I'm Baaaaack

Like these Japanese mythical creatures, I can never die...



First, thank you all for your somewhat enigmatic yet ultimately encouraging messages.

Yeah, it's been a while. Although I am picky about having only Japanese-related stuff on here, I guess I should update you on why I've been away and what's been going on.

What was my main job suddenly stopped a few months ago (no, it wasn't Nova), so I had absolutely no money coming in. It was very rough for a while. Luckily, some good friends cheered me up and helped me get adjusted to life in Kyoto. Thank you Lisa, (another) Lisa, Hiro & Machiko, and Eiko. You can really find out who your true friends are in such times.

Following that, my hard drive broke. Again. As you may recall, I just had a faulty drive replaced at the Apple Store in Osaka last year, so it was a brand new drive! The "geniuses" there replaced my old one with a drive known to fail. Thanks Apple! I love using OS X but, especially after the three (!) motherboard failures of my iBook and problems a friend had with his iMac (Hi Scott!), I can (and will) never again recommend Mac hardware. Though I had purchased a large back up external and saved pretty much everything, all my recent stuff was lost. Including a full blog post I had just written the night before. Yes. I just didn't have the will to do it all again, you know? It also had some recent self-created teaching materials on it, so that was quite frustrating as well. I won't bother to go to Apple to get them to "fix" it again, I'll just buy a new one myself. UPDATE: done. I bought a 320 Gig and put it in (despite the crack sales team telling me it was impossible. It's somehow reassuring that electronics staff everywhere have no idea what they're talking about). It's all good.

I had a house party.I invited about 45 people and about 30-35 came. Pretty crowded, but a lot of fun. A lot of people seemed confused by the concept of just a "house party" and so brought home-cooked dishes, even though I told 'em it wasn't necessary. Also, the thing ended at 11p.m. on a Saturday night! My goal was for people to mingle like a North American party, but I'm not sure if that really happened. Folks had fun, though.

I grew a beard! I've never done that before. Although one boss (at a conversation school) told me it looked cool ("like Brad Pitt"), a businessman I was teaching business English to at a large company was told me "It is better to remove it. Such a thing is rude in Japan". So I did.

I also changed my hairstyle from George Clooney forward to James Bond slicked back.

I went on a lot of dates. I even went to a gokon (a kind of mixer for Japanese university students) in Osaka. Met a lot of cool people, some okay people, and a few outright nutters.

I studied Japanese, especially Kansai ben. I am taking a class, although it's only once a week and I often am busy.

Which reminds me...I learned two songs in Japanese. Shimanchu nu Takara by Begin and Life Goes On by Dragon Ash. I downloaded the lyrics, learned the kanji, then made sheet music. I played the songs on guitar at home, then sang them at karaoke. Next, I'd like to learn a Chinese song. UPDATE: Did it. I sang Tian Mi Mi by Teresa Teng at a karaoke party for one of my jobs.

I translated another menu into English. Last time was a yakitori (grilled chicken) shop, this time was a soba/udon shop. It's very interesting to know all these food-related kanji/words. There may be many foreigners whose Japanese is much better than mine, but they might not know negi banban or wariko soba!

Oh, I take a cooking class once a month. Traditional Japanese food, taught in Japanese and English to foreigners and Japanese. Pretty cool. A friend taught me how to make katsudon (deep-fried pork cutlet on rice with onions, egg, and broth), so I went nuts, deep-frying everything for a while there.

I met my final roommate, a guy from Fukuoka. He's the sixth, and best of all the roommates so far. The last guy from Italy, was the absolute worst - noisy (the walls here are as thin as Ally McBeal, so you can literally hear a pin drop), dirty, rude, etc., so it was a relief to meet Aki.

However, I'm moving to a single apartment. Aki wants to hang together in a new place, but he has some strange idea about opening up a third room to travelers and running some kind of hostel (?!). No thanks. UPDATE: Moved. The new place is pretty cool: tatami floors and all. However, there's no internet (not even a phone line!) and they told me to put fibre optic (which they're pushing recently here) will take a month - they might even have to put up a special telephone pole for me! I could get ADSL, but it's half the speed and costs more, so I'm goin' for the private pole (wait, that didn't sound right...).



When I was checking the place out for the first time with one boss (very cool lady - she found and paid for the agency without me asking, acted as my guarantor without me asking, and even helped me move!), I saw the balcony has a kind of corrugated metal blocking the view (though why they block views here with dirty rusty ugly metal no-one can explain). I asked if they could remove it and the real-estate guy of course sucked his teeth, "it's a little difficult..." (which means "no"). So, I joked, "Well, at least I can walk around naked and no-one can see!". My boss made this just-ate-a-lemon face and said, "Such a thing no-one wishes to see". Ah, I guess you had to be there.

From friends and sayonara sales, I got some good stuff: fridge 3000 yen (about 30 bux), microwave (1000 yen), washing machine (free - I'm four floors up and there's no elevator, so moving the washing machine was an experience), gas stove (free), cool table (3000 yen) and chair (1000), small table from the new IKEA in Osaka which was a nightmare to carry from the station to home on by bike (1500), small stylish lamp (200), tons of pots and pans (500), etc. I'm having a nameplate made for the door. It's a small thing, but it feels like home now.

I went to some interesting stores. This place sells only chopsticks, this place only umbrellas, and this place only bamboo goods.

I'm thinking of having another party, this time a beach party at Omi-Maiko (in Shiga). Swimming, BBQ, drinking, etc. If enough people are interested, it's on!

I watched a hell of a lot of movies. Actually, I've started reviewing some Japan-related / Japanese movies on IMDB. Please see the list below for most of the movies I can remember seeing.


Movies I have seen recently, arranged by quality:


Great

Chop Shop
In Bruges
Lars and the Real Girl
The Orphanage
No Country for Old Men
The Bourne Ultimatum
Atonement
In the Valley of Elah
Match Point


Good

Cassandra's Dream
Batman - The Dark Knight
Felon
Redbelt
Death at a Funeral
Disturbia
The Onion Movie
Iron Man
Superbad
San-chome No Yuhi
Layer Cake
City of God
City of Men
The Simpsons Movie
Secrets and Lies
The Last King of Scotland
August Rush
Son of Rambow

Okay

The Fourth Man
Tropic Thunder
Hancock
Wanted
Get Smart
Be Kind Rewind
The Brave One
21
Eastern Promises
The Bank Job
Vantage Point
The Bank Job
Definitely Maybe
The Incredible Hulk
Street Kings
1114The Bucket List
The Forbidden Kingdom
Transformers
Rambo
The Mist
YPF
3:10 to Yuma
The Machinist
Live Free or Die Hard
National Treasure Book of Secrets
Cloverfield
American Gangster
I am Legend
Diary of the Dead
Semi-Pro
Sweeney Todd - the Demon Barber of Fleet Street
300
Juno
There Will Be Blood
The Spiderwick Chronicles
Wall-E
88 Minutes
Indina Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Gone Baby Gone
Doomsday
The Great Debaters
We Own the Night
Hitman
Run Fat Boy Run
Dan In Real Life
Beowulf
Stardust
30 Days of Night
Michael Clayton
Cleaner
Zodiac
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
Anamorph
Mr Brooks
Fracture
Breach
Flawless
Shooter
Sunshine
28 Weeks Later
Mr. Bean's Holiday
Hot Fuzz
Little Miss Sunshine
Monkey King
Super High Me
The Air I Breathe
Control
Scoop
Across the Universe
I'm Not There
Walk the Line
Children of Men
Inside Man
Chaos Theory
Charlie Wilson's War

Bad

Ghost Rider
Jumper
Fantastic Four Rise of the Silver Surfer
An American Crime
Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
Charlie Bartlett
Death Proof / Planet of Terror
The Invasion
Big Dreams, Little Tokyo

Terrible

Brick
The Savages
Into the Wild
The Happening

Next post is on English teaching - a big subject - so keep your eyes peeled.

Well Okay Then

Well, 6 ain't 10, but I guess I'll keep posting. I was almost hopin' that no-one would leave a comment so I wouldn't have to continue. It's just that:

1. I'm working every single day now with 4 (!) jobs, so it feels like I'm giving a lot already. Even when I go out to relax after work, some sap wants to practice his English with me wherever I go, so it's difficult to relax

2. I'm taking courses (cooking and Japanese)

3. I'm posting on another site in both Japanese and English, and responding to comments in both languages takes a lot of time

4. I take a lot of time to write almost book-like posts, and was kinda disappointed that very few people leave comments. As I noted initially, this isn't a boring "what I did today" diary, it's informative and interesting info about Japan from a goddamned witty perspective. From the logs, I can see that lots of people are reading - not to mention "borrowing" my pictures - so what I guess I'm trying to say is "comments are appreciated".

Comment challenge!

The concept behind this blog was to post everything I know / everything that might be interesting about a particular topic related to Japan. So, it takes a lot of time to write and collect pics for just one post. This site is the kind of site I'd like to read, but I'm not really sure if anyone else is reading it. So, if I have 10, count 'em, 10, comments/requests (not all from the same person) to continue this site, I will. Otherwise, hey, I'm not getting paid for it, so if no-one's reading I'm not gonna bother. Uh, click the "comments" thingy below to comment. Hope to hear from you.

A Loss for Words

Okay. Yeah, it's been a while. But I have a reason...



Those of you that know me well know that I like to be organized. Very organized. For example, when I decided to study Japanese, I made these flashcards. There are 1945 Japanese characters in common use, so I made a card for each. One side has the character and the other the meaning, stroke order, readings, and examples. Upon hearing that I was doing this, at least one person remarked, "that's...crazy". It was a lot of work, but I was hoping that the fact that I had expended the effort in making them would force me to use them.

And, because I'm so (some might say pathologically) organized, to further these studies I created a series of documents about Japanese. One was the history of the language, one was a grammar guide, and many were situation-oriented (for example, at school, at the barber's, at the convenience store, etc.). The latter included vocabulary and useful expression (i.e. "Can I get that to go, please?").

I don't want to bore you with non-interesting, non-Japan-related stuff, but listen. Just listen. There's a point here. My methods were important. If I had a book that had vocabulary I didn't know, I would photocopy that vocab, find out the meaning, and add it to my list. I would then throw away that book or photocopy as I wanted all the information on my computer (there's always an idea in the back of my mind that, if there's a fire, I can simply grab my computer and I'll have all my music, writing, ideas, pictures, etc.. It's all about convenience, baby.) So, I amassed a huge amount of organized info - enough for a book.

Since coming to Japan, I've had a lot of time to study Japanese and ask native speakers about useful expressions. Every time I heard something I didn't know or that sounded useful/interesting, I would type it in. I even started a "book" of sorts, with a complete outline and about 30 pages finished.

But, hey, I can hear you saying, if you're so organized, well, why don't you post to this blog more often? The answer lies in my very first post: I don't want to waste your time with useless/boring info. I arranged a series of folders with new topics (i.e. Drinking in Japan, Safety in Japan, etc.) and new pictures. Accompanying the photos were a series of outlines with interesting/relevant stories.

You may have noticed the use of the past tense here. The reason is that all that information is gone. What happened? Oh, let me tell you. Everything was fine. I was listening to music (on the computer, natch). I walked away for a moment. When I came back, the screen was black and it wouldn't wake. I restarted. It would not restart and chose to make a disturbing clicking noise instead. I am computer-friendly and clicking noises or noises of any sort mean hardware failure. Thus, things had suddenly shifted into Non-Good mode.

Failing all other methods, I brought the comp to the Apple Store, where I waited two hours for a one-minute appraisal: the data was gone, the drive was dead and needed to be replaced. The couple next to me, who had been loudly complaining about a minor problem with their comp (I think it had a poor network connection or something) grew quiet as I contemplated the loss of thousands of hours of work, some of which was irreplaceable. My future blog posts, all my Japanese study, even my book-in-progess were completely gone. I did not have a smile on my face.

But, you're so smart, surely you must have backed up, some wiseguys must be asking. Actually, I had backed up about 95% of my other stuff (ironically, relatively unimportant/replacable crap like tv shows or movies) and it was only stuff I was currently working on that was lost. Also, I was using DiskWarrior, which is supposed to alert you about possible disk failure (it didn't, by the way). Finally, the computer, while not even a year old, had failed and been totally replaced about three months prior. So, it was only three months old.

I must mention that, prior to this Macbook I had an iBook that needed a logic board replacement. Three times. As this not-yet-a-year-old thing has already seriously failed me twice, and a friend also had continuous problems with his iMac, I can and will no longer recommend Apple as providing quality hardware. I love the OS, but...

The pain - initially equivalent to the loss of a relationship and yes, I'm serious - has gone down to a dull ache. The prospect of "just start again" is tiring to even think about, yet I suppose that is what I have to do. If you take anything away from my nightmarish experience, I hope it is this:

• No computer system is perfect.
• Back up whatever is important to you.
• Now.


P.S. I will blog about my trips to Okinawa and Thailand next. Those bastards the Fates may have got my notes, but they didn't get my pictures or my memories.

About this blog

I'm not really a fan of blogs. I've read that this generation will be the most recorded generation in history. Everyone has a blog, digital camera, videocamera, etc. However, most of the "information" being offered appears self-indulgent and useless: "Hey, thanks to your blog, your grandkids will be able to find out what grandpa had for breakfast on November 19, 2006!" I once worked with a guy who had created hundreds of PowerPoint presentations consisting solely of minute-by-minute photos of his newborn kid. Who wants to see that? I mean, really? What is the value of all this information being presented and preserved?

There's also a romantic aspect to mystery. I once wrote about how *69 technology signalled the death of the crank phone call: now you know who's calling. The case for UFO's has really dwindled due to the fact that everyone has a digicam now; if UFO's existed to the extent previously thought, surely there'd be convincing video footage by now? Finally, how about the ultimate mystery, conspiracy theories? It's much harder to make the case for these due to the internet - everybody's a reporter.

While these are of course all "good things" (and I could never return to the pre-internet lifestyle) you have to agree about the lack of romance aspect. It's like those theories that love is just a chemical imbalance and music is just a series of signals designed to relax your brain - they may be true, but they are unwelcome truths.

For that reason, I considered not creating a/this blog. Another reason was that there is already a plethora of "Timmy / Tammy goes to Japan and isn't it weird here!" blogs on the net. Besides being boring, these blogs promote the "exotic Japan" element that Alex Kerr wrote about - it exists primarily in your mind as a screen that you put up over the "real" Japan. Oh, for example, there's one guy that blogs about being "kancho"-ed all the time (kancho is when someone's, usually a kid/student'a, fingers form a tent and they try to jam it up your butt). According to my experience / knowledge, I believe this person is exaggerating (at best) simply to get web hits. So, I don't want to contribute to the nonsense / misinformation / boredom.

Thus, I decided to create this blog to set the record straight. Though the exotic Japan blogs such as named above are popular, they're simply fantasy. So, while UFOs or kanchos might not exist to the degree we might have been led to believe, the truth can also be interesting. I hope that this blog will, to some small degree, help or inform someone somewhere. Your feedback, suggestions, and comments are mecha-welcome.

P.S. - Hi James & Jamie! I had donuts and coffee for breakfast today!