It happened in...
Happy New Year!
30 January
Loads of new bits added to the site today, though it may not look like it. You have to be looking hard to find them. ;)
27 January
My day off. And it rained all day. What better, then, than to sit back with a bag of otters' noses and ocelot spleens and watch The Life of Brian.
Again.
My nomination for best film ever made. Comedy and political comment second to none, a satire without equal.
24 January
Not only was it Dad's birthday yesterday, but it was also Fumihiko and Izumi's wedding day. The wedding was held at the Hotel New Otani, a rather posh marble and gold affair in the city centre. And on the roof of said hotel is a wedding chapel where we saw Izumi given away by her big brother, Yoshiaki. Officiating was Nick "The Rev" (though that's just his East End gangland nickname).
Festivities continued in one of the hotel's banqueting rooms, where the cake was cut, and we all tucked into a wonderful 6 course lunch. Once this began to take its toll, the singing began...
23 January
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD!
20 January
You'll have noticed the site's facelift, no doubt. A bit tidier, I think. Some of the rougher edges smoothed off too. Hope you like it and can get around it alright. Let me know what you think (but bearing in mind it took an entire day of trial and error, mostly error, and pulling my hair out, don't be too brutal).
19 January
Been hit by a few earthquakes in the last few days. Had one on Saturday here in Kyushu which rocked the house the for a while. Nothing to worry about though. Up north in Hokkaido, though, where it's already snowing about a half a metre a day, they had a mag 4 on Monday. And then the Tokyo area had a large-ish one this afternoon. All seem to have passed without too much incident.
16 January
Blood! Guts! Violence! Swords! Evisceration! Death! Donuts!
How to entertain ourselves on a rainy Sunday in January...? Why a double bill of Bill (as in "Kill..."), no less.
Have to say I enjoyed seeing the first installment again, but the second one was a bit patchy and rambling. Uma Thurman deserves, perhaps not an Oscar, but at least a nice rest and a cup of tea. Poor lass goes through the wringer a bit. David Carradine is superb too, though it would've been gratifying to see him going in a more spectacularly violent end than simply a wander down the garden.
The donuts, as ever, were faultless.
15 January
I've taken up the offer of Japanese lessons. This comes at a time when I realised if I was ever going to speak Japanese better than a footballer speaks English, then, well, err, obviously, y'know it was time to do something about it. I was studying again under my own steam, but now with a teacher, let's hope it picks up.
10 January
"Overoften! 3 days with no news of your new iRiver! Woe!"
Fret not.
I've been busy, haven't I! This thing may be the bleeding-edge of revolutionary digital technology, but it doesn't fill itself with tunes, you know. And after busying myself with said task all weekend, we're nearing the (gasp) 1000 tune mark. "When are you going to listen to all this music?" asked Mrs C innocently. Well, at the time, I pointed out that was not a mere player of music, but so much more.
Yet today I can answer that question directly. And she may not like the answer.
Thanks to the Gnome's advice (well done, NCG!) I availed myself, this very morning, of an FM transmitter. Just plugs into the top of the iRiver and you can play all your tunes through the car radio. For little more than ten of the Queen's quid. No wires, no anguish, no bloodshed. Hmmm. Now I think perhaps the car needs some more speakers...
7 January
Another side to the evil that is EngrishTM is the media calamity 'Using absolutely the wrong backing track'.
For example, I've been to Paradise... by Charlene, that perennial call to the miserably married and desperately unsatisfied is used as the backing track on a local advert for....? Of course, a wedding parlour. Well done them.
Also, when I heard REO Speedwagon's deeply moving, feel-good Can't fight this feeling any more, I expected to turn to the TV to see some character bravely taking the plunge and revealing his love in some soppy soft-focus, but instead I see a woman weeping, in a heap on the floor having heard that her husband has been tragically killed in an accident.
But the biscuit was well and truly taken by the production company made the programme shown this afternoon about British eccentrics. This feature focused on unusual motorised furniture (yes, really), and was backtracked by...? Naturally, the traditionally British and lyrically subtle Sit on my face and tell me that you love me by the Monty Python team.
The English Language - it's purely cosmetic.
6 January
Day off. What to do... what to do... I know! I'll record more of my music collection and put it on my new iRiver! As they say in the Japanese McDonald's adverts, "I'm rubbin' it!"
5 January
First day back at work. Memorise how to say Happy New Year in Japanese (like most things, it's fiercely complicated) on the bus into town. While listening to my new iRiver. Did I mention that?
Hope you remembered to take down your Christmas decorations today...
4 January
Not since Warlock told Neil to "have a bang on this number, man!" has anyone been so blown away.
As a Christmas present to myself, I've just been 'n bought this.
(If you're thinking, "Uh?", then that, my friend, is an iRiver HP120, music player and storage device with a memory of 20gig. So it's gonna house my entire music collection, and a load of other files besides, like lesson plans, addresses and whatnot.)
And what's more, in doing so, I found a new, bigger electronics store to find an excuse to pay regular visits to. The day is marked down as a success.
2 January
The first snows have arrived. At least up in the mountains of Aso. It was a beautiful drive up through the hills and forests, and it was bitterly cold up at the summit, where the volcano steams away more than ever, and the snow's quite deep in places, so after a few minutes' messing around, we ready to get back into a nice warm car. It won't be long before the chill gets down here.
1 January
If anything's guaranteed to make you feel like a plum, it's this. In our big oosouji - when all houses and businesses are cleaned from attic to cellar in preparation for the New Year - we took down our top shutters in the living room, which have been shut since we moved in... and found an open window behind them.
How we laughed.
It warms up in here a bit quicker now. (Only a bit, mind.)
So New Year's Day was spent (once the nausea had passed) visiting the shrine in Kengun, as is traditional to seek a blessing for a happy and safe New Year. There we drew omikuji - little strips of paper which tell you your lot for the following year - and we both drew daikichi which is the luckiest of all 5 'levels' (and no, they're not all the same). So our stars are blessed for a short trip - wonder where that could be to... And we should expect visitors from afar. And I'm told to buy that thing I've had my eye on for ages. That'd be an mp3 player then, I reckon. Anyway you must then go and tie your omikuji up, and all shall come to you.
The shrine was packed with people, even at gone 5 o'clock, when we went. Perhaps everyone had had a slow start to the day.