Yep, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. The original books that it’s based off is written by Douglas Adams, the author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy!

Maybe they forced her to get laser hair removal when they were messing with her. Super underrated show! I love Dirk Gently, whatever character has screen time at a given moment is my favorite character.

Those are 12 packs which is $8.57 right now.

I’m in an insurance industry and it’s pretty common to see our sales guys and execs in suits

I love that he’s independent so he isn’t beholden to a record label censoring him. That line hit so hard

this song by Brick + Mortar has been living rent free in my head for a month now

Macklemore has an absolute bop that’s only gotten more relevant over time

The lake is frozen over with ice but it’s melted. This winter has been setting heat records where I live so I assume it’s the same where OP is trying to go ice fishing and they’re saying that due to climate change they probably won’t get a chance to go ice fishing again

https://youtu.be/7fvCb5_Nzq4

TL;DW: keep listening to Japanese media for a couple of hours a day. Watch anime in Japanese with no subs, listen to Japanese podcasts or audiobooks in Japanese while you’re working or doing something else, etc. Try to find something you know a bit about because it will help keep you engaged and help with context.

There’s a chapter about tolerating ambiguity which means they in the beginning you won’t understand anything and it will be very frustrating but you need to accept it and keep feeding your brain Japanese inputs. You’ll learn the sentence structure and vocabulary as well as learning pronunciation, this is basically how babies learn. You’re brain is really good at pattern recognition so just give it enough inputs and eventually it will start to click

Start doing Anki cards which will supplement all the inputs. Don’t go overboard, just learn the alphabets and then some common vocab and keep listening to other media. After about a year, start reading and writing a lot. Read manga, read books, and start writing notes and stuff in Japanese.

That’s basically it. You can use study materials if you want but feeding your brain more inputs is key. In addition to being really effective it has the benefit of being way more fun than studying grammar and whatnot

I went in blind because tHeRE’s sIGns eVEryWhEre aNd gOoGlE tRansLAtE EXisTs. Guess where you don’t want to have your phone out with the camera open??!

It was pretty straightforward once I figured it out but in the moment I was super nervous

We went for a two week trip, starting up north and working our way down. Hakone is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen.

Tokyo is absolutely massive, we had a hotel in Ueno and I spent about 2.5 days there before realizing that’s just one tiny part of Tokyo and there’s SO much more. After that I just rode the train around Tokyo for a while, exploring everything that sounded cool. I easily could have spent a month just exploring Tokyo, give yourself plenty of time there.

It really depends on what your interests are but it’s sure to have something for anyone. We were walking around Ueno Park and randomly stumbled on a local bonsai association which was such a magical experience.

Bring comfortable walking shoes that have already been broken in because you’ll likely be walking a lot. I had really lightweight shoes but they didn’t have enough support so I bought new shoes, only to get blisters from walking 50km in one day with shoes that haven’t been broken in yet 🥲

My take is that they don’t understand privilege and are used to being catered to because straight white males are the “default setting”.

I remember when I went to my Korean friend’s wedding my wife and I were the only white couple there and it felt strange. I talked to some of my black friends and it turns out that out of place feeling is just typical for them but racist white people fight that uncomfortable feeling

Coral Crown from Hades 2 is a bop

I stayed in an apartment that was infested with roaches and they followed us when we moved out. They started to try and establish a colony in the new house we were renting but we waged a war on them. We bombed the house with bug spray, foggers, and diatomaceous earth but it was still a struggle getting rid of them all. At one point my computer was getting dusty so I decided to clean it out when I noticed that a pregnant roach had kamikaze’d head first through a case fan. Her upper body was completely torn to shreds but she had managed to make it inside and laid her egg which hatched and dozens of babies lived in my computer. I was equal parts horrified and impressed.