noodles are soft enough to sliver down your throat.
And sliver they will. As you take those first magical bites, words come to your mind. Food. Palatable. Mouth Tingle. Green Stuff. Sadness. Thai Kitchen's Lemongrass Chili Flavored Rice Noodle Soup Bowl is like a taste symphony. A very bad symphony, composed by an idiot. But just the same, it makes you feel bad for people who can only afford that crappy Maruchan bag ramen. It makes you feel bad for everyone, for having to live in a world where Thai Kitchen's Lemongrass Chili Flavored Rice Noodle Soup Bowl exists.
And now, you sit in your apartment in Astoria, NY, listening to the new Clipse album and thinking about ordering a small pizza. But deep inside, you know you won't bother. You've got a beer in the fridge and a few comics to read. Life is just fine.

NEW YEARS PARTY



Sunday, December 6, 2009

Monday, November 30, 2009

National Security Blog

I have been writing for another blog for about a month for American Univeristy Law School's National Security Brief. A brief is a publication that a law school puts out about legal issues. The one I am one is about National Security as you can guess.

We are currently doing blog work until we come out with our spring publication, which I most likely won't be writing for since I am just in my first year. My posts day is Sunady and my posts are labeled VD and my most recent two are about Nevada fusion centers and the train bombing in Russia.

http://nationalsecuritylawbrief.com/

Saturday, November 28, 2009

howdya like video games?

Figger I ought to write after James' un-fucking-believable analysis. And to prove him wrong, I'm gonna write about video games

My ex-roommate modded my nintendo wii so I have like 28 billion games to play. I'm making my way through them slowly, mostly in the early level and training phases. By the far the most arresting game is New Super Mario Brothers. It is a dastardly difficult 2D platformer, with dementedly hairy puzzles and a brilliant bend towards multiplayer. If anyone is as obsessed with the Nintendo formula as I am you will understand that making Mario multiplayer is a goddamn revolution. Dynamism pops, and both co-op and competitive gameplay is around every bend, with each moment throwing something wild at you.

It's an extremely interesting blend of throwbacks when you look at it. The board layout directly resembles SMB3, with the world progression so far identical (grass, desert, ice) and power-ups available from the board screen (ice flowers and penguin suits make sparkling debuts here). However, I feel as though there is a terrific re-introduction of SMB1 in the mostly horizontal layout and speed-through feel that one achieves. Nonetheless, Super Mario World definitely shows through with the puzzle elements, the Koopa kids, the inclusion of Yoshi and the general artistic look. I feel the latter is one setback of the game which I feel is lacking in power and innovation. When you could have one tenth of the whimsical magic Super Mario Galaxy had, you have repetitive platforms and boring backgrounds. I never forget that the Wii is an inferior system.

Which leads me to my next game: The Conduit. I almost bought this game before I realized I can get any game I want for free through this pirate system. The reviews threw it up as one of the best shooters for the Wii (no surprise, what's the fucking competition?), considering the Wiimote's aptitude in this field and the revolution in customization (tweaking can and may occur constantly). Once again, in character models, board repetition, and enemy AI, this game is a disappointment but there are some puzzle elements to be enjoyed. I'm only one level deep, though and I look forward to some interesting weapons.

I'm picking up Excite Bots: Trick Racing. Still very early on, I feel like this is a diamond in the rough. Fast and fun, with lots of style and replay value (many purchasable and unlockable elements) this game may catch more of my attention once I get a little more into it. Multiplayer has not yet been experienced, though (and may not be an option! Hard to believe, but hard to find: I doubt it's an unlockable...)

Wii Sports Resort is a fun diversion and a great crowd pleaser. Fencing definitely gets your claws out, but it can revert into thoughtless slashing with no formula to a proper fight. Flight is cute but slightly pointless, and the dog-fight option doesn't really hash out. Jet-ski is fun and challenging. I look forward to beating my high score from the first time I played it. Ping Pong is certainly masterable considering spin is an element, but there's only so much you can play, right? This goes for most of the modes here, especially the more repetitive ones like canoeing, wakeboarding and biking. A major winner in my eyes, is Frisbee (don't act so surprised). Frisbee Golf has an 18 hole course that I haven't dove into but it is responsive, challenging, and fucking sick when you (I) get a hole in one.

No More Heroes has style up the wazoooooo and a terrific script but it seems as though it is very limited on the action and exploration side of things.

House of the Dead: Overkill is a fun, easy shooter with a terrible terrible terrible script attempt at a pulpy B movie.

Lost Winds 2 is supposed to be amaaaaaazing but I haven't started it yet.

I look forward to booting up Trauma Center: New Blood with a co-surgeon at my side. Any takers?

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Jobbob

If there's one thing that really sucks about my job, its the whole even-if-yr-done-for-the-day-don't-even-think-about-leaving-before-4PM bit. Though it does give me ample opportunity to study.

So yeah I'm typing this in the Teacher's Room (Shokuinshitsu) at Kawai.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

200 Post Breakdown.

Ok friends. Lets get mathematical. I decided to dig into the blog as a scientific tool to define our collective friendship. As you will find there is nothing scientific about it. Anyways, enough intro--I'll let the numbers do the talking. Keep in mind these statistics arecomposed from a snapshot of the blog at 200 posts--things have changed since then.

Looking at the aggregate figures, it took us 264 days to reach 200 posts. That's a rate of .76 posts per day. If this were a daily publication with 12 staff members, that's pretty weak. While the honeymoon period (February/March) saw a good flow of over 1 post a day, production in September slowed to a trickle of 1 in every 4.29 days! Now for some really meaningless statistics. The average contribution to the blog is 16.67 posts at 8.3%. That means on average, each person contributes 8.3% of the material. (Please someone rip me down for using these numbers). More meaningful are these: 4 people contributed more than the mean, 1 person is extremely average in their numbers, and to put it like any good conservative would, the top 33% contributed to almost 75% of the blog!

As you can see, Matt K is leading the pack being responsible for more than 1/4 of the posts at 55 total. Way to go Matt K. Lets focus on Matt K, the ideal blogger.

Looking deeper, Matt K's production over the first 7 months of the blog when he was living in Pittsburgh was at close to 7 posts per month--about 30% of the new post activity. Since moving to Japan his personal post rate (PPR) has slowed to 2.67ppm about 23% of the new post activity in the last 3 months. While Matt's production has certainly slowed, it has not been far out of step of the rest of the contributing community. And who can blame him? He's living in Japan now! This probably means he's out doing other more interesting stuff. Perhaps more interesting is the fact that he's drawing 2/3 the comments he was when he was posting at more than twice the rate. This seems counter to the theory that the less you post, the more attention you will drawl. Very interesting...

Check this:At first glance it looks like Matt K. published the post that garnered the most attention in terms of comments received. However, looking closer we can see that two of those comments are 'Post deleted by author", both deleted by Matt K. Surely then Peter holds the superlative of having the most comments on a single post. WRONG. 1x 'Post Deleted by Author' - Andrew. Indeed, there were three posts, all by separate authors who hold the position of most interesting post based on comments received index. Andrew's interesting post found here was about his year with Americorps. Matt K.'s most interesting post is surprising as it was rather short. And Peter's was about books. All three posts fell fairly evenly throughout the life of the blog so no conclusions can be drawn from that. Also of note: Matt Nye's single post received no comments. Did anyone even read it? It came with a picture. It was awesome.

Digging deeper into this idea of comments implying interestingness, we can see who is more interesting than others:
As we can see, while Matt K. maintains a high rate of blog (ROB), his posts attract an average amount of comments. At the other end of the spectrum, Vince has 5 posts, all with comments and more than half receiving multiple comments. The award for talks least says most goes to Vince. The award for talks most says least is Matt Nye. At 88% with 25 total posts, James seems to be the most interesting person on the blog though after writing this sentence he will probably not get another comment ever. To prove this point, take a look at this Linear Regression Analysis:Correcting for outliers, the linear regression line shows a negative correlation between posts and percentage commented on. This means that the more you post, the less your posts will be commented on per post. Ignoring the R value in the graph (as it is being thrown off my the stellar performance of James' posts) there is a fairly strong correlation between these numbers. It can be said that if you post just once, you can expect an 83.18% chance of receiving a comment. For every additional post, you can expect that percentage to fall by 55 basis points. Now. Note the circled point. This is James' comment percentage, rising above the rest. Thank you.

Moving on, we can take a more artistic but less objective approach to the 200 post blog breakdown. 38% of Andrew's posts contained videos--a blog-high--and 3 of them contained more than one video. James has the most awesome posts. Jonah's posts have migrated from video game reviews into movie reviews, both of which are appreciated by the readership. Kirby has never posted. Not once. Yet he's listed as a contributor. Lauren needs to post more because I personally enjoy what she cooks up. Matt only posted once though I've given him credit for two posts. Woops! Matt K. is the strongest power user of the blog, though his activity has fallen since moving to Japan. Collin is not even a contributor yet I've included him here because I saw his name written somewhere once. Melanie talks about Peter a lot in her entries. Nick is below average in posts, but beating the average for comments. Perhaps saying less makes people listen more...Andrew. Peter rarely gets more than one person to comment on his posts. Kinda lame if you ask me. Vince's posts are incredibly potent, summoning 100% of our commenting power.

Finally,

wasitrollingbob: can you make the end result that matt nye is the most productive person on the blog?
wasitrollingbob: BEND THE DATA

In conclusion, Matt Nye receives the award for most productive member of the blog for the first 200 posts. Keep up the good work Matt, you are a role model(is he even going to read this?) and your work is a benchmark for the rest of us to aim for.

Thanks.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Can't beat Matt's posts

Ok I know there is no way to top Matt's posts especailly since I no longer have a life besides reading law school cases. With that high beat lead in I thought this one case was funny. This women contracted with a dance studio to teach her to dance and paid them over the course of two years $31,000 (this case took place in 1968) and they told her she showed great potential. Typically, for a contract not to be valid through fraud it has to be about a fact. For instance, I sold Peter my car and told him it was fine but it didn't have wheels. The court made a special circumstance in this case because she was such a bad dancer that obivously the dance studio was lying to her. The exact quote was, "the lessons sold to her (were) in total disregard to true physical, rhythm, and mental ability of the plaintiff." So basically this lady not only go screwed out of a bunch of money but a court of law is saying she is a really horrible dancer.

And that is the most exciting thing that happened to me this week.

Friday, November 20, 2009

If You're Like Me...

... then you've wanted to chug as much grape Dymatapp as you possibly can since you were 2. But, unfortunately, have never actually committed since its, well, medicine. That is... UNTIL NOW. Japan had the sagacity to take that whole medicine problem out of the sweet, delicious nectar that is the essence of Dymatapp, and put it in a little glass bottle. This product is called Lipovitan D, and because of it, life is good. And, as an added bonus, its a good deal stronger than Red Bull, so far as
"energy drinks" go.

FuN zOnE

Matt thinks he's soooo cool because he's teaching in Japan and posting sweet pics, well I'm pretty much gonna show him what's up!!!1

things I'm currently doing at work:

- trying to get one of our clients to tell me "yes, go ahead and buy the $4,000 rug for the spa, I think it's FABULOUS."

- listening to Hot97.

- trawling the internet for a wooden bench that has no back, BUT has storage space for TOWELS UNDERNEATH!


iusgffy y1lwdhhwsdooy o9dy9ewydddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd

o sry i just passed out on my keyboard from all the excitement!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

200 Posts!

I demand that you think about what we have accomplished while watching this exhilarating video of the Be-200 Multipurpose Amphibious Aircraft




What a waste!

Whooooa whoa whoaaaaa

School's in session bitches. I got up to Miyako 4 days ago, and started school 3 days ago. I've got 3 schools I'm teaching at: from Monday-Wednesday I'm at Miyako Senior High, on Thursday I'm at Miyako Kita High, and on Friday I'm at Miyako Kawai High. These 3 schools are about as different as you can get. Miyako Sr. High is a kind of big school (considering the area) with maybe 1000+ kids, and of the 3 schools I teach at it is by far the most academically focused. Most if not all kids there have high aspirations for getting into at least decent colleges, if not the big leagues. I've yet to actually teach at the other two yet, but from what I hear, Kita is just the opposite, in that its maybe 700 kids, and has a ridiculously high percentage of "Yanki" and "Housouzoku" (basically, ultra-punks (in the I-ain't-listening-to-yr-adult-ass, Fonzy-emulating kind of way), and biker gangs, respectively). They also have almost 0 interest in learning anything more than what is requisite to graduate. Suffice to say, I'm super stoked to head out there tomorrow. Lastly, Kawai has, all said, about 50 students. It is closing at the end of the school year, but apparently the kids in attendance are a great deal of fun to be in class with.

My lesson plan tomorrow focuses, first, around my self-introduction to the class, and second, on Batman talking to Cms. Gordon about Pittsburgh/Matt being awesome in various different ways. One thing I've noticed in my days subbing/the few days I've had so far actually being stationed at a school is that the cockier you are, the better the kids seem to react. So yeah, basically I plan on converting all of these kids over to the Steelers nation by the school year's end. There might be a Matt Nation in there too...

Miyako is a pretty nice city, though very country side. Shit's cheap (shit = everything, for instance, where 1 plate of the cheapest sushi in Tokyo runs about 140 yen and the most expensive going up to 700 at a Conveyor belt sushi shop, the cheapest here is 98 yen with the most expensive being 300 (and I'm RIGHT on the coast, so shit's real fresh)), people are real nice, my "co-workers" (none of us work at the same school, but we're all employed by the same company) are all surprisingly cool, and though I miss the hustle-and-bustle, go-hard-or-go-home lifestyle of Tokyo, its refreshing to get out of that kind of thing. Plus I'm surrounded by mountains, hot springs, caves, ski resorts, and THE OCEAN.

Oh, and I fixed my computer and got a new phone (both were uber-busted, the former being less so than the irreparable latter), so I'm back in touch with the real world. Speaking of which, if you want pics sent to you guys from my phone, just email me at tetsuou1986@softbank.ne.jp and I'll take a picture of the first thing I see and send it back yr way. Quality won't be the best (I picked up the cheapest phone I could), but if you wanna see what the country side of Japan is like, that's probably yr best bet.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Friday, November 6, 2009

Question

Who wants to go to visit Matt Nye next week for Veteran's day and is willing to drive a vehicle (not necessarily your own). I will pick up a car in Rochester and need a one way driver buddy.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

goddamn i love these guys

Watch this video then come to new york in a month to see one of the funniest movies ive seen all year: mystery team

Law School Posts are Borring

I haven't really been posting since there isn't much to say about law school. All I pretty much do is study. Here is a video of what my first day of law school felt like.

Everyone seems to be doing cool stuff though I just caught up reading on a bunch of past posts today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZJEhlIefxA