- Recently, I’ve been handling more and more e-mail correspondence at work. For whatever reason, the Americans and Europeans answering my e-mails call me “Mr.” Smith. Is “Emeth” such a male-sounding name? It’d be weird to sign my e-mails as “Ms.” … wouldn’t it? I guess, though, it really doesn’t matter whether I’m male or female.

- Just banned another spammer IP from commenting on this blog. Ohhh, so fun.

- Yesterday, I dropped by the Apple Store in Ginza, about 5 minutes walk from where I work every morning. I had my iPod with me, which suddenly and mysteriously quit working two days ago. When I told a guy on the first floor that my iPod was acting funny, he took me to a place called the Genius Bar. (Can you imagine? What in the world is that supposed to mean, right?! I admit Mac stuff is really pretty, but … they’re so stuckup about it.) Anyway, the friendly genius at the bar looked at my iPod for a bit then told me that the battery had died and that I would either have to pay a bunch for a new battery or buy one of their fantastic new iPods. *sigh* Is yours still holding up, Ben? I want a new iPod. And I wish they had coloured ones in bigger sizes, too.

- While I’m telling you about computer wishes, I wish I had one of those newfangled Powerbooks and one of those big monitors to go with my new 40GB iPod. Uh, huh, like that’s ever gonna happen.

- Meanwhile, my baby is in the hospital undergoing heavy surgery with Dr. Ken. I built him myself over a year ago, but he started getting disobedient last summer. Ken is going to rip out his bad parts and replace them with new, good ones. Oh, if only everything in life were so simple….

- Last night, I happened to turn on the TV just as a movie was starting. When the narration started, I thought the voice sounded awfully familiar. Mhmmmm. It was John Cusack.

- As I looked around the 40 or so men in the office this morning, I noticed quite a number of them, especially the older ones, wearing pastel colours. Pink, yellow, palest-pale-baby blue shirts and matching ties with dainty patterns or cute flowers obviously chosen to match the pretty shirts. Why? Granted, I’ve never worked with businessmen from any other countries so I may be speaking out of total ignorance, but is it common for men in other countries to wear such patterns and colours? The strangest thing about it to me, though, is that they require the young guys to wear black suits with white shirts. *shakes head* Can someone explain this to me?