Sunday, December 23, 2012

Far Cry

I don't play a ton of FPS (first person shooter) games, but some of the reviews I was reading about Far Cry 3 sounded pretty interesting. Particularly I like games where there is a lot of progression and customization. In FC3, there are level-up and crafting systems. Plus the visuals are pretty amazing (again, not usually a reason why I buy games, though).

Anyhow, found a little Japanese! One of the cars is sporting some katakana on the dash, reading "Far Cry."


Never know where it's gonna crop up, apparently.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Obligatory Parties

I kind of miss going to 忘年会 (end of year parties, usually held by a company or workplace for its employees). Survey says, however, that most office workers in Japan don't really enjoy them.

According to a Metarika study, 62.6% of office workers regard company drinking parties (飲み会) as a pain in butt (37.4% saying they are fun)

■会社での飲み会は楽しいと思いますか? 面倒だと思いますか?
楽しい......37.4%
めんどう......62.6%

■あなたの職場の飲み会は、どれくらいの頻度で行われていますか?
月に1~4回......33.0%
半年に1、2回......33.8%
一年に1、2回~ほとんどなし......30.6%

The second question there asks respondents how often their work holds these (obligatory) drinking parties. The responses from top to bottom are "1-4 times a month," "once or twice every half year," or "once or twice a year, almost never."

Maybe I enjoyed my schools' parties more than the typical employee because (a) I wasn't worked to the bone and spending almost every waking hour with my coworkers and (b) I didn't really feel obligated to attend; I just did most of the time because it was fun. Or maybe it's just because teachers are awesome and know how to throw a beastly party.




Monday, December 17, 2012

Upswing

運が変わったかな。注意して褪せないほうがいいと思うけど・・・実は、自分は子供の時から高望みしちゃう人なんだ。そしてがっかりしやすいから、時々上がったり下がったり人間だ。Heh...

Lately there have been some pleasant changes. One of my best friends and his awesome (J) wife moved from Pennsylvania to a town about 40 minutes away. I've gotten used to being somewhat solitary, but it will be a nice change to have friends living nearby.

Things at work are improved a bit, I feel. I still need to get out of there and find something more fulfilling (and financially sustaining), but I've been working on improving my attitude. It's not that I felt I had a bad one before, but I've been trying to be more productive and quicker with my work. And I do feel like it's helped me feel a little better about it. 時々つまんないのに。

And I've been talking a lot with someone I met recently who is very...refreshing? Special, for sure. There are a lot of positive things I could say, but for now I won't.

I don't want to jump the gun on anything, but I just feel like things have been a lot brighter and more fun the past couple of weeks.

Tomorrow I'll be going to a 忘年会 party with Ben and Chika (the previously mentioned friends) after work. I really should start blogging about Japan-related activities and organizations in D.C...

Anyhow, that's it for now.

J-Word Play #31 (Answer)

Whoops - a sparse amount of posts this month, but there's been a lot going on. I'll need to redouble my efforts.

Kudos to Cocomino for solving the last riddle, which was:

上がったり下がったりする野菜って何でしょう?

Our answer is...

Friday, December 7, 2012

J-Word Play #31

It's been a bit, so here's a new one for you:

上がったり下がったりする野菜って何でしょう?
(あがったりさがったりするやさいってなんでしょう?)

If you know the answer, shoot me a quick email (blueshoe[at]jadij.com).


Saturday, December 1, 2012

Funky Forest

I happened to stumble upon this clip of a Japanese movie on YouTube. "Weird" doesn't adequately describe it. The film's title is ナイスの森 (Funky Forest in English), and I'm a little surprised I've never heard of it before. Have any of you readers seen it?

Anyway, here is the clip. I don't really know the context, but I don't image that would really change much:



I'm thinking I may need to watch this.