Tuesday February 8, 1:51 p.m.

Like me, you probably grew up in the 80s in Canada or stayed up late on Friday nights on NBC at the same time, if you can recognize this fellow. Yep, it is indeed a young Eugene Levy (of "American Pie" fame) when he was doing Bobby Bittman on the legendary "SCTV".

"HOW are yuh?"

I've been continuing the viewing of all those DVD sets I got back in Canada 6 weeks ago. And Volume 3 of "SCTV" is on my screen right now after having gone through "Doctor Who" and "Family Guy". I'm also finishing up on "Get Smart", the original series with Don Adams and Barbara Feldon. The two are similar in that I'm not enjoying them for the laughs but basically for nostalgic purposes. Both of them do have their moments but a lot of the scenes have only managed to get just chuckles from me. However, I guess for me it's just seeing these beloved characters from my childhood and adolescence once more that have given me the pleasure.

The 5th and final season of "Get Smart" has been especially interesting for me since for all intents and purposes, it is the first time I've seen these episodes since I (barely) remember them being first aired in 1969-1970. For some strange reason, these episodes have never been put on reruns. So up until last week, I had only hazy snippets of the Smarts' twins being born; Max, 99 and The Chief being aged; and that opening sequence of zoom shots of Washington. As it is, though, I can see why this was the final season. Things were getting rather weird in terms of plot, even for "Get Smart", and 99 was becoming almost as goofball as her husband. Plus I can see where some fans started getting a bit disappointed when Max and 99 started searching for baby formula instead of KAOS agents. I'd say that the show "jumped the shark" once Max and 99 finally got married several years before the term became a part of Hollywood lingo via "Happy Days".

As for Cycle 3 of "SCTV", this was the final season for Catherine O'Hara, Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas. Although I think John Candy and Eugene Levy are comedic icons, "SCTV" jumped its own shark once those three decided to leave and "The Days of the Week" soap opera parody started.

Tuesday February 8, 1:39 p.m.

Looks like Winter has come back to the Kanto. Pretty brisk out there. And I heard that snow may be in the forecast for this long weekend.

Speaking of the long weekend, I'll be meeting up with MB and Skippy for the first time this year. In fact, I'll be doing another sleepover at MB's place on Saturday night although I'll have to teach Yajima on the following Sunday. The movie of choice on Saturday will be "RED", that mindless piece of escapism with the old guys: Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman and John Malkovich. Should be fun for a few laughs. I'll have to see what Movie Buddy thought about "The Green Hornet".

My session with The Beehive had a temporary place this morning in the form of a place called Cafe Nard in Funabashi. It sounds like a coffeeshop in Eastern Europe. It was Mrs Jade's idea to hold it there since she passes by the place daily. It's actually across from the cafe where I usually teach The Bass and is located where a former supermarket used to be. That may explain the slightly unusual configuration. For a cafe, it is rather long and wide. I almost felt giddy with all of the walking room and legroom I had.

It'll definitely be a quiet day since I've only got Mr. White today at the juku while The Milds are off in New Zealand. We may end up gabbing on his trip to that Boa concert in Yoyogi about a couple of weeks back. Then I'll make another trip to the Restauranteur's place nearby for some dinner. It'll make for a pleasant Tuesday night.

Tuesday February 8, 1:26 p.m.

Sumo seems to be reaching a pivotal moment in its centuries-long history. A couple of years ago, there was that case of a stablemaster and some of his young charges beating a junior rikishi to death just because he wouldn't get with the program. Then last year came that scandal concerning certain wrestlers who were illegally betting on baseball games. There was some hope of redemption while yokozuna Hakuho was on that record-setting winning streak.

But then the bottom fell out once more in the last couple of weeks when it was revealed that match-fixing was the latest thing to afflict the sumo world. In Japanese, it's known as yaocho. For those who are fairly knowledgeable about the Japanese language, the word might seem rather familiar to yaoya, which refers to a vegetable stand. Well, back in the Meiji Era, an owner of a vegetable stand had been known to purposely throw I-go games to a friend so that the friend would have chances to balance the odds.

In any case, heads are gonna roll, mostly in either the junior makunoshita division or in the middle juryo division. No surprise there since the rikishi who inhabit these two lower levels don't make a whole lot of money; in fact, I'd say that life in the makunoshita is just about equivalent to indentured servitude. And when one is living in or near the world's largest city, all that temptation can make one desperate for the cash. So far, 14 wrestlers and stablemasters have been targeted in the investigation of which just a fraction have fessed up.

The Japan Sumo Association has cancelled next month's Spring Tournament. A tournament has not been cancelled in over 60 years and this is the first time that a tourney has been canned due to some malfeasance. And indications are that this may not be the only one to get canned.

I think the entire world of sumo now needs a major, major overhaul. It may take something like a year's sabbatical to get its house in order. I mean, Canada had to live without hockey for a year due to a strike. Why not sumo? It's not as if sumo is the most popular sport in the country right now, so any absence wouldn't cause a major panic in the streets. And I think with all the talk of ancient tradition, the sport probably does need some major updating in terms of regulations.

Monday February 7, 9:32 p.m.

Well, the past number of days have been rather up and down professionally. The up parts have been thankfully my lessons with The Jyuppies and Mr. Swank since they are always very engaging. As for the down part:

The first thing was back on Friday with this fellow who I'd thought was an acquaintance of Mr. Jyuppie. But I didn't read the fine print and it turned out to be a friend of Mr. Jyuppie's buddy instead. I'd thought that I would be meeting a guy who was about the same status and income level as my student, but when I met him at the Tully's in the Akasaka Twin Tower, it turned out to be a very fluent high-flying executive of a management consulting firm of a Director level. Imagine his surprise when he met this fellow in sneakers with lapsed business cards who often conducts meatball English classes. I'm sure he was expecting someone on the level of a one-man school replete with self-published textbook. We spoke cordially in Japanese and English for an hour, and then he quickly took off. Although I could be wrong, I got the distinct impression that I was probably not his cup of tea. Different tax levels, to be sure.

Then the second bomb came just this morning. I'd done something I had never done in my years at Speedy's. I completely screwed up the time I was to meet The Artist this morning. Even though I'd put it down in my schedule for 11 a.m., I stupidly assumed that it was noon. So it was with some surprise that I came in at 11:15 and saw a blank-looking Artist staring at me while Miss Efficiency burst out and asked with some shock about where I was. I felt lower than a centipede's corns and profusely apologized to my young student. She was very gracious but even several hours after the screwup, I still feel pretty lousy about it. I kinda feel like getting her an early Valentine's Day gift for her on Thursday morning in continued penitence.

Thursday February 3, 4:53 p.m.

Well, Doraemon was either mightily caffeinated that day or he was doing his best Clint Eastwood impression.

It's been a busy day...even humpier than yesterday's Hump Day by an extra class. Luckily, The Patent Attorney counts as a nice walk in the park in terms of lessons.

I've got The German in about 5 minutes. And then it's the usual lineup of Mrs. Thursday and The Music Man. My little bout of food poisoning has pretty much gone away but I think that anti-diarrheal medicine has been working too well....now, I'm just simply not...going. This may lead up to a Mt. Shin-Moe eruption in the next few hours if I lay off the meds.

Wednesday February 2, 9:12 p.m.

Yup, that's the guy, your honor! It's Kojak. I saw a rerun of Telly Savalas' detective drama from the 70s last night on cable whilst I was recovering from a bout of 24-hour food poisoning from a rogue salad. It's amazing how counterintuitive CBS was in getting Savalas cast as a good tough cop when he had been regularly cast as psychos or amoral bastards like Blofeld on "On Her Majesty's Secret Service". So, I got to see and hear all those "Who Loves Ya, Baby?" and lollipops for the first time in over 30 years.

As for today, I managed to survive the gauntlet of students on what was a Hump Day. This, considering I'm not totally out of the woods of my Montezuma's Revenge quite yet, but I'm getting better. I have a bit of a cheat in the form of some medicine that I bought at the nearby pharmacy; but that's better than having to rush out every few minutes from a student.

Let's see...I had The Artist (who's now much better herself), The Overachiever, Miss Prissy, 001 and finally, The Businesswoman should be coming in about 10 minutes for the last slot. I've got even more folks tomorrow. I like all of my students but I'm not gonna miss these super full schedules when I leave in June.

Wednesday February 2, 3:17 p.m.

Looks like I was the latest to be felled by an ailment. Back on Monday night, after I'd eaten my salad, my stomach started making some unusual mewling noises which continued into Tuesday. By the time I got home between The Beehive and the juku, I was kinda feeling rather unpleasant, though it wasn't enough to dive into the toilet headfirst. So I actually had to call the juku boss up and informed her that I wouldn't be able to come in. She'd called me earlier to state that Mr. White couldn't come because he had been taken down by the flu, so I didn't feel too guilty since The Milds were the only other lesson of the night and as their code name would suggest, they're pretty cool about it. Plus, I think it was the first time in my history with the juku (5 or 6 years) that I'd actually called in sick. The boss at first thought I was calling to resign from the place...she's so paranoid about that happening.

In any case, I stayed on the couch tending to my sore stomach and had a very rare Tuesday night off. I ended up watching an old rerun of "Kojak" on cable (yep, "Columbo" is apparently not the only show in town for 70s American TV detectives) and just watched a lot of the situation in Egypt.

And for the first time in several months, I actually 9 hours of sleep. That's about as rare as a cockroach in a sushi bar in Tokyo. This country is not known to be the birthplace for karoshi for nothing. But I hit the hay at about 10 p.m. and got up at 7 a.m. this morning. And I felt a whole lot better although the rumbles come and go in my tummy. Kinda tells me something about how I need to change some things to my lifestyle.

Which reminds me about the fact that I finally dropped the bomb on the bossman at Speedy's late on Monday night. Yep, I did inform him that I would be working only up to the summer. As expected, he took the bad news (for him) pretty calmly although it was obvious he wasn't too happy about the prospect of losing me. And this morning, as expected, he tried to see if he could squeeze in some regulars into my morning schedule....after all, since I'm now on limited time and all. Uh....no. However, I did acquiesce to a possible student after 001 since Miss Sony has finished her time with us.

Monday January 31, 9:27 p.m.

Well, yesterday after my lesson with Yajima, I made my way on the Hibiya Line all the way up to Akihabara to partake in the 2nd hokoten after it had been reinstated for the first time in 2.5 years. The people were definitely out there in droves walking around on the pavement usually meant for vehicular traffic. But as the sign said: No performances, no selling, no handing out of tissues. I think the sign also should have said: No Fun. Yup, it was pretty devoid of any excitement (save one rather lonely character in the guise of some pig walking down the main strip), but I'm just happy that the street has been blocked off at all. It's kinda like a patient only just coming out of a fugue-state coma...it'll take some time for the place to get lively again. According to the sign, this pseudo-Akiba hokoten will be in its current form until the end of June, and if everything works out, the term will be extended into the summer. Perhaps then we may be able to see dancing anime characters.

Still, the hokoten is coming back to Akihabara when changes have taken place. JR Akihabara is now brand spanking new and trendy after some years of remodeling, doner kebab has become the area's unofficial food, and AKB 48 has claimed the crown as the darlings of the neighbourhood. I kinda celebrated the return of the pedestrians' paradise by buying the doner kebab at the corner where they were made. That corner was liberally populated by noshing visitors and pigeons. There's no other place (save McDonalds) that has so much food for so little price.

Strangely enough, I ended up in Akihabara again this morning after Cozy's lesson in Toyocho, since I had an urge to have some kaiten sushi for the first time in a few months. Monday morning in Akiba is a far cry from yesterday's relative hijinks. It's not filled with folks...vehicular traffic seems to be more active on the street than people are on the sidewalks. Basically, I just walked around the area for several minutes before making my way into Yodobashi Akiba and going up to the 8th floor where Sushi Zanmai was located. Since I got there only 15 minutes after they had opened, the conveyor belts were doing minimal business. Basically, I had to work it like at a regular sushi bar and ask for my sushi. Service was a bit off, too. First, the waitress brought over tepid miso soup before she hurriedly and apologetically replaced it with a far hotter variety. Then, the nearest chef to me forgot my one order of negi toro. Now, I'm pretty laid back about that sort of thing, but I think the staff missed a bullet. Mistakes like that can be absorbed easily back in the States or Canada, but I think the staff over at the Zanmai were lucky that the customers were very laid back and that it was early. If it had been later in the day with a fuller house, there would've been demands for low bows of prostration from a few hardheaded customers.

Saturday January 29, 2:14 p.m.

Almost done with my blogging for the day. Yesterday, I had been expecting to meet Swank for her first Friday session at Espresso Americano in Roppongi Hills. I waited 45 minutes past our appointed time of 10:30 before I decided that she was gonna be a no-show. Swank had always been dependable so I figured something was up. And sure enough, once I called her up on her cell, a profusely apologetic Swank informed me that she'd completely forgotten about the date since she was so accustomed to her old regular meeting day of Mondays. Still, I enjoyed my time at the cafe although the blueberry muffin was dry as dust.

My internal decision to leave Speedy's in June must be having some psychic effects. I've had quite a few cancellations over the past couple of weeks. The Grandmas are largely gone from the picture, Medicine Man will be AWOL for at least a month, and Miss Sony didn't renew. Also, I've been getting a couple of requests for private lessons from different sources. One of them, an acquaintance of Mr. Jyuppie, has started a dialogue with me via e-mail for lessons. If everything works out, I will be meeting him this Friday in Akasaka. The other potential new student is an acquaintance of Mr. TOEFL. Like him, he's also a veterinarian. Pretty interesting.

That little televised exposure of us last Saturday on "The King's Brunch" has had some mild benefits in that one new person had come for the one-coin session on Friday. However, that possible appearance of comedian Sanma Akashiya is looking pretty unlikely now. Thought that one was looking rather too good to be true.

I had another good session with The Journo last night at the juku. He's been coming up with the war stories. A couple of days ago, Mt. Shin-Moe on the border of Miyazaki and Kagoshima Prefectures blew up spewing so much ash and sand. The Journo had just come back from covering the volcanic eruption and even admitted that there had been a chance that he wouldn't have been able to get back due to the tie-up in traffic there.

Currently, the big news eruption is the crisis in Egypt. Looks like Hosni Mubarak is living on borrowed time. Tunisia should re-name itself Tinderbox. I'm wondering what the Final between Japan and Australia for the Asia Cup will be like tonight since they're playing not too far away from the revolutions.

Saturday January 29, 2:07 p.m.

This would have sent any nutritionist heading for the cliff like a lemming. The above is my breakfast from yesterday. I still had a hunk of cooked rice left over which I needed to polish off. And so when I hit the 24-hour supermarket around midnight Thursday evening, I came across 300 g of American beef. Well, I also had some tangy tare which also needed to be expended, so I decided to make a huge bowl of gyudon....a megadon (sounds like one of Godzilla's enemies), to be cute. The final ingredient was just a package of stir-fry veggies.

Now, beef bowls have become de rigueur even in US airports. My portion was about 3 times as big. And just like the Yoshinoya variety, it was a snap to make. Just threw in the beef with a bit of oil, added salt, pepper and sake, even some consomme bits into a frypan before adding the veggies. I heated up the rice and then just unloaded the pan's contents onto the warm rice. Of course, before I did that, I poured the remaining tare all over the beef and veg. Delish...and it basically tied me over until Idaho Burger time in the early evening.

Saturday January 29, 1:51 p.m.

There have been all sorts of plot points in my life over the past few days.

The saga of the mercurial Ms. Efficiency has continued. On Thursday, La Fille was the latest staffer at Speedy's to be victimized by the Hyde side of Ray's replacement. I was sitting at my post when La Fille was trying to give some guidance to Efficiency on the ways of the computer. Efficiency took her kind efforts to be some sort of insult on her abilities (or lack of them) and then sagely pointed out La Fille's supposed weaknesses. The exchange was less intense than my own arguments with Efficiency late last year but it was enough to rattle La Fille. La Fille, who could usually absorb any trial or tribulation with aplomb, turned to me a couple of hours after Efficiency had left for the day and asked me with some frustration whether she had really insulted Efficiency. I reassured La Fille that Efficiency was clearly in the wrong and explained that Efficiency has some emotional issues....ah, heck, let's be honest here...Efficiency's a bit mental.

I'm not sure if I should've done it without La Fille's permission, but I decided to report the exchange to the bossman after the final class of the day. The bossman had that look of resignation that he only gets whenever Efficiency's involved in the topic of conversation. Perhaps I may have jumped the gun but I figure I was in the room when the exchange happened and that the bossman should be given as much information as possible about this lady's problems. The bossman explained that he couldn't just fire a person for having a paranoid personality, but it was obviously evident that he was just looking for an excuse, any excuse, to let her go. And he even admitted that he made a huge mistake by hiring Efficiency...which is quite something when I consider that he doesn't like to concede arguments.

Not surprisingly, Efficiency brought her Lucy Van Pelt self during the actual move from the old place to the new place over The Holidays and bossed around the two volunteers who had come to help out. The bossman even confided that his own wife, who's probably the most patient wife any husband can ever have (and knowing the bossman, my statement has weight), won't even be in the same room with her.

Just like a certain presidential dictator of Egypt, I think Miss Efficiency is now on borrowed time.

Saturday January 29, 1:44 p.m.

Back at the I-Cafe.

The 2nd of the Big America 2 series at McDonalds has landed, and it's a live one. The Idaho Burger has arrived, and true to those wacky Japanese pop cultural sensibilities, the burger comes with a topping of a giant Hash Brown, since all American potatoes reside in Idaho, of course. I can just imagine Fuad from "Family Guy" laughing up his lungs at this sight.

Compared to The Texas Burger 2 which was quite zesty, The Idaho Burger has a more peppery BBQ sauce which was frankly a little too gelly for my tastes. That sauce along with the hot mustard pretty much rendered the addition of the giant Hash Brown rather moot; only from the texture could I recognize that there was a potato in there.

Apparently, in February, we've got The Miami Burger and the Manhattan Burger to look forward to. I can only imagine what kinda ingredients might go onto the patties for those ones.

Thursday January 27, 6:07 p.m.

Spent a few hours in the South Shinjuku area. Had my lunch in that Szechuan place under the Maynds Tower. Yep, they really whipped up a spicy number with that chicken and bamboo shoot dish today. I was afraid that my breath was gonna be a lethal weapon as far as The New Yorker was concerned. However, thanks to a lot of time between lunch and her lesson, my mouth was able to correct itself of any potential halitosis assault. Just went through Kinokuniya for about an hour before spending two more in the Starbucks before The New Yorker arrived.

I'd been having an internal battle (no, not because of the Szechuan although there were a few repercussions after I'd gotten back to Speedy's) at Starbucks over whether to indulge in their Zacher Torte; common sense prevailed. And it was a good thing, too, since when I got back, La Fille gave me some omiyage in the form of Sweet Potato Tarts. Cute little things with a lot of fibre....kinda like Linda Hunt from "NCIS: Los Angeles".

The student fallout continues. After hearing about the disappearance of the Grandmas from the permanent schedule and Miss Sony's intention to not renew, Miss Efficiency informed me that The Medicine Man, whom I have yet to see since I got back from Toronto, will not only be cancelling next week's lesson but would be unavailable for all of February. According to his current contract, he only has a few lessons left so I'm wondering if this is the beginning of the slow fadeout. With all of these students leaving, I'm also wondering if this is fate emphasizing that it is time for me to leave Speedy...I've already made the decision to go in June; still haven't told the bossman quite yet but with Medicine Man's cancellation, I'll have to time to talk with him on Monday.

Thursday January 27, 11:06 a.m.

Well, my Mega Hump Day has gotten downgraded to a mere Hump Day with The Artist's sudden cancellation this morning. Apparently, her mother had called during my lesson with Grandma FON about an hour ago stating that The Artist has come down with some sort of virus (the usual symptoms of vomiting and other expulsions). The Artist had come in yesterday, and she did look rather ruddy although I'd thought it was because of the heat of the classroom. The Artist told me one rather remarkable fact about her life....she apparently has some sort of committed Peeping Tom who regularly "looks in on" her and leaves a mark....no, not that mark...but just a marker scrawl of some sort on her door. She's currently engaged in a cold war of sorts by repeatedly erasing said mark.

In any case, I now have some time before The New Yorker's lesson in Shinjuku so I will probably hit my favorite Chinese place in the Maynds Building.

Thursday January 27, 8:24 a.m.

I've been back for a few weeks now and I have to say that my life in 2 worlds has taken a rather bipolar aspect. When I'm here, I think Toronto is a dreamland and while I'm back over in my hometown, I think over here is a fantasy world. Air Canada provides that interdimensional gateway...with meal service and movies. I just hope AC doesn't decide to use the previous phrase as their new slogan.

The Oscar nominations have come out. I'm happy to say that I have seen three of the ten nominees for Best Picture: "Toy Story 3", "Inception" and "The Social Network". Not sure what's gonna happen next month, but I think the bets are on either "The Social Network" and "The King's Speech". The latter film will be out here sometime soon, and it is one that I would like to catch, along with "True Grit". I'm not a huge fan of Westerns but the commercials I caught back in Toronto made it quite appealing.

Thursday January 27, 8:14 a.m.

Yup, my first 5-hour sleep of the year. That's something I really want to stamp out....however, I live in a country whose people seem to excel at it. I've got my 7 hours of classes today. I love all of my students but yeah it's gonna be a grind by tonight. I've bought the two bottles of vitamin drinks to emphasize it. The lineup is: The Patent Attorney, Grandma FON, The Artist, The Sisters of State, Mrs. Thursday and The Music Man.

Wednesday January 26, 10:26 p.m.

Well, it looks like it wasn't just Grandma Fado who's flown the coop. Miss Sony has decided not to renew with us....I kinda got that feeling last week when she replied to La Fille's inquiry on whether she'll renew by saying "I'll think about that". Usually when people say that, I tend not to be too optimistic.

I'm gonna have a rather hellish schedule tomorrow with 7 hours of lessons. I was hoping that I would avoid that but it looks like it's come up on me a little earlier than I had hoped.

Finally, my cable company and I came up with a mutual day for them to come over and exchange my modem after several faxes and aborted phone calls.

Wednesday January 26, 5:50 p.m.

Last Sunday, some 2 and a half years after the Akihabara Massacre, the main street was closed off for a few hours to create the return of the hokoten, the pedestrian's paradise. But it's not quite as it was before June 2009. For one thing, there are no street performances allowed but there are plenty of police and citizen patrols. However, it's not as if street performances were physically possible on that day anyways. When I was watching NHK News that night, the news helicopter showed the street absolutely coated in pedestrians. It was just wall-to-wall people marching back and forth.

I didn't have a chance to see the proceedings for myself since I had The Jyuppies for their first lessons of the year, but I don't think I missed that much. However, I do have a chance this coming Sunday after I finish with Yajima. Perhaps although the performances will not be available as of yet, there will be those exhibitionists who will strut through in their various anime costumes. Still, I am happy for the return of what made Akihabara cool in the first place.

Wednesday January 26, 5:42 p.m.

Found out from Miss Efficiency that we've pretty much lost almost all of the Grandmas. Grandma Fado decided to stop her lessons with us...perhaps for the time being, perhaps permanently. Grandmas Fado, Tango, Enka and Dynamite are gone. I've only got Grandma FON for now. Enka and Dynamite left due to family health problems while Tango has got her own health woes. As for Fado, I think our move to the new place and the fact that we've been coasting sans textbook for weeks probably made the decision. To be honest, I'm not all that disappointed to see her go although I was the last person to "teach" her. Having a lady in her 80s with just basic English just waiting for the teacher to do something is never easy. Grandma Fado was a really nice lady but I think it's time to move on.

Wednesday January 26, 2:31 p.m.

I've got The Artist in about 30 minutes. I haven't seen her since December so it'll be nice to see what she's been up to. Then it'll be the usual Wednesday night students of 001 and Miss Sony. I heard from Miss Efficiency that it looks like another TBS programme could be interested in doing a gig at our newly-minted school. Last Thursday we had a crew from the Saturday morning variety programme, "The King's Brunch" film a one-coin which flooded La Fille with tons of calls immediately after the segment aired. Now apparently, an even bigger show, called "Sanma's Karakuri TV" on Sunday nights may be curious about having its entire cast show up in our school. Sanma Akashiya is a loud brash legendary Osaka comedian who's been around for about 30 years. Like a lot of other veteran TV folks here, he's got a number of programs of which his Sunday night program is arguably the biggest one. It's basically a hodgepodge program filled with "People Say The Darndest Things"-type segments and whatnot....of course with him having his tarento buddies around him.

My feelings are that if this actually pans out next week, it's gonna be one really noisy session. I may have to give ample warning to folks like The Music Man and Mrs. Thursday, although they may get rather miha over the possibility.

As for me, I'll have to say that it might be rather interesting meeting this crowd.

Wednesday January 26, 2:09 p.m.

Saw The Bass for the first time in nearly 2 months (he was rather surprised at that fact). I gave him a tin of Maple Green Tea as his souvenir; not quite sure how he'll take to that. Apparently, he'd gotten into another accident near the end of last year; this time, it was in his car in Shinjuku when he got rear-ended. He also had his annual trip to Los Angeles for the drum convention.

He also mentioned that he'd had some problems making himself understood during his trip which made him think very aloud whether he was actually improving in his English. When I probed further, I found out that a lot of his problems happened during a performance of drums; I gently pointed out that even native English speakers would have problems making themselves heard during a sonic assault of that magnitude. But his doubts aren't the first I've heard from a student. Over the years, a number of high-intermediate students have come up to me to say that they don't feel they've improved. And for them, the fluency curve is often a lot steeper and I explain that it's gonna take a lot of practice and even more intense work into the nitty-gritty before they make that breakthrough into really fluent English. Of course, with them and The Bass, I didn't make light of their doubts. I explained to him that I can help him with his pronounciation although I warned him that this area was arguably the most difficult to reach proficiency in. And I even lightly suggested that perhaps another teacher may be the answer. This was a pretty delicate part of our conversation since I didn't want to give the impression I was being defensive and certainly I don't want to lose him as a student...especially since I've made the decision to leave Speedy's in June. However, I do want him to get the best in English training and if I'm not up to snuff, he should have the right to find someone better.

Wednesday January 26, 2:04 p.m.

Just threw up an old picture from last August when I visited the Ramen Museum near Shin-Yokohama Station. That was a mighty fine tasting bowl of Kumamoto tonkotsu. The reason I put it up is that I just got a message from The Dancer back home in Toronto confirming when she and her family will be hitting Tokyo. They'll be coming over in mid-March. Her husband is a huge fan of ramen so I offered to take them either to the Museum or to Foo Foo in Shinjuku. There could be quite a crowd of buddies coming over in March/April. The Dancer's clan is coming over, then it'll be The Anime King and possibly Automan in late March.

Monday January 24, 6:34 p.m.

On Saturday, the Speedy staff and I got together for our farewell dinner for our guest of honor at the Wolfgang Puck restaurant over JR Shinjuku. The problem was our guest of honor never showed up. Ray has been such a steady worker for us for the past 2 years that there had been a very good reason for her no-show. And as it turns out, her strong work ethic mandated that she take over at her other job for an ailing friend. Never a bad thing.

And that also meant that there was more food for us to eat (heh-heh). It wasn't the first time for me to try out Wolfgang Puck's although it has been more than a couple of years since my last meal there. I have to say that the absence did make my stomach grow fonder. The Roast Chicken in Honey-Mustard Sauce was very good; the meat just fell off the bone...hadn't seen anything like that on anything else except for an exceptionally good sparerib. The rest of the dishes were also excellent such as the Salade Chinoise and the Margarita Pizza. It was almost as if the namesake chef himself had been manning the kitchen. My only regret was that we couldn't have the famed Smoked Salmon Pizza that brought Puck to everlasting culinary fame.

Saturday January 22, 12:44 p.m.

Not sure if any of you folks back in the Americas are finding this in your local McDonalds, but the Japanese branches have started up the "Big America" campaign for the 2nd year in a row. Last year, the Golden Arches unfurled a series of 4 "Big America" burgers: the Texas Burger, the New York Burger, the Hawaii Burger and the California Burger to some success. I tried all four and found The New York Burger to be the best of the lot while The Texas Burger was more of a work in progress. Kinda wondered if George W. Bush had been the "inspiration" for that one.

Well, Mickey Dee's has decided to roll out the sequel, starting with Texas Burger 2. I tried it out at the neighborhood branch. It's actually an improvement on the original: it's smokier, has a bit more heat in its salsa sauce and the patty remains meatier. Apparently, the Idaho Burger is next although for the life of me, I have no idea what they would be put in an Idaho Burger (potato stuffing?).

It is indeed my 2nd Saturday as a free man...that is, with no more need to head over to Speedy's. I was able to get my laundry done, get a haircut and get some prints made to send back home. No way I could have gotten that done if I had still been mandated to teach Miss Prissy, The Publicity Assistant and The Intellectual. Having said that, I do miss those guys although it looks like Miss Prissy doesn't seem to want to let go of me that easily; she had her first lesson of the year with me last Monday and has done so for the next Wednesday. The Publicity Assistant will not be showing up until at least March and nothing has been heard from The Intellectual.

I've got that farewell party for Ray tonight over at the Shinjuku branch of Wolfgang Puck's. The burgers there are pretty good, but tonight Ms. Efficiency for the course option for 4400 yen.

Speaking of Speedy's....we got that tiny excerpt on our school on that variety show "The King's Brunch" on TBS about 20 minutes. A bit disappointing since it was basically just one question from the bossman followed by just some very quick shots.

January has customarily been DVD month for me since I've been going through all the sets that I'd bought back in Toronto. I've just gotten done with 2 sets of "Family Guy" which I think now is the animated comedy to beat, and Season 5 of "Doctor Who". Matt Smith's Time Lord has definitely made his mark on the fans....David Tennant hasn't been forgotten but his replacement has more than made himself welcome in my home. The 11th Doctor has that certain delivery in his voice; someone mentioned there was a bit of David Niven's Pink Panther in there, and I could certainly agree. I'm now gonna try out one more set of "SCTV" and "Futurama".

Because of all of the DVD viewing, I've missed out on quite of news. For me, the biggest one domestically has been the sudden resignation of Governor Hideo Higashikokubaru (probably the regional leader with the longest name, outside of governors of provinces in Sri Lanka or Thailand). Over the past 4 years, this former mediocre comedian under the wing of Beat Takeshi has been able to become the most popular governor in the country since he virtually threw himself into the Bird Flu crisis in his home of Miyazaki Prefecture. He earned the tycoon's worth of political capital from that point onwards. During my lesson with The Journo last night at the juku, we discussed about his future plans, and it's very possible now that he may go for the governorship of Tokyo in April after Governor Ichihara's long-awaited retirement. I'm a bit skeptical about what he could accomplish in the halls of Tocho; it's one thing to be the best salesman of a rural province of Kyushu but it's absolutely another to be the head rep of one of the world's largest cities.

The Journo had his trip to The Golden Globes last Sunday. He was just able to score a few minutes with Justin Bieber on the red carpet. What has made The Journo's lessons so interesting for me is that he has the inside track, of course, on what goes on behind the scenes in politics and entertainment. Plus I was able to help him last night figure out all of the snarky comments that Ricky Gervais had been firing as host. I taught him to understand about the host's traditional role as Chief Sardonicist.

Yesterday, I also had the rare opportunity to teach both Swank and Mr. Swank back-to-back. I learned that Swank is also a closet Trekkie, albeit more of a fan of one character in particular: Seven of Nine, which kinda knocked me for a loop. Then from her hubby, I found out that he is the only one who knew who Ruiko Kurahashi was right off the bat. Ruiko is that 80s singer that slipped through the fingers of superstardom and even stardom but has had a very loyal following.

Well, basically you and I are caught up now.

Thursday January 20, 7:03 p.m.

Well, the film crew from "The King's Brunch" came by this morning, just a few minutes after Grandma FON had made her first appearance at the school in over 6 months. She's also one of those people who effortlessly lives the Life of Riley, this despite the fact that she has titanium rods in place of a femur. She had her trip with 6 of her old classmates in a hot spring near Osaka, and then she told me that next month, she'll be heading over to Paris to stay at the exclusive Four Seasons George V Hotel.

The film crew wasn't all that noisy, although the two pop tart reporters were doing their usual squealing on camera. Must really work for one's supper, apparently. The footage will be shown this Saturday in the afternoon.

Had a bit of a small snafu later in the afternoon concerning The German. Apparently, she never got the word that Speedy's had moved. So when she didn't show up on time, we immediately got concerned, and sure enough, some 10 minutes later, we received a frantic phone call stating that she was stuck over at the station not knowing where we were. We sent out a rescue party and got her inside within 5 minutes. Happily for all concerned, she wasn't angry.

The Music Man cancelled tonight so I'm basically ready to go home. Not quite sure what I'm gonna do for dinner since if I head on home now, it'll probably be too late to nosh taking into consideration digestibility timing. My choices are not too good in the Speedy neighborhood since I said I would try to stay away from the Golden Arches.

Wednesday January 19, 10:10 p.m.

Another long night has come to an end. 001 and I managed to get through the lesson although I was wondering how much I could cut loose since I was teaching her in the open space part of the school where I was well within hearing distance of La Fille and Miss Schmooze. 001 showed me some pics from her Honolulu Marathon experience and I got my souvenirs as usual from her. I gave her some Chocolate Pretzels...not sure if beer is the right match for those, though.

Looks like students are falling by the wayside. Not only has The Patent Attorney canned for tomorrow but also my last student, The Music Man, has decided to pull out as well. And then, The Medicine Man also cancelled his lesson for next week. I'm gonna end up with a pretty easy day tomorrow.

Wednesday January 19, 8:06 p.m.

Saw 001 for the first time in over a month. Looks like she had quite the travelogue. Went to Hawaii for the marathon there and came in at 5:47:14; not too shabby at all for a beginner. Then she went skiing in Hokkaido and then to a hot spring in Hakone. Kinda wonder if her bonuses are all that small.

Not particularly a good sign but I seem to be getting rather sleepy at night. Hopefully, I haven't offended my nighttime students too badly when I try to stifle a yawn. I can probably chalk it up to age and a heavy dinner.

Anyways, Miss Sony should be here in about 20 minutes.

Wednesday January 19, 5:14 p.m.

Ran down to Kinokuniya to get a text and order a CD for that text before getting back here to have my lunch/dinner. I've got 001 for her very first lesson of the year....and her very first lesson in the new school. Should be interesting getting her reaction. And I would like to know how she did in the Honolulu Marathon last month.

Last Saturday, The Bohemian and I met in Shibuya as usual to find some sort of cheap little izakaya since he's been out of a job for several months. He found out about a Korean place just a few doors down from Tokyu Hands called Ton Mura (translated as Pig Village). It's a place that had a 1,480-yen all-you-can-drink option for 2 hours and small plates of various Korean dishes for 200 yen each. Pretty cheap. The strange thing was that for most of those 2 hours, the place was virtually empty. It was only within the last 30 minutes of our stay there that the place finally started to fill up.

As I said, The Bohemian has been out of work for several months, and has just been hitting the gym and doing a bit of trading on the Net. He's pretty lucky that he's been able to stay with his parents all these years. But to be unemployed at his age all this time can't bode well for his prospects.

The plan to have Ray's farewell party has been cemented. Looks like the karaoke option has been buried, and the five of us will be heading toward Wolfgang Puck's eatery over JR Shinjuku.

Tomorrow, there will be a camera crew coming in from the popular Saturday morning variety show, "The King's Brunch" to film one of our one-coin lessons. "The King's Brunch" is a fairly big deal since it is a popular program with the young bunch and talks on upcoming movies and trendy restaurants.

Wednesday January 19, 1:48 p.m.

Well, I have heard of everything now. Tokyo has become quite the foodie emporium with cuisines from Ethiopian to Mongolian hitting our shores. And as amazing as it sounds, now even that dish of ultimate decadence has arrived: Turducken. The culinary equivalent of Russian Matrioshka Dolls has come to the rarefied area of Aoyama of all places. I rather mention this last point since Aoyama is known as a place of rather expensive haute cuisine, not really a battleground of stuffing three birds into each other a la The Human Centipede.

However, there's indeed a place with the horrible name of Fatgroove (www.epicuriens.jp/fatgroove) that has started to serve Turducken. As a foodie, I have a rather clinical and perhaps morbid interest in what this Frankenfood might offer. At 15,000 yen for the triple bird dish, I'll have to find 9~10 other folks to partake, but frankly speaking I'd be hardpressed to find even one person who would join me in this endeavor. I can't even be sure if Turducken would last a year; Tokyoites have become foodies of late, but this meal may still be too far-fetched for most.

Wednesday January 19, 9:55 a.m.

It's another chilly one here in The Big Sushi...relatively speaking. Of course, Toronto is far colder but since homes here don't have the option of central heating, the cold just lingers that much longer in supposedly more subtropical Japan.

The chill reminds me of all that poutine I had back in Toronto over The Holidays. I went twice to Smoke's Poutinerie on Adelaide St. And had myself the traditional mess of fries, gravy and cheese curds (that sound you hear is arteries hardening) on my first visit, while having the killer Triple Pork on my second time. Wouldn't mind having a box of the stuff now but I've vowed that I would be better on my body.

In any case, I've got Grandma Fado in about 15 minutes and then The Overachiever comes in.

Friday January 14, 1:34 p.m.

Had my lone student at Speedy's today. Grandma Dance is a truly special individual. She's an octogenarian who's seen her share of history. She grew up during the Second World War, had to work in the factories as a high school kid but had the rare privilege of learning English in a classroom...secretly, of course, since the learning of English was officially prohibited in wartime Japan. And she even attended the Tokyo War Crimes Trials as a spectator; she remembered seeing the US Army MPs striding in their crispy uniforms in the courtroom. And since then she has continued to learn...or by her own admission. try at least not to lose what knowledge she has of English. She's been a Speedy student for almost as long as I have been there, and I've had lessons with her over the years although today's session was the first one with her in almost 2 years.

It was somewhat saddening and poignant that over those 2 years, age and illness have clearly taken their toll on Grandma Dance. She looks less robust and she has more instances of forgetfulness. And I've been told that she's had her stays in hospital. And yet, she still manages to keep on coming to this school to keep up her language skills. I can only hope that I still have that much fortitude if or when I hit the big Eight-O!

Since I don't have Mr. Swank today, I'll probably head for home in about 15 minutes and crash there for a couple of hours before I head over to the juku.

Friday January 14, 11:40 a.m.

Got into New Speedy's this morning to immediately find out that Mr. Swank had called in to make a rare dotakyan for his lesson this afternoon. So, I just have Grandma Polka in about 20 minutes followed by the juku classes tonight. Helps with the commute. Ms. Efficiency also informed me that there will be a party on the 29th to herald the real departure of her predecessor, Ray. Ray supposedly ended her time with us last summer but the bossman was able to hold onto her for Monday and Tuesday nights over the last 6 months I think Ray had been hoping that this would be the last time for her to unleash herself from Speedy's clutches.

I've also come to a decision about my future as well.

It's not a sudden decision...it has been mulling around in my brain for the past couple of years and it was juggling around with more energy over the Holidays to the extent that it was 90% settled by the time I got back to Japan. Then, last night's commute brought it to totality.

I'd finished my usual Thursday lineup of Mrs. Thursday and The Music Man, both fine folks and students. And I was feeling rather exhausted when I left Speedy's at close to 11 p.m. In fact, I rather slept so soundly on the subway on the way home that I ended up overshooting my station by a couple of stops. Normally, that would only be a mere inconvenience but this happened past midnight and was lucky to have caught the very last train heading West. But I was sitting like a limp rag on the bench for close to 10 minutes and just thought about having to do this 3 times a week....coming home past midnight and at least once a week having to get out of bed to head out the door at 6:30 a.m. And it's not as if I'm a senior director of a company or even a middle management drone. I'm just an English teacher and I'm sitting in a deserted subway station at 12:10 a.m. And I decided then and there that it was really time for me to make my farewells to Speedy's, the place that I've been working at for the past 7 years.

And so I'll have a talk with the bossman himself on Monday night and get things into motion.

Thursday January 13, 10:40 p.m.

Pretty conked out after 6 lessons today. Almost fell asleep in front of The Music Man.

I heard from Speedy that MB and his friend dropped by the new school last week to set up some sort of relationship with the high school that MB's teaching at. And I'll be meeting up with The Bohemian this Saturday in Shibuya for dinner.

Thursday January 13, 6:05 p.m.

Over the Holidays, I got to see a couple of flicks, both starting with the letter "T". The first one I saw was the heavily touted "Tron". Three years in the making with a cult following after the original of 1982. After several years of having Japanese otaku capture the world pop culture zeitgeist, it was now time for the American geeks to get some of their own back.

The problem was that the original was not all that great to begin with. And the new flick with a wizened real Jeff Bridges and a sleekly young digital Jeff Bridges ended up also being a bit of a dud. Not sure if it had been the jet lag of 13 hours over the Pacific and most of Canada, but I actually ended up sleeping through portions of the film...yes, even the scenes which took place on The Grid. It was like getting the cinematic equivalent of all icing, no cake which brings back the saying about all the world's best special effects designers cannot a decent story make.

The other "T" movie was quite a bit more satisfying. Strangely enough, it was "Tangled"...the Disneyfication of the Rapunzel story. I never thought I would ever catch this one but my old friend The Dancer invited me to see it with her and her kids, so I went with her to the new AMC Multiplex at the corner of Yonge & Dundas. Not sure if it'll become a classic along the lines of a "Toy Story" but the story, characterization and the humour all got together to make a pretty decent Xmas flick.

Thursday January 13, 5:06 p.m.

Had a bit of a mystery with my first student of the day...Grandma FON. I haven't seen her in over 6 months and today was supposed to have been her first lesson. She turned out to be a no-show, and so both Miss Efficiency and I got a bit worried since she had always been very punctual in the past. I even walked all the way to our old digs 6 minutes walk away. We were rather concerned since she is far from a spring chicken being in her late 70s. Did she have a stroke back at her house? Or did she end up forgetting that we had moved? In any case, the mystery had a happy resolution when she called us up during my later lesson with The Shareholder. Apparently, it was a mixture of a family emergency and the inevitable age-induced memory loss. She had to rush out to Osaka and had forgetten whether she had phoned us last night (she didn't) to inform us of the cancellation.

As for The Shareholder, he was his usual laconic self. Then I quickly flitted out to Shinjuku Starbucks to see The New Yorker for the first time this year. The timing wasn't too good since mid-afternoons usually meant a full cafe, but I got lucky and someone vacated her table. The New Yorker was suffering from a cold but we managed to get through the hour OK. I even got an olive loaf from her. It was a nice exchange for my omiyage of maple caramels from Canada.

I'm halfway through my slate of students. I've got The Carolinan, Mrs. Thursday and finally The Music Man on tap for tonight.

Over the past several days, there has been this rash of Good Samaritanism all throughout the country. Apparently, it all started with a fellow who had anonymously given a gift of elementary school knapsacks to a school. And he just identified himself after some sort of beloved anime character. And from that time onwards, other people have started following his lead and donating anything from school supplies to food to schools. It rather reminds me of the plot from "Pay It Forward". In any case, at a time where the Japanese economy remains stagnant, the Japanese government is paralyzed and bizarre murders have been taking place, it is nice to hear that some altruism actually exists in Japan. How long it continues is anyone's guess.

Wednesday January 12, 6:56 p.m.

Well, I've nearly completed my first day at the new residences of Speedy, next door to a rather scrumptious bakery that I can't really enter since I've decided to work hard on losing weight (although it didn't stop me from getting my fried chicken bento at the nearby Family Mart). It hasn't been that bad, actually. Along with Miss Efficiency, I've now seen La Fille for the first time this year. And I got to see Grandma Fado and Mr. Overachiever in the now smaller if cozier classroom.

Speaking about Grandmas, I heard from Efficiency that Grandma Dynamite is now officially gone off the schedule since she has to take care of her mother. Incredible that a woman of her age still has a mother kicking around.

With the heavy schedule today and tomorrow, it was inevitable that cancellations would happen. 001 cancelled for tonight, and The Patent Attorney has cancelled his early morning lesson for tomorrow which means that I can get a good night's sleep instead of having to drag myself out of bed and out the door by 6:30 a.m.

I had my first student at the kids' school this afternoon in Naka-Meguro. She's the mother of one of the young charges that the kids' teachers have been taking care of. Very nice lady...not too high on the proficiency level but very willing to speak out.

Just have Miss Sony later tonight. Like so many of our students, it'll also be her first time in the new digs.

As has become the tradition at the beginning of the year, I've been going through the various DVD sets that I'd bought back in Toronto. First off has been Matt Smith's "Doctor Who" and Volume 3 of "Family Guy". As for the former, going through the first half of Season 5, it looks like the youngest actor to ever portray everyone's favorite Time Lord has gotten a firm lock on his Doctor. He's definitely different from David Tennant's portrayal...kinda like the brilliant but eccentric high school nerd from "The Social Network"on extreme caffeine.

Wednesday January 12,　1:16 p.m.

This is my first entry of the New Year...rather late, I know, but when one doesn't own a computer...

Lots to talk about but I'll just start this entry by mentioning by saying that I'm back in the professional saddle again. Started with The Beehive and the juku. Got my first and presumably only chewout of the year from the juku boss yesterday when she accused me once more of overusing the Net during my break. It's the back-and-forth once more about how much access I can get with the computer. Well, I've decided to break the cycle and just not use it if I can help it; it's just too habit-forming. This time, though, I just won't say anything to the boss.

I entered the new Speedy school for the first time this morning. It's definitely a new configuration starting with the fact that we're on the ground floor now and that my classroom has no view to speak of. I had my first lesson of the year there with Grandma Fado...luckily, it was just a lot of chat.

And I've even had a chance of coming to the kids' school where I am now. It's taken me 55 minutes door-to-door so I'm a bit concerned about getting back since I've got The Overachiever in a couple of hours after my one-off lesson with a kid's mother in about 40 minutes.

Saturday December 25, 6:16 p.m.



And a Merry Xmas to you all. I've been back in Toronto for the past 10 days and I have still yet to reach the halfway point of my long vacation...that's how long my trip is this time.

As you can see, this is the City Hall skating rink, one of the most familiar local sights during this time of year in Canada's largest city.

For me, it's been the usual round of meeting friends and family. I'm currently waiting for the turkey to finally get done at my brother's place. Apparently, the oven thermometer isn't working too well so my brother and sister-in-law have been pacing around the oven for the past several minutes.

I've done my fair share of local noshing over the past 10 days here. I've met folks like The Anime King, The Egg, Shard and Automan for lunch and dinner. And I've had my Mexican, my Quebecois (poutine) and Chinese. Toronto is definitely a foodie's paradise. I even had a chance to meet up with Mr. TOEFL last week during his time here. Took him to The Madison Ave. Pub, my old haunt. He definitely enjoyed the wings there, and he's certainly a lot more cleaner with his eating than I am.

The weather's been pretty cold although not frigidly so. It's at about a reasonable -7 C and there is snow on the ground, so we did get our White Christmas.

Wednesday December 15, 4:33 p.m.

Well, I guess it had to be my turn in the Airport of Fate. It happens to all air travelers once in a while. I got delayed. I arrived at Narita in plenty of time to find out that my flight will be 2 hours late getting underway. And then, the lady who took care of my booking sheepishly told me that the reservation computers crashed. Not sure how the other passengers took the news but I know a bit about these things can happen so I didn't give her any hassle. In return, I got a food voucher for 1,000 yen so I took advantage and enjoyed lunch at the Fujiya's in the mall. I kinda wonder if this is a prelude to a bad flight. Glad I brought the meds with me.

Still after I returned to the counter, the ladies there very cheerfully escorted me over to the young lady who had taken good care of me and finally got me squared away. And I've just told my brother that I'll be a couple of hours late arriving at Pearson. But you never know, the plane might just catch a good tailwind.

Tuesday December 14, 4:28 p.m.

Had my last lessons at the old Speedy's last night....yup, old Speedy's. When I next set foot in my Nakano-Sakaue school in January, it'll be in the new school around the corner...and next door to a very appealing bakery; that should really screw up any attempts to start losing that Holiday flab. Had my trio of Miss Genki, Kirk and The Medicine Man. All of them went smoothly although I was feeling pretty tired by the end. I'd been up since 5 a.m. Monday morning. Miss Genki told me in her lesson that she'd treated herself to a luxurious trip to a hot spring in Hakone over the weekend thanks to her semi-annual bonus. Must be nice to be able to do that. Unfortunately, Speedy's is nowhere near that sort of profitability, and I think the bossman would have to think very long and hard before instituting that policy.

This morning was my last session with The Beehive for 2010 in Tsudanuma. It was the gathering of all of the vets who had first met me all the way back in 1998: Travel, Tee, Jade, Alp and Buckingham. Of course, being the final one before The Holidays meant that there was a small lunch in store. Unfortunately, Jade had to pull out at the last minute since she was suffering from dental problems. We walked all the way down to what used to be our old haunt at the Ace Lanes Bowling Alley and beyond until we reached Chez Como, a French restaurant that we'd visited once before several years ago at Ms. Tulip's suggestion. The food there was indeed excellent although I will definitely be grabbing something for dinner between Mr. White and The Milds later on.

I've pretty much finished my Xmas shopping and just have to start packing the suitcase when I get home tonight. I'm fairly confident that I will get things done before I hit the hay at about 1 a.m. And then I just have to have breakfast, clean things up in the apartment and do a final check of luggage before heading on out to Narita.

I do have to say that I did finally catch the pilot episode of "NCIS: LA" over the weekend. Yep, it is quite different in tone from its parent show, "NCIS", much in the same way that "NCIS" was different from its parent show, "JAG". As Chris O'Donnell points out, there are no clones of any of the "NCIS" characters within the LA characters. And it doesn't hurt when you have an Oscar winner in the form of Linda Hunt as the operations manager.

Sunday December 12, 3:04 p.m.

Yup, I'm actually writing this over at Speedy's. Of course, noone else is here except for me, but I had to get a copy of a test for Cozy and some exercise sheets for Kirk tomorrow night. Should be on my way home in about 5 minutes.

I'm really into the final days before The Great White North. Still haven't completed the Xmas shopping, but then again I'm never done until the last minute anyways, so it's business-as-usual. Woke up early to get over for my last lesson with Yajima for the year. He had just come back from his first business trip to Germany. It was fairly arduous for him since he was stuck on a plane for 12 hours and then it was basically a city a day for him. He was quite happy to be back in relatively warm Tokyo since Germany was definitely in the grips of a snowy start to Winter. It was a pretty easy groove with him today.

Then I had to do my final poke into Tower Records in Shibuya. Of course, the place was packed with the young of Tokyo. Couldn't find anything that would be appealing to the parents in terms of DVDs so I just used the final points of my point card to grab reading material for the flight home at a hugely discounted price. This is probably one of the last places on Earth that a point card for a CD shop still exists.

Anyways, gotta get home and get some washing and ironing done. It'll probably be spam night tonight for dinner....something simple and delicious with rice. Also, Mom will be calling to make final confirmations before I get back. I was happy to get the last of the nengajo done last night.

Well, tomorrow's the final classes at Speedy's for the year. It'll be a busy one...got about 5 or 6 lessons on tap.

Saturday December 11, 2:31 p.m.

Officially, I finished my final Saturday shift here at Speedy's. It'll be sad to no longer see Mrs. Prissy and The Publicity Assistant but I will appreciate feeling like I can actually get days off fairly regularly. The ladies were kind to get me some parting gifts.

I got a late request from Ol' Sam's wife for a kid's textbook. Shouldn't be much of a problem since I have to drop by Kinokuniya one more time on Monday before the trip home.

Saturday December 11, 12:37 p.m.

And a Happy Birthday to Mom out there.

Met Ms. Viva for the 2nd time in our foodie buddy outing series yesterday in the Tokyo Dome area. Last time, it was Foo Foo; this time, it was Bubba Gump for some pure Americana.

Didn't have the famed shrimps, but I did enjoy the fish n' chips. Bubba Gump is quite a bit more generous in the pieces of fish, and they were surprisingly juicy. Viva had her Seafood Special. But the two of us had to share the Alabama Mud Pie. I actually had to measure the height to make sure that we were indeed eating someting that was 14 cm high. With all that we ate, I didn't have to touch food again for the rest of the evening.

Which was just as well since I was pretty much on the run for the rest of the evening. Had Mr. Swank for his final lesson of the year. It turned out that I didn't need to help him with his speech for his business trip to Vietnam next week since the organizer had apparently found a Japanese interpreter. Still, there was plenty of stuff on the plate to keep the lesson filled and entertaining. I lent him my DVD set of "Star Trek" time travel episodes.

Ran over to Urayasu to teach The Journo. He was also very entertaining. He's quite the raconteur of his adventures in places like Chile and New Orleans. And of course, he kept me informed of the trials and tribulations of Japan's currently most idiotic kabuki actor, Ebizo Ichikawa. Not surprisingly, The Journo was very leery of Ichikawa's somewhat vague and zombie-like delivery.

Also had my final lesson with The Restauranteur. Very nice way to finish my Fridays for the year.

Tuesday December 7, 4:35 p.m.

I just saw that Toronto newscasting legend, Mark Dailey, died last night from cancer. Ah, man...at 57 years of age, way too young. I always liked his stentorian baritone delivery, and for all intents and purposes, he was the voice of City-TV.

It's kinda penultimate day professionally speaking. I had my second-last session with The Beehive this morning and then I've got my second-last sessions with Mr. White and The Milds later today. The juku boss has been wondering aloud of actually getting serious with her English studies, so I showed her a copy of the text that I'd been using with folks like Mr. White and Cozy for the past year. That copy was Book 1 of World Link; she said that it looked kinda easy. I kept my tongue firmly in place....my opinion is that she'll need that book just to strengthen her all-over-the-place structure, but I compromised by saying that will bring over the aptitude test for her to try before any text is decided upon.

Last night, over at Speedy's, I had my first official class with Kirk. It was a good session; we had a hearty talk on Japanese politics. There was no copy of his designated text other than the staff copy. I rolled my eyes at this slight and just gave Kirk that copy. Of course, when I told the bossman, he kinda mewled that he had needed it for his class this morning. Well, Kirk has been signed up for that text for over a week. Why hadn't a proper text come for him within those 7 days? Sometimes, I just want to kick him. However, basically, I had to race home, take my own copy of the text, make copies at the nearest conbini, race home and then try to fax A3 sheets through my own A4 faxphone. Not surprisingly, I got a message from him this morning that the faxes didn't come out too well. Well, I tried. In any case, I would like to give him my suggestion but I'm afraid that he will treat this like a Kennedy-Nixon debate and give a voluminous rebuttal.

Monday December 6, 6:00 p.m.

Yep, the pictures say it all...I'm gonna be geeky in this entry.

"Farewell, Mother Earth...."

I think anyone who grew up in the late 70s and early 80s in North America know about "Star Blazers", aka "Space Battleship Yamato". A lot of my classmates and I in junior high school ran home daily to catch the latest episode of one of the most beloved serial anime anywhere and of all time, especially when the ship fired the almighty awe-inspiring Wave Motion Gun at the dastardly Gamelans. And of course, the theme song by Isao Sasaki always got us otaku and geek on goosebumps so big that we actually gained height. And I'm sure all of us wondered if there would ever be a live-action version of it.

Well, wonder no more. On December 1, the live-action version finally premiered everywhere in Japan. And I finally caught it at Roppongi Hills this afternoon after my lesson with Swank. You might say it was the "Ocean's Eleven" of Japanese sci-fi, although I liked the comment made by one other blogger who mentioned that this was the first example of live-action Japanimation that actually starred real Japanese (well, not really...there was "Casshern"). However, getting back to my "Ocean's 11" analogy, "Space Battleship Yamato" stars pretty much everyone familiar on Japanese TV. Of course, there is Takuya Kimura from SMAP as angry Acting Captain Susumu Kodai, Meisa Kuroki from tons of commercials and dramas as a kick-butting and brooding Yuki Mori, Toshiro Yanagiba from "Odoru Dai Sosasen" as the stalwart Chief Science Officer Shiro Sanada and Tsutomu Yamazaki as the crusty but doomed Captain Juzo Okita.

Well, what did I think? Y'know...taking into consideration the local industry, the budget and the acting in a typical Japanese production, the live version of "Yamato" probably is as good as it gets over here. No, I guess my comment is a bit backhanded but really, it wasn't a bad adaptation. The effects were indeed pretty top notch...although from seeing them, you can't help but get reminded of "Independence Day", last year's "Star Trek" and the new "Battlestar Galactica"; but heck, I'll take that over the cruddy SFX in "Star Trek V" any century. Especially in the first few minutes, and when the Yamato fired the Wave Motion Gun for the first time, I have to admit that I did get those old goosebumps going on all cylinders again.

As for the story, this was a rather long movie...going to 2.5 hours but it did go fast. I was surprised that that much time had elapsed when I looked at my watch at the end of the movie. It just seemed to be an amalgam of the first two anime movies more than a true reboot. All I will say beyond that is that it's very unlikely that there will be a sequel. However, the producers and director did a commendable job of trying to fit certain scenes and have a bit of acting meat for all of the performers.

And speaking of the acting....well, it is typical Japanese TV acting: overly melodramatic and screaming. Never accuse a Japanese production of Oscar-baiting ambitions. Ironically, Takuya Kimura was perfect as Susumu Kodai since the original character was an angry young man, and KimuTaku is the go-to guy for angry young men roles. Having seen my share of J-dorama, I still had to wince at a few scenes since, for supposed settings of gunmetal gray, I could see a lot of brown oak being spat out. However, I really did enjoy Yamazaki's rendition of Captain Okita and there was one scene in which he played it for comedic effect.

The music? There were hints and one half-rendition of the legendary theme but "Star Blazers" and "Yamato" fans may have left a bit disappointed that the orchestra didn't unleash a full version. My eyes were still a-poppin' that Aerosmith's Steve Tyler consented to his very first solo for "Love Lives". The score basically served the story dutifully rather than come up with various themes.

For me, the highlight scenes were, of course, the ones showing The Wave Motion Gun and the other weapons firing on full, and one that could probably have the otaku Stateside applauding with a cameo by Analyzer (IQ9 in "Star Blazers") in Terminator mode. And there were even a few scenes which had me lumping up...a bit.

In the relevant Mixi community, I saw that a lot of the members were raving about the movie. I can't say that I am one of them. It's pretty much along the lines on how The Publicity Assistant stated it. "Space Battleship Yamato" isn't great but it isn't horrible.