Friday September 12, 3:12 p.m.

Well, I'm ready for the old folks' home. Man, coaching Mr. TOEIC on his presentation to some Chinese customers and then having to grab a bit of shuteye before heading for Immigration early this morning to get my Multiple Re-Entry Permit. To be honest, I didn't really need to get up that early to head on out since this wasn't a visa renewal situation. But old habits die hard and I just get a bit jittery if I don't get out there and get this out of the way as early as possible. It was the same ol' hourlong wait outside of the the bureau in Shinagawa with folks from what seemed to be China and other Southeast Asian countries. As usual, a couple of folks remarked on the folly of actually lining up outside the glass doors since once 8:30 comes around, people just run on in regardless of order. As with most bureaucratic and medical procedures, most of the time was spent just waiting for the number to come up, and by the time I got the paperwork and paid my fee, I was out of there by 9:30. I was definitely 6,000 yen lighter.

Ended up having brunch as it were at the Shinagawa branch of Hansen's...the New York hot dog emporium. This was the sit-down version with waiters, so I didn't get fries with my dogs but minestrone soup. Interesting. The dogs were actually warm, instead of hot, but the taste was still there.

Just hung about Takashimaya Times Square for an hour or so. That lineup in front of Krispy Kreme #1 was even punier than I'd ever seen it. Just a 10-minute wait now. I was tempted to actually add my own cholesterol-laden corpse but decided that even 10 minutes out in the hot sun (and it is hot today) wasn't worth it. Still waiting for that 5-minute drop.

I spent the past few hours just writing up that second translation assignment for The Corner. I just sent it out now. Not sure how good it is but since it's a translation of a contract, I made it as legalese as I could. The Corner sent me three more documents but I think these can be better handled.

Looks like that singer has decided to sign on with Speedy. Wow...good taste and brains to go along with beauty and a voice. However, Speedy will be the teacher for The Singer's first class since it's on Tuesday and I'm stuck out in my neck of the woods on Tuesdays.

MB sent me his typically terse cellphone memos about catching "Hancock" sometime over this long weekend. I said that that was fine and I suggested the holiday Monday. Haven't gotten a response yet.

I've just got The Ace at the juku later tonight so I've got some more hours to kill before I go. I will have to think about something to eat for dinner since it's now approaching 6 hours since those two dogs.

Thursday September 11, 8:06 a.m.

A cool morning...hadn't experienced one of those in a few months. It's nice...reminds me of a typical September morning in Toronto. However, I still have that lingering phlegmy throat, and at around 4 a.m., my sinuses suddenly ballooned to the size of marshmallows and was throwing forth nice cupfuls of snot. Lovely image, don't you think? Downed the pills and within the 90 minutes that I'd resided in half-sleep/half-wakefulness, my nasal cavities toned themselves down.

The Diver did well on the test....85%. The only three errors mostly dealt with Adverbs of Frequency. Still, she maintained her pose of low confidence...even asking me not to throw so much homework at her so that she can absorb what she'd learned at a more leisurely rate. Not quite sure where her logic springs on that one.

Still gotta bulldoze through that translation. I've got one document done. If I'm still pummeling away at the second one, I'll have to type the first one up and send it over so that The Corner doesn't get into panic mode.

The official five candidates to try and succeed soon-to-be ex-Prime Minister Fukuda had their photo-op yesterday. One was notable in that she is a woman...former Defense Minister Yuriko Koike. The odds of her getting the top job are very long...it's definitely not a Hillary Clinton era in this country. The Matron told me that the old fogies in the Tokyo Rotary Club threatened to defect en masse when the idea of allowing women into the upper echelons was dared to be thrown onto the table. And the Liberal Democratic Party, despite what its name may imply, is probably even more conservative than the American Republican Party. The fact that Koike got a high post in the Cabinet (and for that matter, Makiko Tanaka was Foreign Minister several years ago, although the fact that her father was legendary PM Kakuei Tanaka probably had a lot of pull) made for a media cause celebre. But to see Koike as even a potential Prime Minister took a lot of handwringing and twisting of arms. Still, aside from the fact that she's a woman, there is also the point that she's just not experienced enough (not gray or wrinkly enough). Then again, the previous and current PMs kinda make that argument rather moot.

What is also moot is that there may actually be a close horserace in all this. In the next two weeks before the decision (not election) day on Sept. 22, there will be the usual harangues of these pols on top of their vans in major meeting points in Tokyo. But everyone and their dog are ready to give current LDP Secretary-General Taro Aso the big job. Yuriko Koike will have to settle for hoping and currying favour to keep herself relevant. However...and this is admittedly very cynical for me to say...Koike may have a chance to grab the brass ring if there is any growing chance that the Opposition could topple the LDP in the general election, now rumoured to be held by the end of the year. If Ichiro Ozawa of the Democratic Party of Japan threatens to win big, then the cronies of the LDP could pull a page out of the playbook of John McCain and throw Koike out there, a la Sarah Palin. Perhaps the thinking would be that the novelty of having a woman as Prime Minister would be good enough to keep power in the LDP's hands, but still have the cronies remain as puppetmasters. Plus, Koike might only last a year anyways...and that's nothing new...and the upper echelon would only be too happy to throw in a guy to replace her. Yup...pretty cynical.

Wednesday Sept. 10, 9:58 p.m.

Man, I've only got 2 more days before that translation assignment is due. It'll be ready but it's gonna be rough. Still, I don't have much choice.

The Diver got a clear pass although she's still fretting and fussing as usual. However, I'm finished for the day until my Hump Day tomorrow. And I've got my 5: Grandma Dynamite, Miss Sedona, The Sisters of State and Mr. TOEIC.

Wednesday September 10, 4:57 p.m.

Well, that CERN atom smasher project must've gone off without incident since all of us are still here.

Just came back with the bossman from a rare on-site model lesson. My model lesson student happened to be a professional singer of some fame. She was quite nice and not a tabula rasa when it came to ability. The president of her production company was paired up with her...probably for minding reasons. He was your typical blustery shacho...a rowdy, randy guy who has a passing resemblance to Leonard Nimoy. I think we've been given the OK to teach her; just wonder how frequently I can teach her due to the nature of her industry.

Afterwards, we had a late lunch near Nakano Station at a Zat's Burger...in fact, it was the one where MB, Skippy and I, along with some others, had gone to some years ago. Since it is a Wednesday afternoon, there was noone when we got there. I had the Sasebo Burger (onion, tomato, fried egg, bacon, and the like with home fries....there goes my first attempt at being cholesterol-free.

Still have The Diver tonight. I hope she did OK on the test...I really don't feel like holding her hand. 001 is off for the next two weeks because of her trip to the Middle East and The Fashion Designer is in Shanghai, so it'll be an atypically early end to my Wednesday night. Speedy himself wants to hi-tail it out of here soon after I finish...something that I'll second.

Tuesday Sept. 9, 9:19 p.m.

Looks like I may have a full slate tonight. Mild Jr. pulled off a surprise appearance...no problems since we basically just go over stuff he brings over. And I never got a phone call from Jolly, so I assume he'll be here in the next 10 minutes. Suzanne was her usual laid back self, and the new triumvirate of The Milds and The Traveler. The Milds were fairly exhausted so again the playing field was pretty even. And it may get even easier for The Traveler since The Milds will be off on vacation next week. Not sure, but The Traveler looked a bit pensive; I wonder if she's thinking about taking solo classes. It wouldn't be a bad thing for her.

Tuesday September 9, 2:31 p.m.

Had the first Beehive class since summer hiatus at the usual place. Mrs. Travel, Jade and Tee showed up. Mrs. Alp was in Europe, and of course, the others have gone back to their wayward places. Pleasant session. Ended up having lunch at the ol' Tonki, despite the fact that tonkatsu shouldn't be on my menu anymore. But when meat is one of the major sources of bad cholesterol, that really is too limiting for me.

I'll be just a solo at the juku tonight since the boss is off at a musical. It'll be the usual suspects with me wondering if Jolly will show up.

Well, the head of the Japan Sumo Association, Kitanoumi, is the latest domino to fall in this annus horribilis of what is one of the oldest sports in history. It's a sad way for this former yokozuna to be remembered. He still remains the youngest rikishi to be promoted to the top rank of his profession...at the tender age of 21. But those halcyon days are truly over now, with all of the scandals that have wracked sumo in the past several months. Politics looks a whole lot cleaner compared to the state that sumo is in. And so, he had to resign.

Monday Sept. 8, 4:29 p.m.

The Saturday lessons with The Intellectual and The Businesswoman went well, but that model lesson turned out to be a waste of time. For one thing, the lady was one of those high-level persons who just felt that the textbook really wasn't all that useful for her...I'd been warned by Speedy that she wasn't too up on taking English again but had this vague feeling that she needed a brush-up...never an easy model lesson to do. For another, I think she was more Speedy's type of student than mine. In any case, as soon as the lesson was over and the student left, I gotta out of Dodge pretty quickly as well.

On Sunday, I saw Tully & The Coffeemaker for the first time in about a month. Happily, it was a good class. They weren't too lively for the discussion on the soon-to-be introduced lay judge plan here in Japan but they kinda jumped on the cute little exercise on recognizing symbols...go fig. Still, it was a nice confidence boost for me after that crappy model lesson.

The weather had initially been pretty decent that afternoon so after lunch at the Sozaiya Kitchen at JR Ichigaya (never cheap but healthy), I decided to walk from Ichigaya all the way to Shinjuku...ended up being a 45-minute journey....a nice if sweaty way to walk off the calories. I passed by the Ministry of Defense whose big boss was rumoured to be yet another entry in the LDP Presidential Race scheduled for Sept. 22. Walking from Ichigaya through Akebonobashi (001's hospital is in the area) to Shinjuku was interesting in that the entire neighbourhood was pretty dead on a Sunday....at least in the early afternoon. By the time I got to Takashimaya Times Square, my shirt was carrying more water than a camel's hump.

I met Movie Buddy, The Satyr and Frodo in front of the new and vastly cleaned-up Picadilly movie complex on Yasukuni Drive in Shinjuku. We used to go to the old Picadilly when it was just a really seedy-looking pile of brick which could have easily housed porn films. There was a Wendy's beside it which is now gone which is a pity. Now, the place looks like Roppongi Hills North; it was a 21st-century cineplex with reserved seating. The 3rd floor looked like the arrivals lounge of an airport. I hadn't seen The Satyr in a couple of months since he was off traveling in England and some other parts of Europe. As for Frodo, I think it had been a good year since I saw him last.

Our movie was "The Dark Knight" again but for Frodo and The Satyr it would be their first crack at the much-vaunted Batman movie. The plan had initially been for the significant others (The Sylph, Miss Ivory and Frodo's wife plus Skippy) to go watch "Sex and The City" while we testosterone-dominant folks would go see "The Dark Knight" but since Skippy couldn't make it on Sunday, the ladies saw Carrie and the girls the night before. So, it was an entire boys' day out.

I'd thought about whether I would get bored seeing "The Dark Knight" a second time but it actually held up very well. Still got as much of a thrill watching the action scenes and the Joker hamming it up as I did the first time...and I actually was able to figure out all those scenes involving Batman's sonar-in-a-visor without getting seizures. MB said that he enjoyed it even more while Frodo was slightly more sanguine (though he also liked it) in his review, saying that he felt Michael Caine kinda distracted him while Heath Ledger wasn't all that impressive with the hype. The Satyr enjoyed this entry far more than "Batman Begins".

When we did get out, the new tropical weather pattern of sudden squalls had started up again but luckily the four of us managed to get through the slight rain to get to The Clubhouse, the Aussie bar in Shinjuku. It had been several years since my last trip there. I was surprised to see the place nearly empty on a Sunday but there weren't any pressing sports events to see yesterday. We tried out the usual stuff: meat pies, fish n' chips and the buffalo wings. MB had said that on his last time to The Clubhouse a few years ago, he'd been greatly disappointed at the quality of the food, but it seemed like things were back to normal. The wings were amongst the hottest that I've tasted on either side of the Pacific, and the meat pies were sufficiently meaty. We were able to gab on movies for a good few hours. For some reason, the management decided to put on a "Sunrise Semester" type of program featuring some ol' Japanese professor exhorting the video students on the merits of the turbo engine. Wasn't quite sure if that was the management's way of trying to get rid of us. It took another hour but we finally did leave. Still, it was nice to have been back to The Clubhouse.

It's a full Monday. I saw The Class Act today as usual. The Matron was late but for good reason. She became a grandmother just an hour before...even showed me her first grandson's pic via cellphone. Then over at SIL's, we managed to carry on a chat without needing to go to the newspaper article. We gabbed on the upcoming elections in both the US and Japan and a comparison between "The Seven Samurai" and "The Magnificent Seven". I can only hope that my remaining lessons tonight are as fruitful (The Full-Timer, Mr. TOEIC and Medicine Man).

Saturday Sept. 6, 10:41 a.m.

Just finished Part 1 of that translation assignment given by The Corner. Not too, too difficult but it's always a good challenge of not just translating Japanese into English verbatim but also to get the right tone of what they are trying to say. The Saturday admin staff, Kay, has come in. She's definitely a quiet one...I think although she's come for the past few Saturdays now, we've only exchanged "Good morning" to each other.

I think I heard something that could be a cinematic car crash. Dark Horizons just posted that "Ghostbusters 3" is in production. Now, rumours being rumours, most likely the story behind it probably has more air than actual substance, but apparently the original cast of Murray, Ackroyd and Ramis are getting back together. Not sure if Ernie Hudson is also coming back; he may still be recovering from "Oz". Although I did like the first one (although the hype overrated it) and parts of the second, I'm not sure if doing another one with the original cast is probably the best thing...for one thing, both Ackroyd and Ramis are as globby-looking as Slimer now, and Murray has kinda gone into that serious, quirky movie area now. Probably a reboot a la the new "Batman" series is more sensible...get a new trio to portray Venkman, Stantz and Spengler...and definitely better and sharper writers.

Speaking of which, MB has confirmed the second viewing of "The Dark Knight" for tomorrow afternoon at the new Picadilly in Shinjuku. This time, The Satyr and Frodo will be joining us. It's been interesting...all the news has been that the movie has experienced flop sweat in Japan due to its overly dark nature, but the TokyoWalker satisfaction tracking system has shown its highest ratings for it. In any case, I'm wondering if it will stand up to a second viewing.

Saturday September 6, 10:07 a.m.

Saw The Ace last night. He and his girlfriend had a good time traveling through rural Fukushima Prefecture which is about a couple of hours north of Tokyo by Bullet Train. He got me and the juku boss a couple of packages of Mamadoru Cakes...pretty dense numbers which require a good strong cup of coffee.

Back for another round of Saturday classes...ugh, my shoulders are killing me. I'll be looking forward to my free Saturday next week. I've got The Intellectual for his first class in about a month, followed by The Businesswoman whom I also haven't seen for a month, and finally a model lesson student. It would be interesting comparing The Businesswoman with the Hip-Hop Girl...probably just 7 years separate the two but you couldn't find more contrast than between these two. The Businesswoman looks like she was born to wear power suits while Hip-Hop could immediately bust a move on the streets of LA.

Well, the search for the new President of the Liberal Democratic Party is starting to look like an American Presidential Primary....or the cast of "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World". Apparently, some more folks have entered the fray besides the five who have already announced a run to fill Fukuda's soon-to-be vacated post. Maybe Aso should start polishing off his policy positions after all. Maybe it won't be so much of a coronation.

Ah...new congratulations to Shrek and Fiona. They got their second kid just a few days ago.

Friday Sept. 5, 7:35 p.m.

While the US elections have finally entered the final phase of their 2-year battle for The White House, over here in Japan, the government has started its own search for a replacement PM in earnest...well, in point of fact, the president of the leading party, the Liberal Democratic Party, who will be the de facto Prime Minister. Just a few days after PM Yasuo Fukuda threw in the towel, three men have thrown in their hats. Kaoru Yosano is the Economics Minister. Of course, Taro Aso is the man to beat since he was seen as the guy waiting in the wings last year after Fukuda got the nod. And there is Nobuteru Ishihara, a former minister and member of a political/show business clan...a J-Rat Pack, if you will. Nobuteru is the son of the current firebrand governor of Tokyo, Shintaro, the elder brothre of the Fuji-TV weathercaster and tarento, and nephew of the late legendary Yujiro Ishihara, the singer/hard-boiled actor. Couldn't get more connected than that. And CNN is reporting that Yuriko Koike has also decided to officially join the fray. She's currently a minister of something but was once a newscaster for TV Tokyo and speaks fluent Arabic.

Friday Sept. 5, 5:42 p.m.

Finished the final class of The Hip-Hop Girl. Gotta admit that for a teenaged girl who dresses like Beyonce, she was actually good people. I downloaded sheets of the TV Guide listings for Orange County for her since she was rather keen to know about what television was like over there. She immediately circled MTV and VH1...as I figured. I hope she does well over in her new school.

Well, I'm just about ready to head over to the juku...

Friday September 5, 2:57 p.m.

The rest of my time here yesterday was pretty good. The Yogist and The Dentist were fine; as it turned out, The Manhattanite pulled out her appointment as quickly as she had put it in. Miss Sedona used her return from the States to show me five full albums of her pictures in San Francisco and Sedona, Arizona (I think one of John McCain's houses is in the area)...as I figured she would. She had a grand ol' time there and her pics reflected some very good angles of the two cities. It was obvious that she loved Haight-Ashbury and cable cars. Her pics in Sedona had the familiar ring of Mrs Travel's photos in the form of lots and lots of Big Sky and mesas. She even showed me an embedded church in one of the bluffs in Sedona; apparently, one of Nic Cage's houses is right across from it. My souvenir from her was a box of Ghiradelli Chocolates, and I also got this tidbit from her....she now aims to pursue her dream of actually going over Stateside to live there...at least for a while. I can understand her feeling.

Right after Miss Sedona, the Hip-Hop Girl came in for her second of three lessons. We went over some hairstyling vocabulary involving lots of hairstyles. We were able to wring out some good talk about it. She was rather shocked about how many channels one could get on American TV; I didn't quite tell her that often enough there was still nothing to watch. She then showed me one of her videos on YouTube performing her dance with her best friend/partner which got her second prize.

Got home at a nearly obscenely early time last night...around 8 p.m. Caught that music program "Utaban" with Takaaki Ishibashi (the Japanese fellow from "Major League 2") and the SMAP leader, Nakai-kun, on TBS. I hadn't seen the program in several months. The kid who sang the theme song from the latest Studio Ghibli flick, "Ponyo", was there. Of course, Ishibashi didn't fail to tease the heck out of her. Then, it was one of those awkward meshings between the Gold Medal-winning Women's Softball Team with the band Every Little Thing whose lead singer, Kaori Mochida, has about as much enthusiasm for TV appearances as she would for a colonscopy.

About 11:00, just as I was about to enjoy the first good night's sleep in a couple of days , my telephone rang. I'd thought it would be Speedy to tell me that someone had cancelled a class or that someone had put in a last-minute reservation. However, it turned out to be The Bohemian which was a bit of a surprise. I thought he was gonna try to ply me with another request to meet him for dinner. It turned out he was out in East Tokyo at some sort of izakaya and he actually asked me if he could crash at my place for the night. It wasn't very Christian of me, but I rejected him immediately. Afterwards, I felt kinda bad about not accomodating him...even him, but frankly his request came in a bit too late for me to oblige.

I actually was able to watch some of the final night from the Republican National Convention. Things did liven up considerably since that mausoleum-like first night due to Hurricane Gustav. Sarah Palin had shown why she is called The Barracuda the night before by plowing into Obama and the Democrats. And then I saw some of John McCain's acceptance speech. No, he will never be compared to Obama when it comes to oratorical skill but he still gave a pretty good accounting of himself and his past as a war hero.

And I'm back here to have the final lesson with The Hip-Hop Girl before seeing The Ace at the juku tonight.

Thurs. Sept. 4, 11:28 a.m.

Pretty much a fun ride for Grandma Dynamite and myself. Just gabbed on Canada and her son's secretive approach on his fiancee. Always like it when things click from the get-go. Hopefully, the rest of today's lessons will be like this one.

Haven't seen any of the Republican National Convention in St. Paul but according to the CNN website, it looks like McCain's bunch are out hunting wabbits and Senator Obama is getting whacked. Obama didn't get that much of a bounce despite his rock-n'-roll convention last week, so just wondering if this fusillade will really hurt him.

Thursday September 4, 8:37 a.m.

Typical start to a Thursday morning. Got into the office at 8 after a McBreakfast and then just gabbed with The Patent Attorney for a few minutes before Speedy spelled me. Since my dietary regime changed, I've been taking more notice of the calories. In fact, I checked out the caloric intake of a Big Mac set...as expected, it came to around 1000 calories. There is also nothing like a few friends to bring one down to earth, either. Over the past couple of nights, I've been showing my results to a few of the students due to their connection to the medical industry. Mr. Mild was a medical supplies sales agent, 001 is a medtech and The Diver is a full-fledged nurse. All of them whistled when they saw my LDL Cholesterol numbers and told me to get on that treadmill lickety-split. This reaction was in great contrast to the doctor at the clinic who had told me that things weren't too bad.

The next few Wednesdays could be a bit sparse. 001 will be off on her Middle East trip for the next couple of weeks while The Fashion Designer is off to Shanghai next week. Today, though, will be a Hump Day. I've got Grandma Dynamite, The Yogist, The Pharmacist and The Hip-Hop Girl...and then The Dentist had to cancel her lesson on Saturday so she's slotted herself in as my last lesson. Speedy even tried to get me to teach The Manhattanite tonight. As much as she's a good lass, I just wasn't willing to give up a rare Thursday night off.

Wednesday Sept. 3, 12:15 p.m.

Finished up with that Hip-Hop Girl for her first official lesson. She was 5 minutes late, so I was cynically wondering if she'd just decided to abandon her attempts to brush up on her English since she hadn't paid anything yet. But she did show up and we talked a bit on her American education in a Paul Mitchell school. We went into the different types of hair and I've just downloaded an entry from Wiki. That should keep us going for tomorrow's session.

Well, got basically nothing until 001's lesson at 6 but I'll be busy getting ready for the evening lessons and slogging on with those translations for The Corner. I may find out what was possibly eating 001 on Sunday after Baker Bounce.

Wednesday September 3, 8:54 a.m.

The Milds and The Traveler had a pretty good lesson together last night. Again, it was a case of leveling the playing field a bit...making it a bit easier for The Traveler while making it a bit more challenging for The Milds. The Traveler had encountered a bit of drama over the weekend by apparently falling down a flight of stairs and breaking her fall...with her head. She found out what the inside of an ambulance looked like, but otherwise nothing serious.

Jolly did show up for his 90. It was a freewheeling session. The first third of the class was going over the diet counter thingie that I'd received from the clinic earlier yesterday. Since the two of us seem to be brothers-in-arms when it comes to metabolic syndrome, we were marveling at some of the caloric surprises of the dishes. For example, a bowl of tonkotsu ramen...long reputed to be loaded with calories...is actually considerably lighter than a typical Big Mac set. However, it contains a king's ransom of cholesterol; looking at the soup makes that rather evident. The last third of the lesson contained talk on his somewhat latent otaku-like tendencies. He was intrigued about the main Mandarake HQ in Nakano and the old CD store, Otokichi. He was definitely curious about Halloween and the goings-on in Roppongi during the witching hour. That will probably mean yet another run to the supermarket for pumpkins.

Well, I started my first full day in the new dietary regime by heading for that Jonathan's family restaurant branch near Speedy's. That slacker-ish waiter was there to lead me in. I ended up having the Scrambled Egg Breakfast Plate for 598 yen and 600 kcal. According to how much I should be eating, I've already used up a third of my daily allowance.

One would think that the resignation of PM Fukuda would still be consuming the news but now it's been hijacked once more by allegations of drug use in the sumo world. Now it's a couple of Russian brothers-turned-rikishi who were spot-checked and discovered to have marijuana in their blood. Probably from some guy in Roppongi...yeah, that's the ticket.

Tuesday Sept. 2, 7:02 p.m.

Suzanne and I are getting settled into that comfortable pattern of chatting and practicing that Seven and I used to over a year ago...except that Suzanne actually does speak English for most of it. Now that she's had her taste of life in the outside world, she's expressed a desire to live overseas for a bit longer...say 1 or 2 years. I told her to go for it. She was a bit worried about the age situation since she's at the "ripe old age of" 26. I reassured her that she wouldn't end up as a modern-day Urashimataro or Rip Van Winkle. She's also gotten into "The O.C." big time...I kinda teased her about the big shock at the end of the final season (she's only in Season 1 right now)...where Mischa Barton's Marissa ends up dead....but didn't give the reveal.

Now, in less than an hour, I've got The Milds and The Traveler. That'll be a bit more challenging...could help lower my cholesterol.

Tuesday September 2, 4:12 p.m.

Yup, the summer is indeed back....Mr. Mild need not panic about the quality of rice after all. If this week keeps up with these temps, there should be a nice bumper crop this Fall...that is, for those rice paddies which weren't inundated by the floods of last week. As for me, I'm trying not to wither too badly.

Tell you who's not coming back, though. Prime Minister Fukuda tendered his resignation last night after less than a year in office. With him and previous LDP stooge leader Abe, it's starting to harken back to the 90s when it seemed like there was a revolving-door policy when it came to leading the nation...before the age of Koizumi. The Opposition was shaking its fist in indignation at the "sudden" departure of Fukuda. To be honest, people were saying some months earlier that he was probably gonna be flying the coop sometime in the Fall.

So, now we come to another Autumn for not just picking fruits and veggies, but also of Japanese Prime Ministers. The wide shows this morning were already making their bets. It looks like Taro Aso...the heir apparent who lost to Fukuda last year...will finally get the nod. China and Korea weren't thrilled....the former labeling him as "a big mouth" and the latter stating that it would be a nightmare if he were to come into power. Even some folks here, including me, think he looks not unlike a thug in a polyester suit, but apparently he has some popularity across the board since he's pretty rightwing in his thinking...along the lines of Junichiro Koizumi. Kinda wonder if he will suddenly create a cult following like Koizumi did in his first year in office. He does have his love of manga and can speak English well but I think he looks too much like a regular LDP hack to generate much charisma. I can also imagine that a lot of English-speaking detractors will be more than willing to use a common epithet that sounds like his last name to describe him.

The interesting thing, though, is that, according to one wide show which had the pictures of possible contenders for PM, there were two smaller pictures of women politicians behind the big one of Aso. Seiko Noda and Yuriko Koike may be in the wings for now.

All of this political intrigue was happening while I was stuck on CNN looking at the latest in Hurricane Gustav and its effects on the Republican National Convention. There was quite a difference between it and the rock concert that was the Democratic National Convention last week. The RNC looked like the annual stockbroker's meeting for not a particularly popular company. However, I'm sure all that talk about Bristol Palin and her pregnancy will keep the media enthralled for the next few days.

As for me, I went back to the clinic where I had my checkup a few weeks ago to get my results. Happily, the damage wasn't too bad at all. I'm only slightly higher in one form of cholesterol. In reaction, I bought a simple, cheap broiled salmon on rice bento with a salad.I also found out that I am 22 kg overweight....about 44 lbs. Ouch! Well, having to juggle The Milds with The Traveler, teaching that Hip-Hop Girl for the next three days and dealing with the summer heat and humidity may help shave some more weight off.

Monday Sept. 1, 10:39 p.m.

Medicine Man has gone home so we're basically ready to wrap things up here. Both Speedy and I are feeling pretty tuckered out. Kinda wondering if the ventilation is to blame.

Tomorrow, I gotta head on out to the clinic and get the bad news on my checkup...and I'm sure there will be a good deal of tsk-tsking in the report. We'll see...I'll probably be heading on out around the same time as I did when I went to the checkup a few weeks earlier...but I'll be having breakfast for sure this time.

Back on Saturday night, I actually caught that ol' Will Smith chestnut, "Independence Day". Yup, it had plot holes as big as those spaceships but I think it's just like "Star Wars" in that it was another one of those homages to hokey and wholly entertaining sci-fi invasion movies of the 50s. And for some reason, I still get rather verklempt near the end when Randy Quaid's character comes racing up in his jet for that final strike against the saucer...must be the soundtrack. As MB would say to me, I cannot and will not defend it against the naysayers but I've seen far worse and duller wastes of my time.

Anyways, time to close down...

Monday Sept. 1, 7:18 p.m.

Just finished with The Full-Timer. Looks like she's ready to fly the coop come the end of next month. She and her colleagues have been suffering from the classic work-related disease of "My supervisor is a psychopath".

Only Speedy and I are in the house. Betty is ailing tonight and can't come in for her shift. Just The Medicine Man in a couple of hours. The weather today has been fine, though we're back to hot and humid again. In fact, I think it's the first day in over a week that we haven't had any precipitation...knock on wood; there are still 5 more hours in the day.