Tim’s Ramblings

Watching the Oscars in HD. Oooooooooooh. Puuurty.

And I have to say, Nicole Kidman looks even better on widescreen and in high def. She’s sooooo frickin’ hot. I don’t care what other people say. She is one attractive woman. Oh…and the dude that played bond looked well too…but really, it could have just been her.

Oooh. Pan’s Labrynth won for set decoration. I’ve been wanting to see that movie. Anyone seen it yet?

Ok..acceptance speech time. I can write.

Got home last night and finally got to sleep in my own bed. It’s nice. But I couldn’t sleep (as per usual) and didn’t get to sleep until past 2. Of course, this meant I slept in until after 2pm….ooops. I got up and then started to fall asleep again but my sister thankfully woke me up at 3 and I’ve managed to stay up ever since so far.

….oooh..and Maggie Gyllenhaall is on too. Ok…she’s hot too. Her and Nicole Kidman. …um…I’d can I have them both? Please?

Right…back to the post.

Anyway, not much more to say. Tomorrow is work and I was already told by my sister that I have some stuff waiting for me. Yeah…and I have stuff for myself to do too already. Gonna be a busy week. We’ll see how I fare with the jet lag this time. Gotta remember to buy my plane ticket too for my next trip in March. You know how I said I might try to make less trips this year? Yeah…I’m still trying.

Back to the show. Not that I’ve seen any of these movies really. I’m realizing that I think the last movie I actually saw in the theaters was either Snakes on a Plane or the 2nd Pirates. Whichever came out last. Oh…or Silent Hill. One of the 3. Sad isn’t it? I gotta get out more. Anyone who thinks they don’t have a life should just look at mine and it’ll make them feel better.

Blah.

But enough of that. Back to the show!

Yup. Still here.

I survived the trip to Osaka on the super fast bullet train and today was another long day where I didn’t get back to the hotel room until close to 10pm.

Tomorrow I have some morning meetings but in the afternoon I plan on checking out and heading out to my parent’s place to spend the nigt there since it’s a short 20 minute train ride as opposed to well over an hour and a half or more from where I am now. Makes things easier though lugging my luggage all the way to my parent’s place is a pain.

I haven’t packed yet but I’ll do it quickly tomorrow morning. I typically get up at 6 anyway.

I DO have stuff to write about but I’m too tired right now. Might do it tomorrow if my wireless dialup card works…been giving me issues these past few days….

Let’s see…soon you’ll see a post about the bullet train (over 180mph!!!) and a new cream that’s available here in Japan for allergies. Direct from Germany, it’s this cream that you rub on the inside of your nose that’s supposed to trap pollen and stuff. There are some questions about whether it actually works buuuut it seems to do the trick. Besides, it’s better than wearing a mask…which is what everyone here does but I can’t really do in the US without someone panicking and calling the police thinking I’m a terrorist….

Anyway, off to bed.

‘night.

(^_^)

Not much to say really…just another work day.

But I will relay one little episode from tonight.

I went out to dinner and decided to head out to Shinagawa to one of the small little ramen shops there. There’s one shop that was rated Tokyo’s #1 which means there is a line out the door… So I went to another one where the crowd is reasonable if not almost empty but the ramen is still top notch with great noodles and a really tasty soup.

I bought my tickets from the vending machine for a bowl of chicken stock ramen and a side order of gyoza (pot stickers) and walked into the small shop. As soon as I walked in though, it felt weird…like something was out of place. There were the hard working ramen chefs behind the counter as usual, the young bored looking girl ushering me to my seat at the counter, and the obligatory quiet Japanese business men in suits slurping their noodles while reading something on their cel phones… Visually it was a typical ramen hut in Japan.

As I sat down, I realized what it was. I realized that as soon as I walked in, the Dixie Chicks were BLARING from the speakers.

It was weird.

Ramen and the Dixie Chicks.

I guess you had to be there….

(-_-)

Today sucked in terms of weather. It was nasty, rainy, windy…just a really bad day…too bad it was also my one day free. Blah…

I had a late start since I actually slept in until 9. Yeah…in Japan that’s sleeping in for me as I typically get up at 6. I called downstairs to tell them that I don’t need housekeeping so I can stay in juuust a bit longer and I left around 11. As soon as I stepped outside though, my little travel umbrella that I always carry around instantly turned inside out. Not good…. It’s never done that before too…it was that windy. Once it turns inside out, it kept doing that so eventually I gave up and bought myself a full size sturdy umbrella at the convenience store around the corner.

Over all, I didn’t get much shopping done at all. All last week I got no shopping done either since every night I was either too tired, got back too late, or was out to dinner with our partners. This week though, I shouldn’t have that problem in the evening. Once it’s just me, they tend to leave me alone on the evenings to fend for myself, which is perfect for me.

I had lunch at Akihabara but didn’t end up buying anything really. I walked around a bit but got tired of being wet so I moved on to Harajuku to the shrine there to make an offering and also to pick up a charm for a friend and return a charm since it’s only good for a year. Once returned, they will dispose of it properly. It was nice at the shrine though. Even though it was overcast and drizzling, the shrine was pretty empty due to the weather and it was nice to be surrounded by trees after a week in the city. A few western tourists too but none of them were doing or saying anything stupid to ruin everything :)

Got back to the hotel to take a break and then headed out around 6. This time I decided to check out the Yodobashi Camera in Yokohama. It’s slightly bigger than the one here in Kawasaki but alas…the Nintendo DS game that I was looking for was sold out. It seems the puzzle games are huuuuuuge in Japan. This one contains over 100 little logic puzzles. I was going to pick one up for myself and one for mom and even for my sister but it went on sale on Thursday and instantly sold out. Bah…

After that, I came back and had a nice dinner of ramen and gyoza and then headed down to waste some time at the arcade a bit. I explained the whole “medal game” thing back a few months ago (the original post). This time I tried my skill/luck at a Mario themed one. I bought 150 coins and sat down. Next thing I knew, it was 2 hours later and after going up and down for a while, I ended up with 266 coins. Not a big jump for 2 hours but at the same time, the 2 hours disappeared in a flash…. I actually had well over 200 held there too but apparently they “expire” (probably so no one can sit there and collect thousands and thousands so they never have to buy any more coins) in 3 months and mine was already expired so I had to make a whole new card. Boooo.

But yeah…it was fun. Kinda sad really. But fun. And this is why it’s a damn damn good thing I don’t live anywhere near a casino. The closest is in Detroit and that’s juuuust fine by me. Hell…all I lose here is about $16 in useless tokens. In Detroit that could mean a whole hell of a lot of money. Lots and lots of money.

Tomorrow my week starts all over again. Starts with a high level meeting with the CTO of one of our partners at 10am. Now…the trick is whether or not I remember where the office is. It’s a new office…. New building. New directions. New train station. And anyone that knows me knows that my sense of direction is…well…nonexistant.

Oh well. We’ll see.

Now for bed. Didn’t do much but I’m still real tired….

(^_^)

The Tokyo Marathon is tomorrow.

Great….

The ONE day that I was going to go out and do some shopping and such and I’m going to have to contend with some naaaasty crowds and overcrowded trains as major MAJOR sections of Tokyo will be cut off from traffic for 7 hours. Eeeeeeeeeeeeesh.

The marathon hits all the major parts of the city including Shinjuku, Ginza, Asakusa, and finishes at Odaiba where the Tokyo Big Sight is (where I was at for Comiket).

http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2264.html

Hmmmmm….I’m going to have to think and plan out my excursion tomorrow…. I think Akihabara will be okay though. But with 30,000 expected participants in the race itself (insaaane!!!) we’ll see how crazy the city gets tomorrow. For all I know I won’t even know there’s anything going on. We’ll see I guess.

Today I went back to see the parents and my grandmother who turned 90. 90!!! But she’s doing well and was looking good. The unfortunate thing was that it started to rain. That and the long 2 hour trip back to the hotel.

I think I found my alcoholic drink of choice though. It’s a Japanese drink called Shochu. This is NOT sake. This is closer to the Japanese version of vodka though the alcohol percentage is around 20 to 25%. Various flavors are available and they are all different based on the starch used to make it. Of course you can read all about it in the repository of all human knowledge known as wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouchu).

Anyway, the drink that I have fallen in love with is called Tantakatan and is a shochu flavored by an herb called shiso sometimes known as the beefsteak plant (once again, please see the almighty wiki – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perilla). Drunk on the rocks, it goes down smoooooth with a relatively strong but not overpowering herbal flavor. Of course, there’s one problem…it’s too easy to drink. Granted it’s only 40 proof, it’s so easy to drink that you don’t realize just how much you had…

I first had it just to see what it was like at a restaurant near my parent’s apartment back when I was home with my sister over the X-mas/New Year break. Since then I’ve been ordering it at restaurants if it’s available. Now…the only way I can bring any home is to put it in my checked luggage and hope it doesn’t break. I think I can risk it. Gonna go see if I can find it tomorrow. Mmmmmmmmm….. (^_^)

Anyway, I’m exhausted. It’s not even 11 yet but I think I’m going to watch some mindless TV (there’s a girl with a ridiculously squeaky voice and the other hostess is Hoshino Aki – a bikini model known for her…um…huuuuge assets…once again wiki to the rescue – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aki_Hoshino. She has not done any nudes but still…if you’re goign to do a google image search don’t be stupid and do it at work…) and go to bed :)

Hope you are all having a good weekend!

Week one is over. What a long long week. Lots of meetings. Lots of discussions. Just lots of…stuff. And it was a short week too! Eeeesh…

Next week, I have a meeting Monday morning and then some preparations in the afternoon for a conference call and a meeting on Tuesday morning. Tuesday evening I have free but I doubt for long. Wednesday I will going to Osaka on a business trip within a business trip. It’s about 2.5 hours one way on the bullet train. I’ll be going there in the late morning. Probably do an hour or so of pre-meeting meeting and then 3 to 4 hour meeting with a potential customer and then another 2.5 hour bullet train ride back. I’ll get back to the room in time to get some sleep and then Thursday I have a meeting with another potential (no names but these potentials are both huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge). Friday I have free. So far…

Gonna be a long ass week.

Tomorrow, Y, who was with me all week will be going home. I’ll be going with her to at least the first train station and then I head home to see the parents. My grandmother turned 90 so I guess there’s something going on. Tonight, as it was Y’s last day here, the two of us along with two guys from our partner office went for some yakiniku. Basically Japanese style BBQ. Good food. Good drink. And I STINK of tasty smoke from the grease and fat. Mmmmmmmmmmmm. I love it.

As soon as I post this, I am going to have dessert in the room too. I bought some ohagi. It’s basically sticky sweet rice in a ball covered with one of 3 traditional flavors. Either sweet red bean paste, sweet soy flour (kinoko), or black sasame. Tonight I will have some black sasame. Savory. Sweet. Slightly bitter. So….frickin’…..good….

Hope you all have a good Friday and a good weekend!

Wooo. Another post. I’m on a roll. Mainly I’m doing what I can to keep myself awake for juuust a bit longer so I can get some deep sleep in rather than wake up at 2 and stay awake for about an hour and a half or so before falling asleep again like I have done the past 2 nights.

Oh…there’s even a caption contest at the end to make this interactive. Of course…participating is totally optional. Like I said…I’m doing what I can to stay awake…. There may even be a prize involved (um…Joz…you’re prize for the other contest will be coming as soon as I get home…I promise this time…really!!!) as I’m in Japan now and I am surrounded by…well…what isn’t too out of the ordinary here but is pretty unique over in the US.

So…today was the day that I had my presentation. It was at a new sub-reseller’s user conference at a big hall in an expensive part of Tokyo. My presentation was scheduled to be about an hour and 10 minutes long and was to be about SOX implementation and cost in the US along with how our software is supposed to help in dealing with that cost issue. SOX in this case is an abbreviation of Sarbanes-Oxley. It’s all about corporate governance and compliance.

Yes. Exciting stuff. I know. I bet all of you are saying “damn…I wish I knew more about the intracacies of SOX and all about auditing and testing business procedures and controls”. It’s ok. It’s only natural.

Of course I’m kidding. It’s dry dry dry dry stuff. And that combined with the fact that I am not a CPA nor am I an auditor or a consultant meant that the presentation was going to be potentially difficult. Oh, and of course, this is all in Japanese. Now when I speak in Japanese it’s not a problem as I use terminology and words that I know. However, when it comes to stuff like this where there are special terminologies that I need to deal with like…say…”corporate governance”, “gap analysis”, and even the most basic stuff like “internal control”, I falter. It’s just not words that I use in a daily basis so it just doesn’t come out naturally.

Alas, I can’t really show that in front of about 100 people while I stand on stage with a microphone under a ridiculously bright light on me (in the pics below, it doesn’t look like it but trust me…there was one bright light that was in my eyes the entire time…). Of course, I need to also make sure they don’t fall asleep either and I have to make sure that they believe me. I need them to THINK that I know what the hell I’m talking about and that it’s not the person that wrote the presentation that has 15 years of experience as a CPA but it’s me.

That skill I learned while working at the farmer’s market back in Buffalo :) See…I worked at the most popular stand at the market selling apples and peaches and pears during the season. During peach season, we used to have a line that stretched from our booth past aobut 5 to 7 booths down the line. Around the time I was 14, my boss, Alan, threw an apron on me and told me to stop packing the fruit in the back of the truck but help him sell. Now I have never picked an apple in my life nor worked at an orchard. I have no idea how the peaches are doing on the trees. I don’t have a clue as to the intracacies of managing an orchard. I’m no expert at selecting just the right blend of apples to make the perfect apple sauce. But I listened to Alan and remembered everything he said so when asked, I can repeat it back like I knew what I was saying. It worked back then. It still works now :)

Of course nothing goes that smooth though right? First off, the presentation is entirely in Japanese. Japanese that I can’t read as it’s full of kanji (the ones that look like chinese characters). So I had notes in English. But I had to speak in Japanese. With the pressure, even though I’m used to public speaking, of being in front of them all in Japan (if this was in the US I wouldn’t have any issues), with some concerns about my vocabulary of industry specific terms, I had to read my notes in English and then give the presentation in Japanese while looking at a slide in Japanese that I can’t read. Fun eh?

On top of it all, right around slide 5 out of 28 or so, I started to realize that I didn’t have enough content for an hour, let alone more than half an hour. This presentation was designed to be given in English and then be translated in Japanese. It’s SUPPOSED to be for half an hour… Crap crap crap.

This meant, not only am I reading notes in English, speaking in Japanese, trying to remember specific terms, but now I have to literally make up content to fill the time on the fly as I’m presenting without any time to actually think. All the while I have to make the presentation sound natural and believable.

In the end, I managed to stretch it out to 50 minutes and then I had (as planned) one of the top guys from our partner come up and talk about the partnership effort between my company and his in terms of selling a SOX solution in Japan. He caught on to the fact that I ran short and managed to fill in some of the gap there too.

Personally I think the presentation went quite well and I was pleased with the results. I make it sound like I might have been a nervous wreck but I really wasn’t. I was pretty relaxed really. I’ve learned to kinda “roll with it” over the years… The general comments I got were positive and based on some of the very specific question that were asked to me after the conference at the reception, at least some people got what I was saying and understood the concepts.

So anyway, on to the caption contest. Below are 2 pictures taken of me during the presentation. You know the drill. Take one, or hell…both…, and come up with a good caption. I personally hate pictures of myself and these are no exception….especially when it’s taken at such a low angle. Yuck yuck yuck. But what the hell. Go to town. :)

Oh, and for some of you that have never seen me in a suit…yes…I do own a few and they do get worn…just not so often in the US :)

Also…yes…that is a ribbon on my suit. They made me wear it. They gave it to all the presenters. I felt weird with it clipped on. I took it off before the reception. I’m just not used to something like that so the entire presentation, the ribbon on my chest kept bugging me since it was juuuust within my peripheral vision….grrrr….

Picture 1

Picture 2

Nice eh?

Tomorrow is more relaxing. It’s more of a status meeting at another partner’s new offices. These are people I’ve known from a business standpoint for a few years now AND since I’m going there with our Account Manager, I’m going to let her take care of most of the talking and the meeting points and just plan on kinda taking it easy.

We’ll see if that really happens.

(^_^)

…though for any of you readers in the Cleveland area, please be careful!!!

For the first time in our company’s history our CEO just declared it an optional work day due to weather AND it seems Case is closed as well…which is unbelievable since I remember when I was at Case, it snowed so much one of teh concrete lions on the roof of Rockefeller fell down and a beam in one of the lecture halls fell due to the weight…but we still had classes.

So yeah…be careful everyone!!

…and even in Japan it’s not really a good thing…

Some of you may remember a post from back in October where I took a picture of a very long line in front of a Cold Stone in Japan at 10:30am.

Well…the US junk food empire has made another invasion into this otherwise overall pretty healthy country. Yup. McDonalds was one of the first. Starbucks is here too. So is Subway, Denny’s, Wendy’s, Pizza Hut, KFC, TGI Fridays, Outback Steakhouse, Baskin Robins, California Pizza Kitchen and so on. I can probably go on for a bit longer.

But none of these…absolutely NONE of these…not even McDonalds will be able to do as much damage to the general health of the Japanese than the newest store to open up shop in Shinjuku’s business district in Tokyo.

Yes.

It has finally come to Japan.

Krispy Kreme!!!!

I apologize for the utter crappyness (…I have no idea how to spell that word…if it’s even a word) of the photo. I took it with my cel but I had the resolution set pretty low from when I was showing my dad how to use the cel camera. But needless to say, this is the shot of the line OUTSIDE of the shop at 11am. It was about 4 or 5 lines deep and there was even a cop directing the people so they know where to line up!

I believe this is the first shop to open in Japan. It opened on December 15th of last year and as you can see, 2 months into it, it is STILL drawing gigantic crowds. As Y and I were walking back to the station after meeting with Microsoft (who’s building is across from the shop) we passed a little old lady carrying what was possibly the biggest K.K. box I have ever seen. She must have had at LEAST 3 dozen in there if not more.

Unbelievable.

But congrats America! One more country that will soon fall to the donut empire.

I do love K.K. though. It’s sickeningly sweet but…dammit…the glaze donut is so light and soft yet chewy all at once. Just the texture is enough to go “mmmmphhh….”.

Dammit…I should have gotten some….

…BUT…before I get to the meat of this post, I would like to make a statement to all of the women out there.

Ladies, as a man, I TRULY appreciate all of the primping and pruning and everything else that you do to make you even more attractive to us. But please…please…the shoes thing has to change.

Let me explain.

First, I would like to say that I’ve noticed this more in Japan than in the US but that could be because I commute more and thus, on trains and such, I see more feet… But I’ve also noticed this in the US too. Oh, and secondly, I don’t have some odd foot fetish. I don’t mind them. I just find other parts of a woman more attractive…

When you (and I mean women) wear heels, especially the pointy tipped ones, you should probably wear shoes that’s actually your size. It’s hard enough that you are forced to cram your toes into these shoes that are in no way shaped to fit a human foot but when they don’t even fit like it’s supposed to, it just looks wrong. Trust me when I say, other men…well…most men…,could care less for the size of your feet. Really. I was reminded of this today when there was a girl sitting across from me on the train and I noticed that her shoes were too small to the point where I can SEE her toes curling in on themselves as they were crammed into the tip of the shoes. Basicaly the individual toes were visible above the point of her shoes and it just looked PAINFUL. She might have looked kinda hot if the tops of her shoes were covered, but as it was, I was distracted by the unnatural lines from between each toe eminating from the top of the shoes.

So please…we all know the pain you go through… But damn…that’s going a bit too far isn’t it? And I KNOW this isn’t an isolated incident either!! Save your feet!! We like it when you can walk without wincing :)

–

Um…TOTALLY wasn’t expecting to write this here but I just saw the commercial. Apparently over here in Japan, not only do sanitary napkins (are they still called that? I have no idea what to call them…feminine pads? Maxi pads?) have wings (which confused the HELL out of me when I was a kid…) but they have X-WINGS!!!! Yes. Sanitary Napkinds for the Star Wars fangirls out there!

..actually…that’s not true. It just has a wider wing on either side with a dip in between so it looks kinda like an X.

I just thought it was funny.

Moving on now.

–

Anyway, all I really wanted to say in this post is not to tell women to take it easy on their feet (but they should…really…) but the fact that I just don’t feel the same about these trips anymore…and I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing.

See, up until now, whenever I went through customs and emerge out into the gate area of Narita Airport, I always felt like I was in a foreign country. Not anything uncomfortable. Just different. It takes me a split second to reorient myself as I walk towards the currency exchange and the entire time I’m on the train all the way to the hotel, I feel like I’m out of place. A stranger in a strange land so to speak.

But this time, though it’s hard to describe since it’s something that I consciously noticed, I really didn’t feel that way. In fact, I didn’t feel anything special at all. I was just tired, I went through the motions without much thought, and I soon found myself at the hotel where it finall hit me that I’m not home and I’m in a different place and I’m here in this coffin of a room for 2 weeks.

Weird.

Is it because I’ve been here so many times that I’ve finally got used to it? I’m not sure. I don’t think anyone can truly get used to this. Maybe be tolerant but not used to it.

I think the fact that I was here for 2.5 weeks living with my parents and doing just everyday normal non-work stuff was the key. I experienced normal everyday mundane life in Japan. I think that’s why riding the train or switching trains at stations and such seemed somewhat “normal”.

Not sure how to feel about this whole situation. I miss my TV, I miss my bed, I miss my apartment, I miss my computer, I miss my friends…the few that I see anymore… I’m not ready to leave any of that behind. But I guess if nothing else, it’s proof that I’ve done this trip waaay too often in just one year.

Though it turned out that I was only in Japan a total of 128 days (I think…it was 125+ in anycase) last year. Felt like it was MUCH MUCH more than that. I guess in the end it wasn’t THAT bad? I guess? But really…in truth it felt more like 180+ days….

Anyway, so that’s that. Not much point to this. Just an observation. (-_-)