What's up with *me*

So I've posted a lot of links and fun things, but I almost forgot that this is *my* site and people who are curious about what I'm up to will know almost nothing new. So here's what I've done the last couple weeks:

-I've gotten really tired of my dorm life. I'm sick of my basement, the food, the lack of a quiet place to study / learn music, and having a roommate. I'm spending as much time as possible outside my dorm room and it's somewhat enlightening. I got really jealous of the 1/1 apartment that the girl I just dated had, so I think that'll be good for senior year.
-I saw Cirque du Soleil's Varekai, and it was fantastic.
-I also hit up Austin's best sushi place, called Uchi. (That means 'home.') I liked most stuff I tried, including tuna and yellowtail. It made me that much more confident about Japanese food and sushi in general.
-My brother went back home to Oklahoma, essentially bringing to an end our time together in the same town. I'll miss having him around, because it was always refreshing to hang out with him.
-There are times when I wonder what the hell I'm doing studying Japanese. Then I go into class today and it's a video day, and I spend the whole hour watching Japanese pop music performances, informational videos and news features about how KFC invaded Japan. An absolute riot, strangely educational, and even if it has no bearing on my life I can't stop watching. Maybe Japan will be the same way.

See the world (from your desk)

OpenTopia is the cool website of the week. There are lots of webcams on hidden and Intranet websites that got picked up by Google. They can be found by searching for the standard webpage paths that belong to each brand of camera. For example, a Panasonic webcam could always output a page that defaults to www.mysite.com/camera/image.htm or something like that. Anyway, OpenTopia is a collection of all the cameras found on Google using this method and you can look at all of them in real time. It's really cool to go to places where it's daylight at the given time. As I look right now, it's morning rush hour in Japan, so all of those cameras show lots of cars and trains. Anyway, go check it out. It's cool.

Oakridge people will find this funny

Dear Megan Marks:
Please stop listing me as your Facebook friend every couple weeks. It's sad to see the progression of your melanoma (because white people are not supposed to be orange from tanning), and I never found you interesting, appealing, or likeable. My [reject] button is starting to feel attached to my cursor because it gets so much attention, thanks entirely to you.

Love,
blake.

A rant post

So it's 1:00 AM (or 2, if you've already set your clock forward), I've thrown back a couple, and there's been a lack of real-world content for my site lately. This was most notoriously brought to my attention by an email from my dear friend Monica, (write me back woman!) who noted that I needed some more rant action. So here's my 3-and-a-half-shots unhibited version of my thoughts on some recent issues:

Terry Schiavo: Nobody should have ever known about this. The media didn't need to get involved and *certainly* the Republicans never should have had a part in it. It's sad when they're reaching so desperately for a distraction for the masses and this is what they come up with. Like Kenny's living will stated, "If ever I should be found in a vegetative state, please, for the love of God, don't show me in that state on network television."

Pope John Paul II dies: This is a tough one. You'll see obituaries for the next two weeks saying that he was a valiant Pope who had the "energy of a youth" even in his old age, given by his long battle with Parkinson's and his ability to survive two gunshots only to forgive his assailant. You'll also see that he spread the Catholic message to an unprecedented number of people with his insane amounts of travel even in the face of health risks. What you may or may not see (depending on the source) was his stubbornness of his own positions in a changing world: to his dying breath he disapproved of homosexuality, abortion, and other such evils that the Right loves to call wrong. Agree or disagree with his stance, he certainly did a fine job of fulfilling the tasks that the position of Pope calls for, and a fine job of leading the Catholics (whose positions you may agree or disagree with.) I personally strongly disagree with Catholicism and virtually everything it stands for, but this Pope was a hell of a Pope and chances are we won't see this transition to a new Pope again during our lifetimes (assuming they choose a young guy).

Me under the influence: I don't even attempt to drive, but I really don't have any problems typing. Funny that.