Lets hope not

Cindy Sheenan has decded that the standard rules of being mortal no longer apply to her;

(Emphasis mine)

Cindy said that she is determined t not only wants to see George Bush impeached but she wants to see him tried for Crimes Against Humanity. She states is so determined to see this done she says she will live for 1000 years. She went further by saying that even if she were involved in a fiery plane crash she would walk out alive just to see this done.

Kristinn yelled out to her as she was leaving the stage that the Iraqi’s have a memorial to the victims of terrorism saying that Freedom Isn’t Free. Cindy got back on the stage to say of course freedom is free, if it wasn’t it would be called expensivedom.

How sad, her son bravely died for a cause that she has dedicated her life to undermining. At least i'll be able to rest in peace knowing that she'll be waiting 1000 years for charges that, even if they do find there way into court, will be thrown out as complete bullshit.

Also, who gave her the comic wit of Ben Stiller? Expensivedom? Hot damn, someone give her a pullitzer.

Fun times.

-Mindspy

Delay inbetween posting

Yeah, kinda forgot this blog existed briefly.

I'll be insanely busy this week, I have three midterms, and I "forgot" to study any of the material for them. So I had about 180 pages for a history midterm in 9 hours (I started reading an 1:45, finished at 12). Next up is 158 pages for Mythology and Folklore by Thursday, and 360 for PolySci by friday.

Fun times, shouldn't be too hard.

On a non-sequitur, the american publishers of Naruto are going to go batshit when they get to the point that one of everyone's favorite characters started smoking! God forbid! They already had to edit the manji (卍, a Bhuddist symbol, as opposed to the german [use of the] Swastika, which was mirrored and at a 45 degree angle), but the smoking thing is actually plot related, and they cant just edit this to somthing else. Heh, god forbid this gets in the way of killing people.

What have I been up to?

Well, since I came back from Japan in June, I haven't really posted anything that I've done. So, lets get a brief summary of the better part of a year going in here.

When I got back, I tended to lounge around, there wasn't much to do for a while other than draw and play games, so it got fairly boring. I did manage to get a bunch of reading in though, so that was worthwhile.

In the mid-summer I went to my Mothers 50th birthday party, which (I say with all due affection) she dragged us up to eastern Canada for. It was actually a lot of fun, as I got to see one of my best friends Stevie there (He lives in Ireland, so I don't get to see him much). We got to hang out, and we went shooting, which was both a blast (No pun intended) and a dream come true for Stevie, whose been a gun nut for as long as I've known him (14 years) but because of Ireland's anal-retentive gun laws (Not even the Garda are armed) had never got to shoot anything more than a shotgun. So I think getting a chance to shoot everything from a 9mm to a custom built sniper rifle was the highlight of his trip.

Which reminds me, I need to get back down to Wades.

After that, I returned home for a few weeks, which I spent secluded playing Eve Online.
Around this time my Dad had open heart surgery, which was a bit nerve-wracking for all of us (especially him), but his recovery was much faster than it was expected to be, and by this point he's pretty much back to his grumpy old self.

Before I went anywhere else, the important matter of PAX had to be taken care of, which was a complete and total blast, and I managed to go the second day with my friend Aaron, which, considering all of the penny-arcade fans who went, made the entire thing like a big 14,000 person in-joke.

Aaron and I went with my mom to Europe for a few weeks (My dad was originally going to come, but he couldn't since he was still recovering), which was a lot of fun. We went to Spain first, spending some time at the Alhambra and visiting the old archeological sights, which are quite literally everywhere. Next stop was Ireland, where we proved to Aaron that the Irish drinking culture seen on TV is actually understated. finally we made a brief stop in the UK and saw the Producers on stage, which was probably one of the more funny plays I've ever seen.

Finally, I came back, had to give a million vials of blood for medical tests, and went to university the next day. WWU is pretty nice, it fairly laid back and studious, which is a pleasant break from last years insanity. I'm studying history now, so that should be a little easier than last years physics (Which I love, I just suck at math, which doesn't really mesh with it).

And possibly most odd of all, I have taken up a sport. Or a pre-sport as the case may be. I have started Ice skating, with the hopes that some day I may follow in my fathers footsteps and play ice hockey (albeit badly, and a little taller).

Oh yes, and I turned 18.

Back

All right, I will work on maintaining this blog again, and I plan on seeing if I can consolodate the Japan posts into a seperate blog, though I might just have to rename this one.

Edit: Nope, it appears I can't. Oh well, feel free to read my embittered rants reguarding old irish sex fiends below if thats the kind of thing that strikes your fancy.

OSX calls me

Hello, my name is MJIOLNIR, I am a custom built computer owned by an avid gamer and graphic designer. When I was finally assembled, the first thing my owner did was install a fresh copy of Windows XP and strip it of everything he didn’t want on there, and add an alternate .dll file to allow him to customize the look and feel of Windows.

Once this was done, he had to go mess with my settings to let Windows take full advantage of the massive power I wield. Finally, it was like a load had been lifted from me. My RAM and Processor, as well as my Hard Disks were cleared up so that my operating system was barely touching them, allowing the expensive parts inside me to be used how they were intended to be used.

Even having been cleared up like this, I was still losing a lot of my ram to windows, because of many superfluous processes I couldn’t turn off. So many times, when my owner was busy playing games or working on interfaces, I would be forced to come up and annoy him informing updates had been installed, and that he would need to restart me. Every now and then, he would be in the middle of typing something, and accidentally accept, closing whatever he was working on too fast for him to save.

Oh the beatings I get for that! I still live in fear of every update to my operating system.

Then one day my owner discovered some information on the newest version of my operating system. If he beat me for a minor inconvenience, I fear for my circuits when I think of how mad and violent he will become when I finish installing that… Thing on me! I fear he will use a baseball bat, or thermite, or worst of all, get rid of me completely and switch to a Macintosh!

I really don’t want to die, but I also don’t want to have a visual style that looks like OS X got crammed in a wood chipper and pissed on by Satan, who then coated me in a thick layer of RAM consuming tacky. I’ve heard that this new Vista thing takes 15Gb of hard disk space. This will make my owner very angry, because he yells at me all the time saying “I didn’t put $5000 worth of parts in you just so your gosh-darn OS can eat it all up!” I had to censor that.

I’m also terrified of the built in security features. My owner says that when he pays for something, he wants full control over it, and he hurts me real bad if I don’t give him what he wants. With my RAM, processor, hard disk, and graphics card being rapidly consumed by my OS, my days will surely be numbered.

The worst part of all this is the lack of other alternatives, which means my owner has already agreed to this abomination so he can play his games. This means many long nights of being kicked, yelled at, and if my current OS is any indication, cold-booted.

I have to go now, if my owner finds out I’m using system resources behind his back, I’ll be in a world of pain!

-MJIOLNIR

*Expletive Deleted*

As seen on the list below, we have an inconsiderate idiot in our midst. This idiot, despite being warned by the landlord TWICE to not download large TV-shows/movies, just downloaded X-Men 3 today. Somthing tells me he won't be coming back to his internet connection any time soon.

BECAUSE I couldnt get on the internet earlier today, I was bored out of my skull. I decided to go to Shibuya around 5:30, and hung out there until the last train at 12:15. Turns out the last train was only going halfway to my stop. So I took a taxi.

One $90 taxi ride later, im back home. So hello!

Shit list #3

This guy would have held number 2, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt multiple times.

#3
Name: Leo
Location: Japan
Age: 19
Offence: Told me to go f**k myself when asked nicely to not use every bit of bandwidth in the appartments. Ignored landlord regarding not stealing every bit of bandwidth in the appartments. Will not stop insulting everything anyone else likes, even if he has never seen/hear of it.
Verdict: Grade-S asshole, Mental Capacity of 5 year old.

Maturity, or a lack thereof

I'm starting on a rant, then Ill get to the parts people want to hear.

You know you need to get away from someone when the desire to examine the internal structure of their eyes with a pencil starts sounding like a really good idea, despite the jail time.

I got to class just before it started, and there were only a few open seats. There are no real assigned seats, people just generally have regions of the room they sit in (Nerds in back, Koreans left, Dutch/German right, etc.). So by the time I got to class, someone was sitting in the seat I usually sit in.

Whoop-dee-doo. I couldn't really care less, so I pulled up a seat next to one of my friends. This British guy, let's call him Chris (Because his name is Chris?), usually sits there but he was late. So, class goes on for almost the entire day. Eventually Chris shows up, and takes the seat between my friend and I.

Now, normally I wouldn't care, but the seat I was in was crammed between the wall and a support pylon for the building. This means I have about one square inch to store my bag and papers (which I had been keeping on the middle chair). So now I have no room, and on top of that, when the Sensei calls on one of us, I can't get out.

What did I do? I asked very politely if he could take one of the other chairs in the room, because the support pylon prevented me from going anywhere (or breathing). I got an equally polite "Well that's not my problem, is it?" from him. I explained the situation again, pointed out other seats, and also pointed to the small table-chair things behind him. "But I always sit here, and you're in my f**king seat."

I point out that, the classroom had no assigned seats, and that someone was sitting where I usually did, so it didn't really matter. My friend gives up, moves to an empty seat to stop us from arguing. Immediately following this is half of a dictionary's worth of new and creative insults. I asked him to stop, and added that there was no need to be rude.

"Look, it's not my f**king problem, you stole my f**king seat, you little t***t."

...

Okay, so let's go over this again. He crammed me in, responded amazingly rudely to any kind request, claims I stole his seat, despite the fact that the class was almost over when he got here. Right.

Not since second grade have I seen someone be such an ass over something so petty. Hence, I present Member #2 of Mindspy's shit list.

#2
Name: Chris
Location: Japan
Age: Twenty-something, possibly 19
Offence: Started flinging insults to the point of distraction over who's chair I was sitting in. Mid class.
Verdict: Grade-B asshole, Mental Capacity of 10 year old.

And looking back at the other member in this format:

#1
Name: Richard
Location: Japan
Age: 60-something, possibly near-immortal hellspawn
Offence: Ignoring every coutesy rule, demanding respect and giving none, getting offensive when not provoked.
Verdict: Grade-A asshole, STD's from years of sleeping with hookers have probably attacked his brain.

Now for the good bits (Unless you like anger and aggression, in which case, scroll up and start again.)

My Mother and Aunt visited me in Japan last week, signaling that my time here is drawing to a close (Sort of like the apocalyptic Horsemen of Fiscal responsibility and Talking). It was fine, though having someone moving slower than Mach-5 when you've been living in Japan can piss you off very quickly. Not to mention having a leash on again kinda is a killjoy. In the end, I really enjoyed their company, and managed not to kill them. So that was a good few days.

Nothing really interesting happened until yesterday, where we had the worst thunderstorm I have ever seen. I sleep with my window open, because of an awning-like outcrop on the roof, it never rains into my room. With the wind as it was during the thunderstorm though, that changed. In my infinite wisdom, I didn't notice (Spot is WIS based, right?). This meant I had a horribly soaked bed, alarm/DS, and headphones. My bed wasn't going to dry anytime soon, and I had no intentions of frying my DS. So, at around 11:30, I headed to Shibuya.

What was in Shibuya you might not ask? Capsule Hotels! The cliche tiny little hole in the wall rooms that drunk or late businessmen rent overnight when they miss the last train. I got there at around 1 AM, checked in, and went up to the little capsule I would get to call home for a night. Any stories of these thing you have heard are not exaggerated. They are TINY.


They aren't uncomfortable, actually. In there was a little TV and an alarm that wasn't going to short circuit when I turned it on. So I set up, lay down, and woke up in time for class. It was actually quite nice, I made it to school in a half hour instead of an hour and a half, and I got a great nights sleep. They are at least kind enough to build little fans into the capsules, so it doesn't' get too hot.

If you have to stay in a capsule hotel, or just want to try one sometime, you should defiantly check out Capule-Land in Shibuya. For ￥3700 a night, its worth it.

For the nerds who read this, I've got the worlds greatest PbP build; Half-Celestial Cleric/Shadowdancer Rat. Tiny sized, but still 10dF**KTON sneak attack damage.

Ja' ne!
-Mindspy

Stranded

Well, I said that Id call off the updates since nobody was responding, but time now dictates that I have absolutely nothing better to do.

Ill start with a rough story of what the hell is going on right now. Fist off, the train I take is ths Chuo-Rinkan to Jinbo-chou, where the school is. On the way home, I take the Kuki. These are the same train, just different names based on the direction.

So my mother and aunt came to visit me, so I went to see them in Shinjuku. I planned to stay the night, until I saw that my bed was a blanket on the floor. Ive slept in worse, but I have a nice cozy appartment. So I grab by bag and head to the train station. Great, get on a train around 11 with plenty of time. Nose in iPod, and away I go.

About a half hour later, I look up to check where I am. Hmm, im pretty sure thats not on the rout. I stand up and check the map.

IM IN FUCKING YOKOHAMA

Well SHIT, I got on the Chuo-Rinkan! I hop off, and catch a local back to shibuya. Turns out I missed the last express (only way to get to where I live). So I exit the train station onto the steets of 12:30 AM tokyo, where I know of an internet and manga Cafe open 24/7.

So here I am until 6 AM.

Wow

I said i'd post after killing those aliens. Still havnt done that 4 days later, so I thought I'd post anyway. Ill try and make this a bit long.

Okay, well, not much happened on golden week, I went to a meuseum in Odaiba, well, I thought I did. Turns out this museum I was at wast the museum, it was a free exibit by Toyota, so I need to head back to Odaiba on the weekend. :)

I mainly got on the train, went to Shibuya/Shinjuku and wandered for a few hours, then made my way back/to the nearest train station. Was a lot of fun, actually. Sadly, there wont be anymore what the hell did I eat things, because the food here is pretty much the same when on a budget of less that $50 a meal.

In my neverending quest to aquire all things Death Note, I decided to save my money and buy the massive and heavy (Has a solid steel Shinigami skull inside) Death Box. Having made this choice, I then visited Akihabara, losing any money I had intended to save. Damnit. School is going well, I find i'm able to read quite fast and carry on simple conversations, though I would like to work on my Kanji more. Teachers and everything is going well, and im keeping amused by drawing and thinking (I love the sound of my own brain).

Speaking of sound, my iPod's poor LithIon battery decided it hates me, and is only lasting for a few hours at a time. With it only lasting one way on the train, life got dull standing there, so I went and got another iPod at my favorite little (massive) electronics shop, Sakuraya. Having bought a 60GB iPod video, a G-Shock, an Electronic Dictionary, and a PS2, I had ammased a large quantity of reward points on my Sakuraya card (around 10000, with 1 point being worth 1 yen) So I had a hundred dollars, and I couldnt really find a game I wanted. So what did I do? Second Wacom! So now I have a shiney white tablet to travel with. Good stuffs.

I'll be starting up a Podcast soon, because lord knows I bitch a lot and occasionally people enjoy listening to it, so i'll link to the RSS once ive made/hosted it. I have presents for pretty much everyone who exists, so if I forgot you, it means you aren't real!

I have a new manga addiction now, Gantz. If you can get over the fact that its a porny-bloodfest (aimed at 16+ year olds...) its a damn fine story. Speaking of artists, it has become apparent that I am Yoshitoshi ABe's bitch. I have spent more on pariphinalia related to his work than anything else. Way to go, ABe.

Well, not much else to say besides;


That is a halftone of my foot. I halftoned it to get rid of detail, as what you cant see in this is much, much, more disturbing. I have a major limp because of this, so I look completely idiotic walking around tokyo in the sun using my umbrella as a cane. Whoop-de-doo.

As for my weekend? I plan on doing somthing so unbelevibly touristy, and yet no tourists no of it. There is a tunnel near hear which the common beliefe is, is patrolled by a Shinigami (God of death). Heh, Ichigo, Ryuuk, or Grimm? :D

I do have somthing for you though, to both make up for my abscence and to inform the uneducated masses. I introduce, Mindspy's guide to visiting Japan! (If you cant see the Kanji, deal with it.)

Part One: Money

Like all countries in the world, Japan is a wonderful and occasionally magical (Only around Disneyland, they’re trying to fix that problem) place. With vast quantities of anything you can think of (including those thoughts you’re trying to put at the back of your mind) and food that can tickle the tastebuds and churn the stomach.

Unlike most places, where trying to blend in makes life easier, here it helps to stand out when you’re a tourist (Because face it, you’re never going to blend in). Here, being a tourist brings with it added hospitality and politeness, as well as a small amount of leeway concerning the hard-to-learn ettiquite (males excluded) of the land. And while most tourist hot-spots in Japan will crank up prices, the rest of the country did that long ago.

Many things will seem odd and alien, so lets cover a few basics, shall we?

The local currency here is the Yen, and well it is often seen represented by a ￥ sign overseas, it usually ends up as 円over here.

Currency comes in various bills and coins. Though bills are usually easy to recognize on sight, I will cover some of the denominations the coins come in.

500: This coin is fairly obvious, it is a fair bit larger then the other coins, and has a bigass 500 on it. It might be able to buy you a French fry.

100: Never run out of these. These are your lifeblood in japan. If you run out of anything else, you are still okay as long as you have a trusty 100 yen coin in your pocket.

50: Simmilar to the 100 coin, but with a hole in it. While not absolutely nessicary, they can make purchaseing train tickets or vended goods much, much easier.

10: Simmilar to the 50 in its uses, this coin is easily identified by a color scheme that sugests it was a stagnent sewer for the last 20 years. This is the smallest coin any automated device will accept. No matter what, you WILL end up with enough of these to weigh down an elephant.

5: This coin is far less frequently used, and you will only ever get them as change from stores and such. Almost no automated machine will accept these, so their use is severly limited.

1: The lonely one yen coin exists for some unknown and unfulfilled purpose. This coin is absolutely worthless. These coins exist to make reaching any useful coin a tedious job. You will end up with millions of these little aluminum buggers, yet no matter how many you amass, it will never actually be worth anything. Give these to charities. Preferably ones you don’t like.