Author Archives: DELively

Nice Guys Get Asked A Lot

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Our oldest is in Kyoto which means she’s going to be harassing foreigners soon.

One of the few universal school traditions all Japanese experience is a trip to Kyoto during their second year of junior high school. The preparation for this trip involves dad repeatedly saying “pack your crap or you won’t have any crap with you on the trip” and She Who Must Be Obeyed secretly helping our oldest pack her crap.

Once there, the students do some traditional activities (fan making, tea ceremony) and they visit lots of famous places like Kinkaku-ji (which is overrated) and Kyomizu-dera (which is not).

One of the requirements, though, is that sometime during the trip, whilst they are at one of the famous sites, they approach foreigners and interview them in English. The questions are pretty basic “What is your name?” “Where are you from?” “What is your hobby?” “Your money or your life?” etc. In fact, almost every foreign person I know who’s ever visited Kyoto has, at some point, been accosted by a teenager carrying a notebook.

The problem is that most of the kids are shy and most of the rest are lazy. Once someone gets the courage to interview a foreigner, a couple things happen. First, if the foreigner is friendly, he or she will be surrounded by droves of junior high kids, including the shy ones, faster than you can say “blood in the water”. Basically, if you’re a foreigner, if you’re willing to speak to one kid, you’d better be ready to speak to them all. (Been there, done that, by the way.)

After the feeding frenzy dies down, the brave kids and the shy kids go back and let the lazy kids copy their answers.

That’s actually okay, because the lazy ones are probably not the ones worth talking to anyway.

Red Shirts and Other Lessers

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I’ve been watching Gotham and doing my best to like it. The problem I have with TV shows like Gotham is I know how they’re going to end and that makes them pretty boring.

I know that, no matter how dangerous the situation is, the Penguin is going to survive. I know that no matter how many bullets are fired at young Bruce Wayne, he’s going to survive to become Batman. (Spoiler warning.) I know that Detective James Gordon has to survive so that he can become Commissioner Gordon.

Gotham‘s gimmick is to essentially focus on the doomed to die red shirt characters and the characters in the background who don’t even get a uniform. This makes the show character and actor dependent. Future major characters make appearances, but some of them are only 12 years old. Some of them haven’t even been born yet, but their parents finally get together.

Gotham’s strength is Robin Lord Taylor as a young, jittery and ruthless Penquin. He’s one of the few actors who recognize that a little camp can carry him a long way. He’s got a talent for being jittery and afraid and then turning psychotic and ruthless. (He’d make a great teacher.)

Unfortunately, he’s pretty much carrying the show. Ben McKenzie, who plays the center of the show James Gordon, suffers from what I call “Colin Farrell Syndrome”. This means 1) he’s handsome; but 2) surprisingly uncharismatic on screen; and 3) not a particularly good actor. Donal Logue, who plays his partner Harvey Bullock is much better.

Because of its premise–instead of jumping to the future after the death of the Wayne’s it stays in the past and follows the investigation–the show also suffers from “Anakin Skywalker Syndrome” which means it’s populated by annoying kids who can’t act. The actor who plays young Bruce Wayne (David Mazouz) is terrible. If I were king of the show, Bruce Wayne wouldn’t even appear in the show more than once or twice. He’s not actually important to the story, especially when his version of intense anger sounds a lot like whining. (It’s like, Alfred, why am I like always angry and like so full of anger? It makes me angry!)

Camren Bicondova, who plays 15 year old Selina “Catwoman” Kyle suffers from being annoyingly cute and clean for a girl who supposedly lives on the streets. Her hair is always perfect, even in the rain, as is her make up. The leather jacket and hoodie she always wears must be pretty ripe by now. By contrast, Clare Foley, who plays Ivy Pepper (the ridiculous name given to Pamela Lillian Isley who will eventually become Poison Ivy) looks dirty and her clothes keep getting more and more tattered. She also plays creepy well by not saying much.

The show’s other problem is a lack of control over tone. Robin Lord Taylor, Cory Michael Smith (who plays Edward “Riddler” Nygma) and Jada Pinkett Smith (who plays the non-canonical and badly named Fish Mooney) are in a different TV show than all the other actors. Their attitude is “Scenery motherf@#ker! Do you chew it?” Jada Pinkett Smith’s problem is she doesn’t realize she’s imitating Catwoman.

The only character I feel sorry for is the young actor playing the character who will eventually become the Joker. He gets the duty of being the first post-Heath Ledger Joker. I do not envy him that task, especially as he’s not very good. A leer and a cackle do not a good Joker make.

I’ll probably finish out the season, but I’m not expecting much. I just hope they remember the Joker has green hair and not red.

Moving Beyond Butterscotch

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Today I tried to get a man to tell me which of his fellow craftsmen he hated the most.

Today was the Tokyo Folding Knife Show which meant I met up with my Canadian friend and we perused the suddenly expensive fare.

Last year’s show suffered from blandness. Every knife was either a lockback or a slipjoint with the occasional odd locking mechanism from knife maker “Captain” Koyama who makes beautiful and expensive knives with locks named “the pitch lock” and the “Lock-and-Roll”. It reminded me of what Anthony Sculimbrene of Everyday Commentary calls “The Butterscotch Club” based on the habit of some older knife makers to set out bowls of candy at their tables. (Which also happens in Japan.)

This year, though, there was a bigger variety of knives, including flippers and button locks and side locks. The problem was 1) although they are fun to play with, I’m not a huge fan of flippers as they tend to scare the hell out of non-knife people; and 2) most of the flippers were disturbingly expensive. The cheapest of the cool knives was a flipper from Kazuyuki Sakurai that was only 65,000 yen (US $546).

Kazuyuki Sakurai's flipper. A steal at only 65,000 yen.

Kazuyuki Sakurai’s flipper. A steal at only 65,000 yen.

I was also a big fan of a Koji Hara/Marfione collaboration (that I got video of but neglected to take a picture of). It was only $2,350.

The most expensive knife, though, and I’m shocked the man let me touch it was the Raptor, a two blade slip joint from Toshiyuki Miyame. It had ATS-34 steel blades, carbon fiber scales. anodized titanium bolsters, silver pins and stainless steel liners. All for only 1,400,000 yen ($11,765).

Only $11,765. I tried to order two, but he said it's one of a kind.

Only $11,765. I tried to order two, but he said it’s one of a kind.

Part of what made it so expensive was the incredible file work he’d done on the back spacer:

Beautiful, but is it really worth $11,765?

Beautiful, but is it really worth $11,765?

We also chatted a bit with To-un Ihara, who’s pretty much become our friend.

To-un Ihara's lockback knives.

To-un Ihara’s lockback knives.

Although I had a good time, I didn’t buy anything. We didn’t even stay for the free drawing, partly because that would involve spending a couple hours hanging out near all those knives and, slowly but surely, justifying the prices whilst reaching for our wallets.

I would have even been tempted to buy an ivory handled slipjoint just to hear the sounds of heads exploding when I mentioned to some of my friends that I had one.

An ivory handled knife for only $420 and a short trip to hell.

An ivory handled knife from Miyamae for only $420 and a short trip to hell.

As always, everyone was friendly. In fact my friend Wes pointed out that all the knife makers seemed to be friends, even when, as in the case of Captain Koyama and Kazuyuki Sakurai, they were making knives in similar styles.

We pointed that out to Kazuyuki Sakurai and he agreed. That’s when I asked him which of his fellow knife makers he hated the most. As he is a gentleman (something I’m still working on) he wouldn’t tell me. He also didn’t betray anything with his eyes by quickly glancing in a knowing direction.

Oh well, maybe next time.

 

Lacking Grace and All Sense of Balance

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This one time, I fell in a rice paddy. The funny part is, I was sober when I did it.

After I moved to Nou-Machi, I was presented with an apartment and a bicycle. The bicycle was just barely the right size but I could get around on it. The biggest problem, at least at first, was that second gear didn’t work.

I drove it for a long time until second gear started causing the chain to slip and me to swear and me to spend time trying to fix it which caused me to swear some more.

Eventually, I took it to the town to be repaired. They didn’t repair it. Instead they gave me a new bike. Unfortunately, they didn’t bother actually measuring me to see what size bike I actually needed. Instead they ordered the Gargantua model which was too big for me. Despite that problem, I used the bike a lot but was never comfortable with its size.

Also, to understand how I ended up in a rice paddy, you also have to understand that 1) there was a rice paddy right next to my apartment; and 2) I lost a fair amount of weight while I was in Nou-machi. (Not as much as I’d lose in Albania, but that’s another story.) This made my jeans and shirts baggy.

Then, one day, for reasons I don’t remember, I was in a hurry. I rushed back to my apartment, rode my bicycle up to its parking place under the stairs and attempted a dismount (official level of difficulty: 2).

However, the crotch of my baggy jeans caught on the seat and and everything shifted toward me and I started to lose my balance.

An observer would have, well, observed a tall foreigner on Gargantua’s bicycle doing a slow “TIIIIMBEEEER” back into the rice paddy which, by the way, had meter high walls. Luckily for the tall foreigner, the rice was tall but not yet ready for harvest and that helped break his fall and make the situation less messy than it could have been.

I landed on my back and the bike landed on top of me. After a few moments I managed to extricate myself from the bike and then exit the rice paddy.

I ended up with gray clay mud all over my shoes, jeans and book bag. I left an impressive divot in the still growing rice, too. (To this day, I’d love to have seen the farmer’s reaction to that divot.)

In the aftermath, I had to run my shoes through the washing machine to make them even remotely useable.

I never did that again but, quite frankly, once was one time too many.

Three Hundred Sixty-Five

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In God’s name and under the stars, what for? –Jack Kerouac On the Road

It seemed to be a good idea at the time. — The Magnificent Seven

 

I really need to be more careful about getting inspired by friends.

A year ago, a friend of mine was coming to the end of a year long project to write a blog post every day. In a fit of madness, I decided that was a good idea and started doing it myself on February 20, 2014.

Today marks the end of that the year and the start of a crisis about what to do next.

I’m still amazed I managed to pull it off without missing a post (there were days, though, there were days). I did make a few changes along the way. I started going to bed at 11 which cut down my writing time. I also started shortening my minimum word count to 300 words instead of the original 400.

At times it has been a struggle, especially this past week. Last night’s post, in particular, was a bunch of crap that came to me after staring at the screen for nearly 20 minutes and thinking about the quote that started this post. (It’s probably my worse post, although that’s debatable.)

Sitting down to write without having a topic ready has actually happened several times. Sometimes I’ve been pleased with the posts, most of the time not.

Readership, according to analytics, has been small but consistent with periodic bursts of readership, usually as a result of something I’ve done on another site.

On three occasions, WordPress has crashed as I pressed “Publish” and I’ve lost the post and had to start over. No, I didn’t learn to save as I went along and, no, I didn’t copy the text before hitting publish, just in case. It brings to mind the old saying:

Fool me once, shame on you;
Fool me twice, shame on me:
Fool me thrice, I’m a moron.

Something like that.

Now, as I start the second year, I’ve got a few changes in mind. My goal is to keep up the daily posts, but the nature of the posts will change. Now that I’m not worried about losing track of which post I’m on, I’ll start doing multiple posts each day. I’ll publish a few photos and start doing  book reviews and product reviews (probably fountain pens and pen related goods). I’ll also start posting articles from other sites I find interesting and or amusing. I hope to keep my own content going and will do at least one such post a day, but probably a lot shorter than what I’ve been doing.

At least once a week, maybe twice, I’ll do a much longer post.

Eventually, I will assemble the Albania posts and the Japan posts as an ebook of some sort.

In the end, I’m glad I did it. I wasn’t always happy writing the posts, but I was always happy to have written them. I think there are more pearls than swine here, but I’m not necessarily the best judge of that.

Thanks to all of you who’ve followed along for the entire year, and to those who have commented on Facebook or on this site.

I hope you’ll stick around.

The Doldrums That Come From Work

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This is the first full week of work we’ve had this term and its nearly destroying us.

A former colleague once described working at the school where I work as being “semi-retired”. I prefer to think of it as being “pretty damned spoiled”.

There are lots of days off–except in June–and lots of partial days. That’s especially true this term because we have entrance exams. During entrance exams we are, technically, not supposed to go to the school. In fact, last year, I had to go to school the night before entrance exams started and was met by barricades saying “keep the hell out”.

I snuck past the barricades and entered the old English department office. As soon as the door opened, one of the teachers immediately rushed over and watched me until I left. (Which only took about a minute). Instead, we stay home and prepare our end-of-year exams.

The problem with this school is that when work happens, especially this term we that 1) it’s all confusing and 2) we’ve stopped caring. The confusing part happens because different grades end at different times and different exams have different due dates and we end up teaching at the same time we are marking exams. For example, 10th and 11th grade end on February 23rd; 9th graders end on the 25th and 7th and 8th graders finish March 3rd.

Seniors finished in December but had to attend a couple classes in January and will graduate on March 14th. Confused? Welcome to my world.

Because of all of this, it’s very unusual to have a full week of work during the Winter term. The trouble is, we’ve become spoiled and are struggling through the week. It doesn’t help that we’ve got lots of extra work to do as we prepare exams and record listening.

It’s also hard because our students, in their heads, have already entered exam mode and couldn’t care less about our classes. They start reviewing other classes and finishing homework from other classes. The only good thing about this is I get to participate in my favorite sport: taking homework and giving it back a week later.

 

Bigfoot, The Pen Detective, and the Knife Store

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Perhaps the oddest thing the internet has done to me is turn me into a pen detective.

This happened because I listen to a podcast about pens, paper and ink. Yes, there really is such a thing. There is also a website about it, too. (No, I don’t have a problem. I can quit anytime I want. It’s just now is not the time to quit. Something like that.)

Last week, Brad Dowdy, the founder of The Pen Addict website retweeted a photo of a pen. The pen was an orange version of a Pilot Vanishing Point (or Capless) fountain pen (the crack cocaine/gateway drug of fountain pens). The problem was, because of the photo’s lighting and the placement of the product, the pen appeared to be glossy orange and black rather than metallic orange and black. This prompted a great deal of discussion on the podcast and I said I’d go check it out. They immediately dubbed the pen “Bigfoot” because although there was a picture, it probably didn’t actually exist.

Keep in mind, I did not do this detective work because I’m a good person, I did it because 1) the shop where Bigfoot allegedly lived is an awesome place for pen addicts to visit; 2) it is near a famous knife shop; and 3) it is only three stops from one of the few places that sells size 13 (US) shoes for less than the cost of a small car. Three birds. One trip. That’s what I call efficiency.

I went to the pen shop first, found the pen and took a few pictures to prove it was the metallic version and not a mythical beast that doesn’t exist. Well, sort of. More on that later.

(Note to Pilot Pens: if that pen were to suddenly exist, it would sell like crazy. Call me. We’ll talk.)

I then went across the street to The Edge knife shop to look at a couple knives. (I ended up buying one and can’t recommend it enough for people looking for an inexpensive small knife.)

After that, I went down to Gotanda for big shoes. I came home to find the house had been flooded.

It was a great way to get out of the house and it earned me a small shout out on Pen Addict 142.

The funny part is, in the end, the only Bigfoot was me.

Crime and Crime Again

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I committed my first crime when I was in elementary school. I learned that, if you have to go to jail, steal more than a couple Life Savers. The people inside aren’t real impressed by that.

In my defense 1) the package of Lifesavers was already open; 2) there was no evidence it belonged to the store–it could have been left behind by someone by accident; and 3) I was just a kid so it all made sense.

I helped myself to a couple and my “friend” whose name I’ve long forgotten, reported me to my mom who reported me to the manager of the store. I remember feeling ashamed but I don’t remember anything I was told by anyone at that point. I also don’t remember where it happened.

Then, in high school, I robbed a CD shop. In my defense, the store manager was in on it. I was editor of the high school paper and, in a fit of madness, I thought it would be interesting if we robbed a store as a group and then wrote about it. I was then informed by the school newspaper adviser that it would probably be best if we arranged such things with the store manager in advance.

I still disagree with that conclusion, but went ahead and arranged it.

Three of us went into the store and looked around and, in the end, because I was technically an experienced criminal, I was the only one who actually took something. The others chickened out (which also became part of the story). I then left the store and was chased down by some young lass who caught me in a different store and ripped my jacket open. The moment of panic when she didn’t see the stolen CD remains a priceless memory. She popped another button and found the purloined CD.

(Note to people under a certain age: music used to be sold on small discs from actual stores. This way singers and bands could sell a bunch of crap along with a few good songs to make you think you’d bought something special.)

The brave employee took me to the manager who then described what would have happened to me if I’d actually been caught shoplifting. (The description was similar to things that would eventually happen to characters in Sons of Anarchy.) He also praised his employee for doing her job perfectly. Later, after she’d calmed down, I went back and interviewed her.

It all made an for an interesting experience but I’m still trying to remember if I gave the CD back or not.

Lower and Lower and Worser and Worser

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Yesterday I mentioned that She Who Must Be Obeyed was going to use a minor flood from upstairs to try to get our rent lowered. I do not doubt her powers because she’s actually done this before.

First some background: when we first moved to Tokyo we lived in a tiny apartment above the storage garage of a flower shop. The rent was decent for Tokyo, especially as it came with an air conditioner, but it was still expensive and tended to shake when trucks drove by. The only good thing about it was its location. There was a store across the street, a convenience store down the street, and it was practically walking distance from Tokyo Disney Resorts.

Then both stores closed and I got assigned to the school where I work which meant I had an hour and forty-five minute commute on three different train lines. We, therefore, decided to move closer to the school.

We chose our current apartment because it was more apartment for what we were paying in Tokyo, got lots of sunlight as it was next to a large field and was about a 10 minute walk from the closest train station. It also had a little play area for kids and was far enough from the main road that we didn’t get much noise even in the few times it got busy. Granted, there was nothing nearby except one grocery store we used to call The Green Pork Supermarket because they sold us green pork (as in chemical green, not moldy green). Also, I wanted the third floor apartment not the first floor because we could leave our windows open at night without passerby’s getting to peek in, but SWMBO insisted we get the first floor as it would be easier for her to bring our youngest up a few stairs than all the way to the third floor.

Although it was out of the way and we got some dust from the field, the apartment was nice. It also had a parking area and we ended up buying a car and renting a parking place. (Yes, in Japan parking places don’t come with the apartment, they are separate fee.)

Then a bunch of things happened. First, the owner of the field sold it to a developer which meant we suddenly had houses 15 or 20 feet from our back window. This blocked most of our sunlight. SWMBO complained for a while–oddly, I refrained from reminding her which floor I’d wanted to live on–and then called the management company and got our rent lowered. Keep in mind, the Japanese take sunlight very seriously. Tall buildings often have to be built at odd angles to allow a certain amount of light past them.

A few years later, SWMBO heard that other tenants were paying substantially less than we were and managed to get rent lowered again.

In fact, if she weren’t so good at that, we’d have probably moved a long time ago. Now, though, there are other issues. Besides the flood from above, our parking area tends to fill with water prompting us to move our car every time there’s a heavy rain. There’s also bad drainage in front of our apartment and every time it rains we have a lovely mosquito maternity hospital right below our front balcony.

Now, SWMBO is going to call again. I’ll bet she gets our rent lowered. That said, I’m not sure I want her to, as that’s a good excuse to move.

The Flood and the Anger

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Today I got to see She Who Must Be Obeyed get really angry. Surprisingly, it wasn’t at me.

I had to go down to Tokyo today to do some running and buy some shoes at one of the few shoe stores in Japan that specializes in shoes for big feet. While I was away, the girls were all working on making chocolate for Valentine’s day. (As I’ve written before, in Japan the women give the chocolate to the men.) It’s actually good for me to be away when this is going on because 1) I sample and 2) there’s always some arguing going on between the chefs.

I would save my sampling until I got back from Tokyo.

However, when I returned, I walked into the aftermath of a flood. The washing machine drain in the apartment directly above us had apparently stopped up and water had flooded the apartment. She Who Must Be Obeyed discovered this when she heard water dripping on our ceiling. Then water began dripping FROM our ceiling.

When I arrived home at 2:30 or so, the management company still hadn’t arrived even though the flood had occurred at 11:00. The candy factory had been stowed in the living room and there was a pot of leftover curry on my desk. There were also buckets on the floor in the kitchen.

She Who Must Be Obeyed ranted to me about the situation and then called the management company, who suddenly started acting like a cable company. (Someone will be there. They will do something. No details to follow. You will see them when you see them.)

Eventually, the Japanese equivalent of the Roto-Rooter man cleaned out the drain upstairs and started to leave. She Who Must Be Obeyed grabbed him and made him clean our drain, too, and quizzed him about what was going to happen next. He grudgingly did the work and told us the water would eventually stop dripping.

That’s when I got mad and pointed out that just because it wasn’t dripping, didn’t mean there wasn’t still water on our ceiling. Then there was the mold and mildew problem that would occur if it was still wet. He said–in a very polite Japanese way–that he wasn’t there to do anymore than than he’d already done. Then he left.

The water did eventually stop dripping down our walls but we are still worried about what is still up there. SWMBO is already planning her argument for why we should get our rent lowered again. (Long story.)

On top of all of it, I didn’t get any chocolate.