I’ve had several people over the past few months asking me to post something on here, but when I ask what I should post, I’m met with silence.

I don’t mind writing on here, I really don’t. But when there’s really been little to nothing of no reasonable interest happening since the last one, I find it difficult to write.

I can give an update of what’s happened the past few months (started a temp job back on March 1, have had contract extended several times; studied Japanese, played some video games), but that’s pretty boring, in my opinion.

My student loan repayments have been progressing OK, though a bit slower than I’d like. Have about $2,800 left at the moment. All my loans combined started around $18,000 with repayment starting around June 2006, so I’d say I’ve made fairly decent progress. But to continue on pace, I’m saying this publicly: do not ask me to go do something that costs money if the entire outing will cost more than $10. Please. I appreciate the invites and offers of accompaniment, but I’m really on a budget. Now, I do like to go out and do things, and I do on occasion, but that’s because I’ve budgeted for it. I’m not trying to be cheap. I’m trying to pay off my loan ASAP and also get money saved for getting to Japan.

I’m not a fan of the temp work I’m doing. Well, let me clarify. The work itself isn’t enjoyable, but my supervisor is a really great person. Incredibly helpful, kind and understanding. My work consists of playing with Excel spreadsheets all day and playing around with survey evaluations for a program the company runs. Internet is really locked down, I’m forced to use Internet Explorer 7 (a browser more than four years old! AAGGGGGH!) and it’s not a social environment due to the arrangement of the cubicles. But it gets me money and closer to Japan, so I stick with it.

I continue to look for more enjoyable work, or at least work that pays the same AND gives benefits. Nothing sucks more than having no benefits and paid time off or paid holidays. Whenever I’m sick or there’s a holiday everyone else at the office gets paid for, I get nothing. It’s pretty crummy.

If you were to ask me a week or two ago what my favorite Squaresoft/Square Enix role-playing game was, I’d have replied with Final Fantasy IV. It was the first RPG from Square I ever had the chance to play, and one of the first SNES games I touched. And it touched me. The story, the amazing soundtrack, the graphics–everything about it screamed perfection. At the time I was young and didn’t realize just how much had been left out by the game’s translation when initially released stateside.

I’d played Final Fantasy V and VI, but neither held up to FFIV. Well, last weekend I replayed through FFVI, and I must say there was a lot I had forgotten about the game, and it definitely has a much more rich and fleshed out plot than FFIV had. I guess not playing it for more than 15 years could do that.

Now I’d say it’s much closer to being a tie between the two. Then Secret of Mana comes in as number 3 of my favorite Square RPGs. In my opinion, Final Fantasy died with the release of FFVII, so I haven’t played anything past it. But what about Chrono Trigger? Continue reading RPGs, and how to make me hate your game →

Today is day 15 of P90X. It’s being going much better than I had anticipated. The downside is that I don’t get to eat nearly as many carbs as I’d like. I love bread, and being told I can only eat the equivalent of two slices of whole grain bread really sucks. I mean, I like whole grain bread (and I’m baking some tonight for the first time), but limiting my intake sucks. Especially when I made such delicious melonpan.

Last week, I became rather bored, so I found someone’s existing website and redid it entirely using CSS and HTML. I figured it’d be a good exercise to re-teach myself some things. During this process, I found that I prefer to work on coding the actual design versus designing the design. That is, if you ask me to draw something up, I won’t feel nearly as comfortable as being handed a layout and told to make it work. Maybe it’ll pass, or maybe that’s just how I am.

Now, print design I still like. =)

Before I go on, I must inform you that this whole thing is about baking bread. I rarely bake cakes, cookies, etc.

For those who don’t know, the catalyst for my love of baking was an anime called Yakitate!! Japan. As an anime, it’s not particularly the greatest, but as an introduction to baking it’s superb. The clip that first got me interested in the show in the first place is this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMH8Tof69SE .

Just about everything baking-related the show talks about (minus the super powers some people seem to possess in the show) is sound baking advice. After watching several episodes of the show, I thought I’d give it a shot. That was about six years ago. Continue reading メロンパン出来ました—Or “I made melon bread” →

I’ve never really been on a diet. The closest I’ve gotten is giving up various foods for Lent throughout the years. Cookies, barbecue, etc. But being on a true diet (at least for 90 days) with a workout regimen has never been a part of my life. And today, Rainman went out and purchased the various equipments needed for this P90X thing… so I guess it’s gonna happen.

But first, I had to indulge in something I’ve been meaning to try ever since I first heard about it. The KFC Double Down. Continue reading It’s happening, but first… →