badmigraine
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Posts posted by badmigraine
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Thanks, Dims! Actually, I am under a constant rain of turds at the moment, and the only reason I feel fine is that my little baby girl is on the way!
I haven't yet decided whether she's going to be a pro athlete or a financial genius. It's hard to choose. Maybe both?
One thing's for sure. If she has my teeth, then she is getting braces. For sure.
My parents are Brits and they just didn't see the value of orthodontia. Well, if my company goes bankrupt, maybe I can get braces and reinvent myself as a guy with perfect teeth.
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Orange, I'm no doctor, but I always figured the flatulent feeling results from the difference in pressure at altitude.
Sure the cabin is "pressurized", but it is still at a lower air pressure than ground level. That's why your ears pop and shampoo bottles and little coffee cream tubs with foil covers become tight as drums.
The air trapped inside of them is still at ground level pressure, but the cabin pressure is lower, so they want to bulge out like balloons.
And this is going on inside your gut and intestines. The gases expand, your intestines plump up and the only way to go is out the bunghole... The overall effect is a feeling of bloating and flatulence.
Add to that the gassy nature of the fried pretzel snacks, peanuts and other foods they give you, and the result is like a fragrant summer wind that never stops.
Then when we return to ground level, our feet don't fit our shoes anymore. The gases inside our body take awhile to adjust back down to normal.
How's that for a zany layperson's explanation?
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Ocean, there's a chance I probably have a 3/16 allen wrench in my kit at home. If you're needing it, I'd be happy to takyuubin it down to you. Don't have much use for it lately, so you could keep it around for as long as you want, maybe even forever. Let me know if you're interested, I'll check my toolbox and could send it tomorrow (Saturday).
Dims, I'd love any chance to show off my board. Right now is not the best time though! At work, I am presiding over the looming bankruptcy of a well-known Japanese company (if it happens, I am out of a 70-hr./wk. job...I kind of hope it happens
), and at home my wife is having a difficult pregnancy and is on strict bedrest. I don't think I can leave her on the weekends to go surfing until after the baby is born this autumn. By then, we ought to meet on a ski slope eh.What a great thread this turned out to be. All we need now is a pic of Ocean's new toy.
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I'd love to check out southern Tassie, but I hear it works best when winter's icy flakes are in the air. Yikes!
My board cost more than usual because of the wood veneer. The price was about US$750. It is a beautiful looker and I'm pretty sure I could sell it at a profit, but I never would. The non-wood boards are cheaper.
I ordered it at the end of summer in Japan, and told Stranger I was in no particular hurry. They were busy with some existing orders right around then, and they also probably surf a lot so in the end it took a couple of months to get to me, including shipping. I was in the US at that point and had them ship it to me there.
I didn't care much about the timing. I figured that ordering a custom board from a lifestyle surfer (as anyone who surfs when it's snowing should be called) meant that I'd get it whenever he got around to being satisfied with it. I heard from Mark that he wasn't happy with the way the veneer came out the first time, so he did it all over again to get it perfect. Not bad eh.
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Oh, I forgot. It's a 7 foot Cruiser, done in wood veneer...you can check it out on the Stranger site heh.
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Hey Dims, I do have one of Nick's boards and it is a beaut. How do you know about Stranger boards?
All my J friends here are on them and one of them helped set me up with this one.
Sadly, I left surfable Japan for Walled Lake, Michigan just as it was done, and had to live for almost 2 years staring at this thing in the living room, without a surfable wave around.
Don't tell Nick and Mark, but I paddled it around Walled Lake all summer last year. Best done in the mornings. By noon, you have the drunks in powerboats and you could get shredded.
Last weekend we camped in Ibaragi I finally got to take it into the ocean. IT WORKS!!!
And I love it.
Now all I have to do is learn to surf. Still pretty much a rank beginner, but I figure I'll be doing this for decades and I'm in no particular rush to do anything except get in the water and have a beer and a camp on the beach with the gang.
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Wholly Schitte!!
Nice vid, Ocean. Is that vintage footage? The cars in the background don't seem new.
As for wakeboarding, it's really good fun but highly structured and eventually a pain in the a**. You need a lot of people, a boat and all the goods, gas money, flattish water, not many other boats around, and it is noisy and stinks of fuel. And riding around on the boat gets old. Somebody is always blasting their favorite "core" music on a CD they burned themselves, as if what they understood from vids is that any balance sport must have blaring music playing the whole time, like we were all living inside a PlayStation. AND, if you're doing it right, the falls and whiplash soon require a visit to the chiropractor. SLAM!!
Surfing is more rewarding for a 41 year-old like me. The long days in the water. The pink and slate foam. Fishes jumping, BBQs on the beach in all kinds of weather. Retiring to my tent with a flashlight and book and the sussurus of the waves lulling me to sleep. And floating around in the ocean with your mates, watching everyone have a go at the waves.
And the amazing thing is, I can hardly even surf and I enjoy it this much.
Damn! Look at my surfboard over there. Custom made by a guy in Tassie...wish I was at the beach right now.
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Sorry to say it, but due to the expansion of tissue and gases at altitude even in a pressurized cabin, on long-haul flights I spend most of my time farting or waiting for the next fart to work its way down.
Severe in-flight flatulence...I can't be the only one.
What about the rest of you?
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"uptick"
I really hate the word. "The economy showed a slight uptick in April."
I hate it!! A lot.
It seems stupid, pretentious and, well, just BONEHEADED DUMB. Another fake fad word that CNN Money talking heads now must use while that "cha cha cha cha ding" sound plays really fast in the background to make you feel like all kinds of important things are happening really fast and you are kind of in there in the special fast-paced space being informed.
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For me, there are 3 main subcategories of "unnatural English".
1. Plain old grammar and vocabulary mistakes.
EXAMPLE:
"Regarding your proposed, here is an answer. Please review the followings."
2. No particular grammar or vocabulary item is blatantly wrong except perhaps for the run-on sentence problem, but and everything is in reverse order, in the passive voice, and, well, vague and confusing.
EXAMPLE:
"This was a company secretariat which was established under the guidance of Informative Life Principles, being held in agreement with notions of the exchange of information of low and high rate of volume which is done through various processes of communication in the office that are understood to be used in common among various groups in which the principles, or the guidance of Information, as it has been taught by various networks..." etc. etc.
3. An expression in stiff but standard English of an utterance or concept uncharacteristic of a native speaker.
EXAMPLE:
"Smokin' Clean" and your hobby example above.
Now, why doesn't someone start a thread to point out all the stupid Japanese mistakes that non-native speakers make?
That would be a better use of my time, because I'm pretty sure I sound worse to them than they do to me.
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"I am a staff of the Sales Department."
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The key money ("rei-kin") is just a straight gift to the landlord. They keep it all.
Your security deposit ("shiki-kin") is pretty much what it is in your home country. The landlord can keep some of it to cover damage to the place.
How much do they take, and what is the standard? Again, it's a lot like being back home. Some landlords are angels, others crooks. And most are somewhere in between: "BUSINESSPEOPLE".
Most landlords find that withholding part or all of a security deposit is good business practice for them. If they do it 10 times, only 4 people will actually complain, and of the 4, 3 give up or settle for a partial refund after one or two phone calls. What the heck. They've moved on, they cannot easily figure out and follow any formal procedures such as "small claims court" or what have you, and they probably damaged something and/or can't prove they didn't. And 1 of the ten may put up a fight (I am the 1 in 10).
It's an effective business practice for landlords. That's the reality.
I've had several apartment changes in Tokyo and lived here for over 8 years. Based on my personal experience and what J and foreign pals have told me, here you can expect the landlord to deduct some kind of cleaning fee. A range of 30,000 to 50,000 yen is about what I've seen for this.
Anything higher gets into ripoff or "damage recovery" territory.
A lot of places deduct big sums to put in new tatami, replace fusuma paper, do special range hood cleaning, or the old standby, "fumigate for pest control". However, most of them never do this. Did the place have new tatami, fusuma paper, a shiny range hood and no bugs when you moved in?
I doubt it.
Most places I've been in looked about like somebody's Mom gave them a pretty good clean, but the tatami is old, the fusuma paper only replaced if ripped, and the range hood a nightmare with cockroach legs and grease stuck up the flue.
If you have a dispute in Tokyo, you can make a complaint to the Tokyo Housing Bureau or something like that. I once did that, when a landlord tried to withhold 170,000 yen for "cleaning".
The Bureau was able to tell me what the normal range in my neighborhood was for a cleaning fee. It was "below 50,000". When I confronted the landlord with this information, they said that their cleaning was "special". I reminded them that when I moved in, the range hood had bugs stuck in deep grease, along with human hairs; old tatami, used fusuma paper, cobwebs and mold in the bathroom. I had pictures. I had had them come out after move-in to try to clean the range hood...the poor guy spent 3 hrs. with a can of engine degreaser and even that didn't do the trick.
Losing on that point, the landlord then said the high price was for "fumigation" for pest control, which they "always do". I had pics of cobwebs and roach legs and asked them to show me a receipt (bad idea to ask for receipts, they usually have a brother or pal in the contracting business who can give any receipt they want).
At this point they gave up and took 50,000, but it could have gone on.
The next place I rented, the landlady was gem. On moveout, she had nothing but praise for the way I'd made the place shine. She'd brought along the contractor, who they use to fix up the place for the next tenant, so I could hear his estimate of costs. This prick went round trying to find every possible thing wrong and to rack up costs. There really wasn't much, but he kept niggling over it, then finally the landlady looked him square in the eye and told him to Stop It, the place was fine. They only took 30,000...
Good luck with it. Best to have pics and witnesses, be calm and reasonable, and expect to lose some moderate amount for cleaning.
Sitting here now, I find myself wishing my job was "landlord".
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Yes, the tattered grunge look in 1st or business class makes them all think you are a rock star or professional skateboarder.
Makes the suits nervous!
Heh.
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So you're saying the hangovers are the same, whatever country one's in?
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brit-gob, it was the compromise of all compromises. Herewith follows the sad story.
My Japanese wife is pregnant, and prefers to have the baby in her own language and hospital culture. Her English is not great, so I can understand and honor this request to return to Japan for childbirth.
We would have liked to do this in her hometown in Okayama...if not just for the pleasure of finally being within striking distance of a glass of red with Ocean, who lives across the great Seto bridge in Shikoku, but also to be with my wife's family in a pleasanter part of Japan than I've ever lived in. Would have been dreamy to spend a couple years there.
Also, this type of support and honoring of the pregnant wife's wishes raised me greatly in the estimation of my peers, not to mention all women on the planet.
However, between you and me, the real kicker was on the 2nd day of my internet search for Japan jobs from the comfort of my lakeside Michigan abode. Over the wires the electronic message came...my old employer offering to take me back at triple my former salary.
"Yay, what manner of fowl alights in that guilded cage..."
-the end-
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I hate mailing off my passport anywhere. Even if you ignore the risk of loss or theft, I hate to be without it. Not that I may suddenly need it. It just bugs me to send it off anywhere. Compulsive stress.
I guess you're "required" to appoint a "tax representative" before you leave Japan. That person, by signing the form, effectively becomes responsible for your tax payments if you don't make them. I hope your visa rep doesn't say sorry, but we earn our living by following the law and getting cooperation from J bureaucrats so as rule-followers we report to you the fact that before we can ask the J immigration office to cancel your visa on your behalf, you have to appoint a tax rep and send proof...
As for sending in your Alien Card, that sounds a palatable. Make sure you take photocopies of everything you send, and use a form of delivery that allows proof of delivery/signer (FedEx has this option).
Finally, why wouldn't the J Embassy in London cancel your visa? Seems a fairly straightforward request that wouldn't deserve refusal. Was it the tax representative thing?
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They wouldn't let ya? What's plan B?
I know what you mean about leaving. Part of it is just the Being Done with a place and the appetent pleasure/excitement at going to the next place.
But a big part of leaving Japan is being back in a place where the culture and lifestyle are your native ones or close to them...a place where you can read every publication without a dictionary, where you can give customer service reps a dose of the clean truth when you've been done, where you can handle your relationships with everyone from homeless to Hollywood in your own tongue.
And part of it is escaping a fairly regimented, closed and rigid society that can be frustrating for foreigners in so many ways.
After I quit my job in Tokyo in 2002, I hung around for a few months and it really sucked. I'd never had so much free time since school days, but there was precious little to do and nobody to do it with. Walking around the streets in casual clothes on weekdays, when everyone else was in a suit even in 38-degree weather, made me feel like I was some kind of loser and outcast. I could go to a cafe and have a $5 coffee and sit there like an idiot. I could go back to my room and look at the Internet. Some weekends I could surf with my buddies...after a 3-hr. drive.
Then I remember getting back to Walled Lake, MI. In a matter of days I had a big Ford Expedition, a mountain bike with endless miles of forest trails to ride, and family and friends all up and down the road.
I remember lying on the carpet in a house all my own, staring out the window at the lush green trees, woods and pond in the back...all mine. I remember walking out my front door onto the shore of Walled Lake...my sis pulling up in a brand-new X-Star to pull us on the wakeboard and wakeskate...coolers of iced beer and booze all over the place...the liquor store even had a dock from which you could buy this stuff. Cutting the lawn, washing the car, going to the grocery store where nobody jammed past me in a tiny aisle elbowing my kidneys...I never had to walk behind smokers holding my breath, no old ladies pestered me on Sunday afternoons to pay TV taxes, nobody complained about how I put out my garbage, I didn't have to register with anyone and inform the local cops that I was living there, I called gas, water, electricity and phone service on Sunday night a 2 am and they were all open...I went to the bank at 6 pm on Saturday and they were open...
It was all so easy and free.
I just got back to Tokyo in March, and I could feel the doors slam shut. My commute involves 7 minutes on the train, and 28 minutes of lining up and waiting. I have to wait to go thru the wicket at my station, line up to shuffle down the stairs to the train, get jammed in and stepped on and crushed on the train, have to line up to shuffle up the stairs to the station, line up to get out of the wickets, walk in tiny chopping footsteps at a painfully slow pace to my building where, surprise, you actually have to line up and wait about 2-3 minutes to get on an elevator. Yes, they are backed up into the hallway. No cooler there either, you are dripping wet with sweat and exhausted before you even sit down at your desk...and you haven't even done a god damned thing yet!!
Just one tiny part of the whole frustrating puzzle of living here. Not a bad country, not a bad town, but really, to make a life in Tokyo? Sheesh.
I'm not saying these are the thins that are wrong with Japan and Tokyo. I'm just saying these are some things that were wrong with ME BEING IN Japan and Tokyo. Big difference.
Deebs, enjoy it! You got out!!
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Hey scouser, I was living in Rome in the summer of 1984 when Liverpool came into town and beat the Italians! For weeks afterward, you could find "Thank you, Liverpool" carved into benches and ancient monuments throughout the city. A very fine time to be in Italy.
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Sheesh, meant to be a troll and a joke, boys! I wanted someone to explode at the idiocy of my post and keep me amused through the end of this blah workday.
I guess either:
(i)
you guys are too serious about your football to have noticed the absolute BS content of the post including "Arsenhall" spelling and the preposterously American concept of a "Soccer World Series", or
(ii)
you [probably correctly] estimated the post to be a fairly indicative representation of the average American's understanding of the sport.
As for this American, I, a Kiwi and a J guy have an inside line on a spot of floor in a German pal's Stuttgart apartment come the Big Event!!
Can't think of a finer venue for it either. Beer, preztels and big strapping Damen!
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What airport did this happen at?
People leaving Japan (for good) before their visa expires can ask the immigration officer at the port of exit to stamp or mark their visa "cancelled" or "used".
Why would anybody do this?
Because one of the documents you submit to get your pension tax refund is a photocopy of every passport page including your cancelled visa. If the visa is still valid, then it appears to the tax office that you have NOT given up your Japanese residence and could still be living in Japan, or could come back again.
That's why some people (me included) ask the immigration officer to cancel the visa upon final departure from Japan.
I've done it twice. Both times, the guy looked puzzled but obligingly stamped or wrote something on the visa that did the trick for the pension refund people.
Mailing back your gaijin card from your home country to indicate that you've left Japan for good might also work, especially if the tax office is located in the ward office. Then you could ask the tax officer to confirm with the foreign registration people that your gaijin card was returned.
But I'm no expert on this so don't quote me.
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Deebs, job well done!
Let us know how the tax refund etc. comes out. This is useful stuff for the lot of us.
Taxes...the government is making this a Personal thing.
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As an American, I predict that one of the stronger European teams might win the soccer World Cup. There's a team in Italy called Inter Milan I see in the paper sometimes, they might take it all. That is, if they can beat Beckham's Arsenhall...he's a threat they say.
I've not quite figured out the elimination rounds. Shouldn't the aim be NOT to get eliminated? We should be working on figuring out which teams will be IN the Cup, not eliminated from it. M
aybe there could be a Soccer World Series to determine the best teams.
The teams that don't make it could send their best players to make an All-Star Soccer Team that would take on the Cup Champions in a game where everyone, all barriers and all grass was covered head-to-toe in advertisements for cars, soft drinks, ciggies, oil, sporting goods and also financial service products for the personal as well as enterprise markets.
An even more radical proposal, from an American perspective: let the teams in the Cup be from each COUNTRY, not the rich club teams like the NY Wankees of soccer!
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How would the average Japan leaver prove payment of ward tax?
It's normally deducted from my salary, but they don't pass out pay stubs anymore. Pay history can be viewed on the company intranet, but not from the airport.
Would the effect of this rule, if that's what it is, be that the airport people have to verify every case before letting people quit Japan?
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db, this is exactly what I did a couple years ago.
I left Japan when the first or second of my ward tax payments had come due (bill in the mail), but I had not paid any of it.
I surrendered my gaijin card at the airport customs counter (nobody there knows anything about any taxes, you don't have to worry about it), and had them be sure to stamp my visa as "cancelled" or "used". (I don't think this is required, but I wanted clear evidence that I was no longer residing in Japan.)
Then when I got back to my own country I claimed the pension tax refund, giving my home address.
About two weeks later I got a letter from the Ward Tax people urging me to pay. I heard nothing about the pension refund, but obviously the pension refund people (a Japanese NATIONAL tax) were sitting next to the Ward Tax people (a LOCAL tax) in the ward office bldg. and were sharing information...such as my home country mailing address.
Yes, they really figured they'd got me.
I did nothing, except maybe curse a bit, as my unpaid tax liability was about the same as pension refund I expected--same boat as you, mate.
Every few weeks I got another letter from them asking, then requiring, then demanding my unpaid Ward Tax amount. The letters were clearly canned form letters, with some small revisions such as my name and address and the various amounts owed.
Eventually I got one that was thoroughly nasty by Japanese standards (threatening that they would pursue legal remedies available to them, including attaching any Japan property I might have).
I had heard from Japanese friends that the Ward has no legal way to collect unpaid ward taxes, even from Japanese people. There are shirkers here too. The Ward can keep hounding you, but the tax debt (I heard) goes away after 5 years. As for attaching my property in Japan, I had none to attach.
I did nothing on the assumption that the national tax people (pension refund) are governed by separate laws and regulations than the local (ward) tax people, whose charter and rules vary by ward or city. I figured they might sit together in the same general area, such as at the Shibuya Tax Office, but in the end were following two different sets of rules. Their physical proximity might lead to some collaboration and sharing of information, such as the home country mailing address of foreign tax deadbeats, but in the end they would have to follow their own rules. Sort of like Agent Smith in the Matrix, if you follow my meaning. They are Programs.
So I still I did nothing, and, in support of my "separation of powers" theory above, a few weeks later the pension refund came. The drinks were on me that night.
I never heard from the Ward Tax people again after that. I'm sure they'll find me eventually, if I go back to Japan, and then I may have to work something out with them.
But give yourself some hope. This CAN be done!
Good luck and let us know how it comes out.
PS - I know scads of J people whom I used to advise in the early 90s who skipped out on US taxes after a 2-3 year stint in that country. It is quite the popular tactic for expats.
That doesn't make it "Right", but it shows it's popular.
What makes it a little less "Wrong" is that you only get around 70% of your pension payments back, and even that is capped out around 1,000,000 yen. Many have paid in a lot more than that, and as a gaijin you don't get any benefit from it. "Taxation as theft".
Must see longboarding video
in General off-topic discussions
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Ocean, glad to see a man acquire more tools. This is always a good thing.
If you don't want the allen wrench, then how about some hubs and clutch housings then?
In a pinch they double as cruise missiles it seems.
What a world.