T just brought my bro, Adam, out from Nara to help him move his stuff to Juso, a part of Osaka famous for negi-yaki and whores. I guess the obvious question is, which one will leave a more bitter taste in his mouth? Good luck, dude.

Today as I was cleaning my glasses, I thought, “wouldn’t it suck if these broke,” immediately after which I accidentally snapped them in half. Bummer. To take a cue from Visa, let me sum up the experience by value: A new set of Mononofu titanium frames: 25,000 yen A pair of ultrathin lenses: 18,000 yen The KA-CHING! look on the optometrist’s face when I asked for a rush job just before closing time: PRICELESS On a more positive note, I got a haircut yesterday and therefore can drastically cut down on the amount of shampoo I use.

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?).

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…

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…

My brother Adam

It seems the concoctions my brother and I have dreamed up over the years have finally gone mainstream: Move over, mimosa! I would add as an addendum to this article that if you don’t have two to six DAYS to prepare your artful infusions, a gallon jug of shochu mixed with a couple cans of fruit cocktail and chilled with frozen vodka shots can sometimes do the trick as well.

I have a long weekend, so I’m going boarding with my bro and T up near Lake Biwako. We leave tonight and will sleep in the parking lot so we can get in a full day. Tomorrow night, Bill is closing his bar in Nara, so we’ll head there for some apres ski debauchery. Oh, my little cousin Nana broke her brand new Powerbook, so I gotta take a look at that before getting too sloshed, I suppose. On Sunday, we’ll go visit Nam’s older sister, who flew over from Bangkok this week for a business trip. Other than that, right now we’re at T’s house waiting for him to…

How can it be so easy to spot shortcomings in other people while being completely blind to one’s own? For instance, I remember how badly other people’s hypocrisy used to bug me, but I became so used to it, it never fazes me much anymore – to the point where I can justify my own if its pointed out, say, during an argument. I think people build up a resistance to a lot of the bullshit they are confronted with, but only at the expense of their own values. Is this why you sometimes meet old friends only to find that you like the memory of them much better than…

My dad just sent me this clip: PianoBrothers.wmv