The Barbaridad

There's not much else to say really. That's it, game over.

As you have by now no doubt noticed, the streak of timely Sunday-updates has come to an end. There are reasons for this, and they can exclusively be spelled "working the f***ing weekend". If I were in the mood to elaborate on that particular point, I would spell it "working the f***ing weekend, starting at 06:00 on the Saturday and ending at 18:00 on Sunday". I would then be guilty of a lie of omission since I did in fact not work that entire time. In between, I slept, ate, and... balanced my checkbook? That I don't have?

So yes, this means that a) you should all be feeling very, very sorry for me (as is generally the case), and b) I can't even get away with the tired it's-still-Sunday-in-Hawaii line, because quite frankly, it's not. Let's just accept this and move on.

However, all is not lost! As compensation - there is always compensation - I had Friday off, and I have today off. Part of one of those days was spent watching a sporting event I had been unable to watch live - thank you, mighty powers of the great Intertron in the sky. Now I'm not a huge sports-nut ("possibly even a slightly smaller nut than most. Cashew?" - Queue canned laughter), but this particular sport I have been known to enjoy on occasion. But the mighty powers of the great Intertron in the sky saw fit to play a prank on me. Having successfully procured the material online, I set about watching it. And proceeded to be yelled at by none other than three separate Spanish people for about two hours. And I kinda enjoyed it.

Now, my grasp of Spanish is as good as guy who took two years of the language in high school and then promptly forgot all about it over the next, say, seven years. Not so good, then. But by the end of the event, I finding my way back to my old latin-lover self, which is basically just a warning to those of you who might be unfortunate enough to meet me in the coming week - just turn the other way and run when I come along screaming "Qué barbaridad!" and other things, the meaning of which completely elude me. I'm pretty sure that would be most people's gut reaction anyway, but I felt I should still point it out. Call it public service.

ANFSCD!

As filler for this post, I have a gorgeous anecdote about the process of moving to Japan. Back when the moving company said they were going to rise to the challenge of bringing all my knickknacks over - upon having lovingly wrapped them in bubble paper, surely! - they were nice enough to send me some documents detailing what I wasn't allowed to bring in to my future country of residence. These included:

Firearms. Which is a shame, 'cause now I'll have to put up my gun-rack in my new apartment, sans guns, at least until I can go out and get some in Japan. Is that hard? Memo to self: find out.

Swords. Now this seemed a little protectionist to me. I know they're all very proud of their swords and whatever, but what if I wanted a Swedish sword to... put in my gun rack, in liue of actual guns?

Pornography, or "other materials endangering public morals". Which is a great rule to have, and is also one that shows just how little people who make these regulations have gotten on any subway train in the entire country in the last fifteen years. Or been inside a 7-eleven. Or... been alive in Japan? Maybe it's another one of those protectionist things, I don't know.

Narcotics. While I don't have any snide remarks to make about this (wait for it!), it does remind me of those little green notes you get when flying into the U.S., where you have to declare you're not running drugs. Which to me just seems like overkill. I mean, if you catch a guy running drugs, do you really have to go after him for lying on his little green entry form as well, isn't he in enough trouble already?

Straw. Yes, because you see... What the hell?! Straw? Seriously?

Straw products. Because these are terribly easy to manufacture without using the active ingredient known as straw. So this means I can't bring my great big goat made from straw and then put it on fire at or around Christmas? What kind of a democracy is this?!

Yeah, so that's pretty much what's up with me. What about you? In what has become known as Kumadude-tradition, I shall present you with a picture of a road sign which leads to the place where - I believe - the people writing the above regulations sit. Or rather, their managers. And man, somebody ought to talk to them about the poor job they're doing.

If you need to manage your retardation, be sure to come and enjoy beautiful Tsunashima, home of world class retardation... managers?

Be sure to tune in next week, as... Do not make me have this argument again, I will stop this car right now, so help me, mister!

The Triple

Surely there must be some mistake. Three weeks in a row with a timely update? Things are... afoot? Rotten? All of the above?

When I leave my home, I have to cross a tiny metal bridge to get out. It's bit like living in a medieval castle, except that my moat is probably not more than two feet across and one foot deep, meaning my attackers would probably have little trouble gaining entry even if I went apeshit on the bridge and threw it down into the dark chasm below. It's also a bit like not living in a medieval castle since I've got far too little of both meed and the compulsory henchmen around. Knights and whatnot. Also, the insulation in this place would kick Camelot's behind any day of the week. Including Wednesday!

So yes, construction has come to my neck of the woods, and from the looks of things, it would appear it's here to stay. At least they haven't yet begun starting work at four in the morning. Yet. I bear no illusions that that state of pleasant laziness will last much longer, sadly.

Also, I just ran into someone who did something which was, for want of a better description, very "me". I was taking the trash out. In the very boring, very literal, very much not at all the Chuck Norris kinda way. As I approach the trash... building? Palace? Gendarmerie? Either way, approach it I do, and this lady comes from the opposite direction, also carrying something that my astute powers of observation immediately recognize as what the French call "garbage" in that wonderful accent of theirs. We exchange a perfunctory greeting from fifteen feet away, and arrive at the door almost at the exact same moment, me beating her by a couple of seconds (score!). As I contemplate if I should play the gentleman and let her in first or be my actual self and just forget about all laws of civil interaction, she walks right past the door, seemingly oblivious to the bag in her hand. I am quite baffled by this, throw my stuff where it belongs (remember kids, Kumadude's all about the recycling!), and as I am about to exit, she comes rushing in, throws her one bag, and darts out, leaving me to lock up. It was like she tried to give me the impression that "This is not garbage in my hand. I am not going where you are going" in order to avoid the three seconds of forced social interaction inside that shed, then realized it was a pretty childish thing to do and changed her mind.

When I said at the top it felt like a very "me" thing to do, this is what I meant, only I would not have darted back. I would have hopped on the train, rode one stop, and then walked all the way back in order to ensure nobody would be at that shed when I got back, so there would be no risk at all of any sort of social interaction. That's the worst kind of interaction, you know.

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Intermission!

Radio's come a long way. I used to listen to it wirelessly on my, uhm, radio. Now, I listen to it being wired through the intertubes, through my wireless modem which sends it the final ten feet to my computer, which in turn pumps it out through wires connected to the same speakers my dad got me for christmas all those years ago that used to fill the house with far too abnoxious tunes. Possibly Hits 4 Kidz 53. Anyway that circle, too, doth be complete. As circles tend to be. I mean think about it, a circle that's not complete? In all the ways that matter, it's just the letter "u" with a serious inferioity complex.

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Third subject of the post? Already? My, how time flies. But yes, here we are, about to broach the treacherous area that is photography. It is one of many things I am not very good at. My dad was a hot shot in his day, though, and I have friends (yes, it is an amazing enough statement all its own) that know their way around a lens cap as well, making it all the more painful I kinda don't. So how to fix that? Why the Internets, of course! And they told me several things:

A1) You should aim to take the best possible picture when you take the picture.

This seemed fairly obvious to me, so I skipped down to number A34b) (does that even qualify as a "number"?)

A34b) If all else fails, you can fix a lot of you half-assed mistakes in post production, possibly using a legally purchased license for a recent version of Adobe Photoshop.

But you see, that would seem to imply you need to know actual things about that program. Hmm. Once more, the InterTubes came to the rescue!

B1) You should aim to know actual things about that program.

B2) If you don't, here's a 14-step tutorial on how to make your crappy shot look like it's not quite as crappy anymore. And a bit like it was in a movie shot in poor lighting conditions!

So I followed the advice, and a mere 14 simple steps (the fastest five and a half hours of my life, I can tell you that), I arrived at a result. Which I shall show you! But first, just for the sake of argument, let's show the original picture, taken when I was Down Under with my good friend Dr Tiki and cohorts Caroline and Alexandra. Five points to anyone who can name the island. Hint: it is the world's largest sand island. (Master Class difficulty: no checking that link, or where it leads, Google/Wiki it yourself!)

The Original, complete with Land Rover goodness

Now, feast your eyeballs on the digital imaging revolution that is the result of... the internet's guidance:

The slightly not-so-Original, complete with way OTT vignetting effects

The reason I put you through all that? I don't... honestly... know. It killed a part of my Sunday, so now I'm having my revenge? Guess that's the part that's fun for me. Tough nuts, and all that. But to try and make up for it, I shall leave you with the following, which was snapped at what I am sure is the Shibuya branch of perennial favorite vendor of useless things, Loft:

Mobile ashtrays. Implying that they tend to be stationary?

Be sure to tune in next week, and see if I can keep the trend alive as I go for a record fourth straight on-time post!

The West

No, that's not the tired East/West Eurovision-thing.

What it is, in fact, is a fine direction to travel. Personally, over the past few years, I've been more inclined to go in the opposite direction, but to balance my carbon-emitting karma and spread some heat-death-love the other way, I figured what the hey, packed my bags, and rode off into the sunset. Well, packed my one overnight bag and got in the back of a white sedan with surprisingly little rear legroom and got driven off into the sunset, but that's not something I'm overly proud of.

For you see, I have now been on the first business trip of my soon 26-year existence. And it was kinda nice. Not nice in the "work two hours over brunch and then get back to the jacuzzi"-way, but still nice. My fine 9.5 square meter hotel room overlooking... a parking lot did what it was supposed to do, even though I was allowed precious little time to enjoy there. Just as well, probably. By now, I'm sure you're all wondering where I went, what was this mysterious westerly destination? Not that westerly, considering you could get there and almost back again on a tank of gas, but still. But I don't think I want to spoil the surprise by letting you in on it, feel free to talk it over amongst yourselves. Possibly around some sort of water cooler, what do I know?

Over the course of my four days at the now secret location, I... worked? Looked at things? Spoke to people? Did businessey stuff? Had far too much food, far too little of which was actually nutritious? That sort of thing. But all in all, it was a pretty nice time. Managed to meet up with Koray too, who's busy doing almost what I'm doing, but in a different place, only for us to join up at the "final" destination (as if such a thing existed) in mid-July. So yes, I can wholeheartedly recommend you do the same, get your boss to put you up in a tiny room on condition that you can mooch a ride off people already going in the same direction. Experience the luxury that is business travel the IKEA way. That might have come out a bit harsh, since I'm actually just happy I got to go at all, but such is life. Live it, love it, and enjoy it, and if there's any time left over, do some homework. Ah, 80's sictoms, where have you gone?

So! What else? Surely other things must have transpired? And transpire they did; if one were so inclined, one might even take a bite out of that thesaurus and possibly imagine that they conspired to transpire. And then go home, knowing that some people shouldn't be allowed near a keyboard, or books containing actual words, for that matter. Ever.

But yes, transpire they did. To prove this to you, I present you with photographic evidence, exhibit A:

A Chinese restaurant?

Granted, my Chinese isn't really all that great (which is a nice way of saying I took one evening course four years ago and that's pretty much it), but I think this place needs to decide if it is a Chinese restaurant or a Japanese one, and then assign it with a name befitting its culinary direction. Then again, it might just be one of those combo-places. Back in my happy uncomplicated youth (as compared to my current happy uncomplicated 25-year-old-ness) in Linköping, there was a restaurant called Tokyo Roma, which happily set about combining raw fish a pizza into a very successful concept. Well, give it's current bankruptcy it might not have been all that successful, but it was certainly... a concept?

Also! Upon going through my files, I discovered the following, taken on what appears to be a mildly overcast day in times past. As I am a simple soul, it made me laugh. I believe this effect will only appear in one other human being on this still-green Earth, so for that reason alone, I shall end this post with it. And no, I'm not laughing at Volkswagen. Although I suppose I could, but that's just a post all its own.

Number plates are good.

Be sure to tune in next week as I will have... had time off? Yay!

The Name

You may now call me Master. And yes, there's a very real risk (or chance, as I see it) that this post is going to be a bunch of incredibly egocentric drivel. No change there, then.

There are a great many things I have been called. Thankfully, not all of them are derogative adjectives bent on my destruction; some of them are actually quite bearable (spot the pun!). A summer soon six years in the past, my current alias ("Kumadude" for those members of the audience who just can't seem to pay attention) was coined on a distant rooftop by someone who's last name was a slightly idiosyncratic version of the Swedish word for "rose". Doesn't that just have a lovely hint of promise in it, like there's some sort of back story there, possibly leading up to several quick cuts back and forth to people doing fun things with weird hairstyles and way too much makeup? In the 80's? Maybe not.

So yeah, Kumadude's been around for a while. However, at work on chill March morning, a Japanese colleague of mine couldn't really be bothered with the added burden that is -dude, and promptly declared in front of a whole meeting of his peers what he and "The Kuma" had been working very hard this morning. His grasp of English may not have been the best, or perhaps that's exactly what it was. In that case, I take it as a compliment. This is my first time being a "the", and I think I like it. And I'll just have to sue the ever-lovin' crap out of AMD for this.

Pause for a bit of flower-porn. It will be explained below. Possibly far below.

But you can't let too long pass without getting yourself a new name. It just wouldn't do, you see. So a week or so ago, I got a letter in the mail. It told me I had a letter to pick up. I love it how the Post Office, bless it, tries every little thing to increase the volume of mail. However! On that not-so-chill April not-so-morning-but-rather-afternoon, I went and humored the P.O. by picking it up. And I was rewarded by a piece of paper instructing me to stand that little bit straighter when I look in the mirror in the morning. Because, as I am about to announce to the entire internets, I am now a Master. Yes, I realize it would have been better to combine it with the above to make me "the" Master, but one step at a time.

So you see, I have now officially graduated university. Took me long enough, but at least I got there in the end. And the dinner I was treated to (by someone completely unrelated to the university, but still) was certainly good enough to make up for my six years of... slacking off, with a final or two thrown in there at arbitrary intervals. Given the deliciousness of the dinner, I would graduate more often. If only it didn't involve so much actual work. At least that's over now.

Yet more flower-porn! What the h's going on here?!

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And now, a slight excursion to soften the segue into the whole mess with the flowers. A one-paragraph perfectly pretentious post-within-a-post I like to call:

It's amazing how giant fusion reactors in the sky can almost kill you.

No, I'm not talking about some random thought experiment of the Sun blowing up now, or possibly mad scientist types... doing mad science? No, I'm talking about how actually seeing the night sky riding my impossibly trusty and equally old bike home from a friend's place the other night very nearly made me run into a lamp post. It's frightening. I mean, when was the last time you saw the night sky, for realz? Having spent much of the past whatever of my life in either large cities or at least places where there's light at night, actually seeing the stars was almost... Well, it was nice. This despite the fact that there were some party-crashing lamp-posts, lamps included, working and everything. Did I mention I almost ran into one? Either way, I wholeheartedly recommend it - the stargazing, not the lamp-into-running - to anyone with an accurate enough sense of balance. But yeah, the last time I was that moved by the simple act of tilting your head back and not allowing your eyelids to close for a short while was quite a while ago. Senior year of high school, in Lithuania, if you'll believe it. Escha, you know of what it is I speak. No, not the vomit comet or the rowing to Russia, the other thing.

Final bit of flower-porn, right there!

And now, at the very end, the rationale for all the pretty pretty flowers. It's a 2003-promise to someone who really wanted to watch the Sakura bloom in Japan but couldn't hang around long enough to watch it actually happen. Also: I needed filler to make it seem like I wrote a lot. So anyway, sure, she might be biking around NZ right now, but I'm sure the GPS on her bike gets this blog. And quite possibly Soviet-era UHF-transmissions too, but that's a story for another day.

Be sure to tune in next time as I will have completed a long road trip with two people who know an awful lot about kitchens!