Flowering Friday

Forget TGIF, it's HANAKIN!

花金

Or "Flower Friday" if you prefer, the most blessed day of the week in any culture. Hanakin is also the day, for me in particular, to partake in 鯨飲馬食。

Working at a Japanese preschool and kindergarten, you barely have time to have a decent meal yourself at any point during the day much less at lunch time. Morning is time to quickly wolf something down (usually while in the shower because that's the only room above 70 F at any time), matched by an equally hastily made dinner, only this time it's out of exhaustion. Forget lunch. Sure you'll eat it but you won't remember eating it as you spend most of the time monitoring for spills, doing refills, and shoveling food into the mouths of slow or outright resistant eaters.

So Hanakin has come to be synomonous with another Japanese classic, 鯨飲馬食 (GeiInBaShoku) - drink like a whale, eat like a horse.

I apparently lean more to the horsey-side of the phenomena though judging from the mountainous pile of "white balloon" brand cookie wrappers siting on top two chocolate bar wrappers. (All the cookies amounted to the same amount of calcium as a glass of milk so it wasn't a total "loss".)

So Noms and Cheers to you and yours on your upcoming Friday.



(^_-)-☆

Thanks again for stopping into my little corner of the 'net, and Happy Browsing!!

All translations copyrighted and owned by myself. All copyrights of their respective owners. No part of this web site may be produced, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the copyright owner.

Ginger Sautee for the Lazy

Yeah, after working until 10PM at night 5 nights a week I want to come home and cook! and chop!♪ and slice!♪!

As much as I personally enjoy experimenting in the kitchen...
NO.
However, given the hideous, suicide-inducing weather I thought I would introduce something to keep you a little warm er, inside and out. (Ginger is traditionally considered a warming food in several respectable ancient cultures. Indian and Japanese being just two of them.)

Shouga-yaki （生姜焼き）is traditionally done with pork and real ginger (Shouga, 生姜) and the real stuff makes all the difference but our priority here is TIME and using what's usually left around the kitchen.

1/4 tsp Tamari　
1/4 tsp Mirin (the real stuff not the fake-Mirin.)
2-3 TSP　Prepared Tube Ginger
1/2 white onion
400g Momen (Firm tofu in the US)
6 leaves, Hakusai (白菜)

1. Chop onions to whatever size you have the energy for and cook until half-translucent in a little veggie oil.

2. You'll need to chop the tofu up nice and small though. Although you can do it in advance - chop, freeze, and then use the defrosted tofu bits later. (I should probably write how to successfully do that later.)

3. Throw everything BUT the Hakusai in the frying pan and cook 5 or so minutes so the tofu absorbs the goodness.

4. While cooking, slice the Hakusai into about 3cm wide strips. (Hint: Just pile all the leaves on top each other and hack away. You're not showing on the Food Network.)

5. Toss in thicker ends of Hakusai - cook about 1 minute. Then toss in leafy ends of Hakusai - cook about 1 minute.

♪☆♪FIN♪☆♪

It seems like a lot now that I write it, but if you do it a few times, it's like MaGic.


Cheers! (^_-)-☆

Thanks again for stopping into my little corner of the 'net, and Happy Browsing!!

All translations copyrighted and owned by myself. All copyrights of their respective owners. No part of this web site may be produced, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the copyright owner.

more windows crap

Windows is a piece of sh1t.
Yes, it is.
As someone who has worked with computers both professionally and personally since the late 1980s, I can say with confidence - Windoze u r a piece of overpriced sh1t.

My latest beef with windoze is the fact that it on occasion, randomly and without warning, forgets the keyboard. As in can not recognize the keyboard that it even came with.

Fert, I miss my linux machine.

Some fixes I found later to be edited copied here to make sure I have them for my own reference.

* Method One, Summary:
Not only must you add the Japanese layout to IME, but you must also install a Japanese keyboard driver. Here's the set of instructions, updated to Windows XP SP2. Of course, use at your own risk.

1. Navigate to Start->Control Panel->Keyboard
2. On the Hardware tab, click Properties (note that the current driver is probably "Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2 Keyboard")
3. On the Driver tab, click Update Driver...
4. The Hardware Update Wizard launches. When it asks if Windows can connect to Windows Update to search for software, select "No, not this time" and click Next
5. Select "Install from a list or specific location (Advanced)" and click Next
6. Select "Don't search. I will choose the driver to install" and click Next
7. Uncheck "Show compatible hardware"
8. Select "Japanese PS/2 Keyboard (106/109 Key)" from the manufacturer "(Standard keyboards)" and click Next
9. Click Yes to continue with the installation when the warning about installing incompatible device drivers appears
10. Click Yes to continue with the installation when the warning about replacing PS/2 mouse port drivers appears
11. Click Finish and reboot

I really recommend reading the FULL ARTICLE.

However, what worked for me this time is contained in the following site. This site offers several suggestions for fixing the windoze botch, but what worked for me was the dreaded registry edit. o.o

* Method Two, option#5, registry edit:
ドライバでキチンと日本語キーボードになっているのに英語配列になっちゃう場合は、
この方法をとる。こちらも自己責任で。
regeditを起動して、以下のキーに移動する。

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\KeyboardLayouts\00000411
（この操作もXP/Vista/7、32Bit/64Bit共通です）

まずはバックアップ
▲まずは該当キーの上で右クリックしてエキスポートしておく。
PCが更に不調になった場合は、このエキスポートファイルを「結合」する事で元の状態に戻せるようになります。

次にデータの変更。
「Layout File」をダブルクリックして「KBDJPN.DLL」　と入力
「Layout text」をダブルクリックして「Japanese」または「日本語」　と入力

変更が終わったらregeditを閉じてPC再起動

注意：
似たキーがありますがコッチじゃありません。
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout
▲末尾にsが無い

Again, I really can' stress how much I recommend reading the
FULL ARTICLE. And if you can't (since it is in Japanese), let me know which method you are interested in. There is over five methods offered. I will post the translation in the comments.


Cheers! (^_-)-☆

Thanks again for stopping into my little corner of the 'net, and Happy Browsing!!

All translations copyrighted and owned by myself. All copyrights of their respective owners. No part of this web site may be produced, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the copyright owner.