I can certifiably say that last night was a success. We had at least 93 guests, which is a pretty fair turnout. Yippee!
Santa made an appearance and had his belly stroked several times and not just for the bags of goodies. He even had his rooster teased by two different women named Aya. One disappeared when Santa skipped to the loo, the other continued flirting even when in the company of her very large boyfriend. Very Naughty! Shaft's bartendress...very Nice.
Naughty and Nice (I'll let you decide which is which.)
Techno girl...fairly Naughty.
I don't remember this person, so I'll vote: Nice.
She's Nice, he's Naughty.
They were very friendly to Santa, so they get to be Nice.
Pocky's latest marketing ploy is to take their infamous Almond Crush line and give them an artistic box. The Crush shares the same skinny cookie center, but it's been generously rolled in nuts, then double-dipped in thick, rich chocolate.
First, I got Tournesols (1889) a while back. I'm guessing that "Tournesols" means Sunflowers, and the Japanese love their sunflowers over here, which they call
"ひまわり" (himawari).
If you can get all six, you'll enjoy works by Van Gogh, Klimt, Manet, Monet and two by Renoir. I saw the Klimt, but I'm not familiar with his work, so I didn't bother grabbing it. Haven't seen the Manet or Monet works yet.
I just picked up Renoir's Petite fille a la gerbe (1888). Alas, I can't translate the Japanese, but I think it means "Little Girl of Gerber".
I don't think I'll bother trying to track the others down, but I am looking forward to sharing my booty with my Echophonyk buddies this weekend during one of my several parties.
I may not be getting any, but I am getting some nice gifts! I haven't seen Fumika in about 2 months, when we last met it was her birthday and I gave her a B.C.-Jade husky necklace. She was overjoyed. Tonight she returned the favour by giving me this cool Atomu-light. I'm a happy camper now!
Up and Atom!
I just gave her this cute (but cheap) Jack-cap and an Xmassy cd I prepared.
I'm beginning to have hope that I may actually have a good birthday after all...
I've got a busy weekend ahead of me and thank goodness, I've caught a cold to prepare myself for it.
First up is Echophonyk Xmas on Friday, Dec 21st at Shaft. I'm sure Santa will make some kind of an appearance. Be sure to check out Echo's Podcast or Blog or Mixi site as well!
Then on the Saturday, the Snots will have a hockey game and then it's over to Ernie's Bar for his Xmas party, where I have again been recruited as Santa. If all goes according to plan, the anniversary of my birth will be celebrated as well (but I'm not going to hold my breath...it falls through every year!)
And on Sunday will be "Xmas of Pirate" at Shaft to raise donations of clothes and toys for a new home for abused and orphaned children. I will once again don my gay apparel as St. Nick to gather up the booty from the guests. (Instead of giving out presents, Pirate-Santa will be collecting them!) (Contact 022-393-6364 for details.)
I hope I come away unscathed, but after that our schools on a break, so I have lots of time to recuperate.
Last night was another Santa gig for me, this time a prestigious one for the Tohoku Electric Friends of Canada (or something like that.) Thanks to the presence of Treeboy, we were a smash hit as always. (His daughter, Kaede, was a bigger hit though. She is SOOOO cute!)
It was a great buffet meal, though we didn't get to consume much of it. Some Canajun diplomat gave a 30 minute speech on the benefits of Canadian-Japanese relations. I suspect some of the guests wanted to listen, but boy was it dull. Since he took so long, we only had time for a plate and then had to head upstairs to change into our costumes. Oh, the trials and tribulations of the HoHoHo biz.
While giving out the prizes, Santa got a surprise present. Everyone shook the hand of Santa until one young lass gave me a big hug; I was shocked (yet relieved that it wasn't one of the geriatric tribe to engulf me.)
Treeboy & I were given some left-over presents as well. Last year, we got a bottle of wine, maple-chocolates, maple syrup and some other useful stuff.
This time, we got a Charcoal World "Suminouta" (炭の詩), which I guess is used for flower arranging.
An energy drink made from Kale (30 packages). I'll drink one and if I can choke it down, I'll keep them. Otherwise I'll inflict it on all my friends.
Finally, 10 little vials of Co-enzyme Q10, which my coworker tells me is a potion you drink to make your skin lovely.
Don't they know that a healthy Santa ruins the whole image? But hey, lots of crap for regifting this year.
I hear this all the time, but now it has extra relevance in Japan. The #1 word for 2007 has been named as 偽 which translates as "FAKE". Over the last year, several companies have defrauded the public via mislabelling schemes including:
"Now-defunct Hokkaido meat processor Meat Hope Co., Sapporo-based chocolate cookie maker Ishiya Trading Co., time-honored sweets makers Akafuku Co. and Ofuku Mochi Honke Y.K. in Ise, Mie Prefecture, and chicken processor Hinaidori K.K. in Akita Prefecture all engaged in false-labeling scams." (from a Japan Times article.)
You never know if you're going to bite off more than you can chew over here!
I coined a new Japanese term today, "スド須藤". Pronounced as "sudo-sudo" it means a fake name or pseudonym. Such as Mark Twain is the pseudonym of Samuel Clemens or 乱歩 江戸川 (Edogawa Ranpo) is the
スド須藤 of 平井 太郎 (Hirai Taro). Edogawa Ranpo (or the Japanese Edgar Allen Poe) is a Japanese author who wrote these quirky mysteries from the 20s to the 50s, my favourite story being "The Human Chair".
My favourite indie band in Sendai has split up. The Pony Tails have decided to go their separate ways. Perhaps they'll all join other hair-related bands though I did get to see their farewell performance last week after my Bonenkai.
The group Dark End played earlier and they were nice in a Simon & Garfunkle meets Whitesnake way (Folk-Metal, hey, I've invented a new genre.) I also heard the Have Nots (great name but mediocre rockers) and Akari's favourites, the Violets.
I did get to listen to my lovely lady drummer, Yukie, belt out a tune in a Josephine Baker does anime voice. I liked it a lot and would like to hear more of her.
Afterwards, we all gathered at a restaurant and drank copious amounts of beer, ate lots of food and had a ball chitchatting. I love being the only foreign fly on the wall in these gatherings, half of them love me, the other half are cautious but in the end, I am unforgettable.
Akari, the ultimate organizer who got us all together in the first place.
The lead singer of theSwingin' Dotty Holes, who has a great set of lungs.
Yukie proudly displays a Snowman candle (that I regifted to her from the bonenkai.) And a night on the town would not be complete without me making a new lady-friend, Nozomi. Some day I may even convince one of these friends to become more than that...
'Tis a few weeks before Christmas and all through Sendai, there's a creature who's stirring, yes it's me as that guy.
Last week was a work-related 忘年会 (bonenkai or "forget the year gathering") where all the teachers gather for a meal, lots of booze and some general silliness. Most of the younguns get up and perform a skit, often involving cross-dressing but yours truly is above such ribaldry. Instead, I donned my red cap & beard and belted out a few tunes a cappella style.
This year I sang "Joy to the World" in Japanese, "Let it Snow" and, of course, "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" much to the delight of the masses. It was a blast, but since I had another obligation, I didn't partake in any follow-up party with my co-workers. By chance at 3:00 in the morning, I did meet up with one rather inebriated fellow, but we went our separate ways.
On Sunday past, I helped out Aussie-Ando at his school out in the sticks in Ayashi. I again suited up to distribute presents to about 2 dozen of his students and to allow a photo-op for parents to snap their loved ones. Before that, I regaled them with "Rudolf" in Japanese and English and encouraged them to sing along (some actually did.)
Tomorrow, I will once again participate as Santa in the "Tohoku Canada - Japan Society" with Alex as my trusty sidekick, Treeboy. Then on the 21st I'm sure I'll be wearing the outfit again for our Echophonyk X-mas event, maybe once again on the 22nd at Erniesand definitely on the 23rd at Shaft for our Pirate Charity event.
Today is the 66th anniversary of the infamous attack on Pearl Harbour. I'm not going to weigh in on it except to mention that I just saw an ad for the movie on my movie channel. They loves their war movies over here...
The title is made up of the code-words that were used by the Japanese to indicate that complete surprise was achieved (虎 tora is Japanese for "tiger", but in this case, "To" is the initial syllable of the Japanese word 突撃 totsugeki, meaning "charge" or "attack", and "ra" is initial syllable of 雷撃 raigeki, meaning "torpedo attack"). (From Wiki.)
I haven't posted any propaganda comic covers in a while. As always, they're courtesy of the fine folks at GCD and I think these are my first Wonder Woman covers.
I've spoken of Tezuma Osamu's work before, especially Astro Boy, but here is something I came across while researching Buddha. I suggest you check out this site and order his 8-Graphic Novel series, entitled Buddha. I have a sneak-preview for you below and perhaps you can achieve Enlightenment upon completion of the series.
Last night, Shaft had its 8th Anniversary Party. Classically, the proper gift to be given for this celebration is Bronze and Pottery. A more contemporary 8th anniversary present has a theme of Lace and Linen. I brought nuthin! (Well, I brought cash for buying drinks and today am suffering for it.)
There was a pretty good Punk band and the DJ that they'd imported from Tokyo was 10 times better than the ones Echophonyk has recently wasted their money on. But it was a costly night, thank goodness for the discount by Dom. Blaise of Monkey Majik fame showed up as well and he's started his own blog. If you're into blogs about people stuffing their faces with yummy delectables, it's worth a click.
I chatted up this woman who shared a similar interest in Jazz until I discovered that her husband is a Jazz musician. Trying to cut down on my diet of Married Chicks.
Here you'll see Mariko, Kei and Akemi. Kei & Mariko are organizing a charity event for December 23rd for which I'll be their Santa. We managed to rope several other Echo-people into helping out as well that night.
Akemi is the mother of one of Alex's former students. I finally met someone who is closer to my age, divorced and seemingly not F'ed up. Time will tell...
Finally, before I retire, this video pretty much sums up the way I've felt all day:
Increase your vocabulary by clicking here and donate rice to a worthy cause. I donated 800 grains (only about 8 mistakes) before the computer gave up on me. (Thank to Laura for the link.)
In other wordly news, this year's buzzword may be either Oshirikajiri mushi uttered in that butt-biting song or oppappii a catchphrase by half-naked dancing comedian Yoshio Kojima. My vote goes with the bug. I don't care for half-naked dancing comedians all that much. Thanks to Pink Tentacle, here are the top 60 buzzword contenders.
I also saw ベオウルフ (Beowulf) and I'm not going to bother with much of a writeup. Suffice to say that the Mo-cap quality of the movie was really distracting and I'm unsure why they felt they needed to do it. The dragon was cool, Grendel was grotesque (then again, so is Crispin Glover who portrayed him) and Angelina's assets were there in all their mo-capped glory. That being said, I finally got used to the eerie-effect of the humanoids and it wasn't a complete waste of time thanks to Neil Gaiman's co-script.
For the origin of Mo-cap, I now present for you, Moe-cap!
Yesterday was cheap movie day (10 bucks, but take my word for it, that's cheap in Japan) so I biked over to the mall and feel I got my money worth with this movie called エクス‐クロス (ekusu-kurosu or X-Cross.) If Shakespeare wrote J-Horror, it'd be something like this movie.
Some young virgin goes to a remote village and while soothing herself in an onsen, gets kidnapped by a bunch of torch-wielding psychos with scythes. She gets crucified and then they lop off her left leg and worship it. That's the best I can figure out without really understanding the language.
Then our two heroines decide to travel to the same remote village and almost end up on the legless menu themselves. All of the villagers are pretty ugly and thus have an aversion to ケイタイ (keitais or cell phones) and cower when their picture is taken.
The wimpy protagonist, 水野しおり (Shiori Mizuno) is played by 松下奈緒 (Nao Matsushita) and spends a lot of the movie falling down, talking on her cell and getting saved.
The kick-ass protagonist 火請愛子 (Aiko Hiuke) who has a pretty good knowledge of household chemicals and chainsaws) is played by 鈴木亜美 (Ami Suzuki.) She is the spunkiest of the pair and holds her own against the crazed horde. She also sings one of the tunes with ALY & AJ (whoever the hell they are) called "Potential Breakup Song". After seeing her in this movie, my only advice is: Don't mess with Aiko!
Psycho killer,
レイか (Reika) loves to dress up in a cute pink dress and attempt to decapitate young lasses with two pair of giant scissors. Played by 小沢真珠 (Maju Ozawa) she is very effective as the creepy Edward Scissorhands-wannabe who invokes the onomatopoeiac phrase,
チョキ－チョキ (Choki-Choki which is a definitely more frightening than Snip-Snip.)
Technical support for the gals is provided by 橘弥生 (Yayoi Tachibana) who is played by another J-pop singer, 中川翔子Shoko Nakagawa and spends the movie on the phone and in front of a computer. Apparently in real life she's an avid Cos-player and aspiring otaku.
The first victim, 岩根あゆこ (Ayuko Iwane) spends her time bathing and waiting to be killed. She does have a brother though that helps our two gals.
There's also some guy named 池内博之 朝見圭一 Ikeuchi Hiroyuki but he's not as cute as the others.
A tie-in to the movie are these cool looking pastries, delicious yet deadly. This little Illustration Gallery nicely sums up the movie in a nutshell.
If you're too lazy to click to the website, here's a trailer for you:
I can certifiably say that last night was a success. We had at least 93 guests, which is a pretty fair turnout. Yippee!
They were very friendly to Santa, so they get to be Nice.
