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[18 Nov 2009|01:10pm] I'm painfully stuck on the final mission in GTA4. I've been trying to successfully complete it for like 2 days now but there is one point where you have to jump off a ramp on a motorcycle and somehow land on a helicopter. I have not been able to successfully do this as I always seem to undershoot or overshoot the copter and land in the water. The one time I actually got on the helicopter I accidentally crashed it by hitting the wrong button. I have made no progress on my Thanksgiving menu yet but I plan on making some stuff tomorrow night for testing. I'm going to try for some type of spinach dish, maybe creamed spinach as well as stuff mushrooms. The mushrooms will be stuffed with cheese as to not make the stuffing too much like stuffing, which is where the onions went wrong. Now that I think about it. I guess I could just add a salad to the menu to round out the vegetable part, although probably I'll just buy a ton of bagged salad if I do that. I am lazy when it comes to salad. Yesterday I think I actually had some stuff to post about but I was really busy and tired all day and didn't get a chance to post anything. Oh yeah, now I remember, I was so tired yesterday that I skipped half a work day. I came around 1pm and worked until 6pm. When I woke up in the morning I was feeling really tired and just couldn't bring myself to get up so I called in for the morning. I spent the evening rotating between failing to beat GTA4 and sculpting my mask. Actually if I really work on it in the next few days I can have it done for the weekend. I doubt I actually will though. post comment

Week update [16 Nov 2009|01:24pm] The weekend was, as usual, busy. It started out on Friday with a trip to Shibuya to go to an Izakaya (Japanese style bar in case I haven't explained that before) with some people that I met at a party last weekend. The Friday night meeting was OK but I'm not much of an izakaya type of guy. You get a private room with all the people you are with, so that's cool, but I didn't really know a lot of the people and the table setting was not exactly conducive to a lot of conversation with everyone. I pretty much just talked to the people on either side of me the whole night. Luckily they were cool. I got invited out by both of them again but I have yet to set any times because I am busy with plans until at least next month at this point. I got home late and went to sleep even later on Friday yet I still managed to wake up at around 8am on Saturday. Saturday was good because I set about working on the menu items for Thanksgiving. I ended up trying out the braised green beans, the stuffed onions and the sweet potato biscuits. The results? I am going to use one out of the three on my actual thanksgiving menu. I guess this means I need to go back to the menu drawing board. The green beans were OK but not spectacular so I think I am going to drop them for a different type of green vegetable. I was thinking of going with a creamed spinach or something like that. The stuffed onions were actually really tasty but I ran into trouble with them because, although tasty, the stuffed part is too much like, well, stuffing to no get lost in the normal thanksgiving fare that includes stuffing. The sweet potato biscuits stay though. The taste was good but I think I am going to have to modify the recipe as I am sure my choice of potato affected how it should actually come out. They didn't rise nearly enough. However, beyond that, they are keepers. I am going to hopefully get the recipe fixed up to work with satsuma imo sometime soon. Saturday evening I went out the the Japan Fetish Ball, which is a once yearly event. This year, it was at the Christon Cafe in Shinjuku (as opposed to the Shibuya one that it was in last year) and it was a lot of fun. I'll probably write up a bit about the evening on an increasingly rare update of jauxunfiltered I did see a few fellow LJers there though, that would be aimegami and psyencefaction I got home really late, 8am or so Sunday morning and managed to sleep for about three hours before waking up. I mostly just sat around in a kind of tired daze watching videos on youtube and playing GTA4. At around 5pm or so I went out to get food and pick up a few things I needed around the house. I got back home around 6 or so and started making dinner. Really I tested out the biscuits again and just made a few other things on the side to eat with biscuits. I ended up with more pumpkin salad and chicken cutlets in a sour cream and garlic sauce. Not a bad combo I'd say. Same trouble with the biscuits though. They just don't rise like I imagine they should. Maybe I am rolling the dough out too thinly? I fell asleep around 11pm and that was OK but I still haven't recovered yet so I'm sleepy again today. Probably after a few more missions in GTA4 I'll be heading to bed early again tonight. 1 comment|post comment

[13 Nov 2009|02:51pm] Yesterday I went to the local high class supermarket in a search for turkey. Last year, when I wasn't cooking thanksgiving dinner, they had butterballs there. This year, they had these miniature baby turkeys from Spain. We are talking a 4lb turkey here people! that's enough for like 4 people at most. In my disappointment I bought a 1/4 slice of kabocha and a bottle of cranberry juice and went on my way. I had planned on doing something with those when I got home but I totally forgot what it was and didn't actually do anything with either of them. Instead I ate a salad that I topped with bacon and fried scallions. That was pretty good. So, in order to get my mind off of the great turkey search I broke down and ordered a turkey online from someone called "The Meat Guy", who is Japan based. He was sold out of butterballs but he had a slightly bigger, differently branded turkey for the same price so I went with that. I also bought a kilo of uncased sausage as I need it for my stuff onions and have yet to see it in any store anywhere.. I think I've made a little progress on my tattoo endeavor. I think I'm just going to get a general map of the design down and see what I can do. Who knows how that will work out but at least it's something. I was thinking of doing the woodcut style like this: http://www.3x6.net/vhoorl/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/shubniggurath_woodblock.jpg I guess I am going to start trying out the recipes for Thanksgiving sometimes soon. I'm excited to try the sweet potato biscuits but if they come out bad I'm going to switch to normal buttermilk biscuits. The green bean thing is similar for me. Bacon in Japan is generally much thicker than American bacon, leaving it thick and only half crispable. Hopefully I'll be able to work around that or I'll be making more substitutions. As for the stuffed onions I'm going to a test run with ground pork and see how that goes. Actually, now that I think about it, I could probably just make my own sausage from ground pork if I could somehow find pork that was fatty enough. Maybe I've got a project for the weekend? 6 comments|post comment

[12 Nov 2009|10:14am] I didn't do a whole lot yesterday. It was just a relax at home and play more GTA4 type of evening.  It wasn't a bad night though. I need to have a few relaxing nights during the week or I never recover from my hectic weekends.  That seems weird, most people are relaxing on the weekends right? I spent my entire lunch break yesterday planning Joe's Tokyo Thanksgiving meal out as best I could and I came up with the following so far. I owe a lot of the ideas and a few of the recipes to my Cook's Country subscription, which was graciously gifted to me by uberconfused . Thanks again!! : Turkey w/herb butter and gravy Cornbread and bacon stuffing Stuffed onions (pork sausage/apple/cheese) Mashed potatoes with kabocha puree Caramelized carrots with herbs Bacon braised green beans Sweet Potato biscuits Apple Pie Pumpkin Pie It kind of feels like I'm missing something in there but maybe not.  Anyone have any suggestions to round it out? I didn't work on my mask at all yesterday.  It was sitting there just itching to be worked on but I never actually picked it up and did anything with it.  I think I have to find a few more reference pictures before I can continue.  That and pick up some feathers and fur to see the thickness of everything on how I should adjust the mask accordingly. It appears as though I am going to be going to Osaka in two weeks for the Tokyo Decadance.  There is a bus rented by the promoter so why not? I'm hoping to debut the mask there.  More than anything, I think the idea of loading up a bus with 30 or so club kids and driving to another part of the country sounds like a fun enterprise.  Probably that will be more fun than the event itself. Oh yeah, the shoot for the music video is done! There is apparently video of me from the Halloween Tokyo Decadance using the the same mask for the video and that video is apparently spectacular so that is going to be used instead of doing a new shoot with a green screen.  That works for me as I don't have to do the makeup again and it saves time for everyone involved. ***EDIT*** I forgot to mention that I updated Joe vs. Japan to include my sparse review of Cerise by Gordon Ramsay, the restaurant I went to last week.  http://joevsjapan.blogspot.com/2009/11/michelin-star-dining-cerise-by-gordon.html 7 comments|post comment

[11 Nov 2009|09:22am]  I totally forgot to post something yesterday but it was because I am really busy at work for some reason. I keep getting work piled on top of me because the other guy is busy on some presentation translation that they didn't give him enough time to do.  Anyway, that leaves me with less time to write up stuff, which is lame. I'm sure I had something to talk about yesterday but I don't remember what it was.  It wasn't that I did anything exciting on Monday though.  I spent the night at home cooking up random stuff and starting on my next mask. Speaking of the next mask, I've decided it's going to be one of those Hieronymous Bosch-esque crow-man demons.  You know, body of a man, head of a crow with teeth? No? You don't know? Well, I would post a picture but I can't seem to find on of the example I am talking about.  This leads me to believe I imagined this entirely or I've mistaken the artist.  Either way, maybe you get the idea. I spent a lot of last night sculpting the mask.  Actually, because a large portion of it will be covered with fur/feathers I am probably really close to being done with it. I think once i get the details around the beak and the teeth put in it'll be mostly done.  Then from there I will figure out the area around the eyes and that will pretty much cover it.. I've decided that this year I am actually going to celebrate Thanksgiving.  I haven't had a proper Thanksgiving meal in years and years so I've decided to invite people to my apartment for Thanksgiving and cook something.  I don't actually know how to cook a Turkey but I am anxious to try cooking one with the "butter under the skin" method I've seen people doing.  That just seems awesome. 15 comments|post comment

[09 Nov 2009|03:10pm] I am increasingly busy on the weekends as of late. I have been trying to cram so much into the weekend that I'm always left really tired for the rest of the week.  The weekends end up being great but the inevitable drag of going back to work on Monday is always worse and worse.  It's not even like I dislike my job it's just that I want to not have to work. Friday was an OK night. I mastered the pumpkin salad that I was creating.  Obviously the problem was the mustard from last time.  I omitted most of that this time and it came out spectacularly.  It was really great tasting and bacony pumpkin.  I think it's a fine combination going on. Next, pumpkin soup. Saturday was all types of busy.  I woke up and lounged about the house for a while and then headed into Shinjuku with Mihoko.  She wanted me to take some kind of health test at the place where she gets her makeup so I went with her to do that.  I failed the health test miserably.  It uses some kind of machine and light sensing to determine your healthiness level and I scored the absolute lowest score possible on the chart.  Apparently I am deficient in all types of vitamins.  Maybe my all cupcake diet was ill conceived? After that I went back home and relaxed for an hour or so before heading out to a party in Roppongi at a friend's apartment.  What this guy does for work I still haven't figured out but his apartment is on the 22nd floor of a super new and expensive building in Roppongi hills. He is one of those people that has their own wine refrigerators in their apartment.  The party was cool though. Most of the people there were his friends from the various salsa dance related stuff that he does so there was dancing and everyone was friendly. Directly from the party, I went to Department H, which means I was woefully underdressed for an event.  Actually was just wearing my normal clothing so I wasn't able to get a discount to get in.  That's not cool.  Anyway, I get there and immediately find some friends and everything was good. After the event, I went home on the first train out and got home at a reasonable time. 5:20am, is reasonable I guess.  I slept for a few hours and eventually I just gave up trying to get back to sleep and put on some clothes and started the day. Sunday was OK.  I went to the post office and picked up a package from my mother with included the Nightmare on Elm Street box set, a vegan cupcake cookbook and Clubland which is a more in depth, journalistic look at the club scene in new york in the early to mid 90s. I also gathered enough momentum to make a grasshopper pie.  It actually came out pretty well considering it was my first try. Here are some picks: After the pie I watched the Friday the 13th remake which I rented in lieu of Southland Tales, which is supposedly awful but still has me interested enough to want to see it.  The remake was OK but still, nothing spectacular.  I guess I am just not a fan of slasher movies when the slasher isn't a wise cracking dream killer. 3 comments|post comment

More questions! [09 Nov 2009|10:10am] Leave me a comment saying "Resistance is Futile." (or anything, really, I ain't fussy) • I'll respond by asking you five questions so I can satisfy my curiosity • Update your journal with the answers to the questions • Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions I received the following questions from ceciliaj 1. When did you move to Japan? Do you still remember your first days there vividly? If so, describe! I moved to Japan in the spring of 2005. My first days after moving here weren't incredibly exciting though. I had previously been to Tokyo twice for vacation and I also studied abroad here for a year during college so I don't have many vivid memories. I think I spent a lot of time getting acclimated to my new apartment and doing some kind of orientation for my job at the time. The only thing of merit that I did in the first few weeks of being here was stumble into a local Japanese school and somehow explain that I wanted to join up in my barely functioning Japanese at the time. 2. You obviously have a great interest in --forgive me if I don't get the vocabulary quite right-- make-up, masks and costuming. Are you interested in this stuff because it's fun and you have a talent for it, or is there something more specific that draws you to it? You know, I'd say it is just the current manifestation of my ridiculous need to make stuff.  The mask making is kind of a creative outlet that relates to my overall interest in horror and absurdity.  A lot of the creative part is the actual mask and costume construction but beyond that I wear it and go out to clubs, which makes it something akin to performance art.  I like the idea of doing something that not many other people can do and also exhibiting my talents when I can. Altogether, the mask making gives me a good jump off point to do both of those things and also get creative urges under control. 3. You have an enviable social life. Were you always such a hit? That I could be described as a hit is still baffling to me. I wouldn't say I've ever had trouble making friends but when I lived in the US I had a set group of friends and never really had a need to expand beyond them (when your friends are people like the_sikh_geek , villagecharm , and captfabulous  you aren't really left wanting for social or intellectual stimulation) so I was anything but a social guy with lots of friends.  It wasn't really until I was away from my friends that I was forced to expand myself and be social in ways that I previously never was.  I think anyone who didn't regularly read my LJ who met me after not having seen me for the past 5 to 10 years would be wholly shocked at how different I am than how I previously was. 4. If you could change one thing about your current situation, what would it be and why? My current life is pretty great in terms of how things are going. I don't have very many complaints or things that I would want to change.  However, if I had to choose anything it would be money related issues.  I am constantly on the edge of not having money because living expenses are high and my pay, though not bad, is still not quite where I able to do everything I would like to do.  I think somewhere around a 30% pay raise, which in terms of people who make a lot of money, isn't an incredibly large amount, would put me in a position where I would be able to be more comfortable and actually save money. 5. (Because I'm asking everyone) What do you consider your biggest accomplishment? I guess I'd have to go with learning Japanese to the level that I've learned it.  I'm by no means perfect but considering I function normally in a Japanese work environment I think I am pretty capable.  I am one of those people who is overly critical of themselves so I tend to lack the ability to see when I've done things that are remarkable in some way.  Generally asking me about accomplishments will lead to a quick answer of "I don't really have any" which in my head is kind of true but in reality is not. post comment

First set of questions [08 Nov 2009|11:56am] Leave me a comment saying "Resistance is Futile." (or anything, really, I ain't fussy) • I'll respond by asking you five questions so I can satisfy my curiosity • Update your journal with the answers to the questions • Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions I received the following questions from villagecharm : 1. Under what circumstances could you see yourself moving back to the U.S.? It would take a hell of a lot to get me back to the US at this point. I think the only thing that would get me to move back would be if I was denied a visa for some reason. Beyond wanting to hang out with friends, I have very little reason to go back and very little in terms of opportunity in the US at this point.  Tokyo suits me quite well it seems. 2. Are there any habits you picked up in childhood that you still have? I honestly can't think of any childhood habits that I still have. If anything, I had a rather non-conventional and awkward childhood which led to me having to change a lot of my habits based on things like common sense and social norms.  Really, meeting the people I met in jr. high and high school and the things I did in that time shaped me more than anything. For example, I've been straight edge since high school and a lot of my moral compass is very "punk rock" in nature. The closest thing I can think of to a childhood habit would be that I have a thing about keeping doors open in a room before sleeping or relaxing I close all the doors in my apartment or I can't relax, even for rooms I'm not in. 3. What's the best course of a meal? Why? Really a meal has to be taken as a whole so each dish is supposed to be a supplement to the other in a way that makes a complete eating experience. The trick is to get everything interacting in a perfect way. That being said, If we are thinking of a 5 course meal (being something like: amuse, starter, main 1, main 2, dessert) I'd have to pick the starter as the best part even though both the mains are usually tastier. The starter is really, for me, what sets the tone of the meal so it's gives an idea of how things are going to flow so if it's done right it can enhance the overall meal more so than anything else for me. 4. What's the farthest you've traveled for vacation or leisure purposes? Almost all of my travel has been between the US and Tokyo so it has to be that as it is also the farthest.  In 2001 I traveled to Tokyo twice for vacation and that course of action sent me into the path that ended up where I am now.  It's kind of a boring answer though because now I live in Tokyo and it seems like the obvious answer. 5. When was the last time you were in a museum? What museum was it? Recently I haven't been to any museums but I have been to galleries for exhibitions. The last exhibition that I went to was a show of European Trompe L'Oeil art with a few modern pieces and secondary Japanese examples.  It was really quite interesting.  The gallery was the Bunkamura gallery, which is a really big gallery that has huge/famous exhibitions every couple of months. I also went to an opening for a local artist a few weeks ago but that was kind of by accident. 10 comments|post comment

[05 Nov 2009|10:04am] I have had a package waiting for me at the post office for like a week now but I have yet to find the drive to hop on my bike and go pick it up. I have a good idea of what it is but I am just too lazy to go get it even though it's good stuff.  That basically sums up my motivation for the week. None. Yesterday was another day of laziness. I really should have done some cooking yesterday as I have a kobcha that I want to make into kabocha salad but I ended up just lazing about playing games.  I have to wash dishes and do a bunch of cleaning too but I haven't even thought of starting that. I seem to have fixed whatever the problem was with my iphone. It's working fine now.  Who knows what happened really but I guess the user created dictionary for the Japanese keyboard got corrupted somehow.  What a weird thing to have happen all of a sudden. Anyway, working fine now. I'm suddenly popular again this week.  I have a weekend that is filled with too many invitations to do things that I want to do. Probably I will head to a party earlier in the evening, then, from there go to a second party and then from that party to an event.  It all depends on the timing though. Maybe it'll just be one party and then the event. I forgot to mention yesterday that I updated Joe Vs Japan: http://joevsjapan.blogspot.com/2009/11/pig-pork-buns.html. I also enabled anonymous comments, which I thought were already enabled. Anyway, feel free to read through and comment if you want. post comment

The day off [04 Nov 2009|10:18am] Yesterday was some kind of national holiday.  What day? I don't know and can't be bothered to look it up. However, It was a day off so I was not at work.  I can support whatever gives me a day off from work for sure. Anyway, I ended up falling asleep on the couch on Monday night for lack of anything better to do.  I was kind of sleepy and was just emailing back and forth with a few people and just conked out around 11:30.  Even the lure of GTA4 couldn't keep me awake.  I feel like I am going to be finishing the game soon.  That is kind of sad.  I guess I could buy Vice City and San Andreas for the Xbox if I really get a hankering for more. Those ones at least have better soundtracks. Tuesday I woke up relatively early and did a little bit of gaming, a little bit of computer related stuff and a little bit of cooking.  Around 2pm or so I mustered enough energy to get out of the house and head into Shibuya and Harajuku. Actually, I took the train into Shibuya, walked around Tsutaya looking for the above mentioned GTA games to no avail, and then walked to Harajuku. In Harajuku I gave up on any type of shopping and just went to Sex Pot Revenge to hang out and chat with the staff.  That was were I spent a good chunk of time yesterday. I ended up buying a corset from there as well.  I figured the only thing that was missing from my club clothing was a corset so I finally broke down and bought a nice but relatively inexpensive one.  It's just plain black.  It'll definitely start showing up in pictures at some point. Around 5:30 or so Ryo, one of the staff at the shop went on break so him and I headed into Shinjuku to hang out during his break (which was 2 hours for some reason).  We went to a used CD shop to look at hardcore CDs and I was giving him all types of recommendations for stuff.  I was kind of shocked at the amount of stuff you wouldn't expect to find in a Japanese used CD shop though. There was a copy of the last Chokehold 7" that I never even saw in America, not to mention tons of ebullition stuff.  Weird. After that we headed out for some food, which was initially going to be some kind of burgers but we gave up on that plan when the good burger place was too full of people.  Next we decided on ramen and I know and awesome place that was nearby but again, that place was too full for us to get in.  We settled on a not as good ramen place and ate there.  It wasn't bad at all, just not as good as the other place that hand makes the noodles and uses all fresh products. When we finished eating we headed back to the station and Ryo went back to work and I went home. The evening was half about me playing GTA4 though I say half because the main problem involved fixing my screwed up iphone.  Who knows what the problem was and probably still is but the phone freaked on the way home and reset for no reason.  Then, anytime I tried to type in Japanese all the programs would quit out.  I did a full reinstall of the phone but still, after restoring my settings, the problem occurred again. I think I may have eventually fixed it by deleting the save library for the keyboards.  That at least seems to be working now.  I was able to type in Japanese after that at least.  Who knows if it's really fixed though. I was up way too late doing that, maybe until about 1am or so before I finally got it working.  That means I'm super tired today and feeling really lazy about doing anything. Also my big toes really hurt from walking around in new shoes all day yesterday. Hopefully today, after the full restore of my music is finished my iphone will be back to normal and I can forget about the long nightmare from yesterday. 6 comments|post comment

Weekend Update [02 Nov 2009|09:52am] This weekend was Halloween so I was busy.  I don't have any pictures yet but eventually I'll get some and update. Friday night was pretty uneventful. I'm sure there were Halloween parties going on that I could have went to but really I was tired and not feeling up to going out so I just stayed in, played GTA4 and cooked dinner.  I made pizza, which turned out OK. If anything, it gave me an opportunity to use my pizza stone for its intended purpose. Saturday, Halloween was a busy day for makeup.  During the early evening I headed out to the luxury apartment of some banker dudes to do makeup.  The makeup they wanted was KISS and, although I was only the assistant, I was tasked with the two difficult designs because the person who I was working with and asked me to help wasn't confident doing them. She is a beauty makeup artist so drawing designs is not her thing.  It is absolutely my thing though.  It took about two hours and I got paid a little more than $200. After the makeup job was finished I went home, did makeup on myself and headed out to an event for Halloween.  My own makeup, due to lack of time wasn't really that great, it was just kind of thrown together from stuff I had laying around so I reused a mask and did some different coloring on it.  Altogether it was OK looking but generally not worthy of excitement.; The event itself was OK. The venue was kind of small and the amount of people there was rather large, meaning that you couldn't move around very easily, nor could you find people you were searching for with any type of ease.  I ran into aimegami  outside of the station and talked for a bit and then barely saw her again at the event because it was so crowded. It was alright though.  I spent most of the night chatting up people that I hadn't seen in a while or don't normally get to talk to much. In the end of the night I got shouldered with drunk friend duty.  A friend of mine was so drunk and couldn't really walk or do anything so I was tasked with making sure she got home. Well, I wasn't so much asked to do this so much as everyone is tired of her always being to drunk to move by the end of the night that they ran away, leaving me with her.  I had no idea where she was going so I just brought her home and let her sleep it off until she was OK to go. Nothing untoward happened. Sunday I spent mostly being sleepy and playing GTA4 until it was time to head to Shinbashi to check out Cerise.  Cerise, as I mentioned, is the not so expensive Gordon Ramsay restaurant in Tokyo.  The other is way out of my price range.  Anyway, I went there with Mihoko as a dual birthday dinner.  I'll probably post up a review with pictures and menu descriptions at some point.  I took pictures with that in mind. Tomorrow is some kind of national holiday as well so I will be off from work, meaning today is going to be a long day.  It already feels like I've been here for hours yet it's only actually been about two.  Hopefully the second half of the day picks up markedly. 1 comment|post comment

Oh yeah, i knew there was something I was forgetting [29 Oct 2009|04:33pm] Pictures from Decadance.  There aren't that many and there are all from later in the evening which means my makeup has been half sweated off but you can at least get a general idea of what I looked like: 4 comments|post comment

[29 Oct 2009|10:37am] Thanks to everyone who commented with birthday wishes yesterday! Combined between Mixi, Livejournal and Facebook I woke up with more than 50 messages.  That is like some kind of record considering last year I think approximately 3 people said anything.  Thanks a ton you guys! Speaking of the birthday, I left work early, around 3:30 yesterday.  The only reason I came in was because I had work that was on a deadline and needed to be completed by the end of the day.  Once I finished I left with the well wishes of my boss.  I did a little bit of shopping in Jiyugaoka and then went home to relax with youtube and xbox. Later in the evening, I did get around to actually celebrating.  I had dinner and cake and got the new Batman game Arkham Asylum, for the xbox 360.  I played I demo of it previously and it was awesome so I'm glad to finally have it.  I played it for about 30 minutes yesterday and it's a lot of fun. I ended up falling asleep pretty early though, I was tired and needed to rest so I ended up turning off the xbox and curling up on the couch and falling asleep for a while. I also made an attempt to watch "Drag me to hell" but I was too sleepy and only got about 30 minutes in before I was falling asleep again.  I'll probably watch the rest of it today Completely unrelated to this, every week Gawker does a liveblog of Top Chef which I participate in.  I participate because I can't actually watch the show when it's on but I still want to know what happens and it kills time before lunch.  Anyway, I started commenting on last week and already I had one of my quotes selected as one of the funniest.  This is exciting for nobody but me. post comment

[28 Oct 2009|01:01pm] Today is my birthday! However, I am stuck at work.  I have some stuff that has to get done by today so I came in an attempt to finish it up.  Actually, I'm pretty sure I can finish it up before the end of the day, and if I do so, I'll probably go home early.  I'm already feeling like I want to just go.  This is why I usually take my birthday off. Unrelated to my birthday but kind of awesome anyway, I'm getting paid a little more than $200 to assist in a makeup job that involves painting four guys from Hong Kong to look like the members of Kiss.  That, my friends is the power of social networking. Yesterday I ended up playing GTA 4 for a while and then falling asleep pretty early.  It wasn't a monumentally interesting night for sure.  Actually it was mostly a boring night where I reheated corn dogs and onion rings from the night before, ate some ice cream and played video games.  That is the kind of thing I do after work when i have nothing better to do. Tonight I have plans to relax and eat cake.  That will basically be the sum total of my birthday celebrating. I don't know that there is much more I could be doing considering it's Wednesday and I have work tomorrow. In other news, I'll probably finish up "Party Monster" later today.  It's a quality book and is a quick and easy read.  I am looking forward to "Murder in Clubland" which is a more journalistic look at the same time and scene, which I will probably read next. That one apparently has a lot more details and a lot wider range of characters in it. 6 comments|post comment

[27 Oct 2009|10:44am] Last night I took it upon myself to make corn dogs and onion rings.  This wasn't an actual plan but I was at the convenience store buying a drink and I saw mini hot dogs and I just ran with it.  They actually turned out to be quite good, which I am happy about. I think I have nearly perfected my corn dog coating. My feet hurt today.  The new shoes have dug holes into my ankles, which is bad because it makes it painful to walk.  I went back to my old shoes for today.  They too were inexplicably painful to wear but I think I solved that problem by removing the brass tack that had been lodged in the sole and had been digging into the bottom of my foot.  This totally explains the cut on my foot though. I fell asleep kind of early last night but I woke up around 11pm and played a bit of GTA4.  I was hoping to finish it before I got the new Batman game but that is coming tomorrow so I am out of luck.  Probably I'll just finish GTA4 then start on Batman but then again, probably not. Iowa City, ground zero for the Zombies in restaurants invasion!! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/25/man-called-zombie-while-o_n_333053.html I'm hoping to get the update for http://wayofthecherrycoating.blogspot.com/ done later today. I was actually busy at work yesterday so I couldn't finish it up in time.  Today, I have plenty of time I think. post comment

Weekend update, Halloween party #2 [26 Oct 2009|02:26pm] The weekend was busy, as my weekends tend to be, however this weekend was so busy that I had to forgo sleep for most of it. I think I slept a total of 6 hours on Saturday and Sunday combined. Friday was the day that I poured the silicone for my mask.  I poured it relatively early in the evening and left it to set over night.  It usually cures to a semi-hard state in an hour or two but this time after 3 hours it was still not curing so I was really worried about it.  Because of that I woke up at 6am in attempt to fix any problems that might have arisen. Luckily, the mask cured fine. I learned from the last one and used a ton of release on it this time, making the whole removal process quick and painless. I spent the rest of the day lazing about the house and intermittently doing the base coat painting on the mask.  The base painting was good.  Actually, I probably should have stayed more towards the base colors in the final mask to make the whole thing stand out more. I don't have any pictures as of yet but once they get up on Mixi I'll download some to show you guys, that should take a day or two. Decadance itself was really fun. I was in the haunted house as as the monster for half of the event, which was fun for me because I got to do creepy things and scare easily scare-able people.  Japanese people are hilariously scared of haunted houses so much screaming ensued.  My main pattern was to creepily move alongside of everyone (I was behind a bar) and silently creep them out, then towards the end, I would extend my ridiculously long sleeves at them like my arms had grown about a meter longer than they should be. It was quick and completely unexpected because almost everyone jumped or screamed or ran away.  It was good fun. The rest of the event was fun too.  There were a ton of people there so I actually had trouble moving through the crowd with my mask and long costume. I walked around a bit and talked to some friends but it was really hot and I was getting a headache from probable dehydration so I opted to take off my mask and change back to my regular clothing around 4:30am or so. The rest of the night I just spent dancing and talking with friends. It was really a good time at that point because I got to have a lot of fun and interact with a lot of people that I really like. I ended up getting home at around 9:30am.  After that I ate something and fell directly to sleep. Sunday I woke up around 2pm and after making a mix CD and generally waking myself up, I trudged into Shibuya to buy a new pair of shoes. I really should post pictures of the shoes I got, they are black leather but have a kind of black and gray paisley inset around the laces.  There are also rhinestones embedded around the heel and top of the toe.  They are all types of sparkly and awesome.  In turn I bought a shirt with a rhinestone letter on the left breast and a maroon velveteen shirt with a furry black hood on it. I really should take pictures. I dropped off the Mix CD I made to a friend in Shibuya.  He is a huge hardcore fan but hasn't heard of much stuff from the early and mid-90's.  I made a mix CD full of good stuff. I'm sure he's excited. After that I went home and attempted to play GTA4 but I was too sleepy so after finishing the one mission I had been struggling on for the whole weekend I gave up and fell asleep. Oh yeah, before doing any of this stuff in Shibuya and Harajuku I went to Burger King to try a ridiculous septuple whopper that is part of a Windows 7 promotion. You can read about it and see pictures of it here: http://joevsjapan.blogspot.com/2009/10/septuple-hamburger-madness.html On another side note, I should have another new post up on http://wayofthecherrycoating.blogspot.com/ today, if not, tomorrow.  However it seems that, for some reason, all of the ads on that page are scientology ads.  I don't know why as I don't remember mentioning scientology in any of the posts.  Anyway, the reason I mention this is because, if you click on the scientology ads, it will cost them money. You don't have to read anything on their page, just the click will cost them. It's like doing your little part to take money away from scientology. post comment

[23 Oct 2009|11:11am] All of my wacky Japan related posts have been recently relegated to http://joevsjapan.blogspot.com/ . I updated it today with stuff about Pepsi Azuki, the new wacky Pepsi flavor in Japan. Yesterday, despite my general laziness, I did pour the mold for the mask! Hopefully there are no problems with it because I just don't have enough time to do another mold and pour the silicone.  I plan to do the silicone pouring tonight so that I can wake up in the morning to a freshly made mask.  Should be awesome. Pics sometime soon. I think I ate 4 chocolate filled croissants yesterday.  That is far too many.  However, they were delicious. I am sure that I have plans with people this weekend but I can't remember any of them.  I have been getting my plans for this week and next week confused so I think I have been telling people I have plans on such and such a day only to find I don't that the plans are next week.  This is either a sign that I should start keeping an appointment book or a sign that I am in the early stages of Alzheimer's. Half way through "Party Monster". It's a really quick read and I am not disappointed with the content.  I am also going to read "Murder in Clubland" which is a more journalistic and more detailed version of these events including more info on some other people as well as the main club people like Peter Gatien.  That one should be interesting as well. 2 comments|post comment

[22 Oct 2009|09:29am] Yesterday after work, I stopped off in Yokohama to pick up some plaster to make the cast for my mask.  I have today, tomorrow, and Saturday during the day to get everything done.  The problem is that it takes about 2 days to get everything done including all the drying times.  I have very little room for error. That being said, I didn't get the mold made yesterday as planned. I was just arriving at my station from the art store when I got a phone call from Coco telling me that Adrien forgot to call me and remind me but that I needed to meet them at Christon Cafe in Shinjuku to get an overview of the haunted house, what I am going to do, what everyone else is going to do and where the respective players will be doing these things.  Actually, the haunted entrance seems like it's going to be awesome. In between my arriving at my station and going into Shinjuku, I stopped home to drop off the 15lb bag of plaster I was carrying around.  At that point I found, to my delight, a box in my mailbox.  The box was from Amazon, which is a rare event because usually they don't leave them. However this time, the size was just right for fitting in my mailbox so I opened it to find some birthday gifts from villagecharm . The gifts, the book "Party Monster" which I have been itching to read and the vol. 4 DVD of the HP Lovecraft collection which is a bunch of versions of "Pickman's Model". I am hoping to watch the DVD over the weekend and I am already about 1/3 of the way through "Party Monster". These are two great choices.  Thanks Charm. The rest of this week is going to be busy.  Hell, the weekend is going to be busy.  I keep thinking that I have plans on Sunday but actually I might not.  Next Sunday I am going out to Gordon Ramsay's restaurant for the dinner course for my birthday.  I'm pretty excited as the menu looks great and I can finally claim to have eaten things like terrine of pork belly with foie gras and caramelized apples. So it looks like my modeling for Sex Pot Revenge is a go. I don't really have any details beyond that I got the OK from the big boss for being a brand model on the web site.  Sounds cool to me.  I am pretty excited about it all. 2 comments|post comment

[21 Oct 2009|10:26am] After a painfully long and unproductive day of work yesterday, I traveled into Harajuku to pick up some stuff from and bid a fond farewell to  kayteanese   and her delightful husband Kazu. Probably the two people I like the most here in Tokyo are leaving for the US as of tomorrow, which is sad for me but hopefully great for them. I wish them nothing but success, enough so that frequent return trips to Tokyo are possible. The night itself was fun. A bunch of people showed up throughout my time there so I got to meet some new people, see some people I already know and also get some stuff.  I originally came to pick up a printer/scanner but ended up leaving with that plus a carpet, some extension cords, a bottle of creme de menthe, a bottle of creme de cocoa, a sketchy PS2 game called cat fight or something like that and some DVD-Rs. I got home kind of late again but I did manage to get to sleep around 12:30 which isn't great but isn't far off from my regular sleep time either.  I managed to get at least one mission completed in GTA4 before going to sleep. There is supposed to be some type of video shoot for the Skinny Puppy thing this week but I have yet to hear anything about the details. I guess that is good because I have been to busy to pour the silicone for the mask so it's technically not completed yet. Today I'm updating both my blogs (http://joevsjapan.blogspot.com/ and wayofthecherrycoating.blogspot.com/) and ghost_pirates . I am on blog update fire lately! I'm sure I'll run out of topics sooner rather than later but for now, enjoy. 6 comments|post comment

Things I've forgotten to mention [20 Oct 2009|11:41am] I have: 1 twitter feed: http://twitter.com/hakujinjoe 3 livejournals (2 of which are private): http://hakujinjoe.livejournal.com/ (main livejournal) http://jauxunfiltered.livejournal.com/ (private journal) http://ghost-pirates.livejournal.com/ (fiction journal) and 2 Blogs: http://joevsjapan.blogspot.com/ (prototype reboot of my once popular Joe Vs. Japan blog. Once I get settled down I'll put more work into it.) http://wayofthecherrycoating.blogspot.com/ (blog for remembered things that are worthless. This one is brand new though so almost nothing is up) I probably should update all of them more.  I am lazy at times and sometimes, there are so many things to update that I get lazy about it.  I'm going to make a concerted effort to update these things more. 1 comment|post comment

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