Almond Cookies

 

Almond Cookie Recipe:

1/2 cup butter (one stick), softened

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 egg

1 tablespoon Kahlua

1 cup ground almonds (pre-ground or ground in a blender... like I did)

1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1. Preheat the oven to 200 C

2. Cream together butter and sugar.

3. Add in egg and Kahlua and mix well.

4. Add cup of almonds and mix in well.

5. Add the flour slowly, mixing it in until everything is blended.

6. On an un-greased sheet, spoon balls of the dough onto the sheet and flatten them a little. They will not spread upon cooking so make sure they look nice and you don't have to worry about how close together they are. Bake for 7-8 minutes or until they get some color on top and start to brown on the bottom edges.

7. 出来上がり〜

I've been baking a lot this week... I guess it's mostly because I've been "thank you" baking for Ono since she's been helping me soooo much with my iPhone stuff. I owe her for coming over and messing with the fon wireless (with little results) as I sit and laugh at the TV (I'm so helpful!!!). So yeah. Made two types of cookies this week and a funfetti cake. I fed a lot of people (actually.... 40 people got to take part in SOMETHING I made this week...) yummy desserts so I can really only mark this as a success~ :)

"Decide to go on a diet. Give up ice cream."

This needs to be me. Hahahaa~

Japanese text books can to oh so very ridiculous. These two images came from a section on "daily routine," where they first made a detailed play by play of this guy taking a bath (including humming to himself cheerfully) and then his day takes a turn for the worst when he finds out he gained weight. He resolves to go on a diet and gives up ice cream. I know that when I give up ice cream, I lean dramatically against the door of the freezer and will with all my might that I will have the strength to resist... or I just stick the easily-accessible chocolate into the freezer in order to discourage myself from eating it on a whim. Same difference.

But honestly, speaking of translation... tomorrow a group of five girls is coming to Aki on the "Japan-America Grassroot Program." All five come from the U.S and are part of a larger group that arrived in Kochi yesterday ( about 50 of them). I guess the group is having two days of orientation and tours around the prefecture (in a more general way) and then they get split up and sent off for four days to live with host families in various cities around the ken. What do I have to do with this "exchange of friendship and culture"? I get to translate the Mayor's welcome speech! I received the document last week and finally got around to making a comprehensive translation of it this morning. It just reminds me..... Japanese can get away with the most convoluted and run-on-y sentences that only makes English faint. I mean, SERIOUSLY. I turned one sentence into a six sentence paragraph at one point because there were so many points hit upon in the one, it just wouldn't make sense to spit everything out in one stream with out some breaks and explanations. I think the thing I've discovered that's oddest about Japanese, is that you can throw the most random shit into the middle of a sentence, and it'll still make sense.

For the most part, I think I actually did a really GOOD job at translating the speech and making it go from the non-nonsensical ordering of Japanese into something a group of American girls is gonna understand. Good accomplishment for a random Wednesday~

Also, me and Sea made FUNFETTI cake last night... talk about AMERICA. This cake sums up America in all of it's delicious, lard/sprinkle-filled glory.

ハマっている

 

I'm a little obsessed with my new toy.... OH IPHONE, you will be the destruction of all my sleep and sanity. But yes, anyway. I thought my outfit was cute today so I decided to capture it. :)

Oatmeal Raisin~

 

Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Recipe:

3/4 cup butter
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 3/4 cups rolled oats
1 cup raisins

1. Cream the butter and sugars together. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until fluffy.
2. Sift in flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon until well blended.
3. Slowly add raisins and oats to the mixture.
4. Preheat oven to 190 C and bake the cookies on an un-greased pan for 8-12 minutes (until browned on top). Let them sit out to cool before taking off the pan. Otherwise, I found that they fall apart.

Today was a BORING, HOT, HUMID Sunday..... but at least I got to be a little nostalgic and make some (actually quite good) oatmeal raisin cookies! I've been making a lot of vegan baked-goods recently, so it was nice using butter and eggs again (I have yet to make a GOOD vegan cookie. only good cupcakes). That, and I had to thank Ono for helping me get my new (addictive) toy, the iphone!! Yes, the picture above was taken with the iphone.... I'm worried that I will be a little too obsessed for a while... but there are too many cool things you can do with it! The camera options, I'm especially ハマっている with. :D

Taste-testing and sake-making

Yummy, drippy alcohol-laced ice cream.

 At the Kikusui Zadankai a few weeks ago, I received a bottle of Kikusui's alcohol-laced ice cream topping, "I <3 Ice" as a 'consolation prize' of sorts. I've been wanting to try this stuff since I saw it on the Kikusui blog a couple of months ago (I mean, I DO love finding news ways to add booze to every thing I consume! Of course I kid...). Their are a few flavors being sold, including rum, coffee, and chocolate. I received the "カカオラム" flavored one, and despite the fact that I'm not a rum enthusiast, it was really very good over some vanilla ice cream. Especially with how hot it's been lately.... :P

In other food-related news, I JUST MADE some umeshu for the first time! I know that's not really all that novel, considering they have every item set up for easy purchase in Marunaka.... but I'm still pretty excited about how this will come out over the next year. The recipe I used is: 1 Kilo ume plums, 550 grams rock sugar, and 2 liters of white liqueur. Probably pretty standard... but I hope I forget about this stuff and find it half a year later and get excited again, haha~

The sake added itself!

Such huge chunks of sugar!! And I love that the alcohol is 35%~

Dirty Punk Weekend (part 2)

Crowbar Live House

The Mad Wife,  female vocals/guitarist

As I expected, most people saw me and asked, "マットはどこ?" in which I had to answer, "やっぱりお金ないんだよ." It was slightly disappointing at first to think that no one was really terribly thrilled to see ME, and clearly only saw me as some sort of Matto accessory.... but that's exactly why I came alone this time! Although me and Matto always go to shows together, I wanted to show that I was ABLE to go to one alone, and I didn't need him or anything (it's also nice to prove to people that we are NOT FUCKING DATING. just cuz two foreigners of opposite genders exist together, doesn't mean they are dating!!!!).  Anyway, the show started off with a 高校生 band that were actually pretty decent (and had a very Blink 182 feel, some how) and was followed by The Mad Wife, Parkmates, SLYDINGMAN, Pall Mall, and of course Thirsty Chords.

Pall of Pall Mall

 SLYDINGMAN and Pall Mall were having their new split CD release show that night and the next night, so I picked up one of the albums. Both Pall Mall and Thirsty Chords played amazingly~ While watching SLYDINGMAN and Parkmates, I realized I had forgotten how much I enjoy watching them play and was able to really get into the music~ Both bands have such good stage presence and silly banter, you can't help but love it. Such a great show with so much good melodic-punk~ Once the show was over, I was invited out to the 打上げ with the bands (after Masa finally bestowed a nickname on me that he said he'd figure out about a month ago) and I got to talk with the drummer from SLYDINGMAN most of the night.

I got to stay at Spalding's house with everyone (singer of WHAT-A-NIGHT'S). Sleeping conditions were not ideal (I slept on a tatami floor with a zabuton as a pillow and an odd sleeping bag) but I got about 7 hours of sleep, so it was do-able. We all left the next morning at about 10 in order to drive to Takamatsu where the second show was going to take place. Since Pall Mall-tachi had all gone to Tokushima in Dorami's car, Mall said he would drive my car for me and accompany me on the way there.

Ricky, the live house in Takamastu. View from behind the distro I got to help out with~

Udon line

 Once in Takamatsu, apparently eating Takamatsu-famous udon was first on the list of things to do. We stopped at a temple where the LONGEST line of people stood outside this pretty wooden building with a thatched roof. I ordered 生じょうゆ udon... which is udon (hot or cold) served without broth. They give you a thing of soy sauce and some fresh katsuo-flakes, minced daikon and green onion to mix in~<3

Parkmates

Not a lot of people showed up for the show, unfortunately... and most showed up to see this too-emo high school band called "look at moment" and then left right after they were finished. All the bands performed really well, despite the poor turnout, and I helped Pall Mall sell some CDs from their distro and found out that Daisuke had a SUPER RARE copy of The Lions' demo tape in his distro (200 yen!!!) which I quickly snatched up along with "Pear Of The West."

SLYDINGMAN

Music Video Spam

Group called "Jonny" and a video I snagged from another blog I follow... Seeing things like this or this:

2011.7.24 sun @新宿JAM, 東京
THE URCHIN presents WE HAVE THE MUSIC!
open 16:00 / start 16:30 | adv&door 2,300yen

• BALLADMEN (ex.Blotto / ex. The Because)
• BROKEN MOUNTAIN(from 熊谷)
• COMEONFEEL (from 仙台)
• PEAR OF THE WEST (from 福岡)
• SEVENTEEN AGAIN
• SLYDINGMAN (from 福岡)
• THE URCHIN
• THREE MINUTE MOVIE
• WHAT-A-NIGHTS ( from 徳島 ex minority blues band /ex i excuse)
• YOUR PEST BAND

... makes me wanna hurry up and get done with this whole Kochi/teaching thing and just get over to Yokohama/Tokyo region to go back to school. Of course, in saying that, I'd also be saying goodbye to the amazing-ness that is Mall, Nat-chan, Yukii, etc of my nihonjin comrades who I don't see leaving this prefecture any time soon.... WELL. Until the time where I can move onto the next phase of life... I will enjoy my area and the fact that there are a TON of fun people and bands on Shikoku.

Dirty Punk Weekend (part 1)

This weekend was beyond satisfyingly busy. Looking back, I'm shocked at how little sleep I got and yet how awake I was the whole time.

Friday began the weekend's activities when I was picked up by Australia to be driven into the city for a "Farewell Beer-Garden Party" for the people who are packing up and going home next month (traffic was TERRIBLE, took us over an hour to get there). As usual, I wasn't thrilled to see all of THEM, but luckily I got to sit with my favorite people Sea, Juri, Brit, Canada, and Sash. It was rather 懐かしい (nostalgic) pulling up to the New Hankyu Hotel drop-off location. It reminded me about how approximately 1 year ago, I was dropped off in that same location, bright-eyed and not-yet-cynical about teaching English in the endless-ness that is 田舎. Oh how Japan ages a foreigner... haha. Of course, beer 飲み放題 and fried snacks can put a troubled mind at ease for at least one night~

I had planned to take the last train home (around 10:30, BLEH) before I was (easily) convinced to stay out at Hirome Ichiba until closing time, and then trek on over to Kapara for some Karaoke. I hate Karaoke in huge groups.... it gets noisy, hot, stinky, and drunk people stumbling up and down a small spiral staircase (while it can be funny) is not always entertaining. When I had first heard where we were going, I had flashbacks of people playing strip-janken on the second floor of our room (yes, this place was a two-floor karaoke room) and I wasn't thrilled about going back. However, although all I got to belt out was a sloppy version of "Bad Romance" with Juri and our four back-up dancers, I was able to sip some wine and enjoy some conversation with people I haven't hung out with much lately. :)

Next on my night's list (and by now it was about 2AM), me, Juri and Sash headed over to One Love again since we had heard that that night was NOT going to be reggae night (thank god). Upon entering, I was pleasantly surprised to see a TON of people on the dance floor. Foreigners, Japanese guys, even Japanese girls! I was actually in a rather good mood to dance and hadn't really been looking forward to making that awkward 3-person triangle you make on the dance floor in high school when no one else is dancing (plus, pressure is applied when you are the only foreigners in the place).

While dancing, I noticed a really rather tall and quite attractive Japanese guy in a striped shirt dancing in the back and just casually mentioned to Juri that I thought so. She proceeded to try and bully me into taking her "challenge" and go and dance with him. Apparently, when her and Sash go out, they challenge each other to do various things in order to seek out rejection from random people. Being new to the idea, I wasn't really up for the challenge yet (I also hadn't had enough to drink!) and failed. I know it's not a big deal to go and just dance with someone, but this past year has drilled into my mind the solid notion that "Foreign girls like you (tall, for one) aren't fit for Japan so just enjoy what you get and don't look for anything more." Which of course is horrid and wrong, but it will take me a little getting used to thinking the other way... so next time! Challenge accepted (HIMYM, anyone? haha).

Saturday and Sunday to follow...

Just give the public what they want!!!

I got to go over to De-'s office today with Em in order to film the "extra" bit for the NHK broadcast next week. If I learn nothing from being in this country, it is that I will never be a good TV talent.... :< We had to be filmed coming into the offices and being showed into the special room where we were going to try the sparkling sake. De- then explained the sake and poured for us. Me and Em had to drink one at a time so NHK could get our separate reactions to the product... which is awkward. I mean, having that bright-ass light shoved in your face AGAIN?! I feel for poor De-, who was followed around all last week before the zadankai. Anyway. Em did a good job giving a detailed reaction to the product, and I felt like my contribution with comments and suggestions was fairly good... but honestly, I can't squeal out an "UMAI!" or "OISHIIII!" if that's what they truly wanted. I can't fake stupid reactions like that. :P I WANTED to, but when I actually ended up saying "oishii" on our second-take of first-reactions, it totally came out flat, hahaha. I really did like it! I just can't express myself when three weird men are watching my every move and all I can think about is whether I'm sitting in my chair appropriately.

And thus hopefully ends my stints on Japanese TV (of course, I thought the Sun Sun TV commercial was it so....). I don't mind having my monthly article in the kouhou, of course. If anything, I hope people read it and think, "Hey, that tall foreign girl is competent!" and not "I wonder who translated that for the English clown?!" Meh. At least I get writing practice out of the experience.

In other good news, today marks the day that I made my job 100% more tolerable (at least, that is my impression at the moment). I finally went up to Komatsu last week and told her point-blank, "I hate my job, so we need to fix this." I got to spend the entire 8:30-4:30 work day over at Seisui, helping with English class, putting pamphlets together, and I even got to sit in on two music classes (and learned a bunch of new words!). This is SO MUCH better than sitting around in the BOE with my thumb up my ass (or as Matto would say, "With my dick in my hand") and not contributing to ANYTHING except the traffic on various blogs and websites. I've lost most of my motivation to study while AT work, so nothing productive has really happened as of recently. But, YAY! I finally have a purpose at work!!!

Other than that, tomorrow I get to beer-garden it up with the departing ALT-tachi in the city and then I'm going to a show in Tokushima on Saturday night. Looking like a decent weekend, despite the rain. :)

Bali Moon

Second installment of the "Passport Club" happened yesterday night when Nat-chan had softball practice instead of our weekly "ryori kyoshitsu" and movie watching Tuesday (it was sunny out instead of raining like it has been). Instead of with De-, I went with Sea, Juri, and The Brit to this cute little place called "バリムーン” or Bali Moon. Sounds like exotic curry, right? Wrong! But the set meal that they offered for 500 yen was pretty decent. It came with a side salad, "Ryoma Curry" (which is supposed to be on the spicy side. This one was the perfect amount of spicy in my opinion), and "Jon Man Udon" (I assume Jon Manjiro...?). I agree with Juri when she said that udon has that "Natsukashi Japan-smell" to it, since it's made of SUCH Japan-esque ingredients (dashi, udon noodles, those pink fish noodles, green onion..).

I had some issues with the owner at first, however, because he seemed to think I was incompetent and didn't know how the passport functioned. I suppose I can understand, that if four foreigners walk into your restaurant wanting the set-meal and only one holds the discount-giving item, you'd think they ALL want the discount.... but after I had already told him IN JAPANESE that I understood only I'd get the discount, he still bumbled over and pointed at the "使い方" area in the front of the book. That just irritated me, and since I had had a rather sour class with my 6th graders at Ioki that day (oh man have those kids gone down hill in motivation), I got snippy a lot faster than I normally would and said, "もう分かっているよ！" and proceeded to explain in clipped Japanese that I KNEW I was the only one getting the damn discount. GUH. At least that didn't spoil my lovely dinner with friends too much.

Speaking of class.... I have found that the ONE game that will get even the evilest of classes excited and participating is "English Baseball." Seriously, that game is magical. As soon as we start playing, kids start cheering for their team, get super competitive, and actually want to know the words they have to spit back out at me. If I can get kids arguing about who said "take a bath" the fastest, my job has been done for the day. LOVE IT.

First Session of the "Passport lunch and Onsen Club"

I found this book at Lawson last week called "Lunch Passport" to Kochi. In a nutshell, it has 77 restaurants from around the city that between April and October are giving lunch and dinner specials for 500 yen (from whatever price they were before). Cheap, right?! Since me and De- have been wanting to try different restaurants and cafes around the prefecture, we thought that this would be a good challenge (to try and hit as many as we can in the allotted time frame). Today, we went to めん＊ぱる, a ramen shop right off the 55 in Noichi. The above lunch set is what they offered through this service and it was AWESOME. Soo satisfying and chinese-y tasting (the egg soup thing especially had the best sauce).

The parking lot was packed, but everyone was at the cafe instead! Lucky us~

Super new and only just built last year.

Then, we went to an Onsen in Kami City called Kohanyu, which was a super tiny onsen with a pretty popular looking cafe (had a really yummy cake-set and coffee after the bath). It was really far off into the mountains, but the ride up there was really beautiful and scenic (though my car was running low on gas and we happened to take the road that was about as big as a side-walk). The bath only had one "tub" but it overlooked the gorgeous river and was open-air so totally worth the 900 yen it cost to go in. I think this will be a nice weekly tradition for me and De-. :D Lunch and a bath~

Tiny but awesome.

CUTE CAFE. Honestly, first cafe I've ever seen that's gorgeous even when raining outside.

One Love

Empty dance floor can only equal failure...

Very fun night, although the whole trying to go clubbing thing didn't work out so much... we just got unlucky with DJs (reggae?! ugh) and I wasn't drinking tonight so..... wanting to dance just wasn't happening.

However! I got to talk to Yukiko sooooo much today! I've never been able to talk to a Japanese person about so many different things for such a long time but we seem to really really get along well. I think it helps that, unlike Nat-chan, she's single and thinks it's tough to find friends in Aki like I do. She's also more outgoing seeming than Nat-chan, so I foresee plenty of fun times in my future with her. She has actually given me a lot of hope for the next year in terms of social-ness. I think as long as I stick with trying to hang out with her, and trying to make friends with her and the other shiyakusho girls, I'll be a lot happier. :)

Hisashiburi Purikura. I've been avoiding this glitzy-ness lately.

Softball Taikai~

Softball Taikai with the kyoikuinkai etc

Zandankai, Take Three

Last night was (菊水）Kikusui's third foreigner zadankai (and my third too!.. what a zaru I've become). And for the first part, we tasted nihonshu and were filmed by the one and only NHK (which will apparently be airing our segment at 6:10 on June 23rd....). It was really nerve wracking, actually... I thought they'd have some 元気 producer running around asking questions, but instead they had these two stoic camera men with a giant boom mic and the most まぶしい (bright) camera light ever. I'd start telling Yoi (the Kikusui Rep that I was sat next to this time) something about the sake that I liked or didn't like, and they would RUSH over as fast as they could with their camera. I couldn't help but giggle every time I had a camera in my face. That, and I completely forgot Japanese when the camera was right there.... it just wouldn't come out. It doesn't help that I'm not really familiar with many taste words in Japanese, either. I should study up with De-.

Anyway... because I promised De- to come with her later in the week to film a bit about drinking sparkling sake, I pretended in front of the cameras that I didn't like sake at all... which is a lie, because I've actually really come to appreciate a good sake and I love all the sweet products that Kikusui makes. But yeah, I had to fake it in front of the cameras and "whine" about how I've never tried hot sake before (LIE, I work for the fucking government.... in KOCHI, of course I've had hot sake shoved down my throat before!) and that I didn't like how the flavor changed and seemed stronger once it was hotter... MEH. At least they finally went away from me and some point and started interviewing Matto and De- again.

Once they were gone, the party got started, and we tried all the yummy drinks, the sherbet, the JELLY!!! and some new products they were producing for sales in Europe (apparently a request! How cool~). Those were especially interesting because it seems like they are trying to introduce a Chu-hi-esque drink to Europe. I think something like that would sell super well in the U.S! I always find that the thing newbies to Japan from the U.S always squeal over is the good taste and relatively high alcohol content in Chu-hi. It's like an alcoholic soda, right? Especially my female friends seem to like them. The flavors Kikusui had come up with were also much more interesting than normal Chu-hi flavors. In addition to the standard lemon and grapefruit, they had lime, green apple, raspberry, strawberry, grape etc (11 in all)... the strawberry was disgusting tasting but I loved green apple and lime! Step it up, America! :<

They also had a new alcohol they were calling "Mint Julip" but... it tasted more like mint mugi-cha instead of more mohito-y which is what I expected. Eh, it's in development.

The Ka Are Back....

I’m already so sick of mosquitoes here and I’ve only gotten three bites. What the hell is wrong with Japanese mosquitoes?! I get these tiny bites and they itch so badly that EVERY SINGLE TIME I break the skin open and inevitably cause a scar (my skin scars very easily) as well as continued itching for at LEAST two weeks.

Tonight is the zadankai with NHK filming our every move. It better be for an informational segment, because if they bullshit around and have some sort of comedian come in an ooh and ahh at us, me and (I’m sure) Matto will through some sort of shit fit at them. I can only imagine Matto’s beautifully worded come-backs to some of the dumb-ass questions people love to ask:

J: “Oh! You use chopsticks so well!”
M: “Can you use a fork?”
J: “Well, of course.”
M: “Really?”
J: “...Yes.”
M: “REALLY?!”
J: “Ye- oooooh.”

Yeah, they can go fuck themselves. Though that reminds me of how Matto was telling me about how one of his JTE’s asked him if we had mops over in the US. The word for mop here is モップ, what do you fucking think?! I told him to say, no, we use our tongues to clean floors and then wipe it off with our faces. Stupid questions deserve only the most finely crafted stupid answers.

Gas man

I stopped to get gas today on my way to spend lots of money I shouldn't be spending.... and got to see cute gas station guy! He's so dorky looking but really adorable the way he runs over as soon as he sees my car. Of course the navy blue sweater vest and pink button down doesn't help the dorky-ness level.... but still adorable. haha~


I’ve spent wayyy too much money on clothing this month. At the beginning of the month, I bought near 2万 worth of clothes... then today I spent 9000 on 2 cardigans, a button down, a cute t-shirt and 2 pairs of shorts. I justify it with the fact that ALL things are super functional and now I actually have SHORTS. I was astonished that this place had shorts in MY SIZE (it was also the cheapest store ever)! You need to be a toothpick to fit into most shorts here (and it’s not like I’m fat or anything). People with hips just don’t belong. :P I really want to find another cute skirt like I did early last summer... since my waist is actually rather small, I can fit into any Japanese skirt; it just has to be long enough to cover my ass. :< BOO.

NHK and sake shouldn't go hand in hand...

After drunkenly agreeing to participate in another (3rd time now) Kikusui Zadankai (and enthusiastically agreeing to succumb to buchou's wildest fantasy and dress up like Ron Weasley), I was reminded (while finally sober) by De- that the event was to be filmed by NHK (why, I'm not sure...)! Golly, how exciting *insert flat tone of voice*. So I get to be a spectacle on television AGAIN (I think the Sun Sun TV commercial is finally gone and/or no one cares anymore).

Of course, not only THAT, but De- just e-mailed me about taking part in something extra and pretending that I don't really like sake (though I've actually really come to like it because of these Zadankais) and meeting with her and NHK next week at an izakaya to try some sort of sparkling sake. Although slightly めんどくさい (irritating) in nature, I'm always down for being fed free booze and food.... I guess having it all go down on television is a different matter, but.... you know? I'm probably channeling that phenomenon from "How I Met Your Mother;" the "Underpants Radius" thing. The lower one's self-esteem gets, the bigger the underpants radius gets. In my case, the shittier I feel, the less I care about my integrity I suppose. Oh well. I look forward to free booze and Chisel's AMAZING cooking Friday night so... until then.

Ehime Show at Hoshizora Jett/Kawakami Forever Show at Chaotic Noise

I love live shows in Japan..... Turn Coat, Circle Flex, and In The Unknown played awesomely Saturday night, and NIM was really fun to listen to (it was their new release tour so I bought their 4-song disc). The group had five members; I'm always rather impressed when there are more than four people in a band. It always seems rather crowded at that point but... they had a really good sound to them. :) Also, the main singer looked like a hippy and was wearing an earring that appeared to have been made from a cell-phone strap.... but who am I to judge? :D

Turncoat lookin' good~

Sunday night's show was good too, though because there were so many bands playing, they cycled through them really fast. I ended up seeing CONCEPTION (first) and then missed 6 bands in the middle and saw the last 5 at the end, which was honestly fine with me because I got to see Aggression, Akka (all female hardcore.... how fucking rad?!), Godfreeho, Pyramid State and Blind Sniper. It was paramount that I saw CONCEPTION, of course, seeing that it was Kuro Punk's band and we had been "battling" as vocalists until Whiskey Suicide's recent demise.