Surprisingly Busy

Spent the day studying Japanese, watching Ted Nelson lectures and reading early James Bond novels. In between all this I somehow managed to teach English and go running.

Picnic In The Park

Met up with some people from the Learn Japanese Podcast for a picnic in Yoyogi park. There were about 10 of us at the picnic and I think everyone had a great time.

After the picnic some of us went for a meal in a Japanese pub. We will be having monthly meetings from now on so I should be able to find some people to help out with my film and other projects that I want to do.

The Learn Japanese Podcast is really rather good so if you want to learn some conversational Japanese check it out:
www.LearnJapanesePod.com

Climbing Tou-no-dake

Walked up a mountain in Tanzawa, an area of Kanagawa prefecture. Tou-no-dake is 1,491 m (4,891 ft) and walking up it was a perfect way of reminding myself that I am very unfit.

Walking up mountains is best done alone, regardless of any safety concerns you may have. I was walking in the afternoon so the mountain was deserted, allowing me to feel I was deep in the wilderness, even though I wasn't far from houses, roads and vending machines.

As I started making my way down the mountain the sun set. I had a couple of torches with me but chose not to use them. Walking down in the dark was quite difficult but very exciting. I could hear snakes slithering away from me and also Japanese mountain leeches dropping from the trees.

I think I'm pretty much hooked on mountain walking now, so expect more of the same in the future.

Climbing Oyama

Walked up Oyama in Kanagawa prefecture. It's only 1,252 metres, but I still found it quite challenging. Fuji is 3,776 metres, so I have a lot of training to do if I want to make it up Fuji any time soon.

Wikipedia entry

A Dark Night For The Dark Knight

Went to the 9pm showing of the new Batman film at my local cinema. There were only about 10 people at the screening. The film was good but too long. Like life?

Canadian Dry

This morning I met up with cheerful Canadian Aaron in Shibuya. His site is here: www.bluesandbrownbooks.com

After grabbing free magazines in Tower Records we walked to Harajuku where we ate curry and talked of the issues of the day. We then took the metro to Akihabara. Aaron bought another two R4 cards because he wants to promote software piracy.

We took the train home and then we ate curry at the Indian restaurant near my house. We then watched "The Power Of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil".

A wonderful Canadian friend once said to me "You seem to be very interested in Canada". My reply to her was simply "Somebody has to be".

The Third Karamoon

I watched The Third Man again for the first time in many years. I have a feeling that I shall be watching it on quite a regular basis for the next year or so.

"You know what the fellow said—in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did that produce? The fucking cuckoo clock."

All I Need Is Iannucci

I found the following on the website of The Guardian, a UK newspaper:

Don't call me, I'll be wrapped up
by Armando Iannucci

So there I was, walking along the road one grey summer morning, when I espied a man, somewhat cheerless of disposition, his wife and children stringing along, all carrying boxes and an enormous amount of bubble wrap. 'We've sold the car,' said the man to my curious look. 'Bloody stupid idea. We should have sold it after we carried everything to the storage place, not before. But then we needed the money to pay for the storage place.' His four children looked at the ground, defeated by the unavoidable economics.

'I take it you're going to the storage place?' I said, trying to be friendly. 'D'you need any help?'

'We'd love some,' said his wife, and I could tell from her husband's look that he had been too embarrassed to ask but was now relieved his face's sullen begs were being answered.

'OK, I'll bring the car round and we can load up.'

I came back with my seven-seater, folded the back seats down and helped them load their boxes.

'Storing your stuff while you find somewhere smaller?' I asked, at the point where I realised we hadn't said anything for 10 or so minutes together and something needed to be said.

'Sort of,' said the man. He glanced at his wife, who nodded back. He turned to me and, staring at my nose, said: 'We were going to put all our things into storage, then we looked at the great rates they were offering and decided it would be cheaper if we went into storage as well.'

'What d'you mean?' I asked, slightly trembling.

'It's fine,' said his wife. 'We're putting all our furniture into boxes and storing them in one unit, then we'll box me, Tom and the kids up and get someone,' (she looked at me) 'to put them in a unit next to it.' She handed me some of the bubble wrap.

I've never had my gob smacked before, so don't know what it feels like, but I'm pretty sure it feels like how I felt just then. 'But, you are people,' I squawked, 'You've got heads and legs and everything. You can't just wrap yourself up.'

'Think you're clever do you?' said Tom the man. 'Not so clever you haven't missed the most brilliant money-saving scheme to stare you in the face? Sod mortgages and car insurance. Sod food bills and cavity wall insulation and buying too many lemons every week. Tell electricity and petrol and lettuce to take a flying frig. Pizzas and milk and batteries and potatoes can all go have a running crap. Plasma screens with sport, and biscuits with raisins. Dreck. All of it. Toilet duck and Vimto, all we spend on plates and flannels and marzipan and hammers and shoes.

'Why should all this cruddy dust suck at my purse? For the price of 20 rolls of bubble wrap and a hundred quid a month for two storage units, me, Judy and the kids are packaged and contented until everything outside sorts itself out.'

I drove Judy, Ken and the children to a storage warehouse in the suburbs. I guessed they were having a collective nervous breakdown and thought the kindest thing to do was follow their whims to the point where they could see they had become unsustainable. If I took them to the storage place, there'd come a point where they would realise they couldn't just wrap each other up and forget about themselves.

As I drove up, I could see other families arriving, their children all carrying unfeasible amounts of bubble wrap. Some had painted their own cardboard. The place had a carnival feel to it, but a carnival at which people hurl themselves down a log-flume without sitting on a log first. Everyone was smiling, but I could see the little tremors behind their eyes. I had to stop this.

I went over to the main office. A sign said '££££s OFF FAMILIES!!!' A man was taking money. 'This is appalling,' I said. He smiled and asked me to look at how happy everyone was. 'You want to take this one positive away from them?' he said. 'They've come up with a solution and it's brought them relief. You feel qualified to tell them they're wrong?'

I looked round. A father was Sellotaping his son into an enormous Tupperware crate. Another mother had wrapped herself in newspaper and masking tape, leaving a hand free to seal up a cardboard box from the inside. I saw an older brother push a younger brother into a poster tube. A girl was wrapping her hamster up in red paper. A boy was individually wrapping his socks and Top Trumps cards. A family of 26 were rolling a dice to see who would get to go in the crate that hadn't originally been used to carry vegetables. And all of them were smiling.

That was what I remembered most; each one of them was perfectly happy to undergo total packaging. I tried pulling them out, but the nearer I got, the more their smiles made sense. I took my decision and, tearing off a corner of wrapping paper and wrote down everything you're reading now. I've found a box I like, and Tom has agreed to seal the top. If you read this, don't open me up unless you're absolutely sure things have got considerably better. Thanks.

Captain PUGwash

This evening I attended the Tokyo PC Users Group. There was a talk on search engine optimization. The term itself is utterly ridiculous because it concerns techniques that can be used to make a website get indexed well by search engines, and, hopefully, cause a site to get a good ranking for relevant key words. It has nothing to do with optimizing search engines.

The speaker was very friendly and tried very hard, but he knew almost nothing about his topic. As a result his talk consisted almost entirely of inaccuracies and contained major holes. It was a real shame but it is sadly indicative of Tokyo. The foreign community here doesn't really give a fuck about quality. I left the meeting very depressed. I would love to organize something truly world-class here along the lines of Google Tech Talks or the Chaos Communication Congress. To do so would involve a daily struggle against mediocrity. I guess I should get started though.

Back To The R00ts

Went through some of my old issues of 2600 Magazine When I get some money together I'll buy the Best Of 2600 book. I might add that I suggested such a book to the editor of 2600 at the 21st Chaos Communication Congress.

Taught a kids' class for two lovely five-year-old girls. Afterwards I spent a long time thinking about what children should really be taught. I came up with the following list: cooking, knot-tying, hacking, throwing shuriken, phreaking, barehand killing, planning picnics, swimming, back flips and sword fighting.

Dear Karamoon...

Dear Karamoon,

This is just a quick note to remind you of the following: Industrial education is morally indefensible. Anyone who allows their children to enter the industrial education system is failing in their duty as a parent. There are no exceptions. Fuck school.

Yours,
Karamoon

Needless to say, my children will not be attending school.

Can You Sing A Rainbow Bridge?

Somehow I managed to get up early enough to meet up with Christopher in Odaiba. I found Christopher with a Canadian called Aaron. Aaron, like all Canadians (with the exception of the RCMP) was lovely. We had brunch at a chain restaurant. We then walked across the famous Rainbow Bridge all the way to Tokyo Tower. Rainbow Bridge isn't very rainbow-like in the daytime, but it was still quite impressive.

Tokyo Tower was crowded and silly, like many things in Tokyo. It is going to be pulled down soon, and a new Tokyo Tower will be built in Ueno, another part of Tokyo. Scientists have predicted that the new Tokyo Tower will be slightly less crowded than the old one, but just as silly.

The three of us took a train to Akihabara. Christopher introduced us to a good Indian restaurant where I ate some Kashmiri curry. We then wondered around for a while. It was my first time to go to Akihabara since the Akihabara Massacre. At the spot where the massacre took place people had left food and drink. Aaron bought an R4 card which allows the Nintendo DS to play copied games. Playing games is probably not a good use of Aaron's time, nor is writing the second "o" every time he writes his name. Don't people know there is a war on?

After saying goodbye to Christopher and Aaron, I went to Shibuya, where I spent an unreasonable period of time trying to find somewhere quiet to have a cup of tea. In the end I gave up and went to a chain restaurant.

The Robot Man

Today I met up with a Japanese man who used to work for Apple as a hardware engineer. He is retired now but works on projects of his own including building a sophisticated robot. He has also been a radio Ham. Run DMC once said "Next time somebody's teaching make sure you get taught". Wise words, which I intend to follow.

Propaganda

One of the perks of teaching English in Japan is that you are able to spread propaganda. There is something quite refreshing about spending 90 minutes indoctrinating a group of Japanese adults during an English lesson on the evils of the G8.

Debating Fuji

Stayed up late discussing the merits and demerits of attending the Fuji Rock festival. Merits include:
(1) The fact that the Fuji Rock Festival is the best music festival in the world.
(2) Being able to see Grandmaster Flash and Lee "Scratch" Perry.

Demerits include:
(1) The ticket price of 40,000 yen. (200 quid)
(2) It's held in the sky resort of Naeba, an expensive train journey away.

It's likely that I won't go and that, as a result, I'll be mildly upset for 12 months.

The China Syndrome

Twenty-eight years old and still packing a punch. The China Syndrome has certainly stood the test of time and has earned a place in my top ten films. Watch it, and watch it soon.

Iggy Pop's Ocelot Shop

Went to a local zoo. The zoo's main attraction is an Okapi which is related to the giraffe but looks more like a zebra. I was rather underwhelmed by the Okapi, but did see an ocelot, which I liked very much. The last time I saw an ocelot was at Iggy Pop's Ocelot Shop:
www.rathergood.com/ocelot

The zoo is owned by Yokohama city government, so it's quite cheap. Chichan and I had lunch at a restaurant in the zoo, which was reasonably priced and served great food. In the UK the restaurant would have been a complete rip-off. In the UK almost everything is a scam or a rip-off. I'm sure many Japanese business owners are just as greedy as those in the UK, but typically their pride outweighs their greed, so they tend to offer good quality products at low prices.

The Parallax View

Watched "The Parallax View". Not since THX-1138 has a film affected me so much.

Sketching With Sketchup

Played around with Google Sketchup. I designed a table. It's quite good. So is Japan. Unlike this blog.

Starfire Revisited

I watched the Starfire video again today with one of my students. I told her it was a good example of business English in use, which it is, to some extent.
http://asktog.com/starfire
My student was really enthusiastic about the content. I think it was the first time for her to question the status quo as far as human-computer interaction is concerned...