Stuff I Said

scottishaccent.blogspot.com: smell ya later

2006-12-22T16:00:00.000-08:00

Happy holidays, everyone.

After some trekking, boating, motorbiking, train riding, jetskiing, bungy jumping, tubing, sweating, swimming, caving, haggling, drinking, picture-taking, cooking, temple-climbing, border-crossing, currency-exchanging, and passport-stamping, I'm back in Burbank.

This adventure is over. I don't know when or where the next one will begin, so until then, this will be my last post. I'm gonna be honest: I could write pages of stories from this trip, but it would take a lot of time and wouldn't be that enjoyable for me. If anyone wants to know how my southeast Asia (plus China and New Zealand) trip went, I'd be happy to indulge your curiosity over coffee/beer/fanta/you name it.

Before I sign off, here are some of my favorite pictures culled from hundreds of lesser ones.

Divine Inspiration

2006-11-22T08:48:00.000-08:00

Worth waking up for.

Bogarting Brooke's pics

2006-10-29T04:07:00.000-08:00

I'm lazy. Brooke isn't.

She's posted bunches of pics from our trip thus far, including some from Hong Kong and Beijing, Beijing and Thailand, and more Thailand. I can't take credit for any of these, but they're pretty representative of the general awesomeness we've been surrounded with for the past month.

Tomorrow we head north to spend a night at the Lao border, and we'll be floating down the Mekong river toward Luang Prabang on Halloween night. The time has come to break out the malaria medication.

Holy Awesome

2006-10-11T21:08:00.000-07:00

That is all.

My only friend, the end

2006-09-26T06:52:00.000-07:00

It's Tuesday night, and all the jazz clubs in my corner of Osaka have ridiculous cover charges, so here I am, blogging the night away.

I know, it's been a while since I posted, but that's because the past three weeks have been the most vagabond-ish in my life. Time limits, but here's the short, uninteresting version.

I left Hakodate on September 5 on a local-trains-only ticket that saw me arrive in Kyoto five days later. On the way I stopped for the night (and sometimes the day) in Yamagata, Nikko, Tokyo, and Nagoya.

I spent almost two weeks in Kyoto, a few days in Hiroshima, and now I'm in a capsule hotel in the heart of Osaka. I leave Japan on October 1.

I'm a frugal person. I don't buy furniture or new clothes, I eat food from convenience stores, and I tote a water bottle with me to fast food restaurants. I know why I do this. I love traveling.

On the ferry across the Tsugaru strait linking Hokkaido with Honshu three weeks ago, I looked inward. This is why I've saved my money this year. I've got no commitments other than those I make for myself. A country I've been learning and loving for 12 months lies before me waiting to be experienced.

Of course, if I don't want to wind up penniless in a month's time, I really ought to remember the sacred word: budget.

It hasn't even been a month since I've been unemployed, but it feels like a 'coon's age. Lord only knows how I'll feel in December after three and a half months of this madness.

For what I didn't have the patience to write, I took some pictures.

This will be the last post I make from Japan. It might be the last I make in this space. Whatever the case, I'll be in contact via my usual email address. To friends in Japan: I'll miss you. To friends in Burbank: I'll be home in December. To friends elsewhere: drop me a line!

As for now, goodbyes are said

2006-09-02T23:04:00.000-07:00

I'm unemployed and homeless. And loving it.

This week and last week were crazy. Somehow I managed to pencil in "move out of my apartment" around a schedule that included full weeks of classes and a party almost every night. The latest of said parties was a killer beach barbeque at which I may or may not have been thrown in the ocean. A beer bong may or may not have been involved. Felicia's got the pics.

I'm going to miss Hakodate.

I'm leaving for Kyoto on Tuesday, and taking my laptop with me. Should I be so lucky, I'll be able to scrounge around for wireless internet and make a couple more posts along the way before heading off for Hong Kong in October. If the posts dry up, I'll still be reachable via email (though perhaps spotty) throughout my trip.

Let's not lose touch.

The "Scott Gets Around to Writing About His Vacation" post

2006-08-24T01:47:00.000-07:00

I'm in "winding down" mode now, and already starting to get a bit melancholy. Thankfully there is still fun to be had before I head on down the old dusty trail. From tomorrow through next Tuesday I have a different farewell party booked every night. That's what happens when you have 20 classes and they all think you're awesome.

I'll probably post once more before I leave for Kyoto. After that, who knows. I've been pretty bad posting from Japan lately so what's to say I'll do any better from Hong Kong, Thailand or Cambodia? There are still some stories to tell from my Taiwan/Mt. Fuji vacation, however. Pictures!

The Portuguese named Taiwan La Isla Formosa, or The Beautiful Island. Once outside Taipei on the east coast, the countryside erupts into gorgeous beaches and towering green mountains. The biggest highlight was Taroko Gorge, the jewel of Taiwan's national parks. I spent a couple of days in the company of majestic marble cliffs and dense subtropical foliage. There were plenty of hiking trails to keep me occupied, even if some weren't incredibly well-marked. It took a couple of knee scrapes and a few thorns to convince me that what I was hiking wasn't so much a trail as it was an emergency descent route. It did seem a little steep.

Taipei has its charms as well. I will never forget two frantic map-less bike rides downtown, once at 8:00 am and once at night, in which my primary objectives were to not lose sight of Nick while not getting run over by vehicles with motors. I also experienced the famous night markets, an entrenched Taipei tradition that I wish would make its way to Japan. Those looking for a different take on night life need look no further than the back streets of the Shilin district, where you'll find a warren of shops selling who knows what. My favorite was the table selling "Zoga" Genesis consoles complete with a "Pocket Monsters" game. I whipped out my camera to capture the hilarity but was promptly shooed away.

Side question: what's scarier--meats you can't identify, or those you can identify far too easily (chicken's feet and pig's faces)?

Fuji ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous. I arrived at Fuji's 5th Station at about 2:00 pm and found myself surrounded by pensive but eager Japanese tour groups preparing for the climb. Many of them found it strange that I was climbing by myself, and a few of them even asked me to join their group so I wouldn't be lonely. Their pace was slow for my taste, but they were right: it's hard to be lonely when you're bound to your fellow climbers by the bonds of matching T-shirts. The weather treated us to some stunning mid-afternoon views as we watched the terrain slowly turn from forested to shrubbed to barren.

Of course, most of these intrepid Japanese brought the things on the "packing for Mt. Fuji list" I figured I could get by without, such as walking sticks (with matching colors) and oxygen canisters. I figured, if children and grandparents can regularly make the summit, why shouldn't I be able to do it with some water, powerbars and a jacket? For two-thirds of the climb, I was right.

Then I hit the wall. It turns out Mt. Fuji is actually pretty high. At 3776 meters above sea level, I can say that yes, altitude does make a difference. By the time I got to the mountain hut where I was to spend the "night" (read: get up at 2:30 to make it to the top by sunrise), I was taking regular rests at nearly every switchback. Feeling your heart racing at top speed after walking ten meters isn't a comforting sensation. I actually didn't sleep at all that night, partly because I had to go to bed at 9:00, partly because I was still adjusting to the altitude, and partly because my bed sucked.

Nevertheless, I was among the first to reach the top. There I was welcomed by shop owners all too happy to make me a bowl of ramen for 10 bucks. As the crowds of people jockeyed for position to catch the first glimpse of the sun cresting the horizon, I got the feeling that this wouldn't be the most peaceful sunrise I would ever experience. My suspicions were confirmed when some guy in the souvenir shop behind me fired up "We Will Rock You" as soon as the sun peeked out. Was this my reward for six hours of toil--rocking to Queen at 5:00 am? Apparently so.

After the sun did its thing, most climbers headed straight back down. I took some time to circle the crater for an hour, savoring some peaceful moments on the more austere side of the rim. I didn't know if I would ever see that stark landscape again, because as they say, a wise man climbs Mt. Fuji once, but a fool climbs it twice.

Mickey Mouse and swords

2006-08-18T01:34:00.000-07:00

Long time no post. Sadly, I don't have time to write about my vacation or post the glut of pictures currently living in my camera. Long story short...Taiwan: good times. Thanks Nick! Mt. Fuji: a uniquely Japanese experience; at times exhilirating, at times borderline ridiculous. It definitely warrants elaboration in this space. When I have time.

Tomorrow I'll meet Kyle and Nick in Tokyo to experience the Japanese take on Mickey Mouse at Disney Sea. Hopefully I'll have time for some pictures and ramblings when I return to Hakodate next week. For now, a couple of quick hits from the Tokyo National Museum. If you don't know why this is awesome, then you've probably never spent 40 hours controlling a Spiky-Haired Protagonist (and most likely a Quiet Healer and a Burly Sidekick) in a quest to save the world from some Unequivocally Evil Dude.

I'm going to need a vacation from my vacation

2006-08-02T10:39:00.000-07:00

It’s late. I should be sleeping. I’m getting up in five hours to go to the train station to catch a train to Tokyo to catch a plane to Taiwan, where I will spend one week not speaking Mandarin, after which I’ll catch a plane to Tokyo to catch a bus to Mt. Fuji, which I will climb alongside hordes of Japanese summit-seekers.

It’s gonna be great.

See you in a couple of weeks.

Ainu #6

2006-07-18T00:11:00.000-07:00

Ye gods, it’s been a while since I posted. Thankfully I managed to sneak one in just before my delay-in-posts time reached one month.

A lot has happened in the past almost-a-month. First, I was visited by not one but two parents. Thanks to a couple of very generous Japanese friends and my parents’ two-week commitment to being “intrepid,” Mom and Dad were treated to a close-up look at a grab bag of things Japanese. There was the mandatory trip to Tokyo, but also the austere tranquility of the tea ceremony, among other things. I took some pictures. Thanks for coming out, Mom & Dad. I had a great time.

Something I’ve been hearing whispers about from my students since I arrived last September is the annual Hakodate Yagaigeki, or “open-air pageant” held in Goryokaku park. As I’ve mentioned previously, Hakodate is very proud of its history. As if an annual celebratory parade isn’t enough, every July the city commemorates its historical events yet again with a spectacle of fireworks, lasers, dancing and storytelling. The stage is innovatively designed—it’s built right into the fortress side of park with movable platforms extending out over the moat. The audience watches from grandstands across the moat, so the action takes place on the park’s fortress walls and hillsides, and in the moat itself. The coolest part, though, is that your average Hiroshi can show up backstage an hour before the show and get a part. I did this twice.

Since Hakodate’s history includes some significant contact with voyaging foreigners, and since I was the only foreigner to show up, you’d think I’d be given a part as a foreigner—maybe Perry, or at least a random American conscript. You’d be wrong though. First I appeared as an Ainu (native inhabitant of Japan), after which I changed into the garb of an Edo-era townsperson. I got the feeling that the roles of the foreigners were coveted and required some actual rehearsal—possibly even some flag-waving. The guy playing Perry (the same guy who played him in the parade!), for example, probably had his name on a waiting list for some time. I think he loves America. First, he showed up at call time wearing a hat with the stars and stripes on it. Then, upon catching a glimpse of me, he scurried over to shake my hand with a hearty “good morning!” (It was about 6:30 pm at the time.) After seeing this enthusiastic display, I really didn’t mind being a random J-dude. Go for it, big guy. Be Perry. You deserve it.

That’s the cool stuff lately. I’ll post again before I leave for Taiwan in August, after which my remaining time in Hakodate will have dwindled to a mere three weeks. Time does fly.

This country needs to invest in a Scantron

2006-06-20T08:25:00.000-07:00

Been plenty busy lately, but not with much that would merit a blog post. I've got my hands full getting stuff done around here before my parents arrive for a sweet one-and-a-half-weeker in Hakodate next week, including grading a dumptruckful of exams from my university class. I may or may not have writer's cramp.

You know it's chill times around here when the most interesting thing I have to write about is a pottery exhibition. But there I was last week, standing in a room surrounded by Edo- and Meiji-Era pots, wall scrolls, and serving spoons, and marvelling at the exorbitant prices of it all. Here's a picture of something or other that was going for a cool 1.4 million. Also present was a 12" by 3" card with some calligraphy on it valued at more than my monthly salary.

Unlike the postmodern "Black Dot on Canvas" pieces found at any corner Art Museum, I can at least appreciate the fact that I don't have the necessary skill to produce the intricate strokes in a work of calligraphy. My skepticism that someone would pay so much for "such a small thing" says more about my ignorance of the art than it does about the piece's market value.

Like grains in an hourglass

2006-06-08T06:39:00.000-07:00

With less than three months left on my contract, I've become increasingly aware lately of the "mortality" of my life in Japan. It's an odd feeling: at times melancholic, at times energizing. In the spirit of "time to stop putting off doing that thing I've been meaning to do," I hiked up and around the mountain over the weekend with some friends. See the pics here.

Still on my to-do list from September: Learn Japanese. Got a ways to go on that one.

I'm pretty sure my 15 minutes are up

2006-05-30T00:22:00.000-07:00

I gotta give this town some credit. If you happen to come across Hakodate in a history book, chances are it’s in that book for one of two historically significant reasons: Commodore Perry’s arrival here with his “Black Ships,” and/or Hijikata Toshizo’s last stand at Goryokaku Fort during the last phase of the Meiji Restoration. That’s not exactly a Britannica’s worth of history, but Hakodate really squeezes every last drop of pride out of what it’s got.

Case in point: the annual Goryokaku Festival and Parade held last week, commemorating both of the aforementioned events. I would have turned out anyway to watch droves of Hakodateites clad in (ostensibly) Meiji-era military uniforms and samurai robes, but it turns out the view is much better from within the parade itself.

Once again, who you know is key. The guy in charge of organizing the foreigner contingent in the parade turned out to be a friend of a friend, who invited me to play the token American this year. I got to carry the Stars and Stripes while marching just ahead of Perry (played enthusiastically by a Japanese dude) himself. Thanks to Tomoko and Felicia for their photographic contributions.

At attention.

My gaijin compatriots.

After the parade, the photo ops went on for a good five minutes. Peace signs were flashed.

Everything in Japan is related to samurai, probably

2006-05-19T08:04:00.000-07:00

As much as I whined about the seemingly endless winter not three months ago, I have nothing to complain about now, because spring in Hakodate totally rules.

I’m sure part of my weather-induced good mood can be linked to my increased appreciation of warm weather after months of not having it. But you can chalk up the rest to flowers.

The beloved sakura cherry blossom is something of an icon in Japan. Sakura-watching (ohanami) begins when the flowers bloom in Okinawa in February (when Hokkaidoites have all but forgotten what a flower looks like) and the blooms follow the spring season northward, bringing merriment to ever-higher latitudes. Hokkaido finally gets in on the action in early May, and what better way to celebrate than by having picnics for two weeks straight? This may be my favorite Japanese tradition. For almost two weeks, you can go to the park, lay down a tarp with hundreds of other springophiles, crack open a sixer and chill for hours. All because some flowers opened. What more reason do you need?

When asked what makes the sakura so popular in Japan, one of my students offered this explanation: the sakura bloom brilliantly, but last a fleeting few days before they die. This is much like the lives of the samurai who fought with awe-inspiring elegance for their lords before dying honorable deaths on the battlefield. That time has passed for the sakura in Goryokaku this year. The flame of the sakura, much like that of the samurai, burns brightly and quickly. I managed to get a few pictures though. Warning: gratuitous flowers ahead.

VIDEO GAME-RELATED SECTION

You know the ending sequence of Mega Man 2 when Mega Man’s suit changes colors as he “walks through the seasons,” and in “spring” his suit turns pink (Quickman’s weapon, I think) while fluffy pink petals drift downwards? The sakura are like that. Also, Piston Honda’s entrance music is the first line from “Sakura,” a classic traditional Japanese folk song.

Hello and Thank You

2006-05-07T19:19:00.000-07:00

Got back from Korea on Thursday. Had a great time. Took lots of pictures. Not using subjects today.

Big thanks to Big Ben the Apple Man who took time out of his busy schedule to show another clueless foreigner around. Because his job rules (a reporter for the Joongang Daily), I got to see Mission Impossible 3 for practically free. I gave him my opinion of the movie afterward, but since I'm not a movie critic, my opinion doesn't count.

The most interesting part about being in Korea was setting foot in a world where I once again knew nothing. True, I'm a foreigner in Japan. But over the past eight months I've familiarized myself with enough Japanese culture to not make a fool of myself and enough Japanese language to get by day-to-day. I also have some conception of the vast quantity of knowledge I don't know, which I've learned to deal with, and which adds perspective. I don't think I realized how comfortable I had become with my status as an "enlightened outsider" in Japan's bubble. Not surprisingly, step outside the bubble and you can throw those notions of comfort out the window. It was almost a relief to return and be questioned at customs in Japanese. At least then I could understand every third word.

For the record, I did learn two Korean phrases while milling about Seoul. Two.

What's Golden

2006-04-27T08:34:00.000-07:00

Golden Week is around the corner. Hooray! I get several days off in a row. Woohoo! I'm going to Korea on Saturday. Sweet! Here's some Engrish. It's about time!

If you come late, you might miss the chicken.

Sweet, sweet Topping.

SUVs in Japan are less badass and more thought-provoking.

I've posted the top one before, but this is too good. A classic example of Engrish being inconsistent with itself. Also, as the syllable "ti" is often mispronounced "chi" by many Japanese, this is one case where the signmaker actually overthought the English translation.

Next stop, Brown

2006-04-17T09:23:00.000-07:00

With the new classes I’ve been assigned at Daibundo in the past few weeks (about a 25% increase in my total hours), you’d find it hard to believe that I actually chose to take on more as of last week. I couldn’t really turn down an opportunity to teach at Kyoikudai, the local branch of the Hokkaido University of Education. A few things make teaching at the university markedly different from teaching at a conversation school:

1) Size. Whereas four students per class is typical Daibundo fare, at the university, that number mushrooms to almost 30. If I wasn’t comfortable with public speaking already, hopefully I soon will be.

2) Age. These “kids” are college students. Which means some of them are only 3 years younger than me. Which wouldn’t be that strange, if it weren’t for #3,

3) Respect. When I stroll down the halls it’s clear to everyone that I’m not a student, which means, by default, that I’m a teacher. And that means respect. Teachers in Japan are generally perceived as sharing an occupational echelon with doctors and lawyers. Thus, students passing me on their way to class are obligated to greet me with a little bow and an “ohayou gozaimasu” and refer to me as sensei at all times. Must…stop…head…from…swelling…

4) Grades. I have to give grades. And a midterm. And possibly fail some people. After class today some nervous girls started asking me all these questions about what they should study for the midterm. Rather than telling them that the midterm hasn’t been written yet, I told them they’ll do fine as long as they study the material presented in class and in the textbook. How soon I reverted to a stock answer.

How did I get this gig? Pure luck. Apparently they were running short on foreign language teachers this semester and had asked Daibundo to help them fill some holes in their staff. Daibundo worked out a contract with the University and rearranged my schedule so I could teach there twice a week. Technically, I’m being subcontracted. But my students don’t have to know that.

In other news, I attended Handel’s Messiah with some friends yesterday at the local concert hall—appropriately, on Easter. We, along with one Japanese dude sitting in front of us, were the only ones in the audience who stood during the Hallelujah Chorus. I wanted to laugh so badly.

Brand spankin' new

2006-04-06T00:41:00.000-07:00

One of the constants of my life in Hakodate has been the new observation tower at the park, constantly in one state of construction or another. At long last, those days are over. When I arrived it resembled an oversized stick in the mud, and over the months I’ve watched it blossom into the prismatic Big Brother Next Door that it is today. The tower opened its doors last week just in time for spring (what a coincidence) and today the clouds parted just long enough for me to break my camera out of winter dormancy. Besides offering the best view this side of the mountain, the observation deck doubles as a small museum. A series of dioramas depicting the history of Goryokaku Fort walks you through key events like Commodore Perry’s landing and the defeat of the shogun loyalists. Luckily for me, there were interpretive comics.
Come cherry blossom season, there's gonna be some serious pretty.

Facing south, towards the mountain and warmer weather.

The puny old tower. Ha!

My humble abode (see blue stairway at center) at grainy maximum zoom.

Perry's historic arrival in mini.

Manga: the universal language.

So many gaijin. This poor guy's mind is getting totally blown.

A classic gun vs. katana battle.

Obligatory park panorama

Obligatory mountain panorama

Long winters are overrated—wait, they were never cool to begin with

2006-03-26T07:24:00.000-08:00

Last week saw the calendrical beginning of spring, and for the most part, Mother Nature took notice. Mercifully, Old Man Winter is in full retreat. With the exception of some scattered die-hard snow piles, Hakodate looks pretty much like it did back in early December, before the winter’s first serious snowfall. I was beginning to forget what the park had looked like before it became inundated with snow. Now the ground is littered with dry pine needles and pale, matted leaves from November, none of which budged an inch in the past three months. The snow preserved the landscape beautifully, making me feel like I was inside a time capsule as I walked through the park this afternoon. Everything looks a little drab now, but it’s only a matter of time before the cherry blossom season kicks in.

Check out this game: “The Typing of the Dead.” A carbon copy of “House of the Dead”, but you’re armed with keyboards instead of guns, and you blow away the undead with your typing skills. Mavis Beacon goes to the splatterhouse. One of the most blatant displays of code recycling I’ve seen, but as any programmer worth his salt could have made the modifications in a matter of days, how can this game not turn a profit? Genius. I really wanted to play, but this woman and her kid had a seemingly endless supply of 100-yen coins.

This is why I don't play today's newfangled video games

2006-03-13T06:15:00.000-08:00

So a couple of weeks ago, I asked one of my all-housewife classes what they had done over the past week, as I often do to get a conversation started. I was expecting the standard “nothing special” or “I cleaned the house” responses, but then one of my students threw me a curveball. “I played brain training games,” Yuko said. Brain training games? My curiosity was piqued. I asked her to elaborate, but she couldn’t describe it in English and I couldn’t understand her explanation in Japanese. Then, in last week’s class she brought in this so-called brain training machine and it’s…a Game Boy DS! Holy smokes, I thought, my middle-aged students play video games in their free time to improve their minds. She inserted a game card (are cartridges officially dead?) and fired up this series of think-fast games that involve a combination of numerical sequence memory, spatial logic, and simple arithmetic. I tried my hand at a few of the games but only made it to the meager “bicycle” level (a step above “walking,” but below “car,” “bullet train,” “airplane,” and “rocket”).

My confidence soared, however, when Yuko popped in a game at which I was sure to rule: English pronunciation. That’s right, the obsession with learning English in this country has fueled the production of a home-study English course on your Game Boy. The point of the game was to repeat into the Game Boy’s internal microphone English phrases that appeared on the screen. I was pumped. There was absolutely no way I wouldn’t dominate this game. I mean, technically speaking, I’m a professional. The phrase “Do your homework!” appeared, I parroted it back in anchorman-clear California English, and scored…a freaking 19 out of 100! The game required of me the one thing at which I couldn’t possibly fail, and I somehow blew it. To rub it in, the teacher-avatar chided “I can’t understand a word you’re saying!” I tried saying it again in the most exaggerated Japanese accent I could muster, figuring the folks on Nintendo’s development team must have a pretty strange idea of what native English sounds like, but didn’t do any better. Needless to say the class couldn’t contain itself at this point and laughter took over my lesson plan. Someone ought to give Nintendo Inc. a call and tell them to hire a few native speakers. I’d practically work for them pro bono.

They must have known I was coming

2006-03-06T05:28:00.000-08:00

When it's too cold to run, I swim. Thanks to Draconian Japanese standards of cleanliness, I am now the dubiously proud owner of a pool cap. And if you work up a phlem in the middle of your workout, spitoons are courteously provided at each end of the pool.

I have tasted the fruits of small-town fame, and found them sweet

2006-02-24T00:40:00.000-08:00

Apparently my mug has been getting around. I’ve had at least one person I didn’t know excitedly approach me and tell me they saw Daibundo’s ad for the new intermediate-level class I’m teaching next month. I feel like I’m slowly becoming that guy that you saw that one time somewhere or another. The ad must be working, though; my class already has a waiting list.

Then there are the tangible benefits of "fame." Check out this hoard of chocolate boxes. In Japan, women give chocolate to the men in their lives (romantic and otherwise) on Valentine’s Day, while men return the favor one month later on “White Day.” I’m pretty popular with the English-learning-middle-aged-housewife contingent in Hakodate; hence, I cleaned house. Thing is, you’re supposed to give cookies on White Day instead of chocolate because chocolate was already done on Valentine’s Day. Sidestepping the question of why Japan has not one but two Hallmark Holidays, this is completely retarded. Aren’t women the ones who have gustatory orgasms over the mere thought of chocolate? Aren’t men the ones who are down with chocolate in general but could really take it or leave it? I’m both confused and disappointed, because I was looking forward to re-gifting some of this chocolate.

Boom and bust

2006-02-13T08:20:00.000-08:00

This weekend I did absolutely nothing.

But that’s okay, because last weekend I had fun coming out my ears. It’s a tribute to human resilience and creativity that we can embrace the things which sometimes make us miserable (i.e. really cold weather) and use it as a medium of artistic expression. Such is the inspiration for the annual Sapporo Yuki Matsuri (snow festival), which I had the pleasure of attending last weekend in all its snowy, festivaly glory.

Sapporo’s Odori Park was the site of most of the revelry. The park, stretching for what must have been a couple of miles of city blocks, showcased the coolest snow sculptures you’re ever likely to see. I, along with a group of several other English teachers from Hakodate (if you know one, you probably know them all), spent two solid days taking it all in. From six-foot happy faces to landscapes that rival my apartment building in size, it was all here. Every large sculpture (and you’ll see what I mean by “large”; check out the pictures) posted signage detailing the number of man hours and tons of snow used in its creation. And size isn’t everything—you’d think a two-story Buddha next to a rendering of the Taipei 101 tower would be impressive enough, until you notice the countless pear-sized hair bobs covering the Buddha’s head. These guys were pros, and the pros don’t skimp on the details.

Downtown in the famous (and sometimes infamous) Susukino district, ice sculptures took over the center of the main drag. The range of talent displayed was remarkable—you had your standard blocks of ice carved into sake bottles or igloos, while next door were incredibly detailed animals with painstakingly crafted feathers and scales. For once, I hated to think what would happen if the temperature rose to even a degree above zero.

Being the international draw that it is, it’s really hard to find accommodations in Sapporo during the snow festival. That’s not really a problem, though, if you don’t sleep. There are plenty of places open all night in downtown Sapporo, as we discovered, and hence we had no trouble finding this club or that bar to hang out in while the wee hours whittled away. I hit the wall halfway through the Super Bowl, though. You’d be surprised how comfortable a barroom loft floor feels when the Sandman comes a knockin’. I was unconscious during the last two hours of the game, but I didn’t really miss anything—they didn’t air any commercials over here.

Centenarian / 4

2006-01-31T07:01:00.000-08:00

Hello friends. The downside of waiting until I'm warm and comfy in my apartment to post (as opposed to doing it in the stuffy computer lab at work on J-keyboards) is that I'm often too tired to write much. Hopefully I'll feel differently after I return from the Sapporo Snow Festival next week. In the meantime, I'll let the pictures do my writing for me.

I'm not quite so lame though as to neglect to mention the sweet birthday I had last weekend. About 20 people showed up at Hakodate's most well-known Chinese restaurant for good eats and a 1000円 all-you-can-drink (that's cheap), and then followed me to a nearby bar where we proceeded to take over the top-floor loft-style room all to ourselves. Either I'm a popular guy, or there's nothing else to do in this town on a Saturday night. Good times were had by all.

I've also hit the slopes a few times lately at Nanae, a ski resort nestled up next to Onuma Lake Quasi-National Park. The resort overlooks a valley flanked on the north side by Komagadake mountain, a dormant volcano with a distinctive crater of a crown on top. Old Man Mountain stares you in the face from across the valley the whole way down the slope. It's enough to make one feel small and insignificant among the natural grandeur of the surrounds. Pretty deep food for thought when you're hurtling downward in what basically amounts to a controlled fall.

Got milt?

2006-01-19T00:16:00.000-08:00

This beats the sea cucumber, gold-flake sushi and raw horse meat combined. What do you think this is? I'm usually pretty brave when it comes to trying weird foods, but I wouldn't touch this one with a ten-foot chopstick.

Give up? "Milt: the semen-filled reproductive glands of male fishes." Thank God for pocket dictionaries. I might have actually tried it otherwise.

Do they really have to be semen-filled?

New year's malaise, and Tokyo in three days

2006-01-09T06:26:00.000-08:00

Back to the grind.

Lately I’ve been wallowing in the doldrums that come with the end of the holiday season, the culmination of an eventful year, and a return to normalcy. The melancholy is exacerbated coming on the heels of my whirlwind trip to Tokyo and Brooke’s all-too-soon return to Russia. On the plus side, New Year’s in Hakodate was an affair to remember and Tokyo is a city I’ll never forget. You can substitute pictures for the thousands of words I would otherwise write here.

New Year’s is probably the biggest single holiday in Japan. Its passing is cause for several days off work, from about December 31 to January 3. I get the impression that at least for the older generation, Christmas is seen as part of the holiday “lead-in” to New Year’s in the same way that Thanksgiving opens the floodgates for Christmas in the States. The traditional custom is to visit a shrine at some point from January 1-3 to pray for health, safety and fortune in the coming year, with most of the younger folks making the trip on New Year’s Eve. Figuring “when in Rome”, Brooke and I arrived at the shrine at 11:55, where we proceeded to stand in line with the rest of Hakodate’s citizenry while midnight passed without a fuss. We actually looked at our watches at 12:01, shrugged, and welcomed the new year quietly in English. At the shrine itself, there was certainly some praying going on, but there was also a lot of sake-drinking and yakitori-eating. It was an interesting combination of traditional ritual and modern revelry. You had your serious folks who approached the altar with hands together in solemn reverence, while a gaggle of teens stood in the corner swapping numbers on their cell phones. Hakodate’s carnival food and overpriced souvenir community was out in full force as well, lining the entryways and exits with stands selling delicious meats on sticks and fried rice cakes. Incidentally, I’ve learned that a majority (if not all) of these stands are controlled by the yakuza, or Japanese mafia. To learn more I’ve been reading a book on yakuza history from the local library. I want to know if these guys really can kill you five times before you hit the ground.

A day later we set off for Tokyo via the famed shinkansen, or bullet train. On the way we passed through the Seikan tunnel linking Hokkaido with Honshu, the longest underwater tunnel in the world. The ride was so quiet and smooth, you wouldn’t have known we were traveling 180 mph. In Tokyo we found none of the wintry weather currently inundating Hakodate but we did find a sprawling megalopolis that lives up to its incredible reputation.

Like much of Japan, Tokyo is a mix of old and new. The parts that were destroyed in the war were rebuilt with skyscrapers, while the parts that escaped the bombing retain much of their traditional character of old. One such place is Asakusa, site of the famous Senso-ji temple. The temple was impressive, to be sure, but what really blew my mind was the seemingly endless corridor of souvenir shops leading up to the temple’s entrance. The shops carried every type of Japanese souvenir imaginable—ninja figurines, geisha dolls, hello kitties, katana swords, wall scrolls, mini-pagodas—it was all here, and for surprisingly reasonable prices. Furthermore, each shop’s offerings were slightly different, unlike Mexico where you can get the same ranchero marionette or Bart Simpson lawn ornament on any street corner. I was a bit overwhelmed by having to choose from among this incredible variety, which of course meant that I didn’t buy anything whatsoever.

The next day we visited the grounds of the Emperor’s palace. The palace was heavily bombed in the war but the walls, moat and a few of the main buildings remain. Apparently the public is allowed inside the palace walls on but two days of the year: the Emperor’s birthday (December 23), and January 2. Of course, we chose to visit on January 3. Regardless, the expansive expansiveness of the grounds was a refreshing departure from the “space-conscious” dogma that pervades much of Japanese architecture and city planning.

Walk south from the palace for ten minutes past the Godzilla statue and you’ll run into the Ginza district. There’s a reason The Lonely Planet calls Ginza “the one shopping district in Tokyo everyone has heard of.” Take the aforementioned endless corridor of souvenir shops in Asakusa, then magically transform every shop into a massive department store rivaling anything 5th Avenue has to offer, and you’ve got Ginza. Oh, and make everything insanely expensive. Thankfully, window shopping is still free in Japan, and that’s exactly what we did.

It’s easy to get lost in Tokyo’s diverse sea of faces. Being the cosmopolitan metropolis that it is, Tokyo’s got a sizable population of foreigners wandering around doing much the same thing we were. It was comforting, though strange, to be around so many other gaijin. I guess I had gotten used to feeling somewhat alone in the world, and not being able to ask random strangers how to get from Point A to Point B. Here, I was just another guy with a backpack and a railway map. Said map did lead us to Shibuya, however, where we met up with Anne-Marie and Melissa (long time no see!) for even more fun. Together we visited the famous Meiji shrine, named after he who opened Japan up to the world after centuries of isolation under shogun rule. The place was a madhouse of people paying New Year’s respects and throwing coins onto the altar for good fortune in the coming year. Nonetheless, I can see how at any other time of the year, the shrine could be a wonderfully serene place. Anne-Marie took us to a Mexican restaurant tucked away in the corner of Harajuku, which I later learned LP calls the best in all of Japan. No joke. The food was amazing. I love Mexican food. Thanks AM.

The next day, after reluctantly leaving Brooke at the airport, I decided that there was one thing the trip had been seriously lacking: video games. No problem there—Akihabara, aka “Electronic City”, would cure what ailed me. I was not disappointed. Gadgets. Gizmos. Games. Everywhere. I spent some seriously awesome time just wandering from 5-story arcade to 5-story arcade watching people play games the likes of which I had never seen. It was only after I returned to Hakodate that I learned of Akihabara’s famous “maid cafes”, where you can order colorfully-named cocktails from waitresses dressed up in anime costumes and who address you as “my lord and master” or some such. Something for a return trip, I suppose.

And finally, I needed some skyline in my life. I went to the famous (and sometimes infamous) Shinjuku ward to visit the Park Hyatt Hotel, your run-of-the-mill $500 a night luxury tower. I looked way out of place lugging my backpack and travel books around the 52nd floor’s New York Bar, but it was worth it. I saw some sweet night views, heard a little barroom jazz, and got a taste of the high life. Someday, Scott. Someday.

Three days was barely enough time to cover the highlights of this city of cities. I’m looking forward to my next visit, when hopefully I’ll devote more time to seeking out the lesser-known nooks and crannies. At any rate, I can’t complain. My feet are still tired though.

No matter how far away you roam...

2005-12-25T06:19:00.000-08:00

Well, despite all the hoopla surrounding the tree and the lights, Christmas in Hakodate turned out to be…pretty much like any other day. Even though seeing King Kong with a couple of friends meant that I didn’t have to spend the day by my lonesome, it holds true that for the holidays you can’t beat home sweet home. Not that it would matter to most Japanese, though, since in Japan Christmas fulfills the holiday niche that Valentine’s Day does in the States; i.e. a day for couples, rather than families. Apparently the thing to do is to go out for a romantic stroll around town with your significant other on Christmas Eve and enjoy the lights and new-fallen snow. I’ve even heard that many single folks make an effort to acquire a boy/girlfriend before Christmas so that they won’t have to be alone on Christmas Eve. Maybe Christmas is as good at making single people feel lonely in Japan as Valentine’s Day is back home. Taking a romantic stroll wasn’t really an option for me, so I was content to enjoy dinner with a friend instead. My salad was quite sparkling indeed. (No, I don’t get it either. The waiter didn't explain.)

On a happy note, I had forgotten that at this time of year one of the perks of being a teacher is the gifts. All told, I hauled in a total of 3 bottles of wine, a bottle of vodka, 2 calendars, 2 ties, 2 cans of gourmet curry, a CD, a set of coin purses, a pair of socks, a smoked ham gift pack, a box of cookies, a box of chocolates, homemade gingerbread men, a scarf, and a handkerchief in a pear tree. “I have some generous students,” says Happy Scott.

Some pictures. Just because.

Even the statue looks cold

That's a mean looking icicle

Dedicated to Kinde: a claw-grabber machine devoted entirely to Nightmare Before Christmas
Next week my nine glorious days of vacation begin, during which I am going to Tokyo to meet the Emperor for tea. I’ll check back in next year. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Soldier #6

2005-12-14T06:41:00.000-08:00

Saturday was a real first: I appeared on stage in a performance I knew next to nothing about. Puccini's Tosca went off without a hitch over the weekend, though I can't take credit for much of that. My white robe-clad "monk" looked mysteriously like a Klan member (though with a slightly less pointy hood), and my soldier looked like he had seen a ghost (see pictures). For some reason the makeup girls found it necessary to make me even more white, if that's even possible. Here I am taking aim at your face.

And here I am with the director. It was yet another experience of being taken "along for the ride", similar to the feeling I get when my Japanese friends order for me in restaurants. While I carried out my laughably easy tasks of standing in the background holding a cross (Act I) and marching and executing (Act III), I got to enjoy the show as it unfolded around me through the performances of incredibly talented and well-rehearsed singers. I had been to only a few rehearsals prior to opening night, and each time I only practiced the final scene in which I mercilessly opened fire on an innocent man. Hence, I knew very little about the circumstances leading up to said climax. For the monk scene, I got my instructions from my fellow men of the cloth literally an hour before curtain, so like the audience, I saw that scene for the first time on opening night--only from the other side of the orchestra pit. It was a chilling, surreal experience. Luckily my Klansman-esque hood hid the stupid smile I wore on stage while I thought to myself "This is pretty cool."

To answer everyone's first question, no, I didn't blow any aspect of my performance, thanks to the direction of the incredibly helpful and friendly cast around me. Here, looking not so friendly, is the cadre of policemen who convicted the male lead. The dude on the right is almost as scary looking without the makeup.

Kurisumasu Fantashii!!

2005-12-07T07:03:00.000-08:00

One of Hakodate's most beloved traditions is the annual "Christmas Fantasy". Every evening at 6:00 from December 1-25, the famous Hakodate Christmas Tree is lit before a crowd of smiling, shivering revelers. Saturday after work I schlepped (happy Hanukkah to my Jewish friends) down to the docks district to see it for myself. Wow! Lights! Music! People! The lighting was preceded by a countdown led by none other than "Santa-san" himself, which got the crowd in the act. "Go, shi, san, ni, ichi!" and the tree illuminated beautifully, accompanied by fireworks set off from the man-made island across the bay and a fanfare of poppy Christmas songs. The one I remember was "Last Christmas" sung by what sounded like a Japanese first-grader reading off an English syllable sheet. It made me smile.

My Christmas Fantasy experience happened to occur during a 24-hour period in which we got almost 10 inches of snow--a new Hakodate record for early December. This is going to sound painfully obvious to everyone who grew up in a place with actual weather, but it's amazing how different everything looks when it's awash in white.

Don't take my word for it. I took pictures.

My ring tone plays "O Sole Mio"

2005-11-30T07:56:00.001-08:00

That was a long hiatus. Apparently the cable company was none too worried about installing my internet connection quickly. But, crisis averted. See Japan Pics #6 for fewer words and more colors.

Thanksgiving would have been a lonely affair here were it not for Anne-Marie's visit last week from Tokyo. For a change, I got to be the guide rather than the guided as we spent last Wednesday's national holiday (something to the effect of "We're Thankful That We Are Employed Day"--Thanksgiving meets Labor Day?) touring some of Hakodate's more interesting sights. Mom's FedEx package arrived just in time to provide us with a feast of instant mashed potatoes, stuffing and gravy, prepackaged "turkey" (read: chicken), and pumpkin pudding. Thanks Mom.

The same Japan-America Society that got me into the warship a few weeks ago invited me to a "Thanksgiving dinner" on Sunday as well. I use quotes because the closest thing to traditional Thanksgiving food they served was unmashed potatoes, but I'm not complaining. The fish, yakisoba and curry were all very good and I actually got to meet a couple of Americans there, both of whom had stuck around after marrying Japanese women (a common theme, I've found). Somehow word got out that I used to sing back in the day, so the crowd wouldn't let me leave until I serenaded them with some a cappella stylings. I also won a bottle of Algerian wine in the raffle. It looks rather exotic.

If my evenings weren't busy enough already, I'm in an opera now. My friend Eriko's son was going to take part in a local production of Puccini's Tosca before he had to bow out due to unforseen conflicts, and Eriko asked if I would take his place. Why not? In rehearsal I discovered that this is not your average community production; the talent of the leads is really remarkable. It's also the first opera I've heard in Japanese, as the entire libretto was translated from the original Italian. It's all Greek to me though. I play a monk in Act I and a soldier in a firing squad in Act III. To answer your next question, yes, I'm the only white guy in the cast. On the plus side, I have no lines whatsoever, so there's no chance I'll blow my one shot at operatic stardom.

And as was probably inevitable from the start, I got a cell phone. They have some sweet phones here (Tim, I'm looking in your direction). Some come with built-in mp3 players and (!) TVs. Mine does not. But it does have its own email address and an English-only function.

I'd just like to point out that three-eighths of the blogs on my links bar belong to a Ben. Also, I should mention that it's winter in Hokkaido. There's ice everywhere. I almost ate it crossing the street today.

I'm tired

2005-11-18T01:56:00.000-08:00

I moved into a new apartment last weekend. This means the floors no longer creak when I walk to the bathroom and the water heater doesn't spontaneously stop working in the middle of a shower. It also means I don't have internet for a while. If you want my new address, email me. I'll probably still be able to check my email once a day from the school.

Incoming yanks

2005-11-10T07:13:00.000-08:00

An American warship took up residence in the bay last weekend and held Hakodate under seige for three days. I first realized this not from seeing the ship itself, but from running into the horde of Americans that materialized out of nowhere on the streets Friday morning. Apparently the Navy had some kind of exchange program with the Hakodate municipal government, and the sailors were here to visit some schools and play a few games of soccer against the local college team or something. I'm not really sure, to be honest. If it was weird to be a foreigner immersed in a sea of Japanese one day, it was weirder to abruptly not be the next. Suddenly, I'm the one being asked where the ATM is, and where one can get a cheap midday meal. As I passed by Seaman Joe on the street, I thought to myself "Should I say hi to these guys?" I wouldn't just greet strangers at random back home, yet as my countrymen, weren't these guys not quite strangers? I was a bit conflicted. Regardless, it was a quite a change to stroll through the bar district last Friday night and hear obscenities shouted from the balconies in English. Good old America. Glad to see we don't leave our best manners at home.

The cool part of all of this is that since my boss is a member of the Japanese-American society in Hakodate, I got to board the ship for a tour with a local elementary school field trip. I got an up-close-and-personal look at the U.S.S. John McCain, including the very Tomahawk missile ports which launched the initial attack on Iraq in 2003. A sobering moment indeed.

In other news, it snowed here yesterday. Dude.

Samurai Scott

2005-11-03T05:13:00.000-08:00

I'm too tired to write anything right now. But on the plus side, I've done some cool stuff lately. I took the train out of town to a Halloween party last week, and today I visited Hokkaido's only feudal-era castle. See the illustrated version on the links bar. Samples below.

Matsumae Castle
Garden prettiness
Hattori Hanzo spent 40 sleepless nights making this sword for me

You cut my hats, please?

2005-10-26T07:41:00.000-07:00

Languages are funny sometimes, though not necessarily the "ha ha" kind. At the risk of running the "lost in translation" cliche into the ground, these days I'm often reminded of the disconnect between our words and the meanings they convey. This often happens when I'm asked a question with a perfectly simple and legitimate meaning, carried by a sequence of words you might never hear a native English speaker utter. For example, while sniffling through a head cold two weeks ago, Japanese teachers and students asked me how my "condition" was at nearly every turn. Many students tote around Japanese-to-English electronic dictionaries and whip them out when I can't adequately explain a new vocabulary word (which is often). These dictionaries are all programmed with the same English lexicon, so "How is your condition?" must be a literal translation of "How are you feeling?" in Japanese.

The same kind of thing happened last week, when I was asked to proofread a junior high school student's English essay for the December speech contest. The student had written something to the effect of "I will make sure to have good eyes to use the internet safely and effectively." I questioned (via translator) what having "good eyes" had to do with making effective use of the internet. Apparently, that's all you need to say in Japanese to convey the meaning of "use the knowledge acquired throughout your life (e.g. personal relationships, common sense, book knowledge, etc.) to make sound, informed judgments". I had to rephrase her statement slightly, but I preferred her original version. Much more concise.

For a more hilarious example of translation difficulties, check out the Babelfish Retranslator. You might already know about Altavista's babelfish, but what about a babelfish translation of a babelfish translation? Check out what happens when I plug the first paragraph of last week's post into an English-Italian-English re-translation:

Last week I have noticed that obtaining shaggy around to the ears. A store or a hall of the barber on nearly every isolated has seemed like one enough easy difficulty -- Hakodate obtained. However, obtaining a haircut here it has turned out to be a more deceptive aspect that I have previewed. In the first place, there is the emission of my lack of language. Before leaving the house they are assured that I have known to me to say "the short reasonably, I pray" in the Japanese. Then there is the matter of my feedings superhuman of the gaijin (sees the starter shaft previous). Unwittingly, I have executed a perfect Gaijin stordisco on the owner of the first store that of the barber I have made a step in. I mean, this type I was completely to one loss. On entering in the store (that it was empty except the owner, so as to clearly was not then occupied), has smile and fact a movement of hats-hair-clipping with mine barrette around to my head. Konnichiwa? You cut my hats, please? The type has not moved and stared me with the mouth agape and the expression that of better Cervo-in-$$$-FARI you had never seen. They have taken all of two second ones in order to become account that this type has not had absolutely idea that what to make after or saying. I have wished to say, "to observe, to equip. They are right a type. My hats are not black as yours, but they are right a type. Wished my moneies or not " Instead, I have smile, mumbled some words of the excuses for the upsetting of its psychological equilibrium fragile and obtained hell from here.

Look, I'm just a guy.

2005-10-19T07:55:00.000-07:00

Last week I noticed I'd been getting shaggy around the ears. It seemed like an easy enough fix--Hakodate's got a barber shop or salon on almost every city block. However, getting a haircut here turned out to be a trickier matter than I expected. First, there's the issue of my language deficiency. Before leaving the house I made sure I knew how to say "fairly short, please" in Japanese. Then there's the matter of my superhuman gaijin powers (see previous post). Unwittingly, I executed a perfect Gaijin Stun on the owner of the first barber shop I stepped into. I mean, this guy was totally at a loss. Upon entering the shop (which was empty except for the owner, so he clearly wasn't busy at the time), I smiled and made a hair-clipping motion with my fingers around my head. Konnichiwa? Cut my hair, please? The guy didn't budge and stared at me with mouth agape and the best deer-in-the-headlights expression I've ever seen. It took me all of two seconds to realize that this guy had absolutely no idea what to do or say next. I wanted to say, "Look, man. I'm just a guy. My hair isn't black like yours, but I'm just a guy. Do you want my money or not?" Instead, I smiled, mumbled some words of apology for upsetting his delicate psychological balance, and got the hell out of there.

I don't mean to give the impression that all Japanese react this way, not by a long shot. To be fair, most aren't fazed by the sight of foreigners, and many are very friendly. The second barber I went to even tried to engage me in some ultrasimple barbershop-style chitchat in Japanese. It didn't seem to bother him that my replies were all in broken nouns and unconjugated verbs. He gave me the works, which included a shampoo, scalp massage, and shave with a straight razor. It cost me considerably more than two bits, but I recommend the experience to the uninitiated. I've never had a closer shave.

***possible Da Vinci Code spoiler****
On another note, I'm on the bandwagon. At the airport a couple of weeks ago I realized I was running low on non-Japanese textbook reading material, so I picked up a copy of--what else--The DaVinci Code. Seemed like it was about time. I've actually laughed out loud a couple of times at how obvious it is when Dan Brown deliberately leaves out information to heighten the suspense. Why use a noun when you can use an innocuously nondescript relative pronoun instead? What? You're going to repeat that Mr. Sauniere did "that" to himself three times in the course of a chapter, but wait three chapters to tell me what "that" is? Thanks, Mr. Brown. I didn't really need the sleep anyway.

Here are some more pictures. Also on the links bar. Some samples below:

Gate (torii) to the Yunokawa Shrine
Hakodate harbor as seen from the old historical district of town
Yunokawa Beach

This just in from the Gaiquarters

2005-10-12T08:06:00.000-07:00

I wish I had written these myself instead of finding them on an internet message board. Read on and marvel at the amazing superpowers of the gaijin. I personally have used Gaijin Optic Blast, Gaijin Perimeter, Gaijin Charisma (unintentionally), Gaijin Telepathy, Gaijin Locator, Gaijin Invisibility, Gaijin Tongues (it's how I make my living), and I can feel my Gaijin Charge growing stronger by the day.

Gaijin Smash - The ability to manipulate the outcome of a given situation by using your will in an overbearing manner to dominate the Japanese.

Gaijin Optic Blast - A ranged version of the Gaijin Smash, particularly effective on trains. If correctly mastered, you can even get a physical flinching response from your target.

Gaijin Perimeter - The ability to project an invisible barrier around yourself that only the Japanese can sense and thus be repelled by it. Its range and effectiveness grows exponentially with the addition of other gaijin - particularly tall males.

Gaijin Charisma - Similar to a vampire's ability to mesmerize (and considered by many Japanese to be just as unholy), it is the ability to charm Japanese members of the opposite sex despite the best efforts of any Japanese that might try to compete with you. This power is more common to gaijin males, but instances of use by gaijin females have also been reported.

Gaijin Telepathy - This is the ability that gaijin use not only to communicate with each other, but also to gather necessary information from their Japanese co-workers when such information is otherwise being withheld.

Gaijin Locator - The ability to instantly locate other gaijin amongst large crowds of Japanese people.

Gaijin Constitution - The ability to withstand and thrive in frigid temperatures that the Japanese consider to be unbearable. Note that this is usually anything lower than 19 degrees Celsius.

Gaijin Invisibility - Confusing Japanese people by speaking to them while being an invisible non-socializable entity, and forcing them to turn immediately to the nearest Japanese person and ask for confirmation of what the wind just said.

Gaijin Disguise - Asian gaijins' ability to temporarily fool Japanese into forgetting that they're in the presence of outsiders. Note that this nullifies most other Gaijin Superpowers for its duration.

Gaijin Police Teflon - Ability to slip out of the grip of Japanese police officers by staring at them blankly, claiming ignorance of the law, claiming stupidity, and potentially involving a lot more paperwork than the officer wants to do. Only 68% reliable and potentially a way to get in even more trouble. Note: recent tests have shown that the rate of success of this power can increase to at least 85% if combined with the use of high-speed English, a lot of frantic hand-waving and speaking absolutely no Japanese.

Gaijin Slip - When a gaijin pisses off a coworker, superior, or girlfriend or boyfriend, the Gaijin Slip can be called upon with a simple shrug of the shoulders and an offhanded mention that gaijin just say or do things like the offence in question, and uh, the gaijin's really sorry and stuff.

Gaijin Stun - The ability to throw any and all Japanese parties encountered into a panic-inducing confusion by a combination of both physical appearance and use of crappy Japanese. This shock and confusion often allows the gaijin to get what they are after with relative ease or have the most elementary task done for them.

Gaijin Tongues - Mastery of a language with such magnetism that people will pay half a day's wages just to hear it for an hour.

Gaijin Wa Disruptor - The ability to disrupt the psychic harmony of an entire group of Japanese -- regardless of number -- and thereby increase their susceptibility to other gaijin powers. This is often used as an opposite to the Gaijin Disguise.

Gaijin Stammer - Correct a Japanese person's use of their language, or teach them about their own culture/history. This can be used as a much more powerful version of the Gaijin Stun with smaller numbers of Japanese. After-effects of the use of this power typically result in the target's eyes growing to large proportions upon their realization that they have just been schooled by a barbarian.
Note: Only for use by upper-level gaijin

Gaijin Charge - The ability to withstand the constant barrage of identical questions voiced by nearly all Japanese upon first meeting. Anger is stored for use at a later day when said Gaijin chooses to release all pent up emotion in the form of one final devastating attack.

Burn, baby, burn

2005-10-04T05:11:00.000-07:00

After a one-hour flight delay that turned into an overnight stay in Tokyo after I missed my connecting flight, I am back in Hakodate. And I am beat.

I calculated that from my departure at 8:00 am on Friday, 9/30, to my return at 7:00 pm on Monday, 10/3, I had spent a total of 28 hours traveling, 20 hours sleeping, and 10 hours celebrating. Totally worth it. Many (if not most) of the people who read this blog were at the wedding anyway, but if you're not one of those people, here's the quick take. Besides the lovely ceremony and the lively reception, which were both awesome, the burning-hills backdrop made this wedding truly unforgettable. As I discovered when I landed, LA has been going through a bout of wildfires lately. It happened that one of said fires was blazing its way through the hills of Burbank immediately behind the Castaway restaurant--of course, the site of the reception. Luckily for everyone involved, it was contained to a reasonable extent by party time, so Burbank's finest let all the wedding guests pass through the police barricade up into the hills for the reception. The flames 200 yards away provided for some amazing photo ops. Pete and Kelly were even interviewed by the local news for that night's "Red Hot Wedding" human-interest story. I wish I could have seen the interview when it aired. I was partying at the time.

To top it off, I had to go to work today. I had my usual classes to teach as well as a spankin' new class of uber-beginners, who are going to be a real challenge. Teaching to true non-English speakers is where my Japanese ability would come in handy, if I had any. To make matters more stressful, my boss decided to sit in on my first class with them for some reason. I just took a deep breath and remembered Rule #1: razzle dazzle 'em. Pretty pictures of my family, maps of California and a box of Harry and David truffles for "show and tell" all help the medicine go down.

A few quick pics:

The happy couple

The groom and his boys...damn we look good

We had to get used to the circling choppers

The fires burned steadily throughout the day...

...and into the night

I'm my own JP Morgan

2005-09-26T07:53:00.000-07:00

Last week I got the brilliant idea to start doing what I should have been doing a month ago: keeping an eye on the strength of the dollar relative to the yen. I've been sitting on a wad of U.S. traveler's checks since I got here, and I figured I'd do well to cash them all while the dollar is sitting at a relative high. I noticed that the dollar has been growing steadily stronger since the beginning of 2005, hitting a year-to-date high of 113:1 in mid-July before slipping a bit in August. Noticing a slight growth in September, and fearful that the decisive Japanese election earlier this month might instill strength in the yen, I decided the time for action was now. I cashed the load on a 110:1 rate and left the bank feeling smugly satified with myself. Of course, then the yen had to go and fall even farther to 112:1 as of this writing. So much for my currency market instincts. Regardless, this will be an interesting little “investment” to watch over the next year. Hopefully the dollar will crash and burn and I can clean up on the return trip. We had a recession in 2001; isn't it about time for another?

On Saturday I went to a party organized and attended by--get this--foreigners. It was the annual "Southwest Hokkaido" party thrown by JET Program folks and their non-JET foreigner friends, and it just happened to be taking place in Goryokaku Park two minutes from my apartment. I probably introduced myself to 40 people, and I'll be lucky if I can remember half of their names. It blew my mind. I hadn't seen that many non-Japanese since I left, and I honestly hadn't expected to at any point in the coming year (at least not in Hakodate). There was a good barbeque and plenty of opportunities for conversation in English beyond "What kind of sushi do you like?" I think I met at least as many British as any other nationality, who apparently make up a sizable portion of the JET pool year after year. They kindly informed me why they like to call Americans "seppos" (British rhyming slang: septic tank --> septic yank --> seppo). I thought about kindly reminding them that we saved their skins in WWII. Thought about it.

Speaking of parties, I heard something's going down in Burbank this weekend. Think I'll stop by.

For some reason Blogger is not letting me upload pictures to the blog right now. You can view a new batch in Japan Links #3 on the links bar.

The Adjudicator

2005-09-20T05:03:00.000-07:00

I got to feel very important Saturday afternoon. That's because I presided as one of three judges of the Hakodate Regional Junior English Speech Contest. Daibundo School is somehow connected to the organization which holds the contest every year, so it was a natural choice for the school to name its two native English-speaking teachers as judges. Along with my coworker Andre and a professor of English at Hokkaido University, I listened to ten elementary school students and eight junior high school students recite essays in English from memory, and scored them on their pronunciation, delivery, and memorization (and in the case of the junior high students, the content of their self-written essays). The top three contestants from each level would advance to the prefectural round in Sapporo in December.

During the "break", we three judges retired to the back room where the scores were tallied and spreadsheeted for our analysis by frantic secretaries. We had to be quick, as a roomful of anxious contestants and parents awaited our verdict. The final scores were very close--the top four junior high school students were separated by only two points (out of 110). I wished I had instant replay in that room. It turned out that I was the toughest judge of the three, giving consistently lower pronunciation scores than my colleagues. Tough but fair, I say. At any rate, it was an interesting experience to be one of three people in a crowded room with unquestioned authority on a subject. Furthermore, it was an ego trip to know that all those kids and parents really cared about my opinion, if only for that afternoon.

I sat at the table facing the podium shown here:

Progress is slow on the language front. On the plus side, Keiko, a longtime Daibundo student, offered to meet with me for a language exchange. She and I meet weekly for a couple of hours to practice our English and Japanese, respectively. Keiko is a great language partner and the practice is definitely helping, but I'm frequently frustrated by how much mental effort I require to make the necessary grammatical transitions in Japanese. I don't remember Spanish ever being this difficult, but that's probably because its Subject-Verb-Object sentence construction is fundamentally similar to that of English (not to mention all those wonderful cognates). I keep hoping I'll have a Bart Simpson-in-France moment, where the "immersion factor" finally kicks in and I spontaneously start speaking fluent Japanese in mid-sentence.

They call me...Sugatani-san

2005-09-13T05:24:00.000-07:00

I now have a Japanese bank account, which is a good thing considering that I am ostensibly going to be making some money at some point. The Japanese have a system whereby all official bank documents must be signed by the account holder with a rubber stamp of the kanji that represents the account holder's name. The stamps are readily available at the local department store, cost only 100 yen, and come in hundreds of varieties representing hundreds of names in kanji. This system works pretty well for most Japanese: to sign lengthy documents you can just stamp there, there, and there, and you're good to go. There is no kanji for "Scott Stephenson" however. The school secretary and I pored over the vast cabinets of stamps until I settled on the one that sounded most like my first name: "Sugatani". I then used this stamp to sign my bank documents, which means that as far as Hakodate Bank and Trust is concerned, I am Mr. Sugatani.

On Monday I crossed town to take more pictures of Tachimachi Cape and explore the southeast end of the city. In particular I wanted to visit the traditional Japanese onsen (public hot spring baths) on this far end of town. I naively figured that there would be towels there for public use, but when I sauntered into the men's onsen, they were nowhere to be found. There I was, a gaijin, fully clothed, confusedly wandering around looking for towels that didn't exist, and drawing stares from naked middle-aged Japanese men (who somehow had towels). I felt very uncomfortable. I knew that you bathe naked at onsen and I didn't expect there to be any other foreigners there, but my utter lack of understanding of the process was very unnerving. It was a weird kind of reverse-embarrassment where I was the only one in the room with any clothes on. That, coupled with the fact that it was obvious to everyone there that I didn't know what I was doing, made me run away. I'll try again some other time, and I'm bringing my own towel.

In other news, Sunday was election day in Japan. The Liberal Democratic Party (oddly, the more conservative party), which has controlled the Japanese Parliament for most of the past 50 years, won in a landslide. First of all, I will admit I don't know much about Japanese politics, and I fully expect my friend Ben to correct me on what I say here. My impression of the Japanese political climate thus far is that many Japanese don't like Bush, and don't like Prime Minister Koizumi (a stauch supporter of Bush's administration, including the Iraq war). Yet Koizumi won handily, claiming that the people gave him a mandate (sound familiar?) to pursue his reforms, the most notable of which being the relatively esoteric issue of postal service privatization. More people than I thought must like Mr. Koizumi for him to have won by such a margin, so maybe I'm not talking to a broad enough audience. Actually, I know I'm not, because I only talk to people at work and discussion of politics is generally discouraged in the workplace here. However, I've heard a few of my students say that Koizumi is Bush's buddy because he has to be if he wants to ensure favorable economic relations with the United States. At any rate, at least Japan will be treated to another year of one of the more stylish haircuts on the world stage.

Moving along, here are some more pictures. I've included these (and more) in Japan Pics #2, on the links bar.

Hakodate Park, on the other side of town. There is an amusement park here for the kiddies.

Goryokaku Park is still my favorite place to go for jogging, people-watching, or thinking.

For its size, Hakodate has a decent nightlife. I'm never at a loss for late-night ramen.

The outskirts of Hakodate have some nice sights as well. Onuma Lake, a popular camping ground, is only 30 minutes away by car.

I've heard stories of pachinko's addictive nature. Apparently the mayor of a town refused to leave the pachinko parlor even while his city burned from a recent bout of riots. He was not reelected.

Not sure if this tops the sea cucumber, but the garnish you see on this sushi is actually gold leaf. I didn't know you could eat gold without, you know, dying. Mmm...precious metals...

Pictures 'n such

2005-09-06T19:00:00.000-07:00

Whew. I've got internet in my apartment now. That was a close one.

My first week of classes went well. My classes are very small, one to seven students each, so that allows for a lot of personal conversation with my students. I'm getting to know them better, and I made a point to break myself in with candy and fun pictures on the first day. Since I filled the first week of classes with introductions and California show-and-tell items, I haven't actually taught any English yet. Maybe I'd better reserve self-praise until after I crack the textbook.

On the weekends, I've had some time to explore the sights of Hakodate. This is a great little city. As one of the first three ports to open to the outside world during the Meiji Restoration, it was one of the first cities in Japan to be exposed to Western influence. Consequently, many of the historical buildings here are built in a Western style. The most obvious example is Goryokaku Park, built out of the ruins of an old Western-style pentagonal fort. The old walls and surrounding moat give the park its distinctive star shape, easily viewable from nearby Goryokaku Tower. Now it's a quiet retreat in one of the noisier neighborhoods of Hakodate, and a popular site for cherry blossom-viewing in springtime. Plus, it's a five-minute walk from my apartment.

At the top of the sightseeing list is Hakodate-yama (Mt. Hakodate) which sits at the tip of Hakodate's stumpy peninsula. On Sunday I hiked to the top to see one of Japan's most famous vistas. It's said that the night view is one of the top three most beautiful skylines in the world (no one seems to know the other two, though).

East of Hakodate-yama is Cape Tachimachi, which reminds me why I love living near the ocean.

I live and work in the neighborhood of Goryokaku-cho, an active part of town with many businesses and a fair amount of tourist traffic.

Non-sequitur: the other night I ate what may have been the strangest thing I've eaten in my life--sea cucumber. The taste wasn't bad, but the texture was a bit tough. My favorite part is how they put an actual cucumber in there as a reminder. You know. In case you forgot.

I've added a link to a bigger collection of pictures on the links bar. You may have to sign in with Ofoto to view them, but it's free. I'll be adding to this collection over time.

To elaborate a bit on the "outsider" complex I described in my last post: there's a certain element of paranoia associated with being a foreiger here, and you get the feeling that everyone's looking at you. And that's because sometimes, they are. Last week I looked up at a stopped bus to find three children staring unabashedly at me as I crossed the street. I smiled and bowed slightly, but they didn't seem to notice. Riding the streetcar back from Hakodate-yama, I could feel the gaze of this teenage girl sitting with her boyfriend. I figured, what the heck, I might as well catch her in the act. We made direct eye contact, and had a moment of mutual understanding ("I know that you know that I'm a gaijin, and you know that I know that you know that") before she turned to her boyfriend to chat about something.

And another thing: what's with the priorities of this country? I mean, they have something like 50 brands of soy sauce at the supermarket, and it takes me 20 minutes to find the peanut butter. And they only have two kinds: Skippy creamy and Skippy chunky. What's the deal? Oh, right. Japan.

Konnichiwa. Watashi wa Su-ka-tto desu.

2005-09-01T23:31:00.000-07:00

Wow. There's just so much to say.

How do I begin writing about my experiences in a new country with a new job and a new (actually, very, very old) apartment, where my ability to communicate is limited to simple greetings, simple goodbyes, and a lot of bowing?

"Lost in translation" doesn't quite cover it.

It's probably best done in smaller pieces, for fear that I forget something or fail to do it justice in writing. On Tuesday I will get cable internet in my apartment, so I can write more often and post pictures. For now, a quick update and a couple of amusing anecdotes.

I arrived in Hakodate, Hokkaido last Friday, and since then I've been juggling the pressures of orientating to a new city and time zone, learning some survival Japanese so I can buy food for sustenance, and figuring out how I am going to teach 16 classes of native Japanese (ages 10-70) how to speak English. It's been a head-spinning experience thus far (thanks for the Tylenol, Mom). But despite the initial difficulties, I can tell that I am really going to enjoy living here.

Simply put, I stick out here. Badly. A quick scan of the passersby on the street will reveal that Hakodate is not Tokyo, nor Osaka. Japanese tourists love to come to Hakodate for its beautiful scenery (situated on a peninsula flanked by the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Japan) and its famous onsen (public hot spring baths), but foreigners are few and far between. Every so often (read: whenever I open my mouth) I am reminded of my gaijin identity. I'm not letting that get in the way of daily life, though--as my teaching predecessor said, "If you're not embarrassing yourself at least once a day, you're not trying hard enough." I took his words to heart the other night when I got brave and asked the woman sitting next to me at the sushi bar "Live wa nihongo de nan to iimasu ka?" (How do you say "live" in Japanese?) Something about my pronunciation must have been atrocious, because she looked at me like a cow looks at an oncoming train. Fortunately I was able to break the awkwardness with a sheepish "sumimasen!" and the bar burst out laughing.

Speaking of laughing, I'm trying to help build my students' vocabulary by giving them a couple of words each week with which to write sentences for homework. In my advanced class I assigned them "obstinate" and "buffoon". I got more than a few laughs. "Bu-fun" means horse dropping. Sumimasen!

More in a few days. Lesson planning awaits.

Stateside: post the last

2005-08-23T13:24:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I leave for Japan.

Theoretically, there will be a person named Maho waiting for me at the airport. Presumably, she will be holding a sign calling for the attention of one "Scott Stephenson", or maybe just "Stephenson", or perhaps "Gaijin teacher". Hopefully, I will find her without much of a search, and supposedly, she will take me to the apartment set aside as my domicile for the next year. These things will happen. In theory.

Realistically, I have no idea what to expect in the next 72 hours. I have a mental picture of what my future apartment, neighborhood, and workplace look like, based on nothing more than my preconceived notions of what suburban Japan looks like. Have I ever been to surburban Japan? Do I have any reason to believe that these self-constructed images resemble the actual places in any way? The answer, my friends, is no.

Soon I will come face to face with my actual apartment, neighborhood and workplace. When this happens, the world of the real will supplant the world of my expectations, and the associated images will fade in turn. I wish I were able to mentally crystallize these images now before they are obsolesced by the real thing, in a sort of "photographic memory of the imagination". It would be an introspective exercise to compare them with the images of reality I will have collected twelve months from now. Until I develop said ability, keeping a journal will have to do.

This will be my last post before I leave on a jet plane. I plan to keep writing in this blog while in Japan, with the occasional picture thrown in for illustrative effect. Until we meet again...

Everyone needs a place to put their stuff

2005-08-10T23:01:00.000-07:00

Now I finally understand what George Carlin was talking about.

This weekend I moved back in with Mom and Dad. I figured I'd spare myself some last-minute stress by moving out of my apartment now, rather than two weeks from now while simultaneously packing to leave the country.

My mom heard a rule of thumb once which says that the average person accumulates 1,000 pounds of "stuff" for every year that he/she lives in a particular residence. Movers use this simple metric to estimate the quantity of "stuff" they expect to move for any given client. Hence, my two-year stint at Via Napoli would leave me 2,000 pounds in the black. Factor in four years' worth of college crap (oops, I mean keepsakes) that never really found a home after graduation, and that would theoretically leave me with a mountain of memorabilia (I knew I should have sold my textbooks back to the bookstore). I doubt that the adage applies to the starving student and frugal post-college demographics, not to mention the fact that four years of transient dorm living is not the same as a comparable term in a single residence. Nevertheless, I was impressed at how well my six years' worth of stuff covered every corner of my parents' living room floor.

I'm pretty frugal and don't often buy myself material items, but I'm also the kind of person who hates to throw things away. I'm particularly loathe to purge myself of things that were given to me as gifts, even if the item has no apparent purpose beyond sentimental value. This packrat mentality is facilitated by the presence of my parents' storage room behind the garage, providing a convenient, accessible, and above all, free place to stash all of my stuff. Then there's Mom, who feeds my proclivity for hoarding further by supplying me with empty Rubbermaid "memory bins" for storing all those essentially worthless but sentimentally valuable things. A stack of National Geographics here, a Mexican ranchero marionette there. I am my mother's son.

There's no question that I don't need all of this stuff. Despite the many boxes bearing my name in the storage room, I did manage to part with a healthy chunk of the pile and donate several bags of servicable toys and books to a local charity. The giving feels good, but since I wasn't using the stuff anyway, I can't pat myself on the back too much. The following year will be interesting: I'll be living in a relative land of plenty, surrounded by kitchy t-shirts and wonderful gadgets, yet it's likely I'll live like a zen minimalist and save my money for trips and experiences. I don't need to buy stuff. Besides, my suitcase can only hold so much.

Canada: the clean, friendly neighbor upstairs who's a little off but usually down for whatever

2005-07-31T00:06:00.000-07:00

Whew. It's been ~3700 miles since I last posted. North America is a large continent.

For those just joining us, I just got back from a trip to Alaska, the hard way. Or at least the long way. While we definitely gave Brooke's car a workout, I can think of a few harder ways to get there, as a few brave bicyclists and hitchhikers we passed along the way demonstrated quite well. The next time you plan to travel from the bay area to Alaska by car, be prepared to see a lot of Canada.

The Alcan (Alaska/Canada) highway was constructed in a grueling 8+ months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in an effort to protect some trees from Japanese invasion. While the dirt-and-gravel remains of the original highway thankfully have been paved over since then, the highway retains its original 1942 route, ushering travelers gently but firmly from Dawson Creek (not possessive), British Columbia to Fairbanks, Alaska. Simply stated, it's a beautiful drive.

There's a reason why BC touts itself on its license plates as "beautiful British Columbia". From Vancouver to Prince George and beyond, the highway traveler is flanked by countless acres of trees, often nestled below forbidding and majestic mountains. Occasionally, towns insert themselves into the continuous natural beauty, where one can experience Canadian hospitality up close and personal. The first place we stopped for ice cream in BC heaped up a "single" scoop way beyond my 31-Flavor expectations. I barely needed dinner that day.

The Yukon is no less beautiful, but in an ends-of-the-earth kind of way. I've always thought of the Yukon as existing as much in myth as in reality--you've seen it on a map, but does anyone actually live there? Yes, apparently, and quite a few of them are bearded and wear flannel shirts. I didn't need to look on a map to realize how far I was from suburban SoCal. Even in America Jr. it's possible to become acutely aware of your outsider status. At a gas station I overheard a piece of a conversation between some rugged-looking people which sounded like "...Yeah, and all the Americans think that Yukon is just some part of Alaska!" Sadly, I'm sure many Americans aren't even aware the Yukon exists. I held my tongue, wrapped my jacket around my California Boys' State t-shirt, and walked quitely toward my car.

For a more detailed account of our journey, please see the post of my traveling companion.

Crater Lake, Oregon. Soooo blue.

Scenes like this are a dime a dozen up there.

I've heard of fusion cuisine, but this combination seemed a bit odd.

This picture is currently my desktop wallpaper. We saw a few lakes.

Canada and US. We're not that different after all.

Now I'm back, and for the first time since I became a "student" at age 5, I'm unemployed. Awesome.

The Great White North Beckons

2005-07-13T23:56:00.000-07:00

Quick post: In a shocking turn of events, I will be nowhere near a computer for the next two weeks, as I'll be road-tripping to Alaska via the Alcan highway. Yes, I'm excited. I don't know where I'm staying along the way, but I do have a tent. Anyone with friends/relatives in the Yukon Territory?

Also, before I leave, I just wanted to give my roomie Tim some props for going over 5 days without a smoke. It can be done, ladies and gentlemen. (I'd post this as a comment on his blog, if he'd allow anonymous comments, that is...)

The end of an era

2005-07-06T23:40:00.000-07:00

I need to take a moment to realize how lucky I am to have been working at Durkee and Associates for the past two years. Since next week will be my last at the office I’ve known so well since graduation, I started cleaning out my desk in preparation for Tim’s impending coup of my corner and computer. I’m really going to miss it. It’s been a wonderfully memorable two years at that desk. I won’t miss the late night reporting periods or inexplicable computer crashes, but I will miss being able to work with and among my best friends every day. Not to mention that I’ve been working for the best boss in the world, bar-none. Last week Kinde held two office celebratory birthday lunches, and one was an office trip to the movies (War of the Worlds!). This week we’ve got Poquito Más coming (of which I will eat more than a little) and another birthday lunch on Friday.

Perhaps spoiled is the word I’m looking for.

I can’t expect this sweet of a deal in Japan—nay, anywhere—so I resolve to look back on the past two years with fond memories. In the meantime, I’ve got an adventure to Alaska planned, followed by a month of blissful unemployment before I take up teaching in the land of the rising sun.

I should probably plan some lessons pretty soon.

Also, I have some words for those who laugh at the nerdiness of we who like video game music: we’re not alone. If you had seen the sold-out crowd at the Hollywood Bowl this evening for the Video Games Live concert (featuring the L.A. Philharmonic), you’d see what I mean. Look out, Free Bird; meet the Mario Brothers theme.

Got the blues

2005-06-22T11:25:00.000-07:00

It’s not a great day to bleed blue.

Yesterday the Dodgers lost their eighth game in a row, leaving them 6.5 games out of first place in the subpar National League West. This is bad news, but not terrible news. The terrible news is that that Eric Gagné, the Dodgers’ all-star supercloser, will require season-ending Tommy John surgery, with the expectation of returning in the middle of the 2006 season.

Of course, following an offseason in which he signed a rather lucrative 2-year, $19 million deal, the breakdown is especially ill-timed. Sportswriters and ESPN hacks love to talk about the overrated-ness of the closer, and there is some truth in what they say. But Gagné is not your average closer. That $19 million doesn’t just buy you a nearly-automatic ninth inning—it provides the extra voltage that ignites the atmosphere at Dodger Stadium whenever Number 38 strolls through the gates. I don’t care what Billy Beane and his protégés (ahem, Depodesta) say; you can’t just discount the value of intangibles in baseball. Gagné provided a reason for many of us to show up at the ballpark. He was the reason why L.A. fans cast off their reputation of leaving early from games (at least those in which the Dodgers led by 3 runs or less going into the ninth). Watching Gagné slam the door was my favorite part of a Dodger game. Home runs and diving catches make SportsCenter highlights, but for me, there’s nothing I’d rather see than Gagné striking out the side. Sadly, that’s something I won’t be seeing for some time.

Something big needs to happen for this team, decimated by injuries with an eight-game losing streak, to pick themselves up again. I’m not saying I’m giving up on the team, or that I won’t continue to follow the season. It’s just a very sad day for Dodger fans, particularly those who thought that maybe, just maybe, this ragtag group could rise above their middling preseason prognosis and surprise some people.

I'm lame

2005-06-14T09:51:00.000-07:00

Been a while since I last posted. And all I have to show for it are a couple of lousy links.

Chrono Trigger is in the music section. Although you might have a hard time getting it to load. Apparently we're known in Chile, the UK, and Germany, among other places. Bandwidth is at a premium.

A crazy stunt. What I found almost as interesting as the stunt itself is how the guys immediately congratulated each other afterward, leaving the girl momentarily out in the cold. Guys, what, she doesn't also deserve a high five? She had a lot more riding on that flip than you did. Give it up.

EDIT: Apparently the above link isn't working right now. Maybe they're having bandwidth problems too. Basically, a girl gets catapulted cheerleader-style up into the air and manages to fall back down directly through a basketball hoop without breaking her neck. Good for her. Mayhaps it will be back up later; I couldn't find an alternate link on a quick search.

I wonder if she knows I used to play Quake while she would lecture...

2005-06-02T15:28:00.000-07:00

My mom dropped a bombshell on me yesterday. She was at a retirement luncheon bidding fond farewells to a number of Burbank USD teachers (Ms. Graves and Mr. Wasserman, among others) when she chanced to run into my old computer science teacher, Mrs. Weiser. They started chatting about this and that, and inevitably Kyle and I came up in the conversation. Mrs. Weiser is one of those teachers that remembers you six years after graduation, regardless of whether you’ve gone back to visit since then. At some point, my mom told her about my impending year-long trip to Japan, and how I’ll be teaching English there. This apparently was all Weiser needed to hear before going off on how she wants to retire in a year, and how the school hasn’t found anybody to replace her, and how she would give me her entire teaching program plus her unconditional endorsement if I were interested in taking her place at the helm of the Burbank High Computer Science Department.

Holy crap.

Admittedly, I did very well in her class. I even got an award or something for “outstanding achievement in the field of excellence” from the CS department my senior year. In no way does this qualify me to teach high school AP Computer Science. I haven’t touched the subject since I took CS106X freshman year. Yes, I applied to college as a prospective CS major, but lest we forget, I changed my mind after that class because I stopped enjoying the subject. Not to mention the fact that Weiser hasn’t even seen me in years and has no idea what I’ve been up to, save what my mom told her. Mom, the consummate “information gatherer”, wants me to talk to Weiser before BHS lets out for the summer to find out what she has in mind. I don’t know about that. I still don’t know how I feel about being totally unqualified for this incredible position that was sort-of offered to me sight-unseen. Regardless, it’s amazing that it even came up. I’m still a bit shell-shocked by the idea.

From the Pay It Forward Department: when I went to buy a one-day parking permit before class yesterday, I found a permit already sticking out of the machine with a smiley face and the words “Have a nice day!” scribbled on it. I did have a nice day, thank you very much. After class, I took the permit off my dashboard and slipped it back into the machine for the next person. Why haven’t I been doing this all semester?

Confessions of a diabolical mind

2005-05-26T15:45:00.000-07:00

As stated by Tim when he sent me this link, "this one's a friggin' keeper."

This Sam fellow apparently did his homework. It's the most comprehensive (well, the only) planetary destruction manual I have ever read. I like how he includes methods based on disproved theories and science fiction phenomena (e.g. Hitchhiker's Guide). He even invites the reader to engage in some hands-on activities: "Creating a microscopic black hole is tricky, since one needs a reasonable amount of neutronium, but may possibly be achievable by jamming large numbers of atomic nuclei together until they stick. This is left as an exercise to the reader." I think we can agree that it's virtually impossible to talk about the complete and total destruction of Earth without your tongue planted firmly in your cheek.

If only the Gameboys came standard

2005-05-19T16:51:00.000-07:00

Just got back from E3, the biggest annual video game conference in the US. Yeah, that's right, I took a day off from work to play video games. Well, technically I was there for "work", as a "Technical Consultant" for Pete and Will's web development "company". My favorite game on display? We Heart Katamari, the upcoming sequel to everyone's favorite crazy Japanese roll-the-stuff-up game. Quite the extravaganza of lights, noise, and booth babes. My favorites were the girls with the Gameboys leashed to various parts of their bodies. Nerds have a hard enough time talking to girls as it is, so now at least they have something to do while they're standing there not being attractive to the opposite sex. Besides, nothing helps smooth over the awkwardness of standing next to a girl who's way out of your league better than staring vapidly at a handheld screen. Trust me, I know from experience. Wait, scratch that last part.

At least she gets to keep one for herself

Tanner's new Batmobile

I heart you too

Bunnilicious

2005-05-13T15:40:00.000-07:00

Help save this delicious rabbit.

He's already over halfway towards his goal! What a win-win situation: get money, or eat a bunny.

From the Department of Wishful Thinking

2005-05-10T15:10:00.000-07:00

Woah.

Maybe my foolproof plan to travel in Japan for a few weeks after my contract expires (and hence, my visa) isn't so much foolproof as it is dangerous, and just asking for trouble.

And yet...

Is it just me, or does the idea of being banished from a country sound incredibly badass?

Future Employer: "Have you ever been convicted of a felony, Mr. Stephenson?"
Me: "No. But the Japanese have me blacklisted from setting foot on their soil."
Future Employer: "You're hired."

Yeah, it would go like that.

I don't have an accent, all you dudes have accents

2005-04-29T15:19:00.000-07:00

If you're like me, a topic that never seems to lose its interest is speech accents, particularly regional accents of English. There's an amazing prof at Stanford that specializes in this subject. He makes the rounds at house meetings in freshman dorms once a year, giving talks on the different accents you'd hear if you got a John Q. Driveway from every region of the US and put them all in a big room together at once. Those of us in the Southern California corner had a great time snickering as he lambasted the north-midwest (don'cha know), Texas (y'all sound pretty funny), and the northeast (shouldn't you be parking the car in Harvard Yard or something?). He saved the best for last, however, and the whole room got a hearty laugh when he laid the smack down on SoCal, much to our chagrin. Yes, we are the only ones who bother to (correctly) acknowledge the 5 Freeway. And apparently there is an invisible line that bisects the state somewhere around Bakersfield, north of which has never heard of a swap meet. No, we don't sell fleas at these markets, we meet to swap things. Hence the name.

I got into further accent-related trouble in New Zealand, where I tried my best to pull off a decent Kiwi accent in front of my host brothers, Daniel and Simon (ages 7 and 10).

Me (trying to sound like a Kiwi): "How's this? 'Good on ya mate', and all that?"
Daniel: "No, that sounds Aussie."
Me: "Well, can you teach me how to do it better?"
Simon: "Just talk normal."

Of course!

Anyway, here's a great resource.

EDIT:
So apparently the day after I posted this, the link above stopped working. Here's another resource, thought not as good as the first in my opinion.

A talking moose wants my credit card number? That's only fair.

2005-04-26T20:28:00.000-07:00

I stumbled across this policy-minded little banner in my browsing today:

Happily, any of the three options will lead you down the cyberhighway to a free $250 gift card (which, I can only assume, is as good as cash). Evidently, either the makers of the ad don't care which country Bush is going to invade next, or he is going to invade all three at the same time. At least let's move the Blue Jays to Tulsa or something before we march on America Jr.

Biologists with a sense of humor

2005-04-14T11:54:00.000-07:00

The latest example.

Others include the limb-development gene Sonic Hedgehog, and the oncogene POK Erythroid Myeloid Ontogenic factor (POKEMON).

Thanks to Tim for passing this along.

Yes, I still have a job

2005-04-13T14:10:00.000-07:00

The internet comes through again.

I don’t dare try Career mode (ow, my sleep habits/work ethic/books I should be reading), but the Arcade mode is a nice diversion.

Hornswaggled, flimflammed, and red-herringed

2005-04-06T21:51:00.000-07:00

Wow. So apparently the so-called “business trip” I was supposed to go on ended up being a clever ruse cooked up by none other than Matthew A. Lemcke, who conspired with one J. McMatchett to send myself, Pete and Tim to Vegas for the weekend. Vegas! Dude. What a surprise that was. Needless to say, we instantly dismissed his story as April Fool’s foolery. It took a good five minutes for me to come around and believe him, while Pete remained the skeptic until we crossed the state line—he who knows a thing or two himself about clever ruses. So despite being caught in Matt’s web of lies for nearly a month (which apparently everyone was in on, including my family and half the office), we had quite a time of it in Vegas. I broke even after being up about $100 at the blackjack tables, which I’m not complaining about (I’m used to putting down $20 and seeing it disappear in four hands). And we saw Blue Man Group, which would have been worth the trip all by itself. Serious props to Matt for making the weekend happen. Well done.

The view from our Tropicana room

I love bread pudding so much

John and me after the show, after we washed off our blue paint

Unfortunately it hasn’t been all aces and spades lately. I found out Monday that I did not get the teaching job in Japan that I’d been hoping for. I’m looking into other options, but in the meantime, I’m reminded of how much it hurts to be denied something that you really want.

Anybody with insights on ways to live/work/teach in Japan that aren’t the JET Program: please email me.

From the mouths of babes

2005-04-01T10:15:00.000-08:00

Killing time as I wait to leave for a “business” trip to a CPA conference at Casino Morongo. Look for Scott to add to his total lifetime blackjack losses by winning big, letting it ride, and losing it all.

My favorite quotes of the week:

“Always have shrimp in the freezer and champagne in the fridge. Why? Because that’s a party.” —Chez Cherie, teacher of the cooking class I attended on Tuesday, from whom I learned how to make “Pork with three Cs (Chipotle, Cherries, and Crème Fraiche)”

“I am thankful for froot.”—a paper written by one of my mom’s kindergarten students, on display at Thomas Jefferson’s Open House last night…I am reminded of Surgeon General Mills’ recommendation that we should all get three to five servings of froot (a crunchier, more berrilicious cousin of the fruit family, vital to proper digestion and breakfast fun) per day

If life decisions were multiple-choice...

2005-03-23T11:24:00.000-08:00

What if you could live your life over again?

Or, rather, what if you're at work with nothing better to do?

It takes a long time to make it through all the life stages (I'm only in Childhood) but at least if you have cookies enabled, it saves automatically.

Bah-leted

2005-03-18T00:38:00.000-08:00

The sad news of the day is that Erica Heiman’s Adventures in Africa blog has officially returned to the giant memory heap in the sky. In her words, “Some folks within CARE [her task unit] didn’t approve of me sharing intimate details of my life here on the public domain”. Obviously I don’t know all the facts, but I think it’s unfortunate that her working for the US government precluded the honest public testimony of her experience as a volunteer and ambassador. If the mission of the Peace Corps is to promote global education and tolerance on a myriad of issues, it seems that allowing individual volunteers to share their personal experiences is a valuable part of the process. While we here back in the States can take comfort in knowing that folks like Erica are doing “good work” and “fighting the good fight” against poverty and disease, we really have no idea what goes on day by day in Mozambique. I, for one, would like to know, and prefer that my information come directly from the field than through the filter of government bureaucracy. Don’t get me wrong; I think the Peace Corps at the, um, core is a wonderful institution, and I realize that it may just be a few people within the organization who objected to the blog in the first place. I just think they’re missing out on an opportunity to advance their mission even further.

So ends the day’s mini-rant. Maybe I’ll cheer myself up with a crazy anime game.

An adventurer is me

2005-03-11T12:00:00.000-08:00

This game freaking rules.

As of this writing, I am a Level 2 Sauceror. The only thing that sucks is you can only play 40 turns before you have to wait until 11:30 EST for the game to "roll over" and give you more.

Yes, I added this to my links bar. Yes, I’m addicted. Blast.

Like "Mythbusters", but for real

2005-03-07T14:54:00.000-08:00

The latest online edition of the Stanford Newsletter highlights a study discrediting the so-called "Mozart Effect," or the idea that listening to classical music (particularly in utero) makes you smarter. My inner skeptic has doubted urban legends such as this for years, so I wasn’t surprised at the findings. What interests me more than the study itself are the belief systems that give rise to the legend in the first place. The authors suggest that an obsession with rigorous, directed education has something to do with it, evident in the name differences between some US and European preschools:

"...a preschool near the Stanford campus had the purposeful name ‘Knowledge Beginnings,’ whereas a preschool near a university in Switzerland was called ‘Vanilla-Strawberry.’ The latter made no lofty claims about its educational goals."

Yes, it is good to take an active interest in the education and psychological development of our children, but something about parents sending their children to "top" preschools for the purposes of "getting them ahead" (my editorialization) strikes me as a little competitive, and very American. I find this somewhat bothersome; education is for the benefit of the child’s intellect, not the parent’s ego, after all. Nonetheless, if I learned that my mom had held The Magic Flute up to her belly every night because she thought it would have made the neurons dig in a little deeper, I would have appreciated her concern. In the same vein, I have several acquaintances who are multi-lingual because their parents enforced multi-lingualism in the home at an early age. Considering the early-life critical period for language learning (while conceding that timing isn’t everything), it’s almost like these folks grew up with a "free" language. Pretty cool, if you ask me. Like most aspects of child-rearing, I guess it’s up to the parents to decide where to draw the line between thoughtful enrichment and Pygmalion-esque parental molding.

On a completely different topic, and to borrow a page from the book of Jay, here is a short list of video games you should play but probably haven’t:

Betrayal at Krondor (available as freeware, but you need to have a dinosaur system to run it)
Guitar Freaks (if you happen to be at the Long Beach Nickel-Nickel, the Las Vegas Gameworks, or on the main drag in Wellington, New Zealand—the only three places where I know this game exists)
Maniac Mansion (vintage LucasArts = awesome)
Crystalis (it’s pronounced CRYS-tal-is)
Illusion of Gaia (you get to cleanse Angkor Wat of the monsters that infest it)
The Dig (featuring the voice talents of the guy who played the T-1000 in Terminator 2)
Shining Force II: Sword of Hajya (the only reason I keep my Game Gear)
Donald Duck’s Playground (Commodore 64 love)
Shadowgate (I actually had to call Nintendo for help on this one—pre-internet, heh heh)
Battletoads & Double Dragon: The Ultimate Team (the ultimate team)

Notice the complete absence of any console game post-SNES. I think it classic. Who needs new games when there are so many good old ones? Care to disagree with me? Kyle, I’m looking in your general direction.

Should give IKEA's "Domestik Violence" line a run for its money

2005-02-28T23:23:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Kyle for letting me yoink this link from him and claim it as if I had discovered the teensy bit of server space it occupies on this planet we call the world wide web.

Cortisol levels rising...

2005-02-22T10:25:00.000-08:00

Randomness doesn’t always equal fun, but it certainly does when it involves receiving spontaneous inebriated phone calls from friends kicking back in San Antonio. AK & SK, thanks for getting my Saturday night started off right.

Here’s my situation. Tomorrow I have a job interview. I happen to know a lot of the questions I will likely be asked at said interview. I also happen to know the basic things that my interview panel will be looking for in me as an interviewee. These things are primarily behavioral; i.e. how I answer the questions will be scrutinized at least as highly as, and probably more than, what I actually say. I’ve always been the kind of person who prepares for these sorts of things in advance by taking notes and practicing dry runs before the real deal.

Why is it, then, that I feel like winging this thing? Given that I know the basics of what I will be asked beforehand, I feel obligated to come up with some sample answers that I can rattle off without hesitation. On the other hand, in order to convey the behavioral responses they’ll be looking for, I need to be as relaxed as possible and come off as a likeable, go-with-the-flow kind of guy. Studying notes and memorizing answers tends to work me up rather than chill me out, so a big part of me wants to just show up at the interview with nothing but a suit and a smile. It’s all part of walking the fine line between “being prepared” and “completely winging it”. But in this situation, maybe forgetting about reviewing notes and dry runs is the best thing I can do to prepare. It certainly absolves me from the self-induced guilt of not having done so already.

Awesom-ah pow-ah

2005-02-14T22:52:00.000-08:00

Today I began my matriculation at Pasadena City College. It's not that I misplaced my Associate's degree, it's that I'm taking introductory Japanese (why not?) and today was my first class. It was good to be back on a campus—any campus, actually. The students reminded me of the majority of my high school class: slightly aloof, disproportionately Armenian, and clad in basketball jerseys and/or whatever passes for No Fear these days. "So this is what students going for their A.A. or a transfer to UCLA look like," I mused, while realizing the inherent presumption in my musing.

All the same, walking the campus and milling among the students seemed oddly familiar. I'm choosing to take it as a subtle hint that that I should go back to school (for real, not on a lark) at some point, which I've been thinking for a long time, but towards which I have yet to take the first serious step, i.e. realize why I want to go back to school. Any folks with GRE advice who wish to pass down their knowledge, please do (thanks Melissa!).

The instructor is a sweet little Chinese lady who spent some years in Japan as a missionary before getting her advanced degree in Japanese. She asked us to call her Sensei, which I thought was cool. The class is completely full, which made me wonder why Japanese would be so popular at a community college. I got my answer when Sensei asked us to share with the class our motivations for taking Japanese. At least five people answered "I'm tired of reading the subtitles in my anime films." Akira would be proud.

In other news, check out a shot from one of the "outtakes" of a video we shot for a five-second film contest. Socrates is dead, long live Socrates. I shall play you a parting tune on my finest panpipes.

I've been zinged and I love it

2005-02-04T10:38:00.000-08:00

The Onion has my number. I read this article with the ironic awareness that I (or someone who fits my stereotyped persona) was being poked fun at, and it was awesome. True, I don’t drive a Prius, but many of you know that I wish I did. No, I don’t have an endangered species license plate, but I’ve got plenty of Save the Bay bumper stickers in a manila folder on my bookshelf. And then came the last line of the article, which almost had me laughing out loud, seeing as how I have three Putumayo albums in my portable case right now.

Why is it so much fun to be pegged like this? Is it that I’ve always been a fan of self-effacing humor (e.g. Conan O’Brien)? Or maybe I just like the ring of "upwardly mobile and socially responsible."

A score and four

2005-02-01T13:12:00.000-08:00

Weekend In NorCal was a classic reunion. A special shoutout to Annie McAnnAnnAnn for flying in from Tulsa and re-Wastifying us all with her presence. And well done to Alan for nearly throwing Brooke’s delicious mocha cheesecake right in my face. A testament to both his sense of comedic timing and his sense of coordination.

Courtesy of Tim, experience the wonders of Java. Not quite the holy grail of old-school, but close.

Along similar lines, the guys dropped a bomb on me yesterday and got me a freakin GameCube for my birthday. A GameCube! I suppose it was high time, considering that the last time I was sole owner of a game system was back in the Golden Age. Which makes me wonder what will happen on the fateful day when Kyle and I must choose who gets the SNES and who gets the N64. At any rate, you guys are awesome. John, Lem, Tanner, and Tim. That is all. I’m pretty sure there was no one else.

He was a Rhodes Scholar, after all

2005-01-25T13:41:00.000-08:00

I don't suppose anybody ever takes those online personality quizzes seriously, but I'd like to think that there's some kernels of truth in them (perhaps only to justify the time spent doing them in the first place). I've gotten Homestar, British Columbia, and now Slick Willie himself.

Tangentially, I am amused by the fact that I'm taking this as a compliment for some reason.

All your base

2005-01-21T13:50:00.000-08:00

Short post today—late office nights and the desire for sleep keep me from writing much. But I wanted to announce the release of our Tetris medley, featuring the hip-hoppety stylings of special guest MC Damon Kubiak. Available in the music section.

Natural padding

2005-01-13T11:45:00.000-08:00

The view from the parking lot of Mountain High, before hitting the first runs of the season. I got a little banged up, but made some significant progress on my pivot-action. Props to Tim for following me down the slopes to give me pointers, and for teaching me to use "Old Joe" when the going gets rough (read: to fall on my butt).

Let’s take time out from that triple play to talk about Farmer Dan’s pure pork sausage

2005-01-11T11:30:00.000-08:00

The following three things are awesome:

1. The broccoli beef I made for dinner last night. So begins my attempt to cook something requiring effort at least once a week. Question: is it cheating to use store-bought seasoning packets with neat little recipes on the back?

2. The Katamari Damacy soundtrack. If you have a PS2 and haven’t played this fantastical Japanese concoction, you’re missing out. Guaranteed to make you smile. From Gamespot:

"...the music on the soundtrack is consistent only in how different one piece is from the next. The menus are at first accompanied by the filtered pluckings of an acoustic guitar, and then by what can best be described as a marching band composed of very small robots…you'll hear big swing-music sounds, an achingly sweet J-pop song, and some intensely bizarre electronic compositions that work hard to defy description."

Seriously, I don’t remember the last time I heard such a diverse album of music from any artist, much less from a video game. Now I want to learn Japanese more than ever, just so I can sing along.

3. The fact that I’m going to be working on an article featuring an interview with Vin Scully. For those who don’t know, the man is a legend. Without a doubt the greatest living baseball announcer, and one of the greatest of all time. I’m not at all biased, of course. Okay, I won’t be so much writing the article as I will be transcribing his interview for quotation and fact-checking purposes. But hearing his mellifluous voice through my desk speakers is enough to remind me why I’m still a Dodger fan even though Lo Duca, Roberts, Beltre, and Green are no longer wearing blue. Too bad his contract expires in 2006. Please, Vinny...retirement is for the weak...

Lungs are for breathing

2005-01-03T23:48:00.000-08:00

A new year, and some new experiences. Specifically, this weekend my penchant for Asian food found a new challenge in dim sum. I had had dim sum before, but I quickly learned that picking pork buns off the all-you-can-eat bar at New Town Super Buffet doesn’t mean you’ll know what to do when seven (it seemed like at least that many) Chinese ladies whiz by your table brandishing unknown items with incomprehensible names. Luckily I was surrounded by veterans who did all the ordering for me, and even took the time to explain each dish to me before I put it in my mouth. We must have ordered the lot, with the exception of the token “guilt vegetables” they bring by just to let you cancel out some of the fried shrimpy goodness with something green. The day’s special: guilt served cold with a side of limp asparagus. Mmm.

A good half-hour into the meal, and I was feeling comfortable enough with the confusing deliciousness surrounding me. A bit adventurous, even. I was just about to say something bold like “the less I’m familiar with a dish, the more I like it!” when the beef guts came. Boom, tail between my legs. In retrospect I wish I had tried it. Alan seemed to like the lung soup enough. But Brooke reassured me that I wasn’t missing much. And besides, I was too full by then anyway. Yeah, that’s it.

I was tempted to stay an extra day in the bay area and come back today, and knowing the risks of driving the Gorman pass in rain, fog and darkness certainly gave me a second thought. But it turns out that my better judgment not to tap into my sick days so early in the year proved the best policy. Apparently the Gorman pass got over eight inches of snow last night, forcing the roads to close and causing traffic to back up for miles up the 5. Had I waited to come down until today, I would have had to have either backtracked through Bakersfield and the Antelope Valley (gambling that it wasn’t also snowed in), or camped out at the Grapevine 7-11 and waited it out (an even less appealing option). New Year’s resolution #4: to count my blessings.

On a completely unrelated note, I’ve heard that 2000 Honda Civics may or may not have a top speed of over 110 mph. I’ve heard.

Riddle me this

2004-12-28T19:56:00.000-08:00

Christmas came and went. It was exactly as I wanted it to be, meaning that it was exactly like every other Christmas I can remember since elementary school. There are obvious differences, of course -- I no longer get up at 7:00 am to open presents, for one. But there’s something especially comforting about Christmas as a life constant. Dad even made his annual Christmas morning treasure hunt, the last riddle of which left me embarrassingly stumped. For the interested: “Get Meg Ryan out of Germany.” Email me to guess or give up.

I've been thinking a bit about the tragic events of the past few days. As horrible as the destruction and loss of life has been (56,029 at last count), I can't help but be struck with the awesome power of this act of nature. Not "awesome" as we might use to describe, say, a hot dog, but in its original meaning of "inspiring awe." We're talking about a tsunami that originated off the coast of Sumatra and didn't stop until it hit Somalia. I gather that the Maldives didn't put up much of a fight as the wave swept westward. As the ravaged countries begin to rebuild, it's encouraging to see signs of the human spirit picking up again, such as this opportunistic fellow:

On a lighter note, I’m coming up to the bay area this weekend. Anyone who’s around and wants to party, let me know. Unlike Christmas, I like to do something different every New Year’s Eve; thus hanging around the house watching Regis fill in for Dick Clark makes little sense.

We missed the swallows by a few months, unfortunately

2004-12-21T21:04:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of Peter, a pic from our Durkee and Associates “train ride to San Juan Capistrano” Christmas party.

What a good-looking group. Tanner looks rather sinister, however. What manner of mischief is he cooking up this time?

In a related story, it’s official: I am in the holiday spirit. Every year it’s a crap shoot as to when the essence of the season will fully sink in. This year it was the one-two punch of Norwegian cookies and a new Manheim Steamroller album (thanks Karen!) that put me over the top. When Grandma, aunts and mother bake all day long, I win. When else but Christmas can I get my annual sandbakkle fix? And Manheim Steamroller has really cornered the market on the synth-Celtic-classical-Christmas genre. The liner notes are also loaded with interesting tidbits about the origins of the carols covered in the album. For instance, did you know that while the evergreen has been a symbol of eternal life since ancient times, Martin Luther is believed to have started the custom of decorating them in homes?...

“Following a walk through the woods on Christmas Eve, with the stars shining through the evergreens, he was so impressed that he attempted to show his family what the sight looked like by cutting down an evergreen and decorating it with lighted candles.”

I think it was the Dave Brubeck

2004-12-16T23:51:00.000-08:00

There’s not much that’s glamorous about the nine-to-five life, so they say. Once “the best years of your life” are behind you, what’s left to look forward to? “Joining the workforce” doesn’t quite have the same ring of excitement as “going to grad school”, “joining the Peace Corps”, or “hitchhiking to Mexico”. One could get easily discouraged.

Why is it, then, that I felt a certain sense of mature pride while leaving work yesterday? I left my salaried job at 7:00, having worked after-hours to install a new server for the office, slung my Sierra Club bag (my gift for joining) over my shoulder (single-strap only; double-straps are for bike rides and day hikes), carried the tray of California rolls I planned to eat for dinner into the car, and listened to modern jazz all the way home. Suddenly, I felt older. And somehow, it felt good.

The job isn’t any more glamorous than it was last week. Perhaps the feeling of growing older—-often feared, eventually accepted, but rarely appreciated—-is exciting in and of itself. I began to feel that I was somehow supposed to be gradually filling the role of a young (sub)urban professional—-and as many post-grads can attest, any feeling of direction can be encouraging in its own right. Maybe if I embrace these feelings, getting older might be its own reward.

At least until 30.

Please, no comments that include the phrases "fruit" and "Scott is a"

2004-12-14T01:16:00.000-08:00

Saturday morning I drove my parents to get a rental car so they could drive up to Berkeley and see Kyle's show. Before we left the house, I jacked an orange from their fridge as payment for my services. That orange didn't get eaten until noon (somehow breakfast starts at 12:00 on Saturdays no matter how early I get up), but when it did, it provided much enjoyment. That orange was so juicy and delicious for some reason. It reminded me how much I love fruit.

We all know that fruit is great because it is tasty, nutritious, easily portable, and comes in a plethora of varieties. But what's awesome is how fruit is all of these things because it evolved to be that way for precisely that reason. In an effort to maximize seed production, protection and dispersal, angiosperms (flowering plants) evolved to package their potential offspring in juicy sacks of sweetness, ready to travel the GI tracts of animals worldwide. While natural selection is usually categorized as a "selfish" process--favoring those individuals who maximize their reproductive success (see Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene)--fruit offers itself willingly for our consumption (albeit with selfish motives).

Being the Human Biology dork that I am, I have had meta-debates with myself about the incompatibility between teleology and natural selection; namely, that natural selection operates without purpose and direction. I'll admit it's more fun to think that the orange tree "wanted" me to eat the fruits (heh heh) of its labor. But if that's the case, it better not be expecting me to return the favor by dispersing its offspring, because that particular orange was seedless.

Man: 1 Nature: 0

50 cc's of pizza rolls, stat

2004-12-09T22:36:00.000-08:00

In case you missed our Decemberween costume party last week, Matt and I showed off our knowledge of stethoscope functionality:

Dr. Feelgood was in that night. My prescription? Partying down.

Krakow! My head a splode

2004-12-08T21:18:00.000-08:00

My thanks to Mr. Fortune for finding this gem.

While I applaud any endeavor that combines music and old-school video games, I can't help but think that maybe these guys are taking themselves just a bit too seriously. If you're going to make music with GameBoys, you might want to check yourself before you start using words like "irony", "pastiche", "aesthetic", or "ideology", or phrases like "We use elements from archives and current pop culture...[to] create a kind of an anti-performance commenting [sic] quasi avant-garde attempts to place electronic music on the stage next to the spectacular concerts of pop stars".

Leave it to the Polish.

Sometimes I wish I were the kid from Almost Famous

2004-12-07T01:06:00.000-08:00

Disclaimer: musical opinions follow.

Every once in a while, you hear a song that just completely kicks the crap out of your ears. In a good way. You know, because it leaves you wondering whether you had really heard music before. This doesn't happen to me that often, but when it does it usually means I'll be putting the song on repeat for a week. The great ones don't wear out.

One such song is Stomping Grounds by Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. Those that know the band can attest to the fact that this song is the embodiment of a marriage between artful composition and pure unadulturated virtuosity. For those interested in checking out the patented "jazzgrass" style of the band, you will not be disappointed.

I'm still amazed by how this song can either pump me up or chill me out, depending on what I'm going for. I think the pump-up ability has something to do with the chord progression, but I can't be sure. Kyle agrees with me that the chill-out ability comes from the saxophone. While much of the tune is a chaos of sixteenth notes from various sources, you've always got that sweet sweet saxomophone to fall back on, holding down the melody with notes that actually last more than a beat.

As a bass player, the goosebumps come even more easily, as there simply is no one like Mr. Victor Lemonte Wooten. Better than anyone else, he proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the bass is an instrument of both rhythm and composition. You know this, because no bass in its right mind would dare to duet-duel with a banjo. Yet here we are. As Kyle duly noted: "He's playing a freaking BASS!"

But I think what I like the most about this masterpiece is the way the band plays musical games with its audience. The song alternates between showcasing the technical talents of each of the individual members, coming just shy of showing off. Then, when you think they've lost themselves in their own expertise, they enter en masse into a flawlessly executed chorus, as if to say to the audience, "Just kidding, we know we're a band, not just a collection incredibly talented musicians. But we had you there for a minute, didn't we?"

Posting the First

2004-12-02T22:55:00.000-08:00

Here goes nothing, er, something, I guess.

Time will tell if I actually keep up the posting on this blog. My friend Jay's Xanga is labeled as an "exercise in futility", and mayhaps this will turn out to be a similar story. But for the time being, I've decided to claim my share of this brave new world.

More posts to come, in the future, I imagine. For now I like the present as it is.

Pay no attention to these.