reading "The Game", Neil Strauss' book about his time as a premiere pickup artist, which finishes by him settling down with the (apparently splendifirous) guitarist from "Hole" and declaring her "The One", and then reading on Wikipedia that they broke up six months later.

Nothing so much has happened to me, which is probably a blessing of some sort, given the downward plunge that the world seems to have taken of late, reminiscent of an anvil plummeting towards poor Wile E. Coyote, although on second thought that's a weird metaphor, unless he presents Good Will Towards Man or some other naffery ( Read more... )

Cause, you know, a 3 month plus hiatus is long enough, you know? Let`s see, anything new... I moved to a newer and nicer apartment, but then again pretty much everyone who knows me knows that. That`s about it, really. I`ve been trying to study Japanese more seriously of late, since working for an eikaiwa forever would... not be optimal. I went ( Read more... )

A couple things ( Read more... )

Let's see, what's happened since last I wrote? Not all that much, sad to say, but one of the students in the company class that I taught today told me a fairly amusing story. The lesson was asking for recommendations about places, "What's a good ____?", and he told us about a ramen shop where the owner/cook acts like a dictator, telling people ( Read more... )

Let's just say I'm not the mountain climbing type.

I've been reading through Embracing Defeat again, a book about how Japan dealt with the aftermath of having lost WW2, and again I found that one of the things that interests me most about the book is the jokes. Not the author's jokes, as that would be pretty poor taste, but rather the jokes that the Japanese people themselves made. For example ( Read more... )

In response to student questions about shoe removal customs, I did a search on the internet and was surprised to find that a lot of Americans were against doing so, and even more so at the reasons offered as to why, which fell into these main categories ( Read more... )

I occasionally read right-wing blogs or pundits, and one phrase I repeatedly see is "America is the greatest, freest and most decent society in existence". The thing is, whenever I see it, I can't help but recall The Manchurian Candidate, with all the brainwashed soldiers saying "Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human ( Read more... )

My oldest friend Alex came to Japan a couple days ago for a working holiday. It was great to see him, we had dinner at an Indian restaurant, as is the protocol for such an occasion, and then went to the darts bar located three floors above, ditto. Hopefully we can get together again this weekend. Not much to say yet, I'm sure much more will follow ( Read more... )