Dr Horrible

My love affair with the movie Dr Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog is once again in full swing. My Captain Hammer shirt may be ruined, but my fandom is made anew. I came across the Commentary: The Musical tracks that somebody was nice enough to upload to Youtube, so I don't need to wait til I get back to the states and buy the DVD to hear them.

Of course, I'll still by the DVD, and probably watch it enough times for it to melt and cause the player to catch on fire.

Worth it.

In other news, the teacher yelled at me for missing classes. I didn't know... they could do that? In college at least. They're not supposed to care. But she seemed intent on hammering in the point that if I continue to miss classes (as if it is my plan to never attend class again) that I will fail, and that I missed assignments from being out (which, considering we're not allowed to hand in late work, which includes if we're out sick, seems redundant of her to mention). So all in all, I've missed three days total out of a semester long class thus far, and she is needlessly upset about it.

Oh well, guess I'll go master Japanese over the weekend to SHOW HER UP.

Tomorrow I'm going downtown to check on shipping prices for my junk (I've got a hefty package) and also check the ticket costs to go to Kumamoto. The couple people I've asked thus far seem intrigued by the idea, so hopefully I can build up a sizeable interest of people willing to spend 20 bucks to go to the zoo (I really wanna go to the zoo).

Also get me some ramen. Boo ya.

Tetrominos!

That's what they call 'em. The Tetris pieces, of course. Which I just got done playing. Boo ya.

I had every intention of going downtown today, but then I thought "I should probably study. It's been a while since I studied." And really, I was just going down to play video games anyways. Then I remembered that I had a reason to go downtown, what with the not having gone to the post office yet. But I'd already resigned to not go down, so I hung out on campus.

Also I only studied for like, an hour, so that plan also fell through. Man I rock.

So I don't know if I actually mentioned it in my blog yet, but I bought a plane ticket home. I leave August 9th at 12:10 pm, and I arrive August 9th at 10:12 pm. I also have a 7 hour layover in Chicago (O'HARAAAAAAA! [shakes fist]). So, apparently I'm time travelling.

I'm also going to make sure that I see the Brachiosaurus skeleton that they have on display at the airport this time I go. I was too concerned with not having slept/first time flying ever/going out of the country other than Canada for the first time ever/needing food/ craziness to wander around the terminal too much last time, but now that I'm aware that there is such a skeleton, I will probably get
arrested for climbing on it.

Unfortunately, I am not the type whom remembers to check concert dates and such. So last night, two days after I purchased my plane ticket, I looked up the 2009 tour dates for the pillows. And saw that they're playing in Fukuoka. On August 9th. At 6:30 pm.

So 6 hours after I LEAVE THE COUNTRY, one of my favorite bands is going to be playing downtown from the place I just left from. Talk about poor planning. And since I got it through this weird student flights site I can't push the date ahead a day or anything so... I weep for my failure. I might try to intersect a concert date with my traveling to Kyoto dates later this semester, but it might prove difficult. Unfortunately all the bands go down to Fukuoka and back up to the mainland, so the odds of anyone even coming close enough to travel to are insignificant.

Le sigh ~

At least I'll always have my hash browns.

Haha wow

So this is embarassing. I slept for 16 hours. SIXTEEN. That's almost a day. And as a result, missed bloging. Hoo boy. This is what I get for sucking at life, apparently.

Also missed a class or two, but that's less important.

Word to the wise: don't forget to set your alarm if you haven't slept in two days and are extremely exhausted. I know it seems like a good idea, but just don't do it.

So the kebab guy wasn't here yesterday, but the yakitori guy was here today. It was an inverse from last week, and one that I'm okay with. The yakitori guy (as well as the bread lady) leave me fulfilled for only about a dollar more than the kebab guy whom leaves me longing for more kebab.

I just went back and corrected that to say 'whom' instead of 'who'. How many bloggers do you know that spend the amount of time and effort to go back and correct things like that? And watch, I just typed all that while I was staring at my door because I heard a noise over there, so it's probably filled with tons of typos and junk that I'm gonna miss. Well, no time to check, got the future to head toward.

I may not be able to join Taekwondo Club. Apparently you need a gym membership, which is free, but they only give them out for the first two weeks of the semester. Which seems kind of.... well it is stupid. I will leave this country without understanding the rhyme and reason for the way that they do things. If I ever claim to, you should ready a stabbing implement for my arrival because I apparently have gone crazy, and the Roshi that you all knew and loved will have died.

Speaking of which, the noise at the door wasn't a zombie. Floor meeting slip. It's all cool.

Because I have nothing else really to say, I'll share some Awesome with you, or the Axis therein.

Have some Birdplane.

Maine Coons are a breed of very large cats.

They also happen to be rather intelligent and have a variety of unique habits among the domesticated felines. That's about all I know on them, but you can do further reading on your own by clicking this link.

That should take care of that.

Oh right, what was that all about. Well, apparently I get like 12 hits a day from people clicking on the Maine Coon picture I posted like 3 months ago. I figured that I should indulge everyone coming here from that and at least direct them to Wikipedia, which is probably where they started their search from, to be honest.

So, for those of you who don't know, we're smack dab in the middle of Golden Week. You'd figure I would have mentioned it earlier, but shut up.

Anyways, Golden Day is basically a string of holidays starting with the Emperor's Birthday and ending with Children's Day. I'm too old to celebrate Children's Day, but I'm not too old to celebrate Golden Week, which you do by going places and buying stuff while it's discounted.

I was told that electronics were discounted a lot, but apparently 3-5% is a huge discount to my non-American friends here. Not enough to get me to buy crap I don't need. And that's saying something, cause I love buying crap I don't need.

I did buy a couple things I don't need, and was disappointed and confused when the woman at McDonald's told me that they didn't have quarter pounders left for the day. The fiends! So I went to the internet cafe for a few hours and watched some Zelda (Excuuuuuuse me, Princess) and attempted to order some delicious cheese toast only to find out it doesn't exist on the menu anymore (double fiends!). So I was contented with awful french fries and a sad, rainy bus ride home.

And now I'm tired and listening to loud music. That seems counterintuitive. Or whatever.

Yeah.

Oh wow

Yeah, so I'm sorry.

I just looked at my album and apparently I really haven't uploaded any pics since the trip. Including not actually putting up the 花見(Cherry Blossom Viewing) pics. Wow.

I am really off my game.

So I just uploaded a bunch of pics (that may soon be reduced in number because I know my parents look at them) so get 'em while they're hot.

And since I didn't do much today, I think I'll talk about a few of them, as to have a not-rambling blog for once!

Here goes:



One of my favorite posters in Beppu. Sarcasm doesn't actually exist here, so nobody really knows the connection between that expression on the girl's face (it seems much more stoic in person) and the phrase "Nice Going". Priceless, Japan. Truly.




This is a park that they've been working on since I got here. Almost literally since I got here. About two weeks after I showed up they started digging the foundations, and they've been working on it through winter the cold fall and early spring, and only now have almost finished. They've got the concrete flower shelves, the sidewalks, and the benches in there, and are waiting til the grass finishes growing in before they put the finishing touches on and open the place up to the public. Should be nice. All you can do now is walk by, check the time on the huge clock, and write down the location of the strip club that is advertised on the side of the plot.






Puppies! Cause why not. I want a Yorkshire Terrier. Don't try to talk me out of it, you can't.



These pigeons were fighting. My iPhone doesn't record video, unfortunately, but it was hilarious.



Yeah, it gets REALLY foggy in the mountains.

And that's about it for now. Check out the cherry blossom pics and enjoy.

Where the Hell is Matt?

I don't know if I've mentioned this guy before, but if I did, he warrants another mention.

Sometime before I left for Japan, I came across this Where the Hell is Matt? website. This guy got sponsored by Sprint to do whatever he wanted, essentially. Talk about an awesome break.

Well, he took the sponsorship and this silly dance that he does, and traveled the world with it. Then he spliced together all the clips, and made a short video showing him dancing with all the people.

It sounds like something dumb, but I implore you: watch it. Watch it in high quality. It's beautiful. That's really all you can say about it.

The guy also has some backpacking tips for anyone who wants to follow in his footsteps (insofar as the traveling goes). Some useful sites and some dos and don'ts for the trip. I really wanna do this someday, so don't be surprised if in a couple of summers I just up and go to Asia for a few months.

As for what I actually did today, well that's easy. I slept through classes. Again.

Hurrah! At the very least, I have a makeup test for the first test I missed due to the scheduling conflicts from the beginning of the semester on Monday, so that's
good news. And I didn't really miss much in class, so... that's good too.

If I go downtown tomorrow, I'm looking into how much Kumamoto tickets cost. I'd like to do a bit more traveling in the area, considering I feel like I haven't seen all that much of the island, despite being on this end and the opposite end (when I went to Fukuoka). So here's lookin to that.

Kumamoto has bears, by the way.

Bears for wrestling.

Edit: FUCK YOU BLOGGER. Seriously. I got an error message and spent about a minute retyping this before I checked to see if it auto saved. If you didn't have so many safeguards to protect us from how crappy your service is, then I'd hate you more. As it stands, I am conflicted.

I get distracted easily

And when that occurs, accidents happen.

I was cooking hash browns, because I am a slave to the potato. Afterwards I went to go dump the oil into the sink so I could clean the pan. When I was doing that, one of the guys on the floor distracted me, and I instinctively turned on the water. For those of you who don't know (how are you still alive?) water and hot oil do not mix. So there was a violent explosion of hot oil that somehow missed me entirely (the other guy was far enough away to not be in danger). He kinda stared at me like "what the hell is wrong with you" and I didn't know how to explain "Dammit you distracted me and I followed routine and then this happened!" in Japanese.

Ah well, the hash browns came out great.

I also realized today that I have allergies. I've known that since forever, but they haven't affected me the entire time that I've been in Japan. Probably because the flowers just bloomed for the first time since I got here, and now all this pollen in the air is causing my face to leak in various gross manners. Hopefully I can make it through the season alive, what with my inability to purchase medicine here.

I know I haven't uploaded photos in a while. I've taken some, but uploading is an entirely different process. It's just a hassle, really. It's slow to take them from my digital camera, and then it's also slow to take them from my iphone (cause I have to deal with iTunes booting up). And then my internet here is awful, too, so it takes forever to upload them, not to mention that I resize them (most of the time) and that adds to the process.

I'll have some up by Saturday, promise.

In the meantime, here's some amusing videos:

Japanese censors loathe riceballs.

My life is not complete until I can pull this off.

Japan is really, really weird.