It seems I found some more time to put pencil to paper for some old-fashioned transcription, so long as it's not completely shite, that is.
Irritatingly, I've had a whole bunch of quality and reasonably profound thoughts of late (no, really), but for some unknown reason (Editor's note: unknown, my arse. I'm a lazy and often stupid twat) I've completely failed to make note of them. Stupid fucker. I think not being able to swear during my usual daily discourse is going to give me a haemorrhage at some point. The fucking cunts.
The temperature is starting to become unbearable. 'It's not even that hot yet' as people never seem to stop or tire of telling me. Fuck that. The heat and the humidity today have been completely fucking oppressive.
I should probably enlighten a bit on the last however long it's been. Students (that is to say schoolkids) really do make me laugh. Those that consider themselves to be 'bad', boys mostly, suffer from massive and substantial delusions of delinquency. Here, being rude generally consists of using the impolite form of a word, or dropping the honorific '-sensei' suffix when addressing or asking about a teacher, to name a couple of examples.
When I was in the third year of secondary school, I made it a personal mission to psychologically destroy one of my teachers because they were foolish enough to exhibit weakness before us. As age takes its inevitable toll, some of the finer details elude me, but what does spring to mind are the times I convinced the entire class to refuse to take off our jackets or unpack our bags. Each time she told us to take them off and unpack, we just sat there silently as she got visibly more distressed and wound up to the point of actually screaming "YOU WILL TAKE THEM OFF !!" and running from the room (I'm quite sure she was crying), invariably to go and get the deputy head - a maleficent shrew of a wench who we weren't so foolish as to fuck with - during which time we naturally unpacked our bags, took out our books and sat patiently awaiting her return looking ready to learn.
To me, being bad was waging campaign of sustained psychological warfare against a smaller and weaker opponent who was ill-equipped to deal with such an onslaught. I guess that makes me a westerner.
But I went to one of the better schools in shitbridge. Even saying so, a pleasing number of my peers became crack-addled teenage parents or guests of Her Majesty, or often all of the above. It's not schadenfreude to take rapturous delight in the fate of the malcontents that made my life an absolute misery for years, oh no, it's sweet, sweet vindication, for their fate could not be any more deserving. Quadriplegia notwithstanding.
To make myself feel better during that time, I used to tell myself the same thing: 'these are the best days of their lives'. And even during the darker times, for a fraction of a second, that used to put a smile on my face.
This allows me to paraphrase a dear friend's 'Three Rs' - reading, rebellion and revenge. I substituted 'writing' for 'rebellion'. It's never sat well with me, referring to writing as an 'R'. Arithmetic is just mind-bogglingly retarded and can go and fuck itself.
People on my estate went to either of the two closer schools which were decidedly more violent. For example, more than one teacher got stabbed I recall. So when the kids here think they're being bad by speaking out of turn, speaking in a 'funny' voice or using an incorrect syntactical suffix, I can't help but think about how they have little to zero understanding of even the meaning of 'bad' let alone even remotely coming close to being bad themselves. Hahahaha. Smashing windows, starting fires, swearing at teachers, setting off fire alarms, general violence and destruction... these little shites don't have a frickin' clue.
I should probably offer some discourse on the idea of 'school spirit', previously an altogether absurd and nebulous concept, only existing in inane imported US TV.
And frankly, that's where it should stay.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Friday, May 27, 2011
豊田市 - pt II - I Told You This Shit Was Out of Synch
Oh. Hello. I remember you.
Much of what's written below I wrote the old fashioned way: pencil to paper while in the staff room of my main school. Kind of wanted to post actual and real thoughts on here so I'm gonna type it all up now and not edit any of it. Well I might edit a bit of it, it depends on how drunk I am and how shit it is, frankly. Well, we'll see. You will find an inherent lack of photos. Now I feel less like a tourist, I tend to take my camera out with me less and less. But I'll check the old memory card and see if I took anything. I may have been drunk. In my darling Mary's absence, whiskey, let's call him Mac, has taken her place. Lungs, liver, it's all good. At least the liver won't implode at any given moment. Oh dear. Let's avoid this tangent this very instant. In fact, I will exit this box and smoke before I type any more.
Mmm. I love fags. Lovely, lovely fags. I fucking miss Benson's.
Oh fuck. It turns out I wrote quite a bit. Several sides of A4. I so don't know if I can be arsed to transcribe all this shit. We'll see. Fortunately, three point five years of being conjoined to a desk at Square has given me the ability to touchtype pretty fucking schnell. Yes, that was for you, you fucking chief.
Anyway it follows:
"
It has been reasonably remiss of me to neglect this for so long (Editor's note: hah). But things are very different now. Living in this box of badgers is so incomprehensibly messed up. Being alone in a strange city with no money is challenging to say the least. The way the contract has worked out is that one moved into one's box and started working at the beginning of one month, and because pay is always in arrears (Editor's note: fucking gay phrase), first pay isn't until the end of the subsequent.
Except one's been living rent-free for all that time, right ? WRONG, MOTHERFUCKER. Nope, two months rent, charges, community and tax comes out of the first paycheque. Plus there's this enforced health insurance scheme of like three hundred a month (that's quid), which I kind of think they're fucking me on. It's something I seriously need to look into. Health insurance is kind of important though. Especially to one whose lungs are wont to implode at any given moment. Particulary with the bilateral Sword of Damocles dangling so dangerously, inexorably and yet interminably (wrong word, methinks) over one's head/thoracic cavity.
Either way, it strikes me that this company is out to screw stupid foreigners over at every opportunity it can, and I may be a stupid foreigner, but... oh wait. That didn't come out quite so well.
So I should probably write stuff about things I guess (meh. I hate people, places and things). That is totally different and almost entirely unconnected to writing things about stuff. Anyway, stuff.
So not many photos of late. Days begin stupidly, ridiculously and downright cuntishly early, frankly. Often the working day ends kind of late, too. But if one is to stand any chance of rising at this fucking stupid hour of each day, one has to go to bed at the hour of some dementia-addled octagenarian Alzheimer's victim. It's probably just as well I don't have any friends or semblance of a life here in 豊田市, otherwise I might be a bit sad that that I couldn't do anything about it. Still, I (just about) have my health, so there's not too much I can (really) bitch about is there (really ?) right ?
WRONG, MOTHERFUCKER ! Bitching is fun and keeps one moderately sane by providing a sense of catharsis.
So maybe some more on the downright madness of being in this school.
So what one must remember is that when I was this age - 12/13, 13/14, 14/15, my experience of school was so fucking different, it's hard to describe. That is to say, when I actually bothered to go to that hellish cunthole full of hellish cuntish wankcunts. I guess an important difference was that from the 2nd year, I was forging my own notes to get me out of that barbaric and pointless farce of an exercise known as 'PE', and that soon escalated to not going into school at all, seeing as how they accepted those notes. Fucktards. No one would have been any the wiser or have ever found out were it not for a simple, stupid and careless spelling mistake. Didn't fucking matter a hoot though, because by the time I got busted, I gave even less of a fuck about school than I did before (Editor's note: The irony of me now being a teacher is not lost on me one little bit, cunts). Which was to say, not very fucking much at all.
I appear to have lost myself... School was for cunts. No, I remember that. Ooh. I remember now. School in this country... Alice, rabbit hole, D-lysergic...
So I guess firstly (Editor's note: Firstly ? What the fuck ?!), the thing that stands out is how controlled everything is. Teachers and students both appear to arrive at 7:00am. I say 'appear to' - the earliest I've arrived is at 7:30 and things seemed to be in full swing with the kids doing what appears to be enforced exercise in the workyard. Sorry, I meant grounds. Enforced is also perhaps the wrong word, but y'know, maybe it isn't. PE in any school is enforced exercise, but here it appears to be daily and with no hope of getting out of it.
Back home, you can simply choose to 'not go', and such an idea here seems truly absurd, with every single teacher taking part in some form of PE, either during the day, or by coaching one of the after-school clubs, which are almost exclusively sports, bar a couple (the brass band, say).
I myself have joined the Kendo club, and I really had no fucking idea it was so fucking difficult to keep your feet straight, parellel and a consistent distance apart (ooh, tautology. Deal with it, bitches).
I've started training with the first years (ichi-nensei from here)...
"
OK, I tire of this now. I'm going to post this as is and finish the rest of the transcription anon. Oh yes, there is far more. This has proved to be but two sides of A4. Where does this horseshit come from..? I fail to understand. I go to chain smoke now in the spirit of a formerly fat fuck in a car park I miss almost as much as my friends themselves.
Watch this space for a continuation of this horsepiss.
Actually, I don't intend to post this in a different post. I'm just going to stick it below this crap. I don't think it's worthy of another post. I appear to have found a few photos and a bit of footage. I will upload them anon. But here we have a continuation of the above wank.
"
...but I swear some clubs meet BEFORE school on some days. I've been able to hear the chanting of the Judo club with a brass band musical backing, from the, well... brass band club.
I fucking love hearing the brass band on the way in, in the morning... it's like having an overture to your very day. There was that Family Guy episode where Peter wished he had a musical backing to his life. I am in agreement that people *should* have such musical backing to life. If they don't already, that is. Some people do possess such music in their heads. Sometimes for me it's the Imperial March - wherever I go. It's not always completely inappropriate, either. One can envision and hope for the crushing and subjugation of star systems and entire galaxies, gripping them by the throat and exercising one's dire will upon them... well, ahem, that was an unusual tangent of a digression (digression of a tangent ?)
I may have already explained this (I can't face reading what I wrote before), that all of this was written during my free periods in the staff room at school, if all my lesson prep had been completed - this is all simple and oldskool pencil to paper, transcribed electrically for your delectation. Streams of consciousness are such fun though. Always have been. I miss those chemical-fuelled days of yore. The streams were truly legendary back then, though not always tangible, or even slightly rooted in reality. But reality is not your friend. It tells you lies and wants to hurt you. Makes you do things you want not to do. This is why god gave us chemistry. When you can break life down into a finite number of chemicals and chemical processes, it allows you to affect said reality in a manner of your choosing. And then there's video games, of course... Allows the more twisted of these human beans to live out their sick, sick slasher fantasies or to merely wield a fuck-off great gun and watch some easy slutwhore fawn over them with an overlarge rack and 'fuck-me-in-a-back-alley' eyes.
"
I have no fucking idea what goes through my head at the best of times, let alone when in school. I would never try and analyse it. It would be at least one psychology PhD and two psychiatry post-doctoral degrees worth of analysis. And no ta.
Much of what's written below I wrote the old fashioned way: pencil to paper while in the staff room of my main school. Kind of wanted to post actual and real thoughts on here so I'm gonna type it all up now and not edit any of it. Well I might edit a bit of it, it depends on how drunk I am and how shit it is, frankly. Well, we'll see. You will find an inherent lack of photos. Now I feel less like a tourist, I tend to take my camera out with me less and less. But I'll check the old memory card and see if I took anything. I may have been drunk. In my darling Mary's absence, whiskey, let's call him Mac, has taken her place. Lungs, liver, it's all good. At least the liver won't implode at any given moment. Oh dear. Let's avoid this tangent this very instant. In fact, I will exit this box and smoke before I type any more.
Mmm. I love fags. Lovely, lovely fags. I fucking miss Benson's.
Oh fuck. It turns out I wrote quite a bit. Several sides of A4. I so don't know if I can be arsed to transcribe all this shit. We'll see. Fortunately, three point five years of being conjoined to a desk at Square has given me the ability to touchtype pretty fucking schnell. Yes, that was for you, you fucking chief.
Anyway it follows:
"
It has been reasonably remiss of me to neglect this for so long (Editor's note: hah). But things are very different now. Living in this box of badgers is so incomprehensibly messed up. Being alone in a strange city with no money is challenging to say the least. The way the contract has worked out is that one moved into one's box and started working at the beginning of one month, and because pay is always in arrears (Editor's note: fucking gay phrase), first pay isn't until the end of the subsequent.
Except one's been living rent-free for all that time, right ? WRONG, MOTHERFUCKER. Nope, two months rent, charges, community and tax comes out of the first paycheque. Plus there's this enforced health insurance scheme of like three hundred a month (that's quid), which I kind of think they're fucking me on. It's something I seriously need to look into. Health insurance is kind of important though. Especially to one whose lungs are wont to implode at any given moment. Particulary with the bilateral Sword of Damocles dangling so dangerously, inexorably and yet interminably (wrong word, methinks) over one's head/thoracic cavity.
Either way, it strikes me that this company is out to screw stupid foreigners over at every opportunity it can, and I may be a stupid foreigner, but... oh wait. That didn't come out quite so well.
So I should probably write stuff about things I guess (meh. I hate people, places and things). That is totally different and almost entirely unconnected to writing things about stuff. Anyway, stuff.
So not many photos of late. Days begin stupidly, ridiculously and downright cuntishly early, frankly. Often the working day ends kind of late, too. But if one is to stand any chance of rising at this fucking stupid hour of each day, one has to go to bed at the hour of some dementia-addled octagenarian Alzheimer's victim. It's probably just as well I don't have any friends or semblance of a life here in 豊田市, otherwise I might be a bit sad that that I couldn't do anything about it. Still, I (just about) have my health, so there's not too much I can (really) bitch about is there (really ?) right ?
WRONG, MOTHERFUCKER ! Bitching is fun and keeps one moderately sane by providing a sense of catharsis.
So maybe some more on the downright madness of being in this school.
So what one must remember is that when I was this age - 12/13, 13/14, 14/15, my experience of school was so fucking different, it's hard to describe. That is to say, when I actually bothered to go to that hellish cunthole full of hellish cuntish wankcunts. I guess an important difference was that from the 2nd year, I was forging my own notes to get me out of that barbaric and pointless farce of an exercise known as 'PE', and that soon escalated to not going into school at all, seeing as how they accepted those notes. Fucktards. No one would have been any the wiser or have ever found out were it not for a simple, stupid and careless spelling mistake. Didn't fucking matter a hoot though, because by the time I got busted, I gave even less of a fuck about school than I did before (Editor's note: The irony of me now being a teacher is not lost on me one little bit, cunts). Which was to say, not very fucking much at all.
I appear to have lost myself... School was for cunts. No, I remember that. Ooh. I remember now. School in this country... Alice, rabbit hole, D-lysergic...
So I guess firstly (Editor's note: Firstly ? What the fuck ?!), the thing that stands out is how controlled everything is. Teachers and students both appear to arrive at 7:00am. I say 'appear to' - the earliest I've arrived is at 7:30 and things seemed to be in full swing with the kids doing what appears to be enforced exercise in the workyard. Sorry, I meant grounds. Enforced is also perhaps the wrong word, but y'know, maybe it isn't. PE in any school is enforced exercise, but here it appears to be daily and with no hope of getting out of it.
Back home, you can simply choose to 'not go', and such an idea here seems truly absurd, with every single teacher taking part in some form of PE, either during the day, or by coaching one of the after-school clubs, which are almost exclusively sports, bar a couple (the brass band, say).
I myself have joined the Kendo club, and I really had no fucking idea it was so fucking difficult to keep your feet straight, parellel and a consistent distance apart (ooh, tautology. Deal with it, bitches).
I've started training with the first years (ichi-nensei from here)...
"
OK, I tire of this now. I'm going to post this as is and finish the rest of the transcription anon. Oh yes, there is far more. This has proved to be but two sides of A4. Where does this horseshit come from..? I fail to understand. I go to chain smoke now in the spirit of a formerly fat fuck in a car park I miss almost as much as my friends themselves.
Watch this space for a continuation of this horsepiss.
Actually, I don't intend to post this in a different post. I'm just going to stick it below this crap. I don't think it's worthy of another post. I appear to have found a few photos and a bit of footage. I will upload them anon. But here we have a continuation of the above wank.
"
...but I swear some clubs meet BEFORE school on some days. I've been able to hear the chanting of the Judo club with a brass band musical backing, from the, well... brass band club.
I fucking love hearing the brass band on the way in, in the morning... it's like having an overture to your very day. There was that Family Guy episode where Peter wished he had a musical backing to his life. I am in agreement that people *should* have such musical backing to life. If they don't already, that is. Some people do possess such music in their heads. Sometimes for me it's the Imperial March - wherever I go. It's not always completely inappropriate, either. One can envision and hope for the crushing and subjugation of star systems and entire galaxies, gripping them by the throat and exercising one's dire will upon them... well, ahem, that was an unusual tangent of a digression (digression of a tangent ?)
I may have already explained this (I can't face reading what I wrote before), that all of this was written during my free periods in the staff room at school, if all my lesson prep had been completed - this is all simple and oldskool pencil to paper, transcribed electrically for your delectation. Streams of consciousness are such fun though. Always have been. I miss those chemical-fuelled days of yore. The streams were truly legendary back then, though not always tangible, or even slightly rooted in reality. But reality is not your friend. It tells you lies and wants to hurt you. Makes you do things you want not to do. This is why god gave us chemistry. When you can break life down into a finite number of chemicals and chemical processes, it allows you to affect said reality in a manner of your choosing. And then there's video games, of course... Allows the more twisted of these human beans to live out their sick, sick slasher fantasies or to merely wield a fuck-off great gun and watch some easy slutwhore fawn over them with an overlarge rack and 'fuck-me-in-a-back-alley' eyes.
"
I have no fucking idea what goes through my head at the best of times, let alone when in school. I would never try and analyse it. It would be at least one psychology PhD and two psychiatry post-doctoral degrees worth of analysis. And no ta.
新豊橋 part XII – The Last Hurrah.
Oh that's right... I write stuff innit.
As mentioned in the past, in some previous nonsensical blathering, I believe I mentioned that I wrote shit on my last night in The Hash. Well I found it. I bet you can hardly contain your fucking excitement. I hope I was drunk.
(Editor's note: Writ on that night I mentioned and I ain't even gonna read it. Just post it. I may read it once it's up to purge the inevitable spelling/grammar infarctia.)
So where the fucking christ does one find oneself however fucking long it’s been since the last time I could be arsed to write this bullshit ?
Hmm... that’s an interesting question, with an altogether Homerically uninteresting answer, though one can’t argue that it would be informative at the very least.
So. Oh and that’s quite a long so. Not a sō so much, which would be a so with a long o or a ō. No (nō ?), just a long so.
Anyway, now that blockage is cleared I will get back to whatever the fucking semblance of the point I was dismally attempting to make.
So in the end, the company that nearly was wanted me to live in Chiba. Right. Actually move a few hundred clicks towards nuclear reactors in meltdown. These people clearly have no concept of radiation. I tried reasoning with them, begging them, all that bullshit, to send me somewhere else, but they told me I was being unreasonable. I had quite a serious sense of humour failure at this point. I actually used the words ‘to go further east in this situation is madness... one doesn’t move towards a nuclear reactor in meltdown, one moves away from it’. I tried throwing chemistry, physics and logic at them, but they told me I was being unreasonable. And so it endeth.
So yet again I refused a perfectly well paid job out of principle. Although one could argue, as in fact I did, that the threat of death, cancer, etc comes under more than just principle. But principle most definitely played a part.
I really hate myself at times.
And so it was, that I was here, my flight home just suddenly arrived and I was here with no job, prospects, coin, life, etc. On balance, I had to think if one stays here in/with that or if one returns to the pantomime horse of Cuntmeron and Cunt. And that fucking royal mummer’s farce that’s about to hit. Well you don’t have to be a nuclear chemist to work out that shit’s a no fucking brainer, is it.
Ooh this is a good tangent. I am and have been asked so much about this upcoming royal fucking waste of taxpayer’s money, that if I don’t have some idea of it then I am gonna be out of touch and therefore deemed unworthy of respect... I am actually gonna have to pay some manner of attention to this fuckuntery so that I have appropriate answers for when I’m asked about it at school.
Yes that’s right. School. Public high school. Well, schools to be precise.
Tangent over, so I managed to find a job in an altogether kind of creepy similarity to how I started at Square. Went from interview to job in the space of about a week. Training in Nagoya, which is and was pleasing, and now a job and a quaint little box to live in. Be under no illusion. It is a fucking box. An altogether nicer box than one might find underneath say a bridge in east London with 4.8 transients making home within it, but it is a fucking box nonetheless. A fucking expensive box. But so is the case. I am bakka fucking gaijin and am treated as such. And at least I have somewhere to live I suppose. And it has a fridge. But not a great deal more mind you.
Either way, work in public school starts on Monday. Hmm. I am gonna get eaten alive. I remember what I used to do to teachers at that age and it wasn’t pretty.
I would say though that I have been pretty well trained and no one gets good at anything without practice, is it.
We will see though. I don’t know how much fun it will be to get up in front of a room of 40 teenagers and act like a muppet while labouring under the delusion of being there to teach them shit about stuff.
Ganbarimasu and all that.
As mentioned in the past, in some previous nonsensical blathering, I believe I mentioned that I wrote shit on my last night in The Hash. Well I found it. I bet you can hardly contain your fucking excitement. I hope I was drunk.
(Editor's note: Writ on that night I mentioned and I ain't even gonna read it. Just post it. I may read it once it's up to purge the inevitable spelling/grammar infarctia.)
So where the fucking christ does one find oneself however fucking long it’s been since the last time I could be arsed to write this bullshit ?
Hmm... that’s an interesting question, with an altogether Homerically uninteresting answer, though one can’t argue that it would be informative at the very least.
So. Oh and that’s quite a long so. Not a sō so much, which would be a so with a long o or a ō. No (nō ?), just a long so.
Anyway, now that blockage is cleared I will get back to whatever the fucking semblance of the point I was dismally attempting to make.
So in the end, the company that nearly was wanted me to live in Chiba. Right. Actually move a few hundred clicks towards nuclear reactors in meltdown. These people clearly have no concept of radiation. I tried reasoning with them, begging them, all that bullshit, to send me somewhere else, but they told me I was being unreasonable. I had quite a serious sense of humour failure at this point. I actually used the words ‘to go further east in this situation is madness... one doesn’t move towards a nuclear reactor in meltdown, one moves away from it’. I tried throwing chemistry, physics and logic at them, but they told me I was being unreasonable. And so it endeth.
So yet again I refused a perfectly well paid job out of principle. Although one could argue, as in fact I did, that the threat of death, cancer, etc comes under more than just principle. But principle most definitely played a part.
I really hate myself at times.
And so it was, that I was here, my flight home just suddenly arrived and I was here with no job, prospects, coin, life, etc. On balance, I had to think if one stays here in/with that or if one returns to the pantomime horse of Cuntmeron and Cunt. And that fucking royal mummer’s farce that’s about to hit. Well you don’t have to be a nuclear chemist to work out that shit’s a no fucking brainer, is it.
Ooh this is a good tangent. I am and have been asked so much about this upcoming royal fucking waste of taxpayer’s money, that if I don’t have some idea of it then I am gonna be out of touch and therefore deemed unworthy of respect... I am actually gonna have to pay some manner of attention to this fuckuntery so that I have appropriate answers for when I’m asked about it at school.
Yes that’s right. School. Public high school. Well, schools to be precise.
Tangent over, so I managed to find a job in an altogether kind of creepy similarity to how I started at Square. Went from interview to job in the space of about a week. Training in Nagoya, which is and was pleasing, and now a job and a quaint little box to live in. Be under no illusion. It is a fucking box. An altogether nicer box than one might find underneath say a bridge in east London with 4.8 transients making home within it, but it is a fucking box nonetheless. A fucking expensive box. But so is the case. I am bakka fucking gaijin and am treated as such. And at least I have somewhere to live I suppose. And it has a fridge. But not a great deal more mind you.
Either way, work in public school starts on Monday. Hmm. I am gonna get eaten alive. I remember what I used to do to teachers at that age and it wasn’t pretty.
I would say though that I have been pretty well trained and no one gets good at anything without practice, is it.
We will see though. I don’t know how much fun it will be to get up in front of a room of 40 teenagers and act like a muppet while labouring under the delusion of being there to teach them shit about stuff.
Ganbarimasu and all that.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
豊田市
(Editor's note: writ Saturday May the first.)
So tonight I devised a new game which I call the ‘Kombini Crawl’. Basically you have to go to all the convenience stores in the locale (of which there are usually myriad) and outside you have to have one beer (or bottle of liquor, depending on one’s preference) and one fag. And you must do this outside each one. I like this game and look forward to being able to partake of it properly.
So today has been my first night in my box. I tried to explore the surrounding area in search of a hyaku-en shop, but I failed somewhat pathetically. Then things got dark and I’ve come to learn that EVERYTHING looks the same in the dark here in Japan. Like a few nights ago in Nagoya. I embarked on a journey I have been on many times and I got completely fucking lost. I walked for about half an hour in the pissing rain in a fucking circle. Yes. I know that perhaps circularity when you’re trying to travel along one specific vector is not the best way to go. But I like perpendicularity and straight lines... one finds it much simpler to derive equations from data that can be graphically presented from straight line. It is simply y=mx+c
What’s the definition of insanity I hear you ask ? Well some criminologists/psychologists argue that it’s repeating the same task over and over again and expecting a different outcome (what the more informed of you might refer to as ‘standards QA’ or simply ‘lotcheck’); but I have recently revised this definition. It is now ‘テレビの日本’ or Japanese TV. Jesus fucking wept. I have a newfound respect for the last sinewy threads of my own personal sanity now I’ve watched the bizarre and frankly disturbing horseshit they have on the idiot box here. And never has that term proved so fucking salient. It makes the bollocks they show on channel 5 during the day look like BBC fucking 4.
Yes. I can’t live without the internet. For numerous reasons. But mostly so I don’t have to watch TV. And it’s not like I even watch crap. I just need something of a relative tangibility to make the other things that I’m doing sink in, or even just make more sense. Brain works on several levels and sometimes it requires multiple levels concurrently to work optimally. But if one of those happens to be retching and trying to kill the others then the entire process becomes almost pointless. Urgh. I desperately need an outside connection or I WILL start fires.
Let’s see... something that pissed me off recently. Oh yes. It has to be the royal waste of taxpayer’s money. I actually had to watch that mummer’s farce.
I am saved only by the fact of one simple facerape update that went "Doff those caps and tug those forelocks, you grovelling shitpeasants."
That made me smile on the inside. For if I am to have some manner of thing to talk of it to my students and colleagues alike about, then I seriously needed to watch it.
Over the last couple of weeks, new people who have learnt of my origins, whether they speak English or not are still able to make the question ‘royal wedding ?’ and so I had it on as I was packing my room up. All I can say is that at least you bitches got a bank fucking holiday out of it. Oh and the service itself could very well have been a passage directly out of the Book of Revelations. Or is all of christianity like that ? It really has been so long since I paid it any real mind, all I thought it was these days was the burning of gays or the stoning of adulterous wenches. Or is that beardism ? I forget. It’s all the same to me. That is to say: BOLLOCKS.
And so we have it. An entire stream of consciousness on my first night alone. I am now going to go and lie down on my fucking floor with barely so much as a fucking napkin to be comforted by and I can’t even smoke in my fucking box, because we must remember kiddies that cardboard is fucking flammable, aye ?
Bite me. I love you all. I mean I wish you all an ugly death. May you know kittens, roses and necrotising fasciitis. Rot in tarkna.
So tonight I devised a new game which I call the ‘Kombini Crawl’. Basically you have to go to all the convenience stores in the locale (of which there are usually myriad) and outside you have to have one beer (or bottle of liquor, depending on one’s preference) and one fag. And you must do this outside each one. I like this game and look forward to being able to partake of it properly.
So today has been my first night in my box. I tried to explore the surrounding area in search of a hyaku-en shop, but I failed somewhat pathetically. Then things got dark and I’ve come to learn that EVERYTHING looks the same in the dark here in Japan. Like a few nights ago in Nagoya. I embarked on a journey I have been on many times and I got completely fucking lost. I walked for about half an hour in the pissing rain in a fucking circle. Yes. I know that perhaps circularity when you’re trying to travel along one specific vector is not the best way to go. But I like perpendicularity and straight lines... one finds it much simpler to derive equations from data that can be graphically presented from straight line. It is simply y=mx+c
What’s the definition of insanity I hear you ask ? Well some criminologists/psychologists argue that it’s repeating the same task over and over again and expecting a different outcome (what the more informed of you might refer to as ‘standards QA’ or simply ‘lotcheck’); but I have recently revised this definition. It is now ‘テレビの日本’ or Japanese TV. Jesus fucking wept. I have a newfound respect for the last sinewy threads of my own personal sanity now I’ve watched the bizarre and frankly disturbing horseshit they have on the idiot box here. And never has that term proved so fucking salient. It makes the bollocks they show on channel 5 during the day look like BBC fucking 4.
Yes. I can’t live without the internet. For numerous reasons. But mostly so I don’t have to watch TV. And it’s not like I even watch crap. I just need something of a relative tangibility to make the other things that I’m doing sink in, or even just make more sense. Brain works on several levels and sometimes it requires multiple levels concurrently to work optimally. But if one of those happens to be retching and trying to kill the others then the entire process becomes almost pointless. Urgh. I desperately need an outside connection or I WILL start fires.
Let’s see... something that pissed me off recently. Oh yes. It has to be the royal waste of taxpayer’s money. I actually had to watch that mummer’s farce.
I am saved only by the fact of one simple facerape update that went "Doff those caps and tug those forelocks, you grovelling shitpeasants."
That made me smile on the inside. For if I am to have some manner of thing to talk of it to my students and colleagues alike about, then I seriously needed to watch it.
Over the last couple of weeks, new people who have learnt of my origins, whether they speak English or not are still able to make the question ‘royal wedding ?’ and so I had it on as I was packing my room up. All I can say is that at least you bitches got a bank fucking holiday out of it. Oh and the service itself could very well have been a passage directly out of the Book of Revelations. Or is all of christianity like that ? It really has been so long since I paid it any real mind, all I thought it was these days was the burning of gays or the stoning of adulterous wenches. Or is that beardism ? I forget. It’s all the same to me. That is to say: BOLLOCKS.
And so we have it. An entire stream of consciousness on my first night alone. I am now going to go and lie down on my fucking floor with barely so much as a fucking napkin to be comforted by and I can’t even smoke in my fucking box, because we must remember kiddies that cardboard is fucking flammable, aye ?
Bite me. I love you all. I mean I wish you all an ugly death. May you know kittens, roses and necrotising fasciitis. Rot in tarkna.
Interregnum
OK, so I was supposed to be posting the crap I wrote on my last night in Toyohashi but couldn't upload due to various reasons...
I have it, but it's on a flash disk that I completely FAILED to bring with me... instead I have the bollocks I wrote like yesterday and on my first night in a new town.
Thus, and I am entirely loathe to have to do so, but I will have to post things that I wrote previously after things I wrote subsequently. Urf.
So watch this space for an incredibly confused timeline...
Oh, I'm in a Nihon-jin internet cafe by the way... which is why I can't just simply post that shit now. Oh well. It serves as a useful metaphor for the general confusion one feels in this country as a whole.
Matta ne.
まったね。
I have it, but it's on a flash disk that I completely FAILED to bring with me... instead I have the bollocks I wrote like yesterday and on my first night in a new town.
Thus, and I am entirely loathe to have to do so, but I will have to post things that I wrote previously after things I wrote subsequently. Urf.
So watch this space for an incredibly confused timeline...
Oh, I'm in a Nihon-jin internet cafe by the way... which is why I can't just simply post that shit now. Oh well. It serves as a useful metaphor for the general confusion one feels in this country as a whole.
Matta ne.
まったね。
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Aftermath - pt IV - Candlelit Vigil
I have no fucking idea why I left it this long to finish this update, given that I started writing it last Sunday night, but I'm kind of glad I did because my impression of Pete and Miyuki has changed considerably during this last week for numerous reasons.
I've said it before and I will again: Atlantika is one of my favourite places in all of Japan. The reason is manifold.
Not more than two, maybe three weeks ago (time and space makes considerably less sense these days... If a week is a long time in politics, then it must be an eternity in Fukushima), Pete-san and Miyuki-san held a fundraiser for the victims and survivors of the Christchurch earthquake. So much geological-borne death of late. And I swear to god if someone says 2012 one more time to me, I'm going to force them to read a book on cosmology.
Tonight was a vigil and fundraiser for the northeast. It was a great evening. The music was awesome, but sedate and mellow.
Then there is the entirely superficial yet almost as important fact that they serve mojitos. Good mojitos I might add. I've never had two the same in any of the bars I've ever been to. They range from minty wet mush to an actual rum-based drink. Mojitos in Atlantika are of the best I've had. They probably run a very close second to Sosho.
But I can look past the superficial and obvious reasons to see what it is that this place is. It is a place where I feel at home (you can get fucked there). It is the place I met and continue to meet my favourite people in this country. It is the place I probably learn and speak the most Japanese. It is a place where I can teach others of the English language and western culture, should they be so inclined. On certain nights, the tables are taken out, lights and a smoke machine go up and hey presto you have a mini-club.
Now I've banged on quite a lot about that place since I started writing this wank. But frankly I've not written enough. I do intend to write something proper and decent and complex and I see from the previous paragraph that I am already trying to express it. Stupid fingers. This is about the vigil and so I will try and draw it back to that.
Anyway, vigil:
God I'm such an awesome fucking photographer. Yeah.
Nnngghhh. I really couldn't decide which of the two below pictures to put in. The first one without a flash really does capture the mood of the evening and is great. But the second one's great too as it actually has detail you can see... Bah fuck it, they both go in. I'll put the second one at the end though and think of some way to do so without it seeming like flagrant repetition.
Pete and Miyuki-san ♥
To me, Miyuki is the spirit, the heart and soul of Atlantika. Without her, the place would not be. She reminds me so much of Yuko as well... both being diminutive, hard as fucking nails and beautiful throughout. Also with a slight tendency to work like mentalists. She is hyper on-the-ball, constantly. Seems to be able to move at the speed of light and yet retain micron-level accuracy.
Don't get me wrong, I am in no way saying that Pete is any less Atlantika or denigrating him in the slightest sense, oh fuck me no, but if you truly understand my words or have seen that place with your own eye, then you would know precisely what I mean.
Anyway, I'm slipping back into that trap of trying to write about Atlantika when I should focus. Forgive if I recycle some of the things I've written above at a later date.
Now my memory is a bit hazy, but I can't for the life of me remember at what point the observed silence was. Logic suggests that it was after or during Pete's set as he was the one who instigated it. It was only for 30 seconds (I think we could have pulled off a minute), but there is something deeply profound and incredibly moving about a pub full of people sitting in protracted silence for any amount of time. I was in half a mind to film it for a fraction of a second, but decided that it would be disrespectful.
The musical aspect of the evening was largely provided by Colin, a Canadian fellow who as you will be able to see, is pretty damn talented. But I've noticed an inordinate amount of those here. Talented people. It's great.
A little introduction... at this point I'm sitting at the very back. An altogether frankly fucking retarded place to be to try and film/capture what's going on at the complete other end of the room, but that little fact of reality was entirely lost on me for far too long.
Now for some completely ludicrous fucking undiscernible reason that seems to defy laws of physics, the below film is at a 45 fucking degree angle. I have no idea why and I am even less able to fix it. I wonder if there's a little command you can add to the HTML embed code to get this blogware to do it for me, but I'm fucked if I know because I don't speak geek... well maybe I do a little. But certainly not to that extent. I'm sure it's on the interweb too, but that is gonna be long. Plus if I don't find it first pop, I think I'd struggle to rephrase the search criteria... hmm facerape might be the answer here.
I leave it as it is for now, but if I learn this information, I will certainly be changing it.
(Editor's note: it is now as it should be: vertical. Facebook was indeed the answer... I think I'll keep the above text though.)
(Rotation by Beardzilla)
Makes no sense. Do try your best to ignore the unintentional commentary... hehe.
OK, so it was after the above that I realise I'll get a better vid if I actually go and stand by the fucking performer. Oh well. Better late than never I suppose.
Pete. Immensely talented. I've seen him perform a few times now and my opinion of him only increases.
Ah this is Chrissie. I saw her perform at the Christchurch event with some other bird, but she was solo tonight. And apparently so hung over she could barely see, she told me. I thought if that was the case, then you have fucking mad skills, love.
Chrissie again. I was only gonna get one performance of each because I went out with a largely dead battery. Oh yes. True genius, me. But then she went and dropped Redemption Song which is one of my favourite songs of all time, but has been my particular favourite for the past 6 weeks or so. Random is as random does.
And this one is just until my battery runs out. It was kind of Colin's night featuring Pete and Chrissy, so I thought I'd let it run on.
All in all, a great night. The proceeds (and I believe all profits that night, too) all went to the Japanese Red Cross for the northeast. A collection still continues though and people are indeed very generous. The collection is here:
Oooh. See what I did there ? That so wasn't intentional. I would totally say if it was. Good brain. You did well. I think I reward you with some precious nicotine.
I've said it before and I will again: Atlantika is one of my favourite places in all of Japan. The reason is manifold.
Not more than two, maybe three weeks ago (time and space makes considerably less sense these days... If a week is a long time in politics, then it must be an eternity in Fukushima), Pete-san and Miyuki-san held a fundraiser for the victims and survivors of the Christchurch earthquake. So much geological-borne death of late. And I swear to god if someone says 2012 one more time to me, I'm going to force them to read a book on cosmology.
Tonight was a vigil and fundraiser for the northeast. It was a great evening. The music was awesome, but sedate and mellow.
Then there is the entirely superficial yet almost as important fact that they serve mojitos. Good mojitos I might add. I've never had two the same in any of the bars I've ever been to. They range from minty wet mush to an actual rum-based drink. Mojitos in Atlantika are of the best I've had. They probably run a very close second to Sosho.
But I can look past the superficial and obvious reasons to see what it is that this place is. It is a place where I feel at home (you can get fucked there). It is the place I met and continue to meet my favourite people in this country. It is the place I probably learn and speak the most Japanese. It is a place where I can teach others of the English language and western culture, should they be so inclined. On certain nights, the tables are taken out, lights and a smoke machine go up and hey presto you have a mini-club.
Now I've banged on quite a lot about that place since I started writing this wank. But frankly I've not written enough. I do intend to write something proper and decent and complex and I see from the previous paragraph that I am already trying to express it. Stupid fingers. This is about the vigil and so I will try and draw it back to that.
Anyway, vigil:
Nnngghhh. I really couldn't decide which of the two below pictures to put in. The first one without a flash really does capture the mood of the evening and is great. But the second one's great too as it actually has detail you can see... Bah fuck it, they both go in. I'll put the second one at the end though and think of some way to do so without it seeming like flagrant repetition.
To me, Miyuki is the spirit, the heart and soul of Atlantika. Without her, the place would not be. She reminds me so much of Yuko as well... both being diminutive, hard as fucking nails and beautiful throughout. Also with a slight tendency to work like mentalists. She is hyper on-the-ball, constantly. Seems to be able to move at the speed of light and yet retain micron-level accuracy.
Don't get me wrong, I am in no way saying that Pete is any less Atlantika or denigrating him in the slightest sense, oh fuck me no, but if you truly understand my words or have seen that place with your own eye, then you would know precisely what I mean.
Anyway, I'm slipping back into that trap of trying to write about Atlantika when I should focus. Forgive if I recycle some of the things I've written above at a later date.
Now my memory is a bit hazy, but I can't for the life of me remember at what point the observed silence was. Logic suggests that it was after or during Pete's set as he was the one who instigated it. It was only for 30 seconds (I think we could have pulled off a minute), but there is something deeply profound and incredibly moving about a pub full of people sitting in protracted silence for any amount of time. I was in half a mind to film it for a fraction of a second, but decided that it would be disrespectful.
The musical aspect of the evening was largely provided by Colin, a Canadian fellow who as you will be able to see, is pretty damn talented. But I've noticed an inordinate amount of those here. Talented people. It's great.
A little introduction... at this point I'm sitting at the very back. An altogether frankly fucking retarded place to be to try and film/capture what's going on at the complete other end of the room, but that little fact of reality was entirely lost on me for far too long.
Now for some completely ludicrous fucking undiscernible reason that seems to defy laws of physics, the below film is at a 45 fucking degree angle. I have no idea why and I am even less able to fix it. I wonder if there's a little command you can add to the HTML embed code to get this blogware to do it for me, but I'm fucked if I know because I don't speak geek... well maybe I do a little. But certainly not to that extent. I'm sure it's on the interweb too, but that is gonna be long. Plus if I don't find it first pop, I think I'd struggle to rephrase the search criteria... hmm facerape might be the answer here.
I leave it as it is for now, but if I learn this information, I will certainly be changing it.
(Editor's note: it is now as it should be: vertical. Facebook was indeed the answer... I think I'll keep the above text though.)
(Rotation by Beardzilla)
Makes no sense. Do try your best to ignore the unintentional commentary... hehe.
OK, so it was after the above that I realise I'll get a better vid if I actually go and stand by the fucking performer. Oh well. Better late than never I suppose.
Pete. Immensely talented. I've seen him perform a few times now and my opinion of him only increases.
Ah this is Chrissie. I saw her perform at the Christchurch event with some other bird, but she was solo tonight. And apparently so hung over she could barely see, she told me. I thought if that was the case, then you have fucking mad skills, love.
Chrissie again. I was only gonna get one performance of each because I went out with a largely dead battery. Oh yes. True genius, me. But then she went and dropped Redemption Song which is one of my favourite songs of all time, but has been my particular favourite for the past 6 weeks or so. Random is as random does.
And this one is just until my battery runs out. It was kind of Colin's night featuring Pete and Chrissy, so I thought I'd let it run on.
All in all, a great night. The proceeds (and I believe all profits that night, too) all went to the Japanese Red Cross for the northeast. A collection still continues though and people are indeed very generous. The collection is here:
Oooh. See what I did there ? That so wasn't intentional. I would totally say if it was. Good brain. You did well. I think I reward you with some precious nicotine.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Aftermath - pt III - Back to the Hash
So this is Thursday. I was getting increasingly ill-at-ease as the week progressesd, leading to a profound drop in concentration. I think I definitely hit a breaking point as so much was/is going on. I've only been here two months, the death toll is rising, the reactors aren't under proper control yet, I worry about my friends in Tokyo, everything is crazy here normally... I can't believe I even went to Chiba at all, to be fucking honest.
Still, I draw whatever positives I can. At least I gave it a shot and at least I got some mega awesome footage and pics of Fuji-san while I passed it. Truly one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. I should have left Europe long before now... maybe all this wouldn't be quite the headfuck it's been.
Anyway... here are a few vids from Chiba on the Thursday before I fucking bottled it.
Remember me showing the tower I was to be working in...? Well this is how high up I was. Not actually that high, really. But high enough, thank you very much.
Here are a few snaps that I took, because the view really was stunning. Sort of terrifying, in a way, but still pretty fucking epic.
Looking back at this myself, I can see that I'm not right. This was a short while before reading the FCO warning.
That fucking power button...
So it was during lunch that I agonised with the decision to leave the east. I really didn't wanna go, but something in my gut was telling me to. Maybe I fell victim to the plague of the western media myself, but I am largely ignoring it. Who knows. Bottom line is I ran. Though that did mean having to deal with Tokyo rush hour... The train wasn't so bad though, nor the tube. Possibly because of the people that have either left or who choose not to go out at the moment...
But, silver lining and all that... Behold Fuji-san !
Bear in mind though that I am on the Shinkansen, hooning past at a couple of hundred miles an hour...
Just incredible.
Utterly amazing.
Spectacular.
I don't think it's wrong of me to continue to illustrate the awesomeness of this country during this time. I never for a second stop thinking about the northeast, the damage, the death and the reactors, but there could be a lot of negative repercussions of the media shitstorm telling people to leave or avoid. THIS SHOULD BE IGNORED.
See the place as those of us that are here see it. That was my original intention for writing this horseshit. It seems a bit like duty now. Which is weird.
Anyway, I got a few photos as well.
Finally... something positive I've seen that will stay with me forever. I can't tell you what a nice change that makes.
Blurry. Still cool though.
Out the other side of some long-ass tunnel. The view from the other side of the train was cool as the sky was doing some awesome purple shit as the sunset became twilight... But given a choice between that and Fuji-san ? No fucking brainer.
Quite enjoyed the juxtaposition of the stunning natural beauty and the post-industrial factory ugh. But that just reminds me of Japan in general.
Love how the world just melts away due to the speed we're going, but Fuji-san remains.
Pretty much the same as above.
And again.
Should give you an idea of just how long my face and camera was glued to the window, snapping liberally.
Noice.
Noice.
Noice. Darker.
Well that's it for Mount Fuji, Fujiyama, or Fuji-san, if you will. (富士山)
I was so glad to get off the train when back in Toyohashi. So glad to get home. Just sort of felt instantly better.
Another thing I probably didn't mention before is that I was the only trainee going through the process. So there was no one else who'd just been here or was unsure or anxious. The guys doing the training had all been here for years. There was supposed to be one other bird, but apparently she bottled it too and fled the fucking country. Completely understandable. But no ta. Not yet in any case.
To peddle an old cliche like one who's bereft of vocabulary, to say that this week has been an emotional rollercoaster would be an understatment of the highest fucking order.
Still, I draw whatever positives I can. At least I gave it a shot and at least I got some mega awesome footage and pics of Fuji-san while I passed it. Truly one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. I should have left Europe long before now... maybe all this wouldn't be quite the headfuck it's been.
Anyway... here are a few vids from Chiba on the Thursday before I fucking bottled it.
Remember me showing the tower I was to be working in...? Well this is how high up I was. Not actually that high, really. But high enough, thank you very much.
Here are a few snaps that I took, because the view really was stunning. Sort of terrifying, in a way, but still pretty fucking epic.
Looking back at this myself, I can see that I'm not right. This was a short while before reading the FCO warning.
That fucking power button...
So it was during lunch that I agonised with the decision to leave the east. I really didn't wanna go, but something in my gut was telling me to. Maybe I fell victim to the plague of the western media myself, but I am largely ignoring it. Who knows. Bottom line is I ran. Though that did mean having to deal with Tokyo rush hour... The train wasn't so bad though, nor the tube. Possibly because of the people that have either left or who choose not to go out at the moment...
But, silver lining and all that... Behold Fuji-san !
Bear in mind though that I am on the Shinkansen, hooning past at a couple of hundred miles an hour...
Just incredible.
Utterly amazing.
Spectacular.
I don't think it's wrong of me to continue to illustrate the awesomeness of this country during this time. I never for a second stop thinking about the northeast, the damage, the death and the reactors, but there could be a lot of negative repercussions of the media shitstorm telling people to leave or avoid. THIS SHOULD BE IGNORED.
See the place as those of us that are here see it. That was my original intention for writing this horseshit. It seems a bit like duty now. Which is weird.
Anyway, I got a few photos as well.
Well that's it for Mount Fuji, Fujiyama, or Fuji-san, if you will. (富士山)
I was so glad to get off the train when back in Toyohashi. So glad to get home. Just sort of felt instantly better.
Another thing I probably didn't mention before is that I was the only trainee going through the process. So there was no one else who'd just been here or was unsure or anxious. The guys doing the training had all been here for years. There was supposed to be one other bird, but apparently she bottled it too and fled the fucking country. Completely understandable. But no ta. Not yet in any case.
To peddle an old cliche like one who's bereft of vocabulary, to say that this week has been an emotional rollercoaster would be an understatment of the highest fucking order.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Aftermath - pt II - Journey to the East
So teacher training began on Tuesday (yesterday), but I was supposed to arrive on the Monday. Suffice it to say that didn't happen because a lot of the trains weren't running. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't relieved when it was postponed.
Little did I realise though, that this postponement was only to be for a few hours. I'm pretty irked that I didn't get to spend the afternoon with friends in Tokyo, but it was not to be. No, instead I had to cross half the fucking country during the next morning.
It seems somewhat improper of me to display any levity at this time in respect of the dead in the northeast. But are we truly honouring their memories if we don't take what good we can from this horrible time ? I can do very little very well, but one of those things is apparently writing. So write I will about this place. It's sickening the amount of people that have fled this place but irritatingly ambivalently, I can quite understand their feeling and motivation. But it's ungrounded. And of course, it's mostly the foreign denizens of this country, bakka gaijin if you will, who are doing so. It doesn't take a nuclear physicist to understand why. The plague that is the western media have put such a repellant spin on what's going on here that family and loved ones have insisted they come home. Much have my own. It is touching and genuinely heartwarming that people have done so, continue to do so... and I have never felt more loved in my life. I think it has a lot to do with this strength I've found that I didn't know I had to stay here.
Erm. Those of you on lamebook will know I just experienced another quake. Literally, as I was typing this, my building shook like Louise Woodward's charge. I hope to god people are safe and no tsunami will result.
Living in Japan though, this is just a fact of reality. Last Friday was apparently a once-in-a-thousand-year event, but that does not change the reality of the ground. There is palpable uncertainty in the air. Every tiny tremor, every loud footfall across the floor, every siren that occurs and the uncertainty becomes fear. I expect this will happen for a while yet though.
Watching footage of a man and his wife searching for their lost son on TV has just made my eyes stream. Their names were Seiichiro and Machiko. It was heartbreaking. Their son's name was Shiro.
Well... it's now Friday night. The FCO issued advice to get the fuck out of Tokyo... Now while I don't for a minute believe anything that comes out of William fucking Hague's office, it was kind of the last straw... Before you (quite rightly) accuse me of being some retarded ponce who couldn't even take his own advice (especially after the shit I last wrote) I ask that you reserve judgement until you see my Chiba footage. Then ask yourself what you would have done. The UK has now begun chartering flights to repatriate its people.
Also, you must remember, I was there to learn stuff. To be trained. I found it immensely difficult to concentrate before that edict. But after, it was impossible. I asked for a postponement so I didn't waste people's time. I suck if I'm not focused... Again, these are excuses and I accept my epic failure, but again, see these videos and then ask yourself what you would have done...
At first it began as any normal trip did, but considerably more subdued. I challenge any of you not to get a tiny bit lifted by the thought of going on the Shinkansen. Plus I'd be passing Fuji-san and would be able to see it for the first time. Still. There was definitely something not right about it all...
Had to get up at five fifteen in the fucking morning... Training was initally postponed... FOR ONE FUCKING DAY !!!
As a nod to older, simpler times, I caught this one for nostalgia's sake. Hah.
It's nice to be able to complain about things that are ultimately meaningless.
Musings, smokings and admittings. Prospect of Fuji-san was exciting.
Just some landscape like previous footage. See the country. It rocks.
Like the title says. Tectonic activity is the price you pay for such amazing landscapes.
Into Tokyo...
Properly now.
Having the usual fag.
OK, I seem to have made a bit of a strange jump here. It is now the Wednesday morning. I am surreptiously filming a long line of people outside a supermarket. It's creepy.
I'm talking to Ben, the trainer... He was asking if I was gonna take a picture of the queue... Little did he know (until I told him).
Starting to get a bit freaked out now...
Continues...
Some more damage.
Nom nom.
Akin to a swarm.
The mood changes considerably.
I could easily have been on the 16th floor. But buildings here are built so well, I would have been fine. Physically. Emotionally however ? Well if that degree of movement made me feel like that on the ground floor, then I have no idea how the fuck I would have felt halfway up a massive tower, feeling like I was at fucking sea. Urgh. No fucking ta. That was bad enough.
By this point, I think I had experienced about five earthquakes now. Friday's brutal one. And then four since arriving in Chiba. I draw your attention back to what I said about every tiny tremor possibly being the harbinger of a lot worse... Yeah. It was not so pleasant being there at all really.
After the big quake, the lifts were out for ages. I can still hear that fucking building siren man.
But we were on reclaimed land, so the shaking was much more pronounced...
Right it's taken me fucking ages to get all that stuff up. I'm back in the Hash now. I have more stuff from the Thursday, which was the day I bottled it about halfway through.
Watch this space for a view out of the window on the 16th floor and FUJI-SAN on my journey of shame.
Little did I realise though, that this postponement was only to be for a few hours. I'm pretty irked that I didn't get to spend the afternoon with friends in Tokyo, but it was not to be. No, instead I had to cross half the fucking country during the next morning.
It seems somewhat improper of me to display any levity at this time in respect of the dead in the northeast. But are we truly honouring their memories if we don't take what good we can from this horrible time ? I can do very little very well, but one of those things is apparently writing. So write I will about this place. It's sickening the amount of people that have fled this place but irritatingly ambivalently, I can quite understand their feeling and motivation. But it's ungrounded. And of course, it's mostly the foreign denizens of this country, bakka gaijin if you will, who are doing so. It doesn't take a nuclear physicist to understand why. The plague that is the western media have put such a repellant spin on what's going on here that family and loved ones have insisted they come home. Much have my own. It is touching and genuinely heartwarming that people have done so, continue to do so... and I have never felt more loved in my life. I think it has a lot to do with this strength I've found that I didn't know I had to stay here.
Erm. Those of you on lamebook will know I just experienced another quake. Literally, as I was typing this, my building shook like Louise Woodward's charge. I hope to god people are safe and no tsunami will result.
Living in Japan though, this is just a fact of reality. Last Friday was apparently a once-in-a-thousand-year event, but that does not change the reality of the ground. There is palpable uncertainty in the air. Every tiny tremor, every loud footfall across the floor, every siren that occurs and the uncertainty becomes fear. I expect this will happen for a while yet though.
Watching footage of a man and his wife searching for their lost son on TV has just made my eyes stream. Their names were Seiichiro and Machiko. It was heartbreaking. Their son's name was Shiro.
Well... it's now Friday night. The FCO issued advice to get the fuck out of Tokyo... Now while I don't for a minute believe anything that comes out of William fucking Hague's office, it was kind of the last straw... Before you (quite rightly) accuse me of being some retarded ponce who couldn't even take his own advice (especially after the shit I last wrote) I ask that you reserve judgement until you see my Chiba footage. Then ask yourself what you would have done. The UK has now begun chartering flights to repatriate its people.
Also, you must remember, I was there to learn stuff. To be trained. I found it immensely difficult to concentrate before that edict. But after, it was impossible. I asked for a postponement so I didn't waste people's time. I suck if I'm not focused... Again, these are excuses and I accept my epic failure, but again, see these videos and then ask yourself what you would have done...
At first it began as any normal trip did, but considerably more subdued. I challenge any of you not to get a tiny bit lifted by the thought of going on the Shinkansen. Plus I'd be passing Fuji-san and would be able to see it for the first time. Still. There was definitely something not right about it all...
Had to get up at five fifteen in the fucking morning... Training was initally postponed... FOR ONE FUCKING DAY !!!
As a nod to older, simpler times, I caught this one for nostalgia's sake. Hah.
It's nice to be able to complain about things that are ultimately meaningless.
Musings, smokings and admittings. Prospect of Fuji-san was exciting.
Just some landscape like previous footage. See the country. It rocks.
Like the title says. Tectonic activity is the price you pay for such amazing landscapes.
Into Tokyo...
Properly now.
Having the usual fag.
OK, I seem to have made a bit of a strange jump here. It is now the Wednesday morning. I am surreptiously filming a long line of people outside a supermarket. It's creepy.
I'm talking to Ben, the trainer... He was asking if I was gonna take a picture of the queue... Little did he know (until I told him).
Starting to get a bit freaked out now...
Continues...
Some more damage.
Nom nom.
Akin to a swarm.
The mood changes considerably.
I could easily have been on the 16th floor. But buildings here are built so well, I would have been fine. Physically. Emotionally however ? Well if that degree of movement made me feel like that on the ground floor, then I have no idea how the fuck I would have felt halfway up a massive tower, feeling like I was at fucking sea. Urgh. No fucking ta. That was bad enough.
By this point, I think I had experienced about five earthquakes now. Friday's brutal one. And then four since arriving in Chiba. I draw your attention back to what I said about every tiny tremor possibly being the harbinger of a lot worse... Yeah. It was not so pleasant being there at all really.
After the big quake, the lifts were out for ages. I can still hear that fucking building siren man.
But we were on reclaimed land, so the shaking was much more pronounced...
Right it's taken me fucking ages to get all that stuff up. I'm back in the Hash now. I have more stuff from the Thursday, which was the day I bottled it about halfway through.
Watch this space for a view out of the window on the 16th floor and FUJI-SAN on my journey of shame.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Aftermath
Yes, well.
I think I am now determined to keep writing this fucking thing. If for no other reason, then for to try and dispel some of the bullshit apocalyptic doom-mongering that some people including the western fucking media whores seem intent on peddling across the world.
Foreigners are apparently leaving in droves, especially from Tokyo, like rats from a sinking fucking ship. Except this ship ain't sinking. It's just taken a bit of a battering.
I suppose I should update a bit.
Right now, as I type this, I am in Chiba Prefecture in the east. I'm about half an hour away from Tokyo in a town called Makuharihongo. It's considerably more east than I would like, a bit too close to the disaster zone for comfort, but this is where I need to be for my training, so mote it be.
It's here, for your reference:
View Larger Map
You must bear in mind though, that last night's quake was in Shizuoka and that is halfway home. Still, really not far from the danger and Chiba was hit by a bit of a wave anyway... but one does one's best not to think about it. It's just something that is that can't really be changed. Thinking about it too much will drive you insane. It's quite similar to when I found out that both my lungs could collapse at once in the spectacularly named 'spontaneous bilateral pneumothorax'. When you are told that you could literally drop down dead for no reason, it messes with your mind somewhat and I was unable to sleep for weeks. But eventually you accept it and get on with it. The agonising surgery has meant that this risk is considerably reduced, but it is still a possibility. In real terms, we could all get hit by a bus tomorrow so there it is. This feeling and acceptance is considerably more pronounced in this country which could be swallowed up by a hole in the earth, or washed away by a giant tsunami, so there we go.
But yes, so impressed and moved have I been by the valiance and the resilience of the Japanese people, I am determined to see this thing through to whatever end it might be.
All the time we think about Miyagi and Fukushima Prefectures and the loss and devastation that what's a little threat of death compared to what those poor bastards have been through...?
So no, cutting and running is not a fucking option. In the highly unlikely situation that nuclear fallout does occur (never say never, mind), then my mind might change. But if I can come through this with a fraction of the trauma that some have, then I and all those who still exist, will be all the stronger for it. I've been through some pretty fucked up shit in my, ahem, twenty-odd years on this planet, so really... despite all the fear and all the anxiety and terror, I will stick it out and become a fucking teacher god damn it.
I think I like this post as it is.
I might leave it there actually and put the other shit I have to say and the footage I've captured on another post.
Watch this space for a different world. The world changed on Friday, March the 11th 2011, and I think we all did along with it.
I think I am now determined to keep writing this fucking thing. If for no other reason, then for to try and dispel some of the bullshit apocalyptic doom-mongering that some people including the western fucking media whores seem intent on peddling across the world.
Foreigners are apparently leaving in droves, especially from Tokyo, like rats from a sinking fucking ship. Except this ship ain't sinking. It's just taken a bit of a battering.
I suppose I should update a bit.
Right now, as I type this, I am in Chiba Prefecture in the east. I'm about half an hour away from Tokyo in a town called Makuharihongo. It's considerably more east than I would like, a bit too close to the disaster zone for comfort, but this is where I need to be for my training, so mote it be.
It's here, for your reference:
View Larger Map
You must bear in mind though, that last night's quake was in Shizuoka and that is halfway home. Still, really not far from the danger and Chiba was hit by a bit of a wave anyway... but one does one's best not to think about it. It's just something that is that can't really be changed. Thinking about it too much will drive you insane. It's quite similar to when I found out that both my lungs could collapse at once in the spectacularly named 'spontaneous bilateral pneumothorax'. When you are told that you could literally drop down dead for no reason, it messes with your mind somewhat and I was unable to sleep for weeks. But eventually you accept it and get on with it. The agonising surgery has meant that this risk is considerably reduced, but it is still a possibility. In real terms, we could all get hit by a bus tomorrow so there it is. This feeling and acceptance is considerably more pronounced in this country which could be swallowed up by a hole in the earth, or washed away by a giant tsunami, so there we go.
But yes, so impressed and moved have I been by the valiance and the resilience of the Japanese people, I am determined to see this thing through to whatever end it might be.
All the time we think about Miyagi and Fukushima Prefectures and the loss and devastation that what's a little threat of death compared to what those poor bastards have been through...?
So no, cutting and running is not a fucking option. In the highly unlikely situation that nuclear fallout does occur (never say never, mind), then my mind might change. But if I can come through this with a fraction of the trauma that some have, then I and all those who still exist, will be all the stronger for it. I've been through some pretty fucked up shit in my, ahem, twenty-odd years on this planet, so really... despite all the fear and all the anxiety and terror, I will stick it out and become a fucking teacher god damn it.
I think I like this post as it is.
I might leave it there actually and put the other shit I have to say and the footage I've captured on another post.
Watch this space for a different world. The world changed on Friday, March the 11th 2011, and I think we all did along with it.
Monday, March 14, 2011
9.0
I wasn't sure if I was going to post during this time, but if this is to be a log of my experience of Japan, how the fuck could I ignore a world-changing, life-changing event such as this...
But the amount I've been on facebook of late has enlightened me to the true strengths of this type of media... it allows us to quickly disseminate information, as we hear it, to those we love and who love us.
I can tell you how it occurred to us here in Toyohashi City, Aichi Prefecture... for those of you that are unaware, please see this map:
View Larger Map
Well after the 9.0 hit, the energy from the shockwave had considerably dissipated by the time it got here and was about a magnitude 3. I didn't even notice. Maki called me into the lounge shouting 'earthquake', and at the time, without the blessing of knowledge, I shamefully thought it was one of the coolest things I'd ever seen. The house wobbled a bit, things that were hanging became pendulous... I did think though, that I wouldn't think this was so cool if people had died...
It wasn't till a while later that I got a mail from Seb, saying it was an 8 and providing a link to the NHK Japanese news network which is in English:
http://wwitv.com/tv_channels/6810.htm
After then, the news has been on constantly as the horror has unfolded. The first time (about 5PM local time on Friday) we saw entire towns sweeping across the lands, inexorably, unstoppably... it's the sort of sight that stays with you forever. Like the shock of seeing the two towers come tumbling down.
I keep two live streams on: the above NHK and also the BBC one:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12307698
I'm thinking I need a third one though, so am going with CNN World... I hear it's a pretty good one.
What is there to say about the abject horror and the pure devastation of Miyagi and Fukushima Prefectures... Nothing I can say could possibly do it justice.
After it first happened, there were reports of minimal fatalities, but when you can see the detritus of entire towns crawling across the land, you know something wasn't right there... maybe it was confirmed/identified folks only.
As I type the numbers are 1628 confirmed and 10,000 missing. The entire town of Minamisanriku... I don't have the words... I have but a series of overpowering emotions. The sense of being so powerless to help is insurmountable... Would that one was in a position to donate meagre coin, but I can't even do that yet.
Was supposed to go to Chiba prefecture via Tokyo today to begin training, but Chiba is in the east and many trainlines are not operating... I've been told to stay away. And thank fuck. Before they cancelled though, I was told to bring a torch and a whole bunch of batteries for the blackouts (all sold out locally), so I was gonna stash some candles as well.
I've been told by the school to prepare an earthquake bag containing essential supplies, but this is apparently fairly standard for all new teachers.
Earthquake, tsunami, potential meltdowns and now warnings of another big quake or aftershock with subsequent tsunami.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
But the amount I've been on facebook of late has enlightened me to the true strengths of this type of media... it allows us to quickly disseminate information, as we hear it, to those we love and who love us.
I can tell you how it occurred to us here in Toyohashi City, Aichi Prefecture... for those of you that are unaware, please see this map:
View Larger Map
Well after the 9.0 hit, the energy from the shockwave had considerably dissipated by the time it got here and was about a magnitude 3. I didn't even notice. Maki called me into the lounge shouting 'earthquake', and at the time, without the blessing of knowledge, I shamefully thought it was one of the coolest things I'd ever seen. The house wobbled a bit, things that were hanging became pendulous... I did think though, that I wouldn't think this was so cool if people had died...
It wasn't till a while later that I got a mail from Seb, saying it was an 8 and providing a link to the NHK Japanese news network which is in English:
http://wwitv.com/tv_channels/6810.htm
After then, the news has been on constantly as the horror has unfolded. The first time (about 5PM local time on Friday) we saw entire towns sweeping across the lands, inexorably, unstoppably... it's the sort of sight that stays with you forever. Like the shock of seeing the two towers come tumbling down.
I keep two live streams on: the above NHK and also the BBC one:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12307698
I'm thinking I need a third one though, so am going with CNN World... I hear it's a pretty good one.
What is there to say about the abject horror and the pure devastation of Miyagi and Fukushima Prefectures... Nothing I can say could possibly do it justice.
After it first happened, there were reports of minimal fatalities, but when you can see the detritus of entire towns crawling across the land, you know something wasn't right there... maybe it was confirmed/identified folks only.
As I type the numbers are 1628 confirmed and 10,000 missing. The entire town of Minamisanriku... I don't have the words... I have but a series of overpowering emotions. The sense of being so powerless to help is insurmountable... Would that one was in a position to donate meagre coin, but I can't even do that yet.
Was supposed to go to Chiba prefecture via Tokyo today to begin training, but Chiba is in the east and many trainlines are not operating... I've been told to stay away. And thank fuck. Before they cancelled though, I was told to bring a torch and a whole bunch of batteries for the blackouts (all sold out locally), so I was gonna stash some candles as well.
I've been told by the school to prepare an earthquake bag containing essential supplies, but this is apparently fairly standard for all new teachers.
Earthquake, tsunami, potential meltdowns and now warnings of another big quake or aftershock with subsequent tsunami.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
On Beards, Car Parks and Towers
Well well. This sure is a lot of posts, deshou. Don't wanna be spoiling you now.
This post will probably not mean that much to many of you. But I for one do not give two fucks. Possibly one; definitely a third... but certainly not two.
髭 or hige, appears to be beard, but I keep encountering it in conjunction with other kanji. And that's just annoying and confusing and annoying.
鬚 or hige as well (nnghh) also seems to be beard
顎鬚 or agohige also appears to be beard as well. But the 'ago' part seems to specify the location of the jaw or the chin. Which to me seems unusually specific. Pogonolocality apparently needs defining here...
Car parks are fucking weird here. I remember my brother trying to explain them to me on like the first time we took a walk down Hirokoji dori. It seemed a bit too wacky and unreal at the time, but having only recently arrived here, everything was a bit like that.
So here is a video I found on youtube that seems to show exactly what was described (seeing it brought it all back), but it's kind of anti-intuitive, so it was easy to forget.
Methinks that you might like this a bit too much, ser.
One might think of it as 'intelligent design' if that phrase hadn't become so unadulteratedly a euphemism for RETARDED CUNT THINKING. Or 'Burn the witch !', etc.
I also got these pics of one. It's on Hirokoji dori, and it is the parking structure of that adjacent building. Swanky building. I know someone who lives on the top floor. Now that is status, bitches.
(And yes, I just went out and took these with the sole intention of putting them above.)
But on a more serious note, it is a very good way to deal with the vast amount of people in such a limited space.
Fucking cars, man. The one thing other than people you just can't get away from in an urban cityscape. That's one of the things I loved so much about the Isle of Arran. Hardly any cars (you could go for like a whole day without seeing one) and not so many people.
OK, this one's a bit epic...
立体駐車場 rittaichūshajō. My definitions come out at 'multi-storey car park', 'parking structure', 'parking deck', 'parkade'.
I've never seen that last word before. To me it conjours up such wonderful images of the place I used to get pissed when I was twelve, incorporating coin-op SFII machines as far as the eye can see....
'Set-up (or rise) object stop-over car location' is a rough approximation of the deconstructed kanji meaning. Howzat for ze verfickte logic-desu ? Deshou.
鉄塔 (tettou). This is 'pylon', or 'steel tower'. There are quite a lot of them here. All of them orange and white.
'Iron pagoda'. Deshou.
I have to say that those two are quality looking kanji. They look like actual Japanese kanji. A Japanese person would think that an incredibly strange statement, but as a foreigner (or bakka gaijin, desho) I can quite safely say that there are kanji that look FUCK ALL like what I would think kanji would look like.
Example: the kanji for 'craft' (the noun, I think) is thus: 工 (kō). It looks like a fucking capital letter 'I'. It is like why I was so pissed off when I learnt my name, which has to be in katakana, is リー. I do not have the words to describe to you how fucking robbed I felt when I saw that. Even as a child, I thought that Japanese writing was steeped in coolness and mystery. I've always loved words and calligraphy and suchwank, and to have that snatched away from you was a bit of a kick in the cunt.
No matter, I have recently been reminded (apparently I was told this when I was 11 oO), that because 'ri' is a syllable, there are actually kanji for it. 利 also means it. And is frankly much better.
I don't recognise the primitive element to the left, but the one to the right, which looks like an elongated リ is an element that means sword, specifically 'dancing sabre'. You're all entitled to make of that whatever the fuck you will. You would've anyway, desho.
Perhaps some of you might be wondering (if you noticed, that is) my repeated use of the word 'deshou' (shortened by the young to 'desho'). It's because I have very recently learnt that it means 'isn't it'. Or simply, and quite beautifully, 'innit'. I don't think I need to explain further.
I am still working on the kanji for "All who work in marketing are pointless shitting fuckscum and must hang from the nearest pylon", but I'm getting there... We definitely now know that 鉄塔 will make an appearance. And bravo, ser.
So I need to find the verb 'to hang', and the verb for 'work', but I swear I know it already. I can't get the fucking word 'Arbeit' out of my head... Arschlochen.
Fuckscum, I can tell you now because it would be in katakana: ファクスカム (fakusukamu). I think. I might have a few of the nuances wrong there. I don't think the words 'fuck' and 'scum' are oft transliterated into Nihongo...
This post will probably not mean that much to many of you. But I for one do not give two fucks. Possibly one; definitely a third... but certainly not two.
髭 or hige, appears to be beard, but I keep encountering it in conjunction with other kanji. And that's just annoying and confusing and annoying.
鬚 or hige as well (nnghh) also seems to be beard
顎鬚 or agohige also appears to be beard as well. But the 'ago' part seems to specify the location of the jaw or the chin. Which to me seems unusually specific. Pogonolocality apparently needs defining here...
Car parks are fucking weird here. I remember my brother trying to explain them to me on like the first time we took a walk down Hirokoji dori. It seemed a bit too wacky and unreal at the time, but having only recently arrived here, everything was a bit like that.
So here is a video I found on youtube that seems to show exactly what was described (seeing it brought it all back), but it's kind of anti-intuitive, so it was easy to forget.
Methinks that you might like this a bit too much, ser.
One might think of it as 'intelligent design' if that phrase hadn't become so unadulteratedly a euphemism for RETARDED CUNT THINKING. Or 'Burn the witch !', etc.
(And yes, I just went out and took these with the sole intention of putting them above.)
But on a more serious note, it is a very good way to deal with the vast amount of people in such a limited space.
Fucking cars, man. The one thing other than people you just can't get away from in an urban cityscape. That's one of the things I loved so much about the Isle of Arran. Hardly any cars (you could go for like a whole day without seeing one) and not so many people.
OK, this one's a bit epic...
立体駐車場 rittaichūshajō. My definitions come out at 'multi-storey car park', 'parking structure', 'parking deck', 'parkade'.
I've never seen that last word before. To me it conjours up such wonderful images of the place I used to get pissed when I was twelve, incorporating coin-op SFII machines as far as the eye can see....
'Set-up (or rise) object stop-over car location' is a rough approximation of the deconstructed kanji meaning. Howzat for ze verfickte logic-desu ? Deshou.
鉄塔 (tettou). This is 'pylon', or 'steel tower'. There are quite a lot of them here. All of them orange and white.
'Iron pagoda'. Deshou.
I have to say that those two are quality looking kanji. They look like actual Japanese kanji. A Japanese person would think that an incredibly strange statement, but as a foreigner (or bakka gaijin, desho) I can quite safely say that there are kanji that look FUCK ALL like what I would think kanji would look like.
Example: the kanji for 'craft' (the noun, I think) is thus: 工 (kō). It looks like a fucking capital letter 'I'. It is like why I was so pissed off when I learnt my name, which has to be in katakana, is リー. I do not have the words to describe to you how fucking robbed I felt when I saw that. Even as a child, I thought that Japanese writing was steeped in coolness and mystery. I've always loved words and calligraphy and suchwank, and to have that snatched away from you was a bit of a kick in the cunt.
No matter, I have recently been reminded (apparently I was told this when I was 11 oO), that because 'ri' is a syllable, there are actually kanji for it. 利 also means it. And is frankly much better.
I don't recognise the primitive element to the left, but the one to the right, which looks like an elongated リ is an element that means sword, specifically 'dancing sabre'. You're all entitled to make of that whatever the fuck you will. You would've anyway, desho.
Perhaps some of you might be wondering (if you noticed, that is) my repeated use of the word 'deshou' (shortened by the young to 'desho'). It's because I have very recently learnt that it means 'isn't it'. Or simply, and quite beautifully, 'innit'. I don't think I need to explain further.
I am still working on the kanji for "All who work in marketing are pointless shitting fuckscum and must hang from the nearest pylon", but I'm getting there... We definitely now know that 鉄塔 will make an appearance. And bravo, ser.
So I need to find the verb 'to hang', and the verb for 'work', but I swear I know it already. I can't get the fucking word 'Arbeit' out of my head... Arschlochen.
Fuckscum, I can tell you now because it would be in katakana: ファクスカム (fakusukamu). I think. I might have a few of the nuances wrong there. I don't think the words 'fuck' and 'scum' are oft transliterated into Nihongo...
新豊橋 - part XI - Trees and Other Random Shit
So a lot of these were collected over the space of the last week.
I got a whole bunch of trees because I'd never really looked at them that hard before... look at the branches - the offshoots grow almost entirely vertically upwards. It's well random.
There's a few more statues from Hirokoji dori that had remained up till now uncaptured.
Oh and the shirt I blagged off that promoter dude. That is such an Americanism... Still it's cool though. I like random crap.
Trees and shit.
Vending machine cluster.
Stuff under a post.
Hahahah, this is just on my road, Kanente Cho, and it makes me smile because it reminds me of Sumi-san.
Hahaha, also on my road. I think I was trying to do something with the sign in the middle.
Winged recon contingent.
Outside the station.
Winged recon contingent.
Random, disembodied, illuminated red triangle top.
I have no fucking idea what the fucking hell this shit is supposed to fucking be man.
This is walking across a bridge I'd not walked across before. Those of you that have been paying attention up till now will be able to work out where this is. Taken for rather obvious reasons.
Same as above, but with less zoom.
Random rocks on Hirokoji dori yielding an unexpected secret.
Other uncaught statue of, erm, something.
Walking up the road which is behind Atlantika on my way home one afternoon. Such a splendid image would have to have been caught, I thought.
These appear to be oranges, or some other citrus fruit growing in someone's garden !! Same road as just mentioned.
Getting further to the end of the road.
I like this street.
Same as above, but with more zoom.
I wanted one with my shadow in it.
This is a statue of a fat man consuming what appears to be his own weight in alcohol. Before I could stop it, my brain had already dubbed him 'Sir Magnus The Great'... but then overdrive kicked in and all the synonyms I could possibly come up with for 'great' started playing out unontrollably, like a crack-addled child with spoons against a saucepan:
Sir Magnus The Vast
Sir Magnus The Portly
Sir Magnus The Round
Sir Magnus The Corpulent
Sir Magnus The Humongous
Sir Magnus The Enormous
Sir Magnus The Monstrosity
Sir Magnus The Galactic
Sir Magnus The Enormotron
Sir Magnus The Supersized
Juliet
Sir Magnus The Unbound
Sir Magnus The Carrier
Sir Magnus The Infinite
Et fucking cetera.
This awesomeness appears to be a child's painting of Godzilla and is attached to a signpost on Hirokoji dori.
Random building.
PROBLEM...? WHAT... F-FUCKING... PROBLEM ???!!!
Illuminated vending machine cluster.
A shop window for some fucking reason. Sometimes I really do fail to understand my thought processes...
Mini-hole.
This is an empty bottle of Stoli, upside-down, in someone's basket. Marvellous.
Illuminated kanji. And no I can't read it. Actually, maybe a couple of them.
The moon in the sky in a street. I liked the moon that night. It looked like a marble.
We're on our way to go and meet someone. We end up in a fabulous and swanky Italian restaurant. Rather nice, actually.
Champers alright for you, Pats ?
Lovely, sweetie.
A selection of wines was brought when I suggested we should drink red.
After all, any council estate chump could tell you that one drinks red with antipasti.
This is Mr. Taka. Mr. Taka is my brother's friend and shachou. Do try your hardest to ignore the unbelievably gormless looking tosser prick in the right. I should really photoshop that out...
Another with we three.
Oh this is kind of complicated but is deserving of an explanation...
My coming to Japan was no accident really. The more I think about it (and I've been thinking about it a lot since arriving here), the more I can see this was always going to have happened. I don't believe in fate. To suggest that we're all living some pre-destined life that we all have no control over is horseshit and is a way for stupid people to cop-out of the mess they've made of their own fucking lives. Anyway, not fate, just an increase in probability.
But it starts in 1987, back on the estate in Arbury where it was not uncommon for families to put up a foreign student in their homes for a few extra quid. These students would often hang out with us kids on our park. In 1987, a guy called Makoto came to stay at my mate Lynda's house. And just across the road from them a bird called Makiko was staying with another family I knew...
So that's how my brother and Makiko met.
Fast forward about five years and it's 1992. I'm 11 now. Ashley was off travelling and went to America, so in his room we had someone stay with us. Japanese fellow by the name of Takamitsu. Or simply 'Taka'. On my brother's return, they became friends. A few years later, my brother went to Japan to go to his wedding and on returning, brought with him a 'PlayStation'. This was about six months before they had even been heard of in the west. "How terribly exciting..." I thought as I began to play a bizzarre '3D' fighting game. 'Tekken', its name was. Everything was so new and shiny...
Fast forward again to 1997. One evening I am at home, completely fucking wasted (as I often was, when I was 15), my brother throws me this PS game and says "here, play this... you'll like this."
Alrighty, I thought, and played it I did. I was still playing it about 18 hours later. Probably more, knowing me. That game was called Final Fantasy VII.
Now about 10 years hence, some of you might know that I suffered an unfortunate respiratory infarction that resulted in the termination of my doctorate in synthetic organic chemistry. Stupid fucking lungs.
This resulted, among other things, in me having to join the minimum-wage workforce. It was during this time I was playing the very recently released Final Fantasy XII round my mate's with whom I was staying. While completely stuck on that cunt of a level the Great Crystal, desperate for a map, I search for one on the interweb and am presented with the Square Enix Europe website. Odd, that I should find myself following that link, given I knew full well there would be no game maps on there. But on there I went, and found myself clicking the job section and seeing that they needed minionscum. Well my mate saw it too and dared me to apply for it. The rest, as they say, is poorly-remembered bitch nostalgia.
No Square would mean no Seb, no Tu, no beardy, and no Yuko (and none of the other awesome things I associate with it. Like Ratspank Danger Catastrophe, a whole bunch of other people I can't begin to be arsed to list. No píndejos, no Hoi-yee stylee, no cake and ニバルさん, no angry bald German bastards...) For Square, it would've meant no Mellar.
I really could go on here. But Square was a very important part of my life for a long time. Fucking Eidos motherfucking Cameroncuntwhores.
But. It would be churlish and deeply hypocritical of me not to view that last thing with the same eye as which I just previously described having my career and my dreams ripped away from me. If that ludicrous farce of an example of a risible horsepiss storm of the merger hadn't happened. And Mr. and Mrs. West hadn't hacked and fucked their way through Prod, ruining forever what it really once used to mean, then I wouldn't be where I am now. I'd still be calling people fat or bald and swearing a lot. Oh well. One out of three ain't bad.
Silver lining ? Door closing, window opening ? Life handing you lemons, and you then demanding tequila and salt ? Who the fuck knows or cares. Bottom line is, the fucking Tory cunts and their banker bumchums aren't directly ruining my life. Any more.
That fucking pantomime horse that is Cuntmeron and Cunt and the rest of their band of tax-dodging, Eton-fed miscreants. The most ideologically driven Tories we have ever had the misfortune to witness. So long NHS. Without which I'd have no hands, no lungs and would long since have been sectioned under the Mental fucking Health Act. Bevan and Atlee must be doing backflips in their graves. You ideologically driven nasty bastards have seen the rift between the privileged and normal folk widen and deepen forever. If you're poor or disadvantaged in any way, Dave's Britain is not for you. Health ? Education ? Yes, but only if mummy and daddy can pay for it. Or if they have secret offshore accounts in some fucking post-imperial banana republic.
Oh I hate them so much it gives me diction.
I must say though, I take infinite fucking delight in learning that Michael Gove was adopted. I actually sleep soundly at night knowing full fucking well that the very moment he was expelled into this world, the very instant he drew his first breath, his progenitors took one look at him and thought 'Fuck.That.' It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if they mistook him for a troubling birth defect such as teratocarcinoma. I would have trouble telling the difference.
But, they took one look at this malignant atrocity, looked upon him and saw what he would become, and they shuddered. They knew fear (and probably nausea) and then handed him off to a nunnery or wherever the fuck they dumped him. You, ser, are an unforgivable excuse of a sham of a human being. An abomination of nucleic acids and frankly just a waste of molecules that would probably be better used in the construction of school buildings.
Hmm, I may have tangentially asided from the point there. Suffice it to say the rest of the evening ended in abject randomness. I may tell you about it one day.
I got a whole bunch of trees because I'd never really looked at them that hard before... look at the branches - the offshoots grow almost entirely vertically upwards. It's well random.
There's a few more statues from Hirokoji dori that had remained up till now uncaptured.
Sir Magnus The Vast
Sir Magnus The Portly
Sir Magnus The Round
Sir Magnus The Corpulent
Sir Magnus The Humongous
Sir Magnus The Enormous
Sir Magnus The Monstrosity
Sir Magnus The Galactic
Sir Magnus The Enormotron
Sir Magnus The Supersized
Juliet
Sir Magnus The Unbound
Sir Magnus The Carrier
Sir Magnus The Infinite
Et fucking cetera.
We're on our way to go and meet someone. We end up in a fabulous and swanky Italian restaurant. Rather nice, actually.
Oh this is kind of complicated but is deserving of an explanation...
My coming to Japan was no accident really. The more I think about it (and I've been thinking about it a lot since arriving here), the more I can see this was always going to have happened. I don't believe in fate. To suggest that we're all living some pre-destined life that we all have no control over is horseshit and is a way for stupid people to cop-out of the mess they've made of their own fucking lives. Anyway, not fate, just an increase in probability.
But it starts in 1987, back on the estate in Arbury where it was not uncommon for families to put up a foreign student in their homes for a few extra quid. These students would often hang out with us kids on our park. In 1987, a guy called Makoto came to stay at my mate Lynda's house. And just across the road from them a bird called Makiko was staying with another family I knew...
So that's how my brother and Makiko met.
Fast forward about five years and it's 1992. I'm 11 now. Ashley was off travelling and went to America, so in his room we had someone stay with us. Japanese fellow by the name of Takamitsu. Or simply 'Taka'. On my brother's return, they became friends. A few years later, my brother went to Japan to go to his wedding and on returning, brought with him a 'PlayStation'. This was about six months before they had even been heard of in the west. "How terribly exciting..." I thought as I began to play a bizzarre '3D' fighting game. 'Tekken', its name was. Everything was so new and shiny...
Fast forward again to 1997. One evening I am at home, completely fucking wasted (as I often was, when I was 15), my brother throws me this PS game and says "here, play this... you'll like this."
Alrighty, I thought, and played it I did. I was still playing it about 18 hours later. Probably more, knowing me. That game was called Final Fantasy VII.
Now about 10 years hence, some of you might know that I suffered an unfortunate respiratory infarction that resulted in the termination of my doctorate in synthetic organic chemistry. Stupid fucking lungs.
This resulted, among other things, in me having to join the minimum-wage workforce. It was during this time I was playing the very recently released Final Fantasy XII round my mate's with whom I was staying. While completely stuck on that cunt of a level the Great Crystal, desperate for a map, I search for one on the interweb and am presented with the Square Enix Europe website. Odd, that I should find myself following that link, given I knew full well there would be no game maps on there. But on there I went, and found myself clicking the job section and seeing that they needed minionscum. Well my mate saw it too and dared me to apply for it. The rest, as they say, is poorly-remembered bitch nostalgia.
No Square would mean no Seb, no Tu, no beardy, and no Yuko (and none of the other awesome things I associate with it. Like Ratspank Danger Catastrophe, a whole bunch of other people I can't begin to be arsed to list. No píndejos, no Hoi-yee stylee, no cake and ニバルさん, no angry bald German bastards...) For Square, it would've meant no Mellar.
I really could go on here. But Square was a very important part of my life for a long time. Fucking Eidos motherfucking Cameroncuntwhores.
But. It would be churlish and deeply hypocritical of me not to view that last thing with the same eye as which I just previously described having my career and my dreams ripped away from me. If that ludicrous farce of an example of a risible horsepiss storm of the merger hadn't happened. And Mr. and Mrs. West hadn't hacked and fucked their way through Prod, ruining forever what it really once used to mean, then I wouldn't be where I am now. I'd still be calling people fat or bald and swearing a lot. Oh well. One out of three ain't bad.
Silver lining ? Door closing, window opening ? Life handing you lemons, and you then demanding tequila and salt ? Who the fuck knows or cares. Bottom line is, the fucking Tory cunts and their banker bumchums aren't directly ruining my life. Any more.
That fucking pantomime horse that is Cuntmeron and Cunt and the rest of their band of tax-dodging, Eton-fed miscreants. The most ideologically driven Tories we have ever had the misfortune to witness. So long NHS. Without which I'd have no hands, no lungs and would long since have been sectioned under the Mental fucking Health Act. Bevan and Atlee must be doing backflips in their graves. You ideologically driven nasty bastards have seen the rift between the privileged and normal folk widen and deepen forever. If you're poor or disadvantaged in any way, Dave's Britain is not for you. Health ? Education ? Yes, but only if mummy and daddy can pay for it. Or if they have secret offshore accounts in some fucking post-imperial banana republic.
Oh I hate them so much it gives me diction.
I must say though, I take infinite fucking delight in learning that Michael Gove was adopted. I actually sleep soundly at night knowing full fucking well that the very moment he was expelled into this world, the very instant he drew his first breath, his progenitors took one look at him and thought 'Fuck.That.' It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if they mistook him for a troubling birth defect such as teratocarcinoma. I would have trouble telling the difference.
But, they took one look at this malignant atrocity, looked upon him and saw what he would become, and they shuddered. They knew fear (and probably nausea) and then handed him off to a nunnery or wherever the fuck they dumped him. You, ser, are an unforgivable excuse of a sham of a human being. An abomination of nucleic acids and frankly just a waste of molecules that would probably be better used in the construction of school buildings.
Hmm, I may have tangentially asided from the point there. Suffice it to say the rest of the evening ended in abject randomness. I may tell you about it one day.
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