Jay’s Realm

Seriously, how hard is it to find a clipboard in this city? I hit up all of Southgate mall and couldn’t find one at all. Then took a wander to London Drugs and again…. nothing! I’m thinking I’ll have to head to Staples.

So I decided to learn Japanese a while back and have since set about trying to learn how best to learn that. After careful consideration I’ve decided that the best approach fits who I am and how I learn. So multi tiered and coming from multiple angles. I need to learn the alphabets (there’s 4), learn the structure, and build my vocabulary.

The book I got ‘Japanese, Step by Step’, by Gene Nishi, so far fits me wonderfully. It is written by an IBM engineer to teach other engineers Japanese quickly and easily. It lays out patterns and building blocks for sentences. This has given me enough of a framework for the language structure that I am recognizing things when I hear spoken Japanese. I will have to work through it a few more times to fully nail these down.

It also has lists of basic vocabulary to learn. So far, I haven’t given this much consideration except as tools to learn the alphabets. Once I can read, this should pick up fairly quickly on its own. I hope. I built my vocabulary in English to where it is by reading a lot. The bad part is I need to know the alphabets first.

For the alphabets, I’ve got one down pat so far. Romanji is Japanese written using our characters, so not overly impressive to have that I have nearly a third of the Hiragana script down pat and working through it nicely, along with understanding its quirks and nuances. Hiragana is the script used to write native Japanese words and is more curvy and flowing than Katakana. Katakana is the other script but is used for writing out foreign and imported words. Each of these has slightly over 40 characters in them, each representing a syllable sound.

The final alphabet of sorts is Kanji, the little pictographs. Apparently there’s only two thousand I need to know to be considered literate. Each one has a meaning and a pronunciation (or two) to be memorized, as well as the stroke order for writing. I’ve poked at this, but it seems a very daunting task so far. One I’ll need to tackle head on fairly soon. My hope is that once I can read hiragana and katakana I can start picking up Japanese kids books and learn the kanji as I learn the vocabulary.

A year ago that I thought to myself ‘My god you’ve gotten fat.’ Since then I’ve dropped 50lbs and am now back down to a much more comfortable weight though I could still use a little work. Keeping with that, I have two new goals for the next year.

1) Be able to run 10 km on demand, and run at least 10km every week.
2) Learn Japanese.

After everyone left my body decided it was time to deal. And deal it did. Violently. Painfully. Repeatedly. Morning came too quickly and found me curled into a ball shaking like a kitten. Water tasted like ash and my body yearned to reject even that most benign of substances. Every creak and groan of the building thundered through my body, rattling my desiccated brain.

With great care and sheer fortitude of will I managed to drag my undead corpse to the shower. A vain attempt to wash away the rank musk of suffering and despair. It failed, but only mostly. I crawled back into bed to nurse my water for a few more hours.

Solid food came around noon. Not much. Mostly grease. I still fear the thought of meat or *shudder* vegetables. Water is coming in quicker now. The pain is easing. The vertigo fading. The thunder no longer slashes through my body like a pick up truck in a glass factory.

From this torment I found a silver lining. I lost six pounds over the last twenty four hours. Go me?

I went and joined a gym last week and yesterday I had a ‘fitness evaluation’. Turns out I’m over fat and under strong. Big shock there. But I’m not as fat as I thought I was, which is a plus.

Stats:
Body fat: 25%(ish)
Lean mass: 170lbs(ish)
Fat: 50lbs(ish)

I’m destined to always be overweight according to the height/weight ratio thing. For me not to be ‘overweight’, I’d need to be under 180lbs. I don’t think that’ll be happening. Le sigh. Now I’ll always have to have ‘a few extra pounds’ on my dating profile.

Anyways, I was asked about goals and apparently ‘lifting heavy shit’ isn’t a good goal. Neither is ‘lifting heavier shit than I did before’. So I had to write down that I’d lose 3lbs of body fat in the next month, and 15lbs in the next six. Seems easy and more than reasonable. I don’t know how well it’ll work if I intend to also pile on some muscle.

Reminds me…. I should set up my exercise bike and get started back on that every morning. I took a break for Matts bachelor party in the woods, and since then I’ve been in pain from the gym. I’m feeling better so time to get back into it.

I’ve decided I have way too much stuff, and too much of my stuff is junk. Following that decision I’ve decided to throw out / give away / ebay at least half of everything I own. On that list is all my VHS movies, all my stuff for my Nintendo and Super Nintendo, my bed, a tonne of books, and the contents of my tool box. If you(Scott)’re interested in any of the above, let me know before I junk it.

Today I’m sorting through all my random boxes of crap that I’ve moved at least twice without opening. I’m finding all sorts of neat things: my badge from Telus, pay stubs from Lister, my magic balls, a Hercules graphics card… I even have cuff links! Hopefully I can get the first phase done before Erik and Kate get home… the living room is a disaster.

.. because she wants something to read in the morning. Anyways, I poofed my profile on plenty of fish and changed the ‘first date’ section. Here is my ideal first date:

Step 1) Start off with a quick and easy meeting at a well populated coffee shop. This is to make sure I don’t get the “This girl will taser me in a dark alley and take my kidney” kind of vibe. I know I’m not a player and that I am a kind hearted romantic fool who is the man of your dreams. This step is just for my safety. Can never be too careful. Lots of crazy people.

Step 2) Head off to Chapters and sit in the kids section and read Dr. Seuss books to each other. I’m not a normal guy. It’s important to notice this right away. I’m looking for someone whose heart is filled with child like wonder and excitement. Being able to read at a grade one level is also a plus, but not a requirement.

Step 3) By this point it should be clear if there’s any connection, chemistry, or taser burns. A good time to plan for the next outing and part ways. If you’ve fallen hopelessly for me we can go for a walk along the river valley and watch the sun set talking the whole night through. But no kissing. I’m just not that easy.

I’ve signed up to take Introduction To Marketing. Which I’m sure will steal away part of my soul, but ever since my management class that thought bothers me less and less.

I had to search high and low to find an older free version of memtest for os x. Apparently the guy who maintains it decided to start charging for it. That’s fine and all, but when you really need memtest and it is free for every single other platform this just feels morally wrong and a kick in the nuts. The buck forty he charges is another kick in the nuts as well.

After much searching I found a graphical front end that is downloadable and free called Remember that has the memtest binary inside the package. I ripped out the os x memtest because I like command line tools better than the GUI. He made a nice gui and all, but it’s not my style.

I decided I was going to try cooking with peanut sauce. Which apparently according to everything on the internet is made with peanut butter. Odd. Whatever. My first experiment isn’t going up here because I was starving and ate it as soon as it was done. I followed(ish) some instructions I found online that was a little bit of water, a big glop of peanut butter, and some side spices like garlic and lemon. I cooked up some chicken and snow peas in it and had it over pasta and it was ok. The chicken really took up the taste but the peas might as well have been microwaved separately because they stood so very alone. Overall it was far too… peanuty.

This time I decided I’d try something a bit different. So again, chicken in peanut sauce over pasta. This time I added much less peanut butter, more water, and some cream to calm the torrent of peanuty goodness.

Ingredients:
Chicken – Two boneless thighs (I’m unemployed and cheap)
Mushrooms – Handful
Creamy Peanut Butter – Spoonful (normal spoon)
Whipping Cream – 100ml
Garlic – Clove
Nutmeg – Pinch
Oregano – Pinch

Pre Sauce:
1) lightly oil pan
2) Strip chicken and fry on medium heat
3) Dice garlic and toss in with spices
4) Slice up mushrooms and toss in as well
5) Cook until meat is void of all possibility of salmonella

Sauce:
1) In same pan pour in a half cup each of water and cream
2) Add glop of peanut butter and stir well
3) Crank heat up until just the right thickness

I’m a big believer that food is made better only in small part by its flavor. The other senses must be engaged and delighted for a meal to truly transcend food and become an orgasmic explosion of delight. When all was said and done this dish was nummy. It was very soft in flavor, never anything overwhelming, yet rich enough make me feel like I was eating something. It was good, but it was so… monotone. I had tan noodles underneath tan sauce filled with tan-grey mushrooms, tan chicken, and flecks of tan-brown. Visually it was watching paint dry. No color. No life. It was boring.

Next time I’ll have to try it with something colorful like diced peppers or blue food coloring. I also have pictures, but it’s 3am so I’ll put them up later.