April 3, 2004!

Went to Fry’s today to get some computer stuff. I left with a 4-port USB hub ($7.99), a compact flash card reader ($9.99), and an 8′ extension cord ($2.99). I also got some much-needed browsing in. The Mac stuff is always cool to look at, but I really love the Sony VAIO notebooks and the tiny Fujitsu. In retrospect, we should have gotten a smaller, less powerful laptop for Mariko instead of the bigger 2.4Ghz monster. That thing is too heavy at 7+ lbs. Oh well, live and learn. I recommend just getting a tiny laptop with a celeron or Pentium M, and then a cheap desktop.

Driving home, I saw this classic scene.

A new drama started tonight on TV Japan. It’s called “Kaettekita Rokkaa no Hanako-san” and it’s really funny! It is the story of a ghost and her former friends who are all O.L.’s. She lives in a locker in the maintenance room of the company. It is sort of like “I Dream of Jeannie” because while she is in her locker, she is small and has a nice room. Her friends are able to see her and talk to her because they are all incompetent workers. That is the requirement for being able to see her. Pretty wacky. This is the new show that takes over the timeslot that “Niko Niko Diary” had. That was a nice show, and the ending was good too! One strange thing about the new show is that the theme song is the same one as used in “Niko Niko Diary”, and they are two totally different stories.

We went to see the Bon Odori festival today. It was fun and interesting. There was plenty of dancing, and the taiko drums were loud! We were sitting pretty close to the drums, and my ears hurt a little, and I could feel the vibrations from the big taiko reverberating in my chest. It was pretty cool. I noticed a couple of the drummers were wearing earplugs. Although the dancers and musicians were not professional quality, it was really cool to see a local effort. And many of the audience members participated in the dancing. It was great! We also met up with a bunch of people from the Japanese Kids’ Playgroup.

I love the route my commute takes me. It is very convenient. I pass by Best Buy, CompUSA, Whole Foods Market, REI, Fry’s, and The Container Store. And if I want to detour about a quarter mile, I hit Barnes & Noble, Borders, Costco, Petco, and HEB.

I was at REI at lunch today to buy a pair of shoes, but the sale starts tomorrow, and they said they would put the new shoes out then…so, I went over to look at the watches and they had some awesome Suunto “wristop computers”. One cool watch I saw was the Suunto Observer at a mere $340. 🙂 I really like the S6 model above. My birthday is in 2 weeks. Yeah, right!

This is the Suunto D3 diving watch. Very nice as well! And I would be able to use it in Hawaii! Oh well, I guess I will just get a new battery for my Apollo dive watch. Heh

Buddha – Kamakura, Japan, November 1998.

Just looking at some old photos at Typhoon Design.

Unwanted email, that is. (I like Spam, the canned meat) These days, when I open my mailbox, I select all, then scan through and unselect the mail that is legit, then click delete. I am sure many other people do the same.

In the past 12 hours, I have received 54 messages. Three of them weren’t junk e-mail.

My morning commute takes me the same route everyday. It’s a pretty smooth ride, except this morning they changed the traffic signal timing for one of the intersections, and it sucks.

The intersection of Great Hills Trail and 183 used to be like a well-oiled machine, keeping the lights green just long enough to get most of the cars through, but not staying green too long so that the “green lanes” are empty of cars. Also, Great Hills Trail, which runs under 183, has two lights, one before the highway, and one after you pass underneath the highway. It used to be that when the first light changed and you accelerated, by the time you come to the second light, it has already changed green and you go sailing right through.

Well, for some reason, this all changed today. First, the lights stay green for too long. Three directions were waiting at red lights, while the green light’s cars had been long gone. So we waited while no cars in any direction moved. And waited. This was pretty annoying. And when my light did turn green, the second light didn’t turn green as was expected. The result was that the two cars in front of me (accustomed to the old timing) blew right through the red light. I don’t think they even knew later what they had done. I saw that the lights had not changed, so I didn’t follow them. I waited. And waited. Finally it changed, and I was on my way.

The way this city handles traffic never ceases to amaze me. From “dumb” signals that have you waiting for minutes at 2am while there are no other cars in sight, to the traffic signals near my house that turn off (no blinking or anything, just dead) when it rains.