Bleh, I’m dead tired, but I figured an update would be worthwhile. Brendan came
on Wednesday, but only after encountering a few problems. Originally, I thought
he was going to come on Monday, but that was due to a mix up with the
International Date Line. Then Tuesday came and went, and still no Brendan. What
happened was this: he had gotten a ticket to Seoul, but was going to get off in
Tokyo, where the plane had a layover. However, the airline wouldn’t allow him to
remove his luggage while stopped in Tokyo, so he ended up going to Seoul and
camping out overnight in the airport. Next day (Wednesday) he flew into Japan,
and got into Utsunomiya about 7PM.
My only problem with the situation was the inability of my employer to separate
Brendan from me. She would NEVER say his name when talking about him, it was
always “Nathan’s friend.” She blamed me for telling her he was supposed to
arrive on Monday, which is what I was told myself. It took a fairly violent
exertion of self-control not to go ape on her. Of course he is my friend,
however his main purpose in coming is NOT as my friend, but rather as an
employee of this worthless school. As such, it’s her responsibility to keep in
contact with him. Assuming that I will play the role of middleman is just the
sort of obstinate and moronic decision I’ve come to expect from my boss.
But, enough of that nonsense. Today we went to Tokyo and hung around in Akihabara
and Shibuya. Brendan bought a PocketPC (for the excellent
JWPce Japanese to English
dictionary), and I got a Sega USB controller.
I think on the whole, the day was a success.
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.
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.
I also have a great idea for my next project. I want to make a user-submitted
database of those small, 80x35 (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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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!
