Back to America: A Crazy Ride Home

Alright. First. Some business concerning previous posts. It has been brought to my attention by one andrewh that the download link I provided for the Magic the Gathering Computer Game was not free, and since no one likes things that aren't free, I invite you to try this link instead. I haven't used it myself, but don't blame me for any spyware or viruses. Freedom has a price.

Also, I discovered that the kanji game I have is not 250 Mannin no Kanken but rather Minna no DS seminar. It's pretty hard to understand and there really is no easy setting, so I'd recommend this game only for advanced students. I'm currently looking into getting some simpler games. Also, I found a good website for buying these games in America. Yeah.

Oh. So. On my flight home. I first flew from Central Japan Airport in Nagoya to San Francisco. There were these two babies on my flight who decided the time had finally come to see who could cry loudest, longest, and with most evident distress. I enjoyed the competitive spirit, but not the 90 minutes of sleep. There were also so many movies I wanted to see. I ended up watching The Darjeeling Limited, and Once. The Darjeeling Limited was funny and had a lot of great shots, but for some reason the sound came through so quietly even on full volume that I ended up missing some key lines of dialogue that explained the thrust of the movie. I still recommend even though there were gaps in the plot I couldn't hear.

Once, well, I really liked Once a lot. I've never really liked musicals, but I really like music, so I feel that there is a quality of overacting and insincerity in most musicals that are completely absent in this one. It's just people singing a bunch of good songs all the time. Man, I really dig Irish music, and there's this one scene when they're recording an album when they're singing and playing a song, and then they just start yelling in harmony and it's just so loud and so perfect. I cried a little during this movie. It is good.

Anyways, so I got to San Francisco and after picking up some See's candies for my Dad, I got on my flight to Chicago. I was planning on sleeping the whole flight, but fate had something else in mind. Have you ever seen that episode of House where he's on the airplane? It was like that, well, almost. There was a guy sitting three rows in front of me who was apparently having some sort of heart trouble. Luckily for him, the people sitting next to, behind, and across from him were all doctors. So these doctors would take a medical history and try to figure out what was wrong with him and the flight attendants were rushing back and forth bringing first aid kids and blankets and other passengers were standing up trying to see what was going on. Then they set up an IV and brought out the defibrillator, which they thankfully never had to use. It was all really intense and interesting, so there was no way I was gonna sleep. We called in to Air Traffic control and we got to enter immediately, and when we got there paramedics came on and took the lucky guy away in a stretcher. The diagnosis was some kind of arrhythmia (sp?). I wonder what would've happened if there weren't all those doctors right there.

Anyways, when it was all done, two of the doctors, who happened to be married to each other, commended there two small children on being quiet and letting Mommy and Daddy help someone. Then the first thing the little boy says is, "I hated that." Kids.

So that's why I got 90 minutes of sleep in the past 24 hours. I guess I'm gonna go to bed.