smart socks

I don't know if they've been invented yet, but left and right chipped-socks could react positively when near their mates.

I wonder if they could squirm toward their mates in a pile of laundry. Nah, robots would be more efficient than motorizing socks.

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Tokyo Dome City

6:10pm JST Tuesday 4 November 2003

Tokyo Dome City features Thunder Dolphin, a coaster that climbs quickly and silently, drops what feels like invertedly, then climbs a building, goes through a hole in a wall that's a continuation of the face of the building, through a ferris wheel, and then around the course again, but a bit lower.

It features two pictures per car, merged into a bi-collage with the edges fuzzed out in such a way that my camera was not visible in the frame.

It's a pretty fly coaster.

We rode it twice in a row, the first time in the very front seat. (In Japanese parks, this is luck of the draw, no one is allowed to wait specifically for a particular seat.) We got back in line immediately and I was like "kite kite" (key-te) to the guys who had ridden behind us, one of whom did not seem to have enjoyed the ride as much as I did. They succumbed to my peer pressure (though I'm probably 10-15 years older) and on their second ride they got to ride in the very front seat, while we were in the back middle somewhere.

Because I encouraged them to ride, I waited for their ride to finish to exchange laughs and limited language. We didn't hang with them any past that. (But we did see them in the tunnel between two parts of the park and I gave them all high fives, saying "money!" each time. (dammit why have I decided that's an okay term?))

* Rode the drop tower (not so tall)

* Rode the indoor coaster (lame-ish)

* Rode the suspended shuttling coaster (lame-ish)

* Rode the ferris wheel (good views of Thunder Dolphin)

* Rested for a bit at Starbucks

* Rode Thunder Dolphin again, and this time I remembered about the second camera, but I thought it was on the left not the right.

- - - -

Left the park, met a man who I think is Tomoko's boyfriend (he's a bit older; it's common for young girls to have an older man boyfriend in Japan), but she didn't come right out and say he was.

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Tokyo Dome City 2

12:01am JST Wednesday 5 November 2003

Went back to the park. Rode Thunder Dolphin again. This time I spent a lot of effort thinking of the BEST thing I could do as one person and two cameras on the coaster. Lucky for my sleep schedule, I don't remember the entire train of thought, but I eventually was like, "okay, if Fred were here, what would we decide is the best thing we could do?" and I came up with it.

As I approached the front of the line, I put my GAP hoodie on backwards. Then when I was on the train, I pulled the hoodie up over my head. Of course, being backwards, my face was completely covered by a smooth black layer of cloth. None of this bunched up around the drawstrings cover-up. Smooth. Flat. Perfect. Backwards.

This got some laughs from the crowd. I raised the roof for them.

So for the first picture (which is taken just before we ascend the lift hill) I was just flat black.

Soon as we started the ascent, I whipped off my hoodie and placed it on the seat beside me. The wind tried to loft it from the seat, but I was able to get it pretty well tucked under the lap bar while careening around the track. For the second picture, I was smiling bigly, wearing a white (1998 San Antonio Rally) shirt, pointing over to my friend Mr Nobody wearing a hoodie in the seat next to me.

Due to croppage, the hoodie isn't visible, my arm pointing to the hoodie is hardly visible, and due to being on a roller coaster, my expression looked a little weird.

But I still got an honor at the photo purchase area. The photo purchasing agent can hang little notes "Best Couple" "Super Scream" "Best Smile" etc. I got "Splendid" after the guy saw me seriously examining the screen and noticed ("wait-a-minute; he's wearing a different shirt!") or just gave me a note to make me happy.

- - - -

I bought the pictures and upon further analysis, decided that the idea itself was flawless, but just a little strained in production. The dark hoodie didn't show up well at night, and the croppage. Ah well. I would simply have to ride again.

But I couldn't do the same poses again. How weak would that be? Had to think of new best ideas.

Came up with two awesome ideas. One requires two people, and we simply switch shirts during the ride. This would be best if they were simply T-shirts, and not a hoodie, which would mean that we were shirtless during part of the ride, but nobody can *really* say anything because there's no direct proof.

The other idea requires only one person, but it requires disabling the safety device on the coaster or learning a different way to switch seats during the ride.

So instead I did "I'm squeeshing you" for the first picture and "hmmmmm" for the second picture.

I got "Hey Nice Guy" and "Splendid!" AND my picture was featured on the monitor showing the latest great picture! Wow, what a star for a moment.

1:10am

Fuuuuuuuuuuk

It's late. I just imported all the pics from my camera, rotated those that need to be rotated, and deleted those that need to be deleted. Didn't write anything specific about any of them.

The pics are 1600 x 1200 pixels so I'd have to reduce them before putting them online; gotta be up early tomorrow (for work; I'm covering for Carla cause she's covering for me on Monday so I can hang out with ma)

Who knows when I'll get any pics online.

But I haven't written the most disrupting thing about the evening.

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disruptions

1:14am JST Wednesday 5 November 2003

When I got to the bike parking lot (after over an hour train ride), I found that I didn't have my keys.

I used them to retrieve my bag from the locker at the park; maybe I left my keys attached to the locker key.

The most troublesome thing: how will I ride my bike home from Matrix in 24 hours if my bike is locked to the bike parking lot?

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