amy

amy
Todd and Narumi and Amy came over for a celebratory Todd-got-a-job dinner. We got The Best Gyoza and then finished up with some beverages at home. Amy gets cuter by the minute.

ed runs the table

ed runs the table

Ed's in town from London for a conference in Okinawa, so he took a couple days to hang in Tokyo. We had dinner and went to Muse to shoot pool and trash talk. Place was completely empty, but people finally started showing up as the evening wore on.

basketball

Like most sports involving round objects, I know nothing about basketball. However, my lack of knowledge didn't stop me from entering the yearly college basketball pool. As expected, out of 53 participants I finished dead last. The good news is I got my money back as a consolation prize:
There would be no late game comebacks at the bottom of the pool, where Renfield Kuroda pretty much had the booby prize locked up after Round 1, where he had only 15 of 32 right, 2 right in the Sweet 16 and nothing on the board after that. To his credit, he may be the only person in the pool that picked Bucknell over Kansas, but he also may be the only person in the whole WORLD that picked Bucknell to go to the Final Four.

socks

I used to be a crazy-patterns sock kinda guy. Recently though, I've been subscribing to the economically efficient bulk-solids-and-reasonable-patterns sock packs, i.e. a Kirkland socks from Costco.
I now have a drawer full of socks. Combine this with my for-all-intents-and-purposes color blindess, and my general lack of higher cognitive thought processes before 8am, and it's bound to happen.
Walking to the train station, my left sock was snuggled comfortably at upper calf, but my right kept slipping down to my ankle. Upon further inspection, I discovered that I was (am) wearing unmatching socks.
The left sock is a blue so deep I am probably within my legal rights to call it black (at least under fluorescent light), with a wide-spaced striping pattern, just below knee length, medium weight poly/cotton blend.
The right sock is new-moon-on-a-winter-night black, with a slightly narrower striping pattern, mid-calf length, medium weight poly/cotton blend.
I can blame no one but myself, for it was I who paired and folded the dried socks and placed them in the sock drawer. It was I who removed them from the drawer. It was I who pulled them onto my feet. And it is I who sits here now, confessing my sock-sins to the World Wide Web. Ah, the power of the blog.

der weekend

Went over to Hataya-sensei's shop to do some sword dealings. The two cutters we use at Honbu are at the end of their lifespan, and it wasn't worth spending money to get them fixed. Out of the bigness of his heart he bought them off of me and gave me a good discount on a new blade, so now we have a lovely new cutter for the dojo folks who don't own their own.
I sent my beastly cutter off to Ted as well so that he can shave down some of the meatiness and make it a bit easier to draw.

On Sunday saw Sideways with Hiroko. Much better on a large-screen, unedited, than when I saw it on a plane a few months ago. Losers are still losers, but it had it's quality comedy moments.
I still don't get wine, though.

Had some packages arrive, too, including our ass stool and umbrella stand for the entrance. Life is all about collecting stuff.

snack

snack
Traditional Japanese sweets. I did fine European chocolates when I was little (thanks dad!) but now it's all about bitter green tea, gelatin cubes, sweet beans, fruit bits, powdered nuts...