Look Ma... No Sense!!!

Going through my photo library, I came across this forgotten gem from a trip to the Kansai Cycle Center in November of last year. That contraption actually worked, believe it or not.

They're letting you teach my son?

This picture is from an article in my high school's newsletter that describes my adventures with PTA members on July 1. In case you can't tell, that's me standing, and I'm not doing shadow puppets... I'm holding up a flash card. The text at the top reads eigo sawakai (English tea party). Using my limited Japanese translation skills (and a good dictionary), this is what the short article says:

This year, for the second straight year, we got together with Mr. Herman and had a tea party. We played an easy English word game, among other things. We had a great time!

Pfhhhhh.... You better had had a good time, with all the work I put in for you, you ungrateful people! Nah, just kidding - it was fun.

I gotta tell you though... teaching 15- and 17- year olds, that's one thing. That doesn't bother me at all. But conducting a fun English game for their parents - almost all of whom are twice my age, don't give a hoot about English, and are surely looking to see if their kids are getting their money's worth from me - that makes me very nervous. I'm surprised nobody noticed how much I was shaking. But hey... if they thought I had a good time, then I must have done a good job, huh?

Representin' My Homey

My dude Jason just started up a new blog detailing what's happening in his fantasy football league. Now, if you like fantasy sports like I do, you'll love this blog. Check it out. While you're at it, check out his other blog, too.

Now, back to our program.

Summer Vacation - The Movie

My summer vacation is over! Sad, sad, sad. Ah well, it was a good 2 weeks, if I say so myself. What did I do? Absolutely NOTHING. And it felt good, too. Well... I'll tell you what I did, then I'll let you judge how good it was.

- My GF (girlfriend) and I watched the first 2 seasons of 24 and now we're halfway through Season 3. WARNING: If you watch even one episode of 24, you will get hooked. Don't say I didn't warn you. Now I'm busy looking for the CTU ringtone for my keitai.

- Remember earlier when I was telling you about the laptop that died? The GF and I started using her old laptop. Well that didn't last long, as just 2 weeks later, it died as well (some HD problem that can't be fixed). So we caved in and split the cost on a new PC. With that, plus the cost of several big appliances purchased this summer, I'm set back for a while. Sorry, guys... can't go drinking for some time.

- On the first day of summer vacation, I experienced my first Japanese funeral. It was my GFM (girlfriend's mother)'s cousin. She was a wonderful woman - always very nice to me. The funeral was not too much unlike one in the States... that is, until the part where we put the bones into the urn. The Japanese tradition is, after burning the body, the family uses these chopsticks to pick the best leftover bones and bone fragments from the ashes to save in the urn. Since I'm kind of in the family, they asked me to participate as well. I tell you... my stomach was turning a lot.

Vacation Time

TGISV! (Thank God It's Summer Vacation!) I'm looking forward to these next 2 weeks. What do I have planned? Nothing... and that is AOK with me. I need the rest.

OK, I do have a few things planned:
- Watch the first season of 24
- Do Chapters 14-16 of my Japanese textbook
- Clean the crib

Hold up...I better stop there. That's already too much. I'm getting tired just thinking about it.

Laptop (2001-2005) - R.I.P.

Last week Tuesday, my computer died. It happened quite suddenly and unexpectedly.

For the past few months or so, the computer would shut off, or fail to cut on, if the power cord was not in a certain position. My girlfriend and I thought that there was something wrong with the power cord. Weeks before the death, we noticed a strange, electrical-type smell coming from the cord around the place where the cord connects to the computer. This was usually the case after the computer cut off all of a sudden. My girlfriend was extremely worried about this, so she started asking me to take the power cord with me to work, in case the cord ignited and set the apartment on fire or something.

Last Tuesday, we were at home, watching TV and using the internet at the same time. As I was checking the day's news, all of a sudden, the computer shuts down. As I had been doing the past few months, I fiddled with the power cord, trying to get it in a good position to allow the computer to turn on again. However, this time the computer didn't turn on at all. My girl and I decided that we needed to order a power cord pretty soon.

Before that, however, the resident computer guru in the office at my job heard about my predicament and volunteered to look at the laptop, so I brought it in. Turns out that it wasn't the power cord - that worked perfectly the whole time. The new news was much worse: the motherboard was completely fried. I guess that electrical smell I had noticed for the past month was the motherboard slowly marinating right in front of me. (Marinating... I LOVE that word. Ever since I heard OutKast's SpottieOttieDopalicious, I've tried to use it as much as I could.) Definitely bad news... a problem like that costs $600 or $700 to get fixed. I'm better off just buying a new machine. Of course, with saving up for both a trip home in December and an engagement ring and subsequent wedding, I don't exactly have $700 lying around here.

Luckily, my girl had an old laptop she wasn't using, and she let me use it. It's old, it has Windows 98, low RAM and a small hard drive. But hey, it's a computer that works, so I shouldn't be complaining. I can do email, Internet - all the things I need to do everyday. I can't play a lot of my games, though (although that's probably a good thing).