A Great Marketing Blunder?
Last summer Kirin introduced a seasonal item (a very big concept here) into their Ichiban Shibori happoshu line. An autumn beer made with fresh hops (beer snobs please feel free to correct the lingo) that they cognominated 'Marihana'. I caught the tv commercial a few times. Very lush imagery.
Wonder if they'll use the same name next year?

Yesterday we finished up the second day of exam marking in Kyoto. If you think about the actual content of the work it's pretty mind numbing, but it's one chance a year to meet up with people who work in the other departments. And it's a chance to go to Kyoto. Which means a chance to go out in Kyoto after work.
We went to Hill of Tara and drank Killkenny ale and half and half until the live Irish music started to grate on the nerves. It's a really nice pub and if you are into live Irish music and/or very tasty beer then you should check it out .
Then we went and ate ramen in Kiyamachi in probably the foulest smelling room I have ever sat in. I think it was Nagahama Ramen. It was okay. The noodles were good. The chashu was okay. It was a tonkotsu soup but not too heavy. Continued on into the evening and ended up in a bar in Kiyamachi that has a great selection of rock. The master spins requests too. He played Radiohead, which I had heard before but hadn't really paid attention. But something about it totally grabbed me last night. It just seemed to sum up the moment perfectly. It was a really fun night with suprisingly few lingering after effects. It's so hard to believe that in just a few months this is all going to seem to have happened so long ago.

Jurors say they were duped and I agree. What a witchhunt.

Let's concentrate on the positive.
Things I like about living in Japan:
drying my laundry in the sun, not in a dryer
living half a block from the supermarket
kaiten sushi
seasonal foods
Yahoo wireless broadband
100 yen shops
Kyoto
cherry blossoms in spring
green tea parfaits
energy saving appliances
equinoxes as national holidays

I discovered a cool project by link surfing off Notes from Pureland Mountain. It's called the ageless project and it's purpose is to send "the message that the personal, creative side of the web is diverse and ageless."
Age. I'm one month away from my 38th birthday and being here in Japan that makes me nervous because I am already out of the running for many jobs due to my advanced chronological status. That is one of the reasons why I need to get out of here.
Overt gender discrimination in job ads became illegal a couple of years back, but there's no legal or social problem with discriminating on the basis of age. Many of the universitites seem to embrace it, actually. They specify that you must meet their age requirements not only at the time of application, but at the time you would accept the post. In my case my birthday is in March. Most teaching jobs here start in April. So it's possible I could be rejected for a job because I would be 26 days too old by the time the appointment started.
Of course not all schools are that rigid. And of course, I shouldn't allow myself to get bogged down by someone else's standards. But I came to this country when I was 22 and have spent the bulk of my adult life here. It has had a great influence. The prevailing mood seeps in around the cracks and I have at times found myself longing for the facade of stability and security that is held as sacred here. That "permanent position" that guarantees an income and a title and the denial of any other possible path through life.
That is not what led me here half a world away from where I started. It's not my ideal at all, but still sometimes the thought creeps in. I should be "looking out for my future". I should be striving to climb the career ladder, even though I know it doesn't lead to anyplace I want to go.

I downloaded Opera yesterday and am now trying it out. I'm not running OS10.2 yet so I can't use Safari, which has gotten some rave reviews from my friends who use it.
So far Opera is nice. Can't say I find it noticeably faster than Explorer in loading pages, but I haven't tried to download any media files yet which is maybe where I'll notice the speed difference. I like the keyboard shortcuts. I like the multi-page in one window concept. Everything looks nice.
Guess this means I have managed to free myself from Microsoft products for the internet. Oooh, somebody ought to give me a medal.
Live free or die!

Kurt Vonnegut, spot on as always.
In These Times | Kurt Vonnegut vs. the !*!@

Maybe you really are what you eat:
An International School Lunch Tour