Thursday, December 29, 2005

Please scroll down. I'll fix it later when I have more time.

It's official...

Straight from the horses mouth, so to speak...

Fukuyama-san finally updated his diary. ^-^
He says that it's been about 2 months (since November 1st) since he quit smoking! Yeah! He says that he still has the urge to smoke, but he hasn't been doing it. I imagine it must be pretty difficult. Tobacco is a strong addiction to overcome. I wish him the best in his efforts.

Well, gotta go to work now. I just thought you'd be interested in the news. See y'all later. ^-^

peace

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Merry Christmas... a little late

Hello everyone. Long time no see. I guess I'm pretty bad at keeping my diary updated. It's been even longer since I updated mine than it has been since Fukuyama-san updated his (October 8th)! I guess my web site reflects my life. I get so caught up in everyday living that I neglect contacting friends and family... and when I have time on the computer, I get so caught up in updating basic info that I forget this diary...

Today, I updated Fukuyama-san's discography and checked and added to the page of Yoshiki Fukuyama related links.

So, did everyone have a good Christmas? We had a pretty good Christmas this year. Dan and I are both working two jobs, so we had less money worries and more festive spirit. I also went on a chrocheting binge this year. I made several ponchos and shawls and hats, etc this year. It felt good to work with my hands again, even if it did mean more time away from the computer.

To be honest, today and yesterday, I've been very lazy. They were both off-work days and I needed to just rest. I'm the oldest child in my family, and the one with the house, so everyone met here for Christmas Eve... and others came on Christmas Day. It was enjoyable, but exhausting. Then I went to work the next day. On the way home from work, I pulled over to the side of the road and slept for an hour. It was better than driving tired. I slept for almost 9 hours that night... very unusual for me. I usually only sleep 4 or 5 hours.

No one uses my BBS much. I take that back - SPAMMERS use the BBS more than anyone. It's gotten to the point that I am considering making people register to post... or maybe I'll just give the "general" area to the spammers and mark it as such so everyone knows to stay out of there. What do you all think? Please comment.

Well New Year's Eve is very soon. I hope to get my Christmas greetings out before then... well, maybe they'll just be New Year's greetings. A couple friends in Japan sent me Christmas ecards... They definitely are tops on the get them in time for New Year's list, eh. If I start tonight, maybe I'll get there in time... must remember that the new year starts in Japan at 0700 December 31st here. Time zones are such fun!

By the way, have you seen timeanddate.com yet? It's a great site I found that helps keep track of the whole time zone difference issue, along with several very interesting international communication issues. I use the site a lot!

Wel, I still need to update the Japanese version of the diary, so I'll see y'all later. Hopefully, not much later though, eh.

peace

Sunday, September 11, 2005

Catching up before heading out...

Good morning, everyone ^-^

I'm leaving town (and my computer) for a few days to go camping. We're traveling up to the North Cascades and then heading over to Sun Lakes State Park to visit with my mom and step-dad who are camp hosts there this year. It should be a lot of fun! Look for me to be back Wednesday night or Thursday. I'm not keeping a strict time schedule... the object of this trip is to take our time and relax.

This will be my second foray into the mountains this year. The first time was on my birthday, August 15th - which just happens to be the same day that Fukuyama-san's DVD went on sale to the open public. More on that later...

For my birthday, we went to Mt. Rainier, or as the locals here call it "the mountain". With the Olympic Mountains up in the northwest corner of the state and the Cascades bisecting the state from British Columbia to Oregon, we actually have quite a number of mountains in the area - but only one mountain is THE mountain: Mt. Rainier. I see it daily. It calls to me. For my birthday, I shed myself of all obligations and I answered.

Well, actually, I did still have to go to work that morning. It's a good thing the mountain is relatively close. I got off work at 13:00, drove home quickly, threw the kids and supplies in the car, and headed out. Oh yeah... and I checked the mail, but more on that later...

Since it's only an hour and a half drive to the mountain, we've been there a fair number of times. There are several ways to enter Mt. Rainier National Park. The easiest and most common is the main entrance that takes you up to Longmire and the visitors center in Paradise. (Directions from here: east on South 38th Street to Pacific Avenue and hang a right. Then keep going on that main drag for about 50 miles till you bump into it.) You can also approach the mountain from the Packwood area to the South, coming up from Mt. Saint Helens, and travel through Ohanapacosh and Stevens Canyon up to the visitors center in Paradise. You can also approach the Mountain from the north by going through Enumclaw to the White River entrance -that'll take you up to a smaller visitors center at Sunrise - or you can bypass the White River entrance and loop around to the Stevens Canyon entrance heading up to Paradise.

This time we entered through the Carbon River entrance. I hadn't been to the Carbon River side since I was a teen and the kids were curious to see what up that way. This particular entrance has been closed a number of times over the years due to road washout and the route is not connected to the roads that loop around the mountain, so it is a good deal more primitive than the rest of the park. We hadn't planned on camping, although I did add a few blankets and extra food to our supplies in case I needed to pull over and sleep. It's a good thing I did! We got about 100 feet into the park and the road turned into a narrow gravel road that was often only one lane wide due to washouts. To someone like me who's from a family of mountain goats, the road wasn't too bad, but I definitely didn't want to try navigating it in the dark.

Anyhow, we stopped and took a short trail through the river headed for a waterfall. We ended up stopping before the end due to a bridge being washed out, but we had a lot of fun at the river anyhow. (Most of us could have navigated across that stretch of river anyhow, but remembering that a group is only as strong as its weakest member is key to wilderness surival.) After spending a fun couple hours there, it was getting late, so we decided to head all the way in to the campground.

We ate dinner (sandwiches bought at Subway on the way up) at the campground. It was a nice campground and on that Monday night it was not too crowded. There was no running water and pit toilets, but I came prepared for that. We had plenty of water. What we didn't have, because I hadn't really planned on camping, was a tent. We moved things around and got "cozy" in the van for the night. Despite the less than ideal sleeping conditions, the kids really enjoyed that campground. In the morning, we walked around and explored the campground for a while. We found the trailhead leading up to Carbon Glacier - about a 4 hour hike - and made plans to come back again, better prepared and with more time so that we can hike up that trail next visit. Then we ate some graham crackers and peanut butter and washed it down with a little Tang and headed back down the mountain.

On the way out, we visited an interesting old cemetary in Wilkeson. Actually, the cemetary is still in use and it was fascinating to compare the recent graves to those from over a hundred years ago.

When we got home, I opened the package that had come in the mail the day before.

I mentioned that Yoshiki Fukuyama's DVD went on sale to the general public on my birthday. Well, it was available for early sale during his concerts, starting the end of July. Pedro, knowing that the DVD was going to come out and not wanting to hassle with the people at Three-Nine, had left some money with a friend who was going to the concert in July. He left enough for the friend to buy copies for both of us... and my copy arrived precisely on my birthday! That was the best birthday present I got this year! Thank you, Pedro!

About the DVD: Yoshiki Fukuyama's FIRE BOMBER 2005 ~Tribute to Nekki Basara~, recorded live at Shinkiba Studio Coast in Tokyo. It's the Tokyo version of the same show Pedro saw in Osaka. Unlike Fukuyama-san's first DVD, the one is a first rate production. They went all out this time, showing the entire concert with the entire songs and very little of the MC segments cut out. It's a truly professional looking production that makes it easy to enjoy the wonderfully crazy personalities of Fukuyama-san and the members of his band. There's also a second CD that has interviews and behind the scenes footage of the concert. There's also a segment where Fukuyama-san talks about the making of the working replica of Nekki Basara's guitar that he had specially made for the tribute tour. True to Fukuyama-san's standards, the replica not only works, but it works well. The sound is awsome!

Of course, the entire thing is in Japanese. Eleanor and I have begun work on creating a full report of the DVDs, complete with translations... but it's going to be a while before we can finish it. This week, my computer's decided to have major problems and I can't access my largest hard drive - the one with all my editing and word processing software on it - so I can't update my site until we get things fixed.

There are several updates that need to be put up. For now, I'll post information here.

First, the upcoming JAM Project tour is now call "King Gong". ^-^

JAM Project finally has their own official site

They also have a new CD single coming out October 21st. It's the opening theme to a drama called "Garo".

In other news, Becca-isms was updated a few days ago. Also, now daughter #3 also has her own site: TZone

And... my friend Flavio's anisongs.net site is down temporarily while he does a total renewal of the site. Grand Re-opening should be in a couple weeks.

I think there's a couple other updates that I'm forgetting. They'll have to wait until after the trip.

See y'all when we get back!

peace

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Well, it's been a while...

By popular demand (well... not so popular, but demand anyhow...) I'm finally updating the diary on my site. Hi, Pedro!

By the way, Pedro's back... has been for a couple months now. He's posted a couple entries about his trip in his blog. He's got more to post yet, but I suppose I'm in no position to fault him for being slow, eh.

Well, anyhow, today, I have a rant and a report about what happened on my birthday. I suppose I'll start with the rant, just to get it over with. Maybe putting the rant first will give me incentive to keep it short, eh.

Anybody out there who has not heard of Cindy Sheehan? The last couple of weeks, she's been a focal point around which a lot of anti-war groups have begun to rally. It's gratifying, but odd that so many people waited until now to come together. Ms Sheehan's began her work long enough ago that I've had a link to her website on my page for months.

For anyone who's been living in a cave and doesn't know who Cindy Sheehan is: President Bush's latest piece of idiocy is to declare that we have to stay the course in Iraq because pulling out now would be dishonor the soldiers who have given their lives to the cause. Ms Sheehan heard this and was outraged. Not only was her son's life wasted in a war that was begun under false pretenses, but now the same president who invoked those false pretenses was now using the sacrifice of soldiers, like her son, as justification for not bringing the rest of the troops home! Then he went on vacation.

So she set up camp on the road to his "rustic" vacationland and said that she was going to stay there till he came off vacation at the end of August or until he came down of his high horse and actually faced up to her. When news of this hit, she was quickly joined by many other people and groups that felt the same as she did about what's going on.

She had to leave early due to a family emergency, but the other protesters still remain to support the cause and to let Bush know that the American people don't believe his nonsense any more. His "approval rating" has never been lower. Now that she's left, he's finally come out of hiding... not to address Ms Sheehan or the groups supporting her, but to "answer to" Ms Sheehan at talks at a few specially selected policy friendly audiences. What's he saying in answer to her? Almost word for word the same speach that he gave before she set up camp. He's either an idiot, or he thinks the entire United States is populated by nothing but gullible fools who'll accept anything if you say it often enough.

Well, maybe so... We were going through looking for a video the other day and stumbled across a tape of the movie, Animal Farm, based on George Orwell's book of the same name. I would reccommend that book (or the movie) to anyone over the age of 12 who hasn't read it yet. I first heard of the book when I was in high school. I remember the teacher saying that the story in the book was often sited as a comparison to the history of communism, despite the fact that the author clearly said that he had not fully intended it as such. It's the story of some animals on a farm that rebelled against and drove out their human oppressors. Then the set up a free and equal society with a constitution of sorts that governed their society painted on the side of the barn wall. The first article in the costituation was "All animals are equal". Slowly, over the course of the book, the constitution started to subtly change with someone making slight changes in during the nights. Of course, as the governing document changed, so did the society with it... until at the end of the book, the first article now read, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others".

Read the book, then take a good look at our "Homeland Security" and "Patriot Act". If you aren't as frightened as I am by the similarities there, then you just aren't paying attention.

Well, so much for keeping the rant short. I need to go get milk because we are out. I'll post about my birthday (yes, Pedro, and about the DVD) later this afternoon.

Real quick, in closing, I found a couple op-ed pieces written by Ted Rall that say quite elloquently some of the same things I've been saying about the world situation. (Except I have no problem with "Victory Gardens". I think they'd be great tool in the "war" against poverty.)

GOT EMPATHY?

SACRIFICE? COUNT ME OUT

peace

Monday, June 13, 2005

Sorry, didn't get the updates done.

It's been a very busy week. Hopefully, I'll get them up this week sometime this week...

Pedro was able to get an email out to me... apparently he's having trouble getting into the hotel's wireless network for internet...

Anyhow, I found out that he definitely got to Fukuyama-san's concert and met Tsuyoshi-san there, but something happened and he didn't make it to Tsuyoshi-san's concert. What happened, I can only speculate on for now. He returns to Puerto Rico from Japan sometime tomorrow, if I remember right. I'll ask him about it then.

Well, see ya later, eh.

peace

Sunday, June 05, 2005

I messed up...

This morning I was rearranging the BBS message areas to more clearly match my home page and accidentally erased all the messages in "Yoshiki Fukuyama Fan Chatter". ^^;
Sorry. We're going to have to start over from here, eh. By the way, I added a Fukuyama-san related poll to the message area.

I finally got word that Pedro made it to Japan ok. Tsuyoshi-san posted on his BBS and on Fukuyama-san's BBS that he found Pedro at Fukuyama-san's concert. ^-^ Yeah!
He's going to Tsuyoshi-san's concert today... or actually, he went to Tsuyoshi-san's concert yesterday. (They are 17 hours ahead of us in Japan. It's already almost 2am over there.) I look forward to seeing their reports of the concerts... and Pedro's pictures. I told Pedro to take lots of pictures...

As I said, we went to Folklife Festival in Seattle last Sunday. As usual, it was totally cool! We saw some performances by a a group of flaminco dancers, a rock group singing in Punjabi, a trio that consisted of guitar, drums, and bagpipes, and a small but ecclectic klezmer band. Also, as usual, there were lots of street performers everywhere... some of them were buskers and some were just people who decided on the spur of the moment to just play. My favorite was this couple on guitar and spoons (I think)... and their little daughter, who couldn't have been more than about 4 or 5, who would hold out a cup and say "money, please".(heehee) Her parents told her to dance around instead, but we got more kick out of watching her with the cup.

Actually, we got to the festival a little later than usual this year because on the way we kind of made a slight detour to Kinokuniya so the girls could get their monthly manga fix. Of course, I also picked up the CDs I had ordered: Fukuyama Fire! (by Yoshiki Fukuyama) and Insert Song Collection (by JAM Project). After that we walked the couple miles to Seattle Center from the International District which had the desired effect of tiring the kids out enough that I was actually able to sit and watch a couple whole performances. (Yeah!)

Fukuyama Fire! is cool. Go and add it to your Fire Bomber collection - if for no other reason but for the new song, "Like a fire"! I'll be adding a translation of the song to my site sometime tonight (I hope). I'm also working on JAM project's "Peaceful One" off the JAM-ISM album and "asu he no hougou" off the "Insert Song Collection" CD that I just bought.

Till next time...

peace

Sunday, May 29, 2005

Hey, Pedro!

Pedro, my friend in Puerto Rico is leaving on a trip to Japan tomorrow. On June 4th he's going to Yoshiki Fukuyama's tribute to Macross 7's main character, Nekki Basara. (For those who don't already know, Fukuyama-san was the singing voice of Basara during the run of the series, 1994-1998.)

I do have to admit to a just little bit of envy, but I'm very happy he's going. I look forward to seeing his report. (Lots of pictures, right, Pedro... LOTS of pictures!)

He'll be posting his report on his site:
Road to Jungle Fire

Anyhow, for the sake of Pedro and anyone else who may be interested, I translated the announcement on Fukuyama-san's site about the tour goods that will be on sale at the concert. It's posted on the main news page of the Fukuyama section of my site.

By the way, for anybody that is trying to reach me today: the kids and I will be at the Folklife Festival in Seattle. I'll tell you all about it when we get back. ^-^

peace

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Nekokoshan and Kitty

Nekokoshan died last Sunday.

For those that don't know, Nekokoshan was Yoshiki Fukuyama's cat. He entered into Fukuyama-san's life as a kitten, way back in the very early 90s. He and a fellow member of Humming Bird wrote a song about the kitten called, of course, "Nekokoshan". The song was included on their first album and Fukuyama-san has been singing about Nekokosan ("Mr. Kitten" in little-kid speak)ever since.

We have a "nekokoshan" of our own: her name is Kitty. She originally belonged to a friend's daughter who had to move and couldn't keep the cat. Six years ago, when we took her in, I asked if she had a name. My friend didn't know. She said that they all just called her "kitty", and we were too lazy to think of another, so that's what we call her to this day...

On his concert DVD, Fukuyama-san told of how they named the cat nekokoshan because they were too lazy to come up with another name. 16 years later, the old grandfather of a cat was still called by his kitten name, Nekokoshan.

Interesting enough, Fukuyama-san's cat and our cat have more than just name origins in common. They both look alike too.


It's amazing how cats work their way into our hearts. They literally become part of our families... and we grieve for a while when they are gone.

We all learned of Nekokoshan through a song. The tale of his antics brought him into our homes... and, in a way, he became part of all of our families. We will all miss him.

Goodbye, Nekokoshan. Rest in peace. We'll never forget you.

Saturday, May 07, 2005

Just for fun ^-^

I ran across this survey while link hopping. My results came as no big surprise:




You Are 35% Normal

(Occasionally Normal)









You sure do march to your own beat...

But you're so weird, people wonder if it's a beat at all

You think on a totally different wavelength

And it's often a chore to get people to understand you




Becca took this same survey and came up 25% normal... (heehee)

Hope you all have a chance for some fun today!

peace

Saturday, April 30, 2005

Stress!!

It's a good thing I'm crazy, because right now it is the only thing that's keeping me sane.

Always the optimist, I'm going to give you the "glass half-full" view of this week's events.
The good news is...

*Since Dan stayed home sick from work last weekend, I was able to take a couple of my daughters up to Kinokuniya in Seattle to pick up everybody's manga. While there, I was able to put in an pre-order for Yoshiki Fukuyama's upcoming "Fukuyama Fire!" CD.

*Pain can be your friend. Because Dan was having a lot of pain in his back, we were able to convince him of the need to call the clinic nurse, who told him to go to the emergency room and he was able to receive proper treatment before the pnuemonia became too life threatening.

*While sitting with Dan in the emergency room, I got a good long start on what's turning out to be a very nice crocheted blanket for our bed.

*We finally got medical insurance a couple months ago.

*I had enough gas in both vans to make it through most of this week.

*Both Dan and I have very understanding bosses... and a little sick leave saved up.

*Finding out that my son not having the "funding waiver" I'd been trying to apply for for months had again kept him from getting something he needed was finally the catylist his case worker needed to finally get the application started.

*Dan only spent three days in the hospital.

*I was not personally involved in that accident that backed up traffic for nearly 10 miles on I-5 yesterday while I was on my way to work. When the traffic jam became to much for our little van and it overheated, I was at a place where there was enough shoulder for me to pull over.

*Of all the people who decided to try beating the above mentioned traffic jam by using the shoulder of the road as a traffic lane, only one of them hit me... and he spared me the inevitable unpleasant conversation with him by immediately ducking back into the real traffic lane and driving off... and he didn't do too much damage to my van (fortunately)... AND my boss was very understanding when I told him I'd be over an hour late.

*Cranberry juice is good for overwhelmed and painful kidneys (not mine - Dan's)... and the nurse was on call at 03:00 this morning to tell us so... and Safeway is open 24 hours!

*Today is Saturday and, for once, I have no meetings or major errands to go on. Yah!

Sakura-Con was a lot of fun for me this year. ^-^ My kids are finally old enough that I was able to sit through a full event there... FOUR full events, in fact! Opening ceremonies, the guest reception, the angela concert, AND closing ceremonies. It was amazing! I think I like having teens and pre-teens! ^-^

For the first time in the many years that I have been involved in Sakura-Con, I actually got to go to the guest reception. It was a very enjoyable experience. Dan and I sat at a table with a girl from a "professional cosplay" group. She went by the pen name "Michiru". It was a lot of fun talking with her. I did my best to to try talking with her directly without going through the interperator...

We asked her questions about herself, what she did, and how she got into cosplaying. She asked us questions about ourselves also. When she asked about what anime we watched and I mentioned that my favorite anime was Macross 7, I learned that she was also a fan of Fukuyama-san. ^-^b

The angela concert was cool. ^-^

It started with Kumiko Kato as opening act. Kato-san was small and cute and even if she had never uttered a word, the guys would have still gone wild. However, she did open her mouth to sing... and she danced! I found myself extremely impressed by her muscle control as she danced. She sang well and she was beautiful - in more ways than one.

angela was next. angela is the duo of atsuko, on vocal, and KATSU, on guitar. atsuko-san spoke a fair amount of English and mc'd for the group. KATSU-san managed a few words of English here and there. He got quite a reaction by using the "phrase he learned for the concert": "She's a babe!"

They played songs that they had done for the animes, Stellvia... and I forget the name of the other one. (Sorry.) Their music was high energy and a lot of fun. KATSU was especially fun to watch! He has a cordless amp connection on his guitar, so he was free to prance all over the stage while he played! He may not speak much English, but he communicated well with his music. After a couple encores, the audience left the room very excited and satisfied.

The con got it's money's worth this year, to be sure!

Kato-san returned to perform during the closing ceremonies. That's when I found out that Kirk actually does look at the magazines before he shreds them. He was carrying around his backpack and his con bag with him like a security blanket during the event. As soon as she stepped on the stage, immediateley, he pulled out his program book in excitement to show me her picture. He'd never seen her before, but he know who she was. She was that beautiful girl in his book! He talked about her for days after the convention!

One new thing this year: programming brought in a comedy improv group called the 404's. One if their specialties is working the audiences at anime conventions. Bringing them in was a brilliant move on the part of programming! Always at events there are the inevitable stall for time periods as a performer or speaker gets ready to go on stage. The 404's were just the ticket for getting us through those tough times. I hope to see them again next year. ^-^

By the way, Sakura-Con 2006 will be in the Washington State Convention and Trade Center in Seattle, March 24-26th. Planning has already started...

peace

Friday, April 01, 2005

Real quick! Before I head out the door to work...

I was looking at the links on Yoshiki Fukuyama's official site this morning and found a site I hadn't noticed before. It's an anime music site in Brazil called Anime Songs Net.

There is an article with an interview with Fukuyama-san on the site. Based on the content, I'd say the interview was the beginning of last summer... It's been translated into Portugese (of course) and, for the English speakers out there, there is an "English version" of the interview. The English isn't perfect - but if you've ever been to an "English version" of a Japanese site, it's about the same. Odd at times, but readable. I rather enjoyed the article - in both languages. (I dabbled a little with Portugese a few years ago when my sister-in-law went on a mission for our church there. ^^)

One thing I found very interesting was the article above the interview. Apparently, they did their research on the internet to write it before interviewing him. The interesting part is that, except for one mistake, it all looks like it came off the profile page of my Fukuyama site...

And the mistake? They say he is from Tokyo instead of Kamakura (which is near Tokyo... in much the same way that Tacoma is near Seattle... about 45 minutes away by car).

I gotta go... see you later. ^-^

peace

PS Just one week left until Sakura-Con 2005!

Friday, March 25, 2005

Always something going on...

Good morning ^-^
Yea, I know... it's been a while. Sorry. Life has been very hectic this year.

I recently had to ask my boss to rearrange my hours at work. I was finding that the mid-shift I was working was leaving too much burden on my older daughters. I wasn't getting home until 8:00pm, after people started to get tired. It was getting especially hard for them dealing with their brother. He may still be child mentally because of his disabilities, but he is 21 now and he knows it. He seems to find it easier to follow the orders of his mom than his sisters. In his eyes, a little sister is still a little sister, even if she is suppose to be the one in charge when mom's gone...

So, I cut back my hours at work a bit. It means a bit less money, but some things are more important than money, eh. The good news is that I am home and near the computer more often, so maybe I can get caught up on my email and site updates... well, maybe in a couple weeks...

...after Sakura-Con. I am volunteer coordinator again this year and have also helped a bit with the Japanese version of the site. I'm also ANCEA's treasurer now. ANCEA is the parent company that oversees Sakura-Con.

In other news, a chat friend of mine in Puerto Rico named Pedro is going to Japan in June. Amongst his plans is going to Yoshiki Fukuyama's tribute to Nekki Basara concert in Osaka. He already has the tickets! I wish I could go (no money this year) but I am happy that he gets to. It's been fun working with him helping him get ready and introducing him (via internet) to some of my friends over there. I look forward to reading his report of the trip!

I recently added several links to the Spread Peace page. Please check them out. One particular favorite of mine is Eyes Wide Open. Eyes Wide Open is a traveling exhibit put on by a group of Quakers who have figured out a peaceful way of showing the horrors of war. If you can get to their exhibit when it is in your area, please do. It will be in Tacoma on April 12-13. I plan to take the kids to see it.

If you're in the northwest united states, they have exhibits coming up in Washington and Oregon. You can download the flier here. (.pdf format)

Well, see you next time... this month, I hope... well, eventually anyways, eh ^-^

peace

Wednesday, January 12, 2005

P.S.

I've given permission to a Rhia to use the translation of "genkai battle" on her Yu-Gi-Oh fan site.
I don't know much about the show, but it's a pretty nice site. Check it out!

The Genex Connection

peace


Happy New Year

I hope everyone had a great holiday season. Mine was very busy, but we had a lot of fun. It's been a hard year for a few family members though. We all have to chip in to help a bit. It's times like this that bring us closer together. Still... I'm hoping things will go better for them this year.

This last week marked a couple landmark moments for my web site:
Last Saturday was the 3rd anniversary of the site.
Sometime between Friday morning and Saturday afternoon, we hit 25,000 hits mark!

Wow! Thank you to everyone who has visited and supported this site!

I'm thinking that something should be done in commemoration... I'm planning to translate a couple of the Songs to Ponder into Japanese as soon as I can find the time this month. I've been wanting to do that for quite a while. Now is the time to start, eh.

Recent updates... I'm trying to get rest the JAM Project songs translated, but that may be a never ending battle. They are always recording more. ^-^ I did manage to get two of them done in the last week: "yakusoko no chi" and "genkai battle". I also went through the Yoshiki Fukuyama links making sure they were all up to date... and adding a couple new ones. A few links and a new picture have been added to the Spread Peace pages too. Thanks to my brother, Alfred, for adapting my artwork for a black background.

We almost had snow last weekend. Actually, it did snow, but just a trace. It was gone by mid morning. T-T I'm just crazy enough to actually like the stuff. They said something on the news about maybe getting snow next week. I sure hope so!

Although it can cause a few problems at work when we're getting the cars ready to drive...

Fukuyama-san's had a bit of a snow adventure getting to his New Year Countdown concert in Osaka. It's fun to read... or even if you can't read it, the pictures still say a lot. Check it out!

http://www.fukuyama-yoshiki.net/
"Click on Gold experience", then "#8 Countdown"

He's been putting a lot of his concert reports on the "Gold Experience" page, so if you want to see pictures of him performing live, that's a great place to go.

Till next time...
peace