finished Love at Goon Park, a loose biography on cloth mother enthusiast Harry Harlow. converting images to avif. new years was sparse
it's good to see that 2024 is going to be the end-of-season finale for humanity. late night episode of abarembo shogun, must've been 15 years since I last saw it. on another show the enshittification of twitter was translated into "sewerification." reasonably sure that I'm done with the schooling page. remembered when the italian-looking tourist shot a dirty look at her son curiously fondling the anime keystraps on my backpack
things are bad. I need a project. finished a second kimono
walked 2 hours to higashimurayama. teaching the new guy english. Apparently he was voluntold into sysad. It's been a wild month of news, all of them entertaining and none of them good. Every "Ashihara Hinako dead" tweet has thousands of verified urdu accounts replying with the thumbs up emoji
It's been a while that I've seen surgery footage on the TV that makes your hands weak. A staggering saturday segment on che guevara's life headed by ozawa yukiyoshi and shingomama. If this aired in the states thousands would start attacking their smart TVs. It seems like after SMAP disbanded (minus that one member) they're going full throttle on whatever they want. shin hissatsu shiokinin, The ED sounds like something from a blaxploitation film.
snow. Windshield wipers left standing, people walking their dogs in the blizzard. Reading some old man bearbait manga, the author has likely never smelled a hi-lite-smoking late 30's japanese salaryman . Another great オモウマ with the ridiculously shy grocery store owner who feels a thrill from caressing the line between profit and insolvency, handing out free boxes of fruit to customers and marking things down 50% before opening. It must be like those bedtime daydreams about going back in time to feed people. Rap is the bgm for this 400-year old sake brewery commercial. I can't believe Tommy Lee Jones is still doing those Boss coffee ads. A brilliant late-night special on Ainu opposition to dam projects in nibutani.
penis reveal at 1 million
Listening to Anita Baker recently. Another trip to nippori. Tomato was dry but the button shop had fish buttons and another had rust brown linen for 1300 yen/m. If i was worldbuilding human civilization keyrings would be a status symbol. Gilded keyrings, codpiece keychains, keyring dowries,
conversations on the etymology of corn. Another profoundly chaotic food review segment on かりそめ天国. One of the introduced traditional sweets shops is headed by a serious-looking lanky spectacled man who spent 19 years training. He immediately jumps into making dirty jokes with the 2 comedians. He is later graciously given the nickname "arctic seal with an erotic beard"
up and downs. new houseplant, hop bush. the majority of my caloric intake is from peanuts and caramel, I must be gregnant. finally lapped in nominal GDP by g*rmany, more headlines puffing up how well the stock market is doing and the growing popularity of foreign index funds. American articles talking about tourism here are sounding more like Thailand or Vietnam 10 years ago. a wild news segment on the unification church's tentacles into textbook reform, sex education, portrayals of nuclear energy, and their overall worldmap from internal documents that ends with converting the emperor and establishing itself as the state religion. State surveillance of the church was suspended after abe became PM and the last 6 education ministers have had church ties. Many are pointing out that soka gakkai have already elevated themselves to level 4 of the roadmap.
Have a routine with retinol and toners and sunscreen and everything now. I've looked about 30 for the last 15 years but this gifted face cream is shocking, fully convinced me. Like any trifling hobby or buttstuff what was previously a binary sensation is sharpened into multipolar perceptions, the wool over your eyes gone. The news is reporting that there's a dire shortage of volunteers in Ishikawa (2700 vs 620,000 during the Hanshin earthquakes) Covid is one given reason but more interestingly media criticism of volunteers is another. Initial very prominent media voices told people to stay home because (supposedly half-assed self-interested) volunteers would suck up local resources for food and board. On some shows it was spun into praise for the JSDF because they're self-sufficient. All of it speaks to the professionalization of aid that local cities are pushing and the hostile heirarchy it fosters, nurses and elderly care workers versus just volunteers. apparently outdoor retailer montbell is distributing clothing and setting up toilets, defying orders from ishikawa prefecture to stay out
PM's approval rating is 14% which is frankly impressive. Been watching thru hiking videos. Reflecting back on the boyscout handbooks I grew up with the changes are pretty sigificant. external frame packs, distrust of tourniquets, complete lack of water filters, 10 lb welted boots, many things have changed.
today was productive. reading history of the world in 7 cheap things, mcmafia, secret commandos. bought some leather for a panamka chinstrap. there was some beautiful half-meter batik fabric but it was cotton.
can't believe I missed auctions listing strawberry panic storyboards. it's so over.
strange day. oiled my boots and did my taxes. walked back to higashikurume in the rain where I found a PS1 copy of angelique heaven's requiem for 110 yen. I need to buy a PS2 again. watched Onibaba. all the actors have ethnically ambiguous faces, Satō Kei wouldn't look out of place eating lu pulu beside a group of tongan rugby players. My great-grandparents tricked into emigrating to hawaii probably cut sugarcane next to faces like Yoshimura Jitsuko. rewatched woman in the dunes, the villagers' costume design is so good
can't find the twitter post about the greengreen production employee explaining their job to their parents who then started crying after seeing the OP full of naked women. read second-hand time by svetlana alexievich. wartime, perestroika, august coup, Abkhaz-Georgian conflict, Armenia-Azerbijan conflict, it tells hundreds of individual ground-level recollections about living through history that would otherwise be lost. it's fantastic and some of the anecdotes, if believed, are beyond fiction. The line "life is better now, but more repulsive" echoes the Japanese pre-bubble phrase "our wallets have become richer but our souls impoverished." Today they're firmly paupers in both. The stereotypes are true, russians love books. I should've become an arabist. I need to learn russian and korean.
rewatching mariasama, I couldn't have remembered it more differently. probably skipped season 1 all those years back. thoroughly srs with not one laugh thrown in, it's like talking with a german. It's structured remarkably like a conventional drama in terms of pacing. There's also male characters, which is just unnecessary.
remembered that we were at a club cookout and the 9th graders were begging me to eat because I was only grilling. I was having fun grilling. My school jacket smelled like smoke for the next 2 weeks because it rained continuously and they were still installing dryers at the dorms. centipedes longer than unsharpened pencils everywhere. I wore that jacket to the prefectural playoffs a few days after the boston bombings and the cafeteria lady that everyone had a crush on was there.
I bought a PS2. boys over flowers on the k-drama channel. it's fascinating. the wiki page claims it saw success among zambian audiences. watching cherrymaho. it's fascinating.
wow mariasama rockets from 0 to 100 in episode 11. weaving your hair into each other under the rain is the gayest thing i've ever seen
making a 4th kimono. Hino Ashihei and Nakamura Tetsu are actually related, it's like if vaisravana and jesus were brothers. back to kakumei zengo, vertical text is easier to read while walking. Curious as to how autobiographical it is and how much hino tries to wash his hands of responsiblity. twitter thinks i'm argentinian
making compost in my room, I am the precautionary tale that landlords tell while trembling. just learned that tunas are warm-blooded. Tadahito Iguchi on tv looks like an indigenous peruvian
rather exciting find, a 1989 seiko color tv/alarm the size of a tasteless genetically modified grapefruit. importantly it has composite in. can pair it to the DC-2, can loop pigmhall animations on it off the ps2, need a 2.5mm to RCA cable. saw a a boxed sega pico which blasted me back into 2004. was searching for amusingly awful-looking games like ザ・コンビニ, a management sim where you're a convenience store owner or マイホームをつくろう! a housebuilder that looks a few steps up from toying with sketchup. perfect games for drunkenly playing on a huge tv with friends. There was also a jacketless copy of dokodemo issho but I didn't know it requires a pocketstation. niconico playthrough of ouran host club (ps2 in the background while I embroider, you can occasionally hear the uploader get weak at the knees, her voice quaking just a little bit
the river by higashikurume is beautiful. I want to be around for a little bit more. I bought a cow
my stack of books is growing stronger. I can hear but not see the mosquitos gangstalking me
someone in hokkaido brought in a knee mortar round to the city office. everyone is melting down in envy over the taiwanese government's adequate aid to earthquake evacuees while ishikawa residents 4 months in live out of cardboard boxes eating instant meals
I got gifted this jarred guacamole made in germany and the first ingredient is yogurt. When I bought a 200 yen MOE GUIDE TO THE JAPANESE SELF-DEFENSE FORCES the previous owner's instax print of a lapphund fell out of it. I should've bought that 25lb bronze bust of tito in 2015
attracting mosquitos to my room for my wolf spider roommate
a pilgrimage to cloth shops in nippori and nakano broadway on the way back. It's near unrecognizable with used luxury watch stores proliferating like tumors. tacoshe is probably my favorite place on this earth, eyeing hopelessly specific artbooks and zines shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers. a toddler shouted that my kimono was the same color as her tricycle, trailing mom looking slightly embarrassed
made a neckstrap for the dc-2. working with leather is tough. bought another 3kg bag of EVA glue. just saw a picture of im@s characters prepping seedbeds
gorgeous day. reunited with the notorious moth-centric photobook MOTHPHILIA. projections to be overtaken in GDP by india by 2025, a country that is actively deindustrializing. 2 in one year is quite impressive.
this shit is beyond parody. found a 6" crt and it's very broken`
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that guestbook comment is so good. this 68 yen oshi no ko energy drink is disgusting. found the ultraman tiga movie that I grew up watching on the internet archive. immensely grateful for gran posting me VHSs over the pacific when I was a smaller collection of cells. I need to thank her. I remember the bi-weekly international calls on the bright red phone with the mushy translucent buttons that always faintly smelled of saliva. the original 60's ultraman shows are actually quite new wave and psychedelic. very surpised I haven't been influenced by footage of a man in a vinyl suit getting battered or covered in caustic foam or crucified.
slammed my head into the door and I gained lucidity
off to gran's. weeded the garden, pruned the lavender bush, mingled with the pillbugs and swallowtails. fixed the stairs and I hammered extra nails into the studs like my grandad had done 40 years earlier. bought the 1980 childrens DIY book I grew up with that was lost in a move. the page with suggested prices for craft materials like aluminium sheeting and PVC piping is more or less still applicable today, this country is cooked. all the pictured children are now in their late 40's. like still unsure what to do around the monitor. adding to pages, it's been a while. quite happy with "facial paralysis enthusiast Simon Cowell"
bought some cursed buttons, made in the US. some more leather for camera straps. every time I go to nippori I like to count the static wifeguys who have come to japan only to be dragged along to a fabric store. got accosted on the street by a tv crew for an interview. ikebukuro was the same as always. The nitori instead of tokyu hands is still unconvincing. probably got covid. finally
maladaptive habits, I need to change my life.
went to the best bakery attatched to a home improvement store I've ever been to. the cherry pastry was like climbing into bed after being up for 2 days, the kind of meal that you will keep reflecting back on like a childhood crush. got gifted some yakult y1000, it tastes like yakult. A few years back TV advertising regulations on therapeutic health benefits got relaxed and it's one among many that are now claiming their product calms the nerves, lowers LDL cholestrol, and boosts defense spending.
rocket launcher found in north kyushu again, the same riverbed where an RPG-26 and Tokarevs were discovered in 2012. making zuni/hopi masks, the sort of thing you get in trouble for. Every time I wear the grey suit I feel like I'm off to unleash gift card scams onto milwaukee housewives while on public wifi. Thanked gran for sending me VHSs, "that guy from alabama" included. As always she shot me stories from 80 years ago and tales of her unbreakable stubbornness. Apparently grandad got taken out by the stress of the bubble recession.
Had a walk. it was nice. Overheard "execution by being buried alive" while walking past 2 kids in the sandbox. Was surreal to see the suburbs suddenly transition into several acres of farmland, smelling of rooibos and manure. I need to find some skirt steak again. I creamed my dadjorts grilling the first time around. watching a canadian man lay in the grass while telling you about his favorite perennial plants. A woman with gastrointestinal issues inherited her brother's acne and her boyfriend's depression after a DIY poop transplant. Really we're all just glorified apes controlled by flesh and bacteria.
A manchild ate 3 pounds of salted mixed nuts in 2 days. This is what happened to his bowel movements. made yogurt again, buying more photobooks hoo hoo. when gran sees bamboo shoots on a plate she makes a face like she's seen a bed made of centipedes. Watching TV and "yeah your great uncle died alpining that mountain," chuckling. A finger-wagging segment on tourists lighting fireworks in storefronts or leaving trash everywhere. shibuya isn't a place for human habitation anyway so it's +-0. that was immediately followed by a solemn mongolian sheperd in tohoku with an angular face like a river stone with his meaningful cultural practices and reverence for the world
just saw a pt cruiser. everyone is complaining that the $3m projection mapping project in tokyo looks like gaudy 90's pachinko graphics. browsing gorgeous opium smoking paraphenelia. dreamed that I was shooting the shit with lauren and mike after graduating. dreamed that I was changing my son's diaper at a hotel. reading Life Beside Itself: Imagining Care in the Canadian Arctic. Still looking for the anecdote about First Nations women getting rid of abusive partners by pushing them into the sea
saw a byd and sink garbage disposal commercial for the first time. knowing the market resistance instead of a confident stream of specshitting the byd ad is more of a "this is also acceptable" message. Finally started reading the classic Silent Spring, the malicious hitpiece against enveloping your child in DDT. There's a wild story about the Rocky Mountain Arsenal discharging so many different compounds in open pools it spontaneously produced the herbacide 2,4-D. Hopefully Rachel Carson can be reanimated to write a contemporary sequel, a good title would be "I love collecting 3M products in my organs"
rainy season. eventful junk shop trip, bought a convalescence kimono and ash tray. when I wear the kimono I can cosplay as nacchan. Saw a copy of azumanga donjara daioh for the PS1, a bandai game that looks like mahjong. It looks awful but I probably should've bought it. One user uploading his playthrough is repeating "the source material is more interesting guys" presumably through a stream of tears. Also saw a defense intelligence HQ mug. the logo looks like something lazily whipped up by interns for a passing shot in a movie. years ago fans were commenting how official kancolle x JSDF merch looked suitably lo-fi. just found out there's licensed itasha scale model kits, this might be dangerous.
pruned the lavender bush, visits from hornets with thumb-sized abdomens. bought tomato plants again. I need to collect chinese stamps. got some plates for free. I think i'm genetically incapable of figuring out RSS feeds
dude unloaded into his suspenders
reading through Kiuchi Nobuo's illustrated recollections at a POW camp in Donetsk. Reminds me of grandpa stories about how they were always critical of upbeat shanty depictions on TV, saying the actors need to sing with more anguish. Or how their normal walking pace became blazing fast after repatriation.
No bugs yet but I've been making incense with lavender stems and tangerine peel. Looking for silver in sheets becaue I want to start making kiserus. I've started carrying around a bag of unsalted peanuts for the crows. I wonder how much the fine is for feeding wild animals. I think there's something to be said for how crazy average heights dropping among children is from india to the UK and japan. A generation of shorter adults is probably much more eye-catching than upward-facing graphs about poverty on the tv. I need to become a furry
some heinous shit. haven't made anything recently. currently on my appreciating my family arc. nothing has really changed but my outlook is much more positive and frankly honest than it was a year or a month ago.
i'm in my collapsible 2-in-1 sofa, listening to múm and cibo matto that makes you want to sway like an engorged stalk of chlormequat-blessed grain, reading the baffler. nothing could be better other than a furious DIY project or busting.
bugs. oh god the bugs. almost got flattened by a car again, I'm very runoverable.
eyeing yugioh again, it's very endearing. The first few volumes before the card game are actually rather violent with baddies and weapons and such. Losing a game means being the victim of a Saw trap, the sort of thing news watchers regularly fantasize about. The tamagotchi references and plotline about getting robbed of expensive sneakers firmly places it in the late 90's. You see bits and pieces of character designs that would eventually end up as trading card art. I'm not knowledgeable about MTG (which was a big influence) but the vignettes with with characters using parasite or magician or S&M themed card decks seems novel. You can also tell Takahashi was deeply into games, every last 3-4 pages are some original rules and graduated maps for the viewers to play. My favorite artwork from his was the one where dark magician girl remarks that life has become harder under the current government and yugi tells you to go vote.
slay
he confused me thoroughly as a child like Fujiwara-no-Sai or Kurama
listening to Well There's Your Problem, the amount of trivia everyone has remembered is ridiculous. making buttons. a pile of 100 yen kokeshis and nipopos in the junk box. also turned around and bought the little cellphone-sized camera, a machpower svx. you transform into a visual acuity test subject when looking through the viewfinder. As always I voted for the frumpy substitute teacher-looking candidate instead of one dying to sell you life insurance. It's a surefire benchmark for distinguishing people who radiate evil, like how you turn orange after eating too many carrots.
i'm filled with cherry tomatoes. new page to instantly destroy your well-being. I like the trivia about JR avoiding train otaku when hiring conductors.
dreamed that I was chugging my aftershave. C-2's are remarkably quiet. Edamame still on the branch at the unmanned vegetable stand for 100 yen. also found malt vinegar chips, I've got the shakes for potato chips. "What a very japanese opinion (derogatory)"
new spider video dropped. I miss my buddy's dog, whenever I'd come over a wave of calm would overtake him but he would try to lick the suncreen off my face.
been messing around with a pc-98 emulator. some of the in-game sound effects are so rudimentary it sounds like paper rubbing together. you can tell some projects are bursting at the seams with technological limitations, you can taste the artistic compromise.
reading eyewitness accounts of the thirty years war 1618-48. Chest pain on my left side woke me up, I was visualizing the blood clot from my thigh migrating into my lungs. if it takes me out it takes me out. After my first interview years ago I was so sleep deprived that I stood blankly in the elevator for a few minutes until I remembered to press a floor button. Later I went to get a chest x-ray and I started taking off my pants until the nurse said that wouldn't be necessary
never eaten healthier in my life. balance is important so I need to start binge drinking. there's nothing better than getting the eternally stonefaced guy to laugh. tomato plant is pulling through and fruiting again. also found some gorgeous bowls. Jang-geum on the TV, Call me squeamish but 15 years later I still remember the horrific scene where her mom is dying and so young Jang-geum chews food for her, shoving bits of berry in the poor actress' mouth. another NHK special has Kagawa Teruyuki in a praying mantis costume looking for insects in costa rica. The way he handles caught butterflies is like an experienced rancher wrangling a calf. I should've become an entomologist, it's one of those jobs that won't exist in 20 years like copywriter or defense lawyer
finally finished reading into the wild. watched a prehistoric NHK special on the American PR war during the Bosnian conflict. another on the khmer rouge. it's hard to read faces sometimes with foreign interviews. germans are a stone slab. indians often sound accusatory. for cambodians it's easy. news was at its peak back then, authoritative, unambiguous, with the fieldwork and first-hand interviews to back it up. Nowadays other than the NHK's jerusalem branch everything is speculative mastication by "commentators" from unrelated fields and comedians asked to put away their spandex zentai suits.
"I picked this kimono color because i think it's sexy" "for sure bro"
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