I am a Mac fanboi.

There are many reasons I use a Mac, but one of the reasons I liked it early on was because it was easy to use BOTH Japanese and English. One or the other is easy on a PC, but back in the day, both were kind of hard to do at the same time. I still have some 1.2M floppy disks around that only worked on Japanese laptops, not that the kids nowadays would know what the heck I’m talking about.

In any case, I can still use the Mac to send almost unintelligible Japanese email to my friends and relatives. My friends put a little more effort into decoding what I’m talking about and my relatives don’t. I think the engineers also are more likely to acknowledge the difficulties in speaking another language, since the probably have to speak English from time-to-time. In any case, I just spent a bunch of time sending an email to a guy I used to hang out with at work, who I haven’t seen for about nineteen years. I’m hoping I see him in Tokyo this year. I expect that he will be a plant manager or something and I’m the same guy I always was – a guy who has been told to actively stay away from my friends’ female acquaintances and relatives.

I was feeling quite miserable this afternoon, and by miserable I mean lightheaded and nauseous (like I said, I looked it up and I can say nauseous or nauseated). I’m not sure if it’s the same thing my mom had last week, or if it’s a side effect of my ‘flu shot, or if – like I told a co-worker – my lunch burrito was trying to kill me. In any case, I sat around being lazy instead of going to the gym, and I avoided three rounds of rowing and running around the building. I think I win! (And maybe I’ll feel better by tomorrow.)

Another marathon come and gone.

I think I’ve been volunteering for the marathon for ten years now. Maybe more. I’m not too sure. That’s a lot of days of standing around for five hours, watching runners go by. I’m mostly there in case someone needs a ride back to the start and Mile 11 (this year and last year) or Mile 12 (previous years) is too early for too many people to drop out. This year we only had one guy who had knee problems but decided to try running anyway. I told him that the reason he should stop is because he wants to be able to do this in the future if he wants to, not damage his knee to the point where he won’t be able to do it again.

The weather this year was the worst I’ve seen in 10 years, and some other volunteers were telling me it was the worst they’ve seen in 20. It was cold with often pouring rain. The police seemed to close the course early and I heard there was a lost group of walkers.

I’ve also decided that Burgerville isn’t that great because their meat is too good. Hamburgers need a certain level of grease that they don’t provide. It was a disappointment to go to Burgerville instead of Five Guys, but at least I made it there on the following day, after Sean’s Jiu Jitsu tournament.

Another marathon come and gone.

I think I’ve been volunteering for the marathon for ten years now. Maybe more. I’m not too sure. That’s a lot of days of standing around for five hours, watching runners go by. I’m mostly there in case someone needs a ride back to the start and Mile 11 (this year and last year) or Mile 12 (previous years) is too early for too many people to drop out. This year we only had one guy who had knee problems but decided to try running anyway. I told him that the reason he should stop is because he wants to be able to do this in the future if he wants to, not damage his knee to the point where he won’t be able to do it again.

The weather this year was the worst I’ve seen in 10 years, and some other volunteers were telling me it was the worst they’ve seen in 20. It was cold with often pouring rain. The police seemed to close the course early and I heard there was a lost group of walkers.

I’ve also decided that Burgerville isn’t that great because their meat is too good. Hamburgers need a certain level of grease that they don’t provide. It was a disappointment to go to Burgerville instead of Five Guys, but at least I made it there on the following day, after Sean’s Jiu Jitsu tournament.

Happy Wedding Day Kathryn and Jeffrey!

I was invited to a wedding today, thought I went to a jiu jitsu tournament in the morning. I find it interesting to watch the sport, even though I think participating would be quite foolish. Why would someone of my age want to participate in something like that? And what would it prove?

The wedding was quite clever and fun, but what would you expect from two theatre people? It drew a lot of attention to the bride and groom, but who else should have the attention on them? I’ve been telling the story about the last time I saw the groom: someone asked him if the wedding was coming up and he was just tipping a bottle of beer up to get a drink. I think he started to reply at the same time he was swallowing because he did a perfect spit take and started coughing. Not the response you would expect. The bride was shooting daggers at him, but everyone else was laughing. Today he looked like the happiest guy in town, and (in my question answering mood) who else should be?

One of the clever things was a manual typewriter to be used as the guest book. It’s the only picture I have of the day (mainly because I’m not the one who should have pictures taken of, or be taking pictures).

Wow, Clear sucks ass.

Last night I actually thought about going to sleep at a time that would give me eight hours of sleep. But that means I get back from the gym, eat dinner, take a shower, and then have an hour or less before I have to be in bed. I have a lot of crap I have to fit into that time. And last night was the second or third night that my internet connection has been absolute shit and I was online with tech support for several hours.

I got WiMax service earlier this year and it’s been working fine for six months. Now, it’s absolutely shit. I get about 20kB/s download, which means I can’t even stream videos from YouTube. I bought the equipment so I can cancel at any time, but I think that means it cost me about $65/month for my internet service for the last six months. I suppose I can deal with that.

This is the second night I’ve been online with tech support chat, and this must be the third night that my service has been shitty. At least the tech support guy confirmed that there are limits and I’m now paying for absolutely nothing. I might as well just rely on my DSL connection.

So in summary, DO NOT GET CLEAR WiMAX SERVICE. DO NOT GET CLEAR INTERNET. JUST WATCHING TV WILL PUT YOU OVER THEIR FUCKING LIMIT, AND THEN YOU DON’T GET SHIT FOR DOWNLOAD SPEED. YOU MIGHT AS WELL DIAL IN TO AOL. Simple, huh?

What the f*ck is up with lawyers?

I wanted to go to law school for a couple of reasons. One is that I have a degree in English (one of four degrees I have) and there’s only a couple of options for that: teacher, waiter, or law school. The other is that there’s a game being played and I won’t know the rules unless I go to law school. I’m trying to fill out a simple form that appears required after death and everyone dies. Shouldn’t this be easier? I mean, really, affiant? Devisee? Testate? Affidavit? What language are they using anyway?

My dad has some money owed to him by the State of Oregon and I have to file all sorts of paperwork to get it. And pay all sorts of fees. I called the lawyer we used to write up his will and he thought I was nuts to go to this effort for as little as I’m going to get. I think that means I get to file the paperwork and beg forgiveness if it’s wrong.

The weird thing is I used to like filling out forms as a kid. I quickly lost patience though, so my career as a bureaucrat wasn’t to be. I guess I’m filling out forms again. The weird thing is that I have to chase around to find legal forms and then I probably have to break out an old typewriter to fill them out. Old school. Weird, huh?

A weekend of gluttony.

As long as I’m gaining weight, I figured I might as well just go for it. Actually, this is the reason I need to hang out with people who eat like birds rather than the ones I hang out with now.

My Friday escapades led me to find out several things: the burgers at Five Guys, while variable, are mostly tasty. The week before they forgot to salt the meat, I think, and they were quite bland. Krispy Creme which has only passable doughnuts, now has passable soft-serve ice cream. I would suggest avoiding the dipped cones because they just taste waxy. Just to complete my gluttony for the day, I had spaghetti for dinner.

Saturday wasn’t much better. Most of a Cuban Mixto sandwich from Kenny and Zuke’s Sandwichworks, and then dinner at the Greek Festival. That means a gyro, souvlaki, those doughnutty things that I can’t remember, a beer, some retsina, and some very sweet coffee.

Really, you know what this all got me? Nightmares. They weren’t completely uninteresting and I could probably recreate them with some coffee and a couple of beers. It also didn’t stop me from going to the Country Cat with my family and Megan and Anne and having a tasty chicken fried steak and some not-so-tasty coffee.

My mom now has a cold of some sort and standing up makes her nauseous. (Yeah, I looked it up in the dictionary and you can use nauseated or nauseous when you feel sick to your stomach in case you’re some sort of misguided grammar Nazi who doesn’t really know what you’re talking about). She was fine going to bed early until she got one of her chronic cramps in her leg, which made her need to stand up and that made her sick to her stomach again. I suppose leg cramps are something I have to look forward to because it’s probably an inherited trait. Hooray for that.