:/ that’s the first and last time i buy memorex dvds.

not that there’s much that interests me, but i will be looking forward to watching the nintendo conference tonight.  lets hope they dont announce another portable gaming system to make my dslite obsolete ^^;

i think gen will be providing quite a good coverage of the stuff worth watching/knowing about so you should have a look over there if you’re interested!

why are dvds so dodgy to burn :/.  i think the overall quality of dvd media in japan is quite bad really (unless you’re willing to pay a large sum of money).  i’ve coastered two dvds so far tonight trying to burn nana… one more try and i’ll give up.

we were on the way to school when i looked up at the sky and saw a strange line drawn along the sky from one horizon to the other. i didn’t really think much of this – probably just a plane having some fun.

but then on the way home the same line was there – about 2 hours later. there was also some strange cloudish formation to one side of the line. i don’t know how it got there, but it looked quite impressive anyways

update: my host mother said she saw two helicopters flying *very* close together this afternoon. beau says the trail was left by a military plane, which is quite likely with the military base located so close by. i’m kind of sad i didn’t get a photo of the helicopters though

daniel’s bathroom got attacked by flying ants. there were seriously thousand of these little insects crawling around the bathroom and quite a few hundred in the kitchen and other rooms nearby. they seemed to be landing, shedding their wings and crawling around. craziness. luckily his mum was on her way home and i think it has been sorted out now.

on my way out of his house, i went to open the bike fence only to find that a group of bees have made themselves at home inside the tiny hole compartments inside the fence (!). so daniel if you read this, you might want to check your fence for the bee hive inside it sometime ^^;.

just for a little bit of testing, i’ve set up a shoutcast stream straight from jp radio. i have it set to Kiss FM at the moment, and encoding at 96kbit stereo. feel free to have a listen if you are that way inclined. i’m not sure how long i’ll keep it up – it depends if people actually want to listen, and whether i can get a better aerial for this radio, and pick up some of the better stations.

the shoutcast addy is http://202.225.241.228:8000/listen.m3u

oh i forgot to mention how fscking hot it was today – hitting a maximum of 26° at 1500, and a humidity of 64%. while it doesn’t sound that bad, temperature is a relative thing and this was the first time anyone in the country felt this kind of heat in quiiite a while. apparently its cooling down over the rest of the week, with some rain near the end/weekend.

it was quite an unexpected surprise when i woke up at 11 and got told we’re going for a picnic at my host mother’s home town. it is actually an area still within the himeji region, but its the furthest west you can go before it turns into the next prefecture. the area was vastly covered with grass or crops, and surrounded by green hills. about 40 minutes drive.

their property was huuuge. they actually had a full size garden, and a house that would compare to those we live in in australia. they also had a huge plasma tv, although the reception wasn’t all that good.

after the barbecue, we went tamanegi (onion) hunting! this involved riding on the back of this 3-wheeled card on roads so thin i was really scared that my dslite would end up in a pool of water by the end (along with me). but after a 5 minute bumpy ride, we arrived at a field of onions.

i didn’t really help with the cutting/picking, but was left in charge of transporting them back to the crate. my hands smell like onions still even after washing them 3 times ^^;. it was a good experience though .

this guy knows his fires. he totally owned up the barbecue and later on the dead plants.