Today’s Japanese lesson:

kon-yaku: engaged
ko-nyakku: cognac
kon-nyaku: “konnyaku” is a sort of pressed vegetable paste common to Japanese cuisine.

Really, these words aren’t so hard to tell apart, when written or spoken by others. But trying to distinctly pronounce these things myself is giving me hives. I mean, the last thing I want is to tell people is that my brother became pressed vegetable paste last week.

I just finished reading Iain Banks’ The Bridge, which was quite excellent. If you liked Murakami’s Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, you should definitely check it out. A man gets into a car accident and falls into a coma (first two pages), where he finds/imagines himself on a seemingly endless bridge connecting two distant, near-mythical land masses (remainder of the book). The book subtly weaves together the threads of his life on the bridge, the dreams he has while there, and his life before the car accident.

But the contents of the book are neither here or there. I didn’t read my copy of the book for close to a year because the U.S. cover – a garish, loopy monstrosity with a horrible Gibson quote – put me off anytime I thought about opening it up. The cover screams, “look at me, guys, I just learned how to use my cracked copy of Bryce 3D!!1″ It makes the book look like a bad Hunter S. Thompson trip.

Actually, the book is quiet and contemplative, tending towards the “realism” side of “magical realism.” On a lark, I checked out the U.K. cover, then shed a single tear for the death of American aesthetics.

Also: if anyone has read Banks’ Culture books, please give me an ORDERED reading list – I can’t figure out where to start.

“Working Designs is famous for taking absolutely forever to release a product. Since the announcement of Duke Nukem Forever, WD has released Albert Oddesy, Magic Knight Rayearth, Sega Ages (maybe), Raystorm, Elemental Gearbolt, Lunar: Silver Star Story, Sillhouette Mirage, Lunar 2: Eternal Blue, Alundra, Arc the Lad Collection, Raycrisis, ThunderForce V, Vanguard Bandits, Silpheed and Gungriffon Blaze, with Growlanser Generations out in two months. Working Designs CEO Victor Ireland has made approximately 3,710 Usenet posts since the announcement of Duke Nukem Forever.”

After weeks idling at 95% done, I finally finished off my latest mix CD. All’s Well in Hell (and Here’s Hoping). The theme of this disc is “the possibility of change,” or perhaps “the moment of choice.” There’s a lot of farewells and wondering “what if…,” but I don’t think the album is depressing … just contemplative. I also tried to give it a strong basis in driving guitar riffs so it would be united musically as well as thematically. In any case, it’s done, and I quite like it.

front cover
back cover

Anyone who wants to listen, please read the comments for the Seekrit MP3 URL! Thanks!

Having set up my fridge yesterday I went for the first time this evening to a nearby grocery store where I entered the bread section and found myself staring for over twenty seconds at a bag of flour tortillas, thinking, “to live and work in a nice Tokyo apartment a mere four blocks from a grocery store that regularly carries premade flour tortillas is truly the greatest joy a man can know.”

I continued in my joy to the condiment aisle where the absence of salsa more intense than “medium” served as a cutting reminder of all I have yet to accomplish.

I updated with the answers to ten more questions. Keep ‘em coming, if you like, but please try to stay away from “so, what is your life story?” vagaries.

Friday, I went with Brian and Christy to Yokohama. We started the day in Chinatown with a delicious lunch. While walking around, we saw a temple dedicated to the God of War – well, the former God of War; nowadays he’s the god of accounting and business success. Seriously. We visited some shops and Christy bought some straps and trinkets.

After exploring Chinatown, we walked through Yokohama towards the famous ferris wheel. We passed by an old dock, now dried out and smack in the middle of the business district. We also saw a very intimidating rollercoaster (actually modern sculpture). The Queen’s Square mall had a Lego store, where Brian got to touch the box of the $300, meter-long Star
Destroyer (and Christy and I got to talk him out of buying it). There was a small Lego diorama of Yokohama in the store, the highlight of which was definitely purikura booth filled with loose-socked schoolgirls. Brian and I won four Bionicle figures and two Lego man keychains from a box-draw lottery outside the store – about 5000y in merchandise for 2000y in tickets.

We then went and rode ferris wheel, which I think is the largest in the world. It’s definitely the largest in Japan – it takes 15 minutes to complete a single revolution. it is also very tall. After riding the ferris wheel, Brian and I rode the rollercoaster with our close personal friend Shingo Katori. That night, we came back to Jiyugaokam, ate megadelicious tonkotsu (pork bone stock) ramen, watched a VCD of Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, then rush
ed back out to my 24-hour Wendy’s right after the film finished at 1:00 A.M. The movie has that sort of effect on people. It was also far funnier than I expected, though hardly a classic.

Saturday was the day of our friend Emiko’s beer garden party. We woke up late, dressed in our yukata and jimbei, then went to lunch at the nearby cheap/delicious sushi resturant. Brian and Christy had the same reaction I did upon receiving the final bill – “please, let me pay you more money, this is no way for you to run a business.” We went to Harajuku to walk around and check out the freaks. Unfortunately, once three foreigners in Japanese formal dress showed up, the gothic lolitas and visual keiers were pulling out their keitais to snap photos of us. How humbling. On our way to the beer garden, we saw a band, “Yukimi,” rocking out in front of Shibuya station. They were actually quite good, so Brian and I each bought their 5-song EP for 500y. T
he police came to break them up while we watched, but thoughtfully permitted to finish their set first.

We saw this advertisement in Harajuku. Condoms, beer, and Grand Theft Auto – ah, the mysteries of the Orient!

The beer garden was just a block away from the Budokan, Japan’s major performance venue. There was a yearly 24-hour telethon going on that night, so the building was all lit up, and lots of people were lined up for a shot at 1.5 seconds of fame. After two hours at the beer garden, everyone went to Shibuya for karaoke. All the gorgeous girls in yukata posed for a photograph in the depths of Shibuya station. A later photo from the karaoke room photo is probably somewhat less exciting to those without a nostril fetish.

We met a dog named Taro next to the statue of Hachiko. He had some owners too, I think, but I can’t recall anything about them. We hopped the last train back to Jiyugaoka, went to a great izakaya called Gorton’s Cafe, then crashed at 3:00 A.M. or so. And then it was Sunday.

I went to Yokohama with Brian and Christy today; we went to Chinatown and had a lovely lunch, did some shopping, and then went to the amusement center. The three of us rode the huge ferris wheel, then Brian and I went to ride the rollercoaster. Christy, not wanting to vomit, stayed back. Brian and I got in line, but right as we got to the top of the stair, suddenly were stuck behind a mess of people. What was going on? We stood around for a few minutes, then suddenly Brian shouted “oh shit!” and clotheslined me to the side. “WHAT?” I said, and Brian said, “LOOK!” A comedian with a blonde mohawk – Udo Suzuki – was coming up the stairs. Woah! Apparently we had accidentally wandered into a nest of famousness and wer
e now trapped and unable to escape. After a few more minutes of waiting, a member of the amusement park staff came to apologize for the delay and ushered us forward.

Brian and I waited a few more minutes at the top of the platfor, when suddenly who should come up the stairs but Katori and his entourage. Like, “Shingo Mama” Shingo. Right there! Apparently, they were filming Shingo, Suzuki, and some pretty girl idol thing riding around on the coaster making faces into a camera strapped to front. Shingo walked to the front of the special gate and scanned the crowd while waiting to board. He looked over at me and Brian in line, and seemed a bit surprised to see two foreigners. Brian waved at him like a sheepish high schooler.

“Hi!” Shingo said.

“…hey!” we said.

“How’s it going?” he said, ever eager to practice his English – or at least pretend to practice; he has a line of popular “slangy” English books in Japan and must keep up the illusion of bilinguality.

“It’s going,” said Brian.

Shingo nodded as if things were going with him, too.

“Do you like riding jet coasters?” I asked.

“… … … … … yeah,” he said.

He went off to the corner to smoke a cigarette. I think the English was getting to him.

He soon entered the boarding area and took some questions from a tuxedoed gentleman, then go into the camera-wired car with his two famous friends. Brian and I watched from in line as the celebrities went around the track. Once they came back, we were ushered into the second car, the safety bars were lowered, and we rode the Yokohama amusement park roller coaster with Shingo!!

As we rounded the first hill, we noticed a few hundred adoring female fans on the sidewalk below, keitais aimed and clicking. We waved.

I managed to snag a poor quality, blurry photo with my keitai … his staff had a strict “no photography” and was yelling at absolutely people who cameras out, so there was no time to aim or focus. Apologies. I also got a movie of one of his later trips around the track. He was wearing a pink trucker cap, a bright yellow Disney bambi shirt, and black-and-white striped Hamburglar pants. I’d say that he looked like he had just rolled out of bed and grabbed whatever was in his closet, but I would sincerely hope that Shingo had a better closet than that.

So, that was my brush with super-fame today! Brian and I spent the remainder of the trip demeaning everyone we saw who hadn’t spoken with Shingo. Which was pretty much everyone.

More on the weekend later.

Just finished an clean reinstall of Windows XP SP2, so I’m making sure w.bloggar is correctly configured.

Over the past new weeks, I’ve pretty much bought an entirely new computer, bit by bit. I had to buy a 550W power supply this weekend to fuel my new processor and motherboard. I was quite lucky – Tsukumo, my favorite store in Aki for parts, was clearing out the previous 550W Antec model, as the “V2″ had just came in. The two models are 99% similar, and the small improvements don’t even matter to Athlon users. So I got a 1.8 man power supply for 1.0 man.

Also, I got a 160 GB serial ATA drive for 1.1 man, as my old IDE master drive was getting a bit long-in-the-tooth. Currently, my machine now has three drives: the 160 GB SATA, a 120 GB IDE, and a 60 GB IDE. In a fit of fanboy pique, I have named them RYU, LIN, and NINA.

I just discovered not three blocks from my apartment a sushi restaurant. I thought it was kaiten sushi, but it’s not – it’s a big circular counter with eight real live sushi chefs behind it. Instead of plates, you got a well-washed banana leaf laid out before you on the counter. The sushi was great – the fish was fresh and unfrozen, and the cuts were huge. The salmon I got was at least six inches long and just draped off the sides of the rice. The saba and hamachi was also thick and delicious – it’s great to feel like you’re eating fish, not just rice with a
thin slice of fish flavor draped on top. The prices were outrageously cheap – the saba, tamago, and iwashi were just 52y a piece, and even the most expensive thing I got, the salmon, was only 157y. I ended up getting 10 huge pieces of sushi and a temaki anago roll for 1050y. ONE THOUSAND FIFTY YEN! The kicker: it’s open until 4:00 A.M. every night!

The hard part will be bringing myself to eat at other restaurants from now on.

Edit: I found a picture of this restaurant’s mega sushi.

(Please excuse the high level of Japanese in this post, something I try to avoid. But I literally don’t know the English names of most of these fishes.)

I had a lot of fun the last time I did Chris’ five questions, so I’ll go ahead and throw this current meme out there:

Ask me something you think you should know about me, but don’t know. (I reserve the right not to answer, or to screen highly sensitive questions.)

Additionally, I reserve the right to not answer every-last-question if it turns out there’s like 50 replies. But I’ll try!

Well, I maxed out my Kung Fu girl’s stats today. She had a string of failures which knocked her down a bit near the end, but the final score’s not too bad: she’s got 7 strength, 5 speed, and 9 intelligence. Also, I’ve learned that while success/failure is random, the points gained/lost per minigame are the same each time you win or lose. Knowing this, I was able to choose the “right” game at the end to get a last-minute +2 boost to my lacking intelligence stat, and if I start another character, this knowledge will be a big help.

I’ll let you know how she fares in the tournament!