December 2005 Archives

After only five months in Japan I didn't think I would have any weird feelings about coming home for a visit. That is until I got here. Reverse culture shock is what they call it. Also known as Wisconsin Culture Shock, if you're unlucky enough to live in the great cheese state. I find myself missing certain aspects of Japanese life. Like my bike. Or the trains. Heck, I even miss tofu. Strange, I know, but I do miss it.

Why I wish I was in Japan:
1) Easy modes of transportation.
2) My internet cafe. (Its my second home)
3) Asian people.
4) Japanese food.
5) Not being around my family.

Reasons I'm Happy to be home:
1) Big roads.
2) Understanding people around me.
3) Real blonds.
4) Wendy's food.
5) My family.

Now you see my issues. I guess I'm also a bit happy to be able to buy DVDs in English, or at least region 1 DVDs. I was out at the mall today doing some post xmas shopping with my Dad and found myself spending too much money again on lots of random stuff, which I didn't originally set out to buy. Oddly in my journey through the mall (and through the sea of non-asian people. The horror!) I found that the trendy store Sam Goody had a small, but well stocked, hentai section. Hentai being Japanese animated porn. Not that it actually surprised me....

I stopped at B&N to pick up some needed classroom supplies. Some manga in English, a copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and some Miffy books. The kids love miffy. I figured it would be a good idea to show them some stuff that they would be familiar with, but in English. I'm sure they'll get the same thrill out of it as I get out of just about everything I see in Japan. Except for natto. Which is evil.

I later stopped by the local Apple store to pick up a Wall Power Adaptor and USB Camera Adaptor for my iPod. I figured both would come in handy when I travel a lot in the next couple of years. The ability to offload pictures to my iPod from my digital camera is something I've wanted to do for a long time. The store was quite packed for mid afternoon on a Tuesday. It actually looked just as busy two days after xmas as it had two days before xmas. Curse you Apple for being so successful.

So my days as of late have consisted of my watching large amounts of movies. No, really. Thats about all. My father got a sub woofer for his home entertainment center, which now makes his audio very very good. Too bad he's using the same TV he was using back in 1986. He keeps lusting over 50 Plasma Screen TVs at Best Buy, and I figure that in a year or some he'll have one. Sigh... and me, the guy who watches the most movies, will not be around. At least I'll be around a lot of tofu...

And, because I know you all want it, some pictures of my family. From Xmas. Actually just two. And one is of the dog and cat. What can I say. I'm lazy. I'll eventually put up that video of my mother freaking out about me being home...

Somehow I pulled off the greatest Christmas surprise in my household yet, and come home for Christmas without my Mom knowing. Mostly due to the help of my Dad and sister, both who kept it under their hats. Here how my extremely long Thursday went.

I got up at 6:45 am (Japan time). Caught a small train from my place to the main train station in Fukuyama. Then caught a bullet train to Osaka, but ran into a small snag. In a very strange turn of events there were massive blizzards between Fukuyama and Osaka, enough so that all the trains were running behind about 20 minutes (this never happens in Japan) and I got on the wrong bullet train. Luckily no one noticed. The blizzards were so bad that my train was behind a half hour getting into Osaka. I then caught another train from the main Osaka station to the airport, which was running behind and slow because of the blizzard. My part of Japan never gets this kind of snow. Especially this time of year.

My first plane ride left at 1:30 pm, after I spent way too much time going though customs and having North West Airlines go through my carry on luggage. Sigh... So I then had a nice 12 hour plane ride, which was on time for a change. Being North West Airline the food, movies, and overall experience just sucked. Luckily I had my new video iPod with me, and watched a lot of TV shows on it, as well as my laptop. I eventually arrived in Detroit, where I was subjected to no custom inspections at all. I got waved through two separate checkpoints. Thank goodness for that because of the high volume of angry fliers around me. So between 11:30-3:30 I just wondered around the airport, got some fun filled A&W food, and tried no to fall asleep. Due to bad weather in the US, my connecting flight was delayed about half an hour getting in. Then we sat on the runway an hour thanks to the engine not being able to start. I arrived in Chicago about 5 central time, and my Dad picked me up. After a good hour and a half drive I made it to Milwaukee.

So to count that up. Three trains, two planes, and a car. A total of 26 hours traveling on Tuesday. Plus I still had to surprise Mom. Not too tough. Lots of tears were had, and she completely didn't expect it at all. We had gotten her to buy into some story about me going to China over Christmas break. Good times.

So here I am, seriously Jet lagged and trying not to go crazy while home. Luckily enough my parents house in Milwaukee is worlds warmer than my place in Japan. Thank you central heating and insolation. I gave my family all the gifts I had brought with me on Thursday night, just because I didn't want to wrap them and figured my sister should have her Domokun ASAP. He's so cute.

So I'll be in Milwaukee until the 7th, so give me a call or something. My time will be divided between being lagged, eating cheese, and watching movies that don't cost $18 to see. (Though I will miss my $4 movie beer and $3 giant popcorn tub)

I actually love to travel, I just hate getting there sometimes. Especially when, by my estimates, I'll be taking three trains, two planes, and a car to get to my destination. Hmm... That should make a good video actually. As long as I don't get arrested for taking video while traveling. If I'm able, I'll be taking my Domokun with me and telling my trip through him. Or just annoying people by carrying around a small brown stuffed monster. I should at least be ok while in Japan....

Yeah, thats about it. Leaving tomorrow at 8 am. I can only hope that my batteries hold out the entire time. Mmm... video iPod will make this trip interesting to say the least. Wish me luck. I'll be sure to post some pictures or video when I have some free time over the next couple of weeks, if ever.

When I was a wee youngster all I wanted to be was an paleontologist or an archeologist. I spent all my free time reading books about dinosaurs or sifting through the dirt in hopes of finding an ancient civilization in my back yard. The inspiration for my ill fated backyard expeditions were often the Indiana Jones films. What young child wouldn't be overcome with inspiration by the heroic deeds of this maverick archeologist. But recently, for some reason, I was thinking about the films and realized that Indian Jones is a horrible archeologist. I mean he destroys more historical artifacts and evidence then he every saves, and all he seems to care about is getting the gold. Yeah, me knocking on Indiana. I just hope they don't make another movie, and if they do, I hope George Lucas burns for it. BURNS.

As the holidays roll along a lot of people are having issues buying gifts for their loved ones. Especially the techies. Who are mostly guys. So I guess the point is there are a lot of women out there (and occasionally a guy) who has no idea what to buy their techie loved one. Here are some ideas from the Josh.

The Blogger: Buy a copy of ecto for OS X or Windows. Its a bloggers best friend and works with a whole host of blogging systems.
The Gamer: Sure there are a lot of new game systems out, but who can go wrong with a Game Boy Advanced and a copy of Final Fantasy. Its RPGs on the go.
The Music Freak: I would say buy an iPod, but I would have hoped you'd have bought one for them a long time ago. How about a bunch of money towards the iTunes Music Store. Its the gift that keeps on giving. Legally. If they do have a video iPod buy them a license to Podner that lets them convert video into the proper iPod format.
The Gadget Nut: For the person that has everything, how about a nice Bluetooth Headset? It'll work with your computer and probably their cell phone (I hope they have a BT Phone, or else they're not a geek).
The Retro Fan: They will be the toast of the office if you buy them a retro video game shirt. Or several.
The Picture Nut: Nothing says I love you like a nice big fat memory card for their camera.
The Weird Guy: It may be a little dated, but who doesn't live a firewire hub that lights up and looks like Godzilla.

The Japanese love iPods. This article tells all, and is quite funny.

This list of true Chuck Norris facts reminds me way too much of my former roommate Zach's love of Chuck. Why, we may never know.

Turn out my co-worker James is engaged to his Japanese girlfriend. Odd how he never told us until we saw the ring....

To get my children in the Christmas Spirit I decided that some of them should partake in the age old tradition of making Christmas cards. So I went and bought a bunch of colored paper, and printed off a lot of pictures of Santa and Snowmen, and also came up with a list of Christmas sayings that they could write. I swear that there is some English learning involved! See I was able to justify this by having the kids write about themselves inside the card, and also because I was having them learn new vocab. My first test of this exercise was with two first year classes, and they had a ball. The key is to have them write out the English stuff first, and then do all the drawing and cutting. Otherwise they never get around to actually to doing the English bit. I was once again surprised by the art ability of the first year students who went full force on these cards. I've included a few sample pictures below so you can get the idea of the quality of the work. I plan on selling them in front of the station for 300 Yen each.

Often times I'll pause in the hallways to look at student projects or artwork on display, and so that I can better understand my students. Or maybe because its easier then actually working at times. As I said before Japanese students have a knack for doing really nice artwork, and sometimes it can be a bit weird. Like when the cuteness and the weirdness combine into... well... stuff like this. I call it the 'circle of poo.'

I occasionally have to teach a class with handicapped kids. Sometimes this goes good, sometimes this goes bad. Usually we just have fun and do random activities. When I came in to do the class with the one student we started the class off by having some soup. I do so ever enjoy soup. That was fun. Then the boy showed me his big battle bug. Its an actual real bug that they kept in a cage in the room. For some reason there has been a craze in Japan over these giant beetles from India and all the boys have to have one. The bug was quite comatose through most of the ordeal, but just look how big it is in my hand.

Friday night we had an ALT office Xmas party, which was all of us ALTs and our boss. Good times were had at the Asian Kitchen here in town (isn't every kitchen in Japan an Asian one?), mostly because for 3500 Yen you can have all you can drink and all you can eat. We ordered the menu. Twice over. No, we actually did just 'order the menu' for our group. Worked out well. The highlight of the evening was Secret Santa gift exchange. In a weird turn of events I got Bill and Bill got me. I was feeling extra silly in my gift giving ways, so I bought him an Aokubi Daikon toy. Which I got mainly because it was just very weird looking, and super silly. In return I got a Gundam and a very gay looking Robin figure. Yeah, Bill is a Big Daikon sometimes.

Saturday Bill and I went to see the new King Kong movie. Ok, heres my take on it. Yes, overall its a good film, but I was often disappointed in it. The film starts out fine, I love the shots of 1933 New York, and all the actors are quite excellent in their roles. The movie is often slow. There, I said it. Its a frickin three hour long movie, and often I was wondering when things were going to move on. At first I was thinking "When are we going to get to the island." Then at the island I was thinking to myself "Wow, CGI overload." There were more dinosaurs in this movie than all three Jurassic Park movies combined. The CGI and action just kept going. And going. And going. Until I got bored with it. Come on, did Kong really have to fight three t-rexes for like 5 full minutes. Sigh... The only two really good parts were the giant bugs, which are really really disturbing, and Kong smashing up NYC. Which actually ended up just dragging on at the end as well.

Later Alun rolled into town and we headed over to a new cafe in town. Its one of those theme places, where the girls all dress up in little French maid outfits. I'm not kidding, its downtown. The place is an otaku hangout, as evidenced by the many giant robot figures, sexy action figures, PS2s, Computers, and the sexy maids who you could pay to play video games with you or watch anime with you. Yeah, the three of us found it highly disturbing but very very very funny. Sadly, no pictures allowed. I think all the ALTs at the office should go there sometime... yeah... sounds like a great idea.

After dinner we were quite surprised to find that it was snowing quite heavily. Heavily for Fukuyama that is. To quote one friend of ours, "Its the most snow Fukuyama has had in three years." Which is probably true. The best part is that no one in town knows how to drive in this weather, or has proper snow tires. We watched a car do a 180 in front of the train station. I think it'll probably only end up being an inch of snow and should go away by noon tomorrow, but its snow none the less. When I got home I found that someone had made a super small little snow man in front of my apartment. Theres a joke there... small... Japanese... snowman...

If you don't already think President Bush sucks, heres some recent news that will change your mind. First, WMDs were not the real reason for going into Iraq. Did we need a reason? Turns out Bush had the NSA spy on citizens without court orders. Who needs courts anyways. The Patriot Act is one of the most harmful things ever passed by Congress. At least they showed their real support of Bush by not extending a lot of it.

I want to see this movie. V is for awesome.

The US version of the British TV show The Office is shockingly funny. Its like a car wreck. Its so horrific that you can't turn away. The acting by Steve Carell is done so well, its painful to watch. I mean painfully funny. Its soooo funny that I watched all of season one in about two days. Wow. I need more. So funny. I should get around to watching the British version sometimes...

Yeah, we got more snow today. Big whoop. It doesn't actually stick around for more than a second. Though it may be around zero all the time (0 C), the ground is too warm for any show to stick around. Even in the shadows. Oh, and you know who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows....

I spend a good deal of time moving from school to school, which means I should be lugging around a good deal of stuff with me. One of the other ALTs I work with has often complained how she'll show up to schools and they suddenly ask if she brought any worksheets or material with her. Yeah, great, ask at the last minute. So she now carries a large amount of stuff with her, which annoys her, and makes all the rest of us unhappy because when she is unhappy everyone is unhappy. I've been trying to find a better solution to this, which is why I've been scanning in a lot of worksheets and stuff and sticking them on my iPod Shuffle for easy access. I've stuck up a batch of Xmas worksheets if anyone is interested in downloading them.

Being now a modern commuter I've come to realize several things. First taking my laptop with me every day is ok because it is small, though I still would love to leave it at home. I'm actually quite lucky in the laptop world when it comes to size, and size does matter. My 12in Powerbook isn't the smallest notebook out there by far, but its just the right size for my backpack. Unlike several of my fellow ALTs who have very nice PC laptops with big 17in screens. The problem is these things are giants, and though they are laptops they are not very portable. I've also come to realize that I hate using my various schools PCs. Due to the fact that hooking up my laptop to their networks would probably kill everyone I can not get internet access at any of my schools, though they all have such nice wireless. So I must use a 'loaner' laptop, which is ok, but requires me to use IE. I hate IE. Long story short I found that there is a build of Firefox that is portable. As in that it works from a USB flash drive. Which my Shuffle just happens to be. Combine this with the wonders that is meebo.com and I'm set for my day at work. Two things any JET shouldn't be without. Firefox and AIM.

Heres a fun little JAVA App that puts together a small mix of your favorite music in iTunes. Kind of fun actually, and very random. Just take a look at what it did to my music collection. Now stick that on your iPod and listen to it before you go deaf. Or at least thats what some people are thinking is going to happen to today's youth due to excessive iPod usage with those little earbuds.

I bought fuzzy slippers. Two pair. One for school and one for home. Yeah, its cold. I wonder how they'll go over in class tomorrow. They were only 500 yen....

For some reason I had my site mentioned in a comment to an article on digg.com, and now a lot of people are visiting my site. To confess, I never actually read digg.com and was quite surprised to see the large number of people hitting my site from it. Ok, so its only about 300 thus far, but thats big for me when I'm only averaging about 3,000 hits a month these days, and most of those are other JETs in Japan. But if you people must view my page please feel look around the Japan part, and especially the Comics bit. Mostly because I like to show off my kids. Wow, I'm only 23 and already trying to live vicariously through my students. What a monster I've become. Watch my videos.

Fukuyama is not known for its snow. It never gets snow. Which is why my kids went crazy when they saw a few flurries. Their little faces pressed against the glass, and lots of high pitched OOoooos and Ahhhhs. As cute as this was to watch it did happen to be during the middle of class, in which I had to contend with students trying to grab my lower regions (for some reason they wanted to today), students grilling me about being seen at the train station with a female friend of mine, and the usual bit where the vast majority of the class seems to be more interested in doing their hair (this includes the guys) then in whats being taught. At least in this school. I'd complain but this is the same school where after five months one of the Japanese teachers I work with still spells my name Joshu. Not Josh. Not Joshua. Just Joshu. I've given up trying. At least I have five other schools to deal with.

Speaking of winter and snow let me tell you why my bronchitis has now taken me almost 4 weeks to recover from. Oh, thats right, I'm still kind of sick. Maybe its because its cold here. No, not cold like Minnesota or South Dakota, which I'm used to. Its a different kind of cold. It hovers around 0 C all the time, but its always cold. Inside and outside. Especially at my schools. The Japanese don't believe in heating or insolation. That would be too easy. So far only one of my six schools has had any sort of heater in the classrooms. That was such a nice day. Often its colder outside then inside because the sun will warm things, but the concrete which the schools are all built of just lock in the cold. This means that I'm in class with 30 little Japanese students all of whom are freezing cold. Some shiver, most just rub little heat packs over their bodies. Some turn blue. I feel extra sorry for the girls who can not put on pants and suffer in the skirts they must always wear. I can only imagine some of my students ridding a bike 20 or 30 minutes to school every day in skirts. The worse part is that I've heard of the exact same conditions existing up north, where it is actually bitterly cold. I think my problem is I can just never get warm during my day. Which is why I have the heat turned up to 20 C back at my apartment.

I've been trying to figure out some fun filled Japanese gifts to send back to the US to my friends and family. The problem is I hate buying gifts. I either spend way too much time trying to find the one perfect gift for someone, or just end up getting something amusing. So this year expect me to send some randomly cute amusing things back to the US. Things that annoy me: Overly cute webpages. I may have to put up with cute everywhere in Japan, but by George I don't have to put up with it online. Unless its Domokun. Yes, I have become obsessed with my Domokun doll... he just sits there... watching me... judging me...

I was recently informed that my former college now has its own internet based weekly TV news show. GAC TV is interesting and reminds me of the many things I miss about college. Actually it mostly reminds me of all the things that annoyed me about college and why I was quite glad to get out in the real world. Though I do kind of miss the cafeteria... In any way this comic strip does kind of express my true feelings about my four years in college....

He was here. Kind of. In a Japanese sort of way. Also known as "dress up some foreigners like Santa and get photos of you and the kids with them." Thanks Bill and Graham. Two of the best Santas I've ever seen. Our city Xmas party, put on by our local CIR, was fun. After spending a long time finding the building I had the pleasure of playing some games, eating some sugar cookies, and watching my co-workers dress up in silly outfits. I was also shamelessly exploited and made to sing xmas songs with all the other foreigners attending. Thats my job. To be entertaining.

The Japanese have an interesting take on Xmas. It's only been around for a short time, and mostly because of stores promoting it as a big gift giving season. The number of actual Christians in Japan is quite low, around 0.7% of the population, so its not as if there are a large group of people promoting it as a religious Holiday. I've heard from quite a few Japanese people that "Christmas is for couples." Which probably means that some company started a trend of giving a special gift to your special someone and it caught on. Wouldn't be the first time a company has started a tradition that caught on in the entire culture. How do you think diamonds became the wedding ring stone of choice in the US? What gets me is that starting in early November all the store have xmas music going, and decorations up, yet no one really cares. I don't see homes in my area decorated up, or students in the spirit. Clearly the Japanese have found some way to remove both Christ and Holiday fun from Christmas.

Then again in the US the Conservatives seem to think that the Liberals are trying to start a "War on Christmas." If they'd do their homework they would have seen the USA's actual history of Christmas and how its never really been religious at all. Or maybe they could just take a page from the White House on proper holiday greetings. People need to grow up. I mean you Bill O'Reilly. And probably Jon Gibson as well. Both really.

Domo-kun (どーもくん) is back, and in a fun way. This really cool retro style flash game embraces why I love him so much. Actually its just fun. And silly. And very very weird. I love the internet.

I love old propaganda. WWII, Vietnam, Korea, and even today's stuff is very interesting from a historical perspective. The problem is you expect a certain level of propaganda from various governments during a time of war. But the most fun stuff is by popular culture and media outlets. Especially if these things are still around today. I'm reminded of a really great article in Time magazine from the 1940s that showed how we could easily distinguish the difference between a Japanese person and a Chinese person. I was looking through some fun stuff on superdickery.com, very old Superman and other comic covers, and found the section on propaganda in comic books to be almost too much to. Its worth a read just because of how outlandish it is. But think that this was only 60 years ago. How much have we changed? If nothing else I am reminded how almost any situation can be made funny with retro comics. Like my problem with asbestos. Pure gold.

I've really got nothing interesting to say today. Before you go saying "But Josh, you never have anything interesting to say" let it be known that thanks to the internet I am guaranteed that someone somewhere cares. If not, I'm sure Jared Lee does. I mean, I so far have around 150 click throughs from his site alone. Mostly its him complaining that my weather widget is misleading because it is displayed in Celsius, which some of you might not have figured out. So there. I've said it. I measure temperature in Celsius. I wish the rest of the US did as well. Maybe next year we can start looking into the whole 'meter' craze thats swept the world.

Luckily I have added some fun media to my site today. I put up this nice album of Jen and I at Miyajima from this past weekend. Be in awe of the crazy deer and photos taken by me by strange Russian men from Siberia! I also have stuck up this comic I made a few weeks ago, but keep forgetting to upload off my desktop. I think it sums up my October in a nutshell. More or less. Lastly I wanted to explain the weird cutout I have posted as a thumbnail to the left. See, its a map as how to create a paper Domokun (どーもくん) of your own. No one should be without their own Domokun. If someone does actually take the time and effort to make one of these, please send me a photo. It would be super sweet.

In super cool news, Apple added a bunch of new TV Shows to the iTunes Music Store. A lot of old classic ones, and some new ones. I'm super thrilled about having the new Battlestar Galactica at my finger tips. Or at my tips for $2 a show. At least I can watch old eps of Knight Ridder. Mmmm.... If not some David Hasselhoff, then you can always watch some of The Office. Man... there is a lot of vintage shows up on iTunes... good shows.... Must resist urge to pay money to watch TV shows... on... new... iPod...

So I've been home sick for two days, doing nothing but eating instant curry and rice. I eventually figured I should write about my weekend, seeing as how my blog as been devoid of any activity of any sort for quite a few days. Poor thing. It needs to be fed. Fed souls.

So I scrapped my plans to go to Okayama on Saturday because I wasn't feeling up to it. Plus it was cold. Coldness sucks. Jen came and hung out with me Saturday evening. We watched Saved. I can't believe I missed this film. So funny. I love you internet.

Jen and I went out to Hiroshima in the morning, but not after a double order of the "Josh Breakfast Special" at my favorite cafe. My legacy to Japan. Proper breakfast food. Anyways the weather still was cold, and my weather widget said that Monday's snow would really be Sunday's rain. Luckily as soon as we passed Hiroshima City the clouds went away and it was sunny. Lucky us. I somehow convinced her to go to Miyajima and check out the scenery. It had been almost a year since the last time I'd been there, but at least this time I was there during the day. There were quite a few foreigners there, as usual, checking out the famous site. Or at least what is now a great tourist site. Some Russian guys took our photo for us. They were from Siberia. They said it was cold there. Go figure. I took quite a few good pictures.... I should make an album and put them online tomorrow.

We headed back to the city where I did dragged Jen to the NHK store so I could buy myself a Domokun plush doll for atop my TV. He is sooooo cute. Anyways we dropped off our bags at the bus station and headed towards the club where we were to see The Pixies play. Good concert. Total gaijin fest though, but go figure. I saw a lot of JETs from all over there, as well as a large number of random foreigners from the Fukuyama area. Its good to see familiar faces. (Even though I now distrust any foreigner that I don't know in other cities..... how weird is that)

Monday I went to the doctors on Monday. Got more pills and a bottle full of some strange anti-cough stuff. Scary looking actually. Anyways I await my blood test on Friday so that someone can tell me what the heck is wrong with me. The nurses were having a fun time though with their book of English medical phrases. Its good to know that I have some English speaking (mostly) medical help if I ever need it. What really surprised me on Monday was the fact that it actually did snow the night before. It never snows here. Ever. The snow was mostly gone by the time I went to the doctors at 9, only remaining in the shows of buildings and cars. Looks like the kids of Fukuyama won't be having to live through the horror of reanimated snow men this year. Poor frosty. He could only be killed with an ice-cycle through his snowy heart.

Tuesday wasn't much different from my Monday. Sleeping. Instant food. A movie or two. I watched Bad Santa trying to get in the Christmas mood. It didn't work, but it was super funny. Maybe the kids should watch it for class... While I was the movie store I saw that Howls Moving Castle is out on DVD here, and that the DVD has English Subs, and the English dub as well. Which is interesting. Maybe thats another gift for myself.... Speaking of gifts for myself, heres a picture of the cute little addition to my tech family. My new iPod. With video. I need to find myself some more cowbell. The new iPod is nice. Its super small, the battery life is good. But the most surprising thing is how good the video quality is. Even looking at pictures on it is nice. Hopefully it will serve me well this holiday season.

So having the internet at home is nice. It has let me catch up on one of my favorite passtimes. Zombies. Now everyone know how much I hate the undead. Which is why I loved these online novels by David Wellington about zombies taking over the world. Quite the read. I've also become quite found of playing the new Stubbs the Zombie game, which lets you be a zombie. Come to think of it, zombies do have all the fun. Plus this game is a riot. Its almost too fun.

Also, if you've not seen the new teaser for X-Men 3 you should. Its quite cool. The movie will most certainly get my 1000¥. Then again, nothing is more fun than watching part of your former town be blown up. I leave Sioux Falls for a few years and look what happens. (Right click and download to disc, for some reason it doesn't want to be played in some browser windows.)

After waiting for four months, I now have internet at home. High speed internet. Oh sweet sweet internet bliss. I am so overjoyed that I have just been inspired to write a haiku about it.

Connections endless
Data streams to my fingers
Time to bittorrent

The nice, and unexpected thing, is that my internet 'box' is located right next to my TV. Which means I can use my

Airport Express for wireless behind my TV, which means I can run an audio cable from my Airport Express to my TV and stream music from my laptop (over wireless) to my TV speakers. Sure, that sounds complex, but its rather simple to do and operate. Mmmm... internet.

The weather is turning colder. Much colder. In a very odd turn of events it appears as if Fukuyama is going to be getting some snow on Monday and Tuesday. Fukuyama NEVER gets snow, and I expect that none of it will stick. I wonder if this city has ever had a snow day. That would be weird. I'd still expect that I'd have to go into the office even if there was a snow storm and school was canceled. I mean they did make us come in during a typhoon.

I bought a new iPod. I tried using the Japanese online Apple store, but it was having issues with me living in Japan and using a US credit card. Whatever, I just went to a local electronics store and got it for the same price. I've yet to actually use it, but I do know what will be the first video I play. Oh... you'll see.

Look for me online people. If I'm home, I'll probably have AIM open. Oooo Skyp is fun.

I got close yesterday to getting internet. So close. MEGA EGG came and installed a fiber optics cable at my place and now there is a little box next to my TV blinking away. Too bad I can't use it. See first off I thought maybe it was my network cable that I was using, so I tried a second one. No dice. Then I thought maybe it was my computer, so I tried my Airport Express, no dice. Seem no one left me the user name and password that I need to be using in my PPPoE settings. So close. No big deal though. Whats another day or two when its been four months.

I still have a cold.

This website will set you free. For most JETs the local school system blocks a lot of webpages and programs, which means you can't use instant messaging during those long days where you're doing nothing. Then I found meebo.com which is a site that lets you use ANY messaging client in a browser window. Holy crap. Thats sweet.

The new video iPod is cool. Oh look, you can use an adaptor to import pictures off your camera directly onto your iPod. Now that would be handy to have over my holiday trip when I will be far away from my laptop. Hmm... someone will have to help me with the Apple Japanese site.... ohhh... what to engrave on it...

Thats about it, nothing else happening. Oh, except that everyone out there can really just use a bit more Cowbell. Or a CD thats all about Cowbell. Mmmm..... Cowbell....

"I have a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell!"