Free to pursue other interests for the time being... *burp*

The grad course is at an end.  Had already heard they accepted the MA paper a coupla months ago.  However, got the news that actual graduation is going to occur.  卒業生だ。Iz grajuit.  Go figure.

This begs the question: what to do meow?  There is responsibility in the mail, but it isn't here yet.  Already working the kind of job grad school was intended to lead to.  Scholarship and academic writing have absolutely zero appeal at this point.  Maybe that will change in time... but not gonna bet any money on that.

What to do then?  Use Ockham's razor... to carve the roast beast.  It's time to eat, motherfuckers!  喰いましょう！

Indian food is endlessly wondrous.  Fish tikka, aloo pakora, mutton vindaloo... all of it heavenly.  The local Turkish kebab place with its pitas overflowing with delight.  Ramen?  Amen!  特に赤味噌ラーメンはめっちゃおいしいだな。 Ice cream has taken on a greater, almost spiritual meaning.

It is remotely possible that the current running regimen may not offset this overzealous consumption.  As a comedian once said: "gonna hafta call in fat for work tomorrow."  Oh, first world problems.

Walking... Dead.

Finally played the Walking Dead game.  Brilliant piece of entertainment.  Highly recommend it to all the carbon blobs out there.

Well, it's well written.  Incredibly sympathetic (and some unsympathetic) characters.  Characters with very human flaws.  The art is brilliant and, as I understand, very faithful to the original graphic novel.  漫画はちょうかっこいいと聞いた。

Warning, spoilers follow:

The main character, Lee, finds a second-grade girl named Clementine all by herself in a neighbourhood full of zombies.  He cares for and protects her.  Becomes a surrogate father, of sorts.  As the months pass, he takes her all the way to Savannah, Georgia to find her parents... or their remains.

They battle zombies, bandits, crazies, hunger, and all manner of human drama to get there.  They find the news they seek.  Then, at the very end, Lee is bitten and is becoming a zombie.  Little Clementine has to shoot him in the head to prevent him from turning.  As the main character, I had to talk her through it and tell her I love her and to be strong, etc.  The game (on this playthrough) ended with Clementine pulling the trigger.

It's just about the saddest thing I've seen in a game.  悲しいぃぃぃ。

I suppose making the ultimate sacrifice for a child's safety is an awfully good lesson to take away from a video game.  But fuuuuuuuuck!  Still, the Radish People done recommends.  Will surely play Season 2 if... survive... gratuitous melancholy.

Something Runneth Over

Just moved into a new apartment.  Same general area.  東京の下町。Once again by the river.  隅田川。「下町」literally means "downtown", but there's an additional nuance to it.  It's the old lower city, from when Tokyo was Edo.  It has a certain feeling to it, a certain je ne sais quoi, which some locals would judge me unable to appreciate as an outsider.  Fair enough.  俺は正確に江戸っ子じゃない。Truthfully I have said essentially the same thing to some visitors in regards to my hometown.  However, as outsiders, those same folks can appreciate my hometown objectively... a thing which I am incapable of doing.  Irony.  It's magically delicious.  Especially with potatoes.  皮肉じゃが。

そう... last week in the old place,  had toilet trouble.  おトイレ様のおなかが痛かった。 There was a poonami warning, and it became quickly apparent that there was no plunger in the house.  Lived in that apartment for five years.  五年間。In all that time, there was never a problem... until that last week.  After a very hasty trip to the store, a plunger was added to the home arsenal.  It's one of those things no one thinks of until the need arises.  But when the need arose, it rose swiftly: like buoyant, impending doom borne upon fetid waters.

とにかく、プランジャーを持っている。
Anyway, has plunger now.

Dropped Trou

T'other day, went to the dry cleaners.  At last.

The late Mitch Hedberg said "this jacket is dry clean only... so it's dirty."  Yeah, that about sums it up.  Only manage to haul the cleaning in once every six months or so.  Anyway, carted in the semiannual batch and, whilst happily traipsing along with suits slung o'er mah shoulder, a pair of pants slid off the hanger and fell on the ground.  Yup.  That's right.  I dropped my pants in the street.  Didn't even notice.

Picked up the dry cleaning a week later.  Upon arriving home, noticed this alarming state of pantslessness.  Ran back to speak to the dry cleaner, only to realize what had occurred.  Checked the receipts, and the trousers were never checked in.  Brought so many pieces, didn't even notice.  Crapital.

Now, walking around the neighborhood, every pair of gray trousers catches my eye: on businessmen, on homeless guys, on dogs... you name it.  Oh, the vexation.  Fully prepared to offer a handsome bounty if they turn up on a homeless man's cart.  No joke.

Pug Head Tilt

So, walking down the street t'other day, happened to glance over and see a red car.  Not just any red car.  It was a red formula-one-style race car.  More specifically, it  was a miniature red formula-one-style race car... much like those seen in parades being driven by Shriners.  But there was no Shriner at the helm of this little red race car.  No, no, no.  This little red race car was being driven by a cow.  Not an actual cow.  A human in a cow costume.

A thought came to mind: "何それ, where the fuck is my camera!?"  Well, actually that thought came second, fast upon the heels of the first thought: "son of a mother duck... fucking cow driving a goddamned little red race car!!"

じゃー, before furiously ransacking the port pants pocket for said phone, gave a quick glance to starboard.  And there, in a wee park, was a couple about my age (アラフォー).  But not just any couple.  No, no, no.  This couple was out for a constitutional with their pair of falcons.  Yes, falcons: ye bird of prey what knocketh yon sparrow from the air and feasteth merrily upon its giblets.  隼だった。The couple even had matching arm-guards to protect against the talons.  Just assuming they were a couple.  You know, circumstances.  Maybe falcons brought them together.  No clue.

In any event, no photograph was taken then and there.  Well, unless someone passing by snapped a picture of a foreign guy standing still in the middle of the sidewalk doing the pug head tilt.  That's all this author managed to do: stand frozen in derpitude pondering how none would ever believe.  Oh, Tokyo.

Fanboy.

やった... we finally have some fall weather.  And that means one thing: fan in the window.  I cannot get enough of this autumn air.  Especially at night.  I grew up in a relatively cold place.  One of my favorite things was falling asleep with my body wrapped in a blanket like a burrito while enjoying the cool air on my face.  There's a bit about that in Moby Dick.  Melville wrote: "to truly enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast."  If someone had told me a few years ago that I'd be quoting Melville in a blog someday, I probably would've shat myself laughing... and maybe called them an asshat.

But all that aside, my housemate is not the biggest fan of cold.  Thus, my (almost) forty-year-old ass can sometimes be found occupying a little "fort" in the curtains by the window.  I have my cool air and the fan in the window, yet the heavy drapes keep the rest of the apartment relatively warm.  It's a win-win situation, I think.  A rather creative solution, perhaps.  Well, I had to resort to using the curtains because our sofa has only two removable cushions.  That isn't nearly enough to build a proper fort with.

Breakfast fisticuffs.

On the way to work t'other day, I happened upon the worst fight I have ever witnessed with my own two peepers in Japan.

We were stopped in the station (都営浅草線の三田駅) and I caught a glimpse through the window of a sneaker-shod foot flying past.  No, not a disembodied foot (that would have been a helluva thing).  It was a foot in the process of delivering a kick.  I turned around, and beheld some earnest whoop-ass in progress... at 7:00 AM... on the damn subway platform.

A construction worker was fighting with a salaryman.  Kicking, punching, wrestling... the whole bit.  The construction worker was not a big guy.  He was my size, or maybe even a little smaller.  But he was scrappy as hell.  The salaryman or office worker guy was totally getting his ass handed to him in triplicate.  The conductor on the subway platform was yelling at them: 「おい、危ないよ！」  That just means "hey, that's dangerous!"  Well, yeah!  They're going all smackdown on each other's asses at the edge of a subway platform, for fuck sake!  Many of the women on my train were covering their faces with their hands and demurely peeking over their fingers (including some of the students from our school).  They were whispering「ひどい」,「まずい」, etc.  It was eerily Victorian (though nobody actually swooned).  After my initial glance, I only looked back once more as our train started to pull away.  I could see the construction worker had the salaryman pinned on the floor.

I have no idea what started the fight: queue breaking, abstract loss of face, flatulence, fashion faux pas?  I have no idea how it ended, either.  I don't know if the police came, or the station staff intervened, or an off-duty UFC referee was handy to break the shit up.  全然分からない。 If anyone reading this knows, please leave a comment.

On the bright side, because of where we live I was fairly damn certain that neither one of those shitheels had a gun.  In everyday confrontations, firearms (particularly handguns) are like the allspice of støøpid.  Take an everyday argument and add a little sprinkle o' gun to the situation.  In no time at all, an erstwhile humdrum disagreement has transformed into a life-altering (or life-ending) disaster.

Oh well, on that note, for some folks there's nothing like a bit o' fisticuffs for breakfast to invigorate and get the blood moving... probably out of your nose.