Just finished Fallout 3 unexpectedly. Unexpectedly because I thought I was just playing one of the quests, and all the sudden the ending showed up. Not very happy with the game, but I think I’ll go back and play some more.

In between these financial crisis happening everywhere I didn’t realize our Canadian dollar went down so much in value against the Yen and even USD. Oh well what can you do. And wow I haven’t blogged in ages.

YouTube Instant Ramen Expert!!

Download Validator and run it on your “iTunes Music Library.xml” file in the iTunes folder. It tells you where the parser fails. Mine failed with weird characters in a few tracks. Validator tells you the line number but doesn’t let you look at the file, so you go to that line with an editor and find out which track is causing the problem, and fix it. I just had to edit the tags within iTunes.

After that I deleted the *.itdb files and turned Genius on again so Genius would re-scan from scratch, and then it worked! A happy ending.

If that didn’t work there’s a few other things you can try in the Apple Discussions.

Dreamt about being stuck in an elevator, in a department store in Japan. I eventually got out. So it’s not some horrific nightmare.

The dream felt.. symbolic, so I looked it up.
Stuck Elevators = being stuck on something in life.
Location of the elevator = parts of life that you’re stuck at.

I’m not stuck on any Japan issues, so.. I’m stuck on shopping.
(don’t think I am) :/
Pretty useless information. Was hoping for something more revealing.

Located in the Tsukiji Market. 650yen. Saw this on the travel book, and Shirley also mentioned it. When I arrived there was a mini lineup, but those guys work fast.

Relatively cheap for having 5 pieces of chashu, but getting there costs money because it’s only reachable via the subway.
When I had it I was smiling because it was so simple. The soup tastes like mild konbu, the chashu tastes like pork. I think these guys are famous because it’s delicate, good ramen, for cheap, and not some secret formula. I would go back again.

And it looks sloppy too, so the look contrasts the taste for more impact.

Getting rid of the Tokyo Weather Widget. Gonna be a rainy weekend in Vancouver.

I think my jetlag was gone but I brought it back by staying up late last night eating instant noodle and watching the Olympics.

Yay I made it to the top! It’s cool to see clouds beneath you.

Thanks to Larry for tagging along. He’s already been up there before, so he’s like a pro Mt.Fuji climber now.

We joined a local climbing tour full of Japanese people young and old (mostly young, which was a surprise to me). And it does get cold up there, so clothing was important. I didn’t have to relive the garbage-bag incident that happened 5 years ago with the Gifu gang, so in a way it’s a different type of experience.

Having a walking stick was so important too. If you don’t bring one, you’re either a ninja or you’re crazy.

I brought an iPod with me and put it on the moment we started climbing. It really extract you away from the experience, but I didn’t realize it until the moment I took it off.

One tip I’d offer is, bring a face mask for the downward trip. People in-front of you often knocks up volcanic dust that powders your whole body brown-red.

Also, I brought all my drinks with me on the way up, and it was quite heavy. The drinks they sell up there aren’t that expensive (500yen per 500ml at the top, cheaper along the way), so I might have planned on buying those instead if I had to do it again (but I won’t).

More pictures coming later on my flickr.

Tokyo Sundub 東京純豆腐
@ Ikebukuro Parko

Apparantly I’m the only one that find it spicy.

The actual quitting part is not nice. For me it was sad. I had to tell my Big Boss, who is a really nice guy and I’ve come to respect, that I’ll be leaving. I didn’t really tell anyone else, the words just spread so I didn’t have to. Coworker all the sudden became just people. You start to see them in a different light, and you begin to realize, you probably won’t see these guys again for a while.

The leaving part tho, is pretty good. Cleaning stuff up, Good-bye lunches, and just the feeling of not having to worry about things anymore. Leaving those in good hands. There’s gonna be a new set of stuff to worry about in the new job, but for now, all those things that you have been worrying about (the next release, future bugs that may come back), is not for you to worry about anymore. Taste of Freedom! Tho gonna be short-lived for me.

I’ve imagined this day for a while, and now I’m living it.. kinda weird feeling.

Introduction picture? I took one shot of it right before the camera battery ran out. maybe post it later.

I’ve had this weird pattern of wanting to buy a laptop every Summer. Because every year Apple has this free iPod deal during the summer. The pattern probably started 5(?) years ago with the iBook, when I came back from Japan and had to finish a database course at UBC. The fact that I was a student meant that Back-to-School campaign was aim directly at me, and it always felt wrong not taking advantage of it. And every once in a while in the next few years I’d blog about it, and blog about how I probably blogged about it last year.

I didn’t go for the free iPod deal this time tho.. maybe should’ve, but I’m too lazy to do the cost analysis now.

What else… I think it’s pretty nice. Tho it’s heavier than I realize.