The Bogeyman!

First of all, my apologies for my long absence from the blogosphere. No particular reason, just laziness and a lack of topics I suppose.

Why am I back tonight? Because I learned that today is the 84th birthday of Raymond Briggs.

He has been a favourite of mine since I first read Fungus the Bogeyman.

I never knew it was adapted for the BBC a few years back. Here's a sneak peek.

Another book I'd read and later watched is When the Wind Blows. It's a lovely little ditty about the end of the world and if Trump and his pal Rocket Man have their way, it may come to fruition.

I just happen to have found a copy of the Animated Film's pamphlet a few weeks back and have been waiting for a chance to showcase it. Here are several of the colourful pics scammed from it.

And some monochrome ones.

This is from the back cover. A rather apocalyptic update of the front cover.

If you don't have a copy of the book handy and you can read Japanese, then this blog can help you out. If you can track down the video in Japanese, good for you. Here's a sneak preview:



I never knew that it had been adapted for stage, it would have been amazing to see it in Japanese.



Last week was the second anniversary of David Bowie's passing and it just so happens that there's a Bowie song in this movie.



If you click the Briggs label, you can find snippets of Raymond's Snowman as well.

Wait a sec, it's also A.A Milne's birthday! Dang, I don't have anything prepared for him.
Ah Pooh!

Dancing Santas...The Horror!

I managed to find a bunch of Santa related videos from the sexy to the odd. Enjoy!

Sexy Mini-skirted dancer:

Yeah, I know there's a heart in the middle and it's probably for Valentine's, but I couldn't find a Christmas Fits:

Aaaahhh!! Turn it off, turn it off!!

Much more tolerable is this dragon:

One gets tired of these awful quick!

When I'm dancing in my Santa attire, I look just like this!

Briggs' Snowman shills Potato Cream Soup. (You can find another "Snowman" spoof here.)

Whether it's cold or hot, I can never figure out the appeal of Cow Piss, oops sorry, Calpis.

Haul The Decks!

On Saturday, I played in a local Bridge tournament and played fairly pitifully. (Admittedly, the night before, I had played Darts and 9-Ball with pal Rob at my local and, alas, my Uterus was not there...so we got good'n'drunk instead.)  My Bridge partner and I came in last place after the first round. Then the Tylenol™ must have kicked in or something, because we came in first place in the second round with a showing of 4th overall!

So I thought today I'd haul out some of the decks I've acquired over the last several years and give you a peek. I'll start off simple with a couple of packs received gratis with various 6-packs: Mike's Hard Lemonade, Yebisu Beer, another deck that purports to do magic tricks and a cute mini-deck featuring Raymond Briggs' The Snowman that came with a KFC kid's meal.

Here's a deck of ドラエモン that is a pretty cheaply made-in-Taiwan knockoff. For some reason, a deck of cards here is called  ドランプ (Trump) and the only card game kids know how to play is an Old Maid clone called ババ抜き(Baba-meki) and , THE KIDS CHEAT EVERY TIME I HAVE EVER PLAYED!

I found this deck of Stitch at the 100￥ shop at half-off and it is a very nicely made set. The Ace-10 have a equal # of Stitch heads per card and the Jokers, King, Queen & Jacks are unique. Most of my students refer to the cards as 1-13 with no knowledge of AKQJ. The suits are referred to as
スペード=Spade, ハート=Heart、クラブ=Club but more frequently called クローバー=Clover & ダイヤ=Dia.

These are 3 dicks decks of slightly naughty women in various trump trampy poses. I got these a few years back in my UFO-Catch days and I occasionally give them out as Stag presents. I love the slogan on the Goldengirl deck, "Golden Girl Delicarcy Puker".

The yellow one is the last deck from my IBM Bridge Club days in the 90s when my brother and I partnered up. Each week, the winning team got a deck and I have given out about 10 of these since I've arrived. I think I scammed the deck with the Teddy Bears from a tourney last year.

My proudest decks are recent UFO-Catch acquisitions but they are tough to snag and thus prohibitively expensive. Some day, I'd like to get all of the Ghibli-related decks but for now, I only have these 3. Once I get my scanner working, I'll showcase  借りぐらしのアリエッティ (Karigurashi no Arrietty.)

or 千と千尋の神隠し (Spirited Away).

One of my all-time favourite Ghiblis is もののけ姫 or Mononoke Hime/Princess. You can follow most of the movie by just going through the cards!

You're such a card, Michael.   

I know, I should be dealt with!

ps. I know the 7/8 of hearts are out of place, you try moving them around once you've already uploaded them. It's nigh impossible!