To Hell I Go
July 30, 2003
I’m probably the biggest jackass for finding this funny but:
Farmer’s radio-controlled chopper cuts off his leg
—
From my daily source of Japanese news with poorly written English journalism: Mainichi Interactive.
The first thing I did after I read this was burst out laughing. I don’t know why, the poor guy just lost his leg but it was a radio controlled helicopter! It’s a huge chopper I know, but all I imagine is a dude with a Radio Shack helicopter powered probably by Radio Shack batteries. He loses control a la Bugs Bunny and it comes boomeranging back at him!
There’s also a joke about this place Saga - lots of funny shit there.
Webcam
Today I have created the Perfect Omelete.
It has 3 eggs and cheese.
It did not burn nor spill nor have its cheesy innards explode.
It has reached nirvana.
Edit - 2005/09/22
Here’s what the omelete looked like.
Fear of Swarms
July 29, 2003
Like I was telling Dennis earlier, everytime I bike under a tree now, I shudder and pedal a little harder than normal. The trees are filled with those cicadas and today I had the misfortune of actually seeing one.
I had just left the subway exit and was strolling to the park. I park my bike in the park because to park near the exit, I’d have to pay something like 2,000 yen a month. It’s only about a hundred meters from the park entrance to the subway exit so I would never bother paying. About halfway to my bike, I notice something on the ground near the bus stop bench. The first thing I saw where translucent wings that resembled those of a dragonfly. Upon closer inspection, what should I see but a cicada, at least, that’s what I think was a cicada.
The sucker was huge.
Before this encounter, I had only seen their nymph forms, well, actually, I had only seen the discarded, shedded skins of their nymph forms. They were much smaller (about the size of a small walnut) and had no wings). Those I could deal with, but these winged behemoths? Nuh uh.
Like I was telling Dennis earlier, it was about the size of a D cell. I am not exaggerating like I usually do. It was fucking huge. The wings were about the length of my index finger, maybe a little shorter. The eyes! The eyes! They were bulbous and faceted. Luckily for me this particular cicada was deader than Napster (before Roxio bought the cadaver).
I wanted to take a picture with my phone but I was too disgusted to bear myself to get that close to it.
I got to my bike but just as I was unlocking it, the live cicadas in the trees started making their wretched screeching again. Now, having seen an adult-sized cicada, millions of goosebumps raised from my body at the thought of millions of cicadas swarming down upon my body. I biked out of the park a lot faster than usual. Even now in the safety of home (I have screen doors), I’m still crawling with the heebie jeebies as I’m typing this story up.
I miss Canada, where the crawly creatures don’t grow bigger than the Canadian dollar.
Sorry for the shitty hyperboles today.
Updatelogue
July 26, 2003
Well, as promised, here’s an update about the Tenjin Matsuri.
There were a lot of people. I mean, A LOT. I don’t have any numbers but there were packed streets for blocks and blocks and blocks. Just for comparison’s sake, I would have to say about 10 Vancouver blocks were packed with people.
We arrived at the station at about 7:30pm and therefore missed all the ceremonial stuff like the parade and crap like that. When we got there, they wouldn’t let us cross the street - so imagine about a 1000 people standing very close to a train station. Well, they were doing this because the fireworks were going so they didn’t want huge rushing crowds stampeding. The thing with the fireworks here, they play a short burst every five minutes or so - they’ll launch maybe 4 or 5 up, then stop. This had good and bad implications. Good: people would just stop in the middle of walking and gawk like stupid chickens at the short bursts, and then keep moving. They kept moving about the festival (tonnes of food vendors). Bad: PEOPLE WOULD JUST STOP IN THE MIDDLE OF WALKING. Eri and I were trying to reach the heart of the festival - basically the food vendors and also a procession of crazy boats with drums crossing the river. It was already packed enough but when people would suddenly stop to watch the fireworks - it really took a lot of effort to walk. I’m talking about the whole width of a block stalled because of people not walking. It was very very stressful.
We basically spent 3 hours trying to walk around but couldn’t. We managed to buy some food from the vendors - it was fairly good, before we gave up and went home.
All in all, I say it really sucked. I really hate going to places with big crowds. I feel bad for Eri because she really wanted me to enjoy this festival. I would’ve if about 60% of the people there suddenly disappeared.
I took a few pictures but it was too dark to capture good pics - I really wanted to show you guys how many people were there but the lighting was bad and my camera is retarded. But, I do have a few pictures to show:
- Here is one from the Hanshin Tigers game I went to - here are the balloons right before people were about to launch them.
- Here is a shot of a boat passing under the bridge we were walking on at the Tenjin Matsuri - can’t really see the boat but it was packed with drunk people who were dancing to some cool drum beats.
- This morning, I woke up to hear some drum beats in my own neighborhood. I opened the window and saw this.
Now - I’ve done my part - I’ve updated. You guys better follow suit.
Prologue
July 25, 2003
I’ll update tonight or maybe early tomorrow because I’ll be going to the Tenjin Matsuri, or Sky God Festival tonight with Eri. It’s reverred as one of the biggest festivals in Japan. I think there’s already stuff going on right now (12 noon) but I’ll be damned to be out in this humidity right now. I’ll hopefully get some nice pictures.
In the meantime, here is a link to some pretty nice pictures from this event - too bad I’ll be skipping all these formalities.
Awesome Ping Pong
July 18, 2003
This ping pong game may be the most exciting thing since bullet time from the Matrix - heh heh, I just spoiled it. Quicktime required.
Aged
Are you enjoying the frequent updates this month? You’d better because everytime I update, a little part of me dies and soon there will be nothing left. Give another 40 or 50 years though.
So, July 17th rolled once again and once again my age counter has jumped one. The big two three. The Michael Jordan. The first prime number after 19. The big… age. Nothing much to write about. I went to work with four group lessons to start and four single (one student) lessons to finish. The day rolled by fairly quickly actually, I was in a good mood so the group lessons were fun and educating. After work, I got to hang out with Daniel, whom I haven’t really hung out with since Tokyo in May. We just went to McDonalds and had a bite, then to a pool hall where we just randomly shot at those balls, had a good chat about things and some other things, and then headed to his house. He recently acquired a Gamecube and he showed me Metroid Prime - it looks fucking awesome. I would love console FPSs if it weren’t for the fact you have to play them on crazy controllers with crazy axis controls and buttons and sticks all over the place. I hope they get smart and port all this stuff over to PCs - nothing beats the simplicity and superiority of the mouse.
After that, I met Eri and we went to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. The place was loud. The food was awesome - we just had a small plate of nachos and this appetizer combo set. I think both of us were avoiding burgers and the like. The food was awesome though. I think it may be partly because I haven’t eaten nachos and tater skins and chicken strips in bbq sauce in a LONG time. Of course, us being us, we didn’t finish the food so we got most of it wrapped up (I’m eating it right now for breakfast… kinda gross actually). The music they played here was a lot crappier than the HRC in Vancouver - there were a lot more 70s songs than I’d prefer (KC and the Sunshine Band??? Do they even qualify as rock? Much less Hard Rock?). The place was a bit expensive though. Oh yes, they are the first place in Japan that I’ve seen with refillable drinks. I had 3 cokes and they were free! Muhahaha.
Afterwards, Eri’s mom picked us up and dropped us home. She bought this lil cake for moi and also gave me some gift certificates (that work apparently in every store in Japan - they’re like Bank Certificates). I was able to speak a lot more Japanese to her than I did the last time I saw her. Actually, I was able to converse with a fair number of people this week. I wasn’t having mindblowing conversations but I was able to say a few things and understood some/most of what was said to me. I feel so damn proud.
We also stopped at a pharmacy because three asshole mosquitos bit my leg in very close proximity to each other. The itch was unbearable so I scratched quite a bit. I didn’t realize I roughed up the skin so badly so when I took a shower, I didn’t realize I left that area moist. Now? It’s infected and it looks just charming. We bought some cream and yellow stuff and some wrappings. I just hope it doesn’t get any bigger - it’s already consumed 45% of my body.
“Join us… we are we are… I’m sorry… for the many… The Many… kill the Machine Mother…”
It Is Up - Almost Four Years of Writing
July 16, 2003
It took almost 3 hours today after work to finish it up but at long last, it’s all done. All the internal links have been killed but the externals have been left untouched. Most of them probably don’t work. Reading so much of the past really brought me back. One update in particular really struck me and so I’d like to write about it in terms of my current state. Reading back about my life also slightly reflects other people’s lives so if you’re someone I talk about and you’re not ready to read about something that may be different now, beware.
My Life In A Nutshell II
This update is a follow up of the May 30, 2000 update titled, “My Life In A Nutshell”. In this update more than three years ago, I confessed my unhappiness at the world and at myself. I talked about a redesign of my life and of myself, the lack of love, and also the lack of motivation.
Looking at myself today, three years, two months, and 15 days later, I’m glad to say that all the things I lacked at the time are now filled with great things. =)
I truly believe that I am at my happiest time ever and I’ve had some pretty damn good times.
I am happy about myself and my achievements. I look at my failures and underperformances now as opportunities (like this slight excess of fat around my Spartan waist).
I think the redesign of my life was complete a long time ago and now I am collecting the fruits of the changes.
I now am filled with love thanks to a special woman whom I’d follow to the darkest reaches of hell (much less a foreign country).
I am now motivated by a sense of purpose that extends far past monetary gain, power, or fame. These empty goals once drove me. Now I am more.
One thing that’s still the same though is the last part - I still don’t think I’m an normal, average person. I’m still beyond.
An Autobiography In The Making
July 15, 2003
In my June 20th update, I talked about my old updates that were stored on my computer. I wanted to post up the old updates but because I have 10 different designs each with different ways text was formatted, it would’ve taken forever to extract the text out of each and compile it nicely. Well, I started on it last night and after working about 3 hours in total, I’m still not finished.
So far, I’ve tried to set all my dates and headlines uniformly but in these four years, I’ve only used a uniform system for the past one year or so. Also, there are tonnes of pictures and links that have long been dead that I’m editing out (mostly just putting nice #’s instead). In my early days for some forgotten reason, I split my webpage into news and main writing areas. News was where I wrote insignificant things like, “Today the Quake 3 page was updated” and Main was where I wrote more personal rants and opinions. I’ve amalgamated the two now. There are also some dateless entries and the best I could do was figure out the month it was written in. A lot of colors had to be removed because they appeared too faint on white background now (I used to exclusively use black backgrounds). I’m leaving in all typos and grammatical errors for the sake of humour. There will be so many references to different webpages that used to exist on my site but have long been baleeted. Sadly, there are big gaps all over the place - I’ve only regularly archived stuff in the past few designs. The biggest gap is a five month hole. If you remember my design that consisted of a whole bunch of cool glowing orbs on the left and writing on the right, well, I didn’t archive any of that stuff at all so there’s a good half a year missing.
I might have everything done in another day or two and they’ll just be posted in the archives where they belong. It’ll be pure text.
I’m still a little ashamed at my writing in my early days of blogging. I was quite irrational and twitchy in my writing. I sincerely hope that my writing style now has matured a bit. I hope my long road growing up has seasoned and spiced me. A lot of unpleasant memories long repressed have been uncovered by going through these archives but sadly, I never wrote too deeply about what happened or how it affected me. Most of the writing basically scraped the surface of my feelings. I think now I’m more open and willing to talk about my true feelings. I remembered a lot of the people I knew and how they affected me for better or worse. Strangely enough, most of them are out of my life. The ones left are the ones I’ve known the longest - the ones I went to highschool with.
I think the most memorable and worst years of my life are those between the last year of highschool and second year of University. In these two bumpy years I grew up and morphed from a Rugrat into a Power Ranger. These years made me, in my humble little opinion, much wiser and more mature than many people in my age bracket. I’ve met many great people after the turbulent years but I haven’t shared much about those years. A part of me wants to write down all those things and send it to everyone I know but the other part of me knows I’ve long let those events rest and have moved on.
Webcam
Thanks Dennis!
Edit - 2005/09/22
I was referring to the Homestar Runner T-Shirt that Dennis gave me for my birthday.
Baby
July 14, 2003
I’m not afraid to admit it. I cry in movies.
That revelation isn’t entirely true. In the soon to be 23 years of my existence, I have seen perhaps hundreds of movies. I have seen beautiful actors and actresses, devilish villains and villainesses, and experienced what I call second-hand emotions through sharing the moments on the silver screen. After about the age of 4 I stopped crying when watching movies or television shows. It wasn’t masculine. Guys were supposed to laugh during kissy scenes and dismiss the title as a chick flick. Guys were supposed to love the bombs and guns and monsters and the bountiful boobies in legendary movies like Die Hard or Wayne’s World or to a lesser extent Jurassic Park. Somewhere along the line, any intentions to express emotions were suppressed at closeted, never to be revealed, not even to your significant other.
Sometimes you can’t cage something so beautiful.
I saw What Dreams May Come again. Actually, this is only the second time I’ve seen it ever but I knew the first time around that it made “the list” of my all time favorite movies. It’s simply a beautiful story. Also, it is the only movie that can make me cry. It’s something about emotions of love so deep that it transcends concepts we call life and death. It’s something about finding your soul mate and bringing them back from hell, or connecting with your lost children in mysterious, yet wonderful environments that scrape my tear ducts and let loose the floods. I’ve been known to get a touch of water in the eyes in movies, but deserts see more liquid. This movie however, makes it obvious that I’m tear jerking. I don’t know. Maybe it’s my uncertainty of the afterlife that makes me want to enter this movie so much. No matter what the magic is, I will always remember this movie as the one that broke me. And even though it rates so highly on my “list”, I can’t watch it too often - it’ll ruin it.
Sad thing is, this movie never rated very high with anybody. Do I suggest that you watch it? Probably not because this felt like something more personal to me than it was an appealing movie. If you’re in the video store, I hear Die Hard is an excellent movie.
Taikutsu!!!
July 11, 2003
That means “bored” in Japanese and it also represents what I’m feeling right now!
It’s 8:40pm on Friday and I’m bored! That’s so sad. Eri is usually with me at this time but she has this coworker thing or friend thing or something to attend to right now and won’t show up for a couple more hours. I’m bored! I had my Japanese lesson today but I was in no mood to practice. For some reason I felt all tired and sleepy even though I had a full night’s sleep. I think it’s the heat and humidity that’s affecting my mood. It’s only 28 or so degrees but it’s supposed to peak around 35, 36 degrees later. That’s fucking insane. I’m already pissy and sweaty now so I don’t want to imagine what another seven or eight degrees will do to me. I think I’ll sweat my intestines out.
I did a bit of cleaning, played a bit of Moo3, and listened to a bit of music. Moo3 is pissing me off. I was stuck in the game about a week ago because everyone had become too strong for me to defeat. Then a few days ago, I found a weak spot and broke through and wiped out another two races. Now it’s down to three left. I was on good terms with all of them so I decided to scrap my entire star fleet and redesign all my ships. This left my empire ALL undefended while I was churning out new killer ships. In the midst of all this, all three of these cowards declared war on my and started laying waste to my border worlds. I churned out about an armada (18 full fledged Leviathon-class long range killers) but they were bringing hundreds of ships. I was able to defend a few systems and attack about two but they had way too many ships. I was being attacked on probably 6 or 7 fronts. I wasn’t churning out enough ships to defend all of it. So, I know I’m doomed. I downloaded a save game editor and made my ships even more powerful. They were wiping the floors with whoever was on the receiving side of my beams but they still had way too many ships (something I can’t fix in the editor). I died (not yet, but soon enough).
And of course, leafing through my CD book looking for an old game to play did nothing - I’ve played the games I brought with me about a million times.
Dennis is in Nebraska or something so I don’t think he’ll be updating for the next while - he’s marrying a goat or something. Sunny already updated and usually he updates every few days so I’ll have to wait for the next one. Justin updated! It was something new and good to read (don’t work too hard Justin). Michelle also updated too and Mich, even though my mother’s maiden name is Fung, I don’t think I know any of those particular Fungs. By the way, what the hell does UNDP SEAHIV stand for? I can figure out the UNDP part, but SEAHIV??? Give us a clue and I hope you’re doing well.
I put up some bad pictures from the baseball game I saw. These were the phone pictures. I have some better pictures but I don’t think I’ll be posting them up seeing as I don’t have a photo album on my webpage.
Oh good, I killed 15 minutes writing this. I’m hungry and I want my teddy bear. Fuckers.
Mini Everything
July 10, 2003
Most people know things in Japan are smaller than their North American counterparts but this is just silly. Coming home from work today, I went to the supermarket to buy some grub for tonight. I went to the drinks aisle to find my favorite oolong cha brand (Suntory rules!) but instead I notice a new crate. Inside were about 100 very petite cans of Coke, Sprite, Fanta, and two Japanese brands. These cans hold only 160mL - that’s about 2 gulps for me. Still, they were kinda cute for being so small and they were cheap too. They were 59 yen for one can and 10 cans for 499 yen. Well, the mL:yen ratio is probably crap compared to the big bottles but THEY’RE SO CUTE!!! I bought 6 cokes, 2 Goo Oranges, and 2 Goo Apples. Eri likes the orange while I like coke. The apples are for the cockroaches. See the webcam.
Edit - 2005/09/24
I was referring to this picture.
End Scene
July 08, 2003
So, it’s true?
He asked very slowly with a solemn tone and rocksteady expression. There was no time left to joke around. He wiped some beads of sweat off his forehead with the sleeve of his Hugo Boss shirt. Not much use, he was sweating profusely. He waited for a reply.
Yes. They confirmed it. We can’t escape.
She tried to answer as sensitively and easily as she could but even she could see her own fingers, hands, and arms trembling. She could see the look of concealed fear on his face as it sunk in. Their lives were going to end soon.
He was a small time lawyer in her father’s practice. He mostly dealt with commercial implications. That just meant he had to defend lying, scumbag executives who embezzled and fraudulently took honest people’s money. He’s gotten creeps out of potential prison time and even let some keep their immoral earnings. He’s seen victims jump out of buildings at the thought of losing their retirement money or kids’ college funds. He’s dealt with pretty tough shit in these seven years but nothing in his premiere law school education has prepared him for this. He could taste the horror and pain that was inevitably coming.
She never imagined this could happen. Things like this just don’t happen to people like them. Not in their affluent neighborhood. Not in their town. Not in their freaking state. Maybe they happened in movies or maybe in Europe, she didn’t know. Her training as a legal assistant wouldn’t help. She suddenly wished she had stuck with the Girl Scouts instead of going tiara shopping with the other snooty princess types when she was young. She might have learned something useful for a time like this.
He took this very seriously. He thought, he processed, and he data-mined but all his speculation only came to one conclusion: the world as they knew it would end. There would be no more Martinis with the boys, no more Sunday polo with the clients, and worst of all, no more fooling around with his young secretaries while claiming to be on client visits. Hell, his Jag XK8 didn’t even seem so important and luxurious anymore. It’s just stuff now. He now realizes all the things that he missed while growing up and all that wasted time used to get to know those in the upper echelons of society. So what if he met the successful and rich lawyer? So what if he married his beautiful daughter? So what if he was named “Successful Citizen of The Year” in 1996? Every meal, every breath, and every little thing from now would be his last.
She blamed him. Then she blamed herself. Then she blamed everything else. The government should’ve done something about this. Or maybe the military. They can create billion dollar, radar-avoiding jets but they couldn’t do anything to stop this? That’s impossible! They lived in America! They lived in the 21st century! They had automatic vacuums rovers and platinum plated javacino machines! There was a Starbucks on every block! And yet, nobody could do a thing to stop this? No one could stop this from happening? Where?s the progress? The globalization? The space age creativity that fueled the nation? All bullshit. She briefly thought about suicide but she knew she could never go through with it. Maybe he could end her life but he’ll just say, “But who will do it to me after you’re dead?’
They both stood there in their tastefully decorated summer room. The double-whip chai lattes on the table were getting cold but they didn’t notice. The 12th century ceramic pottery on the 18th century ivory pedestal looked just plain old. They stared at each other and cowered in fear. Their lives were over. All the future dreams of real estate and country clubs and equity investments were now moldy and old-fashioned. There was no denying it. Their lives were over.
They were having a baby.
This was written awhile ago but I didn’t get a chance to edit it for mistakes until now. The idea was spawned after that cockroach story awhile back. Feedback highly welcome.
Feel Like It
July 05, 2003
Since everyone else has done so, I will create a reading masterpiece for your viewing, and sometimes sexual, pleasure.
I haven’t been updating about interesting things because almost nothing interesting happens in my little foreign life now. I’m actually glad for that because I’ve been through interesting times and I always just feel choked and angry and sad when I count all the jellybeans at the end of the night. I live my simple little English teacher life with my one and only and enjoy the simplicities that keep me grounded
I saw my first ever live baseball game in Japan. The Hanshin Tigers were playing the Chunichi Dragons and somehow Eri managed to buy tickets at the game when it was a sold out game. The baseball fields seem a little smaller than the North American counterpart but that’s the only thing that doesn’t measure up. The stadium was sold out as mentioned two sentences ago. That’s 50,000 people. About 5% of the stadium dressed in blue - the Chunichi colours. The rest were ALL Hanshin fans. Now the thing about them is, if you take 50,000 football (soccer) fans right out of the craziest, most rowdy countries (you know, England, Italy, France, etc etc), made them speak Japanese, take out the rioting, you’ll have Hanshin fans. They were making noise throughout the whole game. Every time a Tiger came up to bat, they sang a personalized song with their name in it (it was the same song all over but with different names). Everytime the Dragon’s pitcher was pulled, they sang some sort of “Sayonnara” song. It was one eye opening experience. The Tigers won 14-3 - the Tigers are kicking ass this season and they’re not taking names. One fella, Hiyama Something, hit a “cycle” - that is, 1 single, 1 double, 1 triple, and 1 homerun. I forgot what we North Americans call it - it might be “cycle” too
Tonight while coming home from watching the Matrix Reloaded, we heard a lot of noise and music coming from near my apartment. It turned out to be the local 29th Annual Suminoe festival, hosted right in the shitty soccer field about 1 minute away. It was essentially like those stupid Night Markets found in Chinatown but a lot more people. I swear the whole of Suminoe came out. There were a lot of stands that sold cheap food and drinks. I got a free fan and we bought small refreshments. Very fun - got to see a whole bunch of kids dressed in yukatas and kimonos.
Eri and I are planning a small vacation come September. We’re sort of thinking of going to Korea. It basically boils down to how much time we have and of course, how much moolah. I haven’t been saving money since coming here. Sucks. Come to think of it, I’ve never saved money in my life - I’ll always blow it on something stupid. I need to become less materialistic but it’s so damn hard when I live in the land of gadgets and aesthetics. The sad part is, I’m not even buying any gadgets - it’s just going out that’s draining. Blech
And that’s all I can think of right now.
Hewwo
July 04, 2003
Wow my updates are becoming sporadic again. I guess after I get used to a new design and lose the sense of achievement from it, I update less.
What a week. I haven’t felt so tired from work before. Yesterday was one of the longest days ever. It’s not as hot as it was a few weeks ago and it seems like the rainy season is coming to an end even though it’s still raining often. A lot of interesting stories from friends lately - a few I’d love to share with the world but I can’t as I said I wouldn’t. Still, makes my mundane little life here in Osaka a little brighter just listening to them. A few ex-coworkers from the ELI are moving to Japan so there’ll be more people here for me to share funny experiences. One dude isn’t really sure where he’ll be placed but hopefully he’ll be in the Kansai area. Another dude, whom I haven’t heard from since I left was supposed to be heading over too but I’m not sure if he’s still coming or not. And another is heading to the Kanto area. Over time, the whole building in Vancouver will be airlifted to Japan.
I had a whole bunch of things lined up to say but now that I’m typing, I don’t feel like saying it. Homestar Runner rules.
