One of my favorite movies, Spirited Away, has just done the impossible -- it won the Academy Award for Best Animated Picture!

This would have been unthinkable just a few years ago; this masterpiece's creator, Hayao Miyazaki, is an internationally reknowned author, artist, and director, who has until now escaped mainstream attention, even while his films beat out Titanic, E.T., and other Western blockbusters in his home land of Japan.

But now, with Spirited Away's Academy Award, Disney (who imported Miyazaki's films and dubbed them into English for the international market) has announced that Spirited Away is being rereleased in over 800 US theaters to celebrate winning the Oscar!

Please, don't miss out on this chance to see what's already become a classic film while it's in the theaters one last time; imagine if you could tell your kids that you saw The Wizard of Oz while it was originally in the theaters! This movie is that good. Don't miss it.

Oh, and tell your friends.

My, people come and go so quickly around here, don't they!

Yes, I'm still alive. For some reason, I decided that my personal life wasn't quite interesting enough to share with everyone on the planet the past year or so -- sharing them with Brian was more than enough for me. But I figured out that writing down my feelings and thoughts -- even if I didn't think I had any -- is probably just as important as sharing them with the one I love, so I'm going to work on the ol' blog some more.

Plus, I get to corporate whore plug my favorite Mac OS X program, NetNewsWire, which lets me read all y'alls blogs, news sites, and rumors every day, all from one problems. Tres cool. Definitely check it out!

Oh, other news -- Brian and I got a buddy for Roscoe! Go see photos of our new puppy, Taka! Taka's short for "Takadanobaba", a place in Tokyo with the silliest name in the galaxy.

Taka is a Dutch Shepherd, a pretty rare breed in the States. But he's gorgeous, smart, and gets along really well with Roscoe (though even as a pup, he thinks he can dominate the old Labrador. Heh. He's got a few things coming to him..)

More news to come, but it's good to be back.

Be seeing you.

Just a short note to let you all know that (as you can guess) I'm safe and sound in California. I finally got my journal setup back online after some interesting adventures in TCP/IP and NAT debugging sessions. Anyway, I'm adjusted to the time difference already -- I slept pretty much the whole flight on ANA (which was wonderful) on the way home -- and I feel really at home here in Fremont.

Weirdest part of the trip: doing Wednesday two days in a row. Felt like I was going to hear "I Got You Babe" on my headphones when I woke up.

Brian totally surprised me when I got in the car with a beautifully wrapped, strangely cubical gift. I opened it up to find a beautiful Apple iPod MP3 Player with 10 gigabytes of hard drive space, enough for over 2,000 songs! The player is beautiful, white and chrome, and as small as a deck of cards. I love it to death, and it came at a great time -- my Creative Nomad Jukebox MP3 player died a horrible death somewhere on the plane ride home. It sort of rattles and grunts at me now before giving up with an internal hard disk error. Ah, beautiful timing.

Glad to be home. Brian, you rule.

Tonight I did one of my most favorite things in Tokyo; walked the beautiful overgrown back streets and alleyways between Hamadayama and Takaido. I'd just had a wonderful bowl of chashuu wonton noodles brimming with broth, fresh onions, and delicious shinachiku bamboo sprouts, and the quiet, cool air really helped me get my thoughts together.

I've been up and down emotionally the past few days; pretty understandable, since I'm now sitting on the tatami mats in my bedroom mostly in the dark (sold the lamps!), typing by the kitchen light. I've just got a bit of clutter left to deal with; tossed out everything old and some things new that I didn't absolutely need, to make room for the mementos and mentos I'll be bringing back. (Of course I'm bringing back Japanese Mentos! They have wacky flavors here like Grape, Mint-Lemon, Yogurt, and Apple.) I've sent off so many packages in the past week that the Kuroneko Yamato delivery guy has gotten to know me by name, even.

Ah, Japan. I don't know if I'll ever be able to see America in the same light again, but it'll be fascinating to see how I acclimate to the changes that have occurred in the US since I left. I'm really kind of terrified that everyone has become a raving warmonger, ready to shave their heads and join the Army if Shrub even suggests it. But I promised myself I wouldn't get into politics and other bits of craziness in my blog; I'll leave that to other bloggers.

So, what's left? I need to give my friend Jim the forms to let him close my bank account. I have to tidy up the last few piles of clutter around the place and figure out how to pack them nicely. I want to do some last-minute shopping for gifts for people back home, of course, and hopefully it'll fit somewhere. Oh, I also found out that All Nippon Airways (ANA), the airline I'm flying home, has a free baggage pickup service, which is a godsend in the crowded subways of Tokyo. I'll definitely be making a reservation with them tomorrow.

I just hope I will be able to get everything done in time. I'm kind of a worrywart when it comes to critical things like moving and flying; when I have to do both of them at the same time, things get a little tricky. But it's kind of amusing; the more I stress about stuff, the more I relax inside, because I know that stressing about it will actually get everything done and I won't forget anything. Man, am I a weirdo or what.

Tonight, I had my final dinner at the wonderful little soba shop across the street from my apartment. I usually ate there 2 or 3 times a month -- it was a tiny mom-and-pop place, with delicious hand-made soba and udon noodles, as well as yummy rice bowls like oyakodon (literally "parent and child bowl", a rice bowl with chicken and egg!).

It was really sad, but happy at the same time. I really made good friends with them, and sent my visitors over there for a good lunch meal whenever I had to leave them alone while going to work. They always took good care of me, and tonight, the usual crowd was there; the drunk old guy who loved to ramble about how he traveled around the US and went to companies like NCR and IBM was there.. the silly lady who always says you can't buy things like fresh ginger in America then insists that I'm wrong when I say you can.. and of course, the wonderful little black and white cat that somehow knew how to push the sliding door open whenever it wanted to go in or out.

A lot of times they give me a little present when I leave, and this time they really gave me something special -- a container of "umeboshi", the delicious pickled plums that I really like! Umeboshi are a quintessential Japanese food that are NOT for everyone; they're heavily salted, pickled plums, with a very sour taste (not unlike a lemon). Every time I think about them it gets my mouth watering, and just eating one will pucker your lips for hours. It'll be sad to say goodbye to things like umeboshi, since they're supposed to be so good for your health, but I hope I'll be able to find some of the Japanese foods I've grown to like over in California.

This is it. I've sold a good portion of my belongings, sorted out all the crap from the things I want to keep, and I'm managing to give away anything else that's left. It's hard to let go of a lot of the things I'm tossing away, especially since I know I'm going to get all nostalgic for silly things like Hello Kitty toilet paper in a few months, but, as they say in Japanese, "shikata ga nai". It just can't be helped; shipping costs are astronomical from Japan to the US, and even shipping things book rate to overseas is pretty expensive.

So, since I'm completely wiped out from packing, throwing things away, and sorting, I'll pull the usual blogger filler out and do my very first Top Ten List!

The Top Five Things I'll Miss About Japan

5. FOOD! Tokyo has by far the best food I've ever experienced -- and available everywhere for pretty reasonable prices! There are cute bakeries, wonderful cafes, and yummy noodle shops just about everywhere in the city. You don't even have to walk a few blocks to run into a few high-quality restaurants; chains are starting to catch on here, but the mom-and-pop run joints are much more popular here. And the variety of food available is mind-boggling; save for spicy food (which Japanese people generally don't like) you can get anything you want, anywhere. No wonder they came up with Iron Chef.

4. Remote-control everything. I'll miss having my lights, air conditioner/heater, and bath-tub all accessible at the touch of a button. In Japan, space is at a premium, so rather than having to maneuver around and find where exactly the lightswitch is in a room, there's usually a remote control for just about anything. I love it.

3. Common courtesy. Unlike the US, rudeness to your customer, thankfully, is still completely unthinkable here in Japan. I can successfully say I have never had bad service at a restaurant once here, and I've only run into sullen employees once or twice. Usually you get the cheery "Irasshaimase!" greeting from one or more clerks when you go into a store, and a smile and bow when you leave. It's very refreshing, but it's sad that in the US, people are more than willing to give up good service to save a buck or two. People, it's worth it. Learn to get over driving 25 miles to save 5 dollars on your sweatshirts at the Wal-Mart and be sneered at by the 17 year old pregnant cashier.

2. The convenience stores. I don't know what genius thought this up, but in Japan, the "conbini" are ACTUALLY CONVENIENT. You can pay your bills there (all bills have a bar code on them, the clerk scans 'em up, and you pay with your rice balls and sandwiches). You can get concert or movie tickets from the "navi" computer. The food is always excellent, and they'll cook it there for you -- and it changes several times a season. (Japanese people love changing things for the seasons, and it makes sense -- gives you more to look forward to than the next set of Halloween or St. Patrick's Day decorations.)

1. The trains. Oh god, the trains. On time. Clean enough to do brain surgery in. You can go anywhere in Tokyo without a car, and in fact many people spend their entire lives never driving a car here. The Shinkansen bullet train is an experience everyone should have once in their lives; it's literally like flying at ground level. And I love how most of the train lines here are linked up to one billing system, called "Passnet" (except the government-run JR lines; of course THEY have their OWN system) that lets you get on and off any subways or private train lines with just one prepaid card. You can even do transfers, and everything is calculated manually. I simply could not imagine even 2 or 3 huge companies in the US getting together and making compatible systems like this, let alone the 10 or so that have done it in Tokyo!

I stink like cigarette smoke. My feet are sore and blistered. I'm thirsty and very dehydrated.

But boy, am I happy.

Tonight, I got to see one of my most respected musical artists, Fantastic Plastic Machine (aka Tanaka Tomoyuki), perform a full DJ set at a fantastic hidden little club called "Space Lab Yellow" in Nishi-Azabu. I can't really express in words how fantastic the experience of just sharing in bouncy, fun, ecstatic music with hundreds of squealing Japanese girls and cheering Japanese guys was, but I had a truly Fantastic time.

As an addition, I now know that DJs of the vinyl sort do indeed play an instrument, and it's not the turntables. (Although some turntablists, like Kid Koala certainly DO use turntables as their instruments -- sometimes up to 6 of them at at time!). Tonight, Tanaka-san showed me just how a master DJ can play his audience like a finely-tuned instrument, reacting to their every move with beautifully-matched tunes that changed and swelled with the needs of the crowd. And every time he did a masterful cut between songs, a huge resounding cheer rose up from the crowd in unison. It's something I've never heard before, but it was truly astounding.

I will probably never hear reggae dance mixes of "Ave Maria" mixed with "Let's Get Together And Be All Right", followed by Daft Punk's "One More Time" put together with wailing diva lyrics ever again. It was so wrong -- and yet so right. And that's the real mark of a master DJ; they can get you bouncing to tunes you couldn't even imagine listening to on purpose, and then make you wish you had the set list to buy the albums afterwards.

What a night.

(Note from Ben: I added a full review of Grand Tourisme Saturday afternoon when I woke up. Check it out in the "READ MORE" link below!)

(READ MORE...)

Today was my last real day at work. (I have one more day on the 16th, but I know it'll just be for administrative junk.) Everything seemed to be eerily silent most of the day at the office; I doubt it was really that people were more quiet than usual, but I felt like people were tiptoeing around me, as if I wasn't there.

This morning in the newspaper, there was an article on how for the upcoming joint Japan-Korea World Cup that ALL pointed objects -- no matter what -- are going to be banned from the Yokohama area near the games, including (you guessed it) umbrellas. The headline read (in Japanese) "even in a typhoon, NO UMBRELLAS!". I know it's quite fashionable to comment one way or the other on the current insane phase the world seems to be going through, but this is ridiculous. I'm not going to even comment on what will happen if some soccer fan gets pneumonia and dies from being forced to walk miles in the rain with no umbrella.

Tonight on TV, there was an especially unnerving special entitled "Foreigners More Japanese than the Japanese". They highlighted the escapades of two 60s looking gentlemen, one who did traditional sumi-e Japanese ink art, cutting wooden stencils by hand before inking his paintings. The other was a Swiss gentleman who played the biwa, that ubiquitous Japanese stringed instrument that looks something like a banjo and sounds a bit like a sitar, played with a fan-like pick.

And both these guys were the laughingstock of the audience. The 20something Japanese kids were giggling and smirking as these two white guys, who had lived in Japan most their lives, tried their best to learn about the art forms Japan had to offer. And these kids, so desperate to rid themselves of any and all things Japanese, could only giggle nervously as they saw the passe world they've rejected. I know that most foreigners who make Japan their permament home are pretty nutty about the place, but that doesn't mean that everyone who tries to get in touch with the culture is just some pervert out to hit on Japanese girls. Yeesh.

Anyway.

I'm making good headway selling my belongings, but there are still a few big-ticket items left to sell. With only two weeks left (two weeks?! what happened?) I need to get these sold, and FAST. They're going fast, so don't wait!

• Washing Machine (40L) (Photo)
• Rice Cooker (4 cup, Zojirushi) (Photo)
• Sofa (White vinyl, seats 3) (Photo)
• Computer (AMD Athlon 1.2GHz, 256M RAM, 40G HD, NVidia GeForce 2 video, 100baseT Ethernet) (Photo)
• Computer Desk (Photo)
• Big Comfy Leather Computer Chair (Photo)
• Bookshelf (Photo)
• Two Futons (Photo)

First come, first served! My prices are so low, you'll think I've suffered DRAIN BAMAGE! Mail me at che ~at~ debian |dot| org (replace the at and the dot, of course) and let me know what you think these things are worth. I'll sell them as cheap as needed to get them out of the place.

So, I turned 23 today. I've never had a birthday away from home before, and certainly not without good friends around. But John and his wife Sonoko managed to make the day special for me, by treating me to a delicious soba lunch at the very same restaurant they took me to the first day I came to Japan. Not only that, but Sonoko found a perfect Italian restaurant in Jiyuugaoka for dinner, something I completely did not expect. Every part of the meal was perfect, from the olive-oil drenched tomatoes with sliced mozzarella cheese, to the gnocchi pasta, and the excellent dessert spread. I even got to have a shot of Limoncello -- strong stuff! -- after dessert.

The highlight of the day was definitely finding not one but TWO CDs in Akihabara with John -- both published in the auspicious geek year of 1986, filled to the brim with original Famicom (Nintendo) music! Some games I'd never even seen before, as they came out on the Famicom Disk System, a floppy-disk based system that let you go to the convenience store and download the latest games for your Nintendo in the '80s. Ideas like that just sometimes are implemented a bit before the world is ready for them; if something like that came out now, it would probably be decried as a vehicle for piracy or some other such nonsense.

Getting a call from Brian while I was drooling at Apple iPod MP3 players at the Akihabara Mac Hall was just the icing on the cake. I always adore hearing his voice, and it's great to literally hear the change in his emotions and tone of voice as my return date gets closer and closer. I'm getting really excited myself, although my apartment is looking mighty bare these days.

I'm pondering taking a few impromptu vacations around Japan before my time is up here. Next Wednesday is my last day at work for two weeks, so I'll be able to enjoy some of the beautiful places Japan has to offer on my own before I head back. It'll be an interesting time, to say the least.

Seen on a server's t-shirt at a little French cafe playing wonderful 60s pop by Nicole Conte:

VASECTOMY

(picture of two sweating oranges)

ALL JUICE

NO SEEDS

I was almost in tears laughing. I had to explain what it meant to him -- he had no idea at all -- and he turned completely red when he realized what I was trying to explain.

At least I learned how to say "vasectomy" in Japanese -- "PAIPU KATTO". Yes, they call it a "pipe cut". I'm going to miss Japan.