November 2004 Archives

Ghostbusters 2. Watched it this afternoon. Poor Winston. He didn't even make the VHS cover. The token black Ghostbuster, who is easily forgotten.

This post is now my 300th blog entry. Maybe I should celebrate or something. Maybe I should have like a special tribute week for my blog! You know, look back on all the cool blog things that have happened in the past couple of years. Well, on second though, I guess some things are better left in the archives then rehashing. Like the time Zack Armstrong killed 50 kittens with a violin string, or when John stayed up for a week strait, or when Jared's head exploded from trying to see other view points, or that horrible day when Ben had his Gameboy surgically removed from his hand. I'm always amused by the time Colin spent all of his money on magic beans, or when Zack became so bitter it caused small children to cry. The insanity is better left unsaid.

A movie, about Macs? Whaaaa? It would go well with this iPod t-shirt. "I had an iPod before you even knew what one was."

Thats about it. Going to do some homework now.

So I got up really early today. Something I hate to do on a Sunday. Any Sunday. Even if for some reason the city was under attack by a giant squid, I'd still be in bed on a Sunday. But see I had already paid for a ticket to go see the Takarazuka Revue, so it was go or be out 2000 Yen. So I traveled the hour or so with my Youth in Japan class to the ritzy city of Takarazuka to see the show. So heres the gist of this production company. Its an all female cast who put on plays and musicals and big singing/ dancing numbers. What you end up with is a group of women who also do male parts, and do them well. You're probably questioning the coolness of this, but to let you know its popularity, its been around since 1914. The place was packed for our early Sunday show. The following is so big, the group has its own channel on a satellite TV station. The first half of the show was a whimsical musical, which no one understood. Thats because it was in Japanese, and no one in my class really speaks it well. The second half was an hour of pure singing and dancing, and about 50 costume changes. Good stuff, very well done, and quite entertaining. Even from our massive nose bleed seats (they have their own concert hall, complete with rotating/opening/elevating/robotic transforming stage that was freakin awesome.) I would very much like to go back. (Note that Sara Given would have loved the costumes and the dancing, which were out of this world. Sadly, she'll never read this webpage to hear about it.)

Encounter: I saw a group of scouts boarding the train. They were all about 6 or 7 years old. They were so cute!

After the show I went down the block to the Osamu Tezuka Manga Museum. If you don't know, he's the grandfather of Japanese Animation and Comics, and probably the grandfather of modern animation. Yes, thats right, suck it Disney (The Lion King was a rip off of one of his comics/animations). A very cool place with a lot of historical stuff. Original drawings, old toys, exhibits on his various works. He's got quite the library of work, having been around for over 50 years in the business. I read a couple of his works in a class at Gustavus two years ago, and I wish I could find his stuff to read back in the States. My host mother way told me that when she was a little girl Kai's age, thats 4 years old, she used to watch the Osamu Tezuka Anime Astro Boy on a black and white TV. While you may be glossing over this paragraph (DAD!), this stuff about animation and comics is very important to Japanese culture. Tezuka always has a message with his work: Peace, understanding, love, environment. Many of these themes come from his experience living through WWII and seeing the devastation that happened in Japan. Darn, I should buy some of his stuff.

Random note of the day. I gave 50 yen to a local Animal Shelter who had some volunteers out panning for money with some cute cute animals. Yes, I did pay 50 yen to pet a dog. They were cute.

I meet up with Colin at the train station near my house. We grabbed a coke and hung out for a while, then played some video games for a bit. Colin's been going to an arcade next to the station where everything is just 50 yen. I once again played some Gundam, which is giving me the urge to buy a PS2 and some Gundam games when I get home. Colin showed me his horrible skills at Super Mario Brothers 1, which was there in Arcade form. He's really bad.

Rest is needed for this week. Crunch time. Wish me luck.

P.S. And people say my posts are too long. Damn Jared, I mean, Australia is cool, but dude, don't over do it.

So Friday night Michelle, Andrew, Zack, Bonnie, and I all went into Kyoto to see Kiyomizu Temple at night. In the winter the place is all lit up every night, so it looks cool. Even though I'd been there before during the day, I felt it was a good investment of time and money to see it at night. Plus, as usual, I had nothing else to do. The area around Kiyomizu is a major shopping area, where you can buy tons of traditional stuff. The temple was quite full of people even though it was a Friday night, and it was starting to rain. Luckily I as always had my 900 Yen umbrella with me, so I stayed relatively dry. The temple was cool looking. I could try and explain how it looked at night, but I mean, it was a big wooden temple lit up. I'll post some photos later.

Afterwards we walked around the shops for a while more. Zack wanted to buy some fans as gifts for his mom and girlfriend, so we looked around because I thought that a fan would be nice for my parents as well. Then I realized I didn't want to spend $50 on a fan, and that my parents could always get a fan later on in life, like when I have money. I was tempted to buy a nice ninja fan, only because ninjas are totally cool. I found a cat store, where you could buy lots of cute little cats. So I bought a couple. The store owner was saying that his store was the #1 cat store in the area, which made sense. The store had been there for about 140 years, which gives you an idea of the historical area that we were in. I do love Kyoto for that reason alone. So much history, so darn Japanese.

Saturday I shaved. Thats right, I shaved off my beard. Its been three weeks, and I had quite a big growth. The problem is that because of its redish nature you couldn't really see it. Thus, I looked like crap. Maybe one day. Colin, Zack, and I headed to Makino station for a while, and wondered around. We stopped in this park where the locals feed cats every night. Not too surprising that a bunch of cats came over and wanted food from us, and lots of love. Awwwwwww. So cute. We then wondered around for a while longer. Dinner, then some video games (where Colin and I played some fun filled Gundam combat. Giant robots are what Japan is all about), and then Colin and I went back to our train station where we had a drink. On my way home I stopped and played a round of Virtual Cop 3, where I managed to rack up a nice 76% accuracy rate. Take that Colin.

Yes, I am freaking out about finals. FREAKING.

So today was Thanksgiving for me, and nothing says Thanksgiving like a bunch of Americans making Thanksgiving jokes all day long to dumbfounded foreigners. To celebrate Thanksgiving, in its true American style, I ate large amounts of turkey, mashed potatoes, and pie. What I really mean is a double order of chicken MacNuggets, french fries, and some good old fashioned pumpkin pie. Fellow American Bonnie tried her hand at making pumpkin pie yesterday, and she was kind enough to share the results with us. Really good stuff.

Finals are in a week. Time to start the 'complete and total freak out' time. Time to get my freak on.

Colin and I watched Unforgiven this afternoon in the library. Its a western, directed, and staring Clint Eastwood. Its also got Morgan Freeman and Gene Hackman in it. Quite a good western, very dark, and very gritty. I must say that I have always enjoyed Eastwoods directing, not to mention his great acting. In the film he had some really great lines.

Hackman: "I don't deserve this. To die like this. I was building a house."
Eastwood: "Deserve's got nothing to do with it."

Hackman: "You cowardly son-of-a-bitch you just shot an unarmed man."
Eastwood: "Well he should armed himself if hes gonna decorate his saloon with my friend."

While being a very good film, Colin and I were both annoyed by the fact that the movie was on Laser Disc. Not just one disc that we had to flip, oh no, it was also partially on a second disc. This 1994 technology was not only GIGANTIC, imagine a CD the size of an extra large pizza, but the quality wasn't all that good. We were kinda baffled by it at first, annoyed by it second, and pissed off at it third. How the makers of the laser disc managed to sell one to every classroom in America, and a whole bunch to my school here in Japan, is beyond me. For the love of GOD! BUY THE DVD VERSION OF THESE FILMS. Laser Discs were so 1994. Get with the program man.

So the whole Japanese DVD issue and my laptop. The answer is to find a firmware hack for my drive, or change the region code. Newer Powerbooks are not able to read the VIDEO_TS folder off of DVDs that are of a different region code. Not even using VLC will help me get around this issue. Yet another reason why region codes suck. Screw you Mr "Read Error."

Well, back to helping my buddy Masayuki edit a paper of his. Its in English. And while my english skills often suck to a degree, I can at least do enough correcting for his needs. Note to self: Whore my english paper correcting skills out.

Today was a perfect weather day. Bright, sunny, and unusually warm for this time of year. Good times for me. My day was kinda uninteresting overall. Homework and such, and mindless goofing off as usual. Zack did comment that my webpage gets an unusually large number of hits from Macintoshes, as opposed to Windows computers. I guess that means a lot of smart people read my webpage. According to this article, maybe I should spend some more time at the Apple Store.... "So, what are you downloading these days."

I stuck up a new image of my desktop on my webpage. I'll stick one up every once in a while in my Tech section, in case anyone is so board that they want to see my desktop or whats in my dock. Note: Yes, I like pretty backgrounds. Sue me.

Speaking of Macs, I did find some randomly cool Mac things today. A cool blog called Cult of Mac, is something every mac user should look over once. Some DVD firmware hacks for Powerbooks that lets them watch DVDs from any region. Too bad my computer isn't supported, yet. A nice guide to making divx files from DVDs in MacOS X. How to make the iTunes visualizer run on two separate screens at once. A really cool little program called DiscTop that adds some cool eye-candy onto your desktop when you stick in a DVD. And a nice guide to making iPod Commercial like Silhouettes in Photoshope.

I did put on my super cool Gustavus IT blue hoody today. I got several compliments on it. I guess it helps to break out the winter clothing eventually, just to switch up the ward robe. But with the addition of my hoody comes the Hood of Apathy +2. When the hood goes up, you know I just don't really give a damn. Plus its to big, I can easily sleep under it in any situation. Note to self: Put on hoody more often.

After hanging out with Colin today I realize that if I owned a video camera all my time would be spent making really stupid and over the top fake movie trailers. Ones with big explosions, big fake gun battles, and over the top one liners. A very funny, expensive, and time consuming hobby. Man... I need a video camera...

This summer... Chuck Noris is Brad Pitt in... Jesus 3. This time, he's back to kick some ass.

So having a day off, I did what any person would do, I slept in till noon. Though I did kinda feel like a bum seeing how my host family was up at 8. Oh well. I needed some good old rest. When I did get out of bed I had some corn flakes, and accidentally poured Yogurt Drink into my bowel instead of milk (which we were out of). So I guess you could say I had blueberry corn flakes. Not too bad overall.

Well, being a bum and all, the first thing I did was watch a movie! I had just finished 'acquiring' the British movie Shaun of the Dead. This movie was class. A complete spoof on zombie movies and full of British humor. I laughed my head off. In essence this movie is about a loser guy who tries to save his girlfriend and friends from an army of British zombies attacking London. I really need to buy this movie when I get home. You know, I wouldn't mind seeing a bunch of other British shows as well. Colin keeps talking about all these really good series (which are usually only 6 shows long) and now I want to see some! Stupid American programing. Lets get some smart British stuff on our airwaves for a change.

I eventually meet up with Colin in town, where we mulled around in quite a few stores for the rest of the afternoon. Played a couple of video games, ate some snacks, and had a coke. As we always tend to do, we wondered into the local Tsutaya where I was going to rent a whole stack of CDs, but remembered I was low on cash (as always) so I put most of them back. I did end up renting two CDs by the Japanese band Porno Graffitti, all for the low low price of 420 Yen ($4). I do love this country, and I also need to pick up some more Japanese music before I head on home.

Kai has taken an interest in my laptop lately (I'm surprised he didn't sooner). Whenever I'm at it he keeps saying "Play jump penguin!", which is him wanting to watch me play the Mario clone Super Tux. He's such a fun little host brother. How I'll miss his funny antics.

I've still yet to find a reason for my inability to get the video files from a Japanese (region 2) DVD. I pulled a DVD off the shelf here and it wouldn't work either. Very odd, and very annoying if I was wanting to buy any Japanese DVDs. (I need to extract the video off of them so I can remove the region code and watch it on my laptop) Oh well. I'm sure theres some answer to my problems. Somewhere.

By the way. You always gotta have more cowbell. I'm been a bit sad to see that the amount of cowbell shown on my webpage has decreased by 37% in the past 6 months. I'll try and make up for it soon. Until then, I hope this will help you pass the time. Just Don't Fear The Reaper.

So today Michelle said that it was kinda odd that the person I bonded with most in my host family was the 4 year old. I don't think so! I mean, we have a lot in common. We both hate getting up in the morning, I mean, we both get dragged out of bed. We both enjoy corn flakes in the morning. We both spend our days at school, and our evening watching cartoons. We both enjoy playing with trains and video games. We both have a very limited understanding of Japanese. We both find pleasure in eating lots of candy and jumping around. These things would all explain why tonight he said he wanted to sleep with me. Thats so cute.

So I thought the Osaka Apple Store opening was a big event, seeing how it drew a line of over 3000 people. That was until I read about the London Apple Store, where 5000 people were there in line, and some people had showed up a full day in advance, in the damn London rain. You know, if it was cold and raining in Osaka when the store opened, I wouldn't have stayed. I mean, I like my Macintosh and all, but I do enjoy being dry and warm.

Tomorrow is a day off of school. Some national holiday. A Workers Day or something. I don't know. All I know is that I'll not be at school. Which is kinda weird and sad because I only really have 2 weeks left before finals, and another three and a half weeks before I head home. As much as I feel the urge to return to a country where I can read a newspaper, I'll be missing Japan. For some reason Japan is really relaxing. Even though I'm in a massive urban landscape, its just really... nice. With any luck I'll be back soon enough. Now if I could only figure out what to do tomorrow.

So I've been trying to get this Japanese DVD to work for me. DVDs have a region code, and will only play with certain DVD players in their respective regions. This is combat piracy. In reality it causes a lot of hassles for everyone who travels or moves to another country. Luckily for me there are quite a few software programs to help me get around this issue. I first used Mac The Ripper to extract the video files from the DVD and remove the region code. I then used DVD2One to compress the video files so they'll fit onto a blank DVD-R disc, so I now have a copy that is region-less and will play on just about anything. I may try and use D-Vision to turn it into a divx file so I can avoid having a DVD in hand while on my long flight home.

Yes, Hirakata Park, the happiest place in Hirakata. My train runs past it each day, yet I've never actually gotten off at its stop. But Saturday was different. My host family had given me 8 tickets to get into the amusement park, and so I invited 7 people to come with me. There was Andrew, Michelle, Ama, Zack, Peter, Chris C., and eventually being the last person to always arrive at a location: Colin. Get a watch man. Hirakata Park is a medium sized amusement park, which was much like your run of the mill amusement park, except it had Japanese cartoon characters all around. Sadly our free tickets only got us into the park, we actually had to pay to ride each ride. None of us wanted to pay $30 to get a all day free pass, so we each ended up spending $10 to do a few rides. One of the most interesting things we did, was watch a bunch of really cute 'Lesser Pandas' play around for a while. A 'Lesser Panda' looks like a cross between a raccoon and a cat. They were so cute. We tried out luck at a roller coster, though I found myself squished in a car that was made for someone about a foot shorter then I. We all were a bit scared afterwards because of low flying beams, and all of us tall guys ducked. That was fun. So we felt stupid and young and then tried 'Top Gun,' one of those rides that loops you around in the air. Yeah, stupid on my part. I felt so sick after that. Heck, we even saw loose change fall from Zack's pants midair and jungle on the ground. Never again. We walked around for quite a while, looking at all the kiddy rides and the really nice garden they had. Colin, Andrew, And I felt like using our remaining credits to try our luck at a Space Adventure, which ended up being a mini fun house. The hight of the fun there was a spinning room, which totally through off our equilibrium. We were also dumb enough to keep walking through it, several times. I again, felt really sick. Luckily we exited into a cheap game area, in which Peter showed us his wicked amusement park game skills. He had worked at a carnival for several summers and knew how to win, and that he did. He even won a big green frog for me, which I eventually gave to Kai. We then walked around a gnome mountain, and eventually found our way into a SEGA World, where Zack used one credit to beat a Star Wars arcade game. A full set of photo madness from the day can be found on this site.

After the amusement park we headed to the main drag of Hirakata, were we caught an early dinner. I once again must say I love the food here in Japan. How I'll miss it. Not really the raw fish aspect of it so much, but the other stuff I will.

Peter, Colin, and I then spent the rest of the evening mulling around near my station. We went to quite a few bars trying to find something to do. We eventually ran into a bunch of Australians who are english teachers in the area. We had a good talk with them, and watched part of a movie (subtitled in Japanese), on a TV. Good times.

I'll probably end up taking Kai to the park. He's a bit too crazy today and need to run around for an hour or so. He is enjoying his new frog though, which he keeps putting on my head as a hat.

Today I had my skit with Michelle and Angela for my Japanese speaking class. The basic premise of this skit was that M&A were tourists out in Kyoto, having fun, when they run into me, who is playing Brad Pitt. Now this is funny in itself, me as Brad Pitt. What I didn't expect was the M&A were going to do some over the top acting that left me quite startled. I was noticeably stunned by their Oscar award winning performance of two young girls who see Brad Pitt in Japan. Lets just say I was quite glad, for my own sake, that I am not Brad Pitt.

I spent the afternoon doing... nothing. My five hour break between classes was mostly me lounging around, in the lounge, doing some backlogged computer workage. I then figured I'd watch the Chinese movie Hero which I had sitting on my hard drive. I have been feeling a bit left out, because Hero should now be showing in many theaters across the US. What can I say about Hero... well there are 'over the top' movies, and then theres Hero. Its martial arts are super over the top. The style and cinematography is so super over the top. And the emotions you feel are over the top. Damn, its a good film. Thanks China.

In my Youth in Japan class we watched a little documentary called The Merchants of Cool, which is about how corporations try and market 'cool.' The things the market researchers were saying in the doc were so funny, we all laughed at its stupidity. Though about 5 years old, this film still holds true today, where people of my age group are targeted constantly as consumers. The weird vicious cycle of marketing, entertainment, and more marketing is very odd. MTV markets an attitude and style which teens consume. Then these teens project this attitude and style outwards when put in front of a camera (just normal life, until the camera comes out, and all goes crazy). Now other teens see this attitude and style and emulate it more. A weird feedback loop of stupidness. Long story short, teens are shallow, ignorant, and self centered people. But this is something we've known for the last 2000+ years.

Colin, Chris, and I then went and watched the documentary Outfoxed, which tells the story of the Fox News Network's misleading of the public. Before I get lambasted about other networks having agendas, let me say this. As a history major I know that nothing is without bias. NOTHING. Including journalism. But unlike other mediums journalism has always been about separating facts from opinions, providing equal coverage, and having integrity. At least serious journalism. Fox News has taken an approach which provides none of these aspects of journalism. With Fox News the line between opinion and fact is often blurred. Its tag-line "Fair and Balanced" is so misleading, someone should sue them for false advertising. You can not have journalistic integrity when every day you get memos from the top telling you what the message of the day is, and what you can and can not report on. The press is one of the most crucial aspects of a democracy. When the press is providing false information, or slanted information, a democracy can not function. Good flick if you want to see a News Media Giant push its journalists around and distort information.

Some food, drinks, and talking later I ended up at home.

I don't know what to write about today. Nothing interesting happened. I've got some back pain happening. Weather sucks, its been raining all day. Thats about it. A full day and nothing interesting happened in my world.

You'd think being in another country would at least have some interest? Sometimes, the answer is, no. Though there were some cute koalas on TV tonight. Maybe this weekend will hold some interesting stuff.

Quiz went fine today. Good old kanji. Yet another great thing stolen from China. 日本

You gotta like how Kansai Gaidai uses its foreign students. One of the Kansai Gaidai baseball players got drafted into a professional team, and so there was a big photo shoot and interview happening at school. Some people from the International Center came into the lounge and rounded up some foreigners for the photo shoot. So there we were, about 20 foreigners, the baseball team, the cheerleaders, and a bunch of news crews directing us where to stand and when to cheer. Didn't we feel exploited. Some of the foreign students grabbed the player and hoisted him on their shoulders, something I don't think the school expected. Everyone got a good laugh out of that whole thing. Who knew I'd travel half way around the world to be a marketing tool for a school.

So Zack was telling me how he's been spending his time playing Zelda for the SNES on his iBook thanks to an emulator. This is nothing new to me. Many an hour has been spent with control in hand playing old school games on my Macs. The cool thing is, that the latest version of the SNES emulator has some really good filters that smooth over the graphics and give certain games a more cartoony look. Which is really great for the old Zelda game, gives it a cell shaded feel. Such great memories....

I kinda weirded out Masayuki-san today. There wasn't enough computer plugins in the lounge, so I got a random girl with a powerbook to wirelessly share her internet with me. "Whhhhaaa?" you say. Its very easy to do with OS X. All it takes to share an internet connection wireless is two Macs with wireless, and one thats actually connected to the internet. On the one that has an internet connection, go into the System Preferences, then over to Sharing. There select the option for Internet. Now change the option of "Share your connection from:" to Ethernet. Below, check the box that says Airport to share it through airport. Now click the big Start button. The other person, or persons, should now be able to get internet access through wireless via your computer. I've used this same option to share a modem connection between two computers. Computer A was connected via a phone line modem, I then set it up to "Share connection from modem" and then checked the box that said "Ethernet." Plugged computer B into computer A via an ethernet cord, and shazam! Internet for me.

I sent off my JET application today. I spent 2,000 yen doing so, it being the fastest way passible to get something to Washington DC. From what I understand, a limo will drive it to the embassy, where a group of Japanese business men will wave incense over my package while singing the Japanese national anthem, while my package is placed on a velvet cushion and given into the hands of the Japanese ambassador himself. At least, thats what I understand I get for 2,000 yen.

I went to a Mac user group meeting in Osaka today. The third official meeting of the Design Matters user group. Nothing too interesting there. Honestly.

Going to go do some homework. Kangi quiz tomorrow. The fun. maybe after I watch some sumo on TV.

I got my JET application almost completely done today. See, this proves that I can actually do stuff when needed. Who would have thought. I'm just waiting for some an official list of classes that I'm taking here in Japan, which will probably be in my box tomorrow. Then off to the post office where I'll most liking have to enlist the help of a friend, seeing how I'm quite sure I won't be able to really get my point across very well. Though it'd probably be kind of funny. I'm really hoping for the JET program, and some of the guys I was talking to in the lounge said I'd do just fine. I've take 4 Japan specific classes back at Gustavus, and then 2 here at Kansai Gaidai, and then I'll have about a year and a half worth of Japanese language under my belt by the time I'm interviewed. Spencer's sister is a JET right now, somewhere in the rural wilderness of Japan. He said that at the interview they asked his sister "What song from your home country would you teach a bunch of children, and why." I think I can handle these sort of questions. "I'd pick 'Beat it' by Michael Jackson, because it expresses the pain he was feeling as a black man turned into a white woman."

I've only got 4 weeks of classes left, and just about 6 more weeks of being in Japan. Theres quite a bit of stuff I've yet to see, and I really haven't experienced the night life of Osaka yet (though it would be quite expensive). I wouldn't mind going south and spending a day by the beach, or seeing Tokyo (though that would also be expensive as heck). We'll see how things go and whats happening with the guys.

Yeah, I blame Colin for getting some British Hip-hop/ rap music stuck in my head the last few days. Well, I made the foolish mistake of seeing if the album was available . Sigh.... there goes some money. Curse you Apple and your software and music store that makes it so easy to download and buy music at any moment of any day! CURSE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well I am liking this music by The Streets, which is tough to explain. Those brits have a certain flair for them.

Speaking of Brits, Colin said I should come to England and get a job teaching or something. Not such a bad idea, I would figure. Maybe I will if everything works out, it is a place where I want to go sometime, and I have always wanted to spend a lot of time in Europe. Oh well, I'm getting ahead of myself. Must have been that dog gone New Castle Brown Ale that Colin fed me this weekend.

Download and try out this software by Panic. I'm loving it. You'll be tattooing your desktop within 10 minutes.

So my new name around a certain group of Japanese girls is "Short Pants Josh" because I'm the only one in all of the school who happens to still be putting on short pants (shorts). I guess it doesn't help that I'm over six feet tall and stand out anyways. The temperature here isn't too bad, and as long as up upper body is warm my legs are fine. You can take these shorts off my cold dead body!

Poor poor Zack. He ended up being the victim of Japanese roads on Thursday. On his day off he was riding a bike back to the dorms when he hit a big concrete thing in the road. The result was Zach's face vs the sidewalk, and the sidewalk won. He ended up having to get 5 stitches in his chin that night, having a sprained left elbow which was bandaged up on Friday. Now Zack has no money, bandages on his face and elbow, and a serious case of road rage. Just to let you know, Zack was not drinking and bike ridding, which makes this all the more funny.

Friday was kinda bland overall. I ended up reading some manga all afternoon in the student lounge, which was really relaxing. Manga = Japanese comics. Colin showed me where I could find some manga in english in our Library, and so I started reading Nausicaa. The comic is much more in depth and complex then the anime was, and I must say it was really amazing. A must read if you enjoy comics at all. A couple thousand pages of manga later I went to class where my group lead a discussion on Japanese schoolgirl prostitution for my Youth in Japan class. An interesting discussion, and a very odd cultural things. Yes, Japan is weird. Afterwards Colin and I had dinner and ended up reading in the library for a couple of hours, because we had nothing else to do. We walked around Hirakata for an hour or so, and ended up at Bar Mono for a bit. Hung out there, had a drink, ate some crackers. Went home. Thus was Friday.

Saturday Colin and I were planning on going into Kyoto to see the leaves change. Or that was my idea. I really didn't have a plan or anything for the entire trip, just was kinda wing it as usual. I guess you could say that lucky for us Colin ran into Albert on the way to the station in the morning and he had some idea of what we should do. We ended up going to Mount Hiei which overlooks Kyoto. I was kinda worried because the weather had been rainy on Friday, and it was still really cloudy at noon on Saturday. We took a train into Kyoto, and then took another train (a mini train!) to the base of the mountain. There we saw what all the fuss was about, seeing how all the leaves were shades of amber and red. Quite the sight. Even better was the fact that the sky was clearing up. While we were waiting to take the lift up the mountain we played with a bunch of cats, who made a living bothering people at the lift. Very cute. So we took a lift up this steep steep mountain, which gave a us a beautiful view of the Kyoto valley. Once we were halfway up the mountain we had to take a cable car ride up the other half of the mountain, which provided us with an even nicer view of the area. We were not about 800 meters above sea level (2600 feet), and the highest point in the region. It was also a lot colder then it was at the base, but luckily I've been conditioned to cold weather (even though I was still in my short pants). At the top of this mountain was a nice garden, which we didn't go into because of the price, and as all mountains in Japan have a very large set of satellite dishes and transmitters. From the top we could see Kyoto, Otsu, and the very giant Lake Biwa! The best view I've had this entire trip! We walked around for a while a while along the ridge, and then took a bus to see some temples.

Being the largest mountain around the ancient capital of Kyoto Mt. Hiei became a center for Buddhism and a whole lot of temples. To quote the pamphlet "Hiei, the sacred mountain known as the mother of Japanese Buddhism, has emitted the light of Dharma for the world for over 1200 years." Yeah, its that important. We ended up going to a temple complex know as Enryaku-ji on the other side of the mountain. Ancient buildings and shrines shrouded in giant pine tress and a thick forest. The kind of thing you'd expect on the side of a Japanese mountain. Some of these buildings were built as far back at 788 CE, and have remained largely untouched and unchanged in some 1200 years. When we were back at the top of the mountain we could hear a distant bell, and we found that bell at here. We wondered around for a couple of hours, and still were not able to see everything. Plus our guide books showed quite a few other temples along the mountain. Sadly the sun was setting and we were low on money, so we took a very long bus ride down the mountain (which was packed full of people and also made us kinda nauseous) and then went back to Hirakata. After dinner Colin and I went back to our local station and wondered around. We found what can be best described as an international house of beer. Colin insisted on going in seeing how they sold New Castle Brown Ale, imported directly from Colin's hometown. Ah the memories. Not a bad place to hang out. Good jazz music, lots of drinks, though a bit expensive.

A full photo album of the trip can be found here. What a darn cool mountain top to be hanging at.

Why do I love digital photos? Well, here is yet another reason. My mother wanted to get some photos printed out, ones of me in Japan. So I put a bunch in a folder and uploaded them to the webserver, then had the parents download them, burn them to a CD, and they took it to a photo place in town. Two hours later they had regular photos printed off in their hands. Not bad at all.

I think I need this shirt. Seriously, its something I think would be good for everyone involved with my life. Its also a disclaimer.

I'll be spending Sunday working on my JET application and doing quite a bit of homework. I have quite a large vocab quiz tomorrow, so studying is needed. Eventually.

Yesterday was just your average day of mundane classes and whatnot. The only interesting them is how addicted I've become to having a cell phone. See I left my cell phone in my other pair of shorts, and didn't realize it until I got to school. For the rest of the day I felt really out of touch with everyone, and couldn't find people on campus when I needed to. This is a complete reversal to my attitude last year when I denounced having cell phone, and vowed never to use one willingly. But the problem lies in the fact that you don't have a cell phone because you want to in Japan, you have one because you need one to survive. No one can contact you unless you have a cell phone. You're not even a real person unless you have a cell phone and at least three pieces of flair attached to it (we call it 'cell phone bling'). Colin and I were talking and we both wondered how several of our friends could get along without them, but then realized that these same people often complained that no one ever invited them to do stuff. Maybe its because we can't frickin contact you! Some people. Though I have the cheapest cell phone you could possibly buy in Japan, its still at least five years ahead of anything you can buy in the US. I do vow this though. When I come back to Japan I am buying a cell phone plan that includes a super cool bad-ass phone that may or may not turn into a bike, car, or giant scorpion which will battle other phones for supremacy.

In case you may have been under a rock for the past several day, Attorney General John Ashcroft has resigned. You know, the guy who lost an election to a dead man, spent $5,000 on curtains to cover the breasts of statues in the capital, and who can forget his wonderful singing. In a 5 page handwritten resignation letter to Bush (it would have been shorter, but it was written in crayon), which he wrote on election day, he says "The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved." Who knew! I guess no one informed me that the war on terror was over, or that somehow we curbed all crime in America. Who knew.

Words to live by, from a man who was actually at the founding of the United States.

"History, I believe," Thomas Jefferson wrote, "furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes."

My host fam gave me 8 free tickets to a local amusement park, and I was thinking of going with a group of friends on our day off, but rain canceled any plans I could think of. Yes, today was the all important Kansai Gaidai founding day, which means a day off for me and everyone else. So to celebrate I hung out with Colin all afternoon and watched American TV shows on my laptop all afternoon (this after we both slept in until noon). A good way to spend the afternoon, if you ask me. I should get around to doing some homework or something tonight.

I think I may try and go to Kyoto to see the leaves change this weekend, before they all fall and winter comes around. Its still nice enough out to get away with only putting a jacket on (and I still have shorts and a t-shirt on while all the Japanese students are completely bundled up). I was told the other day, by some Japanese girls, that I was very easy to find because of my shorts. Yes, thats right, I'm following in the tradition of Nate Haleen and find myself the only one at Kansai Gaidai who has on shorts. Go Gustavus.

In response to accusations that my beard isn't a reality, I must once again say that yes, my beard is real. I'll put photos up when I actually have photos. I'm not going to just put photos up of my facial hair because its demanded of me. I'll probably have a photo or two from this weekend that has my face in it, and then you can see my dog gone face

I do enjoy seeing how people find my site. Someone googled for Hare-brained Unity, a band I saw and then wrote about, and it turns out it was the band itself. They left a comment on my page thanking me, and also promoting their next concert in Osaka. Who would have figured. The power of the sun in the palm of my hand!

I posted some new photo albums the other day. Yes, more photos. Enjoy them.

My photoblog has become the victim of weblog spam. Luckily things have not become as bad as for some other people I know, but its really annoying and I'd hate to have to stop having comments all together. I will need to do some searching online and see if I can find a solution.

Went to class, took a test, had some fun. Yup. Thats how a Tuesday should be.

Oddly enough all my JET information from the US has reached me within a week! Stuff from my advisors, my college, and my father all have arrived. Which means I now need to spend some time actually filling out the form and getting it in the mail by Monday. It does feel good to get mail, even if its just official forms.

A professor of mine finally got fet up with Kansai Gaidai not having any official school shirts and has made some up of his own. Some really nice ones. I'm going to end up buying a couple for myself, and some for my family. Oddly he has to order them in from the US, because they're cheaper.... how off indeed.

Colin, Michelle, and I ended up watching L.A. Confidential this afternoon in the library. For being a Japanese library it has a whole boatload of American movies, and really nice facilities for watching them in. Quite a change for me to be watching movies with some other people for a change. Hmm... such a good movie. I'll have to do that again. Its good to keep my mind off things for a change.

I'm in a group with Ang and Michelle for Japanese speaking where we have to make up a skit. Somehow I ended up being Brad Pitt, and the girls comment on how much they like my scantly clad body in the movie Troy. I don't get it. All I know is that there is no way for me to get out of this role, nor does one argue with two Southern women. Or any women for that matter.

Speaking of my mind, I'm losing it. Some bad headaches have been hitting me probably due to my back acting up for allergies. My life for a chiropractor in this country! Seriously though, I'm glad I brought a bunch of Advil with me, or else I'd be in bad shape.

My host fam too me out tonight! Whoo hoo! A Japanese style BBQ was in order. Good stuff, and some red meat for a change! Even if it was in small chunks. I even ate some raw liver, which is a first for me. Not too bad for a change. Afterwards we went out grocery shopping where Kai showed me the toy section, where we hung out and talked toys. A good kid, though a bit energetic. But hey, he's only 4!

I need to write an article for my college newspaper about Japan. A guy from my college who is at this school with me wrote an article about Japan and it sucked. It sounded like a kid who just walked into Disney Land and only is amazed by the big costumed mouse. Sadly his look at the entire situation is only skin deep and he doesn't realize the big, fat, disgusting man underneath the mouse suit or the evil consumer nature of the magic kingdom. Japan isn't evil, or bad, its just that this guys article is full of stupid cultural stereotypes and naive understandings of Japan. Japan is people, and sure they may be a bit different from us Westerners in some ways, but in the end, they are just people being people. Plus the guy in the article sounded like a pompous academic ass. The article was not only stupid content wise, but also quite dull. There, I said it. I'll write something this weekend while not doing my homework.

Lastly, special welcome to the Mac users from Austria who happen to be viewing my webpage for some reason. I guess someone posted my webpage on their Mac User Group webpage or something. Who knows why my webpage is so popular? I like to think it is my new beard. Muh ha ha ha ha ha ha ha beard!

Now its known that I dislike windows. I do. Its not because I'm a Mac user who is too stuck up to accept anything else. No no no, I dislike things that are poorly designed, buggy, or unintuitive. I complain about a lot of things I really enjoy using. Like iChat. I do enjoy iChat, but I wish it would do MSN Messenger as we as AIM, or let you browse AIM profiles. My recent beef with Windows XP is that when I start up a computer at school I sit there and wait for it to load Windows. No problem. Then it comes to a big screen that says "To Login type Control ALT Delete." What the heck? Hitting Control ALT Delete brings me to the login screen. For heavens sake, why can't the computer just default go to the login screen? Why the extra step? Why in the world would you add a completely useless step in the process of logging in? That is my beef.

Test tomorrow. It should be fun filled. We all love tests, don't we now.

Thursday is another day off for me. I don't know why, and I'm not going to ask why. I'll just accept it. I think I'll try and go to Kyoto and see the leaves change. Thats right, the leaves are just changing and just starting to fall around here. Good old autumn. This could explain why I'm so tired lately, allergies are kicking in. At least they've been behaving so far while I've been in Japan. Maybe I should come back sometime...

Go to Google.com and type in the word Failure. Now click on the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button. Funniness should ensue. Someone has been having fun with google lately.

Only 40 some odd days left in Japan. I need to make good use of my time here, probably in much the same way I've been doing before. I was thinking, if I can come back, what things would I bring with me that I didn't bring this time? A 512MB memory card for my digital camera, a video camera, a small wireless base station, less clothing, more money, and a cat. Though the cat would be a tough one. Blah, if nothing else, I'll be fine coming back to Japan. I should actually sit down and try and write a 'College Student's Guide To Japan" and collaborate with some other guys I know. Funny and informative.

I'm already formulating how I'm going to make my Japan DVD when I come home. Some good songs, a lot of photos, and a few laughs. Luckily it'll be no where near as time consuming as my damned China DVD project. I also need to get ahold of a scanner and spend a month scanning in old family photos. If not for me, for my children. Or this is just an excuse to buy a scanner.

Oh, yesterday I took Kai to the park. Nothing like a Sunday afternoon spent outside with Kai, while countless children look at me like I was some strange alien from space. Waving at one caused her to run and hide behind her father. A couple of other children edged closer to get a better look at me. Must be my beard, which is coming in quite nicely. Fear and respect the beard!

Friday Colin, Zack, and I got in trouble for drinking in the International Dorms. Never did I think that I would ever get in trouble for drinking when I was 22 years old. No need to worry, all we expect is a harsh talking to come Monday. It probably didn't help that Colin and I got in trouble again today, except this time it was for being 15 minutes late leaving the dorms. Who the heck puts a 10 o'clock curfew for people visiting the dorms! On a weekend! Oh well. Can't say I'm bothered much by it. They've been having some problems with stupid things going on at the dorms, and the school is really worried about upsetting the neighborhood next to the dorms (which are not actually on campus). Can't say I blame them. Many stupid Americans live in the dorms.

My old buddy Sam sent me this photo today. He was cleaning up his desk and thought I'd find it interesting. It was taken, I believe, in early 2001 at the top of the World Trade Center in New York, New York. My high school orchestra took a trip there for a week, and one of our touristy things was a view of the city from one of its highest towers. Makes me very melancholy to think about it. I really should dig those photos out when I go home this X-mas.

So this post is going to be long, and very photo filled. Be prepared for the worst. I must apologize for my lack of blogging, as if someone cared, but I've been kind of busy and a little sick this week.

So Tuesday I went to school. Festival was going on still, but luckily, it was a super nice day out. Perfect. Cool, sunny, clear, warm, other words that describe a good day. That sort of day. I went to my morning classes, only to have both cut short by really nice teachers who wanted us to go eat a lot of fair related foods. Which I then did. I met up with Michelle and Kat and we wondered around and ate some fun stuff, which at the same time seeing some of the wonderful acts going on. I watched a nice jazz band play some classic jazz tunes, and was impressed that Spider-man was playing the drums. Colin joined up with us, and we soon ran into Chris C who was helping out his martial arts club try to raise some money. Nothing like a New Yorker trying to yell, in Japanese, at people to buy fried pastries. You know it. Colin and I even wondered by some art and photo exhibits, which were really good.

Gustavus was nice enough to send me a reminder that I needed to pick classes for next semester. Along with the notice were a couple of old issues of The Weekly, which Nick, Dan, and I all had to read. After sifting through the issues I realized how dull GAC was compared to Japan. In mean, not just typhoons and earthquakes either, just dull in general. Except for Zach Armstrong, who I was told suffered a massive assault on his car. Someone bashed in his windshield. Requiem for Zach's Car was my second choice for a blog post title. Sucks to be him. Zach just has the worst luck when it comes to cars.

Wednesday: I spent a good deal of the day watching the election and sleeping off some pre-election spirits. We didn't have class due to a national holiday. I should have waited until then, it would have helped what was to come. I've been avoiding commenting about the national, or even my local, elections on my blog. Too much effort, I mean, I'd spend all my time on that. I'd rather spend my time reading news or laughing at Japanese TV (god forbid homework). But in the post election I'd like to make a few comments. How cold Alaska have a population where 47% voted to remove all criminal penalties for marijuana, but yet pass a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage? Oh well. Lots to look forward to in the next four years. I for one will be voting Optimus Prime for president in 2008. I mean, he has the matrix of leadership, and is a proven leader during wartime. Plus, he's a giant robot that turns into a truck. What more do people want?

Thursday: Class. I guess. Umm... yeah. Class. I can't say I have anything important to say about that. I tried to explain how the presidential election works to my host fam, and then realized that its super confusing for everyone.

My iPod battery is showing its first signs of death. Poor little guy has served me well. I think the battery life is down from 9-10 hours to around 5. I should test it this weekend. Speaking of this weekend. Heck if I know what I'm doing. Expect more post election spirits to be drank, maybe some sight seeing.

Oh, and I'm thinking of growing a beard. Reason? Well.... I may call it my "Beard against Bush," and shave it when he's out of office. Or when ever I don't want it anymore. Maybe I'm just being extra lazy. Maybe I'm emulating my father's college facial hair style (he was once called "the wolf-man"). Maybe I'm growing facial hair because Jared Lee shaved his off! Whatever the reason, for now, I think I'll let it grow. We'll see what its like in another 2 weeks.

So I guess I'm kinda sick today. A bit flemmy and a bit tired. On a good note my host mom took me to city hall were I was able to get my alien registration card. This allows me to stay in Japan more then 90 days, and is also a replacement for my Passport when traveling around Japan. Go me. Too bad I have to give it back to the Japanese government when I leave the country.

I ended up watching a bunch of old Simpsons Halloween specials today and taking a long nap.

Lee got the post card I sent him last week. Thats rather fast. I wonder how long the ones I sent to the US will take to reach people.

I tried using Ecto version 2 last night, but switched back to version 1. I like the new features and layout, but found that it made posting on my photoblog a bit more difficult due to the way it does thumbnails. Needless to say though version 2 is very cool and a very good program.

I think the weather here has come to the point where its cold enough in the morning that I don't want to get out of bed for that reason alone. The ongoing battle between me, and a cold bedroom.

I audio chatted with Heidi for a while this morning discussing the JET application. Now all I really need to do is wait for a bunch of official documents from GAC and figure out what are of Japan I'd like to live in.

Oh, I missed this years Halloween riot in Madison, WI. Unlike last year. The things I miss while being in Japan.