2007.

best things:
Got a new job that really changes things for me. That new job has also left me with scads of self-doubt and stress.
Finally ended a pretty lame relationship that never meant much to me. Got a new girlfriend who's cute and fun.

best album: dan deacon - Spiderman of the Rings

best movie: I dunno: harry potter 5? I don't really like movies.

issue which seemed to matter to me: 二極化: Japan's got a really sudden and dramatic problem with a polarizing of salaries. I guess I'm on the good side of it so far.

best desert: salty caramel strawberry parfait at royal host

worst food: anago cheese slimy thing that cost too much at a place in shinagawa with nice nighttime scenery.

best scenery: night autumn leaves at the nearby rikugien

how about those 10 goals?
Didn't do a backflip... everyone shat their pants about head injuries, and I just never got around to it.
Didn't pass lvl 3 of the Kanji Kentei. No good reason there. Try for it next year.

And vegetarianism? not being really careful about it, planning on calling it quits soon enough.

Goals for next year? I'm working on them.

exploits of the blog's author

Today I did two neat things:

#1, I bench pressed my own body weight, 70kg, 10 times! (a 2007 goal!)

#2, I finally finally beat street fighter iii. I had been playing about 1 month.



There are however a couple of small but important limitations on those two achievements. I will have to replicate them under proper conditions before I consider them "done".

Do you need a TV? I don't.

So I've got this TV I've been trying half-heartedly to give away almost since the day I got it. But this week I'm gonna make something happen and get that damned little box out of here.

I've gotten frustrated again, and am feeling a sense of stagnation. Sure, I got myself a cracking new job 5 months ago, and haven't really been cooling my heels at the gym either.
Somehow I just can't see the path forward now, and that's getting at me. A couple years ago, I had a sense of where "forward" was, and hit the books. That initiative has made all the difference in my life today. I don't know what's next, or where "forward" is from here, just that I need to get some momentum.

So I brought out the organizing tools again (see GTD entry from ages ago), and am all set to set about something. Not sure what yet, just that I need to clear out all the little old to-do's to set out on some big new doings.
Step one is to reclaim some of my time leakage from the internet, and some of my cash leakage from eating out and a personal inability to bypass a convenience store or starbucks without walking in. Step two is getting rid of the TV.

That's why I'm making this blog entry before I head to ikebukuro to have a gingerbread coffee!

bitch, asshole

I couldn't imagine calling a woman an asshole, or a prick. In fact there are a long list of insults appropriate only to males.
I think there are a couple insults appropriate only to females like slut, and then a third class like cunt and bitch that are appropriate to both, but with very different implications for men and women.

Isn't "bitch" just "asshole" for girls? If I don't like a woman, is it really worse to call her a bitch than it is for me (or worse yet, a woman!) to call a man an asshole, or a prick? How am I to insult women individually without insulting "women" in general?

this has been another sort of anti-feminist post from the desk of a privileged white male.

something good, something bad

good: the getaway
I think this may be the first steve mcqueen vehicle I've seen, as well as the first sam peckinpah movie I've seen. I'm gonna follow up on both of them. Highlight: doc's suit, which in addition to looking good seems impervious to damage or staining.

bad: the tough alliance: a new chance.
There are some people at pitchfork who really think optimistic and dumb lyrics and seemingly ironic production values are the mark of an 8.6 quality album. For me this album is not just overrated (as one of the best rated of the year), but downright bad. If you forget what the synthesizers on commercial radio sounded like in 1991, you can think of this album as a long unnecessary reminder.

a typical Saturday evening for the newly-minted bourgeois

I'm listening to Miles Davis at a reasonable volume and staring at my new air purifier while sipping herbal tea. I am not the me I expected to be.

Lately, life has been uppy and downy. From around the middle of this week, it really couldn't have gone anywhere but back up. I was shivering uncontrollably and heaving deep breaths from the pain of swallowing a mouthful of water. But my number wasn't up yet.

I'm on the road to recovery, and trying to chase out the lingering sick-stink in my apartment and chase down the root of my recent susceptibility to illness. I think I've narrowed it down to two main culprits: exercise and water, both in excess.
I read today that people who work out hard get sick a lot. Maybe I ought to try and be more sane about that than I have been.
Also, the humidity in my apartment seems to make mold almost unavoidable. Today, when I stripped my pillowcase off my pillow to wash it, there were several tiny mold spots on the pillow underneath. The pillowcase had only been on there for about 10 days. Knowing that there's no chance that I'm gonna clean out every nook and cranny in this small but topographically complex apartment on a hyperregular basis, I bought the aforementioned air purifier to help forestall my succumbing to the mold.

Things I can recommend:
"Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came"
the autobiographical portions of "The Age of Turbulence"
rest
Donguri no Kyowakoku/ Moe (the Ghibli store in Sunshine City)
plenty of liquids
and this game (a flash tribute to Portal)

yes

anti-feminist.

That last entry left a bad taste in my mouth, sorry.

A couple days ago I had a short exchange with an American of Japanese descent about feminism, but I felt a little bit tongue tied and P.C.-bound. I feel like I'm holding back for fear of offending pretty often, but that's beside the point. I was trying to partially redeem the state of women's roles in Japan, by means of critiquing the way things run back home in the states, but I think I sorta choked.

I think I realize now what I was trying to get at. The state of feminism in America is such that not only do people insist that there should be a Women's NBA, but that it IS interesting and that more people should give more attention and money to it. The insistence on equality in the states is so brainlessly literal that men aren't allowed to be better at anything.

The thing is women are allowed to be better at some things. For example, we all take for granted the time-tested idea that women are better at human relations and emotional type stuff, to the point where the courts will give children to women with no means of support over loaded fathers in custody cases.

Now, I know it's not even close to this simple, but!

The things that men are good at, for example feats of strength and violence, are given far too much clout... IN AMERICA. Women are inclined to claim equality on these matters because America is the kind of country where these virtues are "more equal" than the others. In a country where murder by random strangers (or well armed family members or coworkers) can't be ruled out, of course your ability to kill or prevent your own death is important.

Japan isn't that sort of country... thanks in part to the constitution America wrote, but thanks much more to a Zillion year tradition clearly defined roles not only for men and women, but for everyone in each of their 100's of roles.
Now that doesn't mean that women have got it really really good here, but unlike 'merica, women aren't chasing impossible dreams by default. Just really really severe ideals.

the end.

never forgive, never forget, never compare

@ The bomb was bad, and probably not the best solution.
@ The victims of the bomb for the most part suffered less than most victims of the war.
@ In a war of military violence against civilians, the bomb doesn't really stand out.
@ Trying to make people feel bad about one aspect of a multi-faceted history is not reasonable.
@ I don't "get it" because there is no "getting it".

deus ex machina.

I hate deus ex machinas like crazy... but not the literal ones. Like if hephastus all popped up at the end of "revenge of the sith" and gave us a little dose of moralizing before setting everything right with a magic hammer, I could find that charming.

What I despise is our awful modern equivalent. Right at the peak of action, some special, previously unannounced rule is revealed, and all is set right! or some previously inaccessible memory is recalled, or a previously unrecognized ability, or in some other way all the previous struggle is obviated. I blame sci-fi and fantasy for this shit... maybe I'm off-base, but it seems like sci-fi/fantasy stories have the annoying habit so down pat that they must have invented it.

Take a story like the matrix for example, the first one. The whole of the action takes place because of a rule change of physics. bon. In the final moment, the farm boy realizes he's a super hero and flies away. Well, nearly. To tell the truth, the Matrix gave us the sense that it was coming, and it was part of a bigger logic. I don't have too much beef with that, its just a movie that I feel like I can't possibly be spoiling for anyone.

Omniscient narrators are responsible for foreshadowing, JK!

2 beefs. or something fucking sucks in denmark.

"Babel" is not good. I think I can see why some people think it is, but it's not deep or profound, or any of that. It's just a 2 hour slog through people on the brink. My thought is that if you're going to go that route, you're gonna have to make us care about the movie or the characters before you start having them swept up in circumstances.
It felt like I was expected to enjoy the movie for changing the backdrop of a melodramtic soap opera. The Japan vignette wasn't bad tho.

anyway, beef number two is [redacted]

beef 2 is personal demons I have to slay one way or another.

all this time and all this money...

and no time and money to spend it!

Last week I made that list of things that I no longer really give a shit about. But now I got more shit to give than ever before! and I just don't know what to do with myself. So, in hopes of inspiring myself, here are a couple of things that I do care about (order intentionally incorrect).

my skin
my style
money
my health
learning to do things I can't now
fitness
my job
winning
my apartment
running
tidiness
sex
tea
food


italics indicate things I didnt care about two years ago.

a formerly important idea.

I'm stuck at home with the revenge of my last cold. It infiltrated my lungs, and is still romping around in whatever part of me it is that makes my legs, lower back and shoulders sore. I have just about enough energy to start cleaning something up, and get tired and frustrated at the size of the project before getting back into bed.

so of course I have the energy to be reflective at my blog!

I started this blog well over two years ago, and since then, lots and lots has changed. Here are some things that used to mean a lot to me that don't anymore:

the market theory of labor
video games
gadgets
vegetarianism
the categorical imperative
500yen
covering my hairy legs
being able to style my hair in under 2 minutes
liking music that other people don't
speaking better Japanese than other foreigners
one piece
witty t-shirts
german
being 100% honest all the time

sell out young, enjoy the rest of your life.

Today I had a really good day, and for the most mundane and vaguely pathetic reason. I was finally allowed to work. For the first time since school, I had a chance to feel like I was doing something that needed doing, and that I was uniquely qualified to do.

And I got a free sandwich for it!

The thing is, I started my new job on Monday, and a series of factors have made the first few days of my new job something of a drag. I hear that everyone goes through this stuff, but it's kind of humiliating being watched by a room full of people all day long while I try to look busy... despite being intentionally kept far away from work.

But tomorrow's supposed to be the last day of that stuff. Then I can get training from people who know what my job is.

Incidentally, I think they are sort of disappointed in my spoken Japanese. Hell, I would be. I've never been able to speak more than a few words before being interrupted. But on the bright side, I've seen papers, and heard conversations floating around that they are potentially contracting a teacher to get me some instruction in Japanese business language and etiquette. Maybe that can be the payback for the awkward week they've given me.... though payday will be a pretty good payback in itself.

timeslip!

Hey, I started my new job! And it feels like I got the benefit of some strange timeslip!

I've got two paydays this month, one from each job, and because my payday has moved to the other side of my rent's due date, I don't have to pay any bills on the last paycheck! instant savings totals about $2800.

However, it's pretty clear that I'm about to have a hell of a lot less free time. For now, the tradeoff is a no brainer. If I had free time, the best way to use it would be to study Japanese, and now I'm getting paid to do essentially that. And while, I hate to say it, I don't even have the time to waste the extra money I'm earning. I fear I won't always be able to be so positive about it though.

bigliketheskyinmontanaisbig.

There's a lot of work to do... and very little energy with which to do it.

on mixi

je suis ___
ich bin ___
watashi wa ____ desu.
I can only guess at spanish, but:
yo soy____

on mixi now.

idiot's sleep.

snow, river, originally uploaded by notnato.

indecisiveness is killing me.

I've made it to 28, and the worst mistake I've ever made involved a bumped head. Living slow and steady has served me well, but it's high time I got hasty.
I'm gonna win this game. And there aren't going to be any buzzer beaters.

anzen

anzen, originally uploaded by notnato.

ahem. I like this blue.

and that scoundrel with the eyepatch has gotten me thinking about how I spend my days... and nights. What's worse than writing this blog about how I'm writing a blog, and not doing something more fun?

Recently, I've been bouncing the numbers around, and thinking about what's going to change with the new job... except that that's a lie. I've been bouncing the numbers around for months and months, if not years, thinking that some new horizon will be open by this new trickle of cash. I imagine I'm not the only one who does it, but I'm pretty sure it's a symptom of a deeper anxiety about money. I earn plenty now, and I'll be earning more soon. I just need to really convince myself of that.
Until I do convince myself, I've been trying to trick myself into thinking around the money. So I asked myself a question. What if I had all the money I could use? How would I be spending my time?

Honestly, the only thing I could come up with was sex.

I'm not sure if I should be upset about that, and try to expand my horizons post-haste, or if it really is what I want.

If the latter is the case, why am I NOT out there doing something about that?

If the former, how do you even get interested in new things at this age?

the telos of the internet.

ok, I need to warn you. if you don't like having your mind blown, DO NOT CLICK PLAY.

something I was thinking about: I like some crazy things. even when it's not blaring through my tiny headphones, a part of my mind is humming dan deacon. Half of my mind is usually spinning around like a rainbow colored drill bit... so why am I so boring?

a thin sheet of plastic.

Just now, I thought to myself, "I'd like to listen to 'Roscoe' (from Midlake)". Except I was already listening to it.
Much of my life resembles this moment. and then posting it to a blog.

lunch =

4 eggs
3 potatoes (small)
1/2 onion
5 cherry tomatoes
salt
olive oil


(urp)

the balck fly in my chardonnay (whining and bitching presented in white on white)

so, I've got a brand new bag, right? I'm running down a little checklist in my mind, and I can't find a single way in which the new job won't be better than the old one.

but I'm feeling kind of bummered out over some other stuff. Because really, the better the overwhelming majority of my life goes, the more glaring the shortcomings are... and the more my internal excuses are revealed as hollow.
When you drill yourself with questions like "if not now, when?", and you still feebly produce worthless delay tactics, you begin to wonder. Am I even capable of doing what I want to? What on earth is holding me back?

Brother, I don't know. I haven't got a clue.

I'm being brainwashed. 不可抗力

What follows is a shocking expose of the powerful forces at play in the Japanese education system! (In a few half assed sentences)

I've always taken a practical approach to the language, and have stuck with whatever works. That meant half-hearted uni classes at first, then Heisig, then cram books for the JLPT, and now, it's cram books for the kanji kentei. Because of this pragmatic approach, I've always sort of mistrusted those archaic and old fashioned words that pop up on banners and the sides of black vans playing the marshal beats of the 30's and 40's.
Since I've started to cram for level 4 of the kanji kentei though, I've had to stand toe to toe with those 4 character beasts that agrammatically express some piece of traditional wisdom. And it feels like they're winning. They're cheesy. They're trite. and I have come to respect them.
Like a really clever bit of marketing from the "old values" PAC, they have found a peripheral, but important niche in the kanji education system. So I have to memorize them, and their definitions (which are standardized across dictionaries!). I have to read these things to myself over and over, inexorably absorbing a 300(0) year old system of justice and value. I can't help it. I'm entranced by phrases like 不言実行, 一意専心, and 油断大敵. (Just like I probably was by the spectre over europe, or the labor theory of value a decade or so ago.)

and I'm a damned fool if I think it's gonna get me a sniff of anything I really want.

case closed. good work detectives.

Have you heard? I got me a brand new job!


In a couple weeks I'll be starting my new job as a translator. And with that the cat is out of the bag.

the world before 6-7-07/ the world after 6-7-07

Hi!

Tomorrow is the "big day" for the mystery. I think I'll be able to spill the beans tomorrow evening, and we will enter the post 6-7 era, where everything changes. I say that as a joke, but in every joke there is some truth... (banana who?)

I'm a dude in his late 20's who is frustrated with the his life so far. Of course I mean to change. Those little goals*, moving to tokyo, the mystery, they're all parts of a whole. "The mysterious thing" just happens to be the 500lb gorilla riding the elephant in the room... a linchpin shaped gorilla.


*BTW, I managed another goal. 10k in 44:45 on a real, outdoor track.
remaining goals: back flip, body weight benchpress, save a certain amount of money, pass KanKen lvl 3.

self-indulgent crap.

caveat = I know the irony of tossing an epithet like "self-indulgent" around in a place like this.


the omnivore's dilemma started off pretty good. There was something to learn in the first however many chapters of it. About corn, and fast food, about the impact of some of our dietary choices, about "organic" food, about the polyface farm, and some of the possibilities for sustainable agriculture. Imagine my surprise when, immediately after leaving the farm, Pollan turns the whole thing into a stream of conscious blab fest. Any attempt at informing or even gratifying the reader is cast aside while he coughs out his hunting stories in some righteously smelly prose. He puts himself in the center of a world of people much more interesting than him, and unsurprisingly, insists on casting himself as the star. We're left with the wonderful conclusion that he had fun making this book. F you mister pollan.

an even steamier pile of self-indulgence is "fear and trembling", a film product of (quelle suprise) canal plus. If you think you'd enjoy watching an effectively racist portrayal of life inside a japanese company by a lady with a grudge, this movie will help you rethink that. The lady is a self-obsessed fudge-up. At the beginning of the film, she does something super, and gets in trouble, and she spends the rest of the film failing and failing and failing, and blaming it on her environment. She's so worthless by the end of the film that I feel like the good deed at the beginning was a out-of-charactrer flourish to convince us that she is lovable in some way. The author tries and tries to use this editorial authority to make her case, but the ridiculous japanese caricatures that she puts to celluloid are such 2-dimensional stereotypes that it reflects much worse on her. Also she's belgian.

why I haven't been blogging;

I wish I could tell you I have been falling in love, or involved in something spicy. I wish I could even tell you I had been studying. But as a blogger, I'm sworn to the truth!

My computer broke, and Apple repaired it promptly... just not promptly enough to keep me from busying up my life with other things. So I've been poking around doing those other things, and not blogging them, because they aren't actually interesting.
The only real points of interest in my life these days are the "mystery" (as always, soon to be resolved), and the kanji kentei coming up next weekend. I meant to be ready for level three, but now I'll be rushing to even make level four a safe bet. Both of these points require a bit of nose-to-the-grindstoning that I'm not doing like I should.

Although I haven't been able to make myself feel excited, or even a little interested, next week really is the final showdown for both. more news about it when I feel like sharing.

stakes is medium.

Still in limbo on "the mysterious mystery of the undivulgeable thing". As this goes on, I'm getting a little moody. Despite the fact that today was a day without a minute's struggle or hassle, I convinced myself that I was indeed being shat upon left and right.
It's amazing how slow people walk up/down the stairs in front of you, how often people congregate in bottlenecks, and how often people make mistakes at the ticket gates on days like this.

Actually, to say it was without struggle is an outright lie. I had a couple of unpleasant things to do at work today, and more overtime than I really wanted, but everything went so smoothly that I feel like an oaf for being so grumpy straight through.

I realize these days why I never tried to do anything big and worth doing in the past.

a long while.

I'm sorry ya'll. It's been a long long time since I wrote anything worth reading. I've just posted a couple things here and there, always either cryptic or lazy.

It's a bummer to admit, but I think I'm a pretty boring person lately. Work, work, work, and I've lost sight of any "big goals". The small goals, are going swimmingly, but I'm not doing anything actually constructive. In fact, I'm so UNconstructive that I don't even have anything worth writing about (save that mysterious thing).
At the same time, I'm like an overheated economy, somehow too energetic to sleep, too busy too cook, and too oriented toward the short short term to think about the future after July. After Friday, perhaps?

am I still good with computers?

I think my mac may have made me a "computer dummy". Though that's clearly a bad thing, it's for a good reason. I never really find the need to get aggressive about solving problems, or finding one-off solutions. I just do what it is I need to do.

There is a mountain of snow, across the big glen. We have a castle. Enclosed, there is a fountain. Out of the fountain flows gold into a huge hand.

I ran 10k in 4407 and got my groove back.

the temple eats children and adults.

a screen capture from "the mormons", an overly kind portrayal of mormon life.

Tomorrow, some things will be clear. But I have a sneaking suspicion that not everything will be. Until most of them are, I get to keep my mystery mysterious.

dan deacon = good. spank rock = good. my new suit = pretty good. today's workout = pretty good. tonights dinner = good. lupicia caramele tea, without cream = pretty good.
it's like that.

how far is it to brooklyn?

I think I should be happy that my mind is racing with mostly good, partly uncertain stuff, but I can't help thinking that some sleep would be nice too. Clarity/resolution to arrive in trickles
beginning Monday.
Expect me to be either more excited and less able to sleep, or disappointed and equally unable to sleep.

Drugs?

takin' it to the streets

Today I ran around the imperial palace twice, for a total of 10k, and I managed it in somewhere near 47 minutes. I don't own a watch, so I couldn't tell the seconds.
What's neat about this is that the course is not flat, and I thought that I would be set back several minutes by the grade, but it looks like I am only 2 minutes shy of my goal, even in the "real", non-treadmill world.

Also, when I wrote yesterday that I "thought" something very big was happening, I misspoke... rather, something very big is very likely to happen in the next few days. I just can't divulge that here right now.
(It's a cool feeling to have stuff "I can't divulge")

can't sleep, crossing rubicon.

I think something very big is happening... my body certainly thinks so, as I find myself in the middle of my second consecutive sleepless night.

i don't know if you heard, but...

rick rubin rick rubin rick rubin rick rubin rick rubin rick rubin rick rubin rick rubin rick rubin rick rubin rick rubin rick rubin rick rubin things are pretty awesome. rick rubin rick rubin rick rubin rick rubin rick rubin rick rubin rick rubin

47:07

That's how long it took me to run 10k tonight. that leaves just another 127 seconds to peel off, and I will have accomplished goal number 2 for the year. as they say in the USA, "U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A!"

Whereas my running goal is just another 5% bump away, the benchpress one is not progressing quite apace. I'm probably about 35% shy on that one right now. Project Fleischfresser marches on.

btw, dinner = strawberries FTW

sensititve

mosquitos are here.
I've just been bitten 3 times by one, and I'm coming to realize that I'm a bit oversensitive to these things. the bite on my finger for instance has my whole finger swollen and discolored, and an area of skin extending about halfway up my forearm in a direct line itchy, and splotchy red and white. I also feel really nervous an shaky whenever I get bit, in a way I don't think is directly related directly to the itching. It's like I've had a hell of a lot of caffeine. I can't sit still, I can't focus my thoughts, and I sure as hell can't sleep.
I guess its time to some up with some further line of defense.

a hole in my butt.

I need a new suit. Actually, I need lots of new things, but since the seat of the pants to my "good suit" have worn through, I don't think I can hold off on this one anymore. My suit had a good run of about 3 years of heavy use (both pieces were good to go separately), but sadly, the pants are sprouting holes at an alarming rate.
The old boy ran me about 8man, and I figure I should dedicate about the same amount to a new one, if I expect some reasonable combo of quality and durability. Fortunately/sadly, I have 9man set aside to be sent back home to get ahead of the game on my student loan repayments... I guess that idea will wait.

nate cooks for you (for himself)

hot water + konbu + katsuobushi = dashi
dashi + soy sauce + mirin = tsuyu
dashi + aburaage = kitsune aburaage
soba+ tsuyu + kitsune aburaage + naruto + negi = kitsune soba!

today was the first time I've ever made dashi from scratch. It wouldn't have been hard if I had actually had some space and more than 2 pots, 2 bowls, and 1 (100 yen) measuring cup.

If you saw kitsune and thought of your spirit animal, or if it's an amazing shock to you that there is a food called naruto, go away.

kokuhaku.

Well, today I made it official. If I make all my outstanding goals for 2k7 within the year, I'm gonna quit vegetarianism.

If you know me, you have probably already heard me say that I really don't feel attached to the lifestyle anymore. I've just kept doing it for the past few years, cheating only slightly on rare occasions. So, I've been waiting for a good enough reason to quit... at the same time I've had a growing sense that the good it does the world is nearly if not actually outweighed by the energy I lose to it. It's not that it's an enormous sap on my energy, but it certainly takes something out of my life when I have to tell my friends that restaurant X is no good for me, or when I have to turn down potato chips offered.

I want to turn that energy toward something more worthwhile than irritating others with my finickiness. But I have to have my herculean labors first. If you were around for my entry at the end of last year, you know what my labors are.

1. repay my folks by april. DONE
2. pass level 3 of the Kanji Kentei (may be done as of June 10, just passed 4 on the DS, but...)
3. run 10 k in 45min. (managed it in 50 mins last week... my third week of running)
4. bench press my own weight (currently 64kilos, and I'm pretty sure I can press about 45)
5. save 500,000 yen. (this one could be tough, as I'll be paying Japanese social security soon)
6. do a backflip (here I've yet to make any progress)

Each one feels quite within reach... though it's pretty unlikely that I'll manage the money one before at least November. So I'll be enjoying at least one more "meatless summer".

my blood pressure.

104/66

my father's: very much higher.

virtual pat on the back.

kanken DS
Treadmill
blog hits
paycheck

I wonder if this quantifiable success thing leads away from people. I mean, the treadmill and the DS can mark my progress and give me precise encouragement much better than anyone else I know. My paycheck is, in a sense, a much more direct encouragement than "thanks" or a pat on the back.

Something bad happened that makes me reflect on my childhood, and my life ahead from here. Are there many "thanks"s or pats on the back left, or is it just gonna be a number readout on an lcd screen?

I'm 28, I ate an ice cream confection, and I ran 10k in 59:58

do you imagine your suffering will be any less because...

Dude, Aronofsky is an asshole.

I just saw a movie that reminded me how good a visually awesome movie can be, and I'm just livid about having wasted my time on the fountain yesterday.

See the thin red line if you get a chance.

(that the mass of reviewers thinks the fountain worthy of a higher score is stunning. and deflates my hopes for a brighter world)

Nothing to say.

More than saying something right now, I feel like having something to say. I'm at a point in all of my plans where I just need to keep working, cuz results are a long way off yet. I study, I exercise, I clean, I read, I cook, I watch my budget...

It's all quite boring.

As was the Fountain.

I've said it before, I'll say it again.

meow meow meow.

rokkyuu.

I just passed level 6 of the kanji kentei. On the DS.

The game I bought is indeed pretty effective. I do have a big complaint though. Whereas on the real test, I'd have to have quite a large vocabulary, and be able to apply my knowledge over 1000s of different words, this game has roughly 100 questions per section per level.
I'm sure the 100 sample questions are a good representation of what the real level six offers, but this game can never be an effective study tool without a lot more questions.

It takes me about 30 minutes of solid workin to push through one level's worth of questions. Then a little more time to go over the ones I missed, and slowly get them all correct. Within an hour, I've supposedly accomplished a year's worth of kanji study. Shenanigans.

To wit: imagine I score about 40% on a given level. I study the 100 questions exhaustively, and get to the point where I can get 95% no problem, and I've got nothing left to study. What kind of score can I expect on the real test? By my figuring, about a 42%.

actually, a couple percent increase in score for just a couple hours study is phenomenal... but there's no easy way to take that couple of percent and extend it to 10 or 20%.
I'll probably be buying the other kanjikentei game pretty soon too, for exactly this reason.

twokayseven

Hey. This decade is actually wrapping itself up in a hurry. Momus has talked before about the character of a decade being defined mostly in it's closing years (though I tend to think of 84-86 and 91-93 as the defining years of their respective decades), but this is the first one I've really been able to countenance as an adult.
I was 10 coming into the nineties, and 0 for the beginning of the eighties, so this one is the first decade that really feels like I've been there to witness the whole thing.
So far, it hadn't been anything special to me. Maybe it takes two decades of awareness before you can really compare one decade to another.

Call me back in 2017.

the new starcraft.

While I'm sure blizzard is cooking up something hot, I think I don't have much use for that stuff anymore. Somehow, I've become obsessed with "real life". I suppose that's what most people were throughout history, and what a pretty good majority still are. I wasn't always so insistent on being "rooted in the soil" though.
I used to be a gamer. It used to seem to me like the goals that I put behind me in games had some meaning. Objectively, I always knew they didn't, but I forgave myself because I didn't feel like those material goals in life had any more meaning.
Now I'm down with the materialists. From self-help to joining a gym and thinking non-stop about money, my life has become heavy and concrete. I don't mind it this way. Living through other people's fictions wasn't so hot after all.

But where I started with this was I think I've found a timesap (or two) that are going to leave me as worthless as starcraft did in college. The big new big thing is the (taiwan import) DS I bought today and the kanji kentei game that I spent my day on.
From the time I got home until just about now, I've been staring at those two screens (in vertical orientation) and scribbling down kanji. I'm way too into this game. I can see myself being ready for my year's goal (lvl 3) by June.

BTW, if you're keeping track, the year of the boar is about 1/4 over. I've got one goal completed, and have just begun in earnest on two of the others. Already there have been times when it seemed really unlikely that I'd manage all of them, but now, it looks like I set my goals a lot lower than I should have.

invest in infrastructure.

Wow, today was a really beautiful day. Perfect weather, blooming flowers, smiling faces, short skirts, and on and on. After a long-ish winter, I'm reminded why I'm here... because it can be an earthly paradise.

But back on the earth, I made hay. I studied, and bought some things for the house, and for the gym. Maybe I sound like a little girl when I say this, but I always feel much happier when I buy "infrastructure". Something that makes my home more homey, or increases my ability or efficiency or comfort in this tiny space. Today, a trash can with a lid and wheels, tomorrow the world.

something is changing.

something good.

speaking of restaurant reviews.

YUMM.

There's a limited time ramen being served at 花月 (kagetsu) ramen. It's really vegetarian, and it's really good.
If you can read Japanese, follow the link and be my guest, but it really doesn't have information so much as a bunch of self congratulation. I can hardly hold that against them though. I had it a few hours ago, and it was better than I expected.
I'm no ramen expert, so I can only tell you that it's not oily or heavy, the noodles are not eggy at all, and have a bit more hagotae (al dente-ness?) than I'm used to. The charm point though is the thoroughly stewed vegetables on top. The nanohana was barely present, but the daikon and potato were like a really clean-tasting oden. I wasn't so confident about the cherry tomato, and wound up avoiding it until I had already eaten all the other vegetables and most of the noodles. Damned if it wasn't the best part. Being no poet, I'm not gonna try to wow you with my words, but "bright" and "burst" come to mind.

At 680 yen, and absolutely zero vegetarian hypocrisy points, it's worth trying. and retrying.

upcoming projects

It seems like ever other blog I read is trumpeting some "upcoming project". I feel left out. I mean, I have my little projects. For example repaying my debt was a fun little experience, but I feel pretty happy putting a cap on that one. It's high time I had some fancy, enterprising, buzzwordy innovation around here.

So, I give you my Vlog!

Or no, rather, I don't. I'm trying to experiment with my camera and feeling more comfortable in front of it. Though I feel comfortable enough with the idea of exposing my face, I can't really speak naturally to that tiny black square in my macbook.
I am not a phenomenal listener, but I do try to work with the feedback that my partner gives me, and adjust accordingly. But when I try making these little videos, I only get my own face and my own words. Monologuing seems to be something I can only do when I should be having a dialog. Ask my poor friends.

I'll try to get it going soon. Just like my restaurant and cafe reviews.

the honorable representative of japan

I picked up a copy of Metropolis (shock!) while I was at TGI Friday's (SHOCK!) last night. I usually just read them at work, but I hadn't seen this one before. Inside is a review of "shutting out the sun", a book about Japan's future that uses hikkikomori as its pivot point. I guess the book runs something like "the japanese individual is broken and hikkikomori is strong evidence".

But despite some ridiculous estimates in the past of a million or more of these young men, it's abundantly clear that they make up a very small percentage of the population, and if wikipedia is believed that they are merely manifesting developmental disabilities differently than similarly afflicted westerners would.

If I might suggest to the goose what he has so amply applied to the gander: there were likely more murder victims in America in 2006 than there are hikkikomori. There are far far more americans currently incarcerated than there are hikkikomori. There are 37000 alumni of
Harvard law school, more than most estimates of hikkokomri numbers.

How reflective of the american individual would a book that centers on murder victims or prisoners or HLS alumni be?

my writing puts my writing to shame.

oh dear.
I just happened upon a folder full of my freshman year philosophy papers. As is the custom, I felt a little nostalgia, and a little embarrassed at my ideologies. I hadn't quite expected to feel ashamed though. Not about my papers, they're pretty good for a freshman, but about my current writing skill. I'm nowhere near the writer I was 8 years ago.
How did that happen? I like to think I'm just rusty from having been lazy so long. Of course my writing skill withered; I've written precisely one essay for anyone's evaluation in the last five years, and that was in Japanese.
I am sort of afraid that this goes a bit deeper than that though. I worry that I'm becoming one of those "used to be smart"-types who slide gradually down until even their present circumstances are overwhelming. It's not for lack of talent (I hope), or even lack of ambition. I just can't seem to find any one topic, idea, field, dream, etc. that seems worth investing myself in. So I dabble. I learn a little about everything and a lot about nothing.
Take today for example. I finished reading Othello (my 3rd Shakespearean tragedy in 2 weeks), and Empire of the Sun, studied a few hundred kanji, read 50 pages or so of another book, and started another two or three projects of differing sizes. I didn't touch my Japanese law books (my avowed discipline of focus), and didn't speak a word of Japanese to anyone including the clerk at the grocery store. That is to say, I made no real progress toward any of my goals, despite having quite a few of them.
I think I'll be turn really effective the moment I have mastered everything I don't really value.

my god isn't false, my god is real.

As many as 90% of Americans stake their eternities on the belief that "the truth" appears more real than lies. In my experience, the opposite is true.

too much of a good thing

A friend of mine from work has the habit of reminding me that I work too much. While he's always been right, I've always had the excuse that I had to get through the debt I stacked up on my way in while putting together my apartment.
On the 28th of this month, his point will become a lot more trenchant, when my disposable income after bills goes up 4 fold.

So what do I do? Actually cut back on working? Or create new needs/wants to take up the slack?

as promised

ふふふ

(I promised you 5, but I only had 4 I liked. Enjoy a pretty advertisement for cellphones)

entrance

entrance, originally uploaded by notnato.

don't ask me to explain the burst of photographic activity, but I'm going to hop a train to takadanobaba and take a couple pictures. I'll post 5 pictures when I get back.

work it

work it, originally uploaded by notnato.

20x20 paper by kokuyo. scribbles and sloppy characters by me.

Kiss me, I did my own taxes.

Look upon my standard tax form, ye mighty, and despair.

I managed to do my taxes all by myself. IN JAPANESE!

I'm not sure, it could be that I'm supposed to be off the hook for the money I lost in the market, but the part on investment returns is a little beyond me. I'll take another look at that part before I fill in the real form, to see if I can't shave off a bit more. As it is, I owe just about 1man. Of course, my local taxes are still on the horizon.

here're some more pictures, this time of Ueno. I think I missed the good photos on this walk. When I passed through Yushima shrine, there was a lady with a monkey making surrounded by a thick semi-circle of old folks and housewives. There were more sakura popping there too.

the further case against dogs.

Dogs can't make a sound that is pleasing. They can't even make a sound that isn't annoying or frightening.

5 recent keitai photos

ai kyan kukku.

After a buttery, buttery weekend, I put my game face back on and returned to the 3 sq. ft, I call my kitchen. And what did I produce but a reasonably edible "gratin"! (I'm used to calling it a "casserole".)


Bechamel sauce + macaroni + cheese + panko + 200 degrees and some time = gratin!

I'd give you a more detailed recipe, but it was all by ear, and honestly, hard to mess up. Would taste better with something more thrown in the mix.

(a loaf of bread, a container of milk and) ONE POUND OF BUTTER

For the last hour or so, my stomach has had a lump of lead the size of a tennis ball in it. The same thing happened last night, but I don't think it's anything to worry about. Rather, I'd say is completely natural.
You see, I've eaten nearly a pound of butter in the last 4 days.

shortbread recipe (not especially tasty) = 280g
kitchiri = 1/4 cup (i didnt measure)
gorgonzola spaghetti (also not so good) = 20g (plus, 120g of cheese and some cream)
sauteed satsuma-imo = more butter.

Whatever the math, 400g of butter have disappeared since Wednesday.

Unsurprisingly, my guts aren't the only ailment. My skin is a little shitty, and my heart stopped back when I was cooking.

end: money discussion

In just a couple days, money won't be such a problem anymore. I intend to shut up about it then, and get on with my life. However, before I grow up about this, I think I'm entitled to one last moan. (moan presented in pink italics)





With my first three paychecks, I have repaid 430,000 in loans. In addition, I've bought a microwave, a rice cooker, curtains, and smaller furnishings for the apartment, and paid 3 months of rent. To accomplish that, I've skipped meals, lost weight, snubbed friends, and performed the same damned calculations in my head a million and five times.

It's been a kind of shitty winter.

Spring is right around the corner.

in defense of librarians

from comedyguy21, in response to the video "librarians are ugly":

"librarians are hot as hell great looking bodys sizes 2 though 8 and just because they are not big in the chest part of themselfs does not mean jack shit shut up you dumb girls who are putting down the library look and open your minds more!! glasses rule on females!"

the blaise pascal says, μ

The internet doesn't agree on this matter, and I can't get a concrete source, but Pascal is said to have quipped:

"All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone."

the breakup song

I assign you an eternal fate. I curse you with the ultimate curse. May it seize you instantly as it leaves my mouth.

Never may you have a home and family, never caress a child of your own. May your man prefer younger prettier girls; may he beat you as a housewife beats a rug. May you never acquire bright alabaster or shining silver the dellight of men. May your roof keep leaking and no carpenter fix it. May wild dogs camp in your bedroom; may owls nest in your attic; may drunkards vomit all over you. May a tavern wall be your place of business. May you be dressed in torn robes and filthy underwear. May angry wives sue you. May thorns and briars make your feet bloody. May young men jeer and the rabble mock you as you walk the streets.

May all this be your reward for seducing me in the wilderness when I was strong and innocent and free.


--enkidu, book 7 of gilgamesh.

huh?

The Number 23 looks like a bad enough movie, but if you can be bothered to watch the trailer to the end, you'll be treated to the little known fact that the hiroshima bomb was dropped on august 15th.
How the hell does that make it through?

(this, by the way is a pretty good trailer)

EDITTO 2/21:
A certain friend of mine makes a good point. I am wrong. "8:15" was the intended "eight fifteen", and is considerably more correct. My apologies.

useful contributor

almost every blog writer has a few moments when they think "why am I writing this blog?"

While I've had a few such moments along the road, I really don't sweat it. I write because I like writing, and because I need the practice. If someone reads and enjoys it, all the better.

all the better... so I'm thinking now, wouldn't it be nice if my blog were actually a little useful to those that stumble onto it? With that in mind, I'm going to try to document some of the recipes I make and the restaurants I go to.


Not much to report today though. I made that same hokkaido-style nabe again, and it was, just like last time really good.

how it feels

This is how it feels to work where I do:

greedy bitches

What I'm about to write, I normally think of as misogynistic, and kind of stupid. So, uh, apologies ahead of time.

They say you can't con an honest man. While I don't really keen to that, the phrase did occur to me as I was watching "damens walker", my first japanese drama in ages. I've only watched the first episode, but that same theme everpresent in japanese media for women recurs. The woman, always searching for "the big one", gets played.
Before I go further, let me make clear what "the big one" means. It is, of course, "the love of one's life", but these men being targeted have one big thing in common. They're freaking ideal. They're young, rich, successful and attractive. There are no social restrictions on that matter in Japan. Women on TV want rich dudes, and rich dudes only; stable, healthy, loving dudes need not apply. (except in that specific genre)
These women are, as per the time honored tradition, mostly trying to finagle these men into long term relationships using sex, or at the bare minimum, calculated overtures toward sex. The men express no special interest in long term situations, but why should they? They're young and succesful. There is absolutely no hurry for them to get involved in a lifelong relationship.
Yet the women, who don't bring the issue up until after sex, expect the man to be on bended knee as soon as they get on their knees. Then when the woman's scheme clearly hasn't worked, she inevitably cries, which again, the man should respond to with a proposal. Should he fail to do so, you can be sure that he will get a comeuppance for daring to have sex. This time, it was a kick to the groin.

Thank god Japanese women aren't much like Japanese TV women.

UPDATE 2/16
actually, by the end of this drama, the women who had spent their time bitching about all the trickery and shortcomings of men realized that they were creating the problems themselves, and that the whole world was a lot more fluid than any stupid set of principles contrary to ones own desires.
They're even so brash as to suggest that for certain women, being paired with a man who incessantly cheats may well be a reasonably happy situation. Though being uncoupled does seem to be undesirable, regardless.

some thinks I'm thoughting.

#1, hell yes. It looks like global warming has come to the rescue, and winter is on it's way out. Please don't expect me to feel this way when the daily high is 20 degrees higher in August.

#2, the new visitlondon campaign is the ugliest I've encountered. Living in tokyo, I've been subject to a train full of adds for zippers, for hamburgers, for temporary agencies, for tongue brushes, and on and on. The Yamanote line sell the advertising space for an entire train pretty often, so I've been the victim of advertising overload on plenty of occasions.
It wasn't until today though that I really disliked any of the ads. These visit london ads are UGLY. I don't know why, but there's something really repulsive about them, to the point that I think I'll just let the train pass next time if it's the awful blue bunny train.
Aside from bad photography of boring people in half-assed bunny getups, there's something really strange about the ads. Of the 16 or so portraits of "london people" on the train, all 16 are white people.

#3, greedy bitches. I decided to make this one a whole entry.

what I ate today

mcdonalds pancakes
a mehrkornbroetchen from andersen
two (rather large) onigiri from that place right by the akiba yodobashi
--(one okaka and cheese, one yaki-tarako)

a mcdonalds "3 corner choco pie"
my leftover hokkaido nabe from last night with a serving of ramen noodles thrown on top.

I also drank two cups of milk tea at home, and a can of that super sweet milk tea from a vending machine.


recipe for hokkaido nabe:

4 potatoes
1/4 kabocha
2cloves garlic
2-3 eringi
~ ingen, kanikamaboko, canned corn
3.5c soup
2.5c milk
1T white miso
10g butter
pinch salt/pepper

peel, cut potatoes bite size, cut everything else bitesize too...
cut ingen in halves. throw the soup and veggies (minus corn) in a
nabe, turn on the heat
add the milk, bring to a boil, removing the foam as is comes.
boil until stuff is soft.
add corn, kani, miso, boil a little longer
add the butter and seasonings, eat.
(the remaining broth is good for ramen)

contra-debito

boing boing gave debito another little fame boost. There are three kinds of people who know about debito. People outside of Japan who for some reason or another have researched Japan a little; people inside Japan who incessantly find fault with this place for not being American enough; and people in Japan who'd rather he disappeared.

Fans of this blog will quickly deduce that I'd rather he disappeared. To wit, I've done a lot of thinking on my own about how to make Japan a better place. I'm no genius, but no matter how long a list I come up with, "bang on the doors of the brothels until they let US in" just doesn't figure. While debito does some worthwhile work, the high profile stuff is petty, and counter productive.
In his on going segment, he goes to hostess bars and badgers the owners about the idea of "Japanese only" because he has a Japanese Passport, nyah nyah. Think of how many people in his circumstance who are suffering the interminable pain of not being welcomed in certain establishments. White + well-situated + fluent-speaker + Japanese citizen + interested in going to hostess bars... there must be close to a dozen!
But does it do any good for the rest of the foreign population of Japan, who are predominantly east asian, usually aren't so well situated, aren't fluent speakers, are in much more tenuous positions as regards their visa, and don't have the money, or self-obsession that it takes to have fun at a hostess club?
If you presume that these places have had or heard tell of bad experiences with foreign customers (since they're mostly in US military towns, or ports that see a lot of russian sailors, that's not hard to believe), you can understand their situation, even if you don't sympathize. They have hundreds of Japanese customers, and they all know the rules, and play by them, or break them within understood boundaries. One fluent, but pushy guy comes along and gives a sermon and some legal threats and forces his way into the club, and badgers the owner into taking the sign down. Now everything is hunkydory for the next brash russian sailor who doesn't know the rules, right?

If debito wins his war, what will Japan look like? I can't believe he expects to see all of god's children holding hands and singing kum ba yah. Either:
a. nothing changes, and Japan stays the best place ever.
b. the signs come down, and shopkeepers secretly dread the day that a gaijin comes to their shop, knowing that they're potentially at risk of a wrecked club or a lawsuit.
c. (this one is pure hysteria) the signs come down, and along with them, the reasonable assumption that your customers understand how your traditional business
works. clubs of all kinds march in lockstep down the path of strict legalese, and all the ambiguity that makes life fun is replaces with signed waivers at the entrance.

that was me

it turns out that was also what I look like when a nasty virus is building stem inside me, preparing to leave me bedridden for 2 days.

this is me

this is what I look like when I've just finished reading the longest book I've ever read. It's what I look like when that book was in Japanese, and was by turns convoluted, boring and depressing. It's what I look like when I am thinking about my initials being intentionally selected as NAM to match the first syllable of nam myoho renge kyou, and about how Japan was related to my father's dreams in 1979 and how it's related to my dreams today.

It's how I look when I know the first and hardest chapter of my time in Tokyo is over, and when I'm starting to feel proud of myself.

3 possibilities

about this sentence:

例えばデータを機器間で移動するには、CPUや画像処理チップの高い処理能力が前提になる。
"For example, to transfer data between computers, a powerful CPU and graphics chip are a must."

either,
1: my japanese and my dictionary are misleading me
or
2: my understanding of computer networking is fundamentally flawed
or
3: yomiuri's computer people really don't know shit.

Growing up poor is spending the rest of your life trying to escape (and never realizing that you have).