Echolalia-la-di-dah.

Echolalia is the repetition of vocalizations made by other people. If that is anything to go by, then last Friday's Excellent Echophonyk Event was repeated by many people.

Here are some pics and I'll let you judge for yourself. Yeehah!








First up are the DJs and others behind the scenes:


























And here come the LAAADIES...(Be sure to use your best Jerry Lewis voice!)




















And the cutest of the night!

Festival Highlights!

Here is my current big-boss, Tony, and Leo, the MC for the day.
























The high point of the Festival had to be the Mini-Golf, labouriously constructed by Echophonyk's very own Lighting expert, Adam. The first hole was a Par 3, smack the ball through the gob of Crusty (misspelled for copyright purposes) and the ball smoothly rolls into the tee for...


The incredible UFO. Definitely the toughest putt, it was a par 5.











What would a Mini-Golf be without a Windmill? (Rumours of Homer & Marge making out inside are grossly exaggerated.) The final hole, a par 4, was fully operational. The power generated by the Windmill helped power the infamous...






かき氷 or Kakigori machine. Snow-cones are all the rage here and the shaved-ice concoctions come in many flavours. I think we had Grape, Orange & Condensed Milk-Yummy.









Apple and his balloon-animal making elves making balloon animals. Oooh, look...he made a snake!






DJ Mixture spun the Wheel of Misfortune. Kids had fun but the Pepsis I donated (collected when I acquired the dozens of Star Wars Bears) were not a popular item.






A couple more volunteers manning (womanning) the Cotton Candy machine.







The infamous Shiogama Sore dance performed by Alex & Yuko. (The blurred faces are intentionally obscuring guests identities.)









I put on the garb but only danced for a minute or two until duty called me back.









To close off the day, all our able-bodied workers dismantled the tents. Notice how I'm helping by staying out of the way and taking photos.

More Festival Crap...

Make that, more crap that I donated to the World-famous Carl Summer Festival:

We have a トナカイ (Tonakai, nee Tony Tony Chopper) pen from One Piece (a show that I've never really followed, so I can't tell you much about it.)










A pair of genies (genii? djinni?), from Akubi-chan, which somehow managed to remain in its bag and didn't get picked up by a lucky kid.



Here are some of the goodies on display. The playing cards were used to identify what gift you could randomly choose (eg. a choice of 4 different Kings-gifts.)






And a few more. I'd have taken more photos, but it got so busy, I barely had time to replace the items. I sure didn't have time to photograph them. I ended up getting rid of 3 large boxes and 2 big bags of goods and all but a few items were snapped up.

It's in the Cards.

I'm in the process of purging my apartment of toys & other goodies and donating them to my new school's Summer Festival this Sunday.










One of the prizes will be these trading cards acquired from packages of Calbee Potato Chips. Here we have several Masked Rider cards that I'm graciously giving up.









Including a couple of cool sparkly ones.







I also have no real need for these Baseball cards that I also got packaged with my favourite salty snack. I'm keeping the Rakuten Golden Eagle cards, but there are entirely too many of the loathed Yomiuri Giants to warrant keeping them.








Some lucky kid will get some of these sparkly cards, which I'll randomly insert into the prize packs!


ps. While typing this, we had a really shaky earthquake. I hope everyone is all right!

When an Eel Lunges Out...

And it bites you on the snout...
That's a MORAY!

July 24th this year is 土用の丑の日 (Doyo no Ushi no Hi), a day for eating eel. Eel in Japanese is 鰻・ウナギ (unagi and I talked all about this particular day 2 years ago. For a blast from my past, check out this for a link to a recipe I once wrote about.

Until they come up with an eel-flavoured KitKat, I'll have to settle for this. I found some ふるーつミックス (mixed fruit) flavoured today, but the banana definitely overpowered the peach & strawberry.

Sack of Rambo...

I finally got a copy of the Mango Littles and here it is. Begin drooling, they are tangy and tasty.





Tasting a bit like pink jelly beans, the さくらんぼ (Sakuranbo = cherry: Warning: click on that link at your own peril, a bizarre video will appear!) Littles are not very yummy and leave a medicinish taste in your mouth.


Within those two little wrappers of "Littles" are these tiny cubes of sugary delight. About the size of Stuart Little's gizzard, I take umbrage at the Nestle people calling them KitKats. Perhaps I'm a purist, but, isn't half the enjoyment of eating a Kitkat, the option of snapping the wafers in two? These little balls are very difficult to snap in two, you just end up with a lot of crumbs.

That being said, it appears that all my KitKat posts are beginning to pay off. Even though I'm not an American, apparently someone out there likes me enough to promote me in a bid for the Presidency! Watch this newscast and see for yourself. Who'd 'a thunk I could be a frontrunner as Prez!

Sooey, Sooey!

Yesterday, I bought a Gold pack of KitKat, expecting some rich caramelish flavour and what did I get? Regular old KitKat in a gold box. If you look in the upper left corner, you'll see, "キット願いかなう". I've quoted this article before in my second ever KitKat post. The phrase, KittoKatsu loosely translates as "I hope you will win!" and university wannabees give a wafer to each in order to promote luck when stressing over entrance exams. Imagine my disappointment when the Golden promise was nothing but a marketing ploy.



But, this is what I'm talking about! Sooey, Sooey is the KitKat call to pig out on すいか (Suika=watermelon)! This is probably the closest yet to true fruit flavour perfection that I've come across in my quest for KitKat consumables.









Just look at it...isn't it mouthwatering?

Cheesecake Photos!

Sorry Googlers looking for naughty pictures, this is real edible cheesecake that I received today from some unknown admirer. I only have one friend in Tokyo who sends me presents and the return address doesn't match hers. It's from Nagoya, I don't know even anyone from there! I got tiramisu, banana & baked flavours. Well, since it looks so yummy, I think I'll share it with some students this week.




In other snacking news, a few new KitKats came out. Here we have a マイルドビター Mild Bitter which unsurprisingly tastes mildly bitter. I got a six-pack of Minis for a buck.









ダブルベリー (double-berry: Strawberry & Cranberry) was my other find and I shared these Minis amongst my drinking buddies last night. I also found these little KitKat balls of Mango flavour, but I can't find the photo I took prior to chowing down on them. Fear not, I will track down another pack!

Grin and Bear It!

I finally completed my second set of the Star Wars Bearbricks, so I could justify opening them up and scanning them. Without further ado, here are BearBricks of the Lucas-verse:












Darths Maul & Vader









Clone Troopers (Ep. 2 & 3)














Tie Fighter Pilot & Stormtrooper












Logos Imperial & Rebel Alliance














Fetts Boba & Jango












Wicket & Jawa












Droids C-3PO & R2-D2 (though an armed R2 is rather odd.)












And the most adorable, Chewbacca & Yoda!






As soon as I get an EBAY account set up, I'll have a few of these sets up for auction...