Weekly Praise Thread – 22 May 2026

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1. Tons of praise to catch up on:

   * Rented a small plot in a community garden, morning routine now includes cycling down to water our produce (tons of spicy peppers hopefully). Nice way to start the day.

   * Recently got a good deal on a second-hand espresso machine on Mercari. Nothing fancy but in excellent condition. Bought some simple supplies as well. Already pulled some decent shots and made a great cappuccino the other day. All in all, about ¥10,000 spent so far. But I can definitely already see how this can become an expensive hobby.

   * Going to my first wedding this weekend. Well, first as a guest at least. I’m excited to be on the non-stressful side of things this time.

   * Looks like one of my favorite YouTube channels, Jet Lag (they play games like Tag and Hide-and-Seek using whole countries as their play area), is shooting a new season in Japan!

   * Random bonuses: Weather is nicer, trees are greener, and chocolate-mint sweets are coming back.

2. Brooo, when the hell did Randy’s Donuts open franchises here?! As someone raised in LA, I finally got a dried coconut donut from the stand in Ikebukuro and it just brought me back!

3. It’s Friday!

4. I’ve never gotten a key duplicated in my life, but I got it done by someone at a little place yesterday within like 2 minutes. Good experience.

5. I’m not always listening to metal but thank god for bands like Meshuggah when Im burnt out and need to stop thinking about stupid work shit.

   Also,when I was teen I was a huge Deftones fan, nearly 30 years ago, so I was glad to see them playing live here even though I couldn’t go. I never would have thought they’d survive this long. 

6. My weight was sitting just above “underweight” on the bmi scale.  So lately I’ve been trying to put on a few kegs without resorting to poison junk food, and it’s working.  Up 2kgs in a few weeks and not falling back.  A few more and I’ll be happy(er).

7. Im just so happy my nearest train station has 3 train lines. Toyoko line was late earlier so i had the luxury to use meguro line to still be on time for work

8. Last year, I placed a camera on the top of my entrance door (outside of course) to see who was ringing.

   The Japanese neighbor directly in front of my door complained that it was violating her privacy and asked the concierge to ask us to remove the cam (even though it wasn’t a recording cam, no physical or online storage), which we did.

   Fast forward to this month, we got a whole renewal thing going on where they changed all the building’s intercoms, and they replaced the ring panel outside with one that has a camera in it, and, cherry on top, a recording function.

   Well, I guess I won’t remove this one. How’s that for your fucking privacy, neighbor.

9. I feel like this has been mentioned before but getting fit here is not hard at all if you really want to.

   For the past 8 months Ive been on a body recomposition journey, lose fat and build muscle. I leaned out, lost 3kg, dropped around 8% in body fat, built more muscle which is showing up more with better definition, and improved strength and endurance overall.

   It helps a lot that there are so many options for clean healthy eating and protein and opportunities for exercising in general.

10. Renewed my driver’s license and got a Gold one so I could renew my car insurance for around 10% less than last year

11. Wife and I hit our first 1,000万円 between our savings and investments.

12. just found a 100円 coin in my laundry machine. gonna go hit the vending machines.

13. The weather today was cool enough to not wear a jacket, blood donating queue was quick and my qbhouse queue had only 2 people. I wish they kept the 献血カード so I can flex with my coworkers.

14. I had to stay in a hotel over the weekend for a business trip, and I think for the first time ever I was not asked to show a passport or residence card. In fact I wasn’t asked for any form of identification 😁

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