December 2nd, 2002

Ugh. Happy...what month is it, December? Cool.

Astute readers will note that I have sought refuge in the loving arms of background textures, after months of wreaking aesthetic havoc with awful color scheme after awful color scheme. Not to say that this green-and-red thing ain't eating away at my retinas as we speak, but it at least has the whole seasonal thing going for it. Also it's all bumpy and 3-D and shit! Whee!

Anyway, Thanksgiving has come and gone, and in place of the normal turkey, stuffing, and family togetherness that usually characterizes the holiday stateside, this year I and my fellow American friend Mooney instead got mind-numbingly un-sober and subsisted nearly entirely on KFC supplemented by 3 AM binges of cereal, candy bars, chips, pizza, spaghetti, reheated KFC, cheesecake, and oh yes, fruit roll-ups. Sure, this may seem a bit against the spirit of Thanksgiving, but really, we did the best we could seeing as we're in Japan, where the average citizen wouldn't know a Pilgrim even if one bit him on the ass, and then started making better cars or stereos than him. Besides, until you can 100% prove to me that the first Thanksgiving didn't feature maize-flavored fruit roll-ups or something, you can just take all your traditionalist Hallmark-ness and shove it right up your giblet hole.

Seriously though, despite holidays pretty much meaning less and less every year for me (culture-hopping will do that to a person), it was kind of a bummer not to be home for Thanksgiving, seeing as it's really the most family-oriented of the major holidays. Unlike Christmas and New Year's, no one ever throws a wild Thanksgiving party where the secretary gets drunk and xeroxes her ass or something -- no, for Thanksgiving, you go home, you eat with your family, period. This year I did manage to semi-join my family via the new webcam my techie older brother sent me, which I believe clearly qualifies us for the semifinals of the World's Geekiest Family pageant. It was nice in an extremely-nerdy sort of way, but not quite the same, as you might imagine. Kind of like eating fried chicken wrapped in a tortilla instead of a big fat roasted turkey.

Still, while I didn't quite have Thanksgiving, that doesn't mean I didn't have a good weekend. Basically Mooney and I sat around getting non-sober and discussing ways to make the world better, 90% of which seemed to revolve around increasing the amount of court-ordered beatings in the world. You can decide for yourself just to what degree I'm kidding, but even the most genteel of you must admit that you know someone who would greatly benefit from a light beating, or at least a hard slap to the face. We would have no need for psychiatrists of guidance counselors if everyone would just realize that the REAL road to recovery begins with a literal kick in the pants, or worse. In fact, I think President Bush's next crazy resolution should be the establishment of a National Slap Day, where everyone shows up at a predetermined location, waits patiently in line for their hard slap to the face, gets up, dusts off, and subsequently conducts life a tad more humbly for the rest of the year. It'd be just like voting, except it would be 100% mandatory. What if you skip out on your personalized slap? The punishment's simple: light beating.

Oh, and don't think I've left out the little ones with this Election Day template for National Slap Day, either. No no, just like schools have hearing and eye tests every year, one day out of every school year they'd head down to the nurse's office just to be smacked upside the head. Better yet, add a "Candy Day" too, but never tell the kids which day is when so they don't know what's in store for them in the nurse's office; humble 'em further.

But back to the subject of beating -- under the right circumstances, and if conducted in the proper fashion, I see nothing wrong with beatings as a form of official punishment. There must be hundreds upon hundreds of skilled sadists in the world wasting their talents upon hundreds upon hundreds of sicko masochists; why not put their talent to good use? I'm no savage; I'm not saying we should just take people and beat the snot out of them with, say, a metal pole -- no, we'd hire skilled professionals who can give a beating that's reasonably and memorably painful yet leave no long-lasting or even superficial, visible injuries. Say, for example, you steal someone's parking space at the mall, or shop at Abercrombie & Fitch. Mall personnel would simply notify the Mall Security Beater, who would be a large man in a tight shirt and sunglasses, and he'd simply pound on you for 10 minutes or so. Yeah, you'd be aching, and certainly humiliated, but having received your beating from a skilled, professional beater your pride would be hurt more than your body (but only by a bit). You'd have nothing broken, you'd have all your teeth; at the very worst you'd be very bruised and have a black eye. Now tell me this wouldn't be a far more effective deterrent than some wussy fine.

Well, as long as you're all looking up the number for the local Japanese authorities to notify them to keep an eye on me, I may as well tell you the crown jewel of my Institutionalized Beatings Plan: Want to get married? Want to have a baby? Well fine, but get ready for a light beating first. That's right, if you want to get married or procreate, you and your partner both gotta undergo a beating before you sign them papers. I'm actually frighteningly serious about this, I admit, but as you're getting ready to scribble upon me with your crazy-colored crayons, honestly, think about it for a minute: if you're not willing to take a light beating for the sake of your spouse or kids, then quite frankly, you don't deserve to have them anyway.

December 3rd, 2002

So, I agreed to come into my junior high school next Wednesday -- an office day -- so I could appear in the group photo for the yearbook. The vice principal and other staff were making quite a big deal of this, so I said sure, I'd come in, and it was agreed that I'd come in at 10 in time for the photo, and then leave whenever. Pretty good trade for giving up one of my coveted office days, right? But then when I got home, one of my teachers called me and informed me that she had the bright idea to just have me stay and teach the whole day instead, as long as I was coming in anyway. Which of course, does make lots of sense, but man -- I try to be nice, offering to come in on a day I'm not supposed to, and suddenly I'm now teaching five days straight next week instead of four nicely broken up by a beloved office day in the middle. The moral here? LIE. Don't try to be nice, LIE YOUR DAMN ASS OFF.

Regular readers know just how much I hate giving up my office days, but in this case it isn't just my usual lazy bitching and whining. It's just the fact that, goddamn it, lately it seems like the Universe is deliberately fucking with me to make my winter break feel that much farther away. Normally, time passes fairly quickly here because there's usually nothing on the horizon -- I live my life from day to day, weekend to weekend, and don't usually look beyond that. Now, though, winter break, which I am desperately anticipating, is clearly looming above my head like uh, a really sexy Sword of Damocles (Today's Awful Metaphor Rating: -2). Winter break is close enough to anticipate yet far enough to seem unreachable. It is the ultimate weekend, and because of that, every day until then is just part of one really long, awful week. It's only the 3rd and already I can tell this is going to be the looooongest-feeling month I've had since getting here, easily.

Of course, it doesn't help that most of my friends in America start their winter breaks in oh, a week. Lousy bastards (Yeah, I'm looking at YOU, Carl). I, on the other hand, do not go on break until the 28th, not to mention I'm even working on Christmas Fucking Eve. Yeah yeah, say what you will about cultural differences (Christmas is little more than another Valentine's Day in Japan), but goddamn it, I'm spending my Christmas Eve with a bunch of screaming bratty kids in a cold moldy school way the fuck up in the mountains, with nary a cup of hot cocoa or a cheesy TV Christmas special in sight. I'm living in the cultural equivalent of A Christmas Carol, I have a RIGHT to be pre-emptively grumpy. Suffice to say, if I see anyone who even LOOKS like Tiny Tim within the next month, I'm gonna kick him right in in his remaining leg, and laugh while doing so. Bah humbug, indeed.

December 4th, 2002

My parents complained about the red-on-green color scheme being hard on the eyes, and given that I'm currently typing this entry on a braille keyboard I'd have to agree. Hopefully this blazing gold color is a tad easier to read. Screw you, seasonality!

...yeah, that's right, I made an update solely to explain that the text is now gold instead of red, as if that wasn't plainly obvious or something. You have a problem with that? SHUT UP

All right, fine, here's an awesome link to make this update worth your while. In fact, consider it required reading. If you're entertained by what you see, excellent. If you're offended by it, then I mean it, I don't want you ever to come back to this page again, for I don't wish to be even distantly associated with people who insist on missing the point of obvious satire.

December 6th, 2002: It's Been Too Long Since I Talked About the Butt

It's fourth period in Nozawa Elementary right now, but instead of teaching some third graders bits of haphazard English I'm here logging in a rare in-school update instead. I was supposed to teach this period -- it says so right on my schedule -- but absolutely no one remembered so here I am. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. Were it not for these sorts of daily affirmations of the importance of my position, I don't know how I'd get through the week.

I should mention that I rather love this school. All the kids are ultra-cute and generally well-behaved, and the atmosphere in the teachers' room is very friendly, warm, and casual. Not to mention matronly -- for example, I was a bit late this morning on account of drinking last night, so Mrs. Tanaka, who's the kind of lady who hands young people apples for no particular reason, came right to my door to pick me up out of pure concern. Sure it's a bit patronizing, but it beats riding my bike in the freezing cold for half an hour. However, all is not perfect in Happy Nozawa Land, because this is also a school that generally works me to the bone, and then nips some marrow when I'm not looking. At other elementary schools I teach about four periods; here, I teach SIX, which translates to an entire day on my feet tending to screaming kids, lunch included. It's kind of a trade-off: I love the school to death but afterwards I am just about dead and my voice is shot. I'm hesitant to ask for a break period since I only come here once a month and there's a LOT of kids here, many of whom actually whine when they hear how long it will be before I visit again. So essentially I just deal with it, even though I think in my contract it states that I'm to teach no more than five periods a day. However, when I end up with impromptu break periods such as this, you couldn't find a more grateful guy.

Another thing about this school -- not once have I ever received the "kancho", or fingers up the butt, from any of the students here (knocking vigorously on every piece of wood I can find). Sure I only come here once a month, but seeing as students at other schools practically have hourly contests to see whose fingers can first cause a sonic boom in my ass, the students here have really had more than ample opportunity -- but they haven't taken advantage of it. This is in direct contrast to the students of the school I visited yesterday, who went prospecting for brown gold so many times that my arse was actually a bit sore when I got home. It's a humilating feeling, getting home from work and realizing it will sting to wipe my ass for the rest of the day due to work-related hazards. Therefore, any school that doesn't make me feel like some kind of unwilling prison porn star is okay in my book, six periods or not.

December 8th, 2002: Beware Evil Jesus

Wow, in a few days I'll have reached 10,000 hits. And here I thought I was being really egotistical when I gave myself a counter that had more than three digits. No doubt much of this traffic is due to the inexplicable, sexually ambiguous allure of one Terry S McMahon, who, incidentally, has updated his own journal after a brief hiatus. I've actually been wondering if he was ever going to update again, but never asked him because to be honest I wasn't sure if he was done already. Gotta maintain an image of authority in front of the troops, you understand. That's something Terry himself must well understand, what with all the gladiator movies he watches.

Tomorrow begins the dreaded Five Days of Teaching, and while I know it's unbecoming to whine about having to work five days a week instead of my usual four-ish, keep in mind I'm just bitter because I was SUPPOSED to only work four, if not for last-minute schedule additions. ("I'm not even supposed to BE here today!") And this really only makes me bitter because I am thoroughly convinced that some malevolent god is greatly enjoying watching me writhe and suffer waiting for winter break. Visually I personify this deity as Evil Jesus, who looks just like his better-known twin brother except with a goatee instead of a full beard, plus with maybe a big scar on his face or something. Also he is evil, but you probably already guessed that.

Evil Jesus knows that I signed on with JET as a way of just dipping my toes into the really cold pool that is the adult world; but now, as my job is slowly starting to more resemble an actual job, hiS influence is truly beginning to show. hE knows I got used to the comfy three/four-day work week of months past, and knows that winter break already seems like it will NEVER get here (it's only the 8th??! Are you JOKING). So, in his own subtle ways, hE is filling my superiors' heads with ridiculous notions like maybe giving the foreigner some actual responsibilities. Truly, hE moves in mysterious ways. Mysterious ways that are also evil, but again, you probably already knew that.

I apologize in advance should Evil Jesus become something of a reoccuring character around these parts. When I first started writing this thing I promised myself no lame running jokes, but I guess with my constant, public wonderings at Terry McMahon's true sexuality, that boat's already sailed, hasn't it? P.S. if it wuz terryz boat all the sailrz would be gay LOL

Ugh...as lovable as I am, sometimes I can't help but hate myself.

December 9th, 2002: Happi havingu 10,000 hittozu!!

As I ran out my door to work this morning, late once again, I discovered that my beloved Saku City has had its first big snow of the winter, with many more to follow, I'm sure. Apparently it's been piling up since last night, but since I haven't been out of my apartment since, oh, Wednesday by my count, I had no idea. Also, my windows have been frosting completely over for at least the past month so they weren't any indication either, although it's worth mentioning that despite their non-transparent nature they do allow in plenty of sunlight to stab me in the eyes every morning. At any rate, snow isn't really the best thing for someone who depends on a bicycle as his primary means of transportation to work, particularly someone who didn't really feel like going to work today, especially given the fact that he still has 20 yet-untouched vacation days. Unfortunately, while I'd like to say that I spent my day wrapped up in a comforter sipping a mug of delicious Meiji brand hot cocoa, I did indeed instead choose to trudge the 20 minutes to work, if only because I knew the students would want to start a snowball fight, which would mean I'd get to shove them head-first into the snow, or hold them down while I gleefully fill their parkas with ice. And, without going into too much PTA-alerting detail, let's just say, mission accomplished.

The joys of bullying aside, I must say this: I am now at the stage of my life where snow officially sucks. I honestly never thought I would see the day. It feels like only yesterday when I'd lay wide-eyed in bed on mornings it snowed, like some kind of weather-dependent Christmas, waiting intently for annoying morning DJs to announce the day's school closings. Back then I always thought my father rather a grouch for his seeming dislike of snow, but today, as I arrived to work, even later than usual, chilled, with my feet and ankles sopping wet, I believe I finally understand. And it's the first time I've felt old in a while.

I did get to experience a rather heartwarming scene today, though: my special-ed students decided to have a Christmas party, which they kept referring to as MY Christmas party, presumably because I am American, and therefore really like Christmas inasmuch as I am somehow indirectly responsible for it. The highly was definitely when it came time to sing traditional American Christmas songs, which the teacher claimed to have transcribed in English so everyone could sing. Of course, by "English" she really meant "English jammed into the constraints of Japanese syllabary like a big fat chick in really tight hotpants". Let's take a look at the following Christmas favorite and see if you can recognize it:

dashingu suru za sunou
inna wan hoosu open surei
obaa za fuirudos uei go
rafuingu oru za uei
berruzu on bobbuteiruzu ringu, mekingu supiritosu buraito
ou uatto fuan tu raido ando singu a sureingu songu tunaito, heee
Jingaru berruzu, jingaru berruzu jingaru oru za uei
ou uato fuan ito izu tsu raido inna wan hoosu open surei, ooo
Jingaru berruzu, jingaru berruzu jingaru oru za uei
ou uato fuan ito izu tsu raido inna wan hoosu open surei

Give up? Why, it's the old-time favorite, "Jingaru Berruzu," -- I mean, "Jingle Bells." Had no idea, did ya? Or at least, it must've been fairly hard before the chorus. I mean, yeah, I suppose you COULD consider the above "English," in the same way that you could consider any given female comedian "even marginally funny", but really now. Sarcasm aside, I really do think Japan's over-reliance on the katakana syllabary (the alphabet used almost exclusively for foreign words) is really one of the main reaons their English education system is so weak when compared to the rest of the world. Oftentimes I'll ask a kid, say, what "red" means, and he'll stare at me confused and uncomfortable for 5 or 10 seconds until finally it dawns on him: "Oh! You mean reddo!" he'll say, moments before I break his little legs. Let me tell you -- in case any of you ever end up as primary school Japanese students and you really want to drive your English teacher nuts, this is a pretty quick way to do it. Reddo indeed.

By the way, just in case anyone's thinking I'm all biased against the Japanese language, let me now say that, as I'm reminded every time I teach junior high or tutor for a conversation class, English grammar and pronunciation rules are absolutely nonsensical and stupid.

Wow, 10,000 hits already today. I was going to celebrate, but then I realized that no one cares. Oh, and for those of you who always prefer the movie over the book, I put up a new picture page, filled with all sorts of boring (really) photos I've taken in my time here. No really, they really ARE that boring, mostly students and teachers and whatnot, but I figure it'll at least help you better visualize some of the things I write about here. The photo page itself is kind of written like a more disjointed, convoluted version of this journal, which is really saying something; but whatever, have a look, not like any of you can claim to have anything better to do if you're reading this anyway.

December 10th, 2002

Wow, on the very first day it was up, over a hundred people rushed to the new photo page, only to find that all the photo links were dead since the first seven or so people alone had already eaten up all the bandwidth. Thankfully, my eldest brother Garrick, who is such an expert on all things computer that he has actually written several informative books on the subject which may be purchased for ultra-reasonable prices via our good friend Amazon.com, helped me shrink down the photos to a much more manageable size. And he did this for me without even being asked, and wanting nothing in return! Did I mention he is the most talented member of a already very talented rock band called The Jellybricks? Anyway, hopefully this will help make the page actually functional. Although if not, I hear buying products in any way associated with the name Garrick B. Chow will help matters greatly.

Just so you know...no, my brother didn't actually ask me to shill any of his stuff. I just happen to like embarassing people who go out of their way to help me.

December 12th, 2002

All right, Doc Suzuki's on his way over for a tutoring session in 15 minutes, but let's see if I can't bang this puppy out. No time for flowery speech padded liberally with the word "fuck," let's get on with distilled cynicism!

Nearing the end of the dreadful Five Days of Teaching, and it couldn't come soon enough. Sometimes it amazes me how seemingly little things can set off a quiet little chain reaction that soon roars loudly to life as the embodiment of pure suck-ass. For instance, me coming into Yachiho JHS for a mere yearbook photo seemed like nothing at first but has since proven to be the first in an increasingly large and complicated series of dominoes that Evil Jesus set into intricate motion. On the day it was to occur, I forgot to turn on my alarm -- oh, I set it, but I didn't flick the switch to activate the buzzer -- so I was awakened by a phone call from my teacher an hour before the photo was to occur. Due to the nature of the trains there was no way I could make the photo so I figured I'd just cut my losses, since it wasn't supposedly a big deal anyway, but no, they insisted I come by Extremely Expensive Japanese Taxi. A quick shower, a thrown-on suit, and a forty-dollar cab ride later, I made it to school just in the nick of time to have my photo snapped, and that was it. Forty dollars and lots of needless nut-busting, all for the several milliseconds it took to capture my image on film. FORTY DOLLARS so I could get to the school to have my picture taken at 10:30 AM, and then have nothin to do for the rest of the day. That, right there, is the nature of my week in a nutshell.

Not to MENTION, since I had to rush I didn't have time to force out my ritual Morning Crap, which I explicitly strain for each morning just so I won't have to use the god-awful squat toilets at school. Ever since the age of three I have come to realize that defecation is no call for embarassment inasmuch as Everybody Poops; but really, every time the troops guarding the back gate of the prison that is my body are unable to quell the dairy-induced riot within, and I am forced to use one of those...things, those reprehensible, glorified holes-in-the-ground known as squat toilets, I feel like I am commiting a SIN. Every single time I have to squat there, completely pantsless because I don't know how to arrange my pants in a squat without pooping all over them, I feel like Jesus died on the cross for nothing. I cannot use a squat toilet because Jesus KNOWS; but in harried cases such as this, I feel like He is there, right beside me. He will take my hand, look me in the eyes, look deep into my very soul and say, "Let he who is without tolerance to lactose, pinch the first loaf." And thus I drop a few pennies into the ol' collection plate, for He has willed it to be so, and Hallelujah, it is brown; lord almighty, it is brown! NONETHELESS I HATE MISSING MY MORNING CRAP.

God, could I get any more blasphemous and/or disgusting? Probably not. But it's good to have goals.

Doc Suzuki's just called letting me know he's gonna be 10 minutes late, so let's go with some random notes.

-Actually, the week hasn't been all bad, it's just been bipolar. Everything that has happened has either been pure shit or...not bad. I figure Jesus read my December 8th entry (yeah, that's right, I'm gonna go ahead and claim that our Lord and Savior reads my web journal) and decided something needed to be done about his evil twin's interfering in my life. Thus this week has been a constant battle between good and evil, for my soul, or at least the tone with which I will describe my week in my online journal.

-To put an ironic explanation point on this whole Jesus/Evil Jesus fiasco, I was visited by some Bible-thumping Japanese Christians yesterday. I'm not sure for which Jesus to attribute that little bit of cosmic humor to.

-New Zelda. GOOOOOOOOD. Very.

-A bunch of my students asked me what the English is for "anal bleeding" today. Either this country really is all about the butt or there's some kind of comedy conspiracy going on around here.

-For some reason, my hit count has like, nearly doubled in the past few days. Is there some big site out there linking me that I don't know about? I may have to move to my own domain sooner rather than, well, never.

Time's up, as there's a knock upon my door. Welp, catch y'all later. Please don't curse me to hell.

December 16th, 2002

To whom it may concern,

I repeat, FUCKING BABY BEES. And no, for the literal-minded among you, I don't mean baby bees in mid-coitus; as usual my usage of the foulest of foul words should be interpreted not literally but as an expressive denotation of my negative feelings towards the object they precede. Obviously.

Anyway, regular readers will recognize today's little culinary adventure as the latest in an increasingly disgusting series of "delicacies" that my co-workers here in the Saku City Board of Education offer me primarily to amuse themselves at the foreigner's expense. And as a member of the JET program I feel I have little choice but to comply; for it simply wouldn't do for a "cultural ambassador" such as myself to let his rather gracious hosts know that certain parts of their culture just happen to make him want to embark on fits of violent barfing. It just simply isn't done, old bean. Personally, however, I should tell you that I think the concept of "delicacies" is a complete crock of pretentious shit, seeing as the degree to which a high-class foodstuff may be considered "suitable for the more refined palate" seems to be directly based on how quickly common people would gladly renounce their God rather than eat one bite of it. Just because Joe Bag'odonuts or Jimmy Cup'onoodles happen to perceive a certain food as absolutely vomitous, it's considered a delicacy. Oh well, you know what they say: One man's delicacy is another man's really FUCKING WEIRD ASIAN FOOD DEAR GOD JUST GIVE ME A HAMBURGER.

Still, as the can of fried bee larvae is sitting right next to me as I type this, looming ominously large for a 3-inch tin can swarthed in yellow wrapping paper, even my practically heroic resolve is weakening just a bit. Maybe I can pretend I'm sick and go home. Better yet, maybe I'll sneak off to the storage room and find a can of paint thinner to swallow so I can go to the hospital, where they likely do not serve baby bees (although you never know). No, the bees would still get me eventually, and besides, they were actually given to me as a GIFT at the bounenkai I was at Friday night with my co-workers. A bounenkai is a traditional end-of-year party in which one is to forget the bad parts of the previous year and thus face the new one free of burden, but like just about every other Japanese cultural tradition it's really just a flimsy excuse to get tanked. I am glad I was able to attend this little get-together though, because a) it was in a beautiful mountain resort with an amazing hot spring filled with fresh apples, and b) it allowed me to spend some time with my co-workers, many of whom have not said more than two words to me since I got here. It was a fun time too; with lots of laughing and drinking and signing bawdy Japanese drinking songs (I am now familiar with a LOT of Japanese sex-slang; for instance, the equivalent of putting a pillow case over an ugly girl's head in bed is covering her face with a furoshiki handkerchief), and a couple of my co-workers who previously never talked to me actually went out of their way to say "good morning" to me today; in English to boot! Yup, nothing like taking a bath with another man to get him talking to you.

Anyway, at this party, the can of baby bees was given to me as a special gift, personally selected for me by one of my co-workers who literally never talks to me, and thus refusing them would constitute a social depantsing of the highest order. So, disgusting as it may seem, it appears I have little recourse but to accept my chewy, soy-sauce-and-sugar-flavored destiny. 'tis a far better thing that I have ever done, and all that.

Actually, I suppose I'm making somewhat of a career for myself of eating somewhat disgusting foods, as yesterday, I willingly ate some raw horse meat as well. This wasn't due to my co-workers, however, but rather because of my so-called friends, who decided it would be nice to sample the famous regional delicacy. I was a mite leery at the thought of eating Mr. Ed, but really, I suppose it didn't really taste unlike any other raw meat; in fact it was not unlike chicken, true to the cliche. But perhaps it was more that, after the week I had last week, eating a little raw horse didn't seem like any big deal. Looking at it this way it was almost ritual cleansing of a sort. At least, that's how I'm trying to perceive the bees as well. Like an aspiring pop diva faced with the throbbing, stinking, sweaty shaft of some big music producer, I know that if I can just get through these next few uncomfortable, nauseating minutes, my life will end up that much better, even though the bad taste in my mouth may last quite a while.

****************

By my count I've had at least three good ending sentences for this entry so far, but I can't yet stop writing because I got some plugs to do. First off, Harrison Breuer returns for his third installment of Amazon.com reader review reviews, this time changing his focus to movies, namely, the abomination known as Attack of the Clones (all right, so I thought the Yoda fight was cool). Give it a read. In fact, give it multiple reads, because we can't very well have Terry McMahon remain as this site's most popular non-Yohei guest contributor. Although that may not be a problem since Terry claims this will be his last entry. But we'll see if we can't appeal to the power of massive ego and convince him to turn something in now and then. Also in the coming days we will be graced with the writings of of a mysterious figure known only as the "Sakura Shogun". I myself do not know much about him, for he is never seen without his mask. That's all I can tell you about him; you will meet him soon enough. You have been warned.

December 18th, 2002: "Soon the bees will get you...and then what will you do, Carl, then what will you do...?"

First I should point out that the title of today's entry is an inside joke that I'm not even sure the people who might know it will get, so it's not even worth explaining. Anyway, that said, one of my co-workers was considerate enough to photograph me as I was eating the baby bees described in my last entry, and though they do not convey even 1/1,000,000,000,009th of the truly vomitous nature of this culinary horror, I thought I'd share them with you anyway. So, I present to you the short photo-play, "The Eating of the Bees," (by Galvin Chow) in three acts:

Act 1: Peer pressure sets in and I try to get this over with faster than I did the locusts

Act 2: Every single taste receptor in my body realizes I've made an awful, awful mistake

Act 3: Driven insane by a sudden odd craving for honey I begin thinking I'm some kind of bear

Okay, I concede I took some liberties with the bear thing but the rest is basically true. All in all it took me half an hour and about four cups of tea to finish off that little plate of bees, which started off, honestly, as not all that terrible, but got increasingly nauseating with every squishy bite. The actual larvae weren't so bad -- they were just these nondescript chewy white bits that looked not unlike rice; if I didn't know what they were, I probably would have been rather indifferent to them. The truly awful part were the ones that had already begun maturing and had little half-formed bee exoskeletons on them, which rather unpleasantly reminded me what I was really eating every time I looked at them, or for that matter, crunched down on them. I swear to God for the entire next day everything I ate tasted like bee. Now my co-workers are threatening to feed me some kind of dragonfly next time, which makes me wonder if they're just making this shit up as they go along.

By the way, the bear photo comes courtesy of Paolo-sensei, who, now that I brought him up, also provides me with much of my Engrish pics. I'd credit each picture individually, but quite frankly I'm too lazy, so just thought I'd give a little shout-out here instead.

I was going to write some long, wandering piece on the special education school I teach at sometimes that was going to be equal parts heartwarming realization and ironically insensitive humor, but quite frankly I have a headache and I don't feel like it, so I'll just plug today's guest contributor and call it a day. And that contributor is none other than the mysterious Sakura Shogun, who now has the semi-regular gig of guiding you through the wonderfully bizarre world of Japanese television. His starting point is the affront to humanity known as "Beauty Coliseum," which, I suppose not surprisingly, is apparently on its way to America in one form or another as well. Anyway, give it a read, but be warned, for the Sakura Shogun has a tendency to use some rather...strong...language. I mean, I may use the f-word a lot but this guy routinely throws out phrases that could cause a nun to burst into flame. So go read it, but don't come crying to me if you find your sensibilities offended.

December 21st, 2002

I just finished cleaning my rather horrifying toilet. Label me pampered, but this is just about the first time I've ever actually seriously cleaned a toilet, and as such it was practically a religious experience. It felt like my own little personal informercial as I marveled at how easily five months worth of shit-and-piss grime scrubbed right off with only a regular toilet brush I found in the closet and a bottle of something that could potentially be toilet cleaner I found under the sink. Now my bowl is all gleaming and white, so clean that I could probably eat off it if I ever, y'know, run out of clean plates; or possibly film some relatively hygenic German porno. Either one.

This home-owning -- well, apartment-owning -- dealie ain't so bad, really. Little by little, I'm leaning the ropes of Not Having My Mother or A Custodian Paid Minimum Wage Clean My Living Space. I like to think of it as a series of educational adventures. Like that time the drain in my shower, choking on two months' worth of hairballs, burped up about a foot-deep pool of unspeakable filth and grime for me to clean up in the two minutes before the train to work arrived. Or that time I discovered that all the food scraps I was pouring into my sink was not being processed through some advanced Japanese garbage disposal that ran silently, automatically, and safely -- but instead sat there for two months as I constantly wondered what that odd stink was near my sink. When I finally pulled out the little trap under the sink, it was filled with two months' worth of rotten food bits that had congealed into one, slimy, goopy, yellow mass, wielding the absolute foulest stench I had ever experienced, and keep in mind I am one with limited patience for lactose.

Then of course there is the matter of food preparation. Something that absolutely amazes my co-workers every single time they ask (and they ask a lot) is that I cook for myself. This is amazing to them because a)I'm practically an infant at 22, and b)I'm male. For a culture with a history of harsh division along such lines, Japan is making relatively (relatively) decent progress in the struggle for gender equity, but one thing that remains constant is that most men probably could not successfully boil water without irrevocably warping the space-time continuum. Mr. Niimura once gleefully told me that "7-11 is [his] second home," while one of the vice-principals I work with told me that he survives by always showing up at the supermarket 10 minutes before closing so he can pick up all the day's pre-prepared deli food for super-cheap. And granted, at times I depend a bit too much on KFC or prepackaged spaghetti sauce, but I like to think I get by pretty well. In fact, other than that time I figured that miso sauce and mushroom sauce would taste much the same inasmuch as they are both brown, I haven't really had any major failures; even though my approach to cooking mainly consists of dumping a random meat and a random veggie into a wok and coating them with random sauces left behind by my predecessor and hoping for the best. If worse comes to worse this IS a country catering to bachelors, with all sorts of space-age instant food to be had. For instance, the aforementioned spaghetti sauce comes in a foil bag which you just plop, as is, into a pot of boiling water. When you remove the bag after about 5 minutes of boiling it's not even hot, but oh brother, the sauce is! You just tear off the top, pour it over your instant spaghetti noodles and voila, instant vague-approximation-of-a-meal. You can get all sorts of things in these bags, or boil-foils as I call them: curry, beef stew, mystery white sauce, you name it. The Japanese instant food companies have a motto: If you can eat it, we can put it in a foil bag! Well, not really they don't, but they should.

Anyway, in case you've caught on to the fact that today's entry is even more pointless than usual, you should know that I woke up to another blizzard this morning. There's about a quarter-foot of snow on the ground as I write this, and it's still pouring down. "Doesn't snow much here," people said. My ass. I'm going to go around and pour water on everyone's driveways tonight, purely out of misplaced spite. Anyway, I'm essentially snowed in, I just figured I'd get on here and start streaming thoughts to see what popped out. As it turns out, not much, so let's just finish off with a few random thoughts for today:

I've received some comments about my hair in the below pictures. Yes, it is awful. Yes, walking around with a haircut like mine is equivalent to wearing sweat pants everywhere you go. But I'll grow that mullet yet, just you watch.

I read that a new aircraft carrier was just named after George Bush Sr. Given the current state of things, isn't that kinda like painting a huge red target on it?

My brother Garrick recently pointed me towards www.japander.com, which archives all the hilariously awful commercials Western celebrities do over here in Japan, a land where the concepts of celebrity and selling out are one and the same. In case you didn't know, Western celebrities often do commercials over here as a quick way to make money, while feeling relatively secure in the knowledge that no sane, i.e., non-Japanese person would ever see them. For instance, I don't watch much TV over here but every time I do I'm almost guaranteed to see Penelope Cruz and her big hook nose hawking Lux Super Rich Shampoo. Anyway, this is one of those sites that I can't believe I've never heard of before, so if you're in the same boat as me, go check it out. The Schwarzeneggar ones are particularly amusing.

I bet you're all gearing up for Christmas about now? Monsters.

December 24th, 2002

Well, it's Christmas Eve here in Japan right now, and guess where I am? That's right, at work in a tiny school in the mountains. Kind of, as the French say, les bummer SACRE BLEU, but as I'm currently playing around on the internet while at work you can tell it's not been a bad day thus far. Actually, as far as Christmas Eves I've spent working, I can safely say this is the best one I've ever had. I've still got one class to go so I don't want to curse it, but it's been an awesome day of work so far, inasmuch as I haven't really had to do anything yet. Last period I spent learning calligraphy with the 5th and 6th graders, which eventually deteriorated into me painting pictures of smiley faces and Anpanman while all the kids smeared themselves with ink trying to write the kanji for "Snowy New Year". The period before THAT was spent playing "soft volley", which is volleyball played with a half-inflated kickball so as to pose absolutely no risk of injury to anything larger than a dust molecule, with the 3rd and 4th graders. I'm not exactly what you would call "athletic" (Hell, I even suck at sports VIDEO GAMES), but playing sports with little kids is so much fun because their motor skills haven't completely developed yet so I get to kick all their little asses. Now your average junior high student could probably beat me in just about any sport you could name, but elementary students? I rule them so hard. Today was a big day because it was the first day they played with a net; as it was installed into the gymnasium floor they all gasped and cried things like "impossible!". The kids proved so skilled at adapting to this addition that eventually the exasperated PE teacher let them just throw the ball over the net instead of serve it; this worked roughly 20% of the time. Now, as a professional teacher with nothing but his students' best interests in mind, I decided the best way to accustom them to this new wrinkle in their friendly little game was to stand at the very front and, any time they actually managed to get it over the net, spike it right back in their faces. So, through the magic of light-hearted athletic competition, the students were able to learn the important life lessons of teamwork, determination, and Not Fucking with Chow-Sensei. Needless to say this was very cathartic.

By the way, in case you're wondering, Christmas is a pretty unimportant holiday in Japan so it's not like I'm suffering some cruel and unusual punishment by working Christmas Eve here. NO ONE gets Christmas off here, American or no; to do so would be like an Irish guy lobbying for St. Patrick's Day to be a paid holiday, or Jewish folk requesting vacation for that "Hannukah" thing I hear about on TV sometimes. Just to make conversation I asked some of my teachers if they get Christmas off, and they laughed right at me in a patronizing fashion, acting as if I had just asked if my dog's birthday counted as a national holiday. Most Japanese people just go to KFC and eat cake on Christmas; also, in Japan it's a lover's holiday, so I'm guessing there's a lot more sex-having than there is on the same day in America, where it is, after all, a family holiday. Then again, if you're in one of those weirdo states like West Virginia, family or no, the sex-having opportunies are probably a bit different.

The bell has rung, and I probably won't have another chance to say this, so Merry Christmas. While you're eating your delicious Christmas turkey, think sweetly of me. And then choke on a drumstick.

December 26th, 2002

Sittin' around with fellow American, college-era pals Rachel and Mooney at the moment. We just had some tasty Italian food followed by a rare trip to Baskin' Robbins. Now we're all back here watching bad Japanese TV, huddled under my kotatsu trying not to die of frostbite. Ain't that just so Christmas? To give you a further idea of our Christmas seasons here in Japan: I'm working, Rachel has to sit here in my apartment waiting for me to get home from work, and Mooney got really really toasted on Iranian hash and watched the Big Lebowski like three times. Coming soon to a Hallmark card near you.

Anyway, my updates have been pretty pathetic lately so I direct you to the writings of someone else with a measure of similarly cynical knowledge about Japan, Eric Fetterman. He wrote me to notify he linked my Tokyo Game Show article, so I checked it out, liked what I saw, and asked if I could nip the article to demean on my site here as a guest contribution. Anyway, the piece can be found here, and Eric's own site can be found here. Check it out, it's good stuff.

As for me...one more day till my actual vacation starts...almost there...almost there.

December 31st, 2002

Happy New Year's. I haven't been updating much lately because a) I've been busy; b) I've been suffering somewhat of a creative dry spell; and c) no one reads this damn thing soon as a holiday -- or even a weekend, to a lesser extend -- hits. Oh sure, you all greedily slurp up the temporary diversion I offer from your bored lives at school or work but as soon as you find something better to do or get some free time for which you are not earning a wage or would not be better spent studying I'm tossed aside like yesterday's trash. For shame. Those of you who did not find ways to momentarily excuse yourself from your sumptuous turkey dinners to sneak off and see if I updated: your disgustingly jumbled priorities make me sick.

Anyway, I'm betting most of you will be busy getting very, very drunk approximately 14 hours after I write this (time difference, remember), but then again I'm betting there is a large portion of my relatively small audience that is somewhat lacking in social graces and thus will find themselves entrenched in new goopy pits of patheticness this New Year's Eve culminating when they find themselves on this very webpage checking to see if some small Asian geek living half a world away indeed gave into the nagging urge to transmit his jumbled, uninteresting thoughts to a faceless, pimpled audience via random, 3 AM jabbings into a keyboard. If you find yourself fitting into this category, worry not -- I and Dick Clark still love you. Patheticness loves company, I suppose.

I feel the need to mention that I'm listening to Eminem as I write this. For some reason, I was compelled to download like 4 million of his songs off of Kazaa the other day and haven't really stopped listenin to them since. To be honest, I've come close to buying an Eminem CD several times in the past, but that would make me the kid with the mostly alt-pop CD collection that only includes rap CDs if they are made by Eminem or the Beastie Boys.

All right, so I changed my mind; I don't feel like writing this right now. I'm tired, dammit. Now would be a good time to tell you then, that I'm taking a little hiatus for the next couple weeks -- from work, from this particular island of Japan, from this web page, and from the internet in general. That last one -- and possibly the one before it, really -- isn't by choice; of course, in fact I'm already wondering how I'll be able to survive not being able to check my (lack of good) e-mail every 5 seconds. But you know what they say: what doesn't kill you, makes you strongly wonder how much unsolicited porn e-mail will pile up in your yahoo account during your complete separation from the internet for two weeks. Anyway, don't think I won't miss you, or in a perverted sort of way, feel bad about leaving you without really boring entertainment for an semi-extended period of time. My distorted perception of my importance to your boring lives is so warped that I was even going to leave this page in the care of a "guest host" while I was gone just so there would be updates (also I thought it would be fun to pretend I'm the Tonight Show or something). Unfortunately this arrangement fell through; I can't really remember why, probably gross incompetence on the part of the prospective guest hosts (Carl, Terry, Harrison, I'm looking disapprovingly at you). Anyway, this little journal of mine (don't you call this a blog!) is quickly turning into an ugly parody of itself as lately all I write on this site is about the site itself, so best to start the vacation sooner rather than later. Oh, last thing, head to Big Daikon, if you've never heard of it, to get a pretty good picture of how pathetic and stupid JETS can really be. If I haven't given you a pretty good idea of that already, that is.

Anyway. See ya in a couple weeks, hopefully rested and refreshed. Now go DO something.

Ho Ho SHUT UP