tgif!!!

here's something my mom sent me:

Smith climbs to the top of Mt. Sinai to get close enough to talk to God. Looking up, he asks the Lord, "God, what does a million years mean to you?"
The Lord replies, "A minute."
Smith asks, "And what does a million dollars mean to you?"
The Lord replies, "A penny."
Smith asks, "Can I have a penny?"
The Lord replies, "In a minute."

here's a chat i had with my friend susie:

kaz** [08:26:31]: you're alive?
mrwill** [08:40:06]: lol
mrwill** [08:40:09]: barely
mrwill** [08:40:11]: how are you?
kaz** [08:40:14]: i'm ggod
kaz** [08:40:23]: r u still in alaska?
mrwill** [08:40:24]: you're god?
mrwill** [08:40:26]: yup
mrwill** [08:40:28]: still stuck here
kaz** [08:40:34]: ouch
mrwill** [08:40:35]: i leave next week
kaz** [08:40:39]: that's good
mrwill** [:40:43]: yeah
mrwill** [08:40:48]: it snowed yestertday
mrwill** [08:40:53]: didn't stick but it's getting really cold
kaz** [08:41:05]: i would imagine in alaska
kaz** [08:41:13]: so have ya seen the movie lovers?
kaz** [08:41:16]: it's got your boy in it
kaz** [08:41:37]: hmm...the english title is house of flyin' daggers...i think
mrwill** [08:42:24]: really?
mrwill** [08:42:26]: takeshi?
mrwill** [08:42:33]: i'll go pick it up!
mrwill** [08:42:44]: takeshi is so HOT


well...the weekend is finally upon us. typhoon #23 has finally subsided and the weather has been great since yesterday afternoon.

almost done readin' digital fortress. nearin' the climax of the story. i know what to expect but it seems as though i can't pinpoint the final twist yet.

- update -

so i'm finishin' up digital fortress (i must say the endin' was kinda weak, i figured out the pass key way ahead of time), miura sensei comes calls me to the office. when i get to the hallway, i see miura sensei, oshino san, ishiguro san and this one white guy with a camera. this guys is askin' where the people who make hand puppets for patients in the hospital are. i was like...umm...dude...this ain't a hospital, this is a school. felt a little strange that his camera was on durin' this whole conversation. when i asked him what he was lookin' for exactly but he seemed to be dodgin' all of my questions. my synopsis = crazy, weird gaijin

- dai update

man, it was a crazy weekend. the okonomiyaki party @ my place was koo. since it was the first time mikie and i made okonomiyaki, we had a couple of test runs before miyuki came. miyuki is a cool girl. got to find out a lot about her. the nijikai was @ chacha and we had a good time there. don't really remember how i got home but i did get home.

today i had a vball tournament. we lost both games which we should've won. toita sesei was pissed! at the end of the day, she made them walk home all the way from yakigaya chuu gakkou back to shibayama chuu. that's about a 1 hr walk!?!?

miyamoto san drove me home, but we stopped @ his place to pick up his son cuz his bike got stolen. did some cleanin' and then headed to ikko for dinner. man, tonite was some night. first of all, kita san and mori san got into a fight and then i had to hold off this one regular cuz he was drunk and talkin' shiet to my mama, so of course i had to step in. it took a while for me to squash that shiet but i did. man, all i wanted was a nice dinner wit da homies...i didn't expect any fights to break out! all in all, had some fresh suzuki sashimi (courtesy of noburo san) and drank a little bit too much (had to make up for us losin' today). anyhow...i'm finally home and am now tryin' to type this update up.

free throw %

today: 9-10
tot: 24-30
ft%: .800

typhoon #23 is goin' strong. expectin' around 2 inches!!

shin mei jinja matsuri was aite. mikie and i only were there for like 30 min. got to eat some grubbin' grilled chicken tho. afterwards i helped her with her english hw at a family restaurant. man, that stuff brought back the nightmares from college. the stuff she's learnin' about is computer stuff. can u imagine how tough it is to try to explain that into japanese??? anyhow, i tried to teach her the concept of computer security but that's as far as we got in 3 hours and that was only one paragraph! some of the other stuff i didn't even understand!

went out to meet up with b in jiyuugaoka. picked up my ba shirts, business cards and some cds. the new zion i stuff is off da hook! then headed to shibuya to meet up with lisa. before that, stopped over @ tower and picked up another book, digital fortress by dan brown. also picked up a belated bday present for kaoru.

tried to go eat thai food but it was under renovation. finally decided on chinese. it wasn't bad. she brought up and1 and how they're tourin' japan next month on the 3rd. was surprised that she knew so much bout it, cuz she was all like, so and so isn't gonna be there but so and so is gonna be there. lisa went to bball and then i went home. stopped off @ ikko and got to see the weekend crew for the first time in a while. it was funny to see tanaka-san pretty drunk. tried to access my clie but it wouldn't turn on for some reason. when i got back home, i found out that my clie was swiped clean and went back to the default settings!!! luckily, the new hotsync software makes a complete backup so i was able to restore without losin' one thing! ;)

next day was dedicated to cleanin' and doin' laundry. headed out to harajuku for a bit of shoppin' but didn't find anything. then headed out to hatagaya for dinner. sean's family is here from sf and it was his and bnose's bday. finally got to see my "nephew" baby ryan. he's so cute, but he's pretty darn big for only bein' 3 months old. met bnose's new g/f. she's a chinese girl, born and raised in iowa!? as for dinner, it was pretty good, had some kuro buta (black pig). finished it off with some udon while drinkin' kyushuu kome shochu. headed over to sean's new place. man, that place is ffnnn nice! brand new mansion. oh yeah, their toilet was crazy!! can u say automatic seat!!! i borrowed rain fall and the dvd, johnny english.

da tokyo crew


eugene, jt, b and i went to mos burger for some coffee. chatted bout maybe takin' a trip to thailand this winter.


free throw %

today: 7-10
tot: 15-20
ft%: .750


in other news

- halo 2's code leaked.

- here's the website and pic of my student who is starrin' in the drama 3nen Bgumi

been a chill week @ school. there's isn't any classes cuz the students have sougou teki na gaku shuu (on the job trainin'). got to watch rudy, in japanese, which was quite an interestin' experience. yesterday and today, the 7th graders got to make maki sushi with all kinds of designs in them: yuki daruma (snowman), bara (rose), kani (crab) and anpaman (anime character).

here's the kani, yuki daruma and bara.


on wednesday night, went out to eat sushi with cha cha mama's family. her grandson is so cute.

body has been pretty sore from playin' vball this week. we've been workin' on hittin' this week so i've been jumpin' a lot. it's a good kind of sore...i think. we have the city autumn tournament for the next 3 weekends. not sure how we're gonna do, we got a lot of work to do get prepared.

hmmm...in other news, i started up this phlog. it's kinda koo, cuz i take pics from my ketai and then post them. kinda in the early stages, so bear with the wack design and lack of content.

i've decided to start a log of my free throw shootin' %. i started today and will be shootin' 4 days/week. went 8-10.

today: 8-10
gt: 8-10
ft%: .800

as for da weekend plans:

- goin' to the neigborhood matsuri w/mikie
- kickin' it with ryoko and lisa
- da tashiro family from sf is here, goin' out to eat shabu shabu to celebrate sean and bnose's bdays
- since the weather has finally gotten better, time to do all that laundry i've been puttin' off

hmmm...was a pretty interestin' 3 day weekend.

headed out to 'booya to meet up with b, mayumi and kyoko. it was a nice dinner with interestin' talk bout what it's like to work for mtv japan. can't believe that mayumi came all the way from ibaraki!?

crashed @ b's and watched the debate in the mornin'. bush was pretty defensive and really didn't tell us how he was gonna make things better.

headed out with b to shimo kitazawa for lunch. grubbin' avacado/bacon/cheese bagel sandwich. after that, i went to meet up with rick and steve(one of rick's groomsmen, works for toyota), he's in japan now and came up to tokyo from nagoya for the weekend. headed to rick's new house which is pretty nice. it was also kinda koo to see their brand new silver a4 wagon. tried to fix rick's outlook, but couldn't figure out what happened. my japanese readin' level isn't that good yet to be tryin' to mess around on a japanese os. messed around with steve's new pda he bought. pretty dope. had some nagoya yokan that steve brought and just chilled cuz typhoon #22 came. this typhoon was the biggest one to hit tokyo in 10 years!!! it was frickin' pourin'!!! felt bad for b, who came by afterwards cuz he was totally drenched. we then headed out to shinjuku to steve's hotel room courtesy of mika, our taxi driver. met up with junji there and we just chilled and went to eat @ el toritos. monster combo baby! can't believe we ate all that food. since junji just finished season 1 & 2 of 24 this past week, he's been hooked. so hooked, that he found this mobile website for the ringtones. now we all have ctu as our ringtone.

the next day, met up with tamawa to go check out the jintai exhibit. much like the last time i went, it was too packed. so we decided to just get some coffee before headin' to kimukatsu. when we got to kimukatsu, the line was already hella long! we had to wait almost 2 hours!?! but it was all worth the wait. the salad dressin' they had was off the hook. we ordered the garlic and negi tonkatsu. man, that was some grubbin' kimukatsu. for those of you who live in tokyo, check it out! here's the link.

it's even better when you eat it!


after dinner, we headed to this one tiny bar in ebisu. the master had hella cds. had some good kome shochu too. caught the last train and stopped over @ chacha to kick it with the crew.

i dedicated the next day to recovery. after comin' back to funabashi, i got to see the aftermath of the typhoon on da news. when a typhoon can lift trucks on top of each other, it's gotta be strong! luckily ikko was still intact!! that night, had dinner w/mama. she made me a super big miso soup. since she put in kabocha, it made it look like corn soup.

taught at elementary school today and it went ok. ended up doin' the exact same lesson that i did for the 3rd and 4th graders cuz the 5th and 6th graders had a tough time with countin' from 1-20. as always, chatted it up with tsutsui sensei and met 2 volunteer teachers that only come to the school twice a month. came home, made some salad and then got some burgers from mos burger.

gettin' ready for my nba live draft. got my pb and desktop all ready. hopefully it goes well.

well here's the results of my draft:



got the 2nd pick, which i kinda didn't want. it's either get the 1st pick or have a late pick. was happy to get dalembert, ginobili, skip to my lou & darius miles. i think i covered a lot of the weaknesses i had last year. got a pretty good free throw shootin' team.

alritey then, i'm goin' to bed.


kaz out...


in other news

- i'm 5-0 in my nfl fantasy league thanks to another great outin' from d.culpepper. been mad crazy on the waiver wire lately, cuz i have 4 guys who have byes next week. i'm goin' against paul next week.

- ryoko invited me to try out yoga with her and lisa this weekend. i've never done yoga before but i guess there's a first for everything, ya?

- photo ready ipod?

- here's an interestin' vid about the republican convention

- r.i.p. christopher 'superman' reeve. here's what maddox had to say

- some interestin' nintendo ds developments

- can't have a nintendo link w/o a sony one.

hmmm...on my way home yesterday, saw some of my old students. they told me that takahashi sensei is sick. when i called him, i found out that he has taken a 50 day leave of absence from school. i'm a little concerned...

the other day, there was probably the biggest earthquake i've ever felt while @ my apt. was on da phone w/cyndi @ that time and it was kinda weird to be comparin' the effects @ our places.

so it's a 3 day weekend however typhoon #22 is on it's way to the kanto area. it's goin' to be rainin' this whole weekend :(

as for tonite, goin' out to 'booya.


kaz out...

news

- ichiro breaks the 80+ year old single season hits record and finishes with 262 hits.

- the sony vaio type x, 1 frickin' terabyte of storage!?

- 1gb/sec!!?!?!!

sat: vball, biohazard 2, dinner

woke up pretty early and went to the vball tournament at our school. we lost the first game but the girls played pretty well. the second game we won, but since we lost the first game, we were unable to advance to the next round. would have to give the mvp to chinami-chan. she had some great digs, passed nails and overall played really smart.

headed out to roppongi, bought the tix for biohazard 2 (resident evil 2: apocalypse) and then met up with tamawa. the movie was surprisingly good. i liked it better than the first one because it took place in a more urban area. my girl sandrine holt was in it, but, my has she aged! i didn't like her character that much either but all good, she got jacked by all the kids! the girl who played jill valentine was dead on. had the whole outfit down to da t. her character was koo too. the special effects were pretty good too in this film. not sure if i liked how it ended and how it sets up for another movie but oh well. another thing to note: i guess it's compulsory to have milla jovovich get naked at the end of each film....

afterwards, headed to ebisu to go try out this new tonkatsu restaurant called kimukatsu. the owner doesn't like regular tonkatsu, so experimented with different ways so that he could eat it and voila, a new kind of tonkatsu was born! unfortunately there was this huge line outside which the owner cut off @ the end. guess we're gonna have to go there another time.

so we went to plan b, sonamu, a korean restaurant, but that was also packed too. then we went to plan c, ninnikuya (not the chain that's all over japan) a garlic restaurant. we had to wait a little bit, so they have this waitin' area/bar/small dinin' area. had a drink there and then got seated. ordered up some: garlic eggplant, garlic baked prawns, avocado & tuna plate, grilled chicken and the famous garlic toast and drank it with a mondavi chardonnay. never had that much garlic in one sittin' before in my life. walked around a bit afterwards and then came back home. stopped off @ chacha to say what's up to some peeps.


sun: lunch in shinjuku, bball in hatagaya & drinks in omotesando

woke up, made some brunch, then headed out to shinjuku to meet up with megumi for a late lunch. was surprised that it was so packed everywhere but i guess it was because it was pourin' rain. finally decided on this pasta place which had a pretty big line. had some duck/mushroom/eggplant pasta and then we headed to a cafe to chill for a bit. megu went to her friend's bday party and i headed out to bball.

bball was koo cuz all the guyz came out: rick, sean and even scotty. scotty has been out for over a year, so it was good to finally see him on the court. there was also this one japanese guy, who must've been almost 2m (about 6'6"/6'7") but he wasn't that strong. had some good games; played good d and dropped alotta dimes.

after bball, headed out to omotesando for drinks with lisa, ryoko and ryoko's friend from high school who's visitin'. it was good to see lisa and ryoko, haven't seen them since jamie and burr were here back in april!!

came home and did tons of work of last minute changes to my roster for my fantasy fball league. finally got went to bed @ around 0130ish.


mon: last day of finals

man, it's been some terrible weather lately. ridin' a bike, with an umbrella while be sore from playin' bball really sucks. luckily it was a rather chill day. all i did was check each classroom durin' the listenin' part of the english final and then corrected 2 classes' tests. lots of the 8th graders didn't do that well...actually they did terrible.

went to teach w/utsumi sensei and we played a jeopardy like game. my questions however were way too tough.

had dinner @ ikko and mama fried up some grubbin' fresh fish from nigata. she also made some gyoza and her latest dish, fried natto gyoza. saiko umai naa!!!

there was this magic show on tv with this japanese magician named maric. he had all sorts of tv shows come to his show. i even saw natsumi-chan when they brought out the 鐚�span style="font-style:italic;">nen b gumi crew. some of the tricks he did was amazin'. but he did show how he did some of his "easier" tricks.


tues: it's still rainin'

ok, it's been rainin' for 3 days straight now. the funny, thing is that typhoon #22 hasn't even got to area yet. since i had elementary school today, i decided to take the train and walk to school. it was a lot farther than i expected but i finally got in but my pants were pretty soaked still.

the kids really loved the game i did. i was surprised to hear that all of them really enjoyed it. it was good to see the battle between the girls and boys from 3-3. they did great. it things like this that make teachin' great.

tabata sensei was kind enough to give me a ride to the station in her altezza!


wed: a beautiful day

wow, it stopped rainin'!!! it finally feels like autumn weather!

durin' vball practice, i miss-hit this one set and my index & middle finger got bent back. i think i strained something, cuz my hand was pretty swollen.

i also somehow pinched a slight nerve in my neck while reachin' for a cushion under a table. man...my body is in terrible shape right now.

ichiro meter

hits: 256
record: 257
games to go: 3


typhoon #21

so typhoon #21 swept thru kyushu on monday then came thru kanto on tuesday evenin' thru late wednesday night.

let me just tell you how hard it is to ride a bike, with an umbrella in a typhoon. a bike ride that usually only takes me 8 min, turned into a 25 min adventure!

got the 9th grade listenin' test done and utsumi sensei cracked me up with this bell he had to make the students fill in the missin' phrase.

had a feast @ ikko: katsuo sashimi, saba shioyaki & miso shiryu. there was this interestin' quiz show on called "time shock", so mama decided to bring out her little memory quiz. she wrote down 10 random things and showed it to us for like 30 sec. she then took it away and gave us paper to write down what we could remember. kohiyama san was able to remember everything (he was also on the front page of this small but nationally circulated newspaper), kita san did ok, while sensei couldn't do it. i got all of them right after havin' them explain to me first the kanji i couldn't read.

came home and watched lost in translation. it was kinda koo to be able to recognize a lot of the places in the movie. it portrayed the gaijin experience in japan very well. the movie was ok, i was kinda expectin' something different.


thurs: first round of finals

got the listenin' test for the 7th and 8th graders done. also, finally finished checkin' the 8th graders' summer diaries. i also got my network connection fixed, so i've been online for most of the day.

got to go home early. kinda nice to go home before it gets dark. came home and took a nap then cooked dinner.

d/l'd and installed xp sp2. also started up my fantasy nba league.


fri: round 2 of finals, community service

another day of finals; science, music & industrial sciences. after finals, we had an all school cleanin' of the neighborhood. started out with sekiguchi sensei's class, then moved onto kuwada sensei's class and finally with nagai-chan and fujishiro-chan.

had vball practice for a little bit after that. today was also team pics and toita sensei told me to get in the picture. that felt really nice...


news & links

- futuremark releases its 3dmark05 test

- da sims 2 sold over 1 million units in 10 days

- palm releases its latest version of it's os, cobalt 6.1

- ibm claims it's bluegene/l computer is the fastest in the world, comin' in @ 36teraflops! it now takes over japan's nec earth simulator

- ati's r500(.90 micron) will be used in the next xbox

- latest article tamawa wrote

- for you sims fans out there, jcpenny's is sellin' the sims2 for only $21.99 (use code WELOCT4 during checkout). the catch is that it's gonna take 2 weeks to ship...can u wait?