Herro Flom Japan

On Saturday morning (day 1) I drove my wife to work so we could have the car to go to Navel Park. That was the plan, but when I got home I crawled back into bed and didn't wake up until the crack of 1pm. I felt refreshed, but guilty for shooting our plans for the day to hell. The kids didn't mind though, they had their fill of portable, TV and PC games while I was in lala land.

Sunday I was determined to get the kids out of the house to do something fun. As a parent I'm supposed to do that. My wife is a lot better at it though. It was easy to convince Tony to go to Navel Park with me, but try as we might we couldn't convince Andy to come along. He wanted to stay home and play with his friends, who are a bit nutty but good kids. They think it's funny to talk to me all the time in a fake American accent. It kind of makes me want to whack them over the head, but I just go with the flow instead.

Tony and I had fun together at the park. We played catch until his arm gave out, roamed around the tunnels below the roller slide, swung on the skyrope, and climbed the rope and log jungle gym. Afterwards we bought lunch at a food stall, checked out the outdoor tsuri bori lake then went home to make sure Andy was still alive. My wife would be really angry if I left him home alone and he got hit by a car or something. But Grandpa was home and so was his friend's mother so I wasn't too worried.

Tags: Golden Week, holidays, Navel Park, photo, Tony

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Spokeo is an amazing website/online app thingie that imports your contact lists from your email, webmail and social network accounts and creates a comprehensive list of what everyone you've ever been in contact with is up to. My God, for a quiet, lonely hermit, my life is quite an open book online.

Tags: geek stuff

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If you're a Facebook user and are learning Japanese, give the Kanji Box app a whirl. And no cheating by using Perapera-kun or Rikai-chan at the same time.

Tags: Facebook, geek stuff, Japanese, kanji

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I can still remember when Tony was a baby who only knew how to drool, eat, sleep and poop his diaper. Now he surfs the web all by himself. He even knows how to switch the keyboard to Japanese input mode and type out words in romaji. I have no idea how or when he figured that out. Kids amaze me. I wonder, if someone were to take the DNA from an ancient Egyptian and made a baby out of it, in ten year's time would the kid be reprogramming the TV remote and doing all that other technical stuff preteens seem to be able to figure out instinctively?

Anyway, here's the video the boys have been watching over and over lately. They found it on this site, which Tony can navigate through like you wouldn't believe.

Tags: funny, Tony, video, YouTube

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Why does every attention-whoring foreigner who stays more than a few months start calling himself "Tokyo" (yournamehere?) And why is it only guys? As far as I know, there's only ever been a "Tokyo Rose" but never a "Tokyo Beth" or "Tokyo Christina."

If anyone ever calls me "Tokyo Rich" I will kick their ass. You've seen me play Wii Boxing, so you know what kind of damage I'm capable of. You've been warned.

So, the subject of this post is TokyoCooney, a popular YouTube vlogger. I've only seen one of his videos so far, and it was only a few minutes ago. I might watch a few more.

On Oliver's last night in Tokyo, he wanted to go to the Tokyo Comedy Store so we went, although I was skeptical that we'd witness anything actually funny, seeing as how Japan is as far from the English language comedy club circuit as you can get.

I was right. It was painfully, annoyingly, unbearably not funny. What was even worse was that people who were painfully, annoyingly, unbearably not funny were attempting improvisational comedy. Not surprisingly, it was a lot like watching people make complete asses of themselves on stage. When we could no longer take any more, Oliver and I paid the bill (over 10,000 yen for cover charge, a few beers and some meager finger food) then went to a convenience store and bought a bottle of whiskey to extricate ourselves from our lingering foul mood.

Perhaps you've noticed that I don't normally complain about or insult people. But the no-talent hacks at the Tokyo Comedy Story really, really sucked. Neither of us could figure out why the audience was laughing at everything. It. Wasn't. Funny.

The only exception was Kevin Cooney. He was genuinely funny and had an excellent stage presence. We quoted his jokes to each other as we passed the whiskey bottle between us. (Oliver drinks whiskey like a pussy, BTW. Can't take a swig without scrunching up his face. Friggin' lightweight.)

In summary, Tokyo Comedy Store: bad. Keven Cooney: good. Oliver: whiskey pussy.

Tags: funny, Kevin Cooney, Oliver, Tokyo Comedy Store, YouTube

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