Good Times

Japan is a blast! But before I get to that, I should talk about some of the other random things I did before I got here... The last week in Germany was a blur. Totally insane. In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have expected to have my parents visit for a week, pack out the next two days, and ship a car all during my last week of work, where I was still expected to contribute. I spent my last few days with friends and freaking out about packing everything. Shipping my car was a 3-day ordeal, but I suppose it's worth the stories. I can't wait for the paycheck to come in for that one... I'm looking for a Mini here, but will probably get a midget Nissan instead. I can't wait to post pictures of that one! Cars start around $500 so whatever I get will be much cheaper than my selling price for Scarlett.

No big shock here: I went to see Harry Potter in German as one of the last things I did on the Sunday I left Deutschland. I know more German that I thought, but it helps that I knew what was supposed to be happening.

There was a moderate earthquake on my first day here. It was noticeable enough that computer screens moved, but I'm told that's normal. It's fun (as long as nothing gets destroyed). My coworkers are cool. There might be a lot of work, but at least it won't be as painful as DRM-G. I spent 10 days without internet. There was nothing in my hotel room and I still don't have a login at work. That means I wandered around in 90 degree heat (massive humidity) getting used to my new digs. I got an apartment 2 days after I arrived--another dilemma since I didn't have anything other than clothes. It's sooooo tiny, but I'm sure it'll be fine when my things arrive in 3 months. For now it's me and some borrowed furniture and plates. How exciting. I've already been shopping off-post on a couple of occasions and love the cute stores they have in the mall. Everyone says I'll be able to save money. I take that as a challenge not to! The food is fabulous and I'm already decent at chopsticks. I didn't make a fool of myself, even on my first try at the sushi bar.

The bad part: there's a bar (they call it a club though I'm not sure I'd agree) on post that's a 5 minute walk from my place. I went there on Friday with a new friend/coworker. She's going to get me into a lot of trouble. "Just one more drink" got us both completely trashed. This isn't the kind of club to scope out hotties, so we basically spent several hours making fun of people when we didn't slip away to play penny slots. Good times.

The best part was having to wake up at 7 the next morning to go to a car auction with a friend. She couldn't tell that I had been drinking the night before. Another plus, though it shows that I really hadn't been drinking enough. :) There was a festival on post later that night so I didn't really get any down time. The Bon Odori is huge. They open the post to let all the Japanese come to it. I've learned that anything with fireworks will attract the local population. We ate and walked around for awhile, but watched the fireworks from home. Who wants to sit in the heat for fireworks when they have them all the time?

Random fact of the day: Japan's DUI limit is .03. If a driver is pulled over for a DUI, everyone in the car gets arrested. I guess I should be glad I'm close to a bar... I'll be scared to sniff a beer or let anyone else sniff a beer before getting into a car.

I think that about sums it up for now. I'm not much of a talker...

Insert clever title here

I think it's no surprise that I'd become a huge nerd around the time the final HP comes out. I woke up at 4am this morning with my newest theory. I have no idea how it came to me at that particular time. It must be the pre-move jitters that are getting me crazy. If anything, it got Thomas to call me... even though it was when I was barely coherent.

Anyway... I'll put here that I think Voldy and Neville bite the dust. We can laugh about this next week when we find out that I'm wrong. I know I've said all along that Harry would die, but I don't see that happening given the "2 big deaths" theory. It would be too cliche for Harry and Voldy to die and I don't see the book ending too negatively.

In my final tribute to my current host country, I'm not touching the book until I'm at the airport Sunday afternoon. I owe it to Germany to spend my last few hours doing stupid things like drinking beer and eating schnitzels. This is a big sacrifice since I could have been done with the book in that 40 hour period. Prost!

If anyone spoils the ending for me, you will be taken care of by one of my goons. You're been warned.

More evidence that I'm a mega-nerd

The procrastination this time wasn't nearly as long as expected so quit yer bitchin (that's for Lord Thomas). So... the last week has probably been the longest in my life. My parents came for a visit and we drove to Normandy for 3 days while they were here. While it was one of the best places that I've visited in my 16 months in Germany, it probably wasn't the best idea to follow the 9 hour drive back with a midnight showing of Harry Potter... Having all of my possessions packed up the next day was probably another clue that I should have held off for awhile, but let no one say that I'm not dedicated.

A shoutout goes to Maria for being the coolest person I know (or at the very least the coolest German that I know). She braved a late night trip to Frankfurt to watch HP in English rather than going to the theater in her town. Big cool points for that one... especially since we can't go anywhere without some kind of incident (what happened in Ireland stays in Ireland...) We're waiting for Ian (formerly my GPS) to boot up to make our way back to Hanau when a car of 4 males pulls along side of us. I'm not sure if they thought we were hookers or not, but a fun attempted pick-up moment nonetheless... 30 seconds later as we pull up to a stoplight, it happens again. This time it's a British guy who likes to stick his tongue out. Having the steering wheel on the right side made things more interesting on that one since he was about 2 feet from Maria's face. :) I'm sure this isn't funny to anyone else, but we had a good time with it.

The question remains whether another joint blog will need to occur... I personally don't think there's as much material in this movie, but I'm sure we could make an effort if motivated. We'll see if Lisa and JT (my new alter-ego) can get motivated enough.

Like a phoenix resurrected from the flames of obscurity...

As if I was going to pass up blogging during Harry Potter time! Thanks to Lisa for a clever play on the phoenix concept that I was nerdy enough to bring up... The real blog will occur when it's not 4:30 in the morning and I've had time to properly reflect on everything that has come up today. Long car rides through France, HP at 2am, and Frankfurt hooker stories: all in a day's work. Stay tuned (seriously this time!!)

Germania no longer...

I'll blame my lack of blogging on the fact that blogger.com now pops up in German. I guess that won't matter for much longer since I'm moving to Japan. :) I'll pretend to make a conscious effort to blog more often, though I think we all know that it won't last long. Ger-mania barely hit a few months... but that's how I roll. Any suggestions for a new blog name?

130 days, 19 hours, and 2 minutes

Written by guest blogger Seamus McChuggsalot (AKA my brother), who is much funnier than I am.

Isn't this an interesting photo of the Bear storm bearing down on "Miami"? I use the quotations because, of course, that's Hurricane Katrina, and the city in the crosshairs, of course, is New Orleans. I'm still not sure if I should be completely insulted, or just chalk it up as being the antics from yet another ignorant Bears fan. I won't even comment on the people that are spreading it around faster than you can use the words "Rex Grossman" and "dipshit" in a sentence... (Tara's note: this forward was received from our mother. The will should be rewritten to compensate for this insult.)

It's just that whenever I see anything with Miami - I'm sorry - New Orleans, I am reminded about all the money we aren't spending there to fix anything, so this wasn't a totally random series of thoughts. Let's just say that Ray Nagin's "it's been 5 years up in NYC and they have nothing to complain about - all they have to clean up is a hole in the ground" comment wasn't that far off.

Seriously, if they took the time to superimpose the Bears logo inside there, how much time would it have taken to at least find a storm that a) wasn't the most devastating natural disaster in our nation's history or b) was at least aimed at the right effin state, or c) move the crosshairs off New Orleans???? I'm sorry, but Bears fans are all a bunch of morons...

That is all.