Oh, Japan! ๏̯͡๏)

Kowakian Monkey-Lizard continues to be an incompetent twatface. I had to fuck off out of class several times today so that I didn't call her out.

Then at lunchtime, though she had driven me to eat, I climbed to my roof and worked on my tan. Only 20 minutes on each side, not enough for much, but I didn't burn, and it's a good acclimatization thingeree.  Skin cancer what?

I'm still concerned about trash. We'll see how it goes on Sunday.  :/  I am compromising, and taking my cans and PET bottles to the supermarket to dispose of; I considered putting them out on the appropriate day, but there's only one pick up a month, and with four 500ml bottles a day, yeah I just decluttered my kitchen, fuck you.

I'm bored and wanna do something but I'm broke so I'm sitting at home watching Boston Legal. Tom Selleck just asked Candice Bergen to be his best man at his wedding to a crazy wacko.

Here, have a video of kids singing and swaying and making me seasick.

To add further insult to the cruddy day today has been, I hopped in the shower for a shave. Now, a while back, I gave up 4-8 bladed razors that cost a whole bunch and, in a move that could only be seen as a rejection of fractal time and the Timewave, I returned to two bladed disposables.  The Gillette ones were giving me a much better shave than I'd had with the SUPARMULTIBLADE razors in forever, and it was good. This weekend, I ran out of disposable razors and shaving foam, so I went out to buy some.

They didn't have any Gillette ones at the store I went to, so I get BESTY EX disposables. They claim to have DIAMOND-LIKE CARBON STEEL, so how can it be bad? Also couldn't find shaving foam for some reason, so I got shaving gel.  This of course causes a problem because now I've changed two variables in my shaving routine, and when things SUCK ASS (and they do), I don't know which one is the problem.

The blade just gets stuck in the gel, doesn't cut the hairs, and instead, cuts me, so I bleed fucking everywhere. I haven't had this many cuts while shaving in... fuck, years.  For years, the only time I'd bleed during shaving is if I cut the top off a zit (yes yes, gross eww TMI, stfu and deal).  But now, these shitty things, i'm bleeding fucking everywhere.

I thought, "Oh, maybe I used too much gel. It's different from foam, after all." So this time, I tried less. SAME FUCKING RESULT.  But I don't know if it's the gel's fault, the razor's fault, or both.  At any rate, I've tossed the gel and the razors and will go hunting for proper shit tomororw.  Don't mind me, just hemorrhaging money in a month that's expensive and before a month that will be even expensiver. :(

I woke up this morning to find that someone (who had either deleted their account, or had their account deleted) had posted a bunch of really mean comments on some of my flickr photos, for no apparent reason.  That wasn't a very nice way to start the day.

Then I had to teach an interminable class with Kowakian Monkey-Lizard, which just made me angry and unhappy.

Then when I got home, some guy with his cat that insists on fucking on my car and keeping me awake at night harassed me about putting out unsorted garbage last Friday, except I didn't put any garbage out last Friday, but PEOPLE SAW YOU, THEY SAW THE GAIJIN PUT OUT THE GARBAGE ! !! and then he continued on about shit I didn't understand.

I've just been in an unpleasant mood since then. :(  Bah.

At any rate, here's a music video for you.

Join me on PMOG, the Passively Multiplayer Online Game!

Just by surfing the interbutts, you get experience (datapoints).  You can spend these on mines, to attack other surfers; armor, to protect yourself from mines; portals, to send people blindly to sites of your choosing; crates, so you can stash goodies for others to find; and lampposts, so you can make your own missions through the interweb, highlighting your favourite sites, exploring a topic, or whatnot, which other people can take for experience and learning new stuffz.

It's good fun, and you can play it as actively or passively as you like.  Additionally, it's all delightfully steampunk themed, so how can you go wrong?

I'm Mullenkedheim, so feel free to mark me as an acquaintance if you like, once you join. 

NOTE: If you're using Firefox 3 Beta 5, the plugin may be a bit dodgy. It works fine for me in 3b5 under Vista Ultimate, but it doesn't work under 3b5 in XP SP2.  It works perfectly in 2.0.0.14 though, and the 3b5 problems will be cleared up sooner or later, I trust.  Just a heads up, to prevent you from getting too frustrated. :}

NOW JOIN JOIN JOIN.

Or, rather, Koichi and Tsuyoshi Domoto (no relation, as far as I know).

(note: I tried to post this to the Firefox Forums at Mozillazine, but I had to register, so I registered, and logged in, and then typed this up, and then clicked the post button, and it asked me to login again, and I did, and it told me my account was inactive, and I should bugger off, sooooooo maybe you guys can help me instead.)

Sometimes, I'll just stop being able to browse. My internet is fine, as is evidenced by EVERY OTHER PROGRAM working (IM clients, FTP, etc), but Firefox will just keep loading a page forever.  When I close Firefox (using the red X) and re-open it (using the link in my toolbar), the chrome appears (the outside frame, the menubar, the minimize/maximize/close buttons), but nothing else.  Clicking the X to close it several times pops up a Vista "This program has stopped responding" window. The Mozilla Error Reporting Agent never appears.

After telling Vista to close Firefox, and then trying to open it again, it works fine, and will browse normally.

At first, I thought it was being caused by putting the computer to sleep (as that was the only time it would present); however today it has done it several times without warning, and without being put to sleep.

As I said, this has only been happening since 2.0.0.14.  Additionally, I'm not having this problem on my XP SP2 installation at home, only on my Vista Ultimate laptop.

The add-ons I have installed are as follows:
4chan 0.4.5.9
Adblock Plus 0.7.5.4
Better Flickr 0.2.1
BoxedUp 1.22
Canadian English Dictionary 1.1.0
Download Statusbar 0.9.6.1
East Asian Translator 1.1.2
Japanese-English Dictionary for rikaichan 1.06
Names Dictionary for rikaichan 1.05
Personas for Firefox 0.9.2
Rikaichan 1.01
Stylish 0.5.6
Talkback 2.0.0.11

I'd appreciate any thing suggested.  Thanks :)

okay here's a question, feel free to tell me if i'm just being a pineapplehead or what
when i wash my face, at the sink, i always miss getting spots of soap, and water gets ALL OVER THE FLOOR AND ME BUT NOT MY FACE
am i doing it wrong
is there some secret technique my troll parents never taught me?

At any rate, when I was cleaning my kitchen and bathroom yesterday, I threw out a lot of stuff that was, you know, still salvageable, but I knew that if I took the time to pause and consider whether I should keep something, ('editing' my belongings), I'd never get done and end up keeping a bunch of shit, so I just tossed everything ('purged').  This left me, however, without bathmats, a mat in the kitchen, several towels, skin care things, soaps, a backbrush, etc. 

So, I went out today and replaced it all. New shaving cream and pre-shave gel, new (disposable) razors, new face wash, facial masks, and moisturizer, new towels, new bathmats, and a scalp massager thinger that (1) cleans the scalp better than most people can just by using their fingers and (2) promotes blood flow to the scalp which it has been suggested staves off male pattern baldness.  It's good stuff.  Spent more than I strictly should have, but whatever.

Thought washing my face in my (now clean and non-disgusting) kitchen sink, which is at waist level instead of knee level like my other wash basin, would be better and less messy; this was an incorrect assumption, which led me my opening line of questioning.

Any suggestions?

Friday the 2nd I took off here around 10:30pm, drove for a while, ended up just the other side of Kobe before I got sleepy.  It wasn't so much that i was sleepy maybe, but more that I felt my reflexes were slow and my judgment was bad.  I napped for an hour or so and kept going a while longer before I got REALLY sleepy, and then pulled over and napped for another two hours.  When I woke up, I made the push the rest of the way to Kitakyushu.

It was Saturday afternoon, and the first day of the Golden Week consecutive holidays, I guess, so traffic between Ono and Otake interchanges on the Sanyo Expressway (the two interchanges that straddle Miyajima, that delightful island outside Hiroshima) was fucking retarded, and it took FOREVER to get past there. Once we passed Otake though, it was smooth sailing all the way to my hotel.

On Sunday morning, I picked my friend Spiff up near his place, and we headed out towards Kumamoto. While driving south, we suddenly saw this giantass statue of Kannon in the distance (the second I'd seen in as many weeks -- there's one in some onsen town between Kanazawa and Sabae), and we decided to stop.

Naritasan Temple in Kurume, Fukuoka

62 m high, she was !  Around the grounds were lots of statues.

I climbed to the top of the statue, but it was horrible, and not worth it. The view wasn't even all that interesting. Oh well.  I went to the shop and bought a driving safety charm (as is my way when I'm roadtripping), and shortly thereafter we were on our way again.

Naritasan Temple in Kurume, Fukuoka

Soon (and after a hellish wait in traffic as we approached the place) we arrived at Kumamoto Castle.  I'm not a big castle buff, so I just dicked around a bit and bought some souvenirs, but I think Spiff liked it.

Kumamoto Castle

Kumamoto Castle

Kumamoto Castle

We got to our hotel in Hikawa Town a little later, had dinner at Joyfull, and then had an early evening.  I hung up the shorts I'd worn that day, to air out a bit before putting them in my luggage... and completely forgot about them when we left the hotel.  I didn't realize until two days later, and the hotel staff hangs up on me when I calls and won't reply to my e-mails about how I could possibly get my forgotten item back. It pisses me off, cuz those are like, the only pair of shorts I have that actually fit right anymore. Fuckholes.

Monday we headed to Kagoshima. We stopped at a few places on the way to take pictures.

Driving to Kagoshima

Kagoshima

Kagoshima

Kagoshima

We made it to Sakurajima, and just as we were about to get back in the car and make our way to our hotel in Miyazaki, the clouds broke and the sun came out, so we could get a couple good pictures of it.

Sakurajima

As we headed for our hotel in Kushima City, we saw lots of interesting or beautiful places to stop, and we did, since we're both photo nerds (him arguably moreso than I, as is evidenced by his giant 5lb telephoto lens.)

Sights at Osaki

Kushima City, Miyazaki Prefecture

The next day, we drove from Kushima City all the way up the east coast of Kyushu back to Kitakyushu.  If I had known that Miyazaki and Oita were as beautiful and full of win as they were, I would have given Kumamoto and Kagoshima a miss, because they totally don't compare. We didn't have time to even really stop, because we had so far to go, and it sucks, because Miyazaki is awesome. Palm trees, beautiful little coastal towns, surfer boys, it seemed awesome. If I can swing it, I totally wanna go back this summer.

East Coast of Kyushu

We got back to Kitakyushu and I checked into my hotel and chilled out.

Kitakyushu Skyline

The next day, we left early and made our way towards Miyajima and Hiroshima.  We got to Miyajimaguchi around 1pm, and were able to catch a ferry shortly thereafter and eat lunch on the island. Miyajima was fun, and that's another place I'd like to visit again.  Unfortunately, we arrived at low tide, so we didn't get the full floating torii effect, but I think it was still good.

Miyajima

Miyajima

Miyajima

Miyajima

One of the gift stores at Miyajima was selling... uhhh... interesting t-shirts.

Miyajima

That night, we stayed in the Hiroshima Town Hotel, which was like the bastard child of a business hotel and a love hotel.  I mean, it was cheap and in a dodgy part of town, which fits either genre of lodging; it had reasonable overnight rates, but also had hourly and 'happy time' rates; it had large TVs and soft beds and were very willing to accomodate our wishes, but there weren't any gaudy accessories; the TV had free porn.  It was really a bizarre bizarre place.  That night we had okonomiyaki (Hiroshima-style, of course) at a place close to the hotel, and it was good.

The day before, in Miyazaki and Oita, because I was driving and my window was open (the AC is broken in my car apparently -- I didn't realize this until I was stuck in traffic on the highway) and my window was facing the sun the entire time, i got a pretty bleechy sunburn on my right arm, which just got worse when we drive to Hiroshima with my arm to the south all day.  I stopped at a pharmacy near the hotel to buy sunburn relief.  They gave me this 1500yen can of spray-on stuff.  "Spray it on the sunburn," the guy said, "and it will cool it and remove the sting."  Okay, expensive, but if it works, that's good.  It DID work, but it like, SIZZLED AS IT SAT ON MY SKIN.  It was WEIRD.  But whatever.

The next day, we left real early (around 6:15) and headed for Tottori. Traffic along the road out of Hiroshima we took was stupid, and stop and start for like, 15km.  Once we got out of that, it was smooth sailing, in spite of the oddball directions MapFan had given me (i.e., follow this narrow mountain road that is somehow a National Route, and follow it into Northern Okayama, even though you were in Tottori moments before, and stay there forever before getting on this road that will take you to the manga factory and the wind farm).  Took some pics, had lunch at the dunes, took more pics.

Tottori, Sand Dunes

 

Tottori, Sand Dunes

Tottori, Sand Dunes

Tottori, Sand Dunes

I dropped Spiff at Tottori Stn. around uhhh 3pm I guess -- he was going to catch a train to Himeji, then back to Kitakyushu -- and I headed home.  I thought, "meh, it'll take me 6 hours to get home. It's not soooo far, considering how far I've driven." I drove and drove and drove. I thought I was taking the same route I'd taken home the last time I'd been to Tottori, but it seems it wasn't. I'd never been through Maizuru Port and the assend of Obama before, you see, but I went that way this time. Anyway, it was like, 7, and I was only in Obama, and I thought my timing was pretty shit, and maybe I was confused about distances.  I knew I had to be getting close to Tsuruga -- then I saw a sign that said it was still more than 100km to Tsuruga. GOD WHAT THE HELL?!  I kept going. When I got to Tsuruga, I made a wrong turn, because I was confused as to how I was coming into the city -- I was coming in from a way I had not come in in the past.  I was 15 minutes down the road AWAY from home before I stopped and pulled out the map and checked, then pulled a U-turn.

The road north of Tsuruga is twisty and windy and on a sheer seaside cliff. I'd done the south-bound direction of that road in daylight three times. But now it was night time, and as I navigated the road with 23490823049238423 transport trucks (which was to be my lot for the bulk of my trip home) I got to thinking about how many times I'd navigated it in a northward direction in the day.  I couldn't remember ever doing it ever, though I decided I must have done it once, in August 2k5 on my way back from Tottori the first time I went there.  But that was the only time -- every other time I'd passed through Tsuruga on the outbound leg of my journey, I'd always highwayed it back, and bypassed it.  So it was dicey at best.

In Komatsu, traffic was a little thick. I was in the inside lane, doing the same speed as the transport truck that was in front of me. Some jackass transport truck driver got right up on my tail and kept flashing his lights at me.  I'm like, "HI FUCKFACE, I AM GOING THE SAME SPEED AS THE SLOW FUCK IN FRONT OF ME -- YOU ARE UP HIGH, YOU CAN SEE THESE THINGS."  I would have changed lanes just to get the fuck away from him but (1) whenever I could see to make a lane change, the lane was full and I was unable to, and (2) most of the time I couldn't see to make a lane change because the fuck was so fucking close. Then he finally bunnyhopped into the other lane, sped up so he was beside me, and then tried to merge into me. Fuck you, I ain't slammin' on the brakes just because you're a fucking retard.  Die in a fire.  I hope he did.

I kept driving and driving, and I was so tired, and on three seperate occasions, I remember thinking that the music on my iPod had skipped, and then realized that it was more likely that I'd dozed off for a second.  Luckily, it was only the three times, and it happened on wide open roads with no cars around, and didn't last long enough for anything bad to have happened. I just really wanted to get home though, so I was loathe to pull over and rest, especially when I was only 50 or 60km from home.

When I got to Kanazawa, I decided I wasn't in the mood to navigate the streets of Central Kanazawa, and then the windy mountain road to Tonami, so I just stayed on the almost-highway I was on until I got to Oyabe and saw a sign for Tonami, turned off there and it turned out to be a road that went directly to my house.  I got home at midnight exactly, after driving for almost 9 hours straight, which I suppose made for an epic end to an epic trip.

Friday I spent mostly vegetating. Put my pictures online, organized my souvenirs:
AND I WOULD SHOW YOU PICTURES OF THEM, BUT VOX IS A FUCKING PIECE OF DOGSHIT, THAT NEVER LETS ME UPLOAD SHIT WHEN I WANT TO. IT'S ALWAYS " An error occurred when uploading 15 Stuff I bought (1)
We cannot accept this file. " WHATEVER THE FUCK THAT'S SUPPOSED TO MEAN. YOU KNOW WHAT VOX? FUCK YOU. DIE IN A FUCKING FIRE, YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT. I GUESS I'LL JUST USE TINYPIC, AND EVERY PICTURE WILL BE HUGE, AND IT'S NOT MY FAULT, BECAUSE I WOULD POST THUMBNAILS IF VOX WASN'T A FUCKING SHITLICKER.









Today I cleaned my kitchen and my bathroom. They are clean for the first time in years. Then I went out to do some shopping and my driver's side low-beam headlight  blew. Then I tried to make this post and VOX WAS A SLUTFUCK.

But I had a good time in Kyushu~

I am back from awesome road trip of epic win.  Being back here, alone, in my messy apartment, with nothing to look forward to other than work that has little appeal for me anymore, though, is really sad.