コンビニ食
When I have cause to buy my food from convenience stores, it’s usually because I have no food in the apartment and the actual grocery stores closed before I got out of work for the day. As a result,...
View Article辛いチョコ
The Japanese custom for Valentine’s day goes as follows: every female interested in participating buys a crate of chocolate, then gives a sub-box to every male she knows. (It isn’t wholly sexist; guys...
View Articleroad trip
Last month, I made plans. The first weekend of this month, I was to go skiing. The last weekend of this month, I was to go to an onsen. Skiing was fun but mostly unremarkable; I took a train there,...
View Articletrue facts should I join the Army
I finally got the recruiter on the phone today–he’s been hard to get in touch with, having recently had a baby–and learned the following things: It is not likely that it will be determined whether I’m...
View Articlechow
There was a moment in Futurama in which the protagonist makes himself breakfast: he simply pours a bowl of pellets from a large sack marked “bachelor chow.” Ever since, I’ve wished that such a food...
View Articlethis concludes my interest in sudoku
This past week, for lack of much better to do, I’ve implemented a series of Sudoku solvers. I already had one from a few months ago, but the code was just plain ugly and while it kind of worked, I can...
View ArticleTrue Stories of Life in Japan, pt 1: Culture Shock
Logistically, it worked out best for me to fly east from Boston Logan to London Heathrow to Tokyo Narita, a trip which involves 26 hours of flight time and another 12 of waiting in airports. The time...
View ArticleTrue Stories of Life in Japan, pt 4: Combini and Vending Machines
Japan has been crowded for as long as anyone can remember. Even in prehistoric times, when the very first boatload of proto-japanese people landed and set up a settlement, they built their town in an...
View ArticleTrue Stories of Life in Japan, pt 8: Nonverbal Communication
My entire stay in Japan originated because of my interest in Japanese. It wasn’t a particularly serious interest at first, but I discovered somewhat to my surprise that I really liked studying that...
View ArticleReview: Sukiyaki Western Django
This is an unusual movie. Produced with an all-Japanese cast (except Quentin Tarantino), it unites 12th century Japan and 19th century Nevada. It is in English, but as though the characters (not the...
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