My brain is melting

"My brain is melting" just about sums up how I'm feeling at the moment. Which is hilarious, because I haven't even started work yet. It's been the interweb, chatting with friends, and the catching up of the friends list. Might be the heat and the dehydration too, it's been high 90's around here, I fucking swear to god.

First, I hope that all my Kantou peeps are doing well. Heard there was an earthquake, just wanted to make sure everybody's okay. I'm pretty sure everybody's okay, but just figured a little hug from thus-quake-free (I think I just jinxed myself...shit.) Kansai wouldn't hurt. X3

Anyways, a couple of you guys have probably noticed my absence these past couple of days, and that's because I've been running around Japan with friends since Tuesday.

So Carly/PrismGecko came to visit me on Tuesday, and we spent most of that day hanging around the Osaka area, looking up the fun karaoke places, playing the Sangokushi Taisen (okay, that was mostly me), and she dumped a large sum of money down a UFO catcher machine trying to get a lightsaber, and failing pretty hard. I think that's the only thing she's never gotten that she wanted. X3

Tuesday night and Wednesday were spent with Mel at Amanohashidate, one of the Nihon Sankei/Three Sights in Japan. It was beautiful, and definitely worth the money and the time, even the awesome free hotel. (Thanks to Mel and her jankenpon-fu [rock paper scissors] which won us the free stay.) We lounged at a sento (public bath) for a bit on Tuesday night, and spent all morning and early afternoon at the beach on Wednesday. That sand bar has a really really sweet beach there, and I managed to get myself a rather nice-looking tan. Yay! I'm not pasty white!

I don't quite remember exactly what happened on Thursday, but I think Thursday was spent around the Osaka area (since poor Carly was tired of traveling) buying shit, playing Sangokushi, watching Star Wars (I can't believe I've seen RotS three times now), and other general things that can be done in Osaka during the day. We stumbled upon a rather nice restaurant called "Cafe Christon," which had this interesting posh european feel (very difficult to find) with very cheap non-posh european prices. Excellent. They have some Belgian Framboise there too, so I just go back and imbibe. X3

Friday was spent at home because I had a presentation to give, and Carly had FFXI to update and play and Japanese homework to do. Take a wild guess which one sucked up the majority of her time. X3 We spent the night at Friendly's, basically the Japanese equivalent of a Denny's, talking and eating imitation Western food. :D 'twas great fun.

Saturday was spent in Kyoto, going to Kiyomizu-dera, Ginkakuji (which was way overcrowded and full of construction) and Kinkakuji (which was amazingly quiet because we got there 10 mins. before closing), and furthering the nice tan I'd got a couple of days ago. After we finished temple-hopping we went to downtown Kyoto and chilled for a bit in the Namco Wonder Tower (or something like that) to try our luck at UFO catchers and play some Sangokushi Taisen. You can tell which video game I'm addicted too. =_=;;

Carly was amazing and won a huge stuffed PacMan and a Darth Vader bath towel, thus producing the strange comment from yesterday's post, wherein I was trying to convince her to spend money and get the towel by enticing her with the prospect that Vader would be fun to wipe all over her naked, wet body. She definitely bought the argument, and now she has a Vader towel. Don't you wish you had a Vader towel? X3 (I actually I had a Maul towel...but I sprung for the mug instead as my Christmas present. Well, there's always next Christmas... X3)

We had fun adventures finding our way to A Bar, since we didn't know that one of the side doors of the Namco place was just a block away, we took the long way round. The REALLY long way round, but finally made it thanks to my guidebook and my memory of Destra's awesome A Bar map. Had some Yebisu there because it seemed to be required of us (in order not to be losers and not to get kicked out, or so the sign said), and had a Gin and Tonic for the first time. I must say, I don't particularly like gin by itself, but it is amazing with tonic water. I have no idea what the property of tonic water is that suddenly makes gin taste good, but I am keeping that in mind the next time I get some gin. Hot damn. Found a purikura (photosticker) of Dave Murray and his then-girlfriend while I was there, and left a purikura of my own. ^_^ If any of you trek to A Bar soon, be sure to look for me and Carly in the corner just to the right of the door. ^_^

I think when it got to this morning me and Carly were beginning to rub each other the wrong way, as oft happens when you spent several consecutive days with another person. I was kind of relieved to see her off, mostly because I was seriously looking forward to some quality alone-time. ^_^ No offense to Carly, who is an absolutely wonderful person, a great person to have religious and political talks with, and a well-spring of information and obsession about FFXI, Star Wars, and Shadow Hearts. X3 I hope we can hang out more at a geeky con, where I feel more at home with my little nerdy heart of hearts. X3 *fwee*

Anyways, in order to stop whining about how I was just ONE RANK away from participating in the huge Sangokushi tournament thingy this weekend, I'm going to start working while I wait for Battlestar Galactica to finish downloading. I'm nightshifting myself again, goddammit. =_=;; Blar. I've finally got around to buying myself the Xiahou Dun rare card I've been eyeing at Mandarake (I didn't know how to say his name in Japanese, so I just pointed the guy to "that card over there" and he got it for me. I got some pretty weird looks for that, let me tell you. It's MY HISTORY, dude. :/ Don't give me weird looks cause I don't know how to say it in YOUR language. *grumble*), and I've got a semi-new deck constructed. I'm dying to test it out. O_o;; I'm also dying to see my father's reaction when he sees my cards, explains everything significant about the characters to the last detail, and is horrified by the fact that Cao Cao and Xiahou Dun look like they jumped right out of an Ancient Chinese world crossed over with Bleach and One Piece. (This is probably one reason why I am liking Wei over the completely arrow-laden Wu and the spear-heavy Shu.)

...crap, didn't I say I was going to start work a while ago? Yes, I did say that. Will stop obsessing over Sangokushi now. T_T Right the fuck now. ... ... NOT WANTING THE WU RARES, NO AT ALL. (AUGH.) I am also really sorely tempted to go Mandarake and buy up the Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Liu Bei, and Zhuge Liang rares and super rares. T_____T If I had a million dollars... >_>

As a side comment, it's really funny to see how Sangoku Musou/Dynasty Warriors influenced the designs for the characters are. O_o;; Granted, everybody basically pictures people like Guan Yu and Zhang Fei the same way, but when Da Qiao and Xiao Qiao are still carrying fans, and Zhuge Liang is still wearing the same green hat and carrying the same white fan, you really start realizing is familiarity is rather nice. (I'm going to ignore the other Sangoku games I haven't played yet, but really should. *cough*)

Okay, working now, really.