Busy Saturday

August 30, 2008 was quite a busy day. In the morning Kay and I went to Kobe Kaisei Hospital for a consultation and blood test. I was grateful for the fact that the hospital had an International Internal Medicine department. Moreso because the doctor speaks English!(He's a guy and he touched my throat during the examination, nyahahahahah!). By the time we finished at the hospital it was already past lunch time so we ate around the area near Rokkomichi station. It was a pasta place and there were a lot of manga on the sorrounding shelves in it for people to read while enjoying the great food.

After that we went to Umeda to look for the salon that was recommended by the ex-girlfriend of one osakapinoy who was very talented in looking for cheap but quality services. I won't say she was a miser because that'll be too rude. After all, I did benefit from her patience in looking for that place. I had my hair done and the results were absolutely fantastic! Kay had a hair cut too, but her hair didn't really look much different to me. I met up with Kay again in Yodobashi camera because she went ahead of me out of the salon. She introduced me to her close friend Joseph.
Then we had ramen for dinner at Umeda. We queued in the line for quite a while.(There are always a lot of people lining up for this particular ramen shop). It was a good thing that they were able to put us together in one table.(Actually it's half of a table, half of it was occupied by other people :P). We concluded the night playing archade games at the top of Hep Five and taking some shots at perikura.(Kim was really cool, she played Time Crisis the longest!)

Jinnouchi-san

He is my seatmate since August 18. Finally, I have someone to talk to in this awfully quiet place! He's turning 26 this coming September 20. He is very kind. I'm very grateful that he is willing to talk to me despite my very bad Japanese speaking and hearing ability.
We talk everyday and usually I am the one asking him questions. He answers them quite diligently and honestly so I'm pretty glad about that. Nowadays, I don't worry anymore when I get sleepy. He makes each conversation interesting and fun that I always end up laughing afterwards. During the first day that he sat beside me, he helped me with my Fedex package delivery problem. Fedex required some document to be faxed and he went with me to the manager's room and pleaded for me so that I can send them.
As I got to know him more and more each day, I realized how kind, hardworking and responsible he is.
Jinouchi-san, for all the help you have given me, THANK YOU.
May you have the best in life!
Stay cool, dude!

Summer Sonic 2008

I woke up early the morning of August 9, 2008, all for the glory of Summer Sonic Festival (I've never done this for work though :P).
I was pretty excited as I went to the Shin-Osaka station and lined up at McDonalds to buy my breakfast. I met Dio at the platform and we headed out to Maishima (Shin-Oska->Osaka, Osaka-Nishikujo, Nishikujo->Sakurajima). We arrived at around 9:00am at the registration area. I saw Shoku-chan at the beginning of the line. She was waiting for Tomo-chan
who was probably still parking their car.
We lined up for the shop because I wanted to buy an official T-shirt.(Last year I wasn't able to so I made it a point to get one this year). I was disappointed with the lack of giveaways this year.
We had lunch together with Tomo-chan, his wife came later. We didn't linger much in the Oasis area and started out to the Sonic Stage. (The alternative bands were placed in the Sonic Stage this year, last year they were in the Sky Stage).
We were able to get a small glimpse of MGMT band in their last performance and they sounded ok. The next performers was MUTEMATH. Technically the band was excellent. Also the song variety and sequence was good, they had fast-beat, heavy beat, and also slow ballad type songs. The vocalist was an epitome of energy as he sometimes stands on top of the piano rocking the crowd. He was also very tall, or maybe he looked tall because he was wearing a suit!

After MUTEMATH we tried to go to the Ocean Stage to catch 311. I didn't like 311 vocalist's body movement. He had a great bod I agree to that, but more than that, his movements are totally uncoordinated. Like what I said to Dio, he's like a body builder trying hard to ballroom dance!And his vocal range is not that great either. We only stuck around for 3 songs because it was suffocatingly hot. We then went back to the Sonic Stage(a closed coliseum type stage) to cool ourselves off. We got to see BIFFY CLYRO for a few seconds in their last song. They were only consist of 3 people but they sounded powerful. They were also very choreographed in their outfit of red leg fit pants with no top!

Next to perform were AGAINST ME! This band is probably the worst one I've heard for the whole day. They got sound balance right, but their performance and song sequence/selection suck! I don't call that music, I call it NOISE. Plain, annoying, no remarkable display of technical skills, no soul NOISE! We stayed a little longer in the Sonic Stage to cool ourselves from the
disappointment we got from the last performers. Next in line were the SUPER FURRY ANIMALS. Although we didn't stay for the whole performance, they were slightly better than the last band. But I think they had some technical problems because there was a lot of extra noise coming out. The songs did not come out clean.
We then got out of the Sonic Stage and went back to Ocean Stage to prepare for ALICIA KEYS. By this time RADWIMPS were still playing. RADWIMPS is a japanese band with a really skinny vocalist (I think he is also in love with Alicia Keys, hehehehe). They sounded really good their performance was remarkable and I think they are all technically excellent. But I think their adlibs are all scripted and not exactly spontaneous. ALICIA KEYS is an angel! She is an embodiment of perfect beauty and excellent physique, endowed with the vocal range of a diva!
For me, she is the best performer! I love her spanish version of Karma. Everytime her face is focused on that big TV near us playing the piano I could have swoon at how beautiful she is, how talented, how graceful! We ended the day with watching the first 3 songs of Fatboy Slim.
I've never seen his face before since it was never shown in any of his famous videos. He is a little older than I thought but he is a very cool old guy. It would probably feel nice to have a grandpa
like him. hehehhe.

Summer Sonic 2008 felt great, ALICIA KEYS made it all WORTH IT!
ALICIA KEYS, I LOVE YOU, my superwoman!
Note: Couldn't take any pictures of the performers because it wasn't allowed.

New Phone!

20080803 I just got an Nokia N95 from Softbank and I'm pretty excited. My minimum requirements for a phone were:1. At least 3MP camera - since I have no digital camera
the cellphone camera has to be powerful enough to take pictures for my blog. With the N95's 5MP I can do all that with autofocus and flash! And I can even take DVD resolution videos(MP4 baby!) with stereo sound.
2. Can view/edit office applications - I'm fond of using ms excel for financial plans and computations and I constantly update them. Although the basic software pack of
Nokia N95 cannot edit office application, I can always install updates from torrents so that it would be able to.
3. Has multimedia capability - Nokia N95 can store up to 2G of music and multimedia files in the expanded microSD slot.
4. Has an english-japanese dictionary - Again, although basic package does not contain a dictionary I can download one via torrent and install it to my phone.

These are my disappointments for this phone:
1. The OS is not Windows Mobile - more applications are available in WM than in Symbian.
2. The battery is inefficient - I tried to use the music player for the whole afternoon, the phone went dead at around 7PM.
3. No QWERTY keyboard - I've always liked layout keyboards and keypads. It makes typing faster! Even a virtual one is good enough.

For around a month I have been weighing options about what phone to switch and it all narrowed down to 4.

The candidates were:
1. iPhone (Softbank) - I love this phone. But the price plan was too high at a minimum of 7K++ per month (although now it's not that expensive anymore). Besides it only has a 2MP camera with no autofocus!
2. Nokia N95 (Softbank)
3. HTC S730 (Softbank) - This one has a really small screen. But it is equipped with a QWERTY Keyboard. WM OS but only 2MP camera.
4. HTC Touch Diamond (Docomo) - This could have been my dream phone except for the fact that it cost twice as much as my Nokia N95 and it is available only in Docomo not Softbank! It has 3MP camera, virtual keyboard, also touch screen like the iPhone although not as smooth, Windows Mobile(Japanese). The Windows Mobile phones here in japan are driving me insane because they are all in Japanese so even if I get one, I will still end up groping.

So all in all, I made the best choice with my N95, according to my needs and preferences.
Aside from buying a new cellphone, I also got myself a new cordless mouse for the office which did wonders to my cubicle.(No more messy wires!).

Kobe Hanabi 2008

20080802 The afternoon Dio and I went to Kobe to watch the Hanabi. We started walking from the Sannomiya station. It was a gruelling 45min walk and the air was saturated and hot.
I felt like all the grease were in my hair and all over my body by the time we arrived at Kobe Port. We met Idel and Kay there. It was a waste that Mars couldn't join us. The only thing that made the fireworks acceptable to me (I was never that enamored about fireworks!) was the presence of music that was choreographed together with the fireworks. It was funny and it made the event a little memorable. On this same day I got a new phone. I bought a Nokia N95 from Yodobashi Camera's Softbank. It cost me roughly 45K++ and although I'm poor right now, I'm happily poor. hehehe :)

I still have a lot of stuff to setup for my new phone like the address book as well as some applications. I'm pretty excited about it.