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Texas

My Experience Commissioning an Custom Anime Figure

So as y’all may know, I’m currently working on another site called Texihabara.  It’s kinda lame right now, but I’m actually really pleased with the framework I’ve built, I think I can add to it to make it something special.  I just have to figure out what “special” means. However, I decided it needed a mascot.  So, after a google search, I went to Etsy and found an anime artist (I will not name him on this site, but you can find a link to him on Texihabara’s legal page here if… Read More »My Experience Commissioning an Custom Anime Figure

Why I Hate the Mall

My birthday is coming up. It’s sometime within the next few days. I’ll be forty-mumble-mumble years old. I was never raised with a birthday tradition, so I never ask for or expect presents. Instead, I buy myself something I might like. So today, for I think the first time since the pandemic started, I went to Lakeline Mall over in Cedar Park. Y’all know I live in central Texas, so I’m not giving too much away, it’s one of only a small number of malls in the area, so I… Read More »Why I Hate the Mall

Lamentations

Please pardon me a post that’s a little more political than I usually make on this blog. As with my Christian posts, I don’t proselytize, I try to see things as objectively as I can, but sometimes things just have to be said, and at least for right now, this is as good a place as I can think to say what I want. If you’re not interested in US politics, or more specifically a center-right dissertation on US politics, please feel free to skip this post with my blessing.… Read More »Lamentations

Comic-Cons

Working on my new site has been a bit… troublesome to me psychologically. It’s nothing I can’t handle, but it’s promoting quite a bit of thought. I decided to add a monthly post to the front page where I talk about all of the big anime, etc., events in Texas(there are lots of smaller ones but I’d never get it done if I added everything – Texas is a big place). Turns out there are three all over the state next weekend. In doing the research for that, I discovered… Read More »Comic-Cons

Japanese Gardens

Back when I used to live in Portland, before I got interested in Japanese, and before those antifa idiots decided they were going to ruin the place, I used to enjoy going to the Japanese Gardens there. They were really pretty, and peaceful. It’s the one thing I miss about Portland. I remember hearing, though I’m not sure if it really is the case, that it’s the most authentic Japanese Gardens outside of Japan itself. I took a girlfriend there (back when I thought dating was a good idea) who… Read More »Japanese Gardens

James Talarico Should be Fired

You may have heard in the news that a bunch of Texas representatives have left the state rather than vote on a “voting rights” bill. James Talarico is one of them. He is also my state representative. Which means I get to vote for him. Or, in this case, against. As my state representative, it is his job to represent me. Not run away like a coward because the legislature might vote for a bill he doesn’t like. At this point, he should lose his job. If I didn’t show… Read More »James Talarico Should be Fired

Texas

Probably one of the most frequent questions that’s never been asked of me, but probably would be if people felt comfortable asking me questions, would be “what’s it like living in Texas”? Well, specifically for my foreign friends, let me answer that question. Texas is big. I mean really big. It’s one and a half times as big as Japan. A statistic that shocks even Americans is that its less distance from San Diego to El Paso than it is from El Paso to Houston. I-10 is about 800 miles… Read More »Texas

Masks

There have been many dark things about the COVID-19 epidemic, but I have always been jealous of the fact that Japanese people wear medical masks out in public as a matter of course, and up until last year, that has never been socially acceptable in America. Now, it’s less socially acceptable not to. I have many reasons for liking masks – it reduces communicable diseases (not just SARS-Cov-2) but also I just like hiding my face. No one needs to see it unnecessarily, it’s just common human decency. But I’ve… Read More »Masks

Texas: Living in the Third World

Over the past few days, Texas has encountered a cold snap the likes of which we haven’t seen in a century. Last night we got down to 2 degrees, the all time record in Austin is -2. The roads are pretty much impassable, and everything has been shut down for a couple of days. Power here has been nonexistent. For some reason the power grid has pretty much collapsed. I have been without power for 18 hours now and some for much longer. In fact, four million people are currently… Read More »Texas: Living in the Third World

Grass is Greener

There are two YouTube videos I watched recently that have caused me to think, and to rethink my approach to Japan. It is true that Japan has some frankly amazing things going for it, but it’s not all great.  One of the videos I watched were about “things that can get you arrested in Japan”.  It was sobering enough that many people in the comments posted that they had made plans to go to Japan and they cancelled them.  And the other video was about a young woman who made… Read More »Grass is Greener