Koga Skatepark and stuff

So, a couple of weeks ago i decided to get my ass together and finally go to Koga skatepark, a place ive known about for a while but cos its kinda far away i havent gone to, untill now, so i got myself out of bed at the super early time of 8:30am (well, early for a GEOS teacher) basically from kurume its like a 1hr train ride to Koga station and then the actual park is not close to the station at all, there is actually a bus u can take, but i thought i would just walk/skate there.....a good 45mins walking/skating in the hot-ass sun (and it was only 10:30am!!!) and my sweaty ass finally found the skatepark, haha, next time i will take the bus, anyways, Koga skatepark is basically like one big massive bowl, not really any street skating parts except the rails on one end. so the main section of the bowl was just this crazy ass Te-Kuiti-esque bowl thingy that i managed to find a few good lines in (i bet theres heaps though, esp if ur actually good and can go over the spine parts) that is about 5-6ft high all round, and then there is the MONSTER big bowl over in one corner, which is maybe somewhere between 8-10ft (it was pretty deep) and it has a decent amount of vert, actually the first time i rolled down and up the wall i kinda misjudged the highness and ended up totally kooking it and falling from the transition straight down to the flat, getting a few nice grazes, i gotta say, getting injured is a good feeling (after the initial pain), i cant explain why, but yeah, kinda just keeps u in check i guess. anyways, so I forgot to mention, when i got there i noticed everyone was wearing helmets, so i asked one of the dudes (in Japanese, yey!) if i needed a helmeted and said yeah, i obvioulsy looked gutted, so he gestured to two "helmets" sitting on the bench, they were not skate helmets but the kind of hard hat things the road worker dudes in japan wear, so i thought fuckit, and strapped in (check the pic!! haha), also, these two dudes turned up and after a little bit they pulled two decent sized PA speakers and a cd player from their car and chucked them on top of the bowl, there was a power plug at the bowl!!!! so they proceeded to play a cd of dancehall and reggae, which was great, there was only about 5 people there the whole time (it was monday) and i ended up befriending one of the dudes and he gave me a ride back to hakata station in his car and told me about some more skateparks near Kurume, they are pretty average, but hey better than nothing, the dude has a website, its in japanese but if you click on "spots" u can see some of the "spots" near fukuoka

also i had taiko practice last week, its starting to get more serious as the festival is in july, im so excited its gonna be sooo fun!! also after Taiko we went out to the countryside to look at Hotaru (fireflys!) which was super cool, like glow worms but flying

p.s. if this sounds like its an email that I sent someone thats cos it is, i copied it stright from an email i sent my brother, haha, what!!??

7" of the moment #1

OK, so I've been meaning to do this for a while now, since I've been in Japan I've accumulated a good bunch of 7" records, mostly reggae/dancehall from my man Geo-X at Brooklyn Records Kokura, but also some other styles like punk and jazz and stuff. So, as I have been recording most to mp3's so I can listen to them on my ipod, I thought I would share some of my most favourite ones with the 2 or 3 people that actually read this. So anyways, here the first one, lemme know what you think.

Screw Driver - Ganja Killer

This is maybe one of the first 7"s I bought in Japan, as soon as geo put it on the sound system and that "di-di-di-dii-di" keyboard melody came in I was sold, and then theres the bad-ass vocals, I tried to write a bit about it but I cant really interpret the lyrics so well...., but whatever, when I first got this I would listen to it at least once everyday when I got back from work, I dont even smoke or anything, its just a bad ass song, if you disagree you suck. Enjoy.

Don Quixote is are rules

So, most people who live (or have lived) in Japan prob know about this place, Don Quixote (Don-ki-ho-te in Katakana Japanese) is probably one of the only stores I know where you can buy anything you want, and i mean ANYTHING, bikes, computers, clothes, jewelery, groceries, even Technics 1200s!!!! For any NZers reading, its like the warehouse, but with actual quality (although some things are dubious) goods.

I mean what other place could I go and buy: a orange T-shirt, a carton of milk, a 10m LAN cable, a packet of biscuits and two cans of Sapporo beer (my purchases last night)???

So yeah, my new crispy orange t-shirt has motivated me to post some more stuff on this blog (and change my colour scheme), so stand by for posts and stuff (maybe, heh).

Its another nice sunny day here in Kurume, kinda wish I went to the beach again (hmm maybe tomorow). Also, a bit of an update from the day at the beach last week, my back is currently peeling like a biatch, I have dry skin all over my apartment, haha, sexy.

The new Dizzee Rascal album is gonna fucking rule

couldnt find a mp3 of "Pussy-ole" but if you have you will know its just like "woah!"

Can't wait for the album!

Stupid British man of the day......

Man eats dog as protest in Britain

Ok, so I have nothing against British people, I know heaps of completly rad-as ones and stuff and things. But this guy is a dork man

I mean seriously, If you are protesting mistreatment of animals how is freaking eating one helping anything??? I fail to see any irony if thats what he is trying to do. Its like if I was protesting about global warming by spraying CFC based fly spray and running my Hummer all day on high octane petrol while eating Big Macs from styrofoam containers.

Anyways, I think this qualifies as my first "blog rant". Noooooo!!!!

On a positive note, my friend Dom and his bro have a radio show on "Go" fm in Wesssst Auckland, they just started recording the shows and putting them on the net. Download their latest show here, and/or eat their myspace here

Best day ever (in Japan)

so yeah, this sunday was def one of the best days ever (in Japan)

on saturday nite i went up to Kurosaki and met up with David and the new teacher there, went out for dinner and stuff then stayed thurrr to wake up early (7:30am! super early!!!) to head to kokura to go to this high school festival of one of davids students, that was pretty interestingish, but yeah then went back to Kurosaki to meet up with a couple other teachers and a bunch of Davids students (two families and some others), jumped in some cars and drove out to Iwaya beach, its sogood doing things like this with familys (with cars) as everything is super good organised, as u can see in the photo we had a sweet set up and SO FREAKING MUCH FOOD!!! the photo u can see was the second lot of stuff on the bbq, after that was a whole bunch of pork and more meat and then little bits of chicken, potato,, prawns, then a whole squid (like, an actual whole squid), a bunch of shellfish, Champagne (!!!) and then yakisoba (fried noodles and stuff)

the dude in the first photo with the hat is Seiji, he has a solar powered fan-hat, he is SUCH a dad, he is like the funniest dude ever, and his little baby is like the cutest most well behaved baby ever also

so the eating was basically spread out over the whole afternoon, i think i had about 4 or 5 swims, played alot of frisbee, even (trieded) slide down some sanddunes, then a little later we ended up befriending these uni students who had bongo drums and a volleyball (in photo) and ended up played bongos and volleyball (funnily enough)

so we basically stayed all day untill about 7pm (when the sun went down) and then headed back and then went to Karaoke (yee!)

i put sun lotion on in the car on the way there but obviously just my face, so when i went for a swim and then played some frisbee with no shirt on i didnt realise but i got super burnt (put sunscreen on the back about and hour too late), anyways, the swimming was real good, water was nice, a little bit of waves, there were quite a few surfers out

ummm yeah, so, good times

met up with my fashion designer on monday (ask me about it yo), have to meet her to get all fitted and stuff then again for rehersal and then the actual day is 30th July, the uni is paying for my transport costs which is nice, im excited!

haha also, i kinda been a slack arse about paying bills lately (not cos i dont have money, cos ive actually saved a bit, im just a slackarse, hehe), but i was totally gonna pay my bills in the weekend but didnt end up doing that cos of aforementioned slackness, so, got home on monday, flick the lightswtitch, no lights! what? check others, check the fuse, damn!!! my powers been cut off!!!! haha, anyways, went and paid the bill, then went to my Japanese class and got Naoko (my teacher) to call the electric company and they sent a dude out to recconnect it straight away, sweet!

PE-NUS power

ok, now this is even weirder than cryingwhileeating, but.......its funny as shiiiiiiiieeeeet, just watch

watch out for pe-nus power



if ur wondering where i get all this retarded shit from, its mostly the turntablelab blog, its greeeat

The Niceness

so around the end of 2005 (thats Summer in NZ for you crazy foreigners and Japanese people) I made a "summer" themed mixtape with the idea to maybe sell it to some peoples and give to my friends for Christmas, so most of my friends in NZ will prob have this, but anyways, i just figured out how to upload audio and stuff, which is neato, so i decided to upload this for all you choice dooodes to listen to/download. I think I made about $40 (NZ) off of this (haha, high roller!!) Havent made a mix since as Ive been in Japan with no mixer and turntables.......

I hope you like it

(if you're retarded and didn't try already, click on the picture, or here for the link)

oh, and tracklist is:

1. Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass – More and more amor
2. Madlib – Please set me at ease (feat. M.E.D.)
3. Sa-Ra – Glorius
4. DJ Jazzy Jeff – How I do (feat. Shawn Stockman)
5. Metal Fingers – High John
6. Eighth From the Egg – Black milk
7. A Tribe Called Quest – Same ol’ thing
8. Little Brother – On and on
9. Lootpack – Break dat party (feat. Declaime)
10. Mos Def – Body rock (feat. Q-Tip & Tash)
11. Madvillain – Curls
12. Roots Manuva – Revolution 5 (feat. Chali 2na)
13. Horace Andy – Skylarking
14. R.A. the Rugged Man – Chains (feat. Masta Killa & Killah Priest)
15. The Nextmen – Blood fire (feat. Dynamite MC)
16. DJ Vadim – It’s on (feat. Demolition Man)
17. Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley – Khaki Suit (feat. Bounty Killer & Eek-a-Mouse)
18. Destiny’s Child – Lose my breath (reggae remix)
19. Lucious Jackson – Naked eye (Muscle shock remix)
20. Beck – Girl
21. Opensouls – Turn it up!
22. Breakestra – You don’t need a dance
23. The Mohawks – The Champ
24. Recloose – Dust (feat. Joe Dukie)

cryingwhileeating.com

I mean seriously

WHAT

THE

FUCK????????

i was seaching for a decent pic of Hokey Pokey ice cream to show my student and somehow stumbled across this site. it is exactly what the name says, People eating while crying, can someone say "aaaayyyyyyyyyyy????!!!!??????"

I cant post a video diretcly here but heres an example of one of the labels of one of the videos

DanielL
What he's eating: Bagel with hummus
What he's crying about: Inconsistent weather

Inconsistent weather???????

man you cant make this shit up

on further inspection, this site is actually pretty funny, although some of the people are actually seriously crying i think........maybe......i guess......

Min & Che' Pls

havent done a post in a minute which is weird, i gotta start doing more, ive done a bunch of stuff lately, like going to Kyoto/Osaka and going to the baseball and Beppu and stuffffff

anyways, do you know the number one food I miss BY FAR since being away from NZ for a year (my 1 year anniversary was 2 weeks ago!) is the good ol' Mince and Cheese pie!! oh how I yearn for you sooooo, I talk to people about it but they just dont understand, not even British people understand, only NZers or Aussies know the joy and instant satisfaction of a good min and che' pie. ohhhhh mannnn......... if someone wants to fork out and send me a frozen pie somehow i would be your friend FOR LIFE (shit even a crappy $1 big ben pie would do)

anyways, promise i will do more posts laaateeerr

oh yeah, check the wikipedia page on "NZ cuisine", how funny is our "cuisine", boil up, and scroggin, hehe, nice, made me miss home a bit though......

oh and K Bars!!!!!!