New link!
Ok, to get to the the neat part of Tokyo Plastic, click on the japanese at the top, then click on whatever is clickable until you get to the main menu, which looks like a creepy tree. Click on the upper right thingy that says drum machine. It is worth the hassle of navigation. :-)
My brother showed me this. He found it floating around the Internt; it was done as an attempt to see just what the Flash format will do.
Much as I hate to admit it...
Paul, you were right. I shouldn't have looked ahead on the calendar. While there were no major catastrophes getting to Florida (I am safely at my parent's house now!), this was not the smooth and easy trip I have become accustomed to.
First off, my father originally booked the flight, and apparently he decided at some point to change the DATE of my flight without letting me know. I got to the airport at 5:30 in the morning to be told that I wasn't scheduled to go out until tomorrow. I begged, and showed them the my ticketless itinerary with my confirmation number showing me leaving today. After all was said and done, they got me on standby for the flight I thought I was booked on. At the last minute, as the last few people were boarding, they finally told me I had a seat.
So I get on the plane and think, wow, it is a middle seat, but it is near the front. I should have known better. The gentleman seated next to me decided to talk the ENTIRE 2+ hour trip. Even though I had a book out and was trying to read. When that didn't work, I put on my headphones and pulled out my PDA to play solitaire. He continued to talk and gesture to me through that. When the captain told us to turn off electronic equipment, he proceeded to tell me about the pools and trucks on the ground, and how they were getting bigger. Then pointed out the horizon to me. X_X no, he wasn't "special" or anything, and he had flown before. I think he was bored, and irritating me was a new hobby.
Then, while the plane landed early (yay to getting off!), my ride was still quite far away. I collected my luggage, all of which was searched, and stood outside to wait for a while. My ride finally arrived, and thus far, nothing else wonky has happened.
So that is my travel story for the day. I must admit, even as that guy was annoying the crap out of me, giving me his life story, pointing out the obvious, repeating EVERYTHING they announced on the intercom, and commenting EVERY time how funny they were, through all that I was thinking I couldn't wait to get somewhere with an Internet connection, because I had to get this blogged.
So Paul, next time I try to look ahead on the calendar, smack me. I give you permission, and I won't get mad.
Visitors from the Future?
I am not sure what made me think of this while driving in to work this morning, but I thought I would share. A few years ago in Jacksonville, a bar had an interesting idea. They decided to host a time-travel party. The concept was to promote the party heavily in as many media as they could so there would be a record of it in various archives. The idea was that if time travel is ever possible in the future, people could find a record of the party and travel back in time to attend it.
The biggest flaw with the idea was that they didn't promote it enough. I saw the posters up but didn't find out what they were for until about 6 months after the event. They needed more promotion and coverage in more national-level mediums, or even online. This way, their catch phrase of "who will attend?" would become well-known and have more of a likelihood of surviving far enough into the future to be plausible.
I am not sure which would be more amazing: if someone from the future had actually shown up at the party, or if the current-time-period attendees were surprised when they didn't.
Nevertheless, it was a neat concept for a party, and I thought I would share.
Winter Activities I Would Like to Try
Talking to people about various winter acitivites has made me realize I needed a list of things I want to try during the winter months that I have never done before. This has the added benefit of giving me a reason to look forward to more snow. Feel free to add any you thing I missed, as I am sure there are a lot!
1. Sledding.
2. Ice skating.
3. Build a snowman.
4. Have a snowball fight.
5. Take pictures of snow-covered landscapes.
6. Go stargazing (I have heard that up north, during the winter months is the best time/place for this.)
7. Build a Snow Fort.
Brightening a Child's Season
Ok, this is my yearly plug for my pet charity, called
Child's Play. It was started a few years ago by a few gamers who also run a web comic, who were tired of the media always portraying the "gamer" community as drunk and/or violent people apt to go on a rampage at any given moment. They started out hoping to collect a few toys for their local children's hospital in Seattle, and were overwhelmed by the toys and donations that came in from around the world. And it has only gotten bigger every year since. It is easy to donate if you are so inclined, just visit the site, choose the children's hospital you are interested in helping, and that link take you to an Amazon wish list. Pick your toy and off it goes, you are all done!
It doesn't take much, just one small toy can bring hope and laughter to a child who otherwise is just hurting and in pain.
Just thought I would share, since this is the one charity I make a point of being involved in every year. And I figured since I have a blog, I might as well use it to tell other people about them. Helping other people makes me happy, and these kids need as much help as we can give them.
Winter Wonderland. Yeah right.
Snow. It is something I am sure all you northerners take for granted. It is part of your yearly routine, nothing you probably give much thought to beyond shoveling it and whatnot. But I grew up far away from snow. In fact, it was in the 70s at my parent's house this past weekend. They went to a picnic. I have celebrated Christmas in shorts and a tee-shirt before, going for a quick dip in the pool after opening presents.
I have to admit, the coming winter months terrify me, because I don't know what to expect, not really. I have seen the movies and the news reports, and people can tell me what it is like, but until I make it through this first winter, it is all foreign to me. I feel at times like everyone around me is speaking a foreign language with words like shoveling and salting and scrapers, but the only thing I know how to say in this language is "how far to the palace," a singularly useless phrase.
I used to joke about wanting a white Christmas to my family, but it was always in the context of one day of snow which would quickly melt away, to be enjoyed from inside a warm house filled with family. Not months on end of cold and wet, not driving on ice and the terror that I am going to kill myself or someone else while driving to or from work.
I think the whole thing is made worse by having to face it essentially alone. Yes I have good friends who will make sure I at least have the tools I need to survive the season. And yes, I do have some extended family up here, some of whom I am close to. But my friends will all be at their own homes dealing with their own winters, and my family has enough to handle already -- they are busy trying to keep my cousin's flagging spirits up as she continues her fight against breast cancer. I can't add to that burden by asking them to take care of me too. So I have to wake up each morning and face that sea of white by myself. Most of the time I can ignore being alone, I can convince myself that I don't really need anyone else, that I am just fine on my own. And most of the time, I get by. But there are times, like this, that really make me wish I had someone to wake up next to. Someone to laugh at me as I shiver in the morning, to make me laugh as I scrape snow off my car. Someone to come home to at night to keep me warm and remind me that I am safe.
Meh, I guess it all comes down to being a bit homesick, the first real bout of it I have had since I moved up here. Considering I am now in my 10th month up here, I guess that is a good thing, and I have you, my friends, to thank for that, for welcoming me and making me feel right at home. But I am very close to my immediate family, and being so far away this time of year, with the holidays upon us, is hard sometimes. I wish they were here with me to face the winter.
Sorry for such a maudlin post. I guess I just needed to get it out. I promise we will return to our regular schedule of upbeat, positive and happy shortly.
