As I told Zach I’ve been going bananas with thesis stuff recently so I haven’t had the chance to write much. But I’ve got a significant amount of things that I’ve watched or read that I’ve wanted to review.

But before I get into that. I just wanted to say that I’ve been thinking about adding a dish to my cooking repertoire. If you watch anime you’ll often see characters eating a plate of food that’s like half white rice and half meat and vegetables in sauce. That’s Japanese Curry. I ain’t never had it. Anybody have any particular thoughts on this. Is all curry pretty much the same? Part of me wishes that I could get an electric fryer and make my own fried chicken and donuts and stuff but that seems like a dangerous thing for a novice cook to be messing around with.

Anyway, ross and nick have been holding shit down on the podcast, especially the latest two episodes so be sure to give a listen. I’ve kind of been getting back into music recently. I think it’s sort of like a forestry kind of thing, where the life of the forest will be renewed by a fire, allowing everything to grow back. I’ve been jamming to some Japanator radio. Can’t say I’m overall impressed with the music but I’m exploring a lot of new concepts such as listening to stuff I’m not gaga over. It helps me concentrate in a way. But there are some things I think are actually pretty good. I can recommend episode 130, especially the second block with the bump of chicken song.

To unwind the other day I went to borders and bought a manga volume. Here is a review.

Bunny Drop Yumi Unita: Let me start off by saying something.

This manga is heartwarming.

The premise of Bunny Drop, when relatives gather at the funeral of a patriarch they encounter his 6 year old illegitimate daughter Rin. She’s extremely shy and reserved around her family except 30 year old bachelor Daikichi, who resembles his grandfather.

Frustrated that no one will step up and offer to take Rin in, Daikichi brashly offers to take care of her. Obviously, all kinds of insanity ensues as he tries to balance raising a child and working a full time job.

Why would anybody want to read this?

I think I may have some sense of what a story like this speaks to. I’m about to turn thirty myself. Although I don’t really find myself outright wishing I had kids at this point I admit I think it’s something that I’m missing on a subconscious level. Sort of like a phantom limb. The genius of Bunny Drop is that it pushes all the buttons of a guy transitioning into real adulthood, maybe who feels that he’s missing some important milestones in life. However, the contrivances of the plot allow him not to feel directly challenged. So you get all the emotion without the unpleasantness of having to confront your own issues.

Yeah, but definitely check it out. And look out for more reviews.

Here’s a hilariously staged photograph from May 15th in Calaveras, when Kelley and I got married.  Zach and Chu were there, and the wedding photographer couldn’t resist capturing Zach and I affirming the eternal bonds of male friendship.  It looks like we got this taken at Walmart, and that the 100% real woods behind us are a backdrop.

Zach – there are also some good, non-handshaking photos of you, and of you and Chu.

Even though Zach and Chu kept their wedding super, double top secret, I figured I’d welcome them into the bonds of holy matrimony via the Roaring Shark announce box.  Congratulations, and your new blender is in the mail! (kidding)

Congratulations to Rob and Kelley who tied the knot yesterday at Calaveras Big Trees park. It was a great ceremony and Chu and I felt honored to attend. I had this whole big toast planned but in the moment I got really nervous and blanked on everything but the Chinese part. Rob’s wedding photographer got a great picture of me making the toast. I look like Gollum or something.

Anyway in retrospect it’s probably better I kept it short and sweet. The story I was going to relate was Rob coming home from Venezuela in the summer before 6th grade, and his first phone call to me went basically like this:

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thinking about buying a house in sacramento once i realized the mortage would/could be cheaper than what i currently pay in monthly rent. one place we’re looking at is freaking gigantic – 4 bedrooms including a secret upstairs room. way too big for chu and i yet surprisingly within our budget. very close to mclatchy park and very rob-adjacent. anyone (mark/ross/mark&ross) interested in moving in? you would have your own bathroom and everything.

Utica, NY! not too far away.

I met Dan Drago probably around ninth or tenth grade, which I think was about the time he and James Hearne, whom I had known from earlier back, got together and began playing music.  Their high school band, G.G. Schwae, blended pop rock hooks with rootsier explorations, and captured the swirl of hard-edged alternative, eighties college rock, and freer-form jamming that populated the cooler part of the Rochester radio dial during the mid- to late 1990s.  Schwae became the sort of unofficial house band of an extended group of friends at Fairport High School – I have fond memories of James, Dan and company playing in my parents’ living room at my high school graduation party, and of Schwae convincingly winning Fairport’s Battle of the Bands in 1996 or 1997.

Through the magic of Facebook, I recently got back in touch with Dan and James, and learned that they’re still playing together, in the Philadelphia-based rock band The Sobriquets.  They generously agreed to get me and Roaring Shark up to speed in interview format.  The conversation that follows looks back at the Schwae years, gets in depth on the music they’re playing now, and tackles more general questions about regional music scenes, the industry, and the business of being in a touring band in 2009.

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Big ups to Rob for hosting me on Saturday and showing me the sights around Sacramento and Davis. Have to say the trip was pretty incredible on my end, don’t know how stoked Rob was to have to deal with me all day!

Anyway, like I said, the trip was good. Sacramento struck me in a lot of ways as like either Rochester with nice weather, or a slightly hipper, definitely more diverse Rochester. I caught a glimpse of Arnold but it was while I was on a shuttle from the airport to the hotel, so I didn’t get to snap a picture. I thought I took like 30,000 pictures, but in reality I somehow only took 30, and most of those were surprisingly crappy. When I was describing the trip to Chu I resorted mostly to Google street-view’ing where we’d been. Some pictures I did take, for whatever they’re worth, follow below the cut.

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We had a pretty banner movie night this past Friday, consisting of homemade veggie tacos, Mario Kart, and Strider 2. Next week we may try and do a similar thing with River City Ransom, or else some other game from our past (my cousin informs me that King’s Knight is available on Virtual Console!).

But I was combing through old posts today, and found a frankly upsetting comment thread about a particularly disastrous movie night. In the midst of it, though, Ross makes the following suggestions:

Aragami: the Raging God of Battle, plus either Firewall, Cellular, or maybe the Polar Express. i also thought we could watch Teen Wolf and Teen Wolf Too (they both come in a nice double feature disc) at some point

I think out of all of these, the only one we ever did for movie night was Firewall (although I think Ross watched Cellular without the rest of us, hmph). Seeing as how they’re all pretty solid suggestions, maybe we should revisit stuff we meant to see like 2 years ago but STILL have not found the time to rent.  And let me hasten to add the two Ewok movies, Ewok Adventure and Battle for Endor to the list.

I just noticed this morning that leonard has redesigned his site and appears to have started blogging once more. You should check it out. I mean, I always like the stuff he says.

And, because I noticed that favorited that ‘yes I can’ video, any reactions to super tuesday?