Sunday, November 23, 2008

"Hope is the thing with feathers / that perches in the soul."

Is this winter in Japan? It was supposed to snow this weekend, but instead the sky is very clear and blue and though there's a little chill it's not even coat-worthy. I went shopping and bought a lot of groceries but was made slightly melancholy by the Christmas music and decorations. I got a bag of mikan - I've eaten four since I got home and it might be time for an intervention. Usually foreign spices are ridiculously expensive but the gods of seasoning smiled on me and I got a container of nutmeg and cinnamon for 100 yen each <3 I bought some pencils because I have to write with them for the test, and it's been years since I've used pencils - I don't like the scratch or the blur - so I want to get used to them beforehand. Supposedly you do best at tests when they're under similar circumstances to what you studied under - well, I can't change the setting but at least I can assure the utensil won't feel strange.

I wandered down the candy aisle - as I am wont to do, getting vicarious pleasure - and noticed they did have a shelf or two of foreign sweets. Sadly there was no Skittles, though a good amount of M&Ms since they are so bland as to be acceptable in any culture. I was amazed to see that they still sell Sakuma drops, a hard fruit candy that comes in a tin. They were a major part of Grave of the Fireflies, the saddest movie ever, and some of the tins even had a picture of the main characters on them. I think I would burst into tears every time I ate one of the candies.

A Japanese man has been living in Mexico City's airport for three months, and may be there another four. He doesn't know why

And in other "thwarting authority" stories, completely unrelated to Japan, how one man pays his bills.

To make a long story short, there's this thing online called "cat macros" where someone takes a picture of an animal (usually a cat) and adds a caption to it. Often not very funny, but this one in particular struck me as hilarious - it might have something to do with being a younger sibling.

 

I'm in a cautiously optimistic mood, most likely as a result of watching comedy TV all weekend. Here's a sketch (with subtitles) about the world's most bizarre game of Tetris:

4 comments:

Grouchy said...

http://lolcats.com/

Unknown said...

Hae Emily, That video was pretty funny. If you've got the time I have a question, what do you think a good residence hall, if any, at UW, would be a good fit for me? You could email me the answer at woodman220@hotmail.com, or add me at www.myspace.com/sickdj. adios, wood

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Anonymous said...

I liked the guy who sent a spider to pay his bills. I have been feeling annoyed with bureacrats, because they take thanksgiving week off after sending faceless letters. I am thinking of making spider stickers with the machine mom got and sending them on all my official mail, as a protest, albeit an enigmatic one. I hope that you find something traditional or that you like to eat, and happy thanksgiving, or dandogracias in spanish, I think.
-Raney