Cool- discovery of the season. Skype is a web company introduced to me by my dad and brother. By downloading their free software you can make international calls for free! Both the caller and the receiver have to have the skype software (which is as easy as any of the instant messenger software and quite similar to run), and a microphone (my bro got me a computer headset for Christmas)... but that's all it takes. (If person the caller is calling doesn't have the software set up, apparently the caller calls to their phone instead of a computer, and but it is still only $.02/minute-including overseas calls!). Now when I see either of them online, we can dial computer to computer and talk as long as we like... totally gratis... until we've said everything we'd ever want to (which my mom tested out on Monday morning) or one of us starts to fall asleep (which was the almost unavoidable result of Monday's chat with Mom...sorry Mom...!).

Anyway- its really quite cool. I'm very psyched about it, and would be more so if I could get some of you guys to sign up too. Nothing like making even more use of 24 hour internet connection! If anyone else is on skype or signs up.. please e-mail me and we can swap usernames. I promise to respect international timezones if you do....

Not much else going on. If anyone remembers that sketchy client I had at my last job who I'd decided was a drug runner or something equally illegal- you will be as "shocked" as I was to hear that it turns out he was using stolen credit cards. Yes, I am oh-so-very-shocked. I have the world's largest "I told you so" stuck in my throat, but instead of sharing it with my old boss... I've been helping him re-create the history of the transactions for a report he must submit. Its pretty ugly for him, but its not like I didn't warn.... about 10 different people.

We're heading back out to Niigata for skiing all day on Saturday. They are reportedly getting record levels of snow this week. Tom reported that they were actually canceling and delaying shinkansen trains due to all the snow on the tracks. For those of you in the midwest who imagine that you're pretty hard core when it comes to winter- think meters of snow (that's plural, and that is over 3 feet to ONE meter, for those of you who are metrically challenged!)- we're talking Winter with a capital W and several underlines. ;) Wish you all could join me to play in it...