Thoughts on the Tea Party

I suppose it's already been said somewhere several times before, but I think the Tea Party movement will fail, due to:

1)The unwillingness of its members to become a national movement (or anything bigger than a community, maybe a district-wide movement), which destroys any real chance of creating a viable, well-funded, system/paradigm-altering third party.
2)The willingness of its members to tolerate (either actively or passively) the interview-happy nutjobs who mug for the camera during or after a media event – this might just be an unwillingness to silence the loud minority in the midst of a murmuring minority.
3)The blindness of its members to the repercussions of their beliefs and, more importantly, the actions they push for. It's like watching teenagers smoke.
4)The hypocrisy of older members, who, in order to join this movement, would have had to either support past political trends (through fervor, ignorance, or apathy) or simply allow them to happen through inaction. (I find it ironic that it took the grassroots nature of the 2010 presidential campaign for the current Tea Party to find its balls and method.)
5)The ignorance of younger members (and quite a few older ones) to the actual workings of government.
6)Its overemphasis on the “size” (meaning “scope”?) of government, the admittedly occasional assumption that numbers alone are important (the US government presides approx. 308 million people in 2010, while employing less than 2.7 million federal employees according to the census – claims of elitism would be more appropriate for a ratio like this), and the belief that it is too intrusive. The Chinese government is “too intrusive”, and to them WE look “too intrusive”.
7)Its inherent selfishness – or to put it another way, its locally-centered theory of government – which explains the first point. American society has grown more insular after the '90s, and this point might just be an evolution of that.
8)The belief that the current government has strayed too far away from the original intent of the Founding Fathers. I agree, actually, but the Founding Fathers were more concerned with trying to keep the new country above water – bad as things are, that's not the case now.
9)The belief that the financial side of the government could be run better, while admirable and accurate, would require an expansion of the section of government (the GAO, I believe) that covers it, which is inconsistent with the “smaller gov” goal.
10)The willingness to dehumanize the opposition (considering a machine consisting of 2.7 million federal employees only as the single machine of government, decrying the liberal bias inherent in media, “Liberals”, etc.) - but this is a self-absorbed problem endemic in modern society, rather than just the Tea Party movement or any one political/social faction.

Their heart's in the right place, but their actions are at odds with reality.
And, because I have some time, some suggestions:

A) Conservatism in American Politics is basically dead – you don't elect Conservatives to office anymore, you elect Republicans. Stop pretending it isn't and work with the system you have.
Aa) Same goes for Liberalism.
B) Your heart's definitely in the right place, but you're not watching oncoming traffic and the future. Start.
C) If the government really is that intrusive, change it rather than reduce it. The only things that grow better when no one's looking are wilderness and cancer – which makes a better Free Market?
D) Doesn't matter if the media has a liberal bias – telling someone they're a jerk or a genius typically won't change the fact that they're a jerk or a genius. Stop wishing for better coverage and make it yourselves – are you or aren't you civilized adults?
E) In the last 15 years or so, the nature of American media and society have interacted together to poison the political system. Educate yourselves – turn off your damn TVs, read the damn laws, and have civilized conversations with people you don't agree with.
F) Electing 15 dyed-in-the-wool Tea Party-friendly members of Congress will only stop all progression/regression and force constant stonewalling, if not encourage even more compromising of values than there already is. You will accomplish little without going national.
G) Regarding E) – C-SPAN is your friend, and so is C-SPAN2. Try to understand what you're reading or talking about.
H) Emotional reactions to problems make them worse. How often do you see relationships fixed by an angry couple yelling at each other? Or societal problems fixed by a twenty-something's blog?
Ha) And how many couples like to be characterized as always fighting? If you don't want to be characterized by the one really loud, really drunk guy, what should you do? Let him be loud and drunk when the media needs an interview?
I) Seriously. Calling everyone that doesn't agree with you a Liberal doesn't make you look smarter or right (see (Aa)). Instead, go classic! Start calling them racists, homophobes/homosexuals, communists, nazis, commu-nazis, commu-spam-nazis, commu-spam-spam-nazis, spam-commu-spam-spam-nazi-spams, conservatives, feminists (no, better not – that would make you look chauvinistic or hypocritical depending on your gender), pinheads, sheep, sheeple, Protestants, Satanists, Un-American, or even the dreaded “Whig”. Be sure to laugh at them when they look at you like you're crazy.
Ia) Speaking of which, what's this “Democrat Party” I keep hearing about? Is there a “Republic Party”?
J) NO ONE WANTS HIGH TAXES. Stop acting like this is an unrevealed truth the faceless politicians ignore. (Also, taxes are the fee you pay to call yourself a law-abiding American.)
K) There's a worldwide recession going on, deficits are going to be a given, and just because you have a job doesn't mean everyone does. No one you support will be able to fix the Budget in the short-term (without bankrupting us further on down the line), and things are never so bad that the current deficits are insurmountable – or is 2 years all it takes to stop believing in the American Spirit?
L) For the last time, he's American, and you should be ashamed if you automatically know who I'm talking about.
M) How'd YOU like to be stopped on the street and asked for your citizenship papers? (Although, if you “lose” them or “forget them at home”, try Rick's Cafe Americain.)
N) There's a saying – if everyone tells you you're drunk, you should sit. Just because you think you're right doesn't mean you are.

Yeah (sunglasses). My stomach's been acting up, so I had to take yesterday off work. Also, Rachel's cat died, and she needed a shoulder. Still need to call my grandparents. Should do that now.

On coil florescent bulbs

Replaced one in Rachel's room. Wonder if, and when, she'll notice?

The problem with these compact florescents, for me, has always been one of sound. Before I left for Japan, the ones I could find all gave off a high-pitched whine. Without researching this phenomenon at all, I believe it's in the power regulator-thingy at the base of the bulb rather than the coiled florescent. Maybe? I should look into it.

Funny thing, though. The ones I bought after coming back to Seattle didn't make such a sound, and they were the cheapest ones I could find. (Funny story - the florescent I installed into the kitchen light at home only burned out some time after I returned. Given how long it'd lasted, I was eventually able to convince my mom that they were appropriate for the living room lamps as well.)

I like them. Given the chance and choice, I think I'll buy florescent bulbs over incandescent ones.

Book Review: MGS 2

Book review time! Read Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons Of Liberty (Raymond Benson, Del Ray, 2009) on the trip to Canada. I'm amazed it got printed. Either a) Mr. Benson isn't a terribly good writer or b) he was heavily constrained in his plotting - seeing as how he's apparently written other books, I'm guessing it's b). It definitely conveys the incredibly repetitive nature of the game and is about as good a novelization as it deserves. He left out a bit (I was hoping to see Snake's "Infinite ammo" line), and either altered or left out the references to it being a video game ("Turn off the simulator right now!", for example, and no "Fission Mailed" bit). I think the references could have been left in - given how Raiden's Codec contacts work, Fission Mailed could be explained as him seeing himself from Arsenal's security cameras, or something. My main problem is that it's written as a novelization of a game, rather than that of a movie. I'd love to see it entirely from Snake's POV too. Now I need to hunt down the MGS1 novelization, to see how he did Psycho Mantis.

On eventful weekends

Went to a wedding reception for Rachel's cousin on Saturday, up in Surrey, BC. Nice place. Reminds me of Edmonds. Got a brochure and postcard from the hotel, so if I ever make it big somehow, I'd like to stay there a weekend.

Went to Rachel's neighbors' Fourth of July shindig on Sunday. Played pool. Ate food. Watched fireworks go off over the lake for an hour or so.

Spent yesterday and a sizable fraction of today sick from food poisoning (pretty sure it's the potato salad I had on Sunday). I really don't remember my stomach clenching quite that much last time I threw up (when I was 12, in Japan, likely due to not taking jet lag into account before eating dinner). Mostly liquid. Drank some Canadian ginger ale (not Canada Dry, oddly) before vomiting, so the taste wasn't that bad. According to Rachel, it looked like I had a fire hose attached to the side of my mouth.

On living in the USA

Huh. Been here for 3 months and change now. Time to write a blog post!

Got married again in April - rather, we had the ceremony here, and got the (American) paperwork signed. It was fun.

Found a job with RLB again. Temporary, just for the April tax season. In retrospect, that's the best employer I've ever had. Decent pay, work that can be measured physically (or in some other quantifiable way), Health and dental after six months, easy enough to get to. The only problem is that the neighborhood (from the Convention Center to South Lake Union/Cascade) is alternately skeevy and pleasant, but usually leaning towards the latter.

Went to Spokane with Rachel (6/18-21) and treated it as our first vacation as husband and wife - but not as our honeymoon. We went on a hike and went to a local country-themed eatery on Saturday. Sunday, there was a reunion, and I got to see my America Samoan relatives. My family tree is confusingly international.

Still unemployed. Currently going through Craigslist and the University of Washington job page, mostly.

Also, I seem to have an ulcer now. It started showing up during my last few months in Japan and got worse in April. Unemployment and a distinct lack of health insurance means I'll have to tough it out for a while. Luckily, I was able to find and purchase a significant quantity of Rolaids in Spokane, so I'm not empty-handed in my fight with pain.

On returning to the USA

So far I've: Sent a box of stuff to my parents in the states (sent it EMS, which was cheaper than standard mail for some reason, so it might just get there before I do...), packed my check-in luggage and sent that to the airport, and begun organizing what's left of my belongings in Japan. Still not sure what I can and can't take with me, and I'll need to send another box either way.

I don't like having to travel separately. We're married now - we ought to be traveling together - but there's no reason for me to stay in Japan past my last paycheck on the 15th. Other than to serve as her emotional support.

It appears I'll be taking a night bus to Tokyo, where I'll cancel my phone service and then go to Narita. This will set me back a bit over $100, but the alternative is a $70 night bus without a toilet. I think the extra $40 is worth it.

Feeling nervous. Can't wait to eat a proper pizza.

Huh. I'm married now.

Got married yesterday. We filled out the paperwork, put our new rings on (+1 to wisdom, apparently), and went out for dinner at Coco's. That's really all to it. 'Course, we've been living together for... 2 1/2 years, so it's nothing new and exciting. At the moment. Now I can start introducing her as my wife rather than my fiancee. It's shorter and easier to say.

Current music...

(This feels separate from the topic of the previous post, so I separated them)

Currently listening to Chou-wakusei Sentou Bokan Daileon, from Kyojuu Tokusou Juspion, sung by the ever-awesome Kushida Akira. The video uses clips of it in action, and even though it's all 25+ years old, the wirework and special effects are still pretty fun to watch - compared to the over-reliance on CG in giant-scale Tokusatsu sequences nowdays. I find it refreshing to see a time when live-action Giant Robots(tm) were agile enough that they could be expected to do an on-screen backflip. Most impressively, starting from 1:59, Daileon pretty convincingly throws a monster into the air and uppercuts it into an explodey end (the "Cosmic Crash" attack is normally the hover-dash double punch that starts at around 2:45).

Note that the post and comments are in Portuguese. Japanese shows often have a mix of commercialism and quality that allow for universal appreciation, and a number of Metal Hero shows were aired in Brazil. (To say nothing of Power Rangers in the US, and the various Anime aired in all corners of the world.) The bare minimum for these shows is to sell toys/merchandise/advertising time, and yet in the US, very few kid's shows (or TV shows in general) have soundtracks worth buying.

Also: 21 Accents. (Note that a few of them incorporate jokes about the culture. For example, the New Zealand accent: something about not really paying attention to minor things like your age, etc.) I tried to show this at work, but the computers we use aren't designed to project sound very well, so it didn't work too well.

Thoughts on... Teaching English

I've been teaching English in Hiroshima since October 2008. It's impressive, apparently, that I found the job after arriving in Japan (August 2008) and settling down in Yoshida. (Yoshida, Akitakata City, is roughly 45 kilometers from Hiroshima, close enough to commute but still far enough out to surprise anyone living in the city. As the number of languages in the link might indicate, no one is too surprised to see a foreigner here - no more than "hey, a new guy.") The commute is anywhere from 75 minutes (train + taxi) to 90 minutes (train + bus on an average day), but on Friday evenings it's 110 minutes (train or wait time + the 9:45 bus from the bus center 20 minutes from the office). The one thing I really don't like about the job is the commute. I gave serious thought to living in Hiroshima City (rather than Hiroshima prefecture), and there's a few apartments in Kabe that would do, but then I'd have to live apart from Rachel. So I live in Yoshida.

(Kabe is the suburb that serves as a halfway point between here and there - it's technically in Asakita Ward, but given that Kabe Station has a longer Wikipedia entry, I find it easier to just call it all "Kabe". Which is inaccurate, but oh well.)

I find the job itself difficult, with a ridiculous commute that only makes my frequent stomach problems worse. No, the work itself isn't hard, and I can count on one hand the times I've had actual problems with students (and even then, they're my fault). I enjoy working with my coworkers, and talking to people/students from different walks of life. But I have trouble adjusting to another person's pace - their likes/dislikes and interests, their rates of speech, their ways of thinking, etc. - and so my lessons tend to vary wildly in usefulness when there's more people. I can adjust fine to 1 person, up to 3-person groups, but any more and it gets difficult. Throw in a spread between the abilities of the highest and lowest students in a group (this is, very occasionally, a large gap, through no fault of the students), and I tend to start lecturing or speaking faster, to try to cram in as much lesson as possible in 40 minutes. Result: one of the main complaints against me is that I speak too quickly, and this is the main reason used to fire me...

(The full story behind February 14th being my last day is: My performance isn't as high as it needs to be, and while my circumstances include good reasons to keep me on board, after a year of plateaued improvement, it's easier to cut me than continue to employ me. ...which should come as no surprise to anyone I've talked to in the last year or so. I was originally going to be fired, and my last day was going to be Jan. 31st, but I tendered my resignation at the same time. I wanted to end on Feb. 28th, they wanted to fire me on the 31st - we compromised, and my last day is Feb. 14th. No surprise, no acrimony; it's my best "firing/quitting" yet.)

It also became a worry of mine that students weren't actually learning anything new in my lessons. About 6 months or so into the job, I started making an effort to make sure everyone learned something new. (Correcting pronunciation/sentence structure/etc. when possible, explaining the use of language in the textbooks rather than just teach it straight or through repetition, write and leave lesson notes with as much detail I can manage - the theory being that, even if I speak too quickly, someone can learn something from what I wrote... Whether or not the notes work isn't clear to me, but it's something no one's ever complained about - my handwriting notwithstanding.) People paid money to talk to me; I have to try and make sure I'm worth it.

Bearing in mind that I'm usually not very good at social things, I think I've done pretty well overall. The job has forced me to work with people, and I think I've grown considerably because of it. I look back fondly at the people I've met, and while I've always had trouble finding past successes (I can find my failures with ease, however), I at least know they're there. I have improved as an English Instructor in the time I've worked there, but I realize I don't have the innate talent to be a good teacher. I doubt if I'm a bad teacher, though.

It's actually started snowing as I write this. About what you'd expect for a town in the mountains (altitude: 120 meters?), but it's been unseasonably warm this past week. One more post coming up soon...

Thoughts on... SD Gundam game series

A new section for me, where I get to geek out! Yeah. Long time, lazy blogger - is my excuse.

So there's this TV series - anime - called "Gundam", right? Produced by Sunrise, sponsored by Bandai, usual tie-in stuff. Giant robots, piloted by military types, used as weapons of war similar to fighter jets and tanks. Good show, ran for 39 episodes? In order to fill plot holes and assign fridge logic, radar is made mostly ineffective by a certain zero-rest-mass particle that also powers compact helium-3 fusion generators - giant robots that are invisible to long-range radar, and must be confirmed by other methods. But I digress.

The original show kicked off a series that runs to this day - I find that they get more and more commercial (literally! - a certain handheld game console shows up in a recent one) as time goes on - which tries to be the "realistic" Giant Robot Show(tm) on TV. But, mecha means models, and models mean the designs are specific, which means they can by used in a video game.

This takes me to the SD Gundam series of turn-based strategy video games. I own SD Gundam G-Generation F for the Playstation, and more recently SD Gundam G-Generation SPIRITS - I'm going to review them here, for your reading pleasure.

SDGGGF was released in 2000, about when I first got a PS - in fact, it was one of my first games, the other being SRW Alpha. The gameplay was pretty basic overall, but its selling point was the inclusion of virtually every Gundam-related mecha thus far, up to and including side-stories, manga-only stories, and Turn-A Gundam. I think it was the first to include the excellent Crossbone Gundam, and gave us the rockin' Crossbone Gundam Battle Theme.

It also tied into a certain collectible card game, through which the player could construct new units using 7-digit codes found on the cards (and - very easily - online). There was also a multiplayer mode and a single unit tournament mode - both of which could be abused to gain credits (you could do an mid-game save just before winning during the multiplayer, win, then the money would go to your system save. Open up the mid-game save, and repeat...). This made the game easy in terms of unit acquisition, and thus far more about playing/grinding through the strategy part of it. Because it used two separate save types, the amount of units you could have was... pretty high.

SDGGGF suffered from a few flaws, though. There's a particular story called The Blue Destiny. The units featured in that story rely on something called the EXAM System - in the original story, this gave the pilot using it empathy on a psychic level, allowing them to seek out enemy pilots directly without having to wait for visual confirmation, very frightening if you think about it - but in-game this is simply a certain attack pattern. There is also a stage in this story, where the main character has to take out an entire (nuclear) missile base by himself. In the novel, this is accomplished relatively easily, as he is an ace pilot in a high-end Mobile Suit with a special System built into it. In the game, this is bloody near impossible (too many enemy units spread too far apart, with a time limit besides) and the player has to back him up with a battleship of some sort.

Clearly, some of the game mechanics needed work, but it was otherwise something I spent many, many hours working on - beat the game, but because there are so many distinct units it's very difficult to get 100% of them.

And then there's SD Gundam G-Generation SPIRITS, capitalized because it looks friggin' cool like that. PS2, but limited to the Universal Century series only. No G-Gundam, Gundam Wing, etc. - and Turn-A appears to be the final boss. The included units are severely limited, probably due to physical space issues, but the graphics are leaps and bounds above SDGGGF - full voice acting as well, with some limitations due to certain voicers having died (Suzuoki Hirotaka especially - yes, Starscream = TenShinHan in Japan).

The multiplayer mode has been removed, the card game code system has been removed, the tournament mode has been removed, most of the side-story units have been removed, the duo save types have been removed - it really begins to feel like they put a Dalek in charge of programming (EX-CISE! EX-CISE!), until you see what they included to make up for it. The game has been made smaller and tighter, and the capital you earn in-game is based entirely on how much damage your units do.

Virtually all units can be rebuilt into another unit once it gains enough experience (where previously, about a third were fairly limited in their rebuildings), which means it's considerably easier to fill out your database. A lot of the combinings (works out to: the schematics of units A and B combined yield the schematics of unit C), especially the ones involving Turn-A Gundam, make annoyingly little sense - example: G-3 Gundam (Magnet-coated joints to improve response time) + Zaku II = Act Zaku (high-performance Zaku w/Magnet Coating). Act Zaku can't be combined with any other unit, I think, and the only way to combine up a G-3 involves Turn-A. Of course, it's simplest to say that they _never_ made any sense in this game series...

But, again, someone in Bandai's Customer Service dept. was taking notes, and this is a much tighter game all-round. It's gameplay-centric, so the challenges are now in figuring out how to get 7 units in one place at once, so you can rack up credits with Overkill (in essence, every unit is now worth a certain amount of credits. Killing it gets you those credits. Ganging up on it gets you a bonus, as does getting a critical hit in. Doing more than double the enemy's total HP gets you another Overkill bonus, as does triple, quadruple... all the way up to ten times). Oh, and the maps are designed around Mobile Suit-scale - larger units take up more space. Battleships are now _very_ unwieldy, but they (and most other non-group unit on the map, friend or foe) slowly recover HP and EN.

Which brings me back to the Blue Destiny test of playability. The BD units now have the EXAM System as a separate transformation in addition to their Magnet Coating - meaning they go from an overpowered-for-its-time MS to a slightly-underpowered God-o'-war at a whim (balanced by the system's increased energy consumption). And this time, someone read the novelization, played the game it was based on - Yuu Kajima can now one-hit Zakus, and single-handedly take down a missile base, with the game very emphatically refusing to allow your forces to help. There is still no time limit on the system (originally necessitated because overuse would cause the MS' armor to _melt_, even in space), which means it can be switched on at the end of the player's turn for the evasion bonus alone. No complaints here!

So yeah. I rather like SDGGG SPIRITS, if only for the name. It's an awesome name - you make anything 3x more awesome by adding SPIRIT(S) to it, kinda like "Char Aznable's Personal/Customized..."

Heat and Humidity

10 months in Akitakata WHOOOOO! And now it's summer. Seattle isn't very humid, so we're having some trouble coping. I can take the heat by itself (Rachel can't).

Not much has happened. Strongly considering looking for a new job. Teaching English isn't easy for me, since I'm not good with people at all, but it's pretty lucrative. I lose 3 hours per workday to the commute, and the stress of the job itself... I worry too much about whether they're learning or not, and if something goes even slightly wrong I feel it.

Also, I've begun to have some sort of physical reaction (nausea) to the teaching floor, which is bad. So after lunch I'm going to the local Hello Work (job placement - can't quite tell if it's gov't funded or not) to see what's available. Probably nothing. ("Probably" = "Probly", which is a fun point to teach. Heh.) I don't really have any skills aside from 10-key, touch-typing, and English. Worst-case, I suck it up and keep teaching English until next spring or so.

I wonder why our school has so few students now? We've had days where I get 8 one-student/man-to-man lessons. Bad as I am, I can't possibly be solely responsible for this. (This is, incidentally, related to my tendency to react more strongly to small mistakes than large ones. Small mistakes, one person is usually to blame, and they can add up faster than they can be fixed. Large ones, it's usually more obvious at first glace how possible they are to fix, and if they're broken beyond all recognition you throw up your hands and start over.)

Listening to Senaka Goshi ni Sentimental now, sung by the mysterious Miyasato Kumi.

Half a year in Akitakata!

Wooo. It's been fun. Feel a bit cut off. Can't watch Watchmen until much later.

Not much has happened. I'm getting used to the job, but it's starting to look like my contract won't be renewed - which is unsettling. I bought stuff to send home, but I'm too lazy/depressed/apathetic to send it. I've picked up some new manga, which I'm considering sending back. Maybe.

It snowed yesterday, but otherwise has been warm in the way early spring gets. Snow up here (we're 40 kilometers or so from the sea, 150 meters up, and surrounded by mountains) isn't very lasting or heavy, so it's no big deal. Just enough to get in the grooves of my shoe soles.

I bought "the best of fantasy 2008" recently, and it's uplifting... is the best word I can come up with. I felt bad about my level of writing recently, but now I've got a benchmark to compare it with. Seems my ideas are almost not surreal enough, and my writing is about two drafts away from publishable - my style is somewhere between too descriptive and too brief, which is good. This is good, but I wanted the "SF 2008" instead - that comes out "sometime in March", according to the bookstore guy.

So yeah. I'm fine, Rachel is fine. Hopefully all will go well.

A disturbing trend

http://www.angryzenmaster.com/2009/02/25/pentagon-wants-to-deploy-autonomous-death-bots/ and http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/127484/?page=entire

I posted a response on the first page, but decided to do so here as well. Yes, I'm "B.D" - a name lifted from "Megazone 23" 1 and 2. This is just one angle...


There are two things I’m worried about here - appearance, and jamming (interference as well, but that’s a completely separate post). I’m worried more about jamming. Let’s say that, to prevent hijacking, the signal is heavily encoded. Let’s say that each unit answers to a slightly different frequency - or, assuming they covered their bases, a completely different code. What happens when the signal is jammed? Do they explode, to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands (or competitors)? Or do they simply stop working, so as to avoid unintended deaths/collateral damage? More that likely the second. (A third, really stupid idea, would be to go into ‘Dalek-mode’, shooting anything that moves.)

As with drones, these machines are intended to penetrate, ideally with the operator within a certain distance. And if the operator dies/gets killed? Shouldn’t happen; that would defeat the point of the Unmanned Unit. So the operator would be some distance away, requiring some form of wireless/radio to communicate with the UU. And if there’s a distance without wired communication, there’s the possibility of jamming.

So let’s say the signal has been jammed. There is now an UU where it cannot be easily recovered (since the whole point is to not run the risk of combat losses, it’s alone), with at least $100,000 worth of parts that would be _very_ useful to the enemy for whatever reason. The enemy now has a usable frame, electronics (and code?), possibly armor, and (pick one) an M249/40mm GL/M202 that can be electronically fired - which this increasingly faceless entity can either convert for their own use or sell to their sponsors, should they have them.

And how to stop the UU itself? There’s probably two main ways to sell a box o’ fun like this - open (parts are replaceable) or closed (the robot is completely sealed from outside disturbances). Closed would be more profitable for the company, and would render the above situation less likely, but it would be freakin’ expensive. Open would be cheaper for the military, depending on the on-the-ground situation, but would make the UU accessible (easier to repair, easier to salvage). Stopping the UU might be as simple as ripping off the power source or cutting some wires, easily replaced.

So now we’re looking at a machine that can be stopped in at least one way. How about appearance? The one in the picture is a black tread-motivated death machine with at least two points of articulation above the body (the camera, and the main swivel), probably more. What happens if it is a) flipped over a la Robot Wars or b) surrounded by suddenly-appearing walls of metal? Or smoke/chaff?

I took one look at the article and came up with this; better countermeasures will crop up during actual use. UUs are a bad idea, in the many ways ED-209 (RoboCop) was a bad idea.

FOUND IT!!!

Here it is, my favorite moment in the 2001 version of Cyborg 009. The link works for me, but you might have to switch countries or something.

004 (Albert) is fighting his robot duplicate, who predicts ever move he makes. Every move he makes as a killing machine, anyway - the human side of Albert confuses the robot. And while it's confused - BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM.

Still one of my favorite Anime moments. Modern Anime tend to be talky, even if it's short-winded, and this one scene sums up Ishinomori nicely.

Working on pictures.

NaNoWriMo, again

Oh, hey, it's almost November again. Which means it's time for - that's right - NaNoWriMo. I've put some info up under "Tem DMindu"
- I think I originally wanted an apostrophe, but it wouldn't let me.

If you're too lazy to go there, this is the gist of "The Folk and the Giants": Susu Ma Susu, a Wingfolk Resistor Corps pilot, is blown away from his first battlefield in his Falcontail "Giant Resistor" (2nd-gen), then washed down to the coast. With no other reliable forms of transportation or communication, he must make his way back to his RC HQ and share the valuable intelligence gained from his skirmishes with the Giants. Along the way he gains an engineer/mechanic, Centash Meshos, and with her assistance survives numerous encounters with the Giants and Folk.

Basically, I've been putting together a few pages of story while on the bus to work. Because I get carsick, I start writing after the first 30 minutes or so of the ride, and I've usually got another page by the time I get off. The original idea occurred to me years ago - L-Gaim and Dunbine both have fairy-sized characters - but at the time it was "fairy-sized characters in 20 meter tall behemoth mechas".

But, since I promised pictures at some point (and I've even got a Photobucket account in anticipation of it) I'll have to go around town with a camera before this. It's starting to get cold (20 Celcius yesterday, 18 today - Highs!) around here.

I have time to post. How 'bout that?

Here we go, the long-awaited post about my trip to Okayama, and subsequent first weekend at work. I've been very busy this past week or so, and it's only now that I can post this.

Monday the 6th started early for me. I got up at ...too early an hour to really remember. There's a site that'll calculate the fastest route by train between two locations, and because the company wasn't too thrilled to have to pay for a Shinkansen trip (at least 12,000 yen), I got to suffer 4 hours inside of the train system. Not a terrible fate, and food/restrooms are easy enough to find, but 4 hours in transit'll take something out of you, especially if it's 4 separate trains. I did eventually get to the Okayama station, and the hotel was close enough that I could leave my luggage there – except there are two Toyoko Inns near the station, and the staff had maps on hand for my benefit. I wasn't able to get into my room at the time, but they checked my luggage, so I got some lobby coffee – sorry, that should be “Lobby Coffee”, if you know the sort – and headed to the Okayama-station NOVA school. Whereas the Hiroshima-eki school had the impression of being stuffed into 2 floors, the Okayama branch felt a little more spacious (and if someone from work is reading this, I challenge you to contradict me), and actually felt like a school, albeit one with cubicles for classrooms. There were three others getting trained at the same time, two Canadians and an Aussie, the latter of which works at my branch. The first day was fairly uneventful until we tried practice lessons on actual students, and I don't think I've ever felt like I've let someone down as much as then. We got out at 9, and the hotel room turned out to be about the size of a large dorm room – the “single” picture on the website is remarkably misleading. Still, it had all the basic necessities, and I remain suitably impressed. Good Internet connection, pretty good breakfast (missing only the heavy protein I was expecting), hot water dispenser on the first floor and a boiler in the room. The bathroom was the same modular design as the one in the hotel we stayed at our first night in Japan (see below), but comfier when not sharing it with someone else.

The second day was more of the first, only with some free time in the morning. We started at 1:20, so that left me plenty of time to get some tea and eat hearty. Again, I crashed and burned during the student sessions, but felt a little better about it. Since the company picked up the hotel tab, I ended up with more money to spend than originally planned, so I had enough to eat out for each meal. I had to eat cheap, but 15~2000 yen a day isn't so bad. Got out at 9 again, went back to the room, surfed the net and went to bed.

Day three started early, at 10, so I had enough time to pack up and eat before training. It went better than the first couple of days, but not too well. I couldn't find my game with more than 2 students at a time. Still, I wasn't crashing and burning too badly, and the trainer assured me it would get easier. We got out at... 5:40 or so, and the first of my two trains back left at 6:09. The wait time between them was about 10 or 15 minutes, and I still got back at 10:00 or so. Rachel picked me up from the station (again, about 8 km from home – why?!) Went straight to bed and fell asleep.

My peculiar work schedule left me with a day off inbetween the training period and my actual work. During the interview, I let slip that my circumstances were such that, were I to be hired part-time, I would prefer working as few days as possible – full, 8-hour days, of course – in order to cut down on transportation costs. By bus, it's 960 yen one-way to/from Hiroshima, so even over the course of a 3-day work schedule this comes out to 5760 yen a week. Still cheaper than owning/renting a car, though. I can't take the train (840 yen one-way) because it transfers the costs to Rachel's gasoline budget, and because it's rough on her too. The primary advantage of the bus is that it basically leaves and arrives right in front of our apartment building, for which the cost is an acceptable tradeoff. Also, the bus pass system here (as far as I know) is such that, if you put up 1, 3, or 5000 yen, you get a 110% bus card – so 5000 yen gets me 5500 yen on the bus. Which means that it could actually cost me 5260 yen per week, compared to 5040 yen plus gasoline by train. BUT, back to what I was originally talking about, I have a Fri-Sat-Sun work schedule, and essentially get paid around what I got at Retail Lockbox. (1600 yen per lesson) x (max of 8 lessons per day) x (3 days per week) = 38,400 yen/weekend. Minus 5260, and that's 33,140 per week. We get paid monthly, and that works out to... enough for the two of us to live fairly comfortably, given the increased cost of living (this is something I'll talk about in the future).

Thursday, aside from some last-minute panic regarding my dress shirts, was uneventful – oh, and we got our Internet connection that morning. We worried about it at first, because it came with an instillation disk (my computer doesn't have a CD drive), but as it turned out, all we have to do is plug in, and we've got 100 mbps at our disposal. So yeah, things are better now.

I got to work on Friday at 1:20, left on time, and rolled into bed at around 11 PM. I still felt like my best game was in one-on-one (we call it “man-to-man”, something that doesn't quite make sense when 80~90% of our students seem to be female unless you know that “man” isn't as gender-specific in Japanese as it is in English – look up “Super Sentai” on Wikipedia and note how many of them use “-man” as a suffix), and was almost hopeless in 5-person groups. Still, I got through the day, and no one faulted me. Because I didn't have the time to do it myself, I had to ask Rachel to iron one of my shirts – she was nearly done with the second one when I got back. Actually, since I got to Hiroshima a good 3 hours early, I took my time eating an egg sandwich in a station Cafe – I've never quite had an egg sandwich like that, where the sandwich is 3 cm thick, half of which is egg. Had to scoop up more than I ate as a sandwich. Started a new story idea too, one that's been in mind for years, but until I looked up “Mobile Suit Human” on TVtropes I didn't think it was feasible – it apparently IS. W00T!

Saturday was more of the same, except I started earlier. This meant getting up earlier, but wasn't too big a deal. I talked Rachel into giving me a ride to the station – she's not a morning person like I am, so she made it very clear to me that I ought to be taking the bus – and made it to work early enough to prepare for lessons. I had to run to the station to make the early train back after work, but ended up missing it by 20 seconds or so – they'd just closed the doors when I got there, and the driver had already blown his whistle. Rachel was a little more annoyed picking me up, because it was so late, which lead me to...

...Take the bus Sunday morning to and from Hiroshima. It's bumpy and annoying and it makes it impossible to do anything other than look forward for most of it if I want to arrive not-carsick. That aside, work was a little better, and after a lesson with four higher-level students I'm finally starting to feel like I can do this job. (Because of my specific background, I'm fairly good to have around, both from a student and corporate standpoint, and I suspect that's partly why I'm even working for them now.) So I'm pretty confident, even looking forward to the job.

Also, we went to a little island off of the coast (10 minute ferry) colloquially called Miyajima (it's the right link, trust me) this past Monday the 13th. Deer walk around freely and eat paper, something one of Rachel's NZ coworkers rather amusingly confirmed – the official English site notes that “Deer may eat paper and cloth. Please be cautious of approaching deer. JR PASSES WILL NOT BE REPRINTED OR REPLACED.” We had an okay time. There's a park there, where the beach isn't a beach so much as an accumulation of broken shells and coral, and Rachel had a good time there. We took an uphill path back to the ferry dock, that felt a bit like a hike through the Olympic National Park, then made our way through a tourist-trapy souvenir village on our way to the gates – the “torii”, one of the more famous examples in Japan, as it's built on tide flats and thus has the appearance of “floating” on the water during high tide. We got our photos, waited for Rachel's coworker (he has a knack for either getting lost or somehow ending up where he isn't quite supposed to be, mostly due to his not knowing much Japanese – he's pretty good with Chinese, I understand, and can pick his way through Kanji though) then got back on the ferry and made our way home. No one at the ferry took our tickets, so we basically got a free ride back. On the island, I discovered a love for “Nikuman”, poofy steamed bread with beef in it, and learned at a mainland 7-Eleven that I was greatly overcharged for it. We had dinner at a restaurant in the Hiroshima station (Rachel's coworker couldn't join us, as he's a Vegan and can really only eat out at Buddhist/Indian restaurants, both of which are in short supply) and I made sure to get a glass Coke bottle this time. We had dessert before getting back on the train at a little station shop. My pudding came in a little glass cup, a bit larger than a shot glass and with a lid, which I kept. Rachel had cake.

I'm not a great cook, but I know how to use a stove and related appliances. We've had this “Shrimp Pilaf” more often than we probably should, but it's mild enough for Rachel to eat so we have it at least once a week. I can also make Corn Rice – eggs, corn, and rice, all fried together – and Miso-shiru/soup, so we're in no danger of starving. Sandwiches are daily fare for us now, especially when ham goes on sale, and I've been eating frozen vegetables as a snack (try it – it's pretty good, especially on a hot day). Our only problem is that, if we want something to keep, it's going to be cold the next time we eat it, since we don't have a microwave. The stove itself is the size of a largish briefcase, with a small oven intended for fish-frying, so it's the bare essentials we need. As I've said before, if you turn the gas on medium here, it's like turning an electric range to its highest and then frying a lit match in gasoline – it's freakin' powerful and the fan is adjusted accordingly.

It occurs to me that Japanese music is incredibly useful in learning how to speak it. Not so much in grammar or vocabulary, but in stress. For that, kid's music, the kind of Tokusatsu songs I listen to, is good – they can't have them learning the wrong stresses, can they? Plus, they sound good. I'm listening to Engine Sentai Go-Onger's OP far more than I should be now. I recommend it, if only for the guitar riff and horns at the beginning.

I'm comfy. Finally!

It seems that I am comfortable now. We just got back from this “fashion store” (think Value Village, except everything is new or close to it) called Shimamura. Rachel has a new futon, so that's 4 total for us – the brown one that came with the room, the brown one we got from Jesse (tallish vegan New Zealand dude, works with Rachel) in exchange for the air mattress, the white-and-flowery one we got from Lacey+Kyle (neighbors on the first floor), and the new green one. Also picked up another comforter, because it's been kinda cold around here for a couple of days, and a couple of food-based pillows. And for me? Sweat pants and actual pajamas, the kind that look like something you'd get in a 3-star hotel. Oh, and because I spend so much time sitting in front of the computer, on a low table you sit cross-legged at, I got a “seat”. It's comfy, it's finally comfy to sit here.

Rachel is sick – started getting a sore throat around Friday, had a fever yesterday, and is in no shape to do anything today (so why are we a little more comfortable...?). Still, she managed to cut my hair before her fever really kicked in, and I look a little more respectable. A little – she did it by reading about it on some website – but she did a good job for having never done something so drastic before. As you can probably tell from my style, I'm beginning to get a bit ill myself. My throat hurts a bit, but that's about it. She'll be able to go to work tomorrow, barely, and I'm starting in on my stash of Rose Hips (she refuses to drink anything but minty tea, which makes things a little difficult).

I've fallen off the AdventureQuest wagon again. I'm weak, so very weak. It's pretty fun – imagine a one-man shareware (flash) World of Warcraft with frequent tongue-in-cheek dialogue, just without the free movement – and not quite as addictive as Star Pirates. Problem is, it requires more in terms of bandwidth. It needs a regular, solid connection to play properly – even dial-up will do fine – so it's a bit hard to really get going here. Still, it only needs a connection before and after scene changes, battles, and such, so I can play around it a bit. Even after getting a new, faster compy (1.3 Ghz, 1 Gb RAM) I have to play at the lowest graphics setting, but it's not much of a drop.

Lately, I've rediscovered certain songs. Tokkei Winspector (opening theme song for the 1990 show of the same name) is good, very good. It's sung by Miyauchi Takayuki, and he's got the sort of tenor singing voice I can only dream of having. The opening guitar riff (is that what you call it?) is good enough that I'd happily listen to it looped, and I like any song that makes timely usage of the strings section. Mr. Miyauchi, unfortunately, does not have the sort of stage presence some of his fellow singers in the genre have (Mizuki Ichiro is the king of this, and probably the best-known besides), but because he has such a good voice, no one notices. (See this for him singing it 10 years after the fact, and this for the same video, only on Nicovideo. My compy actually slows down at about 1:14, one of the things that makes Nico awesome... By comparison, the original theme and title sequence.)

Eiyuu, by doa. There are a handful of Tokusatsu shows in which the opening songs contain no reference to the show (ie: no character names, no mecha names...), and Eiyuu is one of them. It was the OP to Ultraman Nexus, a failed attempt to take the franchise a step towards an older audience. The song itself is awesome, and has a music video. For some reason, I hear it and I think of Firefly, the sci-fi western.

And that's about it. G'night.

Woot. Employment.

Well well, what have we here? An actual post? Oooh, golly gumdrops and rainbow razzmatazz. Hm. I should just start saying that, in monotone. I think I'm good at it. Or maybe not.

Anyway. Postpostpostpost... I got the job, the English teacher one. (The bookstore one went well, but when the manager ran it by their head office I got rejected. Oh well.) Paid training starts on the 6th, in Okayama – it's four hours away by regular trains, so they'll be paying for a hotel room. The train fare to Hiroshima might also be cheaper than I originally thought, as a) the trains don't all run to Yoshidaguchi Station (one of those little backyard stations) so it'd be easier to take it from Mukaihara Station (a bit more like what you'd expect a station to look like), and b) I found out during the interview that they would pay out an extra 100 yen per hour to cover commuting costs. 1640 yen round-trip makes more sense, barely. I hope everything works out with it. I still have to get my hair cut for it – that he asked me if I was willing to do so during the interview was a good sign. Also, I have to get a Hiroshima Bank account if I want to get paid, which I need to do soon.

Rachel and I finally went down to Hiroshima together Sunday. I bought 6 booster packs of Metal Hero cards, a set of little 350 yen rubber robots, Kamen Rider Spirits #14, assorted foodstuffs and dinner. Total cost: around 5000 yen. Worth it. Part of my mission was to go and finally have a MOS Burger, something I'd had before on vacation here 10, 15 years ago. It was good. Really good. Worth whatever I paid for it. Then there was the strawberry milkshake at McDonald's – that took me back and erased any homesickness I had (none, actually, so even a bag of miso might do the trick). Dinner, because we stayed later than I expected, was a katsudon with soba noodles (breaded chicken + egg over rice, wheat noodles). It was okay but the taste was missing something – I've never had such a lightly-flavored don before. I got a bottle of Coke with it, which turned out to be an actual bottle with a little cup you might otherwise use to sip an alcoholic beverage from (they wouldn't let me take the bottle home, something about it costing 30 yen extra). It was okay overall.

Of all the things I miss from home, the one thing I can't find no matter where I go is hot dogs, eight in a bag. Sure, the little bakery in the local super sells hot dogs in a wrap with onion sauce/powder, and it's not bad, but it's really not the same. Also, McDonald's. Didn't really think I'd be craving it, but it was the first thing I did when I got to Hiroshima for the interview. They taste exactly the same, by the way. And while I couldn't find what they call a quarter pounder with cheese here, they have Big Macs.

While the free unprotected wi-fi is active, we have to cram around the open balcony door to use it. Our best guess is, it's a neighbor living in the immediate southern building (in this little complex, it's our building and two smaller, 4-room buildings, with our building at the north end). So, we're trying to negotiate with Yahoo BB/SoftBank/AT&T for internets, but they want to come in on the first day of my training. Or wanted to, since they called and we rescheduled, but the letter they sent wasn't updated. Not sure what's going to happen, since they haven't returned my call yet. We have time, I think.

Oh, and I finally found the first and second OSTs to Xabungle. “Walker Gallier” is such a cool song, but there's this weird timpani thing in the right speaker for part of it – nothing wrong with that, since they never actually used it for Walker Gallier itself.

I'm still unemployed, for the moment

(Quick note: I wrote this during a dull moment last weekend, and I'll have more up soon.)

Well. It's been a while since I last tried to post, but here I am. The apartment internet has been very spotty, and they're probably disconnecting the router, so for the most part all I've been able to do is take phone calls. Having a phone makes things much easier, perhaps more annoying as well; I'll put up a picture of it, once I finally get around to dumping my camera's sd card.

This last Sunday (9/7), Rachel and I went to a sports festival at the only middle school she teaches at. We somehow came back home with sunburns on various parts of our bodies. In my case, since I was sitting cross-legged, the inside halves of my knees and shins have been screaming in pain for the better part of the week. The drugstore next door (again, think Bartell's) doesn't sell sunscreen or sunburn lotions, interestingly enough, so we got some at the 100 yen store. And it's not even lotion, either; it's milky, like milk. Think of the consistency curdled milk or really warm yogurt has, and that's pretty much it. You rub it on wherever and your hand comes away wet – not slick, gooey, slimey, or greasy, but wet. Still, it seems to have worked – aside from my still-healing knees, I've come away from it with a tan. And speaking of tans, every freakin' kid at that festival had tanned skin the color of brown sugar.

But I digress. The whole idea of a sports festival (because this is fairly clearly a foreign concept to the states) is to get everyone out and exercising. Maybe it has more to do with the sort of population density in the area – again, lots of rice farming in the area, and the school itself was surrounded by them – or maybe it's more of a cultural thing, but those kids all looked within a healthy body weight, if overall a little on the light side. The games (kinda hard to actually call them sports) themselves went from as simple as a year-based baton relay to something involving the two teams (yellow and blue – each year got split down the middle, so six groups all together) to a song-and-dance routine by each time, to fire up the crowd and themselves. Blue got into a circle facing the audience and did a little dance to some pop music; Yellow had the third-years stand in the middle and start something closer to a stretching exercise, ending with the other years joining in singing (yelling, chanting, whatever you want to call it) along to a more traditional tune with a taiko in the background. They fired themselves up, the watching parents and family, and the Blue team as well, so whether it worked or not...

The Saturday before that (9/6), Rachel and I went to a bamboo festival at one of her elementary schools. Everything was as we expected until they started handing out saws to the kids, not even 10 years old, to cut off logs of bamboo just under the width of my thighs. I was impressed at the cultural gap. There were four sections to the festival – take-tonbo (little bamboo rotors attached to a stick and launched off by rolling it between the palms – means 'bamboo dragonfly'), take-uma (bamboo stalks with pieces of wood tied together around the lowest or second-lowest 'joint' to the ground, and used as stilts – means 'bamboo horse'), squirt guns (a thin piece of bamboo with another stick inside it to suck up and spit out water), and... I don't quite know what to call the last one. Take two logs of bamboo, cut to about 15 cm long, run rope through them, stand on them, pull the string to your feet and start walking.

There were contests towards the end, using each section – Rachel and I entered into the take-tonbo contest, mostly to fill out the tournament numbers. The idea was to fly them off as far as possible – and a well-made one, in the hands of the oldster pro showing everyone how to make them that day, will easily fly up into the rafters. The rotors on mine turned out too thick, despite my best efforts (I've never whittled before, so...), and it wasn't too hard to throw the first match. Rachel, on the other hand, made her rotors too well, and even though she was probably trying harder than me to throw each match, ended up getting the (paper) silver medal. The certificate is up on her wall, but we seem to have run out of yellow-tack to put up the medal as well – another thing you can't find over here, at least not in Akitakata.

The nearest train station to the apartment is 8 kilometers away. See, the area has so many mountains that the towns that make up Akitakata are not within line-of-sight of each other – the neighborhoods, sure, but not the towns. In fact, if you were to get on top of the apartment building and look around in a circle, we are very literally surrounded by mountains. There's space between them, of course – they're not mountains in the sense of the Cascades or the Rockies, but more like islands amongst a sea of rice. Or, if you've seen it, they look like those giant chitinous bugs from Kaze no Tani no Nausica, the Studio Gibli/Miyazaki Hayao flick. So, a train station that GoogleMaps claims is only 1 hour away by foot is really more like 2 hours away – 20 minutes by car, if that. Why do I mention this?

(I wrote this next part up before the interviews. Yeah, not having a steady internet connection sucks.)

I have a job interview on Monday. A real job interview, with an English school in Hiroshima. It pays better than my last job scanning checks (I'm still surprised at how much I was paid to do that), and it's right next to the Hiroshima train station. Also, they put up a monthly commuting stipend for full-timers. The problem is that it costs at least 1900 yen round trip to get there by train, and it takes more than an hour to get there. (Assume something like 110 yen to the dollar.) If I get the job, it doubles our income, but I get to see Rachel only 3 or 4 hours a day during the week. There's a part-time option, at 1500 yen per hour, which would erase a couple of those problems but create a couple more – I'd have to work at least 1:15 or so to make up the transportation costs, and would barely come out ahead. Either one would easily pay for the food costs (which is the very least Rachel is expecting of me – paying half the rent was my idea). I think I'd do fine in the job, but having to spend a few hours in the train every day would be a little annoying – wonder if I could take my computer, write a bit on the way? It'd be a good excuse, but I don't know if the other passengers would appreciate it.

I also have another job interview, on Tuesday. Not quite as real as the school one. It's for a – the best analogy would be a sort of Half-Price Books specializing mostly in Manga and Porno, with video games of all ages and CDs on the side. Oh, and maybe a couple of serious books. It's a 10 minute walk, pays a little above minimum wage, and I'd have to learn the really polite Japanese that everyone else waiting on me seems to use. On the education side, I'm probably overqualified for it. On the human interaction side... well, hm. But, the fact that I can walk there makes it really desirable.

Finally went out for Karaoke this last Friday (9/12), too, with a bunch of other gaijin, to celebrate a coworker's birthday. Stayed up until 2. In my case, being really tired isn't at all different from being really drunk (if I'm sitting at my computer, it's not a problem, but I was singing my heart out). It's funny, though – they all picked English songs (leaning towards rap) and I picked old-school tokusatsu themes. My songs, if they were the Opening Theme, had actual visuals pulled from the shows, too, not just the generic video that played for each English genre. And the really cool thing? They had “Everybody Needs Somebody”, from The Blues Brothers. I've seen that movie enough times to get the feel of Elwood's (Dan Ackroyd's) patter, so I figured I could pull it off. I did. I even tried to do the little dance (because, y'know, I'm a dancer), but there wasn't enough room. They congratulated me all the same. I think we did it differently than the other groups – we sang together when possible (so, not during my songs...).

More soon.

I'm still unemployed

Our unauthorized use of a password-free WiFi connection has either been discovered... or someone unplugged the router. Seeing as how it takes no time or effort to set up a password, I'm going to guess the latter there. But yeah. Not much has happened in the last couple of days. Did a lot of shopping yesterday, blew through 5000 yen or so, but the apartment is much more livable now. Finished putting together the SD V2 Assualt Buster Gundam this morning – fully combined, it's a good sized hunk of plastic that can't move its limbs. But the head has this cool setup where the targeting eyepatch will actually slide down over the left eye (the Mega Beam Cannon is mounted on the right shoulder blade). It's a brick, no posing and not much fun other than as a decoration. Still, at 100 yen, it's a pretty good deal for a brick.

Today, though, I went ahead and did a little shopping for myself. There's a complex of three stores nearby – one's a bookstore/video rental, the smallest goods-wise is a toy store, and there's the used book/game/music store. The bookstore/video rental had the newest Kamen Rider Spirits and enough of the pre-2000 stuff to keep me happy for a year or two. The toy store was a slight letdown, but what I was expecting in this town's economy (more on this below). The used fun store (my new name for it, and yes, it does have porn) has stacks and stacks of old manga, with some games and cds, all priced to own. I limited myself and only got the first Akazukin Cha-Cha (it's a pun – 'Akazukin-chan' is the Japanese version of 'Little Red Riding Hood', Cha-Cha is fittingly friendly with a werewolf), and the Dreamcast game 'Sunrise Eiyuu-tan' (which reminds me – Takashi: keep the Dreamcast in working order, or just make sure it works. If you're reading this, run upstairs, hook it up, and make sure it runs. Also: if you have any games or manga – I couldn't find the last Shaman King, sorry – you'd like, that's a little old, let me know). It's good stuff. I'm going to be a regular customer.

Which brings me to the local economy. I've heard rumors that Akitakata City is close to bankrupt, and I'm beginning to believe it – every fourth storefront or so is empty, and even though it's summer vacation, just about every major-ish store has a 'now hiring' sign in it. I see many oldsters, mothers, and children when I walk about, but I might just be looking at the wrong places. My perception of Yoshida town (Akitakata city is split into a bunch of towns, which is reflected in my over-engineered address) changes from day to day – until this afternoon, I didn't know exactly where the nearest police station was, and it's a decent sized building – but overall each passing day worries me. Still, this might be normal for the sort of population center we're in, which keeps me getting up every day.

I learned what I need to do to set up a bank account (fun fact: the post offices here also double as banks), and what it takes to cash some traveller's checks. Also, my written '5' looks like a big squiggly-wiggly line and my (Irish?) last name is unpronounceable here. And after all that, I spent an hour wandering the supermarket, waiting for bento to go on sale. As it was, I didn't wait long enough. Dinner ended up being a small pile of onigiri and kappa-maki (sushi: cucumbers in rice rolled in seaweed – the first vegan dish anyone every thinks of at a sushi joint. Seriously). There's no V8 over here, and nothing to replace it. The name stands for 'Vegetable 8', and most of the veggie drinks I've been able to find go well over that number of individual vegetables – and fruits. Who puts LEMON in a vegetable drink, anyway? Milk over here is universally not non-fat, and while it tastes like really heavy cream sometimes, it's a bit much after a carton or two. So finding that the non-fat stuff (and there's only been two brands so far) is cheaper has been a very pleasant surprise. And cause for paranoia. Think about it.

Since I was out yesterday, I poked around for an air mattress for one of Rachel's coworkers. I finally found one in a furniture store nearby. It's some measure of the country when stores that sell tents don't sell inflatable mattresses.

Time for bed.