I just got myself the new iPhone, which I hope means I will be updating this site and my twitter account a lot more now. We will see though. Finished reading “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu and started on Marx and Engels’ “The Communist Manifesto” — you know, being that I just finished “The Wealth of Nations” it’s pretty much a compulsory read. I’m thinking I’ll go back to more fun stuff after that. I got three books from the Dark Tower series waiting.
By the way, our show last night was pretty darn good I think. I had a hell of a lot of fun anyway. Can’t wait to see the video believe it or not (that’s a rarity for me).
Just got back from a trip to Okinawa with the family. The beaches were utterly gorgeous. It was kind of a shame though because it ended up raining most of the trip.
For the most part we just hung out at the beach all day. We also did manage to take a trip to Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium, which was just down right fantastic. I have to admit though, the dolphin show they do here in Tokyo at the Shinagawa aquarium might give it a run for its money (ignoring the fact that the rest of the aquarium here absolutely sucks ass).
Photos are here.
I just got through reading “Japanese Government Bond Futures” by Hiroyuki Kubota. It’s marketed as an “introductory” book but it sure as hell doesn’t read like one. Reading it in Japanese didn’t help either though I expect.
Speaking of, I was in the train the other day and this foreign guy (apparently he was a trader) sat down next to me and commented that if I wanted to really get good knowledge on the subject, I should stick to reading the foreign published books, being that most of the world is “way ahead” of Japan when it comes to derivatives trading. While I certainly see his point, I couldn’t bring myself to point out the fact that the book was about JGB (Japanese Government Bond) Futures — and um, there isn’t a hell of a lot of good literature focusing on that in English for obvious reasons.
So anyhow, “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu is next on my list.
Cause I need to learn how to kill people more efficiently.
In other good news, I apparently have found some permanent work now (note I was on contract before but I can’t remember if I mentioned it here or not). So yeah… fuck you bad economy.
I’m really happy I can say that now.
Yotsuya Outbreak (Tokyo, Japan)
http://www.hor-outbreak.com
Date: 07.25.2010 (Sunday)
Doors Open: 17:00
Show Starts: 17:30
We’ll be on stage first.
Featured Artists:
fit
KILLER MAD CHASER
To-Mega-Therion
GENOCIDE
sugarbuzz
incc
Counter
Tickets:
Advanced - 1,500 Yen (+ Drink Charge)
Door - 2,000 Yen (+ Drink Charge)
Ticket Reservations: info@fit-noise.com
We went to JUSCO yesterday to pick up a new bike for the wifey and they were having an American Fair — or something like that. There was this big display with the sign “This is America” under which sat Campbell’s soup, Budweiser, and cans of Spam. And I’m like “Hey, that’s…”
Oh never mind, they pretty much got it covered I guess.
Just got back from the Shibuya Eggman show. We didn’t have a whole lot of people this round, partly because of the short notice, but it was a lot of fun. We ended up drinking with the lastsecond guys a bit afterwards, and man, they were fantastic. That’s one of the great parts about playing out so much — you always run into so much talent.
In other news, I’m working too much, sleeping too little, and in general, about to die. I finished reading “New Moon” by Stephenie Meyer (which deserves it’s own blog topic it was so bad), and have moved on to “Blaze” by Richard Bachman (aka Stephen King), that my dad left me. And it’s got a kidnapped baby and a messed up guy falling in love with em. And maybe it’s because I’m a father now, but it tears my heart out at times. I’m so scared to see how it’s going to end.
So on that note, goodnight internet.
Shibuya Eggman
http://eggman.jp
Date: 06.06.2010 (Sun)
Doors Open: 18:00
Show Starts: 18:30
We’re scheduled to be on stage at 19:15.
Featured Artists:
j.cxxApes
fit
lastsecond
Groove N-ash
Tickets:
Advanced - 2,000 Yen (+ 1 Drink)
Door - 2,300 Yen (+ 1 Drink)
Ticket Reservations: info@fit-noise.com
We took the kidos out to Disneyland recently.
This is the hardest working mommy in the world by the way:
I know this sounds rather crazy to say, but lining up for close to two hours to go to Mickey’s house really isn’t all that bad — actually it’s rather fun, when it’s you’re kids your taking. Then again considering your whole world essentially revolves around them, it makes sense that you end up living vicariously through them in a lot of ways. Which explains, for example, why the wifey goes out to by herself some new clothes and comes back with nothing but stuff for the princess. Or why in the few (almost nonexistent) moments we have without the kids in front of us, we end up just talking about them anyway.
It’s just our life now — but it certainly isn’t bad.
More Tokyo Disneyland photos here.
I got to go to the Tokyo Stock Exchange for the first time today. It was pretty interesting to see, but to be honest, it wasn’t as exciting as I imagined. It has pretty much all been computerized since 2000 so there is no trading floor, and no big crowds of people screaming at each other — just the market center where the exchange administrators monitor trade traffic, or from what it looked like, just sit around chatting and drinking coffee.
Or maybe vodka, who knows.
Funny side note: you usually always see the market center from a high angle on television (with the quotes rotating around the glass cylinder surrounding it) and I always imagined it to be filled with all sorts of crazy servers and equipment. I was a bit disappointed to see it was just printers and cardboard boxes for the most part. Makes sense when you think about it though — there is no way in hell they would have their data center on-site in this day and age.
The media center was kind of interesting though. It looked like a bunch of storage containers on one of the adjacent walls with pull down steel doors and everything, about 3-4 layers of them if I remember correctly.
And um, that’s about it really.
Oh, and I finally finished reading “The Wealth of Nations,” and have moved on to the second book in the Twilight series (”New Moon”). Great contrast eh? I have to admit that it does feel nice to fly through 20-25 pages in the time it took me to get through one of the before mentioned book, but at the same, I find myself having a hard time deciding which one is more painful to read.
It seems the only way I manage to get anything done (besides work and kids) these days is if I can cram it into a burst of impossible energy, in a time span of somewhere between 30 seconds to three minuets.
So this is one of those.
Just got back from visiting the wifey’s dad in Osaka with the kids in tow. Spent the first half of the day with the princess at the park and the latter half making dinner, shopping, and getting some mess together for tomorrow. I’m still, still reading “The Wealth of Nations” but I’m now about 150 pages from the end — and I’m really enjoying it believe it or not. And I just got done booking another show at Shibuya Eggman on the 6th of next month (Sunday), details pending of course. So yeah — fun, fun, fun.
By the way, the princess has been going to preschool for a while now and the other day when I went to pick her up, I got there a bit early and was a bit freaked out to keep hearing her teacher call her by “princess” whenever they interacted. Talking to the teacher afterwards, apparently my lovely princess daughter has insisted that everyone call her by her proper title.
At least it’s appropriate I suppose.
