Cafe With Many Cats

Hey all, it’s been awhile since I’ve updated my blog let alone this one, but I figured this life-changing event was too good to keep from Winosaur.  Last weekend we went to Osaka for a sumo tournament, which was pretty sweet, but ended up having one of those “only-in-the-craziest-fucking-country-on-Earth-where-people-are-so-repressed-they’re-willing-to-do-anything-for-pleasure” kind of weekends. 

The highlight was the Cafe With Many Cats, which, you guessed it, is a cafe with many cats.  For about $6 U.S., you can play with the cafe’s 15 or so cats for an hour.  And boy, did we.  Here are a few photos so you can get the full experience yourselves:

This is the layout of the cafe. As you can see, there are many cats.

This cat hated me at first, but after a little forced petting he came around.

Erin with a fluff cat. The cats didn't like being held, but we didn't like paying $6.

So cute I just crapped my pants. My pants with many cats.

As you can tell, we had some good fun at the cat cafe.  It made me desperately miss Martini, though   

For our next adventure, we would like to head to the red light district of Tokyo, where apparently, one can eat endangered whale; go to a restaurant where one is served an entire human body made of authentic feeling and tasting tofu (and yes, that includes all the internal organs and blood); or, find a backroom bar, where one can choose an animal, fuck it, kill it, then cook it to one’s liking.  Good ol’ Japan.   

It’s going to be a good summer

I found out today that my thesis project is getting summer funding from the honors department for summer ‘09.

My project title is Phenomenology and Practices of Music Analysis.  The basic run down is that there are a large variety of analytical theories of music.  The “best” theory should be the one that is most closely related to our experience.  Using phenomenology (the branch of philosophy concerned with experience) I will adjudicate different theories’ strengths and weaknesses.

It’s going to be a lot of fun.  If you are around Collegeville this summer, give me a call.

The first COW in Tanzania

COW in the road

I saw a broken baby stroller gathering dust in the storeroom here, and it came to me like a flash – what if we could roll a computer around to every classroom and use it to present visual materials during presentations?!?! So I’ve brought the world of power point to tanzania, for better or for worse. This picture is of me, our Austrian friend Wilma who speaks almost no English or Kiswahili, and some little village kids who wanted to help push the newly made cart, the COW (Computer On Wheels if you don’t know that acronym already).