no sky perfect tv for you

long weeks... several long weeks and still no satellite tv. for the first 3 weekends i tried the do it yourself thing... and failed miserably. so we called in the pros. he showed up on sunday morning and we thought that by afternoon we'd be surfing through tv land. how wrong we were. after a few hours of fiddling around with it he says it's a problem with dish or tuner!! now stuck back in japanese tv purgatory until the pros can get back to our place with replacements. ugh!

loving spring

man, i'm loving that spring is on its way. let's put away the cold and windy days to get ready for one of the best times to be in japan, cherry blossom time! yes, a time when public drunkenness is not only accepted, but expected! so roll out your tarps at your favorite park, crack open a beer, and gat your blossom viewing on...

question

what is the feeling on how long an UNOPENNED canned or bottled good is past it's SUGGESTED expiration date?????

another test

i'm trying to keep up with my japanese. i completely agree with the sentiment that if you're living in a different country then you should learn that country's language. that said, man, is it hard to put into practice!
so i took another test called 'the test of practical japanese'. the hold about 6 times which is way better 'the test of japanese proficiency' which is only once a year. another great thing is that it isn't pass or fail like the other test. so i won't feel like a total idiot when i get the results. the other test? i've failed the same level test three times now. i've got to study harder.... i'll find out the results of this one next month.
on a side note i've put another nail in study habits... we're putting in a satellite dish for tv. trust i'd have gone for cable if i could have but its just not available in our backwater town! so we're going for 15 channel package. imagine 15 whole channels!!

No. 2

last night i joined up with 47 other members of our business block for a bowling tournament. it was funny because a co-worker and i got into a little war of words over who would come out on top. there was individual competition as well as teams. there teams of three and two of the ladies in my office were on my team. we were ゛the dummies" cause i called the other team ゛the nerds"!
well in fact the dummies came in second place and i came in second place in the individual competition. all in all it was awesome to kick some ass!!!

great trains

one great thing about japan is the trains. you can always depend on them to be on time and to get you where you're going with little or trouble. not to mention that you can get to almost anywhere by train in this country.
this is all great, especially when you have a daughter under 3 who can ride the train for free!! rose and i took advamtage of this yesterday when we took the train to kiryu to meet a friend for lunch. it might seem a little silly that nao picked us up at kiryu station anyway, but rose has been asking to ride on the train recently so it was a great chance for her.
now she's asking to go to disneyland again!