No more strawberry

I've tracked down the last couple of volumes of いちご 100%. I guess I should have put in more effort earlier. I would have been done with this much sooner. I was disappointed with the last chapter. It was SO anticlimactic. Not exactly how I imagined or wished it would end. It gives me some doubts about the plausibility. It's like those movies where you think the ending sucks...

Well, it was good for some laughs. I've actually found myself laughing out loud on a few occasion. Overall it was pretty good. It kind of made me think about culture. Me being a hot blooded American boy, I don't think I would have been like the protagonist in the same situation. It raised a few questions. It brought some things to mind which where totally unrelated. It did clarify something, the thought and not the story.

Looks like I am getting closer to my path without having truly understanding it. It's interesting how the universe works. I'm a little anxious to see what's in store.

MOS BURGER

All this talk about Japan makes me think of MOS BURGER. There used to be one in Hawaii, but it's gone. Also I heard it didn't taste the same. If you're in Japan, you have to try a フレッシュバーガー (Fresh Burger). It's quite fresh and it's kind of like IN-N-OUT, but only better. ((X.x) I cheated and used a tag improperly to make the page appear as I want... (T_T) I'm not going to worry too much about it. Since I'll need a style sheet to fix it and I'm blogging so I don't have to deal with such things.)

When I had a layover in Japan last time, I got out of my way to get a burger from there. It was a disaster... Bunch of my friends raved about the rice burger and it sucked. You get rice instead of buns. It wasn't good at all. Perhaps it's because I'm not a big fan of rice. I think I spent almost $10 in train fare to go back and forth between the restaurant and the hotel. Too bad they don't have one around here. The burgers there are a bit small. You'll probably need two. When I used to go there, while living in Japan, I used to get two different burgers. I used to get the Fresh Burger and スパイシーモスバーガー (Spicy Mos Burger). It was a good combo.

Oh, just remember that small drink is the size of a kid's meal drink. Also Starbucks in Japan doesn't have venti. They have small, tall, and grande. It surprised the hell out of me when I first found out. I ordered a セット (what they call a combo) at McDonald's. It was something funky that's not on the menu here. It was edible, but the drink was so small. (T_T)

On the other side

Got an e-mail from my friend in Japan. She was telling me a bit about her job among other things. She lives in nagoya, Japan. It just makes me want to go there. I was looking at job postings and one of them stood out. I looked at their website and found this description.

Across the street is the Fuji supermarket, so you don't have to walk far for groceries. The Kari River is a ten second walk down the street for pleasant river walks. Iwahara and Tsukahara train stations are both one minute walks away. There are about five different restaurants within a 5 minute radius, as is the post office, bank, video rental shop. There is a giant chess board and pieces in the parking lot and you are welcome to play anytime you want. Try not to get run over by cars!

Hahaha, I thought that was hilarious. They just tell to try not to get run over. I would've said not to get run over, but I guess that wouldn't haven't been as funny. Anyway, it seems like a nice place to live. A place for a nice idyllic life. This is kanagawa, Japan. It's not too far from tokyo. It would have been cool to live there. Simple life, quick trip to tokyo if you want some fun, and you can always hop on over to yokohama's China town for some good food. Of course this is all pointless since they don't sponsor visas.

Regardless, I'm just looking forward to getting out. Hopefully sooner than later. (^_^);; It'll have to wait at least until the whole mess with the US Secret Service is wrapped up.

One in Three Million

There are over six billion people on this planet. Let's make some assumptions. Say the sexes are divided equally. Three billion. Say a third are too old. Two billion. Another third are two young. One billion. Say half of them are unavailable for whatever reason. Five hundred million. Ok, so it's a crappy guesstimation. (^_^);; Let's just throw out another couple hundred million to be on the safe side. That still leaves three hundred million. How the hell are you supposed to find one in a three hundred million? Do you feel lucky? Can you even come across three hundred million people in a life time? I don't feel like calculating that... It's truly a needle in a haystack. Where the hell do you even start looking?

Wow, this blog is really living up to it's name, Inane Dribble. It's even crossed into the English one. :P

I really can't wait to start my life as a vagabond. (^_^) I'm really looking forward to it. I guess in the end, I'm a hopeless romantic. (^_^);; Aargh, I feel like I've been reading too much manga lately. (O.o)

Girl Obsessed & the Narcissist

I guess this is a little late, but better late than never. I went out to dinner with some friends from UCI few weeks ago. It was a farewell dinner for our friend who went to Washington D.C. for an internship.

There weren't too many of us. Huilan commented that I was preoccupied with girls and I think Benny said something about only looking for his photos on our online photo album for our group. I think I called him a narcissist which he was fine with. I do have this reputation as a playboy from way back when.

I think it started in college... It's not really deserved, but ever since I can remember in college, I was known as being a playboy. I think it had to do with the fact I had a lot of female friends. One of my Japanese friends called me Japanese レディー・キラー (lady-killer). I never understood why...

There was a Chinese restaurant I used to go quite frequently in those days. I think I started going there with my family in the late 1980's. I used to go there with my female friends and also with girlfriends. I would almost always be there with a different girl everytime I went. I knew the owner pretty well and he used to give me these sly looks. It was pretty funny.

I remember during grad school some girl commented that I was with a different girl every time she saw me. I guess old habits die hard. I think it all started when I decided to major in photography in college. I know some people love to photograph nature and whatnot, but I found that a little boring. You can't really tell nature how to pose and you can't really light the great outdoors the way you want when you want it. So my favorite and pretty much only subject during those years was, you guessed it, girls. Aren't girls the best of nature? There are a lot of cute girls on college campuses. Although it did help being at the college known as the number one home of playmates. (^_^);;

Although I don't photograph as much as I'd like to (try close to zilch) I do do so on occasion. Would you like to model for me? (No guys, please.)

Wow, I guess I digressed a lot. I guess this has been brought on by my recent comic reading. (^_^) The main character does remind me of a very young me. I was a very shy boy. Nobody believes me when I say this. (O.o) I was just telling my friend that I wouldn't have that kind of self-control and I would've burned through all the relationships in three volumes. (^_^);;

Hahaha, actually an insightful blog on myself. (*_^) Oh, this blog exist because I was updating my profile and "cute girl" as an interest is listed in four different languages, including English. (^_^);; I must learn to write it in more languages. (^_^);;

いちご 100% (ichigo 100%)

いちご 100% means strawberry 100%. It's a Japanese comic book. I've been reading it for the past several hours. (>.<) I should go to sleep. It's a romantic comedy with liberal sprinkling of sexual behavior and violence. (No sex, well at least so far.) This is what teenage boys would be reading in Japan. Imagine the outrage that would cause here. Well, I'm not going to go into the societal difference bit... It's good. I've been reading the scanlation version.

I'm going to have to call my favorite used bookstore and see if they have this in stock. The last volume is supposed to come out next month. I'll be happy if I can get all 18 volumes for around $20. Maybe I'll have to wait until I'm back in Japan if I want it that cheap. I guess I better start studying Japanese again...

Of course the comic is totally unrealistic, but I can't help but think that I went to school in the wrong country. (^_^);; Pick up a copy if haven't read it yet. It's pretty fun. Well, I'm not sure if they have translated version out. I've seen several translated Japanese comics at bookstores, I didn't really pay attention.

Too much stuff (>.<)

I have too much stuff. I'm running out of space. (>.<) I guess I need make some money and buy a house to put all this stuff in. Why can't somebody just come up with replicator technology. (^_^);;

I just did a quick estimate of my CD collection and that's what brought this up. I have about 500 albums and another 300 or 400 singles (I didn't feel like getting all the singles cases out to see). This is a rough estimate. Actual number will vary. (^_^) About 300 are English albums and the most of the rest are Japanese. Almost all the singles are Japanese.

I can see why people like their iPod. I think they are cool, but I wouldn't fork over my own money for one. I want an easily replacable battery if I'm going to buy one. But this doesn't mean someone else can't buy one for me. (^_^);; I like the iPod nano. I think a black 4GB model would work for me. :P

Mindlessly wandering

While mindlessly surfing, I came across a blog by some woman who seems to be putting poetry and photo together. I didn't read or pay much attention to it. As I was just mindlessly wandering, but it reminded me of my college photo exhibit. My exhibit had a photograph with a poem. They were all self portraits with a poem written my be for each photo. It's dark enough that Dave might like them. Dave, remind me to show them to you. Maybe I'll put them online in some fashion. Maybe I'll make another blog just for that. It's just easier for me to blog rather than to update my site. Also my blog doesn't have ads. Would you mind if I sign up for Google AdSense and put it on this blog?

I'm going to miss PBS

I was watching NOVA last night. It was called Mystery of the Megaflood. It was pretty cool. It's hell of a lot scarier than Hurricane Katrina. It made Katrina look like a Sunday picnic. I also watched wideangle: H5N1 - Killer Flu. That's the avian flu (bird flu) in case you didn't know. I believe the regular flu is H3N2. Scary stuff. Nature is scary. (O_x) Not much you can do about it, so don't lose any sleep over it.

I'm going to miss shows like these when I start my nomadic life. PBS has so many fun shows. I hope they have the shows online like Frontline. There's few interesting shows. the way the music died is really good. If you listen to music, you should take a look. (Dvorak had an interesting column on movies and newspaper.) Kim's Nuclear Gamble might be a good one to watch if you haven't seen it already. North Korea is in the news again with their nuclear program. All of them are worth watching. Some are just more relevant.

Whatever

It's still pouring. I don't want to go out in the rain... (>.<) I noticed some interesting things today. Opera started offering their browser without ads. Well, you could always get an ad free version, but that wasn't free. Now Opera is ad free and free unless you want to buy premium support. It's a decent alternative for Firefox. It has some of the features you get in Firefox through plugins already built in. I'm going to have to take it for a spin around the web. If you still haven't made the switch from Internet Explorer, I serious think you should do so now. Better late than never.

On the blogger login screen there's always links to recently updated blogs. Once in a while I click on them. By doing so, I found out that Mickey Mouse is brown, not black. Maybe it's a knockoff. Also there was a blog in French which may be of interest to 50% of my readership which is currently in London. I hope you're having fun even if you are on a business trip. Didn't I say everybody travels? Oh, that was in Japanese. (^_^);;

Maybe I should start reading the Japanese blogs I found. One is by someone in San Diego who seems to be in Tokyo now. Another's a blog by someone studying in Australia. Katie mentioned that reading helped her with learning French. Hmm, maybe Katie might like the French blog too. She did take French with half of my readership. In case you're wondering, Katie is cute. (^_^);;

Listening to Introspective (click on top left square and scroll down) by Pet Shop Boys.

No need for immolation

I went to visit John to hear of the latest drama in his life. We also revisited some drama from the past like exploding gas tank, teenage girl immolation, flying car, and such horrific accidents and weird events. He makes me glad for my prosaic life. You should be counting your blessings if you have a prosaic life. All the excitement and stress might do you in.

On a side note, my friends are all welcome to visit me and even stay with me once I start my nomadic life as long as I'm not shacked up with some girl. (^_^);;

Wow, it's really pouring now. At least the car will be clean. (^_^)

Aren't you glad I'm such a mellow person? Or this blog might be serious.

My Dull Existence

Dave mentioned that he has an interesting life. I'm sorry, but I can't say the same. My life is very prosaic. I guess it's good that way. I do have drama in my life. It's usually relationship stuff. I think I've had my share for a lifetime. (>.<)

My friend John (remember him from earlier posts?) has a much more interesting life. The stories he could tell you. Truth is really stranger than fiction. Listening to him make me glad my life is prosaic. (^_^) I don't think I want more crap happening in my life. Look at the whole deal with the US Secret Service. I'm still suffering. (T_T) They move very slow...

I think I'm going to get some sort of a schedule going for my foreign language studies. If anyone wants to help, let me know. Also if you'd like to make use of my expertise while I'm here, feel free to get in touch with me.

Things from Japan

My friend brought me a few things from Japan. We went and saw Wedding Crashers. It was better than I expected. It was a cute/fun movie. I'm not sure if it's worth the ticket price, but definitely worth renting. Only if I had a wingman... (>.<) Hey Dave, how about some globetrotting?

Oh, the green and blue are one piece. It's just folded in half.

Word Verification is "ON"

Sigh, I'm getting inundated with spam comments. To save all from the spam, I had to turn on word verification. Until we can remove the spamming bastards from the face of the planet, I guess we have to deal with it. It should be open season on spammers.

C U L8er Alligator

I've decided to be expatriated for a while. (^_^) Don't worry, I won't be leaving until next year at the earliest. I still want to see more of the world... The wanderlust is kicking in strong since I am by myself. There's no one to hold me back. I will either go to Japan or Taiwan. I know enough Japanese to get by, I've lived there, and I have friends there. I haven't been to Taiwan, I have no friends there, and I don't speak the lingo. Hmmm, I would like to see new places, but I want to hang out with friends... Tough choice. (>.<) Well, depending on how to it goes next January, it might all change. I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

Screaming Idiots

Why are there so many idiots? I blame it on the morons who are getting together and breeding. Why do these idiots think that by screaming their laughably simple world views that it becomes true? Do they think their screams will reverberate throughout heaven and somehow become true? I guess if they knew better, they wouldn't be idiots. Can't help but hope for a giant flood or raining balls of fire to clear out these idiots. But you know they will survive through it all like cockroaches and it will just set back evolutions by several millennia if not hundreds or more. I guess we are stuck with these genetic defects in the gene pool. (X.x)

My new blog aka cookbook

I'm starting a new blog. Since cookbook was taken I've decided to switch to another language. Some of you will notice that it still says cookbook. I've picked out a spelling I think that might be easy for people to remember. I intend this new blog to be truly trilingual. It might take me some time to post things so bear with me. ^_^

First I have to get some recipes. Second I have to get some cookbooks. Figure out measurements. You might be saying shouldn't you get the cookbook first to get the recipes? But that would be just plagiarizing. You can read the same cookbook, so what's the point? I'm getting my recipes from my mom. I'll probably get some from my relatives as well. I'm only getting the cookbook to figure out how to write the part in Japanese. I'll be picking up cookbooks written in Japanese to figure out the language used in recipes and directions. Maybe I'll have to settle for some magazines...

This is my cookbook project. Maybe I'll finish writing all the recipes and get it published. ^_^ Wish me luck and feel free to try out the recipes yourself.

Computer is up and running

(^_^) I got my computer back up and running. I'm going to have to spend some time to install all the programs and my collection of junk. (>.<) It'll take some time. For the time being I'm dual booting it. It's always fun to dual boot. I had my old computer quadriple booting at one time, but I don't really recommend that. I'm usually dual booting if I multi-boot at all. Sometimes it's such a pain to get the hang of a new OS. I'm writing this post from my secondary OS. (^_^) It's working partially. Well, it's working enough for me to blog. Now if I can figure out all the configuration setup... (>.<) This is why I don't try to play around too much with Linux.

アイスクリーム

アイスクリームを一緒に食べる人がいない。 (^_^);; かわいいおねちゃん、一緒にアイスクリームを食べて行かない？

あなたがいればそれだけでよかった

I was just listening to iTunes while surfing the web. I'm really waiting for my hard drive to finish formatting. I saw あなたがいればそれだけでよかった (anata ga ireba sore dake yokatta) in the playlist. It's a song by 大黒摩季 (ohguro maki). Fifth track on LA.LA.LA. The song's nothing to write home about, but the title got to me. (>.<) Isn't it a nice sentiment? I wish I could say that.　Someday... (T_T)

Accidental Death

I accidently killed my laptop hard drive. Well, it's not really dead. All the info is still there, but I just can't boot into it. (>.<) I'll boot in with Knoppix and copy all the data out and use the recovery disc. It happened when I was resizing partitions. Kids, don't resize your partition without backing up your data. I guess I know what I'm doing this weekend. (>.<)

GOD

I was watching PBS and they were talking about the global warming wiping out the snowcaps of Kilimanjaro. Of course this reminded me of GOD. I have to say GOD SUCKS! I found GOD on my trip to Japan last year. GOD's pretty cheap. GOD's cheaper than other things you find in a vending machine. I believe GOD comes in five different flavors in all, but I only found two. I got three GODs and tried one. GOD SUCKED! I don't recommend GOD to anyone. Don't believe GOD. It might say "Super Quality", but that's a lie. Maybe superior quality crap. GOD also doesn't travel well by the dents that are evident in the photo. Maybe I should've put GOD in the carry-on luggage...

Just remember, GOD SUCKS!! Just ignore it if you come across GOD, unless you want it just to say you found GOD. (^_^) It's horrid stuff. I can't recommend it to anyone.

My Screen

Hehe, here's a screenshot. Obviously you can't see my desktop and there's a reason for it. In case you didn't know, my wallpaper changes every hour, on the hour. There's a set of photos that change every hour and each photo is set to display once a week. I didn't see the photo I wanted for a desktop screen capture.

Things on the foreground are Konfabulator Widgets. I don't usually have so many widgets in use at once, well at least not on this laptop. This is an old computer. It slows down too much. (>.<) They are just eye candy for the screen capture.

Some of you may be wondering why I don't talk about all the misery going on in the South and perhaps the typhoon that hit Japan. Well, it'll most likely lead to political comments which I don't really wanna make. So I'm just staying off those subjects. It would just turn into a diatribe of human misery and suffering.

Everything HATES Smilies (T_T)

I just added the link to this blog as an ATOM feed. Well, I tested it out in Sage and it sucks. Well, the blogs with smiley come out all screwed up. (>.<)

Owie

(>.<) My back was a little out of wack so I had to suffer through it. The doc fixed it today so I'm feeling better.

Dream/夢/꿈

I have a dream. A simple dream. But the simple dreams are the hardest.

僕には夢がある。簡単な夢。でも簡単な夢が一番難しい。

나에게는 꿈이있어. 간단한 꿈. 그러나 간단한 꿈이 재일 어려워.

Response to my readership

Hahaha, 50% of my readers want to know more about my inane posts. (^_^) You know I have a readership of two. (^_^);;

Well, I'm looking at the old posts and the first Japanese post says "Aren't there any cute girls?" and next one says "Sometimes I want to talk to cute girls in a foreign language, but since I'm alone right now, I can't. Lately I want to talk in Japanese. Aren't there any cute Japanese girls?" The Korean post says "Since I haven't written in Korean lately, it's easier to write in Japanese... Isn't there a cute Korean girl to converse with?" My last Japanese post says "Everybody's traveling. I wanna travel. Life of a poor man is tough. Isn't there a cute rich girl who wants a poor boyfriend?" Thus the appropriate statement of them being inane dribble.

I'm willing to teach if you want to learn. You know where to find me. (^_^) If not, leave a comment. My current readership knows where to find me. I really like my miniscule readership. I'm not distracted with dealing with a horde of people. (^_*) We should hang out sometime before school starts again my readers.

旅行

皆旅行するね。旅行したい。でも貧乏だから出来ない。貧乏の人生は大変だね。 (T_T) 貧乏な彼氏欲しいお金もち可愛い子はいないかな。 (^_^);; This is why I call this stuff inane dribble.

Keeping in Touch

I spent some time with my 先輩 (선배) yesterday. Well, we don't have an exact equivalent in English... Let's say an alumn who graduated before the speaker. It's not limited to academia, but it's the context I'm using. I digress...

Anyway we went for a drink. I had lemonade. (^_^) It wasn't very good. (>.<) I like spending time with him, because he's very intelligent and has a world view that overlaps with mine in many ways. He gets what I'm talking about, not that other people don't. I discuss different things with him. He also understands all the crap I went through in getting my bachelor's degree, well the last couple years. It's a hilarious story, if it wasn't so sad. (T_T) I feel the pains of those who have to go through the same stuff. I digress again... We have interest in the same field, but he's much much more knowledgable than I am. I sought him out in college so I could learn from him. He's a really nice guy.

Well, what really got me started today is an e-mail reply from my friend in a land far far away. Did you notice people don't answer your questions you asked in your e-mail? I digress yet again... It's good to hear from people far away. It's always hard to keep in touch with people. Especially ones far away and even the ones nearby. Everybody's busy with their own lives.

(Just saw the LA County Fair CM. It's so cute. There are two that I know of. I need to get a copy.)

I sense it's going to just get harder for me to keep in touch with people if my life goes the way I want it to. (Does anyone know of good schools for genetics research or nanotech? Preferably in English speaking foreign country.)

(AAARRRRGGGHHHH, why does stupid blogger mess up my formatting when I spell check?)

Well, I'm going to try to keep in touch with everyone. I hope everyone does the same. My readership might grow above two if that were the case. (^_^);;