Kaiju Party

Kaiju Shirt
Photo info: SONY SLT-A77V, 24mm, f/3.2, 1/60 sec, ISO1600
Kaiju Shirt

This past weekend we hosted our 3rd Kaiju party at our house. The usual suspects arrived at about 7pm, and we immediately started in on the beer and wine. Mikey wore his Kaiju t-shirt and provided the movies and expert commentary. He also brought over toys which included Baragon (the monster from the first movie on the list) and a Maser Cannon, which makes its first appearance in the second movie we watched. The toys are always a nice touch! It’s really cool that Mikey gives us some history to each movie, and what to watch for and also some cool bits of trivia about the movie production, actors, etc. And the toys!

Baragon vs. Maser Cannon
Photo info: SONY SLT-A77V, 24mm, f/3.5, 1/60 sec, ISO1600
Baragon vs. Maser Cannon

The movies we watched were “Frankenstein vs. Baragon” and “War of the Gargantuas”. Both of them were really wacky, silly, but cool too. There were lots of really stylish convertibles and also both movies starred Kumi Mizuno, who is gorgeous and always wearing some cool outfits. It was interesting that the second movie was sort of a sequel to the first one, but not really. Lots of the plot was carried over, and the main characters in both movies were a trio of scientists, one gaijin (white), a woman, and a third Japanese scientist. Only Mizuno starred in both movies, but all the characters’ names were different. It was weird, and didn’t make much sense, but just made it all the more interesting. The monsters in the second movie were related to Frankenstein from the first, and I am sure there are plenty of theories on how the monsters were connected. I preferred the first movie because Frankenstein was really funny-looking, and the other monster “Baragon” was really cool and had some nice jumping moves.

Toy Maser Cannon fights the Gargantua
Photo info: SONY SLT-A77V, 16mm, f/3.5, 1/60 sec, ISO1600
Toy Maser Cannon fights the Gargantua

Hanging out with the Kaiju gang and watching more monster movies was so fun and I’m really looking forward to Kaiju 4! I’m pretty sure Mikey will bring over a Gamera movie or two, plus some neat toys. It’s bound to be another good time!

Nightly Reading

Just Another Day − Our days our organized around numerous small actions we repeat over and over. What’s your favorite daily ritual?

My favorite daily ritual is actually a nightly ritual: reading in bed. Usually this ritual of nightly reading lasts about five minutes because once I lie down with my head on the pillow I am pretty much history. Even if the book is an exciting thriller, or if I am close to the end, I just cannot keep my eyes open. If I read a paragraph, then don’t remember what I just read, that means I will be asleep in a few seconds. If I drop the book on my face, I’d give myself about 20 seconds. I’m lucky if I can “get it together” and place my bookmark in the book!

However, last night (this morning) I was up until 1:30am reading Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami. It was fascinating and engrossing. I was truly amazed that I was not getting drowsy and by 1:00am I was nearing the end of the story. I was in the home-stretch! Then all of a sudden, my eyelids got heavy, and I had trouble remembering what I had just read. I quickly decided to not try to power through it; it would be better if I saved the ending of this wonderful book til another time when I could fully concentrate. I felt like I owed the author that much. So, I am really looking forward to tonight’s “nightly ritual” and finishing Sputnik Sweetheart.

This post was prompted by The Daily Post from WordPress.

Texas Stars Hockey

Texas Stars
Photo info: OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP. E-PL1, 42mm, f/8, 1/100 sec, ISO1250
Action on the Ice

Koa and I went to see a Texas Stars hockey game the other night and had a wonderful time. I had gotten two free tickets from HEB for a playoff game and I was expecting our seats to be up high away from the action, but to our surprise, the seats were second-row!

Koa's Ready
Photo info: OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP. E-PL1, 14mm, f/3.5, 1/50 sec, ISO1600
Koa’s Stoked with the Seats

Being so close to the action was really exciting and intense. You could hear all the checks into the boards and when fans banged on the glass, it was so loud! What made it extra-fun was that it was a playoff game and the Texas Stars hockey fans were so into it! The whole game was wildly entertaining, even the intermissions if you can believe that. There was a lot of dancing, t-shirt giveaways, and even a contest on the ice. In addition, there was a giant Mighty Fine Burgers Mylar blimp that puttered around the arena by remote control, dropping free burger coupons as it went by. Unfortunately we didn’t get one of them but it was still fun to see.

Shaking Hands
Photo info: OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP. E-PL1, 14mm, f/8, 1/60 sec, ISO1600
Game Over

What made it a perfect night was that the Texas Stars won the game 4-2 (including an empty-netter), and took the opening series from the Oklahoma City Barons. I’d love to go back for another game sometime, but hopefully we can score some free tickets again!

Running with a Limp

Running Shoes
My Bright Adidas

So, some good news and bad news (but mostly good news). I’ve been suffering from a sore knee for about six months now, and for maybe two months, I couldn’t do any running. Instead, I have been walking my normal route in order to give my knee a chance to get better. That’s the good news! How can not being able to run be good news? Well, slowing down has actually been a really good experience. Since I was restricted to walking, I think I became more mindful (what does that even mean?) about… well all sorts of stuff. I alluded to this in a previous post, that I give more attention to my surroundings (things like the trees, sky, weather, smells in the air, sounds of the birds and barking dogs in the distance). But I’m also mindful of  how my knee is doing, and an extension of that is to be more attuned to the rest of my body (how my arms are swinging, how my breathing is, my posture, how I hold my head). So that leads me to the bad news, which isn’t really bad news, or perhaps just temporary. I’ve been kind of running asymmetrically. That is a nice way of saying that I’m running with a limp. But at least I am able to run now! And that makes me pretty happy. And when I combine running with my new-found mindfulness (that is a strange word), I am enjoying it a lot more than I used to!

Here’s my latest running activity:

If you want to connect via Strava, that would be cool!

Sonmi-451 Start Screen

Sonmi-451 Start Screen
Sonmi-451 as of May 3, 2014

Here’s a snapshot of my Dell Venue 8 Pro’s start screen. I think it is kind of interesting that the live tiles are pointers to your personality and interest. Instead of just shortcuts to apps, there’s a window into the content. As you can see, I’m still into K-On! and my manga. I’ve had my tablet for a few months now and I have a pretty good routine with it. Specifically, I use it to update one of my blogs over at Ameba. I find the Bluetooth keyboard with pointing nub is indispensable for blogging (and a mouse is even better) but for just reading my kindle books, RSS feeds, twitter, and email, the tablet by itself is super!