jenn!

Dear Jennifer Hale, such a trooper. After getting an MBA she worked for every startup in San Franciso (I have a separate business card file just for her cards) before getting a job with a company that wasn't founded by a Stanford dropout. And in another few weeks she'll have been at the same company for a whole year!
She's in charge of marketing for Gregory Howell & Associates, Inc., a cool travel company that puts together tours for indivduals, groups, and companies. She's in Japan for a couple of days doing some research and will hopefully be coming back with a Japan tour group.

Oh yeah, and she's still really cute, though she was obviously holding back on the Japanese, because she used to speak some bad-ass mean Kansai-ben! Blonde girl flowing fluent Kansai slang is something to see, believe me.

palindromes

My mom and dad are SO cool! They sent me this awesome palindrome book! I love palindromes. My favourite: Flee to me, remote elf!

all kinds of excitement

Well, the might steed had some problems last week. My beloved Honda 50cc scooter wouldn't start. Actually, the key wouldn't fit in the lock. Someone had been messing with it -- either tried to steal it and failed, or just wanted to give me problems. Called the scooter shop and a guy came with a truck, dragged the scooter out of the parking lot onto the truck, and ended up having to replace the whole key system. For the bargain price of 18,000yen. Joy.

It was a 3-day weekend for Adults Day (turning 20 in Japan supposedly makes you an adult, though they way the usually act, one must wonder) and Hiroko's parents came to Tokyo for a couple of days to get some culture and have some fun.


Had dinner at Lucky on Friday, sitting at the counter watching master do his thing

and chatting with mama.


On Sunday we had our Shinnenkai (First Official Practice of 2003) -- couple of hours of practice in the morning, with Ando-sensei absolutely schooling us in the basics. Then a husband/wife team of "healers" talked about nutrition, chiropractics, energy healing, did a couple of quick checks of folks that made me realize the mind has some freaky powers over the body, then more practice, then we had a lovely buffet and everyone got ripped as usual.
I am officially now in Yoseibu, which in English unfortunately translates to something like "Special Education Group". Basically it means I get extra-specially beaten on now, in preparation for someday maybe being worthy of being in Denshobu (another group that defies English translation, but comes out as something like "Legendary Followers".)

new sword

After practice last night I gave Tanaka-sensei 300,000yen and took posession of of his cutter. It was made in Mugeihachiman in Gifu Prefecture by Kanekuni in 1999. 2-shaku, 4-sun, 1-bu (69.4 cm) long; a bit shorter than my current sword, and heavier at 950 grams, but that's perfect for a cutter that I'll be using from the draw quite a bit.
It's pretty well scratched up, but since it's been Tanaka-sensei's personal cutter for a while, I have complete faith in it, and when I tried it last month it felt really good. Cutting practice is on the 19th, so here's to keeping all my fingers!

hawaii marathon

Well, I guess if you're going to torture yourself by running a marathon, you might as well do it in Hawaii!
Yu-Ching and friends did just that. More power to 'em.

wonder woman

Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman.
All the world's waiting for you,
and the power you possess.

In your satin tights,
Fighting for your rights
And the old Red, White and Blue.

Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman.
Now the world is ready for you,
and the wonders you can do.

Make a hawk a dove,
Stop a war with love,
Make a liar tell the truth.

Wonder Woman,
Get us out from under, Wonder Woman.
All our hopes are pinned on you.
And the magic that you do.

Stop a bullet cold,
Make the Axis fall,
Change their minds, and change the world.

Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman.
You're a wonder, Wonder Woman.



From who else? Jeremy of course.

snow and flying cars!

A couple of nights ago it snowed! Didn't stick much, but it was nice to see big fluffy snowflakes.


Ladies and gentleman, I give you: a flying car!

Yes, it looks just like a normal Hummer, but this is in fact a FLYING Hummer? The proof? It's parked down the street from my apartment, and there is NO way a car that wide could have possibly been driven to it's current location, so it must have fallen from the sky.
I guess the owner is either:
1. a genius for inventing a flying Hummer
2. a rich idiot who deserves the misery of trying to drive such a huge car down the narrow streets of Tokyo.
While I simultaneously envy his absolutely stunning display of consumer-capitalist wealth, I put him in the same moron category as the (several) Ferrari drivers who live in my neighborhood.
And lastly, a word of advice: if you're so rich and carefree that you leave your convertible 360 Spider double-parked with the engine running while you run into the 7-11 to buy a pack of smokes, you most certainly shouldn't care when some idiot on a scooter knicks the door with his side-view mirror. (Oh yeah, and if you're going to go to all the trouble of buying a Ferrari, at least get something with 12 cylinders, eh?)

happy new year

Fairly typical new year holidays so far: lots of eating, lots of watching DVDs:
Vanilla Sky - I liked it. That whole "it's all a dream" thing is played out sometimes too much, but I think this movie pulls it off. At least worth the rental price. And no I haven't seen the original, so get off my case.
Ghost World - reminded me so much of my friends in high school it was scary. Loved it.
Ame agaru - not another samurai flick, that's for sure. Nice guy ronin, real Mugairyu! I'm so proud. Beautifully shot, too.
Blade 2 - how can you NOT love it?! Why do the vampires always have the coolest weapons?

As for my new year's resolutions:
1 - Make sure Hiroko is happy.
2 - Get promoted.
#1 is a given, #2 refers both to work and to iaido, but probably more for iaido. (^^)

turkey

Went over to Nancy's new place tonight for a Losers-who-had-no-place-to-go-this-holiday-season turkey dinner. Damn that turkey was juicy! I was in charge of the mash'd potatoes, but the SpudsInABox soon ran out. So Tony and I popped off the the mom--n-pop grocer around the corner and grabbed two bags of potatoes. A quick skinnin', hearty boilin', tireless mashin', and lots of cream, butter, spices, and sour cream, and we had us a heaping bowl of mash'd potatoes. Nancy and the gang were busily cranking through bottle after bottle of wine as Hiroko and Haruka put away plates of feeding. I had a heaping plate before I headed back to the office for the always exciting Friday-night-at-work-because-everyone-else-was-smart-enough-to-turn-in-their-vacation-requests-early night.

n504iS

I got a new cell phone: NEC's N504is.
It has a high-res CMOS camera on it that takes wonderful pictures:

snowboarding

.
Had a lovely weekend at Appi Kogen. Matt at Tabibito Travel sets up these killer ski/snowboard tours. We crashed at Rocky Inn -- a really nice "pension" with a sweet fireplace in the middle -- and hit the slopes for 2.5 days.
The conditions were pretty bad; not much base and many runs closed. Kind of icy and grass showing through...but then Matt and some of the more wacky folks jumped some ropes into the closed trails and we found tons of fresh powder. Amazingly, ski patrol never even came by, so we kept ducking ropes and hitting untouched powder on closed-off trails for 2 days. Once, when walking out of the bottom of a sweet face of powder, some official-looking dudes on a snowmobile came up behind us with the siren blaring. But all they wanted was for us to get out of the way, and off they went!
After boarding we hit the onsen in the hotel across the road, hung out around the fireplace at Rocky's, and basically talked smack and goofed off all night. And damn the icecream was good, too.

freaky dreams

OK, what the hell does this one mean?
Hiroko and I are in high school, it's the day of the yearly school festival. Most of the students are fairly rowdy, no-good types with little interest in the formal proceedings in the gym. Hiroko and I are outside the gym. There are two very high, white slides. I'm on the steps outside the gym, looking down at all the shoes. Hiroko can't find one of her shoes (the red pumas) but I spy it and point it out to her. She gets her shoes on and goes up the one slide's ladder. I go up the other slide's ladder. It's high. I mean REALLY high. I get almost to the cut and I see Hiroko climbing back down the ladder. She's smiling and having fun [reality check: Hiroko is deathly afraid of heights], so I decide to climb down, too. Did I mention it's high? And my hands are sweating and the metal is slick, painted white. And I'm sort of hanging from a light trellis or something, but I finally climb down.
Scene change (as only can happen in a dream)
I'm in a boat going down the street (all the roads are waterways, like Venice, only it looks like a midwest town that's been flooded) to the wedding reception.
I get there and am hanging out with some less-than-respectable mafia youth ruffians. One dude is going around the table checking the pockets of the jackets hanging on chairs, pulling out the wallets, and grabbing the money. He gets to the bag of the dude who was with me and takes out the wallet and cash. I'm kidding around with him but remind him that's not a very nice thing to do. He puts it back and asks why everyone tells him that when you study calculus in college, first the review all the algebra. I remind him that I've been out of university for a while, but as far as I know the reason they do that is because everyone always forgets the algebra basics since they don't use them so much. You're still in highschool, right? I ask him. You just taken algebra recently, do you remember it? And he goes no, not really, and looks satisfied with my answer.
[alarm clock, cue reality]

last practice

Had the last iai practice for Shibuya last night, after which we went out for an End-of-Year group dinner at a cool place in Shibuya. On my way home there was a lane closed off with cops all over the place, randomly diverting cars into the other lane. I was flagged and pulled in, not knowing what was going on. My first thought was "I have a sword strapped to my back" but then this cop sticks what I thought was a microphone in my face and goes "Blow hard, testing for alcohol." Ah! I breathed on this thing and then I was on my way. Later down the road I was stopped at a red light, and as soon as the light changed the car behind me squealed his tires and revved hard, almost clipping me off my scooter as he shot around me. I caught up with him at the next red light. He was playing with his cell phone. I pulled up on his left side and knocked on the passenger window. He looked confused and I started yelling at him in English. He got an even more confused look on his face so I switched to yelling at him in Japanese. I was pulling out every bad phrase I had ever learned from hanging out with 15 year-old street punks and watching yakuza movies. Then he got a really scared look on his face as he realized how pissed I was. I don't think he even realized what a dickhead maneuver he pulled at the last light, but he sure looked like he was afraid I was going to bust his window open and drag him into the street for a beating. Which I considered. Then again I still had my sword strapped to my back, and there were cops all over the place, so I decided against it.

weekend warriors

A bunch of folks from iai joined in the festival at Sengakuji Temple on friday:

Kanai-san and Terao, the famous sumo wrestler.


Tanaka-sensei, warrior.

On Saturday we had lunch with Jeremy and then watched some Jackass on his laptop in Starbucks. Oh my dear lord, them some crazy fools.
Saturday night we went to a wedding reception for some of Hiroko's former co-workers.
Spent all day Sunday doing iai; cutting practice in the morning so I got up at 7am and went up into the freezing boonies that is Saitama. Then came all the way back down for a special seminar in the afternoon with Niina-gosoke. By 4:30pm I couldn't move my arms any more. So I came home and Todd and Narumi and little Amy were there already so we stuffed ourselves on crab with a big kani-nabe. There was some left over so guess what I had for breakfast?

holiday elves


santa's little helper ren


mieko the red-faced reindeer

communication day

Yesterday was The Day.
Bad news: didn't get promoted.
Good news: got a bonus and still have a job.
Better news: Todd and Hani got promoted, so there is justice in the world.

Did my once-a-year drinking last night, but I reaffirmed that I really, really don't like the taste of alcohol. And I verified that fish & chips are good. Didn't get slammed, and since we started at 5pm, by 10 everyone was tanked and I was hungry. Got home by 12:30 with all my morals and brains in tact.

snow!

Woke up this morning to see Tokyo blanketed in white. Causing havoc with the trains, but the cold is easier to deal with when it's snowing.

Jeff and Ericka arranged a fancy year-end dinner, so on Saturday we all went to Tableaux for some eatin' and drinkin'.

Then on Sunday I spent all day at iai; popped a blister on my right index finger and damn that hurt.
Masa came over for dinner so she and Hiroko made up a big pot of tonjiru and we feasted. Watched some tv, but got bored so we cranked a few levels of Torneko's Big Adventure 3.

company x-mas party

Me and Shino being festive:

In standard end-of-year fashion, the annual Morgan Stanley Year End Party was a drunken debauchery, held in the glorious Ebisu Westin Hotel Galaxy Room.
And was of course followed up by many a drink and salty chip at Inishmore.

myoclonic jerk

Thanks to Kevin for the clarification:
http://www.psywww.com/asc/dreamfaq/node20.html