More cycling.
Thursday 23 February 2012
Thursday 9 February 2012
High Fidelity Top Five Lists
Top Five Films
- Lawrence of Arabia
- American Psycho
- Once Upon A Time In The West
- The Dark Knight
- This Is England
Top Five Peter O'Toole Lines From Lawrence of Arabia
- "Do you think I'm just anybody, Ali? Do you?"
- "All right! I'm extraordinary! What of it?
- "Ah, well, we can't all be lion tamers."
- "The best of them won't come for money. They'll come for me."
- "I have no Arab friends. I don't want Arab friends!"
Top Five Actors or Film-makers Who Will Have To Be Shot Come the Film Revolution
- Orlando Bloom
- Michael Bay
- Adam Sandler
- Quentin Tarantino
- Tim Burton
Top 5 Anime
- Ghost In The Shell
- Stand Alone Complex: 2nd Gig
- Gundam Wing
- Princess Mononoke
- Bible Black
Top Five Film Soundtracks
- The Last Samurai
- Road To Perdition
- The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
- The Truman Show
- The Last of the Mohicans
Top Five David Bowie Singles
- "Heroes"
- "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide"
- "Young Americans"
- "China Girl"
- "I'm Afraid of Americans"
Top Five David Bowie Songs Not Released as Singles
- "Lady Stardust"
- "Heathen"
- "Teenage Wildlife"
- "Quicksand"
- "Bring Me the Disco King"
Top Five English Classes
- The one at Izumi where I performed several extreme emotions to introduce the "You look happy" grammar point.
- The one at Tamagawa where the students spontaneously sang Happy Birthday.
- The one at Izumi where I showed a video about Japan that featured two animated characters having sex.
- The one at Onahama 1st where I did my self introduction and only three people paid attention.
- The one at kindergarten where we performed The Snowman with no preparation or props.
Tuesday 7 February 2012
Mosquito
It was November and there were mosquitoes invading my apartment every night. Every morning the wife and I would wake up with mosquito bites on our arms and legs and hopefully no malaria. Anyway it was about 6:00pm and we were just about to leave for okonomiyaki and I was lying on the bed and I heard a mosquito flying around. Using my ears I tracked it to a shelf and killed it with a paper CD case. I was glorious because the inside of a bookshelf is a difficult place in which to swat a mosquito, but I did. The mosquito was full of blood.
We ate okonomiyaki at Doh-ton-bori and it was good, as usual. After eating I was waiting at the register behind a man. As the man walked away, a woman emerged from around a corner left and walked straight to the register even though she definitely saw that I was already waiting. I stomped to the register and put my wallet on it and looked back and forth between the waiter and the harpy with a shocked, accusatory face. I was truly appalled at this woman trying to jump ahead of me. Plus, her attempt at the crime made no sense, I was the only other person there and I clearly saw her coming. She backed off and her husband appeared from around the corner and he looked as you would expect, like a pleb. I triumphantly paid for my meal.
Upon returning home I killed another mosquito. It was on the ceiling and I killed it with a rolled up Japanese textbook.
We ate okonomiyaki at Doh-ton-bori and it was good, as usual. After eating I was waiting at the register behind a man. As the man walked away, a woman emerged from around a corner left and walked straight to the register even though she definitely saw that I was already waiting. I stomped to the register and put my wallet on it and looked back and forth between the waiter and the harpy with a shocked, accusatory face. I was truly appalled at this woman trying to jump ahead of me. Plus, her attempt at the crime made no sense, I was the only other person there and I clearly saw her coming. She backed off and her husband appeared from around the corner and he looked as you would expect, like a pleb. I triumphantly paid for my meal.
Upon returning home I killed another mosquito. It was on the ceiling and I killed it with a rolled up Japanese textbook.
Monday 6 February 2012
Skiing
I almost suffocated to death in the car on the way to the ski resort. I was politely keeping my mouth shut because I have come to understand that in Japan the temperature inside vehicles must be inversely proportional to the weather outside. In summer trains are cold enough to make my legs freeze off and in winter buses so hot that I sweat all over my expensive dry-clean-only sweaters. And on a snowy January morning the driver's car is hot enough to cause death. Also in the car were Chie, the sister and the two kids. It was totally unbelievable to me that no one had said anything for the past hour about how hot the car was, the heating was on full blast at 26 degrees and we were all wearing full winter ski wear; vests, t-shirts, two sweaters and dual-layer waterproof ski suits.
The young son was in the back middle seat (wearing a seatbelt, which is rare) and wanted to watch an USAVICH DVD. It was a series of animated shorts which must surely be the product of hallucinogenic drugs and childhood sexual abuse by rabbits. Imagine Bugs Bunny but produced by suicidal babies. Halfway through I fell asleep or maybe passed out from the heat. In a semi-conscious daze I could hear the music from the DVD playing and eventually woke up to realise the menu screen had been playing on loop - for how long I don't know, because I was having nightmares about drugged-up rabbit babies. Why had no one turned it off? Then the boy child asked me to play the whole thing again... I drifted back to the cocaine bunnies.
Eventually the sister asked to have the heating turned down and I thought seriously about the possibility that her one-year-old daughter may already be dead. The child locks on the windows were disabled and I stuck my head out the window and took the cold air into my mouth as though it was water and that it is actually what it felt like. Out of politeness I tried not to overdo it but soon I began sucking in the air like a puppy suckling on a chilled tete. Then the windows had to be closed again because...?
Then the best moment happened and it's the moment that I've been building to until now. When everyone kept complaining about the heat the driver hovered his fingers over the heating controls and almost pressed TEMP DOWN but receded and almost pressed POWER DOWN but receded. He changed the direction of the air then put the temperature down from 26 to 24 but then back to 25.5 and this went on for maybe a minute and it was beautiful. A beautiful male dance called Convincing a woman that you are listening to her. I admired his art but the car was too hot, towards the end of the journey I was sticking my head out the window more frequently and with less polite restraint. The baby lived.
In my opinion and in fact, the worst thing about skiing is the amount of preparation that has to be done before any enjoyment can take place. The time from stepping out of the car to first sliding down a ski slope must be over forty five minutes. I did some skiing and honestly I can't say that I can ski, it's more that I can balance myself well.
While I may lack technical skill, I make up for it in forward movement and staying out of everyone's way. This is more than can be said for the SnowPosers©. I understand that everyone has to start somewhere and that people have to stop and consult a friend about what the hell they are doing and this includes me but do eight of you need to sit chin-wagging and take up half the width of the slope in your neon pink/blue/lime/orange outfits? I realise that I am stepping into a minefield of skier vs snowboarder politics but these people are not even building up to a big jump or hard run, they are sitting on the beginner slopes that are populated mostly by children and idiots like me. If you're on your arse doing nothing for five minutes then you are posing and your pouting poser face gives you away.
A member of my girlfriend's family told me this true story: An American snowboarder was on TV and he said that in America, wearing fancy gear is a sign that you are an experienced and skilled snowboarder. The cool image has to be earned. So when he came to Japan he was surprised to see that everyone was wearing fancy gear and he thought, "Wow, there sure are a lot of good snowboarders here." But he soon realised that most people were just wearing the outfit and they weren't the real deal.
Perhaps that American went to the same ski resort as me.
The young son was in the back middle seat (wearing a seatbelt, which is rare) and wanted to watch an USAVICH DVD. It was a series of animated shorts which must surely be the product of hallucinogenic drugs and childhood sexual abuse by rabbits. Imagine Bugs Bunny but produced by suicidal babies. Halfway through I fell asleep or maybe passed out from the heat. In a semi-conscious daze I could hear the music from the DVD playing and eventually woke up to realise the menu screen had been playing on loop - for how long I don't know, because I was having nightmares about drugged-up rabbit babies. Why had no one turned it off? Then the boy child asked me to play the whole thing again... I drifted back to the cocaine bunnies.
Eventually the sister asked to have the heating turned down and I thought seriously about the possibility that her one-year-old daughter may already be dead. The child locks on the windows were disabled and I stuck my head out the window and took the cold air into my mouth as though it was water and that it is actually what it felt like. Out of politeness I tried not to overdo it but soon I began sucking in the air like a puppy suckling on a chilled tete. Then the windows had to be closed again because...?
Then the best moment happened and it's the moment that I've been building to until now. When everyone kept complaining about the heat the driver hovered his fingers over the heating controls and almost pressed TEMP DOWN but receded and almost pressed POWER DOWN but receded. He changed the direction of the air then put the temperature down from 26 to 24 but then back to 25.5 and this went on for maybe a minute and it was beautiful. A beautiful male dance called Convincing a woman that you are listening to her. I admired his art but the car was too hot, towards the end of the journey I was sticking my head out the window more frequently and with less polite restraint. The baby lived.
In my opinion and in fact, the worst thing about skiing is the amount of preparation that has to be done before any enjoyment can take place. The time from stepping out of the car to first sliding down a ski slope must be over forty five minutes. I did some skiing and honestly I can't say that I can ski, it's more that I can balance myself well.
While I may lack technical skill, I make up for it in forward movement and staying out of everyone's way. This is more than can be said for the SnowPosers©. I understand that everyone has to start somewhere and that people have to stop and consult a friend about what the hell they are doing and this includes me but do eight of you need to sit chin-wagging and take up half the width of the slope in your neon pink/blue/lime/orange outfits? I realise that I am stepping into a minefield of skier vs snowboarder politics but these people are not even building up to a big jump or hard run, they are sitting on the beginner slopes that are populated mostly by children and idiots like me. If you're on your arse doing nothing for five minutes then you are posing and your pouting poser face gives you away.
A member of my girlfriend's family told me this true story: An American snowboarder was on TV and he said that in America, wearing fancy gear is a sign that you are an experienced and skilled snowboarder. The cool image has to be earned. So when he came to Japan he was surprised to see that everyone was wearing fancy gear and he thought, "Wow, there sure are a lot of good snowboarders here." But he soon realised that most people were just wearing the outfit and they weren't the real deal.
Perhaps that American went to the same ski resort as me.
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