Almost Human

The Cure - Burn 1994 HQ (The Crow)

2010-02-14T00:00:00.001Z

Precious Illusion (cover) - Alanis Morissette

2010-02-11T23:25:00.001Z

For me Elle203 has the best female singing voice I have heard, the tone is beautiful, she must be special this is my first blog for about a year on here :)

Quorn old but amazing

2008-10-30T21:31:00.002Z

This is a video of me and some friends performing at a charity gig a few years ago. None of us are profesional singers (as is apparent) but it was all in a good cause. Watch and witness the greatness that is QUORN.

Fungi by Warplight

2008-02-13T16:07:00.002Z

Interested

2008-02-13T07:06:00.004Z

If your interested in Kokedama Bonsai or Rock / Stone Painting check out my 'friends' blogs Sala-Sala and Saya-Saya

Something a bit different

2008-02-12T23:21:00.001Z

Kittens on stone

2008-02-04T23:09:00.001Z

Oh Deer

2008-01-30T23:26:00.000Z

My wifes painting of a deer, everytime I paint something I am pleased with (see lizard below) she paints something better grrrr :( I AM NOT BITTER ABOUT IT BUT SOMETIMES I HATE HER (not really shes the best thing in my life (thing being the right word at the moment, jealousy gets me nowhere))

Rock Lizard

2008-01-30T22:51:00.001Z

Finally finished

2008-01-19T18:20:00.000Z

Ok I have finished my cat painting, I am not happy with it but its not going into the river just yet:) I suppose for my first attempt at painting its not terrible so I will have to practice more. My wife painted a rabbit which will be shown below, and at the moment shes busy cooking while I am being, well, LAZY :)

Another year gone

2008-01-18T22:21:00.000Z

Well its been a long time since I wrote anything here, so if anyone does look at this blog, I hope you have a wonderful year. I have not done alot since my last blog, the year just seemed to of flown by. I did try my hand at a bit of carving over Christmas while my wife was visiting her family in Japan. I carved her a Welsh love spoon (I can be romantic sometimes), my first attempt at something that intricate and only my second ever carving, the first was the other spoon you can see in the pictures below. My wife and I have also tried our hands at rock painting since she returned from Japan. My wifes is the superb one with the tan,white and black face (a calico kitten) , mine is the not so good (but unfinished so hopefully it improves) gray persian, my wife is obviously the more talented of the two of us and I was tempted to throw mine into a river to never be seen again. You may also notice the lady bird, thats one of my paintings, very simple to do so I think I will concentrate on this kind of painting :)

Oh and my lovely lady has also made some kokedama bonsai (moss ball plants).

Will update on my cat painting soon (unless I do throw it in the river) and I may post my Ninja Dance video but I seriously have to consider that as I am not sure I want the world (2 readers) to witness my amazing dance moves.

CLICK ON IMAGES TO MAKE LARGER

Holiday in Japan August 2007

2007-10-10T21:00:00.000+01:00

Ok here are my overdue pictures from my holiday too Japan in August, you should be able to click on them to enlarge them, hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I enjoyed taking them:)

Jinbei

2007-07-13T06:53:00.000+01:00

After seeing Tony wearing jinbei on his site I decided to hunt out a picture of me in Jinbei, I love them they are cool and very comfortable and they look like pajamas so walking around the streets in them is really rather amusing for me, its like going shopping in slippers or something.

As you can see mine is of a slightly different design to Tony's, mine comes with extra padding in the abdomen area, a strange shielding device for the eyes and two fine young ladies attatched, now thats what I call Jinbei.

The Seven Faces Of....

2007-07-07T22:44:00.000+01:00

Found a cool avatar site so I decided to make one of me, though I look nothing like this it would be cool if I did (I once had hair similar but now I haven't got much at all (check the second one on the top row for my current expression). Check out the site Doppelme.

More Origami

2007-06-24T18:13:00.001+01:00

Heres another of my wifes origami pieces I love this one Stegosaurs rock :)

Origami

2007-06-20T22:42:00.000+01:00

Here is a little piece that my wife did, she tinkered with the design slightly to make this Unicorn, she used textured paper which made the folds more difficult, excellent job I hope you agree:)

I Was Tagged

2007-05-23T22:12:00.000+01:00

Well I have been tagged by Tony and now I have to give 7 random facts about myself, the rules are as follows (and they appear to be being changed along the chain). Ok so rule one is obvious 7 facts about yourself, rule 2 is to tag another 7 people and name them in your blog, there is a problem here. I don't know 7 people with blogs, I can only think of 3 off hand, and 2 of those I can't read because they are Japanese ;) I do know a few more but they are on msn spaces and I am not joining that just to play tag, so here goes,

1 I died when I was a baby (my mother dropped me down a flight of stairs and I landed on my head, and then my mother landed on top of me, explains alot about me now me thinks:) ).

2 I never travelled abroad until I was 31, my first foreign holiday was to Thailand.

3 The more I fly the more scared I get.

4 Up until the age of 27 I could do full splits.

5 I was once bumped by a large shark like looking creature whilst swimming in the sea in Thailand, I ws about 200 metres from the beach and I have never been so panicked in my life, I did the slowest doggie paddle in the world in fear of attracting it back, I had to wade through a shoal of jelly fish to reach the safety of the beach, my legs stung like hell but the relief I felt was amazing, I turned towards the sea to see dolphins in the bay.

6 I lived in a tent for a year.

7 I occasionally dress in a strange manner (in the good cause of various charities). Here is some of the photographic evidence.

PICTURES REMOVED DUE TO INDECENCY

Ok there you go, sorry the facts are boring but thats all I have, and now the part of passing on this game of TAG to someone else, and for those I mention you are not forced to take part, Ok I TAG Obachan, Kamosika and Priscilla sorry girls hope you don't mind to much.

Cute(Kawaii)

2007-04-15T00:03:00.000+01:00

Here are my Gerbils Emi (the dark one) and Doris, they are amazing and cute:)

Roundhouse and Gerbil

2007-04-14T22:06:00.000+01:00

As I mentioned previously I have been making a scale model of an Iron Age Roundhouse (Celtic), after alot of research I realized that there was no standard design, so I took parts from different styles and came up with what follows.

Initial construction, this involved drilling 19 holes and fitting pegs into place to act as wall structure, these pegs were then weaved with thin pieces of willow.

The next stage was using glue soaked newspaper(paper-mache) to replicate the use of Daub (which was a material made of dung, straw, mud, clay: you can see why I didn't want to use the authentic method) as you can see above I left a section un-daubed so that you can see the wood weaving.

Hmmm I didn't take an accurate photo graphic record, so what has happened is i painted the walls, then created the roof, this was the most time consuming part of the project. I had to make a temporary insert for the roof from paper (obviously not how the ancients did it) put the main frame poles in , add some support rings and voila, one conical shaped wooden construction. I then got a hanging basket liner and covered my roof beams with it, this was sewn into place with the obligatory missing section, then on top of this was sewn long dry grass to represent thatching, again my way is not the correct way but actually thatching the roof would of taken months, and I think my version looks relatively good.

On a completely different note here is Emi one of my gerbils, she's gorgeous :)

Busy

2007-03-24T22:27:00.000Z

I have a few projects on the go at the moment, one is designing a logo for my friends band Streamline if you check out their site I also did their photo on the frontpage. The other thing I am doing is making a scale model of an Iron Age Roundhouse for my wife, she occasionally helps out in earth education at an Environmental Education Centre, I will post the pictures here if it turns out ok.
Oh good luck to Tony on his new status as a student in Japan, check his blog out English Man In Japan, he's a genuinely good guy, and his blogs always raise a smile on my usually miserable face. Yep I have mentioned his blog before but I am a big fan of his writing.

Nine Inch Nails Live

2007-03-09T18:25:00.000Z

Date: Sunday march 4th
Location: Birmingham Carling Academy, England UK
Event: NIN Live.
As I said in my previous blog I had tickets to see NIN, we arrived at the academy at about 6:30pm got into the venue about 7:10pm, and after what seemed a lifetime finally the support act Ladytron appeared. Not really my kind of music but they were very professional and their music is very good if a little 80's synth Numanesque. Very good performance though but a half hearted reception from the crowd (I would hate to be a support act, it must be so hard being there in front of a crowd that you know DIDN'T come to see you).

LadyTron

After the support band went off we stood against the balcony to the left of the stage watching the audience to see how well dressed they were and how cool their hairstyles were
The engineers were on stage setting up and seemed to be trying to choke every one to death with the amount of dry ice they were letting off, when without even the house lights going off, there HE was Trent Reznor singing Somewhat Damaged, great start, loved the nonchalant way he appeared, start of an excellent gig, the only problem I had (and I apologise to the many many people who are a fan of his) Aaron North, ok the guy can play reasonably well and his noise does add to the NIN sound, but his guitar swinging antics and trying to hard to be rebellious and out there really annoy me, take a chill pill, it seems that he is in his own little competition to upstage Trent Reznor, sorry dude but I would not pay a penny to see you as a solo artist, your talented but very very annoying to see out of the corner of my eye (I apologise to all Aaron North fans, if you love him thats your bag, my view, your view, different leave it at that). Anyway apart from that the show was great, from the swinging UFO lamps above the stage to the awesome sound, and yes Aarons guitar sound is great, but obviously the man of the night was Trent, second time I have seen him perform and still blown away by the experience, I was tired out the next day and partly deaf(due to my advanced age).

Here's the set list:
Somewhat Damaged
Last
Heresy
March of the Pigs
Piggy
Ruiner
Closer
Burn
Gave Up
Help Me I Am In Hell
Eraser
Wish
The Big Come Down
Survivalism
Only
Suck
The Day the World Went Away
Hurt
The Hand That Feeds
Head Like a Hole

Tony and Priscilla

2007-01-04T08:04:00.000Z

Tony and Priscilla, thankyou both very much for your support, I feel I have slightly misled you on the reasons for me stopping my blog, it wasn't so much that I had no readers (that was just something for me to bitch about:) ) it was more that I had a quite depressing Christmas and was feeling sorry for myself, I still think my writing is useless, very bland and boring to my eyes, but your kind words have given me something to think about. Hope you both had a wonderful new year, and Tony I hope your flight and visa are sorted soon, loved the snowman:) .

I'm Done

2006-12-26T12:11:00.000Z

Ok this is my last post, to anyone who has read any of my posts thankyou, but its time for me to give it up, Christmas was crap, my life's depressing, my writings crap its time to go, see you and best of luck too you, bye.

Rock Off

2006-12-19T18:35:00.000Z

30 minutes until Rock Off time, may the best man win (me?) and the loser eat dirt (my brother hahahaha)

Guitar Hero II

2006-12-17T21:54:00.000Z

Bought myself Guitar Hero II for the Playstation 2 yesterday, it really rocks, it is so fun to play, even my wife enjoyed it, in fact she wouldn't give me the controller back, and she seems to be picking it up quicker than me. Its the nearest I will ever get to playing guitar:) so I will enjoy it for what its worth. The jump in difficulty from easy to medium seems huge to me, my brother had a go on it today and has decided to go and buy himself a copy so that we can battle it out:) so Tuesday night is going to be battle of the ROCK GODS hahahaha. And to think I am nearly 40 years old. :)

Image Back

2006-12-17T21:49:00.000Z

I am now hosting my background image at Photobucket, and as you can see (hopefully) it now works.

Lost Readers

2006-12-14T22:51:00.000Z

I think I have lost my two readers of this blog, now I am in this limbo on my own.

Humanity

2006-12-14T22:43:00.000Z

"If there is one sound the follows the march of humanity, it is the scream."

Right Where It Belongs

2006-12-14T17:48:00.000Z

Here are the lyrics to one of my favourite songs, check it out if you get a chance,
Right Where It Belongs by Nine Inch Nails

See the animal in it's cage that you built
Are you sure what side you're on
Better not look him too closely in the eye
Are you sure what side of the glass you are on
See the safety of the life you have built
Everything where it belongs
Feel the hollowness inside of your heart
And it's allRight where it belongs

What if everything around you
Isn't quite as it seems
What if all the world you think you know
Is an elaborate dream
And if you look at your reflection
Is it all you wanted to be?
What if you could look right through the cracks
Would you find yourself
Find yourself afriad to see?
What if all the world's inside of your head
Just creations of your own
Your devils and your gods
All the living and the dead
And you really are alone
You can live in this illusion
You can choose to believe
You keep looking but you can't find the woods
Are you hiding in the trees?

What if everything around you
Isn't quite as it seems
What if all the world you used to know
Is an elaborate dream
And if you look at your reflection
Is it all you wanted to be?
What if you could look right through the cracks
Would you find yourself
Find yourself afriad to see?

Gave Up

2006-12-13T20:07:00.000Z

perfect little dream
the kind that hurts the most
forgot how it feels well almost
no one to blame always the same
open my eyes wake up in flames
it took you to make me realize
it took you to make me realize
it took you to make me realize
it took you to make me see the light
smashed up my sanity
smashed up my integrity
smashed up what i believed in
smashed up what's left of me
smashed up my everything
smashed up all that was true
gonna smash myself to pieces
i don't know what else to do
covered in hope and vaseline
still cannot fix this broken machine
watching the hole it used to be mine
just watching it burn in my steady systematic decline
of the trust i will betray
give it to me i throw it away
after everything i've done
i hate myself for what i've become
i tried
i gave up
throw it away

What

2006-12-08T07:15:00.000Z

Whats up with blogger, it has been a nightmare trying to sign in, I have to right click everything and select open in another window weird.

Whats happening

2006-12-03T18:55:00.000Z

I tried to alter my side image to make it slighlty darker, so I did the normal thing and darkened the image on my PC uploaded it to blogger as a post, saved the post as a draft, then looked at the HTML editing code to get the URL for the image to put into the background. This is when I noticed something slightly different, whereas before I would get something like this http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2793/1947/1600/dark.jpg now i get this http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_0294NZC4VYc/RXMZa6kVvAI/AAAAAAAAAAM/M88GU4u4raE/s1600-h/dark.jpg and it doesn't bloody work, is this bloggers way of stopping me from using my blogger space to hold images? what the hell is going on how do I remedy this problem? anyone know the answer? If so HELP

NinjaDay2006

2006-11-30T22:46:00.000Z

Remember December 5th is day of the Ninja, feel free to join in:)

check out Day Of The Ninja for more info.

XL8

2006-11-29T20:49:00.000Z

Just in case you wondered what I do during the daytime look above. Thats a Midas XL8 Digital Mixing console. They are used for music gigs, concert halls and even churches (Westover church in the good old US of A was one of the first places to install one of the XL8 consoles) basically they are used anywhere that there is a need for mixing sound sources. Well I work with a team of people that builds and tests this product.

The factory also builds analogue consoles and graphic equalisers that are world renowned:)

Check out Midas Consoles.

Footer Added

2006-11-29T17:53:00.000Z

If you look at the very bottom of my blog you will see my recently (re)placed message :)

Problem Solved

2006-11-27T23:37:00.000Z

Ok I found a site that should be able to help me out, beta blogger for Dummies , I will spend some time reading this site carefully tomorrow :)

Help

2006-11-27T23:11:00.000Z

I have changed to beta blogger and I was going to change to the so called easier custom option, well I made the initial change and of course my background image dissappeared(not a bad thing for some people) I went into the edit HTML code part of the template and ARRRRRRRRRGHHH I didn't understand a thing, my HTML is bad but at least I know how to add an image to my background, but with the new HTML and widget editor I haven't got a clue so I had to change back to my old style template, looks like I will have to do alot of reading before I attempt the change to the MODERN way.

New Pic

2006-11-24T21:09:00.000Z

See the new picture on the right, yep that mean moody looking hunk (in the Japanese apron (kappogee)) is me (please try not to be sick :) ) felt like a change so this is it. If there are too many complaints (not possible as I only have 3 readers that I know of) I will remove the offending picture and replace it with a picture of my ass :)

Play List

2006-11-21T23:50:00.000Z

Here is my current music playlist:

NIN - Not So Pretty
NIN - Sin
Peaches - F**k the Pain Away
Panic At The Disco - I Write Sins
Black Stone Cherry - Lonely Train
Rob Dougan - Furious Angels
Yoshida Brothers - Storm
One Minute Silence - We Bounce
Robbie Williams - Stronger
Korn - TearJerker
Godsmack - The Enemy
Foo Fighters - Walking a Line
Bumpy Knuckles - Bang Bang
Adam Ant - Wonderful
Adam Ant - Here Comes The Grump
NIN - Right Where It Belongs
NIN - March Of The Pigs.

Don't know why I am telling you this but at least I left a post:)
Oh and the game I am currently playing (in hard mode) is Marvel:Ultimate Alliance.

Neglecting

2006-11-15T23:06:00.000Z

I appear to be neglecting my site, but at the moment I am too busy to do it so for all the people who do read it (2 at last count) then I apologise and I will post soon:) I have just changed to Blogger Beta and had to make a few minor adjustments and for some reason I cannot show japanese characters anymore :( I will have to look into it some more, stay healthy and have wonderful dreams, may the sun smile on you, love honour peace and pride

Japan part 5

2006-10-01T20:48:00.000+01:00

Anybody reading is probably quite bored by now so I won't say much more, just this, Japan is great, the Japanese people are very nice (on a whole), slightly shy but very forgiving to my mistakes. I hugged my Japanese friends for the first time this year( they had told my wife that they were dissappointed last year because I didnt hug them and they had expected me too becasue they thought it was an English thing to do) their reaction was very nice, one of them was very very hesitant but once I had hugged him he seemed to relax, and it made them all smile, hugging is wonderful, I think more Japanese parents, friends and relatives should hug each other, it makes people feel warm and wanted. If you get a chance check out Free Hugs I found this site after seeing a music video on the English man In Japan blogsite. Lets finish with some pictures of Japan, various places I visited while there in August.

Japan part 4

2006-10-01T20:34:00.000+01:00

After the Yosakoi festival we went white water rafting on the Yoshino river, it was quite an exciting experience, I even discovered what it would feel like to drown, even if only for a few seconds, honestly I nearly panicked, I came off the raft in a very rough part of water and thought that I wasn't going to surface, I had just swallowed a huge mouthful of water when thankfully I popped to the top, thank God for life jackets:) I was rescued by a very tiny Japanese girl how she pulled me into her boat I will never know, it was a great day, next time I would like to try kayaking but preferably on calmer water I am not brave enough to do the extreme stuff:) . I also went to Tosashimizu to watch a fantastic fireworks (hanabe) display and the next day me and several friends went to a beach and I went snorkling for the first time in my life, it took me a while to get used to breathing through my mouth the correct way but it was well worth it, watching the fish was such an amazing thing for me, I was trying to annoy the puffer fish so that they would inflate but didn't manage it;) my friends got sunburnt but sensibly I wore a tshirt so only my arms and my calfs got burnt, stay out of the sun kids...

Japan part 3

2006-10-01T20:16:00.000+01:00

This Japan post will have a disjointed timeline so please forgive me, next up I will talk about a pleasant meeting. Thanks to the wonders of blogging I met a very lovely lady, I won't mention her real name but she runs several blogs under the name Obachan. My wife and I had arranged to meet Obachan after reading her blog for several months, her blog always keeps us in touch of the things going on in and around the city of Kochi which just happens to be my wifes home town. Anyway we met on our first full day in Kochi after arriving the day before from England. We had a pleasant conversation and then went to a cafe for a drink before Obachan had to go to work. It was quite a pleasant cafe and I was enjoying the company very much. I was sat on what is best described as a long bench seat against a wall, the seat was about 3 metres long and at the far end of the seat was a young lady sitting on her own enjoying her drink. I leant forward on the seat which at that point proved not to be attatched to the wall and nearly tipped the unfortunate young lady onto the floor, much to the amusement to my new found friend and my wife... I apologise deeply to that lady. The next time I saw Obachan I was quite abrupt in my departure, she must of thought me ignorant at the time (and I have explained the incident to her since then) what happened was, I bumped into Obachan in the town centre, she stopped to talk with me but I was a bit distracted and made my excuses and left, the real reason I left so quickly was that I was desperate for the toilet but was to embaressed to tell her so, I only just made it in time otherwise I would of been a very wet Englishman indeed. If you get a chance please visit Obachan's site, and congratulate her on passing some important exams that she wanted to do:) CONGRATULATIONS OBACHAN I knew you would pass:)

Japan part 2

2006-10-01T20:10:00.000+01:00

Heres a picture of me mid move;) to prove that I actually did dance, I was so hot and most of the people I danced with seemed to be questioning my sanity in wearing a thick black costume, I have never sweated so much in my life but seeing people smiling at me a taking photos was well worth the discomfort, next time I think I will go as a fat Tarzan though:) Loin cloth and nothing else, I think there would be some very traumatized people in the crowds if I did that.

Japan part 1

2006-10-01T19:56:00.000+01:00

Ok lets start with Yosakoi:) on the top left is ME, then a beautiful young lady, then another beautiful lady in one of my favourite costumes of the festival and the dance troupe that I danced with:)

And here is another of my favourite costumes I loved this dance troupe.

Anyway the festival was fantastic as usual and I met some wonderful people, hopefully I can take part again in the future, time will tell. I will do a few posts in a row, it is alot easier to read small posts:)

Ninja

2006-09-17T23:17:00.000+01:00

ok here is a picture of me as I dressed for the Yosakoi dance festival in Japan:) kind of Ninja-ish, actually I was quite pleased as many people in the streets said Ninja as I walked past:). To busy to do a full update at the moment.

Back In The UK

2006-09-12T23:48:00.000+01:00

Ok I have been back a few weeks now, will do a real post soon:)

Nearly time

2006-08-10T03:54:00.000+01:00

its 12pm here in Japan and soon I will be going into Kochi city to watch some of the dancers in the Yosakoi festival then I will return to my inlaws home and change in preparation for my first official dance, I am going to look stupid and be very very hot, its too late to change my costume now (well actually I could just wear shorts and a tshirt as the dance troupe we are with has no designated costume as it is amateur) but because I said I was going to dress as a (kind of)Ninja then I feel I have to fulfill this vow (I am a man of my word), I will probably regret this tomorrow when I have to dance for most of the day, so if you dont hear from me again, I have died from heat exhaustion. Oh before I go a big HELLO to Obachan, a very gracious and wonderful person, your breakfast looked authentic.

Journey

2006-08-04T22:32:00.000+01:00

Ok its almost time for me to start packing my suitcase:) I have a plane to catch in 12 hours then a bloody long flight and I will be in Japan BANZAI:) See you later folks:)

Not Quite A Ninja

2006-07-31T18:50:00.000+01:00

As you may have read my wife and I are going to dress as Ninja's for the Yosakoi Festival in August in Japan, after recieving the costumes it quickly became apparent that wearing the full suit would prove to be extremely HOT, so we had to come up with solutions to the problems, which are numerous,
1 the actual costumes are quite thick = we can't do much about this
2 my costume is black which is the worst colour to wear in the sun= cant do anything about this
3 the tight fitting elasticated inner hood/face mask is extremely hot = I can do something about this

Here are my solutions:
1 Modify my costume so that the arms are shorter and I won't wear the gauntlets/hand covers.
2 Nothing
3 Wear a cycling air filter mask with either the outer ninja hood or a fishermans straw hat or alternately wear a black veil

the problem with these solutions is they don't look quite authentic on the Ninja front. So is it a case of boil to death or be a sudo-ninja, well I believe that the answer lies in the fact that Ninja's would probably wear what was necessary to do the job, so uniforms would not be so strict, hence forth I will be a cyber Ninja and damn tradition hahaha.

Sad News

2006-07-31T13:18:00.000+01:00

Today I heard some news that made me feel a little empty, my favourite author of all time died last Friday(28th July). His name was David Gemmell and he wrote fantasy novels. In my opinion his work was better(for me) than Tolkien's work, in fact for me he was the best Author I had ever read. I would like to send my condolence's to his family. There is a beautiful comments page about him on the BBC website, some of the comments are very moving and it is fitting that such a wonderful man has a fitting tribute. I once had the pleasure of meeting David and I still treasure the book he signed for me. I always looked forward to the release of his next book and now sadly the expectation has been taken away. Rest in the Hall of Heroes David, you will be greatly missed. If anyone reads this go and get yourself a copy of Legend and witness for yourself how good a writer David was. Quite emotional at the moment, it really feels like I have lost a friend, and I am sure many of his fans feel the same. LOVE HONOUR PEACE AND PRIDE.

Yosakoi Dancing

2006-07-23T19:47:00.000+01:00

Well I am off to Japan in 2 weeks time, and it is my favourite time of the year to go to Kochi City in Japan as they hold a dance festival called Yosakoi which is a beautiful thing to watch. It is made up of various teams wearing marvelous costumes and generally thrilling all the spectators for 3 days during August(10th,11th,12th) most of the dance troupes practice for months and some of the dances are very very intricate, last year I took part in the festival in a dance troupe made up completely of tourists(mainly Japanese) and learnt the dance we had to do in about 1 hour (it was a very simple dance that I still managed to get wrong on several occasions) anyway this year my wife entered us into the festival with a dance troupe one of her blog friends told her about, basically we had to register online and then watch the dance on the website and try and learn it that way, to any Japanese viewers of my blog you would probably recognise the dance as a traditional one but to me it is completely alien... HELP... No matter how hard I try I cannot make my moves look less feminine I look like a really CAMP fat old man, I am starting to panic, my wife may of come to the rescue because she noticed on the site that there were no dress restrictions:P so she said we could dress as NINJA'S and hide our faces I think this is an utterly brilliant suggestion and it could be the answer to hiding my shame. I really want to get the dance right, the reason is this, when the dancers dance down the streets, judges walk with them watching for people who they are impressed with and award them with a medal, I WANT TO GET ONE, this is my dream, but with my luck I will end up forgetting the dance completely and just look like a demented drunken Ninja, oh God nightmares are made of this........So if anyone reading this happens to be in Kochi for Yosakoi and they see a round wobbly ninja causing havoc in a dance troupe ITS NOT ME ITS SOMEONE DISGUISED AS ME:)....
P.S. Obachan I have your tea:)

Sleepy

2006-07-10T23:27:00.000+01:00

Yawn.... I am too sleepy, actually more like exhausted, I have worked for 22 days straight now getting on average 6 hours sleep a day, luckily I will not be working on the upcoming weekend, BANZAIIIIIIIIII :) anyway its bedtime here so goodnight (oyasumi nasai) sleep well everyone, have sweet dreams, love honour peace and pride.

Whats in a Lyric?

2006-07-04T22:43:00.000+01:00

"Did I disappoint you or let you down?
Should I be feeling guilty or let the judges frown?
'Cause I saw the end before we'd begun,
Yes I saw you were blinded and I knew I had won.
So I took what's mine by eternal right.
Took your soul out into the night.
It may be over but it won't stop there,
I am here for you if you'd only care.
You touched my heart you touched my soul.
You changed my life and all my goals.
And love is blind and that I knew when,
My heart was blinded by you.
I've kissed your lips and held your head.
Shared your dreams and shared your bed.
I know you well, I know your smell.
I've been addicted to you.
Goodbye my lover.
Goodbye my friend.
You have been the one.
You have been the one for me.
I am a dreamer but when I wake,
You can't break my spirit - it's my dreams you take.
And as you move on, remember me,
Remember us and all we used to be
I've seen you cry, I've seen you smile.
I've watched you sleeping for a while.
I'd be the father of your child.
I'd spend a lifetime with you.
I know your fears and you know mine.
We've had our doubts but now we're fine,
And I love you, I swear that's true.
I cannot live without you.
Goodbye my lover.
Goodbye my friend.
You have been the one.
You have been the one for me.
And I still hold your hand in mine.
In mine when I'm asleep.
And I will bear my soul in time,
When I'm kneeling at your feet.
Goodbye my lover.
Goodbye my friend.
You have been the one.
You have been the one for me.
I'm so hollow, baby, I'm so hollow.
I'm so, I'm so, I'm so hollow."

What the Heck

2006-07-03T21:03:00.000+01:00

I love Gamera, in fact probably slighty more than Gigan (only due to the fact Gamera has his own movies), well to say I love Gamera I mean the Heisei period Gamera, you know the mean looking mother of a turtle, so imagine my excitement when I found out they were making a new Gamera movie, then I saw the title and became slightly worried Gamera: Little Braves surely not. The Heisei Gamera was quite a dark series of movies showing what a Keiju should really be like, Gamera was portrayed as a defender to humanity who occasionally had to sacrifice some for the protection of the many, and above all he looked HARD as ROCK. See one mean looking Kaiju (not like Mothra who looks effeminate)

Next we see an image of the Gamera from the new movie

What the hell's going on here thats not a Kaiju, thats a pet turtle, in fact if you look closely Gamera looks more like one of those damned Ninja Turtles as you can see in the evidence below

GAMERATELLO

ARGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHH no please don't let this be so, please let there be a real Gamera in the movie, the Heisei period of films won high acclaim both in Japan and abroad due to its darker approach, it was fresh and appealed to a wider audience than was usual for Kaiju films, sadly it looks to me as though Gamera Little Braves is aimed purely for the child market, this is a sad day for me:(

Inspiration

2006-07-01T23:13:00.000+01:00

Two off my favourite bands of all time are Nine Inch Nails and Bauhaus so when I found out they were touring together I was excited but quickly got depressed as I realised that it was an American based tour and they were unlikey to appear in the UK together:( But then Trent Reznor (NIN) announced on his website that there were going to be radio broadcasts of himself and Peter Murphy (Bauhaus) so I could hear my two favourite artists perform together. Then even better than this the NIN website has put videos of the performance on this page http://www.nin.com/current/radioshows/index.html check it out, probably not to everyones taste but for me it is joy to my ears:) . Its rare that I look up to people but these two guys are amazing, and both are older than me which gives me hope that I still have time to learn guitar and make music (in my dreams but still hope). Anyway to Trent and Peter best of luck guys, thanks for the music.........

Love honour peace and pride

Mothra Dead Ha Ha Ha

2006-06-30T18:30:00.000+01:00

As anyone(if there is anyone) who has read my blog may know, I don't like Mothraaaaaaa very much, I believe Mothra to be the most unbelievable Kaiju EVER, and the stupid moth killed my buddy Gigan (which in my opinion would be impossible). So as revenge I have been playing Godzilla Save The Earth on the XBOX and using every monster possible to really kick Mothra's butt at any given availability, I derive great pleasure in destroyed that useless piece of cloth winged, prism eyed, stuffed flying sock. Sad but True.

Have a beautiful weekend

Love Honour Peace and Pride

Hot and Overworked

2006-06-30T18:05:00.000+01:00

It's Friday I should be getting ready to relax for the weekend but.......I HAVE GOT TO WORK ALL WEEKEND GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR...... I was looking forward to a nice quiet weekend but because of a few small problems where I work (we have to make some products quickly to ship to Russia to be used at a conference with President Putin and we really don't want to let down the Russian government) the result being I HAVE TO WORK. Its getting hot I want to just relax but no I can't do that I have to give up my weekend so that the company I work for meets its deadline, I didn't set the deadline but it seems to be my problem ARRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHH.

Actually when all is said and done, I don't mind to much really, my workplace is clean, usually stress free (even for me and I am a team leader), the product we make is good and occasionally we can get free tickets to Live Concerts (last year I went to the Summersonic Festival in Japan thanks to my company), and as an added bonus most of the people I work with are nice and friendly.

Sorry its a boring post but I am to hot to think of anything amusing.

Love Honour Peace and Pride

Hurt

2006-06-28T22:58:00.000+01:00

what have i become?
my sweetest friend
everyone i know
goes away in the end

Flower

2006-06-26T21:05:00.000+01:00

Ask A Ninja

2006-06-23T20:04:00.000+01:00

Check out this site http://askaninja.com/ this guy cracks me up, my wife finds it highly annoying but for me it is just so over the top that I have to laugh out loud, the best sketch's for me are Question 6 Master of Disguise and Question 18 Minjas. Minjas are midget Ninjas by the way:)
This guy is insane, not to everyones tastes but give his clips a try you may love it:)

Memoirs of a Geisha 2

2006-06-23T00:29:00.000+01:00

After watching Memoirs of a Geisha and being bored by it, I decided that I would audition for the remake I am far prettier than Zhang Ziyi and think I would be better as a Geisha than she is as proof here is me made up as a Geisha, go on admit it I AM BEAUTIFUL :D

And Heres me in as I would look on the poster for the remake

Emi and Doris Movie :)

2006-06-18T23:35:00.000+01:00

Sucked

2006-06-14T21:30:00.000+01:00

This is a short movie one of my friends made for his university course, It stars me (the ugly man with the strange face hair) and someone else that I never actually met, we recorded our parts seperately due to time constraints. I was quite pleased by my performance, its not wonderful but it was my first attempt at acting(badly), I APOLOGISE now for the use of some strong language (Sumimasen to my Japanese friends) , it was not my script(though I did ad-lib most of my lines as my memory is so short I forgot the real lines:D) Its a Horror film about the consequences of greed, hope you like it. Also sorry for the sound quality the compression I used to keep the file size down was too high so the sound is muted slightly:(

Gigan

2006-06-12T18:45:00.000+01:00

Just in case anyone is interested, and to show PrincessRuby the difference between the original 1972 Gigan and the best version of Gigan from Godzilla:Final Wars here are the pictures.

As you can see the 1972 Gigan on the left looks rather out of shape with the big belly(looks like my belly) and he has a horrid colour scheme, now look at Gigan on the right, he looks like a real badass, slimmed down, built for speed and endurance, good musculature, knee and elbow spikes, he looks like he could really kick some serious butt.

GIGAN FACTS.

1. Gigan was the first monster to ever make godzilla bleed.

2. Gigan can fly at speeds up to 2,094 mph, 3,370 km/h.

3. Gigan has a buzz saw made of an unknown alien alloy on his chest and abdomen which causes considerable damage to his opponents.

4. Gigan fires a large beam out of his eye that separates into multiple lasers like a shotgun blast and are highly-explosive upon impact. The eye beam is called "Cluster Light" beam.

5. Gigan is DEAD thanks to that stupid big moth Mothra(oooh really scary giant moth, I am so scared of you, here have a mothball and stop eating my clothes).

Worst Guitarist In The World UPDATE

2006-06-12T18:43:00.000+01:00

While trying to learn a new chord today I thought of an amazing way to play better...............get someone else to play for me, GENIUS, its definitely the way forward..

Japanese English Flag

2006-06-11T22:40:00.000+01:00

Here is my amalgimation of a Japanese and English flag, hope that it offends no one, it is just representative of my home, where everything is a mixture of Japanese and English.
I think it makes quire an interesting shape.

Some Pictures

2006-06-11T22:28:00.001+01:00

Here are some photos I took recently

this is a sign post in Bridgenorth, a town not far from where I live here in the UK

This sits next to my TV, the T-Rex is me, the Stegosaurus is my wife :)

Image Change

2006-06-11T22:21:00.000+01:00

On the left you may notice a new image:) its Gigan from the Godzilla movies, its only a temporary change from my ugly face lookin at you:)

Strange Conversation

2006-06-11T21:07:00.000+01:00

Today I went for a meal with my wife and 2 friends, it was the first time I had been introduced to them and they were a very pleasant couple. During the course of our meal the conversation somehow got around to the film Brokeback Mountain, I said I did not want to watch it as it was not my type of film and my wife said I didn't want to watch it because I was Gay......... How she came to this absurd idea is so bizarre that I cannot fathom it. Now don't get me wrong I have no form of prejudism at all whether it be different religion, colour, race or sexual persuasion, but my wife concluded that I must be homosexual because I didn't want to watch the film. She said I was in denial and thats why I wouldn't watch it.......I had to defend myself but it just seemed to make matters worse, not just for myself but also for the male member of the other couple because his future wife started to say that he was gay also, I tried valiantly to explain I didn't watch the film because I did not like to see love stories and films with kissing in them, even kissing between men and women, women and women, men and men, its something I feel is not important in a film, I don't want to watch tongue action, if I did I would get an ADULT film. I even went on to say that even though I liked Lord Of The Rings it was essentially a gay love story between Sam and Frodo but because you never saw any action of a sexual nature then it was ok to watch....Anyway lovely meal, lovely people, disturbing conversation.....

Scenic View

2006-06-07T22:45:00.000+01:00

This shot was taken in February, I was walking home from work when I saw this view, I walk past it everyday but on this day I noticed the beauty of the scene for the first time so I decided to take the picture above.

Worst Guitarist in The World

2006-06-07T22:30:00.000+01:00

I am possibly the worst guitarist in the entire world, I have been learning guitar for about 18 years on and off but have failed to get past 3 chords, not included the marvelous movable power chord:). Why I can't learn I am not sure, I have large motivational problems, coupled with the belief that I should sound good straight away, so when I pick up my guitar and try and play a tune and the sound of HELL is released I lose all motivation and put my guitar back in the corner to gather even more dust........Maybe I should just pay someone to teach me:)

The above picture is my extremely underused guitar, I do feel sorry for it, I don't mean to neglect you so much Guitar, I will my a concerted effort to learn how to pay you so you can get the attention you deserve.

Kochi Market, Japan

2006-06-07T22:24:00.000+01:00

The Sunday market in Kochi, Japan. I will be there very soon:) I love Japan and the Japanese people.

Cryptozoology

2006-06-06T21:43:00.000+01:00

I have always been fascinated by the thought that there are creatures in the world that we have not discovered yet, it would be nice to think there were really Yeti's, dragons, seamonsters and giant birds, I would love them to be discovered, but knowing mankind for what it is I would also worry about the safety of these species if they were found. Some big game hunter would like to hunt them, scientists would want to experiment on them and sight seers would flock to their habitats and destroy the ecology in which they live. Sad to think that way but it seems to be the way of man. Still I can dream that they are real and safe......to know more about strange and exotic species check out Cryptozoology its full of interesting information and stories of sightings around the world.

Check These Sites

2006-06-05T22:00:00.000+01:00

Here are some sites to check http://littlesumo.blog58.fc2.com/ I am biased on this one as it is my wifes site, its in Japanese so I can't read it so she has probably said awful things about me:( but as a bonus on about page 4 you get to see how cute I was as a baby. Another site that I really like is http://englishalien.blogspot.com/ the author Tony Bannister writes very well and his stories are very amusing, I wish I could write as well as him. Read his story about the dreaded KANCHO in his March updates. So funny but scary:)

Norio Nishikawa and Bonchi Osamu

2006-06-05T21:50:00.000+01:00

These two make me laugh just looking at them :)

Stolen Idea

2006-06-05T21:42:00.000+01:00

Can you see the clock below my profile? I am ashamed to say that I stole the idea off one of my favourite sites Obachan's Scribbles. I hope you don't mind Obachan at least I didn't use the same clock.

Gerbils

2006-06-05T14:38:00.000+01:00

I have Gerbils......... and no its not a disease, though sometimes I think they are after they have chewed holes in my clothes:P No they are two wonderful little pets called Emi and Doris. They became a part of my family about 3 months ago, they are very very cute and amusing (except when they eat my best t-Shirts grrrrrrrrrr

This is Emi (on the left) and Doris arn't they lovely?

Japanese movies

2006-06-05T13:50:00.000+01:00

I know I may be sad but I really want a copy of Godzilla Final Wars, the problem I am having is finding one with English Subtitles. I can probably get one from the USA but other films I have got from there appear to be heavily edited so I am keeping my fingers crossed that I can get a copy in Japan but I doubt it will be possible:( .
I did manage to get Gamera 2:Legion Shurai, Gamera 3:Iris Kakusei,Kaze No Tani No Nowshika, Ultraman(2004), Waterboys, Zatoichi, Twilight Samurai, Ame Agaru and Doraheita from Japan with English subtitles but have had no luck with Godzilla films:( . As you can see I quite like Japanese movies, and I find Japanese humour extremely funny, I can't understand the language but luckily for me the humour is very visual, I have Takeshi Kitano's Oretachi HyoKinzoku and kokoriko miracle type series on DVD, they make me laugh out loud..... I love the songs in Oretachi Hyokinzoku especially when Samma Akashiya sings Bimbo Bimbo namida no Bimbo...
The best song is sung by Norio Nishikawa and Bonchi Osamu its a funny version of a song called Azusa Ni Goh. At times I think Japanese humour looks very painful especially for people working with Takeshi Kitano, but it is just too funny, I will have to get some more DVD's on my next visit to the city of Kochi in August:)

Fine Day

2006-06-05T13:27:00.000+01:00

Its another fine day here in England, the sun is shining, I am looking at pigeons in the trees oposite where I live, I have just eaten a tasty Ham, Cheese, Tomato and Lettuce sandwich with a cold glass of cola(no brand names mentioned here unless I get paid for it) and I have finished work early today :) what else can a man ask for.....