European Spring Break

Florence Duomo

Invited by a friend a few years ago, I decided to take a spring break in Italy this year, because there was a lot that I missed last time. Mainly, Florence, which turned out to be quite the sight. After two long flights and a quarter day inside of DXB, I took some more transportation to arrive at my bed and breakfast, a cozy private room with an incredibly friendly Italian.

Majestic as fuck. Brunelleschi hooked it up.

I'm gonna back up for a minute to that second flight, where we hit some violent turbulence, and the fucking amateur pilot decided to drop us rather abruptly to compensate. Maybe he avoided some North Korean target practice. I don't know, people screamed and a couple drinks were spilled. I was too busy swallowing my own asshole to make noise.

Prima - House-made noodles with ragu

But I digress. Ah yeah, Florence! My b&b host suggested where to go for my first dinner in Italy. He did the 90-degree semi-closed-palm-air-slice for effect of just how good I'd feel after eating. It was grippa awkward, being a sole eater in a restaurant with 3 other families, but then food came, and I blacked out from an intense orgasmic taste. 

Secondo - Florentine steak, arugula and parmesan

I felt like a douche taking a picture in a small restaurant of your food, so let me use words to amend this picture. First of all, triple the portion. Second, The cheese was about 10x as big, about 10 3-inch square pieces - fucking SHEETS of parmesan. I later asked if the dish was for 2 people and was rewarded with a "Si." I still ate the shit out of it. I left a few leaves.

The Arno River, mixin it up in Florence.

Right before I left this lovely place, I saw David's naked-ass body for a good 2 hours. It was raining that morning, so I got there with less than 10 other people. It took an hour or so to figure out the plan of attack - how to take a photo without being Captain Obvious about it. This is what I got, but we all know what David looks like:

Later, on day #3, I went to Pisa! Good weather made this pic possible.

You could see the Tower from my hostel's window.

Pisa had a really small-town feeling. And I accidentally ran into the tower while looking for my hostel. Speaking of hostel, I met some absolutely incredible young Germans there. A few backpacking, hitchhiking musicians, and some students. I actually ended up going to the next place with two of them. The place where we hiked between two of the five villages was called Cinque Terre.

Cinque Terre - 5 Lands. This is one of them, but the color of the water didn't come out. It's more like flowing jade.

 Ended up staying the night in Rapallo, a quiet coastal city, (though it was night and all the boats were tethered.) We cooked pasta in that hotel, but forgot to get olive oil and cheese. It was still darn tootin after a day of walking in the mountains with my stupid large-ass duffel bag. The ladies were hella buff and took shifts carrying it when Mark wasn't feeling so Strong.

This isn't Trento, but you get the idea of an Alps city.

Next day, I took a train hella far north to Trento to meet my earlier-mentioned friend!

I had to take a moment on the train to make sure I was lookin spiffy. Passed with flying colors, it would seem.

 At Trento, I did a day trip up into the Alps to a city called Arco. I thought the stop was a gas station for about 45 seconds. Shame cascaded me like the Waterfalls of Ignorance, but it was all good. Around midnight, my friend suggested I go to Munich / München / Monaco the next morning. So I hopped a train, booked a hostel, and BAM!

Marienplatz. Most popular square in Munich. Lookit that!

Me in a big ass park, The English Gardens, after watching a buncha people surf a rushing sewer grate.

The good stuff.

Outside my hostel on the last day. That's right, Japan. The wind blew your seeds pretty far!

Munich was the most impressive city I visited. The trains are newer, cleaner, more comfortable and cheaper than Japanese trains. The bike paths are woven into the sidewalks, and very wide. There are tons of bikers, lots of different colored people, everyone speaks English, and everyone drinks. It's super social, there's wifi everywhere, and food is about half of what it costs in both Japan and Italy for what I like. I made friends in a hostel that had a bar in it, with cheap locally produced Munich beer. I drank almost a gallon of it each of the 3 nights I stayed and had no hangovers.

Heading back to Yokohama was absolute hell. Waking up at the asscrack of dawn to take the metro, a 7 hour train from Bavaria to eastern Italy, fucking hurriedly find a bus from Venice city to the airport and get ripped off one last time. One 6 hour flight, an 8 hour layover, and a 9 hour flight later, I was in Handea waiting for my checked duffel bag. It took forever, but I was still able to make the last 2 trains home, and collapsed after an epic bath, 40 hours and 3 countries after I woke up that morning. Awesome trip, but glad to be home.

The ILLEST lyrical genius

As much as I dislike the idea of NYC being so full of itself, one of my favorite things comes from New York: Mos Def. Luckily he uses the references to make a point. He doesn't just name drop ala Jay-Z, 'New York! The greatest!'

Mos Def is tight because he's incredibly intelligent, really down-to-earth, and talented enough to make a successful breakthrough to Hollywood films (and Dexter!), in a similar vein to Eminem. Except I don't think he'd pull a shotgun on his fans.

In 1999, he put out an album called Black on Both Sides My brother always listened to this, and at the time, my 15-year-old self was into the beats. It even features a really dope instrumental track, which is the sign of a classy producer, and artist who's willing not to talk about himself or herself for at least one track.

Ms Fat Booty is probably not about a girl like this :)

There is good music throughout the album, which was always my main beef with East-coast hip-hop. I preferred the bass-heavy, DJ-produced dance-able beats of West Coast hip-hop to the themes of slower jazz or snatches from older music in East-coast. But the deep, intricate lyrics are what typically separates it from other genres and even it's West-coast alternative. The songs give you advice to take your time (Speed Law), advice not to be naive (Got), and make observations on social issues (Mathematics).

One song, Ms. Fat Booty, is my third favorite. This woman is apparently so fine, and she has an 'ass so fat you can see it from the front.' It's about a woman Mos meets in a club who blows him off initially. After finally meeting her, he plays it cool and eventually hooks up. He fast-forwards the year of the relationship with a short 3-line verse of key events, which is particularly cool. Eventually, he tries to marry her, and she says she can't commit to it. The song abruptly ends when after all this, he finds her dancing to a nasty song at a strip club with a rich dude.

Mathematics wins for my second favorite because of the cleverness. He uses numbers and statistics to contrast philosophy with reality, the legal system, and talk about children in the ghetto.

It's one universal law but 2 sides to every story

3 strikes and you be in for life, mandatory

4 MC's murdered in the last 4 years

I ain't trying to be the fifth one, the millennium is here

Yo it's 6 Million Ways to Die, from the 7 deadly thrills

8-year olds getting found with 9mils

That last one is about kids holding guns (9mm), not lottery-winning tots.

My absolute favorite would have to be Mr. Nigga. The name tells you everything: despite your success, hard work, and seeming amount of respect you get, you're still black at the end of the day. He talks about having your rich neighbors hope you're not the new guy, getting questioned if your seat-2-C (first class) is your real seat, and getting seized when he goes overseas to name a few of the wealthy-but-black experiences.

Yes, he married the one on the right.

  Race motivates the Jake to give chase. Jake means cops, a common rap reference to Jake and the Fat Man

Mos later pulls attention to how everyone hated on Michael Jackson so strongly, but Woody Allen got a slap on the wrists for molesting and marrying his step daughter. 

The best lyric in that song goes:

When white boys doin' it well, it's suc-cess / 

When I start doin' it well, it's sus-pect.

Just at the most intense part, he backs off and says he'll get over it by focusing on the successes, and leaves you kinda relaxed.

Hip-hop can have a message as simple as 'enjoy the party' ala Black Eyed Peas, or 'kill people and get rich' via 50 Cent, or you can have an epic space opera themed album about the dystopian future in the year 3030, like another favorite, Deltron. You can also be completely confused and non-sensical, like Lil Wayne and Kanye West. Mos Def lays down his themes over smooth beats, making metaphors and parallels to culture, past and present, all while rhyming cleverly. He also comes off as a decent guy who I would really like to give dap to some day.

Stuff I eat here in Japan

The McDonalds 'Goovy Beef' - McDouble with gochujang(spicy red pepper paste) and jalapeno-mayo sauce, with a side of Classic fries, topped with cheese and bacon bits 720Yen/meal.

Pear ice cream! Decently sweet and very pear-y!

Mango-white chocolate

Sweet-ass sparkling peach soda

McD's Funky Beef, with 'bacon,' relish, 2 patties

Sugary lychee gummies

Beer and wine at Wendy's in Roppongi...no big deal.

This is a Y900 cup of iced coffee, but is by far the strongest I've ever had. You might budget an hour to 90min to sit down to have one of these bad boys.

Kiwi soda is the bomb diggity!

This was the Brazil Burger, available for 2 weeks during the World Cup: 2 beef patties, cheese, green and yellow peppers and barbecue sauce.

The Japan burger, available for 2 weeks during World Cup: a deep fried pattie of ground beef and cheese, topped with lettuce, onions and a flavored ketchup.

*panicked driving* OHH NO! OHH! (gets one in mouth) Ohh that's raspberry-OHH! OHH NO!

Grapefruit, Lime, Lemon malts with no sugar added, and a sweet raspberry malt.

Cakey-bottomed, bready cupcake with chocolate puffed rice on top. As a side note, the milkfat percentage is listed on the carton and the range is enormous! 4.6% goes amazingly with coffee and into baked goods.

Pan-toasted chocolate marble bread.

Strawberry croissant-donut.

Oreo-cheesecake cupcake. I died three times eating this.

Green-tea icecream bar coated in crunchy chocolate.

Japanese McDonalds sells hot, deep-fried chocolate pies. Yes. Believe it. The gooey center is worth it.

Some kind of flaky roasted-yam pastry. Great with tea!

Frozen alcohol. I call it a Lush-ee

Double-thick, taste like crunch corn soup!

Katsu teishoku (Japanese meal set) $8 at Ootoya.

IT HAS A LIGHTSABER ON IT

Order ramen from this.

This is from a tsukemen (dipped noodles) joint in Hiyoshi.

This tsukemen is from my favorite ramen shop in Japan - Menya Koji (Kashiwa, Chiba) Lookit how thick dhose noodles are! The dish I'm holding is spicy garlic, and the pork melts in your mouth.

Games of 2014 - January - June

January - Ratchet and Clank: Into the Nexus: Great platformer with a solid storyline, and cheap jokes aplenty. My friend Bruce recommended Blood Dragon. It's an FPS game loaded with a hero that knows EGG-ZACTLY where he is. That place is a retro-future - that's right, synthesizer music, neon, robotic voices, and tons of cliches. Your character even spouts one-liners based on kills! *Headshot* "I guess he was open-minded."

The game does a lot right: the collectibles are a) on the map and b) have an effect on the gameplay. Nothing pisses me off more than the majority of games, which have collectibles for the sake of trophies/achievements and nothing else. None of that here.

Cutscenes are 2d comic panels with decent voice acting (Phil LaMarr!), and there are more 80s-movie cliches buried in there that I'll just have to let you find out.

I bought a Zelda: A Link between Worlds 3ds XL and let me tell-a you, this is the best purchase I've made in a long time. Nintendo is really good at doing version 1.5 games - not-quite original enough to be sequels, but repackaged, spruced up, and enough features to feel familiar but different enough. After all, A Link to the Past is a fantastic game as it is! This game is non-linear, artistically great, and loaded with interactive tweaks for the 3DS. You can quick-select items with the touch screen, and the 3D-mode top-screen shows some impressive distance for floating enemies and platforms. There are lots of perspective-timed jumps that will land you in the lava.

However, fighting Dark Link via the Street Pass is by far the coolest thing about this game (and the coolest thing about every 3DS game). If your 3DS touches uglies with another Z:aLbW owner, you fight an AI-controlled Dark Link of their last-saved character for rupees! If I am just starting out and have a few items and only 3 hearts, I get hella rupees if I can beat someone who has 10 hearts and better items.

As always, there are the signature moments and characters, which is why people become fans of series.

It's only January, but I know this is already one of the best gaming experiences of this year.

February - I'm combing through old games and newer-but-supposedly easy games, trying to get that 100% or Platinum.

I started a game called Metro: Last Light. This is February's free game of the month on Playstation Plus ($50/year if you can't find a deal). You're a member of a Communist organization...and you fight Nazis as well as mutated creatures that resulted from biochemical warfare. I might not have that right, but you can look up the story if you really care. The dystopian setting and survival aspect reminds me of Last of Us, but, technically, it just doesn't deliver the goods. Your character walks really slowly, and the collision detection is reminiscent of the late 90s, when 3d graphics were new. It. Fucking. Sucks. Even the PC version was plagued with bugs, which weren't completely fixed when they released it on the consoles.

One of the trophies is to beat the game without killing any humans. You do this by approaching them and hitting square (knockout) vs R3 (stab the shit out of them). Successfully, the character will stiffly change whatever position they're in and stand up and turn around, just to be surprised and let you knock them out. It looks stupid. The only problem is that you're often waiting for the stupid square-or-R3 prompt, and you're probably going to reload your gun about 30% of the time. The AI is really stupid in that you can stand right in front of an enemy soldier and they won't notice you, as long as it's 'dark.'

*March update: I beat that game another full time in about 6 hours, without killing anything and didn't get that trophy. I deleted it in frustration and started:

March games: God of War: Ascension, Link's Awakening (Gameboy!)

God of War games are awesome for a few reasons: epic, drum-pounding, male choir-fueled Mediterranean empire music, sweet graphics, unparalleled violence and rage.

April: Thomas was Alone. This game deserves recognition (which I'm sure it's already gotten) for narration being able to make you care about a yellow square, and three other colored rectangles.


May: I think this was a month of trying to finish up titles for platnium trophies, and my Master Quest in Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. Just as awesome the second time through.

June: Okami, which I liked so much, it got its own page.