Quiz, Extremists, Robots (again!)

What better way is there to display some strange advertising other than having a quiz? What will you win? Maybe I could send the first winning answer to the first picture, the item that it's advertising? That might be a little ambitious of me but let's give it a shot.

And your guess is?

This banner got my attention and while the seated schoolgirl pulling up her stockings got my attention, I had not idea what I was supposed to buy next. What do you think it was?

Actually, I just wanted to post links to the two stories below but they don't have anything to do with anything going on over here.



1. I don't know what my robot kick is, but here's another story that is certainly leading to Tomorrow. I keep thinking of the medical droid that put Luke Skywalker's hand back on.

2. Extremists exist in all religions!

Robots, Aliens, Pizza, and Turkey

"Just give it electricity, and a robot can work for long hours, even doing repetitive work, and you don't have to worry about labor laws," Sudo said (from here).

I just think it's pretty crazy that quote is not from the Tom Selleck/Gene Simmons hit movie Runaway or that lesser known movie about robots by that Fresh Prince guy. The future is now! Robots are among us (if you live in Japan). I haven't had any sightings yet (that I know of) but I'll be on the lookout.

"It Is The Future. He fought the horror of robots programmed to kill."

We headed up to Yokohama today to get a new stamp on my spouse visa. My previous one runs out in January. I've never been to New York but I've heard it's a melting pot. A true melting pot is the waiting room for immigration services. I saw Koreans, Africans, Fillipinos, Chinese... I even saw a fellow American but I don't know if they want to let him stay longer. He was wearing a ballcap, sweatshirt, shorty-shorts, running shoes, and black knee-high socks with pink neon stars all over them. The Africans and Koreans were really giving him the look-over.

You don't make appointments for these types of services in Japan. You just show up, take a number, and wait your turn. The ticket dispenser displays how many people are in front of you (33 today and we waited an hour) and a little digital sign above each window lets you know what number they're on. If you get there early enough, it's not that bad of a system.

To celebrate Thanksgiving, we ate at a pizza buffet. I think it was pizza. There was salad pizza, which tasted like chewy toast with some lettuce and dressing on top. There was also corn pizza (corn OFF the cob). Speaking of corn off the cob- it's pretty popular as a topping for biscuits at bakeries.

There might be some debate as to what American pizza joints serve authentic pizza. There's brick oven, thin crust, thick crust, pizza bread, cheese crust... Most agree, that even bad pizza is good pizza. In Japan, most pizza is bad pizza. The cheese is flavorless and overall, it's just kind of bland. In all fairness, I haven't had anything from Pizza Hut or Pizza-La-La (I can't afford the $30 price for one) but I have had the occasional piece from the random bakery, the supermarket variety, and the place mentinoed above (Shakey's Pizza- We ordered "The Lunch Viking!"). I've heard rumors that the Navy Base sells American pizzas and I've even seen people carrying five or six home on the train.

Getting back to turkey, I've only seen once, since I've been in Japan. It's part of a petting zoo at a nearby nursing home. It's pretty sickly looking and I'm not sure it would make for much of a Thanksgiving dinner, much less a 12" roasted turkey breast sub with double cheese (from America) on a toasted wheat bun.

Happy Late Thanksgiving to all!

Optimus Prime

UPDATE: A few pictures of Jeremy surfaced and I added them to his page, here.

It's pretty nifty. It has two headlights. Both are powered by a generator and one strobes all the time, while the other only comes on at night. J-Pop dragged us to D2 (kind of like Wal-Mart and Lowes combined) and declared this was the bike for me.

I sat on it in the store and everything seemed ok. Noriko pleaded with him to let us shop around a little and try to do some bargain hunting but he would have none of it. It was this bike and it was that day. It's designed to fold up and it fits into a carry bag. You can ride to the station, fold it up, hop on a train, and roll away at your destination.

There are just a few things wrong with it:

1. It's really heavy. I guess to make it small AND sturdy, they had to thicken up the walls of the tubular pipe that make up its frame. Despite its very low gear ratios, I usually have to walk it up hills.

2. I have the seat at its highest setting and it's still too short. The seat position in relation to the height of the handlebars also causes sever back pain.

3. The sleak, sporty seat is a little too sleak. It feels like a dull splitting wedge covered in leather. The longer I sit on it, the more painful it becomes. I usually end up halfway on the bike, perching on the seat with one of my hamstrings.

The seat also does something to nerves in my seat region. Usually after I stand up, I have trouble walking. I can't help but think of those "ergonomic" racing seats that were causing bicyclists to become impotent.

So, I'm taking offers if anybody would like to make one.

Until next time, as Optimus Prime would say, "Transform and roll out!"

Aikido Test and Enbukai

I had my second aikido test, last month. This one was for 4th kyu. I was completely stressed out, beforehand. Would I have to lead the bok-to (wooden-sword) suburi (swings) counting? Last time, I had to do some counting and although I've been able to count to ten, since my elementary school goju karate class, I got a little confused. How much ukemi (protective falling) would I have to take? We always do a burnout session at the end of our classes and our tests are no different. In fact, we usually have to do more. Last time, I had to do sixty and it completely zapped me.

To answer those questions: I did not have to any counting. However, the test emcee did try to tell me to join in with the others in the kiai (shout) with each cut. We never practice kiai in our dojo so I feel a little self-conscious when I try to sound off with an "OI! or "UUU!" during techniques. Regarding the ukemi, I only had to do forty. I was a little surprised as I still had some get up and go left. No complaints though. Doing ukemi in rapid succession is very tiring.

Also, today was the Yokosuka City Aikido Kenkyukai International Enbukai. An enbukai is basically an exhibition or demonstration. Numata Sensei is the main teacher for Yokosuka so this was his day. Other "shihan" (master teacher) have their own enbukai for their respective areas. Twice a year, we have a large enbukai with all of the AKI dojo in attendance.

At the moment, Misakikai Dojo is comprised of myself, Nishimura Sensei, and sometimes, Aoki Sensei. While it's beneficial to train with many partners, I'm getting some benefit from my circumstantial private lessons.

The Misakikai Dojo portion of the enbukai was Nishimura Sensei and myself doing some techniques to a short musical piece. We did:

Nishimura Nage/Me Uke:

Suwari Shomenuchi Ikkyo Omote and Ura(2x)

Suwari Shomenuchi Nikkyo Omote and Ura (2x)

Suwari Shomenuchi Nikkyo Omote and Ura (2x)

Suwari Shomenuchi Kokyu Nage that turned into a Tachi Iriminage

Tachi Shomenuchi Iriminage (2x)

Me Nage/Nishimura Uke:

Katate Kokyunage (4x)

Katate Shihonage (4x)

Nishimura Nage/Me Uke:

Shomenuchi Kokyunage (3x)

View of Students Warming Up

I did have one surprise during the day. I'm only a member of Misakikai Dojo. Occasionally, I train at Numata Sensei's dojo. One dojo lined up for their demo and realized they were one person short. One of the guys (the emcee from the testing day) told me "Mo hitori!" I jumped to my feet and ran to the empty spot. I didn't know the song or how long it lasted. When things are unexpected there's no time to be stressed out.

A horse is a horse, of course, of course...

..., especially when it's "basashi." That's Japanese for "raw horse meat." In Japan, it's a delicacy (As Noriko sometimes tells me I'm not, when I exhibit ungentlemanly behavior, as in,"You're not a delicacy.").

J-Ma and J-Pop headed far south, a couple of weeks ago, for Kumamoto City's Country Gold Festival. In Kumamoto, horse is a regular dish. I was sitting around trying to think of how it may have been started. My best guess is that being hungry was the first step, long ago. J-Pop was happy to have some sent in a cooler, upon his return home.

It was about $20 for maybe a dozen thin slices. I only ate two of them. One for a taste test and the other just to make sure the results were conclusive. I can't say it had much of a taste. It was a deep, dark red, without any of the little white, fatty lines that is seen in beef. It's supposed to be quite healthy when compared to the other red meat.

I did feel a little guilty, afterwards. Horses are our friends, right? I mean, I wouldn't eat dog, would I? Or would I? I definitely wouldn't eat cat. There's a bear farm up north and I wouldn't mind taking a swipe at having a couple of bites of that (cooked). J-Ma explained that eating horses look different than riding horses. I mean, milking cows do look different from the other variety.

During our meal, I couldn't help but try to make a few horse jokes. "I'm so hungry I could eat..." or "Hi Ho Silver, Away!!!!" as I swallowed. Unsurprisingly, I was the only one that got them.

"Horse! The other red meat!"

"Got horse?"

"Horse. It's what's for dinner."

You get the idea.

These are a couple of pics of Charlie Nagatani. He's been organizing Country Gold for the past 20 years. His mission is to create bridges of friendship between cultures through country music. I think plans for the first Country Gold in China have been underway. This year's headliner was the Charlie Daniels Band. J-Pa's review: "He didn't move around much."

FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basashi This entry has some interesting information concerning the history of eating horsemeat. There's also a list of countries and their horseeating practices. I'm not alone, after all. Don't judge me too harshly. How does the saying go? Don't judge me until you've ridden a mile in my saddle?

That's all. I better wrap it up. My voice is getting hoarse. Please comment and give me any more puns you can come up with.

Signed,

Wilbur

What Happened To October?

Somehow, the entire month of October passed and I posted nothing. Did our Yokie from Muskogee simply not see anything new? Did he not do anything new?

Actually, a lot was going on. I'm going to try and get caught up in the next few entries.

I've also decided to combine my martial arts blog with this one. For those that want to see what that's all about, I think: http://aikisearch.blogspot.com is the link. From now on, I'll just post the new entries, here.

Also, my digital camera is broken. It didn't survive a second trip to the top of Mt. Fuji. I barely survived. The lack of new pictures and the lack of new entries goes hand in hand.

So, until the next entry, I leave you with this shot. That's Noriko riding an elevator. I'm outside waiting for it to arrive on my floor. I don't know if the monitor is a security device or if it helps one decide to use the stairs or not.