October 3: Catching Up
Hi all! Sorry about the blog drought. I hope I'm able to remember everything of note that's happened since I stopped, but I highly doubt that that's going to happen. >_<
On Monday, nothing much happened, or at least I can't remember much happening. I think it was probably another unremarkable day of paper-writing. On Tuesday, it was more of the same at work, but after work there was a welcome/farewell party for a couple of people who were leaving and joining our lab. It was hosted in Yokochuu, and as usual, there was lots of drinking and not much eating. The guy beside me that I was talking with started getting a little silly, and I think it was for the best that I had an excuse to leave at 9pm, as he showed no signs of stopping his liquor intake. I left with Kabutoya-san to go meet Dad and Linda at Yokochuu station, where Dad and Kabutoya-san had a short chat, and Dad gave Kabutoya-san some salmon and some booze, before we all got on the train and talked about travel, Canada and other things I can't remember. Kabutoya-san got off at Yokohama (where he lives), while Dad and Linda and I carried on to Shinagawa, where we transferred to the Yamanote line, which we rode until Yuurakuchou. We got off at Yuurakuchou and walked to Ginza Itchome where their (and my) accomodation was.
I dropped my bags, arranged a meeting time for the next day with Dad and Linda, and then went out to get a little food at the Sunkus nearby. I ended up getting a really good buttered pork donburi thing that was probably outrageously unhealthy (I mean, duh, it's buttered pork) but was nonetheless delicious (if sinfully so). I also had some Haagen-Dazs pumpkin ice cream, because I was officially on vacation budget! :D I ate it back in my hotel room and then went to bed after reading a bit of the Lonely Planet section on Tokyo.
On Wednesday I got up and ate a meat bun Dad had bought at the LAWSON Natural across from the hotel, along with a capuccino and some orange juice. I was again reminded why I don't drink orange juice in the morning, as my stomach felt quite horrid for the duration of the morning, until about 1, but at least it was being horrid in a mostly-ignorable way that didn't impact my enjoyment of the day for the most part.
Dad and Linda and I first (I think) went to Ueno, where we walked around Ameya-yokochou, which is an old shopping area full of small stores selling fish, golf clubs, army surplus, sunglasses, and anything between. I saw an Okinawan restaurant that I suggested for lunch, but Dad and Linda weren't too hot on the idea and we went to a more wafu place instead, where we got kaisen-don and some tempura and cold tofu which was pretty good.
After we had made about 3 passes through streets in the Ameya-yokochou area we moved onto Ueno park, where we went to the Tokyo National Museum to see an exhibit on ancient Japanese pottery, which, according to Jiuna, is actually ancient we-kidnapped-ancient-Koreans-and-made-them-teach-us pottery. The exhibit's wording did mention Korea, but didn't go into too much detail haha (surprise, surprise...). It was pretty cool to see 10,000 year old jars and stuff, and it was also pretty cool to see how they got better at making stuff over the course of several thousand years. Practice makes perfect, I guess. ;D They also had some of those haniwa things, which I always try to call Naniwa, who is one of my favourite StarCraft players haha. They're quite cool, and they had a bunch of them just sitting out behind a rope that said "don't go here". >_< I really hope that those ones were replicas or something, because noone should have that much faith in humanity... The haniwas were interesting, and more than a little eerie. It's kind of wierd to think that something has been wearing that ghostly half-smile for thousands and thousands of years, even when firmly beneath the ground. >_< After the pottery exhibit, we went and visited another exhibit that was kind of a hodgepodge of kimonos, painted screens, armor and swords. They were all incredibly beautiful, and I definitely did not want to be on the wrong end of one of the swords; they still looked rather deadly after several hundred years.
After Ueno, Dad and Linda went back to the hotel to rest their feet and I tromped up and down Chuuou street in the Ginza area, experiencing the unique sensation of being the worst-dressed and poorest person in a 5-kilometre radius haha. I didn't even bother going in any of the shops other than UniQlo, because I knew I couldn't afford without selling myself into slavery or something (which would totally defeat the point). I went back to the hotel and met up with Dad. Linda's feet were giving her trouble, so she didn't come with us. We took the Ginza line to Suehirochou, and I walked Dad down Chuuou street in Akihabara, pointing out my usual haunts. I took him inside and pointed out the Mushihimesama cabinets, so that he'd know what I was talking about. We didn't stay though. We took the Yamanote from Akihabara to Shinjuku, were we went to go see the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Offices, which probably have a significantly larger peak population than Port McNeill. >_< The buildings in the area around Shinjuku station were rather spectacular, to say the least. From there, Dad and I planned to try out Shinjuku San-chome for dinner, but a rather brightly-lit and bustling area caught our eye first, and we ended up wandering around in the vicinity of Yodobashi Camera, which is apparently home to a million billion restaurants. We hemmed and hawed, and eventually decided on a place called Wasabi-ya that turned out to be AMAAAAAZING!!! Oh my god was it ever good haha. The restaurant specialized in grilled skewers of various types, and something called "shitsumabushi" which is like a donburi and a make-your-own ochazuke (rice and goodies in tea/broth) in one. All the food was sooooo good and we sat at the bar and thus were able to watch all of it get made!
On a completely unrelated note, Emacs now has full control over my body, as I am continually hitting Ctrl-x Ctrl-s to try to save (which luckily actually accomplishes what I want haha) and Ctrl-k, which fortunately does nothing haha.
Dad and I spent a long time eating our dinner, so by the time we got back to Ginza, we just got some dessert at the convenience store and called it a night. We were also planning on going to Tsukiji fish market the next day, which necessitates getting up at an hour which shall not be named (hint: it starts with a 5, herp derp).
On Thursday, I got up at *bleep* o'clock in the morning and went up to Linda and Dad's suite for breakfast. We left pretty promptly afterwards, riding the Yuurakuchou line and then the Oedo line to get to Tsukiji fish market. I can't really describe what it was like here, but I will say that you take your life in your hands when you go there haha. It's very much an active commercially-focused operation, and there are little electric carts flying around at high speed all over the place. O_O They are very much uninterested in you, so you really have to keep your wits about you. Inside the market there were all manner of fish and shellfish, some that I didn't even know existed. We saw LOT of tuna as well. Tuna being cut with a bandsaw, tuna being cut with a longsword that was supposed to be a "knife", tuna being cut with a hatchet, you name it. After seeing just about every edible marine creature of the Pacific Ocean available for purchase (including some rather disturbing cockles/clams that were spurting bright red blood when being shelled, yikes), we retired to the outer part of the market, where I had one of the best kaisen-dons known to mankind. The ikura was completely unbelievable. I feel sorry for people who "don't like ikura", because honestly, they've probably never actually had it. >_< I think I've had ikura like that once or twice at Koko, and I can't recall any other times that have compared. If you are in Tokyo, and feel like getting up at *bleep* o'clock in the morning to try to get yourself dismembered by electric-powered killer go-kart-pickup-truck-chimaerae, then remember to get some ikura! ;D
After Tsukiji fish market, we took the Oedo line to Roppongi, where we went to Roppongi hills, and waited for it to open hahahaha. We went to the Mori Art Museum, which is on the 52nd or 53rd floor of the Mori tower in Roppongi Hills. There was also an observatory, where we got a good view of Tokyo in every direction, before going and seeing the exhibit, which happened to be on the 1960s Japanese-driven architectural movement known as "Metabolism". Metabolism is apparently all about Jetsons-esque megastructures that are fun to think about and laughably impractical for the most part. ;D It was quite an enjoyable exhibit, but it also makes me a little sad at how big we dreamed 50 years ago, and how little some of those dreams have been realized. Where's my green Mars, huh? D:< It's too bad that blowing people up is apparently too much fun for the people in charge that silly things like science can't catch a break /rant. >_<
In Roppongi we wandered a little bit around the complex, which is quite beautiful, although Dad was upset at their choice of colour in stones, which was indeed a little warm for the steel-and-glass skyscrapers they sat at the foot of. We ate Angus Beef curry (lol), which was quite good, and then moved onto Ikebukuro. We originally headed for Sunshine City, but upon getting there, were not inspired to go to any of the stuff they had, and so we went across the street to the Toyota showroom, where they had the world's worst racing games labelled as "safety simulators". Did you know that going down spiralling offramp in a Prius at 160km/h is a breeze? I didn't. The brakes were universally squishy and useless, until you got to the very end of its depressable range, where you would abruptly stop (without skidding, I might add). If those are their safety simulators, I'm a little worried about my future... D: At least I know where half the people in Richmond learned how to drive haha. ;D
After Ikebukuro, we went back to Ginza, where Dad took me to a nearby grocery store with the intention of stocking me up for after they left, but I proved unhelpful and exited with some senbei, an apple-pear and some peach juice. Stuff goes bad really fast in my room, so I didn't want to get too much, as I would hate to see it go to waste. After that, we went for dinner at Salala, which was amazing. We had a million different things which I can't remember, but the highlights for me were the flavour mixtures of soy and mustard that actually worked (!), the duck-that-tasted-like-beef (!!), and the fig tempura (!!!). I was quite happy to have eaten there, and it deserved all the praise Dad and Linda had been giving it throughout the weekend. After parting ways at Ginza-Itchome station, I went back to Shinagawa and then to Yokochuu and then back home.
Friday and Saturday I can honestly remember NOTHING about, which is a little wierd and disturbing. O_O I went to work, and I did stuff at work, but I can't remember a single thing about it, other than that I ate the apple-pear that I got from Dad and Linda on Friday night, and liked it so much that I went to the Yokosan and got another the next day haha.
On Sunday I got up and chatted with Mom and Jiuna, and then went to Tokyo for the day. I had informed Dad of my single-day weekend, and he and I had decided to meet up after he had hung around with Osamu for a while, but it turned out that he had misread his email, and that he was to meet Osamu at 17:30, not 12:30 as he had thought, and so I ended up joining them for dinner. Before that I got some quality time in Akiba, and fiiiiiinally got to stage 5 in Mushihimesama on the 1P side (at long last). I was certainly not expecting it, as I had been mediocre at ESP Galuda 2, and I had not even No-Missed stage 2, which I can often do. I held myself together for the most part on stage 3 and 4, which is apparently what counts, and then got brutally murdered by psychedelic-huded plane-sized moths at the beginning of stage 5. I didn't mind my total fail-out though, because I had to leave for Shibuya, and was happy enough with my beautiful new personal record of 57.8 million points and that nice little "Stage 5" marker next to the daily high score I set. For the record, the machine high score on Original MAX Mode is about 1.03 billion, so I've still got a ways to go hahahaha. I was also able to watch someone play S-power (the least commonly selected shot type, I use M-power), and rack up 101 million points before dying just before the end of the final boss. S-power deals extreme damage and has extremely high mobility, at the cost of only hitting things directly in front of you. As a result, he was quite entertaining to watch, because he was constantly rampaging around the screen getting all up in that bug-face and wrecking shit. Maybe I should give S-power a second chance haha...
At 17:30 I met up with Osamu, his wife, his son, Dad and Linda at the Hachiko statue in Shibuya, from which we walked to a yakitori place (haha, it turned out a little better than the last yakitori place I went to with Osamu lol). The food and conversation was good; we talked about travel and languages and Canadians and Americans and Japanese people, and ate skewers of various sorts along with ochazuke and cold tofu. We left at 8pm, in time for me to catch a train back to Yokochuu at Shinagawa. I missed a bus by a hair, but luckily the buses on Sunday run later than I thought (I'll have to take a picture of the schedule), so I wasn't out of luck. I killed time by eating Tenya and playing Project Diva before catching the next one back to my dorm.
This morning I got up and got to work on time, where I worked on my paper a bit more. My paper is complete at the moment, and is undergoing an accelerated editing process, as the deadline is on the 5th hahaha. Kabutoya-san said that normally, we would be at this stage 2 or 3 weeks ago, but there were obviously hitches in getting me going on my eventual research topic. In any case, apparently most of their co-ops only write one paper during their time here, so I think that means I'm doing alright haha. The paper is also bound for a domestic conference, which is, according to Kabutoya-san, "practice". Ouch haha. Maybe I shouldn't be blogging such defamatory things about a machine learning and datamining conference, but whatevs.
Lunch today looked bleak, but I noticed that one thing claimed to be Chinese, and had what looked like bok-choy in the window sample, so I decided on it. It turned out to look waaaaay better than the window sample, and it was actually quite delicious (and filling! Bonus!). I played handiball with my coworkers, which was great because it was only 2/3 to a side, as many of the usual culprits were absent, and no other projects were playing today. In the afternoon was more paper-editing, and I got a second draft out the door to Kabutoya-san before I left at about 6:35.
Dinner was ramen that was actually not that salty! They also had one of those silly obstacle-course shows on the TV in the dining hall, so I payed and unfortunately small amount of attention to what was probably the best dorm meal I've had in two months haha. D: I retired to my room to eat frozen grapefruit, and experienced the time-tested bachelor's trick of drinking milk right out of the carton. It's somehow... liberating. I feel like I know how Olivia Newton-John (an alter-ego of my mother, according to Japanese people) felt in Grease... or something. Do I have to wear leather and have big hair, now? How about I just stick to the milk thing...
Anyways, I've blogged for too long and am making less and less sense as time goes on, and have also passed the threshold where going to bed immediately will no longer count as "early", so I think I will stop for today, and see you all again a little sooner than last time (hopefully).
Night!
Monday, October 3, 2011
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Devouring giant piles of gently charred animal pieces is a universal language
September 25: Meeting up with Dad and Linda
Today I woke up and ate dorm breakfast of natto and pork mixture. The natto had bonito and some brown jelly-like sauce on it what was not exactly a hit with me, I must say. D: I showered and got to work on time, and started back on writing my paper. I skimmed a bunch more papers and now my Related Work sections is looking reasonably well-fleshed-out. Kabutoya-san was back today (I was under the impression he was coming back tomorrow), and he took a look and told me that I've got enough references now, since this paper is for a domestic conference, not an international one. Whew! That was quite a relief, and I am glad to be back to being able to look at the actual words in my paper again, rather than just thinking about what else I can talk about that will require references haha.
At lunch I ate curry-udon, which was a bit of a mistake, as it was reaaaally hot and it stayed that way for some time, leading to quite a bit of mouth-burning. D: The roux was alright, but it was a little too salty for me to want to drink it after finishing the noodles, which was a shame. After eating my coworkers and I played handiball, and I was alright again, especially my serve (yay). In the afternoon I worked on my paper more (surpriiise~!)
I left promptly at 6pm to make sure I wasn't late to meet Dad, and that actually ended up putting me at Yokochuu about half an hour early. O_O I took the time to wander around a bit in a direction I haven't before, as well as in the vertical mall (seriously, its footprint is tiny and it's got 9 floors), where I found an arcade with all the same games I don't want to play that the other Yokochuu arcade that I know about has. >_< It also has a Project Diva machine, like the one I already knew about haha. Oh well, it's good to know about anyways.
Dad and Linda were driven to Yokochuu by Yuji and Emi, and so we ended up having dinner with them and Mariko as well. We went to a yakiniku place that they had spotted on their way here, which was pretty good (it's yakiniku, so your enjoyment of the food is pretty closely related to how much attention the cook is paying haha). I'm glad that they had a place in mind, as one of the places I had looked up last night was nowhere to be found, and the other was a bit of a walk to get to. It was nice to see Dad and Linda again, although with blogging we don't have too much to catch up on at all! >_< Should I stop? Haha j/k.
After dinner Dad and Linda bought Pasmos at my suggestion, which involved all of us standing around the machine pressing buttons haphazardly (OK, I'm embellishing a little). Somehow they actually got them in the end, and they hopefully will have fun using them to get around (I know that I still gain a little enjoyment every time I use mine).
After parting ways with everyone, I walked back towards the bus stop and watched the bus I wanted to be on leave. Damnit! The next one wasn't to come for another half-hour, so I ducked into the arcade that I already knew about and played a little Project Diva to kill some time. I haven't been playing much, so it was the usual routing of playing Po-Pi-Po and almost full-comboing it and then getting 2% short of a pass on moon. D:< Where 2% short of a pass means 78%, of course. Thanks Japan. I love you too.
The bus back to my dorm was suuuuper crowded. People are just as bad here about moving back as they are in Vancouver, and I got quite pushy while compressing people in the back half of the bus. I think I had a net emotional response of zero from the people on the bus due to the cancellation between the people behind me who loved me and the people whose personal space I was violating, who hated my guts. ;D
I got back to my dorm and debated going straight to bed, but I decided that eating frozen grapefruit is more important than sleep, so I stayed up while letting one thaw out. It's now thawed (and eaten haha), so I'll be taking a bow right about now.
Night!
Today I woke up and ate dorm breakfast of natto and pork mixture. The natto had bonito and some brown jelly-like sauce on it what was not exactly a hit with me, I must say. D: I showered and got to work on time, and started back on writing my paper. I skimmed a bunch more papers and now my Related Work sections is looking reasonably well-fleshed-out. Kabutoya-san was back today (I was under the impression he was coming back tomorrow), and he took a look and told me that I've got enough references now, since this paper is for a domestic conference, not an international one. Whew! That was quite a relief, and I am glad to be back to being able to look at the actual words in my paper again, rather than just thinking about what else I can talk about that will require references haha.
At lunch I ate curry-udon, which was a bit of a mistake, as it was reaaaally hot and it stayed that way for some time, leading to quite a bit of mouth-burning. D: The roux was alright, but it was a little too salty for me to want to drink it after finishing the noodles, which was a shame. After eating my coworkers and I played handiball, and I was alright again, especially my serve (yay). In the afternoon I worked on my paper more (surpriiise~!)
I left promptly at 6pm to make sure I wasn't late to meet Dad, and that actually ended up putting me at Yokochuu about half an hour early. O_O I took the time to wander around a bit in a direction I haven't before, as well as in the vertical mall (seriously, its footprint is tiny and it's got 9 floors), where I found an arcade with all the same games I don't want to play that the other Yokochuu arcade that I know about has. >_< It also has a Project Diva machine, like the one I already knew about haha. Oh well, it's good to know about anyways.
Dad and Linda were driven to Yokochuu by Yuji and Emi, and so we ended up having dinner with them and Mariko as well. We went to a yakiniku place that they had spotted on their way here, which was pretty good (it's yakiniku, so your enjoyment of the food is pretty closely related to how much attention the cook is paying haha). I'm glad that they had a place in mind, as one of the places I had looked up last night was nowhere to be found, and the other was a bit of a walk to get to. It was nice to see Dad and Linda again, although with blogging we don't have too much to catch up on at all! >_< Should I stop? Haha j/k.
After dinner Dad and Linda bought Pasmos at my suggestion, which involved all of us standing around the machine pressing buttons haphazardly (OK, I'm embellishing a little). Somehow they actually got them in the end, and they hopefully will have fun using them to get around (I know that I still gain a little enjoyment every time I use mine).
After parting ways with everyone, I walked back towards the bus stop and watched the bus I wanted to be on leave. Damnit! The next one wasn't to come for another half-hour, so I ducked into the arcade that I already knew about and played a little Project Diva to kill some time. I haven't been playing much, so it was the usual routing of playing Po-Pi-Po and almost full-comboing it and then getting 2% short of a pass on moon. D:< Where 2% short of a pass means 78%, of course. Thanks Japan. I love you too.
The bus back to my dorm was suuuuper crowded. People are just as bad here about moving back as they are in Vancouver, and I got quite pushy while compressing people in the back half of the bus. I think I had a net emotional response of zero from the people on the bus due to the cancellation between the people behind me who loved me and the people whose personal space I was violating, who hated my guts. ;D
I got back to my dorm and debated going straight to bed, but I decided that eating frozen grapefruit is more important than sleep, so I stayed up while letting one thaw out. It's now thawed (and eaten haha), so I'll be taking a bow right about now.
Night!
Saturday, September 24, 2011
No, I'm not going to make a "being stuck inside due to a typ(h)oon blows" joke for your amusement!
September 24: Happy Birthday Mom!
Whew, I've got a couple of days to catch up on, don't I? Good thing I didn't do much ahahaha!
Tuesday was pretty uneventful. Kabutoya-san took the day off, but I wasn't affected much by it, as I was just working on my paper. I am most certainly in the Related Work section now, which means I have to read a billion papers to check whether or not they are actually related to my work. Fun times... >_< There weren't enough people to play handiball, so I had to just go back to my seat after eating. D:
On Wednesday, I was woken up by an announcement being played through loudspeakers that are distributed by the area saying there was a flood warning due to heavy rain. O_O I am glad they had English, but the Japanese version said a lot more that I couldn't understand. D: I got up and wandered around the halls a little until I ran into someone who walked blearily to the bathroom, went pee, and then went back to bed. Since the announcement was quite audible the whole time, I took that to mean that it was safe to do so. >_< I went back to sleep and was actually able to sleep quite well until about 11, when I realized my bed was floati-- no I'm just kidding. ;D I had to use my sleeping bag when, well, sleeping, because the typ(h)oon dropped the temperature down to like, 23.8 according to my clock. Holy crap! Even as of this writing it's still only 25, which makes me very, very happy.
I didn't do too much on Wednesday, as the typ(h)oon was actually quite scary. The wind was whipping all the foliage I could see all over the place, and huuuuge sheets of rain were FLYING practically sideways. It was quite impressive, and I'm glad that my dorm appears to be well-suited to deal with typhoons. No rattling, creaking or leaking whatsoever. The rain had stopped by the time I went out to go get dinner, but the wind was so strong and the power lines were whipping around so crazily that I decided that scurrying to LAWSON STATION and hiding back in my room was in order. The ramen place that's a 20 minute walk away will have to wait. D: Seriously though, the wind was gusting stronger than I ever recall happening up at the front of the ferry, and it was switching direction all over the place. Quite a neat experience, though I was crossing my fingers whenever I went near any power lines. Thank goodness my Internet didn't cut out. :D
On Thursday I voice chatted with Mom and Jiuna in the morning for an unusually long time before setting out for the day. I actually made a long stop in Yokohama to try to pick up a pre-paid cell phone for Dad and Linda (and later Mom and Jiuna) from the Soft Bank near Yokohama Station, but I left empty handed. They have English sales representatives, which is nice, but the experience of taking a ticket, explaining what I wanted, getting told which model I wanted and the price, waiting for at least 20 minutes, and then going up to the counter after my number was called and having the lady say "Oh sorry... we're actually sold out of the 1900円 one, but we've got the 7000円 one in stock. Do you want that one?" was less than pleasant. Um, no way betch! I know it wasn't her fault, and I was pretty successful at remaining pleasant, but when she asked me if I wanted the 7000円 model instead, I'm pretty sure my voice went quite flat while saying "That would completely defeat the purpose." Oh well, when Dad and Linda are here, we can try looking in other stores if it's convenient.
I went from Yokohama to Akiba after that to try to pick up something for Jiuna, but I was unsuccessful, and only managed to buy something for myself again. >_< I'm pretty bad at this "personal shopper" thing... I had left so late and I had spent so much time in Yokohama that after looking for Jiuna's request and eating dinner (I ate katsu-curry at Katsu-ya instead of Meryl Streep), I only had time for two rounds of ESP Galuda and a round of Mushihime before I had to go home. I left earlier, because I wanted to have some wiggle room in case the typ(h)oon caused some delays or something.
Yesterday was also quite uneventful. I am up to 13 references, but that is not nearly enough, judging by how many Kabutoya-san's paper that he gave me as a sample has. For some reason DBLP (a giant online paper database) was on the fritz yesterday and today, which severely impeded my reference-hunting. I hope it's better tomorrow, because determining people's names by Google searches and then trial-and-error typing them into a plausible DBLP URL is somewhat tedious (though it works waaay better than it could, let me just say that). Yesterday for lunch I had delicious kimchi on some not-so-delicious fried rice. >_< Since the kimchi amounted to a whole four pieces, I think I will refrain from getting that one in the future. It was hella cheap though! But so not worth it. D: I played badminton with Kurauchi-san, because we again did not have enough people for handiball.
Today was, surprise, uneventful! I got up on time and ate dorm breakfast that was uncharacteristically small. D: For some reason it lasted until lunch though, so I guess I can't complain. For lunch I had wasabi chicken, and I finally got a large piece! I think I got it because Kurauchi-san was in front of me in line, but didn't get wasabi chicken. I'll have to follow him around and get stuff that he doesn't from now on... It was pretty good, and a welcome departure from hiyashi wakame ramen (that I miraculously still like). Today we played handiball again, hooray! I was terrible. D: Oh well, I don't have another game until the 7th, so I've got time to become un-terrible again, hopefully. In terms of actual work, my related work actually looks somewhat logical, but the problem I am having now is finding another aspect of my model to expound upon in terms of related work. I need more references, but I am not sure how to keep talking to get the space to make more citations. >_< I read over my paper a couple of times to try to suss out places to put more citations, but I think I'm good on that front, unfortunately. Oh well. At the end of the day I found more papers I actually want to reference, but I'm not sure how to go about using them without going on at length about a rather small detail of my model haha.
I think the people at the Yokosan are on to me. They must have caught on to my enormous grapefruit consumption habits, as the cheaper bags' grapefruits have been getting smaller and smaller, and the individual ones have been getting larger and larger, or at least that's how it seems... I have switched over to the larger ones, and am not regretting it so far. The small ones were seriously the size of a large orange this time, and they looked pretty ugly to boot.
At the dorm, supper was curry rice! It actually tasted quite a lot like how Mom makes it, which is strange because prior to now, I thought her style was unique (even though she SAYS she just follows the directions on the package). I got to chat with Yasu-san (the guy who did an exchange trip to Waterloo), which was neat. We talked about Japanese television and about how much Americans love guns.
Anyways, now that I've caught up in blogging, it's time to go to bed! One thing that I am very sad to have brought with me from Canada are my sleeping habits. >_< I need like, a shock collar for myself or something to help me learn to go to bed. D:<
Night!
Whew, I've got a couple of days to catch up on, don't I? Good thing I didn't do much ahahaha!
Tuesday was pretty uneventful. Kabutoya-san took the day off, but I wasn't affected much by it, as I was just working on my paper. I am most certainly in the Related Work section now, which means I have to read a billion papers to check whether or not they are actually related to my work. Fun times... >_< There weren't enough people to play handiball, so I had to just go back to my seat after eating. D:
On Wednesday, I was woken up by an announcement being played through loudspeakers that are distributed by the area saying there was a flood warning due to heavy rain. O_O I am glad they had English, but the Japanese version said a lot more that I couldn't understand. D: I got up and wandered around the halls a little until I ran into someone who walked blearily to the bathroom, went pee, and then went back to bed. Since the announcement was quite audible the whole time, I took that to mean that it was safe to do so. >_< I went back to sleep and was actually able to sleep quite well until about 11, when I realized my bed was floati-- no I'm just kidding. ;D I had to use my sleeping bag when, well, sleeping, because the typ(h)oon dropped the temperature down to like, 23.8 according to my clock. Holy crap! Even as of this writing it's still only 25, which makes me very, very happy.
I didn't do too much on Wednesday, as the typ(h)oon was actually quite scary. The wind was whipping all the foliage I could see all over the place, and huuuuge sheets of rain were FLYING practically sideways. It was quite impressive, and I'm glad that my dorm appears to be well-suited to deal with typhoons. No rattling, creaking or leaking whatsoever. The rain had stopped by the time I went out to go get dinner, but the wind was so strong and the power lines were whipping around so crazily that I decided that scurrying to LAWSON STATION and hiding back in my room was in order. The ramen place that's a 20 minute walk away will have to wait. D: Seriously though, the wind was gusting stronger than I ever recall happening up at the front of the ferry, and it was switching direction all over the place. Quite a neat experience, though I was crossing my fingers whenever I went near any power lines. Thank goodness my Internet didn't cut out. :D
On Thursday I voice chatted with Mom and Jiuna in the morning for an unusually long time before setting out for the day. I actually made a long stop in Yokohama to try to pick up a pre-paid cell phone for Dad and Linda (and later Mom and Jiuna) from the Soft Bank near Yokohama Station, but I left empty handed. They have English sales representatives, which is nice, but the experience of taking a ticket, explaining what I wanted, getting told which model I wanted and the price, waiting for at least 20 minutes, and then going up to the counter after my number was called and having the lady say "Oh sorry... we're actually sold out of the 1900円 one, but we've got the 7000円 one in stock. Do you want that one?" was less than pleasant. Um, no way betch! I know it wasn't her fault, and I was pretty successful at remaining pleasant, but when she asked me if I wanted the 7000円 model instead, I'm pretty sure my voice went quite flat while saying "That would completely defeat the purpose." Oh well, when Dad and Linda are here, we can try looking in other stores if it's convenient.
I went from Yokohama to Akiba after that to try to pick up something for Jiuna, but I was unsuccessful, and only managed to buy something for myself again. >_< I'm pretty bad at this "personal shopper" thing... I had left so late and I had spent so much time in Yokohama that after looking for Jiuna's request and eating dinner (I ate katsu-curry at Katsu-ya instead of Meryl Streep), I only had time for two rounds of ESP Galuda and a round of Mushihime before I had to go home. I left earlier, because I wanted to have some wiggle room in case the typ(h)oon caused some delays or something.
Yesterday was also quite uneventful. I am up to 13 references, but that is not nearly enough, judging by how many Kabutoya-san's paper that he gave me as a sample has. For some reason DBLP (a giant online paper database) was on the fritz yesterday and today, which severely impeded my reference-hunting. I hope it's better tomorrow, because determining people's names by Google searches and then trial-and-error typing them into a plausible DBLP URL is somewhat tedious (though it works waaay better than it could, let me just say that). Yesterday for lunch I had delicious kimchi on some not-so-delicious fried rice. >_< Since the kimchi amounted to a whole four pieces, I think I will refrain from getting that one in the future. It was hella cheap though! But so not worth it. D: I played badminton with Kurauchi-san, because we again did not have enough people for handiball.
Today was, surprise, uneventful! I got up on time and ate dorm breakfast that was uncharacteristically small. D: For some reason it lasted until lunch though, so I guess I can't complain. For lunch I had wasabi chicken, and I finally got a large piece! I think I got it because Kurauchi-san was in front of me in line, but didn't get wasabi chicken. I'll have to follow him around and get stuff that he doesn't from now on... It was pretty good, and a welcome departure from hiyashi wakame ramen (that I miraculously still like). Today we played handiball again, hooray! I was terrible. D: Oh well, I don't have another game until the 7th, so I've got time to become un-terrible again, hopefully. In terms of actual work, my related work actually looks somewhat logical, but the problem I am having now is finding another aspect of my model to expound upon in terms of related work. I need more references, but I am not sure how to keep talking to get the space to make more citations. >_< I read over my paper a couple of times to try to suss out places to put more citations, but I think I'm good on that front, unfortunately. Oh well. At the end of the day I found more papers I actually want to reference, but I'm not sure how to go about using them without going on at length about a rather small detail of my model haha.
I think the people at the Yokosan are on to me. They must have caught on to my enormous grapefruit consumption habits, as the cheaper bags' grapefruits have been getting smaller and smaller, and the individual ones have been getting larger and larger, or at least that's how it seems... I have switched over to the larger ones, and am not regretting it so far. The small ones were seriously the size of a large orange this time, and they looked pretty ugly to boot.
At the dorm, supper was curry rice! It actually tasted quite a lot like how Mom makes it, which is strange because prior to now, I thought her style was unique (even though she SAYS she just follows the directions on the package). I got to chat with Yasu-san (the guy who did an exchange trip to Waterloo), which was neat. We talked about Japanese television and about how much Americans love guns.
Anyways, now that I've caught up in blogging, it's time to go to bed! One thing that I am very sad to have brought with me from Canada are my sleeping habits. >_< I need like, a shock collar for myself or something to help me learn to go to bed. D:<
Night!
Monday, September 19, 2011
The company said no more holidays for the rest of the year. But tomorrow is a holiday.
September 19: Surprise Holiday
I didn't blog yesterday because I found out at 5pm that today (the 19th) was a holiday haha. I decided that I would be staying home (the weekend is coming up soon, and my budget is a little under the weather anyways), and so would have nothing to blog about. Combined with the fact that yesterday was quite uneventful, I decided to combine the two days into one.
Yesterday, as I said, was quite uneventful. I got up on time and to work on time, and worked on my paper all day. I am unfortunately finishing up all of the sections of my paper aside from "Related Work", which means I will no longer be able to avoid a massive amount of paper-reading. D: I'm pretty sure that's the wrong order to do things, philosophically speaking, but I would be highly surprised if it's not the norm haha. I am quite liking LaTeX the more I use it, and I think that the problems I do have with it are probably my own fault more than anything. >_< If I ever have to use it again, perhaps I'll find out.
A new employee joined the PIGs yesterday! He's apparently going to be working with Nishida-san, so I won't have work related contact with him, but he will be playing volleyball. He's actually taller than anyone else in the group by a significant margin, so I am interested to see how completely unfair it is haha. His name is Itou-san, and he did an internship (their domestic internships are 1 month! D:) for the PIGs, and is coming back after being hired by the company for real. Apparently when NTT hires you for real, they make you do something totally unrelated to your future work like selling FLET'S subscriptions in Nagano or something. >_< I am glad that North American companies don't seem to do that, and I'm glad that they didn't think it'd be a good idea to start me off in a similar manner over here haha.
Nothing too eventful happened in the evening, aside from dinner being unusually salty. It was curry-udon, but I could hardly eat it by the end. O_O I probably have high blood pressure or something by now. I am very much looking forward to food not having quite so much salt in it when I come back to Canada, that's for sure. Oh yes! I forgot to mention that the Yokosan had figs in stock last night. I bought some and devoured three, and put two in the freezer for today.
Today I got up at sometime between 10 and 12 ahahah. I honestly can't remember haha. I ate a breakfast of korokke I'd bought yesterday, carrots, bananas, grapefruit and figs. I let the figs thaw too long, and so they weren't frozen anymore at all. The freezing/thawing process had rendered them almost textureless, so at least it was an interesting experience, though not the one I was looking for (that experience is in another castle).
I spent the early afternoon playing StarCraft with Kevin, and later Vincent, before actually LADDERING for the first time in AGES. D: It was rather stressful, and just as frustrating as I remember it being. I don't understand why people love one-basing so much... It's pretty much a dead end in terms of skill progression, so it has to be completely about the instant gratification of winning. Grow up, chumps! D:< I do suppose it's a bit odd to call people I lose to chumps, but whatever, the people who lost to me are probably calling for the "N" key to be removed from standard keyboards or something. Oh well, it was actually rather enjoyable in retrospect ahaha. It also gives me the drive to do more constructive things, for some reason. I wrote up a vocab list for myself to use this weekend after playing! I guess that means that I'd better play more often, eh? ;D
I ate katsu-don for dinner because I didn't realize that I was hungry until I was starting to get a headache from it. Katsu-don is fast, so I decided to have it instead of a restaurant meal. I actually ran out of grapefruits in the freezer (D:), so I ended up eating chocolate ice cream for dessert. I hope I can get to sleep OK.
I was supposed to play StarCraft with the guy who just moved into my dorm a week or so ago, but he never appeared to have added me in the game. I assume he either forgot, or his Internet connection setup went not-so-smoothly. I hope that it was the former, because I would not wish a lack of Internet even upon my worst enemies (which I so have...). Anyways, that just about wraps up today, so I think I'll take a bow and go to bed now. Night!
I didn't blog yesterday because I found out at 5pm that today (the 19th) was a holiday haha. I decided that I would be staying home (the weekend is coming up soon, and my budget is a little under the weather anyways), and so would have nothing to blog about. Combined with the fact that yesterday was quite uneventful, I decided to combine the two days into one.
Yesterday, as I said, was quite uneventful. I got up on time and to work on time, and worked on my paper all day. I am unfortunately finishing up all of the sections of my paper aside from "Related Work", which means I will no longer be able to avoid a massive amount of paper-reading. D: I'm pretty sure that's the wrong order to do things, philosophically speaking, but I would be highly surprised if it's not the norm haha. I am quite liking LaTeX the more I use it, and I think that the problems I do have with it are probably my own fault more than anything. >_< If I ever have to use it again, perhaps I'll find out.
A new employee joined the PIGs yesterday! He's apparently going to be working with Nishida-san, so I won't have work related contact with him, but he will be playing volleyball. He's actually taller than anyone else in the group by a significant margin, so I am interested to see how completely unfair it is haha. His name is Itou-san, and he did an internship (their domestic internships are 1 month! D:) for the PIGs, and is coming back after being hired by the company for real. Apparently when NTT hires you for real, they make you do something totally unrelated to your future work like selling FLET'S subscriptions in Nagano or something. >_< I am glad that North American companies don't seem to do that, and I'm glad that they didn't think it'd be a good idea to start me off in a similar manner over here haha.
Nothing too eventful happened in the evening, aside from dinner being unusually salty. It was curry-udon, but I could hardly eat it by the end. O_O I probably have high blood pressure or something by now. I am very much looking forward to food not having quite so much salt in it when I come back to Canada, that's for sure. Oh yes! I forgot to mention that the Yokosan had figs in stock last night. I bought some and devoured three, and put two in the freezer for today.
Today I got up at sometime between 10 and 12 ahahah. I honestly can't remember haha. I ate a breakfast of korokke I'd bought yesterday, carrots, bananas, grapefruit and figs. I let the figs thaw too long, and so they weren't frozen anymore at all. The freezing/thawing process had rendered them almost textureless, so at least it was an interesting experience, though not the one I was looking for (that experience is in another castle).
I spent the early afternoon playing StarCraft with Kevin, and later Vincent, before actually LADDERING for the first time in AGES. D: It was rather stressful, and just as frustrating as I remember it being. I don't understand why people love one-basing so much... It's pretty much a dead end in terms of skill progression, so it has to be completely about the instant gratification of winning. Grow up, chumps! D:< I do suppose it's a bit odd to call people I lose to chumps, but whatever, the people who lost to me are probably calling for the "N" key to be removed from standard keyboards or something. Oh well, it was actually rather enjoyable in retrospect ahaha. It also gives me the drive to do more constructive things, for some reason. I wrote up a vocab list for myself to use this weekend after playing! I guess that means that I'd better play more often, eh? ;D
I ate katsu-don for dinner because I didn't realize that I was hungry until I was starting to get a headache from it. Katsu-don is fast, so I decided to have it instead of a restaurant meal. I actually ran out of grapefruits in the freezer (D:), so I ended up eating chocolate ice cream for dessert. I hope I can get to sleep OK.
I was supposed to play StarCraft with the guy who just moved into my dorm a week or so ago, but he never appeared to have added me in the game. I assume he either forgot, or his Internet connection setup went not-so-smoothly. I hope that it was the former, because I would not wish a lack of Internet even upon my worst enemies (which I so have...). Anyways, that just about wraps up today, so I think I'll take a bow and go to bed now. Night!
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Shortest blog; shortest title.
September 17: Nothing to Report
Today was just another day back at work, which means I don't really have much to blog about at all. >_< The most notable thing that happened today was that there was natto with dinner, which has never happened before. Oh yeah, and even more suprise dorm fees may be in my future. D:< There is some bill that I was given at the office that is for like, 7000円, and even Kabutoya-san isn't really sure what it's about. He says it might be a dorm fee, but he's not sure why it's for July, when it's currently September, and, if it is a dorm fee, why I didn't have one for June. He's going to ask tomorrow what exactly it is, and if it's actually even mine lol. >_< I am a little tired of my low-information situation (with respect to, uh, everything), but I can't complain too bitterly about additional fees, because my dorm is still ultra cheap compared to renting, even if this is a new monthly fee.
I feel a bit funny in my nose (oh no!), so I will be going to bed right this second (I've already brushed my teeth). Night!
Today was just another day back at work, which means I don't really have much to blog about at all. >_< The most notable thing that happened today was that there was natto with dinner, which has never happened before. Oh yeah, and even more suprise dorm fees may be in my future. D:< There is some bill that I was given at the office that is for like, 7000円, and even Kabutoya-san isn't really sure what it's about. He says it might be a dorm fee, but he's not sure why it's for July, when it's currently September, and, if it is a dorm fee, why I didn't have one for June. He's going to ask tomorrow what exactly it is, and if it's actually even mine lol. >_< I am a little tired of my low-information situation (with respect to, uh, everything), but I can't complain too bitterly about additional fees, because my dorm is still ultra cheap compared to renting, even if this is a new monthly fee.
I feel a bit funny in my nose (oh no!), so I will be going to bed right this second (I've already brushed my teeth). Night!
Friday, September 16, 2011
I totally blogged while waiting for my laundry to dry! And they say men can't multitask... *tsk tsk tsk*
September 16: Return to Work
Since I haven't blogged in a few days, I guess I'll start off by recapping.
On Tuesday, nothing really of note happened at all (hence no blog). I wrote a chunk of my paper and got tests ready to run over the weekend. I think I had hiyashi wakame ramen, so not too much to report on the food front. I played some Touhou UFO in the evening, as I kind of wanted to beat it before I bought the next game, Ten Desires, which became available in Akiba during the past week. As it turned out, I stayed up relatively late, and so I woke up on Wednesday at around 12:30. I somehow managed to take an inordinately long time to get ready to leave; it was 2pm before I was ready to go. I decided to go to Akiba on Thursday instead, to get a fuller day. For the rest of the day I played StarCraft with Kevin (since I wouldn't be playing on Thursday) and by myself, in addition to trying again and actually succeeding in beating UFO (haha perfect timing). I didn't go out for dinner, as I thought my budget was tight and had LAWSON STATION katsu-don instead. I'm not sure why I waited until AFTER eating to catch up on my budget tallying, because I was surprised to found out when I did, that I was actually in relatively good shape. Oh well. I enjoyed my katsu-don, as I haven't actually had it in like 3 weeks. I got all my chores done on Wednesday, so I was free to stay out late on Thursday. I called Dad at about 12:05am on Thursday morning, to wish him the earliest Happy-Birthday-in-which-it's-his-actual-birthday-for-at-least-one-of-the-parties-involved ever. I then proceeded to stay up too late doing nothing particularly useful (and that I can't even remember now, which means it was REALLY not particularly useful).
On Thursday I voice chatted with Mom and Jiuna from 11 until maybe 12:30 before leaving for Akiba. I basically walked to the bus stop and straight onto a bus, which was really nice, as it was quite sunny, and the sun is so strong here it sometimes makes me dizzy (even in mid-September). Unfortunately, I would have been able to get off the bus and walk onto a train (well, walk to the station and run once I was in sight of the signboards telling me when the upcoming departure times were), but a cluster of incredibly relaxed women blocked the whole sidewalk for half the way to the station, and I missed the limited express by a hair (I heard the doors close as I ran up the stairs). D:< If someone ever notices and points out to me that I am engaging in such gainlessly disruptive behaviour, I think I will have a major personal crisis.
Once the train came, an old lady toootally budged in front of me and then went for the completely empty courtesy seats which are reserved for her anyways... Old habits die hard I guess...? I rode to Shinagawa, and then to Akiba without event.
Once in Akiba, I went to Tenya and ordered my usual all-star set before noticing that they've got a new fall menu. Oh well, there will be other opportunities, and their fall menu looked quite a lot like their summer one, to be honest. After eating I tried (again in vain) to find the doujinshi (a homebrewed comic) Jiuna wants, but that thing is impossible to find. I literally looked at every cover in the "New Arrivals" on the floor it should have been on, but to no avail. There was one open slot that was sold out that I noticed, but Jiuna hates things that are popular with untold fury, so I guessed that it wasn't what I was looking for haha. I actually managed to buy something for myself though, as browsing through all the new arrivals led me to a book with some rather beautiful random pieces of art in it. It was also cheaper than the price tag suggested. Yay~! Toranoana was actually sold of out Ten Desires, which was not terribly shocking to me. I had hoped they wouldn't be, but I realize that it's a new Touhou game during the week of its release, so I was fully prepared for that possibility. And by fully prepared, I mean that I knew that Gamers was also getting it in stock, and so I went there, where they had a gajillion copies left. >_> They put theirs on the 6th floor, those jerks. Oh well, it worked out for me hahahah. I unfortunately ended up buying two more Touhou games that I won't be playing for a while yet, but whatever. What is life, other than a series of loosely connected impulse-buys? ;D
After my unintentionally selfish shopping trip, I went to CLUB SEGA 2 to play ESP Galuda. I ended up playing reaaaally well by my standards, getting a score that was more than 1.5x my previous personal best, and clearing an entire stage that I think I may not have ever seen before, before dying on the boss of the next one. O_O I have no idea where this stroke of danmaku genius came from, but I was quite excited to see how it translated into Mushihime, and as I found out quite quickly after moving to HEY!, it didn't. I got to the 4th stage relatively frequently again, which is no longer a new development, but is still nicer than dying on stage 3 all the time. I have the most frustrating affliction of having wild performance shifts within a single play. D:< The times when I play the best are when I've royally screwed up the early levels and have few lives, if any, and few bombs if multiple bombs are possible, and when I do well in the earlier levels, and get to, for example, the middle of the third stage in Mushihime without bombing or dying, I will not even make it to the boss. This occurs in ESP Galuda, Mushihime and Touhou all with alarming reliability, which inevitably leads to copious swearing in the case of Touhou, where I'm in the privacy of my own room. >_<
I ate buta-kim don at Meryl Streep for supper at about 8:30 and left Akiba shortly after. The day basically ends when I get on the Yamanote to go back home, as the trip takes roughly 2 hours. One thing I noticed on my way home is that Kirin is now advertising a new line of Milk Tea they've put out called "Pungency". >_< Despite the poor name choice, I tried it, and it's actually pretty good, though that's probably just because I like Milk Tea.
Today was a regular day back at work. I worked on my paper all day, as my tests haven't finished yet. I loaded them on pretty thick, as I have until October 5th to submit my paper, and I want to know definitively if I'm totally screwed or not-- no more of this "I'm not sure if the results are conclusive or not" crap! Today was a bit frustrating, as I spent a good deal of time trying to find out how to do better formatting while restricted to using LaTeX's eqnarray. The sample document says to use eqnarray for multi-line equations (which is exactly what I'm working with), so I figured, since they have a 9-page document on how exactly to write your paper before you submit it to them, that it would be a good idea to stick to their outlined (and coloured and filled and embellished and varnished) procedures. Finding out how to do better formatting with eqnarray proved quite difficult, as everyone on the Internet who had asked the same questions as I was had been told in no uncertain terms that eqnarray sucks and they should use something else, which will instantly fix all of their problems. D: Lucky for me, Kabutoya-san came by after several hours of experimenting with new attempts at tricking eqnarray into behaving itself (interspersed with giving up and writing more stuff once in a while) and asked me how I was doing. I explained my problem, to which he (of course you all saw this coming a mile away) told me that I can totally just ditch eqnarray because it sucks and everyone uses amsmath's align instead because it instantly solves all your problems. D:< Why exactly didn't I actually ask whether it was OK to use other packages before giving myself ulcers? Well this is my blog, so you don't get to know until I do. D: Writing went a little more smoothly after that.
I left at around 6:15, as I wanted to get a wash going before eating supper, which didn't end up happening, as I remembered while walking by the Matsumoto Kiyoshi that I had run out of handsoap. I also bought some floss in case I run out, and I'm glad I looked into it then, because there was one on sale for about 200円, while all the others were more like 600. D: I'm a little worried about how much cheaper my floss was than the others... I hope it doesn't have like, fibreglass in it or something. D:
Dorm dinner was decent, it was pork mixtures and oden with miso soup and rice, but the real star of the show was FROZEN GRAPEFRUIT LIKE ALWAYS! HELLZ YEAH! *<:B I got my laundry going right away, but I still had to stay up to wait for it. I hope it's ready now, because I am done blogging and want to go to bed. At least I got to try out Ten Desires. It has yet to grow on me, and I have only played it past stage 2 (I tend to be a little suicidal in these games when they're free) about 3 times, so I am not yet passing judgement.
I have been feeling like I'm getting a lot better a danmaku with all the practice I've been getting, so I made the mistake of "empirically" testing this by firing up Touhou Perfect Cherry Blossom and seeing how I did on hard mode (my most played configuration and game before I stopped playing for a while). It was really easy keeping track of all the patterns, which I don't recall being true before, but that just meant I ran into bullets that I KNEW were there, which is kind of worse than before in a way... I still can't make it to the stage 4 boss on one continue, though I suppose more than 2 tries is necessary to see what's really what.
Anyways, I can't hear the dryer anymore, so I'm going to post and leave you for tonight.
Night!
Since I haven't blogged in a few days, I guess I'll start off by recapping.
On Tuesday, nothing really of note happened at all (hence no blog). I wrote a chunk of my paper and got tests ready to run over the weekend. I think I had hiyashi wakame ramen, so not too much to report on the food front. I played some Touhou UFO in the evening, as I kind of wanted to beat it before I bought the next game, Ten Desires, which became available in Akiba during the past week. As it turned out, I stayed up relatively late, and so I woke up on Wednesday at around 12:30. I somehow managed to take an inordinately long time to get ready to leave; it was 2pm before I was ready to go. I decided to go to Akiba on Thursday instead, to get a fuller day. For the rest of the day I played StarCraft with Kevin (since I wouldn't be playing on Thursday) and by myself, in addition to trying again and actually succeeding in beating UFO (haha perfect timing). I didn't go out for dinner, as I thought my budget was tight and had LAWSON STATION katsu-don instead. I'm not sure why I waited until AFTER eating to catch up on my budget tallying, because I was surprised to found out when I did, that I was actually in relatively good shape. Oh well. I enjoyed my katsu-don, as I haven't actually had it in like 3 weeks. I got all my chores done on Wednesday, so I was free to stay out late on Thursday. I called Dad at about 12:05am on Thursday morning, to wish him the earliest Happy-Birthday-in-which-it's-his-actual-birthday-for-at-least-one-of-the-parties-involved ever. I then proceeded to stay up too late doing nothing particularly useful (and that I can't even remember now, which means it was REALLY not particularly useful).
On Thursday I voice chatted with Mom and Jiuna from 11 until maybe 12:30 before leaving for Akiba. I basically walked to the bus stop and straight onto a bus, which was really nice, as it was quite sunny, and the sun is so strong here it sometimes makes me dizzy (even in mid-September). Unfortunately, I would have been able to get off the bus and walk onto a train (well, walk to the station and run once I was in sight of the signboards telling me when the upcoming departure times were), but a cluster of incredibly relaxed women blocked the whole sidewalk for half the way to the station, and I missed the limited express by a hair (I heard the doors close as I ran up the stairs). D:< If someone ever notices and points out to me that I am engaging in such gainlessly disruptive behaviour, I think I will have a major personal crisis.
Once the train came, an old lady toootally budged in front of me and then went for the completely empty courtesy seats which are reserved for her anyways... Old habits die hard I guess...? I rode to Shinagawa, and then to Akiba without event.
Once in Akiba, I went to Tenya and ordered my usual all-star set before noticing that they've got a new fall menu. Oh well, there will be other opportunities, and their fall menu looked quite a lot like their summer one, to be honest. After eating I tried (again in vain) to find the doujinshi (a homebrewed comic) Jiuna wants, but that thing is impossible to find. I literally looked at every cover in the "New Arrivals" on the floor it should have been on, but to no avail. There was one open slot that was sold out that I noticed, but Jiuna hates things that are popular with untold fury, so I guessed that it wasn't what I was looking for haha. I actually managed to buy something for myself though, as browsing through all the new arrivals led me to a book with some rather beautiful random pieces of art in it. It was also cheaper than the price tag suggested. Yay~! Toranoana was actually sold of out Ten Desires, which was not terribly shocking to me. I had hoped they wouldn't be, but I realize that it's a new Touhou game during the week of its release, so I was fully prepared for that possibility. And by fully prepared, I mean that I knew that Gamers was also getting it in stock, and so I went there, where they had a gajillion copies left. >_> They put theirs on the 6th floor, those jerks. Oh well, it worked out for me hahahah. I unfortunately ended up buying two more Touhou games that I won't be playing for a while yet, but whatever. What is life, other than a series of loosely connected impulse-buys? ;D
After my unintentionally selfish shopping trip, I went to CLUB SEGA 2 to play ESP Galuda. I ended up playing reaaaally well by my standards, getting a score that was more than 1.5x my previous personal best, and clearing an entire stage that I think I may not have ever seen before, before dying on the boss of the next one. O_O I have no idea where this stroke of danmaku genius came from, but I was quite excited to see how it translated into Mushihime, and as I found out quite quickly after moving to HEY!, it didn't. I got to the 4th stage relatively frequently again, which is no longer a new development, but is still nicer than dying on stage 3 all the time. I have the most frustrating affliction of having wild performance shifts within a single play. D:< The times when I play the best are when I've royally screwed up the early levels and have few lives, if any, and few bombs if multiple bombs are possible, and when I do well in the earlier levels, and get to, for example, the middle of the third stage in Mushihime without bombing or dying, I will not even make it to the boss. This occurs in ESP Galuda, Mushihime and Touhou all with alarming reliability, which inevitably leads to copious swearing in the case of Touhou, where I'm in the privacy of my own room. >_<
I ate buta-kim don at Meryl Streep for supper at about 8:30 and left Akiba shortly after. The day basically ends when I get on the Yamanote to go back home, as the trip takes roughly 2 hours. One thing I noticed on my way home is that Kirin is now advertising a new line of Milk Tea they've put out called "Pungency". >_< Despite the poor name choice, I tried it, and it's actually pretty good, though that's probably just because I like Milk Tea.
Today was a regular day back at work. I worked on my paper all day, as my tests haven't finished yet. I loaded them on pretty thick, as I have until October 5th to submit my paper, and I want to know definitively if I'm totally screwed or not-- no more of this "I'm not sure if the results are conclusive or not" crap! Today was a bit frustrating, as I spent a good deal of time trying to find out how to do better formatting while restricted to using LaTeX's eqnarray. The sample document says to use eqnarray for multi-line equations (which is exactly what I'm working with), so I figured, since they have a 9-page document on how exactly to write your paper before you submit it to them, that it would be a good idea to stick to their outlined (and coloured and filled and embellished and varnished) procedures. Finding out how to do better formatting with eqnarray proved quite difficult, as everyone on the Internet who had asked the same questions as I was had been told in no uncertain terms that eqnarray sucks and they should use something else, which will instantly fix all of their problems. D: Lucky for me, Kabutoya-san came by after several hours of experimenting with new attempts at tricking eqnarray into behaving itself (interspersed with giving up and writing more stuff once in a while) and asked me how I was doing. I explained my problem, to which he (of course you all saw this coming a mile away) told me that I can totally just ditch eqnarray because it sucks and everyone uses amsmath's align instead because it instantly solves all your problems. D:< Why exactly didn't I actually ask whether it was OK to use other packages before giving myself ulcers? Well this is my blog, so you don't get to know until I do. D: Writing went a little more smoothly after that.
I left at around 6:15, as I wanted to get a wash going before eating supper, which didn't end up happening, as I remembered while walking by the Matsumoto Kiyoshi that I had run out of handsoap. I also bought some floss in case I run out, and I'm glad I looked into it then, because there was one on sale for about 200円, while all the others were more like 600. D: I'm a little worried about how much cheaper my floss was than the others... I hope it doesn't have like, fibreglass in it or something. D:
Dorm dinner was decent, it was pork mixtures and oden with miso soup and rice, but the real star of the show was FROZEN GRAPEFRUIT LIKE ALWAYS! HELLZ YEAH! *<:B I got my laundry going right away, but I still had to stay up to wait for it. I hope it's ready now, because I am done blogging and want to go to bed. At least I got to try out Ten Desires. It has yet to grow on me, and I have only played it past stage 2 (I tend to be a little suicidal in these games when they're free) about 3 times, so I am not yet passing judgement.
I have been feeling like I'm getting a lot better a danmaku with all the practice I've been getting, so I made the mistake of "empirically" testing this by firing up Touhou Perfect Cherry Blossom and seeing how I did on hard mode (my most played configuration and game before I stopped playing for a while). It was really easy keeping track of all the patterns, which I don't recall being true before, but that just meant I ran into bullets that I KNEW were there, which is kind of worse than before in a way... I still can't make it to the stage 4 boss on one continue, though I suppose more than 2 tries is necessary to see what's really what.
Anyways, I can't hear the dryer anymore, so I'm going to post and leave you for tonight.
Night!
Monday, September 12, 2011
2 for 1 blogging, anyone?
September 12: As Per Usual
Hi everyone! I completely forgot to blog yesterday, as you may have noticed. I remembered at supper, but promptly forgot before I could do anything about it, and the next time I remembered was this morning. >_< Sorry about that! Anyways, you didn't miss much at all yesterday, as nothing terribly eventful happened as far as I can recall, except for RESTOCKING ON GRAPEFRUITS!!! How exciting! Oh yeah, that and I'm an idiot and ate a bunch of chocolate ice cream before bed (I had a maaad craving) and then couldn't sleep. >_<
Today was pretty uneventful. There was "bacon" (it tasted like ham, but looked like bacon O_O) and an egg, with a yellow mixture of vegetables and miso soup and rice. I think the yellow might have been from mustard, but to be honest it didn't really taste like anything at all.
At work I attempted to sort out my model and started writing my paper. My model is misbehaving somewhat, and it is proving very hard to discern how to solve the problem. Kabutoya-san doesn't seem to think that it's an issue, but I'm kind of hung up on it, so I will hammer away at it until I tire myself out, since I don't have anything else to do except write about it. My model currently puts pretty much everthing into just a few topics, which yields results like Hotel Rwanda and Mrs. Doubtfire being put together. O_O At least my model appears to be good at generating humour, if nothing else. It also treated me to the discovery of how badly people can label movies if they are free to do as they please. Examples range "Stephen Speilberg", to "director should have won a Grammy" (um, what?), to --and this is my favourite--"Woman carried to top of large building". It's supposed to be describing The Hunchback of Notre Dame. D:< How exactly do these people think they're helping an online movie recommender with tags like "Woman carried to top of large building"!? There are countless other examples of these fail-tags ("woman" for Entrapment and Femme Nikita, and "animalpig" for Babe), but I will never escape if I begin to list them all. Amazingly enough, some tags that I thought would surely be trash proved to be quite enlightening when I looked them up, such as "fails Bechdel test" hahah.
I ran about a million tests and fiddled with parameters all over the place, but nothing really seemed to work very well. >_< I hope I can get it to behave soon, as the clock is ticking. I left work at about 6:15, which was when I finished getting to a point where I could let a test run overnight. I walked home and ate dorm dinner of KATSU (oh my god!!!) and miso soup and rice and some kind of broccoli coleslaw-esque business that was rather odd. It wasn't nasty or anything, just a little... unplaceable. O_O Afterwards I ate a frozen grapefruit. Whee! I really hope I never get tired of frozen grapefruit, because it is extremely convenient having a dessert I can look forward to that is non-fattening and less than 80円 per serving. Yum. It has also helped me stop eating entire bags of senbei at 11:30pm, which is probably a good thing on all accounts. >_<
Anyways, I got caught up reading stuff on the Internet (again) and now it's late (I literally got sidetracked for 3 hours in the middle of writing this), so I'd best get what sleep I can now. D: I guess it's a good thing it's Tuesday tomorrow haha. Damn, where did the week go? D:
Night!
Hi everyone! I completely forgot to blog yesterday, as you may have noticed. I remembered at supper, but promptly forgot before I could do anything about it, and the next time I remembered was this morning. >_< Sorry about that! Anyways, you didn't miss much at all yesterday, as nothing terribly eventful happened as far as I can recall, except for RESTOCKING ON GRAPEFRUITS!!! How exciting! Oh yeah, that and I'm an idiot and ate a bunch of chocolate ice cream before bed (I had a maaad craving) and then couldn't sleep. >_<
Today was pretty uneventful. There was "bacon" (it tasted like ham, but looked like bacon O_O) and an egg, with a yellow mixture of vegetables and miso soup and rice. I think the yellow might have been from mustard, but to be honest it didn't really taste like anything at all.
At work I attempted to sort out my model and started writing my paper. My model is misbehaving somewhat, and it is proving very hard to discern how to solve the problem. Kabutoya-san doesn't seem to think that it's an issue, but I'm kind of hung up on it, so I will hammer away at it until I tire myself out, since I don't have anything else to do except write about it. My model currently puts pretty much everthing into just a few topics, which yields results like Hotel Rwanda and Mrs. Doubtfire being put together. O_O At least my model appears to be good at generating humour, if nothing else. It also treated me to the discovery of how badly people can label movies if they are free to do as they please. Examples range "Stephen Speilberg", to "director should have won a Grammy" (um, what?), to --and this is my favourite--"Woman carried to top of large building". It's supposed to be describing The Hunchback of Notre Dame. D:< How exactly do these people think they're helping an online movie recommender with tags like "Woman carried to top of large building"!? There are countless other examples of these fail-tags ("woman" for Entrapment and Femme Nikita, and "animalpig" for Babe), but I will never escape if I begin to list them all. Amazingly enough, some tags that I thought would surely be trash proved to be quite enlightening when I looked them up, such as "fails Bechdel test" hahah.
I ran about a million tests and fiddled with parameters all over the place, but nothing really seemed to work very well. >_< I hope I can get it to behave soon, as the clock is ticking. I left work at about 6:15, which was when I finished getting to a point where I could let a test run overnight. I walked home and ate dorm dinner of KATSU (oh my god!!!) and miso soup and rice and some kind of broccoli coleslaw-esque business that was rather odd. It wasn't nasty or anything, just a little... unplaceable. O_O Afterwards I ate a frozen grapefruit. Whee! I really hope I never get tired of frozen grapefruit, because it is extremely convenient having a dessert I can look forward to that is non-fattening and less than 80円 per serving. Yum. It has also helped me stop eating entire bags of senbei at 11:30pm, which is probably a good thing on all accounts. >_<
Anyways, I got caught up reading stuff on the Internet (again) and now it's late (I literally got sidetracked for 3 hours in the middle of writing this), so I'd best get what sleep I can now. D: I guess it's a good thing it's Tuesday tomorrow haha. Damn, where did the week go? D:
Night!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)