no show

The below entry was originally posted to a defunct web blog site, provided here as a record of previous events. Some content might reflect old server and not current server.

Well, I bought a gift for the universe today. I went downtown because I thought I was buying a nice new 5 megapixel camera from someone off the net, but that didn't happen, they never showed. Anyway, I was downtown so I thought I'd walk around COEX... Seeing COEX on a saturday night, is a assault on the visual cortex, people spread like molten humanity, filling all gaps, bouncing randomly as they roll forward in nonstop undulation. No joke. Its a crowded mall, full of people. I saw a nicer camera at the Olympus store, and I might just get it instead, even though its more expensive and uses a different type of memory. But on to my gift for the universe. I went to book store that I know sells Japanese books, and I browsed, but they didn't have anything new that interested me so I told myself I should buy an English book. Its been a long time since I read an English book for fun, I thought. So I walked along, seeing what would catch my eyes. Insomnia by Stephen King was the first one that said pick me up, it was a perfect description of my current state. For whatever reason, I'm not sleeping good. Haven't slept much more than 5 hours in one night, in the last few months. I soon gave that one up though for a very interesting, but expensive, Murakami Haruki book. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Seemed to be a good read, I bought it and headed back into the mall. Cut to two hours later, I'm walking toward the train station. Hey, where's my book? Somehow I put it somewhere that I couldn't remember and I no longer had it with me. Weird. So I have given my newly bought book to the universe, I hope the universe shares something with me in exchange.
I bought some beer and picnic food, plan to get drunk and eat yummy food tonight in an effort to battle my insomnia. Lets hope it works. DAAG!

surprised

The below entry was originally posted to a defunct web blog site, provided here as a record of previous events. Some content might reflect old server and not current server.

Two of my friends surprised me today. I've been being kind of annoyed that some of my friends here seem to always wait for me to ask them to hang out, they never seem to ask me, or at least thats what I felt like. But two of my friends (they are friends from my exchange student program) called and were really proactive about hanging out today, which was cool. We didn't really do much. I just took them out to eat at this Japanese-style steak restaurant, really good pepper steaks, and [Japanese style chopsticks] for the rice! (I could write a whole entry about Japanese style chops sticks, and now that this is a wiki blog, I think I might do that.) Then we walked a little bit, went to a restaurant ordered some ice cream thing, talked, and went home. Not really what you would call a "wild night on the town" but fun none the less.

In a geekier note, every entry in my blog will now become a "Document" so I'm trying to think of names for each one, if I name them all random subjects it will be a horrible mess, but dates are boring? Hmmm. Oh the troubles of a techno-life---!

My best wishes go out to Aaron with his health problems right now, if you have a minute or two wish him well mentally. Positive energy flow, and all that. He's a cool guy, I wish him well too. Those Nymph Nodes can be a biyatch sometimes, huh man?

Thats all for my "blog" at the moment.
SAMPAI JUMPA LAGI

a stupid guy

This was in a personal archive, date is a guess. (Year should be OK.) I couldn't find it on here, so providing it for posterity. Reposted: August 2013

Have you ever thought "why did I say that?" but kept talking? I hope that the guy sitting across from me tonight on the train thought that atleast once.

Setup: night time train, coming home, not so heavy traffic, a giddy pair of two young almost budding into could-be-hetro-lovers-someday-soon boy and girl sit down across from me. The girl clearly likes the boy, the boy clearly feels the same way. So its the moment for the questions to attempt to make this romance blossom.

Girl asks boy, "So how long have your parents been married?"

Boy, "Oh well, my mom has been married like 3 times, she cant seem to stay with the same guy, always with a new one... i mean, but that wouldn't be like how I would want to be, I would want to be with one girl forever, ya know."

Girl pauses, tries to make her hint more clear and change subject,

"So what kind of girls do you like?"

Boy, "I like lots of girls, I mean, I've had a lot of girlfriends, I mean cute girls are nice."

Girl dosen't know what to say so she just nods.

Boy keeps going, "I mean, smart is good too. I've dated a lot of stupid girls, thats for sure."

Girl nods, slower, still not sure what to say to that.

Maybe boy is nervous because of her silene or maybe he just likes saying things that will leave the girl with no comments, so after an uncomfortable silence he continues,

"My ex-girlfriend was really cute and smart too, I like her a lot, I mean liked her a lot, she was really really good. Well, I mean, except she had issues, problems."

Girl has stopped nodding, she isn't interested in this conversation and boy seems to have put a spike in the budding romance, but he can't stop.

"I miss her sometimes of course, but who can be with a girl who has problems? She expected me to try to deal with her problems with her or something."

And I got off the train about there. Yes, I really did hear that conversation. And I wont critize his stupidity, sexism or anything, I'll leave that up to your personal judgement.

hong kong memories

This was in a personal archive, and the date wasn't clearly posted so this is a guess. The year should be right. This was reposted for posterity in August 2013

.

.

Already my memories of my vacation are fading into that strange mist of memory. I'll try to relate a few memories now before I loose all clarity of events. I got to Hong Kong in the afternoon, and once again the first thing I noticed is that it smelled different. I always seem to notice this no matter where I go, everywhere seems to have a different smell, different atmosphere. My friend Polly from college met me at the airport. It had been litteral years since I'd seen her, but it didn't really feel like that. We took a bus into the city, going from green leafy foilage to dense city. We started from an older part of Hong Kong, walking through stalls, small stores and along overflowing streets. It was packed, elbow to elbow, chin to chin, litterly. I'm not sure if it was because it was Sunday, or because it was near Chinese New Year, but I think it was fairly typical.

.

I enjoyed the mob of people, and when we got hungry we got some greesy fried gyoza and yams from a street restraunt. It was really oily, but I liked it, the gyoza was crispy the way I like it. After that, we went home to meet Polly's mom and brother. Polly's mom couldn't speak any English and Polly's brother only spoke a little so she was the translater for any communication.

.

Polly's mom made some wonderful food (boiled chicken, fried pork, shrimp in red sauce and some rice and veggie thing, with rice) It was really good, in a surprizing way a lot of it reminded me of the food my mom would make when I was a kid. Polly's brother knows a little Japanese, a language thats popular in Hong Kong I would find out, and so he tried to talk to me. He hadn't ever used the language though, so he was really rusty. He was able to ask (in Japanese of course), "Your name is what?" and say "I am Ryo [his taken Japanese name]." Among other things. He was a really nice guy, about my age, and I think he looked kind of like me! That night we went back out, met Polly's friend Joann, and went to Victoria Street New Year's Night Market. A market is a new years tradition I guess, and it was cool, so many groups of people selling all sorts of silly chicken toys and other new years stuff. Joann didn't speak much English so we mainly talked in my few words of Cantonese and silly faces. After that I went back to Polly's house, they were letting me sleep on the upper bunk of her brother's bunk bed. (The window over looked a big morning-mist covered hill, a memory that is held in my mind~)

.

The next day we went to Victoria Peak to look down over the massive city. And yes, it is truly endless. It always strikes me when looking down on big cities how long they stretch out, and so did Hong Kong, stretching into the edges of vision, buildings scattered like mighty lego blocks. Hong Kong is an active port, and boats floating in and out of the harbor as you watched the horizon added to the coolness.

.

After that we took a double decker bus (something that is everywhere here) with no roof down to a port, took a ferry to check out the bay, and then eventually met her cool friend Tom. Tom spent some of his early life in Thailand, and speaks great English. He was a nice guy, and took us to a hip bar called Fluid. The bar offered free snacks sometimes, and had a nice live band that did cover songs in fluent English. There were also a lot of so-called expats, it reminded me breifly of Roppongi (in Japan) but most of the people hanging around were a lot older I thought.

.

The next day we got up late, and met Tom again for a great brakefast-lunch, and then went to Karaoke for 3 hours. Karaoke in Hong Kong was great! The machine showed you the real music videos and played the orginal music (instead of MIDI synth music and stock footage that you often get in Japan and Korea). And seeing the orginal music video turned out to be a shock. I don't know a lot of American songs (well, I know the songs but not the lyrics) so I was trying to find a Japanese song I knew, but they mostly had anime and super pop songs like Utada Hikaru (I need to learn some girly jpop) so I thought I wasn't going to be able to sing anything. Then I saw a song by a band called the Ulfuls that I knew. I had never sang it before, but I knew the song (ashita ga arusa) and really liked it so I decided to give it a try. I turned it on and was shocked by a very very silly video and that I was able to sing the song with no problems (missed one kanji though, I think). After that me and Polly wandered the streets some more, looking for silly cheap things I could bring back for my Korean friends. Night pulled its arms around Hong Kong, and the neon lights began to glow. I loved the lights, and the glow, and how the signs literly grew up and over the streets.

.

In Hong Kong Japanese language and restraunts seem to be everywhere. I saw a YOSHINOIYA and a WATAMI among others. Although both of these are fairly cheap chain restraunts in Japan, they seemed to be more expensive and fancy over here. I decided to go to WATAMI for dinner, to see if it was different. They greeted us in Japanese ("Welcome, good evening.") and I don't speak good Cantonese and Polly thought it would be funny, so I tried to order in Japanese. The waitress just stared at me and shook her head no when I asked (In Japanese, of course) "I would like to place an order...but you don't speak Japanese right?" Afterwards the paradox of how she could show a "no" if she didn't understand began to bother me, but basically Polly had to do the ordering. The food tasted close to what it tasted like in Japan, although the okonomiyaki tasted more "bready" than in Japan. They also had special Hong Kong only cocktails, and I tried a "Hong Kong Sunset" which had blue at the top... is this a radioactive sunset?? After we took sticker pictures (purikura) again, we took it so many times while I was there, its fun!

.

The last day in Hong Kong was basically eating brakefest at this nice fastfood rice-roll place called QQrice (I know its only a matter of time until this idea spreads like fire in America, or atleast it should) and then going to the airport. My time in Hong Kong was complex, this is a quick review, but I hope it will help me keep alive the memories of my fun vacation!

.

until next time, SAMPAI JUMPA LAGI~

to hong kong and back

Originally from an old server that is now gone. Reposted in September 2006.

sleepy update of my diary


|| one of the older Hong Kong streets ||
file missing


Wow. Hong Kong was amazing. A lot of great food, a massive multicultural city with billions of people, and lots of things to see. I had an amazing time. I was going to write a "day by day" review of what I did (not that anyone cares) but I am too tired right now. I'll do that later maybe. For now, I just want to say it was great. DAAG



07:26:00 | permalink

living in the future

Originally from an old server that is now gone. Reposted in September 2006.

is it true that you are starting to get old when you feel like you are living in the future? I am updating this diary from a payphone. That feels weird to me. cool weird. Going to Hong Kong today!



On the way here, I could see the slice of the moon chasing the bus, as if tied to our side. Thin curved moon-blade cutting through clouds. I remember thinking the same thing in the bus going to Auckland.


aku di kata: SELEMAT JALAN!

08:40:00 | permalink

going to hong kong!

Originally from an old server that is now gone. Reposted in September 2006.

happy chinese new year


I wanted to go on a vacation, so I asked my bosses wife if she could take the price of a ticket out of my next pay check. She said "Sure, where do you want to go?" And I thought about it, and then said "Hong Kong!" and she instantly said "Oh, theres no tickets for under $1000" This seemed weird to me, because I could fly to America for cheaper than that. Although I understand that its a holiday season, it still seemed too expensive. I thought about it for a few days and then finally yesterday I told her I gave up, I couldn't go to Hong Kong. And then right after that she magically found one for half the price. It's still kind of expensive, but I need a vacation to recharge my mind. So I'm excited. And maybe I can try to use some of my bad Cantonese (I forget most of it).. uhm.. MGOI, MAI DAN! BIN GOH AH???! ^o^



I have an advanced class today, normally with three young girls who speak English really well. Recently the other two have been on vacation, so I have only one student. Its faster with one student, so I often make small talk with her, to take up time. I know she likes swimming, she goes three times a week, so I asked her "So, did you go swimming yesterday?" And her answer kind of caught me off guard. "No uhm, I didn't go because blooding was coming out, out" (she pointed down) "and my mother said I can't go this week." For a few seconds I thought she ment that she had got hurt, but then I realized that I think she had gotten her first period. I'm a liberal hippy I guess, because I don't think periods are gross, but I had already made a twisted face because I thought she had gotten hurt, but I didn't want her to think its bad, although I guess blood and all that can feel gross for a kid, so I just kept the "gross" face on and let the conversation glide to a different topic.


It was so cold today that on my walk home my fingers began to tingle, and even though my ears were inside the hood of my coat, my ears began to hurt. So cold! Where is the summer heat waves? I need very humid hot days or I'm going to turn into an ice cube! well...thats all for now.

DAAG!


21:47:00 | permalink

dream

The below entry was originally posted to a defunct web blog site, or somehow became missing. This has been recovered from an e-mail so it might not reflect perfectly the original post.

Self described boring entry. I ate, I tutored, I saw friends. That was
my weekend.



I had a weird dream though.

My friend and coworker in Japan, Nina, was talking to me in the
Japanese language. (Something she tried to do in real life, but never
really had a real conversation with me like in the dream.) And she was
telling me about how she thought of a way to improve the market for
those little machines that look like a car or something that you put a
coin and then it bounces you (or your kid) up and down for a few
minutes of mind numbing entertainment. (I don't know the English word
for these things, hope everyone knows what I mean.) Her idea, although
utterly useless, was really interesting to me. I thought "I should
write it down, so I can remember when I wake up." OK, so I know this
was a kind of stupid idea, because the pen and paper were in my mind,
and lets not mention the paradox of having a lucid dream about
someone's cool idea, that was really my own idea. Anyway, I started to
write down her idea but when I got to her name I couldn't write the NI
character right. If you don't know, its one of the simplest ones in
Japanese, its two horizontel strokes. Thats it. And even in the dream
I knew it was easy, but I couldn't do it. I kept making mistakes and
had to rewrite it. What a frustrating dream. Added to that, the idea
is a revelotion in the "bouncing kid entertainer machine" industry but
I'm not sure how to approach the market with Nina's idea. Well, I mean
my idea that my mind gave to Nina.



And thats all that was written.

SAMPAI JUMPA LAGI

if cities were people

Originally from an old server that is now gone. Reposted in September 2006.

and geeky obsessions


You know, the fact is... if cities were people, I'd be madly in love with Tokyo. Its shapes, its lost roads, and vibrant ambiance. (The other cities on my love-list shouldn't get jealous, I still hold a fond place in my heart for Vancouver, Canada and Auckland, New Zealand, among others.) Why do I mention this? Because I haven't fallen in love with the city of Seoul yet. It's an interesting city, and I am slowly starting to enjoy being here. But between me and Seoul it feels like someone said "lets just be Friends." Was it me? Was it Seoul? How do I get to know Seoul better? Those are the dorky thoughts swimming in my head at the moment.



From millions to none. When I got here this youth hostel was full of people, I slept in the only empty bed. And now its down to just me in the dorm room, and three of the Germans in the private rooms upstairs. Is this a trend of full-not full or is it because its so cold now in Seoul?



And onto my newest geeky obsession!! I love the website wikipedia! One of the things I love about it the most is its multi-language support. I started off on pages and pages of useless data, enough to slowly make me (an infoaddict) happy. But then I realized they had feeds in Japanese (and many other languages) so I began to surf in Japanese too. And then I realized something shocking. Compared to the English pages, the Japanese ones were dull and lifeless. Why? They often had no pictures! I did more clicking and realized that it often seems like the French pages are even more colorful than the English ones (go Frenchies!) and in atleast one or two cases the Spanish pages had extra charts, etc. I wondered what I should do about this and decided to start my own army on the pages of wikipedia! Every geeky obsessional army needs a name, so (for now) I have dubbed my new goal ******** or something crazy like that. ((EDIT: I've been told by Japanese and Chinese friends that my pure mind didn't notice the kinky sound of my old name X jyusei-gun [Ｘ受精軍 ] so I'm going to change it to something cooler, and not kinky, hey its not my fault if I was thinking in a pure niave way! stay tuned. )) Anyway... whats my goal? I'm going to try to cross pollinate (hence my name) pictures (and other datasets) from the English (or other pages I can understand) onto the Japanese version of wikipedia! OK. Why? I don't know. Because I'm not working and its fun. So much fun I've now added this to my "Woohoo! If only I got paid to do this weird geeky crap" list. Yes, I'm still looking for a job. But my beautiful mother finally stole (haha) my diploma from the college I graduated from and got it sent over to me in Korea, so I'm that much closer to working again. Woo!



SAMPAI JUMPA LAGI



17:52:00 | permalink | comments (2)


add a comment

No comment to this article, just a request to this site.
How come that you have this positioners (<< and >>) at the left and right from the Month-Calender? This is beautifull!
My weblog (grolschstars.ipadder.com) has about only the standard functions and this feature whould be great! Also the way you build this Comment-feauture. Is this all build in the blog template?
I´d like to learn from your site! Please visit my weblog for comparison.
Cooper


Why'd she have to steal it and why didn't you have one in the first place?
Noexit

thoughts about living and language

Originally from an old server that is now gone. Reposted in September 2006.

and other things to type on a friday night


I'm worried about my rate of spending money. Lets get honest, in college I was poor. In some of my poorest times I was able to survive on one meal a day. One. Of course I was hungry, but graduating college was really important to me. And even after taking student loans I didn't always spend so much on food, wanting to save it for travel to Japan. I remember once telling a single friend how much I spent on food in a month, and he said he spent more in a week. (I should point out though that a network of very friendly nice friends sometimes fed me, many smiles for them.) The point is though, by the time I got to Japan, I was able to survive on very little food a day until I got a job. I didn't consume a lot, and was able to survive until I got a job (although once again someone, in this case kayo's sister, sometimes offered me yummy food, so it wasnt always so thin on the meals). Now after being in japan a long time (and gaining nearly USA 25LBS!) and having a lot of money to spend on food (eating three or four times a day) I've sunk into a bad spending habbit. Yes, food is cheaper here, but I tend to buy more than I need to survive, or even I sometimes buy useless things like snacks (puffed-balls made out of penuts and shrimp flavor, yummy!) and 100% juice. I know this sounds odd, but I want to survive until I start working, and if I intend to see my friends sometimes and not run out of money, I need to cut back on my spending. Just a note to self I guess.



Language. I've read a lot of articles about this; if a baby learns three languages none of the languages are damadged, three can be learned with no problems. But what about an adult? (or a kind of old person if you cant think of me as an adult.) Everytime I'm walking around and I hear myself thinking in Japanese, I wonder if I should try to "think" those thoughts in Korean. I wonder if it would effect my Japanese? I don't think that thinking in Japanese has effected my English (lets hope!) but English is my native language. Will my Japanese response rate slow down if I begin trying to force Korean thoughts? (although I'm not at all close enough to being able to think in Korean yet, I can't even communicte right now.) And you know? Have I ever mentioned that its weird to think in another language. Its like another "thing" in your mind. It feels, atleast to me, like a different shade, a different texture, its hard to explain right now.



I've been seeing more movies recently, because they are so cheap here (as cheap as $4, the price of two cheap lunches). Although so far most of the movies are typical hollywood stories, with nothing special to mention.



All right, this brings to close this odd entry. DAAG





21:07:00 | permalink | comments (1)


add a comment

I'm really trying to envision you 25 pounds heavier, and it's amusing me a little bit. Anyway, dude, you're not spending too much for food. Everyone should eat three meals a day, it's healthy, dude. I know college is a different deal, because you're feeding yourself and you eat like crap because it's cheap, but hopefully soon you'll realize that life is too short and you should enjoy eating. But I know you're also a gadget freak, so maybe your spending there needs a little more monitoring. I dunno.

And you should work for the UN or something. Or translate for a living.
Diego

still waiting for a job

Originally from an old server that is now gone. Reposted in September 2006.

and sad about america


OK, cue the dramatic music... its just my own opinion, but it sucks Bush is really close to getting the Whitehouse. I don't really like Kerry either, but Bush just sucks for so many reasons. I am, however, aware that many Americans really like Bush. And you know, as I told a New Zealander yesterday, thats what scares me. (Credit for the music: Bacchanale (1940) by John Cage as recorded by Stephen Drury, from aworks.)



No matter what your feelings of Eminem (and some of his biggoted remarks) you've maybe heard his anti-bush song Mosh (if you havent, check it out, its interesting) but what I find most interesting is the tons of less famous and well, uhh... untalented, others who are trying to make their mark against Bush too. Its my love of B-Movies again making me love this, but you have to check out this super low-tech anti-bush rant. Its odd (not the least being the title which is "George W Pussy") but I like to watch it because of its extream oddness. I wonder though what the person was thinking when they made it (made by the same person/people who gave the world a rap song from the point of view of jesus christ, oddly enough). Theres a lot of extream anti-bush opinions still pumping strong, even if he does win, and I wonder how this will all end up.



And now, its time for a pointless link rampage! I have tons of links in my gmail (yes, I mail myself info about sites I think are cool, but dont have time to decide to put on my random list of cool sites or anything) so I'm going to throw them at the few viewers of my site. Woohoo.



Proving that people can fight about the most useless things, people fighting about urban legends and language. (my orginal link about verbs died before I posted, weid.)

Weird. Proving to me that Bush and Kerry are really much closer than most say. They are related. Yup. Family tree shows us they are from the same roots.

An exclent rant about how people should not worry about movie spoilers. Interesting!



Oh and I almost forgot to mention the most shocking thing of the day. No not bush seeming to win the Big Seat... no.. I put my clothes in the laundry and came back a while later, and pulled them out but there was one (men's) underwear that wasn't mine. Totally 100% not mine. How was it in my wash?? Weirdness.



Are we now in a Bush-Bashed World? Weird. peace to the streets... DAAG!


18:36:00 | permalink | comments (2)


add a comment

I liked "the other guy"!
Steph


We're all going to hell. That's been my observation today. Bush won and he won HUGE. He's the first "President" to win with more than 50% of the vote in 12 years. That means he's going to do what he wants and pack the Supreme Court with reactionary facists. I'm hoping that the Senate blocks every nominee. Anyhow, don't blame me, I voted for the other guy no one liked.

Dansen, good luck with the job thing. I hope your degree comes soon. Kayo, It's been kind of funny conversing with you over Dansen's site, but I hope you enjoyed the Japan Series. Personally I am looking forward to the NPB/MLB all-star game. That should be good.

Oh well, It's back to the books for me. Criminal law and torts tonight. At least reading cases about murder is mildly interesting, if not disturbing. Oh, who am I kidding I am already getting desensitized to it.
Nick!

waiting for work

Originally from an old server that is now gone. Reposted in September 2006.

and seeing friends...


So I want a job. I really do, but I don't really want to work at a cram school this time. I think I got the job at that elementry school, but I still don't have my diploma so they weren't able to hire me. The recruiter guy was taking me to another job interview, and then at the last moment he told me it was for a hakwon (cram school) so I canceled that interview, but have another one for a elementry school soon. Was supposed to be today. Didnt hear anything about it. Soon, I hope.


I went to my friend Uni's hometown last weekend, it was my first time to see her parents in 2 years! (Although I met her and her boyfriend a few weeks ago here in Seoul.) Her parents were very nice to me. They bought me a lot of expensive food for dinner. Including... living octopus. For dinner. Living. Well, it was cut to pecies live... but, yes, the legs were still kicking. It was a new exprience for me. And yeah, I couldn't help but think it was kind of gross. But it tasted good, actually. I took some awesome pictures of the trees in her hometown, but I can't figure out how to get the pictures off my cellphone yet. So I'll show those some other time.



And other than that, I've been seeing a lot of friends. And waiting for a job. Exciting. Heh.



17:07:00 | permalink | comments (2)


add a comment

Yeah, I am not much into "live food". I can't eat anything that is still trying to get away. As such I hope that if I get chosen to be something's lunch one day, it will go ahead and kill me fully before starting in on my tender midsection. A fellow I know said that he had eaten a living fish once and that it was by far the best fish he had ever eaten.
At any rate, hang in there Dansen, you will find a good job yet. I know you will because you have the "charm" as my family calls it. Translate as "luck".
Take care.
Trench


Uh, did you bite into moving octopus legs or start on dead pieces?

Good luck on the job hunt, teach.
Steph