Full Metal Beer Jacket

2010 World Tour!

2010-03-19T15:21:00.008-07:00

Well, there won't be too many Decoy concerts, but me and the woman are going on a world tour this summer. The following is what is about to rock:

We'll be leaving May 26th for London, and will spend the next 18 days touring Europe. We'll hit up England, Belgium, Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, and France during that time. It turns out that we'll be in Rome and Florence on our anniversary. How romantic.... "Ahhh......"

From Paris, we were just going to go to Thailand, but the guy at Airtreks (where we got our airfare from - www.airtreks.com) suggested that we stay over in Cairo since we were going through that airport anyway, and check out Egypt. So, we'll stay in Egypt for 4 days and check out the pyramids and lots of other stuff there. From Egypt, we'll go to Thailand and stay with one of Yuko's friends for two weeks. We'll check out all the awesome stuff there, and hopefully be able to help her out with her restaurant. It's the least we could do. Dishes may be the extent of what I'll be able to do though... or possibly entertainment...? (this would be some of Decoy's shows).

From Thailand, we'll go to Japan and spend the rest of the time there, doing various things that are yet unknown to all. I will be studying for my MA Exam throughout this trip that I'll have in December.... in between periods of rock, of course.

We got some pretty good deals on trips and airfare. The guy at airtreks hooked us up too. We're going to be going on lots of flights: SLC-NYC-London; Paris-Cairo; Cairo-Bangkok; Bangkok-Shanghai-Osaka; Osaka-Hong Kong-LA-SLC. We're going to China twice, but for only 3 hours each time (though he offered us a stopover in Hong Kong too). We're pretty excited, but are just praying that we won't be linked to John Denver in any way (being... a plane crash high in the Rocky Mountains before we even get anywhere). That would really blow.

Michael Jackson and the Flying Slipper

2009-07-09T06:38:00.008-07:00

Though I've laughed at and told many jokes about him, I've always been a fan of Michael Jackson. It wasn't until recently after he died though that I actually realized how big of a contribution to music, dancing, and the world in general he made. I still don't realize all that he did, but as I learn more about his life, I will.

Since his passing, I've seen some people on the internet that have been mad because everybody's making a big deal of this, because there are so many people in Africa (or wherever) that are dying everyday, so why should we make a fuss. Those people are fricking idiots. Nobody knows those other people who are dying, and those people have never done anything to affect our lives. Michael Jackson has done a lot to affect people's lives. Not just through music and dance, but also through contributing to causes, organizations, etc. Sure, people should be sad when people die even if they don't know them, but it doesn't affect them as much because well, they don't know them. Wake up, crackers.

Anyway, the floors at my JHS here in the Japans are slippery enough that when walking down the halls or just walking around in the classrooms, I take a couple of big steps and do a slide. This sliding ability provides plenty of slide to enable doing the moonwalk, and that's what I've liked to do sometimes over the past 3 years (though doing it in slippers can be tough and might not look as cool...).

Recently, my kids have wanted me to do impersonations of Michael Jackson, because they love it. So one day when I was in a classroom waiting for them to get lunch served up, etc, (they eat at their desks in their classrooms) some of them wanted me to do an impression of him. So I started singing and dancing, and kicked my foot up in the air. Well, you don't wear shoes at schools in the Japans, you wear slippers. When I kicked my foot up in the air, my slipper flew off and headed to a group of tables. It hit a couple of times, missed the first lunch tray, barely missed the second, landed on the second (without touching the food), then fell bottom down on a girl's bowl of rice and fried fish..... I was kind of shocked that it would land in her food that perfectly. Immediately after that happened, another teacher came in the room, but I down-played it as I had already got it back on my foot, and then quickly exchanged her food for mine. If the teacher knew what happened, I don't know, but all of the students erupted in laughter and I heard some of them telling others and the teacher all the details. It wasn't quiet for a few minutes after that. Needless to say, I apologized with a dogeiza.

Fuggin

2009-06-24T21:54:00.004-07:00

I commented on Reuben and Clarissa's blog, and the captcha it gave me was interesting...

Pure Loogie Awesomeness

2009-06-16T16:40:00.003-07:00

I've been kind of sick for the past week or so. I'm kind of starting to get over it, but I still have mucus that I have to spit up throughout the day. This morning while driving to work, I sucked together all the loogie goodness from my nasal and throat and hocked it out the window. To my pleasant surprise as I looked at it fly out the window, the clear part (spit) quickly flew backwards, while the green part (phlegm/mucus) continued on a straighter path. I have never before seen such awesomeness as this in my short life. The complete separation of spit and mucus from my loogie... I about had an accident in my pants...

Accepted to Grad School

2009-05-10T18:50:00.007-07:00

I applied for the Asian Studies master's degree program at the U of U, and was accepted for Fall 2009. I've got my schedule worked out and have signed up for my classes. 4 of them will count for the major, and one of them won't because it's just a 1000 level class that I'm taking to better prepare for grad school at Hawaii. Yuko will also be going to school at the U (assuming we can both get residency tuition... if we don't, the milkman will make his strike). In fact, all 4 classes she is taking are 4 that I'm taking too. So she'll be able to take all of her classes with me. Score 1 for us against the textbook Nazis. Suckaz!

We'll go to the U of U for a year, and then I will (hopefully) go to Hawaii for 2 years to get master's degrees in Japanese and Anthropology. After that, I want to get a PhD in Anthropology. Right now, I either want to do that in Hawaii, or I might be able to get it (or do part of it) through Hawaii while going to a school in Japan and doing research. That's still 3 years away though, so who knows what will happen.

Florida Video

2009-05-07T03:45:00.003-07:00

So I finally got the video for our trip to Florida (July 2006) done. I was planning on editing it right after I edited our trip to California when we got here in the Japans in late 2006. But after I got done with the video for California, I looked everywhere for the Florida tape, but it was nowhere. The only place I thought it could be was in my camera that I left home. So I had that sent over, and we got it open by taking it to an electronics store here (they didn't send the power chord with it, because they had no idea where in the frick it was). Anyway, it was in there, and I just finished editing it. I put it up on youtube, but the audio was disabled almost immediately. Those nazis are getting pretty quick with that stuff. So you can check it out either on Facebook, or the video page on my website (under 2006).

Nabana 2008 Video

2009-05-06T23:54:00.006-07:00

This is the video from when we went to Nabana no Sato last year.

Better video quality here.

Sumo

2009-03-22T16:36:00.005-07:00

I went to see sumo this past Wednesday. It was SOOO awesome. Your butt starts hurting after awhile, but it's well worth it once you get into the last 2 hours. On the tickets, it says it starts at 10:00am, but we got there about 9:20am, and they were already going at it. Very few people were in there already. There were however, really annoying gaijin (foreigners) that would yell cheers for sumo wrestlers, etc. How in the frick do they even know these guys in the first matches I wonder... They're never on TV or anything. These people must be completely infatuated with sumo. Sumo otaku nerds.

Anyway, me and Yuko's grandpa were on the 6th row from where the wrestling took place. It was so close I felt I would get a shower when they ran into each other and sweat spewed forth in all directions. Before the popular guys started coming on, I went out to the entrance to try to get some of their autographs. I saw three guys, and got one autograph. I guess it's pretty rare to get an autograph from the more popular guys, but I managed one from an ozeki. I also saw Hakuho (yokozuna), but no signing from his ace.

Some people say that if you want to go to sumo, then just buy the cheap nosebleed seats, and you can still sit close in the morning when nobody is there. That's fricking stupid. Why would you be satisfied with sitting close to see wrestlers you don't even know, and for the guys that you do know, you are so far away you can barely recognize them? Stupid people and their stupid thinking...

For the last 3 hours, they bring out the baskets of salt that the wrestlers throw onto the ring. These last 3 hours are also televised. We were on TV many times. In fact, Yuko's grandma was watching it and was very surprised to see me. She didn't know we were going. She was jealous that grandpa went with me because she would have liked to have gone too.

One cool thing about sumo is that when they come in, they walk through the same place that you walk. There are no underground entrances or whatever. So anybody can be up really close to any wrestler as they walk in or out. You're not supposed to take video in the wrestling place, but I did. Nobody said anything, so I didn't stop. When I tried to take video of my favorite guy as he was walking in though (Asashoryu), security stopped me and said I couldn't take video inside. Whatever. At least I got to see my guy. Suckers.

The video for this is going to be awesome. When I get done I'll post it on here. But first, I've got to finish Nabana 2008 (basically finished it yesterday) and Florida.

A Present From The Turds

2009-02-08T20:21:00.010-07:00

Two weeks ago, I stayed home from work for the entire week (doctor's orders). On the Friday before that week (January 23rd), as I was driving to the elementary school, I was feeling pretty beat. As the day went on, I started feeling really cold and just crappy in general. Directly after work, I had a kanji test to take at my junior high school, so I drove my butt over there and took that, which drained me even more. After that, I picked up Yuko from work and we drove 1.5 hours through the mountains to her home in Sakurai. I was pretty beat. The next day, we helped a family friend with cleaning and other stuff related with her moving out of their house. Great stuff to do all day when you feel like crap. I did however, talk to her about sumo tickets, and she hooked me up. I'll be going to sumo in March and I'll be sitting on the floor. Can't wait to see thousands of pounds of pure sweaty flesh in nothing but big g-string things. AWESOME.

Anyway... after that, we went to eat sushi. I couldn't even turn my head at all to look at the sushi on the conveyor belt. If I did, my eyes would start to KILL. I went to bed early, and woke up in the middle of the night sweating. We took my temperature, and it was at about 104. I went to the doctor the next day, and it sucked having to get up and walk around to get there. They had free masks at the receptionist window, so me and Yuko both got one. There was some kid behind us, making noise and bumping into the back of our seats. I was sooo ready to scare the crap out of him and tell off his dad because his dad was doing nothing. Actually, he was tickling him and encouraging him to bounce around. If I could have turned my head and eyes even somewhat without pain, from then on, anytime they would even see a foreigner, they would drop everything in their pants. Lucky for them, I couldn't.

My turn finally came, so we were sitting outside of the room. We heard the nurse and doctor say, "Oh no... What should we do??" I was the first foreigner they had ever had there, and they didn't speak English, so they were pretty nervous and worried about what to do. I wonder how they thought I got the medical papers filled out that they gave me...? When Yuko walked in with me though, they were relieved. He stuck a long Q-tip up my nose and twirled it 20 times, and then tested it. It came back positive that I had the flu, and he said that I got a nice present from my students. Those pricks.

We went back home and I went to sleep. I woke up to watch the last 30 minutes of sumo though. It was the last day of it, and it was to decide who won the tournament. My guy (Asashoryu) won after having a playoff between (and winning) the other grand champion (Hakuho). Fricking awesome. I went back to sleep and woke up to eat some dinner and to watch the Japanese historical drama that is on every Sunday. Then, feeling like complete hell, I drove 1.5 hours back home through the mountains in the dark.

The next day, I stayed in bed all day. Yuko came back from work at about lunchtime. I got up and sat at the table to try to eat something. I got really light headed and fell down to my hands and knees, because I was starting to black out. I didn't faint, but I felt soooo completely out of it for a minute. I've never done drugs, but I can only assume that it feels something like that. I could hear what Yuko was saying, but had to work so hard to answer. After this passed, I got up to the table again, but it happened again, so I got down and just laid down on the futon for a few minutes. Then Yuko spoon fed me while I was laying down. I finally was able to sit up against the wall (still on the floor) and she spoon fed me some more. I could barely open my mouth. It was pretty rockin'. The doctor said to not take a shower that whole week because it weakens your body. So what happens? I get a damp washcloth bath from Yuko, all over my body. Awesome stuff, I tell ya, awesome stuff. I had that privilege for the next few days. I wonder who enjoyed it more, me or her.

I was pretty out the next day and most of the day after that. Thursday was the first day that I actually put the futon away during the day. I wore a mask the entire week too, trying to not give Yuko the same thing. She didn't get the flu, so I guess she was either lucky or it worked. During the week, I would sweat many times while sleeping, day and night. I have never changed clothes so much before in my life (they would be drenched every time I woke up, and I was in bed all day, so I went to sleep and woke up many times per day). We even had to blow dry the sheet I was sleeping on sometimes because it got so wet.

Anyway, that's pretty much my flu experience. Over the week before that, and the week I was home, more than half the school was gone every day, due to the flu. I was in the middle of one class, and they just sent them home because of it. I didn't have to use my days off, because I got sick days though. Woohoo!! The Japanese teachers can't do that though, they have to use their regular days off. Oh, the privileges of the gaijin...

Yoshino Video

2009-01-19T04:43:00.005-07:00

This video is from when me, Yuko and her mom went to Yoshino National Park in April 2008 in the Japans. There are literally thousands of cherry blossom trees and they're all over the place. We timed it almost perfectly, since when we went, the blossoms were just falling off the trees near the bottom, and the trees near the middle and top were in full bloom.

Better video quality here.

Too Tired To Brush

2009-01-11T02:02:00.007-07:00

On New Years Eve, we stayed up a little while afterward, watching TV. I went to get our toothbrushes, and I guess Yuko was really tired. I gave her her toothbrush, then went to drain myself. I came back, and she was still laying under the kotatsu, but was sleeping... with her hand on her toothbrush in her mouth. I thought that was hilarious. I woke her up then went to finish brushing my teeth. She continued to brush. I came back and she was asleep again. This time though, both her hands were also under the blanket of the kotatsu, her toothbrush hanging out of her mouth. Interesting...

All My Videos

2009-01-06T22:01:00.037-07:00

This post is to update my blog with all my old videos and montages. Why I never thought of putting them here in the first place, who knows. These are all in the same order on my website, so you can go here to watch them. If the title is gray, that means I'm not done with it yet. Anyway, starting with 2008:

2008
Okinawa 2008 - Trip to Okinawa (July)
Mameya 2008 - All natural food restaurant (June)
Nabana 2008 - A place with lots of flowers (May)
Yoshino - Famous cherry blossom place (April)
Ichigogari 2008 - All you can eat strawberry farm (April)
BBQ - Barbecue after the ichigogari (April)

2007
USJ - Universal Studios Japan (December)
Christmas Party - (December)
Nabana no Sato - Lots of lights and flowers (December)
Kyushu - Trip to Kyushu (September)
Nagoya - With Corey in Nagoya (July)
Mameya - Natural food restaurant (June)
Okinawa - Trip to Okinawa (May)
Akame Falls - Hiking at Akame 48 Waterfalls (May)
Ichigogari - All you can eat strawberry farm (April)
Sakura - Cherry blossoms (April)
Toba - Trip to Toba (February)

2006
Reception 2 - Reception in Osaka, Japan (December)
Florida - Honeymoon (July)
California - Honeymoon (June)
Reception 1 - Reception at the Devereaux (June)
Ceremony - Wedding ceremony (June)
Bridal - Bridal video at temple square (June)
Pics - Pics from growing up to our wedding (June)

2003-2005 (photo montages)
Kansai Gaidai - Study abroad in Japan (8/2004-5/2005)
Nagano 2 - Summer study abroad in Nagano (May 2004)
Nagano 1 - Summer study abroad in Nagano (May 2003)

2008
Hakusan CMs - Commercials made at Hakusan JHS

2005
Gaidai CMs - Beer Commercials we made at Kansai Gaidai

This post will always be current, as I will continue to add to it as I make new videos.

Mameya Video

2009-01-04T00:45:00.012-07:00

I guess what I really should have been doing in the 2 year posting absence I had on this blog was posting the videos of trips and shiz that I've been making while here. Whoops. I'll make an update of all the videos from the past couple of years on the next post maybe. Anyway, here's the most recent one. It's of when we went with Yuko's mom and friends to a restaurant called Mameya, south of Matsusaka. A bunch of old ladies live down there and grow their own food from the surrounding fields and use only that food there. Even the tofu that they have is made from the beans that they grow. It's a pretty nice restaurant with lots of traditional Japanese food. And next to the restaurant are their ajisai flower fields, which are pretty sweet. Those flowers are in bloom from May to June though, so you've got to go then to see them. During one season (can't remember which) though, in the absence of ajisai, they have a huge couple of fields of sunflowers. That's pretty sweet too. I'll see if I can find a picture of that later and post it here.

Anyway, here's the video:

Better quality can be viewed here.

As for the sunflower pics, I put 2 of them here.

初詣

2009-01-03T01:49:00.006-07:00

初詣 (hot sue mow day) is the first trip to a temple or shrine in the new year. This year, we went to Omiwa shrine again, since it's about a mile away from Yuko's house. It's the oldest temple in Japan or something like that. There are tons of food shops, etc, along the road to the shrine. Everybody goes to throw coins in the box in front of the temple, and to pull omikuji. This year, both me and Yuko got kichi. Thousands of people go, the traffic sucks, and it's cold, but nonetheless rockin'.

The Nabe

2009-01-02T08:43:00.006-07:00

Nabe is a Japanese food which has a TON of variations. The one we ate with all of Yuko's family on January 2nd (this is traditional, we do it every year) was a water base, then you put all kinds of stuff in it like vegetables, mushrooms, meat, crab, fish, other seafood, etc, etc, etc.... It's pretty dang good, and is awesome when it's cold outside.

New Years Day Breakfast in the Japans

2009-01-01T18:35:00.007-07:00

There is a traditional breakfast that families prepare and eat on New Years Day. I'm calling it breakfast, but we ate it at about noon. As you can see from the pics, it is a bunch of different kinds of foods separated and put neatly into those plastic box things. The big fish is a "tai". In English, I don't know what it's called, so chill. All you need to know is that it's fish. Everybody takes their chopsticks and picks at it like vultures tearing apart a carcass. It's pretty rockin'. The person who is the same sign as the current year gets to pick at it first. This year was the bull, so Yuko got to go first. In the soup, there is mochi. Without eating mochi, your new year celebration is fake. We'll continue to eat all this stuff over the next couple of days until it runs out. There are reserves in addition to what you see in the pics, so it lasts a while.

Traditional Japanese New Year, Old School Style

2008-12-31T19:24:00.011-07:00

Yuko's grandpa has been wanting to take me places recently. Last week before we picked kiwis, we went to Hasedera, a sweet looking temple with lots of traditional buildings in the middle of the mountains, with a butt-load of steps.

Yesterday, I didn't celebrate the new year in front of the tube, watching a countdown, or at some party, but I celebrated it like the Japknees would have done in medieval times. Me and gramps went WAY up in the middle of the mountains (the road was WAY small. And that's comparing to normal Japanese roads, NOT wide-load American roads) to some lonely shrine that was built in the 700s, where we wrote our names and ages on flat wood sticks (which were to be burned I guess). We then lit candles and stuck them on something at the front, then sat down, listening to some guy do some rockin' chanting, and another guy dinging the bell outside. Where I was sitting, the smoke from the burning incense was in my face almost the entire time. That's good for the black lung. The bell is to be dung 108 times, and the people there take turns dinging at the end to complete 108. Grandpa went before me and when he hit it, I thought it was way too fricking loud. Resolved to not hit it as hard as he had, I took my turn and hit it. DEAFENING... WTF? Everybody there then ate sweet bean soup with mochi in it. Then we went home. Surprisingly, in the middle of the mountains at this shrine, the guy that lives there spoke English, some girl spoke a little too, and his son (who was visiting for the holidays) spoke really good English and was living in the German part of Switzerland, but said that rather than using German, he almost always spoke with everybody in English. He said that almost everybody speaks English there... Interesting... Is this true?

There were probably less than 20 people there, so it was a very different experience than one would have from going to Miwa shrine, where thousands of people went. We luckily avoided that traffic that was going to the shrine (people go after midnight and do the "first trip of the year to a shrine") that was at a standstill, by taking backroads home.

A Japanese Funeral

2008-12-29T17:24:00.012-07:00

Yuko's grandpa's older brother passed away Friday. We found out on our way to Sakurai, so we had to turn around and go back down the first mountain to get my suit and jack like that. I also had to buy a white shirt (who knows where my old one is), a black tie and some buddhist looking beads to hold at the place. Traditionally at Japanese funerals, everybody would sit in the seiza position, which I can handle comfortably for about 20 seconds. After 5 minutes though, my legs will be completely dead, so I was wondering what would happen after about an hour at this thing. Fortunately for me, there were chairs, so instead of losing my legs, I merely had to move around from time to time due to the restlessness of my butt. Across the entire front of the room, there were many vases of flowers, in 3 rows from lowest to highest, and the sponsors' names were displayed on each vase of flowers for everyone to see. In the middle of all this was a small wooden shrine with his picture displayed. There were also HUGE baskets of assorted fruits in the mix.

There were 2 female monks that did some chanting and bell ringing, which was amplified through 2 speakers. Why? Who knows. The speaker doubled the loudness of the bell sound when the monk hit it though, and it was way too fricking loud. At one point, everybody had to go up family by family (there was a prearranged sitting order according to rank) and take turns taking some incense and putting it into the small burning place next to it. You're supposed to go to the middle, bow to each side of seats, go to the front, bow while putting your hands together praying mantis style with the beads dangling, grab some powder like incense and sprinkle it on the other smoldering incense, bow again, then turn around and bow to both sides of people again, then sit down. It was complete chaos! People slamming into each other, head butting people when they bow... awesome. It was done WAY too fast. It was a nice rest for my butt though. Then for what seemed like forever, all the sponsors came out of nowhere, did the same thing, then vanished back into oblivion. At the end, they opened the casket and gave everybody flowers to put into it, anywhere except for on his face, of course. One thing I found myself wondering is if they do anything to the body to make it look more presentable, because I noticed a nose hair sticking out. Yeah, I was looking, but that's beside the point.

After that, they closed it up, and some relatives carried it outside to a place that had what seemed to be 4 elevator doors with 2 fancy looking lights above each one. They pushed the casket into the open elevator door, one of the relatives pushed the button, a worker put his ear to the door and said with approval, "It's lit." Then we all left. The immediate family stayed at the place however, and had a light lunch or something, waiting for a little over an hour until the cremation was over, after which they would go pick out the bones to bury them. And I guess they keep the ashes and put them in a small fancy container on a shrine at their house. Good times.

The Kiwi Harvest

2008-12-28T05:09:00.007-07:00

In the backyard (if that's what you want to call the 2 to 3 meter wide area behind the house) of Yuko's house in Nara, her Grandpa has some kiwis growing. This year, the kiwis were growing in the area he made for them, but a lot of them were growing above the shed, some were in the tree/bush, and there were even some on the roof of the house. The vines are naked because these are all "after" pics.

From that tiny area, we filled 4 boxes overflowing with about a couple thousand kiwis. We're going to have to think of new ways to eat these things...

2008 JLPT and Kanken

2008-12-13T07:02:00.004-07:00

I took the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) last weekend. I took level 1, which is the highest, and already knew I was going to fail it. That sucker is tough! You need 70% to pass, and you don't officially find out until sometime in the middle of February. But thanks to the Chinese (already posting answers online...), and somehow having a record of my answers (most of them anyway....) I have made an educational guess that my score is about 35%. Hmmm... I'll be taking it again in July...

As for the Kanken (standardized kanji test), I took both levels 6 and 5 on Halloween and passed them both! 173/200 for level 6, and 179/200 for level 5. Now I'm studying for level 4 in February. It's looking like it's going to suck like no other though. This Japknees stuff is killer!

Natto Stink Nose

2008-06-11T19:56:00.004-07:00

Okay, so maybe you've read one of my old posts entitled Old Man Stink Breath. Natto Stink Nose is in the same league as that. I'm not sure exactly where it comes from, but your nose will just smell rank! Maybe it's because of all the decomposing boogers and rank snot in there. Does anybody know the exact cause? If you do, please let me know. (That goes for old man stink breath as well.) It's sooo much easier not having to think about which orifice it's safe to breathe from and in which direction you are breathing.

Holy Crap!

2008-06-03T23:05:00.009-07:00

Well, it would seem that I haven't posted on this for over 2 years now.... Not that anybody's really reading it, but that's some major procrastination. I'll try to post more regularly from now on. Especially since I don't write in my journal. It's not due to laziness, (entirely) but my free time is just spent doing other things.

JET

2006-05-06T23:44:00.000-07:00

Been a while since I last posted. Anyway, in that time, some things have happened.

1) I got into JET!! YES!!! I was fricking ecstatic and am still excited from getting that acceptance letter. I won't know where I'm going though for a couple more weeks I guess. I'll keep yer aces updated.

2) School is now officially over!! I know for sure that I'll graduate from two of my majors. The other one, I guess I'll just have to wait for a couple of weeks or so to find out my grades. Now maybe I'll have some more time to keep this updated a little bit. With the wedding and jack like that though, maybe not. Who knows.....

3) My car busted.... The stupid transmission broke and takes like 10 minutes before it will shift out of first gear, which makes driving much less of an enjoyment. I don't know what's wrong with the piece of crap, but it's just screwed. I'm going to take it out for a test drive and see what's up with it. If it doesn't miraculously just start working, then I'll take it to pick and pull or something like that and sell it for about $150.

That's all for now..... That I remember anyway.

I'm a blue belt!!!

2006-03-04T13:35:00.000-07:00

So I passed my tests for my karate class. Yes!! No longer am I a pitiful white belt, but I have moved up in the ranks to receive my blue belt. I guess I could feel better, seeming how everybody in the class passed I think. Even people that skipped about half of the form that we were tested on advanced to the rank of a blue belt. It was pretty funny watching some of the people mess up so much though. It made me feel better about myself and my performance while I was sitting there. Anyway, I'm a blue belt!! I'm going to look SOOOO much cooler!!!

$80,000 at Burger King

2006-03-03T12:49:00.000-07:00

So me and Yuko went to Burger King to eat. We thought we would go through the drive-thru. We ordered 2 whoppers (one was free, due to a coupon) and 1 medium fry. They were having troubles with the credit card, so they told us to come inside.

Well, it turns out that they charged us $80,050.21 for our meal. It was awesome!! I guess the lady did something wrong. I insisted on keeping the receipt for proof too, so you can check it out here: www.decoy.cc/miscpicsweb/burgerking80k.jpg
The picture didn't turn out too well, so if I have time, then I'll scan it.

I also insisted on getting some "compensation" for our troubles, and they gave me a card that is good for 2 extra value whopper meals. That fricking rules! See, incompetent people are good for something.

Old man stink breath

2006-03-01T00:31:00.000-07:00

Do you know that extremely awful smell that you can sometimes smell being emitted from the body of old men? Yeah, I HATE that smell. It makes me gag! Until now, I used to think that it came from their skin or it was their B.O. or something like that. Now I'm pretty convinced that it's their breath!

I went to the doctor a few months back for my throat (I always got sore throats) and they stuck a camera down my throat to look at my vocal chords. Since then, every now and again, I've been having this REVOLTING taste in my mouth, and I don't know why. And it probably has nothing to do with going to the doctor. That's just when I started to notice it. He did give me a list of things to do and not do though, like not eat for 4 hours before I go to bed, and not eat certain things, etc. The ONLY way I can describe this phenomenon is that it tastes like old men (the smell of old men, that is). It's the perfect description too.

This morning, I came upstairs, and my sister (the car) said that my breath stunk. I was a couple of feet away from her too!! Then I went off on how sick I am of having old man stink breath!!!! And I explained about it all and stuff. I'd rather be dead than have this problem. Man, old man stink breath.... take all precautions.

Tests and crap

2006-02-26T22:25:00.000-07:00

I'm fricking busy with school now (as always). I just took a Japanese test last Thursday, and I've got a test in another Japanese class tomorrow. It's going to suck like fresh bananas in feces. I've been studying for it tonight. I've decided that I have to pay a little bit more attention to school because if I don't pass my classes, then I won't graduate, which means that even if I'm accepted to the JET program, I won't be able to do it. As for that, I'm still anxiously awaiting the results and my acceptance/rejection letter.

Anyway, other stuff has happened with other stuff, but I'm tired. Maybe I'll put it in another entry sometime. Peace.

Starting to blog...

2006-02-23T21:57:00.000-07:00

So I finally decided to get my own blog going!

I'm in my last semester at the University of Utah, majoring in Japknees, Asian Studies and International Studies. I hope I pass all of my classes and am actually able to graduate. That would be a shame if I have to go another semester for just one class or some jack shmack like that.... Plus, if I don't graduate, I won't be able to do the JET program.

The JET program is teaching english in Japan. I applied for it and got past the first stage and had my interview. Yuko's friends were in town that week before, and we were rockin', so I didn't get much sleep that week. More specifically, only 2 1/2 hours of sleep the night before the interview, 4 hours of sleep 2 nights before, etc. Then I took her friends to the airport in the killer crack snow, which could've killed us at any given moment (couldn't see lanes or anything on the freeway. It was madness!!) at that time, or while driving to and from skiing the day before. Then to the interview. I keep thinking about the interview since then and how I could've answered some things better, and crap like that. I'm going CRAZY!!!!!

So anyway, whenever I think about it now, I just make myself stop thinking about it and try to completely get it out of my head. The worst part is that I have to wait from February 16th until sometime during the first week of April when they send out the acceptance, or the "Hey turd, you suck!" rejection letters. Anyway, that's what life will be like for about the next month and a half.