Windfall

My friend Amy (of the Sayonara party mentioned in the previous post) is leaving Japan, and she said she wanted to get rid of some of her work clothes, so I went over and took a look. After about an hour of trying stuff on, I ended up taking a backpack, my own bag, and another plastic bag filled with stuff. I got a really cool suit, tonnes of blouses, pants, shoes, etc. Of course, this was all fine and dandy until I tried to get on the train...

I'm all "stay rational" and he's all "bwahaha, oh man, awesome"

Today I met a fellow former philosophy major, and when we parted company I told him to "stay rational"--quite possibly the funniest thing you could say to someone who's studied a lot of philosophy.

This was at a bar where the washrooms were equipped with special puke basins: large, wide brimmed ceramic affairs complete with heavy duty water faucets for afterwards. First time I'd seen such a thing, though apparently they're pretty common in Japanese bars. (I guess we don't frequent that many bars.)

The catalyst for these encounters, among others, is the imminent departure of a former coworker. She's heading back home, which in this case is Brussels. Not that she's Belgian or anything. Actually she's American, but I think she has lived in every city in the entire world. Without exception. Literally.

Life in Japan has an expiry date for almost all gaijin, so if you stick around for a while you inevitably end up going to a lot of sayonara parties. It's kind of like living through the penultimate scene in LOTR--the farewell at the Grey Havens--over and over and over again, except most of the people you hug aren't as whiny as Elijah Wood.

P.S. Episode III was cool. It doesn't open here until July (Japan has the second largest economy and the first stupidest movie release dates in the world), but we managed to get in a super-early sneak preview. I really liked how they did the closing scene--instant flashback to way back whenever it was I saw the first movie.

Enterprise Finale (SPOILERS)

Anyone else watch it? I thought it was pretty bad. A few glaring problems - Troy and Riker were acting out events from a 7th season episode of TNG, but they looked old and out of shape. Marina Sirtis didn't even bother with the accent she used through 7 seasons of TNG, and the story was pretty weak overall - the incidents towards the end seemed unlike the characters. Also, the little cut at the end, where we see the Enterprise D and hear Picard, then we hear Kirk, then lastly Archer, seemed like a lame attempt at creating that 'warm fuzzy feeling'. Anyways, I was not impressed.

Weekend Update

Due to our late shifts (1-9 ish) leading to bad habits, busy schedules, and two scary experiences, I decided to get a gym membership. Scary Experience #1 occurred when I was buying lunch from a local bento store and a former student recognized me. Now, granted, her English is very very bad, but about the only sentence I could make out was: "You are getting bigger!". Scary Experience #2 occurred when an associate complained that she wasn't recognized by her best friend on a trip home because she had gained so much weight. I have been a little lazy about going to the local gym, where all you can do is treadmill or bike (and a few weights). So I decided to get a membership at Tipness. This is not as easy a process as one might expect. I figured no one there would speak English so I used babelfish to translate their webpage, figured out what I wanted, then printed a Japanese version and circled the relevent info. This was very helpful, because I was right - there was one staff member who spoke very rudimentary English. Along with my very rudimentary Japanese, we muddled through all of the paperwork (it's Japan, there's paperwork - and lots of it - for everything) in only one hour!

I went back today for yoga. Standing at the back, it wasn't so hard to copy everyone else. It helps to know a few phrases like "mo ichi do" (one more time) etc. The facilities are really nice - they provide shampoo and soap and even individual blowdryers, at stations with mirrors so you can sit down and get ready for work. Pretty cool so far.

Letter to the editor

A few weeks ago I mentioned us submitting a letter to Metropolis about a story they did on sightseeing in Myanmar. Well, it's been over a month since the original article was published, and we'd pretty much figured they'd decided to ignore us, but they actually ended up running our letter. As far as I can tell, they only abridged it a little.

But it looks like we're the only ones who thought the article warranted any sort of response. A while ago there was some article in Metropolis about Japanese squat toilets, and there was a vigorous exchange of letters attacking and defending the things. Maybe San Suu Kyi should start complaining about the state of plumbing in her country instead of human rights abuses.

Fondue can do!

Today after work Kaori (who used to work at a place I used to work at) took us to this fancy (but not too expensive) restaurant, where the featured dish was cheese fondue. Now, I'm not a big fan of prissy food--by which I mean food with French names--but I make exceptions for prissy food that's smothered in cheese, such as cheese fondue, and poutine.

Kaori picked a great day for us to go to this place, since live entertainment was provided by L'embranca, that being a violin, a "guiter" (=misspelled guitar), a pandeiro (=tambourine with a fancy name), as well as the people who play those instruments. There were some high-brow music fans in the restaurant, and I especially enjoyed watching one grey-haired fellow shovel food onto his plate in perfect time with the music. (And later I think I caught a glimpse of him chewing in syncopation.)

After the first set was over, the servers started handing out free booze. Everyone in the restaurant was, for some unfathomable reason, presented with a 100 mL bottle of liqueur, with such flavours as karin ("Chinese quince") and pomegranate.

Free alcohol? Who gives out free alcohol? Who do these people think they are?

More Quiz Fun...

You scored as Materialist. Materialism stresses the essence of fundamental particles. Everything that exists is purely physical matter and there is no special force that holds life together. You believe that anything can be explained by breaking it up into its pieces. i.e. the big picture can be understood by its smaller elements. Materialist 94% Existentialist 75% Modernist 63% Postmodernist 63% Cultural Creative 44% Fundamentalist 31% Romanticist 19% Idealist 19% What is Your World View? created with QuizFarm.com

Random news of indefinite consequence

1. みんな大好き塊魂! Namco (which is merging with Bandai--big news for geeks) is releasing a sequel to wonderfully nutty "Katamari Damacy". How sweet it is. (Link to review propagated through Penny Arcade.)

2. According to the BBC, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahrudi, head of Iran's judiciary, accused police forces of using torture to extract confessions. He went on at some length, and was extremely critical, even going so far as to make comparisons such as, "Sometimes they do some things like put a bag over the head, which resembles what the Americans do to terrorists in Abu Ghraib."

(Ouch.)