I’ll admit what all two readers of this blog (which probably are simply Mark and I) have already noticed, how there hasn’t been much in the way of posts coming from me. When I started this, I had more time since school-wise not much was getting done and that left me with loads of time aside from work.

Recently, I’ve been very busy with school-related things, which has seriously cut into my time. Combined with the change in weather, I don’t go outside as much anymore as say during the summer. Hell, I haven’t even been to Margit Sziget in a while, which presented its fair share of amusements.

Perhaps I need to find a new direction for what I want to do with this blog. It’s quasi-personal, but I don’t feel like updating you on my daily ongoings, not just because I’m that private, but also because I lead the boring life of a grad student and describing how many pages of my own work I edited today is really not that exciting for even myself.

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It’s probably not good to expect your language’s onomatopoeia to translate well.

Actually though, this would be impossible to render in the Japanese syllabary, answering for me the question of why they didn’t just leave this in Japanese, but unfortunately leaving the one of whence they drew the inspiration for this unfortunately handicapped kids’ racing jacket.

I reiterate: learn a language to the point you can use it competently, or don’t use it.  At least wait until you can trust yourself to order a #3 combo at any given McDonald’s in the English-speaking world before you start soaking every consumer object imaginable in your malodorous Engrish marinade.

I suppose for the Mancunians it’s no suprise that the A666 goes to Salford…

While over in the UK last week, my girlfriend took me to see Antony Gormley’s “Another Place” art installation on Crosby Beach.  No, that guy standing in the picture above is not really a guy, but a six foot tall rusted cast iron figure, complete with rusted cast iron penis, and is one of about a hundred or so figures stretching over two miles and looking out into the Irish Sea.  Apparently it’s proven effective, as Irish migration to the UK has slowed recently, although I’d like to think this is probably the result of the Irish economy eclipsing the British one.

As you can see in this photo, the figures aren’t entirely attractive, and taken all together as they face the sea, the installation leaves you with a desolate feeling, no doubt helped by the autumn sun low in the sky, the clouds overhead, and the 60 mph winds picking up sand and blasting you in the face so that at least a few layers of skin were stripped away during our visit.

I suppose you can always bring up the question of what art is, and whether or not this is art (my rule with visual art is that if I could have made it, it’s not art).  The statues serve primarily as a tourist attraction these days or as dangerous obstructions for people who’d actually prefer to use the beach for water sports recreation. If nothing else, the damn things are just a wee bit creepy.

Leaving for the UK about a week and a half ago, I stood at Budapest Ferihegy Airport’s Terminal 2B and looked at the departure table, and saw that this had to be the most depressing departure table I’ve seen in a long time.  I hear Odessa’s not so bad though.

Hopefully this post-victory haze will wear off sooner rather than later and we’ll be back to complaining. It can’t be too long, we don’t even live in that country anymore…

The danger of showing pieces of episodes of The (American) Office to students is that they fit way too many stereotypes Japanese folks often have about how Americans (don’t) work… it’s just barely worth it.