Pukman @ WinK: the community that time didn't forget

I've just posted an exciting new podcast episode! Check it out! 39! 銅板島枝手!

Here's the list of all the Biscuit books available! The Jack series looks good, too.

I get regular emails from HarperCollins, a publisher, about children's books. The one that arrived today has an interesting list for the Thanksgiving season. One of the books on the list was Happy Thanksgiving, Biscuit. Do you know the Biscuit series? Biscuit is a dog who is very cute and very popular with children overseas (and also with PUK students). I hadn't heard of this title before, so maybe we will get it for the PUK library. You can find out more about the Biscuit series and other books by the same author at her website. Anyway, please take a look at the list and see if there are any titles that interest you.

First of all, please note that this is the last class in November. There will be 3 classes in December (5th, 12th, 19th). After that, there's only one class scheduled in January (9th) and then, unless we do a hokou class, the exams start! So you don't have so long to catch up if you're falling behind! Note that, before the exams start, you need to have written 60 posts for the semester (5 posts a week over 12 weeks). At least 12 of those posts should be book reviews.

In today's class, you need to record your most recent essay ("My favorite...") and post it on podOmatic. Please be sure to write a post on your blog linking to your new podcast episode (and make sure your first podcast episode is also linked to in the same way).

Remember that recording can take longer than you expect. Please DON'T wait until the end of the class. If you're unable to finish during the class, please take the initiative in your free time or in a future class to finish the work. Note that I recommend using GarageBand to record so that you have a file to upload again if there is any problem with podOmatic.

If you need grammar help, please call me. But bear in mind that the priority this week is recording, so there is no guarantee that I will have enough time to help you.

If you have free time during the class, please consider reading one of the books I have brought to class and writing a review of it.

One more thing: at the end of November/beginning of December, please remember to update your weblog report.

I found out that the Japan NT match I was talking about was against Yemen. I was too late to get an advance-release ticket from FamilyMart, and the Ticket Pia website was busy as soon as tickets went on general sale, but fortunately a member of the PUK soccer club had a spare ticket. (She had bought a ticket but was then asked to help out at the match, so she didn't need her ticket any more.) The match is part of the Asian Cup qualifying campaign. So I hope to see you at the ground on January 20th!

It occurs to me that those of you who are younger than me may not know Robert Carlyle and Jon Voight. You might want to check out Robert Carlyle's page on the IMDB. Well-known movies in which he appears include The World is Not Enough (a 007 movie), Trainspotting, Angela's Ashes, and Eragon.

It's been a while since I saw Season 6 of 24. So I was quite excited today to see that there's a new 24 programme, called Redemption.

My wife was reading the paper this morning, and she told me that the Japan national soccer team would be playing in KK Wing early next year. I thought she said January 20th or thereabouts, but Ayami told me today that it was on January 8th. In any case, apparently we can buy tickets at FamilyMart or Hayakawa sports shop. She said the match was almost sold out so I'm going to hurry! I don't even know who the opponent is but after Wednesday's match I want to see the national team play anyone. I hope Matsui plays!

Recently, I've been buying a lot of books. Two of them are about health and are quite interesting. Another was a fantasy work by Katharine Kurtz. It's in the Deryni series, which I remember enjoying very much when I was about 15 or so. At that time, there was just one trilogy, but now there are many, many books. Unfortunately, most are out of print. So I tried Amazon Marketplace for the first time, and bought the book secondhand. It was just as good as I remember the original Deryni books being when I was a teenager.

If you're interested in fantasy, check out the Mythopoeic awards page (in Japanese).

There's another Katharine Kurtz site, created as a wiki so that fans can contribute information.

Did you see this match? It was very late on Wednesday night, so I didn't get to see it until last night, and then I fell asleep so I saw the end this morning. But it was a great match. Japan's play looked so different from their recent peformances. They had lots of energy and movement, and used their imaginations to attack. Two of the three attackers, Tanaka Tatsuya and Tamada, scored a goal. Their midfield and defence also looked more solid than usual. They won 3-0, and it's difficult to find anything to complain about!

The Magic Tree House series is very well-known and respected in the US. We don’t yet have any of these books in the PUK Library. How about at KGU?

Last weekend, I went to the PUK campus festival on Saturday, and then went with my family to Toyo on Sunday. Toyo is now part administratively of Yatsushiro City, but geographically I think it's closer to Gokanosho. It's famous mainly for two things: its ginger production and its stone masonry. I heard that some of the pioneers of stone bridge-building techniques in Japan came from this area, and Oita, Nagasaki, and Kumamoto have the largest number of stone bridges in Japan. There's a museum in Toyo devoted to stone bridges. There's lots of information there about the history of stone bridges, and some interesting practical activities, for example lifting very big stones through the use of pullies and so on, and even building a bridge on a wooden frame, and then removing the frame after adding the last stone, to see whether your bridge is strong enough to stand on its own.

In today's class:

I went to the Hakua Festival today with my family. We had lots of good food and we enjoyed the walk rally. The most impressive thing was the wooden play objects made by students of the Department of Human Habitat.

Please visit the Hakua Festival page.

The files that go into QuickTime Pro to make a slideshow movie must be images. I could have used the book cover images as they were, but I decided that I wanted to accompany them with some text, so I made a Keynote presentation and exported the slides as images. Keynote gives all the images the same name, but with 001, 002, etc., added on the end.

I like the I Can Read series very much. We have lots of I Can Read books in the PUK Library. This slideshow with sound was made with QuickTime Pro, according to two tutorials at the Apple website.

There are lots of movies playing now or coming soon that look very interesting. John Woo's Red Cliff is a dramatization of the famous Chinese story, Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Part 1 is playing now, and Part 2 is due to come next year. The latest James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, has already started playing in the U.K. and presumably will be coming to Japan sometime shortly after the New Year. The latest movie from Pixar (makers of Toy Story, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, and The Incredibles, and so on), Wall E, is coming early next month.

The next essay topic is "My favorite...". This could be anything, such as book, movie, place, recipe, etc. It can be singular (book, place, and so on) or plural (books, places, and so on). I recommend 3 paragraphs; each paragraph should have at least 4 sentences.

Please use the Essay Map to help you build the essay. And please hand in the essay by email as a Microsoft Word document. (You can put it on your blog later, after I have had a chance to check it.)

If time allows, you should start work today. The deadline is November 21st.

I hope you enjoyed the campus festival last week!

Today, after Juppun ha Juubun, it's time to do our first weblog assessment for this semester. Download the weblog report file from http://public.me.com/ricklavin2001 and then import into Google Docs http://docs.google.com

Do you know the famous story The Gingerbread Man? If you liked it, you should try

The Gingerbread Girl. She is the Gingerbread Man's sister and she has learned from his mistakes!