gaijindrifter

Originally Posted By: skidaisuki about 2.5 kilos.... -------- "I'll burn it off later" assuming the quote in your sig is from yourself, I'm guessing you were trying to be sarcastic? haha

Thank god we have a decent Asian and Hispanic population in the states... that must have kept us marginally higher than Brits, yeah?

Originally Posted By: grungy-gonads Isn't peat, like, dirt?! It's the state of dirt before it becomes dirt. I'd like to say that it's rotted vegetation but that may turn some of you off your favorite drinks.... oops And for me it's whatever beer is the cheapest and any decent liquor (current favorites are Cuervo Gold Label Tequila and Contreau). I actually found a fake beer SO CHEAP that I've yet to find the brewing company's name written anywhere on the can/packaging... and by cheap, I mean LESS than 80yen a can from the supermarket...

If you wanna lose your life to games, play World of Warcraft (never played it personally however) If you're into strategy, I recommend Age of Empires for a quick in and out experience, or if you want a deeper experience usually lasting a few days+ I would go with anything in the 'Total Wars' series. My two favorites in this category are Age of Empires 2/3, and Rome: Total War. I also highly recommend Command and Conquer, though lately the series has lost it's edge. If you're into shooters, go for any of the new Call of Duty games. I personally like Medal of Honor best of all for stor

Originally Posted By: bobby12 Ganbaru is really a negative thing at times - better to be 'lazy' and find an easier way to do things that allows you to go home on time rather than spend 3 hours after work doing jobs Excel or Access can do in a millisecond. Amen to that... though too bad even if that were allowed bosses would just find more busy work or require more meetings to explain further meetings that pertain to meetings already passed. 'Idleness', or "relaxing" as us westerners call it, is frowned upon in this society. I mean, when you're asked to relocate for work in this country,

Ride DH2 35,000 Salomon Relay XLT 20,000 Olympus Tough 6010 (all-weather, water/cold proof camera) 23,000 Still need to buy Helmet padded shorts new jacket new goggles so my subtotal is at around 780USD, not too bad even considering what I have left to buy. And as for transit, I catch rides with my buddies and crash at friends' places all the time so no dramas there

Apparently I had it, but I'm lucky as I almost never get sick and most the symptoms were rather dull. Only thing that really sucked (compared to normal flu symptoms) was the nearly week-long fever that resulted in a few hallucinations later on. My friend in Nara had it as well, but he suffers from breathing problems and apparently that made it extra hard on him (though he recovered in less than a working week).

Talked to some of my coworkers about this, and I don't know if this applies much outside of the education employment circle, but despite working such long hours, Japanese don't really work a lot. Instead of 'Work Smarter, not Harder', the Japanese deal with the stress of work life by stretching it out over outrageously long hours. In high stress jobs this equals insanity/death, though in low stress jobs it usually just leads to the person being extraordinarily boring which is much worse I think

No... Unless you get her preggers, and you come from a guilt/shame culture then you're kinda stuck with her either way...

First, use polite hand signals If that doesn't work, beep a few times If that doesn't work, use offensive hand signals If that doesn't work, beep some more and tail him... or in other words, be a little American

Originally Posted By: brit-gob 8 sounds about right. 2 to go in 2 to hold the door 2 as security/backup 2 to show the "importance" of the whole thing I think you just passed the test! Congratulations, you're a [worthless] Japanese Police Officer!!!

Ironically enough one of the things that really irritates me is speaking Japanese with other English-speaking foreigners. I don't know why, but since way way back I just could never stand it. What makes it worse is that I went to school with all these ugly, usually well overweight, girls that INSISTED on putting on cartoon-ish high pitched 'yellow' Japanese school girl accents that just made me wanna choke myself out. I distinctly remember going to class after a quick 'bar run' and calling a girl out in class cause she was just so damn annoying... to which I received great applause haha B

I recently heard due to pressure from large scale employers (and also from being an incredibly stupid idea in the first place) the government has backed out of enforcing this. However, it does seem that they are still trying to push through laws to ensure everyone living in Japan is insured (as is obviously not the case seeing as my last company, who sponsored my visa, didn't even require I have insurance) Either way, I'm heading back to the states in early April for the summer, so if this ends up manifesting in one way or another it may make it quite difficult to get back!

Just gonna tighten up my new bindings and I'm off! I think the 21st or 22nd will be my first day this year, hope there's some decent snow somewhere in Kantou/Touhoku!!!

at lease you're gonna get snow where you are >_< we had one day of snow last year and it all melted by noon the next day...

Last year I was racing my buddy down one of the chuu-kyuu lifts at Ogna Hotaka in some really nice knee deep powder, but he pulled ahead so I decided to try a short cut over what I thought was a spine between two runs... just ended up being a wall of nearly chest deep heavy powder and I ran into it hard and ended up on my backside. It was the end of the day so I was beat and being as buried as I was I simply gave up and undid my bindings and road to the finish on my stomach haha

Trees outside my office right now are still green, actually just bought an all-weather camera to take pics of the kouyou when it comes out and of when we head out boarding

Came to Japan (from America) to work. Really wanted to try, but I've never had good luck with board sports. Aussie coworker invited me out (his first time as well) and I said naw, so he invited a girl I liked at the time and told her I was coming... relationship didn't work out with the girl, but I found an even greater love in snowboarding... just bought my first full out park set-up this past week and can't wait to hit up the next level!

It's still getting warm during the afternoons here in Saitama... so depressing... I'm actually sitting at work in shorts right now... Probably going out first time this year on the weekend of the 21-22 of this month, might check out Niigata, Kagura or something....

I've been looking for a long time for bindings in Japan and I've semi-decided on a pair of 08/09 Salomon Relay XLTs, but has anyone had any experience with these or heard anything about them? All the reviews I have read have been positive, but I've had nothing but bad luck with bindings so I'd appreciate some insight. Also keep in mind my boots are also mid-range Salomon's as well, and unfortunately I'm pretty big-footed so it's rare to come across bindings in my size regardless of price.