Christmas Party

A few days ago I went shopping to pick up a few things when I came across these TMNT socks (don't worry I didn't buy them)

While at the store I went to the arcade just to walk though and see what they had. I spotted a pretty cool Mario Kart set up that I wouldn't mind giving a try.

After that I went by the crane games (actually I had to go by them there was no way to avoid them). One of the cabinets had some toy air soft guns and I just thought it was out of place, I know it seems like I'm harping on the gun thing so let me be clear. I have no issues with guns, I just think toys without the orange tip is weird.

The other day I actually saw two kids about 10yrs old playing in the woods with these types of guns and for the first second or two I got scared seeing the guns, I thought they were real. I guess its not as big of an issue as handguns are not something that people have here so its less likely that a cop would make a mistake but still. Okay rant over, I will try not to mention the lack of orange tips on toy guns again.

After that I walked by another game and it had Mario figures of a pretty good size there was one next to the edge and so I decided what the heck. Well it got me and my $1 and while it was now even closer I thought the better of it and walked away, feeling had. If only I had my trusty crane game sidekick to help me (actually I don't think it would have helped this thing was rigged but still, moral support!)

The next day my wife and I went to a friends house for a christmas party. It was kind of a pot luck thing and a gift exchange that was done more like musical chairs where you pass all the gifts around a circle to music and when it stops whatever gift you have is yours. I ended up getting a knife shaped like a whale. There was a lot of food and one person made some really good buffalo wings, I mean I was impressed they were good. Also I ate horse for the first time... no comment (not bad, not good... so I guess thats a comment but whatever).

One of the gifts was a cup of noodle puzzle thing that somehow took over the party. It was on a timer and had to be done within 3 minutes otherwise it would pop up, people were trying to complete the thing all night. Remember Perfection (wow blast from the past) it reminded me of that. Actually it was completed on the first try but then after that no one was able to do it in the 3 minutes.

There was only one casualty to sleep and he was out for the last 45 minutes to an hour of the party. I just thought it was funny that he was hugging the pillow the whole time.

Here is a good picture of how things went:

Puzzle, Sleep, Hanging out

The night ended with a tickle me Elmo that was seriously impressive. It would fall down slapping its knee and get back up it then it would fall down and kick its feet, roll over, pound the floor and get back up to a standing position. There were about three different routines it would randomly select from after you "tickled" it (aka. pressed its foot). Seriously, though, this thing was entertaining and everyone was laughing. The box actually warns you that you may experience uncontrollable laughter, I remember reading that and thinking "Pft stupid box propaganda, its never true." not three seconds later I was cracking up.

Finally next year is the year of the horse and for the new years card (which is a big deal here in Japan) I did a design of how I thought my in-laws would look if they were cartoon horses. They are going to put this one on the card that they send out.