Cataoke.

I drove down to Tokyo for the weekend to hook up with a crony from my Nova days -- which was over 13 years ago! I met Anne and her travel companion on Friday night after a 5-hour drive and then went for a hot dog at Domingo's Hot Dog Emporium (or something like that.) Fortunately we are great pals so neither of us were ashamed to eat this huge tasty mess in front of the other. I had an Avocado Dog, she had a Cheese Dog and that attracted a rodent which came over to our table!

The following evening, we hooked up again this time with two of her other friends (Salarian and Asuka) and after a nice meal of Yakitori, we warbled a bit at Karaoke.
 

I forgot to tape my "Lady is a Tramp", missed half of my "Mack the Knife" and I was duly unimpressed by my "Imagine." I did though manage to have my "Stray Cat Strut" recorded and although I might have done a better job if I were more inebriated, it's not a bad rendition, I must say.



I got up to some mischief on Saturday and Sunday afternoon and I'll tell you all about that later...

Rats!

きゅうそ (Kyuso) is a rat that likes to eat kittens.

In the Gegege world, you know it better as ねずみ男 Nezumi-Otoko. Alas, Blogger won't let me download pictures right now and it's bedtime, so I shall update this tomorrow with several pics!
UPDATE: Here are some of the pics of my favourite Rat-Man!

Rats and Other Pesky Rodents.

Back in my high school Chess Club days, whenever something went awry, one was wont to utter, "Rats!" and that was shortly followed up with "...and other pesky rodents" by a fellow chessophile. I can't recall why, that's just the way we rolled in the Chess club. There's a reason were the #1 team in Canada for two years running, "Don't Mess with CPSS Chess!"

 

Today's Pixar pic is from レミRatatouilleーのおいしいレストラン (Remi's delicious restaurant) which others may recognize as Ratatouille (which according to the spell-check, I got correct the first time!) A handful of drinking buddies went out on the piss one night with the intention of seeing a violent shoot-em-up thriller but whatever we had planned to see was ill-timed so we opted for the rodent-fest instead. I probably enjoyed it more than my posse, but we all exited satisfied.

I've been going on lately about Japan's dubbing of all recent animated features into Japanese and not offering a show in English. This is a fairly recent phenomenon, for I recall seeing Mr. Incredible in English in Sendai. On the other hand, if the dubbing is as good as the job done in this trailer, then my fears are assuaged and I'll stop harping on the subject.



Speaking of Rats, John Ratzenberger has had a voice part in all of Pixar's feature films made to date. His roles include:
* Hamm the Piggy Bank in Toy Story (1995), Toy Story 2 (1999) and Toy Story 3 (2010)
* P.T. Flea, the Circus Ring Leader in A Bug's Life (1998)
* The Abominable Snowman in Monsters, Inc. (2001)
* The school of Moonfish in Finding Nemo (2003)
* The Underminer in The Incredibles (2004)
* Mack the truck in Cars (2006) and Cars 2 (2011)
* Mustafa the Waiter in Ratatouille (2007)
* John in WALL-E (2008)
* Tom the construction worker in Up (2009)

I wonder if they use the same Japanese guy to do all his roles?

Surprisingly, I only have one item from the movie, a little phone strap that I picked up for a buck or two a while back. Cute, ain't it, for a flea ridden chef, that is?

If you dig into my profile, you'll see that I've added a ton of blogs that I follow. I also need to start raking in the cash, so I've added a little Amazon doohickey that is bound to get me rich beyond my wildest dreams! So anytime you buy anything through that link, you'll be helping a poor blogger pay for all his obsessions! (I'm still working out the linkages, so be patient.)

Jíxiánghùa!

The Chinese kanji is 吉祥話 which means "Greeting" and is pronounced as "jee-zhee-ang-who-ah". (I'm making that up, I have NO idea how it is pronounced!)
The Japanese pronunciation of those same kanji is kichi-jo-banashi and there is no meaning whatsoever for that combination of kanji.

Okay, so why the Chinese lesson? Because it's officially Happy New Year according to the Chinese calendar.
Thus it is now officially, 鼠年, (nezumi-doshi) "The Year of the Rat."

Here are some expressions using Rat for your enjoyment.




大山鳴動して鼠一匹 (Taizan meidou shite nezumi ippiki) The mountain has labored and brought forth a mouse.
袋の鼠 (Fukuro no nezumi) A mouse in a trap.
頭の黒い鼠 (Atama no kuroi nezumi...Literally means, "a black-headed rat.") A snitch, a thief in the family, an unfaithful servant. (Use your best James Cagney, "You dirty rat" impression when you read this.)
窮鼠猫を噛む (Kyuuso neko o kamu...Literally means, "A cornered rat bites the cat.") A stag at bay is a dangerous foe. A baited cat may grow as fierce as a lion. When left with no option, even someone weak can fight. Or, even a coward is capable of bravery.
ただの鼠ではない (Tada no nezumi dewa nai) Somebody who can't be off your guard, somebody who is not common.
鼠に引かれる (Nezumi ni hikareru) Being at home alone.
鼠壁を忘る/　壁鼠を忘れず (Nezumi kabe o wasuru/ Kabe nezumi o wasurezu) The victim can not forget their grudge against the harm done.
鼠が塩をひく (Nezumi ga shio o hiku) A big task can be completed in small pieces.
家に鼠　国に盗人 (Ie ni nezumi kuni ni nusutto) Bad people exist everywhere.
ねずみ算 (Nezumi-zan) Exponential progression (multiplying like rats.)
ネズミ講 (Nezumi-kou) Pyramid scheme.

Wow, Michael your Japanese is really improving! Hmm. I think I smell a rat!
(Caught me...Here is where I scammed the above.)