Mar272005

Long time no update

Bleh, a rather crap week at work kept me from updating. Yesterday I began cleaning my apartment in prepartation for Brendan‘s imminent arrival. He’s gonna crash at my place for about a week, until the teacher he’s replacing moves out. It’ll be, uh, interesting having two people in my ridiculous small apartment.

Cherry trees are starting to bloom
Cookies I got from a student

I’ve been doing a bit of the ol’ programming recently. I’m going to finish that rock/paper/scissors game, make it a bit nicer, etc. I’m experimenting with using cookies to hold information. I dunno, all the ways of storing user information that I think of seem pretty insecure, but I guess it isn’t that critical in this project.

Here’s my cookie test page

I also have a great idea for my next project. I want to make a user-submitted database of those small, 80×35 (or whatever) icons that you used to see all over the net. For example, the most popular were problably the ones advocating a particular browser, however, there were lots of other designs. So basically this would allow people to upload these images into a kind of repository, just because they’re kind of cool, and a historic part of the net. Then you could vote for image popularity, and whatnot. Uhh, I dunno, it seemed much cooler before I wrote it down.

Yesterday I started downloading episodes of Iron Chef. I got a better BitTorrent client called Azureus, which doesn’t time out on my bad connection. Of course, downloads are still slow (I’m behind a router, and I can’t access it to open/forward the necessary BitTorrent ports), but I can at least get stuff slowly. I loves me my Iron Chef.

2 comments · Written by Nathan at 6:14 pm · Tags

Mar232005

Useless!

Picture update:

Ozaki, the supermarket I usually go to. It’s kind of a trashy place, but the main benefit is that it stays open past 9PM. Since I usually get off work AFTER 9, going shopping is sometimes problematic.

Here are some pictures from my trip to Chicago last year. Probably never uploaded them.
Ed and Kakish playing Halo or something.
Soulman
Soulman and Ed ridin’ the El
Ed poses on the El platform

The next pictures are from the Millennium Park in Chicago. There were some neet-looking sculptures and whatnot there. The coolest piece was probably The Bean. Another shot of The Bean. Unfortunately, the park hadn’t officially opened yet, so there was still a fence keeping us away from the wonder of The Bean. I love capitalizing The Bean.

IMPORTANT QUESTION, FEEDBACK NEEDED
So, I have an idea for a multiplayer PHP game (like I’ve said many, many times). But, I’m not even going to try programming it unless I can get people to actually try it out. I had hoped for people like Matt and Tyler to maybe try playing it, but there’s no way I can compete with World of Warcraft :P

Rough Idea

If you think you might like to muck around with this program, let me know in the comments; I’ll continue working on it if there’s enough interest.

EDIT: I was checking out the traffic info for this page (which I do sometimes, out of a desire for useless knowledge), looking at referrals. Most referrals come from from search engine image searches, but a few are different. So, I found Rie’s Homepage! She links me! Woo! You gots to read the Japanese, though :P

10 comments · Written by Nathan at 12:23 am · Tags

Mar212005

Evil Japanese Machina

(Or, How I Almost Got Owned by a Vending Machine)

Today was my day off, in honor of some national holiday or other. Things were going pretty well: played FFX, read some One Piece, and in short, wasted a lot of time. Around 5 o’clock or so, I had a craving for some of that geek ambrosia, Mountain Dew. That stuff is more popular that I would have imagined: the vending machine outside my apartment is out of stock. Man, I have to walk a whole ‘nuther block to get my artificial caffeine fix!

I get to the machine that has some cans in stock, and that’s when my problems begin. I purchase the first can, then immediately purchase the second, without removing the first. No big deal, I’ve done this tons of times in the States. I look down, and realize that the second can has jammed the dispensing slot. A metal plate has distended, which blocks both cans, and has a message printed on it: something about calling the service representatives. My first instinct is to panic, because not only have I seemingly lost 240 yen (yeah, the Dew is pricey here), but I also don’t have my tasty beverages.

Calling upon my natural intuitive powers, I immediately try to force the cans out, which doesn’t work. I also feel a bit self-concious, because of course there are people nearby, watching me try to break this machine. In my struggle, however, I notice that I can push one of the cans upwards, back into the machine, thereby allowing the metal plate to move back into place. I proceed to do this, then collect my just reward.

Who could write so much about using a vending machine? Me, apparently.

By the way, here are some pictures:
Traffic outside my apartment. Yes, it’s always this busy.
Fall leaves. I took this picture a while ago, but never uploaded it. A few days later, all the leaves on this tree were gone.
A shrine-like thing. When people say “shrine”, they usually mean a Shinto religious building. I don’t know what this is; I need to ask someone.
Bonsai trees. This is actually really cool. Someone filled the entire front part of their house with bonsai.
Closeup of the shrine-like thing. It looks like those figures are ‘kitsune’, or foxes. More than you ever wanted to know about the kitsune.
Another view of my apartment. I’m sure you’ll never get tired of these.
Land for sale. The sign says ‘kokuyuuchi’, which means “state-owned land.” They want 33,000,000 yen for it, which equates to around 300 grand.
An older picture of Sam, Rie, and me. I thought it was pretty funny.

I really should space these pictures out, so I can post one every day. But, I won’t.

Overcompensating. Real life, viewed through the lens of subjectivity, can be much funnier than fiction. This is a comic strip based on that viewpoint. It also doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but I found it interesting anyway.

No comments · Written by Nathan at 6:40 pm · Tags

Mar202005

Pictures

So, here’s the picture update this weekend.

My friend Dave eating ramen. Yes, that’s black pepper in his bowl. No, he’s not stoned, it’s just a bad picture. Maybe I’ll get away with posting this ‘cos I don’t think he reads this page. Probably if he knew he’d beat the snot outta me.
Yet another blurry night shot of the river I go jogging along.
Another picture of my apartment, because that’s where I’ve been most of this weekend. Mmm… videogames. My clothes are all hung up because dryers don’t exist in Japan. If you walk by an apartment building on a nice day, you can see that everyone and their mother has clothes, futons, etc. out drying in the sun. Yes, that is a copy of Jackie Chan’s autobiography on the floor.
A picture of me, because, let’s face it, that’s the real reason you visit this page. NOW BUY ME STUFF FROM MY AMAZON.COM WISHLIST, YOU TOOLS!

1 comment · Written by Nathan at 8:01 pm · Tags

Mar202005

Problems with my job

1. No quality control
2. No positive feedback
3. Long working hours
4. Inability to effectively study Japanese
5. Mostly apathetic students
6. Useless bastards who come to Japan
7. Ineffective teaching methods

No comments · Written by Nathan at 1:59 pm · Tags

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