A new Facebook badge

I have been MIA off and on here on this blog. Writing sometimes gets to be too tedious. One thing that I do check on frequently is my Facebook. And now that it's finally in no danger of being deleted or disabled,  I thought I would put up a link to it on my sidebar.  I don't blog or write anything on it. But I do have more pictures up on it than here. Facebook really is a handy tool to keep in touch with all your friends and acquaintances if you use it correctly. So if you are interested in at least looking at the photos, check me out over there.

Also of note is that I've deleted my Now Playing section. it was always kind of... meh. So it go bye-bye too.

...Cost SO much.

I gave in and finally went to the dentist in Japan. Horror stories of having to visit twice for just a simple teeth cleaning and multiple trips for just a simple cavity kept me away from dentists here. But a missing filling some where in my back teeth forced me go to one recently. I called up my insurance company and they reccomended a few English-speaking clinics in the Tokyo area. I chose one near Ginza just because I thought it was easy to find.

Ginza is like Rodeo Drive in L.A., rich.  And while the clinic's office building was just meh from the outside, the inside of the 4th floor clinic was absolutely beautiful. Warm glowing lighting, LCD TV's playing a soothing video of marine life.  The receptionists looked sexy, the technicians although wearing face masks had stunning eyes, even the clientele sitting in the waiting room looked like models (I bet they were there for cosmetic dentistry). The dental clinic in Ginza sure had that sense of sophistication.  Even their aprons were branded Courreges. When sitting in the chair, as I had feared, my filling had fallen out and I was given my options.

1.) Ceramic - master technician, $2000
2.) Ceramic - regular technician $1800
3.) Ceramic/plastic resin $1200
4.) plastic filling $550
(sorry for the layman terms, I forgot what they were officially called. ) 

Holy Bejeezuz! Needless to say I chose a plastic filling. reason being my insurance company covers only $750 in dentals benefits per year. I instantly knew why that office was so nice. I was paying for it!! I mean even the rinse bowl among everything else, was motorized. It moved an entire 5 inches so that you could reach it better.

I give them credit though. While the dentist was applying the local anesthetic, I felt absolutely zero pain. I didn't even notice the needle in my gums. That's a lifetime first. They were very careful to inform me of every single step that they were doing to keep my comfortable and over all the experience rocked. As long as I can accept that a years worth of benefits evaporated in a day, I'd say it was awesome. In fact, I can't wait to go to my next visit. 

Bonus: They X-rayed my jaw. A look at what I can see in my chin! 5 screws! 

It's a start!

I'm one of those people. I'm just a lazy bum if you will, and I need something to kick me in the butt to do anything. So one of my bad habits is to buy things so that I can kick start something. This time I'm starting to feel motivated to save some money. Where a normal persone would just open up a savings account or just stop spending less, I went out and bought me this dope hippobank. I'm stuffing it with all my loose change and most of all the money I make from my private English lessons. Let's hope I can keep it up! 

A guy can never get enough.

Not even a disabled Facebook account could bum me out. Yes, my Facebook was disabled AGAIN. But let's not focus on that right now. Let's focus our attention on my brand spanking new cellphone!

An AU W61P. "P" meaning that it was made by Panasonic. So dope. So fresh. (^_^) it has EVERYTHING my old phone had but more.

Little things that it does that my old phone didn't do.

1. It does 1seg terrestrial digital TV.
2. Its an osaifu-keitai. (no more train card! I can just wave my phone over the sensor!)
3. Its shutter is faster than my old phone (shutter lag was horrendous before)
4. It it has a handy one-click button to open the phone. (no need to jam my finger in there to open the flip phone)
5. It has a light sensor that automatically dims the main screen/lights the keypad.( no more getting blinded in the middle of the night)
6. It's even slimmer, 12.9mm. 

7. On the useless list, it even has a personal trainer function that can track how much I've run/walked/biked everyday and calculate how much calories I've burnt etc.

Plus all the normal things that all cell-phones do these days, plays music, GPS, daily scheduler, remote control my TV.

Phones in Japan, they ROCK.

Banned from my Facebook.

My Facebook account was disabled! I never knew how important it was to me until all the pictures were gone. All the people that I knew just disappeared. The game that I play ~3 hours a day. Poof!

All GONE.  

And so I begged. mail -> disabled@facebook.com
and begged. mail -> disabled@facebook.com
and begged. mail -> login@facebook.com
and begged. mail -> appeals@facebook.com
and begged. mail -> appeals+ngq0zsr@facebook.com
and begged. mail ->appeals-comment@facebook.com

6 mails in 2 days asking them to re-activate my account.  And I got it back!!! Woohoo! You may seem surprised. "What's the big deal about getting your account re-enabled?" you might ask. A lot. I did a search. There are LOTS of people that just get denied their appeal and they never get to log back on again.  Facebook has over 200 pictures of me in there posted by moi and all my friends. It's great looking at your friends pictures and reliving your own. It's like your PC's hard drive conking out and you lose everything. It sucks. I feel very lucky to have my account reactivated after just 2 days.

 And why was I banned? Naked pictures in my profile? Nope. Verbally abusing other Facebook members? Not really.

 I was spamming the forums for invites.

What a dork eh? See the game I play, Battlestations, rewards players for getting people to join the game. So I spammed about 20 Facebook game forums to join Battlestations using my link. Voila. Instantly disabled account. So PLEASE. Do me a favor. If you are on Facebook. Just join this free game using this link and create a character.

http://piurl.com/Ic

And save a bro from being banned from Facebook ever again.  

Where to start?

How about where I've been? Snowboarding of course. Nozawa Onsen, and an eventful trip to Powder '08 which included the mountains of Naeba, Tashiro, Kagura and Mitsumata. Also I went on a long awaited trip to Hokkaido for the first time in my life.

What have I been doing? Facebook. Sad as it may seem I have continued to spend countless hours in front of the screen playing not Warbook, but Battle Stations. Warbook was getting way out of hand. So I decided to play a game that was less time-consuming.Little did I know that this game is just as time-consuming just not as stressful and political. A step up at least. Interestingly because of my time playing Battle Stations, I have been updating my Facebook much more frequently than this blog. Unfortunate for blog readers here, but at least now some of you would be able to see the things I've been doing through the hundreds of pictures of me up at Facebook. Click HERE for my profile.

I've also had a dating melt down and a dating comeback all in the same season. Making a long story short, I still don't know what I want. All I know is that I want it ALL. Vague I know, but there are lessons to be learned such as "Don't tell the people that you date about your blog so that you can still have a place to vent." Haha. Right now, I'm happy and I'm glad that I could find happiness in the strangest places.

Anyways.. I guess I'll be back posting a little bit for the next few weeks. For those of you that have stopped by once in a while just to see the same post of for the past few months, I'm sorry.

Winter Camp and a trip to Hakuba

2 years in a row. That makes it a tradition right? Well Winter Camp is one tradition I wouldn't mind continuing. For the 2nd year in a row I've been able to go o Winter Camp with my school. A 2 night 3 day all expenses paid snowboarding trip to Minenohara Kogen in Nagano.  50 or so high school kids having thetime of their lives at a ski resort. How fun! These kids sure keep me young. I was assigned to chaperone the advanced level this year, making it so much more fun! Among all the snowball fights, eating snowcones(not yellow ones), and of course the boarding. It's suck a challenge to remember that I'm actually on the job. I actually got scolded by the ski patrol for racing the principal and the PE teacher in the downhill.

Recently I also went on my first private boarding trip. Day 1 at Iwatake and day 2 at Happo-one. Chris G. , Sven, ChrisH. and Hae jung I had an awesome time! Photos courtesy of HaeJung  and Chris.

Guess what I did?

before
afterNew Years countdown. Fireworks? A big date? Night out with champagne flowing and the music blasting? Nope. I ordered some delivery pizza from Pizza-Station and spent the night alone. *sigh*  Watching TV on New Years to celebrate the New Year coming in isn't the best but I made do. From delivery pizza, to "festive" delivery pizza. Yes, taking everything out of the box made all the difference. 

At least that was only for New Years Eve.

I spent New Years Day with my "Japanese family" I think every foreigner in Japan that has spent a lot of time here has one. Kaz and her family have invited me to practically every single event they have had and then some. I'm so grateful that I met them because for the past 5 years they have practically made me their adopted son. On New Year's we played tennis together, then we had some great homemade osechi, and we even played hanetsuki. The girls are SO weird (^_^)!

click to see video

A clock you can watch.  

It's a ongoing clock set to music and dancing by Uniqlo, a popular retail clothing chain here in Japan. So fun to watch. Check it out. Not to mention the the girls are so my type. ;) I believe the videos change according to the time. Cool!

A nice surprise

Went to my favorite Jazz spot in Tokyo for my birthday over a week ago and as usual it was great.  We had our spread of yummy food, wine and assorted cheeses, and Daiki Yasukagawa and his Far East Jazz Ensemble was playing for the night. Body and Soul is great. It's so cozy with an old nostalgic feeling to it but it's still clean, very dimly lit and the ambiance is great.

If you didn't know, Jazz bars are a quiet event. Meaning the people who go to watch a live band REALLY enjoy their music so apart from the occasional quiet chat,  people mainly pay attention to the show. In between songs Daiki introduces members of the band, tells some super short anecdotes, good stuff. Then after the end of one of the songs, Daiki says some thing to the effect of, "Today we want to celebrate a birthday in the audience." Then  BAM! The light right above my table turns on! My table was glowing in the dim room.  Then as waiter brought out a little green cake with sparklers on it, the saxophonist stands up and says "This birthday song of for you Ricky" and belts out the smoothest rendition of Happy Birthday that I've ever heard! Man was I embarrassed. I didn't know what to do. Stand and bow? Hide?? So I just sat there wide-eyed as the entire restaurant looked at me. I managed to nod my head Japanese style in thanks, and clapped when the song was over. It was AMAZING.

Then as I lean over to blow the candles I noticed the writing on the plate. It said "Happy Birthday Ricky" with a face on it.

The conversation with my date goes a little something like this in Japanese.

Me:    Wow the face on the plate really looks like me.
Date: Really? Cool!
Me:    And the cake is green. And there a little nut on it. I think it's a pistachio.
Date: *takes a closer look at the at the cake*  No, it's an edamame.
Me:     Edamame? How do you know?
Date:  I made it. I drew the chocolate on the plate too. 
Me:    @_@ !! 

WOW. 

Now I've been to Body and Soul before and not once have I seen a birthday. It's not like T.G.I.Fridays where there are about 10 birthdays going on every evening. I felt like the MAN. I'm sure the people in the restaurant were thinking,  "Who the hell is this guy?" because everyone paid a 4000 yen cover just to hear the band. It felt WONDERFUL.To top it off my date came to the restaurant hours earlier to drop off a homemade cake and beg the manager for the band to play me a song.  What a night to remember!