I’ve been trying do delete this blog for a couple of weeks now, but wordpress seems to be ignoring me. If you’re interested in anything you see here, please come over to this site, which is regularly updated. I won’t likely be updating this site again.

Well, I guess this is how it begins. Japanese government officials are discussing ways to better defend the country, including setting up the legal framework to allow Tokyo to launch a pre-emptive strike against North Korean missile sites.

“If we accept that there is no other option to prevent an attack … there is the view that attacking the launch base of the guided missiles is within the constitutional right of self-defense. We need to deepen discussion,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said.

Now, anyone who reads this blog knows that I’m no fan of North Korea. Nor am I especially fond of Japan’s weak-in-the-knees constitution. I don’t, however, believe that the Japanese government should be seriously considering making an end run around Article 9 with a pre-emptive attack on their minds. If the Japanese people want to change their constitution through a legal referendum (to my knowledge the only constitutionally legal method), that’s one thing. It’s quite another for the government to embark on a path of ‘creative interpretation’ and by-pass the people altogether.

Found this quite by accident. It was stupid enough to make me laugh…

OK. Now, if this is gonna make any sense to whomever is reading this, the first thing ya gotta do is go over to Multi Medium and check out a pic with the caption “Orange wall with thingy.” I was over there myself earlier today and saw the pic in question, and didn’t think anything of it until later, when I happened to drop by Loser’s Guide and saw an eerily familiar looking object in an article called “The Truth Is Right Here.” It doesn’t end there, people. I took the picture you’re looking at right now with my cell phone (sorry for the poor quality). Look closely and you should recognize this object. Yes!! It’s the same object! And do you know where I saw it? It was hovering over a rugby field in back of my condo!! The glare is from the field’s lights, but this is clearly the same object. They’ll never take me alive…

…can be a little dangerous sometimes. (Go ahead and click, it’s less than 30 seconds!)

I’ve had days like that…

My new friend Maliha over at Lightness of Being… has sent me a meme tag. Maliha, I usually hate this kind of stuff, but in the spirit of friendship, good international relations, world peace, saving the whales, and plugging the hole in the ozone layer, I will play along. I’ll need a bit of time to figure out which of my friends to ‘tag’. Here goes…

I am?
an outsider, a stranger in a strange land
I want?
to live forever
I wish?
England would win the World Cup; my beloved Boston Bruins would win the Stanley Cup
I hate?
Japanese-style pizza (potatoes and mayonnaise on pizza? gimme a break!); intolerance
I miss?
my father (who never got to meet his grand-daughter); Canada
I fear?
anything bad happening to my family
I hear I am not?
a very nice guy
I hear I am?
a very nice guy
I dance?
only when it’s absolutely necessary! (except with my daughter–anytime, anywhere)
I sing?
goofy Bugs Bunny-style ‘opera’ tunes to my daughter (“Figaro” is her favorite); old Rolling Stones tunes when Japanese friends drag me to karaoke
I cry?
when nobody’s watching, about really sappy things
I am not always?
aware that I’ve acted or spoken unkindly
I make with my hands?
very good sandwiches; a nice, spicy chili; silly play-do creatures with my daughter
I write?
these days about my love/hate relationship with Japan; generally about things that interest me or make me concerned
I confuse?
nobody intentionally, but probably many accidentally
I need?
some time alone (maybe more than most people)
I should?
work a lot harder to improve my Japanese; quit smoking
I start?
umm…what time is it now?
I finish?
umm… when do you need it?

In an article in the Japan times talking about the apparent lack of sex in Japan resulting in a declining birth rate, a Japanese researcher says that it’s “important for men to have sexual relationships.” About half of the world may be stunned by this news… The other half have known it all along…

Not long after I arrived in Japan in 1998, North Korea test-fired a missile, part of which flew over Japan and landed in the Pacific Ocean. Now, according to this Reuters story (you can read about it anywhere, actually), it looks like they’re getting ready to test another missile, this one more long-range capable. If the idiots in Pyongyang are true to form, this one will also likely violate Japanese airspace, not to mention all international norms of civilized behaviour. I was quite aware that North Korea was the nutjob of nations before I came here, but living next door to to the global village idiot is enough to raise anyone’s level of anger and disgust.
Of course these missiles are relatively harmless without a payload, and it’s fairly common knowledge that North Korea has a nuclear weapons program, if not actual possession of one or more nuclear bombs.
From 1977 to 1883 agents of the North Korean government were responsible for the abduction of many Japanese civilians. Most were abducted to teach Japanese language and culture to North Korean spies, some in order to obtain their identities.
For years North Korean spy boats have routinely violated Japanese territorial waters, for the purposes of both espionage and smuggling drugs into Japan.
North Korea can go on ranting all it wants about Japanese war atrocities and the wartime occupation/colonization by Japan, but it doesn’t change the fact that Japan stopped throwing its weight around 60 years ago, while North Korea’s crimes (and that’s what they are) are recent and ongoing. I won’t even go into what this pathetic excuse for a government does to its own people.
Given the above, and the relatively recent news that North Korea has been counterfeiting US currency in order to make a few bucks and destabilize the American/world economy, we Kyklopes are tempted to ask our American friends one simple question: what the fuck are you guys doing getting blown up in Iraq?

… to begin posting here yet. If you’re reading this, sorry for the boredom. In the meantime you can find me here.

Apparently a fight broke out after a public screening of Japan’s World Cup loss to Australia last night. According to the report, at the end of the match “[...] about 10 Japanese fans began fighting, with some accusing each other of smiling even though Japan lost.” Luckily for me, I watched the game at home. Even more luckily, my (Japanese) wife was sleeping…