Okay, I think that I need to stop the madness. I don't know how the heck I'm going to be able to read all of these games if I don't start studying Japanese and put down the video games. heh. I thought playing video games in Japanese would help, but it just creates more confusion for me. I think the key is to study Japanese, so that I'll be able to read what they're saying. heh...

I haven't been doing much lately. Only staying in my apartment. I wonder if I should travel around Japan for a little while. But I know that I wouldn't do that. heh.

To get to Osaka from my place, it cost $200 roundtrip. I was lucky that I got to go there at all. Anyway, my days haven't been filled with too much. I've been mainly just going to work, coming home and doing nothing but surf the net. Sometimes I write on my blog or check Fantasy sports.

Today, I talked to one of my friends online. He asked me if i gave up anything for Lent. I knew that it was the Lent season, but I didn't give up anything. I wonder what I could give up...Internet shopping? That might be tougher than I thought. I'll talk it over with one of my other friends. That might save the remaining time I have here in Japan as I spent most of my time surfing amazon or yamada denki. Freaking Yamada denki is the slowest website ever. I guess it gets a lot of hits from electronic crazy shoppers. heh. I don't even know when Easter is...hmm...

Oh well...I just looked it up and it's April 8th. That would be a long time to go without internet shopping, but maybe I should give up video game shopping totally and not internet shopping. I don't know...I should talk it over with G-sak if he thinks that this is a good thing. GC what do you think? email me if you read this.

Man, I've got to do something with my time here. Maybe i'll watch Bleach on the internet. Man, I love that anime. I should read the manga too as I don't catch all that they say.

Anyway...notice the new made up word in the label.

Hmm...maybe I should stop the madness. But I can't!!!

Anyway, I was talking to a friend tonight about how many video games I bought here in Japan. I told him, give me two minutes to count.

I counted 60. that's sick. I calculated all of that up, and that was about more than one months work of pay. I guess I see where my priorities lie. Video games, rent, food, electricity, water, and hopefully God comes into play somewhere.

I honestly must say that I haven't been to church in about 4 months. Ever since November...Anyway, I think that I've been really stressed with this teaching job. Now that it's ending, I'm finding that I'm able to wake up a little bit easier on the weekends. Which could explain why I bought so many video games these past 6 months. 10 video games a month does seem like quite a bit. Well, it wasn't 10 video games a month...it was more like, 3-6 and in the past 5 days, around 15. Hey, I'm not expecting to get these again for awhile. Hmm...oh well...I guess I should be more careful with my money. But man, I do have a weakness when it comes to spending money. Hmm...that's not a good thing. oh well...maybe I can sell these once I get back. Anyway, I'm hoping that I'll be able to find a job somewhere when I get back soon.

Hmm...I'm not sure what I'm going to do when I come back. But I think that my future will involve video games. heh. Maybe I can do that as a job sometime. Hire me as a video game tester!!! I guess I need programming experience. More school for me.

I'm wondering why the heck I'm spending so much lately. I probably was spending this much in my past 6 months here. It's crazy...a one hundred yen coin is $1 in the US. Usually I think of coins as something like quarters...so I guess I should be a lot more careful when I go shopping. The smallest bills here are 1000 yen bills which is the equivalent of a $10 bill. I think that maybe I'm just too spendy with my money. It's freaking bad. I might be out on the streets someday if I'm not careful.

Anyway, keeping track does not seem to help me. I think I need to make a reasonable limit for myself each day. An allowance of how much I can spend on entertainment, an allowance on food and coffee, and an allowance on my bills. Not saying that I'm going to not pay my bills, but what I'm saying is I need to limit how much water I use, meaning not running the shower constantly when I'm showering. That's one of my favorite things to do is to warm up by taking a hot shower. It's still kind of cold here.

Anyway, I see that I need to really watch what I buy at the grocery store, as that is 2nd in terms of my spending. Okay, budget...$20 a day...30 days...$600 to spend on bills and food and entertainment. The rest needs to be saved. Hmm...that's not much I'm saving if you count rent...hmm...maybe I need to limit myself to just paying the bills and limit myself to $100 a month on groceries, eating out, and video games. Hmm...that's pretty tight. I'm wondering if I should count transportation...maybe not. That's a necessary given if you're taking the train. I never take taxis...too expensive.

Anyway, okay, $100 a month divided by 30 is 3 dollars a day. hmm...I'm not sure if that's possible. Oh well...I should probably try to limit the coffee or at least fast coffee...man, I can't stay awake then...oh well...I need to think about this some other time.

I just realized after reading my blog that I tend to spend way too much, even when I don't intend to. Bad habits die hard. Oh well...I wanted to make sure that I got this ps2 before they stopped selling them again. For some reason, it seems like PS2s are still hot in Japan. I guess that's true after the PS3 is not able to play all the ps2 games and psone games while the ps2s are able to. It looks like the PS2 won't go away that easily. And I was expecting it to go way down in price. Oh well.

oh yeah, I need to stop buying video games. Unless they're cheap, then maybe I can sell them. But yeah, I'm seeing that domestic games don't sell for very much in the country of origin. I think that the reason being that video game companies don't like other games being sent out of the country, because they can be bought at a lower price in the country of origin than other countries. Lik-sang, a import/export company got destroyed by Sony for sending Japan PSPs and PS2s to the UK. I think that they have the same region code. It's also cheaper to buy things in Japan and online than it is to buy it in the UK. So they have banned selling stuff to those banned regions for importers.

Anyway, I need to stop buying so many games that I want to play and start playing the games that I have now and beating them before I buy new games. But we'll see. I'm thinking that I won't get another year here, so I might as well buy games that I can't get in the states.

One of my friends told me that in everything, I need to make good decisions with my life. Video games and money is just one aspect of that. I need to grow up in my decision making process. For example, instead of staying up late, go to early. (that's not going to happen) Or, get your lessons done a week ahead of time instead of leaving them till the day before. Or be prepared when you go in to do something and not caught off guard. He told me that I don't have to give up my childhood, but I do have to make some good decisions.

I see what he's saying, because it's so easy for someone to be living on the streets, because of bad decisions or bad luck. But mainly, I think that unwise decisions lead to worse circumstances. So I need to take care of that.

Anyway, I should be more careful with my money. It's crazy how many video games are coming out here in Japan every month. I can't keep up with them. I kind of wish that the original Japanese language games would be in the states also. But I find that there's no import shops near my house in the states. Plus some of those import shops rip you off. Oh well. I know of some good sellers on Ebay. Definitely I can see why they stay in business. But I think that it's sometimes ridiculous how cheap some of their games are. I mean, don't your seller fees cost more than what you're selling the game at or what it sold at? I don't know...maybe they're just trying to win more customers. Definitely I love that shop on ebay. I'm not the only one though. It's crazy how much time it takes to list something and get it ready to ship.