Owning pets...

Stupid Godzilla Joke I was reading Sammy's entry yesterday about the end of Godzilla. He mentioned how much better it was than King Kong, and it reminded me of a stupid riddle...but you gotta know some Japanese. Q: What do you get when a gorilla (jp: goriraゴリラ) mates with a whale (jp: kujira鯨)? A: Godzilla (Gojiraゴジラ) Ok, so sue me...

I hate to own pets. It's not that I dislike animals. In fact, I really kinda like them. They are the only ones that will give you unconditional love. You could be in the worst mood, but they will always look up to you as if you were the most important person in the world. Of course, if you're a dog, then the "owner" IS the most important person in the world. At least until I see a dog flipping burgers at a McDonalds, that is. But if a person with long hair has to wear a hat or hair net, what's a dog gonna wear? *shudder*

At our house, when I was a kid, we had a variety of pets. My first pet, a dog, was named Kyu-chan, after Sakamoto Kyu, the singer of "Sukiyaki" (Jp: Ue wo muite aruko...). Don't ask: My mom named her. We had her for about a year when one day she ran out into the street and was hit by a car. I was in the 4th grade and devastated. I went to school and started to cry everytime I thought about her. A classmate of mine, Reed--God rest his soul--tried to cheer me up by telling me his chicken died recently too. Oh? Did you bury her? I asked. She was dinner... Hahahah! I kid you not! I couldn't make this up if I tried. I've had the funniest conversations in my day. But, at the time, his comment made me cry even more.

We've had rabbits, and hamsters and tropical fish. But my favorite pet was a cat. Cats can be stuck up, and nonchalant, and they will never fetch. But there is something about their sense of independence, their pride that I just love. And they are smart creatures. No, they won't pound their paws four times to answer what 2 + 2 equals. It won't even meow loud if an intruder were lurking--in that, you can't beat a dog. But still, they can live pretty independently, and they know exactly what they want.

What kind of pets have you owned?

Lazy Saturday, random dream

Well, it's lazy and random mostly cuz I'm recovering from a hangover...

• Somedays I will have had 3 pints and have a splitting headache, and on other nights down 6 to 8 pints and wake up woozy, like today...
• After visiting a number of places, I'm glad to learn that I am not the only one who is addicted to Xanga...
• It's raining off and on. At this particular moment the sun is shining through the clouds even as the rain beats down furiously on my bedroom window.
• Thanks for all the advice. I guess I'll just resign myself to having a simple Xanga page. I'm not so much into "cool" anyway. My time has passed. "Cool" is for the young and the adventurous, not the middle-aged and the conservative. One sign that I am getting old: It took me 5 minutes to figure out that CSS meant Cascading Style Sheet...

Last Night's Dream

(with some embellishment.)

I walk into a classroom. White, sterile. One florescent light overhead. Large windows on two walls, one in front, one to the right. On the left is a whiteboard. Desks--about 12--are lined up against the wall on the right, in front of the window. I turn around in the room to orient myself, only to find that the desks are now lined up in the middle of the room in four rows three across facing the window. And students are sitting there taking notes.

"...each group must take one chapter of the story and give a presentation," I announce. "But first we must take our final."

All the students groan as I pass out the exam. They open up their Bluebooks and start scribbling answers to questions that I have yet to form...

I go to the whiteboard and write the sequence of presentations by the groups. Some students respond immeditately.

"But this is our final exam, right? Do we have to come for the rest of the semester?"

"Well, duh! I mean, there's only two weeks left. Besides, the groups will provide information crucial for the final exam," I shoot back.

"But we're taking the final right now!" one student reminds me.

"No wonder I can't answer the question," complains another.

"Don't worry, you'll do fine. I'ts only an exam..." I try to comfort them.

The students just roll their eyes and continue with the exam, turning them in one at a time.

Next class--I don't actually remember leaving the room--only four students show up, those who were supposed to give presentations. In fact, one of the presenters brought the typed presentation of another student who decided the semester was over...

I wonder if this means anything?

Escalator etiquette

I went to work today as I always do. I take the train into town, and for me it is an easy commute. I lived in Japan for a number of years and now truly appreciate mass transportation: no wear and tear on the car, lower insurance premiums, no headaches of sitting in a car stuck in a two-lane parking lot (route 66). A five minute skip from my house to the station, 25 minutes on the Metro to DC, then a 3 minute walk to my office. Not a hard commute at all.

Now, I usually run a little late, what my friends used to call JST (Japan Standard Time) which means about 20 minutes later than everyone else. As a result, I always end up running to the station and walking up and down the escalators. Which brings me to my point: There is such a thing as escalator etiquette. In DC, anyway. The standard unwritten rule is "stand to the right, pass to the left." When I'm with Mus... uh, I mean, the wifey--geez, now that I think of it, what should I call her now?--anyway, when we're on the escalator, we will usually stand behind each other to allow others to walk up to our left. But when I'm by myself, I am the one passing to the left. Many out-of-towners are unfamiliar with this rule and I usually don't say anything. I just stop behind them unless I'm really late: "Excuse, I'd need to get through." I have had people roll their eyes. "Look, Herman. They're all show-offs, walking up escalators." Or, "Geez, what's his rush?" I wanto ta say something like, Look Harriette, not all of us are on vacation. But I usually think better of it, and just ignore them. Another basic rule is to take the elevator when you are lugging around a large suitcase or stroller or bicycle. Not only does it block the entire width, it is can be dangerous trying to balance something oversized on the steps of the escalator.

But the one rule of etiqutte that everyone must absolutely follow was ignored today, by a middle aged man walking up the escalator in front of me. He obviously didn't realize that one must never, absolutely never fart on the escalator. Walking up the escalator as I usually do, my face is around butt level of the person ahead of me. I get the first whiff... Oh man! Who cut the cheese! But I'm caught in no-man's land. I want to avoid this malodorous chunk of air--man! my nose hair was curling--but I can't step to the right, as the people who are not walking upstairs are standing on every step. I can't just stop because there are others walking up behind me. Even worse, I can't help but think that the person behind me probably thinks I cut the cheese! I wanted to turn around and appeal, It's not me! Ugh, I hate it when people are so inconsiderate...

Issa

Haiku is often thought of as being deep and universal. While it can be read that wya, it can be seen to be very light hearted in many instances. This is a short verse by the Edo haiku poet KOBAYASHI Issa.

やれうつな 蠅はえが手をすり足をする

oh don't hit fly hands rub feet rub

"Oh no! Don't swat me!"
The fly rubs together
its palms and soles

The image of this poem is simple. The poet observes a fly as it rubs its hand together, as flies are wont to do. Issa, however, applies human characteristics to this action. He imagines the fly rubbing its hands--plams together--begging for mercy: Oh no! Don't swat and kill me! The translation is rather mundane, if you ask me. Now that I've explained the gist of the haiku, is there a better way to translate this? It should be light, amusing, and direct. Nothing fancy shmancy.

Note: Japanese is an SOV (subject-object-verb) language unlike English which is SVO. A crude example: "I eat bread." In Japanese, the sequence of words would be "I bread eat." Althought there is a lot more going on, that's one way of understanding the structure at its most simplistic level.

Oscar funk

Once upon a time, I went to a lot of movies. But not lately. The movies of recent years are interesting but not outstanding. At least in my little mind. Back in the 70s, when I first became seriously interested in movies, I went to see flicks like The Godfather, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Annie Hall, Deer Hunter, Apocolypse Now, The French Connection, Patton. The 80s had its share of good movies as well: Chariots of Fire, Ghandi, The Color Purple, The Killing Fields, The Right Stuff, The Big Chill. There were of course the fluff pieces like Rocky and The Goodbye Girl. But they were pretty good too. What attracted me to these movies was the human craft--the actors who perform with their heart and their minds to create a piece of art. Now I enjoy CG a lot. Certainly it is a necessary part of many movies. But when it becomes the vehicle of a movie, then it loses some of its impact on me. Star Wars and Close Encounters were certainly great movies, but it never bothered me that they never won an oscar in the major categories. I think Alec Guiness was the only one nominated for Star Wars, but that was probably because of who he was rather than what he did. Close Encounters was not nominated for Best Picture but it did get at least a Supporting Actress nod--Melinda Dillon. But as movies relied more and more on effects to tell their stories, it is not surprising that they rarely received acting nominations--ET, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and more recently Babe (the talking pig!) being good examples. Of course, despite the great story telling, without the human element--the outstanding acting--as the driving force to carry the film, they never received a Best Picture award.
Until this year.
Kudos to Lord of the Rings. It won in every category it was nominated for. And this is great for storytelling that relies more on special effects than acting, as the members of the academy voted it as Best Picture but did not hand out a single nomination to any of the actors. This is fine I suppose, and I wouldn't have given it a second thought had this occured in any of the past eight years. What gets me is that this is not the best film of the year. Maybe the best trilogy in the past few years, but that's not the category: Best picture of the Year. Why should the other movies be compared to a trilogy? It was a wonderful movie, to be sure, and I couldn't wait to see it, but personally, The Last Samurai or Pirates of the Carribean were just as good, and In America was probably better. Certainly, Mystic River and Lost In Translation were. Seabicuit is the other odd one. It too was a good movie but I didn't think it was worthy of a best picture nomination. Be that as it may, with the clean sweep by LOTR, I'm afraid the other great movies of the year--and I think there is no mistaking that this was a pretty damn good year for movies--will soon be forgotten. Certainly well crafted, well performed, but small flicks like Lost In Translation will disappear from the public consciousness in a year or two. Probably less. Quick, in 2001 Gladiator won Best Picture. Who were the other nominees? Answer below...
In any case, I'm sure I'm in the minority, but I am Old School. I am sad that LOTR dominated the Oscars. And I had wished that a movie in which superior acting was a major factor had won. Although I do think Gollum--he's so precious--was overlooked by the academy for a Best Supporting Actor nomination.
List of Best Pictures with acting nominations for the past 12 years.B=Best, M=Actor, F=Actress, S=Supporting, *=winner of category.
2004 Lord of the Rings: No nominees...
2003 Chicago: BF Renee Zellwegger; BSF *C.Z. Jones, Queen Latifah; BSM John Reilly.
2002 A Beautiful Mind: BM Russel Crowe; BSF *Jennifer Connelly.
2001 Gladiator: BM *Russell Crowe; BSM Joaquin Phoenix.
2000 American Beauty: BM *Kevin Spacey; BF Annette Bening.
1999 Shakespear in Love: BF *Gwyneth Paltrow; BSF *Judi Dench.
1998 Titanic: BF Kate Winslet; BSF Glori Stuart.
1997 The English Patient: BM Ralph Fiennes; BF Kristin Scott Thomas; BSF *Juliette Binoche.
1996 Braveheart: No nominees; although Best Director winner was male lead, Mel Gibson.
1995 Forrest Gump: BM *Tom Hanks; BSM Gary Sinise.
1994 Schindler's List: BM Liam Neeson; BSM Ralph Fiennes.
1993 Unforgiven: BM Clint Eastwood; BSM *Gene Hackman.
1992 Silence of the Lamb: BM *Anthony Hopkins; BF *Jodie Foster.
In 2001, the other movies nominated were Erin Brockovich, Chocolat, Traffic, and Wo hu cang long. How many did you get? I only remembered Erin Brockovich, only because I don't really like Julia Roberts...