Category: Chillin’

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 prohibit static electricity).
Six days ago, I added more clothes to the damp load in the washer and cycled it again, but forgot to hang it out to dry.
Five days ago, I added more clothes to the damp load in the washer and cycled it again, but forgot to hang it out to dry.
Four days ago, I added more clothes to the damp load in the washer and cycled it again, but forgot to hang it out to dry.
Three days ago, I added more clothes to the damp load in the washer and cycled it again, but forgot to hang it out to dry.
Two days ago, I added more clothes to the damp load in the washer and cycled it again, but forgot to hang it out to dry.
Yesterday I ran out of boxers. Normally I would just recycle them since I’m in bachelor mode, but I haven’t had to recycle shorts for so long that the thought of it actually bothers me a little bit. I packed the entire wash into a huge trash bag and walked to the laundromat looking like a hobo. When I arrived, there was a girl sitting on the dryer, and I was of course wearing no shorts under my blue jeans…
THE END

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 NUMBER, ASSHOLE!” Click.
That was bad enough, but later that night, after I got back from work and was in a generally pissy mood since I hate coming back to a dark house (sniff!), another call for the ferry schedule came:
“When does the next ferry leave,” a naggy-voiced dumb bitch wheezed into the phone.
Half in spite of the earier caller, and because I have the new ferry schedule memorized, and ALSO because I HATE naggy voices AND dumb bitches, I decided to play along: “It leaves at 10:40 PM.”
“OMG there’s no time, I totally won’t make it, right?”, she says.
“Can you hurry?”, I ask (knowing full well I am going to hell for this).
“Could you ask them to wait a couple minutes for me?”, she pleads.
“Hmmm… Not really, but you might make it if you run… RUN! RUN!” Click.
^*As a sidenote, I came that close to walking down to the pier to see if she made it or not.

My brother Adam wrote about the great white shark captured in a fisherman’s net and put on display at our favorite NoCal haunt, the Monterey Bay Aquarium. We have been going to the aquarium since its foundation, and my parents are charter members. My dad forwarded a message the aquarium sent out yesterday:

Dear Dr. and Mrs. Yoshida,
After careful consideration and planning, we removed the white shark from the Outer Bay exhibit early this morning and released her in the open waters just outside Monterey Bay at 5:45 a.m.
Two factors led to this decision. First, the shark was rapidly approaching a maximum size and weight at which she could be safely removed, transported and released with full confidence that she would thrive. Second, aquarists observed a marked change in her behavior over the past week of what they considered to be active hunting of other exhibit animals and they became substantially more concerned about the well-being of the other fishes.
She was not released because of any injury or health problem. At the time of her release, she was 6′-4″ long and weighed 162 pounds. That means she grew more than a foot in length and gained 100 pounds in her six months on exhibit. She was healthy and strong when she swam away from the boat. We expect her to quickly adapt to hunting and feeding on natural prey. An electronic tag was attached to allow us to track her movements.
The decision to release her into the outer Monterey Bay is based on suitable water temperature and turbidity conditions. It is supported by research from tagging and tracking data about the movements of other young white sharks indicating that they inhabit our offshore waters.
We’re proud of the fact we were able to keep this shark for more than six months and then release her safely back to the wild. You should be proud too as a member of the first aquarium ever to accomplish this. During the time she was here, we developed a better understanding of how best to collect, take care of and ultimately release a juvenile white shark.
Thank you for supporting our efforts to learn more about white sharks and to heighten public awareness about the threats facing shark populations worldwide.
For more information, please visit www.montereybayaquarium.org
Sincerely,
The Monterey Bay Aquarium Membership Department
Our mission is to inspire conservation of the oceans.

It’s little things like this that make the MBA the best aquarium in the world, but there are others as well. Off the top of my head:
– Delicious clam chowder served in the cafeteria (do I have my priorities straight or what?)
– Superbly photogenic jellyfish display (I took several nice shots against the blue background a couple years ago and have since found several similar ones taken by other people)
– Cutest otters in the world
– In general, extremely clean and well-organized organized exhibit space
If you ever have the chance to visit, I highly recommend it.

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 finish eating his bowl of soup and listening to Right On, a Last Poets vinyl. It is the angry sound of the street, in a world as far away from this little Japanese house as can be – but the pop and crackle of the record is familiar and soothing, and every single song on this album has been sampled for use in rap songs over the years. I sit here and mentally name the usages of the sampled sections as the record plays. Public Enemy, Jungle Brothers, Tribe Called Quest. To me, this is the sound of one hand clapping.
After the long, rainy drive out from Awaji, I am in danger of becoming immobile, because I am tired, and have found a rare moment of peace. Ah, but now they are calling for me to go. Well… If I must. Just drag me off to the slopes already.
I have known worse moments than this, and tonight I am smiling.

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 their actual current selves?
Reading the crap I just wrote above, I now realize I am mumbling to myself online.
Cool.

My dad just sent me this clip:
PianoBrothers.wmv