News
Gas prices
Gas killing
Chinese Olympics

Weather
Nice. Anyone say BBQ?

Current Events
What happened to open air three day raves in Japan?

Food and Drink
My review of Hobgoblin in Kobe

Main Topic
Trying to make it as a loud mouth foreigner is never going to work. Confidence brings misery. But just how am I going to be able to use the talents I have to do the kind of work I deserve to do without having to go back to America and compete the rest of my life. Or have things changed in America?

Side note…I have to explain to my students one day why it’s OK to use conjunctions in the beginning of a sentence.

UPDATE: Got it. Done! I haven’t wanted to upgrade the site because it was working just fine. I learned a valuable lesson at least three or four times, IF IT AIN’T BROKE, DON’T FIX IT. But I ‘m a designer at hear and just couldn’t take it anymore. Luckily, everything has worked out so far. Back to bloggin’

Now where was I, OH…it’s Thursday night. Tomorrow and Saturday I’m off. Now, if I can talk my wife into making yakiniku tonight then I will REALLY be happy.

Otsukare sama deshita!

KANPAIIII!

On a side note about money, I’m in the dog house. The other night I was going to meet Freakshow in the park for a couple cans of beer. Well, that turned into $250.00 by the end of the night. Yikes. The power of a credit card and alcohol. Luckily, I picked up another proofreading job to cover it.

News
Various readings from the left sidebar of the site.

Weather
Monsoon season is not coming till June but it feels like it is coming now. Rain. Bring a flanel.

Current Events
Hanami is over and the country is gearing up for one of their two vacations a year.

Food and Drink
BBQ! Yakitori and the greates third category beer in Japan: Suntory Jokki.

Main Topic
Life is busy and the attitude I have to take in order to get the right opportunities.
Don’t talk too much.
Be humble.
Be patient.
Be respectful of your elders.
And for God sake…learn Japanese.

You might think 20 hours sounds like an easy life. Well, that’s only if I show up to work and teach; no preperation and know ingenuity in my lessons…or weddings. LOL. So just how many hours do I actually work for the 20 hours I spend in the classrooms and chapels? Probably about 40. The rest of the time I spend studying for my Masters in Education and Technology.

Now can you understand why I haven’t been around much these days. You’d think it would be easier to just record a podcast, but that takes a few hours. Can’t they make all of this easier?

Anyway, it was a good for us to get out. The photo is of us in from of a big cherry tree. Guess you can’t see the tree, but then who really cares what the cherry trees look like anyway; damn things only bloom for one week anyway.

PS: Tomoko hates this picture of her. Typical woman.

Stop drinking. I don’t mean stopping completely. That would be asking too much. I’m only human. But stop missing the last train, sleeping in until 2:00 and stinking up the house.

Stop spending more than your allowance. Or in my case - just stop spending. That means you are going to have to sacrifice seeing the only people in this world that keep you from dying a long death. You might as well just put on a black suit and carry around a briefcase wherever you go.

Learn how NOT to say “why,” ask questions or make requests that have anything to do with having fun. Because as we all know, having fun costs money and usually includes drinking.

Learn more Japanese. Ahem…

yeah

so

um. Pretty easy. OH. I forgot. Find a really good job. LOL!

Man. I hope this recipe works; otherwise, I’m f$#%ed.

A few weeks ago I had a meeting with a real minister about getting work to be a wedding celebrant. The minister is about 70 years old. If you have ever spoken to older Japanese, you’ll understand when I say I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. For two hours I had to sit there and nod to this and that while he explained the origins of weddings and probably what life was like 40 years ago. While his hands were shaking, I took paper after paper from him and tried to act as if I understood what the bazillion kanji meant. He pointed here and there and looked up at me every 5 minutes or so. He seemed content and never gave up while as I had given up after the first 60 minutes.

Luckily for me, I live with a Japanese. That means I am able to listen to Japanese everyday. I could understand enough to reply with a question that was at least in the ballpark. When it was time for me to ask questions, I would try to ask the three or four most important ones, including “When?”, “Where?”, and “Who do I meet?” After a few rounds of asking those, I had a pretty good idea of what was to happen next. I could understand what I needed to “bring” and “sign” and “when” he was going to “contact” me.

….

It’s been a couple weeks since that interview and I have had quite a few phone calls with him. Things are better know because I can understand his vocabulary. He’s getting easier to understand. He understands that when there is nothing happening on a particular day that he should not explain why, and to just say “Kyou wa nashi,” today is nothing. It works, and we both understand each other. The job is going well.

News
Shopping mall massacre instead of the elementary school..whew
Slow cars killing top 1,000
More tests. Chopped up her husband but she could be sane.
…so much death in the news these days.

Weather
It’s beginning to look a lot like hanami. NICE!

Current Events
Alice Cooper and a list of movies

Food
Okonomiyaki like you have never had.
Suntory rocks the house again, Asahi….eh on the Premium.

Main Topic
Has this wedding stuff made me soft? I’ll find out on Wednesday night.

Music by: Jero - The first black Enka singer. GREAT!! Kudos man.

Clint Eastwood’s new car, the Clint Taurus (Thanks Takeshi from Alaska)
Sony Fanboy (Thanks Serrano from the Netherlands)

If you live in Japan, and you’re a father, you probably answered, “Nothing. Let the wife take care of it.” Well. I don’t like that answer one bit. He’s my son. He deserves a father who lays down the law at times and bites back when needed. So I took his DS and hurled it across the room thinking it would make Tomoko happy and force Kai to study more. But noooooooo…. totally wrong move. Tomoko turned on me and went up one side and down the other, putting me back in place. (By the way, if it breaks you can send it back to Nintendo and they’ll fix it or replace for free.)

Advice. If you are going to have a child in Japan with a Japanese wife, expect to be treated like a salaryman: never home and silently “dis”respected.

News
Bed rail death in hospital
Asahi News employee showing private parts
Woman wins yakuza extortion charges

Weather
The cold has gone

Current Events
Liesure event
Kaiseki takoyaki dancing
Sumo in Osaka

Food and Drink
Bowling beers and hanpen shopping

Main Topic
Weddings
My wife is paying it forward

Music by The Yoshida Brothers: Erghen Diado

Arnold calls an English school
My Pinkley Taurus

They were dating for quite a few years until 5 years ago when they split up. The girl went it on her own because the parents weren’t so fond of him. She dated a taxi driver, a truck driver and a barman each for a year or so but just couldn’t find anyone her parents and her liked. The last guy she dated was probably the best, but he was a bit over the top. Actually, I don’t know the real story. I think it’s a secret like the one about her parents not knowing she smokes (she’s 29). Anyway, they broke up, and she was back on the market.

I’m not sure how this next part happened, but I guess it’s because they all come from a small town. From what I understand in Japanese, the parents contacted the guy she was dating five years ago and asked him to come over to discuss marriage. He agreed, and the next day they were engaged. It’s a long story, and one I wish I could write about, but I may be teaching him English which means he can come back and translate it. Maybe I’ll bullet speak about it on a podcast.

I thought about this for many moments and came to the conclusion that men are stressed because women don’t tell them that they like their home jobs. Personally, I think Japanese women are pulling the wool over our eyes. The PTA…that’s just an excuse to plan the next babachan meeting and give us the “Oh honey, it was so cheap…just 100 yen for a glass of wine”.

On the other hand..I remember doing that many a night for the 100 yen beers.

I’m right dammit. Back me up!

Ladies…I’m on to you!

Come on Mike. You’re joking, right?

Nope! I can get you a nice site by using one of my templates or even one you give me. I don’t have to sit down with you and do mock ups and custom design because, well, that’s what costs A LOT of time. I also don’t need to give you full control of your site. I mean, I control your site. You never have to touch it. It’s just there. And it works. And you have email. And it works. That’s it. You don’t care about changing things every month or trying to make your website move up in the search rankings. You don’t care if some of the obscure browsers can view your site or if mobile phones can see your site. You just need to be able to tell your clients, customers, students, friends and family that you have a site. It has your name on it and you have a personalized email account with a business card and a logo and it only cost you a couple of nights out. Pretty cool. Email me at mike[at]worldnetjapan.com

News
Random things from GinJ
That boat is still on TV

Weather
Cold but dry and clear blue skies
I wish Japan had central heating

Current Events
Kansai Scene lets us know about Snowball Fights
My son has back to school something or other

Main Topic
The frustration of being a foreigner

Music by Humperdinky Quando Quando for only 30 seconds.
Poop in the pool
Ray sings the frustration song
TEQUILA!! Cheer up!

Police have arrested a 19-year-old boy on suspicion of driving away after fatally running over an employee of the Dallas Mavericks in the National Basketball Association (NBA) who had earlier been hit by a taxi in Tokyo.

Not really. Unless you have a job lined up and are ready to cope with being an outsider for a few years it’s going to be pretty difficult. If you’ve been living in Japan for more than five years you will have changed somewhat. I don’t think your family and friends will really understand you and the fact is, Japan is a pretty nice place to live as long you don’t mind the inconveniences of being a foreigner.

When I talk to guys who are thinking of going back to their home country and taking their girlfriend or fiance back with them, I tell them it’s a great idea. Going back will give both of you a chance to experience the other side until it’s time for kids when you will probably come back to Japan ;-).

Just my opinion. Feel free to comment.

I’ve padded my resemble me up and packed a lunch with fewer beers in it this time (last time, I had to share). I’ve got my train schedules and the phone numbers in my cell ANNNND I even remembered to write down the names of the people I’m having interviews with. Now if could just find that gum wrapper. Oh. That reminds me, I need to turn in my grades.

OK. I think I’m ready.

Brrrrrr…..it’s cold out there. I think I’ll see if they can wait a couple more days. I need to practice my lines one more time.

**jumps in jammies**

——————–
And now for the real story. I have job interview this week. Yay. I think the gum wrapper story is better.

My first podcast. Well, it’s actually my 80th, but who’s counting. This will be podcast #1 of a series devoted to the ongoings of education and virtual worlds. I’m researching Second Life at the moment in order to determine if virtual language learning is a feasible means of teaching English to EFL university students in Japan.

The structure of these podcasts will be something like this:

News
Virtual retailers decry Second Life crime wave
Data shows growing divide between casual and heavy SL users
Poll: Most adults don’t want fantasy avatars

Weather
Still no rain..except on my little plot of land in Brookes

Sightings
Parsec…sorry I said it incorrectly in the podcast

Interview

Fire Centaur. Owner and main developer at English Village island lets us into his world for his first personal interview on the island. Hear why he left Canada for Korea and the opportunities to make money as a developer in Second Life.

Editorial
My thoughts related to the interview.

Listen up. If my wife and her friends are banning Chinese imports, you can bet your dollars there at least another couple million housewives doing the same.

Here’s an article: http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20080202TDY02305.htm

If you are interested in attending a meeting, add a comment, or email me at mike[at]professormerryman.com. Hope to see you at the next meeting.