My Yahoo! + Movable Type Blog

I just got back from the supermarket. Every time I go there something seems a bit off, besides the gut-wrenching fish stench of course, and today I finally figured it out.

In the alcohol section there are three kinds of alcohol - Beer, Japanese Spirits (like sake, shochu, ume-shu, etc..) and Whiskey. Not Beer, Japanese Crap and Liquor - no, just whiskey.

Want some rum? Better become a pirate
How about vodka? Get outta here you commie!
A touch of Peach Shnapps? Now you're really making me sick!

Why is Japan so obsessed with Whiskey to the point that they sell probably 30 different varieties but no other forms of liquor. I don't want to say its because they are conformist automatons, but who knows.

Here is an article from the Japan Times about the superiority of Japanese Whiskies.

My favorite quote from it:

"As more and more Japanese people travel abroad, they have realized there are other drinks than whiskey, such as wines and other liquors."

I think it's hilarious that Japanese have to travel to foreign countries to discover that there are more liquors than whiskey. They could have saved some time and just watched Cocktail I suppose, which is intoxicating in its own way.

Posted by PattyDukes at 12:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today is the day you learn how to stop yawning. Send me money proportionate to the amount of embarassment that you save by reading this post. I am serious! I need money and this is valuable information!

Check out this web site. It's the Don't Yawn Challenge and the pictures are almost sure to induce a yawn.

Now, I have a secret that actually comes from an old Japanese Samurai (no joke). Anytime you feel the yawn coming on or once your mouth has involuntarily opened all you need to do is lick your lips and the yawn will disappear.

Don't believe me? Try it for yourself. In fact, take the Yawn Challenge and beat them at their own game! At first this technique was hard to master, as you don't really think to lick your upper lip when a yawn approaches, but it has already come in handy for me at numerous times when I am listening to my girlfriend/friends/old people talk.

This is the only way to stop yawning. If you don't believe me, ask Albert Einstein. He's dead, but he definitely agrees.

Posted by PattyDukes at 01:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One thing that I have noticed while living in Japan is that Japanese people love to talk to themselves. It's as though any sort of problem that requires more than a one step thought process can only be solved if the person verbally works it out.

The most notorious talkers are the women around 60 years old. Anywhere you go, they are constantly delivering informed opinions to the ethereal wind. Supermarkets are the main podiums that they use. Recently I overheard the following solitary conversation:

Old Lady: Well, let's see. Shall I buy the cucumber or the carrot. Last week I bought the carrot.
Same Old Lady: Yes, carrots are good, but you know how much they remind you of rabbits, which you hate.
Old Lady: Oh yes, thanks for the reminder. I am so crazy and senile that I nearly forgot my lifelong hate for rabbits because of the way their noses twitch.
Same Old Lady: No problem. That's what I'm here for.

I'd like to say that Japanese men are immune from this kind of clearly insane behavior, but they are not. Although Japanese men are not so often found in supermarkets, the best place to observe them talking to themselves is in front of a computer. It's not actually clear if they are talking to the computer or to themselves, but since the computer is not a HAL-9000, I think we can infer that it is not going to be the one answering. Let's listen in on a little conversation I heard the other day at work:

Middle Aged Guy: Okay, let's just open up that program. Here we go! Okay I clicked the mouse.
Same Middle Aged Guy: All right, good job with the click, now move it to the file menu.
Middle Aged Guy: Whoa there cowboy! I didn't pass Advanced Computing for Geniuses. Let's take this a little bit slower.
Same Middle Aged Guy: Right you are! Maybe we should just throw out the computer now and rearrange papers on the desk for an hour so that we look busy.
Middle Aged Guy: Doing pointless tasks to appear busy just so happens to be my specialty!

What a country

Posted by PattyDukes at 04:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

When I lived in the U.S. before coming to Japan I had this impression of Japanese students as these study-loving nerds who thought of little else other than getting 100% on every menial assignment.

In fact, a few weeks before I arrived I was shocked to learn that I wouldn't have a three month long summer vacation, that in fact Japanese students finished school around the 22nd of July and start again the first week of September, a meager 6 week summer vacation.

However, having been here for a year and a half, I am confident that truly, I was mistaken. There is less school in Japan than you could ever possibly imagine. Take, for example, this current month of March where we have had school in session constantly and yet I have taught probably six classes throughout the entire month.

I now present the Japanese school calendar, a wonderment of laziness:

April Full School Days - 13
April Begins the school year, and yet, strangely there is not so much school going on.

April 1-4 Spring Break
April 5 - Opening Ceremony - No Class
April 6 - New Student Ceremony - No Class
April 7, April 8 - New Student Orientation- - No Class
April 9 - Half day of classes
April 29 - Green Day, Start of Golden Week - No Class
Arpil 30 - Golden Week - No Class

May Full School Days - 14
May is a bit more busy than April, but still, with Golden Week, there aren't a ton of classes.
May 1-5 - Golden Week - No Class
May 19 - 24 - Midterm Tests - No Class

June Full School Days - 20

June is probably the busiest month in terms of school. There are basivally no holidays except for the end of term tests.

June 29, 30 - Final Exams - No Class

July Full School Days - 0

July has not much to offer because the tests are finished the first week, and yet school continues for three additional weeks. All in all, a very unproductive month.

July 1-5 - Final Exams - No Class
July 6-16 - Half Day Classes
July 19 - Sea Day - No Class
July 20 - Closing Ceremony - No Class
July 21-31 - Summer Vacation - No Class

August - Full School Days - 0

Summer Vacation

September Full School Days - 9

September begins the second semester and is crowded with events which preclude much classroom activity from occurring.

September 1 - Opening Ceremony - No Class
September 2 - Tests - No Class
September 5 - Tests for First and Second Year Students - No Class
September 8 - Preparation for the Sports Festival - No Class
September 9 - Sports Festival - No Class
September 14,15 - Culture Festival Preparation - No Class
September 16 - Culture Festival - No Class
September 19 - Respect for the Elderly Day - No Class
September 20 - Cleanup from Culture Festival - No Class
September 22 - Compensatory Holiday - No Class
September 23 - Autumnal Equinox - No Class

October Full School Days - 15

After September, it's not surprising that they buckle down a bit for October.

October 10 - Physical Fitness Day - No Class
October 20-25 - Mid-term exams - No Class
October 30 - 2nd Grade School Trip, Culture Day for Grade 1 +3 - No Class

November Full School Days - 18

November is a pretty demanding month as well.

November 3 - Culture Day - No Class
November 4 - 2 Grade Students rest from school trip - No Class for 2nd Grade
November 15 - Prefectural Exam - No Class
November 23 - Labor Day - No Class
November 28 - School Foundation Day (Different for each school) - No Class

December Full School Days - 2

December is another throwaway month. Final exams come early, and then there is basically nothing to do after that.

December 6-9 - Final Exams - No Class
Dec 10-22 - Half Days
December 23 - Emperor's Birthday - No Class
December 24 - Closing Ceremony- No Class
December 25-31 - Winter Vacation - No Class

January Full School Days - 10

Somehow January manages to be pretty light on work as well.

January 1-9 - Winter Vacation - No Class
January 10 - Coming of Age Day - No Class
January 11 - Opening Ceremony - No Class
January 26-31 - Mideterm Exams - No Class

February Full School Days - 16

February is a busy month. The Third Year students actually are finished with school the first week of February and don't need to come again until graduation. February is also when the first round of entrance exams are held for incoming Junior High students.

February 11 - National Foundation Day - No Class
February 25 - Oral Exams for Junior High Students - No Class
February 26 - Oral Exam grading - No Class
February 28 - Graduation preparation - No Class

March Full School Days - 2

The end of the year, and if ever there was one, a worthless month for learning.

March 1 - Graduation - No Class
March 6-10 - Final Exams - No Class
March 13 - 100 Poets Card Game - No Class
March 14,15,16 - Half Day Classes
March 17 - Presentation of Future Plans by each class - No Class
March 20 - Half Day Classes
March 21 - Spring Equinox - No Class
March 22, 23, 24 - Ball Games Festival - No Class
March 25 - Closing Ceremony
March 26-31 - Spring Break

Thus, it might surprise someone from the west to learn that the average Japanese school year of 10.5 months actually only has an average of 119 full days of school. I am pretty sure that our school year had 180 days of school, of course with plenty of half days and exam days thrown in there, but still I would be surprised if we had less school days than Japan.

A lot of people complain that Japan has gotten too soft in the schools and I agree. The kids don't learn that much because they don't really have much to do. In January they have mid-term exams after being in school for only 2 weeks, it seems to make more sense to just skip the mid-terms and spend the time teaching the kids.

What do I know though right? If they want stupid kids, that's their business, I just hate to hear Japanese teachers complain about how there is no time for them to teach because they don't have school on Saturday anymore when it's pretty obvious that the school year has so much padding with half days and festivals that it looks like an NFL linebacker.

Posted by PattyDukes at 03:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The whiskey and beer company, Suntory, has somehow progressed on the scientific front to produce the world's first Blue Roses.

Apparently, the roses were made by extracting genes from a couple of pansies. I was wondering how the genes of a few 99 pound weaklings managed to turn a flower blue, but that's why I am not a scientist, but rather a professional man of mystery.

Why, I wondered, is one of Japan's biggest, toughest liquor companies in the business of making pretty flowers? The answer is competition. The Kirin Beer Company has already succeeded in engineering 20 different carnation varieties, and Suntory certainly was not to be outdone, not in alcohol per volume and definitely not in flower creation! If those bastards want to taste Suntory's mutated and genetically superior green thumb, let them try!

Oh, and by the way, am I insane, or are these roses actually purple? I would say that the quest for the Blue Rose continues, and that various inhuman tests on pansies worldwide need to continue indefinitely.

To read more about the Blue Rose, check out Mainichi Daily News
If you want to know Why Does The Blue Rose Remain So Elusive? then look no further.
For the Holy Grail of horticulture (overstatement anyone) check out the Telegraph.

Posted by PattyDukes at 03:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There are two things wrong with the following article.

1) The content

Appartently Japanese men have given up on standing up while taking a wiz. I can't for the life of me understand why.

2) This is actually being reported in a newspaper

There is a war in Iraq, genocide in Africa, a presidential election, new scandals every day and this is what the newspaper is publishing.

Anyways, here you go, from the Mainichi Daily News:

(Oh and by the way. I think I speak for all red blooded males worldwide. We're not going to take this sitting down!)

More Japanese men prefer sitting whizzes

"Men are structurally designed to piss standing up," Chiba Institute of Technology Associate Prof. Yoshiyuki Ueno, who has studied toilets for more than three decades, said. "I wouldn't recommend anybody sitting down on a Western-style toilet to urinate. I advocate bringing back household urinals and solving problems regarding cleanliness by getting guys to be responsible for cleaning up." (Mainichi Shimbun, Japan, Oct. 4, 2004)

Posted by PattyDukes at 11:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Okay, so I probably shouldn't be making light of this, but is this only possible in Japan? How can you die from choking with hundreds of people staring at you? I know that Japanese people would rather kill their first born child than to risk the embarassment of making a bold action in public, but this is going too far.

From the Mainichi Daily News:

KOBE -- A 38-year-old woman taking part in an eating competition died after she choked on bread, police said.

The noodle and bread eating contest was held in front of a public hall in Fukusaki, Hyogo Prefecture on Saturday.

Posted by PattyDukes at 09:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Okay, enough about the election. I have moved on, even if MoveOn.org has not. Tomorrow is another day right? And in reality Kerry was going to do a lot of the same thing that Bush was, at least as far as terrorism is concerned.

"We're gonna hunt down the terrorists....and we're gonna kill 'em!" Man, if people thought Bush sounds crazy, Kerry is just as bad. Who would have thought this guy was a pacifist in the Vietnam era.

Anyways, my next big step is to become a stock analyst. So today, I present you with the innaugural Pat's Picks.

My first pick is Google (NSDQ:GOOG). Okay, not very original right? Well, my advice is to sell Google, and sell it now! It's trading at about $190 right now, which would only be justified if the search engine has found a new breed of alchemy that turns nerds into gold.

The internet is great because it levels the playing field, making entry and exit relatively easy for all players. As such, a company like Google can expect to face increased and more sophisticated challenge in the near future if the profits are substantial in the search category, which they are. And naturally, the bane of Nerdom, Microsoft, is going to enter the search game, and will probably find a way to block out all other searches and leave google in the dust.

Time to put the margin on your stock account and let the easy money roll in!

Posted by PattyDukes at 07:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Ichiro Suzuki is closing in on George Sisler's single season hit record. He had two more hits to close within three of the record.

Needless to say, Japanese people are all pretty excited to find their theories of racial and cultural superiority coming to fruition. I am about as excited as I ever get about baseball (which means I am somewhere between a coma and Snow White style sleep).

Oh well, it's better than cheering for the Redskins.

Posted by PattyDukes at 02:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

I know that living in Japan I am out of the loop on just about everything, so this is probably some really old news to just about anybody who is not in a severe coma.

Some dudes put together a seriously funny flash cartoon about Bush v. Kerry to the tune of This Land is Your Land. Remarkably non-partisan.

Do yourself a favor and check it! www.jibjab.com

Posted by PattyDukes at 08:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Butoh is a Japanese dance form that has not exactly taken the world by storm, but it has gathered a pretty strong international following.

Butoh began in the aftermath of WWII. It was started by Tatsumi Hijikata, who was trying to come to grips with the profound sense of loss in Japan stemming form the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (and virtually every other Japanese city) and the end of the idea of Japanese invincibility.

The real name for Butoh - Ankoku Butoh - can be translated as The Dance of Darkness. That's exactly what this stuff is, dark. Like you might be thinking about the Dark Side of the Force and how dark that emperor was, but then you wouldn't even know half of how dark and sick Butoh is. Think about how nasty and wrinkled that old emperor was in the movie and how he made you feel all sick inside (and yet strangely turned on) and then look at these Butoh dancers who look like they just escaped from concentration camps and you can get a feeling for some real stupid crazy darkness.

Butoh performers usually wear white body paint, although it is not necessary. They seek to explore different realms of pain and pleasure, kind of like your high school gym teacher. The movements are generally slow and meant to provoke thought rather than tell an actual story.

Butoh can be seen all over Japan and in lots of other countries, just do a search with google.

Posted by PattyDukes at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This weekend the Japanese baseball players decided to call a strike. What's amazing is that unlike the American teams when they pull off holdouts and strikes, this one is not about money. Actually they are trying to save the jobs of their fellow players by preventing the merger of two teams.

Some people might recall how devastating the last Major League Baseball strike was because of how the fans reacted to the money grubbing players bid for more cash. The strike (1997? I forget) probably helped to make NFL football the primo sport in the U.S.

It doesn't look like the same is about to happen in Japan. Fans all around the country are rallying in support of the players, even though they won't be able to watch their beloved baseball games.

Japan is crazy in the sense that the company (the team owners) are supposed to show genuine loyalty to the workers (the players) and not go through all sorts of restructuring when the chips are down and the company is losing money. The people of Japan are pissed that the team owners are giving up on their players when they should all be working together to help return the team to profitability.

Would this kind of thing happen in MLB? Fat chance.

Posted by PattyDukes at 08:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi made headlines recently because he threw out the first pitch at a Yankees game during his trip to New York. Now besides the fact that he chose to throw out the pitch for the team which most closely resembles the spawn of Satan (he really should have gone for the Mets) you gotta admit that he is really giving it is all in this pitch.

You can tell that he's not just lobbing it over the plate, I mean the guy is pushing 60 and it looks like he is really whaling on this ball. Even George Bush can't pull off that kind of stuff.

Koizumi is quite possibly the coolest PM in the history of the world, with Churchill giving him a real run for the money.

Just take a look at the eerie resemblance between Koizumi and his long lost brother Richard Gere. Startling? Is that hairstyle even possible by any other man on the planet? I know that I for one can't pull it off.

Koizumi also gets mad props for signing a free trade agreement with Mexico. I have nicknamed this Japan and Mexico Free Trade Pact the JAMFree. I think that even beats NAFTA or NATO for cool sounding international agreements.

I am hoping that with this agreement there will be a serious influx of tacos and spicy nachos in the near future.

Something like this would be nice:

Posted by PattyDukes at 09:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday in Japan a mass murder named Mamoru Takuma was hanged for killing 8 children at a school in Osaka. Whatever your feelings on the death penalty (and personally, I don't see much reason to keep people like this alive) it is interesting that the preferred method of execution in Japan is death by hanging.

Now, I'm not so sure why one method is better than another. I think we mostly use lethal injection in the U.S. The electric chair seems to have gone out of style for some reason. Maybe because people had the audacity to live through it every once in a while. Lethal injection seems to be the more humane way, what with no sizzling sound effects.

However, why did we give up on some of the truly amazing methods of the past. If human society has done one thing, it is to truly explore all manners of ways to kill, maim and torture people. I bet you even something as fierce as a tiger only knows about 3 ways to kill its prey. Last time I listened to the Wu-Tang I was told that there were 6 million ways to die (and this was back in 1993!)

So time for a little review of execution styles and their benefits and detractions:

Guillotine: Possibly the most spectacular form of execution. The guillotine put on a real show. The downside: Blood spurting necks.

Hanging: A staple of the Old West, or at least Western movie, whether it be by making the horse run off underneath you, just hauling you up on the tree limb, in the town square or even at the gallows, hanging was a true part of the American scene for a long time. The downside: Deaths could last for up to 45 minutes if the neck didn't snap, which it usually didn't, plus the smell.

Firing Squad: A great way for mass executions when you are strapped for time. The downside: It's a little too impersonal for the executionee, it makes your death less profound if you have to share it with 30 other criminals.

Lethal Injection: Supposedly a quick and painless death. The downside: Some people are afraid of needles.

Japan has had some pretty amazing methods of execution, developing it more to an art form than any other place I've heard of. Truly, dying is an amazing thing if you are Japanese.

Disembowelment: The preferred method of the samurai class. A sword was used to slice across the bowels and then a person acting as second would chop off the head from behind. If you didn't cry, you were pretty bad ass.

Burial: They would bury the criminal up to his neck in the road (dirt road obviously) with just his head protruding. He could live for days there if nobody did anything to him, but the idea was that any passerby could have a whack at you and if they were especially mean or especially kind they would kill you.

Boiling: Goemon Ishikawa is the most famous person to be killed by this method in Japan. For attempting to assasinate the Shogun, Goemon and his whole family were boiled in oil in a large bath that is now known as a Goemon-buro (Goemon's bath). Legend has it that he held his youngest son above the oil until he passed out from exhaustion. Naturally, they all died, but his story lives on as that of Japan's answer to Robin Hood.

Posted by PattyDukes at 09:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

I just got back from the always delicious MOS Burger. I love MOS Burger, I really do, it's gotta be one of the best burgers that you can get in Japan. They also have a pretty wicked vegetarian rice burger that has yet to really catch on internationally. Very surprising right? A burger made out of rice. But it actually is kind of tasty. Despite the obvious implications, there is in fact no Moss in MOS Burgers. The Japanese pronunciation is kind of like "mossu", not really like "mos def", which means "most definitely" for all of my white readers out there.

Everyone in Japan is always asking me, Patrick, genius that you are, can you tell me what the meaning of the MOS is? Also, what is that super secret sauce that they pile on top of the burgers that gives them that MOSy goodness taste?

In answer to the first question, MOS actually stands for Mountain Ocean Sun. Now, why a Japanese company would choose the English words Mountain, Ocean and Sun to make their name isn't exactly clear until you tackle the second question. The makeup of the secret sauce just so happens to be constructed out of, you guessed it, equal parts Mountain, Ocean and Sun (oh and horse poop).

Using Real Video you can watch 2 Mos Burger commercials here:

Number 1 The first commercial continues the long Japanese advertising tradition of making no actual sense. Who cares, you can't understand what they're saying anyways.

Number 2 The second one is a bit more straightforward - The message is: Go to MOS Burger where the workers are uniformly genki- energetic - and then you will fall in love with the boy of your dreams.

It's true! I fell in love with the boy of my dreams today.

Posted by PattyDukes at 07:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)