2008/04/19

Garfield Minus Garfield

This comic is great.  Here's the description and a recent sample:
Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness in a quiet American suburb.


2008/04/15

Life

Things I want to do on a regular basis to have a happy and healthy life:

Racquetball, Soccer, and/or Ultimate Frisbee
Trumpet and/or Piano
Reading
Writing (fiction and/or non-fiction)
Programing
Cooking
Listening to new music

At this point I only read regularly.  I'm reading Guns, Germs, and Steel at the moment.  I'm hoping if I move into a better apt I can start cooking.  As for writing and programing, I face only a mental block that is caused by a combination of fatigue and a kind of loneliness I get from living alone.  It's not just that I am living alone in my apartment, but I'm about an hour away from my closest friends and my job.  Hopefully once I move next month everything will start to get better.

Playing and listening to music are really hard to keep up for me.  I feel the urge to play only at awkward times when it isn't possible, and I have no piano at home.  I can't afford to buy new music and I'm too lazy to download any.  I've always wanted a huge jazz collection to go through, but I always put off buying any.

I was playing racquetball and soccer semi regularly a few months ago, but both were about an hour away.  Again, hopefully when I move I can find something closer.  I am looking into sharing a 4 bedroom house with other people.  I am checking it out Wednesday and if it looks ok I'll move in late next month.

My new schools are pretty nice, but I really miss my old schools.  It will get better with time, I think.  It's hard to imagine a better school than the main one I used to teach at.  I remember thinking that if I had children of my own I'd want them there.  I've had schools I liked, but this was different.  One day they had a happyokai (ha-ppyo-kai) where teachers came from all around to watch the entire school in action.  The meeting afterwards was full of nothing but praise and commendation.  Teachers in the same area confessed that they wished their own schools were this good.. and they only saw it for an hour.  I have so many stories and no one to tell.  I think this is why when I find myself talking to other teachers I talk way too much and I probably sound like I'm bragging.  I just can't help it.  It's like when people talk about their kids to other people who have never met them, except I have thousands of kids.

2008/04/04

KBFTW

Sushi Bar Assistant: [Japanese] What'd ya want?
The Bride: [English] I beg your pardon?
Hattori Hanzo: [English] Oh..."drink" [makes drinking motion with hand]
The Bride: [English] Oh, yes, a bottle of warm sake please.
Hattori Hanzo: [English] Warm sake? VERY GOOD.
Hattori Hanzo: [Japanese] One warm sake.
Sushi Bar Assistant: [Japanese] Sake? In the middle of the day?
Hattori Hanzo: [Japanese] Day, night, afternoon, who gives a damn? Get the sake.
Sushi Bar Assistant: [Japanese] How come I always have to get the
sake? You listen well... for thirty years, you make the fish, I get
the sake. If this were the military, I'd be General by now.
Hattori Hanzo: [Japanese] Oh, so you'd be General, huh? If you were
General, I'd be Emperor, and you'd STILL get the sake. So shut up and
get the sake.