Probably the last update

I really dont care about this blog, since apparently nobody has the decency to leave a comment. I thought i'd give some of you a brief update, just so you know whats going on and why i'm not updateing.

Not much has happened at all, i'm just learning japanese at a steady pace and adapting to living on my own in a very different country (one which I might add, I would rather be living in). Its pretty nice here, despite the on-and-off endtimes wheather. I've been trying to get back to drawing some, and it's going okay, though i'm happier working in 3D when it comes down to it. Id like to try some of the technique of the Gantz artist, which is hand drawing over a basic pre-existing 3D frame.

Things have been a little rough emotionally, ever since I found out what caused the delay on the Hanzomon that day. It was a suicider. Some of you know how that kind of thing affects me, so i've been a little spaced ever since I found that out. I'ts hard dealing with the knowledge that the vehicle you were in caused someone to die.

On a lighter note, it turns out I have a free 7000 yen at the Sakuraya electronics shop. Any suggestions? If I cant think of anything by the end, i'll probably just buy a second tablet so I can have one while traveling.

Unless I get more than the usual two or three comments, this blog will be merged with MindspyR and will exist solely for the uncensored rants of whatever I feel like typing about.

All the people of the earth, want to rock'n'roll!

Okay, sorry for the late update, but yesterday I was very, very dead.

The concert was amazing. For those of you who didn't know, that was my first concert outside of a local band that I walked out on after 2 minutes. I've heard that many, if not most bands just aren't as good live; not so with the pillows, they were much, much better.

They were not only a good band, but they did two encores, and we're downright hilarious at times (Random girl at the back [in English]: "I LOVE YOU!" Secondary guitarist [in English] "me too.")
It probably would have been far more funny if I spoke Japanese better, because they would stop and talk every now and then, and the entire crowd would laugh their ass off. I only managed to catch a few words each time, but much better than I used to be able to.

This was part of the "My Foot Tour" promoting their new CD "My Foot", but they were kind enough to break up those songs with some of their most classic ones (Sadly no Ride On Shooting Star, I Think I Can, or Little Busters) such as Stalker goes to Babylon and Come Down, as well as one unreleased track, and a few of them from CD's I haven't heard yet.

For anyone who likes the pillows, I highly recommend My Foot as it is one of, if not their best CD ever. Especially the song Rock and Roll Sinners (Which the title of this entry is from, no points for this one). The ticket to the concert summarized them the best; "Traditional Rock" with kind of a mix of 90's rock and the beatles style and era. Really it was one of the best nights of my life, despite a massive amount of pain from jumping up and down fist in the air for the duration of the concert.

Funny, after being an underground hit for nearly two decades, the western crowd is actually bringing them to the mainstream (Penalty Life is out in the US, expect to see My Foot soon, I'd guess). Also, the pillows is intentionally un-capitalized.

On a final note, I shall use this space to remind myself never to sleep before 10PM again, because I woke up at 4AM. Damn.


Ja' ne! Dood!
-Mindspy

Small update

I'm lifting the blog moderation in hopes that the sicko who caused this will shrivel up and die.

If you are mature enough, and would like to read something interesting, check out today's MindspyR post. Though I warn you, its a doozy.

If you are my parents, do no such thing. Go away and think of fluffy bunnies or some crap.

I am the king of no pants!

Just to inform people, the title of this post is a quote. I thought id diversify so others could stand a chance. Amazingly, that quote is on today's topic.

I missed school today. Wait, wrong phrasing, I was unable to attend school today is more accurate. You see, I have two weeks worth of laundry, most of which is lights. Now i'd done a lights load, so those were mostly clean. However, during my darks load last night, I ran out of money. I scoured the building, but nobody was willing to lend me a 100 yen coin (despite the fact that I cold pay them there and then). As such, my laundry was stuuck in some unholy limbo.

This wouldnt be so bad, had not EVERY PAIR OF PANTS I brought with me was in there. So, I got up at 6:30 in an attempt to find someone leaving the building who could spare a 100 yen coin. No luck. I had to sit here as everyone else went to school, because I had no pants of any kind, even slacks.

The worst part is, we have a convenience store about 50 feet away. Had I a pair of pants, I could have got a small munchie and gotten the change from the bill.

The bright side is that other than this, I've only technically missed one day, and apparently the topic of the day was weekdays, which I know. Another bright side is that all the teachers have a sense of humor, so they should get a kick out of this!

Remember that comments are now moderated, so it will take a while for them to show up.

Ja' ne!
-Mindspy

Problems

Due to problems with possibly the most vile spammer I have ever seen, I will be enabling verification options. Your reply to my blog will now have to go through me before it is viewable by anyone else.

If you are the vile and desturbed spammer who commented, then know that you have been reported to the proper authorities, including both Blogger.com and the FBI.

This is going into effect on both blogs.

A fish out of water dies, huh.

Just so people know, I now have a second un-censored blog. Please don't visit MindspyR if you have sensitive eyes, are under some age-thing, or are my parents. Enjoy.

Takebacks

I really regret the dandylion post. Now everyone is treating it as some sort of inside joke. It was only funny once people.

That will be all.

To the right, I present a whaste of flesh and internal organs.

Moving on,

A photo of Shibuya is in order I think, to give people a sense of how busy tokyo is in the off hours. Well its the end of the second week, which is sad, time is going too fast here! I swear, I should just "miss the plane"... yeah...

Anyway, some interesting stuff happened over the last 2/3 days. Well, except for the day I set my clock instead of my alarm. Nothing interesting happened that day. As I said, I have got concert tickets to see The pillows, which im exstatic about. Quite a few people reading this should be fammiliar with who they are. The concert is on the 19th in Shibuya, and I plan on being the first person in (I'll get in line at around 1 for an opening of 6). I got some music the other day in shibuya, then had to go beck yesterday to get The pillows new CD so I would know what songs they're playing. I'm listening to it now, it's one of their best I'd say. So that should be alot of fun.

Reality has decided I need to start using hair gel, as my horrible omni-cowlick really kicks up here, so I need to go get some of that. Spending has been on budget so far, despite the fact that Shibuya is a vapid black-hole in my wallet, thanks to The Pillows and L'Arc~en~ciel, as well as my electronic dictionary. I'm considering looking to see if any other local bands I like are touring right now, since it cost me around $6 more for concert tickets then a CD. Hmmm... need to look at L'Arc~en~Ciel.

While walking in Shibuya yesterday, we stumbled across a crowd of three or four people gathered around an unconcious man on the side of the street, he was alive, just completely out cold. We tried calling the 911 number here, but they already knew. We stayed long enough for some police officers to arrive, then continued moving on. We heard the ambulance about 2 minutes later, quite a fast response for a city this packed.

School is going well, it turns out that I'm not as far behind as I though, because sick days don't count against the total percentage you have to attend (90%). This means I can still "miss" the day that Death Note starts showing. :)

And on a final (for the Japan section) note:

What the F*** did I just eat?
This weird chocolate pastry thing that looked like a cross between a Marshmellow, a Turd
, and a chocolate. It was hard to decide wheather I shoud feel sick or salivate. Sadly, the effort of not making a mess while eating it ruined some of the fun. It also tasted rather bland. :(

Id like to make a small statement of a universal truth. What goes around comes around. This is just perfect. I'd like to see how the ACLU handles this one.

BCC

Someone pass this to Carlson, assuming he hasn't already got it.

BCC fucks up big-time.


Ive got the shit, and they have the fan. Let the games begin!

Post tommorow, its like, 3 AM. Quote below was Ranma 1/2, goes to Prinny squad.

"I don't have to eat it to know it's toxic."

Allright, back to the old format. Yesterday was upsetting, to say the least. I find it really upsetting that people can get away with being such fruitbats, the upside of all this of course, was that I learned one valuable lesson in japanese diplomacy;

• "He Started It" Is a valid excuse, even if your retaliation was just as bad as the starting offense.

Thats right, my favorite excuse that, to the rest of the world, "Isn't the point" (Bullcrap), actually works. I win.

I dad let me get a really nice mechanical keyboard (I only use mechanicals) that has an apparently common problem of making a high-pitched ringing noise thanks to the conatined metal parts. So this means I get to go back to the store, and try and return somthing which, thanks to hearing loss over time, the clerks probably wont even notice. I'll return it and look around for one at a different store. If they'll only let me exchange, I'll have to be more careful in noisy stores, and demand to see a non-sample model first.

So i'm doing my first laundry-run, which is lights, so despite plans, I wont be able to get to sleep hyper early. Oh well, washing should be done by the end of this blog post, followed by an hour and a half of drying, so I should be in bed at 11:30, giving me a full 7 hours of sleep before I (actually) get up. Yeah, i'm going to try and catch the earlier train, which is like, 7:2x, because all signs point to it being less crowded. And in tokyo, that means that I get to breath.

And big news for me; for the first time in my life I am going to see a concert! I've always wanted to hold out my first concert for a band I really like, as opposed to just going with someone because i'm bored. So I have tickets to see The Pillows! The world is a happy place, its 6 days away, and i'll probably be the only forigener there, or at least one of them. I'll be sure to get photos if I can, but if I can't, oh well.

My studying is going really well, I can read quite fast (though my comprehension is only slightly better) and despite missing several classes, i'm still ahead of the game, which is nice. I'm working on translating volumes of Death Note that I haven't read yet, so slowly but surely I will be drawn into the world of... tokyo last year... again.

For those who care, i'm amazingly on budget. Iv'e actually got extra then im ment to, and I have enough to pick up the train pass tommorow. Or not tommorow, because I dont want to do that on a friday. *shudder*

Finally, a couple of shoutouts.

First one is to DekeNicki, who despite everything she's going throuh, is keeping upbeat while she waits for those of us who have yet to send the money. I think she can forgive me on the grounds that I was looking for something from Death Note for her.

Second is to Mindy, congradulations on the school in england, and I hope I can convince you to come to UWW in fall 07. Also, on her courage for dealing with the last name Moore while being a raging conservitive.

Third to my aunt Janis, who is finally getting to come to japan this summer to visit me. All it took was like, 10 weeks of "Why dont you bring aunt Janis" for my parents to think "Why don't I bring Janis?" Way to go!

And to my cousin, for getting into every university she applied for. Here's to the next four years, Georgie!

-Mindspy

Edit: Nothing wierd was consumed in the last few days, at least nothing I havn't already posted about.

Oh, on a brief note on yesterday, some asshat stole my umbrella. (Probably not intentionally, as some of them look the exact same and none are marked. But damnit, I like MY stuff.)

Dandylion

This is a slightly off topic post, bit it annoyed me. I have sensored everything with a cute yellow DANDYLION, so if you want to, use your mind to fill in the blanks.

That old irish DANDYLION I mentioned before, Richard, turns out hes the biggest DANDYLION in the universe. He calls me "A DANDYLION DANDYLION" when I mention, because others are waiting for the computers, that hes been on for 20 minutes (the time limit is 15). Its not like I said, GET THE DANDYLION OFF YOUR COMPUTRER YOU OLD IRISH DANDYLION! No, I said "Others are waiting, and youve been on for twenty minutes, just so you know." "MINDSPY DONT YOU DANDYLION TELL ME WHAT TO DO! YOURE AN ANNOYING LITTLE DANDYLION, YOU KNOW THAT?" (Im not that little)

Well, in keeping with my constant politeness (and honesty), I told him that he was "An old irish pervert" He proceeds to ignore me, stay on the computer for another 10 minutes, then stands up and walks over to me (I got a different computer by now), leans over and gets eye level with me and wartns me to "never speak to me again, you little DANDYLION". I dont like being talked back to, especially when I havnt done somthing to warrent this. I stood bolt upright, told him "Ill talk to whoever I DANDYLION well please, or at least at them. Now he should shut the DANDYLION up and walk out the DANDYLION door."

At that point it broke down into who yelled loudest, when someone intervined, we both calmed down, except him. No, he wanted to continue riling on that it was my fault poor children are dying all over the world and how I bioengineered SARS to kill babies so I could devour their souls. Some DANDYLION like that.

Oh, and he was still at it when he left, telling me how I should never insult him again. I told him I wanted him to appologize, "What the DANDYLION for!?" was his responce. Simple, "Blowing up at me when I was kindly trying to point somthing out to you." I believe his response was "DANDYLION off" as he walked out the door. So I kindly returned with a "See you tommorow, DANDYLION"

If you think I could have reacted or handled it better, I know but I was DANDYLION. And I dont regret it. ]


This post has now meen sensored due to that fact that Richard and I have come to some friendly terms. By friendly, I mean I reported him to the school, and he still thinks im an annoying DANDYLION.

Insert quote here

Yesterdays quote was from Lain, and it goes to my prinny squad. Better luck next time.

Was sick yesterday, sorry for the lack of posts, but nothing really happened, I just stayed in, slept, studied, and played Gunbound and Bujingai all day.

I should have plenty of fun stories later today, which will be in an edit to this post. I need to go to Shinjuku and Akihabara (Again), so look forward to that and a quote.

If you aren't remembered, then you never existed.

Okay, lets go with the scores first.

Garra Sunkage comes in first with three points so far, for guessing some of the quotes. Nobody got the Eva quote.

"We aren't men disguised as dogs. We're wolves disguised as men." Is from Jin-Roh, the point goes to Gaara Sunkage.

It takes an idiot to do cool things. That's why it's cool. Is from FLCL, the point goes to Gaara Sunkage.

"LIFE FORMS ARE APPROACHING. OH @#*% RUN RUN...!" Is from Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, the point goes to Gaara Sunkage.

God's in his heaven. All's right with the world. Is from Neon Genisis Evangelion, the point goes to my prinny squad, who will ravenously devour it and explode.

So so far its Gaara Sunkage 3, prinny squad 1. Booyah.

I went to a pharmacy on sunday and got some medication for my throat. I started having mild dizzy spells, but it worked really well so I'm still taking it. Eventually I decided it might be worth figureing out what the hell was in them. Here are the two key ingredients:
Carbocisteine 750mg
Dihydrocodeine phosphate 30mg
Basically, they designed a drug that in the event it doesn't work, you couldn't give a shit. Awesome japan, keep up the good work.

Got some music today, some L'arc~en~Ciel and The Pillows, which are both awesome. I also picked up an e-dictionary that works quite well, or it will, once I learn how to use it a bit better. Managed to avoid Akihabara today, though that will be unavoidable tommorow (because I say so), but thanks to the dictionary I actually spent more then I have at Akihabara. So crap.

I was asked for a summery/mini-review of the game i've been mentioning a lot, Disgaea. It is a batshit insane and down-right hillarious game with a strong sense of humor in the vein of FLCL, with a dash of Monty Python sprinkled on top. It's a turn based strategy game, but it moves at a much faster pace than FFT (Which probably took about as long to program as it does to complete one fight), but still allows for slowing down and giving a good amount of thought into your plans. If you want a brief review, then I have two words: Fscking Awesome. There you have it. You must buy this game yourself within 1 day of reading this message, then you must convince 10 other people to buy it or you will be cursed. Like, with crabs or somthing. Gigantic robot crabs.

Oh, and finally, Pain is my middle name right now. Sadly, my first name is "I'm in a lot of" and my last name is "Right Now". Yeah, walking for hours on end on an injured foot hurts quite a bit. At least I could use my umbrella as a cane. I really need a hot shower or somthing to get the smell of ciggeretts off everything I own. Stupid-ass smokers. Want something less lethal? Try 40CCs of cyanide into a main artery, at least that won't kill me. Who knows, it could be the next big addiction!

What the F*** did I just eat, day whatever:

Lets see, nothing really special, just a mystery-meat (I'm pretty sure it was Soylent Green) rice bowl and discount ramen that tastes like shit. The things I do for you damn readers.

"We aren't men disguised as dogs. We're wolves disguised as men."

Gaara Sunkage has got the last one, but I will not ever again accept entries that are not real posts. You must actually have something to say. As I said before, this post will be the deadline for summerizing all the previous quotes. In the next post, I will detail all of the previous quote origins.

Today was bad (in a sense). I lost my voice. But you know when you lose your voice, how you can still whisper, or rasp? Yeah. I couldnt. Thats right, I was practally a mute, and tommorow I litterally will be. Im not going to speak as every time I do, my throat goes right down the toilet again.

I got the next two volumes of death note (7 and 8) but I wont say anything except how awesome they are, thanks to earth shattering spoilers. The death note movie looms on the distant horizon, but at least I have another person interested enough to go see it with me. I'm going to buy a black notebook and white pen and write "Death Note" on it for the movie premier. I also might get an incredibly oversized white t-shirt, some floppy sandals, and some eye shadow. L. Awesome.

I wandered around Shinjuku with the less-disturbing (see previous posts) of my two new friends, and helped him find a keyboard for his transcribing. A similar effort will be needed from me for my possible transcribing of god knows what I would use. And ended up finding an arcade game that gave like, 10 minutes of two-player gameplay for 200 yen. It was awesome, like, DDR with your hands. Hypnotic man...

On a not-hurting-my-feet note, Hale nochi Guu has been translated officially! I am now such a happy person thanks to the fact that the greatest of random anime or Randome as I now dub it, is stateside. This is great news, because english DVDs are far cheaper. You can bitch all you want, but your wallet doesnt know pain until it has invested $30 in a single episode.

And let me say right now that scientist need to star crossing penguins, people, the color purple, midgets with knives, and C4. With all this technology, how can we let a superweapon like this pass us by. Bonus point in the contest to anyone who figures out what the hell I was just saying.

Ja' ne, dood!
-Mindspy

Edits:

I'm afraid nothing more disturbing then curry and chicken mcnuggets was consumed today. And an awesome video (http://www.callcentermovie.com/) was recently brought to my attention. Watch it.

As for the lovecraftian update, I forgot.

One final word, for all the below posts with anime titles, post them in this entry, as I wont be going through and checking them again.

It takes an idiot to do cool things. That's why it's cool.

Okay, just a small update. I'm feeling... wierd. I can very easily tell I'm still sick, but its sort of hard to tell except for the occasional gut-wrenching cough and the inability to speak...

Brief update clarifying some of the contest rules.

1. You must give your name (or handle, for the Kutfooters) in your post.
2. It must be a real reply, not shouting OMFG ITS ---.
3. You must properly identify the anime or manga that the quote is from, I will give some leeway for now on posting all of them at once, so that you dont have to keep going through and commenting on all of my old posts. This will probably only extent until my next update.
4. The prize is one unopened Kingdom Hearts II Trading Arts figure.
5. The contest ends when I get back to the states.

So there you have it, enjoy!

Ja' Ne!
-Mindspy

P.S. I said I would try and do a lovecraftian styled update. In may take me a bit longer, but expect it tonight (Tokyo time) or tommorow.

"LIFE FORMS ARE APPROACHING. OH @#*% RUN RUN...!"

Now for a much harder quote, considering that my mother managed to get the last. By the way, I'm going to change my offer into the Kingdom Hearts seires of figs, since people will probably want those more. Will you get Jaffar (Whoop-de-freaking-doo) or Cloud (Most awesome figure evar)? Only fate will decide.

Oh, and if you get the quote and are still like, WTF? Yes. THEY ARE MAKING IT INTO AN ANIME. I have the preview DVD. Looks like they managed to get the original voice actors back.

On a voice acting note; If you're going to half-ass the voices in Kingdom Hearts 2, at least give us an option of having the japanese voices.

One of the two guys I mentioned before, is shall we say, a bit one track minded. I was looking in a shop that sold minis and happened to sell hentai (To be fair, so does AM:PM and Seven Eleven) and he decided he was going to get some (so to speak). Either way, he bought a DVD, which I proceeded to laugh my ass off about. He wondered what was so funny, and I pointed out that he had just bought a dating sim. His Kanji better be really good. Poetic, just poetic.

My voice is almost completely gone, and if I Do speak, im basically re-defineing what bass is. That makes me pretty hard to understand in english, let alone japanese. That made my day a bit hard, especially when it came to explaining complex games in a loud arcade (thanks to the locals for the help).

I got an issue of Young Jump I'm getting sort of pissed at the idea that every magazine that exists looks like porno. Hello kitty weekly? Hands down her pants. That sort of thing. It gets embarrasing buying manga just to read Gantz. Though avoiding adult sections in bookstores has become much easier. Stay away from the 40-60 year old men in suits.

What the F*** did I just eat, day 7.
Whinny the Pooh cerial. It's like, honey cheerios with honey grahm-crackers and a little honey mixed in. God does it wake you up though, I'd hate to be the teacher working that shift, ill tell yah.

I find it kind of odd that the idea of a box of cereal here is what I would consider a bowl... at least its cheap, unlike everything else.

Ja' ne!
-Mindspy

God's in his heaven. All's right with the world.

Okay, let me start with this. Im sick of people not replying. I know I have people reading this, and iv'e set it up so you dont need to be a member to reply. As such, I offer a small special prize of one un-opened Final Fantasy Trading Arts Vol. 2 to the person who both gives me a real reply, and identifies what anime each quote in my title is from. I'll be giving a massive hint in these updates.

Let me start off on a "Some things are just awesome" note; they have made a new Eva manga, and its ALL CHEESECAKE. Sweet. Also, I got the last of the Disgaea figures, including the secret one (Evil Flonne), so the remaining boxes I have will go to cons, as digaea stuff sells (I'm still looking everywhere for a Prinny plushie).

On a some things suck note, as I said before i'm sick. I missed school for two days, so I'm not too happy about that. Thankfully its early enough in that they are still doing Hiragana, which I already know and have the notes for. To be fair, I'm more upset about being sick in japan then missing school. I managed to wade my way through the miniscule (as opposed to great) tokyo outdoors through three banks to find one that would take AmEx travelers checks.

Banks. Let me tell you one thing, Japan is a very friendly place under almost any circumstances. But banks are a different world. The first bank I went to I ended up spending about half an hour in, trying to converse in what little japanese I have as well as what little english the manager had. We were there about ten minutes, when some random peon brought us tea. High grade open leaf tea. That stuff is pretty expensive, and it was great, especially because of the caffine at that time of the morning. The manager got out a map and showed me to the nearest major bank in Soka that would cash my checks. So I hopped on the local train and headed there.

At the second bank, a kindly woman helped explain that they dont cash those kind of checks there, but that a nearby bank did. She then walked me to the nearby bank (Conviniently in the same building) and showed me where to go. So after about half an hour of them waiting there tring to figure out why my post and counter-signed signatures were so different (Hint: my handwriting sucks) I managed to get the money I needed for a train pass. I headed back to the station, and seeing as I was half way there, decided to try my new metro-only route to Akihabara (Again).

There I managed to get the last of the Disgaea figures, as well as a few games of Quest of D in before getting exhausted and heading back to Gamo, where I picked up some more of the cow-on-a-stick I like so much, and a box (Read: One serving) of cereal before heading back to the appartment for a shower.

I met some new friends here, and we ended up playing Narultimate Fighter 2 for an hour or two, and then hung out and went back over to the store for some food for the new guys.

All around a pretty mediocre day. Though I just found out (like, this second) that iTunes has finally updated their episodes of Lost, so I guess i'll be getting to sleep a bit later then.

What the f*** did I just eat, day 6
Today I violated two of my golden rules of food. Never eat anything bigger than your face, and never eat anything bigger than your face thats pink.

Thats right, I ate a giant round pink thing. It was like, a pastry crossed with bread, with a slightly more solid outer shell that tasted like strawberries. It was actually quite good.

Accadent on the Hanzomo line

Something happened on the Hanzomo line that I take to school, resulting in me being like, 1:30 minutes late. For gods sake, I might as well lie in at this rate, seeing as i'm late even if my alarm is set for 6:50. There is a god of the metro, and he hates me.

Sorry for the lack of an update yesterday. Here, let me summerize yesterday: Got to school late (missed the train), played Quest of D at the arcade some, went to akihabara to get more Disgaea figs., ate wierd cracker thing random Llaox staff member was handing out (Verdict: I'd eat it again), drooled over Mechanical Keyboard (Almost bout it, but it has a single button backspace), got home, played my PS2, slept.

All right, today was rougly the same story, replace (missed the train) with (God hates me), I got no free cracker, and add "even" between "get" and "more Disgaea figures". I have one left to get, and they're going out of production. Im going to get them all and the horse they rode in on! (Actually, considering I bought out an entire box, the guy just let me keep the box, so I quite litterally have the horse they rode in on!) Any repeats of the Iconics (Laharl, Etna, Flonne) ill give to friends, like brian, whose apathy is affecting me even here.

The downside to tokyo (and the upside, in my opinion) is that its cramped. Now I am by no means Claustraphobic, but the downside to rubbing shoulders with everyone is that many people smoke. Now, im not going to be the kind of person who thinks that Nicotine should be banned (though I do think it should all be hurtled into the sun. Suck on lung cancer, skin cancer!) but I AM the kind of person who has a bad allergic reaction to smoke. Safe bastions for my lungs include (and are pretty much limited to) my appartment, the Metro (and JR), and certain Arcades (which is one of the reasons I like killing time there.) The lack of safe bastions means one thing: I am sick again. No matter where I go this happens without fail.

On the subject of arcades, I would like to say that the age-old death of the american arcade deeply saddens me in retrospect. The last local arcades closed when I was like, 3, but they thrive in japan. Theres nothing like going into a small room with some coins and meeting new friends when all you have in common is you're being ripped off by the same machine (Hell, with the specific guy i'm reffering to, we didn't even have a common language). Another thing is putting Taiko Drum Master 8 on the sidewalk, so no matter how good (or bad) you are, the whole world sees. It's actually alot of fun, though in japan its so common almost nobody cares unless they're a gaijin or you're a gaijin (Awww, look at the little gaijin trying to master our entertaining technology). Now, theres good and there's good, and this guy in Akihabara (My hangout, since it has the only smoke-free arcades I can find) was so freaking good, that a huge crowd gathered around him. A crowd of Japanese people. THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN. This guy was effing hardcore, he even brought his own drumsticks. For an arcade game. I got pictures and two videos of this (Not very stable thanks to my caffine-withdrawl), that i'll be posting when I get the chance.

Oh, and some people wanted photos. As I said, I want to keep at least a minor degree of anoniminity on this blog, but in doing so I had to reveal that I like smiliey faces and quotes from The Catcher in the Rye. That or i'm a Ghost in the Shell fan (The latter is a better bet, look at my t-shirt).

Akihabara
Yodobashi
Yodobashi - Bear

Oh, and that black jacket? It's badass, I know. A little corner clothing shop is having a massive sale so I decided to pick it up. I like it, and i'd bet more, but apparentally all they have left is larges. In Japan i'm an XL (Or "LL" as they call it), in the states, a medium (Clothing size, smartasses).

Before I get to the food thing, let me post about the figure collection i've amassed and my reason for doing so. Why? Because they are a great portable and creap way to decorate a room or desk or such. Now about the figures, I have figures from one manga/anime (Bleach) and one game (Disgaea). Now, Disgaea takes place in hell, so all of the figures staring at me each night are, in fact, little plastic daemons. Except my Hollow Ichigo figure from Bleach. Let me phrase it simply; A hollow is an Evil Spirit, and Ichigo is a Shinigami, or God of death. Top that off with the fact that im wearing my Miskatonik University shirt (which has a Pentagram, skull, black candle, and ancient book of evil on it) and I feel absolutely goth-y.

Now on to the important things...

What the F*** did I just eat, Day 4
Todays delicacy was purchaced from an AM:PM just outside of Akihabara. It was a stange cross, between a pastry, a hot dog, and an albino turd. Visually, it looked like crap (litterally), but it actually tasted really good. I'd be a liar if I said I didn't try and get another at my local AM:PM.

Until next time,
-Mindspy

Did you know? Reapers like apples.

I have a lot to talk about, but first i'd like to talk about a newly discovered pet-peeve. This goes out to everyone using a communal or shared bathroom; Please, for God's sake, do NOT turn the lengths of toilet paper into origami in your spare time on the can. I mean, come on! I whipe my ass with it, I dont want to deal with the impression of taking a crap in the middle of the Louvre and then finishing off by re-coloring the Mona Lisa.

Moving on, I have discovered several wonderful thinks. First off, I am apparently very lucky. A large portion of my spending money when i'm away gets spent on Gashapon, or little money-grubbing toy-dispensers (Think how children view their parents). Fortunately, so far every Gashapon I put money into gave me the exact one I wanted first try. To be fair, I only wanted one thing, and I only tried once, but its still hard to argue with the percentages. Also, the little randomized box-toys I got for myself and friends also were nice to me giving me what I wanted first try.

Second, they make pre-made penut-butter and jelly sandwhiches in little airtight packs that are actually cheaper then buying some bread, jam, and penut-butter. Score one for convinence based technology.

Now, if anyone can ruin my day, it's Worldlink Education, the group that I came here through. They had some orientation at 3:00 for long-term students, so I waited around for my friend who also had to go, who ended up getting out of class late. Our teacher called WLE, told her we'd be a bit late, and sent us off.

Suffice to say about 400 Yen later (It was in Shinjuku) we hadn't found it. There were three of us, with a map, and we couldnt find it. Before you jump on a blame bandwagon, here's how crappy the direction's were: The locals were more confused then we were. Thats right WLE, I can now rationalize my long-time irrational hatred of your orginization.

I finished all the personal shopping I had listed today, so I can get out and enjoy the sights tommorow, which will be nice. I'll probably head to Asakusa and see if I can get any better then the "Your death is imminent" fortune I got last year. Probably not, there'll just be a small "Except with Gashapon" attached to it.

Turns out that the Student Discount for the train passes only applies to college students in a Japanese college. Whoop-de-doo, that means around a $200 dollar three month pass that I still have to pay extra on if I go anywhere other then school with. Joy. Oh, not to mention that the metro is seperate from the JR, which because I dont use as much isn't worth getting a monthly pass for.

I have some thought's on what i'd like to do in later life (finally), but i'm feeling a bit depressed for some reason (Some reason my ass, I know exactally why, i'm just not going to broadcast it. Nobody loves Emo people [Which is the one thing they get right]).

A discussion with my french-canadian friend about something and philosiphy led to the most awesome mix up of words Evar. "Curiosity killed Schroedinger's cat." He roughly said it, I peiced it together. A perfect way of saying that your curiosity is more likely then not going to get someone else killed. A prime example of this would be my desire to make the Homonculous array from FMA out of thermite, then set it on fire. Any takers on helping me with this? :)

What the f*** did I just eat, day 2
That "Thing" I mentioned yesterday? It was like, sweet bread. I like it, I bought another for tommorow. Nummy, considering I plan on being on the train at like, 7 so I can backtrack a station and get the Pass so it won't cost an arm and a leg to get from here to school. I'll be sure to buy something wierd tommorow. I know a shrine where this guy sells questionable looking fish on a stick. Ill try one of those. I had the strange mochi-ball-teriyaki things I like, it was funny, my teacher was trying to convince to the other students that they are indeed edible. You should have seen her face when she realized I was moving on to my third. Hehe.

One last thing, THEY ARE MAKING A DEATH NOTE MOVIE. I am in the country for its release date. If any teachers are reading this (Since I gave them this as my "website"), expect to not expect me that day.

Oh, and anyone who reads Kotaku will be aware of the massive rush over the medicinal-tasting (Read: crap) Final Fantasy XII potion drink. I found some going for around $40 each. Sheesh.

Ａ ｓｍａｌｌ ｎｏｔｅ

Ｉ　ａｍ　ｎｏｔ　ｓｔａｒｖｉｎｇ，　ｄｅｓｐｉｔｅ　ｈｏｗ　Ｉ　ｍａｋｅ　ｉｔ　ｓｏｕｎｄ．　Ｉ　ｈａｖｅ　ｐｌｅｎｔｙ　ｏｆ　ｏｐｔｉｏｎｓ　ｏｆ　ｔｈｉｎｇｓ　ｔｏ　ｅａｔ，　ｉｍ　ｊｕｓｔ　ｃｈｏｏｓｉｎｇ　ｔｏ　ｌｉｖｅ　ｆｒｕｇａｌｌｙ，　ｓｉｎｃｅ　ｕｎｉｖｅｒｃｉｔｙ　ｉｓ　ｇｏｉｎｇ　ｔｏ　ｆｏｒｃｅ　ｍｅ　ｉｎｔｏ　ｉｔ　ａｎｙｗａｙ．　Ａｌｓｏ，　ｂｙ　ｄｏｉｎｇ　ｔｈｉｓ，　Ｉ　ｃａｎ　ａｆｆｏｒｄ　ａ　ｎｉｃｅ　ｍｅａｌ　ｅｖｅｒｙ　ｎｏｗ　ａｎｄ　ｔｈｅｎ．　Ａｎｄ　ｆｉｎａｌｌｙ，　ｉｔｓ　ａ　ｇｏｏｄ　ｗａｙ　ｔｏ　ｔｒｙ　ｎｅｗ　ｔｈｉｎｇｓ．　Ｓｏ　ｆａｒ　ａｌｌ　ｂｕｔ　ｔｈｅ　ｃｒｅａｍ－ｃｈｅｅｓｅ－ｌｅｍｏｎ－ｈｅｌｌｂｏｒｎ　ｔｈｉｎｇ　ｈａｓ　ｂｅｅｎ　ｇｒｅａｔ．

Ｓｏ　ｐｅｏｐｌｅ　ｃａｎ　ｓｔｏｐ　ｃｏｍｐｌａｉｎｉｎｇ　ａｔ　ｍｅ　ａｌｒｅａｄｙ．
-Mindspy

Edit: Damn Japanese windows/keyboard typefaces.

Postedit: Hi Jean! Ill pick you up something fluffy, okay? :)

Sore feets, wierd eats

This is how i'm living on a budget: If its cheap and looks apetizing, eat it. Shut up voices inside my head because i don give a shit what's in it, I give a shit about whats in me. Which is nothing.

I went to Shinjuku instead of Akihabara today, because I had some things to do that were not easily done in the small Akihabara station. The train ride i'snt bad at all. Long, but not bad, mainly because of how far out of the way I am so there aren't as many people.

Put a massive dent in my Japan Stuff fund today, though it was intended to be there from the begining, seeing as I was purposely saveing for a Japanese Playstation 2. I must have walked around 5 miles over a period of 8 hours, but keep in mind that I was standing with a heavy Playstation 2 laden backpack on my back.

On the way back to where I live I was playing Jump Superstars for my DS when I decided while we were stopped, "I should probably start paying attention now, since i'm probably only a few stops away." Turns out the stop i'd wanted to get off at was the stop at which I had thought this. Damn.

But lo! The next stop on the express was only one away from my station, as opposed to three! Oh joy! So I hop on the same damn (non-express) train going the other way
and get off at my stop.

I decided that since I hadn't gotten any luck picking up a commuter pass that I would try here. A very friendly ticket booth attendent said that i'd needed to go back to the stop I had just been at. Well shit. At least he gave me a free pass. I went to the other place, had a pidgeon-english conversation with the Commuter-Pass Counter-Slave and found out that the school had to jump through some hoops before I could. That was assuming, of course, that I didnt want to pay double for the three month pass.

I took the advantage of the massive book store at that stop to pick up a sketchpad and my Cerimonial Pencil* and paid the 140 yen to get back to where I had just come from.

After all this I was looking forward to the yakitori stand from yesterday, but it wasn't there, so I ate that thing I mention below. And thanks to several hours in Shinjuku I have an adaptor so I can use this laptop again. Joy.

Also, I have a knack for pissing off the locals playing Quest of D with me, because they come in, put countless hours and thousands of yen and get shitty card after shitty card. I come in, play for half an hour, get a rare, and leave. I win.

Either way, some gaming, finishing off Lord of War, and sleep are in order, since I can't remember what time my classes start.


What the F*** Did I Just Eat, day 1:
Tonight I feast on an unholy cross between creem cheese, pastry, and lemon! I am pretty sure this was designed as a ninja poisoning tool, but my 1337 western metabolism overcame this country's contrived plot to kill me, for today!

Oh, and I have picked up breakfast for tommorow with another sheer lack of knowledge as to what it is. Look forward to another gripping installment of What the F*** Did I Just Eat? tommorow night.

-Mindspy

Day one: Tokyo

Well, my first day here. I don't have much to say at this point, but I was met at the airport by Kudan staff (late, as usual) and got the full train ride here. I was exausted, but unpacked everything and seeing as I had a fridge, went to the little 24 hour grocery store and got some vital equipment (2 Litre of cold iced tea, Teriyaki Mochi or whatever the hell they are). Ever mindful of my budget, I looked around and found a resteraunt with two peices of shrimp for 15 bucks. Screw that, there was a little vendor outside said grocery store making kebabs (I feel like an ass for forgeting the correct term). So I ordered two beef ones with spices on it. Freaking good, just enough, and two bucks.

Today I hit Akihabara to stock up on an adaptor for my laptop and a PS2 for the various games I have. This should be a good time, and I have a nice little room/appartment that I can surely survive in for three months.

On another note, I was reading H.P. Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness" and I decided I would try and do one update a week in a Lovecraftian fasion. Look forward to the distorting unholy madness of the streets of tokyo.

Oh, and on a "Small World" note, one of the people who lives here went to BCC and UW.