June 2006 Archives

Seems as if the takoyaki craze is going to hit the US soon. Some enterprising, and wishful, people are going to try and market takoyaki as a fast food. I honestly don't see this taking off in the US. Octopus isn't really a popular dish anywhere in the US. Let alone as a fast food dish. McTakoyaki? Only time will tell.

Things I like, things I dislike:
Like: Waiting for the bus, in a light shower, and having someone pull over and offer me an umbrella.
Dislike: Finding out a female friend of mine was once again asked for her ID by the Japanese cops. (When asked why they said "Because people are worried."

I stuck up Matt, Bill, and my movie entry for the first annual Fukuyama Film Fest. Its a big file, so if you have the time and effort, or the urge to watch something really stupid, go ahead and view it.

Jess just got her new Macbook in the mail. Though its screen is shot so she has to send it back. Major sadness. Its such a nice little computer. Sleek, smooth, bright. Poor thing has to be put down, Old Yeller style.

I was sure I had more to rant about... but it seems to have slipped my mind. Oh well. Till next time.

Friday was a big night for Matt and my apartment complex. We had over 30 some people hanging out here till all hours of the night celebrating Natasha's and Jess' combined birthday parties. They had it at our places to avoid pissed off their neighbors. Oddly enough it managed to have that effect on my neighbors. It was kind of obvious to the extent when the cops showed up. The second time. No need to worry, the cops were very very nice about it all. The weird thing was that the first time they came was at about 10, meaning someone probably called them around 9ish. When they showed up at 1:30ish most of the crowd had gone away and the noise level was low. Oh Japan. Learn to have some fun on a Friday night. Anyways, the party was quite a fun time. The theme was 1980's, so the girls planned out a night of fun 80's music and trivia. Happy Birthday Girls. As usual I gave some fun Domokun related gifts. The gift that keeps on giving.

Saturday was filled with bar supply shopping for myself. I really need to resist the urge to buy bar related items to fuel my growing in apartment bar, which I only end up using when I have friends over. So saying that, if anyone wants a nice stiff Martini my place is always open. Just don't expect peanuts.

Sunday was the first annual Fukuyama Film Fest organized by Graham and Natasha. They did a smashing job putting together a venue, getting equipment, drinks, ect ect ect. Seemed like 40 some people showed up despite the horrible rain that was coming down. Anyways I'm working to get everyone's films online in the next week or so and start organizing the local JET community into making a podcast (if interesting, e-mail me!). Fun fun fun. If nothing else I'll get my group's film online tomorrow when I get it all converted.

I love this news article. It takes an expert to explain the reason why the Japanese population is decreasing. Conclusion: People not having enough sex. Wow. Jokes aside this is a major cultural issue here in Japan. Husbands who work too much and don't have time for sex. The gender roles within a marriage. When a couple does have a kid the marriage becomes sexless, and the kid sleeps with the parents until they're ten. Its a really interesting and disturbing situation.

Good News Everyone! Futurama is coming back! Comedy Central had optioned 13 new eps! YEAH!!!!

To continue my Nintendo DS love fest started last week... I ended up buying Touch! Kirby (called Kirby: Canvas Curse in the US) and Metroid Prime Pinball on Friday. (They're just so darn cheap!) Both games are addictive and very fun. Kirby uses nothing but the tough screen to control the game. Drawing your way through levels and games. A great example of innovative game play that has come about thanks to the DS. Metroid Pinball is super tough. Pinball is tough as hell, yet I love it so..... It seems that next month the Opera web browser for the DS is coming out in Japan. I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner. I'm looking forward to reading my e-mail from my DS this time next month. I'll post a video for everyone if I can get my hands on it.

And just because.... the official 10 Year Special Edition of the Tamagachi. Your favorite electronic friend. Which would go well with your Hello Kitty mp3 player. The gift for the girl who has everything... and now needs random cute junk.

Its common knollege that the Japanese are obsessed with that 'Numa numa' song. Much to the extent that I still hear it all over the place and see my kids with stationary. While bumming around youtube I found this Chinese animated version. Which is really funny. Only because I like octopi. And it reminds me of the live squid I ate for dinner on Sunday.

Speaking of Japan.... two news items sparked my interest in the last couple of days. First is that Japan is withdrawing its 600 troops from Iraq. They were only there to provide medical support, and there being in Iraq caused a few constitutional issues. Mostly because the Japanese constitution says that it can't move troops overseas. But you know... details, details, details. This issue will probably be brought up when Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi heads to the US this month to meet with President Bush. That and tour Graceland, the home of Elvis. Because Koizumi is a diehard Elvis fan. Oddly he seems to be scheduled to tour Graceland with President Bush. Clearly the best use of the President's time.

Now that I've upgraded my weblog software I can start working on a new look for my blog. If anyone has some ideas, or where I can find some good templates to mess with, leave me a comment.

I picked up the Sonic: Rush game for my DS today. A nice cheap used copy. A fun game, and tough. I never remember sonic being this tough before. Though in a nice bonus the game can be run in English, though all the voices are still in Japanese. I'd pick up more games but all the ones I want are too language intensive.... must... import...

Grilled again tonight with Matt. Looks to be a regular Wednesday ordeal. Go grilling.

I just installed MoveableType version 3.2. Lets see if it will let me post or not.

I was working on my group's film for the film contest this weekend when I needed a break. So I made this other short film which is really just... well... silly. Watch it and find out. Its a Domokun love fest over here. No really. Watch it. NOW.

Also, because I hate myself.....

Yes. I am going to hell for using youtube.com. Seriously.

Sunday was a bit of a revenge move against me. See my friend Maija though that since I dragged her to the wonderful Fukuyama Auto and Clock Museum last weekend that she should drag me to the Fukuyama Shoe and Folk Toy Museum. I bet you didn't know Fukuyama had one of those? What can I say about the shoe museum.... it had a lot of... shoes.... yeah... shoes... so many shoes you would probably go crazy if you spent more than 10 minutes in that half of the museum. (I like the "Don't touch sign. Who would touch?)

Luckily we scurried through that half and into the Toy section! Which isn't as fun filled as it sounds. Seems that in the olden days the Japanese had two main forms of toys for their kids. Either really nice kites, or large clay figurines. Nothing to cuddle with at night. Or if they did try and cuddle, it would be a strange clay sort of cuddle. There were some fun parts to it. They had a beautiful section or South Western Native American toys, as well as... really cool kites.

I'm still holding my breath for the Poison Gas Museum, which is somewhere around my area. (Really)

I've been here a year and only picked up one private student. Some would say thats bad. I think its good because my one student is really cool. After our lesson I noticed how we hadn't read the book I brought for her, so I just figured we should do it. When we got done with it, some 45 minutes later, she called up her husband and the three of us went out for dinner together. We went to a very traditional Japanese place that was very weird for me. See it was raw fish, the kind that was fresh, and you know its fresh, because they have large ponds in front of you where they scoop fish out of. Now see sushi is raw fish or other things served on a bit of rice. Sashimi is just strait up raw fish. Which was what I we got. The cooks scooped up some squid from the pond/pool and diced it up and served the slices of squid on top of the squid body (see crappy picture taken by my camera). Quite good stuff. Now what I didn't notice until I was done eating it was that the squid was still somewhat alive. Its tentacles were moving a bit, it was breathing a bit, and its skin was changing colors a bit. Yeah. See, this is what Japan is all about. Never knowing what you're eating.

I've turned Comments back on again. I've not had time to install the blog upgrade software, and probably won't this week. Not that any of my friends comment anyway... (shameless plea for comments)

I hate youtube.com. The worlds largest collection of crap videos from teenagers who feel the urge to complain about their lives or show bad music videos they made of their friend's horrible basement band. But I have found a use for it. Bad Japanese TV. It a good chunk of the most popular stuff on youtube is Japanese content. TV clips, anime, and anime music videos made by foreign anime otaku. I do enjoy the bad clips of Japanese TV. Like this one below. People getting the worst toilet prank ever pulled on them. Japan style.

This is why I don't watch Japanese TV anymore.

I don't know if I mentioned it or not, but about two weeks ago I managed to get my hands on a Nintendo DS Lite at a local store. Fortunate was I that someone had returned it that night, and it was in the 'Used' section of the store. The little guy has been out in the US for just a week now (I think) and is becoming extremely hard to get. Then again, its been out in Japan for over two months and is next to impossible to get. One of my co-workers has been trying to get one, but she was told that there was a two month wait on all orders. While the DS Lite just the same as the regular DS in all game play areas, it is quite a bit smaller and quite a bit more stylish. Which is why the Japanese are going crazy for it. They were already going crazy for the regular version, and it seems as if a Nintendo DS craze has swept Japan in the past year and a half. The Japanese love cute and weird, and the DS is both. Featuring built in wireless for internet play and a touch pad screen (to go with the regular screen) the DS has spawned some unusual and addict games and a massive following. For instance, Japan Airlines just announced that they would be letting their first class passengers use DS Lites during flights. I want to be first class more then ever now. Can you imagine it? An area of the plane reserved for businessmen and snooty reach people all playing gameboys. Or even better, the fact that the DS has built in wireless on it and you can use a web browser with it (for a price). Still only available in Japan, it should be hitting the US soon enough. I personally love the TV tuner add on. Who watched TV anyways these days? The thing I recently found out about is the large underground DS homebrew software community which has been finding ways to run their own software on the little guy. Someone even found a way to run old Lucas Arts games on it. The thought of playing Sam & Max on a DS does excite me to no end. But for now I'm content on playing Mario Kart with friends in Minnesota via the internet.

[Update] What would you do for a DS Lite? Maybe steal 2.3 million dollars worth in Hong Kong? I knew my middle school kids were desperate, but not this desperate.

Several of us grilled out in the parking lot last night. Nothing like the sweet smell of beef and a whole lot of charcoal. Matt figured we needed a lot, and by God did he pile it on. After a fine meal of beef, pork, and salmon I had to ask myself "Did I feel lucky?" Well yes I did. We all did. Plus the expression on Matt's face in the picture above is just.. well.. priceless. I have no idea what he was thinking. We may never know. Maybe his lemon was getting the best of him.

Japan lost its first world cup match. Boo hoo. But it may have a good thing going this these crows who somehow play soccer. Now the crows here are big and bad (you should she they shred garbage bags and pick up small children), but watching them play soccer? Maybe not. I'm just waiting for Japan to build the world's first robot soccer player. They can't be too far off as it is. They have the technology. They have the power. If only they had Steve Austin....

About 5 am this morning a good sized quake woke up me. It lasted longer than five seconds and I head dishes knocking around. My response to the whole thing was to lay in bed and wonder "Good lord, why am I awake and what ungodly hour is it....". My neighbor Matt on the other hand made his way to a doorway in case something bad was to happen. Anyways, several other small quakes were reported around Japan as well. Nothing serious though. I need more sleep.

I love any country where the local YMCA shows World Cup soccer and gives out free food and beer. I stuck around after my nightly swim to watch a bit of Japan vs Australia (and snack on some food). Before I left Japan had scored a goal, and everyone was chanting "Nipon! Nipon!" I like how as soon as I sat down someone asked me where I was from, just to make sure I wasn't Australian. They all seemed rather relieved to find out that I was from America and would not be spoiling their cheering section.

On Sunday I talked my buddy Maija into going to the Fukuyama Auto and Clock Museum with me. I've passed this thing about 100 times in the last year but have never gone in. From the outside it always looked... well.. like a ghetto museum. How surprised I was at the silliness and weirdness that was inside. Not only was it host to a lot of really cool old clocks and cars, but also some freak wax figures. Plus in a weird museum plus you were allowed to sit in any car and play around with most everything there. But honestly, what the heck was with the wax figures of Presidents Washington, Lincoln, and Clinton? Or the strange section on Kansas, complete with wax cowboy and Buddy Lee dolls? Maybe I'll hit up the shoe and doll museum next weekend....

Buddy Lee? And who are those cool cats in the car?

BBQ on Wednesday. Need to finish this film Bill, Matt, and I are working on. Oh, you'll be impressed to tears. Or maybe tears of pain. Either way, it'll be great.

Japan has an interesting take on how to get children to behave. Apparently it involves putting up posters telling kids to behave at train stations. In English. With freakish mannequins. First off, how darn freaky are these mannequins? These would never fly in any Western country. In fact it would probably have the exact opposite effect on kids. Also the whole part about the sign being in English tells you its 1) Its trying to be 'hip' 2) Its aimed at the smarter crowd of kids 3) The designers are idiots. This place is odd.

I don't think I said anything about this before, but last week Friday I went to a Hiroshima Carp game in Onamichi with a bunch of JETs. Who knew Onamichi had a big sports complex hidden on a mountain, or that someone would think that a two lane road would be enough to allow a massive crowd of people to exit the stadium. Which would explain why it took us over 45 minutes stuck in a bus just to exit the sports complex. The wait was so long that Graham had to exit the bus and... well... find a bush. The old Japanese people on the bus found it super funny, and also assumed he was American. Bill and I set them strait with the fact that he's Canadian. The Carp beat the Marines (last years champs) 5 to 3. Enjoy some pictures.

Sorry Graham. But its a great photo.

I bought a new desk and chair. Yes, I know, more money being thrown at my apartment. But gosh darn it if the whole thing just doesn't look and feel good. Plus it was cheap AND they delivered AND put it together for me. It only took a week I had to move my bed over and put a bunch of new holes in my wall so I could hang up some power strips, but its all good now. Enjoy this fun filled photo of my desk and new chair. Plus with this new configuration my room seems a lot bigger. (Also note the continued presence of giant robots on my desk)

I've been hitting the YMCA lately in an attempt to re-cultivate my lost swimming skills. I don't know why but for like 6 years I refused to swim in any situation. This after being on a swim team for several years. Its kind of like how I ate oatmeal for like my entire childhood until one day I just switched to Rice Crispies and never looked back. Anyways, the other nice benefit to swimming (beside the getting into shape thing) is that the pool is cooling. The heat was only up to 83 F today which isn't so bad, unless you count the horribly humidity. Japan is one of those countries where you have to ask yourself what would compel people to live here before heating and cooling was invented. The sad thing is that my schools still haven't turned the AC on in the teacher's lounge yet.... as always nothing can be done until the properly scheduled date. Save me.

Under Japanese law police can stop any foreigner and demand to see a passport or foreigner card. Its law, but honestly it never really happens. Which made it so odd that it did actually happen to two female friends of mine in their smallish town. The situation goes like this: The two girls were at a local mall type place and the fuzz come up, flashes a badge, and asks for their cards. The fuzz then notices that one of the girls was born somewhere different from her nationality and starts to speak to her in that country's language (yes, the details are quite vague by request). Quite strange really. If this has every happened to anyone it would be interesting to hear where and under what conditions. Anyhow... you have to wonder why this happened around here....

This past week my daily weblog comment spam has gone from one a day to around 300 a day. I have no idea why, and if anyone wants to play online video poker I can direct you to a few good sites. To fix this I guess I'll have to install the new version of Moveabletype, version 3.2, but it looks like it requires a lot more work than the usual updates. So until I get around to it (on like Saturday) I'll have comments turned off. Which will probably only hurt my mother and Jared.

Today was a different day. Instead of teaching a classroom full of kids and having them not understand a thing I was saying, I was part of a workshop for elementary school teachers who probably didn't understand a world anyone was saying (for the most part). The education system here has moved to teaching English in elementary schools but failed to notice that none of its elementary school teachers know a thing about English teaching. Its not their fault, its just that they never had a reason to know. This is bothersome for me because it looks like all the ALTs at my BOE will be adding elementary schools to their schedules. And there are around 70 schools. 10 ALT, 70 schools. Thats a lot of extra schooling to be going to.

Without going into much detail, as it has been detailed to death already, let me say this: If something is printed in several newspapers it has entered into the public sphere of discussion. It is not a rumor, slander, or libel (which it would help people to look up the last two because they always get them confused) to comment on these things (let along just give a loose translation of such articles). It is simply opinion or speculation. Both of which are neither libel or slander. I post on this blog under my own name. I post on several web forums under my own name as well. I do this because I hate people who make outrageous posts about things they would never say in person. If you wish to speak to me personally please do so, my contact information is quite accessible.

So the big news today was that an ALT in the nearby town of Mihara got arrested Tuesday night. Seems he was at a bar, drinking heavily (on a Tuesday night), found out he had no money to cover the bill so he ran, the owner ran after and a fight broke out. The ALT is now in jail and will probably be deported. This JET ALT was on his third year and only had two months left in his contract. Now the thing is I know this JET and he's an asshole. He was with another group of people during my Golden Week vacation trip and was the guy who caused all the problems (peed himself and whatnot). Him being arrested reflects badly on all of us. It made the paper today. One of my JTE's asked me about it. My boss talked to us all about it. His boss talked to us all about it. His behavior now reflects poorly on all JETs everywhere, and causes a xenophobic society to get a little bit more xenophobic towards us foreigners. I posted a copy of the newspaper article in case anyone with some Japanese skills wishes to read it. (Or even better, someone found it online as well.)

I had a work bowling party tonight. Yeah. Everyone from my BOE floor out bowling. If you got a strike you won a packet of ramen. Now I have a bunch of ramen yet hate eating it. My life is so weird.

Almost a year ago I bought a bed and posted about how 'cool' it was on my blog. I even had a photo. Someone was kind enough to send me a message about how google thinks my bed is cool as well. If you go to images.google.com and type in a search for 'cool bed' the photo of my bed comes up as the first result. Thus showing how I have the coolest bed in the world. Take that everyone else.

You might like this fun filled video of the love between a Japanese chicken and a Japanese kitten. I can't wait for the followup on this when the cat eats the chicken. The Japanese do love their animal stories.

Or if you prefer, you can just check out this bad video of Japanese rockers in Tokyo. The things I miss by being in the small city.