But first for something completely different.

I'm interrupting my two part story in the style of a TV drama: with a small commercial break.

Important announcement! Today is June 16th. Which means:
1) Happy Fathers Day, Dad! ^_^
2) It's less than one month away from my wedding! Requesting permission to freak out!
At work it's an odd mixture of being excited and very bored. This results in a rather fidgity person. I try to keep the fidgiting to a minimum by daydreaming. Oh, hush, it's alright, the project is over, NEC's just keeping us contractors til the end of June in case something goes wrong. I have been occupying the time making tests of cases that will never happen and doodling various scenes on memo pads that include:
*beaches
*me in wedding dress
*wedding rings
...
what else...
*takeshi in wedding dress

Heheh.
Anyways, please check the wedding blog this weekend. I'll be posting up vital information like maps, plans for saturday, times bridesmaids and groomsmen should meet us Thursday, what to do for wedding gifts, etc.

But in more fun news, I wanted to share some links.
My CGJIG partners in crime shared this site called mojizu with me. The concept is simple: you draw a character, post it up, it gets feedback and is rated on a scale of 1-10. If yours is particularly good, it might be put in a 'moji war' agains other characters to see whose is the ultimate character design.

I put up a character called the ramen baby. So far it has a 4.1/10. I believe that is an F--. *^_^* That doesn't stop me from checking on it every now and then like a doting parent, though. When I saw that Mojizu site I immediately thought of Zach. I'm sure he would submit something great.

And here's a very funny video of some foreigners singing a clever song in the middle of a park in Tokyo, titled Gaijin Invasion. tee hee.

Last but not least, it's the World Cup! This is nothing special in America, but in the rest of the civilized world, it's huge! ^_~ This will be the first time in twelve years that I'm farther than a few miles from the city holding the event. I was in LA in 1994 visiting someone, then I was in Europe in 1998 for a choir tour, then I was in Japan in 2002 studying abroad. This string of coincidences made me think it was an odd twist of fate, and I thought for a moment some bizarre chain of events would take me to Germany this summer... but alas, it is not to be.

Soccer is mostly a game of close calls, so it can take some getting used to, but it's fun to follow once you're used to the sound of "**oooOOOOHHhhh!!..crap! dang that was CLOSE!**"

Japan lost its first game to Australia 1-3, as most of my coworkers were expecting, but America didn't even get ONE stinking point in our first game. *shakes head*. So dissapointed in you. I will be expecting better on Sunday.