Saturday, May 27, 2023

I got noticed by the Shrimp

 The day's off to a good start, I got noticed by "Atomic Shrimp" on YouTube. His latest video has him trying some possibly poisonous starchy nodules from a plant, trying 1-2 and deciding to quit there. I put in a comment about frying mallow leaves as they're better than potato chips and I got a reply - yay! 

Also, my 7-hon shinobue (plus a shinobue cover for my 6-hon and the shakuhachi book) have arrived at Ken's so I'll have them next week. And the only reason why I was off by a few dollars when I went to the bank is, my comparison of what Mejiro charged me and theirs may differ - I put in the yen to dollar conversion rate into Google and just went with that. 

Yesterday as I was going around finding things and putting them away, I noticed a thing that ought to be just parted out, so later in the evening I got it out and ended the auction on it. And ... figured out I'd ended the auction on one thing by the same maker that looked very close but not that thing, so I ended that auction also and took those two things apart. Then I took another thing that will never sell and took that apart, also. 

The closest I got to practicing is watching a Miki Saito shinobue video that came up as a suggestion on YouTube, on how to play the song "Usagi, usagi" which just means "Rabbit, rabbit" and is a Japaneses kids' song. But it has such a wistful, plaintive sound. She doesn't explain things *that* well, but this is where being a natural ear-player comes in so handy. 

Then I got all involved watching things on YouTube and then went to sleep. 

I got up in time to have my chicory coffee etc. and head out at ... I think about a quarter to 6. I stopped at Nijiya in Japantown and got a $4 package of chicken kara-age and ate that sitting at one of the tables in front, washing it down with a Coke Zero. 

My real reason to be out was to go to Walmart for rubbing alcohol. The chicken and Coke Zero gave me some energy, and I set out for Wal's with a bit more energy. "Fanime", for fans of anime, is in town and I got to see some interesting costumes downtown, then went down to Walmart. 

Nothing exciting, they had rubbing alcohol and of course the price has gone up. I got some other things also. Then rode back, saw more interesting costumes, and got back here. I didn't even pick up any books as it's just not worth it to take even what I think are rather nice ones to the used book store. 

I did, however, learn "blondie's" actual name, which is Nicholas. That's good because he's not blonde any more. He's still not quite finished with the one book I gave him and I said I'm working on another one that I'm taking forever to read. I'll give it to him when I'm done and he said that's good because by then he might be done with the one he's working on. He was buying a couple different kinds of natto, which he's "fallen in love" with. Natto is awfully good, especially with the little packets of toppings they include with it. 

With Fanime around, this would have been a great time to be out busking, maybe playing at least some of the simpler tunes from some anime on the shinobue. There's one called "Xenoblade" that seems to have a lot of shinobue music. 


 


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