best techie gift ever
I hate getting gifts. I’m a hard person to buy for because I usually don’t want anything, so usually when my family asks, “what do you want for ______ (your birthday, Christmas, anniversary)?” my usual reply is, “I don’t know.”
However, I was watching talk show and they interviewed Brian Cooley from CNET and he recommended the roku as a cheap tech gift. The Roku is basically a video streamer that hooks up to our ethernet or wireless and instantly plays movies from my Netflix instant play queue. We hooked it up to our ethernet for speed sake, and since we have a HD tv, the DVDs are upgraded. Over Christmas break we’ve watched a wide assortment of movies, from foreign to old comedies to all four seasons of the tv show The Office. And, being pake, I found that I could pay for the minimum Netflix account (one dvd at a time with unlimited for 8.95 per month) and I can get an unlimited number of instant watch movies.
With movie theatre prices now at 9.25 per adult, I have already watched 15 movies, which if I had to pay at the theatre would equal $1,387.50. Since I wouldn’t go by myself, times that by two and the same amount of movies would cost us $2,775. The roku cost $99 plus 8.95 for one month of Netflix (107.95) so in two weeks, it has already paid for itself. NICE 
When we got home from our 8 pm church service this Christmas eve, we decided to try a new twist by using the poker chips to play penny a point hanafuda. If you’re not familiar with penny a point hanafuda, it’s basically plantation style Japanese gambling. Our family has certain traditions whenever we’re on breaks from school and playing hanafuda is definitely one that’s been passed on to me from my obaachan Sodetani and finely honed by my grandfather and father. I have not only passed on the hanafuda gene in my children, but also the art of cheating that came from my obaachan. I learned early on that when it came to playing hanafuda, your family, especially your grandfather, will try to cheat to win. In fact, I learned that when it comes to hanafuda, you should always try to cheat with flair. If your opponents are not paying attention, then it’s their fault. If you want a card on the ground, you should concentrate on the flip card and slam it down onto the card you want and quickly take it, even if it doesn’t match. I passed this down to my boys — not because I’m trying to teach them to be cheaters, but that’s how hanafuda is played in my family. If you’re new to our methods, then be wary. Hanafuda is a serious sport for us. Do not ask us what the yakus are. Pono at age 5 was expected to memorize all of them. If he made a mistake, we would all take advantage of him and break his yaku or arrange our cards so he wouldn’t know which yaku we were trying to make. The only one who ever had any mercy on the kids and actually tried to mentor them as we were playing was my husband, because unlike me, he is not genetically a Sodetani.