Thursday October 15, 8:01 a.m.

Ah...the big 44...apparently, in Japanese culture, the age of 42 is the yakudoshi (the bad year) but I would have thought that this year was the Year of Hell (knocking on wood most loudly now), since the number 4 is considered a bad luck number on the same level as the number 13, and, heck, with "44", that's a pretty double-barreled numeral.

In any case, it's been about a week since my last entry since I've been away from Speedy's for about that long, and I've been hard at work trying to get The Cornerette's latest epic translation ready to go by tonight. Not sure if I'm gonna make it, but I'll certainly give it my best despite the first truly heavy schedule in some time here. I've got Grandma Dynamite for two hours (oh, boy), then The Nurse, The New Yorker, The German, and finally The Music Man.

In fact, this is all that I can afford to write right now since I'm gonna have to hit the translation for the next several minutes before Grandma comes in.

Saturday October 12, 10:27 a.m.

Last night for a couple of hours, CNN, FOX and all those alphabet media outlets could've been forgiven if they'd decided to change their call letters into "HUH?" or even "WTF?!" I was at home watching The Network That Ted Turner Built when the live news feed came in from the chairman of the Nobel Committee stating in his native Norwegian something about Barack Obama, followed by a major inhalation of air from the amassed journalists. Jonathan Mann of CNN probably echoed millions of viewers when he looked rather stunned when he had heard the most famous name this year. And then the chairman confirmed it a few minutes later in English when he declared that the US President has gotten the 2009 Peace Prize.

Well, after resetting my lower jaw, I echoed what a lot of the CNN and BBC folks were talking about...first and foremost, the question "WHY?" Or "Why now?" There were indeed a lot of folks who were trumpeting the accolades of the decision, but there were even more people, including myself, asking "What has he done?" and "Why does he deserve this?" I think even Obama himself was thinking that as he was told the news when he woke up. He probably thought one of his siblings was playing a practical joke on him.

The chairman of the Nobel Committee (sorry, can't be bothered to look up his name) stated soberly as he brushed off the near-incredulous questions from reporters that Barack was given the Nobel Prize for Peace because of his effect on the world, and apparently his gosh-darn great speeches. Pundits educated me that the Nobel Committee often roll the dice on winners in the hopes that the award can provide some existential nuclear fuel to do more of the right think. News to me...I always thought that that heavy medal was for deeds done, not for deeds to be done. I got pretty much the same reaction from the juku boss and The Restauranteur last night. Y'know....I like Barack Obama, I really do. But I just don't think this was particularly the right choice at this time. I think the slogan was "Yes, we can!", not "Perhaps, we could."

All I can say is that Sasha and Malia now have some pretty powerful bragging rights in the schoolyard. Their father has become the US President and a Nobel laureate in less than one year.

Thursday October 8, 7:21 p.m.

Saw The Carolinan for the first time in about a month since she couldn't make it for the latter half of September. For some reason, she was still rather blah or blase...although the Beard Papa cream puff I plied her with helped a bit. She's now getting used to her new circumstances in Jimbocho, and since I sometimes have a bit of a shopping trip there, she told me that if I'm ever in the area around noon on a weekday, I should look her up for a bit of lunch.

Ahhh...The Cornerette sent me an e-mail. Haven't heard from her since that little kerfuffle from the ceramics translation project. Can't say that I was too enthused about hearing from her, but she sent me her own personal thing to translate....all of 14 pages. Should be fun.

I was able to tunnel through The Croatian's sample of writing and get it off with remarks. So, basically, it's just working on The Corner's and The Cornerette's translations until The Music Man comes on in.

Thursday October 8, 4:44 p.m.

Well, Typhoon 18 has come and went. Looks like we got the 2-tiered deal. The sheets of rain last night followed by sun and warp-drive winds from this morning. In an O. Henry moment, all of the folks due to go to Speedy's earlier in the morning had no problems, but although I could sleep in, I ended up riding a morning rush hour peak train at 12:30 p.m. since the Tozai Line stopped due to lingering high winds. It was a distinctly uncomfortable experience breaking laws of physics with my fellow passengers on the subway...something that I hope to not repeat tomorrow morning when I go and see Cozy for his first lesson.

Luckily enough, I was able to meet Bay just in time at Nakano-Sakaue despite the turtle-like Tozai. Yes, she contacted me last night to say that she needed my signature for verification for some of those translations I did for her a few months ago. Bay is basically an ex-employee of Speedy's since she's now full time at another place, but she had a day off so she decided to come over with me to Speedy's with a ton of Beard Papa Puff Pastries for presents. The Japanese sure love their shuu kurimu. I'll have to remember to give one to The Carolinan. Yep, she finally replied to my summons...no explanation but she said that she'll be here by 6.

Only have The Music Man as the official Speedy student tonight. Perhaps he'll have some opinions on the Suzuka Grand Prix.

Wednesday October 7, 8:23 p.m.

Well, the day's done for me...001 has left the building, and will be gone for the next couple of weeks. She has her annual all-day barhopping tour in Suidobashi next week, and then has a meeting at work the week after that. Speedy and Ray are just talking logistics about the next big step to salvage the school.

I think Mixi has gotten rather dead when it comes to the communities I've joined. Even the Star Trek community has gone dark after what seemed to be interminable chatting amongst the local Trekkies for the past several months. Basically, the only one of my communities that has remained quite active is the one for jazz...and I haven't contributed anything to that yet.

The rain has stopped for now....not sure what it's gonna be like tomorrow morning, though. But as far as I'm concerned, I'm gonna enjoying lounging in my futon for a few extra hours.

Wednesday October 7, 4:16 p.m.

Well, I thought as much. We'd been expecting Grandma Dynamite's grand return to the fold tomorrow morning. However, there is also Typhoon 18 with its own grand entrance, and her sister, Grandma Enka, along with Speedy and I were wondering if the former would brave the latter. A few minutes ago, we got the answer. She canned and she'll be doing a double next week instead. So, instead of having to slog myself here early in the morning fighting sturm und drang, I can actually get a decent round of sleep and not show up until 6 p.m.

Speaking of which, I haven't heard anything from The Carolinan about confirming for her lesson tomorrow night. I did send a message to her a couple of days ago but have yet to hear back. Pretty unusual for her. Hope she's OK.

Got that translation done for Shrek...at least, I've sent it off for him to peruse. Hopefully, it passes muster. I've got that other one for The Corner but that one's considerably smaller than the one I've just done and it won't be due til Halloween. However, The Croatian sent me his first official assignment, so gotta get that copied out and analyzed by Friday.

At the juku last night, Mr. White dotakyan'ed due to his illness...which both the boss and I suspect is depression. He's almost 4 years younger than me, but his hair has gone stark white (hence the name). The two of us then had a brief but deep talk on the nature of depression. As for The Milds, the three of us basically devoted most of the class on talking about his performance on Sunday. Apparently, the leader and conductor of Mr. Mild's glee club was not too complimentary about the first part of the show...I have to admit that the early stuff did come out off-tune...but by the end, the group was humming like a well-oiled machine. Strangely enough, the talk turned to my Mixi experience, and they both got really interested. I may have created a couple of online monsters here.

It was Miss Sedona's final lesson with me before she heads off to Toronto for what could be her new life. Not too much studying...pretty laidback class and then the usual questions about my hometown.

I've only got 001 tonight and then I plan on getting the heck out of Dodge by 9 before Typhoon 18 pummels on in.

Tuesday October 6, 1:25 p.m.

A bit of a bummer....I wanted to use today's session at the I-Cafe to get some more translation done, but this computer won't download the file. Just a bit of a bummer, since I'm "resigned" to a bit of surfing instead.

This week may actually turn out to be the busiest week I've had since early summer. I've got 3 early wake-up calls, plus Shrek's translation, one small one from The Corner along with the regular student classes. Unfortunately, this will all occur with the backdrop of a major typhoon coming our way tomorrow. I just saw the icon on the weather map with a diagonal umbrella and driving rain to realize that it could be rather hard commuting on Wednesday.

David Letterman's being doing a lot of mea culpa over the past few days since it was revealed that he hadn't just been relying on certain members of his staff for jokes. I think "The Late Show"'s new slogan should be "Stay up for Dave. He certainly has." Of course, some of his fellow late night host have declared a feeding frenzy and jumped on his tribulation like a cat on juicy mice. A bit sad but the late night show host fraternity has been anything but....more like a fracternity. Plus, as one lady said on Jeanne Moos' report, "If he can dish it out, he should be able to take it." And certainly, former New York governor Eliot Spitzer is probably not crying too hard for ol' Dave.

Monday October 5, 10:45 p.m.

Finished off The Medicine Man tonight. Man, it was another slow one with him, but then again, the two of us were beat.

I received a great line from Mrs. Jyuppie just now. She couldn't do the test, not because the dog ate it, but her baby daughter did! Ahhh...my job just gets more and more interesting.

The news has been buzzing about the sudden mysterious death of ex-Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa. A couple of years, it was Agriculture Ministers who were falling by the wayside, but now it's the money men. Apparently, he was a real nice guy in the political world and in the world of constituents, but he regrettably lost it all earlier this year with his inadvertent Foster Brooks impression at the G-8 Finance Ministers meeting in Italy. Not sure what he died from...could've overdosed on medicine.

Cozy is now officially my newest student. And he wants to get the earliest slot on Friday. So it looks like I'm gonna have three consecutive early wake-up calls for the latter part of the week. But at least I'm gonna be making some money again after a lean couple of months, and Cozy told me straight out that my usual wage is too low and that he would give me a whopping 5,000 yen for 60. Gotta keep this guy.

Monday October 5, 8:33 p.m.

May have the prelude to a typhoon outside of these walls right now. It's been raining the proverbial cats and dogs for the past several hours.

However, yesterday was quite pleasant for Mr. Mild's debut as a basso profundo member of his chorus. The juku boss and I made our way to Urayasu Culture Hall in the afternoon and got to see my student in full James Bond tuxedo get up on the stage with a few dozen other middle-aged fellows to sing a number of Japanese folk tunes as well as UK ditties such as "Loch Lomond". Strangely enough, at the same time as this concert, there was indeed a festival held in Chiba City organized by the Japan-Scotland Friendship Society. Some cabers were thrown, some kilts were raised, but there were no panic-stricken starship engineers. In any case, both the boss and I were surprised to see Mr. White and his family show up as well. Mrs. White is quite the opposite of hubby...garrulous, opinionated and with a machine gun for a voice. I thought she came from the Kansai.

It's been a busy one today. Although two lessons are on the slate today (Swank and The Medicine Man), I finally got that meeting with The Romantic and his boss...seems that research project is indeed a research project looking for raw corporate data. Looks like I'm the newest unofficial member of their network. And I'm grinding through Shrek's translation of that rental contract. I'm halfway through, so it looks like I may be able to finish it tomorrow at the I-Cafe.

Anyways, would love to write more but still busy.

Saturday October 3, 10:07 a.m.

The feeling among some Tokyoites today might be similar to the tone of "Casey at the Bat", in which The Big Sushi must feel like Mudville. Yep, after years of hoopla and having to hear Governor Shintaro Ishihara's stentorian and strident demands for an Olympics in 2016 in his fair city, the largest city on the planet got the ultimate thumbs-down from the IOC early this morning in Copenhagen.

To be honest, there was no surprise from me on that point. Tokyo's support rate for The Games from its own citizens was the lowest of the 4 cities bidding for 2016 at 72%. But even that percentage seemed quite a bit overinflated considering the very tepid...cool...response from their own residents. There was never a huge upswell of emotion for The Games in the past few years, and it only seemed within the last couple of weeks that even the media and any athletes showed any real passion to get them. In the last couple of days, I saw Sydney 2000 Women's Marathon winner Naoko Takahashi and Hammer Throw champ Murofushi finally come out to cheer on the bid...where were they months or years ago?

Back in the early 60s, when Tokyo did host The Games, the metropolis, and the entire country for that matter, had something to prove by getting The Olympics. Japan had spent nearly 2 decades in getting out of the shadow of World War II, and the '64 Games were the debutante ball. There isn't really anything for this metropolis to prove today...outside of slapping on some solar panels on a stadium. Tokyo continues to metamorphasize, with or without a major sports event as impetus, and the country's athletes show up at just about every international competition around the planet. As for the lack of passion within the city...well, that's just comes with the territory, societally speaking. Japanese on an individual level can be just as berating, weeping and explosively humourous as anyone else. But when it comes to the society at large, they become the equivalent of the polite, demure spinster at a tea party. It would take something on the level of a stinging defeat from a war to shake societal passion from them.

I didn't wait until the 1:50 a.m. JST announcement of Rio getting the Olympics. Have classes to teach, y'know. However, I did get one of two surprises live at about 11:30 p.m. Chicago got ousted in the very first round. The media had been reporting that The Windy City was one of the two favourites. And there was nothing like the Obama Factor to help kick in a bit more juice into the bidding. But President Jacques Rogge didn't feel the love from The City of Da Bulls, deep-dish pizza and jazz, and it got the bum's rush. One of the truly rare sights is to see a crowd in a major American city left speechless...I got that sight last night on CNN. I found out this morning from its website that the support rate there had probably always been inflated, too. I'd heard percentages like 92%...but it was actually more like 55%. Ouch!

The only other surprise was finding out that Governor Ishihara could actually speak fluent English. I'm sure the next week will have me finding some sympathy for his direct staff as he probably mutters and screams in two languages at City Hall.

So, all those banners that had been hanging throughout Tokyo for the past several months will come on down....perhaps to become someone's dusty memento in a closet along with Nagoya's 1988 poster and the one for Osaka some years ago. There is no joy in Tokyo today...for some people. But the rest of us will go on quite well without the Olympics, thank you.

Thursday October 1, 8:23 p.m.

Looks like my ode to Chudleigh's got some notice from one of my Mixi friends...the one who's the huge "Doctor Who" fan. It was a pretty rich description, rich enough to match the consistency of a Chudleigh's pie crust. I did get my compliments from her. She couldn't quite understand my phrase of a burstworthy apple pie so I sent her the web address of the Chudleigh's website showing one of their magnificent pies; she should get a pretty good idea from that.

When it rains, it pours...I now not only have a rental contract to translate by next Wednesday for Shrek, but The Corner has just sent me an e-mail after several weeks to ask me to translate one page from their own site. Luckily, that page is nowhere near the monster that the ceramics project was. Still, I can't get upset about the increase in work, especially that powwow earlier today with Speedy about the declining fortunes of the school. And speaking about the boss, he gave me the direction I needed with that Eiken 1 project. I also now have inherited his two students, The Magician and The German, who I've taught in the past.

Saw The New Yorker. May have to think more about having her classes in the late afternoon rather than in the mid-afternoon. The Tully's there seems to be more amenable for conversation classes at 5. The only problem is that getting back to Speedy's on the Shinjuku and Oedo Lines is an exercise in Hell.

Thursday October 1, 3:29 p.m.

Well, it didn't quite come out right but at least the object is still showing. That might look like a dish of sliced peaches, but it sure ain't. That, my friends, is a plate of hoya shiokara...in plain English, it's Sea Squirt Innards. Perhaps if you haven't gagged, then you don't know what it is. Let me elucidate. Sea Squirt is basically an upright Sea Cucumber....just a living tube from the bottom of the ocean.

Never had the stuff before so The Bohemian and I ordered a plate of it. The stuff was so salty that we automatically ordered another couple of bottles of Asahi Dry...now I know the restaurant's secret weapon to get people to drink. Not something that I would order again initially.

However, I did wax poetic over at Mixi about the wonders of one of the few consistently happy memories from my childhood...Chudleigh's Apple Farm in Milton, Ontario. If anything says Fall in Ontario, it is this place. My family used to go there like clockwork every October to pick up a ton of apples from the trees. The mornings were always the same...cool, sunny and crisp just like a Red Delicious. And then there was the visit to the local farmhouse and shop with the aromas of hot apple cider and warm apple pie wafting into our nostrils. I was virtually heady and floating in the air on that stuff. The crumble top apple pie was, and is, especially the favorite. If there is one thing I miss about Autumn in Toronto, it is these yearly visits for apple picking.

Thursday October 1, 2:23 p.m.

Speedy brought me in for a small tete-a-tete...nothing particularly new, just that the school has fallen on hard times. Apparently, the bossman got an earful from the investors on how the bottom line has been sagging this past year, so there will be a few changes in store in the foreseeable future. Obviously the economy has been a major factor but also it seems that the freelance teachers-and-cafes format has also taken a few chunks out of us...and since that would include me, the bossman shot one across my bow by asking that I ramp up my ball game whenever I'm in the school.

Thursday October 1, 9:14 a.m.

Hadn't had one of these early wake-up calls in a while. Felt like it, too. I hit the hay at about 11:30...got up at 5, and just felt really woozy. Had to eat a pre-breakfast of cereal and blueberry juice before I left the apartment, so my eyes were feeling pretty perky; unfortunately, the rest of my body had to wait until I got the McBreakfast near the school.

It'll be another Donut Day. I have The Nurse in about 45 minutes and then nothing til The New Yorker at 5 and finally The Music Man at 9:15 tonight. Since Miss Sedona cancelled her lesson today, the donut hole is that much wider now. But I should have plenty on my plate. Shrek sent me an entire rental contract to be translated via fax so when I got home last night, there was a bunch of fax paper reamed right out of my phone. I did a contract for The Corner last year so I have the experience; all I need to know is how fast Shrek needs the translation. Then, I've got this guy in Eastern Europe who's studying over there and needs to have some proofreading done for his thesis. He had sent a sample earlier in the week...he definitely has the vocabulary but his structure is a bit haphazard, something that theses can't afford to be. And then there is Cozy and his request for classes. He's asked for either early mornings or evenings. Well, the latter option is off the table for obvious reasons so I may be seeing McBreakfasts on a more regular basis.

Well, tomorrow (or actually, Saturday morning at 1, local time) will have the IOC decide on which city will get the 2016 Olympics. Will it be Tokyo, Chicago, Madrid or Rio de Janeiro? The good money is probably on Barack Obama's neck of the woods since it has the highest local support at 92% and of course, it just simply has Obama behind it. I've been rather ambivalent about it. Tokyo's got the lowest support rate at 72%...still not bad, almost 3 out of 4 people want the Games here. But The Big Sushi has also got the advantage that it is, bar none, the safest big city, not only of the 4 applicants, but in the world, period. Still, I think the folks here are rather leery about having to entertain the entire world for 2 weeks. A lot of folks have been talking about just vamoosing into the countryside for that fortnight in 2016.

I finally got that condolence card done up for my late uncle's wife. Man, it wasn't easy to pick out the right words and write them down in kanji, especially when I'd only met the man 2 or 3 times in my life. Still, once I finish with The Nurse today, I'll head on out to the post office.

Wednesday September 30, 8:40 p.m.

Yup, that's the fare I had with the juku boss and Cozy back on Sunday at Sazanka, that swanky restaurant up at the top of the Hotel East 21 in Toyocho. The sushi platter is on the left while there was some truly tender grilled beef on the right. I think that was the winning dish for me.

001 came in, and it was the usual fun and games. She had a fine time in Australia and she actually missed out on the orange sandstorms in Sydney by just a few days. It was quite the hike for her up Ayer's Rock, though, since she had to scale slopes as sharp as 53 degrees for the first leg. Speedy the school got some Macadamia Chocolates while I personally received some Emu Jerky...somewhat more tender than the usual beef variety. I had to relay the bad news to her that I wouldn't be coming to 002's party this coming Sunday although I didn't mention anything about the current troubles I have with 002. 001 looked disappointed but I'm just not too interested in anything to do with my former student right now.

For some reason, it would seem that I've suddenly been getting some requests for teaching and proofreading over the past few weeks. A friend of a friend has asked me for some proofreading work of his academic thesis (not sure if that's gonna come about as of yet since he's asked me for my credentials, and I told him that I'd never really tackled anything as big as a thesis before), Cozy has asked me to teach him from next month, Swank has returned to the fold, and even Shrek has asked for my translation services (also iffy since it's legalese and his minders want it quick). I wonder if that means that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

I've got that card of condolences all made up and ready to go; just have to address the envelope.

Wednesday September 30, 4:53 p.m.

Getting some steady rain...a bit of a relief since this month has been rather dry. Nice to get some precip.

Not exactly back to Hump Day levels, but I do have 001 back from Australia. And that will be all she wrote for today's lessons. However, it should be interesting to find out if she had been engulfed in all that red dust which choked Sydney last week.

My SOS to my Mixi friends about what to write for my late uncle brought in a number of useful replies. I've actually written a rough draft which should be good enough to transcribe into good onto the card. The juku boss told me last night that even native Japanese sweat blood trying to think up of the best words to put down in such situations. In a way, I am glad that I didn't have to go to the funeral.

Miss Sedona has once again cancelled her lesson for tomorrow morning. I have a feeling that she wants to cut her final class as close as possible to her departure date in October so she doesn't have to put herself under any pressure about renewing for a few more lessons.

We had tsunami alerts all along the Pacific coast this morning due to that massive quake in American Samoa. It's pretty rare to get tsunami warnings here and at this point, the rise in water levels should only get up to 50 cm at most.

I had The Milds for their last lesson before Mr. Mild has his debut as a chorus singer this Sunday in Urayasu. He's got his fair share of butterflies in his stomach...a slang term that I did dutifully teach in last night's lesson.

Anyways, I should finish up that card of condolence.

Monday September 28, 3:29 p.m.

It was a dinner-out weekend. Saturday was with The Bohemian; it was the first time having dinner with him in over 6 months. The Bohemian has on-and-off days. On his off days, he can be cheerfully (to him) and offensively (to me) racist, anti-Semitic, sexist and borderline pedophilic after which I would rather not see him for a very long time. Luckily, Saturday night was him on his on day. He was better, although some of his anti-Semitism did manage to leak out. We had dinner in Shibuya near the new Yamada Denki in a basement izakaya. Of course, The Bohemian chose a place that had an all-you-can-drink option for 2 hours. The food there was pretty good, although the hoya shiokara (sea squirt in innards sauce) was way too salty. There was also the ad running about the 10th being an anniversary celebration so that there will be a 2,000-yen all-you-can-eat as well. Since The Bohemian behaved himself, I may take him up on his offer to head there again with him. He also said that he would like to bring over some of his other Mixi friends.

The other outing last night was with more stable folks: the juku boss and Cozy. Like last year, it was at the East 21 Hotel near Toyocho Station. Unlike last year, Cozy took us to the very top of the hotel to a great Japanese restaurant called Sazanka. Since Fall has come, all of the dishes were seasonal including something could never be brought over to Japanese restaurants overseas: dobinmushi. It consists of seasonal favorites such as shrimp, matsutake mushrooms and other ingredients steeped in a light broth in an iron teapot. And the broth is poured out into teacups and drunk as such. Once the broth has been completely drunk, I just ate the ingredients from the pot. Absolutely delicious. Strangely, just like The Bohemian on Saturday, Cozy also suggested inviting me to some sort of food critic enclave event so that I could imbue myself with some gourmet cuisine and make friends at the same time. I don't think I feel anywhere near quite that lonely.

This morning, I met up with Swank for the first time in several months. We met in an outdoor plaza right by Roppongi Hills. Still very pleasant and fluent although she doesn't think it...at least not nearly as much as I do. Still, it looks like I've patched that hole in my Monday schedule that The Class Act has now vacated. And maybe Grandma Dynamite will be coming back into the fold as of next Thursday. That's a big if since she tends to cancel at the last minute.

And that is basically it for me for the rest of today since The Medicine Man has cancelled his class for tonight. So, I'm just enjoying my time at the neighbourhood I-cafe and will have a rare Monday night at home.

Friday September 25, 1:03 p.m.

The Nurse was one of the millions who braved the Kan-Etsu Highway up to Gunma Prefecture during Silver Week. It took her 8 hours round-trip to stay 2 hours there. I think the payoff was somewhat lacking.

Well, the pay packets are almost done. Once I get mine, I'll probably take off soon after since I still gotta get the bereavement card for my late uncle...I went to Ginza's Ito-Ya yesterday but although I could get a birthday card for my niece, I couldn't find anything remotely appropriate to send to my aunt. My only other choice is the Matsuzakaya Department Store in Nihombashi.

Also, during my short recce in Ginza, I found out that the HMV in the Mosaic Building in Sukiyabashi had received the axe a couple of weeks earlier. The music store had once taken up the entire 4th floor but then several years ago, the place was downsized to just a third of its original size, and then the final farewell in early September. To be honest, I guess there was a certain inevitability since there is a more accessible HMV just down the street in the Ginza INZS complex.

Spoke to Ray about her going to Akihabara to help out the bossman tomorrow at the fair. She's not looking forward to it because of the weekly infestation of otaku.

Friday September 25, 10:40 a.m.

The end of a 2-day work week. Not surprisingly, not feeling all that tuckered out. Just have The Nurse in about 20 minutes and then it's just the juku folks tonight. And that is with The Ace out of the picture since he's got plans.

Heard that the bossman and Ray gotta head out to a study abroad fair out in Akiba tomorrow. Oh, joy! In the midst of Otaku Central on a Saturday. Hope Ray doesn't go into Maid Rage there.

Thursday September 24, 10:30 p.m.

Had my lesson with The Music Man. Yep, Renault came up. As expected, both of us agreed that the car company got off with a slap on the wrist after what will probably go down as one of the most egregious scandals in any sport. He also mentioned that he thought that Michael Schmacher is truly a dangerously competitive driver.

A bit of an odd topic to finish the day on, but it's been something that's been trying to get out of my mind and onto blog for a while, so I'll see if I can get this written down before I get out of here. Being a veteran Trekkie and a soundtrack fan, I was intrigued by the reactions on YouTube concerning the Michael Giacchino score to the current reboot of the franchise. Excerpts of the CD have found permanent status on the site. There have been a lot of raves about the tracks including Track 5, "Enterprising Young Men", which is also a favourite of mine. But there are those who think that Giacchino's accomplishments pale in comparison to Jerry Goldsmith's contribution to Trek Lore with his famous theme for "Star Trek: The Motion Picture". There was even one nod of support to the score for "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" (the one with the whales) which I frankly likened to a DeVol score for a late 60s sitcom. Not that I hated that one, but let's say that neither Giacchino nor Goldsmith should be particularly threatened.

For me and for the record, I think there is room for not just Giacchino and Goldsmith, but also for James Horner, the composer for the score for what is arguably the best of the entire franchise "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan". The score fits the movie. Goldsmith's majestic score fits in with Robert Wise's laudable but doomed attempt to create a space opera out of hammy acting and a huge space turd in a cloud. James Horner created a swashbuckling seafaring motif which goes hand-in-glove with the adventure and space battles that characterized "The Wrath of Khan". And then you have the most recent contributor to Trek Music, Michael Giacchino, who has whipped out this frothy, frenetic and fun score to celebrate Star Trek's return to its roots. Giacchino even gets all illogical...much like much of the plotting of the movie...by thrusting in the legendary Alexander Courage TV theme in various parts three times. I was somehow able to get over that strangeness and have listened to the CD now even more times than I have Giacchino's other great soundtrack, that for "The Incredibles".

So, Trekkies, rejoice. You can enjoy all the pieces of Trek Music without guilt.