welcome back... now get back to work.

People say that one of the great comforts of life is a familar routine, and nothing characterizes working full-time here in Japan as routine. The word has a lot of negative connotations in modern English, but for me, it's not so bad. Like I said before, I can appreciate the simple benefit of knowing what to expect.

Besides, it makes the little surprises all the more fun.

Yeah.

.:.

On the otherhand, all surprises aren't good. A sample of unpleasant surprises that I've experienced past week:

-getting an e-mail from my co-worker / friend Michelle that she has to return home to the UK because of a life-threatening sickness. Sad. =(

-having the laptop die and refuse to boot up. I almost had a panic attack knowing all my Japan photos and writing is on the thing; luckily, it was only some sort of OS failure and I just re-installed WindowsXP. Lost some programs, but my data is still there. phew.

-having the laptop die on the flight home from America to Japan.

-having three noisy, obnoxious, LOUD little kids behind me for the entire 11 hour flight from America to Japan.

-finding out that I left my tax forms back home in Seattle and that they weren't in my bag like I thought

bleh.

.:.

On a happy note... yeah, Seattle.

My last night, there was a small gathering of my friends at the Greenwood house for eating and playing games. We played this movie game (my team won) and we played some Texas Hold'em with the big-baller buy-in of $1 (I won that too). A lucky night... maybe I should have bought a lotto ticket too.

Or maybe my friends just let me win? Ah, if only I could be a winner at the game of life as easily.

Anyways, Texas Hold'em was really fun. Steph some of pictures, which can all be viewed here.

My favorite picture... and I quote Steph: "Garrett - hoarding his winnings...the greedy miser. just kidding."

I'm not the greatest poker player, especially when it comes to things like calculating odds (I leave that to my friend Forrest)... my strength as a card player comes from being able to read and guess what my friends are doing. As any great poker player will tell you, bluffing is a HUGE part of poker... and knowing when other people are bluffing will definitely save you some money.

I've since spent my $10 winnings (about $1000 yen) on some nigiri-zushi for lunch here in Japan.

Easy come, easy go.

.:.

Japanzine recently did a feature on weblogs of foreigners who are here in Japan. Some of them are pretty funny.

Probably the best is one written by a guy named Galvin Chow. Really funny writing, and some in-your-face insights about life here in Japan... plus a lot of profanity and racy humor. Hilarious stuff, but not for the faint of heart.

Kind of Crap

Did I mention a lot of profanity? Yeah, some people might think it's low-brow, but I think it adds a lot to the personality of his site. Props to him.

On a freaky note, he has an older brother named 'Garrick'. Garrick... Garrett. I suspect his parents must be Chinese American, because only Chinese American parents have such a talent for wacky names.

On another side note, I had an uncle named 'Galvin' on my father's side.
posted by G at 6:58 AM   |

in?scrip?tion (n-skrip-shun)n.
1. The act or an instance of inscribing.
2. Something, such as the wording on a coin, medal, monument, or seal, that is inscribed.
3. A short, signed message in a book or on a photograph given as a gift.
4. The usually informal dedication of an artistic work.
5. Jeremiah 31:33