Today was Saturday

1st picture is me at the ping-pong club, the same club to which I have not gone in about 5 weeks now. I miss it, but Saturday night is not the best night for such things, you know?
The next is a pic of us out east of town on a bike jaunt to look at some empty houses and an old no-longer-used tomb. Yes, we have weird ways of spending our time. Get off it.
In other news, I have deleted the Rose Bowl from my hard drive (what a great game!) and have completed the download of the Holiday Bowl and am 18% away from the Sugar Bowl as well. The Holiday Bowl only took 35 hours - that's not bad! A big shout out to the peer computer from whom I dnlded the game. Thanks for the file, but couldja upload just a TAD faster than 8 KB/sec next time?

Now then, today was Saturday. Today was so full! Whoof!

We were supposed to go over to my friend Izumi-san's house today and talk around 10 am. I haven't seen him in a while and he's quite nice to me...he doesn't have any kids and I think enjoys having me around. And so Aub and I went over there to find... no Izumi-san. Left a note in Japanese in his mailbox that he may or may not get and went over to Ariana's house, the other American on the island. Hung out at her place for a while in the usual way - Aubrey and Ariana and Alan talking for a while before the 3 kids invite Alan to some back room to play, 1st w/ toys and then by pummeling Alan w/ fists and other blunt objects, and then demanding that he hoist them into the air about a zillion times, before Alan gets tired and goes back into the kitchen to continue drinking his tea/coffee and talking a bit more and the kids come in and make noise, occasionally hit Alan some more, whine and laugh. It's crazy, man.
At lunchtime we went over to a restaurant to meet w/ a friend of mine named Tama who works at the post office. We ate lunch (I love this restaurant's lunch - the place is called Jube and their food is my favorite) and talked, and afterwards Tama pulled some funky little games out of his bag. We drew slips of paper out of a box and Aubrey won some gum and chocolate, and I won nothing. It's a bit eccentric to carry around games like that in your bag, but oh well. That's what he does, and he's really nice and funny, so you just let it pass.
Leaving the restaurant, we happened upon our friend Midori who was driving up w/ her boyfriend, who is newly returned from living in China for 15 months. (!) He's glad to be back... we drove around and eventually found a place to fish and we just talked. He thought he saw an octopus (I tawt I taw an octoputh!) but it turned out to be like a stick or something. So we didn't catch anything, but had a good time.
We were then supposed to go to a big badminton tournament and watch teachers play, a teacher-only tourney. We invited Midori and Satoshi (boyfriend) inside, but here's a weird thing about Japanese (or at least Kikai) schools. If the teacher has a romantic relationship that's not marriage, they are supposed to keep it VERY secret. One friend of ours has a boyfriend (who treats her like garbage, but that's beside the point) and only Aubrey knows about it - none of her co-workers! Same w/ Midori here. Why? They say that if the students find out, they'll talk. OOOOOOOoooooohhhhhhh. Interestingly, the teachers brag about getting sloshed on the weekends in front of their kids, but they are prohibited from even allowing their face to be seen around w/ their romantic interest. Zounds! That's just messed up.

Anyway, the tourney was fun and I saw alot of friends, but we had to leave before the final match to prepare for Midori and Satoshi to come over for dinner. We ate leftover homemade soup and a massive salad, and generally made merry. They brought beer, unrequested by us, and had a couple each. To be honest, I had no idea what to do... I had asked them pointedly to bring "juice," which means Gatorade or tea or actual juice, but I guess that was clear to only Aubrey and me. Next time I'll keep w/ my usual routine of specifying no alcohol.
You may be wondering why. The main motivation is that there is this idea in Japan that you can't have fun or get to know someone until you're drunk or drunk w/ them, and we are of course highly interested in overturning that stupid idea. Case in point - we showed our friends a couple of videos that we had made w/ Kaki and Erica, just when we were feeling random. They were like, "Is Alan drunk?" Why? B/c I was being loose and funny, natural. They don't think you can get there w/o chemical assistance. Keep that in mind when praying - 'tis a real stronghold over the people here. Though nothing like another large Asian country, I hear (hat tip to Troy).

So now I'm tired and thinking of changing my email sig line to some quotes from Job. Think I will - that guy was just a stud. Peace out.