flesh.

Today, for the first time in just about seven years, I intentionally bit into a piece of meat.

A weird couple of accidents had me sitting on the business end of a bowl of ramen today, and I decided just to be a good soldier and eat it up. Surprisingly enough, the world still seems to be turning. Also worthy of note is that meat, even when you haven't eaten it for seven years, still tastes pretty much the same.

It's not time to start shoveling dead (land-dwelling) flesh into my stupid face just yet. I'm still gonna hold off for a major life event of some sort before I give up my vestigal vegitarianism. It's not time to go soft on myself just yet.

don't say hello.

Yesterday, I went to my regular(ish) cafe, just like any other day, and "POW!", there was a white guy there. Naturally, I became agitated and uncomfortable. The existence of other foreigners, most especially white guys, is highly problematic for the honky about town in Japan (me). I once had a case of hives that the doctor traced back to my having shaken hands with a guy from Philadelphia named "paul".

I just couldn't get comfortable in my seat while I read my book and waited for my ginger ale to come. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't shake from my head that this guy, over at the other table was being white right there in the cafe. I decided to take this bull by the horns, and say hi.

This unorthodox approach beared limited fruit.

Being in Japan too long means that I've forgotten how to talk to a small subset of the population: those who aren't endlessly fascinated by my being a foreigner. So the fellow in the cafe got an earful of how much I dislike Jesus and America. Poor guy.

Don't say hello.

a paragraph from "Authority Without Power: Law and the Japanese Paradox" that JETS ought to take to heart

"Autonomy had a price. For the community and the individual, conflict avoidance and deference to authority were the prerequisites of self-governance and independence. So long as peace prevailed and taxes were paid, there was little to draw official attention and scrutiny. However, any open conflict or breach of peace threatened that autonomy and invited investigation and more stringent controls. By suppressing intracommunity quarrels and satisfying formal fiscal obligations, a village community could restrain or avoid unwanted official regulation. The consequence was an institutional structure that in allowing evasion of official legal controls also promoted external deference and internal cohesion. In effect the village had the security of the administrative state along with the freedom of the outlaw."

two heroes

roast beef. (achewood, onstad)

moses herzog. (herzog, bellow)

sekaiichi.

Congrats go to Japan on beating Cuba to win the first "world baseball classic". After a loss to Korea, and another one to America, Japan was hardly the favorite, but they got the gold.

During the game, the stands were filled with posterboard bearing the phrase sekaiichi (世界一). It means world's #1, but I think there's a sense among the fans that the sekkaiichi status doesn't stop at baseball. Lots of people feel that way about their own country, to be sure. I'm not sure many countries have such a good claim on it though.

Japan, of course, comes in 2nd place and third place and fourth place all over the map. There aren't many #1's for Japan to brag about (not even sumo), but Japan can brag about it's lack of "last place"s. Unlike, say, America, it has done a much better job of balancing it's success with a nod to the life of its citizens.

Japan isn't violent, filled with drugs, repressed, addicted, fat, et cetera. It's not a country of anger and vandalism. They aren't rioting over this law and that. There's no long history of systematic violence to immigrants. Human rights are still in quite good repair (even if equality of the sexes could use a shove).

But today Japan is the world's best at baseball. and video games. and animation. and and maybe even at food. It's a country that knows how to relax, knows how to fuck, knows how to share corporate earnings with employees, knows how to stay above the fray of global conflict.

Even if you rebut every single one of the gold stars I give Japan, there's something cumulatively good and functional about this country. Cumulatively better than any other country I've been to.

(edit: I have no idea who it was since I wasn't looking at the screen when it came up, but I heard on the news an american voice saying "this just shows you that baseball is the same all over the world. we just have better players." Isn't that second sentence open to debate now?)

too much time at BD.

my own words (regarding final fantasy 12):

"I bought the game for an ex-jet friend in america. seemed like too much trouble to open the plastic seal and play a few minutes before sending it off.

honestly, you rpg players get ass? that's a travesty.

edit: Seriously! that pisses me off to no end that you god-damned wastes of space that have the knowledge to meaningfully compare these boring, time-sap monstrosities are allowed to enter even a single vagina in your lifetimes. Much less to actually be bedding semi-attractive women on a regular basis while I'm stuck with a lame, below average-looking girlfriend who's far under my league.

I'm a f*** ball of rage over this.

the holocaust made me question the existence of god, this makes me hate him.

edit2: I'm 5% kidding. and 95% pissed off that my community doesn't dispense cooter like gacha-pon to blonde-haired blue eyed dudes."

in my dreams

the internet comes to me in my sleep, like an apparition of a dead father. It demands vengence; vengence and release from this awful template.

I deny the internet's will at my own hazard. Already, my cellular phone and blow-dryer have begun conspiring against me. if the template should mysteriously change back, or should I fail to post in the next few days, call the police. and tell them to watch out for power cords.....

week in review. memo to myself.

This week started badly, and ended only slightly up from where it began.

My four day weekend was swallowed whole by the blob that took up residence in my nose. I spent four days with a head full of liquid that decided to vent itself without warning time and again.
On returning to work, I did the unadvisable and went back to bd. That site always does me in. All the boasting and pissing contests just remind me of how isolated I've gotten since my good friend jets left. That and how much I really am just "on the edge" of this all, and how little fun there is to be had around here.

Upsides were that I started getting along better with my coworker jets, that I went to the gym twice (after being sick), and that I have a renewed ability to learn kanji (but no patience for reading at all). also, late breaking, softbank is gonna buy vodafone's japanese operations, which means I'll get a little bit of the money I've been bleeding back.

now I'm on the front edge of another four day weekend, and I don't have a single thing planned between now and work on wednesday. It's not cool.

1/4 stars.

throw out 100 things.

today, I'm throwing out 100 things. 23 down.

(edit: 100 things that I hadn't yet considered trash)

edit2: got 51 done last night. If I can get my gumption a'gumping I'll finish out the job tonight.

4 days later.

I took two days of vacation to have extra time to study, and wax philosophic through a four day weekend. Then on Friday I got sick. I spent almost all of my weekend wishing I could sniffle, but I had a sinus infection. Sniffling when you are properly swollen shut feels like trying to suck a milkshake through a straw with your nose.

I'm better now, so it's back to the gym. I don't remember if I made an entry to that effect or not, but according to all the medical and muscle tests under the sun, I'm 20% weaker than an average man my age.

I probably would have killed myself if I had gotten 20% below average on any other standardized test. I've spent most of my life in the 95th-99th percentile, when there were percentiles to be had. Now that my physical condition has been couched in those terms, I'm not gonna rest until I move well past that "average line".

the new lamest joke ever? (evar?)

Back when we were all upset about Sadaam the first time in the early nineties, I remember hearing the stupidest joke I've ever heard. I don't know how many times I heard it, but it was more than enough to lodge it into my brain. It was just a one liner, playing on a lame, way overdone stereotype.

"The french contribution to the Gulf War effort was to parachute in 400 rude waiters."

The mundanity of it makes my head hurt. But in the spirit of that joke, Japan is, no shit, contributing to the current rebuilding of Iraq by:














Giving them free anime.

dramatic pause technique courtesy of Yuki.

bill wasik's got you all in check.

Hey, do you remember "flash mobs"? The creator of the flash mob (though not term itself), Bill Wasik is an editor at Harper's magazine. He writes an perfect post-mortem of the fad in the a recent issue of said magazine, which is available in installments at it's website here.

It's like a big long fuck you to hipsterism, in terms of deindividuation. The long piece on the Milgram experiments in the second part of the essay is especially rewarding.

You've got to love that the (then still anonymous) Bill Wasek answered questions about his occupation with "I work in the culture industry". (link: my own)

Speaking of blithely tossing around titles of Adorno books, Japan is go.

why ladies love conservatives

This is from the national review online (conservative internet headquarters). It's in regards to international women's day, and whom the individual authors would like to honor.

"Anne Corkery
[snip]

Hillary was once described as "brittle." Funny, but I always figured the ideal woman would be soft — soft and friendly and understanding. One of the greatest women I have ever known was Joan Prince. She never really had a career, yet that didn't stop her from being a great force for the good. She would give of herself generously in every relationship, so that everyone felt they were her closest, dearest friend. The love she had for others was infectious. "Don't you just love Beth?" she would ask. And you'd decide that you did, even if you hadn't really thought about it before. She admired her husband so much, we couldn't help but think of him as some sort of hero.

She literally gave her life for her children. She found out she had breast cancer during one of her pregnancies, and when the doctor told her euphemistically that he needed to "interrupt" the pregnancy, she jokingly asked him when she could resume it. As her precious body nourished her unborn baby, it also allowed the cancer to flourish.

She spent the last days of her life writing soft, feminine, intelligent advice to her girls. "Always wear skirts if you can because men love it." "Smile when you don't know what to say." "Always remember, I'll be your angel watching you from heaven."

— Ann M. Corkery has served as a representative to the United Nations at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations."

I have the feeling that all the liberal acolytes of femininity (like momus) don't really think this "ideal" is related to the one they favor... but it's like saying "I love 79, but 82 is way way too much". What begins with pink and flowery clothes leads quickly to different moral ideals, to seperate moral standards, to different worth as individuals.
Sure, I like sweet-smellin' soft ladies as much as anyone, but deliberately limiting folks' possibilities on account of their gender (despite it's ubiquity in the world) is the worst.

ps. Men like skirts because they like vaginas, and want unrestriced access to them at all times.

maybe no.

I've been working like gangbusters on the Monbushou stuff... but at least a portion of the work I had been doing seems to have vanished into thin air. Work does that when you don't really know enough about what you're researching.

I now know that Waseda no longer admits monbushou recipients who haven't passed the normal entry requirements (international or regular). So begging favors with the staff is sort of meaningless.
That doesn't mean that I can't get in. Far from it. It does mean that I will have to study like a crazy to get in though.

We'll see what research into other schools monbushou admissions processes reveal.

oh, nate, your work ethic is so big.

that's people keep telling me anyway.

I'm sure all the people that have been telling me that over the last few months mean well.

blogger averaging 16 hits daily, dead at 26

That could have been the headline in some strange alternate world had things gone just a little differently this evening. Suffice it to say that the smell of smoke and flickering orange light make for one shitty way to be awoken from a nap.

*cough*

the japanese constitution rocks!

These are some of the things I love about this country:

Article 13 [Individual Rights]

(1) All of the people shall be respected as individuals.
(2) Their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
shall, to the extent that it does not interfere with the public welfare, be the supreme consideration in legislation and in other governmental affairs.

Article 21 [Communicative Rights]

(1) Freedom of assembly and association as well as speech, press, and all other forms of expression are guaranteed.
(2) No censorship shall be maintained, nor shall the secrecy of any means of communication be violated.

Article 22 [Right to Move, Freedom of Profession]
...
(2) Freedom of all persons to move to a foreign country and to divest themselves of their nationality shall be inviolate.

Article 23 [Academic Freedom]
Academic freedom is guaranteed.

Article 28 [Unions]
The right of workers to organize and to bargain and act collectively is guaranteed.

Article 36 [Torture]
The infliction of torture by any public officer and cruel punishments are absolutely forbidden.


To name just a few.

ignoble peace.

"Chapter II Renunciation of War

Article 9

(1) Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.
(2) In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of aggression of the state will not be recognized."

I wish my country had a clause like that first one. Since this part of the Japanese constitution was drafted by Americans, it sort of stands out that war is described as "a sovereign right of the nation". Agression is likewise described as a right. That phrasing, even in the revocation of such rights seems to suggest that America reserves that right.
America is starting to feel more and more like a skeleton in my closet.