February 2007 Archives

I bought a couch today. Seeing as how I just signed on for another year in this country I figured that I might as well live here in comfort. I've really only got two rooms in my apartment, being my bedroom and my tatami room. The bedroom is home to my bed and desk, and thus where I spend the vast majority of my apartment time. My tatami room is mostly empty. Sure theres my TV, book shelf, and a small floor table. But I hate being in there. I hate sitting on the floor (how un-Japanese of me), and I only ever sit there when entertaining people. Which is why I decided to change things and put in a small couch. Which caused me to go to three stores tonight and eventually settling on a 20,000¥ second hand blue couch. The only problem is if the movers from the store can get it in... and if it takes over my entire tatami room. At least its rather comfortable.

The most popular DVD at my local video rental store is "Nihon Chinbots", which translate out to "Sinking of Japan." Which kind of sums up the entire film. Japan sinks. There you go. Now why can't I ever find a copy to rent! I mean, I really only want to watch every major city in Japan get trashed, its not like I'll understand what everyone is saying. Sigh... This video clip kind of sums things up.

The second annual "Lets Film Festival" is soon approaching. Last years event was a hit success, even though there were only three films shown. Hopefully this year people get their acts together and actually make some films. Word on the street is that this year will be an "international" event, with film projects from the far distant land of Canada. Time for me to break out the video camera and bad acting skills again. So much to look forward to.

A day in the life of Josh.

7:05: Wake up to phone alarm. Bring phone to bed. Hit snooze.
7:11: Alarm goes off again. Hit snooze.
7:18: Alarm goes off again. Hit snooze.
7:24: Alarm goes off again. Attempt to get out of bed.
7:30: Take shower.
7:50: Eat breakfast. Ignore egg shells in sink.
7:55: Read online news.
8:15: Finally get dressed.
8:20: Attempt to ride slightly broken bike to school.
8:51: Somehow get broken bike to school.
8:52: Boss calls me to find out why I'm late.
8:55: First period class.
9:20: Make small boy cry.
9:50: Read online Heros Wiki.
10:45: Stop reading Wiki, third period class.
11:15: Resist urge to throw chair at class.
11:45: Fourth period class.
12:45: Lunch. Two containers of yogurt. Mixed fruit.
1:35: Fifth period class.
2:45: Leave horrible school.
3:00: Bike badly broken, man at bike shop laughs at me.
3:15: Abandon bike at mall. Unable to find replacement big enough for me.
3:20: Take solace in chicken nuggets.
3:32: Walk back to city hall. Enjoy iPod mix.
4:00: Arrive at work, do my daily 5 minutes of paper work.
4:30: Leave work.
4:40: Buy 1,000¥ worth of cheese.
4:50: Pay way too much for tomato soup.
5:01: Take train home.
5:15: Read mail, news, watch some Star Trek TNG.
6:00: Skype Lesson. Enjoy weird tanks.
6:30: Watch a lot of movie trailers.
7:04: Go to 日本語 Lesson.
7:06: 日本語をべんきょうしています。
8:15: Meet Kate.
8:30: Enjoy Japanese take on Italian food.
9:55: Buy desert at Fresta, and some Orange juice.
10:05: Annoyed at having Kate see my dirty apartment.
10:06: Clean quickly.
10:07: Eat desert.
10:25: Kate leaves.
10:30: Watch Battlestar. Mmmmm....
11:00: Upload photos, annoy former room mates.
11:30: Tell all my friends to post comments on photoblog. DO IT.
11:40: Start downloading Heroes.
11:45: Decide to do this blog entry.
12:00: Still writing this. Curse you all.

I've found that it takes two cups of tea to get me up to peak efficiency in productiveness. Then if I add one cup of tea every one and a half to two hours and I stay at that level of productiveness. Seriously. Thats how I was able to upload and completely redo all the photos in my photoblog. If you'll go and look (please do) you'll see a much better layout and less photos, but better ones. Seriously. Go and comment on them. They're funnnnn. I promise. I also changed the Photos link on my sidebar, as my father has notified me that some people had been going to my old photo page (now completely deleted) and complained that I hadn't updated my photos since early last year.

I completely forgot about this Yuki Matsuri picture I took. One section of snow sculptures were gifts from around the world. Sculptures done by foreign relation committees representing many different countries. I guess the Canadian team must have not noticed that their sculpture looked rather bad when viewed from most angles. You be the judge of it. Seriously. What were they thinking?

I watched the new Ghost Rider movie. It wasn't bad. Nor was it good. It was just.... good in a somewhat bad way. It was kind of fun to watch, though I was kind of wishing that Nic Cage would actually light himself on fire at some point. Oh well. The best part though was Sam Elliott, who I want to narrate my life. Really. His mellow cowboy voice is just what I need. Though it always invokes images of The Dude from The Big Lebowski.

My friend Dale has made an interesting webpage called VetoMatic which any Wisconsin resident should read. It regards the Governors special veto power and the odd power that it gives him. At least the webpage is funny about it all.

I love my Macintosh. No doubt. And I love women. Macenstein has done something that several of my friends have tried, and failed, to do in the past. Geek overload.

One of the major problems facing most JETs is the proper motivation to learn Japanese. Most people's level of learning bottoms out after 6 months, and after learning just the necessary amount to order food and beer. There may be hope for us yet in the form of a Learning Japanese RPG. Get your nerd on.

A fun filled little piece of Japan. Oh the things you can buy for 200¥ at your grocery store.

So many toys, so little time.

While many people I know are heading out to view the Naked Man Festival today, I am staying home. A combination of tiredness, rain, and a lack of urge to see a lot of Japanese ass has caused me to hanker down with a hot cup of tea and work on several projects that keep getting put off. Very off. Such as my long neglected photoblog. Poor poor photoblog. So unloved. I'm working on removing a lot of China pictures, as I seem to have overdone it with the amount thats there, and put up a whole host of others that I have sitting around.

I recently found out that the graphic novel The Watchmen is being made into a movie. Just because I sat around the other evening and read the entire thing, something that took me 8 hours to do the first time. I love the novel and really hope the movie stays true to the characters and storyline. Unlike other Alan Moore comic books have done in the past. (Must I name the three examples of badness that have happened!)

Something that will clearly excite all the otaku out there, it seems Apple has added a whole lot of anime to its iTunes lineup. Though to be honest its so darn easy to download them from fansub sites, and a whole lot more timely. But you know. This way is legal.

I found out that a Domokun fan forum has been linking to a Domokun video I did a while back. The site is in Spanish, but I find the whole thing rather funny. Wait till they see the Domokun around the world pictures I'm going to be putting up.

Japan seems to be up to its same old whaling practices again. Why can't you just be nice and let the whales live? I mean, your own people don't like eating it anyways!

This flash game is sooooo addictive....

I guess I'm a little late on posting this report on the Winter Snow Festival in Sapporo last weekend, but I've just been really beat this last week and have been trying (unsuccessfully) to get some extra sleep. I think the cold weather up north sapped my energy reserves. That or two nights of wild karaoke did me in. Probably a bit of both.

So a bit of background info on the Snow Festival. It was started in 1955 by a bunch of students and now has ballooned into one of the biggest festivals in Japan, drawing in around two million people each year. Sapporo, which is the second largest party city in Japan, feels a lot like Minnesota. The city, the houses, the atmosphere has a very "upper mid-west" thing going on. Plus its a major dairy center. Cheese is your friend.

Simon, Crystal, and I headed up there via Hiroshima Airport on Friday morning. In a strange twist of events we ended up on the same plane as the band Blind Guardian, a favorite of my former college room mate John, who has just finished up in Hiroshima City and was heading up to Sapporo for another concert. We arrived in Sapporo to find the city under a heat wave (oh the irony) and that many of the sculptures were melting at an alarming rate. We met up with another group of Fukuyama JETs (which included Matt, Mark, Bill, and Tanya) and tried not to slip and break our necks on the very icy festival grounds. The sculptures still looked nice all lit up, even if they were melting.

On Saturday our group went out to the far away festival grounds, which were also melting, to see some other sights. Such as a maze, and a very big slide (with and hour and a half wait). We also saw a massive field of snowmen who looked slightly ominous. Us group of guys tried our luck being pulled around on a large inflatable raft behind a crazy Japanese man in a snowmobile. It was fun times being had by all. (Oh, and not to downplay the snow in Sapporo at all, because usually its very extreme. Like South Dakota extreme judging by the very large snow blowers and snow plows I saw in the city. Heck, the last picture is from Monday when it showed a lot on us.))

That evening I attempted to go to the Blind Guardian concert, but found out that it started at 5 (while I showed up at 6) and was a tad expensive. Instead I joined up with my friends again and we went to an all you could eat lamb place which served us extremely tall amounts of beer. As you can see from the photo. This was followed up by karaoke. The next day Crystal, Simon, and I went to a chocolate factory to enjoy the wonderful smell and Willy Wonka like look that they had set up.

That evening we went to a sento, had a lot of super good crab to eat, and caught a very fun Beatles cover band in a very small bar. Check out Brits Beat Club online and even view their evening sets live on their webpage. I know. Fun indeed. That or view the video I took off my small camera. Not the best sound quality, but decent enough. (Its sad I didn't catch the 8 minute rendition of An Englishman in New York which was damned good)

Well thats the jist of things going on around here. I hope my pictures have made you a bit cold. I know I still am.

Ok, my reports of February being super cold were a bit... premature. It seems as if the cold we got was just making way for a massive warm front. Lets just say it almost hit 60 F a couple of days this past week, and I've had friends tell me they have trees blooming in their back yard. Warm makes me happy.

It also makes me kind of sad. Ironic. Mostly because tomorrow I head north to take in the Sapporo Yuki Matsuri, better known as The Winter Snow Festival. Yes this iconic snow festival will feature massive displays of snow and ice, plus all the yellow slushies you can eat. Heck, we may even try skiing on the many slopes they have there. I head there with fellow travelers Simon and Crystal, who will probably rope me into seeing the chocolate factor and beer factory, which I honestly would go see on my own.

My job is secure for another year. Fears of Fukuyama downsizing its ALTs was unwarranted. In fact it seems as if we may be gaining more at my office. Lets see... we have 7 leaving... and if we get the three the city wants... that means they'll be 10 newbies to show around, and only 4 senior JETs to watch over them. My idea is this: We give a couple of newbies to each of the senior JETs and train them. Then we let them fight it out Battle Royal style to see who gets the best desks and schools. There can be only one.

I've been reading the book Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Modern Japan by Alex Kerr and now I'm afraid to drink the water in Japan. The book, which is factual, has been putting me in a very bad mood the last couple of days, mostly because everything he talks about I notice around Japan. I guess that after a year of being here the sight of a concreted over mountain or orange haze lingering in the air has become second place for me. It only hurts because I really do like Japan.

Last weekend I went into Hiroshima to hang out with my friend Laura and see an art museum (ok, I've been really lazy writing blog entries as of late). During that day I managed to see some fun 19th century French artwork, go to my first ever Toastmasters meeting, watch Laura eat bee-hive yakitori, and randomly stumble across a German theme bar (complete with German people hanging out there and a weird curry brat thing). I also randomly stumbled across what can only be described as "The Fashion Show of the Damned!" That or its a very early Halloween ploy (or very late). I uploaded it onto youtube. Enjoy its randomness.

Heres to me finding a big snow Domokun in Sapporo! I'll post pictures Monday.

February is the coldest month in Japan, and in a very Japanese fashion, the weather suddenly turned very cold on the 1st. Which makes so much sense in a country where people dress according to a specific seasonal timetable, and not according to the actual temperature outside. Though luckily its still nowhere near as cold as it was last year.

Last year Hiroshima Prefecture suffered from an unusually large number of first year JETs not recontracting, so much so they sent out questionnaires asking why people were leaving. This year it seems we have the opposite problem, there are a lot of JETs staying... and the prefecture is cutting a large number of positions. Which seems strange, as English was just added to the elementary school curriculum which should have increased the demand for teachers. Maybe many cities are opting to get teachers from other companies, or to try and attract their own private teachers. What ever the reason it seems there will be quite a few JETs around here who will either have to transfer to a different city or go home. (I'm restraining myself from writing a long ass rant about the state of English teaching in Japan... this time...)

Once again proving that Hollywood has run out of new ideas comes the announcement that someone is doing a Barbarella remake. (If you're not up on what Barbarella is, or how you somehow missed out on a movie featuring a very naked Jane Fonda, please feel free to read up on it via this link.) Honestly people. Unless this new Barbarella someone manages to go back in time and bring back a very young, and naked, Jane Fonda don't expect it to be any good. Hmmm... Hanoi Jane....

Because even geeks need a dating service to meet up with other geeks (what ever happened to hooking up at Star Trek conventions?) here comes Otakubooty.org. Sadly there are only real girls, and its doubtful they both have blue hair and speak fluent Japanese. Oh, and they're real.

This is one of those "Only in America" sort of things (which you probably already knew about, unless you live under a rock. Or in Japan). Certain parts of Boston were brought to a halt because of some advertising mistaken for bombs became the center of attention for several million dollars of unused Homeland Security funding. Adult Swim, which provides fun filled programing for Cartoon Network, had scattered small lit up (and very litebright looking) advertising up in 10 major cities around America featuring some of their creations. These things had been there for several weeks without incident. Until the other day. When someone called one in to the police (which isn't a bad thing), who then called in a bomb squad and blew it up. And then ran around the city trying to find more. Look at the picture, or even better the video of the guys making these things. Does that look like a bomb? The best was this quote from the CNN.com article. "'It had a very sinister appearance,' Coakley told reporters. 'It had a battery behind it, and wires.'" Wow. A battery and wires. Watch out neon signs and electronics, you're just complicated enough to be considered a bomb. Its just plain stupid on Boston's part, and them going on about making Turner Broadcasting pay for the money they spent panicking is even more stupid. Its just them trying to shift the blame. Seriously people, if anyone with half a mind was going to plant a bomb somewhere, would they a) put it in a lit up monster flipping everyone off, or b) hidden in something unnoticeable like trash or an empty box. Stupidity makes me angry. (If we as a society are jumping at shadows, and are afraid of everything that we don't understand, then the terrorists have already won a bigger battle then we could have every thought possible.) Anyways, the press conference video with the two guys who made the little devices, and who were arrested for it, is a hoot. The media's reaction is priceless. Almost as much fun as thinking dolphins had somehow made a bomb. Oh yes. That last part is true.

Any in case anyone was wondering I signed up for another year in Japan, unless for some reason I'm either fired or my job is cut. In which case I would probably just live in a box by the castle for a while.

Hmm... I found this article on why soy is making our kids to become gay very interesting, for several reasons. The primary reason being that if this was true it would explain why all the Japanese men on the street look gay, and also why Japan's birth rate has been dropping. Though it doesn't explain why when you ask a Japanese person if there are gays in Japan, they will almost always respond with a "No." Friends don't let friends eat tofu.

Apple has putting out some rather fun "Get a Mac Ads" with the now pop culture reference "Hello I'm a Mac, and I'm a PC." As I've posted before, they did some Japanese ads a while back which were, for the most part, a direct translation of the US ads. But with some fun little Japanese puns thrown in as well. Now Apple is back, and they've added some ads for their UK audience, with its own brand of UK humor. I enjoy comparing the exact same ad in all three languages, and just seeing what culturally different things are changed. I do enjoy when the PC in the Japan ad says "Crash oh shimasu." (Check out the several new Japanese ads. They're silly.) But the real question is, which Mac and which PC do you like the best? My vote is for the Japanese PC, and all his very silly antics and clothing, and for the British Mac. Mostly because he doesn't come off a stoner who still lives in his parents basement. But you can judge for yourself with this fun filled image I whipped up. Click to enjoy.

I've still not uploaded pictures to my photoblog. I've been a bit busy doing dinners and making some videos. Speaking of which I've still not uploaded videos to replace the ones that don't work in my vidlog. I'll probably just upload them all to youtube and save myself some effort, and bandwith. Oh well. Things to do Sunday. That and start storyboarding for this years Fukuyama film fest... oh yes. It will be gooooood....