Gen, who works for Technorati Japan just kindly informed me that this blog sits at #37 on the Japan Top 100… Wow…
(it might not last, as understandably, there seems to be some discussion as to whether this blog really belongs in the Japanese billboard)
Category: Places
Auto-Post: French Politics and European Constitution
This is an automated post, logged on the 05/25/05.
If, by any chance, thermonuclear war has already taken place and you belong to the surviving race of mutating cockroaches that is now ruling the world, please accept my most sincere congratulations and sorry if the following has lost most of its relevance: can’t plan for everything, now can we…
Of the many places where I am eligible to cast a vote, I am no longer registered anywhere. I am not particularly proud of that, but beside endless hours of bureaucratic confrontations, this unforgivable civic apathy is also saving me many painful choices these days.
Last month was the commons election in the UK, and while voting abroad for this particular election is not that difficult (I did it in the past), I wasn’t exactly subdued by enthusiasm: like a sizable share of the British population, I only suffer the sight of this frizzy-haired prick out of my even stronger contempt for the tories and their stuffed joke of a party (need I even mention what abysses of disgust the BNP and their nauseating 1930’s rhetoric drags me in). All in all, I’d rather impale my own penis on a union jack than ever cast a vote for the British right, but it would physically hurt to give so much as a napkin of support to Bambi, still messy from his marathon blowjob session across the pond. Abstention was, arguably, the only option.
This month, another election, down south in Froggyland, is tearing the masses apart. And ironically, I am also entitled to cast a vote there. Or rather: would be, if the usual French bureaucracy had not quickly and effortlessly convinced me that I really don’t need to spend a week gathering papers and fighting sexually-frustrated clerks to express my electoral opinion on matters that affect my life about as much as the variations of the local French R&B billboard top 10 or the cast of the next Froggy Idol.
And by the way, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard French R&B, but believe me: you don’t want to.
Geopolitical Ranting: Japan and Asia, pt. 2
Sorry, it’s been more than two weeks since I promised you a second installment to my fascinating (and utterly unqualified) ramblings on certain aspects of Japanese modern history… You see, I still haven’t received a positive answer from these senile bastards at Harvard or Yale about that Chair of Political Science, and therefore had to keep with plan B for the moment: something about convincing another bunch of senile bastards that I do know something about Applied Mathematics and Fluid Mechanics, which has left me very little time for this sort of rambling.
Do not worry: given the chances of failure for Plan B, I am already hard at work on the details for Plan C, which essentially involves robbing my local combini with a pair of sharpened chopsticks and running as far as I can in the overall direction of the nearest beach resort.
Anyway, yea, back to the topic at hand: these evil, evil Chinese demonstrators marching on Japanese embassies, armed with deadly eggs and rotten vegetables…
No wait. sorry. I think we were rather about the mass killing of civilian troops, systematic rape, biological warfare, and a whole lot of other very nasty things Japanese did during the war: OK, back on track.
Let’s start by reverting the course a bit and adding some much needed balance to all the negative stuff that’s been spewed about Japan in the past entry:
War and Patriotism in Modern Japan
From my remarks on Japan’s inability to face up to its past and accept the slightest responsibility for the atrocities comitted during WWII, one might get the impression that modern-day Japanese are bloodthirsty monsters eager to invade all their neighbours and start it all over again…
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Last minute check-up
Against all odd, I’m done packing and still have 30 minutes to go catch the Narita express.
I could just go now and insure that I am actually early to catch a plane once in my life, but why bother.
Actually, when taking a flight out of peak-season, it’s always a better strategy to show up fashionably late for check-in. This may sound like dubious advice, coming from the guy who missed a few planes in recent years, but on the other hand, I have also boarded hundreds of flights without hassles. Check-in employees are way less stressed once the rush is over, it’s easy to make small talk and get whatever you want, whether it’s a potential upgrade, or just a seat on an empty row (there’s always one or two fully empty rows on off-peak flights, and getting them at the end of check-in means you stand good chance they’ll remain so).
So instead, I’m running a last-minute assessment of current situation, before moving on for the month.
- Neighbourhood cats seem a bit worried to lose both their main source for food distribution and access to the dry shelter of my room, which I understand can suck, especially when monsoon season is geared to start in a week or two. They have been following the packing process closely and, as I speak, there’s a fair chance I might be about to smuggle unwittingly some of Tokyo’s finest stray cat on the European continent. I guess it’ll be the surprise on arrival.
- Herb garden is going through another rough phase: while the cat problem has been successfully dealt with, my once flamboyant arugula is suddenly showing signs of decay. Simultaneously, I couldn’t help but notice that caterpillars in the vicinity seemed particularly healthy and well fed. If the situation hasn’t somehow stabilized by the time of my return, I am afraid we will have to consider chemical warfare. Napalm or agent orange are the two top options at the moment.
- Underwears are packed. I had a strange dream last night that essentially involved forgetting to pack my undies. My subconscious really has fucked-up priorities. The socks supply dearly needs replenishing (single socks have been disappearing at an alarming rate lately: I suspect the cats. Wouldn’t put it past these thieving bastards). Good thing, you don’t have to remove your freaking shoes to eat in a restaurant where I’m heading.
- Passports are packed in separate places, and color-coded, which will avoid repeating embarrassing mistakes and having to spend unnecessary time with an immigration officer convinced he has caught Al Qaida’s number 4.
Ok, see you on the other side!
Last Kanji Showdown before Departure…
When the apex of your kanji reading abilities is being able to handle automated furikomi (money transfers) on your own (the mere action of paying my monthly rent, fearlessly navigating 50 screens of instructions on the local ATM machine, is enough to bring me a deep feeling of achievement for the remainder of the day), it is dangerously easy to fool yourself into thinking you can actually read some of this barbaric language.
Lucky for me, just when it might happen, something comes up to remind me that I’d still get my ass kicked at japanese crosswords by any 5-year old.
Even if that reminder is some utterly stupid technical detail of tear-inducing banality. The fact that it resulted in the waste of a complete afternoon and nearly failing to secure my plane ticket in time for my departure, sure helped giving it due attention.
For those of you wondering, just note that Sumitomo Trust (住友信託) and Sumitomo Mitsui (三井住友) most definitely aren’t the same bank. And moreover: Sumitomo Mitsui is spelled freaking backward in Japanese (Mitsui first), thus appearing under the マ (‘ma’ and other ‘m’ sounds) section, not the サ (‘sa’ and other ‘s’ sounds) section. As such, even if 住友信託 is the only bank appearing under that section and your brain tells you it looks close enough to be the bank you are supposed to make your transfer to, believe me: It’s not.
Well, all that to say that I’ll be off the island from the end of this week until the end of next month. Please feed the Godzilla when I’m away and take him out for a bit of city-stomping at least once a week, his cans are in the top left shelf in the cupboard. Rie is taking care of the garden and the cats.
bipppu no ato ni, messeiji wo rekohdo shite kudasai…
Streaking at the French Senate
Yesterday, a session of the French senate was interrupted when a young man suddenly jumped from the public balconies, onto the actual senate floor, wearing but a thong, adorned with the colors of the French flag.
This [somewhat prudish] streaker managed to briefly voice his position on an upcoming national referendum, before being manhandled to the door. For added visibility, said position (a very unequivocal “NON” to the adoption of a European-wide constitution) was written all over his body, including his bare buttocks.
The man got out with only a few bruises (it’s a good 10 feet drop), a stern warning from the authorities and a newfound popularity on the evening-show circuit. Quite a good deal, if you consider how many bullets the coroner would currently be extracting from his corpse, had he tried a similar trick in the US.
Geopolitical Ranting: Japan and Asia, pt. 1
Last week-end was the start of a string of holidays known as Golden Week in Japan. All the happy wage-slave masses left Tokyo for a week-long exodus to some exotic location. And because I was stupid enough not to pick Medieval German Poetry, Sociology or some equally bulshittable major, back in the days, I was stuck meditating and doing equations in my garden, fighting with the cats over the few sunbeams that could make it through Tokyo’s many layers of pollution…
Seeing no reason I’d be the only one having an awful time, I figured I would use some time on the side to bring you my thoughts on the heaviest and most uninviting topic possible: Sino-Japanese Relations Through the Twentieth Century to our Days.
Sounds fun, innit?
Actually, this is kind of a trendy topic these days.
To be fair, the “trendy” part is rather limited, and even more so, depending on which side of the Japanese Sea you live on. But around here, this was most definitely the talk of the month, in Japanese news and all over the English-speaking nipponoblogosphere… Hell, even this guy stopped staring at his dick long enough to write a reasonably thoughtful entry on the topic.
Another very interesting read is Michael Panda’s transcription of the incriminated textbooks (you need to scroll way down to the end).
I figured I would just add my own two yens, and if possible extend it past the perspective of personal-level anecdotes: not that they do not have their place in the debate, but there should be a little more to it than the usual “oh yea, here is what the few Japanese I know say about it”…
If you are looking for a fun and entertaining read to kill the next 20 minutes, this most definitely is not it…
Introducing our new field reporter: Tracey
The sharpest among you, dear readers, may have noticed a surge in guest moblogging in recent days.
Indeed, Tracey has joined the powerful ranks of our secret organization, with the established mission to bring a dearly missing element of femininity to these testosterone-drenched pages.
In sticking with the stakhanovist ideals that power this blog, and because no reward shall go undeserved, we promised her a formal introduction as soon as she’d reach the magical threshold of ten posts. Immediately prompting her to deliver, no hold barred, shocking accounts of:
- what she sees from her office window
- what she sees from her office chair…
As you can see, the girl means business…
As long as she leaves gardening up to me, we should be able to find our marks…
OK, she didn’t solely post photos of stacks of paper and urban street parking: she also posted a mug shot of her charming personal sex-slave assistant.
But well before the fascinating insights into the merciless world of a Tokyo power-exec, or even her interesting tidbits on colourful local customs, there is one major reason you should keep an eye open for her contributions: the off-chance of drunken posting featuring nudity and/or behaviours outlawed in at least 15 US states (and punishable by death in 4 of them).
Giving Tracey a cameraphone and moblogging access is a bit like these tv spots for lavish shower products, featuring people lasciviously soaping themselves while the camera always manage to keep the naughty bits tastefully off-frame: there’s that improbable chance the cameraman might one-day trip and show a nipple… a towel fall off unexpectedly… who knows…
Except here, the chances are much higher and the cameraman more likely to be drunk.
But please let that not distract you in any way from the quality of her more traditional contributions to these pages…
N.B: She also has her own dedicated page, where she might one day tell you more about herself. It’s here. At the moment, it only contains the official press kit excerpts, but will no doubt soon be updated with more personable tidbits.
Time to go drink under the trees!
Party announcement at the bottom »
How do you do when you completely and unabashedly forgot an ex’s birthday? With no valid excuse whatsoever, if only a very busy day and a genetic inability to remember dates correctly (I swear I thought it was tomorrow). And don’t tell me suck it up, apologize and get a nice gift: she’s quite the vindicative type too. After all, she made sure to wait until the following morning at 8am to inform me that I was officially an arsehole… you know, just making sure I had no wiggle room for white lies…
Which brings me to the problem of my day so far: what to do…
Which you probably do not give a rat’s ass about. And truthfully, who am I to blame you.
But let’s not ruin the mood. I guess we’ll just have to double the usual morning tequila sunrise and consider our quota for public humiliations and shameful exposures fulfilled for the whole month. And that’s always a good thing: you don’t really want to stock up on past dues for these kind of quota.
Cue mandatory sakura blossom speech.
Everybody will have, by now, noticed that the sakura blossom is upon us. At least I know I have. But I would have little excuse, seeing how every other street in my neighbourhood instantly turned a rosy white color and I no longer see my breath upon waking up (which means either one of two things: my new toothpaste is working much better than the previous one. Or it’s getting warmer). That, and also half the trains on the Yamanote have been busy giving day-by-day updates about the state of the sakura front (unlike, say, some people who could have at least hinted that there was an important upcoming date, last time we talked).
There are basically two schools of hanamist:
Some will defend the inscrutable beauty and zen symbolism of the spectacle, and take comfort in their ephemeral regularity, seemingly changeless, yet each time unique. Those people, particularly the gaijin among them, will tend to grow copious amount of facial hair and put on traditional samurai armors to charge at locomotives on their horse, thus ensuring an edifying finale where they can get a last dying glimpse at the sakuras down below, before heading out for the land of their ancestors.
Mayor Ishihara Thinks the French Can’t Do Math
It is usually pointless to pay any attention to whatever offensive comment Shintaro Ishihara manage to spew with regularity, seeing how he makes little secret of his goal to alienate about every single non-Japanese human being on the planet. The fact that he is the Governor of the greater Tokyo area makes it all the more pathetic.
His last display of xenophobic moronism, though, did manage to make me laugh in disbelief quite a bit.