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.

Funny story, although not so at the time.

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.

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.
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