Michael Jackson and the Flying Slipper

Though I've laughed at and told many jokes about him, I've always been a fan of Michael Jackson. It wasn't until recently after he died though that I actually realized how big of a contribution to music, dancing, and the world in general he made. I still don't realize all that he did, but as I learn more about his life, I will.

Since his passing, I've seen some people on the internet that have been mad because everybody's making a big deal of this, because there are so many people in Africa (or wherever) that are dying everyday, so why should we make a fuss. Those people are fricking idiots. Nobody knows those other people who are dying, and those people have never done anything to affect our lives. Michael Jackson has done a lot to affect people's lives. Not just through music and dance, but also through contributing to causes, organizations, etc. Sure, people should be sad when people die even if they don't know them, but it doesn't affect them as much because well, they don't know them. Wake up, crackers.

Anyway, the floors at my JHS here in the Japans are slippery enough that when walking down the halls or just walking around in the classrooms, I take a couple of big steps and do a slide. This sliding ability provides plenty of slide to enable doing the moonwalk, and that's what I've liked to do sometimes over the past 3 years (though doing it in slippers can be tough and might not look as cool...).

Recently, my kids have wanted me to do impersonations of Michael Jackson, because they love it. So one day when I was in a classroom waiting for them to get lunch served up, etc, (they eat at their desks in their classrooms) some of them wanted me to do an impression of him. So I started singing and dancing, and kicked my foot up in the air. Well, you don't wear shoes at schools in the Japans, you wear slippers. When I kicked my foot up in the air, my slipper flew off and headed to a group of tables. It hit a couple of times, missed the first lunch tray, barely missed the second, landed on the second (without touching the food), then fell bottom down on a girl's bowl of rice and fried fish..... I was kind of shocked that it would land in her food that perfectly. Immediately after that happened, another teacher came in the room, but I down-played it as I had already got it back on my foot, and then quickly exchanged her food for mine. If the teacher knew what happened, I don't know, but all of the students erupted in laughter and I heard some of them telling others and the teacher all the details. It wasn't quiet for a few minutes after that. Needless to say, I apologized with a dogeiza.

Fuggin

I commented on Reuben and Clarissa's blog, and the captcha it gave me was interesting...

Pure Loogie Awesomeness

I've been kind of sick for the past week or so. I'm kind of starting to get over it, but I still have mucus that I have to spit up throughout the day. This morning while driving to work, I sucked together all the loogie goodness from my nasal and throat and hocked it out the window. To my pleasant surprise as I looked at it fly out the window, the clear part (spit) quickly flew backwards, while the green part (phlegm/mucus) continued on a straighter path. I have never before seen such awesomeness as this in my short life. The complete separation of spit and mucus from my loogie... I about had an accident in my pants...

Accepted to Grad School

I applied for the Asian Studies master's degree program at the U of U, and was accepted for Fall 2009. I've got my schedule worked out and have signed up for my classes. 4 of them will count for the major, and one of them won't because it's just a 1000 level class that I'm taking to better prepare for grad school at Hawaii. Yuko will also be going to school at the U (assuming we can both get residency tuition... if we don't, the milkman will make his strike). In fact, all 4 classes she is taking are 4 that I'm taking too. So she'll be able to take all of her classes with me. Score 1 for us against the textbook Nazis. Suckaz!

We'll go to the U of U for a year, and then I will (hopefully) go to Hawaii for 2 years to get master's degrees in Japanese and Anthropology. After that, I want to get a PhD in Anthropology. Right now, I either want to do that in Hawaii, or I might be able to get it (or do part of it) through Hawaii while going to a school in Japan and doing research. That's still 3 years away though, so who knows what will happen.

Florida Video

So I finally got the video for our trip to Florida (July 2006) done. I was planning on editing it right after I edited our trip to California when we got here in the Japans in late 2006. But after I got done with the video for California, I looked everywhere for the Florida tape, but it was nowhere. The only place I thought it could be was in my camera that I left home. So I had that sent over, and we got it open by taking it to an electronics store here (they didn't send the power chord with it, because they had no idea where in the frick it was). Anyway, it was in there, and I just finished editing it. I put it up on youtube, but the audio was disabled almost immediately. Those nazis are getting pretty quick with that stuff. So you can check it out either on Facebook, or the video page on my website (under 2006).

Nabana 2008 Video

This is the video from when we went to Nabana no Sato last year.



Better video quality here.

Sumo

I went to see sumo this past Wednesday. It was SOOO awesome. Your butt starts hurting after awhile, but it's well worth it once you get into the last 2 hours. On the tickets, it says it starts at 10:00am, but we got there about 9:20am, and they were already going at it. Very few people were in there already. There were however, really annoying gaijin (foreigners) that would yell cheers for sumo wrestlers, etc. How in the frick do they even know these guys in the first matches I wonder... They're never on TV or anything. These people must be completely infatuated with sumo. Sumo otaku nerds.

Anyway, me and Yuko's grandpa were on the 6th row from where the wrestling took place. It was so close I felt I would get a shower when they ran into each other and sweat spewed forth in all directions. Before the popular guys started coming on, I went out to the entrance to try to get some of their autographs. I saw three guys, and got one autograph. I guess it's pretty rare to get an autograph from the more popular guys, but I managed one from an ozeki. I also saw Hakuho (yokozuna), but no signing from his ace.

Some people say that if you want to go to sumo, then just buy the cheap nosebleed seats, and you can still sit close in the morning when nobody is there. That's fricking stupid. Why would you be satisfied with sitting close to see wrestlers you don't even know, and for the guys that you do know, you are so far away you can barely recognize them? Stupid people and their stupid thinking...

For the last 3 hours, they bring out the baskets of salt that the wrestlers throw onto the ring. These last 3 hours are also televised. We were on TV many times. In fact, Yuko's grandma was watching it and was very surprised to see me. She didn't know we were going. She was jealous that grandpa went with me because she would have liked to have gone too.

One cool thing about sumo is that when they come in, they walk through the same place that you walk. There are no underground entrances or whatever. So anybody can be up really close to any wrestler as they walk in or out. You're not supposed to take video in the wrestling place, but I did. Nobody said anything, so I didn't stop. When I tried to take video of my favorite guy as he was walking in though (Asashoryu), security stopped me and said I couldn't take video inside. Whatever. At least I got to see my guy. Suckers.

The video for this is going to be awesome. When I get done I'll post it on here. But first, I've got to finish Nabana 2008 (basically finished it yesterday) and Florida.