Mr. Wake

Funny Blog

2008-02-27T10:23:00.002+09:00

I didn't like the white-people-are-uptight humor when Eddie Murphy first said that white people have tight butts, and I don't like it as the same joke continues to get beaten into the ground by people who think they are being edgy.

White-people-are-pretentious, however, is funny. Read this.

oh crap.

Alien Pajama Girls

2008-02-26T10:02:00.001+09:00

At Japundit.

...we spotted a pair of real live kigurumin (girls who wear a type of pajama-suit that resembles an animal and sometimes cartoon characters) strolling along off in the distance.

Safe for Work (but maybe not for your soul).

Ape Escape

2008-02-26T08:13:00.006+09:00

The Tama Zoo has become famous for it's yearly escape response drill. A zoo worker puts on an animal suit and runs around until zoo keepers pretend to shoot it with a tranquilizer. It's on the news, and based on the spectators, it seems to attract a crowd. Justifiably, in my opinion.

Via 3 Yen, a story about this and the unintended consequences shooting a guy in a furry animal suit has on the youngsters at The Daily Mail.

"the horror had all been a fantasy"

video from last year.

I didn't catch the Oscars. Who ended up winning Best Actor in an Simulated Animal Escape at a Zoo, Aquarium, or Laboratory?

Sick Kid

2008-02-21T20:30:00.002+09:00

Baby's got the pukes. Wife took her to the doctor, whose office is a two minute walk away, and he said that she's got the pukes and a fever. Watch for dehydration. He could either give her a shot that stops the pukes and then Wife could fill her with water. Or she could take her to the hospital and they can put water directly into her blood. Wife decided for shot and drinking. When they got home Baby was clearly getting some weird fever mojo. She said, "My hands. Where are they.? Oh, there they are." But soon Wife thought it might be a convenient time to go to the hospital. Everyone was at the house (except me) including her parents and two or three housekeepers and/or care workers. They were there to take care of her great aunt, Mino. So Wife went back to the doctor and asked to be hooked up at the hospital. He made the call.

Then I'm at work on my way to the dining hall and I get a call from my boss, Wife's brother. He told me to come to the office. You see I had no idea what was going on with the baby and the doctor. Boss told me that my baby was at the hospital, and that I should eat my lunch and go. So that's what I did. A coworker was nice enough to lead me there in his car, since there is no way I would have been able to follow directions in this country.

At the hospital I found Wife holding sleeping Baby with one of the housekeepers and/or care workers fussing over them. They had been admitted to the kiddie ward of the emergency room. Panic level: 0. In fact everyone was a little bored. Baby already had an IV drip going, and that would last about two hours. So we hung out for two hours and tried to guess what was wrong with the other kids. The one next to us was unusually calm for having a burst appendix. Wife didn't know how to say "burst appendix" in English, so she told me "her guts exploded." I said, "how the hell does that happen," and then we worked it out.

A nurse came by and said that there was a really important case coming in, and that the doctors and nurses would be busy with that. So it's possible we would have to chill for longer than two hours. Wife asked if baby could have another IV in that case. Why not? She'll just pee what she doesn't need. It's not like she's going to swell up like a little pink watermelon. The nurse said why not. When she left, Wife explained to me that she learned how to be a good patient from watching Gray's Anatomy and House. You have to be assertive. If you want something ask for it, even if you don't really know anything about medicine. If it's stupid the doctor won't do it anyway. Can't hurt.

Then we saw all the nurses and doctors go somewhere. The special case had arrived. A little later they all came back. We also saw someone walk buy with an insulated bag. So we thought maybe he was there to harvest the little organs (this line of thinking also comes from Gray's A and House). But then we realized that you probably can't harvest a baby's organs. You might as well harvest the whole baby, and that's what everyone was trying to do anyway. We actually have no idea how the special case turned out.

Once our two hours was up they shut off the IV (we ended up with just the one), and the doctor told us that Baby's innards were sufficiently moistened, and we would split. So naturally Wife asked if she could score some extra fever meds in case Baby's fever came back. He said why not.

Baby's doing fine now. She slept for about two days, during which the Gray's Anatomy Hours Watched Index skyrocketed. I can't watch the thing. I tried a few episodes, but it's so freakin girly I'm afraid I'm going to start menstruating if I watch anymore. Baby woke up yesterday and the first thing she said was, "Bread. Big bread. Big bread. Lots of bread." So she's got her appetite back. But the volume coming out the other end more than makes up for decline in puking.

Apparently she has the Norovirus. Which isn't fatal but is very annoying and quite contagious. Wife is hopeless. She's done for. I'm trying to lay low and avoid Baby juice.

Anpanmanland

2008-02-21T11:14:00.001+09:00

Last weekend wife, kid and I went to The Anpanman Children's Museum in Yokohama. If you ever hire a hit man to kill someone and need an alibi, go to the Anpanman Children's Museum. There are more cameras than children, and I must have been caught in a hundred pictures and home movies.

Anpanman is an odd superhero. He is a sentient pastry that can fly and has super strength. Often he rescues people by allowing them to eat a piece of his head. So he gets a little theme park in Yokohama.

Aika had no idea where she was going. So when we arrived she was justifiably surprised to see images her TV hero everywhere she looked.

"Mama, Anpanman."
"Yes, Aika."
"Mama, Anpanman."
"Yes. Hold on I'm buying tickets..."
"Mama....
Mama...
Mama...
Mama...
Mama..."
"What is it?"
"Anpanman."

We had to wait about 20 minutes to sit in the Anpanman car. It doesn't do anything. You just sit there.
The dog's name by the way is Cheese.

There are hundreds of food-based heroes in the Anpanverse. Here are some from the New World. Not sure what the deal is with Norro or Frida Kahlo.

I'm climbing on something. And there's not a damn thing you can do about it.

Secund thoughts.
I has dem. *

So much bacteria ... so little time.

I get it. Everyone can go. Even dismembered infants and little boys with railroad spikes in their heads.

Anpanmanfans

Transformers

2008-02-14T15:34:00.002+09:00

A skirt the transforms into a Coke machine.

It's not exactly a tank that changes into a giant robot, but it's a start. And it's way further along than the US is on transformer technology.

Ms. Tsukioka said her idea of the vending machine disguise was inspired by a trick used by Japan’s ancient ninja, who cloaked themselves at night under black blankets.

It's an interesting idea, but the article grew tedious. I read half of it. The slide show is cool, though.

Obama in Obama

2008-02-11T09:14:00.000+09:00

Cool or not cool.
Warning, potentially offensive.

4. White people have noses that are roughly the same size as a bus.

2008-02-11T09:03:00.000+09:00

The Daily Top Ten Blog tells us
The Top Ten Stereotypes the Japanese Have of Foreigners.

Based on my experience, these are spot on.

Bullet Train Rage

2008-02-06T16:22:00.000+09:00

Bullet train service in disarray after passenger clobbers conductor

Police are currently questioning the "bullet train rage" passenger and may arrest him for assault.

I think the guys coming up with these "rages" are scraping the bottom of the barrel. When I think of the bullet train, I think of maybe a "bullet train doze" or "bullet train attendant selling beer who will bow to me whether I buy something or not." But you can't deny this guy was pissed.

Services along the Nagano Shinkansen bullet train line were disrupted Tuesday after a passenger punched a conductor and hurled souvenirs and sandwiches at him because he didn't have a ticket for the first-class seat he was in, police and railway officials said.

They pull a knife, you pull a gun.
They send one of yours to the hospital, you hurl sandwiches and souvenirs.
That's the Nagano way.

It's kind of cute that throwing sandwiches is newsworthily violent behavior.

Also, this is the level of "disarray" we are working with:

Delayed while officials dealt with the incident, a large portion of the roughly 400 passengers who had been on board the bullet train when the incident occurred got off and caught the next Tokyo-bound Shinkansen that arrived at JR Takasaki Station about 9 minutes later.

Monkey vs. Demon

2008-02-05T10:23:00.000+09:00

Japanese TV answers yet another question that has plagued mankind for centuries:

What happens when you put a cute girl in a demon mask and have her try scare a chimpanzee into attacking her with beans.

It's not what you think.

Boobies

2008-02-02T13:05:00.001+09:00

Hey chief, what do we do with the water we used to clean the yogurt machine?

Sell it.

OK, no one's buying.

Fizz it. Put "Sparkling" on the label.

OK. Not working.

Add alcohol.

But it's yog-

Just do it!

OK. Um, this isn't working. Maybe we should just chuck the stuff.

Nonsense. Sex sells. But boobs on the bottle.

But, that doesn't make any sen-.

Just do it!

OK.

Prince of Chickens

2008-01-31T15:30:00.000+09:00

Lucky Abdullah of The Bogor Institute named Prince Fumihito Akishino a senior chicken researcher.

I swear to God.

from The Daily Gaijin.

OMG KY LOL

2008-01-31T11:55:00.000+09:00

Japanese kids make up their own LOL-speak based on their words and our letters.

From Japan Probe.

Got Lime?

2008-01-30T21:49:00.000+09:00

Technically Corona is an import in the US because it comes from another country. But it's not really an import. In Japan is really is. It's in that special section of the display case right between the Budweiser and the Heineken. Of course, since limes here are expensive it comes with a little packet of lime juice.

Next post: boobies!

White River, Black Store

2007-11-10T12:41:00.000+09:00

I drove up to the Shirakawa house this weekend. I have about 17 minutes of work that I can do at the factory here, and I hadn't actually been to my house in more than three months. In that time my knowledge of kanji has improved enough to notice that the choice of towns the exit ramp gives me mean "White River" and "Black Magnet". I go to White River (Shirakawa).

On the way in I stopped at the Black Store for no particular reason. The Black Store is a large, two-story box painted black roof to road, with the items it sells in plain, white letters. They sell so much stuff, the letters take up most of the surface

Plastic figures:

Collectible cards:

Fake guns:

Fishing poles:

Hemp products:

$800 jean jacket:

In addition I found console games, snowboards, stereos, and comics. And something else.

On the second floor, in the back of the DVD section is a curtain hanging down to about shoulder level. The curtain says something about you. If you go past, you have made an effort to cross a barrier to enter this part of the store. You didn't "accidentally" find yourself here. You made a choice, and here you are. This is the Library of Alexandria of J-porn.

The aisles are narrow and winding, and there are enough of them that I actually got lost. Every corner I turned was a another wall of smiles, uniforms, long silky black hair, and ... other things. There are apparently few restrictions in Japan regarding the visual techniques a producer of DVDs may use on their boxes to encourage sales. And if for some reason the cover leaves you hazy regarding its contents, you can always check out one of the many video screens tucked away in this fleshy labyrinth. I doubled back, retracing my steps, but no. The curtain back to the world of Bruce and Angelina wasn't there, just another wall of videos or comics or photo books.

What's the least erotic music you can think of? Did you pick the theme to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang? It twinkles on an endless loop from one of those claw grabber games that are so popular here. But I remembered passing the thing on my way in. It was full of wrapped DVDs, so you don't know what your are going to end up with. I followed the song past the checkout -- a curtain hangs down to just above the counter top, that a purchase may be conducted in secret -- and I was back in familiar territory. Bruce and Angelina. No smiles here. Intensity, disaster, and zombies.

I had done a calculation on the back of a vinyl nurse's uniform I found. 75 units, each with 10 shelves. A shelf could be jammed with 35 videos, but most had a few boxes that let their perky, young performers face the front. Let's say 20 vids per shelf. Show times ranged from 60 minutes to 4 hours (I tip my hat to you, sir). Let's say 90 minutes.

15,000 videos. 22,500 hours. If it was your job to watch, and you worked for 40 hours per week, it would take more than 10 years to enjoy the Black Store's inventory of skin flicks. And that's assuming they stop making the stuff.

Halloween

2007-11-01T20:05:00.001+09:00

Last year for Halloween, while me and Wife's cousin were at work, our wives took their kids treak-or-treating. Neither one had ever done this before.

At about 2:00 in the afternoon the kids met up in costume and headed out into the neighborhood. But you can't just go walking around in Japan asking people for candy. So Wife had made arrangements with some friends and family. Trick-or-treating visits were scheduled. One of the visits was to Wife's great aunt who is getting on in years and likes visits from the little kids. But her memory isn't what it used to be. She usually doesn't remember who the kids belong to, and we couldn't count on her to snack up the children. So Wife had to go to her aunt's place ahead of time to give her the treats to give to the children. She was up late the night before assembling snack packs in theamed bags. No Smarties and Mary Janes. Or those orange and black de-toothers whose manufacturer was too embarrassed to brand. Each kid got a professional assortment with a little toy. With the little packs pre-delivered the party arrived at the aunt's house, and she promptly invited everyone in for tea. Wife found the bags she had hidden there before and had her aunt distribute. This was the great aunt's first Halloween, in fact she may not have even heard of it before. She wasn't quite sure what to make of the costumes and thought Aika was a ninja. That is one of those little tidbits that reminds you that you're in a foreign country. A 94-year-old woman sees a 1-year-old kid in an all black costume and ninja is the first thing that pops into her head. At 94 she may very well remember plagues of ninjas from her youth, her mother tirelessly shooing the secretive little assassins away with a broom. After enjoying tea and cakes and the kids making a mess of things, everyone came back to our house for a party.

I was very disappointed when I came home from work and found I had missed all of it. All of this was done by the very non-scary light of day. But at least I got the pictures.

Last year Aika was Darth Vader. This is most likely my favorite costume that she will ever wear.

This is the part where she tries to convince Piglet to join her and together they will rule the galaxy. Or it might be the part where she tells Piglet to take off her mask that she may see him with her own eyes. Aika was, frankly, terrible with the lines, and it was hard to tell.

Last year went so well that they decided to do the same thing this year. Oddly, Aika was too big to be Darth Vader, so she went as a witch. Her enjoyment of headgear made very little progress over the past year, but enough to take a picture.

She's nabbed a shoehorn. She has the power to grant wishes as long as you wish that it were easier to put on your shoes.

Squares

2007-10-29T20:48:00.000+09:00

New Coffee

2007-09-15T10:47:00.001+09:00

Newest coffee product: Vintage

Worldcon 2007

2007-09-11T20:12:00.000+09:00

By popular demand!
Worldcon, the world science fiction convention, was held last week in Yokohama. I was on the convention organizing committee, so for what it's worth I got all areas access. I'll toss up a few anecdotes.

The Mad Scientist Cafe.
Amazing idea. It's a hostess bar for people who are beyond nerd. Like a hostess bar, you pay for companionship. Like a hostess bar, your companion makes sure your glass is never empty and your dish never unsnacked. Unlike a hostess bar, the companionship is not that of a hot (sometimes), stupid (sometimes) babe. The companionship is that of a scientist in a white lab coat. They put a sticker on the back of your hand with the time you walked in written on it, and it costs Y500 for 20 minutes. I went with my friend Spider, and there were three points of interest.

The scientist who joined us was a young woman. The brochure says the scientists are often shy, and it gives some starter questions like "What do you study?" and "What are you fastidious about?" We didn't find out what our scientist was fastidious about, but she studies genetics and can make clones. Humans? No. But she could if she wanted to. Cats and Dogs? Rarely. Mice? All the time. She is up to her little genius kooter in cloned mice.

Our snack was bugs. I've eaten some unusual stuff in Asia, but I've always drawn the line at insects. A pretty girl in a white lab coat placed two petri dishes in front of us, one with bee larva and one with silkworm larva, both boiled. Spider had one of each, and I refused. The pretty girl said that the bee larva was actually not bad. Spider concurred, and recommended against the larger silkworms. Our otherwise delicate scientist popped a bee larva in her mouth to encourage me. Fine. I ate one. I have no recollection of what it tasted like.

We each ordered a drink that came with a big, glossy brochure. I don't even know if there was alcohol in it. Our scientist served us each a glass with some mixer at the bottom and a plastic bottle of water. In turn she unscrewed the caps and poured the water in to each of our glasses. As the water hit the mixer it became solid as if it were instantly turning into gelatin. In our glasses little, translucent, gray termite mounds piled up and then fell over themselves as the water splashed on top. The scientist said it was ice, and indeed it was like a slushy. She screwed the caps back on the bottles and told us to shake them. As we did so the water inside turned from regular, cold water into icy slush. Our scientist insisted that this was regular bottled water, and there was nothing special about the mixer. But she did tell us the secret. The water is already below freezing. But apparently if you bring water to below freezing slowly enough it will remain liquid until agitated. They have a special, science freezer that brings the water down over a period of ten hours.

Then our twenty minutes were up.

Next: Famous People I Met

Lesson 1

2006-12-02T21:18:00.000+09:00

Time to learn some Japanese!
In English there are several words regarding animal husbandry. Chickens are raised on a farm, cows and horses on a ranch. Farm animals and children are raised, pets are owned, and professionals breed dogs, cats, and horses. You have the same kind of thing in Japanese. Here it is:

This will be on the final.

The Final Frontier

2006-10-02T21:59:00.000+09:00

This stuff happened a while back, but I've been busy.

Took the ol' telescope for a spin. It came with a special telescopey digital camera that I had never used. I figured out how to connect scope, camera and laptop all together and had the whole arrangement spread out over the picnic table in the front yard. Kamakura is a city and there are lights. But Jupiter was up, and Jupiter is really really big. It's one of the biggest things around. And for this reason you can see it from a really really long way away even when there are street lights. Sorry for the all the explanations, but my mom reads this.

But before I hit the Jupe (that's what real astronomers say, "hit the Jupe") I went for a little lunar action ("lunar action" is all mine). Now, the moon is so much smaller than Jupiter it's not even funny, but it is much much closer. Because of this, it is even easier to see than Jupiter. However, the computer/scopecam combo blows for taking pictures of the moon (Note: I'm sure it's actually very good at this, but it blew when I tried it). So I took the rig apart and tried some afocal photography. This is a very fancy way of saying "holding a camera up to the eyepiece." In poking around the internet I found that people actually do stupid stuff like this, and they actually get decent results. Here's what I got with the scope and a regular digital camera.

Not bad if I do say so. Go ahead, click on it.

For Jupiter I got a little more technical than holding the camera up to the eyepiece. I should hope so, right? So I put the scopecam back on the scope, and plugged it into the laptop. The explanation that follows is less sarcastic and more interesting than the previous stuff. The scope has a computer in it and does not need any help from a dope like me on finding Jupiter. So it has a fix on Jupe, and through the scope software I could see Jupiter on my laptop. If you see Jupiter through the scope with your own eye it looks like a white disk with two faint grey lines (if you're lucky). The resolution on the scopecam is not so hot, so on the laptop it just looks like a white circle with nothing. Also, the atmosphere shimmers a bit, so the image goes in and out of focus. In order to get a nice, detailed picture here's what the scopecam does. It takes a bunch of pictures and stacks them on top of each other to make a single image. The stuff that is different in each picture gets filtered out, while the stuff that is the same (i.e. the planet) is highlighted. The trouble with this approach is that the image of Jupiter keeps jumping around. If the scope were still, Jupiter would gradually drift out of view due to the rotation of the Earth. The scope has motors so that it can compensate for this, but it's a little jerky (due to my lameness). So when you stack up a bunch of images you end up with a blurred piece of crap. It took me hours of experimentation, believing all my equipment was broken, and finally reading the first two pages of the manual to solve this problem. The software allows you to lock onto an object. If the image jumps around, the lock stays with the brightest object. So first I had to get a lock on Jupiter. Now, I had been waiting more that 20 years to "get a lock" on anything and the first thing I lock on to is a planet. The biggest planet around! Don't worry, I do not yet posses the technology to destroy Jupiter once locking on to it.

So I hit the Jupe twice. Slap slap. Once on the way in, once on the way out. I stacked fifty images to produce each of these. One of the post-stacked images has a exposure such that you can see some surface detail, but you can't see the moons. In the other you can see the moons, but no surface data. I combined them in Photoshop and then flipped it since everything you see in the telescope is a mirror image. Then to make sure I was on the right track I cracked open Starry Night, a program that can show how the planets and moons look on certain days. I entered the date of the photos and compared. See for yourself:

Me:

(sorry about the nerdy stuff in the corner. Astronomers do that).

Starry Night:

I don't know what I was expecting. What would I have done if they had been different? But the fact that they are the same allows us to do some identification. Those two little moons from left to right are Europa and Ganymede. You probably know that Europa has a surface of ice with possible liquid water beneath, but maybe you did not know that Ganymede does, too. Europa is about the same size as The Moon (The Moon), and Ganymede is about one and a half times as big. In fact, Ganymede is the biggest moon in the solar system. It is also bigger than ~~two~~ a planets, Mercury ~~and Pluto~~. Europa has the distinction of being the "smoothest object in the solar system." Yeah, I thought Fabio was pretty smooth, too.

But this is the coolest part. If you have read this far you will be rewarded. Click on the Starry Night picture. See that little black dot on the upper left side of Jupiter. It looks like a flaw in the image. Now click on the picture I took. The black dot is in that one, too. That, my friends, is the shadow of Io. You are looking at the interaction of four heavenly bodies: the light from the sun, the moon Io, the surface of Jupiter, and then to Earth in the garden in Kamakura.

Update: My scope got a busted motor and I had to take it in to be fixed. The sky has been cloudy since I got it back, and Jupiter is gone, maybe for good.

A Quiz

2006-08-06T12:00:00.000+09:00

Quick! What do these three words have in common?
Horse
Bacon
Sushi

Scroll down for the answer...

That's what this is. It is a serving of horse bacon sushi. No shit. Horse bacon sushi.

Of Tigers and Toilets

2006-07-08T12:00:00.000+09:00

A friend of mine sent me this link as if it were wierd. I don't know. Who among us can claim that they have never had singing tigers watch them use the toilet.

Shaka

2006-06-11T12:03:00.000+09:00

Shaka Zulu? Shaka Khan? Boom Shaka-laka? Nope. It's Shaka Shaka Potato.

Despite the Spartan English, it's pretty clear what you do. The fries come with a seasoning packet, spicy basil or American B-B-Q. You "in" the fries into the bag (note: in the event that the fries are served in the bag, which is always, instead of "inning" the fries you will want to "out" the napkins and seasoning packet). Next you "sprinkle" the seasoning in with the fries. Then you shaka like you just don't care.

The writing next to that little clock above the "Shaka Shaka Potato" indicates that from 2:00 PM on is "snack time." You will face cruel (but very polite) disappointment should you attempt to get your shaka shaka on before 2:00.

There is the stereotype of the American who travels to exotic lands only to eat nothing but McDonald's hamburgers. First off, most of the Westerners I've seen at Japanese McDonalds' have not been English speakers. Second, foreign McDonalds' are fascinating places. You can see what is important to the local culture by what they change. Likewise, what remains the same shows what aspects of the West local customers desire. The burgers are made with goat in India; in Thailand McD's is hangout for wealthy high schoolers; I hear one can purchase a glass of beer at the French McDonald's, and I'm not talking about a paper cup. In Japan you can get a bun made of rice. Recently they introduced the oddly phrased Ebi Filet-O sponsored by this homely lass. (Ebi means shrimp, and it is also this model's name.) The workers are polite, crisp, and professional. When this reporter ordered his Shaka Shaka Potato and a small coke, the coke was served immediately, but he had to wait on a new batch of fries. When the fries finally came, the cashier dumped his coke and prepared a fresh one, fearing melted ice and diminished fizz. That the Japanese love rice, sea food, and customer satisfaction are less than Earth-shattering observations. But what do we learn from their afternoon desire to shake a bag of potatoes?

Duck Season ... Rabbit Season ... BUG SEASON!

2006-06-04T14:28:00.000+09:00

Spring time. When a young man's heart turns to thoughts of love. In Japan it turns to thoughts of entomology. The rhinoceros beetles makes a spiffy spring time pet. A hardware store I went to was a one-stop shop for all your beetle needs, be they rhinoceros or stag. The cool thing about these bugs is that they hate each other. So it's easy for a young lad to get together with his chums and make their bugs fight.

Kits...

Cages...

Super bugwater...

But in these busy times what kid has the time to track down his own bugs? Not to worry. The hardware store has the solution in these pre-moistened containers.

But in these busy times what kid has time to go to the hardware store? Not to worry. There is Mushiking, the King of Beetles, a combination video game and collectible card game. You swipe the card of your champion bug into the machine and pit it against your friend's bug. The contest is based on rock, paper, scissors, but somehow your bug's individual strengths and weaknesses are taken into account. Also, the machine dispenses fresh beetle cards.

Make sure you read the story of Mushiking. It tells the story of all the bugs of the forest living in harmony with each other and with a single elf. But trouble starts when foreign bugs arrive in the forest, and now the bugs must rise up against the foreign ... hey, wait a minute.

Mr. Bluebird

2006-05-19T21:42:00.000+09:00

There is a cross beam in your car that runs side to side right behind the dashboard. It's called a steering member. It has a complex array of brackets that hook up to the steering column, the radio, glove box, airbags and such. Some parts a spot welded on tight, and others are bolted on so that they will give in a controlled way in the event of an accident.

So at the hospital where Wife had the baby about a month ago (Did you hear? We had a baby.) there was this particularly narrow passage on the parking lot. Wife and child were there for a week after the big event, and I was going there every day. So it was only a matter of time before I tweaked the post that defined one end of this gap. I popped off part of the passenger door handle and scraped off the little rubber button that unlocks the door.

The first day back at work some of the guys were razing me about busting my nice car. I asked them if they could just jump into the factory and whip me up a new door handle. They said it would be no problem as long as I wanted 10,000 of them.

A few days later the accountant that I used to sit next to, the one with the abacus and cash box, asked about the car ding and then wanted to make a copy of my driver's license.

A few days after that Mr. Abacus asked exactly how I roughed up the door. I told him, and he said, "No. I mean exactly." So I went out side and talked him through it.

The next day a guy from Nissan shows up at the factory to take my car away to be repaired. He left me with a temp car, the Nissan Sylphy Bluebird. Or Bluebird Sylphy, I don't know which way it goes.

This is a steering member for a Sylphy.

This is a lot of them.

This is where the hard working gents and robots put the Sylphy steering members together. It makes them blue to think of Sylphys out there without steering members, so they crank these babies out all the live-long day. And not just for Sylphys. Notes, Cubes, Wingroads, Safaris, and Tiidas, too.

And here is some rad robot Sylphy steering member shiznit.

BTW, wear protective eyewear when viewing this video.

What Kind of Fish is This Again?

2006-05-14T19:23:00.000+09:00

It's always fun to see what happens when Western products are chewed up in the mill of Japanese culture. You get things like the McTeriyaki burger and California Cola ("#1 in the USA!"). But it doesn't go the other way as often. Actually, it probably does, but we are too clueless to recognize it. Well, I spotted this little gem on a recent trip to Newcastle, UK.

Now, it wouldn't be Japanese unless it was slathered in mayonnaise...

mmmmmm...

T plus 1 week

2006-04-30T16:25:00.000+09:00

Not much to tell...hold on, baby woke up...

Later...Aika Jane has added squirming and stinking to her short list of skills....hold on, baby woke up...

Later...While it's possible these will be Olympic events by the time she's old enough to compete, I wouldn't want to hang my hat on it. So we are working on equestrian and table tennis, but it's slow going....HO,BWU...

L...Particle physics is also a stumper. Perhaps we should wait on mastering the concept of spin until she masters rolling over. Though I think her concept of a nipple-shaped universe has promise....HO,BWU...

L...And what does any of this have to do with a disgusting fish? This is the Japanese idea of a celebratory gift for a new mother. The fish is a red snapper, in Japanese a tai. And omedetai is the word for an event worthy of congradulations, esp. a birth. So it's all a nifty pun. My farovite part of this picture is the little plastic flower. It's to make it look pretty.

New pics on Flickr.
And how boss is this?

More movies here.

BABI@home

2006-04-25T21:14:00.000+09:00

We brought Aika Jane home last Saturday. Since then we've spent most of our time filling her stomach, and she's been busy filling diapers. It may be my imagination, but I think she has gotten less jowlsy. Perhaps we haven't been feeding her enough and forced her to consume the nuts she was storing for winter. So far she has expressed an interest in faces, stripes, orchids, TV, and fluorescent lighting.

I think this would be a great picture for her first album cover. But she has been too busy preparing her Nobel Prize acceptance speech to advance her music career. There are more pictures on Flickr. Search the tag "aikajane." WARNING: You do not care about these pictures. Since they are not pictures of her dressed in silly clothes, tormenting animals, or hurting herself, they are not interesting. Give me a few months and I'll come up with the good stuff.

Remotes

2006-04-08T10:38:00.000+09:00

It just occurred to me how many freaking remotes I have on my nightstand.

A Beggar and a Chooser

2006-04-04T21:49:00.000+09:00

Often at Japanese shrines one can purchase a wooden tile with a picture of something on one side and nothing on the other. You write your wish on the side with nothing and hang the tile up at the shrine's designated tile-hanging zone. I wish I could read Japanese, because I bet they are interesting. No problem understanding this one, however. Good luck, Barry.

Hail Britannia

2006-03-29T15:23:00.000+09:00

Guess who gets to go to England? Sasaki-san does. He's one of our engineers. But guess who doesn't speak any English, so guess who gets to go with him? That's right. From the first of May for nine days. No more blood donating for me (which is unfortunate). Now I'm cool with helping out Sasaki-san with ordering a warm pint, getting fish n chips, telling the waitress his steak wasn't boiled enough, etc. But I'm not comfortable doing simultanious interpretation in a technical meeting. I wouldn't even understand the English. I explained my misgivings to Shacho and he said, "No problem. Don't worry about it." Which either means that there will be Japanese speakers there or that Shacho has faith in me and just knows I can do it. Which I can't. But, hey, free England.

Plasma Wakefield Acceleration

2006-03-23T08:25:00.000+09:00

I was doing some research on particle accelerators to respond to Charlie's excellent comment on the Pizza entry. I found the below entry on the wikipedia. You don't have to click on it. I have copied the relevant passage below with my comments in brackets.

As of 2005, it is believed that plasma wakefield acceleration in the form of electron-beam 'afterburners' and standalone laser pulsers will provide dramatic increases in efficiency within two to three decades.[I know] In plasma wakefield accelerators, the beam cavity is filled with a plasma (rather than vacuum).[I know] A short pulse of electrons or laser light [usually electrons. The laser guy is a tool.] either constitutes or immediately trails the particles that are being accelerated. [I know] The pulse disrupts the plasma, [Yes] causing the charged particles in the plasma to integrate into and move toward the rear of the bunch of particles that are being accelerated. [A simplification, but basically true] This process transfers energy to the particle bunch, [I know] accelerating it further, and continues as long as the pulse is coherent.[Yes]

I'm Being Watched

2006-03-22T07:40:00.000+09:00

Literally. Right now. Recently we hired some new workers from China. We have a recruiting office over there. It's in the middle the middle of nowhere, China. The last batch of workers we got did not have indoor plumbing or 24 hour electricity back home. On a visit to their Japanese apartments, Shacho found that they were keeping goldfish in their bathtubs. It's morning now, and I got to work a little early. The new Chinese workers got here a lot early, as today is their first day. Right now they and I are the only ones in the office. So as I'm typing this they are sitting at a table in their shiny new uniforms, drinking canned coffee, speaking in hushed tones, and studying my every move. This is probably the first time these guys have ever seen a Westerner.

I should go over there and do a card trick or something, so they will think I have magical powers.

Pizza

2006-03-21T20:37:00.000+09:00

I swear I have actually made some effort at collecting material for the sausage blogging project. But it's tough to polish my own stuff to perfection when someone else keeps doing a better job and delivering it right to my door. I give you the newest creation by Pizza Hut Japan. Take a second, click on the image, and see what we're dealing with. Just look at that crust, straining to hold in its meaty treasure.

The big red letters at the top say "Crispy baked sausage is delicious!" The white and gold at the bottom say "German King."

And what is the secret of the German King's deliciousness? That zoom in of the crustal cross section taps us on the shoulder and whispers it to us. "Delicious secret #1: the crust is full of sausage." OK, but that really stretches the definition of the word "secret," now doesn't it. But there is another. "Delicious secret #2: beneath the ring of sausage is a layer of bacon. And tucked beneath that is a layer of cheese!" (emphasis mine)
Elaine Bennes once said, "It'll be years before they find another place to hide cheese on pizza." Well, it did take years, but the Japanese finally figured it out: under the bacon, which is under the sausage, which is in the crust.

But the German King is not the only pie to feature this miraculous crust. Sausage also incircles the Shrimp and Egg Land pizza, as if the shrimp and egg combo on a pizza wasn't good enough. And as if the shrimp and egg and sausage and bacon and cheese combo wasn't good enough, it has been slathered in smooth, rich, piping hot mayonnaise.

If I worked for Pizza Hut I would have called this the Sausage Colliding Pizzacle Accelerator.

Sausage Blogging: a Prelude

2006-02-18T15:17:00.000+09:00

I’m going to post a series of articles dealing with Japanese sausages. To be honest, I’m not sure how far I’m going to get with it. There are a couple of good jokes to be made at the onset, but I’m not sure about the sustainability.

I bought a sausage, took pictures, cropped them, and wrote some hi-larious copy for the first entry. But then I found something. Sometimes you come across a thing that makes you pause and take stock. A thing that makes you consider that the world we live in and the species we belong to can create something this awesome. I question the wisdom of leading with this, because It’s much more brilliant than anything I can come up with. But you would just find it anyway when my efforts prompt you to perform your own research on this “meaty” topic.

It was posted to one of those Cool/Weird Things on the Internet sites last September, so forgive me if you’ve seen it.

Without further ado, click here.

Wow. Where to begin. By all means click on the pictures. Instructional videos are available for those three creatures in their own paddock at the top. Click on the image then click on either the pink or the orange button. Listen all the way to the end for some exclamations of truly forced joy.

The whole website is a treasure trove. A visit to their "idea menu" has seasonal dishes made from our animal friends. The winter/fall dishes are “new.” Weenie Boy there at the top is the most uninspired animated GIF I have ever seen.

“What are weenies?” shows us the two varieties of weenie products. The “Winny” weenies that we’ve been working with, and below the…are you ready for this?..."Weenie Balls."

And this little hidden gem offers three manga. Y’know, cause the kids these days, they’re all reading the manga. Read through the first two. It will not take long. The second frame is the only difference. Weenie Boy’s mother asks him what he likes to do. He gives two answers, and then finally confesses that plowing through weenie lunches is his favorite. Shows how connected the guys at Winny are. They had four panels and could only come up with three things that kids like to do: playing the sand, swinging, and toy trains.

In the third and mercifully final installment we get a good look at the kind of woman who would name her child Weenie Boy. She combs her bangs (but is still mostly bald), has a mole the size and shape of a baseball at the base of her skull, and wears red overalls. This means that this is not a family of cave men, they only dress their son that way. In the first panel while fondling her giant mole she decides finally to make Weenie Boy a weenie lunch. I can’t tell how the artist is using perspective in the first frame, but the plate of sausages is larger than Wennie Boy’s head. Next, she goes to stand at a desk for some reason, and when she comes back Weenie Boy has eaten the weenies. Hoooo, didn’t see that comin’, didja! The wittiest exclamation Mrs. Boy and the geniuses at Winny can come up with is the Japanese equivalent of “Wha-?!”

So this was the first installment, a pre-installment, if you will. I will follow up with images of Japanese treats far less amusing that Weenie Boy and the Menagerie of Meat.

And for those playing at home: If you don’t speak Japanese some of those creatures in the Menagerie can be pretty tough to identify. Discuss them in the comments!

Caption Constest!

2005-12-19T19:59:00.000+09:00

behdah-san
Originally uploaded by wakela.

Dah dah dah da dadah da dadah....

The Dark Lord of the Sith was chosen to be police chief for a day in Osaka. I hope he took advantage of the fully operational vending machines that sell girl's underwear.

I know I only have like four readers, but I challenge all of you to caption this photo. More than one entry permitted per person.

Here are some more pictures.

Apples

2005-12-16T18:42:00.000+09:00

We spent last week at the Country House in Fukushima. I got up, went to work, and then came home everyday, but Wife completed several home projects. She had Mr. Electric Store Guy come over and up the amps of our house. When winter set in we would blow a fuse everyday. Mr. Electric Store Guy told her that our house actually had more power coming in than most houses, but since we have the heated floors we were using up too much juice. Solution: more juice. He also tossed in some extra phone jacks. We had been running an Ethernet cable down the hall to my computer. Wife was less than pleased with this arrangement, so she would unplug the cord, wrap it up, and leave it next to the computer every morning after I left for work. I would come home and unwrap it, walk to the living room, and stick it in the modem every evening. No more of this insane time wasting.

We had arrived at the house to a shock. The glass on a sliding door was busted. Fortunately, the doors are double-paned so the delicates of the house were protected from the elements. The hole was suspiciously round, and when Shacho told us that his 8-year-old daughter had been whacking golf balls in our yard, we put two and two together. Said daughter was no where to be seen last week. Shacho told us there was also a hole in their Christmas tree. They have a flocked artificial tree that Shacho shipped from Nashville outside on their deck. It snows everyday, so they could have gotten away with a non-flocked one. A non-lit one would be a good idea, too, as this one is unambiguous about INDOOR USE ONLY. But it was out last year, and it’s out this year. And it has a golf-ball sized notch in the flock. I have no idea why she is out with clubs and a bucket, when I have offered to teach her Stratego, but what are you gonna do. So Mr. Glass Store Guy dropped by with his gold-capped tooth, and popped a new window in for us at the end of the week.

Wife went apple tasting one day with shacho’s wife. Mama-san wanted apples to give to people for New Years. The apples in Fukushima are particularly large and delicious. So she had planned to drive up to Fukushima with Oji-san’s 92-year-old sister, Oba-san, and go apple picking. Mrs. Shacho’s family has an orchard. But Shacho told us that since the snow had started, there were no more apples to be picked. So Mama-san called Wife and told her to send apples, but first make damn sure they are tasty. So Wife and Mrs. Shacho went to the orchard for a taste.

When Mrs. Shacho picked Wife up she gave her an envelope.

Wife had been to the post office the day before to send Christmas cards and some packages to the old country (mine). The Japanese use a service called EMS for international shipping. At most urban post offices you ask for an EMS slip and Mr. or Mrs. Post Office Guy grabs one out of the drawer and slides it across the counter, apologizing for taking so much of your time. Wife asked for an EMS slip in the Fukushima post office, and Mrs. Post Office Guy asked her to wait. She went in the back, went into another office, came out, whispered to the manager who looked up in surprise (why…I’ve always heard tell, but I never thought….not here…), went back into the other office, and came out with a document that was not an EMS form.
“I humbly beg you esteemed forgiveness, but we do not have any EMS forms. If you could please suffer the inconvenience of filling out this inferior form, I will acquire EMS forms and fill them out in your august stead. I will then mail the receipts to the home honored by you and your truly fantastic family’s presence.”

Quote Wife, “Ooooookay.”

Just so happens that later that day Mrs. Shacho was in the post office. At the post office they know where we live, and they remember our address because I receive what must seem like more English mail than the US embassy, and they can see from Mrs. Shacho’s postal business that she lives next door. Wait a minute! I have an idea.

“You are obviously a busy and important person, and it pains me to trouble you with my wretched business, but if you could find it in your noble heart to bring this shabby envelope of worthless receipts to the one you are lucky enough to call neighbor, it would honor my descendants for generations too numerous to count.”

“The post office gave me these to give to you.” One of the least formed sentences in any language.

In the yard of the orchard house was a dog house with a Husky in it, a pile of carrots for the Husky to enjoy, and a cow house with a cow in it. Wife thought the cow was a pet. But the hobbit couple who run the orchard explained that she earns her keep by making baby cows, and they sell them. One at a time.

They had actually saved two trees in anticipation of Mama-san and Oba-san denuding them of apples like a pair of tiny, but unusually energetic, elephants. But they didn’t come because of the snow, and now the snow had ruined the apples. Don’t feel too bad for the apple hobbits; Mama-san is just about to get on their good side.

Wife tasted and approved of the apples. So she placed Mama-san’s order of 36 boxes of 33 apples each. This is 12 bushels, or about 45 pecks. Almost all of them were to be shipped from the orchard. Wife had most of the addresses, but she needed a few more, so she called Mama-san. Mama-san refused to give the addresses over the phone as the kanjis were too complicated. We don’t have the situation in western languages where the spelling of a word is so subtle complex that it cannot be explained and simply must be seen. But this happens all the time here, and it’s fun to hear them try to work it out.

“OK, you got your moon with a hat on. There’s a bound insect on the left.
“Like in ‘rainbow’?”
“’Rainbow’ without the construction. And a binding like in ‘stanza.’ That part is under a sideways eye. And in the next one there is a bone with a woman under a rice field.”*

Wife called her dad; he told her the addresses, and the kanjis were not complicated at all. So most of the apple boxes got shipped, and 6 were put in the car for me to drive back to Kamakura. But before Wife left, they had a gift for her, a combination thank-you gift for buying so many apples and a New Years gift for near family. Any guesses? A sack of apples. Probably a peck and a half. Now don’t get me wrong. These things are as big as softballs and absolutely delicious. But how many freaking apples can a guy choke down? Recently Wife has been craving McDonald’s hamburgers, and I think this is due to the heightened apple consumption of the previous week.

It does, however, bring a tear to my eye to imagine that my child is being made of McDonald’s hamburgers.

*This is an actual kanji, though I picked one that was more interesting to describe than likely to be used in a name or address. My dictionary has it as “Skull (esp. weathered).” They have a separate word for a weathered skull! And it’s not like one of the characters means weathered and the other means skull. They just mean weathered skull together. Check it out.

Oji-san

2005-11-19T21:41:00.000+09:00

The man most of you knew as wife's 104-year-old uncle passed away about a month ago. We called him Oji-san, which means uncle, but his name was Kakutaro Shibayama. I always spoke Japanese to him, and he always spoke English to me.

Blood

2005-11-18T17:16:00.000+09:00

Last week I worked at the Other Factory, the one with the fancy lunches. On Friday one of the guys came back from a trip to China, and along with me and I presume the company president, he is one of the few allowed to eat in the President's Office. So we ate together. He's a talker. At the Main Factory near Kamakura the officers dine in one of the meeting rooms, and there is little conversation. Most of us are done eating within 15 minutes, and then everyone disappears. I go back to my desk before I start to twitch from internet withdrawal, and there are maybe one or two other guys in the office. I have no idea where the rest of the people go or what they do, but I bet in involves smoking. But this guy talks. He's old school. My nickname for him is The Hard Case. He's the only person in Japan who will not let me get away with the nodnsmile. When I don't understand what someone is saying I give 'em the ol' nodnsmile. If the Hard Case detects the slightest bit of misunderstanding he will quiz me, so I have to keep my linguistic toes. He talks about two things: company spirit and China. The Chinese, by the way, are eating the Japanese's lunch because of their superior company spirit. Also, they say and eat different things. Huh, you don't say. Let me see if I can envision the sheer lunacy of being somewhere where they say and eat different things.

After lunch we notice the blood truck parked outside the door, engine humming away to run the fridge to keep the vats cool. Hard Case asks me if I will give blood as if I had just insulted his honor. I accepted. I give blood almost every chance I get, so any hesitation on my part is due to the anticipation of wading through the Japanesery of filling out the forms. We went outside together to face the blooders. There were two or three others out there, and they looked at me and chuckled. This is the basic reaction when I do anything besides eat and sleep. Okay, besides sleep.

Hard Case asked the blood guy if I could donate. "Is he English?" "He's American." "No problem." They have a little folding table set up with a privacy divider. Hard Case looked over Pretty Girls' shoulder to read off the form she was filling out, and explain it to me. He speaks more Chinese than English, so basically all the questions were, "Are you sick?" Eventually, we got our own forms, and Hard Case recruited Nice Girl to help us fill them out even though she doesn't speak any more English than he does. But she thought it was funny that she was filling out forms for me, and everyone had a good chuckle. I know how to say my address, and usually places let you get away with writing it in English, but the blood guys would have none of that. So Nice Girl asked Hard Case to ask me my address, I told her, but she couldn't write it. Like us having a hard time spelling things, Japanese have a tough time with rare kanji. Hard Case didn't know it either, so another girl looked it up on the internet, and they thought this was pretty funny. Then Nice Girl asked Hard Case about, and then duly noted, my phone number, even though I could have written this myself.

With the address form out of the way -- the easier of the two forms -- we had to fill out the questionnaire. The first roughly five questions were about various diseases. Whatever. No. Piercings or tattoos? I said, "It's a secret." Hard Case thought this was hi-larious and had Nice Girl check no. Then some kind of question about AIDS. I thought it was about getting my blood tested for AIDS, which seems like a good idea. But blindly answering yes to a question, the only word of which one understands is AIDS, could land someone in pretty hot sake with the Hard Case. Upon clarification I got the words "AIDS" and "test" so I went for it and said yes. Hard Case scowled a bit and had Nice Girl check no. This does not mean that I was not asked if I wanted an AIDS test. The last question was what foreign countries have you been to recently. Uhhh, Japan? After some discussion they wrote in America. How long were you there? 34 years.

So we went to the blood guy with my completed forms. The country question jumped out at him, so he asked if I'd been to England. I said, "England?" "England, France, Germany, Italy, etc." Either Haiti has been doing some serious developing since I've been away, or Europe has really taken a dive. Thank goodness that while I have been doused with Thai moatwater (with an open cut on my finger), enjoyed streetmarket mystery meat washed down with homemade moonshine in Laos, and sat in a Chinese doctors office next to a red-faced, sweaty, bed-ridden woman plugged into an IV, I have never changed planes in Heathrow. Blood guy was satisfied with my answers, so he started with the explanation of stuff that he apparently has to do whether the donor understands or not. Charts and diagrams. Sure.

I stepped onto the bloodbus with my paperwork, and the nurses had a good chuckle. They stuck me in one arm to take a sample, swirled a drop around on a little card with a drop of something else one it, and wrote "O" on my form. They swirled another drop with something else, and wrote something else. For some reason, I think this meant I am free of hepatitis. Then I moved to the bloodseat, which is a nice easychair that one enjoys shoeless. The nurse had one of those masks on we saw a lot of when SARS was all the rage. They wear when they are sick, not to keep stuff out, but to keep stuff in. She jabs me with the big jab, sets the bag in a machine that rocks it around, and asks me the usual. What country? Where in the US? Is your family OK? (this is a post-Katrina addition to the usual. The previous lineup would often move to the topic of Japanese cuisine and my surprising ability to consume any of it).

Once drained I got to move to the back of the bus and sit for a spell to make sure I wasn't going to go all fainty on them. I got a little lecture, and a glossy page with a bloodmascot about what I should and shouldn't do in my weakened anemic state. At this point I wondered if there was the "heavy machinery" clause, because we have some pretty freaking heavy machines in there, and they may have just taken the operator of the 800 ton Komatsu servo transfer press and vamped him into an incoherent stupor. After the little lecture about resting and fluids I got a small yogurt drink, a space age squeeze drink tube of Aquarius* (J-gatrorade), a bloodcard, a bloodpin with an "O" on it, and a little gift bloodbag. The gift was a wrapped package of liquid soap that is disappointingly not red. The bloodguys thanked me, and I thanked them --for what I am not sure.

*This article is only tangentially about Aquarius. But the girl in the picture is cute.

I know I strained the limits of the spellchecker, but come on.
Japanesery. Suggestion: Sponsored
England Suggestion: none

:-0

2005-09-21T10:30:00.000+09:00

This came to be as a bit of a surprise.

Back in Japan

2005-09-20T20:54:00.000+09:00

I’ve been back in Japan for a week. I can’t say I’ve been busy, but I just haven’t gotten around to writing.

I arrived in Lafayette on a Tuesday. On Wednesday we did some shopping at the SUPER Target, and on Thursday Mom, Sister, and I drove to the house I grew up in.

All of us were surprised at how little traffic there was. It took about as long as it usually takes to drive from Lafayette to Kenner. About an hour away we started to see evidence of the storm: leaning telephone poles, a McDonalds sign with all the colored plastic blown out (for some reason McD’s signs seemed to take it harder than others). By the New Orleans airport billboards had folded over on their steel I-beam stilts. The traffic lights were out, and the intersections were manned with police and soldiers, humvees at the side of the road.

Our neighborhood looked pretty good, compared to what you see on TV. There were lots of downed trees and a dusting of debris everywhere, but no shattered houses. My mom’s house had lost a gutter. Inside, the carpets had not gotten wet, and the windows were not broken. Nothing had been stolen. There was even electricity and running water, though we weren’t going to drink it. There are two trees in the backyard of the house behind us, and Mom had been worried that they would blow down onto the house. Instead the backyard was full of their branches. There was also what we thought to be a stray garbage can lid, but it turned out to be the cover to our attic fan.

Mom opened the fridge to find that the electricity had been on long enough to re-freeze everything, so it was easy to clean out. Smelly, but not as horrible as we thought. It was hard to tell what was up with the garage. We never used our garage for cars, we used it as a storage free for all. Stuff is stacked on stuff so deep that the easiest way to get from one end to the other is to climb. The stuff in there is in such disarray that it might as well be thrown away (this is before the storm, mind you). So damage in here was difficult to assess. The carpet by the washer-dryer was soaked. It was squishy and slimy with spilled detergent. Deeper into the garage it looked like the bottoms of things had been wet; some clothes were still damp. Maybe rain blew in from the missing fan cover on the roof, though I couldn’t see any water damage on the ceiling.

I chatted with some neighbors. The portly Sicilian next door told us that they had cleared the street with Bobcats. Just shoved everything down and then went back and did it again. He had a gutter blow off and rain ran down the inside of the wall and filled the living room with water. He had not been able to contact his daughters since before the storm. At another house there was a guy attaching a tarp to his roof. The roof had yielded to the rain, and so much water came into the second story that it soaked through the ceiling of the first floor, and was still dripping when I saw it.

The guy behind us with the trees had some roof damage. He had already surveyed his house and had gone back to the family who had evacuated to a place called Opolousas to report. Apparently, a band of roofers had also evacuated to Opolousas and overheard. So now they were on his roof. I asked them if they could come look at the cover of our attic fan when they were done. He said the portly Sicilian already had dibs. On the way to our neighbor’s house they peeked up at our roof. The head roofer told me to find a piece of plywood to cover the hole, and they would nail it on. Our garage delivered. Someone at some point years ago had decided that this was a perfectly good piece of plywood, and that we might need it someday, and the wood sat there until it was called into service. But the roofers lacked a ladder. Their roofing truck was downtown in a parking garage. No telling when they were going to see that again. They had just nails, hammers, and roofing paper. Fortunately, the Sicilian had a high roof, and a good ladder to get on it. So the roofers nailed down the plywood, and fixed some other little spots. The sun was baking those roofs. Sister and I had tried to get on the roof before, and couldn’t do it for the heat. These guys were sweaty and slick like the carpet in the garage. Super nice guys. Though I’m sure the business didn’t hurt anything – the guy who lives across the street was waiting his turn to get a few patches. They had been having a hurricane party when the levee broke. The sister of one of them had to be rescued from her roof. The neighbor of another had drowned. They quoted us a fair price, we paid them some extra, and gave them a bag of non-perishables that mom and sister had bought when they thought they may ride the hurricane out. They didn’t say, but I had the feeling they had big families.

So we were damn lucky. Roofers on demand! Can you image what these guy’s waiting list is now? These hurricanes and things always happen to other people (though I often seem to be pretty close*). Then I thought, no, this one happened to my city. But then I saw that my house was relatively untouched, the neighborhood had not even flooded. But there were other people that this happened to all around us.

Check out the pictures. And I know I have a misspelling in the description of the "photo set" but there seems to be no way to fix that.

Airport Blogging

2005-09-06T14:33:00.000+09:00

I'm blogging in Narita Airport. Mostly just because I can. They got an internet lounge here with hookups and PCs. Since I'm lugging my own laptop around with all the requisite cables and spapoop, I thought I would get some payoff. The wireless network costs 5 clams for a day. Don't get me wrong. Someone has got to pay for it, and 5 clams is very reasonable (even in a country where every free-roaming clam is instantly devoured). But they have these two laptops that I can use for free. So I'm using MORE of their resources and not paying ANYTHING. But I still have to carry my laptop. Laptoppy things are the most fun to do. In case I can get a hookup I can spend all day on it. What if I'm stranded in Houston? (That thought seemed less tasteless in my head). The sad thing is that I can not carry only my laptop. Since I will most likely find myself in a place where I can't connect to the internet (like..oh, I don't know...the plane, maybe) I still need the books and magazines. Technology has packed a literllay a world of information into a thing the size of a frisbee, but it has only given me more things to pack. Don't get me started on the iPod.

Every time I travel I tell myself I'm packing slim next time. Just the computer. And a book. And I just got a new Economist in case I get bored with the book. And what a good opportunity to study; 13 hours I can throwaone stinkin hour in between Harry Potter and something with Ewan MacGregor in it at memorizing kanji. So I end up with a full bag. A full bag I don't mind, but I don't like a stuffed bag. When I want something I want it to be right there, and when I put it back, I want it to slide in as if it were covered in mucus -- dry mucus, somehow. I would rather have a heavy, but loosely packed bag than a light one that bounces when I drop it. Wife made me carry a puffy sleep mask and a beansy travel pillow. Plus my little ziplock of Important Documents bloated like Michael Moore. The nuclear option is to unzip the Make More Space Zipper around the outside of the bag. But to do this is to admit failure. I didn't pack well, and now I need to ask my bag for help.

I'm changing planes in Houston, and the only thing my wife knows about Houston is that it contains the Astrodome which is packed with refugees. In her mind, this connection with the Gulf Coast disaster makes Houston like the gulf coast; marauding gangs and famine. So she bought me some Calorie Mate and demanded that I pack bottles of water from Tokyo, in case I get stranded in Houston. We would think of Calorie Mate as distopian food of the future or lembas bread; one day's nutritional requirements packed into a dry cookie. Of course the Japanese eat them when they near passing our from working 16 hours straight without eating.

So with the lembas bread and bottles, my bag is a pork laden as a highway bill. Calling my flight. Gotta go make sure I get space in the overhead for this thing.

Goin' home

2005-09-05T19:51:00.000+09:00

Tomorrow I will leave for Lafayette to see mom and sis. I'll stay for about a week, though I can stay longer if I choose. They should be fine. I've talked to them a few times, and they sound OK. They are in a safe place. The house may even be OK, too. I found a picture of my house from space.

It's one of those, and they all look pretty much the same. In fact this picture could just as easily be taken before the storm. But there are others in the series that are more bleak and CNNy. You can check them out here.

stop...watching....news

2005-09-02T18:49:00.000+09:00

But I can't.
I think it's a little early to start throwing blame around.
This offers some perspective.
So does this.
Is it realistic to to expect everyone to receive assistance with this is what the city looks like this? (PDF. check all the pages).

I got all the above links from Brendan Loy.

Charities, webcam

2005-09-01T17:28:00.000+09:00

Thanks for the well-wishing emails you guys have sent. I have passed along the sentiments to mom and sis, and they really appreciate it. Every little thing is a comfort now, even someone you've never met hoping you're OK.

I got some weird blog comment spam in my comments yesterday, so now there are great sagging gaps where I deleted them. Blog comment spam. Good candidate for Most Rediculous Phrase if used 10 Years Ago. Also, not a bad band name.

It seems, yesterday was Donate to Charity day in the blogosphere, which it seems, I am in. Instapundit has a vast number of links to charities to donate to. Amazon put a Red Cross button on their home page. It does not seem to have the dramatic money counter that the Tsunami link did, though. I don't have any interesting or dramatic charities. Probably can't go wrong with The Red Cross or Salvation Army. Lowes Home Improvements is matching individual donations, so if you want to feel good about yourself go out to a Lowes and throw some money their way. Pickup a new tape measure or something, so they'll have some incentive to do this again. If Lowes isn't convenient for you, I understand. It's just not convenient.

Since I am farther from the disaster than all my half-dozen readers, I can't imagine I would know something you don't. But I got this: These guys have generators and are blogging from an office building in downtown NO. One of them is apparently hot. They report literal and complete lawlessness. Anyone who is on the streets is in immediate danger of being robbed and killed. It's that bad. These guys report shots being fired at rescue works and police looting. New Orleans is not the least corrupt place in the country, but I'll give the cops the benefit of the doubt when they are stealing guns and SUVs. Bashing up ATMs, is a different story.

They have a live webcam that I get to work off and on, but it's not always interesting.

Katrina

2005-08-31T10:27:00.000+09:00

Mom, sister, and dog are OK. They went to Lafayette, Lousiana and are staying with some family friends. They got out before the highways became gridlocked. Lafayette is only a few hours away, but they got so little rain that they had to water the lawn today.

We are not optimisitc about their house. It`s located about a mile from Lake Pontchartrain. It's not in the area where the levee broke, but that may not matter so much anymore. They've been told that they'll be able to go home on Monday, but will not be allowed to stay there. Without drinking water and electricity, there's no reason to. Since we don't know the shape of the house, we don't know if it's weeks, months, years, ever, that they will live there or what stuff will be salvageable. But they can stay where they are as long as they need, and have been invited to stay with friends and family from all over, including Japan.

Watching CNN is maddening. Some parts of the city always flood, and some parts never do. So seeing water up to the roof and boats in the streets is not that shocking in itself. Since the CNN correspondants don't know the area, they can't tell us where they are. Also, the water level is rarely commented upon. A two foot flood in my old neighborhood is nothing new; a five foot flood is a disaster. Blitzer tends to drone on and on repeating the obvious, showing the same video clips. But the CNN shows like Anderson Cooper ,etc. that have to gather together material for a coherant story are useful.

The internet is awesome. This guy has great stuff and everyone is linking to him, though he is not actually anywhere near the city. And this story choked me up. There was a story on CNN about a guy blogging from his office downtown, but I can't find the URL. But there is still no specific information on neighborhoods because anyone still there can't communicate. NOLA.com has a message board but all people do is ask questions. No one knows anything.

In other news, I hada birthday and got some weird stuff. That's what I was going to blog about, but Kat sort of overshadowed things.

Denny's Condiments

2005-08-14T18:00:00.000+09:00

DSCF1180
Originally uploaded by wakela.

These get more interesting from left to right.
1) Tobasco. Every single bottle in the world is bottled in Avery Island, Lousiana (which is not a real island).

2) And here we have some "Restaurant Table Tomato." The weird thing is that the Japanese know what ketchup is. They say "ketchup." Maybe DelMonte was going for a more high-end feel.

3) Denny's own catch all "Restaurant Sauce." If you're eatin' it here, you can sauce it with this. It says, "Denny's Restaurant Sauce is a high grade sauce for all foods. No preservative." Nice that they can both describe the sauce as if it were motor oil, and reassure us of the lack of preservative in the same breath.

4) Soy sauce. According to my studies, the large characters translate to "possession machine," but I'll give Denny's the benefit of the doubt on this one.

How to Eat Pickles

2005-08-04T22:21:00.000+09:00

OK, I’m trying to get back on the ball here. Now that the glorious 100 Days of Guests have ended I can focus on more domestic duties. I have tales to tell -- tales of injury, induced muscle spasms and lunch– but if I wait for a chance to get it all down, it will never happen. So I’ll try to throw stuff out there peace meal.

This week I’ve been working at the place in the country. The company has two factories, one in the city near wife’s parent’s place, and one in the country near our own place. Usually I work at the city one. But Papa-san wants pictures of all the parts smashed out by the 300 ton press, which is in the country, so to the country I came.

The workers here only know me because the company president (shacho) introduced me to them as his younger brother (he loves doing that), so they treat me with more deference than those at the city factory. For example:

Tuesday: Lunchtime is noon. At about ten till the office manager motions me towards shacho’s office. A single Styrofoam lunchbox sits on the long conference table like a temple offering. The office manager tells me that I may eat (the president is at the other factory today). Ooookay. As I sit one of the office girls brings in a tray with a humongous bowl of rice, a bowl of soup, and a glass of tea with ice it in. She excuses herself, lays the goods on the table, excuses herself again, leaves, and excuses herself on the way out. The office manager pops in with a smile and turns on the air conditioner. This is the only time this room is used all day. And I enjoy a quiet lunch with an old copy of The Economist. Fried chicken chunks, slice of fish, pickles.

Wednesday: At ten till lunch the office door is closed. Someone is in there on the TV phone talking with shacho. Enter the girl with the foam lunch box. But with the office door closed, she is at a loss. There is some discussion with another office girl. I catch “…wake-san…..lunch…..wake-san….” Well. This should be good. I pretend to work, and follow the drama on the sly. The lunch is set up in the conference room, which is all windows and directly across from my desk. Two girls arrange the foam box and the tray of soup, tea, and enough rice to feed Myanmar. They are a little skittish. They know this isn’t right, but in only a few minutes it will be noon, and then, right or not, this is how it will have to go down. Suddenly, shacho’s office doors open, and the office manager comes out. The call is over. He and the girls have a quick, whispery meeting, “ ….lunch…lunch…..Wake-san…..” It is determined the conference room is not suitable. The three gather the box, tea, soup, and rice (it takes two of them to carry the rice) and move it all to the conference table in shacho’s office. It takes three of them to serve me lunch. At the other factory it takes precisely zero. Once arranged, I am invited to partake. The office manager apologizes that he has some file boxes on the other end of the table. Ginger pork with noodles, tofu and noodle salad, pickles.

Thursday: Shacho’s office is free, but the office manager is gone. At about 5 till I start getting the nervous that maybe the girls won’t be able to handle it without him. Then I’ll have to ask someone where I should eat, which will sound presumptuous no matter how I do it. Whoever I ask will be thrown into a blind panic with having to quickly set up everything without taking up too much of the 45 lunch minutes allotted. She won’t even think of the break time she’s giving up. Then I get to stand there and watch them scurry around wishing I could just go to the dining hall like everyone else. Fortunately, this did not happen, though I have a feeling the girl was slacking a little, since the office manager wasn’t there. She got everything set up and invited me to dine right on time. Curry, macaroni salad, pickles.

You’re wondering about Monday’s lunch. Did not happen. I’ll tell you why later.

How to Eat Sushi

2005-08-04T22:18:00.000+09:00

I know you think I'm going to have something sarcastic and intolerant and probably racist about Japanese food, but this is acutally about how to eat sushi, and it's very interesting.

This is the 5th in the series, so scroll down to the bottom of the artice to read the previous installment. Then go to a sushi restaurant and snoot off.

http://bayosphere.com/node/903

Backstroke

2005-08-04T22:15:00.000+09:00

Wow.

Just, wow.

http://americaninlebanon.blogspot.com/2005/07/backstroke-of-west.html

TIGHT

2005-07-20T22:20:00.000+09:00

TIGHT
Originally uploaded by wakela.

DOG MEAT

2005-06-16T15:41:00.000+09:00

DOG MEAT
Originally uploaded by wakela.

DONT KNOW MEANING J

Narita Airport

2005-06-16T15:15:00.000+09:00

We got about 15 minutes before boarding. I received one of the oddest haircuts in my life about an hour ago at the airport. Acutally, the haircut itself is great. The part is so sharp you could cut cheese with it. The barber was deaf and mute and needed instructions written for him by another barber, a woman with about a pound of piercings in and around her face. She was working on the guy next to me who had his head wrapped in Saran Wrap with a ring-shaped gizmo swirling around his pate. He would not have looked out of place in Star Wars. I had opted out of the shapoo and blowdry upon arrival, but when Wife caught up with me she said, "You should get the shampoo and blow. You'll feel better."
"Yeah, but I just washed my hair this morning."
"You'll feel better." Then she told piercings to get me the shampoo and blow dry, which is "shampoo toh blow kudasai." And piercings wrote it on the notepad for the guy cutting my hair. Now I look like chairman of the young Republicans.

Wife just informed me that she has completed her souvenier shopping, and we have yet to leave the country.

Gotta go.

...and they call it a ham

2005-06-14T21:59:00.000+09:00

At the all you can eat Italian place.

Wife: What's that?
Server: It's a hamburger.
Wife: Is it beef?
Server: It's pork and chicken.

MOBLOGGING!

2005-06-14T21:56:00.000+09:00

Happy Day!

I got a new cell phone. In addition to having a one-touch Disney theme that includes ringtone and characters on every menu, I can take pictures and send emails. This means that I can moblog with my moblogenabled phone. The following post is an example of moblogging.

ME

2005-06-14T21:54:00.000+09:00

ME
Originally uploaded by wakela.

i am moblgging

G in J

2005-06-08T22:04:00.000+09:00

Here's what you've been waiting for.
There's a link on the far right for the next image. You can probably click around and view the pictures as a slide show, but then you would miss my witty captions. And don't forget to add your own comments.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wakela/18166592/in/set-429617/

J Blogging

2005-05-31T11:01:00.000+09:00

Blogspot is annoying me in that it it gives me the Japanese version of its site, so I keep hitting the wrong buttons. I've deleted several entries by mistake. Proper netiquette dictates that they have a link in English that one can click to get the English version, but I haven't been able to find it. On the good side, the their site translation has been half-assed enough that some things are still English. However, the contact customer support page isn't one of them, so I don't know if my email got through. But I AM in Japan, after all, and should be practicing Japanese. However, I think that blogspot could do a better job of proofreading. In the below example, the only thing I can read in the sentence is misspelled, and it happens to be the name of blogspot's core product.

Bog が公開されました

G blogging

2005-05-31T10:43:00.000+09:00

G is here. See pictures below.

So far I don't have anything that interesting to report. I met them the night they arrived and we had a few beers. Then I met them last night, and did the same. The weather has been poor and I have to catch the last train around midnight, so we haven't gone "all out."

Today the crew is meeting me in Kamakura, and we will cruise the temples and shrines.

Room Brew

2005-05-31T10:41:00.000+09:00

One of these guys is getting hosed on the beer.

G and I went to a conbeenee (convenience store) to get beer and snacks. God as my witness, there were no potato-flavored potato chips. They had pepper and mayonaise flavor, sea weed flavor, and an assortment of fish flavors. We got grilled chicken flavored chips. And a very large can of beer.

Last Man Standing

2005-05-31T10:40:00.000+09:00

This is their room. Actually, it's quite a nice place, they are just all piled up in one room. In this photo we see that G is the only one leady to lock. Note the two brothers on either side in back. They sleep in exactly the same pose. Sister in front is taking care of the ubiquitous Mac product placement.

G-meat

2005-05-31T10:14:00.000+09:00

He's happy becuase he's finally catching up, beer-wise.

They had just gotten the hang of chopsticks and were too afraid of losing it to put them down.

Pork or Chicken

2005-05-31T10:13:00.001+09:00

Just what you want to eat in Japan. Korean food.
It's all pretty much the same, anyway.

Spell Check Part II

2005-05-23T20:29:00.000+09:00

The following words are not spelled correctly according to the www.blogger.com spell checker.
blog
blogs
bloggers

Fellow Bloggers

2005-05-23T18:37:00.000+09:00

I looked at some other blogs today. Here are some interesting ones.

Most painful: http://retrolilmizpink.blogspot.com/
She could have beaten me to the punch with the re-re-translation, but I think this stuff comes straight from her head.

Most incomprehensible: http://www.geocities.com/shimiconde/cycle.html
"impure reconstruction " is an understatement.

Nice Buns

2005-05-16T20:53:00.000+09:00

Thank God the wait is finally over. I saw on the news tonight that the famous Bun Scramble of Hong Kong will resume this year! The scramble has been banned for almost 30 years due to the collapse of the bun towers and resulting injury. But this year the towers are back up and the bun snatchers will be back in full force. Yahoo news is on the case (note the URL).

This is the most unremarkable picture one could take at a Bun Festival, or festival of any kind. But the caption is fantastic.

a life CATFIGHT of actual quality

2005-04-29T10:45:00.000+09:00

Some of you already got this in an e-mail. But it's too good not to share with the world (all 5 of you).

I pasted some copy from www.alloy.com into Google's translator. I did from English to Japanese, then back from Japanese to English.

Original:

WHAT'S YOUR PRIMETIME PERSONALITY? TAKE THE ALL NEW SUPERQUIZ NOW!
DOES MANDY MOORE'S LOOK NEED TO BE SAVED? VOTE NOW IN DIG OR DIS!
PARIS AND NICOLE ARE IN A REAL LIFE CATFIGHT. WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON? MEOW!

Then the J.

WHAT'S あなたのPRIMETIME 人格か. 新しい SUPERQUIZ すべてを今取りなさい! MANDY MOORE'S は救われる必要性を見るか. 発掘またはDIS の今投票! パリとNICOLE は実質の生命CATFIGHT にある。だれの側面をあなたはあるか . MEOW!

Now for the fun part.

MOORE' Does S is rescued and look at る necessity? now of excavation or the DIS poll! As for Paris and the NICOLE there is a life CATFIGHT of actual quality. Someone's side is there you? the MEOW!

Here's another one:

Riding in a car Hopin' To free ticket; Rockin' For the sake of; The prom? the Lifehouse is your ticket to riding in a car! To limo service of the large night enter because of your chance to the money.

If you do the same thing with Korean you get this:

The }hopin{' which burns; Free ticket; }rockin{' For; prom? The Lifehouse burns is your ticket,! For a big night with limo service for your chance in the money enter.

Korean seems a little scarier.

still have all my fingers

2005-04-29T10:11:00.000+09:00

Working life has gone thusly.
After a week of staring down the nutter I went on to drills and shavers. The drills are in the die-making section of the factory, as opposed to the parts-making section with the smashers and nutters, and it's a lot quieter. If you screw up a part you throw it in scrap and get on with life. You probably made 3,000 perfect ones. If you screw up a die...well, you just don't. So the die section operates and a more measured pace.

I did a day of metal shaving. Shaving metal is pretty much the same as slicing ham at a deli. But since steel is not pretty much the same as ham, the shavers are enormous. There are five of them, and one slightly befuddled oldtimer who runs them all. He takes in blocks of steel and sends out blocks of steel that are 5 millimeters smaller.

I did a few days of drilling. One of the drills is computer operated. Throw in your recently shaved block of steel, tell the computer where it is, then get the hell out of the way. While the machine slides the block around, flips drill bits, and pokes holes, it is also spraying andriod blood everywhere. This is a lubricant for the drill. So the block and drill are enclosed behind a grimy window, and you have to wipe the andriod blood off of everything when you're done.

To be honset the guys in the factory had a hard time finding work for me. There's a reason why X many people work in the factory and not X+1. So I spent a lot of time standing around a watching with my hands clasped behind my back to retard the finger severing process.

Wresting with the nutter

2005-03-29T21:01:00.000+09:00

This is the second week of factory work. Smashing metal leaves the mind with plenty of excess capacity with which to plan what I'm going to write. But at the end of the day every day last week was pretty much the same. Smash that metal. For some reason almost all the other smashers are Peruvian.

Today was my second day away from the press section and in the assembly section where two or more smashed parts are burned together. There are robots in the assembly section, but I didn't get to work with them. For some reason almost all the robot minders are Chinese. The robots make frames for dashboards. They are long tubes with all manner of metal parts sticking out from them. The robot minder puts the tube and some doodads into special little slots and grabbers. When the robots sense that the grabbers are full a black plastic curtain descents that the robots may work unseen. If you were to watch the dance of the robots your eyes would be burned from their very sockets. Actually, this is not far from the truth. Each hand of the robots has a single finger, and each finder is an arc welder. So if you spend all day watching the robots, you'll fry an orb, hence the black screen. If you only spend a few mintues you can look through the yellow plastic around back. There are 5 robots, each one is a pair of arms the size of an elephant trunk. It's impossible to watch them and not imagine that they really know what they are doing. They move quickly to the welding point, and then with care as their flame burns the metal. They stay out of each other's way. And while the next part is being loaded they rectract into a kind of resting position. But like I said, I didn't get to work with them.

I had a bin of doodads, each with plenty of holes, but all with a complete lack of nuts. And so I stood before the nutter. The nutter is a violent beast about as big as an upright piano turned on one side. There's a pair of large vertal pinchers in front, the lower one has a spike about as big as a pencil point. Every ounce of this contraption is dedicated to plopping a nut on the spike and heating it to a million degrees. I get nervous around machines that are described with words like "spike", "pincers", "million degrees", and "high voltage" (it uses a lot of electricity). You have to HOLD the doodad on the spike and hit a foot pedal. A probe flys out and deposits a single nut around the spike, then the pinchers close and the nut is fused to the doodad with a shower of sparks. The nut comes out of this experience a slightly different color. Remember, I'm holding this thing with my hands.

Sometimes, just often enough to make me nervous EVERY time, the nut would bounce off the spike and the pincher would close on the naked, nutless, steel. And nothing would happen. Somehow the nutter knows when there is no nut, and it shuts off the juice. But then it sulks and won't work again. The first time I called the boss over, and he ducked around to the back of the machine and did something. Worked again. About thirty minutes later I lost another nut, and had to go find him. Same deal. On the fouth time I watched what he did. He ducked around and reached through some cables and pressed a button, but I think he told me not to mess with this on my own. When it happened again, I couldn't find my boss, but another guy of equal rank was there. He played around in back, showed me the button and said, "Just hit this two times." Still made me nervous. Next time I blew a nut I looked for the boss but couldn't find him again. The Chinese guy next to me pointed to the magic button and said, "You hit that three times." So I did. And the nutter shook off its funk and once again began to nut. I did that about 10 times. But I was still nervous messing with this stuff, and I didn't want my boss to catch me. Next time my nut bounced I called the boss over. He realized I was having trouble so he said, "I'll show you what to do. See this button? Press it four times." I was having to press it every 15 minutes, which was really annoying because I had to duck under some cables, squat on the floor, take off my gloves, reach in under some stuff to get to it. The boss realized what a pain this was, and got a guy over to fix it. Took about 3 minutes. The nut probe was too far from the spike, leaving a space big enough to allow nut-slippage. With that fixed, I was able to nut merrily till lunchtime.

A Day of Smashing

2005-03-22T21:36:00.000+09:00

My J class ended so I’ve been working full time at the factory for the last two days. Also, I’ve moved on from the quality check room to working on the Factory Floor.

Yesterday: Work starts at 8:00, so Papa-san and I arrived at 7:30. Had a little video meeting with Shacho. He’s in the Shirakawa factory. Then Kojocho (his title. It means “Factory Manager”) brought me to the presses. I was face to face with the Aida 45. It’s about as big a two refrigerators with one fridge laid across the top. It’s the smallest of our presses but still 45 tons of delicious smashing power. Fortunately there were a few boxes of items the desperately needed smashing nearby, so I didn’t have to just start on whatever I could get my hands on. The boxes contained thousands of little doodads about 5 inches long that HAD NO HOLES IN THEM, FORSOOTH! Thank goodness me and the Aida 45 were there to give them what for. The little doodads wished they’d never been born, or maybe they just wished they’d been born with holes already in them. But before I could start my orgy of smashing we had to install the die.

The die is about as big as a Thanksgiving turkey with a thick rectangular base and a tick rectangular top and a bunch of muckimuck in the middle. You could carry it if you REALLY wanted to, but we got a forklift guy to move it to the press. Forklift guys are always buzzing all over the factory. If you need one for something you can give them a little wave like you’re asking for the check, and he’ll buzz on by. Somehow I never have to tell them what I need done. They always just do it. The die bolts into the machine it a way that the top half will smash into the bottom half.

With the press in the “up” position you stick a doodad onto the die. They are literally made for each other, so it’s a perfect fit. You could put it in wrong if you wanted to, but they make it pretty easy to do right. Then smash away. This is the part where you want to keep track of where your fingers are. Again, they make it easy to do this. The press will smash only when two buttons are pressed simultaneously. So you need both hands to work it. Also, there is an array of electric eyes in front of the smash zone, and if anything breaks the beam, all smashing ceases. Smashed doodads are removed from the die by hand and placed in a box to the side. The box, by the way, when full of doodads, is too heavy to lift.

Smashing continued apace until 10:00am. At 10:00 a chime sounds the break time, and all smashing must STOP. The factory becomes quiet and everyone wanders around, smokes, and/or gets a coffee. At 10:10am a chime sounds that smashing is to resume, and it does with gusto.

A chime sounds at noon to signal lunch. The factory grows quiet again as works file to the lunch room. Lunch is a Japanese-style lunch box. They are prepared offsite and brought in. The lunchbox has little compartments with pickled vegetables, fried pork or fish, shredded cabbage, and some other morsels that I can’t identify. The lunch room has big windows that overlook the surrounding farmland and Mount Fuji, misty and huge in the distance. People finish eating around 12:15, but are not allowed to get back to work until lunch is over. They dramatically do not work. One guy slept in a forklift. Many wander around. Two girls sat across from each other in the office and said absolutely nothing to each other. They just stared at the floor. I have a hard time being without the internet for 20 straight minutes, so I logged in from my desk. Most workers don’t have a computer, but I do because I will someday use it.

At 12:40 a “get ready” chime sounds, five minutes later the “back to work” chime sounds, and the heavy sounds of tortured sheet metal instantly fill the air. Chimes bracket another ten minute break at 3:00, and announce the end of the smashing day at 5:00. Thusly, the day is broken into 4 2-hour chunks. When the chimes sound no one just finishes this batch and then takes their break/heads home. When the chimes sound people nearly drop what their doing to stop smashing.

At the end of the day I had punched two holes in each of 2,550 doodads. I have no idea what these little guys are for, but I sleep easy with the knowledge that they can all be bolted to something. My body was sore from standing on a hard floor in crappy shoes for 7 hours. Everything about the shoes is crappy except for the toes, which are encased in steel. I was also tired from stooping to see inside the die, as the machine is of course a little low from me.

Genius

2005-02-27T21:27:00.000+09:00

One of the few (two) Japanese shows that I will watch if it happens to be on and I happen to be doing nothing is Tensai! Shimura Dobutsuen, which means "Genius! Shimura's Zoo." They have an arrangement common to Japanese television of showing video of off the wall things followed by a panel discussion. The panel consists of tubby, goofy guys with dyed hair and dumb, pretty girls. OK, I don't know that they're dumb. I can't understand anything they say, which is definitly more my issue than theirs.

The theme of Genius! is animals. Among other things, every week they have a video of a chimpanzee named Pan-kun and a bulldog named James, both juveniles. Pan-kun is sent on some kind of errand (Here's money. Buy cheese. Or, more interestingly, buy an octopus) and he has to drag James along on a leash. They usually blow it, because they are animals. Pan-kun couldn't tell the cheese from the butter; James ate all the mushrooms they'd collected. But they were able to come back with an live octopus, which is the one task that I would not have been able to do. Most animals on Genius! are discussed; however, the octopus was quickly boiled and eaten, mostly by humans, but Pan-kun and James were given a share.

Anyhoo, what jumped out at me on the last episode was the Q&A session with the kids. Boys and girls ranging from about 6 to about 10 were neatly arranged on risers and were told to present their questions to the panel of chubby guys and pretty girls. First question from a ten-year-old girl was for one of the female panelists, Megumi.

"I heard one of your breasts weighs 1 kilogram. Is that true?"

"I had them weighed and they actually weigh 1.5 kilgrams each."

"What do you eat to make them so big?"

"Excellent question. Liver."

Next question. 7-year-old boy.

"Where does a snake's tale start?"

"Good question. Let's get the herpitologist."

Cut to: Medium Shot. Herpitologist.

"The snake's tale starts just behind his butt-hole. Which begs the question, how do you find a snake's butt-hole?" He holds up a snake and points. "It's here."

At this point a real, live, enormous python is brought in a poured onto the floor in front of the kids. A lesser herpitologist in the studio finds his (the snake's) butt-hole and shows it to the kids. The kids, tubby guys, and cute girls, gather around and pet the snake.

Cut to: Pan-kun and James. The mission was to meet their trainer on the far side of the park. They had to buy tickets, take a boat, buy more tickets, and take a train up a mountain. They succeeded, but that idiot Pan-kun bought three adult tickets instead of two children's.

My Sweater

2005-02-21T18:00:00.000+09:00

After leaving my Japanese class at the Y today, I realized that I'd forgotten my sweater. I called them and had the following conversation (in Japanese).

Y: Totsuka YMCA.
Me: Hi. I'm one of your Japanese language students, and I think I left my sweater there. It's brown. In room 205 I think.
Y: Is this Wake-san?
Me: ... Yes.
Y: Another student turned it in. It's such a long sweater, we figured it must be yours. You can pick it up tomorrow.

She didn`t say "big sweater," she said "long sweater." I've had similar experiences at the cleaners. When I come in the guy at the counter yells to his wife in the back, "Can you get the gaijin-san's pants?" without me having to show a ticket. Also at the Y, I used to complain in kind of a self depricating way that that I was too big for the table. The tables have metal shelves attached to the underside, and I had to slouch a little to keep the whole thing from lifting off the floor and resting on my thighs. Of course, there are worse complaints one can have than being really tall. I only do it because I haven't figured out a way to be self depricating about having blue eyes or blonde hair. Anyway, I come into class the next day and there's a post-it with my name on it attached to one seat at one table. The chair had been replaced with a slightly higher desk/chair combo unit, and the metal shelf had been completely removed.

bowing

2005-02-18T15:02:00.000+09:00

Work bloging. Apparently, Hogarth doesn`t need me today, so I`m "working" on the Bridge. This work consists of translating some quality assurance forms so I`ll know what they mean. We`re on break now.

Apparently, there are some people that everyone bows to when they walk through. My guess is that these guys were customers. There was a meeting going on upstairs, and when itlet out everyone left through the Bridge. As they walked through everyone on the Bridge stopped what they were doing, stood up, and bowed. They stayed standing until the customers left. When I say "everyone" I mean "everyone except me", of course. There was a lot of kooter-kissing going on at my last company, but little bowing.

BTW, workblogging is more dangerous that I thought. This is one of the few websites I go to that`s in Japanese. So anyone looking would know what I was doing. But we are on break now. The chime will sound the end of the break in about a minute thirty, and then it`s back to work.

Jamazon

2005-02-12T21:15:00.000+09:00

Check this out. I can shop at Japanese Amazon in English.

what the freak?

2005-02-09T20:25:00.000+09:00

I use the word "freakin" as a substitute for a word with less mass acceptance. The Blogger spell checker wants to replace it with "foreskin."

Meat

2005-02-09T19:24:00.000+09:00

Saturday night Shacho and I went out to get steaked. And steaked we got.

We went to a place in Ueno, a section of Tokyo, called "Gain."

At Gain we were to meet Shacho`s bodybuilding friend. And which would he be? Could he perhaps be the gentleman with the dyed blonde hair who`s doing a poor job of hiding a pair of pythons beneath a skin-tight spandex shirt? He was one of those giants who seems like he`s become too big to handle delicate items. It seems surprising that he can take off his sunglasses (at 10 o`clock at night) or lift his wine glass without destroying them.

Shacho left the table to chat with the chef and order for us. During this time I chatted with the bodybuilder. And there`s pretty much only one thing you can talk about with a guy like that. Answers: for 20 years; an hour per day; yes, but it used to be 4 hours per day.

Shacho returned with the chef, a pudgy, silver-haired man who was dressed like a dentist in a Godzilla movie (if there is such a thing). Shacho introduced him as "sensei." Sensei was carrying a plate of moist, red slabs. The charcoal oven was right next to our table -- actually, everything was right next to our table. Gain only seats 32. Sensei plopped himself on a stool, slapped the meat on the grill, and spanked it with a spatula.

Each plate was garnished with a sad heap of vegetables -- corn, carrots, green beans -- as if it was illegal to serve steak without them. Shacho`s and my steaks were half a kilo each and the bodybuilder`s was a full kilogram of cow. For those of you who enjoy Big Macs as opposed to Royals with cheese, half a kilo is a 17 ounce steak, and one kilo is 2.2 pounds. Each was devoured completely in reverent silence. The bodybuilder was taking individual bites that would have been a full meal for my wife.

Dessert. Two scoops of vanilla and a cup of coffee. Sensei was back at the table chatting a laughing about bodybuilding apparently. Upon request he knelt down and presented me with a bicep for squeezing. Sensei was a freakin rock.

Shacho poured a sip of wine into his dish of ice cream. "Is that the Japanese style of eating ice cream?" I asked hoping my tone conveyed that I knew full well that it was the Japanese style of eating ice cream on Krypton. "It`s my style." He answered. Now, Shacho was wearing a suit. Suits in restaurants can have an effect on people who do not usually wear suits. The non-suited assume that weird things that a suited one does with food are how it`s done, and bodybuilder dribbled some Beaujolais Nouveau on his ice cream with complete seriousness. Well, when on Krypton, right? So I had a red and vanilla float, myself. Actually tasty.

Mi-chan update 2

2005-02-09T19:23:00.000+09:00

Watching people talk to a cat in Japanese really underscores how ridiculous it is to talk to a cat in any language.

Mi-chan update

2005-02-09T19:16:00.000+09:00

Mi-chan is "our" cat.

The Family has covered most of the comfy chairs in the living room with sheets to keep them from getting all catted up. But recently Mi-chan has figured out that he can burrow beneath one of these sheets, and make himself a nice, cozy spot to take a nap. This renders him invisible, which is probably the point as far as he`s concerned. Although very adept at using chairs, he seems unaware that others also use them and that said others are many times his size. Wife has made a little sign for us to put on chairs where Mi-chan is sleeping to prevent Mi-chan from becoming abstract art. As I write this, Wife has carefully peeled the sheet away from Mi-chan`s face and they are staring at each other through a magnifying glass. Mi-chan is far less interested than Wife is.

J bloggers

2005-02-04T17:27:00.000+09:00

I'm at work and probably should not be blogging, but it is after 5:00. Anyhoo, I was surprised to see that blogspot automatically appeared in Japanese. It's not commong for a website to have a Japanese version at all (unless I'm doing something wrong, I-tunes doesn't even have one), much less know which one to show a guest. Would that I could read Japanese, it would be interesting to see what they talk about.

Ocean's 12

2005-02-02T21:13:00.000+09:00

Spoilers below. I'll let you know when we're close.
Went with wife to the Warner MyCal cinema. MyCal's are American style movie theaters. They have big lobbies with tasteless carpeting in purple hues. There's a concession stand, and they sell popcorn, coke, candy, and dogs at inflated prices. They will even arrange them in a foldout cardboard tray with circular compartments that are a little bit too small. Most movie theaters here have little of this. Floors are tile. The concession stand is an afterthought and it sells cans of tea, coffee, and chocolate "biscuits." The trade off is that one gets to bring one's own snacks. As soon as the lights dim the auditorium comes to life with the crackle of burger wrappers. And did you know that you could by a beer at a movie theater in Japan? And I'm not talking about no paper cup, I'm talking about a...OK it is a paper cup, but still. Also, at the Warner MyCal you can choose your seat when you buy the ticket. No need to stand in line 40 minutes prior to the previous showing, run in, and end up standing in the nose bleed section with your wife in the looking-up-like-a-turkey-in-the-rain section, both of you looking at each other and trying to communicate the seeing conditions with hand gestures.

Ocean's 12 (no spoilers yet): In Ocean's 11 each of the 11 had a particular skill, and each skill is focused on a specific goal in a tight plot. In 12 you got a bunch of guys who pull some jobs. Not even all the guys are used.

I don't buy the character of the zillionare brat who is bored with the lack of challenge in his life and decides to become a master thief. For some reason this only happens in Europe.

I found the grainy, hand held camera thing really annoying. For an Oceans movie I want slick. Don't try to make me feel that I really am in an Amsterdam apartment with some of the highest paid actors in Hollywood.

Spoilers below. Don't read more if you haven't seen it.

They cheat. The guys took the egg before any of this happened. All of the characters know this, but they don't talk about it even though there's no reason not to. And how did they take the egg? By somehow finding out what train the egg was going to be on and staging a fight. I've lived in or near New York City and Tokyo for the last ten years and I've never seen a fight on a train. And if I did see a fight and had my newspaper that I'd already read on the seat next to me, I'd put a hand on it. Somehow I think the actual guardians of the egg would have the train full of teargas if George Clooney so much as scratched his dimple.

Why the elaborate plot with the Julia Roberts thing (which I thought was funny) when Bourne is just going to pull a switcheroo in front of the cameras. And they only used four of the twevle for this.

They tell us that getting past the lasers is impossible because they move in random patters, but then the zillionare Master Thief gets past them. Couldn't the Chinese guy have done that?

But I still liked it. The same way I like watching Star Trek. If you think about it for two seconds you realize that it's utterly preposterous. But it's just fun to be in that world. Cloon and Pitt really feel like they're old buddies and they're fun guys and it's fun to hang with them for a while.

Bank Party

2005-01-30T19:16:00.000+09:00

I went to a "bank party" on Friday. As far as unenticing descriptions of fun events go, "bank party" is up there with "eel fair", a promotion I saw at a Japanese grocery in New York. Don`t want too many people to come to your party? Bill it as a Bank Party.

This was a Start of Year gathering put on by a bank for its biggest customers. Pappa-san, and , the shacho, were invited. They both thought it would be smashing to have me come along to meet and greet and highlight the international nature of their company.

The first hour and a half was a lecture. There were about 300 attendees, all middle-aged men in suits. The speaker wore a jacket and turtleneck, marking him as an intellectual and most likely a university professor. I don`t know for sure what he talked about. But based on the slides and the liberal sprinkling of English loan words, I can make a guess: Everyone knows that Japan is a bunch of losers on the international scene (contrary to what the international scene frequently says about the Japanese, a lot of Japanese actually seem to think this). But look at these numbers. The GNP of Japan is much higher than that of most European countries. The GNP of Tokyo alone is about equal to France`s and twice that of Canada (which everyone knows are awesome international countries). Japan needs to wake up and get its act together to compete on the international stage (what the hell have they been doing?!). To do this we need to adopt certain American business tactics. "Innovation","Vision", and "Close Functional Teams" were all English words he used to describe the business techniques from the US of A. At my old company these words would be replaced with "Multiprise", "XML", "Laser focus", and "ROI". And of course it would be completely unsurprising to go to an American bank party and find the lecturer lauding the business strategies of the clever Japanese.

After the lecture there was a smoke break. Many had cancer sticks in their mouths before they left the lecture hall, and half blazed up in the lobby. No need to take it outside. Next, with the "bank" taken care of, we could get to the "party". Doors to another ballroom were opened (they`re still called ballrooms. 100 years from now no one outside of New Orleans will know why). Pretty girls in gowns and scarves made out of the same silky material flanked the doors and bowed in unison as people entered, saying irashaimase, welcome. If they had been replaced with robots no one would have noticed. Everyone had a letter on their name tags that indicated which section they were to stand in. Little tables were arranged with bottles of beer and glasses in each section. A series of buffet tables ran down the center of the room. After some brief spechifying, the girls in silky gowns flowed out to each little table, and we were treated with the rare but unmistakable sound of 100 forty-ounce beers being popped open. Tngk-fssss. Everyone poured everyone else`s beer, a long toast was made, and kampai. Time to get to work. I was introduced to a the president of the bank, the president of the company that makes 80% of the wrenches in Japan, the lecturer in the turtleneck and jacket (a Harvard professor, no less), and one guy my bosses didn`t know, but introduced himself to me to see what the hell I was about. I did turn a few heads. Shacho said that it looked like he and I were Pappa-san`s bodyguards. The introductions took about 40 minutes and two whiskeys.

I just so happen to notice that the silky girls kept busy. In a fascinating roll reversal they would mill around and just stand next to a cluster of business men to see if anyone needed drinkor food. If someone looked bored and alone, a silky would smile, and chat with them, and laugh at their jokes. Several times one would approach me and a president of something being introduced, wait a tasteful about of time for a nod or a look, and when none came she would move on.

Party was done at 7:00. At 6:50 a tap on the mike indicated some closing words. The words lasted 5 minutes. The room was clear by 6:59, silkies back into robot mode bowing and bidding arigato gozaimasu.

Are you understand?

2005-01-24T21:24:00.000+09:00

On my desk the following day was this note:

It was attached to a piece of paper that looked like a can of Japanese had been shaken up and sprayed on it.

Am I understand?

No I'm not.

Before I had a chance to delve too deeply in my new "assignment" the tour guide from yesterday gave me a stack of xeroxed pages that I now take to be the training manual. I'm as understand of this as I was of the other thing. My lack of understanding was compounded by the fact that some pages of this document were copies of copies of faxes of copies. Think it's tricky making out all those little Japanese characters when they're clear? Tour Guide was nice enough to write out the pronunciation for the pertinent ones. This makes it much easier to bang them into my little electronic dictionary and get some of that sweet, sweet English in return. It was a testing checklist for a typical part. Minimum thickness after processing. Hole size +- 0.2mm. I spent another hour on that first page that was left on my desk and called it a day.

The next day had me doing some actual work. I put on my blue cap and went to the quality check room. There a guy whose name sounds like Hogarth showed me the ropes. I can't say I understood what was said, but checking a part's quality consists mostly of measuring thiknesses and widths with a little miracle device called a micrometer . This seemed easy enough, but I was started on even more basic stuff. A bin of little doohickies came in. For the first round I was to forego the micrometer and just make sure that each part had two holes, two nuts, and a bolt. I'm sorry, but that's what it was. And guess what, they all did.

Working man

2005-01-23T22:08:00.000+09:00

I have about a week of work under my belt now. Except for five other people I think I had the wierdest first day of work ever. Wife and papa-san picked me up at the Y after my Japanese class to have lunch and go to the factory. The factory is in two main parts: The Factory and The Office, which I like to think of as The Bridge. My work day started at 2:00 with everyone on the bridge stopping work and standing for a speech by the company president. He introduced his sister (my wife) and me. I made a speech in which I apologized for interrupting their day and taking up their time, apologized in Japanese for not being able to speak Japanese (I`m going to be one of those guys), and told everyone that I would work hard. They applauded to a degree that indicated polite acceptance without indicating a level of understanding. I was issued a grey desk, uniform, and a blue company ball cap. One can remove the cap on the bridge, but off the bridge everyone pretty much wears it. Women who work on the bridge wear jackets and skirts a few shades off of Century 21. And blue caps.
Factory tour. I`ve had these before, but they are always awesome. If you had told me when I was 14 that I would be working with gigantic Japanese robots that shoot lasers I would have blown a gasket.
The tour included an office where Chan-san was lecturing five Chinese guys. When me, wife, and president entered they all jumped to their feet. Judging from their reaction at the time, their less than subtle glances afterward, and what I would hear about their history, I was probably the first white person they`d ever met. I shook their hands, which is an action I reserve for when I want to lather on an extra dose of America. I even threw in a round of nice-to-meet-yous. The responses ranged from soft mumbles to drill instructor .
What I would later learn about these guys is that they all come from families of poor farmers. Their houses in China lack running water among other things. Of 30 people the company interviewed in China, these guys were chosen to come to Japan and work for three years. Their three year tour stared three days ago.
After the tour wife left, president went off to do stuff, and I was left at my desk. My desk is one of four in a little cluster on the bridge. The guy next to me and the woman across filled their day with flipping, stamping, and filing onion skin paper forms and invoices. The woman has a shoe box full of little stamps. The other guy next to me has a cash box he must have obtained by robbing the 5:15 bound for El Paso. It says "Cash Box" on the side. He`s got a label maker that stamps out checks, and he does his math on a freakin abacus.

I studied Japanese for about an hour until the day was over. When ever anyone got up to leave the bridge they put their hat on. President wears a suit instead of a grey uniform, but he does not leave his hat behind.

That night was cause for celebration. 6 new employees and all of them foreigners. So President, Wife, 5 Chinese guys, their Chinese boss and interpreter, and myself went to Sun Mario to tie one on. Later on another company worker joined us who Wife says has been working for the company for as long as she can remember and has not changed at all. In semi formal situations Chinese will not take a sip of alcohol unless everyone else does at the same time. For about an hour these guys aged 20-23 sat with open beer cans in front of them and only touched them when President would make a short speech, stand up, and yell "kampai!" Then each one downed about half a can. Food arrived which was a Sun Mario greatest hits list. Chicken wings, tuna sashimi salad, fried rice, garlic fries, and pizza. The 5 Chinese Brothers had never had pizza before and they ate their slices with chopsticks. Every particle of meat, grizzle, and skin was devoured from the chicken wings, reducing them to white bone. We moved on to vodka shots. After one does a shot in China (which is does after a short speech and at the same time as everyone else) one shows the bottom of the empty glass to one`s fellow revellers. The guys were asked what countries they wanted to live in eventually. Singapore, Japan (smartest answer of the bunch), America, Australia, and Las Vegas. Johnny was the one who voted for Las Vegas (every Chinese person I`ve met has had a western name they use with us). Johnny had a funky hairstyle and I think for this reason alone was made to drink more than the rest of us. We moved on to tequila. Enough empty glasses had been shown before the tray of salt and limes arrived, and an explanation as to their purpose seemed moot. Before long the other company guy explained that one salts the lime, then sucks the juice, and it has nothing to do with drinking tequila.

I`m glad the Chinese guys are there. Selfishly, I`m not the lowest guy on the totem pole. Also, 10 years ago I came to Japan without knowing a hambaga from a borupen, and I envy the experience they have in front of them.

The night was all that late and the following morning wasn`t all that bad. I got up and continued my new daily routine.