Slow

Ooops. No posts in August. Lazy me.


There have been a variety of reasons why I haven't posted anything. I'll slap some posts up in the next few days. First off will be a review of my trip to Japan. Hold on.

Mike vs. Japan: Part 1

I recently got back from a trip to Japan. I'll give a detailed account of the trip at a later date, but right now I want to tell you about the highlight of the trip.

On one of my many arcade visits in Japan I decided to give Street Fighter 4 a go. I am a big Street Fighter 2 fan and happen to believe that Street Fighter 2: Championship Edition is the best one on one fighting game ever made. I had had one brief turn at christmas time at my girlfriend's house, but only in 2 player mode.

I sat down at the Lindbergh cabinet and dropped my 100 yen into the slot. There was no decision to be made on which character I would choose. I'm a Blanka man. I've dabbled with a few characters before - Ryu, Sagat, Guile, but none of them have been MY character. Blanka just has a great set of basic punches and kicks that suit my aggressive style perfectly.



SF4 feels a lot like SF2 but with big, modern graphics. Awesome. I was right at home and set about laying some beatings on the computer. I was surprised at just how much ass I was kicking and was soon at what appeared to be the final boss. I had just started this fight when the game suddenly paused. What the hell?!



"Here Comes a New Challenger!"

Motherfu.....

Just when my moment of arcade glory was upon me here comes some Japanese douche who was probably breastfed by an arcade cabinet.

Which character will he choose? Oh, what a surprise, it's Ryu. Sure enough, he comes out in the first round all specials blazing - Dragon Punches, Fireballs and Hurricane Kicks galore. I stuck with my tried and tested method. Flying kicks, sweeps, uppercuts and kicks. No need for those other pussy buttons, it's hard shots all the way. Just a matter of timing. To my surprise I found myself beating his ass. It was a straight sets victory for Blanka - and England.



My challenger had had enough and so I was able to finish my go and complete the game. Awesome. This was a great start to my SF4 career, but it was going to get better on my next attempt......

R.I.P.

Balloon Cow
2010 - 2010






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Fireworks

This past weekend was the Pohang International Fireworks Festival. It's the event every year here. The sites of Bukbu beach and Hyeongsan river are packed with people, food stalls, outdoor karaoke booths and all kinds of shenanigans. It's not just fireworks, as there's some watersports competitions and some theatre productions but, who cares about that crap? I wanna see shit go boom.

The highlight of the event was Saturday nights Fireworks competition between Japan, Canada and Poland. Korea also did a display but didnt enter the competition...I guess they didnt want to risk losing infront of such a big crowd.

Preceding the fireworks was a bunch of boring crap, including, some bad dancing, some bad singing (from a glut of fat dudes who looked like they were dressed in the dark by some talentless fashion students), a bad fashion show and videos of important looking people talking about Pohang and Posco. Presumably Posco (the big steelworks that basically owns this town) ponied up most of the dough so they made sure they got plenty of spotlight.


The one good act in the pre-show was the, actually proper famous, girl band KARA. Now, for my money, pound for pound, they are the hottest girl band in the world. We were too far away from the stage to get a decent pic of them, so here's a pic from the net to illustrate my point.



Definite foxes.


So, mercifully for my ass - sitting on a field, squashed between korean people for 3 hours aint too comfortable - the fireworks got underway. I have never seen such large scale fireworks displays in my life before. It was a feast for my magpie brain. Jenny managed to doze off though. Seems super bright lights and loud
explosions can be added to the many things that make her "snoozy".





After the event we went to the small tented village that had been set up and grabbed some food. It was really expensive but I couldnt resist getting some barbecued pork. I mean, come on, they roasted half a fucking pig! Awesome.



Oh and for the record...Japan won.

Eminem - "Won't Back Down" 6/25 Fallon (TheAudioPerv.com)

I'm addicted to the new Eminem album, especially this song. I reckon it's probably his best album overall. Drugs are bad. Okay?

Dangu

One of the best discoveries I've made since moving to Korea is Dangu. Dangu is Korean billiards. It's either played with 3 balls.....argghhh a mosquito just tried to suck my blood. Little fucker. I'm a peaceful man. I don't kill anything deliberately, we all have a right to be here. All of us except for mozzies. Nicking someone's blood is just plain out of order. Anyway, back to ball sports. Dangu is either played with 3 or 4 balls. I play the 4 ball version. You have a table, about the size of a pool table but, with no pockets, 2 red balls, 1 white ball and 1 yellow ball. The idea is to hit either the yellow or white ball and make contact with both red balls without hitting the remaining yellow or white. It's like only playing the positional shots in snooker.......which is a lot more fun than it sounds.






I think one of the reasons I enjoy it so much is the interaction with othe people. Dangu is played predominantly by men. I've only seen 2 women play Dangu and one of the worked at the place. It's like a men's club. Dude's play Dangu, chat, rip on each other, smoke and just generally hang out. I'm getting kind of addicted to it.



It's the first stop on many good nights out and it can also be the whole night out when you order take away food and booze to be delivered.

Speeling

A couple of days ago, I made a worksheet for my 1st grade kids to practice their spelling of words related to times of the day - lunch time, dinner time, etc. - and below is the effort of one the little fellas.






Well, it ain't quite breakfast time but, it's certainly how I'd like to start each day.