My daughter playing the drums for “Mixed Nuts,” the theme song to the anime Spy Family, cover by Higashi Junior High

With a smile on her face, our beautiful daughter Ulan tears it up on drums. This jazz song has a particularly complicated rhythm, and she does a wonderful job!

The last time we saw her perform was last summer, and she was just barely doing simple rhythms on the drums. Seeing her now and how well she played with a smile on her face the whole time, she’s so incredible. I’ve told her since she was little that she has a special gift to bless others. I can see her playing drums in a church someday, or playing in a band. Blessing others.

I am reminded of the song “She Bangs the Drums” by The Stone Roses:

I can feel the earth begin to move
I hear my needle hit the groove
And spiral through another day
I hear my song begin to say
Kiss me where the sun don’t shine
The past was yours
But the future’s mine
You’re all out of time

I don’t feel too steady on my feet
I feel hollow I feel weak
Passion fruit and holy bread
Fill my guts and ease my head
Through the early morning sun
I can see her, here she comes
She bangs the drums

[Chorus]
Have you seen her, have you heard
The way she plays? There are no words
To describe the way I feel
How could it ever come to pass?
She’ll be the first, she’ll be the last
To describe the way I feel
The way I feel

My current Linux desktop, Feb. 2023

I found a sexy Nadia fanart picture to use for my wallpaper that reminds me of warmer weather. Neat. Mayu and I are nearly finished re-watching the series on the bluray I bought with gift card money I received for Christmas. Pretty soon I’ll see the Nautilus rescue the Eiffel Tower from collapsing onto Paris at the end.

Cool fan art from a doujinshi called Bolt On

In November, I bought an interesting-looking doujinshi called Bolt On by a mangaka named Ocha. While it is an original doujin manga, it also contains some great fan art too.

The Ingram from Patlabor.

Anice Farm from Sonic Soldier Borgman.

Priss from Bubblegum Crisis.

Sylvie from Bubblegum Crisis.

This doujinshi features original manga stories by Ocha and they feature rather nice artwork.

Manga drawing my student Miho gave me!

Tonight I was very moved! It was the last night for the adult English class, at the end of the 15 weeks of lessons we’ve had together. Miho-san is a quiet woman who did not speak English much, but she became very interested in learning about my incredible love story, of how I came to fall in love with my pen pal Mayu and married her. She was very moved with how I was a shy nerd/otaku type who married his Japanese pen pal.

Miho-san said that she’s just been preoccupied with raising her children to adulthood that she never thought much about having a hobby, but she said that I helped inspire her to reach back to her old hobby of drawing anime/manga characters. She’d shown me a beautiful picture of Maetel she’d drawn a long time ago. For me tonight, she gave me a booklet with two sketches of Minmay from Macross and Lum from Urusei Yatsura. I was so happy and almost started to cry! Miho-san is an excellent artist! Thank you, Miho-san. These sketches are my new treasures.

This is a photo I took of a watercolor painting of Maetel that Miho-san showed me. She is rather talented.

Some neat clothing I picked up in January

First up is this black Urusei Yatsura sweatshirt. It features Lum on the back, and on the front breast it just says “Urusei Yatsura.”

I got this kick-ass Buck Rogers T-shirt from Ali Express. It’s neat that this website sells all sorts of unlicensed merchandise.