Say Wut?

meaning

You are a GRAMMAR GOD!

If your mission in life is not already to
preserve the English tongue, it should be.
Congratulations and thank you!

How grammatically sound are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
Um, as flattering as that is, I think this quiz is kinda sus. Aside from the fact that my English has acquired that unmistakably “Fresh Off the Boat” quality from living overseas for a decade, every single person whose results (I just mistyped that as “resluts”) I’ve seen have been “Grammar God.” I object to this title being passed out like penicillin ampules at a syphilis convention; it’s a stinging insult to my monotheistic way of life (I worship the One True God of Technoeroticism and may you heathens forever burn in Luddite hell).
Finders fee (TBD) goes to Biggie for the quiz.

Toyota Prius

After lengthy observation, I have come to a conclusion: In Japan, the Toyota Prius is a car marketed for a single demographic, namely, painfully slow drivers. I have never seen such a bunch of I-can’t-drive-55 brake tapping, hesitating, yellow light anticipating, slow-ass idiots. If this is the price us normal folk must pay to “save the environment,” I say we start a “Spit at the Prius” campaign in retribution.
Seriously, the way these people drive really makes me wonder if there actually is a gasoline engine in there among the fields of capacitors and NiMH batteries. A Prius owner I recently spoke with affirmed his penchant for driving at Nader-like levels and explained that the more he idles and breaks, the more the batteries are recharged. Now this is a level of idiocy I hadn’t previously regarded as being possible, but there it is. This guy had been blindfolded and brainwashed by the “eco-driving” crowd and somehow thinks he is doing the world a big fucking favor by stepping on the brakes and imitating an electric wheelchair.
Let me tell you pal, I’d be a lot happier if you rode a goddamn mamachari (granny bicycle) and got the hell off the road. You might not be saving mother earth, but you might not get a tree planted in your ass, either.

I 5uXX0r

Cruftety, cruftety, cruft. Anybody who comes here now can see how cruftily I have crufted together this site. I spent so much time on the css with no clue of what controlled what, I have ended up with a hodgepodge design. Still, I kind of like it but my inability to tweak the little places that need it is driving me insane. Of course, it might help if I spent more than ten minutes on it at a time, but then again maybe not.

Apology to an ancient Sun Goddess

Dear Ama-chan,
I am sorry that I called you a man. Please forgive me; as a typical male I automatically attribute spears, muddy work, and world creation to other men without thinking that it might be the work of a female.
Please do not pout (it makes your eyes all puffy and swollen) and stay in your cave all year; rice is too expensive as it is.
Love,
Justin
P.S. Here is a link to one of your other fans:
“The rice does not grow without Her.”
Update: I was apologizing for the wrong reason. While Amaterasu IS a female deity, Izanami was the one who did the spear work (yeah I KNEW a girl couldn’t do that!). Timothy Takemoto straightens me out in the comments of the original post. You see, I really am fascinated by this stuff. It’s just my chronic memory loss that gets in the way.

Monster Island

The reference in my new top banner to monster island is not a reference to Godzilla or Mothra, but rather to the cats that insist on crapping in the vicinity of my car. Some friends in Nara insist on calling me, alternatively, “tamanegi-kun” (onion boy, a reference to the famously delicious onions grown here), or “the guy from monster island” (This is a reference to the fact that I live out in the boonies. Alas, ’tis like the pot calling the kettle cookware.)
Also, not to be misleading, but the bridge in the photo is not the Awaji Kaikyo Bridge (the longest suspension bridge in the world connecting my island to Kobe). It’s the Kansai International Airport Access Bridge (click here for details) that links the airport to the mainland. In an ironic twist of fate, however, the airport is a manmade island created by digging away entire mountains on my island and dumping them into the sea. Even today I saw the huge earthmoving machines transporting the dirt onto barges at Sumoto port, preparing them for the next runs to the airport where they are adding to the island to create more runways. For some reason, I think this sucks. Of course, I think everything sucks, but I find this disturbing on a spiritual level.
You see, according to ancient myth the island of Awajishima (uh, what I have been referring to as “my island”) is the origin of the rest of terra firma. Some bad ass named Amaterasu stuck his spear in the ocean floor and when he pulled it out the first drops became Awajishima (actually the very first drop became Nushima). I guess when Amaterasu busted out the shovel to dig the Mariana Trench things got messy and he created the continents, and when he hocked a random loogie it became Tsutenkaku (go read my comment before they delete it).

Akashi Kaikyo Park

akashi_kaikyo_koen012.jpg
They have finally opened the grounds used for the Awaji Hanahaku (Flower Festival) in Y2K for public viewing again. It has been scaled down in size and now esists as a nice place to spend on a sunny day. The number of flower exhibits is much less than before, which is actually nice because it should keep down the number of tour buses trundling over the bridge during the summer. I took my girl and a couple of her visisting friends there today and fought against the dwindling sunlight to capture a few decent photos. I like how they turned out and have put them on a dedicated page because of their cumulative size. Click on the link below to see them.

Continue reading “Akashi Kaikyo Park” →

Naked Sweaty Fat Men

Last night, I ordered tickets to the Nagoya Sumo Tournament in July for myself and 11 other lucky peeps (You can order Sumo tickets for any of the Nihon Sumo Kyokai-sanctioned tournaments through English language websites by following the links on the official page. For unsanctioned matches, visit any university judo dorm after the mat-burned, caulifower-eared judo-ka are done with their circle jerks and herd into the baths for communal back rubs.).
It’s gonna be an OG-style Cosmic Buddha roadtrip! I think the last time we did one of these was back in college! Characteristically, we are still lacking a good bass player. No worries, though, we always find someone at the last minute. Since I only have 9 solid members for a total of 12 tickets, I guess I can bribe some random bassist if it comes to that.

From: sumo@chunichi.co.jp
Thank you very much for buying your Grand Sumo Nagoya Tournament tickets through us.
Sagawa Express will deliver your tickets to the address you entered.
Please pay the delivery person for the tickets at the time they are delivered.
Sub-total: 123,600yen (including tax)
Shipping fee: 950yen (including tax)
Amount billed: 124,550yen
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

QUESTION!: Why the HELL don’t you have a different payment system going you stupid idiots? Ten years ago if you asked ANYONE IN JAPAN to hand over a grand in cash over to ANY EMPLOYEE of SAGAWA EXPRESS, you would be laughed off the World Wide Web. Aside from the fact that very few people keep over a hundred thousand yen in cash on top of their getabako (shoe box) next to their inkan (personal seal/stamp), WHY THE FUCK WOULD WE WANT TO HAND OVER THAT MUCH MOOCH TO THE EMPLOYEE OF A TROUBLED COMPANY KEPT AFLOAT BY ITS PRESIDENT BRIBING GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS WITH OVER FOUR MILLION DOLLARS IN ORDER TO KEEP BANKERS FROM COLLECTING ON THEIR DEBTS?
Actually, that doesn’t concern me so much as the fact that I have to prepare exact change. I hate that the delivery company guys never carry any change when they go out on daibiki (cash on delivery) runs. I mean, if the pizza boy can do it, you should be able to, too.
Disclaimer: The above rant about former Sagawa Express President Hiroyasu Watanabe was not intended to be critical of modern-day Japanese gangsters (who by the way, almost never cut off fingers), and yes I am aware that with the present day economic situation you could probably bribe a politician with Hello Kitty seat covers for his Toyota Prius and a twenty dollar handjob.

In Case of Emergency…

Work screed alert: If my writing about work at a large Japanese electronics company doesn’t tickle your fancy, please take a minute to bite me (I’m tired of e-mails dictating what I can and cannot write about, particularly ones from “Japan experts”. Go and kiss chrysanthemums somewhere else.).
Now then. Suppose that you were late for work on the first day of the new fiscal year, and that you walked into the office as your co-workers were halfway through the “morning exercise” routine. Would you:
A. Enthusiastically do jumping-jacks with the rest of the sheep while moving toward your desk
B. Sit at your desk and wait for normalcy to return while starting up your PC
C. Upon seeing the madness as you entered the room, quietly slip back out the door and lurk in the john for a few minutes
D. Run into the room, scream “FIRE”, and run back out
I am not a total ovine quite yet as I chose B. A guy who sits close to me opted for A, and another opted for C. Now that I have had my ass chewed off for choosing B, I wish that I had instead chosen D. A brand new senior manager made a point of getting in my face about not performing the exercises, which would be fine except that he did it out loud so that everybody could hear, a full-on drill sergeant dressing-down. Luckily, the general manager, who is a great friend, stepped in and squashed the whole thing, ending with “Anybody else who can do the work Justin does is entitled to ignore the exercises as well, hell I might stop doing them myself.” As flattering as that statement was, about 50,000 red warning lights went off in my head at once and all I could think of was getting out from between two duelists. The room was silent. Nobody in the office is coming over to chat today. It’s days like this when I really look forward to my future life in Thailand, perhaps tending a herd of water buffalo or chasing flocks of birds away rice paddies with the kids.
I wish I had kids already. I would go home tonight and sit with them at dinner and they would ask what I did at work today. I would say, “kids, today daddy became a pawn in an inter-office power play!”
“Wow, coooool” they would reply.
Then I would relate to them all that happened today in detail and what was to be learned from it all. Which is, of course, “if you ever walk into an uncomfortable situation, scream ‘FIRE’ at the top of your lungs and run out of the room as fast as you can.”