more cutting fun

Otsuka-san sent me some more photos from Sunday:

Yasuda-san, double-handed yoko ichi-monji through full roll.


Ishida-san, one-handed gyaku-kesagiri through half roll. First time, nice cut!


Two half rolls spaced about a foot apart, from a seated draw.

as bad as expected

I totally blame Kevin. He got me started reading Jordan's Wheel of Time series, and I must admit the first couple of books were really good.
Now, however, I've just finished the 10th book in the series and it's just painful.
First of all, there is absolutely no chance Jordan will ever end this stupid series anytime soon. 10 volumes into it, and there are so many characters, plots, subplots, and unresolved issues that things will culminate into the "last battle" where good squares off against evil to decide the fate of the world.
Where the first books had chivalrous knights, cool magic, and neat battles against trolls, the story now suffers from "Dragon Ball" syndrome -- the characters are so strong that the good guys wield magical swords that destroy entire armies and the bad guys are evil incarnate.
Furthermore, the complex social interaction and political maneuvering was interesting at the beginning, but now every chapter devotes far too much time to characters being stone-faced without giving away any emotion, but wondering whom to trust, what that glimmer in the eye or straightening of the skirt ruffle meant. And there isn't nearly enough fighting anymore. In fact, the 10th book takes place at basically the same time as the 9th book, but there are so many main characters that nobody knows what anybody else is doing and it takes two books to explain less than a month of nothing: One guy is looking for his kidnapped wife (kidnapped 3 books ago), finds where she is, but before he tries to get her back, goes to the nearest town to buy grain and supplies only to find that the town is haunted. Another guy spends the entire book hiding from the bad guys with a travelling circus, with the enemy princess fated to be his bride whom he kidnapped (and I can't even remember why he kidnapped her.) The main good guy spends this entire book doing what he was doing for the whole last book, and at the end finally decides he wants to negotiate a peace treaty with the Bad Army From Over There. And everyone else spends their time plotting, swearing oaths, breaking sworn oaths, wondering who's really sworn, wondering who's evil and is just pretending to have sworn, and figuring out ways to get around their sworn oaths without breaking them.
Far too much scheming women, heaving breasts, straightening skirt hems and smoothing wrinkles, looking stone-faced with a glimmer in the eye, sighing, sword-practicing with sweat glistening, creeping silently through the forest, smelling evil, respecting honor, and generally introducing too many damn characters and not moving the story along one little bit.

milk does a body bad

After careful, scientific analysis, my mother finally gets to say "I told you so." I hereby declare: I am lactose intolerant. But fear not! I cannot live without my pizza and parmesan cheese and tazo chai latte. Once again the miracle of science to the rescue: lactaid. Pop one of these suckers and it's Italian gelatto with all the flavor but none of the up-all-night-hunched-over-in-the-corner-of-the-bathroom-in-pain.

chop chop

Saturday I did my standard round of stuff; drycleaners, laundry, various bits and bobs of shopping.
On Sunday we had cutting practice and I really got a chance to use my new cutter that I bought from Tanaka-sensei.
In the morning session I was doing ok. Working on jinrai, the okuden form that I'm supposed to do in Kyoto in April.
Had a couple of decent attempts, first time getting the second cut sloppy but really blowing the first cut, second attempt the first cut was ok, but the second cut was just plain off.

(Note: scowling and/or making funny faces helps your cuts...really!)

Damn, but Tanaka-sensei (quicktime move, 4.3MB, right-click and download to watch) makes it look easy.
Also getting some great advice and standard abuse from Naganuma-sensei, who said he wasn't going to teach us any more because:
1 - when he was learning to cut no one taught him and he had to figure it all out for himself, and
2 - he doesn't want any of us getting better than him (trust me, no fear of that happening...ever)

After practice we were supposed to go over to Mallardi's for a taco-fest, but he had a major meltdown at work and was spending quality time with the lawyers. So I went over to Beck's and we had some pizza and watched Minority Report -- damn entertaining flick, exactly what one would expect from Spielberg.

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?