I was in a panic to come up with something interesting for a high school English class, so I decided to try to replicate the classic Penny Arcade Remix. It didn’t go that well in class, with all the kids just kind of scratching their heads trying to think of something funny to write. But I did come up with some examples in Japanese that everyone seemed to enjoy. Click the thumbnails for the full images.
Tycho discovers that the principal of the high school also loves DJ OZMA, the musical artist now infamous in Japan for performing in the Kōhaku Music Contest on New Year's Eve with dancers in naked-looking bodysuits.
Tycho grates on Gabe's nerves when he tries to reenact manzai comic flavor-of-the-month Taka And Toshi's famous "ōbeika" routine.
I ran another ekiden this past Sunday. It was the Seto Ekiden, a mostly local event with sections of pretty similar length to the one I ran previously. Since the beginning of the new year I’ve been training as regularly as my legs allow it, and so I was hoping to perform a little bit better this time. At the very least I wanted to be able to finish without slowing to a walk.
But, true to form, I of course failed spectacularly. Here’s how it happened:
First of all, my alarm clock failed to go off.
George
I’ll tell you what happened. I bet he got the AM/PM mixed-up.
Nope, it wasn’t the AM/PM since my alarm clock is my cell phone and it uses a 24h clock.
Jerry
My money’s on the snooze. I bet he hit the snooze for an extra 5 and it never came back on.
Nope, it wasn’t the snooze. I don’t think the snooze function ever gives up on my phone.
Jean-Paul
Man, it wasn’t the snooze. Most people think it was the snooze, but no, no snooze.
Jerry
AM/PM?
Jean-Paul
Man, it wasn’t the AM/PM. It was the volume.
Nope, the volume was set fine. The alarm is plenty loud even if the phone is in silent mode.
The problem was something that could really only happen on a device as complex and advanced as a Japanese cell phone: I figured I’d just get up at the same time I usually do for work, but I forgot that the “Work” alarm was set to only go off on weekdays.
So I woke up about 15 minutes before I had to meet the team, put on my running outfit, raced to Lawson to pick up some rice balls, and downed them as quickly as possible while walking to the meeting place.
Upon arriving I found that I had been moved from section 2, the flat part, to section 1, the hilly part. That also meant that I had about an hour less to digest.
The race started at 9:30 am in the bitter coastal winds. I was doing fine for about 10 minutes, then all of a sudden my stomach cramped up—the rice balls weren’t gone yet, and they were angry. I slowed to a walking pace, being passed by junior high and elementary school students, in front of the whole town which had for some reason turned out to watch.
Pathetically limping along, I was quite relieved to see the finish area—only to realize that it was the halfway finish area for the juvenile division (which runs the same full distance but divided among twice the runners). I got a good laugh from the crowd when I tried to pass my sash to my teammate who wasn’t there. The second half sucked about as much as the first.
Days later my stomach still feels weird, and I was really dogging it when I went running today. I suppose no matter how awesome the iPod + Nike exercise measurement system is, it doesn’t make you an athlete.
I haven’t been getting out much lately. I’ve almost convinced myself that that’s ok, though, because it means I don’t spend money. But even with my rampant, impulsive, caution-to-the-wind saving, it never hurts to pinch every penny just a little bit harder. I’ve come up with these tips to help you, my loyal readers, save a little bit more this year.
Poop at work
That way you don’t have to pay for toilet paper, or the water you flush.
Pee in the shower
This will also save you flush money. Remember kids, “winners don’t flush.”
Always “take a penny”
Even if you have exact change, pretend you don’t and take a couple extra pennies from the “take-a-penny-leave-a-penny” tray. After all, your taxes paid for that tray.
“Draft” while driving
“Drafting” is a technique utilized by professional racers in which you take advantage of the wind tunnel created by someone in front of you, reducing your own wind resistance. While driving, get as close as possible to the car in front of you. This will improve your gas mileage, allowing you to slash your gasoline budget.
Dine on supermarket samples
Depending on the day of the week, time of day, supermarket chain, etc. you can get practically a full meal just by eating the samples. Pick up a box of something-or-other like you’re going to buy it, walk around eating samples, then return the box to the shelf before you leave.
The path to riches is lined with other peoples’ TP. It’s a fact; look it up. (You down with OPTP?)
If I was a less cynical man, I might say that this picture symbolizes a new beginning, a fresh start for 2007. In actuality, it doesn’t symbolize anything but my harrowing journey to the edge of the known universe, where this god-forsaken lighthouse stands. M came down from Tokyo to enjoy a little country living; little did she know she’d nearly disappear from the face of the earth into the choppy ocean waves.
I broke down and finally picked up a Nintendo DS Lite along with two games: Tokoton Kanjinō (とことん漢字脳, a Kanji practice game) and Animal Crossing. I’m enjoying it, but the hunger for even newer, more exciting games is already ripping through my insides.
I spent New Year’s Eve at a coworker’s house. He and his family treated me to dinner, and I joined them in the ritual first-temple-visit-of-the-new-year (初詣 hatsumōde). Then I taught his kids the card game Shitboot, which they now know and love by the literal Japanese translation, クソ長靴 (kuso nagagutsu).
While watching episode after downloaded episode of Law & Order: SVU, I’ve been pondering whether 2007 will be a good year, or merely the same as every other year—namely, not horrible but nothing to write home about. Can a jaded man become un-jaded? Do they have that yet? If we can put a man on the moon…
I’m not sure what the proper notation is for that neck-swaying, finger-snappin’, attitudinous phrasing of “Oh no you didn’t” that’s so popular these days. Just try to imagine it. Here’s a Christmas Anecdote™ that has nothing to do with Christmas:
I was at one of my elementary schools eating lunch. School lunch here is interesting. It’s either got a big bowl of rice, or about half a baguette as the main calorie source. (Note: The ridiculously oversized bread in school lunch is intimately related to the Japanese myth that all foreigners eat almost nothing but bread.) Beyond that, there’s usually a soup of some sort, maybe a meager salad, maybe some sort of fried, dead animal. And sometimes a dessert item. Oh, and always, always a box of whole milk, which I can’t stand.
This particular day, there was the loaf of bread, some other stuff, and an apple-flavored dessert gelatin. I had trudged halfway through my mile-long tube of bread when I decided I’d like to try a bite of my apple-flavored dessert gelatin. No sooner had I put the spoon in my mouth than the kids around me gasp and start yelling, “OOOOOOHHH! Teacher, he didn’t finish his bread! He has to finish his bread before he eats his apple-flavored dessert gelatin!”
“Little fuckers,” I thought, “I’ll show them.” So I took a big spoonful of apple-flavored dessert gelatin and slurped it loudly and exaggeratedly, moaning in pleasure at the delicious apple flavor. This drew more laughter than shocked gasps.
Then the coup de grâce: I spread some of the apple-flavored dessert gelatin on my unfinished industrial pylon of bread and ate it, again making a big show of how delicious it was. The kids nearly shit themselves. The teacher looked like she was going to explode with laughter. I honestly think I snapped some neurons in their heads.
The point of this story is that elementary school in Japan is less a school and more a programming factory designed to format the brains of little Japanese kids into believing that A) there is one correct way to do everything, B) all alternate methods are evil, and C) anyone not following the correct method must be forced to comply with said method.
Examples I have noticed so far:
Battling with breadsticks
You must finish your American Gladiators’ battle lance of bread before moving on to dessert.
You must eat your bread by ripping off one bite’s worth at a time, never dipping it in any soup or foreign flavor substance.
You must not leave as much as one single grain of rice in your bowl.
You must not mix any foreign flavor substance, such as leftover curry sauce, into your rice, because doing so is, and I quote, “dirty”.
You must chew every mouthful of food exactly 30 times. There are posters detailing the numerous (and in my opinion, dubious) benefits of this in every school’s lunchroom.
You must not talk or sing during cleaning time, regardless of how mindless the task may be.
You must not walk with your hands in your pockets, no matter how cold it is, because, and I quote, “you might fall and hurt yourself”.
You must brush your teeth after every meal, even at school, though you need not use toothpaste or floss.
I’m sure I’ll remember some more later. For now, this is FOREIGN HUMANOID UNIT ID #45AX WISHING ALL OTHER HUMANOID UNITS AN ACCEPTABLE WINTER-SYSTEM-SHUTDOWN-AND-CALENDAR-INCREMENT PERIOD.
I’m in Japan! …still. While everyone else is back home or traveling, I’m still at the edge of the known universe, writing New Year cards and losing relay races.
To be specific today was the Sadamisaki Ekiden, a relay race from the tip of the peninsula up to the next town over. I was originally entered as an alternate, but for whatever reason I was put in at the 11th hour. I had section 5, a 4.6km chunk connecting my neighborhood to the one on the other side of the mountain.
4.6km isn’t bad when it’s flat, and when it’s not so cold that my asthma acts up, or when I don’t have to wear a uniform with short shorts even shorter than my boxers. I ruined my team’s lead, getting passed by two people and almost a third at the end.
But it’s not all that bad. After all, in the Alternate Worlds theory of quantum mechanics there must exist some universe where I won. Or you could postulate a universe where I still sucked, but losing was considered a higher honor than winning. Or just consider this same universe under CPT translation, and it looks like I won going the opposite direction.
So. Racing on Christmas Eve. Yep, it’s a party around here. And I have work tomorrow. PAAARTAY!
The town of Nomura (actually now part of the city of Seiyo) loves sumo. They love it so much that the annual tournament is pretty much the biggest event of the year. Some friends and I took the day off, got up early as hell, splurged on floor seats, and took in more sumo in one day than most doctors would recommend in a year.
They had everyone from elementary school kids to high schoolers, college students, and even some amateur sumo enthusiasts from around the country. The local schools all had the day off, and every single kid was there to cheer on their school’s players.
The little kids were fun to watch. Some of them were just really cute. Some of them were comically mismatched, with a tiny little runt paired up with the class butterball or some kid who obviously got his growth spurt a little early. When you get to the high school students it’s just scary, though, as they each looked like they could take down an elephant with nothing but their hands and their sumo thongs.
The best part was when one of the visiting pros, Tamakasuga, went up against some of the little kids in a series of cute exhibition matches. I shot this on my cell phone, so make sure to squint and press your face into your monitor as hard as you can.
I just saw an awful anime movie called “The Laws of Eternity” (永遠の法Eien no hō). It was basically a propaganda machine meant to indoctrinate Japanese children to believe the following:
Atheists are agents of evil trying to spread human misery
Science isn’t about the systematic analysis of the physical world, but is a political tool to be used to further culture and civilization (according to a specific agenda)
All of the world religions are really just various manifestations of Buddhism
People aren’t to be judged just by their actions, but by their thoughts as well (beware the thought police)
Women are meant to give themselves selflessly to the service of others
Men are meant to work hard and become captains of industry
Though all people should be judged by their actions and thoughts, men alone can ultimately be evaluated solely by the outcomes of their careers (specifically, Thomas Edison was depicted as a high-ranking angel despite having in real life tortured animals as part of a feud with Nikolai Tesla, among other misdeeds)
Nietzsche is in league with Hitler in the deepest depths of hell
Hitler, in the deepest depths of hell, leads an army of undead soldiers and one gigantic evil elephant
Foreigners are impure of thought, and therefore unsuited to enter the highest levels of heaven
Black people are bumbling goofballs
White people are cold-hearted, cynical bastards
Japanese people are pure of heart and mind, and can therefore be admitted to the highest levels of heaven
Japanese men are strong, stoic, hard-working, and righteous
Japanese women are pretty, frail, loving, and always stand by their men
I’m sure I’ll remember some more, but suffice it to say that this movie was 100% preachy tripe. I definitely wouldn’t want my kids watching this until they’re old enough to appreciate the politics being pushed here.
![[logo]](http://aaron.madlon-kay.com/blog/wp-content/themes/cleanhome-child/images/flaming-garbage.png)
