Most of the time I am reading a novel, Cissy says I should just wait for it to be turned into a movie and get the video instead. That would save a lot of time. I cannot agree with this reasoning, but this one I am going to rent, although according to the reviews the movie does not live up to the book, which was extremely entertaining.

Sherman McCoy is one of Wall Street's top brokers, but he has a fatal collision with the real world when he gets lost in the Bronx and involved in a hit-and-run car accident that he cannot mention to his wife. Reverend Bacon is an ambitious black community leader who seeks to exploit the accident to his political advantage. Lawrence Kramer is an assistant district attorney, for whom the case becomes his chance to be famous (and to impress the cuter female members of the jury). Peter Fallow is a British reporter working (when he is not too drunk for it) for a sleazy local newspaper run by Brits who all despise the Americans. The major and the district attorney are fighting for re-election, and the lawyers on both sides are only in for the glory or the money.

Another concentration of Buddhist temples is near the big Asakusa Kannon, so that just by walking from one subway station (Inaricho) to the next (Tawaramachi), I was able to add nine stamps to my collection. The atmosphere in the temples varied a lot. Some of the temples were in their original buildings, others on the second floor of a modern concrete complex. We met a very jovial priest who was still dressed up quite formally from the funeral ceremony he conducted just a moment ago (not really a funeral actually, but the memorial service one year after that). We met a young apprentice whose brush strokes for my album were interrupted twice, once by the telephone and once by a delivery boy. We met very friendly ladies that gave us tea, sweets, scented bags, and a handkerchief. We also met the more business-minded variant, who handed out prepared pages that had been signed and stamped in advance (in that case, you are still supposed to give them an empty page in return).

I have now been to nineteen of the eighty-eight places in Tokyo.

Went out to buy a notebook to write down my Japanese homework.

Pleasure is born here.
unintentionally with individuality and nonchalantly with sensibility
Mini Notebook Size: 91 x 128 mm 32 Sheets

When I did not take Yoshinoya's announcement to stop offering gyudon (beef strips on rice) completely serious earlier this year (and it was unbelievable after all), I was wrong. Since February, there has been no more gyudon at the big ex-gyudon chain stores (only the fourth largest franchise, Kobe Lamputei, switched to Australian beef), and Yoshinoya's customer volume fell 32 percent. But Japanese engineers have come up with a possible solution: A PlayStation game that puts you in the role of a Yoshinoya employee. And digital beef is apparently safe enough, so there is gyudon in the game.

In related news, a Yoshinoya spokesman yesterday said that they are ready to resume sales if Japan eases its ban on US beef. An exemption for meat from young cows is currently under consideration.

The Japanese language is phonetically rather simple and has fewer sounds than most other languages (they overcompensate that with the complex writing system, of course). It creates considerable confusion (and amusement) among foreigners when there is no difference between Ls and Rs and Bs, Ws, and Vs. So far I have been quite good at figuring things out, but they really got me this week: Shibuya station at the moment is plastered with big posters for a new PlayStation soccer manager game, depicting a somewhat familiar looking guy in several poses. The slogans seemed to indicate a German loan word, Bengel (young, somewhat rude fellow). Angry bengel, happy bengel, thoughtful bengel and so on. After passing it every day for a week or so, I finally figured it out. Sega were not announcing that their game can turn grown men into mischievous little boys (using a word that does not show up in my Japanese dictionary), they were just parading the fact that one of the biggest names in professional soccer is endorsing their product. It reads not Bengel, but Wenger, as in Arsene Wenger, who just led Arsenal London through a season without a single defeat. Stupid me.

Euro2004 made me stay at Shibuya Capsule Land last night. I recommend every visitor to Japan to go to such a hotel at least once as part of your sight-seeing. You are not going to see that anywhere else. The capsule could have been a little longer, but it did include free cable TV, so that I could just open my eyes at 3:30, watch us almost beat Holland and go right back to sleep, without having to get up. Actually, it is not possible to get up, unless you get out (of the capsule) first. The pricing (3,900 yen) was quite reasonable, included use of the public bath (fully equipped with towels, bath robes, razors, toothpaste-treated toothbrushes and the like) and even a breakfast. Plus it is close to office. I am tempted to see some more games there now, but Cissy is not too happy with the idea.

I did not stay up until 3am to watch the opening game of Euro 2004, but after reading about Greece's unexpected upset of host Portugal, I immediately regretted that. So the TV situation is as follows: The matches start at 1:00 and 3:30 in the morning. A few of them can be seen on the free TBS channel, for the rest you need a WOWOW subscription (which we do not have). The free games are the opening game, France vs. England, Denmark vs. Italy, England vs. Switzerland (strange choice, can only be explained by the Beckham craze), Holland vs. Czech Republic, two of the quarterfinals, the Thursday (in Porto, already Friday here) semi-final, and the final. I have to work out something at least for Germany vs. Netherlands.

Two new developments in my incoming spam. First of all, I received my first mobile spam. My mobile phone is very old: No colour display, no digital camera, cannot receive email (only network-internal SMS from Tu-Ka or Vodafone). It can apparently receive spam (by SMS), though. Of course, I could not access the included URL because the phone does not do web, either. On the email front, I received several German-language right-wing political rants, probably introduced for the European elections this week.

A son returns home to learn the truth about his dying father, whom he has not spoken to in years because he could no longer stand the fantastic stories his father would make up about himself all the time (such as the one with the big fish). Sounds like a straight (dull ?) story, but turned out to be something like Tim Burton's version of Forrest Gump (complete with spiders, witches, giants, Siamese twins, a circus, daffodils, werewolves, a war, a bank robbery, and Steve Buscemi). All in all the best movie I have seen this year.

9 points

I changed courses at my Japanese language school. I was taking normal classes (conversation, reading, grammar) two evenings a week, but am now enrolled in a special preparation course for the JLPT Level 2 exam in December. This is going to be tough: There will be three hours of class every Saturday and easily enough homework to take the rest of the weekend. I will have to cut back on my office hours, too, which is maybe not such a bad idea, anyway.