badmigraine

Don't you love seeing a headline about an earthquake striking here or there, and you just know that somewhere in the first or second paragraph of the story, they will refer to it as a "temblor"? "...the temblor struck Japan's northernmost island..." "...the last temblor recorded in the region was in 1966..." "TEMBLOR" I just love that word. Nobody ever gets to say it, except maybe newscasters. Temblor...temblor...temblor... What a great word!

How about "the kohai of the construction guy with a red flashing light"?

Kambei, in addition to medical treatment, it looks like he needs counseling or some kind of intervention. I'm stoked about laid-out carves up on the mountain, but doing them 20 meters in front of the lodge entrance reminds me of a scene from the movie Jackass... I'm not sure if the guy is completing a turn, or waiting to be sledded off to the trauma unit. I did just watch the Quicktime vid myself and wow, it really does look like fun. I wish they'd mix it up a bit with other onslope moves, but I guess they are trying to make a point with their manifesto and all that.

Kambei, I couldn't tell whether you are saying it's silly, or just not real... Let me offer the following photo to illustrate that it is probably both: My theory is that the riders in the pics were photographed just before they fell down or washed out their edges. But then, I haven't watched the videos on the site. Maybe they swallow a lot of helium and wear rubber bands on their knees.

Carving Mag Online ... Even includes photos and guides to different carving styles! For the committed carver only.

They claim their prototype board allows this kind of turns in various snow conditions, as opposed to the freshly groomed corduroy that regular carving boards require to do this kind of thing. I imagine it feels like a cross between carving hard on a single waterski, and being a cricket riding inside a frisbee thrown by Mogski after a few gin and tonics at Aux Bacchanales in Harajuku.

Mogs, posting before 10 a.m. at work? A fine thing. A fine thing indeed! I think the stoke factor is ratcheting up for everyone now. Come on, winter!!

Yeah! I want to try THIS!!: http://www.extremecarving.com/photos/photos.html Like making love to the snow on each turn...

Goemon, that pic must be one of those weird optical illusions. If you stare at it for 5 minutes, you can see a leopard in the background! Unbelievable.

Hey sandman, one other thing. If you're still in Tokyo, check out Oshmans in front of Harajuku Station. They often have last year's Burtons on deep discount, and I recall seeing "last year's" Canyon in 164cm or so there more than once. Worth a look anyway, even if just to walk around Harajuku Stn. people-watching.

I usually keep an older board or two around, but rarely use them....so I will say "1 board"! With the following caveat: this year, I am looking to try skiing again after a decade on a snowboard. God help me and my wallet.

Just to clarify: it's untrue that Arnold can "never be president" of the US. He CAN be. Here's how: 1. Arnold gets elected as vice-president of the US (no requirement of native-born US citizenship for this job). 2. Next, the president becomes incapacitated (gets too sick, dies, resigns, etc.). 3. Arnold is now president of the US. See how it works? Only native-born US citizens can be elected as President. But a vice-president having US citizenship can become president without being elected as such...regardless of birth nationality. Now, who wo

Ocean, I haven't yet ridden one. I would love to try some of their boards... Last spring I bought an '02/'03 Salomon Fastback so I don't need another soft-boot all-mountain board... I'm ready to try hard boots, plate bindings and the Axis. Doesn't that thing look like a weapon? I think you can demo Donek boards at some places in Colorado (that's where they're located). In addition to a 2-year warranty, they have a 30-day money-back guarantee. So if you buy one and just don't like it, you can return it and get of your money back. Burton, Salomon, Forum, Ride, etc. can't bea

sandman- If you're interested in a mass-market board from a famous maker, online shopping isn't a bad option, when you think about the limited selection of longer boards in Tokyo. I was always looking for something around 160-164, and was constantly frustrated. If you're OK with race/custom board makers that also make non-race, all-mountain boards, then you might check out the Donek Snowboards website. They offer international shipping by FedEx for only $25. Their all-mountain board only costs about $350. Donek is cheaper because there's no advertising and middleman/dealer costs.

I learned it just by being in Japan for so long, hanging out at bars and with women and with bilingual Japanese and foreigners, and by picking up a textbook or taking a few lessons here or there. A completely ramshackle approach that gave me a kind of pidgin-talk way of communicating with scant kanji literacy or grammar knowledge to prop up my small but functional vocabulary. I sure would like to do a complete, formal course, but I am a hopeless misfit now, with odd skills, bad habits and yawning gaps in my Japanese. I'm sorry to hear you can't find better J conversation in Madi

Dims, if you wish to discuss corsets, please start another thread. Having boots and corsets in the same thread is too much for me and my coffee right now!!

Yes, as much as I respect academic pursuits, I'd advise my kids to learn another living language before studying Latin. I've spent some time studying Latin, French, Italian and law myself, and I know what I am talking about. Studying Latin is a fine thing and it sure does give you some insights into the grammar of Romance languages like French, Italian and Portuguese, and even helps you understand many points of Germanic and Slavic grammar and vocabulary. It also helps you understand the components of the half of English that is Romance-derived. And yes, some law school cl

I can believe the IR headphones may produce better sound quality than the RF ones, but wouldn't they be limited to a kind of line-of-sight zone of use? Where does one usually put the IR transmitter? I guess it depends on the size of your desk, but if you put your coffee cup or a pile of books in front of it, does it stop working?

Yeah, what's up with that? I don't recall Oden being available at konbinis except from late fall to spring. But when I was in Japan last summer, they were all over the place. Did they change the rules of oden?

Thanks, db! I like 'em too. Rather too much actually. Nice sig BTW. Are you an Objectivist or Libertarian?

Now that the weather is cooling down, are the women in Tokyo starting to wear their long black boots again? What is the recommended heel size this year?

Mogs, re "fear of the Big One": Is that what your girlfriend feels every time you two go on a date?

When I first arrrived in Japan, they pointed to them and said "Use these when you go to the toilet..." I peed into them for two months before figuring it out.

Ocean, my eyes are brown...sadly, I don't have the anime-eyes thing going for me... A slightly different topic, but one of the things that has always bugged me about learning Japanese is seeing white Americans on TV who appear to have a perfect command of Japanese grammar, vocabulary, culture, etc., but whose pronunciation is absolutely atrocious...their speaking sounds like some first-timer reading a romanized version of Japanese using an American-English accent. How in the world can this be? How can one get so good at Japanese without even approaching the native sound of it? M

Yeah but that's the problem...a lot of them give antibiotics ANYWAY.