MichaelMcKinlay.com

Ok so I’m a big liar and it really isn’t poo, but hey it sure looked that way. Still mad at me for lying? Sue me! Oh wait a minute you can’t, due to my ingenious disclaimer.

In case you are wondering, the ad is advertising a brand of non-alcoholic beer and I think the guy is eating deep fried chicken dipped in a “special sauce.” OK, I’m done.

Nick after his leg muscles atrophied due to another marathon session of debugging all of the problems with my blog.

Over the past year on this blog, much has been said about my Net Buddy 4 Life, Nick Ramsay. Nick has influenced me greatly and without him MichaelMcKinlay.com, and OmoshiroiEigo.com would not exist!

Nick finally able to support himself on his own two feet again. He’s sticking close to me in case he has another “episode” and needs something to grab on to on his way down to the concrete floor.

Nick is a dot com mogul, family man, and a chocolate fiend. I spent a couple of days at his house when I was in Japan and we had great old time together. Together, (and by “together” I mean mostly Nick) “we” did the following:

1. Updated my blog to the latest version of WordPress
2. Updated my fancy new banner at top of this page.
3. Visited an earthquake simulator. (This will be blogged about soon!)
4. Went shopping with his family and ate sushi!

Nick is a pretty smart guy, especially when it comes to computers. However when the two of us get together I’m usually able to bring him down to my level as evidenced by the following picture.

Another shot of me holding Nick up after he lost all spatial ability and control of muscles. Wait a minute, that’s how Nick usually looks. As for me, well… I’m just trying to blend in…

Last month when I was in Japan I caught my first glimpse of the new Nissan GT-R. Based on the Nissan Skyline which was never available for sale in North America, (except for used imported models) it’s allowing Nissan to reclaim the fame it achieved with the Skyline that ended production in 2002.

I’m not in to cars all that much but when I first layed eyes on this car I knew it was something special. For starters, it was huge and it just looks mean! The wheels were massive and the sheer size of it made it look like it weighed a tonne! It actuallys weighs in at 1740 kg (3836 lb) (which is almost 4 tonnes!) by the way I guess does make it heavier than a tonne!) This weight also makes it heavier than all other cars in it’s class.

Apparently it’s top speed is 310 km/hr(193 mi/hr) but if you buy the car in Japan the fastest you’ll be able to go is 190 km/hr(118 mi/hr.) Unless you are on an approved Nissan racing track. This is due to the fact that these cars are built with electronic limiters so that their owners don’t get too crazy when stepping on the gas. The good news though for Americans, and I assume Canadians is that Nissan has announced that these limiters are not on American models. I in no way support dangerous driving but it would be a shame to limit a car like this!

Another interesting fact regarding these cars is that they are slowly being released across the world. As you can see they’ve already been released in Japan. It is now June and they are selling them in the States now. Later this year they will hit Europe.

The GT-Rs start at about $67,000 USD but I imagine you won’t have much luck getting one at that price. Nissan is only making 1000 a month and I’ll bet that demand will exceed supply for the first little bit at least.

This is a pretty obvious tip but it’s a tip nonetheless! Just like in our home countries, renovations can cost an arm and a leg. There is also the fact that because you live in Japan you must communicate with tradespeople in Japanese. This obviously makes things even more difficult. So what do you do? You save yourself the aggravation and do it yourself!

These home centers are very much like their Western counterparts (i.e. Home Depot.) They offer a wide variety of tools, building supplies, and supposedly know-how on how to do anything in your home. All at competitive prices. You can even purchase furniture in these places! They’ve got it all! What? You want a shower head? They’ve got it! You want curtains? Yeah they got that too… You want some “Daily Necessaries?” Duh… where else would you go?

Go and have a look inside but be careful cause big brother is always watching, even if he can’t spell!

On my way to Japan I had to transit through Seattle’s SEATAC Airport. SEACTAC stands for Seattle/Tacoma as the airport is located between these two cities. I’d never been to Seattle but since I was only planning to change planes I didn’t have much time to explore the city. Well, that’s not totally true because I missed my connecting flight to Japan, due to some mechanical problem with the plane I took from Canada. I ended up spending an extra 24 hours in Seattle but the airline gave me a hotel and meal vouchers. Trying to make the best of an unfortunate situation, I tried taking a bus downtown. Sadly, it was not my day as I had the right numbered bus, but took it in the wrong direction. Oh Lordy! Anyway enough about that mis-adventure.

Seattle’s Airport is pretty nice. The food court area was the best part of the place as it had a great view of the runway. Made up of huge panels of glass it’s an impressive structure.

One thing I noticed when I flew in was that the airport seemed to take forever to fly over. Not only that but the airport sure seemed to have a lot of gaps(making no sense) cause I would see regular street traffic and neighborhoods, and then more runways and planes??? I couldn’t figure it out but then realized that we must have been flying over Boeing’s facilities. (In case you don’t know Boeing is one of the world’s largest aircraft manufacturers, if not the biggest.)

Another cool thing that the airport had were a couple of full scale models of historical planes. One of them was of the Voyager plane. The Voyager was the first plane to fly around the world without refueling. I don’t remember what the second plane was famous for though. Sorry.