I note in passing that I didn't say any of the other reasons why the last few weeks have been stressful. I'm gonna hold off on telling those for a bit, in the hopes that they will resolve themselves soon. Well, I can dream, anyway.

I'd like to clarify that, living in Kagoshima, there are still a lot of wonderful, natural vistas to be seen. The islands are quite spectacular, in fact. And, although the the trees around Nishi Eki are newly shorn of branches, many other streets and hillsides still have some beautiful trees.

The Shinkansen (a.k.a. the Bullet Train) is finally making its way down here to Kagoshima. They're expanding Nishi-Kagoshima station for it, and it's been quite the drawn-out process, sadly. The expansion involves adding a floor above the existing station, and several floors below, meaning that they ripped out the garden area in front of the station to build a new building underground. Well, it may look nice when it's done. . . which will be just about the time I'm finishing up here and leaving. Oh, well.

I got ADSL access last week -- Yay! That sound you're not hearing is my phone bill dropping by about $150 -- $200 a month. That will help quite a lot!

Random craving of the week: A Loxburger from Cecil's Deli, in Minneapolis. (I think that was the name of the place. . .) One of the local coffeeshop chains has a "Bagel Sand. A" that is somewhat similar, but an order of magnitude smaller.

The latest in PlayStation 2 games that will probably never come out in the States: "Taiko no Tatsujiin" (Master of Taiko). Think Parappa the Rapper, only more traditional Japanese. It comes with a taiko drum controller, a mini-drum that you plug into the PlayStation in lieu of the regular Dualshocks. Tempting. . . but I'm trying to stick to a budget.

No, really!