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badmigraine

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Everything posted by badmigraine

  1. Yeah, Osaka/Kobe is the locus of opportunity. My company may actually relocate to Kyoto next year, which would encourage me to keep suckling at the teat for awhile longer. I'm wondering if there are some J law firms around Kurashiki that wouldn't mind having an American lawyer come in once or twice a week to help with any English language work they may have. There are some people down there doing this already that I know about. If I got 2-3 of these places lined up, I might make a rummy go of it.
  2. Connackers, what you doing down in Okayama? My wife's from Kurashiki and we are thinking of ditching Tokyo and heading back there. Provided I find suitable work of course. The typhoon just hit hard here in Tokyo, and the air warmed up 10 degrees in just a few minutes...went from clammy slashing rain to hot booming winds just like that. Weird!
  3. Take away the shameless picking-up of women, the obscene guzzling of booze even before lunchtime, the freedom to flip the bird to boss and work when that powder dump hits, and as a final blow take 1/2 of a right medial meniscus out of the mix, and look at what you're left with. It's not worth it. Not worth it at all! Now, where's that damn link to the DaKine and Salomon websites. I need to find out what I'm buying this year!
  4. It really is amazing, the world of jobs. Compulsory drug testing at work? Necessary for some I suppose. But take, for example, my sister's graphic design job at one of the top ad boutiques used by the US automakers...at her workplace, it's almost like they have a Compulsory Drug Use policy. There is always a pitcher of margaritas making the rounds, and rare is the day indeed when a voice doesn't rise above the cubicle walls saying something like "Hey thanks for that great herb, Dawg!" There are jobs, and there are jobs. What are YOU working at right now?
  5. Quote: My lowdown comes from my recent research, purchase and installation of a washlet in my apartment. Mogs, you never told me this! I am heading over to Kams immediately to express the fruit of my bowels at your place, then enjoy the relaxing cleanup courtesy of your new washlet! I hope the water warmer is functioning properly.
  6. Maybe the wax was moving at the normal rate after all, but time itself had slowed down while you puffed on that magic herb.
  7. You should listen to Mogs...he knows his dumps and all the gear! Might also be worth Googling around a bit on the Net. I did this in Michigan about a year ago for just the reasons you describe, and found several options for washlets sold in the US at various prices, including a Korean one, one by National, and some Toto products that had been imported. All included English instruction manuals. Another place to look is at the shop all the Japanese people shop at when they live in Oz. There was a shop like this in my town due to the high number of auto industry Japanese expats, and the
  8. You can find cheaper ones at stores such as Don Quixote and some of those little shops that sell batik, Indian sarongs, incense, pot pipes and tin jewelery. They get HOT by the way. I think it's real lava in there.
  9. The other way to look at it is, Americans have an obsession with orthodontia and cosmetic dentistry. Just as they have forgotten what real normal beef tastes like, so also have they forgotten what a real normal human mouth looks like. Isn't there an episode of the Simpsons where the dentist finally gets the little one to open her mouth by showing her a few pages from "The Book of British Teeth"?
  10. You can always find a sweet deal with any of these providers, it just depends on what kind of machine and usage you will need. As for FOMA, yeah, it ain't working so great right now. But I was able to use mine in Europe and it works in America too. That was nice. One number, any country. Haven't got the bill yet of course. Mobile phone rates and service in the US are a circus of bait-and-switch, hidden charges and huge bills. It's tough to complain about the Japan mobile phone experience after spending 2 years in the US and seeing how it could be. We're lucky over here. I notic
  11. The whole thing was a setup of the type that online chatroomers used to call a "troll". The first question that comes to mind is, what kind of person would have the desire and time to actually follow through with a written response to such letters? If I were still in college and leading the grand old student lifestyle, I and my roommates would have sat around drinking beers and each writing 5-10 different absurd or seemingly real responses, all under fake names. I must admit I have already drafted several in my head, but being a slave-driven expat worker with many pressing oblig
  12. As Mogski has proved, all those hangovers and wasted yen at the Gas Panic and Motown could have been saved, with a far better "done deal" percentage, by simply renting a cute little dog and walking up and down the beach in Kamakura in summertime. I personally witnessed his mini Dachs pull 5-10 of the most eye-poppingly luscious bikini babes. These were gals whom we never would have met at Gas in our bachelor days. One girl in particular comes to mind. Perfect creamily tanned bazoongas packed into a tight shiny pink bikini, and cork high-heel clogs and long, curvy legs sweeping up in
  13. It's a cruel world, Captain. Mogski, who works in my building, is thinking of adopting a 50 yen-per-day budget. He looked at North Korea and saw them eating tree bark. He looked at all the papers and napkins around the office and thought they could be boiled into a tasty soup. There is always shoptlifting, and the endless restaurant garbage cans to go through. The one behind TGI Fridays isn't bad on Thursday nights. He wears his black body armor to ward off hungry crows and blend in, perhaps the locals think he is some sort of giant New Zealand bird come round for the trash c
  14. Even with native-level J, here in Tokyo in a law job I'd still be working impossible hours. Same as NYC, same as L.A., all the same. The grind. It was OK when I was single, but getting home after 10 pm, it's impossible to have a family life, exercise, read books, study kanji or stay in touch with family. In fact, it's impossible to even be in a good mood. The situation is ugly all around. Time to move on! I'll either be working as a 9-to-5 lawyer somehow, or have a change in career. This one is going nowhere. We're actually looking in Okayama, where my wife's family is. Kyoto or Osa
  15. Yeah, US companies operating in Tokyo, that is where I would probably focus my job search. Unfortunately the days of the non-bilingual US lawyer in Tokyo are ending. Many employers already prefer a native J/excellent E bilingual lawyer with little or no experience over a seasoned lawyer with native E and business-level J. The reason is, half of what they do requires J law and J contract stuff, and why would they want an in-house guy who couldn't even read or negotiate legal documents in the local language? The other alternative is to go back to a US law firm's Tokyo office. But the h
  16. With a beautiful new baby and my wife at home, I can no longer accept the 14-hour workdays I've been putting in at my Japanese company. OK, the hours are to be expected as I chose to become a lawyer and that is what the market expects. But out of curiosity I had a look at some job sites to see about a career change and found that even for what I would have thought were fairly skilled jobs, the wages are very low...so low that it would be almost a volunteer job or even require personal financial contributions from savings (or living with parents rent- and board-free) just to keep doing the job.
  17. Kind of tangential to this thread, but what about those people who appear in photos from bars or dance clubs, mouths wide open to show their tongue piercing? How idiotic. "LOOK AT ME--I GOT TONGUE PIERCING!" A corollary is the set that wears tank-tops even in cold weather, just to show they got a bicep tatoo. "LOOK AT ME--I GOT INK DONE!" Great. How extremely bold and daring to be different!! It makes me cringe to try to imagine all the things these people are anxiously hoping we'll imagine about what kind of people they are because they did something really amazing by getting
  18. In school we used to giggle when, on looking at old semi-nude paintings, the art teacher explained that "generous" figures were considered beautiful in olden days...and the social studies teacher would confirm this by mentioning societies where fat was sexy. My conclusion on spending a year or two in Michigan is that these days have come back for many US communities. A short trip to any mall turns up scores of high school age girls with bare midriffs, but jellylike flab hanging over the belt. Even the relatively less jellied ones have the soft lobes puffing over the jeans. It occurre
  19. And contrast the NyQuil issue with the fact that psychedelic mushrooms were legally available and sold in several varieties in front of big stations like Shibs, for years, until banned just before Japan hosted the last soccer World Cup. Fear of hooligans hepped up on psilocybin, plus the over-reported story of one or two people who took too many mushrooms and were found drooling or gibbering in a konbini after hours created a witch hunt mentality and the good old things were banned...just a couple of years ago folks.
  20. Nice one, Scouser! And FYI, Mogs used to keep 2 somewhat smaller girlfriends, just like that book that had to have 2 volumes where only 1 formerly did the trick. This may be the only smart iteration of this doubling thing so far!
  21. Sorry, but this is all just the same as tiny bags of salt, tiny packages of spaghetti, tiny packs of chocolate, tiny broccoli, tiny glasses, tiny tables and tiny apartments. It's all been proportionately downsized, get it? I wonder how the average local would feel if all the sinks in the country topped out around mid-thigh, all mirrors were placed below eye level, and all sofas hit around mid-calf? Erm...probably about like I feel now. And then there's the thrill of having to pay double price for half-sized stuff. Yes, this is one of those things about living here. I
  22. The fillings are usually quite well done here as they take their sweet time and mold it properly. The bonding techniques here are supposedly better than "back home", although a quick glance at the local teeth show some are not taking advantage of this. The dentists get a certain payment from the National Health Insurance every time you visit, as well as a cash payment from you, I hear, so that's why they like you to keep coming back again and again. A final note on fillings falling out, as explained to me by my father over 3 decades ago: Did you ever consider that maybe it was y
  23. I wonder how they get the "flavor" right. Watching Japanese subtitles of English-language movies, you'll see "Damn, you bet yo sweet ass, mo-f***aa!" translated as "Hai". How can you put that kind of slang or response that suggests a character type into a language where no such character has ever existed? There must be a thousand variants of this translation problem. Naturally, this works the other way: stuff translated into English from other languages is probably stripped of much of what gave it color and pleasurable idiom in its own language. Every language has its own
  24. A dove is a pigeon with vitiligo, like Michael Jackson. They were bred pure white for use as camoflauged food fryers in secret Appenine and Vosges snow missions during WWII...hence the name: the white pigeon was evolved or "evo'd" from the urban air rat variety and the word evo'd was reversed as "dove" by cockney troops to better match their rhyming slang ("lovey dovey"). The modern-day progeny of these airbone rations survives and can be seen at some European resorts as a pair of pink eyes staring beadily up at the chairlift as customers go past on a Saturday afternoon. After t
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