How do you like dem apples?
So, been a while without a post... OK IM SORRY! Slap me around and call me Christina Conrad, why don't you? Well, fear not, loyal readers... today I will do what has never been attempted in the history of mankind. I will recap an entire months worth of shenannagins in ONE POST! Thats right, I'm gonna do it and its gonn a be great... Shall we begin?
1) English Teacher's meeting of some sort. These things kinda suck... ok, thats an understatement. I guess if they are being compared to being struck twice by lightning while eating white chocolate, falling off a 20 story building on a bike with no seat while having crabs and lobsters pinch at your earlobes and listening to the Yin Yang twins battle (and finding out that your entire family is dead and that Bush was elected to a third term) you could say these meetings only KINDA suck. In reality they are close to being quite unbearable. Of course, Nakano was well represented by Joyce, Devin and I. I will keep my mouth shut on further details to protect... um, us.
Of course, after the meeting it when the fun begins:
Ok, so here is where things got interesting. During the particular weekend of the meeting, Brandon was teaching english camp. What does ths mean? It means that my normal weekend agenda (watching West Wing) is put on hiatus until B returns. Now, I have to do something different. Something that does not involve tacos, Anondo, or (gasp) President Bartlet. Fortunately Devin said those five magical words that can create anyone's weekend plans: "I need a new computer." Of course, I started talking about the new Power Books... thats what I do. Devin was not ready to be sold on macs though. "Don't start with the sales pitch," remarked Devin, a Compaq user. "Save your time, I am not going to be convinced to buy a mac..."
That was friday night. For the sake of brevity, I will use pictures to portray: the following saturday morning...
Yea, it took all of 5 minutes to convince our boy to make the switch. Look at him hating on the Dells. 10 minutes into being a Mac owner and he's already too good for PCs. Of course, he lucked out as the day that we happened to trek to Nagoya to get him a Mac was the same day that the new Power Books hit the shelves (complete with Tiger....rrrrrooowwwww!)
Of course, it took every fiber of my being to be in that store and resist the urge to buy something... still, I managed to play with some of the new toys...
Ok, so our trip to Nagoya, like any good mission had three objectives. With the primary objective completed (obtain a Mac for Devin) we moved on to the secondary objective... Cake Buffet.
 Yea, thats right, I said CAKE BUFFET - as in a 2 hour freeforall where the cake chef at the Hilton in Nagoya shows off, and we eat.
Imagine, if you will, a buffet where a chef masterfully combines flour, water, and christmas morning for an all you can eat extravaganza... This, dear friends is also why the Japanese don't refer to this as a buffet, but as "Keki Bikingu" (which literally translates to Cake Viking...) thats right, this feast is fit for Nordic sailors who rape and pilliage and KNOW HOW TO MAKE A DAMN GOOD PUMPKIN TORTE!
Devin and Joyce were the first to fall, but I soon followed. I would have kept going after this last bite, but I was stuck to my chair and could no longer drag my fat ass back to the buffet table.
 I am a proud man, but in this case, I must admit defeat. Norm has seen this once before when the Burritto in Park Slope defeated me. Being bested by a meal is always difficult for me. In DC, my legend at the Palm lives on. No one inhaled jumbo lump crabmeat cocktail, a prime rib, a bottle of wine, and a chocolate cake quite like I did. Still, the cake viking did what vikings do best. Somewhere inside of me, Gfain the Skull Crusher took throne and said "Bow down before me and taste my wrath! Drown your pathetic soul in the molten interior of a flourless chocolate cake and let my wrath be known by the seriousness of my apple cobbler!"
Even General Zod kneeled in humility...
Of course, all it took was a 15 minute walk to clear out enough room in my tummy to complete the tertiary objective of the day...
As Devin reasoned, we saved the Haagen Dazs until the end because after filling up on cake, the ice cream could melt and fill any remaining cracks in our stomaches. The logic was sound. Needless to say, I nearly cried at the glorious majesty of Haagen Dazs - so much more than a store, so much more than ice cream. Haagan Dazs is a beacon of hope, a message of peace and tranquility in this chaotic world. I would like to think that in the future, Haagen Dazs will be up there as one of the greatest achievments in the history of humanity.
We toasted to Devin's new purchase, and to a sucsessful mission. After all of this, we went to Matsumoto to  catch a concert (we were late and missed the concert, but did end up playing an...*interesting* drinking game of truth or dare. Well, they drank. I, the driver, stuck with Coke. Needless to say, there were things I found out about Mr. Devin that I really could have done without.) After a looooong day, we drove back to Nakano... of course, the LAME twins passed out in the backseat (look at Devin still clutching his new Powerbook though!), and I was left driving whilst singing They Might Be Giants and Jay-Z (yes, I realize it is a strange combo... I am a strange person...) at the top of my lungs to stay awake...
But when we finally made it back, what to my wondering eyes did appear? SNOW!!!! You can barely see it in the picture, but there is snow on top of those mountains baby!!! That snow was not there the day before, but at long last, winter is around the corner, and so is snowboarding!
Anyways, on the day we returned, I fought in a Kendo tournament and got my ass handed to me. We don't need to really talk about that too much...
Huh? You think this post is close to being done with??? No no no, we're just getting started. Like I said, this will be a mega post... so, on we go...
Last Tuesday, we had the Halloween Party for both adult conversation classes. Since my class has about 10 students and B, Adam, and Devin's class has about 40 students, we combined classes and made one HUGE halloween bash. Here are some highlights:
  
 
We had a costume contest also. Now all of the costumes were great, and everyone took a lot of time to make theirs, but the landslide victory had to go to Snow White and the evil witch. They even brought an apple.
After the costume contest, we had a pumpkin carving contest. Of course, in Japan pumpkins are not as easy to come by, and are quite expensive, so we improvised. We used persimmons instead (which are called kaki here).
It worked out really well...
 
And of course, no halloween party would be complete without apple bobbing...
BLAST IT ALL!!!
So Xanga just informed me that I hit my upload limit for THE MONTH! BASTA!!!!!
Unfortunatley as today is the FIRST of the month, I may be stuck without the ability to post pictures until December! Ok, well I'll work on a way to get around that. Hopefully by next week, I can talk about the Shiojiri Halloween Party as well as my trip this weekend to Higashine for the Yamagata party.
Stay tuned... same bat time, same bat channel!
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