Sky is Blue

Howdy.

I am quite impressed with one of my old high school classmates, Dora Magrath, who has made her own music and recorded and album. I've listened to some of it and really really enjoy it. Fun fact: Dora was the first girl I ever asked out on a date! Fun Fact: Dora was the first girl who ever rejected me! haha. Certainly no hard feelings, though. She was quite nice about it and we remained friends. You can check out her CD if you want, and listen to a little bit of it over at:
http://cdbaby.com/cd/doramagrath

Other news of high school classmates: Sam Altman and Rick Pernikoff have left school to start a company (with some other friends) in Silicon Valley. Their company is called Loopt and they have developed a social networking program for mobile phones that has already been picked up by Boost Mobile (a national mobile phone network). Again, really impressed with what my old classmates are doing these days. I can't imagine being able to do something like that.

So, the weekend was grand. On Friday night I went out? What did I do on Friday night? I can't remember. I don't think I had any specific plans, so if I did go out, it was probably just to a local bar or something. Oh, that's right. I did go to a local izakaya because I wanted to get to bed early so I could head out to Chiba in the morning on Saturday. Then I ended up sleeping until around noon on Saturday anyways, haha. I did go to Chiba, though, which was really cool. The convention center (called Makuhari Messe) is in a big commercial area, which is centered around a rather large outlet mall. It is also the location of the Chiba Marines (Chiba's baseball team) stadium. I thought I could go to a game after the convention, but they had an away game that day, unfortunately.

The mobile electronics fair was not what I expected. It was focused entirely on electronics for cars, which for the most part meant audio systems. It was neat, though. There were tons of cars lined up and you could go and sit inside each one and listen to the audio system they had. They also had big machines to pump air inside the cars. Pretty crazy. And, of course, campaign girls in small outfits. I have pictures, but I haven't even loaded them on the computer yet, so they'll have to wait. After the mobile electronics fair, I saw signs all over for the "World Hobby Fair," so I decided to check it out.

It was insane. I've never seen so many children in one place in my life. It was an enormous fair and pretty much jam-packed with families that basically just came to show their kids a good time. Apparently by "World Hobby," what they actually meant was "Children's Games." It was pretty neat, though. I'm glad I took the time to see it. I have a few pictures of that as well, which will go up at the same time as the Mobile Electronics Show pics.

On Saturday night I texted a few friends to see what they were doing because I had no plans. I only heard back from Yuki, who also had nothing to do and happened to be near Shimbashi, so she came over and we ate some yakitori and had some beers and walked around. We went to this little bar under the tracks called the "Budweiser Carnival," which I had seen before but never gone inside. It was pretty hilarious, and clearly geared towards men. The waitresses, called "Bud Girls," wore these cute little dresses that were about one size too small, and there was a random large black guy singing soul music on a karaoke machine. It was really strange. There were two drinks you could buy which the Bud Girls made right at your table (one was a mix of grapefruit juice and something else and they squeezed the grapefruit at your table while singing this ridiculous song; the other was something they did in a shaker which they shake at your table, again while singing a ridiculous song). There was a table full of Japanese businessmen that kept ordering those drinks over and over and eventually sang along with the girls. It was really hilarious. Also, the "large" size beer was enormous.

On Sunday I went and played some street hockey with the Tokyo Street Hockey Association. Ted plays with them every Sunday and invited me. I told him I'd be really bad and he said "so are we," so I figured why not. It was pretty fun. REALLY tiring. But there are some good people there. I may go back next week for round two.

Speaking of things being really tiring, I've noticed that I don't really get tired climbing up the stairs to my room anymore. I live on the 5th floor of my building, so every day, multiple times a day, I go up and down 4 flights of stairs. The first week here it was really brutal (yes, I know I'm massively out of shape), and would really take the wind out of me to go up to my room. Now, though, I can do it no problem. It's a good feeling. Enough to motivate me to exercise a bit more when I get back to Saint Louis? We'll see...

Anyways, after street hockey I went home, cleaned up, did my laundry, and then headed out to Shimokitazawa for my friend's live. This was a band I met a while ago, called 'golf' (I don't know why), and the bassist, Ando, is a really really nice guy. It was a really good show. The live was to celebrate the release of their new album, which I got. It's really good, I listened to it on the walk to work this morning. The two opening bands were also pretty impressive, and it turned out that Yuki actually helped out in the making of one of the bands' albums.

I'm just now noticing that I use the word "really" a lot.

Tonight I am meeting a guy I met last week, Naota, for dinner and maybe grab a drink or two afterwards. He works in Shimbashi, so I'm sure we'll just do something in that area, which will be nice and convenient.

Ted is now officially gone. He went to Missouri for a business trip (meeting some new clients, etc.), and then he's going back to his home in Colorado for a bit, and then he heads out to Hawaii for vacation. He'll be gone a total of 3 weeks, which, incidentally, is the amount of time left for my internship, meaning I won't be working with Ted anymore. Sad, yes, but I told him I'd probably bring my parents into the office one day after he gets back, so I'll get to see him one more time before I head home. So it's just Shino-san and me in the office now for the next 3 weeks. Could be interesting or could be boring, I have no idea. Ted gave me a few things to work on, though, which is nice.

Well, my friends, it's just about time for my lunch break. Sayonara!