[Insert Clever Title]

First post in two years, and what do I have to show for it?

Got a Mew from my Pokemon ranch today. 2 Wiis + 3 Ds's + 1000 Pokemon + 2 hours + a little bit of time travel = A mew for me and a mew for jebimstr .

Actually, I'm really just looking for an alternate place to post for things that don't seem to fit the bill on the other blog, and I thought it was high time to start posting in the LJ again, since I've gotten in the habit of reading friends' posts again.

I'm sure I'll be a little more coherent when it's not 3AM. Bye for now.

(note: actually, this would probably be a perfect post for my other blog, what with all the Pokey-mans, but I needed a good excuse... and I'm planning to join the LJ pokemon wi-fi community, so I guess it fits.)

Just a quick link... this one's all for Aaron. Thwack indeed.

Mario Reloaded

Oooh, and these are for Luana, since I did promise after all:

I've already seen everything
Ensign Crusher, Set course for starbase A... gee, you're adorable
Picard song video (sound's a little wonky)

So.

Nick's here, in Washington, which is why I'm using his login to update for my purposes. He's taking good care of me because I'm dying. I'm suffering from this stomach condition that makes me want to vomit, but when I try to do that very thing all that comes up is air. I retch air. It's awful.

Why is it that I'm sick every time he comes here?

Well, at least it's not mono.

-- Luana

I've been really getting the urge to draw of late, and after pawing through Jim Lee's sketchbook online and drooling over some of the stuff over at The Broken Ladder, I've been sketching up a storm in all of my notebooks. Nothing particularly good mind you, but it's soothing to be back in the habit. I even hooked up my increadibly tiny (4 X 5) wacom tablet today and tried doodling with that. God, I REALLY suck at that... but I guess I just have to get used to it. I did do something tonight that I'm not too uncomfortable sharing: it's a pic of DBZ's trunks I copied off of a manga cover I have to practice pen control and coloring with layers. I don't really plan on finishing it, I'll probably just start from scratch with something new tomorrow. Enjoy.

It would seem it's been nearly a month since I last pulled up iJournal and wrote in this thing. It would seem my procrastination knows no bounds in work or play. Such is my lot, and I'm good at it, but I don't know that chronicly putting things off is a terribly marketable skill. Ah well.

Today is my midterm for "Programming Language Paradigms", a class I care very little about. I used to be an engineering major, then I decided Computer Science was more my cup of joe, after that I slapped Japanese on top of it, and now I'm sticking pretty much with the solo Japanese. Although I'm looking to actually use my Japanese degree after I get myself out of school, I'll be the first to admit it's not exactly the most practical degree in the world to have and, since I really only need this class to be able to graduate with a Comp Sci minor, it seems like a waste not to take it. That doesn't change the fact, however, that I really can't bring myself to care about it. Right now I'm taking Advanced Modern Japanese, Classical Japanese, Japanese Manuscripts, and Japanese Linguistics, and find them, on the whole, pretty damn interesting. My CS class, on the other hand, just feels like a rehash of things I've been doing since I was a junior in high school, and quite frankly, I don't give a rat's ass how to teach a computer to put queens on a chessboard or convert my incessant ramblings into pig latin. It just feels far less glamorous in the long run.

You might ask (well, probably you won't, but this here is my journal and I'll assume what I like) what it is I intend to do with a Japanese degree, as it's a pretty well documented fact that I have no intention to live anywhere near Japan. Honestly, it's not all that big a departure from why I took any of those other majors; Japanese interests me. I've been wanting to work in video games for the longest time, and for almost as long a time, I figured that meant learning how to code. I mean, when I boot up my latest indulgence, everything in it is all just 0's and 1's at some level, right? I went so far as to buy books like "Tricks of the Game Design Gurus" and "How to Code RPGs with C++" and countless other nonsense, when I realized that, while solving an occasional brain teaser can be fun, professional code is long, dull, and certainly not how I'd want to spend my time. For a while I dabbled in 3D modelling and animation, which I was similarly interested in, but if my time spent with that taught me anything, it was that getting results I was really proud of took more work than I was willing to invest. That left me pretty much at square one. However, I had been studying Japanese during that whole period. I hear they make games in dat dere Japan.

Basically, what I've decided I want to shoot for is either straight game translation or localization, which is on the surface the same thing really, so I won't go into the differences. Lord knows if that's a realistic goal, but it's one I feel far more willing to shoot for than anything I might have thought of previously. With the west coast being the game-making heart of the US, that sort of plan could even end up bringing me closer to that one crazy girl I'm crazy about, so looking at all sides of it, It can't be too bad an idea.

At any rate, I've spoken of my great procrastination skills, and lo, it's about an hour before that good ol' midterm, and I should probably at least try to study a bit more.

Last night I decided to have a chat with that "igod" chatbot, and it was pretty interesting. I thought I'd post the transcript.

( Wouldn't want this cluttering up your page, now would we? )

First day back from my three day weekend, and things seem to be getting back to normal. I'm feeling a whole heck of a lot better, the day off did wonders for me, and I'm settling back into my routine slowly but surely.

Had a bit of a bout with insomnia tonight (hence my being up and posting at 2AM), but I sat down and gave Forrest Gump a watch, which I think has put me in the right state of mind to crash once I'm done typing. Even had me a good cry at the end when Forrest's talking to Jenny's grave... I'm such a sap when it comes to movies.

As I type, I think of how loudly it would come through everyone's speakers back in the days of skype in Japan. I miss that bit with the whole skype crew now that everyone's gotten busy. Deeko's been a whole lot of fun, but as some of you might already know, it's burned some bridges from the ol' 1up days. I try not to get too burned up about it; even though pretty much all the drama was avoidable, what happens happens and there's not a whole lot you can really do about it. I think Matt's newfound hatred for all things 1up is at least partialy his manifestation of annoyance of the sort of breaking of the fellowship (yeah, yeah... I know you read this, comment away. I know I'm no Freud). I try not to think of it personally, which we all say we don't do, but deep down we do anyway. Of the two, for the time being nameless, people who have been in the Deeko hot seat of late, my vote was to let both of them go. It wasn't about the drama surrounding them, as I think may have been the case for a number of folks, but it was just a matter of their writing. Neither of them had strong enough writing to be publishable, be it for a volunteer job or any other, and it's a hard but ultimately inescapable fact. I bear no ill will towards anyone, and I imagine they'll come around at some point or another. If they don't, well I guess that's just tough luck, but still, it's sad to see the ol' skype crew fall apart in a sense.

For those of you out there to whom that last bit meant nothing, I must applaud you for reading this far. Crazy rambling, but stuff to get off the ol' chest. I'm really enjoying getting to write for a web magazine, so if you haven't checked us out, feel free to do so. I currently have a review for Rebelstar up on the frontpage, and you'll be able to read what I have to say about We Love Katamari and Burnout Legends in not too long a time.

Good night all.

Since I've got this blog thing going, I may as well offer up a quick post while I've still got the momentum working in my favor. These past couple of weeks have been interesting to say the least, there's no doubt about that, so I figure a brief update might be in order.

So yeah, I'm sick. I've been sick for the past week and a half or so, and a good portion of it is wholly my fault. I've had a whopper of a barking cough, and I'd be lying if I said I've been off the smokes since I got back from Japan. Funny thing is, it's not a habit I really mind having when I keep it very rare, with friends and what not, but it's hard for me to have a pack and not start smoking them when I'm out and about. I've gotten better of late, but I still have trouble spending any amount of time in the car without a cigarette. Since I went home this past weekend for a friend of the family's engagement party, I bought myself a pack of "ultra milds" to try and give myself whatever advantage I could, but yeah, ultra mild or no, they don't help coughing.

At any rate, I woke up this morning with a fever, so I thought it best to stay home the day and finally give my body some time to recover. Perhaps not the greatest idea, seeing as my course load is heavy, and a day missed makes for a lot of makeup, but I think it was just what my body needed. I spent most of the day in bed watching my new "Steven King's The Stand" DVD, playing (and beating) We Love Katamari (look for a review on Deeko.com by midweek), and talking to the wonderful umilicious on the phone. I can think of worse days to spend a day.

Of course, now I've got to get back to work tomorrow, but I got some headway into cleaning my living space, and it looks like I'll be sleeping at a reasonable hour for the first time in a long time, so here's hoping tomorrow greets me well. Ciao all.

I decided a bit ago to start blogging in my livejournal again, so a big howdy doo to everyone. I was trying to figure out the best way to lead into this "return" of sorts, and it seems umilicious decided to provide me with the perfect means with which to do so.

Name 10 things that bring you a moment of joy, and tag four friends to do the same
(no particular order)

1. Chef Boyarde and Dr. Pepper
   
2. When girls smile; girls should always smile
   
3. When Luana smiles; that rule goes double for her
   
4. Cold enough weather to break out my trench coat (but not so cold that I'm freezin')
   
5. That part in that one movie that makes the hairs on the back of your neck totally stand on end
   
6. Rolling the Statue of Liberty into my Katamari (you know... I've lived in New York all my life, and I've never been there.
   
7. Having all the current generation consoles, portable and otherwise, in one place
   
8. Sleep
   
9. Having a girlfriend who I can beat at videogames, although she totally plays seriously
   
10. Having a girlfriend who can beat me at videogames, although I totally play seriously

Because it amuses me to call out the people who are least likely to actually do this, vjd, bileograph and belcantin... I CHOOSE YOU!

(Plus areiser for good measure)

areiser seemed alarmed by my absense on LJ of late. Well folks, I'm not lost. Heck, I haven't even stopped blogging. My main blog has changed though. I joined 1up's blog community and have one here. I'll still be posting here, but much less frequently than there. Check it out.

Politics, ho boy politics.

Everyone's weighing in their opinions, and I don't talk politics very often, so I'm going to take this opportunity to put in my two cents.

This is sort of intended as a sister post to areiser's latest, so go take a look, and if you're bongo, vin, billy, or kev, you may have a chuckle at the not-so-covert inside joke.

Let me start by talking about Reiser, whose name is somewhat synonymous with politics in my mind at this juncture. For starters, we often find ourselves disagreeing about politics on the rare occasions we discuss them, however, as I am nowhere near as informed an individual as he is I often find myself at a loss, much to my annoyance. You see kids, I've been able to do well in school all these years, not due to my keen intellect, though it's damn keen if you ask me, but because I'm a fabulous bullshit artist. If you are unfamiliar with said art form, it's the ability to take relatively minimal knowledge about a topic, and make it seem like you know what you're talking about.

This doesn't fly with Aaron.

My opinions tend to be low key, but that's not to say I don't have them. Aaron knows what he's talking about, pretty much as a rule it would seem, so I end up having to do a lot of research when I talk to him. Now, I was rooting for Kerry, in so much as I wasn't for Bush. Now, there are certainly a lot of bitter folks spewing stuff about how stupid Americans are for electing el Busherino president a second time, and to be fair, I can see where they're coming from. I would imagine there were a large amount of stupid people out there in the polls votin' for him. This is, I think, more a testament to the Bush-Cheney campaign machine more than anything else... they're good at stirring shit up. Hell, there was even a campaign in the ol' belt claiming that Kerry would try to ban the Bible (my source Aaron is, admittedly, the Daily Show, but I checked on it ^_^). Now, while this may account for some things, let me impart a few more words of wisdom. This can account for individuals, or even towns if you like, but if you are going to try and sell me that an entire state, even in the SOUTH (ooooo) is entirely populated by slogan spewing buffoons, you may as well try and get me to take the brooklyn bridge with it. On the same note, I think that people who are voting for Kerry simply because it's in vogue to dislike Bush are in equal need of a reality check.

I'm of the opinion that, while the voter turnout is nice, what we need is not more voters... but more INFORMED voters. Now, I can't stomach politics for the most part, but I've learned as I've gotten slightly more politically inclined that it's knee-jerk politics that I can't stand. Unfortunately, I've found most people I talk to are of the knee-jerk variety, so I keep my opinions to myself, as I'm not particularly interested in defending my views to someone who's not going to listen to them anyhoo. But I'm getting off topic.

Bush.

Guess what, you're stuck with him for 4 years, so you'd better get used to the idea. And guess what? We're gonna make it through those 4 years just fine. And guess WHAT? Despite what images you may have in your head, the average Bush voter probably has their reservations about the man, but is playing the lesser of two evils game, the same as everyone else. So we'll wait it out and see what happens, it's not inconceivable that something good can come from it if we stop fixating on the negative. Some bad things may happen, and while they may be unpleasant in the short term, the wonderful thing about our governmental system, as Aaron noted, is if something is entirely too intolerable, we're well equipped to rectify the situation. Whine to me when Cheney runs for president.

The weekend was quite good.

Drank my fair share at the faculty party, and a sushi/yakitori/shabushabu tabehodai is pretty damn cool.

Last night I drank a lot too!! There was a Halloween party, and Maile, Amy, and myself went as Mario, Luigi, and Wario respectively. We got a silly Godzilla suit for Gene, Amy's husband, and told everyone he was yoshi. Good fun. Not too much to talk about, one of the cute bartenders thought I was wearing a fake tummy... ouch... but it led to much tummy rubbing by cute Japanese girls, so I guess I can't complain. Shaved down to the Ron Jeremy mustache again, so I'm temporarily clean shaven.. AGAIN. The people here must think shaving and growing facial hair is my hobby. Which, in retrospect, it kind of is.

Turns out the good folks at my faculty got me quite drunk!

Yee ha! Now I just have to try to get back to my dorm without killing myself... yee ha again!

Well, it's friday, and that means it's time for my weekly attempt to fool the people in my adopted faculty here at hokudai into thinking that I understand shit one about anything they talk about. At least today I read a basic outline for 'the Inductive Learning Method for Natural Language Processing", so my involvement with these folks is slightly less a sham. Of course, there's still next week project meeting to think of, where I'll have to explain to my advisor and his subordinates that I'm not a graduate student and am not about to try and program anything using the NLP method.

But I digress.

So, what's been up you ask? A whole lot of sickness, that's what!

This weekend, once again, I drank to excess on a number of occasions. While I didn't make quite the fool of myself this time that I have in the past, that's more to say that the people around me were just as blitzed this time around, and that was comforting. I did however manage to smoke an entire pack of marlboro reds and two cloves in a drunken stupor, so the weekend mornings were not a happy time for lungs or voice.

Tuesday, Matt donned a diaper and did some Sumo wrestling. Which is to say, he got to compete in A match before his 'team captain' decided he's short and pulled him out. All and all, watching the sumo was way fun, but was 5 hours long. I decided I'd had enough by hour 4, and took off for home in the BITTER SNOW. That's right, you heard me, SNOW. By the time I got on my bike and started riding, snow had turned into hail. Fucking hail flying into my face for a good 15 minutes. Needless to say, Wednesday morning I had quite a mother of a fever. Missed class... I've missed class twice, and it's been the same class... and also my favorite of my Japanese classes. I heard the teacher was worried about me, since I was sick a day the week before. I should send her an e-mail.

So, I've not been sick so much, as sort of groggy all week. Last night, I got talked into playing soccer. Now, I've played soccer a couple of times in Day Camp when I was a wee tyke, but I can't handle a ball worth a damn. As most of you may be aware, I'm also a fat-ass, which, as far as soccer is concerned, means that after about 10 minutes on the field I felt like one of my ribs was going to pop through my chest like the fucking Alien. Needless to say, I spent most of my time as a goalie, which made me slightly less useless. Kate, cute redheaded canuck and all around athlete extraordinaire, has also decided I should run a 5-10 K race with them next month. Talk about gross overestimation of my abilities. At any rate, I said I'd run until somebody told me to stop or I passed out, most likely the latter. The things I'll do for a pretty face.

So, tonight I have some sort of shindig with my faculty. As far as I can tell, they're taking me out to a restaurant or something, but since Araki sensei has apparently told them all that I'm fucking 'nihongo umai', they all relate info to me in Japanese, even when they can speak english... so I have no real idea what's going on. Time to wing it.

On a side note, my electronic dictionary contains the phrase "黒人の歌", which means what it sounds like, but is translated, alarmingly to "nigger music". Good god.

Well folks, I suppose I should be updating more with all this out-o-country business. I'm not even going to attempt to bring everything up to date, because there's too damn much, and well, I doubt it would be terribly interesting.

So yeah, I'm in Japan, and I'm having a pretty good time here. Our classes have all started, and they're on the whole pretty interesting. I placed in the intermediate level II, (6th of 7 levels) and Kanji III (top level) which is cool, and the classes are all spread out in different subjects, i.e. Grammar, Oral, reading, etc.

Unfortunately, as you may notice I've not been online much or posting in this monstrosity, the wireless connection in our dorm has been turned off. The guy that runs our computer room was reportedly not happy and even made Casper, the fella nice enough to put the wireless router in, write a formal letter of apology to get the router back. I need to take that dude out for a drink. So, if I'm online these days, it's either in my dorms computer room (I try to avoid it, the computers and connection are slow as sin) or in my faculty. Since I'm doing a seminar with my advisor (to whom I may need to explain that I'm not a grad student and have 9 other classes) he's given me desk space in the faculty and even keys so I can get in on nights or weekends. Pretty neat.

I've made lots of friends, as pretty much everyone around is damn cool. Matt's here now, though for those of you that remember it, the 'at all times' rule isn't in effect. I guess I was busy worring about nothing all that time. We still hang out pretty frequently, but he's in another dorm, so I don't end up seeing him every day. However, there is Justin (yes, yet another one), a mohawked crazy, for him to hang out with. Justin's an absolute riot, so I never mind an opportunity to hang with him anyhoo.

As far as people in my dorm, while I'm friendly with everyone, I've bonded mostly with a handful of the Americans. Mostly I've been hangin' with my friend Maile, who's sitting beside me pretending to write a paper as we speak. Oh yeah... just had a look... mine's gonna kick its ass... once I figure out what to write about. Anyhoo, we have comprable music, movie, humor tastes... so it's pretty fair to say she's one of my favorite people here. Anyone who can stand my company for more than 5 or so minutes is worth keepin' around. And of course, for the above reasons, Matt gets along with her great as well, so we officially can have a damn decent 3 person possie. This isn't to badmouth the other Americans, but they don't get my jokes, so there's only so much ego inflation possible there... we all know how much I like my ego stroked.

Anyhoo, Japan's cool... and I suppose in most ways what one would expect Japan to be like. Though I have learned to disregard just about everything anyone told me to 'look out for'. I've decided most people don't know what they're talking about apparently. I'm sure I'm no exception.

Oh, and I don't care about fucking Red Sox, so don't IM me about the damn world series nonsense.

If you like bishonen guys, you're a lesbian. End of story.

If you don't believe me, take a look at a dude and a chick, then take a look at your fictional dream guy. Now, which does (s)he look more like? I rest my case. No using fat chicks for this example unless you have a fatty bishonen crush.

If you're having trouble with this and still want cock, there are the wonderful worlds of bisexualism and strap ons at your feet. I'm sure you'll figure it out.

Wow. I'm in Japan. Now that I'm here, I still don't believe I'm here. The trip was long, and I got to the dorm around 11PM friday, Japan time. They gave us (two other new ryuugakusei and myself) a tour, had us sign some 'i promise not to break any rules' nonsense, and introduced us to a couple of folks that had been here for a few months already. We were all tired, but somehow we still ended up going out to a place called 三百円 where, as the name implies, everything on the menu is 300 yen. It was pretty funny because one girl we were with ordered onigiri, and got a godzilla sized monstrosity. After all that, we came back and I crashed.

I managed to wake up at 5 AM and wasn't all that tired. I unpacked and did all sorts of time wasting nonsense. Even watched some urusei yatsura on the TV in the lounge. Today's just been a wandering day. We went to a 100 yen store, a few convenience stores, and all sorts of other places. This morning, after noticing that my temporary slippers didn't fit very well, ojisan gave me some slippers from a kid that lived here last year to tide me over 'till I get my own. I'm exhausted, but fighting to stay awake and not submit to jetlag. Catch y'all later.

Pics of my room are up at http://people.umass.edu/nrycar/Pics
My dorm room is awesome.

God, I had a fucked up dream last night. The only part I can remember, I wasn't even in. So, it was basically the watcher in the water scene from Fellowship of the Ring... except Brit Foo was frodo. So, everyone does their 'save the day' shit, and when he gets down, they all look at him kinda angrily. He just shrugs his shoulders and goes, "What?! I'm mad crunked!" That's the last time I have movie theater popcorn late at night.

"too bad for holman brit foo's in japan... I'm a pitcher now"

"hot carls in her HAIR?"

"nato? what the fuck does that have to do with puppets?"

"there are 5 students. and they're all named Aaragorn"

"is that supposed to be ice cream or a penis? he gobbles both."

"siamese twins... joined at the epididimus"

So yeah. Fun weekend at UMass.

--------------------------------

schlommo: he looks like he's on the toilet

rycarmacuser: lol
rycarmacuser: and to think she could have had me
rycarmacuser: hehe

schlommo: :)
schlommo: her loss, ono-sensei's gain

rycarmacusr: hehe