dinosaurs!

The new boss is so much better. Seriously. Not loud and obnoxious at all.

The enkai Tuesday night wasn't too bad. I didn't particularly enjoy the food, though the fruit was good. At least we were seated by Hamano-sensei. I like him. But apparently he got fired? Total bullshit. But he's still at the office, so maybe he meant they got rid of his old position and he had to move to another one? I don't really know.

I rented some movies the other night and have actually been watching them for a change. Last night, I watched Crimson Tide (I thought it was The Hunt for Red October, the covers look very similar, and they're both about subs, so it was cool), and now I'm watching Jurassic Park, which I haven't seen in years. I also rented and Independence Day and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

I had a dream about UCLA, Virginia, and Georgia playing hockey against each other, three teams playing one game. It was weird, but then I woke up and thought about how to make a three-team game logistically possible. I think, if there was a circular rink, divided into thirds, with a net in each third, it could work. Two defensemen to stay in each zone, and two forwards that can move to all three, plus goalies. That way you could have four-on-four in each zone. See? That's totally possible. Nobody steal my idea, plz.

I think I'm going to go to Virginia. Even though George Washington will give me $30,000 a year, and Virginia is only giving me $30,000 total, I think it will be better for me to live in Charlottesville than in DC. At least for the time I'm in school. It's a smaller city, so maybe fewer distractions? Definitely cheaper. And it's a really pretty campus. Not to mention that the average starting salary for lawyers going into private firms is $140,000, and there are Virginia grads at each of the top 100 firms in the country. So even though I will have about $100,000 in debt when I get out, as long as I don't screw around, I should be able to get a good job and pay it off in a reasonable amount of time.

It figures that Michelle and I plan a trip to Korea at the same time that the North is threatening to blow it up. I mean, they don't have nukes, but still, regular bombs are just as effective. I don't think they'll go through with it, since that would be beyond stupid. If anything, China will stop them, since a war across the border would mean even more bad press ahead of the Olympics. But we'll be watching the situation. I'd rather forfeit my plane fare than get caught in a war. We can just chill in Fuku instead.

I finished the zombie book I was reading. It was really great, and not super scary. Then I started reading Sense and Sensibility, and while I respect Jane Austen and the fact that she wrote lots of classics, I cannot say that I am thrilled with it. I think it's the writing style, it's too much to parse for pleasure-reading. I feel like I'm back in school reading Hanz Morgenthau or some German IR theory shit. I have some other books at the apartment that I might take to work instead, like To Kill a Mockingbird or one of the Murder, She Wrote novels. (I didn't know there were books of those until I found them in my apartment.) At least I feel like I'm doing something worthwhile when I'm reading at work, instead of just staring at the Internet. Plus, it's much better for my eyes.

Oh, and I got to drive a K-truck yesterday! It's one of the little snub-nosed trucks that are everywhere in Japan, usually driven by old men or people with farms. The story is that Catherine wanted to buy a new couch, so we went to Komeri and she bought it. Of course, a three-seater couch wouldn't fit in her car, so we asked if they had delivery. The guy said they did, so he called and asked how much it was. 5000 yen! What?! 2000 for the actual delivery, plus 3000 for two guys to carry it to the apartment. But they also had the option of loaning us a K-truck for up to an hour and a half (for FREE!), and we could just do the stuff ourselves. So we chose that option. Luckily, Drew happened to be circling the block and helped us get it up the stairs (it wasn't heavy, just unwieldy), and we got it from the store to her apartment in less than 15 minutes. Awesome.