More Noheji Gion Festival photos at Noheji.com


Okay, I know I just wrote a few days ago about how I don't like writing

"boring journal style" entries on this site, but for some reason I feel like it today, so here goes...
So Sunday morning, after the big Shichinohe partay I was feeling pretty 'futsukaiyoi', bloody and battered. I drove Kat, Aya and Nate to Aomori (pulling over a few times to get gas and release vomit) and we had lunch at the impossible to spell Caprichossa. Well three of us did anyway as Kat decided after placing her order that her stomach wouldn't be able to handle the food and took off to meet her Yakuza boyfriendo. After watching the Aomori police and fire department torture small children with their scary high ladders, earthquake and car crash simulators I headed home. When I got to Noheji however I was really ready to go to bed, but much to my dismay all the roads home were blocked off because Noheji's Gion festival was going on. Instead I went to the beach and slept under a tree until a gangsta hip-hop dance party woke me up. Normally I'm always up for a Japanese hip-hop party as they are often quite amusing, but I was definately not in the mood this day. Eventually I made it back into town, and found that the road blocks were gone. Before heading to bed, I decided to snap a few shots of the parade. I got the usual stares and weird old guys wanting to shake my hand, but something different happened this time. An old woman came up to me and handed me her camera indicating that she wanted me to change the film for her. I suspected this was just a flimsy excuse to talk to the gaijin, but I cheerfuly did my best to load it. I actually couldn't figure out the mechanism, so she promply showed me how to do it thus confirming my original suspicion. I couldn't understand why this old Japanese lady who didn't speak any English wanted to speak to me so badly, that is until she introduced me to what I can only assume was her Granddaughter. As everyone knows my Japanese is beyond horrible so I couldn't really understand much of what the woman was saying. As far as I can tell her Granddaughter was the product of an encounter between her daughter and a Misawa Airbase soldier named Scott. The little almost blond haired girl looked at me with a big toothless smile, jumped up and down and yelled "English, English!". I tried speaking with her in English, but she didn't seem to understand a word I was saying. I can't help but wonder if the kid thought I was her long lost daddy or something. I felt kind of bad for the kid and wondered how many others like her live in Noheji. Of course for all I know none of what I'm assuming here could be true.


I've added a new experimental feature to the site called [url=http://www.avoidinglife.com/altv.html]'ALTV'[/url] or Avoiding Life Television. It's a streaming video channel of all my video blogs and movies. Actually since you're already here at the site it doesn't really affect you much since you can download any of the movies at any time anyway. It's mostly a way to broadcast to WinAmp users who don't know about this place yet. Actually you'll also find that it will be off much of the time (like my seldom used Jamiecam), and even when it's on it will be hard to connect to. It's kind of useless now that I think of it. Oh well. Maybe I'll figure out something cool to do with it down the road.

Hugh has posted a bunch of pictures from the Shichinohe newcomers' party that happened this past Saturday. I've long since recovered from the drinking, but my body is still in serious pain from the fighting. One would have thought with all the drinking and fighting going on that Akiko would have made an appearance. In fact the two Irish girls that were there didn't even join in any of the brawling. While the turnout wasn't as big as last year, there were still enough Gaijin present to piss off most of the Japanese people present. I was out cold by the time in the early, early morning that a bunch of dunk JETs started ringing the giant gong. I also didn't witness the JET's stealing a bunch of flags from a nearby eatery, but I did get to see the irate owner chew out Melanie. At any rate, I think it's pretty safe to say that East Hakkoda Park in Shichinohe will soon be the lastest spot in Aomori to post a 'Japanese Only' sign. I'm curious if there are any more campgrounds left in Aomori that AJET will be permitted to use. If they can find one it will likely be in some remote monkey infested part of Shimokita.

The Happy Meal has just turned 25 years old!

The horror... the horror


So yesterday I was told by one of my JTE's that her husband (who is also a teacher at another school) wouldn't have to come to work on Friday because his school would be closed on account of the giant typhoon that was going to rip through Aomori. She mentioned that there was also a chance that Noheji High School might have to close as well. Maybe if I was still a green newbie JET I would have gotten excited at this point, but I've been here long enough to know the Japanese tendancy overreact to bad weather. Still the thought of getting a chance to experience a giant typhoon got me a little excited. So I went to bed last night hoping to wake up to an apocalyptic scene, but instead woke to blue skies and a light breeze. From the looks of it I slept through the whole "storm". I think it must have rained fairly hard last night though, but I saw no fallen trees or torn apart buildings. Another JTE reported to me that his vegetable garden survived the big storm without any damage. Yup, that storm was a killer. It seems like the only natural disaster the teachers in my office don't get freaked out by are earthquakes. I guess since earthquakes happen without warning they can't get themselves worked up about them before hand.

Coming Soon... Resident Evil: Apocalyps


What on Earth has happened to Toronto since I left? Juding from the trailer to this new zombie movie, its gone to completely to Hell. Who knew Nathan Phillips Square was actually the headquarters of the evil zombie producing Umbrella corporation? Could Mel Lastman be involved? Not since Short Circut 2 have I seen a movie that so blatantly assumes that nobody in the world will recognize famous Toronto landmarks. The sad thing is that they are probably right. I vow that someday before I die that I will become the first person to ever go to New York City and film a movie that is set in Toronto. The Empire State Building can double for the CN Tower and Madison Square Gardens can double for the SkyDome.

When I first met the new Hirosaki ALT Kate (a.k.a. the "New Jenny"), we had an interesting discussion about our common dream to someday live like a mole (or Hobbit I suppose) in some kind of underground dwelling. Perhaps after my stint in Japan I might just be able to realize this dream by moving to China. Here's an interesting article I found about a little know, but HUGE underground network of tunnels throughout China. Quote:

"In fact, the Great Wall is estimated to be up to 7,000 kilometres long. Wu boasts that the underground tunnels, roughly 3 to 5 metres wide, total more than 12,000 kilometres in dozens of cities across China."

The article makes out the tunnels to sound pretty run down, but I'm sure it's nothing the Queer Eye Guys couldn't fix. Best of all, when the end of days comes I'll be perfectly safe while everyone in Canada (except maybe this guy) gets fried. Of course if I want to stay closer to home, I suppose I could purchase one of the many decommissioned nuclear missile silos for sale on eBay. If you're not interested in moving underground, but would like to do a little urban speluncking then check out the 'zine Infiltration.

Do you know what QR codes are? They are the latest fad to hit Japanese cell phones. QR codes are a new kind of bar code that can be used to store a small amount of data. You may have seen them in magazines, business cards and the like. Just take a photo of the image with your keitai and it will unscramble some sort of text message. You can also type in a message and your phone can create a new QR code that others can scan to extract information. The problem is that this can usually only be done in Japanese, but using this handy online tool you can create a QR code out of any message in English. Of course if you have a shitty old keitai, you probably can't do any of these cool things. For more information about the different types of QR codes go here. Now can anyone descramble the message above?