Goodbye Grandma
August 06, 2010
Just a couple hours ago, at around 3:00am this morning, my grandmother on my dad’s side passed away. She had been ill for a while now and had been receiving blood transfusions every few weeks for a long time. From I have heard, she got pneumonia a couple of days ago. She went to the hospital and was in a coma. I think she passed away peacefully.
I’m thinking about the HK trip that we took earlier in the year. It was only eight months ago when I was there with my mom, dad, and sis to see her. We were told she was in bad shape then and we wanted to meet her while we could. I am now very glad that we did.
I can’t say that I knew her very well. I’ve only met her a few times in my life and talked to her on the phone when my dad called home. Still, here I am sitting here at 5:24am typing this. My sister says she feels “weird”. “Weird” just doesn’t quite cut it for me right now. I would call it a sense of unknown loss. I know I’ve lost someone close but I’m just not exactly sure what I’ve lost since I didn’t know her so well.
What I do know is that every time I’ve met her, I got the sense that she unconditionally loved me. She was a big complainer (that’s probably where I got it from) but she seemed to be protective of me, as if I needed someone to look out for me. She was always asking me if I wanted anything and offered to buy me anything. That’s the opposite of what I’m about. I enjoy being individualistic and self-sufficient above all else but it was nice to have someone who would spoil me like that given the chance.
I really don’t know much about my grandmother’s past. I know her maiden name was “Wong”. She was a daughter of a fairly successful business dude who dealt in fish or something. I know she wasn’t quite from Canton because she spoke a very different (and hard to understand) dialect.
My mind is going blank now and I’ve gotten out some emotions from this. Goodbye grandma! I’ll catch you on the other side.
Vitamins
July 29, 2010
The best fortune cookie that I’ve ever received said, “You might have a vitamin deficiency.”
April
April 30, 2010
I have been found guilty of neglecting my blog again. I remember the days when I used to write just about every thought that came to mind. It either means that I didn’t have many thoughts back then or I don’t have too many thoughts now. Maybe it’s a combination of both. More likely though, is the lack of time and things that I think are worthy of writing anymore. I’m going to write a summary of some things this month rather than try to write anything more specific.
I’ve successfully completed my second month in my new job. It’s going quite well but last month was extremely busy. I’m really enjoying what I’m doing and most things are no longer “new” to me anymore. In another month or two I will be able to stop saying “I’m new” and work at a nice level of comfort. It’s a great sign that I look forward to going to work on Sunday evenings!
Yesterday was the first day of Golden Week and how golden it is. I have a full seven days off and The Wife and I will be embarking on a fun three-day trip of Hiroshima. It’s a much anticipated and long-waited trip. I’ve been wanting to go there for years now but we kept pushing it back. Until now!
D&D 4th Edition continues to be quite fun. I got in a couple of games this month and I’m looking forward to testing out a completely new character. I’m using a character that the DM created to balance out the difficulty. I was playing around with a Monk and they can get quite nasty.
Wing Chun continues to be a huge aspect of my life and this month I got in more training than I normally do. Sifu Steve gave me some encouraging words and that has pushed me to train a lot more at home. It WILL pay off.
I had a wonderful afternoon playing with my 1 year old niece yesterday. She is adorable! Yesterday was also the first time I thought that she was no longer a baby, but a child. She’s walking and communicating and just kicking my ass with her adorableness.
We had our annual hanami picnic. Photos on facebook.
I’ll leave out a lot more miniscule topics and just conclude it here. I have plans to change this website to be more of a photoblog. Hopefully this will happen not too far away in the future.
Going home
September 28, 2009
I’m off to Vancouver today for some two-week R&R!
Rain
June 10, 2009
Today welcomes the first rain fall of the rainy season this year. For me, this rain is a big marker: once the rain finishes, the humid summer comes in full blast. So, this makes it one of the last few times until the fall when I can enjoy a cool breeze and not worry about sweating out buckets.
Being a Vancouver boy, rain has always been a constant in my life and in many ways, watching the rain and hearing the rain is a kind of homecoming. As things sometimes are put into place by the invisible hand, my morning class was canceled giving me a chance to sit here alone enjoying a cup of coffee and listening to an old Art Bell show while watching the rain.
While I have a couple of class later on in the day, this moment is, for me, the most energizing and grounding time that I’ll have until I fall asleep tonight.
This is pure bliss.
Return
April 18, 2009
I’ve been back in Japan now for 4 days and I still miss the Philippines. It was such a great trip. I saw, experienced, tasted, trained, learned, and taught so much. I’ll put pictures up soon but it’s back to the grind now.
My cactus is growing boobs
February 12, 2009
My 1-year old cactus is becoming… a woman? What’s going on? I’m a bit suspicious of Osaka tap water now… just how many different kinds hormones are in it that it can cause puberty in cacti?
Here’s the large shot of it for you plant perverts.
MILF?
February 04, 2009
Since I’ll be going to the Philippines in a few months’ time, this caught my eye:
The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Philippine government are trying to revive peace negotiations after a proposed deal broke down last year when the supreme court stopped the government from signing the deal.
MILF!
From Philippine rebels set peace terms – Al Jazeera.
Wait
December 29, 2008
Merry Christmas and happy new year!
I have a lot of stuff to post but have just been too busy to do so. Also, I’m going to port all my flickr images over to another gallery that’s more easily customizable with WordPress 2.7. I’ve been testing a couple galleries on Golden Harvest Wing Chun. The site is getting an updated design with Japanese and a slightly cleaner look. I also have a big picture of myself for the school in the January issue of Kansai Scene. That will be my second time in the magazine! Amazingly, the day the magazine came out, Steve got five calls about it already. I am telling myself it’s because of my picture that people are calling.
More to come very soon – lots of pictures to post.
Conjunction
December 04, 2008
I had completely forgotten about the planetary conjunction on Monday but was reminded as I was walking on a bridge near Shin-Osaka station. What a great sight. The moon was just under Venus and Jupiter and it made a happy face. I took it as a sign that things are going to look better. I finally remembered to bring my camera out the next day but by this time, the moon had already “ascended” way past the planets. Too bad.
It’s rare to see stars in Osaka but luckily planets are very visible once the sun goes down.
Weird elbow dude
August 09, 2008
While biking back from Namba today, I had to stop at a crosswalk to wait for the light to change. I see an older man beside me in a pink shirt on a bike. I couldn’t quite pin it but something was weird about the guy. Then I noticed his left arm. His elbow was bent the wrong way!
While holding onto the handlebar, my elbows point downwards, ie. my arms bend upwards towards my head. His right arm was no different but his left elbow pointed upwards! No way, I thought, maybe he just has his arm turned in a weird contorted sort of way. Nope, looking at his hand, he was holding onto the handlebar normally. He wasn’t bending his arm around as his shoulder looked quite relaxed. He was a backward-armed man!
It was rather surprising.
Cursed
August 08, 2008
I have been having the worst of luck recently when it comes to electronics I own.
The giant storm that squished Kansai a week ago destroyed my laptop. I actually opened it up and cleaned out its innards and it worked that night. I thought it was the luckiest thing to have it working again. Then, I shut it down and it wouldn’t restart again. I believe something on the motherboard is fried, perhaps maybe even the CMOS battery. I took the battery around town searching for a replacement but because Dell is such a bitch company, they did not use standard CMOS batteries and concocted something of their own design. I can’t even test out this theory and my laptop is a big ugly decoration right now.
The storm also took out my IP phone. It turns on but will begin to start ringing on its own accord almost immediately. There’s no tone neither. Yet another thing to buy/fix.
The remote control for our fan is also dead. No big deal. I never found a remote control for a fan to be a big necessity – I can still get my fat ass up and walk over there to turn it on or off. Surprisingly, the television remote works fine even though it was sitting in the same pond of water as the fan remote.
Then, two days ago, as the third storm of the month was just about to set Osaka awash, I wanted to take some pictures of the beautiful rain clouds forming outside and perhaps even get lucky and catch a lightning strike. I turn on my trusty digital camera only to be greeted by a white screen on the LCD. No matter what I did, the LCD remained white. Apparently Fujifilm installed a faulty light sensor on it as I wasn’t the only one with this problem. What I’m wondering though is why after five years of perfect operation did the stupid camera malfunction now?
I am so glad I don’t have a pacemaker because with this luck it would start pumping blood out of my ass. Anyway now I have a queue of things to repair and replace. Thanks karma, you vengeful bitch.
The Storm
July 31, 2008
I was in class on Monday when I noticed the clouds just come billowing in. The very clear sky almost suddenly became a dark blue, light gray, then finally, a very ominous dark gray. It was remarkable how fast the sky changed.
Feeling the window, the temperature must have dropped by a whole lot too because the window was cool to the touch instead of being hot as it usually is in the summertime in Japan. Looking onto the street I could see not only the trees waving around from the wind, but even the lamp posts were swaying slightly.
This was to be some storm.
At around 2pm, hail suddenly started falling. People were running into the convenience store while others jumped into their cars for cover. The hail lasted barely a couple of minutes and it actually cleared up a little. “So much for that storm,” I thought. It turned out I was a bit too early to call the end of the storm.
In a few minutes time it began to rain. Nay, it began to pour. No, water began to drench the streets. It was one of the heaviest rainfalls I’ve ever experienced in Japan. In Kyoto, one of the river banks actually rose up by a meter in 10 minutes, that’s 10cm of rain per minute! Unfortunately, four people died from being swept by this sudden rise in water level.
I was a lot safer in class. However, of all days to leave my umbrella behind, I chose this day to do so. Earlier that day at home I looked out the window and had decided that there was no way it would rain today. I decided to leave my windows open to try to keep the place as cool as possible in this 30+ humid weather. My bad.
As class ended, everyone just stood near the window. I couldn’t help but keep my face pressed against the window the whole time. I love lightning too much to miss this. I was told by Steve that this brought one of the most impressive lightning storms. I couldn’t see much other than bright flashes reflected off buildings but our building had the power knocked out for a few minutes. The thunder was most superb though. Several students screamed.
I decided that I couldn’t waste any more time waiting for this rainstorm to end. I had to go home. Some of the students downstairs watched with puzzled looks as I walked out without any sort of cover. I had to stop by the convenience store and pick up an umbrella though – the rain was really heavy. I jumped into the JR train from Shin-Osaka station and after a few minutes noticed we weren’t leaving.
Unfortunately, the lightning had knocked something out and all trains had stopped. They did not mention how long we would be stuck here so I just decided to stay and listen to my Coast To Coast on my Ipod. In the end I waited a whole hour in the train. It still didn’t move. I decided to leave the exit and take the subway home. It was a bit of a detour but getting home late was better than sitting next to grumpy people in an overheated train. There were a lot of people waiting outside the ticket gates waiting for the trains to restart too.
Finally I get home and as expected my place was soaked. Water had soaked into the tatami as far as meters from the window. My kotatsu had a nice coating of water. My laptop was unfortunately placed on the kotatsu. It is with much sadness that I have to announce that both my laptop and my phone have drowned to death due to my carelessness with the window.
I don’t feel too bad. The laptop was super old and now it gives us a reason to get a new one. The tatami mats dried quickly and everything else has been cleaned. In the end, it was one fantastic day experiencing the strongest storm I’ve seen in a long long time.
Come summer
June 22, 2008
I’ve been busy. It’s the kind of busy that I don’t like. The kind that leaves me very very little time for personal things like say updating this blog or playing video games to unwind or do some kung fu training. Still, it’s got to be done. Studying is studying and work is work. I suppose things will get better once I get used to it and find shortcuts around things.
The worst thing about this is the tired feeling I carry most days now. I think I need to start taking vitamins.
These last several weeks have been boring and not at the same time:
- I went to a crappy class trip to Kiyomizu-dera and Arashiyama
- We celebrated at a wedding
- We babysat a dog
- I had a most excellent night at a Japanese friend’s most excellent house – homegrown tomatoes are the best
Angry Nintendo Nerd – TMNT
May 16, 2008
Angry Nintendo Nerd is my new hero!
Warm Up
April 19, 2008
There’s nothing manlier than a hip shake or an ankle twist. I reaffirm my heterosexuality with each oscillation.
Don’t pee there!
April 12, 2008
We babysat mom-in-law’s new puppy again last Sunday and watching The Woman scream at the dog for peeing over the tatami mat and rug was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. The poor dog even gave the sad puppy dog look. Poor thing just did what was in its nature. He’s also in a bitey stage of life right now which is rather annoying. What is cute though is that he will turn over and expose his belly in that “you’re dominant, I give in” posture to just about anyone and anything.
He’s not used to long walks yet. In the midst of walking he’ll shut down and just lie on the concrete until you come and pick him up and carry him. Dogs are evil!
Going back to the roots
January 07, 2008
Happy new year!
Today I must feel what I use to feel, say 20 years ago. Today is the first day of school! That’s right I am going back to school. I am beginning a Japanese course today and hopefully I’ll do that for a few months, barring sudden changes in plans. The classes only run about half the day so I’ll still have time to do other things.
I have good things in sight this year. Last year really sucked ass for me and many others and I hope this year will be better. It’s already off to a great start – I’m not longer under the psychological corporate shackles and am enjoying the freedom! We have plans already this year and they’re off to a good start.
Take right now for instance. I woke up at a reasonable time: 7:30. I made fresh coffee! I have time to check my email and write in my blog for the first time this year! In that job last year, I woke up at an ungodly 5:30, was too sleepy or too rushed to have anything but rotten instant coffee, and couldn’t type a sentence because my fingers had not yet risen from slumber. Ahhh. Good times.
I recently started taking up wing chun kung fu again. It’s great! It’s been about 12 years since I actively practiced and I suck ass. It’s great and I’m back in fairly constant training and conditioning at home right now.
That’s it! I just had this sudden yearning to write here and I have. Christmas was good, New Year’s was good, it’s all good!
A new feel
November 26, 2007
Notice any changes? At long last, my website has been given a facelift. It’s not quite done yet – there are still many things that remain to be updated of fixed. I’m changing over to a Flickr photo album rather than using the old lazy-index. I’ll leave the old pictures as is since most of the original files are gone, I’ll leave these low res pictures in an old pictures directory.
Dennis and I will be starting a photo project. Details to come but I hope it becomes successful.
I bought a new webcam right after coming back from Hong Kong – a Logitech Quickcam Orbit AF – it’s beautiful and I’m very impressed with the face recognition. It comes with a built in microphone that actually works too. I accidentally bought a headset/mic but it will come in handy should the day come when I join a mmorpg.
I’m slowing down on Facebook – it’s not as fun and exciting now. It’s still a very easy way to send someone a message – the one thing I don’t have in my life is a universal address book that can keep track of my cell phone data, email contacts, mailing addresses, Skype, Messenger, etc. Facebook is as close as it gets since it’s updated by the contacts rather than by me.
Transformers
June 16, 2007
Something tells me this will be better than the movie coming out this summer.
Wow
May 06, 2007
Huge Twister – Yahoo! News
Chirpy!
March 12, 2007
It’s late afternoon on a Monday and I’m in a very good mood! The world is awesome!
My ass face in the office!
Computer back, me happy
February 27, 2007
It’s astonishing how the Internet is just so important and necessary in my life now. It hasn’t even been a week and I sure felt the loss of the constant stream of mostly useless information. I think most importantly is the ability to contact people by the press of a button, rather than the vast amount of ‘knowledge’ available that makes me want to be on the internet so much.
Anyway, less than half a year ago my 120Gb external hard drive stopped working. It wouldn’t start up and Windows couldn’t recognize it as anything. On it was a lot of my archived files. Basically all my pictures, movies, music, games, and applications were stored there. They were basically all gone. (I have some stuff backed up on CD but for the most part, my years of careful collecting and filing were gone). That was really painful.
I had some stuff stored on my laptop so I wasn’t completely lost. I put off getting a DVD writer or another hard drive just because I’m a lazy asshole.
To teach me a lesson, my laptop hard drive decided to stop working last Thursday. The night before I heard it making strange sounds and it wouldn’t boot up correctly a couple of times. I took this to mean something bad so I quickly backed up my most crucial files (mostly porn, some password protected files, some old NES ROMS, you know the drill). Sure enough, the next day the computer didn’t even recognize a hard drive being installed.
At this point, I had lost all my data now.
The lady did some checking on data recovery services. Get this – the quotes:
- The 120Gb external HD: 450,000 yen
- The 30Gb HD: 350,000 yen
Grand total: they estimated an 800,000 yen cost to recover the data. That’s $8000. I can take many great vacations and make new memories.
It was weird though, when I realized I had lost all my data, instead of most of it, I felt a surprising level of relief. It was liberating in a sense to not have to worry about all those 1s and 0s stored on a spinning magnet. Still I was denied my daily dose of news and email so the pain of being have to face Japanese TV and (gulp) talking to the wife made me yearn for the Internet.
After some careful whining and nagging I managed to get the wife to allow me to buy a new computer! So on Saturday we went down to our local Dospara and ordered a nice shiny desktop. It’s due to be here in about a week and it’s filled with all the new goodliness. I am so going to buy some cheap game that my laptop couldn’t handle and play the hell out of it.
The laptop sunset
February 21, 2007
This morning I turned on my laptop and it said hard disk not found. Last night it was making noiser sounds than normal. I think my laptop is in its final hertz of performance. With it will go all my data because my external HD died eons ago. If I drop of the face of MSN Messenger, more so, it’s because of this death. Agh.
Goodbye Ham
January 23, 2007
Our pet hamster, Ham (or That Guy as I liked to call her), died this morning. She was about two years old and had this giant growth in her right leg growing since last summer. She will be sorely missed but joining her sister, Clicky. We will bury her in the same place where we buried Clicky.
That Guy will be remembered for her super gentleness (aside from that one violent outburst that led to the demise of Clicky). From the first day we got her, she was not afraid to approach our hands and nab food right away. I fed her many things that I probably shouldn’t have but she seemed to love it – rice (cooked and uncooked), uncooked pasta, cheddar cheese, seaweed, green pepper (she didn’t like it though)…
She had this quirk as well. When we let her run around the apartment she would sometimes suddenly freeze up for about a minute. No amount of poking or prodding would make her move. She just became stuck!
Also in her early days she would run on the damn hamster wheel for long periods of time. Unfortunately the wheel was rather squeeky and I slept in the same room. I woke up many times to that damn wheel.
She had a very huge cage all to herself but I think she was quite lonely as she would always try to get our attention to escape. We will miss you a lot Hammy, you were our first pet and you will always be remembered.
2006
December 29, 2006
Since I’m on the verge of losing this year without another post, I thought I’d better slap some memories down here while I still can. It’s not everyday a year like 2006 comes by.
Aside from being one of the fastest and least memorable years I’ve ever had (in terms of daily happenings – it’s been a year of Groundhog Days), it was, as contradicting as it is, one that will hold many memories. The highlight for me happened early in the year when I got married with The Lady. I wish we could’ve had a bigger thing with more friends and family but it was what it was and it went as well as it could. I’ve finally posted two pages that I used to transmit information from the wedding and from the nijikai party – see the previous two posts.
While this was our first year as wife and manslave, it went by business as usual. I’m really glad I had the chance to live with The Lady for extended periods of time before getting married because there were no surprises, I was, to my furthest extent, used to her bad habits and she’s learning all the new ones I make up each and every day. Note to self: she hates it when I start tapping her head… with a fountain pen… leaking… blood… from a rotting carcass… of… a mountain gorilla. I really can’t wait until we celebrate our one year anniversary, coming up in slightly less than one month.
Then another highlight this year was getting promoted. I have to say, this promotion did not feel as satisfying as the first one. This may be for many reasons of which I won’t bore you with right now. It involves blurry visions in my mind and wispy opinions about my job and the company I work for.
This year I also clamped down on renegade studying habits and decided to take the JLPT. While I certainly did not study as much as I could and should have, it definitely focussed my efforts more and made me learn more than I would’ve. I hope this steam not only continues next year but grows in magnitude as I will be needing essentially a miracle to pass level 2. But hey, only the difficult stuff is worth pursuing in life.
Since the summer I’ve also gotten back into a little card game called Magic The Gathering that I used to play all those many years ago. It all started when a couple of people from the French team started playing next to us during lunch and while explaining the game to another friend, I peaked my interest and decided to join them. Since then, I’ve bought over 500,000,000 cards and wallpapered my apartment building with cards. I basically play two or three times a week after work casually with one or two friends. Now, with a disposable income, the game is much more exciting. I’ve managed to keep my sanity and kept the game purely as a pursuit of fun and entertainment. It’s not about winning, it’s all about making fun of Guillaume as much as possible. (Hi Guillaume!)
I didn’t do much hiking or traveling this year unfortunately. I mostly stayed at home and tried not to move to retain energy. Next year though, in fact, next week, I’m going to get some outdoor action going for sure. I’m currently one week into my 16 day holiday and I do intend to balance out the mental celebration with some physical exertion.
2006, thank you very much. You have been a kind time period. I hope your slightly older sibling will also be nice and kind!
The Right Writing
December 11, 2006
All you ever had were a sheet of “fool’s cap” paper, a yellow school board wooden pencil, and a flesh pink rubber eraser. That was what was given when you were to write something in school. Then as the years went by we had the marble print laser copier paper, mechanical pencils more complicated than most toaster ovens, and enough cappucino to keep sleep at bay. That was still writing.
So does this random tidbit of text typed on a 87-button keyboard backed by an LCD screen count as writing? Would it matter if I wrote a minimum 5000 words or 10 pages worth? What if I were to add a thesis, some cold hard facts, and those little superscript numbers that just look so cool?
Would what I have been stricken with lately, would that still be considered writer’s block? Because, nothing can really block electronic transfer of information, save a power outage or a really big resistor? Would how I’m going nowhere with this piece still sound just as constipated when written with a Bic pen on recycled paper?
I am thankful that I will probably never have to write academically again. I will not have to think of a thesis statement or trying to link subsequent paragraphs with the last line of the preceding paragraph. If I wanted to, I can start a new topic completely, without any warning.
I’m thinking of getting a Playstation 3, a Wii, or an Xbox 360. The lady is not keen on the XBox but I saw a video of that Earth Defence Force game and that’s just badass. Unadulterated gun-toting, alien and robot blasting action. I just had a visual overload orgasm.
See? No one will mark this off as a C or a D anymore. I am free to write what I want now and not worry about consequences (academically anyway). I won’t even proofread this to ensur that no typos were made. Or fragment sentences.
My concluding statement? I think I’m going to go without one. Seeing that I had no thesis statement to begin with, I don’t have to summarize any points here. I wrote nothing, about nothing, and for nothing. I have no attachments to this piece and neither will you.
Facelift
December 08, 2006
The simplest, fastest design ever. This took about two hours from start to finish. The hardest part was making sure the CSS still worked from before. Luckily the code essentially remained the same except I moved around the feedback form and played with the navigation. Yeah, whatever.
Here’s the view from our balcony. This shot was better but my phone mushed it around after setting the picture as wallpaper.
I think I have a sinus infection, or maybe the flu. Either way it’s giving me a headache and fever and random face aches that periodically fade in and out. Save me!
Sick again
December 07, 2006
It was almost exactly one month ago I took a sick day from work. And here I am again, not going to work today. I left work early yesterday because at first I thought the room was very hot but after asking some friends they said it was only me. I also had a pulsating headache and a shivery fever building. This morning is no different. I popped several Tylenol down now to keep the fever at bay but I still feel like a bag of tired crap. To top it off, there is nothing to eat in my house so I’ll have to crawl outside and make my way to the distant supermarkets for veggies and lean meats.
Will the world be banning trans fat? Hmm…
Still/Started
October 10, 2006
Since last month. One month exactly…
Still alive
Still feeling the ‘joys’ of my promotion
Still studying a lot / still trying to study a lot
Still here
Started enjoying my brand new bed
Started enjoying my old sofa bed as a full time sofa now
Started getting over losing 120g of data
Started my fifth year in Japan as of yesterday.
Writer’s Flow
July 27, 2006
I’ve just come home and had the urge to start writing. I have no particular message to convey nor even any particular thought. WordPress beckoned and here I am tapping away at my dusty, cookie crumb filled laptop.
Today I once again discovered how cynical I have become after spending an approaching four years at Nova. I will not degrade myself and become one of the pussies at work who incessantly complain. I have chosen to stay and regret nothing. As much bullshit I have to put up with I draw from it many benefits as well. And hey, when it comes down to it, it’s worth it for The Woman.
To reward myself for a busy week The Woman (I should begin capitalizing Her from now on) and I are about to indulge ourselves with what has become our weekly yakiniku affair. Most yakiniku restaurants in Osaka provide an inverse relationship between price and quality. Save one. This one restaurant, aptly named Yaki, has cheap prices and outstanding quality. Even their ジョッ゠oolong tea is a steal at 200 yen! This place is so good that we can go there weekly as our tab really is comparable to that of any other restaurant – 3000ish yen for a very full and content stomach. Sorry cattle but we’re going to chop you up into little pieces, divide them up by cut, and roast them on a propane fire.
Sometime ago I realized I wanted to get back into studying Japanese. I’ve since started lessons again and I realized yesterday that it’s been four months already. I’m taking lessons twice a week and will be taking the JPLT level 3 this year. It’s bank already. I wanted to pass level 2 but skimming through it I realized I’d have to be uhhhh like uhhh smart to do that. This year anyway. I intend to pass it next year. Why the hell does this test only happen once a year? You may have noticed my practicing Japanese on my blog or my practicing question marks depending on how linguistically-abled your computer is.
I just got the call from The Woman. That means in 5 minutes I should leave my apartment to meet her at Mister Donuts. Timing is everything.
Bloglets
June 13, 2006
As much as I would like to have Dennis coining the term I think it has already been in use. But it’s such a good idea I’m going to steal it and write some bloglets of my own here (and yes, in English).
I had two moles removed from the bottom of my feet on Sunday and I was in pain all day. The surgery itself was short and painless but trying to sleep/walk/take a shower with stitches on both feet is tough.
I’ve taken to studying Japanese more seriously. Reasons are plenty.
The summer heat is returning and this time, it’s personal.
I love playing darts. The bullseye is no longer a complete stranger. It’s a casual acquaintance now.
Being married is still great!
We’re going to Disneyland next next weekend. And Disneysea.
I don’t like this kind of photography
March 18, 2006
Last Wednesday was a day of firsts. It was the first time I visited a hospital for my own well being today. Before I dive in let me backtrack a bit.
For the last month or so I had been feeling a dull pain in my chest, around the breastbone area. I quick search online and along with other symptoms I had been having there were chances of it being GERD, an ulcer, or esophageal cancer. None of these are very fun things to be afflicted with, especially the last one, since my grandmother and the lady’s father succumbed to it.
So it was off to the hospital today to get a checkup. It was the checkup to end all checkups. I have never taken so many tests since my second year of university (7 finals in less than two weeks!). And because I am an attention whore and I have no shame, or maybe I want to educate the masses so my worries will not be felt by others, here are the gory details!
Don’t say I didn’t warn you:
Read it all…
Spammed
February 15, 2006
I was going to happen sooner or later. I got spammed through the feedback form a few times. I’ve included a password field now to stop that. It’s a really simple password with a big hint on the front.
Spirit Man
January 17, 2006
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You fit in with: Spiritualism Your ideals are mostly spiritual, but in an individualistic way. While spirituality is very important in your life, organized religion itself may not be for you. It is best for you to seek these things on your own terms. 100% spiritual. |
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| Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com |
Happy Birthday, Jesus
December 25, 2005
And Happy Birthday to my baby too today!
I just crawled out of the abyss that has kept me from updating for a month. Have a fun and safe Christmas and I hope you get to spend it with your favorite people.
Now back to the abyss I go!
Twelve Months
October 23, 2005
I’ve been working on this for over a year!
On a random day in each month, I took a shot of the sky from my balcony at around 6pm to see differences in sky colors. Here is the end result: 12 pictures from my balcony that show an interesting gradual change in sky lighting and tones. Some of the days looked extra amazing so I opted for those pictures instead. I give you, the Twelve Months.
Secondly I’m trying to learn PHP and to present the twelve months, I’ve made a calendar that checks the server for the date and chooses the right picture. So if you’re ever stuck in a room without a calendar and your computer is unable to show you the date, you can always come over here to see the date. Well, at present it only shows the server’s date.
If you can’t wait a whole year to see all twelve pictures, I’ve also put the pictures up in the gallery.
Note: November is not ready. Last November, I just purely forgot to take a picture so I’ll have to wait a week to finish this.
Bye Grandma
August 22, 2005
My grandma passed away two days ago after being diagnosed with cancer last year. She was 84.
She was born a twin but lost contact with her twin and her family. She lived through Japan-occupied Hong Kong during the war. She lost a chunk of her thumb (or finger, I forgot) in a factory but most of it grew back. She was the second wife of my grandfather and bore two sons and three daughters. The eldest son ran away from home at the age of 18 or something. The eldest daughter married and stayed in Hong Kong. My grandma, along with the two other daughters and the younger son all immigrated to Canada. From her children that aren’t missing, she was given six grandsons and one granddaughter. During the time in Canada (25+ years??), I don’t think she learned a single English word, at least not one that didn’t sound too “Chinesey”.
The image I’ll remember was her taking care of me when I was a kid and both my parents were working. I remember playing this game where we’d spin those plastic eggs you get from vending machines for a quarter. We’d spin a whole bunch of them on the kitchen floor like tops and watch them spin themselves out. I don’t quite remember what happened to the contents of those eggs – the eggs were the important part. I’ll also remember her teaching me how to play mahjong. She taught me the rules and the basics but I remember exceeding and winning all the time when we used to play. I’ll remember those crazy Chinese board games where we’d bet pennies from her huge coin stash. She was the first to get me to gamble!
I’ll remember her getting really angry when my cousin Jeff and I used to mess around during lunch time and not eat. We’d literally spend hours in the kitchen not eating and laughing when she’d come in and see our lunch had nearly not been touched. She used to make us take naps which we hated. We got through them by sneaking books in and reading when she fell asleep.
When she stayed over at my house, she’d often sleep in my bed. She got me listening to this Chinese radio show about ghosts and it freaked the fucking shit out of me. Thank God she was there that night or I’d have shit myself. She witnessed my sister almost taking a piss in the closet! She used to blow saliva bubbles when she was sleeping and she got really pissed off after we made fun of her for it. Sorry grandma.
When we used to go to Chinatown together she would often buy a present for me. It was never anything huge. It was always some cheap toy I’d play for about a month and then it would break. I loved those presents.
Last year I went back home and got to see her for the last time. She was quite sick when I was there but she was able to speak and was completely coherent and conscious. I knew that that time would’ve been the last time I’d see her alive. Since then, even though she couldn’t physically eat (she ate through a tube), from what my family says, she enjoyed her time and was enthusiastic and energetic. I hope her last year was filled with good memories.
In all honesty, I am not saddened by her passing. She had a full life. I remember her as a simple woman but a woman who never lied and who never seemed to have harbored a single evil thought. She loved each of us unconditionally and gave a lot of her time looking over us grandkids. She was slightly short tempered but she was quick to forget things as well. She passed peacefully with family around her.
I’m not sad because she has lived her life well and left behind positive and wonderful memories to those around her. She has lived the way I aim to live. As I remember all these things you’ve just read, I have a smile thinking about all these times.
Thank you Grandma. I’m sure we’ll see each other again someday.
I don’t feel like telling
July 21, 2005
I haven’t been updating again. That’s alright. I don’t feel like sharing. I’ve been having a nice time. I’ve been very busy. I had a pleasant birthday without big celebrations. I’ve been hiding in air conditioners to escape this heat. I’ve been working hard. That’s all.
Protected: Ambition vs. Friends
April 19, 2005
Why?
April 14, 2005
Why is it that anytime I start an update, I write several paragraphs straight from the heart, look over them, then delete them because I don’t think I want people reading this stuff?
The Gym
April 04, 2005
Spurred by Dennis, I too will make an entry in my forsaken ‘blog’. I hate that word. I too will write about what the woman and I did together.
After many months of careful planning and deliberation, we decided to join a gym. It was a big step forward for us because neither of us had been in any exercise for years and years. It was such a couple-ly thing to do but it had been a long while since we’ve done something other than eat, watch movies, go shopping, and uh hold hands.
The closest decent gym near my apartment is a good 15 minutes by bike or a quick stop away on the Hanshin line. It’s pretty nice gym – small enough to get the attention of unwanted trainers, and big enough to allow us ample use of the equipment. There’s a pool and a studio too. Best of all, there’s a punching bag but to my disappointment, we weren’t allowed to use it. So we both worked out. I actually was able to run a fair amount on the tread – much more than I’d thought I could. Muscle-wise though, yeah, I’ll leave it at the running.
The gym is in a nice area with a Mr. Donuts right next door (in case you want to erase all your hard work at the gym), a used book/game/furniture/stuff store, a Conan department store, and some other useless stuff. The only drawback is that there’s a stupid sewage treatment plant closeby. You can really smell it. Everytime we’ve walked past this park area, I mention to the woman that, “There’s a little bit of your poo in that water.”
I am such a fucking poet.
Till the next entry!
Clicky
March 19, 2005
The week after we bought Ham, I started thinking she was feeling pretty lonely. I’m sure a part of it was just me projecting my feelings upon it but nonetheless, last Saturday we went back to the place to pick out another hamster. I wanted one from the same litter to reduce the chances of them fighting. There was a new batch of very young ones available in a different cage that day. The woman spotted a white colored one. We got her.
She was named “Star” at first because “Ham” ãƒ?ムand “Star” スターput together is ãƒ?ムスター, or “Hamster”. Star was a very young baby, I would guess only 2-3 weeks old. Even so, she seemed very small for a hamster – compare it to the size of this bottle cap:
We brought Star home and put the two of them together in a small cage we bought. They seemed to be OK together. We then washed the bigger cage to get rid of the smells and then put them in there, together. Unfortunately. Ham bit Star. We separated them right away. Star looked really messed up. She was bleeding and for the rest of the day, she didn’t eat or move much. The woman was fairly upset over this – this being her first pets. As for me, I took a pretty objective view – you know, it’s a hamster, if it dies, oh well. The funny thing though was that it kept making clicking noises – really loud clicking noises for an animal that small. I named it Clicky but the woman felt it was too mean to be making fun of its condition.
For the next few days, I nursed it back to health. Everyday it recovered a bit – it started eating and moving and climbing around! I had to wet some of its food so that it could eat – I was literally hand feeding the little thing. She was quite cute, I’ll have to admit – she grew on me because she was a lot friendlier and not as shy as Ham. I would take her out of the cage and let it eat in my hand. Often, she would fall asleep in my hand! (By far the cutest thing I’ve ever seen) By now, I had been calling her Clicky all week – even the woman was using that name. I felt it more appropriate and much cuter than Star.
Clicky was a bit of a dumbass. I put her in the big cage alone (Ham was in Clicky’s cage) so that it could play in a bigger place. She would climb up to the top of the cage, drop down on her ass and give this look of pain… then get right back up and do it again. One time, she fell, gave that pain face, and then turned over and fell asleep. This kept me laughing for a good five minutes.
Although she was on the mend, she still didn’t look great. Maybe it was the woman’s worrying and my getting used to her, but on Thursday we took it to the vet! An x-ray showed no broken bones but she did have some sort of viral infection in her lung and something went in her eye. We were supposed to give it medicine everyday. So, on top of handfeeding, now I’m administering medicine to her. Yet, the more time we spend on her, the more she grew on us. She really was so cute!
This morning, Eri woke up and wanted to give it the morning dose of medicine. She noticed Clicky was barely moving. I was still half asleep but I jumped out of bed and examined Clicky. She was only breathing in gasps and wasn’t moving. We rushed to the vet to see if he could do anything. He gave it some medicine and oxygen.
At 11:12 this morning, Clicky passed away. She was about 1 month old. While we are certainly quite sad, we’ll remember all the time spent with her. I’ll remember giving it some rice from my bento which she quickly gobbled up and also her lying against my t-shirt sleeping while I was watching TV. We only knew her for one week but she’ll remind us that life can be precious even in such a tiny tiny animal. We buried her in this flower bed beside my apartment so that everytime we walk by, we can say hello.
Thank you for everything, Clicky. We’ll miss you.
Our pet
March 07, 2005
The woman and I have advanced to the next level in relationships. We done and got ourselves a pet last Sunday. On a spur, we bought a baby Russian dwarf hamster. She’s currently residing in a green cage with a loft. The woman has named it “Ham” because it’s short of “hamster” and also it sounds like when we call each other “hun”. She’s a bit shy – I guess she’s getting used to the new surroundings.
Today I woke up and noticed most of the lettuce was eaten and the grape was half eaten too. I’m still a bit worried she doesn’t know how to use thost stupid water bottle things. Plus, she’s a damn picky eater – she’ll eat the sunflower seeds but not the mashed up corn kernel thingies. She thinks we’re still food because she’s still trying to nibble on my skin with increasing bite intensity. Bitch.
My absence
February 02, 2005
An absence that has been noticed I’m sure. My last few posts were reserves I’ve saved up for just when I don’t feel like writing yet don’t want my blog to go barren. So when I’m suddenly fiending to write, I won’t fight this addiction.
This month has been hell.
Mostly, I attribute it to work. Work has been hell. Not only has it been uncharacteristically busy, things have happened beyond our control that has made work even worse. Ever get the feeling that you’re being squeezed for every ounce of worth? Yeah, that’s work. When you’re in a position to motivate others when you’re so unmotivated, guess what, the others aren’t going to get anywhere, anytime soon. Although there have been some changes lately, it’s not just these minor changes that have made everyone feel like this. It’s a lot of pent up frustration at those holed up in the ivory tower.
I’ve also worked 10 out of 11 days straight. I didn’t get a weekend because I’m covering two friends. They’re covering me this weekend. I’m guessing a lot of what I’ve felt came from this very long stretch of all-work-no-play.
Why did I do it? Well, the woman and I are going to visit Hong Kong for a few days. I haven’t been there in a decade! It wasn’t my first choice as a travel destination but the woman really wants to see it for some reason. I’m just looking forward to NOT working and NOT thinking about work and NOT thinking about how so much stuff sucks at work.
I’m hoping in time this will all fade or else I’ll have to either deal with it or move on. Who fucking knows.
It’s 2005
January 01, 2005
Happy New Year everyone!
We’re back from Awaji Island and we even went to Tokushima in Shikoku. Only 2 more main islands to go in this country.
Off to Awaji-shima
December 30, 2004
Gonna be gone for a couple of days. We’re driving to Awaji Island and spending the night there. Depending on a number of factors, we’ll hopefully be seeing the Naruto whirlpools and some other things. Be back on the 1st. Happy New Year everyone!
tsunami
December 28, 2004
This earthquake has become something extremely destructive. Current death toll: 22,000.
The quake struck around Sunday morning. I remember reading about it online and seeing the death count to be around 300. The woman and I went out for lunch and when we came back, the death count was 3000. Then a bit later that day, 10,000. It kept climbing and climbing. Video clips from home cameras have been airing in Japan very frequently. Some people at work recognized places they had been to in Phuket to only see those places completely gone. I’d be very scared had I been in one of those places.
It has struck close to “home”. There are a few teachers from work who were in Thailand at the time. I was told to listen for names of people who were supposed to be in the region so that our foreign personnel department could be contacted… just in case. Shit.
On some news sites, it says the waves traveled at 500mph. That’s faster than airplanes.
The fearful part that I see. With global warming already taking place, sea levels will keep rising. Imagine a series of tsunamis hitting this region again, only the sea level is 1 or 2 meters higher… I’m sure the death count will be even higher.
Maybe the world will unite and start focussing on what the real problems are next year. One can dream.
Merry Christmas
December 25, 2004
The woman and I wish you a Merry Christmas and hope you have a great bucket of KFC this year.
Our automobile
December 13, 2004
Our automobile. Also the webcam is from a temple… that’s specifically… for blessing… cars. It was the worst example of blatant ripping off of money ever. Unfortunately the woman’s mother insisted that the car be… “blessed”. I had many thoughts that just shouldn’t be revealed to not piss her off.
5 Years
December 12, 2004
Sadly, I’m manually inputting the old updates I have that preceded the days of blogger. I’m too lazy to look for a way to quickly transfer them all but I’m not too lazy to copy and paste all five million entries. It gives me a good chance to read through some of my first attempts at general blogging.
It’s only been five years but in these five years I think I’ve changed quite a lot. My emotional maturity definitely increased. In 1999, I tended to ramble on about school, Quake 3, and bad weather patterns. In retrospect, 1999 was a rather turbulent year with many changes. School definitely took up a lot of my focus but at the same time, things with friends at the time also drained a lot out of me too. I think my writing then (as unfocussed and neurotic as it sounded) was an outlet to vent some of that pent up ‘anger’.
I noticed I said a lot of things that I don’t agree with anymore now. Had I known that one day I wouldn’t think the same way, I would’ve avoided it. But, at the age of 19, I thought I was invincible and that I would never change. What a little child I was. I don’t regret writing it because it was genuinely how I felt. In fact, I wish I had elaborated more on how I truly felt about certain topics. There were some details back then that would’ve helped me put ends to some issues I’m still wrestling with now. I bet I avoided them then because I was too scared.
It’s very interesting to read through your own writing, five years later.
Lost Writings
December 05, 2004
Well, because my webpage is down right now, I don’t have an outlet for my writing outbursts. Instead of losing these precious words which in a few years may be treasure to me, I’m writing them on my computer and uploading them later. From this day til the day my webpage gets back online, these updates will be known as the lost writings as no one should be reading them until way later anyway.
Today I drove again. I drove to the woman’s apartment. And back. Alone. It was quite an accomplishment for me actually. I felt much more comfortable doing everything on the other side. Parking is rather difficult from the right side though. I had to really struggle to get the big family car into the really tight “garage”. I think a few more days of practice and I’ll be ready to go somewhere far. I have a week off at the end of the year and from what I hear, traffic is very light after New Year’s. I hope this is true.
Til the next lost writing.
Send a Message
November 21, 2004
In an effort to stop trawling bots from catching my email address, I’ve created a little form for people to send messages to me. Check it out! Try to break it! Send me obsene messages! It’s in the contact section of the About page from now on.
Remember to read the third and final edition of My Strange Experiences which was posted a short while before this post.
My Strange Experiences [3 of 3]
My third and final instalment of My Strange Experiences once again is a bit weaker than the previous. This one’s gonna be a short one so save your trip to the washroom for afterwards.
I was sitting on the couch in the living room speaking to my mom. She was sitting on the loveseat. Beside both is a small table with a big lamp on it. We were watching Chinese TV and jabbering away. I remember facing the television screen and suddenly feeling someone was watching me. In my peripheral vision, I thought I saw a face hovering right above the lamp. I couldn’t make out any details but I was so damn sure. I turned and faced the lamp but of course, nothing was there.
It was probably just my imagination. I should probably stop being so interested in ghost stories. Unfortunately, nothing interesting has happened ever since coming to Japan… a land with long history, lots of war, and many deaths and a lot of superstition.
Thank you for listening to all… My Strange Experience stories.
My Strange Experiences [2 of 3]
November 20, 2004
Today’s strange experience is a bit less dramatic than the first. It’s a pretty tame story suitable for all ages but not suitable for wusses of any age.
Once again, it happened in the middle of the night. I woke up at an unknown time this time to the urges of nature calling. When nature calls, you take it, collect or not. As many of you know, the washroom in the basement is very close to my bedroom. The only difficulty is that you have to walk barefoot on the damn cold tiles of the kitchen first.
Anyway, I stroll out and turn towards the washroom. About two feet away from the washroom door, a small globe of light streaks from the top right to the bottom left. It was about the size of a ping pong ball and it wasn’t very luminescent. It was like a glow in the dark ping pong ball to be more descriptive.
I watched this thing fly across my field of vision and then disappear. For some reason, I didn’t care about it. I remember thinking (as-a-matter-of-fact), “Oh. A ball of light just streaked by.” I finished my business in the washroom and went back to bed. It wasn’t until I was lying in bed did I realize what I had just saw.
It was probably just a nothing or maybe I was dreaming again. BUT… I can’t be certain…
My Strange Experiences [1 of 3]
November 18, 2004
Today in my Japanese lesson, I was reminded of a personal experience that happened awhile ago that I never spoke about here. I mentioned it very briefly a long time ago but never got around to revealing what it was. Perhaps it was because I didn’t know what to make of it or maybe I didn’t want people to think I was insane. Since I’ve established myself as certifiably insane already, I have no more reservations about telling the story. Here it is.
That night I went to bed listening to Coast to Coast AM as I always did. I fell asleep but awoke a couple hours later. I remember looking at the radio and seeing it was 2:00am’ish. I turned the radio back on to catch some more of the show. It was the host…. what’s his name… the one who took over for Art Bell and some other guy… the guest I guess. Anyway, it was two guys on the show only. Remember this point.
I remember it was an interesting show about either vampires or spirits but I was pretty drowsy so it could’ve been about stealing underwear from midgets for all I know.
Anyway, I remember not being able to sleep so I just listened and relaxed. I have a tendency to not stay still so in my normal shifting of my body, I crossed my right leg onto my left. For some reason, I crossed them like when I’m sitting: right ankle to left knee/thigh. It was at the very moment they connected that it happened.
I froze. Literally. My whole body felt like it suddenly slammed onto the bed even though I had already been lying there all night. I couldn’t move. The radio which had been in the background all that time suddenly started fading away. All I could hear now was this strange background noise which sort of sounded like static on TV, on low volume. Then, I could hear two female voices start speaking, only, they weren’t speaking English – I could clearly hear words but it was in a language I didn’t even recognize.
You may have guessed that at this point, I’m freaking out. I had gone from listening to two guys on a radio station to hearing two women speaking jibberish and being unable to move.
What I did next though was I just concentrated and focussed my breathing and tried not to panic. I’m guessing about ten seconds later, I was free. The women’s voices started fading and the sounds from the radio came back on.
My heart was beating at 16Mhz at this point but I calmed myself down and assured myself I had fallen asleep and nothing more. The next morning I pondered about the event in full sunlight and came to the conclusion that most likely I was just dreaming.
But what if I wasn’t?
Explorer man!
November 12, 2004
Since the woman’s in Korea over the weekend painting the town red with her friends, I’m left here all alone to sulk. It seems everyone and their neighbor is busy tomorrow and therefore unable to entertain me. Looks like I’ll have to keep myself company.
Because the weather’s cooperating and because I’m still not willing to let last week’s defeat by a mountain overtake my adventurous spirit, I’ve decided to embark on a one-man journey tomorrow. I’m going to overcome a huge challenge. Two actually.
Challenge the first:
I’m going to do something on my own. Although I’ve been here for 2 years, I’ve never gone out further than I can bike or take a quick subway trip on my own. I’ve always been with the woman or a friend. I’m going to have to find my way to Kyoto and then back relying only on my sometimes unreliable intelligence and wit.
Challenge the second:
I’m going to Arashiyama – another mountain. Luckily, this is a touristy place with temples and markets and vending machines. There are monkeys there that sometimes attack people. As Dennis said last week, I may be kidnapped by monkeys and be forced to marry the monkey princess. I hope she’s hot…
Wish me luck my friends. I hope to make it back in one piece with exotic treasures and coves of pictures to post to my heart’s delight.
Block
October 21, 2004
Why is it becoming so difficult to write on my webpage? For one thing, I’ve been trying really hard lately to only write slightly more meaningful things. I’m avoiding the “Today I did this…” kind of entries because they’re boring and no one but I could care.
So? By trying to focus more on interesting things to say, I’ve sacrificed actual updating?
Maybe. Maybe it’s just that life in general now is a big repetition. It’s become a day-in, day-out routine. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not disliking it. It’s just now that school days are over, changes don’t happen that often. I spend a good portion of life in the office and as such, interesting things don’t come by that frequently anymore.
Instead of waiting for interesting things to happen, perhaps I should go and seek things out to write about? Be an investigative journalist for this page? Maybe I should just search and explore the inner workings of my mind and find interesting things to write about. This update is a result of the latter – in searching for why I don’t update much, I’ve written an update.
I’m hoping to take more pictures in the next little while and put more up. Otherwise, bear with me for the future looks just as ordinary as the past little while.
Touching is Feeling
October 06, 2004
I’ve got no site to blog on for the moment (shameless plug: www.handsomemonkey.com) and since some of you are in need of some reading material, I thought I’d do a guest update here.
I’ve realized how important it is to have physical human contact. I didn’t have it for most of my life. Raised by asian parents, I was taught to be objective rather than base my actions on emotions. Emotions were for white devils. That’s why they had movies like Dirty Dancing and Kramer Vs. Kramer. We Chinese dealt with problems using cold-blooded violence, a la Enter the Dragon, and sometimes a sprinkling of humour (think Drunken Master here.)
Alas, as my parents learned, you can’t raise your children in Canada and expect them to hold on to old world ideals and values. For 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, your kid attended a white ghost school. You don’t really expect them to come home without a tinge of rebelliousness, did you? You didn’t really expect them to come home and salute you and say, “Mother, father, today I was taught to do things the white devil way, but do not worry as I will never stray from filial piety.”
Unfortunately, it’s hard to meld the old and new world values. And so, for many years, I did what most normal kids would do. I mixed them up. I approached things emotionally when I should have approached them objectively, and vice versa. It wasn’t until I was 16 or so when I realized how meaningful it was to touch someone you love. How contact, even through a few layers of cloth and fleece, could reassure yourself and those that you touch. It’s a mutual thing. Prior to that, I don’t remember ever giving my mom or dad a hug. I never shook hands with friends, or tussled with them for fun.
When I got into a long term relationship, that’s when the floodgates to physical contact opened. I’m talking about touching in purely non-sexual terms here, folks. A simple holding of hands, or a big hug, or even a tickle here and there can communicate so much. And as most relationships do, mine ended, and with that the touching ended. It was strange to go back into isolation. I might as well have been in prison, cut off from the outside world except through bulletproof glass and steel bars: Seeing, but not feeling.
I’ve come to realize that I miss it. Even worse, I’ve lost my “touch”, so to say. Touching someone is once again strange to me, kind of like dancing with that shy girl in PE 8 with the cold clammy hands. Except I’m the girl with cold clammy hands. It’s sad. It’s funny, most people miss the intimacy of relationships, the passion and/or romance, or the moments shared with a significant other. I miss the touch. Of having a warm body pressed against me, a light kiss, a playful slap on the arm.
You touch, in order to feel. I’ve come to realize that right now, I’m feeling nothing.
Is there anyone out there?
Where have all the updates gone?
I wish I had more time or something to write about. Just the usual for me. I’m still testing the limits of my management skills. I’m balancing about 20 things on my to-do list with ample opportunity for praise, feedback, reprimanding, and plain ol’ chewing the fat with people.
The Brick Testament
September 30, 2004
The Brick Testament. Bible stories, Lego, graphic depictions. What better way to use this harmless Danish toy? Oh man, this particular picture will be etched in my mind forever.
4 Years
September 10, 2004
Today is our 4 year anniversary!
We’re spending the weekend at a couple of resorts at the southern tip of Wakayama – Shirahama and Kushimoto. We may visit Adventure World but even if we don’t, I highly recommend that you visit the website and read through the English; it’s very funny.
By the way, we’re going closer to the epicenter of the earthquakes and since we’re going to be on the coastline, we’ll be prone to tsunamis too. If we don’t come back, we probably fell into a crevice that opened up. Swallowed by the Earth, we’ll explore underground civilizations while saving the surface people from impending doom.
Happy 4 years honey!
Picture; 1000 words
September 03, 2004
I’ve been hit with a lack of ideas about what to write. Everything I want to write about tends to inflame me and makes me think about making fun of people. I don’t need any more of that on my page.
Here are some pictures instead:
extreme
August 31, 2004
Well from the feedback from my previous post, I can say that the people who thought I was being too mean are all morons who don’t really know me.
Of course I don’t mean what I said. In the interest of sparking thought and discussion, I wrote that piece in a more polarized voice than normal. If I come off sounding like a dick to you, then chances are, you didn’t know me at all anyway. If you did know me, you’ll know what I am in real life: a big pussy who can’t even get rid of people who talk too much. (I’m much too polite).
Not that I really care anyway, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are several factors involved in considering another’s opinion that conflicts with mine.
- Who are you? Are you a stranger? Are you a friend? Are you a good friend? Are you a really good close friend? Are you my lover? There’s a progression of what matters more.
- Is what you’re saying really different than what I’m saying? In that is your view even possible? I’m rarely wrong, remember. There are some fundamental truths that will never change for me, no matter who you are.
- What kind of mood am I in? I think that makes a big difference. Just today I was approached by someone who wanted to complain about doing this person’s damn job. I just snapped at her because I was in a shitty mood.
Sigh. I’m so disillusioned with so much.
Oh Dennis Where Art Thou?
August 05, 2004
I thought you were supposed to be back in Vancouver on Monday or Tuesday? What’s up? I haven’t heard from you. Look, a whole update dedicated to finding out where you are.
Under Construction
July 23, 2004
Well I’ve finally updated the webcam. This time I’ve taken a picture from ancient times and thrust it into that little box down there. It’s a picture of Dennis, myself, and Justin when we were in grade 11… circa 1997 I guess.
I’ve decided to go trek Mt. Fuji sometime soon but with whom, when, how, and why I don’t know. Perhaps it’s in faint hope of catching the Brocken Effect like these lucky asses did?
The damn photo gallery is finally fixed. Turns out the the permissions for all the files where suddenly changed. It was such a simple fix really but before I realized what it was, I went and lost all the writing that went with the pictures. Curses! I’m slowly in the process of rewriting it all. In the meantime, you dirty pervs can still enjoy the picture of me going down the waterslide since I’m topless.
I’ve neglected to mention that my little sister has started a blog! Or rather, I started it up and put a gun to her head and said, “Type… now”. So go leave nice little comments there.
And I’ve updated the links to include more people’s sites. I guess I’ll plug Mike’s travel site since it features some pretty good information about Osaka. I have a site at virtualtourist.com too but it contains nothing.
And this month is probably one of the busiest in terms of visitors. Four good friends will be visiting Osaka in these next two weekends. I’ll be having plenty of drinks and snapping lots of pictures I hope. Sign up now for bootleg copies of Dennis’ performance in Osaka!
Oh God I am 24 years old now too… I’d write about what I did on my birthday but I’d be banned from most countries since it involved naughty naughty things.
ebb and flow
July 15, 2004
My current and previous jobs have taught my a lot of things about interpersonal communication that I will take with me forever. However, the most important lesson I learned from both these places is that life isn’t static and constant, instead, it ebbs and flows as much as the tides or full moon.
In both these jobs, I’ve seen many friends come and go. That’s the nature of both these places. I shared great times with great friends only to have them say goodbye in a few months or a year. Although I don’t believe in goodbyes (I believe in “See ya later”), I know inside that I will never see most of these people again in my life.
It took a change in attitude to adjust to the situation. I remember my first month at the ELI very well. I remember meeting two Korean students whom became very good friends of mine. I remember visiting their place nearly every weekend for a homecooked dinner and as much booze and cigarettes as I wanted. I became really close to them and felt like my first love stabbed me in the ass when they returned home. After that, I developed a sort of wall so that I could never feel like that again.
Slowly through the years though, I’ve realized that friends coming and going, loved ones being born and dying, and things fading in and fading out are all part of life. The process is usually a very long drawn one but once in awhile, things happen suddenly. Most of us are at a loss on how to deal with sudden changes in our lives and become extremely depressed. While I don’t hold myself to a higher standard nor am I apathetic when something happens, I try to deal with the situation in a natural way. It was going to happen, sulking won’t benefit anything, and I have many more things to look forward to.
I’m writing this update knowing that during my visit to Canada last week, I saw my grandmother for probably the last time. I’m saddened that someone who had a big hand in raising me will be dying but I also know death is as natural as birth. Should there be an afterlife, we’ll all meet and speak of old times. Should there not be, well then I won’t have to worry when bacteria start munching on my beautiful skin.
In addition, I’ve been in Japan for nearly two years now and I’ve said “bubbye” to many people. Thankfully, most were ones whom I didn’t know very well and therefore I didn’t care. However, I’ve become “attached” to some and I know they will have to leave Japan and go onto their next thing. I don’t look forward to that day but you gotta do what you gotta do right?
Still, a true friend, I’ve noticed, will always be a true friend no matter where you are and how long you haven’t seen each other. And the ones who don’t, well, they can kiss my shining, sentimental arse.
Edit – 2005/09/22
Here are some pictures from my visit with friends and family.
Leaving on a jet plane
July 08, 2004
Well my short return home has drawn to an end. I’m on the plane in about 12 hours to return to the mundane, yet very happy little life that I have forged for myself in Japan. In these 6 days, I’ve done all that I had set out to do, save for a few things to buy. In the end, the rather expensive airplane ticket was worth it since it let me do some important things.
Primarily, I got to see my grandmother everyday while I was here. Her condition has been between bismal and upbeat. Yesterday she had a tube inserted directly into her stomach so that they can feed her. She had been on the malnutritious drips for the past week and was pretty much just wasting away. The doctor wouldn’t place a tube via esophagus because the cancer had grown too much. Anyway, with this stomach tube, she’ll have some more time. I jumped on the airplane expecting her to go at any time and I leave knowing she has a bit more time. (How much time I have no idea – the doctor is rather vague ALL the time).
Nxt, I saw some people whom I haven’t seen in a long time. I also didn’t have the time to see people I would have liked to see too. For those I saw – thank you for making this unexpected visit so much fun and I hope to see you soon again. For those I missed, I’m sorry I missed you.
did quite a lot of shopping – mostly for entertainment. I bought a couple Gamecube games, a couple PC games, and a couple of books. I will also be bringing back a few pictures that were printed and some that I took.
I’m feeling a range of emotions from happy to sad. I don’t even know how to feel now. I’m pretty damn tired from running around everyday all week so I wasn’t in a very good mood for yet another huge family dinner. For reasons I can understand, our entire extended has been seeing each other a lot more. In the past, we’d barely see one another 2 or 3 times a year. I even got to hang out with cousins whom I rarely ever see. It’s weird that I don’t really know my own relatives.
See you back in Japan.
hurry
July 02, 2004
I will be going back to Vancouver for about 5 days. Unfortunately, I return not in happy spirits because I’m returning to see my grandmother for what may very well be the last time. She has been ill for awhile as I mentioned before. Her condition does not look good so I am going to rush home. As much as I would like to meet my friends, I don’t think I’ll have the time nor the right mood to do so. They’ll all forgive me.
scary
June 22, 2004
Someone’s been putting my full name into search engines lately. Who’s out there? Secret admirer? Arch nemesis? Someone looking for another who shares my name? I wonder…
webcam down gallery up
June 07, 2004
I tried using my quickcam yesterday and for some reason it’s not being recognized by windows. I haven’t used it in awhile but I haven’t jostled or dropped it lately either. Weird. So maybe the webcam will be stuck until I get it fixed or get a new one. I spent all night last night getting a new photo gallery up. It’s up! I’ve uploaded a bunch of pictures so enjoy. Don’t be surprised if the skin keeps changing because I haven’t found one I particularly love yet. I hope everything works.
Studying Pays Off
June 05, 2004
Well, first an official welcome to the new site. Welcome. Sorry about the comments that force you to either register with Blogger or post anonymously (again, just sign your comment with your name). It’s just easier for me, the point-and-click webpage dude, to have everything in one place. The dotComments fucked up too much.
I’ve been studying Japanese (sort of) for about a year now. I take a weekly lesson but I’ve missed scores of lessons due to laziness, being sick, and some other unfortunate things. A couple nights ago, I visited the BC Provincial Exams page and looked at the Japanese Provincials for the past couple of years. I was so happy when I realized I could easily pass the test and probably get a good score too. My one year of studying was equivalent to years of studying in highschool. It goes to show how shit rigid, structured learning institutes are.
Tonight the woman and I are going to watch The Day After Tomorrow. I’m sure what everyone says about the storyline is true but damn it looks cool to see New York covered in snow like that. The woman is speaking to herself while naked right now. It’s cute in a scary, let’s-send-her-to-an-asylum way.
Hot
May 31, 2004
Agh it’s been getting really hot and humid already! Yesterday I was all grumpy and pissy at the woman because of the weather. We ended up having a great hot pot lunch with the woman’s mother, getting insurance for Saipan, and doing a tad of shopping again. Only 11 more days before going… I can’t wait.
Other than that, I’ve been playing Pikmin, which Dan graciously lent me. I’m at the final boss but didn’t kill him yet due to sheer boredom. I’ll get that big ugly bulb later.
I have a new webpage design that is 95% complete. I don’t know if I’ll use it now or when I switch hosts. This host is gone by the end of June so I don’t know.
Ok. I just wanted to write something here before getting ready for work. Bye.
Eating Voyeur
May 21, 2004
I like watching the woman eat ever since our first date at Cow’s and at a shitty bubble tea place. You can tell a lot about a person from the way they eat. The woman, for example, eats quite intently but at the same time, her eyes wander all over the place and she likes to alternate when eating. A bite of this, a nibble of that, a sip of that. Her eating style is like a complicated ballet routine which looks random but in fact it’s so very coordinated. It describes her personality fairly well I think.
I on the other hand, am very focussed when eating. I will eat all the vegetables/salad first. I will then eat the glucose rich food (the rice, noodle, or bread). I will eat small bites of the main course (meat, seafood) alongside the glucose rich food but I will save the majority of it for the end. After all the food has been eaten, I will then consume the soup. It’s very structured, conservative, and it’s a pattern I’ve noticed since I was about 11. It describes me very well too.
I can’t speak for the woman but for myself – everything is black and white for me. The salad is salad. The rice is rice. I am right. I am wrong. You should do this, she should do that. There is no gray area. I am very predictable according to my friends. I’m rather conservative for a 23 year old too – I believe and uphold in many old fashioned values I guess.
Now, as I’m writing this, I’m deviating from my normal eating habits. I have in front of me half a honeydew melon. Normally, I would cut it into perfectly equal slices and consume the fruit from right to left. Today, I just pulled out a spoon and I literally told myself to “dig in”. I guess everyone’s entitled to a wild side.
The Stupid Factor
May 19, 2004
I remember chatting with Dennis not long ago about how stupid it is that companies keep putting out ancient games like pacman, galaga, tetris, dig dug, etc. and just improve the graphics or add some options? And why do people keep buying the same game?
As you all know, I have a Gamecube now and today after work, I went to Den Den Town again and bought myself some games. One game was dirt cheap. It’s called, “Space Raider” and it said on the cover, “Shooting Game”. I figure it was something like those side scrolling arcade games. The screenshots on the back don’t really show the game much. There is one screen of the actual game and the rest are all of the intro. Be warned – this is a sign that the game sucks.
I had a bad feeling on the way home that I just bought Space Invaders for Gamecube… I mean, “Space Raider”, no good screen shots of the game, the game was dirt cheap (1000 yen)…
Sure enough. It is Space Invaders. It’s slightly cooler – you play characters who side scroll and shoot wave upon wave of hideous alien crawlies. You can upgrade the weapon too. When it comes down to it though… I am so fucking stupid.
News!
May 16, 2004
Ok, first, Dennis, since there’s no news, there will be no news flashes. I’m not going to create news like some network news. The biggest news today was that Eri and I saw about 5 crazy people today who inexplicably laugh or did something rather weird by themselves.
Today we bought a Nintendo Gamecube. It’s my first console purchase in years. The last console I bought was a Super Nintendo. I’m rather dismayed by Nintendo after today’s purchase. The box didn’t include an AV cable. How could you sell everything but the AV cable? I see parents buying their kids a Gamecube only to disappoint them at night because they can’t play anything without the blasted cable.
Yesterday we saw the movie to end all movies. Dawn of the Dead is undoubtedly the coolest movie I’ve ever seen. It had tonnes of guns, millions of zombies, people dying, a dog, no unnecessary plot, and a pair of tits at the end to round things up. This movie is the pinnacle of entertainment.
Next, let’s welcome to the fray, Eugenio. He’s decided to start a blog after some strong coercion by me (“Why don’t you make a webpage? Try www.blogger.com. It’s easy.”) So if any ELI people read this page for some weird reason, go see Eugene’s page.
I’m actually working on a design now. I’m trying out some pastel colors and so far I’m unpleased as it all turns out rather flaming. Maybe pastel colors aren’t right for me.
Blast It!
May 03, 2004
Well at least it took a month before I fucked up. Tonight hosted a monthly meeting with all of us and some higher ups. It was my first of these meetings and I somehow managed to be the last person to be there. They had to send someone down to make sure I was aware of where the place was. I hustle up and make a rather choked comment like, “Sorry, I’m the new guy” and got some chuckles. Ugh. I apologized afterwards and promised it wouldn’t happen again now knowing that everyone meets there and not where I was.
I guess this wasn’t that bad a fuck up. It could’ve been a lot worse.
One Month
May 01, 2004
April has been one long, challenging month. The first two weeks in my new position were marked with very little in duties. I felt people had higher expectations for me for some reason. I don’t like being treated like, “Oh he’s new so let’s take it easy on him”. I prefer, “I don’t care if he’s new, he should be doing as well as we are”. Since I and the other new people didn’t know what we were supposed to do, nothing was really done. It wasn’t until the second week until a million new people came into the company and began their training. Suddenly we found ourselves doing a million things at once. After two of the busiest weeks, I feel rather satisfied in what I’ve accomplished. In fact, I have to say job satisfaction has shot up two fold.
Anyway, how did I repay myself for a month of feeling like I actually worked? I go and have some yakiniku (bbq meat) and eat something bad and get diarrhea! Yay for diarrhea. It’s day 2.5 of diarrhea and I’m feeling like shit. Hehe. I’m trying to drink lots of water and sport drinks and I’m even eating but to no avail. I’m thinking it’s probably something more along the lines of gastroenteritis but I’m trying to fight this one out with diet and mind-over-matter control (“Don’t shit. Don’t shit. Don’t shit”).
Congratulations, jack ass.
My poor baby webpage
April 19, 2004
I’ve been neglecting my baby webby again. I’m sorry baby. You are my portal to this invisible medium of communication and pornography. For these two things, you sit on my good list.
I don’t even know what’s keeping me busy. I’ve been trying to absorb and learn as much as I can at work and sometimes I go in early to prepare for something. Out of work, I’ve been just doing filler things to keep myself busy for some reason. I watched some Jet Li movies just because I miss Chinese. I went to the zoo with Eri last weekend, hence the cool picture of the tiger up top.
And I’m out of words to say again.
It’s not writer’s block. Writer’s block implies there are words there to write. The words don’t even exist right now.
Oh, I found a free substitute to Coast to Coast AM’s paid streaming service – www.Fatemag.com. I remember snagging up a few copies of this mag a long time ago but it was too expensive.
Edit – 2005/09/22
The picture of the tiger
Long Wait Over
April 15, 2004
My grandmother has esophagial cancer, much like Eri’s father 6/7 months ago. At my grandmother’s age (83), it’s too dangerous to operate so they’re going to treat it with other means. From what my mother said, they’ll try to reduce the size of the cancer so that she can eat solid food. I guess the good news is that nothing bad will happen immediately. Seeing how things turn out, I will probably postpone going back to Vancouver until summer. We’ll see.
A bit of good news is that I finally got my Saturday and Sunday weekend. I now have a proper weekend! I will be able to spend more time with my woman.
Unfortunate News
April 11, 2004
Sadly, I do have news to write about now. 2 days ago, my family found out that my grandmother has cancer. Cancer and tumour are two words that I have heard way more than normal in the past several months. It’s also a word that causes a lot of headache and pain. The only information I know was from my sister, whom I talked to today, and apparently they’re going to take my grandmother to see another doctor for their opinion. I have no idea what’s going to happen after that. My gran is 80+ years old by the way.
Much like all unpleasantness, this has caught at a very busy time. I’m thinking of going back to Vancouver but I’m not sure when. Hopefully I can do it either very soon or very late after – ticket prices and schedules are really fucked for the month of May due to holidays that go on around here.
You’ll understand the continuing lack of updates.
LOTGD Gone
April 01, 2004
Sorry but it killed my webpage and I’m not giving up my host to play a game that died so long ago. Don’t blame my host and don’t say I should get a new host. I never asked to have it installed anyway. It was a fun month and it ended with me being number 1!
Today was my first official day in my new position but people won’t really know until tomorrow when it will be blatantly obvious… I can’t wait until “friends” treat me differently. I already had some weird vibes today. I don’t mind sarcasm and some jokes as long as it’s all in positive/friendly light. Oh well, nobody I couldn’t live without anyway.
Brain Dump
March 30, 2004
So really I have not updated because I don’t have anything to write about. I will officially begin in my new position on Thursday and I’m getting training in the meantime. I’d write more about it but I’d rather not. There are too many bitter people who would probably love to read about things like that. I am bored stiff. I need a new game. I went browsing in the stores here and all imported games have been translated into Japanese and cost 2-3 times more than what they would online. No way am I paying a hundred bucks for Warcraft III. I’ve been pondering about making a new webpage from scratch but I’m lost as to what I want. LoGD is getting boring but it’s become so routine now and I strive on routine and consistency in my life. The weather has been becoming much better – this morning was so nice that I’d just opened my balcony doors and let the sun and wind blow all morning. I have a day off tomorrow and I’m hoping I get the same weather. I think I might tote my lovely camera around and snap shots at everything and I mean everything. Wow, even in a brain dump am I having trouble thinking of things to write.
I guess I’m trying to be Organized Man lately. I’m trying to catalog and categorize and organize and detail everything in my apartment and all sorts of notes from my Japanese class and from work. Organized Man fights the dastardly Messy Man and Chicken Scratch Man.
Writing sucks.
Done
March 18, 2004
I found out I got the promotion today. Woohoo.
LORD (or LOGD)
March 08, 2004
It goes without saying that I’m the biggest geek on the game right now. I’m at level 12 while everyone is about 5-7. I just looked at the news and I’m on day 31 while others are around 18-20. That means I’ve played way more than others. I can’t help it! It just so happens that the four game days per real day sort of coincide with my schedule. Well, I had to adjust my schedule a bit to fit in all game turns on a couple of days (sleep a bit later, go to work a bit later) but for the rest of the week, I just play right before the day changes and then right after.
For some reason, the level master kept attacking me when I wasn’t ready so for three or four days, I kept going in the forest unable to level up. When I finally upgraded the weapon and armour, I kicked his ass and found I had enough experience for an additional two levels. Then the next day, after several thrill seeking, I’m ready for two more but lost the second.
So I don’t know how many of the players actually read my webpage but that’s my strategy so far. Thrillseek until I have enough experience for the level up, then slum/look to save up gold to upgrade gear. For me, it seems to be the fastest way. I am never going mining again… I’m 0/2 at the mines. Just doesn’t seem worth it.
I have killed off the ADMIN character because for some reason people were attacking the invincible player… perhaps in hopes to gain his massive holdings. In his stead, my character has superuser status but I won’t abuse this power. It’s not fun that way… yet. Superusers can pretty much edit any part of the game, including users and their stats. So, if one were really inclined to do so, one change give oneself a thousand charm and five thousand attack power. Or one can make another have two charm and one attack power. One can be very selfish and cruel. My character remains fleshy and mortal with no artificial changes, sweeteners, or colors. (I’m just 5 levels higher than the next player heh heh). Fear not for I remain a fair and just geek who intends to make fun of your spelling mistakes.
Jeez, what a geeky update today.
Dethforce kisses Violet and then slays Adonis
March 02, 2004
Justin has worked his magic and placed Legend of the Green Dragon on this here site. If you know what 9600 bauds, 14.4, or 28.8 mean, you will know LOGD. If not, then you are probably too young or had a life when you were a teenager.
Orkut
February 25, 2004
I’ve been playing with it for the past few days. It’s not exactly fun, I mean, it’s just writing about yourself, uploading pictures, and adding friends’ emails. I like it more than Friendster because it wasn’t a big fad that everyone just jumped on. I hate bandwagons. I sent out mass mail messages to friends but I realized after sadly waiting for a long time that no one got the invitation (confirmed by a few friends). So I’ve been re-sending invitations and if I happen to send you two invitations, sorry. You can rest assured I won’t send another. So far I’ve put up a few pictures over there. I think I’m neglecting this webpage now though. I really don’t know what to do here anymore. I’m thinking of yet another new look because I’m bored of how complicated it is to change small things here. We’ll see.
New webcam of the woman. There was one with the both of us together but I looked too goofy.
Oh yeah I’m still not smoking – it’ll be two weeks come Friday. I’m pretty happy because I haven’t had any strong urges to smoke. The strangest thing is the small things which make me feel like smoking. I make a cup of coffee and almost instinctively go to the balcony in preparation for a cigarette. I then realize, “Hey. I don’t have to brave the cold winds anymore, I can enjoy coffee… indoors.”
What a boring update.
Ugh
February 15, 2004
Along with some chocolates, the woman gave me her cold for this Valentine’s. I was beginning to feel like shit on Friday before sleeping and when I woke up on Saturday, I was a bag of shit. I spent the whole day sleeping, coughing, hocking multicolored discharge, and just feeling like ass. I did feel much better at night – I regained my appetite for about two hours and ate everything in sight. This morning, I woke up feeling much better but my throat is still sore and I’m still hearing the wheezy sounds when coughing.
I’m not going to work today. I guess there’s a silver lining even in being sick – I hate Sundays and will not mind not working.
Ugh.
Awaken!
February 03, 2004
I have internet once again! I’m in my new apartment now. I have to go to work now too.
Update later. Bye.
The Big Clean
January 14, 2004
So the comments haven’t been working for several days now but I’m too busy lately to even begin to wonder why. I’ll be starting to organize shit to move into my apartment but in the meantime I have to clean this old dump for the next sucker. Sucker! I just might fuck dotComments and find something else. Or it might be my host… their website has changed and it doesn’t even look like they offer any services anymore. For safety, I just backed up my shit. Go figure.
A List of Very Uncomfortable Things
January 11, 2004
- Wet socks
- Eating a great meal at a fine restaurant but then finding out something disagrees with you and you end up shitting all that food out… violently
- Washing the dishes and grabbing something squishy
- Eating cheese that looked a lot more delicious than it tastes
- Waking up to your neighbour’s horrible loogie hocking noises
- Stepping in doo doo
- Cleaning the washroom (if God had meant for me to wash washrooms, he would’ve made soapscum smell like roses)
- Dogs licking your face
- Tight underwear
- The runs
- A combination of the previous two
And more!
Happy New Year Folks
January 01, 2004
We’re a little faster ahead here in Japan but yours will be in a few hours I suppose so happy new year. It’s a fresh slate for all of you with shitty things last year and it’s a chance to do even better this year if you had a great year last year. 2003 went by so quickly and I’ve not much to show for so this year I want to improve my Japanese more, take more pictures with my cool camera, and maybe do some more travelling.
So far, I’ve got Korea planned for this month and Eri and I were talking about maybe visiting New Zealand to see her old homestay family and to see what all the fuss is about down there.
I can’t wait for doom 3 to come out- it’ll definitely be THE video game of the year for me. This I already know.
I’m hoping to visit home maybe a bit later. I wanted to go back sooner but some unfortunate unforeseen circumstances caused me to use up my holidays rather quickly. My new batch will be here in April.
Anyway today I’m doing the temple thing with the girl’s family. See you soon pretties.
Quake 3 Urban Terror?
December 28, 2003
Anyone up for it? (This mostly means you Dennis but if anyone wants to play…) I can’t play fast paced dm games since I live an ocean away but some strategic gunfire and sniping should be ok maybe. It’s a crazy 300mb download but hey, that’s why we’re on broadband right? Anyone? Hello?
Merry Boxing Day
December 26, 2003
Yeah while you’re having Christmas, I’m having my Boxing Day. Christmas for me was sort of half boring. I had to work on Christmas! Yes, they do that in this country. I had some coffee with some cohorts afterwards and then went home. Happy 23rd to my baby who shares birthdates with Jebus. We went to the Hard Rock last night and had some Christmas chicken dinner and an appy platter. That was the extent of my Christmas. Still happy though. Today is my first of 11 no work days! Woohoo! I changed the left bar a bit – it’s for my sister really who couldn’t find my email even if I tattooed it on her palm. Replace the [at] with @, of course. Check out my camera on the tripod yo. Off to the cool party tomorrow. Ah yes, Sunny got himself a domain… if he’d only update now.
Merry Christmas, fools and Happy New Year.
No Title
December 23, 2003
Last night I had my first ever kids lesson. I had been wanting some change from the normal stuff I do so I decided (in July) that I wanted to do kids lessons. After a 5 month wait (which is really fast compared to other things), I finally got “trained” and had the lesson yesterday. Most people abhor the thought of doing kids lessons because there are some “special” kids out there that really make your life a living hell for those long 40 minutes. The teachers I’ve talked to who do kids lessons seem to really love it but hate the special kids.
For my first lesson, they handpicked a student who was described in her communicative ability test as, “the model kids lesson student”. She was 11 years old and was as bright as a 200 watt bulb. She was so smart and cute that the 40 minutes went by so quickly. Not only did she laugh at all my retarded antics, she used the language that was introduced too (that being four simple prepositions of “under, in, on, beside”). We played a couple games of Pokemon Hangman (ingenious new game concocted by yours truly) and Othello. I know they give really good kids for the first two lessons but wow, this 11 year old really impressed me and alleviated a lot of fears about teaching kids. I may soon learn to enjoy kids… *shudder*.
There are two more working days this year and then I’m off for 11 days. Eleven full resting days to ponder about the myriad of happenings this year and relax. There’ll be a semi-big party on Saturday with my Japanese friends (I’ll be the token foreigner!!) and some other odds and ends.
I’m going to Korea at the end of January with a friend. I just got the holidays approved and now I’ll have to buy tickets and shit. Should be fun though.
I’m bored today and no one is online. Sorry I missed your message Dennis, I was playing Red Alert 2 and I think I saw your message right as you logged off. Rats.
Finale
December 20, 2003
So today might well be the last time I go to the girl’s company. Yesterday and the day before, I helped clear shit off the shelves and rummage through stuff for any salvageables. I found a replica Beretta and nabbed it. It’s sitting menacingly on my shelf. It looks so damn cool. Throughout my childhood, I’ve had in my posession guns but nothing as realistic as this. The closest things I had were Super Soaker 30s and some of those plastic frisbee guns. Oh, the Nintendo Zapper came pretty close too.
Today, we’re going to keep an eye on some dudes who are going to cut through the shelves and clear out garbage. The shelves are essentially metal frames bolted to the wall so there was no feasible/economical way we could’ve gotten rid of them. It’ll be cool, they’re going to use welding guns to cut through the metal. I’m hoping to get a picture from afar of the sparks and shit.
All I can say is… it’s sort of sad and happy that the place is done with.
I bought a camera bag and a cheap tripod yesterday. It’s sweet.
Did You Just Say Parakeet?
December 10, 2003
Oh man. Oh man. Strong Sad on caffeine is definitely awesome. It was one of the best sbemails ever. I totally have to set this up… I’ll buy the coffee, someone find a bag of sad over and we’ll inject caffeine into his bloodstream. Oh man that was cool.
And did anyone else think that video of Super Mario Bros. 3 being finished in 11 minutes was amazing? It was more than amazing, it was… divine!
Blechy Update
December 08, 2003
I have really been meaning to update but everytime I load up blogger, my mind draws a blank. I quickly withdraw from my original intention of writing.
I wish I had something interesting to say about what’s been happening lately but sorry, shit out of luck. Work has been slightly more interesting ever since I passed my demo lesson test. My schedule (and therefore my overall sanity) has been nicer and lighter. I’m getting “training” for other types of lessons and it’s looking to be a busy run right up until the holiday.
This year luck let me pop her cherry. I work on Christmas Day but I get the next two days off as my normal weekend. The holiday begins right
after that so I get a slight 2 day headstart. I return to work on the 6th and work 3 days until the weekend. It sure beat last year. I worked Christmas last year and got a full 8 group lessons while everyone else had a breezy 2 or 3 lesson day – the only reason I got the royal shaft was because I was still on “probation”. People on probation (during my day) got shit on pretty badly. Now the newbies get a slightly easier start. I heard it’s because the new teachers have been getting complaints and not because the company had a change of heart and decided to let the fragile, new teachers have an easier time adjusting to the place.
I’ve only had a couple of chances to use my new camera and I have one complaint about it already. It’s too damn hard to use! I’m not talking about the controls or button layouts, I’m talking about getting a nice clear shot. Many of my shots are slightly out of focus or blurred because I can’t hold the damn thing still for the 1/10th of a second. For the life of me, my hands shake more than Tokyo during an earthquake. I think I’ll have to get a tripod or else have anyone who views my photos suspect me of being a Parkinsons sufferer. The very few pictures that aren’t blurry though, really rule.
I’m hoping for more practice during this holiday break. If we’re lucky, I want to travel somewhere close with the girl and take some pictures of some sort of traditional Japanese thing.
I hope to update before Christmas but if I keep up my pace lately, then I’ll have to wish y’all a Merry Christmas. Did anyone other than the girl notice the cute ass Santa hat on my webpage?
Growing Up
November 28, 2003
One update. That’s it.
Anyway. Do you remember the day you changed from being a child to, dare I say, a man? There are basically four stages in a life: kid, awkward kid-adult, adult, old fart. Life as a kid was sweet. You go to stupid elementary school where you’re heads over everyone else because they were just stupid. All that fun reading you did at home at night really paid off – you knew more about everything than everyone else. Best of all, you were cute because you were a kid – there are no such things as ugly kids.
Then one day, you grew up into an awkward kid-adult. You know the phase – you’re too smart and ugly to remain a kid and yet you’re too short, stupid, and rash to be an adult. You went through highschool hating every single minute of it. You guaged the stress and happiness meter by the number of zits on your face at any given point of time. You gawked at every human that did not carry a penis and wish you could have intercourse with them. You wonder why everyone got girlfriends while you’re stuck at home playing stupid video games and listening to your mother bitch about you not vacuuming the living room or something. Life sucked ass.
Thankfully, that phase ended and even though it ended painfully, well, who gives a fuck. The worst was over and now begins the living. You’re an adult. You’re legal. You’re kosher. You’re cool. Whatever you’re doing, it’s cool. By now you’re grown up, filled in, cleared up, a little wiser, a little more handsome. You might even have had some action or done some pretty cool shit. It’s all good. This is when you just do something you don’t like for a very long time, get some money, and hope the damn neighbor’s dog doesn’t shit again on your lawn. Look out world!
Old fart entry is empty because I don’t know my shit yet about this era.
—
I can pinpoint the exact moment of my life when I ceased being a kid-adult and became an adult. I remember it felt as if the delicate chemical balance in my brain had suddenly shifted and the tides had turned for rationale and maturity. I hated my teen years, there were so many things I did and did not do that I would love to change. There were so many people I liked and disliked, talked to and ignored, respected and looked down on, and all that. Looking back now, 99% of all that didn’t make any difference in the long run. The long run for me only ended with about 2 paragraphs of real lessons learned.
As an adult, I suddenly found myself a fountain of wisdom that I could tap into and also share with loved ones. Wisdom comes from experience and I think I’ve had my fair share of experience. I’ve seen a lot of shit that I wouldn’t hope on my worst enemy. I remember also noticing how even though I had become an adult, not many people around me had done so… early bloomer maybe? It’s been a few years down the road now and a lot of the people have caught up but there are still a couple who were left behind. You can easily tell who passed or not – it’s in their actions and words, in fact, it reaks from their body.
As and adult, I learned how to love, how to learn, how to grow, and how to let go. A lot of extra layers like caring what other people thought of me, or trying to keep up with others on something, or imitating the successes of others were suddenly shed, like the dried out exoskeleton of a tarantula. A lot of wild and untamed energy suddenly became subservient to my will. It was a matter of control I guess.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then my friend, you were left behind.
Friday
1 day weekends suck.
I stare at this empty space at blogger and I’m trying to fill it with wonderful words to entertain my visitors but I’m sorry: you get nothing!
It’s catch up time soon and I’m just pooped.
Journal
November 24, 2003
Well this will be part one of my update and I’d like to get this off my mind first. Saw the third Matrix. It had nice eye candy… guns and dragonball-esque fight scenes. Storyline? Simpler than the second, lacked the originality of the first. Predictable ending and fates of the main characters.
This week was your basic work and then more work at another place.
The weekend saw another ELI survivor coming into Osaka. Kyle, whom has been in Japan for the past three months, came way over to Osaka and visited us kansai peeps for a few days. We had a great dinner and rounds of drinks and good laughs on Friday and Sunday (today) saw more drinks and a very patriotic rendition of Oh Canada on the karaoke thing in our room. I also met some new friends who live around here – our Osaka family is growing once again. Today we saw a room of 13 people including me and that was without a few too.
I got to use my camera over the weekend too. Most were just point and shoot shots and I just left the settings on AUTO. It was just easier that way. I also intelligently used the flash to get rid of horrid facial shadows and ridges. I still haven’t got around to practicing but it will come soon. The first thing will be to practice holding still. The shutter speeds are too slow sometimes on AUTO and after having a few beers, it’s fucking hard to hold the camera still. I’m choked that some of the pictures are so blurred because of this. The video files are awesome but once again I hate hearing my voice… I sound so fucking annoying.
Ok anyway – that’s finished. I’m on the verge of writing down another big brain dump but I’m still grinding some gears about some things.
The Meatrix
November 17, 2003
Oh man! This was fun – Orwell’s Animal farm meets The Matrix, what do you get? The Meatrix. What a great way to spread ideas. I swear, the piggy was way better than Keanu Reeves will ever be.
Telephoto
November 15, 2003
Today I finally bought the the camera. It’s sweet. It’s nearing exactly what I want in a camera and no more will I suffer the horrible tendencies of my old digital camera. Today marks my entry into a world where point and click no longer apply. Today marks the step into a world where more logical thought must be given when taking a picture. A world where light, fill flashes, aperatures, shutter speeds, and photometry must be considered before every click.
This camera, while not as expensive as professional cameras, was a bit more than what I would’ve paid for a camera a while ago. It gives so much more control and also allows use of filters and other lenses. I’m still trying to learn everything but today I practiced taking pictures with long shutter speeds – basically for night shots. The shots look great except I can’t keep my hands still enough to capture a crisp, sharp picture. 2 seconds is a long time when you have to hold perfectly still.
I also bought a 128mb card today so now I’ll never have to worry about space anymore. It can also record AVIs but at 30fps and 320×240 res, it really eats up storage quickly. I can only get a bit over 4 minutes of video (with full audio) on an empty 128mb card. I only get 24s on the 16mb that came with the camera. Sure is fun to record video though.
Once I get some time and find some good subjects, I’m definitely going to post some pics. In the meantime, I’m trying to find any subtle differences between settings and reading a lot about digital shooting.
Remembrance
November 11, 2003
November 11 for me is not only Remembrance Day. I duly respect all the war veterans who fought for freedom in all wars. However, honestly, the wars we read about were a long time ago and don’t mean very much to me.
November 11 for me brings me back to 1999 because that was the day my best friend had a car accident that changed I think everyone’s lives. You see, this friend and I were extremely close. I couldn’t have thought of another person to, among other things, be my best man, be my son’s godfather, bring me home when I’m drunk, laugh at my when I get shot down by girls. His girlfriend was also another very close friend. The three of us were together hanging out and making fun of lesser people all the time.
That accident completely twisted the situation not so much because of the accident itself but more because of the aftermath that followed. He was in a coma for a week or two and during this time, there was utter hell as friends and family were found fighting over the pettiest of things. That really pissed me off. All I cared about was the welfare of my friend (at that point, his family didn’t tell any one of us his condition so we assumed the worst). While I was scared that I would be losing a friend, the assholes around me were fighting over, among other things, who was allowed to see him and who wasn’t, what she said and what he said, what to do with his money and things, finding new boyfriends, who disrespected whom. It was ridiculous. Had I had the emotional maturity and independence that I do now, I would’ve told them to shove things into places they shouldn’t speak of. After all, my priority was seeing my friend recover. Everything and everyone else was irrelevant at that point. (Read my Nov 15, 1999 update for some ideas of how I felt).
Now, being barely an adult, I was not exactly the most dependable person yet. I was completely distraught about my friend and I was tired of the bickering and fighting of those around me. Whenever I feel trapped in these situations, I close myself off – I don’t want to talk, I don’t want to go out, I don’t want to even see you. I just want to stay home and think my way out of things. During this time, the other friend and I had a falling out because while I wanted isolation, she wanted me to give emotional support. While I understand what she wanted, I could not do it because being there would be being subject to all the fighting and bitching that tired me out in the first place. She was in the center of many of the arguments.
One night, I remember talking to her on the phone and she was pretty much threatening me that if I don’t provide the care, the attention, and the energy (by “being a friend”), our friendship would be over. Now, at that point, I hated everyone who wasn’t the friend in the accident – but I didn’t feel it was warrant to end a very good friendship. So I said I would try my best to be there.
However, the next day, I find out she broke up with my friend. You see, he had awakened from the coma but had not regained full rational control – he was persistently calling her and I guess just being a big pain in the ass. She couldn’t take it so she had to break up. In my fragile little mind, I took this as her giving up on him. I thought this to be entirely hypocritical because just the night before, she was telling me something about me giving up on her. That was the last straw, I decided never to speak to her again. I would focus my attention on my friend whom was the one I cared about the most anyway.
I stuck by the friend for I think several more months. He had recovered miraculously and was adapting to a very different life (everything had changed). Unfortunately, somehow, he took a turn for the worse – he had always been a very smart, level headed individual but for reasons I don’t know – he turned to chemical substances. I remember getting some calls late at night asking me to drive him home because he was on some sort of substance and could not get himself home. I also remember getting a call saying I should go to his house because there were some guys who might want to start a fight with him over some ridiculous fight about cell phones or something. By this time, our friendship was strained, at best. We didn’t hang out much anymore.
I blame myself partly for this – he was, physically, still my friend. However, I noticed a lot of subtle changes in him mentally – I used to look up to him and thought of him as my big brother. At this time, I found the situation had reversed – he was a lot more immature and didn’t seem to know of behavior/consequence, action/reaction.
One of the last times we talked was when he called me and asked me to be at his house that day around evening. I had a midterm that night and would not miss it unless it was an emergency. I asked him what it was about and he said something along the lines, “You’ll know when you get here”. I told him I would not go unless he told me what it was about and I told him I had an exam that night. The reaction I got? As far as I can remember, he said, “You want to know what it’s about? I’m on heroin.” (or was it crack? It was something along those lines). The phone went dead after that.
Apparently (a friend relayed this to me), he had announced to family and friends that he had a serious drug problem that also brought along a financial problem. Yada yada yada. It really didn’t surprise me at this point.
I’m not the world’s cleanest boy scout, I smoke myself silly, I drink myself silly sometimes, I’ve tried a small selection of things I shouldn’t have, but I have never, nor will ever, touch anything as heavy as coke, heroin, or crack. I don’t blame him… he must’ve had his reasons. It easily could’ve been me had I been in that situation.
The last time I talked to this friend was at a new year’s party in my house. I got a call suddenly that night and he said he needed a place to “crash”. I said sure and in comes half a dozen people. It was not a fun night as many people were too piss drunk to realize their own actions. I will never host another big drinking party at my place because I never get drunk enough to enjoy it. I always worry about what people will do.
Anyway, that was a big brain dump. It is possibly the first time many of you read about this because I don’t remember talking to many of you about it. The reason I suddenly thought of this was because I’m comparing myself to this story and have I changed. The parallels are certainly here but my actions are completely different. I’ve given my girlfriend and her family everything that I could. In a way, I think I wanted to make up for the lack of giving those many years ago.
Raining
November 10, 2003
Finally a bit of time to relax. It’s been a very busy and tiring week no doubt. The funeral and other ceremonial dealings were quite draining. I helped as much as I could but I couldn’t fully participate in them since I was not a relative. The first few days, none of us slept very well. I got maybe 3 or 4 hours a day. The days after that were spent in their store cleaning and dealing with headaches about what to do. It has been an exhaustive week. Luckily I took a week off work because I knew it would tax me this much. I go back to work in two days which means I’ll have tonight and tomorrow to not do anything. Well actually, I have neglected my apartment for a couple months now – it needs a big big scrub down and I have a behemoth laundry pile that needs washing.
So it looks like they’re going to close their company soon. It’s a pity – a fully operational, profitable, fairly easy business and it’s going to be closed. I seriously considered taking over (the operational side anyway) had the father been well enough to teach me everything.
The new picture up top was taken by Eri’s dad while he was in Nagoya in August. We found his digital camera and two CF cards with pics in them. I made CD and today the pictures were printed. Some of them were very nicely taken! Here’s just one of them. I believe it’s a pic of Nagoya Castle.
The camera that I’ve been wanting to buy might have dropped in price slightly… I think I’ve decided to buy it even though it costs so frickin much. It’s much more than a nice consumer camera but not quite professional yet. I think it’s a good start. The best thing about it is the 10x optical zoom and pretty nice SLR lens. There is much more manual control than average consumer cameras but there’s only preset white balance and not much aperture settings to choose from… F2.8 to 3.5 I think… I don’t know, I might (probably will) buy it this week.
I’m sorry to all you folks who IM’d me only to not get any replies. I leave my computer on a lot and I forget to set those damn programs to Away sometimes. There were a few times when I was there but I just really did not feel like talking.
Anyway, I’m out of things to say now. More later.
Small Stories
I don’t know how he does it, but Derek Kirk Kim from Smallstories.com has done it again with his latest small story The Ten Commandments of Simon.
Outcome
November 05, 2003
At about 8:07 last night (Tuesday), Eri’s father passed away. He fought the infection that followed the surgery but his condition deteriorated fairly quickly. He died while in an unconscious slumber.
His heart stopped at about 4pm but the doctor gave an injection of some sort and got his heart to beat again but then the doctor told the rest of the family that he was going to die in 2-3 hours.
I came to the hospital literally 8 minutes late. The traffic was horrible. Eri and her mother were with the father as he slipped away.
The surgeon who operated sincerely apologized to the family and he was also in tears. I think he must feel responsible when really no one could’ve controlled the infection. Sometimes it’s just the right time to go I guess.
Eri and I stayed at the hospital last night to accompany her father’s body. While it is my belief that the body is just a shell and that a person is defined by their spirit or soul, I respect the belief of other cultures. There was a ceremony today and they will cremate the body tomorrow.
I firmly believe he is in a better place now where he can rest after fighting this for the past while.
Once again, thank you ever so kindly for all the well wishes and prayers. In due time we can all put this trying time behind us and begin to remember the good times from before.
Just When Things Were Looking Up
November 01, 2003
They fall right back down.
Yesterday was Friday and I spent the day where I usually spend my day offs now, helping out at my girlfriend’s store. They got a call from the hospital. It appears that the surgery, even though went well, had some complications. As I mentioned before, they had connected the esophagus to the intestines and had removed the stomach. However, it turned out that the connection didn’t heal over too well. Fluids such as saliva and were spilling out of the esophagus into the chest cavity. An infection occurred and it didn’t look good. He had a fever and had fallen unconscious. Also, he lapsed in and out of consciousness sometimes and was hallucinating and pulling out tubes and stuff. Not fun.
So I think last night everyone pretty much had thought the worst had come and we all went to the hospital at 2am. Eri and I stayed the night at the hospital and didn’t leave until 1pm today. Nothing worse happened – they had given antibiotics and also put him on the respirator. I have no idea how bad things are.
Anyway, I’m exhausted beyond exhaustion. I’m pretty sure I can say confidently that I have spent more nights in hospitals than the most of you and let me tell you out of experience – it’s very very not nice. We fell in and out of naps all night and all the while nurses and the doctors were walking in and out checking up on the dad. Hospitals at nights are also very creepy too.
I was asked if I wanted to continue working in their family business – if I would, they’d keep it open. The place makes a nifty profit and it’s just a shame to close a profitable company. Anyway, it hinged on the dad being able to teach us everything about the place. From where it stands now, they may have to close the place and I’ll have to keep to my teaching job (oh that will be great). I hate this feeling that everything in my life is out of my control – everything as it stands depends on the father.
I am one stressed out cheese bagel.
Quick Update
October 27, 2003
I only have 6 minutes before I leave to finish the second half of my split shift but this morning, Eri’s dad went into surgery at 9am. At around 1:30pm, Eri called and said that the surgery was successful. Funny thing though was that they removed the cancer and the ENTIRE stomach. That’s right. He is now less a stomach. They connected the esophagus directly to the small intestines. What this means is that he will have to eat more often in small amounts than before. I think something like 6 times a day at the least. Interesting stuff.
It’s great news that they were able to remove the cancer but now we have to wait and see if any cancer cells remained and if they will spread to other parts of the body. Thanks everyone for the happy thoughts – I am certain they made a difference in the greater scheme of things. Keep them coming!
Malloween!
October 22, 2003
Dennis didn’t like the teal on the left nor the boxy look so I says to him I says, “I’ll change the colors”. He says something about Halloween colors so blam! The ghost pic up top will take you to the ghost pic page. It’s in a week but Happy Halloween boys and girls. Halloween doesn’t exist here so that’s too bad.
A Better Change
October 21, 2003
Hit F5 a few times just in case but if you’re reading this then you’ll have noticed the difference.
I was planning a change in design for awhile now. The previous look made me dizzy. Now it’s a bit cleaner and easier to maintain and I can change sections quite easily. I always wanted to change pictures and colors to reflect new moods or maybe in celebration of holidays and what not. Now it’s much easier to do but whether I’ll do it remains to be seen. The picture at the top is nothing right now but if I find interesting pictures then it’ll link up to an enlargement. The webcam thumb also enlarges. By the way, those penguins are from the Osaka Aquarium I visited in March.
Now the three main parts of my webpage are not uniform anymore. That’s ok, my original intent was that those three parts were entirely different areas.
I’m dead tired. Nothing much – been helping out Eri’s family business. It’s too hard to explain what I do but there’s some physical labor involved. So basically after work I go and do some more work. It’ll all be worth it when I look back and think to myself, “I did the right thing by helping them out even though it drained me of energy during that time.” I think I’m getting some sort of monetary compensation too. Of course I refused because I was helping them for the sake of helping them but apparently they feel bad if I don’t take it. I don’t know though… don’t get me wrong I’d love to take it because, well, money CAN buy happiness (especially in this very consumeristic country).
Also, apparently I’m wrong about the tumor being benign. I think it’s cancer. The whole thing doesn’t look too good right now but I don’t know what to think. In less than a week he’ll go through the operation. Fingers crossed, prayers prayed, good thoughts sent, please.
Ack. Too tired to sound coherent anymore.
Here’s a fun link – Americakokki.com – I haven’t explored the whole site but the English lessons are awesome. It makes me feel proud to be teaching English. The comics were the kid dies for no reason is alright but got repetitive after the 11th one for me.
Update
October 17, 2003
So it’s been awhile.
First an update about Eri’s dad. Yesterday she told me they were going to operate at the end of this month. I’m no oncologist, I’m not even a lowly GP but I’m guessing since they are willing to operate, the tumor is probably benign or at least malignant but in early stages. Eri saw some pictures of the growth and it scared her into quitting smoking. She’s doing much better than I am. Well she smoked way less than I did. I’ll have to admit that I’ve had cigarettes these days. I’m very tired lately and haven’t relaxed nor slept very well – smoking helps. Luckily I’m smoking about 40% of what I used to. It’s a start.
Anyway, things might be looking up! Thanks for all the well wishes everybody.
In other news I’ve succeeded in singing my first Japanese song at the karaoke. What an accomplishment! I’m rather proud although I had cheated by reading Englishized lyric on the internet before so I knew what Japanese to expect.
Last night I had some well deserved and welcomed rest. I did nothing but stay at home, listen to Coast to Coast, eat some convenience store food, and watched some Dragonball Z and MST3k. I also deleted my Palm Desktop and ported everything over to Outlook. I hate Outlook, it’s so user unfriendly. There are so many more buttons and different navigation styles than other Office programs. The reason I switched over was because I was sick of having two different address books. Now, Outlook and my Palm synch and make contact information easier.
I haven’t gone to my Japanese lessons in two weeks. I haven’t had time to study so it would’ve been a moot point to show up and not be able to speak anyway. I’m off today too to help and something tells me I’ll be quite exhausted when I’m back. Still, I want to look back later and say to myself that even though I was exhausted, I helped someone out instead of turning my back (which I may have done in a past life).
And Dennis, I couldn’t find that video clip. Too many porn hits came up and I feared for my sanity if I dared entering one of those links.
Emotion
October 10, 2003
I don’t know if this is the best place to say because it probably isn’t. My girlfriend’s family was struck with terrible news yesterday. My girl’s father has a tumor in his esophagus. Whether it’s benign or malignant is yet to be determined in the upcoming weeks. Rightly so, the rest of the family is distraught and coping with the situation as best as they can.
His health has been deteriorating quite quickly over the past, oh, six months. Also, he’s more elderly than not which just complicates matters. I’m in no position to offer advice but I’m trying to give emotional support where I can. I’m also helping their family business fairly often lately. As a result, I’m a bit drained lately too. Still, my situation is nothing compared to theirs.
Updates may become scarce. Good thoughts, well wishes, and prayers are more than welcome.
The Gender Genie
October 08, 2003
Haha this thing is funny. I put in the latest blog entry for Dennis, Sunny, and myself and I got “MALE”. I put in the latest for Michelle and Justin and got “FEMALE”. Justin, you write like a girl. Actually that ain’t fair. Justin was bitching about fat people and we all know people of the female persuasion bitch more than others. The analysis must’ve been skewed. Hate male (mail) welcome!
I just copy n pasted the newest, long blog entry, without titles, from the first to last word, clicked the Blog Entry radio and submitted. Clean and easy testing.
Oh man what a night
October 05, 2003
Now nothing bad happened. An ELI survivor came to Osaka from Tokyo for the weekend and a bunch of us got together. We had one of those dinners that aren’t really dinners but more of an assortment of different foods served in small portions. The main course really is the endless supply of alcohol that just keeps coming. I may have been a strong drinker during my early university years but after going dry for so long, my tolerance was as low as my tolerance for ugly girls.
Eri came along at first but she had to leave early to meet with some of her elementary school friends or some other people she hadn’t seen in decades. I was left to fend for myself. As usual, I was the one with the weakest Japanese level (re: all the others spoke at a native or near native level… at least before the drinks).
It was my first drink since June or July, I forgot. As per my usual schedule, I started with a couple or a few beers (I forgot) followed by a couple of cocktails. I think I had a cassis orange and a screwdriver but Taka, one of the guys there, spiked everything with the bottles of vodka available. It was cool. I also had an oolong cha somewhere in between.
I must confess, I DID smoke today but it just doesn’t feel right to drink and not smoke… it’s like eating a steak without HP sauce… something just felt missing. So, I had three cigarettes today. I feel bad about it but I’m not gonna kick myself in the ass. I know I won’t smoke tomorrow or perhaps until the next time I drink.
I saw a lot of people I hadn’t seen in eons and I just wanna mention everyone as a sort of hail.
First, there was Sakura and Hiro. Sak and I worked at the ELI together and left around the same time I think. Hiro was one of the Komazawa survivors from August. I haven’t seen them since my trip to Tokyo last May. Both Sak and Hiro were dead drunk. Hiro went straight to sleep and Sak began a very uncoordinated speech pattern that was definitely something new to me. Hiro brought his good friend from Kyoto – good to meet you Shimizu – you look kinda like Tetsu from Tetsu and Tomo! I hope I’ll get to meet you again. Then there was Mihoko, Miho, and Shiki – these three are the Osaka residents that I see every so often. I got to see Mihoko drunk today – very interesting as well (we’ll talk about your secret soon enough). I also saw Eiji whom I paddled along with during my dragonboat run in 2001. I also met Taka – I met him during my first summer at the ELI (2000) and then I saw him last December when another friend came. There was Yoshimi and Chizu, whom I haven’t seen in a good three years! I remember very well our Whistler trip together. It was one of my most memorable trips to Whistler. I sure damn hope that’s everyone. I wasn’t drunk at all, I think I held my own very well considering I don’t ever drink. Still, I have a slight pounding in my head as I’m typing this. I want to type this on the same night because I gave my URL out tonight so I don’t want to disappoint when people visit here. Konban wa tanoshikata desu!!
That’s it. My cough is still persistent and I’m sort of hungry in a slight drunken kinda way. Blech!
Great Blog!
October 03, 2003
Gangstories is a blog written by someone who knows what he’s talking about. It sounds real. It features a look into the life of something glamourized by today’s movies and musicians. I read through all two months worth of writing in one sitting. Sadly, the blogger has decided to not continue writing. Pity too.
On another note, soft boiled eggs and tomato sauce totally go well together.
5ive
Fifth day of cold turkey no smoking and still going strong. Yesterday was tough. I was in the same cafe for three hours studying Japanese and talking with my language exchange gal. During these three hours, scores of people sat beside me, in front of me, diagonally across, under, above, in, on, against, and even inversely of me. All these people were lighting up and blowing in my face the whole time.
I told you I had a cough and I think I made one girl feel bad. Everytime she was smoking a cigarette, I simultaneously had coughing fits. The two were unrelated, my coughs are caused by mucus in the trachea. It just so happened the mucus was annoying me right as she had her cigarettes. Everytime I coughed, she would tilt her body away and try to wave the smoke away from me. It’s a smoking fact that smoke will head the to person who hates it the most so all her efforts were in vain. Even though she may have been feeling bad, she still had I think four cigarettes with her one small cup of coffee. What a bitch huh?
There are three situations which will trigger my smoking urges:
- Work – most of the people I talk to are smokers
- Restaurants/Establishments – many people liberally smoke and I have sit and watch them
- Being with my girlfriend – she smokes but luckily not a lot
I’ve shown to myself that I can refrain from smoking in situations 1 and 2 (1 being the hardest as I spend most of my time there and I have 8 chances to smoke in one work day). Situation 3 will be the hardest I think. I see myself being the weakest while sitting at the dinner table with a cigarette vending machine right beside me and Eri lights one up.
Agh. Must be strong for… world peace. I do believe that if I quit smoking, starving children around the world will never be hungry and become well educated and literate. Gotta do it for the children…
Deliverance
October 01, 2003
So FedEx pulled through and delivered my new pda keyboard 26 hours ahead of its estimated delivery time. It’s great. The company also sent me a Handheld Computing magazine. Not only is it chock full of writeups about cool gadgets and toys, it’s also in English. Although English literature isn’t uncommon by far in this country, interesting literature is. So I’m thankful for that too.
I’m coughing a lot. The coughing is caused by postnasal drip which is probably caused by dust or mold or some other bacterial substance in my apartment. Even after very tough cleaning, my nose is still clogged and perpetually running. I didn’t want to aggravate my coughy lungs so I decided to stop smoking. I’m on day 3. At first, I thought I’ll just stop temporarily, at least until my cough goes over but I’ve decided to go for the full blown QUIT SMOKING. Day 3. I’ve had many tough moments. None of you non-smokers will ever understand that temptation, nor should you get all preachy either. Every smoker knows the consequences of smoking. People who preach about smoking should be rounded up with preachy vegetarians and put into big boiling cauldrons of oil or something.
Anyway, I’m hoping I won’t cave in and have one cigarette anytime soon because 1 leads to 2, and so on. I’m going strong though. If I can stop smoking at work, then I’m pretty much in the clear as I smoked about 90% at work anyway. Eri also said if I can quit for a month, then she’ll quit too. So, I’m also doing this for her too. I rule.
Wish me luck.
Back To Basics?
September 27, 2003
Just a thought. I like my webpage but I think maybe it should look simpler. What do you think? Also, what do you think about more than one blog, this will be my day to day blog but what about another or more blogs that are dedicated to other things?
Proud
Wow for the first time ever, I bought something off Ebay!
I was scoping around for keyboards for my pda because I notice I do a lot of writing on it and the stupid graffiti system they have on it is ridiculously slow to use. I find myself writing a letter ahead of the display and most of the time, it reads my writing wrong and gives me an F instead of an E and a whole lot more stupid mistakes. I looked around the biggest gadget stores here but couldn’t find anything cool. I don’t like those fold-away keyboards because they require a flat surface to lay everything down. I wanted those clip on keyboards that you type with your thumbs. They’re not the best solution but will save me a lot of agony and backspace/deletes. Info on the net showed three flavours. The official Palm one was the most expensive (go figure) and I was going to buy one when I realize palmone.com does not send overseas and they were out of stock anyway. The next best things according to forums was one from Seiko. It was about half the cost.
I suddenly decided to go check out Ebay for no reason. I registered an account there two years ago but never bought or sold anything. I did a quick search and wow… $3.99 for the same keyboard. I bid and an hour later, I won!
So, I just bought a $30 item for $4.24 but the shipping will prop it up to about $25. Even after currency rates, I still win big time. I’m so proud!
Another reason to be proud.
Yesterday I bought a small bookcase. It’s about a foot high and a foot and a half wide. I’m not putting books in it but instead I need it to put this new clock I just bought and some other stuff. Right now I see my phone charger, Eri’s eye drops, some condoms, some magazines, the a/c remote, and some other crap. Before this, all that shit was just strewn across the floor.
Anyway I’m proud because I talked to the old lady who sold it entirely in Japanese and understood everything she asked of me. It wasn’t just a simple transaction too because this old lady liked to gab. We started to talk about the weather, the Hanshin Tigers, and how far away I lived (she was worried the bookcase would be too heavy – it only weights about 3 lbs or so). My unofficial goal since starting this language was that people would mistaken me as one of them, that is, I’m not an evil foreigner out to take their daughters and pillage their towns. At long last, it happened. The best thing though was that it cost me 750 yen. That’s like 8 bucks or something! A bargain in any country.
My next step is to get a haircut in complete Japanese. It’s not as easy as it sounds as the place I go to has 60+ y.o. men who speak very unclearly and gab as well. I feel so stupid everytime I get a haircut because I end up saying, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand” often.
Check the cam for a snap! My futon is being washed so hence the barren room.
helllllllo??????
September 26, 2003
hey dude, there was an earthquake in japan today. freaked me and mom out until we heard it was some other place. but anyways, i freaken didnt have that quiz in comp app. today! The computers froze! but I’m screwed for next week, I have an assignment due on Monday, a presentation worth 20% on Tuesday, apparently no school for me on Wednesday, TWO quizzes in comp app. on Thursday, and a math exam on Friday!
Oh, i just love it…
btw, do u get to watch the FRIENDS premiere? it was good. very good.
blah blah blah
September 24, 2003
jerry is blah
Woohoo! I Found A Reason To Return!
September 17, 2003
Art Bell Returns to Radio as Weekend Host of Coast to Coast AM
I always knew he would return because each of his retirements have been externally forced. He will never truly cease until he REALLY wants to retire. Boy am I glad I suddenly visited the site a week ago. I wouldn’t have caught that show if I didn’t. If I didn’t catch that show, I wouldn’t have visited again and discover this piece of juicy news. Woohoos for all!
I feel bad for Barbara Simpson, whom Art will replace, but I never liked her anyway. She was so bland.
You’re all commanded to listen to the show and enjoy it. Your stereotype of the show will evaporate quickly as you discover ALL the interesting things they touch on.
Guest Update for the Guest Updater
September 13, 2003
I’m too lazy to write another guest update. But instead of leaving you folks hanging, I found some suitable writers to entertain you before Jerry gets back. So here you are, guest updates for the guest updater. I’m out to enjoy some sun.
Hello, readers of JVision. Hello… Jerry. You might recognize me. Then again, you might not. Because I sure don’t recognize this place. Everything has changed. For the worse, I might add. Jerry, your sense of decor has always been lacking. Blue? And what is this “spoken” nonsense? I sometimes wonder about you, Jerry.
Only sometimes. I don’t think much about you anymore, Jerry. Why should I? I bet you don’t even remember that I existed on JVision, way back in the version 1.x days. Back when I was mascot, we were buddies, and we ran rampant on the page. But then what happened? “One grey night it happened, Jackie Paper came no more / And Puff that mighty dragon, he ceased his fearless roar.”
Cry me a river! I shed no tears for you. And this is my last hurrah. Since you never even gave me a chance to say my goodbyes on this page, and to my dear devotees. Shame on you Jerry! Shame on you! I’m out.
“So, Puff that mighty dragon sadly slipped into his cave, oh”
Hello friends. You might remember me as Pokemon borne of Jerry’s feverish imagination. The name’s Wangmon. I don’t have as much of a grudge as the fellow above me, but I would like to express my disappointment at having been ditched as a recurring concept faster than the Pokemon craze could phase out. I felt I had plenty to offer, such as wang-related jokes, potty humour, and political insights. I’m sorry it never happened. Now I languish in my hole in the ground. That warm, moist hole where Wangmons reside. I’m perfectly happy, to be honest. But I thought I’d pull out for a minute or two to say hi and to impart a few words of wisdom:
Jerry, don’t adopt mascots again if you’re not going to keep us. We aren’t puppies. There is no SPCA for web mascots. We are thrown into the recycle bin of history. We aren’t even put down humanely. Our bits are erased, written over with the sweaty groins of Internet porn. Have a heart, Jerry. Don’t adopt any more mascots. They don’t deserve our fate.
Disconnection
September 12, 2003
I’m taking a course in ethics in computing science this term. It’s a mandatory course for all com sci majors, and I’ve saved it for my last (or next-to-last, depending on how well I do) semester. I think I should have taken this course earlier, it would have saved me a lot of trouble.
One article in particular got me thinking about how we live our lives. The article claimed that we as humans were so inclined to accept technology that we do so without debating its social implications. We just accept it because it’s new and we expect it to be needed. This is the wrong way for society to go, the article claimed.
What has the Internet done for us? I’ve had the creeping suspicion for years, but it never crystallized in my mind until I read the article. It has made us lazy to communicate on a basic human level. Yes, when the Internet first rolled around into mainstream acceptance, it was heralded as the information superhighway, and it would supposedly make communication easier. We’d be connected to everyone else more often and more intimately than with previous archaic methods of communication.
It backfired. What it has made us is complacent. When was the last time I called up a friend just to talk? Instead, I load up my favourite instant messaging service and wait for them to come online. When was the last time I wrote a letter to someone? I can’t even remember when. We live in the “now”, we don’t wait anymore. We need communication and response instantly. But you know what? For the past two years, I’ve actually loathed checking my email for the very reason that it’s too fast. It seemed that as soon as I had sent an email, its reply was already sitting in my mailbox. Did I really want to reply that fast? In the days of snail mail, we’d have at least two weeks before getting a reply; Time to collect and reflect on our thoughts.
Sure, electronic means of communications are great for our “global village”. I can talk to my best friends more often, even though they live halfway across the globe. But it has hurt my relationships with friends who live in my own country, and even in my own city. I didn’t bother calling anyone, and I loathed physical contact.
No more. I’ve been deprived of it for too long. This Internet, this instant communication, has ended up hurting my friendships and ultimately myself. It’s not the medium itself, but rather the reliance on the medium that is the problem. It should have never been more than a convenient tool, but it became a necessity. It’s time that changed. Turn off the computer and call a friend: It shouldn’t be that hard to do, but for some reason, it has become foreign to me. Perhaps it’s time to change that.
He Can’t Deliver
Yes, I make a big hoo-hah about guest updating and I don’t even write anything yet. I will. Later tonight. When I get back from bubble tea. Until then, why not visit some other blogs? Groovy. Jerry’s back in a few days anyway so I’d better try and write what I have planned before he’s back and sees what I’ve done.
I Am Your Lovely Guest Host, Damien Storm
September 11, 2003
Do you remember back when Art Bell was still the host of Coast to Coast AM, and you’d tune into his show one night hoping to hear his cryptic yet reassuring voice, only to find out that there was a guest host that week? The host was inferior in every sense to Art, but you still listened, because if Art thought he was good enough for the big show, then he was good enough for you. I’m that guest host, and welcome to JVision.
The name is Dennis, and some of you might know who I am already. If not, allow me to introduce myself. Jerry has been one of my best friends for who knows how long. We went to school together, played guitar together, played Doom and Quake together, the list goes on. My own site is handsomemonkey.com. For the duration of Jerry’s vacation to Hokkaido, he has left this site in my care. I will try to do him proud.
One thing I will focus on is to make sure JVision remains the same. Jerry’s vision. Jerry has his own style, his own wit, and I will do my best to present that here. I’ve always found JVision to be a great haven for discussing some heavy issues which can affect the world. At other times, it can have a light-hearted tone that makes us sit back and chuckle. It all depends on Jerry’s moods, I guess.
I’ve got a few days to work with this site, so let’s give Jerry something worthwhile to come back to. Into glory… we ride!
Hokkaido Haiku
Hokkaido, Japan
Is a cool island up north
Where we will go now
While we are gone
A Special Guest will update
So this page goes on
I must say sorry
For the page won’t be controlled
Sorry for the swears
We leave on Thursday
And enjoy seafood and beer
Be back Saturday
Welcome Special Guest
And of course, welcome Sister
Hope you write good blogs
Blast It Blogger!
September 07, 2003
Having an unexpected urge to blog, I click on my blogger shortcut only to see the all too annoying “The page cannot be displayed” white page. Not to be undone, here I am writing in notepad so that my flash of creativity will not be lost due to a technical problem.
So? What’s up? I just finished a six day week because of a shift swap for someone else. I got last Sunday off so I had to pay for it this week by working yesterday. One day weekends suck but the silver lining is that I only have a four day work week starting tomorrow. On Thursday, I’ll be holding hands with my girlfriend and boarding a plane to Hokkaido. To clear up any confusion, I work Sunday through Thursday. Right now she is sleeping and I am listening to Art Bell. I haven’t listened to the show since January (when Art retired). Unexpectedly, I decided to listen yesterday for no reason only to find Art Bell special-guesthosting the show for two days. That is synchronicity in its purest form. I missed Art Bell’s deep, comforting voice and his straight shooting, intellectual thinking. Anyway, I’m listening to the show as I am typing now. Yay.
Something that has been annoying as of late – a lot more people are using MSN Messenger now – my list is soon to overtake my ICQ list in terms of number of people. Unlike ICQ though, I can’t overwrite people’s names. I don’t give a shit what you call yourself, be it “Jerry” or “604_Sweetz_NSX_Gangsta_Pimp” – I’m just going to rename it to your full name. So, without this feature, I’m seeing a bunch of handles and messages that don’t mean anything to me and I’m wondering who the hell it is. I have to right click and try to recognize the email address. Now that’s annoying. I don’t mind if you write messages AFTER your name, like, “Matthew – I am feeling my aunt up right now”. At least I know it’s you.
I saw Animatrix yesterday and it was awesome. The CG chick in the first short was just hot. If she existed in real life… it’s like… damn yo. Damn fine piece of ass. Actually my favorites were the first two stories. The rest were all nice and all but the stories sort of sucked. The one placed in Japan was cool because the song they have at the crosswalk was exactly the same as the one they have in Osaka.
What else? A couple more people coming and going. I’m looking at ticket prices so I’ll probably be visiting Vancouver within six months. Yada yada yada.
—
Jeez, Blogger was down all night. This update is actually a day old already.
September Blues
September 03, 2003
I never like the month of September for a variety of reasons.
When I was a kid, September brought about the beginning of elementary school. I hated elementary school because I never fitted in and I was shamed for my intellectual prowess.
When I was a teenager, September brought about the beginning of highschool. I hated highschool because I never fitted in and I was ashamed about my intellectual shortcomings.
When I was an adult, September brought about the beginning of university. I didn’t hate university but I didn’t like it either. At least I fitted in with more people and I learned what I was good at and what I wasn’t.
This year will be the first September that does not bring about the beginning of an education semester and I’m damn happy. Furthermore, while biking to work today, something very startling startled me… it was dead quiet. Remember my incessant bitching about the noise? Well, it looks like the cicadas have finally all died out and will leave me in peace to enjoy my sleep for a year. I thought there would be millions of dead cicada carcasses lying under trees but I haven’t noticed many. I almost felt sad that so many of those ugly critters died but then I remind myself of the horror they inflicted and my prejudice rages on.
Also in September is our anniversary. Next week will be three years! 3 Years!!! Looking back, I wonder how did we ever go through those 7 months of not seeing each other. My advice for any of you – webcam + mic + broadband. Saved me a lot on phonecards and was much more fun. So yay for us. Next week, we’re going to Hokkaido for a few days. I need a break from this job and this city and I haven’t done much quality time stuff with her. So, off we go! Wheeee!!
Morning
September 01, 2003
Pardon the lack of coherence today. I just woke up four minutes ago.
What would compel me to update right after I woke up? I don’t know, maybe I just wanted to see what my writing would be like in the quasi-conscious state I call Monday Morning. I also wanted to write because my updates have been sporadic at best lately. A combination of social obligations, Baldurs Gate, and lack of anything interesting to say I guess.
Well, it’s Monday Morning but unlike most people, today is not the first day of work for me, yesterday is. So really, Monday is my Tuesday which makes Thursdays my Fridays. Go figure that one.
It seems the whole world hath broken up. It’s very very strange but couples seem to get together at roughly the same time and split up roughly the same time. Funny thing though, the three people who have broken up recently that I’ve talked to all broke up for very rational, level-headed reasons. Kudos to them for straight thinking in a time of emotional bedlam. On a happier note, a couple friends who met at th ELI a few years ago are getting married now. Actually, they got married yesterday. Unfortunately, they didn’t invite to their wedding. Well, seeing how I haven’t seen them or talked to them in about three years, I don’t blame them.
So what else? I’m surprised, I’m not spilling deep secrets or insecurities at this point. I’m just scratching my eyes and XXXXX and trying to stop all the mucus from running. Oh gotta love Mondays.
And I’m Bored Again
August 13, 2003
It’s 9:21pm and there is no one on the internet at this moment. Everyone on my ICQ is N/A and sleeping soundly because only Vancouver people are on my list. There’s no one online on my MSN because a lot of my Japanese friends don’t go online or maybe they’ve put me on their block list. I’ve re-revisited everyone’s webpages to be thoroughly disappointed that no one has updated. I was |< --THIS-->| close to signing into Friendster because Dennis has done so and maybe I’d go and reach for fake friendships. There’s nothing on television (that I would understand). I’m kinda bored of the Battlezone II mod. Eri is out with some friends. I am bored.
I was tinkering with some pages for the last hour – made a couple minute changes that probably no one will notice. I’ve put up that picture dump but there are only four pictures there right now anyway. I’m bored!
Someone better wake up right now and chat with me.
Flash Does Good
August 11, 2003
An ingenious puzzle game creation using flash. Help guide our loveable hero through puzzles so that he can save his (ugly) little home planet. Very strange, very cute, very nice pictures.
Perhaps one of the best uses of flash since HSR!!!
Another Dream
August 01, 2003
Once inawhile I will have these really cool dreams. In the past I’ve written such classics as the XCom battle where I was stuck and my bastard friends didn’t do anything to help me as the aliens were about to break through the door. I think I was holding a weapon but couldn’t use it. Another one, while vising a museum featuring H.R. Giger’s Aliens, some of the xenomorphs came to life and were terrorizing the visitors. Sadly I didn’t have any weapons and was just running away, running away really scared.
Last night, in what became an instant classic, another dream was had.
First I started at work. Yet, this office was damn cool. The terminals we used were much more hi tech and the people seemed cool. All of a sudden, a blackout shut the place down. Everything went dark – never a good sign. I was happy though because whenever things are shut down it means we don’t have to work. I don’t really remember what happened next.
Then I found myself roaming a really big department store. Something inside told me I had to kill people and all of a sudden I found an assault rifle in my hand. Armed and with a motive, I was ready to commit heinous crimes. I roamed the aisles of this department store and opened fire on whoever happened to be there. I knew there were security cards as once in awhile I had to hide behind things to avoid them. I have no idea how many people were killed but I remember at least four or five.
I remember the last thing I did in this dream was something really bad… it involved a girl that was there.
Then I woke up.
It was a cool, disturbing dream and from now on, please make sure i never buy a gun.
Webcam
July 30, 2003
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.
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.
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.
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.
Maybe
June 30, 2003
Maybe I should say that these past days have been exactly like every other day in Japan. Maybe I should say I’m glad Dennis and Sunny have been updating. Maybe I should say that my birthday is coming up again already and that I’m not going to do anything. Maybe I should also say that Nate, who worked at the ELI with me, who now is in Korea, came to Osaka for the weekend and we had a good Saturday afternoon together. Maybe I should say I had a wicked time last week at friend/coworker Daniel’s birthday dinner where a traditionally dressed Japanese woman came to our dining room and poured sake for us, much in the way traditionally dressed Japanese women used to pour sake for samurai and other important men 400 years ago. Maybe I should say I’m getting my ass kicked in Master of Orion 3 because I bit off more than I could chew and now I have 2 very pissed off races after me. Maybe I should say I just wrote a short story that I will eventually post up here after some editing.
Maybe I should say all those things, but I won’t.
Wooohah
June 26, 2003
Whoa. Blogger suddenly got a facelift. After they were taken over by Google, they’be been tinkering around. The new blogger came out today and it looks and feels all nice and stuff but I don’t think there are any real differences.
I had a completely full work week this week – 5 days x 8 lessons each day. I couldn’t believe it. I haven’t had a full week since when I first started working. The feeling is shit. When you’re used to not that many lessons and then all of a sudden you’re thrown back into the pool – you want to rip shit out of people, like guts and spleens and stuff. Sucks.
Sunny, your updates sound so depressing. Hang in there buddy.
I’m just updating right now because I’m bored and I don’t want to do any important stuff yet. It’s my Friday night right now.
Updates
June 23, 2003
It appears Robot Frank may not be as dead as previously thought… interesting turn of events. Although I’m actually kind of sick of it being not updated for a long time then suddenly finding out it’s been abandoned.
Also, Sunny has moved his page to another host with less popups. There’s still one but sure beats the 2 at angelfire and the 1 that pops up when you close one of the first popups. That’s annoying. The other pages at his site are still at angelfire so beware!
And Dennis, I got your email and it is exciting indeed. I will be replying in due time.
I am in need of time.
Business, like Busy-ness, not Selling Condoms Business
June 22, 2003
Here I am, watching an episode of DBZ, eating a cheap bento after a long day at work. Day one finished, only four more busy days left. Tomorrow after work I will be meeting a few Osaka friends and also another friend I haven’t seen in awhile. Actually, I don’t really know her too well. The day after, I’ll be meeting Eri after work. The day after that, it’s my friend Daniel’s birthday dealie. The day after that, probably I’ll be going to that English cafe once again. Then there’s Japanese lesson after that. Lots to do and not enough time to do it.
I’ve been working on a few things for the other sections of my webpage but it’s going really slowly. I’m still writing a story for this one comic thing but it’s probably going to turn out shitty much like the other stuff. I think everything that pops into my head involves crazy insane twists of normal day to day things. There are about four comic/story ideas floating around. One has a completed script (but needs some editing) but I don’t have the drawing skills to complete it yet. Well, I can draw it on paper and scan it but as I don’t have a scanner yet… it’s all wacom or nothing.
And I’m slowly playing Master of Orion 3 still. After the patch was released, the game kicks ass now. The patch fixed a lot of flaws that made the game shitty. Now it’s much easier to play and more interesting too.
And I’m still keeping up on my Japanese studies. I can confidently say I have increased my speaking ability two fold. It’s not much considering I could only say about 4 or 5 things before. Now I can make simple simple sentences about what I did, am doing, or will do.
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Don’t worry if your browser can’t see that. Don’t worry if you can’t understand it too.
Nostalgia
June 20, 2003
I got bored so I opened up a dusty folder in my computer called, “Old Homepages”. In this folder contains the relics I used to call Jerryvision. It essentially has every webpage design I’ve ever made and contains most of all my updates and shit I’ve made. It’s far from complete though and I fear the missing updates are probably lost to history forever. The earliest record I have dates back to June 8, 1999 but I know my very first update dates a little farther back than that. I remember the reason I made the page was when I was in that stupid EDP class in highschool with Andrew, we both thought it would be fun to make some webpages. We had finished making really ugly pages for this class and wanted to play with it more. So my very very first stuff would date back to around 1997 or 1998. Five years later, I’m still writing. Unforunately, I didn’t start archiving updates regularly until late in the game. I’ve lost a lot because of this.
I noticed big changes over these four years in my writing style. Prior to Nov 11, 1999, I was a depressed kid who was yearning for a girlfriend because the past girlfriends and relationships I had were either horrible or dull or mean or wanted something better than me. On that date though, things changed. For those who don’t know, my best friend at the time had a car accident that changed his life and the lives of all those around him. For the next little while after this date, I was just angry at everything. The next important change came when I got my job at the ELI. That place made me discover a lot about myself and I met a lot of good people at that place. I think that place really helped me get over not being best friends with some people and having my life completely change. The summer of 2000 may have been the best one in my life.
A little later that year, around August 2000, I met Eri. We saw each other and hung out a few times that month and then spontaneously, we became a couple in September. I remember the day we got together very well. And people have been right – I do talk about Eri a whole lot. I think after I met her, my writing changed a lot too. My friend’s accident stripped me of a security blanket and forced me to wake up from a long, happy dream. The period of not having this friend made me grow up. The first summer at the ELI made me realize there’s so much more out there for me. Eri became all that was so much more. The updates for the past 2 years, 9 months, and 10 days are all wonderful and I feel so damn proud of myself for going through so much stuff in my insignificant little life. (Incidentally, honey, Happy 2 Years, 9 Months, and 10 Days!)
Some other things I noticed while reminiscing: I said after every final that I would fail but four years of university later and I haven’t failed a single exam or course. I mention Dennis just as much as Eri – much more before I met her. Quake, Shoo, cigarettes, sports, and being bored are also very common things I read about. I was very boring.
That’s about it. If you haven’t done so, you should go read over your old writing and rediscover yourself. I used to be afraid of looking into the past because some of the most painful memories lie beneath. Now, I feel they aren’t as painful as before and have in all their mysterious ways, shaped me into the fine piece of meat I am today.
Dad’s Day
June 15, 2003
On the off chance my dad sees this, then, Happy Father’s Day! It’s hard to do things for Father’s, Mother’s Days, birthdays, and any sort of day where well wishes are required when you’re halfway around the globe. I feel so unfilial.
Thank you, Sunny, for updating! Seattle can be fun and very intimidating at the same time. Those dude(s) were staring at you probably because they thought you and your asian friends all had SARS. That toy store rules and the gianto keyboard ain’t too hard to play, if you’re good at jumping. Now I only wish more people update because I’m sure tired of reading my own updates.
Today was a nice day at work. Six scheduled. Well, at first it was five but they eventually took one away. The first lesson was free and the next two after that didn’t show up. I didn’t teach until the fourth and right after that, I had lunch. Not too bad. Tomorrow morning however looks busy. It’s filled already. I’ll not be looking forward to that. However, I’m going to some pizza all-you-can-eat with a friend tomorrow. Apparently, it’s only 600 yen, or about 7 bucks. That’s VERY cheap by Japan standards and pretty cheap by Canadian value too. Hideki hit another homerun and Roger got his 300th. It’s a great time to be alive.
Update damn you all!
Transformers Comeback Move
June 13, 2003
Whoa! I gotta see this if it ever comes out in Japan. The best thing is, they’re planning to use the original line up of Transformers, not the crazy dazzly ones of the its later years.
Writing More
June 12, 2003
I’m surprised at myself. I’ve been consistently writing on my webpage this past little while. I think I’ve been so excited about this new design that I just want to look at it more. It’s no award winning deal but it’s been so long since my webpage has been drastically changed. The last design was really just a blogger template modified slightly. I can’t really take credit for it. This one isn’t very original but it does include lotsa pictures – something I’ve always wanted to do. I can sort of change the pictures easily. I need to get a nicer camera soon because all the photos taken by my current one always comes out blurry, no matter how I take the picture or play with the settings. I want to get a camera that includes video recording because that’s all the norm now.
I just got word that there will be another student in my Japanese class later today. It’s sort of good and bad. It’s good that I’ll have someone else to practice speaking with in class but bad because I no longer have lucky private lessons. It’s only my third lesson though. I’ve been pretty good with keeping up with the readings. I still haven’t memorized everything but I’m getting up bright and early to do so.
I was going to write about the Israel/Palestine situation and how the peace plan that was going along nicely was just fucked in the butt by an Israeli missile attack, followed by a suicide bombing, and then followed by Israel declaring to wipe out the Hamas faction. What a great little story of hatred and violence. I hope both sides get wiped out or no one dies at all. It’s all or nothing in my camp. Otherwise, the fighting will just endlessly continue. I’m too tired to even think about all that miserable suffering.
And I’ll Never Ever Ever Ever Ever Write A Song About Sibbie…
June 11, 2003
I had some old pics lying around in my phone so here you go. See and read all about my time in Tokyo last month. I never really asked, but the descriptions work right? You guys do click on it and read them right? Hmm… and since now like every freakin page here has gianto pictures everywhere, how are the load times for everyone? Painful? Bearable? Lightning quick? Hmm…
Dennis I hope you’re feeling better. Sunny I hope your ass feels better. By the way, it’s not my place to say, but whenever someone is giving mixed messages – GET OUT. Mixed messages are not fun messages and will only end up biting you in your already swollen ass. That’s my opinion anyway. Feel free to email me and debate this (I am rather curious as to who this person is).
Oh look at the time. I have to sleep! I bet I’m the only one out of everyone who sleeps regularly at 11pm.
Daily Dose
June 09, 2003
I feel like I’m in university! I’ve been updating everyday for the past… 2 days!
The “Created” and “Captured” buttons have had their pictures replaced with pictures that you may actually find some sort of analogy to the word. The first pictures were of my clock and of a school of fish from the aquarium. Go think that one over. Also, the Captured page itself is complete although right now it’s sort of empty. The big pictures here are supposed to be blurry. I need to do more things to fill up my webpage. I’m going to run out of space soon. BTW, I suddenly started using the words, “Spoken, Created, Captured” because first it was more appealing than Blog, Gallery, Photos and it also has more marketing appeal, don’t you think? Not that I have any plans to become a commercial project or something but good marketing never hurts. It just basically started with “spoken” as a blog name and then I thought, well, might as well name the other parts with past participles. Sadly, the past participles of create and capture aren’t as cool as speak. I was thinking of using “Taken” instead for “Captured” because you know, you can “take” pictures. But after some though, “Taken” sounded too sexual for some reason. Yes I know, “Captured” can also be like that too but it was cooler so shut up.
Today after work I joined a few people for coffee. There was an Israeli, a Chinese, an Australian, and a Welsh dude. (That sentence would be a great start to some sort of joke) It was quite fun. I’ve never heard so much bashing of different countries before in one sitting. It was rather amusing. Of these 4 people, I’ve only met one of them outside of work before and it was only one time. I really need to get out and do more stuff with people. Tomorrow I’m going to my first Japanese person’s birthday party (other than Eri). I’m excited as I get a chance to practice the language I’ve picked up these couple of days of studying. I still suck, don’t get the impression from my writing that I’m fluent or anything, far from it.
I tried to get Eri to write comments here but then she reminded me she would only write really embarassing personal messages in a language that’s not quite English, not quite Japanese. This language was forged from our relationship. So, now I’m won’t be so sad if she doesn’t write…
Is This Working?
June 07, 2003
I have no idea. It’s not working everytime.
Accident
June 03, 2003
I had one right after the last update. See the webcam.
Edit – 2005/09/22
I was referring to this picture.
Everybody! Everybody!
Since Everybody! Everybody! updated, I’ll do the same although the quality of my writing has been described as, “It’s so fucking boring I want to gouge my eyes out and shove them into my ass just so I could see something more interesting.”
That typhoon I ranted about pissed over pretty quickly. The weather here sure was fucked up for awhile. It was crazy windy for all three days with one day of fair skies and temperature. The next day was piss hot and humid in the day but then it started pouring buckets of piss at night. The last day was nice and cool. It was a mini-me of a typhoon so hopefully the momma typhoons hit soon. I want to see chaos, death, and destruction by the fury of momma nature before I leave.
Work has been pissy busy with 8 lessons nearly everyday for the past few weeks. I’m so sick of it. I feel like I’m on probation again. They have a new scheduling system that was supposed to be more fair but it hasn’t proven to be the case. My compatriots who started at the same time seem to get 6 or 7 while I always get my free periods filled. It’s pathetic and frustrating. I’m deciding to snoop around for other occupations that don’t involve work dissatisfaction and the teaching of languages. It will be a hard find this I know.
I watched The Shawshank Redemption again recently. It reconfirmed its place in the Hall of Great Movies which is jealously guarded by a very short and select movie list.
I hope whoever is having whatever sort of trouble, be it relationship, financial, or just general suddenly find the answer and have a nice day. And don’t think this message is targeted specifically at you because there are so many people right now having things go wrong it’s not even funny. Well, it’s funny to me since everything is so fucking rosy. (Hate mail ensues)
Simple Stimulants
May 23, 2003
It seems like I’m getting easier and easier to please these days. I went to my new Japanese teacher today. It wasn’t a lesson yet – just an interview of sorts and introduction. It’s been 7 months and here I am finally starting to take lessons. I felt pretty happy afterwards. I went to this little cafe called, and I quote, “Italian Tomato Cafe Jr.” I don’t know why it’s called junior but I’m pretty curious about the senior shop. Then I went to the 100 yen store and bought some small shit for my house, a new binder (B5 size… we don’t have those at home do we?) and some instant coffee and a block of cheddar cheese. Cheese is the new heroin.
So I got home and started cleaning up the mess I call home and finally got around to doing the laundry. It’s been two weeks since this place has been vacuumed and it’s looking kinda eoorrrllaauoirhg (that’s Japanese for “gross”). It’s amazing how satisfied I feel after getting chores done. It’s so simple, yet gratifying. Easy to do, yet, easy to put away for tomorrow. I have ten minutes before I gotta get downstairs and bring up the next load of clothes so I’m writing here.
As Dennis has said, it seems many people are having relationship problems. It’s sort of true on this side of the world. I’ve been hearing stories of X broke up with Y and so on. I guess that’s how things go. Once out of school, it’s a big change for everyone and sometimes relationships can’t cope with big changes. So if you are in a situation where a relationship is getting you down, well, you know, don’t be sad and stuff. Luckily (or not), me being in school or working changed nothing for Eri and I – the more important thing was me being closer. I have no idea how long I will be staying but I’m guessing for at least two years. Possibly more. I have no idea what to do with my life and being in Vancouver wouldn’t help either so I’m gonna spend some time here, learning the language, eating some damn fine cuisine, and doing the laundry.
If you or someone you know would like to acquire goods or some sort from Japan but have no contact, then send me an email. I’d gladly send it to you with only a 20% commission off the price. Free if you’re my friend in non-business transactions. Dennis, I think you’re in need of some tentacle porn aren’t you?
Yippy
May 21, 2003
Well I guess my streak of happy, fuzzy peach life has hit a bump. Everything was going very very well until now! Don’t worry, it’s nothing too bad, it’s just that my sister told me someone from a long time ago whom I used to know suddenly wants to contact me for reasons unknown. Should I be scared? Should I quickly hide the evidence? Should I eliminate any witnesses? Who knows. Well, not like that person can come and assassinate me easily. I am a very long distance away. Woohoo. Oceans can be kind sometimes. I’m curious though… what beckons after so many years of non-contact? If I suddenly dissappear off the face of the Earth… well, you all have a suspect now.
Seeya.
Strong Bad!
May 12, 2003
The latest update at HSR is awesome! Not only do we have a new Teen Girl Squad but we also have a cool SB clock that speaks! There’s also a message board but it’s not so interesting to me. The games on the board are kinda boring too. BUT there’s a new issue of Teen Girl Squad!
It’s my second week of earlies and I’m coping much better. I slept quite well last night despite working a late shift and sleeping 6 hours to work an early shift. This week is short for me as I’ll be heading over to Tokyo for almost a week on Wednesday with a friend to meet some other friends. It’s a big whole reunion deal. I’m stoked. I won’t be seeing Eri for more than a week though. This will probably be the last update before that. I’m gonna be camera crazy as long as my stupid digital camera holds and fuggin works. Always got my phone I guess.
Geez I really wanted to update but I am so not writing anything interesting right now. Just go over the HSR. It’s more fun.
Page 4
May 08, 2003
Page 4 is here. In case you were wondering, yes, the thumbnails were supposed to be really bad thumbnails. What’s the point of seeing the big picture if the thumb already gives away the best parts? I intentionally made shitty thumbnails that give no clues.
This Must Be The Hardest Thing To Do
May 03, 2003
Cutting off your own arm to survive? That’s gotta take some heavy balls to do that.
Chubby Rain
April 30, 2003
It’s about 30 past 5AM right now. I went to sleep at 3AM. Why am I up so early? It wasn’t intentional. I was literally woken up by the rain. I woke up and heard a really loud noise and wondered for a moment. It really sounded like rain. I opened the sliding door and I was right. It was the rain. I have never in my life seen so much water coming down from the sky and that says a lot because I come from Vancouver – the land of gravitated water. It’s kind of eerie standing on your balcony at 5:30AM watching the most rain you’ve seen in your life. It kinda made me think of, “Sonova… what if it were to flood… where would I go?” My eyes darted to the taller apartment buildings around…
I’m really glad I don’t have to work today but other arrangements will have to be made with my laundry plans because my clothes will become wetter in the drying process than the washing cycles today. Thankfully I remember that weather in this place doesn’t tend to stick around too long. Gonna try to fall asleep again but damn, that rain is really loud!
This Edition Of The Easiest Thing
April 28, 2003
The easiest thing about enjoying a weekend followed by one day of work and then another weekend because your shift change request was approved and also having had “development” everyday this week which almost guarantees free periods in the first two periods while all the other suckers are working and then having more than your fair share of no shows today in the middle of Golden week which isn’t so golden and isn’t really a week is that… it’s great.
Poor Strong Bad, will he EVER get the ladies?
This Edition Of The Hardest Thing
April 26, 2003
The hardest thing about biking back home on a bike with unfully inflated tires with your girlfriend standing on two stepping things attached to the wheel and carrying her purse, my full backpack, and a bag of videos with strong wind blowing against you and also trying to steer on wet concrete is that you have to convince yourself that you are stronger than five muscular gorillas in heat. It’s sheer will.
I Have To Say mk.II
April 24, 2003
And if you’re like me, you’ll have had tonnes of shitty toys back in the 80s that seemed bodaciously cool for the time. Here’s a webpage that tries to catalog a bunch of 80s toys. It’s amazing how much of it sounds familiar or are so familiar that I can remember how they smelled. It was heinously awesome and radical. Oh yeah, I guess you should check out the glossary of 80s terms or these words I’m using will just sound bogus and totally untubular.
I Have To Say
Greetings.
Well to start off, I think Michelle is mad at me. She said, “Fuck you” in the very first line of her webpage. I think she was directing it at me. I am now wondering if I acted stupid enough to incure the “fuck you” wrath. I was so upset that I didn’t read what the rest of her update was about.
And at work today I pretended I was totally into hockey because, well, all Canadians are supposed to love hockey. I started talking about Bobby Hull, Frank Mahosomething, Gordie Howe, and Guy Lafleur and people totally thought I was a hockey nut. I don’t think I can name off more than 5 Canucks anymore. Just 8 years ago, I could name every Canuck and their second grade teacher. Funny how EIGHT years changes a guy. Assuming it matters, I hope Vancouver does well anyway because I love the town to death and it would just rule to have a big metal cup sitting in some hockey place for people to look at and stuff. Stuff is cool.
And the weather this week has been pissy. We’ve had nothing but cool, crisp, dry, sunny weather with occasional rainfall. I think last Saturday, it rained and all of a sudden it was humidity central. I’m used to rain in Vancouver that feels like water and feels cool and I love the smell of grass after a nice long shower. Well, on Saturday the rain felt and smelled like sweaty socks and it was so warm I was sweating just from walking home from the train station (a ten minute stroll). Couple that with a full day of work and I was ready to kill people just for talking. Today started out really nice and cool but on the way home, I felt this strange blanket of humidity descend upon me. I was walking out of a grocery store and all of a sudden, as if Hermes the Weather God (I know he’s not but don’t dare correct me) pushes down with his divine power heat from Zeus’ underside. It was not pleasant. It felt like Hong Kong only not that hot… yet. Luckily I am changing my schedule very soon and I’ll be leaving the house dead early enough to avoid Zeus’ undersided heat. At least I hope so.
And should you be one of the two people who think my comics have some sort of interesting appeal or are just bemusing, stay tuned because I have been having epiphanies as to things I would like to, or will eventually do. And they won’t swirl around The Evil Penguin (a shit idea to begin with) nor mindnumbing stories where things just suddenly die. Well, some might.
And I will end this update on a fragment sentence. Is such a thing.
Hmm
April 17, 2003
Urgh
April 15, 2003
After some very pleasant, “Jerry it’s not working” messages. I think I finally fixed everything. Turns out a few months ago I fucked Golive and now it came and bit me back in the ass. I think the problem was the page was looking for a javascript library on my computer when it should’ve just shitted the code onto the page as it should. Well I think I made it shit on the page so all the pictures should work. If not, please tell me and I’ll shoot the messenger. The webcam which mysteriously stopped working (I didn’t touch this page at all for a very long time) should also be working too.
Thanks to Justin for pointing out it was fucked and telling me which line the error was on. And thanks to Dennis for patiently testing every little thing I tried, eg. “And this?” “Nope.” “How about this?” “Nope.” And thanks for offering your abuse code but I don’t want pictures of razored women popping up all over the place.
I would update but I’m too sick of looking at this computer. I need to go outside and melt. See you.
Here’s something to read before you eat lunch:
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Two California poultry farmers who fed some 30,000 live chickens into wood chippers will not face criminal charges because they had permission from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (news – web sites), prosecutors said on Friday.
But a spokesman for the Humane Society of the United States called the farmers “callous and barbaric” and disagreed with the decision not to prosecute them.
The farmers needed to destroy the chickens because they were “spent” — or no longer able to produce eggs — and could not make chicken soup out of them because the farms were under quarantine for the poultry virus Exotic Newcastle Disease, District Attorney’s spokeswoman Gayle Stewart said.
Stewart said the men, who run a poultry farm near San Diego, asked a senior veterinarian with the Agriculture Department if they could employ the wood chippers and were given permission.
“Once they had permission we decided that they did not have any criminal intent,” Stewart said.
Brothers Arie and Will Wilgenburg, who run Escondido-based Ward Poultry Farm, could not be reached for comment on Friday. Earlier, they told the San Diego Union Tribune newspaper that they were doing “what we thought we had to do” based on expert advice and stopped as soon as they learned otherwise.
Wayne Pacelle, a spokesman for the Humane Society, said that explanation was unacceptable.
“The act of feeding live chickens into a wood chipper is an extraordinarily callous and barbaric act and I can’t imagine any person with a whit of common sense would use a wood chipper as a killing tool,” he said. “No person with any experience in killing animals would sanction the use of this technique.”
Pacelle said the District Attorney’s decision not to prosecute the brothers rested on the “faulty assumption” that using wood chippers to kill chickens was an accepted practice. [Yahoo! News]
It’s Your Lucky Day
April 10, 2003
For a limited time viewing, I am publicizing things I have made. The latest creation is a small photo album called Japan Captured. Find this and other crazy ass Jerry stuff in my Gallery. Yes! I have a gallery (still).
And Michelle, that poot story is hilarious! It’s hilarious because Eri and I have conversations about how we sometimes hear each other fart in our sleep. We both grind our teeth too which sounds really terrible but it’s probably not that big a deal. I also laugh in my sleep while Eri twitches. It’s cool to observe your loved one in the dead of night for these things that no one else knows.
The Dawn
April 06, 2003
With a two litre bottle of water in hand, he thinks about the things which transpired today.
It’s strange how some things are not quite coincidental and not special enough to be divine intervention. This morning while he and his girlfriend were talking about their schedules that don’t mesh, he mentions, “Well, when the shift change request goes through, we’ll be able to see each other more. But it’ll probably take till fuckin July before it goes through.” Little did he know that when he got to work and logged onto the archaic computers, there would be a foreign message to greet him.
“Please come to LS and pick up your schedule change confirmation sheet. – Ayako*.”
In amazement, he double checks then triple checks this message. Can it finally be true? Has paperwork finally gone through and been approved? It truly was an amazing day. Furthermore, he would go through the whole day with only four lessons and also plan an upcoming trip to Tokyo with his good friends, Darwin* and Darwin*. The most exciting highlight? While enjoying a free block with Darwin, they both see a building blow pillars of smoke. It definitely wasn’t a smoke stack, the building was located pretty much right next to the Osaka Dome. It would be like putting the pork byproduct refinery plant next to GM Place. Ridiculous notion.
And now, as he eats his favorite bento lunch box from the local convenience store, sipping from his two litre bottle of water, he begins to write in his journal…
—
* Actual names have been changed to protect identities.
Finally!!!
As it may have turned out, it might have been my ftp that was fucking up instead of the good stuff at Blogger. Oh well, why split hairs? It’s finally up and now you have THREE updates to catch up on. How lucky you are, my fellow visitor. The book is getting even better. The different characters may just all end up in the same story line yet. Today at work I had seven lessons – I haven’t had that many in quite awhile. To spit on my neck while I’m down, half the students today were utter morons. I know the difficulties of learning a new language but when you don’t understand something, SAY SOMETHING! SAY, “I don’t know” or “I’m sorry” or even a gutteral “HUH?” Today’s morons completely froze when they didn’t understand something. I mean, they just sit there and try not to move. It’s like one of those pill bugs at home. When you touch it, it curls up into a ball and pretends to be dead, in hopes that the predator will go away. Maybe these morons wanted to pretend to be dead so that I would go away. I thought my computer had froze and I had to wave my hand in the camera and start saying, “hello? hello? Uhh…. are you there?” And then in a weak, “… yes” they’ll dispel the illusion that my computer had died.
Blech.
Sucks
April 05, 2003
Well isn’t this how it always is. I updated finally and what? Blogger won’t publish because of some problem. Fuck. Well, seeing how you won’t be reading this update for an unforeseen amount of time, I am going to prophesize about what I will be thinking of by the time this finally gets posted on my webpage.
I will have finished reading half of the book I wrote about in the last update (which you never heard about so after you read this, read the post beforehand). I will be loving the book even more because it’s already as exciting as it is. I will be wanting to buy the other book by the same author because the excerpt from that book, Syrup, is pretty interesting too. Max Barry, you’re a pretty good author, and I’ll forgive you for being Australian. (I bet my Aussie friends at work would beat me into the cheap office flooring if they read that).
I will be dancing with a jolly fat smile because I have a three day weekend coming up and even though events as of late. Just when I was beginning to think the company isn’t as sludge-like as people say, they go and do some retarded, nonsensical, unefficient, money wasting things that piss me off. They just took at least a 3 point dive on the Shit-O-Meter. They weren’t high up there as it was, and now? Geez.
I will be pretty damn pleased at myself because my Chinese (mandarin) communicative ability, or C/A in work slang, has been improving with every language exchange. Yesterday, a coworker and I were annoying our chinese teacher when all we practiced were whimsical use of the words, With, Do, Make, You, Like, With, Love, Me, and Want. It was pretty funny.
Also, I will have smothered Eri to death with voluminous kissing because she just came back today after a week in Nagoya. I will have returned the other pillow to its original position after holding it for a few nights in lieu of Eri. Sad huh?
Hopefully it won’t be long before this thing goes back up. I really don’t want to write another update in which I have to refer to this update or the one previously.
First E-Book
April 03, 2003
In the boredom that occupied most of my last two days, I was browsing through pages and stumbled onto Nation States, a clever little web-based game where you create a country and run its government in the political style of your liking. I was reading through the whole page and it so happens that this game is a marketing ploy for a new book called Jennifer Government. I went over to the book’s page and read about it and plunged into the excerpt and was quite impressed. So impressed in fact, that I just bought the book, the e-book. This would make it the first e-book I have ever purchased, first book in Japan, and first online book purchase ever for me.
I was quite happy until the damn book crashed my palm two times. After a couple of resets (and one data restore), I think the book works. Turns out my old version of winzip was corrupting the file somehow (don’t ask me). I will be busy on the subway reading this book! Anyway, I haven’t gotten far but basically corporations run this world and everyone changes their family name to their corporation’s name. It takes awhile to clear out if they’re talking about THE company or if it’s just some guy who works there. Interesting idea – a review will come when I’m farther into it.
I had something else written yesterday but I fucking accidentally closed the browser because I had too many windows open and was ALT-F4′ing without due care. Rats.
Hello World
March 25, 2003
I read my last update and thought maybe people might think the world was ending. Well, I didn’t mean that humanity as a whole would end because of an isolated conflict in a region of the world that most people don’t know shit about. I just meant this war paves way for other countries to attack other countries, citing this war as precedent. And if no one else approves it, who the fuck cares? No doubt that this war is getting me down because it’s simply ridiculous and completely uncalled for. Where are those fabled chemical, biological, and shudder, nuclear weapons that Iraq was supposed to have? Where are the terrorists that they were supposed to be sponsoring? All in all, this war is a crock and Bush is the cause of all this shit. The sad part is, this war, which is supposed to secure freedom and democracy will only breed hatred against Americans and other people in the western world. It’s not fair to hate these people because most of them didn’t want this war. Blame Bush. Blame that moron that was “voted” into office. Had he lost the election, I highly doubt this war would’ve come to be.
There. I will try to hold any more charged opinions from my updates because the world doesn’t need another lunatic spurring crazy thoughts. There are plenty running countries around the world.
I want to congratulate Michelle for getting that position in the UNDP (what does it stand for again?) Thailand seems so close to here so Mich, if you’re ever in the neighborhood, let me know. I know I’d sure love to visit Thailand! (I just invited myself to stay at your place, if you weren’t sure what I meant – beers on me).
And I finally stepped out of the stone age around here and got myself a cell phone. The thing with cell phones in this crazy country is that they are so technologically advanced that my nokia 3190 is like a typewriter compared to a vaio notebook. My phone has TWO fucking cameras, one facing forward and another facing myself for self portraits, IR, two ways to charge it, full color and great resolution on the display, internet, email, voicemail, and tonnes of programs to download and install ALL in the phone. Plus there’s a cool button that automatically flips the phone open. It’s so cool I want to just call people randomly just so I can use it.
Um. I feel out of touch with everyone that lives in Vancouver so I’m sorry. Bah.
Goodbye World
March 20, 2003
The deadline for a certain dictator’s ultimatum will be here in a few hours. Goodbye world! It was fun living in you. Sorry for blowing you to hell and back. Dear God I hate this creepy feeling I’m getting.
And…
March 18, 2003
Welcome new girl who is living in my old room back home. Whoever you are.
Better not touch my stash.
Apples and Oranges and Applish Oranges
When compact flash came out, it set the standard for portable, micro storage devices. The number of devices that used CF was prolific. Everyone was happy as companies pushed the limit of the number megabytes from 2 to 4 to 8 to a whopping 16. 16Mb was a lot of 640×480 pictures.
Somewhere along the road, Smartmedia and Sony’s proprietary Memory Stick were introduced. Now device makers were confused as to which standard to follow (except for Sony, they didn’t have a choice).
A few years later MMC and then its faster cousin SD came along. Now, XD, Memory Stick Duo, and the next generation CF are slowly taking form. Boasting 4Gb of space, you’ll need that one card only, for life.
I am utterly perplexed on why so many formats were introduced and why one can’t be adopted by everyone. There are printers that have 2 or 3 slots for different cards- where do we draw the line?
I’m sympathetic right now to the SD format because my handy palm uses it (this update is being written on a doc file on an SD card in my palm as we speak). All the cool cameras here are with SD and it’s small enough to conceal in many unsightly places. Not that I’ve had to shove an SD card into my ear (or worse), it’s nice to know if I had some sensitive information, I could shove it in my ear.
Soon, wireless access will have just as many standards: Bluetooth, WiFi, and 820.015 or something like that.
Repeat
March 14, 2003
Let’s start with a Happy Birthday to Dennis and Justin. Happy Birthday!
I had this whole update written in my head this morning as I was contemplating whether to wake up or sleep some more. It was going to be about the inevitable war. It was not a war between two countries, but a war instigated by one country and the other was forced to fight. It’s about the failing, corrupt, selfish, lying, discriminating policy of that bigger country versus the collective opinion of many many many countries. I am glad one outspoken country has vehemently been opposing the whole shebang because otherwise, it would set precedent for many other countries to blow up other countries.
And to top things off, the Serbian PM was assassinated. Wasn’t this how WW1 began?
Pencil Carving
March 11, 2003
Pencils that become art. This so cool. The skill involved with creating something like this must be amazing. I bet they go through half a dozen attempts before getting one right.
My Baby Can Graduate
She found out today – she had been working on her thesis for a long long time. Woohoo!
Glory
Tonight I finally finished Grand Theft Auto 3. I mean finally! I didn’t achieve 100%, not even close. I did all the career missions, found 100 hidden packages, did all police, firetruck, and ambulance missions, and all the payphone missions. I didn’t do any of the jumps, rampages, 4×4′s and didn’t finish the import/export ones. Those would take forever. I’m happy just to see the ending. AND I finally got to drive my very own Rhino Tank around tonight… very nice. Its turret destroys something instaneously. It’s like someone mounted an instaneous rocket launcher atop a garbage truck. Oh it’s so great. It’s terrific.
I’ve Been Meaning To Update
March 10, 2003
I just couldn’t think of anything relevant to say. I have a word doc in my palm titled, “Webpage Updates” and I try to write in it at work and upload it onto here when I get home. I stared at this empty file about 5 or 6 times in the past few days and just didn’t know what to say.
I found out why my palm get dying. I installed Insaniquarium for Palm and the program ran fine. It’s just that everytime I exited the game, a fatal error would force my palm to reset. After booting up again, it would ask if I wanted to delete everything. I choose no, it would reset again and just keep looping until I press yes, delete everything. Then I did delete everything and tried to have the desktop overwite the palm but they wouldn’t talk anymore. So I just fudged it and reinstalled it all. I actually enjoy my palm again now because it seems so much better without a bunch of garbage leftover from old programs. It’s like working with a fresh install of Windows.
Anyway I’m deciding that this update just be a random thought update, much like the ones before. I really wanted to write thought provoking issues on here and have you think about it and perhaps even respond. It seems thought provoking issues come rare in my mind so you get what you pay for huh?
Today is our two and a half year anniversary. Last night we figured out that in our 2.5 years together, we have been apart for at least 1 year. Also, we have never been with each other in May and June. How fucked up is that?
Work has been a tad irritating because it’s been getting busy again. Today I actually had the full 8 lessons. I was pretty frustrated because my day started out with 5 lessons and I watched as “they” filled each free block up. Others had 5 or 6. What a bitch. And to spit on my neck while I’m down, my shift change request has been turned down until next month. That means in April, when Eri starts working, we will see each other about 2 hours a week or something. Assuming my request gets approved for May, it won’t be too bad but they have prickly prick(s) in charge of shifts. I mean, if they reject my request, as long as they(he) is/are courteous about it, i would completely understand and respect it. No. No way… they(he) must be pompous and arrogant and carry a holier than thou attitude. I hate that.
I had a thrilling dream last night. I was in the castle scene from LoTR. I was helping them fend off orcs. How cool is that? I saw them catapulting giant hunks of coal and then giant hunks of lit firestarter onto the walls, trying to set shit on fire. I had to help pick up these gianto coals and throw them back down. Then I used a mini bow and shot pencil sized arrows at them. I think I killed a few. Cool huh?
I am slowly learning Japanese AND Mandarin here. I am going to come back a very linguistic, tempered youth.
Someone update for the love of [insert your deity]. I’m getting bored.
Fuck 2
March 06, 2003
For starters, Eri had a wisdom tooth removed and she’s been in pain all night. Then my webpage doesn’t work and hence I can’t get any email. I think it’s not my isp this time because even Blogger seems to have trouble posting this. So by the time you read this, it’ll probably be way after I wrote it. Lastly, my Palm suddenly fucked and destroyed itself. I lost all my data on it. I tried synching it to my computer but it wouldn’t connect for some reason so I just backed up all my crucial info and reinstalled it all.
If it gets worse, my whole computer will die and I’ll have to reinstall which will be scary. I haven’t reinstalled XP yet and I’m not even sure if I brought all the cds and documents I need to Japan.
Fuck eh?
Fuck
March 04, 2003
I opened the door to the balcony and saw that it was snowing today. It wasn’t a blizzard but enough flurries to make me excited. It was the first snow I have seen in a very long time. Supposedly it snowed in early January but I missed it or it turned to rain or something. Anyway, I went to brush my teeth and then picked up my camera to take a picture. I think snow scenes are beautiful, even in a nature-less place like Osaka. I open the door again and see that it’s sunny and all the snow stopped. It stopped in literally five minutes. Fucking luck. So much for a new webcam pic.
Did it snow in Vancouver this winter?
I’m sick too!
March 01, 2003
Actually, I’m at the brink of being sick. Eri is the one who is sick. She had a sore throat, runny nose, and a slight fever. I’ve been feeling that itch in my throat and I’ve been hocking nonexistent loogies. A lot of people at work are sick too. It’s a pandemic!
New Best Work
February 27, 2003
Wasn’t it like two weeks ago or less that I had the best day of work? Well today beat that day. Four scheduled lessons again, except this time one of them was a no-show. Another one also came five minutes late. So today, I actually worked 1 hour and 55 minutes. And how much do I get paid??? Who cares!
Last night, while trying to sleep (alone), I was thinking about Eri. She was to have an x-ray taken because she is going to have her wisdom teeth removed in a week or so. I started thinking about the anaesthetics she would have. I started thinking about the remote chance that she could not wake up because they overdose on the gas or something. I started thinking about how horrific life would be if I were in Japan and she were in a coma and I can’t even ask the doctor on her situation. It was 3am and I was worrying myself dead. I wanted to wake up and email her just to let her know how much I love her while I had the chance. It was a long night. I don’t even know why I freaked out like that suddenly. Anyway, I found out she’s not gonna get gassed, she’s gonna get needled. The worst that can happen is they hit a nerve or something and she won’t feel in a small area in her gums. I can live with that.
Starcontrol 2 rules over every game ever made. Ta!
Fun Day
February 25, 2003
Today I saw The Two Towers finally. I really liked it! Actually, I really liked the siege scenes at Helmsgate. It was one of the best siege scenes ever. Can’t wait for the next one. Can’t wait for the Matrix too, and, the other Matrix too. And, Dennis and I downloaded the remake of Starcontrol 2, possibly the best computer game that I’ve ever played. I loaded it up and it ran like I was running a DOS machine – flawlessly. It seems to be missing the intro (which was awesome) but now there are live speeches during alien encounters instead of only the text. I don’t want to start playing it yet – I want to finish GTA 3 first. Top that off with a new Strong Bad email. The cherry of it all, I finally bought a USB hub. I finally felt I had enough USB devices to warrant a hub. I wish I could get another hub actually. It has been a fun day.
Hey Yo
February 22, 2003
Jonathan is the first of our group to have a three way no-show. He and I take the same subway line home but I usually never see him on the train because I like to make a dash for it after work and take the 10:48. He doesn’t like the rush and takes his time and usually takes the next train after that. Tonight though, I saw him in the elevator so I asked him why he was so early… “I had a three way no show today,” he says, with a big grin on his face. I started questioning him, “Really? You’re sure? You sure it wasn’t a two way? Or a one way?” Of course, there really weren’t any other possibilties. That bum. He only had four lessons tonight and one of them turned out to be a holy grail. I had five today with a one way no show but now I just feel cheated.
I guess my update everyday thing fell apart shortly after Dennis stopped. I just ran out of things to say. I’m (re)playing Grand Theft Auto 3 now and I’m trying to find every bonus and secret thing this time. Actually, I never made it to the second part of the game the first time I played. And I’m out of things to say.
Strong Sad!
February 17, 2003
One of the joys of living on the other side of the planet is that while everyone is sleeping, I’m wide awake in time to check the Strong Bad Email! This week’s issue is excellent. Poor Strong Sad though. Oh and The Cheat hoodies??? How much better can it get?
Ok, I won’t spoil anything else for you people, which, I’m guessing would only be Dennis because I’m not sure if anyone else is hooked on that webpage like us.
On a side note, Utada Hikaru looks completely different now than when she first became famous with that hideously overplayed song. I guess marrying a guy ten years your senior will do that to you.
Holiday
February 16, 2003
Day 1 of my four day weekend. Today I listened to a whole bunch of the ghost show that I used to listen to in Vancouver. The recent ones suck because they don’t record the whole show, only certain segments which are purely fictional. I also played a bit of old super nintendo games. Then as I was talking to Dennis about stuff, I was trying to think of a design for a webpage. The ones in my files are just not quite right to use.
I had a dream a few nights ago where I was in the same band as Dennis. I remember seeing about 6 or 7 people in this band. The band was great, I remember being very successful in this band. However the dream kind of sucked because I was having an argument with Dennis over what kind of music we should play. I don’t really remember how the argument ended because the dream phased into a new situation – this time I was a thief and I broke into some family’s house and stole a blue skateboard and a boardgame.
Quarter Life Crisis
February 13, 2003
Here I am on a Thursday afternoon waiting for a student to show up for a lesson. She will not show up. As a result, I now write this update to be blogged on later today. It’s kind of like a time capsule in a sad, boring way.
Reading Dennis’ update got me thinking about what I want in the next years ahead. Having a meaningless, non-technical degree severely limits my options. Firstly, my marks are nowhere near the level needed to score an accounting job. I’ve tried scores of firms, from mega-size to mom ‘n’ pop partnerships. I thought I had secured a position last year because the dude invited me up to the office for a tour and you don’t do that to people you don’t hire. Alas, no callback so screw him. A possibility would be to venture to Hong Kong or mainland China to see what accounting positions are available but I really don’t want to.
The truth is that accounting does not interest me. That may explain my lacklustre marks in my core accounting classes while I pull A’s in my other more ‘general business’ courses. I have come to a conclusion that I don’t want to apply myself to one area of business but instead to smear myself across the whole spectrum.
This makes starting my own business very appealing as I would be on my hands and knees doing the dirty work and at the same time reap the rewards (less taxes of course). The big problems here are of course I have no practical business experience and I have no idea what business to dive into.
I really don’t want a 9-5 job to eat my life away because it just won’t be worth it, no matter what the latest bonus plan or shiny incentive may be. I am sea-green with envy when I see people doing what they love and also doing something for their community or even this world. Unfortunately for me, there isn’t anyone around who will pay me to do the things I love.
Still life goes on with or without me and in the end: I choose to live it, for better or for worse.
Weekend
February 11, 2003
I don’t remember if I complained about this before but today is my first day off since January 29 because I traded my weekend last week for a coworker’s weekend. She was going on some sort of vacation and needed the extra time. I, being a coward, was unable to say no to her so I idiotically filled in the shift swap request form. So I just worked 12 days straight. It wasn’t all bad actually because since now my “priority” level for lessons is not as high and they also brought in a whole pack of new people (suckers, that is). The last week was rather nice – I was complimented on my being a “good teacher” by about 4 or 5 students and one even went as far as, and I quote, “you’re the best teacher I’ve ever had.” These are the sort of things that increase job satisfaction without the company’s interference and I could write a novel about the horrors the company subjects us to. Oh, what am I getting in return for working 12 days straight? Well, today (Tues) and tomorrow is my normal weekend. I then work Thurs, Fri, Sat. In return for my good heart, I will get Sun through Wed off.
I remember writing awhile back about my four lesson work day that would be hard to top. Last night, I beat it. I started the day with 5 lessons. I teach the first two and refresh my schedule again, (think F5, F5, F5, F5) and much to my shagrin, they removed two lessons. Normally, whenever they take someone away, they will in the next 30 seconds put another back in so I wasn’t too excited yet but by the time the lesson bell rang, I knew I was in the clear. I used the next to blocks talking and drinking canned coffee. Then I had a nice lunch which Eri made for me. I checked my sched again thinking they’ll have probably filled up the latter half by now – NO! I got the next three blocks free and finally finished off with a lesson and went home. 3 lesson. Breaking it down: 1 grammar lesson which are actually fun to teach, a 3 student lesson made of very advanced students – the topic being, Conspiracy Theories, and finally a private lesson with a man who had neglected lessons for 5 months (I failed him, that poor, nervous wreck). It will be a day to be remembered.
Enough about work.
I just finished reading, You Damn Kid, a very funny comic that had me bursting out in laughter in the middle of the night. It will be linked up soon enough. You should read it if you like funnies.
Also, there is a new webcam pic. Eri and I were in the middle of beating the shit out of each other or tickling each other or something when she suddenly screams and points at the top of the sliding doors. I keep a few animals up there (by tape) and one is a pair of bears that hold each other. I had taped them up to look like they were floating angel bears or something but one of the bears must’ve been too heavy and broke free from the tape. Their hands have velcro sewed on and I fastened them together before taping them up. So the other bear, in his infinite love for the falling bear, would not let go of the otherwise, doomed bear. Here are two pics to illustrate this great struggle out of love. By the way, the bears were untouched in anyway. I quickly plugged in the webcam and captured it before they fell. The third pic is after I fixed the falling bear. this is what they’re supposed to look like.
Fear Me!
February 08, 2003
Which Colossal Death Robot Are You?
Webcam
February 03, 2003
Wow. I haven’t changed it in more than a month. So there’s a new pic up. It’s of my apartment at night. The light is a kitchen light. If it were off, you would see the scary hallway light.
Edit – 2002/09/22
I was referring to this picture.
Oh Man
February 01, 2003
The Columbia shuttle has lost contact on its landing. Debris was seen falling from it as it flew by. Doesn’t sound good. Yahoo! News. Wasn’t it near the end of Jan in 1986 when the Challenger blew up? That’s almost 17 years exactly.
Holy
January 27, 2003
Holy Smoked Salmon Batman! Has it been almost a week already?
Today, well, technically, last night at work a dilemna popped up. I taught this one man earlier in the day and he told me he was taking six lessons, mine being the third. After my break, I was curious about his other three classes so I opened up his file to see what the teachers after me had written about him. Instead of seeing three comments following my own, I only saw one. Fair enough, perhaps he had decided to not be crazy and stuff an extra two hours of English into his somewhat deranged brain (he was kinda weird). The strange thing was the first line of the comments started with, “Dear Superman”. Teachers at the company are not your normal bunch but to write something like this into the comments which are read by teachers and other staff is just not very smart.
Ok, I thought, MAYBE the student used this line in the lesson and the teacher thought it would be informative to write this out for other teachers. I know I write what students say just to show some examples of their abilities or to highlight some errors that the next teacher may want to work on or be aware of. I read the rest of the comments and they were even weirder than that.
One line I remember went something like, “I know you fuck dogs and drink whiskey in the morning”. Then some other crap about not knowing where Superman is. Then it ended with something like I will mess up the newspaper editor. It was signed, “Louis”. If we keep to the Superman theme, it should’ve been Lois, like Lois Lane. Who knows. Maybe this person wanted to frame a teacher called Louis? Anyway my dilemna was should I just ignore it or should I tell someone? If I ignore it, the next person who read it would probably have to do something. Conveniently enough, my trainer was sitting very close to my booth so I motioned him to come over and take a look. He wasn’t very impressed by it and he took down the name and the student’s number and he went “upstairs” to what I believe is some sort of torture room for misbehaving teachers. Near the end of my shift, curiosity got the better of me so I opened up the same file. Not to my surprise, the comments had been replaced with, “.”
I guess it wasn’t really a big dilemna. I think I did the right thing because what the person wrote was unprofessional, unconstructive, and just plain fucking stupid. I know that particular student was somewhat of a pain in the ass to teach but he tried very hard and he was quite friendly. My hypothesis is that this teacher probably was leaving Japan soon, was rather bitter about the job, hated this student, and just decided to write some stupid comments to pass the time and vent. I hope the poor student didn’t end up taking the rest of his lessons because this teacher was being a dickface.
I don’t feel very happy about getting someone in shit but no matter how bad the environment can be, it doesn’t help anything to be more destructive.
I hope he doesn’t hunt me down and write stupid comments on my webpage.
Success
January 21, 2003
Tonight I fixed the door. A couple months ago, I had trapped myself in the washroom one night because the knob wouldn’t pull back the latch and let me out. It would just spin and spin. I was standing there naked thinking, “Oh shit. When the locksmith comes, I’ll be naked and happy to see him.” I got Eri to pass me some screwdrivers and pants through the window from the outside, in the apartment corridor. I pried it open and took it apart. For the last couple of months, when we used the washroom, the door could at any moment swing open because there was nothing holding it to the wall.
Tonight I got bored and I took apart half of the door and finally discovered how the locking mechanism works. I was able to fix the door.
I am now a certified locksmith.
Still, I fear I will be alone in the washroom one day and thinking the door would open when I want it to. I fear I will once again be spinning the knob aimlessly while this time, wondering who would pass me screwdrivers and pants. Shudder.
Things To Come
I’m working on a bunch of things I hope to bring up soon.
Here’s a preview of Livingspace II. It’s not as linear as the first one. This layout took quite awhile to draw, not so much because of the lines in photoshop are hard to put down but it took forever to measure my apartment. By the way, the dimensions are very very very accurate. Each pixel represents one centimeter. I think the whole thing is off by less than 10 centimeters, 15 at the most. I was pretty anal about making sure it was realistic. The blue rep walls, yellow are windows, and red are doors (including sliding doors, closet doors, and the main door). The smaller rectangles are the washroom and closet while the bigger spaces are the kitchen, den, and bedroom.
Woohoo!
January 16, 2003
I am now the proud owner of a Wacom Intuos 2 drawing tablet. It’s terrific! I can now start a bunch of stuff that has been dumping around in my head. Actually before that, I really have to practice because it’s quite different from the one at work and doodling on paper. Woohoo! Oh yeah, I didn’t pay anywhere near the price listed on that webpage, I paid about two hundred. Not too bad I guess.
Unwanted Update
January 15, 2003
I fear if I don’t update about once a week, I will let it slip and my dear webpage will burn from the smell of an entry dated months before. Therefore, I am updating, against my imagination and writing skills, to keep the place smelling new. Sunny messaged me, “man..i’ve been reading your updates… are you going to make it back home alive????” What a kind gesture from Sunny, he was asking about my well being. I’ll admit, my past updates have been… less than fuzzy and indeed, I felt like shit at times over these past couple of weeks. Let it be known that I am a survivor and I was just bitching/venting. I’m doing quite well.
My dear family has sent a nice little care package and my sister sent a crate of Godiva chocolates. Eri mentioned, “We’ll never finish it.” WRONG! I am the chocolate incinerator. I devour chocolates faster than it is made. Woe to Willy Wonka! I will purge Purdy’s! God help you Godiva! We opened the box today and already I ate about half a dozen pieces. Muhahaha.
We haven’t done much lately. The lack of money may be a reason. My income is pretty good considering what I do, but when split among two hungry hungry hippos of a couple, it doesn’t last long. That’s ok. I get paid today!
A reason why I’m not updating as often as before is because I have a whole slew of things I’m working on right now that are diverting previous energy away from my webpage. I’m writing a mini script for a story dealie and I’m also visiting a whole bunch of blog sites to look for design inspirations. I’m soon to pick up a drawing tablet because my hand/mouse coordination is simply not good enough for pixel pushing. Hell, I can’t even play a decent round of Quake 3 anymore – Dennis can attest to that. I’m reading a coles notes version of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table (great stuff). I’m lending a hand doing some research into an international trade dealie. And, Eri and I are working on a puzzle featuring a bunch of dogs. It’s all cutesy and all but it’s fucking difficult to differentiate the fur of one dog from the next. We’re about half done.
Anyway I hope all goes well for all who come here. Write me a few words dammit! Hast the world forgotten about me already?
Not Dead Yet I’m Afraid
January 09, 2003
Once again I am updating after a night of not being able to sleep. This is becoming a disturbing pattern. My circadian patterns have evolved beyond that of normal man and have become… INSOMNIA-SAPIEN… the new order of human. It’s not like I drank anything with caffeine in it too unless they have a nasty habit of spiking orange juice with speed here. Unfortunately I had to wake my fat ass up at 6 this morning to fucking work. Fortunately, I only had to teach four lessons which is like they’re paying me to sit around and draw in my notebook and read. Unfortunately I was way too tired to enjoy it and the latter half of today’s shift seemed like skiing through the Sahara.
Time has no meaning anymore… today it’s Thursday and soon it will be Thursday again. And again. And again. And again. I am losing it…
Second
January 04, 2003
Fact: Jasmine tea does to me what a double grande triple swirl super loaded coffee at Starbucks would do, it suppresses my sleep urges all night. I came home last night after spending a few days at Eri’s house. I came home with a cold too, which was the main reason I wanted to come home in the first place. As hospitable and generous Eri’s family were to me, I still felt very much like a guest and just couldn’t get myself to relax. I enjoyed the cooking though and the visit to the temple on New Year’s Day but yesterday I decided that if I wanted to fight off this cold invasion, I must return home and barricade myself. Eri will be coming back in a few hours. My nose has been the victim of a mucus onslaught and sneeze raids for far too long. My eyes feel like I haven’t blinked in a week. My throat is telling me, “I’m about to be sore! Save me!” Blech. And it’s stupid cold too.
Art Bell is once again retired at the end of last year. I’ve lost count of how many times he’s retired and/or gone off the air. It’s sad (again). He’s been having back pains for a long time now and because of this, he’s cut down to only a few nights a week for the past while. His successor, George Noory, is a pretty good host so the show will be in good hands. I have to admit that I’ve lost interest in the show since summer. The guests and topics aren’t as fun as they used to be. Since being in Japan, I’ve only listened to the show once and only for 15 minutes. The time zones make it too difficult. They even killed the original webpage because it wasn’t made by the corporate giant but made by some guy in the middle of somewhere (Art made it a condition of his return to have the little guy continue to be the webmaster). Now that Art is gone, the little guy webmaster goes with him. Sad.
Ech. I have a lot of things to do but I don’t have the energy to do it right now. Instead, I’ll play some Final Fantasy 1. That’s right… ONE. Woohoo!
First Update of the Year
January 01, 2003
It’s still technically true that the last update would be my last update of the year although I am updating within a few days. I am at Eri’s house and our countdown into this new year was quite modest. We’ll be heading out to a temple early in the morning.
This New Year didn’t feel much like a new year either. Actually, it’s almost exactly how my last year’s new year was run in, here in Eri’s house. Much like last year we’ll be heading into yet another mysterious year not filled with hope but instead with news of terrorist attacks and inevitable ‘wars’ and hatred and killing. Ooh la de da.
Happy New Year? Only for the ignorant.
Last Update of the Year
December 28, 2002
I’ll be busy relaxing and catching up with things around here after tonight so I won’t be updating for a few days. Tonight is the last night of work before the break! Woohoo.
I guess it’s ok to talk about why Christmas didn’t happen now. Last Monday, Eri’s grandfather passed away. He had been in a coma for almost two years from an accident he had while Eri and her family were in Canada. Obviously, Eri and her family were busy with preparations for the funeral which happened on Thursday. On Wednesday (Christmas), Eri went to her grandmother’s house (in another city close to Osaka) to spend the night. I was stuck alone. It was ok though because these circumstances were slightly more important than celebrations. I just feel bad for Eri because it was her birthday too. Anyhow, things are winding down and there’s hope for the New Year.
Something interesting now is that I am living in a place where North Korea could possibly nuke, once they make them. I’m sure in Vancouver and North America in general, the news coverage on the N. Korea situation is limited, if not controlled. Here in Japan, there is a lot more coverage but most of it is quite biased and almost editorial. Still, kind of scary that they are continuing with turning on the reactor … for electricity purposes… bullshit. I wonder if the idiot Dubya will do anything about it. I mean, N. Korea poses a much greater threat than Iraq.
And now for some humour.
Reasons why to attack Iraq
This is so true.
Have yourself a Happy New Year everybody! La de da de da!
Re: Turkey
December 23, 2002
Michelle, I did fathom the idea of having a Christmas dinner including the good big stupid bird we love to shove crap into but if you see my kitchen setup, you’ll understand that a turkey bird would simply be a BAD idea. Firstly, my “oven” is just one of those small convection ovens you plug in and make grilled cheese sandwiches in. My stove could possibly fit the turkey if I had this huge pan that sat across the two heating elements but who wants a fried turkey? Most importantly, I have yet to see a turkey in supermarkets. They’re simply too big for the normal japanese diet I think. There are chickens abound but when I tried drawing the difference in size between a chicken and a turkey to some students, they were horrified. It was as if I were eating 100 chickens or something. Oh, and it is against the Christmas rules to buy only a portion of a turkey, like a leg or a wing. It’s all or nothing or the gas chamber.
I think I’ll just skip Christmas this year in lieu of a bigger New Year’s shebang. They’re more festive around the 1st anyway.
Christmas?
December 22, 2002
It doesn’t feel like it at all.
The Long Awaited Update
December 17, 2002
For me anyway. The work week has finally come to a grueling end tonight. I had my final evaluation while on probation. Starting next month, I will be a fully fledged teacher who is no longer on probation. I am on the list for training for additional programs which means I will be getting less and less lessons… at least that’s what should happen. My Thursday was great – only 5 lessons with frees spread out quite evenly through the day. My Friday, Saturday, and Sunday only spared me one free and one evaluation block. That’s a lot of of work. No matter, I get a holiday in 11 days.
I got my camera to work again! I actually opened it up. The stupid thing had two dozen screws all over the casing. I took it apart because I thought it was a total loss and I might as well satisfy my curiousity and see how it works. The thing has chips and parts packed up the yingyang. After all the plastic casing was off, I put in the batteries and tried to turn it on… IT WORKED!!! What the hell? I didn’t do anything except take off the casing. Anyways as I was screaming to Eri that it works, she screamed back and told me to put it together. I got almost every screw in place except for two. I have no idea where they go. Who cares. I even found an easier and faster way to get pictures onto my computer. Too bad most of the pics from USJ came out bad due to poor lighting. I’ll eventually post some up for all to salivate over.
Eri hated the old webcam so we just took a new one. It’s our shot at starring in the next Resident Evil or Ring movie. Give us a shot Mr. Director!
And Dennis, that’s the brightest update I’ve read on your page in a long time.
Fun Day
December 11, 2002
We’re off to Universal Studios Japan today. Won’t be back till night probably. I’m bringing my camera so you’ll all see it! Here’s a new webcam to celebrate. Eri’s gonna be mad at this one. It’s our we-just-woke-up look taken last week (real webcam now).
Poke The Bunny!
December 10, 2002
This was fun. I made a neat little techno beat, then got scared shitless because I was wearing headphones and the volume was upped from simcity.
Weird Dreams
December 07, 2002
Ever since I’ve been here, I have been having some pretty strange dreams. In Vancouver, I would dream often but mostly the dreams would be fragments of a scene, like part of a story. Usually the stories would be very abstract and would make little sense to me when I pondered about them the morning after. Remember my XCom dream where all my friends didn’t help me even though they were armed to the hilt with weapons and I was being attacked by a gruesome alien? That didn’t make any sense at all.
In Japan, I have been having dreams that seem to make sense and are more coherent and complete. They are the whole play now. It may be a combination of a different sleeping schedule, new environment, new food (psychedelics??), and new everything. I usually sleep around 2 or 3am and wake up around 12pm. It may be too much sleep that’s causing these plays to be played in my head.
Last night I had three different, yet connected dreams. You do care to hear them right?
1. Someone from the ELI called me and asked if I can substitute teach for a day. I really wanted to do so. It was going to be on a Monday at 11am or something but I realized I had to work at 9:30am that day in my normal job (I actually don’t work that early). I really regretted it but I also realized I don’t have the qualifications to teach there anyway so I thought I should get that first. So all of a sudden, I was in this huge mansion studying and trying to get a TESOL. The mansion must have been the dream extension of my house in Vancouver because there were many aspects that were similar and I could navigate through it easily. As I was studying, many people suddenly appeared. Most of them were young kids who needed my help with homework. I felt so needed because they were all waiting quietly, studying and writing, as I helped them one by one. I worked with them until maybe 11pm or so. This dream might represent the homesickness and my new job intermingling. I always want to help people and being able to do so must’ve been a sign that if my “new” life and my “old” were to mix, it would be some sort of ideal?
2. Same house, right after that dream. A whole bunch of people who were my friends were over for a party. I recognized many of them but others were complete strangers but who were still my friends. This was where I found out Eri had cheated on my during our early days of dating. I was furious and extremely dissappointed. I don’t remember how I came to this conclusion, but by around 2am, we had talked about this for a lot and we were fine. I then decided that we had to break up. I don’t know why because minutes before, we worked it out. Anyways, I ended it and she left home. At first I was feeling free, as if I could have some sort of new beginning, some new adventure. But as 3am crept in, and as everyone left the house, I was feeling really lonely and sad. I felt I had made a wrong decision and I wanted to call her right away and tell her to come back. I figured it was too late to call and part of me said I shouldn’t call because I needed this new beginning. I felt horrible though. Even going to the washroom (which had a really cool sky window where I saw 10 shooting stars) was a horrible feeling. I went to sleep in a giant bed all alone. This dream may have been my worst fear or my pessimism or any negative angst left over from these few days. It may even have been reading about Dennis (dude, we are not sick of reading it… you are pouring your heart out for crying out loud). At one point, I seemed to project all the leftover feelings of anger, sadness, and loneliness from past relationships onto one person… as if she were all the past people put together. Now that is a scary thought… all your ex’s mushed into one…
3. My third and final dream was much more exciting. I believe it represents my Ideal Self, or at least my vision of a Perfect Self. I was some sort of cop or guardian and I happened to be walking along a downtown street. Suddenly, more than 10 bright lights streaked down from the sky and hit a building, causing a lot of damage. I knew at this point that the lights were some sort of alien weapon and that the Earth was under attack. I quickly ran over to the building to see if I could find any survivors. Luckily, many people were able to escape. I saw a strange man standing beside me looking into the building. I realized he was either AN alien, or he was helping the aliens – he was partly responsible for this attack. He knew that I knew somehow. He started running. I felt compelled to catch him, to bring him to justice. This guy ran at lightning speeds. Some other cops from the building were chasing him too but they were nowhere near as fast as this man. I however, also ran at super speeds and was able to catch up to him very quickly. We had a fight and I was able to easily overcome him. I had extraordinary strength and my fighting prowess was top notch. As he lay incapacitated, an important man came up and commended me on a good job. However, he mentioned something that I cannot know about this and he touched my head, near the left temple. He was doing something to me to erase my short term memory. At this point, I couldn’t see but I literally felt something on my head and I felt my memories being erased. Thankfully, I woke up at this point and I still retained the whole sequence. I think this superhero me is what I would like to be – someone who is able to help many people using my superb talents that were painstakingly developed. Maybe my fascination with aliens and conspiracies led to this story. The terroristic attack may be influenced by all the shit that’s been happening lately. And the guy I beat up might just be some shmuck I hate or something. Who knows.
Anyways, three vivid dreams by a slightly imbalanced fool.
Hello
Yet another drawing I did. This one is a tribute to Homestar Runner who has brought hours and hours of laughs. I am truly amazed at the quality of work done by those guys. Although the toons are for children, the humour is great for everyone, especially someone like me. My only wish is that more toons come out. I have to appreciate the amount of work put into each toon, I’m sure it’s a long long process for each one. Just the sounds alone must take a long time.
Aaaaanyways.
This photography site has the best use of flash I’ve ever seen. The navigation is exciting and refreshing, instead of just using bells and whistles, this site cleverly uses it to make the user curious about each link. The whole experience is quite refreshing.
Miss
December 02, 2002
I’ve been in Japan for a month and a half now and I have a growing list of things that I miss. It’s all the usual stuff like family and friends, coffee, and a lot less responsibilities, yada yada.
I have just discovered a new thing though. I miss singing. I miss belching out songs at the top of my lungs and not having to worry about waking anybody up. I used to sing in my basement back home into the latest hours of the night and no one would hear me. Not anymore. When I’m listening to the small collection of songs on my computer or the limited number of cd’s I brought, I’m careful not to blast it too loud because I know these walls aren’t very thick and people WILL hear me.
This really cuts into my singing because now I have this shroud of shame and fear even when I’m just humming in the shower. There are about 5 karaoke places per person in Japan but what really sucks is that I don’t know many Japanese songs and the ones that I do know, I don’t know how to sing. The English collection they have is painfully small and painfully selected for a small niche of people. There are zero Chinese songs. That sucks because now I’m itching to sing in Chinese considering I haven’t spoken it for as long as I have been here. Though my talent is far from superstar or even small time, one hit wonder, I feel if I don’t sing soon, I will become monotonous and lose any musical inkling that ever flowed in my blood.
I fear I will just one day BURST out singing on my balcony, estranging (even more) the ten million people in this city. Doh.
Request And Ye Shall Receiveth
December 01, 2002
This is the second, and currently, only other PDA drawing that uses the whole field. It’s called, fireball troll. fireball troll depicts a troll who is holding a fireball.
This became a turning point in the artist’s work. This was when he started drawing trolls holding chemical reactions instead of the traditional mace or short sword.
The motivations behind every drawing are mysterious and eerie. To look into this matter would only draw you into the farthest reaches of the cesspool of the artist’s mind. Where he pulls out these ideas is a hotly debated topic. Scholars say that Lucifer himself forged a demonic fax machine that dialed straight into the artist’s head. Another school of thought says the Archangel Michael trumpets the thoughts into the air for the artist to revel in His Glory.
It may be said whether he dabbles in the forces of good or evil, these comics are an enigma that are best left alone, only to be enjoyed on the surface, never to be deeply probed.
Stupid PDA Drawings
November 27, 2002
I made a whole bunch of them back when I first got my Palm but ever since, I’ve stopped. UNTIL NOW! As mentioned in a few updates ago, I am using my palm more and more lately and so while at work one time, I drew a couple more drawings… this time using the WHOLE notepad field instead of just the one screen. Voila
I call it, The Town because it is a picture of a town. Be amazed at the details and the black and white somber moods.
Woohoo
November 26, 2002
Today has been the sweetest day at work ever. A normal day consists of most likely 8 or if I’m lucky, 7 lessons. Today I had 4 scheduled but 1 just got dropped so I have a grand total of 3! Having lessons fill up scheduled free blocks is very common and is expected. I come to work and check my schedule to see 5 or 6 but as the day progresses, they’ll fill them up. It’s the most dissappointing thing: you’re 5 minutes away from finishing a lesson thinking you have a free and when you check your schedule – they’ve filled it up.
Anyway, having lessons taken away is almost unheard of! I will remember this day as the best work day. Thanks go to the guy who cancelled this lesson OR thanks go to the new recruit who had this lesson thrust upon him. Ok, I did have a meeting today which usually means an automatic free right after – still, it means I have 3 frees today. I consider it payback for the full 8s they’ve given me these past few days.
What a great way to end this otherwise busy week (it’s my weekend tomorrow).
—
Ah fuck. Right after I had written that, I checked my schedule again. They had filled it with a new lesson. Bastards. Well, I’m on the subway going home now so I guess it wasn’t that bad. Four beats eight anyday.
New webcam
November 19, 2002
yay
Edit – 2002/09/22
I was referring to this picture.
Ahhhhh
Right now is probably the most relaxing time in the week for me.
I just finished vacuuming, taking out the trash, cleaning up some stuff that was scattered, washed a few nights worth of dishes, and had a light snack. Now for some high quality relaxing. Eri’s off to school and I’m to meet her in an hour or so near the subway so we can go grocery shopping. This gives me just enough time to update, play some Baldur’s Gate, listen to some music, and maybe think about stuff I want to do later.
Dennis, my quake is now patched up and ready to go. Give me the IP and we’re set.
You know, I remember Dennis saying one time that the 9/11 attacks reminded him of Deus Ex – where terrorists bombed the Statue of Liberty and set the world into panic mode. The UN (in the game) declared war on the NSF (the ‘bad guys’) and an antiterrorist coalition was formed. In the news lately have been warnings by many countries – Al Qaeda will attack some place, some time, somewhere. It wasn’t until I saw many of these warnings when I also realized how Deus Exy this all seemed. Kinda scary. It’s weird, there’s really no mention of much terrorist information on Japanese tv. I only read about this stuff on Yahoo and Google news. Either these sites are part of some big government propaganda to scare the shit out of people or maybe here in Japan they live in such an isolated society that they don’t really care. Cool.
It’s Update Day
Yes! It’s the happiest day! Update Day!
I am very jealous of Dennis, Justin, and Michelle because although I am where they invented sushi, I would have loved hanging out with them. Sucks to you jerks for not inviting me. I’m not inviting any of you to my next sushi day. Anyone who is not Dennis, Justin, or Michelle is invited. Anyone who actually shows up will get free sushi and demon sake or something. Those in Japan need not try. Bleh.
I feel very settled in this place now. My job is routine and it’s not as boring as I used to think. I am meeting a new coworker everyday – whether or not I’ll get to know them remains a mystery. My Thurs, Fri, and Mondays are easy. Usually I’ll get a free or two on these days. Today, I had two frees and a no-show. So I actually taught 5. Sat and Sun are the worst days because it is almost certain that I get a full 8. It’s going to be this way until the new year because I’m currently still on “probation” – means they pay me less because I’m “inexperienced” (I’ve been teaching since second year university… jerks). I did see two streams of new people so far which means I’m placed lower on the priority list – the higher you are, the more you teach. Some teachers I’ve talked to who’ve been there for awhile get something like 5 or 6 a day on average (I get about 7 or 8 average).
Since working here, I’ve read more books, studied more Japanese, and used my Palm in more useful applications. I was writing a new About page on the old Palm on the subway for the last two or three days. I’ve created some crappy monthly income statement to guage where my money goes (I still don’t know). I am trying to play Bejeweled more because Eri miraculously beat my mega score of 230,000 by 20,000. She’s been quite gloaty lately… I MUST beat her score… for the sake of men all over the world. I’m looking at more webpages on it – I have used up the whole 2m limit given at AvantGo. I’m still looking for ways to use this pda more constructively… ideas? Veo.com is coming out with a camera for the palm and I’m contemplating getting it or a cell phone with a camera. Either one will suit the purpose of; “crude picture taker that’s easily transported and not too valuable”. Bleh.
That’s really about it. Eri is sleeping at her own house tonight. Which sucks. That made a lot of grammatical sense. Anyways, it’s my Friday night! I will spend my Saturday (Tuesday) cleaning up and watching tv that doesn’t make any sense.
Three updates in a day? I must be dreaming!
November 14, 2002
You sure are friend. It’s probably true to because right now it’s 3:30am in Vancouver and all you little boys and girls are probably sound asleep dreaming of candy and robots. After getting my webpage to show up again, I felt the urge to write. Seeing how Dennis has a new webpage up has made me want to change my webpage. I’m slowly in the process but I really have no idea on what to do. I’m still saving up money to buy a good digital camera – I know which one I’m getting at least. It’s a stills/video recorder that can record up to 90 minutes of video with sound. It’s kinda expensive and right now money is pretty tight. Seeing how I’m only getting paid for October this month, I’m still wondering if I can stretch this month’s food budget until December. In the meantime, I’m playing with my old piece of shit camera just for kicks. I seem to have misplaced my battery charger… either that or maybe I left it in Vancouver. I could’ve sworn I saw it here. I finally got back to playing Baldur’s Gate today after a week of neglecting it. I fell asleep in the middle of it. Some guy on my floor is moving out so he’s selling me this small computer desk for 1000 yen (slightly over $10). It’s pretty sweet. I saw a similar one in the stores for about $100. Woo, I’m just throwing random thoughts all over this update. Dennis, you have to make a new icon for your new webpage. Actually so do I. Work, if you’re wondering, is alright as of late. I’ve been getting more frees (that means they don’t schedule the all 8 in a day, they give you maybe 6 or 7 so I can have some breather room). It’s getting quite breezy although it’s still quite tiring to talk all day. I have a small group of like minded individuals whom I eat with and bitch about things. It’s like something out of Seinfeld actually. I’m the George of all people because I complain the most and sometimes they don’t understand me. I’m waiting for Eri to finish her thesis so that we can start cooking. Uhh I think I am out of thoughts now.
Yay!!!!!
It works! I can finally see my fucking webpage! Thanks to Dennis for the technical consultation and making me think my host was blocking my ip. I think the answer was a lot simpler. Thanks to Eri – when she came over to try to be affectionate, the webpage suddenly worked again – I just shoved her aside for the joy of seeing my webpage again. She’s now saying, “No! Ha Ha Ha Ha… don’t write about me…”. Woohoo! Let it be known that from this day forward, November 14 will now be called, Webpage Came Back Day.
The problem I think is something about when my computer goes into sleep mode (I just slam the cover down and it sleeps), something messes it up because when I open it up, ICQ and Messenger are shown as online when in reality, I have to reconnect again. Well I unplugged the modem and replugged it and rebooted my computer and voila.. it works!
Honey, shut up.
Hello?
Hello.
And A New Webcam
November 12, 2002
Actually I don’t have a web camera right now as I left it in Vancouver for my sister. This picture was taken in the first few days I got here. I’m going to post a bunch of pictures up of my apartment and of Japan but I’m still working on it, a little at a time. Soon.
Edit – 2002/09/22
I was referring to this picture.
Vancouver Riot?
November 09, 2002
Cool. Another riot in my hometown huh? Cool. Incidentally, my apartment is very close to “Riot Control Force 2″. Makes me feel safe to know if there were a riot in my neighborhood, The Man would be here to bash me with batons in a matter of minutes.
For Your Interest
November 07, 2002
God is sending us bubonic plague again.
And fill your Darwin needs with this game.
And this is from a while back but I forgot if I posted it or not; survive death by being a diamond!
And Art Bell is retiring for the second time. Sigh. I don’t even know anymore.
And see these beautiful photos from all over Asia before Bush bombs the fuck out of them too.
Hello
November 06, 2002
Tonight I will go see some friends from the ELI whom I haven’t seen in a few months. It will be the first time I see people other than Eri since I arrived here. I’m excited! The only problem is I’m not exactly sure where we’re meeting so chances are I will be lost trying to find the place. Who knows. It’s kind of weird because it feels like we’re going to meet in Vancouver. Instead of Namba station, it feels like we’re gonna meet at Robson and Denman or something. Weird.
I just finished hanging wet laundry out on my balcony and my fingers are frozen dead. I could use the dryer but I’m too cheap to fork over the two bucks or whatever it costs. Besides, it’s a sunny (albeit cold) day today. It’d do my clothes good to air out the stenches. I hope people don’t think I have deep mental problems because beside my shirts, pants, socks, and underwear is a pair of Eri’s panties and her bra. Seeing how I’m supposed to be living here alone, it gives my neighbors a lot of strange thoughts about me.
I am currently reading, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I’m on habit 3 and I’m impressed with the book. Instead of promising quick fixes, it acknowledges that solving problems takes time and effort and is a longterm commitment. I recommend this book to anyone who feels they’re not living an optimized life (all of you). I wish more people read it so that I can talk to them about it. I picked it up because Eri’s company asked her to read it and write some sort of book report about it and since I’ve heard rave reviews about this book, I decided to read it with her. Actually, she’s reading the Japanese version. I have been reading more in this month than I ever did in half a year in Vancouver. Taking the subway really gives me a lot more time to pursue quiet hobbies. It takes about 15 minutes per trip plus free blocks and my break during work gives me tonnes of time to read.
Bye.
Sigh
November 02, 2002
I wonder when everyone will start to update again.
I Am Dialed In
October 30, 2002
This is incredibly fast. It’s supposed to be a 12Mbps connections but it’s probably not that fast. Still kicks the pants off the one at home though. Hehehe.
Hello
October 23, 2002
Still waiting for ADSL. Things work really slowly here. Maybe in a week or two… till then.
SURPRISE!!!
October 12, 2002
Hello all! I don’t really have time for a real update yet. I’m doing well and I’m in the process of hooking up adsl to my place. Come back in a week or so. I already wrote out two pages worth of updates to post later so soon you will indulge in my adventures. Till then, take care and send me email or money.
Bye Vancouver
October 08, 2002
That’s it folks. This will be my last update in Vancouver for awhile. I’m all packed and ready to go. Thanks to everyone for everything and I’ll miss you all. I will update as soon as I can when I’m in Japan. I’ll probably be staying at Eri’s house the first night so maybe I can update there. Otherwise, take care and email me.
Woohoo
October 07, 2002
Justin and Dennis have been reading my webpage and got me the full Simpsons season 2 episodes on dvd. Too bad they didn’t get me a car or 110VAC because I’ll be missing those too. But I think I’m going to enjoy this dvd set very much because Simpsons spells “at home” for me. Thank you so much fellas. There’s finally a new webcam of me and my new gift.
In other news, Palm has a new PDA out. It’s called the Zire and it’s the barebones version of everything but the design is pretty nice. Easy to use and veered towards technoblindies.
This is awesome
October 05, 2002
link.
Eep
Smoking pays. Too bad she won’t live long to spend it.
It was the second day in a row where I couldn’t sleep until 5am. The first night, I went to Starbucks with my cousin and had a venti coffee. I tried sleeping at 2 but got up and looked at the clock until 5. Same thing yesterday only it was with another person instead. I blame it on the venti coffees but maybe to some degree on the anxiety that’s been building up these few days. Bah.
World’s Funniest Jokes
October 04, 2002
First the link.
Now I know that in a month or so, the link will be dead so I’m going to cut and paste these jokes here too.
By Corey Ullman
LONDON (Reuters) – After a year of painstaking scientific research, the world’s funniest joke was revealed on Thursday.
In a project described as the largest-ever scientific study into humor, the British Association for the Advancement of Science ( news – web sites) asked Internet users around the world to submit their favorite jokes and rate the funniness of other people’s offerings.
More than 40,000 jokes from 70 countries and two million critiques later, this is it:
“Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn’t seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other man pulls out his phone and calls emergency services.
He gasps to the operator: “My friend is dead! What can I do?” The operator in a calm, soothing voice replies: “Take it easy. I can help. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.”
There is a silence, then a shot is heard.
Back on the phone, the hunter says, “Ok, now what?”
Researchers found significant differences between nations in the types of jokes they found funny.
People from the UK, the Republic of Ireland, Australia and New Zealand preferred gags involving word play, such as:
PATIENT: “Doctor, I’ve got a strawberry stuck up my bum.”
DOCTOR: “I’ve got some cream for that.”
Americans and Canadians favored jokes where people were made to look stupid.
TEXAN: “Where are you from?”
HARVARD GRAD: “I come from a place where we do not end our sentences with prepositions.”
TEXAN: “OK — where are you from, jackass?”
Meanwhile, many Europeans liked gags that were surreal or made light of serious subjects such as illness, death and marriage:
A patient says, “Doctor, last night I made a Freudian slip, I was having dinner with my mother-in-law and wanted to say: ‘Could you please pass the butter?’
“But instead I said: ‘You silly cow, you have completely ruined my life.’”
Marriage-mocking also featured in the top American joke:
“A man and a friend are playing golf one day. One of the guys is about to chip onto the green when he sees a long funeral procession on the road next to the course.
“He stops in mid-swing, takes off his golf cap, closes his eyes, and bows down in prayer. His friend says: ‘Wow that is the most thoughtful and touching thing I have ever seen. You are truly a kind man.’
“The man then replies: ‘Yeah, well, we were married 35 years.’”
Death earned big laughs in Scotland:
“I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather. Not screaming in terror like his passengers.”
And animals figured prominently. Take the number one joke in England:
“Two weasels are sitting on a bar stool. One starts to insult the other one. He screams, ‘I slept with your mother!’
“The bar gets quiet as everyone listens to see what the other weasel will do.
“The first again yells, ‘I SLEPT WITH YOUR MOTHER!’
“The other says: ‘Go home dad, you’re drunk.’”
The survey revealed other fun facts:
– Of the countries rating the highest number of jokes, Germans, perhaps surprisingly, laughed the most. Canadians laughed least.
– If you want to tell a funny animal joke, make it a duck.
– The most frequently submitted joke, at 300 times, was: “What’s brown and sticky? A stick.”
Researchers said no one ever found it funny.
The findings can be read at www.laughlab.co.uk
Things I’m Going to Enjoy
October 03, 2002
being with Eri
cheap cigarettes
real Japanese food
100 yen stores
100 yen sushi places
my new digital camera (soon)
wireless 64kps connection (cheap)
temples and pictures thereof
laughing at the really small cars
laughing at the really small people
getting beat up by small people
learning japanese martial arts
learning japanese
the look on people’s faces when I speak fluent English
Things I’m Going To Miss
family foremost
close close friends
friends
work
Simpsons
ADSL
cheap greasy food
open space
coffee with friends
110VAC
my house
having a car
being able to speak to anyone on the street
books
mild weather
Dear Michelle
October 01, 2002
Two words – Cranberry Juice.
Cleaning Up
September 30, 2002
I began boxing some stuff that I won’t be bringing to Japan because my parents may rent out the basement. While stuffing things like my textbooks, notebooks, personal effects, etc, I stumbled onto my box of memories – a shoebox filled with stuff from girlfriends, friends, would-be lovers, and other people that in some way or another impacted my life.
I don’t think I could get myself to go through each piece of item so meticulously if it were a few years back. Some of the memories were just too painful to revive. Today, as an older and wiser self, I went through each item remembering whom it was that gave it to me, the reason, the situations, my state of mind, and the like. I’ve concluded that even though I think I lead a pretty mundane life today (that I’m content with), I had a pretty crazy life back then. If it were three years ago, I would have said that that life was horrible and traumatic, filled with hate, anger, tears, and fear. Today, I know that there were just as many happy moments as there were sad moments. Some affected my life and turned it from its path while others barely nudge me along the path and go unnoticed. For all its worth, I’m glad I went through everything that I did. It’s shaped me to become the god-like being I am today.
That’s all. Back to stuffing crap into boxes. I’m fucking leaving in nine days and I’m feeling glummy.
Hi2
September 28, 2002
My titles of each update just suck now.
I saw a Canucks game today. First game I saw in probably 10 years or something. It was a pre-season against Calgary and Vancouver whupped them 5-1. Having not watched hockey even on tv for many many years, I didn’t know any of the players except Linden and last year’s playoff sensation Bertuzzi. We got the ticket for free from work and somehow managed to get free parking too – some guy handed out these pieces of paper that read “User Authorization #1038″. Ok…
I’m feeling so blech right now. The place is so quiet without Eri around.
Also, I’m looking around for a Kodak Palmpix for the m515… even though I’m gonna get a good digicam in Japan, I kinda want a small one to bring around in my pocket for spur of the moment shots. Anyone hear how they are? Everything I read on the web says it’s not very good but you gotta love the compact size.
Update
September 26, 2002
It’s weird. I had written probably five updates since my last update but right before I press publish in blogger, I decide the update is too stupid to be used and delete it. I even wrote the sentence you just read in my last unused update.
Dennis:
keep us updated onto the story of this Leigh Morrow. Sounds mysterious… maybe we’ll get a scoop on some breaking news regarding someone from Hamber. And congrats on your dnab eman.
Justin:
if you’re gonna just lock out topics that don’t agree with you, your forum is going to suck. And you sure get sensitive about that picture.
Michelle:
Hello! Sorry if my hello is 19.5 hours late… I know how it feels to be awake in the wee hours and there’s no one online to talk to.
As Dennis mentioned, the Victoria trip was quite fun. Eri, having slept only two hours the night before, was dragging herself everywhere. Every ten minutes I would ask her, “Are you ok?” and she would say, “Yes, I’m just sleepy”. Even so, we took some pretty cool pictures. The digital ones are in a disk somewhere but there are some ‘real’ pictures on my real camera that need to be developed. I’ll probably use them up in the coming week.
Eri is leaving for Japan tomorrow which marks the last few days I’ll be here in Vancouver. I know I have a million things to do but I just don’t want to do it. I’ll really miss everything here but I look forward to a place that bears no resemblance to anything I’ve accustomed to. I made backups of backups of my contact lists so that I’ll have some email buddies to ground me to my life. I’m bringing a small library of books and mega-collages of photos to remind me of things. And of course I’m bringing my favourite games and my kickass laptop. Forgive me if I don’t update when I get there. I’ll be scrambling around looking for wide bandwidth. So far the most appealing is a wireless connection for 30 bucks a month flat… only thing is it’s a 64kps connection. Doh. ADSL will be way too expensive after factoring in the skyrocket phone bills and the line installation (FUCKING 700 DOLLARS TO CONNECT THE FUCKING LINE + FORTY FOR THE PHONE EACH MONTH + THE ADSL FEE).
I didn’t know it at the time, but Tuesday was my last day of work. I thought I would go to the meeting tomorrow but since I’ll be driving Eri to the airport, I’ll miss it. I’m still going in because I just can’t get myself to sever ties with that damn place.
Monsters Inc.
September 18, 2002
Just saw it. It was so awesome! Boo is utterly adorable.
The movie disc itself is 93 minutes viewing time. The bonus special disc is freakin 200+ minutes viewing time. It’s filled with a lot of garbage like cut scenes only they show them in pencil form. When you patch a million pencil drawings together into jumpy animations, it makes your viewers sick. That disc sucks. The only cool thing was a virtual tour through the Pixar Studio. It’s a freakin playland there. They seem to have lots of fun at that company. If only I had talent…
Hi
Since no one else is updating, I’ll take the liberty to lead into the forefront.
Eri and I, along with Dennis and Shannon, will be venturing to Victoria this weekend for a day of fun in the sun. We’ll each be holding an Orb that has lost its light and through the course of the day, we’ll have to restore each orb’s light in order to save the world from Chaos(tm). First, we’ll go to Butchart Gardens to battle the Earth Elemental. Then it’s onto the Undersea Garden to thwart the Water Elemental. Then it’s onto a restaurant for lunch where we’ll fight the Fire Elemental in the oven. Finally, the Air Elemental can be found in the Insect World place because a lot of insects can fly. Our weapons will consist of cameras, maps, bags and bags of money for admission, and hearts of gold. Don’t tell anyone this, but I’m planning to make fun of Dennis’ stupid long robes and the pointy hat he’ll wear.
Argh! I’m leaving so soon. Argh! I’m financially screwed!
Happy Friday the 13th!
September 14, 2002
May you all stumble across black cats and walk under a thousand ladders. – Ancient Chinese Proverb
Thank you Michelle for updating! Thank you for giving me something to read about in my otherwise mundane life. I never got the idea of American Idol. A bunch of kids with varying levels of self esteem get up and get bashed by a panel of judges whose credentials are more suspect than the dissappearance of Hoffa. It’s the same to me as those chinese singing competitions they have every year where ugloids try to win and possibly make it big in hong kong – it’s not about talent. Real talent should be found by the public, not some fancy jacket, leather shoed, expensive tie clip judge who yells at people for trying. Sadly, this show is yet another one of those stupid game shows where you vote people off until the last person wins. The formula for these shows is so old now.
I think Justin’s forum has potential if people would just post on it.
Finally I have things to say (not important though)
September 11, 2002
Today is our 2 year anniversary. We went to the rose garden at UBC because that’s what we did on our first day together. We even stayed in tradition and stole a rose there. Yay! Other than that, we didn’t really celebrate.
And I finished Aliens vs Predator 2 yesterday. It is a really good game – it beats the first one hands down. The marine campaign is outright scary, especially with headphones on and dimmed lights. The other campaigns are alright, but not as scary. The storyline is not bad too although it’s a little hard to understand what’s really going on. They did a nice job isolating the one human marine from his team though. In the first game, you just start out alone and everyone is dead. I thought that was kind of weird. I’m playing it over again on a harder setting this time. The hardest setting doesn’t let you save so I’ll just pass that by. Definitely worth playing.
New webcam picture of Balloon Puppy #2. #1 died in Japan because after it shrunk to the size of a pencil, Eri untied its rear legs and after that, she couldn’t re-tie them. So it looked like half a balloon puppy with a pointy balloon end for a tail. I think after that, we both knew #1 had passed on. When she came back this time, we had to go get another one. Hence the webcam picture. #2 is already getting a bit soft. It won’t be long until it turns pencil size too. That’s all.
YAEC
September 09, 2002
Yet Another Email Change:
jeleung@hotmail.com is dead. New one is “jerry_leung_< at >hotmail.com”. Obviously, replace < at > with the real “at” sign. The reason why I changed is because the first one is loaded with spam everyday.
First Day
September 04, 2002
For many it was the first day of school. For me, it was the first day of realizing that I will be leaving for Japan in a little over a month. So I guess for anyone who still doesn’t know, I’ve taken employment with Nova Group in Osaka for at least a year to teach conversational English. The pay is alright – I’ll be able to live comfortably and probably save up a little bit of money – that is, if I don’t spend it all on those delicious electronics. I am leaving on October 8th and before that I would like to have a small party just to see my friends and spend some time together. I haven’t made any plans yet but just giving you a warning that you will be required to come.
Today I went to the airport to see off a group of students who have been here for a month. The ones that were close to us cried and cried. It was kind of funny. One girl had written four cards and as she was giving them to us, she burst out in tears each time she handed out a card. Between each card, the receiver and the girl would hug, express gratitute and say they’ll miss each other. Repeat 4x. The ones that didn’t make any effort at all to speak to us nor speak English at all did not show any emotional attachments. I don’t blame them. I don’t miss them either. As for me, I didn’t really say goodbye because I will be able to see them in a month or so. One guy, Hiro, even lent me a Thin Lizzy reunion cd which to me, was to lock in my visit to see him in Tokyo (about a 2 hour bullet train ride away from Osaka).
So in this month I will be filled with anxiety and feelings of unpreparedness. I’ll be doing things that I know I will miss for at least a year. But hey, I’m only an email away so I want most people to write me once in awhile and for a select few, I expect and would be angry if they didn’t write. I’ll also snag a webcam/mic before I leave so I can run some live chats with people. If you’re even in the neighborhood, my small closet of an apartment is yours to live in and should I have time, I’ll gladly take you around and show you everything (once I get to know the surroundings).
Fear not, I will update twice as much in Japan as I do now. Hopefully.
New webcam
August 28, 2002
celebrating the wackiness that is grand theft auto 3.
Edit – 2002/09/22
I was referring to this picture.
It’s been 5 days?
August 27, 2002
It didn’t seem like this long has past since last time. Ah well. Thankfully(?) there’s nothing significant to write about.
We bought Grand Theft Auto today and a new gamepad to go along. Playing it on 1600×1200 is sweet. I didn’t think this game would be so addicting but I’ve been playing it all day. Eri played it a few times but all she did was kill people and drive the taxi and ambulance for awhile. It’s weird, she rushes the ambulance around to save people but she ends up killing a dozen on the way to the hospital. Oh well. As for me, I’m running through each mission as fast as I can. I’m anxious to see the Yakuza.
This week will be the end of this busy season. The week after will be pretty much the last mile for me at this job. Doh.
Hi
August 22, 2002
We just got back from the PNE. It’s been about 4 years since I went and it’s still exactly as I remember it with the exception of a few different rides. The food pavillion seemed to dissappear too or maybe I just forgot where it was located. The prices are as expensive as ever – $10 freaking dollars for a shitty burger, shitty fries, and a drink. We didn’t go on many rides, actually, we just went on the Coaster. I never liked the rides. It’s a combination of me being a chicken shit, the rides not really differing year to year, and the expensiveness of the passes. I wanted to win Eri a big ass doll but all the dolls were really ugly this year and I figure it would cost $20 to win something decent sized anyway. We just ended up watching a bunch of shows, namely the monster truck rally (sucky and loud), the pig race (too short but the ducks were cute), and the superdogs (sucky but cute). I don’t think I’ll go again until I have kids to bring.
I recommend the movie Rat Race. It’s a comedy featuring many big names in the comedy field. It was gag after gag and each gag was hilarious but I found many famous comedians do not add up to a really funny movie. Each had a strong presence on screen and I think in a way, it took away from the movie. But it was funny. And Jared, some guy from my high school, was in the movie. At least I think it was him.
Lastly, following up on Michelle’s update, I tried Grand Theft Auto 3 for the first time a couple days ago. My god, video games have come a long way since my day. Even from GTA 1 – it was pretty tame by today’s standard. But the third one is just crazy! As much as I think violence is not caused by games and tv, this game may cause me to waver in my view. Verdict: This game is very very fun. It puts into a game what every one of us is thinking about when we’re driving in rush hour. I would love to just gun it on the sidewalk, careless of how many people I squish. Best of all is when you run someone over, back up over them, run them over again and so on. It’s very satisfying.
Cool
August 18, 2002
Everyone Updated
August 17, 2002
So I will do the same.
I spent the day at Victoria working. I, along with three other coworkers took a group of 30 to see the island city. I always like Victoria, no matter how boring it can seem. The day went relatively smoothly except for one girl who got a stomach ache on the ferry. I’m sure she was just looking a lot worse than her condition really was.
I’ve been working pretty long days this week so I’ve been neglecting Eri. I’m gonna spend the weekend with her so hopefully I won’t be contacted so easily (it’ll mean I’m actually out). I’ve also downloaded a lot of OLD songs lately, mostly songs I liked or loved during elementary school and high school but haven’t heard in years. My collection of mp3′s is quickly becoming some sort of diverse 80′s stuff. I mean, when was the last time anyone heard PM Dawn or Erasure?
You care not I see. I hope Dennis’ car wasn’t too hard to clean.
Signs
August 14, 2002
We saw it last night. Contrary to what everyone is saying, it is a very good movie and the ending IS very good. I don’t understand why people didn’t enjoy it because it was a very cleverly written story. Albeit it wasn’t a scary movie per se, but I don’t think the point of it was to be a scary movie. If you consider Shyamalan’s previous two movies, they weren’t very scary either. They were more of a thinking movie… Ok, in Sixth Sense, people were scared senseless by the many BOO scenes, but in the end, you were thinking about how the doctor didn’t interact with any living being except Cole. In Unbreakable (my favourite of the three), if you know anything about comics, you’ll understand the intricacies of the hero and villain conflicts. In Signs, the somewhat religious overtones worked well even if you’re atheist or agnostic because in the end, ALL the little stories and scenes came together to thwart the invasion.
All things considered, it was a very good movie. I still like Unbreakable more. I had written a big essay about the movie but decided it spoilt it too much so just go watch it.
Fireworks
August 11, 2002
Today I witnessed my worst pet peeve: big crowds. We had planned to watch the big fireworks finale all week and originally, I thought I would just take Eri to Jericho or maybe Kits to see it. Granted the view isn’t spectacular from these two locations, but the traffic is a lot less heavy. However, Benny invited us to go with him to English Bay today and seeing how I’m always busy when he asks to go out, I promised I would go. So we did.
I parked in the parkade under Eatons (actually, it’s Sears now) and we walked all the way down Robson to get to the beach. Everything up to this point was relatively fine. There were many people walking on the sidewalks but none were too unruly. The problems started when we actually got to English Bay. For some stupid reason, they put up fences around the sand. Why would you want to fence in 100,000 people? They made a few entrances onto the beach, each about 6 feet in width. Imagine thousands of people going into entrances 6 feet in width and you’ll begin to get the idea. Ideally, and theoretically, if everyone walked and NO ONE budged, pushed, shoved, or prodded, people would get onto the beach very efficiently and no one would be mad but throw in what I call the BIG FUCKING ASSHOLE factor and you get one big mess. People kept pushing and pushing. One european lady behind me was holding out her elbow as if it were a lance and kept spearing me with it. I got pissed off because she did this for 6 meters (which took about 5 minutes to travel) so I stood my ground, bent my knees and just made sure she could not move. Then she just shoved her stumpy body to whoever was beside me. If she had only lowered her stupid elbow, I wouldn’t have been pissed. I understand the mentality that people want a good seat and therefore are pushing to get by but please, no pointy objects. I really wanted to just elbow her back in her nose.
Canada won by the way. The fireworks were nice. They were as nice as fireworks can be… you know, flashy explosions containing millions of dollars worth of chemicals.
Leaving the beach was exactly the same as entering. More shoving, more morons, more elbow spears, and a bitch who pushed Eri this time. That got me pissed but it was some short asian girl with a stupid “it’s not my fault” attitude. Fuck you bitch. We walked through an alley running parallel to Robson and that saved us a lot of time. By the time I got back to the car, I was a fireworks display with a short fuse or a loose trigger. We drove out and of course, at one green light (Robson and Howe maybe…), NO cars went through because more morons crossed when they shouldn’t have. At Nelson and Seymour, some kids made some stupid scary faces and stupid noises and us. I would have honestly killed them if there were no consequences. I would have really murdered them cold blooded. One more episode. As I was crossing a green, two really stupid white guys dashed across the street in front of my car. Again, I would have loved to run them over if I didn’t have to go to jail or pay money or whatever. I would gladly rid the world of people who can’t wait fucking 2 minutes for the light to change. Don’t bother to point out the irony of me not waiting 2 seconds for them to cross because I did wait when my light was red.
So we got home relatively fast because we parked so far away. I hate fireworks now. I hate big crowds. I’m really pissed and stressed. I hate big crowds.
God I have a bad temper. It’s just people… calm down dude. Ah fuck off. Here’s a new webcam to show you exactly how I feel.
I AM ARNIE!
August 09, 2002
| You are 25% geek | |
 |
OK, so maybe you ain’t a geek. You do, at least, show a bit of interest in the world around you. Either that, or you have enough of a sense of humor to pick some of the sillier answers on the test. Regardless, you’re probably a pretty nifty, well-rounded person who gets along fine with people and can chat with just about anyone without fear of looking stupid or foolish or overly concerned with minutiae. God, I hate you. |
Take the Polygeek Quiz at Thudfactor.com
Today
August 08, 2002
We went to watch the fireworks with some friends last night. It was the first fireworks I have seen in many many years. I didn’t enjoy the fireworks so much because to me, fireworks are fireworks. Whether they’re from Italy, Canada, or Spain, they’re still just colorful sparkles that make big noises and cause a lot of traffic hassles and underage drinking problems. The only thing I enjoyed was being with Eri. She had been wanting to go for the longest time but I’ve just been putting it off. Anyways, I’m glad that we went because they were pretty nice in a flashy light sort of way. I wish I brought my camera because this house near the beach was selling hot dogs and drinks out of their front lawn. What opportunistic people they are. I envy them.
Thank you Michelle for updating so much. I always enjoy your updates even if sometimes I don’t know what the heck you’re talking about. Keep writing ok? Don’t leave me hanging like the rest of these boys. Ok maybe Dennis is off the hook since he’s struck with diarrhea or something. And Justin updates often too. So all in all, I guess there’s enough to read. I would be interested as to how’s everyone doing. I just found out David is back in Vancouver. I’m so out of the loop (if the loop still exists anymore).
No matter. I’ll fill you guys about me. Working and being with Eri and not frequently being with some friends. It’s mostly work lately. I’m exhausted to the brink of being sick. I also got badly sunburnt on Friday but now it’s ok. The burned areas are now a nice nice tan that I wish covered my entire body. What else… I’m still playing with my laptop. I connected it to the internet for the first time today at work. I’m playing some quake 3 too! It runs so smoothly on all the highest graphic settings. Finally, it looks nice and it runs great. I had a mini-LAN party with two people who have never played quake in their lives. I of course mutilated them (because I’m mean) but they still enjoyed shooting the hell out of each other. I still want to play Red Alert 2 though.
And yet another webcam pic catching Eri by surprise.
Buhhh
August 07, 2002
Why is it everytime I want to update, I have nothing to write about. Why is it I always have so much stuff I want to write about when I don’t feel like writing? This reality is too complicated to be real and it’s also too simple to be fictional. Can anyone explain?
Nevermind
August 02, 2002
Nevermind, I got the game to work now. Sweet. Only problem is that no one I know likes playing the game. A bigger problem is that my roommate (Eri), doesn’t like violent games at all. That more or less eliminates games in general. But if anyone wants a game of RA2 versus me (I’m a really good newbie), then knock on my door and I’ll nuke you back home. Maybe I’ll burn myself a quake 3 disk.
Yay, thanks Dennis
Dennis tells me to something about connecting my computers together and then it works. I should’ve asked him 5 hours before. Oh well. It was a good learning experience. I finally have my own lan. It’s kinda neat.
I was just sending files from my desktop to the laptop all night. Only two things came up: 1. my photoshop CD doesn’t work on my laptop, and 2. I tried running Red Alert 2 multiplayer but the desktop didn’t recognize the network card (what is an IPX socket and why won’t RA2 recognize it?). I hope that’s the only game that’s not working.
Anyways, thanks Dennis!
Hey
August 01, 2002
My computer is acting up again. I think this time my power supply is gonna die. It happened before last year. The computer just wouldn’t boot no matter what I did. I had to replace the power supply to get it to work. So far it reboots at random, I just have to be patient and turn the power on and off about 10 times. Speaking of dead power supplies, Dennis’ webpage is back up. Anyways, if I don’t appear to be on Messenger or ICQ, then the power supply probably electrocuted me and set my place on fire.
New webcam pic.
That’s all. I’m sleeping now.
Hey Michelle’s back!
Welcome back!
Sweet…
My laptop came today! What a nice surprise. Only I don’t have a USB joystick to enjoy any games right now except Simcity 3000. Yay. They didn’t ship me those color palm rests though. I’m on their case. I’m gonna buy that zip drive, a joystick, and maybe a router.
It’s back up!
July 31, 2002
And I thought the company that hosted my page had folded shop, locked the store, and ran with my 8 bucks a month. I have to go to work now but I’ll update later.
Hi Again
Anyway, my page has been down since I got back from Seattle on Saturday night. I couldn’t get emails, access my ftp, log into their page (it was down too), and more importantly, couldn’t load my own page. I was already looking at different hosting solutions. Oh well, we’ll see how long it stays online this time.
The trip to Seattle was excellent. We were stuck at ther Peace Arch border for two hours. That wait caused us to be late fot the game. We got there at the top of the third and watched as the Mariners were buried 8 – 0 by the Angels. We did get to see Ichiro’s last hit in his 11 game streak. For me, the biggest treat was watching John Olerud play. He was one of my favourite Blue Jay back in the day. We got a lot of shopping done. We even saw the First Starbucks ever! Pike Market is like a better Granville Island, except it’s full of stupid people. There were these people with a southern accent wearing really ugly Vancouver shirts. Obviously they were involved in some sort of tour and some clever Canadian conned them into buying those ugly shirts. Poor stupid people. I bought Simcity 3000 Unlimited, the Mech 4 expansion, and the add-on. They were all slightly cheaper. What sucks is I don’t have enough space to install them on my computer so I’ll wait until my laptop comes in… tee hee hee.
Fine. One More Thing Before We Go
July 27, 2002
A really cool surveillance video of what appears to be a ghost. There are also two articles about this video, found at the KFSN webpage and that of a family whose loved one died in one of those cars in the video. I saw all this from artbell.com of course. I really should give credit to links now.
Also, new webcam pic. Bye.
See At Toe
July 26, 2002
Gone until Saturday night. Will take a bucket of pictures and post them up (usual non-standard pictures again). Fragment sentences end. Soon. Bye.
Webcam
July 24, 2002
I’m going to follow suit and copy Dennis and Justin’s webcam. Actually, I’ve had my camera for almost a year now. It was a fine present from Dennis and Shannon. So far, I’ve only used it primarily to teleconference with Eri when she was in Japan and sometimes play around with it at home. So, just click where it says, “webcam” on the left.
Poor Dennis
July 23, 2002
His site has died again. Something about not paying his BC Hydro bill and they cut the power to the power supply. It’s time to lament.
The grapevine has news that he’s not gonna do anything about it for now. Instead, he’s withdrawing to his cave of design and come up with something that will knock the pants off everything you’ve known up to this point. He likes it when people’s pants get knocked off. Stay tuned.
Agh Not Again
I don’t know what’s up with my host but my page can’t be accessed again. I know they recently switched to all Linux servers. Maybe they’re switching some other crap too or maybe Linuxes aren’t as stable as previous thought. Don’t bother emailing about the differences (advantages) of Linux over Windows. I don’t have the technical comprehension to care. I guess by the time you read this update, the server is ok again.
PS. The picture from yesterday will now sit in the About page. If you go there and the picture isn’t up, chances are I’ve been trying to ftp it onto my server without luck. Sucks.
And my damn computer isn’t here yet. It says it’s still in production. I bet they’re busy coloring those plastic flaps that snap onto the computer to make it look nice.
Yay
July 22, 2002
JPEG follows GIF
July 21, 2002
JPEGs are to be licenced as well now. Sooner or later, every graphic compression format will be banned by use by everyday people. All websites will only contain text. Then in a strange twist of fate, someone will patent the alpha numeric system we use on our keyboards and licence its use as well. Webpages worldwide will be nothing more than blank sheets of color. Your individuality shown only through the use of a different tone or hue. Couple this with deeplinking made illegal and it spells the end of the internet.
Hello World
July 18, 2002
Apologies to Dennis because I was supposed to note that his webpage has changed address to http://hmlka26135.smarttadsl.com/~sinned/. Blogger had a problem and I couldn’t post any updates until now. And then my server is down for some reason. I guess it’s all ok now that you’re reading this.
Dennis has been kidnapped
July 16, 2002
They knew he was alone in his house so they went in with weapons armed and raided his place. Their mission was to take down his domain. They succeeded. They said they won’t release the domain unless a ransom of $5 is paid in full American dollars.
Viewers of Dennis’ webpage do not worry for supporters of his cause already have set up another site at a secret location.
Please, my friends, please support his cause. I fear if we don’t act soon, he will not be alive much longer.
His site is now at http://hmlka26135.smarttadsl.com/~sinned/.
More stuff
As mentioned by Dennis before his page went dead, we spent a great night yesterday eating giant plates of food, walking forever in a forest labyrinth (Eri was attacked by a wolf), drinking spherical infusion beverages, and then digesting sacharine ridden baked pastry goods. Actually it was all good fun and countless thanks goes to Dennis and Shannon for the dinner.
I have to work again tomorrow. This week off was very nice indeed. No school and no work for a whole week. I haven’t experienced this since my trip to Japan but still, I kept on worrying about school and work anyway. Uhhhh I can’t think of anything more to say so goodnight.
Mail Order Bride??
July 12, 2002
Mail order? Bullshit! It’s online, internet order bride!
Eri is sleeping right now because she didn’t sleep on the plane and it’s morning right now in Japan. I didn’t realize how much I missed her until I was with her. Yay!
In other news, I finally bought a laptop! Well, I ordered it anyway. It’s a Dell Inspiron 8200. P4-1.6GHz (it was 500+ for a 2.0, but I doubt I’ll need all that raw power until Doom 3 comes out), 256 ram, DVD/CDRW, a Geforce4 on it, and color inserts!!! The color inserts are basically these plastic colored flaps that snap onto the front. They’re useless really but the whole thing is a dull gray/black, so the color would spice it up a bit. I’ll be leasing it since I don’t have a four thousand bucks lying around but what’s nice is I can pay off the balance anytime without penalties. I’m expecting it to come through my mail slot in ten days. I’m contemplating whether to try to hook it up to the net (maybe Eri will play Baldur’s Gate too??), but since I’m mentally handicapped when it comes to this computer network stuff, someone will have to help me… that is, if that someone wants 4 people to play BG.
Rock on! Too bad Dennis found a bassist already. I know this guy, his name is Harrison, and he’s a bass player. Plus, his brother probably sings and can write really good songs too.
The typhoon got its ass kicked
July 11, 2002
I got so pissed off at that typhoon that threatened to delay Eri’s flight to Vancouver so I flew up and sped my way over there. Over a 15 hour period, I blasted the typhoon with my ultra powers and beat it into submission. The typhoon is now in full retreat. Seeing that my work was done, I quickly flew back home and it wasn’t until I was soaking in a nice bath when I realized I could’ve just picked up Eri and fly her back here. I’m so forgetful sometimes. The typhoon is now less of a threat than before. Eri should be leaving for Tokyo right now and then later tonight, she’ll leave Tokyo, heading this way. Maybe I’ll meet her mid-Pacific and eat dinner with her on the plane.
Ever since that night I played Baldur’s Gate with Dennon (Dennis/Shannon), I started playing my single player campaign again. I left it a couple months ago because I got really bored with exploring all those maps. Today I just finished chapter 5 and I’m just about to set foot into the town that gave the game its name. The town is gimongous! My main character is on the verge of becoming a level 7 thief and not that far away from level 7 fighter. If you know much about Ad&d, level 7 is quite an achievement. Thank god I spent countless years killing so many squirrels and chickens for experience points! Word has it that Dennis discovered the cause of the savegame bug and we may be able to continue our campaign again. Here’s a hint: Eri comes here tomorrow morning so tonight would be more than a good time to play. THAT’S WEDNESDAY, JULY 10… PLAY!!!
I’m taking a week off of work to spend time with my sex slave so if you are really my friend, do not call, do not message, do not even think of my name. Leave us alone for a week. Games that have the words ‘Baldur’ or ‘Gate’ or ‘Doom 3′ do not apply to this – I’m sure I can play a little. I’m excited.
Mysterious Forces Work The Universe
July 09, 2002
Eri was planning to be in Vancouver this Thursday. First, her grandfather gets sick and was on the brink of cancelling her trip. He still remains in pretty iffy waters. Then, a typhoon is on its way in Japan, very likely grounding flights that day. It’s weird because the last time she was coming here, two airplanes crashed into the twin towers at the World Trade Centre, causing her plane to be 5 hours late (with a certain boyfriend waiting for a nice 5 hours at the airport). Something out there doesn’t want her to come to Vancouver. Whatever it is, if I ever find out, I will seriously give it a big ass kicking, omnipotent or not omnipotent.
In other news, Dennis, Shannon, and I played Baldur’s Gate last night. Apparently, they’ve been playing for a week already and I guess Dennis felt guilty about it. He came clean and that very night, I was back in action, killing bears and the like. I imported my level 6 guy into their level 3 group. I even took all the good stuff from my party and stuffed it into my guy so that I could benefit from all the goodies. I forgot to import a cloak that turns me into a wolf. It’s not that useful but fun to play with. Hopefully we can play some more soon.
Lastly, as much as I hate the Crocodile Hunter, his new movie looks a bit funny. He’s much better suited doing fictional, big screen comedy rather than his pseudo-educational, lame-ass, Discovery Channel show. His stupid show is on 20 times a day. I will be watching MIB2 with Eri when she comes here but I bet it’s a lame lame movie (again).
Yahoo! News isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer…
July 06, 2002
“…the heavily armed Egyptian immigrant who fatally shot two people at the ticket counter of Israel’s national airline had gone to the Los Angeles airport to kill.”
Does anyone else see the repeating repetitiveness of this repetition? The guy who killed people at the airport went to the airport to kill people. Why… if they didn’t say so, I would’ve never known he went to the airport to kill! To kill! The gunman went to the airport to kill! Airport! Kill! The headlines at Yahoo have really sucked lately. I think I’m switching to the ever pleasant BBC.
Woohoo
July 05, 2002
Thanks to a friendly email from someone who read about Starcontrol 2 on my webpage, I finally got the game to work on my computer! The last time I tried, one problem always persisted and made me not want to play. The music didn’t work, or the graphics were messed up, or not enough conventional memory, but now, the game works perfectly! I spent an hour trying out different combinations of windows settings, boot disks, and all that good stuff. In the end, it was worth it, I’m already blasting apart Ur Quan Dreadnoughts like there’s no tomorrow.
Friday or Saturday
July 03, 2002
Andrew said that we are going to have a get-to-gether this Friday or Saturday. So book it off. We haven’t had a social dealie in quite awhile now people.
Notice Anything Different?
Dennis got to see this webpage about 2 hours in advance. That special bastard. I’m sorry dude, but I had to use GIFs because PNGs just looked too weird. Everything else that was on this site before is still there but it just looks too weird to put together with this page so they’re all on holiday.
More Writing To Please Your Ravenous Appetites
July 02, 2002
I’m going to start by posing a question. Do you think complaining is bad or does it start the process of improvement? I ask this because awhile ago, I was out with my family for some dim sum. The restaurant that my dad chose really sucked ass. I mean, it was bad. It was the sort of chinese restaurant I would expect to see back in the mid 80′s. They had that really annoying plastic table cloth that does not absorb tea and therefore when you spill tea around your area, the tea just runs along the plastic and spills all over your lap. They had the dim sum carts – I’ve noticed in the past 5 years, the carts are being phased out by the paper and pencil method (saves money and looks more professional, IMHO). Not only did the carts look like they need a tuneup, the past-middle-aged ladies pushing those things did a crummy job advertising their food too. One lady with the shrimp dumplings and sui mai didn’t bother to yell out some other dish that we wanted. My dad had to ask her if she had “X” and she said yes! So she took out X and stamped our bill paper. I’m wondering, if my dad had to ask for a dish anyway, what use do the cart ladies serve? They get paid minimum (or even less) and therefore work very unhappily, causing me to think the place is in turmoil. Oh yes, they also had those stainless steel teapots with the metal handles that heat up when boiling tea is left in the pot for a few minutes. Last thing, the waiters kept staring me down. I have no idea why. They were probably in their late twenties, early thirties and just about to exit their youth. All of them were staring me down, a la Young and Dangerous and it was pathetic. Fuck you! Just do your stupid waiter job and I’ll leave, don’t even try to pretend you’re a tough guy – even I don’t do that (I’m a wuss). The food tasted alright – that is the only redeeming quality left in this restaurant.
Now back to my question. I started complaining about the place and I do mean complaining. It was early morning and I was in my fucking asshole mode so I just shot out complaint after complaint. My dad got pissed off at me and tried to lecture me about not complaining and try not being so negative… his conclusion, “you’ll be a happier person”. I didn’t bother responding because I know I would’ve started an all out argument in the middle of this shitty restaurant, so I let his stupid comment slide.
I started thinking, if I were a person who didn’t complain, and let everything bad slide, I probably would be a happier person. Yet, I would be happy in a stupid, mental patient kind of way. By not complaining, restaurants like this one stay in business and never improve. By not complaining, people don’t see weaknesses in their life and therefore cannot improve. As much of an asshole as I am, I’m sure I’m not the only person who had a shitty time in that restaurant. If it were up to me, we would never go there anymore.
Middle of the Year Update
July 01, 2002
I have done nothing in the first half of this year that I think is important. That’s so sad.
Now that the World Cup is finally over, I hope everything becomes normal again. I’m sick of soccer even though I never liked it to begin with. I did not watch a single game but I did listen to the outcomes and saw a few highlights now and then. The only reason I wanted to know the outcomes was so that I could have something to talk about the next day with people. “So, you watch the Korea game?” or “Hey, Japan did well yesterday!” but it all ended when all the asian teams were out. Thank god this only comes around every four years (much like the boring Olympics).
I’m not updating that often now because I haven’t anything to say and because, like Dennis, I’m tinkering with a new design too. Have a good Canada Day everybody.
Ok a real update now
June 25, 2002
Phew. I told Dennis that he should visit my page in 15 minutes about 20 minutes ago and now that it’s all uploaded, I can explain. The Evil Penguin was just supposed to be something I would draw for fun. Not a webcomic, not the next mascot, not anything. I was drawing it on all my work stuff in the oh-so-boring meetings and playing with the idea. I conceived the idea (or rather, stole it) from the Wallace and Gromit video I saw. That’s all. No more mystery.
It’s funny, that simple, really stupid comic took me a long time to make. I don’t think I can handle making a real comic.
As for the Japan pictures, those are the bulk of them. I didn’t scan the ones that I thought would embarass Eri or me.
This is for Dennis
I rushed this so much just so it’ll be up before he updates. If you’re not Dennis, I guess it’s alright if you see it too.
This is for everyone who didn’t see my Japan pics
I’ll make a better album some other time. But for now, MSN rules!
More Mystery
June 20, 2002
The Evil Penguin will not be taking over Dragon, nor Dizzymon, nor whatever ill-fated mascot that briefly lived on my webpage… no. The Evil Penguin will be attempting at every opportunity to gain power, get the women, rise above, and maybe even improve his appearance. Soon, soon you and your friends will be bowing down to the mystery called The Evil Penguin.
And I’m really tempted to buy something from this site because they’re just so darn cute.
Coming Soon: The Evil Penguin
Inspired by the penguin in Wallace & Gromit – The Wrong Trousers, the Evil Penguin will be wreaking havoc at your favourite website (this one). Just WHO is the Evil Penguin? You will find out…
A strange question
June 18, 2002
Can someone tell me when Israel became an American state?
It’s strange because in my timeline, Israel was an ally of the USA only. I never knew the USA had jurisdiction over the political affairs of a separate national entity. Why the fuck is Bush proposing something for Israel? Well it doesn’t seem to matter because Sharon doesn’t seem to give a rat’s ass about this proposal, nor is it preventing any more suicide bombings.
I say our Jean and the Liberals should come up with a proposal for the removal of the second amendment in the American Constitution. Why not? Then maybe Jiang Zemin and those guys come up with a proposal for Quebec to separate from Canada.
Update You Loser!!
June 17, 2002
Dammit, everytime I’m on these trips, Dennis usually updates with an insulting thing like I surf for porn or whatever. And it’s the last morning before I leave and he still hasn’t said a word. Maybe he’s busy, huh huh, polishing his guitar, huh huh. I bet it’s not even a real guitar because it has fisher price stamped on the bottom. Either that or he’s finishing Baldur’s Gate as we speak, which by the way, is getting a bit boring because the story progresses quite slowly.
The weather once again must be cooperating because I am in a delightful mood at 8am on a Sunday. Happy Dad’s Day.
Hello from Whislter!!!
June 16, 2002
I forgot that with blogger, I can update anywhere. I better make this quick cuz i only have 3 minutes of internet time left before I need to plug in another two bucks. The weather is sensational and the doing nothing is amazing. I love you all, but primarily only Eri! (I love donuts too). Bye folks.
Please Leave A Message After The Beep
June 14, 2002
In case you’re looking through my windows this weekend and wondering why I’m not home, I’m off to Whistler for a three day extravaganza of getting some color back into my skin. Email my cell if you’re bored. Otherwise, seeya on the other side of this week.
A Real Update Today
June 11, 2002
Seeing how I haven’t put effort into the last few posts, today I’ll actually take some time to write something.
I have been working everyday (except Sunday) for the past 1,000,000,000 days, or so it seems. Even though I’m expecting a nice paycheque soon, my visa is off the wall so in the end I’ll just have a few dimes leftover to mooch a beer off someone. I guess it’s alright because work is more of a social environment for me instead. I have more fun with people from work than most other groups because I think I can make an ass of myself and no one would care whereas in other groups, say school people, I feel I have to watch what I say. Oh well, not like I have to see them anymore.
I will be going down to the magical land of Seattle next month with Eri and a few work people for a Mariners game! The deal with Ichiro is that he’s some Japanese baseball player and he is worshipped by many in Japan. The cool thing is he is actually a really good baseball player (MVP and Rookie of the Year) so their fanatical obsessions with Ichiro are actually over skill I think. So far I’m still looking for a good hotel (good = cheap) to stay the night. I have a bad feeling that the girls are going to be shopping madly while the guys will be making fun of them outside. I think I’ll skip the Krispy Kreme dealie because it doesn’t sound like such a big deal. I will knock everyone unconscious so that I can try to visit Bruce Lee’s grave and pay my respects to the man I admire most.
Speaking of work, some people are organizing an activity named “Summerfest”. As far as I know, it’ll be an annual festival where a bunch of English schools are invited to party (beer, games, music I guess). They are actually sampling local bands right now for the festival. Dennis, if you are interested in performing, get me a tape and I’ll put in a good word although I don’t think they’ll be very keen on growl metal. Maybe we can rock together in the stylings of Rage Against The Machine or Silverchair or something. That would be cruel.
The strangest thing that’s happened is that everyone except for Jesse has updated to some extent. Even Michelle, who is fighting off giant mosquitos updated somehow… must’ve mailed her update on some bamboo leaves and had a friend type it up.
I am out of words.
One of the Best Comics
June 07, 2002
I’m going to plug this site because it has the best comics I’ve ever seen on the internet. It’s already on the links page along with a few changes I made a long time ago.
Hotmail Becomes Useless
June 06, 2002
We are sorry to inform you that as of July 16, 2002, we will no longer be able to offer POP Mail Retrieval to our Hotmail users with a standard free account. This means that you will not be able to aggregate e-mail from various accounts into a single Hotmail account.
Soon Messenger will probably cost money. It’s going to affect a lot of people I know since they only use their hotmail account. I guess if they like the webpage based emailing it’s alright. I personally hate that and avoid it unless I’m accessing from a remote place. I think I’ll just get a damn modem for my palm and never have to worry about this anymore.
Nom de Plume
June 05, 2002
Many writers use a different name in their books. It’s something I just don’t understand why. It’s not just writers who do this, some actors also have different names. For actors I guess it’s the marketing appeal of a name. John Flash is probably a more popular name than Alvin Oliver Lichenstein III.
I have no immediate plans of becoming an actor nor a writer but if I did, what would my pen name be? I figure I would call myself Tom something. That way, if people who thought they were clever and original asked, “Hey Tom, where’s Jerry?” or “Hey Jerry, where’s Tom?” I could instantaneously turn into my alter-ego and say in superhero fashion “HERE” and punch them square in the nose. It’s all about the nose punching. On a side note, when trying to zing people, come up with something original. Wouldn’t you think someone named Jerry would’ve heard the where’s Tom routine before? Don’t bother with stupid zings.
DENNIS THE MENACE! DENNIS THE MENACE!
Fun
June 03, 2002
World’s smallest webpage. Find a magnifying glass.
Blog
May 31, 2002
I recently learned that the word ‘Blog’ came from ‘web log’. Say ‘web log’ quickly a few times and then drop the ‘we’ syllable.
Dennis really knows me well. I was going to complain that he wasn’t updating but he beat me to the punch. I now believe Dennis is the opposite of me in terms of I like designing webpages but I wouldn’t know the difference between interfacing with databases and grating mozzarella cheese. It’s good that he’s doing it now because should the day come I host my own site, then I’ll just beat him up for the code. Maybe I’ll send him a few bucks as compensation afterwards… nah. Congratulations to Shannon for the fish poop job! I’m wondering how far you two are in Baldur’s Gate. I’m not really that far into the central storyline – I just found out the reason why the metal’s been turning bad in Nashkel. I did however explore every area south of Bereghost. Most of it is just wilderness chock full of your bears (kill the bears for so much exp), vampire wolves, sword spiders, and something called a sirrine (each of these things are 2000exp a pop!). Everyone in my party is around level 5/6 but I think since the copy we bought includes the expansion, the experience cap isn’t until level 7ish for my main dude.
My ankle is a lot better now but I still have to tiptoe step on my left foot which is kind of funny to watch. It turns out the more I walk around, the better the ankle feels. It’s the most painful when I wake up. So sleep does not cure all. I hope it heals really quickly because I’m missing my tkd classes and I’m starting my crazy work-every-day schedule now.
Last thing. I made this yesterday but added a couple more today. I got bored.
Moby
May 30, 2002
Not only is his music fun to listen to, he is really funny too. He’s on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and he’s interesting.
The Bush Strikes Again
When you give a monkey a big gun with an easy-pull trigger, things will go wrong. Here’s the proof that he’s a monkey.
Ouchie
May 28, 2002
I twisted my ankle yesterday during my belt test. That’s rather embarrassing. And it was Andrew’s friend, Arthur who was overseeing the test too. I didn’t warm up very much and I was trying to move to a side doing a double punch when I hear Pop! Then the pain shot up my leg and made a hole in the pain area of my brain. I thought I could shake it off but the pain overtook me. Oh well, I’m not in it for the belt colors anyway.
I did get home alright and the whole day was fine but during sleep, I roll around a lot and everytime I turned, my ankle would contort to a painful position and send me waking up yelping, “Itai” (the word for pain in Japanese). So today I’m gonna be a wuss and go see a doctor. Only my dad just told me doctors don’t work today (what a bunch of bastards) so I have to see a tet-da guy (chinese dudes… uh translated means “metal hit”). I don’t really trust these old chinese forms of medicine… I don’t know why. It just doesn’t seem scientific enough for my trust. Also, if I have a badly torn ligament (which I think I do), will this chinese dude know how to set a cast? Or will he make me drink a concoction boiled with 70 different herbs?
I bet one of those herbs really do work well in healing the injury, it’s just that they don’t know which one, so they pile a whole bunch of them up and hope one of them works.
Oh yeah, did I tell you how stinky these concoctions usually are? No party at my house this week dudes.
Baldur’s Gate cont
May 25, 2002
Dennis, Shannon, and I started playing yesterday after probably an hour of trying to set up battlecom. The game will be so slow. It’s not because of connections, or framerates, or my shitty processor speed, but it’s the fact that it takes forever to gather all three of us to do a simple thing like buying weapons. Plus those two are always stealing and doing unlawful things and that pisses off my character (Lawful good human paladin – the epitome of goodness). Luckily, they’re so weak that even with my fists I nearly bludgeoned Dennis’ character to death (left with 1hp) hehehe. But of course, being a nice paladin, I healed him up as best I could. I even protected him from evil. This game is going to take months to complete. Yesterday we spent probably another hour just walking around the starting town before we headed out. We were at a place called the Friendly Arm Inn when an attacker killed me. And with the main character dead, the game ended (sorry guys, I didn’t realize that Teshnor or whatever his name is was so strong). In case you’re wondering, Shannon is playing a Willow character while Dennis is playing a character similar to the guy who yells, “Hey Abbot!!!!” in Men In Tights. Playing in character is fun.
Baldur’s Gate
May 23, 2002
I picked up the game yesterday and played it all night. It’s pretty good. I don’t think it’s a game for everyone because it does take a little patience. If you ever liked the old TSR games like Pools of Darkness (or Radiance), Champions (or Dark Queen) of Krynn, anything made by the old Forgotten Realms Unlimited editor, then you may like this. I haven’t gotten far in the game so the central storyline is still a big mystery to me. I did a couple of the miniquests and quite a few oddjobs for people (deliver this, kill that, find this, etc). Now I understand what Dennis meant when he said he had two lunatics in his party… so did I. One guy had a hamster that made a funny squeek when you pressed it. As for my character, I chose a fighter/thief instead of a pure fighter or paladin. Sure the leveling up is ultra slow (i played for quite awhile and I’m still on level 1) but I get benefits from both worlds. I’m still opposed to bards though.
Weapon of choice is the composite bow – for everyone in the party. Most of the enemies I’ve met so far are puny little monkey guys and wolves. They fall to arrows quite easily and no one gets hurt. It’s quite gratifying to see a dozen of these bluish imp looking guys walking through a narrow valley while my 6 composite bows fire away in an obvious ambush. Then I send one guy in to pick up the spoils and luring another group of imps into this gauntlet. Muhahaha.
I can’t wait for the multiplayer although I have a feeling it’s gonna be quite slow.
Blast it
May 20, 2002
I woke up at 3am and rolled around in my bed, listening to George Noory talk about nothing for an hour. I realize my attempt at going back to sleep will be useless unless I accomplish three things: peeing for one, getting water, and of course, updating in the wee hours of the night. A few hours ago, Dennis and I finally finished off that damn ss2 game. It was funny because we only had about 10 minutes of gameplay left where we left off but we put it off for two weeks. We’re going to attempt Baldur’s Gate next. Apparently it stays quite true to AD&D (except stupid elves and be resurrected). I will of course be a fighter with the possibility of being a paladin (which is just a variant of the fighter class anyway). Why am I always a fighter? It’s all about the swords. You can shoot your stupid slings and sing your damn songs (bard) but for me, it’s always the clangs of the blade. Bah I don’t have anything else to say other than I really should get some sleep.
Cool
May 19, 2002
a = b
a^2 = ab
a^2 – b^2 = ab – b^2
(a + b)(a – b) = b(a – b)
a + b = b
2b = b
2 = 1
HAlloo
Looks like Dennis has caught himself in another one of those pesky time warps again because he’s updating from far into the future. No wonder he says no one is updating. We’re still on linear time and he’s waiting for us 10 days in advance. I wonder if he meant today or next Saturday to play SS2. Maybe I’ll send him a time capsule.
I had a weird dream yesterday. What’s that? Share details with you? Ok.
So for some reason, I find myself on a bike that’s also carrying my sister and my mom. And for another reason, we had to get to UBC. My dad took off in the van and left us here with only the bike. So there we were, biking to UBC, actually, it was only me who was peddling. We stopped at some crazy woman’s house and she gave us a container. I think she wanted us to fill it with food. Suddenly, another friend joined our group and he said he would fill it up. Anyways, it’s getting late so we decide to move on. Now I find myself in at least 5 other bike’s presence. I was first so I turned around to see the others… SHIT! It’s that crazy woman and she’s pissed off about not filling her container. We pull over and the crazy woman is screaming at me and accusing me of stealing her food. She says she wants to see what’s in my backpack. I tell her it’s illegal for her to check (Dream Act, s5 paragraph 7b). But I start pulling stuff out of my bag anyway. I pull out 52 decks of cards, each with a different design. Whatever I was gonna do at UBC must’ve involved tonnes of playing cards. After proving our innocence, we were on our way. And that’s when the phone rang and I woke up.
That’s all.
Time to pick up
May 18, 2002
The retreat was so fun. I didn’t really speak much to the new people like I should’ve because I decided I just wanted to have fun and do whatever I want to do instead (for a change). So I spent the three days talking to the people I usually speak to anyway, making fun of the same people while they call me an asshole and punch my arm. I didn’t even take any pictures but who cares. Now that it’s over, it’s back to work as usual after this four day weekend.
Thursday: tae kwan do (or dragonboat practice sometimes)
Friday: volleyball or basketball
Saturday: tae kwan do
Sunday: dragonboat practice
Monday to Wednesday: rest and get ready for Thursday
That’s my new exercise schedule. I’m gonna try it out and see if I suffer heart failure or not. I’m even back on creatine just to max my energy.
What a crappy update! Send your complaints.
One more update before I go
May 13, 2002
These guys are a bunch of crazy assholes. Not only are people willing to talk for peace but their own leader has called for stops. They still won’t go. Too bad a remote explosive detonator doesn’t exist for their kinds of bombs otherwise… “beep” and kaboom. Assholes.
At least we have a little good news.