This parking lot is really cramped, and there have been several times that I have nearly backed right into a car directly behind me. So today, as I was driving into the parking lot, there was another car in front of me waiting for a woman to back out. I couldn't really see what was happening, but I saw a brand spanking new RAV4 directly behind her start to bounce violently. The car in front of me parks, and I am trying to pull into the space next to his, but the woman in the car that just backed out, decided to park her car so it blocked the 3 empty spaces so I couldn't turn into the space. She got out of her car, walked up to the RAV4, inspected it, and then took off. I was able to get her license plate # of 5YOE795 at least.

It just sucks when shit like this happens, so I left a note with the license plate # for the RAV4, and hope that they will be able to nab this bitch.

Oh... and amazingly, it was not a chink bitch... this was some white chick this time.

One thing that I have found difficulty in is to characterize the music I like to listen to. On the one hand, some people might call it "acid jazz", but the term reminds me of groups such as Jamiroquai, which is kinda sorta what I like listening to, but not completely. Others might call it "trip-hop", but I find that to be a little too technoey... Even others might refer to it as "drum and bass", but that still doesn't really define the music I enjoy listening to. I guess there are more generic terms like "ambient" or "chillout", but they certainly are a bit too general, and there are actually some songs in the genre of music I like that are a bit more up-tempo.

So on music services such as last.fm and pandora, I usually end up just typing in groups that I like, and hope that the music services can find similar groups, and for the most part, it works, but then I start to get sick of the lack of variety in music, but at least it turns me onto new artists. For example, a few years ago, Kevin turned me on to a group called the Blue Six, and from that group, I discovered other similar groups and artists such as Miguel Migs, Lovetronic, De-Phazz, etc.

So the quest to figure out what is the name of the genre of music I listen to continued. But after using last.fm for a while, since it has its own built-in wiki, when it presents new artists to me, I can read information about the groups that other people have posted, and I realized a common word that appeared on every song that I really liked... shibuya-kei... Wikipedia sums up this term as:

Shibuya-kei (渋谷系 Shibuya-style; also 渋谷系サウンド "Shibuya-kei sound") is a variety of Japanese pop music which combines elements of jazz, fusion, traditional music, and other styles. Shibuya-kei music first gained popularity in the Shibuya district of Tokyo, from which it took its name. Despite under-marketing, it enjoyed enormous success in this region.

I think this is the closest definition to the type of music I like to listen to, depending on what it means by "traditional music", since for me, it does not necessarily need to be sounds of traditional Japanese music, but of just any culture.

In any case, I guess I can at least say that I now have added a new term to my Japanese vocabulary. For anyone interested in looking up my profile on last.fm, it is mchiu.

Unfortunately for me, he is in the room next door to me, so whenever he plays his music loud, I just learned to deal with it, because he can be very irrational when you ask him to turn it down, and you just end up getting barked out of his room, or he will just start a temper tantrum, and after doing that too many times, it's better to just sit it out since there's really no negotiating with him.

On the other hand, if you make the slightest noise in the house, and especially if he is being quiet, he'll get all of your case for being so noisy. It doesn't help that I use the bathroom next to his room, so something as innocent as brushing my teeth will get him all ticked off. I have since learned to use a different bathroom in the house if I am going to be brushing my teeth. Some friends say that I am being too nice. They just have no idea how easy it is to set my brother off. If you try to reason with him, he just gets pissed off, and the whole thing escalates into him having a big tantrum, and it's just not worth it. Sometimes, I wonder if he would be better off somewhere in the East Coast. I don't think he is laid back enough for California.

So tonight, I was listening to some music on my computer at what I thought was a pretty low volume... The speaker setting was set to 3 out of 10, and Windows Media Player was set at 50% of the volume. Somehow, his ultra sensitive ears (which is hard to believe with all that loud music coming from him) were able to catch it, and he came over and asked me to turn it down. I did, but he said he could still hear it, so I just gave up and turned it off, as he grouchily stomped back into his room saying how it is bullshit that I am listening to my music so "loud" at such a late hour... he he he... it's always great to see how hypocritical he can be when he is all cranky...

So I sat waiting for my order, and I guess some of the regulars started walking in, and I couldn't help but laugh to myself. The cashier all of a sudden came to life to see some of the regulars come in. I look around, and notice that pretty much all the customers in there except for myself is black. Wow... interesting... I guess it's more than just a stereotype...

To push the stereotype even further, a few days ago, I had a craving for KFC, so I end up at a KFC near my office, and after sitting down with my food, I look over to the wall next to me, and basically spit my chicken out laughing because there's this huge picture on the wall of a black family sitting down to a KFC dinner together.

I don't know how much more blatant that you can be, but I was kind of half-expecting that KFC would start serving watermelon, but was kind of disappointed not to see it on the menu...

For those who do not know, a ringback tone is basically a sound that you install to replace the ringing sound you hear when calling someone. In my case, I chose Earth, Wind, and Fire's, "Let's Groove". So when people call me up, they hear an MP3 clip of that song playing instead of the normal ringing tone. Some people who have called me were confused, so they had just hung up, but I have found a new use for them... at least for the time being.

Telemarketers usually don't direct dial their targets, but have a computer dial for them, and when they get a phone that is ringing, they will transfer that call to the next available agent. If it is a busy signal or anything else, it will hang up automatically. So by having a ringback tone installed, it has been interesting for me. Every once in a while, I'll get called, but my phone will ring for less than 1 second, and then hang up. A few times, the Caller ID picked up the number, and I dialed back to see what it was. Everytime I have called back, I get dropped into the IVR menu of some telemarketing group. Lately, it has been for this one scam where they say they will give you a free trip to Vegas or wherever if you come to a 90 minute presentation for some housing complex or something. I've told them a million times that I'm not interested and they tell me that they won't bother me again, but somehow I end up being in their system again. At least now I have found a way to get them off my back... until the computers are smart enough to distinguish between an error message and a ringback tone....

So while I was out in Hawaii, I was never sure how to respond to people who said "Aloha!" and "Mahalo" to me everywhere I went. Later, I had to ask Gary if people normally address each other like that in Hawaii. He told me that it was only in the tourist areas that they really do that, so now I don't feel like I was being so rude for just answering back with a "hello" or "thank you". So if you ever wondered that the same question, there's the answer....

Mahalo