January 2007 Archives

Or just lazy. A bit of both. A lot of long days followed by me not wanting to do anything in the evening except watch downloaded TV shows. Also I've not been doing anything of much interest, so I don't really see the point of writing about it. Heck, I'm evening getting any "You're being lazy" messages from youtube users wanting to see more Nintendo DS videos. (Get a life people) Oh well. I'm heading of to the Mid-Year Conference in Hiroshiima tomorrow for two days of dull seminars which will in no way apply to my life. At least its two days of my not teaching and two days of being in the city on the company dollar (company yen). I'm sure I'll have some interesting pictures and stories to write about afterwards.

I'm about halfway done labeling my Thailand pictures, and completely done labeling my backlog of pictures. I'll probably spend Saturday night with a cup of tea uploading several hundred pictures to my photoblog (notice me always linking to it. View people, view!) for your enjoyment.

One of the benefits of people leaving Japan and going home is that they usually have a lot of junk. After a year or so you accumulate a lot of household and other items, to which, you have no possible way of getting them back to your respective country. Even if you're like my ex-coworker James, who hardly was ever at home and really had a bare minimum of stuff after a year and a half, there is just stuff that you want to get rid of. Especially when you're required to pay the city money to throw away anything larger than a shoe. No really, this is why Japan has such consumer environmental issues. People just dump stuff because they don't want to pay to throw it away. But I'm digressing. James quit his job in my own, and as he had to ditch stuff, the 9 of us went over to his place (some for the first time, even though james had been there for well over a year) and claimed everything for ourselves. Simon for instance got a nice sofa set. Rose got a nice table. I got two picture frames, two bikes, and a 17in VGA LCD. Oh yeah. Reminds me of my college setup. (Notice the fun figures I've stuck on top. And to answer your obvious question, its double sided tape and yes I did go out and buy some of those just to stick on top.)

My violin teacher back in Sioux Falls, South Dakota had an article in the local paper about her. The online version has video. if the webpage didn't suck I would watch the video. Oh well, I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

I've been wanting to get a 15in Macbook Pro to replace my aging 12in Powerbook, who can't really handle my massive music and photo collections. I'm just waiting for the next update of the line before ordering one, hopefully this will happen by this summer. This song reflects my feelings on the subject. (Bonus points: I've been singing the real version of this song in class for the past month.)

A friend of mine sent me this video and asked me why Japan was so messed up. After watching this video, I must say that I really have no frickin idea whats going on in this video, this TV show, or Japan in general. Every time I think I get a handle on Japan I see something like this and... well... am very confused. This video is completely Not Safe For Work. NSFW. Really. Hamsters.

There is a God. Fallout 3 is happening, and it will happen within my life time. It may be the only reason why I install Windows on my Macbook Pro (future Macbook Pro). Lets hope it doesn't suck.

Thats it for me. Catch you later.

So for some reason I've been watching way too much Star Trek as of late. I don't know why, just seemed like a good idea at the time. While I do enjoy the cast of the Next Generation I'm always pulled back to the people of the original series. The acting, the emotions, the cardboard sets. They all came together to make something almost... magic. That magic is sadly lost on todays' youth who have more power in their newfangled cell phones than Kirk has in his phaser. What we are left with though is a legacy that will live on forever thanks to William Shatner's musical career and the powers of youtube. Thus I now present to you my top five Shatner music videos I could find on youtube.

#6: Shatner Sings to George Lucas. I wasn't going to include this video, but felt that the overall badness of it combined with the opening joke warranted me to change this post from a top five to a top six list. I honestly don't recommend watching past the opening joke. (Though this probably solves once and for all the question of which Star is better.)

#5: Taxi. The defining part about this video is the last 30 seconds when Shatner sings "I could fly so high when I'm stoned" while making a painful orgasm face.

#4: How To Handle A Woman. Something about Shatner's shirt combined with his career as a geek hunk makes for a strange watch. If only the Trekies would listen to his sage like advice and get themselves some women. Just ask yourself, What Would Kirk Do? Clearly mack on the alien hotties. (Lets see Picard do that!)

#3: Shakespeare Rap. You have to ask yourself about the reasoning process behind having Shatner doing rap in general. Sure it would seem like a good idea, as the man is all about spoken word, but in practice it just doesn't fly. Though I do dig his bling and hip moves, which makes this video move up to the middle of the pack.

#2: Common People. This was almost my #1 choice. The combination of live performance, Joe Jackson, and Ben Folds makes for a very enjoyable watch. This from a man who in his 70s and still gets more girls per day then the average Star Trek fan does in a year.

#1: Rocketman. This song is both funny and appropriate at the same time. Everything about this video screams "I'm cool in any part of the Galaxy." Shatner is the rocketman, and always will be. If nothing else this one video makes up for all the horrible ones he did after. Well, mostly.

If we were talking pure funny, then I think Nemoy would take the cake on this one.

What kind of drugs was the man on back in the 60s. Seriously.

I've spent the last week recovering from my Thailand vacation. The after effects of which caused me to come down with a sinus infection that kept me home two days. Luckily a steady diet of soup, Scrubs, and Star Trek has allowed me to make a recovery. I've also been working on labeling all my photos, to which I have many, and should be able to get a bunch put onto my photoblog by the weekend (as well as a backlog of many other photos as well). That is if I'm not preoccupied by anything else.

I'm in much better spirits this winter as opposed to last. The weather isn't nearly as bad and I'm not freezing my rear off in class every day. This has probably been why I've not been overrun to massive bouts of illness every other week. That and a constant supply of tea. Now if only I could somehow get feet warmers....

In honor of me watching a whole lot of Cowboy Bebop last weekend I've included this anime music video. Oh yes.

Enjoy the bebop goodness.

I'm back in Japan, alive and well! Was there ever a doubt? But as to my trip... well...

Short version: Went to Thailand, meet up with an old friend, did SCUBA, did not get bombed, saw flowers, went to Cambodia and played Indiana Jones, ate at Burger King.

Long Story: So Theresa and I made it to Bangkok in mid afternoon after our relatively short plane flight. Thai Airlines is great, they feed you about every half hour. Plus they give you real knives and forks. We happened to share a plane with a fellow JET we knew Nikki, who unlike us, was spending her Xmas break being productive in an orphanage in the middle of the jungle. She was staying at the same place that we were, and so a big group of JETs went out that evening and ate our fill of random Thai food, while trying not to buy too many silly Thai t-shirts. Around 5 am or so my college friend Lindsay Fox eventually rolled in from India, very tired after her many ordeals getting to Thailand. The three of us did some minor sightseeing around the city and some time shopping about in the markets. That evening we went to a movie in a very nice new mall. Before every movie in Thailand the cinema plays that national anthem, where everyone in the theater is required to stand up and look serious. Bangkok is a fun city. Good shopping, a thrilling nightlife, and great food.

On the 24th we took a plane down south to the island of Koh Samui. My co-worker Bill once described this one island as full of "Old German men picking up young Thai hookers." Which was true, but luckily we were only there for a couple of hours. We soon caught a speed boat to the much smaller island of Koh Tao. Unfortunately the water was unusually rough, very rough, and the three of us had a very unpleasant two hour ride. The island of Koh Tao is only home to 5,000 people and mostly caters to the SCUBA diving and snorkeling crowd. The low key and quite atmosphere of the island made for a very relaxing week. Plus they had three places that served Mexican food!

I spent 4 days taking a SCUBA diving class, and getting way too much sun. My SCUBA class was very fun, and not too difficult. We even managed to have a bit of humorous fun along the way, as noted in the pictures below. Sadly the visibility was very bad while I was diving, which just means that I'll have to go back soon. How I enjoy white sandy beaches, cheap food, and taking pictures of fish. Though it is annoying when small fish keep attacking your ears. Ok, not as annoying as it was just freaky.

After a week of lazy beach fun we headed back to Bangkok on the 31st. We had planned to go out and have a super fun New Years evening, except Wang and I were beat and Lindsay had come down with a nasty case of tonsillitis. So we stayed in and had a good time anyways. Oddly all the New Years events were canceled in town due to a rash of bombings that happened that evening, so we didn't actually miss anything. On the 1st Wang and I went to the Imperial Palace for some sight seeing (where I had to rent some pants for $1 because shorts are not allowed inside of the palace temple). That evening Wang and I took a plane to Chiang Mai in the North while Lindsay headed back to India.

Chiang Mai had the best weather, in my opinion. Cool in the evenings, decently warm in the daytime, all the residents overly bundled up. My kind of place. We met up with an old friend of Wang's who was living up there and did some serious sight seeing. We even rode an elephant. While there we spent a day going to the Royal Flora Ratchaphruek, which is a massive flower and agriculture show. Needless to say I have a lot of flower pictures now.

Due to my stupidity we missed our flight out of Chiang Mai on the 4th and ended up having to spend the night in Bangkok. We caught an early flight to Cambodia on the 5th after some mad dashing in the airport. Running with bags is no fun. Cambodia was wonderful, if not a bit humid at times. We spent the first day looking at the ruins of Angkor Wat which is truly a wonder to see. The next day Wang decided to be lazy, which meant that I ran around the national park taking way too many pictures of the many many many temples. Honestly, I could have spent a week there and not seen everything. Again, I took too many pictures which is why I posted 12 below. I figured it would be more interesting to see pictures instead of reading about it. Simply astonishing.

We caught a late flight out on the night of the 5th, made our 6th time in the Bangkok airport, ate some Burger King, and returned to Japan. Which kind of sucked because it was snowing when we walked off the plane in Hiroshima and raining in Fukuyama. Oh well. I guess I'll just have to go back. Expect me to complain about all the photos I'm going to have to label, and that it'll take me some time to get them online.

Theresa and I eventually made it to Cambodia, a day late, but we did make it. The being here late is all my fault, I screwed up the plane flights and thus we missed our flight, and connecting flight, so we had to catch an early plane the next morning. Luckily the flight from Bangkok to Cambodia is only 50 minutes so we arrived with plenty of time to go see Angkor Wat. We'll go back and see more of the ruins tomorrow before heading back to Japan in the late evening, but I could honestly spend a week here just walking around and taking pictures of everything. This place is amazing. I'm just happy I brought 3 gigs of memory cards with me.... I'll be needing them. Lets hope I'm diligent labeling photos when I get home so I can post all the photos to my photoblog. Oh well. Much to do and only so many hours in my day where I can goof off at work. Talk to everyone when I get back to Japan. (Unless some Japanese tourists hold me hostage, demanding I teach their children English!)

Just wanted to say Hapy New Years to everyone. We're leaving Bangkok tonight for Chang Mai to spend 4 days enjoying the mountain landscape. In case anyone was reading the news there were some small happenings in Bangkok that cancled festivities throughout the city. Several explosions happened in Bangkok shortly after midnight, injuring 12 and killing 2. Very very very odd. Heres an article on cnn.com about the entire ordeal.

Anyhow, must run. Heading to Chang Mai soon and want to give myself some extra time at the airport.