The first hit is free, but the 2nd one will cost you your life

Damn, I have never ever considered spending over 40 dollars for a pair of shoes, or ~100 for a nice pair of dress shoe—but 185? Shit.さくらぎさんになりたいです。

The thing about anime is, while watching it is free, you'll eventually want to own a piece of a series you really like in some kind of form of merchandise. Some of these merchandise can be ridiculously expensive, thus making lives harder for poor people who can't manage money—people like me. I'm sure I'll be able to find a way to justify purchasing these by the time Nov 1 rolls around.

 For the record the most expensive thing I've ever wanted to buy after watching an anime is probably this: 僕はこの車が欲しいです！

Seeing it in action on Initial D, and being one one of my most driven cars in Gran Turismo just makes me want to own one. I was incredibly jealous when I found out somebody in my dorm had one when he gave me a ride. At least I can say I've been in one now. If Mitsubishi is still alive or bought out by a reputable company who plans on continuing to manufacture these—and if I actually get a salaried position, I'd love to lease one of these. There's just something sexy about it I can't explain.

You can give a neet a job, but he'll still be a neet at heart... right?

After taking a few days off work because I didn't want to risk getting a dry socket and spitting blood everywhere, I remember how truly great it is to wake up and realize you have 0 obligations for the moment. Neetdom used to be my dream in college—maybe it still is. I fantasize about being neet without regrets but I know just how unrealistic that dream is. My morals and values instilled into me by my parents and society are just too overwhelming that I just can't seem to drop everything and say fuck it. I still care about finding a better job, finding a girlfriend, establishing my own household and devoting myself to it. But then sometimes I just want to crawl back in my hole and numb myself with substances.

I feel like an inanimate being in Dream of the Red Chamber that wishes to experience the passion borne only in mortals. However upon realizing that mortal passion only gives birth to suffering, I want to revert back to a piece of rock. It's actually really selfish now that I think about it, running away from all your responsibilities. My dream is to be a selfish asshole...  I think just haven't suffered enough. That's why I still care about stupid shit like what's going to happen on the next episode of an anime, or being jealous of how much someone else makes. If I truly had suffered enough to want to escape everything, then I would no longer be in this world.

Ok that's enough rambling for a Monday night.

tldr: weekends and breaks makes me wish I was a neet again, but being a neet is sad so I should stop thinking like that.

ニートアドバイスコーナー

Ah, all those nights of drinking and smoking and passing out without brushing my teeth in college finally caught up to me. Getting one of my molars infected and pulled probably ranks up among the worst pain I've endured right under getting hit in the balls, and above getting heartbroken. As neets and potential hikkis who don't venture out a lot, please at least take care proper care of your teeth. I now sorely miss my left molar and wouldn't trade it for all the nice booze in the world, nor the finest tobaccos. Teasing the empty space with my tongue brings back a lot of feelings of regret but what's done is done and it would be in my best interest to learn from my mistakes and protect my remaining molar.

In other news, I've recently received a response from a job posting I saw online claiming to pay 50k+ commission in a sales position. The phone interview went great, and they wanted me to come in for an interview on Friday. Every sounded nice until I found their confirmation email in the spam folder. Well that's fine, I've also received email from reputable companies like Citi in the spam folder too but when I took a look at the contents, I noticed some red flags. Trips to Hawaii, Rolex watches, inviting friends who are also looking for work to come along for interview—all of these triggered my skepticism and made me wonder if this is something worth taking a day off work for, especially since I just took 2 days off to get my tooth pulled and recover this week. Maybe it's a culture difference seeing how this company is UK based, but I still just can't discard that feeling that this is a scam. Maybe my paranoia is just getting the better of me, or maybe I'm missing a good opportunity. Guess I'll never know if I don't go.

ニートじゃないよ

Talk about a self fulfilling prophecy—I knew I'd have trouble finding a job after tasting the "sweet" neet life. Spending a good 5 months doing nothing but destroying my liver and lungs while being a shut in because of a school suspension contributed a lot to my social anxiety and lack of confidence. I knew I had no hope of finding a job I'd be proud of with my gpa and yet my pride wouldn't let me go into unskilled labor work. However the ensuing relapse back into neetdom made realize I really didn't want to feel the same way as that time ever again, so I went ahead and accepted a low paying job building pcbs. It was tough work learning something completely different than what I had studied, and often times I'd regret over why I ever bothered attending college if this was my fate. But after a while, I got promoted into a managerial position where I no longer had to sniff lead every day. Getting paid feels good, even if the work can be menial. Every time I think about how much work sucks, how the commute sucks, how the pay sucks, I recall the time I spent as a hikki and suddenly everything doesn't suck as much. Living life with no purpose or goals in mind is one of the worst feelings I've ever had to endure, but it's made me somewhat stronger mentally at least. I can appreciate the smaller things in life again like going outside, and interacting with other humans. Having a paycheck to my name and a "good work" from my boss does wonders to my self esteem, even if the amount isn't as much as I hoped for or even if my boss doesn't really give a fuck about me. If anything, getting a job has made me want to get a better job—one where I can test my limits again because I'm not as afraid of failure as I was before.

But one thing I will complain about is the lingering feeling of  lack of quality fun time. Playing LoL after work is a terrible experience. I don't have the time to watch as much anime as I used to nor do I find myself interested in as many as I used to. Drinking nice beer and enjoying tobacco feels like a waste of money so I've pretty much quit both save for special occasions. It's hard to think about what I should do for quality recreation so I usually just end up doing nothing over the weekends until it's Sunday night and I'm thinking how fast time flies. However on this particular Sunday I remembered I had this blog so I decided to post on it again. Maybe I'll start writing regularly to entertain myself until I grow tired of it.

じゃあまた

さよなら

I had a lot of fun taking Japanese this semester. I kinda wish I took it earlier but I guess I'll have to try to study on my own now. みなさんがんばります！

よくどんなおんがくをききますか？

僕はヌジャベスのうたがだいすきです。いつもききますよ。

I first found out about Nujabes (his name being Seba Jun) from watching Samurai Champloo, which featured a lot of his music.

One of my favorite songs by him is Counting Stars ( aka Shino's Theme), which played at a really beautiful scene where Jin, one of the main protagonists, sends Shino off on a boat to safety after rescuing her from an otherwise cruel fate of working off her husband's debt in a brothel. This was an amazing episode that really developed Jin's character as someone who also falls in love, and not just a stoic samurai.



Nujabes also worked with MINMI to create this lovely piece which played at the conclusion of some of the episodes. It really captured the mood well, and is another one of my favorite songs he worked on.



It's a shame he passed away, but the music he left behind will ensure that nobody will ever forget him.

ちくしょう（dammit), 今コンピューターでアニメをみます、たくさんしゅくだいをしません。>_<