Ezorisu

Is it still lurking if you just don't have anything good to say? I remember my mother drilling, "if you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything," into my head when I was a kid...

How 'bout "moonlit naita"?

I'll be in Sapporo from this Friday for a week or two. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be busy on the weekends, but I'll probably be catching the bus to Sapporo Kokusai, Kiroro, or Teine during the week for some riding time. I'm really not sure how open my schedule is going to be yet, but if you've got some free time and want to go boarding, let me know. Yikes! Sounds like a personal ad...

True that, but I couldn't think of something witty, so I wrote something geeky...

Was it windy overnight? Maybe the new snow "windpacked" - I experienced that in the back bowls in Whistler in January: 20-30cm overnight 50-60kph winds = hard and crusty.

If you've known him for over a year, you could say that since he didn't give you anything last White Day, you were under no obligation to give him anything for this Valentine's Day! "Giri-choco" - what a concept... at least it would be nice if there was some recourse, like how bad kids get a lump of coal from Santa - "I like you/tolerate you" = chocolate: "I dislike you" = coal.

Rach, FYI, "FAT32" is just geekspeak for "File Allocation Table 32" and is just a descriptor for how Windows is dividing up the space on the hard drive into little predetermined spaces. "NTFS" is "(WIndows) NT File System", and is basically the same as FAT32, but has provisions for encoding/passwords for each space. If you have Windows 2000 or later (like XP) you have NTFS.

The skiers do it too. If you ever watch non-Olympic sports coverage, they do it there too, and that's probably where the habit comes from. As you guessed, it's because of the sponsors, but the brandishing of the brand-name works a little opposite though - it's not the sponsors requiring that they flash the product, but it's the rider who gets a cash bonus for each time he appears in a magazine or TV program with the product clearly visible who is making a conscious effort to show it.

Echineko, That makes perfect sense. I have some college-age friends in Tokyo who are not confident with their Eigo, so we use Nihongo mostly. My Nihongo isn't that good (kids in youchien ar probably better than me!), but it makes them more comfortable - I think they feel obligated to use Eigo if I speak Eigo. I usually end up saying something wrong or funny. They are always surprised that I know all the naughty words...

My Nihongo "speaking" is terrible, but my "listening" is good: Most of my friends' Eigo "speaking" is cryptic but "listening" is fine. I speak in English, and they respond in Japanese, and everything works out fine. In December I had a gondola-ride-long chat with an older Nihonjin gentleman in this manner at Sapporo Kokusai...

Underarmour long-sleeve top, long-sleeve motocross jersey, and a fleece vest under the shell. Fall/Spring = omit vest Below -15C = switch to long-sleeve fleece

First and only time on skis was in Niseko in spring many years ago. Some friends of mine were attempting to teach me, but the language barrier and a general lack of understanding the technique doomed this escapade to failure. It was still entertaining - in retrospect. Two years later I returned to Hokkaido with a snowboard and rode it for the first time at Kiroro. Been boarding ever since.

It may come off sounding like parrotting Conservative rhetoric, but I think the protests were organized and staged for the benefit of the press, and those that did the organizing have agendas other than preserving the sanctity of their professed religion. It's funny how something that started as, "those culturally insensitive Danes," has become, "down with America". This isn't about America. I think that even if all Western interests were to completely leave the Arab world, Islamic extremists would still have issues with what we do on our own home turf and use that as justification to

Kintaro, If you're or Asian descent, you might have a general problem with the sulfites that are present in most wines, red or white, although this isn't necessarily true in all cases - I have two ABC friends in Hawaii that can tank numerous bottles of good wine with no ill effect. I've had killer evil throbbing wine headaches before, but haven't noticed the teeth hurting... The water cure works really well, but I carry it one step further and drink a lot of sports drinks immediately before tying one on so my hydration level is initially good.

Yes, I am familiar with The Great Cheese - those are MY three words!

What The F**k

I read something, I believe it was here, about a bloke who suffered a significant amount of injury when he was nailed in Rusutsu in the slow area around the ski racks by a speeding Korean dude. I've been in Rusutsu several times, and two of those visits have coincided with the Korean Amway convention! Talk about wake up call... I'm glad I didn't have to suffer being hit from behind and having teeth knocked out! I've been taken down before, but thankfully they have all been low-speed, superficial incidents (knock on wood)... Let's wearing the Helmet!

Douitashimashite! You can also look for rentals out toward Hassamu and Miyanosawa - the prices might be a bit lower and it would be a pretty short commute to your job in Kotoni (the subway stops are like minutes apart). Teine is a little further, but beyond that toward Ishikari, you're getting out of "The City", so the number of available rentals will probably decrease. Two of my friends from Sapporo grew up in Teine, and one lives in the Hassamu area - it's nice and quiet (even by non-Japanese standards). Aloha!

I've been bicycling and skateboarding for a long time and would never ride without a helmet, but when I started snowboarding, there were few if any wintersports helmets. After smacking my skull on an icy run or two, I thought, "damn! I'm just going to board with my skate helmet," but a whole bunch of companies introduced snow helmets around that time, so I bought one. Been riding one ever since. I was actually less concerned that my ability or the terrain would cause an incident that would require the protection of a helmet than I was that some out-of-control yahoo would take me out.

Sorry for getting back in the game so late, Creek Boy, Yeah, that's the same place. The JR Kotoni-eki is two stops West of JR Sapporo-eki, and is about three blocks North of the Kotoni subway station. There is literally nothing but residential and light industrial structures around the JR station. If your job will be somewhere within metropolitan Sapporo, chances are that you will be using the subway or bus system more often than not. The subway is pretty well laid-out and is often faster/cheaper than JR. It's a nice, convenient place, and not too noisy once you get off the main

I once bought traveler's cheques in yen at a currency exchange in the States imagining they would be readily accepted, but unless you're in a large city, you stand a pretty good chance of countersigning it, handing it to the cashier, and getting a "WTF is this?" look. I ended up exchanging them all for cash at the hotel desk later...

Kotoni? If so, very easy access to everywhere else in metropolitan Sapporo via chikatetsu. Lots of restaurants and at least one big supermarket adjacent to chikatetsu Touzai-sen Kotoni-eki.

Ditto that. Get it changed at home before you leave. Both the currency exchanges at the airports (all operated by major banks) or the banks in major cities that perform currency exchanges don't offer particularly good rates. You can get better exchange rates if you have travelers' cheques instead of cash, but if you have to pay a service fee at your bank to get the travelers' cheques in the first place, the net effect may be the same.

I use a cheap travel iron that I got at Tokyu Hands. Anything will do as long as it doesn't have any of those little steam holes on the surface - those let the wax into the iron where the wax overheats and releases the toxic smoke. It's pretty hard to find a modern "non-steam" iron here in the States, even at a discount mart, but you might have some luck if you check at a recycle shop or second-hand store or something like that.

Susukino is the place when night falls. It's not as rowdy and out of control as it used to be in the late '90's since they've been cracking down on certain aspects of "adult entertainment" industry there, but a fine good time can still be had. If you want to get a good drunk on, that's the place to go. It's easily accessed by the subway, and there are lots of places like "ramen alley" open late for something to eat afterwards. I don't know of any specific bar where all the expats go...