Author: brian

okay right out i can’t help but link this excellent book-shirt (pointed out by this excellent book-blog). it’s so incredibly insider/nerdy/tempting considering the number of people who have read infinite jest, and of them the number who would even remember this as a reference. i admit, i wouldn’t have got it myself — loved the book, but have a terrible memory for details in literature — if not for the help of the unique name on the back that managed to stick in my mind.

in conversation last night, i brought up what i thought an odd detail in the medical profession. let’s say someone you know recommends an, *ahem*, lady-doctor (not as in female practitioner; as in doctor specializing in the needs of women) to all her friends. then you know for a fact that there’s an older woman out there somewhere who has seen the special areas of half the girls in your social circle. of course, girls may not find this amusing at all, as i do. perhaps i’ve been watching too much curb your enthusiasm lately. moreover, what if you lived in a very small town; you’d know that the local doctor was the only person in town who’s seen everyone’s genitals! how awkward.

yes, i am back safely from vacation. have been since tuesday, actually.

yes, the six day post-vacation vacation at home was wonderfully lazy. nary a computer was touched other than to get movie times.

yes, american gangster was good, if a little less badass, more biographical, than expected. no departed, that’s for sure.

also, wristcutters was quite good. i’d give them both four stars.

naturally, i’m back to work this week. it’s weird after two away.

boy, local stores were sure hasty with the christmas decorations. so i went and made a list (newly updated!), mostly for family, unless you’re feeling generous.

of course, there are many trip photos. i am currently sorting and captioning.

and yes, normal blogging will resume shortly. there is plenty to talk about.

TOKYO TIME: 4:34PM, MONDAY

well it’s the last full day of the trip, tomorrow we pretty much wake up, pack, and hop a bus to the airport for all that fun and the lovely 10 hour flight. ugh. it’ll be fun boarding a plane at 3 in the afternoon tuesday then landing at 7:30 the morning we left. we’re marty mcfly-in’ it back to LA!

sadly we didn’t make it to the ninja museum today, we just didn’t think we could get up early enough to make it there and back in a reasonable amount of time. yesterday was fun walking around harajuku to see some elaborately dressed teenagers and the huge crowds in all the shops. i even finally got to buy some stuff of my own that i might actually be able to wear. one thing we’ve noticed about the style of dress here is that either it’s very conservative/professional, or the young people are so super-trendy none of the stores they shop in carry anything i could wear without feeling foolish. lots of very busy prints — i saw shirts with entire badly-translated poems written all over them — or very very short skirts or shorts for the girls that a normal non-bony, non-asian girl would feel really self-conscious wearing. we did get some cool knick knacks though.

today i have to admit we were kind of spent, so all we did was stop by another center in ikebukuro, where we went to a gyoza stadium (all-dumpling food court, mmm), and an ice cream city both inside a place called namjatown that was a bit like a chucky cheese’s for japanese kids. sadly, not a lot of fun since it entirely lacked any english directions on any of the activities. tonight i think we have one nice big traditional japanese ten-course meal planned where you sit on floor mats while you eat, then we’re pretty much done. not looking forward to the long plane ride, but i am looking forward to having almost a week of time off when we get back to the states to specifically NOT spend all day every day walking around, and just lounging, relaxing, catching up on tv shows waiting on the tivo, playing some video games, and eating wonderful american food.

not to mention, of course, putting up the LOADS of pictures we took. soon you will see why we are so exhausted after our 8 days here. see you soon, los angeles!

TOKYO TIME: 11:05AM SATURDAY

so we’re getting close to the end and faring much better with successful activities, although we still seem to be foiled in about half of the things we want to do. only now we’ve just learned to accept it and roll with it. tried to return to the palace gardens again and they had closed about an hour before, so we went to tokyo tower instead. tried to go wednesday night to a bar we saw in a book we borrowed from jen, and couldn’t find it, so we went to another bar. that bar was a late-night only bar and wouldn’t even let us in at 10:00, so we went to a great funky/artsy american bar and had a great time. thursday we went to get lunch at a sushi place from another guidebook, to find out it had been turned into a familymart convenience store, so we went to the sushi place two doors down and it was awesome. then yesterday we looked and looked for a ‘maid cafe’ in akihabara, finally found the one i saw online, and it wasn’t open for lunch, so we ended up at some other one we just happened to see from the street on the 7th floor of a building a few blocks away… man, those places are so weird and cute-overloaded. sadly they didn’t let you take pictures though, but their website might give you some idea.

we’ve had more success stories though too, like making it to the super-funky church restuarant called ‘christon cafe’ where we ate bizarre versions of american food — my ‘fried pizza’ looked sort of like a calzone, but was really doughy and only contained tomato sauce and a runny egg inside instead of anything you’d think of as pizza-related. we’ve seen the famous shibuya crossing both in daylight and at night. we rode a train out to the suburbs and saw a huge buddha statue from 1252AD, and even went inside it. we strolled the electronics area in akihabara and stumbled into a cool hobby shop where i got another batman figure and some final fantasy VII ‘potion’ (i.e. soda) i’m not sure if i should even try to drink, and also mistook a place called ‘pop-life’ for a music/movie/comics store instead of the 7 floors of sex toys and pornography it actually was. also, we went to a cool discount store called don quijote where i got a neat butane jet lighter that looks vaguely like a lightsabre.

and then, of course, last night was kara-fucking-oke. oh man. but since you really need the pictures to get a feel for that, let’s just say that was an outrageous success thanks largely to the ‘all you can drink’ option…

couple more days to go, hopefully featuring the base of mt. fuji; the wild costume stylings of the teenagers in harajuku; a traditional sitting-on-floor-mats, 10-course japanese dinner; and if we’re really ambitious (and the weather cooperates) monday, closing out with the ninja museum, which we discovered is over three hours away and may not be practical. i mean, it is japan, technically there should be ninjas pretty much all over the place, and no need to take that long of a train ride, right?

TOKYO TIME: 9:34AM, WEDNESDAY

yes, we’re here and doing fine. happy halloween, i guess, americans.

we’re off to a good start even if so far the trip seems to be the vacation of ‘nice tries’. we couldn’t go out sunday night when we got here because we were falling asleep. monday we tried to go to the imperial palace garden but once we got there, realized it was closed mondays and fridays. oops. then yesterday we had two; tried to hit up a cool church-themed restaurant for lunch, but it’s only open for dinners. then tried to hit up a neat 80’s nostalgia themed bar in shinjuku after dinner, and walked around for an hour and couldn’t find it. oh, stupid americans.

the main problems we’ve run into are a combination of jet-lag keeping us from going out and having crazy nights, and the somewhat bothersome fact that tokyo’s not really into the whole ‘streets and addresses’ thing. most of the time the only way to match where you are with a map is based on landmarks cause you can’t always tell which street you’re on, plus our sense of direction hasn’t really solidified yet.

i think we’re getting the hang of it though, and we managed to stay up past midnight finally last night, so it should be smooth sailing from here. it’s not all screw-ups though, we ARE seeing lots of cool stuff and we have walked around a lot of parts of the city already. got some great pictures i can’t wait to share. getting the feel for the subway system. had some delicious ramen and gyoza (dumplings). ate at a super-fancy restaurant with the best view of a city i’ve ever seen in my life.

and we have almost a week left so it really feels like we’re just getting started. plenty of time to make up the couple things we missed, and do all kinds of other stuff still on the list, and hopefully now that we’re caught up on sleep, have some wild nights.

well it’s only a couple more days… time to do some laundry, start packing, and get ready to hop a plane across the pacific. exciting! slightly nerve-wracking!

also, i hope i don’t run out of money. tokyo is not like my past vacations where a favorable exchange rate puts everything at a discount. this is essentially going to be like one long, expensive weekend of partying in LA, which could get ugly. we’ll see.

you know a great feeling though? the last few days of work before vacation. wrapping up current stuff, knowing no one can really bring any new problems to you because you won’t be here to help them in another day anyway. not that i wouldn’t normally be happy to help, it’s just that at the moment i’m already booked for two weeks of having fun with my girlfriend, sorry buddies! so it’s all just finishing things and no starting more. very satisfying.

[quick aside: you know what’s been fairly unsatisfying? the office so far this year. maybe it’s because they can’t sustain for a whole hour? all i know is that it’s felt a lot less funny and a little too wrapped up in everyone’s relationships. i like the sweet moments and all, but don’t forget to keep the jokes in, please.]

i’m gonna miss playing halo with my homies for a bit, i’m gonna miss seeing the big USC vs oregon showdown this weekend, which is too bad. but the more i read and research the more i’m looking forward to this trip. i’m fairly sure it will be unlike anything i’ve done before.

mere days away from our departure for tokyo. if you have any last minute travel tips for the region, get ’em in quick! two weeks not at work sounds excellent right now too, because it’s been a busy couple weeks.

although part of me foolishly wishes the vacation wasn’t happening just yet… everyone just got halo and there’s a LOT of fun to be had playing it online with all my friends, whose fervor i can’t imagine will last past the next month or so.

oh, and there was a weird twist to the xbox tragedy. after a long, pointless, disappointing call to the service line sunday night, where they said, ‘it’s still in the factory, call back after wednesday and we should be able to update you’, to which i responded, ‘really? it’s almost been a month!’ before eventually hanging up, i got a monday surprise. a box arrived for me with a new (or at least different, refurbished) box in place of my twice-broken one repaired again, and a coupon for a month of free online service with an apologetic form letter. i guess it’s nice of them, although A) it should have taken way less time, and B) it’s extra strange that the service number people had no idea they had already sent me a box back. maybe i’ll get another one through some fluke in the system if i call back? re-selling one for a few hundred bucks might be enough to make the whole ordeal worthwhile…

finally, an addendum to the bizarre near-miss of our day-before-the-fire wedding trip to malibu. i found a photo of the hotel that my coworkers who decided to stay the night locally all slept in. this is it the next day — the hill in the back that appears to be getting dumped on is right where we had a few beers on a little patio area the night before. crazy.

Animation Show – Tony vs. Paul

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i’m working on a sunday, which is too bad, but i did find this video, which is neat and i bet was super fun to make. i should get a video camera.

also, i went to a super cute, very fun wedding on the beach in malibu last night, where one of my coworkers got married to a really cool guy and a bunch of my work friends had lots of fun. the ceremony was right before sunset, the weather was perfect, and it was really beautiful all around. the party was great too.

this morning, malibu is on fire. not only is that terrible in a general way, but we’re all very lucky we got out last night/early this morning, and my friend is super lucky she planned her wedding for saturday.

time for more music-related bitching. sorry, but i can’t hold it in.

i’m slightly bitter toward something that has come from music blog culture as i’ve experienced it. as i’ve pointed to in the past, better men have already described and decried the race-to-be-first, obscurity-craving tendencies of music writers on the net, which i fully agree with. i think there’s a corollary to that though that goes like this: sometimes you’re going so far out of your way to get to a band first that the band isn’t ready to be known or heard about yet.

there are probably examples of this where early hype set too-high expectations on a band that was just barely getting started, but i’m complaining about this for more practical reasons. i read on this blog, which i heard about on blog fresh radio, which i listened to originally because my friend james was on an episode, about this band called nana grizol (of which kevin bacon is a member…haha, not really).

the problem is, the song in question, ‘circles round the moon’, is amazing, which normally wouldn’t be a problem, except that i want a full cd by this band right now. i would go out and buy it this weekend if i could. the problem is that this band doesn’t even have an album yet. i’m really excited to give my money to some musicians who don’t have an ounce of physical output for which to exchange it.

which would be fine, except that i could very well listen to this one song to death for a month, let it drift into the depths of my itunes library, and have essentially forgotten about them by the time they’re ready to trade my well-intentioned dollars for their musical labors. then who wins, other than the music blogger who got to say, ‘oh yeah, i heard about them way before they even made an album?’.

now i’m not pointing fingers at this blog in particular — it’s a local music blog, and those locals have the benefit of going to see this band live, so perhaps it’s a half-assed example. but i am a little bummed at this pattern. say what you will about the extensive downsides of the radio & record label system, but at the end of the day after they took their too-large cut of the profits, at least they had the courtesy to time their hype machine leading up to a product release, and get a band’s fully conceived piece of work into the hands of as many people as they could.

having said that, here i embark to do just as i said, and listen to this song to death. it’s really, really good.

in another little music drought, of sorts. haven’t picked up anything new in over a month i think, but thanks to some excellent mixes by my friend ted (download them for yourself on his page!), i’ve at least had some fresh beats to spice up my commute. i heartily recommend the first one, which is a little disco-rockier if your tastes are closer to mine. i especially love him for bringing my attention to this justic remix by mstrkrft, which is banging all over the damn place. and so it’s a ‘just’-ly deserved pay day song. ha! puns.

other than that i think the only album i’m feeling the need to go out and purchase any time soon is the new beirut album, flying cub cup. check out that website, they did a live video for each of the songs on the album, all in interesting organic locations. i can’t stop listening to them lately, possibly because of what i can only pin down as a ‘gentle beauty’ their songs have. i don’t know if i’ve ever been excited by a band i’d describe as ‘gentle’ before (maybe iron & wine?), but the olde tyme euro gypsy vibe is just hitting some spot for me lately. seriously, check out those videos (#1 is even filmed walking down a stairwell, it’s so perfect somehow).