Easily Distracted

Actually, I’ve been back for a few days. I was away for about
10.
Where? Okinawa
Why? Diving
With? Myself
I will maybe have some impressions here later (it was awesome), but I
will for sure provide a link to a gallery. I’m looking at various
options on “Album” at the moment, to create the gallery. It will be up
when time wills.
When time wills…. that reminds me: I *finally* finished Wheel of Time
- Book One. I read it as a giant text file on my Zaurus, using Opie
Reader. Really good book. I recommend it to anyone who likes fantasy
novels. Now I just have to ponder when I start the next one. No time,
right now.

I just talked to my supervisor (my initiative) about my project and
told him what I had recently finished, where I am, and where I was
thinking about going, etc.  Recently, I have not talked to him (nor he
to I) about the project for a long time; over a month.  Every day, I
fill out progress reports, and he stamps those once he’s looked at
them.  He’s been very busy, recently with a promotion and the beginning
of a new fiscal year, so those have not been stamped for over two
months.  I just wanted to provide him with an update
so as he could adjust my present direction, if he felt appropriate. 
Well, it’s time for me to start making “lots of very detailed
documentation,” apparently.  Joy! 

Actually, contrary to the stereotype, this programmer doesn’t really
mind doing documentation.  I’m just a little surprised I got this much
time to do it!  Glad, but surprised, none-the-less.  This gives me a
bit more than a month.  I’ll probably need it, too.  I try to do
documentation in parallel, as that’s the easiest/best way, but it’s
more orientated for myself.  I am told that my supervisor will continue
this project after I leave, so I have to write for him.  It’s kind of
overwhelming.  I don’t really know where to start.

*stares blankly at screen*

Damn, now that thing that I was in the middle of doing seems like a huge task to finish.

Why is it that I always injure myself? I played basketball last
night,
and I was probably playing a little too aggressively for my
less-than-adequate shoes. I ended up with two golf-ball sized blisters;
one on each foot. They’re obviously already broken, so I have this big
flap of skin hanging off my feet, exposing the way-too-sensitive 5th or
6th layer of skin. Walking induces pain. I have to walk slow and
granny-like. =/
oi

I got my plane tickets! And I’ve got a bit more in the way of plans for
the diving section of my trip. I’m scheduled for 5 days, 4 days of
lesson, and one of fun. I also plan to go to the aquarium – “world’s
2nd largest.” During my time that *is* planned, I plan on asking where
I can rent a bike, and what kind of places I could sleep at for cheap.
I’d like to bike around the island for the rest of the undecided amount
of time. I just have to figure out where to put luggage and
stuff.

John () helped me get a used underwater
case for my ixy.
I tried it out
the other night; I love it! It’s so simple! And it’s got big colourful
buttons for every possible function of the camera. I’ll have submerge
it in water and take mock strangle-victim pictures to really test it
out.  I’m curious what they’ve been seeing all these
years….

Software…

I tried out gthumb.
This is almost exactly what I would want, except when you generate a
webpage, it doesn’t include the comments!! I can’t understand why they
wouldn’t implement that. Anyways, it’s a pretty good ACDSee substitute.
But, I only find it useful if you use Nautilus, because it uses the
same thumbnail format as Nautilus. If you don’t use Nautilus, then
it has to create the thumbnails by itself, and it seems to take
longer.

I tried emerging gnome2.6
last night, finally. It had 117 packages to download and compile. I
slept. This morning, it had stopped with 86 packages left. Damn. Some
reading I just did suggested unmerging and re-merging the troublesome
package… and it worked!  So it’s happily chugging along on
6th
(of 86) package, once again.

This popcorn is strangely addictive.  Oh well.. time to go
pick up some discount sushi and milk…. style="white-space: nowrap;">

…Ever since I came to Japan, I’ve been craving a GOOD
burger. I’ve been to the Redrock Pub in Nagoya and had the biggest
burger I’ve laid eyes on, but it wasn’t that tasty: a reasonable meat
patty, half of a tomato, and a couple pieces of lettuce enveloped in a
football-sized bun. When I was eating it, I could taste tomato and
bun… I knew the meat was there, because I saw it, and I could feel
it, but I just couldn’t taste it.

border=2 alt="I'm hard, like a rock"/>

Today, I had the opportunity to go to the Hard Rock
Cafe in Nagoya.

This was actually my first time to visit this brand of
establishment. Ever. It never intrigued me, before. But I had
expectations of a decent burger. The atmosphere was great. The staff
were good looking, and spoke decent English. The music was good; I
liked every song. It was busy. All these things did not matter to me. I
was only interested in the burger.

Hickory-Smoked-BBQ-Bacon-Cheese-some-thing-or-other.
1500 yen? Bring it on. How would I like it, she asks? Medium rare. I
knew it would be good. I mean, I just had to look at the amount of
flare the staff were wearing. The place was decorated with autographed
guitars. They played Elvis. It *had* to be good!

border=2 alt="It was fucking delicious."/>

It was fucking delicious.

I had finally found my holy grail, and could put down my sword
and shield. However, I decided I’d play it safe, and visit the import
store, as well. I bought corn chips and salsa with great plans of
avocado, onion, and cheese soon to follow. Oh yes, this will be the
“epic-er” nachos, and I will even take pictures of them BEFORE
ingestion!

border=2 alt="The End"/>

fin

Recently, I was reminded of how amazing my Japanese mobile phone,
really is.

On Sunday, the weather was nice (and I want to lose weight), so I
decided to go for a run. I generally like to listen to music while I
run. Okay, I could take my CD player, just as I would have done in
Canada. But I was also expecting a call. Hmmm.. No problem, I
have quite a few songs on my phone! (Much more than can fit on a
CD, actually….) Plus, the songs are in solid state memory (no
skipping) and the phone is much smaller than my CD player! Cool. So I
had my music and there was no way I was going to miss a call.

As it turned out, I ended up totally abusing the functionality of my
phone! While on the way back, slightly exhausted, I thought I would sit
beside the river and reply to a couple email. (Somehow, I always manage
to let them build up.) I even took a picture (with the built-in camera)
and attached it to one of the emails. Eventually, I received the call I
was expecting, as well.

Wow! Talk about convenience!

Every morning, my ketai wakes me up and ensures I don’t miss work. I
can set 5 different alarms with varying sounds and lengths and times. I
use two of them for work days. If I think I’m going to be a little
late, then I email the people I usually walk to work with. Prior to
purchasing a PDA, I actually used the calendar functionality
extensively, as well. Often, I find myself needing a light. Where do I
turn? With two quick clicks of a button on my ketai, I get an extremely
bright light that makes my 100yen flashlight furious with envy. When
doing simple calculations, I use the built-in calculator. If only
it could display HEX…. But then, that could be done with a Java
application!

Some random observations of my phone (yes, I’m bored):

(+) LOTS of functionality in
one compact, sleek device.
(-) If
you want to do anything serious, you’re going to need a new,
specialized device.  A camera, for example.

(-) Any
extended functionality will have to conform its interface to
the primary interface: the phone.

(+)
Able to store lots of music (and pictures, and recordings, and java
applications, and…) on removable SD media.
(-) Java
applications do not have proper access to SD memory.  This
has positive security aspects, but prevents people from making a a
“real” mp3 player in Java.  I looked into this. 
(-) Storage formats are proprietary,
and make the user’s life a real
pain if they want to do anything with the data. Oh wait, that’s the
point of proprietary formats….

I wish I could plug my phone into my laptop as a USB mass
storage device, or something… and I could drag’n'drop mp3s into my
phone. Instead, I have to play music and record it on my phone in
real-time, which digitally encrypts it. Once encrypted, I cannot play
on anything other than the phone. Chotto lame….

Note: I really don’t use my ketai that much (for
outgoing calls).  I
have a “value pack” year-long plan, and I never go over my 4000yen
monthly bill.  I’m just really impressed by it.

Friday: went to an izakaya with
,, Alex, and a
coworker. drank many “ichigo pine” drinks – (strawberry pineapple,
unanimously agreed upon as the number one drink. period. I claim
discovery credit.) We had sardines! It was almost exactly how it
sounds: a heated can of sardines with the lid peeled off, lemon and
spice on top. It was actually quite good.

Saturday: went to Nagoya Hilton with other
interns (,,, Alex). Mission: to
become fat, gorging on their delicious curry
buffet. Items of sin included Thai Curry, Lamb Curry,
Japanese Vegetable Curry (didn’t get to try that one), Beef Shimeji
Curry (I believe), an awesome salad bar that included many seafood
dishes, fries, fish fillet, white bean soup, and a large dessert bar.
We sat in large Western style chairs that were extremely comfortable,
but forced us to lean over to eat from the table. Well, we were not
going to be outsmarted so easily, and when it was evident that we
needed the extra real estate in our stomach, we began holding the
plates. I believe had it optimized: eat
enough curry so that your stomach is large enough to be it’s own table.
:p
Anyways, we were all very satisfied after that experience, and I’m
pretty sure we all want to go again.

We split up into smaller groups, and ended up wandering around
Nagoya, shopping, and (of course) trying on lots of hats. I played a
demo of Custom Robo. That game will be fun with a
controller that isn’t crap, and a little time to figure out the play
mechanics. I think it’s a cross between Virtual On
and Smash Brothers. I dunno if it’s possible to be
as good as Smash Brothers, though… that game kicks so much ass.
decided we sucked, and went home. Just me and
doing the bura bura thing. I bought a bottle
of Tantakatan (Japanese shouchuu) from Family Mart
and milked that for the rest of the evening. We ate kimchi fried rice
and gyoza for a late snack/dinner. After leaving Nagoya at around 10:30
(early, by any account), we were reminded of how sometimes it sucks
living in the Japanese country side: we missed the last train the went
to our station and had to walk the difference. Oh well. To say we
needed the exercise would be a severe understatement.

Sunday: I slept in. Met a Japanese guy who
I met on the train ages ago. He drove 2.5 hours to come and pick me up!
Holy crap! Good thing he likes driving, or so he says…. He wears
skater clothing and listens to rap songs that contain choruses that go
something like “suck my d#ck and I’ll lick your
cl*t.” Well, at least he referred to it as “funny,” and…
the rhythm was kinda catchy. We ate tonkatsu, went
on the glorious Solar Ark tour, and saw the tail end of the plum tree
flower festival in Anpachi. The rest of the day was mostly
relaxing.

Today: is monday. bleh. For some reason, I
made a point of getting up extra early, had a shower in the
morning and even ate breakfast in the dormitory
cafeteria! I haven’t done that since my first weeks in Japan! The
scrambled egg is really quite good. The ladies serving thought the
earth stopped turning when I asked for no rice. heh

Note: Mission:
Accomplished. I’m getting fat. Need to snack less
and get more exercise. Mission:
Impossible.