It’s been ages since my last post, but strangely enough, I’ve had 3 comments in the past week on various topics – even heard from an old friend that I haven’t talked to since high school. Like usual the post about squid ink pasta remains popular, and according to Google Web Tools, I’m ranked around number 7 when you type in that key phrase. Guess not many other people have written about it. Anyway, I thought it might be nice to write again and keep everyone up to date on what is going on.
Tonight I sat back to enjoy the third presidential debate. The first two were pretty boring, but this last one had a sense of urgency that made for good viewing. Both candidates seemed to be surrounded in a cloud of pressure forcing them to get their message out much more forcefully, and I can only ask why this didn’t happen before. I felt that this third one was pretty evenly matched, but unfortunately McCain came across as being a little whiny. I used to be a huge McCain fan so it’s pretty disappointing to see how far he’s fallen in this campaign. I’m sure a lot of it is the work of his campaign team, even his brother told the press to let him be him, but you’d think he’d have more control over what is going on. Obama’s policies just make more sense to me this time around – especially in areas such as health care, which I was without while living in the US. I will say this though: even if Obama wins, I’m still disappointed in his Yes vote for telecom immunity.
I love being busy. I’m not one of those people that always has to be out and about – actually, just the opposite – but when I’m at home, there is no end to the number of projects I’ve got going on. I know my wife probably doesn’t think that video gaming counts as a project, but in the overall scheme of things, I’ve got a gaming schedule to maintain much like I have deadlines at work.; gaming is just the beginning though. I’ve been wanting to learn the guitar lately (I have a bass begging for attention upstairs), I have my ailing blog to write for, I have a million short story ideas waiting to get put on paper, I have books to read, and more importantly, I want to spend time with my wife. I use my time poorly which is probably my biggest failure, but going with the flow of inspiration usually keeps me energized and looking forward to my next project when the time comes. Current book is the Golden Compass by Philip Pullman – so far so good.
Very briefly I’d like to recommend to you the movie Death Proof by Quentin Tarantino. Originally part of a two-movie collection called Grindhouse, Death Proof was shown along side Planet Terror directed by Robert Rodriguez. From what I understand, the official Grindhouse feature was only shown in North America and after poor ticket sales it was decided that both movies would be separated for overseas audiences and lengthened to a normal running time. I had been looking forward to seeing Grindhouse – a throwback to the explotation films of the 70s – but after learning of the two movies being separated I decided to wait until video.
Well, to make a long story short, Death Proof was worth waiting for. It’s not as good as some of Taratino’s other films, but the characters were interesting, and the way the story plays out is something of a surprise. The movie hasn’t received very much praise from critics around the globe, but it serves up an entertaining hour and a half that most people should rent at some point.
On my way home from seeing a movie today, I was playing a Sony PSP on the train. Like always, I was standing in the area closest to the door but pressed up against the seat to avoid traffic. At one point an old man (probably in his 70s) got behind me and actually pushed me off the train. Since he was stumbling on the train as well I just figured he was trying to get off, and rather than block his exit, I just decided to get off and let him pass. Well, much to my surprise, rather than exiting like a normal person, the old man continued to push me to keep me from getting on the train again. We got about 10 ft. away from the train door and I was trying to get around him to re-board, but he was doing a pretty good job of getting in my way. Then things started to escalate. He started yelling at me and tried to rip the PSP from my hands. He was obviously drunk and was yelling at me for both playing games and not understanding the rules being a foreigner. I wasn’t quite sure what rules he was referring to, but I had had enough of his crap so I told him we were going to the police (in Japanese of course) and strangely he immediately agreed to go with me.
I was pissed as hell at this point, but I decided that rather than go to the police we should just stop at the station office and let them deal with this piece of work. When we got there I told the people what he did to me and he said, “Yep, that sounds about right,” and proceeded to explain to me that you can’t play games on the train. The office attendant butted in and told him that you can’t push other riders off the train and that playing games is not against “the manners” as long as you are wearing headphones and not playing the sound loud enough to bother other riders. The old man bowed and said something like, “Yeah, I suppose there are some things that I should apologize for too.” After hearing this sentence I got even angrier and told him, “There’s no damn too about this at all. You owe me an apology!” At that point he started to berate me for not accepting his apology and the office attendant had me sit down so he could start talking to him about how playing games isn’t a moral offense. They then asked me if I wanted to call the police to report him but I told them I just wanted to go home.
It was a very bizarre experience and not one I would really want to repeat but I felt it was pretty strange that the old guy would actually physically accost me to stop playing games quietly on the train. I’m totally for this “Be mindful of your neighbors” campaign that they are running here to keep people calm on the trains but this was pretty crazy.
The worst part was that when the station attendant told the old man to apologize to me the old man tried to hug me. The station attendant jumped in between us because he was probably unsure of how I would react to getting touched by the old man. In the end, the old man did one of those politician handshakes (the two-handed one) and was sent stumbling off on his way into the sunset.
Needless to say I was pretty worked up about all of this. Maintaining my composure was probably the most difficult part of this whole ordeal. It’s not quite often that you have someone in elderly diapers attacking you for something totally irrelevant. We’re told to respect the elderly but things like this really just sour your overall impression of them all. I doubt this will ever happen again, but at least now I guess I’m prepared.
Oh, and on a side note, I saw American Gangster starring Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe. It’s a great movie and a must-see for people who like police dramas. The story is based on a true story.
I finally got around to posting one of my favorite videos for you. It’s a comedy video and may be slightly inappropriate for work if you keep the volume up. Hope you enjoy!
Oh, as a side note to my last post, I thought you might find it hilarious to know that most of the hits to my page from Google are based on the following searches:
And knowing is half the battle
Squid ink pasta
Confucionist way of life
How strange can you get? Guess I’m filling a niche market for someone.
It’s funny. Sometimes I have a million ideas for blog topics running through my head but when I actually try to put them down on ‘paper’ I get writer’s block. I suppose it’s not all that strange; writing, according to Stephen King in his book On Writing, is mostly about practice. He says that in order to become an author you should be reading 4 hours and writing 4 hours every day. That doesn’t help me much for writing these entries based on my time limitations, but I think that my inability to write my blog is an indicator that I’m still not experienced enough. Like I mentioned in some of my initial posts, I created digitalKI not because I’m interested in sharing my ideas with the world but because I like writing. This is one of the best ways for me to practice and I find that the casual tone of most blog posts to be perfect practice for creating actual dialog in the short stories I write. I definitely think I’ve been making some progress but there is still a lot of work to be done. Living in Japan has been a wonderful experience, but at the same time it has also done tremendous damage to my ability to communicate normally using English. At least by maintaining this blog I’m able to get in some much needed practice. With that said, I think I’ll mention two things today and try to keep it light. There are a fair number of disturbing political stories going around right now and I’d rather not focus on those for now. Read the rest of this entry »
You may have noticed another change to the look of my blog. I think I’m going to stick with this one for a while because it’s a very advanced layout and gives lots of functionality to readers. If you notice for each blog article, there are two small icons in the top right corner. If you have Javascript turned on, one of the two icons will stretch the article horizontally – making it easier to read – and the other icon will actually collapse the article. This new layout also has a calendar and the ability to view past months’ entries as well as a search feature so you can go through my posts much easier.
Yesterday marked the very first time my wife and I tried traditional Japanese nabe cooking in our home. Nabe means pot in Japanese but it really refers to the way the food is cooked. A giant pot is filled with broth and, depending on the kind of nabe you prepare, stuffed full of vegetables and some kind of raw meat – i.e. balls of chicken (not chicken balls – you dirty minded individuals). This pot is then heated (normally at the dinner table) where it cooks right there in front of you and is usually considered done once the meat is fully cooked. Nabe is usually only served during the winter, and it can be a really healthy way to stay warm.
We will probably try more varieties before this season is over but I’m personally very excited to have a new variety of cooking that we can enjoy at our house. You can see a picture on my wife’s blog. The post is in Japanese, but it’s marked Nov. 4 (you can find the link to her site on my blogroll).
You might be interested to know that nabe is also the food that sumo wrestlers eat on a daily basis to gain weight (they eat tons and tons of food before sleeping around 14 hours a day to put on the pounds).
I was reading around on the net again like usual and found a pretty disturbing piece of information that I was previously unaware of. I can’t really say if this was an accident or on purpose (I will let you decide for yourself), but apparently the person who blew the whistle on the Abu Ghraib prisoner torture scandal was outed on television by Donald Rumsfeld despite his wishes to remain anonymous.
This link is for an article on the BBC website that describes the incident in more detail, but it seems that after Joe Darby (the whistle blower) was named on TV in front of his peers, he was then flown out of Iraq and put under protection for six months out of fear of retaliation. His house in the US was vandalized by people angry over the whistle blowing and his wife, after learning what her husband had done, fled to her sister’s house to avoid any repercussions.
Those who are anti-Bush tend to say it was on purpose, as does Joe himself, but what I find more disturbing about this whole issue is that there are actually Americans who would be angry with Joe Darby’s actions. To be fair I don’t know if this reaction was by acquaintances from his home town or complete strangers, but it makes me angry to think that doing the right thing would make you a target. Call me naive, which I readily admit I am, but when a crime has been committed I have always been under the impression that it needs to be dealt with properly. Strangely, I wrote about a similar topic in a letter to the editor of the Japan Times. It’s scary times we live in when people in the right are subject to wrong.
I find it hard to believe how much time has passed since my last blog entry. Work has been busy, and my usual ramblings don’t seem important enough to sacrifice some free time. I have been doing a little behind-the-scenes maintenance though, and I’ve been very happy with result of installing Spam Karma 2. It has completely stopped the amount of crap coming into my mailbox, and I can at long last live without the annoyance of cleaning out junk mail. You have no idea how much this annoys me.
Today I thought I’d just cover a light topic that might be of interest to some of you. When I first came to Japan I had terrible posture. Even now it’s not perfect, but I have been actively trying to fix the way I sit and stand over the past few years. My mom always warned me about sitting up straight, but it wasn’t until I started Kendo over here that I finally realized why.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with Kendo, it’s kind of like Olympic fencing, except it’s the Japanese traditional form of sword fighting using a two-handed weapon. Most of the gear is the same as in fencing except the gear is very top heavy and is constructed using plastics, wood and a heavy canvas-like material. I think the full set of Kendo gear wears around 20 lbs. (roughly 8 kg) and probably more than half of the weight is in the helmet. When you first put on the gear, you learn right away whether your posture is good or not. If your center of balance is off just the tiniest bit, it becomes very hard to stand up straight, and after about 10 minutes of trying to maintain your footing your legs feel like jelly. The key to doing kendo right is to keep your back straight even when moving forward.
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