Wednesday June 22, 9:16 a.m.

Woke up to the sounds of a squall outside my window. It does feel cooler than it did yesterday; it's just going up to 23 today, thankfully. Hopefully, the rains won't drag on all day but then again, we are talking about Rainy Season.

My old university friend has sent me his colleague's resume for me to peruse. I took a quick peek at it. The lad's got a TESOL which will help...at least, on paper. But I did notice a lack of university credentials. Mind you, the university degree is just for Immigration as a filter to keep out the riffraff (yes, apparently, if you are the owner of a university diploma, it means that you are a cultured, mature person automatically...uh-huh). He can circumvent that problem by coming over on a working-holiday visa or a student visa and then getting the job with one of the bigs such as NOVA or ECC and switch over to the working visa. The problems are: 1) the bigs themselves...rather soul-sapping, and 2) I think getting a job with a real school may be a bit more difficult than that.

Tuesday June 21, 11:12 p.m.

Managed to get through the juku gauntlet tonight thanks to the very powerful air conditioner in my room. Of course, being a Canadian I was happy as a pea in a pod but I had to turn the thing off at various points for the more thin-skinned students. The New Kid was a bit more sullen today; he was 10 minutes late, the second time in recent weeks that he's been tardy so I'm starting to wonder if he's starting to get a bit uninterested in English. I received a couple of muskmelons from Kei of The Beauty Pair during the second hour; somehow I managed to fit them into the fridge.

The Poppy got both Milds tonight. Compared to the first meeting last week, she started faltering once we got into the text. I'll probably have to use my TLC on her. She looked like she'd been through the wringer by the end of class but at least she kept some sort of game face on. As for the Siberian. he'd been through Hell last week with some sort of bug which throttled him with a 39-degree C fever.

I got word from The Hawaiian tonight. She'll be good to go for tomorrow's final lesson before she takes off for Oz on Saturday. Still don't know how she's gonna fare there with that sensitive stomach of hers.

Anyways, I gotta head on out relatively early tomorrow since I gotta get my ticket for Karuizawa on Saturday night and then check out Kinkos to see if I could pull off that rather circuituous suggestion that The Teacher had given me about how to convert my PDFs into Microsoft Word-friendly files. Well, if I head out to the Shinjuku branch, I can get have lunch at the Indian restaurant on the same floor.

Tuesday June 21, 3:14 p.m.

Yep, summer is here. I've got the air con on for the second time this year. But at least the sun is out so I can air out the mattress. Today's session with the Beehive started off OK but got a bit stumbly at the end. I got the impression that Mrs. Perth wasn't too satisfied with my answer concerning answering a negative Yes/No question. I tried my best but I didn't want to spend the rest of the class obsessing over one grammatical tic. I told the ladies about my plans to go to Taiwan in the Fall, and they picked up on the fact that I used the feminine personal pronoun to refer to my partner. I did say that she was just a friend but their Cheshire Cat smiles could've sliced through metal. Anyways, Mrs. Travel was more than willing to dish out the advice about where to go and I'll be looking forward to those ideas in the weeks to come.

Got back home to see that there was a message from the juku boss. I called back to find out that she really needs me to help out her friend with some 50 pages of proofreading. Well, since I've got my weekend up in Karuizawa, I can only help her out late Thursday night after my lesson with The Carolinan. I will literally be burning the midnight oil but most of my day on Thursday is way open so it won't be too bad.

The Madame is still on the case about researching that trip to Taiwan. Looks like we're both on the same wavelength about what we want in a tour, but then again she did say that we share a common vibe. She said that we ought to have a powwow sometime to talk about the trip. I offered to take her out to the Maple Leaf, that Canadian pub in Shibuya for lunch sometime next week since The Hawaiian will be on hiatus.

I got a surprise message from an old university friend of mine via The Wild Thing. Apparently, he wanted to pick my brain for one of his colleagues who is interested in teaching at a real school here. He apparently doesn't have a university degree. Well, I think his trip is gonna be a short one. He could possibly get something at one of the big English conversation schools such as ECC or NOVA, provided that he got at least a working-holiday visa but forget about a regular school unless he's got some really good friends in high places.

Tuesday June 21, 12:07 a.m.

I gather it's the First Day of Summer. It certainly feels that way in my apartment right now. It felt like an oven when I came in and now there's a huge mosquito hovering over me. I've got my electric insect repellant on but I'm afraid that I may only just antagonize it.

I had the full pair of The Class Act and then SIL yesterday. The Chef was kind enough to whip up lunch for all of us. The dish du jour was cod roe spaghetti with Italian tomato and spinach salad.

The Company class was sloggy as usual but at least the guys are finally getting the hang of answering what they did for their weekends. Threw out some of the kanji that the Siberian had given me as levity. That kanji page has really helped as a much needed conversational tangent.

Then, it was my newest class. The Matron's daughter became the latest sheep in my flock. I met her and her Mom in the lobby of the Tokyo Hilton just a few minutes away from The Company. She's a typical elder teenager but what she needed help on was far from my usual repertoire of stuff. She seems to be heading into musicologist territory so as we sipped on iced coffees in the Marble Lounge, I had to tackle on-the-spot translating of her very university-level articles on the amazing Beethoven from English to Japanese in preparation for her class on Wednesday. To me, I think I did a pretty patchy job but she seemed to appreciate my efforts, at least outwardly. We ended up finishing our first class almost two hours later. The Matron was out in the car waiting for us patiently. She was kind enough to give me a lift to Nakano Station so that I wouldn't need to transfer lines. However, she got a call from her son, the guy that "tried" to help me out with my tax return but ended up starting me on that back-and-forth odyssey between me and the tax office. He was waiting to be picked up at the station and was wondering why it was taking Mom so long to get over. When she told him that I was in the car, I overheard a very distinctive "Why?!" from him. The Matron did say that the two of us did resemble each other; I wonder if the foot-in-mouth disease that I occasionally catch has passed onto him. In any case, I did greet him cordially enough at the station. Man, I just hope that the class doesn't end up going overtime like it did tonight although I'm happy for the extra dough and the fact that my food bill ended up well under 1000 yen tonight since The Matron footed the bill for my coffee. In any case, we'll be meeting next week at the far cheaper Denny's nearby the hotel. I'm gonna send off some translations of her text in advance so we don't have to slog our way like we did tonight.

Alright, I really could use some shuteye right about now.

Monday June 20, 8:00 a.m.

I was prematurely awakened (by 5 hours) by a strong jolt from Mother Earth earlier this morning. It was strong enough that I turned on the TV. Sure enough, after a few minutes, the announcer came on to report on the quake. I think it was a Shindo 4 in my neighbourhood since the epicentre wasn't too far away. Speaking of quakes, I'm kinda wondering how the sisters, The New Yorker and The Carolinan, are faring in shaky California.

Got some atypical e-mail in my in-box. I actually got a message from The Doll. She apologized for her Lenny Bruce profanity. Enh...I took it in stride; it's always more interesting to know a person with different aspects. Then, I heard from The Wild Thing for the first time in a long time. He's back in Vancouver crunching numbers. The Madame updated me on her research for Taiwan trips. I think it'll be a late summer/early fall thing...although I believe the temps will still be set to broil over there.

Sunday June 19, 9:21 p.m.

The entertainment week has come to an end. After the debauchery of Saturday night, Sunday was somewhat more sedate. I waited at the JR Shinjuku Gate for The Satyr but was surprised by the prior appearance of Skippy who'd remembered my open note to the Satyr about where I was meeting him. Once he arrived, the three of us were off to pick up our tickets and then meet the rest of the gang in front of the Wendy's beside the Picadilly. Sure enough, Movie Buddy came up along with his language exchange partner and her friend. We ended up noshing and chatting over lunch for about 90 minutes, and yet there wasn't much of a lineup forming for "Batman Begins". I'm gonna have to re-think about when to assemble everyone although I still think that for "Revenge of the Sith", the earlier the better. Actually, The Hawaiian once again pulled out due to stomach problems. Movie Buddy was a bit disappointed about that since his good friend will probably be taking off on Saturday without a final meeting.

The Satyr's girlfriend showed up shortly afterwards and then some minutes later, we all lined up inside the theatre. There were more than a few dozen people ahead of us but none of these huge lines I'd been wondering about. Skippy informed me that probably the lineups would be longer in the later shows...a prediction that turned out to be fact.

As for the movie itself, "Batman Begins" IS indeed different from any of its predecessors. It does come off somewhat darker although there were a few moments of levity, mostly through Michael Caine's sardonic interpretation of Alfred Pennyworth (hard to imagine now that this was the same actor who had been the original Alfie and the lead character in "Get Carter"). The movie spends most of the first hour going really deep into how Bruce Wayne becomes the titular superhero. In fact, the movie almost threatened to make wonder when or if Wayne was gonna ever put on the batsuit in this movie.

The movie, as a whole, struck me as one that director Christopher Nolan has tried to re-define the franchise. It is definitely a beginning...of not only Batman the character but of this formerly laughingstock superhero series. Gone is the depiction of Gotham City as the frighteningly baroque/art deco/gothic metropolis from Tim Burton's movies, and for that matter, Joel Schumacher's Gotham City as urban day-glo amusement park. The city comes across as nearly normal but as one that's definitely in crisis. Also, the depiction of Bruce Wayne as a mild-mannered boring do-gooder multimillionaire (whew!) through Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer and George Clooney has also been eradicated. Christian Bale really puts hard-edged boundaries amongst his personae as an uncaring feckless Bruce Wayne, the real Bruce and his scarier Batman. I think Bale's roles in "The Machinist" and "American Psycho" have been good practice for his latest one. Skippy and one of the other ladies with me asked about who Bale was. Indeed, he's not a huge name here (ironic, considering that his first role was in Spielberg's "Empire of the Sun") although that could change with this movie. It also helps that he has a lot of mighty supportive help from the aforementioned Caine, Gary Oldman, Liam Neeson and Morgan Freeman (he should be racking up the air mileage points with his trips to Japan for "Million Dollar Baby", "Unleashed" and this flick). Of course, having local fave Ken Watanabe in a cameo can't hurt either.

"Batman Begins" ultimately didn't strike me as an immediate classic of the genre. I think it's gonna be one of those movies that will grow on me over time, though. As The Satyr mentioned later, he enjoyed it for the most part but it won't be a repeat viewing. I would agree...the overall movie seemed to have a bit of weight lugging it down throughout its 2.5 hours. My eyes glazed over at times. As had been reported in the otherwise glowing reviews, the movie's first half is a bit slow although Movie Buddy said that he enjoyed it better than the latter half. But the second half also seems to suffer from having too many slight villains to worry about which tended to unfocus things and pretty much pushed any sort of romantic interlude between Batman and Katie Holmes to a far corner. In addition, I wasn't particularly impressed by the much-vaunted first entrance of the Batman on his war against crime. His hand-to-hand combat scenes just addled my eyes like those frenetic fight scenes from "The Bourne Supremacy". Please...if Nolan or any other director who's interested in the franchise reads this..no more super closeup, handheld camera shots durng battle please. The gimmick is over. Also, I'm starting to tire of Liam Neeson(though he is one of the best actors in the biz) in his mentor roles. He's starting to become a genre of his own.

On the good side, though, there are the winning performances by one and all. And the story, without all of the extra weight, is good enough. But as one of our members stated, she is looking forward more to the second movie with this new cast now that the origin stuff is out of the way.

Once our main course was over, all of us walked out into the humid afternoon and made our way westward to a coffee shop to drink and while away the hour before dinner at Viet Huong. Looks like I may have been the harshest critic since everyone else seemed to like it just fine. We went to the Caffe Veloce, one of the local coffee shop franchises in town. Skippy recommended the coffee jelly with scoop of vanilla ice cream on top since she used to work for them in her earlier days. Well, I did get it. In a tip to decadence, the dish came with a tiny container of liquid sugar. Believe me, it didn't need it...something that I found out the hard way. Some of the other things I heard from Skip was that she'd recently got a bootleg copy of the Star Wars movie on DVD but she wisely said that she would refrain from catching it until she saw the real McCoy on the big screen in a few weeks. The other was that she gave me some scoop on the trials and tribulations surrounding Jazz Buddy. Apparently, according to The Kid, JB had actually been in a fractious relationship with some guy which is causing this massive depression. Not quite sure if this is a smokescreen or not.

Well, 5 came around and we all headed out to Viet Huong around the corner. The Madame and the Sylph came later. The Madame was sitting at the other end of the table on my side so we never really talked all that much tonight but I figured that the two of us had talked plenty on Thursday anyways. The food was fine as was the service. Yup, Viet Huong will be on speed dial. As we made our way back to the station, Skippy and I spoke tentatively about getting together for "Revenge of the Sith" although she's weighing that against going to the Expo. Well, I know what I'm gonna be doing on July 10th.

Sunday June 19, 12:41 a.m.

Another long one. I taught the younger sister an English self-introduction for some party at the end of the month so it was rather easy to just work on that for most of the hour.

I picked up that "Batman Begins" ticket and made the requisite adjustments to the reservations at Viet Huong. We've jumped from 6 to 9. The Hawaiian has pulled out due to her chronic stomach problems but it looks like The Sylph and a couple of Movie Buddy's other buddies will join in the fun.

It was another pleasant two hours with M+M before I headed out to meet the gang to welcome back The Okinawan. Man, the area around Hachiko was packed! It was even more crowded than usual; had to use my arm like a machete to get through the "trees". I was lucky that Speedy could find me in front of the dog. It was quite a turnout for The Okinawan. There were a few others from the graduating class of 2005 that I hadn't seen since the grad party all the way back in February...people like The Doll. But there were also the familiar faces such as the Irishman, Scully and The Fisherman. Movie Buddy also showed up. The Coffeemaker and The Barmaiden spearheaded the event. I think all in all we were a party of 17.

The first stage was at an izakaya called Hananoren up in a building across from the station. Pretty good food and drink although Movie Buddy and I agreed that we could still eat some more by the end. The Doll certainly showed a new side to herself after downing several mugs of beer. For a petite girl like her with an appearance of a kewpie doll, she could swear up a storm and look like Yoda hunched over like she was. And she's just 21. I entertained my half of the table with all of those kanji that The Siberian had written down in my notebook. It's been a wonderful icebreaker.

The Okinawan had a good three months in Vancouver. I didn't detect any vast improvement in her English but since her English had already been quite good during her school days here, I wasn't particularly worried. She did talk about a little altercation at the government-run liquor shop one time, an altercation that she won. But it goes to show the difference in service here and in Canada.

The Barmaiden was having a ball of a time, sometimes at my expense. Mind you, wearing my green otaku jacket can make me an easy target for the young ones. Still, I know why she's the life of the party and the perfect hostess.

Next stop was this other izakaya on the other side of the station called Jan-Ken (the first two words used for "paper, rock, scissors" here). It had a more atmospheric vibe with dimmer lights. We got this huge narrow U-shaped table. The interior curve was spaced out for the waiters to get easy access to us, but Movie Buddy, The Okinawan and The Barmaiden basically took over as proxy servers. Between the two restaurants, I blasted away a good chunk of change but the food and company were great. We all broke apart by 11. But the Barmaiden warned that there would most likely be a similar party for another returning student in a few weeks. I shared part of the ride home with Scully. Her English has definitely improved. When I had my few opportunities to see her in class, she stumbled a lot but now she's stringing sentences together like a pro.

Got home to see that the juku boss left quite a few messages about a potential new student. But I probably won't be able to make any contact with him until Tuesday since I'll be tied up for the next couple of days.

Anyways, time to get that shower and then sleep as much as I can before I head out again later today.

Friday June 17, 9:28 p.m.

No rain today but it stayed relatively cool thankfully. Just did the usual Friday lessons. And did my usual round at Maruzen. I was hoping to find something to help the younger sister with her upcoming trip to Oz but I guess no enterprising author has come up with a book on homestay English for youngsters. Instead I just bought my replacement crossword book.

Instead of hitting Com Pho this time for lunch, I hiked it over to Maru Bldg and had lunch at that ramen place up on the 6th floor. It was good to have a change of pace in eating. And at 1000 yen for a course, the price certainly couldn't be beat. I had been thinking about Kua'Aina, that Hawaiian hamburger place a floor below but when I saw the lineup there, I said, nah. But on the same floor, there are some pretty good places. The West Side Cafe seems rather interesting.

Got home to find out that I got another postcard from the Ichikawa Tax Office (don't those guys ever leave me alone?!). I was under the impression that they were offering me the service of a tax accountant and not demanding that I take up the offer. Well, they're not demanding but they're being insistent that I give this guy a call since they claim that I had requested the services of a tax consultant in my survey. I thought the space was just to say that I'd already had the services of one...the son of the Matron. Well, I guess I'll send him a fax. I could use some help anyways for next year's return.

I asked the Coffeemaker last night if I could invite Speedy along to The Okinawan's welcome back party tomorrow. She responded that there was no problem. So I've sent off a short-notice letter to him. There's probably a 50/50 chance that he won't be available but at least I tried.

Anyways, I gotta get ready for the kids tomorrow and then I have M+M. In between, I gotta rush off to get my ticket for "Batman Begins" at the discount shop.

Friday June 17, 9:14 a.m.

Finally got that gym time in yesterday. I was actually surprised that I only gained a kilogram during my sabbatical, and that was considering the debauchery at Tony Roma's last Saturday.

Then I went to the new and improved(?) Coca up on 6th floor of the Bic Camera building in Yurakucho. The Madame arrived a few minutes later. She hadn't changed a bit in over a year. Her circumstances have, though. She's now attached to someone who, according to her description, may resemble a stringbean...rather different from the type that she used to go for, the guy with the massive shoulders and 6-pack abs. I mentioned that she and he must resemble that geek and that stylish lady from "Trainman", the Japanese fantasy currently playing.

As for Coca, I enjoyed the afternoon special they had there. I ordered the pho soup and spicy glass noodle salad as did The Madame. Unfortunately, I found that the Madame isn't too fond of spicy food. Ah...live and learn. I wasn't quite sure what to make of the new Coca. Perhaps it was because of the time (just before 5) and the fact that we were only one of two groups in the place but the restaurant seemed a bit sterile. The owners were definitely going for some sophisticated urban vibe but I frankly prefer the old Coca with its resemblance to the Chinatown restaurants of my salad days. Plus, when I asked, the waitress told me that the new branch doesn't sell the Coconut Milk Shake that was the mainstay at the old Coca.

Anyways, I caught up with the Madame. We easily talked up a storm for about 6 hours. We ended up changing venues from Coca to the bar at the top of the SONY Building. Good golly! 2310 yen for two iced teas! Plus, we had to contend sitting next to this so-called Super Audio Lounge. Apparently, the creators decided that "super" means "ear-shattering loud". The lounge is, in what I consider to be an only-in-Japan phenomenon, a huge room with a stage carrying these just-as-huge speakers. People can come in and select certain CDs for play and then the audo system just blasts them out. I wasn't too bad about the jazz part but when it came to the hard rock selections...

In my talk with the Madame, I found out that her parents are very traditional and conservative (I can only imagine the sweat any suitor might ejest meeting her folks). Also, she has a love of traveling. In fact, she came up with the embryonic idea of having us travel to some place in Asia. Hmmm...considering the current political climate, I was a bit worried about that. Also, I'm not an experience traveler. So I suggested that our (or at least my) toe-dipping spot should be Taiwan. At the end of our conversational odyssey, she confided that she wanted me to be her good male friend since, well, she says that she feels that the two of us have a very good vibe (she has always been a very spiritual sort) and that when traveling we could have a very good time together but have separate rooms to unwind. Hmmm...interesting.

So, while one male-female friendship seems to be blossoming, another seems to be in limbo or fracturing altogether. After a few tries to her directly and to her formerly close friends, I finally got a reply from Jazz Buddy after several weeks of nothing. I even took her name off the contact list. But my pestering finally paid off. Unfortunately, she's still dour as ever and has no interest in keeping contact with us. So I basically let her know that I'll stop contact with her until she feels better while exhorting to get something done about her emotional situation.

Looks like my weekend will be a busy one. The Coffemaker contacted me to inform me of the details over The Okinawan's welcome back party tomorrow. I should be able to make the meeting time and place after my usual chatfest with M+M. Then, there is the movie-and-dinner outing on Sunday. Hmm...I'll have to revise those reservations. We've got three more coming for Vietnamese.

In any case, it's time to head on out.

Thursday June 16, 10:28 a.m.

Past the halfway mark of June, and it feels pretty chilly out there. And yet, I'm not gonna reserve any judgement on what this summer will be like. I've been here too long to know that weather in this burg changes on a dime. Rice farmers can yet have a good crop.

Nice to have another free Thursday. I'm very sorely tempted to not head to the gym and just veg until I meet The Madame but physical duty does call. Still, I've got a couple of hours before I take off. I had my Pancake breakfast...always a nice sign of a leisurely start to one's day.

And I've been reading the reviews to "Batman Begins". Looks like the Japan Times reviewer who hates comic books and comic book movies is in a minority. So far, CNN and EW like what they see, one guy even spouting that this movie is the best one so far this year. Pretty high praise indeed considering how far down the franchise went with George Clooney's rendition almost a decade ago. "Batman & Robin" was one of the most uncomfortable cinematic experiences in my life, that and "Blown Away", that weird movie with Tommy Lee Jones and Jeff Bridges.

Wednesday June 15, 10:17 p.m.

Well, continued to slog through the day. The rains just kept coming although there was a ray of hope for a short while during The Hawaiian's lesson. Kept my dinner pretty small at Speedy's. I just had a fruit jelly there. I'd had a double Subway for lunch which kept my appetite from rearing its hungry head. Looks like even at that school, I may be getting a new batch of students on Wednesday night after Student 001. Speedy was busy chatting it up with a potential new student; she didn't look too impressed. Speedy is very earnest in his sales pitch but that could also be seen as a bit of a fast-talking slickness by certain people. Meanwhile, The Receptionist was also talking it up with another man whilst I was entertaining 001 in the lounge.

My jelly ended up not being enough to satisfy my caloric intake needs for today. I bought a small pack of calamari at the supermarket to eat with the remaining oolong. Still, I'll probably hit the hay around midnight. I've got the day off tomorrow so I'll be making it Pancake Thursday. I won't be hitting the gym until early afternoon so there probably won't be any chance of stomach upset.

Wednesday June 15, 11:15 a.m.

FINALLY! It's over....I got those taxes paid. Mind you, it couldn't have been on a "better" day. Miserable rain all over the place...we were only missing the gale-force winds. I had to slog all the way up to the tax office on foot since the bus wasn't exactly too frequent. By the time I got up to the building, I was sprouting plenty of moisture into my dress shirt and coat, stuff that stayed there since the air was already supersaturated with humidity. Of course, as I had expected, they did slip in the fine...a somewhat paltry 2000 yen penalty for handing in the return with errors. But at that point, I was too grateful to care. I ran the meterological gauntlet again; by that time, my shoes were getting rather moist too. I decided at that point that I'd already gotten my workout and canned the trip to the gym (walked a grand total of an hour's worth of pavement while toting a 10 kg bag of books and gym clothes...good enough for me). To add insult to injury, the entire transit system was screwed up to due to some mechanical trouble somewhere on the Chuo Line. I knew we were in for it once I saw the signs didn't have any times posted for arriving trains. That's usually a big oh-oh.

I got home to realize that my round-tripper took 2.5 hours to complete considering that I was traveling within the same city. Now I'm here and I have to take a shower again before I head on out in 75 minutes. My shoes are waterlogged so it'll have to be the sneakers. Luckily, Speedy's school has me take off my shoes at the entrance so at least I'll look presentable in dark socks. Another blessing in disguise, the white socks I was wearing not only got wet but holey as well. I hope the rest of my day isn't as sloggy.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.