Monday, November 27, 2006

Probable Cause?

The Iraq war has now lasted longer than America's involvement in WWII.

I don't know what else to say about that.

Friday, November 24, 2006

Frog

This one is from Julianna:

"I was just correcting an essay and felt compelled to share it:

The most exciting event for me during my junior high school days was dissection of eight frogs to study them. I was interested in creatures. I wanted to know them in detail. So, I decided to examine frogs. I dissected the body of a frog. First, I performed an abdominal operation. Next, I skinned the frog. And I took Frog's organs from the body. Last, I examined organs under the microscope. The more I examined the frog, the more I was interested in it. So, I decided to dissect seven more frogs. It took ten hours to dissect the 8 frogs. I was tired."

If I was a punning man, I'd say it's a good thing those frogs already croaked. Good thing I'm not not.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Robert Altman, one of America's truly great filmmakers, died today.

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1562162,00.html

If you've yet to see it, check out Short Cuts, his reworking of nine Raymond Carver stories.

Friday, November 17, 2006

Loch Lomond

I finally got around to posting on MySpace one of the songs Louise and I recorded, a traditional Scottish ballad. It's available at www.myspace.com/mysteryandmanners, my profile page, or www.myspace.com/theblackships, my music page.

More to come...

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Homeward Bound, I Wish I Was

Well ring a bell or bang a gong folks, because come December 22nd the lovely wife and I will be crossing the Pacific--eastward this time--and back to the old U.S. and A. Our feet will be tickling Maryland's fancy until January 3rd, when we will rotate the globe a hair counterclockwise, to Seattle, where we will dodge torrential rain for about a week. Then, on the 14th, back to the future, tomorrowland, Japan. We can't wait to see you all.

In other news, quite literally, I will be appearing on Japanese television this Friday, sometime between 6pm and 7, NHK channel 3. One of the teachers at my school is going to Qatar to referree an international basketball meet and a local news crew is doing a short piece on him. To show off his English prowess, the news crew wanted to know if I could do a little interview with him. Of course, this was all sprung on me unexpectedly this morning, as I came in late to school, unshaven and a bit rumpled after sleeping through my alarm. It went well though. I asked him a few questions about how he came to be a referree and what he is looking forward to seeing/doing in the Middle East. I also mentioned Julianna, that she was born in the region. The reporter then interviewed me a bit, asking what I thought of the teacher and his English abilities. Hopefully I'll post a video of the clip here after it airs, so watch out for my ugly mug.

Friday, November 10, 2006

Hey Ho, Let's Depart.

Keegan and Saya will be coming up to Sendai this weekend, and we're rightfully stoked to see them. I'm going to put these gnarly fake tattoos all over Keegan's face as he sleeps, tattoos of American flags and peace signs decorated like American flags. Then I'll do the old dip-yer-buddies-hand-in-warm-water-as-he's-snoozing trick. Bazaam! Saya will get whipped cream in the hand and a feather to the nose. Heck, Julianna better watch out, lest I duct tape her eyes shut or something.

I love having people over. Now I don't need any excuse to plastic wrap the toilet.

...

Oh yeah, the real point of this post. I will be making a new Myspace music site this weekend for the songs that Louise and I are recording. More on that later.

Audi-Five Thousand

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Notes on Today

The cold is coming in through the thin windows and wrapping about the ankles my too-short pajama bottoms leave bare. It's just starting, this crisp snap. The wind bellowed up around lunchtime today, stripping branches, the leaves making knife-sharpening sounds on the asphalt. I walked to 7-11 to grab a hot dog and some milk tea, a cheap and comforting lunch, but had to stop twice along the way to rub out errant bits of leaf and dust from under my contacts. At the store, with my eyes watering, one of my students mumbled a timid hello behind me in an aisle as I compared brands of chips (I went with a Nabisco Pringles rip-off, a mistake). He asked me a few carefully considered and stiltedly phrased questions and I watched his whisper of a mustache. The conversation was awkward for both of us. His mind churned away, dredging up infrequently-used English with an effort I can't seem to muster when it comes to language learning. I turned the canister of chips end over end in my hands. I have encounters like this all the time and they're never really boring, unless I'm tired. And I was tired today.

When I got home I scrubbed the shower grouting and cleaned the floors in the kitchen and toilet room. Julianna came home late, wet hair, wet jacket, the bottoms of her pants dripping, glasses fogged. She brought McDonald's, wisely packed in a plastic sack, two cheeseburgers apiece and fries to share. We ate and watched Okusama wa Majo, a Japanese version of Bewitched that appears on Wholphin #2 and features invented sub-titles by writers of the Daily Show. I could only take about fifteen minutes of it. The subtitles were funny, but the characters' voices were grating and the special effects of the hey-wow-another-blue-screen-comp-shot variety. Normally this kind of low-brow, ha-ha-the-subtitles-are-fake-and-they-slipped-in-some-good-Engrish-jokes humor is just fine by me but, like I said, I was just tired.

Julianna went into another room to do Juli-things (like a baby, I have trouble imagining others' actual existance when they're out of sight--this is no insult, just a lack of imagination and full-helping of laziness) and I sat down to track some guitar so Louise could have something to sing over tomorrow when she comes by to record. The third string, G, felt tight as I was tuning and just as I nestled the pitch within the LED - 0 +, the string snapped up past my face and then fell jangling across the others. No luck tonight. I took a long shower, in the newly clean shower, but I had to dry off with a towel damp from this morning's rinse. No luck tonight.

I'm not sure why I'm not in bed yet, the cold air wrapping about the ankles my too-short pajama bottoms leave bare.

Monday, November 06, 2006

Lebanese Stuck in Traffic...in America.

Teenage Boys Do a Halloween Mad-Lib

Responses are in italics.

It was a coloudy (weather adjective) and clear (weather adjective) Halloween night and my friend Keisuke (a friend's name) and I were getting ready to go trick-or-treating. At first, we wanted to dress as Chainese (plural costume), but we realized that would be too black (scary adjective). We decided to go as only panties (plural costume) instead. We headed to the old (scary adjective) house in the poor (adjective) woods behind our neighborhood. When I knocked on the rich (adjective) door, Mr. Mori (male teacher's name) opened it! At night, he was more red (adjective) than usual, and he was holding a yellow (adjective) cat. "I feel troublesome," (greeting) he said. "Would you like some candy?" Sad (emotion adjective), we skipped (movement verb) away to Yosemite Natioral Park as fast as we could!!!

Thursday, November 02, 2006

The Timid Gentleman, or The Evidence That Would Have Put Me In Jail

Here's a short, depressing bit of digital trickery to remind you that murder is socially irresponsible. Oh, and you get to see Gid take one to the kidney with a screwdriver.

Posted By:Josh

Get this video and more at MySpace.com

This was filmed a few years ago by Josh, Gideon, me, and a bottle of Hershey's Special Dark. Note Josh's splended editing (though I liked it better when the soundtrack was Godspeed You Black Emperor). Good times.

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Responses to: "If you could create a new Halloween monster, what would it look like? Describe your monster using as many adjectives as possible."

The monster's name is "Mr. Sugai." It is little shorter than a usual man, and it always says to us, "Bow." It teaches us English that is easy to understand. Its story is interesting.

The monster's name is "GOZIRAIAN." It is very short, but very strong. It can breathe blue fire and it can fly. It often eats a very big meat.

This monster's name is "Mr. Solar Eclipse." He is cheerful and dark. So he is not scary. And he has a sister named "Lunar Eclipse." She is always angry. She is more scary than "Mr. Solar Eclipse."

My new Halloween monster looks like a beautiful woman. She wears a white kimono and her hair is purple. She has a very big scythe and use it to kill the children. She eats children's souls. When you see her, please run away.

My new Halloween monster looks like vampire. But he doesn't suck at blood. He sucks at many kind of juice because he likes juice very much!! He have on short and wear long cloak. Those color are profound blue. He is a very nice monster, I think.

The monster has three big heads and only one small leg. It has dark green faces with two red eyes and one black eye. It is nocturnal. It lives in cold places. There is no danger for person, but probably the person who sees it will be surprised, get scary and run away soon. But the monster just wants to play with you. It is easy to make a friend with it.

It is a very small cat and it is only yellow. It has blue eyes. And mouth is very big and half of face. It eats human in the night. It doesn't have house and isn't liked people. Today, people were killed by the cat.

The monster looks very big and dirty. His body is black. He is stronger than any other monster. He gathers a lot of garbages. No one goes up. He attacked us easily. He lives in dumping ground. But he has weakness. It is that he weaks beautiful things.

It's the largest of all monsters. Its body is red like blood. It has very big hands, mouth, feet, and eyes. Therefore, it looks very stern. Children who see it begin crying.

It has teeth look like crocodile. And it has eyes look like bird, body look like bear. It has wing look like bird. But voice is very pretty.

It looks very positive, sociable, beautiful, grand, polite, fresh, divine and healthy.

The monster has a lot of keys but he doesn't use them.

It looks like a cat. It's not only big, but also beautiful. However, it's always angry, so sometimes people is killed by it. People are scared to death it. In fact, it is easy to control it. Just give it fish.

The monster is fat. The monster's look is very terrible. But he is honest. You'll like him soon.

My monster is big and strong. He has gold eyes. He looks a terrible, but he is very tenderhearted.

A new Halloween monster look like ghost. It is very big, and it has loudly voice. But, its face is pretty, and it likes to take a bath.

Ebisu, Pumpkin, Apple, Pokemon, Gozira.