Thoughts

Ha! It worked. I went and rented more videos yesterday and got more alcohol. Sure, it is only one bottle of Smirnoff, but that's some 200-300 yen, depending on where you go. So for 390 yen for a video I can get an equal value in alcohol. It isn't that I drink very much, in fact, I drink very rarely, but I find it incredibly amusing that I can go into a video rental store and come out with free alcohol. It boggles my mind, which is why I have been doing it. Every time it happens I spend the whole walk home laughing to myself.

I received the last of my textbooks yesterday. I had ordered it from Amazon before Christmas break, and they kept moving back the ship date, and therefore the arrival date. By the time I canceled the order they had placed the arrival date on the week following that of spring break, which would be mid-March. I then ordered the book directly from the publisher two weeks ago, they shipped it the day after the order by ground and it arrived yesterday for a full twenty dollars less than what I would have paid through Amazon. Usually I like having my textbooks arrive before a class begins, which is why I ordered them a full month in advance, but apparently that is a little bit too difficult to handle. I've been in class for now four weeks without this textbook, all because Amazon decided that shipping a book ordered in December was so difficult they had to wait until mid-March to get it to me. Luckily the publishers did not feel that it was a difficult task, and now I can approach the subject with a bit more confidence.

My grandfather is in the hospital with pneumonia, a broken hip, and a congestive heart failure. My parents have gone to Chicago to spend time with him. Hopefully he'll get better, and I'm thinking about my family as they are dealing with all of this. He is quite old, and so I suppose I've been mentally preparing myself for something like this for some time, but it is still saddening.

As I mentioned I rented some movies, The Wife and I watched "Galaxy Quest" last night. Really a good movie, especially if you are on the nerd fringe and can laugh at yourself. I also started a movie called "Dinner Rush" which is a movie that focuses on the workings of an Italian restaurant. I haven't finished it yet, but it has been a pretty good watch. We also watched "Ed Wood" which has a particular place in my heart as a number of his films have showed up on MST3K, one of my favorite shows. It was a humorously painful movie about the "Worst Director of All Time." It stars Johnny Depp, Bill Murray, and several others, amusing if you can laugh at the people that just couldn't make it. Actually, if you think about it, Ed Wood did direct quite a few movies, so he made it to a certain extent, but he made it so poorly that it is painful, yet full of amusement, like poking at a healing wound. The movie was directed by Tim Burton and the music was done by Howard Shore, who most recently has done the music to the "Lord of the Rings" movies.

The PBEM is lurching back into forward momentum as we move away from the lethargy of Christmas break and trying to get back into "the swing of things," and in other news, I may be back in the states in March for some time attending a conference that pertains to my research project. As I mentioned earlier, I'm giddy because this is why I decided to pursue a post-graduate degree, the research and the deepening of knowledge, not to take more classes, and the opportunity to actually be participating in something I consider a personal dream is a very heady experience. Alrighty, I'm heading to Kusatsu again to finish up all my reading over a cup of coffee or tea. I also need to purchase more Lapsang for my own collection. The Wife and I are in the process of preparing another package of goodies for the folks back in the States, Ender has his "X Japan: Art of Life 1993.12.31 Tokyo Dome" DVD coming to him, and we have some stuff for our friends in Valparaiso. I'm still looking for a used copy for the Nauruto fighting game to send to T and crew, but if there is anything that people want let me know and we'll see what we can do. We'll probably send the everything to T's place and if you want it you can get it through our distributors, like Ender. Later.