December 2007 Archives

Goodbye Japan! I'm sick and tired of you and your cold weather! Off to New Zealand for me! Two weeks of sun, diving, and beaches everywhere. EVERYWHERE. Plus I can actually see a movie without silly subtitles at the bottom! Oh the joy!

Friday was our annual office ALT Holiday Party Gathering. Gifts were given. Indian food was eaten. Drinks were drank that were all very non-alcoholic in nature. Fan was had by all. Except for Chris, who had very bad indian food gas. Not so much fun was had with that.

The event also had the privilege of being Kelly's birthday, where she got a very wonderful little Domo present. Look how happy she is.

On that note, I am off to play with the little RC car Callium got me. I can control it with my phone. Hot stuff. Happy holidays everyone.

I may or may not have gone to a school's sport day on Friday. It may or may not have been a school I go to. It may or may not have been cold outside. The children, if there were any, may or may not have run around in weather that may or may not have been windy. It may or may not have been interesting. These photos below may or may not have been taken by someone who may or may not have been me. They may or may not even be in Japan. I may or may not even be here.

Those of you who know me and the problems I've been having with my blog and my work environment may or may not understand all of what I wrote above. If not, well, you're probably far better off than I am.

My color blindness tends to be a point of a great many jokes about me. Then again, somehow I keep getting chosen to do lessons on colors in class. Being color blind does have its advantages. Like always having an excuse for dressing badly. Or for decorating your apartment badly. In case you're unsure of how you stand color blindness wise, just look at the circle below. Can you see anything? If not, you're screwed.

The thing that gets me is that no one else can really relate to how I see things. Even color blind people see things in various degrees of severity. Nothing annoys me more than having someone point to something and ask "What color is that? Ok, what color is that?". Annoying. I ran across a site that shows how color blind people actually see the world. Its worth a view if you've ever wondered how I see things.

My color blindness isn't too severe and I can tell the difference in most of the photos. Most of them.

I've been waiting for this movie for a long time.

I love Bruce way too much for my own good. Hail to the king baby.

I volunteered to be Santa last weekend. Yes. That is me in the photos below. Filled to the brim with Christmas spirit. Quite unusual I know. But the kids were quite cute.

Yes, those kids are cute. Yes, I did play my viola. No, those are not my real eyebrows. So passes another Christmas in Japan.

Oh, and I got some cake too!

Part of me wants one of these things. They're USB clip drives in the shape of Domokun. Who I adore. The problem is I don't need one. Not at all. Even more of a problem is the price. For the 1 Gig model its $50. For the 2 Gig its $80. For the 4 Gig model, the one I probably could get some use, comes in at $110. A bit too pricy for something I don't need, and also seeing as how you can easily find 4 Gig USB drives for under $20. But they're so cute....

Theres a really nice write up on them over at macenstein.com thats worth a read if you're interested in them. In case you're wondering they do have different designs. Star Wars, Happy Tree Friends, HALO, and Hello Kitty USB clips can also be found on their webpage. Also just as expensive. Anyways, check out Mimoco's webpage for product information and purchasing.

I've been loving the new iChat features in Mac OS 10.5. Since most of my Mac friends have upgraded to 10.5 we've been playing around with such features as screen sharing and massive multi-person video chats. Such as the one below.

Thanks to Japan's wonderfully fast internet connections we're able to get some nice picture quality. I was even able to watch a video via screen sharing with relatively nice video quality! Crazy.

Technology such as video chat and Skype have made life so much easier for those of us abroad. I can't stand to think of what life was like back when the JET Programe first started. Having to rely on snail mail and very expensive phone calls home must have been quite the pain in the ass.

Oh internet. How you provide me with all the comforts of home without actually requiring me being at home. Good times.

I guess one of the reasons I've not been updating this webpage lately is that I've been working on my other pages. If you've not done so already, check out my domotravels webpage and my joshuadives webpages. Both have quite a few new entries. I'm still trying to work up the courage to redesign all three pages I run, but lack the ambition and the brains to do so. If you've got an urge to help me through the process, or do some pro bono work, leave me a comment. I'll even split the profits with you!

I made a couple of video reviews. I've been meaning to do so for quite a while, but have been super lazy. Which is also why there has been nearly a 3 week delay in my blog postings.

Contra 4. Nastalgia updated. Frickin tough.

Dementium The Ward. A rather good horror FPS with some minor flaws.

Hopefully they'll keep me busy on the plane flight to New Zealand.

Besides flying small RC airplanes, and crashing them, I also like to try and fly small RC Helicopters. And crash them. A lot. I bought a Honeybee (or called the PiccoZ in North America and even called the Air Hogs Havoc in the US of A) a while back. For under $30 its a great toy. A 20-30 minute charge gives you a 5-8 minute flight time. Its controls are simple and quick responsive and its more or less indestructible. Seriously. They're hard to break. I've smashed that thing into my walls and floor probably a good 300 times and it keeps on flying.

I bought a little HeliQ a few weeks ago thinking it would be fun. Its billed as "The Worlds Smallest RC Helicopter." Which is true, but I wouldn't call it all that RC. While the thing is cute, and does fly, its damned hard to control. Near impossible. Off a 20-30 minute charge it gets under 5 minutes of flight time. Plus I keep thinking I'm going to break it! Its the same price as my Honeybee over here in Japan. If I could i'd go back in time and buy another Honeybee.

That or save up money and buy a BIG plane. Maybe in the spring. Though I've found that my city is ALWAYS windy. Good lord Fukuyama is windy. Its hard to find a decent day to fly!