I am Surviving a Japanese Game Show

Oh dear, oh my - our computer decided to have a mental breakdown.  Probably couldn't handle any more baby slobber.  Anyway, we couldn't fix it until we got back to Tokyo.  So I wrote a few columns by actually putting pen to paper and will post as if they happened in real time.

If I were staying in America this summer, there are a couple of shows (here and there)that would be programmed into my VCR (or DVR, TiVo, Blue Ray, HDTV, LMNOP - I honestly do not know what most of these are).  My Sweet explained that these games are based on Japanese shows from 15 years ago where TV personalities competed in "extreme challenges" that put their comedic skills to work.

While at Most-Honorable-Mother-in-Law's I noticed that the game shows had shifted from eating to actually learning a thing or two - like why stall doors in public bathrooms fall open inwards when not locked* or why some train tunnels are square and others are rounded.**

So I figured that the days of Japanese contestants doing inane things were over.  Oh no, not by a long shot.  In one show I saw two women hooked up to a wii type of contraption and their characters were cave women carrying a stone wheel while jumping over pterodactyl turds.  On another show comedians had to do pelvic thrusts into a gigantic air machine in order to move a heart shaped balloon up to a female face. 

Watch this if you dare.

All I can do is laugh or sigh.

Joie de Vivre ~ A Hearty Joy of Living!

* They fall inwards to A) keep you from bonking someone on the head as you try to get out, and B) it is easy to see if the stall is in use without the undignified action of peeking under the door.

** Square ones are easier to make, but rounded ones can handle pressure better, so the ones deeper in the earth are rounded.  Oh, and FYI some Tokyo subway level are a mere 12 centimeters from each other.

Beating the Blues

Last weekend My Sweet and I celebrated our anniversary by trekking out to our fine capitol city in order to check out BMG. No, not the music company, which sends you a new CD every month even if you send back their stupid card saying you don't desire and defiantly don't want to spend hard earned cash on the American Idol Runners-up Compilation. We went to see the percussionist commentators on society - the Blue Man Group. Take a look at these forearms of titanium steel.




I loved the not so subtle jibes, especially ones not pertaining to me, that comprise the rules of becoming a megastar. One that made me laugh Pepsi out my nose was that a megastar needs to have choreographed moves. The audience will be distracted and thus won't notice the lack of musical talent. Humm, I can not think of a single substanceless singer who mostly is known for looking good in videos and appealing to preteens who haven’t developed a sense of depth in the music they listen to. Sorry, I mean I don't know any young pop megastars who uses this method. This includes pop megastars with hair issues and getting too old to appeal to preteenies and haven't had a big hit in a very long time and thus have to find extreme ways to stay in the news despite the danger or neglect to their infant children, not to mention embarrassment these children may feel when they grow up and have to be reminded by their classmates that their mother, or father, did something that was so horribly revealing. Ok, that was snarky and grammatically convoluted on my part.

And while the BMG was mock-mimicking conformity in work and personal life, they were also commenting on how something like a concert is a communal event where we, at least for a wile, watch, say and experience the same thing. This is noted in the following rule of the Blue Man Megastar Manual.

Concert Movement #237 Taking the audience on a Jungian journey into the collective unconscious by using the shadow as a metaphor for the primal self that gets repressed by the modern persona and also by using an underground setting and labyrinth office design to represent both the depths of the psyche and the dungeon-like isolation of our increasingly mechanistic society which prevents people from finding satisfying work or meaningful connections with others.

In this society of instant messaging, headphones and buying on line, it is kind of nice to be reminded to have some communal experiences every once in a while. It does something for the soul.

And by the way, I just spent the last quarter of an hour playing with Concert Movement # 37 Floppie the Banjo Clown.

Joie de Vivre ~ A Hearty Joy of Living!

Bah Humbug

Some people have too much time on their hands, and they are obviously not filling it with the Christmas Spirit, came up with the improbability of Santa's sleigh ride.

The Physics of Santa Claus

1. No known species of reindeer can fly.
2.There are 91.8 million homes where one presumes there's at least one good child.
3. Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, and assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.
4. The sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa.
5. 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecrafts re-entering the earth's atmosphere. They will burst into flames almost instantaneously.

Here is what I have to say to this!

1. Any one who has done their research knows that Santa's reindeer are a known species of reindeer given their power by magic corn from the Winter Warlock (see the award winning documentary Santa Clause is Coming to Town).

2. You can not presume there is a good kid in each home.

3. Santa's sleigh is not man-made, it is made with elvis magic. (No, this is not a typo - check out the first Lord of the Rings movie if you do not believe me) Therefore it is conceivable that Santa can time-warp, multiply himself or freeze time. He loaned it to Hermione in to off season so she could get all of her class work done.

4. Again elvis magic, weren't you paying attention before?

5. The fir of the reindeer acts as insulation to protect everyone. And as I said before, elvis magic. Besides, I learned in science class that heat is energy and energy is what makes things go. So isn't it possible that the heat of re-entry gives the sleigh the fuel to go further and faster?

So there you go, all of you humbug spreaders, and to all the Virginias everywhere. Christmas is about magic. Man can not begin to comprehend it all. "But Jesus beheld them, 'With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible'." —Matthew 19:26

Joie de Vivre ~ A Hearty Joy of Living!

Putting on the Ritz

Did you know that the father of Everyone Loves Raymond had John Lennon for a best man? Or that as a young man he was a monk? This was a man who turned down the lead role in The French Connection because he was being type cast as the tough guy, and he was impressed by Gene Hackman's performance.
This weekend I will have to watch Young Frankenstein and While You Were Sleeping.
Rest in Peace Mr. Boyle.

Bad Girls, Bad Girls, Wachja Gonna Do?

Well, this entire week I have been struck down with a bronchial infection, so I will continue to write about the only fun night I have had during the week. Therefor it is back to the slumber party. Whoo Hoo!

After the fun and games at the bowling alley, we stopped by the store for some much needed supplies - toilet paper, Oreo cookies and plastic forks. I know what you are thinking - midnight picnic. Wrong-a-rino. Instead we went and ambushed to front yard of the birthday girl's friend. We not only toilet papered the tree, car and front porch, but we also Oreo-ed and forked the place. Now I have done the Oreo thing before. That is where you take off one side of cookie sandwich and press the creamy part against a wall. You can then spell out something or create a lovely picture. Just be nice and don't Oreo someone's car window - the grease from the filling is annoyingly hard to get off. The other thing we did to that poor landscape was to fork it. What you do is take a box full of disposable forks and stick them prong side down all over the yard - making a lovely design if you wish. Hopefully this does a bit of aerating for the lawn. Now do not forget, dear reader, that this happened after 11:00 PM, in the dark of night while the owners were in their living room watching TV. We could have been caught at any minute! The tension was intense!

Mission accomplished, we headed home for drinks! Dolores (or Deidre or Delaney or Dingus) was tended bar and joyfully shouted, "My first blended drink!" To this she quickly added that it was her first time making one, not actually drinking them. Well, for her first one, they were delicious. And we spent the rest of the party enjoying Dolores’s work, talking about life, looking at You Tube and watching two hours of Tony Bandares. Man, did it get hot when Antonio danced the tango. There is a bit more I may have to add to confession. After all that we were all ready for the slumber part of the party.

Now doodah! knows who to put the video on the actual blog, and someday I may figure it out, too. But remember I am the one who screwed up the bowling technology. So instead I will send you to the You Tube cite. One of my favorites from You Tube is the Steven Colbert Light Saber Green Screen Challenge. He shot a clip of him in a light saber duel against a green screen and challenged viewers to create their own clips. Some were pretty funny, so check them out on the side bar. My Sweet's favorite was the one sent in by viewer George L.

Oh, I learned from My Sweet, who makes me swear that he is not a geek, informed my that there is a trick for the shooting video games. Instead of pointing away from screen to reload, all you have to do is put a finger over the sensor, that way you don't have to re-aim. No Sweetie, you are NOT a geek.

Joie de Vivre ~ A Hearty Joy of Living!

Attempting a new post

Well, I have tried several times to post a blog, but each time I tried to publish Blogger shot up a sign that said, "Hey we are screwing up something and have now lost the best post you have ever written." So I am just going to share a few thoughts and sightings. Oh and a spoiler alert for Lost fans who haven't seen last week's episodes or if you don't watch the show - don't read #3.


1) Last week we had our first real rain. On my way home I saw a 50-something businessman riding his bicycle home. Now in my town, which has more bikes than people, it is not unusual to see a person in business casual cycling to work. What was strange is that he had the freshman stripe. College freshmen quickly learn that they need to have some kind of fender or when they ride in the rain dirty water shoots up their backside. And this guy had it bad. Every time he was at a stoplight he would scratch it. Even though it shouldn't, it made me chuckle.

2) What do you do when your doctor calls in sick? I took a very precious sick day, plus stayed way late prepping for my sub. I have nothing more to say about this; it was just a frustration for the week.

3) Here is the Lost bit, so you may want to stop reading. Really, unless you are an up to date fan, stop reading. I can not believe they killed off Mr. Echo! and in such a lame way! Last season he became my favorite character - not including Sawyer whom I like strictly for his bad boy sex appeal. Last year there was a superb episode called Psalm 23 where Echo faces down not only the monster, but also his own struggle with good and evil. But in this one he let evil win, and I am not necessarily talking about the island monster. He was proud, arrogant, unrepentant and he died. Oh, and I do not trust the doctor chick. She is part of the mind game.
The moral of the story is that if the actor who plays you gets in trouble with the law, you will get killed!

4) My husband's friend just got voted off the island. I am actually surprised she made it this far. She is a person who wears her heart on her sleeve, and that does not bode well in this show of alliances and selfishness. So now we no longer need to watch it, that is until the last episode to see if the cute Asian guy wins.

Well, that's all folks.

How have you all been this week?

Joie de Vivre ~ A Hearty Joy of Living!

Ballet in the Sky

This is ballet that even manly men would enjoy.


This past weekend My Sweet traveled down to San Francisco to watch the high light of Fleet Week - the Blue Angles. Now I am not one of those people who hyperventilate at the idea of spotting an A-10 over head. Heck I probably couldn't differentiate between that and an AK-47. But My Sweet does, so we went.

The Blue Angels were Amazing! It really was ballet in the sky! When they were in their famous diamond formation, they were as close as 18 inches apart! And they flew with such precision and grace. It took my breath away.

What takes your breath away?
Joie de Vivre ~ A Hearty Joy of Living!

Do I Have a Life?

Wonderful, supportive teacher that I am, I am spending my precious Saturday morning not listening to my favorite NPR shows and eating waffles, but I am watching a few of my boys play soccer. They will either think I am interested in them as people, or that I have no life.

It is totally God's fault that I am here. Now my students didn't know, as of Friday morning at school, when the game would start. My Sweet is not feeling well, so he is grouch and I had to get out of the house for a while. I ran a few errands, and yes garage saling is a necessary errand - I just got a nearly new dehydrator for $3. I pull to the field just as the boys were warming up. Total God's timing, but someone had better score some points.

Sitting on the nearly empty sideline is the aunt of a former student. He had been with us for only a couple of months, transferred to adult school and is now planning to transfer to Berkley. Sometimes we are an elevator lifting students a great chunk to their goal, and sometimes we are a toehold to the next step.

Why do we Americans love football when the rest of the world is passionate about soccer? Why do we play soccer only until we are old enough to graduate to football? I do not know, and to be honest I don’t really care why. There is a limit to how much energy a country can pour into sports, and we have chosen our four: football, basketball, baseball and reality TV competitions.

There are a few things I like about soccer, like it being a high-energy game. But what I like best is that a 90-minute game is just that - 90 minutes. No 15 minute quarters that last three fourth of an hour!

What I laugh about soccer is the injury drama. You see them trip over a blade of grass and they go down as if a pit-bull had taken out their Achilles tendon. American football players have been know to hack off a broken toe in order to keep playing. No whining on their part!

Well, I see that one of my students has scored a goal thanks to the set up of another student. I hope I scored as well.

Joie de Vivre ~ A Hearty Joy of Living!

Things I am told to say

There are a few things that people have told me recently that they told me to put on my blog. And of course I always do what I am told, so here it goes.

FROM MY HUSBAND'S STRANGE LAND

TV novellas are just starting to hit the US airwaves, but they have been in place for quite a while in Mexico, and of course Japan. My Sweet has just had me watch the entire 15 hours, sorry 12 episodes, of a series called "Densha Otoko" (Train Man). It is about a totally sweet anime geek who musters up the courage not only to stop a beautiful woman from being mauled by an obnoxious drunk, but he also stuttered out a request for a date. The sweet thing is that Densha has an on line community where he pours out the honesty in his heart, and they help him step out of his geek-dom in order to get the girl, and then to embrace the action figure-collecting, voice-actor worshiping, comicon-season-ticket-holding geek that he is. And there are a surprising number of romantic lines where I slap my husband's knee and ask him why he doesn't say things like that.

But tell me this, why is it always the geek guy who gets the gorgeous girl? (How do you like this for a piece of alliteration?) Why not the geek girl going for the hunk? Or a couple enjoying their geek-appeal together? The answer has to be more than the male-dominated industry. I mean at least a third of the audience, who the sponsors need to appease, is female geek.

OBVIOUS METAPHORS

The other day I was meeting with a wonderful group of spiritually passionate women. (And I am not just saying this because I hope they are going to read and comment on this!) In the course of dinner and discussion I made a few metaphorical references. Refreshing Sunshine said that I had better put them in my blog. So here they are:

Comparison 1)Sheep are creatures that are not phased when one of their own is killed - much like us sometimes. But as soon as I said it, I knew it was cutting but not entirely true. The sheer numbers of massacres like in Darfur overwhelms us, but we also feel powerless to help. But we will encourage the hunting down a murderer and demand justice. And if the criminal is super rich and can buy off the system, we make it so uncomfortable that they leave the country.

Comparison 2)Figs are in their growing season right now. They are sweet and succulent, but the season is short. Once a fig tree was in trouble for falsely implying that it was in season, like it had it all together and could bring sustenance and sweetness. When we pretend that we have no trouble and all the answers, when we give out junk or fluff, that is when we are to be shamed.

Now here is a challenge for you. Think of Forrest Gump: Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you have until you take a big old bit out of it.

Take a word from group A and one from group B.

Group A
life
love
man
woman
education
TV
music
(your choice)

Group B
autumn
Disneyland
a mud puddle
a pair of shoes
Tarzan
earthworms
skydiving
(your choice)

Plug your choices in here and finish the sentence. Be sure to put your metaphor as a comment.

(Word A) is like (Word B) because ...

Joie de Vivre ~ A Hearty Joy of Living!