Spinning Around
December 30, 2007
Yesterday I went to my very first ever figure skating event. You can imagine that it was not my idea and the option of going or not was not quite an option. I don’t care what people think about it but I’ve never once enjoyed watching figure skating on TV.
2007 All Japan Medalists On Ice
All I ever notice is that aside from the costume and uniform changes, everyone does the same spins, kicks, twists, hand gestures, and even facial expressions. I don’t see the self-expression involved and thus I don’t enjoy it. Furthermore, the scoring systems always seem so arbitrary. I’m going to avoid commenting on the skimpiness of the costumes completely.
I wish I could say that watching figure skating live changed my opinion about it. Certainly, watching things live are much more exciting but it was still the same stuff. Luckily, skate routines are short, maybe 3 or 4 minutes in length, so boredom is limited to short spurts. Listening to many children shout out their favorite skater’s name was quite interesting; it’s something that you can hardly ever hear on TV.
Now the thing that I will give credit to is that although I personally don’t enjoy watching figure skating, I can easily see the training needed to perfect it. The fitness, flexibility, and strength needed to just hold your leg up almost vertically against your body is tremendous. I totally respect all the hard work that these very young people are putting into something that they love. It certainly is a beautiful art.
NOW WHY CAN’T I ENJOY IT?
I Am Alone
December 27, 2007
We watched I Am Legend last weekend and I really liked it. In fact, I think this was the best Will Smith movie I have seen. He actually made a convincing performance as Robert Neville. I think he pulled off the act well and balanced a character on the brink of insanity, living in Manhattan all alone. The movie was much better than I could have hoped. And yes yes, the movie went a very different road than the book. In this day and age though, a movie about vampires just won’t cut it unless it’s a Whitewolf movie.
It did get me thinking about being alone. If I were completely alone in Osaka I would give myself at most 6 months before I went absolutely bonkers I think. The first few months would probably just be spent securing supplies and ensuring a certain standard of living. I would probably derive some entertainment from breaking into stores and then homes and rummaging through peoples’ lives for survival and to meet that social need. In absence of real social interaction I think holding and looking at things that remind us of interaction is a good substitute. (That’s why we carry photos of loved ones and reminisce of mom’s cooking).
The routine that was portrayed in the movie was probably something that could keep a person alive and going. Without the routine there would be no point in living. In the movie, Neville had his overriding goal of curing the disease. In my isolated life, there would be a need of some hope – perhaps meeting other people given X amount of time. Or perhaps knowing that people were alive at some certain location. Barring this, a bullet through the head would probably look very tempting.
For survival I would probably relocate next to the big department store near my house. There are many stores in the vicinity and it would be a central location for people to cluster around. Hell, I could probably live in the department store – there’s a sporting goods area that already has tents on display. They sell nice beds and lots of video games too.
Food would not be an issue in the first month or two – there’s a big supermarket at the basement. The biggest problem would be to preserve all the food that will spoil. Securing power generators will be important but considering my very limited experience with hardware like that, it would be a challenge to keep even evening lights on.
Entertainment would not be limited to video games and porn videos from Tsutaya. I think I would take up golf, like in the movie, only hitting golf balls off the highway onto houses. Hunting would be interesting but again, the lack of experience with firearms will certainly hinder that. Plus, there would initially be very little to hunt in Osaka, save for some rats and maybe some tiny songbirds.
I think the best part of this would be when I start going bananas due to the lack of social interaction. I think I’ll do what Will Smith did in the movie, start creating voices for inanimate objects. Punchy The Punching Bag would be my arch nemesis, Stickman the Walking Stick would be my sidekick and bail me out in times of great need, Flick the Switchblade would be my go-to-guy. The climax would be when I finally realize that Flick has been backstabbing me the whole time and Stickman jumps in front of the flying knife to save my knife. The end scene will be me fighting Punchy at the top of a buddhist pagoda.
Fun At Tennoji
December 24, 2007
Last Friday I get a call from Thomas with an invite to the monthly flea market at Shitennoji. Being one for randomness, how could I refuse?
As one can expect from a flea market, you only had old people rummaging through bins for discounted items that only the feebleminded could get excited about. Grandmas at the least in their 70s forgot their back problems and bent down to find cheap shoes. We even saw an old lady get out of her electric wheelchair to go search through a bin of clothes. Flea markets can perform miracles.
What was different from flea markets was the kind of items you can buy. Of course there were old cultural items that essentially can only be found in Japan but also there were many collectibles, more than what I’ve seen back in Canada. Prices were fairly good as well. A lot of stuff was actually worth buying if you didn’t mind crud-covered goods. There were many food-stands that sold really delicious-looking food for very cheap.
Polly Scary Doll
I almost felt bad for not buying anything at all. Unfortunately I didn’t find anything that I absolutely must have – the closest thing was a bowling pin with a clock in it. What household can go without a bowling pin clock?
Why not buy a tombstone?
After that Thomas and I parted ways and having the rest of the day, I decided to stroll through Tennoji and the weird Shinseki area (reputably very dangerous but it’s no more dangerous than a Chuck E. Cheese on a Saturday afternoon). I like going through the area as it has more rabble and color than most brand-loving pachinko-parlored urban areas that I normally frequent.
Another day well spent.
Pet phlebotomy
December 20, 2007
For all your bloodletting needs, visit:
I hope they mean breeder…
Hello!! Mr. Butch!
December 16, 2007
Who doesn’t want to look like Mr. Butch?
A hairsalon fairly close to my place.
How octopi get you jobs and help pass exams
December 13, 2007
In Japanese, wordplay and homonyms are quite common. As a lazy Japanese student, this humor often escapes me and I need them explained slowly, with graphs, drawings, and finger puppets. Here’s an example:
Octopus / ã?Šã??ã?¨ãƒ‘ス
This little delicious character has å?ˆæ ¼, or “pass” written on it. The English word “octopus” can be broken into the syllables “o-ku-to-pa-su”. Taking this, “oku” is the verb for “to place (down)” “okuto” would mean, “When placed down” and finally “pa-su” = “pass”. So “Octopus” becomes “When this is placed down on a table, you pass”.
This is a small little good luck charm that my lovely mother in law gave me to bolster my job search adventure. With this I should be able to become president of a small budding nation. Octopus!
Soothsayer, party of five
December 11, 2007
Recently started playing Titan Quest – a Diablo-like game built to be better than Diablo. The designers have taken the time to implement many nice things that were missing from Diablo. Every character starts in exactly the same way – you begin customizing your character by picking up to two masteries and within each mastery choosing skills. In that way you have a fairly unique character each time you play.
Here’s my Soothsayer (Nature and Spirit masteries). She’s not so strong in combat but with four pets, she just sits back and picks up spoils of war!
Party of five
In this picture you should see my character with the shield, a scantily clad dryad on bow and arrow duty, a lich on crazy lightning shit duty, and two wolves on nasty elemental biting your face off duty.
I serve to the wise and powerful. Are you sure YOU should be shopping here? – Delphi magic seller
Thanks Mr. T for introducing me to this highly addictive game!
Babies!
December 09, 2007
Yuko-sensei and her very cute and tiny 9 month old Rio! I’ve met him a few times this year and it’s amazing to see the pace of development. I think he understands Japanese better than I do and it will be a matter of months before he speaks better too.
Excuse me, no really, me
December 06, 2007
Today while I was at Shin Osaka station, I decided to make a pitstop at the washroom.
Before I further this story, let me digress for a moment and explain something about washrooms in Japan. You will undoubtedly at some point visit a washroom while someone is in there cleaning. More likely than not, it will be an elderly woman cleaning. It took quite awhile to get used to peeing in front of someone who’s possibly my grandmother’s age. Sometimes I deliberately take the stalls just for that hint of privacy. It’s something that I’m sure most male foreigners here will attest to.
Back to the story.
At this washroom at the station, the cleaning lady was not an old woman, but a very young girl, perhaps early twenties, possibly even younger (it’s impossible to tell age in this country). I literally stopped dead in my tracks there and doubted whether or not I could pee, not in front of an old woman, but a rather young lass. I was about to forego this pitstop and maybe try to make it all the way home. Then I noticed other guys by the urinals already and collective agreement that I’ve picked up here kicked in and all inhibitions fell away. If other guys are peeing in front of her, it’s ok if I do it, right?
To top it off, when girl finished her cleaning in the washroom, she walked towards the entrance, stopped, turned back around and faced us and said, “失礼致ã?—ã?¾ã?™” – a very polite way of saying “Excuse me (I’m about to leave)”. No Miss, I am the one who is peeing timidly in your presence, please excuse me.
D&D 3.5 Character Sheet
December 03, 2007
I got bored of filling out the character sheet by pencil and erasing each and every time so I took the existing template from the wizards website and slapped it through the Adobe form creator. This will help keep my sheets looking a bit cleaner:
Get it here (1.2mb)
You will need Adobe Acrobat or Reader to open it. Once you fill in the data, remember to export the form data into an .xml file or else you will lose all the data. To edit the data, open the form and import the data and make your changes (then export the data again).
What it does: it automatically sets ability modifiers to skills and most other rolls.
What it does not do: it does not automatically sum things up yet. I’ll be looking at adding some scripts to it so that skills, saves, AC data is summed up automatically.
