April 2008 Archives

his Saturday I'll be heading off to Indonesia for a week of fun filled diving at the Gili Islands. With any luck I'll get in a full 8 days of diving and maybe even a couple of night dives.

Located to the East of Bali, and right off the coast of the larger Lombok Island, the Gili islands offer quite a bit in the way of diving. Some healthy coral reefs, a great variety of small creatures, and the chance to possibly (I really hope!) to see some larger ones. Plus it looks like a very very very relaxing area for someone who needs to get away. In case you don't know where it is, google is your friend.

My top five things I really want to see. 1) Manta Ray 2) Turtle 3) Sea Horse 4) A lot of slugs 5) Cuddle Fish.

Eh, who am I kidding. If I just see a single Manta Ray I'll be so overly super thrilled that I'll forget about the rest. I'll be sure to post a lot of photos as well as video when I return. Wish me luck.

Seriously. Whats up with the Mid-West getting a 5.2 Earthquake this past week? I thought I had the whole Earthquake thing covered over here in in Japan. Sure, 5.2 isn't anything big compared to Japan or California, but its still kind of freaky. Think what would happen if a big 7.0 earthquake was to hit Chicago or Milwaukee? The horror. The horror.

In the mean time I'll be off hanging out on more volcanic islands crossing my fingers that they don't explode.

I really want one of these Brando Solar Gadget rechargers. I honestly don't really need one, but for $25 it seems like something that could come in handy if Japan was struck by a massive earthquake and I was left to do nothing but take photos of my ruined city. You know, in between trying to find food and not getting killed.

For $25 you get a USB port, a cell phone charging port, and a camera battery recharging area. All through the magic of solar power. So niceeeee! I could listen to my iPod as the world goes to hell around me! What a playlist that would be.

When I was younger I used to LOVE watching the sketch comedy group Kids in the Hall. Well, watching reruns. I still watch reruns, and its still super funny. Canadian humor. I recently found out that they're now on tour. Though you could probably call them more "Middle Aged Men in the Halls" these days. Though they all went there separate ways in show biz many years ago its nice to see that they're still quite funny.

What really annoys me is that they just did a show in Milwaukee! NOOOOOOO!!!!!! Once again Milwaukee screws me over! Heres a schedule of their tour in case you're interested.

Damn you Milwaukee!

I really do. I don't hate all colors. Just some. Well, mostly the ones I can't see because I'm part of that 7% of men who is color blind. Now this usually doesn't cause me any problems in life. Sure, I can't be a pilot or work for the railroad, but who would want that job anyways? (A small part of me just died...) The biggest difficulty I have in day to day life is stop lights, and those just require me to pay some extra attention when I come to intersections.

In fact the one annoyance I end up having is when I play the random game. Curse you game developers for your inability to take the 7% of use into consideration! Heres a fun filled graphics I shamelessly stole off the website kotaku that shows what normal people see vs what many color blind people see. I can actually see the added difference in these photos, though I'm having issues with other colors. (Damn)

Yeah. Thats no fun at all. I remember one time in college I was playing a puzzle game with a room mate and I couldn't figure why I was losing so badly. That was until we figured out that I couldn't see the difference between the greens and yellows. Well I was once again reminded of this horrible genetic defect of mine when I was invited to play a big game of Attack! on facebook. A game that is more or less an online Risk clone. Just look below.

Lets just say this is my own personal nightmare. I actually had to randomly click around to see which spots are mine. I'm thinking of deleting this game all together and once again try and forget my color issues. That or crying. Probably both.

I will survive. At least until I have to go out and buy clothing. Never a fun time. Lots of grays.

I love teaching English.

I love playing my Nintendo DS.

I hate the undead.

Somehow I doubt this will be helping many of my students learn English, its still really funny. With games like these I kind of understand the state of English eduction in Japan. But seriously. You have to love how excited the people in the video are about learning English. Its almost... scary.

As I said before, nothing annoys me more this time of year than the election vans driving around my neighborhood at all hours of the day blasting their political messages. On Friday I happened to come across a van in my neighborhood that had stopped and the guy was giving a speech. A long one. To one old lady and her flower garden. I watched for a good five minutes as this went on.

I biked home and got my camera so I could video take this fun filled event (because my youtube account really couldn't be any more dull), but by the time I returned the speech was wrapping up and the van sped off. The guys inside gave me some really weird looks. The video below is a short clip of them driving off blasting their message. It conveys how annoying things are.

At the end you can see a little girl skip up to me and say hello. Kids are cute.

Sad news. Japan's oldest person died today. At the age of 113. She had taken over the position in February after the last 113 year old died. Japan has a lot of old people. The average life span is 85 for women and 79 for men, the highest in the world.

"Japan has one of the world's longest average life spans — a factor often attributed to a healthy diet rich in fish and rice. In 2006 Japanese women set a new record for life expectancy at 85.81 years, while men live an average of about 79 years. The number of Japanese living beyond 100 has almost quadrupled over the past 10 years. There were 32,295 centenarians in 2007, according to the Health Ministry."

You think the US of A is going to have a massive Social Security issue in 30 years think of Japan. Long life span, low birth rate. Whats a country to do?

Simple: Westernize. And they're already on their way.

I see it on every street corner. Kids smoking. Drinking Soda. Eating KFC. Sitting around watching TV. Getting fat. They're learning it from their parents who do much the same thing, only they add on a large amount of job related stress and drinking into that mix. With any luck the average life span in Japan will start lowering itself naturally once all these super fit and health 'old timers' die, and they will be no old age problem!

I don't know why exactly but Nokia sent me a free phone battery.

Not only a phone battery, but a prepaid package to send the old battery back in. I'm going to have to get some help translating this document, as I am quite perplexed as to why my phone of 9 months needs a new battery. Not that I'm ungrateful for it, a new free battery is always nice, just a bit perplexed by it all.

Maybe I'm just special.