It is 7/8/9 today. I think that’s kind of cool. I think it is pretty well established by now that I’m a bit of a geek, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that I find the sequence amusing.
Over 5 years ago I decided to give up caffeine. There was no religious reason behind it. A long time ago I vowed to never drink Coca-Cola or any caffeinated carbonated beverage after I got my orthodontics off. I didn’t get braces until I was (barely) an adult, and I figured I had enough Coke as a child to last a lifetime. With Coke out of my life, my coffee and tea habit fulfilled my caffeine need. Eventually, tired of Sunday morning headaches if I didn’t get my latte in a timely manner, I decided it probably was a good idea to quit the drug. I will admit to using coffee medicinally on a few occasions, mainly to survive a road trip without falling asleep. 
I can promise you, if you don’t habitually drink coffee, a latte around 2:00 pm can sustain you for hours and hours. I also admit that chocolate has not been purged from my diet either, so I’m not pure. But I try.
What’s that have to do with anything? Well, I’ve started to notice a trend in Japan for Coffee Jelly drinks. Say what? That sounds and looks horrible. It sort of seems boba-esque to me. I’ve always thought boba was really silly, and was kind of like putting little choking hazards of phlegm in my drink. Sorry, but that’s what I think. Starbucks now offers Coffee Jelly Frappuccinos, and Georgia offers Jelly Coffee in a can. As I started writing this, I did a Google search and found a zillion blogs recently blogging about Coffee Jelly. It is so hard to be cutting edge, but I wonder how many of those blogs compare boba to phlegm? Huh? HUH? That’s what blogging is all about! Originality. The two blogs linked at least tell you what drinking Coffee Jelly is like. Oh, at today’s exchange rate, a Tall is about 5 bucks, a Venti is over $6.
As for other news, I really want to get my Nara pictures on line, but now that I got my iPhone toy and joined Apple’s MobileMe, I want to create an album that I can link to from the blog. So now I have to learn the best way to export directly from Aperture into MobileMe, plus Japanese homework, plus consolidating my address books and taking advantage of the MobileMe “cloud†to sync all my devices, plus a visit from Tomo, and a 4th of July party, and researching cool Apps for the iPhone, and an almost daily need for sleep I just haven’t accomplished everything. I’m sorry, I’m trying.
Rainy season continues. We had a respite over the weekend and it has rained at some point every day this week. More predicted. And I’m sad to report that white-sweats and top-knot appear to have fully broken off communication. They sit in different sets of benches waiting for the train and even enter the train through separate doors. I’ll let my blogosphere friends know if anything changes.
It truly is rainy season. We’ve had six days of rain. Maybe tomorrow we will have a break. Sunday it rained cats and dogs in Tokyo, and Tomo and I had to go to Shibuya for some shopping. Tomo was trying to get his autographed Rolling Stone Lady GaGa Cover (Tomo, xoxo, Lady GaGa) framed. So he was gingerly carrying his triple wrapped GaGa, weaving through the crowd, me trying to follow as closely as possible, and umbrellas bumping the entire time. In the end, we actually found a way to frame the magazine. What was remarkable to me is the shop double matted with 8 ply mat board for the price of the frame itself. IN 20 MINUTES! That’s some good service.