Arthur is back with more news from the ghetto!

1. Parrot to world: YES WE CAN!



2. My Japanese friend made this model. It is made entirely out of paper. This sums up the Japanese in one short cell phone picture: dedicative, detail orientated and innovative and also, dare I say, qwerky?



3. My main man back on the home front, OMABA, is being criticized for not picking up the "white" vote. People are neg-ing on Hilary. She is just picking up votes because of the racists (although they don't use this word. They just say, "Boy no white people are voting for Omaba. What could this possible mean?"). In reality, Hilary has connections that goes back many years. Northern Arkansas is at the tail end of the Appalachians and the Vice-president (Gore) heralds out of Tennessee. Is it any wonder then that Hilary is strong in this area?

4. RIKKI!

Riki is from California. We hang out sometimes. Cool guy. He did some translation work for STING. Says the hanger-ons where much more interesting.



5. Pull up a chair and sit on the floor.



6. Where I was yesterday..





This is a bar. It got really weary near the end. My Japanese isn't notch-up so most of the conversation whizzed by me and I spent most of the time trying to figure out when to smile so I could pretend like I am somehow in a remote way understanding the conversation. Then I looked at my watch it was AFTER TWELVE! OH NO! To my despair I missed the last train. It only took me 45 minutes to run home though. I was quite surprised. I thought it was going to be another 2 hour trek across the barrens that is later night Osaka.

The bar was funky cool. Lots of toys and Japanese nostalgia. My friend SHINTALO is mega-cool and you have seen his pix before as some of the bands that I have gone to.

7. Tomorrow will be a busy day. Running in the morning. 2 hr. J lesson at 10. Then I need to meet my UNI prof at 3. Then it is off to a date at 4. We are going to be at the foot of the Osaka Castle. Sunday is a WEDDING! YEA!

MY LIFE STORY (from Thursday at leaset)

THURSDAY: My friend SHINTALO invited me out to a live concert. It was 2,000 yen with about 5 acts AND great food. I suctioned up a lot of food including the fried shrimp and curry bread. Sometimes the most dangerous place in Japan is between me and the food. one act I really liked was this accordian player. She is the cutest little girl. Really short. I think she could wear the same clothes I wore in 5th grade. The funny thing is, is that I MET THIS GIRL BEFORE. She is a life gaurd at the pool I go to so when I showed up, she recognized me and came over to talk with me.



FRIDAY: I hate it when I can't remember what I did two days ago. It seems like a really simple task but for the life of me, I can't think it up. Wait one moment. While you are waiting, check out this paining.

COOL PAINTING BREAK:



FRIDAY: Oh yes, how could I forget FRIDAY! FRIDAY was an amazing day. That is the day me and Johno headed out to the beach to do some surfing. We headed out of TENNOJI and made it to WAKAYAMA in about an hour. Johno had heard of this beach and reckoned we ought to check it out. So we took the train and half way through the trip a conductor comes moseying down the isle. He stops in front of us. Then he took my ticket and typed some numbers into his hand pilot. Theh he showed us the number. It was 3,7000 YEN or about $37. "ONE WAY" he said. "3,700 YEN each?" I asked in Japanese. "Each" he replied. So there was no way we were going to make that bill so we jumped off the train and headed back to WAKAYAMA. From there we went to the info desk to finally get information. It is hard to live impulsively in Japan. Too many high costs. So we got some information at the information ooth (my first idea by the way). We found out that there is a surfing beach but also a WINDSURFING beach. "Lets try that" said Johno and off we went. The bus ride was about 30 minutes and by this time we had spent the whole morning and the lesser part of an afternoon taking some form of transportation. So when we arrive we kinda wanted to kick back. There was this great beach side cafe and we enjoyed some drinks, walked aimlessly for about another hour. The beach was completely deserted and in the distance we could see some windsurfers but that was about it. It was a real desolate feeling. We did find some WINDSURFING stores and got some cool info. WINDSURFING is going to cost us about $50 for one full day and that comes with lessons. Pretty reasonible. So we will be going down in TWO WEEKS!

Here is a pic of JOHNO on the beach.



SATURDAY: I went to MUSICA JAPONICA and saw a friends band, TATEFUJI.

SUNDAY: Went on a date. Whee! We spent about 4 hours in a McD's.

MONDAY: That is now foo!

THANKS: Thanks again dad for the wonderful gift package! Thanks LIZZY for mailing me. I MISS YOU!

POLITICS: HAY FELE! I heard B-Man came to PORTLAND and set a record. 75k came to see him speak. Will you be seeing him?

Life in 6 short bullet points...

1. This is so funny...

See more funny videos at CollegeHumor

2. My FAJITA fry



3. WORK UPDATE

Well, my boss called me last night. Gave me a sob story. Ha had to call all his friends and he managed to come up with enough money to pay off one months salary. The ultimatum I gave last week was TWO MONTHS. Oh and he also said that he had lots of medical bills for his aging mother. So I told him that I would come in on Wednesday and talk. On Wednesday I will offer tell him that on the 30th of this month he can give me either one of two things: two months of back salary or my letter of release.

4. SURFING

Tomorrow I have a tentative plan to go surfing. First time. Sharks beware.

5. MY PRESENT



My dad sent me a little gift box with the scrum-dum-sicle salmon spread and the gift I also need, hair dye but he also included this curious little item. I am not quite sure what I am going to do with some luxury pens. My layout here in Japan is just one small step above being homeless. So the pens are kinda an odd addition to the Arthur household.

6. MORE WORK UPDATE

It is now a THURSDAY. I went to work yesterday which came as a surprise. Up to the last minute I really didn't think I would be showing up to work. I gave my boss an ultimatum. Two pay checks or I wouldn't be showing up on Wednesday. Monday evening, after much prodding, he called me back. He had ONE pay check. With this sign of goodwill I gave him until the end of the month. On the 30th I will expect TWO paychecks. We will see.

Today's questions: WIll I loose my job? How cool was that temple? Anyone want some meat?

1. This is ギャル曽根（そね）. She ate 184 pieces of sushi.



2. お尻ペンペン. Yes JAPAN has a whole WIKIPEDIA page devoted to the topic of SPANKING. Check it out here.

3. American Politics 101 as explained by Batman; a must see for everyone who wants to know why AMERICA is so f-ed.



4. MY WORK STATUS

As I sit at my desk typing these words, the time is 12:23 on a Sunday night. I wrote my boss again about my paycheck and how the check needs to be in the bank by TUESDAY morning. As I have said before he owes me 7 PAYCHECKS. Yes, 7. As of now, this doesn't look promising. I gave him an ultimatum: 2 paychecks by Tuesday or I walk. The reason I have said that this doesn't look promising is that as of now he has ignored two messages I sent to him.

5. FRIDAY AFTERNOON: THE JOG



On Friday after I taught kindergarten I took the bus to the hills and got off at the park to do a few laps around the mountain. The last time I came here I got terrible lost but this time around I managed to keep my bearings (unlike McCain who has lost 'em). I ran the track backwards and so I didn't have to worry about finding the entry trail. Well the park was in full bloom and I spied this big horkin' butterfly like creature. Click here to get another shot of him.

6. FRIDAY NIGHT



Went to a club that I didn't really like. Last time I went there some Japanese guy grabbed my balls. Luckily I have my super-anti-ball-grabbing field up and ready and I managed a quick deflection. Nonetheless it was a bad experience. This time I went at the behests of a girl I know. I was hoping she would spend some time chatting with me. But she was always busy.

7. MORE WORK STATUS

Will be calling my employer. Today is Monday. Sent off a few messages. He is completely ignoring them. This tells me that that he is unwilling/unable to pay up and the end is coming. I am sure he is sued to this routine. He goes through a lot of teachers and even someone as easy to please as me (note: is this a fair thing to say about me since I let 7 paydays slide by?!?) has to go a separate way.

8. KIMIZULA TEMPLE



Visited a temple yesterday with two girls I met. Originally I had planed to make fajitas but that fell through (more on that below). The temple is possible one of Kyoto's most beautiful temples. To get another view of the temple click here.



The place was crowded. It was worse than a shopping mall. See more pictures of people elbowing past each other.



There was sacred water. I didn't drink. Seemed to disease infested to me, with everybody dipping into it. I'd probably catch some sort of AIDS/Ebola hybrid and not even make it out the gates of the temple before blood would come spouting out of every orifice in my body.

For more cute girl pictures click here and here and here.

9. Happy MOTHERS DAY MOM AND FELE!



Sorry. No MOM DAY CARD. Hope this will do.

10. made FAJITAS.



Here is a sampling of what I made. You can see the lower plastic Tupperware container has meat in it. About $15 in meet to be precise. THe first day was raining. The second day was too cold. Now I have all this meat. What to do? I could freeze it although my freezer is really small and I already have the freezer taken up with my two ice cube trays (sounds pretty lame hunh but it's true). Plus I am not sure I can freeze this and still preserve the spices since I marinated the meat in fajita sauce.

11. NOTE TO ANA.

Be strong little girl. It's always tough when you first move into a new place because you have to develop a whole new social group but it will come.

TODAY IS THRUSDAY

1. Here is a picture of one of my KINDERGARTEN kids. His name is a name that sounds a lot like Marshmallow-Hero so that's just what I call him. He is always laughing at something. No one has figured out why he is so happy. But he is.



More pictures here: click | click | click

2. THE FAJITAS PARTY IS ON!!!! It started out on a whim. I told people that I was going to get a grill and make fajitas in the park. Now it looks like it is really going to happen. I got a recipe from online and I am going to truck down to the meat market and grab a big slab of beef and then I am going to manhandle my landlord into letting me use the grill and we are going to find a nice place at the base of Osaka-Joe the castle.

3. At work yesterday I taught a trial lesson to a kindergarten kid. He ended up crying. I would like to say that it wasn't my fault and if you bare with me you will see who/what I blame instead of myself. Well, at 4 o'clock or so this mother brings her cute little kid by for a trial lesson. I go through all the kindergarten stuff: the kid songs and some games. The kid goes through the motions. He knows it all. It takes a lot of work to beat this much English into a kid. A lot of days of his kindergarten youth spent in front of a desk while other kids take to the outdoors. He knows this. Some how or other he senses that he is going to be spending yet another hour in his life singing "the wheels on the bus" for the millionth time while other kids go out and enjoy life and wait for their salary-man days before they give up their soul and become a robot. But not him. It starts on day one. Somewhere in the back of his mind this all comes together and he starts crying. "Let me out of this English nightmare..." comes the voice. "I just want to be a kid." Of course, there is the other possibility: I suck as a teacher.

4. The TEMPLE.



I had some down time at my work so I waled around and found this temple. The day was so perfect. It was cool and not hot and the park was quite. A perfect place to study and relax.



5. THE COMMUNITY CENTER



This is where I teach. I use to teach at a school but the boss ran out of funds and so he moved us to the community center where he rents a room by the hour.

6. My Salary

I had to confront my boss about back pay. He owes me THREE MONTHS back pay. Recently he skipped two months (December and January) and now he has not paid March and April. In total that is 7 months. It sounds pretty incredible but that's really where I stand. I talked to him last Wednesday and he said he was going to the bank and he was going to be putting money in TODAY. Well, the next week I looked at my bankbook and there was NO cash. So today I gave an ultimatum: pay by next WEDNESDAY or I walk. So he promised that by next WEDNESDAY there will be TWO MONTHS in the bank. This is really getting out of hand. SEVEN MONTHS of not paying.

7. UNICORN



About 5 or so bands did covers of Unicorn, a Japanese band from the 70's. This is my friend, who has given himself the nickname FLY. It was a pretty cool evening. All the smoking drove me insane though.

8. TEMPLE UNIVERSITY

I am going to sign up for two classes. It will come to a total of 4k. Yes folks, 4k for only two classes! Ouch!

SUNDAY NIGHT

It be SUNDAY NIGHT and I want to share a few things with my loyal LETTERS-TO-MOM(tm) fans.

1. This is funny:



2. My friend TODD is getting married.

The cool thing about his party is that it will be informal. Some of these parties are so dress-up and tie and stuff you know it not..so ANYWAY, it is cool. Mad perks on his acceptance to MIT. He also got a scholarship. "AND TO THINK I KNOW YOU!" I said. (see post below for picture)

3. Check out my links. My cousin GINA is now up on the slate. Also my friend DAVE is listed there too but unless you like lessons on learning the ESTONIAN language, it might not be your piece of cake.

4. I went to a small and homely little cafe called MARTHA's. It has a real nice atmosphere and the music is also real digible. The girl sitting next to me seemed really nice at first, but then it became pretty obvious that she wanted to use this as an ENGLISH practice session. I regret saying HI to her.

Here is a picture of the band. I really enjoyed kicking back and listening to her.



5. This band was cool. Saw them about 2 hours ago.



6. Met some girls over the weekend. They want me to cook them MEXICAN food. Think I'll work up some fajitas!

7. Been watching the news. They are always playing the SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION game. The news media can't find the skinny on him so they now go through the list of people associated with him. Pathetic.

My Friend TODD!

This be Todd. Todd is a worker in a day care but next month he is returning to the USA to attend MIT. The bonus, he got a scholarship so now he doesn't have to worry about cash. Other bonus, he has a lovely Chinese wife. I will be attending a reception at the end of this month, it will be good to see him again.