Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Fours

My sister or my parents probably remember better than I when it was that we started playing that simple but addictive card game called "Fours". Is that the real name of the game? Who knows, but the general idea is, you start with four cards upside down. You get to look at one of them (or is two--shame on me that I can't remember, just shows that I've been married to the ultimate anti-game man for five years...) and the rest are unknown. Every time you go around, you choose a card from the stack in the middle and turn one of your four cards face up. You keep the card you turned up, or replace it with the one you drew. The idea is to have the lowest score, aces being low and kings being high. However, turning up a king isn't the end of the world, as long as you can come up with another king, as pairs cancel each other out to zero.

If you're still reading, know that this post isn't actually about playing cards or the fact that I never do any more. Sad but true. No, it's about the list I found on Kathleen's blog, in which I was honored and delighted to be named! The list is also, coincidentally, called "fours," and my version is below:

Four jobs I've had:
Sorting green beans at a cannery
Making imitation crab at a factory (stinky!)
Assistant to the owner of a Century 21 office
Teacher of "Oral (English) Communication" at a high school near Tokyo

Four movies I can watch over and over:
The Lord of the Beans (that's more like one I have to watch over and over)
The Last Samurai
The Lord of the Rings
Princess Bride

Four places I have lived:
Fort Knox, Kentucky (though I don't remember it)
Salem, Oregon
La Mirada, California
Tokyo, Japan

Four tv shows I love to watch:
24
Battlestar Galactica
Stargate SG-1/Atlantis
What Not to Wear

Four places I have been on holiday:
Coeur d'Alene, Idaho
Isle of Skye, Scotland
Brisband, Australia
Nagano, Japan

Four of my favorite dishes:
Braised hijiki with rice (and I stand by that even though wikipedia says I'm at risk for arsenic poisoning...huh?...how can millions of healthy Japanese people be wrong?!)
Pasta with pesto sauce
Clam chowder or most any kind of thick soup/stew
Quesadillas

Four websites I visit daily:
nytimes.com
amazon.com
bigideafun.com (tied with thomasthetankengine.com)
cooksillustrated.com

Four places I'd rather be:
Tokyo
At the movies/dinner without Koji
At a Thomas/Veggie Tales show with Koji
Uganda (want to see the Willisons!)

3 comments:

Kathleen said...

Aw, thanks for the mention. I want to try that card game now. I married not the anti-game man, but the very competitive family. So we never play games. And for that I am sad. Maybe I'll try to sneak in a game here and there and influence the Bressler clan. :)

Why did I think the Willisons are in Kenya? Duh. Read the updates, Kath.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Jane said...

Somehow I thought the Willisons were back! Maybe they came back and left again? Does this seem weird, I miss them for you?

Loved this post, Jamie. Well, actually I love them all. In addition, I enjoy following your links on very interesting adventures.

Happy Valentines. xox

hadashi said...

hijiki with konnyaku, yummy! bring on the arsenic poisoning!

i gave T.T. V-Day gifts anyway and told him i'm expecting paybacks on the 14th, perhaps in the form of a good piano tuner. or maybe an Oxo mandoline slicer.

i have to say, i do miss the cutely-wrapped hyaku-yen Hello Kitty chocolates at Daiei though. except they're probably at least san-byaku yen now. sigh.