Monday, January 14, 2008

Vanishing

I got off work at three, hopped a ferry to the mainland and then caught a bus down to central Nago. As I tend to carry more and more distractions with me (books, iPod, DS), traveling has become increasingly easy. I'm encased in my own little world of audiobooks, word games and fiction. The iPod in particular has paid for itself; you can go further and longer when you're not bored tearless.

Elina picked me up at the game store in Nago where I snatched up a copy of Mario Strikers to play in downtime I increasingly don't have. Between writing thank you notes to my Japanese friends, the pile of reading I brought back for myself, exercise and all the myriad details that scream their importance, there's been little time for gaming. But I'll gravitate back toward games when I get tired of reading. I can already feel the pull, but I'm enjoying my books too much.

But reading was why Elina picked me up Nago. This month's book was Starship Troopers and for a novel with no plot, I was completely engrossed. I'm not sure if that's an endorsement, since I could say the same thing about the last four books I've read and am reading: Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, A Disorder Peculiar to the Country, Starship Troopers and currently Salem's Lot. This either means I've picked good ones lately or I'm looking for some escapism. I think the latter, perhaps.

There was a problem, however, with this month's book club: our meeting place Celluloid Cafe had vanished from this earth in the span of a month. In honor of this cozy, seaside locale, I present the obligatory "wtf photo":

wheres

We reconvened at a burger joint down the street, where I enjoyed a tasty goya burger and a spirited discussion of Troopers. Fascism and Nazis were absent from discussion, but American--and a touch of British--military policies were at the forefront. Our discussion was concise. Either people liked it or hated it and they could tell you why and probably go off for five or ten minutes, lost in their own thoughts.

It was a short meeting though, since we then hightailed it to one of the three movie theaters in Okinawa for a showing of I am Legend, which had been discussed the previous month. I'd seen it before, but this time I had the pleasure of a frightful young lady clutching my arm.

I was rather pleased with this.

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