The Week #143

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  • The tulips we planted a couple of months ago are in early-bloom. I'm loving the splash of color to the front of the house. Leo's been getting into it as well, wanting to check them every morning.
  • It's was rainy this past weekend, which threatens all of the cherry blossoms and (probably) killing the hanami-season. Writing this made me realize I haven't posted any photos of the sakura this year. 
    Cherry blossom tree near my house. You can see the pedals on the ground from the rain.
  • I went out for beer/lunch with some old co-workers/friends to a place called Mots Beer Party. The venue was small with just enough seating for 6 people along a bar. The owner cooks when you place the order directly in front of you and as it is space constrained, was interesting to see how he prepared all of the dishes. There was no gas range, but he did have two portable IH hobs side-by-side acting as a range (no venting / fan necessary!) One technique I think I'm going to borrow from him was using a camping hot-sandwich maker to cook veg / meat. Makes it easy to turn and gives nice grill marks without the grill.
  • We rearranged the downstairs and I think we've got a winning layout. The layout's been a bit awkward since we got that 3-person sofa last autumn(?) as we never could keep the sofas facing each other (you want to face the TV when you're watching it / playing games, so we'd turn the small sofa 90 degrees). Also, inevitably the large sofa would slide back a few cm and make rub against the sliding door to enter the LDK.

    We moved the TV back off of the tatami into it's original position, directly across from the large sofa. Then, we pulled the large sofa forward about 40 - 50cm to keep it off the wall and allow access to the plugs behind it. This surprising makes it feel more like a proper room. Lastly, we moved the small sofa on to the tatami, parallel with the tv, along with the coffee table lego table.

    This created three different zones: 1, unchanged, with the dining table where we eat, 2, for relaxing and watching TV (with the bigger sofa), and 3, for Leo to play with his legos. The 3rd zone will also make a great reading area as well because there's good light in that corner of the house and it's relaxing in a showa kind of way on the tatami. When it's finished and looks presentable, I'll share a photo.
  • There's still some Twitter users that I'd like to follow but I don't want to login to Twitter to just for that. There's a great site called bird.makeup that essentially mirrors their tweets so you can follow them from Mastodon (likes and such don't propagate, which is fine). All you do is put their twitter handle @bird.makeup into the search and they show up like a regular account.
  • My jam this week has been Japanese Breakfast. I really like this live recording from KEXP. I wonder if there's a Japanese equivalent of Japanese breakfast? American Asa-gohan? But seriously, wouldn't mind finding Japanese indie bands.
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