Book Review: How to Be an American Housewife

How to be an American Housewife, by Margaret Dilloway is one of those rare books that manages to manipulate the emotions of the reader without causing them to lose touch with reality. There is no rick fantasy world, no foreign concepts, no desire to work solely by it's own logic. It's set right here in our own universe, and the characters, and their struggles, are all too real. It's easy to relate to these people, and the fact that they could be real draws you into their lives in a way that will leave you crying. The work is a semi-autobiographical account of the author's mother, but there's no telling how much is true and how much is fictionalized. But it doesn't really matter. Every word could be true, and it's so well written that you truly believe it is.

The story centers around Shoko and, later, her daughter Suiko. We begin, and are instantly drawn in, by a woman in her twilight years reflecting on her life. She has a major heart defect that doctors believe was caused by radiation poisoning, as she grew up in WW2 Japan and was exposed to the fall out from the nuclear blast. The heart disease has already taken out other members of her family, and she fears that she may not live much longer. She hasn't been able to see her family since she moved away from Japan, to the United States, with her husband, and longs to be able to talk to her brother once more before she dies. If that's not enough to tug your heartstrings before you even get out of the first chapter, you might not have a soul.

Shoko

The first part of the book is dedicated to Shoko, and is that tale of her life; from her time working as teenage in Japan to her series of whirlwind romances, both with local boys and progressively more clueless American soldiers, to her old age, comfortably settled but longing for the past and questioning her choices. It's a tale of the struggles of immigration, the confusion of what the concept of “home” really means. She's constantly questioning her choices. She makes no secret of the fact that she doesn't really love her husband, but settled for him because she could use him and his government connections to get out of her war-torn homeland. But she loves her children and can't really say that she has many regrets.

She had great difficulty, early on, assimilating to American culture, and almost feels cheated. She had expected something different, something grand, but got stuck in military culture; never being able to stay in one place long enough to truly feel at home before her husband's career required her to pick up and move. She tried so hard to make friends with townies, but found that she just fit in better with other Japanese military wives. Unfortunately they were few and far between, and she never really stayed in one place long enough to truly create any kind of social support. You would feel sorry for her, if you didn't know that she would hate you for it. Shoko is fiercely strong and independent; she essentially decides that she doesn't need anyone else and finds a sort of comfort in her own family. It's a trait to be admired.

Sue

It;s nearly impossible to talk about Sue without giving out spoilers, as she doesn't take over as narrator until after the events of her mother's life. Shoko believes that she is far too weak to travel; her doctor tells her that she probably wouldn't survive the trip, so she begs her daughter to go to Japan for her, to seek out the uncle she never knew. So Sue reluctantly agrees to take her own child and find her mother's estranged brother. She knows that the heart disease is about to claim her mother's life, and wants to do everything she can to reunite the family torn apart by war and circumstance. Sue doesn't find the warm, loving welcome that she had wanted, that one would expect from a novel. It serves as a grim reminder that this book is based in truth, and in the real world, we don't always get happy endings.

I was greatly disappointed to find that the book, continuously referenced throughout the novel, didn't actually exit. When Shoko marries her husband, he gets her a book entitled, “How to be an American Housewife” that intends to teach Japanese women how to survive in the states. It includes chapters not only on cultural assimilation, but on American religion, culinary arts, socialization, and housekeeping. I wanted to read it so bad. It would have been in public domain by now, since it was published in the 1940s. Unfortunately, the book is NOT part of the “true story” and was a fabrication by the author based on the book “The American Way of Housekeeping”, which was a guidebook for Japanese maids employed in western-style homes. I would love to read anything describing my culture from an outside source. As am American I come from a culture that is very visible and it's a rare opportunity. But it turned out not to be real. So that was a giant disappointment. Though I suppose I had no reason to assume it would be, and it's partially my fault for getting my hopes up.

Conclusion

I don't want to spoil the ending, and therefore won't be telling you how Shoko's surgery, or Sue's trip went. I will say that this is a book sure to stir the emotions of the reader. This isn't something you should read if you aren't ready for that roller coaster. And if you keep in mind that these are real people, there are even small things that will force a connection between your own experience and theirs. It isn't the sort of book that draws you in to a land of fantasy; it's the type of story that brings the characters to life in our world.

Broke Ass Food Journal

9:35- coffee 194
10:00 cereal 420

Total: 614

Jesus Christ I can't...  it's so little food.

3:00- salad  374
3:00- Big Mac 467

Total: 1455

McDonald's salad has more calories than a Healthy Choice Chicken dinner.  What the fuck is that?  I thought "Oh I'll get salad instead of fries".  Nope.

Retro Game Review: Who Wore it Better? Kirby vs Dr Ivo Robotnik

When I decided to do this review, I did some research trying to figure out what Puyo Puyo translated to in English, my native tongue. I had a LOT of trouble finding a direct translation. Some folk say it means the number two, or an onomatopoeia for kiss similar to how we would say “smack”. And someone else seemed to think that it was a word that was difficult to translate, that has to do with a cute little hair curl or the part of the hair- as in where you can see the scalp because you parted it. The only real consensus that I could gather was that the title was meant to be cute.

Which is not really applicable to this game because this is some hardcore puzzle game reflex pounding action. Now, one can argue that the characters in the original game, and the Kirby localization, are cute, borderline adorable. I love the little orange guy, who I will forever think of as the mean bean, because that's how he was listed in the Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine manual. He was so cute, in fact, that as a child I would often get distracted by him, and mess up on the actual game- because seriously this thing is fast paced. It fits right in as a Sonic game.

Now, for those of you who don't know, the Puyo Puyo series is a puzzle game created by the development team Compile in the early 1990s. Much like Doki Doki Panic, the localization team decided that western gamers wouldn't be open to the title on it's own, as it was considered too Japanese to translate directly. So they decided to use familiar, recognizable characters to appeal to a wider market. Therefore, it was given a cosmetic makeover and released as Kirby's Avalanche for SNES, and Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine for Sega Genesis/Master System. Now, Compile would later become Sonic Team, so many fans believe Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine is a more direct translation. However, having played both games, I've come to the conclusion that they are the same game, as both are ports, with nothing separating them except for cosmetic differences.

The basic premise of the game is simple. Two connected “beans” fall from the sky, and the player must line them up by color. Four “beans” of the same color will disappear. The goal is to clear your screen while filling the screen of your opponent. Like all great games, the gameplay, mechanics, and concept are simple, but the execution is extremely difficult. You'll quickly find yourself unable to keep up unless you posses the lightning fast reflexes that are far more common for a Sonic fan than a Kirby fan.

Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean machine is unique among the Sonic Franchise, as it seems to have very little to do with Sonic. It's somewhat implied that the protagonist is Sonic, but it's never outright stated, and as far as I know, his sprite never appears in the game. It's also strange because it seems to have some commonalities with the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog TV show (not the show I would consider to be much better written, Sonic SatAM). It has the character Scratch, for example, who, as far as I know, has never appeared in any video game other than this one. However, it does keep the little orange guy, who I love. Distracting though he may be.

Kirby's Avalanche, on the other hand, keeps the same characters as the other Kirby games, and the protagonist is directly stated to be Kirby. The sprites have all changed, and Kirby himself takes the place of the little orange Mean Bean. Playing this game, I always found it strange that Kirby spoke. And he as a bad attitude. He's super mean to his opponents, and that's not something I expect from Kirby. Having played the Kirby games, it's true that he's known to be a soul devouring cannibal, but he's also a BABY. As a star warrior he was put into a sort of stasis, and emerged when he was an infant. He's a silent protagonist, and one that is soaked in innocence. He never seems to really even be aware that he's fighting; he hunts and eats not because he's angry, but because that's how his copy ability works. I didn't like the liberties that the localization team took with the cut scenes. It just didn't seem to fit his character very well.

In conclusion, the gameplay is identical in both ports. But I have to agree with the popular consensus that says that the best localization was, in fact, Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine. I just felt that there was absolutely no need to make Kirby a trash-talking jerk in the cutscenes. It would have made more sense to leave him silent and let the antagonists insult him. It would give more incentive to beat them, and you NEED that incentive. In addition, the game's pace is just far closer to what a Sonic fan would be used to; it moves SO fast, especially in the later levels, and Kirby is more about exploration than speed. It was a strange character to pick for the localization. I feel like Sonic fans were just more prepared for the game.

Broke Ass Bitch Food Journal

6:00am- coffee 194
6:30am- cereal 280
7:13 am- coffee 194
 Sometime while the internet was off- chicken pasta with veggies and sauce no idea how many calories
9:00pm baked chicken
             sweet potato
             green beans

Total: 668 (???)

It's not fucking possible to live on 800cal a day.  That's a ridiculous thing to ask of someone.  Diets are bullshit.

I'm so mad

I'm so fucking pissed off.  I just spent an hour recording a make-up tutorial and it somehow got corrupted.  This is all I have now.  I'm so goddamn pissed.

Broke Ass Bitch Food Journal

5:31am- Coffee 194
8:30am- Coffee 194
859am- Cereal 280
1: 30pm- Chicken Soup 210
4:56pm- roll 205

9:38pm- I'm so fucking hungry right now I might kill a person.  What is this madness?

Total- 1083

My Dad's Surgery/Recovery

So I mentioned earlier that my dad is in the process of fatting himself to death.  I don't think that a lot of people, because of the obesity epidemic in the US, tend to realize how dangerous weight-related medical complications can be.  Most fat is actually stored between your organs, not in an external place where it's super noticeable.  This means that the organs are under more pressure than they would be in a non-obese body.


Everyone seems to realize that having that kind of pressure on your veins is awful; pretty much everyone in the US can tell you what their blood pressure is and where it falls on a health scale.  But it's been a real shock to me, since dad came out of surgery, how few people can apply that principle to their organs at large.

Basically with him, the pressure on his organs, combined with a virtually fiber free diet (like most Americans) to cause a series of ruptures through his digestive tract.  Because the tissue lining his tract was so overworked, it had been worn too thin to immediately correct.  If they had stitched the ruptures back together, there was an extremely high chance that the new intestines wouldn't be able to handle the hostile environment, and would just break open again.  Therefore the doctors elected to give him a colostomy bag, allowing his digestive process to completely avoid the ruptured areas.  He HATES that bag.

Also, because of all the infection, the doctors had to make a series of incisions to let that all drain out of him.  And he'll be in IV and oral antibiotics for at least six months, in an attempt to get that under control.  When he came out of surgery, my mom sent me a pic of him with NO CONTEXT WHATSOEVER with just the caption "show this to your brother".

So that was great of her.  Looks like some fucking horror movie shit, right?  Those incisions go all the way past that subcuanious layer down to the infection, which has to drain out of him before he'll be a candidate for surgery.  Now that he's home he pretty much just has to change the dressings, take his meds, and go back to Lexington once a week to check in with his surgeons.

Fun times.

Retro Game Review: Wario's Woods

Oh, Wario. Mario's cousin who isn't quite evil enough to be considered a villain, but who has a long-standing grudge against Mario. Today, he is perhaps best known for his minigame extravaganzas, but at one point he had a deep desire to become a game star in his own right. He had platformers, weird mouse-based games akin to Mario vs Donkey Kong, and my personal favorite: Puzzle games. When I was younger, I had an SNES, and Wario's Woods was one of my favorite games. Ever. Of all time. To this day, I would stay it's STILL my favorite puzzle game. It's stood the test of time, being rereleased as a wiiware title. However, as a child I had NO IDEA that this had been released on the NES at the same time it came out for SNES!

It was, in fact, one of the last games released for the NES, and the only one, to my knowledge, to receive an ESRB rating. The rating, for those who are curious, is “KA: Kids-Adults”, which would later become “E: Everyone”. In 1994, the NES was being phased out, so it's no surprise that I never knew this game existed. Thankfully, my robot overlords over at Google have alerted me to it's presence, and I spent all of last night making it through 100 levels of puzzlely goodness!

Now, if you haven't played Wario's Woods already, all you really need to know is that the plot, like most puzzle games, is nothing to write home about. There's a forrest in the Mushroom Kingdom that, as a child, I assumed was the Forrest of Illusions from Super Mario World, but is actually called the “Peaceful Woods”. Wario took over this place; the game doesn't say how, so maybe he bought up the land, maybe he was just a squatter, the world will never know. But he hollowed out all the trees and filled them with monsters, which you must kill with bombs. So... like I said. Nothing to write home about. BUT GOOD GOD IS IT FUN!

Toad, the head of the Mushroom Retainers, Princess Peach Toadstool's personal guards, is called upon to solve this monster infestation. He only wears a vest and those puffy pants, so he brings along his friend Wanda, a fairy that I've never seen since in a Nintendo title, who's going to supply him with bombs, and Catherine, more commonly known as Birdo, to keep an eye out for Mario. I love Birdo, just as an aside. And I think that this game went a long way toward segmenting that love for her in my brain.

NES/SNES Differences

Unfortunately, the sound takes a huge hit on the NES. In the SNES, there's a variety of things that Birdo will say depending on how well you play, like “Cool!” or “breakfast!”. I tried to line up so many combos that her sound clip couldn't play all the way through before starting over so she'd go, “Co-co-co-cool!”. In the nes, you don't get any of that. There's no room for voice acting, and the sound chip can't take it, so you just get little nes sounds. Dings and pings are a poor substitute if you're already used to the voice clips. It probably wouldn't bother me so much if I hadn't played and loved the SNES first. But because I had, the absence was really noticeable. And the sounds are indicators that your combos have bought you more time, so I wasn't sure whether or not the extra time had registered. But again, that's mostly because I was used to the voice clips, and not because the dings didn't do their job.

Now obviously, the 8bit graphics have nothing on the SNES. With it's multiple layers and it's 32,000+ colors it's obviously going to be prettier, so the nes probably shouldn't be judged on it's inability to display images with the same beauty as it's successor. But some of the issues with graphics make little sense to me, even taking that into account. For example, Wanda looks more like a fairy in her NES, lower pixel sprite than she does in the snes. So that's weird. And Wario himself has his colors inverted; his hat and shirt are plumb and his overalls are yellow. I don't see why limiting colors would cause that.

But the worst thing about this game; what killed me over and over; the thing I absolutely could not deal with- is an issue with the nes controller itself. In the snes game, you can sit down a monster or bomb, and then kick it across the screen. If it hits a row in which it would explode, it explodes. If you are trapped against a column and a wall, you can kick your way out. The button that performs the kick is the Y button. Which does not exist on the nes controller. I would say that this easily doubles the difficulty.

All in all, you can sew why this game is my favorite puzzle game ever, but if you had to choose only one version, play it on the SNES. If you're willing to play both, it's definitely worth a nes playthrough, but be prepared for the added difficulty.

Broke Ass Food Journal Cont

So I was gifted breakfast.  My grandparents went out to Taco Bell for dinner and brought me a soft taco meal.

So

2:00am: 3 soft tacos- 570

3:00am: coffee- 194

10:05: 2 bowls of cereal 280

Total: 1044

Broke Ass Fat Bitch: The Beginning of a Frugal Food Journal

I've been watching this show Supersize vs Superskinny pretty much all night since I woke up at around 1am. I'm pretty nocturnal. But it got me thinking about weight and my own body, especially since I've put on quite a bit of weight recently, and I've had two family members hospitalize for weight related injuries.

My father is a classic overeater, and his poor diet eventually wore his body so thin that his digestive tract just up and gave out on him, with his colon bursting in two or three places. He underwent surgery and is doing really well in recovery, but he will have to wear a colostomy bag for at least six months, and whatwith the ruptures, he got a massive infection and has to have daily IV antibiotics and a stint that goes directly into his heart. He is home, but will have to go once a week to the hospital to get checked up and make sure that he's progressing nicely. This is a major pain in the ass because his surgeon is in the city, a 2 hour drive away from where he lives.

My grandma is on the other end of the scale. She's been suffering from anorexia nervosa since the late 1950s-early 1960s and has worn her body so thin that many of her organs are on their last leg. Her bones aren't getting proper nutrition either, and break really easily. She's been hospitalized twice recently, once for a hip replacement, and again because her body went into ketosis, which is a state where you aren't taking in enough food so your body starts eating itself. In order to keep her brain alive, her body decided to eat her muscle mass, and when it ran out of that, it started in on her organs. So her own body ate her heart and kidneys.

I have no idea where I fall on the scale of things. I'm currently heavier than I have been recently, but not as heavy as I've ever been. At my heaviest I weighed 210lbs, and at my lightest in my adult life I think I got down to 125 or something. That was after a year-long weightloss journey, which I began because my father had a heart attack due to his being overweight, and I realized that my own weight had the potential to cause major problems for me, medically.

According to http://www.calculator.net, I need no more than 1370 to maintain my weight, and no more than 800 to lose weight (per day). 800 seems like... nothing. Guess I'd be hard to starve. I'll gain a pound a week if I eat 1870. Also, my current measurements put me at 34.9% body fat, which falls into the obese category. It's supposed to be no more than 25%. My BMI is 30.86; which is obese, but barely. The obesity category starts at 30.

So. Yup. I'm fat. Which is weird, because I don't really look fat. Or I guess it would be more accurate to say that I don't think I look fat.  But that may be because I live in the US where obesity is really common, and therefore I don't have a good idea of what a body in the healthy weight range looks like. When I look at myself, I wouldn't classify me, based on the visual, as obese. Overweight, yes, but the idea that I would have 35% body fat wouldn't enter my mind. I am not in tune with my body. When I think of an overweight individual, in my culture, I think of someone like my father; and if you compare my body to his, it doesn't look like I'm in danger of any major health problems. But viewed in a vacuum by medical professionals, I have real reason to be concerned. So I've decided to track my eating habits, to see if I can pinpoint my problem.

Being unemployed, like I am, makes it very difficult to eat a healthy diet. That's why I've decided to chronicle my food journal here, on-line. To see if it's possible to eat a healthy, full diet while broke as shit. I live in the rural United States, which may or may not be relevant, because I don't know how we fare compared to other places, in terms of food prices, but I do know that we don't have specialty or bulk stores, meaning that my food choices here are MUCH more limited than when I lived in the city, which had far more competition and selection. Here we've got three grocery stores; Wal-mart, Save-a-Lot, and Food City. That's it.

So without further ado, let's start the food journal.

4/7/15

Measurements

Overbust: 41

Underbust: 33

Waist: 29

Hips: 49

1:00-5:00am: Coffee 582

5:00am: Cereal 280

Breakfast: 962 Already I'm over the weightloss cals. But I've already spotted my first problem. I drink ¼ a cup of sugar in every glass of coffee. I say glass because I don't drink my coffee out of a cup, like a normal person, but out of a metal travel thermos, which easily holds 2-3 cups of coffee and I consider one mug a serving. I'd love to switch to aspertaine or something, but it's so expensive.

Shine on Harvest Moon

Harvest Moon: Rune Factory Frontier


Harvest Moon is an odd game series; inasmuch as it's a game that always has impressive sales, but which no one in polite company will admit to playing. If you tell a joke based on your turnip crop, everyone will laugh, but very few people are willing to sit down and discuss strategy. Therefore, I would consider it a “Hidden Gem” series, but not in the normal sense. It's more of a “guilty pleasure” series. This has lessened considerably since the popularity of the farmville games, which struck me as odd, because it became big, and people spoke of it, I always responded, “Oh. Like Harvest Moon.”

This review is actually an update of a hub that I wrote over three years ago when the game “Rune Factory Frontier” launched. I have since beaten the game, and returned to Hubpages since the Squidoo merge, and RFF remains one of my favorite games, so it's worth revisiting. First of all, if you aren't familiar with Harvest Moon, the additions in Rune Factory will make no sense to you, so we'll revisit the basics before diving into the meat of the review.

Developed by Natsume, the Harvest Moon series is a farming simulator in which the main character comes to own a broken down farm and must make it profitable. Along the way they need to find love, raise a family, and develop friendships with the townspeople along with their financial goals. Generally, there are a few eligible marriage candidates, called “Bachelors” if the player character is female and “Bachalorettes” if the player character is male. They can be wooed into a relationship by talking with them and presenting them with gifts. Each eligible candidate has their own list of likes and dislikes, and their relationship meter will reflect the effort the player has put in to gain their love and respect.

The farm is usually riddled with debris like tree stumps, weeds, rocks, boulders, and sometimes animals like gophers and coyotes that must be disposed of and cleared for planting. Then you can till the ground, plant seeds, water them, and harvest your crops to sell for money. Likewise you can build barns to raise livestock like chickens, cows, sheep, goats, ducks, etc. You can harvest from your critters and sell the milk or eggs or whatever they produce. I promise that this is far more fun than it sounds.

Rune Factory Frontier is a Harvest Moon game released for the Nintendo Wii in 2009 that builds upon these basic concepts with a new adventure angle thrown in. The Rune Factory series is actually considered a spinoff of the Harvest Moon series, and Frontier is the third installment in the spin-off series, after Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon and Rune Factory 2 on the NDS. And I have to say, once you have a taste of the spinoff, it's difficult to go back to the original. Every single change is a marked improvement.

Rather than buying your livestock, you have to go out and tame them, like Pokemon. This gave me a much closer connection to my animals, and much more pride in them. Also, you can take them from your homestead out into the game, where they can help you in battle. Some of them are rideable, and some of them will help you in your fight against enemies. I had a dog I named Sparks, after my real life dog, who adventured with me throughout every dungeon in the game and became a true companion.
You can also collect materials to craft into items that can either be used to upgrade your character, or as gifts to your friends and lovers. These can be dropped from monsters, grown on your farm, mined, or obtained through a series of trades, adding a level of customization that really immerses you in the world of Trampoli. You can craft food, pharmaceuticals, weapons, armor, clothes, toys, jewelry and more. And if you gift someone an article of clothing, and they like it, they'll actually put it on and wear it from then on.
I was severely disappointment in one romance element of the game: Sexuality of the characters. Every character in the game has a romance meter, leading me to believe that you, the protagonist, were bisexual and could romance any character. I desperately wanted to marry Erik, and spent a fortune in gifts for him to no avail. No matter how much you pamper males, you'll never get a single heart on that romance meter. You will advance their friendship meter and unlock 'friend' cutscenes, but it seems that Harvest Moon is severely lacking in lbgt representation, and instead likes to tease people with unnecessary romance meters that do absolutely nothing. The existence of the meter makes it feel like a lie.
Having said that, if you stick to the lady folk there is a much larger pool of bacholorettes than I was accustomed to for a Harvest Moon game. Everyone in your age group is a marriage candidate, and each of the women folk have their own life and story that you will get to know, and need to know in order to properly romance them. Certain elements of the game are changed based on your romance meter with the various ladies, and one of the boss battles can even be skipped entirely if you're dating the right character.
The absolute WORST thing about this game without a doubt isn't even the lie of a romance meter. It's the runies. These little spirits are incredibly important and incredibly annoying. You have to keep them balanced throughout the map, or the crops on your fields won't grow. You birth them by growing crops. So it's a catch 22. And they will eat each other so you have to restock areas every so often to keep them in the green- and if they go in the red, there goes your farm, and by proxy, your livelihood. These things weren't in any of the handheld games, including RF3, which makes me think that the developers learned from their mistake, but good god is this annoying. Especially if you have a crop that takes more than a season to grow, like the flowers you need for the wedding bouquet. So keep a good eye on these little buggers.
So basically, the developers have taken all the best parts of Harvest Moon and added an action-adventure element. The new dungeon exploration is something that was sorely missing from previous titles. I know that some folk want to just sit back when they play HM, but honestly, the controls are so elementary that if you die in a dungeon, it's your own fault. HM is not known for it's difficulty in basic gameplay; in fact, mastery of the series is often measured by perseverance and RPG strategy rather then skill, but Rune Factory seems to merge these components seamlessly in one of the most under-appreciated titles for the Wii. And seeing how under-appreciated the Wii is in general, that's saying something.