Now I'm by no means an expert in this....

Having grown up in a house where a period drama (more on this in a second) was as common as watching facts of life I was a bit surprised by a recent commercial on food network, it was a commercial for shoyuu or as it's more commonly known in the states, Soy sauce... Okay technically it was a commercial for Kikkoman a brand of Shoyu... errr soy sauce, but as far as I'm concerned if I ever refer to Shoy...soy sauce I'm talking about Kikkoman (In a similar fashion Hellman and mayonnaise the two are synonymous with each other as far as I'm concerned).

Sorry going off on a tangent there, the point of this blog post was in my (admittedly limited, but still more common to me than the average person watching the commercial) opinion was the words used.

Umami, it's Japanese for Delicious was the wording used.

Now when I was a kid I watched period dramas... (In this case, it was Samurai/Shogun era, the Japanese equivalent to watching a western TV series) as a young teen I was more immersed in Japanese culture than I should care to admit to... (point in fact to Lifepoint staff, JAPANESE NOT KOREAN!) (Point to Korean friends, not that there's anything wrong with Korea (err at least the southern half,) it's just not my heritage).

I have a couple friends in Japan, we've discussed food before.

my issue? never ONCE have I EVER seen, heard, or used the word Umami to describe something as being delicious (for that matter never before have I seen the word period).

No the terms I know Umai (pronounced oo (as in you) mai (as in my)) or in more informal (and more commonly in my experience) was Oishi! (pronounced Oy (as in Oy-vey) Shi (as in she)).

I listened to the commercial (it was long enough it was repeated Several times) to make sure I didn't mis-heard (I hadn't) after not finding it in the normal translating dictionary I use, I looked it up online and sure enough, it does mean what the commercial claims it does...

of course with a commercial like this:

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised...

Side note regarding just mentioned commercial you will hear them use Oishi in the background song about 21 seconds into it... Umami nowhere to be found.

Oh and speaking of commercials... I don't know about the video itself, but I know that the song was a diddy for the company, because I remember the show me, shoyou line... and I'm not going to link it here, it's too disturbing and that way you can't blame me for getting it in your head.

o.O

i got the following video from Ryan Hollingsworth's post on the creative side of Pastor Furtick's blog (used by the Elevation creative Staff).

Now STOP! before clicking play or viewing this video I am obligated to warn you that this film has been rated PIADRRAYDDDTVSCIEMRL or Possible Insane Asian Doing Really Random And Yet Decidedly Disturbing Dances To Various Song Clips In Even More Random Locations... and for the wise-guys on my own creative team, no I am NOT related to this guy, who has way more guts than i do to post something like this on the net.


BOOMBOX from Ely Kim on Vimeo.

Decompression....

How do you relax after stressing yourself out?
Case in point, I love what I do for and with Lifepoint Church, and seeing people come to relationship with Christ is the most meaningful and significant thing I can imagine, but it doesn't make the morning any less stressful.

So what do you do to decompress? I've asked this question to several people, one said they like to relax with beer (no, not someone at Lifepoint), other's said they like to go and play basketball for a few hours, some read, for one it's just a nice hot relaxing shower, I knew (well i guess i still know him, though I haven't seen or talked to him since High School) who'd paint (like throw the paint on the canvas), and I've got it on good authority that Chocolate is an excellent stress reliever...

For me it's always been writing and even more so music, but even the type of music will very by my mood, even in decompressing, sometimes I like to listen to something relaxing, other times I need something driving... tonight's been rather ecliptic, let me give you the last 10 artists I've cycled through in my playlist:

No Doubt
Maroon 5
Mark Schultz
Michelle Branch
Nana Mizuki
Mikuni Shimokawa
New LIfe Worship
New York Voices
New Radicals
Nightwish

So that's a rather large skip in genre (if you're wondering, I just grabbed the m and n folders and tossed them into winamp and hit shuffle)

So what do you do to decompress?

Does this strike you as wrong?

I like so many of my contemporaries am a big fan of moleskine notebooks, they're awesome for a quick note jot, or sketch an idea out... so when I saw this on the blogroll this morning, my immediate response was... that's just wrong...