Jibunsagashi

Well, as you can tell, I've begun posting again. I was super busy with 3 jobs for 4 months and now I'm down to 1 during the school summer holidays, so I have a bit more time. Plus I just didn't feel motivated to post when my sister Megan wasn't doing it either. Hehe.. it gave me a way to feel better about my own laziness. BUT now she's gone and ruined all that guilt that was being tucked safely away. So, let it now be known that my own posting habits are somehow related to the posting habits of my younger sister.

I'm pathetic.

Well, I think everyone in my immediate circle of friends knows by now that I am a curry making champ. I always use the curry bricks, but I always add in extra ingredients and spices that completely transform it into something spectacular. One such secret ingredient is olives! Trust me, use olives.

Here's two of my newer friends, (left to right) Toshi and Hiro.



Toshi also happened to be my neighbor until very recently when he had to move back to Kobe to help his dad, who has recently become ill. Unfortunately I haven't seen him since. Maybe sometime soon I'll go see him at his job or I'll give him a call.

We met in a very strange way. I was just falling asleep one night and I heard someone pulling on my door. I checked to peep hole just to see the door across the stairwell from me close. I figured he had the wrong room and it was no problem. Accidents happen. The next day I went out to a bar and came home around 2 in the morning. I was tired and a little drunk and I climbed the stairs much faster than I anticipated. I opened my door and I saw the same guy who had pulled on my door before was sitting in my apartment!

Then I realized that it wasn't my apartment. It was his! Haha. I apologized and left. I opened the door once more and apologized profusely and then went home. I sat at home for a second and realized that this was a perfect opportunity to meet a neighbor, so I grabbed some whiskey and walked back up the stairs.

This time I rang the doorbell and when he opened it, I asked him if he wanted to share some whiskey and he said sure. So we sat and talked for a while and then I went home.

We both tend to work until midnight or so, so since then we have drank, eaten, watched tv, and sung karaoke together several times. Unfortunately its all over and now I'm back to not knowing anyone in my apartment complex.

So I think the Japanese food culture is definitely rubbing off on me. I see food and aquariums in a different light these days. I see food and I think, "Wow! That looks so delicious! I have to take a picture of it before I eat it!" or I see and aquarium and I think, "Wow, that tuna looks so delicious! He would be so nice as sashimi!"

As crazy as it sounds, that really is the feeling over here. Who goes to a zoo and says, "Wow, that water buffalo looks like he'd make a great burger!" No one. I must admit though, aquariums are much more interesting once you stop seeing them only as full of pretty fish.

That being said, I made this awesome sandwich that is just so rare in Japan and looked so delicious that I had to take a picture of it.



And here's some dessert a friend and I had near Osaka Castle. Notice the pecan pie.



Ahh! I'm getting hungry!!

So I was walking along one night looking for a good place to skate and I found this sign in front of a building. It is pretty clear what they are trying to say, but the directness and phrasing reminds me of my childhood in Atlanta Jr. High School. When someone would get tired of too much horse play, they would simply say, "Don't play."

Nostalgic I guess.

Well, I think it is no secret to anyone who speaks to me on any kind of a sometimes to daily basis that I'm poor at the moment. However, never fear, poverty has its moments of genius!

While whetting my poor whistle, I've come across a couple of amazing mixes to soothe any savage soul. First is one that I owe to my good times with my drinking buddy Brian: Cheap whiskey with Orange Fanta.

You can probably use any whiskey, but the cheap stuff with little flavor seems to work really well. Mix it like you would any cocktail, 1/3 to 2/3. Whiskey to Orange Fanta (probably any orange soda will be ok).

What you end up with is an Orange Soda that will knock your socks off! There's very very little alcohol flavor even though you're drinking swill. It's the perfect way to drink whiskey if you're not a whiskey drinker.


Next is what I thought was an original concoction, but let's get real, google anything and you'll soon realize that you're not as original as you first suspected. The blessing and bane of search engines. Still, from what I could tell I'm still in the top 10 and could possibly earn the name of inventor if I can get this drink to enough people and convince them of its grandeur.

Enter the Beer Float!



I first came across the idea when I went to a ice cream shop where they were also selling beer. I was somewhat surprised because I had never been to an establishment, beyond a supermarket, where beer was sold alongside ice cream. Well the gears started turning and I asked them if they could make a beer float. The two most boring employees who apparently hated their job and everyone who came into their store, looked at me with faces that spelled boredom and incredulous disdain and said, "No, we can't do that."

Well let me tell you, I was not to be undone by a couple of boring ice cream stand attendants. As soon as I got home I went to the grocery store and bought a can of Kirin Ichiban Shibori and a small single serving of vanilla ice cream.

When I got home, I tried a little bit at a time just in case the worst were to happen and I ruined a can of beer and a cube of ice cream. What I tasted next was summer changing.

It tasted just like a regular ice cream float, except when you finished it, you felt happier then you've ever felt after eating an ice cream float.

This made me wonder if Kirin Ichiban was the best match or if something darker and thicker would be better suited; something like Guiness.

So today I took the liberty of buying a Guiness and a different type of beer that I happen to like better than Kirin. The results were wonderful.

First let me say that Guiness makes a good float if you like bitter beer to start with. As a normal beer it's not for the uninitiated. You have to work up to Guiness or at least be adamant about drinking it before you can appreciate it. As a float it is delicious, but there is something about the bitterness that doesn't mix as well with the ice cream as a normal beer does.

That being said, you can probably figure out that I prefer the normal pilsner/lager/pale beer for a float to the darker frothier varieties. My reasons are two fold.

First, the slightly less distinctive taste allows the ice cream to make its impression on the concoction.

Second, the "normal" beers froth as a result of the ice cream in a way that is more natural to soda/coke floats. The bubbles are bigger, more frozen, and a bit more fun to slurp down as you pour the beer into the glass.

As of yet, I haven't tried this with any of the Belgian beers. I can only expect greater things to come, and as I have said to some of my friends, this summer will be the summer of the beer float. I'll try my all time favorite Hoegaarden, one of the cherry beers, and probably a couple of the Chimays. But as the title says, I'm too poor for that at the moment, so I'll have to stick to domestic cheap stuff for now.

In the mean time, give it a try. If you like beer, but especially if you like ice cream, try a beer float!! If you like beer and ice cream as much as I do, you'll be glad you did!

The French are definitely earning my respect at the moment. While I don't exactly oppose the Olympics being held in China, and I do understand a little about the plight of the Tibetans and wish they had their freedom, the French are really putting their money where their mouthes are. I proudly applaud their efforts even if I don't feel as strongly about the cause as they do.

Probably I just don't know enough about the whole situation to really get behind it. I've heard that there's been human rights problems in Tibet, but I don't know the details. But what I do know is that the French are giving them hell, and I'm all for the people speaking out against the machine.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080407/ap_ ... mpic_torch

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080324/bs_nm/usa_housing_paydayloans_dc

I hate to see poor people become poorer, but I love to see companies fail because of their own greed. As if you can trust money hungry people to behave with the best interests of the general public in mind. The reason they take jobs in the financial sector is because they want as much money for themselves as possible, not to help others. It's a shame all the people who like to help others end up in non-profit organizations.

It would seem that the government is finally just starting to glimpse the damage they've done by deregulating so much in the financial sector. Now they need to put caps on all type of loans, and they need to do some serious thinking about credit card companies and repeal the new versions of the bankruptcy laws that favor greedy creditors (again the people who are only looking out for their own personal gain at any cost to others).

As horrible as it may at first sound, I hope the situation gets much worse. The reason being is that Congress is extremely slow to act on anything that doesn't involve lobbyists and free vacations. Our country needs a crisis at home. A wake up call that will shake the foundations of our system and inspire more trustworthy people to stand up and do what is right for the good of the country. 9/11 almost did this for us, but our less-trustworthy leaders were already in power and of course behaved poorly and distracted us from our goal in Afghanistan. They did nothing to strengthen the unity our country felt other than say that we should keep shopping. Greed at the top has begun the implosion that we're experiencing now. Greed at the top always brings doom to the masses. We need more people persons (teachers and social workers) in the government and fewer money whores (lawyers and bankers).