The birthday week's come and gone.

So. Will post whatever pictures I have of birthday presents later. I think there're still some hanging around out there. On a ship in the middle of the Pacific ocean, maybe. :p

But here, my birthday week in point-form.

Removal of KTM tracks started, and although that's not really amusing per se, I'm glad I went to take some super last minute pictures on Sunday (17th July). It's a nice place to walk (apart from all the uneven footing that all the gravel makes); I hope they keep it as a sorta green corridor. It even seems like a small back-alleyway connecting neighbourhoods. If people need to get somewhere along the route, why not encourage them to walk if they have the time to spare? :)

Same-sex couples getting married in New York. Must be the happiest day of their lives for these people; and all the senior citizen couples too - they must be so glad that they lived to see this day. I've never considered getting married myself, so I can't say that I can imagine how it feels, but it must be really horrible to want to commit yourself to someone, and show the whole world how committed you are, but you can't. And even though they couldn't, it's amazing that the ones who've waited all these years have stayed together all that time as well.

We find out that there's gonna be a Starbucks at U-Town! Among other things. If only I'd been born a few years later. Everything's getting so exciting in school now. The Yale-NUS College thingy too. Gah.

Fake Apple stores in China. Not just the products, the whole damn *STORE*.
Maybe the neo-Communist way of raging against capitalism is to undermine it with imitation products.

Pluto has a fourth moon, and Neil Gaiman's fans want it to be named after him.
I'm quite sure that among the others named Nix, Charon and Hydra, "Neil" will be quite the odd one out.

I can just imagine the Pluto family gathering now: "Yeah. That's our little brother. Bit of a black sheep, that one. Went off and disappeared for so long that we forgot his name, so we stuck him with 'Neil' in the end. He's still sulking about it now."

And sadly, the terror attacks in Norway on 22nd July. I can't really understand how someone could think that they have a right to kill whole groups of people who don't fit into their idealised worldview.
Dude, even *your* culture which you were trying to defend so violently is probably an assimilation or amalgamation of a lot of other cultures which yours stamped out in the Dark Ages or something.
And while we're on that, there're probably a lot of people who hate you (there'd be more now, I reckon), but you didn't see them trying to use you for target practice, did you?

And finally, the AAA boys (just Naoya and Shinjiro, really) being their amusing selves on Twitter.

So Shinjiro's having an upcoming handshake event for his new photobook. Our little boy's all excited, so of course he posts stuff on his Twitter, talking about how he's excited to meet everyone and such. There's a bunch of replies, and then...

Naoya (supportive band leader and stand-in parent that he is), replies, going, "Hmm, shall I go as well..?"
Mana-B from DigiCut responds too: "I wanna go too! Let's both go and scream, 'Shin-chan!' together!"
Naoya: Looks like everyone wants to go. Lol.
Shinjiro: You can hold hands and come along together!
Mana-B: Yeah, Naoya, let's go together!
Naoya: I'm not holding hands with you.
Mana-B: Mou, whyyyyy.
Naoya: Nyeh.

RETARDEDNESS, but it's hilarious.

And the return of Naoya's obsession with Shinjiro-sans-clothes:

Shinjiro: Hiroshima's so hot...
Naoya: Ne, are you gonna become even darker? (Coz Shin-chan went on holiday after their tour and got himself very nicely browned)
Shinjiro: No, I don't want to get any darker. Lol.
Naoya: You're wearing all black today... wouldn't you look the same if you were just naked?
Shinjiro: Are you an idiot?

And to end off, this is just cute:

Shinjiro: SET STOCK (TV show) was so much fun! Thank you! Sendai tomorrow!
Naoya: Ah. The prince is still awake.
(This was at past 1am, Japan time. Naoya has a habit of referring to Shin-chan as "prince" because he says Shin-chan reminds him of a prince. Or maybe what a prince might be like.)
Shinjiro: I'm watching TV!
Naoya: Go to sleep, please...
Shinjiro: I'm not sleepy! But tomorrow we have to be up early, right...

Yes, that's probably why Naoya-papa's chasing you off to bed. Lol. Such a baby, but so adorable. ^-^