It's official.
My Japanese teacher applied to teach English at my university. We thought she had a shot, but the college was inundated with resumes, over 100. Even the lousiest part time jobs in town get far more applicants than they can possibly accommodate.
Glad I got full time work before this kicked it. It'll be long, it'll be nasty, and it'll be worldwide.
So you're in Japan teaching English, and making do with hand-me-down furniture and appliances from the last teacher. You really wish you could get a big screen TV, but they cost a fortune, and besides, you may not even be in the country for more than a year, and you'd just have to give it away anyway. What to do?
One thing I've learned about technology in the past few years is that a little extra money goes a long way. The bicycle is a good example. The standard, gearless model in Japan is 10,000 yen, or 100 dollars. If you go up to 350-500, you can see enormous improvements, including front wheel suspension, gears, and a much lighter weight. These additions improve your bike by 100%. The next step up is to over 100,000 yen or $1000, where you can get a lighter frame and disc breaks...which are nice, but don't add anywhere near as much value relatively when you consider that the price just doubled. Finally, when you double the price again to over 200,000 yen or $2000, you find yourself reduced to miniscule improvements, like using a titanium alloy to reduce the weight by an extra 5% or so.
The moral is that while the very best thing may cost a heap of money, the next best thing, or even merely the next next best thing, delivers nearly as much quality for a fraction of the price. And the law applies to home theater as much as anything else.
So here's what you do-
1. Buy this Acer DLP projector currently on sale at Yodobashi camera for 45,000 yen, or about $450. Despite its powerful 2000 lumen, 4000-hour bulb, Its small, lightweight, portable, and comes with a carrying case, so you can take it over to a friend's place to watch a movie or play some video games, and of course, take it home with you if you leave. It's designed for use with computers to give power point presentations and the like, but its about as good as you could possibly need it, and delivers a very crisp and bright picture up to 300", even in the middle of the day. When I show people pictures of the image they can't even tell its a projection not a normal television. You can use an old VCR, which all have TV tuners, to see standard TV. And you can hook it up to your laptop and use it as a separate monitor. You can watch The Daily Show via the free online stream on the big screen, and keep on using the original screen to surf the net, like I'm doing in the photo above. In this photo the screen is 60" wide, with the picture taken on the other side of the room, about 3 meters away. The picture looks grainy due to the quality of the net stream, but TV and DVDs look much better.
If you go online, you'll see home theater aficionados turning their noses up at this because its not every bit as good as 10,000 dollar plasma TVs that give a picture the same size, or high-end, 130,000 to 300,000 yen projectors specifically designed for 1080p HDTV. But the resolution rate is still well beyond what a standard TV signal or DVD requires, and will display all those shows you download with as high a resolution as you can possibly see them in. It can show HDTV too, though scaled down. If you upgrade a step to the 65,000 yen model, you can get a resolution rate very close to the HDTV format American broadcasters use for shows like Lost and 24.
Remember, just 6 or 7 years ago, projectors with far worse specs were considered near top of the line, and sold for $4000 dollars. Today, when the same thing is twice as bright with 5 times the contrast for nearly a tenth the price, the Home theater critics that review this projector turn their nose up at it a bit for not being every bit as good as the brand new $5000-10,000 systems, but concede that, "for someone who just wants a projector to invite people over to see the odd DVD or sports game, this should certainly be adequate." Be that guy! Use the extra 950,000 yen you save to spend time out of your darkened TV room enjoying Japan.
2. While you're down in the basement computer section of Yodobashi Camera, pick up a computer speaker system that has tweeters and a subwoofer for around 3000 yen. Again, not as good as a home stereo system for 50,000 yen plus. But very good for the money.
3. Need a screen? Most cost 10,000-50,000 yen, all for what essentially amounts to an expanse of flat white material. To hell with that- Go to an art supply store or bookstore and get some sheets of white A3 poster paper. Duct-tape about 8 sheets together, keeping the edges as tight together as possible. Now reverse sheets to the clean side, and thumbtack it to the wall. If you squint when the color on the screen is white, you may be able to detect thin lines between the sheets. Other than that its essentially no different from a commercial screen.
4. Like I said, the screen is surprisingly bright even in the day (we're watching it now), but to get full quality, go to Muji Ryushi . This store is getting popular overseas and considered a stylish, Japanese answer to Ikea. But don't be fooled by the appearance- it can be surprisingly cheap. You can pick up some expensive-looking curtains that block 99.7% of all sunlight (literally, according to the specs) for just 1300 yen each.
And that's it. Enjoy!
Public transport is big in Japan. The cities are packed too deep for cars to be of much use. But the population is very centralized and subways and trains are extremely efficient and run like clockwork. Everyone uses them.
Every Monday I take the rush hour morning express train to Kurume. They only run every half hour (as opposed to every 5-10 minutes for local), so the lines for them build up. Its a long trip difficult to get a seat.
On the platform, there are markers to show where to stand and wait. A sign by the platform instructs people to line up in 2 rows. And 90% of the time, that's what everyone does. But sometimes I go in the morning, and there's just a single line, sprawling snake-like down the platform. Why?
Apparently, early on, just one person was standing there. Another person came along, and instead of standing beside them to form the second row like they're supposed to and like everyone usually does, they stand behind them. I have no idea why.
So then a third person comes along. They know that they're supposed to form a second row, but that would mean cutting in front of person two. This being Japan and everyone being extremely considerate, person 3 gets behind them. And so it continues single file, the grip of shame increasing with every new person added to the line. If people feel bad about cutting in front of one person, think how bad it is cutting in front of five.
Until of course, I the foreigner come along and start the second row like the sign says to. And immediately, half the people in the long line move behind me. Nobody wanted to be the first to do it, but if someone initiates, the dam breaks and everyone else does it too.
Being the initiator can incite bad behavior in others, too. Sometimes I park my bicycle in a zone downtown where no other bikes are. When I get back from shopping my own is surrounded by ten others.
After almost 2 years, the 2008 presidential election has finally ended. Last I checked Montana, Missouri and Indiana were still being counted, but by the end, the map looked more or less like this. As you can see, Obama crushed McCain, taking the crucial swing states like Ohio and Florida early on. Now the only question is precisely how many red states flipped this year, to pile it on and add insult to defeat for McCain.
Some people have asked me why I'm so into this election. As you can see from the looming global recession brought on by Bush deregulation in the US, what happens in the US effects the whole world. Too often, the US has been a rogue power, invading nations as it pleases and refusing to work with other governments on any serious global initiatives to solve world problems.
Even taking the Obama hype with a grain of salt and allowing for the inevitable compromises and dissapointments , he could change all that. The US could start co-operating with the UN again. They might join the Kyoto protocol, make a world court to catch terrorists with international co-operation between police departments, global intiatives to work toward green energy...I think we'll see a lot more of that now.
Obama's win could also mark a historical shift. Traditionally whoever holds the south takes the elections, and the Republicans have been experts at getting that vote by playing up the everyman image and playing on white fears.
But the map is changing. Immigrants have been flooding into the US, and salsa has now outstripped ketchup as the #1 condiment. Those people are beginning to find their votes and voices, and they're beginning to have political weight. More and more of the country is getting concentrated in urban areas, where people have to learn to become more tolerant of one another.
Obama could be the mark of a new political coalition, a growing rank of younger, more educated, more urbanized voters, and minorities that are tired or feeling excluded from the American dream. Obama crushed McCain even without the south. And the southern states he did win, like Virginia and North Carolina, are seeing demographic changes and more minority voters.
So maybe, just maybe,the stereotypical American president in the Bush mold could become a thing of the past. That's not to say another Republican will never get in, but they may be less able to play on the electorates' fears, and get in the same war-starting jackasses.
Maybe. No promises.
Bonus shot-
The department head was laughing when I said Obama would win 8 months ago. He said I was crazy if I thought a guy called Barack Obama would stand a chance against the GOP. Then he got carried away...and bet money. He said he was going to use the proceeds to buy a life size McCain poster to greet me each day and remind me of my stupidity.
Here he is paying up, head bowed in humiliation. I'm using the proceeds to buy an Obama poster to put where his McCain one would have gone.
Care to go double or nothing on Obama signing the Kyoto Protocol, Luke?
I always buy Nike here because they're the only shoe company that consistently makes size 12 's. Usually I get stuck with whatever color and style I can get. All the really cool shoes are Japan only and therefore only go up to size 11. Things are getting worse, too. It seems like there are fewer options every time I go.
Only now, you can design your own shoes with Nike ID. I'd seen it before, but at the time they only had one or two generic designs to choose from, and all you could do was tweak colors. But now they have a wide range of shoe templates and colors, and you can even choose the materials. So I sat down and put this together at the store in about ten minutes. Everyone in the self-design corner seemed to be getting really into it. Click on the link and give it a try.
The goal with this was to take a really stylish sports sneaker, but to cast it in conservative colors, so I can wear them at work on a casual day and so they match my other clothes. I like the modern sneaker designs, but I can't stand all the gaudy, barf-neon yellow colors they always come in.
I wanted to get a classic, two-tone 1950's golf shoe/bowling shoe vibe, so I did the black and white theme. I made sure the base was black so it won't look scuffy if they get a bit dirty. Then I gave it a gold swoosh to give it a touch of distinction and pizzaz, and a subtle green rim and outline...not too much, nothing to overwhelm it or throw the basic black/white design out of balance.
You can emboss a 10-character message on the inner side. I had no idea what to call it and putting my own name seemed lame, so since it was November 4th today, I just wrote "Obama '08" to commemorate the day. Am I obsessed with this election? Yeah, pretty much.
Last week I...
On the heels of Cucumber Pepsi, Pineapple Pepsi and spicy Pepsi Red comes yet another limited-edition Pepsi in Japan, Pepsi White. This one is yogurt flavored, giving the Cucumber variety a run for its money in the "wow that's weird" category.
Actually, yogurt flavored soft drinks are pretty common here, including the classic Calpis. I'm actually a huge fan of one such drink brewed in Miyazaki, called Skol (The Mango flavor is particularly good). But this one just doesn't work. I remember how we all tried to mix cola and milk as kids, and I remember the verdict at the time- not particularly awful, but in the end there's really no reason to do it.
I tried it the other day, and that basically sums it up. It's sugar, water, some carbonation, and a muddled flavor that's hard to place and can easily be lived without.
