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Countdown
Exactly two weeks to go until I put my life in the hands of JAL and escape on a ten day adventure to Southeast Asia – I can hardly wait! My pal, T, is flying to Bangkok on the 25th, and I’m out on the 27th. We’ll meet up with Nam the next day and we have no plans other than hitting up the Chattuchak street market the first weekend, them joining up with T’s ex, Natty, for a nice, dusty drive to the border of either Laos or Cambodia… I’m leaning toward Cambodia at this point; I want to much around the ruins before the next wave of kidnappings…
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The Office
Having heard great things about original UK version of The Office, and not-so-great things about its American remake, I promptly illegally downloaded purchased Seasons 1 & 2 of the UK DVD-rips DVDs and (ahem!) legally procured all available versions of the American show (up to episode 3) to find out for myself. The verdict: I can understand how easy it is to jump on the naysaying bandwagon about remakes (my personal nightmare as realized by Hollywood: La Femme Nikita), but I strongly suspect a lot of the people talking shit haven’t even seen the UK version. I laughed as much during the American episodes as I did the UK ones,…
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Napoleon Dynamite
Mika sent us the DVD from the states (thx, sis, it was awesome!), and now I’m driving my neighbors nuts with the Napoleon Dynamite Soundboard.
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In the Inbox
From the girlfriend (who never bothered to get her driver’s license until now): “How are you doing? It is very hot today! I am happy to be driving everywhere, I can turn left and right and turn around! Unbelievable! (Don’t say that I can’t drive anymore! Bitch! I can do if I want to do! hahaha!)” Is it obvious why I love this woman (and are these awesome English teaching credentials or what?).
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Spin Cycle
Ten days ago, my girlfriend went back to Thailand to gather material for her doctorate. Nine days ago, I woke up with a hangover the size of Uluru and felt nauseous as well as lonely. Eight days ago, I washed a huge pile of dishes and decided from then on to use the same frying pan, plate, and set of chopsticks until my girlfriend gets back in mid-May (actually, I’m kind of lying because the plate has hardly been used). Seven days ago, I did a load of laundry but forgot to hang it out to dry (there are no dryers in Japan as the Shinto and Buddhist faiths explicitly…
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Ambulance ride update
Ambulance rides in Japan have always been free, but I just heard from a paramedic that hospitals will start charging 40,000 yen per ride in the near future. Attention all hypochondriacs: Get your free rides while the getting’s still good!
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Hitori de Hanami
Yesterday was my company hanami. I didn’t feel much like drinking from noon, so I went at around four-fifteen. It’s only about fifteen minutes up to the top of Magata-yama, where it was being held, so I bought a tall can of Asahi at the bottom of the hill and hiked up. I looked for my party for half an hour and they weren’t there, so I sat under a secluded grove of sakura, sipped my beer, and went back home. The people at work obviously have no idea what a real hanami is.
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Jackpotting Japanese Vending Machines
High school dropouts, strung-out junkies, and fucked gaijin, behold: This is all you need to jackpot vending machines in Japan. I’ve seen evidence of it poured down coin slots of every make and model of jihanki, but passersby usually mistake it as simple vandalism rather than evidence of (usually attempted but not successful) theft. Hearsay in my college dorm was that older machines are more likely to produce coins (via return slot) than newer ones, and lengthy debates were held on the question of whether other brands of dishsoap would work as well as MamaLemon, pictured above. Basically, the entire jackpotting phenomenon* exists mainly because: A. Japanese college students are…
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Read this
One of the most haunting pieces of writing I have ever seen: Creek Running North Read the comments, too. (via Carpundit)
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Wrong Number
Through some incredibly crappy piece of cosmic fate, my home phone number is a single digit off from the number of the office running a ferry service down at Sumoto Port. This makes for some interesting phone calls sometimes, usually people who ask when the next boat is leaving, etc. Usually I’m pretty cool about it, but recently, I’ve been a big asshole about wrong numbers because my girl is back in Thailand and when the phone rings, I assume it’s her. Yesterday the phone rang at 4:30 AM and I was like, “mmmgggrrrrcoughcoughgegege – whello?” “What time does the next ferry leave?” Oh, for the love of christ! “WRONG…
