John Mayer's Continuum

Yep, I'm back in the States after two years in Japan. Back home in Pittsburgh, finishing off my last semester at Pitt. Lots of little things to report on, like the new "futon" sofabed, playing lots of games, trying to exercise regularly, and tried yoga for the first time recently (power yoga, even).

But the reason I thought to blog after such a long absence wasn't to talk about the boring details of my life, but to recommend to you kind readers John Mayer's forthcoming album Continuum. I'm infamous among my friends and family for my unbridled and unabated fanboyism I have shown for him for the last seven years or so. It's to the point that I'm surprised my ex-girlfriends and fiance haven't gotten jealous. I think John is perhaps the most gifted songwriter and guitar player of my generation, and he often doesn't get credit because the radio stations chose to play the hell out of a few of his early songs which didn't show the world his full potential.

Being an uberfan, I have bought pretty much every CD, single, DVD, and sheet music he's ever put out, been to four of his shows, learned how to play a lot of his music (albeit in a simplified way), memorized all the lyrics, and downloaded all the live (i.e. legally-taped) shows sanctioned by his management on etree.org. In all that time, I have heard an awful lot of vocal and guitar solos, and heard the full gamut of his performances, and through repeated and careful listenings I came to realize what enormous potential and talent he has.

Even so, I never had heard one performance or album that was absolutely perfect...until now. He DJed his forthcoming album Continuum on STAR 98.7, an L.A. radio station, a few weeks ago. Apparently somebody taped it and made it public as a torrent file, and I happened to find a link when checking a fansite hoping to download a television interview I had missed. I wondered about the morality of downloading it but I went for it anyway.

In short, it's perfect. Every song is a masterpiece, beautifully sung and beautifully arranged. I've already pre-ordered the album on iTunes but come September 12th, I think I'll pick up another copy for two reasons: (1) so I can pour over the lyric booklet and (2) because it's good enough to own two or three. He's talked a lot about the album in various interviews over the 10 months or so, and while it just about killed me, it was worth the wait.

John, good work on an amazing album. Readers, you owe it to yourselves to at least give it a listen.

Translation of the tale of my encounter with poop in an elevator

Yes, you read that correctly. Today I encountered some poop in an elevator. At work.

I have already written about the incident in Japanese, and instead of writing it again in English, I decided that it would be more fun to run my story in Japanese through Google Translations and post the machine translated results to this page.

It's a strange story, and a true one (cross my heart and hope to die), but it's surreal in that nothing like this has ever happened to me in Japan. Perhaps through the linguistically-impaired eyes of a machine translation program, this feeling of surrealism can be further enhanced, bringing you closer to vicariously experiencing my odd tale. If you want me to explain aspects of the story that are unintelligible due to translation errors, just leave a comment and I will try to clear it up.

Notes:

1. The text indicated in red was English I used within the original Japanese story, which explains why it's much easier to understand than the rest.
2. I was reminded of David Sedaris' "Me Talk Pretty One Day" as I read the translation below. If you get a chuckle out of reading this entry, please give his audiobook a listen!
   

So without further adoo, I hereby present "My Encounter with Poop in the Elevator."

------------ MACHINE TRANSLATION FOLLOWS ------------

9 hours passing, what is not believed happened. O which works with the same office to the just a little front which work ends saying “the [tsu] [te] before,” it faced to the elevator. Because as for the office there are 6th floor of the building, until the elevator comes, only maximum being, 2 minutes it is required. Because is, I being settled, the document and the daily report when it came out of the office, O stood still before the elevator and when you observed at that it has stopped was surprised. O but kinder one (superior?)Because is, normally, but the relationship which you do not speak only concerning work O laughing just a little so shy, you said.

O:　“You looked at the man who now has changed clothes.”
Me:　“To obtaining? It is true?! In elevator?”
O:　“So. Dream was kana. . .”
Me:　When “it does perhaps, metamorphosis. . . Is?”
O:　“Well, it is not understood.”
Me:　“.”
O:　“.”
Me:　“It could obtain, and, the clothes at all it had not worn, it is?”
O:　“It is, as for the upper body not to have worn the clothes, under of the [te] was just the underpants.”
Me:　“.”
O:　“.”
Me:　If “well, now, it was completed, because probably will be, it probably will try once more?” O:　

Me who push the button. 30 seconds the elevator which is required. The door which you open... And, the man who has changed clothes seems that is not. Nature it does, circumstances of the elevator the strange shelf...Something it has fallen on the floor! Just a little waiting, the portable telephone falls and takes and, the carpet becoming dirty with the mud, the [ru]. As for the smell. . . Ill-smelling [tsu]! What the fuck?!! How densely the [tsu] it is?! That this of the floor had been covered in the feces. Being ill-smelling, being dirty, they were two people whom you did not insert in the elevator.

O:　“It had leaked. Lowest.”
Me:　“.”
O:　“It cannot be.”
Me:　“The kana where the person who takes the portable telephone as the evidence which can be provided to the police is good.”
O:　

And the door closed. The department manager hearing our voices, you inquire something has happened about. O the man who has changed clothes reaching, explaining thing to the department manager, the department manager “(for self defense) the method which had the stick is better”, the [tsu] [te] you propose. O explaining also the fact that to the feces you have been covered, I without explaining that to strange thing, thought that it is completed gratefully. When “returning home in the other staff of the office, the person who avoids the elevator absolutely is good, is. That please get off with the stairway”, it increases advice, A of the Canadian graduate which only can do Japanese a little looking at the agitation around, worrying, it hears in me.

A:　“Is there anything I can do to help?”
Me:　“Uh, not really and I guess. But when you leave work and you should definitely take the stairs.”
A:　“Why and what happened to the elevator?”
Me:　“Well… first O saw a half-naked man changing in the middle of the elevator…”
A:　“Oh God.”
Me:　“…So she let it go without her, and when the doors opened again and the elevator was…” A:　
Me:　“…I mean and somebody had defecated all over the elevator…”

O and already to the 1st floor getting off from one person woman staff and the 6th floor, walking injustice, it arrives to the front of the building. You discuss with the form where the people of the newspaper delivery trader who to the 1st floor is dropped. O it understood from the reaction that the man is not. Only O it seems like the man who does not look at that man to seem, () has worn the suit of 40 generation ~50 generations partly. After teaching that you have known three people who face to the station.

O:　“You could not be patient, kana.”
Me:　“So you think? However you think that there is no expectation of problem of patience. . .”
O:　“You will forget. Because it was present payday, shopping, we would like to try to forget.” Me:　“It is, it seems the tired way.”

However the [tsu] [te] it was I who was said, after that kind of incident which is foolish, it divides into some wind and should have greeted probably? Always however it made greeting of sort, although if afterwards it should have made already a little cheerful word, that you had regretted. Don't you think? so the senior (the superior) it put out, “it was serious. Immediately in you should have forgotten the shank.” Perhaps and so on inadequacy and, you think that it was possible to make after all brief. Color is that the person is, however you think, that it is good thing, it prays the fact that from now on either one time does not encounter the droppings of others with the elevator to this society deeply.

Map to Our House

Sorry, this isn't a real post as such, I just needed a quick way to get a map to our house on the web (so that people can find their way to Anna and my forthcoming house sale).

Recent obsessions

I haven't written for a while and there's been a lot of news, so here goes.

Anna and I will be heading back to the states at the tail end of July (between the 29th and the 31st). We'll stay in Elgin with her family and then head back to Pittsburgh, where we'll be for at least six months or so while I finish my last semester at the University of Pittsburgh. Shortly before classes begin, we are looking forward to seeing John Mayer play at the Post-Gazette Pavilion on August 24th. We're both huge John Mayer fans and are really excited that Pittsburgh will be the first stop in his summer tour.

The next bit isn't so much news, but rather an admission of an obsession. I have spent an unhealthy amount of time recently trying to find the latest information about the Nintendo Wii, the game console which will go on sale sometime in the fourth quarter of this year. The reason I'm so excited is because of the revolutionary controller, which many websites have taken to calling the "Wiimote," which can detect motion in three dimensions as well as acceleration. This feature will make it possible to play a tennis game by swinging the controller instead of merely pushing a button, as has been the case for almost every game console ever made.

My excitement has been further fueled by the fact that I have an idea for a game which I believe could become a reality if I can assemble the right people to help me. I can't share details about it on this blog because I don't want the idea to get ripped off, but I've told my family about the idea and they seem encouraging.

However, I am going to force myself to stop seeking out more information on this system, as it's wasting way too much of my time. I really ought to just wait until the official details are released, and then just take it from there. To that end, I hereby vow not to visit any gaming-related website for two months, no matter what. That means that the magic date is August 23rd, the day before the John Mayer concert, so it should be easy for me to remember. Mark my words -- no visits to wiicentre.com, kotaku.com, gamespot.com, or any other such visits until then. Perhaps by making this credo public I will feel some accountability for following through.

Okay, phew! Now that that's off my chest, I'll move onto what's new with us. Our time in Japan is quickly running out: 5 more weeks and we'll be on the plane. We have no idea when we might return. There are a lot of things that we're definitely going to miss: we have come to know some truly wonderful people in these two years and it will be hard not getting to see them for a long time. Japanese food is another biggie...and having the opportunity to speak Japanese on a daily basis with native speakers could possibily be the hardest part to deal with on a daily basis. Anna and I are both really worried about forgetting what we've learned, so we'll have to re-join the JSS (Japanese Speaking Society) at the University of Pittsburgh, and keep our eyes out for other ways to maintain our current level (I would say improve, but I think that's an impossibility while living outside of Japan unless our jobs involved interpreting, translation, etc.)

With only five weeks left, there are a lot of things we have to take care of in terms of selling all our appliances, giving away miscellaneous knick-knacks, shipping the majority of our wardrobes, books, and computer equipment home, etc. It took about24 man-hours just to clean, sort, and organize the office in our rented home, and there's a lot more still to go, but the worst of it is behind us. We are hoping to visit Okinawa during our last week, and maybe we can catch up with our friends Nancy and Hitomi while we're there.

I remember feeling some reverse culture shock after my previous trip to Japan, and that was only after 9 months. This time it will have been just shy of two years, and I imagine that there are a lot of subtle things about America that have changed. We've more or less kept track of the big changes by reading online news, but I think readjusting to the American mindset after having gotten used to doing things the Japanese way will be pretty difficult. I certainly won't mind the relatively cheaper prices for just about everything except for health insurance, which is proving to be a big snafu. I was under my parents' insurance before I came to Japan because I was still a university student, but that is no longer the case so we'll have to be clever in order to stay protected without going broke. I was amazed to hear that health insurance very well could cost us more than our apartment will! Admittedly I know next to nothing about why the system is the way it is, so I'll try to withhold criticism given my ignorance, but my fingers are crossed that we can both find employment that has a decent healthcare plan. Apparently Starbucks gives health insurance to even their part-time employees, so we'll keep that in mind...

There have been many challenges that Anna and I have both faced during the last two years. Living abroad is sort of a rollercoaster...there are these breakthrough moments when one comes to understand a mystery of the culture or the language that feel wonderful, and sometimes there are horrible moments of loneliness and isolation. Yet in spite of the difficulties we have managed to have an interesting and productive experience that we will never forget, regardless of whether or not we ever return to Japan for an extended period of time.

As a foreigner here, you have to work harder than you would in your home country to hammer out a living. This is especially true if you don't only want to teach your native language to Japanese students. I enjoy teaching very much but didn't want to take a full-time position teaching because I thought it would hinder my Japanese ability. It took several months of searching and interviewing around for various positions before I finally found a job at an international patent office about six months ago. It has been a great learning experience in many ways. My employer is having trouble finding a replacement for me, which gives me a feeling of accomplishment, but then I started thinking about another aspect. Maybe I'm not such a hard worker in America, but I work particularly hard in Japan because I have to overcome so many difficulties here. Just as Americans have stereotypes about Japanese, Japanese have stereotypes about Americans, and I think that a big factor behind what drives me to work so hard here is that I want to prove people wrong -- I want to show that I can work just as hard as a Japanese, if not harder, that I'm not lazy and careless about others' feelings and have a strong work ethic, etc. That pressure, largely self-induced in my case but certainly also influenced in large parts by the Japanese culture, has been a really good motivator. In Japan, you know where the bar lies for your work very clearly. I confess to being worried about finding motivation in the US, where I have a long history of procrastination and a tendency toward mediocrity in large groups (e.g. university) and excellence in small groups (e.g. middle school, high school, etc.). Will my past catch up with me once I get used to the American way once again, or will my time in Japan prove to be a truly life-changing experience strong enough to allow me to overcome my time-proven character flaws and deficiencies? Time will tell I guess...but I'll do whatever I can to make sure the latter is the case.

On the other hand, there is also a change in me that I hope to get rid of ASAP which I attribute to Japan (or, to be more accurate, to the somewhat hazardous combination of a serious person plunged into an even more serious culture). I find that these days, I almost never smile at work, while on the train, or almost anywhere in public. I have always been a serious guy, since I was a small child in any case. However, after having spent a combined 17 months or so in Japanese companies, I find that I am much more reserved about showing emotion than I used to be. I am sometimes shocked to see my reflection in the window during my commutes to work. Whereas my internal image of myself has a subtle smile and a generally congenial countenance, my real face looks hard, impatient, and mean. My mom used to tell me that I frowned too much and that I would get wrinkles, and looking at myself in the mirror, I see that she was exactly right -- my forehead is covered with wrinkles at the ripe old age of 24. I can still laugh with the best of them with Anna, or sometimes with my students, but most of the time I look (and feel) deadly serious. Certainly I am responsible for working toward reversing this frightening trend, but I am hopeful that the more laid-back mainstream culture of America will help me on this journey.

I guess I ended up getting pretty personal in today's post...hope I didn't turn any of you off. If anybody is reading this who doesn't know me personally -- if you have experienced anything similar, please feel free to leave a comment.

I'm going to wash the dishes and go to the gym now. Signing out,

-J

Cleaner Diesel Fuel in America?

I am currently researching cars, as I will be returning to the US from my two-year stint in Japan in July, and public transportation alone will not meet my future transportation needs. I am thinking about getting a hybrid, and in searching around various articles on the net, I stumbled upon a bit of surprising but great news: that Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel fuel will be available at many (if not all?) US gas stations starting in September. I had no idea this was the case, but if it leads to more clean-burning diesel vehicles being developed for America, I'm a happy camper. A clean-burning diesel/electric hybrid would be nice, but I guess I shouldn't hold my breath on that just yet...

The following is from Chrevron's website:

S15 (ULSD) is defined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as U.S. diesel fuel with a sulfur content not to exceed 15 ppm (parts per million). S15, S500, and S5000 are designations for diesel fuels that meet 15 ppm, 500 ppm, and 5,000 ppm maximum sulfur content, respectively, as defined in the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) standard D975 Table 1. In different regions of the world ULSD may refer to different maximum sulfur content values, but ULSD and S15 are often used interchangeably in North America (U.S. and Canada).The S15, S500, and S5000 designations also apply to the Canadian diesel market.

Beatboxing + Harmonica = Awesome

I was blown away a few years ago when a friend first showed me a Rahzel CD, in which the rap star sang and laid down a beatbox at the same time.

Shortly afterward, my Japanese linguistics professor introduced me to Tuvan throat singing when he lent me a CD of Ondar. Tuvan throat singers can articulate up to three distinct musical tones at the same time (i.e. harmonize with themselves while laying down a beat).

Except for those two incidents, I haven't really heard of too many innovative ways to use one's mouth to create amazing sounds. That is, until a few minutes ago when I saw a video of a guy named Yuri Lane, ostensibly Israeli but apparently living in New York.

He's just incredible.

Go hear his stuff for yourself at his website at http://www.yurilane.com/home.html. He has lots of multimedia up, including video clips and streaming audio so you can hear his work.

And check out the video I saw below! You'll need the Shockwave Flash plugin.

Happy Birthday to Me

I'm 24! Woo-hoo!

It's not such an exciting age, but the first 45 minutes have been nice. Anna and I found Seinfeld on DVD at the local video rental shop, and watched four episodes. I haven't seen Seinfeld even once since the series ended in 1998, so it was thoroughly enjoyable to see it again. It's hard to believe that almost eight years have passed since then!

Another nice surprise was that my friend Taka from Gunma called to wish me a happy birthday (even though I had forgotten his today -- I think). We had a good talk, even though it sounded like they were out at an izakaya. He sounded well, and has stopped working as a chef at a club/lounge in Kiryu in favor of being a mechanic/welder. He has always loved cars, and he seems to be really happy. Aki, my friend and his girlfriend, sounded well also, and they will try to visit sometime in late April or early May.

Also, I finally got a beta copy of Windows Vista, so I will spend the first several hours of my 25th year installing it on Anna's computer to get a first look. I would do it on my aging Fujitsu Lifebook, but there's not enough hard drive space free for the install. I will definitely install it on the new Sony VAIO which should arrive sometime within the next two weeks.

We went for Korean food this evening after Anna got back from work, and were amazed by how delicious the rice and Korean nori (韓のり) was. We also had scallion chijimi and bibimbab, and came home very stuffed. I was sure that they had put something in the rice to give it such an intoxicating, smooth flavor, but it apparently was just plain Korean rice. Who knew it was so good? And I imagine it has to be cheaper than Japanese rice, what with the price fixing the government does in order to keep the farmers running profitably.

I shouldn't just leave the post hanging like this, but Vista just finished burning so I want to give it a run! Yeah I know, I'm a nerd.

Oyasumi nasai...