scribbles

The 3 Day Plan

The original plan was to go to Osaka for three nights in a row. Saturday: a trance/house club called Neo. Sunday: Asayo's birthday party at ItoI. Monday: some dance event thing. But, wait, transportation to and from Osaka will cost around $12 each time...

Thus, The 3 Day Plan was born.

My friends have informed me of a giant spa in Osaka that only costs around $10 to enter, and some people even sleep there. Bingo! Hit the clubs, and then hit the spa afterwards, sleep there, wake up, shower, hit the next club.

So, I'll be spending the weekend (and then some) in Osaka. If I can get Net access within that time, I'll update on how this masterful conniving plan is coming together. In the interim, I've gotta prepare and pack!

Everyone have a great weekend!

Bird Flu Found in Kyoto

Oh, shit.

The Passion for Spam

Some folks are spamming LiveJournal blogs with comments about The Passion.

I keep an account at LiveJournal so I can post on my friends' blogs without having to be an anonymous coward. Yesterday, I was goofing around and decided to make a single post on my journal there. Within minutes, I get an email in my inbox informing me of a comment about the wonders of Mr. Gibson's controversial new flick, The Passion of the Christ. Well, I just did the sensible thing and got rid of the silly thing.

The same fellow's posted on a few of my friends' blogs on LiveJournal too. Ptooey!

Learn about Electronic Music

I've been going to quite a number of clubs lately, mainly in nearby Osaka in some ghetto-looking neighborhood called Shinsaibashi. Bryan Butterfield, is constantly tricking me into going with him. We've been to venues with Techno/House, Hip-Hop, and other places with just crappy music. The Techno/House stuff we run into I've been rather ambivalent about. I've never known too much about electronica, and when I bumped into Ishikur's Guide to Electronic Music, I thought I'd get me-self an edumusication on this stuff.

I've realized that I like Trance Dance, Eurodance/Eurobeat, Dream, and just plain Classic Techno. I never could figure out what was what. I find it funny that J-Pop (father of Eurobeat, which I didn't know) is in there. Here's what Ishikur's got to say about that:

Is anyone even surprised that this kind of stuff would come from Japan? That whole country is like Bizarro world. They do everything we do, just in a really strange way. It reminds me of that scene in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" where they go near Toontown, and you can see clouds of smoke and yelling and fighting and all sorts of haywire shit happening above the horizon to signify the complete and total lunacy of the place. Japan is just like that. The whole world continuously scratches its head at the far east, then sits back and watches to see what wacky thing the Japanese will do next. I mean, I'm sure the culture is swell once you get past all the incest and pedophilia and giant robots and all, but after that--huh? Japan is super crazy place, 100 PERCENT!

Wait, he doesn't even describe the music! Hehe.

The weekend is creeping in again soon, and I'm working on my armwave. *grin*

That's What I Call Urban Art

There are Animals on the Underground. Now I want to look at subway maps here in Kyoto, stare at them in my drunken stupors back from clubs, and see if I can find my own furry friends.

Cooking with Ivan

Tonight, while cooking up some declicioso curry rice, I decided that I'd begin sharing some of my wacked out cooking recipies with all-o-ya'll. Really, I was surprised how well my curry came out. I guess with that instant cook stuff it's hard to go wrong.

Read on, and find out more about Ivan's "cheap-assed student in Japan trying to not be hungry but not go out to eat while saving money" cooking techniques.

[Updated on: 02.26.2004 ]

So, I'm a student. I don't need to know how to make pretty dishes or crap like appetizers or whatever crap. I just want something to fill my stomach that won't make me throw up out of every hole on my body.

The first obvious choice was to make ramen and expand on that. That's actually what I did, but it began to get old, and ramen every day for every meal just ain't healthy. So, after all my culinary experimentation, I've come up with the follwing three groups:

Ivan's Three Food Groups

1. Ramen/Noodles
2. Rice
3. Pasta

It's from here where we first begin. Yea, some people may say, "Hey, you nitwit, pastas are noodles too." Well, to you I say, "foo!" This is my system, dammit!

Anyhow, it's from these three groups that I first decide what to cook for the day. Ramen/Noodles are generally easy. Rice is actually quite complicated because it involves more imagination, and working those brain juices can be difficult when your stomach juices are a-hollar'in! Pasta is easy but can be made more difficult depending on if you have time.

Which leads me to another thing. These recipies can take from 3 minutes (cup noodles, baby!) to an hour to cook. Not to mention going to the store to get stuff. Cause all you've got is a tiny little fridge, right? So, let's get some things down you should keep in your keep-cool device.

Stuff That Lives In Your Fridge

• Carrots
• Potatoes
• Cucumbers
• Onions

This is the bare minimum stuff you need around. Notice the variety of colors. Now, what other crap do you need?

Other Crap We Need

• Garlic
• Ginger
• Salt
• Cooking Oil
• Soy Sauce
• Oyster Sauce

I don't personally have Oyster Sauce at the moment, since I can't find any decent kinds of it here in Japan, but that stuff is a lifesaver. You can really put it in anything and it'll turn out good. And you have to remember to always have Garlic. This is just shit you need folks!

Needless to say, you should also need Ramen, Rice, and Pasta in your cupboard somewhere. Well, if not in your cupboard at least somewhere in your kitchen and not in your underwear drawer.

And, of course, we need the stuff we're gonna cook with.

Tools and Shit

• Pot (so we can boil shit)
• Pan (so we can fry shit)
• Knife (so we can cut shit)
• Peeler (so we can peel shit)
• Spoon, Spatula, and Stuff like that

I also recommend some music playing while you cook, cause Kitchen Dancing, much like Shower Singing, should be enjoyed whenever possible.

So, that's it for now. Stay tuned for more installations of Cooking with Ivan in the coming weeks.

I Don't Feel Bad About It

A confession:

at a red light, a whole bunch of anti war protestors surrounded my car and one of them put a down with bush sticker right on my tailgate... on the paint. I got out and pulled it immediately off and it took some paint of my car. I asked the guy why he put it on there, and he said Bush is a nazi and so are all US military. i said 'I am in the military' and he spit in my face. I kicked the shit out of that guy, and the rest of the protestors ran away just to get a cop. What a bunch of hippies. I got back in my car and took off. I dont feel bad about it at all, should i?

Interesting for various reasons. One is that the protesters are running to go get the authorities for help when the authorities are those that they are upset about. Another is that the poster is obviously feeling something about what he's done--be it bad or guilty or whatnot. Otherwise, he wouldn't have posted it!

Everyone, Group Hug!

Make a confession about anything, anonymously, on group hug. Or, just keep on reading them. More and more. And read more. And eventually you will feel guilty about reading so many and wasting your time. And post your own confession like this:

i have spent allday reading these confessions and have done absolutely no work. Furthermore I sent the link to many of my friends who have also spent hours reading it. Its strangely addictive in a voyeuristic kinda of way.

Fascinating and brilliant.

Get on the Cluetrain

The Cluetrain Manifesto is a book I heard about so much that I pretty much understood it before reading it; maybe it's just that I've never really been a corporate drone before. I recently "picked it up" (err... started reading it) on its website. These things seem obvious to me, but when I read about SCO and its incessant non-sensical attack against the "new era," I can start to understand better how these corporate cultures can (strangely) exist.

I just came upon the book again recently when fumbling around Doc Searls' book list. Following the link to the website, I couldn't help but to stop reading.

The book basically speaks of things we already know. That is, we, folks who've been on the Internet and have felt the power that it held since its beginnings as an incredible way to network people together into communities. I felt it the first time I opened up ntalk on my first Netcom UNIX shell account and started chatting with my good pal Rulon Anderson online in 8th grade. And then his brother joined the conversation. People come together here and they together hold power.

Joe Trippi understood it, even if maybe Dean never really did. And the old dinosaurs of corporations won't be able to survive without understanding it. That means understanding and not controlling it.

Get on the Cluetrain!

That's Some Super Mario'ing

Alex Leon sliced together some old memories to make a Flash animation--or rather, three of them. Mario Brothers: Part I, Part II, and Part III. That's some badass Flash cinematography.

Lost about Lost in Translation

Hey, kids. In browsing around the Japan Today website, I came upon an editorial on Lost In Translation by a Japanese woman who's venting her anger at the movie.

Here's a curious thing she wrote:

All I saw in that movie were two bored and boring empty privileged Americans who can afford to stay and feel trapped for quite a long period of time in the most expensive hotel in Tokyo. It's quite hard for me to feel sympathy toward a man who earns "tons of money" from a commercial and thinks it's a very hard and unrewarding job, or toward a woman who can travel freely without a purpose and still complains. These people's problems are so out of touch from many people's lives.

On the contrary, I think these are things many people can relate to. Granted, most people aren't rich or actors, everyone can understand the sense of loneliness Bob and Charlotte felt. Just because a man makes lots of money doesn't mean he feels that his job is rewarding, and a woman travelling without purpose is very lonely indeed: because that's a life without purpose and without satisfaction. Really, when I read the above paragraph, I realized that this woman was taking this film from a completely different (and wacked out?) context.

One commenter there rebutted it quite well:

It's a movie about two foreigners who passed thru (yes, as in undigested) a country. [...] the country was utlized as a backdrop to the human condition. it was not, insofar as i know, a condemnation of japan, a documentary about japan nor a commentary -in a serious sense- about it.

Keep Your Spirit Alive!

Several years ago, people were saying how everybody and their cat has a webpage. Well, it now seems like everybody and their Mars Rovers have a blog. Now rolling to a crater near you.

Not too technical. Updated often. Photographs. Great supplement to the regular news about the rovers' progress.

Awesome.

Bboying

If you want to get started with bboying (otherwise known as breakdancing) an experienced bboyer's posted a good place to start in the forums at bboy.org.

Many of the fundamental moves he describes can be seen on video at the Learn to Break site.

Spirit's Medicine

Being the space and computer geek that I am, I have to let everyone know about the article finally describing exactly what happened with the Spirit Mars Rover.

The data management team's calculations had not made any provision for leftover directories from a previous load still sitting in the flash file system.

As Murphy would have it, earlier, sol 19 Spirit attempted to allocate more files than the RAM-based directory structure could accommodate. That caused an exception, which caused the task that had attempted the allocation to be suspended. That in turn led to a reboot, which attempted to mount the flash file system. But the utility software was unable to allocate enough memory for the directory structure in RAM, causing it to terminate, and so on.

Spirit fell silent, alone on the emptiness of Mars, trying and trying to reboot. And its human handlers at JPL seemed at a loss to help, unable to diagnose a system they could not see.

Basically, Spirit ran out of space, had to reboot, and tried to startup again and set the RAM up for use again, but there wasn't enough space to do that either, so it reboot again... and again...

Cool shit is that my friend, John La, used to work at Wind River Systems with VxWorks, the Operating System used on Spirit and also the first rover that landed on Mars.

Nice to Meet You, I Love You

I've been drinking too much recently. For the past eight nights, I've been inebriated for seven of them. Alright, besides me and my recent habitual drunkedness, it's nice to see some great discussions going on in the comments. That said, Jenn (the one in Taiwan, not the one in New Zealand) recently had thoughts and wonders about Japanese relationships in my last post:

A former Japanese classmate Eiko was discussing relationships with my ABC classmate Jiaying. Apparently, you say "I Love You", like, when you first lay eyes on the person (or something crazy early on, like that). Jiaying, of course, was aghast. Shit like that would scare any other guy the other way. Eiko says, "If you don't say it, how do you know when its time to tan(2) lian(4) ai(4)?" (which basically means, "courtship"..or more literally "to discuss & read love").

Folks who watch too much anime *cough* may be familiar with this image: a girl and a guy standing under sakura trees and the guy gives his confession to the girl. The confession being that he loves (erg, loaded word) the girl. (At this point, usually, in the anime the guy gets rejected, hehe) Or, it can sometimes be the girl making her confession.

I don't think they're actually saying that they love each other when they make their confessions, however. In Japanese, they're saying something like: あなたのことがすき (anata no koto ga suki), which translates directly to "I like you." But some things get (here we go again!) lost in translation because "I like you" in Japanese means more than just the "I like you" in English. I'd say that in Japanese, it's something equivalent to the place between "I like you" and "I love you." Stronger than your typical like but not exactly (but maybe close to) love. So, this is what Jenn's friend, Eiko, may be meaning by Love.

Now, back to the matter at hand. I get the impression that platonic relationships are very new things in Japan. In the city, it may be more common that girls and guys are friends. (I really have to emphasize how this is speculation with educated guesses on my part, since I've only been here for 5 months!) I've found that girls from the countryside or conservative girls are less likely to have guy friends. These are the kinds of girls who would find a guy attractive and make her confession to a guy she likes. Maybe Eiko is from the countryside?

Grow!

Christian pointed me to a fun little game called Grow. Go get addicted today. My best score so far is 7200.

Drop Him on a Dime

The most recent Quote Of The Day on Japan Today by "Divorcee Kari Nikaido, 28, who says she has four boyfriends and is not missing married life one bit. (Spa!)":

"I don't want to worry about anybody else and if I fight with one guy, I know I can go to another guy to make me feel better."

And then a comment on it by reader, Snow:

this kari sounds like she's found something that works for her, which is great. i wonder why she wouldn't want to solve the underlying problems that cause fights rather than treat the fights themselves as the problems, though.

And here is where I say stuff. Japanese girls won't discuss things; they'll just drop a guy in a second, not contact him again, and the poor guy won't have a clue what happened. I speak both from (*gulp*) personal experience and discussion with friends. That being said, I've also chatted with Japanese girls who don't think it happens as well. However, there's still the aspect of discussing about the relationship that seems absent with Japanese couples. This phenomenon (or lack thereof) was even discussed in a former television drama aired on NHK titled Sakura. Girl doesn't express grievances, girl gets fed up, girl leaves without notice.

I'm still not sure, however, if this is just or mainly the situation between inter-cultural relationships. Linking back to the L-word article at the Japan Times, a quote about this Japanese girl cold ditching can be found:

She stopped taking Gregory's calls or answering his e-mails and just "dropped the whole thing, because he probably wouldn't understand if I told him what the problem is."

Dude can't even get a clue about what he did wrong, and he won't know anything about how to fix it for the next relationship either. Man, that's some messed up shit.

Pinkhouse Chinese Triad

...I was speaking of asian triads earlier: Andy Wu finally got himself blogged up and ready to rock and write with his first entry (about... shoes?).

With the addition of the Wu-meister to the blog-world, the Pinkhouse Chinese Triad has resurged back into communication: that is, me, Andy, and Jen (whose blog has recently been having more activity than hungry hampsters). Everyone else seems to be M.I.A. other than a surprise appearance by the Dr. Patterman from USC a few entries ago (and Thierry's informative little URL post).

Word on the street's also told of the Chungmeister peeking out around places too. Hmm!

Orkutted!

At long last, I've been Orkutted by Ed Tam (thanks!). I was thinking that I may not get on and be able to mingle with the likes of Doc Searls and Danah Boyd. Except, things are turning out to be rather Friendster-ish: that is, my friends lists are becoming hoardes of asian triads.

I was getting worried that I may have to buy an invitation to Orkut too.

If you know me well enough and want in on another Internetted way to waste time at work, shout me a hollar and I'll consider whether you are worthy enough to be invited into the Orkut clique. *grin*

Chinese Sweet Snackies

Haw flakes are not firecrackers!

Optimus Prime

Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 23:37:22 -0800 (PST)
From: Conrad Pak Tse
Subject: Unexpected Comments from The Apprentice

i can't believe that i saw this when i was browsing through a transformers newsgroup. look at the last question.

http://www.nbc.com/nbc/The_Apprentic...

conrad

Here's the last question/answer:

What cartoon character do you most relate to and why?
The cartoon character that I most relate to is Optimus Prime from the 'The Transformers'. Optimus Prime is the leader of the Transformers and works as a powerful force of goodness, courage and wisdom in the battle against the evil Decepticons. He first tries to find peaceful solutions to conflicts, but when battle lines are drawn, he becomes a fierce warrior capable of overpowering vast enemy forces to achieve his goals. I used to watch this cartoon when I was little with my brothers and sister and we loved it!

We don't have The Apprentice here in Japan (yet?). My friend has some tapes of Friends episodes his family sent him from the States, and I've seen commercials for the show.

Anyhow, back to the matter at hand: I never knew Optimus Prime to be one to first "find peaceful peaceful solutions to conflicts." I've been thinking about this, and the constant war between the Autobots and Decepticons is quite simple: they just fight because one is good and one is evil. Every time the opposing forces meet, there's a slew of gunslinging without explanation of why. It's a fight for the sake of fighting!

Hmm, or maybe they fight for the sake of helping the economy.

Valentine's Day in Japan

February 14th was something that sprung up in Japan sometime in the 60's, supposedly by conspirational chocolate companies. On this day, those of the female gender give chocolates to men; but, (ho-ho!) there's more to it than just that. You see, there are two kinds of chocolates: the kind that you give to someone just to be nice--maybe something like a co-worker; and also the kind that you give to someone that you really want to say that L-word to. How you tell the difference I'm not quite clear on, but I have my guesses.

It doesn't all end there! On March 14th, there's White Day in which the men who received these chocolates are to respond with their own sweets. Again, there are two responses; basically: "yes, I like you" (something special is given) or "no, I don't" (give her a 100yen something from the local 7-11). So, I guess girls have to wait a month for a response from their crushes.

Another social procedure written to foster non-confrontation and allowing people to save face! Enjoy your chocolates!

The Waseda Crew Rolls Down

Last Friday, my good buddy Judah from San Francisco State who's studying abroad at Waseda University (a very prestigious school in Tokyo; it always impresses Japanese folks when saying the name of the school) came down to visit in Kyoto! Yay!

This past weekend was one of excrutiating partying and tiredness. Friday, a pack of us went to a club called World here in Kyoto where I was able to demonstrate my wingman prowess with slick success. Saturday, we were guestlisted for a club in Osaka with the help of DJ Yuta; strange venue... you know those girls way back a while ago in Tokyo that liked to get themselves tanned and Indian-like and then slapped some white/silver makeup on their faces? (they're called kogaru) Well, there were guys dressed like that there; and Japanese dudes having that long hair: just wasn't sure if those people were guys or gals.

And then there's Sunday. Waking up after two days of clubs at 2pm and getting stoked for... reserved bad-ass seating for Return of the King. The movie wasn't released here until Valentines, and we'd waited in line for something like two hours on Wednesday to get our tickets, but it was well worth the wait! (There's a theater here that lets you buy tickets before-hand and choose your seats while you're at it) I give it a 9/9.5!

I finally slid in a waffle of time to add in a little entry here (and maybe a little more).

Tonight, Monday, the rest of the Tokyo-ites arrive, and we're having a huge drinking party (something like 30-50 people are expected), and I did my best to invite all the estrogen possible to entertain my beloved buddies!

I Got It!

A week or so ago, I got some snail mail from a friend in SF.

Maybe you're concerned that I didn't get your letter. I did! Thanks! :)

Places to go, people to see

These map things are getting popular.

States I've been to in the US?

What about countries in the world? (Hmm, I think I have that right)

In chat recently, folks were talking about which states they had sex in, or where they've self-pleasured themselves. Oh, what fun these maps can be!

Try it yourself!
Where have you been?

Lost in Translation

Carol insisted that watching Lost in Translation was one of my primary objectives in living this life. I went to Tsutaya (basically the Blockbuster of Japan) and looked for it last month. How silly am I to be looking for a film that hasn't even come out in theaters here yet?

After giving up on that plan for a bit, I prodded some of my Internet buddies so I could get my hands on the film. Well, let's just say a little faery came and dropped the film into my hard drive.

So, I got to watchy watch. How was it? It was really well made: great cinemetography, good music. Some points are too slow for me. Overall, I'd give it a 7 out of 10.

I could feel the frustration these people were having living in Japan. Actually, the scene where Charlotte calls home crying was very moving for me. Maybe I'm still finishing up the down part of my culture shock, so that feeling kind of touches close to home. I really thinks that this place changes people; just like how Charlotte mentioned that her husband's changed. And even more for him, since he's a photographer: his business is image, and image in this land of saving face and social procedures creeps to importance.

Another observation is about Bob and how everyday there are these people guiding him around from the Suntory whiskey company. I've had this idea of Japanese as being like children: they're always being hand-held and guided around. That's what I was getting from that pack of company folks who'd meet Bob every morning in the lobby. It's kind of like social hand-holding; mothers over-pamper their children, and men who come home without dinner on the table are stranded (heaven forbid even using the microwave to cook something up!). It doesn't show so much in the movie, but I got the sense of it. You could tell how Bob was getting annoyed of it, however. Anyways, I think that because of that, people get mentally lazy and become rather child-like.

I'll watch it again soon, and maybe I can get a better feel for the film and comment some more.

What's your Favorite Place in...?

My favoritest place in Kyoto? Heck, not my room. It seems like a full-time job to keep my room from being a jail chamber. 24/7. Non-stop. Make the room entertaining, Ivan!

So what is my favorite spot in Kyoto? I don't know! I've been here six months, and I can't answer a question like that. Well, that's one to add to the list: Find a favorite place in Kyoto. Oh, please don't let that be a difficult task.

How about in Berkeley? That's a toughie too. I like the SPC. I like the Pink House. And I really like Hummingbird Cafe smoothies. But maybe my favorite spot has got to be Espresso Experience. Go there. Say 'hi' to Helen. Let her know that Ivan is in Kyoto, Japan.

Oakland? Oh, decisions. Decisions! Welp, there's no place like home, eh? Gotta vouch for my very own house. It's a happenin' place.

What's your favorite place at your place?

What Will I Do With My Life?

You see, the semester just ended last Thursday. Now, I have utterly and completely nothing to do but sit on my ass in my room, stare out the window, and do geeky computer things on my iBook. Oh, thrilling.

Thus, in my attempt at freeing myself from the chains of unstructured time, I shall construct a list. Hey, when all else fails, make lists!

Goals for the next 2 months:
Get a part-time job. And I don't mean just getting silly teaching jobs where I just spout out rambles in English. I wanna get a real job where I can pretend to know Japanese and do things like a real working Japanese folly. There's a prospect in sights where I may be able to sneak my way into the works at a new shopping center at an Italian restaurant. Hopes are up!

Finish all the books I got from Amazon. Reading is helping me sane in times of mental idleness. It can sometimes feel like I'm in an intellectual void, but I've got to remember that there's a language barrier too. I've got to keep my mind moving, or else it'll just be a helpless glob of jello by the time I'm done here.

Exercise. Bicycling, and that includes in the cold. Doing my daily routine of stretches. Occasional swimming, tennis, and other spontaneity can get thrown in there too. My brain's one muscle I've got to prevent from globulizing, and my body's full of other muscles that need the same discipline.

See more of Kyoto. With a little help from the bicycling from above, I should start trimming down the sites of the city and feel more productive with my time.

Alright, that's a whole lot to do for now. Time to get out there and do some of it!