Sea bream, Nintendo, and beer

Sea bream's last hurrah

This is going to be a very random post. Please bear with me.

The picture is of a sea bream that had been sliced and diced and fixed in a grotesque position, its dead eyes cutting into one’s soul like a laser through a marshmallow. It was present at my welcome party, stoically offering up its flesh as sashimi for the enjoyment of my drunken coworkers.

I recently visited a store called Hard Off. You heard me. There are a number of chains of used goods stores in Japan named “x Off” where x ranges from “Book” to “Hard(ware)” to “House(hold goods).” At Hard Off they have used electronic hardware of all kinds, including “junk” items, at garage sale prices, that may or may not work. I gave in to the dark side and picked up a Super Nintendo and a bunch of classic games for extremely cheap.

I was recommended a brewery by someone who I’d be honored to call a colleague. It was a little pricey, but the service was excellent—my 12 bottle sampler arrived two days after I sent in my payment, on a holiday, and because I was out at the moment the delivery guy called me on my cell to arrange a pickup. The beer? Quite good. Infinitely better than the standard Asahi, Kirin, Suntory, etc. crap.

I’ve been spending a lot of time with the other JETs in the area. They’re all really nice, but I’m worried that I might be repeating some of the same mistakes I made at Keio—specifically, not making enough of an effort to get to know the locals. On the other hand, the locals have blown me off 3 times in a month, so screw them.

Apple recently issued a battery recall, and mine fell into the recalled group. My replacement arrived today, eliminating extended battery life as one possible benefit to upgrading my old iBook to a MacBook. Would someone like to break into my house and steal my iBook? Let me get some theft insurance and back up my data first; then we’ll get this show on the road.

I haven’t gone running for a couple weeks, with the excuse that I don’t want to aggravate my shin splints. My apartment is instantly filthy the moment I stop cleaning it. I’m planning a Halloween event of some kind for my elementary kids but don’t know where to find any pumpkins.

My kingdom for the energy to run, a perpetually clean apartment, and a field full of pumpkins! Oh yeah, and a new MacBook.