Saturday May 14, 11:29 p.m.

Long day today. I had the two sisters. I won't be seeing them for about a couple of weeks due to family obligations on their side. The mother asked me how long it's been since I first started teaching them. I replied almost 2 years. Hmm...I didn't think too deeply about the question but I have to wonder how long I can continue to teach these kids. I'm sure that there are probably other better teachers out there for them. I kinda wonder if the mother is thinking those same thoughts herself.

After seeing JJ, I went over to Ichigaya for another reunion of the past year's crew. The other two teachers who came were Movie Buddy and The Satyr, who's now working for a boys' high school. It was a group of 10 which included The Coffeemaker, The Barmaiden, and Scully. I found out that at the welcome party today, the coordinator came uncharacteristically dressed in a gym trainer. I'm not quite sure what kind of message she was sending with that. In any case, it was a good five hours of noshing, drinking and talking as usual. Coffeemaker stated that there would probably be another get-together early in June when The Okinawan returns from her Canadian odyssey. And then probably when another alumna comes in from the States later in June, there will be another gathering.

Well, I've also got another student-inspired function to go to tomorrow. The Beauty Pair, along with Mr. Eccentric, have invited me to go to Disney Sea near my neighbourhood. It isn't too far from the main Tokyo Disneyland. Basically, Disney Sea is a more adult version of the Magic Kingdom...more for the couples and adults who are looking for a more sedate experience in the form of musicals and cuisine. The Pair told me that there was one ride, though, which is based on that mine ride from "Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom". Not sure about that...but the ladies assured me that it isn't anywhere as frenetic as a roller coaster. Another boost to my confidence came from an unlikely source. The elder sister of the Saturday kids told me that she was rather bored there. Great! If the kids don't like it, then it can't be that bad.

I got a rather intriguing message from the juku boss. She asked if I could dub a 150-page real estate book in English for a client within an hour before my regular classes on Tuesday. I had to laugh a bit sarcastically at that request.

Talking with JJ today got me wondering if I should try for another Yokohama retreat like I did last summer. Hmmm...wouldn't be a bad thing. But wouldn't it be nice if I could bring somebody along?

Saturday May 14, 8:31 a.m.

Looks like the big news on NHK right now is about this so-called bank heist that occurred last night. If I didn't hear incorrectly, I think one of the suspects is a former cop. It's rather quaint that in a country which doesn't allow handguns in the vast majority of the public that the media reports exactly how many shots were fired by pursuing police. All of two! Quite a scandal, that.

Just caught the opening credits for the "Enterprise" mirror universe episode. Genious! Too bad the series ended last night.

I listened to that international Kaori Iida album. Hmm...I may have to listen to it again but my first hearing of it left me rather mixed. Since I don't understand Greek or Italian, I could accept her voice but since I do have some knowledge of French, I found her Gallic interpretations of "Downtown" (yes, the Petula Clark classic) and "The Girl From Ipanema" a bit mangled but I can't be too harsh since she was probably going at it all phonetically. Judging from the album and the single that I'd heard the night before, I think Ms. Iida shouldn't give up her day language. Nana Mouskouri needn't worry about any competition.

Well, off to work.

Friday May 13, 9:27 p.m.

Well, so far so good, knock on wood. 2.5 hours left but nothing bad has occurred to me despite the unlucky day...although I did get that message from the coordinator about the welcome party. I just responded that since I no longer teach at the ol' school, it would be a bit silly and awkward for me to show up. Not sure how she'll react. Her message was pretty straightforward until she added that smarmy bit at the end that the Barmaiden was waiting for me. Uh...not exactly, I'd already told The Barmaiden why I wouldn't attend a number of weeks ago.

Did my usual Friday routine of teaching/talking to The Teacher and SR. I had lunch at the Vietnamese restaurant in Oazo. Looks like one of the staffers had decided to add a bit of "atmosphere" by yelling out a very enthusiastic "Thank you and have a very nice day!" to every customer who left. Can't damn the man for his gumption but frankly I couldn't wait to get out of there...unless it was his intention to ensure a short stay for each eater in the little place.

Went over to the HMV in Yurakucho and put my filled point card to good use and bought that full Kaori Iida album. It should be interesting...the former Morning Musume leader apparently sings in Greek, French and Italian. And she sings "The Girl From Ipanema". Talk about the acid test.

Hmm...looks like Channel 4 has put on "Evolution", that David Duchovny flick that's proven to be his only relative non-X-Files hit so far. It kinda strikes me as a lower copy of "Ghostbusters" with an alien bent instead of a supernatural one. Not particularly funny but there have been some snickerworthy lines.

Friday May 13, 8:26 a.m.

Let's see...it's the unlucky day today and the Fuji-TV morning horoscope indicated that Libras are gonna have a bad day. Hmmm...I wonder if I should stay home....nahhh.

I taught the New Yorker last night. Yep, she's trying hard but she still mixes up her possessive pronouns with her personal ones (you can tell that I've been teaching for a long time, can't you?). And I've been teaching her twice a month for the past few months; I still have yet to get her onto Simple Present. So I'm now thinking that perhaps I'm going about the low-levels all wrong. My old group classes at the ol' school used a similar textbook everyday, 2 hours a day. As I said, the New Yorker only meets me twice a month, an hour a time. The pacing is wrong...I'm now considering accelerating the pace a bit. However, I also have to consider that the New Yorker isn't exactly the most confident of people...I may overwhelm her; still, I'll see if I can get some Simple Past into her before she and her sister take off for Las Vegas in June.

The tremors are still rumbling through my apartment, and in fact, my computer monitor is shivering as I type this. I'm now wondering if these aren't quakes but some sort of construction going on. In the past few years, we've had quite a bit of condo-building in the neighbourhood. All the Tokyo guides mention that earthquakes occur everyday continuously but the vast majority are undetectable. Well, I'd like to counter that statement right now. Mind you, the tremors actually did add to the sensurround experience of watching the latest thrilling episode of "Enterprise".

The Coffeemaker contacted me to say that there's another reunion coming up tomorrow in my old haunt. I'm sure that there is some influence from the fact that there is a welcome party for the new guys at the school. The Barmaiden is still part of the veteran class there so I'm sure it was her idea....not sure, though, if she'll bring some of the new folks over. The coordinator had sent me an "invitation" of sorts a few days ago but I didn't bother responding. It's rather silly to accept it when I'm persona non grata there.

Pretty gloomy outside right now...certainly adds to that Friday the 13th feeling. Nothing really to prepare for my two lessons today. It's the usual Friday that way...just The Teacher and SR. I do have to talk with SR, though, what she would like to do for the future. We've pretty much exhausted the grammar option. I think in between classes, I may drop by HMV again. I filled out my point card there when I bought the two CDS and magazine on Wednesday. So I've got a 2500 yen discount coming to me. Well, if I do find that full Kaori Iida CD, I'll grab that.

Speaking of CDs, I listened to Mika Nakashima's release last night, the rather obviously titled "Music". When I first heard her a few years ago, she had some good promise but found her voice a bit off tune which prevented me from getting more with her program. However, she's improved although I don't think she's quite reached the top of her game just yet. What I do like about this album and the last one is that she's explored a few genres, mostly in black music. There are examples of funk, R&B and jazz, and one song has her backed up with a bit of hard rock. Her jazz outing, a torch song called "Fake", is OK but it's obvious that she doesn't quite the range that Misia does. Mind you, Mika's star seems to be higher than Misia's at this time.

I've been watching this "developing story" on CNN's Anderson Cooper about these two parents who have been struggling to find a name for their daughter for the past 18 months. Not surprisingly, they've gotten their share of bricks from unbelieving people. Well, let me throw my own masonry into the fire. NAME HER, FOR BLOODY SAKE! STOP TAKING UP NEWS TIME! What do you think she is, Commander Data or the Doctor?! Ah...I feel better now.

Anyways, off to the salt mines.

Thursday May 12, 12:00 p.m.

Started perusing the tape that The Entrepreneur had sent me the night before. There was the "Enterprise" episode at the beginning, and then next up was an ep of the new "Doctor Who". Well, I can say that it's not my father's Doctor Who...or for that matter, my own "Doctor Who". A Doctor Who ep with musical interjections by Soft Cell and Britney Spears? And better special effects?

The new Doctor, by Chris Eccleston, resembles Movie Buddy in appearance and character, I have to admit. And the new companion is quite comely. The ep definitively, and perhaps even defiantly, sheds the production values and overall feel of the old series right from its opening credits to its slightly more profane dialogue to its bigger feel of pathos. At certain points, I thought I was watching "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". And I'm not quite sure if the new producer, Russell T. Davies, is actually continuing from the old series or if he has actually given it a re-imagination a la Tim Burton. I'm not quite sure about this Doctor's pitieous proclamation that he is the last of the Time Lords due to a great war...after all the Gallifreyans are supposedly the masters of time and space; Time Lords can then pop in at any time and in any number before this cataclysm occurs. The Doctor really doesn't have to look like MacBeth during his "Is this a dagger that I see..." soliloquy. Still, I'm willing to give the show a good shake as an old childhood fan of Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker.

Thursday May 12, 9:55 a.m.

Well, looks like there was some fun in Washington just when I turned the lights off here for bed. A couple of morons flew their Cessna into the no-fly zone around the White House. Luckily for their hides, the security protocols worked well and they're still alive although I hear that they're getting enough elephant dung piled on them by fellow pilots to fill the Astrodome. CNN at least has been having a field day with the coverage. Now I know what the protocols are.

For some reason, I've been feeling a lot of small tremors rumbling through my neighbourhood for the past number of days now. Nothing too serious...just feels as if a subway were going under my apartment building, and my computer shakes a bit. I can see this as a good thing...that the Earth is bleeding off its seismic energy in dribs and drabs thereby negating the need for a major quake, or on other other hand, this is a prelude to something infinitely worse.

I actually did listen to that Kaori Iida CD last night. Certainly, I don't think her music was one of those "Hold the presses"-type epiphanies, but she acquitted herself pretty well. She sounded no worse than any of those singers back in the 80s here who were exploring more European and South American sounds. The songs actually made me reminisce a bit to that era of non-idol adult contemporary stuff which was hiding under that rather thick slab of pop idol music that was prevalent 20 years ago. The two songs on the single were written by Morning Musume svengali, Tsunku, and they certainly sounded like Tsunku songs according to some of the stuff he's written for some of the other Musume. Still, it's nice to hear Iida singing more than the one line she's thrown on an average MM song. My only criticism of the single is that the two songs sound even more alike than the first two Rick Astley hits.

Well, I'm waiting for a package. Then in the afternoon it's back to the gym before having the sisters tonight.

Wednesday May 11, 10:18 p.m.

Finally got that workout in this morning after a couple of weeks of nothing. I didn't gain all that much for my fortnight of sloth...just 400 g. I was able to shave 75% of it off by the end. I'll probably be doing the same thing tomorrow afternoon before I have the The Carolinan and The New Yorker in the evening. It'll also be about a couple of weeks since I've been to The Tea Room.

After the workout, I had some lunch at that family restaurant just a few floors down from the gym. I went a bit cheaper since the lunch specials changed. I had a small piece of grilled chicken and Tatsuta-style fried mackerel with rice on the side...very Japanese family-style. Then, I popped on the subway. I had a fairly schizo old woman sitting not too far away from me; I could "feel" her staring at me through peripheral vision. Luckily, she didn't do anything that both she and I would regret, but she immediately jumped with a start when a salaryman sat right next to her which meant that she snuggled a bit closer to me. No harm done, though. On the way home, I also had an obnoxious guy standing over me snorting and flapping his paper very loudly. Not quite sure if he was also a nut but once he got a seat next to me, he calmed down.

On the way to The Hawaiian's lesson, I stopped off at HMV in Yurakucho. I bought a couple of CDs and an EMPIRE magazine which boasted and has delivered the largest amount of coverage on the next Star Wars movie. As for the CDs, I got Mika Nakashima's latest. She didn't let me down with her last album so I'm hopeful for this one. Actually, I had listened to it on a listening post some weeks ago and found it quite promising. The other one is a bit of a risk, though, since it is by a former Morning Musume member. Kaori Iida, one of the first generation, has released 3 albums so far in her solo career, all of which seem to be on the Meditteranean side of things musically which got me interested. And frankly speaking, she isn't all that bad to look at (settle down, kids). Well, I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Actually, the disc I got is a single. If she sounds promising, I may actually go for that full album.

I finally got that debut as teacher at Speedy's school tonight. Student No. 001 was one of my charity lesson students from February. She's still wondering about which book to go with so I taught her the first lesson from the lower textbook. Not too surprisingly, she found it rather easy but I think she could stand to use it since her fluency and vocab aren't that high. It's all a matter of challenging her outside the text and having her use the text as review at home. All in all, though, she was quite happy with the lesson which was for an hour. In Speedy's system, the hour lesson is followed by a 15-minute break and then comes the 30-minute lounge session with a no-notebook, no-text policy. I think there will be some adjustments needed but Speedy may be onto a good thing. That is, if the students start to come in. I hope 001 will bring in some more numbers through word-of-mouth.

I was doing some research on the Net last night. Basically, I was looking for a new barber or hairstylist since my previous one has moved to the wilds of Gunma. Boy, it is NOT easy to do so since this time I was hoping to find a place that has bilingual service and doesn't cost an arm and a leg. However, I couldn't get any info at all on either criteria. The big hotels should have the bilingual service and I don't mind making the trek outside of my neighbourhood since I consider a Japanese tonsorial one of the few non-teaching events that I would venture long kilometres for, but the price is the thing. Kei of the Beauty Pair had mentioned last night that her stylist in Omotesando "only" charges about 10,000 yen! Ooops...obviously, she hasn't been to a suburban place. Well, I guess I'll have to start asking people. I'm due for a cut in another couple of weeks.

Well, I finally saw my first balanced review of "Revenge of the Sith" on Dark Horizons right now. He said that it was an enjoyable movie (and what Star Wars movie has gotten that tag in the over-2 decades since "Return of the Jedi"?) but he pointed out the good and bad points in equal measure. I knew that I had to temper my enthusiasm for those over-the-top raves. Mind you, the reviewer thought the final cut very cheesy. I know what the final scene is...and I guess my Star Wars colours are showing when I say that I'll heartily disagree.

Gotta do a bit of ironing and showering before hitting bed. Ahh...I also forgot about the dishes.

Quite cool today, though. Only went to 15 degrees in Tokyo. And Hokkaido is still getting snowed on.

Tuesday May 10, 2:19 p.m.

Just had lunch and prepped lessons for the juku tonight. May not have been able to hit the gym today but at least I'm not fretting over my work. The Beehive was pretty self-generating in terms of conversation. The ladies, at one point, got into a comparison between the Japanese and American elementary school systems. All this was started over the fact that there's apparently been a special zone in Gunma Prefecture created whose elementary schools will teach everything only in English. Some families have even gone to the expense of moving into the zone. Interesting experiment but I'm not sure what the point is if the surrounding area is still Japan.

For lunch today, I had one of the usual supermarket offerings of bento, or boxed lunches. Japan is probably THE place to get a very efficently packed lunch for picnics or just the office noon hour. I hear that every JR station has its own special box lunch according to area. But for me, since I don't travel all that much, I'm content with whatever is available in my supermarket. And the supply is quite considerable; however, I think there are some food items which fit the box lunch image and some that don't. I think I had the one that doesn't. I had a bowl of Korean Bibimpap. Sorry...nice idea but I don't think it quite passes muster. The meat was all stringy and fatty like that of a typical Yoshinoya bowl (no, I'm not a fan of the place) and I wasn't crazy about the raw egg, either. I'll stick with the real thing at a Korean BBQ place. I think box lunches work best with fried chicken, sashimi and good ol' hamburger.

Well, it looks like "Revenge of the Sith" is getting lavish praise according to the IMDB site. So far, I've heard nothing but good-to-great reviews from the lucky ones who've gotten the sneak peek (mostly journos). The dialogue is still clunky in parts, and at this point, what's a Star Wars without lousy lines? But the story and the effects have finally come into tune...just in time.

Monday May 9, 11:00 p.m.

Pretty long day today. I had my first regular Monday lineup since GW finished up yesterday. The Class Act, as expected, talked about their respective trips to Hawaii. And as expected, I got my bountiful souvenirs: macadamia nuts, Godiva coffee and the wonderful H & H bagels from NYC thanks to the Lady's son-in-law. I bought some butter tonight so I can have a great breakfast tomorrow. SIL also had a great time in the Aloha State but none of the ladies spoke much English since Hawaii is more of a Japanese prefecture nowadays than an American state.

En route to The Company, I found out that Chip had to bail out due to some sudden business stuff. Luckily, I was able to get in contact with The Bohemian to make some adjustments. As for The Company, I just had the one student but managed to pull out some good stuff from him tonight.

Then I made my way over to the Odakyu Line gates to pick up The Bohemian. We spent about 30 minutes searching for a decent izakaya since he's more for drinking. We finally found some place that boasted cheap beer (for 180 yen...that IS indeed bargain basement). The place itself was on the west side of Shinjuku Station. It was smaller than the usual chains and the place was very much salt-of-the-earth. I think The Bohemian referred to it as "unsophisticated". But we had to admit that the beer tasted just as fine as well as the food. Certainly, I didn't have to pull out the big bucks like I did last night at Toraji but still I had to shuck out 3000 yen. To add to the ambience, our waitress was a tall lanky one draped by tattoos and various piercings on her face. She could've been fairly threatening but actually she was a pretty nice sort...good service, too. I don't think I'll make that place a regular hangout but for what it was worth, it was a good Monday night out.

Noticed on the Yamanote train interior monitors that there were a lot of accidents and mechanical breakdowns on the other JR lines around Tokyo. Well, I'm sure that a lot of the affected commuters must have been wondering about that accident in Amagasaki two weeks ago.

I'm just gonna forego the prep work on tomorrow's lessons. I'll see if I can get them done before I go to the Beehive. If worse comes to worse, I'll just sacrifice my return to the gym and plan over the afternoon.

Monday May 9, 12:04 a.m.

Gotta get this done pretty quickly since I gotta get some shuteye. It's back to full duty from the morning.

Picked up a TIME at Tower Records before I met up with Chip and the bunch for dinner. It had a surprisingly positive review for the new Star Wars movie. Well, I'll be looking forward to that then.

Ten of us got together for dinner at Toraji, that Korean BBQ place on the 7th floor of the Parco 1 Building. We had a great 4 hours there but boy, did it cost us. I opened up the bill and saw this whopping bill for 75,000 yen. I knew beforehand that Toraji wasn't exactly bargain basement in the price department but some of us were a bit thrown by that figure. However, we cooled down when we realized that we'd ordered quite a bit to drink and quite a bit to eat. Chip was getting quite excited about seeing the new Star Wars movie. I lent him the TIME so that he could read the special on Lucas and his supposedly final movie. While we munched away on our succulent pieces of marinated beef, there was an interesting dichotomy of conversation. On the Chip's side of the table, the men talked about work while the women on the other side had a good time entertaining and being entertained by Chip's daughter.

Well, it looks like tonight will not be the last night I see him and the family before they take off for home this week. I may catch him for one final meal in Shinjuku after work. I've left a message with The Bohemian to see if he's available. I'm thinking of taking him to a tempura place in Takashimaya Times Square since Chip said that's the only thing he hasn't had in his 3 weeks back in Japan. We'll play it by ear.

Saturday May 7, 10:38 p.m.

A Guilty-To-The-Point-Of-Capital-Punishment Pleasure: Morning Musume

It's ironic that I've put up this title as one of my rare titles for any of my entries since I'm currently listening to Internet jazz radio. However, this is something that's been clawing at my nerves to get out into cyberspace for several weeks now, and besides, one reason I put up this blog was to give my own insights on pop culture. As well, I'm not the only one talking about them. Just go to Jpop.com and see all the global fans. As for why I've put up the qualifying title of guilty pleasure...well, one time I came across an article on Puffy Amiyumi which also described them as a guilty pleasure so I figured Morning Musume would be even more so of one.

Well, first off, what is Morning Musume? Well, it's this girl group...you might say it's the Japanese female version of Menudo. They've been around since late 1997 which makes them veteran hardhitters in the J-Pop industry, an industry notorious for very short shelf lives. The membership has ranged from a low of 5 (basically the group in the beginning) to a high of about 16 (sounds like a Celsius weather report, I know). Right now, they seem to be hovering around 10.

Years before all this American Idol stuff was even a grain of an idea back in the States, there was a show called "Asayan" on TVTokyo on Sunday nights which featured singers and occasionally scouting trips to find the next big thing. Well, way back in those late 90s, a contest was on to find the next big female rock vocalist. Thousands of girls of all ages tried out, and of course, there was one winner. However, the organzier of the contest, Tsunku (former lead vocalist of 90s pop/rock band Sharan-Q) took pity on 5 of the close losers. He brought them together and challenged them to work together to come up with a single and to sell at least 50,000 copies by a time limit. If they were successful, Tsunku would agree to nurture their new career as a unit, later to be called Morning Musume.

Well, MM's saga began as this Survivor-like videotaped tale shown over the weeks on Asayan as the girls tried to get their single sold to that golden number of 50,000. Ah...but I should introduce the original lineup:

Yuko Nakazawa: a former OL moonlighting as an enka singer with a bit of a punkish attitude. She was the very first leader of the group and is still very much the den mother.

Asuka Fukuda: a diminutive babyface who supposedly had the best voice in the group at the time. Of course, she would be the first to leave the group never to be seen again.

Kaori Iida: the tall, lanky beauty who has often shown a predilection to mentally enter the Twilight Zone.

Aya Ishiguro: Frankly, I never knew much about her except that she left just when the group started to make a mark on Japanese mass media as a whole due to the fact that she got preggers thanks to the drummer from a rock band.

Natsumi Abe: The cute farm-fresh one who, in another life, could've become the ideal flight attendant for JAL.

Well, needless to say the girls did hit the 50,000 mark in a very special episode of Asayan with all of the joy and tears that come with a media-run success story. It's the type of stuff that Japanese viewers love: rags-to-riches after going through a tough trial. That tough trial was not just trying to sell all those discs but a Fame-like boot camp in some small temple up in the woods, a feature which would become a ritual for all those other Musume who have entered through the years.

Over their nearly 8 years of existence in the Japanese eyes and in fanboys' wet dreams, the girls were able to keep their heads above water with some minor hits but it wasn't until late 1999, after their best vocalist had just quit the group and a new kid by the name of Maki Goto, this striking if gawky girl of 13, came into MM that the group hit the big time with their biggest hit so far, "Love Machine". A disco-ish upbeat number, "Love Machine" became the song of choice in the karaoke booths and at the year-end parties for that year. Since that time, in terms of media exposure, the girls have never looked back, although their subsequent songs have never really hit those rarefied heights since then. Since then, the girls have been regular fixtures on TV, of course doing their bit on the music shows, but also they've appeared on variety programs and, even for a few of them, serial dramas.

Now, where does the guilty pleasure part come in? Well, despite all their success, a music connoisseur or purist would probably pray to the porcelain god on listening to any of their stuff. The girls aren't particularly talented individually or in a group, and their songs would probably make anything by Britney or any of the American Idol rejects sound deep. I shudder at the carnage that Simon Cowell would bring down upon the girls if he were to hear them. But then again, that guilty pleasure aspect is just for me....a Canadian. Here in Japan, lack of talent either in singing or songwriting has never been much of an obstacle in the music biz.

What has won MM their devoted following, not just domestically but internationally is that their songs have enough of a hook to get a certain number of folks...including me. I mean, I've been a J-Pop fan since the late 70s...if you think the idol stuff that's out now is strange, you should hear what came out back then...but hear it, I did...to mimic a certain green Jedi...and like it, I still do. Go fig! Also, Tsunku, that great Svengali, played his cards right by recruiting a whole variety of girls of differing ages (although the upper limit for the active group seems to be the early 20s) and personalities. The fans on JPop.com could go on all year talking and analyzing the various members to death. At one point, the girls had as many as three or four shows on prime time TV. They are now down to just their one flagship show on Sundays at 11:30 on TVTokyo but it still gets the post-game treatment by the fans on the Net as if it were Sunday football in the States. And the other touch of genius was created by Tsunku and the littlest Musume, Asuka Fukuda. The former brought in new members, and the latter just plain left. So from that, the annual tradition of "graduating" and "recruitment" like in a real school was instituted which added further Net gossip and curiosity. If there's one thing that fans love to do, it's to compare. Trekkies compare TNG with the original series, James Bond fans compare the different actors who have played the iconic secret agent. Well, in Morning Musume, the fans talk about the different "generations". And in what is now seen as a PR masterstroke, the coming and going of members have brought about as much fanfare to their fans as this year's transition in Popes. I think the going Latin expression for a MM addition ought to be "Habeas Musume-um"...we have a new Musume.

Speaking of this school analogy, perhaps the better word is "academy". I get the feeling that the MM enterprise is run quite strictly. Senior members each take a newbie under their wing like Jedi masters and padawans; members have to report if they're in danger of falling in love (a rule which had one veteran member recently make a sudden resignation). This late 1997 train-that- could has now become a major show biz caravan to rival all those Johnny's boy bands like SMAP and Tokio.

As for the current status of the group, well, all of the original members have gone...the last one, Kaori, having left earlier this year after 7 years. As I've said before, there seems to be, at least to me anyways, this slow decline in the popularity and relevance of their songs although the group has long passed the critical point of remaining media-relevant...at least for the senior folks, they'll always have a home in show biz. Back to their songs, the days of "Love Machine" disco are over. Perhaps due to the current lineup of kids, the songs now seem to be focused on the elementary school set. Perhaps, "Love Machine" was just a huge fluke which managed to hook everyone by surprise. But there was some across-the-board excitement recently with a plagiarism scandal by one of the original members, that quick resignation by a 2nd-generation member and now this lone recruitment of the 7th-generation, a 12-year-old. I was rather amused by the reaction of this kid's schoomates when the big announcement was made when the MM suddenly appeared onto the school stage and performed in front of them and the new member. Not too many of the kids seemed all that excited...probably because MM is no longer all that cool...can you imagine being a boy and showing your pride for MM in front of your peers? You may end up with a giant "Kick Me" sign on your back.

Now, what is their appeal to me? I don't know...it's rather scary, though. I'm gonna be hitting the big 4-0 soon and I have a few of their CDs including "Love Machine" (although I haven't bought their CDs for the past few years for the reason already given above) and I sometimes I do watch their program on Sunday mornings. A guy entering his forties watching a bunch of cute girls in their teens making further cute on screen. Someone call me a dirty trench coat! I can only assume it's mid-life crisis settling in as I live vicariously watching the kids prancing in thier youth while mine's is ebbing away. Mind you, the oldest Musume is just 7 years younger than me. However, I am somewhat buoyed by the fact that one of my middle-aged students, SIL, still has a major love for this Korean boyband, Shin Fa.

The final thing I wonder about in this opus on Morning Musume is how long the party will last for the girls. It's already gone way past the longevity of some other famous J-Pop girl acts such as the 70s' Pink Lady (4 or 5 years), the 80s Onyanko Club (just a few years) and the early 90s Wink (2-3 years). Some of the fanboys are giving it about another decade. I'm not nearly that optimistic....after all, Tsunku may finally get tired with his female Lego set and finally wrap things up...and wouldn't that be a party! However, one never can be sure in the world of J-Pop. Perhaps if there is an ace who does pop up like a Maki Goto or perhaps this new 7th-gen kid, there may be life yet in the group. By that time, though, the original members may have to be called Late Afternoon Obasan.

Saturday May 7, 6:42 p.m.

The Japanese aspect of promptness came to the rescue again. The rains stopped ust as I left the door this morning to teach the kids. It was another one of those lessons in which I had to mix big gooey dollops of humour and sidetracking to help them swallow the bitter pills of learning. Of course, that means I didn't get to teach everything that I wanted but the tradeoff was I kept my sanity.

Then, it was off to Kiba to teach my second pair. Luckily, those two students were much more into learning.

I have to admit that the last three Larry Kings have been quite entertaining and educational. Larry King on Thursday was on the psychology behind psychopaths and sociopaths. I learned quite a lot there but basically it could all be summed by one quote from one of the panel experts: they simply aren't human. Then, the second one went to the other far end of the spectrum with Martin Short's Jiminy Glick doing the hosting. Man, I couldn't believe that Nancy Grace was actually appealing in that sketch while the bombastic Glick grilled her. I can't believe that she's all of 5'1"...I thought there was a regulation that harridans could be no shorter than 5'10". Then today's session was with the legendary Lauren Bacall. I missed the first half so I'll have to watch part of the rerun later tonight.

Then, I even caught a Biography of the Galloping Gourmet, Graham Kerr. Why I mention him is due to the fact that he was one of the familiar TV figures in my early childhood. I always remember watching him jumping over that chair, cooking up these high-calorie treats while guzzling down wine by the gallon and pulling in some lucky audience member to try out his creations. It was a revealing show since there was a lot of hurt in his and his family's life; rather surprising considering how jovial he always seemed on the tube.

Well, tomorrow is Mother's Day. I'll have to remember honour Chip's wife at dinner since she will probably be the only mother present. I'll have to make the call to my own Ma as well.

Saturday May 7, 6:03 a.m.

I've done one of my rare early wake-ups since my girls are going for the earlier shift today. I'm not suffering too badly.

I finally listened to Jazz Singer's first song. Actually, perhaps I should be changing her nom de plume since this term she's fronting a rock (power pop?) band. She covered an old 50s hit. I sent my compliments although she was a bit bemused by my comparison of her sound to Puffy Amiyumi (well, her band DOES sound like them).

Well, there's another attempt at nuclear brinkmanship by Kim Jong Il again. CNN is reporting that there's satellite evidence that North Korea may be in "imminent" position to do an underground test of their nuclear capability which may result in possible "radiological" fallout for surrounding countries including the nation where I'm living. Of course, this could all be a bluff by the human pompadour but I'm just kinda wondering if the American media or the people who gave them the story are also doing a Chicken Little. I mean, the US has been conducting nuclear underground tests for decades; I haven't heard of any sharp increase in cancer rates in Nevada.

Had a bit of a tremor around 5 a.m. this morning. Nothing too serious...just a M4.3 centered in northern Tokyo. It's kinda strange how the majority of the tremors all these years have happened in the early morning. Nature's wake-up call writ large?

Saw another old...perhaps hoary...rerun of the original Mission: Impossible series. The episode was in fact one of the first-season shows with pre-Jim Phelps IMF leader Dan Briggs. Being a buff of the spy genre, I was rather excited to see the old show when it came out some years ago on SuperChannel. After watching this show (mind you, it was one of the poorly-done ones) though, I'm starting to wonder if this series is one of those...if I can use the damning-with-faint-praise expression...products of its times. The sepia look of the show, the increasingly annoying sightings of Gellerisms to cover up the real names of countries (after all, this series was set during, and due to, the Cold War) and the hackneyed acting (I wonder if Steven Hill, during his great run on Law & Order, ever cringed at his performances in M:I) sometimes make me wonder if it deserves the classic status it has gotten. Mind you, it did result in one of the most memorable theme songs in US TV history and all those Tom Cruise movies.

Friday May 6, 8:56 p.m.

Well, just in time to signify the end of the holidays, the rains started on schedule today. It was noticeably cooler as well. My day went pretty well. Just had The Teacher as the lone student and then I headed out to Speedy's to get that first training as a BULATS examiner. BULATS is this new testing regimen for corporate types in terms of English proficiency.

When I got home, Chip had left me a message to see if I'm available on Sunday for dinner. Looks like a small group of us will be going Korean in Shibuya.

Now I've already got the planning done for tomorrow's lessons. I've got 4 of them: the two kids plus MK and JJ. Let's hope that I don't end up tiring myself out of any enjoyment of my weekend.

Thursday May 5, 10:08 p.m.

Well, it looks like Golden Week is winding up. The U-turn rush has begun and the highways have turned into slightly moving parking lots. And so my three glorious days of non-teaching come to a close tonight. I'm back on duty with The Teacher first thing tomorrow morning and then I have to some sort of training with Speedy in the afternoon. I haven't anything from Chip Guy all this week so I'm not sure if anything is in the works for Friday night. Probably not.

My day was just spent watching TV and doing crosswords. Did get a bit of excitement on CNN with that minor bomb blast in NYC but otherwise pretty calm. Mind you, that JR fiasco concerning the train wreck just keeps snowballing. Now, it's been learned that not only did two JR drivers who were on that very train NOT come to the aid of victims (they just ran to work since they were afraid of being penalized for being late), but it was learned today that there was a 3-stage party by JR employees on the day of the accident. The folks did some major bowling and drinking despite knowing about the tragedy. Man, it's not just the balls that will be rolling in the next few days. But once again, it goes to show when a company is found out for some gross malfeasance, the journalists go to work on the carcass like vultures only the carcass is still alive. Mind you, in this country, you're only guilty if you're caught so I'm sure most major companies have a lot of skeletons in the closet for mass media to unearth. I wouldn't be surprised if the president of the firm decided to step down.

I was thinking about that "Revenge of the Sith" soundtrack, and especially about the music for the end credits. I mentioned that the credits strangely had a lot of the music from the other movies. Then it hit me...the reason that I was rather unnerved by it was due to the fact that the overture sounded so disjointed. This is John Williams we're talking about here...THE composer who brought back the orchestral score for big movies with all its leitmotif-laden overtures. And yet, the ending overture for Episode III sounds so...amateur, if I can believe using that word for Williams. The segues weren't smooth at all. One number stops awkwardly and another begins just as awkwardly. I'm not sure if Williams has finally lost it.

Got one of those very long replies from Shard for the first time in a long while...in fact, I think it may be his first long missive this year. Hopefully, he'll get back on for a while at least.

Wednesday May 4, 1:31 p.m.

Nice to wake up at close to noon and not feel guilty about it. The first thing I did was pop in the "Revenge of the Sith" soundtrack and gave it my 70 minutes' worth of ear. Again, as in the last two soundtracks for the prequel, there wasn't anything particularly remarkable about the new stuff. And I've noticed from "Battle of the Heroes" that Danny Elfman may have a small fishbone to pick with John Williams about the similarity of the intro of that song with that of his intro to "Spiderman". But then again, Williams did borrow a small cue from "Psycho" for one scene in "A New Hope".

"Revenge of the Sith" is 132 minutes long, and with the CD only 70 minutes long, I think there's still quite a bit of music missing (and that's taking into account the scenes without any BGM). I wonder if Williams be re-hashing some of the other themes from the past prequels.

Still, although the soundtrack doesn't quite live up to "A New Hope" or "The Empire Strikes Back", the last track was rather interesting. I had always envisioned for the last scene in the movie that there would be the rather mournful version of the Jedi theme as Obi-Wan trotted off into the twin suns of Tatooine after depositing baby Luke on the Lars' doorstep. Sure enough, there it was. The end credits though seemed to be a bit of a 28th-anniversary reunion of sorts. I kinda felt like The Force itself was saying "Hey, for all you former geeks, here's some of the oldies but goodies from the first trilogy!" Williams brought back the Princess Leia theme, the Jedi/coronation theme from the end of "A New Hope" and the Lando theme, and somewhere in the mix was "Battle of the Heroes". Although it was nice to finally hear the Jedi Knights theme get its due in the overture, I just thought it was a bit strange to hear all these old tunes thrown into the prequel, though perhaps Williams may have been aiming to do a bit of musical foreshadowing. However, perhaps, the younger folks may find it all new. Still, these end credits also hint that there wasn't a whole lot of new good stuff from the supposedly final Star Wars movie to throw into the CD. So once again I'm left feeling rather mixed.

Well, after all that reviewing...what's there to do? Well, some personal announcements. It would seem that my family isn't the only one undergoing changes this year. I heard from The Chipmunk for the first time in several weeks. She finally got that baby. And The Engineer informed me that her younger sister got married. I've sent off that request to Paddy about an immigration lawyer; now that I've supposedly gotten over that tax hurdle, now I have to think about the other big thing this year.

Gonna try my best to keep my mind off of anything to do with English teaching.

Wednesday May 4, 12:44 a.m.

You know it's been a long day when you think your morning happened several mornings ago. Yes, I left my home yesterday at 9:30 a.m. to meet Automan and his friend at Tokyo Station. However, before that, I made a quick run to HMv in Ginza to see if "Revenge of the Sith", the soundtrack, got there. Looks like I struck out on that one so I just went over to the station.

The theory that GW usually means a relatively sparse Tokyo was broken. It would seem that everyone managed to congregate in Tokyo Station. In retrospect, it wasn't all that surprising since Monday was a regular workday so a lot of people decided to make their moves yesterday morning. Automan and his buddy got off the Bullet Train from Nagoya on schedule. Before we left the crowded confines of the station, Automan had to find that souvenir of choice of many a negligent traveling businessman, Hiyoko (Chick) Cookies. They're sold at major stations and they're sable cookies shaped like little chicks. I never took a particular fancy for them myself since true to the French derivation of "sable", the cookies tend to have a gritty, sandy quality to them necessitating a cup of tea on standby to wash the stuff down.

The three of us enjoyed a sunny and fairly warm day as we left Tokyo Station and walked down to Ginza. It was pretty sparsely populated on the northern outskirts of Yurakucho since the area was a business district and therefore not operational on this national holiday. However, when we did reach the central district of Ginza (Ginza 4-chome), the masses were present. Luckily, the city had the sense to close off the main street like it usually does on Sundays so there was some space to maneuver. For lunch, we decided on Katsukura, another tonkatsu restaurant, part of a chain, located in the Shiodome City Centre in Shimbashi. Yes, I know, I had tonkatsu the night before but I decided to go for the chicken katsu instead. No regrets for the lunch. Very good food. In fact, a tonkatsu restaurant will hardly let anyone down unless it's located in an especially seedy part of Tokyo and it hawks the pork cutlet for something like 200 yen.

Well, stuffed as we were, we hopped on the Yamanote and went down to Shibuya. That area was also unsurprisingly crammed with the usual teenagers and young folk. We first did some browsing around the local Bic Camera since Automan wanted to print out some of his pics from his digital camera. Then we braved the crowds and headed to Tower Records. Sure enough, I did find the soundtrack for the latest Star Wars movie. However, there was very little fanfare for its release; in fact, there wasn't even a listening post for me to sample John Williams. Ah well, Obi-Wan did mention patience.

Our next stop was Tokyu Hands for Automan's buddy who wanted to get some stationery. The buddy was a very jovial sort whom I had met for the first time a few years back in the summer. He's a hail-fellow-well-met type of guy, the folksy type to always give you a hearty slap on the back or give an anecdote. Kinda too bad that he isn't a regular resident in Tokyo. In a way, he does remind me of Movie Buddy in temperament if not in terms of looks. Automan's friend is quite a bit bigger.

After a few hours of browsing and shopping, all of us could have done with a bit of a break so we searched for a cafe. At first, we took a look at The New Yorkers' Cafe just across from Tokyu Hands but all the seats were filled, and Automan said that he preferred a quieter joint. Somehow we were able to find this cafe immediately across from Tokyu Hands on the 2nd floor. If it hadn't been for an orange sign denoting its presence, we could've easily gone past it. However, Automan's eagle eyes spotted it and we climbed to 2F.

The interior decor was done up like an intimate French cafe, and surely there were a couple of French folk talking away. We decided to sit by the counter where a reserved but kindly lady took our orders. This cafe was a pretty serious one; the menu had a lot of detailed descriptions about each type of coffee. The blends even went so far as to mention the proportions of types of beans in the mix. I had The Old Blend, a mix of Columbian and another type of bean, served in a smaller-than-usual cup. All three of us ordered some Gateau du Chocolat. Another sign that this cafe's staff was truly devoted to its craft came in the form of the one other staff member, a man, who almost made a performance of creating our cups of coffee. He came off as a true barista with his crushing of ice for Automan's Iced Coffee and grinding of fresh Columbian by hand. His technique reminded me of that of a polished veteran bartender. Meanwhile, the woman who had taken our orders was sprinkling icing sugar on our cakes and whipping up some creme fraiche. Man, I think they even outdid The Tea Room. My Old Blend was plenty strong but the richness and sweetness of the cake compensated for it very nicely. When we had gotten to the cafe, the place was nearly empty but by the time we left, some of the young folk started percolating up (I guess there's more to cafe life than Starbucks or its myriad clones). In conclusion, this cafe whose name I can't remember will now be part of my culinary library in Tokyo.

Automan's buddy was on the lookout for postcards. I suggested going back to Tokyu Hands but he wanted me or Automan to ask the baristas about them. I guess he's so folksy that he thinks that Tokyo has a smalltown atmosphere and that everyone knows everything and everyone. But I knew that asking the baristas would've probably been futile. Automan had also suggested asking someone on the street for various kinds of information. Well, noone is perfect.

Despite the fact that we had had a rather filling lunch and some rich cakes with strong coffee, the three of us then made our way through the throngs back to the edge of Shibuya to head for En, that upper class izakaya that I've often gone to with people like The Bohemian and Chip Guy. I was a bit surprised that on this holiday that we were able to get a table right away. But it was just 5:30 in any case; the place filled up completely an hour later. There we spent another couple of hours noshing away at the usual fine delicacies while knocking back the alcohol. All in all, the conversation was really fine. But even though I got treated for the lunch, I still paid quite a bit out of my pocket since I treated the two at the cafe and we all chipped in at dinner. Looks like I'll be on daikon salad for the next couple of days.

We made a pit stop several floors beneath En back at Bic Camera since Automan wanted to pick up some earphones. He found some pretty expensive numbers by Sony. Apparently, this headset can block out all exterior noise which is great on the plane. The 8000 yen price tag is a bit exorbitant, though.

We finally left Tokyo's Mecca for Youth and headed back to Tokyo Station. There was one final round of souvenir shopping before I decided to make my farewells. Good folks, both of them. They've got another tiring day today as well since they'll be heading for the Expo near Nagoya. Good luck to them. As for me, I plopped myself down on the Yamanote and the Tozai reading my mag.

I was feeling pretty tired by the time I got home. I almost regretted having to walk the 10 minutes back from the subway station. However, the shower helped to re-invigorate a bit.

I decided to give the Star Wars soundtrack a whirl. This time, the album came with a DVD chroncling the six movies through some of John Williams' themes. For those who know their anime, the DVD reminded me of "Macross: Flashback 2012" whose format was that of Lynn Minmay's sugary-sweet tunes backing the montage of scenes from the movie. The Star Wars DVD copied that almost to the letter. And just like the two trilogies, it was a case of hit-and-miss. Some of the songs such as "Luke and Leia" from "Return of the Jedi" fit in almost to a moving degree with all of the scenes with the two protagonists. And certainly it was nice to see all of the main characters from the movies "take a bow" to the coronation music from the end of "A New Hope". However, some of the other stuff came off as cheesy. And although I enjoyed Ian McDiarmid's dulcet tones narrating the intros to each song, I was getting rather annoyed at him using too many quotes from the movies themselves. And as for "Battle of the Heroes", the new theme from "Sith", I just thought it was a pale variation on "Duel of the Fates" from Episode 1. Nothing impressive there...I hope that some of the other tracks will be better.

Well, it's been a long day and I'm feeling ready for bed. I can't believe it; I actually have two full days of absolutely nothing. No students to teach, no lessons to plan. When was the last time I could actually boast that? I am looking forward to waking up at a time with two digits next to the hour hand.

Monday May 2, 11:00 p.m.

Looks like today was supposed to be slightly bad day today. I was 10 minutes late for The Hawaiian; luckily, she's so cheerful that any problem seems to just slide off of her. Speedy's didn't have any problems but The Company class was just out to lunch today. As soon as we hit the 10-minute countdown to the end of class, I just decided to rip into Japanese and talk about how in our country, a medical checkup usually has "the glove" to finish off the examination. The guys were alternately fascinated and repelled but they weren't bored. So, some success.

Considering that tomorrow is a holiday, I decided to walk all the way to Tower Records in South Shinjuku to see if that "Revenge of the Sith" CD has come out. Geez, it turns out that it's out tomorrow. Gahh...however, I did pick up a couple of mags for perusal. And I ended up having dinner at a nearby tonkatsu restaurant. Always like to pamper myself after a so-so day.

Well, Automan called up and said that he won't need my apartment after all. He and his buddy will be heading back to Nagoya late tomorrow night. I'm not particularly put out by the announcement. He's supposed to be arriving here late morning...not a lot of time to prepare the place so I'm somewhat relieved. But let's see what we can do tomorrow.

One of the critics on CNN apparently has seen "Revenge of the Sith". And she says "It doesn't suck!" To us Star Wars fans, that's manna from heaven. Oh, how far the franchise has fallen.

Monday May 2, 7:51 a.m.

As hoped for, yesterday was nice and quiet. I managed to spend the afternoon watching the 2nd disc from "Citizen Kane" which had the Oscar-winning documentary on the mammoth battle between Orson Welles and William Randolph Hearst over arguably the best movie ever made in America. The doc was handled like the runup to a major boxing match with the last several minutes being the fight itself. The decision was basically a TKO for both Welles and Hearst. Hearst was successful in killing the movie...for a while, at least...but ended up a joke by the end of his tumultuous life. Meanwhile, the boy wonder Welles did make a cinematic opus which still resonates today but he ended up a Hollywood pariah; my memories of him were mostly of him shilling Paul Masson wine and having weird parts such as Le Chiffre in the failed product of its times, "Casino Royale". It was only from stills of him in Kane that I realized that he had actually been relatively thinner (though I couldn't say he was a stick) and a ladies' man, to boot. After watching "The Battle Over Citizen Kane", I have very little sympathy for either man (not that it would matter much since both are long dead) though. Both were folks with huge egos and appetites who would steamroller anyone who got in their way. I'd say that "Citizen Kane" was basically the story of both Hearst and Welles.

After taking a nap on my sofa...an increasingly un-good idea when it comes to my back, I just warmed up some dinner and then caught a bit of "Clone Wars Part 2", the Cartoon Network take on the Star Wars saga. I'm not a huge fan of the animation in there but it does fill some of the gaps in the saga.

I actually did have to get some work done for today. But that took just an hour. Just as I had written in my last entry about how wonderful the weather has been, I heard the patter of rain hitting the windows. Well, at least the weather gods had the good sense to throw us the precipitation overnight. It's overcast now but should get sunny later on.

I've got The Hawaiian today in a GW re-schedule. I only did it since Movie Buddy had originally slated Wednesday as our movie outing day but it has worked out well. Now I don't really need to head out anywhere midweek. Then, I've got my weekly stint at Speedy's today followed by The Company. In a way, I'm hoping that one of the staff calls in to cancel but they hardly do.

Looks like North Korea has been skipping stones off the Sea of Japan again in the form of a short-range missile. What else is new? At least, there weren't any more demonstrations in China this past weekend.

I looked at The Stick's blog again. Apparently, she's put up a survey asking "Who would you prefer to be hugged by?" and then placing 5 of the top movie stars like Cruise and DiCaprio. I'm rather surprised...she'd never struck me as being a starstruck person by any means.

Sunday May 1, 12:31 p.m.

Welcome to May! Couldn't be a better start to the month. Breezy and sunny and warm. Nice beginning to Golden Week as well since I'll be staying within the metropolis instead of going slowly ballistic on the congested highways, airports and train stations.

Speaking of which, Automan contacted me last night to confirm Hotel Haru for Tuesday. Gonna have to call housekeeping once again on the morning of the 3rd after Movie Buddy's stay last night. Not quite sure what I'm gonna do with Automan and his buddy once they hit Tokyo.

Movie Buddy and I did our semi-annual Hotel Haru with movie and dinner. But we did meet to head off for "Constantine". Not a bad movie, not a great movie....it was basically Keanu Reaves as an especially tetchy Mr. Anderson as the title character. MB thought that the buildup to the final 10 minutes was misplaced....just a huge smoke screen to let a couple of more able actors, Tilda Swinton and Peter Stomare (as the nutso Archangel Gabriel and Satan respectively) get in their licks. I just thought the structure of those last few minutes struck me as a little too reminiscent of the last 10 minutes of "Matrix Revolutions". Ah, well...it was OK...maybe OK enough to have a renewed Constantine take another stab at a sequel.

Afterwards, we met up by accident The Curry Master and The SE, two people whom I used to "teach", on the subway platform. It was awkward to say the least...somethng that was echoed by MB over breakfast at Skylark this morning. The Curry Master just gave the briefest of waves at me and then just focused on MB like a laser beam about being reminded to bring the baked potatoes for her BBQ today. The SE and I didn't talk with each other...something that's pretty usual in this country; if we sever relations, we don't acknowledge each other. Apparently, Curry Master got her knickers tied in a knot; she immediately called up The Sylph to check what had been wrong with us on the train. MB just shook his head and laughed in resignation after getting a call from his girlfriend. He'd seen it all before. Curry Master is just very self-absorbed. I think she's a good person at heart, BUT she's not one that I can take long exposure to.

Anyways, we got back home with bentos and Haagen-Daas ice cream...today's new flavour: Raspberry and Panna Cotta...good lord, what will those guys think of next? Going with the theme of occult superheroes, MB brought over "Hellboy". It was quite good and better than "Constantine". The end struck me as being a little abrupt, though, and I could've stood to have had Abe Sapien around a bit longer than his mid-movie cutout but I'm not surprised that a sequel is in the works.

Then, it was "King Arthur". We both agreed that the movie was just average. I'm sure that Antoine Fuqua wouldn't be too thrilled to hear that assessment considering all the massive fight scenes he'd filmed but the movie just seemed a little too much by-the-numbers. I mean, I've seen this stuff in "Gladiator" and "Alexander", although I think "King Arthur" was better than the latter. For example, we got that rousing speech-on-the-pacing-horse schtick that Mel Gibson made famous...and superfluous...in "Braveheart".

So, now I have today to just chill out a bit...although I do have to plan for tomorrow's lessons. Yes, tomorrow will be a full day since it is technically not one of the national holidays. However, aside from The Company, I won't have to do all that much planning. Still, I will take it easy for much of the afternoon and then I'll do the heavy lifting tonight.