I found this great series of articles about music in Japan on the Guardian. Take a look and marvel at the licentious habits of Johnny Kitagawa, 80 year-old boy band mogul: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/series/turningjapaneseRead more... )

I was feeling a little nostalgic, and perhaps a little masochistic, and whipped out my old 13 year-old copy of "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" by the Smashing Pumpkins, forgetfully expecting to listen to it all within an hour or so. It's been an hour and a half, and the first CD's still not done...it's on the Iha guy's song now. Okay, ( Read more... )

Jobs--who needs 'em? sheesh ( Read more... )

Several people have asked me about my new job search, via LJ and elsewhere, so I thought I would go into a little more detail ( Read more... )

You might expect me to write about how proud I am of our country, or how thrilled I am to see our new president standing safely behind bulletproof glass as he smiles and waves and watches a parade. But your expectations would only be partly well-founded, as my patriotism stops here and my selfish whining begins ( Read more... )

After my first whole half-week of classes, I feel odd. These past few days have been some of the most surreal of my life. My first class, Japanese, was on Wednesday afternoon, and I decided to walk because I wasn't sure what the parking situation would be like. My walk took basically the same route that I always took to Japanese class back in my ( Read more... )

After a week of boxes, boxes, heavy furniture, books, boxes, and boxes, I think Itsumi and I are moved in to Tuscaloosa. We love our apartment; for a one-bedroom, it's humongous, and we can actually store all of our crap. And we inherited my grandparents' awesome sofa and loveseat. I was so glad to get rid of our old Wal-Mart futon. Now I can ( Read more... )

I'm in the throes of moving torture right now, but instead I'm ranting about something completely different today ( Read more... )

I was sitting at the reception desk at work today as I always do, and I saw a very large hornet fly into the front doorway. I got up and walked over to the front door to observe the hornet through the safety of the window in the door. It was at least two inches long and looked like he could have easily taken out one of the sparrows that hang out ( Read more... )

So disgusting--and yet, somehow, so believable. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1815509,00.html?cnn=yesRead more... )