Kev-Views

Bullet Points

2008-03-20T17:53:00.000-07:00

Comic Book Review

The alternate reality tales of DC and Marvel, under the umbrella titles of Elseworlds and What If…? respectively, are such a cool idea that, even though their hit-to-miss ratio is not particularly good, I have always been inexorably drawn to them. I just can’t help but want to know what it would have been like if Superman had grown up in Soviet Russia or how the Marvel universe would have been altered if Wolverine had become the lord of the vampires. On the other hand, the Fantastic Four developing in soviet Russia and Batman becoming lord of the vampires were considerably less compelling stories, but I figured they were worth a shot. So, when the new series Bullet Points promised to take a serious look at how a small change in history could have affected the whole world, I sat up and took notice, not realizing that it wouldn’t be a re-imagining so much as a reshuffling.

While not technically a What If…? book, Bullet Points nonetheless can be summed up in one of their traditional titles: “What If There Had Been No Captain America?" In the original continuity, the doctor who developed the super soldier serum responsible for turning scrawny Steve Rogers into the Sentinel of Liberty (is it obvious I’ve read a lot of comics?) is gunned down only moments after the transformation has been completed, taking the secret of the serum to the grave with him. Writer J. Michael Straczynski (of whom I am normally a fan) posits that, if said scientist had been killed just 24 hours earlier then the world would have turned out quite differently, and I’m sure he’s right. Rogers never would have become Captain America, and that would have surely lead to any number of events playing out completely differently, especially when you consider what an effect Cap had on the Avengers later on.

But the problem is that we don’t see characters who would have become super heroes leading a normal life instead, or totally new people picking up the mantle in their place, or whole new heroes coming into being to fill the void. Instead, everyone just swaps places. Since he can’t be Captain America, Steve Rogers becomes Iron Man (in a suit that, despite having not been designed by Tony Stark, nonetheless looks exactly like the one designed by Tony Stark). When the aforementioned scientist is gunned down, Peter Parker’s uncle Ben is also killed by the bullet, leaving him to grow up without that influence. So he doesn’t become Spider-Man, he becomes… the Hulk? Yes, everyone just trades off. Reed Richards takes Nick Fury’s place, Bruce Banner becomes Spider-Man (again in the exact same costume, even though Peter had nothing to do with it), Stephen Strange becomes Wolverine (or not, because later we see that Wolverine is Wolverine and Strange is really only mentioned in one page, making it completely pointless in addition to being a dumb idea) and all the other characters stay exactly the same because we just couldn’t be bothered to deal with them. In the end Galactus shows up and the only vaguely interesting point on the five issue series ensues when a world with no Fantastic Four must find a way to stop their planet from being devoured. Good old Galactus. You can always count on him to spruce up a sagging storyline.

While this could all be considered kind of a cute idea, the fact that it spanned well over 100 pages makes it drag badly, and helps to highlight the ridiculousness of it all. Perhaps if it had been condensed into a single issue, the rapid pace would have served to alleviate some of my eye-rolling. Maybe they could have done it as, oh, I don’t know, an issue of What If…??

Suitable for kids?: Yeah, sure, but I’m not sure the art will appeal to them. Or, you know, the story either.

Rating: 2/5

Speed Racer

2008-03-18T18:08:00.000-07:00

Speed Racer

Comic Book Review

Just to get this out in the open, I was never really a fan of Speed Racer. Even as a little kid the cartoon seemed shrill and stupid and boring to me. I tried to get into it a little later on when I started discovering Japanese animation, thinking that I might have a new perspective, but it still just came across as annoying. And yet, it falls into this odd category of things that I kind of feel like I should be a fan of, because the people out there who populate the Speed Racer fan community tend to share a lot of other interests with me. It’s a show that gets mentioned a lot whenever people of my generation talk fondly of the TV from their childhood and I've always had the feeling that I was missing out on something. It's just that the something is not Speed Racer but an ability to enjoy it.

So, when I saw that the Wachowski brothers were making a fancy, new movie based on the franchise, and the rumors of a new cartoon began circulating, I actually got excited despite the fact that I am far from being a fan. Perhaps they would put some kind of new spin on it or an updating that would allow me to get a foothold and finally connect with this elusive series that, despite being completely idiotic, has managed to haunt me my whole life. And then, to make things even better, I learned that IDW was releasing a new Speed Racer comic book. What could be better? The bad dubbing and non-existent lip-synching wouldn’t be an issue anymore! And I had read the company’s take on Transformers (a cartoon I thoroughly enjoyed as a child) and, although not a big fan of the art (and this still holds true for the Speed Racer book), I really enjoyed it. So, this seemed like maybe it would work out.

Unfortunately I found myself, like always, wondering just why, exactly, anyone enjoys this thing. Writer Arie Kaplan is obviously a big fan of the old cartoon because he manages to write the dialogue in the exact same manner. In other words, it’s awful. At one point Speed's mother points out that Racer X's shoelace is untied (the untied shoe often being a big plot point in great fiction), leading to the line, “It’s funny. My son Rex used to always leave his shoes untied. You sort of remind me of… Naahhhh, it can’t be!” This is not meant to be ironic. She is not kidding. This is what passes for drama in this book.

So, okay, it’s meant to be just like the old cartoon and is aimed squarely at the long-time fans. Maybe it’s just not for me. But then, there’s actually an effort made to add more depth to the story by introducing the fact that our hero is just the latest in a long line of Racers going back throughout history. And there’s a magic amulet! Actually, just half of one. Where’s the other half? The invisible, immortal villain has it! And the only way to learn about him is to read the stories of the different Racers, starting with the chariot driving one. What?!?! A long line of Racers holding half of an amulet? Haven't I seen this somewhere else? Does the amulet have "BFF" written on it and the other half is being held by Speed's long lost twin (played, of course, by Jean-Claude Van Damme)? The whole thing is so ridiculous that it could actually be quite amusing if it were meant as a joke. But it isn't. Which still blows my mind.

So, once again I found myself experiencing Speed Racer and just thinking it was dumb and annoying and wondering why anyone thinks it’s enjoyable. The only upside here being that you can read the comic in less time than it takes to watch an episode of the show, and it never shouts the dialogue at you. Hey, I guess it is an improvement.

Suitable for kids?: There’s nothing in here that you wouldn’t want your kids to see, but really nothing you would want them to see, either.

Rating:2/5

Spectacular Spider-Man

2008-03-15T18:09:00.000-07:00

The Spectacular Spider-Man Animated Series

TV Show Review

Good ol’ Spidey has been on the tube more than once before with mostly positive results. The classic series, Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, and the 90s version all hold fond memories for me, and probably a lot of other people too. The live action series and that weird, motion capture, creepy looking, MTV cartoon on the other hand were less successful. And that's not even getting into the really odd and really bad stuff out there. But, overall, he's had a pretty good run of it, and with the success of the movies it makes sense to launch a new cartoon now. The question then has to be: which version of Spider-Man is this? Will it follow the continuity of the comic books (And if so, will it be the regular Marvel universe or the Ultimate one?) the movies, or something entirely new? Personally, I’m not one of those purists who complain whenever anything deviates from how it happened in the comics. All that matters is that they do something good and interesting.

That being said, I was actually pretty pleased to see that the creators chose to follow the comics. With a series, you have a little more time to maneuver, so some of the plot points that had to be excised from the story in order to keep the movies from reaching ridiculous runtimes can be put back in. This includes Gwen Stacy and Harry Osborn as friends of Peter’s, as well as the old-school (and now new-school) web-shooters as opposed to the organic versions. It also means that Norman and Harry Osborn look more like their comic versions, which was especially nice to see. The first episode picks up with Spider-Man at the end of his initial summer in costume fighting run-of-the-mill criminals and relates his first encounter with an actual super-villain. Skipping the origin story was probably a good idea since anyone interested enough to watch the show is pretty likely to already know how he got his powers. There were a lot of indications as to what villains may be coming up in this episode as well. Perhaps too many, to be honest. Within thirty minutes we were introduced to the Green Goblin, Sandman, Hammerhead, the Enforcers, the Lizard, Venom, and the Vulture, or at least the characters that will eventually become them. That’s an awful lot for one short story and it felt a bit cramped, but by the second episode they had fallen back on the tried and true villain-of-the-week formula and everything seemed to have settled down.

Overall, I rather enjoyed these two episodes once the generally awful theme song was over (it's not catchy until the very end and is just a little too hipster for me). The redesigns for the Vulture and the Enforcers were nice, while Electro was all right (his weird energy tubes are unnecessary and look like someone was trying to pimp their super-villain). The animation is surprisingly active and fluid in an age obsessed with aping the anime style, and for the most part the character designs were very clean-cut and looked good. The one, very unfortunate, exception to this being Peter Parker himself. In a cartoon featuring a few characters with large, lifeless eyes, his were the most lifeless, and the weird notch in his nose was distracting throughout the show. Pretty much every other character in the show looked fine, and the friendly, rounded design they made for Spider-Man works really well, even if his web-swinging occasionally makes no sense with regards to movement through a three dimensional space. There may have been no mention of Peter ever running out of web fluid (leaving one to wonder why they bothered to confuse a whole generation of kids who are trying to figure out what those weird bracelets Peter’s wearing are all about), and I’m not sure what they plan to do with Gwen Stacy (meaning they can’t kill her on a kid’s show, so why not just put Mary Jane in there instead?) but as a long-time fan of the comics I appreciate these points and am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt after this debut. The show will be written in arcs of four episodes each, with just a small amount of continuity connecting them, allowing for certain villains to be built up over time instead of simply given the single episode treatment. All in all, the whole thing is pretty promising.

But seriously, Eddie Brock as a friend of Peter’s? That’s totally not what happened in the comic books.

Suitable for kids?: Absolutely. Good wholesome fun for the whole family.

Rating: 4/5

Spider-Man: One More Day

2008-03-12T19:01:00.000-07:00

Spider-Man: One More Day

Comic Book Review

The writers handling Spider-Man, Superman, Batman, and other long-time comic book heroes that have become part of popular culture face a pretty daunting challenge: to keep the books fresh and moving forward, while also keeping those characters relatively unchanged so that new readers can identify them with what they have heard of or seen in movies. This has to be tough because, how do you allow a character to grow and change in order to remain relevant and interesting, while also making sure that they are still the person people remember from the cartoons they saw when they were a kid? Well, one of the tried and true tricks of the trade (There’s some carefully constructed, comic book-like alliteration for you!) is the reboot. This is where you allow a character to go through any number of changes over the course of months or years, and then use some device to set everything back to the way it was. Usually it comes off as hackneyed as it sounds and leaves the readers feeling cheated now that all the books they’ve bought, read, and collected for however long no longer matter or even really happened. But when it's done properly it can be a greatly entertaining story on its own while also leaving the audience with a sense of homecoming as their beloved hero is returned to their glory days.

Over the last couple of years, Spider-Man has gone through far more changes than most people are likely to be aware of. Did you know that it turns out there is some kind of spider god, and Peter is simply the latest in a long line of champions chosen by it? And that there’s also a wasp god with champions who are the spider’s sworn enemies? And that Peter was beaten to a pulp and had his eye ripped out, before actually dying? And then he chose to be reborn at the cost of part of his humanity, ripped out of his skin, made a cocoon, and finally reemerged with a more powerful Spider-Sense, organic webshooters (a la the films), and a couple of bone stinger things that pop out of his wrists in times of great peril like some sort of second-rate Wolverine? Did you know that a villain burned down Aunt May’s house so that she, Peter, and Mary Jane are all forced to live in Avengers tower, since Peter is a member of that august body? And that during the recent Civil War event he revealed his true identity to the whole world?

Yeah. I didn’t think so. And while all of that (primarily the work of writer J. Michael Straczynski) made for some great stories and fun reading, there was always a voice in the back of my head saying, “Uhh, this is enjoyable, but he’s going to put it all back right?” I like my characters to grow as much as the next guy, but spider gods and bone stingers? It’s good for a while, as long as you can get everything back in the box when you’re done.

And this is where One More Day comes in. After a super-villain uses the knowledge of Peter's identity to have a hit put on him, it's Aunt May that actually takes the bullet and whose life hangs in the balance. He desperately tries to find a way to save her life, but in the end there's only one way it can be done and that’s going to require a great sacrifice, one that will completely change his world and (conveniently) change the Spider-Man comics in a big way (i.e. rebooting them). I don’t want to give too much away here, so I’ll just say that all the pieces fit together pretty well. The offer will make sense to those who have followed the books for years, as well as newcomers, and everything is handled with care. At no point will you be under any illusions that this is anything other than what it is: a means to an end. But that being said, the end is something familiar and comforting, yet still exciting because it’s been such a long time since things stood where they do after all the dust settles. Straczynski had a great, long run and it’s really kind of a shame that he basically had to undo everything he’s done over the past few years and essentially turn it all into a dream sequence. But, if you’re going to do something like that, you have to go all the way, and One More Day does just that.

Suitable for kids?: Yeah, if they're old enough to understand it they’re old enough to read it. The emotional impact that long-time readers might have will be lost on them, but when’s the last time something wasn’t wasted on kids?

Rating: 4/5

Old Heroes, New Tales

2008-03-11T17:51:00.000-07:00

Hello, and welcome to my first themed week here on Kev-Views. Basically, every once in a while I intend to do a week where all three reviews are connected either by theme or actually by subject material. It might be three movies from the same director, three albums from the same band, or just three things that feature the same word in the title. Whatever the case, it will happen at completely irregular intervals, and the first one is upon us!

This week will be three new takes on old heroes. The first two will be Spider-Man (with a rebooted comic and a brand-new cartoon) and the last one will be Speed Racer (with a brand-new comic). Maybe it’s a tenuous relation (okay, definitely tenuous) but it’s just the first. And if you’ve got any ideas about other themes you’d like to see, drop me a comment!

See you tomorrow with the review of Spider-Man: One More Day!

Chatterbox Video Game Radio

2008-03-07T17:26:00.000-08:00

Chatterbox Video Game Radio

Podcast Review

Doing a weekly, hour-long, talk-radio show devoted entirely to video games may sound like a tall order. But I'm sure that each and every week the companies that make the games release enough information, news, and PR materials that, combined with reviews of the new software actually coming out, you would have no trouble filling that hour. This, as far as I can tell, is what the vast majority of video game-related podcasts do. They gather together the latest news, undoubtedly culled from a few (or, possibly, just one) websites devoted to gaming news, throw it together with some music, and toss in an opinion on whatever games they can afford to buy. What makes Chatterbox stand out, is that they don’t do any of this.

That’s not to say that they don’t report on news, but that reading off the headlines and reiterating whatever you could have found out yourself (if you had simply bothered to visit the websites they keep telling you they go to) is not a feature of the show. And while you may also hear what they think about a game, be it new or old, reviews are also not something they focus on. Instead, the show tries to be something entirely new: an actual talk radio show devoted to discussing video games. Each week the host, Alon Waisman, and co-host Ara Shirinian (along with regular guest/intern/guy who laughs at all of the jokes, Rich Crawford) discuss topics concerning video games such as industry trends, societal effects, and how the format fits into our current concepts about art and entertainment. Rather than being just another cog in the wheel that is the industry's attempt to sell us all as many games as they can, Chatterbox tries to actually discuss that wheel, and thereby elevate this relatively new media to where it can be considered alongside others like film and literature.

The problem is that they tend to only get halfway there. Because the show is actually broadcast on terrestrial AM radio they have to take regular commercial breaks. So it happens pretty often that, just as an issue has been explained sufficiently and a real discussion is being broached, a commercial break interrupts and the momentum is lost. The best talk radio hosts (whether they are sane or not) are masters of picking back up after the break with a quick recap and reminder, and then plowing ahead as if nothing had happened. But the relative inexperience of Mr. Waisman and crew shows through each week as they flitter from topic to topic, hardly ever reaching something even resembling a satisfying conclusion. Interesting ideas, arguments, and theses are reliably raised every week, only to flounder and die when the (admittedly awesome) bumper music kicks in. Believe me, I really want to rate this show a four out of five, and I honestly believe that one day I'll have to revisit this review and change it. And I will, once the Chatterboxers learn to revisit their discussion topics.

Suitable for kids?: Ara’s regular (joking?) drug references, a habit of using abbreviations for curse words, and frank discussions of sex and violence will probably make a lot of parents balk at kids younger than high school age listening to it.

Rating: 3/5

Don't Get Too Comfortable

2008-03-05T17:41:00.000-08:00

Don’t Get Too Comfortable: The Indignities of Coach Class, the Torments of Low Thread Count, the Never-Ending Quest for Artisanal Olive Oil, and Other First World Problems

By David Rakoff

Book Review

I always kind of dread the moment when someone will see me reading a book and ask what it’s about. Asking me if the book is any good is perfectly fine, but if you want me to sum it up in a sentence or two I’m probably going to be hesitant. Sure, there are plenty of bits of fluff out there, and I read them from time to time, that can be explained in just a couple of words like “murder mystery” or “legal thriller”, and that really tells you all you need to know about that particular novel. But with the good stuff, the books that are really worth reading and talking about, describing the crux of the plot can be a bit more daunting and great pieces of writing can get boiled down to “It’s about a family. And stuff.” When people asked me what Don't Get Too Comfortable was about, it was even harder because the book is not a novel but rather a collection of essays that are sort of loosely tied together by their theme. So, I usually said, "Middle class America." Which is only kind of true.

Let me say, before I get into this, that the book is a great read. Rakoff is an excellent writer whose breezy style is very easy to fly right through while actually feeling like you’re reading something a bit intellectual. It’s not often you find a book that gives you the sensation of real literature, while also feeling like a bit of light reading. You might find yourself hitting the dictionary a few times (or, more realistically, just skipping past words you don’t know) but it never becomes anything resembling a slog through pages and pages of, say, The Scarlet Letter. However, it's this very breeziness that works against the book on a certain level.

Purportedly, all of the essays here are dealing with the idea that those of us in the middle and upper classes have reached a point where we yearn for a simpler, more austere life that in many ways is something of a bizarre, almost perverse reflection of how lower class people live. This paragraph from pages 28-29 (of the hardback edition) sums it up nicely:

It’s nice to have nice things. Creature comfort is not some bourgeois capitalist construction, but framing it as a moral virtue sure is. It’s what the French call Nostalgie de la Boue: a fond yearning for the mud. Two things have to be in place to really appreciate this particular brand of gluttony posing as asceticism. First, you have to have endured years and years of plenty, the mud a long-distant, nearly forgotten memory. One must have decades of such surfeit under your belt that you have been fortunate enough to grow sick of it all. …And second- and this is what really separates the men from the boys- in order to maintain a life free of clutter and suitable for a sacred space, you’ll need another room to hide your shit.

Sounds like a great point that would make for a great book, right? And it is, in those instances when that’s what the essays are about. And the essays are all great even when they stray from this point. The only problem here is that every once in a while you get reminded, while enjoying some great writing about a trip to Brazil or a meeting with the Log Cabin Republicans, that there’s supposed to be an overarching theme working here when you had pretty well forgotten about it for the past 50 pages or so.

I can absolutely recommend Don’t Get Too Comfortable because it's a fantastic read and you will undoubtedly enjoy it as much as I did. It's just a shame that the central point he seems to be making never gets made, or even focused on, for any length of time. If it hadn’t been there, I think I would have liked the book even more, but the feeling of getting cheated out of a thorough argument brought it down just a little bit for me.

Suitable for kids?: There’s a bit of cursing, as you may have noticed above, and the author is very open about his homosexuality, but overall the concern here is not if it's okay for your kid to read it but whether they're mature enough to get anything out of it. I would say wait until high school when the teenage angst kicks in.

Rating: 4/5

Vantage Point

2008-03-01T09:58:00.000-08:00

Vantage Point (2008)

Movie Review

The classic Japanese film Rashomon tells the tale of a murder from four very different perspectives, all of which contradict each other at various times. The movie makes the point that in any given situation, the absolute truth can be nigh impossible to ascertain because every person sees events in such a different way. Vantage Point claims to be doing something similar but seems to have gotten confused along the way and decided that, actually, everyone's perspective would be the same if they were just standing in the same spot. Whereas key plot points might be altered or out of sequence in Rashomon, with Vantage Point it’s more a matter of looking a different direction from someone else.

The movie centers around an apparent attempt on the President of the United States' life and proceeds to show the same twenty minutes or so from six different points of view. The first is a news producer, then we have a secret service agent, a local police officer, a tourist, the president himself, and finally the bad guys (who get conflated into one extended portion that wraps everything up). But rather than have any substantial differences in the way these different people see things, it’s all about what new pieces they can bring to the puzzle, and those pieces are doled out by the movie excruciatingly slowly. While a character may see something absolutely crucial to the plot, the audience isn’t shown what it is (just that person saying something to let us know it’s important, like “Oh my God!” or something clever like that) until later when the plot point is revealed in a different perspective. Vantage Point has nothing to say about the differences in the way people experience the world, but is, instead, basically a simple mystery to be pieced together. Unfortunately, the filmmakers don't play fair and allow the audience to piece the mystery together themselves except for one big twist that is revealed near the end and is also, sadly, ridiculously obvious almost from the very beginning. Great. So now we have a mystery that we’re not allowed to solve save for one small portion that is a giveaway all along. Any other problems?

Yeah, actually. See, by repeating the events six times the movie eventually gets really boring because we've seen most of this before. I suppose it could be more interesting to watch these things over and over if they were any good the first time, but the cookie-cutter characters don’t have a lot going for them. That’s kind of understandable since we essentially only have 20 minutes to get to know them all, but it doesn’t make it feel any better. The paper-thin plot groans under the weight of repeated viewing anyhow, but when the plight of a small girl gets laid on top of it, I couldn’t help but groan a little myself. On top of that, whatever species this movie is about, it sure isn't human beings. These guys take far more physical abuse than we ever could. Nearly all of the main characters are in close proximity to a large explosion, but it does little more than knock them down. One guy takes a gut shot but that results in just a bit of wincing. Another guy gets hit by a car, twice, and it hardly breaks his stride. And finally one of them is in a car that gets sandwiched between a semi truck and a brick wall and he just crawls out and runs off. And yet, none of them are wearing the tell-tale glasses of a superhuman…

The movie finally wraps up with a big, long, drawn-out car chase that just gets tiring and is really just a collection of grimacing faces and fancy editing. Believe me, there are better car chases out there if that’s what you’re after. And finally, the go nowhere plot is conveniently wrapped up, the two-dimensional hero saves the day, the bland, unconvincing bad guys whose goal was, I think, everlasting war are defeated handily and the traitor (Oh, um, spoiler alert I guess. I mean, if you’ve never seen a movie ever, it might surprise you that there is a traitor involved.) is taken care of. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief and goes off to watch something else.

Rated: PG-13

Suitable for kids?: No nudity or sex, a lot of people get shot but nothing particularly graphic, and some bad language but not a whole lot. Let’s say yes, but definitely no one under the age of 10 or anyone with a shred of taste.

Anything after the credits: Not a thing.

Rating: 2/5

Chocolate Mix Skittles

2008-02-28T14:09:00.000-08:00

Chocolate Mix Skittles

Food Review

I’ll admit that the whole idea of reviewing food, or even specifically candy, isn’t one I thought up on my own. That being said, it sounded like fun so who cares where I may or may not have ripped it off from.

As for Skittles in particular, it seems to me that there are three basic ways to eat them. The first is to separate the flavors and eat them one at a time, savoring and enjoying that particular fruit simulation by itself. The second, and probably the most common, is to simply grab a mix at random and see what it tastes like all jumbled together. The third and final, and I'll admit that I never do this, is what I call the Jelly Belly method where one tries specific combinations of the different flavors in an effort to discover some amazing, new taste sensation. I can't be bothered to do that with Jelly Bellys (Jelly Bellies?) even when they supply you with little recipes, so you can rest assured that it won’t be happening with the Skittles.

So, Chocolate Mix Skittles seem like an odd proposition to me from the very get-go. When I’m in the mood to eat Skittles, I’m probably in the mood for fruity flavors and not chocolate. And when I’m in the mood for chocolate, Skittle is not likely to be the first thing that pops into my mind. Still, I'll try anything once.

The bag informs us that this mix is made up of five flavors, which I will now review separately:

S’mores – This should include the flavors of chocolate, graham cracker, and marshmallow. Instead, it kind of tastes like a Tootsie Roll. I’m not getting anything here that makes me think of S’mores. It’s not bad, if you like Tootsie Rolls (And hey, really, who doesn’t?), but , for some reason, I was surprised by the hard candy aspect even though I know what Skittles are like. I had chocolate in mind and my brain just expected it to be chewy. Rating: 2/5

Vanilla – How is that a chocolate flavor? Vanilla? Isn't that, like, the antithesis of chocolate? Aren’t they sworn enemies on the battlefields of sweet flavors? Seems like a stretch to me for this to be in a Chocolate Mix. The taste is all right. Kind of a vanilla/cheesecake flavor that is actually pretty enjoyable and definitely a step up from the Tootsie Roll rip-off of the S’mores candies. Rating 4/5

Chocolate Caramel – Is this supposed to be chocolate and caramel mixed together or some kind of chocolate flavored caramel? And wouldn’t that just be chocolate syrup? Should I be expecting caramel flavor or not? Whatever the deal is, my bag has far more of this flavor than any other. Could this be the filler of the Chocolate Mix Skittles? Perhaps. And considering these also taste like Tootsie Rolls, I can see why. There's some sort of not-quite-Tootsie-Roll aftertaste, but not enough to make it worth talking about. Rating: 2/5

Chocolate Pudding – From the filler to the rarity. I only have a measly six Chocolate Pudding Skittles in my bag, and their color is annoyingly close to that of the Brownie Batter, making the two hard to differentiate. I’ll have to be careful not to eat too many because I need to save some for the final mix. Maybe it won't matter though, because Chocolate Pudding doesn’t seem like a very distinct flavor. Doesn’t it just taste like chocolate? Almost, but not quite. These actually taste like a Jell-O Pudding Pop (Anyone else hear Bill Cosby in their head every time the words “pudding” and “pop” come up?) which isn’t bad, and as least it isn’t another Tootsie Roll retread. Rating 3/5

Brownie Batter – Not actual brownies mind you. This is the batter. These Skittles will not be recreating the flavor of brownies that have been baked, but rather that goopy mix you put into the oven that will eventually become brownies. Again, there aren’t a lot of them here; I only got seven. And again it’s annoying that they look so much like Chocolate Pudding. Shockingly, they actually do taste kind of like brownies. Or brownie batter. Or both. But it’s definitely there. Unfortunately, it’s not that great. Rating 2/5

And now, I will take two of each flavor, mix them together, and find out what a sampling of everything tastes like together. My prediction is: Tootsie Roll. We shall see.

And I was mostly right. It tastes like some Tootsie Rolls with something else mixed in, like maybe one of those vanilla-flavored Tootsie Rolls you only see at Halloween. Overall it’s pretty enjoyable, but I can’t shake the feeling that I'd be better off just eating Tootsie Rolls to start with. And it is a little sad that the best flavor in a Chocolate Mix is vanilla. Candy aficionados (if they exist) will want to try these, but as for everyone else, you're not really missing anything.

Suitable for kids?: At 230 calories and 2.5 grams of Saturated Fat per bag (which is one serving) I wouldn’t give them a whole package. Also, once they get all hopped up on the sugar, just don’t bring them around me.

Rating: 2/5

Knight Rider

2008-02-22T18:24:00.000-08:00

Knight Rider (2008)

TV Review

Damn you Battlestar Galactica! For years it was pretty well understood that remaking an old TV show was just going to produce garbage. Sure, there were a couple of success stories, but for the most part trying to recapture the magic by bringing back an old favorite was just a disaster.

Then, to the shock of pretty well everyone everywhere, the new Battlestar Galactica show turned out to be good. Really good. And the eyebrows of television executives everywhere shot straight up. Why, just thinking about all the other old shows they could bring back probably sent some of them home with a new-found spring in their step. There isn’t a need to come up with a concept or to figure out how to promote the show and let people know what it’s about. Because everyone already knows what it is! It’s brilliant! Or… it would be if the shows were any good.

The new Knight Rider is just the latest in a string of programs proving that, whatever it was the minds behind BSG did, it isn’t easy to duplicate. The first five minutes of the premiere two-hour event (something that usually translates into “a little too much to squeeze into one hour, and not nearly enough to stretch out to two hours, but watch us do it anyhow”) show some promise. There’s some action, some interrogation, and the car is awesome. Then the credits come along and things just head downhill for an hour and fifty-five more minutes. It's not just that the show is clichéd, it's that it's full of old clichés. Some villains want to get something that will start a war and make them money. There’s the hero and the girl. She’s the beautiful and brilliant daughter of a scientist. They dated, but, you know, they're from different worlds. He never called. But now, hey, they're together again and that 60 second conversation pretty well worked out all the problems they had, so let's all work together and have a will they/won’t they thing until this gets mercifully canceled. Also, there was some fast driving.

And, that’s pretty much what you got out of the whole two hours. Now they can set up the villain of the week format and get down to the business of doing exactly what the old Knight Rider did but with a less charming lead and much better shows to compare it to. Is it possible for a show to have jumped the shark years before it even begins airing? At the end of the movie when David Hasselhoff made his brief appearance, it didn’t leave me thinking, “Yes! What an awesome way to end this!” but rather, “Now, that’s the show I'd rather be watching.”

Suitable for kids?: Yeah, from about age 10 and up. There’s not enough sexual innuendo or tension to be an issue (or to be interesting), and very little violence.

Rating: 2/5

Yeasayer - All Hour Cymbals

2008-02-21T10:13:00.000-08:00

Yeasayer – All Hour Cymbals

Music Review

The debut album from the band Yeasayer isn’t necessarily one that’s going to reach out and grab you right off the bat. Instead, you are more likely to find yourself humming a short refrain or repeating a couple of melodic lyrics and wondering where it came from. The music can seem almost overwhelming at moments, but is actually comprised of many simple parts all layered into a rich whole. The members use a lot of Eastern sounds, specifically reminiscent of Indian music, along with multiple vocal tracks and a dash of indie rock sensibilities. The result is something resembling a Bollywood soundtrack, a drum circle, Built to Spill, and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Undoubtedly the strongest track on the album, “2080” may make a good litmus test for anyone unsure if that sounds like something they might enjoy. And that’s understandable. It’s a mixture of sounds that could fall apart at any stage of production. If the vocalists weren’t all good singers, if the percussionists weren’t solid, if the levels weren't mixed down just perfectly then any of the songs could quickly become grating, but track after track comes together nicely. They might not all get stuck in your head, but the worst thing you can say about any given song on All Hour Cymbals is that it’s a really nice song. For the best tracks, they've created songs that combine a sense of ancient history with new sounds.

Recommended tracks: Again, “2080” is the best song on the album. If you don’t like it, you likely won’t care for anything else here. "Sunrise" is another great track which allows the music to come more to the forefront. These two together represent the basic sounds of the album and, unsurprisingly, were the two chosen to be on the first single. “Wintertime” dips closer to the indie rock sounds, “Forgiveness” plays heavily with the chanting aspects, and the album comes to a nice close with “Red Cave”, which sums up what the group is doing very well.

Suitable for kids?: Sure. The music tends more towards calming and there was no noticeable cursing. Probably better for kids than pretty much anything on the radio actually.

Rating: 4/5

Welcome to the Captain

2008-02-11T16:05:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the Captain
CBS, Mondays at 8:30 EST

TV Show Review

Raquel Welch still looks great, and Jeffrey Tambor always brings charm and great timing to whatever he works on.

And, yep, I think that’s all of the nice stuff I have to say about the new sitcom, Welcome to the Captain. Maybe if the whole show were about Welch and Tambor's characters it would be enjoyable, but it isn't. He's in it only intermittently, and she makes two very small appearances that left me with the impression she might not even be featured in every episode. Instead, the show focuses on Josh Flug, played by Fran Kranz who you'll recognize from... Oh yeah, nowhere. It's nice to see that one guy from American Pie who never did anything else finally getting more work as the buddy who convinces Flug (Is that name supposed to be funny?) to stay in L.A. instead of returning to New York. I guess. And apparently the hopeful future love interest is also on Reba, so you just know she can bring the funny.

Ahem.

When I saw this show was starting up now, I wondered if it had been sitting around since before the writers’ strike started, or if it were simply not written by writers. After watching it, I’m guessing it was written by a couple of unpaid interns circa 1998. Like I said, Tambor is always good when he has something to work with. But here his funniest line is, after mentioning that he used to write for Three’s Company, saying, “Yeah, yeah, I was a writer on T-CO.” Ha. He called Three’s Company “T-CO”. That's a... good one? Oh, and the guy working the front desk of the apartment building is named Jesus, but he pronounces it like the son of God instead of the way you would normally expect a Hispanic person to. Kind of like in The Big Lebowski except without all of the stuff that made that funny. Oh, and we already have The Big Lebowski. So this is like someone saying, "You like Turkey and mayo sandwiches? Well, I made one with just mayo! Isn't that great?" No. No, it isn’t.

I don’t know what else to say. This show isn’t funny. Ever. And there’s not even the promise of future funny. Some people might say that it’s unfair to judge the show based solely on the pilot, but honestly that’s how the networks do it and there are plenty of shows whose first episodes weren't that funny, but at least showed how the series could be funny. This one just makes me want to watch something else.

Suitable for kids: Not really. Too much sexual innuendo. That being said, it’s not really suitable for human consumption at all.

Rating: 1/5

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

2008-02-09T14:21:00.000-08:00

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

By Michael Chabon

Book Review

As I read through this book, I kept wondering if I my lifelong love of comic books was simply adding another level to my enjoyment of it, or if it was actually the main reason I was appreciating it. Would someone who hadn't grown up obsessing over superhero exploits past and present still find this novel such a joy? Or would they simply wonder why the author kept muddling his narrative with all of this talk about silly stories of grown men in their underwear? The "Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction” blurb on the cover reassured me to some extent, but experience with movies has taught me that award-winning doesn't necessarily mean good.

However, when all is said and done, I think this story really speaks to something that anyone can relate to. You might connect a little more strongly to the main characters if you are a comic book fan, but you might connect even stronger if you are Jewish, or any minority, or a dreamer, or someone who has been in war or been close to someone who was in war, or if you lived in New York, or any of a hundred other types of people.

The story focuses on two young Jewish boys, one a born-and-bred New Yorker, and the other, his cousin, a refugee from Prague. They become quick friends and find their fortune in the creation of a comic book character called The Escapist during the comic book boom that followed the debut of Superman in the late 30s. But to say that the book is about comic books or about superheroes would be ridiculous. It's about the lives of these two men and the routes that they end up taking through them as World War II, along with any number of other events, comes about. It touches on the disenfranchisement felt by immigrants, the difficulty of being a homosexual during that period, the beginnings of suburbia, and the wonder of childhood, in addition to being something of a history lesson on the creation and publication of superhero comics.

Chabon is simply a masterful writer. Whenever he begins to build the characters up and give them a hope of real happiness, the reader can tell that something terrible is around the corner. But the true measure of his expertise comes from the fact that you can’t help but get excited for them. You know a catastrophe is looming, yet the desire to see them succeed and be happy, and the hope that it is possible, simply won’t allow you to remain totally cynical. The other thing I feel the need to point out is that Chabon’s use of language is a joy to read. His descriptions and the way everything is structured are English at its best. He could write a novel about American Idol and I’d probably find it a pleasurable read.

So, to wrap it up, you owe it to yourself to read this book no matter who you are. I have nothing bad to say about it. I haven't read a book this good in so long I think I had forgotten that they existed. I almost hesitated to praise the book so heavily because I was concerned that I might have raised expectations too much, but, honestly, I feel confident that the book can take it.

Suitable for kids?: Middle School and up, depending on their reading ability. Younger kids would be too confused by much of the book, and the passages dealing with homosexuality and war, while not at all graphic, may be a bit too adult.

Rating: 5/5

Rambo

2008-02-08T07:29:00.000-08:00

Film Review

The awesomeness of any given scene in Rambo is inversely proportional to how much dialogue it has. When there’s nothing coming out of the characters’ mouths except for panting and grunting as they run and shoot and fall down, the movie’s action sequences are almost breathtaking. But as soon as the characters start yapping the enjoyment level begins to drop, and in those moments when they begin to expound upon human rights or dignity or religion or anything with any level of importance it just becomes cringeworthy.

Still, no one should be going in to see this with the expectation that they’ll be getting any kind of profound statement on... anything. If you're like me then you simply want some well-paced action, big explosions, and (I'll admit it) lots of blood and guts. And you’ll get that. Boy, will you ever. Rambo makes The Passion of the Christ look like Jesus Christ Superstar. When the bullets are flying, it's at the top of its game and everything is great. The problem arises from the fact that the bits in between all the killing are just so bad. The obvious plot and poorly written dialogue are to be expected, sure. And the main villain being cartoonishly evil is nothing new either. But did he have to be this cartoonish? A guy who silently watches from his car, while smoking non-stop and wearing reflective sunglasses like something straight out of Smokey and the Bandit? Oh yeah, and he also rapes a young boy. So, now he's a gay, pedophile smoker with state trooper sunglasses. If they'd given him a Russian accent I think they would have hit every villain cliché ever. But even this didn’t actually bother me so much as make me chuckle and roll my eyes.

What did bother me was the underlying racism throughout the movie. Basically, John Rambo has given up on life. He knows atrocities are being committed in Burma, near where he lives, but he doesn’t care about anything. Until a white woman asks him to do something. Then it matters. And when she gets kidnapped, he has to go after her. And when she’s in danger of being sexually assaulted, he kills the guy doing it with his bare hands. In fact, her well-being and sexual purity are of paramount importance to seemingly every person in the movie, good or bad. It's like every single character said, "Yeah, we know that Burmese women and children are being brutally murdered, raped, and who knows what else. But we can't do anything about that. Holy cow, is that a white chick?!?! Well, now some people gotta die!”

Of course, just as this is starting to bother you, some stuff blows up. Real good. And that’s why you’re there, so you’ll be back to enjoying it pretty quickly. You might want to make a donation to a charity for relief in Burma or Darfur afterwards, to help wash the taste out of your mouth, but you'll probably enjoy the trip. I mean, seriously, that stuff blows up REAL GOOD.

Rated: R

Suitable for kids?: No, not at all. Earns every aspect of its “R” rating.

Anything after the credits?: Nope. No reason to stick around.

Rating: 3/5

New Format!!

2008-02-06T14:47:00.000-08:00

Welcome!

Whether you are a newcomer or an old friend, welcome to the beginning of the newest phase of my personal blog. It has been sitting here (in imaginary internet space) not getting used for a long time, so it’s something of a miracle that I even remembered I had it. Basically, I could never be bothered to write anything here because nothing ever really struck me as blog-worthy. Anything happening in my daily life was something I had already told to the people I wanted to know about it.

But I have always wanted to review stuff. Movies, books, comic books, music, TV shows… You name it, I want to tell someone my opinion on it. So, I finally decided that now was the time to just start.

My goal is to get at least three reviews up here every week, but it may go a little slower at first while I get the hang of it and try to get into the swing of writing these regularly. I intend to keep them all to about one page of text or less, so I don’t ramble too much. And just to let you know how my ratings will work, here’s a breakdown:

1/5 – Bad

2/5 – Not Good

3/5 – Good

4/5 – Very Good

5/5 – Great

So, anything with a 1/5 should just be avoided at all costs. Something I give 2/5 to is bad, but it could have been worse. Still, probably not worth your time. 3/5 will probably be the most common rating given out, because it denotes something sort of mediocre. Not great, but not terrible. There are likely things to enjoy in there, but they are obscured by problems throughout the piece. 4/5 is something you should definitely check out when you get the chance. It will be something that I feel very confident suggesting you experience, while 5/5 is not to be missed. There won’t be a lot of these, because frankly there isn’t that much out there that deserves it. But when they come along I’m going to throw them in there and you’ll want to run out and see or read or hear whatever it is as soon as you can.

And that’s the idea. Thanks for dropping by and I hope you come back. Oh, and leave some comments for me, would you? Thanks!

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2007-03-22T18:20:00.001-07:00

Monday's Lunch: Fish... again

2007-02-25T22:47:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I obviously missed Friday's school lunch, but I have a good reason: I didn't have one. See, usually on Fridays I go to the elementary school for the day, with the exception of about an hour spent next door at the kindergarten. So, I eat the elementary's lunch, which as I mentioned before is the same as junior high's. However, every once in a great while, and this past Friday was one of them, I spend the whole day at kindergarten and I have to bring my own lunch. I don't mind so much. It's a shorter day and I like a good sandwich and salad combination once in a while. But, unfortunately, this past Friday was curry and rice day and that's probably my favorite lunch here. It's not just me though; that lunch consistently ranks in the top three (usually number one) during the annual lunch survey held by the School Lunch Center. Liesje did get to eat the curry and was kind enough to send me a photo (taken with her cell phone):And to add insult to injury, they even got ice cream with it. That's what the little blue thing up top is. *Sigh*

Well, since I missed Friday I decided to go ahead and do today's, Monday's, instead. And I'm glad I did since this was a very typical lunch. [And for the record, I forgot my digital camera so these were also taken with my cell phone.]

Yes, this is an excellent example of the standard Japanese school lunch in many different ways. Allow me to go into a bit more detail...

Main Dish: Sanma no Kabayaki (Broiled Pikefish)

Sanma is one of many dishes that I had eaten several times before ever bothering to look it up in my dictionary (usually at the behest of a Japanese person). And when I do, I realize that I haven't got any better an idea what it is than I did before I looked it up. Is a pikefish tasty? Do we even eat them in America? I don't know.

This is probably the only thing we get here, other then the Japanese "omelets", that I actually don't like. Today's was far better than normal because there was a sauce on top and it was a smaller piece than usual. See, another problem with sanma is just the way it's prepared. They tend to chop off the ends of the fish and then cook it as is. So, the skin is still on and the bones are definitely still inside. I usually take the extra time to pick the skin off of the fish myself. I don't consider myself a picky eater, it's just something I prefer. I have seen other teachers do it here as well, but today I was the only one out of nine people who didn't eat the skin. I also usually take some time to pick the bones out, at least the ones I can see. I know they are cooked enough that they have been softened. I've been told this time and again, even by elementary school kids (who eat them with no hesitation). Again, I'm just not a fan of fish bones. Thanks.

But, like I said, today's was better than normal. The skin came off easily and there were very few bones. And since it was a small piece the whole experience was over quickly. I just don't think that's how you should approach your lunch. And the fact they we get this fish at least once a month (usually twice) casts a shadow upon school lunch that cannot be removed.

Side Dish: Kiriboshi Daikon no Nitsuke (Thinly Cut and Dried Daikon Boiled Hard With Soy Sauce)

Every bit as delicious as the name makes it sound. By the way, "boiled hard" doesn't mean that they only boil it a bit so it's still hard. It means that they boil it hard in order to crush its spirit. Yes, let's take some radish (that's essentially what a daikon is), cut it into strips and then boil it with a dash of soy sauce until it's completely limp and flavorless. Let's also take some tofu and fry that, but then boil it as well to remove any life it might have had. And finally, for color, we can boil some carrots in there. Make sure they haven't got any taste in them when they come out!

I actually pulled out a few of the carrot slices and ate them separately, and they still didn't have any flavor. As much as I hate to say it, this is what I expect from the side dishes in my school lunch. Something with no flavor and a texture that can best be described as "would make good brains or guts for kids to stick their hands in, while not looking, at a haunted house". I get something like this two or three times a week.

Soup: Shirotama Mochi Nyuu Sawani Wan (Sawani [a kind of fish] Soup With White Mochi Balls)

I like mochi. I think it's really pretty good, when prepared correctly. Mochi is what would have happened if someone had made marshmallows out of rice instead of sugar. It would be much more cohesive and heavier, and wouldn't be sweet at all. It's kind of fun to eat, and it's really chewy. It is not, however, bursting with flavor. That's why you typically eat mochi with something on top of it. Sweet bean paste or something of the sort. It is also put into soups, like it was today. But obviously, since it's really just rice that was made with too much water and cooked for far too long, it can't be the centerpiece of the soup. It can't give any flavor to a soup, it can only interact with what the soup already has.

That's why today's soup was not so great. I guess there was supposed to be fish in there. I didn't really notice, so perhaps it was more of a base or maybe it was finely shredded. I did notice the mushroom and burdock; two more things that aren't bursting with flavor. And while I enjoyed eating the mochi like always, it was diminished a bit by being part of such a lousy soup. Again, this is not atypical at all. We get soup like this all the time.

Bonus: Orange

But at least I had some oranges to pick me up when everything was over. No matter how many bones are in the fish, or how slimy the side dish is, or how bland the soup may be, having fruit always makes the meal end on a high note. I mean, you can't mess up oranges, right? All you have to do is pluck and cut. That's it!

And here's where my aforementioned time in Florida bites me on the behind. My last bite of my last school lunch for this blog, and it's a disappointment. I don't think I've ever had oranges this flavorless in my entire life. And considering that this week saw the best citrus I've had in Japan, that's especially disappointing. Still, it only makes sense. Going out like this is sort of poetically perfect for this little project. These oranges sum up what school lunch is all about here: Not bad, but disappointing.

Total Calories: 758

That's is for the week of lunches. I'll write up a summary and wrap-up in a day or two so check back for that.

Thursday's Lunch: Eggs

2007-02-21T23:19:00.000-08:00

Oh, lucky you! You get to see one of my least favorite lunches of all time! Not only do we get one of Japan's most egregious takes on Western food, we also get... bread! According to the menu, this is a "butter roll":
I imagine them using one stick of butter for every 5000 of these they made, because that is about how much butter taste makes it into the final product. Basically, it's just a big lump of white bread, but without even the paltry serving of jam we got on Tuesday.

And it doesn't get much better from there...

Main Dish: Omuretsu no Mariana Sosu (Omelet with Mariana Sauce)

This is quite possibly the perfect example of the Japanese adopting things from the West with no real understanding of them. From what I can gather, Japanese people enjoy their version of omelets, so more power to them. For me, it falls near the lower end of "I can eat it if I have to", just barely coming in above "Only if I'm starving". Have you ever had the eggs you get in microwavable breakfasts? The ones that are lifeless and floppy and give you some doubt as to whether or not they actually came from a chicken at all? Well, get a big chunk of those (no, don't break them up or fluff them in any way that might make them look a bit more appetizing), cover it in what is essentially watery ketchup, and then throw some soggy onion strips on top. Voila! Japanese Omelet! What? How is this an omelet at all? There's nothing in it. It's just bad eggs formed into the shape of a croissant. Sadly, this thing shows up on my lunch tray about once a month. As a bonus, you can get little chunks of the same eggs on top of rice at every sushi restaurant in Japan. Because, yeah, when I go out to eat some delicious fish and seafood, I'd like to chase it down with some cold Egg Beaters product. Yeah. Sure.

Side Dish: Sotei (Sauté)

Why this dish is called sauté was not only beyond me, but every other teacher in the room as well. What part of this was sautéed? The whole thing? I find that hard to believe. Considering the only meat in it was actually fish, and even then it was chikuwa (a kind of steamed fish paste), I don't think sautéing came into the picture at all here. Besides the non-sautéed fish paste, it also included bean sprouts, cauliflower and green peppers. Overall, the dish wasn't too bad although they used a bit too much pepper. Actually, now that I think about it, pepper was about all you could taste. Maybe they just forgot to sauté it and threw pepper in instead? We may never know.

Soup: ABC Soup

Pretty much what it sounds like: soup with little pieces of pasta shaped like the alphabet. I have always wondered why they don't have soup with Japanese characters here. Maybe they're too complicated to turn into pasta. Anyhow, this is like a mediocre chicken noodle soup, but with shrimp instead of chicken. You get the little macaronis, shrimp, parsley, carrots and celery. Nothing exciting, but almost the highlight of the meal. Fortunately, I got to finish off with...

Bonus: Iyokan (Tangerine)

Recently there was some discussion in the mailing list for Miyagi Prefecture JETs about what to call different versions of oranges here. Is a mikan an orange? A tangerine? A mandarin orange? A clementine? Or should we call it a mikan all the time? The iyokan didn't come up in the discussion, and it's not in my dictionary either, so I'm calling it a tangerine, because that's what I thought it was until I looked at the menu afterwards. So, yeah, just imagine a tangerine. Pretty tasty, but as I mentioned on Monday, citrus is overall disappointing here as compared to Florida. Still, after the above meal (especially that stupid omelet) this was the best part of lunch today.

Total Calories: 821

It's hard to decide which lunch I liked less: yesterday's or today's. At least today I had the tangerine and the soup, whereas yesterday was completely devoid of any kind of flavor at all. Despite my genuine dislike for the omelet (keep in mind this did not stop me from eating it), I think I will have to say yesterday's bland meal was worse. However, these are both very common school lunches here. Lucky me.

Wednesday's Lunch: Fish

2007-02-20T21:58:00.000-08:00

Today was a very typical school lunch for me, meaning that it can be summed up in one word: bland. Probably the tastiest thing about it was the rice, and then only because it was special rice. We get a little metal tin of plain white rice every day except on very rare occasions. Maybe twice a year we get something a little different. Today we had hijiki rice. Remember hijiki from Monday? The type of seaweed? Well, it's back and it (along with a couple of mystery elements I couldn't identify) has been mixed into our rice to add a bit of flavor. Take a look:

I know it doesn't look exciting, and it's not, but compared to everything else...

Main Dish: Katsuo Yakihitashi (Fried Bonito)

Bonito is a kind of fish, for those of you who may not know (I certainly wouldn't have). Actually, it's a kind of mackerel. The name here means that it has been dipped and fried (not deep-fried, mind you). What was it dipped in? I can't say, but I would guess soy sauce if I had to. This isn't something we have particularly often. At least, I don't think so anyhow. We have a non-descript piece of fish for our main dish so regularly that it's hard to keep them straight. It tastes all right though, and has maintained a bit more of the fishy flavor than Monday's tuna, which is kind of nice. Not bad, but nothing I would ever order off of a menu.

Side Dish: Ohitashi (Soy Spinach)

So, I could taste some soy on the fish, but when I eat the dish that is specifically supposed to be seasoned with soy sauce I don't even notice it. Hmmm... This name is a little misleading in other ways because spinach was probably the most minor of all the ingredients. There were definitely more bean sprouts in there than spinach. I genuinely like the flavor of spinach which has worked out well for me since we have it at least once a week. Too bad this dish didn't taste like spinach. Or anything else for that matter.

Soup: Maitake Jiru (Maitake Mushroom Soup)

When the broth is the tastiest ingredient in your soup, you have failed at making soup. This contained two types of bland mushrooms and some tofu. Yeah, tofu can be really good. It is remarkable at absorbing the flavors of whatever you cook it with. Of course, if the things it's being cooked alongside of are also flavorless, then you just get some floppy, bland, white stuff. There was also a slice of sasakama, which is the little flowery looking thing. This is a small disc shaped item made from kamaboko (steamed fish paste) that you almost always see in soup here. I like them, although there are plenty of people who can't stand to eat it (Liesje included). But somehow, today's soup was so boring it sapped what little flavor the sasakama might normally have right out of it. This kind of soup (and its several, nearly identical, mushroom-based friends) is a mainstay of school lunch here. I would say I eat something basically like this twice a week. No wonder they drink their soup here instead of using a spoon; they just want to be done with it.

Total Calories: 633

As usual, there was nothing in today's lunch that I disliked and I was able to eat everything with no trouble. However, this was a very typical lunch in that there was also nothing in it that I actually liked either. Something basically the same as this is served at least once a week, and I've had similar lunches three times in five days before. This is the chili-mac of Japanese school lunch: fried fish with soy, spinach and something else, mushroom and tofu soup. So boring. Soooo booooring.

Tuesday's Lunch: Shrimp

2007-02-19T21:33:00.000-08:00

Since today is Tuesday, we get bread instead of rice. For about my first year and a half here, the school secretary made onigiri (rice balls) every Tuesday and Thursday so everyone could get their carbohydrates from a more traditionally Japanese source. However, she transferred out last year and we didn't get a replacement so now it's either eat bread or no carbs for you! Some teachers do choose the "no carbs" route on bread day. It's true.

And sometimes I can't blame them. Two pieces of plain white bread and enough jam to cover half of one of them? Yeah, not so great. I think that many Japanese people assume that, since they eat plain white rice, we must eat plain white bread! Take a look at today's bread:
It's like a big hot dog bun, but with no slit in it. Then it comes with a packet of blueberry jam. Where are we supposed to put it? I always tear it open down the side as best as I can and put the jam in it that way. Other teachers tear off a mouthful and put a little jam on each bite before they eat it. Either way, it's kind of goofy. Even still, it's nice to get a break from the rice. And this jam had extra fiber! Anyhow, on to today's lunch...

Main Dish: Ebi Katsu (Fried Shrimp Patties)

"Katsu" is a shortening of the transliteration of the English word "cutlet" (it becomes "katsuretto" and then just "katsu"). The most common kind of katsu is tonkatsu, or pork cutlets. That may just sound like a bit of meat to you, but it includes the meaning of being breaded and deep-fried here. So, tonkatsu is usually translated at "deep-fried pork cutlets". Of course, that doesn't work well for shrimp, since a shrimp cutlet is kind of ridiculous. But since the shrimp is made into a patty and then breaded and fried in basically the same way, and since the vast majority of Japanese people probably have no idea where the word katsu even comes from, we get to have shrimp katsu, or ebi katsu. It was tasty. Nothing to write home about. Actually, it probably could have used a bit of sauce. Still, a nice main dish for the day and not something we see very often.

Side Dish: Chuuka Ae (Chinese Mix)

I was actually surprised when I looked up the name for this after eating it, and to be honest I've had this several times. Nothing about it says "Chinese" to me. But if the Japanese version of Chinese is as accurate as the Japanese version of Italian tends to be, this dish might have originally been roasted lamb sandwiches for all I know. It was actually quite simple. Just a combination of some small strips of roasted ham, bean sprouts, cucumber and some chanpon-men (a kind of thin, clear noodles). Pretty good to be honest. But did we really need more noodles in there considering what the soup is? I wonder if the simple "just mix some stuff together and call it Chinese" methodology here is why we get this one often?

Soup: Miso Ramen

I'm assuming everyone knows what ramen noodles are. Although we tend to associate them with the cheap, instant kind, they are just a type of noodle in Japan and they are infinitely better here. Today's ramen noodle soup was a miso base, at least according to the menu. I couldn't taste it. In with the ramen we also got some boiled pork, cabbage, carrots, onions, corn, scallions and kikurage mushrooms (again, I'm trusting the menu here because I didn't see any mushrooms anywhere). This was pretty good too and not too salty, which the soup tends to be. Ramen tends to be a bit of a treat since it's something people actually want to eat, and not something we see too often. Maybe only a few times a year.

Total Calories: 760

Although the bread was nothing to write home about (and yet I am), today's lunch was another good one. Not a meal I would normally mention, but for school lunch I certainly can't complain.

Monday's Lunch: Fish

2007-02-18T22:56:00.000-08:00

Every day our school lunch is made up of three basic components: a main dish (usually fish or meat), a side dish (usually vegetables) and a soup. This is not set in stone, but 99% of the time that's what we get. In addition to that we get a carton of milk and then either rice (Mon., Wed., Fri.) or bread (Tues., Thurs.). That basic pattern will probably be what you see all week, and today is no exception.

Main Dish: Maguro no Goma-Miso Kake (Tuna with a Sesame-Miso Sauce)

This was pretty tasty actually. The sauce on top was applied lightly, which is a rarity here. For some reason Japanese people tend to slather whatever topping they're using all over their food. Something that will probably come up time and again this week is that they are all about simple flavors being brought out strongly. It's not uncommon for food here to be salty or bitter or sweet, and that's all there is to it with little or no depth. Today, however, the fish was quite tasty, although a bit saltier than it needed to be. The flavor of the tuna was lost a bit but not bad for a school lunch.

Side Dish: Hijiki no Nimono (Boiled Seaweed)

According to my dictionary, "hijiki" is "a kind of edible seaweed that grows in clusters in rocky areas along the coastlines". It tastes better than it sounds. Still, this falls into this large category of foods I have tried since coming to Japan that are neither good nor bad, just edible. I can eat it no problem when it's part of a meal put in front of me, but I'm never going to choose to eat it. There are some carrots and beans thrown in for good measure, to make it a little more interesting. Emphasis on "little".

Soup: Tonjiru (Pork Soup)

The name sounds funny in English, I know. It's basically just some boiled pork, carrots, potatoes, tofu and daikon (a large Japanese radish). Pretty tasty, but again saltier than it needed to be. I've had tonjiru several times and I genuinely like it, despite not being a big fan of daikon. When the daikon is boiled or cooked into something it's fine. But sometimes you'll just have cold, shredded daikon (occasionally as a topping) and that's not something I enjoy. This soup, on the other hand, was quite tasty.

Bonus: Grapefruit

Just a slice of grapefruit, although there was extra so I got two slices. Nothing really worth mentioning. I thought this was some of the best grapefruit I've had here, but coming from Florida I've found citrus to be generally lacking here in Japan.

Extra Bonus: Yogurt

This wasn't part of the school lunch officially, but something the school nurse whipped up. A little over two weeks ago she apparently decided that too much milk was going to waste from students not drinking it, so she began saving it and making yogurt. I don't remember ever having plain yogurt before this. It was only about five years ago that I even realized there was such a thing. Before that I kind of assumed that vanilla yogurt was plain yogurt. This stuff is good, but we've been having it every day for nearly three weeks now, so it's getting a little old.

Total Calories: 822

Overall, today was a good lunch. Part of me is hoping we get something nasty this week to make this more interesting, but mostly I'd rather everyday be something good like today. As interesting as an overcooked, pregnant, whole fish might be for you to see, I'd be just fine if I didn't have to eat it.

A Week With My Lunch

2007-02-13T22:24:00.000-08:00

I should probably point out at the onset that this may very well be completely uninteresting to everyone. However, since I can imagine someone finding it amusing, or even actually fascinating (I suppose that person could be out there), and, primarily, because I think it will be fun for me I'm going to barrel right ahead.

Starting next week I'm going to be posting pictures of my school lunch each day along with a description of the food and a basic review of how good it was. Anyone not living in Japan might find this interesting as an example of, not just Japanese food, but exactly what school lunch is like here. And for those of you in Japan, well, maybe you can just compare my school lunch to yours and gloat about how much better off you are. Unless you're Jeff. His school lunch sucks.

So, that's all going to be starting on Monday, but I figured it would be a good idea to spend a little time today talking about the basics of how school lunch works here.

First of all, I'd say the biggest difference between school lunch in Japan and in the States is that, here, everyone eats it. Every single student in the school eats the lunch whether they want to or not. No one brings anything from home. They're not allowed to. I suppose this could be considered one of the advantages of a uni-cultural country: everyone likes the same food. There are no vegetarians or people with religious dietary restrictions. I suppose there might be some of that in Tokyo or other very large cities, but for the most part it just doesn't exist. Because of this, we JETs are also expected to eat the school lunch. If the students were to see us eating whatever they want, they would feel it was unfair and that they, too, should be able to eat what they want. If you came on the JET Program as a vegetarian or Muslim or Jew, well, suck it up. You can either learn to eat it, learn to be hungry, or start keeping snacks in your desk. Since I can eat just about anything you put in front of me, I don't mind. But for others, this insistence on conformity can be a little more difficult to swallow.

Now, this isn't 100%. My girlfriend, for example, simply told her school that she wouldn't be getting school lunch any more. She didn't like it at all and was hardly eating anything each day, leaving her extremely hungry for the last few hours of work. They accepted this (begrudgingly) at her junior high school, but she still has to eat the school lunch at Elementary school, which, of course, led to a lot of red tape concerning how to charge her for eating at one school and not another. (I found that amusing since the same office charges me separately for my junior high and elementary lunches and has been doing so for quite some time.) She has also been pretty well shunned from eating with the other teachers, but I don't think she really minded that too much.

That's probably the second big difference about lunch here: the absence of a lunch room. The students eat at their desks in their homeroom with their homeroom teacher, and the teachers either eat at their desk or they gather in the meeting room (or somewhere similar). In my school, we all gather in the meeting room. Everyone trickles in as they can, but we all wait for every person to finish before we get up and clean everything up.

Of course, not only is there no lunch room, there's no cafeteria. At least, not at my school. Some have them, and some don't. But not having a cafeteria is pretty common here. Our lunches are delivered everyday from the Kurihara City School Lunch Center. They drop everything off in the morning and pick it up in the afternoon. This is the cleanup we have to do. We have to get everything packed back into the giant metal containers so the trucks can take it away and fill it with more lunch the next day.

Other than that, school lunch is school lunch. It varies a bit from place to place, but you probably get the basic idea. It costs me 290 yen per day, which at the moment is about $2.40 US. I pay this at the end of the month and it usually comes out to somewhere around 5000 yen ($42) I think.

And that's my kyuushoku in a nut shell. For a more in-depth analysis of the sometimes awesome, usually bland, occasionally terrible food I have to eat Monday through Friday whether I like it or not, tune in next week.

Blowing in the Wind

2007-01-31T18:47:00.000-08:00

The Japanese Teacher of English (JTE) that I work with, Mr. Okanobu, is pretty good at English. At least, he's better than any of the other JTEs I have worked with in the past. Still, he makes mistakes, and occasionally these mistakes are amusing. Once in a while, they're even worth remembering and telling people about.

Today we were going through a bland, soul-crushingly boring story called "The Fall of Freddie the Leaf" with the 9th graders. As far as I can tell, this story was included in the textbook to continue the depressing atmosphere in the English classroom that was created in the 8th grade textbook when we had to teach A Mother's Lullaby. That story centered on a young girl and boy slowly dying after the bombing of Hiroshima. Then the next year they get a story about a leaf which includes the line (and this is a direct quote), "Everything dies." And yet, the kids aren't that excited to come to English class...

So, after a brief respite from the drudgery during which a student made a joke about Freddie the leaf being Freddy from A Nightmare on Elm Street, the leaf (slicing off heads as he slowly floats to the ground) we got down to the business of examining the story grammatically. Near the end of the story, when Freddie finally dies, there is a sentence that reads, "Some of the leaves were blown off by a strong cold wind." In order to help explain how the sentence works, my JTE changed it to, "Mr. Kevin was blown off by a strong cold wind." He then blew some air at me. I, in my usual clown-like manner, pretended to have been blown against the wall by this. Two students grinned. Fun was had by all.

Anyhow, the point to all of this is that Mr. Okanobu then looked over at one of the better students, named Hikaru. He then looked right at me and said, "Mr. Kevin, please blow off Hikaru."

For the record, I did not.

2006-11-28T21:25:00.000-08:00

So, I've had this comic book in my head for a loooong time. Actually, the genesis was when I was only 12 years old. At the time, it was pretty much an X-Men rip-off, but I think there were some good ideas in there. Over the years I kept trying to tweak the story as I got older and realized it wasn't very good. Eventually (when I was in college), I finally realized it was fundamentally flawed and I needed to completely rewrite it instead of trying to fix it. A friend (my old roommate Kevin Savage) gave me the idea of focusing on this one character, who was actually kind of minor in what I had before. That character, named Vince because he is inVINCible (come on, I was 12) has been alive since the dawn of civilization and can't die. So, the book follows him, jumping around in time and showing how he affected history and how history affected him at different times.

Well, that's what been in my head forever and ever but I never found anyone to draw it. Until I met Liesje here in Japan. She was actually excited about it and pushed me to write a couple of pages so we could do them for the Art show they hold here in Miyagi every year. The amazing thing is that I did write them and she drew them and now they exist. These are intended to be two "prequel" pages that take place right before the beginning of issue one.

We've had to put it on the back burner for now because of other things like the MAJET play, the short film we just made, and The Drum (the Miyagi magazine we work on). But it will happen. Oh yes, it will.

Anyhow, figured I'd post the two pages here. Today you get page 1. And at some point in the future I will put #2 up.

2006-11-06T21:56:00.000-08:00

o Well, for some of you it may seem like it's been a while (because it has) and for some of you this may feel like your very first issue of The Drum ever (because it is)! A lot of people are coming back to The Drum after a nice summer vacation. Perhaps you even traveled out of the country, so you also had to come back to Japan. Maybe just out of the area, so you had to come back to Miyagi. Either way, you second and third years have all had to go back to work, just as all of your students have had to go back to school. And hey, did you notice we accidentally put the whole issue together backwards? The pages still read like they normally would (that's left to right for those of you not paying attention), they're just in reverse order. Going from... wait for it... back to front.
And it's because of all of these myriad and, let's be honest here, trite ways that I can shoehorn the word "back" into this editorial that you now hold in your hands The Drum's All New Back Issue! "How can a back issue be all new?" you may ask. "Isn't the very definition of 'back issue' an issue that is not current, and therefore not new?" you may also ask. "Isn't this just another of your horribly weak attempts at comedy?" you may then inquire. And I will say, "No! This is absolutely not another of my weak attempts at comedy!"

It's Kennard's. Blame him.

My weak attempt at comedy is on page 16. Blame me for that one.

Anyhow, our regular features are ba-... I mean, returning. Heather's From the Land of Near Noon is here with another couple of great entries. And Geekin' Out is also here with a decidedly non-technical article. We've also got a very special version of He Said, She Said, our regular movie reviews, and something to do with Babyback Ribs. (Come on, you didn't see that one coming?) On the completely useless side is the Back to the Future article featuring interviews from tomorrow! And on the much more useful end of the spectrum we have advice for your next Disney vacation and a tutorial on how to use Bit Torrent. Once you're hooked up to Bit Torrent, check out the new season of TV Shows by using our handy guide.

And last, but certainly not least, be sure to read all about this year's MAJET Panto on page 5. This is an amazing event that MAJET sponsors every year, but we they need your help to do it! So, go check it out and get involved. Trust me, this is one of the things that people talk about for the rest of the year.

So, it's great to be back, even if it did take us longer than expected. Keep those submissions coming and let's make this the best year of The Drum ever!

Kevin Davies
Editor In Chief

2006-10-25T21:29:00.001-07:00

Now that we've established my absolute willingness to whore myself in any way possible in order to make a connection with this month's theme, let's go BACK and revisit some classic movies and see how they've aged.
And by "classic" I mean "stuff from when I was a kid". Except for the ones I saw as an adult. I guess "classic" just means "made before the year 2000".

(Note: I downloaded every one of these movies through Bit Torrent (See page 16 for details!) so you should have no trouble getting any of them.)

Lost Boys (1987)
Listen to the names of the cast for this one: Corey Haim, Corey Feldman, Keifer Sutherland. Okay, now go wash the 80s off of you. I mean, damn, there are two Goonies in there for crying out loud! This movie is absolutely dripping with the 80s. The soundtrack alone will give you an intense desire to buy a lot of hairspray. This is not to say it's bad. There's some reasonably cool vampire stuff in here. It's definitely fun to see Bill of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure take a stake through the heart. And while the movie gets a little confused when it tries to switch from comedy to horror and back again (and again, and again), it's actually held up better than a lot of monster movies.
Final verdict: Worth revisiting, if you're a fan of vampires and aren't afraid of revisiting the 80s full-force.

Conan the Barbarian (1982)
Dark Horse Comics recently started a new Conan comic book that takes the character back to his origins by recreating the original Robert E. Howard stories. Having been a fan of it for about a year, I decided I wanted to rewatch the Schwarzenegger Conan movies that I loved so much as a little boy, beginning with the classic Conan the Barbarian. Man, what a piece of crap. It starts by reducing most of his life to simply pushing a grist mill. Somehow this tedious action turns him into a super-buff and extremely well toned man, who also knows how to sword fight better than anyone. Huh? Then, it's simply downhill from there. You may get a moment of excitement when you find out James Earl Jones is playing the villain, but the movie will be putting you back to sleep momentarily. It's almost unbelievable how boring this mo... *snore*
Final verdict: Stay away!

Conan the Destroyer (1984)
After seeing how bad the first one truly was, I'm not even sure what convinced me to sit through the sequel. Especially since it is commonly accepted that Destroyer is nowhere near as good as Barbarian. Good lord, how is that possible? Well, I'm glad I did watch it because the common knowledge in this case is bollocks. Destroyer is much faster paced than the original, and also takes itself a bit less serious (which helps, believe me). The addition of a posse for Conan actually works, and one of them is Grace Jones! How weird is that? Basically, the second movie just speeds things along nicely and gives you the cheesy sword and sorcery movie you're looking for.
Final verdict: Worth revisiting if you're into the fantasy stuff and don't mind starting with a sequel.

The Breakfast Club (1985)
John Huston really knew how to make 80's teen angst seem really interesting. And that's a good thing because otherwise setting an entire movie in a library and having the plot simply be "kids from different cliques get to know each other a little better" would have been a snoozefest. But the actors are pretty strong (not surprising since they were the Brat Pack and all went on to successful careers) and the writing isn't too ridiculous. Some scenes are awfully hard to swallow, but overall it's a pretty good movie. And although the ending seems really trite with everyone becoming good friends, take a closer look. Which girl does the nerd end up with?
Final verdict: Worth revisiting, if for no other reason than to get all of the references that are made to this movie. "You want another one?" "Yeah!"

48 Hours (1982)
Nick Nolte as a hard-boiled cop. Eddie Murphy in his debut role as a prisoner. They don't like each other, but they've got to work together. What could possibly stop this from being a great movie? Well, for starters you could not make it a comedy! Yeah, that would screw it up for sure. Then you could have some really, reeaally fake fight scenes, a lot of gratuitous breast shots, a few boring car chases and a plot that never even leaves the apartment, much less goes anywhere. Yep, that would definitely make this kinda suck.
Final verdict: Kinda sucks. Wouldn't bother if I were you.

Police Academy (1984)
How many of these did they eventually make? Eight? Ten? Not to mention the TV series and the cartoon (Oh yeah, you thought I forgot about the cartoon didn't you? I even remember the action figures!). So, the first one must have been really funny to kick off a franchise that big. Right? Right?!? Yeah, not so much. The first half of the movie has barely any laughs in it, and those are almost all from Michael Winslow (the sound effects guy). Near the end you get a couple more and the big ones (Remember the commandant's speech and the surprise waiting in the podium?) are still pretty damn funny. But overall it's hard to see how this is a comedy classic.
Final verdict: If you're really in the mood for some comedy and can't find anything else except for Dane Cook stand-up, this is worth watching.

The Beastmaster (1982)
I went into this with fuzzy memories at best. There was a panther (I thought) and some ferrets. And a guy in a loincloth who could talk to them. That was about all I remembered. Having rewatched it, I can see why. More than any other movie on this list Beastmaster will have you thinking to yourself, "What were they thinking?" over and over. Rip Torn as the evil necromancer? A hero named Dar? Who immediately strips to his loincloth after seeing his family killed and runs off to avenge them? And then nearly rapes the first woman he lays eyes on? And can talk to any animal but chooses to limit it to just four? Including TWO ferrets? And a tiger (poorly) painted black to look like a panther? What were they thinking?
Final verdict: Yech. About the only thing this movie is good for is being made fun of. Although there's a danger you might die of exhaustion by doing so, since there are almost too many opportunities for that. Steer clear unless you're a group of serious Mystery Science Theater 3000 fans.

2006-10-25T21:29:00.000-07:00

From: Kennard
To: Kevin (September 15th

Hey, I've got a great idea for the "Back" theme we've got going in this issue! I'm going to write something about BabyBACK Ribs! Get it!

From: Kevin
To: Kennard (October 16th)

So... where's that Babyback Ribs article I was promised? It's fine with me. You just have to actually write it.

From: Kennard
To: Kevin (October 16th)

Sorry, I am checking into the hospital for a little while and I won't be able to get to it. Maybe you can find someone else to do it?

From: Kevin
To: Jeff (October 17th)

Hey, Jeff. Listen, Kennard was going to write something about Babyback Ribs for the new issue of The Drum and now he can't. Unfortunately, Liesje has already laid out the cover and I'm committed. I don't care what it is as long as it has something to do with ribs. Can you help me out?

From: Jeff
To: Kevin (October 18th)

No problem. I hammered this out in about an hour last night. Let me know what you think!

A Brief and Definitive History of Baby Back Ribs

For the sake of simplification, the colloquialism “Ribs” will be referred to as the thorax of an ungulate (most likely swine) exposed to high temperatures and marinated for human consumption. The long and storied history of Baby Back Ribs begins with the common pig. One of the first mammals to be domesticated by early humans, and a member of the Chinese Zodiac, pigs have long supplied abundant joules of energy, fueling humanity ever forward into the future. Some even claim that without an increase in high calorie foods such as pork, the industrial revolution would have never taken place. After all, a successful civilization has yet to be built on carrots.

Surely, when discussing Ribs, the antediluvian subject of Barbecuing is not far behind. The term “Barbecue” itself is shrouded in mystery, conjuring cabalistic and eldritch images to the mind. Even the Etymology of “Barbeque” or the more arcane spelling “BBQ” is subject of intense scholarly debate. Some claim it comes from the Taíno word “Barabicu” which means “Sacred Fire Pit”. While most of the Barbeque community would agree the origins are decidedly Caribbean, disputes from The French and even The Australians further exacerbate discourse on this subject, as they claim to have invented it themselves.

By the end of the 20^th Century, the popularity Baby Back Ribs reached staggering heights thanks to American Restraunteur Chili’s ad Jingle “I Want My Baby Back Ribs (With Barbeque Sauce)”. Due to powerful market forces this overly quoted song made its way into American Cinema, as featured in the film “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999)”. The song was mimicked by populist comedian personality Mike Myers playing a character known as “The Fat Bastard”. This character was highly popular amongst high school students, especially in districts with low to middling standardized test scores. Despite this, Baby Back Ribs are still succulent, and satisfying. With spices to whet anyone’s appetite、delicious Baby Back Ribs are enjoyed on a daily basis by thousands of people all over the world. Unfortunately, Japan is not one of those places. Sorry!

From: Kevin

To: Jeff (October 20th)

Looks great! Thanks for the help!

From: Kevin

To: Liesje (October 20th)

Hey, this Ribs article isn't the slightest bit amusing or funny, so just bury it in the back of the magazine. The only reason I'm even publishing it is so we don't have to change the cover.

From: Kennard

To: Kevin (October 20th)

Hey, I got out of the hospital earlier than expected so I went ahead and wrote that Babyback Ribs article. Let me know what you think!

Traditional New Guinea Baby Back Ribs

Tired of the various pastas, hamburgers, or other default foods that you make at home? Well, to break the monotony, I’ll suggest a scrumptious recipe for baby back ribs from New Guinea using contemporary quick fixes and how to properly prepare and cook them.

Ingredients:

2lbs. baby back ribs

1 med. Acorn squash (1lb)

2 (18 oz.) jars baked beans

¼ c. ketchup

3 tbsp. maple syrup

2 tbsp. prepared mustard

Preparation:

Cut rack of ribs into 2 rib portions. In large skillet, heat ribs, covered with water, on high heat until boiling. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 40 minutes. Meanwhile, cut acorn squash into ¾” wedges. Drain ribs. Into same skillet, stir in baked beans, ketchup, syrup and mustard. Add ribs and squash wedges. Heat to boiling; reduce to low, cover and simmer until ribs and squash are fork tender, about 20 minutes. Stir occasionally. Makes 4 servings.

This looks like a simple and easy-to-do recipe and indeed is, however the receivers’ of this tasty meal, to keep New Guinea’s Fore tribe’s authenticity, is quite limited. First of all, the baby has to be female if you are to eat the ribs. Secondly, the only people traditionally allowed to eat the baby are: the sister, the brother’s wife, the mother’s brother’s wife, the sister’s son’s wife, and the baby’s female matrilateral cousin.

And so it goes if you wish to maintain Fore authenticity. It seems like there’s always that polite tape you just can’t seem to cross, and when you’d rather not I guess there’s always a McDonald’s nearby.

From: Liesje
To: Kevin (October 23rd)

Are you kidding? This isn't any better than Jeff's article. Not to mention the fact that we'll be offending who-knows-how-many people by even alluding to eating human children. Are you sure you want to publish this piece of crap? It'll take a little work, but I can change the cover.

From: Kevin
To: Liesje (October 23rd)

Yeah, you're right. Go ahead and change the cover. There's no way I'm putting either of these in The Drum. Even MAJET members don't deserve this.

Crazy Idea

2006-10-24T00:07:00.000-07:00

So, this next post going up in a minute is an article I thought of almost immediately once we decided on what the current Drum issue's theme would be. As soon as I started thinking about "back" I went through Back to School, Back to Work and then Back to the Future. That quickly led me to think of this concept.

It's pretty simple. The idea is that a book of interviews with previous JETs has fallen back in time and into our hands, and then we publish a few of them. I wrote up some questions and sent them out to several people, letting them know that they were welcome to take the joke as far as they wanted. A lot of people didn't write back, but 4 did and then I added one from my head. See if you can figure out which one.

I think it turned out pretty well. Whether or not anyone else will find it funny is beyond me. But, as I have realized more and more in recent years, I don't really care either.

Oh, is this still here?

2006-10-17T23:47:00.000-07:00

I've never been able to keep up with a diary. Never. I'm surprised I even started this blog, much less wrote more than two entires for it.

But now months and months have gone by and I'm back, because Google is always getting me to do stuff whether I like it or not.

See, my computer crashed recently, and the hard drive was not recoverable. And since I wasn't smart enough to bring my Windows CDs with me when I came to Japan, I ended up having to go with Linux as my operating system. Now, I know it probably has a fine and dandy word processor built in there, but I'm not familiar with it yet and I'm a little gunshy about losing stuff now.

Combine that with the fact that Google just integrated their word processor with Gmail and you can guess where I am typing stuff now. And after you type it, you have the opportunity to "publish" it on the internet. You have the option of publishing it somewhere and getting a link to it (which is almost assuredly gobbledygook), or publishing it to your blog. I did the latter because... I can?

I don't know why. I just felt like it. And now I think I'll probably be publishing everything I write in that processor on here. Right now it will likely just be stuff for The Drum (the Miyagi Prefecture JET Magazine that I am the Editor-in-Chief of) but who knows about later?

Doesn't matter though right? I mean, no one still reads this do they?

The New Fall Season of TV

2006-10-17T23:44:00.000-07:00

With the temperature rapidly dropping and it getting dark around five in the afternoon, now is the time of year when many of us find ourselves spending more time at the kotatsu watching TV. And while Japanese TV is greatly entertaining for a little while, those 20 minutes probably ended some time back. Fortunately for us all, the internet has given us the ability to watch all of our favorite shows from back home through the wonder that is Bit Torrent. With whole seasons available for easy download, having missed a few episodes (or a few years' worth of episodes) is no reason not to check out some really great shows. And if you don't know how to use Bit Torrent, then you had better turn to page 16 right now!
Okay, you got it now? Well then, read on as we take a look at the best of this year's new television series!

JUSTICE
Yes, this is yet another courtroom drama. But surprisingly (extra surprising considering that it's produced by Jerry Bruckheimer), a reasonably worthwhile one. The main difference being that the lawyers here are not nearly as concerned with truth, facts or innocence as they are with perception. The show deals with how the media can be used as a tool to sway a jury's opinion one way or another. Some clever writing and pretty good acting keeps it afloat. And as an added bonus, at the end of each episode you get to see what really happened, which is a nice twist. Great popcorn TV.

STANDOFF
Kind of a modern day Moonlighting (Does anyone else even remember Moonlighting?), it revolves around a couple of police negotiators who are partners in more ways than one. The show is trying to walk a fine line, balancing light-hearted humor with tense negotiation scenes. So far, thanks primarily to Ron Livingston (the main guy from Office Space), it's done pretty well. There's still the questions of whether it can keep it up, and whether Livingston can carry the whole thing on his shoulders... Worth watching at least once.

STUDIO 60 ON THE SUNSET STRIP
My favorite show of the new season. Created by Aaron Sorkin (West Wing), it revolves around a Saturday Night Live style show that has become increasingly unfunny and has to be rescued by a couple of guys who were let loose years before due to... Well, let's just say there was a misunderstanding. While the show does occasionally make things a bit overly dramatic (It sometimes seems like events are just as important as those taking place in West Wing, which is, of course, ridiculous.), the dialogue is snappy, the acting is good and the direction is pretty well spot-on. If only the real SNL were anywhere near this good... Must see!

HEROES
Being a long-time comic book geek, I should be loving this show about unrelated people all over America (and one Japanese guy) suddenly and inexplicably developing super powers. I'm not sure why I'm not. It's good, and it's compelling and I keep tuning back in. But it lacks the "I can't wait" feeling that shows like Lost are so good at delivering. Still, all of the performances are solid and if the writers are willing to see this through it could be something great. Definitely worth checking out.

HELP ME HELP YOU
Whew, finally a comedy! Ted Danson (Sam from Cheers) is back to his sitcom roots as a relationship counselor who, predictably, can't save his own relationship. The show is mercifully not done in the old-school "live-studio audience" "3 walled room" format and is actually pretty funny. Danson still has the comic timing and the facial expressions to bring it all together when he's on screen, but the rest of the cast has yet to prove they've got what it takes to keep things going when he isn't. Still, funny stuff though. Definitely worth checking out.

30 ROCK
And another comedy. Seemingly similar to Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip at first glance, it only takes a moment to tell the two apart. Created by former Saturday Night Live member Tina Fey, 30 Rock is about a live comedy show that suddenly finds itself at the mercy of a new, cutthroat producer (played by Alec Baldwin, who does it perfectly). Unlike Studio 60 however, this show keeps it light. It's a half hour comedy and plays everything without the drama that would surely be present if these events actually took place. The timing on the jokes still seems a little off, but if they find their groove this will be a show to look forward to each week. Definitely worth checking out.

JERICHO
Okay, I actually think you should just check out this show's first episode and see for yourself why it's pretty interesting because I don't want to spoil the big surprise for you. So, if you're willing to just trust me on that and go watch it, then DON'T READ THE REST OF THIS DESCRIPTION!
But, if you couldn't help yourself, here we go. Jericho is about a young man returning to his home town (Guess what the town is called. Guess!) in an effort to get some money from his estranged father. When that doesn't work, he decides to leave again only to be faced with a mushroom cloud somewhere in the vicinity of Denver. From there, it's a question of what the townsfolk will do to survive. Oh, yeah, and the question of what the hell happened. Occasionally the show dips a bit too much into cliched elements (a school bus in danger, escaped convicts, etc.) but the writing is decent enough to keep it all together and the concept is rock solid. Definitely worth checking out.

OLD FAVORITES - Shows that aren't new, but that you should really be watching. Look for Torrents of entire seasons for these.

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA
Now entering it's third season, this Science-Fiction show is probably the best thing on TV. I know a lot of you are going to blanch at that, but that's just because you haven't seen it. Everyone who has is probably nodding their heads in agreement right now. You don't have to be an SF fan to love it, either. And the different levels the show works on make it possible to watch it as simply a shoot-'em-up space fight, or a deep meditation on the nature of life and religion. And that's not even getting into the politics... Absolutely Must See!!!

LOST
If you haven't been watching Lost, you had better start at the beginning because missing even a single episode will leave you scratching your head. Well, you'll be scratching it anyhow, but missing episodes might result in you actually hurting yourself you scratch so hard. While nothing ever seems to get resolved on the show, it remains compelling going into its third season now. Just in case you've been living under a rock, it's about the survivors of a plane crash who end up on a very strange island. And then stuff happens. Trust me, it's really good. Must See!!

THE OFFICE
While the original BBC version of this is rapidly becoming a classic and should definitely be watched, don't dismiss the American version out of hand. The first couple of episodes tried too hard to re-create the British show, but after that it began to take on a life of its own and has now become what is likely the best comedy on television (at least in the states). Each episode mostly stands on its own, but it's worth starting at the beginning so you don't miss out on any of the character growth. Must See!

Kindergarten Graduation

2005-03-10T06:06:00.000-08:00

Okay, I don;t know about all of you but the only graduation I ever remember having was my high school graduation. I probably would remember my college graduation except I opted not to go. I mean, there are a gajillion students at UF and most of them are in the College of Liberal Arts and Science so my graduation ceremony would have been about 36 hours long, in summer, in Florida. Yeah, great idea.

Anyhow, I don't remember having anything happen in Middle School, and I certainly don't remember anything from Elementary. And Kindergarten? All I remember from Kindergarten was that we had to sit at an orange table when we were bad. And I only had to sit there once. So, you can imagine my amazement today as I attended to Kindergarten Graduation Ceremony here in Semine. My first surprise was right after I showed up and was gently chided for showing up in only a white shirt and necktie. I had not worn a suit jacket. It's Kindergarten. So, I had to borrow a jacket from the vice-principal of the Elementary in order to not look like a fool.

It began with each student coming out and bowing to the audience individually before moving to their seat. Next, the principal presented each kid with their diploma after which they received a small flower bouquet and then gave both of these to their mother. After each student had been called up, there were a couple of speeches. One from the principal. One from the head of the social center. And one from the mayor. Yes, the mayor. Then they called on all of the 'guests of honor' individually and each one said "Omedetou gozaimasu" which means "Congratulations" to which the students, of course, replies "Arigatou gozaimasu" which means "Thank you." That is, everyone except for me. It was getting almost comical how everyone was saying the same thing so I took the chance when I was called on (Yes, I was a 'guest of honor as well!) to say "Congratulations" in English. I quickly followed it with the Japanese version but the kids were already confused. Still, one little girl managed to get off a "Thank you" in English which got quite the reaction. I tried not to glow.

Then the kids sang us a couple songs and each spoke for a couple seconds about what they remember as something special from their time at Kindergarten. All in all it was a really nice ceremony and I can't help but feel almost ashamed. Maybe years and years from now when these kids finally get out of college they won't remember this day (of course there will be video if the group of fathers in the back with cameras is any indicator). Maybe I did have some little ceremony back when I was five and the memory has just faded away at this point. But even if something did happen, I know for a fact it wasn't as big a deal as what I saw today. And not as big as what I will be seeing soon. The JHS and Elementary graduation ceremonies are coming up soon.

The big thing here is of course the JHS ceremony. Since you have to test into high school here, most of the kids will be splitting up and going to different places. Heck, I went to the same college town as my best friends (I had to say 'college town' because some of those slackers never actually made it through the school part). Point being, we didn't split up until our 20s. These kids will be saying goodbye at age 14-15, on Saturday. I expect tears. Heck, I expect people other than me to cry too. I'm already feeling verklempt.

Wait, it's good?

2005-02-28T05:23:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I've been watching a little bit of TV here. Recently I decided to revisit Star Trek: The Next Generation beginning with the earliest episodes I could find. I've watched a few of the earliest episodes in recent weeks and I have to say, they are pretty cheesy. Don't get me wrong, I loved The Next Generation and even watching it now, it's good stuff. It's just that, especially in the beginning, it was kind of silly at times. Even as the series progressed and really hit its stride it never left behind the sense of fun and humor that has always been a part of the Star Trek world. How many episodes of the original series ended with Kirk and Bones laughing while Spock raised an eyebrow?

Now, allow me to switch it up. Last year someone decided to bring back Battlestar Galactica, which was always one of my absolute favorite shows as a kid. As a general rule, I think that remakes are pretty much a bad idea. Just read my previous post about the Star Wars and E.T. Special Editions to see what I'm talking about. As I began to hear a little more about how they were going to change the show, I only got more frustrated. Starbuck and Boomer would now be women. Great. Now we can make it all sexy. And th Cylons? No longer aliens, but robots that man created which then turned on us because they think they can run things better. And now they have the ability to look just real humans. Hold on, didn't I see this years ago with Arnold Schwarzenegger? I was far from interested in seeing it.

But then I read a review on one of the few blogs I regularly visit and that guy talked it up pretty well so I finally decided to at least give it a shot. I watched the first episode.

That was all it took.

The new Battlestar Galactica is seriously good. I mean that in the sense that it's actually very good and in the sense that it is serious. This is why I mentions Star Trek: The Next Generation. As great as it was, it always maintained this sense of lighthearted comedy in the background, and this is something that nearly all science-fiction does. It's almost like an apology. "We know we're doing something a bit ridiculous so we'll admit it through the use of some quips and whatnot." But BSG doesn't do that. They've put these characters in a tight spot that would have to be treated with deadly seriousness if there were any hope to survive, so the characters treat it accordingly. It is incredibly different from the original, but if you want to see something just like the old show, then just watch that. The writing is good. The acting is good. The special effect are surprisingly good, and in fact better than what Lucas gave us in the last two Star Wars travesties, I mean movies.

I know this has nothing to do with Japan or really anything. But the fact is, the new BSG is great. Watch an episode from the first season of The Next Generation and then watch one from season 5 or 6. The quality difference is astounding. Now, check out BSG. This first season is as good as pretty much anything ST:TNG ever did. If it lasts and actually gets better, it has the potential to be one of the best sci-fi shows ever. This alone has probably sealed its doom, but that's all the more reason to watch.

So, check it out. I think this is actually a science fiction show that anyone could dig, regardless of whether or not they are as nerdy as me.

2005-02-28T01:08:00.000-08:00

I am 20% Emo.

Okay... so I'm not emo at all.. I am probably not even goth, because goths are just messed up emo kids... I am probably a metal head... or into boy bands...

Take the
Emo Test
@ FualiDotCom

Yeah, that's what I figured. Not that there isn't any good Emo music (Wait, what is Emo again?) but just that all genres are primarily filled with formulaic garbage. That's what makes it a genre. The music is all easily recognizable as being a part of that genre, meaning it is formulaic and unoriginal. Which means it's boring.

But how did they know I'm into boy bands...

2005-02-24T05:30:00.000-08:00

Me with my snowboarding gear

He Just Doesn't Sound Like a Real Alien Now...

2005-02-24T04:51:00.000-08:00

Guess I got burned out on this after that ridiculous Australia account. But, I'm back.

So, my 2nd grade students (who would be 8th graders in the USA) have finished their textbook early. The other teachers were shocked when I said that I don't actually remember ever finishing a textbook. I mean, what's wrong with us? Isn't the information at the end important? Isn't it the culmination of everything you've learned the whole year and thereby designed to set you up for the further learning you'll receive the next year? Yeah sure it is, but whatever. So I didn't learn about American History past Nixon until I was... oh wait, I had to do that on my own. Man, what is wrong with us?

Anyhow, point being that since we got done quickly, they thought it would be nice to reward the students by allowing them to watch an American movie which the textbook used to teach some grammar. "E.T. and Elliott become best friends." "It's the most moving science fiction movie." Yes, the superlative grammar point was taught by using E.T. so we are watching it now. But, the video tape they were able to rent is dubbed in Japanese which has been a pretty weird thing to watch. I haven't seen the movie in a long time, and to see it now in Japanese is definitely odd. "E.T. ouchi denwa" just doesn't seem as right as "E.T. phone home." You know what I mean?

But, and here's where I really go off on a tangent, this doesn't bother me. See, they rented a newer video tape which means this is the E.T. Special Edition that was released just a year or two ago. Usually I'm a fan of the Special Editions because it means cleaning up the video quality and, if it's a DVD, including cool stuff like Deleted Scenes and Commentary. But Spielberg decided to go the George Lucas Special Edition route which means actually altering the movie itself. Yes, he thought it would be better if he used some CGI effects to make E.T. more expressive. And while we're at it, we don't really want federal agents holding guns while the kids fly off in their bikes. Federal agents don't use guns! Especially not when kids are involved! So, let's change those to walkie talkies, which will look like they're sort of floating in the guys hands because they're not really there.

I hate this. I hated it when Lucas did it to Star Wars and I hate it in E.T. Lucas and Spielberg can spend all day thinking that these are their movies and that they can do whatever they want to with them, but they're wrong. These are NOT their movies. They're OURS. Star Wars didn't become a long-lasting cultural phenomenon because George Lucas willed it, it happened because millions of fans all over the world loved it and supported it. We loved the movies the way they were and we didn't feel like they needed to be changed. We loved E.T. back in 1982 and we never thought it didn't look good enough. If we had it wouldn't have been one of the world's most popular movies ever. This is the same kind of thinking that got Ted Turner to colorize movies which, if you'll notice, he doesn't do any more. I mean, why not change some other old movies? That scene at the end of Casablanca? Let's put some more panes around so it looks more like a real airfield. And Olivier's Hamlet? Let's digitally add in more buildings in the background so it really looks like ancient Denmark. And ooh, ooh, CGI blood spurting out whenever someone dies in The Seven Samurai. That would make it a better movie.

But, okay, Lucas and Spielberg are nutty and they want to "reward" us by giving us something new to look at. I can accept that. I saw the Star Wars Special Editions in the theater because I wanted to see the new stuff. Whatever. But what really pisses me off is the actual disdain they must have for the people who made these movies what they are. The fact that Lucas has said that he will never release the original versions of Star Wars on DVD is just that, disdain. Star Wars Special Edition wasn't a movie that got people everywhere playing with toys and dressing up like fools. That was Star Wars. And to tell us that we are not allowed to buy it is an insult. Release both versions and make more money! What's wrong with that? What, the guy who gave us Jar Jar Binks is somehow concerned about his artistic integrity? Who the hell are you kidding?

So, I will never buy Star Wars on DVD even though I would like to have it, because it's not really Star Wars. It's not the movie I grew up with and loved. And that should be my option. Instead, as a feeble attempt to lash out at the man I feel has betrayed me, I will download it and try to let others do the same thing from me. If he puts out the real movie I will buy it and immediately delete the Special Edition from my computer (because I'd never want to watch again anyhow). As for E.T., same deal. Don't take something people have loved for multiple generations, slap some crappy CGI in it, and then tell us it's better and we wouldn't want the original anyhow.

On the bright side, I understood nearly all of E.T. even though it was only in Japanese, which felt pretty good.

Australia Part Last

2005-02-09T05:31:00.000-08:00

Okay, considering that I got back from this trip over a month ago it has just started to seem ridiculous that I am still talking about it. So, let's fly through the rest of this and get back to talking about things which are probably less interesting (I hope that's saying something) but are at least more recent.

Near the end of my time in Sydney I decided that I should do something a bit more touristy, and I also wanted to show my students kangaroos and koalas. So, the obvious choice was the Taronga Zoo. Now, you don't just go to the zoo, you go down to the Quays and take a ferry. So I took a few scenic shots on the way there, giving you a different view of the famous Opera House. Never thought I would take so many pictures of that thing, but then I didn't figure I would go there more than once.

Once at the zoo, I hit the Information Desk to get a map and the nice lady asked me if I was mostly interested in Australian animals. Of course I was so I got the map with all of the Australian animals highlighted so you can skip the boring stuff likes elephants and giraffes. Now, this zoo is pretty big so it was probably best that I just stuck to a few parts of it. And really zoos aren't that fun when you are by yourself. So, I took pictures of animals. That's really all you do at a zoo, so there's not much to tell you here. Go look at the pictures.

The next day was my last, so of course it was on this night that I met four more cool people to hang out with. Yeah, great. Where were you four a week ago huh? Well, it was a great time on my last night going out with a group of six instead of just two. Still, we went to the same places but it was fun.

Then it was up early and off to the airport. The flight, as before, was great but I had a bit of dread this time. Not because I didn't want to leave. Actually the one time I had a bit of homesickness during this trip I thought of Japan, not America. No, this dread was because of my layover. I was headed back to Taipei, but instead of a 3 hour layover I had a 20 hour layover. That's not a typo. You can imagine that I was not looking forward to camping out in an airport for 20 hours. But then, when I got to Taipei they herded all of us into some room and split us into those who had an overnight layover and those (the other 4 people) who didn't. Those of us who were there overnight *gasp* got put up in a hotel for free! And not just a hotel, a country club! And they gave us breakfast for free too! Yay! So, instead of sleeping in a plastic chair I got a nice bed with a shower and TV and everything. Too bad I checked my baggage which had all of my clothes...

The one amusing thing that happened here was that I decided to check out the mini-fridge and possibly have a beer. Now, I know there is such a thing as Taiwan Beer because I had some on the plane. But what did I find when I opened that fridge? Asahi Super Dry. Japanese beer. The same stuff I usually drink here.

Then it was off to the airport and off to Japan. I took the train from Narita to Tokyo, then took the subway to Shinjuku (which is part of Tokyo) and then took the 6 hour overnight bus back to Sendai. I had to wait for this bus so I got to take some pictures of the Illumination Circus there, which was cool. Then in Sendai I caught the first train at 6:30 AM to get to my town. I stepped out of the station to see the little town of Semine which I have come to totally think of as home. It was covered in snow. It was beautiful. It was ridiculously cold. I woke up the next day sick. Ahhhh, back in Japan....

Australia Part 6

2005-02-02T05:58:00.000-08:00

After a few a couple days hitting various establishments in Sydney which coincidentally sold beer, it became New Year's Eve. Scott and I had asked a few locals (only a few, because it's surprisingly hard to find an Australian in Sydney near New Years) and the consensus was that we should go wherever we were going early. Really early. With no real plan we eventually decided on the most obvious spot in the city: the Opera House. With a great view of the harbor and of course the Harbor Bridge how could we go wrong?

So, we headed down there after having some breakfast/lunch on New Year's Eve to see how crowded it was getting and there were already a couple hundred people settled in. This was at about noon. We found a good spot with a light pole to lean against and laid out our blanket, preparing for the wait. Didn't really think this through and after about an hour of simply sitting there in the scorching heat of the midday Sydney sun we began to realize how poorly we had planned for this. Now, because so many people go there at New Year's they close off the gates once it gets too full. Residents of Sydney can get special passes allowing them in even once the gates are closed, but for those of us visiting we just have to get there early and stay there. Still, by 1 PM I was willing to risk it. I left Scott to guard our spot and headed to a nearby convenience store where I grabbed some bottled water, a deck of cards, and some sunblock. The sunblock was ludicrously expensive but was probably the most important thing I bought. SPF 20 and we slathered it on repeatedly and I STILL got people noticing how much sun I got over a week later when I got back to Japan. And it was all from this day.

So, it's maybe 1 - 1:30 PM. The sun doesn't set until after 8 PM. There was a small fireworks show at 9:30 for the kiddies and then the big one at midnight. So we sat there and played cards. And played cards. We invented a game. It sucked. But we still played it a few times. I taught him, like, 4 card games. We played Go Fish for crying out loud. I mean, you almost looked forward to needing to use the toilet even though you'd have to wait in line because it meant doing SOMETHING.

Around 6 or 7 we began to notice people gathering on the 2nd story terrace of the Opera House. This turned out to be a wedding ceremony. Can you imagine having your wedding on New Year's Eve in Sydney in front of about 3000 people? Well, someone did. Seemed like a nice ceremony too. When the groom kissed the bride people cheered and clapped. Hope it made him feel good because I'm guessing someone paid a pretty penny for that.

Sometime after 11 PM some Australian woman introduced herself to us. She seemed nice and had apparently taken a liking to Scott. However, when it turned out she had had her eye on us for several hours ("Did you enjoy your card game? Man, you sure seemed to win more than him!") we were a little weirded out. Still, she was nice. Her British friend came over to distract me so the Aussie could chat up Scott. Of course, the Brit started making claims about how great the fireworks were going to be and how they would outdo anything we could do in America and I could just forget about Disney and blah blah blah.

So, midnight comes and the fireworks go off and they're great and all. I mean, I've seen some pretty spectacular fireworks shows and to be honest the ones they do in Disneyworld are pretty awesome. And they do those every single day. There was this big silver ball on the bridge and we had been waiting all day (ALL DAY!) to see what it would do. It went down a little bit. That was it. Turned out it hadn't worked. It was supposed to spin around and shoot off more fireworks or something but it didn't work. So, after all was said and done and it was obvious that it hadn't worked right I couldn't help but turn to the Brit and say, "You know, in America, our balls work." I know, I know, but how often do you have a setup like that? Huh?

Then it was off to a bar for a few drinks. Actually just one. The sun had sapped our strength over the course of those 8 hours and we weren't prepared for any real partying. So, we headed somewhere which had a live band. They played (you guessed it) cover songs of American rock music. I mean, these guys did Sweet Home Alabama. Then, near the end of the set, the singer starts wishing people a Happy New Year. "Happy New Year to the Australians! Happy New Year to the Brits! Happy New Year to New Zealanders!" He did several countries but there was one country conspicuously missing. Can you guess which one?

Then it was off to bed and back to my lunch-movie-dinner-bar hopping schedule.

Australia Part 5

2005-01-26T05:56:00.000-08:00

Having heard so much about the fantastic Darling Harbour, Scott and I decided to head over there while the sun was still up and check it out. Neither of us was really interested in visiting the Aquarium, having been to a few in other places. I mean, I went scuba diving off the Florida keys and had a pair of nurse sharks swim within a couple yards of me shortly after being stalked by a barracuda. Seeing some fish behind glass isn't all that exciting now. And if we weren't interested in the aquarium, you should have seen how long it took us to decide that we weren't going to the National Maritime Museum. I'm not sure stopwatches can record time that short. Oddly enough, all of the ads I saw for the National Maritime Museum seemed to be aimed at kids. That makes sense. You know how much kids love maritime related stuff. I couldn't tell you how many kids I have heard say, "Oh, golly, if only there was more maritime related stuff in my day." Right.

Otherwise, Darling Harbour appeared to be restaurants and sports bars. There was some shopping, but since I wasn't looking for clothing or jewelry (although there was this really nice diamond necklace...) I didn't see much there. And that was it. We grabbed some food, and although my burger was pretty decent Scott didn't eat his chicken because it was smothered in cheese. This was when I found out he didn't eat cheese. Who knew there were people who are not lactose intolerant and yet still don't eat cheese? Huh.

So, we came back that night to see how the night life was in Darling Harbour since it was supposed to be a highlight of Sydney. It wasn't. Not a whole lot going on there. So, after a couple drinks we headed off in the general direction of Chinatown, which is pretty small (at least compared to New York and San Francisco) and was mostly closed. Still we had a beer at a British Pub. In Chinatown. Because that makes sense.

Then we headed back in the general direction of our hostel. In order to do this we had to head to the aforementioned George St. and right when we reached it we saw what looked like a reasonably hopping place across the street. This place was Scruffy Murphy's, which as it turns out is something of a chain. The important thing was that it seemed lively. We headed in to discover that they have a live band every night. A live cover band. Who plays American music. Because, other than the British, we make the best music in the world. We also make the worst music in the world though, so don't start feeling too patriotic just yet. Anyhow, this was one of my favorite places in Sydney. Not overly clean, but the music was familiar and mostly good. And it was crowded which was something we hadn't really found up to that point.

And we would be back. Oh yes, we would...

Australia Part 4

2005-01-24T04:58:00.000-08:00

Because all of my money was in Traveler's Cheques I had to break them at the rate of about one every day. Now, as I had understood it based on my own lack of experience, hearsay, and stuff that I just made up in my head, you can use a Traveler's Cheque at any store. This, at least in Sydney, is not true at all. Only larger stores, hotels, and whatnot will take them. Fortunately, there was a Woolworth's not far from where I was staying, which was actually between me and anything I would want to do anyhow.

And here's where we begin to discuss my vacationing pattern.

I would wake up early. You know, 12:00-12:30 in the afternoon. Shower. Get presentable. Head to Woolworth's. Buy something. Anything. I mean, you have to buy something in order to break a Traveler's Cheque but it can be anything. For the most part I didn't really need anything but I had to buy a little something everyday. Gum. Razors. A pen. Something. Then, I would head to SubWay for breakfast/lunch. I worked at a SubWay for a long time back in Gainesville and I thought I had gotten sick of it, but it really is pretty good for fast food. And more importantly they don't have them in Japan so I enjoyed it while I could. Then I would swing by the theater and see what was showing and at what times. A little wandering and then it was back to the theater. It cost a little over $15 to see a movie in Sydney, which would be about $11.25 US. Not cheap, but it's tough to catch American movies in Japan at all where I am so I saw everything I could. Blade:Trinity, Ocean's Twelve, The Incredibles, Meet the Fockers, Saw, and I Heart Huckabees. On a short side note, if you do not see I Heart Huckabees when it comes to video you are doing yourself a great disservice as this is probably the best movie I have seen in a LONG time.
Then it was back to the hostel to bum around a bit more until I found Scott. We would make our plans for the night.
"So, uh, you wanna grab a bite to eat?"
"Yeah, sure. Maybe get a drink after that."
"Cool."
After a few days it became a joke to us.
"Hmmm, let me check my schedule and get back to you."
"Well, I don't normally drink... But since I'm on vacation maybe just one beer..."

Anywho, he would hit the showers and then we would meet up again. Apparently, living in the desert has created in him the habit of showering at least twice a day. Then, we would find somewhere to eat, which was often a pub. Then, we would check out places on George St. This is, in my opinion, where all the good places in Sydney are. We also hit The Rocks (previously mentioned) as well as Darling Harbour. Both of those, according to the little free tourist books I picked up in the airport, are supposed to be the two best places to go. But having been there early on, and then heading to George St., we quickly gave up on going anywhere else.

There are a lot of great bars and clubs on George St., but we didn't find the good ones until we went somewhere else...

Australia Part 3

2005-01-20T05:06:00.000-08:00

So, after a relaxing day wandering around Sydney, still experiencing an almost dream-like state, I finally headed back to the hostel about 6 in the evening. Here in northern Japan it starts getting dark about half past four, and by 5 PM it's like night. A little different from Florida, but in Sydney it doesn't get dark until after 8 PM so that was a little hard to get used to. I mean, it would be evening, EVENING, and it still looked like day. I kept thinking, "Oh, the sun is still up so it must be reasonably early," but it was actually 7 at night.
Anyhow, I popped into my room to drop off my camera and bum around, and who knows? Well, the other guy in the room (whose bag was previously mentioned) was there, so we said hello and introduced ourselves. I still find this amusing. His name is Scott and he's British, actually from London. However, he lives in the Middle East, in Oman, where he is teaching the Omanni (sp?) people how to maintain helicopters. Don't hear that everyday. Anyhow, the amusing bit is that he's British, but he lives in Oman whereas I'm American but I live in Japan. So rather than just having two cultures to discuss, we spent the next several days comparing and contrasting four different countries. Pretty fun. Apparently, and there's no joke here, there really are a bunch of camels just wandering around there. They don't actually belong to anyone, they're just wild. However, should one get killed (for example, hit by a car) someone will claim it was their camel and try to get money out of the person who killed it, especially if that person is a foreigner. He told one story where a camel apparently slipped and fell from a cliff, onto a car below. It completely destroyed the car, and of course also died in the process. Someone tried to claim that it had been their camel in order to get money out of the guy whose car had just been totaled, but that obviously didn't go anywhere. The part that I was extra surprised at, was that the guy was IN the car at the time. He was driving it, it wasn't parked, and he apparently walked away without a scratch. Just picture that whole thing from the perspective of the guy in the car behind him. Good stuff.

Okay, so Scott and I became fast friends, partly because we both had this experience of living and working in a country with a significantly different culture (although as far as how different it is, he definitely trumps me), but also because we were traveling alone and wanted someone to hang out with. We headed out to get something to eat and perhaps hit a bar or two. And thus, a pattern emerged. You see, from that day forward, every day in Sydney for me would involve coming back to the hostel from wherever at about 6-7 PM, meeting up with Scott, eating, and then hitting a couple bars. Sounds boring right? Man, it was great.

Sorry, there I go again. So, in Japan, you can usually only get Japanese beer, of which there are really only three: Kirin, Sapporo, and Asahi. There's also Yebisu but that's made by Sapporo. That's about it. I went to a foreign foods store that also had Guinness, Bass, and Budweiser (although why anyone would choose to drink Bud is beyond me) and there's an Irish pub in Sendai that serves Guinness. But seriously, that's about it. And although Japanese beer is decent, it doesn't have much body, and you just don't see anything even slightly dark here. So, I was excited to get some serious beer from a country that takes it seriously, and man does Australia take it seriously. You have probably heard of Foster's because of their delightfully funny commercials. Well, I didn't see Foster's anywhere in Sydney. Not in bars, stores, not even an ad. The two most popular beers in Sydney are Victoria Bitters (VB) and Toohey's New. But most places also carry Stella Artois, which Scott told me is the most popular lager in England. He also warned me that although it isn't a higher percentage than any other beer it has some kind of magical power where it just wipes people out. This, of course, sounded silly to me. And it being my first real night of vacation I decided to have a few. We actually hit several bars, even heading down to The Rocks which was supposed to be where all the nightlife was It wasn't particularly hopping so we managed to go full circle and come back to the sports bar where we had eaten dinner at the beginning, and have another Stella. At some point, I realized I was drunk, and needed to go to sleep. So, I told this to Scott and headed out. Apparently he said he was nearly ready to go himself but I was intent on going to bed. So, I walked back to the hostel which wasn't too far, because it really was a pretty good location, and for the first time I had to use the key for the front door. During the day the door is open so I hadn't needed it before, and therefore I hadn't known that it was ridiculously hard to use even in the best conditions. Put me there with a few pints of Stella in me and I couldn't work it at all. So, I sat down on the sidewalk to wait for Scott. I suppose I could have walked back to the bar to find him, but this just seemed like a better idea. Fortunately he was only 5-10 minutes behind me so it wasn't long before he got there and woke me up...
Ahem...
This was also my first night sleeping on the hostel bed. It was by far the best night of sleep I got the whole time, most likely because I was so tired. Those beds sucked. Still, this was vacation.

Australia Part 2

2005-01-17T05:57:00.000-08:00

So, I have to admit that from here on in may not be that exciting to read because I relatively quickly got into a pattern which, although great fun for me, doesn't necessarily make fascinating prose.

Anyhow, I got off the plane in Sydney at about 9 in the morning, and headed through customs and immigration. I picked up my bag with no trouble and headed to the information desk for some information. I asked if they just booked hotels or if they could help me find a hostel as well. I had decided to stay at a hostel because it would cost so much less, thereby saving enough money to hopefully be able to head up to Cairns for some scuba. Well, the lady pointed me to a wall of brochures and booklets. You know those lighted boards with phones you find at airports where there is a picture of different hotels and the phone only dials those hotels? Well, there were a couple of those for hostels in the Sydney airport and I quickly spotted the ad for the hostels I had found through the internet. The rooms, as I remembered, were only about $15 dollars per night if you stayed in a dorm room, and considering the Australian dollar is only worth about $0.75, even with the weak dollar we have now in the States, that's pretty cheap. I rang them up and they were kind enough to inform me that they only had rooms for the next two nights, unless I wanted to stay for ten nights.

Now, think about that. They ONLY had rooms for the next two nights, or the next ten nights. How does that work? Oh, and if you chose the ten night deal you got the super special New Year's Price of $350 for ten nights! Look above and compare that to the price I found online. Yeah, it's their New Year's rate! So many people come to Sydney for New Years that they have no trouble renting out every possible bed in the place at a higher rate than normal. Well, I needed a place to stay so I decided to do the ten night New Year's deal thinking I might still be able to swing the scuba if I was a little more thrifty for a couple days. Heck, this place had a kitchen so maybe I could make my own food a couple of nights. Who knows?

So, they sent a shuttle to pick me up, I finally arrived, checked in, and headed to my room. It was cozy, and by cozy I mean extremely hot with four bunk beds in it, two on each side of the room. There was a fan that seemed to be cooling the area directly in front of it for about 7 inches, and a wide corridor between the beds that was at least two and a half feet wide. A window in the wall opposite the door looked out upon some buildings and as I walked to it I felt pretty good. This was a kind of adventure after all.

Even though there were a total of eight beds in the room, only one of them had any belongings on it. I chose a bottom bunk near the window, opposite the bed my only roommate had chosen, probably for the same reasons. Then I headed out for a walk. This was where I did most of my sightseeing in Sydney, the very first day. I have, of course, tossed the photos I took that day up on the photo site, so here's a bit of an explanation.

You will see the Anzac Memorial, which is a war memorial that I believe honors Australian soldiers who gave their lives in France. Treasure these pictures since, as you may be able to read on the sign, you are not allowed to take pictures in the memorial without specific permission. So, I was only able to snap a few before I was told to stop.
Then, you'll see a statue of a kangaroo and an emu. This was on the outside of a building. That's it. I never even figured out what the building was. But it looked cool...
I also strolled through the Royal Botanic Gardens which are right next to the Sydney Opera House. I was surprised to see dozens of bats actively out in the middle of the day, and I got at least one decent action shot here. I read a sign explaining that as cool as the bats are, they are apparently damaging the trees, so the park service there is currently trying to convince them to leave nicely. There were no details as to how they are doing this.
Since I was right there, I also walked around the Sydney Opera House and took some shots of that. I know it looks big in pictures, but in real life it's HUGE. And it sits right on the harbor so I got some pics of that, including the Harbor Bridge, which is nicknamed the 'coat hanger' because it kind of looks like a coat hanger. I guess no one bothered to explain to the Australians that it looks like a hundred other bridges and that any number of cities around the world would therefore be justified in using the same nickname if they were so inclined, which they likely would not be since there are so many bridges that look like that. But whatever.

There's also a bar and grill right there on the harbor, which gave me a chance to relax and drink a nice, cold beer while looking out over the water as the warm summer sun beat down upon me. As I watched the boats float past and reveled in the 35 degree (Celsius) temperature, I though about how cold it must be in Japan at that moment and realized that THIS is what vacation is all about.

Australia Part 1

2005-01-11T05:59:00.000-08:00

The plan was pretty simple. I was to wake up early on December 24th, Christmas Eve, and begin the trip to the Tokyo Airport. Not really a problem. I would be getting up at the same time I always get up to go to work. Now, I did stay up a little late getting ready, and by a little I mean about 3:30AM. Still, I could sleep on the train and the plane.

Five months ago when I had to buy a new alarm clock here (because mine was losing time rapidly due to the fact that the voltage is slightly off from America) I knew it was a bad idea to get a battery operated one, but that was all they had. I knew that one day that battery would die on me and mess things up. What I didn't know was that before the battery died it would just get low enough that the alarm wouldn't wake up an insomniac, and that this would happen to me on the day I needed to get up early and catch a plane. So, instead of getting up at 7:30, I awoke at 11:30. Still, my flight was at 4:30 and I figured I could get to Tokyo in just over three hours so it might be possible.

Well, the train from my town to Sendai didn't come for over 20 minutes. Next, I took the Shinkansen (better known as the Bullet Train in English) from Sendai to Tokyo. Depending on which one you take it can be anywhere from just under two hours to just over two and a half hours from Sendai to Tokyo. I took the next one, which was the slowest one. Then, I hopped on the Subway to go to Narita Airport from Tokyo Station. Heck, I took the Rapid Service subway to the airport. From Tokyo Station to Narita Airport was a measly 1 hour 45 minutes. I should have remembered this from when I came to Japan I guess. Of course, that was 5 months ago, I was horribly jetlagged, and I was so excited time actually ceased to have meaning. Plus, I didn't have anywhere to be back then. So, yeah, I forgot that the Tokyo Airport is actually not in Tokyo at all, it's in Narita nearly two hours away. So, with all the waiting in between and walking and whatnot I didn't get to the desk until 5:30, an hour after my plane had left. I had to wander around the airport talking to various people for a while, even making phone calls to my travel agent back in Sendai a couple times. I have never been more glad that I own a cell phone nor so glad that I can speak Japanese. Otherwise, it would have been an even bigger mess.

Well, because I wanted to fly cheaper I went by China Airlines and they don't fly to Australia everyday. So, they moved me to the next flight at no charge, but the next flight was on the 26th. So, lucky me, I got to start my vacation by spending two nights in a hotel in Narita, a city best known for having an airport and some hotels. The hotel had CNN which was one thing. But, did you know that if you watch CNN long enough it repeats? Yeah, it does.

Finally, I had passed my time in Narita and headed back to the airport, early this time. At this point, it was time to exchange my yen for Australian money. According to the board it was about 89 yen to the Australian dollar if you got cash, or 80 yen to the dollar if you got Traveler's Cheques. So, of course I got Traveler's Cheques. Trust me, this little detail will come up again.
I had no troubles getting to my gate and getting on board my plane this time. In fact, China Airlines is really nice. We had a little TV in the chair in front of us with movies and TV on demand. The food was good, the service was good, the beer was good. I was very pleased to finally be flying. A few hours later we landed in Taipei for about a 3 hour layover. I exchanged a little money for Chinese money (sadly I'm not sure what it's called by I think it mon) and had a bite to eat. All in all, the Chiang Kai-Shek International Airport seemed pretty rundown and unimpressive to me. I snapped a couple shots while I was here which I thought were interesting. One because I was just barely surprised to see a Christmas Tree, and the other because... well, that one is self-explanatory.

Next it was back on the plane for about 7 hours until, at last, I was in Sydney, Australia. Two days late and 1200 yen poorer (because of the hotel) than I had planned but I was here...

Australia: Prologue

2005-01-09T05:36:00.000-08:00

So, this is the beginning of my somewhat lengthy recounting of my vacation in Australia. As a forewarning, it is not as exciting as it should have or could have been. But I had a good time and I think there are at least a couple of interesting anecdotes buried in here. Considering that this is about going to Australia in their summer (which, of course, involved a lot of sweating and a little sunburn), it is somewhat ironic that it begins with, ends with, and even in the middle involves snow. But, you'll just have to wait and see what I mean by most of that.

The reason today's post is called the 'prologue' is because... it's a prologue. This takes place before the trip to Australia even happened. I would have written about it before if I had been busy, you know, going to Australia.
What I'm talking about today is the Semine Junior High School Bounenkai, which roughly translates to the "Forget the Year Party." See, at the end of the year they have the bounenkai to look back and thank everyone for their hard work (and drink). Then, after the new year they have the Shinnenkai (New Year Party) where they look ahead and thank everyone for the hard work to come (and drink). New Year's Eve itself is basically a family holiday, reminiscent of how we do Christmas. The family gathers, eats traditional foods, visits a shrine to wish for a good year, and often try to see in the first sunrise. Now, I know what you're thinking right now, "Hey, why don't WE have two parties at New Year!" I simply don't know what to tell you.

Anyhow, December 22nd was the Junior High Bounenkai. This was the last day of school, a Wednesday, and the next day was a holiday. So, after school everyone got prepared and then headed a couple of towns over (actually into a different prefecture, the equivalent of leaving the state) to a ryokan, after driving through a light snow. This is a Japanese hotel, which is actually pretty different from a Western hotel, which is why they use a different word for the two. I got a ride with one of the other English teachers and took a change of clothes with me. This would be an overnight trip.

The really interesting thing here is that this wasn't just a ryokan, it was an onsen. Because Japan is an island nation born from volcanoes there are lots and lots of hot springs all over the place, and that's what an onsen is. The basic idea is that you go to the hotel, relax in the hot spring bath, have a party, sleep, wake up, relax in the hot spring bath again, have breakfast, and head home feeling much better.

Now, entering an onsen is done the same way as you take a bath at home here. Basically, you shower first, becoming totally clean, before you ever get in the bath. This goes way back when the whole family would share the bathwater so they didn't want to make it dirty. Now, they still share the bathwater in nearly all households, but instead of using a bucket of water they actually shower beforehand. The bath is for relaxing and warming up, not for getting clean. The onsen is the same thing.

So, after I arrived at the ryokan, traded my shoes for a pair of slippers (like a coat check), and saw the room four of us would be sharing, one of the other teachers suggested we get a quick dip in the onsen before the party started. Apparently most of the teachers were doing the same thing, at least those who weren't preparing for the party itself. So, Sakino sensei (the music teacher) and I changed into the handy robes provided for us. You take off your pants and socks, but just throw it on over everything else. Then we got on our slippers and headed for the baths. You enter the preparation room where you, well, prepare. In other words, you get completely naked. Even the slippers come off and all you have is a hand towel to cover yourself with. Then, you walk into the bath room (not the bathroom) where you have to shower. So, you pick a spot from the wall of showers and sit down on this tiiiiny little stool which couldn't have been more than 6-7 inches off the ground. These are not shower stalls. There are no walls in between them. Everyone sits down and cleans themselves thoroughly. Shampoo and soap is provided and there's a bucket there to help you rinse the hand towel out (since it has now become you washcloth as well). Once you're all done you walk over and step into the actual onsen itself.

Now, I expected all of this. I knew what an onsen was and I knew what I was getting into. Your butt may be as bare as the day you were born, but judicious use of the towel can prevent anything more personal from being revealed. I also knew that there are a lot of different types of onsens in the country, and only a few of them use 100% onsen water. Most of them mix in hot tap water, and they have to tell you what percentage they use. Because they are considered such a big part of the culture there are several laws concerning this. Sometimes they are outdoors, sometimes they are tiled, sometimes they are little more than a mudhole filled with really hot water (although this type is apparently not that common, you do still have to clean thoroughly before getting in). I was prepared mentally for stripping down, showering, and getting into the bath with nothing more than a hand towel to preserve my dignity. What I had never bothered to consider was that the water might be crystal clear. And it was.

Admittedly, I barely hesitated and just decided to relax but it was a surprise when I realized that the towel was coming off and the only thing taking its place would be some calm, clear water. However, the bath was pretty nice and I did it again the next day.

After the first dip we headed back to the room to get re-dressed and head to the party. This was a blast because all of the teachers really chill out and have a great time. And since everyone is spending the night, there's no reason not to drink. A couple of people simply DO NOT drink so they still didn't, but the rest of us knocked back a couple of liters. Actually, in Japan you don't pour your own drink. You keep an eye on the drinks of those around you and you especially try to top everyone off at least once. This means it's nearly impossible to keep track of how much you've had to drink. So, I don't know how much I had. But it was fun.

One of the things they did at the party was to Top Ten News Stories of the year from our Junior High school. These were culled from suggestions from the whole staff and were interesting. A scroll would be unrolled with a hint, and then if not one could guess it they would give a more detailed hint. For example, one hint was about someone caring a lot. Apparently our principal hand writes every single student a New Year's card which is, understandably, nearly unheard of. One of the news stories was about me, and I felt pretty silly since I had no idea what it was. It turned out that most of the teachers are impressed because I study Japanese harder than the students.

So, after that was the bingo game (somehow I am terrible at bingo which makes no sense since it's totally random) during which I won a video. Everyone bought a cheap, possibly gag, gift for this part. Well, you know those cheap Disney knockoffs you see in Wal-Mart? Imagine that in Japanese. It's Cinderella and Aladdin. I find it hilarious that I'm the one who got the Japanese children's video, and that was random too.

Afterwards we had a sort of guys-after-party. I assume the women did the same thing, but all of the men gathered in our room and drank some more and chatted. The next day we had another dip in the onsen and had a nice breakfast before gathering or stuff and trading our slippers back in for our street shoes. I said good-bye to everyone except Shida sensei (since he was driving me home) knowing that the next time I saw them, I would have returned from Australia. It was at this point that I realized it had snowed the entire time we had been there. The ground was covered with at least an inch of snow and it was undeniably winter.

Time to go to Australia...

Rock and Roll, Dude

2004-12-21T21:56:00.000-08:00

Well, Sunday was the big day. My international debut, so to speak.
Yes, Sunday was the big rock show at which I was to be the guest drummer for the band, Good Morning Sox. This was a collection of 8, count 'em 8, local rock bands all playing together in a small club/bar/lounge/rest (the sign actually said Star Light Disco and Rest in English, no idea what that means). Went over well and I was complimented quite a lot, but I figure that had more to do with me being a foreigner than talent. I didn't screw up, but as mentioned before my drum muscles have atrophied horribly and, I'm ashamed to say this, I was reduced to playing quarter notes instead of eighth notes on the hi-hat. Oh the shame of it. (I'm assuming at least three people know what I'm talking about here. Maybe it's better that the rest of you don't. You know, for my ego.)

I found the whole thing pretty interesting. A little long (over six hours) but I figure I learned more about the local rock scene in this one night than all of my teachers combined know. Maybe not saying much there, but...

First shocker, everybody uses the same stuff. Back in the states when we had a show we switched out all of the equipment in between every band. The drum set, the amps, usually even the microphones. The PA was usually the venue's system so that stayed the same, but overall the name of the game was speed. Being able to break down everything and set it all up quickly was important. Here, the amps and drum set are used by every band and are provided by whoever puts on the show. There is a short period of individualization where the levels are set where the guitar players want them and the drummer puts everything in the most comfortable spot, but it moves pretty quickly. Sumiko, the actual drummer for Good Morning Sox, was flabbergasted when I told her how we do it.

Second, all bands do an encore. Every single one of them. The pretend like their done, and then everyone starts a sort of mechanical chant ("on-ko-ru"), and then they play another song. Like it's scripted or something.

Third, Japan's local rock scene is just as alive and vibrant as America's. Sadly, America's sucks. Most of the original music I heard was pretty much like the pop-punk stuff you hear on the radio and think,"Yech, this again." Most of the kids here really like American music, more than Japanese music and of course we don't export the less popular stuff. We export the big hits, which 99% of the time are garbage. They don't know that here, they just know it's "cool American music." Here's an example, everyone here knows who Avril Lavigne is, Radiohead rings a bell with most people but they don't know them, no one has ever heard of Tool. My mission is to bring the sound of true rock and roll across the ocean I think.

Fourth, be careful when you say 'cover.' As far as I know, a cover song is a song someone else did first and a cover band is a band that only does cover songs. But here, there is a distinction between a cover song and a copy song. A copy is when you get the sheet music (which is a big thing here) and play the song the same way as the original band. A cover song is when you change it a bit and give it your own flavor. In other words, a copy song is what I would call "a lazy, unoriginal cover song." But since they're doing it in English here it's still impressive.

Fifth, that's right, they do it in English. I saw two cover, errrr, copy bands on Sunday. One did nothing but Green Day covers, errr, copies. Everything in English and people sang along. I mean, they sort of hummed and mumbled along and then sang the chorus. Now, to be fair, this is what a lot of people do in America and it's the language they speak everyday.
The second band was a Mr. Big cover band. Most of you are probably thinking, "Do what now?" Yeah, Mr. Big. An 80s one hit wonder hair band that came along right as hair bands were on their way out. They had a bit of a pan flash with "The One to Be With You" which is still the only song anyone I know has ever heard by them. Not here though. Somehow they live on, and these guys played an entire set of Mr. Big tunes I had never heard before. People sang along, in English, to American songs, and knew more words than I did. The guitar player was really good. I mean, he played that 80s metal guitar to a T. You wanna know the real kicker? These guys were the headliners.

Sixth, Japanese musicians are pretty talented. I have trouble remembering how old everyone is. If you had these bands play alongside the bands I used to play with in Gainesville no one would see a problem. Yet 90% of the members are too young to drink. They are still in high school. Mostly they are music school students who study guitar or bass or whatever on a regular basis in a structured atmosphere which makes a big difference. Still, it was impressive.

Those are the big points. Otherwise it was what you would expect from a rock show. One band wasn't very good. One band really impressed me. I liked all of the others. The beer was overpriced and not that great. Some people came to watch everyone. Some people came to see one band and then left. It was 1000 Yen ($10) to get in and you got one drink with that. No big surprises.

Except for that white guy playing drums. What was that all about?

2004-12-21T05:00:00.000-08:00

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like X-Mas

The Enkai

2004-12-15T07:25:00.000-08:00

Well, it's time for another Japanese culture lesson.
This time we will talk about the 'enkai' or office party. On a basic level all the enkai is, is a chance for people who work together to relax and have a good time. However there are some important aspects that make it quite different from what we might expect in the states.

First of all, Japanese people have absolutely no problem having an enkai on a weeknight. I had one tonight, Wednesday, and everyone had to work tomorrow. Whereas I am used to having parties on Friday or Saturday (or, in college, on Thursday since Friday is the new Saturday) they see nothing wrong with staying up late drinking on a Wednesday night and then getting up early and going to work the next day. So, we had an enkai tonight.

The reason we had one tonight was because Saturday (yeah, I had to work on Saturday) was the 'jugyou sankan'. 'Jugyou' means lecture, and 'sankan' means observation. So, this is the day that parents come to the school to watch what happens when they aren't there, and it's also the day that the teachers put a lot of work into their lectures to make it look good, as well as the day the students are really on their toes so their parents think they always pay attention. I only had one class that was observed but the kids were really on top of things that day. I have never seen more hands being raised in that class before. Of course, since one of the student's mothers is also a student of mine in my adult English class I was able to find out that the parents were well aware that the kids were acting unusual that day. Still, it went well.

Anyhow, this is a big deal which the faculty and the PTA work hard to pull off so they have an enkai to celebrate its success, which was tonight. So, some of the PTA and some of the teachers met at a local restaurant to have a good time. In America a party usually means having people over to your house, but in Japan it simply means everyone goes to a restaurant together. We would call this "going out to eat together" but here it's a full blown party. Fortunately for me I live in town (which many of the teachers don't) so I was able to drink (the legal blood alcohol level here is 0.00%).

One of the cool things about tonight was that three of the PTA members who came are parents of students. Sure, this should have been obvious (hello, P stands for PARENT) but I actually knew who their students were. All three students are some of the better kids (one of them is a star student) which makes one wonder. Are the parents involved because their kids are good students? Or are the kids good students because their parents are involved? The question is applicable everywhere. I remember my father being pretty involved and I like to think I was a good student, so which came first? The chicken or the egg? Hmmm... (In all likelihood I should be saying "Thanks, Dad!", so, "Thanks, Dad!")

What is the point of all of this? I have no idea. I had a party tonight with parents and teachers and I had a great time. Maybe that's the point. Maybe the point is that I drank a pretty decent amount of beer and I have to get up early tomorrow. Maybe the point is that I have to face students whose fathers got drunk with me. Maybe the point is that Japanese people like to have a party at the drop of a hat. Who knows. To me, the point is that I enjoyed myself.

Godzilla

2004-12-05T08:12:00.000-08:00

Let me begin with a short history of what Godzilla means to me, otherwise this whole thing won't have any impact.

I have always loved Godzilla, but that love has certainly grown with me. As a young child they movies were simply fun. As I got older they became interesting as well as fun. Some time around high school I began to realize that there was actually something deeper at work with the character despite all of the ridiculousness that had been piled upon it. By the time I entered college it had become a full-fledged obsession and I actually began philosophizing upon Godzilla. I became plugged into the American Godzilla community and started realizing that I wasn't the only one taking this seriously. In November 1997 I made the decision to permanently remind myself of the importance this character had to me and got him tattooed on my left arm. I have (and I know this worries some people) never regretted this. Near the end of my next-to-last year of college my undergraduate advisor, because my GPA was pretty good, suggested I do a senior's thesis. I decided to go all out and asked if it would be possible to do it on Godzilla and to my surprise he was all about it. He told me to spend the summer reading Emanuel Kant's Critique of Judgment as preparation and, to my surprise and the shock of nearly everyone I mention this to, it was right on topic. I ended up writing a 42 page paper on Godzilla and his position as a necessary image in the nuclear age. For my work I graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Florida. It was now official. I was a Godzilla Fan.

Now, allow me to shift gears for a moment and discuss something totally different. I am also a big fan of martial arts movies. I love a great film as much as the next movie buff but when it's time to unwind and simply enjoy something nothing gets me as excited as a great martial arts flick. I also love movies about monsters, which should come as no surprise considering everything written above. So, when I was informed about a little movie called Versus I had to see it. It is an action/comedy samurai/martial arts/yakuza(Japanese mafia)/zombie movie which sounded like it would be right up my alley. Well, it was and the director, Ryuhei Kitamura quickly became one of my absolute favorites. Those of us who loved Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson's early work were elated to hear that they had been given the directorial positions for Spider-Man and Lord of the Rings respectively. These were great, somewhat unknown, directors who had been allowed to really enter the mainstream with major characters and major movies. So, when I found out that Ryuhei Kitamura would be directing Godzilla: Final Wars I couldn't have been more excited.

So now we reach the point of this whole post. Godzilla: Final Wars is the 28th Godzilla movie, making it the longest running film series ever. It is also ostensibly the final film, although when this was announced by Toho (the studio who makes the movies) they were sure to say that it was possible they might change their mind later. Still, it may very well be the last one ever and is certainly the last one in the current series and the last for some time to come.

It was released in Japan yesterday, Saturday December 4th. I headed into Sendai today to see it with four other people. I think my desire to see it during opening weekend is understandable and I am very happy that others were willing to come with me. One of those four people was an English teacher from my Junior High, a Japanese person. So, obviously he understood the whole thing. I followed nearly everything and actually understood about 50% of the dialogue. My other three friends know absolutely no Japanese so I kept them updated on what I was understanding. It really says something that they were willing to see the 28th movie in a series of which they had collectively seen 3 in a language they didn't understand at all. It says something even bigger that they all thoroughly enjoyed it. I on the other hand, had to remind myself to stop grinning. I know it's silly, but when I was officially accepted into the JET program one of the first things I was excited about was today. I would, for the first time ever, get to see a Godzilla movie, in the theater, in Japan, on opening weekend, in Japanese, and likely would be able to follow it. Honestly, I'm still sort of buzzing from the experience.

Although there are many reasons I decided to devote myself to the study of Japanese the one that got me started was the desire to watch Godzilla movies in their original language and be able to understand them. Today, that was realized. Sure, it's not over. I have a long way to go and I am fully enamored with the language and the culture here. But the simple and childish dream which got me to start down the road I find myself was realized in a small (and boy were we surprised when we saw it) theater watching the best Godzilla movie in 50 years, occasionally turning to the people sitting next to me to let them know what was being said.

I know that on some level this all seems ludicrous. I watched a movie where a guy in a rubber suit wrestles other guys in rubber suits today and I'm making a big deal out of it. But as I sit here typing what is quite honestly a rather emotional post for me, trying not to tear up, it doesn't seem ludicrous to me. Whether or not my love for Godzilla carries on for the rest of my life, I am having an absolutely extraordinary experience here in Japan, and Godzilla is what got me here. I have met some of the greatest people since I got on this program and the fact that a few of them were not only willing but excited to join me in this venture today only proved it further. What can I say? I'm a true fan.

And the movie itself? For me, the word awesome (in its truest sense) has never seemed quite so weak.

Thanksgiving in Japan

2004-11-29T07:06:00.000-08:00

This may go down as one of the most amazing things I have ever done. I managed to make Thanksgiving dinner for 20 people, on my own, in Japan. Now, I'm sure that sounds at least a little interesting but let me further explain why this was such a challenge.

First, making Thanksgiving dinner by yourself would never be an easy thing but I'm sure people do it all the time. In fact, I wasn't entirely alone here. One of my 8th grade students showed up about an hour and a half before the party time to help out and he was definitely a huge help. I had to send him on a short shopping run which worked out nicely. Plus, he could read the Japanese directions on one of the packages and that was a big help too. Still, I did most of it alone.

Secondly, this was the first time I had made Thanksgiving dinner by myself. I had helped on a few of them but never had I been completely in charge. So, that made it a little more challenging.

Third, I live in Japan. Oh yeah, that makes a HUGE difference. In the past when I've said I was going to make mashed potatoes, stuffing, or gravy I was talking about instant mashed potatoes, instant stuffing, and instant gravy. I have never made the real thing, much less do I know how to do so. But, here in Japan it's not like I can pop into the grocery store and pick up a box of Stove Top Stuffing, some Potato Buds, and a bag of gravy mix. No sir, that is impossible. So, I had to fall back on the savior of the unprepared: the Internet. Fortunately it contained recipes to save my butt. Of course...

Fourth, I live in Japan. I know I just mentioned this, but I was saying that all of the instant food I would normally make is unavailable. The thing is, the ingredients I would normally use are also sometimes unavailable. Chicken Broth? Forget it. Vegetable broth? No way. Flour? Not as easy as one might think but available (this is where the 8th grader came in handy since he managed to find it). Egg Substitute? What's that?

So, in addition to having to prepare several dishes for the first time in my life I also had to improvise on the ingredients. Instead of chicken broth from a can I used bullion cubes. Eggs instead of egg substitute. And don't get me started on the metric conversions. So much of what I did was purely flying by the seat of my pants that I'm amaze anything came out okay. To be honest, I'm not sure I had ever actually mashed a potato before Saturday.

But to be honest, I pulled it off. The mashed potatoes were good. The sweet potato casserole was great. And the stuffing? Well, I guess it was good because it got devoured before it even got to me. It was all in all a pretty amazing experience because for my 20 guests (yes, 20) it was the first time they had tasted many of these foods. No one had eaten turkey before (I had to bake it at someone else's house the night before because almost no one has an oven here!). No one had eaten real mashed potatoes. No one had eaten sweet potato casserole. No one had eaten gravy (of course the recipe I used involved soy sauce and miso soup but whatever). No one had ever eaten red beans and rice (What, mix something with rice? We must be crazy!). And almost no one had eaten cream corn before. I was a night of firsts.

Now, I couldn't have actually done this by myself. My supervisor was kind enough to take me shopping a couple of days before as well as bringing two tables for the actual dinner. Then there were the people who made me dinner while the turkey baked in their oven. And of course, Shouta, the 8th grader who showed up right after volleyball practice to help me cook food he had never seen in his life.

But then, I think that's what Thanksgiving is all about. People of different cultures pulling together in order to have a grand feast. And that's exactly what we did. 21 people from two different countries (I was representing the whole rest of the world here) sitting down together to enjoy dinner. Sure, it wasn't the traditional family dinner I'm used to and I would have loved to have been with my family that day. But to be honest, what I really would have liked would have been for my family to be here, as my guests, alongside my Japanese friends (my Japanese family if you will) to sit down and eat the food I had prepared. I suppose that would have been the best of both worlds. But as it was, I think I had the best of this world. And it was a great meal.

And man did I get stuffed.

Planet of the Man-Purses

2004-11-24T06:50:00.000-08:00

One thing which is more popular in Japan than America is the man-purse. I'm not sure if this is what it's really called, but if I remember correctly that's what they said on Seinfeld and that's good enough for me. Basically, I'm just talking about a small shoulder strap bag that men wear. Well, I've never gone in for these before. I mean, it's one step up from a fanny pack (but it definitely a step UP). All I ever used to carry around was my wallet and my keys and that's what pockets are for right?

But after getting here I soon found I needed more, beginning with my cell phone. Then of course, I had to start using a change purse. Yes, I have a change purse now. I have to. Otherwise the coins become too unwieldy. Back in the States I never carried change and it wasn't a problem since you never really deal with anything bigger than a quarter. But because they use 100 yen and 500 yen coins here not using change would be equivalent to never carrying anything smaller than a $10 bill, and that simply isn't feasible. Still, the wallet, change purse, cell phone, and keys were still doable with just pockets.

But then I also like to have my electronic Japanese dictionary with me since it is often handy. And it's nice to keep my digital camera on hand since you never know when you'll see something you'd like to take a picture of. Add to this the fact that when I go to Sendai I have an hour long train ride each way, so I like to bring a book, and the pockets weren't cutting it anymore. So, every time I headed to the city I was lugging around a backpack just to carry these three little items and it just seemed silly. So I broke down and got a man-purse.

Now, the one downside here is that it isn't that big so many books won't fit in it. The book I am mainly reading now is The Wars Against Saddam by John Simpson, which is all about the two Iraq wars and is written by a BBC journalist who has been there many times and has some pretty decent first-hand knowledge. It's fascinating, but as you can imagine that a heavy enough subject that it needs a big book to hold it. So, it doesn't fit in the man-purse. Last time I went into Sendai I discovered this, so instead I grabbed a much smaller book, Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle. I've always loved the original movies (I don't want to talk about that horrible Tim Burton travesty) but I've never read the book. It's really short, only about 120 pages, so between the ride in, reading while I ate lunch, and the ride back I was able to tear through quite a bit of it.

I haven't finished it yet so I can't compare endings but at least of what I've read so far BOTH movies were completely different. In this one, the apes do NOT speak English (since that is actually pretty goofy) so the human has to slowly earn the trust of one of them. Eventually she decides he is special and even takes him on walks to the park. Of course, he has to go in the nude since the bestial humans on this planet do not wear clothes. It makes him very uncomfortable and he keeps pleading to be dressed but she insists that it would draw too much attention. A nude human, regardless of how strange it makes him feel, is the norm there. If he were to act like an APE then heads would certainly begin turning. So, regardless of his true nature he has to force himself to fit the stereotype.

Why am I mentioning all of this? Well, I was reading this on a train to and from Sendai in the north of Japan and it began to hit a little too close to home. The main reason I came here was to become fluent in Japanese, to the point where I could converse comfortably and understand books, movies, and TV. This means truly becoming comfortable with everyday natural spoken Japanese, and becoming comfortable with it means practicing it. So, when I pick up something from TV or my students or a movie or wherever, I use it. And it never fails to turn heads. People laugh or seem shocked or simply don;t know what to do if I say something that actually sounds natural. For a while I would always ask what was so strange. Had I said it wrong? Was my timing off? No, it was perfectly natural and that's why it was odd.
And it's not just language. Even having the man-purse got some strange reactions because Americans don't use those. People always want to give me coffee (which I truly dislike) instead of green tea (which I love) because Americans don't drink green tea. Occasionally, someone will offer me a fork instead of chopsticks because... well, you get the idea.

So, yeah, I was identifying with the main character in Planet of the Apes and it was making me a tad bit uncomfortable. Like I said, I haven't finished the book and at this point there is the promise that he will eventually be able to prove his true nature and began acting like himself again. It won't be as dramatic for me (no huge scientific symposiums to make my debut at) but I can see that slowly the people in my town are coming to grips with the fact that I do like Japanese food and can handle learning the local dialect and that I don't care about sports (man that was a shocker!). Hope the book has a happy ending.

Communication

2004-11-17T06:05:00.000-08:00

This may seem a bit pedantic at first, but I swear I'm trying to make a point here.

See, I have slowly discovered something as I have been living here. That simple fact is: I can communicate more easily with people who are about the same age as me.

That might seem really obvious. I mean, it is usually easier to chat with people who are about your age since you shared relatively similar experiences while growing up. You lived through the same historical events at about the same ages and were exposed to the same general popular culture. But I'm not talking about other Americans. That's pretty obvious.
I have found that chatting with British people is easier when they are close to my age, and the same goes for Australians, New Zealanders, etc. Even though they may not have been exposed to the same exact MTV clips and Transformers cartoons, they were at approximately the same __ age when Nirvana came out. They know who Radiohead is. They might not have seen Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, but their lives were seriously affected by Star Wars much like mine. So, I can sit and talk with a Briton who is 26 easier than one who is 21.

But I didn't write this to explain that British people aren't aliens. The interesting thing is that I can much more easily talk to Japanese people who are about my age as well, regardless of the nearly complete lack of shared popular culture (although they still experienced Nirvana at the same time). Now, you may be willing to say that this is due to us being in generally the same place in our lives. The odd limbo that exists between college and your 'real' career may form some kind of bond that allows easier communication even across the language barrier.

But still, it's more than that. Recently, while chatting with Sumiko (the girl who invited me to drum for her band, who is 24) I realized that I could understand her Japanese more easily than older and younger people, and she seemed to understand my Japanese easier as well. Whenever I talk to my Junior High students I can do all right, but talking to someone like Sumiko or a few of the other Japanese people I've met of approximately my age is much easier. Even though his English is not as good, I can talk to Shida sensei (who is 30) easier than Mitsuzuka sensei (who is about 50 and has much better English). It's like they have a better idea of what words to use and a better grasp of how to explain things to me when I'm confused. And they seem to more easily understand my word choices. When I speak to parents, it's a bit of a strain. And one day I met three old women on my way home from Elementary and barely understood a thing they said. It was nearly a complete communication breakdown, even though they were asking me the simplest questions. And t's not just spoken Japanese. Just today I got an e-mail from a family friend in Tokyo which I could read with virtually no trouble, all in Japanese. I also received an e-mail from a teacher which had simpler content ("I can't come to your Thanksgiving party. Sorry.") yet was considerably harder to comprehend.

So why is this? Is it because they studied some English when they were in school and therefore better know how to speak Japanese to an English speaker? But then, why wouldn't Mitsuzuka sensei be easier to understand since she speaks great English? Is it because of some kind of instant psychic link forged between people of similar ages? What's going on? I have no idea. But it's fascinating eh?

R.O.C.K. in J.A.P.A.N.

2004-11-14T06:18:00.000-08:00

At my little Welcome Party last Tuesday, one of my students said that someone was coming who wanted to meet me. She was late because of work, but apparently had some kind of favor to ask me.

Turns out, Sumiko had read my little written self-introduction in the town newsletter and had learned from that the fact that I play drums. Well, she is a drummer in a local rock band and they have a show coming up next month. She asked me if I would MC the show and I figured it would be cool to check out a couple of local bands in Japan so I agreed. Apparently I hadn't quite understood everything she said (of course, it wa in Japanese) and in addition to MCing she had asked that I play a song with her band. Once I figured this out I made it clear that, although I would love to do it, I was really out of practice and I would definitely need to get some rehearsal under my belt.

So, today she picked me up and we headed to the studio where her band practices every weekend (Practicing at someone's house is nearly unheard of here. It would annoy the neighbors, and besides few houses have room for that sort of nonsense). Well, it has been at least six months since I even sat behind a drum set and well over three years since I played with a band so I was a bit worried that I wouldn't be able to pull this off. One good thing was that the song they wanted me to play was a cover, Basketcase by Green Day. As much as I like the song, Green Day is not exactly known for it's complex music. The drummer is pretty good but for someone who has been trying to play Rush, Tool, and Dream Theater for years a Green Day song is not too tough. Still, I was terribly out of practice.

The good news is that I still have my abilities. It was amazing to me how easily I got used to being at the set once again and how quickly I was able to rip out some decent rhythms. The lead guitar and bass player jammed with me for a bit before the lead singer got there which gave me chance to remind my arms and feet of what they were supposed to do. Having downloaded Basketcase and given it a few close listens that morning, I was ready to do it and things went well. In fact, they have asked me to play drums on another song, one of their own, in addition to the Green Day cover.

The bad news is, my chops are gone. Any drummers reading this will completely understand that, but since I'm guessing that number is somewhere around zero I'll explain. For drummers, 'chops' are basically the muscles in your forearms which do nearly all of the work since drumming is done from the wrist and not the elbow (unless you're a really terrible drummer, which I have seen). Whereas, at my height, I was practicing for two or three hours straight without too much trouble I found my right forearm (it does far more work because of the hi-hat and ride cymbal) burning after 25-30 minutes today. It felt like it had swelled to twice it size. Kind of made me sad.

Anyhow, I'm really looking forward to getting back up on a stage and banging on the drums again, even if it is just as a guest drummer. Who knows? Maybe a different band will see me and fire their drummer on the spot. And then pay me copious amounts of money to join.

It could happen.

Thinking on Your Ashi

2004-11-13T05:56:00.000-08:00

Ashi means feet in Japanese. Figured I'd go ahead and solve that little mystery for you.

So, Friday I headed to the Elementary school as I always do on Fridays to teach some fun and simple English to little kids. This week I only had two lessons, one with the 5th graders and one with the 6th graders. I had decided to do body parts this time in the hopes that they might not know them all (colors and numbers ended up being just games since they already knew all of them in English). Well, the song "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" is popular here so they know those bits, but I didn't teach all of them. Call me silly but I happen to think that the words arm, hand, leg, and foot and more important than shoulders, knees, and toes. But even without the song they pretty much knew the word 'head' because of soccer. You know, when you use your head. That's called 'head'.

Anyhow, with the 5th graders, after an introduction and a bit of goofiness to keep them interested they seemed to have the hang of the material so we went into a game. Pretty simple. They split into four teams and each team had a pile of papers with images of each of the body parts we had just gone over (with two of the legs, arms, ears, eyes, and hands). I called out a body part and they had to run up, find it, and bring it to me. The first one to deliver it got to put it on the board with a piece of tape in an effort to build a whole body. Everything was going well and when all the kids had had a chance and time was almost up we did our last round, only to end with a four way tie! Well, of course we had to have a tie-breaker but I could see that the next kid for one of the teams was an especially smart kid who has probably had some English tutoring. Didn't seem quite fair to me so I had the teams pick there champion and we had a playoff that way. That one kid won anyhow, but at least I felt better about it. And the other kids didn't seem to mind.

Then, with the sixth graders, I ran into a different problem. Namely, I forgot to bring the tape dispenser with me so we couldn't tape the body parts onto the board. Crisis? Nahhh. I just had them DRAW the parts up there which ended up being even better because we ended up with some wacky, wacky looking partial people. This time however, we didn't have a fair fight with a tie. Instead we had one team which horribly dominated the whole game. It was bad. One team didn't get a single point. Well, the prizes this time were play American money (Thanks Dad!) and everyone on the winning team got one. Then I gave the other teams as many bills as they had points and let them share (or fight, whatever). Still, one team had no points like I said and I felt bad about sending them away empty handed after being so close in a few rounds. So I gave them the 'booby prize'. Since everyone else was getting fake $100 bills, I gave them a fake penny. Again, this was great because the plastic fake coin is apparently far more interesting than the paper fake bill and they felt quite pleased with what they got.

And that's how you teach English! Well, not really. Some people like to do it differently.

3 Months Later...Welcome!

2004-11-09T07:18:00.000-08:00

Got to Japan back on July 25th and actually got here in Semine on July 28th, yet tonight, November 9th, I had a welcome party.

Now, you can't totally blame them. It was my adult English conversation class (Eikaiwa) and I was here for quite some time before I ever had my first class. They wanted me to get settled into teaching with assistance before I had to fly solo and I was living here for a couple weeks before the school semester even started. So, by the time I actually started teaching Eikaiwa all of my welcoming events were long gone. And on top of that I only go every other Tuesday so I've only had a handful of classes.

Last time was, of course, two weeks ago so it was right before Halloween. I thought it would be fun to have a little "Halloween Party." I put that in quotes because I figured we would just have some candy, put up a couple of simple decorations, and talk about Halloween and other holidays. I was prepared to center the whole lesson around how to explain a holiday in English. Well, someone managed to get confused (It happens when there's a massive language barrier. I mean, I'm supposed to be the teacher here! Aaaagh!) and they all thought it was my birthday. So there were all kinds of candy and cake and even a gift. I guess this put everyone in the party mood (we didn't have much of a lesson) so they made a group decision that my welcome party would be held during the next class time, which was tonight. So, they took me out for drinks and dinner, and then a little karaoke. Had a good time. Nothing crazy (it IS a school night after all) but a good time.

However, this makes me think of something kind of interesting. Since this is such a small town, it constantly happens that people are connected. A few of my adult students' kids are also my students at Elementary or Junior High. A lot of my Junior High kids have brothers and sisters in the Elementary and Kindergarten. If I go to buy paper towels at the home center, the girl ringing me up may be too old to be a student and too young to be a parent, but (guess what?) her sister is one of my kids. It happens all the time and every day. On the one hand, it is really great and it makes me feel like I'm part of a real community.
On the other hand, it's creepy and it makes me feel like I am always being scrutinized and anything I do will immediately be known by everyone in town. Which is why I like going to Sendai on the weekends. Nobody knows you there and you will see at least a few other foreigners.

Right, so, ummm, welcome parties are fun.

Scavenger Hunt

2004-11-08T06:40:00.000-08:00

When is the last time you went on a Scavenger Hunt? Honestly, I think I was probably about 10 years old. I can't say I remember it all that well but I do seem to think it was pretty fun. As far as I can remember all of the very few Scavenger Hunts I have been on were pretty fun.

And the Miyagi Prefecture JET Scavenger Hunt was no different. We split into groups of about 6 people, got a list of 21 items, and a disposable camera. Then, we had two hours to dart around Sendai and get the best and most creative of the items we could. My team was pretty energetic so we managed to finish all of the pictures, but as it turns out all of the teams finished everything.

It was pretty much a big joke so the list including stuff like "A picture of whole group inside a taxi" which isn't so easy when you're talking about 6 or more people. We also needed a group shot of everyone singing karaoke and fortunately we found a karaoke bar willing to let us dress up in costumes and invade one of their rooms without paying. An employee even took our picture and then straightened up after us. How nice! For our picture of somewhere high we went to the top floor of the tallest building in Sendai and then got on each others shoulders which got us runner up. For somewhere low we just went to the subway which got us nothing. The winners took a picture of themselves counting their change outside a hostess bar. Pretty low. For the picture of the longest piece of string we managed to stretch it across the walkway in front of Sendai Station, which I think you would have to have seen to really believe. Again only runner up because the winners took one picture at Sendai Station and another at the other side of town and made it look as if they had stretched it that far. Inventive, but two pictures. Cheap! We did win the picture for the T-Shirt with the worst English. I can't quite read it from the negatives (they kept the originals to put in the Miyagi JET magazine) but it was something like "Behold the edible flow of all which going into tomorrow leaves us now. How nice!" We managed to garner a runner-up for the photo of random foreigners since we had two and also a runner-up for the photo of Japanese school boys kissing group members. We had three guys kissing two of our girls on the cheeks which was cute. However, we lost because James managed to kiss a Japanese school boy on the mouth, or at least make it look like he did. Which is weird. Our group re-enactment of the Abbey Road cover was apparently the most unoriginal thing we could have done so that won nothing, espcially after seeing the winners re-enactment of the Iwo Jima photo using the flag from the Sendai soccer team. But we did win for the group shot in a men's restroom since there were just enough urinals for everyone to stand at. Of course, we got some odd looks coming out of there. Still, it was nice of that guy to put out his cigarette and take the photo.

Anyhow, once everyone turned in their cameras we had a little time to kill and then we all met up for dinner and the awards ceremony. It was dinner and drinks while the announced the winner in each of the 21 categories and then passed around all of the photos. Our group did all right, probably coming in 3rd of 5. Great fun.

Who says JET isn't a serious job?

Alien vs. Predator

2004-11-04T05:33:00.000-08:00

I may write something about the election this weekend, but frankly right now I don't want to deal with it. If the majority of Americans are actually stupid enough to want someone who has concretely proven that they are bad for everyone and everything to be president then whatever. Good for them. I'm gainfully employed on the other side of the world suckers.

The rest of this post is basically a movie review so if you're not interested stop now or at least don't hold it against me if you feel like it was a waste of your time.

Anyhow, on a lighter note, I watched Alien vs. Predator tonight and I actually really liked it. Now I have to validate that statement since the movie is obviously a piece of crap. See, I not only wanted to watch this movie, but I had really been looking forward to it for a while. I've always been a fan of both series of movies. Alien is probably the best combination of horror and sci-fi ever. Aliens is definitely one of the best action flicks of all time. Never cared much for Alien 3 but I've been told repeatedly to see it again. And although many might disagree, I thought Alien: Resurrection was pretty cool. I mean, come on! It was made by the guy who did Amelie! The Predator movies were considerably lighter on plot but still cool. The first one featured Arnold back when he was still cool and the second had Danny Glover when he wasn't too old for this s**t. So yeah, I really liked the movies. Throw on top of all that the excellent comic book Alien vs. Predator which Dark Horse Comics put out back when both franchises were still relatively popular and of course I wanted to see this movie.

Now, like I said, the comic book was excellent. It not only took care to maintain the mythology created in the films, but actually built upon it in order to make the creatures more interesting. But as we all know, a great comic being made into a movie usually means a terrible movie. And sometimes a terrible comic book can make some pretty cool movies. So, I figured they would screw this up and do something just awful.

Well, they screwed it up of course, but the movie was still great fun. Obviously whoever wrote the screenplay had read the comic books, and then decided to chuck that script right out. They kept some basic elements but that's all in. In the comics, the whole thing takes place on an alien world around a farming community of humans far, far from Earth. This gives a thorough sense of isolation and a bit of wonder. In the movie, they must not have wanted to mess with making the audience figure anything out or making some kind of alien set. Probably for the best, since they would have almost certainly used tons of CGI which would have looked horrible. So instead, this time it all happens in Antarctica. Cheap sets! Just lots of snow!

Okay, so here's what I thought. You want plot? Forget it. Whatever plot there is is pretty darn weak and occasionally nonsense (How did a dozen people birth a hundred aliens?). For the most part it can all be summed up by the title. Not entirely since the title is Alien vs. Predator, with both words being singular. In fact, there are several Predators and bunches of Aliens. Hope I didn't ruin the surprise. You want acting? Ha ha ha ha ah aha ha! Whew. That's a good one. However, if you'd like to see some decent action wherein a whole bunch of Aliens fight a few Predators then this is the film for you! Somehow the Predators are bigger now than when we've seen them. And somehow the Aliens prove to be a much tougher adversary for the Predators than one might expect (especially compared to the comics, but who read those things?). But you still get some butt kicking and if that's not the only reason you're watching this then you have some sort of problem.
And besides, Lance Henriksen is in it. And he was one of the best things about Aliens so it was pretty neat that they got him in there.

So, there. I liked the stupid thing. Even though the guy sitting in front of whoever filmed it in the theater with a camcorder was a bit too tall and I could see the silhouette of the top of his head the whole time. The nerve of that guy. Didn't he know that this thing was going to be spread all over the internet? Sheesh.

2.5 stars out of 4
Fans of the series (which probably includes every guy of my generation) should watch it. Acid blood! ACID BLOOD!!!

Next time I may review the book I just finished, The Once and Future King by T. H. White. See, I can be intellectual too.

Halloween and an Internet Election

2004-11-02T20:44:00.000-08:00

How odd. Here I am writing a post that deals with two things:
1. a day when people dress up, wander all over their town chanting strange things and gather with other people for parties to celebrate the day
2. Halloween

Heh. You like how I did that? Well, if not then just don't mention it.
So, I realize this is not in chronological order but I'm going to go ahead and hit up the election first. This is, obviously, the first time I have ever lived in a foreign country during a presidential election. It is also the first time I have actually spent the last few years paying attention to the news instead of just chatting with people whose roommates overheard something on TV the day before. So, here I am actually caring about this a great deal, and I'm on the other side of the world getting all my info from the internet.
Fortunately, today (Wednesday) is Cultural Day (Bunka no Hi) in Japan so it's a national holiday and the schools are closed. While you in America may be staying up late to watch the returns, I'm sitting here 13 hours in the future in the afternoon of the next day listening to them via Internet radio. I also have a couple of websites showing the results as they come in up so in all likelihood I'm getting my info as fast as you. Still seems odd and disconnected.

Oh boy, and they just called Florida for Bush. Wow. I may not be able to eat lunch now. That's great. Hmmm.... How many years can I stay in the JET program? And is 2 PM too early to start drinking?

Okay, enough of that horribly depressing nonsense, let's talk about candy.
So on Halloween I headed down to a small town called Murata where I
REALLY HOPE BUSH DOESN'T WIN!
ahem, went to a party with a bunch of the other JETs from Miyagi. As you can see from the pictures below (Go ahead and scroll down there and look. No, really. I mean now. Take a peek.) I went as Bill S. Preston Esq. from the band Wyld Stallyns! And if you don't know what movie that's from then you're obviously not an Alex Winter fan. And if you can't figure out who he is then you obviously don't know about http://www.imdb.com And if you don't know how to use that, then you obviously don't know what the internet is. And if you don't know what the internet is then, ummm, how exactly are you reading this again?

Oh, all right. I went as Bill from the excellent movie Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.
As for the hat you see below, I did that myself. I mean, I bought the hat and I was a bit miffed that I was never able to find a plain red hat and had to settle for that one. Then I found the design online, printed it out at school, bought some paint markers in Sendai, cut the letters out of the design I printed, used it as a stencil to make the orange outlines (after freehanding the blue spiral in the background) and then went from there. I basically sat in front of my computer for about four hours working on that since each color needed four or five coats and I had to wait for them to dry in between. But I think it turned out rather nicely.

Unfortunately, that movie was apparently only popular in America. So all of the Canadians, Britons, Irish, Australian, and Other JETs at the party thought I was supposed to be a trucker. Especially when I was drinking beer. Disappointing, but I really can't complain. I picked the costume because it would be easy and all I really did was make the hat. I didn't even get the yellow t-shirt to make it accurate. Maybe if I'd had that...

That was on Saturday, Halloween Eve or Halloweeneen. On Sunday, Halloween proper, I went to the ECC Halloween party in my town. ECC is an organization that teaches, trains, and certifies people to be private English teachers from their home and there's one in Semine. She's super nice, and her youngest daughter is actually one of my 2nd grade Junior High students. So, I go over there on Saturday for English conversation with her and two other ECC teachers, as well as a bit of private Japanese instruction and help. Well, most of her students are also students of mine at Junior High and Elementary so she invited me to the party. It was fun. But you know how these things are. It was designed around things like 'learning' and 'English' instead of candy and fear. So, to me it seemed like an odd party. But since the Japanese kids have never been to a regular Halloween party they didn't know and they all had a great time.

I'll post pictures of both parties on my photo site soon.

2004-11-02T09:01:00.000-08:00

Here's the hat I made. Pretty nice eh?

2004-10-29T06:18:00.000-07:00

Can you tell that I like simple costumes?

I Flop at Kindergarten

2004-10-29T05:42:00.000-07:00

Okay, I didn't quite flop but I wasn't my usual smash hit.
On Fridays, I always go to the Elementary School and Kindergarten. I have three lessons at Elementary and two at Kindergarten. The Kindergarten lessons are pretty short since I have to fit both of them into one hour so with set up and everything I really only get 20 minutes with each group. Kindergarten here is actually two grades so it kind of combines Preschool and Kindergarten. The first class is made up of the four year olds, and the second is the five year olds.
So, since Halloween is Sunday I figured I'd base my lesson around that. I borrowed a really simple English book called "What is Halloween?" and combined that with a short explanation of Halloween in Japanese.

Now, the four year olds were pretty happy to look at the pictures and listen to the bits of Japanese translation I used as well as the assistance the teachers gave so overall that went pretty well. The enjoyed chanting "Trick or Treat" whenever it came up in the book and seemed to follow it.
But the five year olds were more caught up in trying to follow the English and got frustrated because they didn't quite understand it. When I finished the book several of them announced that they hadn't understood anything so I had to convince them that they caught the important bits, which was basically just that you wear costumes, say "Trick or Treat", and get candy. They understood all of that, but still felt like they hadn't understood what had happened. Then our time was up and I had to leave. Felt kind of like a failure.

But then back at the Elementary I got back in the swing of things and we enjoyed some rousing games. Pretty simple but the kids loved it. I just introduced six words having to do with Halloween :bat, pumpkin, witch, moon, ghost, black cat. I showed pictures of them, then gave each kid a piece of paper with all six of these images on it. Then I would call out one word and they had to cut out that picture as fast as they could. They were pretty competitive anyhow, but you throw in the promise of stickers for prizes to the first couple of kids to finish and they go nuts! Then, when we had finished all of the pictures they got into groups of four and we played a game called karuta. This is also pretty simple. They take one group of six images and place them in the middle of their desks. I call out a word and the first kid to get their hands on it wins. After we do all six, the kid from each group with the most cards wins and then they get a sticker. I was happy to see that different kids won this part. Especially this one fourth grader. She is pretty smart and a really cute kid, but her left arm ends just below the elbow. Doesn't seem to phase her a bit, but it made it impossible for her to cut out the pictures nearly as fast as the other kids. I hadn't really considered that when I decided to do this. However, her right arm is apparently pretty quick because she dominated her group in karuta. And she got a sticker of Mickey Mouse who she apparently really likes (she told me so after class) and I felt much better about the whole thing.

So there. Teaching and stuff.

Oh yeah, and check out the pic of me in my costume up above. First person to post a comment stating who I'm supposed to be will get... umm... something. From Japan. And it'll be, you know, something.

I'm alive, But I'm stupid

2004-10-28T03:00:00.000-07:00

You may have heard recently about some really terrible earthquakes over here in Japan. Here are some facts:
-Honshu is the name of the main island here.
-I live on Honshu.
-The earthquakes centered around Niigata.
-That's, like, 100 miles from here.
-I'm fine.

We did have an earthquake here last Saturday, but it only lasted about 4-5 seconds and barely rumbled at all. Still weird, but it was over before I knew it.
That's the part where I am still alive.

Here's the part where I'm stupid:

So, last time I went to New York to visit with my dad, stepmom, and wee little brother my pops was kind enough to install McAfee on my laptop so I would have the double protection of a virus scanner and a firewall.
Well, for a couple months now I've been using Yahoo BB (BroadBand) here and I must say that the virus protection has been working like a charm. Yet, the popups were getting out of control and my internet speed just didn't seem to be what it used to be. I was beginning to think some spyware or adware had found its way onto my hard drive, and that was pretty well confirmed when half a dozen new icons appeared on my desktop suddenly. Sure, it's convenient to have a direct link to online gambling on your desktop but I thought the temptation would be too much. And the irony of having a spyware buster placed there by a piece of spyware was not nearly funny enough to leave it.

So, off they came and the very next thing I did was to download and run Spybot which eventually finished and let me know that there were something like 120 pieces of adware and spyware slowing me down. I got rid of them and things got much better but I was still confused. How did all of this get through that firewall? I mean, aren't they supposed to stop things like that? Hmmm...

So, I popped open McAfee and checked the firewall out. It gave me a cheery option screen and began guiding me through the process of setting up the firewall FOR THE FIRST TIME.

DOH!!!

As it turns out, I never bothered to turn on the firewall. I saw that Virus Scan icon in the system tray, knew they were the same program, and just assumed that... well, you know.

So, now that the firewall is on and working like a charm everything is working great. And since the earthquake didn't destroy my laptop I'm back to downloading movies and TV shows in a perfectly legal manner! Whee!

Adults are Funny

2004-10-26T07:46:00.000-07:00

So, today was the Kurihara-gun kokugo benron taikai. Yep. Oh, that means the Kurihara county Japanese speech contest by the way. See, what you just experienced by not being able to read that is somewhat equivalent to what I felt for three hours today while fourteen kids from all over the area gave speeches in Japanese. Three years in college and then three months of living here and the best I could do was basically understand the general gist of what their speeches were about. Ouch. On the upside, the kid from our school got second place. He seemed good to me, but really I didn't understand a bit of it.

The interesting thing is how these contests go. I was st the English recitation and speech contest a few weeks ago and it was the same way. They announce the winners in much the same way we would. They started with the honorable mentions, then 2nd place, and finally first place. Then they give them their awards (mostly certificates) after that. It's not one thing where they announce 2nd place and then give that kid their trophy. They tell everyone exactly who won, then make them all come up on stage so they can be presented with their trophies and certificates. And they work backwards that time so the 1st place kid gets their trophy first, then 2nd, then honorable mentions, and finally everyone gets a certificate. You know, those ones that are supposed to mean something to you but they really just say that you were there that day. They always give those to kids thinking that it helps make up for losing, but of course we all know that it's really just putting the fact that you lost into writing which really isn't that great. And your parents wanting to put it on the wall or whatever doesn't help either.

Anyhow, tonight I had my Eikaiwa (English Conversation) class at the Social Center here in Semine. This is where I teach adults English. But since it was Halloween I decided to do it on holidays. I looked up the history of Halloween, simplified it, translated it into Japanese, got another English teacher at school to fix my translation and gave that out. Now, somehow one of my students had gotten the mistaken impression that today was my birthday so we had a couple of cakes as well as the candy and whatnot. I enjoyed it. Not much of a class, but we had a good time. I took my laptop to show them pictures of Halloween in America, which consisted almost entirely of my younger brother Liam. They loved it so much that I just ended up showing them most of the pictures I had. Not sure how much English we learned but I got some cake and stuff. Even got a birthday present. It's a coaster for a glass. But it's made out of fabric. It looks like those boats you make out of newspaper, but then you open it up and put your glass inside it. Really nice. Almost makes me wish I hadn't stolen this rubber coaster from Mos Burger last time I was there.

Almost.

Sendai is awesome

2004-10-25T08:26:00.000-07:00

As I said in my last entry, I went into Sendai today for some shopping. See, Sendai is a really big city. It's number ten in Japan I think. And anyone who lives in a big city or has been around one very much knows that they not only have all of the big, main stores that everyone sees but that they also have a great number of secrets.

So, it really shouldn't have been a surprise that Sendai was the same way and yet it was. Today was really the first time that I had spent a whole day in the city wandering around by myself and I was much more free to head into any store that caught my eye. It was pretty cool. There are little clothing stores and toy stores and media stores and all kinds of stuff that are not at all obvious. You have to check out the little signs and head up an elevator to get to them, at which point you may stumble into a store that sells all kinds of cool figures or DVDs or who knows what. I found a little clothing store off the beaten path called MASH which sells American clothing. Not particularly cheap but some pretty cool stuff and somehow I had never noticed it before.

I guess my point here (and don't expect me to always have one) is that it was nice to realize that a big city in Japan is just like one in America, with all kinds of little secrets hidden away just waiting to be discovered. Who knows what I may find next time I'm there. Maybe there's a Godzilla store hiding somewhere. Oooh, I hope.

I Killed Someone Today

2004-10-25T08:08:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I took someone out. See, here in Miyagi Prefecture we have an organization called MAJET which stands for Miyagi Association of JETs (JET stands for Japanese Exchange Teaching). MAJET's main purpose is to set up social events for us so that we'll have chances to hang with other native English speakers and just have fun. We had a bowling tournament a couple weeks ago which was really fun. I made it into the playoffs. There were fifteen teams of two and the top five had a playoff as well as the bottom five. My partner, Ben, and I were in the bottom five. But we won out of those teams so it could have been worse.

The point here is that the current MAJET thing is the Assassin's Life game in which everyone who wants to play is given a mark. This is another Miyagi JET that we are supposed to kill using a water pistol. If you manage to take your mark out then you take on their mark and move on from there. Eventually only one person will be left. Well, my mark was a girl named Heather who I know but I wasn't sure when I would have a chance to see her. I was hoping she would just show up in Sendai for a night out and I could shoot her then but it hadn't happened.

But today I headed into Sendai on my own to do some shopping. I had to finish off my Halloween costume (of which I will post pictures once it is all done) and I also needed an external hard drive. I've been downloading a lot of movies and TV shows, ummmm, legally. ;) So, I'm on the train coming back home and I realize I need to move into one of the first couple of cars. The train splits at Kogota and if you're not in one of the first two cars then you head off in the wrong direction. But as I'm walking up, wouldn't you know it? There sits Heather with a bunch of luggage. She had just returned from a trip to Hong Kong tonight and she was a bit tired. So, I sat down and chatted. She seemed happy to see a familiar face and of course never saw it coming. I rooted about in my backpack while we talked, pulled out the gun, and shot her right in the shoulder (anything is a killing shot). She couldn't believe it.

So, yeah, I'm a successful killer now. And I have to move on to my next mark. Hee hee.

2004-10-24T10:17:00.000-07:00

Me and my favorite Elementary student, Ranna.

Metal Gear Solid 2

2004-10-24T09:48:00.000-07:00

Okay, so this may be a totally pointless post since it deals with a video game that came out over a year ago. So, people that don't care about video games won't care about this, and people who do probably played this one a while back. But I'm always a bit slow with these things and I just now got around to actually finishing it so I'm going to write this anyhow. Besides, isn't pointless stuff what blogs are all about?

So, I have been playing Metal Gear Solid 2 off and on since I moved to Japan. At first I was just messing around, then I got serious, then I got the Internet and pretty much didn't look at it for well over a month. However, a few of my English students would come over occasionally to play video games and they were interested in MGS2 since it was also popular in Japan, but was slightly different. Eventually this got my interest worked up again and about a week ago I got back into it with a vengeance. Finally, tonight, I finished the game. And I have to say that it was great. I know some people (Kevin Savage) didn't like it because you spent as much, if not more, time watching the game as you did playing it. But that was part of what I really enjoyed. This is a different type of game and if you are expecting an action-adventure Mario type game you will be sorely disappointed. This is better described as an interactive movie. It's like watching a very long mini-series on TV, one which is even longer than Shogun (which is saying something). But this mini-series has two big differences.
1. It's on when you want it to be on. It starts when you feel like it and ends when you feel like it. If you want to watch for 30 minutes, an hour, 3 hours, whatever, that's how long it's on for.
2. You have to work for it. Instead of just sitting back and watching, like you would Roots or Shogun, you have to earn the next chapter. When it comes to the action bits you don't just watch the character sneak through the room and surreptitiously tranquilize the enemy, you have to do it yourself.

So, you end up becoming more involved with the characters than you might in a movie since you ARE one of them. And honestly the plot was great too. Complicated enough to keep you guessing and thinking, but not too hard to follow. Great graphics gave you people with facial expressions that made it easier to watch, and the voice acting was good too.

So, yeah, I really liked Metal Gear Solid 2. And since it took me so long to play it, Metal Gear Solid 3 is about to be released. Maybe I'll get that one in some time during 2005. We'll see.

Kevin

First one?

2004-10-24T08:57:00.000-07:00

Right, so I guess I should write something for everyone to read when they first come here. As of now, I have little idea where this blog will go but I intend to simply type in the things that I'm thinking about at the time. If you have any responses please, please write to me about it. I'd love to hear from all of you and it would be closer to having a conversation than normal e-mail has been.

So, I find myself in Japan teaching English to all ages. Although I speak Japanese all the time, I still get in plenty of English time. At school, I usually speak English to the other English teachers since it is more comfortable to me and they honestly need the practice. There are three English teachers and the best of them can not understand English when it is spoken at normal speed so I am trying to break them in. Other than that I try using English with the students and while a few of them like it and try to converse with me, I usually end up reverting to Japanese. Then there's English Club. One of my 2nd grade JHS student's (8th grade in America) mother is a private English teacher and she wanted to have me over from time to time to practice her English skills. So, on Saturdays I get together with her and two other private English teachers from the area for a couple hours to discuss whatever in English. This is fun since it's the only time I get to talk about things like politics and religion with Japanese people in English. Afterwards she tutors me in Japanese for about an hour and a half. which is good because I can ask her actual grammatical questions in English.
Then, I typically head into Sendai on the weekends. Sendai is the 10th biggest city in Japan and it's only about an hour from here by train. Usually other JETs (Japan Exchange Teaching) are there ready to go drinking and whatnot. This is great because I get to not only speak English, but these people actually understand my humor. They might not think it's funny, but at least they understand it.

So, I'm getting a great deal of practice in Japanese but at the same time I am still getting to use my native language plenty. I love my job because the students are great. I'm at the Junior High Monday-Thursday and then on Fridays I go to the Elementary and Kindergarten. That's pretty much just fun and games so it's a nice break. The teachers are all super nice and they make me feel like a real member of the staff. The students make me feel both like a real teacher and a friend which is fun. In fact, just today six of my 2nd graders (8th graders) came over to watch a movie and play video games. Great fun.

So, that's my introductory blog entry. From now on it will probably be a lot of just whatever I'm thinking at the time. So be prepared.

Later ya'll.