Some Links

Today, some links.

Cool Stuff: Tokyopia

Weird Stuff: ALT Rap

Interesting Stuff: NYC-Japan

Sad Stuff: Sayonara Miyagi-san

Wisdom of the Day: Don’t be lazy and preoccupied with TV, do something productive.

November Rain

As I type this the outside pours with the unfrozen blessing of the sky. This is due to the fact that it’s currently 61ºF (about 16ºC), which is insanely unseasonably warm for a few days before December. In the meantime I sit here, with crazy hair, don’t ask, and wonder what to write about today.

At the moment I’m working on the update for my homepage in which I hope to add nice graphics, RSS feeds, and have this blog integrated and off of blogspot, which always messes with my code! I’m listening to Mondo Grosso and Eri Nobuchika, good stuff, and I’m playing with a great program called Konfabulator which is very similar to the OS X Tiger Dashboard which my Mac friends love to talk about. Give it a shot.

Wisdom of the Day: Use the emergency break, that’s why it’s there.

Early Christmas Lights

They say the Christmas season starts the day after Thanksgiving, a.k.a. Black Friday, but I didn’t expect this, I mean, bloody hell, it’s not even December yet. After my coffee date with Maria, I strolled home along Colonial Road and found a number of houses done up beautifully for the holiday season.

As for my personal preference, lights a plenty, all white or blue, is very nice. I’m not big on decorations such as reindeer, electronic Santas, mangers, or large signs reading “Merry Christmas.” I think a large assortment of lights around key areas of the outside of the house, along with maybe a wreath, bow or 2 are tasteful. What do you think of these?

Wisdom of the Day: Nothing is for free, online.

Ten Best Pics of Japan

I searched through my whole digital library of pictures and found my ten favorite pictures of Japan. Now if you don’t happen to be in them, it’s not because I don’t like you, it’s because you never did anything funny in front of my camera!

	There usually isn't anything wrong with taking a shower, only if you happen to be in an apartment filled with about 45-50 people and you are taking that shower alone. Still, thanks for the great picture.
	The effects of massive amounts of alcohol and like substances on small Japanese girls.
	I cannot emphasize enough, learn the language where you are going to live. And 2mm doesn't equal what you think it does.
	Must've been one hell of a shit.
	Even coin lockers need Psychiatrists sometimes.
	This is what happens when you are running in the rain to the class you are late for and you textbook is just a collection of papers rather than the binder your company gave you to hold it in. Didn't your mother tell you about this?
	He eates children and ex-girlfriends
	Poor Sanae, attacked by the big guy.
	The effects of massive amounts of alcohol and like substances on two stupid English teachers .
	Ummm... You decide.

Wisdom of the Day: A picture is worth a 1000 words, but the most I came up with was 46, and don’t give me that ‘it has to have more than 2 letters’ bullshit…

Should've been 690

Hype is very common in these situations and contrary to popular belief I am not a hater of the subject I am posting about today, but I want to make my opinions known and since this is my personal forum for it, you can read it.

On Tuesday, amongst tons of press hype and a few fights, the Xbox360 launched in America, and as I type this, seems to have sold out. Now, I have nothing against Microsoft or their consoles, I own an Xbox and love to play Halo, Halo2, KOTOR, KOTOR II and a few others, but that was always the problem. I feel strongly that the original Xbox didn’t have enough good, exclusive games to warrant a purchase. In fact most of the games available were either PC ports or available on the other systems. The launch lineup for the new system is no different.

Quake 4 and Call of Duty 2 are PC ports with slightly improved graphics, but what I saw in the stores didn’t impress me for what a next-gen console should do. Kameo: Elements of Power and Perfect Dark Zero were games that jumped from a few systems until they finally landed on the Xbox360 and it seems to show in the graphics, if not the gameplay. There isn’t really anything new here. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06, Ridge Racer 6, Amped 3, NBA Live 06, FIFA 06: Road to FIFA World Cup, NBA 2K6 and Madden NFL 06 are all the newest versions of older games and while decent in their own right, nothing is very new and exciting here. Peter Jackson's King Kong and Gun are multi-platform games that I could also play on my PS2 with only somewhat worse graphics. Of the only games that seem like they were made from the ground up for the Xbox360: Dead or Alive 4 and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion have been delayed, Project Gotham Racing 3 seems like part 2 with longer load times and nice graphics, and Halo 3 is nowhere to be seen. Plus I have no confidence that it will be released in the spring, I’d say look to late Fall 2006 or early 2007, based on the development time of Halo (a lot longer than many people know, the original Halo was supposed to launch on the Mac around ’99 until Microsoft bought Bungie) and Halo2.

As for hardware, Microsoft is one of the biggest software companies in the world. They have a lot of good people working there and connections with some of the greatest electronics companies in the world. The strength of systems like the original PSX, PS2, Gamecube, SNES, Genesis and Dreamcast were they custom hardware designs made to be first and foremost game machines. Microsoft instead chooses to make custom PCs, running on custom versions of Windows, allowing developers to port their games back and forth from the PC platform. This is good business for them, bad game style for us.

I liken the new Xbox to the Dreamcast, except the Dreamcast had a lot of love in it and the creative gods at Sega behind it. Microsoft has no dedicated gaming division, only smaller developers that they have bought and assimilated into their collective. Time will tell, but I predict that Microsoft remain in second and perhaps third place in the next console war.

There is one good point I finish on: Xbox Live. Microsoft has made a cohesive, interesting, feature-filled online gaming community for the console gamer, something that many a Japanese developer said could never happen. This is the only advantage they have over Sony and Nintendo and just maybe they can use it well.

Wisdom of the Day: Don’t rant on your blog.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today is Thanksgiving in America, so this post is for everyone who is not currently in American or is not American. Anyway, Thanksgiving is traditionally known as a time when families get together to celebrate each other and everything good in their lives that they have to be thankful for. Today, my family will be going to my Aunt Margaret’s house and having a large number of dishes, surrounded by a big turkey (not the country). Why we eat turkey I think may be related to the history of Thanksgiving, which may be somewhat fabricated.

According to my elementary school American history class, the Pilgrims (a type of British Christian who left England to escape religious persecution and start their own in the “New World”), who landed at Plymouth Rock in what is now Massachusetts, had a feast, with their Native American neighbors, together to celebrate their good fortune. This is one of the few stories of peaceful coexistence between the settlers from Europe and the Native Americans.

Anyway, I’d like to say Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends who are reading this. I thankful to know you all and you all enrich my life. Also, I’m too lazy to email you, so if you didn’t read this, well tough shit.

Wisdom of the Day: Clouds can't kill you.

27 Ways to Skin a Cat

Okay, does this post have anything to do with the title? Uhhhh...no. But it sounded nice when I wrote it so okay. Actually I was challenged to write the following treatise, so here we go.

On the advent and proliferation of hands-free cell phone usage in Bay Ridge.
A treatise, written in 3 hours, without fact-checking nor proofreading, by Nicholas McCarthy

In recent years the number of people who are apparently talking to themselves while roaming the streets of Bay Ridge has increased by a startling number. The American Organized Mental Health Association of American (AOMHAA) estimates that nearly one out of every five Bay Ridgians could possess some form of mental abnormality or uniqueness. Furthermore, the healthy eating craze that is taking the country by storm has shown, in clinical studies, to increase chances of these uniquenesses by twenty percent, as opposed to that of the more traditional American cuisine, such as that provided by the Coca-Cola corporation and Riese Restaurants. What has allowed this to occur? Has the abortion loving, peacenik, gay, liberal culture of New York finally taken its toll on the kind, friendly, law-abiding people of Bay Ridge?

October 21^st, 1995, twelve youths who attend Msgr. Farrell H.S. in Staten Island New York are shocked to find 47-year old Jordana Roberts of Bay Ridge having a conversation with the window while riding the S79 MTA bus to return to their homes. To one of the youths, who wished to remain anonymous, this seemed to be the culmination of an alarming trend. In the past 16 years, he had witnessed no less than 5 people talking to themselves on the streets of Bay Ridge. After years of painstaking research, the others witnessed: Linda Bain, Robert Totoriello, Edward Koch, Jack McCarthy and Susan Lewis. While the details of each individual’s cases are specific and confidential, one main similarity can be drawn between the 6: abnormal thermomechnical differential podiatric quadosifuly. Many probable causes have been voiced by noted medical personalities in the field. Ranging from, Brooklyn’s water supply, clean fresh air, wide variety of pasta orientated restaurants, the increase of cell phone users and providers, Starbucks finally opening in Bay Ridge, increase in the number of Bushkies roaming the backstreets at night and the lack of bad pizza in the area.

Upon the completion of his courses in university, the youth began a promising career in the field of mental health research, specifically attempting to pin down the cause of this phenomenon, though shortly after the publication of his first thesis: “On the duplication of individuals speaking to individuals whom do not appear to exist in reality”, Princeton Scienctific Review 3-02-01, in which he laid the groundwork for what seemed could possibly be a quick and solution to this problem presented before us, he received the following email:

Dear ::deleted::,

With all due respect to your personality, I request that you do not feel disturbed as I know that business of this magnitude will surely make one apprehensive.

I write to solicit your utmost confidence, knowing too well that wehave neither known nor met each other before, but because you and the Late ::deleted:: are from the same country. Having searched through the internet, from where I got your email address, I hereby request that you become the Next of Kin to the Late ::deleted:: who died here in West Africa and abandoned a fixed deposit of Nine Million, Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars (USD $ 9.500.000.00), without a specified next of kin to inherit the deposit at the time of his death.(Maybe he did this because of the fact that he was into crude oil deals called "Oil bunckering" here in west Africa).

My name is ::deleted::, I am account officer to the Late ::deleted::,. In the financial Laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the holding bank is required to repatriate any abandoned fund by a foreigner if nobody comes to claim the said funds after four (3) years of the confirmation of the death of the depositor.

For the past three years, all the effort I have made to trace any relative of the late ::deleted::
My interest in this abandoned deposit is as follows:

-I do not want this funds to go into the hands of our corrupt government officials, who have embezzled our national funds all these years.

-To see that this abandoned deposit is not handed over to the corrupt government officials of President Olusegun Obansanjo.

-To make you the Next of Kin to the late ::deleted::, and whom he has willed the said deposit before his death.

-To ensure that the deposited funds is transferred to you as your INHERITANCE.

-To ensure that my own share of it is invested wisely in your country in any viable area of investment.

Bear in mind that the entire transaction will be risk - free and legitimate since the funds will be coming to you as your INHERITANCE. If this proposition is acceptable by you, respond to me ASAP but if not acceptable by you, do not take advantage of it to betray me. Remember that doing business over the Internet could sometimes be risky. If acceptable by you, send me your private telephone and fax numbers for me to call you for detailed discussion.

God bless us.

::deleted::

After which the now-no-longer young, youth promptly vanished. This proved a crushing blow to the field of research of which this treatise is interested in. Therefore the remainder of this paper will summarize my ideas on the topic as theorized by myself one day while sitting on the toilet with nothing to read.

In recent times when someone roams the streets of Bay Ridge, one will find a large number of people who seem to be apparently talking to themselves about, well nothing. In fact it seems that a large number of people these days are talking about nothing, but that is the topic of my 15^th treatise: “On the subject of the lack of subjects worth subjecting one’s subjects to.” Still, we can only account the number of truly mental unstable people in the city to about 2% of the Bay Ridge population, at least according to the American Organized Mental Health Association of American (AOMHAA). So who are we to believe, the left-wing wackos that run the American Organized Mental Health Association of American (AOMHAA), or the right-wing war mongers, whose answer to the who situation of people talking to themselves is simply a figment of my imagination and oh by the way the economy is getting stronger. Regardless, the simple reason, which has taken me quite a while to get to, is the fact that the reason for the increase of the number of people taking to themselves on the streets of Bay Ridge is caused by the increase in the sale and use of hands-free cell phone kits, which allow you to talk on the phone while you drive, eat pizza, milk your goat, beat your wife and/or husband, go shopping, go food shopping, walk down the street of Bay Ridge, watch TV, play with your new Xbox360, which sucks, and many other varieties of activities that people from Bay Ridge do.

In conclusion, it is important to note that while mentally unstable people still roam the streets of Bay Ridge, especially close to 92^nd Street and 4^th Avenue, they are not the majority of the people talking to themselves on the streets and show not be avoided as you would if you meet them in the 86^th Street station.

Wisdom of the Day: The medium pizza is really a small and so on...

Roll N' Roaster

Possibly the best burgers in Brooklyn, although if anyone from Brooklyn is reading this I'm sure they will chose their own place. Roll N' Roaster has been around in Sheepshead Bay for a long time, and although they have changed their appearance inside, revamped their menu somewhat and improved all aspects of their customer service, the food is still fresh and delicious. Today's lunch consisted of burgers, roast beef sandwiches, cheese fries, corn fritters (don't ask: go and try it) and coleslaw (never knew that was one word, thanks spell check). Mates, you don't know what you're missing over in Japan.

While these pictures aren't able to describe it, the cheese is legendary all over Brooklyn. And there roast beef ain't too shabby either. Perhaps the only problem is that the Sheepshead Bay branch is a little out of the way, but up till about 4-5 years ago they delivered. Nothing quite like delivery burgers. Hmmmm………When's the Bay Ridge branch opening?

Wisdom of the Day: There was actually a drink called Shasta.

S-Party Pics

Two week late, sorry guys, here are the Sayonara party pictures. I want to say thank you to everyone who came and said goodbye to me on that night, especially the ones who aren’t in the pictures, and the ones who took some the pictures without realizing that their fingers were covering most of the shot. Thanks!

So why are you still reading this? Go and look!

Wisdom of the Day: Don’t make the poor pizza delivery guy walk up five flights of stairs because you are too lazy to get off the couch.

Cold Days

Cold, but beautiful. Need I say more? Nothing really exciting happening the past few days except a trip to another Japanese-only place in city with my old students Hiroya and Kazu. They are a lot of fun and who knew I could drink so much shochu.

Back at the ranch, it’s officially too cold for me to go running or biking before my lung issues knock be back to size, but if it warms up to more than just a few degress above freezing, I’ll go tomorrow morning. Now I have to help my friends budget her life.

Wisdom of the Day: You can tell a really fine whiskey if the company has a website.

Izakaya Hagi

It took me some time, but I finally nailed down the major areas in NYC where to find authentic Japanese food, or rather where the Japanese work and eat. First is in the East Village, on St. Mark’s Place there are a large number of izakayas, yakitori and sushi bars, brightly adorned with hiragana and displaying menus in complete Japanese. Don’t forget that the staff all look Japanese as do the cooks.

Second: the midtown Japanese grid. Between 49^th Street and 56^th crossed by an area from 5^th Avenue to 8^th Avenue, you will find some of the more authentic Japanese places. On Friday night, Keith, Mike and I went to Izakaya Hagi on 152 W 49th St, 212-764-8549, to have dinner. It was like stepping back into Japan for a while, as we were the only non-Japanese in there and the menu’s English was completely dwarfed by the kana. The waitress initially greeted us with a resounding irashaimase (“welcome to my establishment”) before correcting her self and asking me how many in English. The food resembled what we eat in Japan, edamame, yakisoba, etc. and the beer is all Kirin and Sapporo. If it weren’t for the ESPN on the TV, I would’ve tried to take the train back to Bentenchou…

A little more sushi would have been more authentic, I felt, but with so many dedicated sushi bars in the city, I can overlook it. I give Izakaya Hagi 3.5 out of 5 happy Japanese people. I’ll be back, but I have a few others to try first.

Wisdom of the Day: Don’t go there without a Japanese speaking person, it can be frightening.

UNIQLO

Do you know UNIQLO? According to them, UNIQLO is a retail apparel phenomenon from Japan that has recently hit the shores in the US. According to me, well yes as a retail store, maybe it’s a phenomenon, but it does do quite well. Many of my Japan friends know UNIQLO well as the store that carries items too small for our waists and too short for our arms, being they are specifically tailored for the Japanese body type, although recently I can fit into it!

If you enter a UNIQLO in Japan, you will find that it resembles the GAP in many ways,i ncluding store atmosphere and layout, except for two major differences. First, it’s much cheaper. A decent pair of pants will run you about 3,000 JPY (about 30 bucks) while a wide variety of shirts, fleeces and pullovers run between 1,500 – 2,500 JPY (about 15 to 25 bucks). The major difference is while the clothes even resemble the GAP styles, they are all very mono-toned. You can find a nice sweater, fleece, or shirt but don’t expect to find more than one color throughout the whole thing. Still they seem to come in all colors of the rainbow from dark black to bright pink.

Now since many of my current readers are from or in Japan, they know about UNIQLO. So why am I writing this? Well, on Friday while roaming through Soho looking for a store I discovered on of the newest branch of UNIQLO, on Greene St. between Broome and Spring. I watched many Japanese businessmen walking in and out while I snapped a few shots for this. It had a grand opening yesterday and is advertising heavily as I found out that they have another branch in a shopping mall in New Jersey.

It seems I left Japan to return to America, but Japan followed me.

Wisdom of the Day: You can take the girl out of Brooklyn, but you can’t take the Brooklyn out of the girl.

Flag Football

As many of you know, and many of my Brit friends are fond of making fun of, Football is one of the most popular sports in America, after of course baseball in the summer, basketball, hockey, women’s volleyball, NASCAR, bass fishing, extreme diaper changing, blogging, Halo and eating.

My cousin is currently involved in an NFL sponsored flag football league which plays in Dyker Heights, next to Bay Ridge. Flag football differs from normal football in one major way, no tackling. Instead, the players run with two flags hanging down from either sides of their pants. The goal is to pull the flag off of your opponent to get him to end the play. While the game is fun to watch and the kids enjoy it, the parents seem to enjoy it more. It begs the question of who enjoys it more. The parents scream, yell, cheer at both the game and each other. Apparently the teams’ supporters are now separated to prevent any further incidents.

In the background you can also see the VA Hospital. The place you should go if you suddenly develop Agent Orange with no preliminary symptoms, sorry private joke.

Wisdom of the Day: WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING? YOU GOTTA CATCH THE FRIGGIN’ BALL!!!!

Blog Review

To the left of my content lie my blog links. Today I decided to check each one of them and tell you what’s going on, since you probably don’t.

Keith's Tuscany Tour: Officially hasn’t been updated in a year. Check the comments section here for Keith’s retort.

Watashi To Tokyo - Mari's Blog: Do you know what Dogeza is? Then read this.

Carlnonymous: Originally started around the same time as my blog, recently Carl has been too busy with, shall we say extra-curricular activities to post much. Currently, he is displaying pictures he stole from other sites.

Yuko's Travel Journal: Yuko, who is currently studying in Australia, but feels the need to blog in Japanese, I imagine for her friends, which, apparently, I’m not one since, there is no English commentary (too many commas?). Okay, I regress, that wasn’t a real sentence, but I’m the former English teacher, so shut up. Anyway, for those who can’t read Japanese, Yuko is writing about the Dingo. Maybe it ate your baby.

r ams hack le 75: After finding mouthwash, Tony’s teeth no longer resemble the stuff that builds up on your shower tiles. I prefer Listerine myself. It’s especially good after the garlic powder I just put on my pizza.

Line of Site: Caliean will never get a job as a reporter. Just too behind in his blogging. Today’s, or rather, two months ago’s post was about the end of his summer vacation. BTW: it’s freezing in NYC.

Ty-Eclectic: Always interesting yet eclectic, Ty is mulling about winter and other issues. I’m still curious how you could not like winter. Well I guess when you are 6’4” and 205 lbs. you tend to like cold seasons because it’s easier not to sweat.

blandplanet.com: Gary recently moved back to the states as I did, with his lovely wife Mayumi, shortly before I did. Today he deals with the usual issues involved with moving and packing, etc. I hate moving and packing/unpacking. Chris, Keith, Ed, Jay, Laurie get ready!

Shi-chan's Australia Blog: Yet another Japanese girl living abroad to improve her English and blogging in Japanese. Continuing her travels through Australia, Shizuko is currently exploring city of Darwin and passing on her thoughts. Sorry for the lack of detail but my Japanese isn’t that good…

SEX, FOOTBALL, ROCK N ROCK...: Usually Hiro is talking about football (soccer) or girls he is sleeping with that are not his wife, but recently his site seems to have gone down. I’ll leave it there for the time being, but I wonder if she finally found out?

JB in Japan: Seemed promising when begun but the lack of updates brings a tear to my eye when I check this. Still, Josh and his wife Yuki are ardent supporters of this site, so I have to say how awesome their blog is and how much you should read it!

Random Beatings: Also rarely updated, Matthew here speaks about the random body pains he got from somewhere. Not sure if this is fact or fiction.

Wisdom of the Day: You don’t have to blog everyday, but once-twice a week is nice.

Letter from a very confused bespectacled sex pest

A couple of things. Okay, this looks like I’m too lazy to post, right? Actually, I’m only kinda too lazy to post, Instead today I post a letter I recently received from my good friend and this completely unrelated link. Enjoy!

Dear All and One,

If you can recall, about one year ago a very confused bespectacled sex pest was planning to leave the far east and return to the grey skies of Blighty to pick up where he left off; namely vast debts, drug addiction and the rare ability to play Championship manager while he slept. By some strange coincidence I too faced a similar situation twelve months ago to that weirdo and faced the same one this week. However, due partly to my utter cowardice and mainly to the inept naivety of the Japanese immigration authorities I have not only been given another crack at the oriental whip but a 3 year one at that (why, when speaking to the hairy palmed, mostly female civil servant about my 3 year plan did I immediately think of Stalin? Must have been her moustache). After returning home to my apartment, digital stamp in worn out passport, I decided to celebrate the only way I know how: burning yet another "ohh, pretty please give us our bloody money back or we will cut your fingers off!" letter from Barclays with the fire from my just lit opium pipe and plugged myself into my 22^nd season of Champ, ready for another 3 years to drift on by. Just as I was about to fall into another vast blank sleep, two thoughts crossed my mind, one, I work too hard and two, where is my home?

The first of those two thoughts is one of those solids truths we sometimes encounter in life, similar to the concrete fact that all French people smell of rotten cabbage and have 6 fingers, and pigs, if you throw them hard enough at French people, can fly. I work 22 hours a week. I make a nice wage. I work too hard. The second question needs a little bit more research but luckily I will be returning this Christmas to find whatever answers awaits me. The dates themselves are unknown at the present moment but seem to be hovering uncomfortably with both hands in both pockets around the 22^nd of December to the 10^th of January. In my short trip I hope to get beaten up, speak Japanese to the staff at Tesco, go to Waitrose and meet all the same people I used to work with (ahh, the memories), laugh at how gigantic everyone's bottoms/chins are, complain generally about every aspect of English culture, boast about Spurs' recent success, get incredibly drunk with old dear friends and, with a little luck, go absolutely insane. That's just the first week. In the second week I intend, if Kana, my lady, is to accompany me (and ask such endearing questions such as "Why are those boys carrying knifes?", "It doesn't get dark at 2.30 everyday does it?", "These aren't real trains are they?" and "Are all these people wearing fake gigantic bottoms?"), we will be off to some European capital before coming home. I mean Japan. I mean....ohh, dear.

I would be sincerely grateful if you all would be so kind as to let me know your plans, locations and contact numbers if you wish to meet up with me over the Christmas period and ask stupid questions about Japan (Before you ask yes, we eat raw fish, yes, we always use chop sticks, yes, we drink hot babies and kill ourselves every Wednesday.) I will probably be based in the soulless commuter town that is West Byfleet and for a while in my Mother's new abode in Hook, although how she intends to cook Christmas dinner in a bad Robin Williams movie is beyond me, I just hope they'll be enough raw turkey for Kana.

I'm coming home.

Andrew/Andy/Talbot/Talby/ a very confused bespectacled sex pest

Wisdom of the Day: Don't be a very confused bespectacled sex pest. And don't ask me what it means! Are you chewing gum?

Standard Blog

The normal blog is basically about nothing. The reason for this being that many bloggers are unemployed individuals, like myself, without too many things to do in a day, not enough friends perhaps, and a great excess of free time. Therefore the majority of the blogs out there are about nothing. In response to this I made my blog about my life in Osaka and the things and people in my life.

Unfortunately, for many of my readers, NYC is not quite as interesting, mainly because they know about it. In addition the fact that I haven't done so much here recently, save for losing my ATM card to the ATM for entering the wrong pin a large number of times: getting my bike, which had slightly biodegraded in my shed, fixed; watching Ali G ("Why did Jesus go 'round with all dem reindeers?" "Does Jesus really exist or is it just your father all dressed up?") on HBO in Demand, as well as a little of Extras, having drinks/dinner/coffee with Alison/Anne/Keith/Ed/Jay/Laurie/etc.; emailing a lot of people; doing to see Doom (okay, that's tomorrow); emailing Japan to make sure my references are in order (DOUG!!!) ; fighting with the Docomo people over how magnanimous (spelled that right the first time, oh yeah!) I'm being at cancelling my phone and paying the bill, from abroad no less, while I could just vanish and there is nothing they could do, yet they still subject me to their never endless procedures, steps and bullshit.

Needless to say, I'm kinda bored... I think I'll play some games...

Wisdom of the Day: Always have a hobby.

Brooklyn Cell Phone Revolution

It didn’t take long, only a few years, but since I have been back, mind you only a few days, I have noticed a change in Brooklyn. Perhaps a little history is necessary.

Let's travel back 3 and a half years to when I first came to Japan. Of the many new and interesting things I noticed about the country was the wide spread ownership of cell phones. Not only the people you would expect to have them, but old women, 10 year old children, handicapped people, everyone! More striking was the obsession with the phone. It was always ready to go, in an easily accessible place, such as on the table during dinner or hanging from one's neck at the office. The phones were always in a safe distance from the hand if an email (aka text message) should be received or a call from a business client and/or girlfriend was received. The trains were filled with people who appeared as though the phones were surgically attached to their phones. The society was hooked on the cell phone.

Back in Brooklyn only a few days later, I find the same thing around me, a society constantly on the phone, or sending a message as they walk. While I was gone, Brooklyn and possibly the world had changed to become more Japan like. Normally I would take some pictures of this, but remember this is Brooklyn and that sort of thing is liable to get me punched, stabbed, shot or slapped, all of which I would like to avoid.

Mind you, I'm not writing this in protest or attack of this practice. The Japanese converted me to this a long time ago, as many of my friends will attest too. Docomo and Tomoko are thoroughly convinced that my last two phones broke from overuse, though I believe it's from my phones obsession with flying towards the ground at high speed, something that I had nothing to do with. This is just an observation.

Wisdom of the Day: Don't use your phone's camera in Brooklyn.

Old Phone Style, New Phone Flavor

Day 2 of New York. It seems the most difficult thing about being in New York is not quite having a life, yet. I was walking down 86^th Street, as I wrote in the blog the other day and was feeling down, because well, it isn't so nice. Yet two days have passed, I have re-established contact with old friends, met up with most of the family and have gotten a new cell phone.

In a funny turn of events, the new cell phone is rather similar to the old cell phone. They are both Sony phones, they both have the same design and roughly the same weight, the same camera and similar button layouts. Unfortunately, I have to report that the menus are smoother in the Japanese version, the CPU response time seems quicker and the buttons push easier.

Still, I like the design and am very comfortable with it. So what else to say?

Also, I’m happy to have the Hit...er...ummm...History Channel again and am currently watching a documentary about the history of the Berlin Wall. Aren't you excited?

Wisdom of the Day: It's polite to inform your friends when you change your phone number.

Lagged

Sleep slowing is winning the battle as I'm realizing that I have been awake for nearly 3 days with no sleep now in an attempt to reset my body to NYC time. Bay Ridge is exactly as I expected it to be, dirty, loud, impolite, filled with crazies, the same. Not that it was a bad place to grow up and if you saw Saturday Night Fever you know it because much of that movie takes place here in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

I guess I still don't really understand in my mind what is going on and it will take e a little time to understand and return to normal. Then again, what is normal? Basically, 86^th Street, which is the main shopping street in this area, but it's nothing compared to Namba, Shinsaibashi, or even Shinseikai!

So, with a bit of confusion and depression starting to slowly simmer in my mind, I met the one person in the world who could cheer me up from any situation: Anne. We chatted in Caffe Café, the local Bay Ridge coffee shop, for a while and it is good to see her again. I finally realize that with good friends here I can make it an enjoyable time and easy transition. Still I do miss you all guys!!!

Widsom of Day: Don't blog while jet lagged!