Sunday, October 26, 2008

Laserdiscs! The Future is Now

Every day after classes are finished, we have cleaning time. And every day during cleaning time, a CD with a few songs on it is played on the intercom. It is mildly annoying to hear the same songs day after day, but I'm usually so busy with my cleaning duties that I don't pay much attention. My least favorite of these songs is "Bad Day" by Daniel Powter. The only thing worse than bubblegum is old bubblegum.

In a completely separate situation, an English teacher that I work with likes to play an English song at the beginning of class. Its a nice way to get everyone in the English mood. Once it was the Beatles, another time it was Wham!, and last time it was a song by Billy Joel. This time, it's "Bad Day" by Daniel Powter.... I freakin hate that guy and his nonsense song, and I'm sick of hearing him whine about life three times a day!!

Hooo, deep breath.

I've been having people over to my apartment fairly regularly lately, which is good because it forces me to keep the place looking respectable. Movie nights are the big draw these days. After sneaking glances of it at the used electronics store for months and months, I finally purchased a Laserdisc player. Hurray me! Its sort of like a Blu-ray player, only so way better. The discs are the same size as a vinyl record but a movie can't fit on one side. Suckers then have to manually flip the disc mid-movie. My player does this automatically, with only a few seconds of electric can opener-type sounds, which is why my apartment is the coolest around. Sure 30% of my movies are on 2 discs and require me to change them out, but that's just cause they are filled with special features like "scene selection". Highlights from my library include Moonwalker, Short Circuit, and Blade Runner: The Director's Cut.


Oh, what a smooth champagne. I'm drinking you with my eyes.


Joe too is amazed at the power of the laser. Photo courtesy of Joe.


In addition to buying whimsically outdated electronics, I indulge in such nerdery as "collecting stamps". I bug the people that work in the school office now and then for their old stamps. I thought that this one was pretty cool. Its a scene from Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. Its only one of the best, most influential films ever made, so if you don't know about it you better get that taken care of or we can't be friends.


I took a picture of an excellent meal I had this weekend.


Sets are really the way to go. The noodles are called soba, a buckwheat noodle served cold. To the left is tempura, battered and deep fried seafood and vegetables. Below that is a bowl of rice topped with seaweed paper strips and some sort of pink fish mixture. Unique dipping sauces completed all three. This is one of my favorite combinations of Japanese food.


Here is dessert. Unfortunately I don't remember what this is called. Balls of chewy mochi rice and some sort of green tea lumps sat in a purple, sweet bean based liquid, topped off with a dollop of whipped cream. I'm not sure I'm making it sound very good with my amateur description, but it was quite good.


Last but not least, a couple of funny clips.



This one is pretty darn good. Will Ferrell getting some Bush impersonating done on SNL before its too late.



A Daily Show segment on the often dubious credentials of news pundits, titled: Who the F@#k Is That Guy?

1 comment:

  1. haha I guess I gotta start reading about the seven Samurai, because Im afraid I dont know about him!! but I still want to be your girlfriend!! haha. That meal's picture looks so good, It makes me think that I want to go back there.

    ReplyDelete