1. If you are carrying a Louis Vuitton bag, like every other woman in Japan, I will not be removing my tired ass from my seat so that you can sit down. Sorry. This is one man's stand against rampant lemming-like behaviour. Listen: Louis Vuitton bags are ugly, and they are expensive. This does not make them très trendé, this makes them très stupide. D'accord?
2. In a similar vein, if you are a high school baseball player, and you have a Louis Vuitton wallet... for shite's sake! What are you thinking? Not only are you an idiot for blindly following a crappy fashion trend, but you are a man, remember! Men are not supposed to give a damn about this sort of thing!
I have a Calvin Klein wallet, but you want to know why? Because it is high quality, and it looks nice. And I got it for $12 on sale. So paying for nice stuff is not a crime in my book, but paying for stuff that looks crappy just because it is a famous brand is pretty stupid.
3. I realise that the train can throw you around a bit from time to time, but if you step on my foot, you'd bloody well better apologise. I know it was an accident, but that does not change the fact that my foot is broken. Ass.
And on this angry note, I'm out. See you tomorrow for the promised "A Name for a Girl" entry, which should be less ranting and more interesting storytelling. Or whatev'...
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Train Safety
Yesterday, I was standing on the Tokaido Line train, riding into work. To while the time away, I was using my nifty new Signeo SN-M700 media player (or iPod, as the kids are calling them these days) to listen to one of the early episodes of Alpha Rant, a podcast done by the authors of Alpha Shade, a webcomic that I regularly read (and I think I have mentioned here before). The podcast is done by two brothers, who are funny guys to start with, but what makes it really worth listening to is their witty back-and-forth; they have been talking to each other for all their lives (20-odd years, given that one of them is in his early 30s and the other in his late 20s).
So anyway, in the middle of the episode I was listening to, one of the brothers gets a phone call. The other one, instead of pausing the recording, decides to do a faux-dramatic, documentary-style commentary on the one side of the phone call that we can hear in the background. And what we can hear is the guy on the phone getting increasingly irritated. So when he comes back to the mic, he explains that it was one of his friends on the phone, telling him about some train wreck that just happened.
And why would his friend do that? Because the older brother (the one who got the phone call) is a locomotive engineer. As in he drives trains for a living. So he goes into this long spiel on how people are always doing stupid things like stopping on the train tracks, or driving up the tracks in a snow storm, or what have you. He advances the theory that you have to try really hard to get hit by a train, because they--wait for it--run on tracks, and thus go in a straight line. And oh yeah, you can see exactly where they will be going, because you can see the tracks. And so on.
And then he mentions that he actually had to pull an emergency stop just the other day (well, it would have been just the other day as of September, 2003, since it was an old episode of the podcast I was listening to) because of some idiot who stopped his car on the tracks because traffic was backed up. So here is Chris (the older brother is named Chris, and I reveal this because it is getting unwieldy to write about two guys without using their names), cruising into town at 50-plus miles per hour in a 15,000 ton train, and he sees some moron stopped on the tracks about a mile ahead of him. So he slams the controls to full stop, and any physics major can compute how long it took him to stop. Let's just say that a mile was insufficient. Luckily, the emergency stop gave the aforementioned cretin time to figure out a way to get the hell off the tracks, and no-one died.
Chris winds down his rant, and about a minute later I find myself airborne. You know why they always told you to sit down on schoolbuses and the like? Well, it turns out that if the vehicle on which you are being conveyed needs to make a sudden stop, thanks to Newton's laws of motion, you want to continue along at the same velocity as the vehicle was going. And if you are not "attached" to the vehicle in some way, such as having a seat back in front of you against which to brace yourself, or a handhold to cling to as if your very life depended upon it, the result of this desire to remain in motion can result in you flying through the air.
And this is what had happened to me. Commuter trains are not necessarily known for a smooth ride (contrast this with the Shinkansen experience, which feels like the train is floating gently on a cushion of air above tracks made of the finest silk), so you tend to get thrown around a little from time to time if you have not managed to secure one of the 50 various hand-holds per car (which sounds a little irresponsible unless you know that the car is designed to transport 50 people in relative safety, but more than 100 people are crammed into it, so your choices can be limited). So in the first several milliseconds of my flight, I thought that it was just a standard jolt that had caught me off guard, until I realised that everyone else who was standing in my general vicinity was also in mid-air. When I finally caught my balance, I had been shifted about three metres toward the front of the train, and I became faintly aware, through my Sony noise-cancelling headphones, of a voice announcing in Japanese that the emergency brake had been applied.
"Oh great," I thought, "another suicide. I'm going to be quite late for work."
For trains, you see, are probably the most common way to commit suicide in Japan. I guess this is because it is pretty easy to do--you just step of the front of the platform into the path of a train, and the many tons (I am not sure how much commuter trains weigh under a full load; I am sure it is less than Chris's 15,000 ton train, which he said was loaded with rock at the time, but it still has to be 1000 tons or so, I would imagine) of fast-moving metal will take care of the rest.
Strangely, one of the reasons cited for the popularity of trains as a suicide method is that it is easier on the family of the victim. Not sure why this is true, since whenever a suicide happens, holding up many thousands of commuters for several hours, the company that owns the rail line gets sued for many many yen, and then turns around and sues the victim's family (hmm, is "victim" the right word to use when talking about suicide? anyway, by "victim", I mean the dude or dudette that shuffles off the mortal coil or whatever).
Oh yeah, and this is bizarre and slighly amusing, if in a twisted sort of way: some of the suicidal chaps have taken to wearing brightly coloured masks over their faces when they jump, so as to spare the engineers from having their nightmares haunted by the face of a soon-to-be-dead person, courtesy of the split-second glimpse they might catch before the train brings sweet release.
Sorry, I don't know what came over me there... ;)
Anyway, in this case, it must not have been a suicide that induced the train to stop, because it started up again in a matter of minutes, and I was not too late to catch my next train, and I got to work on time, and so on. So hurrah for that.
And remember, kids, buckle up for safety!
So anyway, in the middle of the episode I was listening to, one of the brothers gets a phone call. The other one, instead of pausing the recording, decides to do a faux-dramatic, documentary-style commentary on the one side of the phone call that we can hear in the background. And what we can hear is the guy on the phone getting increasingly irritated. So when he comes back to the mic, he explains that it was one of his friends on the phone, telling him about some train wreck that just happened.
And why would his friend do that? Because the older brother (the one who got the phone call) is a locomotive engineer. As in he drives trains for a living. So he goes into this long spiel on how people are always doing stupid things like stopping on the train tracks, or driving up the tracks in a snow storm, or what have you. He advances the theory that you have to try really hard to get hit by a train, because they--wait for it--run on tracks, and thus go in a straight line. And oh yeah, you can see exactly where they will be going, because you can see the tracks. And so on.
And then he mentions that he actually had to pull an emergency stop just the other day (well, it would have been just the other day as of September, 2003, since it was an old episode of the podcast I was listening to) because of some idiot who stopped his car on the tracks because traffic was backed up. So here is Chris (the older brother is named Chris, and I reveal this because it is getting unwieldy to write about two guys without using their names), cruising into town at 50-plus miles per hour in a 15,000 ton train, and he sees some moron stopped on the tracks about a mile ahead of him. So he slams the controls to full stop, and any physics major can compute how long it took him to stop. Let's just say that a mile was insufficient. Luckily, the emergency stop gave the aforementioned cretin time to figure out a way to get the hell off the tracks, and no-one died.
Chris winds down his rant, and about a minute later I find myself airborne. You know why they always told you to sit down on schoolbuses and the like? Well, it turns out that if the vehicle on which you are being conveyed needs to make a sudden stop, thanks to Newton's laws of motion, you want to continue along at the same velocity as the vehicle was going. And if you are not "attached" to the vehicle in some way, such as having a seat back in front of you against which to brace yourself, or a handhold to cling to as if your very life depended upon it, the result of this desire to remain in motion can result in you flying through the air.
And this is what had happened to me. Commuter trains are not necessarily known for a smooth ride (contrast this with the Shinkansen experience, which feels like the train is floating gently on a cushion of air above tracks made of the finest silk), so you tend to get thrown around a little from time to time if you have not managed to secure one of the 50 various hand-holds per car (which sounds a little irresponsible unless you know that the car is designed to transport 50 people in relative safety, but more than 100 people are crammed into it, so your choices can be limited). So in the first several milliseconds of my flight, I thought that it was just a standard jolt that had caught me off guard, until I realised that everyone else who was standing in my general vicinity was also in mid-air. When I finally caught my balance, I had been shifted about three metres toward the front of the train, and I became faintly aware, through my Sony noise-cancelling headphones, of a voice announcing in Japanese that the emergency brake had been applied.
"Oh great," I thought, "another suicide. I'm going to be quite late for work."
For trains, you see, are probably the most common way to commit suicide in Japan. I guess this is because it is pretty easy to do--you just step of the front of the platform into the path of a train, and the many tons (I am not sure how much commuter trains weigh under a full load; I am sure it is less than Chris's 15,000 ton train, which he said was loaded with rock at the time, but it still has to be 1000 tons or so, I would imagine) of fast-moving metal will take care of the rest.
Strangely, one of the reasons cited for the popularity of trains as a suicide method is that it is easier on the family of the victim. Not sure why this is true, since whenever a suicide happens, holding up many thousands of commuters for several hours, the company that owns the rail line gets sued for many many yen, and then turns around and sues the victim's family (hmm, is "victim" the right word to use when talking about suicide? anyway, by "victim", I mean the dude or dudette that shuffles off the mortal coil or whatever).
Oh yeah, and this is bizarre and slighly amusing, if in a twisted sort of way: some of the suicidal chaps have taken to wearing brightly coloured masks over their faces when they jump, so as to spare the engineers from having their nightmares haunted by the face of a soon-to-be-dead person, courtesy of the split-second glimpse they might catch before the train brings sweet release.
Sorry, I don't know what came over me there... ;)
Anyway, in this case, it must not have been a suicide that induced the train to stop, because it started up again in a matter of minutes, and I was not too late to catch my next train, and I got to work on time, and so on. So hurrah for that.
And remember, kids, buckle up for safety!
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
So Exclusive
Yeah, I know I have not been the paragon of frequent updates recently. And when I did write stuff, it was pretty lame.
But like I learned from Wil Wheaton, when you are interested, you will be interesting. And I now submit that the converse also holds true: that when you are not interested, you have no chance of being interesting. And recently, I have not been. Interested, that is.
It is not that I don't enjoy my life. I do. It is just that I have a pretty grueling routine, and it seems to drain the creativity right out of me. As recently as a month ago, the simple act of taking a train home got me excited about two images (the swirling galaxy / starfield illusion, and lighted pods of people seemingly flying through space) and gave me the inspiration for a short story. Which of course I did not write, being a lazy bastard.
But now, it just all seems so routine. I wake up no later than 06:00, get on a train, ride it for an hour and a half into work, stay there for nine hours, then take a train home for another hour and a half. Chat with the wife for a few minutes while we prepare supper (and by we, I mean she, since I am a lazy bastard). We watch a movie or some "Family Guy" with supper, then I take a shower and go to bed. Or I don't take a shower and go to bed, and then wake up at 05:30 the next morning, take a shower, and take a train... and so on.
There are plenty of things during my day that are interesting, enjoyable, etc. But it seems that the routine that scaffolds it all just drains me.
And that, dear reader, is why I have forsaken you.
But the fact that I am writing this entry should reassure you in some way that I remain committed to writing in this blog. Because I think it does me no small amount of good to write on a (semi-) regular basis, if for no other reason than to keep my English from atrophying here in the Land of the Rising Percentage of English Loan Words Being Used in a Way that Bears Little Resemblance to How They are Used in English.
So I have a few things to write about, queued up, and I shall hereby commit to writing a short entry per day for the next two days. Topics shall be as follows: "Train Safety", and "It's a Name for a Girl" (Bates, you should get that reference!).
If you want to see me write more shorts, one thing you can do is email me or leave a comment on this entry with a question or topic. Anything you want to know about Japan, illustrated! (Though I might have to email Matthew for research purposes.)
And I'm out.
But like I learned from Wil Wheaton, when you are interested, you will be interesting. And I now submit that the converse also holds true: that when you are not interested, you have no chance of being interesting. And recently, I have not been. Interested, that is.
It is not that I don't enjoy my life. I do. It is just that I have a pretty grueling routine, and it seems to drain the creativity right out of me. As recently as a month ago, the simple act of taking a train home got me excited about two images (the swirling galaxy / starfield illusion, and lighted pods of people seemingly flying through space) and gave me the inspiration for a short story. Which of course I did not write, being a lazy bastard.
But now, it just all seems so routine. I wake up no later than 06:00, get on a train, ride it for an hour and a half into work, stay there for nine hours, then take a train home for another hour and a half. Chat with the wife for a few minutes while we prepare supper (and by we, I mean she, since I am a lazy bastard). We watch a movie or some "Family Guy" with supper, then I take a shower and go to bed. Or I don't take a shower and go to bed, and then wake up at 05:30 the next morning, take a shower, and take a train... and so on.
There are plenty of things during my day that are interesting, enjoyable, etc. But it seems that the routine that scaffolds it all just drains me.
And that, dear reader, is why I have forsaken you.
But the fact that I am writing this entry should reassure you in some way that I remain committed to writing in this blog. Because I think it does me no small amount of good to write on a (semi-) regular basis, if for no other reason than to keep my English from atrophying here in the Land of the Rising Percentage of English Loan Words Being Used in a Way that Bears Little Resemblance to How They are Used in English.
So I have a few things to write about, queued up, and I shall hereby commit to writing a short entry per day for the next two days. Topics shall be as follows: "Train Safety", and "It's a Name for a Girl" (Bates, you should get that reference!).
If you want to see me write more shorts, one thing you can do is email me or leave a comment on this entry with a question or topic. Anything you want to know about Japan, illustrated! (Though I might have to email Matthew for research purposes.)
And I'm out.
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Analyse this Technique / Tech Process
Having not written much here as of late (business ensued, vacation intervened, etc.), I feel ashamed.
Things have occurred that are of sufficient import to warrant their own blentries, and I may get around to writing them (or not--who can tell, knowing me): Ian and Briana came to visit, we went to Kyoto, were nearly eaten by a giant crow, etc.; the weather sucks; the plum trees are in bloom but the sakura are taking their sweet time; Japan won the World Baseball Classic (hurrah! and that just goes to show that Democracy beats Commie Pinko Reds every time, Fidel Castro!); Lyani and I have watched two of the big Oscar pictures: "Good Night, and Good Luck" (Lyani's pick for Best Picture so far), "Brokeback Mountain" (my pick so far).
Oh yeah, but the point of this entry is that I have been reading my email, and I decided that I am highly amused by the language in emails that we send to vendors, requesting a price quote. So let me present a tremendously literal translation of one of them (details of the request have been altered, both so I don't get in trouble for revealing proprietary information that could be used to bring down the company, and so that it is funnier) for your reading pleasure.
"OK, so you are polite to vendors. So what?" you might be thinking. Well, let me assure you that the above pales in comparison to some of the polite language in intra-office emails. Contrast this, as Dave Barry did, with American companies, where it is common to greet your co-worker thusly: "Bob, you hairy sonofabitch! How's that ugly wife of yours?"
And to continue the great tradition of exiting with a poignant song lyric, how's about:
Purple haze, and I don't know why. 'Scuse me, while I kiss the sky!
Things have occurred that are of sufficient import to warrant their own blentries, and I may get around to writing them (or not--who can tell, knowing me): Ian and Briana came to visit, we went to Kyoto, were nearly eaten by a giant crow, etc.; the weather sucks; the plum trees are in bloom but the sakura are taking their sweet time; Japan won the World Baseball Classic (hurrah! and that just goes to show that Democracy beats Commie Pinko Reds every time, Fidel Castro!); Lyani and I have watched two of the big Oscar pictures: "Good Night, and Good Luck" (Lyani's pick for Best Picture so far), "Brokeback Mountain" (my pick so far).
Oh yeah, but the point of this entry is that I have been reading my email, and I decided that I am highly amused by the language in emails that we send to vendors, requesting a price quote. So let me present a tremendously literal translation of one of them (details of the request have been altered, both so I don't get in trouble for revealing proprietary information that could be used to bring down the company, and so that it is funnier) for your reading pleasure.
To Lord Suzuki of the Japan Mouse Wheel Company, K.K.,
This is Fujiyoshi from Amazon Japan. We humbly accept your assistance.
I am filled with guilt to trouble you in such a busy time for your honoured self, but would it be possible for us to receive the great honour of a quote on the following two items?
Part no. X7180A, mouse wheel, grey (10)
Part no. V963, mouse wheel ball bearing (20)
This is terribly troubling, but we humbly request this favour.
"OK, so you are polite to vendors. So what?" you might be thinking. Well, let me assure you that the above pales in comparison to some of the polite language in intra-office emails. Contrast this, as Dave Barry did, with American companies, where it is common to greet your co-worker thusly: "Bob, you hairy sonofabitch! How's that ugly wife of yours?"
And to continue the great tradition of exiting with a poignant song lyric, how's about:
Purple haze, and I don't know why. 'Scuse me, while I kiss the sky!
Friday, March 10, 2006
Smile Like You Mean It
Best band I'd never heard of until two months ago? The Killers. And Holy Crap, but are they ever good! If you like rock music that is good and does not suck, you owe it to yourself to buy their debut album, "Hot Fuss". Better yet, since Amazon ruleth most righteously, you can listen to sample clips of every song on the album before choosing to buy. If you need to make up your mind, I recommend starting with track 2, "Mr. Brightside", and listening to each clip all the through track 7, "On Top". If that does not convince you that you must own "Hot Fuss", there is most likely something wrong with you.
I almost called this entry "All These Things that I've Done", but then I realised that I have actually only done one thing thus far. The other things are in the pipeline, and I will tell you about them when they are actually Things that I've Done and not just Things that I Would Like to Do but We'll See.
The Thing that I've Done is as follows: there is this groovy Firefox extension called rikaichan, which does inline lookups to Jim Breen's EDICT Japanese dictionary when you simply hover your mouse pointer over a word. Since a picture is worth 1,000 yen words, clicky clicky on the screenshot pictured at left, which shows me using rikaichan on Amazon.co.jp's page for NATSUME Souseki's Kokoro (夏目漱石著 こころ).
So that is what rikaichan could always do. What I did is made the extension also work in Thunderbird, the Mozilla email client. This was mainly to scratch an itch of my own: reading email in Japanese every day. When I got it working, I sent a patch to the author, and he included my work in his next release (0.5.8 for those of you who are keeping score). Clicky clicky on the screenshot to the right to see rikaichan working in Thunderbird.
Finally, I just got assigned to lead a fairly big, important project at work. One that Must Be Complete by May 31. The good news is, if I do a good job, my name will ring out. The bad news is, if I make a mess of this, it could break everything and we will go out of business. Well, OK, we won't go out of business, but people will consider me a Small Tima, and laugh when they see my name in printed form.
This is actually good for me, because I do not make a habit of messing up. In baseball terms, I am a pretty decent choice for who you would want coming up to bat with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. I seem to work pretty well when stakes is high.
And before I go, let me leave you with this jewel: even mechanics walk around with their tool.
I almost called this entry "All These Things that I've Done", but then I realised that I have actually only done one thing thus far. The other things are in the pipeline, and I will tell you about them when they are actually Things that I've Done and not just Things that I Would Like to Do but We'll See.
The Thing that I've Done is as follows: there is this groovy Firefox extension called rikaichan, which does inline lookups to Jim Breen's EDICT Japanese dictionary when you simply hover your mouse pointer over a word. Since a picture is worth 1,000 yen words, clicky clicky on the screenshot pictured at left, which shows me using rikaichan on Amazon.co.jp's page for NATSUME Souseki's Kokoro (夏目漱石著 こころ).
So that is what rikaichan could always do. What I did is made the extension also work in Thunderbird, the Mozilla email client. This was mainly to scratch an itch of my own: reading email in Japanese every day. When I got it working, I sent a patch to the author, and he included my work in his next release (0.5.8 for those of you who are keeping score). Clicky clicky on the screenshot to the right to see rikaichan working in Thunderbird.Finally, I just got assigned to lead a fairly big, important project at work. One that Must Be Complete by May 31. The good news is, if I do a good job, my name will ring out. The bad news is, if I make a mess of this, it could break everything and we will go out of business. Well, OK, we won't go out of business, but people will consider me a Small Tima, and laugh when they see my name in printed form.
This is actually good for me, because I do not make a habit of messing up. In baseball terms, I am a pretty decent choice for who you would want coming up to bat with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. I seem to work pretty well when stakes is high.
And before I go, let me leave you with this jewel: even mechanics walk around with their tool.
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Честита Баба Марта!
To all the Bulgarians in the house.For the rest of you, I will update this entry later with an explanation. SFB might remember this: the First of March, red-and-white bracelet. Ringing bells, Chall?
Update: The Meaning of Баба Марта
From Wikipedia:
Baba Marta (Баба Марта, meaning Grandmother Marta in Bulgarian) is the name of a traditional Bulgarian custom celebrated on March 1 each year, symbolizing the coming of the spring season. Bulgarians wear martenitsi (singular martenitsa) to observe the occasion. The martenitsi are signs of good luck and health.
I have celebrated the First of March for the past three (or four? five?) years with my wife Delyana (a Bulgarian, for those of you who have not figured this out yet) by tying on a red-and-white мартеница (martenitsa). According to tradition, when you see the first stork of spring, you should remove your martenitsa and tie it on a tree. Of course, Wikipedia being the fount of knowledge that it is, I just discovered that in some parts of Bulgaria, you put your "spent" martenitsa under a stone, and depending on which insect happens along first, your luck for the year is set.
So for me, the second half of February is always something to look forward to, for we will be receiving martenitsi in the mail from each of Lyani's relatives. So come the first of March, we have a huge selection of martenitsi from which to choose. Lyani's approach to this "problem" is simply to wear her favourite four to seven, while I--concerned with being "manly"--choose to wear only one minimalistic bracelet. The others, we place around the house.
Of course, this year, Yatsu demanded a martenitsa for himself, which he has been wearing as a necktie. According to him, it has brought the good luck it is supposed to; apparently his consulting business is doing better than ever before. When pressed about the actual nature of his consulting work, he tends to answer something like, "I develop high-value solutions focusing on efficiency, both process- and materials-oriented, based on the exact needs of the client, and taking into consideration the external factors congruent to the scenario."OK, bear, whatever.
Bulgaria has lots of interesting traditions, so I will attempt to keep you foreigners appraised of them as they become seasonal. :)
Speaking of which, today (March 3) is Liberation Day, a public holiday that commemorates the liberation of Bulgaria from Ottoman rule, in 1878.
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Kids in Candy Stores Should Not Throw Glass Slippers!
...or something very much like that. (You know, as an aside, why is there not a MetaphorMixmaster.com, where people post the most ridiculously shaken-not-stirred metaphors that they have heard? If any--either?--of my readers can point me to a repository of mixed metaphors on the 'Net, it will probably net you some free Amazon.co.jp swag.)
So the point of this entry is to share with you how wonderful it is for this lifelong reading addict to work in the Fulfillment Center that is responsible for servicing all of Amazon.co.jp's book orders. You know, like a kid in a candy store?
Seriously. Our warehouse contains more books than any brick-and-mortar bookstore in the world, I would imagine. It is longer than a football field (to Americans, that should mean 100 yards; to the rest of the world, 100 metres) and at least half as wide. That is a lot of books, and it takes a long time to walk past them when I have to visit the warehouse floor for some systems administration action.
There is some drooling, but I am careful not to get it on the merchandise.
I love books. If you love me, why not buy me some? :)
So the point of this entry is to share with you how wonderful it is for this lifelong reading addict to work in the Fulfillment Center that is responsible for servicing all of Amazon.co.jp's book orders. You know, like a kid in a candy store?
Seriously. Our warehouse contains more books than any brick-and-mortar bookstore in the world, I would imagine. It is longer than a football field (to Americans, that should mean 100 yards; to the rest of the world, 100 metres) and at least half as wide. That is a lot of books, and it takes a long time to walk past them when I have to visit the warehouse floor for some systems administration action.
There is some drooling, but I am careful not to get it on the merchandise.
I love books. If you love me, why not buy me some? :)
Monday, February 27, 2006
The chief export of Chuck Norris is pain
Apparently a new law has just passed simultaneously in Japan, the US, and New Zealand, saying that if you have a blog, you must post the following Chuck Norris facts:
Thanks to Matthew for notifying me of the new law, thus saving me from undoubtedly hefty fines. Or maybe a visit from The Chuckwagon himself.
SFB, you'd better tell your brother to step up and provide a Steven Seagal list, or else I shall declare Chuck Norris the Baddest Bad-ass of the Blogosphere!
- Chuck Norris's tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.
- Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.
- Chuck Norris is currently suing NBC, claiming Law and Order are trademarked names for his left and right legs.
- The chief export of Chuck Norris is pain.
- Chuck Norris defines love as the reluctance to murder. If you're still alive, it's because Chuck Norris loves you.
- Chuck Norris isn't hung like a horse. Horses are hung like Chuck Norris.
- If you can see Chuck Norris, he can see you. If you can't see Chuck Norris you may be only seconds away from death.
- Rather than being birthed like a normal child, Chuck Norris instead decided to punch his way out of his mother's womb.
- There are no disabled people. Only people who have met Chuck Norris.
- Chuck Norris can win a game of Monopoly without owning any property.
- There is no theory of evolution, just a list of creatures Chuck Norris allows to live.
- In fine print on the last page of the Guinness Book of World Records it notes that all world records are held by Chuck Norris, and those listed in the book are simply the closest anyone has ever gotten.
- Chuck Norris invented cancer because he was tired of killing people.
- In an average living room there are 1,242 objects Chuck Norris could use to kill you, including the room itself.
- Chuck Norris is the only man to ever defeat a brick wall in a game of tennis.
- Chuck Norris is the reason why Waldo is hiding.
- When Chuck Norris goes to donate blood, he declines the syringe, and instead requests a hand gun and a bucket.
- Chuck Norris has two speeds: walk and kill.
- When Chuck Norris jumps into a body of water, he doesn't get wet. The water gets Chuck Norris instead.
- Chuck Norris can divide by zero.
- Chuck Norris can set ants on fire with a magnifying glass. At night.
- When Chuck Norris runs with scissors, other people get hurt.
Thanks to Matthew for notifying me of the new law, thus saving me from undoubtedly hefty fines. Or maybe a visit from The Chuckwagon himself.
SFB, you'd better tell your brother to step up and provide a Steven Seagal list, or else I shall declare Chuck Norris the Baddest Bad-ass of the Blogosphere!
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Pouring Beer, the Kirin Way
Not only does my wife not disapprove of my beer habit (probably because I have managed to lose about four kilograms since moving to Japan), but she even encourages it.
To wit:
She came home excitedly last Friday, after a tour of the Kirin Brewery (established in Tsurumi-ku, Yokohama in 1907 with help from Thomas Glover, the Scottish trader), claiming that not only had the tour left her with a powerful thirst for the juices of the barley, but that she had also mastered a fell new pouring technique that was guaranteed (she claimed) to increase the flava four-fold fo' sho!
So I picked up the Asahi "All Malt Beer" sampler pack last night, and Lyani demonstrated the secret Kirin pouring technique, which I shall now reveal to you, oh fortunate reader of my blog, since I fear not the Kirin ninja that are surely being dispatched to dispatch me, even as you read these very words!
Oh yeah, the pouring technique. Here goes:
1. Find yourself a fine beer mug.
2. Purchase a good lager or pilsner--stout requires a slightly different pouring technique.
3. Set the glass in a well-lit place and open the can of beer.
4. Position the can about a centimetre (half an inch, roughly) above the rim of the glass and start pouring.
5. Immediately move the can 12-15 centimetres (about five to six inches, I think) above the rim, still pouring. (Actually, the only reason that you start lower is to prevent spilling, which is a mortal sin, you see.)
6. As soon as the head rises near the top of the glass, stop pouring. You should have exhausted between a third and a half of a normal 350 mL can (12 oz, right?).
7. Wait for the head to settle so that the glass is half beer, half head.
8. Start pouring again, starting from a centimetre or two and immediately raising the can to 12-15.
9. Stop pouring when the head threatens to overflow the glass.
10. Wait again, this time until the glass is four parts beer to only one part head.
11. Position the can about two centimetres above the rim, right in the middle of the glass, and pour slowly into the centre of the head.
12. Pour until you empty the can or the head gets too high, whichever comes first. Because of the way you pour, the head should be concave, and it should safely sit almost two centimetres above the rim of the glass. Purty!
13. Wait! I know it looks good, but wait maybe 20 seconds for the head to settle before taking your first pull.
14. Put your lips on the rim of the glass and drink deeply. Make sure not to drink the head; let it hit your upper lip and form a tasty moustache, which you should feel free to loudly slurp off only after you have put your glass down.
Enjoy responsibly!
Leave it to the Japanese to engineer every process down to the most efficient. :)
The Political Compass
Thanks to Sad Faced Boy for pointing me to The Political Compass. Here, once and for all, is where I stand politically:
Gee, this should surprise like, no-one that has ever read my blog or met me. :)
I guess a little explanation is due. From the page:
So take the test, and if you want to, feel free to share the results in the comments section. Just paste in the "Show graph on separate page for printing" link that shows up beneath the graph of your results.
Gee, this should surprise like, no-one that has ever read my blog or met me. :)
I guess a little explanation is due. From the page:
There's abundant evidence for the need of it. The old one-dimensional categories of 'right' and 'left' , established for the seating arrangement of the French National Assembly of 1789, are overly simplistic for today's complex political landscape. For example, who are the 'conservatives' in today's Russia? Are they the unreconstructed Stalinists, or the reformers who have adopted the right-wing views of conservatives like Margaret Thatcher ?
On the standard left-right scale, how do you distinguish leftists like Stalin and Gandhi? It's not sufficient to say that Stalin was simply more left than Gandhi. There are fundamental political differences between them that the old categories on their own can't explain. Similarly, we generally describe social reactionaries as 'right-wingers', yet that leaves left-wing reactionaries like Robert Mugabe and Pol Pot off the hook.
That's about as much as we should tell you for now.
So take the test, and if you want to, feel free to share the results in the comments section. Just paste in the "Show graph on separate page for printing" link that shows up beneath the graph of your results.
Toilet Humour
This is to quell all the cries of "more wacky Japan posts, foo!" that have been raised recently.
I get to the office every morning at 08:00, which is roughly far too early. I mean, seeing that I have to get up at 06:00 every morning in order to make it to the office by 08:00.
It just so happens that 08:00 is also the time when the men's bathroom is cleaned (or at least, the first time of the day--seems like they give it a quick cleaning every hour or so). I always pop in there to wash my hands after getting off the train (you know, health first and all), and sometimes the large cup of coffee that I drink on the train warrants a little bladder relief, as well.
And why, you may be wondering, am I going into far more detail about my daily urination routine than you strictly need to know?
I am setting you up for another installment of "Life in Japan is Wacky", that's why! (Silly rabbit!)
You see, the cleaning ladies are, well, ladies. And they most certainly do not vacate the bathroom when I say 「ちょうっといいですか？」 (chotto ii desuka--"may I?"). Nor do they leave when I head for the urinal, stand there meaningfully, unzip my trousers... etc. They remain there, doing their cleaning thing, for the duration of my, erm, work.
This is not an unusual thing, either. In some buildings in Japan, they will close off the restroom while it being cleaned. In some, they will not. And quite often, you will be in there, taking care of some business, when a cleaning lady waltzes in and goes to work on the urinal right next to you.
If you are American, this will shock the shite out of you (though not literally, one hopes) the first time or time it happens.
If you are Japanese, on the other hand, this is not surprising at all. The reason for this being, of course, that segregation of the sexes is a relatively recent development in Japanese toliet and bathing facilities. To this day, you can still find mixed-sex toilets. They are relatively rare in Tokyo, but out in the 田舎 (that would be inaka, or "country"), you can probably find one or two.
Even in Tokyo, it is not at all uncommon--in a bar or small restaurant--to find that the joint has but one toilet, single occupancy. Of course, this is not terribly worrisome for men, since there will not be women in the same room as you when you are trying to take care of some important stuff.
Co-ed 温泉 (onsen--hot springs) are also still existent in Japan. I personally have not been to one, and have no real desire to be naked with strange women (before you start the nudge nudge, wink wink-ing, remember that, statistically speaking, many of these women will not be models, actresses, and J-Pop songstresses).
OK, so that is difference from men's bathrooms in the US number one: there may be women present.
Difference number two? In the US, as all men know (but women apparently do not?), talking at the urinal is strictly verboten! Talking at the sink is frowned upon, but allowed in some circumstances, I suppose.
Japanese men, while thankfully observing all the same rules of urinal selection that we use in the West (namely, maximise the number of unoccupied urinals between you and the next guy), have no such reluctance when it comes to cracking jokes, continuing conversations, etc.
Which is quite awkward for me, let me tell you. I have gotten used to the cleaning ladies by now, but having another chap talk at you while you are trying to concentrate on, well, the matter at hand, is quite off-putting.
And there you have it: Crazy Japan Stories.(TM)
I get to the office every morning at 08:00, which is roughly far too early. I mean, seeing that I have to get up at 06:00 every morning in order to make it to the office by 08:00.
It just so happens that 08:00 is also the time when the men's bathroom is cleaned (or at least, the first time of the day--seems like they give it a quick cleaning every hour or so). I always pop in there to wash my hands after getting off the train (you know, health first and all), and sometimes the large cup of coffee that I drink on the train warrants a little bladder relief, as well.
And why, you may be wondering, am I going into far more detail about my daily urination routine than you strictly need to know?
I am setting you up for another installment of "Life in Japan is Wacky", that's why! (Silly rabbit!)
You see, the cleaning ladies are, well, ladies. And they most certainly do not vacate the bathroom when I say 「ちょうっといいですか？」 (chotto ii desuka--"may I?"). Nor do they leave when I head for the urinal, stand there meaningfully, unzip my trousers... etc. They remain there, doing their cleaning thing, for the duration of my, erm, work.
This is not an unusual thing, either. In some buildings in Japan, they will close off the restroom while it being cleaned. In some, they will not. And quite often, you will be in there, taking care of some business, when a cleaning lady waltzes in and goes to work on the urinal right next to you.
If you are American, this will shock the shite out of you (though not literally, one hopes) the first time or time it happens.
If you are Japanese, on the other hand, this is not surprising at all. The reason for this being, of course, that segregation of the sexes is a relatively recent development in Japanese toliet and bathing facilities. To this day, you can still find mixed-sex toilets. They are relatively rare in Tokyo, but out in the 田舎 (that would be inaka, or "country"), you can probably find one or two.
Even in Tokyo, it is not at all uncommon--in a bar or small restaurant--to find that the joint has but one toilet, single occupancy. Of course, this is not terribly worrisome for men, since there will not be women in the same room as you when you are trying to take care of some important stuff.
Co-ed 温泉 (onsen--hot springs) are also still existent in Japan. I personally have not been to one, and have no real desire to be naked with strange women (before you start the nudge nudge, wink wink-ing, remember that, statistically speaking, many of these women will not be models, actresses, and J-Pop songstresses).OK, so that is difference from men's bathrooms in the US number one: there may be women present.
Difference number two? In the US, as all men know (but women apparently do not?), talking at the urinal is strictly verboten! Talking at the sink is frowned upon, but allowed in some circumstances, I suppose.
Japanese men, while thankfully observing all the same rules of urinal selection that we use in the West (namely, maximise the number of unoccupied urinals between you and the next guy), have no such reluctance when it comes to cracking jokes, continuing conversations, etc.
Which is quite awkward for me, let me tell you. I have gotten used to the cleaning ladies by now, but having another chap talk at you while you are trying to concentrate on, well, the matter at hand, is quite off-putting.
And there you have it: Crazy Japan Stories.(TM)
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
いい天気ですね！
Japan and America are really not so different: the most commonly uttered bit of small talk is "nice weather, eh?" in both cultures (well, that trailing "eh?" may be a Canadian thing that I picked up from somewhere). In Japanese, this brilliant flash of insight is rendered thusly: いい天気ですね！ (ii tenki desu ne!).But today, gentle--and not-so-gentle, in the Kohler's case--reader, today did feature some astoundingly spring-like conditions, as can be seen clearly at left (if one clicketh upon yon image, forsooth! one shall be conveyed by strange and eldritch magicks to a certain eldar scroll, upon which thou shalt perceive the portents of today's meteorological activities).
(Sorry about that; my Muse apparently played too much Dragon Warrior back in the day.)
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
UNABDOC
I cannot believe that I have not blogged about this yet, given that I have been sitting on this news for like two weeks!Lyani and I have been selected to sit on the United Nations Atomic Bomb Dismantlement Oversight Committee when it convenes on 04 April, 2006, right here in Yokohama!
This is Big News, my friends, Big News.
Sunday, February 05, 2006
1 7074llj pwZ0r 9m41l!
I just noticed that I had a particularly auspicious amount of spam in my Gmail account (see the image at left, and don't forget to clicky clicky to view the fullsize version).Just in case you are at a loss as to the significance of this, I shall now proffer a Wikipedia link. Huzzah!
This is Getting Ridiculous
Eh?
I was browsing SourceForge--a popular Open Source development site--and came across the following "advertisement" (clicky clicky for the fullsize version):
So let me get this straight: Microsoft is paying SourceForge to "advertise", but is just spreading anti-Linux FUD, and SourceForge (which has, presumably, a huge vested interest in Linux) is allowing this bullshit to continue? WTF?
I was browsing SourceForge--a popular Open Source development site--and came across the following "advertisement" (clicky clicky for the fullsize version):
So let me get this straight: Microsoft is paying SourceForge to "advertise", but is just spreading anti-Linux FUD, and SourceForge (which has, presumably, a huge vested interest in Linux) is allowing this bullshit to continue? WTF?
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Just the Facts, Ma'am
Just had another earthquake about an hour and a half ago (2006/02/01 20:48 JST / UTC +9), this one tipping the Japanese intensity scale at 3 here in Central Yokohama.
Bigger than the last one, not The Big One.
The epicentre was in Chiba, however, rather near where I work. Hope my desk is not a mess when I go in tomorrow... ;)
Like I said before, I think Japan is the most prepared country in the world when it comes to quakes. I would prefer not to experience a serious one, but I feel pretty good about the infrastructure in place to deal with earthquake and fire here.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
How You Know When You've Found the One
...perfect job for you. What, did you think I was going to wax--or wane, depending on your point of view--intellectual on matters of the heart again?
Let me explain: I just spent the last hour on Amazon.com. It started innocently enough, with me just looking up some of the new releases from Safari, to see if any were worth "bookmarking" in my Technical wishlist (hint hint?).
Veteran Amazon shoppers will probably already be shaking their heads in bemusement over my naïveté.
You see, whenever you are foolish enough to add something to your wishlist, Amazon is helpful enough to show you what other people who shopped for that book also shopped for, as well as what other people who shopped for items contained in your wishlist also shopped for. Since my Technical wishlist (got that link yet, kids?) is chock full o' excellent technical books, this is a damned useful feature. To wit (you will probably want to clicky clicky so's you can read-y read-y):
Of course, this can be a huge time sink, and worse yet, for Amazon employees, you can wind up owing your soul to the company store.
But seriously, if you work for a company and still think your product is great, that is probably a good sign.
Let me explain: I just spent the last hour on Amazon.com. It started innocently enough, with me just looking up some of the new releases from Safari, to see if any were worth "bookmarking" in my Technical wishlist (hint hint?).
Veteran Amazon shoppers will probably already be shaking their heads in bemusement over my naïveté.
You see, whenever you are foolish enough to add something to your wishlist, Amazon is helpful enough to show you what other people who shopped for that book also shopped for, as well as what other people who shopped for items contained in your wishlist also shopped for. Since my Technical wishlist (got that link yet, kids?) is chock full o' excellent technical books, this is a damned useful feature. To wit (you will probably want to clicky clicky so's you can read-y read-y):
Of course, this can be a huge time sink, and worse yet, for Amazon employees, you can wind up owing your soul to the company store.
But seriously, if you work for a company and still think your product is great, that is probably a good sign.
Saturday, January 21, 2006
Slowly Spinning Planets
And other thoughts provoked by my time on commuter trains.
I was riding the Keiyo Line train from Ichikawa-Shiohama to Tokyo--the first leg of my return commute--the other night, and the train was pretty sparsely populated. This is probably because it was only 17:00.
Let me explain. I used to work from 09:00 to 18:00 every day. Just Wednesday, it was Decided that we should start working two shifts: one from 08:00 to 17:00, and the other from 10:00 to 19:00. So Thursday, I got to go in late but come home late, and on Friday, I got to wake up at 05:40 in order to catch a train at 06:40 and get to work by 08:00.
But I did get off at 17:00, and this put me on a non-crowded Keiyo Line train--which was my original thrust, remember? And it is an important fact that the train was not crowded, for the two seats across from me were vacant. When the train hit a section of track that was banked so that my side was slightly lower than the opposite side (which I was facing), what to my wondering eyes should appear but a rather fantastic optical illusion!
There are a lot of lights in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area. The trains almost all run either underground or on elevated tracks. The Keiyo Line runs most of the way from Chiba to Central Tokyo on the latter.
And with all of this data, can you guess what I saw?
No? Well allow me to explain. The lights from out the train window behind me were being reflected on the window in front of me, which was serving only partially as a mirror; it was also giving me a view of the lights on the other side of the window. What this added up to was something that looked very much like a spinning galaxy. The reflection of the lights behind me, superimposed on the window in front of me, which was also displaying lights far beneath the train and out towards the sea, moved in such a way that it looked like nothing but a galaxy spinning slowly on a starfield.
Nice!
Another interesting optical illusion offered by trains traversing elevated tracks at night is the "space bubble effect". Wherein the passengers of a distant train which happens to be running parallel to your own train, illuminated by the interior lights of their train, look like there are flying through space in a transparent craft.
I wonder if this has anything to do with how they dreamed up Galaxy Express 999?
I was riding the Keiyo Line train from Ichikawa-Shiohama to Tokyo--the first leg of my return commute--the other night, and the train was pretty sparsely populated. This is probably because it was only 17:00.
Let me explain. I used to work from 09:00 to 18:00 every day. Just Wednesday, it was Decided that we should start working two shifts: one from 08:00 to 17:00, and the other from 10:00 to 19:00. So Thursday, I got to go in late but come home late, and on Friday, I got to wake up at 05:40 in order to catch a train at 06:40 and get to work by 08:00.
But I did get off at 17:00, and this put me on a non-crowded Keiyo Line train--which was my original thrust, remember? And it is an important fact that the train was not crowded, for the two seats across from me were vacant. When the train hit a section of track that was banked so that my side was slightly lower than the opposite side (which I was facing), what to my wondering eyes should appear but a rather fantastic optical illusion!
There are a lot of lights in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area. The trains almost all run either underground or on elevated tracks. The Keiyo Line runs most of the way from Chiba to Central Tokyo on the latter.
And with all of this data, can you guess what I saw?
No? Well allow me to explain. The lights from out the train window behind me were being reflected on the window in front of me, which was serving only partially as a mirror; it was also giving me a view of the lights on the other side of the window. What this added up to was something that looked very much like a spinning galaxy. The reflection of the lights behind me, superimposed on the window in front of me, which was also displaying lights far beneath the train and out towards the sea, moved in such a way that it looked like nothing but a galaxy spinning slowly on a starfield.
Nice!
Another interesting optical illusion offered by trains traversing elevated tracks at night is the "space bubble effect". Wherein the passengers of a distant train which happens to be running parallel to your own train, illuminated by the interior lights of their train, look like there are flying through space in a transparent craft.
I wonder if this has anything to do with how they dreamed up Galaxy Express 999?
Friday, January 20, 2006
Notes
This is lunacy! Well, you know my views...
One of my co-workers, a certain Sato-san, is a graduate of none other than West Virginia University. He spent four whole years in scenic Morgantown, and professes his admiration for the natural beauty of the Wild and Wonderful state (you know, "Blue Ridge Mountains, the Shenandoah River?), but also admits to being pretty bored for about three years, 364 days, and--he supposes--about 23 and a half hours. He also refuses to watch "Deliverance", but he won't say why...
I had to sign approximately 27 (well, OK, more like five) birthday cards today. Apparently everyone in my office was born in January. My inscriptions for most were fairly prosaic, but when it came to the aforementioned Sato-san's card, I had to break creative. The Japanese version of "happy birthday" is 「誕生日おめでとうございます」 (tanjoubi omedetou gozaimasu), but I noticed that on the card, most of the ever context-sensitive Japanese had simply written 「おめでとうございます」 (omedetou gozaimasu), which means "congratulations"; since it was in a birthday card, the occasion for congratulations had already been established, you see.
In case you were wondering, Japanese is one of those languages where you are allowed to omit the subject when it is understood from context. In fact, you are encouraged to omit the subject except when it is introduced or changed, lest you emit stilted Foreign Devil-style Japanese. Yuck! In fact, you are also allowed to omit particles, verbs, any other word that is understood from context, and the ending phrases of many (most?) sentences? So you can convey an awful lot in Japanese without actually saying much.
In this spirit, I simply wrote:
お。ご。
ITのグラバー・ジョシュ
or, in the romaji:
o.go.
IT no Guraba- Joshu
which in English would be like writing:
H.B.
Josh Glover from IT
If you cannot figure out what that means, aks my dad! ;)
I have broken into the top 1000 Wiki contributors at work (I am actually number 738 as of the last time the statistics were generated; perhaps I will be higher next time the stats come out)! Hurrah!
This basically means that I write a lot of documentation. Which is A Good Thing(TM).
One of my co-workers, a certain Sato-san, is a graduate of none other than West Virginia University. He spent four whole years in scenic Morgantown, and professes his admiration for the natural beauty of the Wild and Wonderful state (you know, "Blue Ridge Mountains, the Shenandoah River?), but also admits to being pretty bored for about three years, 364 days, and--he supposes--about 23 and a half hours. He also refuses to watch "Deliverance", but he won't say why...
I had to sign approximately 27 (well, OK, more like five) birthday cards today. Apparently everyone in my office was born in January. My inscriptions for most were fairly prosaic, but when it came to the aforementioned Sato-san's card, I had to break creative. The Japanese version of "happy birthday" is 「誕生日おめでとうございます」 (tanjoubi omedetou gozaimasu), but I noticed that on the card, most of the ever context-sensitive Japanese had simply written 「おめでとうございます」 (omedetou gozaimasu), which means "congratulations"; since it was in a birthday card, the occasion for congratulations had already been established, you see.
In case you were wondering, Japanese is one of those languages where you are allowed to omit the subject when it is understood from context. In fact, you are encouraged to omit the subject except when it is introduced or changed, lest you emit stilted Foreign Devil-style Japanese. Yuck! In fact, you are also allowed to omit particles, verbs, any other word that is understood from context, and the ending phrases of many (most?) sentences? So you can convey an awful lot in Japanese without actually saying much.
In this spirit, I simply wrote:
お。ご。
ITのグラバー・ジョシュ
or, in the romaji:
o.go.
IT no Guraba- Joshu
which in English would be like writing:
H.B.
Josh Glover from IT
If you cannot figure out what that means, aks my dad! ;)
I have broken into the top 1000 Wiki contributors at work (I am actually number 738 as of the last time the statistics were generated; perhaps I will be higher next time the stats come out)! Hurrah!
This basically means that I write a lot of documentation. Which is A Good Thing(TM).
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
PRIDE (In the Name of Love)
Remember the 男祭 / Otoko-matsuri / Man Festival? Well, when Lyani and I were at Narita AKA "Tokyo" International Airport, we saw none other than this dude, making a withdrawl from the bank:
And who might he be--aside from an ex-KGB wetworks specialist--you may ask? None other than Fedor Emelianenko, the current PRIDE FC heavyweight champion.
Whether he actually had a bank account, or just threatened to punch the teller repeatedly in the face until she capitulated. Which is exactly what he did to Zulu (pictured at left) during the 男祭.
Lyani and I were both a little too scared to ask him for an autograph. :)
And who might he be--aside from an ex-KGB wetworks specialist--you may ask? None other than Fedor Emelianenko, the current PRIDE FC heavyweight champion.
Whether he actually had a bank account, or just threatened to punch the teller repeatedly in the face until she capitulated. Which is exactly what he did to Zulu (pictured at left) during the 男祭.Lyani and I were both a little too scared to ask him for an autograph. :)
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