Decadent Decade / Jim Breen's Dictionary

I saw an episode of America's Next Top Model yesterday. I was eating and moving through the living room at a time when the TV had been left on whatever channel it was on, and it caught my attention. Reality TV shows (especially contest/competition/elimination ones) are ridiculous. Granted, when I heard American Idol was going to be holding auditions in Alaska, I was all for trying out -- for all the stupidity of the backstage dramatizations, it IS still a unique opportunity. The fact that they're taking a unique opportunity like that and twisting it so that most of the "entertainment" comes from listening to the entrants talk about the other entrants and the like is just horrible. I'd rather watch reruns of star search; the entertainment there is good clean fun as you realize just how many celebrities got started there when they were six years old.

What really, truly bothers me about reality TV, though, is this: every decade has its hallmarks, a few things that people always think of when they look at it. The 80s had rubiks cubes and hair bands, the 60s had woodstock and 'Nam, the 90s had unbuttoned, plaid, flannel shirts. One of the defining features of this decade will be reality TV. Everyone in society should feel ashamed.

Jim Breen's online Japanese-English dictionary is awesome. It's a fact I've known for a while now. You can go to the world lookup and type a Japanese or English word in either romanji or Japanese characters and get a translation. Today I actually tried the text translation feature 'cause I was feeling lazy, and lo and behold -- unlike babelfish, it rocks. Babelfish tries to give you a translation of its own, generally outputting highly amusing gibberish that gives you a gist of the text. Other times it's just horribly wrong. Jim Breen's dictionary, though, doesn't actually translate the text. It recognizes and pulls out the words in the text and gives you their definitions as listed in the dictionary, leaving you to actually translate the senctence. I feel extremely silly for not using this feature before; I don't really want to know how much time I have wasted trying to look up idividual words when I wasn't exactly sure where one word ended and the next began.

Tickets / FFXI

So I still don't know when exactly I leave for Japan. Should be Saturday, but... the Japanese government is buying the ticket and still hasn't told me when I am going. I called my Japanese teacher today, and she said that UAF's scholarship winner last year didn't get his ticket info until the day before. >_< Hoo hah. It doesn't feel real that I'm so close to leaving anyway, and this just isn't helping any. I have just about everything I should need, though. Just gotta get off my ass and finish packing. Ack.

I like FFXI. I also like it when my friends take it up, too. Especially since the friends who are taking it up will likely play at times when I can catch them online even from Japan. :D It's good stuff. I keep missing Raikei online, though. :'( We need to get our clocks from the adventurer recruitment program.

Lack of Internet / Top

*sigh* I dislike being without internet. Especially when I am waiting for an e-mail from Japan to tell me when I am catching a plane. But now there is internet again, and a couple friends of mine are getting FFXI. Joy! More people to play it with. ^^

Last Monday I went to Chugiak High to visit some teachers around lunch time. Unfortunately, the school has changed its policies such that you can only visit teachers after school hours. Fortunately, one of the guys at work is in JROTC and told me about the back door to the range, so I got to see Top at least.

I don't actually remember Top's actual name. He's the drill sergeant for the NJROTC at Chugiak and the adult responsible for the rifle team. He's also the only one of the three ROTC instructors from my time there that remain now. He's got more gray in his hair than I recall, and even though he recently lost one of his old students to war in Iraq, it's obvious he still cares about every kid who walks through his door.

I know that he's lost two students in the last six years; how many don't I know about? And how many more might he end up losing, especially when so many of the ROTC students go into the military? It was good seeing Top again, but he's got more gray in his hair than he did when I graduated. I am not looking forward to the days when great men like him and Shane Mitchell (one of my acting teachers), men who care so much about young people that they'll devote their own lives to helping turn young people into great adults, must eventually kick the bucket.

:(

But hopefully such days are a long way off. I am going to work now.

:( Missing People Already / Sewing Bonanza

I went to Fairbanks for four days from Wednesday to Saturday. It was a great deal of fun. ^^ I got to see everybody, and was even dogpiled for hugs at the entrance to Nerland hall. The first night I was there, we got a game of Lupus in Tabula going. Interesting game, but one for which you need people of like mind to play -- and in quantity. Requires a minimum of nine players. I recommend it, though.

Getting to hang out with people made it really hit home that I won't get to see them for a year. :'( Saddening, but... Japan! ^^' Thank goodness for instant messenger and online board games. Thank goodness for the internet (which, coincidentally, is for porn).

Now that I am done with Robin Hobb's Farseer and Tawny Man books, I will have time to sit down and sew. I think I'm gonna try to get some audio books from the library to listen to while I sew. I'm gonna buy Robin Hobb's Liveship Traders series for the incredibly long flight to Japan. Preliminary looks at Yahoo! Travel indicate 16 hours between here and Japan. That should be enough time to get at least decently far in the Liveship books.

Back to the sewing, though, I have cloth for one more skirt and cloth for lots of rennaissance bodices. ^^ I think I'm gonna get cloth for at least one flannel skirt, too, but not until I finish these and the Jedi cloak.