a harrowing tale

Mama's got a brand new toy! Say hi:

 Hi!

That's right - after much hemming and hawing, to'ing and fro'ing, I finally bucked up and bought a Macbook. I had been thinking about it for awhile, and I'll confess that part of the reason I wanted it was because it's just... so... pretty (the little apple on the cover lights up when it's on!). But more than that, everyone I know who has one, loves it and can't stop raving about it. So, I gave in, and got one a few weeks ago. However, because I've been a little busy, it wasn't until today that I got a chance to sit down and bust that baby out of its box.

Not that I've never seen a Macbook before. I've just never seen MY Macbook before. And of course, I was smitten - the aesthetics department at Apple must really be a bunch of go-getters. The laptop is sleek* and smooth and shiny, and... ok fine, I'll admit that I spent a few minutes gently petting the keyboard. But there is also a welcome video! That talks to you! After which a program is automatically launched that helps you detect and connect to your wireless network! (Am I aging myself? Do all laptops and computers do that nowadays? Because in my day...)

But after that initial helpful setup, I was on my own. It's almost comical, the number of times I said "What the... How do you... Ohhhhh." I'm sure I've just barely scratched the surface, and it's true what they say, that many things are intuitive - IF you've never used a computer before. I was born and raised on a PC (ok, what I was born on was *cough*a Commodore 64*ahem*) and found myself stumped by questions like WHERE THE HELL IS THE HOME KEY? Also, I understand that the Mac's delete button is the PC's backspace... but where is the Mac's equivalent of the PC's delete? I did, however, manage to rescue myself from a brief panic at the thought that you cannot ctrl-c/v/x - WHY WOULD THEY NOT INCLUDE THAT SHORTCUT?? - after I realized that instead, you command-c/v/x. WHEW.

So there I was, trucking along, figuring things out and exploring my new precious, when I took a swig of water. And promptly choked on it. I had enough sense to try to hold in my mouthful of water, since I was sitting in front of aforementioned new precious, so I clamped my mouth shut and slapped my hand over it. But that choke, it was a pushy one that wasn't going to take no for an answer. It persisted, and since the first one didn't get very far, the second choke was a little more aggressive and sent some water shooting out from between my fingers and dribbling down my wrists. "Save the precious!!", I thought. Feeling a third and even angrier choke coming on, I had just enough time to turn my head to the side before the rest of the water came tumbling out of my mouth - thankfully, onto my lap and floor. Crisis averted! The end.

Welcome to my life on the wild side.

** Except that for the physical size of the laptop, they really should have made the screen bigger. I don't mean this in the techie sense - because yes, I chose the screen size. It's just... all that WHITE around the screen. I'm subtracting style points for that.

on my vacation from other people's vacations

I've spent the past 2 weeks traipsing around Seoul, Kyoto and Tokyo - playing tour guide for the latter 2 - with brother and dad. Hoo boy, that was exhausting (but also nice, as it's not too often that I get to really spend time with family). I'm still recovering, while slowly digging myself out from underneath the laundry monster in my bathroom and turning my to-do's into to-did's. There is no room left in my brain for coherent thought, much less turning those thoughts into the captivating blog entries that we are used to around here. But, because I have turned over a new leaf and am no longer a non-blogging neglector, here is something for you to do during my brain's Quiet Time. A list! Of things I love! With pictures!

New sheet day.

[Oops, no picture. There is no picture that can convey the comfort, smell and joy of new sheet day.]

A good book, a steaming cup of coffee and a cookie on a rainy day. Quadruple points if it's this cookie OMG IT IS SO GOOD and I am so sorry it doesn't seem to be available anywhere outside Japan:

Chocolate Marshmallow Cookie from Starbucks. A chewy,

just-sweet-enough cookie surrounding a gooey marshmallow center.

Brunch. Especially at Beacon (one of very few places to get for-real American-style brunch in Tokyo), and especially this dish:

Huevos Rancheros with cilantro rice, black beans, spicy sausage.

That my puppy's favorite place to sleep is on my pillow. And that she sometimes sleeps like she's a person - on her side, little head on the pillow, little body off the pillow.

If I close my eyes and ignore you, maybe you'll turn off the damn light and let me sleep.

Taylor Lautner's abs. Now THAT is what I call A Situation.

Mm-hmm yes please.

open letter to chuck bass

Dear Chuck,

You don't know me, but I definitely know you. You, your friends and all your collective shenanigans have been my guilty pleasure ever since your beautiful privileged faces first graced my television screen. And I know, I know - I have disparaged you in the past, likened you to an emotionally juvenile cocky ex-boyfriend of mine, mocked you for your clothing choices. But you do recognize, don't you, that I was not entirely off-base? I mean, Basstardly (ha!) shenanigans aside, let's just talk about those clothes of yours. In fact, let's not talk. Let's look...

...at your evening wear. Are those sequins? Your dinner jacket, it's BEJEWELED?

...at your casual wear, accessorized with a pair of alluring come-hither (by which I mean scary I'm-going-to-murder-you) eyes:

...at your - good lord, what is this? Summer wear? I just... don't know:

Do you see, now, what drove me to scold your image every time it appeared on my screen? Why I could not imagine how anyone could find you remotely attractive, not in a million years, especially when conversations with you would never have been face-to-face but instead, face-to-nostrils?

But Chuck, you've grown. You've quit being a Basstard. You've let Blair in and are the epitome of a devoted boyfriend. You've learned to carry the weight of your head by holding it more or less upright. You've stopped with the ridiculous clothes. You look like this:

...and this:

... and this:

You are classy! Debonair! Still dark and broody... but in a good way!

Chuck, I guess what I'm trying to say is, I love you.

Kisses,
Tamami

not exactly a bedtime story (but perhaps it should be)

Something I am deeply saddened by is the fact that there are so many of nature's species which are in distress these days. Yes, humans too - humans are are a troubled species as well. It's just that... well, this next part is probably not going to win me any popularity points, but I'm going to just say it anyway and then duck - the plighting of humans is done solely and exclusively by humans. The plighting of nature, however, is not done by nature; it's done by humans. But the reason we are able to do it is the exact reason we shouldn't. We are at the top of the food chain, the top of the brain chain - we are the masters of our universe. We should know better. As a wise man once said, with great power comes great responsibility.

Recently, I've been made more aware of the plight of the dolphins, because a man named Ric O'Barry and his team made a movie that won a lot of awards. I watched that movie and cried throughout; and guys, I am generally not a crier - I am a chickenshit, but not a crier. But, more importantly, I became aware of the extent of the problem - so for me, the movie did what it had set out to do.

Meet Ric O'Barry - an activist who has spent the past 40 years campaigning against the captive dolphin industry:

But before he was that guy, he was the guy who raised and trained (the dolphins who played) Flipper and endeared her to the viewing public, the popularity of the show resulting in a rising demand for trained dolphins. He had no idea at the time that all this was leading down a road to a bad place; but in working with the dolphins, he came to realize how highly complex, intelligent and sensitive they are, and how distressed they become when plucked from the wild and dropped into captivity (and - to add insult to injury - made to perform tricks for their food, for screaming audiences, in the tiny little tank they are forced to call home). It all came to a head the day one of the Flipper dolphins died, by - wait for it - committing suicide in his arms. And okay, I know what you're all thinking, because I thought it too - "Suicide? A dolphin? Next you're going to tell me she left a suicide note on the nightstand!" But seriously, guys, you have to hear him tell the story. I cried.

And that was only the beginning of the story. Since that time, O'Barry has been crusading to stop the practice of capturing dolphins from the wild to be put into captivity; but in the city of Taiji, Japan, his mission goes one step further. There*, the dolphins are chased into a cove, disoriented and frightened by a ceaseless beating of sticks in the water - this is done to panic them by creating too much sound for their sensitive sonars to handle. They experience extreme physical and psychological trauma; they are self-aware in many, if not most, of the same ways that humans are, and they can tell what is going to happen to them. The "best" dolphins are picked by visiting trainers and carted off to aquariums, dolphin shows and swim-with-dolphin programs around the world. The rest are killed by repeatedly stabbing the water with spears until the bodies are still - it's hard to really aim, I guess, when you can't see through the bloodied water. There's a heart-wrenching clip in the movie where a dolphin, frantic with bloody stab wounds all over its body, desperately flips and flops its way on shore, trying to get away, only to collapse and die on the sand.

Just because something is difficult to watch doesn't mean it shouldn't be seen.

There are those that argue that all this brouhaha that's being raised about dolphin killings is just another case of cultural imperialism. To that, I say, PSHAW. There is nothing cultural about dolphin meat, nor selling dolphins into captivity, nor the cruel method of chasing, capturing and killing dolphins that takes place in Taiji. Most Japanese people don't even know about this, and they certainly don't eat dolphin meat (not knowingly, anyway, because who really chooses to subject themselves to mercury poisoning?). How can it be cultural when people have no idea?

Of course, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. But one thing I absolutely cannot stand, in a make it stop make it stop OMG MAKE IT STOP kind of way, is an illogical argument. When somebody tells me the sky is red, and I go and look outside and the sky is not, in fact, red, it makes me want to punch them. But because I know this is not a socially acceptable way to converse with someone, I am stuck without a response. Which I hate. Likewise, when somebody tells me that wanting to stop the hunting of dolphins for capture and baseless killing is another example of cultural imperialism, and when I look around me and see that most Japanese people have no clue what any of this dolphin business is all about, I see that it can't be cultural. The sky is not red. But yet, many of those who put forth the cultural imperialism argument are people I know to be rational, intelligent, and otherwise capable of distinguishing between colors. So - to those of you who hold this view - I wonder, sincerely and without trying to be facetious - why do you think so? How do you get the sky to be red?

* This is not the only place dolphin hunts take place, but it happens on the largest scale in Japan. It also happens in Denmark, Peru and parts of the South Pacific.

this is why you love me

I thought that I should (re-)start things off with a bang by discussing a few things I cannot stand. You can thank me later. In no particular order:

Rant the first: that there is not one actor, among the entire universe of actors, A.K.A. people who are paid BIG BUCKS to be experts at pretending, who actually knows how to properly pretend to either hold or drink from a cup. If you watch any scene that involves a cup of liquid (or, worse, multiple cups in one of those cardboard/styrofoam cupholder things), I guarantee that you will see the actor waving it around as if it is empty. And then, to reinforce the idea that there is something in the empty cup, the actor will take a pathetic little sip - barely tilting the cup - and then fail to pretend to swallow. You'd think that would be something they'd teach in the first week of Acting 101. Why bother with a cup of anything if they're not going to handle it correctly?

Rant the second: the way Jack Bauer pronounces "nuclear". It really takes away from his badassed-ness every time he says nu-cue-lar. Say it with me, Jack. NU-CLEE-AR. Even nu-clear would be acceptable. But not nu-cue-lar. No, no, no. I have particularly strong feelings about this one.

Rant the third: people who don't excuse themselves after RUNNING FULL-ON INTO ME because instead of watching where they were going, they were too busy looking down at the floor - the floor that is inside my apartment building and therefore free of potholes, curbs, sticks, and stones. Why are we looking down at the floor? Why are we not looking in the direction in which we are charging?

Rant the fourth: being too shocked to berate these people with anything other than an "excuse you!!" (a great one, I know, especially when the target of my wrath does not even speak English), and then seconds later coming up with the perfect way to teach them a lesson, and then for the rest of the day (several days, if I'm being honest) fantasizing about sticking my foot out to trip them while verbally ripping them a new asshole. This one, I also have strong feelings about.

Rant the fifth: airplane announcements that come in through the headsets AT EXTREMELY HIGH DECIBELS. Seriously, why does this happen? If I am watching a movie and my headset volume is set to a level of my liking, and if the announcement is otherwise coming through the airplane's speakers at a normal volume, WHY must the living daylights be frightened out of me by the announcement ripping through the headset?

Now you can thank me.

...aaaand i'm back

Well. Hi!

So I'm back, and wow, things look a little different around here. As things often do after a year and a half. Heh, heh. Ok, I'll just get down to it - I'm sorry. To all 4 of you who read this blog, I'm sorry that I disappeared without warning. But I do have an excuse, and without getting too much into it, I will explain. First, One Thing happened, which kind of drained the energy and inspiration out of me - sucked it out and left me a shriveled, empty shell (luckily, I did not lose my flair for the dramatic). So while that One Thing was happening, I found that I didn't really have much to say about anything; so I didn't. Then, Another Thing happened. That Another Thing was actually a good Thing that was only disguised as a bad Thing; but still, it was a doozy of a Thing, and I continued to find myself without much to say. On top of all this, Facebook became my go-to for scratching any itches I did have to post commentary on the Internet. Thus went this blog the way of all my gym memberships in the past few years - that is, something I was excited about and diligently paid attention to with gusto and good intentions for awhile, but which then became something I just couldn't get it up for, then got used to not getting it up for, then eventually let lie there like a cold dead fish I had no interest in reviving.*

But, the good news? I'm back! And I'll try to do better this time, I'll try not to disappear without so much as a sayonara, because as everyone knows, we only get one second chance in life.

Now, let's get back to our regularly scheduled sporadic posting.

* And that, my friends, is how you wind up with an entirely different metaphor than you started out with.

you want to know what i just saw?

I just saw - and I am not even exaggerating, not even a little bit, I swear - a woman whose legs were the size OF MY ARMS. The knobs of her knees were bigger than her calves AND HER THIGHS! Do you remember that toy where you connect wooden sticks to knobs and cubes?

This! Is what that woman's appendages looked like.

Uh... can we get a ham sandwich over here??

iPhone, schmiPhone

Backstory: people here in Japan are inexplicably attracted to lines - specifically, standing in them. I even read an article here that mentioned how many people, when they see a line, will first tack themselves onto the end of it, then ask what they're there for. Want Cold Stone on a warm day? Wait in line. Krispy Kreme on any day? Get in line (for, on average, 2 hours). Restaurant that's recently been on TV? Back of the line, son. It irritates me to no end, and I'm not even sure why - after all, it does give me something to point and laugh at. I guess it's because if I want to be impulsive and have Cold Stone on a warm day, I can't, because there's a line and I'm not willing to spend an hour of my time waiting in it.

So the iPhone 3G is set to launch in Japan this Friday. And yesterday - which was TUESDAY - people started lining up outside the store in anticipation. PEOPLE!!! Yes, there's been a lot of brouhaha about this for awhile now (although none that I've seen in Japan, strangely), and yes, it's the "cool new thing" (Japanese people in particular LIVE for cool new things - perception is everything here). But to line up for 60+ HOURS for this? These people must not need to work. And they must have enablers - friends that are willing to swap places in line while the other goes to the potty or goes to get food or, I don't know, any of the MYRIAD of worthwhile things to do with 60 hours of their time.

While I'm at it, I might as well complain about another thing. I heard there was a whole big fuss, made by Mr. Apple himself, that nowhere in the entire world would the (8gb) iPhone cost more than $199. Well, his pants must totally be on fire right now, because here, in Japan, it will sell for $215, which, ok fine, is not egregious but still a lie. HOWEVER, that price is only for new customers to the network; existing customers will have to pay $283! Mr. Apple's pants, I imagine, have gone up in flames.

honey, no

I saw her coming almost a block away. What caught my attention was not only her clothing - she was wearing a pair of black skinny jeans in what must have been 75-degree-summer-morning humid weather - but the way she was walking. Like she was trying to hold a golf ball with her vagina. So I'm staring-but-not-staring at her, and we're getting closer to each other, and I'm thinking "Dude, Japanese girls walk weird*, but this is kind of a new one..." And then I'm maybe 10 feet from her, and I see that she's wearing a cropped shirt, 80's style, and that her jeans seem pulled up pretty high; and I think to myself that maybe I should cut her some slack, that not everyone can be as fashionable as me.

And then I see that I can't be sure how high her tight skinny jeans are pulled up, nor how cropped her shirt is, because these are things I would gauge relative to the belly button. And in the space between the top of this woman's jeans and the bottom of the shirt is the vague shape of what can only be her belly button, but again, I can't be sure, because it's covered up by THE WAISTBAND OF HER PANTYHOSE.

Did she not check the mirror before she left the house? Could she not find a pair of knee-highs? Maybe her shirt shrank in the wash and she didn't realize it? What happened??

What the hell?!? Honey, I JUST DON'T THINK SO.

* Totally true, and I have no idea why.

1 bajillion dollars = [x grains of rice] + [y ears of corn]

A few weeks ago, the Head Cheese of the firm gave a presentation to our office about all the typical things a head cheese would talk about - vision, strategy, how great we are, etc. The one thing I actually retained from that talk, though, had nothing at all to do with the firm. It was this fact nugget: not only is the United Arab Emirates obscenely wealthy (which I knew), but Abu Dhabi in particular has money just pouring out of its BUTT, to the tune of a WEEKLY surplus of many (several? at least several... obviously a number too big for me to even comprehend) billions of dollars. United States dollars.

In disposable cash.

A spare bajillion dollars.

Oh, the possibilities...