Tuesday June 14, 10:22 p.m.
Had another shortened night at the juku. The Siberian canned out due to a supposed fever although I kinda wonder if he's just doing a bit of hooky. Apparently, the juku boss spoke with his mother (I forget that the man, for all his kanji expertise and his status as a juku tutor, is only 19 years old...he hasn't even gone through the Adulthood Day experience) and found out that Mommy was shocked to see her dearest actually making the decision to take off for that 3-week homestay experience in Australia. Mommy said that he's usually so lazy about coming to a decision (no kidding!) but suddenly he had developed a drive. I think the juku boss was trying to tell me that some of my influence was rubbing off onto him although my impression is that The Siberian simply realizes that my class won't cut the mustard when it comes to English education. In any case, I wasn't impressed when the juku boss told me what the plans were for his homestay. Basically the boy will be just one of a rather massive group of Japanese going over for those 3 weeks and that he'll be bunking with one or two others in a house. Considering his nature, I'm not sure if he's gonna pick up a whole lot of English that one.
The Milds got that new classmate tonight. Well, one of them did. Mr. Mild was absent which rather helped matters in terms of acclimating the kid. I will call her The Poppy. She's this rather adorable high school girl who used to be the boss' student in the other room a couple of years ago. I vaguely recall her back in my early days there. Apparently, the girl was a quivering wallflower back then but she's certainly a lot more giddy now. She's got a job at a neighbourhood McDonalds so after having Mrs Mild and her do a bit of "getting to know you", I decided to go with a role-play of her taking care of foreign customers at her workplace which seems to be one of the reasons that she's hooked up with my class. Not a high student by any means but it looks like Mrs Mild treated her like a surrogate daughter so that's a good sign.
The juku boss had a little talk with me after the lesson. She said she would like to increase my salary...always a nice thing to hear (never heard that at all in 7 years at the old school, although the management finally...grudgingly...raised it a bit a few years ago) but she needs to get more students. She offered to try and get some sort of adult class in the afternoon sometime. Well, since I'm starting to balk about going to the gym between the Beehive and the juku due to the large amount of baggage I have to carry I countered that I could teach during the Tuesday afternoon hours. Man, when I get students, I get them in bunches.
Well, gonna hit the hay early since I've gotta finally pay those taxes tomorrow. And then I hit the gym for the first time in 2 weeks. Then, I've got my usual crew of The Hawaiian and Student 001.
Just a place to deposit my thoughts on life here in the Kanto and about anything else that sticks to my walls.
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Monday, June 13, 2005
Tuesday June 14, 2:20 p.m.
I finally got in contact with the guy. After a lot of hemming and hawing for 5 minutes, we decided that I'll just come over to the tax office early tomorrow morning and pay the amount there. So hopefully by this time 24 hours later, I won't have to worry about taxes at least until next January. Ugh! Now, it's the immigration stuff next.
I finally got in contact with the guy. After a lot of hemming and hawing for 5 minutes, we decided that I'll just come over to the tax office early tomorrow morning and pay the amount there. So hopefully by this time 24 hours later, I won't have to worry about taxes at least until next January. Ugh! Now, it's the immigration stuff next.
Tuesday June 14, 1:49 p.m.
Had the full crew of the Beehive today. Actually got to do some work with the text today. The ladies were shaking their heads in disbelief when they'd heard about the Jackson verdict. And now I'm hearing that a lot of the jurors believe that he IS a molester but that the proof wasn't in the pudding. And apparently about half of the polled also feel the same way. I don't think it's quite over yet. I'm rather wondering where that family of grifters is now. Maybe they quickly skipped town to lay low before trying another con.
My tax odyssey continues. I tried calling that fellow who has apparently steered me wrong by saying that I could just show up at my bank branch and pay the taxes by just asking. Well, he's not there and I've called him twice. I'll give it one more shot and then I'll have to try that tax consultant whose name I got. It's rather frustrating.
Had the full crew of the Beehive today. Actually got to do some work with the text today. The ladies were shaking their heads in disbelief when they'd heard about the Jackson verdict. And now I'm hearing that a lot of the jurors believe that he IS a molester but that the proof wasn't in the pudding. And apparently about half of the polled also feel the same way. I don't think it's quite over yet. I'm rather wondering where that family of grifters is now. Maybe they quickly skipped town to lay low before trying another con.
My tax odyssey continues. I tried calling that fellow who has apparently steered me wrong by saying that I could just show up at my bank branch and pay the taxes by just asking. Well, he's not there and I've called him twice. I'll give it one more shot and then I'll have to try that tax consultant whose name I got. It's rather frustrating.
Tuesday June 14, 7:42 p.m.
Well, I literally woke up to hear a barely-heard Fuji-TV reporter announce that Michael Jackson was found innocent on all counts. There is joy in Neverland! To be honest, I didn't think that Jackson would have been able to survive but that he did. I got up a few minutes later and switched over to CNN where of course it was a media circus to match all the llamas and Ferris wheels that could be found in Jackson's modest abode. It must've been a huge decision since the news has been given its full court press on Lou Dobbs of all shows. The crusader against illegal immigration ceded to the King of Pop!
Jeffrey Toobin spouted some stuff which made me wonder if he's just as naive as Michael Jackson. He was bleating about the fact that the media had already judged Jackson guilty months before today's verdict due to all the salacious gossip and accusations. Well, in a 24-hour news cycle world, Jeffrey, the sad fact of the matter is that every bit of that gossip fuels the CNN, BBC and MSNBC machines as well as all of those magazines and rags from TIME to The National Enquirer. As long as people's livelihoods are involved, you can bet that all of the speculation or mis-speculation will continue.
In any case, the court case of the decade is now over. Michael Jackson can now go home and play and the rest of us can go back to our originally scheduled lives.
Well, I literally woke up to hear a barely-heard Fuji-TV reporter announce that Michael Jackson was found innocent on all counts. There is joy in Neverland! To be honest, I didn't think that Jackson would have been able to survive but that he did. I got up a few minutes later and switched over to CNN where of course it was a media circus to match all the llamas and Ferris wheels that could be found in Jackson's modest abode. It must've been a huge decision since the news has been given its full court press on Lou Dobbs of all shows. The crusader against illegal immigration ceded to the King of Pop!
Jeffrey Toobin spouted some stuff which made me wonder if he's just as naive as Michael Jackson. He was bleating about the fact that the media had already judged Jackson guilty months before today's verdict due to all the salacious gossip and accusations. Well, in a 24-hour news cycle world, Jeffrey, the sad fact of the matter is that every bit of that gossip fuels the CNN, BBC and MSNBC machines as well as all of those magazines and rags from TIME to The National Enquirer. As long as people's livelihoods are involved, you can bet that all of the speculation or mis-speculation will continue.
In any case, the court case of the decade is now over. Michael Jackson can now go home and play and the rest of us can go back to our originally scheduled lives.
Monday June 13, 8:55 p.m.
Cool but humid today. Still broke out in a good sweat. Despite the coolness, my apartment was back emulating an oven. I think the menu was roast pig when I got in.
Well, it was just The Matron at the mansion today, and she was 20 minutes late. Mind you, I did give her the full hour and a half. As is usually the case when I just have her, we eschewed the text and gabbed. Looks like her daughter will be the newest member of my ever-burgeoning flock of sheep. I managed to squeeze her in for Mondays right after The Company at the nearest Starbucks. My only problem is that I found out that that branch closes up at 8 p.m. instead of the Toranomon's more generous time of 9. Looks like once the daughter contacts me, I'll have to propose another site. Maybe we'll have to make it the upstairs Dennys, although I'm not sure how busy that place will be since it is a place to have dinner. Hmmm...what to do.
I went up to Huong Viet, the Vietnamese restaurant that The Madame, myself and a bunch of others from the old school went to a couple of years ago. I went for the reservations but stayed for the buffet. Pretty darn good, too, for a thousand yen. I had my fill of curry, mabo dofu, pho and assorted meats. I thought the rice was a little overly saffronized, though. However, it's just a small quibble. Not too many people there which was nice but then again I got there around 1:30, probably a good half-hour after the last of the lunch hour crowd had gone back to work. There was a video running of some Vietnamese popsters singing stuff like a cover of Kylie Minogue's recent dance hit. Not too much different from the stuff we get over here. I did get those reservations in at the cashier. I rather like my technique of making reservations directly at the restaurant. I can test the fare before I commit. Luckily, Huong Viet passes muster easily. Also, the place works as an alternate place for lunch on the occasional day that SIL doesn't come for her lesson AND The Chef can't make one of his creations. And in addition, it and Hansens are both within rock-throwing distance of The Company.
Afterwards, I did a bit of a walk to lessen my load; I usually don't hold back on buffets which is why I haven't gone to too many recently. I stopped off at a CD shop before taking a look at the old Kinokuniya store on the main Shinjuku strip. Then, I just walked it back to the Starbucks near The Company for a Tazo Chai Tea Latte.
I got to the Company at about 4:30, my usual arrival time. Junior showed how much of a class act he was by standing up and thanking me for helping out on those translations. There was a story behind that after all. Apparently, the sad sack of The Company, a guy whom The Iconoclast despised and whom The Prez regularly used as the staff whipping boy, finally got the axe several days before. As his last assignment, HE was supposed to have done those translations as The Company's only member with passable English ability. But apparently true to form, he left without doing a stitch of the work thereby necessitating my help. My very cynical mind tells me that the sad sack decided to use of one of The Seven Deadly Sins as a farewell present. As one of my adages goes: "It's always the quiet one..." The lesson itself was a run-of-the-mill operation with the one student who isn't Junior. As usual, not the greatest performance but we kept things going with some amiable talk amongst the work.
Got home not needing to have any dinner. I knew having that voluminous buffet was good for a reason. The Madame called up to say that Coca, that Chinese restaurant in Yurakucho, will be a good place for dinner on Thursday. I've sent out the blanket announcement concerning the dinner reservations for Sunday and even a little note about seeing "Revenge of the Sith" on the 10th.
Looks like I'm gonna have to get started on those plans for tomorrow. And I'll have to talk with Mrs. Travel about my tax situation. I'll see what she says about that tax consultant the tax office referred me to. If everything's OK, I'll see if I can make an appointment for Thursday morning or so.
Cool but humid today. Still broke out in a good sweat. Despite the coolness, my apartment was back emulating an oven. I think the menu was roast pig when I got in.
Well, it was just The Matron at the mansion today, and she was 20 minutes late. Mind you, I did give her the full hour and a half. As is usually the case when I just have her, we eschewed the text and gabbed. Looks like her daughter will be the newest member of my ever-burgeoning flock of sheep. I managed to squeeze her in for Mondays right after The Company at the nearest Starbucks. My only problem is that I found out that that branch closes up at 8 p.m. instead of the Toranomon's more generous time of 9. Looks like once the daughter contacts me, I'll have to propose another site. Maybe we'll have to make it the upstairs Dennys, although I'm not sure how busy that place will be since it is a place to have dinner. Hmmm...what to do.
I went up to Huong Viet, the Vietnamese restaurant that The Madame, myself and a bunch of others from the old school went to a couple of years ago. I went for the reservations but stayed for the buffet. Pretty darn good, too, for a thousand yen. I had my fill of curry, mabo dofu, pho and assorted meats. I thought the rice was a little overly saffronized, though. However, it's just a small quibble. Not too many people there which was nice but then again I got there around 1:30, probably a good half-hour after the last of the lunch hour crowd had gone back to work. There was a video running of some Vietnamese popsters singing stuff like a cover of Kylie Minogue's recent dance hit. Not too much different from the stuff we get over here. I did get those reservations in at the cashier. I rather like my technique of making reservations directly at the restaurant. I can test the fare before I commit. Luckily, Huong Viet passes muster easily. Also, the place works as an alternate place for lunch on the occasional day that SIL doesn't come for her lesson AND The Chef can't make one of his creations. And in addition, it and Hansens are both within rock-throwing distance of The Company.
Afterwards, I did a bit of a walk to lessen my load; I usually don't hold back on buffets which is why I haven't gone to too many recently. I stopped off at a CD shop before taking a look at the old Kinokuniya store on the main Shinjuku strip. Then, I just walked it back to the Starbucks near The Company for a Tazo Chai Tea Latte.
I got to the Company at about 4:30, my usual arrival time. Junior showed how much of a class act he was by standing up and thanking me for helping out on those translations. There was a story behind that after all. Apparently, the sad sack of The Company, a guy whom The Iconoclast despised and whom The Prez regularly used as the staff whipping boy, finally got the axe several days before. As his last assignment, HE was supposed to have done those translations as The Company's only member with passable English ability. But apparently true to form, he left without doing a stitch of the work thereby necessitating my help. My very cynical mind tells me that the sad sack decided to use of one of The Seven Deadly Sins as a farewell present. As one of my adages goes: "It's always the quiet one..." The lesson itself was a run-of-the-mill operation with the one student who isn't Junior. As usual, not the greatest performance but we kept things going with some amiable talk amongst the work.
Got home not needing to have any dinner. I knew having that voluminous buffet was good for a reason. The Madame called up to say that Coca, that Chinese restaurant in Yurakucho, will be a good place for dinner on Thursday. I've sent out the blanket announcement concerning the dinner reservations for Sunday and even a little note about seeing "Revenge of the Sith" on the 10th.
Looks like I'm gonna have to get started on those plans for tomorrow. And I'll have to talk with Mrs. Travel about my tax situation. I'll see what she says about that tax consultant the tax office referred me to. If everything's OK, I'll see if I can make an appointment for Thursday morning or so.
Sunday, June 12, 2005
Monday June 13, 8:22 a.m.
Yesterday was a rather hot and humid affair. I actually had to turn on the air conditioner for the first time this year but in deference to the exhortations of the government to prevent global warming, I've done my part and kept the temperature up at about 28 C. That might sound as if I was using the air con for no purpose. However, when my place actually can go into the high 30s easily, 28 is not too bad at all and it actually did feel rather cool...and not cold. In previous years, I've turned on the cooler at the frigid temp of 15 C and ended up having to shut down the bloody thing 30 minutes later due to frostbite.
Mom called me up...well, gave me a wake-up call. As mothers usually do, she advised me to put all those pancake mixes into the fridge so that the flour bugs don't get at them. She also told me that my sister-in-law is starting to show a little bump now. According to the doctor, there's an 80% chance that the newest arrival to the family will be a niece.
Basically my day just revolved around getting those translations finally done for The Prez. I gratefully sent them off yesterday and I should know the truth of my actions when I go to The Company today.
Looks like "The War of the Worlds" gang is in Tokyo. Spielberg, Cruise and Fanning all arrived with their smiles on "Full" mode at Narita. Of course, tons of people were out there to greet them. I'm sure Dakota Fanning may find her trip here to be a bit like Alice in Wonderland.
And finally, it looks like The Madam and I have started our renewed relationship on a good and fresh note. We are now the proud parents of a friendship. I can't believe all the drama that we've had on e-mail. I haven't even met the lady yet. But that will change since I may be seeing her on Thursday. Still not quite sure what to make of this
Yesterday was a rather hot and humid affair. I actually had to turn on the air conditioner for the first time this year but in deference to the exhortations of the government to prevent global warming, I've done my part and kept the temperature up at about 28 C. That might sound as if I was using the air con for no purpose. However, when my place actually can go into the high 30s easily, 28 is not too bad at all and it actually did feel rather cool...and not cold. In previous years, I've turned on the cooler at the frigid temp of 15 C and ended up having to shut down the bloody thing 30 minutes later due to frostbite.
Mom called me up...well, gave me a wake-up call. As mothers usually do, she advised me to put all those pancake mixes into the fridge so that the flour bugs don't get at them. She also told me that my sister-in-law is starting to show a little bump now. According to the doctor, there's an 80% chance that the newest arrival to the family will be a niece.
Basically my day just revolved around getting those translations finally done for The Prez. I gratefully sent them off yesterday and I should know the truth of my actions when I go to The Company today.
Looks like "The War of the Worlds" gang is in Tokyo. Spielberg, Cruise and Fanning all arrived with their smiles on "Full" mode at Narita. Of course, tons of people were out there to greet them. I'm sure Dakota Fanning may find her trip here to be a bit like Alice in Wonderland.
And finally, it looks like The Madam and I have started our renewed relationship on a good and fresh note. We are now the proud parents of a friendship. I can't believe all the drama that we've had on e-mail. I haven't even met the lady yet. But that will change since I may be seeing her on Thursday. Still not quite sure what to make of this
Saturday, June 11, 2005
Saturday June 11, 11:54 p.m.
I had another bit of annoyance at the kids' house today. Once again, the mother had forgotten to inform me that the elder sister couldn't make it for her lesson anymore due to the demands of her volleyball club. I realize she's a busy woman but I could've done without some of the extra books in my bag. Still, I was pretty gracious about the whole thing.
Killed two birds with one stone afterwards. I went to Shinjuku to: 1) have lunch at Hansen's, that Coney Island hot dog shop, and 2) search out that Vietnamese restaurant The Madame was all ga-ga about. I'll probably case the joint out again on Monday since SIL has cancelled her lesson. If all goes well, I'll make the reservations.
Most of the remaining time was spent at Tower Records. Looks like there's a permanent fixture in Shinjuku in the form of a mentally retarded fellow who barks at the top of his lungs. It's the third time I've seen him in the area in the past number of months. This time, he was stomping around, yelping like a Schnauzer on the upper floors of Tower Records. Of course, there was the usual moment of freeze until staff and customers figured out who he was.
It was about a little after 4 when I decided to take the long way around the Oedo Line to head for Tony Romas since the reservations were for 5. If I'd taken the shorter way around the loop, I would've just ended up walking around the boring old Tameike-Sanno neighbourhood for several minutes until dinner time. However, the long route wasn't exactly a smart decision either since I miscalculated how long it would take. I had to get off a stop early and make a quick transfer to the Ginza Line so that I could get to TR a minute after 5.
Not surprisingly, Boop and OL were already there. Dinner there more than made up for that rather disappointing outing at TGIFridays 6 weeks ago. The ribs were excellent; once again, I ordered the large plate while the ladies shared the same dish. It was basically a dinner that would blow out any progress that a dieter may have had in the previous 6 days. Dessert consisted of sharing a brownie which we downed with a trio of Irish Coffees. The talk must have been fun...we ended up staying there for 5 hours. During that time, the OL showed us her digital pics from her trip to Rhode Island during Golden Week. After all that, we made plans for our next culinary outing. It'll probably be at the end of July (around Eel Day) at an eel restaurant that the ladies raved about.
Well, memories of a good dinner went down the drain when I got word from The Madame. I'd had a feeling, albeit a tiny one, that she would be trouble. And sure enough, the past few conversations have led us to a conclusion that was painfully embarrassing for me...doubly so since it was my fault. Without getting into much detail, I can say that romance just plain stinks.
I had another bit of annoyance at the kids' house today. Once again, the mother had forgotten to inform me that the elder sister couldn't make it for her lesson anymore due to the demands of her volleyball club. I realize she's a busy woman but I could've done without some of the extra books in my bag. Still, I was pretty gracious about the whole thing.
Killed two birds with one stone afterwards. I went to Shinjuku to: 1) have lunch at Hansen's, that Coney Island hot dog shop, and 2) search out that Vietnamese restaurant The Madame was all ga-ga about. I'll probably case the joint out again on Monday since SIL has cancelled her lesson. If all goes well, I'll make the reservations.
Most of the remaining time was spent at Tower Records. Looks like there's a permanent fixture in Shinjuku in the form of a mentally retarded fellow who barks at the top of his lungs. It's the third time I've seen him in the area in the past number of months. This time, he was stomping around, yelping like a Schnauzer on the upper floors of Tower Records. Of course, there was the usual moment of freeze until staff and customers figured out who he was.
It was about a little after 4 when I decided to take the long way around the Oedo Line to head for Tony Romas since the reservations were for 5. If I'd taken the shorter way around the loop, I would've just ended up walking around the boring old Tameike-Sanno neighbourhood for several minutes until dinner time. However, the long route wasn't exactly a smart decision either since I miscalculated how long it would take. I had to get off a stop early and make a quick transfer to the Ginza Line so that I could get to TR a minute after 5.
Not surprisingly, Boop and OL were already there. Dinner there more than made up for that rather disappointing outing at TGIFridays 6 weeks ago. The ribs were excellent; once again, I ordered the large plate while the ladies shared the same dish. It was basically a dinner that would blow out any progress that a dieter may have had in the previous 6 days. Dessert consisted of sharing a brownie which we downed with a trio of Irish Coffees. The talk must have been fun...we ended up staying there for 5 hours. During that time, the OL showed us her digital pics from her trip to Rhode Island during Golden Week. After all that, we made plans for our next culinary outing. It'll probably be at the end of July (around Eel Day) at an eel restaurant that the ladies raved about.
Well, memories of a good dinner went down the drain when I got word from The Madame. I'd had a feeling, albeit a tiny one, that she would be trouble. And sure enough, the past few conversations have led us to a conclusion that was painfully embarrassing for me...doubly so since it was my fault. Without getting into much detail, I can say that romance just plain stinks.
Friday, June 10, 2005
Friday June 10, 10:08 p.m.
Yep, as expected the rains did fall. My umbrella is drying out in the bathtub as I type. Not much to say about today's lessons. It was the usual with The Teacher and SR. Finally got to see The OL for the first time in a few weeks since she's been rather busy of late after her transfer to the business travel section of her company. Despite our respective absence from the Starbucks, the manager came running out to help me when I couldn't get my brolley into the automatic umbrella wrapping machine out front. Yes, over here it's customary to wrap one's umbrella in a big condom (as some of the gaijin so rakishly describe the plastic wrappers) so that you don't carry in a whole bunch of moisture into a store or eating establishment. So typically neat of the Japanese but in these days of environmental awareness, the tons of plastic used to make these condoms must be a hindrance. Well, before I digress too far...my umbrella is a foldable, a bit too thick to fit into the condom (ahem!).
Anyways, the OL came about 75 minutes later. She wasn't too worse for wear considering her 3-week absence. In fact, in the past month and a half, I've only seen her twice due to the new demands of her work schedule. She is indeed looking forward to that big rib eatoff at Tony Romas tomorrow..as am I. However, she's told me that there's a good possibility that she can only see me on alternating Fridays due to her work. It would be a pity since she's been one of my most dedicated students since I started freelancing. But on the other hand, there could be an opening for The Matron's daughter. I'll have to talk with the OL about this.
Got home to find another letter in my box from the tax office. Once again, my blood pressure shot up. Now what? Well, apparently I had informed the guys there that I could use a tax consultant so the office sent me the name of someone who could help me. In retrospect, this could be a blessing in disguise since I do need to find out what the heck is going on with my taxes. Do I or don't I pay? Well, the answer may be a phone call away.
Some rather strange e-mail exchanges have been going on between me and The Madam since our "friendship" of sorts got re-started a week ago. I swear that she was coming onto me...well, not that like that...but she seemed to be angling for a date of sorts. And after all that bluster from me about not having a single chance to ever get a GF again. Well, I responded by directly asking her if those are indeed her intentions. Rather weird since she's been dating a Chinese guy for the last little while although she has admitted that it probably won't last too much longer. BTW, she gave me the address for The Delta so I could contact her about the movie plans on the 19th.
I got a message from The Prez. He's given me a bit of breathing room concering the increased pile of translating. I can just talk to him about it on Monday when I get back to class at The Company. That'll help me a lot since I've gotta plan for the kids' lessons tomorrow.
And finally the Teacher came back to me with some information about how to write on PDFs. Nice to have another person in my corner.
Yep, as expected the rains did fall. My umbrella is drying out in the bathtub as I type. Not much to say about today's lessons. It was the usual with The Teacher and SR. Finally got to see The OL for the first time in a few weeks since she's been rather busy of late after her transfer to the business travel section of her company. Despite our respective absence from the Starbucks, the manager came running out to help me when I couldn't get my brolley into the automatic umbrella wrapping machine out front. Yes, over here it's customary to wrap one's umbrella in a big condom (as some of the gaijin so rakishly describe the plastic wrappers) so that you don't carry in a whole bunch of moisture into a store or eating establishment. So typically neat of the Japanese but in these days of environmental awareness, the tons of plastic used to make these condoms must be a hindrance. Well, before I digress too far...my umbrella is a foldable, a bit too thick to fit into the condom (ahem!).
Anyways, the OL came about 75 minutes later. She wasn't too worse for wear considering her 3-week absence. In fact, in the past month and a half, I've only seen her twice due to the new demands of her work schedule. She is indeed looking forward to that big rib eatoff at Tony Romas tomorrow..as am I. However, she's told me that there's a good possibility that she can only see me on alternating Fridays due to her work. It would be a pity since she's been one of my most dedicated students since I started freelancing. But on the other hand, there could be an opening for The Matron's daughter. I'll have to talk with the OL about this.
Got home to find another letter in my box from the tax office. Once again, my blood pressure shot up. Now what? Well, apparently I had informed the guys there that I could use a tax consultant so the office sent me the name of someone who could help me. In retrospect, this could be a blessing in disguise since I do need to find out what the heck is going on with my taxes. Do I or don't I pay? Well, the answer may be a phone call away.
Some rather strange e-mail exchanges have been going on between me and The Madam since our "friendship" of sorts got re-started a week ago. I swear that she was coming onto me...well, not that like that...but she seemed to be angling for a date of sorts. And after all that bluster from me about not having a single chance to ever get a GF again. Well, I responded by directly asking her if those are indeed her intentions. Rather weird since she's been dating a Chinese guy for the last little while although she has admitted that it probably won't last too much longer. BTW, she gave me the address for The Delta so I could contact her about the movie plans on the 19th.
I got a message from The Prez. He's given me a bit of breathing room concering the increased pile of translating. I can just talk to him about it on Monday when I get back to class at The Company. That'll help me a lot since I've gotta plan for the kids' lessons tomorrow.
And finally the Teacher came back to me with some information about how to write on PDFs. Nice to have another person in my corner.
Thursday, June 09, 2005
Friday June 10, 9:21 a.m.
As expected, it looks pretty overcast out there. The rains should be coming soon. I still did my laundry, though, but they're all hanging inside the apartment. May get a bit humid later on then.
I listened to Josh Groban singing the album version of the theme from "Enterprise". It was interesting that here is this guy who usually sings pop opera giving a Rod Stewart (I initially thought it could've been Stewart singing the tune) spin on an actual vocalized Star Trek tune. Compared to the TV version, which is also on the album, the album version of "Where My Heart Will Take Me" is of course longer and has a lot more strings. Reading the liner notes, I now know that any resemblance between this song and the Aerosmith power ballad from "Armageddon" was purely intentional. As for the rest of the disc, the only other notable track was "Archer's Theme", the only tune that actually sounds like it should belong in a motion picture. The rest is generic Star Trek background music. Scott Bakula ought to be flattered. None of the other captains, even Kirk, got their own theme song. Somewhere, William Shatner is grumbling...along to "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" probably.
Well, no cancellation call from The OL, so it looks like I have my three classes today.
As expected, it looks pretty overcast out there. The rains should be coming soon. I still did my laundry, though, but they're all hanging inside the apartment. May get a bit humid later on then.
I listened to Josh Groban singing the album version of the theme from "Enterprise". It was interesting that here is this guy who usually sings pop opera giving a Rod Stewart (I initially thought it could've been Stewart singing the tune) spin on an actual vocalized Star Trek tune. Compared to the TV version, which is also on the album, the album version of "Where My Heart Will Take Me" is of course longer and has a lot more strings. Reading the liner notes, I now know that any resemblance between this song and the Aerosmith power ballad from "Armageddon" was purely intentional. As for the rest of the disc, the only other notable track was "Archer's Theme", the only tune that actually sounds like it should belong in a motion picture. The rest is generic Star Trek background music. Scott Bakula ought to be flattered. None of the other captains, even Kirk, got their own theme song. Somewhere, William Shatner is grumbling...along to "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" probably.
Well, no cancellation call from The OL, so it looks like I have my three classes today.
Thursday June 9, 10:24 p.m.
Pretty busy day today. I had my appointment at the new hairsalon. The crew is all male, and I think one of the guys plays for the other team. There was also a kindly motherly type woman there who served me some cold pekoe tea. There were already two customers...middle-aged women...in the seats talking up a storm with the guys. It would actually be 20 minutes before I actually got my turn for which my cutter apologized profusely. Good marks already.
The experience was overall a good one. Got my usual relaxing shampoo and scalp massage along with the cut. It felt slightly weird having a bunch of guys in the once-all-female establishment, and especially without the old owner chatting my ear off in her happy-go-lucky voice. However, the two guys who handled my cut and shampoo had a good talk with me, and I left as a repeat customer.
Then, came the latest chapter in what is becoming another annoying phase in this seesaw game involving my taxes. I went down to my branch of UFJ and talked with the lone native English speaker. I told her...twice...about my situation and that the figures listed on the sheet that I'd given her were not in the right position. After about 10 minutes of consulting with the in-house guy in charge of taxes, she came back and insisted that I was supposed to be getting money back. I told her finally with a slight sense of resignation about this seesaw game for which she gave me a sympathetic smile but little else...not that I could expect her to do much about the situation anyways. Still, I'm left in fiscal limbo. I could tell Mrs. Travel once more but she's busy right now with her first grandson; I could tell the tax office guy what happened but I'm afraid that he may complicate matters further. So I'll have to wait and see at least for the weekend.
I walked up the slope up to Roppongi Hills to check about advance tickets for "Revenge of the Sith" but it looks like they're only handling the special preview for the 25th at this point. I'm headed for Karuizawa anyways on that weekend.
I ended up going to the Tony Romas where the OL, Betty Boop and I are supposed to have our ribs this Saturday. Might as well kill two birds with one stone. I needed lunch and I had to make the reservations. I gotta admit about TR...it's the only restaurant in town where the actual dish is bigger than the picture on the menu. I ordered the lunch special of spicy chicken sandwich; pretty hefty fellow. But since I was hungry, I was able to polish it off with little problem. And with the soup (a weak minestrone) and a small dessert with coffee, it was quite reasonable at a little under 2000 yen. I made the reservations at the cashier and everything is now good to go.
Afterwards, I took the train up to Ginza. I had about 5 hours to kill before meeting The Carolinan so I took a look through Yamano Music again for the second time in as many weeks. This time, I did succumb to my whims and bought a CD. I actually bought the soundtrack to "Enterprise". I guess I am a sucker for that "ode to a coffee commercial" theme song. I even went up the street to HMV Yurakucho. I saw the soundtrack for "Batman Begins". Talk about your pretentious score titles...the entries seemed to be named after some various species of bats, I assume. Gahhh....I hope the movie is a whole lot better although The Japan Times reviewer has already given it a pretty lame score; mind you, he seems to hate comic book movies as a rule which makes him persona non grata in my eyes.
The lesson with The Carolinan went well. Looks like she's rarin' to go to America with her sister this weekend. Only worked on her speech and a bit of grammar. I wish them well.
Got home tired. I decided to continue on my sadomasochistic course by checking my e-mail. Just when I thought that I only needed to translate those two files from The Company, Junior called up to tell me that there are 12 more pages coming. Looks like that idea about my faxing the translations over was a bust. The faxes arrived there half cut off. In any case, with the added caseload, I'll have to inform them that I probably won't be able to get them done until the end of the weekend at the earliest, and that's if I devote my entire Sunday to the project.
The Hawaiian continued to show what an angel she is by calling up the theatre to find out the times for "Batman Begins" on the 19th. Looks like we'll go for 1 o'clock. The Madame will be out of luck since she'll be working until 2:30. I don't particularly think that she was much of a superhero movie type anyways. Speaking of her, I gave her a bit of an earful in our last correspondence about my prospects for getting a girlfriend....not that I aimed any vitriol at her; just told her that knowing my personality, I think I'm all out of options here. But maybe a miracle may happen....then again, I don't believe in them much either. I laughed somewhat bitterly when she told me that I didn't have to change my personality to attract any woman. Everyone knows that a relationship is full of compromises. I refused to compromise on some of the key ones and that's why my ex is an ex.
Unless the OL gives me a phone call tomorrow, I should be able to see her again for her lesson. It'll be a late one though of 7:30 p.m. since she's started her new position in a different department this week. Could be a bit tight since I have to teach the kids on Saturday.
Well, I frankly doubt I'll be doing any translation work tonight. I just wanna listen to the soundtrack I bought and then hit the hay.
Could be a stormy one tomorrow since Typhoon 4 is gonna brush past us.
Pretty busy day today. I had my appointment at the new hairsalon. The crew is all male, and I think one of the guys plays for the other team. There was also a kindly motherly type woman there who served me some cold pekoe tea. There were already two customers...middle-aged women...in the seats talking up a storm with the guys. It would actually be 20 minutes before I actually got my turn for which my cutter apologized profusely. Good marks already.
The experience was overall a good one. Got my usual relaxing shampoo and scalp massage along with the cut. It felt slightly weird having a bunch of guys in the once-all-female establishment, and especially without the old owner chatting my ear off in her happy-go-lucky voice. However, the two guys who handled my cut and shampoo had a good talk with me, and I left as a repeat customer.
Then, came the latest chapter in what is becoming another annoying phase in this seesaw game involving my taxes. I went down to my branch of UFJ and talked with the lone native English speaker. I told her...twice...about my situation and that the figures listed on the sheet that I'd given her were not in the right position. After about 10 minutes of consulting with the in-house guy in charge of taxes, she came back and insisted that I was supposed to be getting money back. I told her finally with a slight sense of resignation about this seesaw game for which she gave me a sympathetic smile but little else...not that I could expect her to do much about the situation anyways. Still, I'm left in fiscal limbo. I could tell Mrs. Travel once more but she's busy right now with her first grandson; I could tell the tax office guy what happened but I'm afraid that he may complicate matters further. So I'll have to wait and see at least for the weekend.
I walked up the slope up to Roppongi Hills to check about advance tickets for "Revenge of the Sith" but it looks like they're only handling the special preview for the 25th at this point. I'm headed for Karuizawa anyways on that weekend.
I ended up going to the Tony Romas where the OL, Betty Boop and I are supposed to have our ribs this Saturday. Might as well kill two birds with one stone. I needed lunch and I had to make the reservations. I gotta admit about TR...it's the only restaurant in town where the actual dish is bigger than the picture on the menu. I ordered the lunch special of spicy chicken sandwich; pretty hefty fellow. But since I was hungry, I was able to polish it off with little problem. And with the soup (a weak minestrone) and a small dessert with coffee, it was quite reasonable at a little under 2000 yen. I made the reservations at the cashier and everything is now good to go.
Afterwards, I took the train up to Ginza. I had about 5 hours to kill before meeting The Carolinan so I took a look through Yamano Music again for the second time in as many weeks. This time, I did succumb to my whims and bought a CD. I actually bought the soundtrack to "Enterprise". I guess I am a sucker for that "ode to a coffee commercial" theme song. I even went up the street to HMV Yurakucho. I saw the soundtrack for "Batman Begins". Talk about your pretentious score titles...the entries seemed to be named after some various species of bats, I assume. Gahhh....I hope the movie is a whole lot better although The Japan Times reviewer has already given it a pretty lame score; mind you, he seems to hate comic book movies as a rule which makes him persona non grata in my eyes.
The lesson with The Carolinan went well. Looks like she's rarin' to go to America with her sister this weekend. Only worked on her speech and a bit of grammar. I wish them well.
Got home tired. I decided to continue on my sadomasochistic course by checking my e-mail. Just when I thought that I only needed to translate those two files from The Company, Junior called up to tell me that there are 12 more pages coming. Looks like that idea about my faxing the translations over was a bust. The faxes arrived there half cut off. In any case, with the added caseload, I'll have to inform them that I probably won't be able to get them done until the end of the weekend at the earliest, and that's if I devote my entire Sunday to the project.
The Hawaiian continued to show what an angel she is by calling up the theatre to find out the times for "Batman Begins" on the 19th. Looks like we'll go for 1 o'clock. The Madame will be out of luck since she'll be working until 2:30. I don't particularly think that she was much of a superhero movie type anyways. Speaking of her, I gave her a bit of an earful in our last correspondence about my prospects for getting a girlfriend....not that I aimed any vitriol at her; just told her that knowing my personality, I think I'm all out of options here. But maybe a miracle may happen....then again, I don't believe in them much either. I laughed somewhat bitterly when she told me that I didn't have to change my personality to attract any woman. Everyone knows that a relationship is full of compromises. I refused to compromise on some of the key ones and that's why my ex is an ex.
Unless the OL gives me a phone call tomorrow, I should be able to see her again for her lesson. It'll be a late one though of 7:30 p.m. since she's started her new position in a different department this week. Could be a bit tight since I have to teach the kids on Saturday.
Well, I frankly doubt I'll be doing any translation work tonight. I just wanna listen to the soundtrack I bought and then hit the hay.
Could be a stormy one tomorrow since Typhoon 4 is gonna brush past us.
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Thursday June 9, 12:11 a.m.
I'm sure the beer must have tasted better, the banter must have been happier and the ride home more comfortable tonight. Why? The Japanese soccer team earned their ticket into the World Cup tonight by handily beating North Korea 2-0. I would love to hear the Kim-controlled media try to spin this one...I'm sure they will come up with something like Japanese government agents spiked the water on the North Korean side. For the most part, Japan took the play into the North Korean side much more often than vice versa so it wasn't really too much of a nailbiter. The only contentious part was when one of the North Korean side tried to stomp one of the Japanese players' heads late in the game when he was accidentally thumped by a leg. It was already in loss time so the refs quickly called it a game soon after so that there wouldn't be any additional diplomatic incidents. Japan is still in the Asian doghouse.
I watched the game live at Speedy's after my class with 001. From the second half on, it was us plus The Receptionist watching the game in the beautifully appointed lounge. The ladies were quite squeaky at every little bump and grind. I only reacted when the first goal was scored; it was a beaut.
The only thing I didn't like was the overly rah-rah commentary by the TV Asahi crew after the game. I mean, the Americans are usually the masters of sports propaganda. But the Japanese can dish out the bull like the best of them. It frankly got too sickening for me (hello, Mr. Kabira) so I switched off the volume.
Looks like we're getting quite the army for "Batman Begins" on the 19th. Movie Buddy, Satyr, Skippy, The Hawaiian, The Madam and perhaps even the Delta will be getting together.
Well, I still have to take a look at the final document from The Company. Not sure if I'll be able to get it in by Thursday since I've got a pretty busy lineup despite having only one lesson with The Carolinan.
I'm sure the beer must have tasted better, the banter must have been happier and the ride home more comfortable tonight. Why? The Japanese soccer team earned their ticket into the World Cup tonight by handily beating North Korea 2-0. I would love to hear the Kim-controlled media try to spin this one...I'm sure they will come up with something like Japanese government agents spiked the water on the North Korean side. For the most part, Japan took the play into the North Korean side much more often than vice versa so it wasn't really too much of a nailbiter. The only contentious part was when one of the North Korean side tried to stomp one of the Japanese players' heads late in the game when he was accidentally thumped by a leg. It was already in loss time so the refs quickly called it a game soon after so that there wouldn't be any additional diplomatic incidents. Japan is still in the Asian doghouse.
I watched the game live at Speedy's after my class with 001. From the second half on, it was us plus The Receptionist watching the game in the beautifully appointed lounge. The ladies were quite squeaky at every little bump and grind. I only reacted when the first goal was scored; it was a beaut.
The only thing I didn't like was the overly rah-rah commentary by the TV Asahi crew after the game. I mean, the Americans are usually the masters of sports propaganda. But the Japanese can dish out the bull like the best of them. It frankly got too sickening for me (hello, Mr. Kabira) so I switched off the volume.
Looks like we're getting quite the army for "Batman Begins" on the 19th. Movie Buddy, Satyr, Skippy, The Hawaiian, The Madam and perhaps even the Delta will be getting together.
Well, I still have to take a look at the final document from The Company. Not sure if I'll be able to get it in by Thursday since I've got a pretty busy lineup despite having only one lesson with The Carolinan.
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Wednesday June 8, 10:45 a.m.
I was already awake in my futon but what got me up was a ring from Mrs. Travel concerning my talk with the tax guy. I let her know that he didn't play the late fee card so she didn't have to execute her nuclear option which would've inflicted grievous mental and emotional harm on the guy. He sounded like a decent sort yesterday so I was glad that everything was OK. Still, I gotta make that trip down to the bank and pay up.
Some more signs that summer is almost upon us. I brought out the electric pest repellents for the first time this year. One is now in my living room and was useful in keeping the mosquitoes away. Also, our garbage disposal area downstairs is starting to smell something awful...manna for the flies. Since I live in an apartment building that's usually inhabited by young single men or married guys who have been temporarily transferred here on work, cleanliness is not next to godliness here...and since this is a very secular country...
I got word from Junior at the Company that he got my fax with the first batch of translations. I appreciated the fact that he had appreciated the fact that I'd sent it at 1:30 a..m. in the morning.
Well, I've got the lesson plans done for today. Now, I have just 90 minutes to tackle those other translations for The Company.
Another Hollywood legend has left us, I see. I know Anne Bancroft will be remembered for "The Miracle Worker" and "The Graduate" but I still enjoy her most for her hilarious cameo appearance with hubby Mel Brooks in "Silent Movie". That shot of her hitting her head on the table during the tango scene is priceless.
I was already awake in my futon but what got me up was a ring from Mrs. Travel concerning my talk with the tax guy. I let her know that he didn't play the late fee card so she didn't have to execute her nuclear option which would've inflicted grievous mental and emotional harm on the guy. He sounded like a decent sort yesterday so I was glad that everything was OK. Still, I gotta make that trip down to the bank and pay up.
Some more signs that summer is almost upon us. I brought out the electric pest repellents for the first time this year. One is now in my living room and was useful in keeping the mosquitoes away. Also, our garbage disposal area downstairs is starting to smell something awful...manna for the flies. Since I live in an apartment building that's usually inhabited by young single men or married guys who have been temporarily transferred here on work, cleanliness is not next to godliness here...and since this is a very secular country...
I got word from Junior at the Company that he got my fax with the first batch of translations. I appreciated the fact that he had appreciated the fact that I'd sent it at 1:30 a..m. in the morning.
Well, I've got the lesson plans done for today. Now, I have just 90 minutes to tackle those other translations for The Company.
Another Hollywood legend has left us, I see. I know Anne Bancroft will be remembered for "The Miracle Worker" and "The Graduate" but I still enjoy her most for her hilarious cameo appearance with hubby Mel Brooks in "Silent Movie". That shot of her hitting her head on the table during the tango scene is priceless.
Wednesday June 8, 1:24 a.m.
Well, what am I doing up at this time of night on a weekday? Hmph...just finished the translation for the first file from The Company. Not sure if I did a great job but I did try my best with my supply of dictionaries and an online translation service. I still have to do another two files; one is a PDF with a lot of pictures in it. I'm not sure how I'm gonna pull off that one. Hopefully, it's just there to help me visualize what I'm doing. I should find out pretty early from The Prez and Junior about how I'm doing.
I've decided to give up the gym for later today since I'll probably be cooped up trying to translate the other documents. Plus, I gotta get ready for my other lessons with The Hawaiian and Student 001.
The juku boss told me I may have two high school students crammed in with the Milds from next Tuesday night. I'm not sure if Mr. Mild was too happy with that prospect. I'm not too sure myself. The New Kid was a good 45 minutes late for his lesson today so I just ended up checking his HW and assigning him his next batch of homework. He was basically AWOL since when the juku boss called up his mother, even she was taken aback about where he could be. Luckily, he did show up to say that he got tied up with a school assembly, so he's not in his Mom's doghouse.
Well, later tonight is the big soccer match between Japan and North Korea. If Japan wins or ties the game, they're assured of getting into the World Cup next year. The teams are playing in the neutral country of Thailand since the North Korean fans got a bit uppity with the Iranian team when they played in North Korea months ago (may explain why the Iranian fans were so hostile with Japan when Zico and the gang came callin in Teheran...we probably look all alike to them). As penance, FIFA threw the game over to Thailand. I'm sure a lot of the natives here will be glued to their set. I'm pretty sure that Student 001 will show up, though.
Off to bed then.
Well, what am I doing up at this time of night on a weekday? Hmph...just finished the translation for the first file from The Company. Not sure if I did a great job but I did try my best with my supply of dictionaries and an online translation service. I still have to do another two files; one is a PDF with a lot of pictures in it. I'm not sure how I'm gonna pull off that one. Hopefully, it's just there to help me visualize what I'm doing. I should find out pretty early from The Prez and Junior about how I'm doing.
I've decided to give up the gym for later today since I'll probably be cooped up trying to translate the other documents. Plus, I gotta get ready for my other lessons with The Hawaiian and Student 001.
The juku boss told me I may have two high school students crammed in with the Milds from next Tuesday night. I'm not sure if Mr. Mild was too happy with that prospect. I'm not too sure myself. The New Kid was a good 45 minutes late for his lesson today so I just ended up checking his HW and assigning him his next batch of homework. He was basically AWOL since when the juku boss called up his mother, even she was taken aback about where he could be. Luckily, he did show up to say that he got tied up with a school assembly, so he's not in his Mom's doghouse.
Well, later tonight is the big soccer match between Japan and North Korea. If Japan wins or ties the game, they're assured of getting into the World Cup next year. The teams are playing in the neutral country of Thailand since the North Korean fans got a bit uppity with the Iranian team when they played in North Korea months ago (may explain why the Iranian fans were so hostile with Japan when Zico and the gang came callin in Teheran...we probably look all alike to them). As penance, FIFA threw the game over to Thailand. I'm sure a lot of the natives here will be glued to their set. I'm pretty sure that Student 001 will show up, though.
Off to bed then.
Monday, June 06, 2005
Tuesday June 7, 12:57 p.m.
Well, it's been a good news/bad news day. First, the bad news is that there was yet another mistake in the tax return. After some investigation by Mrs. Travel, I found out that I would have to pay a goodly sum of 120,000 yen in taxes after all (about $1400 CDN). It seems as if that woman at the tax office whom Mrs. Travel referred to as somewhat lacking in imagination, seems to have lacked some additional mental acuity. Still, I thought it was rather too-good-to-be-true that I could actually get money back from the government as a freelancer so I'm not too too upset about it.
On the good news side, I did get my qualification to be a BULATS examiner in the mail. Apparently, a lot of applicants don't get it on their first time, and Speedy could be included in that tally, so it was rather heartening to know that I actually had some smarts in my craft. Now, the only difficult part is to find out those students who need to take the test.
Well, I gotta have lunch and then call up the tax office to find out how I'll have to pay my contribution to the government. The office said that I would have to be slapped with a late fine, something that sticks in my craw since it was they who had screwed things up...twice. Luckily, Mrs. Travel is in my corner on that opinion so if the officer gives me that line, all I have to do is call my student and up and she'll give them Hell. Not sure if she'll be successful or not but it's nice to know that I have someone in my corner. Still, I think any plans for a vacation in Yokohama are pretty much out the window...perhaps. I haven't heard from that lady who had helped me out last year with my two trips so I'm assuming that she's no longer with the agency. Just as well.
Then, I gotta help out on that translation mission for The Company. It doesn't look too difficult but I've seen too much to take things for granted. Luckily, I've basically got my juku classes all planned out last night.
At least on e-mail, it seems as if The Madam and I are back on speaking terms again. She and I trying to get those plans for "Batman Begins" in order for the 19th. Skippy is a possible but she asked me if she would "enjoy" this movie...uhhh...well, if she has to ask me that question, then perhaps she won't. It doesn't matter...Movie Buddy and The Satyr are coming out...I'm satisfied enough with that.
Well, it's been a good news/bad news day. First, the bad news is that there was yet another mistake in the tax return. After some investigation by Mrs. Travel, I found out that I would have to pay a goodly sum of 120,000 yen in taxes after all (about $1400 CDN). It seems as if that woman at the tax office whom Mrs. Travel referred to as somewhat lacking in imagination, seems to have lacked some additional mental acuity. Still, I thought it was rather too-good-to-be-true that I could actually get money back from the government as a freelancer so I'm not too too upset about it.
On the good news side, I did get my qualification to be a BULATS examiner in the mail. Apparently, a lot of applicants don't get it on their first time, and Speedy could be included in that tally, so it was rather heartening to know that I actually had some smarts in my craft. Now, the only difficult part is to find out those students who need to take the test.
Well, I gotta have lunch and then call up the tax office to find out how I'll have to pay my contribution to the government. The office said that I would have to be slapped with a late fine, something that sticks in my craw since it was they who had screwed things up...twice. Luckily, Mrs. Travel is in my corner on that opinion so if the officer gives me that line, all I have to do is call my student and up and she'll give them Hell. Not sure if she'll be successful or not but it's nice to know that I have someone in my corner. Still, I think any plans for a vacation in Yokohama are pretty much out the window...perhaps. I haven't heard from that lady who had helped me out last year with my two trips so I'm assuming that she's no longer with the agency. Just as well.
Then, I gotta help out on that translation mission for The Company. It doesn't look too difficult but I've seen too much to take things for granted. Luckily, I've basically got my juku classes all planned out last night.
At least on e-mail, it seems as if The Madam and I are back on speaking terms again. She and I trying to get those plans for "Batman Begins" in order for the 19th. Skippy is a possible but she asked me if she would "enjoy" this movie...uhhh...well, if she has to ask me that question, then perhaps she won't. It doesn't matter...Movie Buddy and The Satyr are coming out...I'm satisfied enough with that.
Monday June 6, 8:55 p.m.
Suddenly, I'm finding myself getting rather busy. First, MK refers me to a new student from late this month. The Matron of the Class Act has asked me if I could help out her daughter with her studies (looks doubtful since she's only available from the late afternoon). And now, The Prez has asked me for some translation help. Well, let's see what I can do...
I'm not sure if I'm gonna have The Class Act next week since The Lady and SIL have to head on out on a family matter that day, and The Matron may just as easily pull out. As for today, it was another gabfest for both The Act and SIL with another lovely lunch prepared by Chef in between. Today's menu was rather healthy...vegetable curry with green salad. I also tried out some of Chef's hisbiscus tea. Kinda tastes like a slightly watered-down, tart version of Kool-Aid but I mean that in a complimentary way.
It was pretty hot and sunny today compared to the deluge of Saturday. Now I know the summer is around the corner when I have to buy the Gatsby Mentholated Wipes. Went through two of the suckers today.
I also bought a text of the national English Proficiency Test, Level 2 (heretofore known as Eiken) so that I can do some stuff with The New Kid whom I'll be seeing again tomorrow at the juku. I think those Star Wars articles are getting rather stale.
The friendly and gracious manager of The Tea Room noticed that I actually came in on a Monday afternoon. I told her that I had to do a special lesson with The New Yorker before she and her sister take off this week for Los Angeles on their weeklong vacation. I did my best to give her a crash course on Travel English: shopping and restaurants. She was even struggling with prices...I'm not sure if she'll retain any of the stuff that I did with her today but at least I tried.
The Satyr contacted me about the upcoming "Batman Begins" outing on the 19th. Hmmm..not sure if we should get advanced tickets but seeing that the flick hasn't appeared at all on the TokyoWalker site's Top 10 movies that people wanna watch, perhaps we won't have to worry.
Paddy sent me a terse letter asking me about those problems I've been having with Adobe Reader. He often sends me very short memos but I do wonder if he is starting to get a little annoyed with me about all the problems I've been having with those documents. But hey, nothing I can do...I've tried my best sorting those things out but to no avail.
I actually got that appointment made with the new management of the hair salon. A man answered...hmmm... In any case, I'll be seeing him or whoever on Thursday morning. Keeping my fingers crossed.
Suddenly, I'm finding myself getting rather busy. First, MK refers me to a new student from late this month. The Matron of the Class Act has asked me if I could help out her daughter with her studies (looks doubtful since she's only available from the late afternoon). And now, The Prez has asked me for some translation help. Well, let's see what I can do...
I'm not sure if I'm gonna have The Class Act next week since The Lady and SIL have to head on out on a family matter that day, and The Matron may just as easily pull out. As for today, it was another gabfest for both The Act and SIL with another lovely lunch prepared by Chef in between. Today's menu was rather healthy...vegetable curry with green salad. I also tried out some of Chef's hisbiscus tea. Kinda tastes like a slightly watered-down, tart version of Kool-Aid but I mean that in a complimentary way.
It was pretty hot and sunny today compared to the deluge of Saturday. Now I know the summer is around the corner when I have to buy the Gatsby Mentholated Wipes. Went through two of the suckers today.
I also bought a text of the national English Proficiency Test, Level 2 (heretofore known as Eiken) so that I can do some stuff with The New Kid whom I'll be seeing again tomorrow at the juku. I think those Star Wars articles are getting rather stale.
The friendly and gracious manager of The Tea Room noticed that I actually came in on a Monday afternoon. I told her that I had to do a special lesson with The New Yorker before she and her sister take off this week for Los Angeles on their weeklong vacation. I did my best to give her a crash course on Travel English: shopping and restaurants. She was even struggling with prices...I'm not sure if she'll retain any of the stuff that I did with her today but at least I tried.
The Satyr contacted me about the upcoming "Batman Begins" outing on the 19th. Hmmm..not sure if we should get advanced tickets but seeing that the flick hasn't appeared at all on the TokyoWalker site's Top 10 movies that people wanna watch, perhaps we won't have to worry.
Paddy sent me a terse letter asking me about those problems I've been having with Adobe Reader. He often sends me very short memos but I do wonder if he is starting to get a little annoyed with me about all the problems I've been having with those documents. But hey, nothing I can do...I've tried my best sorting those things out but to no avail.
I actually got that appointment made with the new management of the hair salon. A man answered...hmmm... In any case, I'll be seeing him or whoever on Thursday morning. Keeping my fingers crossed.
Sunday, June 05, 2005
Sunday June 5, 7:47 p.m.
Nice and quiet day today. Got that massage in; I got the older lady again but I've gotten accustomed to some of her deep thumbs. I actually managed to deposit a good bit of cash into the account today and then I went off to the Daiei and picked up the fixins for fried rice. I was able to devour all of it tonight since I didn't bother having lunch since I had my pancake breakfast. In just one day, I've ingested 5 eggs: two sunny-side up, one in the pancake batter and then another couple in the fried rice. Man, I hope all that talk of cholesterol in eggs is overrated.
Looks like I've picked up another word-of-mouth student thanks to MK. He's a colleague of hers, and probably just as low-level as she is. I'll be meeting him for the first time on the 25th. Hope I don't paint myself into a corner. I'm already starting to juggle students around.
Nice and quiet day today. Got that massage in; I got the older lady again but I've gotten accustomed to some of her deep thumbs. I actually managed to deposit a good bit of cash into the account today and then I went off to the Daiei and picked up the fixins for fried rice. I was able to devour all of it tonight since I didn't bother having lunch since I had my pancake breakfast. In just one day, I've ingested 5 eggs: two sunny-side up, one in the pancake batter and then another couple in the fried rice. Man, I hope all that talk of cholesterol in eggs is overrated.
Looks like I've picked up another word-of-mouth student thanks to MK. He's a colleague of hers, and probably just as low-level as she is. I'll be meeting him for the first time on the 25th. Hope I don't paint myself into a corner. I'm already starting to juggle students around.
Saturday, June 04, 2005
Saturday June 4, 10:36 p.m.
Well, I did catch "Sky Captain" tonight. The short version would be that the movie was a nice way to spend a couple of hours at home but no classic despite its homage to the films of the 30s. I'm not really even sure if I missed anything by NOT seeing it at the movie theatre. The CG with the robots vs. Sky Captain battle in Manhattan (I've gotta be specific here since the entire movie rivals the Star Wars prequels for wall-to-wall effects) were nice but nothing earth-shatteringly original, the acting was suitably wooden for a movie that purports to emulate those ol' Saturday matinee serials...although Gwyneth Paltrow unfortunately goes above and beyond the call of duty; I don't think I've seen such a flat performance by an actress in a genre film since Carrie Fisher in the aforementioned Star Wars. Mind you, it must've been a very keen challenge for any of the actors to perform against greenscreen. I'm sure bosom buddies Jude Law and Ewan McGregor will commiserate over a pint at the local pub.
The story itself was also by-the-numbers plotting and not particularly fast-moving. It rather came across as a slower Indiana Jones piece. Rather surprising considering that those original serials often flew by at the expense of logic and plot development. However, I did enjoy the computer renditions of 30s New York since I'm a fan of the architecture of that era, and although I'd known about it previously, it was a nifty thing to have the late Sir Laurence Olivier do a cameo as the mad, mysterious Totenkopf. The revelation about his character did parallel that of the Wizard of Oz; the movie itself was featured in the earlier scenes. But I think when I see "Sky Captain", I'm reminded mostly of "Dick Tracy", that other Hollywood homage to all things 30s and comic. Heck, one scene in particular...the one in which the police dispatcher sends that SOS to Captain Joe Sullivan...apes a similar communication in "Dick Tracy" right down to the main character saying "I'm on my way." Like the earlier film, I liked some of the smaller touches in "Sky Captain" such as the antenna visibly throwing out the sound waves like the ol' RKO tower, and the newspaper headlines appearing in the huge windows behind Polly Perkins in her introduction scene.
I think things rather faltered as the movie got to the end, though, when the setting started shifting from the big city to Nepal and then finally to Totenkopf's island. That ol' 30s feeling seemed to evaporate, and especially when the leads entered the conveyor belt-strewn area on the island, it just reminded me of Anakin and Padme's trek through a similarly lit factory area in "Attack of the Clones", and even certain scenes in "The Incredibles". I probably would've preferred to have kept things close to New York with Joe back in his plane leading the charge once more instead of stumbling up a rocket approaching destruction.
I've only seen some of the extras on the DVD but there are a couple of laugh-out loud bloopers concerning the CG. You just have to see it to believe it!
I guess overall the movie is a noble try and a fine achievement for the computer geek who created it.
Well, I did catch "Sky Captain" tonight. The short version would be that the movie was a nice way to spend a couple of hours at home but no classic despite its homage to the films of the 30s. I'm not really even sure if I missed anything by NOT seeing it at the movie theatre. The CG with the robots vs. Sky Captain battle in Manhattan (I've gotta be specific here since the entire movie rivals the Star Wars prequels for wall-to-wall effects) were nice but nothing earth-shatteringly original, the acting was suitably wooden for a movie that purports to emulate those ol' Saturday matinee serials...although Gwyneth Paltrow unfortunately goes above and beyond the call of duty; I don't think I've seen such a flat performance by an actress in a genre film since Carrie Fisher in the aforementioned Star Wars. Mind you, it must've been a very keen challenge for any of the actors to perform against greenscreen. I'm sure bosom buddies Jude Law and Ewan McGregor will commiserate over a pint at the local pub.
The story itself was also by-the-numbers plotting and not particularly fast-moving. It rather came across as a slower Indiana Jones piece. Rather surprising considering that those original serials often flew by at the expense of logic and plot development. However, I did enjoy the computer renditions of 30s New York since I'm a fan of the architecture of that era, and although I'd known about it previously, it was a nifty thing to have the late Sir Laurence Olivier do a cameo as the mad, mysterious Totenkopf. The revelation about his character did parallel that of the Wizard of Oz; the movie itself was featured in the earlier scenes. But I think when I see "Sky Captain", I'm reminded mostly of "Dick Tracy", that other Hollywood homage to all things 30s and comic. Heck, one scene in particular...the one in which the police dispatcher sends that SOS to Captain Joe Sullivan...apes a similar communication in "Dick Tracy" right down to the main character saying "I'm on my way." Like the earlier film, I liked some of the smaller touches in "Sky Captain" such as the antenna visibly throwing out the sound waves like the ol' RKO tower, and the newspaper headlines appearing in the huge windows behind Polly Perkins in her introduction scene.
I think things rather faltered as the movie got to the end, though, when the setting started shifting from the big city to Nepal and then finally to Totenkopf's island. That ol' 30s feeling seemed to evaporate, and especially when the leads entered the conveyor belt-strewn area on the island, it just reminded me of Anakin and Padme's trek through a similarly lit factory area in "Attack of the Clones", and even certain scenes in "The Incredibles". I probably would've preferred to have kept things close to New York with Joe back in his plane leading the charge once more instead of stumbling up a rocket approaching destruction.
I've only seen some of the extras on the DVD but there are a couple of laugh-out loud bloopers concerning the CG. You just have to see it to believe it!
I guess overall the movie is a noble try and a fine achievement for the computer geek who created it.
Saturday June 4, 7:20 p.m.
I guess Rainy Season is officially here. The skies gave us a major can of whup-ass late this afternoon just as I was wrapping things up with MK. The rains came down along with a goodly amount of thunder and lightning. I'd been thinking about making up some fried rice tonight but decided to abort the mission when I figured it was just gonna too much trouble lugging home a ton of ingredients in one hand while I used the other for my umbrella. The rain ought to be continuing well into tomorrow morning.
The elder sister was slightly under the weather so she was more lackadaiscal than usual. Rather tuckered me out on the subway down to Kiba. However, luckily, MK and JJ managed to get my spirits back up.
Since cooking in tonight was out, I ended up having dinner at the local Subway; hadn't been there in several weeks. I'll probably watch "Sky Captain" tonight and then call it an early night. I figure I'd like to get my first Sunday pancake breakfast in months out of the way early so I can get that rubdown in and then jot down the number for Accurate and see if I can eventually get an appointment.
Now with the Cool Biz corporate fashion movement in play, the Japanese Parliament sessions have been rather intriguing to say the least. PM Koizumi and his minions have taken to doing the country's business sans tie and blazer. Of course, the official Opposition won't have any of that and have continued to broil in their suits. But I think the ruling party looks like a bunch of old guys at a resort. Sometimes, formality is necessary to be taken seriously.
I guess Rainy Season is officially here. The skies gave us a major can of whup-ass late this afternoon just as I was wrapping things up with MK. The rains came down along with a goodly amount of thunder and lightning. I'd been thinking about making up some fried rice tonight but decided to abort the mission when I figured it was just gonna too much trouble lugging home a ton of ingredients in one hand while I used the other for my umbrella. The rain ought to be continuing well into tomorrow morning.
The elder sister was slightly under the weather so she was more lackadaiscal than usual. Rather tuckered me out on the subway down to Kiba. However, luckily, MK and JJ managed to get my spirits back up.
Since cooking in tonight was out, I ended up having dinner at the local Subway; hadn't been there in several weeks. I'll probably watch "Sky Captain" tonight and then call it an early night. I figure I'd like to get my first Sunday pancake breakfast in months out of the way early so I can get that rubdown in and then jot down the number for Accurate and see if I can eventually get an appointment.
Now with the Cool Biz corporate fashion movement in play, the Japanese Parliament sessions have been rather intriguing to say the least. PM Koizumi and his minions have taken to doing the country's business sans tie and blazer. Of course, the official Opposition won't have any of that and have continued to broil in their suits. But I think the ruling party looks like a bunch of old guys at a resort. Sometimes, formality is necessary to be taken seriously.
Friday, June 03, 2005
Friday June 3, 9:14 p.m.
Well, The Teacher and I had another discussion on one of the taboo topics that I don't talk about with any of the other students. The Teacher seems to be rather open with her elder son when it comes to the teenage rite of passage of collecting pornos.
Had my first Big Mac set in over a month. Y'know...I can live without the stuff for a good long while.
In another first in a while, I went on a rather large spending spree at Yamano Music and HMV in Ginza today. I bought no less than 4 CDs and 2 DVDs. The one DVD I got was "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow", the feature that came and went quickly here. I heard the story is not to talk about but then again, most movies fall into that category. The other DVD was a compilation of UA's greatest video clips. She is definitely one eclectic singer in the J-Pop canon; she started out as an R&B chanteuse but quickly shed off that image (and apparently most of her clothing in the last video...she went Bjork!) to tackle all sorts of other genres.
It was another long chat session with SR. We spoke about, among other things, religion and cults. Currently, the hot topic right now is Tom Cruise's slow decline into nutsville after that little outburst on Oprah. Well, apparently, I've been hearing that a lot of the local celebs are following Soka Gakkai, which some say is a corporatized religion, while others insist it's a cult. Among its membership is apparently the most popular comedienne in Japan and a former Morning Musume.
Got that package from Mom today. Man, I got more chocolate to eat and I have those three boxes of Aunt Jemima which should hold me til winter.
I'll be pretty busy tomorrow with JJ, MK and my usual morning. But I only have the one kid; the mother will be subbing so I'm gonna have to find some articles for her to peruse.
I found out that the hotels here are now touting Men's Plans for all those guys who need a refresher. It's about time...for some years now, women have been able to get a nice deal through Ladies' Plans at some of the ritzier establishments. The women usually travel in pairs; I couldn't imagine two men merrily skipping to the front desk for a similar deal without a frantic call for security. But now, a single dude can get stuff like a scalp massage, aromatherapy and a cigar for a relatively reasonable price with the one night's stay. I may just contact that old agent who helped arrange the Hokkaido and Yokohama trips last year.
Well, The Teacher and I had another discussion on one of the taboo topics that I don't talk about with any of the other students. The Teacher seems to be rather open with her elder son when it comes to the teenage rite of passage of collecting pornos.
Had my first Big Mac set in over a month. Y'know...I can live without the stuff for a good long while.
In another first in a while, I went on a rather large spending spree at Yamano Music and HMV in Ginza today. I bought no less than 4 CDs and 2 DVDs. The one DVD I got was "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow", the feature that came and went quickly here. I heard the story is not to talk about but then again, most movies fall into that category. The other DVD was a compilation of UA's greatest video clips. She is definitely one eclectic singer in the J-Pop canon; she started out as an R&B chanteuse but quickly shed off that image (and apparently most of her clothing in the last video...she went Bjork!) to tackle all sorts of other genres.
It was another long chat session with SR. We spoke about, among other things, religion and cults. Currently, the hot topic right now is Tom Cruise's slow decline into nutsville after that little outburst on Oprah. Well, apparently, I've been hearing that a lot of the local celebs are following Soka Gakkai, which some say is a corporatized religion, while others insist it's a cult. Among its membership is apparently the most popular comedienne in Japan and a former Morning Musume.
Got that package from Mom today. Man, I got more chocolate to eat and I have those three boxes of Aunt Jemima which should hold me til winter.
I'll be pretty busy tomorrow with JJ, MK and my usual morning. But I only have the one kid; the mother will be subbing so I'm gonna have to find some articles for her to peruse.
I found out that the hotels here are now touting Men's Plans for all those guys who need a refresher. It's about time...for some years now, women have been able to get a nice deal through Ladies' Plans at some of the ritzier establishments. The women usually travel in pairs; I couldn't imagine two men merrily skipping to the front desk for a similar deal without a frantic call for security. But now, a single dude can get stuff like a scalp massage, aromatherapy and a cigar for a relatively reasonable price with the one night's stay. I may just contact that old agent who helped arrange the Hokkaido and Yokohama trips last year.
Thursday, June 02, 2005
Friday June 3, 8:14 a.m.
Still pretty cloudy out there and it will remain so for the rest of the day which means I'll have to keep the umbrella on tap.
I was rather surprised to find a rare 7 letters in my inbox only to find out a little less than half really didn't concern me. Anime King has started his usual blanket mailing for the first time in a long while on stuff that I'm not really interested in.
Well, I guess my earlier statement that the two sumo wrestling brothers, Wakanohana and Takanohana, have patched things up was premature. I first got the signal that I was wrong when their mother tearfully told the press that she regretted that her ex-husband didn't live long enough to see the two sons reconcile. Then this morning, I heard Takanohana emotionlessly respond to the big question that he has nothing ever to say to his brother. Wakanohana was more generous and stated that he would like to patch things up with his brother eventually.
Looks like the tremors have been continuing throughout the country. Kyushu got rocked by a Shindo 5 minus overnight.
I tried out that Godiva coffee that I'd received from The Class Act after their trip to Hawaii over Golden Week. It was Vanilla Hazelnut. I used that new coffeemaker that I'd gotten from Mr. Eccentric a few months ago for the very first time. No problems and the coffee was quite good, surprisingly, for decaf.
Still pretty cloudy out there and it will remain so for the rest of the day which means I'll have to keep the umbrella on tap.
I was rather surprised to find a rare 7 letters in my inbox only to find out a little less than half really didn't concern me. Anime King has started his usual blanket mailing for the first time in a long while on stuff that I'm not really interested in.
Well, I guess my earlier statement that the two sumo wrestling brothers, Wakanohana and Takanohana, have patched things up was premature. I first got the signal that I was wrong when their mother tearfully told the press that she regretted that her ex-husband didn't live long enough to see the two sons reconcile. Then this morning, I heard Takanohana emotionlessly respond to the big question that he has nothing ever to say to his brother. Wakanohana was more generous and stated that he would like to patch things up with his brother eventually.
Looks like the tremors have been continuing throughout the country. Kyushu got rocked by a Shindo 5 minus overnight.
I tried out that Godiva coffee that I'd received from The Class Act after their trip to Hawaii over Golden Week. It was Vanilla Hazelnut. I used that new coffeemaker that I'd gotten from Mr. Eccentric a few months ago for the very first time. No problems and the coffee was quite good, surprisingly, for decaf.
Thursday June 2, 11:06 p.m.
Earlier in the late afternoon, I watched Part I of a Biography on Bruce "Die Hard" Willis. During the retrospective, I was reminded that he actually had his humble hit beginnings on a little ABC show in the mid-80s called "Moonlighting". And it just so happens that I own the DVD of the pilot ep.
So after dinner, I threw the disc into the JVC and visually reminisced over the snappy banter and 80s stylings between Bruce and Cybill Shepherd. Bruce even back then had the charm, the wit...the hair. Can't believe it's been 2 decades since the show first aired. It was comical Bruce...not the grim-faced superhero Bruce of Hollywood, Inc. Even with the passing of the years and the fashions (big curly hair, Al Jarreau), the pilot episode still holds up very well thanks to the exchanges between the two protagonists.
A pity, then, that the show was really only good for 2 years though it lasted 5. There's always been the rumour that the two stars and the producer hated one another, and according to that Biography, the rumour mill did put a bit of tension onto the set. However, I got the feeling that, as usual, things were blown up somewhat although I could imagine the egos of both Willis and Shepherd going at it. But it seems like the years have mellowed them somewhat according to the interviews with the leads in the Bio, and the weak commentary on my DVD. As I've said, the show was fun for just the first couple of years. A lot of fans have said it jumped the shark when David and Maddie finally knocked boots; but I think the inexorable slide started much earlier when things started getting darker and not necessarily deeper from the 3rd season onwards, though I did enjoy the breaking down of the 4th wall from the late 2nd season. And once Willis got his huge hit from "Die Hard", it was pretty much game over.
I think the other reason I remember the show so fondly was because of the music. Yep, there was always the AOR-friendly theme tune but episodes often brought in songs from jazz, R&B and Motown.
As usual, my brother was the one who discovered the wonders of "Moonlighting" before I did. I only found about it late into its first semi-season, but since then I have managed to see all of the 1st season but it's been years since I've had a chance to look at them again. It's good to hear that those first 2 good seasons have finally been put onto DVD as a box set. I'll have to see if I can get actually get it in Japan since Bruce is very well known here.
Anyways, it's almost time to hit the hay. Back to "work" from tomorrow.
Earlier in the late afternoon, I watched Part I of a Biography on Bruce "Die Hard" Willis. During the retrospective, I was reminded that he actually had his humble hit beginnings on a little ABC show in the mid-80s called "Moonlighting". And it just so happens that I own the DVD of the pilot ep.
So after dinner, I threw the disc into the JVC and visually reminisced over the snappy banter and 80s stylings between Bruce and Cybill Shepherd. Bruce even back then had the charm, the wit...the hair. Can't believe it's been 2 decades since the show first aired. It was comical Bruce...not the grim-faced superhero Bruce of Hollywood, Inc. Even with the passing of the years and the fashions (big curly hair, Al Jarreau), the pilot episode still holds up very well thanks to the exchanges between the two protagonists.
A pity, then, that the show was really only good for 2 years though it lasted 5. There's always been the rumour that the two stars and the producer hated one another, and according to that Biography, the rumour mill did put a bit of tension onto the set. However, I got the feeling that, as usual, things were blown up somewhat although I could imagine the egos of both Willis and Shepherd going at it. But it seems like the years have mellowed them somewhat according to the interviews with the leads in the Bio, and the weak commentary on my DVD. As I've said, the show was fun for just the first couple of years. A lot of fans have said it jumped the shark when David and Maddie finally knocked boots; but I think the inexorable slide started much earlier when things started getting darker and not necessarily deeper from the 3rd season onwards, though I did enjoy the breaking down of the 4th wall from the late 2nd season. And once Willis got his huge hit from "Die Hard", it was pretty much game over.
I think the other reason I remember the show so fondly was because of the music. Yep, there was always the AOR-friendly theme tune but episodes often brought in songs from jazz, R&B and Motown.
As usual, my brother was the one who discovered the wonders of "Moonlighting" before I did. I only found about it late into its first semi-season, but since then I have managed to see all of the 1st season but it's been years since I've had a chance to look at them again. It's good to hear that those first 2 good seasons have finally been put onto DVD as a box set. I'll have to see if I can get actually get it in Japan since Bruce is very well known here.
Anyways, it's almost time to hit the hay. Back to "work" from tomorrow.
Thursday June 2, 7:49 p.m.
Took a walk today around the neighbourhood just to get some exercise since I was home all day. It was spitting a bit and cool but still rather humid. I walked up all the way to the old hairsalon. The new name is now ACCURATE, a very good name to have when you're giving yourself to a pair of sharp scissors. According to the price sign, it looks like the rates are still the same. I didn't see anyone in there so I figured that the new staff was probably having lunch in the back. I decided to hold on any greetings.
It's been pretty nice not to worry about planning anything since Fridays are just spent gabbing with The Teacher and SR. Again, The OL is a scratch so I'll probably be here this tomorrow night.
Found out some strange stuff on the news tonight. Apparently, a group of stupid teens was arrested for throwing eggs at taxis from the roof of their apartment building. They've had some sort of grudge against the cabbies for not showing too much respect to motorcyclists. The dopes couldn't come up with a decent name for their gang...they called themselves The Egg-Throwing Gang.
Then there is the somewhat more serious situation of some group or a bunch of copycats who've been sticking sharp metal wedges onto highway guardrails all over Japan. Some bike-riding kid managed to thresh his shins because he banged into one of them. When it comes to warped crimes, Japan is up there with the best of them.
And now, it looks like we have an infestation of giant rats everywhere in Japan...including the ritzy area of Ginza, no less. The pest exterminators have been trapping 50-cm long vermin in their traps.
Took a walk today around the neighbourhood just to get some exercise since I was home all day. It was spitting a bit and cool but still rather humid. I walked up all the way to the old hairsalon. The new name is now ACCURATE, a very good name to have when you're giving yourself to a pair of sharp scissors. According to the price sign, it looks like the rates are still the same. I didn't see anyone in there so I figured that the new staff was probably having lunch in the back. I decided to hold on any greetings.
It's been pretty nice not to worry about planning anything since Fridays are just spent gabbing with The Teacher and SR. Again, The OL is a scratch so I'll probably be here this tomorrow night.
Found out some strange stuff on the news tonight. Apparently, a group of stupid teens was arrested for throwing eggs at taxis from the roof of their apartment building. They've had some sort of grudge against the cabbies for not showing too much respect to motorcyclists. The dopes couldn't come up with a decent name for their gang...they called themselves The Egg-Throwing Gang.
Then there is the somewhat more serious situation of some group or a bunch of copycats who've been sticking sharp metal wedges onto highway guardrails all over Japan. Some bike-riding kid managed to thresh his shins because he banged into one of them. When it comes to warped crimes, Japan is up there with the best of them.
And now, it looks like we have an infestation of giant rats everywhere in Japan...including the ritzy area of Ginza, no less. The pest exterminators have been trapping 50-cm long vermin in their traps.
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Thursday June 2, 1:24 a.m.
Still posting at this hour...well, the reason is that I've just watched the very final episode of Star Trek in any of its incarnations for what could be a very long time. And as the rumours have it, the show just went out with a whimper...and a pretty strangulated one at that. The one big sign of this is that the finale was just one hour...instead of the two hours that each of the sequel series had gotten.
I was pretty disappointed by how the overall execution went. Two major gripes: 1) Riker and Troi and all that hand-wringing over the Pegasus shouldn't have been there in the first place; this was an "Enterprise" episode, not a TNG one. I don't blame the cast for being rather miffed. I only wonder what kind of treatment Frakes and Sirtis got from Bakula and the guys during filming. All those scenes back on the Enterprise-D only accomplished to squeeze the scenes back on the NX Enterprise into a poor Reader's Digest version. No proper death scene for Trip, not even a proper coda for his memory. However, it was nice to see Trip get his final due in the kitchen with Chef.
2) That whole plot with Archer trying to save Shran's daughter just smacked of lameness. It only existed just to give an excuse for one final episode to showcase the Andorian and an excuse to have Trip die.
It was too bad that the episode ended with probably the best ending to a Trek franchise: Archer majestically going up those stairs to address the masses and sign the charter and then the three starships Enterprise going off their ways with each captain contributing to the speech that every Trekkie knows by heart and with each of the theme songs playing in the background.
Star Trek won't die...too many fans (mind you, a lot of them turned off of "Enterprise" long ago) are out there and there's too much love for sci-fi. There'll be another Star Trek but I hope it won't be for a good long while. It'll probably be the same for Star Wars.
Still posting at this hour...well, the reason is that I've just watched the very final episode of Star Trek in any of its incarnations for what could be a very long time. And as the rumours have it, the show just went out with a whimper...and a pretty strangulated one at that. The one big sign of this is that the finale was just one hour...instead of the two hours that each of the sequel series had gotten.
I was pretty disappointed by how the overall execution went. Two major gripes: 1) Riker and Troi and all that hand-wringing over the Pegasus shouldn't have been there in the first place; this was an "Enterprise" episode, not a TNG one. I don't blame the cast for being rather miffed. I only wonder what kind of treatment Frakes and Sirtis got from Bakula and the guys during filming. All those scenes back on the Enterprise-D only accomplished to squeeze the scenes back on the NX Enterprise into a poor Reader's Digest version. No proper death scene for Trip, not even a proper coda for his memory. However, it was nice to see Trip get his final due in the kitchen with Chef.
2) That whole plot with Archer trying to save Shran's daughter just smacked of lameness. It only existed just to give an excuse for one final episode to showcase the Andorian and an excuse to have Trip die.
It was too bad that the episode ended with probably the best ending to a Trek franchise: Archer majestically going up those stairs to address the masses and sign the charter and then the three starships Enterprise going off their ways with each captain contributing to the speech that every Trekkie knows by heart and with each of the theme songs playing in the background.
Star Trek won't die...too many fans (mind you, a lot of them turned off of "Enterprise" long ago) are out there and there's too much love for sci-fi. There'll be another Star Trek but I hope it won't be for a good long while. It'll probably be the same for Star Wars.
Wednesday June 1, 10:55 p.m.
Well, I guess perhaps my theory worked out on the minus side of things. It didn't really feel like 28 degrees today but then again, there was a pretty strong wind about. In any case, it felt more like it was in the low 20s.
The Japanese government started the new month off by launching their "No Necktie" campaign. It's also known as the "Cool Biz" campaign in which the salarymen of Japan were encouraged to go to work sans tie and blazer...and apparently about a third of the country did just that. The weather certainly encouraged the stripping. Of course, the long term goal is to have the working folks feel cooler so that the air conditioners won't have to blast the offices at low temps which will decrease the amount of global warming.
Let's see, we had some meterological changes, some sartorial ones, and June in Tokyo wouldn't be a June without some seismic activity. Tokyo got hit by no less than 4 tremors tonight, the strongest one hitting Shindo 3. I and Student 001 felt a couple of them at Speedy's.
I received that renewed tax statement from the city office a couple of weeks after that confusing phone call from that official. Well, now, I'm scratching my head some more. Apparently, the report told me about the error that I'd made...no surprise there since that was the reason for the call. However, now it looks like I may be getting considerably more according to the summary. Go fig. Well, I'll believe it when that money is in my account. Now, I'm really starting to consider taking that holiday off in Yokohama.
The OL has cancelled her lesson for the second straight week. Well, at least I'm back home for another round of cooking. I did offer to teach her on a Sunday.
Well, I guess perhaps my theory worked out on the minus side of things. It didn't really feel like 28 degrees today but then again, there was a pretty strong wind about. In any case, it felt more like it was in the low 20s.
The Japanese government started the new month off by launching their "No Necktie" campaign. It's also known as the "Cool Biz" campaign in which the salarymen of Japan were encouraged to go to work sans tie and blazer...and apparently about a third of the country did just that. The weather certainly encouraged the stripping. Of course, the long term goal is to have the working folks feel cooler so that the air conditioners won't have to blast the offices at low temps which will decrease the amount of global warming.
Let's see, we had some meterological changes, some sartorial ones, and June in Tokyo wouldn't be a June without some seismic activity. Tokyo got hit by no less than 4 tremors tonight, the strongest one hitting Shindo 3. I and Student 001 felt a couple of them at Speedy's.
I received that renewed tax statement from the city office a couple of weeks after that confusing phone call from that official. Well, now, I'm scratching my head some more. Apparently, the report told me about the error that I'd made...no surprise there since that was the reason for the call. However, now it looks like I may be getting considerably more according to the summary. Go fig. Well, I'll believe it when that money is in my account. Now, I'm really starting to consider taking that holiday off in Yokohama.
The OL has cancelled her lesson for the second straight week. Well, at least I'm back home for another round of cooking. I did offer to teach her on a Sunday.
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Wednesday June 1, 9:17 a.m.
First day of June and the weather will actually reflect that fact. It's gonna be a scorcher...about 28 C and sunny. I wouldn't be surprised if expectations were exceeded and we go over 30. I've come to the realization that actual temps are off by 5 degrees either way.
Just watched the second-last episode of "Enterprise" However, Manny Coto the producer tried to spin it as the actual ending to the series whilst the much-vilified series finale is supposed to be a coda of sorts. Manny, remind me not to have my tires rotated by you. As it was, "Terra Prime" was a fun episode and in a way it did seem to be a compressed version of a finale. Captain Archer did get his inspirational speech about the future in, and all is well. I did get to check a Star Trek blog in which they posted the ratings by Trekkies about what they thought of recent episodes, so I decided to do a comparative study on the last two eps of the series. Not surprisingly, "Terra Prime" got the lion's share of the votes while "These Are The Voyages" got mere crumbs. I'm kinda dreading to see this 2-hour finale now.
Looks like the Star Wars engine is starting to slow down a bit....relatively speaking. It still made $55 million over the past week. Most movies would kill for that in the first week. And I couldn't hope to believe that even a Star Wars could keep up the kind of torrid pace it'd had in its first several days. But I'm pretty sure it'll hit the $300 million without breaking a sweat.
I'll be hitting the gym in half an hour. My arms are still a bit sore so I was debating the decision but I do have that key to return.
First day of June and the weather will actually reflect that fact. It's gonna be a scorcher...about 28 C and sunny. I wouldn't be surprised if expectations were exceeded and we go over 30. I've come to the realization that actual temps are off by 5 degrees either way.
Just watched the second-last episode of "Enterprise" However, Manny Coto the producer tried to spin it as the actual ending to the series whilst the much-vilified series finale is supposed to be a coda of sorts. Manny, remind me not to have my tires rotated by you. As it was, "Terra Prime" was a fun episode and in a way it did seem to be a compressed version of a finale. Captain Archer did get his inspirational speech about the future in, and all is well. I did get to check a Star Trek blog in which they posted the ratings by Trekkies about what they thought of recent episodes, so I decided to do a comparative study on the last two eps of the series. Not surprisingly, "Terra Prime" got the lion's share of the votes while "These Are The Voyages" got mere crumbs. I'm kinda dreading to see this 2-hour finale now.
Looks like the Star Wars engine is starting to slow down a bit....relatively speaking. It still made $55 million over the past week. Most movies would kill for that in the first week. And I couldn't hope to believe that even a Star Wars could keep up the kind of torrid pace it'd had in its first several days. But I'm pretty sure it'll hit the $300 million without breaking a sweat.
I'll be hitting the gym in half an hour. My arms are still a bit sore so I was debating the decision but I do have that key to return.
Tuesday May 31, 11:12 p.m.
Had my first outing at the gym in a couple of weeks and my muscles are aching in response to that fact. At least, I'm happy I was able to shed a pound.
Looks like my time at the juku was greatly truncated. Not only did The New Kid have his annual school trip but The Siberian canceled his class since the boss mistakenly thought he had gone over his quota of classes for the month...I've never been too clear on what this quota is about. In any case, she had forgotten that there was that holiday Tuesday during Golden Week. So I actually just had the two hours with The Beauty Pair and The Milds. Kei teared up a bit during the lesson because of the passing of her beloved dog a couple of weeks ago but no major damage. During the Milds' lesson, the juku boss threw out her brimstone and fury side to a couple of sassy boys which made things a bit hard to articulate during my lesson. However, knowing these brats, I couldn't blame my usually cheerful boss for yelling at them.
During the Beauty Pair's lesson, Kei actually informed me that the new management where my old stylist used to be has already gotten one of her friends as a customer. So I may just take a look-see at the old place to see if the stylist did indeed tell the new faces there about me. I really do need that haircut.
Well, well, well...look who came out of the woodwork after over a year's absence. The Madame decided to send an e-mail to Movie Buddy and myself about getting together for a movie. Yup, I'm gonna be vindictive...I won't answer her. I felt rather jilted the last time we met...and I've made some decisions over the past few months about myself so I'm not in any particular mood to mend fences. However, if MB decides to invite her to "Batman Begins", I won't veto the motion. Speaking of that movie, I kinda wonder how the world premiere at Roppongi Hills went.
Just the Hawaiian and Student 001 tomorrow. Depending on how I feel I may give the gym another shot in the morning. I may not have a choice since I accidentally took a key to one of the shoe lockers.
Had my first outing at the gym in a couple of weeks and my muscles are aching in response to that fact. At least, I'm happy I was able to shed a pound.
Looks like my time at the juku was greatly truncated. Not only did The New Kid have his annual school trip but The Siberian canceled his class since the boss mistakenly thought he had gone over his quota of classes for the month...I've never been too clear on what this quota is about. In any case, she had forgotten that there was that holiday Tuesday during Golden Week. So I actually just had the two hours with The Beauty Pair and The Milds. Kei teared up a bit during the lesson because of the passing of her beloved dog a couple of weeks ago but no major damage. During the Milds' lesson, the juku boss threw out her brimstone and fury side to a couple of sassy boys which made things a bit hard to articulate during my lesson. However, knowing these brats, I couldn't blame my usually cheerful boss for yelling at them.
During the Beauty Pair's lesson, Kei actually informed me that the new management where my old stylist used to be has already gotten one of her friends as a customer. So I may just take a look-see at the old place to see if the stylist did indeed tell the new faces there about me. I really do need that haircut.
Well, well, well...look who came out of the woodwork after over a year's absence. The Madame decided to send an e-mail to Movie Buddy and myself about getting together for a movie. Yup, I'm gonna be vindictive...I won't answer her. I felt rather jilted the last time we met...and I've made some decisions over the past few months about myself so I'm not in any particular mood to mend fences. However, if MB decides to invite her to "Batman Begins", I won't veto the motion. Speaking of that movie, I kinda wonder how the world premiere at Roppongi Hills went.
Just the Hawaiian and Student 001 tomorrow. Depending on how I feel I may give the gym another shot in the morning. I may not have a choice since I accidentally took a key to one of the shoe lockers.
Monday, May 30, 2005
Tuesday May 31, 7:47 a.m.
Well, a certain sumo stable in Nakano Ward, Tokyo is the centre of sorrow today. A famed sumo wrestler-turned-stablemaster, Futagoyama, passed away last night at the relatively young age of 55 due to cancer. During his fighting career, he reached as high as the level of ozeki, the 2nd tier. Seeing some of the old footage on TV (and you gotta believe that there is full court press on this), Futagoyama didn't fit the typical image of sumo wrestlers, that of the humongous lump barely fitting into his loincloth. He was pretty lean and powerful as he fought his way to the top; that was due to his earlier high school life as a swimmer.
However, for all the respect he'd earned as a fighter, he was primarily known to the younger folks as the father of two yokozuna (Grand Champions), Wakanohana and Takanohana, during that renewed boom in sumo in the late 80s and early 90s. Waka-Taka were the scrapping brothers at the core of this boom which was further powered by Takanohana's erstwhile romance with the then-It girl, Rie Miyazawa. Futagoyama (which is his stablemaster's name on retirement...his fighting name was Takanohana as well) was quite the famous face on the TV as well...anyone with Grand Champions as sons will not be far from the spotlight.
But for the happy times, his final years were somewhat sad. He had to suffer stoically during a brief feud between the two brothers, and then his wife divorced him. His wife was a famous actress before becoming a stablemaster's spouse, a very tough job since by default she had to take care of the housekeeping duties in the stable which meant catering to several huge men daily. I'm not sure if those duties broke her back, so to speak, since she probably would have left him much earlier if that had been the case. I think her publicized wish to return to acting was a pretty big clue. Then came his bout with cancer a couple of years ago. It seems his final appearance was in January this year when, in his capacity as the stablemaster, he cut the topknot off of a retiring young charge. I'm sure a lot of middle-aged men are now thinking about their mortality this day.
Well, a certain sumo stable in Nakano Ward, Tokyo is the centre of sorrow today. A famed sumo wrestler-turned-stablemaster, Futagoyama, passed away last night at the relatively young age of 55 due to cancer. During his fighting career, he reached as high as the level of ozeki, the 2nd tier. Seeing some of the old footage on TV (and you gotta believe that there is full court press on this), Futagoyama didn't fit the typical image of sumo wrestlers, that of the humongous lump barely fitting into his loincloth. He was pretty lean and powerful as he fought his way to the top; that was due to his earlier high school life as a swimmer.
However, for all the respect he'd earned as a fighter, he was primarily known to the younger folks as the father of two yokozuna (Grand Champions), Wakanohana and Takanohana, during that renewed boom in sumo in the late 80s and early 90s. Waka-Taka were the scrapping brothers at the core of this boom which was further powered by Takanohana's erstwhile romance with the then-It girl, Rie Miyazawa. Futagoyama (which is his stablemaster's name on retirement...his fighting name was Takanohana as well) was quite the famous face on the TV as well...anyone with Grand Champions as sons will not be far from the spotlight.
But for the happy times, his final years were somewhat sad. He had to suffer stoically during a brief feud between the two brothers, and then his wife divorced him. His wife was a famous actress before becoming a stablemaster's spouse, a very tough job since by default she had to take care of the housekeeping duties in the stable which meant catering to several huge men daily. I'm not sure if those duties broke her back, so to speak, since she probably would have left him much earlier if that had been the case. I think her publicized wish to return to acting was a pretty big clue. Then came his bout with cancer a couple of years ago. It seems his final appearance was in January this year when, in his capacity as the stablemaster, he cut the topknot off of a retiring young charge. I'm sure a lot of middle-aged men are now thinking about their mortality this day.
Monday May 30, 9:48 p.m.
Well, some more inaccuracy in the weather forecast this morning. The weather girl said it would just be cloudy. Nah...it started raining steadily from the afternoon onwards. Mind you, it wasn't nearly as bad as last week's deluge.
The Matron wasn't at the house today so I figured that it would be another lunch at Wendy's before SIL's lesson. However, the housekeeper came by and invited me for a nice little lunch thanks to The Chef. I did have The Matron's sidekick, though, for her lesson.
The lesson at The Company had both students together for the first time in a few weeks. The guy who hadn't been here for a couple of them grabbed the ball and ran with it, so to speak whilst the guy who has been coming remained sloggy. But I think he's been really tired. As have I...I almost missed getting off at my station due to fatigue.
Gonna have to get some lesson planning done tonight before I hit the hay.
Well, some more inaccuracy in the weather forecast this morning. The weather girl said it would just be cloudy. Nah...it started raining steadily from the afternoon onwards. Mind you, it wasn't nearly as bad as last week's deluge.
The Matron wasn't at the house today so I figured that it would be another lunch at Wendy's before SIL's lesson. However, the housekeeper came by and invited me for a nice little lunch thanks to The Chef. I did have The Matron's sidekick, though, for her lesson.
The lesson at The Company had both students together for the first time in a few weeks. The guy who hadn't been here for a couple of them grabbed the ball and ran with it, so to speak whilst the guy who has been coming remained sloggy. But I think he's been really tired. As have I...I almost missed getting off at my station due to fatigue.
Gonna have to get some lesson planning done tonight before I hit the hay.
Sunday, May 29, 2005
Monday May 30, 7:55 a.m.
There was apparently a Shindo 3, M4.6 tremor at Narita about 15 minutes ago. I barely felt a ripple and I'm in the same prefecture. Go fig.
Went to bed a lot later than I'd expected. When I turned off the lights initially, my mind suddenly thought about the schedule for this week and then something hit my brain rather hard. I jumped out of bed and hooked onto the computer. Sure enough, the Force was and wasn't with me. I screwed up on my schedule with The New Yorker; I mistakenly slotted her into the same time that I have The Company for the next Monday. Well, I'm just lucky that it wasn't for today. Well, I had to come up with a business decision. And the judgement was that since I had already made the confirmation for the New Yorker, I decided to send off a message to The Prez and say that I'll have to cancel next week's lesson. No, more of a lesser-of-two-evils solution but frankly speaking, when I weigh the fact that I often wonder why I'm teaching a pair of guys (nice, though they are) who really don't need English for their jobs against someone who will be needing English in the next week for her vacation abroad, the decision was a bit easier to make. Still, having to make the quick correction left me a bit sleepless for an hour or so.
Apparently, within my relative neighbourhood in the NK Hall in Urayasu City, the 2005 MTV Music Awards in Asia was held. Imagine, I actually had Mariah Carey on my back doorstep...ooh, the goosebumps (yawn). She looked suitably like Roger Rabbit's wife in that scarlet red gift wrapping she wore. Then there was the Japanese equivalent in the form of local TV personality, MEGUMI, who, in an expression of extreme redundancy, wore a tight yellow strapless gown which seemed to push up her already enormous assets to anti-gravity heights. I'm sure jaws were down. I also saw "flavour-of-the-month" for 1996, Jamiroquai, in his trademark fuzzy hat (I guess it's true what they say about old pop acts: they don't die, they just head off for Japan and live forever) obsequiously pointing out a "gorgeous" girl on the TV monitors, who was just a very hirsute comedian dressed up as a very ugly cheerleader doing his/her rendition of Toni Basil's "Mickey" (man, talk about all the pop-cultural refererences in that sentence).
The serious news is still on that search for those two long-in-the-tooth WWII soldiers who don't realize it's time to go home now that the war is over. Apparently, the media and the negotiators there have lost contact with the intermediary who'd cried wolf in the first place. Plus, they have to contend with the MILF terrorist organization who control large swathes of the forest on Mindanao. I'm kinda wondering if this is all a big hoax.
Well, on more mundane matters, it may be a bit of a commute in Hell today. The news reported some sort of switch problem at one of my nearby stations on the JR. Looks like the Tozai might be packed this morning.
There was apparently a Shindo 3, M4.6 tremor at Narita about 15 minutes ago. I barely felt a ripple and I'm in the same prefecture. Go fig.
Went to bed a lot later than I'd expected. When I turned off the lights initially, my mind suddenly thought about the schedule for this week and then something hit my brain rather hard. I jumped out of bed and hooked onto the computer. Sure enough, the Force was and wasn't with me. I screwed up on my schedule with The New Yorker; I mistakenly slotted her into the same time that I have The Company for the next Monday. Well, I'm just lucky that it wasn't for today. Well, I had to come up with a business decision. And the judgement was that since I had already made the confirmation for the New Yorker, I decided to send off a message to The Prez and say that I'll have to cancel next week's lesson. No, more of a lesser-of-two-evils solution but frankly speaking, when I weigh the fact that I often wonder why I'm teaching a pair of guys (nice, though they are) who really don't need English for their jobs against someone who will be needing English in the next week for her vacation abroad, the decision was a bit easier to make. Still, having to make the quick correction left me a bit sleepless for an hour or so.
Apparently, within my relative neighbourhood in the NK Hall in Urayasu City, the 2005 MTV Music Awards in Asia was held. Imagine, I actually had Mariah Carey on my back doorstep...ooh, the goosebumps (yawn). She looked suitably like Roger Rabbit's wife in that scarlet red gift wrapping she wore. Then there was the Japanese equivalent in the form of local TV personality, MEGUMI, who, in an expression of extreme redundancy, wore a tight yellow strapless gown which seemed to push up her already enormous assets to anti-gravity heights. I'm sure jaws were down. I also saw "flavour-of-the-month" for 1996, Jamiroquai, in his trademark fuzzy hat (I guess it's true what they say about old pop acts: they don't die, they just head off for Japan and live forever) obsequiously pointing out a "gorgeous" girl on the TV monitors, who was just a very hirsute comedian dressed up as a very ugly cheerleader doing his/her rendition of Toni Basil's "Mickey" (man, talk about all the pop-cultural refererences in that sentence).
The serious news is still on that search for those two long-in-the-tooth WWII soldiers who don't realize it's time to go home now that the war is over. Apparently, the media and the negotiators there have lost contact with the intermediary who'd cried wolf in the first place. Plus, they have to contend with the MILF terrorist organization who control large swathes of the forest on Mindanao. I'm kinda wondering if this is all a big hoax.
Well, on more mundane matters, it may be a bit of a commute in Hell today. The news reported some sort of switch problem at one of my nearby stations on the JR. Looks like the Tozai might be packed this morning.
Monday May 30, 12:11 a.m.
Still have about 15 minutes before I hit the hay so I'll just doodle something down. It was a pleasant enough Sunday night. Just had my dinner, did my lesson plans, did some major ironing and listened to some jazz. Nothing complicated about that.
In my last entry, I spoke of that possible negligible gossip about a supposedly embittered Hayden Christensen stepping down as an actor to become a full-time architect. Well, looks like the rags over here are wiping up some dirty stuff as well. I was checking out the J-Pop forum and apparently there was a report that the Queen Idol, Seiko Matsuda, has had a major falling out with her daughter, Sayaka, concerning her (I mean, Sayaka...not Seiko) romantic life and career. According to this so-called report, Sayaka has been "fired" from her management company and basically thrown into the real world.
Sayaka, since her debut 4 years ago, never particularly has made it big in showbiz. She's only been in the spotlight because of her famous mother. Well, let's see, she's still a teen which means that there will be the typical mother-daughter issues of friction. However, a couple of things make me skeptical about the truth of this story. One is that it does come from a gossip magazine, never the greatest source of accurate journalism, and two, the report seemed a bit overdramatic. Most likely, it's just to keep the two names floating in the media swamp. I have no doubt that after nearly 30 years in the business, Seiko is a player to some extent and she could have easily started the rumour but then it could be one of the hacks looking to get that something extra in his bonus.
One thing about the parallels between US and Japanese TV. Over there, reality TV programming has been the big thing for about half a decade now, give or take a year. Here, it's been information TV. Whether it be a trivia quiz show or some show on how to remodel a house, it seems like the Japanese have been ravenous for info on so many things...most notably on health. I'm not sure if the aging demographics are a direct influence, but I've been seeing a lot of stuff pertaining to the old. NHK regularly broadcasts programs in which former city families have decided to move back to the countryside to take up a slower lifestyle, there's that "Before/After" show in which an architect remodels houses for mostly elderly folks (seems to be a lot of money to be spending considering that the folks won't be around that much longer...I know, I'm nasty), and tonight, I saw a regular Sunday night program which dealt with the ongoing bane of stiff shoulders. Frankly, I'll take any program which deals with that over "American Idol" or "The Apprentice" any day.
OK, got that out of my system.
Still have about 15 minutes before I hit the hay so I'll just doodle something down. It was a pleasant enough Sunday night. Just had my dinner, did my lesson plans, did some major ironing and listened to some jazz. Nothing complicated about that.
In my last entry, I spoke of that possible negligible gossip about a supposedly embittered Hayden Christensen stepping down as an actor to become a full-time architect. Well, looks like the rags over here are wiping up some dirty stuff as well. I was checking out the J-Pop forum and apparently there was a report that the Queen Idol, Seiko Matsuda, has had a major falling out with her daughter, Sayaka, concerning her (I mean, Sayaka...not Seiko) romantic life and career. According to this so-called report, Sayaka has been "fired" from her management company and basically thrown into the real world.
Sayaka, since her debut 4 years ago, never particularly has made it big in showbiz. She's only been in the spotlight because of her famous mother. Well, let's see, she's still a teen which means that there will be the typical mother-daughter issues of friction. However, a couple of things make me skeptical about the truth of this story. One is that it does come from a gossip magazine, never the greatest source of accurate journalism, and two, the report seemed a bit overdramatic. Most likely, it's just to keep the two names floating in the media swamp. I have no doubt that after nearly 30 years in the business, Seiko is a player to some extent and she could have easily started the rumour but then it could be one of the hacks looking to get that something extra in his bonus.
One thing about the parallels between US and Japanese TV. Over there, reality TV programming has been the big thing for about half a decade now, give or take a year. Here, it's been information TV. Whether it be a trivia quiz show or some show on how to remodel a house, it seems like the Japanese have been ravenous for info on so many things...most notably on health. I'm not sure if the aging demographics are a direct influence, but I've been seeing a lot of stuff pertaining to the old. NHK regularly broadcasts programs in which former city families have decided to move back to the countryside to take up a slower lifestyle, there's that "Before/After" show in which an architect remodels houses for mostly elderly folks (seems to be a lot of money to be spending considering that the folks won't be around that much longer...I know, I'm nasty), and tonight, I saw a regular Sunday night program which dealt with the ongoing bane of stiff shoulders. Frankly, I'll take any program which deals with that over "American Idol" or "The Apprentice" any day.
OK, got that out of my system.
Sunday May 29, 5:52 p.m.
Pretty darn cool today outside...unusual for a May in Tokyo. Not that I'm complaining...I'm sure we'll all be in for some very sweaty days in the months to come.
I was happy to sleep in for the first time in several days. Got up at the glorious time of 11 a.m. and leisurely watched some TV before finally popping in that newest tape of "Doctor Who" and "Enterprise". Gotta admit that the first two-parter of the good Doctor was a a corker of a comedy-adventure. And the characters certainly have a bit more depth in them...I think everyone in the episode had an axe to grind with someone. I certainly wished that the writers for the new show had written for "Star Wars".
Speaking of which...I just saw an article, which may or may not be true, in which Hayden Christensen reportedly said that he's thinking of hanging up his acting chops for good and going for a career in architecture instead. He also took a bit of a swipe at Orlando Bloom amongst other young actors for selling their integrity to get onto the A-list of Hollywood. Pretty balls-out thing for him to say considering that he's starring in a movie series notoriously known for atrocious acting...which makes me wonder about the article's veracity. If it is indeed true, then young Hayden is starting his architecture career by ironically burning a very big bridge. In fact, I don't think the soapbox he's standing on was ever all that stable to begin with.
Just did some shopping for clothes, cleaning stuff and food in that order at the nearby department store. I'm always trying to replenish my stock of socks since I wear them out pretty quickly due to the demands of my job. And over here, a holey sock is a holy terror.
Looks like my weekends in June seemed to be locked in now. My friend up in Karuizawa has given me the green light to visit her and her family up in the mountains in late June.
Pretty darn cool today outside...unusual for a May in Tokyo. Not that I'm complaining...I'm sure we'll all be in for some very sweaty days in the months to come.
I was happy to sleep in for the first time in several days. Got up at the glorious time of 11 a.m. and leisurely watched some TV before finally popping in that newest tape of "Doctor Who" and "Enterprise". Gotta admit that the first two-parter of the good Doctor was a a corker of a comedy-adventure. And the characters certainly have a bit more depth in them...I think everyone in the episode had an axe to grind with someone. I certainly wished that the writers for the new show had written for "Star Wars".
Speaking of which...I just saw an article, which may or may not be true, in which Hayden Christensen reportedly said that he's thinking of hanging up his acting chops for good and going for a career in architecture instead. He also took a bit of a swipe at Orlando Bloom amongst other young actors for selling their integrity to get onto the A-list of Hollywood. Pretty balls-out thing for him to say considering that he's starring in a movie series notoriously known for atrocious acting...which makes me wonder about the article's veracity. If it is indeed true, then young Hayden is starting his architecture career by ironically burning a very big bridge. In fact, I don't think the soapbox he's standing on was ever all that stable to begin with.
Just did some shopping for clothes, cleaning stuff and food in that order at the nearby department store. I'm always trying to replenish my stock of socks since I wear them out pretty quickly due to the demands of my job. And over here, a holey sock is a holy terror.
Looks like my weekends in June seemed to be locked in now. My friend up in Karuizawa has given me the green light to visit her and her family up in the mountains in late June.
Saturday, May 28, 2005
Saturday May 28, 6:23 p.m.
Got the little gifts for The Chipmunk's new kid. Her husband picked me up at the train station and brought me over to their condo. It was a good thing that I'd opted for the escort since he took me through a rather convoluted path toward his place. Mother and son were doing fine and we had a nice little hour chatting about the kid, some of the other folks in our collective sphere of influence, and her English abilities. The entire family walked me back to the station. During the walk back, I noticed that after a few minutes of her talking to me about her underconfidence concerning her pronounciation, she made a rather abrupt move to change the subject which struck me. Sure enough, I got an e-mail from her just now apologizing for talking too much about her English. I kinda figured that I wasn't all that chatty about it on the walk back but it wasn't because I was getting annoyed by it. It was pretty hot outside which lessens my communicativeness and Chipmunk tends to talk rapidly so that I must've tuned out. I made up for it my gaffe by offering my services to her if she really wants to upgrade her delivery.
My telepathy must've been working quite well today. I was thinking as I was going out the door about that final tape of Star Trek from The Entrepreneur. Sure enough, right in my mailbox was the tape. I sent him my due thanks.
It was bustling in my neighbourhood. The two elementary schools I pass on the way to the station were having their sports day. I was serenaded by the sounds of Queen's "We Will Rock You" as I stepped out while the other school had "Fanfare for Trumpets". Then as I passed the tiny dance studio, it was apparent that the dance du jour was tap.
JJ was her usual giddy self. I spent half the period starting her on her way to better pronounciation and intonation with that new text I'd gotten yesterday. Quite a bit of activity outside our Starbucks as yet another entertainer was thrilling the kids with some acrobatic derring-do.
Just had dinner at the Pepper Lunch underneath my station. I decided to take advantage of their grilled chicken and burger special. The burger was fine although I'll never really get used to the Japanese predilection of frying their steaks and burgers in butter. The chicken was another thigh meat affair. I much rather prefer breasts than thighs (cough, cough).
I got another message from my friend up in Karuizawa. This time, she got rather insistent that I come up there for a weekend since a day trip would waste the Shinkansen ticket. Well, as they do over here, once I got the third invitation I duly succumbed and said I will go for the weekend of the 25th. However, unless there is a cancellation, I'll most likely have to come up in the early evening since I do have those classes on Saturday. I just hope that there is no more of that negotiating back and forth.
Got the little gifts for The Chipmunk's new kid. Her husband picked me up at the train station and brought me over to their condo. It was a good thing that I'd opted for the escort since he took me through a rather convoluted path toward his place. Mother and son were doing fine and we had a nice little hour chatting about the kid, some of the other folks in our collective sphere of influence, and her English abilities. The entire family walked me back to the station. During the walk back, I noticed that after a few minutes of her talking to me about her underconfidence concerning her pronounciation, she made a rather abrupt move to change the subject which struck me. Sure enough, I got an e-mail from her just now apologizing for talking too much about her English. I kinda figured that I wasn't all that chatty about it on the walk back but it wasn't because I was getting annoyed by it. It was pretty hot outside which lessens my communicativeness and Chipmunk tends to talk rapidly so that I must've tuned out. I made up for it my gaffe by offering my services to her if she really wants to upgrade her delivery.
My telepathy must've been working quite well today. I was thinking as I was going out the door about that final tape of Star Trek from The Entrepreneur. Sure enough, right in my mailbox was the tape. I sent him my due thanks.
It was bustling in my neighbourhood. The two elementary schools I pass on the way to the station were having their sports day. I was serenaded by the sounds of Queen's "We Will Rock You" as I stepped out while the other school had "Fanfare for Trumpets". Then as I passed the tiny dance studio, it was apparent that the dance du jour was tap.
JJ was her usual giddy self. I spent half the period starting her on her way to better pronounciation and intonation with that new text I'd gotten yesterday. Quite a bit of activity outside our Starbucks as yet another entertainer was thrilling the kids with some acrobatic derring-do.
Just had dinner at the Pepper Lunch underneath my station. I decided to take advantage of their grilled chicken and burger special. The burger was fine although I'll never really get used to the Japanese predilection of frying their steaks and burgers in butter. The chicken was another thigh meat affair. I much rather prefer breasts than thighs (cough, cough).
I got another message from my friend up in Karuizawa. This time, she got rather insistent that I come up there for a weekend since a day trip would waste the Shinkansen ticket. Well, as they do over here, once I got the third invitation I duly succumbed and said I will go for the weekend of the 25th. However, unless there is a cancellation, I'll most likely have to come up in the early evening since I do have those classes on Saturday. I just hope that there is no more of that negotiating back and forth.
Friday, May 27, 2005
Saturday May 10:05 a.m.
Realized that I'm typing this at a time where I would usually be well on my way to teach the kids or teaching the kids already. This is the second consecutive week that I haven't had to go over there. I must admit that there is a certain nice thing about not having to commute on a Saturday morning but next week I'll be over again.
However, there was something to annoy me after all. I checked my e-mail, got messages from DTE, one of the M+M and Shard. and perhaps downloaded a file from DTE. It was some sort of cute commercial involving a fish and a cat about the needs to join a certain language school. Well, maybe the file contained a bit more than the advert...just after reading the rest of the messages a few minutes later, my Internet connection froze up. There was a big angry red light on the black box representing my ADSL. I lost my access to the Net which could be akin to going through withdrawal of the digital kind. So I immediately put the computer through its paces. I activated the Norton AntiVirus, the AdAware and the Symantec diagnostics. Took me half an hour...nada. So I finally decided to push those 3 buttons on my keyboard that I've had to do frequently over the past number of months and shut the bloody thing down. Once I got the series of warning messages in Japanese and got bluescreened a few times (I've been seeing those often enough...however, Speedy gets that a lot too so I'm glad that I'm not alone), I finally went with my nuclear option and pulled the bloody plug. One time, The Bohemian, a former IBM systems engineer, winced when I did that...but I'm not one to surrender happily and since I do have a temper...
After all that poking around, I accidentally tipped over the black box. The red light went to green and all was well with the world once again. Geezus...what kind of message does this send about the computer revolution?
Anyways I'm back...I checked Movie Buddy's blog. Looks like he did take a gander at my "Doctor Who" eps. He had a ball watching them but I suspect that he didn't notice the resemblance between him and the new good Doctor.
Well, I know that summer is around the corner when I've got my malfunctioning fan on every day, I've got my top off (I've been a good neighbour and not revealing myself in the window) and I'm starting to feel the need to take 2 showers a day. Ugh!
Realized that I'm typing this at a time where I would usually be well on my way to teach the kids or teaching the kids already. This is the second consecutive week that I haven't had to go over there. I must admit that there is a certain nice thing about not having to commute on a Saturday morning but next week I'll be over again.
However, there was something to annoy me after all. I checked my e-mail, got messages from DTE, one of the M+M and Shard. and perhaps downloaded a file from DTE. It was some sort of cute commercial involving a fish and a cat about the needs to join a certain language school. Well, maybe the file contained a bit more than the advert...just after reading the rest of the messages a few minutes later, my Internet connection froze up. There was a big angry red light on the black box representing my ADSL. I lost my access to the Net which could be akin to going through withdrawal of the digital kind. So I immediately put the computer through its paces. I activated the Norton AntiVirus, the AdAware and the Symantec diagnostics. Took me half an hour...nada. So I finally decided to push those 3 buttons on my keyboard that I've had to do frequently over the past number of months and shut the bloody thing down. Once I got the series of warning messages in Japanese and got bluescreened a few times (I've been seeing those often enough...however, Speedy gets that a lot too so I'm glad that I'm not alone), I finally went with my nuclear option and pulled the bloody plug. One time, The Bohemian, a former IBM systems engineer, winced when I did that...but I'm not one to surrender happily and since I do have a temper...
After all that poking around, I accidentally tipped over the black box. The red light went to green and all was well with the world once again. Geezus...what kind of message does this send about the computer revolution?
Anyways I'm back...I checked Movie Buddy's blog. Looks like he did take a gander at my "Doctor Who" eps. He had a ball watching them but I suspect that he didn't notice the resemblance between him and the new good Doctor.
Well, I know that summer is around the corner when I've got my malfunctioning fan on every day, I've got my top off (I've been a good neighbour and not revealing myself in the window) and I'm starting to feel the need to take 2 showers a day. Ugh!
Friday May 27, 9:56 p.m.
It was my regular Friday schedule. I taught The Teacher today at our regular cafe. And then I headed off to Maruzen where I picked up a couple of texts which could help SR and JJ. I spent quite a bit of yen on the purchases but luckily, I didn't spend too much on the miscellaneous stuff this week. Then, I had my fairly common lunch at Com Pho, that Vietnamese eatery in the basement level. I had the Bun Bi, a cold pho dish with lots of nuts, chopped pork, pickled carrots and cucumbers. I generously added fresh bean sprouts from the ready supply on the counter.
Ate quite a bit so I decided to take a bit of a walk from Maruzen over to Yurakucho. I noticed that there were a lot of junior high school classes on their annual trips to the big city. They were hunched down on designated areas (of course, being Japan, JR had zones all set up for the kids). I took the same route...go through the subway level to the Maru Bldg, took the escalator up to street level, went out and walked 5 minutes till I reached the Tokyo International Forum. It's been commonplace to see food trucks, mostly of the Asian spicy variety parked right between the two buildings that make up the Forum. I'll have to remember to try one of those places out someday.
I ended up going to HMV Yurakucho again and once again picked up a magazine. Gotta read on the train, y'know.
SR and I had another lesson surrounded by a lot of chatting. Looks like she had another sudden trip over to Hawaii with a colleague of hers. Since she works for an airline, they could get business-class seats at a huge discount. Our chats have often extended well beyond the 2 hours allotted for her lesson. I think we broke up around 6:30 tonight, a full hour extra.
Came home and fried up some mini-steaks which fit the bill quite nicely. I actually bought them at my usual supermarket...for some reason, beef there is fairly exorbitant in price but these mini-steaks were relatively painless...just 680 yen for the whole group. Usually for Aussie beef, I go to the supermarket just across the street (yes, there are two within 5 m of each other). They're much more reasonably priced.
The big news here right now is the possibility that two WWII soldiers may have been discovered living on the island of Mindanao. If that is indeed true, the two oldtimers would be in their early 80s. Man, I think they might as well just live the remainder of their lives there since they wouldn't recognize a blessed thing here.
The other interesting news is far more into pop culture. Apparently, Tokyo will have the world premiere of "Batman Begins" on May 31, a full 3 weeks before its official premiere in the States. I'm sure Ken Watanabe's name in the cast helped that situation. As far as I know, Christian Bale and Chris Nolan are set to come over here. No surprise on the venue, the Virgin Theatres at Roppongi Hills. And where will I be? Well, I'll be at the juku. Looks like The New Kid will be a no-show since he's got his school trip, so I'll start at my old time of 7.
It was my regular Friday schedule. I taught The Teacher today at our regular cafe. And then I headed off to Maruzen where I picked up a couple of texts which could help SR and JJ. I spent quite a bit of yen on the purchases but luckily, I didn't spend too much on the miscellaneous stuff this week. Then, I had my fairly common lunch at Com Pho, that Vietnamese eatery in the basement level. I had the Bun Bi, a cold pho dish with lots of nuts, chopped pork, pickled carrots and cucumbers. I generously added fresh bean sprouts from the ready supply on the counter.
Ate quite a bit so I decided to take a bit of a walk from Maruzen over to Yurakucho. I noticed that there were a lot of junior high school classes on their annual trips to the big city. They were hunched down on designated areas (of course, being Japan, JR had zones all set up for the kids). I took the same route...go through the subway level to the Maru Bldg, took the escalator up to street level, went out and walked 5 minutes till I reached the Tokyo International Forum. It's been commonplace to see food trucks, mostly of the Asian spicy variety parked right between the two buildings that make up the Forum. I'll have to remember to try one of those places out someday.
I ended up going to HMV Yurakucho again and once again picked up a magazine. Gotta read on the train, y'know.
SR and I had another lesson surrounded by a lot of chatting. Looks like she had another sudden trip over to Hawaii with a colleague of hers. Since she works for an airline, they could get business-class seats at a huge discount. Our chats have often extended well beyond the 2 hours allotted for her lesson. I think we broke up around 6:30 tonight, a full hour extra.
Came home and fried up some mini-steaks which fit the bill quite nicely. I actually bought them at my usual supermarket...for some reason, beef there is fairly exorbitant in price but these mini-steaks were relatively painless...just 680 yen for the whole group. Usually for Aussie beef, I go to the supermarket just across the street (yes, there are two within 5 m of each other). They're much more reasonably priced.
The big news here right now is the possibility that two WWII soldiers may have been discovered living on the island of Mindanao. If that is indeed true, the two oldtimers would be in their early 80s. Man, I think they might as well just live the remainder of their lives there since they wouldn't recognize a blessed thing here.
The other interesting news is far more into pop culture. Apparently, Tokyo will have the world premiere of "Batman Begins" on May 31, a full 3 weeks before its official premiere in the States. I'm sure Ken Watanabe's name in the cast helped that situation. As far as I know, Christian Bale and Chris Nolan are set to come over here. No surprise on the venue, the Virgin Theatres at Roppongi Hills. And where will I be? Well, I'll be at the juku. Looks like The New Kid will be a no-show since he's got his school trip, so I'll start at my old time of 7.
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Friday May 27, 8:35 a.m.
Forgot to mention that Morgan Freeman and Hilary Swank did show up yesterday on that noontime variety show on Fuji-TV. Yup...they showed up, and that was about it. Swank gave a barely audible, "Arigato" while the towering Freeman smiled and waved and stayed mute. However, they got the job done by showing up and showing the big poster of "Million Dollar Baby". Perhaps, I may see something more relevant on the "Waratte Ii Tomo" digest on Sunday mornings; the digest often shows some of the stuff that didn't get onto the live broadcasts during the week...and the pair didn't show up until the very end.
Looks like Bruce Willis was quite busy...he not only did the Japanese premiere of "Hostage" but he had some time to get a new commercial done here. And Richard Gere has been on the tube hawking some local esthetic salon. Nice to get some of the celeb males back after having been dominated by the likes of Liv Tyler (coffee), Natalie Portman and Charlize Theron (shampoo).
The OL sent me word that she'll have to cancel her lesson tonight due to overtime. I figured that was gonna be a semi-regular thing for Fridays so I'm cool with it. Get to get home a bit early, perhaps even make a bit of dinner.
Forgot to mention that Morgan Freeman and Hilary Swank did show up yesterday on that noontime variety show on Fuji-TV. Yup...they showed up, and that was about it. Swank gave a barely audible, "Arigato" while the towering Freeman smiled and waved and stayed mute. However, they got the job done by showing up and showing the big poster of "Million Dollar Baby". Perhaps, I may see something more relevant on the "Waratte Ii Tomo" digest on Sunday mornings; the digest often shows some of the stuff that didn't get onto the live broadcasts during the week...and the pair didn't show up until the very end.
Looks like Bruce Willis was quite busy...he not only did the Japanese premiere of "Hostage" but he had some time to get a new commercial done here. And Richard Gere has been on the tube hawking some local esthetic salon. Nice to get some of the celeb males back after having been dominated by the likes of Liv Tyler (coffee), Natalie Portman and Charlize Theron (shampoo).
The OL sent me word that she'll have to cancel her lesson tonight due to overtime. I figured that was gonna be a semi-regular thing for Fridays so I'm cool with it. Get to get home a bit early, perhaps even make a bit of dinner.
Thursday May 26, 10:18 p.m.
Pretty lazy Thursday since I only had the sisters in the evening. It will be even more lazier next week since MK re-scheduled her lesson for next week to Saturday afternoon. I'll have absolutely nothing on June 2nd.
Fridays will probably be the third busy day of the week since I've got The Teacher, SR and The OL although SR usually cancels out on the last Friday of the month due to accounting matters. However, she's due to come tomorrow, though. I'll have to pick up some new material for her since she's pretty much done with the text that we'd be using for the past several months. Not sure how much more advanced I can take her. The text that we'd just finished was getting into some pretty high stuff as it was and she'd also gone through the TOEIC Intermediate Guide. But I'll take another Friday look in Maruzen.
As I said, it was a lazy Thursday so I had decided to veg a bit before I left for the Tea Room and listened to a Yuming CD. Yuming, whose real name is Yumi Matsutoya (nee Arai), is one of J-Pop's legends. She was already well into her career even before some of today's top acts were born. I mentioned the "nee" part since she started out as one of the singers of the New Music movement...something that occurred in the early 70s after the Beach Boys-like Group Sounds trend died away. The New Music is distinguished from the mainstream idol singers and enka balladeers by the fact that Yuming and her contemporaries such as Ryuichi Sakamoto (who would start up YMO later in the decade) wrote their own eclectic brand of pop or folk stuff.
As Yumi Arai, a lot of her stuff back then had that somewhat langourous folksy vibe with a bit of country/50s/folk influence woven in. For those Hayao (Spirited Away) Yamazaki fans, you ought to watch "Kiki's Delivery Service" (my personal Yamazaki favourite). The two songs that bracket the movie are Arai hits from her first decade.
However when Yuming married her fellow new musician/turned producer, Masataka Matsutoya in the late 70s, her music veered into a more poppy and uptempo vein although she did come up with some more hit ballads. I'd say that if I were to analogize her stuff for Western audiences, she'd definitely be in the AOR genre. I mean, if there were a compilation of international AOR tunes, she'd be included with people like Kenny Loggins, The Doobie Bros and Olivia Newton-John.
Her voice also represented the line which determined whether you liked or hated her. It's obvious from what I've said so far which side of the line I'm on. But I've had fellow J-Pop listeners liken her somewhat reedy voice to scratching fingernails on the blackboard. To be honest, I haven't listened to much of her recent stuff...well, basically anything that she's put out in the last 10 years. Her voice has gone from mellow beginnings to near-Yoko Ono/Buffy Ste. Marie warbling. But it's also that a lot of her songs haven't really been all that catchy lately. I greatly prefer her old stuff but maybe that's just age on my part. Still, her longevity is amazing considering the very flavor-of-the-month nature of the J-Pop industry. Also, I gotta admit that her concerts are one level above most other pop singers' efforts. Her 1990 concert video showed a slickness on a par with anything American singers usualy throw out.
Pretty lazy Thursday since I only had the sisters in the evening. It will be even more lazier next week since MK re-scheduled her lesson for next week to Saturday afternoon. I'll have absolutely nothing on June 2nd.
Fridays will probably be the third busy day of the week since I've got The Teacher, SR and The OL although SR usually cancels out on the last Friday of the month due to accounting matters. However, she's due to come tomorrow, though. I'll have to pick up some new material for her since she's pretty much done with the text that we'd be using for the past several months. Not sure how much more advanced I can take her. The text that we'd just finished was getting into some pretty high stuff as it was and she'd also gone through the TOEIC Intermediate Guide. But I'll take another Friday look in Maruzen.
As I said, it was a lazy Thursday so I had decided to veg a bit before I left for the Tea Room and listened to a Yuming CD. Yuming, whose real name is Yumi Matsutoya (nee Arai), is one of J-Pop's legends. She was already well into her career even before some of today's top acts were born. I mentioned the "nee" part since she started out as one of the singers of the New Music movement...something that occurred in the early 70s after the Beach Boys-like Group Sounds trend died away. The New Music is distinguished from the mainstream idol singers and enka balladeers by the fact that Yuming and her contemporaries such as Ryuichi Sakamoto (who would start up YMO later in the decade) wrote their own eclectic brand of pop or folk stuff.
As Yumi Arai, a lot of her stuff back then had that somewhat langourous folksy vibe with a bit of country/50s/folk influence woven in. For those Hayao (Spirited Away) Yamazaki fans, you ought to watch "Kiki's Delivery Service" (my personal Yamazaki favourite). The two songs that bracket the movie are Arai hits from her first decade.
However when Yuming married her fellow new musician/turned producer, Masataka Matsutoya in the late 70s, her music veered into a more poppy and uptempo vein although she did come up with some more hit ballads. I'd say that if I were to analogize her stuff for Western audiences, she'd definitely be in the AOR genre. I mean, if there were a compilation of international AOR tunes, she'd be included with people like Kenny Loggins, The Doobie Bros and Olivia Newton-John.
Her voice also represented the line which determined whether you liked or hated her. It's obvious from what I've said so far which side of the line I'm on. But I've had fellow J-Pop listeners liken her somewhat reedy voice to scratching fingernails on the blackboard. To be honest, I haven't listened to much of her recent stuff...well, basically anything that she's put out in the last 10 years. Her voice has gone from mellow beginnings to near-Yoko Ono/Buffy Ste. Marie warbling. But it's also that a lot of her songs haven't really been all that catchy lately. I greatly prefer her old stuff but maybe that's just age on my part. Still, her longevity is amazing considering the very flavor-of-the-month nature of the J-Pop industry. Also, I gotta admit that her concerts are one level above most other pop singers' efforts. Her 1990 concert video showed a slickness on a par with anything American singers usualy throw out.
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
Wednesday May 25, 11:33 p.m.
Yup, I know...it's my third or fourth entry today but I keep forgetting to put these items in. If I don't...they'll just pop in and out of my head for the next several days.
1) Really strange event tomorrow on the noon show, "Waratte Ii Tomo" (It's OK to Laugh!). This is the 23-year-old variety program hosted by the Johnny Carson of Japan, Tamori. It's known for a lot of little games involving the currently popular TV personalities...a lot of hilarity. Well, things are gonna be weird when none other than Morgan Freeman and Hilary Swank will be making their presence felt on the show, presumably to promote "Million Dollar Baby" which actually premieres this weekend. Talk about your incongruities: one of the most gravitas-laden actors in recent memory appearing on a program that espouses the opposite. Mind you, Freeman was Easy Reader from "The Electric Company"....perhaps his sense of humour will be intact although the usual response from Hollywood celebs doing Japanese TV shows has been one of bemused amusement. I still think the look on Harrison Ford's face when Puffy "interviewed" him is the standard bearer.
2) Continuing on the Hollywood line, Bruce Willis popped up in front of hundreds of fans in Kabukicho to promote "Hostage". Ol' Bullet Head was a fine showman, spouting a bit of Japanese greetings before thanking everyone for their patronage.
3) I've had this song rolling around in my head for the past couple of days. It's called "Thank You For The Music" by a J-Pop band called Bonobos (I'm sure there is a good story behind THAT name). A pretty rollicking though mild stomper, the music video would be the usual band-on-outside-set presentation except that throughout it, there are these Aztec architectural structures just bouncing up and down and all around the band members like demented pop-up figures.
Yup, I know...it's my third or fourth entry today but I keep forgetting to put these items in. If I don't...they'll just pop in and out of my head for the next several days.
1) Really strange event tomorrow on the noon show, "Waratte Ii Tomo" (It's OK to Laugh!). This is the 23-year-old variety program hosted by the Johnny Carson of Japan, Tamori. It's known for a lot of little games involving the currently popular TV personalities...a lot of hilarity. Well, things are gonna be weird when none other than Morgan Freeman and Hilary Swank will be making their presence felt on the show, presumably to promote "Million Dollar Baby" which actually premieres this weekend. Talk about your incongruities: one of the most gravitas-laden actors in recent memory appearing on a program that espouses the opposite. Mind you, Freeman was Easy Reader from "The Electric Company"....perhaps his sense of humour will be intact although the usual response from Hollywood celebs doing Japanese TV shows has been one of bemused amusement. I still think the look on Harrison Ford's face when Puffy "interviewed" him is the standard bearer.
2) Continuing on the Hollywood line, Bruce Willis popped up in front of hundreds of fans in Kabukicho to promote "Hostage". Ol' Bullet Head was a fine showman, spouting a bit of Japanese greetings before thanking everyone for their patronage.
3) I've had this song rolling around in my head for the past couple of days. It's called "Thank You For The Music" by a J-Pop band called Bonobos (I'm sure there is a good story behind THAT name). A pretty rollicking though mild stomper, the music video would be the usual band-on-outside-set presentation except that throughout it, there are these Aztec architectural structures just bouncing up and down and all around the band members like demented pop-up figures.
Wednesday May 25, 11:00 p.m.
I decided to make that last entry of "jinhsin jikou" a standalone. So what about the rest of my day? Well, I did some more intonation and pronounciation work with The Hawaiian. Looks like I've got 4 more lessons with her until she takes off for Oz. I'm kinda wondering about having me and Movie Buddy take her out once before she goes.
Then it was over to Speedy's for my regular lesson with Student 001. Her Taiwan trip went pretty smoothly although she thinks that three days are just too short. I would agree. She also informed me that she had a spoonful of that infamous smelly tofu dish that could be considered to be a lethal weapon. I'm sure that the industrial-strength Dentyne was in order. She brought back a nice souvenir in the form of some local pineapple cakes. Pretty rich...needed the tea to drink it down. Looks like Speedy will be away next week on a business trip in North America. He said that he may try to catch Star Wars there but he's frankly doubtful considering his busy schedule.
One thing never to do. Don't eat a whole fried chicken bento with mayonnaise along with a salad heavy on cabbage. The combination was like setting the fuse on a particularly packed cannon. Luckily, my class was over when the strong urge to hit a toilet arrived. It cost me an extra fare, but I was lucky enough to have The Century Hyatt and its glorious Western-style toilets there on the way home.
Got back home to get a phone message from one of my former students. She asked me to call her back but I neither have her phone number or e-mail address which rather makes any contact with her moot. I can only hope she can send me some info by the Net.
Well, I've got the sisters tomorrow night but in the meantime, I also have to get that one gym outing this week out of the way.
I decided to make that last entry of "jinhsin jikou" a standalone. So what about the rest of my day? Well, I did some more intonation and pronounciation work with The Hawaiian. Looks like I've got 4 more lessons with her until she takes off for Oz. I'm kinda wondering about having me and Movie Buddy take her out once before she goes.
Then it was over to Speedy's for my regular lesson with Student 001. Her Taiwan trip went pretty smoothly although she thinks that three days are just too short. I would agree. She also informed me that she had a spoonful of that infamous smelly tofu dish that could be considered to be a lethal weapon. I'm sure that the industrial-strength Dentyne was in order. She brought back a nice souvenir in the form of some local pineapple cakes. Pretty rich...needed the tea to drink it down. Looks like Speedy will be away next week on a business trip in North America. He said that he may try to catch Star Wars there but he's frankly doubtful considering his busy schedule.
One thing never to do. Don't eat a whole fried chicken bento with mayonnaise along with a salad heavy on cabbage. The combination was like setting the fuse on a particularly packed cannon. Luckily, my class was over when the strong urge to hit a toilet arrived. It cost me an extra fare, but I was lucky enough to have The Century Hyatt and its glorious Western-style toilets there on the way home.
Got back home to get a phone message from one of my former students. She asked me to call her back but I neither have her phone number or e-mail address which rather makes any contact with her moot. I can only hope she can send me some info by the Net.
Well, I've got the sisters tomorrow night but in the meantime, I also have to get that one gym outing this week out of the way.
Wednesday May 25, 10:21 p.m.
And I thought I was knackered last night. Due to another jinshin jikou on the JR, all the express trains on the Tozai Line were cancelled and there were tons of people on the subway tonight. I felt like a microscopic specimen after the glass slide had been slipped on over me. Now I know why I've training at the gym all these months. It wasn't to lose weight, it was to ensure that my legs could withstand the pressure of dozens of commuters dogpiling atop of me as the train pulled out of each station.
And what is a "jinshin jikou"? Well, the direct translation is "personal accident", an appropriately vague expression coined by the minders of the subway and JR lines to cover a mulititude of incidents from an ill passenger to a couple of drunk knuckleheads who might decide to have a little tussle on Drinkin' Fridays. However, if you've been in the city even as half as long as I have, you'll immediately assume a jumper, namely a person committing suicide. Thus, jinshin jikou takes on a a euphemistic quality as well.
It doesn't seem to happen every day but it does occur often enough. You'll hear it over the PA system and even on the built-in monitors inside the Yamanote Line trains. No details are ever given but I'm sure a lot of folks assume that someone has made that final leap into oblivion. Usually, the leaper does it on either the crosstown Sobu or Keio Lines since outside expresses exist for them. Express trains also exist on the Tozai but for some reason, I have never heard of anyone killing themselves there.
Fortunately, I've never had the bad luck to witness a leaper in action but over the years, a few students or friends have mentioned their eyewitness accounts. A decade ago, one of the staff members at the NOVA I'd been working at mentioned that she got rather nauseous when the person in front of her decided to end it all and threw himself in front of a speeding express. She also got to see the end results as well. Just yesterday, the New Kid informed me that he had been witness to one of his schoolmates (someone he hadn't been acquainted with) leaping not too long ago.
The leaper also has quite an effect on traffic. I'm still rather mystified after all these years but when a guy successfully jumps and turns into a Picasso cubist piece, the ripple effect is that not only that line is affected but all other lines connecting to it are affected as well which means delays, long waiting lines and overpacked subways. Unlike in subways of other countries, over here, commuters are more than willing to become 2-D figures since the Japanese know how to more willingly shrug it off as part of life in the big city and suffer in silence
There is also that belief that the family of the deceased is responsible for footing the bill of the cleanup operations. Recently, though, there have been reports that this is more of an urban myth.
And I thought I was knackered last night. Due to another jinshin jikou on the JR, all the express trains on the Tozai Line were cancelled and there were tons of people on the subway tonight. I felt like a microscopic specimen after the glass slide had been slipped on over me. Now I know why I've training at the gym all these months. It wasn't to lose weight, it was to ensure that my legs could withstand the pressure of dozens of commuters dogpiling atop of me as the train pulled out of each station.
And what is a "jinshin jikou"? Well, the direct translation is "personal accident", an appropriately vague expression coined by the minders of the subway and JR lines to cover a mulititude of incidents from an ill passenger to a couple of drunk knuckleheads who might decide to have a little tussle on Drinkin' Fridays. However, if you've been in the city even as half as long as I have, you'll immediately assume a jumper, namely a person committing suicide. Thus, jinshin jikou takes on a a euphemistic quality as well.
It doesn't seem to happen every day but it does occur often enough. You'll hear it over the PA system and even on the built-in monitors inside the Yamanote Line trains. No details are ever given but I'm sure a lot of folks assume that someone has made that final leap into oblivion. Usually, the leaper does it on either the crosstown Sobu or Keio Lines since outside expresses exist for them. Express trains also exist on the Tozai but for some reason, I have never heard of anyone killing themselves there.
Fortunately, I've never had the bad luck to witness a leaper in action but over the years, a few students or friends have mentioned their eyewitness accounts. A decade ago, one of the staff members at the NOVA I'd been working at mentioned that she got rather nauseous when the person in front of her decided to end it all and threw himself in front of a speeding express. She also got to see the end results as well. Just yesterday, the New Kid informed me that he had been witness to one of his schoolmates (someone he hadn't been acquainted with) leaping not too long ago.
The leaper also has quite an effect on traffic. I'm still rather mystified after all these years but when a guy successfully jumps and turns into a Picasso cubist piece, the ripple effect is that not only that line is affected but all other lines connecting to it are affected as well which means delays, long waiting lines and overpacked subways. Unlike in subways of other countries, over here, commuters are more than willing to become 2-D figures since the Japanese know how to more willingly shrug it off as part of life in the big city and suffer in silence
There is also that belief that the family of the deceased is responsible for footing the bill of the cleanup operations. Recently, though, there have been reports that this is more of an urban myth.
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Wednesday May 25, 8:47 a.m.
Looks like my confession to eating grasshoppers got some bites...figuratively, of course....from a couple of folks. Shard and The Professor sent back replies as if they were wondrous Grade 6'ers. I just described the subtle texture of crunchiness mixed with the teriyaki taste of stewed locust. Mmmmm....I'm channeling Homer Simpson. The little bag of the little fellas is still residing nicely in my fridge.
Looks like my confession to eating grasshoppers got some bites...figuratively, of course....from a couple of folks. Shard and The Professor sent back replies as if they were wondrous Grade 6'ers. I just described the subtle texture of crunchiness mixed with the teriyaki taste of stewed locust. Mmmmm....I'm channeling Homer Simpson. The little bag of the little fellas is still residing nicely in my fridge.
Tuesday May 23, 11:45 p.m.
I think the Brits say "knackered". Well, I'm knackered. Another long day with a sunny morning and afternoon, and then a rainy night. Can do a lot of warping of one's metabolism.
At the Beehive today, I was introduced to the wonders of tsukudani, or preserved soya sauce grasshoppers. You got it...those insects that seem to have never met a rice or wheat field they haven't liked. Well, I did my part in getting some revenge of the winged ones. Mrs Tea got a small bagful of the stuff for me to try out. Yup, they were indeed small grasshoppers. I could make out the multiple legs, the large compound eyes and the wings. I didn't even hesitate..I threw one of the little monsters into my mouth. Mmmm....chewy...can't even taste anything remotely grasshopperish about it. Mrs. Fashion looked somewhat green, though. I took the little packet home for snack time.
I guess the stewed locusts got my appetite going since I decided on a whim to whip up some pasta. However, it wasn't the usual meat sauce spaghetti since I didn't have any ketchup on hand. Instead, I used the remaining cod roe mayonnaise that SR had given me several weeks before as the sauce base. I threw in some chicken and scallops along with some greens. It turned out pretty well actually. I'm saving more than half of it for tomorrow's breakfast along with the remaining Campbell's Minestrone Soup that I'd bought at the supermarket.
My classes at the juku were the same ol', same ol'. The New Kid was his usual friendly self, the Beauty Pair gossiped for the majority of the lesson in Japanese, The Milds were dutifully diligent and The Bohemian did pretty well for a first taste in the wonders and intricacies of TOEIC. He didn't do too badly on the various parts.
Got some word from Paddy. Looks like my possible immigration to this country may be a whole lot easier than previously believed, although I'm very much of the too-good-to-be-true school of life. Still, if there's anyone I believe in, it's Paddy.
I also got the OK from The Chipmunk to drop by on Saturday to say hello to the newest member of their family. I'll probably do so on my way to teach JJ; I'll probably get a little Snoopy doll for the tyke.
I've still gotta fill out the reports for the juku classes tonight. And at least get something down for a lesson plan for The Hawaiian and Student 001 at Speedy's tomorrow. All that and a shower.
Later...
I think the Brits say "knackered". Well, I'm knackered. Another long day with a sunny morning and afternoon, and then a rainy night. Can do a lot of warping of one's metabolism.
At the Beehive today, I was introduced to the wonders of tsukudani, or preserved soya sauce grasshoppers. You got it...those insects that seem to have never met a rice or wheat field they haven't liked. Well, I did my part in getting some revenge of the winged ones. Mrs Tea got a small bagful of the stuff for me to try out. Yup, they were indeed small grasshoppers. I could make out the multiple legs, the large compound eyes and the wings. I didn't even hesitate..I threw one of the little monsters into my mouth. Mmmm....chewy...can't even taste anything remotely grasshopperish about it. Mrs. Fashion looked somewhat green, though. I took the little packet home for snack time.
I guess the stewed locusts got my appetite going since I decided on a whim to whip up some pasta. However, it wasn't the usual meat sauce spaghetti since I didn't have any ketchup on hand. Instead, I used the remaining cod roe mayonnaise that SR had given me several weeks before as the sauce base. I threw in some chicken and scallops along with some greens. It turned out pretty well actually. I'm saving more than half of it for tomorrow's breakfast along with the remaining Campbell's Minestrone Soup that I'd bought at the supermarket.
My classes at the juku were the same ol', same ol'. The New Kid was his usual friendly self, the Beauty Pair gossiped for the majority of the lesson in Japanese, The Milds were dutifully diligent and The Bohemian did pretty well for a first taste in the wonders and intricacies of TOEIC. He didn't do too badly on the various parts.
Got some word from Paddy. Looks like my possible immigration to this country may be a whole lot easier than previously believed, although I'm very much of the too-good-to-be-true school of life. Still, if there's anyone I believe in, it's Paddy.
I also got the OK from The Chipmunk to drop by on Saturday to say hello to the newest member of their family. I'll probably do so on my way to teach JJ; I'll probably get a little Snoopy doll for the tyke.
I've still gotta fill out the reports for the juku classes tonight. And at least get something down for a lesson plan for The Hawaiian and Student 001 at Speedy's tomorrow. All that and a shower.
Later...
Monday, May 23, 2005
Tuesday May 24, 7:38 a.m.
It's sunny out there...for now. The weather girl came to her senses and said that there may be some more rain on the way later today although it won't reach the torrential heights of last night. We'll see about that.
Got the final marks on the Star Wars movie from The Entrepreneur. He gave it a 7.5...not bad but it doesn't rate up with the original or "The Empire Strikes Back". I'll take that score since I will probably have the same opinion when I see it in July...or sooner if PH can milk her connections.
Now, where were we on this little saga of Star Wars reminiscing. Ahhh...yes..."Attack of the Clones". This was a rather strange one for me since I don't remember where I first saw it. I definitely didn't go to the midnight show for that one...partially since the endurance test from catching the first prequel was still pretty fresh in my mind, and also because the reviews were even more negative. I can't even remember if I had actually seen it with anyone.
Yup, the acting was even more cringeworthy in this one than in "The Phantom Menace". There was no gravitas from a Liam Neeson to bring some dignity (well, there was that brief 1-second quip in Yoda's meditation chamber). Instead, we got Hayden Christensen. Wow! Who'da thought? Darth Vader comes from Toronto. During the leadup to the movie, I was wondering how this guy would do considering that Jake Lloyd didn't exactly endear himself to the stalwart fans. Well, after seeing his "performance" in AOTC, I was wondering if there were some way the Canadian government could revoke his citizenship. Right from one of his opening lines, "So have you...grown more beautiful, that is...", I knew we were in for a bumpy ride. Stuff like "You soothe me" and his deathless analogy comparing Padme to something that isn't sand (oh, you charmer, Anakin, you) made me grateful that I was in a Japanese theatre instead of a Canadian one. At least, 1) Japanese audiences don't traditionally react to much of anything, and 2) the language barrier acts benevolently here...you can't detect bad English-language acting if you can't understand it.
Then again, noone was really spared from the petrified forest quality of Lucas' script. I even cringed at one line that Ewan McGregor spat out during the final battle. However, there were some...a few...good moments at the end with the Jedi smackdown on Geonosis and that briefest of battles between Count Dooku and Yoda.
That's pretty much all I can sum up concerning the previous sequel. Not a good Star Wars movie...just not a good movie, period. Well, all's the better that "Revenge of the Sith" is getting much better buzz.
It's sunny out there...for now. The weather girl came to her senses and said that there may be some more rain on the way later today although it won't reach the torrential heights of last night. We'll see about that.
Got the final marks on the Star Wars movie from The Entrepreneur. He gave it a 7.5...not bad but it doesn't rate up with the original or "The Empire Strikes Back". I'll take that score since I will probably have the same opinion when I see it in July...or sooner if PH can milk her connections.
Now, where were we on this little saga of Star Wars reminiscing. Ahhh...yes..."Attack of the Clones". This was a rather strange one for me since I don't remember where I first saw it. I definitely didn't go to the midnight show for that one...partially since the endurance test from catching the first prequel was still pretty fresh in my mind, and also because the reviews were even more negative. I can't even remember if I had actually seen it with anyone.
Yup, the acting was even more cringeworthy in this one than in "The Phantom Menace". There was no gravitas from a Liam Neeson to bring some dignity (well, there was that brief 1-second quip in Yoda's meditation chamber). Instead, we got Hayden Christensen. Wow! Who'da thought? Darth Vader comes from Toronto. During the leadup to the movie, I was wondering how this guy would do considering that Jake Lloyd didn't exactly endear himself to the stalwart fans. Well, after seeing his "performance" in AOTC, I was wondering if there were some way the Canadian government could revoke his citizenship. Right from one of his opening lines, "So have you...grown more beautiful, that is...", I knew we were in for a bumpy ride. Stuff like "You soothe me" and his deathless analogy comparing Padme to something that isn't sand (oh, you charmer, Anakin, you) made me grateful that I was in a Japanese theatre instead of a Canadian one. At least, 1) Japanese audiences don't traditionally react to much of anything, and 2) the language barrier acts benevolently here...you can't detect bad English-language acting if you can't understand it.
Then again, noone was really spared from the petrified forest quality of Lucas' script. I even cringed at one line that Ewan McGregor spat out during the final battle. However, there were some...a few...good moments at the end with the Jedi smackdown on Geonosis and that briefest of battles between Count Dooku and Yoda.
That's pretty much all I can sum up concerning the previous sequel. Not a good Star Wars movie...just not a good movie, period. Well, all's the better that "Revenge of the Sith" is getting much better buzz.
Monday May 23, 9:49 p.m.
A bit of rain the weather girl said...well, she was off by about a million times. We got hammered tonight with a good dousing of precipitation. Luckily, the downpour started just when I entered the station nearest The Company. I could tell that something was up meterologically when some pretty big blasts of cold air pushed their way into the warm and humid underground level via the stairways. Then at Iidabashi Station, I saw a whole bunch of commuters swarming around a stand selling cheap umbrellas...further evidence that there was a pretty steady rain going on above ground. Sure enough, when I got off my station, I saw several people waiting just inside the exits while the rains came on down. Luckily, I had my foldable with me.
The day started nicely enough, though. I made an early stop at an AM/PM convenience store around the corner from my place to send off the package filled with my training materials and report for that BULATS qualification. Not too expensive to send it by courier...just 850 yen.
It was quite warm when I got off at Shibuya to head over to teach The Class Act and SIL. Everything went well there and I got all my back pay from the Prez at The Company tonight. I had the same guy from last week; still slow as molasses at the beginning. I keep remembering back to the day when I first started with him and the others almost 2 years ago. He was the best of a low lot...I wonder what the heck happened. Perhaps, the grammar caught up with him.
I just heard back from The Entrepreneur. According to the tone of his message, he didn't seem to be as enthused about "Revenge of the Sith" as The Doctor was. Different folks, different strokes I guess. And I got word back from Betty Boop about our proposed trip to Tony Romas. Looks like she and the OL will be good to go on the 11th of June.
I'd finish off my Star Wars memories here but I gotta prep for the long tomorrow as all my Tuesdays are.
A bit of rain the weather girl said...well, she was off by about a million times. We got hammered tonight with a good dousing of precipitation. Luckily, the downpour started just when I entered the station nearest The Company. I could tell that something was up meterologically when some pretty big blasts of cold air pushed their way into the warm and humid underground level via the stairways. Then at Iidabashi Station, I saw a whole bunch of commuters swarming around a stand selling cheap umbrellas...further evidence that there was a pretty steady rain going on above ground. Sure enough, when I got off my station, I saw several people waiting just inside the exits while the rains came on down. Luckily, I had my foldable with me.
The day started nicely enough, though. I made an early stop at an AM/PM convenience store around the corner from my place to send off the package filled with my training materials and report for that BULATS qualification. Not too expensive to send it by courier...just 850 yen.
It was quite warm when I got off at Shibuya to head over to teach The Class Act and SIL. Everything went well there and I got all my back pay from the Prez at The Company tonight. I had the same guy from last week; still slow as molasses at the beginning. I keep remembering back to the day when I first started with him and the others almost 2 years ago. He was the best of a low lot...I wonder what the heck happened. Perhaps, the grammar caught up with him.
I just heard back from The Entrepreneur. According to the tone of his message, he didn't seem to be as enthused about "Revenge of the Sith" as The Doctor was. Different folks, different strokes I guess. And I got word back from Betty Boop about our proposed trip to Tony Romas. Looks like she and the OL will be good to go on the 11th of June.
I'd finish off my Star Wars memories here but I gotta prep for the long tomorrow as all my Tuesdays are.
Sunday, May 22, 2005
Monday May 23, 7:54 a.m.
Now, this is something you don't hear too often...a marriage between a Japanese pop singer and an American jazz guitarist. Anri and Lee Ritenour have apparently tied the knot according to the former at a concert the night before. It must've been very sudden since checking the official websites for both have shown no news of the nuptials. Neither artist is exactly at the cutting edge of the pop culture zeitgeist: Anri's name is probably recognized by everyone over the age of 20 but her time was in the 80s, and Ritenour is purely at home in the jazz/AOR genre. Still kinda nice to find out.
It's not the first instance, though, of this kinda marriage. There is the famous joining of Ono and Lennon, but the jury's been out for decades whether Yoko is still considered a singer.
I see that "Revenge of the Sith" is raking in the big bucks. $150 million in its first weekend. I'm still very skeptical of its chances to unseat "Titanic", though. However, I've heard of repeat viewings...something that I didn't really hear for the last two prequels. Still, apparently even Star Wars wasn't enough to help the declining sales overall for movies this year.
Now, this is something you don't hear too often...a marriage between a Japanese pop singer and an American jazz guitarist. Anri and Lee Ritenour have apparently tied the knot according to the former at a concert the night before. It must've been very sudden since checking the official websites for both have shown no news of the nuptials. Neither artist is exactly at the cutting edge of the pop culture zeitgeist: Anri's name is probably recognized by everyone over the age of 20 but her time was in the 80s, and Ritenour is purely at home in the jazz/AOR genre. Still kinda nice to find out.
It's not the first instance, though, of this kinda marriage. There is the famous joining of Ono and Lennon, but the jury's been out for decades whether Yoko is still considered a singer.
I see that "Revenge of the Sith" is raking in the big bucks. $150 million in its first weekend. I'm still very skeptical of its chances to unseat "Titanic", though. However, I've heard of repeat viewings...something that I didn't really hear for the last two prequels. Still, apparently even Star Wars wasn't enough to help the declining sales overall for movies this year.
Sunday May 22, 8:30 p.m.
Got back from an afternoon with Movie Buddy and The Satyr. We caught "Kingdom of Heaven" with Orlando Bloom. Not a bad flick, though it was rather slow in parts and some suspension of disbelief was needed overall. I don't think this will be the movie to put Bloom onto the A-list quite yet although it will keep him a familiar face. Certainly, he won't be in any danger of being stereotyped as Legolas. It was good seeing Liam Neeson in what seems to be his third role as mentor-turned-martyr. Of course, he was Qui-Gonn in "The Phantom Menace" and he'll be the fight trainer for Bruce Wayne in "Batman Begins" (although I'm not sure if he dies in that one as well). My suspension of disbelief was needed when I saw this embittered young blacksmith turn into this shrewd warrior in what seemed to be a smattering of weeks. It was even more amazing that the hardened warriors under his command could accept him that quickly even with his father's pedigree. I was somewhat mystified by an uncredited Ed Norton's impersonation of Marlon Brando for the King's role...you got me in that one, but he made the most of his part. And for those Trekkies out there, Alexander "Dr. Bashir" Siddig had a fairly meaty supporting role as the Muslim warrior whose life was spared by Bloom's character. All in all, an OK flick.
Afterwards, the three of us spent a few hours in the Aussie pub in Shinjuku munching on fish n' chips while the latest K1 championships were going on. Some short and intense bouts followed by some long and somewhat tedious matches. I don't think I'll be a convert. It looks like The Satryr will become our third movie member, though. Not sure which movie we'll catch next together. Could be "Batman Begins" although we'll have to wait another month for that one.
Well, I've now got the drudgery of getting that training material filled out before sending it off tomorrow, prepping for my Monday lessons and then ironing.
Got back from an afternoon with Movie Buddy and The Satyr. We caught "Kingdom of Heaven" with Orlando Bloom. Not a bad flick, though it was rather slow in parts and some suspension of disbelief was needed overall. I don't think this will be the movie to put Bloom onto the A-list quite yet although it will keep him a familiar face. Certainly, he won't be in any danger of being stereotyped as Legolas. It was good seeing Liam Neeson in what seems to be his third role as mentor-turned-martyr. Of course, he was Qui-Gonn in "The Phantom Menace" and he'll be the fight trainer for Bruce Wayne in "Batman Begins" (although I'm not sure if he dies in that one as well). My suspension of disbelief was needed when I saw this embittered young blacksmith turn into this shrewd warrior in what seemed to be a smattering of weeks. It was even more amazing that the hardened warriors under his command could accept him that quickly even with his father's pedigree. I was somewhat mystified by an uncredited Ed Norton's impersonation of Marlon Brando for the King's role...you got me in that one, but he made the most of his part. And for those Trekkies out there, Alexander "Dr. Bashir" Siddig had a fairly meaty supporting role as the Muslim warrior whose life was spared by Bloom's character. All in all, an OK flick.
Afterwards, the three of us spent a few hours in the Aussie pub in Shinjuku munching on fish n' chips while the latest K1 championships were going on. Some short and intense bouts followed by some long and somewhat tedious matches. I don't think I'll be a convert. It looks like The Satryr will become our third movie member, though. Not sure which movie we'll catch next together. Could be "Batman Begins" although we'll have to wait another month for that one.
Well, I've now got the drudgery of getting that training material filled out before sending it off tomorrow, prepping for my Monday lessons and then ironing.