Monthly Archives: August 2006

Freedom Wings


I picked up Freedom Wings for the DS last week, and have been playing it quite a bit. It received a couple decent reviews, and was cheap, so I figured I’d give it a try. Right now I am just flying around in Auto mode, which includes dogfighting. With each air-pirate you shoot down, you gain xp and gold, which you can use to upgrade your plane with new weapons, armor, improve maneuverability, weight ratio, etc. It’s kinda fun, but it gets very repetitive. Also, the flying physics are kinda goofy. For instance, you can take off and immediately set the altitude and speed to max, and your plane will go straight up like a rocket. There are some missions you can do, and I just got my second plane, but I spent so much money on my first, I don’t want to just switch over. Anyways, we’ll see how fun it is in the long term… hopefully there will be more variation in the missions and less grinding out the gold and xp.

10:19

My Birthday is October 19th. It’s weird, but I often glance at the clock and it is 10:19. This happens at least a couple times a week. It just happened a little while ago. My internal clock is pretty good, I guess.

Kekkon Dekinai Otoko


I started watching Kekkon Dekinai Otoko last week. In English, it means “man who cannot get married”. It stars Abe Hiroshi, which is a big plus for me because I really like his acting. Mariko was telling me that he used to be a popular model back in the 80’s, then started acting and was terrible! But he kept up with his acting lessons and eventually became quite good. I think he is hilarious.

In this drama, he is a socially inept architect, who seems to be falling for a doctor who is also getting close to 40 and is not married yet. His mother keeps trying to set them up, and there is sort of a love/hate relationship going on. The supporting characters are interesting as well, including his cute neighbor (the girl in the second picture) and his office assistant (the young guy in the first picture), who is always out of money but loves going out on dates. And then there is his business associate (also in the first picture) who is also unmarried and about his same age, so I am thinking that something will get complicated… love triangle perhaps? On top of that, there is also a pug named Ken-chan. Anyways, since this drama is showing now in Japan, I will have to wait in agony each week for the next episode (and subtitles). It’s the same with Sapuri, which is getting really good too.

Kekkon Dekinai Otoko listings at:
J-dorama.com
Official Site

Holy Frijoles

When I was growing up in SoCal in the 70’s and 80’s, we used to go to Mexican restaurants for dinner, and the dinner plates usually came with refried beans and Spanish rice. Then it seemed that in the 90’s, black beans came into vogue, and that appeared as a choice on menus. In Texas, we also have charro beans, which I had never had or even heard of before moving here. Although I like both black beans and charro beans, I still prefer good ole refried beans, given the choice.

Blanking out the License Plate

I was checking out Nala’s blog, and noticed in a photo (nice one, btw!) that the license plate was blanked out. I notice this a lot in photos on the Internet. Is there some way someone can use the information to affect the driver’s life? I mean, I can look outside my window and see a dozen license plates… Or is it that someone can find out a person’s address by knowing their plate #? Just wondering.

On a similar train of thought, here in TX, soccer moms often put stickers in the back of their SUV’s showing their kids’ names, and the school they go to and the team they are on. I’m sure they are proud of their kids, but don’t you think this is a safety risk? I need McGruff to chime in here.