michael lambe's scrapbook

Family snaps…

It was lovely to see them. As we have so often done before, the Mulrys, my mother and myself made a little day trip to that lovely North Yorkshire seaside town Whitby… Click through to the individual pictures on flickr if you would like a little more information.

And finally Saltburn with Mr. Potter… Here’s Mike Potter and his girlfriend Lisa who I met for the first time.And a charming lady she is too.

This is the place we had lunch at, Virgo’s in Saltburn. Saltburn is a lovely old Victorian seaside town on the wild north-east coast and Virgo’s is a very nice bistro/cafe with a great menu that includes several vegetarian dishes.

I had pasta with pesto and pine nuts. All the ps.

These two had some other stuff… We were all really satisfied anyway.

It was too cold and windy for walking so we retreated to the Ship – an old smugglers pub for pints and pirate impressions.

It’s always good to see Mr. Potter. Here’s a little Teesside moon from the journey back…

On Sunday 5th June we had a picnic by the Katsura River in Matsuo. “PinPin” means “full of beans”. We played sports, ate, drank and had a lovely day – and the weather amazingly stayed fine until the evening so we were very lucky. A lovely day with my lovely friends.

I posted the pictures on Monday but here’s a short video of some of the fun and hi-jinks from Nana’s farewell party last Saturday. Good times!

The music is See You Later by Pitx
on an Attribution Noncommercial (3.0) Creative Commons License

No. It’s just Nana’s leaving party. As the old shepherd’s saying goes:

Great party Saturday night,
Sore heads Sunday morning.

Those old shepherds knew a thing or two about parties.

Far right we see the guest of honour looking surprised/pleased/stoked.

We didn’t have any shepherds on Saturday but we did have LEGENDARY TIMES and I can even remember some of them. Ah, come back Nana and we’ll do it all again! This is my personal favorite picture:

Here are some more (a video will follow if and when I can bestir myself to make it):

Now, this is just my opinion mind, but I think this picture (taken by Yutaka from up a tree) is really kind of awesome.

This is Yutaka up said tree.
Saturday, a bunch of us went out to Matsuo for a picnic. There’s a big park there along the Katsura River and all you can see is trees, and hills and GREEN. Oh, and all the little families taking advantage of the sunny weather and the short Golden Week break and having picnics of their own. Anyway, we had a very happy day, eating, drinking, running around, throwing various objects about and generally having a bit of a laugh. Here are the rest of those pictures.

And here is one last unrelated picture from last night at Urbanguild.

Pictured are Yutaka, Yoshida-kun and Ayumi. All of us had a lovely time watching the final show from local band elements (about which you can read here). Guest drummer Shigeki Fujii is a friend of Yutaka’s, so we got a discount on the tickets too(tee-hee!). Thanks Shigeki Fujii!

Taisho is back at Joao and last Saturday we celebrated. Here is the obligatory photographic evidence…

If you click through to the end of the pics there’s also a short video displaying some of Koji’s smooth moves!

…from Joao last Saturday evening. Yutaka (right) and his cousin Manabu (left):

Mewby and Me:

I’m not sure how this got started or whose idea it was (probably Yutaka’s) but we (Betty, Mewby, Yoshida-kun, Yutaka and me) had a kind of impromptu takoyaki party at my house last Saturday. A lot of booze was consumed. And a lot of octopus balls.  And then the experimentation began… Shrimp balls were quite popular. And Mewby’s chocolate banana cake-mix balls were an absolute hit. My cheesy tomato pizza balls were not so well received however. Here are some pictures:

Great party the other night. The most memorable thing though was discovering that Massun is in fact Edward Furlong. Here are a couple of pictures for your perusal. I won’t even bother labeling them because they are so clearly the same person.

This is my favorite picture of the evening though.

You can see the rest here:

Ha! Ghastly November is finally over! Actually I realised that part of my gloom last month was simply down to a lack of exercise. Catching a cold and feeling terrible kept me out of the gym for almost 3 weeks. When I got back in there I did exactly 6 squats and then immediately felt the effects of the endorphins coursing through my body and into my brain. All of a sudden I was all happy and positive and rushing from weight machine to weight machine like a giddy child running round a playground.  So that’s good then. Here are some pictures from the weekend.

Neon SoundCollage: When we finally made it to Collage on Friday night, we were just in time to be told by pretty much everybody that Satoko had just finished her set (moments earlier) and how very very brilliant it was. Which was a shame. And somewhat galling. However, Yamada-san himself was in very high spirits as the event was clearly a great success. Lots of people were there and some of them were even dancing. Wow! I however, drank exactly 3 beers and took exactly one picture. Here it is:
Saturday was boy’s night at Joao.

Taisho in an especially jolly mood, broke out the guitars and we had a singalong.

One last picture. Jeff Trambley posted this on facebook today and made me laugh out loud. It’s a picture from 1998 of he and I performing some Madonna at the Fukushima Jets Leavers’ Party. Those were the days!

And don’t I look skinny!