Happy Bathday!

Just thought I'd send a heads-up to several people who are celebrating a birthday this month. Earlier in January, pals Hinnie and Hiroko added an extra year to their young frames. Several days ago, Ando, Dave & Rob had their birth canal-anniversaries. Yesterday, my pal Iris in Guelph gained a year on me. Today, it was ex-squeeze and soon to squeeze out one of her own, Kayoko. And tomorrow, Mark D. Saito's charming better half, Yuko celebrates the 2nd anniversary of her sweet 16!


But let's forget about them and hail the Sea King's birthday for Aquaman turns 68 today! (Probably a little older than that but his Comic debuted in 1941.) To pay homage to this stupendous event, I present not one but two Hostess Twinkie Ads that feature the Dweller of the Depths. Enjoy!


As an added bonus, here is an episode of his famous TV show of the 60's.



BTW, the post's title refers to the Japanese inability to distinguish the sound bath from birth which both come out as バス (basu!) So when I overhear them singing Happy Birthday, it always sounds like Happy Bathday!

Pita Pan!

I thought I'd take a break from talking about
ドロシー or アリス that I've done in the past and present the 3rd of Alan Moore's Lost Girls,
ウェンディ. (For those not up on their katakana, that's Dorothy, Alice and Wendy from Oz, Wonderland and Neverland respectively.)

You are all familiar with the story from either the original J.M. Barrie novel, the '53 Disney toon, Mary Martin on stage or even the embarrassing Hook. But over here, Peter Pan is best known by a Bandai series
ピーターパン and the adaptation as follows...
















































The best thing about this book are the Hook, Peter Pan and Tinkerbell fridge magnets that come attached to the book!

Here's the theme song to the anime:



BTW, the title post is a joke that I make whenever I eat Pita Bread (パン = pan = bread).

We, The Jury.

In May 2009, Japan will be implementing lay-judges to deliberate upon the guilt or innocence of accused bad guys. The system is called 裁判員制度 (Saiban-in seido) for those who care. These manga-ized pamphlets (and this one in English) will help inform the public about this new policy.







Yesterday while I was hanging around Mediatheque, there was a film running and the above entire pamphlet spread out on bulletin boards. Not a soul was interested (including myself) but there was a table with some free crap on it so I nabbed 3 DVDs and 2 pamphlets. One of these days, I'll get take a peek at these DVDs but they promise to be fairly dull, so I'll have to be really bored. In the meantime, they make dandy coasters!

If you have a spare 24 minutes, check out this unembeddable movie) about people getting picked for Jury duty.

Happy Gnu Year!

I surfed the news today (oh boy), and discovered that it is officially the Year of the Ox according to the Chinese calendar. Since I've already used Happy Moo Year, my wildebeestian greeting is just the thing. Though we may be in the midst of a recession, according to this article, "The ox is typically hardworking, a born leader, and can overcome hardship so I encourage everyone to have the spirit of ox." Unless of course, you are this guy who is a bit of an oxymoron!





Enough of that, thanks to my handy-dandy pals at about Japanese, here are some useful phrases about our ungulate friends.







牛に引かれて善光寺参り　(Ushi ni hikarete zenkouji mairi) to be led to do good by some fortuitous occurrence.
牛飲馬食　(Gyuuin bashoku) heavy eating and drinking.
角を矯めて牛を殺す　(Tsuno o tamete ushi o korosu) The solution is worse than the problem. You shouldn't burn a house to roast a pig.
牛耳を執る　(Gyuuji o toru) to take the lead; to control.
牛は牛づれ馬は馬づれ　(Ushi wa ushizure uma wa umazure) Birds of a feather flock together.
鶏口となるも牛後となるなかれ　(Keikou to naru mo gyuugo to naru nakare) It is better to be a great noble than a petty monarch.
牛の歩みも千里　(Ushi no ayumi mo senri) Even at a snail’s pace, if you try hard, you will succeed in the end.
牛の一散　(Ushi no issan) somebody who is usually slow but suddenly decides to do something without much thought.
牛の小便と親の意見　(Ushi no shouben to oya no iken) too long and not useful or effective.



























I happened to be at the Mediatheque Centre today and checked out a couple of Gallery shows on the 5th floor. One was a photography exhibit by what appeared to me a med student and wasn't very interesting. Another was by a Mr. Suzuki, a high school teacher with a fetish for giant fish heads on mountains! Creepy but Cool!

















Finally was an exhibit by LifeWork Exhibition Eleven, a wacky mix of paintings and giant origami! Some of the paintings were pretty cool, but the origami was amazing!




































Best of all, you could scam a sheet in order to make your very own Robot Papercrafts!
Be sure to click on any of the pictures to make them BABE sized! Then maybe you can scam your own Robot too!

It's Not Easy Being Green!

Hey, I've changed the template to my blog page! Do you like it?

While I have your attention, here's the poop on the next Echophonyk which happens to be the 9th Anniversary!!

2009年1月30日 (FRI)
Echophonyk 9th Anniversary Party
@CLUB SHAFT
OPEN　21:00

一般入場：2000円（1DRINK）

ゲストリスト：1500円（1DRINK）
ゲストリスト価格で入場ご希望の方はイベント前までに下記メールアドレスへ
お手数ですが、お名前・お電話番号を明記の上送信してください。


If you would like to enter with the guest list price (1500円), please let us know your name and telephone number before the party HERE

学生料金 (Special Student Price)：1000円（1DRINK）
（20歳未満の方は入場をお断りしております）
また学生であることが証明できる証明書を持参してください。
（No one under 20 admitted)
*Please bring student card or a proof you're a student*

Echophonyk　DJs

DJ MIXTURE （UK)

DJ MOKUGOHAN (CANADA)

DJ NORI (JAPAN)

DJ TAKA (JAPAN)

DJ PINK KARE (COLUMBIA)

DJ TATER (USA)

DJ NUHJ (SWEDEN)

*PRODUCTION/LIGHTING DESIGN*

A.A.A.JP

*SOUND RECORDING*
SOUND DUG
And for his awesome PODCASTS, click away to your heart's content!

*VJ NORI* (N DESIGN STUDIO) has made the following YouTube about the event (the good news is that it's free from music.)



Stay tuned to this space for an important announcement following the next event...(Sound ominous? Well, it should!)

Making Mochi!

A while back, I was obligated to work on a Saturday whereupon we joined a group of local Shiogama adults in the preparation of a New Year's treat, 餅 (mochi)!

Basically, you boil some rice, pound it into a mush and then mold it into little balls. Then you cover it in sickly sweet goop and try to choke it down. I may not make it sound very appealing, but that's because it doesn't exactly pacify my palate.

Pre-pounded rice.









A very cool brass kettle.









Several pickled garnishes (the only tasty thing for me.)









Several of the different flavours. Clockwise from the upper left: Zundaan, Kurumian, Gomaan, Kurumian again, Koshian and なっとう or 納豆 (Natto.) Normally I can't stand Natto (fermented bean paste) but it was the tastiest of the 5 flavours offered.





A pot full of steaming gooey Azuki beans or Anko.








The following pictures will be several shots of me pounding the snot out of the rice. It was a great stress release, though you had to be certain not to shmuck the old lady in the head.


























Other people pounding the mochi (and no that's not a euphemism.) You'll see a Chinese lass, Adam, direct boss Tony, big-boss Julian and a couple of Canadian girls (they were pretty good at it...all Canadians are used to this kind of labour from our seal-clubbing upbringing.)


















Here are some of the finished products, mmm-mmm, they do look appetizing, but looks can be deceiving!




























Once again, 90% of the people enjoyed the stuff, but I sure didn't!