...make Junta stop laughing at me for this.

My seiyuu does weird shit.

Footage of the adoption process. Our little girl's so cute!

( Here! )

So today Mizutani and I went to Build-a-Bear to "adopt," and we returned with a little puppy named Juanita Sakai (the origins of the name can be found on Mizutani's LJ). She's just too adorable!



Videos will come in the next post. There are a lot of them, but we're so proud!

Tonight we had a co-captains Bible Game meet! It was the best! All three of us got some playing time in, and we were all setting high scores and everything, and it just...well, it was pretty awesome.

( Tower of Babel. This was from last week - Kenya witnessed me doing this. )

Okay, so after we played a regular round of Medium Game Show in which nothing particularly monumental happened, we decided to play a round as characters from Oobi. Junta sat this one out (probably because he was laughing too hard at that point), but I took Kako and Hanai was Oobi. Boobface filled in as Grampu today.

( A few images... )

One of my co-captains (this one, of course) has a talent for finding silly religious things - and in this case, he's discovered the KTV network, which features some show called KICKS Club.

...It's brilliant. Well, it's brilliant if you're a Bible Game team co-captain and laughing at this sort of stuff is your thing.

Anyway, that KICKS show has some recipes on their website! I checked them out, though, and they're pretty mundane. Oh, well, at least I got some free recipes out of it...

I was under orders to shop around for some carrot cake recipes, so here's a couple of links I was able to dig up...

~ This one is from Alton Brown. I rather trust that guy on stuff like this.

~ A list of links to recipes.

~ Another list of links to recipes.

Somehow, I still like that first one. Hmm.

...cake batter. Ice cream. CAKE BATTER ICE CREAM.

I think I want seconds.

...1863_project  went and ripped the cake song and put it on her iPod. Which means we will now have to listen to it all the time.

Somehow I have a feeling it's going to be played at really awkward times...

Uhm...Junta just cleared 3000 on Noah's Ark for a second time. And his lowest high score is now 2778 2791.

I don't think he's human.

It's really sad when the most organized person working at a camp is one of the counselors and not the people running it, but that appears to be the case at work lately. The craft counselor (who has two college-aged children) throws things together on the fly, the guy who runs the education department is a scatterbrain...and 1863_project has been two days ahead on planning snack the entire week. Today Shingo and I decided that next year Kazuki has to run the camp so that stuff gets done.

Today we brought the camera to camp, though, because some things just had to be recorded. And that made time fly by, because we ended up having a lot of fun with it...

...I have never been happier to have the company of Shingo than I am this week.

Okay, these kids are probably the worst out of all of the ones we've had so far - go figure, the last week can't be easy. That's just not how it works, is it? They're obnoxious and none of them pay attention to what's going on - poor 1863_project's brother is stuck with the worst of them, so she finds herself helping out over there a lot - and they just don't shut up. It's seriously trying my patience...

On the plus side, today during craft time I made an entire bento using pom-poms and tissue paper. That was pretty fun. It started because 1863_project showed the best-behaved group how to make sushi...and I kind of wanted to join in and got carried away. See, all Shingo did was teach them how to write 'sushi' in hiragana, although that ended up becoming this:

Little kid: Whoa! Heeeey...how do you know how to write in Japanese?
Shingo: (trying to be patient) Actually...I'm from Japan.
Little kid: WHAAAT? No way!

The thing was that he'd told the kids the day before that he was Japanese when he explained why his last name came before his first name during introductions. I think some of them still think that Shimazaki is his first name, though. See what I mean about them not paying attention?

If I survive this week, I am totally making myself a cake. These kids are killing me.

Today we were working at camp when suddenly we were hit by torrential downpours, complete with thunder and lightning. Now, all the kids were inside, but nonetheless some of them had to wait to go into the actual Hermitage building (they were taking tours today). At about 10:30 or so, as I was making a rush snack, I got a text message from Councilman Takase: "You're being Wrath of Godded!"

I replied with, "This is because we haven't played Bible Game in three days."

A little while later, the storms died down, and my phone went off again around 11:10 or so. "I played Bible Game."

Today was the beginning of my third of four weeks working at this camp. I rather like it, although the lady who's the craft counselor is actually really nasty and nobody likes her. She's just...I don't think she's all that good with the kids, really. I guess I only have two more weeks to put up with her, at least, but I just wish she'd be less anal...they're kids. None of them are older than 11 years old. They're at the camp to have fun, right? They're not here to be yelled at...I don't get it. Eh, nine more days of camp to go...

Got to rock my Nishiura uniform at work today! See, we were helping a bunch of small children learn how to play baseball by 1860s rules. It was an interesting experience - some of the kids had apparently never played or seen a game before and thought standing directly on home plate and looking forwards was the best way to bat. 1863_project's brother had to keep running over and fixing their batting stances.

This was the first time I'd seen 1863_project play the opposite battery role (I've only seen her pitch before), and she had a surprising aptitude for getting the kids to do what she wanted. I have a feeling if she was playing to win she would've racked up a serious number of strikeouts for the four kids who pitched to her, because she told me later that all the little kids liked to swing at balls that were down and away and she could probably get them to swing at bad pitches. This one kid was having issues with finding the strike zone, though - he liked to sort of aim at the batters instead. Whoops. 1863_project set up really far from the plate and he started throwing right down the middle - it was odd. I guess she did pass physics in high school for a reason, though.

All of us were there today to make ourselves useful, not just me, because today was the one day that we were in our element. We just supervised for the most part, because the counselors weren't actually playing, but it was fun to watch the little kids attempt to play - a few of them had nice swings already. And as we were leaving and helping to bring the stuff back in, Junta told 1863_project to go find a pitcher and get married. She punched him in the arm.

And now I think I'll finally go and have a slice of the cake Mizutani and I made on Saturday. Maybe I'll even share it with him, I dunno. I don't see a reason why not to, after all!

Today we finally claimed the last Short Game Show high score from the computer! We spent the afternoon sitting around and playing for the most part...Junta and I discussed Bible Game strategies quite a bit. I know we're co-captains (with Hanai) of a Bible Game team and all that, but sometimes I wonder if we're taking this too seriously. I am pretty positive Junta is.

Today 1863_project started her third consecutive year as a camp counselor here, and she took me along for the ride! Since she's been there longer than anyone else, including the people who are running the camp this year (they're new), she has a sort of seniority and does jobs that the other counselors don't - we even got to prepare the snack for today. Which was nice, because we had the kitchen to ourselves for a bit. Of course, we only got to pour apple juice and put saltines on napkins, but at least I got to practice my presentation a little bit.

The kids are actually pretty well-behaved for the most part - some of them are really cute. And best of all, they listen and don't act up too much! Maybe it's because there are less of them than usual - 1863_project tells me there used to be a lot more kids each week. I think she's a lot happier with this arrangement...she seemed really relaxed today and even said this was the best opening day of camp she'd ever worked. It's a good sign.

Next...Tuesday, I think, we'll get to teach the kids how to play baseball by 1800s rules. And apparently bunting was frowned upon - not illegal, but frowned upon. That's really not very nice, you know...I rather enjoy bunting. And there's a certain skill to it - it took me a long time to get good at it. Hopefully they'll still let me do it - after all, 1863_project says that when she plays she bunts all the time. ...When she's not catching for both sides, anyway.

But the title of this post comes from a conversation we had with some of the other counselors in which we tried to explain what Bible Game was and how awesome it is. They just...thought it was weird. We kept saying how hilarious it was and how fun it was to play, but to no avail. Some of the kids got it, but they were a select few. Oh, well.

This place is absolutely fantastic. It's called Steve's Sizzling Steaks, and they literally bring your steak out on a hot platter still sizzling, as the name would suggest. It's pretty awesome - and I got some video of the food on arrival, too!

Except Junta is playing Lot's Wife with the salt shaker at the beginning. Just ignore that part.

Mizutani and I found this card in a CVS in New York today. Tajima immediately pointed out its phallic qualities. Need I say more?

Although this wasn't in the Met (and Junta and I did look, really), it was on the back of a book on Brueghel's works, as it's one of his most famous.

Today we got to spend the day down at a boardwalk, which was incredibly relaxing (although the sand cake Mizutani and I attempted kind of never happened...). Actually, Mizutani posted most of the important stuff, but he left me this picture to get up just because it was cooking-related.