Today, a guy was walking around the campus’ cafeteria wearing a t-shirt asking, in large bold white-on-black Japanese, something roughly translating to “ARE YOU A FUCKING MORON!?”

I think that settles the question of whether outlandish Engrish t-shirts can really all be blamed on linguistic issues.

Of course the Germans have a sense of humour!

They are just a touch sensitive, so please don’t joke about it.

There must be a way to convey to a Japanese audience why Amélie was adequate but ultimately forgettable in its schlocky quirkiness and Paris (“the movie”): a derivative piece of tourism porn by an aging director, who used to do much better… that does not make one sound like a bitter jaded fuck or a strident Parisian film snob.

I just haven’t found it yet.

Note to Japanese makers of breakfast cereals: toasted rice barely belongs in granola mix. And it certainly shouldn’t make up for 80% of its fucking content.

You are not being as subtle as you think you are, with your grubby little corner-cutting scheme.

Time to finally change topics a little…

As part of my grand OCD project to document every last tiny aspect of my activities (and possibly do something cool with the data one day), I have started compiling a List of Movies I watched, with ratings and mini-reviews.

At the moment, it is limited to recent viewings, plus the content of my permanent movie library and a couple random ones. Over time, I will try to commit more, as they come back to me.

Rarely used words and neologisms abound in recent Japanese news…

More than the news-fabricated fly-jin “trend”, my favourite Japanese phrase these days is 疑心暗鬼:

An idiom whose components literally translate to “fear – darkness – demons”, beautifully rendered by the Green Goddess into: “Fear peoples the darkness with monsters”…

In everyday conversation, it can be used as a synonym for “paranoia”.

Hearing the details of the submission strategy for our next publication, feels like attending a mob meeting.

My advisor is the hidden son of Sun Tzu raised by Machiavel.