ULTIMATE FUN!

I just played a few games of ultimate with some Japanese college team.  They do serious stretches and run drills before scrimmage games.  They are good, more than I am, because I'm not good, but I still scored two MOTHER FUCKING points.  I might be even be on their team now?  Or at the very least be invited to play with them for the biggest Ultimate competition in Japan that takes place here in Fuji City.  80+ teams playing, sometimes people from America come!

No pictures, but they practice every single Saturday, so I'll likely take some next time.

But for now, I give you video from 2008's competition from YOUTUBE!

bgoods9956 had this to say about the action at 3:20: "Holy crap!"

To everyone who missed it Stachgiving was a success. It was lacking of mustaches but over all a great day of fun, friends and beer

Hey there!

So, I haven't been able to keep up with new music as much as I'd like but I found this new song that I really love! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLJf9qJHR3E Check it out and let me know how late I am on hearing this song.

Brad Pitt in Troy

Certain people in this city have started to take this exclamation a bit too far.

I want to give you what you want

This exhausts my "Japanese man passed out in a public place" collection. But I do have a white man flavored collection.

More often than not, after work I go home and just watch very legally downloaded American television.  Recently, I've been getting drunk on special edition beer (since practically all Japanese beer is the same, and there are virtually no imports save for Bud, Corona and Heineken, anytime some new seasonal limited edition trying-to-be-different-but-isn't-really brew comes out I buy it up in a second), watching movies, then falling asleep at 10pm. I promise that I'm more exciting on the weekends.

My point is that I'm taking requests.  So what should I do here in Japan?  Whether they be places to visit, things I take pictures of, people for me to talk to, or to find people that look like Gabe.  I will do anything that I can get away with and provide photographic evidence.

Another thing, I have no idea who any of these names are any more.  It takes me a good 3 to 4 seconds to figure them out, and that's time that could be much better spent making better friends with the staff at Circle K.  Dashboard > Edit Profile > Display Name.

Rick from Arizona

Hey guys, I found this gem while watching the Tosh.0 show, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVtEX1J7tXQ . This guy has some amazing moves. A couple of times during the video he stumbles but always recovers and transitions to an even better dance move. We can all learn a thing or two from him. Kramer, I think some of these dance moves would translate well in Japan.

¡(re)poppin the cherry!

As you probably already inferred from the upside down exclamation point in this posts title (and the complete lack of apostrophes throughout it), Im using a computer somewhere in Latin America!!

Good detective work, team.

So Ive been hangin in Barquisimeto, Venezuela for the last few days. Its been pretttty sweet. Im doing a little but of work for SOA Watch, the organization I worked for in DC (though not as much as Id like), and Ive been meeting a lot of people, including a very friendly communist leader named Tigre.

Getting here was a hilarious mission, and I considered not posting about it for fear of my parents finding it. So, Hannah, when you stumble across this, maybe use your judgement about bringing it to their attention (actually, use MY judgement, and dont show it to them).

I bought a plane ticket for Barranquilla, Colombia since it was dirt cheap, and about an eighth the price of what it would have cost me to fly directly here. Plus, the two cities are like an inch apart on the map. Aside from Barranquilla appearing to be a total wasteland, the arrival time (2:30 a.m.) must have also factored into the utterly ridiculous price of the ticket.

So, I arrived at the airport in the weeeee hours of the morning and decided to wait there til the sun came up and I could take a bus to Maracaibo, a major city on the Venezuelan side of the border. (Un)Luckily, I was able to pass most of my time with a free-spirited 60-something entrepeneur-turned-yoga instructor who hit on me pretty aggressively until about 5 a.m. when I walked her to her taxi and told them where to take her because she spoke absolutely no Spanish.

About an hour later it was light and I decided to get in a taxi myself so I could get to the bus station. If I could find the quotation marks on this keyboard, bus station would definitely have quotes around it (in both instances). The taxi driver, after telling me that gas costs more on Sundays so he had to charge me more, pulled up alongside a bus as they were both still moving through the street. There was a little back and forth (as they continued to drive), and the taxi driver told me that he found my bus. So I threw him the money, stepped out of the taxi, walked along with the (still moving) taxi until I could get my bags out, ran over to the (still moving) bus, threw my bag in the (moving) storage space, and jumped in. I figured the bus driver was in too much of a rush to stop for me.

Two minutes later, we stopped at the bus stop (quotes), which was actually a bustling arepa stand, and we waited there for (quote) fifteen minutes, which, in sixty second minutes, was actually an hour and a half.

We finally left, and it turned out that the bus wasnt going all the way to Maracaibo. Woops! I had a 5 hour ride, though the driver did his absolute best to make it shorter than that by passing cars on the two-lane, two-way road whenever he felt like it, including when there was an oncoming vehicle, or if someone else was also passing. I finally arrived in Maicao, Colombia, and befriended a woman who told me she also planned on taking a bus from Maicao to Maracaibo (where I could eventually get a bus to Barquisimeto).

This (quotes) bus turned out to be a 1982 Chevy Impala, which uncomfortably fit 7 people on our three hour ride to Maracaibo, during which we stopped at at least 10 military checkpoints, not including the border (which was no problem), and I had my passport checked.

Ok, so I arrived in Maracaibo and got on a buseta, which was a pretty nice mini-bus and embarked on the last leg of my journey. Again, my passport was checked time after time at military checkpoints, and at one point, I couldnt understand one of the soldiers questions so a nice guy translated for me. This, however got everyone on the bus to realize I was from the U.S., and they assumed I spoke no Spanish since I needed a translator. So after that checkpoint, the driver, to calm my nerves, popped in a compilation of U.S. American music videos, and I watched Sinead Oconnor, while listening to the rest of the bus gossip about the gringo.

6 hours later, I arrived at the bus stop in Barquisimeto and got picked up by my hosts, safe and sound!

Sorry that was so damn long, but I did condense a 26 hour event into a few minutes.

Love and miss you all. Also, I didnt have to sign in to blogspot...thought that was kinda weird. I know Google is to blame (thank).

Arise blog, arise.

hey you guys

hey guys from lovely camp victory, iraq....all is well in gabes neck of the woods right now its 1:14 and im working the grave yard shift and its pretty good living. But the best part is that i have a all acess pass in one of sadam's old palaces which is fucking beautiful i will post picture of that later on. i will be sending you guys pictures soon..... besos


ps. when you guys making the road trip over

evolution of the fauxhawk

This is just a gut feeling for now, but I think the mullet is coming back with a vengeance. I was driving home earlier and I saw a high school kid crossing the road with a haircut almost going for a faded gay-hawk, but failed miserably and was indeed a mullet. Let me know if you guys have seen similar occurrences. I have a feeling this is the first sighting of many to come.

On the road!

Rumor has it that I'll be making appearances in both Miami and Tallahassee over the next few weeks. I might be spending next weekend down south.
To my Talahousey bloggies: What's a good weekend to see your favorite terrible twosome from Gville up in our state's capital?

Gabe: I'll be in Baghdad the first weekend of March. See you there? J/K papo, but I am eagerly awaiting that first post from Iraq. I hope everything is going well!

Other than that, I think we need to find a way to get Chris on the blog. Either that, or we should convince him to start an "expecting father" blog.

In recent Jake news, I had my first experience in snow on Monday!! I was driving back from a trip and we drove through some snow in Georgia. You know I pulled over and ripped my shirt off and ran around in it!!!
That's it for now. XOXO 123 143

One last thing. Today's my dad's bday!

Stache continues its comeback

With Clooney and Pitt now sporting Staches, upper lip hair is truly poised to not be considering "creepy."

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20246500,00.html