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Ro-ren's Blog - LiveJournal.com
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Boring post asking for computer advice
My laptop makes these weird robot sounds when I play videos/ listen to music. The problem persists even when using headphones, so it's not the speakers. Resetting fixes it, but it always comes back. I've tried defragging, checking for malware, and reinstalling the audio driver. Help? :x
OMG BERSERK
Loooongtime readers of this blog may remember that my one true anime/ manga love is Berserk. RooG read the manga back in the day and he's a fan too. So of course we were amped when we heard they were making not one, but THREE movies based on the original story arc!!! aaaggghhh!!
We went to see Berserk: Haou no Tamago yesterday and DUDES IT WAS SO AWESOME. Seriously like 1483949283 times better than the anime. If you like Berserk even a little bit, or if you like awesome violent animes with cool characters and music and an awesome, deep story, then.... this is the movie for you!
Here's the first 10 minutes, if you care. The gory parts are mosiac-ed out in the video, but don't worry, they're not present in the actual movie. :-D
So. That was the highlight of yesterday. We also had lunch at Bubby's, where I had Mile High Lemon Meringue Pie and it was AWESOME! We also bought a nice lamp for the living room at Nitori.
Lava (my hot yoga place) brought in a new class called "Yoga to eliminate shoulder tension". Yesterday was the very first class so of course I was there. But all the class succeeded in doing was to GIVE me shoulder tension! I dunno, maybe I need to do it a few more times to get used to it. But the class didn't do much for me and I hated how the teacher felt the need to SCREAM EVERYTHING SHE SAID! I prefer a more chill approach to yoga, myself.
Adventures in Postcarding
Cards for our Postcard Project are still trickling in, slowly. I really liked this doodle on one of ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=88.9) furyoftrees' cards.
And this card that december_clouds sent was apparently somehow misrouted to Jamaica! It just arrived today.
Through PostCrossing I got to send a card to Ghana for the first time! I sent him this card, a New Year's card, and asked him how people in Ghana celebrate the new year. He wrote back,
dear Lauren,
thank you for you nice happy new year card and stamp. I am living in ghana since 1998. In the villages and the volta region of ghana people go to bed at 21:00 as usual, in the south and major town people do sometimes party a bit, but mostly spend time in church to inaugurate the new year.
all the best
Merjim
People in Ghana usually go to bed at 9?!?! Wow.
Life has been good. I go to yoga every day, of course. RooG and I are watching Game of Thrones together-- there's no Japanese version so I do my best to translate as we watch. He loves it. We're also working through season 3 of Mad Men, with Japanese subtitles. I'm SO happy that RooG has taken an interest in my favorite shows and that we can watch and enjoy them together. :)
We went to Kappa Zushi for dinner tonight (conveyor belt sushi, yumm). RooG and I are both obsessed with Scramble With Friends. And was anyone else obsessed with the book/ tape In a Dark, Dark Room and other Scary Stories when they were little??!! This story was by far my favorite. Some blessed soul has uploaded the stories with the pictures to YouTube.
Oops
The awesome dishwasher we ordered from Amazon arrived yesterday, but we have to return it. Because what we ordered was not, in fact, a dishWASHER, but a dishDRYER.
:P
I scanned the reviews and I did notice that the product was called a "Kitchen Dryer", but for some reason I assumed it meant that it washes and dries the dishes. I place more blame on RooG, whose Japanese reading comprehension is much better than mine, but I'm guilty here too. We must be going senile. How did we not realize??
RooG looked up dishWASHERS and said they run about 5man and that the reviews weren't even that great. Oh. It looks like I'll be washing dishes by hand for the next 4589284 years then.
My bro Adam got me hooked on Scramble With Friends on iPhone. It's so fun!!!! :O
I haven't bitten my nails since Sunday night!! I've bitten my nails constantly since I was in the 5th grade. I really want to stop.... but it feels good and I miss it already. D-:
This is probably of interest to no one but us, but I took a Teki video. Teki has a bunch of toys, and two of his favorites are Spiky Ball and Burajiru (Brazil), so named because it's this weird random figure of a man with a Brazilian flag on his chest that RooG picked up somewhere.
Teki loves Spiky Ball and spends a large portion of each day attempting to have sex with it. But if you throw Burajiru into the mix he goes NUTS and attacks it. I guess he sees it as a rival? Who the hell knows. Enjoy!!
Today was the 3rd Shinkyokushinkai Tokyo Higashi Shibu Kouryuu Taikai, aka a big karate tournament held in a gymnasium in Shin-Kiba, Tokyo.
Honestly I friggin hate going to these lower-level karate tournaments because they bring out the absolute worst parts of Japanese culture. It's like all of the (few) things that I hate about Japan, conveniently assembled in one ridiculously crowded area! Yeah!
We got there at 9:30 but RooG's fight wasn't until 2. He did his best but lost in the second round of the first fight. He just ran out of steam, basically. If he works on his stamina some more he'll be back to his usual fighting self, I'm sure. Oh well.
So mostly my day sucked, but it wasn't all bad, of course. We cheered on the only other person from our dojo, Ryuuki, in his two first fights. Shihan was super nice and friendly to us. And the amazing and incredible Tsukamoto Norichika-senshu, current World Karate Champion, SMILED AND OSU-D ME. Like, HE said hello to me FIRST. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He is amazing and I have so much respect for him and I love him forever.
We came home and took a much-needed nap and now RooG's making okonomiyaki for dinner. <3 <3 My throat hurts from yelling at the top of my lungs cheering for him. Hopefully it'll be ok in the morning, as I have 6 classes at School A to teach. -_-
Owl Post
I got a great card from our little Postcard Project today, possibly the best one!! slytherinblack sent this awesome Harry Potter card FROM The Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme park and it had this badass postmark! (And also a postmark from.... Iraq??!!??!!) What sorcery is this?! I await your response, slytherinblack. :) And thank you to her and everyone else who is participating. :)
As of today, I've only received about 1/3rd of the total response cards. Hopefully more will arrive soon. I want to get as many as possible and give them all out on the same day so no one feels left out.
RooG's fighting in a karate tournament tomorrow. Ugh. Out of all the things I want to do on a Sunday, waking up at the crack of dawn to travel over an hour each way on crowded trains to a crowded gymnasium for a karate tournament that takes all goddamn day is very low on the list. -_____- VERY, very low.
BUT he's RooG and I love him so I gots ta go and cheer for his butt. I'll probably leave after he loses, though. I just realized that's a pretty negative thing to say.... but he hasn't really been training very hard so frankly I don't have very high hopes. I don't think he does either. As long as he doesn't get killed or badly injured, it's all good. :/
MAN am I glad I quit karate.
Here's a happy picture of beautiful Teki to lighten the mood. He loves the mirror and perch we got for him in Arizona.
We are going to buy a DISHWASHER!! Yes, for the past 7 1/2 years, since coming to Japan, I have been washing any and all dishes by hand. I didn't mind so much, until I saw on TV that apparently using the dishwasher uses a lot less resources than washing dishes by hand. That changed everything. I always thought I was helping the environment by doing them by hand, but apparently I was wrong. YAY!
And here's me camwhoring it up before my Tuesday night adults' English class. I go to a company and teach two 90-minute lessons that are meant to have 8 students in each class, but every week only one or two or three people show up to each class. ^^;; One dude in particular always shows up 15 minutes before the end of class, which is SUPER frustrating because of course he doesn't know what the hell is going on and I don't want to spend valuable class time explaining everything all over again. Ugh. Just come on time or don't come at all, please.
Guest post by RooG
Ahoy any people. This is POO-G the "kitchen player".
Me and Lauren went to Arizona last year(Damn it!).
I like Arizona's sky. food. cacti. food and food(Damn it!).
BTW. I pooped too many times there. What ever..
OK. Thank you for reading my shit sentences I glad(Damn it!)
Have a nice day. happy new year. and GOD BLESS YOU.
From POO-G
Lauren & RooG Eat Arizona, Part 2, plus a Moral Dilemma
11.) Combo plates @ Panda Express. We ate here for lunch while shopping at Fashion Square Mall. My bro recommended the orange chicken and it really was good! I was shocked at the size of the medium drinks though-- huge!
12.) Sicilian white pizza @ our hotel room, courtesy of NYPD Pizza. I wanted a New York-style white pie and so I asked my dad (a native Staten Islander) where the best NY-style pizza was in Scottsdale. He said it was NYPD Pizza, so we ordered from them. The pizza was good, but not even close to the awesomeness of Nunzio's on Staten Island.
Incidentally, later in the trip, we went to my friend Noah's house and we all ordered pizza from Streets of New York, which my dad had said wasn't as good. But RooG and I loved it and thought it was definitely closer to the Nunzio's ideal than NYPD Pizza was. Just saying that everyone's tastes when it comes to food is different; it's good to try out a bunch of things for yourself!
13.) Steak burrito w/ chips & guac @ Chipotle. RooG declared Chipotle to be "Arizona's best food" and so we ended up eating there three times on the trip. YUMM!!!! I LOVE Chipotle.
14.) BBQ beef (???), beans, applesauce, baked potato, spice cake, and biscuit @ Rockin' R Ranch. Ugh. This was by far the nastiest meal of the whole trip. I mean, just look at it. What the eff. The "beef" didn't taste or feel like any beef I've ever eaten before. D: Me and Adam couldn't finish our beef n beans (I seriously could only get through 3 bites) so RooG ate them, and was rewarded with a stomachache and diarrhea the next morning. The applesauce, biscuit, and spice cake were all delish, though.
15.) Fish taco plate @ Baja Fresh. RooG loved the all-you-can-eat tortilla chips and salsa bar. He seriously ate 3 bags of chips and salsa all by himself.
16.) Frozen yogurt @ Orange Leaf. My bro introduced us to this place. RooG and I both got red velvet flavored frozen yogurt. MMMM.
17.) BLTACC & No Way Jose Burger @ random diner in Sedona. My dad introduced us to this place. I had my doubts cos it looked kinda sketchy, but the food was GOOD. I got the BLTACC (bacon, lettuce, tomato, avocado, double cheese) sandwich with sweet potato fries. RooG got the No Way Jose burger, apparently named because there's "no way, Jose" that you'd be able to finish the whole thing. RooG polished the entire plate off in about 10 minutes. He is an amazing man.
18.) Turkey Swiss Ciabatta sandwich @ Seattle Seahawks-themed restaurant in Seattle-Tacoma airport. Deelish. You just can't get a decent sandwich in Japan, with toasted crunchy bread and melted cheese, etc. So we decided to have one more before we got on the plane to Tokyo.
19.) "Beef yakiniku" @ airplane. It didn't taste like any yakiniku I've ever had, but it tasted good! The salad dressing was nasty, though.
20.) Turkey sandwich @ airplane. Because we arrived in Tokyo at 5 PM we were spared the barf omelette breakfast and instead got this tasty sandwich as lunch (dinner?). Yummy!
Bonus: a Double Double and three cheeseburgers & In N Out. This was our second trip. RooG ate those three cheeseburgers all by himself but said he'd have been better off just sticking with two. Heh.
This picture kinda leaves a bad taste in my mouth. In N Out is super popular and the place was completely packed when we got there. There were NO open tables, inside or out, and lots of people standing around waiting for a table to open up. When this one opened up, I pounced and we sat down and were enjoying our lunch.
I realize that it's a table set aside for the handicapped, but I remember reading in a Dear Prudence column that it was ok to use the handicapped restrooms if there were none other available. I guess I was still in Japan Mode too, where it's ok to use the Priority Seats (as they're called) on the train as long as you get up for someone who actually needs it or says that they do. (A lot of a*****es just ignore this rule and sleep/ pretend to sleep on the Priority Seats while people who need them stand in front of them.) So RooG and I sat down under the assumption that if someone needed the table or even just asked for it, we'd stand up.
But then this lady came up and asked us if we were actually handicapped! She was nice about it but she was just like "if you're not handicapped you shouldn't be sitting in those seats" and I was just like "but there's nowhere else to sit and we'll give these seats up if you like. Do you want to sit here?" and then she kinda apologized for bothering us and walked away. Did I do something wrong?
Incidentally, as soon as we got up our table was pounced upon by two very-able-bodied high school boys.
Our Arizona Trip In Food, Part 1
We just got back from nearly two weeks in beautiful Scottsdale, Arizona. It was fun! We ate a LOT. I haven't checked my weight yet (I'm a little scared to), but my pants still fit so all is well I guess. D: I went to yoga for the first time in two weeks this morning and it hurt so good! Yeah!
1.) Plane dinner. I forget what this was, actually. It was good though.
2.) Barf omelette. Absolutely disgusting. United always serves the same awful breakfast and has done so for years.
3.) Tequila Lime Chicken @ Applebee's. We had this for our first meal in the US. I used to work at Applebee's and I had this for lunch all the time. It's still good, and RooG liked it too.
4.) Continental breakfast @ La Quinta Inn & Suites. It was pretty tasty. RooG was sick of all the food after a while (the lineup never changes), but I enjoyed it to the last. Mmm, bagels.
5.) Double Double combo meals @ In N Out. I'm not all that crazy about In N Out's fries.... but I love me a Double Double. RooG said this is Arizona's second best food. We ate it twice!
6.) Pizza and Greek salad @ Picazzo's. The pizza was awesome but the salad was full of hatey things like olives and those onions that were SUPER spicy.
7.) Nachos & chicken fingers @ Logan's Roadhouse. My folks took us out to dinner here and these were the appetizers. YUMMM.
8.) Gyro w/ fries and hummus @ Greek Gyros. Amazing. It was RooG's first gyro, and he devoured it. He didn't like the hummus though. Fine, more for me!
9.) Random shiz @ Taco Bell. It was pretty good, but my quesadilla was kinda cold. :/
10.) Kids' meal @ Culver's. My folks introduced us to this place. It was YUMMY!!!!!! And it's an awesome deal too. Not pictured is the included ICE CREAM SUNDAE you get for dessert, all for less than 5 bucks! what!
I came home and had 14 nice PostCrossing cards for me, and a few New Year's cards too. :)
Post for the first time in a long time
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