Tim’s Ramblings

Goddammit…Asada Mao (or I guess in western style, Mao Asada) screwed up in her short program for women’s ice skating.

*sigh*

And here she was the gold hopeful but she screwed up her double jump and only did a single as opposed to a double.

Now she’s 5th so far but who knows since Emily Hughes from the US did really well too and Kimmy Meisner from the US is up there in 4th I think.

Kim Yona from Korea is first and Miki Ando from Japan who everyone thought wouldn’t do so well is 2nd….

And yes…I’m bitching about women’s ice skating. But hey…it’s being held in Tokyo this year and this is all I ever hear about on TV. Eclipses sumo coverage completely. Sumo…..ice skating….I guess the figure skating gets better ratings, especially since some dude from Japan won Silver and placed for the first time in world competition (I think).

And since I’m here, I might as well cheer on the home team :) Looks nice in HD too.

…and Emily Hughes grew up to be quite a cutie (^_^)

…*ahem*…

Friday night and I need a fight
My motorcycle and a switchblade knife
Hand full of grease and my hair feels right
But what I need to make me tight are those…

…good dinner, a beer, and some relaxation time???

My apologies to Motley Crue…

But that’s what wanted and that’s what I got. :) Oh, and once again…have I told you I’m a consumer whore yet?? Yeah… And being in Japan where you walk everywhere, that’s a bad thing since too many things can catch my eyes. Waaay too many. But more on that later.

It’s been a pretty long week so after finishing up more work and taking a few last minute phone calls, I headed out in search of food. Tonight I ended up at Ootoya (the “oo” is a long O like in “Oooh” as oposed to a “u” sound like “book”). I’ve written about this place before. Cheap good traditional Japanese food and a single friendly atmosphere since they have this really big big table in the middle of the restaurant for everyone coming in by themselves. It’s great.

I ordered J’s favorite, the “chicken kaasanni teishoku”. Basically, they take a big breaded chicken cutlet and then stew it in a soy based broth. Once the broth has penetrated the meat and made it nice and tender and juicy, they then pile on tons of onions and grated daikon radish and some greens and then serve it in a piping hot hotpot. With a side of a big bowl of rice with tororo topping (it’s grated raw mountain yam…it’s slimy, stringy, and to Americans, some may say it has the consistency of snot…but I gotta tell you…it’s frickin’ delicious and great on top of hot rice!), it was one hell of a meal. Mmmmmmmm.

Anyway, after that, I headed out and started to walk home when, as I stated above, something caught my eye. As I passed a drug store, I saw what I have been secretly looking for. The ever famous Gundam Razor!!!!

Well…famous because some of you who gets my occasional “weird crap” e-mails might have seen it. That and it has been features in a few gadget blogs.

It’s just a standard razor made by a company called Tetra. But it has a Gundam on the refill case and the whole razor has a Gundam-ish feel to it. So…frickin’…cool. Will I ever use it? No. I’ll probably never open it. Wonder if I can fetch a good price on eBay? :) Not that I want to sell it or anything. See…it’s a Japanese guy thing. If it has a Gundam on it…well…frankly…we want it. It’s in our blood. There’s nothing we can do. This is also why, before I leave Japan, I will buy the PlayStation3 game, Gundam Musou. It has Gundam on it…. *sigh*…

Then as I continued walking home, I walked by a game center and they had a slew of those crane games. As I’ve said before, with only 2 arms, it’s far more difficult than in the US. But they also have some premium items to make it worthwhile. So what did I see but Nintendo licensed Super Mario Brothers Mushrooms! And one was juuust on the edge that I thought I could get it. I had a few 100yen coins so I gave it a try. The first coin made it tumble a bit towards the opening. The second shoved it a bit closer. Then with the third I got supremely lucky and managed to hook the label! WOOOO!!!

Cute eh? And it only cost me about $2.56!!

I’m actually decent at these but in the end it all evens out. I won’t really say just how much money I have spent trying to get a Gloomy Bear solar powered bobble head figure at the department store nearby. Let’s just say…if it was actually available at a store I could probably buy about 3 of them… But alas, these are premium items that are not easily obtainable at stores so…yeah… Will I keep trying? Maybe…probably… Ok. Yes. (-_-) But this is the same game center that I got the Gundam Head Speaker that is not available anywhere as it was a prize for a drawing for only about $3.40 last month so I guess, like I said, fate (or I suppose the game center…) evens out in the end.

Anyway, stopped by the convenience store, picked up some Asahi beer (Asahi Super Dry is celebrating their 20th anniversary!) and drinks and am watching some weird Japanese TV again (this time it’s more dumb questions like how long of a straw can you blow through and still blow a bubble (a bit less than 400 meters) and now it’s how long of a tube can you use on a standard rolling vacuum and still have it suck? (so far over 700 meters taking a minute 23 seconds for a sheet of tissue paper to be sucked all the way through)). The twist here is they have a bunch of professors from Japan’s top universities doing predictions.

Tomorrow, since dad’s all alone because mom went off to see her family in Sendai for the weekend, I’m meeting up with him to go do some sight seeing at Yasukuni Jinja (this is the shrine that always makes the news because it has the memorial for the Japanese soldiers that died during WWII but it also contains names of some of the war criminals). And dad also wants to do some shopping as well. It’s going to be cloudy though so that’s a pity…and maybe some rain in the evening too so that really sucks. But oh well. I’ll still try to take some pictures though. Especially if some cherry blossoms are out.

(^_^)

Vacuum update! 1000 meters (1 km!!!) in over 2 minutes! And now they ran out of tubing. So they have to extrapolate. The prof in the studio is saying that it can go amost 2km. Who knew? So now you know. At least a standard Japanese rolling vacuum has enough suction to suck in a single sheet of tissue up to 2 kilometers away!

It’s just that much more impressive :)

This is the 13th day of the haru basho or spring tournament. 15 full days in a row without a break and it all ends on Sunday. There are some good matchups for this tournament and when I can’t catch it, I can always watch the highlights in the evening.

So as you can guess, I’m working from the hotel. I was at the office until about 3 when I finished transferring all of the source code and finished a build. By that point, I needed the internet to do some e-mailing and such especially since I didn’t get to them all this morning since last night I didn’t have connectivity. So it’s a small perk. I get to watch some of the sumo tournament while working. I had to move my room again but this is the last move so this is where I will be for the next 2 weeks or so. 2nd floor which is fine but not much of a view and worse yet, I look right out onto a walkway sooooo yeah..it’s weird. But it’s ok. I just hope I have internet tonight since there’s a few other e-mails I need to send out (though I will try to do it all now).

I can basically ignore most of the matches and really only watch the last hour or so since that’s when the top ranked guys wrestle.

Anyway, I have to admit, this is better than watching it on a typical 4:3 TV.

Right. Back to work!

Some serious internet issues at the hotel last night so I didn’t get to post this until this morning. Couldn’t even get an IP address. Eeeeeeeeeesh. They always say that if someone is hogging the bandwidth then there are issues so they must be using something like cable internet but still. Apparently last night they determined a few people doing some high bandwidth stuff and asked them to stop but obviously it didn’t work. Bah…. Wish they’d invest in a better internet connection rather than the widescrenn TV in every room. Hell…I stay here enough, I’ve probably paid for many of this anyway! (-_-)

But anyway, sorry. The gum. Yes.

I chewed it and an hour later I really didn’t smell anything different. An hour and a half later, still…not much. I did seem to smell a slight pleasant fragrance but that might have just been my cologne too as the scent can change over time.

So first off, no strong scent. I will continue trying to see if it will eventually happen. But of course, I will not eat so much as to give me the dreaded “loose stomach”!

But on the plus side, I did not smell like something totally rancid that I can’t even wash off of me because it’s COMING OUT OF MY BODY.

So thinking from that perspective, I would like to think that this was actually closer to success than a failure. We will see.

But I do have to say, I have the pack of gum open on a small desk next to me right now and it actually smells quite pleasant. I like the smell. (^_^)

So sorry for the dissappointment. Maybe I just have to eat more.