I got these forever ago, but they’re too wacky not to post! The mismatched socks are from Topshop and the shoes are Skechers Heartbreakers. I like the patchwork and how the design itself resembles the classic Mary Jane. I’m bound to get some pretty strange looks skipping around in such a busy combination, but I adore these! They remind me of the Sixth Doctor. *L* The Rainbow Storm hoodie is by Tokidoki and I bought it marked down from Giant Peach. Once it drops in price further, I’m going to buy THIS shirt to match.

I found the cutest picture of Hideo Tokoro (所英男) in an old livedoorSPORTS interview from May ’08 (prior to Dream 4). The interview doesn’t even mention his (then) upcoming fight with Darren Uyenoyama. Instead, it is all about Tokoro’s nostalgic or natsukashii (懐かしい) feelings for the children’s anime Kinnikuman. I’ve noticed that a lot of my favorite Japanese grapplers grew up on that anime; like Kazushi Sakuraba (桜庭和志), who actually dressed up as Kinnikuman during his PRIDE:CC ’05 weigh-in. But I digress, since this was supposed to be about Tokoro! wwww Basically, interviews like these have made me an even bigger Tokoro fan by exposing me to an almost nerdy side of him that I find, well… absolutely adorable! I like reading interviews with fighters that aren’t fight related because I can see what they are like outside of the ring. Occasionally I’m even surprised by what I see and develop a greater respect for a particular fighter.

The American MMA community however is entirely different. UFC promotes its fighters more through “trash talk” interviews, which seem undignified and silly to me after being exposed to the mutual respect and admiration more commonly exchanged between fighters in the Japanese community. English fansites like Sherdog also consider interviews that don’t discuss a fight or career to be too “pointless” to translate, which I find unfortunate. What a shame that two years after Zuffa/UFC purchased and killed PRIDE, MMA in the US is still not being promoted as a respectable competition of martial arts, but a freakish human version of caged dogfighting with very few human qualities among the contenders to respect or admire.

One of my girlfriends planned a “girl’s day out” with her mom, who was forced to cancel at the last minute. Since we both go to the same salon, she asked if I wanted to accompany her instead and use the appointment slot. I had my hair done back in June, but you have to set a reservation at this particular salon weeks in advance, so I figured that I would take her up on the offer. I just had my roots done and asked for a little bit more layering — nothing fancy. Can you tell the difference in my hair from the pictures though?

My bro Masato sent me these awhile ago: Submission Spirits 3 and a special edition of Paraestra. Both come with DVDs, but I haven’t watched them yet because I don’t want to rip open the plastic slips inside the magazines. XD I’m always reluctant to deface gifts in any way; I even carefully unwrap and save gift wrapping because it is just too pretty to destroy, as weird as that sounds! *L* Anyways, SS3′s DVD comes with some fights and seminars while Paraestra comes with instructional (transitioning between guards/holds and BJJ stuff). Both DVDs amount to six hours worth of footage too, even though they’re just goodies included as an extra with the magazine. I’m so jealous of the quality… we don’t get anything like this stateside.

BTW, could you recognize who is on the SS3 cover? SHINYA! My hero! (*3*) There are four pages of interview with him (only 40% of which I can even understand www). Then on the next page, I was surprised to see… Genki Sudo! OMG!! (;3;) I miss Genki and his ridiculous ring entrances. Why did he have to retire?!

I finally got the Explorer perk in Fallout 3, so I’ve been running all around the Capital Wasteland discovering new locations. The most obvious that I overlooked until now was Scrapyard. You’re supposed to discover it on your way to Minefield for the Wasteland Survival Guide (one of your first quests in the game), but I managed to walk around it instead; not once, but twice! I went to Minefield a second time for Strictly Business (only for the achievement on an alternate save) and still didn’t find it. *L* So here I am, level 20, and finally getting Dogmeat as a companion in my party. =P He’s worth it though, since he looks a bit like Vladimir. <3

See the second screenie? Charon is always glaring at Dogmeat like that! Could he be thinking about taking the name literally and eating him one of these days? Or… maybe he’s just an eensy bit jealous? XD

Remember the gun safe that I mentioned? Well it took a lot of persuading (not of my Dad, but of the owner) and it is now mine! Yayyyy!! Now that you’ve seen the pictures, it should be pretty obvious why I wanted this thing so badly. =P I’ve never seen a gun safe quite this “elegant” before and I love the colors. It will look sooo much better and brighter once I get around to cleaning it too (it is really dirty). For now though I’ve just been playing around with the shelves inside of it and deciding how I want to organize everything.

BTW we did get two new rifles out of this too (including one which I picked out). See the rifle with synthetic stock on the far right? It is a customized Mauser M 98 (with 1¾ 5x scope) that the girl’s father created. He died before he ever got the chance to shoot with it, so my first time firing it will also be its first time in use.