The Land of the Firming Bum

Japan has gone pretty well thus far. Aside from a few early complications (oh so mysterious) we have managed to settle into apartment, set up bank accounts, get phones and, most importantly, get some rather cool foldable bicycles. Getting bikes just opens up so many options. Japan (well our part of Japan - Hokuriku - anyway) is pretty much a flat country, but with lots of large hills and mountains. Which doesn`t make sense at all. Erm, Toyama City is flat, but surrounded by mountains. Once past the mountains or hills, it is flat again. then there are more hills/mountains. Or the Japan Sea. Which is flat.
Anyhoo, we`ve been riding all over the place. Yesteday we went for a ride into the hills, which is fun in itself. The leaves are just starting to change colour andthe weather is entirely delightful. Anyway, after an hour or so we ended up at the Toyama Family Park, which is a small zoo/amusement park. The animals aren`t anything special, but the zoo itself is set on a large hill (is there something between a hill and a mountain?) with lots of paths through thick forest, so it was great fun just walking around. And we went on a giant ferris wheel. And I didn`t get scared much. Not at all actually. Anyway, the zoo had more pictures/videos/models of animals than actual animals. It was like the zoo of the future, where you can go and see where the animals used to live. Or look at plastic monkeys in trees while listening to monkey noises playing through strategically placed speakers. But we did see some real live red pandas which were without doubt the cutest things I have ever seen. And a goat! woo!
Then we continued our bike ride, and we cycled through a tunnel cut through the hills which was kinda cool. And we did the traditional `scream like maniacs while in the tunnel` thing, which is even more fun to do on bikes than in a car.

Last week we went to Kanazawa, a biggish city (about one million people) about 45 minutes away. We went to Kenruko-en, one of the 3 best gardens in Japan. It was suitably impressive. And we went to the Kanazawa castle and the 21st Century of Contemporary Art, the most modern art gallery in the world. It opened last year. There was a Gerhard Richter exhibition which was pretty cool. In August the new Bjork and her boyfriend movie thing opened there but we weren`t in Japan. We have to go to Kanazawa a couple of times next month for follow up training, so next time we are going to go on a tour of the Ninja Temple, which has trap doors and other Indiana Jones style things. Though you have to call ahead and book a spot on the tour. In Japanese. So first I have to work out a script.

If anyone want to email me please do so at terryama at lycos dot com. hope yr all fine.

I have arrived safely in Japan. Got delayed in Singapore for about 8 hours due to the typhoon, but we got to stay in a hotel so it was kind of nice. Stayed in Osaka overnight and went out with a bunch of people, it was great fun. On Thursday we got the Bullet Train to Toyama, where we are living. The train ride was very scenic, lots of mountains and lakes. Where we live is pretty quiet, but we`re only 10 minutes from Toyama City. We are so buying foldable bikes very soon, this country was made for cycling in I think. Everything is pretty cheap, like food and electronics, contrary to what we`d heard.

Anyhoo, I got post this baby or I`ve just yped for nothing.

My Favourite Pieces of Mail (not to be confused with my favourite pieces of male, which would include Johnny Depp, that's for damn sure), in no particular order.

And so my obsession with mail continues. While packing up things in readiness for moving to Japan I've been going through all kinds of terriobilia. The (probably incomplete) list:

Series of Packages from Lex, sent from Vancouver. These always contained sweetness (in written and candy form), cute notepads and various other oddities.

Letter from Helen, sent from Canada, written over a few days while on a train. The fact the letter was written over a few days earns it bonus ponts, as it kind of gives the letter chapters. Which is a good thing. Probably the greatest letter I've ever received, full of band references, witticisms, lots of things to ponder, and nice and long too. Plus extra bonus points for being accompanied by a Silver Jews CD.

Series of Postcards from Laura Llew, sent from various US states. I wasn't expecting a postcard from Laura, so getting the first was one was exciting. And then they just kept on coming! Funny postcards, witty writing. Plus it filled out a nice portion of the US on my Postcard map of the world.

Parcel from Jim, sent from Melbourne. Extreme wittiness (as only Jim can really do), lame puns (again, as only Jim can really do), Magic Gum, Pastel's CD's, Scud Mountain Boys CD, Chills CD. The perfect parcel.

Letter from my Nana, sent from Perth. I was about 6 and had left Puppy (my stuffed toy) at my Nana and Pop's house while visiting. But I didn't know I'd left him their and thought I had lost the little guy. My Nana wrote to say that Puppy was enjoying his stay at their house and that he ws looking forward to seeing me soon. Makes me cry.

Letter from my Grandma, sent from Greenbushes. Just because.


PLUS
In other news!!!

Love is My Velocity
+
Architecture in Helsinki
=
One beautiful night of extra special Guest DJ Action!!!!

Get yourselves and others down to Bar Open on Thursday the 25th of August for what will be a night full of super duperness. Architecture in Helsinki (and not just one member folks, the whole damn lot of them!) will be spinning their favourite tunes from 9pm til late. What is the charge you ask? It's 5!

Will there be 8 songs playing at once? Will they all fit into the DJ booth? There’s only one way to find out…

Love is My Velocity presents SuperStar DJ's
-----Architecture in Helsinki----
at Bar Open
$5 entry
9pm til late
Thursday August 25

A Winter's Day in a Deep and Dark umm June

It's been ages since I listened to Simon and Garfunkel. Aren't they great? It is almost always good to not listen to something you really like for while. Cause then you kind of recapture the ever elusive feeling of falling in love with something for the first time. Endorphins come out to play, goose bumps raise their heads, hair stands on end. Though it is so god damn cold in my apartment I had goose bumps prior to Simon and Garfunkel's intervention.

Have you ever found yourself caught up in one of those crazy gift receiving situations in which someone thinks you like something, but actually you don't like it at all, and because out of politeness you say "what a great present!" they continue to think you like that particular thing, and so when they are next in a giving presents to you situation they think it is a safe bet to get you something similar. And before you know it everyone is thinking "hey, he or she likes that particular thing, let's get him or her that" and you end up with a whole lot of crappy presents. It's like a virus! And what can you do about it? I'll tell you what you can do about it - Not a damn thing! Because saying you don't like that particular thing could potentially hurt feelings, which in turn could potentially result in a lack of present-giving from the offended parties. And let's face it, crappy presents are better than no presents at all.
Rewind to when I was about 11 or so - I found myself in such a situation. My Aunty and Uncle got me a Daryl Braithwaite tape for Christmas. I could understand their reasons for the gift - he was popular at the time. But let it go on Record that I think Daryl Braithwaite sucks (okay, maybe I knew some of the words to that song about wild horses, but he is not cool). But being the polite boy I was (and continue to be of course) I pretended to be suitably enthused. But the next day the tape was in a drawer and there it stayed.
Fast Forward a year. What do they get me? The new Daryl Braithwaite album! Insert feigned glee and all that stuff. Again the tape goes in a drawer. I don't pay any more thought to the situation. But come my next Birthday I get a cassette shaped present from my Grandparents. Surely it can't be! My mind races. I'm not sure I'm able to Play the "what a great gift" game again. I Pause before unwrapping, preparing myself for the worst. It is, of course, a Daryl tape. His new Cassingle to be exact. The virus has spread. It's too late to stop it. I'll be getting Daryl Braithwaite albums for the rest of my life. I have but one option - I must kill Daryl Braithwaite.
Luckily his career died in the arse shortly after (he was last seen playing pubs in small country towns) and I didn't have to resort to such violent options. I was one of the lucky ones - my story had a happy ending. But millions of people aren't so lucky.

Take my Grandma for example. She hates frogs. Can't stand the little green hoppers. So someone decided to get her a ceramic frog to put in her garden (the ironic present, what joy it brings). My Grandma put the frog in her garden (did she have a choice?), where others could see it. And it turns out some of those people saw the frog and thought "hmm, she must like frogs". Guess what happens next? My Grandma starts getting mugs with frogs on, cards with frogs on, and so on and so on. The virus has spread, and it cannot be stopped. 20 years it has been going, maybe longer. Other people I know have suffered from cow themed presents. This is a widespread problem in the community, yet is seems no one is doing any kind of research to find a cure. So I have decided to do something about it. I'm not sure what, but when I think of something I'll let you know.

Blowin in the Wind

The original name for the breathalyser was 'the Drunkometer'. Which is a lot more fun.

For Today I am a Boy

June is my favourite month, for more reasons than one.

Take My Hand, Take My Whole Life Too

I'm a-gettin' bored of this little internet space so I'm going to start a new place where all kinds of wonder-filled adventures may or may not occur on what will probably be a not-very-frequent-at-all basis. I can sense your excitement.

*after i wrote this and published it my old template went a little crazy and i couldn't fix it, so may i present to you my all new uglyish template!*

Tis' probably time to kinda re-enter society, seeing it's spring and all. Was good catching up with people on the weekend, and finding out the pub just down the road has a big-ass barrel of peanuts in their shells (which could be described as shelled peanuts, but that also means peanuts that have been shelled [i guess that could mean peanuts that have had a shell put on them], so it is really all quite confusing and many a time did I find myself chewing on a shelled peanut. I don't know, did I?) which you can crack open and throw the non-edible bits wherever you goddam feel like it cause you don't have to clean that shit up.

The nicest healthiest food in the history of my gastronomical adventures can be found at The Earthmarket Organic Cafe in Subiaco. And cheap too. And free water from a water cooler thing which I always wanted in my house but haven't ever got.

The best thing I've seen in the last couple of months is Gabba Gabba Hey!, a Ramones musical. It was entirely terrific, and featured such songs as Dean Kay Took My Baby Away (ha!) and, of course, I Wanna Be Sedated, which was performed in a somewhat, erm, sedated style, but it worked. Was good good fun.

Saw Somersault last night, which is a very nice little movie. The main guy looks like my older brother and kinda reminded me of him a bit, and of me a little too. It did a really good job of transforming a small Australian country farming town onto the big screen. It made me remember breaking up square hay bales on a trailer on the back of a tractor and throwing it the always waiting cows, clearing paddocks of rocks, fixing fences in the pouring rain in the middle of winter, kicking the football around, and just the serenity, the fresh air, the not knowing (or not thinking? maybe not caring is the best phrase) that there is anything bigger out there, that there are bands other than those played on the radio, that there are movies other than those on TV, that I can aspire to be something other than a teacher, an accountant, a mechanic, a welder, a footballer, a cricketer, that there are complicated sometimes heart-wrenching things such as friendships, relationships, backstabbing, cancer, death, that sometimes everything does get a bit fucked up and there's not much you can do about it, that it is actually kinda hard to figure out who you are, what you want to do. Sometimes I feel like growing up on a farm in a country town was a disadvantage - just not having access to cultural/arts things. But I'm beginning to cherish it, just cause I have my unspoiled memories of pure peace that make feel so good inside.

Kerouac comes to mind now, he wrote kinda what I'm trying to describe.

I Wondered If I'd Ever See Another Highway

In the second half of last week I did a Senior First Aid course.

Scenario: There is a body on the floor, a pool of blood surrounding them. What do you do?
So apparently your first action shouldn't be dust off all your fingerprints, dispose of the murder weapon and get the first flight to the Bahamas.

It was reasonably good fun, and I am so keen to resuscitate someone, or treat a snake bite, or put a sling on a broken arm, or treat someone for hypothermia (which can involve a bit of sleeping bag snuggle action. There is a pick-up line just waiting to happen right there). Diabetics have easily the best first aid action - lollies or anything sugary. And none of that artificially sweetened stuff. Though it does kind of make "helps the medicine go down" redundant, and I don't like anyone fucking with Mary Poppins. And now I'm seeing Julie Andrews in a whole new light.

I really like feta cheese. All kinds of cheese are great actually, but feta is ny current favourite. A couple of weeks ago it was parmesan, and everything had parmesan in, but lately it has all been about feta. My life tends to run in themes a little - this month I have been cutting myself quite frequently, april was about hitting things, while march saw burns come into vogue. Today I bit my tongue, which I hope is not a sneak preview of what June has to offer.

June is generally a good month for me, namely because it is my birthday (June 25). Tomorrow is June, tomorrow is Winter. I'm quite excited about Winter. I'm getting enthused about reading again too, like properly enthused. I've been having a casual affair with books of late, picking one up when I feel like a bit of late night action in my bedroom, but now I'm ready to get into something a little more serious.

Talking about intimate relations, my car and I doing some serious bonding of late. It is getting on in years and doesn't like starting on cold mornings. So to make sure it goes I have to tuck it in each night by putting a blanket over the engine, and in the mornings I massage its' cables and give the spark plugs a bit of a wriggle.

I am going to buy a digital camera soon which is highly exciting. I've done a fair amount of research but now I'm a little hesitant about choosing one as there are so many cameras, and what if i make a wrong choice? In these kind of situations, where there are lots of things to choose from, I tend to go on some kind of good feeling about a particular one. I like to think that this feeling is like a higher level of processing, a subconscious decision pulling all the things I've learnt together, giving all the products a rating, and releasing a few endorphins when I look at what it has chosen to be the best one. But I think, thanks to years of being exposed to advertising, it has more to do with which one looks the coolest.

I have a good feeling about June, like a "Something good is going to happen to you" (like in Gerling's 'Enter Space Capsule') feeling. I can't wait for Love is My Velocity on Sunday, I've really missed Djing. I'm enthused about life, which is kind of an unusual feeling. Maybe it's the change of season, maybe it's the poison I've been drinking so I can put my training into practice (induce vomiting if the substance isn't corrosive, drink milk or water if it is. And call the friendly people at the Poison Information Centre), but I'm feeling pretty darn good.

I have to make a phone call now.