Hi there, I just woke up (1:30 am).
I’ve been on this really weird night schedule the past few days. Well, maybe not so weird to be honest — it’s probably more my natural schedule. I would probably always be like this if life didn’t happen to get in the way from time to time.
Believe it or not he does exist. And amazingly enough I was even able to take a photo to prove it without the princess jumping in the frame. Poor second child — just gets no respect.
I stayed up all night and planned on sleeping in late but the delivery guy ended up waking me up. The wifey was taking the princess to the park, but she fell asleep in her stroller on the way there (the princess that is, not the wifey), and they made a u-turn for home. And oddly enough the stars were aligned in such a way that all this happened at once, and there I was at the door, and there they were at the door, and then the princess wakes up and says, “fuck dude what about the park?”
Or maybe she didn’t say it that way — I’m just paraphrasing here.
Anyhow, being that you can’t fight with the stars — because they are really hot or whatever — I said “hey, let’s just all go together.” And we did, and business people filled the restaurants so we substituted lunch with a ass-ton of bread from the bakery and canned coffee. Cause yeah, I was still really tired.
And I gave Ren milk on the bench, went down the slide with the princess, pushed her on the swing, and thus is life. Oh, and I’m going to be up all night again working on this damn EP jacket.
I’ve been so unbelievably busy these past few days I’m just waiting for my heart to explode out of my chest. Just today I was sitting with Ren on my lap giving him milk, downloading U.S. citizenship and visa documents on my computer while talking to a recruiter on the phone. And then the doorbell rang and it was a delivery of sorts. So I’m holding Ren in one arm with the bottle in my other still giving him milk, walking down the stairs and going to the door.
And the guys says “sign here.”
And I just look at him.
How Americans know your “not from around these parts”:
You sometimes walk.
Sometimes even at night.
From the good ole FAIL Blog.
The wifey went out to Shinjuku today and got her bag stolen while in a shop with the princess — at a Baby Gap of all places. Apparently, this kind of mess isn’t all that uncommon anymore though. The wifey mentioned it to some of her mommy friends and one of them immediately replied with a story about getting her wallet stolen in a similar fashion, and another about busting some asshole trying to take her entire stroller. I’m thinking we should swap out items and fill her purse with dirty diapers instead from now on.
I swear, life has just kind of taken us by the nuts this year hasn’t it?
I used to love those meatball subs you can get at Subway back in the states. While we do have Subway here in Japan, as luck would have it, the meatball subs aren’t on the menu. So I figured I would try to make an imitation of sorts at home.
First the meatballs:
I don’t have a slow cooker so I improvised a bit and baked the meatballs for about 15 minuets before simmering them in tomato sauce. Pure beef here can be stupid expensive and being that I’m broke and jobless, I bought the mixed ground pork/beef concoction instead at 1/3 of the price — it still came out decent though.
Here is how they turned out:
Not bad.
Needed more sauce and cheese I think though — it came out just a tad dry for my taste.
The princess seems to be getting older and more mature with every day that passes. It’s really kind of scary how fast kids grow up. Next thing you know she will be taking home boyfriends. And I will be flipping over coffee tables and/or waiting at the door with a shotgun.
Anyhow, I have had a million little projects swirling around these days. Here is just a quick list off the stuff I’ve been working on:
And there is just so much more I would like to do. For example, I have about two other websites I eventually want to put together, another “work” related application, a PV for the new fit EP, a shit-ton of updates to the fit site, etcetera, etcetera. And I would love to learn how to draw, learn how to sing, start studying again for and take some Kanji proficiency tests, do some more technology research (spring, hibernate, more design patterns), write a rap song, start skating/snowboarding again…
I’m honestly kind of envious of people who say they don’t what to do with themselves in a way. I just have way too much — more than I could possibly ever get around to.
I’ve been thinking, maybe just throwing yourself headfirst into your whelms isn’t such a bad thing. 99% of it of course won’t turn into anything of substance, but at least it’s fun right? And you do get the experience of doing it and most likely some sort of knowledge out of the effort. That can’t be too much of a bad thing I suspect.
I rather like this song, but then again, I also have a oddly formed man-crush on Gavin Rossdale so I may be biased.
I finally finished coding the user interface for the plotter grid controls (as well as adding in a bit more functionality).
This is what I have left:
I’m also considering switching the plane movement controls based on the current direction vector within the plotter but I’m not sold on the idea totally yet. I may try it to see if it it offers a usability boost but if not, I’ll just throw it to the waste heap.
From there I get to move on to the more “interesting” stuff, namely the intersection point selection code.
Overview:
This tutorial will demonstrate how to build an application for Softbank mobile phones (S!Application) using J2ME. It assumes no prior development experience and should be relativly easy to follow even for beginners.
Development Environment Setup:
1. Download and install a Java SE Development Kit (version 1.4.2 or above)
2. Download and install Eclipse (Classic)
3. Download and install the MEXA SDK*
4. Download and install the MEXA SDK Eclipse Plugin*
* Can be downloaded from the S!Application Development Tools page of the Softbank Mobile Creation site (free registration required, site in Japanese only)
Creating the Project:
1. Create an empty MEXA project in Eclipse:
Select “File” -> “New” -> “Other” -> “MEXA” -> “MEXA Project”
Enter your project name and press “Next.” On the second panel, set the executable path to the MEXA Emulator directory and the build class path to the MEXA library:
Executable path:
\Program Files\SOFTBANK_MEXA_EMULATOR23
Build class path:
\Program Files\SOFTBANK_MEXA_EMULATOR23\lib\stubclasses.zip
Click “Finish” once complete.
2. Create a new MIDlet class:
Right-click on the project’s “src” folder and select “New” -> “Class”
Enter a class name in the “Name” field, enter “javax.microedition.midlet.MIDlet” for the “Superclass,” and click “Finish.”
3. Configure the jad file:
Double-click on the project’s “.jad” file and fill out the MIDlet name and vendor fields. Check the “use” check box next to your new class and add an application name.
Adding Source Code:
1. Add the two following lines to the top of your source file:
import javax.microedition.lcdui.Display;
import javax.microedition.lcdui.Form;
2. Add the following code to the startApp function:
Form form = new Form("");
form.append("Hello World");
Display.getDisplay(this).setCurrent(form);
Running the Application in the Emulator:
1. Configure MEXA emulation settings for your project:
Right-click on your top project folder and select “Properties”
In the “MEXA Emulation Settings” window, set the MEXA Emulator project path to the “.jar” file created by your current project. You can find this path by right-clicking on the jar file in the Eclipse project window and checking the location label.
2. Create a new run configuration:
Select “Run” -> “Run Configurations”
Double-click on “MEXA Emulator - MEXA” and select your current project in the settings window. Click “Apply” and then “Run” to launch your application in the emulator.