(no subject)

• I had another weekend where I left the house! Who's proud of me?  I went out on both Saturday and Sunday, which is practically unheard of.

• Friday night was pretty uneventful.  I spent a bit of time watching movies on youtube and reading about standard cooking materials via my gigantic cooking textbook.  I think I got inexplicably tired around 10:30 and shuffled off to bed not much later than that.  I had one of those nights that I imagine old ladies have often.

• Saturday was a bit different.  There was the hanami party in the afternoon but I skipped out on that.  I was feeling lazy and didn't want to go out so instead I stayed home and baked an apple pie.  The pie turned out great!  My only complaint with it is that the apples I used weren't sour enough.  I'd have liked to use Granny Smith apples but I don't know what they are called in Japanese and I also don't know where I'd buy them as I don't think I've seen them in any supermarkets.  I should ask some Japanese people what a sour Japanese apple is and use that next time.

• While making the pie I got an email from a friend of mine.  She was saying that her friend cancelled and she had an extra ticket to go see the musical "Wicked" and asked if I wanted to come.  I have had a semi-interest in reading the book Wicked for a while but not a strong enough interest to, you know, actually buy it and read it.  However, to see the musical in Japanese for free seemed like a good replacement for that so I agreed.  In the end, the musical was pretty good.  The sets were really nicely put together and the story wasn't half bad.  In the end, I'm glad that I saw it.

• Afterwards I spent a bit of time reading "The Game Players of Titan", which I'll probably finish today.  I like Phillip K. Dick's books because they inevitably involve some type of confusing drug freak out and a weird sense of reality being flipped around and unreal.  Nearly all of the stories I've read have that in the narrative somewhere.

• Sunday was good too.  I finally got out and saw Watchmen in Shibuya.  It opened on Saturday.  The Sunday crowd was not all that big though.  Actually, the theater was probably %70 full, which is probably not a good sign for the success of Watchmen in Japan.  Anyway, at least I was able to get a relatively good seat and not have to sit directly next to any creeper.  I did enjoy the movie.  Some of the reviews complained about the length but I didn't think it felt long at all.  Actually, I was starting to worry that they story would be clipped because they wouldn't be able to fit the whole of it in the remaining time.  I will agree that Rorschach was amazing in the movie though.  I guess the ending, though changed, is kind of OK.  It gets the same point accross though not quite as spectacularly.  I am excited to see the directors cut whenever it comes out.

• Since I was in Shibuya anyway, I stopped by the cheese shop in hopes of getting Sakura cheese.  Sakura cheese is like Japan's only native cheese that is worth a damn.  Unfortunately they were sold out when I got there.  They suggested another place but it was sold out there too.  I ended up buying some ricotta and some other type of french cheese that I can't quite remember at the moment.  I have yet to actually eat any.