tangled GREEN thoughts

Strange Day

2008-07-15T12:40:00.002-04:00

I'm working at the Doctor's office today, and it has been unusual.

The mistaken room

A lot of people come into this office by mistake.

If you ever have the choice, never choose your suite number to be the same as the building. If the building number is 302, don't occupy suite 302. Don't. Seriously, don't. Unless you enjoy having random people insist that they have come to the right place. They just don't understand the concept of suites are a part of a bigger whole called building and that they have different numbers.

I hear dead people

A detective constable called me from the morgue saying that he needed to contact family members of the deceased (he had the Doctor's business card on him). The man's first name was Cuong. I couldn't help him with any useful information about family contact. A few minutes later another man called and his name was Cuong!

Who are you?

There is this lawyer who works beside the office and she is my parents age. Today her son came to visit her and she introduced him to my parents. Then my mom was like, well have you met my son? You should meet my son.

We all had a little chat and then on their way out my mom was saying how he should hang out with me. I've begun to give in a bit when my parents try to introduce me to eligible ladies (wink wink) but I draw the line when my mom is trying to set me up with men friends?

Up or down?

2008-07-11T11:25:00.003-04:00

Haven't written a post on this blog in forever, but I felt an urgency to write about how it really peeves me off when people press Up and Down for an elevator when they only need to go in one direction.

That is all.

I can't keep this up

2008-01-06T16:07:00.001-05:00

I have no time to keep up this blog and the novel one, so all I've been doing is consistently keeping up with my poker one which is at http://joethepro27.blogspot.com/.

I'm getting better by leaps and bounds and also been getting lucky. Skill + luck goes a long way.

I'm going to keep up that blog b/c I think it's a good way to review my own play and get better.

What I've been up to

2007-12-12T13:40:00.000-05:00

It's due time for an update, so the news is that I've been furnishing my condo. Right now as I type, I'm looking out 3 giant panels of window onto the gardiner. I never thought watching cars drive by could be so soothing. It's no lakeside view, but these cars, they are like my own personal fish tank. The woosh they make as they drive by is not so different from waves crashing on a beach front.

I guess for an urbinate like myself, this view is as good as any.

I finished episode 6 of joethepro some time ago also, (Click HERE) but although I'm getting lots of positive comments I feel like my drive for making those videos is dying. I will probably continue making them, but few and far between.

The newest thing I'm doing, because I feel like I always need to have some sort of creative outlet, is a blog novel. It's going to be my first attempt at science fiction, a genre that has always interested me. I'm going to try to maintain a once a week update, but we'll see how long that lasts. You can find the first entry up over at thelistnovel.blogspot.com.

I'm still here

2007-11-16T11:55:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted in the longest of times.

This post won't even be a real post. It's just a post promising of a real post someday.

One bit of news is that I've moved into the West One condo after pretty much a three year wait. I must admit that it was worth the wait. The place is beautiful and the location is perfect.

Foot in the ass

2007-08-31T12:47:00.001-04:00

So we've all heard the term foot in the mouth when someone says something they shouldn't have said at the wrong time. Foot in the ass is what I think my father does often.

Sometimes when he thinks we're alone he'll saunter up to me with a mischievous grin on his face and let a thundering one rip. But more often than not, just around the corner, there is another person.

Once in the car when he didn't know I had my window open and the person on the bicycle nearly fell over. Once when he thought we were alone in the basement looking to buy a house, the homeowner was dusting in the doorless room beside us. Once when the elevator was about to open and a crowd of people waited outside. And all the time in his office when he thinks all the patients are gone, but they're not.

Miss Vietnam Global

2007-08-24T11:38:00.000-04:00

I watched a Vietnamese beauty pageant with my parents yesterday. At the end of the pageant, the winner was overjoyed and tears streamed down her face, spilling over her trembling lips.

I've seen many of these contests before and noticed that crying is quite common, but it wasn't until yesterday that I thought about what it represented.

"Oh-my-God. I'm so incredibly good looking. I'm the most beautiful girl on this stage. If you look at my face and body you smile because it's so sexy and when I walk by strangers, they rate me really high numbers out of 10."

And so they cry, because they are beautiful and have been verified by others.

Could you imagine if they held an intelligence pageant and the winner cried? No. Not very likely. The winner would look snooty and ever so slightly push the rim of their glasses up a notch with the tip of their finger.

And then at home in their room by themselves, doors locked, lights off, they would start crying, "Oh-my-God. I'm so incredibly intelligent...."

Poker Hands

2007-08-08T13:31:00.001-04:00

Lately, my reads of people have been great. I'm beginning to understand the thinking of short stacked people more. They are more likely to push with medium and low pairs, but if they have top pair or better, they bet only chunks of their money.

I still make nasty reads and plays, so I want to post my ugly misplayed hands up so I can learn from it.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1347367

Here there are two early limpers. Limpers always means shit-all UNLESS it's a limper UTG (from first position. tricky players sometimes limp UTG with AA, KK). I have AK, third best hand, but plays poorly out of position as I have explained.

I want it heads up, but I don't mind winning it preflop. I also at the same time want to test the first position guy.

A normal reraise would be 5.50, but I don't mind winning it preflop and I really want it heads up, so I bet 6. Both of them call my raise. This makes me put the first caller on a decent hand, and the second guy on a drawing hand (he saw that it was multiway then called).

The flop was a mixed blessing. On one hand I hit my ace, on the other hand I'm drawing dead almost vs. AQ, trips and a flopped flush. Yet I have to protect my hand vs people with flush draws.

With only top pair on a scary board, I decided to pot control rather than protect, so I checked. UTG raised it small and got min raised. I call to see what happens. At this point I don't want to give up TPTK (top pair top kicker). UTG folds. Which is good news since I don't want this to grow to a big pot.

The turn comes and it brings a safe card. I check. He bets small. The pot is almost 40 dollars and he only bets 12. I'm thinking in my head, if he has the flush and wants me all in by the river, he really needed to make a larger bet. If I only call this bet of his, I'm not committed. Why isn't he commiting me with a larger bet? It's pretty obvious I have an ace or a spade draw. I thought to myself. MAYBE because HE is drawing to the flush. He does not have the flush. That's why he only min raised on the flop and raised very little on the turn. I must protect my hand I thought so I reraised him to 37.

He called.

Another safe card on the river.

The pot is around 110 so I bet 35. He min raised me. I called.

The guy knew me perfectly. He played me perfectly with all these min raises.

How I would replay this hand.

I think checking and then calling a raise and a reraise practically announced my hand. If I were to play this hand again. I should have bet out on the flop. If reraised 3x or more, fold, min raised called. Then bet out the turn medium. If reraised, even min raised again, give it up. I think pot control is important, but here I just need more information rather than getting 0 information and giving a lot. Using this strategy, I'd only get bluffed off by aggressive people, which is why I'd just need to choose good tables.

Life Is

2007-08-01T00:51:00.001-04:00

There is no one meaning to life.

People want their already complex world to be a little less complex, so they ask for an answer to the big one. If someone, anyone -- religion, celebrities, mentors, history-- could just only answer this, there would be an outline to the randomness and chaos.

Life is everything. It is what you make it.

Life is spending your time on drugs and partying if you so choose. Life is fanatic dedication to job, fame, family or money, but life could be sitting watching cartoons indefinitely while world changing events are taking place outside your home.

With infinite possibilities and no assuring guide, I am that pathetic person who sometimes feels overwhelmed and unprepared for what to do with MY life. But I am not that person who has the ability or faith to turn to religion, celebrity, mentors or history. I want to know if I get a cookie for starting a family or a merit badge for making an old lady smile, but I wouldn't believe anyone who gave me an answer.

Tonight lying in bed, I’ve decided what meaning I want to bring to my life.

My life is to be greater than what was given.

Were you amazed when the smartest person in your class got an A; when the fastest won the race and the best looking got the girl (or boy)? To be better than what is natural is to be amazing.

I want to make my body stronger. I want to try to gain weight and be healthy (I have taken up cooking and exercise/weight lifting).

I am lazy, so I want to find a profession I enjoy so I can dedicate, study and dig for ambition I do not have.

I want to find a girl I can love and be kind to, relate and grow old.

This is what I want my life to be, the meaning I make from it.

Finally, I do not want to neglect what I find a little easier: to be good to my friends and love my family.

My midnight intoxication. Only morning will tell if this is a product of pillow delirium.

Hands today

2007-07-30T13:58:00.001-04:00

Multiway pot action

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1315938

Analysis: This is why they say don't go broke in multiway pots with only a pair. I have to toot my horn on how little I lost here. It might even be a weak play at higher levels.

Give up on the straight?

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1315952

Analysis: Here is a hand where I have top pair and a so-so kicker. On the flop they bet out minimum and another just calls the minimum. I feel like I should protect my hand so I bet out pot. The turn brought a possible flush, the card I was very scared of and a possible straight. I still have top pair and now a straight draw so I decided to check it down rather than be reraised off the pot. The river brought me the straight and I'm pretty willing to call most bets but the Villian went all in. This is what some people do after the turn trap didn't work. I'm not sure if my fold was correct or not. The pot was still pretty small compared to his all in.

My hand: TT overpair

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1315979

Analysis: This fold I felt more confident about, even though it was the same table that just saw me make a laydown. The flop I was fairly certain about. I felt preflop I would have been reraised with a higher pocket pair and the flop was VERY draw heavy. Any ace would have a straight draw, medium cards have gut shots, flush draws out, just tons of possibilities. So when he bet out, I wanted to really punish him for trying to draw and reraised him 4 times (I didn't mind a fold by him here). The turn brought the ugliest possible card. Any ace now has his straight (aces anything are more likely to call preflop raises) and any flush draws have hit, plus he could have already had me beat preflop or flop. So I checked willing to call a moderate sized bet on the river if the right card fell. The king came which was an overcard to my pair. He bet half the pot. The only hands I could beat were 66, 77, 88 and 99 so I decided to give up on my hand.

AK out of position

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1315873

Analysis: Playing AK out of position sucks. AK is a hand that wants to see all 5 cards because most of the time you're not going to hit your ace or king on the flop and if there is pressure on you, then you have to let it go. That's why AK is the ideal hand to go all in with preflop if the pot is big enough.

For example, playing .50/1.00, if I raise to 3.5 UTG and get reraised to 10.50 and I have 100 dollars. When it swings back to me, I usually consider 10% of my stack the minimum to go all in. Depending on the player I would sometimes go all in so I get full value out of my AK getting to see all five cards.

Today, unfortunately, I was min raised. I really hate min raised because it's either a really great hand (AA, KK), or a drawing hand. This put me in a tough spot with my AK. I was out of position to someone who took the betting lead. When the flop comes and most likely misses my hand, I'd likely bet out and then give up on the hand. Reraising almost commits me to the pot and going all in seems too absurd considering the pot is still small and only AA, KK, QQ, JJ and AK would call in that case (me getting beaten most of the time).

I decided to reraise him. If he went all in, I would be in a tough spot. If I miss my flop (most of the time) I would bet and if called or reraised (tough spot again!). If I hit my ace or king, I am committed. Luckily for me, I hit my ace, but notice that even though it looked like I was way ahead, he wins 1/3 times we run it. So even if things go perfectly (not reraised all in preflop, I get lucky and hit the flop) he can still win 1/3 times with his hand. His play isn't crazy, 2/3 of the time I miss my flop and may have to fold.

This is why I hate playing AK out of position.

The worst day in poker

2007-07-16T18:33:00.000-04:00

Today was the worst day I've ever had in poker. 8 out of 10 races I lost (a race is when you both go all in and you each have a 50/50 chance to win) and then everytime I had a premium hand, they got lucky on me.

Let me show you a few hands that weren't races today.

The Start

It started off badly here when I hit my flush but he had quads (I am redswiss27). I don't mind this hand so much except that it was so large a pot. After losing this hand, I played lower stakes because I didn't want to lose a lot:

NL $1/$2 Texas Hold'em - Sunday, July 15, 19:22:33 GMT 2007
Table Oxygen 07 6-max (Real Money)
Seat 1 is the button
Total number of active players : 5
Seat 1: HabibMarwan ( $260.68 )
Seat 2: reg b ( $54.92 )
Seat 3: nirvana99 ( $171.35 )
Seat 4: xanxoz ( $200 )
Seat 5: redswiss27 ( $197 )
Seat 6: Alandmark ( $254.57 )
reg b posts small blind [$1]
nirvana99 posts big blind [$2]

** Dealing down cards **

Dealt to redswiss27 [ Ks, Qs ]
redswiss27 raises to [$7]
Alandmark calls [$7]
HabibMarwan folds
reg b folds
nirvana99 folds

** Dealing Flop ** [ Js, 2h, 2s ]

redswiss27 bets [$10]
Alandmark calls [$10]

** Dealing Turn ** [ 7h ]

redswiss27 bets [$20]
Alandmark calls [$20]

** Dealing River ** [ 8s ]

redswiss27 bets [$38]
Alandmark goes all-in
Alandmark raises to [$217.57]
redswiss27 calls [$122]
redswiss27 goes all-in
Returning uncalled bet [$57.57] to Alandmark

** Showdown **

redswiss27 shows [ Ks, Qs ] a Flush
Alandmark shows [ 2c, 2d ] four of a kind, Deuces

** Hand Conclusion **

Alandmark wins $394 from main pot with four of a kind, Deuces

The following hands are in no particular order, but continued a bad day. These were all that I could find easily, but there were many more 2 outters etc....

Hand One

Aggressive, sort of short stacked guy tried to make a move on me.

NL $0.50/$1 Texas Hold'em - Monday, July 16, 20:42:09 GMT 2007
Table Fluorine 14 6-max (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Total number of active players : 6
Seat 1: Cancer Man ( $122.37 )
Seat 2: SHATIT ( $33.25 )
Seat 3: Nero14 ( $62.23 )
Seat 4: Keziah ( $129.40 )
Seat 5: Theducklin ( $92.28 )
Seat 6: redswiss27 ( $91.95 )
Nero14 posts small blind [$0.50]
Keziah posts big blind [$1]

** Dealing down cards **

Dealt to redswiss27 [ Ac, As ]
Theducklin calls [$1]
redswiss27 raises to [$4]
Cancer Man folds
SHATIT folds
Nero14 raises to [$7]
Keziah folds
Theducklin folds
redswiss27 raises to [$21]
Nero14 calls [$14]

** Dealing Flop ** [ 6c, 5d, 8s ]

Nero14 checks
redswiss27 bets [$30]
Nero14 goes all-in
Nero14 raises to [$41.23]
redswiss27 calls [$11.23]

** Showdown **

Nero14 shows [ 9h, 9d ]
redswiss27 shows [ Ac, As ]

** Dealing Turn ** [ 7d ]

** Dealing River ** [ Ks ]

** Hand Conclusion **

Nero14 wins $123.46 from main pot with a straight, Nine to Five

Hand Two

Again I have a premium hand against the same psycho, but he hits his straight. I managed to keep the pot small, by checking the flop and making an almost min raise on the turn for information. He bet out small on the river hoping I would reraise again, but I only called him down.

NL $0.50/$1 Texas Hold'em - Monday, July 16, 21:30:17 GMT 2007
Table Fluorine 14 6-max (Real Money)
Seat 1 is the button
Total number of active players : 5
Seat 1: Cancer Man ( $157.22 )
Seat 2: Kissyblue ( $55 )
Seat 3: Nero14 ( $100.81 )
Seat 4: Spader7 ( $100 )
Seat 5: Theducklin ( $35.90 )
Seat 6: redswiss27 ( $127.35 )
Kissyblue posts small blind [$0.50]
Nero14 posts big blind [$1]

** Dealing down cards **

Dealt to redswiss27 [ Ad, Ah ]
Theducklin calls [$1]
redswiss27 raises to [$4.50]
Cancer Man folds
Kissyblue folds
Nero14 calls [$3.50]
Theducklin folds

** Dealing Flop ** [ 9d, Th, Td ]

Nero14 checks
redswiss27 checks

** Dealing Turn ** [ 8c ]

Nero14 bets [$3]
redswiss27 raises to [$7]
Nero14 calls [$4]

** Dealing River ** [ 5c ]

Nero14 bets [$10]
redswiss27 calls [$10]

** Showdown **

Nero14 shows [ Jc, Qc ] a straight, Queen to Eight
redswiss27 mucks [ Ad, Ah ]

** Hand Conclusion **

Nero14 wins $42.30 from main pot with a straight, Queen to Eight

Hand Three

This guy was such a donkey. I can't believe he held on to his QQ when I made pot sized bets twice against 2 opponents. Needless to say after taking this pot from me and lucking out on some other guy he lost all his money eventually. Same thing goes for most of the guys who lucked out.

NL $0.50/$1 Texas Hold'em - Monday, July 16, 21:48:35 GMT 2007
Table Fluorine 13 6-max (Real Money)
Seat 1 is the button
Total number of active players : 5
Seat 1: Rosaneros ( $45.22 )
Seat 2: Mladinho26 ( $167.85 )
Seat 3: TRENTEND ( $42.98 )
Seat 4: redswiss27 ( $155.65 )
Seat 5: Happyfold ( $71.96 )
Seat 6: ALFCHLO ( $54.05 )
TRENTEND posts small blind [$0.50]
redswiss27 posts big blind [$1]

** Dealing down cards **

Dealt to redswiss27 [ 4c, 4h ]
Happyfold folds
ALFCHLO folds
Rosaneros calls [$1]
TRENTEND calls [$0.50]
redswiss27 checks

** Dealing Flop ** [ Kh, 4s, 8h ]

TRENTEND checks
redswiss27 bets [$1.85]
Rosaneros calls [$1.85]
TRENTEND calls [$1.85]

** Dealing Turn ** [ Td ]

TRENTEND checks
redswiss27 bets [$7]
Rosaneros calls [$7]
TRENTEND folds

** Dealing River ** [ Qs ]

redswiss27 bets [$14]
Rosaneros goes all-in
Rosaneros raises to [$35.37]
redswiss27 calls [$21.37]

** Showdown **

Rosaneros shows [ Qd, Qc ] three of a kind, Queens
redswiss27 shows [ 4c, 4h ] three of a kind, Fours

** Hand Conclusion **

Rosaneros wins $90.29 from main pot with three of a kind, Queens

Hand Four

What the? Is all I can say about this hand.

NL $0.50/$1 Texas Hold'em - Monday, July 16, 20:40:51 GMT 2007
Table Fluorine 13 6-max (Real Money)
Seat 4 is the button
Total number of active players : 6
Seat 1: pfweh ( $60.25 )
Seat 2: Mladinho26 ( $71.60 )
Seat 3: TRENTEND ( $60.38 )
Seat 4: redswiss27 ( $113.95 )
Seat 5: ENVOY ( $44.03 )
Seat 6: Sboski ( $34.05 )
ENVOY posts small blind [$0.50]
Sboski posts big blind [$1]

** Dealing down cards **

Dealt to redswiss27 [ Qh, Qs ]
pfweh raises to [$2]
Mladinho26 folds
TRENTEND folds
redswiss27 raises to [$6]
ENVOY raises to [$26]
Sboski folds
pfweh folds
redswiss27 goes all-in
redswiss27 raises to [$113.95]
ENVOY calls [$18.03]
ENVOY goes all-in
Returning uncalled bet [$69.92] to redswiss27

** Showdown **

redswiss27 shows [ Qh, Qs ]
ENVOY shows [ Ts, Kd ]

** Dealing Flop ** [ Tc, Th, 7d ]

** Dealing Turn ** [ 8h ]

** Dealing River ** [ 9h ]

** Hand Conclusion **

ENVOY wins $88.06 from main pot with three of a kind, Tens

Hand Five

I played this guy perfectly and checked raised the turn, but he luckboxes on the river, which I have to call anyway cuz I'm pot committed so I made the bet.

NL $0.50/$1 Texas Hold'em - Monday, July 16, 21:19:28 GMT 2007
Table Fluorine 03 6-max (Real Money)
Seat 4 is the button
Total number of active players : 5
Seat 1: Kissyblue ( $50 )
Seat 2: Bedzilla ( $297.16 )
Seat 3: kingjoe26 ( $16.24 )
Seat 4: Loukie ( $198.20 )
Seat 5: t4l ( $17.76 )
Seat 6: redswiss27 ( $104.50 )
t4l posts small blind [$0.50]
redswiss27 posts big blind [$1]

** Dealing down cards **

Dealt to redswiss27 [ Js, Jc ]
Bedzilla calls [$1]
kingjoe26 folds
Loukie folds
t4l calls [$0.50]
redswiss27 raises to [$4.50]
Bedzilla calls [$3.50]
t4l folds

** Dealing Flop ** [ 3d, 9d, 6s ]

redswiss27 bets [$7.50]
Bedzilla calls [$7.50]

** Dealing Turn ** [ Jh ]

redswiss27 checks
Bedzilla bets [$15]
redswiss27 raises to [$45]
Bedzilla calls [$30]

** Dealing River ** [ 7s ]

redswiss27 goes all-in
redswiss27 bets [$47.50]
Bedzilla calls [$47.50]

** Showdown **

Bedzilla shows [ 4h, 5h ] a straight, Seven to Three
redswiss27 shows [ Js, Jc ] three of a kind, Jacks

** Hand Conclusion **

Bedzilla wins $207 from main pot with a straight, Seven to Three

Hand Six

I decided to be cute with this hand because the guy was aggresive so I just only called his preflop raise so I could really hurt him later. It worked, but he lucked out.

***** Betfair Poker Hand History for Game 229915073 *****
NL $0.50/$1 Texas Hold'em - Monday, July 16, 17:06:41 GMT 2007
Table Fluorine 03 6-max (Real Money)
Seat 1 is the button
Total number of active players : 6
Seat 1: Kissyblue ( $43.05 )
Seat 2: cjs123 ( $82.95 )
Seat 3: redswiss27 ( $94.10 )
Seat 4: Jimmy____ ( $96.50 )
Seat 5: LIV5 ( $98.40 )
Seat 6: apaths ( $65.89 )
cjs123 posts small blind [$0.50]
redswiss27 posts big blind [$1]

** Dealing down cards **

Dealt to redswiss27 [ Ac, Ad ]
Jimmy____ folds
LIV5 folds
apaths folds
Kissyblue raises to [$3.60]
cjs123 folds
redswiss27 calls [$2.60]

** Dealing Flop ** [ 3h, 4h, 6c ]

redswiss27 checks
Kissyblue bets [$5]
redswiss27 raises to [$15]
Kissyblue goes all-in
Kissyblue raises to [$39.45]
redswiss27 calls [$24.45]

** Showdown **

Kissyblue shows [ 7h, Kh ]
redswiss27 shows [ Ac, Ad ]

** Dealing Turn ** [ Qh ]

** Dealing River ** [ Tc ]

** Hand Conclusion **

Kissyblue wins $83.60 from main pot with a Flush

Hand Seven

This hand I don't know what else I could have done. I bet 10 so I could isolate just 1 guy, but 2 called. Then a scary flop called so I bet big to end it, but was called again. One guy was short so by then I was pot committed.

***** Betfair Poker Hand History for Game 229779639 *****
NL $0.50/$1 Texas Hold'em - Monday, July 16, 02:41:46 GMT 2007
Table Fluorine 18 6-max (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Total number of active players : 6
Seat 1: Mekon1969 ( $56.55 )
Seat 2: cctv ( $76.43 )
Seat 3: tinu ( $102.65 )
Seat 4: redswiss27 ( $101.30 )
Seat 5: Firstrain ( $43.80 )
Seat 6: will12345 ( $96.40 )
tinu posts small blind [$0.50]
redswiss27 posts big blind [$1]

** Dealing down cards **

Dealt to redswiss27 [ Ks, Kh ]
Firstrain raises to [$2]
will12345 calls [$2]
Mekon1969 folds
cctv calls [$2]
tinu calls [$1.50]
redswiss27 raises to [$10]
Firstrain calls [$8]
will12345 folds
cctv calls [$8]
tinu folds

** Dealing Flop ** [ 9h, 3s, 8c ]

redswiss27 bets [$18.50]
Firstrain calls [$18.50]
cctv calls [$18.50]

** Dealing Turn ** [ Js ]

redswiss27 goes all-in
redswiss27 bets [$72.80]
Firstrain calls [$15.30]
Firstrain goes all-in
cctv calls [$47.93]
cctv goes all-in
Returning uncalled bet [$24.87] to redswiss27

** Showdown **

cctv shows [ Tc, 7c ]
redswiss27 shows [ Ks, Kh ]
Firstrain shows [ 7h, 7s ]

** Dealing River ** [ 9s ]

** Hand Conclusion **

cctv wins $65.26 from side pot #1 with a straight, Jack to Seven
cctv wins $132.40 from main pot with a straight, Jack to Seven

There were more hands and of course all the 50/50 ones I lost.

Paris Hilton Over-exposed

2007-07-04T21:08:00.000-04:00

Since I spend a lot of time on the computer surfing the internet, I spend a lot of time reading about Paris Hilton. On the internet, she is the queen and death and taxes wait their turn. It's as though the entire world has got an addiction to and camaraderie in making fun of her.

The first 10 thousand jokes were funny. I laughed at all the slut jokes, bimbo jokes and heartless bitch jokes. She was an easy target, filthy rich girl with zero modesty and work ethic. I'm pretty sure she looked up the word airhead and used it for a personality. But somewhere between the 100 thousandth and 1 millionth joke, I stopped laughing. I realized that we've become the joke.

So many people are bagging on her, it's like the nerd at school making fun of the geek. Paris has become the acceptable target of ridicule, even by the people with glass houses. It's cool to make fun of her.

Celebrity sites just need to put up a juicy picture of her and throw in a random mix of insults and they've reached their traffic and comments quota for the week.

Sarah Silverman got the entire MTV auditorium to laugh at Paris while she was actually there attending the event. If she had made the same fellatio jokes about anyone female, maybe even porn stars, the room would have gone silent. But it's okay to say that stuff about Paris. You are allowed to say anything about Paris, and if it's mean, it's funny.

There are some real sick evil people out there, but we all focus our hatred and anger on a spoiled rich girl. Her biggest sin is being self-centered (like no one we know is like that). The big bad guys in the world are smart and might fight back, Paris will just cry. Let's all keep making fun of her, so we feel better about ourselves.

I'd rather be her friend than a sheep's. BAAAAAHHH

Now we're cooking

2007-07-01T15:59:00.000-04:00

I've gone and done it. I've spent 200 dollars buying several cookbooks. After spending all that money, I've decided that cooking will be my new hobby since video games aren't so productive and poker has become a job.

After much research, I've decided on the following books (I already have the Joy of Cooking):

The Professional Chef - A bible, like The Joy of cooking. It's a mammoth textbook that covers the culinary arts.

Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking - Two Marcella Hazan Italian cooking books combined into one. She is responsible for bringing great italian cooking into the American kitchen.

Complete Book of Mexican Cooking - I really don't know much else besides tacos and burritos, but I do very much like tacos and burritos.

Think Like a Chef - A top chef writing about the principles behind cooking, so that you can creatively make dishes and not follow strict recipes.

How To Cook Everything : Simple Recipes for Great Food - Food editor for the NY Times.

Chinese Cooking Made Easy - Small little book with a lot of recipes.

The Chinese Kitchen: Recipes, Techniques, Ingredients, History, and Memories from America's Leading Authority on Chinese Cooking - Textbook for Chinese food.

The one book that I reluctantly dropped but may get in the future was one on Japanese cooking.

To a Science

2007-06-26T17:01:00.001-04:00

Do you ever wonder if it's possible to always choose the slowest line at banks, supermarkets or retail stores? Well now you can tell your friends that it is possible, because I am that guy.

I've done rigourous scientific studies. I've picked the shortest line; I've picked the line where people had the least items; I've picked the line with the speediest looking cashiers; I've picked the lines with the best looking girls (probably my smartest idea), but it always results in me being in the slowest line.

Today at Walmart I went for the shortest looking line, which probably had 7 people in it. After a few minutes the aisle next to me opened up and people rushed there, including 2 people in front of me. I thought they were mad. There were only a few people in front of them, but they gave up their spot to be in a much lower ranked spot in the new line.

I laughed inwardly at the Lemmings as I saw their little feet scurrying into the new line while I casually tucked my sunglasses into my breast pocket and lifted a People Magazine for a superficial read. I was so cool that if any girls were watching me they would have instantly fallen in love.

I nearly dropped the magazine when I saw the shopping cart of the person first in line. She had a mountain of merchandize. I'm not talking about large items -- mini fridges and cookware sets -- mountain, I'm talking about dollar store shopping spree mountain. It was as if she had items the size of Tic Tac boxes that over filled Walmart's extra large carts.

Hi. I would like to purchase 1000 Tic Tac boxes all marked at different prices.

The cashier politely asked her if she would mind letting a person in front of her while she loaded the conveyor belt. After that person was done she wasn't even done loading yet but the entire belt was full.

Two magazines and 35 minutes later she was finally done. The sick part about how long it took was the cashier was one of the faster cashiers I've seen. If I had been in one of those slow cashier lines, like in the past, this would have easily been over 1.5 hours.

Can you imagine it taking 35 minutes for one person with a fast cashier?

Now you're probably asking why didn't I just go to a new line. Well, I was third. Behind me were 3 people. The other lines had 7 people, so I would have been 8th. But yes, I watched those lines, if I had been 14th it still would have been faster.

So tell your friends. Scare little children. You know of a guy who always picks the slowest lines.

I do not compute, but U do

2007-06-25T15:09:00.001-04:00

I've been furniture shopping in anticipation of the condo (once again delayed - plumber strike) allegedly finishing in October. As usual, I used the internet to shop. I found a site with modern furniture at affordable prices so I signed up to get a price quote.

You learn something new everyday. Today I learned that my last name is invalid. At least the website said so. My last name needs to be from 3-16 characters to be a true last name. So I added a u.

But now I can tell them, "I knew something was missing in my life. All I needed was you to be whole."

More Patient Behaviour

2007-06-22T11:23:00.000-04:00

"I'd like to see the doctor please."

"You have health card?"

"Yes, I do."

This is the part when most people hand me their health card, but at least once a day I get to sit and stare at the patient while they get to stand and stare at me. On rare occasions it goes on for a second round.

"You have health card?"

"Yes."

Stare.

Big Small

2007-06-13T22:43:00.000-04:00

I had this friend in Japan who was a big guy. We used to laugh that I was already a small guy and he was already a big guy, but walking side by side did us no good. Today I chanced upon this picture from Dlisted and it reminded me of the conversation I had with him.

Beef Barely Soup

2007-06-12T11:24:00.001-04:00

Next time you buy your double double coffee or sugar glazed timbit at the nearest Tim Hortons be prepared for what happened to my brother because it could happen to you.

He entered, ordered and returned to his seat as regular as any other day. When he looked to his beef barley soup he noticed that it wasn't beef barley at all. Hardly a problem he thought as he went to the cashier and explained to her that he had gotten the wrong soup.

The cashier was a 20 something girl, petite and unassuming. "That IS beef barely soup," she said matter of factly.

My brother looked at the soup again to make sure he hadn't made a mistake. "No. It's not."

"Yes, it is."

"No, it's not."

"Yes. It is."

"If it's beef barley, where's the beef?" he asked while raising his eyebrows in victory.

"It's beef FLAVOURED."

"Are you kidding? If you're going to argue, you should at least know your own product."

"What the fuck are ya gonna do? Huh?"

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me. What the fuck are ya gonna do you fucking Indian*? Fuck you!"

My grandfather recently passed away and my brother felt his presence near him, warning him that something odd was about to happen. At least this is what my brother told me. I don't think I would need any spirits to tell me something odd was about to happen after what she had just said.

He felt anxious and was preparing himself for the worst.

The cashier was fumbling with something under the counter, but from his view he could not see past her wrists. His body tensed in anticipation.

In the next moment her hands revealed themselves along with a 5 pound heavy metal object that she flung at my brother. He did a Matrix dodge bending at the hips to his side as it went sailing past him and cutting into the arm of a lady behind him.

The sharp edges of the metal object sliced open her arm in two spots and blood ran freely down her arm.

My brother looked at the cashier and said, "Good one."

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Days later, after much talk, Tim Hortons wanted to compensate my brother by giving him a 30 dollar gift certificate. They kept emphasizing that he could use it anywhere, but he told them that they were insulting him and he would rather not accept.

* My brother is Vietnamese

Funny but sad

2007-06-10T21:03:00.000-04:00

The Onesome Threesome Finale

2007-06-07T11:33:00.000-04:00

I was sitting on the train seat beside The Terminator and we looked like two sacks of lumpy potatoes. Our hands lay limp by our sides and our eyes were lifeless except they flared briefly as we spoke.

"They were pretty hot."

The Terminator released a drawn out breath. "Yah."

"Do you want to go back and look for them? It's not too late."

"No. No. No."

The train halted to a stop as the suited salarymen loaded onto the train. It was the start of their long work day. Stepping into the cart, they very quickly closed their eyes to fall asleep standing up.

"So, can you explain to me one more time why you're here and not with them?"

"Think about the pressure. You have two strong, aggressive, good looking women who are going to expect a lot. It's a ton of pressure. When I'm with a women I always have to please her. It's what pleases me."

"I never even thought about that. But it's true. If you're the please the girl type, you're going to have to do twice the pleasing. And no one's ever taught us what to do in a threesome," I said. "Well, unless you want to count pornos."

"And then I'd have to skip work when I'm already not on good terms, and what if I wreck things with XXXXXX?"

We sat in silence for quite some time. At one point, he let out a small beer burp and then settled into a comfortable slouch.

I started to unconciously shake my head as his reasons began to slip from my mind and visions of two naked hot girls replaced them.

"You know, they probably just found some other guy. But let that sucker try to please them both eh?"

The Terminator looked at me and opened his mouth about to reply before closing it and quietly mumbling, "Can we talk about something else?"

"Foursomes?"

Venting

2007-06-01T19:57:00.000-04:00

Man. I'm so pissed. Lost a 400 dollar hand when he only had an 8 percent chance to hit it on the river. He had pocket Aces and I had two pair on the turn. I checked and he went all in and I instant called. The last card was one of his 4 Jacks he needed for the straight (the 2 aces in the deck would have given us a split pot).

Usually, when I make the right play and get lucked out on I don't get angry because I know I played right. But this one really bothered me because I've been on a downswing.

The other days, I played poorly. But today I played so well and then something like this happens.

I also lost AA versus KK all in preflop for 150 dollars, but that one didn't bother me as much.

I guess anyway you make money there is some sort of stress attached to it. I've set up rules I follow to prevent myself from playing badly.

For example, after two big unlucky losses I must take a break. Also, never trash talk because I get really heated and then lose my play. Argh. This post is just to vent out some of my steam.

Poker Interruption

2007-05-21T12:45:00.000-04:00

My parents do not understand the amount of concentration I need when I play poker. They don't know that I'm playing 4 tables and 20 people simultaneously. On each table I come in with 100 dollars, sometimes working it up to over 300 dollars, so at any given time there could be a 200 dollar pot at stake.

My memory is pretty awful unless I'm interested in something and playing 4 tables of poker takes a lot of memory.

There are some things you MUST pay attention to if you want to win and there are some that are optional and most of the time I do remember those too.

So if I decide to play a hand I will be aware of the following,

MUST:

1. My table image at each table (have I been raising a lot? betting or checking flops?)
2. The cards I have.
3. The exact playing style of the person to my left and right (these are the people you can either take a lot of money from or lose a lot from).
4. The most aggresive guy on the table.
5. What position did the raise come from? (I play on 6 people tables, so there are 6 positions).
6. What hand ranges are usually raised from that position? What was the size of his raise? You can narrow down what he has by the position and size of his raise.
7. What position am I in?
8. How many people have called the bet so far and how much money they have?
9. How much money does the person who raised has? (if they have a lot, I can play more gambling style hands that if i hit the miracle cards, I can take his whole massive stack.)
10. How much money I have and how much money do the people who have yet to act have.

So every time I play a hand I think about all these things, I've done it so often it becomes second nature and if someone inturrupted me in this situation I would mostly be okay. The problem comes when I have to answer these 10 questions for 2 or even 3 tables at the same time and I have about 15 seconds to do so. The questions get deeper and more complicated as the hand progresses.

Anyways, I've been doing well and my game has improved a lot. I'm looking forward to September when I won't be inturrupted.

The Onesome Threesome Part V

2007-05-18T13:46:00.003-04:00

I was resting along the side of the bar. Hours of dancing had gone by and the time approached 4. The crowd was just beginning to thin enough for me to see the people squatting against the opposite wall, some soothing their heads with their fingers, others out cold and a few making out.

Emerging between the crowd, I saw The Terminator approaching.

"So, what's the deal?" I asked.

"I think, it's best if we escaped now."

"What?"

Escape, to me, meant a steathy exit. One which meant he was avoiding someone. "You mean, just leave? Without you saying goodbye to her?"

"Yah, come on, let's go. Quick." he said, and at the same time urging me gently off my seat.

"Wait. Did she show you a penis or something?" I was enjoying his sense of urgency.

"No," he answered immediately. "I just don't want to say anything. It's easier for me. Come on, let's go."

I decided not to torture him any longer and I got up to leave. As I did this, I looked over his shoulder and saw her approaching. "Guess who's walking towards us?"

His eyes told me he knew.

"I'll wait outside for you. Call me if you change your mind."

"Fuck. Okay, I'll be out there soon. Just wait for me. I'm coming for sure."

"For sure, for sure?"

"For sure."

As I left, the busty Brunette with her Asian friend walked to The Terminator's side.

"Uh. Hey. I think I have to leave now. My friends are waiting for me."

"Oh really? But we're leaving to the airport tomorrow. Are you sure you can't hang out longer?"

With new information, he stumbled over words, only repeated very slowly and in softer quieter tonnes, "You're leaving--to the--airport--tomorrow."

"Yah our flight is tomorrow afternoon. Today is our last night in Japan."

"Your flight is--tomorrow--afternoon. Today is your last night in Japan." He looked at her and then he looked at where I had made my exit, "I can't though. I can't. My friends are waiting for me and I have an early work day tomorrow. I need my 2 hours of sleep."

"That's too bad," said the Brunette pouting her lips before moving towards him and giving him a lip locking kiss and then a hug.

After, the Asian girl walked up to him and asked, "Would you mind if I gave you a kiss also?"

Unsure, the Terminator turned his head to the Brunette for an answer. She was giggling.

"Uh-sure," he managed to say and turned his cheek slightly towards the Asian. She grabbed his head in both hands, cocked it directly at hers and kissed him on the lips, slowly slipping her tongue in his mouth while gently pushing his head in towards hers. He had a hard-on and he had been sure she knew it. When she pulled away, she smiled and gave him a wink when their eyes met.

The brunette said, "Hey, he's mine," and walked towards him, pulled him away from her friend, and gave him a longer kiss.

At this point The Terminator could feel the Asians hand on the small of his back -- it had never left -- and the Brunette's arms below his shoulder blades, her breasts pressed against his chest, and her lips on his. What he was feeling at this moment is anyone's guess, but what he knew was being offered is everyone's answer.

Pulling herself away from him the Brunette asked again, "Our hotel is only five minutes from here, couldn't you just call in sick tomorrow?"

Japanese vids

2007-05-13T02:03:00.000-04:00

Some funny Japanese videos:

Here and Here.

Onesome Threesome Part IV

2007-05-06T01:11:00.000-04:00

We were back in the smaller hip-hop room. There was R&B playing, music that The Terminator used to his advantage when slow dancing. Although he had a disposition, some would call it a skill, to dance slowly to any song when he was with a girl.

I was dancing beside him and he had not introduced me to her, so I was his little secret friend. Since our last conversation we decided that he had very little will-power so it was best if he did not kiss her as it would indefinitely lead to more, and I was put on duty to ensure this.

Grab grab. Touch touch. Feel feel. Dance dance. Intense eye-contact. Recycled. It went on like this for quite some time and I was getting quite jealous of his "difficult position." So when the time came when their heads slowly inched towards each other and their eyelids clasped shut, as their lips reached out for one another, I wound my arm behind my back, crunched my hand in a tight fist and hammered him on the shoulder blade causing him to headbutt the bikini brunette, and then I continued dancing as though nothing unusual had happened. Smiling as if I was smiling from my enjoyment of the song.

My punch had little effect because it took only three or four minutes until it was back to grab grab; touch touch; feel feel; dance dance. And then I'm not sure what happened next. Perhaps I tied my laces or was bumped into an obscured view of them, but when I had a good shot of them again they were tonguing each other fiercely. Long passionate kisses that knocked the rhythm of their dancing, kissing that shut out the people beside them.

As I watched them kiss I began to try to remember which trains we took to get here, because I sure to be heading home alone.

Joe The Pro

2007-05-02T21:08:00.000-04:00

I was interviewed at Sixty Cent Main Event.

Joe The Pro Episode 4

2007-05-01T21:47:00.001-04:00

The Onesome Threesome Part III

2007-04-27T12:19:00.000-04:00

I had been dancing for an hour and as I expected the crowd was getting energized. Beside me a group of five rough looking guys, one even had his eye brows shaved, were chanting a 5 syllable cheer that ended in an exclamation and inevitably one of them uppercutting the air and tumbling on some unfortunate bystander. The fellow with the shaved eyebrows was exceptionally large and closest to me, so I decided it would be a good time to rest and to see how The Terminator was doing.

He was an easy find because he was still in the same area he was the first time I saw him. The only difference was he had seated himself between two girls. There was an Asian girl that matched the Terminator's tastes, thin, small breasted with an amazing face--fresh and unadorned except for sultry lips shiny from gloss. She seemed engaged talking with a Japanese fellow to her side.

The terminator was instead talking to a European girl. She was tall, you could tell, even though she was seated. She sat straight, chest out, clearly advertising what she knew she had. She had long hair and a peek-a-boo bangs over one side of her face. Surrounded in black mascara, you had to admire the green of her eyes. Not without fault, her nose was hard and the slightest bit large and she had thin lips, a simple red line running across a somewhat fuller lower lip. But who would notice something like that in a place like this when she had a body like that?

I waited and waited until the Terminator looked up and saw me. I made the universal signal for call me or let's talk, which involved making my hand into a telephone and wiggling it beside my ear and mouth. A few minutes later we were talking in a dim corridor opposite the restrooms.

"What's up?" he asked as if I was the one up to something interesting.

"Are you being good?"

"I haven't done anything."

"So I guess you will continue not to do anything for the rest of the night with the brunette with the big tits?"

He laughed at this. "What should I do? Do you think she's hot?"

"Ummm--yah. Very. So what were you planning on doing?"

"I don't know. I'm just really curious what it'd be like to kiss her."

This time I laughed. "Yah, and then after that you'd be really curious what it'd be like to have sex with her."

"No. Nothing more after kissing. I can control myself. I just want to know what it'd be like to kiss her. I'm really curious."

"You understand that if you kiss her, you'd lose all rights to being suspicious of Yuki seeing another guy. And in fact, if she is seeing some other guy, you probably deserve it. Also, didn't you say you were crazy about her and if this happens to get really serious you'd feel guilty throughout your entire relationship."

"But I'm just really curious what it'd be like to kiss her."

"I dunno. Well--it's still early in the relationship. So kissing wouldn't be too bad, but I just don't think you can cut it off at that."

"Probably not right?" And after this The Terminator went into a deep think, which I easily answered for him.

"But you're just so curious what it'd be like to kiss her."

He looked at me surprised. I had read his mind. "Yah! Exactly!"

Onesome Threesome Part II

2007-04-24T11:44:00.000-04:00

Having fared the stairway of 100 people I looked out at the open space of 1000 people. This was Ageha's main room, an enormous dance floor with an equally impressive disco ball at its center. The layout encouraged spectators as it resembled a coliseum, the dance floor, a concrete pit lowered from ground with steel railings enclosing the area. On the sides were tables and chairs, two rows deep, already filling with the reluctant and shy.

Although I was quite sure there was close to 1000 people, the dance floor looked sparse. It seemed techno was not as popular as hip-hop, the music from the previous room.

The crowd was still reserved. The alcohol had not yet taken full control of the small Asian bodies. Only girlfriends encouraging each other onto the dance floor with giggles and tugs, and the leery perverts with one hand clutching a beer and the other in their pocket were dancing. Dancing is used loosely here, unless you consider hobbling in zombie posture dancing.

My experience told me the scene would change in an hour. The guys would get physically aggressive, grabbing with fumbling hands and sometimes even throwing girls in the air while being encouraged with incomprehensible drunken cheers from others. If the girls liked you, you were a take charge dashing man, but if they didn't then you were a pervert jerk. Yet either way, like you or not, the passive culture led the girls to respond in exactly the same way, except for the expression on their face: the one-night-slut smile or the just 2-more-minutes grimace.

I had lost sight of the mother of the LV bag, but I saw my friend standing in the middle of a set of tables. He is half Caucasian and half Chinese but in the haze of a club you would just think him Caucasian. Taller, thicker, strong-jawed with dark brown hair, he certainly looked different than those around him. With an American sporty look, softened in the eyes by his Chinese background, he seemed next-door handsome and approachable.

He promised to be a good boy because he had recently started seeing a Japanese girl exclusively. She worked at the department store of a large franchise as a pretty face, probably thanking profusely any customer that walked by, likely bowing several thousands times a day.

I didn't think he was being very nice when I saw the predatory look in his eyes. I had seen those eyes before. Once when he cornered a brunette lolita from Kazakhstan (no relation to Borat) and had his way with her on the dance floor. Another time when he isolated and attacked (but not in a sexual assault kind of way) a half Japanese, half British girl. The princess definitely had a bitch forcefield around her, but he broke it down. He could be the Terminator of dance clubs. His brain making those computerized bleeps found in the orginal Star Trek or B-Grade spy movies as he sized up the physical features of a girl: 5'6, bleep, bleep, B-cup, bleep, long hair, bleep, bleep, no men immediately beside her, bleep, B-cup, bleep, target aquired end of transmission.

It wasn't until we caught each other's attention that he relaxed his game face and gave me an easy smile.

When I shook my head disapprovingly, he returned a smile given by children with their hands caught in a cookie jar. I knew then for sure he was not going to be good boy, because the Terminator was working. bleep.

TO BE CONTINUED....

The Onesome Threesome Part I

2007-04-20T11:35:00.000-04:00

I never had the time, or was it motivation, to write many anecdotes about my one-year stay in Japan.

I'll start things off with a favourite of mine.

It was 1 am and we just got inside Ageha, the largest club in Asia. For Torontonians, imagine twice the space of the Guvernment et. al., for others, imagine a size so large that having a food court and a swimming pool wouldn't sound ridiculous.

As I said, it was 1 am, and in terms of Tokyo clubbing, it was early. At 1 there was still plenty of room to move, to dance, even to buy drinks. The clubs peak at 2 and this continues until 4. At that point you do not walk down stairs so much as surrender to the flow caused by a forest of bent arms, raised armpits and crushed chests. The air smelt not so much wintery fresh as smokey and whatever hair product the person in front of you used since your face was now grooming it.

You must really take the rocking motion literally as I did not hardly ever make any movements on my own and was just pushed back and forth, one foot back for every two feet forward.

The rocking movement had two players. The people behind were pushing forward, anxious for the promise of new music, flirting and booze and the people in front were pushing back in order to breath and gain balance. Some of the shorter people could very well never have touched ground, lodged between the sweaty bodies.

Sweet justice arrived when those same eager assholes become the desperate front, trying now to ebb the aggressiveness only moments before they were the culprit of.

I remember being forced upon the girl in front, my body tightly spooning her, my face in apology. I can't say I was unhappy. It just so happened, in true great pachinko form, I used the little freedom I had to traject myself away from the spikey haired Anime dudes with bleached orange hair and feathery goatees and towards the smaller cuter jpop girls. I also remember her arm being twisted backwards unnaturally, but with superhuman strength, like that of a mother protecting her child, still clinging to an LV purse. Using a well placed Double Dragon elbow, I saved her arm and her LV child and she shot me a thankful look. I managed a meek smile just before my body was suddenly whipped against hers, with my crotch against her it was sort of difficult to play gentleman.

TO BE CONTINUED....

Feathers

2007-04-14T19:01:00.000-04:00

When I was young, there was a handheld game I played that had you running the length of the screen, back and forth, catching falling feathers. As the levels increased the speed of the feathers did also.

These days I feel that my family problems are those feathers and at times I feel that there are just too many feathers to catch.

But I've realized the difference between that game and my life. The first is that I'm not the only player in the game. There are other people out there that can help. Also, letting some feathers drop does not mean game over and that sometimes choosing could be even better than frantically trying to clutch both.

Really now, I'm just hoping to make a pillow.

Office, Dr. Vu

2007-04-13T14:41:00.000-04:00

I've recently begun to occasionally answer the phone when I think my father is too busy. My Vietnamese listening comprehension is high, but my verbal ability is a patchwork of grunts, yes, no and, if the caller is lucky, nouns.

My greeting translated is "Office, Dr. Vu."

The following are a few conversations thereafter.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"Am I speaking to Dr. Vu?"
"No. OFFICE, Dr. Vu."
"I'm sorry. Wrong phone number"

She hung up before I could even attempt to explain it was the right number. She must have thought I said, Not office of Dr. Vu.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"Are you Dr. Vu?"
"No, OFFICE Dr. Vu."
"Can I speak with Dr. Vu."
"No."

Very long expectant pause because I don't know how to explain why he is busy.

And nothing happened next -- nothing verbal at least. I only very gently hung up the phone with my index finger after what seemed like 5 days of climatical silence. He probably expected me to say something all CAPS worthy like "HE'S DELIVERING A BABY WITH HIS BLOODY BARE HANDS AND A KITCHEN BUTTER KNIFE!"
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"Are you Wendy?"
"No." (Do I have a female's voice?)
"Who are you?"
"Ummmm (I'm thinking about how to say secretary, but I'm almost sure they wouldn't understand, instead I settle for something I thought, at the time, resourceful) not-Wendy."
"Who?!?"
"Ummmm Secretary" (but to them, it probably sounded like Sika-tarr-y
"Who?!?!?"

I gently hung up with my index finger.

I guess the only thing you can take from this entry is, wouldn't it be nice to gently hung up on people in real life?

So funny

2007-04-02T22:21:00.000-04:00

Very funny James Bond spoof

Playing more hours

2007-04-01T16:08:00.000-04:00

Since my parents are gone, like I've said, I've been able to log more hours in poker. I've recently switched to a new easier player site, but these results are pretty typical of the swings I face when I play poker.

DATE+HOURS+NET GAIN/LOSS

26TH 2 HOURS $108
27TH 2 HOURS $88
27TH 3 HOURS $56
27TH 0.5 HOURS $4
27TH 1 HOURS $72
28TH 0.5 HOURS $104
28TH 1.5 HOURS $38
28TH 3 HOURS $-298
28TH 0.5 HOURS $ 3
28TH 0.5 HOURS $129
29TH 0 HOURS $176
29TH 1 HOURS $75
29TH 0 HOURS $53
30TH 1 HOURS $68
31TH 3 HOURS $-144
31TH 0.5 HOURS $183
31TH 0.5 HOURS $-2
31TH 1.5 HOURS $-142
31TH 0 HOURS $11
31TH 0.5 HOURS $92
31TH 1 HOURS $90
1ST 1 HOURS $182
1ST 1 HOURS $4

Total hours: 25.5
Profit: 890
Dollars per hour: 35 dollars an hour.

As I've said, this is a good showing, and I don't usually make this much, the ups and downs look very similar to what usually happens, five good sessions then one bad one.

This is also before I get my bonus money which should be a few more hundred dollars for the time I've played. You get bonus money called rakeback. Rake = money the site takes from each pot (this is how they make their money). Rake back is you get a refund on some of that rake. I'm signed up through a site so I get 30 percent of my rake back.

I hope to stick it out at this level for a few months. I want to try going up in stakes one more time by September. By going up in stakes again, I'm pretty sure I could make a comfortable living (if I do well).

Music makes me bet

2007-04-01T01:56:00.000-04:00

So I try not to be superstitious when I play poker, but I'm finding that some music DOES affect my play. Fiest makes me lose. Fiest makes me lose a lot. Keane has never let me down. I'm pretty damn sick of listening to it, but you can't argue with money. Classical music is neutral.

But I do think it does something and isn't just luck. I think the music maybe makes me play more aggresive/passive or some kind of effect. Whatever it is, if it works, I'm continuing it.

With my parents gone on vacation, I've finally, since the time I've gotten back, can focus on my poker playing and I'm doing better than I timidly projected. I once again moved up in stakes and am consistently (short sample of 14 sessions) doing well. It is bad timing because although my parents are away, my cousin from Germany has come and I feel that I must show them around, the obligatory visit the Falls. Unfortunately to see the waterfall, not the casino!

HOOOOK You Up Yo

2007-03-20T15:41:00.000-04:00

It's been quite some time since I've written a post about my parent's conspicious ways of introducing me to girls. My dad will almost take any opportunity he can get and my mom always does.

The other day we were out to talk to administration about the West One Condo (confirmed for September, yipee) and met up with a good looking Chinese girl who was the coordinator. She was tall, thin and elegantly fashionable, someone you could see slung on the arm of a young successful Chinese businessman. While she was explaining some legal jargon my mom quite suddenly, in her harsh, strict vietnamese accent, said,

"Where you from?"

"I used to live in Hong Kong."

My mom nodded her head slowly like it was actually a rhetorical question.

"That's right."

As if there ever was an answer that would have been wrong.

"Hong Kong... Yes, because, you know, you are very -- have very, beau-ti-ful skin."

Yet, while my mom was saying this, she was looking at me. Why was she complimenting her but looking at me? Stop looking at me and more importantly, stop nodding at me too. I wasn't going to verbally agree with her even after 200 nods.

The coordinator gave a whisper of a whisper of a smile and said, "Thank you." My mom had given her cheese cake when she's had cheese cake all her life. She was about to continue talking about the condo when my dad said, "We went to Hong Kong recently."

The coordinator's mouth parted, she looked interested and asked, "Oh really? Which part?"

My dad answered but also leaked in, "...after we visited my son in Japan," looked at me and nodded.

Should I have been nodding too? Was nodding their sordid version of hot potatoe and it was my turn to say something?

The coordinator turned to me and smiled. I smiled back. Yes, this is me. I am getting used to this. She asked about Japan etc... etc... I answered etc... etc...

My dad later on added for good measure, "So you are who we can contact? You are in charge of our case? Please give my son, Joe, your business card."

LATER ON IN THE DAY

We're about to close up the office but a group of people came in who my parents knew very well. After examining them my dad invited them to come out to eat. There, of course, was a girl my age there also.

At the dinner table my dad initiated the action, "You know Joe taught in Japan."

The girl asked me some questions from her seat and I answered. She was quite pretty and seemed very nice. My mom picked up the nod hot potatoe from my dad and added "Yes, haha, they are the same age so they like to talk same things." Nod passed to my father, "How can you talk over the table like that, you can't hear each other." Mom. "I will move seats."

Later, probably thinking it would be instant BINGO my dad said, "You know Joe made a video."

Joe: "Noooo" I turned to her. "I don't know what he's talking about."

Disaster averted. Patted myself on the back: quick thinking, deny everything. Thank you, X-Files.

Somehow the conversation moved to how thin she is, weighing just under 100.

My dad did a deep barrel laugh and outstretched his arm, across the table and over the dishes of food, and pointed at my forehead. His arm was unwavering and blocked everyone's view of anything, and any eyes were forced to follow the length of his arm to the tip of his finger and eventually to the object of its' view: me.

I saw the freight train coming, but I was tied down to the tracks.

"Joe is the same. Joe weighs the same," followed by the orginal deep barrel laugh.

"Nooooooooooooo. I am heavier than that. I am. I am."

I felt many sets of eyes on me -- shock, pity, curiousity, amusement, a mixture, maybe all.

He finally threw me some rope by adding, "Okay, maybe 114."

Sticky Office Situations

2007-03-16T12:54:00.000-04:00

I have a new pet peeve: patients who lick their fingers to pry their health card from their wallet. It's not a warm fuzzy feeling either when later I see them coughing into their fists.

There are things that I like though: patients who instead of giving me their health card, give me their driver's license or credit card. I'm careless like that too. And asking bossy women (if they didn't bring their health card) their date of birth and then repeating it after them to clarify, darting my eyes to and fro, screen to face, screen to face.

And then there are things I don't know how I feel: patients who walk in, rifle through the file cabinets, retrieve their file and then wait for the doctor. It makes my job easier, but what if I walked into McDonald's, threw a batch of french fries in the batter, whistled a little, scooped them into a container, left exact change and then left. Wouldn't that be a little strange?

Jon, Odie and

2007-03-09T15:54:00.000-05:00

A few days ago, my sister and I went to see my parent's financial consultant with my parents to help explain the things being said. (I speak english and sometimes investment and retirement speak goes over my head -- and this may be an understatement).

At one point the financial consultant needed a record of a statement and he suddenly and casually said "Gaaaarfield," like he was just ordering an ice tea or a side salad with croutons. Before I could even think there are actually people named Garfield? a small, baby faced chinese intern wearing a horrendishly oversized, square shouldered suit was standing behind me.

"Yes?" said the newcomer standing quite still and blinking a few times, his eyes opened wide like Garfield before lasanga. His posture could have been military if you were able to see his body underneath his suit of armour.

At this point I had enough time to muse there are actually people named Garfield? and even enough time for and they look like him?

I turned to my sister who was sitting in the corner of the room, previously bored and wanting to leave, but now she smirked as I looked at her. This was when I knew I had to turn away immediately, but it was too late because I started laughing.

At first I bit my lip until I heard it again.

"Ummm Gaaarfield, I need you to..."

My body started to shake from restrained laughter and I bowed my head low to hide my amused face.

Garfield spoke next.

"Okay, anything else?"

I pictured Garfield's tiny asian head peeking out of the big and tall suit and no longer could I hold my laughter and started giggling. Keep in mind that I was sitting directly in front of the financial advisor and my parents to each side of me and everyone seemed deadly serious because of money talk. With my head bent low, all they saw was my convulsing body and hear my stifled giggles.

If Garfield was human and if the human was asian and the asian was an up and comer, eager to please intern, this was him.

Poker

2007-03-07T14:21:00.000-05:00

I finally got some guts and moved onto the next level of stakes in poker.

The reason why it took me a year and half to finally move up is that you can't play poker with scared money. It's like catching a baseball is easy, but if someone said you'd lose 2000 dollars if you missed, it suddenly becomes more difficult and you don't trust yourself. You have to be able to catch that baseball no matter the pressure and that can only be done by days and days and days of catching it, building up your confidence and experience.

It also helps if you have lots of money. If you had 100,000 k and someone told you that, you'd be much more relaxed trying to catch it then if you only had 4000k.

So yes, I've gotten a lot of experience and I've built up a lot of poker money put aside just for poker. Now I can just play my game and I'm not shaking when I see a big bet, I know if I should fold or not and I follow through.

In the last month I also self discovered that table image and position is MORE important than your actual cards. As you go higher and higher in stakes, more and more often you don't actually see what the other person has. I like to make myself not stand out at the table and project a very safe player and then later I can steal a lot of small pots (with garbage hands) and win a lot of huge ones (when my garbage hand hits something unexpected because they think I only play premium hands).

Episode Two

2007-02-26T16:43:00.000-05:00

Episode Two of my Joe The Pro series is out.

HERE

There are a few more poker jokes than the first, so it doesnt' have as much a general appeal, but I hope you guys like it.

Kids

2007-02-21T00:42:00.000-05:00

If Jack Bauer had a baby with Veronica Mars they would have the most resourceful child in the world. But I don't mean the actors, Kiefer and Kristen because they would just have a blonde child that would probably enter show business. Yet I don't mean the characters either because they don't actually exist. I guess what I really mean is for the writers responsible for both shows to have an orgy and the love child would grow up and write a television series about a resourceful character -- Anyways, that's how I heard MacGyver was written.

Morals

2007-02-15T01:54:00.000-05:00

Online interpretations of your morals. I think I scored a 38 percent. All the circumstances mattered to me (18 percent) except scale (100%). To me, telling me 10 people or 1000 people die is not important -- I need to know who those 10 are. Is that wrong?

Go HERE. Took about 10 minutes of click question/answer and 3 minutes reading the results.

Week One California

2007-02-14T15:06:00.000-05:00

The one amazing thing about where I'm staying is the Vietnamese food. Since the places are cleaner, my uncles say the food rivals, even surpasses Vietnam. When I left, my father asked me to do one thing, enjoy the food for him.

The reason is because the Vietnamese community here is large.

Whole blocks have nothing but Vietnamese buildings and waves of Vietnamese people. Most of my extended family is also in this area and whenever I'm here I wonder how different a person I would be if we came and lived here instead of Canada. You understand how some decisions in life are not life altering, but I know the fact that I got sick and we had to leave for Canada instead of our intended USA destination was. But let me add that I'm happy we lived in Canada and I'm glad we never lived here -- although I'm almost sure the California me would have said the same thing.

I think if I lived here I would be a lot more talkative. My dad's side is the reserved, talk behind your back people and my mother's side is the loud, say it to your face people. As a result, I'd like to think that I'm the best of both: in your face reserved.

The other day my mom led me into a trap. I was watching Veronica Mars Season 1 on my laptop when she poked her head in the room and told me that my aunt wanted to see me (hadn't seen her for years). What I didn't know was my mom and her sisters (she's got like 8 million of them) had been planning my future for me for the past half hour. When I arrived into the kitchen with the unsuspecting obedient nephew smile they laid on me a lecture like I had never experienced before. As I said, my mom's side is talkative and in your face. I knew this yet I wasn't prepared for what happened. Imagine your typical machine gun lecture, but layered on top of one another. Like I had three totally separate lectures hitting me with no regard to connect with one another. It was like they all knew what they were going to say to me and when I arrived, a silent alarm bell went off and someone pressed play on all of them and cranked the volume to full.

I just kept shifting my eyes to and fro smiling and was wondering, don't they notice that they're all talking at the same time over top of each other? Like one was telling me a story about her past experience, another was telling about the virtues of teaching young children and another was telling me how taking breaks are bad. I guess the good thing was, the lecture went three times as fast.

California Day One

2007-02-07T17:45:00.000-05:00

I just came back from the nursing home with my mom and I still feel a little light headed and sick to my stomach.

Earlier this morning my uncle took me to what was a Vietnamese version of Hooters, skinny girls wearing nothing but silicon and perfume. The only difference was that this place had no shame in being what it was. Hooters dresses it up, acting almost as if it were a family restaurant, while this place had the sleazy dark lit, smokey atmosphere of a upper middle class strip club. It made me regret not checking out a maid cafe in Japan while I was there to see how that compared.

My mom had gone to visit my grandmother first, the reason why we flew down almost instantly after hearing the news of her health. After the cafe and eating pho, I went to the nursing home. Walking inside I felt what I feel must be similar to clausterphobia. I couldn't breath too well and my chest felt heavy. I began feeling depressed and felt out of my body, watching myself lose control of myself. When I got to the door of my grandma I felt the disorientation people feel when drugs wear off. I was standing by her door and afraid to go inside. When I did finally go inside my grandma was on her side, so frail looking I was afraid that standing beside her would cause her to pass away. She had tubes running all over her body and in her nose and my mom was by her side rubbing her hands and telling story after story. I looked at her and i saw her as she could have been when she was young, taking care of my mother just like how my mother took care of me. My mother started tearing up and suddenly it was my mother in the bed and I was telling my mother about my life, but it had this sense of hopelessness in the telling, kind of like how someone continuing to do CPR on someone already gone. I'm telling her that I have a family now and everyone is happy and so forth, but it felt like the story came too late.

I couldn't wait to get out of there and I felt guilty for feeling that way.

UPDATE:It's a few hours later and I feel even worse now. My mom is so shaken. She had that experience that I felt. I guess I knew what she was thinking and had the same thought as her. She remembered back to how her mother used to comb her hair and sew her clothes and now she's breaths away from dying. But like even at the state she was, she was so careful in telling me how she wanted to stay longer, how she didn't want to leave her mother and go back because her mother cared for her so much. She was careful because she knows that all I want to do is go home and it was almost as if she was asking my permission to stay and I felt like such a spoiled brat. Then she was talking about how she will miss me again this year for New Year's when I'm at home with the family and if she stayed here for her mother and I was like, "mom, I'll be here with you too." Anyways, I'm still holding back tears because I want to be strong for my mom, but it's so difficult because I keep putting myself in her shoes and it's painful and emotional.

Joe The Pro

2007-02-05T16:53:00.000-05:00

This has been my little hobby for the past three days. I think I will continue to make more because it was fun making it.

Joe The Pro - video powered by Metacafe

UPDATE: I posted this on a two poker forums. My favourite player's forum and a snobby poker forum. No responses from the snobby players but ton from my favourite players forum. GO DANIEL!

Also, I got some bad news about my grandma so I have to take an emergency flight tomorrow to California for a week.

Also to update the Japan bank thing: No luck at all. I have to mail them a wire transfer request now as an alternative option.

We're Closed

2007-02-02T17:03:00.000-05:00

My father's patients remind me of gremlins. Not the cute furry star of the movie, but his slimy yellow toothed kin.

There are several times when we must close and lock the office door. One time is if we're eating lunch inside or another is when we close up. As I'm munching on a sandwich or finishing putting away files the gremlins will start clawing at the door. I hear their fingernails scratching the paint right off the surface. Then their fingers slide in through the mail slot. I'm not joking about this stuff. Sometimes I just see a lone hand, but on occassion I'll see a pair of eyes behind the fingers.

"Let us in. Please. We're sick. Let us in!"

They start calling the office at this point when they realize their fingers can't reach the door knob through the mail slot and then it's a game of what else they can say to convince my father to see them.

(insert traffic excuse, city name from which they traveled from or insane pain felt)

Yesterday a lady phoned and said that she's fainted on the floor by the doorstep.

"Joe, let that person in, she fainted."

I opened the door and she looked healthier than I do, and she bounced in like a cheerleader on opening night.

She didn't even bother fake looking groggy once we opened the door.

It's as though the gremlins believe that deception is a figure of speech. She won the second the lock unbolted.

Gremlins.

Working at my father's

2007-02-01T16:14:00.000-05:00

My father's patients and Vietnamese people in general have no reservations at making comments about appearance.

Ever so often I'll get mistakened for my older brother. Today a lady came in and asked, "Why are you so skinny now? What happened? You used to be good looking."

I can sign a contract stating that at least once a day I will be ask if I eat food.

Last week after I told someone that I, contrary to my looks, do indeed eat food, was asked, "Then, you take E?"

Yes, all I eat everyay is a handful of E, after my jog but before I self induce vomiting.

Banking Part Two

2007-01-30T21:04:00.000-05:00

I tried calling the bank today. After several attempts, all of them ended in "This number is no longer in service." I even called the operator for instructions.

Finally I realized that the number I was given was 03 as the area code, but after researching, Tokyo's area code is just 3. I called trying that using one of those 10 10 dialing out discount phone services and got a young Japanese woman answer the phone. Her greeting was probably about 15 seconds long to which I said "Eigo ga Hanasemas ka?" (Do you speak English). She said "Mushi Mushi" and then hung up. Of course it wasn't clear that she hung up so I was talking to air for awhile.

Either very harsh or she couldn't hear me. It's probably the latter, so my advice is to not use 10-10-719, Startec, it sucks.

I tried just using the conventional 011 81 area code + phone number and I got the same person again. This time I said my sentence very loudly in case she couldn't hear me last time. She replied "Iie." I was waiting and hoping for her to append "Chotto matte Kudasai" (Please wait a moment). But there was nothing but silence. I filled it with disappointment: "uhhhhhhhh oooohhhkay. No one?" She replied "Hai." I hung up. I will try again in one hour.

Update I'm beginning to believe no one at the bank will speak english well enough to confidently perform a wire transaction for me over the phone or explain to me how I can verify myself. I will either need someone who can speak Japanese or write a letter. The letter will go something like, "Please help me. I need to have my money...."

No money

2007-01-29T15:51:00.000-05:00

I fucked myself. I made an ASS out of U and ME. I assumed that when I signed banking paperwork during my last month at Nova I was signing over permission for them to mail me my last pay check and the rest of my account. The reality was I only signed over permission for them to mail me my last pay check.

Now all my money sits in a steel vault in Tokyo and unless I can hire Ocean's 11, I am going to have a hard time getting my money.

Nova did all the paperwork so I don't even know where my branch is. I never use my bank book so that was trashed. I don't know my account number. I even lost my bank card during my flight back over here (my friends in Japan could have used it to withdraw money for me if I gave them my PIN).

I went to the SMBC (the bank I used) Toronto branch office but found out that they only deal with domestic corporations and it was not a personal banking branch office. The man was very nice, but I could only tell him my name and ask for my money. I was bascially, "My name is Joseph. How can I get my money while giving you no other information?" And yes, he asked all the things I didn't have answers for. He even asked me if I knew how much money was in the bank and I gave him a really nasty ballpark figure. I never paid attention to that sort of thing because I wanted to surprise myself with how much I saved.

I am pretty surprised.

I then went to Nova in Toronto and they told me that the branch was almost always shinjuku, but they have nothing to do with my banking except for setting it up and depositing money there. They suggest I contact Nova head office for further advice, which is the stage I'm at now.

I asked if I could apply for a new card or an international card, but I was told, not if I'm in Canada.

Any advice?

UPDATE: Nova Head office cannot help me. They did however give me the telephone number for my SMBC bank with the disclaimer that their English is very poor. My father suggested I book an appointment with my bank manager here in Canada and have him arrange a wire transfer with SMBC. Maybe bank language is universal. However, before I do that, I at least need my account number, which is what I'm now gunning for.

Once I get the account number I have a decision to make. Do I try the tricky way or the striaght forward way. The tricky way is that I apply for a new bank card and have it sent to my address (SMBC does not know I moved back to Canada) and have my roomate (who I trust) use it to withdraw my funds, put it in his account and then write me a check. Or do I call SMBC and just explain my hopeless situation. If I call, I may be voiding my opportunity to do the new card tricky way, because once I explain my situation, they will flag anyone trying to withdraw or ask why I want a card sent to an address I no longer live at.

UPDATE 2 I've gotten all my Japanese banking information. I've gotten all my Canadian banking information. Tonight, morning in Japan, I will call and ask for a wire transfer. I hope all they will need is for me to fax my signature or copy of my passport.

It was only a dream

2007-01-28T16:32:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I dreamt that I was fat, but then I realized it was only an allergic reaction.

Home Cooked Meals

2007-01-25T11:53:00.000-05:00

My friend Tommy once told me if his mother passed away, the thing he'd miss most is her food. At the time I thought this was a thankless thing to say about someone who gave birth and raised you. After coming back from Japan and revisiting my mother's food, I've realized that maybe it wasn't, maybe food to our generation (and I say our generation, because it's something lost nowadays) meant more than just taste.

Granted, if the food doesn't taste good, no one is going to fondly remember their mother's cooking, but food only makes up so much. There's the preperation, the sit down dinner and the clean-up. Thinking about eating the food gets snugly wrapped inside quality family time, which as mentioned, is grinding to extinction. I bet even for the people who had home cooked meals, but did not make it a family event do not have as strong a feeling towards their mother's cooking.

I remember, from as long as I can remember, my mother piling more and more of her food (particularly greens) onto my plate, blowing hot soup from a smoking spoon, refilling my milk glass when I wasn't looking. This was motherly affection and the food was her expression of it.

Rich people shower you with gifts, nerds with attention, my mother with food. So I too will miss most my mother's food, but that is to say I will miss how much she cared for me.

I will Gamble on You

2007-01-16T10:24:00.000-05:00

Tom Lukcas. The name likely holds no significance to anyone who reads this and if your name is Tom Lukcas, you, sir, are in the minority, and I stand corrected.

To me, the name is of a guy I knew in high school. He was a tall, lanky fellow with freckles and glasses. A nervous demeanor made it seem like his eyes always had somewhere to go. He had straight brown hair and parted it down the middle, not so different from Alpha Alpha of Rascals fame. Until a week ago this description along with three memories was to me Tom Lukcas.

Memory one: Tom Lukcas took up smoking so he could have an excuse to have conversations with Debbie, a punky good looking Italian girl.

Memory two: Tom Lukcas could own you in Street Fighter as he had perfected the punch-jab-uppercut combo. Ken or Ryu? It didn't matter foo.

Memory three: Tom Lukcas had something horrible happen to him recently, so says a friend of a friend. Perhaps he was hospitalized for being beat up or shat on. Something or another.

Come a week ago, Andrew, my friend and Tom Lukcas' close high school friend, told me that Tom, the same street fighting, smoker Tom, is now a professional poker player. For me, Tom had suddenly gone up in my books and in everyone else's down. Tom wasn't just 3 memories any longer, but he was someone I knew, someone who punch-jab-uppercutted me to death, who is something I want to be. Thank you. Thank you Tom Lukcas for gambling.

Tack on the fourth.

Memory four: Tom Lukcas, professional gambler.

From what I understand, I'm home.

2007-01-09T07:11:00.000-05:00

Goodbye Japan. I will miss never understanding you.

I remember my first week in Japan and how I couldn't understand what anyone said. Oh my! What a difference a year makes! Now, I still don't understand what anyone says -- but I'm accustomed to it. It's something I just accept like how everyone has that one crazy uncle, except it's like having all your uncles crazy.

Not knowing has almost become a language itself. I feel that I can walk into any store and although I would not understand anything being said, I'd be able to speak English and have them not understand me as well, yet... understand me. Do you understand me? Understand? To me using the context combined with their facial expressions was a game to hypothesize the most likely meanings. For example if entering a restaurant and I'm greeted with something, I'll just assume it means "How many?" and if presented with another string of sentences I'll just assume it means "Smoking or non-smoking." One time, eating at a curry restaurant, with our faces sweating and our glasses empty, as the waiter came with a large jug of cool refreshing water, he said something just before refilling our cups. His outstretched arm was about to tilt as we both nodded eagerly, smiled and answered yes to his question, then the waiter, after hearing our answer, retracted the jug, the near fallen water droplet vacuumed back into the jug, and he courteously walked away. We never figured out what he could have possibly said ("Would you like me to not refill your glass?" "Do you enjoy having no water with spicy food?") It's a fun game most of the time, but the understanding is on a superficial level and one could never make a good friend from this, which is something I'll look forward to in Canada.

Most of the time, I'm mistakened for Japanese because of my face and this assumption often overrides the fact that nothing out of my mouth is ever in Japanese. My roomate has been studying Japanese for months and he's getting good enough to know survival phrases, good enough for directing a taxi driver to our house. Although he addresses the taxi driver, telling him where we live and what to do, the taxi driver would answer back to me, making eye contact with me, not him -- the white gaijin speaking Japanese. The taxi driver would look and listen to my housemate and then turn his head to me to respond. I usually try to put on a stern japanese salaryman face and nod very slowly and knowingly as though I understand everything, but I'm letting my peon white man servant speak for me because I can't be bothered. In retrospect, I should have snapped my fingers each time before my roomate spoke as though I was training him to speak for me.

Brian is here

2006-12-28T22:05:00.000-05:00

So far he's been on a shopping tear. I thought Tommy shopped a lot, but I was wrong. I think by now, after three days, he's spent three thousand. I can't blame him though. Japan has a lot of great clothing to buy if you're looking.

RLD and Yakuza

2006-12-15T20:55:00.000-05:00

When Tommy came to visit we accidently wandered into the Red Light District and accidently took some pictures. I was surprised to see that the pictures of men escorts outnumbered those of women -- not that I'm complaining. Those were some good looking men. I even tried to emulate one of them in the following pictures:

Milling about the escort buildings was the Yakuza. It was the first time I saw them. Although some were unimpressed with what they saw, suited pimp style or loungy tracksuits, I had a chill down my spine as we walked only a few feet beside them. I thought it would be funny if we bounced up to them ganky happy and bellow in our most annoying foreigner voice, "Hey, tracksuit man, can you take our picture for us. Yah, it's easy, just press that one button there. Even a novice could use it." But I sort of value my life. I couldn't even muster a picture. Well, nevertheless, I was surprised to see Yakuza in the Red Light District. I would have thought I'd sooner see them near the Red Cross building or public library.

Who are you?

2006-12-07T22:21:00.000-05:00

Do you think the guy on the right looks like anyone? He actually doesn't, but we figured that if some Japanese people get excited when they see the elusive white person then they'd cream their pants if they see a black person. We decided if we were Japanese we could mistaken him for either Roy Jones, the Boxer, or DMX.

Being the goofball nutcases that we are, we decided to put our theory to the test and went to a busy train station and pretended that he is Roy Jones.

So we would get him to walk ahead of us while we quickly caught up and acted shocked and surprised, oh my Roy Jones is in Tokyo. Then we would ask people if they would help take our picture while he did a classic boxing pose. I would trail behind, see this, and ask to do the same creating a miniature mob. This was the plan, but how it went down was far different and more realistic:

1. Many people igored us as we flagged down the waves of people crossing the street.
2. They didn't know who Roy Jones was.
3. They didn't care.
3. We didn't speak Japanese so they might have thought we were so surprised to see a black guy that we wanted to take a picture with a black guy instead of a celebrity.

It was fun nevertheless.

Mirror mirror on the Wall

2006-12-01T05:51:00.000-05:00

Here are two amusing advertisments I saw. The first is an actual ad campaign, but it looks like the poster from 40-year-old-virgin and the second is Japan's take on Jennifer Lopez, I assume.

The Fellowship of the Pyscho Teachers

2006-11-21T11:23:00.000-05:00

Believe it or not, I'm going to miss these psychos:

He made my classes fun with the games we played.

My roomate and club crawler. My coworkers to the left and right.

The office joker.

Joker's joker girlfriend.

Drew Carrey coworker.

Excoworker, exroomate, cheapskate.

The office creepy guy. All the girls kept their distance.

Fellow Canadian.

My friend's roomate.

The Train Game

2006-11-21T00:23:00.000-05:00

What is that picture you ask? I'll tell you what. It's a pube. More specifically, it's a pube lying on the floor of the Tobo Tojo train line. If this isn't proof of train cart molestation, I don't know what is. Pubes don't grow on trees and neither do they on train floors. There was some sort of unwanted finger-play going on and I captured the curly consequences.

Japan actually does have molestation problems on trains. There is one train line, the Seiko line (wrong spelling), that is well known for it. Japanese women have told me if a man grabbed them, they would either not do anything or walk away. When I tell them what an American would do (one of the 3 S': scream, slap or swear) the Japanese women are shocked.

I had a very serious round table discussion with my friends about this topic and what someone could do is very limited. We read about a guy who filmed the incident with his camera and then when the train stopped, he pinned the molester down until an officer came and he showed him the evidence. Although noble, the woman still had to endure molestation for an entire train ride. I contributed my congo line solution, which was quite popular. If I saw a man stick a finger up the ass of a girl, I should then in turn stick my finger up his ass, encouraging and inspiring a molestation congo line.

Ageha

2006-11-17T13:05:00.000-05:00

Ageha, one of the largest clubs in Asia. It's so large in fact that it even has an outdoor pool and a mini food court (which served kebobs that were the highlight of my night).

When you enter, there's a pat down search with employees wearing SECURITY labeled uniforms. They do so not to check for weapons or drugs, but because it gives the club a north american legitimacy, a coolness.

Inside you have lots of cute, thin Japanese girls and tons of guys, who my friends and I call Rei Keichi, a hairstylist we know who has that scraggly goatee and mustache particular to Asians and dyed orange hair popular with Asians.

About midway through the night (the night starts at 1 am) the music shuts down and projection screens display a highlight reel that looks like a news broadcast or documentary. It's of a troupe of showgirls -- basically strippers -- making international headlines (Paris, London, New York). Apparently, and I wouldn't know this of course, they perform at Ageha on Saturdays and strip/dance to a theme, last week was office lady workers and this week was an Egyptian thing.

The four dancers kept to the four corners of the bar square and rotated so everyone had a good oogle.

Here is a really crappy video I took. Don't complain because I had to endure the grimace of a nearby bouncer and accept that all of those around me pegged me as a pervert. I did it for you folks. For you.

The end is near

2006-11-10T19:09:00.000-05:00

I am nearing the end of my contract, so naturally time is a snail and classes are drying paint. Recently, most of the teachers have been playing "Word of the Month." How word of the month works is simple. All you have to do is somehow during your lesson use the word of the month. If another teacher hears the word, they must say "You got it."

Words we've used: ninja, grey socks, giant panda, angry tortoise, rock lobster, treasure chest, WHAM! and the latest, totem pole.

One time I had a really low level student and I just used all the words within 10 minutes although most of the time it didn't make any sense, but I did in return get to hear many "you got it."

Wowzers

2006-11-07T18:57:00.000-05:00

I wasn't going to mention this, but my therapist and support group have encouraged me to do so... I'm addicted to World of Warcraft (WOW) again. If you don't know what this is, you live in a better world than me.

I kicked the habit two years ago, but I have a horrible roomate who said, hey, I'm going to do some WOW, here try some, have a free trial. So I tried it and it wasn't so addicting at first, I smugly thought, this is what I was addicted to before, how weak I was!

But now I sit typing this blog on laptop two, while laptop one whirs on with WOW.

Would you like a script with that?

2006-08-17T11:20:00.000-04:00

North Americans have chatting procedures. I understood, but never fully realized this until I taught low level students. For example, today's lesson was how to talk with friends or acquaintances. As an opening assessment and warm-up I asked the students (after brainstorming appropriate small talk topic, weather, family and job) to say hello, introduce one small talk topic and say good bye. This is how it went down:

Student 1: Hello.
Student 2: Hello.
Student 1: What's up?
Student 2: I am fine.
Student 1: How is my wife?
Student 2: She is fine.
Student 1: Good-bye.
Student 2: Bye.

The first thing I had to do was explain the wife thing before I wet myself.

"Okay. Great job. Just one problem. I heard, 'How was my wife?' Please change my.

"Yes. Very good. It should be your wife. Haha. Yes. If you say how is my wife, you might want to get a divorce! haha.

"Okay. Also, usually when someone asks 'How are you,' or 'What's up?' You should answer and then it's polite to ask back. For example, 'I am good. How are you?' or 'I am good. You?' By the way, I really liked how Jun said 'What's up.' That is very casual.

"Finally, when you say goodbye, it is polite to apologize and give a reason before saying bye or else it is too fast. You could also plan to meet or talk or email again."

So now I was passing on the mechanical script that I used to hate so much. The obligation of asking "How are you" back, even if you don't care, and the "We should get together" even when you have no intention to. If I tried to explain insincerity however I know I would have gotten blank stares.

The School

2006-08-12T09:55:00.000-04:00

As many know I teach English in Japan but I have been reluctant to make posts about my work in case I got in trouble, but now that I will not be working there for much longer I may write more posts about my job, however I do plan on keeping names annonymous as well as where I work.

Last week I did a lesson about personality and asked my student to describe his best friend's personality. At first, there was nothing unusual. His answers were ho-hum:

"He's a very nice guy."

"He's honest."

He was high level enough for me to expect more detail in his answers, so I encouraged him.

"That's great. He sounds like a really good friend."

If I sound like a patronizing cock-sucker, you don't even know the half of it. I've seen us young teachers give 55-year-old, fortune 500ish CEO's high fives after they say "Nice to meet you. Where is the bathroom?"

I continued my encouragement. "Can you tell me more?" I meant, as in, more detail in the form of examples, but from his panic and the burgeoning sweat goblets, I assumed he thought I wanted more adjectives, and he had already exhausted the go to nice and his ace, honest.

Now, left with no simple adjectives, he had to reach into his negative bag and confess, "He's also a very naughty boy."

I nodded slowly and thoughtfully, as if he had just imparted either great wisdom or his last testimony. I let my bottom lip slide ever so craftily between my teeth so I could snap down on it and cause myself unbearable pain, and yet, defiantly, the corners of my mouth curled expectedly.

"Good word. Naughty is a... great word. High five!" Okay, I didn't say high five, but it would have been amusing.

"But, you know, in this case, I, myself, wouldn't use naughty."

"Why?" he asked confused and angry. Apparently naughty must have been his other ace adjective for he was ready to defend it.

I said, "Well" and I stretched out that one mother-fucking syllable as long as humanly possible as I thought of how I could delicately tell him people might think that his friend is either sexually perverse or that they occasionally pop forbidden fruit into each other's wazoo. I then tilted my head, which always gave me at least another 2 seconds.

He saved my life and asked, "Is it only for children?"

"Yes! You got it. For children it is perfectly okay to say. That kid's been naughty. Yes. Excellent. For children only." A smart man would stop talking and move on. I continued.

"Calling children naughty is saying they are mischievous. But if you tell me that your best friend is naughty --- Weeeeeeeeell (tilted head)." Fuck. I was back where I started.

He wasn't a kid I thought, so I decided to just say it. "If you use naughty to describe an adult, it ususally has something to do with sex."

We both had a good laugh after I said that, but I made sure to laugh only after he had started laughing first.

He sure was a naughty student.

To set the rumours aside

2006-07-08T09:05:00.000-04:00

No. I am not dead. I did not die in Japan. I did not get lost (this would have been my first assumption), nor did I get kidnapped. I did, however, get addicted to poker again.

WARNING: WHAT FOLLOWS IS A LONG POST ABOUT POKER WHICH MAY HURT YOUR HEAD IF YOU READ. CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED.

It all started innocently when I downloaded GSN's high stakes poker. For the first time ever, I got to watch cash game (not tournament game) strategy from the best in the world. Cash tables is when you sit down at a table with your own money and play, winning and losing your own money, risking as much or as little as you want. Tournament poker is a one time buy in fee and you can't lose more than the buy in. The buy in gets you a set amount of chips and you play against a large field of people all with equal starting chip stacks. Once you lose all your chips, you're out of the tournament. Usually, top 20 percent pays out money.

Tournament play is REALLY tight, safe playing (at least early on) because of the large field and once you lose your chips you're out, you can't buy in again. Cash tables is the opposite since you can rebuy if you lose all your money.

I'll give you one simple example. If you were in a tournament and knew you had 50/50 chance of winning the hand, you would not put all your chips in and call (notice I pegging you as the caller and not the raiser) a hand because if you lose, you're out of the tournament and it's better to slowly build up your stack.

But at a cash table, if you think you have a 50/50 chance of winning you put all your cash in right away. If you even think he has a 1 percent chance of bluffing, it's a winning play. Do that 100 times and that one time he bluffed and you called is your profit. Not only that but you already had money in the pot, so you'd be giving up all that money. It even gets better if you were the raiser because now with identical hands, 50/50 chance of winning, if you made the all in bet first, there's a good chance he will fold giving you all that free money already in the hand even though you should be splitting the pot.

Now this is an extreme example, but basically, if you have an edge, you have to be really aggressive.

Watching the top playings lose or win hundreds of thousands of dollars helps me calm my nerves when I lose a 20 dollar hand to a bad beat. Also I was able to get my hands on some very relaxing classical. It takes a lot more to get me angry and then play poorly.

Now that I've studied, made notes and analyzed the episodes I started playing in No Limit tables (before last month I always played in Limit Tables, capped bets, because it resembled a more safe, tournament style). In my half a year of playing, the best I ever did playing poker was about 180 dollars in a day. In the first week of playing No Limit on my best day and it was a very lucky good day, I made 280 dollars.

You might be thinking that No Limit deviations are simply greater and I could have greater losing days also. But the thing is, I scaled down my tables 3 notches. I'm playing on practically penny tables, which means I'm playing complete newbies but still making as much money (the newbier people you play, the less likely you'll be losing a lot). For example, before when I played Limit Poker I played on 1 dollar/2 dollar tables (that's the blinds and cap for a single bet). Now for No Limit I'm playing on 15 cent/ 25 cent tables (blinds with no cap on bet size). I'm playing the bottom of the food chain, not only that, but because of my time zone difference, I'm playing people at their 2 am - 6 am. That's when drunkards come home from bars and unwind with a little poker and they play against me who only has the intent of taking all their money unmercifully! Hahaha.

At these tables you're allowed to go in with a minimum of 5 dollars and a maximum of 25. Origianally I came in with 10 dollars to test out different strategies and sometimes I lost a lot trying something out. I tried playing safe, I tried playing aggresive, I even tried playing as a maniac raising almost every other pot. Eventually I found that I did the best when I was aggressive at only a particular time -- when I had a lot of money. For example when I was aggressive with 5 dollars left, people would just call me because they had no respect for my cash, so every time I tried a bluff I would get called. But when I slowly built up more money to 13 or so my raises got respect and people folded down to me.

Last night and today I tried going in with 25 (the maximum) since I thought the more money, the more respect I'll get. What I didn't realize that playing aggressive with 10 dollars is slightly different than playing aggressive with 25 dollars. WIth just 10 dollars I can be really aggressive with the best starting hands AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AK because if the pot is big I'll probably go all in eventually and it's not that much money. But when I have 25 dollars or more playing with just top pair is dangerous because you're risking a lot of money because many people try for draws on you and it's hard to read their hand sometimes until I get more experience. I can't make the really tough calls yet. Like the poker players in the show I have so much respect for because they make such great lay downs and calls.

I knocked myself back down to coming in with 20 dollars. Today I made a lot of money in under an hour, but I'll have to see in the long run. One thing is for certain. No limit is definitely more exciting.

12 Things about 24

2006-06-05T21:17:00.000-04:00

A few days ago I accidently started watching 24 season 5 instead of season 4. I had already finished the first episode before I noticed my mistake, yet I was unable to stop myself from playing the next episode and then the next and then the next. Its grossly suspenseful endings, coupled with my addictive tendencies made for an unstoppable viewing experience.

Finally there was partial closure in the main story arc and I started on season 4. The problem is that season 4 is completely ridiculous and predictable. Some story arcs nearly reach the banality of Kim's in season 2.

Here are some things I've begun to notice in 24:

1. It's extremely easy for terrorists to plant moles into CTU (Counter Terrorist Unit). If they couldn't even plant a mole into CTU, they'll settle for the second bests, the easier plants, such as the NSA or the President's inner circle. If they can't manage that, they should just give up on being terrorists.

2. If CTU ever wanted to catch their mole all they'd have to do is wait in the restrooms on the toilet with their feet lifted from under the stalls. The mole will inevitably make a phone call to the terrorists after carefully looking for dangling feet, which as everyone knows is the ultimate in security measures.

3. If 24 has chosen a particular race as the terrorists, it's important to have at least one good guy of that race, so the audience will know, "Hey now. You see? Not all ******* are bad people."

4. If two people are talking about a techie or jargony word, it is still very important to explicitly explain to each other what the word is and the consequences.

"We'll set off an EMP."
"A pulse bomb? Are you out of your mind? It'll destroy every piece of hardware we have. It'll cripple us electronically."
"That's the point."

Said statement is followed by an evil smirk or a stone-cold face (evil laugh is so yesterday)

5. Time will appear onscreen when a character mentions the ETA of an event.

6. If a character wants something, they'll use blackmail.

7 All CTU staff have bionic short term memory. They can easily memorize strings and strings of alphanumeric code in one listen, under pressure.

8. If Jack disagrees with someone he'll scream "WE HAVE NO TIME!" and then refer to #6. Alternatively, he'll say "THAT'S THE WRONG PLAY," or simply punch you in the face.

9. Jack knows how to punch you so that you get knocked out in a single punch.

10. Jack always declines back up. If there's backup "THAT'S THE WRONG PLAY" and "They'll know we're coming" and of course "WE HAVE NO TIME!"

11. Anyone with higher rank than Jack will make it harder for him to complete his missions. They follow protocol. Of course Jack simply refers to #8 and after, when he succeeds, we get to see the dumbstruck faces of his superiors, who then can't punish him because he's now indispensible to the mission.

12. Act of forbidden heroism --> Slap on the wrist --> But Indispensibility--> Back on the job on a "provisional" basis. They love that word, provisional. It's how they get popular actors from previous seasons or story arcs back into the show.

I'd like to have 24 things I've noticed about 24. Have you noticed anything?

So you think you can dance?

2006-06-02T04:44:00.000-04:00

I've been watching the second season of So You Think You Can dance and it's such guilty entertainment. The formula for this type of programming dictates the first few episodes to dehumanize the contestants into performance monkeys and though, secretly, in the itty-bittiest parts of your heart, you applaud their courage, self-confidence and perseverance, you mainly laugh at them for how clueless they are.

Then there are also the fakers, hired guns or exposure seekers, who clearly are fakers, but nevertheless entertaining.

Some things you can't script. My favourite scene was a midget who, when asked how long he's been dancing, said "Ever since I was little."

But back to the clueless people. One thing wrong with being cute is that no one will have the heart to tell you how bad a dancer you are. That's what happened to this girl. I cut out the scene of her dancing on stage because I'm cruel, and I thought immediately juxtaposing her exuberance and disappointment would be more nifty.

Here was a cool breakdancer.

So here I am halfway across the world, and I am taking full advantage of that by watching tv shows in my dark room. Don't even get me started about 24. I've got some words with that show! Just started watching Canada's Next Top Model too.

Browsing

2006-05-31T23:26:00.000-04:00

I do a lot of web searching looking for interesting or productive sites. Here are a few.

meebo alpha - Think online Trillian. It has all the major instant messaging programs including Gtalk. If you sign up it can also save your message history. It's convenient if you are not on your own computer.

Ebay Express -New eBay site that skips the auctioning and has just the buy it now from only the reputable sources.

Tabblo Beta - Flickr like site that lets you share photos and make online albums.

ThinkFree Beta - Online Microsoft Office compatible office suite. I tried this and it seems very cool, but it kept crashing on me.

gOFFICE - Online word processing that converts into printable PDF files. Soon it will allow you to import/export word files like ThinkFree.

Birthday Calculator - Interesting information about your birtday. I found out I'm turning 10,000 days old soon. I'd think that's a bigger milestone than your year age since it only happens once in your life and it's such a large round number.

AirSet - Your all in one personal online organiser: calender, contacts, blog, email, etc.... If I wasn't already using and loving Google Calendar, I might consider using this great website.

Criticker Rate movies then find users and critics with similar movie tastes as yourself. HERE is my short and quick ranking of movies.

WriteBoard - An online collaborative board. Great for group work. It saves past revisions and clearly shows all the editing changes that people contribute.

ChipIn Want to ask everyone to pool money to buy someone a present or a gift, but hate asking for money? Use ChipIn.

Kosmix - Do you watch House? Want to learn more about obscure afflictions? Paranoid about that little bump that formed on the wtch' ma call't?

Dance Revolution

2006-05-25T03:41:00.000-04:00

I previously wrote about how Japanese girls dance (mechanically, lifelessly), but now I can show you.

Source: Naruto.

Whoah Slow Down Gonzolas

2006-05-20T11:08:00.000-04:00

A new guy started work today and everyone loves him, but me. I tried persuading a coworker to join my resistance force, but she just would not be turned.

I said, "Don't you think he's so relaxed, so friendly, so sincere."

She said, "Yes. Joe. This is bad how?"

"I mean too relaxed, too friendly, too sincere. Toooooo. People shouldn't be like that instantly, on their first day at work." It was then I heard myself talking and I wasn't doing a good job of villianizing him. I couldn't put my finger on it and for awhile I began to suspect myself of jealousy. Then I figured it out.

He invaded my psychological space.

People talk about personal space. They say your physical proximity to someone should be dictated by your level of intimacy. Strangers stand several feet away and lovers centimeters. If a stranger, say, enters friend proximity, then the invaded feels uncomfortable and a dislike.

He entered my psychological space reserved for best friend.

Well, dude came waltzing in, cavalier, acting emotionally close to everyone. It was his first day but he was chumming it up as though he had shared cribs, Kodak moments and last Rolos with everyone. He was swapping hometown stories with the assistant head teacher, becoming a comedy duo with the resident jokester (they acted like Beavis and Butthead) and teasing teachers without the usual filters. It may have been okay with everyone else but I certainly did not like him galloping past my well thought out, not to mention well tested, emotional defences as though he had VIP clearance. If you ain't a model (or Natalie Portman or Kiera Knightley or Jessica Alba), you ain't getting that clearance.¹
Watching him, I admit he was good. He jabbed looking for opening connections and commonalties and once found, attacked with sincere, anecdotal stories (his technique with the assistant head teacher). Or he would study your behaviour and personality and eerily become you, version 2.0 (I say 2.0 because he has the audacity to try to improve upon you. With the local jokester, he tried to be a funnier Beavis and Butthead, tried to do a better B&B laugh).

For me, he tried technique number one. He found out I was Vietnamese when he overhead another teacher ask me to teach swear words. He came in saying how there were a lot of Vietnamese people where he had worked and started talking about how he loves Vietnamese food blah blah blah....

My impromptu shit test: "Don't you think Vietnamese people are sneaky and tricky?" This presented him with a problem because,

1. He knows I'm Vietnamese so he doesn't want to offend me (sneaky and tricky aren't usually compliment). So he should disagree.
2. But the way I phrased the question, made it like I want him to agree with me.

So no matter what he answered, he would either be insulting my race or not making that vital, "we have so much in common" connection with me as he had with other people.

Who am I? Joe, Evil Genius.

He totally politician'd my shit test by answering something else. He did not know my position on the matter, so he said, "You know what I did find? The Vietnamese people I worked with aren't receptive to psychological therapy (he worked in therapy -- physical therapy though I think)." Damn. He managed to give an answer that did not insult my race and he did not disagree with me, just avoided it.

Who is he? New guy, V.I.G. (Very Important Genius).

Okay, so I'm sure I'll like him eventually, but I just need more time. He sprinted to second base too quickly. I barely know his name. But I'll tell you one thing. I'll never let him go all the way!

_{1.Several exceptions may apply.}

RSS - Really Simple Syndication

2006-05-19T03:00:00.000-04:00

When I want to relax I sift through my favourite webpage bookmarks. Since I have so many, this often takes up most of my day. If only I had bothered to learn about RSS or Atom earlier, I could have saved myself hours.

RSS, Really Simple Syndication is a form of web syndication used by news websites and weblogs. What this means is if you have a feeds reader you can subscribe to these websites and get updates only when they have fresh material. So instead of checking your 10 favourite blogs, news sources and other sites every day, you just need to check one place that displays the headlines and summaries from those sites. It does the work of finding when the sites are updated, organizes the headlines and rids you of read articles.

So instead of waking up to a newspaper everyday, I wake up to my electronic newspaper with its personalized sections: gaming, celebrity, gadgets and news.

If you want a desktop program, I recommend Abilon.

If you prefer a web application you can use the simple Google Reader or the more robust Bloglines.

Google reader and Bloglines have search tools to find the RSS or Atom addresses, but if you use Abilon you can use the RSS Micro search engine to find the feeds.

I'm all grown up. I have a feed here: .

Go to Feed Burner if you want to hop on the wagon and syndicate your blog. It gives instructions on how to syndicate for most popular blog publishing sites.

As I was typing this post, I found an amazing reader. It features a two panel view that neatly lines up posts into two columns allowing you to preview more efficiently. It also seems speedier, and It lets me quickly blog a story to blogger.com or even my desktop blogging software, w.bloggar (I'll be posting a lot more links from now on). One last feature is the ease of adding sites to the program, just enter the url into the address bar and if it has a feed, it will show up as an orange RSS button on the bottom right.

The program is called GreatNews .

Bush Pilot

2006-05-18T23:27:00.000-04:00

Have you ever wanted to throw around a limped bodied Bush? I never have, but once presented with the opportunity I found it strangely addicting and satisfying.

Go HERE. Use your mouse to whip him around.

Google Video

2006-05-18T13:26:00.000-04:00

Competing with YouTube, Google has changed their video service by allowing you to easily upload videos to their site. They also give you easy code to let you embed the videos into your blog as I am about to test.

Cool Things Here and A Coming

2006-05-16T08:47:00.000-04:00

I wrote about how Google lets you personalize your own search homepage. Now I found out Microsoft is working on the same thing called Windows Live. I hate to admit this, being a google fanboy, but it's better. The page is cleaner, has more customization (colour, column, page number) and will soon have MSN messenger integration.

Note that Yahoo is scheming their own, similar, beta homepage.

The lines are drawn and the battle has begun. It seems that each company is providing a suite of programs to synergize and bully us into brand loyalty. Before you could sample Yahoo mail, Google search and Microsoft chat, now it'd be odd (for the obsessive compulsives in us) and inconvienant not to collect a set. For example, although I like Microsoft's new homepage, it doesn't intergrate well with my Gmail and Gmail calendar so unless I want to switch to Hotmail, it'd be simplier to stay with Google's personalized homepage. But although I will stay with my Google homepage, I'm sad that I won't be able to throw in MSN Messenger. So if the company can convince you with just one quality program, you might desire the whole set. EVIL.

Check out Windows massive suite here.

Two programs to keep an eye out for are updates to their MSN messenger and Hotmail.

Windows Live Messenger - The next incarnation of MSN Messenger is in its beta stage. First thing I did was got rid of the tab buttons on the left side and the annoying video carousal on the bottom. The cool thing about the new MSN is that you can send offline messages and people will receive it the next time they log on. Yes, finally, it's like ICQ now.

Windows Live Mail - Built from scratch, this is Window's next generation Hotmail. It seems to copy most of Gmail's features but adds some. For example, drag and drop capabilities and right click menu bars (emulating desktop mail programs such as Outlook).

Google has interesting programs coming also. They already owns the self publishing website, Blogger (from which this site is hosted on), but now they are coming out with Google Page Creator, which is similar to Geocities. It's free webpage hosting for dummies. WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). No HTML required to make your own webpages.

Google Analytics can anaylze webpage statistics for you. See who visits your site and how they came upon it.

I could go on and on about the neat things that are in beta stages, but I'm sure I have lost everyone at "The lines are drawn and the battle has begun...."

Good Sights

2006-05-14T10:19:00.000-04:00

I woke up foul today but saw three things that cheered me up:

1. A funny looking dog with a narrow face and fur that sprouted from its head, temples and eyebrows being walked by an owner who looked exactly the same!

2. A mother playing baseball with her sons.

3. A father playing soccer with his daughter.

Sight number one cracked me up, and I carried a goofy grin because of it. Sights number two and three made me feel warm and cozy, especially sight number two because you don't see it too often.

Google Homepage

2006-05-12T09:12:00.000-04:00

Although I love my Yahoo Widgets, they did take up a lot of system resources and didn't sync with my google stuff very well. Then I tried Google's desktop and their Google Gadgets (which are a lot like Widgets) but they didn't look good and took up a lot of desktop space.

I decided to configure a google homepage after finding out you can customize what shows up.

Now I have my calendar, gmail, weather and a to do list all in one convieniant place (and it doesn't take up a lot of system resource). Along the right side, if I scroll down are all my RSS feeds of my favourite sites.

Click on the thumbnail to see my google homepage.

Google Calendar

2006-05-10T09:18:00.000-04:00

I am a huge Google fanboy. I wish there was a google photo editor, a google virus protection program, a google toothbrush, a google Japanese course. I love their search, their gmail and now their calender.

Meeting my ridiculously high expectation, the design is clean and simple, yet underneath lurks the google monster -- a powerful, customizable beast.

I love toying with their monster and the most fun I had was with the natural language system. You could type "May 12 Test Drive the Nintendo Wii 3 - 7:20" into its simple side box and it would understand and input the day, time and event title. The language system didn't always pass my tests, but if always written in the above format (the simpliest I found), it will never fail. As a bonus, It even extracts words it recognizes as schedules from your gmail account with, of course, your permission to add the entry to your calendar (of course the failure rate here will be higher since other people won't know they should write their email meetings to you in a google agreeable manner).

You can have multiple calenders in colour coded layers. For example my main calender labeled "Joe" is blue. I added another calender that I downloaded from Google called Canadian Holidays (you can get many calenders, even other people's public ones) and labeled it red. So the calender is clean: my events in blue and the holidays in red. I also have the option of toggling on/off whichever calenders I choose in order to simplify the calender at will (it's important when you have many calenders; for example I added one called birthdays or you could put in your friend's or family's calendars, which they can decide what you see off their calendar.

Of course like always, every program Google makes has incredible search features so you can always find any event you made.

Another cool feature that I will no doubt never use, but if I was a popular, social guy, I would find indispensable is their invitation feature. It's basically Evite.com integrated into their calender system. You can invite anyone with an email and they can update a dynamic list of their intended attendance. Guests can also write comments and/or invite more people. If you have gmail, the email will look fancy and you don't have to go anywhere, but if you have, say, Hotmail, you'll get a link to go to. I tested the service by inviting my Hotmail self to an imaginary party and I told myself that I would come and everything looked and worked great. I even tried to cancel the party on myself and it gave me the option of sending an apology letter to everyone or don't tell anyone.

If you are always connected to the internet, then an internet calender makes sense. I basically wake up every morning, check my email, look at my desktop for the weather and now check my calendar. The only requests I have is that they include a To Do collapsable side panel or a To Do Tab along with their different views (day, week, month, customizable length, agenda) and a gmail icon to tell you if you have mail or not, and if I'm really picky, the settings option of including gmail chat on the side. It is, however, only in the beta stage and usually any request I have, they somehow seem to meet it.

Anyways, if you're interested, go HERE.

Nintendo

2006-05-09T20:27:00.000-04:00

The last time I bought a system, it was the year 1991, I was 12 and the system was the SNES. As it reached its half-life I made my switch to computer games. Ever since I haven't been too compelled to migrate back -- that is until now.

The next generation Nintendo (I've skipped two generations, the N64 and the GameCube), the Nintendo Wii (pronounced "we") is risking a unique, active approach to user input. Their controller is a motion sensor that allows the players to simulate real world action . If you're playing a tennis game, the wand/nunchuk controller becomes a racket. Of course you don't have to swing with all your might (since you're not actually hitting anything) but a simple twist and snap of the wrist is necessary.

The other point is that the price will be much cheaper than the PS3, but this is understandable since the PS3's hardware is much more advanced and it includes a Blue Ray DVD drive.

The games are also aimed to be fun and easy to learn. Although the PS3 will have astounding games, they are just too complicated to learn for an old-timer like me. I don't have the patience to spend 3 hours to learn 200 different key combinations and climb to rank 1 in the world (alternatively, I don't want to find out I do have the patience and find my time sucked away into this video game).

Here is an article by Time Magazine that got me excited.

Here is Nintendo's page describing their controllers.

KTF EV-K100 The world's slimmest cell phone.

2006-05-06T06:29:00.000-04:00

Sexy new 7.9 mm phone. Boy are they getting thin, annorexic even.

Taken from Akihabara News.

Cowon the Companion

2006-05-04T03:35:00.000-04:00

Now that I have the Cowon A2, I pretty much have no need to talk to other people. Notice I said other people, because I do talk to the Cowon and I pretty much consider it a person.

Me: I'm so sad.
Cowon: Cheer up. I'll sing you a happy MP3 compressed format song.

Me: I'm so happy.
Cowon: Cool. Let's stay in and watch a movie then. How does a bootleg version of V for Vendetta sound?

Me: I'm so lost.
Cowon: Silly Joe. I have a map.

Me: I need intellectual stimulation.
Cowon: I'll recite to you an audio book: A Short History on Nearly everything or the Universe in a Nutshell by Stephen Hawking?

Me: I'm sorry Cowon. I need something you can't give me. I need the physical intimacy of a woman.
Cowon: Might I tempt you instead to view the lastest censored Japanese porn? Or is Hentai more your pleasure?

Me: We can't have conversations.
Cowon: Oh but we can. Even better. How about a conversation in Japanese. I'll teach you.

As my friend Cliff once pointed out to me, I have a tendency to comprehensively involve myself into something that interests me. The lastest example was poker and so I watched all the WPT DVDs, read 5-6 poker books, spread sheeted my results and analyzed my game on a daily basis. Before that I wanted to be a professional gamer in Starcraft, and I won't admit the things I did for that lil adventure. Now I'm trying to learn Japanese, and although I do not have the same level of motivation I had for poker or videogames, I know this will be a practical obsession (although poker was financially practical).

Now, I want to learn Japanese.

It will not be an uncommon sight for my neighbours of this area to see me walking down the street reciting basic Japanese phrases: "Excuse me, do you understand english?"

I have the Primsleur Japanese level 1-3 audio program as well as the Subliminal Japanese audio program (my parents will be happy to know -- and I have no idea how they found my new webpage -- I also have, for the hell of it, the Vietnamese audio also. PS Whatever happened to the day when my father couldn't double click open a program quick enough or when he would scream in urgency every time an MSN messenger contact came online "JOE! JOE! KEVIN73 HAS JUST LOGGED ON!!" 5 minutes later "JOE, HEY JOE SXCBOY HAS JUST LOGGED ON! WHAT SHOULD I DO?" Now he's unearthing secret blogs that moved urls. What is the world coming to?)

I also have the Learn Japanese NOW! software and the Rosetta Stone Japanese levels 1 and 2 software. The Rosetta stone one is so much better. It is a combination of games, drills and immersion, the perfect way I like to learn. The name is fitting as you have to decipher the language on your own because they never tell you what the english word is. This makes for active work and rids boring translation memorization. You simply have pictures and the Japanese words. You figure out the rest as you play games and get drilled. It forces me to be unlazy and use my head to decipher and retain.

I also have the Let's Learn Japanese Basics 1 and 2 television series. I probably won't use this too much because it looks as though it was made in the 70s and the video quality isn't that good.

Finally I have a lot of ebooks like Japanese for Busy people and Japanese is possible eBook series.

I find the Primsleur Japanese audio program to be the perfect partner for my walks to work. I always felt that my hour long round trip walk was a waste of time and now it's an hour a day of language learning.

Ah Cowon. I can't say enough good things about you. I love you so much, but I'll have to replace you after three years when a younger, better looking (super)model comes out. Besides, your battery degrades as you age.

Warning: Electronic Nerd Blog

2006-05-01T22:59:00.001-04:00

I originally was going to buy another laptop, the Vaio TX ultraportable, since my Vaio FTV is too bulky and heavy to be mobile (plus it has a short battery life). Even though I was going to save close to $1000 dollars if I bought it in Japan, it still cost 2000.

I decided to go for a cheaper, but equally satisfying alternative. I figured by doing this alternative I only lose out on two things, which I wouldn't use much of anyway and I could save $1500.

I would miss out on the internet connectivity (but I barely use mobile internet and I wouldn't want to pay for a cellular service). I would also miss out on writing (blogs, stories, etc...) on the go. But most of the time I'd rather write when I'm settled, so although the idea is nice, I probably never would have written anything.

FIRST PURCHASE ($275) MAXTOR ONE TOUCH III

The first thing I bought was an external USB harddrive, the Maxtor One Touch III, 300 gig version. I would have liked 400 gigs, but they only had a 200 or 300 gig model. It wasn't that I thought I needed 400 gigs, I just figured 400 gigs would hold me out for years of bottomless hard drive space reserve. How wrong I was. Only after getting the 300 gig version last week, I've almost filled it up. I'm getting so depressed. I might have to buy another 300 gig version.

Here are some things I have on the hard drive:

TV SHOWS

Trailer Park Boys season 1, House season 1 and season 2 (up to episode 19), Southpark season 1 -9 + movie, the Daily show 2004 and 2005, Queer as Folk season 1, Howard Stern (various), Monk season 1 and Veronica Mars season 1.

On the queue: Grey's Anatomy season 2 (various), Trailer Park Boys season 2 - 5, Battle Star Galactica Season 1 and 2, The West Wing season 6, Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 1 and Deadwood Season 2.

MOVIES

The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Domino, The Constant Gardener, Sarah Silverman Jesus is Magic, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Match Point.

ANIME

Naruto Episodes 1-50, 100-200 something, Bleach and One Piece.

As I mentioned, I'm very depressed because my hard drive space will be full. I hope I can fit everything on it.

You might be asking, what was the alternative to the ultraportable laptop I was talking about or how will I find the time to watch all these things. The answer to both question is the same: I present to you

SECOND PURCHASE ($510) COWON A2 PMP (Personal Media Player)

At first I was thinking of purchasing a PSP (Playstation Portable) but I would either have to buy several 1 gig memory cards or constantly delete things off the one card and constantly convert files into the PSP format and if you know how lazy I am, I don't like to do things constantly. Then I also heard the games aren't that fun and if you want to play the newest games you must have the newest firmware, which would then prevent me from hacking my PSP to play Gameboy Advance roms. In addition, the battery life is not so good and the media capabilities of the PSP aren't spectacular.

I started to research alternatives such as PMPs and narrowed it down to

The Archos AV500 mobile DVR

Creative Zen Vision M

The Cowon A2.

The store I buy my electronics from didn't have the Archos so that was scratched off (even though it seemed like the best choice) and the Creative Zen had a smaller screen, was older and didn't seem to accept as many file formats and although it had a replaceable battery, the life of it was much shorter.

I was confident in my choice to buy the Cowon A2, but then I also saw the Toshiba Gigabeat S (that JUST came out in Japan) and boy what a beauty it is (especially live).

However despite my lust for its looks, the 2.4 inch screen was too small (2.4 is too small right, ladies?). Even in landscape mode I would have trouble reading subtitles. So I grudgingly decided not to buy the 80 gig beauty since I would have lots of anime with subtitles. Damn, why do I have to like anime?

What the Cowon can do (nice review of it here):

Play movies - So many different formats like AVI, WMV, ASF with codecs for DivX, MPEG1, MP43, XviD and WMV9.

Play music - MP3, OGG, WMA, FLAC, WAV with 5 bands EQ, BBE, Mach3Bass, MP Enhance, and 3D Surround 5 (Cowon is known for the superior sound). Also an FM radio.

Record - Direct recording from TV, VCR, CD player or camcorder. Voice recording by a high fidelity microphone.

Show text and pictures - JPG, PNG, BMP and TXT files.

Direct USB transfers from your camera.

I bought the 30 gig version, which put me back $100 dollars more than the 20 gig version that was on sale for 50 dollars off, but I knew I wanted the extra 10 gigs because I'm lazy. The Cowon plays music for 18 hours and movies for 10 hours, but it's more like 16 and 8, which is the best I've seen. So far I'm enjoying it very much. The sound is great and the screen beautiful. My only complaints are the navigational joystick is hard to press in so you misdirect a lot and the slideshow isn't seamless and you can't customize its options.

If you can endure cheezy music and lame visuals of a shirtless guy dancing on the LCD screen, watch this:

My first haircut

2006-04-25T22:44:00.000-04:00

After three months of hair growth, I was entering the realm of too long to style, too short to be androgenously beautiful (It's a little creepy how close some males look like females here since Japanese women aren't curvy).

I had left it uncut for this long because of fear and cost. Karen has always cut my hair, close to 10 years, and I didn't know if i could trust anyone else, and I didn't know if I could pay money for the service. I wasn't about to go to a 10 dollar under 10 minute haircut place (although one coworker tried to persuade me how good they are, but if I believed him, it would be like believing a fat guy recommending his weight loss program). On the other hand I didn't want to spend 70 dollars on a haircut either.

I needed to find a middleground.

Cuore was my choice. A place that happened to be next door to where I work. When I say happen, I really mean I was too lazy to really explore and find another place. The stylists seemed cool looking and the price moderate. I went in and did crazy hand movements to book an appointment for 3 pm. I came back an hour later equipped with 4 words I had asked my Japanese staff: long, short, longer and shorter. I already knew the word for a little, so with 5 words I was able (along with my thumb and index finger) to accurately describe what I wanted. My pencil drawn picture and their magazine also helped.

First, an apprentice wet my hair (her english was good), put a thin cloth on my face and strapped other rags to my face as she turned on a shampooing machine. Before she walked away she stuffed something soft in both ears, told me the machine is a bit loud and the wash would be five minutes. Blind and deaf, I had little time to panic before soothing jets paraded my head and it felt like a gentle massage. The jets went up and down my head for five minutes and then stopped. I got off the chair and was directed to the stylist who cut my hair.

He was a mid thirties, stylish but not without prank and mischief to his aura. He had large teeth and seemed a little goofy when he smiled. It made me relaxed, like we had been college roomates. Ever so often he would try to say a string of Japanese sentences and I would shrug my shoulders. He would try again a few minutes later expecting or hoping that during the elapsed minutes I wasn't just idle but instead improving my Japanese and would then understand his Japanese.

I managed to find out he had been cutting for 13 years by pointing at him and expertly modeling my index finger and middle finger into a pair of scissors and then throwing a Hail Mary english word "Years. Years. How many years?" (You can't go wrong with the fingers imitating scissors; it's almost as though those two fingers were made to represent scissors.) I also found out that he was trained under the Vidal Sasson technique as well as another school (the apprentice told me this). When the apprentice talked about schools and training and technique, I imagined him as a Street fighter learning different styles from schools and his weapon is the scissors and my hair was his opponent. Whatever techniques he learned, he was quite experienced because his cuts were precise and swift.

After he cut my hair I was shampooed again by another guy who then started giving me head massages and back massages. He was really good and I was really enjoying it. He then took great care doing my shoulders and he seemed to be fighting an invisible demon of sorts, because his demeanour became serious and his movements quickened. He spoke to me in Japanese while indicating my shoulders. I nodded assuming he was telling me that I have knots in my shoulders and carry too much tension in the area. I tried to clarify by saying "My shoulders. No good?" But after I said it I realized my mistake. Japanese do not use intonation so to him I said "My shoulders. No good," as though I was telling him I was not enjoying the shoulder massage. I knew this because he blushed and then immediately switched to my head and then only after two to three seconds he stopped massaging and blow dried my hair before letting the stylist from before style my hair. I would have tried to tell him he was a good massager but I would have probably ended up digging a deeper hole or maybe I was wrong and then I would have made him embarrassed for no reason.

When I went to pay I was surprised it came to only 40 dollars. I asked for the stylist's card so I could get him again and they gave me a stamp card for future discounts. Just before the cashier gave me the bill she gave this strange look to the stylist and he nodded like he was giving the okay to something. I'm not sure if I got a discount, but I like to think I was cool enough with the stylist to have gotten one.

Well here are the pics (click for larger views). Tell me what you think Karen. I know it's not Vidal but you have to tip at Vidal :).

UPDATE: HOLY SHIT. I just looked at the pictures. They are really big, so this is just a warning: do not click unless you want to see an ugly close-up of my mug. Damn I should have photoshopped those pictures first!

Vidal Sassoon Ripoff?

2006-04-25T12:40:00.000-04:00

I forgot I took this picture when I was in Ginza with my parents. Ginza is like Toronto's Bloor Street, designer shops with designer prices.

I thought Karen would be interested in this picture.

Free Software

2006-04-21T01:10:00.000-04:00

There is nothing I love more than free software. Here is a list of my favourite free software:

Web Browser: Mozilla Firefox or Opera. Both are excellent browsers and Opera just recently took away their adbar. Mozilla has more extensions and plug ins but Opera is a bit faster.

Desktop Enhancers: Yahoo widgets. I love widgets. I can't live without widgets. Sure they take up a lot of RAM, but they make me and my laptop feel special. I love my laptop so much I spoil it with widgets. I love my laptop so much that when I first got it, I declined offers to go out so I could share quality time(I closed my door of course and just gazed lovingly into its beautiful bright monitor -- like a (Microsoft) window into its soul.

My favourite widgets are WidescapeWeather (pick your country, customize your colours and maximize or minimize a 5 day forecast), What To Do (comes with the download), Mini_What_to_do (I use the first for my To Do list and the What To Do for my Scheduling), Widescp_Battery, Month Calender and LaunchIt. Download the Widget Engine HERE and download widgets HERE.

Photo Editing: A great, though complicated, alternative to Adobe Photoshop is GIMP. If you want to use a simpler program, I recommend FastStone Image Viewer. It lets you do batch (group) resizing, rotation and renaming in a clean, intuitive interface.

Compression/Decompression (zip): WinRar or 7-Zip. WinRar has a few features disabled but never fails unzipping for me. 7-Zip is completely free and has an option to compress to its special format with a stronger compression ratio (30 to 50 percent). This program also compresses the standard zip format 2 - 10 percent better. However I sometimes have problems unzipping some files and I couldn't find the option for keeping partially unzipped or corrupt files.

Adware/Spyware: Adaware, Spybot, Spyware blaster and Bazooka Adware and Spyware Scanner. I use all four because I hate a messy computer. Adaware and Spybot are probably enough for most sane people. Both have clean, easy interface and one finds what the other doesn't. Spyware blaster is a one time tool that actively prevents spyware from initally installing. Just run it once and forget about it (won't use up system resources). Bazooka A&S Scanner only scans and tells you what nasties you have and tells you how to remove it on your own. This program finds things that Adaware and Spybot sometimes miss.

P2P (Peer to Peer Downloading): Azereus or LimeWire. Azereus is a great BitTorrent program. Bit torrent lets you download non linearly, so instead of downloading from start to finish, you can download from different parts of the file simultaneously greatly accelerating your download speed. Also as you are downloading you are sharing what you have. Mininova.org is constantly updated with new torrents to download (Movies, TV shows, Books, Video Games). Limewire is a fast P2P filesharing program without any attached spy or adware attached to it.

Desktop Ultility: Pixie is a pixel grabbing utility. It lets you grab colors off your screen. Point to a color, and it will tell you the hex, RGB, HTML, CMYK, and HSV values of that color.

Messenger Enhancement: Messenger Plus or Trillian. Tons of MSN messenger customizations. If you use several messenging programs, Trillian combines them all in one easy program.

Password Management: Roboform. This useful program will remember all your passwords under a master password. It also fills out forms instantly for you and other great features. You can save or print out your information too in case you change computers or need a backup. If you are using a different browser, Firefox or Opera, you'll have to download an extension.

CD/DVD Burner: DVD Shrink, DVD Decrypter, andDeep Burner. DVD shrink lets you shrink large DVDs to fit on your 4.7 gig sized ones. DVD Decypter is a good DVD copier that breaks protection/encryption measures on DVDs such as regions (and other things) then lets you rip and burn through 3 different options (includes ISO). For straight file burning off your harddrive I used Deep Burner.

Audio Jukebox: JetAudio Basic. It has ripping and format conversion options. It also looks nice and can be minimized to a thin sleek bar (many other skins available). The automatic fading between songs is nice and of course there are tons of equalizer options as well as lyric readers and so much more.

Windows Optimization: RegScrubXP, CCleanerFreeRam XP Proand TuneXP. RegScrubXP cleans out your registry. CCleaner does the registry and Temporary Internet Files. FreeRam XP Pro monitors and balances your RAM usage. TuneXP lets you tweak Windows XP.

Virus Protection: AVG or Avast. Both are excellent free programs. I don't think you can go wrong with either, although Avast looks nicer, but requires you to register.

Firewall: ZoneAlarm. Protect yourself from hackers, worms and viruses. I don't use this actually because XP has a firewall program.

Downloading Managers: GetRight or Download Accelerator. Both are able to integrate with your web browser and have several options, which includes segmented downloads, fetching mirror sites and the ever important resuming.

Complete Office Suite: OpenOffice. A great free replacement for Microsoft Office.

Offline Webpage Viewer: HTTrack Website Copier. View saved webpages offline, including the links within.

DVD/CD Emulation: Daemon Tools. Lets you create virtual drives so you can make copies of discs and then mount these copies on your Virtual Drive. You can create these copies with the program I wrote above called DVD Decrypter (ISO file).

Blogger Tool: W.Bloggar. I use this program to post to my blog site. It has several language options and the ability to post to many sites as well as simplifying HTML code.

So those are the programs I highly recommend. All are free and some have restrictions. I use most of them, but not all because for example I was able to get my hands on Microsoft Office.

Rants about the Parents

2006-04-16T05:51:00.000-04:00

In their attempt to fatten me up, my parents have gone to the grocery store several times. Again I'm mortified because my shared fridge is a shoe box and yet they buy mountains of food (which probably looks strange -- maybe nasty) to my housemates and ram it into the fridge.

"Mom, you understand that this isn't my personal fridge right? I share it with 2 other housemates."

Her response was a chuckle.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
My parents not only think I am socially handicapped, but sometimes physically. For example this morning they crowded me as I was leaving the apartment. I had my bag in hand and was about to put on my jacket. My father quickly unburdened my hand by grabbing and holding my bag. My mom took a hold of my limp jacket sleeve and swung it around to better fit my opposing arm. It was like a young, energetic NASCAR support team changing tires except my parents are old and slow and they helped me put on my jacket. And instead of shouting "Go Go Go" afterwards, they said "Do you want a bannana? You should bring a bannana."
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
When my parents arrived to my apartment it was about 9 am according to their jet lagged bodies. I was on my computer writing when I heard a noise from the washroom. When I went to investigate I found my mom sprawled on the washroom floor scrubbing my toilet and looking at me with a deer in headlights expression. I told her to go to bed. Fifteen minutes later she was in kitchen for round two.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
My mom is really scared of getting lost. Usually she takes her sweet time at everything. But now when we both use our respective public washrooms she beats me out her door as though she's afraid I would leave her if she didn't finish fast enough.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Apparently my father sleepwalk pees. I was up at 1 am playing poker and out he came from my room. My housemate was pissing in the washroom at the time and my father walked in on him. They both exclaimed "oh" and my father backed off and waited. After my housemate left, he went in, did his business then slunk back to my room.

The next day I playfully teased him about walking in on my housemate pissing and he said, "What?"

Hook Ups

2006-04-14T08:01:00.000-04:00

I mistakenly took my parents to a Japanese restaurant near my house, and now I'll never return. I had forgotten how they enjoy putting me in embarrassing situations. My father kept trying to make tons of jokes to the waiters and waitresses and customers, but they don't understand english, let alone his humour. He kept referring to my mom as his "boss." First they don't understand what boss means and if they marginally did, he only accomplishes confusing them.

He also waved down the waiters to sit beside him as my mom took pictures. I was mortified. We had huge blinking TOURIST exclamations above our heads. There was one girl he thought was cute and as she walked closer I saw him eyeing her and about to open his mouth. I blurted, "if you're going to tell her to sit beside me, so you can take our picture, I'm going to kill you." He grinned like a rogue and closed his mouth.

On my left, my mom, closet director, had the video camera in her hand: Joe use your chopsticks. Smile. You're happy. Turn the plate. Now eat something. (Picture me motionless, staring directly ahead, pokerfaced).

There was also a drunk guy beside us who toppled to the washroom and who on the way back befriended my father. They kept cheering with grunts and not really saying much and smashing their mugs while laughing like hyenas then warmly rubbing each other's backs.

Admist all this, I tried so hard to look cool -- and man, I really like looking cool too.

At the end when I went to pay, the girl at the cash complimented me on my leather jacket by touching my jacket and smiling and did something positive with her hands like a thumbs up. I was going to say something cool to the cute cashier when my dad quite suddenly appeared behind me, did a monkey face and said something like "ahhhh, yes, look, look," and raised his eyebrows and enthusiastically pointed at my shoes. She smiled and nodded, forced to agree that my shoes were cool too. I quickly paid her and slunk away before my father could point at other things.

My parents still think I'm socially handicapped and believe that they have to intervene on my behalf whenever there is a pretty girl present.

My days off with my parents are over. I really did have a lot of fun seeing them again and seeing them leave, as always, will be bittersweet.

PS The picture of my parents has nothing to do with the post but was of them when I took them to see cherry blossoms in Shinjuku. I'm usually not into that kind of thing, but I was awed by the beauty of the place.

PPS The girl my dad was about to call over to sit beside me for a picture really was cute, but we had an initial awkward situation when she was waiting at the beginning to take our drink orders. I kept trying to tell her to give me more time. I flashed five fingers and pointed at my watch. I shrugged my shoulders, flashed five fingers and pointed at my watch again. She just kept staring at me in confusion like I wanted to order five drinks and she had better bring it to me in time or something. Finally, after an uncomfortable minute (which felt like 7 days) I just said "Coke, one Coke" so she would leave.

I lost my dad

2006-04-13T10:47:00.000-04:00

My parents came to visit me, and today I took them to Ikebukuro, a large and busy shopping district. My dad wanted to split up and then meet up at an assigned time. Standing with my mother, I waited. The time came and went as did the following minutes as did the following hour. It was then that I got a panicked feeling, which I believe was a premonition of if and when I have childrene. I didn't have much faith in my father at being able to find his way back to my home.

I had visual flashes of unsettling scenarios: him lying on a park bench; him loitering with beers in a smoky karoke bar; him walking backwards as though retracing his steps then crying.

There were several reasons for this:

1. I was pretty sure he was not carrying my phone number or house address.
2. Even if he had my house address the taxi drivers would not know how to read it.
3. If he asked people for directions they would not know how to respond unless it was a straight path (I've had 1 person drive me and 3 people walk with me 10 - 15 minutes).
4. What directions could he ask if he did not have my address? (You know my son Joe? How can I find his apartment?).

After 1.5 hours passed I reluctantly agreed with my mother that he wasn't going to show up, and we went to eat. After eating I walked back to the area one last time and when he was not there, we went home. It was then on the train that my phone vibrated to show that I had two missed calls. When I called the number back there was an automated answering machine from a cell phone so I assumed it was not my father but a friend who I hadn't programmed in. Later that number called me again after I had called and left a message and a strange voice said my name, "Joe."

"Yes?"

"Wait."

Then my father came on. He sounded demoralized as if the city of Tokyo was a Hummer and his life force was an hollow eggshell and... well you can guess what follows.

He told me he was lost but some guy is trying to help him.

Only just now he came home and I had a talk with him. Again, the generiousity of Japanese people was shown. After approaching 1000 people with the only piece of information he had (I live at a station that I think it starts with TS) one person who spoke less English than a 2 year old seemed to vaguely understand the words coming out of his mouth.

My father said this guy was Mr. Gadget. He had everything and one thing he also had was internet connection on his phone. The hardest part was trying to communicate with him that my phone number and address was in an email.

Eventually he hooked up several devices and got internet and went into my father\s account and emailed me to call and then took down my address and converted it to Japanese (in case my father needed to give it to a taxi driver) and then called me. I was in the train station so I did not get the call. He waited an entire 30 minutes with my father at the train station before calling again, which again I did not receive. This was when I finally got signal and called him back and he then called me back. After we talked he took my dad to the right train and told him when to get off.

Wow. So my father is home now. Tomorrow I'll have to ask him what they talked about for 30 minutes when neither knew a common language.

I think if I have children I'm going to make them wear GPS bracelets.

Toilets

2006-04-09T05:54:00.000-04:00

My toilet with a sink on top:

A toilet at a restaurant. I thought by pushing the bottom, wet nap-like paper comes out, but instead it sprays out soap, so I ended up getting my hand sprayed with soap (I should have looked at the picture more carefully).

My toilet at work with "the works."

Emails and Notes

2006-04-05T13:12:00.000-04:00

I sometimes get really cool things written to me by Japanese people. The photographer I met at Womb invited me to his birthday party bash and emailed me a cute email with even a map included. I really liked how he called himself by name then title, like Joe Teacher.

hello, this is xxx photographer .
this friday is my 40th birthday.
so i have a party at small bar at shinjyuku.
if you have time please join us.

xxx yyy 40th birthday & photographer's life 15th memorial party

24 march friday 20:00 - 0f:00 at [bikini machine]

2-9-18
kabukicho
shinjyukuku
lion's plaza b1f
phone 03-3202-7733

charge 1000 yen and your drink fee (with present charge off)
do not bring drink, food is OK.

I also wrote English sentences for a girl practicing her english and she wrote me a note with some Japanese sentences. Click on the thumbnail for a larger view. Take note of how she spelled my name (I think that's how she thought it sounded phonetically. I loved it and when I asked her if she knew what joy meant and how I'm thinking of officially changing my name to it, she shly turned beet red ).

Random Bits

2006-03-31T03:07:00.000-05:00

More strange things my ex-roomate brought with him:

I have a new laptop. A Sony Vaio FTV (same as North America's FE). The spacebar is 1/3 the length and the enter key is a huge SQUARE.

Final Fantasy Drink:

My first visit to Akihabara, Electric Town, a gadget lover's dream area.

Nine floors of electronics:

Passengers reading pornography on the public train:

Cereal Bags

2006-03-27T10:36:00.000-05:00

At first I thought this, cereal in a bag, was strange, but then I realized cereal is always in a bag, we just have a box as extra, superfluous packaging.

My Parents are Coming

2006-03-26T04:47:00.000-05:00

Clocking in at three months, my parents are coming to visit. I came up with a plan for them so I look like I know a lot about Japan. However, most of the things on the list will be my first experience. The unfortunate thing was the empty room at my apartment suddenly filled with a new roomate so I will become aquainted with our sofa.

Thursday, April 6

1. Meet at airport
2. Eat at sushi conveyor belt
3. Unpack and sleep

Friday, April 7

1. Tokyo Tower + Zoijoji Temple
2. Akihabara (Electronic Town)

Saturday, April 8 - Wednesday, April 12

HONG KONG

Thursday, April 13

1. Yoyogi Park
2. Meiji Shrine

Friday, April 14

1. Order Hato Bus Tour (for Saturday)
2. Kawagoe shopping and site seeing

Saturday, April 15

1. Hato Bus Tour (Panoramic Tokyo) $100 dollars per person:

Meiji Shinto Shrine
National Diet Building
Imperial East Garden
Asakusa Kannon Temple and Nakimise Shopping Street
Table D'Hote Lunch
Tokyu Bay Cruise
Panoramic View of Tokyo from Pier
Arrive at Ginza

2. Go shopping in Ginza

Sunday, April 16

1. Oedo Onsen (hot springs bath) website: HERE

Monday, April 17

1. Ueno Park after I finish work at 2 pm

Tuesday, April 18

1. Shopping in Ikebukuro or taking pictures in Rikugien Park
2. Dinner together at night

Wednesday, April 19

1. Eat lunch and say good bye
2. My mom crying while stuffing a rolled wad of cash into my pocket

Clubs Womb and Ruby Room

2006-03-21T08:25:00.000-05:00

There is a method to my choice in club. The highest priority is that it plays breaks. And so it happens that all three clubs I've gone to has had breaks planned but have had special nights and switched the music to give the people what they want. The first night at Air it was for a four man live set. At Womb there wasn't a reason given. At Ruby Room, it was someone's going away party so they brought their laptop to the club and they played out of their iTunes folder. They didn't even give a crap transitioning between songs and sometimes just abruptly switched over (as you can tell I didn't like the Ruby Room, although they hired Alex as a DJ).

The club worth mentioning, nevertheless, was Womb. It was supposed to be a huge club but we couldn't find it anywhere and no local in the area had ever heard of it. When we finally found it, we nearly walked pass, since it only had a tiny black and white plastic banner.

Inside I joined their membership and they took my fingerprint. Now I don't need to bring ID anymore and get a discount everytime and on my birthday month, cover is free, I get a bottle of wine and 5 friends get in cheaply. Score.

The frontdesk told us that only the 4th floor was opened. The fourth floor was a tiny bar with a DJ. It sucked because from the 4th floor we could look down and see the massive main floor with the largest, most sparkly disco ball I had ever seen in my life.

The place never packed because it was not a planned night. I think they just had the resident DJs playing. A large loud group of white people who work at the same company I do came barging in and started doing wild college white girl dance. Wild college white girl dancing is so uncool and it's always the same no matter the music. It's kind of the opposite of Japanese girl dancing, which has no life. If only they merged their dancing techniques. Then you'd have sane dancing.

One party girl was dragging Japanese people to and fro from the sidelines to all over the dance floor. I used this freakish behaviour as my opportunity to make conversation. I asked "What do you think of foreigners? Do you think they are... you know..." And I would let my fingers finish the talking. I'd do that thing where you use your index finger and make circles around your temple while rolling your eyes.

That's how I met this girl:

Towards the end of the night I asked for her phone number and she looked afraid. I thought I had totally misread her signs because I was thought she liked me. She had came over and approached me to reinitiate conversation two seperate times. She asked "Then I would have to talk English? My English is very bad." And she ran to her bag and got her pen and notepad, ran back and gave me her email. I wasn't sure if it was a pity email so I said "Hey, I'm gonna go dance, but when you leave, you have to come find me to say bye, okay?" So I thought if she takes the effort to find me (which isn't hard though since the place was tiny) and say goodbye then I would take the effort to email her.

She found me. I've emailed her, but she hasn't responded.

She is also another perfect example of Japanese female dancing. She does a lifeless shuffle. Alex kept on mimicking her and I had to bite my tongue to not laugh.

Alex, by the way, was really a dancing star that night.

One guy I met through my "Do you think foreigners are crazy?" phase came up and asked me to teach him how to dance. I introduced him to Alex. Before you knew it Alex was teaching scores of people how to dance. At one point even the photographer joined and they were all in a line doing hop steps. It was hilarious. Here is the guy and two girls he taught how to dance:

I met a nice photographer. He forbid other people to take pictures, but he encouraged us to. He even emailed me all the pictures he took of us. He had a HUGE camera and even walked around with a lighting umbrella. On his chest he wore a LCD display screen of pictures he'd taken and he would cycle through it for you. After he would upload his pictures to the projectionist and party pictures would mix with the graphics. He invited me to a party of his and said to say I know him, but I don't think I will go because I'm so weak and I think that I need a few months rest now.

Alex did a battle with a tattoo store owner and a famous manga artist drew of a picture of them and gave it to Alex.

I have to say that Japanese people are very friendly. I don't think at a club in Toronto between Alex and me, would we have met and been friendly with all the DJs, the bar staff, the photographer and lots of random people.

Moving on Out

2006-03-18T06:00:00.000-05:00

One of two housemates moved out to a place five minutes away. The strange guy took his strange things including a bar set and a slot machine:

After he left, the place looked barren. Unfortunately, he was the housemate that owned the microwave so now I'm debating if I should buy a microwave even though I'm just staying in Japan for a year or two. My other housemate agreed to split the cost with me.

Love Hotels

2006-03-12T08:33:00.000-05:00

Last Thursday when I was walking in Shibuya with Alex I stumbled upon Love Hotels after Love Hotels. Apparently these Love hotels (Sex Hotels) do not even have employees, but you buy rent rooms through a vending machine or some other self serve method.

Well Alex thinks this was the entrance to one (I thought it was a restaurant). We walked by it when we noticed that it had a waterfall and we wondered how people could get in without getting wet. It had a motion sensor that stopped the waterfall when you got close enough. Here is the video (check out my Mickey Mouse ear muffs):

The Things Students Say

2006-03-10T03:32:00.000-05:00

The first thing I say when I walk into a room is "Hi, how are you?" In Canada this nearly translates to "hello," since most people simply reply "good." But when I say it to students in Japan, they actually tell me the truth. I get as many "I'm very bad," as "I'm okay." Also, what they see as bad has great range.

How are you?

Bad. I'm very tired.

Did you sleep late last night?

Yes. Only two hours. (It happens to her every night)

How are you?

Bad. My older brother died. (This was from a student I met for the first time)

How are you?

Very bad. This morning, my wife was sick, so I had to make my own breakfast. (I told him, if he was me, he would be feeling bad every day)

I don't think Japanese people have any problems sharing if you ask. For example, I had a really sophisticated, good-looking 40ish woman in a one on one class. The lesson was talking about being sick. I asked her when was the last time she was sick, and she told me in Thailand on vacation. I asked her about her symptoms and she flatly told me (remember, she looks cute, posh and refined) she had a headache, a fever and diarrhea. I asked didn't I? Anyways, we had a good discussion because I then shared with her that when I went to Thailand, I had diarrhea too. Talking about runny feces really made a strong bond between us.

A lot of the time, the students are very tired. They push themselves so hard. I can't imagine how they could fit English lessons into their lives. One time we were doing a lesson and the word "rat-race" came up. I explained, it's someone who works a regular, long hours desk job, usually from 9 to 5, 5 days a week. They started laughing when they heard 9 to 5. They asked me, did I mean to say 9 to 9? It's not uncommon for Japanese people to work everyday of the week. One of my students works everyday of the week and does overtime each day. A fellow teacher told me one of his students worked 3 months straight without a day off.

Dammit

2006-03-08T14:31:00.000-05:00

I won a poker thing, but I wish it was a cash prize. Instead, I won a placement in a 500 man tourney where the winner gets a 15K USD prize package which includes the 10k entry fee into the WSOP (World Series of Poker). Okay, so all in all, I'm a gambling man, so the idea of winning nothing but the chance to win something huge isn't too depressing, but, due to my uncommon timezone, the tournament is 4 am! Waaaaah!

Spot the Difference

2006-03-07T00:21:00.000-05:00

What is different about this picture than if I had taken it in North America?

A plus for you if you noticed that all the cars reversed into their spots. About 90% of parked cars I see are parked by backing into the slot. It's not uncommon to see an entire 100+ lot full of cars all parked this way. This made me wonder about the stereotype that Asian people can't drive, since it's more difficult to reverse into a spot than driving straight in.

Breakfast and Lunch

2006-03-06T06:14:00.000-05:00

For breakfast I eat instant noodle or cereal. I found my favourite cereal I have ever eaten. It has delicious dried fruit in it.

Some instant noodles are hardcore. They have real preserved beef and the brown flavoured eggs. Every separate piece is in an airtight seal. You rip everything apart and add boiling water:

On my early shifts I also drink coffee. Japan has single serve drip coffees that is so wasteful, yet so convenient:

For lunch I consistently try to spend about 7 dollars.

Salmon on rice and calamari:

Sushi:

Fish rolls:

Nice cuts of fried chicken, cake and a drink:

If you've been following my food progress, you'd see that I went from eating out (conveyor belt sushi restaurant) to instant noodle mania to cooking meat. I've finally started throwing in some veggies! I bought some sort of chinese oyster-like sauce to season it with. You can click on the thumbnails for a bigger picture.

Food Part Three

2006-02-28T19:27:00.000-05:00

I don't know what these seasoned meat chunks were, but they certainly turned out delicious when crunchy.

Served with Kim Chee (spelling?)

Cheap steak pieces (ewww brown parts):

Cooked:

Fish:

Salted, peppered, and buttered:

I recently bought lemon juice, which is something I really want to add to my fish dishes. This fish turned out real well nevertheless. The skin turned out yummy crunchy too:

Chicken:

Cooked chicken (the cheapest meat to buy):

That's it for my meat. Next post will be on breakfast and lunch!