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2010-01-31T01:48:00.002-05:00

Got this e-mail:

Would I sell out my personal website just to make some money? Probably. But I did some Googling and found that other sites were being offered like $50 or even $100 for the same type of thing! I'm going to write them a response asking for more money.

And just in case they're willing to pay per-word, let me just say: receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist receptionist

Boeuf! Haw haw!

2009-12-27T09:38:00.001-05:00

The night before leaving Japan for Christmas back in the US, I grabbed a late dinner. Had a beef filet Rossini style, which has foie gras and a truffle sauce over it. Sounds kind of fancy, right? Except that it only cost me about 1400 yen (USD $15) and it was at Denny's. Whaaaat?

Obviously, Denny's in Japan is a lot different from "real" Denny's in the US. For one thing, their breakfast food is a joke. It's pretty much the same kind of generic "Western breakfast" stuff you can get anywhere in Japan, even at Yoshinoya in the mornings: 1 egg, two mini sausages, and a cabbage salad. There's no Grand Slam, no Moons Over My Hammy, no other disgustingly greasy and delicious American breakfast foods. And the pancakes. OH GOD DON'T GET ME STARTED ON J-DENNY'S PANCAKES. Too late. They're about the size of what we might call silver dollar pancakes if the chef took the size of a silver dollar as a literal unit of measurement. And you only get like 3 of them and they're dry and gross. Yet somehow they try to market this as a real stack of pancakes you would get at real Denny's when in reality you'd get more volume if you get your breakfast set with the half piece of toast they also offer. Ugh. In short: don't ever get J-Denny's pancakes if you're expecting real pancakes. You will be angry, disappointed, hungry, and scarred for the rest of your life.

Anyway, the filet I had was good. I'm actually starting to mind J-Denny's less and less. Even though they have none of the menu items you can get in the US, they have sandwiches and pasta and stuff that are decent, and they have pretty good coffee. Not really college student stay up all night coffee, but decently good coffee. It's a little more expensive than the other J-family restaurants, but for variety it's OK. I guess recently they're trying to improve their image even more, offering gourmet ingredients in wannabe fancy dishes like the Rossini filet I had, or the truffle and prosciutto pasta they offered last month. Kind of interesting, although I'd trade it all for a Breakfast Dagwood or a Moons with fries.

Fuggedaboudit

2009-12-20T09:22:00.002-05:00

December is winding down to a close, taking down 2009 with it and ending the era of years that we call "oh-something" even though I'll bet people will still be saying "oh-ten" next year which I suppose isn't totally inaccurate. I��m still not really clear on what the shortened name for 2010 is going to be. ��Ten?�� Oh ten?�� Twenty-ten?�� Steve?��

That��s not important for another few days though. More important is for me to actually get around to writing a blog that I��ve been putting off for weeks, to record the events of the last month of 2009, not really for any particular reason other than me feeling like I should blog more than I do, regardless of the fact that it doesn��t really matter if I write on here or not. But I��ve already started so I might as well finish this up.

The first part of this month was spent with the dreaded JLPT test, which I signed up for back in September knowing very well that I wouldn��t actually get around to studying, and thus have a very small chance of passing. And hey I was right about that! I actually studied for about a week, primarily sitting in ��family restaurants�� for long periods of time drinking coffee and checking my e-mail and Facebook on my phone while not actually looking at the small stack of books I had brought with me. The test came and went without much incidence. I had to travel up to Abiko city to take the test, which is located approximately 30 kilometers east of THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. As with last year��s failed attempt at passing JLPT level 1, the room was 99% Asians who probably actually bothered to study for more than a week. Oops. At the very least on the way back from the boonies I went to Kashiwa city for the first time where I stumbled upon a Kua��aina Burger shop, which is absolutely awesome and it made me forget that I had just spent more time taking (failing) a test than I had sleeping the night before.

The next part of December that��s worth writing about was the annual Bonenkai, written ˺ǯ�� in Japanese meaning ��party to forget the year�� which I��m pretty sure sounds like a really depressing and sad reason to have a party. Or is it just me? Anyway contrary to the somewhat suicidal-sounding name, Bonenkais are a lot of fun every year and although it��s kind of a pain in the butt to organize a party with around 30 people at a restaurant where you have to worry about reservations and stuff, followed by a karaoke reservation where nearly everyone��s RSVP is ��oh I don��t know yet,�� it was totally worth it. I also kind of figured that since there��s a strong possibility that I��ll be leaving Japan before next December, this would be my last Bonenkai so I might as well live it up and make the most of it. Was able to organize everyone together for a good party, so I was satisfied. Thanks to everyone who made it out!

I��m kind of forgetting other events of December, but JLPT and Bonenkai were the most important before coming back home for the holidays. Will write more later.

Thanksgiving at Outback 2009

2009-11-27T00:32:00.000-05:00

For the second year in a row, had Thanksgiving dinner "down under" in Makuhari. But hey it's turkey at least! In Japan! Beats going to KFC.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Chipotle in Tokyo!?

2009-11-23T00:14:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Bryan for finding a real American-Mexican style burrito place in Tokyo! It's called Frijoles but it might as well be Chipotle because it's pretty much exactly the same, which is a very good thing here in Japan, also known as The Land of the Rising Sun and No Mexican Food.

The place is near Azabu Juban station which is a little far from where I'm living now, but it was well worth the trip to get a ridiculously huge burrito made exactly like they do back in the US. They even had spicy salsas and the green smoked chipotle Tabasco. The staff members also all speak English, there's free refills on soda, and most of the clientele seemed to be foreigners. It's like being in the US.

Blue Island

2009-11-10T00:52:00.004-05:00

Spent last week in Qingdao (Tsingtao), China for work. It was a pretty short and busy trip but it was nice to get to travel again, especially in a place where I'm mostly illiterate and unable to communicate without pointing at pictures or making Hadouken-like motions with my arms. That's always kind of fun.

On Monday afternoon I arrived at Narita a little bit later than planned, but it didn't matter since my flight was delayed over 2 hours. I got a 1000 yen food voucher that I used at Subway to get a foot-long smoked turkey and avocado sub, which was way too much food but it was free so no foul. Finally got to Beijing where of course I had missed my connecting flight due to the delay, but it was easy enough for Air China to put me on another flight to Qingdao. This was unfortunately also the very last flight out of the Beijing airport, meaning I had a few more hours to kill in an airport. It was pretty late at night so most of the shops were closed but they had a KFC open where I got a sandwich and "9 Lives Juice" which was a fruit juice blend and not a magical potion. There was snow on the ground in Beijing.

From the Qingdao airport I took a taxi to my hotel, which was like a 40 minute ride but since it's China and not Japan the fare was less than USD $12. Slept and spent the week attending a conference for work which was fairly uneventful except for one night where I was taken out by a client to a really nice dinner with about 12 people, only 1 of whom spoke English. Chinese dinner parties are awesome because the theme always seems to be "let's order more food than we could ever possibly eat." Probably because food and things are so cheap, this is a good way to throw a good party and kind of show off to your guests. There was all kinds of different dishes including tons of good seafood since Qingdao is a coastal city. Got to try conch and sea cucumber for the first time. The restaurant we went to was also a few doors down from the Tsingtao beer brewery, so we had pitchers of fresh beer all over the table. I actually don't really even like Tsingtao beer in bottles, but the 2 varieties they had at the dinner must have been different from what's in the bottles. Had a wheat ale-tasting one and a dark lager that tasted a lot like chocolate. Both were some of the best beers I've had ever.

Everyday I'd be at the conference until the late afternoon, come back to the hotel to get changed, then walk around and explore the area. There was a Carrefour across the street and a Jusco down the road, plus some smaller shops and a lot of restaurants in the area near my hotel. Walked through a few market streets but nothing big like in Hong Kong. They did the sailing events or something for the 2008 Beijing Olympics in Qingdao so they city was pretty cleaned up - maybe getting rid of or at least relocating street markets was part of that. I saw 2 street markets that were more like flea markets, with hawkers setting up their stuff on tarps on the street. Probably so they can all pack up and run if the cops come to shut them down? Speaking of the Olympics, on my last night in town I walked to the pier area where the sailing events all took place and it was pretty nice. They had a huge boardwalk area with really modern architecture, and this sweet "Olympics" pier that took about 15 minutes to walk to the end of. The bottom level of this pier had restaurants and bars, but the top part was just a giant elevated walkway with the flags of the world, each with its own spotlight. It's hard to explain but it was pretty awesome looking especially walking down at night.

No other big stories from Qingdao but my second night in town I walked into some random restaurant that had pictures of their menu on the wall. I chose a dish that looked like huge plate of beef and vegetables with some chili peppers. When it came out, I realized that the amount of beef and vegetables was almost equal to the amount of garlic and hot red and green chilies. This thing was ultra mouth-searing spicy, but it was amazing and I ate almost all of it. I'm glad I ordered a bowl of white rice to go with it. Also tried a kaiten-sushi in China for the first time ever, which wasn't bad but was closer to American sushi than real Japanese. They had a lot of crazy rolls with random ingredients in them. Not as good as Kappa.

Coming back into Narita on Friday night I got an extra long inspection at customs. The officer even commented something like "so you've been to China quite a few times, huh?" I wonder if this was just a coincidence or if having the super thick passport has something to do with it. I don't think I've ever had to even open my bag up at customs. Oh well.

AWOL Keitai

2009-10-31T01:37:00.001-04:00

AAARRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHH

My cell phone has disappeared.

Last night went out with B and A - pretty usual for a Friday. After that we hit up the arcade nearby for some Street Fighter IV, and were there for like an hour or so before they closed. I was using my cell phone most of the night on and off, e-mailing and stuff like that. There was only about a 20 minute window between the last e-mail I sent and when we were leaving, which is when I noticed my phone was gone. We looked around the SF machines and didn't see it anywhere. I stayed in the same area the whole time we were there, so it should have been nearby. Either I dropped it and it got kicked under some distant machine, or someone stole it from on top of a cabinet or off the floor. Japan is usually a pretty honest and safe place, but I'm starting to think it did get lifted.

After we finally left the arcade, we tried calling it a few times and it went to voicemail, so either the battery got detached during a fall or the thief turned it off pretty quickly. More than being angry about this whole thing, it's just weird that it went missing because I was using it almost constantly and it seemingly vanished from my pocket. Strange indeed.

The arcade opened at 9AM this morning so I got up early and headed down at opening time to ask if the staff had found it. No luck. I grabbed an Egg McMuffin while waiting for the au Shop (cell phone company) to open at 10, and asked what they could do for me. They're unable to check from the shop if anyone's used the phone to make calls, but they helped me suspend the phone line to prevent people from making calls. They also helped me activate some service called Safety Lock where they can remotely lock the keys and features of the phone. That should also lock the ic chip on my phone which has my train pass and other digital money/wallet services. I was pretty impressed by the au Shop's lady who helped me get that all sorted out. At the very least if someone stole my phone they won't be able to call or hopefully access my data, etc.

After the au Shop I went to the Police Box to report the phone as missing and to check if someone had brought it there. That was pretty painless. Usually I hate this kind of thing, but having the officer tell me he was impressed with my (Japanese) handwriting was kind of nice. After the koban I went back to the arcade, where of course they hadn't found the phone, before going home to finally get some sleep. It's now been a full day since I lost my phone and so far no luck - I even checked at the train station although the arcade is definitely the most likely place for it to be found provided it wasn't stolen.

It's strange not having my phone - obviously for stuff like e-mailing and making calls, but also for the other things I used it for like calendar, alarm clock, train pass, memo pad, mobile web browser, etc. Went out with some friends for dinner tonight and just coordinating and meeting up with everyone was a lot tougher than it should be. It's a huge pain to be without a phone, and the possible loss of over a year's worth of address book contacts, downloaded ringtones/sounds, and cell phone pics is going to be a big hassle. There's of course the chance that it will turn up while I'm away this coming week in China, but at this point it's looking like a long shot. I get back on Friday, and if my phone hasn't been found by then I'm going to have to cough up the yens for a new phone next weekend.

It also pisses me off that the au catalog I got at the store today has the J-boy band Arashi on the cover. HATE Arashi.

Level 100 Passport

2009-10-26T20:24:00.001-04:00

My passport is maxed out. No more blank pages. Well, there are two or three pages in the back that are blank but I didn't realize until today that these are special pages only for amendments or stuff to your passport. I've got no more blank pages for visas/stamps. Normally this would be an awesome thing - a fine accomplishment for a world traveler. But today it helped make my morning a huge pain in the ass.

I'm heading to Qingdao, China next week. I was planning on going to the Chinese embassy last Friday to get my visa, but I realized that you have to already have your roundtrip airplane ticket and hotel reservation made to apply. I didn't have that, so I booked them over the weekend. This morning, I headed to the embassy to apply for the visa. They're only open from 9AM-12 noon, and the place is about an hour away from me, so it's already a little inconvenient. I planned on getting there at 11-ish, and to play it on the safe side I grabbed a taxi from the station since I didn't remember how to get there and didn't feel like wandering around lost in the cold wind and rain. As an added bonus I found the long-lost sixth Great Lake separating me from the taxi, which I discovered by using my foot as a measuring device. The depth was "knee." The taxi was also far away enough that I needed to step into the water with my other foot too, which ensured I would be squishing my way around town the rest of the day.

Got to the Chinese embassy, waited a while, then presented my finished paperwork and passport, at which point it was explained that I'm an idiot who should have read the actual passport text: the last two pages are for special amendments only and NOT for normal visas or stamps. So my passport hasn't had any fully blank visa pages since July, and I find this out with less than 7 days before I'm supposed to go to China. Chinese embassy can't let me apply for a visa with no blank space, so I'm referred to the US embassy who can add the necessary pages. Went into the hallway to call the US embassy, with a nice receptionist who transferred me to the passport department. No one picked up at the passport section, even after I navigated through 3 levels of their phone menu system, with each stage having what seemed like a 10 minute message of instructions, menu options, and probably the entire United States Constitution. The long menu at least let me know that the passport section is only open from 9-12 and 2-4, which is 2 hours better than China.

Either way I figure I should get out of there and head over to the US embassy, in hopes of getting helped during that 2 hour afternoon window of service. I already know I'm going to have to come back to Tokyo at least two more times this week. At this point I was getting pretty pissed off, walking back out into the pouring rain down the street screaming obscenities and making other weird noises. Probably not the best of choices since I was walking past Chinese guards who were likely armed and looking for an excuse to shoot someone cursing in English and growling like a dinosaur.

Finally got through to the US embassy, was told that they usually require a web reservation and all reservations for today were full. I explained my situation and they told me I could come and wait, but there was no guarantee they could help me. Chinese visa takes 4 days to process or 2-3 days with the extra 3000 yen rush charge, so I figured I needed to try and get my passport fixed ASAP. Grabbed lunch and entered the US embassy at 2, waited in line for about 45 minutes before I got helped, which wasn't really that bad. During my waiting I got to observe some military wife who reminded me how annoying people can be, as she seemed unable to shut up. In between her sentences she spat out a constant stream of "OK"s and "yeah"s, and even when she was walking out of the lobby to the passport photo booth she was talking to herself the entire way. There was also what appeared to be an American guy with his Japanese wife and their kid applying for a passport. The kid was maybe 14 and had the rattiest rat-tail I've ever seen, going all the way to his waist. I hope he gets refused entry into the US - we've got enough of that kind of people as it is.

At first they were going to mail my passport back to me in "5-10 days" but I told them my story and they said I could come get it tomorrow. Of course it only takes 1 day; all they're doing is putting a few extra pages in the passport! But I was at least grateful they could do it for me. I'm going to go back tomorrow morning to pick up my passport, then head back to the Chinese embassy. It doesn't help that there's a typhoon on the forecast.

But yeah in short it's pretty sweet that I filled up my passport. But if anyone else is getting close don't make the mistake that I did in assuming the last 2 pages are just normal visa pages. You can apply to get extra pages for free if you're getting close. At least I didn't find this out trying to get back into the US for X-Mas or something.

Boss of the Race

2009-10-13T02:46:00.001-04:00

I like Boss coffee. I like Mario Kart. Thus I also like the current promotional item on top of cans of Boss coffee, these little Mario Kart pull-back friction toy cars. They're in a little container on the top of the coffee can in convenience stores.

2009 JLPT apps due Friday

2009-09-30T13:59:00.000-04:00

I bought the application packet like two weeks ago. Glad I finally opened it last night to see that the due date's the end of this week. I'm giving Level 1 another shot even though I haven't really studied Japanese since last year. Haha, oops!

Games, girls, and the B.O. cloud

2009-09-27T21:17:00.000-04:00

Checked out Tokyo Game Show 2009 at Makuhari Messe twice last week. Thursday was the first business/press only day, and it was so much better than Saturday, where the crowd was like 50 times worse and the smell of B.O. had condensed to a visible gray fog. Luckily I was somewhat expecting this, so I got whatever I wanted to see or play out of the way on Thursday. Final Fantasy XIII was probably the best, since the game was sweet and you got to play for a full 15 minutes on a nice setup consisting of a slim PS3, 32-inch-ish LCD TV, and studio headphones. Since it's Japan, of course before every person the headphones and controller got a wipe down with alcohol wipes, which is a big plus. Got to play a bunch of other games thanks to the average wait time on business days being maybe 10-15 minutes, compared to the 1 hour or more on public days. I noticed a lot of the booths during public days even gave out tickets to play the demos, meaning that once the tickets were all gone, no one else could even line up to play the games.

The swag level was kind of disappointing this year, with more crappy postcards and stickers than anything else. No good phone straps, keychains, t-shirts, or slap bracelets, at least from what I saw. The Capcom station for Ookamiden was giving out a sweet folding fan, but the line for that even on Thursday was like 45 minutes so I decided not to bother. Other random games I saw or played: First we played Bayonetta just because the line was short and it was the first one we saw. The game looked OK, but it was exactly like Devil May Cry only with a naughty librarian as the main character. Also for some reason her clothes turned into a demon or something, leaving her gratuitously naked. Halo 3: ODST seemed like it had a good deal of add-ons and new weapons and enemies. Tekken 20 or whatever is exactly the same as Tekken always is. MGS Peace Walker was awesome, although I can't say the characters seemed as interesting as in past games. MGS trailers are always so well done though. Ryu ga Gotoku 4 (Yakuza) also looked way sweet, and I saw the creator guy there in his usual white yakuza-ish jumpsuit.

As with any convention of this type, there were a lot of booth girls all over the place, either handing out flyers or just posing for thousands of dudes to take their pictures. On Saturday when I went there were of course crowds around every single one of these poor women, with the size of the crowd probably in proportion to the hotness of the girl multiplied by how much skin they were showing. Oddly enough I didn't see anyone using the super nerd stepladders, nor did I happen to see anyone with their camera on the ground trying to get an underwear shot. Maybe that's just at the auto shows then.

So yeah TGS was pretty awesome, but I don't know if I'm going to bother going on public days anymore. The crowd and accompanying BO is too much to handle, and you can't even play any good games without waiting for an hour or more. But hey business days are awesome so if you can get in it's definitely worth going.

Oh No 2009

2009-09-06T01:11:00.000-04:00

Saw a lot of ol' Nick "NR7000" Roberts the past few weeks. You remember that guy, right? He's still down in the boonies of Hyogo spending most of his time with literally thousands of young children. First he came up to Chiba at the beginning of the Japanese Obon holiday week in August. As soon as he arrived in Tokyo we went to make a long overdue visit (pilgrimage?) to our good friend the Mayor. No, no - I don't mean the mayor of Tokyo. I of course am referring to the Mayor of Namja Town, who is way cooler, has his own army of Namderbirds, names his districts descriptively by the foods they serve, and wears a monocle. Also he is a cat. And not a bigot like the mayor of Tokyo - oops!

Nick's visit up here was pretty much just for eating and drinking, which we did pretty much constantly when not sleeping or playing video games of some kind. Nick was skeptical about the sweet all you can order pizza place at first, but after trying it I think he realized why me and Blanchard talked it up so much. Teriyaki chicken pizza, even with the weird Japanese mayonnaise on it, is awesome. The next night we took him to Y's, followed by karaoke until 5AM, which effectively destroyed Nick's body (and stomach) for days to come. A job well done, everyone.

Then almost ridiculously soon after Nick's visit up here, I went down last weekend to check out the NR7000 home field down in Ono city, Hyogo. There is a very descriptive Wikipedia page for it here. Got to check out Osaka and Kobe as well, so it was a good weekend visit to Kansai. As with most reunion trips, we were mostly gorging ourselves the whole time I was down there, primarily at the Ono favorite kushiage and yakitori places. Both were way awesome. Kushiage I got to try last year, but the Ono yakitori place was closed for renovations or something last year so I got to try it this time. Nick was very disappointed that they didn't have the fried cheese he always orders, but everything else was way good. I think all shop keepers in Ono automatically give Nick an offering of a huge plate of french fries wherever he goes, cause it seemed to just show up without even getting ordered.

Also went to quite a few of the local hangout "snack" bars, which were a lot less sketch than I had originally assumed. You know it's a fun weekend when there are so many nicknames created or at least used. Big T, Sidekick, the principal from GTO (myyyyyyy crestaaaaa!!), yakuza dude, and cake nazi. And quite possibly the best nickname/backfire of the whole trip: "juicy."

I end this post with the best Nick Roberts picture from my trip:

Click to zoom in embarrassingly close.

Poke, Pop, Pics

2009-08-12T01:29:00.001-04:00

I think there was a "blog boom"a few years ago, maybe like 2005-ish? A lot of my friends had blogs, I was posting a lot more on this blog, and blogs in general had, at least among my general circle of friends and acquaintances, become something a lot people did and made. Over the past few years this has gone down a lot: most people have stopped blogging as frequently, if they haven't already closed up shop completely. I've definitely become guilty of not writing as much - not as if I do this blog for a big audience or anything. No, actually I mainly write this just for myself. But either way, somewhat often over the past few months I'll be sitting at home relaxing on the computer when I think to myself that I should write a blog post. 9 times out of 10 I don't.

OK enough babbling. To make a long story short, I blame Facebook, Twitter, and stuff like that for sucking people's attention away from writing or reading long blog posts. The burst of the blog bubble, perhaps. This isn't a bad thing really, but just a shift in internet habits. It's a lot easier for most people to do all their updates, pictures, links to weird stuff, messages, etc. in a centralized place like Facebook. Everyone and their brother is on Facebook now so it's convenient to keep track of friends' updates, and for friends to keep track of you. It's a lot more convenient than writing a blog on some other site that people aren't going to check very often. Why write frequent updates or entries when you can write a quick status update on Facebook? The exception, of course, is if you have a blog with a purpose or a goal. TheLeong.com is not that kind of blog. Nor is it like a Xanga where I post short status update-appropriate messages on the blog.

I don't really want to stop running this blog, especially after doing it for so long. Every now and then I go back and read past posts, which is great because blogging about stupid little things means I can recall those little things well past the time any normal person would remember them. I know there have been a lot of actual studies and insightful articles about how casual internet communications have moved away from e-mails and blogs to more interactive social networking like on FB, so feel free to go find those and read up. While you do that, I'm going to end this post with some pictures and short captions of stuff I've done over the past few weeks, in lieu of the usual multi-paragraph post describing my activities.

Japan Seafood Show at Tokyo Big Sight:

Giant 1:1 scale Gundam down in Odaiba:

Played park golf (kind of like mini-golf without the goofy stuff) in Shisui:

Went to Namja Town with Nick when he came up to Kanto last weekend. This is cheese fondue gyoza (with corn) and teriyaki mayonnaise gyoza. Both were actually way good.

Of course took Nick to Y's. ��λ�Ǧ��Ƥӽ��硪 (Thanks to Brian for the pic)

The end for now.

North American Tour 2009

2009-07-27T18:10:00.000-04:00

I ended up getting around a lot more than I had expected while in the US, which partially explains why I didn't waste as much time as I usually might writing blogs, etc. I'm back in Japan now, and have been for almost a week. It was definitely a great time back this time, and I'm looking forward to my next visit (probably in December). I know within the next few years I'll be back living in the US and will hopefully get to visit Japan now and then.

I spent most of my time in St. Louis, which was a lot of fun. Played video games at home, saw extended family, met up with friends, and got to drive a lot. You don't realize how much you miss driving until you don't do it for several months at a time. And having a GPS navigation system is an awesome addition, especially since I'm terrible at navigating beyond my immediate neighborhood in St. Louis. I blame not living there much.

Drove out to Indiana one day to grab lunch with Frank. Instead of driving all the way to Indy we decided to meet somewhat halfway and chose Terre Haute. Now, if you know anything about the region you know that T.H. is a pretty bad town (no offense....well....), but it was pretty funny I guess. At least I got to hit up the Steak there. The Mexican restaurant we ate in smelled like a public bathroom though.

I also headed to Washington DC for two days for a business meeting, which went pretty well. Also got to see the Natural History Museum of the Smithsonian and rode the metro a lot. It was also on the metro that my dad and I saw this gross woman who was probably around 50 or 60 and had, I am not exaggerating at all, breasts on her stomach. It looked like she had two bowling balls strapped to her belt. It was horrible and hilarious at the same time.

At the end of my trip I stayed in LA for the weekend before heading back to Tokyo. It was great to see everyone in LA and hang out like old times. It also made me pretty jealous that everyone lives in apartments/houses that are several times (not exaggerating) bigger than my apartment here in Japan. That's definitely one of the big things I'm looking forward to when I move back: having a big place with a nice TV and computer setup. Also having a place where more than one person can come visit at a time would be a major plus.

And I challenge anyone to find food like this in Japan:

...please?

Quit the vibrating

2009-07-12T02:55:00.002-04:00

It's late at night on a Saturday and I'm watching MXC on Spike. Is it strange that being in the US after such a long time, I'm now wasting time watching an originally Japanese show on TV? Nah, the dub is awesome.

I do have a small gripe though, and that's with a certain commercial that's already come up twice in the past 15 minutes of me watching this show. It's for a Trojan "Vibrating Touch" thing for ladies. I don't think I need to explain any further, do I? So yeah, whatever, it's that kind of product and it's late at night, I can understand that. But do they have to include a super old woman giving a testimonial about how much she loves her little Touch thing? It's absolutely disgusting and I've almost puked each time she shows up. What women are up at 3AM watching Spike anyway? This commercial seems very out of place.

Ugh.

MTV sucks

2009-07-01T00:52:00.003-04:00

I'm back in the US. It's been pretty good so far: lots of great food, being able to go places without having to rely on trains, stuff costing closer to what it should, etc. I'm definitely leaning towards moving back here sometime in the next year or so, whether to St. Louis or somewhere else.

Oh yeah, so I complain a lot of times about how bad Japanese TV is, especially since 90% of programming in Japan consists of the same stable of untalented "talents" overreacting to food porn. But I was sitting here working on Monday afternoon with the TV left tuned to MTV and my god, I think the shows on there (of course they don't play music videos) have gotten even worse than before, and even beyond bad Japanese shows. I watched about 10 minutes of this show called "Parental Control" and it was just so bad in so many ways I couldn't turn it off. I'm hoping that none of you are familiar with this show so here's what I can gather about it: it's a dating/reality type show where a guy's parents aren't happy with their son's girlfriend. Each of the parents set up the son on a blind date, and the parents and current girlfriend monitor the date from the living room with a TV monitor. At the end of the episode, the guy decides to stay with his girlfriend, or he can choose one of the other 2 girls.

First off this show had the same style, music, and feel that all MTV shows have had for the past 10-15 years. It was just sad how the shows on that station haven't changed at all in so long, yet I'm sure they still have a steady audience of pre-teens who don't know any better. Next, contestants on MTV shows are always the same type of people: obnoxious, stupid loud, rude, and suggestive. On this show the parents were also like this, which made it super creepy, especially when the dad brought his girl out for his son to date, and wouldn't shut up about "how hot she is." Where does a married guy in his late 40's or so find a 20-something girl who wants to be on a TV dating show??

The answer, of course, is that he didn't, and she was provided by MTV, but it was still super creepy.

And almost like clockwork, when things starting "heating up" during the date, the current girlfriend started getting all uppity and then was arguing with the parents, expletives flying and the censor beep being used just a little too much. The show was just obnoxious and repetitive, although I did laugh a few times. These times were when the son was on camera (a lot) since he was probably in his early 20's, seemed to have an IQ equal to his age, and was going super bald but still insisted on spiking his hair up a lot. Har har.

Quote so bad I had to make a note of it #1: "Since we went rock climbing, I brought you some rock candy!"

Quote #2, by a girl who got rejected because she was mega butch: "You know what, I am manly, and if I ever see you on the street I'm going to kick your ass!"

Ugh. I hate you MTV.

Also I'm tired of seeing "professional" poker on ESPN. Mainly just the guys with sunglasses, because that's obnoxious.

Seriously, I'm having a great time in the US, but a lot of TV here is just amusingly bad.

Rocket Monster KIM

2009-06-23T01:21:00.000-04:00

Found this image on some weird Japanese video game fan art page. This is by far the best one:

Summer US travel plans

2009-06-16T14:09:00.000-04:00

I'll be heading back to St. Louis this summer from June 26 to July 17, and after that I'll be in LA until the afternoon of the 20th. Will be back in Japan on the 21st.

Airfare was really cheap so I'm taking advantage of my flexible schedule and coming back to get some real pizza and Mexican food. If you're going to be around, let me know and we can meet up. There's also the possibility of a drive out to Indiana if there's enough demand.

LJ, NNJ, and leaving Japan

2009-06-16T01:11:00.000-04:00

I remember once upon a time I wrote things occasionally on this blog that were funny or interesting, but recently I feel like I haven't been posting anything but boring LiveJournal-esque stories about what I ate for lunch or what color socks I'm wearing*. I should try to change that, but I think a big part of the problem is that my life has been so mundane lately there isn't much else to write about. I don't even have as many complaints about Japanese culture or society because with the whole working at home/flexitime thing these days I'm not getting exposed to the public as much as before. That is not necessarily bad.

I'll try and come up with better material one day, but don't hold your breath. This blog has still and always will be for myself and my own amusement, slightly adjusted for friends to read and perhaps waste a few minutes of otherwise productive time wasted browsing the interwebs.

Quick story: This is about one of the hobos here in my city, who I guess I've started calling No-Nose Joe on account of a bandage or duct tape always covering his likely frostbitten/missing nasal organ. This guy has a very impressive collection of hobo junk, usual stacked on his tiny (child's?) bicycle, which he is usually seen creeping along on near Chiba station or Yodobashi Camera. I say creeping because I've seen earthworms move faster than this man. I was pretty surprised a few weeks ago when I saw ol' No-Nose Joe in the supermarket near my house, where he was creepin' along with a shopping cart rather than the usual bike chariot. He was, of course, in the liquor aisle, mentally debating which carton of cheap booze to buy for the night while at the same time doing a great job of repelling other customers from the aisle because, let's be honest, hobos don't smell great**. I too was trying to avoid him, but after making my rounds in the store and completing all my other shopping, I still needed a loaf of bread and Joe was still blocking the bread shelf, which is in the same aisle as alcohol. I took a deep breath, gripped my basket, and headed into the aisle. . .

I don't know what I did to this man, in this life or a former one, but somehow he is deathly afraid of me. As soon as he spots me entering the aisle, his eyes open wide like a deer in headlights and he goes off in the opposite direction. I don't mean he creeped away at his usual 1mph - he RAN away from me as if I were charging at him with a bloody machete. I was of course startled but more surprised at the fact that this normal slow-moving homeless man had apparently channeled into Usain Bolt. End.

So yeah, other boring stuff.

It's been just over 4 months since I left my last job at a Japanese company and started working for this American start-up doing business development and stuff. The job is great: I have a lot of freedom, work at home, and even get to travel sometimes. I have control and responsibilities that I never even got close to having at my last job. The problem (well, not really that bad) lately is that I've been given so much freedom and open-ended goals that it's difficult to get myself focused. Of course I like having freedom, but sometimes I do slightly miss more concrete direction and specific assignments. It's a lot like running my own business, so I guess I just need to get more used to working like this.

It's been almost three years since I graduated from IU and headed out to Japan to work. I've changed jobs a few times, done a lot of fun stuff, met a lot of good people, but I'm finally starting to see that it might be time to leave Japan. It's not that things are bad here at all, but I feel like it's time to move on. It would be more beneficial for my work for me to be in St. Louis as well, and I'm definitely looking forward to having an apartment again that has space for furniture and a giant computer station like I used to have. Japan is great but if there's no specific reason for me to be here, I don't think I should stay. One reason I didn't leave immediately after starting this new job was the chance that I'd be starting up business here in Japan, over in China, and other places in Asia that would make it advantageous to have someone already in the region. That possibility's not gone at all, but I personally haven't been focusing on it much yet, which means that the company's not either. I'm thinking that if I get some solid reasons to stay in Japan, like with work, then I could definitely stick around for a bit longer. But on the other hand, if I don't end up doing that, then it's probably time to head back to the "real world." I'm thinking I'll give myself until next spring.

*white, if you really want to know

**of course, if you don't have a nose, you probably don't care what you smell like. NNJ ftw.

Wish I had the Epoch

2009-06-08T02:31:00.000-04:00

Short yet nerdy post.

The MicroSD card that I'd been using in my R4 died somehow a few nights ago. I was using it just fine one night, and the next day it wouldn't work. I tried it in both the DS and on my computer several times using different readers, but no luck. The card was corrupted or something. Thus, my Chrono Trigger save file was gone Ugh. I was playing that game for quite a while and had just gotten the Doppel Doll, ready to go get Crono back.

I thought I'd have a chance at recovering the files - I used a bunch of different file recovery programs and finally had some luck with one called Recuva. It was able to scan the SD card following a quick format to make the card accessible, and was seemingly able to recover most of the files. Unfortunately when I actually tried using those files they wouldn't work. I tried looking for a solution to unscramble those files or something, but didn't have any luck. I think I might just be totally boned on getting that save file back.

I'm pretty sure the card crapped out on my just because it was a horribly cheap, generic Chinese SD card that I got with the R4 last summer in Beijing. It was a no-namer that I'd been using fairly frequently for almost a year, so I guess it's not that surprising. Went and bought a SanDisk 2GB card at Yodobashi yesterday for like 1700 yen. (Storage is so dirt cheap these days - I'm always surprised at that.)

So in short, back up your files. Especially if you're playing on an R4 and have like 30 or 40 hours logged on a sweet RPG.

Ma'am, is this your giant bag of raw chickens?

2009-05-28T02:34:00.000-04:00

Almost forgot about this. This was the best customs poster I saw during my last trip. No, probably ever. It's from the Hong Kong Food and Environmental Hygiene Department warning about fines for smuggling raw meat and vegetables across the border. Or something like that (I can't read Chinese).

I don't know what's better, the fact that the old woman has a giant flannel bag full of raw chickens, or her bright velvet Rick James pants.

bj Action

2009-05-19T01:14:00.000-04:00

It seems like ever since I got back from my trip I've been pretty busy. My first day back in Japan I think I slept over 12 hours, probably recovering from the lack of sleep and ton of walking I did over in China. Friday night since Duy's been in Japan for vacation we took a group out to Y's, which was weird because we had a lot of old IES alumni and Shin-san even showed up. On Saturday I went out to Chiba Park again with Andy and Brian to play frisbee and hang out. Had a bigger group this time so that was pretty cool. Hit up Kappa after it started getting dark and pigged out on cheap sushi.

On Sunday I went to Ariake Coliseum for the first time to see the Japanese pro basketball championships. Bryan was able to swing tickets for this - and I am not joking about the name - the bj League Final Four. Yes. The professional basketball conference here is called Basketball Japan, or bj for short.

I showed up for the second half of the 3rd place game, which was Osaka vs Hamamatsu. It was strange to be watching a professional basketball in Japan, since half of the players were Americans. The crowd wasn't super into it, but it was still a fun time. The final game was much better and much more exciting, and the crowd was actually going nuts the whole time. The final was between the Tokyo Apache and the (Okinawa) Ryukyu Kings. The head coach for the Apache is Kobe Bryant's dad, and the star of the Kings is Jeff Newton, who used to play at IU, so that was kind of cool. I think Nick Roberts is also in love with him.

Even though the Kings never lost the lead the entire game, it was still sweet to watch and even though our seats weren't super close or anything they were still really good seats. I think venues in Japan are just small compared to ones in the US, so it seems like you always have better seats than you would back home. The Kings won the championship 89-82. What a great bj day.

HK Trip - double thumbs up

2009-05-18T03:30:00.000-04:00

One final post about the Hong Kong/Macau/China trip (probably). I think I covered all the major stuff I did in the overly long entries I wrote before this one. It was a great trip and I definitely want to go back again sometime. I think getting a group of people to go one day would be ideal, since we can just order ridiculous amounts of food and all only pay a few bucks.

Thinking back to HK, I think the subways and trains over there and even in China might rival if not beat the Japanese ones. If there are any Japanese people reading this right now I'm sure they're thinking to themselves "that's impossible" but it's pretty true. HK's trains seemed cleaner, bigger, and smoother. Sure HK has a lot less area to cover than say, JR East, but I was still really happy with it. I don't think I ever waited for any train more than 4 or 5 minutes. The only negative is that there are no luggage racks up top in the cars, which doesn't make sense. There are LCD screens inside the cars that show of course loads of advertisements but also some other programming. Japanese trains pretty much have only weather and stuff, but the train in China had an America's Funniest Home Videos-type show on that was pretty funny because the category was "animals attacking men below he belt."

Cell phone etiquette is also totally diferent from Japan. Whereas pretty much everyone in Japan follows the rules of putting their phones on silent or vibrate in public places, HK seems to be the complete opposite. I can't read much Chinese, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were signs in the trains saying "Please turn your phone's ringer ALL THE WAY UP." There was an almost constant barrage of C-Pop MP3 ringtones anywhere you go, with people always picking up their phones and starting conversations (WEI!) wherever they are, yelling enthusiastically into their handsets. This is probably because the average Cantonese conversation is the same decibel and excitement level as a Japanese person trapped in a burning building full of children. In Japan on the train if someone gets a call you see them cupping their phones to their head as if it were a severed ear, whispering quietly, ashamed that their silent conversation might be inconveniencing someone else.

OK I think that's everything about the HK trip for now. I need to get to bed.

World Tour 2009

2009-05-18T03:03:00.000-04:00

Let me share with you some pictures from my most recent travels:

I saw the Pyramids, the Statue of Liberty, that Jesus statue, the Coliseum, Niagara Falls, the Taj Mahal, Sydney Opera House, the Eiffel Tower, Easter Island, Angkor Wat, the Grand Canyon, Stonehenge, and a bunch of other famous world landmarks. Pretty impressive, right?

Well it would be, if this wasn't all in the same afternoon in some theme park in Shenzhen, China.

Last Monday I took the East Rail from Hong Kong up to the border into China to check things out. Ari told me about this park called Window of the World that has replicas of most of the world monuments and landmarks all crammed into one park. A lot of the replicas are just small models, but there are some pretty big ones. Eiffel Tower I think was one of the largest, since it's kind of like the park mascot. The park was cheesy as hell but still a pretty cool way to spend an afternoon. I only had one day in China and wanted to do some shopping in the evening so I kind of did a quick tour of the park in one afternoon. I got to see almost everything I think.

After walking around in the sun seeing replicas of all the landmarks of the world in one day, I headed back to the station near the border where there is a giant shopping center similar to Ya Show in Beijing, full of small shops selling bootleg and fake stuff. It's called Luoho and it's this giant building immediately in front of you after leaving the station into Shenzhen. I didn't buy too much this time, some DVDs, some shirts, and a pair of shoes. Like Ya Show you have to bargain with everyone, which is half the fun right there. I got the fake shoes I bought down from 400 RMB to less than 100. The guy also offered me one of his sisters to take as my wife for free but I just wanted the shoes. Food in China is also even cheaper than Hong Kong I think - I had BBQ pork for dinner and it was like 3 or 4 bucks US.

Casino War

2009-05-18T02:29:00.001-04:00

Last Sunday I decided against just walking around aimlessly in Hong Kong (which wouldn't necessarily be a bad idea) and decided to take the ferry out to Macau. Macau is technically a separate "special administrative region of China," meaning that I'd need to bring my passport to go through customs. That worked for me, since my Passport is filling up fast and I want to get some new pages added soon anyway.

After taking the hotel's free shuttle to the general vicinity of the China Ferry pier, I still ended up wandering for about 45 minutes trying to find the right pier. I asked someone and their answer was "go to the shiny gold building," which made me think I was actually trapped in some kind of weird video game. Anyway after a detour through a pretty nice mall and eating Chinese-style curry for lunch, I arrived at the golden pier and hopped a boat to Macau. The guy I asked was apparently not lying. The ferry only takes about an hour, and the ride was really nice. I think I slept most of the way.

Of course the gold building is the boat to casino island.

Arriving in Macau doesn't feel like you're in a different country from Hong Kong at all. It looks pretty much the same, but they have their own currency. However this currency is pretty useless if you're only going to the casinos like I did, since all the games are played in Hong Kong dollars. Macau is a really old Portugese colony and has a lot of historical sights and stuff, but I spent most of my afternoon at the Sands Casino, which is yet another huge shiny gold building. The inside was pretty similar to what I remember from Las Vegas, only without the cigar smoke and free alcohol. Also 90% of the people were Chinese/Asian, and 90% of those people were senior citizens. I put a limit on myself for the day's gambling from the get-go, and was actually doing pretty good at one point playing roulette and $100 HKD a hand blackjack. And of course I lost most of that by the evening.

The games were pretty much what I expected, but baccarat seemed to be predominant. Also sic-bo and some dice game that I have no idea about. There was also War, as in the card game played by kids who can't play real card games. Except in the casino the minimum bet is $100. There were also dancers on the bar most of the time (wearing clothes of course), but during breaks they were playing a BoA DVD. It felt weird to be sitting in China listening to a Korean girl sing in Japanese. Quick note: the McDonald's inside Sands sells Egg McMuffins at any time of day, which is amazing. The HK ones do too, but this was where I made the discovery initially.

I started and ended my Macau trip at Sands, but in between I also walked around the Fisherman's Wharf area there, which was mostly tourist traps but with some cool buildings. There was an old-style Chinese castle, a volcano, some funky stone gates, and a bunch of Babylonian architecture that was part of another casino. The volcano had an arcade in the basement that was dirt cheap so I played some Street Fighter there in the wrong aspect ratio. I felt like I was in high school through since you have to buy tokens to use any of the arcade machines. (Exhilarama in Crestwood Mall was pretty cool the first few years.) I also went over to the Golden Dragon casino, which is super local with almost no English signs or instructions anywhere, and almost exclusively baccarat. Also I'm pretty sure that everything in the building above the 5th floor was some form of brothel. Karaoke in China (KTV) is not the same as karaoke in Japan.

After getting the 9:30PM boat back to Hong Kong, I checked into my second hotel (cheaper and more stuff in the area). It was pretty late so I just went to Temple Street and got some awesome food at a street restaurant. Beef chow fun (��ֵ��) might be one of my favorite noodle dishes ever. Also this whole big plate cost me like USD $3.