That dude living at my house...

   is pretty cool. Funny guy too, both in speech and temperament, although unfortunately only I can really tell the former aspect is so because no one else understands him - he speaks only a little bit of english. We had this dinner reception to go to tonight with him for all of the members of the group he's in (I think 34 total), and we sat around joking and talking to all of the natives, and eating all the food that everyone made for the event (which was really extensive and pretty damn good, especially for a bring-your-own style buffet).

   We went to the Andy Warhol museum (to which I never go because I really hate the guy, more or less) to see this exhibit of painted Darth Vader masks. I thought it was a pretty cool idea, and I was blown away by the pieces, but by far the best part of that specific experience was the incredible amount of Star Wars fans in full Vader/Storm Trooper/Boba Fett/Imperial Guard outfits walking around taking pictures with people...

I got choked by Darth Vader. It was sooooo cool.

The funniest part of the night, however, was dinner. He's totally Japanese in that he supplements all parts of a meal with one kind of alcohol or another - it didn't really seem to matter to him, as he had a few beers, probably about a bottle of wine, and some sake interspersed between glasses. By the end of the dinner, he was good and jolly, asking question after question in broken english, and telling all present "I so happy." We got home and saw that Rocky 1 was on, and boy was he excited. He went to bed around 10.

So far so good.