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Another all-night billiards session
Another all-night billiards session. This one is indelibly etched in my mind because I managed to sink all my balls and the eight ball before Tod dropped a single one of his. I won and Tod was subject to MJ’s Aussie pub rules. He had to “drop trou” and run a lap around the pool…
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Rant on housing
//rant on// The Japanese real estate system is exceedingly frustrating. With Tod soon unemployed, we’ll need to change our housing lease. Currently it is in the company name; now it will need to be in our name. That shouldn’t be such a big deal since we have ample funds to cover the rent through the…
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Naming hills
Tokyo has a lot of hills with names. Streets generally don’t have names, but the hills do: Andozaka, Tomisaka, Dangozaka. A few of them are well-known for their neighborhoods or train stations–Kagurazaka, Nogizaka, Akasaka–and there are plenty that loan their names to busy intersections, but many are only etched onto historical signs dotting the local…
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Julianne live
Julianne is a musician I know through DigitalEve. Last night she played at the Artist’s Cafe, a bar/restaurant on the 43rd floor of Tokyo Dome Hotel. Although I’ve heard her music recorded, I’ve never heard her live, so Tod & I met at the hotel after work and listened to a set. Julianne’s music mixes…
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Adding comments
To celebrate the half-year, I’ve added comments to my weblog. Thanks to enetation, you can talk back to my posts. I’m not sure if this is wise or foolish. Why don’t you tell me? Click down there…
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Half-year
Today marks the nominal half-way point of the year. It’s even observed as a holiday in China and Thailand. In reality, the halfway point is July 2nd (the 183rd day of the year) but let’s stick with the easy-to-remember start of July. It seems like a fine reason to celebrate. What should I do to…
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Countdown
Shortly after Tod & I arrived in Japan, we saw a big billboard with a digital display counting down the number of days remaining until the 2002 World Cup. It was a lot of days in the future, why should anyone care? In Shibuya this week, I noted a sign counting down the days to…
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Taxi phobia
I have a phobia about taxis. Not being terribly fond of cars in general, I don’t like trusting a stranger to drive me around town. Maybe you can imagine how I was feeling when I was deposited at Ikebukuro at 1:15 am on the last train around the Yamanote line. I had a difficult decision:…
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Brand name fever
I’ve never been sure whether to believe the idea that Japanese are excessively fond of brand names. None of the Japanese women I know display flashy, expensive belongings that are outside their means. If they have them, they don’t flaunt them. Since showing off is the main purpose of brand name goods, I think they…
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No more loanwords
The education ministry is setting up a committee “to propose ways to prevent too many imported words from entering the Japanese language.” Spoken Japanese is a mishmash of Japanese and ‘loan words’ from English, French, German, Dutch & other languages. Rendered in katakana, often both the pronunciation and the meaning change from the original. Are…
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