Hobbies. Life. Philosophy. Japanese culture. Otaku culture. Science Fiction. Anime. Manga. Video games. Plastic models. Photography. Fish named Steve. Enjoy.

Ulan Kate was born on May 5th, 2008. May 5th is Children's Day in Japan. She is extremely cute. Half of our time is spent taking care of the baby, and the other half of our time is teaching people how to pronounce her name. It's really not difficult at all. It's like that dumb Disney movie Mulan, but without the M of course. Everywhere we go, people stop us to tell us that she's the cutest baby they've ever seen.

A lot of ups and downs so far this year. We sold our house and moved into an apartment at the end of February. It was liberating to finally be free from that house. IT'S A TRAP! Then a few weeks later, the terrible earthquake and ensuing tsunami struck Japan, claiming thousands of lives. When this happened, we had already spent money for Mayu and Ulan to visit Japan at the end of March. Fortunately, the situation had stabilized enough in just a few short weeks that they were able to travel all the way to Nagano-ken by train with no problems. They will be visiting Japan for 3 months again this year, returning in June.

I was able to join them for a week and a half, and I had a fun time. I got to meet new people in Tokyo from the Shmups Forum, where I've already made many good friends. If you follow my YouTube channel, you may have already seen that I have uploaded so many videos of my time in Japan. I've received a lot of positive feedback, and I'm glad to be able to share the experiences of visiting the various stores, game centers, and tourist stuff of Japan.

In May I again attended the Phoenix Comicon (PHXCC) with my friend Kevin. We stayed at the Hyatt across from the convention center and had a great time.

I've recently begun a fan site dedicated to NCS Masaya. This company has given me so many great video gaming experiences, such as Assault Suits Valken, the many Macross and Ranma 1/2 games, and the Langrisser series. I've looked around the Web and could not find any real site that is dedicated to the late company, so I decided to take it upon myself to create some love for Masaya. I'm enlisting the assistance from several other gamers on the Net to make it happen.