Saturday May 7, 6:03 a.m.

I've done one of my rare early wake-ups since my girls are going for the earlier shift today. I'm not suffering too badly.

I finally listened to Jazz Singer's first song. Actually, perhaps I should be changing her nom de plume since this term she's fronting a rock (power pop?) band. She covered an old 50s hit. I sent my compliments although she was a bit bemused by my comparison of her sound to Puffy Amiyumi (well, her band DOES sound like them).

Well, there's another attempt at nuclear brinkmanship by Kim Jong Il again. CNN is reporting that there's satellite evidence that North Korea may be in "imminent" position to do an underground test of their nuclear capability which may result in possible "radiological" fallout for surrounding countries including the nation where I'm living. Of course, this could all be a bluff by the human pompadour but I'm just kinda wondering if the American media or the people who gave them the story are also doing a Chicken Little. I mean, the US has been conducting nuclear underground tests for decades; I haven't heard of any sharp increase in cancer rates in Nevada.

Had a bit of a tremor around 5 a.m. this morning. Nothing too serious...just a M4.3 centered in northern Tokyo. It's kinda strange how the majority of the tremors all these years have happened in the early morning. Nature's wake-up call writ large?

Saw another old...perhaps hoary...rerun of the original Mission: Impossible series. The episode was in fact one of the first-season shows with pre-Jim Phelps IMF leader Dan Briggs. Being a buff of the spy genre, I was rather excited to see the old show when it came out some years ago on SuperChannel. After watching this show (mind you, it was one of the poorly-done ones) though, I'm starting to wonder if this series is one of those...if I can use the damning-with-faint-praise expression...products of its times. The sepia look of the show, the increasingly annoying sightings of Gellerisms to cover up the real names of countries (after all, this series was set during, and due to, the Cold War) and the hackneyed acting (I wonder if Steven Hill, during his great run on Law & Order, ever cringed at his performances in M:I) sometimes make me wonder if it deserves the classic status it has gotten. Mind you, it did result in one of the most memorable theme songs in US TV history and all those Tom Cruise movies.

Friday May 6, 8:56 p.m.

Well, just in time to signify the end of the holidays, the rains started on schedule today. It was noticeably cooler as well. My day went pretty well. Just had The Teacher as the lone student and then I headed out to Speedy's to get that first training as a BULATS examiner. BULATS is this new testing regimen for corporate types in terms of English proficiency.

When I got home, Chip had left me a message to see if I'm available on Sunday for dinner. Looks like a small group of us will be going Korean in Shibuya.

Now I've already got the planning done for tomorrow's lessons. I've got 4 of them: the two kids plus MK and JJ. Let's hope that I don't end up tiring myself out of any enjoyment of my weekend.

Thursday May 5, 10:08 p.m.

Well, it looks like Golden Week is winding up. The U-turn rush has begun and the highways have turned into slightly moving parking lots. And so my three glorious days of non-teaching come to a close tonight. I'm back on duty with The Teacher first thing tomorrow morning and then I have to some sort of training with Speedy in the afternoon. I haven't anything from Chip Guy all this week so I'm not sure if anything is in the works for Friday night. Probably not.

My day was just spent watching TV and doing crosswords. Did get a bit of excitement on CNN with that minor bomb blast in NYC but otherwise pretty calm. Mind you, that JR fiasco concerning the train wreck just keeps snowballing. Now, it's been learned that not only did two JR drivers who were on that very train NOT come to the aid of victims (they just ran to work since they were afraid of being penalized for being late), but it was learned today that there was a 3-stage party by JR employees on the day of the accident. The folks did some major bowling and drinking despite knowing about the tragedy. Man, it's not just the balls that will be rolling in the next few days. But once again, it goes to show when a company is found out for some gross malfeasance, the journalists go to work on the carcass like vultures only the carcass is still alive. Mind you, in this country, you're only guilty if you're caught so I'm sure most major companies have a lot of skeletons in the closet for mass media to unearth. I wouldn't be surprised if the president of the firm decided to step down.

I was thinking about that "Revenge of the Sith" soundtrack, and especially about the music for the end credits. I mentioned that the credits strangely had a lot of the music from the other movies. Then it hit me...the reason that I was rather unnerved by it was due to the fact that the overture sounded so disjointed. This is John Williams we're talking about here...THE composer who brought back the orchestral score for big movies with all its leitmotif-laden overtures. And yet, the ending overture for Episode III sounds so...amateur, if I can believe using that word for Williams. The segues weren't smooth at all. One number stops awkwardly and another begins just as awkwardly. I'm not sure if Williams has finally lost it.

Got one of those very long replies from Shard for the first time in a long while...in fact, I think it may be his first long missive this year. Hopefully, he'll get back on for a while at least.

Wednesday May 4, 1:31 p.m.

Nice to wake up at close to noon and not feel guilty about it. The first thing I did was pop in the "Revenge of the Sith" soundtrack and gave it my 70 minutes' worth of ear. Again, as in the last two soundtracks for the prequel, there wasn't anything particularly remarkable about the new stuff. And I've noticed from "Battle of the Heroes" that Danny Elfman may have a small fishbone to pick with John Williams about the similarity of the intro of that song with that of his intro to "Spiderman". But then again, Williams did borrow a small cue from "Psycho" for one scene in "A New Hope".

"Revenge of the Sith" is 132 minutes long, and with the CD only 70 minutes long, I think there's still quite a bit of music missing (and that's taking into account the scenes without any BGM). I wonder if Williams be re-hashing some of the other themes from the past prequels.

Still, although the soundtrack doesn't quite live up to "A New Hope" or "The Empire Strikes Back", the last track was rather interesting. I had always envisioned for the last scene in the movie that there would be the rather mournful version of the Jedi theme as Obi-Wan trotted off into the twin suns of Tatooine after depositing baby Luke on the Lars' doorstep. Sure enough, there it was. The end credits though seemed to be a bit of a 28th-anniversary reunion of sorts. I kinda felt like The Force itself was saying "Hey, for all you former geeks, here's some of the oldies but goodies from the first trilogy!" Williams brought back the Princess Leia theme, the Jedi/coronation theme from the end of "A New Hope" and the Lando theme, and somewhere in the mix was "Battle of the Heroes". Although it was nice to finally hear the Jedi Knights theme get its due in the overture, I just thought it was a bit strange to hear all these old tunes thrown into the prequel, though perhaps Williams may have been aiming to do a bit of musical foreshadowing. However, perhaps, the younger folks may find it all new. Still, these end credits also hint that there wasn't a whole lot of new good stuff from the supposedly final Star Wars movie to throw into the CD. So once again I'm left feeling rather mixed.

Well, after all that reviewing...what's there to do? Well, some personal announcements. It would seem that my family isn't the only one undergoing changes this year. I heard from The Chipmunk for the first time in several weeks. She finally got that baby. And The Engineer informed me that her younger sister got married. I've sent off that request to Paddy about an immigration lawyer; now that I've supposedly gotten over that tax hurdle, now I have to think about the other big thing this year.

Gonna try my best to keep my mind off of anything to do with English teaching.

Wednesday May 4, 12:44 a.m.

You know it's been a long day when you think your morning happened several mornings ago. Yes, I left my home yesterday at 9:30 a.m. to meet Automan and his friend at Tokyo Station. However, before that, I made a quick run to HMv in Ginza to see if "Revenge of the Sith", the soundtrack, got there. Looks like I struck out on that one so I just went over to the station.

The theory that GW usually means a relatively sparse Tokyo was broken. It would seem that everyone managed to congregate in Tokyo Station. In retrospect, it wasn't all that surprising since Monday was a regular workday so a lot of people decided to make their moves yesterday morning. Automan and his buddy got off the Bullet Train from Nagoya on schedule. Before we left the crowded confines of the station, Automan had to find that souvenir of choice of many a negligent traveling businessman, Hiyoko (Chick) Cookies. They're sold at major stations and they're sable cookies shaped like little chicks. I never took a particular fancy for them myself since true to the French derivation of "sable", the cookies tend to have a gritty, sandy quality to them necessitating a cup of tea on standby to wash the stuff down.

The three of us enjoyed a sunny and fairly warm day as we left Tokyo Station and walked down to Ginza. It was pretty sparsely populated on the northern outskirts of Yurakucho since the area was a business district and therefore not operational on this national holiday. However, when we did reach the central district of Ginza (Ginza 4-chome), the masses were present. Luckily, the city had the sense to close off the main street like it usually does on Sundays so there was some space to maneuver. For lunch, we decided on Katsukura, another tonkatsu restaurant, part of a chain, located in the Shiodome City Centre in Shimbashi. Yes, I know, I had tonkatsu the night before but I decided to go for the chicken katsu instead. No regrets for the lunch. Very good food. In fact, a tonkatsu restaurant will hardly let anyone down unless it's located in an especially seedy part of Tokyo and it hawks the pork cutlet for something like 200 yen.

Well, stuffed as we were, we hopped on the Yamanote and went down to Shibuya. That area was also unsurprisingly crammed with the usual teenagers and young folk. We first did some browsing around the local Bic Camera since Automan wanted to print out some of his pics from his digital camera. Then we braved the crowds and headed to Tower Records. Sure enough, I did find the soundtrack for the latest Star Wars movie. However, there was very little fanfare for its release; in fact, there wasn't even a listening post for me to sample John Williams. Ah well, Obi-Wan did mention patience.

Our next stop was Tokyu Hands for Automan's buddy who wanted to get some stationery. The buddy was a very jovial sort whom I had met for the first time a few years back in the summer. He's a hail-fellow-well-met type of guy, the folksy type to always give you a hearty slap on the back or give an anecdote. Kinda too bad that he isn't a regular resident in Tokyo. In a way, he does remind me of Movie Buddy in temperament if not in terms of looks. Automan's friend is quite a bit bigger.

After a few hours of browsing and shopping, all of us could have done with a bit of a break so we searched for a cafe. At first, we took a look at The New Yorkers' Cafe just across from Tokyu Hands but all the seats were filled, and Automan said that he preferred a quieter joint. Somehow we were able to find this cafe immediately across from Tokyu Hands on the 2nd floor. If it hadn't been for an orange sign denoting its presence, we could've easily gone past it. However, Automan's eagle eyes spotted it and we climbed to 2F.

The interior decor was done up like an intimate French cafe, and surely there were a couple of French folk talking away. We decided to sit by the counter where a reserved but kindly lady took our orders. This cafe was a pretty serious one; the menu had a lot of detailed descriptions about each type of coffee. The blends even went so far as to mention the proportions of types of beans in the mix. I had The Old Blend, a mix of Columbian and another type of bean, served in a smaller-than-usual cup. All three of us ordered some Gateau du Chocolat. Another sign that this cafe's staff was truly devoted to its craft came in the form of the one other staff member, a man, who almost made a performance of creating our cups of coffee. He came off as a true barista with his crushing of ice for Automan's Iced Coffee and grinding of fresh Columbian by hand. His technique reminded me of that of a polished veteran bartender. Meanwhile, the woman who had taken our orders was sprinkling icing sugar on our cakes and whipping up some creme fraiche. Man, I think they even outdid The Tea Room. My Old Blend was plenty strong but the richness and sweetness of the cake compensated for it very nicely. When we had gotten to the cafe, the place was nearly empty but by the time we left, some of the young folk started percolating up (I guess there's more to cafe life than Starbucks or its myriad clones). In conclusion, this cafe whose name I can't remember will now be part of my culinary library in Tokyo.

Automan's buddy was on the lookout for postcards. I suggested going back to Tokyu Hands but he wanted me or Automan to ask the baristas about them. I guess he's so folksy that he thinks that Tokyo has a smalltown atmosphere and that everyone knows everything and everyone. But I knew that asking the baristas would've probably been futile. Automan had also suggested asking someone on the street for various kinds of information. Well, noone is perfect.

Despite the fact that we had had a rather filling lunch and some rich cakes with strong coffee, the three of us then made our way through the throngs back to the edge of Shibuya to head for En, that upper class izakaya that I've often gone to with people like The Bohemian and Chip Guy. I was a bit surprised that on this holiday that we were able to get a table right away. But it was just 5:30 in any case; the place filled up completely an hour later. There we spent another couple of hours noshing away at the usual fine delicacies while knocking back the alcohol. All in all, the conversation was really fine. But even though I got treated for the lunch, I still paid quite a bit out of my pocket since I treated the two at the cafe and we all chipped in at dinner. Looks like I'll be on daikon salad for the next couple of days.

We made a pit stop several floors beneath En back at Bic Camera since Automan wanted to pick up some earphones. He found some pretty expensive numbers by Sony. Apparently, this headset can block out all exterior noise which is great on the plane. The 8000 yen price tag is a bit exorbitant, though.

We finally left Tokyo's Mecca for Youth and headed back to Tokyo Station. There was one final round of souvenir shopping before I decided to make my farewells. Good folks, both of them. They've got another tiring day today as well since they'll be heading for the Expo near Nagoya. Good luck to them. As for me, I plopped myself down on the Yamanote and the Tozai reading my mag.

I was feeling pretty tired by the time I got home. I almost regretted having to walk the 10 minutes back from the subway station. However, the shower helped to re-invigorate a bit.

I decided to give the Star Wars soundtrack a whirl. This time, the album came with a DVD chroncling the six movies through some of John Williams' themes. For those who know their anime, the DVD reminded me of "Macross: Flashback 2012" whose format was that of Lynn Minmay's sugary-sweet tunes backing the montage of scenes from the movie. The Star Wars DVD copied that almost to the letter. And just like the two trilogies, it was a case of hit-and-miss. Some of the songs such as "Luke and Leia" from "Return of the Jedi" fit in almost to a moving degree with all of the scenes with the two protagonists. And certainly it was nice to see all of the main characters from the movies "take a bow" to the coronation music from the end of "A New Hope". However, some of the other stuff came off as cheesy. And although I enjoyed Ian McDiarmid's dulcet tones narrating the intros to each song, I was getting rather annoyed at him using too many quotes from the movies themselves. And as for "Battle of the Heroes", the new theme from "Sith", I just thought it was a pale variation on "Duel of the Fates" from Episode 1. Nothing impressive there...I hope that some of the other tracks will be better.

Well, it's been a long day and I'm feeling ready for bed. I can't believe it; I actually have two full days of absolutely nothing. No students to teach, no lessons to plan. When was the last time I could actually boast that? I am looking forward to waking up at a time with two digits next to the hour hand.

Monday May 2, 11:00 p.m.

Looks like today was supposed to be slightly bad day today. I was 10 minutes late for The Hawaiian; luckily, she's so cheerful that any problem seems to just slide off of her. Speedy's didn't have any problems but The Company class was just out to lunch today. As soon as we hit the 10-minute countdown to the end of class, I just decided to rip into Japanese and talk about how in our country, a medical checkup usually has "the glove" to finish off the examination. The guys were alternately fascinated and repelled but they weren't bored. So, some success.

Considering that tomorrow is a holiday, I decided to walk all the way to Tower Records in South Shinjuku to see if that "Revenge of the Sith" CD has come out. Geez, it turns out that it's out tomorrow. Gahh...however, I did pick up a couple of mags for perusal. And I ended up having dinner at a nearby tonkatsu restaurant. Always like to pamper myself after a so-so day.

Well, Automan called up and said that he won't need my apartment after all. He and his buddy will be heading back to Nagoya late tomorrow night. I'm not particularly put out by the announcement. He's supposed to be arriving here late morning...not a lot of time to prepare the place so I'm somewhat relieved. But let's see what we can do tomorrow.

One of the critics on CNN apparently has seen "Revenge of the Sith". And she says "It doesn't suck!" To us Star Wars fans, that's manna from heaven. Oh, how far the franchise has fallen.

Monday May 2, 7:51 a.m.

As hoped for, yesterday was nice and quiet. I managed to spend the afternoon watching the 2nd disc from "Citizen Kane" which had the Oscar-winning documentary on the mammoth battle between Orson Welles and William Randolph Hearst over arguably the best movie ever made in America. The doc was handled like the runup to a major boxing match with the last several minutes being the fight itself. The decision was basically a TKO for both Welles and Hearst. Hearst was successful in killing the movie...for a while, at least...but ended up a joke by the end of his tumultuous life. Meanwhile, the boy wonder Welles did make a cinematic opus which still resonates today but he ended up a Hollywood pariah; my memories of him were mostly of him shilling Paul Masson wine and having weird parts such as Le Chiffre in the failed product of its times, "Casino Royale". It was only from stills of him in Kane that I realized that he had actually been relatively thinner (though I couldn't say he was a stick) and a ladies' man, to boot. After watching "The Battle Over Citizen Kane", I have very little sympathy for either man (not that it would matter much since both are long dead) though. Both were folks with huge egos and appetites who would steamroller anyone who got in their way. I'd say that "Citizen Kane" was basically the story of both Hearst and Welles.

After taking a nap on my sofa...an increasingly un-good idea when it comes to my back, I just warmed up some dinner and then caught a bit of "Clone Wars Part 2", the Cartoon Network take on the Star Wars saga. I'm not a huge fan of the animation in there but it does fill some of the gaps in the saga.

I actually did have to get some work done for today. But that took just an hour. Just as I had written in my last entry about how wonderful the weather has been, I heard the patter of rain hitting the windows. Well, at least the weather gods had the good sense to throw us the precipitation overnight. It's overcast now but should get sunny later on.

I've got The Hawaiian today in a GW re-schedule. I only did it since Movie Buddy had originally slated Wednesday as our movie outing day but it has worked out well. Now I don't really need to head out anywhere midweek. Then, I've got my weekly stint at Speedy's today followed by The Company. In a way, I'm hoping that one of the staff calls in to cancel but they hardly do.

Looks like North Korea has been skipping stones off the Sea of Japan again in the form of a short-range missile. What else is new? At least, there weren't any more demonstrations in China this past weekend.

I looked at The Stick's blog again. Apparently, she's put up a survey asking "Who would you prefer to be hugged by?" and then placing 5 of the top movie stars like Cruise and DiCaprio. I'm rather surprised...she'd never struck me as being a starstruck person by any means.

Sunday May 1, 12:31 p.m.

Welcome to May! Couldn't be a better start to the month. Breezy and sunny and warm. Nice beginning to Golden Week as well since I'll be staying within the metropolis instead of going slowly ballistic on the congested highways, airports and train stations.

Speaking of which, Automan contacted me last night to confirm Hotel Haru for Tuesday. Gonna have to call housekeeping once again on the morning of the 3rd after Movie Buddy's stay last night. Not quite sure what I'm gonna do with Automan and his buddy once they hit Tokyo.

Movie Buddy and I did our semi-annual Hotel Haru with movie and dinner. But we did meet to head off for "Constantine". Not a bad movie, not a great movie....it was basically Keanu Reaves as an especially tetchy Mr. Anderson as the title character. MB thought that the buildup to the final 10 minutes was misplaced....just a huge smoke screen to let a couple of more able actors, Tilda Swinton and Peter Stomare (as the nutso Archangel Gabriel and Satan respectively) get in their licks. I just thought the structure of those last few minutes struck me as a little too reminiscent of the last 10 minutes of "Matrix Revolutions". Ah, well...it was OK...maybe OK enough to have a renewed Constantine take another stab at a sequel.

Afterwards, we met up by accident The Curry Master and The SE, two people whom I used to "teach", on the subway platform. It was awkward to say the least...somethng that was echoed by MB over breakfast at Skylark this morning. The Curry Master just gave the briefest of waves at me and then just focused on MB like a laser beam about being reminded to bring the baked potatoes for her BBQ today. The SE and I didn't talk with each other...something that's pretty usual in this country; if we sever relations, we don't acknowledge each other. Apparently, Curry Master got her knickers tied in a knot; she immediately called up The Sylph to check what had been wrong with us on the train. MB just shook his head and laughed in resignation after getting a call from his girlfriend. He'd seen it all before. Curry Master is just very self-absorbed. I think she's a good person at heart, BUT she's not one that I can take long exposure to.

Anyways, we got back home with bentos and Haagen-Daas ice cream...today's new flavour: Raspberry and Panna Cotta...good lord, what will those guys think of next? Going with the theme of occult superheroes, MB brought over "Hellboy". It was quite good and better than "Constantine". The end struck me as being a little abrupt, though, and I could've stood to have had Abe Sapien around a bit longer than his mid-movie cutout but I'm not surprised that a sequel is in the works.

Then, it was "King Arthur". We both agreed that the movie was just average. I'm sure that Antoine Fuqua wouldn't be too thrilled to hear that assessment considering all the massive fight scenes he'd filmed but the movie just seemed a little too much by-the-numbers. I mean, I've seen this stuff in "Gladiator" and "Alexander", although I think "King Arthur" was better than the latter. For example, we got that rousing speech-on-the-pacing-horse schtick that Mel Gibson made famous...and superfluous...in "Braveheart".

So, now I have today to just chill out a bit...although I do have to plan for tomorrow's lessons. Yes, tomorrow will be a full day since it is technically not one of the national holidays. However, aside from The Company, I won't have to do all that much planning. Still, I will take it easy for much of the afternoon and then I'll do the heavy lifting tonight.

Friday April 29, 9:59 p.m.

It was the warmest day of the year so far...perfect weather for a picnic. I met up with Chip Guy and the family at Komazawa Daigaku Station and then we all walked down a few dozen metres to a ritzy apartment building where we picked up a few more people. Chip's friend happens to have a pretty swanky place...the rent goes for about 600,000 yen a month or perhaps about $7,000. I could believe it...the lobby resembled one for a hotel with two staff members at a front desk and a small room with free tea, coffee and green tea.

Once everyone got together, we went down a few more metres to Komazawa Olympic Park. It was bustling with activity as would be the case in such nice weather. A lot of students, soccer players and families were walking around or lying on their tarps. While the women set their tarps, the men went a bit further to the other side of the park to grab some burgers for lunch. The rest of our few hours there was spent noshing and talking while a couple of the kids did a walkabout. At one point, two of the parents went searching for them. Chip and I were a bit worried considering that there have been a number of kidnappings/murders by psychos in the last several months. Fortunately, they were found safe and sound.

Afterwards, Chip's family and I made our way back to Shibuya where we split. Chip's clan had to meet another family for dinner while I made my way to Hachiko to meet The Bohemian. When he did show up, his appearance was between his hippie look of a couple of years ago and his more salaryman-esque look from the earliest times of our friendship. The Bohemian managed to irk me a bit as he sometimes does by once again regurgitating the fact that he thinks Japanese women are far more fashionable and that North American women are frankly dogs. Well, I can't help it if he wants to show how shallow he can be, but I did make it briefly but strongly sure that I am VERY Canadian and that I didn't agree with his opinion. The two of us were silent for a few minutes and then we just did a reset.

We ended up going to a basement izakaya near Bunkamura. The Bohemian made an error in thinking that we would be able to go for the all-you-can-drink option; the waitress corrected him by stating that that option was only for large parties. Well, at that point, we were already nursing our drinks. The atmosphere was pretty nice and the izakaya was surprisngly not all that crowded considering the holiday Friday. The food wasn't quite as good as I had hoped but it was acceptable. As for talk, The Bohemian was considering what he could do in terms of finding a job. He rather regrets his 2-year stay in Sendai going for his Masters since it was basically a waste of time for him. I rather felt sorry for him since he's now in his mid-thirties and unemployed for several years. And he doesn't particularly have any ambition to start something up by himself. It's quite a difference in attitude with that of Chip Guy who's planned and executed a very good career for himself. But then again, my two friends are very different people. I can only hope that The Bohemian can dig himeslf up.

I checked out one advance review of "Revenge of the Sith" by none other than Kevin Smith. Looks like he's a happy camper. Much darker than "The Empire Strikes Back", he says. Well, let's see what the rest of the moviegoing public says in a few weeks.

Well, just gotta plan one lesson for JJ tomorrow and then do some ironing before I hit bed.

Friday April 29, 9:19 a.m.

Well, Golden Week is officially here. The first national holiday is today. It's called Midori (Green) Day...I'm sure there will be a lot of ol' grunge fans who'll be holding up their lighters in homage. heheheh. Actually, the day is the late Showa Emperor's birthday.

Got another rouse-up, not wake-up, call from Chip this morning. This time, I was somewhat more coherent but CG still talks a mile a minute. Looks like I'll be meeting him and the family at Komazawa University Station out in the west end in a couple of hours. It'll be a simple picnic in Komazawa Olympic Park for a few hours, then I'm heading out to Shibuya to meet The Bohemian for dinner.

Last night, Movie Buddy called up sheepishly to ask if we could meet tomorrow for our movie outings instead of midweek next week. I think The Sylph has been on his case for his GW schedule. So, after I teach JJ, I'll pick him up at the station and then head out to see "Constantine" at the neighbourhood theater. He'll probably be crashing over at the apartment.

In a case of terrible timing, Shard's ex called up while I was making dinner (I just HAD to pick up that phone, didn't I?). Basically, she telephoned me to talk about her immigration stuff, stuff that she rehashed with me before, stuff that I really don't know anything about. So, it wasn't too difficult for me to be distracted while I tried to keep the pasta and sauce warm and relevant. I have a sneaking suspicion that she got the "message" about my situation and promptly hung up; mind you, it took her almost half an hour to do so. Still, I felt a little guilty about my phone manner and sent her an apology.

Beforehand, I looked through "Citizen Kane" again, this time with Roger Ebert's commentary. Good golly, it's just like attending a good film class. The movie seems to have become the template for all the tricks of the trade.

Well, I gotta rush....

Thursday April 28, 1:03 p.m.

Yup, the Golden Week rush has started. The usual epic lineups have started to snake around in Narita and probably at Haneda and the major train stations. I kinda wonder how edgy train passengers are feeling with Monday's accident. I just can't picture any Bullet Train encountering anything like that train on Monday, though.

Speaking of the accident, at least one channel's afternoon chat show is wondering if the accident is actually an incident in which the driver finally snapped under the pressure and decided to commit suicide. Of course, the very nature of a talk show (or wide show, as it's called here) is speculation. However, it's pretty dangerous to do that during a major investigation like this one. And yes, the driver has been confirmed dead along with perhaps 100 passengers at least. I mentioned to Shard's ex this morning that if any of my loved ones had been the victims in that crash, I would've gone after the driver's internal organs. However, the one improvement in Japanese journalism, investigative journalism, has come out with a new angle.

Apparently, to ensure that JR drivers in a certain area commit as few mistakes as possible, there is a rather brutal policy of zero tolerance which can include "imprisonment" in JR's own version of a jail for 3 to 5 days, and at the very least, chewouts en masse and the demand for a very lengthy report. The driver at fault here had committed a couple of overruns in the past year so it could be assumed that he was at the short end of the punishment stick. Now, that the shock has subsided, there has not only been anger from the victims' families about why such a driver was allowed to keep his job but also speculation on whether the very strict approach to training may have led to the accident, however indirectly.

But this is nothing new to me. Japan may have given up its militaristic governmental policies decades ago, but Japanese society has still kept very martial elements, especially when it comes to training and education. Teachers can still administer en masse yellings for several minutes at errant students (I was aurally witness to a few when I used to teach on the JET Programme) and I think the beatings still occur although I'm sure teachers and their higher-ups are very careful with the new regulations on corporal punishment. Even student clubs, especially the baseball team, are notorious for coaches and even the senior team members administering punches and kicks to junior members who haven't been up to specs. Doesn't this remind you of Marine boot camp?

I'm sure that in both the West and Asia, there are forms of bullying in the workplace. However, I think in Japan, the practice is almost institutionalized. One of the readier images of work is of the poor drone getting the stuffings verbally knocked out of him by an irate manager...kinda like the beatings administered by Sgt. Snorkel on Beetle Bailey. In a society where conformism is still pretty much the corporate norm, non-conformists can find themselves in a bit of difficulty from the higher-ups and colleagues in the form of ostracism and other petty little evil acts to get the peg back into the hole. This rather "Scared Straight" approach has, I think, been partly responsible for the almost perfect record of service that we over here get from store clerks and waiters. There is nothing like fear of reprisal to get a person to do something the right way. However, I have to wonder what the cost has been to get that perfect service. Should one settle for a happier if somewhat lax workforce or do we keep on demanding the perfect soldier-worker service at the risks of that person going nuts or at least feeling majorly stressed out?

Thursday April 28, 9:55 a.m.

Well, I got a wake-up call from Chip Guy about an hour ago. He found out rather quickly that I don't wake up all that well anymore. And I found out that I don't particularly tell little white lies when I'm groggy, either. However, I digress. Anyways, he wanted to know if I were up for lunch today. I declined....I wanted to keep things within the neighbourhood and actually get some gym time in this week before heading out down the line to teach MK tonight. Then again, I've never been great about last-minute invitations. Chip Guy must have been a bit embarrassed about catching me just coming out of REM sleep...his usual speedy rate of speech seemed to go into emergency warp, which made my groggy attempts to understand even worse. Apparently, we are to meet tomorrow in Komazawa Park. The name sounded familiar but I wasn't sure about exact location so I asked him, but from what I could comprehend that it seems that even he didn't know. So I just checked out the atlas and found out that it isn't too far from where CG used to live. I also sent off the news to The Bohemian. I rather doubt that he'll come over to Komazawa, though. He's pretty territorial...just wants to stick around either in Shibuya or Shinjuku. I frankly doubt that he and CG will meet tomorrow.

Then, I got onto the Net which is where I've been for the past hour answering e-mail and doing a bit of research for Automan who called up not long after Chip. He was calling about reservations at Hotel Haruhiko for either next Tuesday or Thursday. I'd prefer next Thursday since there's a better chance that the blankets will be done by then and I've got Movie Buddy coming over on Wednesday. However, his other friend will be staying at a hotel so he asked me if I could find something nearby. Well, there is that hotel that Old Sam and his wife stayed at in Kiba. I sent off the information to him although I'm not sure if he's checking his e-mail during his stay in Japan. He's already here by the way. In any case, he'll be calling for final confirmation on Sunday.

I received some e-mail from Shard's ex. She'd asked about some further information on the vagaries of Canadian immigration. Once again, she went into a mild harangue about what's wrong with Japan. Today's theme was on the martial discipline imposed on people here in school and work vis-a-vis the train accident in Osaka. I guess I must've finally roused from my sleep by that point since I gave her a rather voluminous answer.

My sister-in-law contacted me. Apparently, her best friend in high school is in town on some sort of extended business trip. She gave me her phone number and e-mail address. Well, I'll give her a courtesy call. However, I'm a bit wary about it since I had a similar situation last year with the Persian's friends...that didn't end too well with one sister. Also, I know that my sister-in-law has been wondering hitching me up with somebody...no thank you. I like my embittered bachelorhood, thank you very much.

The Hawaiian confirmed that next Monday morning is a go for her lesson. But not surprisingly, she's declined the invitation for Wednesday.

Just lucky that I did all the groundwork for MK's lesson the night before. Not feeling particularly up for lesson planning just now. I'll probably head out to the gym later this afternoon and then head straight to MK's venue.

Wednesday April 27, 11:46 p.m.

Sent out a couple of blankets out to the cleaners just in case Automan decides to make a reservation at Hotel Haruhiko. However, it looks like the blankets won't be ready for about a week so that meant a Plan B...deodorize the blankets that I do have. However, he's yet to confirm his reservations.

The trip to see The Hawaiian was pretty uneventful but jolly as usual. She does make it worthwhile for me to make the long crosstown trip over there. Movie Buddy has proposed heading out to my neck of the woods for "Constantine" and then a DVD show at my place. I invited The Hawaiian but I frankly doubt that she'll pick up on the offer. She said that she's not too huge on the horror genre (neither am I, but I don't particularly consider Keanu's latest a horror flick per se), and I can't really see her willing to come out all the way to Chiba for a night of visual debauchery. However, since MB is asking for next Wednesday, I'm seeing if she would be willing to re-schedule for next Monday since I've got The Company. Plus, I'll probably be dropping by Speedy's at the same time.

Did my first round of major cooking in several days. Made spaghetti and meatballs and used the last two potatoes to try and make hash browns since the taters were starting to take root. As usual, got quite a bit to nosh on for tomorrow.

I was finally able to see the much vaunted Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane" after several years of wondering what would make this flick the AFI's top movie in the history of movies. Well, it certainly surprised me in terms of my initial predictions. I had initially thought that the famous movie was a Greek tragedy of a good guy turned bad over the years....kinda like MacBeth or even the current Star Wars trilogy. However, the first surprise was seeing that this was a tale of an already cocky, arrogant (albeit charming) Charles Foster Kane who gradually transforms into an embittered, self-centered, lonely old man trapped in his Hell of Xanadu.

The second surprise was that the film seemed to be quite ahead of its time. Perhaps it was the improved clarity of the picture that helped but I also think that the interesting camera shots and transitions between scenes and even some of the dialogue made "Kane" a lot more contemporary. It just didn't seem like a movie made in 1941. "Casablanca" which was made the next year is one of my all-time favourites but I know that it is a product of the 40s. I'm not sure with "Kane" which does make me understand why Orson Welles had been called a genius. Also, on the film itself, it didn't follow a typical linear course. I was surprised to see the first few minutes devoted to the newsreel giving away all the plot before the details started. And then, there was a temporal ping-pong game played all throughout with Act I dealing with the rise and fall of Kane's newspaper empire, Act II briefly devoting itself to Kane's dalliance in politics and then the final act of his two ill-fated marriages...from happy-go-lucky courtship to bitter fallout.

The third surprise came in the casting. Of course, I knew about Welles being the tour de force star. However, there were a few faces also there that would later become part of my TV viewing life. There was Ray Collins who was to become the craggy Lt. Tragg from "Perry Mason" playing the corrupt politico, Ruth Warrick whom I remember being the matriarch from "All My Children" as Kane's first wife. But the real corker was finding out that the 5-minute performance of Kane's cold-as-ice mother was played by none other than Agnes Moorehead...Endora from "Bewitched". And I have to say that in the trailers for the movie, she sure looked very ravishing. Quite a surprise since she was absolutely unrecognizable in character. I'm sure audiences of 1941 must have remarked, "That was HER?!"

Now, do I think "Citizen Kane" deserves its vaunted status as the best movie ever made? Well, I'll have to agree with Roger Ebert who does the commentary (which I'm looking forward to). The AFI list can be considered to be a silly one of no merit only meant to show the results of a democratic moviegoing population. I think it is an excellent movie with all of Welles' derring-do behind the camera. Heck, even the trailer was a masterclass in innovation. I wouldn't go as faras Ebert in saying that the most favourite film will change from time to time. There are some absolutes for me. Having said that, "Casablanca" will remain my favourite black & white flick but certainly, "Citizen Kane" is a worthy addition to my movie collection.

Wednesday April 27, 11:26 a.m.

After the Sturm und Drang of yesterday, it's nice to see that a warm Spring day has graced us. My washing machine, though, decided to take its revenge on me for overloading it. After the final spin cycle, the machine turned off but apparently the water was still leaking through. I had to do another spin before finally hanging the clothes out. Mind you, the weather should dry them out, at least most of them, even before I take off to see The Hawaiian.

I actually bought and listened to a Best CD of El DeBarge, he of "All This Love" and "Who's Johnny?" (those who were born in the 80s and later need not read the rest of this paragraph). I was reading the liner notes. According to them, the group DeBarge was rather labeled as "the poor man's Jackson 5", which I thought a bit harsh. But after listening to El's greatest, I had to admit that as the CD ran its course, my ears were starting to listen less and less and just hear more and more. His best songs really didn't vary much in style and tone so that the album just came across as aural wallpaper. And I was a bit surprised that one song done by El in the late 80s didn't make it onto the album; it could've spruced up the disc a bit with his more mid-tempo beat. Still, I don't think DeBarge is a poor sub for the Jackson 5; in fact, I think I only really like that one song by the latter group...that ABC song or whatever compared to the 80s R&B hits that DeBarge had during its decade. Well, perhaps the CD will grow on me like so many others have.

Movie Buddy contacted me for the first time in a while. Looks like he wants to do a bit of movie watching at my place and at the theater during Golden Week. I'm more than happy to oblige since I've got "The Incredibles" and "Citizen Kane" on tap.

Well, gotta get ready to do that sole class out with The Hawaiian. Looks like my GW has already started. I've only got that one lesson today and then just MK tomorrow night. I've asked Speedy subtly if I can keep myself home tomorrow afternoon so that I only need to make that short hop to teach MK. And of course, Friday is the official start to GW so I've got absolutely nothing except for a possible meeting with Chip Guy and maybe even The Bohemian.

Tuesday April 26, 11:51 p.m.

I guess the Force was still with me when I left to go to the juku. After the torrents that tore down earlier in the afternoon, I exited the apartment to no rain and some sun. I was toting quite a lot of texts though.

The juku classes went pretty smoothly. Even the Beauty Pair got down to some good ol' work. I cannot complain at all about today, and I got paid, and next Tuesday is off for Golden Week.

Regrettably, that horrific train crash west of Osaka will probably have more deaths to deal with. At this point, the toll stands at 73 dead and 239 injured. The driver who created this tragedy is yet to be accounted for. I'm assuming since that it was the first two cars that got "painted" onto the side of the apartment building, he's probably also part of the brickwork as well...as gruesome as that may sound.

The one thing that fascinates/ticks me off about journalism in this country is the dogpile nature of it. The Osaka train crash makes the news...now, "suddenly", all the channels report about other train derailments that occurred today...as if just by coincidence these things started to happen. It happened when that poor girl last year was murdered by the psycho in Nara; after that incident, a flurry of these kidnappings hit the news regularly for several days. What ticks me off about this is that it just seems alarmist and sensationalistic. As for the main train derailment followed by the other sudden spate of train derailments today, it just makes it seem that the entire train industry is on the point of collapse. I just cannot believe that these so-called copycat crashes are a sudden phenomenon. Where was the media when these minor derailments had occurred in the past? Not big enough? Another case in point was a couple of years ago when that poor boy had his head crushed in the revolving doors at Roppongi Hills. Suddenly, the media was reporting every single incident which involved a kid and a revolving door; they mysteriously all came out of the woodwork at the same time. All we need is just a kid who fires off a bottle rocket into a school injuring or killing some of his mates; then, we'll see a whole rash of these bottle rocket tragedies amazingly appear all over the tube for the next 10 days.

Tuesday April 26, 3:27 p.m.

The Force is indeed with me. Exactly a year ago, I was caught in one of the worst downpours I'd ever experienced on either side of the Pacific on my way to the juku which necessitated some embarassing wardrobe changes for my classes. Well, it looks like the same weather has come down just now a year later but I was able to get home just when the first few drops started coming down. Mind you, I did get drenched but that was by design...I took a shower since I got myself rather sweaty for reasons to be given below.

I should actually say that not only is the Force with me, but it's flowing within me like a torrent today. Back on Saturday, I received the report from the tax office on how much I was to pay to Uncle Osamu according to the complicated tax return that I'd filed back in mid-March. Well, I was rather bemused to see that I owed a grand total of over a MILLION yen (no, I'm not using Dr. Evil's voice for this one), or over $10,000 CDN to the Japanese government. Well (and I think I'm well within my rights to use "well" in as twice as many sentences in this case), I just laughed at the ludicrous number. I knew that it had to be a mistake. I don't have that much money in my account. If I'd had to pay that, I would've ended up moving into a cardboard box by the Sumida River. Although I was pretty positive that there was an error, there must've been some residual shock that resonated since I did get that massive headache the next night. I usually don't get throbbing headaches of that magnitude.

I first brought the discrepancy to the Matron's attention on Monday since her son was the one who had helped me write out the return. Her eyes bugged out on seeing the figure. And I recollected that both Paddy and the son told me that I would "only" need to pay some 200,000 yen. So something was not right in the prefecture of Kagoshima. We agreed that I would go to the tax office, and if something couldn't be rectified I would call up her son again.

Well(there I go again), I brought it over to the Beehive today. Ms. Travel took one look at the offending document and she immediately called out a red alert amongst her classmates. As each of the ladies came in, each one bugged out in her own way over the million-yen figure. However, it was naturally Ms. Travel who took charge but it was ironically the final entry in the form of Ms. Tee who knew the tax rules in and out. For the first half hour, Ms. Travel and Ms. Tee took it upon themselves to find out where I had gone wrong because they suspected that I must have screwed up the calculations somewhere. Meanwhile, the rest of the Beehive started producing little canapes of marscapone cheese, raisins and crackers to go with that Hungarian port I'd gotten from the Matron, and a bottle of dry red that Ms. Perth kindly contributed from her trip to Turkey. By the half-hour mark, the two leaders managed to find out what had gone wrong and then called up the tax office to confirm. Thankfully, the early Red Alert atmosphere collapsed nicely into a very convivial chat session due a lot to the wines.

We even went over to the local Excelsiors for a bit of coffee and light lunch while Ms. Perth talked about her great trip through Turkey last week. Then, with a wish of good luck from the Hive, Ms. Travel and I were off to the tax office. It took about a half hour by local train to get to Onigoe Station where the tax office is located. The slowness was probably due to yesterday's tragic train derailment near Osaka; when something of this magnitude happens, everyone is hypersensitive. When we got into the tax office, I was relieved to find out that it was indeed a mistake since the staff also bugged out at the amount. All we needed to do was head up to the third floor and have the figures re-calculated and re-written onto a different sheet.

And folks, there is even a twist ending of O. Henry proportions. Not only did I not need to pay one million yen into bankruptcy, but I found out that I am to get a tax rebate of 20,000 yen! How's that for a corker? Ms. Travel had a ball laughing; I just merely had a ball...of hair...and a lot of relief. I couldn't believe that I was actually owed money by Uncle Osamu...which gets to me thinking...what the hell were Paddy and the Matron's son thinking about? Not that I'm resentful to either of them but still there's a huge difference between losing 200,000 yen and gaining 20,000 yen. However, I'm still not totally convinced that I'm owed that money. I can't understand a freelancer can actually make money from a tax return. But I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth...for now. On our way out, a very buoyant, if somewhat shocked, me remarked that the lady up on the 3rd floor must be spreading the news about my gaijin idiocy. Ms. Travel countered that the lady didn't seem to have the imagination to spread the news. I can see with the growing of age, so increases the amount of acid in one's tongue. Still, I have to say that with all due respect to Gary Cooper in "The Lou Gehrig Story", I feel I like I'm the luckiest man in the world right now to have such a good group of ladies. I think I may use that rebate to get them all something really nice.

Monday April 25, 9:34 p.m.

Well, that headache stayed an unpleasant memory thankfully as I made my way to work. Unfortunately, I ended up being 15 minutes late for my first class with The Class Act since I'd forgotten that today's lesson was to start at 10:30 a.m. As usual, I ended up bashing myself for the rest of the day but I'm lucky that the ladies were much more forgiving than me. In fact, we still ended up having a full 90-minute lesson.

The rest of the day was the usual. I've been continuing my read through "Revenge of The Sith". I haven't finished yet but I went to see some of the reviews of the novelization. So far, it looks like all of them have been pretty praiseworthy of it...which is indeed high praise indeed considering the flak that the author who did "Attack of the Clones" had gotten. I still haven't re-read "The Phantom Menace" which I also got in its hardcover version...pretty good reason for that, too. All of the reviewers and I were rather mystified that the entire act on Kashyyk was not in the book at all....something to investigate, to be sure. However, I must agree with the reviewers that it would actually be a help to read the novelization BEFORE catching the movie. The author provides a lot of meat on the bones that I'm sure the movie will not be able to show.

Got home to find out that there had been a major disaster west of Osaka. A train derailed, so far killing 50 people and injuring hundreds more. I'll be watching the detials in about 10 minutes.

Monday April 25, 6:59 a.m.

8 more months til Xmas...get out, you shoppers!

There was that party out at PH's yesterday. It was a slightly smaller crew from the usual horde that invades the apartment. But it just meant more food and easier talk. The core folks like The Quarterback and Speedy were there, and of course, the family of honour, Chip Guy's unit. It was another round of BBQ chicken, salmon and steak. Plus, I helped make this rather interesting form of potato salad with small new taters. PH just boiled them and then doused them in mayo, salt & pepper and chopped green onions. No need for peeling...just slosh them around. PH said that it was an English recipe...it certainly looked British. And actually, it tasted pretty good. Probably at its best with the potatoes still warm.

The party was also notable for the relatively large number of babies that came out. There was Chip's daughter, and then two more. Of course, the cameras came out to shoot the grand summit of the little ones although none of them were particularly in talking mood with each other. Of course, with the kids there, the party itself didn't last long into the night. We all pretty much vacated by 8:30.

It was just as well since by the time I got home, I was under attack by an unusually nasty headache. Even Tylenol and some further reading of "Revenge of the Sith" didn't alleviate symptoms so I hit bed as soon as I could. Feeling much better now. The Theater Manager got back to me on his thoughts about the next Star Wars movie. He said that it would sound great on a home system...not exactly a ringing endorsement for the bigscreen run. I'm certainly not looking forward to the Anakin and Amidala scenes, if the novelization is any indication. It's more of the same hackneyed pap. I just hope that some more of the political intrigue dialogue stays in, although that doesn't sound like a Star Wars movie. I'm sure a lot of the kiddies would just get restless. Chip told me that one key scene in the book about Windu and Yoda arguing is supposed to be cut out...dang!

Sunday April 24, 1:13 a.m.

Once again, I was given a bit of a surprise at my kids' house today when the elder sister actually appeared for a lesson. Luckily, I didn't need to bring anything special for her so I could teach her; it would have been nice if I'd gotten a bit of advance warning, though.

Since JJ cancelled today, I had ample time before meeting up with Speedy and Chip Guy so I had my lunch at Foo Foo, and then I did some book searching. Well, I learned that the soundtrack for "Revenge of the Sith" will be here in about 10 days. However, I did succumb to the Dark Side when I went over to Kinokuniya and discovered not only the third volume of Peanuts but also the novelization of the latest Star Wars film. I wasn't gonna buy either one since Kinokuniya doesn't have a point card system so that my purchases wouldn't have gone for any future benefit. However, I figured that in the last several days, I've inadvertently picked up so much information and pictures of the coming carnage about the movie that it really doesn't matter anymore so I shucked out the yen.

I started reading the first couple of chapters of the book in front of Q-Front, the massive building in front of Shibuya Station before Chip Guy arrived and remarked on my capitulation to the Dark Side. The two of us went off up the street into Dogenzaka and into a building up to the 6th floor. We went to Toriyoshi, a decent izakaya that specializes in chicken. For the first half-hour, it was just us two so we got into detail about Episode 3 and about how the family is doing. Then Speedy and another fellow arrived so we could actually start ordering.

Chip Guy had originally just expected another two guys to come out for a total of six. However, one guy decided to bring his girl and then another three people showed up which caused a few conniptions for the staff. It was very magnanimous of them to give us another table considering it was a Saturday night. It did save us from a very tight squeeze. We ended up staying there for close to 4 hours. All of us started devouring some very delectable chicken wings of which we ordered a huge bushel. These wings are not like the buffalo wings back home. Instead of being slathered in BBQ sauce, the Japanese variety are grilled with a sweet-salty sauce and sesame seeds which made them just as irresistable. It was amazing how much and how fast we could devour those things.

For most of the night, most of my conversation was with Speedy and Chip. Again, I'm not all that effusive with people I don't know very well in a group setting so it was nice that I had these two guys bracketing me. Chip Guy and I had another long chat about the next Star Wars movie; I'm grateful that I can talk about some of my favourite things with somebody. It's just not all that easy to do that anymore. But Chip Guy was starting to fall victim to jet lag. He got some fresh air outside which kept the exhaustion at bay for a while but it came back to him. By around 11, we decided to finally get out of there. Surprisingly enough, he decided to stay with some of the more enterprising fellows for another round which I don't think was the best idea. However, he admirably held back on the heavy drinking; he was a lot more of a drinker in his earlier single days. But a wife and a daughter can mellow a man somewhat. I hope that both he and Speedy are in OK shape to show up at PH's place later today.

Well, I'm just about ready for bed myself.

Friday April 22, 10:54 p.m.

It was a pretty long day today....of which most of it was spent at The Tea Room. I did have The Teacher after a 2-week absence. She had to take last week off due to an asthma attack. Apparently, she's now chairperson for a couple of committees in her neighbourhood; I'm a bit worried considering her medical problems. However I did have her laughing more than usual, and there is nothing better than a good cure of comedy.

Afterwards, I headed to Maruzen to pick up the latest I, SPY book for my little girl tomorrow and a new crossword book. I came across that "Making Of" tome for the newest Star Wars movie. Unfortunately, I also came across some of the dialogue, although I can't be sure if that will be the final stuff that gets on screen. In any case, I'm not optimistic. So just in case some of you REALLY don't want to know anything about the movie, I'd avoid the next few lines. SPOILERS START NOW...well, I came across lines like "I don't know....I think she's dying of a broken heart." Duh...oh, my golly...couldn't the writers have come up with something like Anakin's Force-influenced psychic link with Padme was responsible for her eventual death as her husband was being pummeled by Obi-Wan? In addition, I saw some dialogue with the coolest Jedi, Mace Windu, which made him look like a total idiot for following Anakin into a trap. I'm not optimistic. SPOILERS END NOW.

Anyways, I had my second trip to that Vietnamese Pho restaurant underneath Maruzen. Definitely a keeper that one. Then I made my way up to The Tea Room. SR first came on up. We ended up talking for 3.5 hours...always good to talk to. Then some forty minutes later, the New Yorker arrived. I had my best class yet with her. The drills and application went well, and the look on her face certainly showed a boost in confidence. She's certainly opening up more. Both ladies rather enjoyed going through the I, SPY book.

Got home to find out that JJ has cancelled her lesson tomorrow afternoon. Not a bad thing since that leaves me some time to do some bookbrowsing before I meet up with Speedy and Chip Guy in Shibuya. And it means that I don't have to plan as much. I've pretty much internalized what I'm gonna be doing with the little one tomorrow. And her Dad's always good for a chat.

Looks like the new Pope didn't take long to lower the boom. He's just denounced the passage of a Spanish law allowing homosexuals to wed. But it's not as if those Spaniards will listen too carefully to that anyways.

And finally, Koizumi has started off at one of those Asian conferences by going humble in his attempts to mend fences with China. But true to his Murphy's Luck, back on the farm, several politicians went to Yasukuni Shrine to "pray for peace with neighbouring countries". Hah, I say!

And very finally, I was walking briskly back through the subway station when I saw some of the captions at the newspaper kiosks blaring that a former famous comedian, Paul Maki (Japanese celebs of a certain age used to take on Western names), had committed suicide today. He never struck me as being as popular as Beat Takeshi or the Drifters on TV here but he was a known face on the tube. His big schtick was his quick twirlaround and snaps of his fingers. Several years ago, he actually converted into a Buddhist priest and retired from the industry. People are still not certain about the cause for his header off a 9th-floor balcony but his manager stated that Maki had been uncertain about what the rest of his life would mean. Considering that I'd grown up seeing him on Japanese variety shows and considering the recent problems with Jazz Buddy, the news did strike me somewhat poignantly.

Thursday April 21, 10:22 p.m.

Despite just one lesson today, I'm feeling pretty exhausted...probably out of just doing really nothing. Did my stint at the gym, then went over to Speedy's. Really, most of the time there was just spent merely looking over lesson plans already done before we had an hour-long meeting on one of the proposed programmes.

Had my lesson with The Carolinan. I did apologize for my behaviour a couple of weeks ago; she brushed it aside with aplomb. The lesson itself went pretty smoothly although at the end, she suddenly got a bit aloof for some reason...I'm not sure what I said but I was too tired to care by that point.

Got home to see that I got "Citizen Kane" from The Anime King in thanks for that future delivery of another pakcage for him. I will definitely be looking forward to seeing that since it has the Roger Ebert commentary; he did a great job with "Casablanca".

Anyways, I'm heading straight to bed.

Thursday April 21, 7:55 a.m.

Received a letter out of the blue from DTE who's now somewhere in the Caribbean. I was surprised to hear that she's now heading up a school of her own. I guess promotions are on a faster track there. She says that she doesn't miss the office atmosphere at the school; I don't either.

Now that JB is out of the picture, I have another potential day to hit the gym for the meantime. So I'll take advantage of that before heading out to Speedy's. Then I've got the Carolinan tonight. It'll be the first lesson since that rather unfortunate Thursday so I'll be readying my best apologies.

Chip Guy and the family will be back in town today. I think I should be hearing from him tomorrow about Saturday's plans.

Wednesday April 20, 9:50 p.m.

I'm not surprised but I'm concerned. Looks like the ultrarightists in this country have started to take things into their own hands concerning the current Japan-China crisis. A Chinese bank has had its windows smashed by one of them, and there have been all sorts of threats against various Chinese interests. I can only assume that there will be an escalation.

Met the OL for the first time in a few weeks. I did get that wonderful Korean cookbook from her. Since she'll be taking off for that trip to Rhode Island next week, I won't be seeing her for about a month. Then, I'll be seeing her on our new day of Fridays.

Wednesday April 20, 1:46 a.m.

Well, it's official. The Chilean cardinal came out and announced the new Pope. It happens to be...Bill Cosby! Nah, just joking...Cardinal Ratzinger of Germany is now the new shepherd. He will take the name of Pope Benedict XVI. Still waiting for his debut, but I hear he has a reputation of a taskmaster. Hmmm..I'm not sure if that bodes well for women, homosexuals and pro-choice activists.

He's now out on the balcony. 78 years old, did you say? Hmm...and the previous guy died at 84. Well, I guess it's pretty secure that this new Pope won't be breaking any new records for longevity. However, he does look a lot healthier than his old boss did at the same age. Mind you, he hasn't had quite the strenuous history that John Paul did.

One question on this conclave business. When the new Pope is elected inside the Sistine Chapel, is it kinda like the Miss American Pageant? Does the former cardinal start sobbing and get mobbed by his fellow cardinals? Does one of them start singing, "Here he is...Pope Benedict"? Well, I gotta say that Miss America and the Pope have one thing in common: they both wish for world peace.

G'night...I play at the Sands til Friday.

Wednesday April 20, 1:00 a.m.

Well, I'm here again, and apparently the Pope is, too....the new one. I guess I should count myself lucky to have been witness to a bit of history. The Vatican pulled off the equivalent of a nailbiting 9th-inning, 2-out, full-count homer with its white smoke/black smoke mystery and then using the big bells to signal the election of the new guy. And the crowd went wild! Imagine the father of the Roman Catholic church as rock star. Pretty soon, they're gonna have to add "We Are The Champions" along with a bitchin' stereo system.

Ah, BTW, The Bohemian has also signaled his presence back in Tokyo. He's asked me to keep my eyes peeled for any job opportunities. As if I could...however, I think I can pull off the easier challenge of meeting him for dinner in the early days of Golden Week which starts at the end of next week.

Speedy got my message about not accepting his offer of starting up a second school (although that's way too premature considering the slowness of this school to get off the ground) and my little nudge about some of that help on continuing my stay in Japan. He said that would depend on how many more days I can devote to teaching there. I'm only slated officially for one, so that's fair enough about his request. However, I'm not sure about how much more I can give him. I think I can give him Monday night if I do manage to drop The Company. But if he starts pushing me for more, I'll have to disappoint him.

Wednesday April 20, 12:39 a.m.

Ah, yes, the hour is late but it's always kinda nice to surf the Internet and check e-mail after a long day of lessons and gym. I brought over that bottle of Hungarian port that I'd received from the Matron (of Class Act) to the Beehive. There's no way that I could drink it by myself, not being much of a home drinker, and there was that time last year where the ladies and I imbibed a bottle of good Italian..also from the Class Act. However, I learned that the bottle had to rest on its side for several hours to moisten the cork for easier pullout. Well, since I didn't know that, it looks like we'll have to wait next week to see how this port tastes.

The juku classes were OK although I sometimes wonder if I'm starting to outlive my welcome. Mr. & Mrs Mild were fine but I'm wondering if the Beauty Pair is starting to falter a bit. We've made steady but slow progress over the past couple of years. We're still using the same original textbook. I'm sure that at least one of them would like to pick up the pace but her partner is just not getting it structurally. After a pretty inspiring class last week, The Siberian was once again back to his somewhat denser version. I'm wondering if I'm gonna have to always connect the lesson plan with his love of Kanji. Still, I ended up chatting with the guy until 11 tonight.

CNN has been keeping its eye on the world's most famous chimney in the Vatican to see if a new Pope has been chosen. Black smoke, so it's just nada. It's impressive that all this attention is being paid on what the colour of this smoke is. When Pope John Paul II was elected all the way back in 1978, there was no CNN, no Internet and frankly not nearly as much interest.

Meanwhile, on the pop cultural front, after nearly a week of mania surrounding the resignation of one of Morning Musume's most popular members and its then-leader, the message boards have started to slow down to a more leisurely pace. Things are finally settling down.

Well, I'm gonna take advantage of the late day and sleep in.

Tuesday April 19, 8:38 a.m.

Got another long day ahead of me, as Tuesdays usually are. But this time, the hay fever is, so far, being pretty kind to me. But I still took the medicine. Can't complain about the results.

My washing seemed almost happy to just handle a half-load. I was just taking advantage of the good day today since tomorrow will be a rainy one. It was just chugging along like a train engine.

Seems to be a good day for the Livedoor and Fuji people. They've finally come to an agreement after a long corporate war. Ironically, the denouement was upstaged by the current crisis between Japan and the rest of Asia.

Had another message from GC. Looks like he wasn't too thrilled with the Expo in Aichi Prefecture which pretty much means I'm gonna give it a pass. It may be a once-in-a-lifetime thing but then again, so is a brush with Ebola. I checked out his blog...not surprisingly for a graphic designer, his site has got its own bells and whistles. It's still not 100% completed so he advised me not to tell anyone else just yet. However, strangely enough, The Stick's own blog outweighs his with her multilingual blog. I wasn't aware that she was good at graphic design unless the site is a template. However, I don't think I've ever seen templates that well-equipped.

Monday April 18, 9:25 p.m.

Looks like the hay fever was getting at me to a fair degree today. Despite taking three doses of medicine since early this morning, the best I got were small respites connected by long stretches of sniffling and heavy usage of Kleenex. I was grateful for the urban custom of folks handing out free tissue packs in Tokyo. I'm sure the extra intake of medicine won't do my liver any good but I'm at work and I've gotta be drip-free. Not that I was, in any case.

Had my classes with the Class Act and SIL, but no lunch by the Chef since he was very busy preparing for some dinner guests later tonight. Hey, I was just grateful for the scrumptious mandarin orange cake he whipped up (literally) for us during the lesson. The Lady remarked that her kitchen was now dangerously close to getting its license to be a restaurant on its own. I can imagine a lot of guests begging The Lady for the chance for return visits.

So I did actually have a small break to check out Towers once more. I went up to the 7th floor where the English-language books were located. Strangely enough, the novelization of "Revenge of the Sith" wasn't there (maybe it's already sold out...kinda doubt it though). However, I did find a couple of rather hefty tomes elsewhere on the floor on either the making of or the artwork behind the supposedly last Star Wars. I took a look at some of the photos inside...some visual spoilers there. Let's say that Anakin becomes a food processor with at least one Jedi or Sith.

Checked the e-mail tonight. The messages to help out Jazz Buddy are continuing to come in. I got word from my ex; basically, it was the same message that Arwen and OA had told me on Saturday. I got word from Jazz Expert as well. She will call her up; she was somewhat surprised at my SOS since she had talked with JB about a couple of months and thought that all was fine. Let's hope that it will get all fine for her again.

Monday April 18, 7:45 a.m.

Well, some days ago, I received an invitation from the Outback Steakhouse. Yes, the chain is also here in Japan and has been for some years now. I usually hit the Shinagawa branch. Anyways, I got the invite to their "club" for free so since it's gratis, I thought, well, what the heck. So I put in my application and now I am an OFFICIAL glutton.

Looks like my earlier claim that I'm immune to cypress pollen may have been premature. Early this morning, my nose felt like some fly was bouncing all over inside it so the sneezing started all over the place. I had to get my three rescue pills. It's taken a few hours and an hour of the air filter working but it looks like my nose is back to normal. However, I will put on the mask once more.

GC let me know that he has started up his own blog and encouraged me to start one of my own. Little does he know....

Sunday April 17, 4:00 p.m.

Couldn't ask for a better day. Sunny and pleasantly warm. My windows are way open airing out my apartment. It certainly didn't take too long for the entropy to return to my living room after the quick cleanup yesterday morning. My coffee table is once again the central plaza for all of my little knickknacks and parts of my sofa I cannot sit on again.

Still in my pyjamas as a bachelor like me should on a lazy Sunday. Did some washing, finished off those lesson plans for Speedy, while listening to some old 80s stuff and Tatsuro Yamashita. Who, he? He's one of those singers from all the way back in the 70s who's still at it now. He's the Beast (believe me, he ain't too much in the looks department) in the Beauty & The Beast pairing of him and his lovely wife, singer/songwriter Mariya Takeuchi. I kinda liken the two to that American duo, Burt Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager although those folks divorced long ago. Yamashita and Takeuchi are still together. Yamashita is known for his falsetto voice and his penchant for using Beach Boys-style reverb and licks to bring summery tunes (perfect for today). His recent stuff hasn't done all that much in a J-Pop world of Morning Musume, SMAP and Ayumi Hamasaki not to mention all the J-R&B; heck, his only notable output recently has been those theme songs for an NHK anime. However, a couple of his old tunes have been used as theme songs for trendy dramas in a bit of retrofitting. His old stuff is indeed the best stuff. Ironically, it seems like his most famous song though is "Christmas Eve", the Japanese equivalent to Der Bingle's "White Christmas".

Well, not that I've elucidated you on the latest J-Pop figure, I'm gonna take a shower and get some grocery shopping done before the sun comes down.

Saturday April 16, 9:32 p.m.

Cleaned up the place as best as I could in the unlikely case OA came over but I needn't have worried.

Firstly, though, I went back to the Tea Room to see M+ M...really for the first time this year. I've seen one M twice but the other M had been very busy with her training as an occupational therapist. I gave her the calendar from way back in December; I half-jokingly mentioned that a quarter of it is now useless but she was quite happy to receive it. However, it is obvious that she has nothing even close to a sweet tooth. She nearly gagged on the Iced Royal Milk Tea, one of my mainstays. But it was still good for all three of us to chat for the first time in several months.

I got home and picked up the videos for OA. She came on schedule to my station and then we went off to Doma-Doma, the pretty upscale izakaya just around the corner. It was my first time to my neighbourhood branch although I've been to the Shinjuku restaurant a couple of times. Surprisingly, even though the place had been open for an hour already, we were only the second group to get inside. Lucky us! We had some pretty good fixins over our cocktails: yellowtail sashimi, Korean ground beef on rice, potato gratin with cod roe, etc. Not surprisingly, our talk often went into the various cuisines worldwide. It would seem that OA is quite the foodie; she and her Mom will be headed for LA over Golden Week. She's got quite the taste for fare from the Cheesecake Factory and American diners. I'm rather surprised that she's able to keep her rather svelte figure.

OA and I also talked about Jazz Buddy's situation. Actually, earlier in the day, I'd received a call from Arwen for the first time in several weeks. Both OA and Arwen let me know that they'd gone through the same situation some years earlier so that as long as JB finally gets that direction in her life straightened out, she should be as good as new. I did send a courtesy call to JB just now. Hopefully, she'll be getting that thinking done this weekend. I even sent an SOS letter to Jazz Expert whom I haven't seen in nearly a year.

Well, luckily, OA was more than willing to be on her way back to her place with her new gotten goods so here I am in my tidy little apartment ready to munch on some of those Reese's White Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups that I'd kindly received from her.

Mom called me up for her usual monthly chat. That talk with OA got me to ask Mom to send over a package of Aunt Jemima's Pancake Mix. I'll be sending her those video tapes and one magazine. Fortunately, I've got nothing tomorrow so I can get some other stuff done.

Friday April 15, 11:40 a.m.

Decided to get a massage than get the workout this morning so I walked over to the clinic. It's a perfect day for a walk...not too hot, not too cold with a nice little breeze wafting what remains of the cherry blossom petals through the air. With all of the stuff that's going on in the world plus with some of the more personal issues, the walk was a bit of a balm, albeit temporary.

I got massaged by a new lad today. He asked me all about my shoulders and neck, and I laid out all the stuff with my sore eyes and headaches. Then he set to work on me. Of course, since he isn't the clinic director, I got the piledriver thumbs stuck into me but I could take the pain. Also, he mentioned that my shoulders are rather hard...a refrain I've heard every time I've been there.

I checked out some places where OA and I could have dinner tomorrow night. Looks like Doma Doma is a good izakaya. Some of her gang and I have gone to the Shinjuku branch with good results and it has a rather urban atmosphere considering it's out in the suburbs. Also, I was rather surprised to find out that that wonderful gourmet collective responsible for those pizzas at Speedy's last month has also set up shop in my neighbourhood of all places. I'll definitely have to consider taking out something from there.

Saw a couple of new names in my in-tray just now. At first, I was worried that I was under some sort of virus attack but it just turned out to be two separate thank-you letters from friends of friends. One lady is SR's buddy who has just come back from 3 years in Korea; she wanted to know how to write a general thank-you and goodbye letter for her friends in Seoul. And the other was from a friend of my friend from Nagano. I helped her out recently with a little discrepancy concerning her rental car bill back in the States. With all of the uncertainty surrounding JB, it's nice to know that I can still do good things for people.

Friday April 15, 9:00 a.m.

Well, it's always nice for a guy at my advanced age when I get some news from the telly that makes me go "Oof!" Well, that moment came this morning when I was slowly coming out of slumber and turned on my ol' rotary TV. Of course, my channel was set to Fuji-TV and its "Mezamashi Terebi" (Wake-Up TV) program. Usually at 6:19 a.m., barring any major earthquakes, the entertainment section comes on. And what did I see? The newly anointed leader of Morning Musume, a diminutive woman with a huge voice named Mari Yaguchi, threw everyone for a loop and retired from showbiz. Apparently, there were some photos by the tabloid "Friday"with her actor boyfriend that was the final straw, although the media is purporting that was the main cause. Nah...I think there's more to this...maybe just the basic reason that she didn't want to be the den mother for a bunch of kids. Mind you, I have a bit of bias on this since I'm of the "kids-should-be-seen-and-not-heard" school.

Of course, I decided to take a look at what was up on the J-Pop message forums. It looks like the news broke last night my time according to the first postings so I came in rather late into the party. Not surprisingly, shock and deep regret were the order of the day in the Morning Musume forum....along with a lot of talk. Within 12 hours, 68 pages worth of Mari were on board and I've got a feeling before this talk finally peters out, there probably will be hundreds of pages out there.

Friday April 15, 12:30 a.m.

I had one of the saddest episodes in my long stay here when I met Jazz Buddy. She didn't crack a single smile during our short 45-minute session. It almost felt like a breakup of sorts since the session basically formalized the end of our teacher-student relationship; she even returned some stuff that she'd borrowed from me month ago and I returned her Crystal Kay CD. I swear she even looked like my ex during the latter unhappier stages of our romantic relationship. JB looked absolutely listless and lost. I politely declined to take her money since this wasn't an English lesson but more of a counseling session. There were several moments in which neither of us spoke in the cafe, and when she did, her voice came out more as a soft ghostly whisper. I gently asked about what the details and suggested that she should consider professional help; not sure if I got through to her. As it ended up, I walked her over to the building where she works. She said that her colleagues were aware about her situation but nothing more. As she departed for the job that she doesn't like, it was just the most depressing thing I'd ever seen. I've found a couple of websites of counseling centres that may help her, so I'll send the information to her. I'll even ask my ex since she had a bout with it some years ago.

I had my lesson with the New Yorker today. Everything was OK but it looks like scheduling might be a bit hairy since her job schedule looks to be that way as well. Luckily, I had a good session with MK so I was somewhat buoyed.

Then I went off to meet Paddy who's here on business in Tokyo. I met him at his hotel in Akasaka and we went to a Vietnamese place in the Belle Vue mall. The food was pretty good and the talk was nicely absorbing. Certainly, Paddy lost track of the time but since I don't have The Teacher today, I wasn't too worried about getting home late.

OA suggested meeting at my station on Saturday night. No problems here...I can probably take her to one of the izakayas nearby. I'm not too crazy about bringing her to my place since we would just be a twosome.....just a bit uncomfortable for me. But just in case, I'll clean up a bit.

Thursday April 14, 7:38 a.m.

After 3 days of cold weather and rain, it looks like we're finally getting some sun and more seasonable temperatures. Certainly, I'm grateful although I may face another spate of hay fever. I know that I've sensitive to cedar pollen. However, I'm told that the cedars have thrown all their dust for the year and now it's gonna be cypress' turn to make our lives miserable. Or maybe not. I'm not sure if I'm particularly susceptible to that pollen but I haven't needed to take my medicine yet, so perhaps my suffering is gone until the Autumn.

Looks like I've got another casualty of the common cold. The Teacher called in to say that she's gonna have to cancel her lesson tomorrow...which means I can get another stint at the gym in the morning. I rather like my flexible schedule....perhaps no money, but there are other benefits.

I've asked confirmation to M + M about Saturday. I still have yet to give the souvenir calendar to one of them since she hasn't been able to meet us at all this year. I'm sure she'd appreciate it as just a gift, since a quarter of it is now useless.

The Barmaiden got back to me about the party. She took my pullout very well although I never got any response from the coordinator. Either she'd taken the day off yesterday or she's written me off like the rest of the corrupt staff.

I've got my last "lesson" with Jazz Buddy today. Actually, my last official lesson ended up to one that had taken place before the Diana Krall concert. I think the meet-up today is gonna take on an atmosphere of a breakup since apparently she's leaving to find herself and her way in life.

I got word from The Anime King that he actually got me "Citizen Kane" on DVD as a bit of compensation for my address being his clearinghouse for his anime purchases. He tried looking for "A Boy Named Charlie Brown" but apparently it's only out on VHS so I just told him to give up on that. Kinda weird....the Christmas special and virtually the entire Peanuts Saturday morning TV series have been put onto disc but not the famous movie. Must be some sort of contractual issue.

Almost forgot to mention that Paddy is in town. He and I had a brief chat...we might meet up tonight after I get finished with MK but his business may preclude that. Also, Chip Guy gave me the reminder about his return next week. He often talks a mile a minute so it's awfully hard to understand him on voice mail.

Wednesday April 13, 6:19 p.m.

Yep, another early Wednesday night home after another cancellation by The OL. I can get quite spoiled by this although The OL is one of my most faithful students.

I did my gym duty this morning. I was happy to see that my weight had actually gone down another kilo. And with the more comprehensive workout, I lost another half a kilo. Perhaps I may even break my own record next week.

Did my lone pilgrimage to see The Hawaiian. I guess sleep will be my main activity on the trains from now on. Just can't keep my eyes open when I'm on those things anymore.

I got word from The Barmaiden this morning that she's so lookin' forward to me co-hosting the welcome party next week at the school Well, I had to give her and the coordinator the bad news that I won't be showing up since I've got classes next Saturday. And the fact that I've had to can those classes this coming Saturday due to M+M means that I can't really stave them off for another week in a row. Besides, I'm not getting any lessons with the new kids from the school, and my schedule has now filled up with other privates so my time at the school is at an end. I hope the Barmaiden isn't too disappointed.

Well, my initial joy at having a defragmented computer was short-lived. The crash signs came on and I had to re-boot once again. But it was only once this morning so perhaps I may still be OK.

Wednesday April 13, 8:26 p.m.

The cold weather continues, and I think the up-and-down nature of this Spring has finally taken its toll on some of my students. Last night, The Class Act cancelled and Mrs Mild told me she'd caught her 4th cold this year. My theme with the Siberian initially was symptoms and remedies of the common cold. This weather can't be very good on Jazz Buddy's mood, either. As for last night at the juku, I had to extend my lesson with the Siberian by half an hour since he didn't make it last week (I have to do the same next week). Frankly, I'd been somewhat dreading the class since The Siberian is pretty laconic and doesn't take notes. However, it turned out to be my best lesson with him and the best lesson last night since I was able to mold it to what he likes to talk about. In fact, we went ten minutes beyond the finish time.

I finally got some good news from Speedy. He's managed to hook in the school's first student. She starts next month when I have my new Wednesday night schedule. I'll be out on the streets longer, mind you, but it's still with a committed student.

OA said that Friday won't be possible for a meet-up to take some of my videos off my hands, but perhaps the weekend may be OK. To be honest, that would be better for us, too. More incentive for us to meet in the big city and get some lunch somewhere. Maybe Skippy can join us as well.

I checked out the official Star Trek site. Looks like the Paramount folks sent an open letter to the SaveEnterprise camp telling them in no uncertain terms that they should let go and go on with life. It's curious that Paramount wouldn't say why "Enterprise" was let go. I mean, I know that the ratings have plummeted but still, I think putting the reason on paper would have made for a more reasonable explanation. Having said that, I think the SaveEnterprise folks should think about giving up the goat; heck, even the cast members have gone on with their acting lives. And besides, unless your show's title starts with the letters "C, S and I" or "Law and Order", four years is almost an impossible dream for most shows.

Y'know...the more I watch "The Incredibles", the more convinced I am is that it'll become a classic. Since I now have the luxury of manipulating the film with my trusty DVD remote control, I've been taking a closer look at it. I'm just very impressed with how the Pixar folks have been able to put not just credible emotions on their characters' faces but transitions from one emotion to another (although I think they may still have to work more on "crying"; I wasn't quite convinced with Elastigirl's bawling). Also, their prep work was quite detailed. I found out from the IMdB that all that aeronautical jargon from Elastigirl was scarily accurate. Plus, her gymnast's way of psyching up before grabbing hold of that egg monorail also stuck out. Also, I just think the in-and-out bickering and loving between Helen and Bob probably mirrors the relationship of most couples...though, admittedly, I've only had limited exposure in that area.

It's just a bit of a pity that Holly Hunter, Samuel L. and all the rest couldn't pop out on the commentaries to give their opinions on how they approached their roles. I mean, they went whole hog, in character, on the extras including the very annoying tactic of having real entertainment journalists interview the characters as if they were real people. I would've gladly swapped that extra for just a straight interview with the voice actors...although the probability would have been great that it would be another gladhanding session.

The juku boss told me about her worries concerning the current row between Japan and its two closest neighbours. Some of her kid students have been asking her about the situation, and she wondered aloud if all this could lead to war. I'm pretty sure it won't get THAT bad but it just goes to show how the area is still plenty sensitive even more than 50 years after the Second World War. It's never great feeling hated and under siege but I sometimes wonder myself if Japan has done enough to improve relations. Certainly, those textbooks haven't done much good since I do think there is a whitewash about what actually happened in Asia during those dark times. But on the other hand, I can't help but feel that some of that hate and resentment from China has been patted along by the Communist government; after all, there's nothing better to keep the power by having the masses riled up by a common enemy. Still, I think despite the violence this past weekend in Beijing, most people there aren't all that caught up in the fervor. As with most spats, I think there have to be compromises made on both sides.

Tuesday April 11, 7:48 a.m.

Back to the cold in a big way. After a weekend that was meterologically between the unnatural heat of Wednesday last week and the cold of last Monday, we are once again suffering from winter. At the Company's class, I could hear the patter of ice crystals hitting the window pane during the rains(?) of last night. Aside from the lousy weather, it was a regular full day. But it looks like I've got some cancellations.

The OL has canned her lesson for the second time in as many weeks, and I finally had that heart-to-heart (or as close to it as e-mail will allow) with Jazz Buddy. Yep, she's in a major funk so much so that I actually advised her NOT to come out for an actual lesson although I'm open to hear her pour her heart out. I kinda wonder how she's gonna do in the next number of weeks.

I've got a fairly long day ahead of me. Not that it's unusual for a Tuesday. Got the Beehive, followed by lunch and my usual gym outing. Then with the juku, my lesson with the Siberian will be extended to 90 minutes since he couldn't come out last week. I should be fit to be tied by the time I get home tonight.

Hey, I guess the defrag did the trick. No more sudden crashes.

Monday April 11, 9:08 a.m.

Had a bit of an earthquake this morning...well, it wasn't quite a bit. It registered M6.0 and not too far away from here. But everything was cool; just some side-to-side stuff, a couple of CDs threatened to dive out, nothing too major. However, all the stations went to Red Alert for about half an hour.

Well, managed to defrag the hard drive. And I'm hoping that was the major reason behind the spate of crashes. The drive definitely needed it; any resemblance between it and a piece of Swiss cheese was purely unintentional. Hopefully, that will alleviate any further frustration for the next 6 months at least. However, I will do a scandisk tonight just to make sure.

I got the call from the Lady. Looks like I have a full slate today unless The Company decides to bail out. With the current crisis involving Jazz Buddy, it's gotten me thinking about whether I should ensure that the days with The Company are numbered as well. Certainly, the recent sloggy lessons are starting to make me wonder if I should stop everything after we finish the current text. I certainly don't think the remaining students haven't got all that much out of the lessons although I've been trying to make it interesting for them. There really isn't any professional motivation for them to learn the language.

Sunday April 10, 11:34 p.m.

Well, at least I know that JB is still among us. I got the icon that she was online. So I sent some chat messages to her but no response since apparently she can't. I'm just glad she's OK.

Still, the past couple of hours have been an exercise in frustration. My computer is definitely becoming my enemy. It keeps crashing and just going completely screwy. I'm sorry but this isn't gonna be a computer-buying year for me. Not after taxes and not before I find out if I can still live in Japan after November.

Just wanna go to bed now...

Sunday April 10, 9:00 p.m.

Well, those tourists here who wanna take that package tour to see The Great Wall during Golden Week should think twice. It looks like Japan's two closest neighbours, China and Korea, aren't too thrilled right now. Let's tally it up here: Chinese citizens went on a rampage today because Japan is trying to get that seat on the UN Security Council while Koreans are up in arms about Japan trying to get those islands. I kinda wonder how the Japanese soccer team must be feeling considering that they do have that game in North Korea in the next few months. I just hope this little incident is more of a hiccup than a symptom of stomach cancer.

I did my pilgrimage to Fujimamas for breakfast today. Got out of the subway station to see that Omotesando wasn't all that crowded. Heck, I could actually see the sidewalk amongst the pedestrians. Mind you, it was pretty early for a Sunday...just 10:30. When I got there, I ordered the usual: The Plate. However, I think the chefs have lowered the amount. I was able to plow through the sausages, bacon, biscuits & gravy, hash browns and pancakes pretty quickly. In my previous three times there, it was a bit of a battle for even me to finish The Plate off. But I figure if I'd had trouble, then average mortals would have left half their Plates uneaten...and that can't be good for business.

After breakfast, I walked a circuit around the area to help the digestion process and then I made my way into the subway station again. I was just in time to avoid the weekly invasion of kids all decked out in their goth/maid/other bizarro outfits. They were just streaming up the escalators and through the ticket gates. My first stop was to Maruzen to see if I could put those gift certificates to good use. Nah...nothing there.

So my next stop was to Akihabara where I picked up the US copy of "The Incredibles". The Japanese copy won't be out for several weeks yet since the flick had just finished its first run on the big screen not too long ago. Well, as soon as I got home, I threw the DVD into the player and watched it for a third time. Still great stuff but then I took a look at the extras. There were the usual gladhanding accolades by Bird and the rest of the fun-lovin' crew at Pixar. However, the real gems were the intentionally lousy Mr. Incredible cartoon series from the 60s with commentary from an outraged Frozone and rationalizing Mr. I, and the hilarious voice clips of the various superheroes including Mr. I and his wife, Elastigirl. Holly Hunter and Craig T. Nelson should be picking up more bonuses for their work. Just a great DVD to have.

Still gotta find out from The Class Act and SIL if I'm still supposed to see them tomorrow. If not, it'll just be The Company.