I saw this commercial like 4 years ago

...when i was living in Tokyo. It's hilarious because it's true. Everyone smokes here.




A student at highschool who plays Kendo recently got caught smoking. A lot of teachers smoke, which, if i were a junior or high school student, would find extremely hypocritical.

One of the things that totally blew me away was that the teachers in the middle school smoke INSIDE the school! There are these posters up all over the school about not smoking, and it's illegal to do on school grounds.

Anyways, in the main teacher meeting room, there is a cornered off section with one of those machine like the one in the above commercial. There is a sign that says something like "Smoking is OK here!" or "You can smoke here!" Between classes, some teachers run downstairs, pop into the room and suck down a light before going back to class, sometimes leaving the cigarettes IN THEIR FRONT SHIRT POCKET, so that all the kids can see. You can smell it too, of course.

Yeah so, that was quite a shock. That commercial by the way was made by a japanese company, and you can see how the Japanese use identity to appeal to smokers. The gist of it is that it's OK to smoke, because if you are Japanese, it is what you do. Who can argue with that?

People like LoSt.

...and so do I. I sometimes buy it from iTunes, because they dont have it in J-Land, but the quality is nowhere near as good as the HD rips that raging around in the torrent. Speaking of the torrent, I went and looked at the stats on the new episode off of a tracker and I just wanted to share this image. Its the biggest swarm I've ever seen on a file:




almost 24,000 seeds. 60,000 leeches. thats almost 100,000 swarming the same file.


Thats just crazy talk!

Kendo Pictures & Video!

ok so blogger ate my first version of this post. awesome.

Me on the right battling it out with Nakamura-San.

Hello!


I finally put up the pictures and video of the kendo tournament :)

The tournament was the 23rd Annual event held in the big community Gym of haboro. Kendo clubs came from all over the prefecture to compete, some as far as 8 hours away. Our team met at the Budokan (martial arts hall) for practice and warm-up at 6:00am on Sunday morning. We left for the Community Gym at around 8, just in time for the grand bow in and opening ceremonies.

In attendance, and de facto guest of honor, was Hayashi Sensei, the 8th degree black belt who lives in Haboro. Wikipedia confirms what he told me when I met him -- the pass rate for an 8th degree test is less than 1%.

So, After the bow-in, the presentation of trophies to the judges, we filed back and opened up the front half of the Gym. Two men came out, in traditional samurai-esque wear, and preformed all 7 of the Kendo Kata (sword forms) AND the 3 short-sword forms, which I have never seen before. I was riveted. They used real blades (I dont if they were live or not. "live" swords are illegal here under most cases) and preformed with the utmost precision. It was beautiful. I'm sorry I dont have any pictures of that part. I didn't bring my camera to the bow-in session.

After that the floor was cleared and before you knew it, the matches had begun. My section was the "General Men's Competition." It was a single-elimination bracket-style affair.

There is one round of 4 minutes, followed by a sudden death. To win, you have to win by 2 or be the first person to 3 points OR have the most points when the time runs out. As far as how to win, well, people write books about how to score points in Kendo, so I wont go into that here.

After the men's general competition There was a break for lunch and then the team rounds began, which are probably the most exciting part. It's like a 5 on 5, but one at a time. It goes really quickly (usually) and you win by your team winning the most rounds. Haboro elementary school team did totally awesome -- first place I think. The middle school did quite well too and took third.

Events ended around 4. I helped clean up a little bit said my goodbyes and left around 6. It was a good day.

Pictures:

Kendo Tournament

Jessoogle!

Hi guys!


sorry I havent been around much. I *promise* you will have more posts than you can shake a stick at next week. I'm off to the islands now for the last time this year. Should be good times. I used googles new create your own search engine feature and tried to add the code to my blog. try it out and lemme know how it works. It's supposed to search this site and my photo site.

ok, thats all for now. I gotta go get ready.


bye bye!
Jesse


PS
when you use the search you will be re-directed to google for the results. just clik-thru to get back to the blog's domain. :)

Kendo Tournament & Japanlish

I'm at the BOE today and one of my co-workers was like:

"you're gonna participate in the Kendo tournament this weekend, right?"
"yeah, I'm gonna try"
"good luck!"
"thanks!"
"Do you know who you will be sparing?"
"no not yet"
"well lets see..." he then looks at some mysterious paper in front of him. "Oh, your first opponent will be a first degree black belt, like you, from Sapporo"
(some laughter)
"Oh, well, thats good. At least I have some kind of a chance"
"Hmmmm, yes, well, if you win that round, your next opponent will be...ah, yes, a 5th Degree Black belt from (somewhere)"

Silence.

"...oh. thats just great."
"why is that great? you will probably lose."
"yes, yes I will."


Sarcasm is not really understood in Japan, and if its raining really hard and you make a comment like "wow the weather is so nice today" people will give you weird looks and wonder why you are being so rude.

Anyways, yeah. I am excited about my tourny this weekend. Wish me luck!


In other news, I got my book to study the grammar for the Japanese test in December.
It's a good book but instead of giving me easy sentences to learn from, they instead include ridiculous sentences that you would never say, even if you were a native speaker. Case and point:

"Compulsory education is also a right while being a national duty."

I'm studying "while/as", and thats the example they like to give.

Jerkfaces.

ok bye!

Google and Youtube

So you already know that Google bought YouTube.

I am looking foward to the new "GooTube".

I was reading about it on /. and someone pointed out something interesting regarding the seemily huge figure of 1,650,000,000 dollars that google paid:

"Keep in mind that Google is not paying dollars -- they are trading Google stock for YouTube stock. So even though $1.65b is a scary number, what you should be asking yourself is not whether YT is worth $1.65b, but whether it is worth 1.25% of Google."

thats right, 1.65b = 1.25% of Google.


Thats nuts.

Recontracting, Eikaiwa Class!

Re-contracting forms came today.

The due date isn't until February 2nd 2007, but it's like:


"oh, yeah. What will I be doing for the next two years? Hmmmm....."


In other news, I was on Speed Demos Archive a lot yesterday and i watched someone beat Castlevania in like 13 minutes.

I'm sorry, but thats too crazy.



英会話
Ekaiwa Class!

I am going to start teaching an English Conversation class in my town. I am really excited about it because it will be my own class. I can do whatever I want to and have full control over content, methods, everything.

The class will be every Tuesday for 23 weeks starting in November. There will be two classes, one for beginners and for people who can speak English. I am not sure what to expect for turnout. Apparently when Ping taught them, she had a very small amount of students. That would be great, but you never know. I might have 50 people show up on the first night.

My plan is to case the operation a bit before I go. Walk around town and see just how many fliers have been put up and such.

Anyways, i've been starting to think of things to do and get the syllabus planned out. If you think of anything fun and exciting, let me know!

I found out today...

That we are all getting our Kitchen areas redone, with brand new Everythings!

How sweet is that?

Once they start on my apartment, I promise to send before and after pictures, and if you are luckly, maybe some video too.


That is all. You may continue.

COD

Amazon Japan will do Cash On Delivery. How cool is that? I ordered my grammar study guide for the Japanese Proficiency Test in Dec. It's on.




Also Jet Li's new (and last?) movie "Fearless" is awesome, especially the choregraphy and the way it was filmed. It's like you can see all the moves the whole time. I think it's his best one. It was made in China, so it wasn't corrupted by Hollywood, like all of his recent movies have been. The martial arts is awesome like I said and the wire-work isn't too over the top. The story is really what makes it an excellent film instead of just another martial arts movie. Che-Che-Check it out.



In other news, I was watching a TV show where they invite guests on and make them eat food that they cook. This is pretty much every single TV show in Japan. At any given time, there could easily be 6 or 7 cooking shows on. I know that you think I am joking or exaggerating, but it's true.

Anyways, this one show invited the K1 champion, Hong Man Choi, a Korean fighter, to appear at try some food. He's a native Korean, born and raised. I was watching in amusement as everyone marveled at how truly gigantic this guy is. He is 7 feet, 2 inches tall and weighs 360 pounds.

Anyways, he was eating with chop sticks, and commenting how good the food was, when one of the commentators said,

"Hashi wo tsukaikata umain desuyone!"

which translates in English to

"Wow! He can use chopsticks really well, can't he?"

I wanted to throw a huge rock at the commenter, and then beat him senseless with a roll-up newspaper (on fire). I thought it was bad enough that everyone was shocked I could used chopsticks. I still get compliments on how good I am with the wooden dowels...

But it was beyond belief that someone would actually be shocked that a Korean, or Asian-other-than-Japanese (OMG!) could actually use chopsticks.

The point his, the commenter wasn't impressed, and everyone knows Koreans can use chopsticks. But he said what he said simply to inflate the myth, to congeal the wall-of-differences, so that everyone who was listening and watching and feeling slightly disappointed that a non-Japanese was as good as they are with chopsticks could feel a little better by reveling in there faked-suprisedness.

sigh.

there is actually show, and I kid you not, where each of the characters dress up in charactatures of foreigners. They have the American, French, Dutch, Chinese, Spanish and the Mexican. They sit at a rotating sushi conveyer belt, and attempt to pick up progressivly more slippery items using only chopsticks.

If you look past the comedic joke, I.E. foreigners failing at some that "comes natural" to the Japanese, its actually quite hillarious. I enjoy watching it; it doesnt really bother me. But there is some revolt against it, and I think there might even be a petition going on somewhere.

Anyways, with stuff like this its important not to get all uptight about it, because if you did, you would go cr@zy within a month.

However, it's fun to think on the flip-side...I mean, think of something that is considered by most people to be distinctly "American...."

"Pizza" for example.

Now imagine a show where the actors get dressed up in stereotypes of 6 or 7 different countries and then go to a pizza parlor and attempt to eat pizza with their hands, only it somehow gets harder harder to do so, and then end up getting all messy and crazy.

Would it be hilarious? Yes.
Would it get cancelled in a week? Probably.

Maybe the moral of this story is that we should all learn to be less up-tight about things, and some countries (looks at Japan) could be more sensitive to other things.

A HUGE genre of entertainment over here focuses on how Japan is different from everyone else, and the result is always "That's hilarious, and We could never understand something as crazy as that!"

From an ESL teachers point of view, it is completely debilitating to socio-linguistic education. (Or Social Education in general, for that matter) This stuff does actually trickle down into the minds of the kids.

You wouldn't believe some of the things that I've been asked/told, all the way from a 2nd grader telling me that I "Smell like an American!" to that lady who asked me if we really do have scissors in America or not.


Anyways, I am going to go back to going back to work.


Bye!

J

Rishiri Fuji Hike!

Yes! I had an awesome weekend. I got to finally climb the most beautiful moutian I've ever seen. I've been looking at it for a year now and it was great to finally get the chance to go up. There was thunder, wind, rain, and finally an unbelievable view from the top. It was awesome.

Rishiri Fuji Hike

Sep 18, 2006 - 44 Photos

So, here are the pictures! Click on the "slide show" button to see the pics in order and such. If you can't find the slideshow button, which isn't immediantly obvious, please see the pic. (For those who care, I uploaded the full size jpgs, so if you click on "download" you can pull down the whole image, which is nice.)































Here are a couple of videos. Enjoys.

Almost at the top:



Sunrise!





see ya later
out.

Rishiri!

Bye guys!

I am off to climb a mountain. See you Monday!

Small Bike!

One of my Co-workers at the Board of Education office drives a tiny tiny bike around.I put my backpack down for the sake of comparision. Don't you just want to like, eat it or something?

It's Steve's 'stache

I couldn't sleep last night so I got up and made a movie. A long time ago, like maybe back in May, I was hanging out with my bros & ladies who live in Obihiro. Here is a rough idea of where Obihiro is and how to get there:

Anyways Steve, my friend, grew this horrible mustache and then proceeded to try and eat it whenever possible. Like, if it had been all "handle bar" style it would have been sweet. But this was just wrong. We have documented footage. Watch at your own risk:


That is all.

it changes

from time to time.

Here is a slideshow/archive of the pictures from the party I was at last weekend. They are all very boring and honestly, I dont know why anyone would want to see them...here you go!

Northern Welcome Party

Sep 6, 2006 - 24 Photos

It's cold and rainy and I think my pipes almost froze this morning.

Salutations!


Whats going on?  My blog keeps breaking because I keep trying out other stuff with it. Google took over this company called www.writely.com that is like an online writing colaboration software. It's in beta (of course) and free (of course) so I've been trying to use it to handle my blog updates, because the normal inferface is complete crap. Writely handles the text and embedded tags easily enough, but it doesnt send the images through properly, I think because the pointers get screwed up when the code is transfered off-site to the blogger's servers. I wish they'd fix that.

I've started to use iCal how it's actually meant to be used and it rocks my socks. It syncs with Gmails calendar too which is sweet. Also I can run scripts from it, which means I can set up my bittorrent client to automatically grab new episodes of LOST when they come up on the trackers. Oh, sweet technology! Let me count the ways I love you!

I just got the whole series of Firefly, which is only like 14 episodes-short anyways, and its really good. It's a western that looks like a sci-fi. I am sad though, because there are no aliens. How can you have a sci-fi with no aliens? I'm only on Episode 3. I'll let you know if they find any.

I'm back in school after the BOE break and it's been great. I found out my school has a sweet projector so i've been luggin my 15 pound laptop around and using it for visual aids and playing "Who wants to be a Millionare?" in class. Makes me wish I had a sweet laptop, instead of this dinosaur. It some ways its better though, because we the kids steal it and I have to fight them ninja style to get it back, Jesse doesn't really worry if it gets totally smashed or something.

This weekend I am going to a wedding in Sapporo. The first teacher I worked with at the middle school, Kumiko-san, is getting married. I am really excited to see a traditional Japanese wedding. You can expect a full report.

I guess thats about all for now. I am really hungry and its only 9:45 so its hard to think when my stomach is so lonely. Can I have a hamburger, please?

out,
J








--
JB

Hi everyone.

I thought this was funny easter egg in google.





ok thats all.

Peace!

This is the coolest thing you will see all day.

Hi Peeps. Below you will find a link to my new way to put picture on the web. It organizes into a slideshow with captions and its embedded in iPhoto so I thought hey, why not.
Enjoy! I went to the the Islands for the first time since before summer break so thats whats with all the pictures. In other news, I've been good. Getting back into working when you havent been teaching for a month and a half isn't so easy. I forgot how to teach. Ooops.

First trip back to the islands.

Aug 25, 2006 - 21 Photos

I learned how to make my own Shinai. Here are a few pictures of the finished product.

Shinai!

Aug 27, 2006 - 3 Photos

Lastly, here is a quick video I took of the mural thats painted on the side of the port when you ride into Yagishiri Island. Watch for the sheep, and the happy sun, as well as the happy seaweed, and basically every other creature that you could possibly encounter.






Last Lastly, You know about this album, right? I mean, you've been listening to it, right?



It's only the best Iron Maiden album ever . Brave New World was great. Dance of Death was good. This one is amazing. They've outdone themselves, really.

I think that we should all pause for a moment of silence. For Pluto .

Another Test

<div style="text-align:center; width:194px; font-family:arial,sans-
serif;font-size:83%;"><div style="height:194px;background:url(http://
picasaweb.google.com/f/img/transparent_album_background.gif) no-
repeat left;"><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/jsblack/
Test0608212344"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/jsblack/ROnHEQNFABE/
AAAAAAAAAA0/A53iG-dfb7o/Test0608212344.jpg?crop=1&amp;imgmax=160"
width="160" height="160" style="border:none;padding:0px;margin-top:
16px;"></a></div><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/jsblack/
Test0608212344"><div style="color:#4D4D4D;font-weight:bold;text-
decoration:none;">Test 06/08/21 23:44</div></a><div
style="color:#808080">Aug 21, 2006 - 5 Photos</div></div>

Well, Its official.

I've signed up for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test .
I'm going to try for rank 2-Kyuu, which means I must know about 1,000 Kanji.
I know like, 200? Maybe?

Yikes.

I better get started.

BOE Day, the last

Its Thursday today, and the last of my long strech of BOE days, were I spend much time doing very little.

Take a look at this:

Its CrAzY SaUcE:



I finished a book today. Its another Phillip K. Dick book. I've only read a handful of his books. You can start a converstaion about any of them by saying "so I was reading this book, and it was all about reality and how when you take drugs it gets all screwed up..."

Thats basically what all his books are about. Some are better than others. Some are amazing, and one in particular is in my top 5 of best books I've ever read. That would be VALIS. Che-che-check it out.

This weekend is Rising Sun Rock Festival. W00t! I'm leaving friday morning and I will get back some time on sunday.

School begins next week, with a trip to the Islands. Standard OP: leave Wednesday morning, get back Friday afternoon.


I'm climbing this mountain next month, on the 9th-10th. I've wanted to climb this island volcano ever since I saw it a year ago. It should be awesome. I promise a full report will follow!














out,
J

Beat Up Car

Look, its imbedded video!

I love YouTube.



We found this car on the ride to Nagano.

Olie got a cat!

Oliver, the fine chap who lives 15 minutes south of me, just got a cat, an incredibly cute tiny little ball of crazYness. Its only like 2 months old or something, so its got like, no motor control skillz at all. It was trying to jump up, and instead it rocketed backwards at an unprecedented speed.

It was hillariamous.

I read this book yesterday, for "work":


Arthur C. Clarke is an unique author who makes his characters awesome by making them good at maths. They can all do fairly complex algebra in their heads, and it always saves them from disaster, like where by calcuating the height of a wall inside a spaceship will determine the maximum ammount said space-ship can accelerate.

Like, what?

anways its a good book.

I found these pics too -- I will put more up later. Yay vacation!

My bestest of friendz.


also my bestest of friendz :)

Its been a while

and Ive been bad. I apologize greatly. If anyone is still reading this, please let me know!

What ive been doing:

1. going to the USA for wedding

2. summer cleaning, cause i missed spring

3. i got my black belt in kendo

4. studying for the JLPT in december

5. Alot of sitting at my desk.

look, i build a mario statue!

I need one these

since I have no pets, this would be awesome.

"....WowWee robots do not learn—though they do accept rudimentary, 20-step programming. Instead, each comes with its own distinct personality. The Roboraptor is alternatively playful and aggressive (a bit like a dog), and the Robosapien V2 is a big goofball. The Roboreptile is, well, kind of irate. From the moment you turn on the 28-inch-long robot, it's screeching, swinging its tail, and whipping its head back and forth and looking for food. Its main interests are running away, checking out its environment, and eating. The Roboreptile uses infrared sensors to see obstacles and objects in front of it and can react to loud sounds thanks to sonic sensors in its ears. Don't bother trying to pet it. The Roboreptile has just one touch sensor on its back (the Roboraptor, in contrast, has mouth, back, and tail touch sensors), and the instructions recommend you touch it only after it has been fed and when its cowl (or hood) is over its face. No kidding, this robot is such an angry beast that you'll want to occasionally slip the included plastic hood over its face to put it in "Subdued" mood—this also serves to cut off its sensors from external stimuli.

Putting the hood on the Roboreptile's head is not easy. The instructions recommend you feed the robot first using the "feed" button on the remote—which gives you a 60-second "Satisfied" mood window—-and, even then, you have to put the hood on from behind its head. If you get the hood on, the robot does calm down, but since the hood doesn't snap on, it's apt to slip off; at that point, the Roboreptile goes into a full-scale frenzy. If you can manage to keep the hood on it for at least 40 seconds, the robot will "fall asleep." This is indicated by a heavy breathing sound. When you take off the hood, the Roboreptile is supposed to wake up slowly. In my experience, it woke up instantly, as ravenous as ever...."

doesnt that sound like fun? it would be even cooler if i could mount a webcam on it and then record its ragings around my apartment.

Ok, sorry I have been so late.

I am really bad at this stuff. But, in order to make it up to you, I will be posting a lot, and, like, it will be cool and stuff.

Here are some pictures from Golden Week, which was like 2 months ago :) We went to "Ogawayama" (little river mountain) and climbed for 5 (6?) days. Here are but a very few pictures. Enjoy!

This is Gregory pulling up on an amazing 5.10c called "Perfect Father". It was just run-out enough and just thin enough to be a huge mental puzzle the whole way up. The weather was perfect too, as you can see. Such an awesome day! (and quite a sweet picture if I do say so myself)

Some sweet moves on the sweet rock. I got to climb up and watch him work the lower crux (hense the pictures) so I cheated cause I saw how to do it . It was still a pretty nasty crimp-fest, repleate with shaky balancing and thin feet, until you gained that nice flake there, which made it all worth while. As you can see, Gregory has mastered the butt-out, shoulders-in technique. Such an awesome climb. I wanna go back!!!!

After Greg showed us all the way, Jon led it up and stayed at the top to A) enjoy the view and B) take photos. We pullled the rope and left him stranded as I climbed up, vainly trying to grow another inch taller as I did so. It did'nt work, but I did get that awesome flake. I think there is a picture below of how happy I was to have that rest. Did I mention how awesome this climb was?

Foreground: Jon
Background: Greg

Jon was leading up a kind of mixed- 5.FUN something or other. It was a great crack but by the time it got going, it was over. Maybe like 15 meters?

Oh here it is. Yes, you can see how its kinda short but Oh-So-Cool. I top-roped it to do my duty as cleaner, and therefore I wasnt allowed to use all the features. I guess that was my punishment. Anyways I think I almost pulled my hernia out of socket trying to layback the lower part. Was it worth it? Yes.

Jesse = Happy

yeah this climb was amazing. The features kept facing different directions and you had to use like every kind of move to get up...crimping at the bottom, finger and hand flakes in the middle, some crack above, mantles, thin run-out slab....it was amazing. Did I already say that?

Water. Rock. Thingy. Japan!

(Disclaimer = these pictures are not in any kind of order)

the Three Amigos (or "mitsu tomodachi")
As you can see, Gregory , with the X-Men Shirt, is a giant among men. I was wearing my rock climbing shirt because it makes me climb better. Katie gave it to me, and it made me think of my favorite climbing parteners, of whom I missed very much on this trip. :)

Ah yes, the happy-flake, as I called it. It was really close to the top of pitch 1 (you can see Jon's foot) and it was a much needed rest.

Our Van. "Ogawayama Rules!"

So, from my department, thats about it for now.

However I know you, and I know you want more, so here is a link to Gregory's website.
hes got about 178 photos up, so Enjoy!

http://au.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/gregory_e_stewart/album?.dir=/8ce6scd&.src=ph&.tok=phGRU6EBc9hHB7Xd

This is A test

of how well the blog-via-email works.

 

これも日本語をできるかな。。。？

 

 

 

I missed the Ferry!

Ooops!

I feel like poo.


They changed the times and I didnt know. I got there 35 minutes early, only to have missed it by five minutes. Argh.

Golden Week and Beyond!

Greetings One and Everyone

Its Wednesday afternoon and I am back in Haboro. I just returned from a week of driving, camping, climbing and driving (in that order) and I am still very tired. I had a great list of things to do last night, none of which got accomplished. Instead they were replaced with fun things. Now its wedneday and I have no much fun things. Only things I must do, like clean and study and lesson plan.

I have a kendo pre-shodan test on Saturday. I am very much looking foward to it however there is a written section of the test, so I have been memorizing answers like crazy. My brain hurts. We have to answer two of 3 questions which may or may not appear on the test. As for the physical portion of the test, I am sure it involves being pummeld.

Editors Note: I pass the pre-test! Yay. Now I have the green light to take the test in July.

We had a Korean Kendo Master come to our Budokan on Monday. That was quite an honor. Sadly I didnt get to spar with him because there wasnt enough time. Watching him spar was like watching Hayashi Osensei, Haboro's resident 8th Degree. They both stand with the sword in front, completely relaxed. This seems to totally unnerve the oppenets, who start shaking their shinai and weaving back and forth trying to confuse the masters. They are not confused. Instead they wait till the other person commits. Then, faster that I can see, the other person is flying across the ring, and the sensei is standing as before. Next.

So yeah, Golden Week.

After BOE day on Friday May 5th (shogakkou was cancelled again) I hopped on the bus and rode down to Sapporo. I walked around sapps town, ran into Darren, whom I somehow always manage to run into in Sapps. Darren will feature later in this story as well, playing the role of Deus Ex Machina, so please pay attention.

Around 10:30pm I met Gregory, the second of our three-man party and we loaded up his van and cluncked down to Kutchan. Clunk Clunk. We rolled in at greater-than-or-equal-to midnight and met Jonn, the third of our three-man pary. For some reason we loaded up the van then and there in the cold and black of night. Oh wait yeah that was so we could leave early, which we didnt really do.

Anyways, exaushted and with dreams of thin seams and hand-jams dancing in my head, I fell fast alseep.

Satudays Morning May 6th was supposed to be an early start. I emphasize "supposed to be." This will also feature later in the story, several times, and will end up becoming a bemoaned theme of our trip. Wheather it was a poor mastery of time-sense, a general air of laziness, or a refusal to speak-up, I might never know. Either way these three vices combined to create a group-think rationalization for lack of haste actually required, and we ended up being late almost every single morning for every single event.

Ah yes so where was I. We rolled out of Kutchan and drove over to the towns famous natural water springs. Dipping in this well of goodness we filled up 5+ litters and then drove to Hakodate. We were the last car on the ferry even though we did indeed make it on. The boat shoved off and away we went, sailing south for parts unknown.

The strech of ocean between Hokkaido and Honshu varies greatly in distance depending on your point of departure. We chose Hakodate to Oma, because it was the shortest and cheapest route. I fell alseep on the boat durring the last 20 minutes of the 1.45 hour trip, this time dreaming of food. If I had known of the absolutely amazing dinners we where going to be having at the hands of Jonn the Master Chef, I would have been positivly drueling. But all I could think about was plain ramen and and maybe some spagettii sauce, because thats how I roll. I am now a changed man though, and I will never again associate "camping" with "crappy food".

...unless I am camping with Jim, but thats another story...

"Jim you should probably wash your pots after cooking with them"
"No, all that stuff just adds flavor"
"you mean the charred pieces of carbon and dried ramen?"
"...yes."


Sorry, I digress. Back to the story.

The boat docked and we were last off because the system was FIFO. At one point durring the trip however my stomach became LIFO, but that too is another story.

I really need to stay on track.

So the boat docked and we all got off. The Driving began. We saw ocean, farmers, trees, tori, temples, small houses, big houses, castles, cattle, priests, sakura, school kids, fields, sakura, rice fields, convieniece stores, crazy vans, sakura, telephone polls, buudas, tractors...all sorts of things. At some point we ended up spending about $40 in maps, which i was more than happy to do. My good friend from long again Bryan Batdorf once said "I never feel bad about buying a book." I could naught but agree with him. And when the book happens to be filled with shiny maps, I am close to ecstatic. I tried to then hog the navigator position as much as possible. Not so much for the shotgun (because the van was awesome and the back seat was even better) but for the ability to stare at the maps for a long time.

So after buying maps and after staring at them we started realized, somewhere around the MOS Burger/Baskin Robins stop that we have a LONG way to go before we got to Ogawayama. Like, at least another 11 hours (and we had been driving for 9). So we made the exectutive decision to take the dreaded Highway.

Lemme tell you something about Highways in Japan.

They suck.

They are beyond resonable in both price and access. They are an active excersise in everything you and I hate about big companies who are out to get the little guys. Built with public funds yet slapped with a ridiculous toll system, they become holes that money is thrown down into, but without all that good wishing stuff. The construction companies litteraly build highways to nowhere. We almost road on a huge bypass that could have fed the 405 arterty into LAX, yet this highway's sole purpose was to serve as an on-ramp to the main highway for a town of perhaps 20,000 people.

The highway cost over $400 round-trip. Yeah, you read that right. Four hundred dollars. I heard that the highways were supposed to be free starting like 20 years ago according to the promise that 25 years after they were built they would be free. But of course that is a huge lie. No company is going be like "oh, yeah, can we please stop making money now? Awesome, thanks."

Saturday night we slept in the van at a rest stop. The drive continued the following day and we finally made it to Ogawayama around 1 or 2. Hardly anyone was there so we had a really nice time parking, setting up the tents and camp and such. That may sound kinda strange but honestly, once Golden Week gets into its official full swing, you cant find a parking space or flat piece of ground anywhere.

Sunday ended with greg and I going to get the in a quick climb before the sunset and then it was Onsen and dinner time and fast to bed.

Monday through Friday was spent climbing, looking for routes, soaking in Onsens, trying to find monkeys who soaked in Onsens, climbing, more looking for routes, more climbing and generally having an awesome time. The quality of the routes was amazing. Everything we climbed was amazing. I did some of the best climbing I've ever done and by Friday I felt so in the grove. I felt like I could have climbed anything, but sadly we had to leave the next day. I could have stayed a whole other week (or year). I would tell you more about the climbing but only a select few of you who read this would really want me to talk about this awesome laybacks and the rough J-tree like granite that shredded my hands or like how this one crimp was so crimpy that i totally had to like, you know, crimp it. You'll just have to come visit me for those stories. Or better yet, we can go back to Ogawayama and you can see for yourself!

What you all would LOVE to read about though is how Jonn climbed a climb naked. That was awful and hillarious at the same time.

I didnt get to meet the people whom I had met the first time I went :( I couldnt find them. it would have been awesome if I could have. Maybe next year.

Saturday was the crazy day. We packed up camp and struck out around 10 I think. We drove all the way from Nagano back up to a point about 60 or 70k south of the Ferry departure point for Hokkaido. The drive was long, uneventful and boring. We rolled into Aomori and met some really cool girls who Jonn knew who had just gotten back from there own crazy trip. They mopeded around the peninsula for a week. With headphones on. In the rain. Yeah they were crazy but also super cool.

We crashed with one of them and then got up and again didnt leave early. Instead we left late and then drove up to the aborted-babies shrine that is like semi-inside of a volcano like thingy. Thats the best way I can describe it. The place was crazy and really kinda creepy and the whole thing reeked of Sulphur. I took pictures.

We left of for the ferry and drove like maniacs, but when we pulled up it was already 500 meters off-shore, chugging away for Hokkaido, leaving us on the shore with two options: swim or wait.

We waited.

The next ferry came like, 5 hours later or something. We got on, got off and then drove to Jonn's house. Cars were un and re-loaded. Greg and I bid farewell and then he and I drove to Sapporo. This is were Darren, my eternal hero, comes into the story.

You see because we missed the ferry, I couldnt ride the last bus back to haboro. It left sapporo at 6pm, and I didnt get into sapporo until 10:30 at night. Had it not been for Darren my only option would have been to spend the night in Sapps town and then take a day or half-day off on Monday, thus using up my precious paid-vacation days. But instead he drove 45 minutes south, picked me up at sapporo at 10:30, then drove me 3 hours north to my town, dropped me off at 1:30am, then drove 2:30 hours back to his town down south, thus getting home around 4am. We all had school on Monday, which it already was. I at least got 5 hours of sleep. Darren got like 3. I owe you one man.

So all in all it was an awesomly awesome week with a crapy ending.

I am back in Haboro now safe and sound. I am going to the islands this week from Wednesday to Friday. I am looking foward to it. Hopefully the weather will hold and i wont get stuck on Yagishiri. Thats what happened last time. so I was going to upload pictures and edit this thing, but I am too tired right now, so thats all you get. I promise I will get them up tomorrow though!


Peace, love

To climb or to climb more, that is the question.

And the answer is....42.


yes so I will be gone for a week climbing here. Climbing, roadtrip, climbing, Camping and climbing...yes.


I've got wednesday, thursday and friday off next week anyways so I took monday and tuesday off as well and turned it in to a week vacation. This place is called Ogawayama and its the same place I went to when i was living in tokyo durring the same time of year. I am crossing my fingers that I can meet up with some of the people I met the first time I was there. That would be really amazing. It was such a cool story last time of how I met these people...oh, would you like to hear it? Perhaps I shall recite it, but I need some home-baked goods, such as breads and cookies, to fuel my creative engine.

(recieves baked goods)
(munch munch)

mmm yeah ok so real quick: when I was in tokyo I went climbing for a weekend to a small place just south of the city for two days. I met some people and one of the guys in there group, who had to be at least 70 years old was like "what are you doing for Golden Week?" I responded that I wanted to go to Ogawayama and climb.
"Hey, im going there too." He then told me to meet him at a certian train station on a certain day and time. I said "Ok", we climbed some more and then I left.

I didnt hear from him at all until I showed up at this random train stop on the appointed day with probably 60 pounds of gear. I got off the train and there he was, waiting with his wife and station wagon. We packed up and off we went. While I had really only thought I was getting a ride to the place, what I atually got was a mini-homestay. His inredibly kind non-climber wife made all our meals and set up our very pleasant domestic campsite while Kudo-San and I went out and tackled the slabs.
They told me that they've been going there every year for like 10 years durring Golden Week (next week), so I think there is a chance they will be there this year and I can see them again. That would be phenominal.

So yeah, thats were I will be. Pictures and stories are sure to follow.

I would like to now take this oppertunity to give a huge shoutout to my graduating and almost-graduating friends and family. You know who you are. I love you and congradualtions!


(munch munch)


PS
we had a little "Sayonara" formality for Sakamoto Sensei (see below). When I was saying goodbye she managed to whack me on the head one last time, for good measure.

After Kendo last night I went to her house to pick up the two Shinai (bamboo swords) that I had ordered through her, because she gets me awesome discounts (The one I had been using more or less broke). I stayed awhile and talked and she was miffed that I didnt get to compete in the little tournament we had yesterday (Im not a student so they wouldnt let me compete). I've gotten the impression that she really fights for me to be included and treated as equally as possible.

I dont know the whole story, but apparently when they were organzing the list of names of people who can pre-test for their Shodan rank next month, there was some protest as to whether the "gaijin" should be allowed to do so. perhaps this has nothing to do with me being not Japanese and simply has to do with me not being a student and therefore in a different category. I really have no idea and and does no good to speculate on such things. I do know however that whatever it was, Sakamoto Sensei stood up for me. So I can pre-test and we will see how it goes. I said all that to say, I could'nt be more greatful towards her and the things shes done for me.

Anyways I went to her house to get my new Shinai and I ended up leaving with two shinai, a bowl of chicken and two cans of beer. I love Japan :)

...what?

if you havent heard about this, go read up on it. Bascially a huge ring of pirates hijacked the NEC name and conviced NEC's manufacutring firms that they were executives from the company and got them to produce their pirated products. Amazing.

someone on Engadget said it best:

"10. These men are my new heroes and role models.

The cajones it takes to not just get stuff manufactured under a brand name for yourself, but actually pay for R&D is mind boggling.

I tip my hat to you, anonymous Asian criminals. You are truly entrepreneurs of the highest calibre."

If this is wrong I dont want to be right.

I wish I had a cat so that I could put some stuff on it.

I found this on google's earth

the best joke ever

next time someone corrects you, say:

"like an orthopedic patient, I stand corrected"




its the best joke ever.

American Inventor

...I was skeptical, but now I am hooked. I only watched the Episode 5 recap, cause basicially that was the only one with all the seeds on mininova

I hope the kid with the bike wins. Hes got heart, man.

Please MTV, Pimp my Ride!

I got some wheels. 4 of them actually. They are attached to a metal frame and when you blow up gasoline inside of it, it pushes stuff and turns other stuff and then turns the wheels. For you scientific people we call this a "car." My "car" has a place to sit and even a way to see how fast you are going, which is awesome.

I got a Toyota Corolla II and I honestly think its gonna be a great car. The price was excellent and I have faith that it will last me for the few short years that I am over here. The car is a 4 cylinder 1.5 liter manual transmission. I was told that the standard model has a 1.3 liter and I feel like the extra .2 gives it a bit more of a kick. The manual is perfect cause around here in the winter I wouldn't feel safe driving anything but a stick.

I was nervous about driving on the left side of the road but the first time I actually did it I was amazed how easy it is to switch your brain over and think opposite. It isnt even an issue. However sitting in a passenger seat is a totally different story. First time I was in a car here and we made a left turn into the left lane, I thought I was dead.

When I am controlling the car though and sitting on the side closest to the middle divider, it just makes sense.

The body of the car is pretty beat up. My goal is to cover this beast in stickers and paint sweet flames. Actually a whole head of Eddie would be ideal. Oh speaking of that I need help coming up with a cool name. My last car had two names. "The Silver Bullet" and the "Shaggin' Wagon.", both of which it neither deserved. So I need help thinking up a cool name that my new car also doesn't deserve, like "Clean."

The guy I bought it from (Ross) has lived in Japan for 14 years and hes a really cool guy. He works for Japan's Rally Association and does a lot of their translations and organizing. So he know a lot about cars which made me feel good buying it. Plus he was just a cool Auzie with some crazy stories.

Here are some pictures

Its a hatchback, as you can see. I think this is better for being able to haul gear and bikes. We had some problems with the plates because I am dumb and didnt realize that while I had a local parking permit, I didnt have one from the Hawaiian 5-0. It amounted to pretty much a huge inconvenience for Ross (gomen). This in turn meant that I couldn't go down to Asahikawa (our district) to get the registration completed, because in Japan you cannot register a car unless you can prove to the police that you have an actual place to park it. Like, you need to bring in an actual Topo map that's been approved to show where you car will reside when you aren't using it. Amazing.

People tell me that this is an important part of the car.

Look! Its a 1993 and its only got 76K (k!) which is like 47,000 miles.

The speed limit in Japan on non-freeways is 50k, which is like 31 miles per hour.

I think I am going to need a radar detector.

Isn't she a beaut?

I will let you know once I get it pimped out, cause I don't think MTV is coming over. My plan to convert my laptop into a sweet mp3 server died when the laptop decided to not boot. That's too bad. I was really looking forward to making a sweet project out of it.

So yeah I forgot how freeing it is to have a car. I was driving down to the 7-11 and I was like "...wait a minute, I can go ANYWHERE!" ...I still just went to 7-11 but still the realization that I can now go visit my friends and go climbing and hiking and go to Sapps town whenever I feel like it has just started to sink in. w00t!

In other news I also got my own set of bogu. Jesse has been spending a bit too much money, yes. But shhh dont tell him that. He's very enamored with the whole process and I think you might hurt his feelings if you remind him that money isn't cheap.

I got to wear my own set of armor for the first time and it was totally awesome. Training with the kids was better than ever and I feel if I can keep it up (sadly because I go to the islands now, I lose two practices a month) I might not get totally pumelled in the adult tournament in June. Actually on second though never mind. I am going to get totally pumelled. At least I will die with my boots on....er, armor.

The Spread:
Men (helmet)
Tare (gauntlets)
Do (chest guard)
Tare (waist guard)
Carrying bag, Zekken (name tag) and 3 tenagui (head towels)

When I went to get the armor I said that I was a student of my Sensei, Sakamoto, and they gave me a huge discount. Also something funny happened. The girl at the store was like "which set of armor do you want?" I asked for the second-from-cheapest one and then I tried on the gloves. They totally didnt fit at all. So she kept coming back with all these different gloves and obviously none of them fit my huge mits that I call "hands". So finally she was like "well, just try these on for size" and went and got these gloves that cost like the price of a set of bogu. She said "just try these on for size". So I did and they actually fit. She said that she would order my size in the other kind (the kind that went with my cheap armor set). I said that was fine but when I went to pick up my new set, she said that they couldn't find any other gloves in my size, so they just gave me the ones that actually fit me. I was not expecting that! For every time that I am treated poorly over here, there are 10 times that I am treated amazingly well. So that was really cool of them and they didn't have to do that at all.

Cranium Holder.

These are the wicked nice gloves. That's my first name stiched on the mit.

Here is Sakamoto Sensei and I :) After she realized that my camera was digital, she wanted to take like 3 or 4 more pictures doing sweet poses with the shinai. I thought that was hilarious. Sakamoto Sensei has been an amazing teacher and really, for me, it's a complete dream come true to be here in Japan studying under someone like her. I can remember sitting in the dojo at the IKS thinking that someday, I will be doing exactly what I am doing right now. And now here I am. I dont know how else to say it. It's amazing and the most incredible blessing.

I feel like I should apologize for my awful haircut. Don't make fun of it, or I will totally hit you with a bamboo sword. Actually, that's Sakamoto Sensei's job. Watch out, it hurts.

Well, I would write more but I have to get back to my rousing Saturday night!*


*not actually rousing

"can you please leave?"

i got asked to leave a school-wide meeting today in the Gym. It was the "hello!" ceremony for the new first years at the middle school. It was almost all done with when the new English teacher walks over and asks me if "wouldnt you like to leave right now?" I was like "well, no, not really. Its not done yet." So she basically asked me to leave and she came with me. She was simply the messenger, because aparently one of the teachers, whose new duty is now the "diciplinarian" was going to give a razing speech to the 2nd and third years, probably along the lines of "dont harrass the new students". For some reason he asked the new English teacher to ask me to leave the auditorium for this portion of the events.

I asked her why did I have to leave and I didnt get a strait answer, ever. I asked her if he (the teacher) would have been embarrassed or something had I been there while he was razing the kids. She assured me that wasnt the case. She just said that he had thought it would have been too "boring" to sit through, and "would you please like to leave now?".

I dont get it. It then occured to me that maybe they wanted me out because they were going to talk about me or something, which started to make me mad. I asked her if that was the case and she again said "oh, no, not at all not at all". So I really have no idea.

but what it comes down to is that I am constantly and forever treated like an outsider and a guest. Even after 8 months, I am still "different", on a fundamental basis. like it is litterally impossible for me to be accepted. Like I have to be shielded or something. If this was 2 weeks after I had first arrived, yeah OK I would understand. But now? Its just plain stupid and insulting. I am sure the teacher had the best of intentions, but it had the exact opposite effect when I was litterally ushered out in front of everyone, simply because I'm "the guest".


it is monumentaly frustrating.

good thing I have kendo tonight.

I installed boot camp and all i got was this crummy reformatted harddrive

Dear Apple Boot camp,


Im still not sure what I did wrong, but it ended up in windows writing it's partition OVER my OSX partition. This resulted, of course, in a complete loss of data. 8 months of pictures, music, movies, projects...gone.

I had to learn the hard way, didnt I? My "Apple Smug Rating" was slowly on the rise, perhaps fueled by George Clooneys uber-smug academic awards acceptance speech. I thus believed myself invisible to problemia computeria, and oh how I have fallen.

here is what i did:

closed all programs.
flashed the firmware to latest update (1.something)
I burned the mac driver disk.
set the partition to: OSX = 230gb XP= 20gb
i then got an error to repair the drive headers.
so I booted into the install disk and repaired the drive.

I tried to set the partition again (with boot camp) to the same specs.
It worked.
I inserted a copy of XP
I clicked "restart"
imac restarts and then boots into the ever familar "windows setup"
i was positivly giddy
it asks me which partition to write to
I picked the only one avaible, the "C:\" partition.
The partition formats and then the install begins.
install fails for no determinable reason.
starts causing a seemily Infinate Loop. (no pun intended)
my only option then is to boot back in OSX.
however when I go to boot into OSX, there IS no OSX. its gone. totally gone.
So, I boot from the OSX install disk, reformatt the entire drive and re-install OSX from scratch.

Project start time: 10:00pm
Project end time: 3:00am
amount of data lost: 150gb
number of CDs used: 5
that sinking feeling you get when you realize all your data is gone: PRICELESS.

All for naught. I was looking foward to Far Cry so, so much.

Maybe I will try this again, but I need to be sure it will work. Therefore I think I want other people to handle the beta and I can wait for the V1.0 release or at least the preview release.



(sigh)

at least I got my hands dirty with the imac. Its been running so damn well for so long, i was getting scared that i was getting too soft. take that, iMac! I'll fight you right now!


later dog.

PS
note to self: buy external backup drive.
note to self: back up nightly.





PPS
if you know a good way to get *.wmv (or any way for that matter) to run on the Intel Imac, please let me know? before the reformat I could play them with windows media player. but now thats been pulled and flip4mac is in its place which sucks cause its not a UB yet. Help!

wow

the new harry potter movie, the goblet of fire, was horrible.

thats like the worst movie I've seen in a long time. Did anyone understand the plot?

the last movie was great, the prisoner of azkaban. it was hillarious and interesting. this movie was dull, not funny, ridiculously ploted, full of mistakes, horrible editing and the worst part, to be sure, was the pacing. ugh.

so yeah.

anyways, back to work.

Out of the Loop

Hey Ya'll

My office approved me to take "study leave" all next week. Yay! I enrolled in a 6 day language course in sapporo. They gave us an awesome deal -- 30 hours of class for 35,000 yen. Thats $297 which if you do the math (dont worry I'll do it for your its really hard anyways) thats $10 per hour for tuition.


Thats so cheap.

My office was so cool about. I walked up to my boss

"Excuse Me. Is now a good time?"
"yes, yes"
"I was wondering if I could study Japanese in Sapporo all next week."
"OK"
"...Oh, ok. Ummm, Thank you very much. (that was easy!)"
"Yeah no problem. You have to pay your tuition,"
"Yes, thats fine --"
"however we will pay your travel expenses."
"Oh. Ok. Thank you (Mr Burns voice: Exxxxxceeeelllleentttt"
"yeah no problem"


So how cool is that. I'm leaving tonight for sapps town. One of the guys in my three person class is Derran, a cool British bloke who lives 45 minutes from the city. I'm gonna crash at his place thus saving a bunch of money. I was affraid if I didnt present reciepts to my boss I might not get the travel expense money. So I asked him if he needed receipts. he was all like "no, no, we dont need those." OK then! Awesome.

So I'm really excited. I need something to get me over this kind of plateau that I've reached with my Nihongo (Japanese). Also I wanted to do something productive.

I will have email of course so if you need anything lemme know.

Bye guys!
J

"Can I please steal your internet again?"

I was reading around on www.bigdaikon.com and someone posted a really funny story:

"Yesterday, after 6 months of being lazy, I enable WAP on my wireless router. Well, this lady, who never spoke with me before, comes by and leaves a note asking me to disable it because she can't use my connection anymore. "


Wow. Thats amazing. That takes some serious calhones.

Parties, More Parties, LOST, indesive weather, my policy regarding trash, Kensyuu

two words: The Onion Radio News Podcast.

Hello All. As Spring slowly arrives to my frozen hamlet then gets beaten back with a large stick and lots of name calling by Winter, I have been forced to watch many movies and/or TV shows. I thought I would discuss some of the highlights here because I am sure you all are terribly intested.

some movies that I would like you to watch:


Why We Fight - Its a documentary done by the BCC. It compares the modern day situation of American foriegn policy to the 1950's farwell address of Pres. Eisenhower. Not only is it really well done but it also make some attempt to remain neutral which is refreshing, because often times all people see is the "Michael Moore" kind of critique.

Lose Change 9/11 - suprisingly convincing and low-bugetly well done documentary by some 16 year old about how 9/11 had a lot more going on than we were led to believe.



I recomened both of them. I also recomend Ice Cream. Any flavor will do.


I am also addicted to LOST (as well as Ice Cream). I've only got three more episodes to watch (strike that: I am now caught up) before I am "caught up". The only other TV show I ever watched this much was Highlander. The acting on highlander was unbelievably bad. The acting on LOST is really good. Karen brought up an interesting point that "Jack" has some the cheesiest lines ever. Probably second only to Dolf Lungrin in Masters of the Universe

For example.
(jack is in bold)

"I am comming with you!"
"no you're not"
"yes I am"
"no you're not"
"jack I want to--"
"no you're not, Kate"

yeah I think acting would be hard. I think it would be hard to know what kind of acting you are best at. Like the dude that plays Michael was totally awesome in Romeo + Juliet. But on LOST hes lame and delivers all his lines as if he is whining about something.

So, yes. What else. Lots of parties these days.

Good friends leaving, new ones comming in.

kind-of-funny-but-sort-of-one-of-those-"you had to be there"-things: I got invited to go to my middle school's farewell party. All the teachers who are leaving got roasted. Quite hillarious. The dinner started at 6:00 so i was walking my way down when I black car flew by me on the right. It slowed down and then stopped about 5 meters in front of me, started to back up a little. A guy opened the door and saw that is was one of the teachers from the Highschool. Now, I was going to the Middle School party. Apparently HS was having one too...

"are you going to the party?" he said
"Ummm, yeah, but, ummmm..."
"do you want a ride?" (expectant looking)
"I'm umm yeah I'm actually going to the middle school party though..."
"Oh. Oh. right. yeah. sorry"

and then he closed the door and away they went. Ooops. That was slightly embarraing. I was'nt invited to the highschool party (I never am...not really sure why) so the spontaneous "we feel bad for you" invitation was embarrassing and then the whole "yeah thanks but no thanks" was a bit strange too.

Ah Well.

On tuesday I have my last dinner with Yuki & Fumiaki & Makoto. I wont see them again for a long time, I think. I doubt they will be back in Haboro for a while. I am going to miss them very much. They were my first real friends in Haboro, so I gotta get me a car so I can visit people.

Tonight is the farewell part for Nobuki.

We are eating out at an italian resturant with the teachers from the Highschool. I am really looking foward to it cause hes moving to Tokyo so next time I am down there hopefully we can hang out. Tokyo is cool. Like Ice Cream. Ice Cream is cool.

Yeah, so speaking of trash... ...as you know its really hard to throw anything away here. If you want to you have to wait for the appropriate day and then you have remember the approriate day (thats the hard part) then you have to actually prepare the trash THEN you can throw it away. I used to be really good about it but I have gotten super lazy. Anything that isnt a can, bottle or plastic bottle or food goes into one big bag.

I am supposed to seperate out the paper and the plastic. I assumed this was for recycling purposes. I learned however that is because the incinerators burn at different temperatures for each respective garbage genre. So instead of helping nature, I am making it worse. So I made the personal desicion (motivated by laziness) to just throw everything (minus aforementioned exceptions) into one big bag. Today I had to take out like four big bags of garbage.

The garbage bags in Japan are clear -- probably so that people can see whats in them so that you wont throw away stuff in the wrong places. Also you are supposed to write you name on your trash. This I never do. I went to toss my garbage in the huge main pile and I noticed that someone had throw away an entire soccer ball. It was in the bag that is meant for "plastic". After seeing this and contemplating what else people might throw away, I decided not to feel bad anymore.

So thats a lame story. Sorry.

Ah, what else? OH! Yes. It finally happened.

My laptop gave up the ghost.

(moment of silence)

Thank You.

I came home to a PC speaker was beeping at regular intervals. I went over to the keyboard and typed in "4,8,15,16,23,42" and then hit "Execute" but that didnt do anything. It was still beeping. So i just shut it off.

(has anyone else noticed that when the numbers are typed into the computer (or anything for that matter) it does this really smooth scrolling thing and there is a huge delay? Its almost like the producers of the show decided to film all those close ups of the screen as a pre-rendered animation instead of just filming the monitor, which would also explain why there is no flicker effect from refresh rate because IF that really was an old monitor the mhz on the screen cycle would be very, very low and it certianly wouldnt be able to scroll those characters so smoothly...it really bugs me. It means that its actually an LCD monitor (no flicker) or perhaps a really new CRT. Why couldnt they just use an old Apple II E? Why pretend to use an old computer and then not even do a good job about it? But I guess the biggest question is why is there some "chat" protocol intergrated with the failsafe routine? does that make any sense? No, no it doesnt.)

This morning I fired it up (my computer, not John's) to webcam and it was all like "i dont have any RAM". I had it go into the BIOS, and it manged to enumerate the RAM there, So I dont think its a RAM problem per se but more like the HDD after spinning for 7 years decided it was finally time to call it a day. Too bad. I was gonna turn it into a sweet picture frame.

Also, in possibly related news my PDA is frozen, resulting in a complete loss of data. Good thing its backed-up. I think I must have had some kind of power surge. All my devices though are on surge protectors, of course. Maybe it was an EMP or something. I should get a UPS for the Flux Capacitor. Thats the name of my new computer: "Flux Capacitor". The Laptop was "HAL" and my Athalon box was "Nemesis." Ok enough ramblings. Here are some pictures* to wet your gready eyes.

*not actually posted

1GB video card

"Oh, I'm affraid this battle station will be quite operational when your friends arrive!"

ATI is going to release a 1gb Video Card.

Now instead of google rendering the earth, the earth will render google. I'm not sure what this means.

Also I have no idea what this has to do with Star Wars, but when I saw the picture of that thing, as well as the specs, I instantly thought "Death Star".


ok bye.

Its Windy Here

The 3rd line reads: Winds, North by Northwest at 16 mph, GUSTING at 50.



50.



yeah, awesome.

SNOWBALL FIGHT!!!!

hefting one of the snowballs I said to Olie in a low voice,
"...These are kinda hard"
"yeah they are pretty much all ice"
"awesome" I said. "where are the helmets again?"

And so it went, the 2006 Tomame Snowball Fight.

and it was good. w00t! (actually We didnt and never did Own the Other Team)


Olie had invited me to participate about three weeks ago and I had been looking forward to it ever since. I went over to his house on Saturday night and we ate huge piles of rissoto and watched hilarious British humor such as Black Adder and Monty Python.

Olie is a Brit, one of those "One-if-by-land-two-if-by-sea" people. Sometimes I call him a "damn Lobsterback". I don't think he likes that very much. I am often called a "damn Yankee", of which I am quite proud. I cant tell you how much fun it is to joke back in forth about our respective heritage while being in a country that cares nothing for it. Its like a hobby for me now.

Anyways I am constantly telling him all these random things about Iron Maiden in a vain hope that he will somehow know someone who knows someone who knows the daughter's boyfriend's niece's aunt's 3rd dead cousin who is the bassist for the band whose kids teacher is a friend of Steve Harris's mail man. Then I could, like, totally meet Iron Maiden.

OH WAIT.
I DID meet Iron Maiden!

Ha!

...(ahem)

What was I talking about?

Oh yeah, Snowball Fight!

So I spent the night at Olie's house.

We rolled out at about 8:15 and walked <10 minutes down to the field where the competition was to be held. I knew not what to expect so imagine my surpise when we round a snowy-embankment covered corner and see before us this most excellent set-up:

two fields, about the size of a 1/4 of a soccer field a piece, each with its own arrangment of barries, flags and lines painted on the snow.

Benches and benches in the middle between the two fields. Helmets neatly lined up, as well as jerseys neatly stacked.

Next we see the registration (!) table which is next to a 30x15 Pole Tent. This was the snowball factory.

Only regulation snowballs allowed, please.

To complete the picture of an official event a vendor actually came, rolled out his cart of meaty treats and braved the sometimes ridiculous blizzard to pawn his wares. We felt bad for him so we bought his overly-priced-but-strangly-delicious-not-quite-italian-sausages.

Then the people decended and there must have been over 100 there, between the contestants and spectators. Buses even came. Like, what?

Our team was the international team, or as they annouced it, "TEAMU Chugoku Amerika Egurisu" I was the "Amerika", Olie was the "Egurisu" (England....yeah, dont ask) and then the Chinese factory worker girls where the "Chugoku" (Japanese for "China". Literally, "The Middle Country") There was one Japanese guy on our team, the PE teacher at the Tomame Middle School. I felt bad for him. I am sure he got made fun of constantly for being stuck with the "gaijin pile".

We did alright actually, considering our one huge fatal flaw: No one could talk to anyone else. Actually thats what made it really fun. I could talk to the Japanese guy and Olie OK, but only one of the Chinese girls really seemed to speak any Japanese, and no English. So I got to finally use my Japanese as a Second-Language to Second-Language communication. That was really, really cool. Its one thing to speak Japanese to Japanese people who can decipher my atrocious gramar with their native ease. Its another thing entirely to talk to someone whose grammar is at least as bad as mine. We had fun communicating and trying to come up with interesting explantations for things we didnt understand.

So yeah we could talk to each other but its like if Olie or I wanted to have any kind of strategy, everything had to be said at least three times: English to English then English to Japanese and finally Japanese to Chinese. When deadly balls of ice i mean snow are flying around and you cant see anything, this form of communication ammounts to what some people call a "SNAFU"

So our "TEAMU" ended up being a free-for-all-everyone-for-him-or-herself. We managed to tie the first three games and then lost when we played the first game of the semi final. Lost bad. It was so much fun to just play though that we hardly noticed.

To begin the event there was of course speeches from at least three people, presentations of past awards and then a nice, team-spirit-building session of callestenics. Once warmed up a form of sake was served and the games began! We played like crazy and had a great time. It was one of those "Wow its freezing out here but I dont care because this is awesome" kinda things. Except for when we actually played, and then i was dying in all my stupid layers of clothes and wool.

The one thing that got me was the rules. They were so lame, so very very "Japanese" in their meticulous order and "huh?"-ness that it was like "Wow can i please just throw a snowball? Thanks."

For example there was some kind of foul (...in a snowball fight?) and so we paused the play. Two people from my team were out so it was just me and another girl against the six left on the other team. We were told we had to then come out from behind the barriers and stand at the middle-field line, completely exposed to enemy fire. Apparently thats like the reset point.

So I walk up to line and so does my teammate. I look around and realize I dont have any snowballs (you cant just bend down and make them out of the snow on the ground. thats against the rules. Each team only gets 120 snowballs that you have to make using their medival snowball makers so that everyone's balls are the all the same size [insert bad joke here]) so I reached over 'n grabbed like three or four snowballs from my teamamte. She had a horde of them. I turned to face the enemy team, waiting for the whistle to begin play.

Suddenly out of nowhere someone is running at me with a piece of paper flailing, telling me in no uncertain terms that what I just did was "illegal" and I have to give the snowballs back to her.

"but I dont have any!" I cried.
"doesnt matter you can only get them when the game starts again"
"cant I just-- "
"nope."

So I pile them back into her arms. He takes like two steps back, out of the playing field and blows the whistle. Now I can take a snowball, which I did, and begin hurling them/it at the other team. Ooops I am out in like two seconds.

All in all it was super fun and I am definatly going to do it next year. Now that I know what to expect, I think we can totally win. Olie is sticking around for another year too and so our plan is to get a truly all foreign team and come back and avalanche our way to victory. Hahaha, "avalanche".

Its thurdays right now and I am supposed to be at Kendo, but sadly I had to skip it tonight. I am enterting an Essay contest and its due tomorrow and I am far from finished. Instead of working on the essay like I should be, I am writing this blog. Yes, college taught me nothing. But the essay prizes are excellent ($1,000) and will more than pay for my set of Bogu Armor, so I feel justified. I am teaching elementary school tomorrow, periods 1-4, 160 kids. Yay! Tomorrow I also leave for Furano to go skiing.

See you on Monday!

Much Love
me

Pictures!

In Completely Random Order!

Our Amazing Team.

Someone getting pumpled.

Yay, our team again!

I said before winter started that I bet the snow will pile up so much that I can jump out of my third story window and not break anything. Well, there you have it. I would have to kind of jump OUT a bit, but if I hit that embankment at just the right angle...

kiotsuke...rei...hajimemasu!

is that me? good thing you cant see my new dorky hair cut. I seriously look like David Bowie from 20 years ago. Or John Conner. Him too.

The goal was the flags. You simply had to uproot them.

Gettin geared up

Ah yes, the snowball makers and the tiny balls of ice.

Helmets? Helmets?!? We dont need no stinking helmets!

I'd like 120 eggs please.

Ammo.

Olie, the bearded Avenger.

Yuki - Gasen! (snowball fight!)

The Field with its randomly distributed bariers.

A shot of the field and the blue snowball making tent as well as the registration table.