Disney Virgin

...until recently. She did pretty good, but her sleep was royally fucked for a week. Screwy sleep = royal pain in the ass. I had a liter of Spaten Oktoberfest the last night in Epcot's Germany Pavilion with dinner at their perpetual Oktoberfest celebration that made everything okay.

僕等なら出来る！

I'd apologize for consecutive posts, but that would presuppose anyone still reads this. Not like any of you are lacking for interesting anecdotes. Anyhoo, this is me after a night of shooting my friends' rock concert, displaying my sexy stubbly double chin with my boy, the recently deposed Prime Minister Aso. Shot 16 gigs, but I think most of it's crap. Right now I'm balancing procrastinating writing my hammock story with wading through them all. Post!

Sunrise from Fuji

Got back from my third summit of Mt. Fuji Saturday afternoon.



Sunrise from the peak was incredibly beautiful and humbling, but boring to read about unless you were there. Instead: so I finally got to the summit, was feeling the altitude a bit. Halfway through a circuit of the crater, the sole of my boot fell off. I've had those boots for more than a decade, so I guess their time had come, but it felt like losing an old friend. Fortunately I always hike with a fresh roll of duct tape, so I was able to make it back down the mountain, but it was less fun than coming up.

Also, I brought a Go board to the summit, and found some poor sap to play me there.

More pics are up on my site.

100th Post: Toilet Paper and Buddha

Jessie and I had been driving for two days, returning to Glen Allen from Islesford; Jessie had been with her Grand Aunt Nanette for the prior two weeks, and I had joined them for the previous week. The bliss from vacation was strong and, much to the chagrin of the 100F summer heat, our bodies were still feeling the salted breeze.

We were greeted at the door by three four legged creatures, all meowing and rolling on the floor, each in their own attempt to get our maximum attention. We were also greeted by a gigantic pile of mail, newspapers, catalogs, and advertising junk; this pile was easily four times the normal pile after such a trip. As we sifted through the bills, a large white bag emblazoned with the Japan Post logo and a mix of hiragana, kanji, and Simsbury Public Schools inspired handwriting.

Inside was a wonderful, informative note describing the unique contents and how to use them, plus a bit of historical perspective. Below the note were two masks, one gold, one green-patina, and a roll of toilet paper with printed astronomical information, helpfully in Japanese, which should help me beyond my pre-school Japanese comprehension.

Needless to say, Jessie and I are enjoying our wonderful package from Jeremy. Not only will these masks be fun at parties, and Halloween, but we think they are practical for general around the house use, like cooking!

Thanks, Jeremy. You're a great friend, indeed.

Congratulations Felise and Nick!

While they're off trying to get Swine Flu in Mexico (free trip!), I thought I would make a public congratulations on their beautiful wedding this past Sunday! The weather was perfect, the food was amazing, the (old and undoubtedly married) DJ only narrowly escaped being hit on by yours truly, and a good time was had by all. And though I'm sure she didn't appreciate it, Felise's temporary tearful pause during the vows was a perfect dramatic accent to engage the audience! (Translation: I wasn't going to cry until you started crying, you bastard.) Way to go, you two.

Weekend Happenings

I just wanted to post that Andrew is the man! It was good to see Andrew, who was in town for the annual Fly-B-Q, which I heard got out of hand late night. his pull got me a 10 minute ride in a plane, so I will be be forever grateful. Also, since he arrived late at my house, I got to see the other side of midnight for the first time since I was laid off. Zab, Penny, and I did miss the company of Jessie, who due to unforeseen circumstances could not make it, but it was another notch in Andrew's belt, for I believe he has seen Penny more times than Jessie. Ari: we are sorry we could not make it to grange. Andrew had to get his traveling companion early for a ride home, and the family was exhausted from the day before. All in all it was a good weekend, tiring, and here's hoping Andrew made it home safe. Toodles!

Blogfoul

I'm the last person to chastise someone over their abuse of our humble language. Considering that our language is rife with foreign words, malapropisms and spoonerisms that become de rigeur, and other little twiddles and vittles, it seems wholly inappropriate to even rebel this trend. Given the pseudo-shibboleth I spout from time to time, my propensity for dialect-laden, profanity-laced diatribes, and my general ignorance towards proper grammar, this may seem all the more arrogant. But people, it has to stop.

Today, I was reading a rebuttal in an ongoing debate about UN efficacy and their various policy-making offices. This debate has been heated at times (with one decorated author claiming his counterpart must have performed a "selective lombotomy" on his writing), and has spilled over into a weekly "Crossfire" style podcast. The dialogue this week was interesting and had me quite engaged, until this came along:

"Our diavlog will be posted on Sunday."

Why does this enrage me so? Because not only did I completely understand the word, not only did I not need to re-read it, but that now we must have words which identify not only what we will be doing (having a "dialog"), but also which medium ("video"), and which distribution mechanism ("vblog", or "video blog").

I will now go back to my Excel spreadsheets and Word documents soaked in red ink.