hand language

I walked home tonight, in the dark cold rain. Thoughts in my head. I'm sitting on my messy floor now, infront of my laptop, the speakers playing Creedence Clearwater Revival, "I set out on the road, seeking my fame and fortune..." The voice grinds on, and I pull up the event of the day that I'm looking for. It was this afternoon, it was still raining then too. I had ducked into a McDonalds near my house for a hamburger. The lunch-rush was in full swing, the staff running up and down yelling (with manners) at their customers. I was standing in line behind these two old women, they were having an animated conversation with their hands. Something about going somewhere (all that I can get, I'm still basic verbs and salutations) but the moment that hit me was what came next. The women got up to the counter and ordered with sign language. And the amazing, and hard to explain thing, was the change that came over the counter staff. She stopped talking, and just swayed her hands to indicate various things they were communicating about in basic sign language. I had a vision of a whole world communicating with their hands, wonderful visual symbols etched in the air, and yeah, noise pollution would be greatly reduced; the thought came to life and I could imagine the whole shop communicating with their hands. And then the whole country. It was a beautifully silly and cool idea. The young staff woman broke the silence with a strong "Thank you for your order please come again" to the two old women (who of course didnt even notice) and this broke me back into the noise of the room. Cash registers, people, a litteral ocean of sound.

day to day

Well, I've been told my blog is getting too philosophical lately and that I should shift it back to a log of what I'm doing... work, life, that sort of thing. The problem is I dont want to have a blog about work. I dont think I'd get fired for that (although my Japanese friend got fired for commenting on her friends blog entry about a bad boss, talk about bad luck, everyone got fired, I guess it was true... he was a bad boss!) I just dont really want to mix work with my blog too much. Kind of like trying to mix salt into my cocoa or something. Salt is important but its a whole different thing than cocoa... or something like that. But other than work, my life is mainly just filled with meeting people or sitting around my room most of the time. Not the most stimulating of topics for blog entries. If I find something, I'll post about it, otherwise for now its going to be mostly philosophical-ish rants. And in other news, I've had videos and tons of photos streamed to my korean site for years, but very few of my unkorean friends visit that so I've decided to try out that Twango service to bring even more media to unkorean viewers. Of course I have my original feed that is sent from my cellphone. And I started a new one of large photos taken with my new digital camera. For an extra bonus, I even have a channel of videos taken with my camera which should help you feel like you are walking around Tokyo with me... or something odd like that. Stalkers Paradise. Enjoy.

circadian rhythms

Last week, I was coming home from a bookstore in the evening. I got out of the station, and I was greeted by a typhoon. Thick rain, blown strongly in heavy waves. People were trying to walk home with their umbrellas, only to have their umbrellas ripped out of their hands or violently turned inside-out. A woman next to me screamed as her purple umbrella twisted and shuddered under the strength of the brutal wind. It then sucked the umbrella back, as if pealing a purple banana. I was so wet when I got back to my house, 10 minutes away, that I looked like I had taken a shower in my clothes.
The next day, it was hot and sunny. It appeared like sunshine and rain had fought for power of the sky, their battle leaving literally hundreds of umbrella carcases on the sidewalk leading to and from the station. Mostly cheap 100yen umbrellas, snapped, twisted and used; flapping in the breeze as the sun shined down ignoring yesterday's weather.
The weather was like many apparent victories of history (or even those of our mind), where the vanquished slowly regains control, so gradually that the approach is hardly noticed. Our sunshine was bright and beautiful, but slowly the heat faded from the days, the violent weather of winter slowly sinking its teeth into the last gasps of summer until with out noticing I needed a small coat today, even though the sun (in its proxy position of apparent power) continues to shine.

happy birthday

My friend (he doesnt use his name on the internet so I guess I wont either) recently posted a feelings about his birthday video post on his blog. After seeing that I thought I would comment on my feelings about... my own birthday! It feels weird to think about time, and its rapid unfolding. I was looking around trying to find old pictures of myself, and I found my oldest website again. I used my geek skills and reconstructed it (many image links were broken since it was so old) but its very geeky and makes me feel old to think this page is still on the net (in a broken form) ...a webpage that is from 10 years ago... a TEN year old webpage. Its fun to read it, like looking at a time capsule or something. Some of the things I was into, like encyclopedia making and film making are still some of my interests, but other things that I was into (some really geeky ones) show typical passing youth-interests. This page shows a mellow me, after any youth anger, a year before I headed off to college, a place where of course my life changed. I think I blogged about it before, so I guess thats about all I have to say about that. But really, life is a strange thing. A few more years, and it will mean that I have been overseas longer than I was in college. I need to take some time to think about what that all means, but I feel a little brain dead at the moment so I'm not sure what to add here. A comedian is streaming off the net, people laughing, while outside this room a driver is going by selling sweet potatoes from his car, his selling song echoing into my ears. Time continues.