木村カエラ∞Perfume

なかなか良い感じですね。

TapouT Gear In Tekken 6

Looks like Namco is really going all out with the character customizations for Tekken 6. Players will be able to customize their fighters with gear from TapouT, the popular mixed-martial arts apparel line. A lot of the Tekken fanboys are already whining about the prospect of seeing their favorite characters decked out in name brand wear, but really, it's a game featuring professional martial artists...what's so odd about them being sponsored by a company such as TapouT? If anything, it's one of the more realistic customizable options available in the game. Xiaoyu rocking a pink TapouT shirt indeed comes off as a little odd, but the gear is a natural fit with the grapplers like King, Armor King, Craig Marduk, etc.

What's My Age Again?

A couple of my homeboys flew in and crashed at my place over the weekend. It's not like we're real messy people or anything, but my pad currently looks like it got hit by a hurricane.



But it was good fun. Listening to your boys argue over who gets to ride shotgun, or driving for an hour and a half just to get some good hamburgers, or walking into your living room in the morning and seeing one of your buddies playing BioShock despite clearly being hungover...that's not what college was like for me, but it's always how I'd imagined it'd be.

Suns Extend Nash

2 years, $22 million. I don’t think there’s any doubt that he’s lost a step since his MVP campaigns, but he remains one of those point guards that everyone in the league wants to play with. His statistics will probably spike again without Shaq around to clog the paint, so who knows, he might even put up the numbers to warrant that contract.



You can question management’s decision to sign two of the old guys in Nash and Grant Hill, but as far as locker room presences go, those two are quite possibly the two best guys in the NBA. Oh, and they can still ball out of their minds, so I imagine that that was also a factor. In reality, the team got considerably younger with the addition of Channing Frye, and if Earl Clark, Robin Lopez, and Dragic can find ways to contribute, they’ll at least be developing some of the younger cats. Clark especially is looking like he can do some big things in this league, so I’m hoping that he manages to crack the rotation. As far as Nash goes, he’s the one guy who I want to see retire as a Sun, so I’m glad to see the extension get done, regardless of whether or not it hinders the team’s ability to land free agents for a while.

I’ve been doing a lot of writing as of late. Not sure what exactly it is that I’m trying to write, but I’ve been doing a substantial bit of it. Up until recently, I generally wrote for no particular reason, but it’s occurred to me that my life as it is now is quite possibly about as good as it will ever be. That might sound like a weird thing to say, but I feel like 10, 20 years down the road, right now is going to be the time of my life that I’m going to wish that I could revisit the most. Hence all the writing.

This Is You

A routine drive around town will reveal those who will wave frantically at you, starving for the smiles and nods that you’re just as desperate to give. Others simply gaze at the shadows you cast, almost absently, and simply mouth your name, not willing to part with any of the precious emotion or energy that their teenage bodies house. Nevertheless, they are aware of your name, aware of your presence, aware of you. It’s something strange, to have so many different people say your name and to be powerless to do the same for so many of them in return. Unawareness is forgivable, but it’s not even that, because you want to know, even long to do so. Such is the cost of your newfound relevancy. There are degrees to it, shades of it, but you can’t deny its weight, its company, when they, some nameless, none faceless, crowd around you or rush past you, wanting, fearing nothing more than your attention. They change by the week, by the day, by the hour even, in stature and personality, some juggling guises because that’s what it means to exist at 14, others painfully honest, because such is all that they can, ever could, and if they’re fortunate enough, ever will be able to muster. You try to recall what it was like for you, your first, second, third foray, those irresolute salvos into that eventually pointless campaign, but you can only snare the (un) important bits: the chocolate milk, the bad hair, the bad breath, the running, away, towards. It’s probably the same for them, you think. Perhaps with less chocolate and twice the energy, but the same amount of fun and the lies, lies, lies, white or otherwise. You try to recall you in your past, not the you of then, but the you of now, the you who is him for them. You can’t find him (you), and you wonder if maybe you just forgot about that person, that person who you would eventually become. It’s an ingrown hair, it’s fresh gum on the bottom of your Air Max 90s; a sturdy and confident annoyance, but only so until those exultant greetings and averted gazes once again wrestle your attention away. There it is, the English textbook, rolled up ever so tightly for the sole purpose of being jabbed firmly between your buttocks; the unreasonable nasal hair of Masa-kun, who insists on standing no less than two inches away from you while conversing; the girls who will scream your name and grab at you one week, then scamper away with a purpose the next; those downcast eyes, deafening, drowning out almost everything else: the shouting, the bouncing, the textbook up your ass, all of it. And now, once more, the gum. Will they forget you ten years from now, just as you had forgotten whoever-it-was? Your pride says no, your mind says yes, your brain says both, you dumbass. You wish with all your heart that you could be as important to them as they are to you. Your new car, your new shoes, your new reprieve, your efforts to wake up next to someone new on Sunday; that void that resonates when you don’t, and that same void that resonates when you do. All of it, not nothing without them, but nothing to them, nothing compared to them. From inside your car, your almost-reprieve amid a love, that golden sort, you see some waving, some not. Hello! Hello! Buy me something! Go away. Look! What’s he doing here? Let’s play! Hahaha. Is he still there? Buy me something! Weird. Funny! Hello! Buy! Please! Look! Laughter, laughter, not-laughter, laughter. It is for you. Perhaps not meant solely for you, but still there, for you to take. You do so, graciously, or at least as you think taking it graciously might entail. You’ve forgotten the finer points of grace, but are almost glad to be without it; for fear that it might be too haughty, too deliberate for your little town. And then when they’re gone, at least until tomorrow, or Monday, or whenever, you’re glad, not because they’ve left, but because of what just was. This is you. The you as a result of them.

Baddest Man On The Planet?

I think that Brock Lesnar needed a convincing win on Saturday, and he delivered just that. Lesnar’s faced a lot of doubters and cynics since he’s made the jump to MMA, but there’s no denying his place among the heavyweight elite after the mauling that he gave to Frank Mir at UFC 100. Aside from a brief flurry that ended with a solid knee early in the second round, Mir got virtually no offense in against Brock, who controlled him on the ground and repeatedly ravaged him with blows to the face. Simply put, the dude is a monster, and I don’t know if there’s anyone in the UFC’s heavyweight division that can realistically contend with him right now. Dana clearly realizes this, as he’s already talking about bringing Fedor in to face Brock. Lesnar's the #2 heavyweight in the world if you ask me, and considering that Fedor is tops and that Brock is only 5 fights into his MMA career, the former "Next Big Thing" is doing about as well as humanly possible at this point.

一生モテ期、ピンクダンク

一生モテ期。It must be true. McDonald's wouldn't lie to me.



Got the nylon Dunks that I've been after.



Loving the material. They look good laced with black...



...and just as good with pink. I was initially going to do the mismatched laces thing and rock black on the left and pink on the right, but decided to take things one step further and go custom...



...with pink skulls. My tribute to Bret Hart.

Grant Hill Decides To Stick Around

And turns down the Celtics and the Knicks in the process. I would have been cool with him going to Boston so he'd have a shot at a ring, but Hill showed a lot of class by returning to the organization that revived his career. Grant's durability will always be a point of contention, but it' a little tougher to question it with him coming off of an 82 game season. The Suns other acquisition, Channing Frye, is a big man who can't board or play defense, but does have a nice jumper. So yeah, he should fit right in. The fact that Hill signed a new contract seems to indicate that Nash is close to an extension and that Amare will be around next year, so I guess we're not blowing things up just yet. They're looking like a playoff team if Amare can stay on the court, but there's absolutely no way that they'll be able to contend with the moves that the Spurs (Jefferson, McDyess), Mavericks (Marion) and Lakers (Artest) are making. It's actually kind of a bummer seeing Dice and Matrix going to teams that I hate so much.

Pretty pumped for UFC 100.



Something tells me that Frank Mir is going to be in a lot of pain tomorrow.

Ishigaki

Had myself a quick getaway to Iriomote and Ishigaki over the weekend, where it’s so country that they give you a complimentary pack of eggs when you put gas in your car. The rain was really coming down when I got there, but it fortunately cleared up long enough for us to hit an outdoor onsen and get a good snorkeling session in.



The small coral island where we did our snorkeling. You have to hire a boat to take you out there, but it turned out to be well worth it.



A bit of China. Not proud of it, but I’m still a little drunk from the night before in this one.



So, so wildery.



A lot of people consider Hawaii paradise, but some of the scenery here was just, wow. I’m not real crazy about camping, but I think I’d brave the snakes to spend a couple of nights out there.



And a little token to remember the trip by. My bank account tells me that I should cool it with the traveling for the rest of the year, and my brain is telling me the same thing. We'll see.

Air Penny Overload Pt. VIII

I finally landed a pair of liquids. I was never really big on the black III, but throw some royal and white on the thing and it’s magic (no pun).



Courtney Lee rocked them hard in the playoffs, and I gotta admit, seeing someone in an Orlando uni doin' it with some Pennys really took me back. Too bad the dude’s up in Jersey now, as I don’t think that we’ll be seeing anything from the Penny line in Nets colors anytime soon.



And coming in 2010: the Copper Foamposite One. My honest opinion? They’re pretty hot.



I’m actually surprised that they didn’t go with the “copper penny” theme for a Penny sneaker sooner, but I guess that the Foamposite is the only shoe in his line that it would mesh with. What Nike really needs to do is have the insoles from the HoH Royal Foamposite in these.



That’d make for a real slick package.