I'm happier than...

I dunno, something that's really happy. I'm drawing a blank here. I'm definitely happier than the dog that sounds like he is dying a slow and torturous death outside my window, that's for sure.

More importantly than that! The day of atonement is upon us, for I have received in the mail this day a shipment of some of the finest beers that the monks at St. Bernardus in the sovereign nation of Belgium have to offer. Bask in the glow of my Belgian beauties, and ignore that pool of my drool off camera to the left.

This was a momentous weekend indeed - and not because I was quite deftly swinging a hula hoop around my neck in a bar last night after the bellydancers were finished with them, oh no. What makes it especially sweet is that I found a place that I believe will help quench my thirst for the one and only Ayinger Celebrator Doppelbock - the granddaddy of German beers. They had a 4-year old bottle sitting on the shelf collecting dust, which I find to be almost as deplorable as the fact that they would taunt me with it and not even have the courtesy to put it on the menu, but I forgive them that for giving me the opportunity to order some at exorbitantly marked up retail prices.

Finally, I shall leave you with a little gem I found in none other than everyone's favorite (or at least my dad's), Mc Donald's. There is actually a campaign for this girl called "f*ing motesto". Are we supposed to forgive her for what she knows not? Oh, and if you're wonder why the lack of pictures as of late, my camera broke. Bleh.

This has absolutely nothing to do with anything...

It won't tell you anything related to my daily goings on, and it won't teach you anything about Japan... except maybe what's being passed around youtube on the Japanese side. And yet I simply must share - slug copulation, set to the soundtrack of Japanese pop artist Hirai Ken. It is just... wow. Enjoy.

(brought to you thanks to the fine people over at japanprobe)

Oh, and I got some Engrish for you here somewhere....

This lovely gem was at the top of a ski lift... taking the syntactical error out of the way I guess it gets the job done, but geez.

Ignorance: Freedom of soul. Wow. I have not as of yet graced this fine establishment with my patronage, but it certainly takes "ignorance is bliss" to new unexplored heights. Maybe the underlying message is that you can have more fun with English if you don't know what the hell it says. I guess their ignorance is my bliss sometimes, so in a strange way I concur.

My body must hate me by now (Pt. I)

Before I get started here, one tidbit of WTF?!??!!!??? news: the days of Doug sleeping in the buff (or anything close to it) are over, or at least out of season. There is no way to sleep out here without anything less than 2 layers of clothing top and bottom, one being something with full sleeves and legs. The other day I went out in the kitchen to whip up some sweet grilled cheeses with the authentic Kraft cheedar cheese slices I found (quite happy about that), and I could see my breath!!!

Oh, and if you look to your left you'll see a little gem I ran across - "non-alcohole"! Reminds of the story I heard of that guy that died of alcohol poisoning when he found out that the large intestine absorbs liquor faster than most any part of the anatomy through direct contact....... ok, you get it? Because I'm soooo not explaining it any further.

Yeah... so this past week or so I've been pretty harsh to my body, but not without good reason of course. The other day, my neighbor Joe made a rather astute observation in that despite the fact that I say that I normally only drink a bunch when there's a special reason, lately there's been an inordinate amount of special reasons. ;P After thinking about it, I think it's because I'm still not totally satisfied with where I am socially around here and am really just trying to drown my dissatisfactions and frustrations. I think this part of the equation is slowly getting better though, as I've met some cool people along the course of the week and am having more of a social life. Another piece of advice I heard from a few people actually was to go out and do stuff as much as possible over the winter so you don't wind up holed up in your room glued to the kotatsu... mmm.... warm, toasty kotatsu...

So anyway, here's the last week or so in a nutshell. Friday, Matt was in town, so I go in town with my friend Kevin to show him a good time, which I definitely believe we were sucessful in doing. We first went to a gyutan restaurant, which is the most famous specialty of Sendai. So we get to this place and sit down, check out the menu and order. I yelled out our order as the waitress was walking towards us with plate in hand, which she promptly placed on the table almost before I could finish speaking! Apparently from what she said, since that's what the place is known for they knew what we were going to order as soon as we walked in the door. I found out later that there's another place that's known for the softer style (which is my preference) so I'll check that one out next time. Anyway, from there we head out to a great bar on the other side of the station, where a middle-aged guy was hitting on Matt (ie: he was highly and overly interested in the tall foreigner guy, who he insisted looks like Legolas from LOTR) and we met 3 girls with the same name that met each other online, which was rather surreal but very entertaining. After some time, we allegedly went to another bar and talked to more people, but I'm just taking Matt's word for all that.

Skip forward to the next morning, when I wake up in Matt's hotel with both of us still spinning from the night before after a couple hours sleep. He was there for work, so we go check out his exhibit thingy (experimental alternative fuel cells - hydrogen powered cars) and then I scuttle off to work attempting to drag myself through the day. Oh, and did I mention it was snowing? Here's the view from my balcony when I got back to change before work.

So after work I was beat, but I had already arranged for this Japanese guy Senyu to meet us so I dragged myself out for another night of festivities. I'm glad I did though as we had a blast - I saved my liver some trouble by driving to Sendai and playing designated driver. More craziness ensued. The next day was all about recuperation, and I needed it. All in all, a crazy weekend.

Oh, and the following message is for anyone named Matt, aka Legolas:
NEED PICTURES!!!

To be continued...

Ode to the kotatsu

Ah yes, the kotatsu - what a wonderful invention! I'd say that I'll kiss the guy who came up with the idea, but apparently he's some ancient nameless Chinese guy, so besides the fact that he's dust by now and that'd be disgusting I have the feeling that searching for his remains in the first place would be an exercise in futility.

What was I talking about again? Oh yeah! The kotatsu and how it makes my otherwise freezing Durgicile nice and toasty! My toes are piping hot right now, like some Bearded Papa's Cream Puffs, and it's all thanks to the wonderous kotatsu. I broke this bad boy out today for the first time, and I honestly don't know what I was waiting for! It's the best thing since cheese, and that's saying a lot.

Elsewhere in the current winterfication project that is my apartment, I went out and got some bubble wrap to cover my windows. Why you ask? Because they haven't caught onto the whole concept of double-paned windows and proper sealing practices, let alone centralized heating. So if I turn on the heater with the windows wrapped, at least it stays warm for a little bit and I don't lose it all in the draft. The sad thing is that there's a whole section of bubble wrap and window sealing kits in stores - they realize it's a problem, so why don't they fix it? Ah well.

Some other nice little things I've heard to look forward to:

• water pipes freezing: apparently it's a good idea to leave your faucet dripping overnight on really cold nights, and to turn off your water if you leave for extended periods of time.
• frozen toothpaste(!!): and get this - someone's solution to this was to put it in the fridge overnight!!
• in extreme cases... frozen toilets: I shit you not, someone's solution to this was to pour vodka or some other potent form of liquor in the toilet water overnight as it has a lower freezing temperature than water. Most toilets have heated seats around here, but mine's old so I just had to go get a cover as to not freeze my pasty-white tuckus (I don't care if I spelled that wrong, sorry).
  
• unsalted, unplowed roads: for whatever reason, they don't believe in doing this, so if it snows heavily I can expect to find snow on the roads for up to a good 2 weeks. As a consequence, if you have not put snow tires on your car by the 1st of December, any accident you get in will automatically be deemed solely your fault.

In stark contrast to this, if you go further north to the island of Hokkaido they normally have it right when it comes to heating. Good insulation, good windows with modern seals and such, snow plows, and... are you ready for it? Heated sidewalks!!! That's right, no matter how high the snow may pile up in Sapporo (and it gets pretty high), the sidewalks are clear and ice-free thanks to heated sidewalks. They also apparently have a huge underground mall from what I hear too, but I've never seen it. And I shall leave you with a quote from a certain Canuckistanian, who shall remain nameless, regarding Hokkaido:

"Hokkaido is like Canada, just with a bunch of Japanese people running around."

Ok, it was Matt. I lied.

And finally, here's your Engrish fix of the day, courtesy of the local Rifu Jasco (the kids call it "Rifujasu" for short... the one in Tagajo is "Tagajasu"), where incidentally I happened to find a restaurant with real Quesadillas!!! Here you go:

It's the variety store of amusement... but only for 3 short minutes. Talk about a quickie.

We hope you all a happy Merry Christmas!!

So the above is what the caption on the lower right originally was going to say, but that's what they keep me around for, right? So it's getting to be that time of year around here and they are certainly into the decorations thing. Besides them working on the decorations around here for the past 3 days at work, I've seen a couple random houses around town that are lit up, which I never saw back in Chiba. It sorta reminds me of how way more people up in PA around my brother's place went all out for Halloween decorations than around my place in the 'burbs. So yeah, Christmas looks to be interesting - I'll try and get better pics once things are done and all lit up. I of course brought my Santa hat with me, which shall be for all intents and purposes glued to my skull for the better part of the next month.

And in other news, I would like to take this opportunity to say hi to Mike out in Seoul! I hadn't heard from him in a while, but I might have a chance to meet up with him in the not to distant future - we studied in Chiba together. Check out his blog if you want in the links. Oh, and as an aside, Mike's quote of the day was "feeding only breast milk 7 months aged babys may help in case of regurgitating babies." They have Engrish in Korea too!! Personally I like Chinglish... search around for some good Chinese English restaurant menus and you'll know what I mean. I also hear that they get Buddha's birthday off in Korea, and they call it Buddhanikuh. Ok, I made up that last part.

Now this weekend coming up is the annual JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test), and I'm again taking the highest level. I failed last year with a 60% (70% is passing, btw) and am hoping to do a little better this time around considering I've been busting my hump on the books and have a lot more daily practice now. Normally this test means that you have the basic knowledge required to apply to tertiary educational facilities as a normal student, so that'd put me at something like the level of a high school senior if I could actually speak up to that level. All I know is that half the stuff I'm learning now is the kind of stuff that I'll either never use or have to go waaaay out of my way to do so - or just read more I guess as some of it's literary stuff.

Oh, and finally basketball. Sweet, lovely college basketball. I leave the country for a year and what happens? The Terps take the frickin' championship for the first time ever! Then I come back just in time for the past 2 years of lackluster mediocrity. Now I'm out of the country again, and here they come! 8-0! So I hear this Greivis guy looks pretty good and we have a decent point guard and stuff, but I haven't gotten a chance to actually watch any games yet. I'm trying to set it up to have this guy record stuff for viewing online on his Slingbox, which is one of the coolest things to come out since Hello Kitty toilet paper, along of course with the rest of the fine line of Sanrio inspired products. So cross your fingers on that one - if they keep it up and I can't watch games anytime I want by the time the ACC season starts I will not be a happy individual.

Ok, time to go to my tutor's before I check out Yodobashi Camera to point and stare at all the people standing in line for the Wii, which shall be released at midnight tonight I believe. I'd love for someone around me to buy it so I can go over and play it for free... I know, I'm such a nice guy sometimes.

I know this is what you all come here for...

Ok, so I just got back from practice for this play I'm going to be in a couple weeks from now and it is looking abso-frickaliciously fantabulous and splendiferous in every way. It really looks like a lot of fun - I play a US soldier at a Jazz bar in post-war Japan who gets all drunk and starts mouthing off as he picks a fight with some other soldier. And you are just going to love this... I'm going to give you some of the Engrish script they gave us. They did try really hard on this and I appreciate it, but some of it's just hilarious. We've adlibbed the lines based on what they were actually going for in the Japanese script since we couldn't say it all with a straight face, but the original before we got to de-Engrish it is just too good not to share. There were such gems as:

"How come we can't share the time more joyfully much more than hate for all the time! Why the colour is so important more than human himself."

and

"The realty is nothing more than the death, We're all facing to fear to death."

and then there's this sequence:

"Hey you, I know you, you must be prostitute aren't ya?"
"This's not a right place for to make business, So why don't you go to ODAWARA."
"You telling big lies, It's you are the one came to ask me to make it something."

Seriously though, the guy they got to play the main role (a Japanese guy) is fabulous and definitely outdoes us... he had us all struggling not to smile while he said his lines - great delivery. We look like some total hacks up on stage with these guys since... well we don't know what the hell we're doing. They told us just to have fun with it, which is exactly what I intend to do. This play is going to rock - and I get to mambo! ;P

Boats... grrr!

Yeah, one thing I've noticed is that I use an inordinant amount of exclamation points (one could even say I... "spackle" my writing with them), or as I like to refer to them, "bangs." I guess if you know me that is sort of indicitave of my character though, so I'll just leave it out there as a simple observation. Things that make me go hmm... Oh hey, and before I forget, Engrish of the day goes to the guy on the train wearing a trucker hat that read "I lost my virginity in Madagascar." Priceless.

So today's theme is me being totally pooped. I cannot for the life of me sleep in, whether it's a weekday or my day off, whether I go to bed at 11 or 3, whether I went out the night before or whatever. The fricking sun gets me up at like 6am or so just about every day and I'm hating it. One thing that luckily isn't going to be a factor anymore is that there's no DST in Japan. American occupational forces did enstate it in Japan during the post-WWII occupational period for about 6 years, but as soon as we left it was one of the first things to go. That means that while you enjoy daylight until 9pm on some days during the summer, I enjoy the sun rising at like 4am. Yeah.

Sooo... that means I need some thicker blinds. I went and checked, and it looks like I'll wind up dropping like $50-60 on curtains big enough to cover the window in my bedroom, and the same goes for if I want darkness in any of my other rooms as well. Strangely enough this didn't bother me in Chiba for whatever reason, but it sure does now so I gotta do something about it. As soon as payday comes around that is- I already spent 420,000+ yen this month. Oh, and that's only like $3,500 btw.

And just to top it all off, today I was not awoken by our benevolent source of sustenance and life... oh no, he didn't even get the chance. You see, today I arose to the onerous sound of fog horns, most likely from boats all the way on the other side of my area of town. The bastages!! They got me up at like 5am! I think I might have gotten back to sleep for a grand total of 30 whopping minutes before I had to get up to go to work since there was an opera today I had to help out with.

So dragging along I make it to work, with said opera on the horizon. I must admit it was rather impressive to see this Japanese woman no bigger than yours truly belting stuff out with force without need or wont for a microphone. This girl wasn't your stereotypical shy and demure Japanese girl by any stretch of the imagination. She was an honest to goodness soprano and had range that would give Mariah Carey back in the early 90's a good run. She wrote her own material, which was lackluster, but it was more about getting the town's kids involved apparently so whatever.

The theme? The Shichigahama awabi legend. It's about these fishermen who went out to sea a long time ago and got stuck in a storm. The storm tore a huge hole in the bottom of the boat and they started to sink, so they start calling out to some local god that was supposed to protect them. They start paddling back and notice the water's stopped. When they get back to shore, they look on the bottom of the boat and what do they see? A big 'ol awabi, blocking up the hole. And there you have it.

Alright, well now that that's said and done I'm off to catch up on some z's. Snore.