Today we ate at Fogo de Chao! They had $100.00 gift cards for $80.00 at Costco, so I picked up one… then I realized I’d need two sets for a dinner. I had purchased the cards back in February to eat after tax season was finished, but I was tempted to try to go during March and my brother called me out on it… so now we get to redeem it. It’s good but I would rank Galpao Gaucho and then Espetus over Fogo de chao. It’s a safer option… but I love the charcoal flavor that seeps into the meat at Espetus!
Here’s today’s purchases. A Yeti tumbler to replace my decade old Hydro Flask, and some… interesting chips from the Japanese supermarket. It looks like they’re made in Malaysia though… but I’m intrigued.
Making my way a little bit further into Pragmata… but we should also get back on track for exercise and nip reps too. Soon(tm)
Today I thought I’d do my best to work 0 hours… but I had a few of my superiors ask me for a few things. I kindly let each one know that they ruined my goal to work 0 hours for the day. ):
yes i’m still using my assigned christmas name
I saw a few people were talking about the game and Diana looks cute so I gave it a shot! I’m about 2 hours in and the shooting portion feels a little bit slow, so you’re forced to spend more time focusing on puzzles and movement within the game instead of just gunning everything down the moment you see it. I can see it getting quite frantic a bit later. I like it!
This order is ineligible for Small Packet due to its size and/or weight.
[AmiAmi Exclusive Bonus] [AmiAmi Limited Edition] Sabbat of the Witch
"Nene Ayachi" 1/3.5 Complete Figure(Pre-order)(Single Shipment)
Unit price 41,820 JPY x 1 unit(s) = 41,820 JPY
Subtotal: 41,820 JPY
Shipping:43,849 JPY
Grand total:85,669 JPY
Shipping method: DHL
To celebrate freedom I have went through my unread doujins and picked out a stack on the basis “would I be sad if I died without reading this”. I liked the build-up of tension to set the scene! I did spend a good 20 minutes at C107 picking up their 総集編 from their booth, only to find a huge stack of it at Melonbooks immediately after the event. Tragic… but expected I suppose given their popularity.
OK it’s time to go touch steel
tomatama curry udon
I did the same thing again today. Cleared more 10s in IIDX and played a few credits of DDR. Legs are sore! Gains soon ™
I started following this artist when he was drawing Xenoblade 2 doujins, though for some reason some huge Xenoblade 2 fan i knew at the time really didn’t like this artist despite the artist pumping out a ton of fan art of Hikari and Homura. I like the Sakurako book more than the Yuuka one as Yuuka just acts as an unfiltered slut for the whole book.
Today is April 15! Hope you filed your U.S. individual tax return if you live in the United States!
I have a friend that I played games with a lot and whenever something goes wrong I’d yell out AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW really loud. I guess I do it in person too. Here’s me doing it at work.
microsoft teams chime is a blight upon humanity
Since I had to stay late yesterday leaving the office at 17:30 (the horror!), I promised I’d leave the office early today at 15:30 to go to Round 1. I said goodbye to my team without any reservations and headed off!
still got it after not playing for 1.5 months
I also played 3 credits of DDR. I have to learn how to hold the bar when I play, since I’ve played my whole life without using the bar… my arms get tired first! So I start with holding the bar and then switch to not using the bar halfway through the song. I’m out of shape but if I keep playing maybe we can move up from 9s/10s back to 13s-14s.
tfw ur udon joint sells… rice?
For dinner… Bolognese Udon sounded the most interesting.
apparently, spaghetti is NOT considered a type of noodle. therefore, spaghetti and udon are NOT interchangeable and you should refrain from trying this at home
So I’ve been thinking about how I should be checking the internet less. Let’s do a dry run of what checking the internet looks like.
melonbooks’ uribouzakkaten section. They commission artists to do some art and make goods out of them. I like to buy face towels to stick my face deep into towels with cute anime girls printed on them
so it’s like… Do you need to check these things every day? Probably not. Preorder windows are pretty long…. and it’s not like I’m swimming in money right now either haha…
Well. I can admit it’s hard to be future oriented when being bogged down with work. But now we can be positive and look forward to tomorrow!
I thought about how I have to write some sort of sob story about my life but I don’t know. That’s been most of my whole life already… :^) Well… I’m still fat and out of shape and behind on my Japanese reps and bad at mahjong and bad at IIDX so it can only get better from here right? Haha…
At least most of the work for now is done until August…Now you can spend all the time you want on your goals instead of pissing it away on the internet on useless things :^)
Maybe I can write more often as a daily whatever the fuck instead of some weekly recap only thing. That means each post is less impactful… whatever. We’ll see if anything comes to mind.
That’s all you get in a day. No more, no less. Everyone else in the world gets exactly the same number of hours per day. All the rich people, all the poor people have the same time. Sure, maybe they have access to resources that could allow them better use of their time (both relatively and absolutely), but all the same they better make them count…!
Periodic haul of goods…
New tapestry (:
Week’s not too bad but had a bunch of stuff to do for work so I’d wake up at 05:00 to get ready to leave the house for work and come back at 20:00-21:00… It’s not a good excuse to work out but it is what it is. Just gotta sleep ASAP when I come home late instead of goofing off. After all I get 1.5 hours to goof off on the way home from work so… goof off then? Hmm..
I’ve left my phone off for about 24 hours now? Maybe I can break the tendency to piss away hours on it (famous last words). For now my ‘break’ routine will be to jump in bed and roll around hugging one of my dakimakuras. There’s supposed to be some shit where you actually need to give your brain a break when taking a break, and using your phone/pc to look for shit/entertainment is not taking a break as far as it involves engaging your brain (and some other shit about dopamines).
I think we’re doing ok – it’s not 100% compliant but given the shit I have going on, it’s pretty good, actually. I was eating a bit at work, but I’m not yet concerned about my weight as I started taking creatine since last month… so my cope is weight not decreasing is due to water saturation from creatine. Will it hold? We’ll find out…
For weight lifting, apparently muscle memory is a thing so I should probably try to increase the weights a little more rapidly than my original schedule. Probably do some sort of 5×5 once a week for each lift and add 5 lbs to each the week after until it’s not sustainable, then switch back to the 5/3/1 program I’ve been using. There’s no rules here… so let’s see what happens.
Since I’ve been able to full clear my anki deck, I now have room to be adding cards to my deck. Ideally I’d be adding words I come across in エロゲ/同人誌, but going back to those and looking after the fact is a little annoying… so for now we are just sticking with words I miss from Kotoba Bot’s N1 reading quiz:
Maybe we can pass DJT’s n1 quiz in a few months… side goal to JLPT N2 at year end, I suppose.
Mahjong has been really sad lately… I thought about taking a short break cause it was making me upset, but I think token one game a day should be fine. Just don’t play a game trying to get a 1st to set the tone for the day… Be happy on your own (:
I don’t really know if I can make every post exciting… but in the end, life itself is quite ordinary… so let’s let this be a reflection of that too. It’s like when you’re reading those high drama stories where everything is going to shit and the characters facing peril are like “Damn… I just want to live a normal life man…” yet here we are living normal lives pining for excitement to escape the drudgery of our normal life! What if we just learn to take joy in living a normal life?
I guess I have to turn on my phone for this…. damn…
Well we were doing pretty good until I took a break while wfh on friday… then I haven’t logged back on to work or done anything productive since then and have been in a death cycle of dopamine phone browsing and losing in mahjong whee. Losing is more tilting if you don’t have your real life straight, so we should do that first. I think we are good on weekdays at work but because I don’t have structure at home it is falling apart for now. Let’s practice!
Here is a dog playing with a tether ball on their front yard. It was having a blast so I couldn’t help but take a picture of it.
Had a kaisekidon! I think we can skip the ochazuke set and eat it as is. It’s not cheap, but not overpriced at $34. I would say it’s a fair price but worth it. Not something to eat regularly, obviously.
Washed the bedsheet yesterday… it’s a little bit discolored after two years… but at least it looks better after washing it than before washing it… a little gross hehe
Bought my flight for Japan for C109, in case oil prices spike because of shit going on across the world. If it goes up… cool. If it goes down… oops. I’ll have more days in Tokyo this time, so see you there!
pour one out for the iranian btw
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Some lingering thoughts for myself. Maybe I should write these down and let it simmer and expand on it later. Maybe I should bust out the old writing journal so I don’t have to use a device and tempt myself into distractions…
You don’t need to be 100% compliant to make progress… but it would help you make the most progress…
No one else cares if you make progress or not. Do it for you’reself.
Get off the damn phone/pc wasting time!!!
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This week’s daki theme is イチリ’s 堕天計画!
I do like アイミュ the most… but シャロエ and ルルーナ are cute too…!
ESPN was in town for the Super Bowl… now I can say I was on TV!
Ate at Fikscue Craft BBQ on February 7th. It’s primarily a BBQ joint but they also have some fusion Asian cuisine with it. It’s good! I don’t think it quite punches with true Texas BBQ ™ but it’s still nice to have something good locally without having to fly all the way out there.
I put stickers from my Japan trip on my laptop! Some room for more if I get other nice stickers next time. I do have more I could use but for now this is what we are rolling with.
New figgie came in – I wish I could lay her down on her back in front of my computer but her right leg kind of gets in the way… Maybe I can figure something out later with it.
Red Bull Showrun took place in San Francisco yesterday and I got to see Yuki Tsunoda! I started watching F1 midway through the 2021 season (The 2021 rainout for the Belgian Grand Prix was the first race I watched, actually) so I picked Max Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda as my drivers to follow.
Technically it’s not the “current” F-1 car (it’s the 2011 RB7) but getting to hear an “F-1” car in real life was really cool! Unfortunately the engine in the car caught on fire towards the end lol but it will be nice to see if Yuki can return to F-1 later! Maybe I’ll watch again in the future but the F-1 seasons since 2021 have not been as compelling.
Stopped by the local Kinokuniya to see what JLPT N2 books to get… they want $25 each (translator’s note: $25 is 3,875￥) for these doohickeys! Luckily I am a seasoned Japanese item buyer…
Yeahhhhhhhh ok that’s more like it.
I got a RÅSKOG / NORRÅVA cart from Ikea to help consolidate some things. I used to have my meds and supplements and protein at the front of my room… so keeping everything in one place will hopefully make it easier to wake up and get all my ‘dailies’ done here. Also going to try to commit to taking 4 scoops of protein per day. I had an old bag from 2023 that expired and might have been giving me the runs… so I don’t think I should punish myself by forcing myself to finish the old stuff, even if it might be fine.
self review
So it’s been about 3 weeks since I started… It’s not looking too good… At the very least… I can say that I’m actually following up on poor performance instead of giving up like every time in my life before…
I can say I was derailed from being sick and also from dealing with my parents being a pain in the ass this last week… but that’s not a good excuse in the long run. So what has worked and what hasn’t and what changes can we make to help?
Lifting needs to be done first thing in the day – If I don’t wake up early and knock it out ASAP I’m gonna keep finding excuses to not do it. This also means I need to sleep early to wake up early enough to do it not and have to get on work to put out fires. Which also means I need to be diligent and ahead of my work to be able to log off early peacefully (at this time, I am not lol). Which also means I need to quit goofing off and using my phone and finding ways to not be bored instead of working. Which I do because I’m trying to escape from working. Which I goof off because… I don’t wanna work. What a terrible cycle! So really the main answer is… I gotta sit down and do my damn work so everything else can come into play.
Here’s a sample schedule I whipped up, keeping sleep schedule consistent and allowing for time in the morning to exercise and time at night to clean up, get ready for bed, and jerk off. I think it’s probably too ambitious but we can adjust once tax time is over. My main failure point is goofing off from 20:30-23:30 on my phone not actually doing anything, forcing me to wake up late the next day. Quit it!
And a workout plan that I’ve been putting off. Instead of wondering what my starting weights ‘should be’ and wondering if it’s too light, I’m just picking something light and we’ll start from here. This schedule works by adding +5 lbs to upper body lifts every month and +10 lbs to lower body lifts every month. Which means if I commit to this and did the lifts every time, at the end of the year, my press would be 145×5 (yeah right), bench press 165×5 (probably too low, but whatever), squat 225×5 (respectable), deadlift 235 (a little slightly low, but whatever). But I think that’s a way better place than if I don’t actually measure it, so let’s just take that and have a solid foundation to increase weights, instead of quitting and thinking about what ifs. Maybe you knock off -15/-30 lbs for each and even then it’s not bad. But we can always improve later. The key is to actually improve over time, no matter how small.
Since this schedule is lifting 4 times a week, the other 3 days shouldn’t necessarily be entirely off days. Maybe just 20-30 min of playing around with the reverse hyperextension machine I bought or some supplemental stuff like core work or light conditioning should be fine (in addition to the walking being done). That way I still have to answer “yes’ to did I exercise (and changing the daily criteria from “did you lift” to “did you exercise” to account for this).
Mahjong and IIDX… I kinda don’t wanna say it but… let’s get the exercise and work stuff in order first. Unironically I should try to make this my ‘goof off’ activity but looking at shit on the internet and pissing hours away doing nothing has way less ‘friction’ to do. lol
Well ok that’s it let’s stay on task…!
This weeks dakimakura theme is Illyasviel von einzbern!
OK it’s been 3 weeks since i landed back in America and i haven’t done anything useful so let’s set everything straight so we can make some progress!
The five things I want/need to focus on in my life are (in order):
My Health
My Job
日本語 / cunny
mahjong
iidx
Maybe 4/5 can be swapped depending on mood cause mahjong is kind of a shit game… but…
My Health
Being healthy is good for you! Living longer means I can continue to jack off to cunny into my old age (bro’s talking like he’s not already old lol), not be in pain while you’re travelling in Japan because I’m out of shape, and if a cute 2d girl were to walk up to me and say “onii-chan… manhandle me tonight…♡ ” I’d want to be physically able to do so all night long… instead of being out of breath only a minute in!
More practically speaking… I’ve read a few articles about Magnus Carlsen being very fit to that he can last longer while playing chess… so I’d probably gain some benefit somewhere in my other activities by not being a fat shit in terms of everything else… and I also don’t like being a fat ass when I’m wearing my cute anime girl clothes… it’d be cooler if I wasn’t…
My Job
This is how I get money to pay for everything… Do the damn work instead of putting it off later and being like oh fuck I shouldn’t have goofed off earlier on my phone… How are you gonna make the case to become manager if all you do is goof off???
Japanese / Cunny
I like cunny… the method to consume cunny involves knowing Japanese… (this excuse works for doujinshi/eroge but not for figgies lol) My Japanese is currently serviceable but it could be better… So let’s sit down, get caught up on Anki reps, then you can set aside time to work on grammar… Maybe we can take N3/N2 as proof you know something? At the very least I’ll need to work on grammar output to pass that instead of skating by on reading only. I’d say the ideal level would be where I’m comfortable reading things natively without missing context and actually being able to speak to people in Japan… but baby steps first…
Mahjong
I want to fulfill my dream of becoming a 鳳凰 player some day… Maybe not this year as I’m pretty far behind in 三段 right now… but maybe something realistic like 五段 by year end could be possible…?
IIDX
I want to fulfill my dream of becoming a 皆伝 player some day… Maybe not this year as I’m pretty far behind in 七段 right now… but maybe something realistic like 九段 by year end could be possible…?
So long term goals… we can put it like this:
Reach 160 lbs body weight (estimated weight to not have a belly hanging out)
Become a Senior Manager (assuming the job literally doesn’t kill me before that, this is at least 8 years out. so 2033/2034 at the earliest)
Pass JLPT N1 (Not necessarily aiming for this, but it’s at least concrete for now. Being able to say i can read x or y is not a concrete tangible goal)
Reach 七段/鳳凰 in 天鳳. Maybe in 3-4 years? Could be sooner but I’d rather get #1-3 in order first
Reach 皆伝 in IIDX DP. Maybe in 3-4 years? Could be sooner but I’d rather get #1-3 in order first
Now… extrapolate to year end goals…
Reach 200 lbs body weight (currently at 226 this morning. That’s about .5 lbs per week)
idk how to put this out concretely since I’m not getting promoted for another 2 years at least lol idk do your job
Take (pass?) JLPT N3 in July/December (not necessarily aiming for this… but I shouldn’t be that far from N3…?)
Reach 五段 in 天鳳
Reach 九段 in IIDX DP
Tax season is starting up so now let’s focus on daily/weekly goals to get to the year end goals… we can adjust later once we get more free time…
Be Active – take a walk 3 times a day for 30 minutes and lift 4 times a week.
Find the courage to put my damn phone away while I work. Maybe measure this as ‘during working hours how many times did I check my phone to look at something dumb, find a baseline and reduce it’
Reduce the number of outstanding Anki vocabulary cards for review per day by at least 100 (this number is currently at 2000 lol). Once complete, spend 30 minutes reading/practicing Japanese grammar.
Play one hanchan (client of your choice) and write one review log once a day. I believe self review is fundamental to improving myself as a player but I’m too lazy to do it (as you can see, a recurring theme in my life).
Play one hour of IIDX three times a week
OK… make a sheet and let’s track it! If I actually did those things every day/week, 3-6 months out there’s no way there wouldn’t be some sort of measurable progress by then… right? I think instead of using Excel I’ll need to use google sheets so I can edit it on my phone, and not just my home PC… ok let’s set that up and then I need to catch up on work that I’ve been neglecting lol
