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Well, looks like earlier today, my wife used my credit card and tried wiring about 925 bucks to my friend Mohamed in Cairo, Egypt. …What’s that? Weird? Well that’s because some gonad tried stealing my money! Identity theft! It can happen to you.

Somehow they got my debit card number and used Western Union to send money to Egypt. Luckily, Western Union called my folks’ house to confirm, and Mom called me, and I got everything figured out. Had to wait until night to call Bank One and Western Union, since their customer service lines open in the morning back home. Well, after about 6 hours of worrying about losing all the money in my bank account, everything is good now. Transaction was canceled before it was complete. New debit card is being mailed to me.

I have a feeling the clerk at the Softmap in Akihabara stole my card number. I ran both of my Visa cards (including the Bank One card) and he said they weren’t approved. That’s weird. So, I ended up using another card. The twip must have taken those numbers and sold it to the Yakuza or something, I dunno.

I’ll call the Embassy or something tomorrow and tell them what happened. There’s probably some kind of thing against this. I suspect this is a scam used on foreign tourists. If I wouldn’t have been contact about this, and it would have been another day or two, the transfer would have gone through and I would have been broke.

Whoa! Just found out that トリビアの泉 (Trivia no Izumi) is being shown in America. How the hell…. Wow, I’m really surprised. I love this show! Now it’s on in America? Have to download some episodes of the US version. Intersting indeed. It’s basically just a show that tells random trivia facts, and celebrities sit and say “heeeeeh” about how weird or funny the trivia is.

Oh, and it’s on SpikeTV. Here’s the website. Hopefully it’s just translated and not turned into a weird parody like that show with Beat Takeshi (can’t remember the name). It’s also on SpikeTV; with the obstacle courses and stuff.

If you haven’t been there before, you should check out Overclocked Remix. They’ve got remixes of old video game songs and such. Right now I’m listening to some kind of techno remix of the Metalman level from Megaman 2. And yes, I’m on a Megaman kick for some reason this past week or so…

It’s Thanksgiving Thursday, at least here in ol’ Nippon. Of course, I’m not gonna get to eat a proper dinner of turkey and stuffing tonight, so I’m trying to think of what to do. I’m thinking I could go to CostCo and get some chicken and/or pizza, or I could try to just have the most non-thanksgiving thanksgiving ever, like with sushi or something. Hmmmm gotta think. KFC sounds good too.

Anyone remember this? Nothing but class:

Waking up this early (especially to go to work) feels like someone kicked you around for an hour. I feel dead.

Well, for some reason, they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving over in Japan. Regardless, there’s no school really. However, I’m not completely free. Still a good week:

Mon – just 1 class, Japanese. today was easy. Ate at Bikkuri Ramen, the best restaurant in the country

Tue – another random holiday! dunno what it is. planning on sleeping all day, then maybe playing some old school Nintendo

Wed – ugh. High school job. at least I don’t have to go next week

Thu – off! No class! no plans yet. KFC for Thanksgiving maybe

Fri – field trip for my stupid history class to the Imperial Palace.

Not a bad week. Better than normal at least. Maybe I’ll try to get started on some of my big papers that are gonna be due before I leave. Prolly not.