I Have the Bladder of a 12 Year Old Girl...

I swear man...I guess I am getting older. I've only had 3 cups of coffee so far today, but have been back & forth to water the porcelain like 5 times in the past 3 hours.

Anyhoo, oh yeah...(Insert mandatory "Blah, blah, sorry I haven't updated the ol' blog in like half a year" apology here). How ya been in the meantime?

Just to get up to speed, here's what's gone on since what...last year?

• FamilyMart pulled a certain mook and the whole thing finally died down, although I've continued to get hits about it ever since.
• Gotta new English teacher at the town Jr. High who's turned out to be my nemesis. Had a bit of a tuff-up in the staffroom and although we've been able to be somewhat courteous to each other ever since, I still dread the 2 days a month that I have to teach with that horrible woman. Thankfully she's on the Superintendent of the BOE's shitlist as well, and hopefully she'll be long gone come April (please, oh Jesus, let this be so).
• Even though the BOE pretty much begged me to stay, I made the painful decision to end my contract come August of this year and my successor's already been decided (really a pretty cool guy who I have big expectations about). Yup, after 8 long years, my big adventure here in Happy Land is about to come to an end and I'll soon be heading back to the land o' the not-so-free-anymore w/ M. Really hoping that somebody'll be dumb enough to hire me...
• Ate way too much over New Years & gained like 5 kg. I suspect my Japanese mother-in-law is secretly Jewish and/or Italian. "What? You can't be full! You must eeeeeeaaaat!"
• After espousing it as "MySpace for Rich Kids" and swearing up & down that I'd never have anything to do with it, I finally caved & joined FaceBook once I realized its not that different from Mixi. It's amazing to see how many people I know are on it and now I too can be a sheep. Baaah. ;)
• Winter wonderland, my ass. I think the high temp here in Rice & Watermelon Town has been above freezing maybe twice since December. Average highs around -5C & average lows between -20C to -15C. My clunker Pajero regularly refuses to start in the morning, our front door freezes on the inside on a normal basis and the big kerosene heater in our living room has been running non-stop since about November, yet strangely, I've kinda gotten used to the cold. A friend from Hot-lanta asked me a few days ago how the hell I live in a climate like this, but from my perspective, I can't see how he stands it there in the summer. Hell, M & I thought 4C was hot when we went down to Sapporo over New Years...
  
• Last but not least, bun has been firmly inserted in oven! That's right folks...we're preggers and actually expecting a little hellspawn the likes of which the world has never seen before any day now! M & I're actually gonna be a Mommy & Daddy to an amazing little girl who, for the moment we've nicknamed our "Little Bean". Can ya believe it? I know I'm sure having a hard time getting my head around it.

Ok...guess that's it for now, so hopefully this'll satisfy the wants of a certain few who've bitched at me to update for sometime. I'm off to translate more Japanese hotel websites that feature words like "feature", "relaxation" and "tranquil", so for now, ta, muchly ;)

はい・・・まだ生きている ・ Yup, Still Alive

English below...

ウイ～っす！しばらくだね？

「あらっ・・・北海道Hillbilly君はもう死んでいるかな？」と思っちゃう人もいるかもしれないけど違えます！ビンビンしているよ！＾＿＾

前回の日記から2が月間が経ったけど（早っ！）、「何でそんなに長い時間にブログで何も書かなかったのかい？」と言う聞いている方の為に、以下の言い訳を発表させて頂きます：

1）新学年が始まって、急に忙しくなってきた。
2）春休みの間に、パソコンのハードディスクが死んじゃった。
3）2番の結果で、デル・ジャパンは新しいハードディスクを送ってくれた。(Dell Japan ROKS!)
4）3番の結果で、WinXPの再インストールはものすごく面倒くさい出来事になって、「マイクロソフトはもううんざり！」と叫んで、Ubuntuと言うLinuxの種類もインストールをしちゃった。
5）Ubuntuのインストールで色々な問題があって、結局7回の再インストールは必要だった。（だけど正直にUbuntuのせいじゃなくて、自分はLinuxについて何も分からなかったから。その時に比べて大分なれたから今Ubuntu大好きだし、絶対薦められる）
6）実は何回も草稿の日記を書いたけど後で「あぁ・・・これはやっぱ載せられないべ」と思って、消しちゃった。
7）宇宙人による誘拐された・・・かもしれない・・・かな？；）
8）僕はただ怠け者。

好きな言い訳を自由に選んでください。しかし、正直に・・・95％は8番のせいだ。

とにかく、戻ってきた。これから続けられるかどうかさっぱり分っかんないけど・・・とりあえず、一か八かやってみる。


Wazzup? Been a while, eh?

To those of you who may be thinking, "Hmmm...I wonder if he's dead?", the answer would be a defo negateevo. Yeah, still alive & kickin'.

I know it's been like 2 months since I last made a post (wow...that was fast), so for anybody who's wondering, "Why the hell's it been so long since you wrote anything?!", I offer for your reading pleasure the following excuses:

1) The new school year started in April and I actually had to do some work.
2) My hard drive died over Spring Break
3) As a result of #2, Dell Japan sent me a new hard drive (Dell Japan ROKS!)
4) As a result of #3, reinstalling WinXP turned out to be a complete & total pain in the ass, I screamed to the gods, "MICROSOFT SUCKS" and ended up installing a dual boot of Ubuntu Linux.
5) Ran into a boat-load of problems with the Ubuntu install and it took 7 re-installs to get the thing running like I wanted it. (although to be perfectly honest, it was because I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I've grown to really love Ubuntu and can now HIGHLY recommend it)
6) I actually wrote quite a few posts but then in mid-stride reallized, "Whoa...hold on a sec. I can't post this shit!" and erased 'em.
7) I was abducted by aliens...maybe...possibly ;)
8) I'm a lazy little bugger.

Feel more than free to pick your own excuse. But in all honesty...#8 probably accounts for about 95% it.

In anycase, I'm back. I have no idea whether or not I'll even be able to keep up regular posts, but for the time being I'll give it a shot.