The video with my song is UP!

SO I mentioned someone wanted to use my music for a video of cars using their products right? Well here it is!

It is his first video, and he is learning as he goes (he is not a video guy), but I like the way he got everything to fit with the pace and changes of the music.

Please check it out, and let him and I know what you think!

BTW the song is called Alta Loma, after ONE of many cities I have lived in.

So it begins!

I was asked by someone making some car oriented videos to use one of my songs on my MySpace page. I wont get paid, but I will get some exposure.

Of course I said yes!

Once he puts the video up and online, I will put a link to it!

Plus, today I went shopping and bought 2 new Bathing Ape items!

Some new shoes, and a reversible shirt!

What do ya think?

Last day of work before Golden Week Vacation!

Yes in an hour I will be leaving to work, to teach 7 classes, before I begin 9 days of LAZINESS!!!

I have been soo busy lately that I want to just lay back and be Tommy!

Sayaka has only 3 days off during this time, so her, her mom and I will go to Disneyland, and the day we return, I go to a Gildas and Masaya show in Shin Sakae Machi.

Between Tomorrow and then? I will be sleeping a lot, playing a lot of video games I have neglected, and just being lazy and useless to society.

I deserve it!

What a busy weekend!

Yeah like you have never heard that before!

Well here it is another busy weekend on my side of the world.

Saturday, after such a busy day at work, we all went to my coworker Eriko's wedding party! I love Japanese wedding parties because there are games and chances to win prizes! This one was extra fun because Krystin and I were the only foreigners there, so we got to be circus monkeys in a confined space, unlike in the wild like a regular day in Japan. The party location was amazing and Eriko looked great in her wedding dress, and her husband looks like a really cool guy (they are now the Nekoda family. Neko as in cat!) One of the games had everyone get into teams based on the number on our name tags. Manager and I were the only ones to go up and do it, as the others were too shy. I was on team 10 and manager team 9. On my team, was only one girl who spoke English, so I had to try my best to communicate in Japanese. The first game saw us having to go up and do a speech to the bride and groom. Well I was partnered with a girl who spoke no English and thought it was hilarious that I panicked when I was handed the mic. When I tried giving it to her, she hid behind me and I was stuck in front of the married couple, not knowing what to do or say. EVERYONE got a laugh at that, I guess even me! Next was imitating someone famous to make the couple laugh. A guy on my team and I were going to do Oriental Radio (Japanese comedians) but when they got to our number, they skipped us and started voting for the winner! We were sad because we kept practicing in line, which was great because we had kind of an audience watching and laughing at us. My partner who spoke NO English was bummed he didn't get to do a short team comedy with me, so we promised no matter what, we would go up and do our skit no matter what the game was. Unfortunately, that was the last team game and we didn'[t get to make fools of ourselves... Regardless, the food was great, dessert was lots of fruit with white chocolate, chocolate, and green tea fondue! Let's just say I ate a LOT of that! Plus Manager and I were drinking a lot and we made some awkward hoots and hollers after the bride and groom kissed. A great night!

The next morning, yesterday, we got up early and headed for Toyota to have a BBQ at a park. The weather was perfect as we all cooked and drank under the trees. The park was filled with soo many people, and there were a lot of kids running around too. Sooo much fun! After that, we went to Uniqlo and I bought 2 new shirts and a pair of clear lens glasses. We made it home and Sayaka did Billy's Boot Camp, while I made some music.

Speaking of music, the band wants to have a 4 song demo, and I have been working on the music for said 4 songs. Well as of today, 3 of the 4 songs are DONE! I feel like I can kinda relax a bit, but I LOVE making music and relaxing is the last thing on my mind!

I will eventually share the music we make once we are ready, but until then, check out pics of the wedding and the BBQ!

Back from Tiesto, and TIRED!

I don't want to go to work today...

So what an amazing experience. Everything that led up to it, and followed it, all add to the experience!

Started off with a bad, busy day at work! Taught 8 classes, with an hour lunch in between, which I spent rushing home to get my bus ticket I left at home (made more difficult due to train delay!). Anyways, work ended and I rushed to the nearest station with a shinkansen (bullet train) to get to Tokyo.

Now there are 3 types of shinkansen in Japan, and I found the time for the fastest at 8:30PM. My watch was set fast and it was about to be 8:30 and I heard the sound for the doors about to close, so I jumped in thinking I was safe. The train started, and I noticed the Japanese saying I was on the slowest of the 3 trains! The fastest takes 1.5 hours to Tokyo from where I live, the next just under 2 hours, mine 3 hours 15 minutes, which put me in Tokyo 30 minutes after the concert started!

Before I got to Tokyo, there was a stop at Yokohama station and it was POURING with rain! I was definitely not prepared for rain. So I text my friends who said they would still wait for me, and none of them had brellas, kinda screwed now. We took the train to Shin Kiba, where the club is, that Tiesto would perform at, and when we got there there were at least 40 people waiting in the station for taxis, or thinking of walking to the club. We ran to the side and got a taxi ride for pretty cheap, but were shocked at what we saw when we got to the club!

After we got dropped off we see a LOOOOOOOOOONG line to get in! By now it is 30 minutes after the concert started. So we get in line, in the pouring rain, no umbrellas, for 2 hours! We started getting sick of being rained on, so my friends asked me to start asking girls with umbrellas to cut in line so we can share umbrellas. We finally found 2 girls with 4 guy friends, all with umbrellas and let them exchange freedom from the rain, for a place in line next to us. The next hour became a hilarious exchange of bad Japanese and English, and chanting "Tiesto" and such other things.

We were told that we would be checked for cameras, so I decided to throw my camera into my bag, and throw that into a locker. When we finally got in, I was amazed at the size of the club. It says it can house 6,000 people, I think it can do 8,000 easily...We all had to get drinks, so we hit up the bar, complete with pole dancers at every corner doing their thing, and enter the main dance hall area, which was massive. We found a good spot kind of in the middle and just began having fun. After a while we had a crew of new friends who were all dancing like crazy. After about 30 minutes Tiesto came on and everyone lost it.

Now I watched his Elements of Life DVD and didn't like it at all. I haven't listened to trance in sooo long, as I am a pure house head now, but being there at his show, I began to love trance again! He played a few old songs, songs from Elements and a lot of songs my friends said must have been new, but sounded AMAZING!

This went on until 3:30 when we had to rush to literally get the last free bus tickets to Shibuya so we could get home! We grabbed the tix for 4AM went back to drink then caught the bus home...

SUCH an amazing night!

Hahaha interesting...

So a while back, Sayaka and I got a new neighbor. Now a neighbor in Japan means nothing besides "Hey I see and hear someone every now and then next to my apartment!". Well at least in my experience thus far. Well the guy who moved in is an older gentleman, as we saw him smoking on his balcony one night.

Well last night I get home after seeing a LOT of police (5 - 7) arresting an older man at the 7-11 near my apartment. I noticed my neighbor's light was off (hardly ever off) and all night and morning it was quiet. Well today again, the light was off and it is still quiet...

Was my neighbor arrested for something?

I am on the eve of probably one of the busiest weekends I will ever have.

Going to see Tiesto in Tokyo tomorrow night with my concert buddy Ryan M. It starts at 11PM and who knows when it will end... After that we crash at his bud's place, and then I am going to try to see Yokohama when I wake up. So I will part ways and do some sight seeing. That night, we may check out Womb, since it is a very popular club in Japan, hopefully good house music is playing! Then I have to take the day bus back to Nagoya Monday at 12:30, arriving in Nagoya at 6PM.

I smell the tiredness already!

Didn't play football, but had a hell of a time!

This is from last weekend! I MAY or may not get to this weekend tonight. But it was a busy fun day yesterday! Still relaxing after too much walking! Next week, Tokyo with Ryan to see Tiesto!

It rained and we were short by TOO many people who WOULD play football (more women and kids, then able bodied men), but we did have a nice hanami party/birthday party before the rain came! Most of the Japanese people left when it started, and foreigners replaced them!

We decided to hit up the karaoke booths for 3 hours after the party, where we all drank way tooo too much!

After that, an izakaya stop for more drinking, but this time with FOOD!

I will let the pics and vids do the talking!

Some funny student moments, and a look at how busy I am!!!

So yesterday found me paired up with 2 students in a mid level class that I teach on Saturdays. I have taught this unit many times by now, but seriously these 2 are some of my best students for this level.

A little background before I continue...

Japanese English speakers are FAMOUS for the mixing of Ls and Rs, but that is only one thing they find difficult to pronounce. F and H is another one that gets mixed. B and V gets mixed up as well. But let's highlight the one I will use today. S often gets pronounced as Sh, especially when the next vowel is an I or E.

So back to the class, we are looking at pictures in the book and I always have to elicit what is happening to get the students to speak. So there are many pictures, one of the American president, with a generic picture of a blonde man, and my student said it was Bill Clinton, a drawing of Tigger, the Disney character, which they just lamely call Tiger here, but the gold is a man on top of Mt. Fuji, watching a sunrise.

I ask my students "What is the man doing?" and one QUICKLY replied "Oh, he is shitting on Mt. Fuji!"

Could not stop laughing...

The sad thing is, they have no clue why I am laughing and why that sounds horrid to me!

This next one is maybe you had to have been there to appreciate it. And also a bit of a nerd.

Same students, I was checking their workbooks which we do once a month, and we had pictures of some Star Wars characters to help teach some American culture. I had never seen this before so I was a bit shocked! I asked the students if they knew what it was, and they told me Star Wars. I saw a crudely drawn R2D2 and C-3PO and asked if they knew who they were, but only the girl knew. I asked her if she knew where R2D2 was from, and she told me "He is from America!"

Daibakusho!

I don't know why, but this made me laugh soo hard. The other foreign teacher got a kick out of it, while the Japanese staff thought I was crazy, again...

Good times!

Now onto my schedule for the next month or so, so you see how busy I am.

Now my work week consists of Tuesday through Saturday. Nights and mornings find me doing web design or producing music for myself (we will touch more on that later).
So weekends are Sundays and Mondays, Sundays with Sayaka and Mondays for myself, unless plans arise. Like today...

In a couple hours I will leave to go play American football AGAIN, and have a hanami party (a sakura, aka cherry blossom, viewing party. AKA lots of drinking!) with my trainer and other foreign teachers and students. After that my school may be meeting at an izakaya for food and drinks into the night. MORE DRINKING. This will go on until almost midnight, as usual. Tomorrow is rest day.

Next Saturday after work, a fellow teacher is having a Nintendo themed party, which is a KIND OF farewell party for another teacher. This will go until the next day for sure, so Sunday and Monday will be recovery!

The next Saturday is insane... I will get off work at 8PM, change clothes, catch the train to Nagoya station, catch the Shinkansen to Tokyo, where I will take a train to Shin-Kiba, to go to Ageha (one of Tokyo's largest clubs) to see Tiesto at 11PM. Will probably go until 3 or 4 in the morning looking at the line up. Since getting a hotel would be a waste of money, the homie Ryan and I will be clubbing till morning and just rough it out Sunday and get a place to sleep Sunday night. Then prolly take a day bus back on Monday. Where I will sleep for the rest of the night!

The next Saturday night is my coworkers wedding party, aka lots of drinking and funny events. Being a foreigner at a Japanese wedding party is fun, you become the star for the night, as the bride and groom or their friends put a lot of attention on you. At least in my experience so far. The next day, Sayaka and I will get up early to meet friends at a grocer store to buy a lot of meat and such for a BBQ with a LOT of friends. Will probably been an all day event!

The week after that will be my only planless weekend, but sure that will change.

The following week will see Sayaka and I, paired with Nao-chan and her new boyfriend Hide-kun (for the Japanese pronunciation impaired He-day) taking a nightbus to Tokyo Disneyland where we will get an all-you-can-eat breakfast and a full day at Disneyland, then a night bus back to Nagoya...

This will be the first weekend of Golden Week and Sayaka only gets 3 days off, while I get 11... So I will be working on...

Music!

I am now officially involved in 3 music projects!

A pure house music project with a fellow teacher in a nearby teacher. We both love French house and want to put an American touch on it!

An online friend has a rap;/rock/screamcore band but no producer. He heard my work and asked if I could try to produce some samples for him. I sent him one, and he officially added my name as producer for the band... The lyrics will be in English and Japanese so it will be pretty interesting, plus him, the other band member and I, are very future oriented so this may go somewhere, soon...

And I called my cousin up. Now anyone who knows me, knows I have never been EXTREMELY close to ANY of my extended family, long story. Well I call him up and I haven't spoke to him in years, but he has been writing hip hop his whole life. I wanted to know where he is musically, if anything big was coming up for him yet. He told me he was working for Coldstone. This saddened me deeply and I told him I have been touching on music production but mostly electronic dance music, but told him if he gets back to rapping, I will try my hand at producing hip hop for him. He got excited and told me he would be getting internet soon and start writing and sending me his vocals and I can make beats around that, while also sending him beats to write to.

B.U.S.Y.

Spells Tommy...

Oh well, gotta live this to the fullest right?

Oh yeah,my last music production experiment, before I start doing things seriously (sitting down and planning out a complete song)

An ode to the greatest toys and cartoon ever...

G.I. Joe!

First Video Blog

Too lazy/busy to type lately. So here is a video blog!

I am trying to compile a series of videos I took from yesterday but my laptop is not wanting to cooperate!



Well at least I have pics from this day!

Still ultra busy, but...

...it will calm down soon! I am almost done with the most recent site! (and about 1500 away from my future Mac Book Pro!)

I really want to update more, but seriously I haven't done many exciting things lately. I DID go bowling last weekend, but other than that, nothing too exciting.

This Monday I will go to a farewell party, which means more drinking, bowling, pizza and movies! Maybe I will make a video diary of that day. Next Thursday will be a BBQ, sports and American Football day! I will def take pics of that!

May go see Tiesto in Tokyo on the 12th of April, followed by my new coworkers wedding second party she invited me to! Pretty impressed! Only knew me for a month and she invited me! NICE!

I may just do a video update of what I have been doing lately!

Pros: Easy for lazy me. I dont need to type, and I can use my new webcam.
Cons: You have to look at me for as long as the post is!

You be the judge!