1. If you are heading for a night out and contemplate leaving your winter coat at the office: consider double-checking said coat’s pockets for any items that you may need, further down the night. Special attention probably needs to be paid to small, flat, key-shaped items, which may turn up crucial when you finally decide to hitch a cab-ride home and find yourself very stupid, standing at your frontdoor.
2. Always make sure you have backup keys, planted at somewhat walkable distances from your place.
3. Ex-GF at 4 in the morning: definitely not a good idea (whodathunk).
4. Giving a key to your friend living nearby: much better idea.

NB: Remember to treat Nordine to a fancy dinner some time soon. (So sowwwy I had to wake you up: I promise it won’t happen, ever again).

Aside from a brief emergency trip to an eye-specialist last Summer (literally a mom-and-pop operation, whose office was approximately half the size of my current bedroom), I have never, during my stays in Japan, been afflicted with illnesses serious enough to mandate a trip to the hospital. At least nothing that couldn’t be treated with a self-administered treatment based on quinine-rich tonic water (aptly sterilized and base-neutralized with proper dosage of gin and lime).

This morning, though, I had to check in at my neighbourhood clinic and undergo a whole series of health exams. Not that I was feeling in any particularly bad shape (nasty lingering chest cough and faint hangover from previous night’s gin&shochu outing aside), but the Japanese Ministry of Education and Research insists on making sure that I don’t have tuberculosis, cancer or bubonic plague before even considering shelling out some Yen toward my World Domination Plot research, otherwise known as PhD.

In the grand tradition of furthering cross-cultural enlightenment that has made this blog famous in the greater Shin-Nakano Sanchome area, I figured I would share some random observations about the experience:

(more…)

(as the movie we’ve been watching together is rolling its credits…)

Her: [Looks up suggestively and moves hand across bed]

Me: You do realize this is quite possibly the worst pre-coital movie. ever?

Her: [Keeps silent and smiles a wicked toothy smile]

Me: That’s it! stay the hell away from me!!! I’m sleeping on the floor tonight.

(awesome movie, otherwise)

Upon latest head count, it would appear that direct family members are:

• Brother #1: Expecting the great Kanto earthquake from his Tokyo apartment (any day now).
• Brother #2: Traipsing the Moroccan Desert with his backpack and a donkey.
• Brother #3: Learning Cantonese pillow talk in Shanghai.
• Dad: Watching snow melt in Eastern Canuckistan.
• Mum: Enjoying Lebanon northwestern coast (lovely weather at this time of year), currently deciding between Syria and Cyprus for an emergency evac (wins extra bonus points for Country-on-the-Brink-of-Civil-War).

Honestly, I don’t know what that says about us as a family.

Currently, they still oscillate between Nobel Prize and two Advils.

Seriously: who goes out until morning on a Monday night? More to the point: who goes to work the day after, on a national holiday?

A sucker, that’s who.

Don’t you think?

I mean, the alcohol, the drugs, the neverending nights of feral sex, the uninspired blogging… it gets old, really.

Alright, so maybe not the booze, drugs and sex part. But the blogging part: definitely. I don’t mean the part about writing inane crap that nobody in their right mind should care about, in between two intense navel-staring sessions. I don’t think I’ll get tired of that part any time soon (I’m trying though). I mean, the sterile format that this blog has come to follow.

Oh, trust me, I am very aware of it. Sure, I have many excuses as to why my posting rate has dwindled to the levels of Bangladesh’s strawberry production on a bad monsoon year… Work, life, love (or pursuit thereof), happiness (idem) etc. But we all know there’s more to it. Truth be told, blogging here bores me, most of the time. There are a couple reasons for that, chiefly among them are:

• This blog started out on the wrong foot.
  When I decided to open my first self-hosted online space, it started as a bastard mix of for-friends-only (”hey guys, long time no see”) news reports and travel-journal (”lookee all the whacky things they have here”)… Both rather boring genres in the long run, neither something I really felt like doing much. But I have been pulled toward these roots ever since.

• It is read by all the wrong people.
  Quite expectedly (although I originally never intended it to be), this has become the place where all people who either have invested some DNA into me, or were court-ordered to stay at least a continent away, come to get their life update on Dave. Knowing that both your genitors (hi Mum! hi Dad!), extended family, past love interests (and potentiall future ones) are all reading this, puts a serious cap on any attempt at spontaneity.
• And therefore… I write elsewhere.
  Yes, I know, it hurts, but I have been seeing other people. In other locales, other languages even. Usually with completely different style and contents. Don’t even try to search the web: believe me you won’t find it. Those other writings are all that this isn’t: personal, fun, hyperbolic, unauthentic, uncensored etc.

Then why bother?

Good question. I suppose because this still serves a purpose for some writings, in some contexts. Also because I hate giving up. And closing that blog before I turn 50 would feel like giving up.

But things need to change. Not sure what, but they do.

Still working on details. I technically have about 10 days before the official 5 year anniversary of this blog. Do not expect grand announcement or sudden changes, just be warned.

Sorta.

Albert Hofman, discoverer of the lysergic acid diethylamide compound (better known under its initials) and advocate of a mature, non-repressive approach to psychedelic drug experimentation, died this week at the age of 102.

Yet another tragic example of a young life cut short by the evils of drugs.

Oh yea, and I’m also totally craving ochazuke for some reason.

• Vita
  • Find a home.
  • Get my Gaijin Ausweiß.
  • Resume working out.
• Academia
  • Finish all unfinished uni projects.
  • Get seriously started on my research.
  • Make up my mind on the whole PhD thing.
  • Pick a subject.
  • Pick a country.
  • Pick an advisor (not necessarily in the above order).
• Technica
  • Fix WP Plugin DB.
  • Ditch Wordpress.
  • Drop Spam Karma (see item above: sorry folks, we had a good ride).
  • KanjiBox port for iPod Touch/iPhone.
• Et caetera
  • Sushi.
  • Beer.
  • Music.
  • Art.
  • Et alia caetera.

“By eschewing obfuscatory verbosity of locutional rendering, the circumscriptional appelations are excised.” [sic, emphasis mine]

Because I just don’t use this blog enough for my own self-serving interests (please ignore all 1,182 past entries full of pointless navel-gazing, when considering this statement), I thought I’d post a short blurb here regarding my quest for some living quarters in Tokyo for the Summer:

I am looking for rooming options (sublet/flat-sharing/nice-blue-tarp-in-Yoyogi…) in Tokyo, involving some amount of pre-furnishing (the more the better), starting roughly now and until mid-September.

Location-wise: anything within reasonable distance of a subway/train station is eligible for consideration. Bonus points for biking distance (less than 30 mins.) to Shinjuku/Shibuya or other West-Tokyo hubs, Extra Bonus points for quick access to my work in Jimbocho (no more than one change is a must, but that’s pretty much 80% of all Tokyo stations).

Situation-wise: as long as your homicidal schizophrenia is medicated and your pet hyena on a leash, we can negotiate on the rest. I guess a bit of common sense and mutual respect (if it’s a flat-sharing arrangement) would probably help too. As for me: I am fairly easy-going, social but way past my teenage party-animal days, gainfully employed during the day and possibly less annoying in person than this page may lead one to think.
Also: I don’t smoke, bathe daily and can probably relinquish my meat-eater’s morning bacon addiction for the perfect place. Furthermore, my mastering of weather-conversational Japanese and world-renowned trash-sorting abilities should make me a hit with all your nosy obachan neighbours/landlord.

Money-wise: I can afford market-rate on any of the aforementioned options, but since it is money coming from my own pocket, I’d just as well not go for those laughably overpriced expat dwellings. 120k seems a fair upper-bound given my search criteria (that’s an upper-bound, and definitely not what I’ll be paying for a 2-tatami flatmate option in Saitama).

Best way to contact me is by email, to zedrdave[at]gmail.com. Feel free to pass this on to your friends.

• Stuff I emptied out from my apartment: 56 sq. meters’ worth of furniture, art, daily life crap and assorted paraphernalia.
• Stuff I still owned after distributing everything else to friends, family and random strangers: 6 small boxes (books and some clothes).
• Stuff actually in my possession and not currently sitting in a basement until I have a home again someday: 1 suitcase.

The first metric tonne is always the hardest to part with… After that it just comes off naturally.

This morning, I sat through the last written test of my life.^(*)

^(*) Don’t get all excited now: I am far from done… Still got a couple reports and projects to hand in, not to mention thesis defense(s) in the coming months/years. Not to mention JLPT in December and any other such certification test I may ever be foolish enough to apply for… Still:

The last written test of my entire existence!

China’s recent efforts in Tibet to thwart the nefarious plot set in motion by that most infamous of evil-doers (Peace Nobel Prize recipient 14th Dalai Lama, in case you hadn’t seen through this two-faced monster for who he was) apparently seemed to have awaken some conveniently fast-asleep Human Rights concerns among nations taking part in the Olympic Games this Summer. News in France and elsewhere in Europe abound with competitors in rather forgettable disciplines (pole vault anybody?) voicing their concerns about the ethics of the whole thing…

Frankly, I find it all rather funny (or at least: would find it funny, if we weren’t talking about a massive PR operation unequivocally benefitting a dictatorial government).

If you still have some delusion about the International Olympics Committee upholding some sort of code of ethics or caring for democratic values and such, you have clearly been sleeping through the past hundred years.

Forget the widespread corruption, the notorious bribing, the less than inspiring list of IOC members (a good half of which sits atop one minor autocratic regime or other) etc. etc. For fuck sake, do you know who was the head of the IOC for more than 20 years until 7 years ago (still Honorary President for Life)?

Ask your Spanish friends what they think of Mr. Juan Antonio Samaranch. Ask them, for instance, how they feel about Juan’s former boss and good pal: el Caudillo de la Última Cruzada y de la Hispanidad, also known as the guy who butchered thousands and kept Spain in an iron fascistic rule for 40 years. Before his gig at the IOC, Juan Antonio was a prominent political figure in Dictator Franco’s regime (and stayed involved, long after joining the IOC full-time). Best to say that, despite an innate dislike for those dirty heathen Commies, there were certain Human Rights abuses he very much could live with.

The IOC is not a humanitarian organization, they are a for-profit corporation, and a very conservative-right one at that.

So, shout all you want about the World’s powers leaving their principled Human Rights concerns at the door in the name of Olympic Brotherhood and Coca Cola partnerships, but please spare me the part about how you’d expected better from the IOC. Chances are, the last time the IOC expressed an ounce of concern for the ethics of the Games, you weren’t even a glimmer in your dad’s left testicle…

U.S. gold futures surged above the historic $1,000 mark

If this is not “The Market’s” way of saying “Fuck yea we think this is a recession!”, then I don’t know what is.