Thoughts

This just in!!! Shoko Asahara, founder of Aum has been sentenced to death. Read about it here or here.

Thoughts

I recently came across a very interesting article. I haven't read all of it yet, but what I did read of it was quite interesting. The article, at least what I read can be summed up with this:

"And therein lies one of the central dilemmas of political life in developed societies: sharing and solidarity can conflict with diversity. This is an especially acute dilemma for progressives who want plenty of both solidarity (high social cohesion and generous welfare paid out of a progressive tax system) and diversity (equal respect for a wide range of peoples, values and ways of life). The tension between the two values is a reminder that serious politics is about trade-offs. It also suggests that the left's recent love affair with diversity may come at the expense of the values and even the people that it once championed."

As I said, I haven't read it all so I'm not in the position to argue one way or the other, but it did strike me, as I said, as an interesting piece. I will be reading it more in depth I assure you.

There is currently an election going on for town council here in Minakuchi, so my impressions of Japan have suffered greatly. There isn't anything quite so "wonderful" as enjoying a peaceful woman gently telling you to vote for the candidate she represents, and if you replace peaceful with obnoxious, and gently telling with shouting through loudspeakers while driving past in a van, you'll get the idea. My Japanese, as poor as it is, has at least picked apart some of the message, which says something of the persistence of these aural assault vehicles. As far as I can tell the message is something to the effect of, "Please consider us kindly, Good afternoon, Our candidate X is good, thank you very much for considering our humble message." repeat ad infinitum. Today was a lucky break from all of it; our local supermarket was closed today and so the AAVs only made one pass, seeing as their audience was gone. These vehicles, I believe, are the one thing in Japan that could drive me to violence, and I don't say that lightly.

Thoughts

Today I was introduced to Japanese peeps...



I'll put more up later. Going to work on homework.

Thoughts

Here is an interesting thought...The Homeland Security level was not advanced after ricin was discovered in a senator's office... here's the story. I find that the article asks the important question, "Are we willing inspect ourselves for our own terrorists?" In general I think that the US believes that it has a handle on its own internal threats, but what keeps them from affecting the security levels? In fact, until September 11 2001 the greatest acts of terrorism in the US were committed by far right extremist groups. Just a thought.

Thoughts

Well, I found out that I am not the only one experiencing the authentication problems. The school has placed a notification about the problems on the website, so I am less concerned, but still annoyed. Regardless, it is out of my hands.

I haven't been doing a lot of thinking about Japan in particular, but recently I have been given an opportunity to do so. MIFA, the Minakuchi International Friendship Association, is holding a speech contest amongst its members for a prize of round trip tickets anywhere within Japan. The speech itself must be written and performed in Japanese, understandably, which limits the detail with which I can communicate. If asked I would have tried regardless of the prize, as it gives me a good opportunity to step away from "my normal life in Japan." I know that may seem odd, but the strageness of living in Japan has, for the most part, faded, and I am now "living in Japan," even though I know it is a temporary experience. Occasionally things strike me as odd, or perhaps annoying, maybe wonderful, but most of the time the stares, the bumping into lights and cabinets, being asked if I can teach someone English, all this is turning into normality.

About the teaching English, and this is something The Wife and I have spent more than a little time complaining about lack of real Japanese friends, those that would appreciate us not for English, but just as someone to hang out with. To be honest, I don't really mind teaching English, in a relaxed manner. I have no problem with doing something and having someone try to speak English to me and correcting them, or giving them pointers, as long as I can do the same in Japanese. Then it becomes, at least in my mind, an attempt to communicate with friends; an omnidirectional cultural communication (I say omni because in numerous cases the cultural communication is not between only two cultures, especially where we live, where we speak Japortufranglais, or Japanese/Portugese/French/English/Spainish)...

In other news, I've gotten some more security news to share for those of you who are interested.

• "Slouching towards Big Brother"


• Some Hacking in Congress
• 
  
• A Break in at an Israeli Post Office

I'll write more later.

BLAAARGH!

This is the third week in a row where I have been prepared to participate in discussions on my class' website but have been denied by something. This week, however, I did not receive the normal 404 error that has plagued me the previous two weeks, this time I was informed that I'm no longer a member of the class. This error message occurred a scant three hours after I had logged in previously, so something in the three hours between logging in, logging out, dinner, walking R to the train station, and getting ready for bed, I was made a nonassociate. This makes me angry, because I don't believe it is my fault; in fact I know it is not my fault, seeing as I could log into every other account that I belong to at the school, even the one that the webpage points back to. So somewhere in this mess, the bits are playing with me and only me. I asked a friend of mine, who is also in the program, whether he could access the page. Lo and behold! He can, so why can't I? Who knows, maybe it is because I'm in Japan. The 404s of the weeks previous would have made that believable, but now it is merely something going wrong with their end of the system. I can do no more. I'm going to bed and when I wake up I hope I can post.

Thoughts

In lieu of watching "Ed Wood," I thought I would partake of some Ed. I happen to have a copy of "Sinister Urge," as done by MST3K. It details the dangers of pornography, or rather, "The smut picture racket."

Thoughts

As predicted, I went to Kusatsu tonight. Had a lovely ham basil sandwich and studied formal methods of proof. I also bumped into a group of Koga ALTs that also arrived sometime after I did, and since I had secluded myself into the dark recesses of the Starbucks, they didn't see me. K from Shigaraki was concerned that his shirt made him androgynous, but we all assured him that his facial stubble definitely removed all possibility of androgyny. We discussed the merits of post graduate studies a bit, as well as the Bitter Baron, whom we praised for his keen intellect, which would make him a very formidible lawyer, when he finally gets around to pursuing those goals. I then returned to my studying, which was very productive.

I finished all my readings and even began a manga entitled "Kenji" [拳児]which is about this boy who studies Kung Fu with his grandfather who may or may not be a monk, I haven't really gotten that far in the reading, but in the pictures he does live in a secluded monastary. The manga is interesting to me because in addition to telling a story, it actually has insets of small kata or forms, written in. Essentially, any move that Kenji uses in the manga, it is written as an instructional inset. So far I've read ten pages, which is really cool. Story so far, Kenji saves a kid from a bunch of bullies who tell on him for starting a fight. He gets in trouble with his mom and teacher. The teacher gives him a note to take to his mother, but the grandfather shows up and tells Kenji, there are sometimes when you should solve a problem with your mind, not your strength. You need more training, stand in horse stance, or 馬乗り. My dictionary translated it as stradle one's father, but that didn't quite seem correct, as the picture is definitely Kenji in your standard horse stance. Regardless, it is encouraging to actually start reading, even though it takes me a while each page. I already feel my vocabulary increasing, which is something I have lamented in the past.

On my way home I saw a very interesting man, he quacked, like a duck, but only at attractive women. I spent much of the train ride home pondering this, "If I were a woman, how would I respond to someone quacking at me?" It made me laugh, because the women that were walking in front of me were suddenly and unexpectedly forced to answer that question. They were both quite startled, as I imagine someone that hadn't pondered the previous question might be, and afterwards they started laughing. I still haven't found the answer to my question, I think that perhaps we are not meant to understand the nature of quacking responses, but I would like to think that I would quack back. Later.

Thoughts

Ha! It worked. I went and rented more videos yesterday and got more alcohol. Sure, it is only one bottle of Smirnoff, but that's some 200-300 yen, depending on where you go. So for 390 yen for a video I can get an equal value in alcohol. It isn't that I drink very much, in fact, I drink very rarely, but I find it incredibly amusing that I can go into a video rental store and come out with free alcohol. It boggles my mind, which is why I have been doing it. Every time it happens I spend the whole walk home laughing to myself.

I received the last of my textbooks yesterday. I had ordered it from Amazon before Christmas break, and they kept moving back the ship date, and therefore the arrival date. By the time I canceled the order they had placed the arrival date on the week following that of spring break, which would be mid-March. I then ordered the book directly from the publisher two weeks ago, they shipped it the day after the order by ground and it arrived yesterday for a full twenty dollars less than what I would have paid through Amazon. Usually I like having my textbooks arrive before a class begins, which is why I ordered them a full month in advance, but apparently that is a little bit too difficult to handle. I've been in class for now four weeks without this textbook, all because Amazon decided that shipping a book ordered in December was so difficult they had to wait until mid-March to get it to me. Luckily the publishers did not feel that it was a difficult task, and now I can approach the subject with a bit more confidence.

My grandfather is in the hospital with pneumonia, a broken hip, and a congestive heart failure. My parents have gone to Chicago to spend time with him. Hopefully he'll get better, and I'm thinking about my family as they are dealing with all of this. He is quite old, and so I suppose I've been mentally preparing myself for something like this for some time, but it is still saddening.

As I mentioned I rented some movies, The Wife and I watched "Galaxy Quest" last night. Really a good movie, especially if you are on the nerd fringe and can laugh at yourself. I also started a movie called "Dinner Rush" which is a movie that focuses on the workings of an Italian restaurant. I haven't finished it yet, but it has been a pretty good watch. We also watched "Ed Wood" which has a particular place in my heart as a number of his films have showed up on MST3K, one of my favorite shows. It was a humorously painful movie about the "Worst Director of All Time." It stars Johnny Depp, Bill Murray, and several others, amusing if you can laugh at the people that just couldn't make it. Actually, if you think about it, Ed Wood did direct quite a few movies, so he made it to a certain extent, but he made it so poorly that it is painful, yet full of amusement, like poking at a healing wound. The movie was directed by Tim Burton and the music was done by Howard Shore, who most recently has done the music to the "Lord of the Rings" movies.

The PBEM is lurching back into forward momentum as we move away from the lethargy of Christmas break and trying to get back into "the swing of things," and in other news, I may be back in the states in March for some time attending a conference that pertains to my research project. As I mentioned earlier, I'm giddy because this is why I decided to pursue a post-graduate degree, the research and the deepening of knowledge, not to take more classes, and the opportunity to actually be participating in something I consider a personal dream is a very heady experience. Alrighty, I'm heading to Kusatsu again to finish up all my reading over a cup of coffee or tea. I also need to purchase more Lapsang for my own collection. The Wife and I are in the process of preparing another package of goodies for the folks back in the States, Ender has his "X Japan: Art of Life 1993.12.31 Tokyo Dome" DVD coming to him, and we have some stuff for our friends in Valparaiso. I'm still looking for a used copy for the Nauruto fighting game to send to T and crew, but if there is anything that people want let me know and we'll see what we can do. We'll probably send the everything to T's place and if you want it you can get it through our distributors, like Ender. Later.

Thoughts

Well, it is Monday here and we had a blast of a weekend. We spent about twelve hours gaming with R and D, but that was prefaced with the movie Uzumaki [渦巻き] or "The Spiral." It was okay. We have been watching Japanese horror movies, not quite weekly, but it has been fun to see some "foreign" films.

I did start getting quite annoyed at the fact that Japan, a country with no central heating, has not developed a better way to fill the kerosene canisters that go into the heaters. The only methods I have seen are the leaky hand pump or the barely flexible tube. I am not impressed. However, the Tsutaya does hand out free bottles of Smirnoff Ice with rentals nowadays. I haven't been anywhere else where you can go, rent your videos, and get handed a bottle of alcohol. Ahhhh, Japan.

I'm still struggling with making my experiences appear good on paper and it is frustrating me to no end. Still it needs to be done very shortly. I've always had trouble with resumes and such articles. There is just something about trying to make your experiences competitive with everyone else that is applying. It isn't a matter of self-accomplishment. I'm pretty pleased about everything I've done, it is just when I see it on paper I feel dirty, like I'm participating in a race of rats. If you think about that statement, would you ever want to participate in that event? The last of my present to "The Wife" arrived on Monday, and so I gave it to her because she is still exhausted. I got her the bilingual edition of Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf, J.R. Clark Hall's A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, and Mitchell and Robinson's A Guide to Old English for some light reading. They contrast with the books that I've been receiving last week that deal with my project, and they will serve as a good break. In fact, I'm doing pretty well, I've already finished up half of my readings for the week. Those of you who know me will be impressed that I have shifted my procrastination from my homework to the scribing of endeavors.

I've also managed to get myself back to the pool to start developing a schedule. Not having a real job makes developing a systemic day difficult, and swimming goes a long way to achieve that goal. I can get so much more accomplished if I'm up at a decent hour rather than going to bed at a decent hour. Take that last statement how you will. Speaking of which, I'm heading out to swim now.

Thoughts I went to Kusatsu yesterday evening to get away from Minakuchi. The Wife was exhausted and she went to bed almost as soon as she got back from school. Kusatsu was fun, I really enjoy going to the AL Plaza courtyard and just watching people, so that's what I did. Nothing really interesting to report other than I enjoyed the experience. I also finished up my reading for my classes this week, and the employees at the Starbucks there are pretty cool people. I got to talk to two of them because business was really slow, while a third was stealing samples of cheesecake and laughing maniacally, very fun. I also had enough coffee and hot chocolate to ensure that I was shaking until about three in the morning, so I watched "Alien" and then "The Fifth Element," before collapsing in bed after a full, productive, enjoyable day. Also, I can't wait to see "Lost in Translation."

Excuse me, Could you give me the spine?

This weekend was amusing, but sickening to say the least. Saturday started as a fairly normal day, with abnormal plans. Usually, The Wife and I stay inside and just enjoy not being bothered by anyone or anything, but this past weekend we had agreed to travel to Hikone to visit one of our friends up in that area for a rousing session of D&D 3.5. We arrived and decided to do lunch first, and this is where it begins to get interesting. For those of you who have lived in Hikone, you know how strict they are in enforcing their traffic laws. The city does house one of the Japanese historical treasures, and they like to make sure everything around it operates correctly. Well, at one of the crosswalks I veered into the street a little early, not enough to be a true jay-walk, but close enough to it that they sent out two of their jay-walk ninjas to attack me, and "punish" me so I'd never do it again. They weren't expecting someone that had studied martial arts, and my Kung Fu beat their Karate, though it was mostly due to surprise. They were expecting a tourist; big, tall, but not skilled in the ancient art of Kung Fu. I managed to hold them off until we could duck into the Big Boy for a tasty dinner of herb chicken. When we left it was the jay-walk ninjas' turn for surprise as they burst from a tunnel near the Yu Store. Luckily for us all The Wife was a little bit behind us and managed to yell a warning before they reached us. I was fed up with being hassled for the early crossing and decided to let it be known. Using the ancient secrets of Qigong and focused my chi into the Perfect Eagle's Claw Grasps at Prey and ripped the spine out of one of the ninjas, causing the other to flee. The attack was so fierce that there was no blood and the ninja, his own spirit consumed with purity vanished in a puff of smoke, leaving no trace that he'd ever been there, aside from the spine I then held in my hands. Those ninja are tricky, I couldn't even prove they were there, just that I had this spine, which we saw on the street and commented on how strange it was that there was a spine laying in the middle of the sidewalk. It could have belonged to anything, a dog, a cat, a tanuki, or even a small child; no one would believe me that I had actually defeated one of the mythical jay-walk ninjas. After that we went to D's apartment to immerse ourselves in a fantasy realm where we pretend to be characters in a made up world.

This is where the sickening part comes in, D had been getting ill and The Wife had been ill as well, and they passed it to me, so now I have the Flu of One Thousand Highschool Students. I spent pretty much all of Monday in a deep slumber upon our new couch which is wicked comfortable and soft. It was the only one we could find at Midori that wasn't pleather. I spent most of yesterday asleep as well, which is why I'm doing this so late at night. I am getting excited however, I'm starting on that research project I was excited about earlier, but I find out now I can't say anything more about it, only that I'm doing a research project. I'm getting books in the mail and now I'm in charge of purchasing the computers. It feels great; I'm elated, in fact, in the funding I get to go to a conference somewhere about something, in fact, all I know is that it is in March. He He He, I'm giddy.

Watched "12 Monkeys" tonight, and "Man on the Moon," in my waking time yesterday. I enjoyed them both, that is all I will say about them. "The Return of the King," opens here on the 7th of this month, so we'll probably be seeing that again with our Japanese friends, should be fun. Makiko, one of my students at Gambro is reading the Hobbit.

I hope this post wasn't too clever-clever as to offend coming from Aku Ender's blog, or even the author himself, so, in general form to increase my own horizons, give me a good book, movie, or band/song/album. One thing I like about living with The Wife is that she has different musical tastes. In general we blend pretty well, but there are some things that we do that drive each other crazy. For example, The Wife loves to listen to a song or small group of songs, we'll say five to ten, for three days on repeat. Those are the only songs she will listen to... it drives me crazy. I like to take our whole music library, put it on random and hit play and see what happens, that makes The Wife crazy, she likes to know what comes next. I think there was an episode of Dr. Katz where the guest star said something to the effect of, "I listened to your latest album, but not in the order you are familiar with." Also, Smashing Pumpkins, The Wife can't stand them, same with Sonic Youth, or rather, she has to be in a very particular mood to listen to Sonic Youth. It isn't too much of a problem, but just some interesting music listening quirks that work their way into our relationship at various points in time. Those quirks nearly started a fight between Aku Ender and The Wife when The Wife said that Smashing Pumpkins were terrible. It was amusing to watch the fervor with which they both backed their opinions. Ah, opinions, so much fun to argue. Later all.