Happy Saturnalia

I'm just sitting here drinking my traditional Christmas milk tea from a vending machine, so I thought I'd post some marginally Christmas related links. First, apparently Christmas in the Alps is way awesomer.

That's some pre-Christian era stuff, but since this is CHRISTmas, how about some news related to terrible Christian allegory books/movies. Yeah, I'm talking about Narnia, from everyone's favorite racist/sexist, C.S. Lewis. If you enjoyed these books or the movies, bad news, because production on the third movie seems to have hit a little snag. They'll probably find somebody else to make it, but one can only hope they don't leave out any of the brilliance of scenes like this one. I realize that movie came out some time ago, but I don't really pay attention to that kind of thing, and I only recently heard about the hilarity that is this bear.

I guess the bear has become something of an internet phenomenon. It's not quite as good as this milkshake bit, but it's pretty good. Because I'm in the giving Christmas mood, here's a milkshake remix for you, too.

I realize these clips have nothing to do with Christmas, so here's another good Christmas song. And another one from the same guy, though this version is probably better. And yet another one. And something from Otis Redding. Finally, I'm sure oldies stations in America have played this into the ground by now, but I don't exactly listen to those here and it's good once in a while. Alright, that's it. Happy Festivus.

Holiday

People like Christmas music. I play it for kids and ALTs when they're drunk. The ALTs, not the kids. I can't do this, though. I read this to a class, even the same version of the book, though not in such a cool voice. Yesterday I went to a kindergarten dressed up as Santa Claus. I am working on Christmas, if you can call it work.

If You Try Sometimes

I've been listening to the Rolling Stones a bit lately, this album and this one. Both of them are part of the Stones' four consecutive huge albums stretching Starting with 1968's Beggar's Banquet, but Exile is generally regarded as their best work. Let it Bleed is also generally perceived as great, but not generally as great. I think that's messed up. Reason #1 and reason #2. There are plenty of reasons, though, including the artwork. Sorry about the crappiness of the second link there, YouTube was being particularly lame about this song, which is weird because it's kind of super famous. It's also a favorite of Pops, if I recall correctly, so a shout out there.

Robert Xgau, famed music critic and pretentious jerk claims it took him 25 times listening to Exile to really get what the Stones were doing with it, but as much as I like his particular brand of concise, harsh and arbitrary criticism, I think he's wrong on this one. The album is basically just a bunch of crap put together over the course of a few years with no real direction in mind, so there's really not that much to get. Sometimes that works out really well; see The White Album, for example. Sometimes it just leads to a garbled mess, which is what I think Exile is, though as it is old Rolling Stones, it's at least a delightful bluesy mess.

Octopuses

Octopuses are totally bayd. Hopefully that links right. If I were an Octopus, I'd call me gus.

Santa Approves the Following Beers

The Future of Drink Technology is Now

Did you ever notice how on Star Trek, every time they drink Saurian Brandy or Romulan Ale or anything else, it's always some crazy color? Even that milk that Luke is drinking in Star Wars was blue. Yet almost all of the things we drink, aside from fruit juices, fall squarely into two categories: clear and brown. So, we have to conclude that at some point in the future (or, alternately, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away), people are going to start inventing all sorts of colored drinks.

Behold, the future:


That's blue ginger ale. Suntory, what will you think of next?

Mystery Fish

I bought this fish. It is called shizu, according to the package. No English-Japanese dictionary seems to list it, so I can't figure out what it is. I found a recipe online that I sort of skimmed, so it may also be called mochiuo, which was also not listed. So, if you recognize this fish, let me know what it is. It's pretty good.

Commencing Holiday Sequence

Tomorrow (for me, if not for you) is Thanksgiving (for Americans, if not Canadians), which kicks of the holiday season. I don't really get how that works, since basically there are no holidays between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but the holiday season lasts until the first few days of January, so let's say about January 4th. Of course, Thanksgiving is variable as to the day, but this year seems as good as any for an estimate, so the holiday season lasts roughly November 27th-January 4th. That's 4+31+4 = 39 days. If we average that, it is 13 days/holiday. If we look at other holidays, we see how absurd that is. We don't put on costumes October 18th. At least most of us don't. You could argue that these three (Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's) are generally bigger holidays, but Thanksgiving is basically just an excuse to eat, and New Year's is basically just an excuse to drink. Also, Thanksgiving is based on a story that isn't true, and Christmas is based on a story that is at best partially true and set at the wrong time of the year.

But, all that nonsense aside, one thing is almost certain about the holiday season. That is, colds. I have a cold now, which probably has something to do with the fact that I spend all day talking to/shaking hands with/ wrestling little kids, who are basically snot factories. But, whatever, it is totally worth it. I have some medicine that I got for free (from a doctor, even!) but I can only take it at night because it makes me drowsy. So, in order to keep going, I've adopted the strategy of drinking vitamin C because I think it somehow helps fight colds. I have no real idea. That's why I bought this:


This bottle of C.C. Lemon (guess what it tastes like?) claims to contain 210 lemons' worth of vitamin C. According to the nutrition facts, that's 4290 mg. I've already drunk half the bottle today, so that's 2145 mg. The recommended dietary allowance is around 40-90 mg/day. Apparently the maximum is 2000mg, though it's not toxic or anything. We'll see what happens, I guess.

One other thing about the holidays. Apparently, it is becoming fashionable for blogs to post Christmas lists. If anyone out there wants to get me something here is what you should do:

1. Write down the price of whatever thing you want to send me.

2. Make out a check for the amount in step one (1) and send it to:

John Link Benefit Fund
370 Interlocken Blvd., Suite 400
Broomfield, CO 80021

3. If you are so inclined, let me know how much you sent.

I DO NOT WANT ANYTHING OTHER THAN THIS. If you send me anything, I will have to take it with me when I return to the states or mail it ahead of time which is sort of costly and annoying. Also, I just don't want anything unless you have a lot of peace on earth and goodwill towards men sitting around.

野菜？ 果物？ 決めてよ！

Is this a tomato? No, it is a persimmon that is very deep orange, almost red. I thought they were tomatoes at first.

Yep, that's seriously the whole update.

Winter

And, with one night of snow, fall passes out of the world and leaves us with a frozen slush winter...:-(

Nation, Activate!

It recently came to my attention that my sister in law has started a blog about life in Virginia. I read through every post, and have yet to find mention of me. Furthermore, I found this in an update about my younger brother moving in:

So Dan moved in this weekend - the entire family came down, including his beautiful girlfriend, who I just adore.

Last time I checked, I was part of this "family," but I've never even been to Virginia. I think somebody is trying to retcon me out of existence just because I am not in the country.

THIS WILL NOT STAND (this aggression, man...)

Nation, and by nation, I mean people who read this blog, I call on you in the most childish manner possible to comment on her blog, comment on Dan's blog, call them, email them, write your senator, whatever you can, until I am mentioned in this blog that has a somewhat tenuous connection to me. We're going to grassroots me back into existence. Yes we can. I like Ike. Million points of light. Bring it on.

Fishy Fish Fish

Oooh...Barracuda!

Fight Scene

This is probably the greatest fight scene I've ever seen. It's from Tom Yum Goong, also known as The Protector.

Got Some Pictures for You

I'm becoming like a kanji master over here. But that's not what this update is about. This is about a MULTIMEDIA EXPERIENCE.


This is the best beer I've had here. It's both premium and seasonal and comes from Kirin. Also, it gets bonus points for having a sweet bottle. It says, "Seasonal brew with rich, unique flavor from non-filtered process." I can't get this in my town, so when I happen to be in this other town, I stop by the grocery store to pick it up.


This is a new one from Kirin called Strong Seven. Its selling point seems to be that the alcohol content is slightly higher than normal at 7%. Its taste leaves something to be desired, but it's still way ahead of Steel Reserve.


This is Sapporo's winter seasonal, Fuyumonogatari, 冬物語, meaning "The Winter's Tale." It isn't bad, but it's nothing remarkable. A little weak for a Japanese beer, but then again, it's Sapporo...The can says ii fuyu wa, ii biiru kara, a statement that demonstrates the wonderful ability to be really ambiguous in Japanese, but roughly means, "A good winter, from a good beer."


"Shirokirin is the original brew for winter season. Mild and refreshing taste fits your winter delight." It's happoushu, cheap beer, but not bad for what it is. It's color is pretty light, which is both evident from the picture and expected from the name.


This is Yebisu. As I said, I'm getting pretty bayd at reading kanji, but I had to look these up: 琥珀, kohaku, the name of the beer, which apparently means "amber." The name fits, if you look at the picture, because it's a wonderful amber color. It also tastes just as good as it looks, so if you are into amber-colored beers and happen to be living in Japan, keep an eye out because it is a limited brew, I guess.


This is Toretate Hoppu, freshly picked hops, which is the beer I had to try in celebration of Barack's win. It's ok. That's my kitchen in the backgroud, with some poorly done calligraphy just hanging there at the top. Now for more exciting stuff!







If you can make it out over all the craziness, that's Birdland being played at some jazz festival I went to a long ways back. Jazz band, good times.




That's sort of what a taiko festival sounds like, at least when filtered through a crappy cell phone mic. It's also from a while back. And now for what you've all been waiting for. A picture of me...


As drawn by the wonderful Haruna, aged 6 (I think?).

Alright, America!

Did something right, it seems.

Culture Day

Since it's culture day, 文化の日 (bunka no hi), today, I thought I would share some of America's amazing culture.

Oh, and here's some Russian culture for my big bro.

Halloween

Happy Halloween to everyone for whom it is still that magical night, and happy belated birthday to JLink. Thanks to everyone who acceded to my demands with that last update. And I did remember it was garbage day.

Garbage Day

I certainly hope I don't forget that Thursday is...

GARBAGE DAY!

Fruits

Greetings one and all. Fall is here and so are the fruits of the season, which is awesome.


The orange one to the far right is a persimmon. They are only around in the fall, and are just one of the many reasons why it is the best season. I think the ones in this area are a little slower to ripen than in other places because we're up here in the mountains, but the local ones just started appearing at the farmer's market-type place, so it is good times. The Japanese word for persimmon is kaki, 柿, and there are two types, sweet and astringent. Both types are pretty sweet, though. This one is sweet, if I recall correctly. The astringent ones are longer and less tomato-looking. I don't think I ever had a persimmon until I came here, and they are so good they make me not want to leave.

The green one is a hayato uri, with uri being gourd. By far, they are the weirdest fruit I have ever eaten. It took forever to find out what they are in English. According to wikipedia, they are called chayote, among many other names. They're very thick and heavy and don't have much flavor, at least raw. I haven't tried cooking them yet. They do leave a weird layer of slime in your mouth and on your lips that is very hard to get off.

The little brown one in front is a chestnut. About a month ago, these were all over the place, and one time while walking home in a part of town where nobody lives, I picked up a bunch. If you boil them, the insides get soft and you can break them open with your teeth. I don't know what else to do with them. They taste a bit like sweet potatoes.

The Japanese word for chestnut is kuri, but the French (?) loanword marron has also become common, so I've had multiple occasions of Japanese people talking to me about them and guessing that marron was the English word. They're always surprised that it isn't.

I recently found out that in addition to making shouchuu, a kind of liquor that is kind of like vodka but from Korea (soju in Korean), out of wheat or sweet potatoes, it can also be made out of chestnuts, which to me tasted much better. Shouchuu in general is terrible and only good for mixing with hot water on a cold night.

Lastly, the red one is a mystery fruit. There were two of them at the store in a package by themselves in the marked down food thing, so I bought them. They are really good. At first I thought they were peaches, but now maybe I think they are nectarines or something like it because they don't have fuzz on the outside.

I just watched It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown today and I was still amazed by it. Happy Halloween, if I forget to update again before then!

鯉

カープ！　　いけ！

A Special Second Update

A couple blogs to read:

Dan's New Blog - I just added the link to the side, there, too. It seems pretty excellent, and I am only basing that a little bit on the fact that of the seven updates I read, four mentioned me directly. It's a lot of commentary on what my broha Dan is watching or reading.

John's Blog - Awesome as always, but worth noting especially today for the pictures of/update on Buckethead and That 1 Guy. I don't want to spoil the surprise, but it involves everyone's favorite Star Wars robot. The link is always on the right, so check it out if you haven't.

Electro-Shock Blues

Electro-Shock Blues is a wonderful album from The Eels. I'm not going to look up all the information about it because that's not really relevant and if you want to know, wikipedia is only a click away, I should think.

If you do decide to listen to it, keep in mind that it is a rather depressing, though ultimately refreshing (I can't come up with the right word at the moment), look at suicide, among other things.

The album opens with the short and somewhat cryptic "Elizabeth on the Bathroom Floor," which really only made sense to me after having heard the album all the way through. The album starts off, thus, interestingly, as it introduces what is the central narrative obliquely and through the eyes of the object of the main narrator's emotions. Keep in mind that if you listen to that YouTube link (I'm not sure if it will work outside Japan), there are no beeping sounds on the original track.

"Going to Your Funeral Part 1," is on first listen rather hard to listen to. E uses two different styles, one of which is fairly dissonant to highlight different emotions, which I think is fairly obvious. It gets better on repeated listens.

Oddly enough, "Cancer for the Cure" and "My Descent into Madness" are actually relatively light-hearted tracks and provide a much needed break from the main narrative while staying fairly consistent with the overall feel of the album. "Cancer.." in particular shows E's ability to arrange for instruments outside of the typical guitar/drum/base setup an appropriately dark sense of humor. "My Descent..." is just pretty in that Eels way.

"3 Speed" seems to be a song set at a particular point in time without being clear. It just seems to be right at dusk to me. It contains the wonderfully blunt lines "Life is funny, but not ha ha funny/Peculiar, I guess."

"Hosptial Food" again breaks from the theme with more dark humor and is just great. "Electro-Shock Blues" returns to the mourning and confusion. It's probably not a track for everyone, with it's very minimalist sound. "Efils' God" is a strange mostly instrumental track. I don't have that much to say about it other than I don't know what is going on with it but it fits nicely.

"Going to Your Funeral Part 2" is really where the album raps up, in a way, though not where it ends, so I suppose E had a bit more to say. It's instrumental, which would sort of be a fitting way to end it. But it leads to an even better track, "Last Stop, This Town." It's pure pretty pop, with E's flat delivery fitting perfectly over the moving music. The lyrics are astoundingly good in that they meld with the music and are fittingly simple and blunt but exactly what is called for in the context. The lines "What if I was not your only friend in this world/Would you take me where you're going if you're never coming back" are probably the best example. Listen for them.

There are still six more tracks to cover, but I've got more to do than that, so I'll let you get to those on your own time.

A Field Guide to Mountain Flowers

This is the start of a wonderful adventure.







White flowers.
More flowers.

Very small yellow flowers.

Little red berries.

Little yellow flowers.

Little white flowers.

Long purple flowers

Little purple flowers

Spiky alien-looking purple flowers.
Light purple flowers.

These things.

More of these things.

Yeah, I hiked up a mountain on Sunday. It was glorious. But there's more to it than flowers. There are also ponds.


Some of them have carp in them.

Others have lilies.

There are also shrines.


And there are trees.



It's nice being up high, but it's also nice here down in the cleared rice fields.

Blister

I have a blister on my foot. I walked 20 miles home last week from another town, which may have been why. Also, yesterday I ran a 1350m race, then rested, then ran another 1000m. Maybe that is it; I don't know. Also, mad props to anyone who has the patience to check this blog for updates. Oh, and it's my birthday next week, so if you know me and don't at least send me an email, I will figure you don't like me or are living in Africa without internet access or something.

I'm just listening to Dylan's new album via NPR, which is amazing for what it is. I was listening to another one of his songs all day, though, in my head. It's a little song called "Up to Me," which you can find on the Biograph compilation album. The album is mostly stuff any fan would have heard, but there are a couple outtakes and the like, which "Up to Me" is.

It's an outtake from Blood on the Tracks, which is pretty obvious just from listening to it. It's got that guitar from another place sound, with Dylan just singing simple verses over it, each ending with "...up to me." It's so reminiscent of some other songs on the album that it's no wonder that it was left out, and, really, it wouldn't have added anything. It would have just doubled part of the album and messed up the flow. If you don't appreciate the album as it is, then probably you've never heard it, never had your heart broken, or never had any taste to begin with.

Somehow it's better for not being on the album, though. It's just out there in the lost sea of songs that never got put anywhere. It's the album without being on it, a cold dawn breaking on just the next day. It's always something real happening, but you don't know when. "Well, I watched you slowly disappear down into the officers' club/ I would've followed you in the door but I didn't have a ticket stub."

Sometimes there's just a throw away Dylan line, "In fourteen months I've only smiled once and I didn't do it consciously," and sometimes there's a bizarre image that recalls simultaneously his psychedelic era and no time in particular, "So go on, boys, and play your hands, life is a pantomime/ The ringleaders from the county seat say you don't have all that much time." It's somehow like "Idiot Wind," another Blood on the Tracks track, which is full of strange, seemingly unrelated events. Somebody who is better at analysis than I was wrote about how that's just him trying to make sense of the world.

I went to a talk in college where the professor talked about how poems need to have a turn, somwhere where meaning changes. Or something like that; I don't really remember. "Idiot Wind," though, has a pretty nice example of that just as the last chorus starts. "Up to Me" seems to have a nice one, too, though it's not so big. So, that's nice. And that's all I have for now.

A Taste of Fall

Today was the first day that smelled like fall. Here's a picture of some low alcohol beer that I had for the first time last night.

Here's to you, Emily K!, wherever you are.

Sad News

My friend, John, whose blog is listed in the links on the side, recently lost his oldest brother, Tim. Go give him some love via the comments, even if you don't know him. He's probably going to need it.

I Have Nothing of Value to Contribute

This is a new beer, I think. It's called Smooth and it is from Kirin. Delicious


I guess this is the original Sapporo beer? So says the can. It's a limited edition. There are plenty of seasonally limited things, but this one is actually limited by the number they have made. Pretty good.


Fall beer is back! Awesome! Also, salami flavored Pringles. Not bad, but I don't know if I would say it is an accurate representation of salami's flavor.


This fish is called sanma, which I guess is a kind of pike. I read that it is in season and found out how to cook it, which is basically just like normal, but with salt and grated daikon, which made it awesome. It's pretty oily, but the daikon sort of sucks up the oil and goes with it really well. I will probably buy some more.



I forgot why I took this picture. I think it was to show off that snack, which is some kind of weird fish with sesame seeds on it. It is a mystery! But that is what I get for not updating ever.


This is tobiuo, or flying fish. They're pretty good in a whitefish kind of way. They're not oily or anything and you don't really have to do much to cook them. I looked for recipes, but the only ones I found were from the bahamas or something and I couldn't get all the ingredients, nor did I feel like looking for them all, so I just cooked them like normal and that worked out.



Here are some weird sandwiches I made from fried rice and yakisobi. I got a ton of this little rolls for free, so I was trying to eat them all up before they went bad. I appreciated it, but then I had to go back to rice hardcore (three times a day, usually) and it was like what I imagine going cold turkey off an addiction is like. Rice just has nothing on bread.

I played soccer today, which was pretty fun, although I scraped up my leg a bit by sliding. Sometimes you have to sacrifice your body, though. I've been working on the probability of rock, paper, scissors and its effectiveness as a method of selection in groups because that seemed like an applicable use of my interest in math. I want to present the work, if I finish it, at one of the conferences here, knowing that most people would find it really boring. I don't care because I have to sit through lots of other people's boring talks at those things. I was told that that made me a bad person. ???

Obviously I put no real effort into this update.

Which is it, Frank?

If Chicago is your kind of town, why are your vagabond's shoes longing to stray in New York?

Daytime Amusement

I only go to the bank to pay bills and I can only do that during my lunch break because it closes at three in the afternoon on weekdays and is closed all weekend. Every time I go there, they have the tv on for waiting customers, and it is always on to this show that seems to be about a somewhat typical Japanese family and their everyday lives. The only thing notable about it is that the father (I think, I don't ever listen to it) is kind of fat and has a hippy look about him. Other than that, it looks absolutely terrible, and from what little I have bothered to pay attention to, is, but the main character is a twenty-something girl who was no doubt selected for her cuteness and she seems like the kind of character you'd grow attached to even if you hate the rest of the show.

Anyway, here's a neat link I found on Digg today about how magenta isn't a color.

祭り

Je suis allé au festival hier. Il y a des vidéos du feu d'artiface.

überschätzt

I watched The Dark Knight, and I thought I'd let you know that you should be wary of all the hype because it is a mediocre movie.

The main source of hype for this movie seems to be Heath Ledger dying. While that's too bad, it doesn't really make his performance special or anything. He does a good job in the role, but it isn't mindblowing or spectacular or anything. He is probably the best actor in the movie, but he's sort of limited by the script. People often get super excited about actors, but they really don't realize that acting is only about the third most important thing in a movie.

It's like this. If you give a good actor a bad script, you will get a bad movie. If you give a bad actor a bad script, you will still get a bad movie. If you give a good actor a good script, you will get a good movie. Direction is more important than acting, but I digress here.

So, anyway, Ledger does a good job with what he's given, and the script really isn't too bad. They do a good job of making the Joker into a crazy criminal mastermind, and his plans, especially the one that opens the movie, are pretty brilliant. They are the most fun parts of the movie to watch. The only problem with the way they handle it is that they basically remove all the humor from the character. Not to get too fanboyish, but...

The Joker is generally thought to be one of the best villains in comic bookery because he acts as a wonderful foil to Batman. Batman is the dark hero, and the Joker is the evil clown. You are supposed to laugh at his antics and hate him at the same time. He's pretty much the worst person ever, but when he breaks in with something like "Never rub another man's rhubarb!" you can't help sort of cheering for the guy. Unfortunately, The Dark Knight's Joker has essentially no funny lines. He's just crazy and a criminal genius. Ledger also way overuses this weird breathing/tongue smacking thing which gets really annoying.

That being said, he is still the best part of the movie. His acting does not make it, but some of the other actors' performances almost break it.

Christian Bale is terrible in this movie. He's not given as much to do, since the focus this time is on the villains, but he manages to mess up just about every scene he's in. He only appears as Bruce Wayne a couple times and does nothing really remarkable. There is absolutely zero chemistry between him and Maggie Gyllenhaal (?), or him and Aaron Eckhart. When he appears as Batman, he is laughably bad. As in, every time he was on screen, I burst out laughing at his terrible performance. He's not helped by a suit that makes him look like bloated old Elvis, but he continues to do the completely inappropriate and childish deep-talking voice. I was seriously hoping that somehow they would bring back George Clooney or Val Kilmer or even Adam West because even those guys were better at this.

Michael Caine makes Christian Bale look like a pro, however. He is so bad that any time he came on screen I almost stopped watching. He does a completely inappropriate cockney-like accent the whole time and really just comes off as obnoxious. If I saw him today, I would punch him right in the face for being as awful as he is.

Gary Oldman does a good job of playing Gordon in the sense that when he is onscreen, you think, "oh, hey Gordon," not "oh, hey, some moron with a mustache doing a terrible accent/goofy voice." If actors are doing their job, you won't think of them by their names. Think about it.

Aaron Eckhart does a serviceable job as Harvey Dent. I had to look up his name, but that probably has more to do with the fact that I don't really care about actors and just didn't know it than with his amazing transformative ability. When Dent becomes Two-Face, though, he stands out like a sore thumb. He seems completely wrong for the part. Fortunately he doesn't do some goofy voice change, but he could have done something. He isn't helped by makeup that makes him look like Harvey Dent with some fake plastic thing covering one half of his face. It's also pretty much a throwaway role, as he doesn't get transformed until the last third of the movie, then basically just flips a coin and shoots people without any style or anything until he gets killed.

I should say that the last third of the film is a disaster. It is incredibly boring despite being the part with the most action and I found myself doing something else to keep entertained during this part, so I don't even remember how Two-Face gets it. Also, for some reason, the Joker's plan in this part is much less clever than his previous plans and is really just annoyingly obvious. We also get to see a bunch of unclear action scenes where a bloated Batman stumbles around in the dark fighting a bunch of no-name guys. Woohoo. A good way to watch this movie would be just to watch up until Dent becomes Two-Face and then leave. You'd be ultimately more satisfied, and I can't help wondering if this part was tacked on for marketing purposes or something.

Some good things, though. They certainly cut down on the techno crap from the first movie. When will people learn that Batman is not James Bond and giving him James Bond-like "Q" scenes is akin to adding five minutes of blank screen with Revolution #9 being played over it? The new Batmobile is still an abomination, eclipsed only by the awfulness that is the new Batcycle. Fortunately, we get to see the demise of the car, and the cycle (machine guns?) appears only briefly, though even that appearance is far too long. Since there is less focus on Batman himself, we also get less focus on the stupid gadgets aspect, which is wonderful. The reason that the gadget thing works so well for James Bond, for instance, is that he is a ridiculous hero living in a ridiculous world, so dart gun cigarettes, inflatable protective coats, and zip line watches just come off as awesome. You always see the gadgets introduced and think, what stupid way is he going to use this? With these new Batman movies, it's like, "I need some kind of [meaningless techno babble] to [achieve objective]" and Fox makes it, and Batman uses it just like he said he would. And we are supposed to be amazed by this? It's a movie, do something fun, people.

All in all, though, not awful. Not amazing. Mediocre. überschätzt

Bug

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虫　　虫　　　虫
虫　　虫　　　虫
虫虫虫虫虫虫虫
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オリンピク

I'm guessing that the olympics are kind of a big deal in America. They always seemed to be when I was there, and I guess that is because we rock at them. They are kind of a big deal here, too, which makes me think that they are probably a big deal almost everywhere, but if someone who isn't American happens to stumble upon this blog, let me know what you think of them.

Frankly I could not care less about the Olympics. It's great and all that they are supposed to be promoting peace and human rights and all that crap through sports, but it is obviously a facade and if it weren't you wouldn't have them in China while demanding only that the terrible Chinese government make hollow promises about human rights even as they do whatever they want to Tibetan protesters and pretty much actively give their own citzens cancer by dumping whatever they want into the rivers all in the name of making more terrible plastic crap. But, whatever, it's not like the U.S. is all that awesome on the world's stage, and we seem to get the Olympics all the time.

The real problem with the Olympics is that they are incredibly boring. Basically half the events are just people running in a straight line or in a circle, neither of which is particularly fascinating. It's great sport and all, and they are certainly in really good shape, but if they weren't, if it were just a bunch of out of shape guys running, it would basically be the same thing because they'd all still be really close. Running is just boring. That's why American TV never shows it.

Someone else pointed out that swimming is pretty stupid, too, because there are tons of medals for it when there should really only be a couple. There are all these medals for different strokes, and then a freestyle one, and during the freestyle race, everyone just uses the fast stroke. so, basically, you have one good way of swimming and a ton of crappy ones. You wouldn't give out medals for running backwards in track, so why would you give out medals for any stupid way you can plow through the water. Swimming also fails to be interesting in a big way.

There are also non-sports that still get included in the games, like gymnastics and sychronized swimming. These fail to be actual contests of skill so much as contests of whatever the judge happens to like (which it turns out is usually the home country because judges just go with whoever gets cheered for the most) on top of failing to be non-sleep inducing.

Soccer is a legitimate sport that seems like it would be good, but just isn't. The basic strategy of soccer goes something like this:

Scoring is essentially impossible because the field is too big and even people who's only job it is to kick a ball into a gigantic net consistently miss in the unlikely event that they even come within half a mile of the net in the first place.

Thus, the object is to hold onto the ball by passing it back and forth until by some freak accident, like well placed lightning or possibly an earthquake or godzilla, the ball ends up in the net. Continue holding the ball because you can't possibly risk your 1-0 lead. This will go on FOR EVER. There is a reason Americans don't like soccer. It is basically a crappy version of every other get-the-ball-past-the-other-guys-and-into-a-net/goal/basket/zone type sport ever.

Then there is baseball. Baseball is cool.

Combining uninteresting sports also results in uninteresting sports. Swimming? Boring. Biking? Boring. Running? Boring. Swimming-biking-running? Three times the boredom. I honestly have no idea how people can watch all this stuff.

By far the most interesting part of the Olympics is trying to devise a better system than medal count for determining which country wins.

Weekend Fun

I spent some of Saturday in Izumo, not doing anything particularly interesting, but there was a model home there with something interesting on it.



Spiderman! Spiderman! Out of nowhere a spiderman thing attached to a house! Since I learned that I could upload movies, here's a superfluous one.



So, there's that. On Sunday, I slept half the day because I was up most of the night before, but in the afternoon, my buddy Nate called me up to go to a waterfall with him and a couple of German couch surfers staying with him. So here are some pictures.



The waterfall is called yaedaki, 八重滝, with taki meaning waterfall. Here are Nate and the Germans (which would be a terrible band name).



The waterfall had chains beside it that you could use to help climb up the cliff to get to a couple of pools higher up, so Nate and I climbed up, but neither of the Germans would do it. Leeza (?) swam around in the bottom pool with us, at least, but Verina (again ?) just watched from the side. They seemed to have fun. Later we ate German food and Nate tried to figure out how to play simple songs on a guitar. Excitement!

Blah Blah

Enough of the interesting posts. I think I'll talk about Japanese linguistic crap that nobody cares about but me.

So, if I haven't already mentioned this about a million times, Japanese is written using three separate character sets, hiragana, 平仮名; katakana, 片仮名, and kanji, 漢字. Hiragana and katakana were both developed specifically for Japanese, and thus enjoy a wonderful one-to-one correspondence with the sounds that exist in the language (or close to it, I'll get to some flaws later). Kanji literally means Chinese (Han) characters, and are, unsurprisingly borrowed from Chinese.

What happened was a long time ago, actually a few times during the past, specifically during the times of the Southern and Northern (Baekje) dynasties, the Tang Dynasty, the Song Dynasty, and the Ming Dynasty, the Japanese sent people over to China to learn Chinese. You see, for a very long time, Japan was basically just a couple of backwater islands of rice farmers without even a properly organized feudal system, while China was sort of the end-all-be-all of huge empires, at least as far as the far east goes. So, some of the high class Japanese learned how to read, write, and speak classical (actually properly Middle) Chinese. They brought this back to Japan, where it remained the language of the literate and scholarly. Eventually, people started writing Japanese using Chinese characters, because, hey, it's not like they had their own script or anything.

Now, the problem with doing that was that Chinese basically sounds nothing like Japanese because they are from different language families, and indeed, Japanese is a very weird language in the scheme of things. So, basically, the system didn't work very well. What then happened was that people started simplifying Chinese characters by writing them cursively and leaving out strokes to create the system called hiragana. Here are a couple examples:

由, which is read something like "yu" in Middle Chinese, got shortend to ゆ, the Japanese character "yu." The Chinese character carries a meaning, specifically, reason or cause, while the Japanese character is purely phonetic. Another example:

以 similarly became い, both of which are read "i." Again, the Japanese character carries no inherent meaning, while the Chinese one means roughly "or" as in 以上, ijou = or more, or 以下, ika = or less.

So, how does this all work out in modern Japanese? Kanji are used for their meanings, and carry multiple readings. A reading is just a way of reading something, unsurprisingly. When the Japanese borrowed all these characters, they also borrowed a lot of Chinese words along with them. Chinese was a much more highly developed language, as China was way more advanced than Japan, so using these words allowed for more technical language, and also carried some social value, much as using words from Latin does in English. So, when in a Chinese loanword, the characters have their "Chinese" reading, or on-yomi, 音読み, literally, sound-reading. The thing is because Japanese and Chinese are wildly different, Japanese people couldn't generally pronounce the Chinese words "properly," so the sounds changed quite a bit in translation. Think Americans trying to say "croissant," "beaucoup," or "laissez faire," for comparison.

But, Japanese didn't just forget their own language. They still mostly used Japanese words, even though many concepts could only be expressed using Chinese ones. So, when there was a Japanese word with an equivalent or similar meaning to a character that was borrowed, that character would be assigned that reading, which is called a kunyomi, 訓読み, literally instruct-reading. I'm oversimplifying here a bit, as there are actually multiple Chinese readings for a lot of characters, since they were borrowed at multiple points throughout history from different areas of China, but, onward and ever upward.

So, how do you read stuff in Japanese? It's not all guesswork, though sometimes you do actually just have to guess. Generally, since the Chinese characters were designed for Chinese, and Chinese doesn't really inflect the same way that western or Japanese languages do, a character representing a concept, the one character will suffice. For example, in Chinese 昨日我見他了, (which may need to be corrected, I have only learned a bit of Chinese from the internets), would be translated character for character as "last-day-I-see-him/her-completed," or more nicely as "yesterday, I saw him/her." So, each character in Chinese represents a sound and a concept and it all works out nicely because of the lack of inflection.

Putting the same sentence into Japanese, we get 昨日、私が彼を見ました。(kinoo, watashi ga kare wo [pronounced o] mimashita.) You can see some similarities. The first two characters form a compound in both Chinese and Japanese, last-day, meaning yesterday. Actually, that is an interesting compound as it can be read multiple ways in Japanese, but I digress even further. Also, the character for see is present in both sentences. All those really simple characters (が、を、ました) are hiragana, and are added for the purpose of making it a Japanese sentence. Specifically, が, ga, marks the subject of the sentence, を, wo, marks the object, and ました, mashita, conjugates the verb to past-polite form. These things aren't necessary in Chinese because the verb doesn't inflect, and word order controls function in a sentence, not particles, as in Japanese.

One other thing you might have noticed is that there are Chinese characters in both sentences not used in the other one, specifically, 我、私、他、彼、了. These are generally just slight differences in usage. Both 我 and 私 translate to I, and both are used, but the first one is typical in Chinese, while the second one is typical in Japanese. In fact, the first one is very formal in Japanese and would sound ridiculous if used in every day conversation. I'm not sure, but I think the second one is mostly used in compounds in Chinese, for things referring to the self. The characters for him, 彼 and 他, are also both used in both languages, but have slightly different uses. The first one is the typical pronoun for he/him in Japanese, but it isn't used that much because Japanese culture dictates you use someone's name if you know it, and sometimes it carries the connotation of a boyfriend. The second one just means "other" in Japanese, so isn't really used in the same way. I can't really speak to the usage in Chinese other than what I've seen in subtitles and from talking to one Taiwanese guy, who said they almost always use this gender non-specific pronoun, so that is why Chinese speakers of English often confuse he and she. The last charcter there is used in Chinese to mark completed actions, I have read, as well as to add emphasis. In Japanese, it is used in compounds (this character has no kun-yomi) such as 終了, shuuryou, meaning complete. It doesn't have a special grammatical purpose.

Alright, so on to the actual reading thing. That last compound I listed is a good example of how you figure out how to read a character in Japanese. The first character, 終, has the on-yomi shuu, but also the kun-yomi o(waru)(eru). This should give a hint as to how to read it. If it is followed by another Chinese character, as above, then it is probably using the on-yomi (Chinese, remember?), but if it is followed by hiragana, specifically the hiragana for waru or eru, it is the Japanese reading. That would look like this: 終わる　or this:　終える. Again, the hiragana serve grammatical purpose, and if they are changed, it would be for following Japanese grammatical rules.

There are some exceptions to this rule of thumb, and that is sort of annoying. For example, 出口, deguchi, meaning exit, is made of two Chinese characters read with their kun-yomi. The reason for this is that the first one is de(ru) meaning go out, and the second one is kuchi [in this case guchi], meaning mouth, so there are no extra hiragana to leave in when they are combined. It's frustrating because it looks like it should be shukkou, but is not. More frustrating is the combination of 入る, iru, to enter, and 口. It is usually written as 入口, although 入り口 is also fine. Either way, it is read iriguchi and means entrance. However, the second compound gives you a nice little clue that it is the kun-yomi by leaving in the hiragana for ri. The first one is just easier to write, but makes it look like a Chinese compound word, which it isn't.

Furthermore, there are some relatively rare words that use both readings, such as 唐楓, toukaede, meaning trident maple. The first one, tou, meaning Tang, is the on-yomi, while the second, kaede, is the Japanese reading for maple. That is a relatively obscure exaple, but I couldn't think of any of the more common ones. Regardless, it is frustrating. Congrats on getting through this one.

Fireworks

So, fireworks from Matsue city's Suigosai, which is some sort of festival, basically just for watching awesome fireworks. This is from the first night, if the upload worked properly. It was a two night event, with the second night being way bigger and the actual fireworks portion lasting an hour.



Good times were had by all.

Gutter Scum

I looked in one of the rain gutters that are built all along the roads here and saw some scum sitting on top of the water in one spot. The water was flowing before it and after it, but it wasn't moving at all. How's that work?

Election

Election is the best movie about high school I have ever seen. It took me two time watching it and 5+ white Russians to come to this conclusion, but it is true. Everything about it is wonderful. Even the lighting makes it look like hight school in the best and worst ways.

If you watch a movie about high school, it will most likely be what is dubbed a "teen movie," which is no doubt a piece of crap. It will probably try to reflect stereotypical cliques of students and then show some nerdy girl/guy who it turns out is wonderful. Elecetion is great because it shows you characters who do what they should do given their circumstances, who then end up filling certain almost stereotypical roles, instead of assigning stereotypical roles to characters and then giving you nothing else. It's a fantastic movie.

Each character has a nice story behind it, the repressed lesbian who doesn't know she's a lesbian, the overachiever who's really just trying to impress her repressed single mother, the genuinely good guy who is forced into the role of popular guy because he is genuinely likable. That is the thing that most high school movies forget. High schoolers aren't inherently stupid, they are just big kids trying to fit the roles that they see presented for them. Sure, they look dumb, but so would you (and did you) when you didn't know anything about the world. Just watch this movie, and listen to HOW the characters talk. It is beautiful and ugly and perfect.

Edelpils, Edelpils

"Edelpils is a premium beer with noble taste brewed from 100% fine aroma hops & selected malt."



So says the can, anyway. It's not really great or anything, just ok, but with kind of a weird aftertaste. On the plus side, it made me think of that wonderful song. One time, I was at a school here and I guess Edelweiss was the song for the month, so at the morning meeting thing, they sang it. I had that meeting with the special ed class, so I sang it with them. It was weird because they sang it in Japanese, and then again in English, but just phonetically, without knowing what it meant. Everyone thought I was awesome at it. I'm going to miss that about this job when I stop doing it.

I realize that some of my readers are dealing with hot summers right now, and I sympathize, but I'd like to complain for a minute that it is constantly disgustingly humid here, and always over 30 degrees Celsius during the day, so you just sweat and sweat and none of it evaporates at all.

Also there are so many bugs here it is crazy. My house is conveniently protected by a veritable wall of spiders, so it's not so bad right here. I mean, there are at least 10 different spider webs, each with a spider ranging from smaller than a dime to larger than a quarter, just on the stairs up to my apartment. I have purposely done nothing to hinder these spiders, and actually have tried picking up some of the slower bugs and tossing them gently into the webs just to help them out because I hate the mosquitos and I want an army of spiders eating them for me.

From being outside for maybe an hour and a half last week at a festival, I got 11 mosquito bites on my left leg and a few on my right, to boot. I think these mosquitos are tiger mosquitos or something. They are terrible. As in, I was standing there fanning people off, as was my job, and then I would suddenly feel a sting that felt the size of a hypodermic needle. I'd look down and see only the bite, the mosquito having taken off. The bites are disgusting, not like a normal mosquito bite, which just looks like a red bump. These bites look like bruises, and at first I could actually see the hole that the mosquitos made because there was still blood where their proboscis had been. Like it was bleeding for a second, but then stopped.

So, the spiders and the frogs and even the couple of lizards who live behind an outdoor light on the wall can stay and eat as many of those bugs as they can. I will stay inside my house and drink my Edelpils.

Doing Stuff

Hello again, faithful readers.

This weekend was a holiday weekend, specifically umi no hi, or Marine Day. Marine Day is a secular holiday that only became a national holiday relatively recently, so there aren't any traditions associated with it or anything, but people like to go to the beach, which I suppose makes sense. So, that's what I did. Actually, first I just drove around looking for a good beach and ended up driving on the tiniest roads I've ever been on, which also weren't paved and many of which ran right alongside cliffs. So, while I was driving, I had to stop to move a turtle out of the road, as there was nowhere to drive around it. I decided just to take the turtle with me, and put it in the back of the car. Then later I went swimming in the ocean. Some guy I've never met asked me where I was from and all, so that was nice.

Earlier in the weekend, there was a festival here, so I went to that. It was mostly just watching a group do kagura, a traditional dance-music-story thing with costumes. I guess it's kind of a big thing in this region. Anyway, then there were a few local tv celebrities who played music and talked in goofy voices. The one guy even shouted out some things in English, "I like MUSIC!"

Yesterday I was at a kindergarten because some kindergarteners go there even though it is summer vacation. Kindergarten hardly qualifies as school from what I can tell, anyway, so it's not like they really need a vacation. We played in one of those little kid pools, and I brought them the turtle to keep as a pet because they have all sorts of animals like rabbits and whatnot. Plus, I didn't actually want to keep a turtle. When I left, they gave me a whole box full of vegetables, partly from the garden there (kinderGARTEN!) and partly from one of the kids' grandma. Anyway, I'm quite pleased with that.

Link Madness

So, I was trying to add a new link to the links section and I accidentally deleted them, so I had to add them all again. I'm missing one or two, but they aren't ones that get updated, so probably not a real loss.

More importantly, the new link goes to the blog of a friend who is going through physical therapy and what not. It is far more interesting than mine and definitely worth a read. Check it out now, stop reading this and check it out!

Here it is!

Fun Times

I had some fun last weekend. Went to a party for the folks leaving, which was alright. More importantly, the next day I was in Izumo and saw the new Indiana Jones movie at an actual movie theater in an actual mall. I was surprised because I had heard that it was terrible, but it turned out to be at least as good as Temple of Doom. I mean, the ending was kind of dumb, and there was occasionally some cg that had me almost shaking my fist at George Lucas (this was obviously his main contribution), but on the whole, it was a fun movie that kept with the tone of the original trilogy.

Also at this mall, I bought a new swimsuit. I saw some teachers with swimsuits that have shirts with them, and I wanted one, as I've been sunburnt too many times. Also they just kind of look cool. So, anyway, I got a new black one (or rather two new black ones, as the pieces are separate), and I look pretty awesome in it. Or so say the teachers, who all said I look 格好いい, kakkouii.

A lot of the schools have pools here, so the kids have swimming as part of their PE and I get to swim with them. So, that's neat. Summer vacation starts for the kids this weekend, which is a long weekend. Monday is umi-no-hi, or Marine Day, which is a ridiculous made up holiday. I'm not sure what exactly I'm going to do yet. Probably just die in the heat and humidity.

Delicious

Last Monday I was at a kindergarten. We were going to go swimming, but it rained most of the day, so we couldn't. Instead, we made sasamaki, 笹巻き, at least I think those would be the kanji. My computer isn't giving me the right options, but that first one means bamboo grass, and that second one means wrap. That's pretty much what it is.

To make sasamaki, what you do is mix rice flower (I think that's what it was) and water, and basically just knead it until it has a soft consistency. You make this into balls, which are called dango. Then you skewer the dango with a stem from the bamboo grass. Then you wrap it all in leaves (there is a somewhat complex method to this) and tie it up. Once it is wrapped up [somwhat] watertight, you can boil it all. It gets really soft and gooey. To eat it, you take the leaves off and eat it like carnival food, on a stick. It is really good with soy sauce and a little sugar. Almost tastes like bananas for some reason.



Sasamaki! Not yet boiled.



Boiled and unwrapped, with some soy sauce on it. The breakfast of champions.