Joey over at Moon County had a Cartoosday contest a few weeks ago to write the words to go with a blank cartoon he drew. I won, so I got the glorious prize of the people's ovation and fame forever. Also another picture of my choosing. I was originally allowed to name anything I wanted Joey to draw, but since he didn't want to get arrested or sued or be made to draw anything super twisted, I agreed on a somewhat tame picture.
And by somewhat tame and not super twisted, I mean I asked for a picture of Chuck Norris eating a bunch of Pokemon.
I set my work computer's Firefox start page as Wikipedia, so I usually read a few random articles on the main page to start my day off (as opposed to actual work). The first one I read today was about China's space flight this week. On the page they had an image of the China National Space Administration's logo:
Is it just me, or is this pretty much exactly the same as this one? See:
Yes, while I realize that in both cases it's supposed to look like a plane/spacecraft, you still have to wonder if the CNSA, established in 1993, didn't have some huge Star Trek nerd designing their logo.
Haha there's a chance some of you tried to access this site (I don't know why you would) over the past few hours and found that there was nothing here. Just like last year, I forgot to renew my web host, which expired today. Since my host is in the US, midnight there was about the same time I sat down at work this morning. I opened Gmail and got a message saying my theleong.com e-mail accounts were expiring. I quickly renewed the host though, and everything's fine now. Not nearly as much of a panic as last year, hahaha.
I'll try and remember to renew ahead of time next fall.
I wish there was a way I could silently take pictures with my phone, but there's not because too many Japanese guys take upskirt shots of middle school girls. Thus, it's mandatory for Japanese phones to make a shutter noise. There's no option to shut it off.
Anyways I'm writing this on my phone as I ride the Sobu line train towards Funabashi. The dude standing across from me looks like a young Japanese Rob Schneider if you can picture it. He has a really short buzz cut, a purse, tight holy jeans, huge buckled boots, a diagonal referee t-shirt, and is carrying a grandma shirt over his arm (probably for if it gets "a lil' chilly willy"). But worse of all he is listening to his headphones and making this creepy child molester face. Not just smiling, but constantly making slight movements with his eyebrows and mouth as if he were Roseanne listening to the waitress at Golden Corral describe the specials. He is also doing the Night at the Roxbury dance. That's Japan for you.
I'm so grateful this country I'm living in has the natural wonder that is the Japanese Four Seasons*. Only Japan has a full spectrum of 4 distinct seasons. This may be hard for you to comprehend but let's take a look at them:
His Holy Majesty the Emperor's Winter
Graceful Dance of the Falling Cherry Blossoms Spring
Who Needs Central AC When You Have Paper Fans Summer
OMFG Nippon is the Greatest Country in the Galaxy Our Leaves Change Color Fall**
No other country in the world has the vast diversity in climates that Japan has, since every other country is blanketed in a single season year-round. For example: frigid cold (Canada), blazing sunshine (Australia), pollution and poisonous food (China), or gunfire (America).
The sad thing is there are some Japanese people who think something close to this. OK, maybe with less Pokemon and yeti, but the four seasons myth is something you hear far too often. Japanese people think their country is so special, a magical land that surely no other place on this planet could come close to. Yeeeeah. I've been asked multiple times if there is winter in St. Louis, as if the US is some alien planet devoid of temperature fluctuations. Old people, as usual, are even worse.
And before anyone starts thinking to themselves "they were probably just asking if the winter is cold, or how cold, or about the specific climate." They weren't. There's no excuse.
*The terms "Japanese," "Four," and " Seasons" are copyright 711 BC Emperor Jimmu, founder of Japan and direct descendant of the Sun God Amaterasu
**Alternatively referred to as OMFG Nippon is the Greatest Country in the Galaxy Our Leaves Change Color Autumn
Well hey what do you know? I think fall is finally here! The weather this morning was a brisk 75-ish degrees Fahrenheit, with relatively low humidity and a nice breeze. Compare that to the usual summer weather conditions of over 9000* degrees with 1000% humidity and constant sandstorms. OK I guess that's a slight exaggeration - the sandstorms subside every afternoon for a 4 hour acid rain shower. But at least this morning I got to come to work without smelling salaryman BO all the way into Tokyo. Ding dong, the summer is dead! (I hope.)
It's already September (say do you remember)!? Time seems like it's been going by pretty fast recently, almost entirely due to working every day then having a pretty full schedule every weekend. A week goes by like nothing, but I haven't decided if that's good or bad.
I'm enjoying work a lot more than I guess I originally thought I would, with the worst part still being the long hours. I technically work a normal 8 hour day (or less), but with the hour+ long commute it feels like I'm working 12 hour shifts. I usually get home after work, relax just a little, then have to go to bed soon after so as to not sacrifice precious hours of sleep. Then I wake up and head back to the trains to go to work. But enough about that.
I saw a movie over the weekend, 20th Century Boys (２０世紀少年). It's based on this super popular mystery/sci-fi comic book which I had never read. I'm not going to go into any of the plot details, but it was a pretty sweet movie spanning several decades focusing on a creepy cult leader intertwined with a group of people who went to elementary school together. Yet somehow the movie makes sense. This is the first of a trilogy, and even still it was 2.5 hours long. It was entertaining, but still, this is getting ridiculous. Why are movies these days so long?? Even Dark Knight, which I loved, was way too long. I'd rather directors cut out some of the unnecessary action scenes or some of the retarded CG sequences and leave the movie at an hour and a half. 2 hours is acceptable, but anything longer than that is painful. Come on!
I'm still waiting for fall to fully kick in and cool this country off.
