starts with don't

don't even sing about it
don't dance her down
don't dress your cat in an apron
don't give into him
don't give up
don't go into that barn
don't it make my brown eyes blue
don't leave
don't let it get you down
don't let me be misunderstood
don't let me explode
don't let the sun go down on me
don't look back
don't pull your love
don't put me on
don't save us from the flames
don't stop til you get enough
don't worry about the government
don't worry about the government
don't worry about the government
don't you forget about me
don't you know I'm loco
don't you lie to me


(I've pared my itunes lib down to 25gigs, but there's a good long way to go)

little tokyo.

There should be a region inside tokyo called "little tokyo", and it should look like the "new york new york" casino.

So, me and Tokyo seem to have reached an agreement on terms and conditions. I'll be leaving town next month and coming back in the middle of October to start a new gig working at Berlitz. I'm filled with cautious optimism over the whole thing.

On the horizon is tons of freeeee time, and if I can use it with a little bit of discipline, things are sunny. Or I could waste it all and forget how to speak Japanese drinking wine in a gutter.

You're hired!

BTW, I got the job with Berlitz. I'd be sort of embarrased if I hadn't.

snakes on the internet.

If I were supposed to drink something every time I heard some reference to snakes, in all their ironic majesty, I'd be a millionaire (counted in mixed-metaphor dollars).

I haven't felt so eager to see the end of a trend since girls started peeing in my pornos.

words to live by.

Kissui's got a post today with a bunch of Japanese in it... cool, cool, I think. I'll just read along and see what's so funny. Au contraire mon frere.

What she wrote was basically a list of venerable historic names, and paired them up with elements of modern pop culture. Dictionaries don't have the names of Gods and emperors, nor do they feature such valuable words as エロパロ. The joke, I suppose is really limited to people with a damned deep knowledge of Japanese history and pop culture... or Japanese people.

I post, why? Partly out of frustration that I lack the knowledge to parse that paragraph out, but moreso because I don't know where to get it. Because of an errant [space] inserted in the middle of the next word, I had thought we were talking about エロパロニ. And googling had me a bit perplexified. After a while, I figured out, ero-paro = ero-parody, but I really don't know where to turn when I crash into a wall of slang (or names). Over time I've picked up some of the essentials, like paizuri and paipan (largely unrelated, believe it or not), still not near enough of the words I encounter pretty often on TV or in pop songs. What to do, what to do...

not an accident.

If it seems like I'm always angry at the editorials I read over at yomiuri, there's a reason. It's a right wing paper, full of right wing views. That means lots of nationalism, privitization, golden-age nostalgia, blaming thw worlds problems on the under-empowered, and very very cautious critique of the United States.

I still enjoy reading them, precisely because they give me something to talk about... but I think I might be better off with something a little more structured and reasonable, and some materials that won't change subject matter entirely every 1K characters. I just haven't yet figured out what yet.
One way or another, I need to shake the feeling that I'm not studying hard enough.

you're kidding right?

Japan, like every other country frets over what its kids are learning in schools. Just like in the US, you see article after article chronicling the descent into mediocrity of the average Japanese student. Among a number of other responses to this problem, the government has decided to give more leeway to individual schools and school boards by leaving several hours a week open to study what each particular school finds most relevant and pressing.

Tokyo and Hyogo Ken have got the same idea. They're going to take 2 hours of class time every week to teach traditional Japanese culture. This way kids can learn that certain aspects of manga and anime come from traditional Japanese drawing styles (no mention whether the origin of the comic book format, and 95% of the drawing style is essentially adapted from the west). They'll also get to study why Noh and Kabuki are relevant to our daily lives.

Why? Well, the article I read isn't really clear on why. In fact the only concrete benefit it seems to document is that they intend on teaching some English phrases about Japanese culture so that when these kids grow up, they can tell foreigners about tea ceremony and Noh theater. Another benefit is suggested, to tell the truth. I'm not following the calculus myself, but it seems that if Japanese kids knew more about 600 year old pottery, they would have more self esteem.

So you know where I'm coming from, I don't really think especially much of traditional Japanese culture. Yet, I don't think it's a bad thing to teach in schools, IN ART CLASS. I really distrust these people so eager to force Japanese-ness into the schools, by hook or crook. Sacrificing time (more than 7% of weekly class time) that could be used on something more productive than say, how many times it's appropriate to turn a tea cup when presenting it, is stupid.

This addition to the curriculum mirrors a national debate, as to whether "愛国心" (love of country) should be taught in schools. Here's an over-zealous critique by a foreign press correspondent, and here's a little bit about it (buried inside a longer, but worthwhile article) from Marutei Tsurunen, the first diet member of foreign descent. Ooh, this is really good, if you read any of my links about this matter read that one.

several dozen minutes of toil later...

I got me a job. now I gotta figure out how to get me a new plane ticket.

I think I'm gonna have to go into a little bit of debt to make this all work. "lame"

bachelor chow.

I don't have the money to eat out right now, so it's bachelor chow for me. For example:

4-500g spaghetti
2 onions
40-60 mukiebi
2 piman
200g ketchup
pinch salt/pepper
1T olive oil

boil spaghetti
wash+drain shrimp
cut onion into 1cm slices, piman into 5mm rings
fry the onion in the oil on high until transparent,
then add the piman and shrimp and stirfry over medium

when the shrimp's done, turn heat to low, add ketchup,
once heated through, add the spag and go!


Yes, it's ketchup based sauce, and with the low sugar ketchup I bought, it was surprisingly good.

let the freeters eat cake.

Japan's got a problem, according to all the newspapers and TV shows I've seen. The problem? Not enough young people are taking on proper jobs with long term prospects. It seems after generations their ancestor's hard work, Japanese youth are giving up, and becoming lazy and unproductive. So sayeth the Japanese mass media.

I know what you're thinking: Oh dear! That must mean that companies are having a hard time finding quality employees. Maybe it's a good time for me to try to find a job in Japan.

But you'd be mistaken. Firstly, by thinking that you can enter the Japanese job market and compete for positions with Japanese people. That's not going to happen. Secondly, because the companies are not having a lick of trouble. As the economy continues to warm up, the companies having trouble finding quality employees are those offering low paying, unskilled temporary jobs. There are countless young people eager and qualified to enter into the proper careers... but not enough hiring, and hiring and work practices so inflexible as the rule out a huge portion of the qualified society.

The media is trying to make a big deal of the small number of people who have shitty jobs and don't especially mind. If anything, it's an initiative to keep competition high for decent jobs so as to keep the wages in check.

freakin' awesome.

"Needless to say, we should not forget that Japanese were not the only victims of the Showa War."

8.8071万円生活

Can I survive 29 days in Tokyo (with rent already paid) on a scant 8.8071man en?

Well, yeah. No sweat. If Bobby and Thane can pretend to do it on 1man, I can make it on 8.8071.

That's the budget I want to keep in order to have a reasonable amount of money in hand when I get back home... but reasonable is in the eye of the debtor.

stay with me on this one...

New, "ultra-first-class" cabins
+
international waters (national laws need not apply)
+
tired, bored businessmen with money to burn
+
stewardess uniforms
+
+
+

Anyway, why isn't there an airline where you can "engage the services" of the stewardesses for a set fee? Sure there are some kinks to work out, but a couple of minor adjustments and it could be a winner, no?

OOOOOHHHH, I hate spiders!

Fuckin' good for nothing waste-of-legs spider's sitting up in the corner of this room, acting all nonchallant... man, fuck him. Here I go to the trouble of not squishing his plainly visible ass between my thumb and forefinger, and he can't even get his job done.
There's a damned mosquito that has bitten me about 10 times in the last hour, and Peter Parker up there can't be bothered to help a brother out.

Let me state this unequivocally for the record: If there are any spiders reading this blog, please stop. Your kind are not welcome here.

to the limit to the wall

The last couple days I've been packing boxes and suitcases with everything I own from here on. My goal was to get into a single suitcase plus one box of books. It's still a hell of a lot more than that. Subtract the books, and I've still got a pretty big box worth of clothes, electronics, papers and other lifestyle ephemera sitting beside my suitcase... and a back pack.

I've got about a month of bumming around at 35.716108 degrees N, 139.78795 degrees E during which I hope to get rid of most of that.

ridin dirty out of tohoku.

6 days and I'm on my way out.

Sadly I spent my whole summer eating conbini food and avoiding any activity at all. So I'm going to Tokyo fat and broke, with a wardrobe that I havent added a thing to since to snow melted.

But from blogging nate to real life nate: Good luck!