Sometimes I wonder if I could blog about damn near anything and you sorry-ass, no-life-having suckers would just eat it up.
P.S. I installed a disemvowlization plugin a few minutes ago and I’m just raring to use it.
P.P.S. Screw you.
Category: General
Nonstop Rain & Thoughts on Commuting
It’s been raining for the past two days, at times heavy enough to turn roads into rivers. My wife drove me to the station this morning. Want to hear my excitement for today? I looked up in the car’s owner’s manual how to adjust the dashboard clock. It’s no longer running eight minutes fast, causing me to drive like a maniac at times from thinking I was late.
Notice in the photo that the platform isn’t so crowded that white gloved conductors have to cram commuters into cars. That’s the only scene you tend to see in video clips, but in reality it’s not the norm. That only happens when the trains are delayed during rush hour due to an accident, which isn’t very often. Trains do get crowded closer to Tokyo, but in normal circumstances not painfully so, unless you’re crushed against someone with demoniacally bad breath.
It’s also been said that Japanese people often are reluctant to sit next to foreigners on trains. Honestly, I can’t remember that ever happening to me, probably because like everyone else I don’t take a special interest in the people around me. Tourists have a way of looking around that makes Japanese uneasy, as if you might talk to them or ask them a question in English. To be honest, I avoid those types too. You just never know if they’re going to be crazy, smelly, embarrassing or annoying.
Another one bites the dust
I just LOVE watching buildings get torn down. If I could live my life over, I’d be a wrecking ball operator.
McDonald’s is mobbed
It’s lunchtime, swimming just let out and the department store shoppers are also hungry. The line to the register snakes through the restaurant and out the back door.
I have nothing better to do while waiting in line, ergo, I’m unnecessarily blogging. Who knows, maybe somebody out there was wondering what a McDonald’s in Japan looks like.
Saturday Swimming
Tony and Andy are swimming, I’m upstairs killing time by reading up on JavaScript objects and arrays.
Tony’s pointing me out to his friends, waving and trading funny faces with me. Just like how I sometimes miss the two year old Tony now, I know there will too soon come a day when I’ll miss Tony the 10 year old. My kids teach me the importance of always appreciating the present moment.
Typhoon? What typhoon?
Last night I decided to sleep in the office because a “strong” typhoon (That’s how they offically catagorized it. Yeah, real helpful.) was headed directly towards Tokyo. Most typhoons come up from Kyushu and by the time they arrive here they’re not much more than bad rainstorms. This one was different. It came right off the Pacific ocean and hit land just south of Tokyo.
I have no idea how bad it was. Either I slept through it or it wasn’t as nasty as predicted. However, it’s 11am now and my coworkers are just starting to trickle in, so I assume the trains are a mess.
It’s pretty miserable to commute when the weather is bad. I have a 20 minute one-handed bicycle ride, holding an umbrella that the wind wants to turn inside out, followed a soping wet, jam-packed train ride that lasts around twice as long as usual. Screw that, I slept like a baby on the office sofa and commuted a whole 5 meters to my cubicle. Tony called me this morning (he has his own little ruggedized kiddie keitai) to make sure I was still alive. Someone in Nagano Pref. was killed when a tree fell on him. Ouchie.
It’s a good thing I didn’t oversleep, because I like to sleep in the nude. (Ha, ha, just kidding. Actually, I wore my socks and wristwatch.)
Me and Jackie Chan
The other night, David Letterman had Jackie Chan on and asked him if he enjoyed making the Rush Hour movies. His reply:
“Not really…On the set I just follow whatever they tell me to do. They tell me fight, I fight. They tell me speak dialog, I speak dialog. When I speak dialog everybody laughing, I don’t understand what’s going on. Then I don’t know why audience like it.”
I can sympathize. Every morning, I think about what I’d say if I were to do a podcast and I think, “Nobody would want to hear about that.” But when I force myself to do one, the reaction is positive and for the life of me I can’t understand why. It’s like I’m the only one not tuned into the appeal.
I know, I know, I’ve said the same thing 100 times. But I’m still trying to figure it out. The problem is, I really like all the people who come to this site, so I have to keep putting stuff out so you keep coming back.
It’s your turn now
Dear regular readers, commenters, watchers and listeners,
Isn’t it about time we got to know each other better? Now that you know what my family and I look like, I’d really like to you look like. Seriously. I mean it. I read all your comments but have no idea who the heck you are.
Links to photos in the comments, please. If you can’t show your face in public because you’re wanted by the authories or you’re just too butt ugly, you can upload a photo via the contact page.
[tags]friends, request[/tags]
2nd try
Well, maybe I can wear a hat for the next few months.
Oh. My. God. (Unbelievably bad kanji tattoos)
I just came across a blog called “Hanzi Smatter,” which chronicles the butchering of Chinese and Japanese writing in the west.
Oh. My. God.
I can’t stop repeating that over and over as I see some of the tattoos people have gotten. They’re so horrible they’re not funny.
Let’s use this one for an example. It’s no better or worse than any of the others, and that’s what’s so horrifying. It’s really, really bad.
First we have an old character for “money.” One of those big ancient coins, I think. Next, “fugu,” “buku” which means “poisonous blowfish.” absolutely nothing. Next, “a.” (Just the sound “ah.” No meaning whatsoever.) After that, “ouch.” And finally, “love”. Roughly translated, this means, “I’m a complete imbecile.”
Not even to mention the font. It looks like it came out of an inkjet printer.
Honestly, I don’t know what to say. I mean, I see people all the time here wearing T-shirts with English gibberish on them, but for chrissake, they can take the damn things off at the end of the day and throw them in the wash.
If anyone out there has a kanji tattoo, please, don’t ever ask me to translate it. Don’t even show it to me. After seeing so many really, really bad ones, I get the feeling that there’s probably no such thing as a “good one.”