So, after repeated kvetching about the poor gifts I’ve received, my friend Sun reminded me of the Xmas present she gave me last year that arrived closer to my birthday. Breaking all possible copyright laws, I’m posting her quote:

Dude, isn’t your birthday in APRIL? Big whiny baby! And I seem to recall that I got you two cds. Of course, they were supposed to be for Christmas, but because of your execrable taste in music, it took Amazon forever to track ’em down.

And what did I get Sun? Nothing, but I did return her copy of the complete works of Keats and Shelley.

Look at that $5 word! EXECRABLE! This from someone who bought me Rick Astley and Robbie Nevil CDs! Oh, the humanity.

Somehow this computer kept crashing today, taking out my latest post, some email, and probably some stuff in my sister’s site. Every time the computer was rebooted it would seem fine until something related to NFS would lock up the computer. Well, here’s a picture of the crash screen:

Whatever. The biggest problem is probably that the hundreds of knit bloggers who visit my sister’s web site were greeted with nothing but timeouts today.

OK, so yesterday’s post — the one that is now off in la-la-land — was my complaint that I don’t get any presents. I don’t tend to give many presents, either, or so my sister will say. Probably my ex-girlfriend as well, but I didn’t have a job when we were going out and I did pay for dinner, etc. Maybe I’m just cheap.

My sister says it’s because I’m a pain-in-the-ass but she’s the one who steals my parents’ car and stays out all day with her friends, trapping them at home. So I suppose it’s the pain-in-the-ass who gets more gifts.

Anyway, an acquaintance went to Europe, and she got me this:

I think it’s because of the label that says it’s “Extra Suave.”

And my mom reminded me that I didn’t just get underwear, she got me a reflective sash and some cotton gloves!

(I’m not modelling the underwear.)

And my friend went to India for a couple of months and she gave me a picture! And it was even an emailed picture!

Hell, I don’t remember what else I had to say yesterday but I’ve been obsessing about all the coffee and tea stains on my teeth. I could always cut those out of my diet, but then I’d get fired for sleeping at work all the time.

So that’s a gross picture but who cares? All I have are some tissues, new underwear, cotton gloves, and a reflective sash. I’m going to have to count that as my 40th birthday presents and my Xmas presents unless I buy myself something. I should probably save some of the underwear and call it my 41st birthday present since that’s coming up in a few months and I’m not expecting anything else. Well, they got me a cake at work. Almost makes up for how little they pay me.

So, according to my horoscope:

Today you could go a bit wild in your personal life, HISASHI! You might feel like making a bold move. If you have had your eye on somebody, it could be the perfect time to let them know that you find them attractive. You’ll be ready to flirt and to send out some passionate messages. You might have an exciting evening if you schedule a nice date. This could be the start of something special, so have fun!

But today I just went to work like usual and then went to a friend’s 40th birthday party. The birthday party was sedate, and the only single woman there is looking for other single women, if you catch my drift. Anyway, no flirting going on at all today.

Plus, my sister tried to kill me. She ran a red light that turned red before we even got to the intersection. I think she realized it when I said, “Well, um, it’s red.” She couldn’t stop without skidding through the intersection, so she kept going. Then she blamed the rain and me and my reluctance to purchase new wiper blades (I just bought these several months back). So I suggested we stop at the auto supply since we were early, anyway, but she refused. Maybe it’s more fun to live dangerously.

My mom came home today and she told me that she was going to bring me back a CD by Dreams Come True but it wasn’t out until this Friday. And she almost got me a tiny Sony MP3 player, but she figured I might not want it. So once again I got underwear. I don’t even want to think about what my sister got. Last time she got a digital camera, and I got a $8 pen. Come to think of it, the only birthday presents I got for my 40th birthday were ones I bought myself.

I found out that it’s my brother-in-law’s dad who came up with the term punes (pronounced pyoonz) which means being under the weather. My stomach felt funny all night and I could only sleep on my back. Usually when my stomach is bothering me, that’s the only position I can’t sleep in. I even had a weird dream that my friend Greg was giving up his 8 acres in Scappoose, selling it for a mint, to move to a very nice neighborhood in NE Portland where it was always sunny. To make it more surreal, Chandler from Friends lived there and I met Ross, who was telling me about all his girlfriends and the guy he couldn’t stand because his “relationship” with the guy didn’t end well. (Notice the quotes around “relationship.”) The guy was a friend of mine from grade school who I haven’t seen since high school! And after talking to Ross, I saw another guy I haven’t seen since grade school who used to be in my Boy Scout troop. He was just crossing the street waving at me.

I went to work feeling OK, but then felt worse and worse. I didn’t eat lunch and I came home a little early and took a nap. I feel better now, but almost everyone is coming down with something.

Well, got a large hard drive and I’m about to destroy things yet again. My sister’s web site is immune at the moment, fortunately.

Several people I know (and you know who you are) took a vacation from blogging this weekend. Several of them, if you can count TWO as several, are knit bloggers and one of them (since I host her web page) continued to get comments on her last post which was last Tuesday! However, they did not quit their knitting. I observed them while they were allegedly watching TV and I saw them knitting and using some sort of odd Trainspotting clickers and little things that looked like rubber bands from some teenager’s braces.

OK, so it was my sister and Carolyn. The sad part was that I was the only one watching the TV intently, and I was outvoted 2-to-1 on the movie choice. I wanted to see Love, Actually and they wanted to see The Bourne Supremacy.

Luckily, I only had to go to two yarn stores and I developed a little game to play while there: wondering if I could use any of the yarn to tie flies. I haven’t ever caught a fish on a fly (only went once) but I still daydream about it. But I have tied a bunch of flies.

So we went out to the airport to get Carolyn and came back to make Thanksgiving dinner for her, my brother-in-law, my dad, my sis, and me. OK, so all I really did was mash the potatoes and my sister did the rest. What was the disappointment? Carolyn too quiet? The turkey too dry? (Just a little, since it was free range and not a Butterball.) The real disappointment was that I gave my brother-in-law Peter the sample Gilette razor that I got with the daily newspaper and it didn’t have a battery in it! It was just a simple disposable. Oh, the shame! I was hoping he could tell me about the new sensor and whatever it was it did with the AAA cell.

I ate too much and I didn’t have room for pie. I guess that was a disappointment as well.

The big problem is that our dad likes to be the sickest person in the house. I had to go home early to run interference so she could get some rest. Actually, she thought she was OK in the middle of the day and came with my dad to rescue me from work. We were going to a bakery and then to lunch. She dropped me off at the crowded bakery and drove around looking for parking. When I got back to the car she was sleeping in the back. She wanted me to take my dad to a Slavic grocery while she waited, but she didn’t look too well. In fact, I drove straight home and she threw up as soon as she got out of the car. Fortunately, she seems better now. Pooped, but better.

Time to go get my brother-in-law at the airport. It’s a midnight flight.

Oh, and here are disclaimer labels for textbooks.

So most of the time it’s all about George. Or at least we pretend it’s all him. After all, he’s 88-years-old. But when my sister is around, it’s often all about her. Every day she’s gone to visit some other knitter or some friend. Today, however, she took some time to flood the laundry room and throw away the bathroom rugs. She said they were, well, stained. As anyone who lives with men should know, everything on a bathroom floor gets stained. I don’t know how she’s avoided it unless Peter pees sitting down (doubtful), exclusively pees outside (also doubtful since they live in the city now), or she just follows him into the bathroom with a scrub brush (most likely since she’s kind of nutty).

So, at the gym today I was doing some stretching before I left and I noticed my legs looked funny. In fact, they looked a bit swollen above the socks. So I pushed on them and I noticed I had pitting edema. I called my doc and he wasn’t too worried. It’s a side effect of the Gleevec. I remember having the same sort of pitting edema when I running once, but it’s always a weird thing to see. And the only medical training I’ve actually had is for the EMT-1 certification so I can describe things, but I don’t know what to do about them.

Oh, well. I’ve had a stressful couple of days because of doctors. We were supposed to deliver some data to some doctors and I didn’t have the full story of what they needed. So we had to go through several iterations and every iteration they told me that my data was useless and incorrect. Good thing I’ve worked up at OHSU and know that’s just the way they are up there.

My buddy Greg who is also very generous when paying for meals, is very lazy when it comes to rebate checks. And for some reason, his wife can’t be bothered to send them in either. So after watching them blow a few of them, I started telling him I’d mail them in for him. It costs 37 cents in postage and an envelope and I end up with his rebate checks. For some reason, he won’t take them back, either. I suppose he has his reasons. He hates the dumb rebate dance. I usually agree. Aladdin Systems stiffed me $50 for their Stuffit program and it’s always a pain to try to remember what you’re owed in rebates.

Anyway, maybe I can use the rebate money to buy the “The 10 Mistakes Most Men Make With Women” book that they keep advertising in my spam.

What I hate about the fall is the leaves. Raking the leaves and walking in the leaves. Most of the time, there are presents in the leaves, left by the nice neighborhood doggies. I went out to dinner with my sister tonight and on the way back I also found a nice cracked sidewalk underneath the leaves and twisted my ankle. It hurts like hell right now.

Listened to my voice recorder: a homeless woman told me something last week that I thought was, “Thirty-two wolkhammer.”

I didn’t take any notes on the dreams I had last night. I remember some James-Bondy thing, and then something to do with spaghetti in clear containers which seemed more interesting but I still can’t recall what it was.

I am very, very sorry that THE FOOD IN THE KANTO DISTRICT OF JAPAN IS ASS. It’s salty and if you say there’s no flavor they add more salt. They use subtle flavorings like salt mixed with the salt to make things more salty.

I really haven’t eaten in Tokyo for thirteen years, but Japan’s an old country so I don’t expect that things have changed much since I was last there.

OK, so this is a bit incendiary to the Tokyoites out there, but I’m sorry: to an Osaka dweller, the food in Tokyo is swill. I’m sure the Tokyoites have bad things to say about Osaka as well. It usually has something to do with gangsters.

So the past couple of days I’ve been getting repeated odd phone calls from a rather distraught woman asking, “What am I supposed to do?” The first phone call was rather garbled and only parts I could understand in were that her husband had recently passed away. I finally got ahold of her and she thought I was a pension plan. She didn’t know what to do, so I did some calling around and found the people she needed to call. She has mistaken a 9 for a 0 and a 6 for a 5. I hope things work out of her.

So the new officers of the radio club were railroaded elected today and I’m the new treasurer-elect. So I think I’ll start sending out harassing email telling people to pay their dues. AHAHAHAHA.

So, yesterday we had to take my dad out for Japanese food and tonight my sister had to take him out for Japanese food. He’s quite particular about what he wants to eat. In fact, he never wants to go back for dinner to the place we went yesterday (Hakatamon) because we had to wait a whole three minutes for a table. The food there has it’s ups and downs; the udon is excellent, but the rest isn’t that great. He has to have Japanese food, though, and that means there’s only two places he can go. In fact, yesterday he said he wanted, “Meat,” and when we started thinking of places to go he started pouting and we just had to bundle him up and drive him to another Japanese restaurant. My sister wanted to KIIIILL HIIIM. Or at least that’s what she said.

I suppose I shouldn’t be so hard on his odd food fixation since I have almost the opposite problem. I really am sick of Japanese food. When I was in Japan, I had a rotation of hamburger places I’d go to and some weeks I’d go to McDonald’s three or four times a week. The worst part is I lived in the Osaka area, which is known for good food. When I came back to Oregon, I refused to go out to the Japanese restaurants here because they were awful compared to the food I had in Japan. The food here is probably comparable to the swill they eat in Tokyo.

Oh, well, the food I’ve had lately hasn’t been so bad. I can always get unique things and lately I’ve had cold udon with grated Japanese radish, and seafood spaghetti with small clams and shrimp.