Kozo's Thoughts

At noon on December 31, 2009, I set out from my home in Nakano to my uncle's house in Kunitachi, on foot. The plan was to walk the approximately 25 km and arrive in time for New Year's Eve dinner and celebrations. I figured it would be a good way to end the year, and would afford me a good chance to reflect on my first months in Japan. Unfortunately weighed down my laptop, and misjudging my walking speed I decided to give up around Musashi-Koganei so I would not be too late. The next day I did walk the Musashi-Koganei to Kunitachi path to symbolically complete my journey, but the fact that I didn't I actually complete the walk in one shot was a bit of a bummer. I also spent most of 2010 claiming I had walked from Nakano to Kunitachi which, in light of the facts, wasn't quite true. (Although Nakano to Musashi-Koganei is plenty crazy.)

All that changed today, and I can now claim to have walked from my house in Nakano to Hitotsubashi University in Kunitachi. Thursdays are when Hitotsubashi Debate has their weekly practices, so I figured I might use that as an opportunity to walk to Kunitachi. I left the house at 10:30 and ducked through the back gate of Hitotsubashi's East campus at 15:32. The walk to Hitotsubashi is a couple of kilometers shorter than the walk to my uncle's house, but still measures at a robust 22 km according to Google Maps. I took a couple of short breaks to stretch and drink some water, but I was outside the whole time.

I had gotten on campus in plenty of time to catch the 16:30 start time of the practice, but after sitting and resting my legs for an hour I found out that practice had been cancelled. So I took my tired legs and rode the Chuo line to Koenji, where I decided to reward myself with a bowl of Kururi ramen at the Koenji Ramen Street. Then I tacked on an extra 3 km to my odometer by walking home from there. All in all, not a bad day.

Big props if you can get the title reference. It's been one week since I returned from Kyushu. Instead of recovering from camp life, partying in Saga, and a 15 hour bus ride back to Tokyo, I went out, without rest, with Marc for his farewell night in Tokyo. That adventure took us from his hotel in Shinagawa, to Odaiba to see the life-sized Gundam (which coincided with the Odaiba fireworks), and finally a dance-'til-morning session in Roppongi. Needless to say accumulated fatigue and alcohol did not lead to the most pleasant of results for me. I've spent the last week, with the Obon holidays as my cover, recovering and doing very little in the way of anything truly productive.

One thing my lack of productivity has lead to is the lack of updates on this blog, and perhaps more importantly the not writing of a post I promised Michael as I left Saga. The post might be a bit late, but I'll write it out anyway, in order to fulfil my promise and to perhaps inform someone else of my blog reading habits. This post will give a quick rundown of all the Japan-related blogs that appear on the links sidebar of this blog. I've also subscribed to most of these blogs through LJ, so you can get a decent rundown of recent content by taking a quick look at my LJ Friends' page. So, off we go...

1) Debito.org: The grand daddy of all English language Japan blogs. I think most foreigners in Japan have found their way to this site at least once, and it's the site that I've been following the longest. The site is chock full or interesting articles by Debito and his meticulous recountings of his various life experiences, and his archiving of all sorts things makes the site a very valuable resource. As a blog however, Debito.org does not rank very high on my list of recommendations. The blog will keep you informed of social justice issues and events going on in Japan, and you will often find repostings of news stories highlighting injustice in Japan. Unfortunately given the general theme of these postings, the comments' sections of each story yields very little in the way of interesting discussion, which is not helped by Debito's notoriety that attracts many trolls. These days i find myself questioning Debito's overall tone and his story selection which at times seems forced. Debito.org is definitely important enough to follow, but it's probably not necessary to subscribe to it to be up on every new post as it gets upped.

2) Mutant Frog Travelogue: I've pimped Mutantfrog before, most recently when I translated the article that lead me to their website in the first place. MFT currently has 4 active contributers that post all sorts of things. I had occasion to meet Adamu and Curzon at a Tokyo Bloggers Meetup. I believe all 4 contributers currently live and work in Japan, so the blog has a much stronger Japan slant than it had in the past, but the blog is by no means exclusive to Japan issues. Basically the contributers post what interests them, and the posts range from long researched and analyzed posts on obscure and not-so obscure topics, and 2 line look-what-I-found posts. The varied and quality posts leads to interesting discussions in the comments' section. MFT is a great blog that mixes intellectual betterment and entertainment.

3) Trans-Pacific Radio: As the name implies, TPR is more a series of podcasts than a blog, but it deserves a spot in my links as a very good source of Japanese political analysis. TPR features a number of podcasts that cover topics likes Japanese politics, Japanese business news, and some Tokyo Yakult Swallows-centric baseball coverage. TPR's flagship podcast (i.e. the one that is most often updated) is it's Japanese politics program Seijigiri. In Seijigiri, political issues facing Japan are discussed by Garrett DeOrio and Ken Worsley (whom I met at the aforementioned blogger meetup), two Tokyo based professionals. The two of them discuss issues in a very laid back and relaxed manner, giving each other the opportunity to use each other as a sounding board to further explore their own (obviously) well informed thoughts. A very entertaining and informative listen. As far as I can tell Seijigiri is the only podcast in either Japanese or English that provides a high level of analysis with a laid back tone.

4) Observing Japan: This blog is the work of Tobias Harris, a self-described fledgling Japan/East Asia specialist. He's not that much older than myself, has studied and worked in Japan, and is currently doing his PhD studies at MIT. I had a chance to meet Tobias at the Tokyo blogger meetup and was struck by his charismatic personality and the depth of his knowledge. He is currently updating like a madman, writing great pieces about the upcoming election. Observing Japan offers a much denser analysis of Japanese politics than TPR, but if that kind of thing rocks your boat it's a must read.

5) néojaponisme: I'm not entirely sure how to describe néojaponisme. I think néojaponisme may be best described, not as a blog, but as a cultural project. A read through the néojaponisme manifesto may give you an idea of what this site is all about. néojaponisme posts cover all sorts of topics related to Japanese culture, including literature, music, typography, the internet, pop culture, and a lot more. I'll be perfectly honest, a good portion of néojaponisme goes right over my head, but the articles that do interest me are extremely well researched and written and are on topics not covered elsewhere. néojaponisme also has podcasts that collect and explore Japanese indie music. More recently, a number of podcasts have been posted which are recordings of néojaponisme founder and chief-editor W. David Marx (a.k.a. Marxy) talking about things in Japan with other knowledgeable people. The most recent podcast features the Marxy and the previously mentioned Tobias Harris talking at a Hanbey, and includes great discussion all within a backdrop of busy Izakaya sounds. From these podcasts, and his writings, it's quite clear that Marxy is a very smart guy, which leads us to the last blog on this list...

6) clast: clast is a "consumer and media insight blog" available in both Japanese and English run by the Diamond Agency. The blog entries which are seldom updated are written by Marxy and Jeff Lippold. While the entries are few and far between, what is written is great insight into Japanese consumer culture and the media. clast will give you insight in the why Japanese products are the way they are, and gives greater context than those dime-a-dozen "look at this crazy shit from Japan!" blogs. Great stuff, clast would probably be my favorite blog if it was updated more often.

If you read through the archives of the above blogs, you will quickly realize that there is a fair amount of cross-pollination between these blogs, and that many of these blogs will lead you to other blogs and news sources. I do read many other things beyond these blogs, but these blogs are probably a decent starting point in building a more nuanced and sophisticated view of Japan. If anyone has other suggestions please don't hesitate to drop me a line.

As my threats to move to Japan are finally coming to fruition (details to be released soon), I began to wonder about how much of my life I've spent in Japan. By my best estimation I've probably spent a cumulative 2.5-3 years in Japan, split up over 12-15 separate visits. The longest stay was the year I spent as 3 year old. and the shortest was probably my last brief New Year's visit of a little over 2 weeks. So I've probably spent 10% of my life physically in Japan. I'm not quite sure if this is a lot or not, but given how spread out the visits were I guess I'm surprised they added up to years (excluding the one year stay as a very young child).

This little thought exercise made me go back and track my movement over the last couple of years (2007 to 2009) to track my movement and to see what kind of utterly useless data I can come up with. Thanks to meticulous record keeping on my computer I was able to accurately retrace my movement for the years 2007-2009. I probably could've gone back further, but there was a a limit to my motivation to email dive. Over this time period, I've traveled extensively within Ontario, mainly for debating-related purposes, but for this "study" I looked at my movement across provincial and national borders only. For dates where I traveled from one location from another the destination got credit for the date. I've counted from January 1, 2007 to May 23, 2009. Now here's some data :

Total dates spent in:
Ontario: 717 days over 8 stays (82.0%)
Japan: 74 days over 2 stays (8.5%)
Quebec: 73 days over 6 stays (8.4%)
Alberta: 4 days over 1 stay (0.5%)
British Columbia: 3 days over 1 stay (0.3 %)
Nova Scotia: 3 days over 1 stay (0.3%)

Longest Stay
159 consecutive days spent in Ontario in 2008
(Will be broken by my current stay in Ontario if I stay until June 14)

Shortest Stay
2 consecutive days spent in Quebec in 2007

Most Trips Taken in a Year A trip is considered the number of times I've crossed a Provincial or National border.
10 in 2007

Least Number of Trips taken in a Year
1 in 2009 (So far)

I should note that the stay in BC is actually longer, because it straddled the 2006/2007 changeover. It's somewhat surprising that I've actually spent more time in Japan than I have in Quebec over the time span. Although the fact that I travelled around Japan and Quebec basically equals Montreal is probably what is coloring my perceptions. Another thing I remembered while going over my travels, is the fact that I've spent New Years Day in completely different places every year over this span, and never in Ontario. By my estimation, if a were to rank the top 5 places I've stayed in in my life, by the number of days spent, it would probably end up being Quebec, Ontario, Japan, New York State, and New Brunswick. It'll be interesting to see how this list wil change over my lifetime.

All this shows, is that I'll be somewhat ready to fill out a detailed background check, the kind where you have to account for every moment of your life.

WOW... Just wow...

(CNN) – A passenger who landed at Tokyo’s Narita airport over the weekend has ended up with a surprise souvenir courtesy of customs officials — a package of cannabis.

Sniffer dogs failed to find the cannabis after it had been slipped into a passenger’s bag.

A customs official hid the package in a suitcase belonging to a passenger arriving from Hong Kong as part of an exercise for sniffer dogs on Sunday, Reuters.com reported.

However, staff then lost track of the drugs and suitcase during the exercise, a spokeswoman for Tokyo customs said.

Customs regulations specify that a training suitcase be used for such exercises, but the official had used passengers’ suitcases for similar purposes in the past, domestic media reported.

Tokyo customs has asked anyone who finds the package to return it.

In between study sessions, I've updated the look of this blog. Let me know if there are any issues.

Those of you who've known me for a while know I like to sing along to songs. You've also probably noticed that many of my favorite songs/artists tend to sing at a higher pitch than I do. Which invariably leads to some awkward singing as I try to hit that high note. Then I discovered that QuickTime Player's AV controls for realtime pitch shifting. A quick test showed that lower the pitch a class or two indeed made previously unsingable songs singable.

Unfortunately while QuickTime Player is nice it doesn't give me the functionality of iTunes (and associated apps like AudioScrobbler or my lyric widget). Also, finding the source file in my music file can be annoying. Well with a little help of the interweb and AppleScript I was able to whip up a solution. I was able to make a script which takes the currently playing track in iTunes and continue playing it in QuickTime with the AV controls ready to shift pitch. The track keeps playing muted in iTunes so I get credit for playing the track on AudioScrobbler.

( Kozo's Sing Along Script )

I know it's not much, but I'm proud of myself none the less.

For all of you who decided short films weren't your thing, SCREW YOU!!! For those of you who had other commitments, you missed a hell of a show, but I hope you'll be able to come next year. Yesterday, Matt and I went to the 2880 Film Blitz. The event calls on sixteen teams of filmmakers, selected by lottery, to race against the clock to write, shoot and edit a short film in only 48 hours (2880 minutes). All 16 teams submitted work, and 15 of the teams made the 19:00 deadline yesterday. It's amazing what people can get done in 48 hours. I would say a solid 9-10 films were definitely worth a second look.

The 2880 Film Blitz clearly illustrates one of the things that I miss about Montreal, a vibrant and diverse art scene. Hamilton has some cool things but not in the same numbers.

I came back from a fun weekend of hanging out at the York High School tournament. After I got back I quickly realized that I really don't have anything to do until Wednesday when Josh and Alex showed up. I've spent some time reading, and I also cleaned my bike but I wasn't "feeling" it. As I was surfing aimlessly on the net, Em came onto Skype. Here's an excerpt of our conversation (paraphrased, of course):

Me: I'm bored...
Em: So am I. That's why I've just been working through my to-do list. Don't you have something to do?
Me: I should probably do my hair. It's getting hot and it's not drying like it used to.
Em: Maybe you should try an "alternative" hairstyle.

( and the results... )

Reason #1283464 I had when I picked McMaster over McGill was that I knew Hamilton would have an infinitely greater chance of hosting a top flight curling event. Today I found out my wishes came true when Tourism Hamilton announced that next season's Brier will be coming to Hamilton. While I would've personally preferred the Scott, I have nothing to really complain about.

If anyone wants to know what makes curling so great, try to catch Kevin Martin's double-raise double-takeout from this afternoon on a Canadian sports highlight show.

I've neglected this LJ for too long, so I figured I'll just write some stuff. I've been feeling a perverse sense on anticipation for the no-confidence vote tonight. I always enjoy watching CPAC when important stuff is about to "go down." I'm very curious as to how all this is going to turn out. I don't believe the numbers will change too much, but I will be looking at some specific races with great interest. (Chruchill, MB anyone?)

Good on Edmonton for winning the Grey Cup. I was pulling for Montreal all the way, but seeing Danny Maciocia in the end made it all right. Aside from TiCats stuff, I haven't followed CFL football this year. So seeing Maciocia, who was a big part of the Alouette teams I watched back in the day, winning the big one made be smile.

I'm also psyched for the Canadian Curling Trials which start this Saturday. Not quite sure which teams I will be cheering for, but this should be one of the hottest curling competitions in a long time.

As for my winter plans, I will be in Montreal from Dec 10-17 & Dec 20 - Jan 2. Before I leave for Montreal I will be posting my 2nd Annual "Year in Review in Music" as I looked back at my music stats some interesting this came out.