Archive for August, 2006

Greater Than. Less Than.

Published by
iMorph
at August 27, 2006 in Japan, Reflect and Trains. 2 Comments

Upside Down.

My guest poster wrote his own intro:

My friend, who lives in Japan, is waiting until he moves to Korea to travel around Japan. Strange, you say? Not when you look at the numbers.

Here is the rest of the post.

Travel Costs: By CW

It’s cheaper to fly to Korea than to visit a different city in Japan (and Kanazawa is fairly close to Tokyo, only a 50 minute flight)

  • Kanazawa to Narita–about 32,000 yen by train round trip
  • Kanazawa to Tokyo–about 26,000 yen round trip
  • Narita to Seoul–about 20,000 yen (off season) by plane

Visit Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Fukuoka and Kanazawa by train as a resident of Japan. (All Prices in Yen.)

  • Tokyo to Osaka–14,250
  • Osaka to Kyoto–540
  • Kyoto to Hiroshima–11,290
  • Hiroshima to Fukuoka–9,100
  • Fukuoka to Kanazawa–28,100
  • Kanazawa to Tokyo–13,010

Total cost is: 76,290 yen. Additional cities? Add $$$$$. The same trip, Non-Resident flying in from Korea:

  • Flight: 20,000 yen
  • 14-day Japan Rail Pass: 45,100 yen
  • 7-day Japan Rail Pass: 28,300 yen

Total: Between 48,300 and 65,100 yen. Additional cities? Same cost. It’s cheaper to travel around Japan if you live in Korea than it is if you live in Japan.

CW’s Research Tools:

Days 4 and 5.

Published by
iMorph
at August 24, 2006 in General. 1 Comment

Day 4: Hon Kawagoe.

Places to go and things to do:

Roll back the clock this summer in Hon-Kawagoe. You can see old school fire and tobacco machinery, ride in an authentic rickshaw, experience architecture from another age, and get your fill of classic candy at Kashiya Yokochou.

Hon-Kawagoe, a trip back in time.

Day 5: The Chill Zone.

Pizza and a movie. That’s it. Nothing more to see here. Oh, and I made some Okinawan donut holes.

Posting Playlist

  • Am I asleep or awake? from the album “PinkBeltRageCast” by PB Rage
  • Heart And Soul from the album “Closer” by Joy Division
  • Face Up from the album “Low-Life” by New Order
  • Blue Monday from the album “The Ultimate Eighties CD2 (UK Release)” by New Order
  • Senses from the album “Movement” by New Order

Spent more time listening to the songs than typing up post.

“I’m Playin’ Just to Play.”

Published by
iMorph
at August 24, 2006 in Links and Reflect. 2 Comments

One-Stop Pimp Post.

Let us define pimping:

Pimp (From Wikipedia):
A pimp finds and manages clients for a prostitute and engages them in prostitution, often street prostitution, in order to profit from their earnings. Typically, a pimp does not force the women to stay with him; he may also protect them from other pimps or abusive clients.

Almost makes it sound like a legitimate profession. We all know better. The U.S government has a nice PDF explaining the problems with pimpin’.

For those of you interested in The Life, you’ll need the gear. I got mine. Time to get yours:

Random Links:

C is for Cookie?

Published by
iMorph
at August 19, 2006 in Entertainment?. 3 Comments

Yeah, YouTube is the New Crack.

Here, try these three “gateway” videos (The last one is the best, but watch the other two first):

  1. Pulling 7 G’s: Where high blood pressure is your friend.
  2. Hope Is Emo Chapter Four “True Self”: “Planning to act happy.”
  3. Cookie Monster vs Martha Stewart: Cookie is a totally junkie, “Please, lady, don’t make me beg.”

Hope episodes.

Strangers in the Night.

Tracy, you totally turned me into a YouTube junky. Okay, that’s not true. aieksandre is more at fault than you are. Aieksandre and I have one of those weird internet relationships, or net-ships. No, not like that. Like this:

  • aieksandre: Worksafe http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT_gxpyavag.
  • ME: OKay.
  • aieksandre disconnected.

This is why I love the net.

My net-ship with tracy revolves around her sending me videos of Asian, female singers. The conversation goes like this, “Did you like the song?” Me, “It was okay.” Her, “Did you think she was cute?” Me, “I’d do her.”

Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear.

Published by
iMorph
at August 16, 2006 in Personal. 3 Comments

Black vs. Brown

These two colors are not the same. No, I am serious. Look.

Black:
of the very darkest color; the opposite of white; colored like coal, the absence of or complete absorption of light.
Brown:
of a color produced by mixing red, yellow, and black.

See, brown comes from red, yellow, and black! Not black alone. Words that can no longer be used when addressing, demeaning, or describing me:

  • Darkie.
  • Tar baby.
  • Negro.
  • etc…

Curiosity.

In most cases a kid will speak his or her mind. It’s usually not malicious. No. It is their inquisitive nature. Let us look at a real life example. Kid A says to kid B, “Why are Derek’s hands, face, and arms black while the palms of his hand’s are almost the same color as ours?” Kid B thinks for a bit and then says, authoritatively, “It’s because he has been in Japan for a long time, so he is losing his color.”

Brilliant.

Picking Pay Stub From Work. 

Mountain Bike: 54,000 Yen.
Pay Stub: Secret.
Having a child in the elevator spy you and then turn to
his mom and say, "Mommy, mommy! There is someone in
the elevator with us that has a black face!":
Priceless.

His mom looked down at the floor, while his older sister started cracking up. I also had a good laugh.

Day Two + Day Three.

Published by
iMorph
at August 16, 2006 in Personal. 0 Comments

Day Two: Let’s Play!

Some stuff happened, but overall the highlight of Day Two was gaming with Mr. Goat and Karen of Esoteric Love. The games were retro:

  • iConquer a Risk clone.

    The goal of the game is to take over every country on the map by eliminating all your opponents.

  • Armagetron Advanced the light cycle game from the movie Tron (1982):

    The original game consisted of 4 sub-games, the only one of concern is the ‘Light Cycles’ one, in which the player uses a left/right joystick to control a ‘Light Cycle’ which leaves a wall behind it wherever the cycle it goes, turning only at 90 degree angles. The player must then get the AI to crash into their wall while avoiding hitting the AI’s own wall themselves. Those were the humble beginnings of Armagetron Advanced’s game play, which has now blossomed into 16 player mayhem, with highly advanced AI, network game play, and of course all in a 3D environment.

Do you run Windows? OS X? Linux? No sweat! Armagetron Advanced runs on all three platforms. Get your Light Cycle on!

The rest of the day was uneventful.

Day Three: A Non-day.

Typhoons 10 and 11 threatened to turn Tuesday into a “wet” day. Fortunately, 10 veered off towards China and 11 is wandering around down south and will probably smash into Shikoku and the surrounding area.

What I didn’t do today:

  • Go shopping.
  • Take the train.
  • Leave the house before 3 PM.
  • Catch a movie.
  • Play Ridge Racers.

I returned a DVD, picked up my pay stub, went to starbucks, played Armagtron while H.A. played/read her first ever Choose Your Own Adventure book - her character got bumped off, and went drinking. That’s it.

The New Black.

Published by
iMorph
at August 15, 2006 in Entertainment?. 0 Comments

Submit to YouTube.

I surf YouTube. There, it is out in the open.

Oops, forgot one: Prangstgrup Powerbook Start up Sound Prank!!: The longest startup sound ever.

Holiday: Day One.

Published by
iMorph
at August 14, 2006 in Personal. 1 Comment

My Day.

So, the next nine days are work-free. How did I spend Day One?

  • IRC.
  • The Unmentionable.
  • AIM
  • PSP: Ridge Racers
  • Put the finishing touches on a pot of Curry and Rice.
  • Dinner with friends.
  • Alcohol.

IRC Dumbness: Geeks. Smart but Dumb.

Chatting with geeks on any protocol is a challenge. Each geek brings with him, or her, a slew of biases and misconceptions. For example, “The worst thing that is wrong with Mail.app (OS X’s Mail client) is that you cannot really sort mail.” This is like saying, “My car can only carry people.” There is a perfectly good trunk for carrying things, but since the “geek” cannot find the lever that opens the trunk, the trunk does not exist.

Sigh

Now, most times, I allow the geek to hold his, or her, beliefs. Other days, I go on the offensive:

  • GEEK: It only has ’smart folders’ or whatever they are called.
  • ME: ummm, no. it also has mail boxes.
  • GEEK: I’m not seeing a way to automatically filter mail into a ‘Mailbox’
  • ME: Under “MailBox” click on New Mailbox.
  • GEEK: I made a mailbox, but how do I filter mail into it?
  • ME: Go to Preferences and then Rules.
  • GEEK: oh, rules. Ok, Mail.app is a bit less lame than I thought.

“A bit less lame,” than he thought? Huh? I thought that was the worst thing. Surely, it must suck a lot less. Geeks.

PSP: Ridge Racers. How Not to Game.

Have you ever tried playing a video game while sleeping? No? Don’t. All you’ll do is mess up your game.

Circuits:
Sleeping while setting up a race results in a Basic round being selected as opposed to the Pro round you were thinking about.
Car Selection:
There are 3 car types in Ridge Racers
  • STD: Not much drift action. Slow.
  • DYN: Good drift with little to no loss in speed. Twitchy.
  • MLD: Between STD and DYN.

Pick the wrong car and you get to suck wind for the entire round of circuits. It is annoying.

Racing:
Sleeping during the race is a surefire way to lose.

Curry Rice.

My mission, which I accepted, required me to add the big blocks of curry stock stuff, into the already cooked veggies and meat. To my knowledge, I was successful. Personally, I enjoy adding a clove or two of grated garlic to my Curry. Any of you ladies fancy a kiss?

Dinner and Alcohol.

Good times. Good times. Well, at least until tomorrow. Memories of the Taco Rice should get me through the hangover.

Well, that is Day One. Yes, I know some bits got skipped. Tough.

Sex (hot sex, porn and pRon) vs. G.W.B. vs Jesus Christ vs. Hitler

Published by
iMorph
at August 9, 2006 in Computing and Entertainment?. 2 Comments

Google Match: Battle of the Titans (BotT).

Coming up next the World Wide Web showdown:

  • Butch Honstone (Butch): Welcome to the World Wide Web showdown. Tonight we are going to bring you another BotT Google Match.
  • Paul Hammersmythe (Paul): That’s right, Butch.
  • Butch: Let’s take a look at this weeks contestants.
  • Paul: Tonight we are going to pit Sex, G.W.B., Jesus Christ, and Hitler against each other. It should be an interesting bout.
  • Butch: All right, time to fire up our handy dandy internet browser, surf over to google, and get to searching. < Several Seconds Pass > Okay, google is up. Let’s run our queries.
  • Paul: And here are our results:
    1. Sex: 323,310,000 hits! After all these years, humans still cannot get enough.
    2. Dubya with 227,000,000 hits. Not bad, George. Not bad.
    3. Hitler really puts in a lack luster performance with a mere 62,000,000 hits.
    4. I guess this is the big upset of the day. The big man only managed 49,500,000 hits.
  • Butch: Well there you have it, sex wins.

TrueNuff TV!

The inspiration for this post came from this spoof <- sorta Not Safe For Work - of the new Apple networking ad <- This link may or may not take you to the networking ad. Ads are here: Apple Ads. Click on see all and then use the little arrows to scroll.

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Excuses, excuses, excuses.

Published by
iMorph
at August 2, 2006 in Entertainment? and Personal. 0 Comments

Who Ya Gonna Call?! Butch Honstone (Not his real name)

  • ME: I don’t want to go.
  • BH: to work?
  • ME: Yep. Could you write me a note?
  • BH: Sure.

Feeling down? Don’t want to face the rigors of work? Need a note? PM Butch Honstone, the master of excuses. Don’t believe me look at this sample:

To Whom It May Concern,
Derek will be unable to attend his job today.
Derek has recently experienced a set of events
that has made him extremely unstable as
a person. If you have any questions regarding
this matter or doubt of his condition, please
refer to his blog page. The links to kitty
atrocities is surely grounds for a temporary leave of absence.
Respectfully,
Anonymous

With Butch Honstone, you get fast, quality excuses. Kitty atrocities post: Awesome.