photo madness

Yeah, thats right, a dip into photo madness! I havent had anything better to do, so I took a billion photos in the last week or so. I went through the endless shots, and uploaded 16 juicy pictures (and a few videos!) and I welcome you to check them out (after you click the link just click next, in the upper right corner, to see them all.) And if you havent noticed, look around, I'm tweaking things on this main diary page and making it more "modern" so Enjoy!
Today it was brisk and cold. When I came home I turned on my heater and left it on. My electric bills going to be expensive this month. Flashback time! since thats what blogs do a lot and I dont do that enough and I need to connect with my audience (of two) ... so yeah, que backflash music... I remember when I was little, we had a wood stove with a pipe that ran up to the chimney. We didnt have centeral heating, and I remember watching my mom put little peices of a log into a little compartment, and watching the flames lick and eat the wood until it became engulfed. She would then poke the little metal door shut with another peice of wood, and I would stand near the stove soaking up the heat. Those were the days. The days of shaggy carpet toilet bowl covers, and candy cane christmases, and snow powdery winter mornings. Ahh, returning from backflash. Reality, or whatever this is, returns.

I'm a big dork

So I feel like the grinch or something. I have been such a grumpy antisocial person these days, I need to work on my attitude. I feel like maybe the city is slowly taking away my Soul. For example, Kayo invited me to a christmas party yesterday but I just said grumpy things to people who talked to me most of the time. Whats wrong with me? These days, I have felt so bad about my bad attitude that I've been doing things like giving my chair in the train to tired people, and letting others go before me in lines in an attempt to regain my karma. I'm wondering if its part of the whole getting used to living in Japan again thing. I was away for awhile, and Japan is a strange place I guess. I wrote a paragraph complaining about different things, and then i realized i am still being mr.grumpy if i think that way. mr.grump needs to go on vacation or something, so I deleted that, yeaaah! I need to look on the positive side of life.

red leaves

Sometimes its hard to express culture things in words, but I want to somehow express a short trip I went on a few days ago. I went to a state near Fuji-san, and checked out the red leaves. Watching the red leaves (momiji) is a Japanese culture event in Fall. In correct manner, its a bit orchestrated and even scheduled on TV and what not, but the beautiful leaves capture something beyond all the setup of this natural event. There is something poetic in the moment of transmission from vibrant life, to a red crimson last-shine before they fall and become part of the soil which encourages more life to grow. I cant really capture it in words beyond these that I tried to share here, so I guess I will let pictures do the talking. Heres the link for the photo set of the best pictures I took. There are about 20 of them, just click the next link (in the upper right) from this picture to see all of them, enjoy vibrant colors of nature. I also took three good videos including the view of Fuji-san in the morning. Moments in time.

nice people & etc

So I was thinking I should act like my blog is a "time capsule" and I should just fill it up with those baasic day to day things that are maybe boring, but they are my life at the moment. So I was coming home today, and I was tired from teaching and so I fell asleep on the train and dropped my ticket (which I had been foolishly holding) so when I got to the ticket counter I thought he'd make me buy a new one (because foreigners have been pretending to loose their tickets so they have gotten more hard on people about lost tickets) so I went up to the train guy and said (in Japanese of course) "oh I want to buy a new ticket." and he asked where I came from, and I told him the truth, even though it was far away, and he asked me how much I had paid, and I was like "uhm... like I think 310YEN." and I apparently got it right, or he felt sorry for me, because he said "well, today you can go through with no ticket, but dont loose it next time." I smiled and rushed off. I am wishing now I had thanked him more, it was cool to have a "nice" moment inside this busy mean big city.
And I thought I would also mention a habbit of mine that I was thinking might be a little odd. Recently I havent had time when I am getting ready in the morning, and if I am eating noodles instead of rice, I boil my water and put in the noodles, start the shower, and then take the bowl of noodles into the shower and eat while starting the first rinse. I saves time, and makes sense to me (I hold the bowl out of the stream of water so it doesnt get mixed with shower water) and I dont think I will stop this habbit soon, but I'm wondering how odd it might be. Before I run away I thought I should share a smile or two, so heres a freaky video from old Japanese TV; rainbow man fights with silver faced freak.

cycles

Seasons turn in cycles, I spin, the days continue. I am alive and enjoying my days, but finding my mind slowly pulled into the "day to day" burn of a regular job. My creativity seems to be disapearing, something that I dont like. I need to work on more projects, do more things, be more creative. 2006 was supposed to be my year of collaboration, but none of my friends had the time or desire to collaborate I guess. So I guess 2007 will be my year of personal creation. Make some cool new ideas and send them fluttering off into the world. Stay tuned.

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.

fightin' words

I consider myself to be a person with a fairly mild temper. Honestly, I think about the only things that usually piss me off are racism and sexism. So I was walking home from the station, looking up at the sickle moon in the dark sky thinking about how beautiful it looked hanging above my little town. And I come up behind two middle age guys, one pushing a bike, and the other walking along beside him talking to each other in Japanese. I couldn't get around, so I walk behind them for awhile, but they are slow and I am tired, I want to go home. So I say "Excuse me!" but they just keep talking, ignoring me, so I say with not enough tact "You're in my way." and they step aside but the fatter man, who was walking alongside the man pushing his bike, mutters in Japanese "Noisy foreigner." and I couldnt help it, I had to retort with "Shut the hell up." (In Japanese of course.) Because maybe I'm noisy, but does he have to bring the race issue into it? As I'm saying that and walking past him, he lurches out and digs his fingers into my chest and flings me against the rock wall on the left-hand side. Swearing loudly and twisting out a brutal command for me to shutup if I know whats good for me. I dont like to be threatened or attacked by idiots, so I dont back-down, I yell back "Racist bastard, get lost." And he lifts his hand up to hit me and says as much, so I yell something about the police and kick my foot out against his leg, not in a violent way (that would have only started it off more) but in a "dont hit me" kind of way; not painful, but strong enough to let him know I wasnt interested in a knuckle sandwich. His friend is urging me to get out of there, to go home, and so the older fat man takes up on that and tells me to "go back to america, pig" or something of the sort, and I tell him again he's racist. He acts like he will get violent again, but I dont want to tell this guy its OK to harass foreign people so I just yell "racist asshole!" at him (which I guess isnt the smartest idea for my long-term health). The short fat-man starts swearing at me in bad English, and so I join with a few English swear words, but I dont want to turn this into an empty-anger macho festival. His friend by now is frantically making motions of "drinking" when his friend isnt looking (doesnt want to piss him off, I guess), trying to calm down the situation. So I guess he's just some drunk dork (or atleast thats a good enough reason for his social backwardness) and so I bark something sharp, and head off with the fat man streaming insults behind me.
Kind of creepy to think this happened at my station, I hope I dont get some fat-gangster stalking me or something. Racist freaks.

magic airwaves

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." (arthur c. clarke, author) I feel a bit like I'm in some sort of magical land. I bought a laptop yesterday; boot it up and it starts instantally sniffing the air and finds 7 local net gateways, three which have unlocked doors. pop snap crackle, I'm on the net... endless data-streams... for free, through some magic voodoo called wi-fi. coolness. more to come later. its now time to go to work... woo!

my place in the world

I've been thinking a little about my relationship with this world I exist in. (I have a lot of thinking time with no real TV, no computer and not even a radio. Cant wait to get a PC!)
Me and Japan. I dont feel like a "Japan Geek" and in fact tell myself I am not crazy about the country. With that said, I feel myself disagreeing in my head, with many of the foreign teachers about Japan. (And I'm sure they might read this, so to be clear that wasnt meant in a really negative way.) For example, semi bugs (cicadas) are hated by many of the teachers because of their shrill buzz in summer. I heard several conversations about how they cant understand how Japanese people can appreciate the bugs. But I like the noisy sound of those bugs. Yeah, its annoying but it connects me to all my other summers and reminds me how quick summer always really is. I could go on about these bugs, but the main thing I wanted to point out was my difference of opinion.
Me and dreaming.
I think of myself as being almost always half lucid when I dream. (Lucid, if you dont know for some reason, means that you are aware that you are asleep while you are sleeping.) By saying that I am half lucid, I mean that somehow I always have a sort of awareness of being in my "night movie" and its like an adventure through a land that somehow I know is a dream, even if it isnt as clear as that while dreaming. I sometimes have full lucid dreams, but not as often, so I recently used some information on the internet to try to push my dreams into full lucidity more often. The opposite has happened so far. My mischievous subconscious has used the information to "pretend" to have lucid dreams, that are still only half lucid. For example, last night I thought I woke up (that was part of the dream, unknown to me) and could feel myself being dragged back to sleep. I told myself (who was actually dreaming at the moment) that this was perfect timing for having an incubated lucid dream, I would just stay aware that I was falling asleep while I fell asleep and I would be lucid. I thought I fell asleep, although it was still a dream, and the "lucid" dream was washed out and not vivid (like its supposed to be) so I thought it was my mischievous subconscious messing with my "dream view" because it knew I was falling asleep. It was more twisted than that, my subconscious tricked me into thinking I was having a lucid dreaming when instead-- wrap your head around this one-- I was dreaming that I was dreaming lucid. Eventually after several attempts at dream-control didnt work right, and instead of seeming lucid the reactions seemed like what happens when you are in a dream (random and bubbly), my mind got a little confused, I suppose you could say I had a lucid moment inside my dream of being lucid, and so I decided to wake up and reset the process. This time when I woke up, I really woke up, and I could think clearly enough to realize the first time I hadnt really woken up and the following had been a mischievous trick I had played on myself. Yeah, its a true story, I have a very odd way of thinking which shows itself in my dreams I suppose.