December 2nd, 2001. Doo bee doo bee doo doo.

As I stood on the subway platform, waiting for the rumble of an oncoming train, a lamp post caught my eye. I have seen this lamp post every day for the past month and a half now, and have never thought much of it. But today, I noticed that it looked a lot like the one in Singin' in the Rain.

I love that movie. Everything from the music to the fact that the colourization was done by Technicolor. In case you haven't picked up on it, I'm just writing for the sake of writing today, the way it was meant to be done.

Nothing much happened today, nothing notable anyway. But in itself, I think that is noteworthy. Today was just a regular day. I woke up, got ready and went to work. I did my thing and then I went home. So rarely do I hear that now.

See, I spend 8 hours a day just talking to people about their days and try to figure out a way to casually introduce the present progressive structure into our conversation. It's not really as hard as it sounds, all I have to do is pose the right question. Back to the point: I don't think that anyone has normal days in Tokyo. There is always something strange going on in their lives. Be it the death of a family pet, or the fact that they saw a girl dancing on the train, there is not one person who will admit that their day was totally devoid of interesting events.

How is this possible? I am beginning to think that they are making half this shit up. But to be fair, I make up a lot of stuff myself, but only because I am running out of material to talk to people about. I mean, I can only play the hapless foreigner, asking for Friday night suggestions so long.

As a brief side note, I have been getting all sorts of great emails from people I don't know regarding this website. The large majority of them are people who are coming or thinking about coming to Japan to work for a year.

I don't know that this site is all that representative of what life in Japan is like, as I do tend to embelish a little for the sake of interesting writing.

It's cool how connected we are through the internet. I mean, I know that is the point of the net, but it's just mind-boggling how far-reaching this tool is. I tried figuring out how some people got a hold of this URL, and sometimes, it goes back through three of four people, and sometimes I can't figure it out at all. But that's only because I'm not Kevin Bacon.

Mmm...bacon. I miss bacon. I miss my nightly double-dose of the Simpsons on CFMT and Fox. I love syndication, don't you?

I had a craving for KFC today and went to get some at lunchtime. Upon approaching the counter, the guy greeted me in Japanese, which of course, drew a blank stare from me. Then he tried Mandarin. Blank stare. Then, what I think was Korean, and finally English. What the hell is this kid doing, working at KFC? He speaks more languages than my electronic dictionary and he is serving me drumsticks smothered with Colonel's special blend of 11 herbs and spices.

I wanted to tell him that he could be using his skills for a lot more than trying to convince me to supersize my fries and Coke, but I didn't know how to say it. By the time I figured it out, my food was already packed up and I was being scooted down the counter to make room for the other patrons, waiting to order. What a waste. I could do nothing but sigh heavily when I walked out.

When I got back to the teacher's room in my school, I noticed that he had given me the wrong order.

My room doesn't look all that bad from this angle. I think that if you don't look at the concrete, it's ok.

I bought this handsome mug from a store called Don Quixote (not sure about the spelling) for only 85 yen. It's a real experience, that store. Picture Wal-Mart crossed with a flea market, cram all that into a store the size of a small supermarket and play circus music over the speakers at the entrance.

I will try to get some photos up of the store. It's incredible. Perhaps I can get a short video clip of the place.