Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Back From Nowhere
I've been away.
OK, that's a lie. I haven't been away, I've just been off from work for (nearly) the past two weeks. Since my resurgence in blogging corresponded with the amount of free time I had while idly sitting around at school this summer, when I found myself sitting at home instead I wasn't blogging much at all - although I kept up with the Twitter, have you been reading it? All signs point to "no." >_<
Part of my absence can be blamed on Blogger's mysterious reneging on my moblogging privileges. After numerous postings, some with pictures and videos even, Blogger now rejects all mail from my mobile phone. Not right away, mind you, but after four of five hours anything I send to them is returned to my phone with an error message. This is a disappointment and I am doing what I can to investigate the problem. Unfortunately, since Blogger has never, not once, ever responded to any of my support questions, I suspect there is no answer forthcoming. At the very least, I can continue to add pictures straight from my phone via Twitter using a service called TwitPic. If I send them a photo they update my Twitter with a link to said photo on their site. I've posted a few odds and ends over there, in case you missed them. All the more reason to read the tweets!
What have I been doing lately that hasn't involved typing on a keyboard or the keypad on my mobile phone? I've had plenty of opportunities to play video games, for one. Besides the groovy curiosity that is PixelJunk Eden, a game I've slowly but surely been accumulating imaginary "trophies" with, there's been the razzmatazz* of Bionic Commando Rearmed, a glorious remake of one of my favorite NES games. Let me tell you, the realization that the original game is now twenty years old was a sobering one for me. I have such vivid memories of playing that game repeatedly, sometimes at friends' houses but mostly in my private gaming sanctorum: namely, the basement of my childhood home. Did my parents have any idea that I was down there killing Hitler over and over again? Would they have approved?
But I should say that I haven't spent all my off-hours holed up in my living room. I made numerous trips into Osaka during my break and I spent two nights attending welcome parties for all the new JETs. I actually missed all of this last year because, in an effort to bond with my soon-to-be in-laws, I joined the extended family on a road trip to Shikoku. Having not experienced the festivities last time and being a new RA (even though there is only one newbie in my "region"), I was very eager to be a visible participant this year. One night was at the Hard Rock Cafe in Honmachi, the other was in Tin's Hall in Tennoji. Both involved a fair amount of alcohol and some rich American-style food, but I think I managed not to over-indulge in either vice. It wasn't easy for me but I did manage to converse with some new people, and by "new" I'm speaking generally about people I didn't know beforehand, not just the newcomers. You see, even though I've been here for a year I'm practically a stranger in JET circles because I haven't been going out and partying with my fellow English teachers. While I'm not going to make some foolish pledge to go all-out and spend my free time boozing & debauching (Life with Mako is way more appealing than an all-nighter) I will, and have begun to, make a greater effort to socialize with my peers.
In fact, this past Friday I went out for my first "pub quiz" in Shinsaibashi. These have been regular monthly events since I got here but I always seemed to be busy (honestly, I only stayed home because of the rain once) prior to this month. It was very noisy and I was a little uneasy when someone at my table used the makeshift verb "jew" as a synonym for "cheat," but otherwise I had fun hanging out. Our team didn't do very well in the quiz, mostly due to a disastrous first round that hinged on naming a series of Mr. Men characters. Since I was the only person old enough to even recognize them from the series of children's books (yeah, that didn't feel good either), it was all on my shoulders and I only managed to correctly name three, although a few of my guesses were extremely close (e.g. Mr. Silly turned out to be Mr. Funny). We ended up tied for third (out of six teams) which is better than being in fourth, I guess.
I've also been oh-so-slowly catching up in the movie department. A few weeks back we managed to finally see The Dark Knight and I really enjoyed it, as did Mako. I was impressed by the number of questions it asked about why anyone would want to be a superhero and despite a sliver of disappointment in the lack of proposed answers, the movie was even better than Batman Begins, which I had shown Mako the night before so she could understand who the hell Batman was. On a surprisingly similar note, we saw Hancock this weekend. That film initially started to push similar buttons about what motivates someone to fight crime in their spare time, but unfortunately the film undergoes several, jarring shifts and then ends far too soon to add up to much. It wasn't bad, not at all, but it felt extremely disappointing after the enjoyable setup.
We also rented There Will Be Blood, a movie I've been actively waiting to see for at least six months. That one I don't know how to describe because I felt so lost watching the story unfold. The performances and cinematography were magnificent and I could recognize the expertise at work, but as a narrative I simply had no idea what was happening most of the time. Part of the problem was my ignorance of all things oil-related - I couldn't help but feel confused when Plainfield smiled when his wooden derrick was on fire. I thought fire = bad? Has Frankenstein lied to me all these years?
Well, I see I've started to ramble again. I started typing this post two days ago, so I'll just stop here. The beauty of Twitter is it forces me to be brief, resulting in multiple updates. If I wrote smaller posts but updated my blog more than once a week, I'd be better off.
*Surely this is the first time I've used this word in print, ever. I had to look it up to make sure it meant what I thought it did. Apparently the use I was going for is synonymous with "vim" and "zing." Hard to believe these are all genuine English words!
OK, that's a lie. I haven't been away, I've just been off from work for (nearly) the past two weeks. Since my resurgence in blogging corresponded with the amount of free time I had while idly sitting around at school this summer, when I found myself sitting at home instead I wasn't blogging much at all - although I kept up with the Twitter, have you been reading it? All signs point to "no." >_<
Part of my absence can be blamed on Blogger's mysterious reneging on my moblogging privileges. After numerous postings, some with pictures and videos even, Blogger now rejects all mail from my mobile phone. Not right away, mind you, but after four of five hours anything I send to them is returned to my phone with an error message. This is a disappointment and I am doing what I can to investigate the problem. Unfortunately, since Blogger has never, not once, ever responded to any of my support questions, I suspect there is no answer forthcoming. At the very least, I can continue to add pictures straight from my phone via Twitter using a service called TwitPic. If I send them a photo they update my Twitter with a link to said photo on their site. I've posted a few odds and ends over there, in case you missed them. All the more reason to read the tweets!
What have I been doing lately that hasn't involved typing on a keyboard or the keypad on my mobile phone? I've had plenty of opportunities to play video games, for one. Besides the groovy curiosity that is PixelJunk Eden, a game I've slowly but surely been accumulating imaginary "trophies" with, there's been the razzmatazz* of Bionic Commando Rearmed, a glorious remake of one of my favorite NES games. Let me tell you, the realization that the original game is now twenty years old was a sobering one for me. I have such vivid memories of playing that game repeatedly, sometimes at friends' houses but mostly in my private gaming sanctorum: namely, the basement of my childhood home. Did my parents have any idea that I was down there killing Hitler over and over again? Would they have approved?
But I should say that I haven't spent all my off-hours holed up in my living room. I made numerous trips into Osaka during my break and I spent two nights attending welcome parties for all the new JETs. I actually missed all of this last year because, in an effort to bond with my soon-to-be in-laws, I joined the extended family on a road trip to Shikoku. Having not experienced the festivities last time and being a new RA (even though there is only one newbie in my "region"), I was very eager to be a visible participant this year. One night was at the Hard Rock Cafe in Honmachi, the other was in Tin's Hall in Tennoji. Both involved a fair amount of alcohol and some rich American-style food, but I think I managed not to over-indulge in either vice. It wasn't easy for me but I did manage to converse with some new people, and by "new" I'm speaking generally about people I didn't know beforehand, not just the newcomers. You see, even though I've been here for a year I'm practically a stranger in JET circles because I haven't been going out and partying with my fellow English teachers. While I'm not going to make some foolish pledge to go all-out and spend my free time boozing & debauching (Life with Mako is way more appealing than an all-nighter) I will, and have begun to, make a greater effort to socialize with my peers.
In fact, this past Friday I went out for my first "pub quiz" in Shinsaibashi. These have been regular monthly events since I got here but I always seemed to be busy (honestly, I only stayed home because of the rain once) prior to this month. It was very noisy and I was a little uneasy when someone at my table used the makeshift verb "jew" as a synonym for "cheat," but otherwise I had fun hanging out. Our team didn't do very well in the quiz, mostly due to a disastrous first round that hinged on naming a series of Mr. Men characters. Since I was the only person old enough to even recognize them from the series of children's books (yeah, that didn't feel good either), it was all on my shoulders and I only managed to correctly name three, although a few of my guesses were extremely close (e.g. Mr. Silly turned out to be Mr. Funny). We ended up tied for third (out of six teams) which is better than being in fourth, I guess.
I've also been oh-so-slowly catching up in the movie department. A few weeks back we managed to finally see The Dark Knight and I really enjoyed it, as did Mako. I was impressed by the number of questions it asked about why anyone would want to be a superhero and despite a sliver of disappointment in the lack of proposed answers, the movie was even better than Batman Begins, which I had shown Mako the night before so she could understand who the hell Batman was. On a surprisingly similar note, we saw Hancock this weekend. That film initially started to push similar buttons about what motivates someone to fight crime in their spare time, but unfortunately the film undergoes several, jarring shifts and then ends far too soon to add up to much. It wasn't bad, not at all, but it felt extremely disappointing after the enjoyable setup.
We also rented There Will Be Blood, a movie I've been actively waiting to see for at least six months. That one I don't know how to describe because I felt so lost watching the story unfold. The performances and cinematography were magnificent and I could recognize the expertise at work, but as a narrative I simply had no idea what was happening most of the time. Part of the problem was my ignorance of all things oil-related - I couldn't help but feel confused when Plainfield smiled when his wooden derrick was on fire. I thought fire = bad? Has Frankenstein lied to me all these years?
Well, I see I've started to ramble again. I started typing this post two days ago, so I'll just stop here. The beauty of Twitter is it forces me to be brief, resulting in multiple updates. If I wrote smaller posts but updated my blog more than once a week, I'd be better off.
*Surely this is the first time I've used this word in print, ever. I had to look it up to make sure it meant what I thought it did. Apparently the use I was going for is synonymous with "vim" and "zing." Hard to believe these are all genuine English words!
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