Monday February 5, 5:38 p.m.

Man, had a couple of downpours over the past two days. One was purely meterological. Some 5 weeks late, but we finally got that Hallmark-level Christmas Winter Wonderland yesterday. The Kanto got dumped on with about 3-5 cm of the white stuff. Not exactly anything to shiver about in Toronto (especially when my hometown got assaulted with 20 cm the other day), but basically we can compare Toronto and Tokyo in terms of scale. The panic button gets pressed here at 1/10th the level of snow as it does in Toronto. I was lucky in that I had the day off on Sunday; just managed to go and come back from the supermarket with supplies...only needed to be careful with my steps on some of the more slippery sections of the pavement. This morning, most of the sidewalks were scraped off and the thaw has gotten rid of most of the stuff aside from some small piles, and those will be gone by tomorrow.

The other downpour was professional. Just in the last few hours, I've found out that 002 and my old student, The OL, are back online. And Cozy has sent me my first translation assignment. So, it's not really a downpour but still, the three came in in pretty short order.

It's been the regular Monday lineup so far with The Class Act and SIL. SIL has enjoyed the Elvis calendar that she'd gotten from The Matron via Hawaii. She was wondering how The Matron had found out about her hobby...I just whistled a lot. And I've got The Full-Timer in about 10 minutes. Both The Diver and Mr. TOEIC have cancelled their lessons for tonight, but I still have Medicine Man in the last slot tonight.

Man, that Super Bowl must've been something special. I read the upset victory by the Giants on CNN just now. I bet a lot of folks must've lost theirs a few hours ago.

Saturday February 2, 2:59 p.m.

Oops, she did it again! Couldn't resist...Britney Spears is back on that 72-hour mandatory hospital watch. Over here, the kiosks have had headlines blaring out, "Britney Attempts Suicide!"...which is of course false since the tabloids back Stateside haven't blared any similar lies in the past 24 hours.

Another American who supposedly has gotten Japan in its thrall...according to CNN (yeah, right)...none other than that smoovy Barack Obama. Apparently, the way the report goes is that the senator from Illinois is just wowing the Japanese population. Well, it's true that his books have been on large display at the bookstores; I was at Maruzen today and there is a section with his books prominently displayed, but so are Hillary's tomes. And despite the shots of busy Ginza, I'm not getting any indication that the oh-so-pronounceable name here has become so popular that he's getting his own T-shirts. We shall see in November...or sooner.

Saturday February 2, 1:54 p.m.

Well, it's the Binational Observed Holiday Weekend. Today is Groundhog Day in the West, so I expect that Punxatawney Pete...Phil...Pat?...will be making his appearance in the next 24 hours to see whether or not Winter will be continuing. From what I've heard from The Anime King and my sister-in-law, it could be a while yet. Apparently, Toronto is getting pounded yet again by 20 cm of the white stuff. And even over here, Tokyo may once again be threatened by another dreaded dusting. Luckily, I'm at home all day tomorrow watching I-go. The other half of the BOHW is the 3rd which is the annual Setsubun where beans are thrown at the devil to drive him out...kinda like getting rid of Osama Bin Laden with bad language.

As I said, The Anime King contacted me about the snowstorm. And then he talked about he's been starting to listen to some of the J-Pop hits of yesteryear. He mentioned the doll-like duo of Wink as an example...that was way back in 1988. The girls made their reputation as the Pink Lady of the late 80s with their stilted moves and their takes on Eurobeat songs. One has largely disappeared into the ether...popping up occasionally in risque photo shoots (the final tether of desperate tarento) while the other, Shoko Aida, has found some success as an atypically quiet TV personality.
I mentioned to him about my latest purchase of the Kanako Wada CD since she's an 80s artist and she was behind the theme songs of that famous anime series of that time, "Kimagure Orange Road". I actually came across it by accident last night while I was channel surfing over SkyPerfect.

My sister-in-law and my niece finally came across that ritual that every parent and child go through....the kid vomiting in the car. It didn't help that my brother was off at a conference Stateside. I tried to be the big brother and told her about my own passage of that ritual here in Japan decades ago. She seemed a bit more cheerful in her response.

Well, I've got The Dentist and then The Manhattanite in less than an hour. We've got a new getabako (shoe cabinet) in the entrance hall...this time, with proper hinged doors instead of the hellish sliding ones which didn't slide. BC was telling me that the bossman was showing his more anal ways by verbally wringing his hands at which way the doors should swing. That's the boss for you.

Friday February 1, 4:32 p.m.

January has already gone into history. At this rate, I should be looking forward to my cremation in no time.

Since I only had The Yogist yesterday, I was able to have an early night at home. I was finally able to peruse "The Maltese Falcon". Very grateful to have gotten the North American version from my brother since the Japanese have been selling the cut-rate models for just 500 yen with very little in the way of extras. The one I got is chock filled with stuff: along with the commentary and trailers, I also got the previous two inferior versions of "The Maltese Falcon", along with a blooper reel (yep...neither Dick Clark nor "Star Trek" weren't the ones who came up with the concept of bloopers) of various actors in the Warner Bros. universe screwing lines up and swearing (a debonair James Stewart whispering "Son of a bitch!"...classic), a documentary on the movie itself, and a TNT special about Humphrey Bogart's movie trailers. And it was pretty nifty of the DVD producers to arrange things so that it felt like the original movie experience at a theatre of the 40s with the trailers, a 15-minute musical short, old Bugs Bunny cartoons and even a newsreel highlight.
As for the Bogie classic itself, I'd never seen "The Maltese Falcon" before although its reputation, of course, preceded it for years. After seeing it last night, it made for an interesting comparison piece with the other movie that Humphrey is famous for, "Casablanca". The latter movie's Rick Blaine is a hard-bitten cynic who finds redemption at the end. In "Falcon", Sam Spade isn't just a cynic but he's an ice-cold son-of-a-bitch leading around other ruthless characters; and Spade doesn't find redemption at the end. Everyone gets sent up the river but Spade ends up in his own emotional prison...a lifetime sentence. Film noir, indeed.
But for the movie that started the film noir genre, I was struck by how light and comic some of the scenes came off. Even the music sounded sitcom-ish at times. It definitely deserves further viewing...with the commentary.

The other media piece I explored was the other present from my brother, the Chaz Jankel compilation, "My Occupation". It's definitely one for all those who love the disco/new wave stuff from the 70s/80s. Still kinda disappointed that the original version of "Questionnaire" wasn't included...just "Reve de Chevre" which is the stripped-down sliver version. Well, there's always the Japan-only release.

Just have The Ace for his half-hour tonight. Kinda wish that the boss would just have him come twice a month for an hour each, instead of the 4 half-hour lessons.

The big news last night was about the food poisoning cases that have been rolling through Japan over the last month due to tainted packages of frozen siu mai and gyoza dumplings....imported from China. Incredibly, the Chinese government has flown out of the starting gate to resolve things PDQ (considering the other major problem of moving all those citizens trapped in blizzards). Perhaps, the fact that the Beijing Olympics is on the slate this year may have been an incentive.

And that supposed mano-a-womano smackdown at The Kodak Theatre in LA between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton never happened. The debate was so cordial and sedate, all it was missing was a silver tea set and a string quartet. Still, history was indeed made with the first African-American and the first woman to be in such a forum to be nominated for President from the Democratic side. Should be interesting come Super Tuesday.

Thursday January 31, 12:42 p.m.

It's Bill Day...so had to pay off a few of them, including the biannual one for home insurance. Plus, I still gotta pay off the premiums for NHI and City Tax. Not feeling too financially stable right now.

Came to work seeing what looked like Speedy and The Admin having an argument. Actually, the two were having a mutual venting session over an unreasonable customer...happens from time to time. I just politely ignored them and had lunch. Those Hokkaido sausages I got from Ms. Travel the other day certainly hit the stop. She and two others from The Beehive had gone up north to the island to visit Ms. Perth. They had a good time playing in the snow and noshing on the local delicacies.

002 is back in from the cold. She confirmed her lessons for her regular Tuesday afternoon slots. She should have some stories to tell next week.

Those debating stages in California must be looking pretty empty right now, now that a couple of more folks have bitten the dust. Rudy Giuliani with his WTF? campaign strategy quickly threw in the towel after that embarrassing defeat in Florida and I just heard that John Edwards has also left the race. So, that Democratic debate tomorrow will be quite the arena for a smackdown between Hillary and Barack...mano a womano. Meanwhile, the Republican debate looked a bit like the ESPN newsdesk with four guys still in there. However, John McCain must be riding high in the saddle right now, although he still has to get those conservatives.

Anyways, The Yogist should be here any minute....

Wednesday January 30, 10:49 p.m.

Finished up with Medicine Man's first official lesson. Man, he's a shy, reticent one. The bossman took his Polaroid (as we usually do with all of our students)...he looked like he had just gone to a family funeral. We gotta get this guy some major social activity. But we also found out that MM hails from my family's neck of the woods in Wakayama Prefecture...hope he remembers that when it comes to renewal time.

Speaking of MM, I actually got e-mail from one half of M+M...I'd almost forgotten about those two ladies. It's been several months since I heard from them. Looks like they want to resume our conversation again. Well, now that I've been drafted for active Saturday service at Speedy's, it's gonna be a bit difficult to schedule...but I did suggest February 23.

That talk about Kanako Wada got me looking for the original singer of "I Should Be So Lucky" (finally got the title right)...namely Kylie Minogue. Reading up on the Wiki on this song brought out some party-trivia worthy nuggets such as that it was apparently written from the foundation of Pachelbel's "Canon"...sure doesn't sound like it to me. Also, the boys Stock, Aitken and Waterman whipped it up in about 20 minutes based on how unlucky Minogue seemed to be waiting outside their studio.

Then, I discovered from the Japanese-language Wiki on Wada herself that she's been pretty much retired from the biz for the past 17 years since marrying another old folkie, Michael Maki, who was responsible for the hit "Bara ga Saita" (A Rose Has Bloomed) decades ago. So, now this singer has another link with the Australian chanteuse: same pop song, same initials.

Wednesday January 30, 8:29 p.m.

Well, I guess I'm not the only one who appreciates the qualities of one Kanako Wada. I just checked out a few homepages and YouTube. Apparently, there's quite a rabid following for the lass...all of them through her contributions to the anime "Kimagure Orange Road". But it seems as if none of the comments mention the compilation album that I just got a few days ago. So, if any of them are reading this, I'll let them know that it does exist. Just check out Amazon or even come out here. Plus, they'll be happy to know that the KOR ballad is the very first track.

Nice to know that she's loved somewhere...

Wednesday January 30, 7:54 p.m.

Just have that model lesson student-turned-regular student for the 9:30 lesson. Yep, a bit of a drag to have to come out here for just one night class but that's the nature of my occupation. I've already got a friend who's been tagged as The Doctor, so I'm naming this guy Medicine Man. He's a nice enough bloke but he's also as quiet as a church mouse; willing to learn, though.

It was one of those crosstown commutes that I have to do occasionally yesterday. I had The Beehive for their usual at Beckers yesterday morning before having to come here to Speedy's to teach The Nurse for one of her rare Tuesday afternoon classes. Then it was back to Chiba for the juku classes. Both Mild Jr. and The Bohemian were absent. I got that belated Xmas present from my brother. It had what I was hoping for...that Chaz Jankel CD "My Occupation" and a 3-disc Special Edition of Bogey's "The Maltese Falcon". This DVD is definitely a keeper. It not only has the definitive effort of Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor and Sydney Greenstreet, but also the first two versions including the more comedic version with Bette Davis titled "Satan Met A Lady".
As for the Best of Jankel, it has his hits of "Glad to Know You", a funky disco hit with some of the most Dadaist lyrics ever put to paper, along with the original "Ai No Corrida" and a chopped version of "Am I Honest With Myself, Really?"...and that still rates 8:34. I've got the extended version from his first album which spans 15 minutes. I knew that "Questionnaire" wouldn't be on the disc but I'm still a bit disappointed that it isn't present. But there's always the Japan release (if it ever gets over here) which always seems to include a bit more. And perhaps "Questionnaire" the album will be remastered.
I did listen to that Kanako Wada album during the afternoon. Very 80s...down to the cheesy synths. Recently, there has been a flood of these remastered discs featuring artists from 20-30 years ago. I've got a fraction of them in my nostalgia haze: PSY*S, Ruiko Kurahashi, Yoshie Kashiwabara. I guess the studios needed to let the ol' dogs out for accounting purposes, perhaps, since these discs have very little in the way of liner notes and the pics are just copies from previous albums. Still, I was surprised to hear that Kanako's cover of "So Lucky In Love" was given a bit more oomph.

I got e-mail from Skippy. Looks like she wants to undertake another burger trip. This time, the target is in Komazawa...west of Shibuya. It'll be great for Movie Buddy since he's virtually in the neighbourhood. Most likely, the latest invasion for ground beef will be during the next long weekend in February.

Monday January 28, 3:35 p.m.

Had my first lesson of the year with The Class Act this morning. Got a bit of a winfall as well via souvenirs. The Lady gave me a bit of tea from her latest foray into Hong Kong, and The Matron gave me a New York Times Crossword Calendar along with a bar of Lindt Chocolate with Cherry and Chili (!)...70% cacao...from Hawaii. Actually, The Lady gave us samples from her bar since she's not huge on sweets. I could only pick up the faintest hint of heat on my tongue, but then again I've been eating so much spicy food over the years that my tongue has gotten be part asbestos by now. The Matron even had an Elvis Calendar for SIL; I guess after all my talk on her about her love for The Pelvis, The Matron decided to pick something up for her. Ironically, I couldn't see SIL today due to some sort of doctor's appointment.

Since I had the extra time, I just did my first lunch at Wendy's in Shibuya before hitting Tower Records. Despite my financial conundrums, I did fire the gun and picked up a disc; it happens to be one of those 80s J-Pop artists who never really hit the big time (I seem to have a soft soft for these has-been and never-was chanteuses from 2 decades ago). The lady's name here is Kanako Wada, and the disc is a compilation of her hits. She had a minor hit almost 20 years ago with a jingle for some instant soup spaghetti called "Dreamin' Lady"; but otherwise, most of her fame came from theme tunes for anime, notably for "Kimagure Orange Road", or KOR as otaku like my friends in The Anime Court would say. Her voice is somewhere between the smokiness of a Kahori Kohiruimaki and the etherealness of a Reimy or Ruiko Kurahashi, other singers who didn't really hit the ranks of Seiko Matsuda or Akina Nakamori...but that's not exactly a slam against them. Wada also happens to be the first J-Pop singer to do a cover version of Kylie Minogue's first big hit, "I'm So Lucky In Love"; something to mention since current popsters Mihimaru GT have come out with their own version of the song.

Another cancellation to lessen my load. Mr. TOEIC, to noone's surprise, had to dotakyan tonight due to a sudden business trip. So basically, I've got The Full-Timer, The Diver and that model lesson with that doctor later on. At least I'll have a little breather before the doctor comes in. Pored over some of those Medical English books that Speedy had lent me on Saturday. Can't say that any of them are particularly all that friendly. I may have to adapt or concoct something totally on my own.

The Chipmunk contacted me about a possible new home for me. It's gonna be farther out...20 minutes instead of the current 10 minutes I have to walk from the station to my home but if it means cheaper rent and bigger digs, well...I'll be willing to take a look at it. I've also asked her for some more help when it comes to negotiations.

Saw Barack Obama do a royal smackdown on both Edwards and Clinton (figuratively, although I do wonder, considering last week's two-way abuse, if Michelle Obama hadn't considered something more physical against the junior senator from New York) yesterday on CNN. He gave a pretty stirring near-Kennedyesque victory speech. The Class Act and I touched upon the US elections briefly...after massive gossip on the latest amazing restaurants in Tokyo and Hong Kong. The Lady feels that it's still a bit early for Obama to take centre stage just yet. We both think that Hillary Clinton will still get the Democratic Brass Ring later this summer and may eventually become the first female President. But we also worry that if the senator from Illinois actually becomes President, he may achieve Kennedyesque status in a more dubious way...as a possible assassin's target. I'm still not totally convinced that all Americans would accept an African-American President. Still, we're months away.

In the sumo world, there was a smackdown of a far more physical sort between the two Mongolian yokozuna, Hakuho and Asashoryu. This was the equivalent of the dream Super Bowl of loincloths: one is a fallen champion seeking (I think) redemption, the other is a champion seeking to continue his domination of the sport. And boy, everyone is buzzing over the fact that the final match of the first tournament of the year was one to remember for years. It was 47 seconds (an eternity in sumo terms) with the two behemoths struggling titanically (each rikishi looking like they had one up on the other) until Hakuho finally throwing Asashoryu to the ground. The dohyo was littered with ecstatically thrown zabuton. I think the right man won.

And Osaka got another celeb governor. His name is Toru Hashimoto, a 38-year-old lawyer who's also become the charismatic TV personality. Now, he's head of the second-largest metropolis in the country. The Class Act also gave their opinions...basically calling him a fame-hogging question mark. I kinda wonder myself. Some have said that the Prime Ministership may not be too far away. Considering that Yasuo Fukuda isn't exactly holding a lot of support right now, there may be some approach by the LDP mandarins. Hashimoto also has another interesting trait...he's the father of 7, count 'em 7, kids. If he ever does get the big job, that's gonna be one noisy Prime Minister's mansion in downtown Tokyo.

Saturday January 26, 12:53 p.m.

I've just taught The Manhattanite about an hour ago. In fine fettle as usual. And I've got The Doctor later this afternoon. So far, it's just BC and me in the school since the bossman is taking a rare opportunity to partake in a process called sleeping in. The weather is cold and sunny...just like a typical Tokyo winter day.

I had that three-in-a-row with The Sisters of State and BC on Thursday night. The aforementioned sisters will be heading for Bali in mid-March. Must be nice being siblings who can actually be like traveling buddies. As for BC, she and I had a bit of a talk on our mutual boss, Speedy. Nothing too conspiratorial...but we both agreed that his personality can be a bit intimidating for some students. Could possibly explain why 001 and 002 usually demur whenever I have to be absent from their classes and suggest that Speedy take my place.

I just had The Ace last night at the juku. Jolly tried to get in under the wire by asking to come in just a half-hour before The Ace's lesson. The boss took one look at my face and made the call to decline his request. Jolly's a great guy and has been a good student and even if he couldn't find out until last night whether or not he could come in, I really didn't want to set the precedent that he could just come in on the turn of a dime. Luckily, he was understanding about it. And besides, I'm sure he would probably enjoy a night out in Shimbashi with the guys anyways.

Newswise, it was the tragic case of Mrs. Hatakeyama that took up the reports last night. Mrs. Hatakeyama is the tortured woman responsible for killing not only her own daughter but also the little boy of a neighbour. Her appearance and her case history kinda strike me as being similar to that Charlize Theron character in "Monster". In any case, I think the gallows will be her final destination.

SIL cancelled her lesson for this Monday. Not too bad since I'm pretty loaded down with classes on the 28th. I could use with the 6-hour space between The Class Act and The Full-Timer.

Wednesday January 24, 12:48 p.m.

I've been reading through Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point" as my latest commuting book. It's been an absorbing read so far. Basically, it comes across as a "how-to" manual for creating epidemics or fads. And in his theories about Connectors, Mavens, Salesmen along with his various laws, he weaves in everything from Paul Revere's Midnight Ride to Sesame Street to Bernard Goetz to apply his teachings. I haven't taken in everything at face value...his Power of Context, for example, is more illustration than illumination of something seen and heard before. However, having said that, some of his earlier stuff on the different types of people needed to get a fad started is worthy of thought. Perhaps, I may try something with those Reese's Peanut Butter Cups that I get as tribute from some of the ol' gang from home.

In any case, The Yogist should be here shortly.

Thursday January 24, 12:11 p.m.

It's back to a normal Kanto Winter day....sunny but cold. But we also have some pretty arctic winds blowing through the megalopolis. Not exactly helping the Wind Chill. I've got a quad today on the schedule. The Yogist is first at bat in less than an hour, and then I have the whole gang at Tully's tonight: The New Yorker, The Carolinan and BC. It'll definitely be a busy one on Monday. The entire Monday crew will be back to normal: The Class Act, SIL, The Full-Timer, the new kid on the block...The Diver, Mr. TOEIC...and yet another model lesson with this doctor to wrap up.

I haven't been paying too much attention to the domestic news over the past few days due to all the WWF-style wrestling between the two frontrunning Democratic candidates in the US. However, there is one piece of news that's been festering in my craw since it broke yesterday morning. It's a sad addendum to what has already been a tragic case.
Several days ago, a scumbag managed to rob an apartment by not only tying up a young woman immobile to the fridge but also by slapping on some masking tape over the nose and mouth of her 18-day-old baby so that the tyke wouldn't scream. The money he took was the gift money for the baby from various wellwishers. The baby died.
Now, just a few days after the funeral, the family will now have to hold another one. The helpless 22-year-old mother committed suicide by jumping from a bridge. If there's anything that proves that there is no God...

Wednesday January 23, 8:04 p.m.

Looks like 001 will be making another one of her skiing pilgrimages next week up to Hokkaido. So, it'll be another 2 weeks before her next lesson although she promises that she'll be here for all the Wednesdays in February. Still, she'll be heading to Hokkaido one more time then before she takes off for an aurora tour in Alaska on Leap Day.
I envy folks like 001 and Jolly who head up to the lodge for skiing. Despite my Canadian-ness, I never learned how to get down the slopes. I had done cross-country skiing in Ontario back in the 6th Grade, and tried doing the snowplow during one of the special Ski Days up in Gunma-ken during my JET days but never really acquired the taste or skill for the sport. And over here, skiing is just as much as a lifestyle as it is in Switzerland. 001 is getting together with a couple of buddies on Sunday at Haneda Airport, sending her skis and equipment ahead by courier, and then they'll board the JAL flight to Hokkaido to Shin-Chitose Airport where a shuttle bus will drive them over the next couple of hours to Kiroro Resort. They'll then partake in a few hours of early evening skiing before having a nice dinner at the lodge, a bath and then some well-earned sleep before hitting the buffet, slopes, brunch and dinner...in that order. Nice but pricey lifestyle...way out of my reach. Sometimes I wish that things had turned out a little differently for me.

Just waiting for the EIC student who'll be coming here in about 45 minutes. The snow has stopped but it's still spitting precipitation out there.

Wednesday January 23, 5:12 p.m.

Well, the snows finally came en masse onto the Kanto from late last night. Still, there are only a few centimetres (if that) on the ground. And in my neighbourhood, it's only been cold rain that's fallen...I guess that heat shield has been in good condition. Of course, the morning news shows have been covering the atypical weather like any other major typhoon.

The last 24 hours have seen the world economy teetering on the brink of recession, and the aftermath of the latest Hillary n' Barack fisticuffs (I just don't see these two ever getting together as running mates). However, the other big news was the surprise demise of actor Heath Ledger. I was just watching CNN's "Lou Dobbs" when the scroll just showed the headline "Heath Ledger dies". I was never a fan of his although he had been coming up through the thespian ranks as a full-fledged actor...not just a movie star. Still, it is a pity that he has left this mortal coil so soon. However, I will finally see him on the big screen, if posthumously as The Joker on "The Dark Knight".

Last night, I had just the usual juku night. Chip N' Dale showed up and it was just them. Those model students from last week never called back. The boss asked Dale about them, and she just replied that their parents were kangaechu (still thinking). Otherwise, it was Mild Jr., The Milds and The Siberian to wrap up. Jolly dotakyan'ed again due to a cold he probably suffered while skiing in Naeba last weekend.

Just have 001 and that EIC student tonight. Kinda wonder if that rain outside is gonna convert into snow once more. Not too much fun commuting in that kind of weather.

Tuesday January 22, 4:37 p.m.

Well, the forecasts still keep showing that snowman icon over the Kanto....but I still haven't seen a blessed snowflake.

Managed to survive the loaded night last night at Speedy's. As I said, I had The Diver for her model lesson. She was a lock but she'll be a lowbie for sure. Then, I had Mr. TOEIC for the first time in over a month. Not too bad considering how low he is. And then, I had my final student for EIC. Quite a bit higher than the previous two, but she's pretty soft-spoken.

Met that friend of the juku boss this morning at the station. He kinda looks and talks like a comedian by the name of Cozy Kubo...so I'll just tag him Cozy. Despite the nickname, he's a pretty sobersided if congenial fellow. We went to the nearest coffee shop to discuss business. For one thing, his request isn't a one-shot but an off-on thing involving translation of various documents from his office. He gave me a couple of samples. Fairly technical stuff but he gave me about a week to peruse them before he actually starts sending me the work. So, I'll be looking forward to the extra income, although I don't know what a professional translator would earn on a couple of pages of technical details. The boss told me that I shouldn't go for the low wages she has to pay me but I'll have to consult some folks about what to charge. We shall see.

In any case, I caught the highlights from that debate version of The Thrilla from Manila involving Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. John Edwards seemed to be a trumped-up bystander with his own dais. Man, it is getting nasty out there.

Got another long night ahead of me...

Monday January 21, 8:35 p.m.

Well, got through the first two fingers of the gauntlet. The Full-Timer was no problem, of course. Apparently, her bizarro supervisor has become somewhat more normal after a bit of counseling by powers above. She even went out for coffee with him...I asked her if she'd brought a knife, just in case. She also informed me that her father had to go in for some elective surgery which brought up the topic of tonsils. Over here, the extraction of tonsils is rare, to say the least...while in the West, it's pretty much a rite of childhood passage.
Then, there is my model student-turned-newest regular....ahhh, how shall I christen her? Ah, The Diver. She's actually a nurse but since someone already has that tag, I'll go with her hobby. Anyways, she's not a complete tabula rasa but pretty close to it. However, she is a trooper so that's good enough for me.
Of course, Mr. TOEIC has just called in to say that he'll be 10 minutes late. A pity since I won't be able to extend due to the fact that I still have that EIC student to take care of after his class. Anyways, he's just buzzed in.

Monday January 21, 5:21 p.m.

Supposedly, according to the CNN website, today...January 21...is the year's most depressing day. And we haven't even reached Income Tax Day. Hopefully, we don't have too many fluent readers of English in this country...otherwise, we may have to look up in the sky a lot to make sure sure we don't get smooshed by falling bodies. Suicide happens to be one of the leading causes of death here.

Bought a new text for Jolly...something that's specific to his job as a salesman. Then, I had lunch at my usual place of Com Pho underneath Oazo at Otemachi Station. Went for the Sesame Pho which is just clogged with sesame seed paste. I heard somewhere that sesame has a lot of curative properties. If so, I should be Adonis. Speaking of Jolly, he and his girlfriend went off to Naeba Ski Resort this past weekend. He should have a pretty interesting report...provided that he doesn't cancel out tomorrow night. Naeba is the most famous ski slope in the Kanto area, and the singer Yumi Matsutoya are pretty much bonded at the hip with this place due to a number of her songs being used as commercial jingles.
I've yet to hear from the juku boss about those two boys who'd come in for the model lesson last week. I wouldn't be surprised if they decided not to sign and it would relieve me of some extra headaches.

The juku boss actually set me up with this tax accountant friend of hers in terms of some translation job. I'm supposed to meet this fellow, who I'd spoken with briefly over the phone during our viewing of "Blood Diamond" yesterday, tomorrow morning for a meet-&-greet at the station.

I saw the teaser trailer for the upcoming "Star Trek" movie (still basically a year away) on YouTube this morning. It apparently got laughed and sneered at by the audiences back home and Stateside. I'm a Trekkie but I'm also not surprised by the cold reception that it got, considering the poor showings of the last two films and the not-so-warm feelings toward the last Star Trek series. I think the franchise could still use a bit of rest.

Well, I've got The Full-Timer in about 20 minutes followed by a model lesson, then Mr. TOEIC and finally an EIC student. If I don't go mad tonight, I should be OK for that tax accountant tomorrow morning. SIL was her usual self earlier this afternoon.

No hint of snow yet.

Monday January 21, 9:35 a.m.

An intriguing DVD/movie weekend, to say the least. It would seem that the overriding unintentional theme amongst 3 of the 4 movies I saw over the past couple of days have dealt with doomed vengeful sociopaths. And amazingly...Movie Buddy, The Satyr and I played absolute contrarians.

First off, and you folks who actually read my ramblings can see it here. And I will even bold it for you. The Reader's Digest version of my feelings for "Sweeney Todd" is: IT SUCKS! Yep, you read it right...you may be seeing what could be the only negative comments for Tim and Johnny's latest collaboration since it would seem that just about everyone else such as TIME, Internet Movie Database and even the usually garrulous reviewer for Tokyo METROPOLIS loved it. Heck, MB even said that if it hadn't been for the fact that he was trapped in the middle of the row, he would've walked right on out and gone to the solace of his PSP.
As for me, I just couldn't get into the musical. Not that I hate musicals...or even dark musicals (heck, I've got the original London soundtrack of "Phantom of the Opera"...without having seen the play). I enjoyed "Chicago" although it has had its share of detractors over the years since it won the Oscar for Best Movie. And "Sweeney Todd" has actually won 2 Golden Globes already....which is astounding. The songs all sounded the same (ironically like Tim Burton's usual go-to-guy for music, Danny Elfman, when he did "Nightmare Before Christmas"; another overrated Burton production which also had overly similar songs) and there wasn't a hummable one in the bunch. 10 minutes into the movie, I was already starting to fidget and wishing...oh, how I wished....that the throat-slitting could get started. In that respect, "Sweeney" failed to disappoint...it was truly a horror-musical. It is also a horrible musical. I knew that MB was despising the movie since he usually gets fidgety and sigh-y on seeing a waste of hard-earned yen and time...the final clue was seeing him finally put his head in his hands. The only other time I'd seen him do that was for "Revenge of the Sith".
I couldn't really blame the cast...they did try hard. Perhaps, Johnny Depp did merit his Golden Globe and kudos to the other actors. It was just that it was wall-to-wall music of the lousiest kind. Y'know...if "Sweeney Todd" had been just a straight drama, I would've enjoyed far more than I did. As it is, though, I am now fervently rooting for "Atonement" or "Jesse James" to get the Oscar for Best Movie. Perhaps the other title for this one should've been a twist on the aforementioned Star Wars sequel but anagram the final word.

Strangely enough, it was the one of the DVDs on Saturday that the three of us had seen...a flick that didn't get anywhere near the adulation, the advertisement or the cash flow of the abomination that is "Sweeney Todd", but also dealt with a doomed psycho...that provided a good chunk of entertainment. We actually caught "Crank"....90 minutes of pure hilarious mayhem with a juiced-up Jason Statham (we had approached this one with some trepidation at first because of the disappointing "Transporter 2")...it was just a nutso over-the-top action flick. And that scene between Amy Smart and Statham in the plaza was definitely a highlight.
Also, caught "Smokin' Aces"...a flick that tried to emulate the vibe of "The Usual Suspects" and "Lucky Number Slevin". Basically, it was a movie to see which contract killer would survive to the end. Actually saw Chris Pine (the future Captain Kirk redux) as one of the neo-Nazi Tremor brothers.
Finally, MB and I saw the odd picture out of the theme of doomed psycho..."Blood Diamond". We enjoyed it for the most part although we also thought that DiCaprio was trying to be a little too earnest to get his Oscar. For that matter, the movie was just screaming to be nominated.

Well, in one of those coincidences...we went to Tony Roma's for a hearty meal in Roppongi (we'd caught "Sweeney Todd" at Roppongi Hills). We did the same thing after we'd seen "Revenge of the Sith"...another flick that met with withering criticism from MB. Skippy and Miss Ivory were also part of the movie "experience". The only one who actually enjoyed it was Miss Ivory. Even Skippy said that she wasn't all that impressed.

It was supposed to be wall-to-wall teaching today. However, The Lady of The Class Act had called up a few nights ago to cancel today's lesson since her buddy, The Matron, had to pull out. Still, it'll be a busy one with SIL's first of the year followed by The Full-Timer, an EIC student, Mr. TOEIC and a model lesson student.

I'm currently borrowing a book from The Satyr called "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell; it talks about that important period of time when something goes from nothing to a huge phenomenon. Maybe it'll explain the inexplicable popularity of Crocs...good heavens, they look like those plastic shoes worn in Japanese bathrooms during cleaning with holes punched into them.

Well, the weather guys are still warning about snow and have been for the past few days although I've yet to see a single flake. The skies look fairly threatening but they still haven't put out...yet.

Friday January 18, 6:30 p.m.

It was the coldest day of the year today in the Kanto...maybe for the past few years. I don't think I've ever felt this cold...I actually threw on the longjohns for my solo with Jolly tonight. I may have to flip on the air conditioner/heater tomorrow night when MB and The Satyr come over.

Thursday January 17, 3:54 p.m.

Well, got through the lessons pretty painlessly. The Yogist was a bit struck for words, though. Looks like I'm done for the day.

I may have mentioned last week about my ol' NOVA trainer who's now this big high-flying author. Well, did a Wiki on him which branched into other sites. Yep, he has definitely found his calling as a writer. He's won his share of prizes and I've read at least one positively glowing review about his series of books. His pic is also liberally out there on search engines. He never had much hair when I knew him but he's even less hirsute now. Really good guy. So I guess my old NOVA school has spawned its share of celebs. One of the other teachers ended up becoming a regular on an NHK Japanese-lesson koza a few years back, and I got to teach a slightly eccentric but charming old lady who had already become famous for being a NOVA spokesperson in the early 90s. There were even two students who ended up on the "Why did you choose NOVA?" series of commercials several years ago.
If I ever met my old boss again, I would probably recommend him to write a fiction about the rags-to-riches-to-rags life of a Citizen Kane-like president of an English-teaching chain in Japan.

Well, I'll probably be heading back for home in about a few minutes. Still feel slightly bloated from all hamburger I ingested last night. I'll grab some relatively harmless sashimi (sans salmonella, hopefully) to use on the leftover rice.

Did forget to mention that kerfuffle in the Antarctic involving Greenpeace and those Japanese whaling boats. Apparently, the Greenpeacers have accused Japan for kidnapping two of their guys who had boarded the lead vessel...which I kinda think is a bit exaggerated. I never thought that the fellows would be warmly welcomed but kidnapping? Come on. However, I'm all for Greenpeace trying to stop the whalers....as quixotic as the venture might be.

Thursday January 17, 12:01 p.m.

Sunny but cold here in The Big Sushi...very typical for a January day. However, Speedy did make a hatsuyuki sighting last night...at about 2 a.m....the time he usually leaves the office. So, we can finally say that snow did come to Tokyo.

Speedy, and I by association, may also have some good news. The bossman contacted me twice last night about a potential new student for Monday nights and a new EIC student. However, next Monday will be a veritable traffic jam of students. Everyone will be back...hopefully. The Class Act, SIL, The Full-Timer and Mr. TOEIC will be returning. Then I've got these two newbies. I'll make the money but man, it'll be an exhausting day. But I can't complain much; I had yesterday off, I'll be having an early night tonight after TheYogist and The Nurse back-to-back, and tomorrow will just see Jolly...and he may even do a dotakyan. Plus, The Beehive will be off next Tuesday so I can sleep in then til the juku.

Paddy contacted me from London where he's returned. Apparently, his old school buddy, whom I've met over the years (including my trip to Ushiku a couple of weeks ago) has asked for some translation help within his company. I can help him out if the work's not too technical. Plus, the yen would be appreciated.

It's the 13th anniversary of The Great Hanshin Earthquake in Kobe...can't believe so much time has passed. I'm not sure if the pain has truly subsided for the victims of the quake but the media turned to the gaijin angle today concerning quakes. Apparently, a lot of the signs and notices to warn citizens of evacuation routes and other emergency information are only written in Japanese...not much help to the newcomers here. I'm sure a lot of the ultra right would just snort and tell the invaders to learn some f**** Japanese. Well, it takes a while to pick up the ability to read kanji and even hiragana/katakana, so it would be nice if the goverment can print up some English-language notices. If anyone needs help, I'm right here.

Speaking of which, I read that the government is considering having long-term foreign residents (which would include me) tested on Japanese language proficiency. On the surface, I would agree with it...after all, if you want to stay here permanently, you should know the language. However, I always wonder if the government has an ulterior motive....let's say, charging the folks tons of money for the opportunity to take a test.

Wednesday January 16, 3:08 p.m.

Not Hump Day today...quite the opposite, actually. It's more like Pit Day. I've got nothing on the slate since 001, The Nurse and Mr. TOEIC bailed out, although two will be back next week and one will be here tomorrow afternoon. So, just enjoying a slow Wednesday...a very unlikey oxymoron if there ever was one.

Last night's marathon at the juku was OK. Had those two new boys in for the trial lesson with Chip N' Dale. The hour with four kids was fine as could be expected, but I'm not quite sure yet if the newbies are gonna be keepers. One of the boys' mothers said that they had been going to kids' classes at the Benesse Corporation, which happens to be one of the country's educational corporations with all sorts of methodology, texts and trained teachers to boot. And here I am with homemade pictures, a digital timer I got for 500 yen in Funabashi, obviously handwritten Human Bingo sheets, and a not-so-eager disposition to teach children. Kinda wonder why the parents even bothered to bring their sons to a meatball surgery-type of operation like mine.
The rest of the evening was pleasant enough. Mild Jr. had another intensive round of conversation and major spazzing out over his delivery...perhaps I shouldn't really be calling him Mild Jr. His parents were their usual mild selves. They'd gone traveling in Taiwan last week...as expected, they did the sights including Taipei 101 and the sho ron po legend, Din Dai Fon. Their souvenir was one as tightly connected to Taiwan duty-free shopping as Macadamia Chocolates are to Hawaii...Pineapple Cake.
The Siberian and I had another pleasant conversation for the 30 minutes allotted him. We started out on the karaoke party we'd had on December 27 and he'd missed, and we ended up talking about the music of yesteryear....70s and 80s. So, ABBA, The Carpenters and Earth, Wind & Fire all came to the fore. We even went into some detail about Billy Joel's "An Innocent Man". According to last night's banter, I regret that he's now opted for the half-hour classes.
As for Jolly, he finally showed up for his first of the year. We did do a proper lesson which included our remedies for the common cold. He has his own in the form of a DIY hot water bottle via a regular 2L PET bottle filled with 60 C water...good for him. Mines was the one handed down from some of the Nippon Oil boys I'd taught years ago. The guys there just took a very hot shower, downed a couple of bottles of the stronger and more expensive vitamin drinks (the ones labeled Yunker come to mind), and then wrapped themselves in blankets. Basically, it was a matter of exorcising the bad humours through sweat overnight. The result was probably at least one wet smelly blanket but a much better disposition. I tried it once and it wasn't too bad in execution.

Got home a tired man so it was with some surprise that I'd gotten a call after midnight from Skippy concerning our Sunday viewing of "Sweeney Todd". We may have a bumper crop in our party this weekend. It'll be MB and The Satyr with their significant others of course, Skippy and me. I was also thinking of asking The Sisters of State and BC along. The only hangup is that the times and reservations haven't opened up yet, and The Satyr is thinking that Johnny Depp could bring in volume business into Roppongi Hills, so we would need to grab those seats quickly. Dinner may also be a bit tricky since we've got a larger party than usual, but we're aiming for Tony Romas nearby. Haven't had ribs in a while.
Skippy was sounding atypically tired. For a woman who can tire out most of the Olympic Track And Field team on energy alone, she was pretty exhausted. Looks like her latest assignment at a tobacco company has been laden with tons of paperwork. Methinks that the paperwork must be at least a few floors high to tucker out Skippy.

There hasn't been much of a big story here...outside of the return of Mongolian yokozuna, Asashoryu, to the dohyo. PM Fukuda managed to steamroller legislation to bring back the MSDF into the Indian Ocean to resume re-fueling operations for the ships dedicated to The Coalition of the Willing for the War on Terrorism. The media has been talking about the LDP used a little-used rule in the Constitution to start up the steamroller. Not sure what NHK and the boys have been crowing about...I think the LDP has often used the steamroller to slam through the bills.
And there was an interesting incident the other day concerning a bus whose driver had literally been asleep at the wheel. Apparently, a tour bus was driving through the countryside of Japan when its driver, who had knocked back some cold medicine, just conked out. Of course, the bus and the passengers all started re-enacting key scenes from the Keanu Reaves "Speed" until one passenger was able to get the unconscious driver aside while he took over at the wheel. Luckily, noone was hurt although a lot of nerves probably suffered undue frazzling.

And speaking about frazzling, what is up with that Britney Spears? All of the guys on Larry King all but wrote her epitaph last night. Well, I'll be waiting for that breaking news.

Tuesday January 15, 3:58 p.m.

Well, it was a pretty quiet couple of days at home. I didn't bother watching the local news. Since it was Coming-of-Age Day yesterday, I would've been assaulted by the images of girls in badly-worn kimono along with future yakuza boys with the latter heckling the mayor or revving up the car to full speed and blasting out of the lot like The Millenium Falcon out of Mos Eisley.

Still, Sunday was the big return of Asashoryu, the disgraced yokozuna from Mongolia. Every media outlet was focused like lasers on this sumo slacker after having been banned from the last two tournaments. He came back in a big way getting his first win in his first match back but then the zabuton were flying yesterday when he got upset by a lower-ranked native sumotori. In a way, I was rather happy at that result...he should be given a bit more humbling by my reckoning. Anyways, another 12 days to go before we find out if he's truly been redeemed by the Japanese public.

I actually caught the downscaled Golden Globes on CNN. Ironically, because of the writers' strike, I was able to watch it for the first time since it was down to just 32 minutes and Larry King really wanted to have it on during his hour. And then the "post-game" was fairly catty with two ladies having a little battle about the boredom factor. It was certainly just as meow-worthy as that battle between the Clinton and Obama camps on the latest little comment to hit the airwaves. One piece of advice, though; make sure that Mary Hart never ever gets to a podium again. At least, I know that "Sweeney Todd" is now premium viewing. The bunch of us will be catching Johnny Depp at Roppongi on Sunday.

Had The Beehive this morning at the usual spot at Beckers. And of course, folks soon pretty much took off around us. We went to Tokyo Chubo, an eatery serving the best of Japanese-Western fusion food such as Hayashi Rice and Hamburg Steak. The talk got really heavy when the ladies started going into a major venting session about various things. Mrs. Travel, especially, got a bit emotional talking about her mother-in-law-from-Hell. I wisely kept quiet.

Well, got the kids...hopefully all 4 show up this time. It should be a full slate tonight which will mean that I'll be exhausted by the end of Jolly's session. At least, I can sleep in tomorrow since I may have no classes whatsoever, depending on Mr. TOEIC's call to reserve tomorrow night.

Saturday January 12, 12:14 p.m.

The weather is a dog's nose...cold and wet. We may even be facing hatsuyuki...the first snow later tonight when the temps plummet. I'm sure JR is on Yellow Alert. However, I'll believe it when I see it. Tokyo and snow don't exactly match up much anymore.

Just had that lone lesson with The Ace last night. Apparently, one of the juku boss' students, a junior high school boy, was a no-show. When she did the requisite calls, she got the plot for "The Usual Suspects" as an explanation. Apparently, it was a sordid deed involving the sad sack kid, a bullying sempai, and one other person. However, the school authorities managed to drag everyone in, including parents, and according to the boss, the relevant teachers probably screamed everyone straight.

I received an out-of-the-blue e-mail from The Prez of The Company. It's been over 2 years since I left my Monday classes with them to head to Speedy's side. The message was a New Year's greetings. I used my best Japanese to respond, although it did take me quite a while to drag out the appropriate expressions out of my head in the polite register.

Well, it looks like the 002 nabe party is definitely on the back burner for now. Since The Baker has no chance of getting out of her maelstrom of a company, 002 has decided to postpone to a more amenable date. At least, I can just cocoon at home for the next couple of days.

Just have The Dentist in a few hours. It ought to be good to hear how her first solo trip to Boston went. I just had The Manhattanite. Looks like Hong Kong was pretty thrilling as expected for her and her buddy. She kinda overdosed on the sho ron po, though.

Next week could be pretty dire in terms of the schedule. At this point, there is a holiday Monday, my Wednesday is currently empty since 001 has canned out and The Nurse has re-scheduled to Thursday afternoon. Mr. TOEIC hasn't called in about his next class. And then Friday, The Ace won't be coming in. So, basically, I only have Tuesday and Thursday as working days. Not too good for the income flow.

Friday January 11, 3:50 p.m.

Had lunch with The Chipmunk. As effervescent as ever, she was grateful for the chance to have lunch with a friend without having to bring along her two young charges. We had the pizza lunch special at Pizza Salvatore, the gourmet chain just east of Urayasu Station. We were the first customers there since it was 11 a.m. The takeout stuff from Salvatore had always been somewhat pricey, so it was nice to see that lunch specials were indeed reasonable at 1,200 yen with a salad and drink thrown in. I had the Capriciossa with tomatoes and olives while The Chipmunk had something with a lot of chicken and skin on top of it. I'll have to try that one out next time.
We ended up gabbing over the next 3 hours there and at the nearby Starbucks about the usual gang back home and how recent meetings have included the baby carriages. I also did mention about my desire to move...it's good to network, after all...and The Chipmunk offered to help out, since her sister's family will be transferring up here from Mie Prefecture in a couple of weeks. It ought to be an interesting transition from relatively rural surroundings to the big city.

Last night, I had The Carolinan for her first of the year at the usual Tully's. She forgot to pay me but was kind enough to have given me a rather large apple...go fig. BC then joined me for her first, although now that she's an employee at Speedy's, I have seen her in the last couple of days. Man, she really needs to get out of her funk...she is perpetually tired and depressed, although she did show some fire when she started complaining aboaut Speedy himself over some of his rather frenetic command style. I suggested that she would get used to that...and that if she didn't, she should talk to him right away. I also slightly admonished her for not eating enough after she'd admitted that she tended to skimp on the calorie intake...maybe some of that vital nutrition can activate some life back into her.
The Manhattanite has shifted tomorrow's lesson time from 11 to 4 which will give me some extra sleeping time. Also, it looks like 002 may indeed be cancelling the party since The Baker may have to opt out. However, she did ask about how Coming-of-Age Day on Monday sounded.

Well, I still have a few hours to go before I head on back to Urayasu for dinner and then the lone lesson with The Ace at the juku. I've been pretty much filling my head with the US Elections via CNN over the past several days; however, one item of news that's been filling the airwaves here is about yet another disturbed teen who just offed his entire family with a knife up in the north. Good to be a psycho these days.

Thursday January 10, 1:23 p.m.

Back to the grind here. I've got The Yogist in a little over half an hour. Then, I've gotta get ready for The Carolinan and then BC, who's just come in for her shift. Speedy approached me last night diplomatically about seeing if I could shift the time of my student/co-worker so that she could effectively cover the time gap between The Admin's departure and the night shift's arrival. I'm amenable to it but I'll have to talk it over with BC tonight.

SR, my former student-turned-fulltime mother contacted me for the first time in a while in the form of a New Year's greeting. She was the one who introduced me to The Full-Timer and The Carolinan, two of my most loyal students, so I'm quite indebted to her.

Not much to say on this front except that I did catch a late-night program featuring some near-future gadgets, a few of which I'd already heard about. It was hosted by that comedic duo whose 15 minutes seem to be up, Nankai Candies, so they're taking the emcee route to extend their career apparently. They featured the capsule camera that goes through one's GI tract so that one won't have to go through the conscious agony of swallowing metres of tube. I knew about that one and I also knew about the car with the pliable skin and the auto with the friendly robot guiding your steering. However, the one thing that did bowl me over was the special copier that could actually create a solid 3-D model of anything from some wonder powder. Mind you, it took 8 hours to create a muskmelon but the muskmelon clone looked indistinguishable from the real thing. Well, stuff to look forward to...

Wednesday January 9, 8:19 p.m.

11 hours here but won't have to be here as long as I'd expected. Sure enough, Mr. TOEIC just called to cancel his lesson with just 11 minutes before showtime. The curse of the shinnenkai continues. Right now, Speedy is giving a model lesson to Pandora, the 4th such lesson to a lady who really wants to check us out; I had my model lesson with her about 6 weeks ago. Pandora is just this woman who sounds and acts like Minnie Mouse but has enough language credentials so that she can legally teach English. And BC is whispering silently with The Amazon, one of our night staffers about stuff. BC is slowly getting the knack of things here thanks to a lot of questions on her part, and a lot of patience on ours.

001 came for her first lesson of the year. She'd been worried that the 3-week break between classes would deteriorate her abilities but that's the usual needless fret from a lot of students. It was another 90 minutes of witty repartee. She will indeed be coming to 002's party on Sunday, but I gather that she hasn't been told about her friend's class cancellations.

Speaking of shinnenkai, Speedy just announced ours for the 26th. It's gonna be taking place at the Kanda branch of that tiny oden-ya near the station...the one where The Dentist acts as resident barfly. Still not sure if I'll show up or not.

Anyways, I'll be shipping out in another hour. Luckily, I don't need to start teaching til 2 tomorrow so I can get a decent night of sleep tonight. I've got The Carolinan and BC tomorrow night; it'll be interesting to see how much BC opens up after witnessing her church mouse act at the school today.

Wednesday January 9, 3:20 p.m.

Hillary and John pulled it off. They got New Hampshire and so things are still uncertain. I saw a rather goofy picture of Mrs. Clinton on the CNN website...I'm sure it'll be a photo that'll haunt her well into The White House if she actually gets the brass ring. Next, it'll be The Melee in Michigan and The Chaos in Carolina.

Did a McLunch...just hours after the McBreakfast. Not that I do this regularly...Speedy, The Admin and BC (yep, she made it after all) razzed me about my culinary disaster. I lamely said that I did buy a salad at the nearby Lawson's for a tiny dinner...guilt can make one do strange things. Still, I may be paying for my dietary idiocy in the washroom later tonight.

Wednesday January 9, 1:07 p.m.

Well, it looks like CNN is projecting Mrs. Clinton as the winner in New Hampshire. The media is swooning at this increasingly titanic battle between her and Barack Obama...well, everybody except Lou Dobbs and Diana West, who are probably racing toward their airsick bags at this moment. As Yogi Berra once said in his non-sequitur way, "T'ain't over til it's over."
The only other way that this contest could get even more haywire is if either Bloomberg or Gore decided to invade as Independents.

Meanwhile, the pop cultural noosphere here is still buzzing about Ayumi Hamasaki's seemingly permanent deafness in her left ear. A lot of sadness has been countered by reassurances that the once-and-former queen of J-Idoldom (I think Kumi Koda now has that tiara) will be able to plow through that setback.

Wednesday January 9, 12:25 p.m.

Planned the rest of the lessons for 001 and Mr. TOEIC tonight. Again, I'm wondering if and when the latter will call in to say that he's either gonna be late or not gonna show up at all. Plus, I did some ground work for tomorrow's lessons with The Yogist and The Carolinan. As for the Carolinan, I'm gonna have to find a new bag of tricks since I've finished my basic course on Business English with her. As for BC, I'll see if she's well enough to come out for her lesson after The Carolinan.

Looks like that lunch with The Chipmunk is set for Friday. We'll probably be heading for the Urayasu branch of Pizza Salvatore...a relatively new higher-quality pizza chain. Speedy has taken out their stuff in the early days of the school. The pizza is definitely all-Italian...thin crust with premium toppings...with the prices to match.

Movie Buddy and The Satyr are all set for DVD night on the 19th. Not sure what's on the menu yet, but MB had his eyes set on "The Shooter". He also recommended "Ocean's Thirteen", despite the naysaying from the majority of critics. I may pick it up depending on finances.

John Edwards...who's looking more and more like the bridesmaid rather than the bride at these Democratic Party Primaries...is currently reacting to the New Hampshire contest. Not sure if this means a concession speech. CNN has been reporting that the Edwards campaign is financially on fumes heading into Michigan. In a way, it's kinda too bad about him...of the three Democratic candidates, I like him the most in terms of personality. But then again, there's a part of me that thinks a future President shouldn't be too congenial, too human. There should be an allowance for humanity during the campaign to get him or her elected to the big job, but the US President by nature should have some sort of distance from his/her electorate and the rest of the planet. But as in all managerial positions, a balance is the most desired spot. Hillary Clinton is still probably the most electable (depending on what happens during the rest of the month heading up to Super Tuesday) but hasn't been able to strike the right balance between steely ruler and amiable human being. Plus, she's saddled with the Clinton curse of polarizing Americans. I'm sure that the anti-Clinton warriors were sticking index fingers firmly down their throats at that tearing-up response by Hillary last weekend. Diana West, one of the regular panelists on Lou Dobbs and rabid anti-Clintonian, was probably rolling her eyes so much that her sockets suffered friction burns.

No matter what one may say about America's political election process, it certainly has a lot more pure Hollywood pizzazz (is that 3 or 4 z's?) than the dry-as-dust campaigning that goes on here. Although the various media outlets like NHK or Fuji-TV dust off their starship bridges during Election Day whenever it comes (being a constitutional parliamentary monarchy, Japan's Election Day can come up at any time), the campaigns themselves are pretty much restricted to megaphone-enhanced exhortations on big buses in front of major JR stations while the candidates wear Mickey Mouse gloves and their grassroots organizations just canvass the neighbourhoods via car and megaphone. There's none of this visiting of cafes or diners or the usual telewar involving smear ads. It's pretty much sedate and distanced from the regular folk. And since the LDP has had the reins on power for most of the past half-century, it's really their mandarins which have been selecting the Prime Minister.

Wednesday January 9, 11:33 a.m.

Finished up with The Nurse. Looks like she had a rather truncated holiday due to the rigours of her work. However, she was as cheerful as ever...that is, until I reminded her that she has a test coming up at the end of the month.

Well, I see that Hillary may be down but not out. Perhaps that little trickle of saline the other day may have boosted things a bit for her in New Hampshire. She's got a slight lead over Barack there right now. Wolf must be crying "Boy!" in The Situation Room. Meanwhile, everybody is slapping John McCain on the back for getting his mojo back. This is gonna be some January for all of the politico wonks Stateside.

Hmm....lessee...I've met a future Emperor, seen a former Major League baseball star and helped teach the kid of a popular TV personality. Now, I can also say that I used to be companions with a major writing force. I was in the Tsudanuma branch of Maruzen after lunch with The Beehive yesterday when I came across a large hardcover in the mystery section. It just so happened to be written by my old Trainer at NOVA; he'd been entertaining ideas of being an author since his old days as a teacher/instructor at The House that Sahashi Built (...and Destroyed) a decade ago. And now, he's released his 5th book and apparently has amassed quite a few accolades over the years. His picture has a real close-up of his face; looks slightly constipated but yep, that was him.

Wednesday January 9, 9:39 a.m.

Another early Hump Day at Speedy's. Last night turned out to be a night of nearly nothing. Those 2 kids once again no-showed since Chip's mother never bothered to call up their mothers. And then I heard Mild Jr. cancelled due to his New Year's party...along with Jolly. So it was 2.5 hours of nothing followed by a half-hour of The Siberian regaling me about his drunken stories of debauchery over the Holidays. Well, at least, I'll be getting cancellation pay from Mild Jr.

It is indeed the week of New Year's parties...shinnenkai, as they're called here....basically, just a clone of the bonenkai except they're on the other side of the year transition line. So, cancellations will probably be de rigeur for the next couple of weeks. I wouldn't be surprised if Mr. TOEIC pulled off a dotakyan tonight. However, The Nurse and 001 should be here.

The New Hampshire Primaries are on...looks like Obama may be locking up this one, too. Still too early to put a period on this one but Hillary's team may be on panic mode after this contest.

A couple of nights ago, I received a phone call from BC...who has come back from Holidays in British Columbia. Man, she sounded like my grandmother on her deathbed, thanks to a lousy cold. She was supposed to have started her new position here at the school but all of us here think that'll probably postponed for another week. Not too sure if she'll be able to make it out for her lesson tomorrow night.

Strangely enough, despite 002's cancellation of her lessons for this month, the lass sent me word that the party is still on for this Sunday. Gonna have to figure this one out.

Tuesday January 8, 3:45 p.m.

Pretty quiet Tuesday so far. I had The Beehive's first outing at our apparently permanent residence of Beckers. Kinda wish we had our own digs...I've never been comfortable about teaching the ladies in a public space since I may have the admittedly paranoid notion that other customers may not appreciate our foreign-language kaffeeklatsch. In any case, it looks like the ladies are now planning their next big voyage...last year, it was Canada; this year, Croatia is the target.

I've got the kiddies in about a couple of hours so I'm getting all prepped for an hour of mayhem. It is a model lesson so the mother will be sitting in (common sense for the mother...agony for the teacher). However, after that, I've got 2 hours of nothing....not only have the Milds canned for tonight, but their son, Mild Jr., has to go to a New Year's party. So, after the kids, I've just got the Siberian and perhaps Jolly.

Last night's session with The Full-Timer was fine enough. Apparently, the lass had gone to Seoul, South Korea on New Year's Day for a few days with her buddy. Pretty atypical since usually most Japanese stay at home with the family on January 1. It was her first time there and she did the usual Japanese tourist thing in Seoul...lots of BBQ, shopping and akasuri. The last activity is the Korean bodyscrub...you just lay on the table while some middle-aged woman sloughs all the dead skin off of you with a bristly towel. I'd think it would be kinda embarrassing for a woman to reveal that a pile of gray sludge had once covered her body...but to each her own.
She's back to work at her company. Apparently, her current supervisor is a bit of a freak. He doesn't seem to be supervising so much as he is just merely being a wall ornament in the office. Her department doesn't seem to be having a lot of luck with bosses...the last person was a bit of a manic-depressive. In any case, the new guy gave out some candy for which a lot of the staffers took very careful bites...lest he'd injected something into them.

Well, tomorrow is the New Hampshire Primary in the U.S. If it's anything like last week's first bout in Iowa, then CNN will once again throw its 4th-of-July-mixed-with-the-Starship-Enterprise set on display. Still, it was interesting to see Barack Obama win the first brass ring over the formerly inevitable Hillary Clinton. Unfortunately, I won't be around to see it since I've got The Nurse for her first lesson of the year at the same time but I can always check out the results on the Net at Speedy's.

Anyways, back to planning.

Monday January 7, 5:16 p.m.

So far, so good. The day has been passing by relatively easily. However, 002 has cancelled her lessons for this month; apparently, there's been a death in the family. So I can also assume that her planned party for this Sunday is also postponed or cancelled.

I dropped off at Maruzen earlier this morning to pick up a new text for Jolly...provided that he doesn't cancel his lesson tomorrow night. However, The Siberian will be showing up for his 30 minutes. But The Milds won't be for some reason, although their son will be there for the side. The big thing at the juku tomorrow, though, will be Chip N' Dale + 2. I'll have to bring out the big guns again for the additional kids.

One of the New Year's Resolutions that I'm aiming to keep is to try to be a bit more outgoing with the few remaining friends I have left. I lost quite a few of them over the past couple of years. I sent word to The Chipmunk by e-mail about getting together for lunch sometime. She took the bait and it looks Friday may be doable.

Picked up another couple of CDs at Yamano Music. And yet another Hiromi Iwasaki disc is mine, plus one by a unit called Futaba. Like all of the other disc shops here, it has a point card incentive but Yamano is a bit chintzy on the points only awarding one for every 1,000 yen worth of purchase whereas stores like HMV and Tower Records give out two for the same amount.

Also dropped by the newest branch of Tokyu Hands, the household goods store, in trendy Yurakucho's Marronier Square. Hands usually has this image of being very handy with all sorts of stuff for the interior fixer-upper. The new Yurakucho branch though is a lot more prettified and rarefied in their products.

In the bad news area, that 16-year-old psycho who went on the run-by stabbing spree a couple of days ago in Shinagawa had apparently been going for mental counseling for a few years according to his (horrified) parents. He himself said that he's been having some girl problems. I'd say that he has bigger issues now...such as time in the big house once he reaches 18, perhaps.
Also, the news about Ayumi Hamasaki's permanent deafness in one ear has been making the rounds on the forums. It's hit the fans pretty hard. Although the singer has said that she'll continue like the trooper she is, it's hard to imagine how she'll be able to keep that quality of hers in concerts. Plus, there's also the fact that her balance has probably been affected.

Monday January 7, 9:40 a.m.

Well, there's a New Year's tradition in which folks go to the nearest temple and check out their year's fortune via little slips of paper. Kichi is good luck with dai-kichi being really good luck. On other end of the spectrum, there is kyo for bad luck, and if you get dai-kyo...well, get your last will updated.
It looks like Japan is starting out with kyo. So far, we've had the first stabbing spree in Tokyo in a Shinagawa shopping street (some 16-year-old with issues decided to slash away at the shoppers), there have already been some fires killing elderly, a robbery/murder of a 90-year-old man in his own home (so much for filial piety in this country), and pop icon Ayumi Hamasaki has admitted to completely losing her hearing in her left ear.

The working week is back on schedule. I've just got two lessons today. A rare Monday outing with The New Yorker, followed by The Full-Timer. So, actually, I have nothing at Speedy's although I will be dropping by to type up some materials. It'll make for a nice little transition back to the regular grind since Tuesday will be back to normal.

Forgot to mention that I did watch "North by Northwest" on DVD. Compared to all of the pyrotechnics and MTV-style cuts and shots of today, the ultimate Cary Grant suspense is pretty tame but it still holds up very well for a suspense that will be celebrating 50 years next year. And yep, there is some pretty thick innuendo in the repartee. I watched it as is the first time but then I caught it a second time with the commentary by the screenwriter. It was interesting hearing his take on Grant when compared to the near-fawning commentary by a film historian on "The Philadelphia Story", another of Grant's classics made almost 20 years earlier. The writer liked Grant but was in far less awe of him or Hitchcock, for that matter.

Speaking of movies, Movie Buddy got in touch with me last night. Looks like another DVD night will be in store on the 19th. He told me his move to the new apartment was greatly facilitated by the moving company that he and The Sylph had hired. Gonna have to get the number off of him.

Thursday January 3, 2008, 8:53 p.m.

A rare nighttime visit to the I-cafe near my station. And Happy New Year, by the way; it's indeed the first entry for this year. I've just come back from Paddy's hometown of Ushiku City in Ibaraki Prefecture. It's only 90 minutes up there (the same amount time to get to Speedy's school) but it kinda felt like coming back from a long trip...probably because I usually come back at night from the eastern end of the Kanto during a recreational visit only when I return from Canada via Narita Airport.
I left in mid-morning and made a pit stop at the station Fujiya's Bakery to pick up some goodies for Paddy and other old friends of ours, The Photog and his wife, The Cat. As I made my purchases of cookies, I read the sign stating that this branch of Fujiya was gonna close down for good in a couple of weeks....ironic, since it was around this time last year that the entire company had to shut itself down for a few months in penance for mislabeling the "Best By" dates and then coming back on April Fool's Day (itself an ironic day). Now, at least this store will be packing up in mid-January. Et tu, Peko-chan?
Anyways, after a few switches from Tozai to Musashino to Joban Lines, I got to Ushiku a little after noon. Paddy picked me up and drove us to The Photog's mother's home not too far away from the station. The Photog and his family live in the wilds of Nagano Prefecture but came back to the hometown for New Year's. He and The Cat now have two daughters...one whom I saw as a newborn a couple of years ago when I made a summer visit in 2006. The other one is just a shade over a year old.
We spent an hour there gabbing and noshing on some o-sechi when one more old friend from Paddy's and The Photog's high school days came on by. And then the entire kit and kaboodle made a half-hour trip in the family RVR into Tsukuba City (the site of the 1985 Expo) to have lunch at this popular tonkatsu restaurant called Ton-Q. While we were waiting for our table, the gang met up with yet another old high school face...now with family of his own. It was quite the school reunion. The tonkatsu was quite good there but not that different from my station fare. I kinda felt sorry for The Photog's mother who just ended being our chauffeur because she had decided to stay in the RVR to keep an eye on the littlest member. However, her son reassured us that she didn't mind at all and that she was no fan of oily food.
Afterward, we drove back to The Photog's house. As we were driving by, the mother mentioned that the formerly sleepy bedroom town of Ushiku was starting to be invaded by a lot of condo developments. Tokyo was once again extending its mightly tentacles into the countryside. Even The Photog's current residence of northern Nagano Prefecture...not far from the Japanese Alps...was now considered to be a Tokyo suburb by a lot of folks, thanks to Bullet Train commuter passes.
Whilst The Cat and her kittens decided to stay at home, the guys decided to walk over to the nearest Gust family restaurant for some coffee. It felt a bit strange for the four of us men to order cute desserts and the drink bar option. We spent a good couple of hours there...but I think the other reason that my day trip to Ibaraki felt more like an overseas voyage was that I was experiencing a trip down Memory Lane with these guys. Obviously, I'd never gone to high school with these old lifelong friends but I could listen in on the old conversations of music and manga gone by. Paddy then got into this half-joking proposal of building a cottage in the resort town of Karuizawa...close by to The Photog's home. The guys got into the spirit of things about the idea of hammering 4x4s in the middle of the forest. Some years ago, some of my former NOVA students took the same jovial approach to making a new school....but unlike them, Paddy could actually get it done...possibly.
It was back to the house where we made our goodbyes. On the drive back, I asked Paddy to introduce me to his mother since I had a box of Fujiya cookies for her as well. Also, I wanted to pass on my condolences on the passing of Paddy's father in my mangled formal Japanese. I'd already decided early on that I wouldn't be staying over at his house but still wanted to do my aisatsu. Paddy took me back to the station, having recommended me to visit The Photog and The Cat sometime soon....I think since The Cat may be feeling a bit isolated in the wilds of Nagano with her brood. I said that I would make an attempt sometime in the next couple of months.

And so, the Holidays in Japan are technically over since the New Year's season officially lasts until the 4th. I've been hearing about the U-turn rush from the heartlands back into The Big Sushi. However, a lot of companies have been maganimous enough to grant their employess the Friday off so that the grunts can extend their holidays until Sunday night. As for me, the last few days were spent just cocooning and taping the local variety specials for the parentals.

I did get through all of last year's Kohaku Utagassen (The Red & White Song Festival) on New Year's Eve. Actually, it wasn't all that bad at all...although the top batter in the lineup was an agglomeration of the various girl groups (including Morning Musume) under the huge Hello Project umbrella. It was kinda sad seeing the girls do "Love Machine" for the umpteenth time at the Festival on the 10th anniversary of their founding when their heyday is long behind them. It'll be interesting reading the reviews on the J-Pop forums. Still, there were still some great performances by both pop stars and enka crooners alike. For me, the White male team was heads and shoulders above the Red female team but I thought the standout was singer Ayaka belting out the gospel-influenced "Peace Loving People" and then going into her hit collaboration with male duo Kokuburo, "Long Winding Road". My sentimental favourite, though, was seeing actor/singer Akira Terao sing his sole megahit, "Ruby no yubiwa" some 25 years after his identical rendition in the very first Kohaku I'd seen.
There was really no controversial performance this time around, unlike in the last Festival when anything-goes DJ Ozma had his seemingly nude dancers (they were actually wearing flesh-coloured skinsuits) prance about on the NHK stage. The only thing that got close was perhaps a slightly racy joke that one of the hosts, Osakan comedian Shofukutei Tsurube, pulled off on camera in the men's dressing room. However, the real story that had the gossipers gossiping was whether the other host, SMAP's Nakai-kun, was in a romantic relationship with ero-idol, Kumi Koda.

Basically, it's all been TV-watching. The specials have all had the female tarento decked out in flowery kimono while everyone's been involved in even larger quiz shows or even crazier obstacle courses. Ardent fans of "Takeshi's Castle" would just swoon. I did receive a couple of calls from Mom and even The Wild Thing. The Wild Thing and his missus are still in Hong Kong staking out possible job opportunities. As for the family, well, they were griping about the loss of quality in the Kohaku but the parents have been doing that since Pink Lady and Momoe Yamaguchi were the big stars in the late 70s.

Not sure what this year is gonna be like...but frankly, I'm looking at it as a make-or-break year. I feel that I've been coasting for the past couple of years and I think I need to shake things up a bit. One thing I've been considering is whether to move to a new place but realistically and financially I'm not sure if I can pull it off. However, I've decided to really make a good go with this new year.

Monday December 31, 9:57 a.m.

And thus we reach another end of the year. It's definitely quiet in my neighbourhood. As I was walking towards here about an hour ago, normally where there would be some besuited folks running toward the subway, there was noone...absolutely noone. I was about a hundred metres away from the Tozai Line but as the train was passing by, even with my myopia, I could see sky through the speeding windows...an impossibility on a Monday. However, the stores and supermarkets were getting ready for their huge blitz before they close down for 1~2 days. I guess that experiment of staying open for New Year's Day in previous years either didn't get as much business or the unions raised a mighty hue and cry...methinks the latter. And so I now have to strategize about what and how much to buy to tide me over today and the first day of the year. The nearby Daiei will open up on January 2, so I have that to save me.

The past week has been one of just two lessons and a number of meetings with old friends.

I met Paddy and his de facto wife on Boxing Day in Shinjuku. We ended up going to some chicken-based restaurant on the 14th floor of Takashimaya Times Square. They invited me to Paddy's place up in Ibaraki Prefecture on the 3rd. Then, on Thursday, I had that karaoke party with the juku bunch at the Urayasu Shidax. Apparently, The Milds (Mr. Mrs and Jr.) took my half-baked threat of singing in English for the first hour very much to heart...they had come to the box earlier in the week and practiced their tunes for an hour. Mrs Mild really got into it...she sang "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" twice. Jolly couldn't make it out due to work but Seven showed up although she resolutely refused to sing anything. It was the first time in almost half a year since I'd seen her last time. She gave both the boss and myself gifts of jelly much to our surprise....could be an implicit way of saying goodbye and thank you.
The Shidax chain...even in the boonies of Urayasu...continues to live up to its reputation as the deluxe karaoke franchise. Service (by folks in their teens or 20s) was unsurprisingly sullen but the food was pretty darn good.
It would seem though after I come home from a party, there seems to be a crisis playing out on TV. After the swanky party at The Lady's on the 14th, I found out about the Sasebo shooting spree at that sports gym. After the karaoke party, I turn on CNN to find out that Benazir Bhutto gets assassinated.

On Friday, I just had the final lesson of the year via The Ace, who had also come out to the karaoke party. He may be a fine tennis player but let's say as a karaoke singer....he's a fine tennis player. Then, on Saturday, I met up with Tully & The Coffeemaker for a thank-you lunch of sorts again in Takashimaya Times Square...this time at the Taiwan-based Din Dai Fung, the restaurant that specializes in sho ron po (soup dumplings). Yup, the dumplings certainly lived up to their reputation but the side dish that came with it was a bit disappointing.

Yesterday, the main event was meeting up with The Bohemian for dinner at En in Shibuya. I'd been reluctant to meet up with him since he isn't exactly the most ept in social graces. I had been hoping that the fact that he's gainfully employed again may have improved him somewhat. And for the first half hour, there was hope. He was speaking a mile a minute about his accounting job and seemed a bit more with it.
But then, his stupid side returned with a vengeance. I tell ya...I've never met a guy like him who could be so cheerfully and cluelessly sexist, racist and so eager to put both feet in his mouth. What made things even tenser was that we were speaking in English while surrounded by a lot of English-speaking guests (the Japanese had probably already made the exodus to their hometowns). I finally had to tell him to shut the hell up at one point since he was flying way over the line at one point and doing it rather loudly. He looked rather clueless. I also mistakenly told him about the fact that my friend and boss, Speedy, had his own business. The Bohemian was interested in starting something on the side and he kept badgering me about getting in contact with him although I tried to patiently tell him twice that Speedy was already up to his ears with his own concerns. In any case, there is no way that I could recommend The Bohemian to Speedy....or anyone else for that matter. That rather awkward meeting between The Bohemian and MB & The Satyr made that clear almost a year ago.
Finally, after 30 minutes of good conversation and 2.5 hours of endurance and verbal landmine-avoidance, I did what I've only done once (that one time also with The Bohemian at the same place) and what I would never do with a lone friend....I decided to leave him be at the table and told him that I needed to head over to Tower Records. He was initially surprised but the shock was a mild one due to the large amounts of beer tempering his reaction. Not sure when I'll see him again.

As for today, well, not only is it the final rush to get those readymade o-sechi kits or to get the ingredients (for those who still can make good o-sechi) for New Year's cuisine, but Japanese TV is now in full holiday mode with all of their umpteen specials. I've been taping a number of them for the parentals. The Kohaku Utagassen (The Red & White Song Festival) is on deck tonight on NHK as it has been for well over half a century. I won't be taping that since my parents do get NHK International back in T.O. and they end up griping about 90% of the acts anyways. However, there is a 4.5 hour enka show on TV Tokyo that'll be running concurrently. Speaking of music...there was a retrospective on TBS last night about a "Battle of the Bands"-type show known as Ika-ten that had a brief but legendary impact on Japanese society for a couple of years in the late 80s. It was interesting to find out that successful acts such as Tama, The Flying Kids, Blankey Jet City and Jitterin' Jinn were all recipients of fame. Like the popular "American Idol" in the States, there was a panel of expert judges including the Japanese version of Simon Cowell. Watching the flashbacks also re-acquainted me with the quaint fashions and musical tastes at that time....glam rock, early experiments with ska, spiky-haired boys and sauvage-haired girls. Not a rappin hip-hopper in the bunch.

Well, to all a Happy New Year.