THERE IS NOTHING TO DO IN DALLAS

This Thanksgiving holiday my parents thought that it would be a great idea to take my brother and I to Dallas with them to see a football game and spend some quality family time together. While in theory this sounded like a great idea and we were all happy with the prospect of being able to forget about having a traditional Thanksgiving holiday, I have to say that it was probably the worst family trip I had ever been on, and I will never intentionally be in Dallas, Texas again.

We saw the Cowboys play the Jets, and went to Midevil Times.

Yep. Thats about it.

Giant Bluefin Tuna Cut Performance!

Mike and I went on a date this weekend to Mitsuwa Japanese Marketplace in Edgewater, NJ. Usually we just go there to eat some Japanese food (they have several restaurants including places for tenpura, udon, soba, ramen, etc.) and pick up some okaashi (sweets) and things to drink, but this time we went because of an event our nihongo no senseii told us about.

Pretty much this was really awesome. We got there around 1pm, it was incredibly crowded, we had to park at a different shopping center and walk over. We went to the honya (bookstore) first, and picked up a kodomo no hon (children's book) called Soremame-kun no bedo (Broad Bean's Bed). They had lots of cool Japanese fashion magazines and music magazines and that was pretty rad. I like going there because you can pick up a lot of Japanese conversation around you.

Then we went over to the marketplace, which was SOOOO crowded. We got some tonkatsu and rice and had a hard time finding a place to sit but eventually we did and that was relaxing, but it was really hot in there. We then watched the meguro (tuna) cut performance.

This tuna was bigger than Mike! It was over 400 pounds and the fish-cutter used a sword to cut it open! The man with the microphone said that the tuna was alive two days ago in Spain. He also told us that most sushi restaurants don't get this quality fish because its simply expensive. He went on to talk about the quality of the fish, and Mike decided that we should buy some (or he should buy some for us, rather). We waited in line for an hour but once we finally ate it we realized that it was completely worth every minute of the wait because it was soooo delicious. It melted in your mouth almost! It was the best sushi I had ever had. One of the guys making sushi flirted with these nihonjin onna no hito behind us. They had really tan skin for nihonjin - I bet in the homeland they hang out with ganguro!

We also bought some pocky, chocolate covered mushroom cookies, and of course I got saku-saku panda cookies. Don't ask me what that means, they're just really tasty. I got two bottles of Ramune but accidentally drank Mike's peach one. I also got party pop, which is a "children's party drink". Party pop tastes like sugared beer. I'm not even kidding you.

It took two hours for us to get home but once we did we played video games for five or six hours straight. We told everyone about our delicious adventure and they of course were all jealous. I only hope that these people come around again and when they do I have the 50 dollars to spend on the oishii meguro.

On the injured list..

Halloween night I sliced my thumb up with a kitchen knife while preparing bagels. Having an injured thumb really makes me miss having a not injured thumb.

Here are some of the things that I find difficult to do or cannot do with an injured thumb:

• Hook/Unhook a bra
  
• Pop zits
  
• Cut meat
  
• Operate a belt
  
• Text message my friends
  
• Navigate my iPod
  
• Use a game controller
  
• Put on a band-aid
  
• Channel-surf
  
• Ash my cigarette
  
• Light a lighter (I just thought of this one - but I haven't tried doing it with the injured hand)
  
• Use my hands as a cup when brushing teeth
  
• Screwing/Unscrewing toothpaste caps
  
• Shuffle cards
  
• Rip up things

Thats only the short list, too. There are a lot of things we use our thumbs for as humans, and I certainly am thankful that my thumb is only injured and not severed.

Here is a picture I took of my hamster this morning!