I Went to College

I was recently asked to write a short intro for seasonal newsletter that is done in this prefecture. Because it's for the winter edition, I came up with this in about 45 minutes:

Amidst the mists and fiercest frosts, the winter wind is here to howl.

And through the long and lonesome nights, the moon peeks out and seems to scowl.

Although the men are in their mirth, the darkened days will close like tombs.

As flesh wanes white and souls grow dim, the specter of the blizzard blooms.

And then a shock: with hope restored, the troops will trek the deadly roads.

Atop the mount they stand like gods and stride the peak as though ‘twere Rhodes.

Then fall at once, each free of fear, and soar upon the wings of snow.

And joy they’ll know like ne’er before; until the mountain lays them low.

I stole the first part of the first line from a tongue twister, but the rest fell straight out of my noggin. Ah, four years of education well spent.

In iambic octameter no less!

JetSetArnett out.

I Am Full of Liez

Often, I get questions about the idiosyncrasies of the English language. Usually these are regarding grammar, spelling, punctuation, et cetera. Sometimes, however, the questions are about more abstract aspects such as the etymology of words or phrases.

Most of the time, I can find the answers to these via Google relatively easily if I don't already know the answer from my countless hours of internetery (and college). However, occasionally I cannot.

For instance, I was asked, "Why is something easy to do if it is a 'piece of cake'?" and after I exhausted my google-fu, I came up with this:

Originally it was the "Peace of Cake" and not a piece of cake. There were two warring Celtic tribes battling over an area oft referred to as Caek (a more appropriate spelling). During a lull in the fighting, the leaders of the two met to discuss a deal to stop the bloodshed. Initially, The tribespeople thought that the arguments between the two groups of elders would carry on for weeks, but they came to an agreement within only a few hours. Thus the "Peace of Caek" was much easier than originally expected.

Obviously, that is an utter fabrication. However, to an outsider (sometimes one who knows how ridiculous our language is), it is totally believeable.

Also, to steer this into an explanation for "easy as pie" if it comes up, I would merely explain that it is a much more recent phrase which is a kind of joke/slang way to say "piece of cake". Done.

Now, would I actually tell people something like this without telling them it was a joke?

I'll be honest, for my supervisor/coworkers, I would immediately tell them that I'm teasing, then let them know that there is most likely no etymological answer. But if I'm speaking to a Japanese friend of comparable age, then yes, he or she would get the full brunt of my misinformation. My delicious misinformation.

JetSetArnett out.

Blurring Reality

I made visor to be Cyclops for a Halloween party (counterparted by a dangerously bladed Wolverine), and I'll post some pictures soon, but for now here are a couple short videos from one of my favorite sites, TED.

The first can be described as jaw dropping.



Between the work shown in the last video and the future promise of the next one, it's going to become difficult to know what's real.

Thunderbirds in Misawa

Sadly the ThunderCats were nowhere to be found.

This past weekend, Misawa Air Base hosted Air Fest 2009, and thankfully the weather held out this time; the past few air shows were not so fortunate.

Luckily for me and my friends, my good friend Brett got some fantastic shots of the day. Be sure to click to enlarge, they have some amazing detail.

Early in the show we got a demonstration from Japan Air Self Defense Force's Blue Impulse.

Next this behemoth displayed a striking nimbleness. At one point I thought the pilot was going to attempt a barrel roll.
Also, that picture is taken more from the side, not directly underneath. Yes, he was making that tight of a turn.

Here they come! The Thunderbirds!
Blue Impulse was great, but these guys were no-holds-barred amazing.

Here, two jets fly directly at each other while spinning.

And narrowly avoid each other.
They did this several times, and each time they somehow made it more impressive.

This guy was flying straight up into the air while doing (at my count) ten barrel roles before he decided to stop scaring the children and level off.
A fantastic desktop image, by the way.

A picture perfect formation.

I love this shot.
The Japanese are serious photographers.

In a Thunderbirds' 4 vs 1,
everybody wins.

I hope this gives you an idea of how tight their formations were.
Around this time, they used this diamond pattern at a slow speed to pass in front of us so we could view their lovely paint job.

Next thing we know, the other two planes fly in low from behind us and fire up their afterburners while one is directly above the other. Those clever and very, very loud bastards.

I believe the chatter going through their comms was, "Onlookers distracted. Afterburners ready. 3, 2, annnnnd babies cry, now."

While we were enjoying the show, Brett snapped these great shots of our reactions to one of their near misses. This time they had four planes from four directions all heading into one point.
"Wait what are they doing?"

"Oh my God!"

"Yay, they made it!"

Also, the popped collar was to prevent sunburn. Don't hate.

Near the close of the day, they buzzed us with a B-52 Stratofortress.
The amazing thing is that this plane cannot land here; so it had to fly all the way up from another base and then back immediately.

Oh, they actually did the distraction/loud noise trick twice, but the first time was only using one plane without the afterburner on. I was surprised they did it again and much, much more loudly. They got us good.

JetSetArnett Out.

Revvin' up your engine

Super Powers

Living in Japan, I have developed a number of super powers.

"Orly?" you say? Well, ya rly!

Ok, no, not really. But I prefer to err on the side of bombast.

Insect Immunity

I used to hate bugs. If I ever saw one in my house, I would track it down and kill it. Except when a cat's around; they'll do that for you. It's a treat.

In Japan however, the spiders are ginormous. And after spending two years stomping them, spraying them, and staring them down, I've eventually given up. You win spider. In fact, here's the deal, keep your web outside of my "face zone", and you have the run of the place.

Periodically, I'll go check on the monster in the corner to see that it hasn't moved closer to my bedroom.

Hey spider. How's it goin'? I like your web, that looks really great. You're a spider, what's that all about? You eat bugs right? We should do a film together. Say hi to your mother for me.

Gaijin Smash!

Rawr, me Gaijin! Me use brute force to get what me want! Me have no time for Japanese formality! Me not restricted by unnecessarily extensive set of social rules!

This guy can tell you a little more about it. It comes in handy.

Modesty Vaporization

JROTC didn't have much in the way of a locker room mentality; so I never developed it. Yeah that's right, JROTC. Huuuge geek. Had a wall of ribbons on my chest and shiny badges every which way, too.

Anyway, a lot of dudes develop the ability to be around other dudes when naked, but as I had little experience with that, it was pretty strange going to onsens the first few times. One of the things they tell you about onsens in Japan is that people have these things called modesty towels. Basically it's a wash cloth that you hold over your junk, and we were reassured that everyone in Japan used them, so don't worry your pretty little prudish head about it.

Let me be the first to tell you: Lies! All lies. Unreal, these guys. Japanese people have literally no modesty. None. Also, they have no qualms about blatantly staring at a gaijin in shocked amazement. Although, in their defense, they could have easily mistaken me for a gorilla or bear, and thus they in fact feared for their lives.

Because of this perpetual stare down, all the modesty from years of academic and video game related isolation has been torn asunder.

Also, to answer the potentially offensive objection: "that sounds super gay", I would retort that I have never been more certain that dudes are super gross, and frankly I have no idea how the human race has survived this long. We men are hideous creatures bereft of redeeming characteristics. However, we are filled to the brim with hyperbole and cliche. So we have that going for us.

Anti-Alcoholism

These guys love to drink. Love it. It's astonishing really. On more than one occasion I've been asked if I drink during the week. As in, do I 1. go to the bars or 2. drink in my house to excess.

...

To which I respond, "No, of course not."

They are flummoxed. They happily tell me that they drink in the evenings at home quite regularly. And heavily.

No sir, I save my drinking for the weekends when I'm with friends. Maybe I shouldn't be judgmental though... wait, no. Yes, I should. Shochu isn't for Tuesday.

Actually, shochu really shouldn't be for any day. Ever.

Two words: gut rot.

JetSetArnett Out.

Couldn't Have Put It Better

Today there are three articles from The Independent on the fall of the American dollar as the world's reserve currency. This article focuses on the shifting balance of power between China and the United States, and from the conclusion is a fantastic visual image that speaks volumes (highlighting in bold added):

China holds approaching $3 trillion in dollar assets, so she cannot afford to see the dollar collapse. Longer term, China does want to become less reliant on the dollar as a place to keep its savings. America needs China to buy her Treasury bills; and China needs America to buy her exports. They are like two drunken giants leaning on each other. Yet a sobering reckoning of some sorts seems inevitable; and it is difficult to see how both can be winners.

This one ends up placing a fair amount of blame on the overpopulated drunken giant:

Yet we need to understand that exchange rate volatility is a symptom, rather than a cause, of what truly ails the world economy. The biggest driver of global economic instability in recent years has been the determination of China to boost its export sector at all costs. Beijing's persistently large trade surpluses and manipulation to prevent its own currency from appreciating have effectively forced Western nations into running persistently large trade deficits. It was this pressure that blew up various asset bubbles that burst with such disastrous effect last year.

This one discusses how Arab states are actively moving with other nations to reprice oil with a "basket" of currencies in lieu of dollars. At the end, it leaves us with a disturbing thought about the drunken giant with all the guns:

Iran announced late last month that its foreign currency reserves would henceforth be held in euros rather than dollars. Bankers remember, of course, what happened to the last Middle East oil producer to sell its oil in euros rather than dollars. A few months after Saddam Hussein trumpeted his decision, the Americans and British invaded Iraq.

And look how well that went.

JetSetArnett Out.

So where did you take the LSAT?

I took it in this one place, maybe you've heard of it, it's called Tokyo. It's a sleepy little hamlet on the east coast of Japan. It's quaint and cozy and has a real rustic charm about it.

Yup, that's what I went with.

On to the post.

The Night Bus

Japan has fantastic public transportation, but the bullet train can get pretty expensive when you're far away from Tokyo like me. So, this time I took the night bus which has a few pros and cons.

Pro: Cost. The night bus is about 1/3 the cost of the Shinkansen: about $120 round trip instead of $360.

Con: Uuuuunncomfortable. The Shinkansen seats are quite spacious and easy to fall asleep in. The night bus seats are not. Also the Shink takes about 3 hours while the night bus takes 10.

Pro/Con: Arrival time. This can be good or bad depending on how to look at it. For me, I arrived in Tokyo at 7 AM. This is great because I had an entire day to tourist myself about. This is awful because nothing opens until 9 or 10.

Adventure 1: Tokyo Tower
I got to the tower before it opened; so I wandered about and found a small wooded area off to the side with a shrine.

Ishidoro (stone lantern) in front of Tokyo Tower

Once the tower opened, I got the combo ticket and was able to go up to the "Special Observatory" which is about twice the height of the lower, two-story one.

North, towards Aomori (and central Tokyo)

West, towards Roppongi Hills (on the far left)

The bottom floor of the lower observatory has a cafe; so I was able to kill a great deal of time reading the book I had brought while enjoying the fantastic backdrop and a cinnamon roll.

Next, I made my way to Roppongi Hills as it was the closest place with a movie theater. I had heard about this crazy place before (and been warned to stay away from the general Roppongi area at night), but it was more or less a big mall. Albeit, it was really nice, and I'm sure if I were more of a shopper, I would have really been impressed.

After I grabbed lunch at a nearby Wendy's (mmm, delicious economic imperialism), I went to see Uruvarin(Wolverine[the Japanese syllabary has a number of deficiencies]): X-MEN ZERO(because they prefer capitals). Side note: Fast and Furious in Japan is titled: Wild Speed Max. I much prefer their version.

After I watched the Uruvarin action extravaganza, I realized that I'm so used to Japanese subtitles at the bottom of movies that I cannot for the life of me remember if the version I saw had them or not.

Before I left Roppongi Hills, I got to see this:

A Pokemon event for little kids.
The hats they wore were adorable.

The next day I took the LSAT. And afterwards I ended up hanging out with a few other test takers. Of them, most were other JETs, but one interesting fellow is an English professor at a medical school. In fact, of the people I met, I was by far the most boring of the lot. Allow me to elaborate (in no particular order):

The English prof. had dual degrees in bioengineering and electrical engineering, but then he was able to (as he put it) juke Vanderbilt into allowing him to use their 4 plus 1 masters program to get his philosophy masters in one year. They have since closed that loop hole.

One fabulously named girl speaks Arabic, studied in Cairo, and ended up working for a British law firm there. There was a whole lot of awesome in the previous sentence. She was also looking forward to an upcoming baby sumo tournament.

Next was a girl who was from China, studied history at Yale no less (and used her +10-to-Chinese skill to rock the house with primary sources), and now is in Japan clearly continuing her record of badassery.

Finally, there was a guy with a truly awesome name (hint: bat's should beware) who was born in Cuba, worked for nonprofits in Eastern Europe, Latin America, and then a museum in New York for good measure. Like most of the others, he then ended up here in Japan on JET. Later in the evening we each enjoyed a liter of beer from large graduated cylinders.

And those lucky people got to meet the random dude from Appalachia who rode into Japan by virtue of his pretty blue eyes and wall shaking voice. I clearly got the better end of this deal.

After everyone else had left, I still had until 11 o'clock for my bus. Sadly the area around Tokyo station is very boring night. It's all business and no bars. However, I was able to find a place I had found before, the previous year on a different excursion. While there I wrote the following on the back of my hotel receipt:

As I sat in a small bar/restaurant at the north end of Tokyo station, in walked a man in what appeared to be some kind of blue, red, and gray agile sweater-vest with sleeves. On his face were impossibly thick, outdated, black glasses. Under the vest/shirt, he wore a diagonally striped button-up unbuttoned. On his feet may have been the most hideous high-top slip-ons I have ever had the misfortune of baring witness to. More amazing that this was the fact that he had a girl with him. Of course, she had on a strange pair of gray shorts with black stripes, equally ugly shoes and glasses, but she would still be quite cute if she didn't insist on curling her hair.

Next, a man in a suit. The Italians prefer a pair of pants which lightly kiss the tops of one's shoes giving a minimal break while accentuating line. This fellow's, however, seemed to flop down in a struggle to conceal his white athletic socks. They did not succeed. His sleeves, meanwhile, failed not only to reveal his cuff but barely his thumbs. And the pink tie... okay, the man has good taste in ties. But the girl he was with... super cute.

The moral of this story: Japan nullifies gaydar. (upon reflection, no gay man would wear those things, but the statement is still true)

Second moral: JSA is a judgmental jerk.

JetSetArnett Out.