I'm officially in awe of the times we live in.
Prior to this I would see advancements in science, technology, culture... and I would sit there and think wow, that's really neat! But it wouldn't give me enormous pause.
This week I used Googlemaps to look at satellite imaging of Kyoto, Tokyo and Okinawa. For shits and grins, I even found my house and noted that the day they took the picture our neighbor was parked our driveway.
I then zoomed in and took a look at the streets around Shibuya, Tokyo, and Higashiyama Ward in Kyoto. I actually took a tour of the neighborhood around the hotels we'll be staying at and got to see what the front looked like. I got to see where the closest McDonald's was to Shinjuku station. And then for the hell of it, I zoomed in and checked out the shrine behind our hotel in Kyoto. Guess what? There's a graveyard. I could make out the gravestones and the torii from a few thousand miles overhead.
If that is not utterly awe inspiring, I have no freaking clue what is. Before I did all of that I even took a moment to check out Marrakesh. I've always wanted to go to Morocco, and while I may not ever get there, I totally got to see the layout of the town, and noted there are quite a few swimming pools there.
Now that I've seen where we'll be going, it's given me a bit more calm regarding the entire thing. There are some streets in Japan that are no more alien than some of the streets in New York. I'm beginning to think that while it might be a highly unusual experience, it might not be the stressful endeavor we both secretly worry about.
Of course, just accepting we're going to have one mental break down and yelling match over being completely lost in a foreign country where we can't read the signs, speak the language, or find help is going to make things a lot easier, so I've stashed that for when it goes down.
To add to the further sense of wonder at what we can do, I went so far as to dump the weather conditions for Okinawa, Tokyo and Kyoto on Vista's sidebar, as well as a currency converter. I can get an idea of what weather we'll be facing, and know daily what our finances will look like when we get there. That amount of information coming together all at once to give a picture of what's going on in another part of the world is just amazing.
Changing gears, electroplankton came on Friday, and I enjoyed the hell out of it. 10 different "types" of plankton to mess with, each by an entirely different means. Considering the totally awesome deal I got for it, I would say this is probably one of the best games I've ever managed to procure for my DS. Should my niece(s) show interest in gaming, I will absolutely work to get one for them.
Bob brought home Street Fighter IV and pretty much he's been on it whenever he's gotten time. I finally grabbed a controller today and confirmed that Guile, M. Bison and Chun Li are STILL overpowered in a fight, and that it's still hellacious fun to play. I think we played for perhaps half an hour before I got back to end-of-the class work for .html. (I really, really liked .html and I'm excited to be going in to .html II on Tuesday.)
An interesting side note... I've watched Metalocalypse for a long time, and just this evening Bob and I discovered that Mark Hamill actually does voice overs for two of the characters in it. That is actually fairly awesome, because he's done so well that we can't hear ~any~ of his normal speaking voice in those characters. Well done, sir.
There was more, but right now all i can think of is the fact i got a sock done this weekend and I managed to finish the gusset on another. I tried to do a bit of amigurumi but the needle was too big so the gaps looked horrendous. I tore it out and decided to try again another night.
Think I'll try getting to sleep before 2:30 this week.
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