It is a serious drag not having DSL anymore. I've been dealing with this mind-numbing situation for about 6 months. But soon, soon my friends, I will have DSL once more... And then I won't have to abstain from using the web on the weekends...

But, no, this is not germane to the post at hand, my brothers... I am posting to share with all of you a couple of interesting reviews of books and films that I found, which perchance you may go see, and be entertained.

A film called Satin Rouge is discussed on Salon, about a pudgy middle-aged woman in Tunisia who finds herself through belly-dancing. It sounded really interesting earlier today, but now, I'm about to crack up. No! Maybe it's cool! Maybe! No, I can't be serious right now... ;)

A book review on Salon about Cicero — just the thing I would love to read if I had the cash to blow on more books. Looks cool. I do want to read this one sometime. Hopefully it's more entertaining than Plutarch.

And on Shift, a film that really looks neat — Hotel, by Mike Figgis... Yes. Looks to be a good film to see sandwitched between espressos and pseudo-intellectual conversations! :) I love that. (BTW, I use that term self-mockingly, although I actually believe that 'pseudo-intellectual' is a term coined by pseudo-intellectuals to cement their egos and their tenuous status. Hmmm.)

Joi Ito has posted an interesting story about the "Blueprint for Japan 2020." It sounds like there will be quite a few interesting ideas put forth in this document, but it makes me wonder what is really necessary to create change in Japan...

All such programs are probably helpful in some small way; one of course can't expect that isolated efforts can make a huge difference, but they are certainly worth attempting nonetheless.

But what interests me is the larger question: What will it take to really effect change in Japan? I think the answer is clear. It will take a slow, far-reaching change in the Japanese culture, and a concomitant change in Japanese consciousness, to bring it about.

I think we've been seeing signs over the past 6-8 years that Japanese culture is slowly changing, mostly under the unbearable economic pressure of this 10+ year stagnation. But how long will it take for those changes to really affect the consciousness of the man on the street, eventually causing him to break with long-held traditions and do something radical?

Japan has proven able to maintain a staggering amount of its indigenous culture through successive uphevals and massive societal change. The matted tangle of traditions must be slowly pulled apart now, until its strands begin popping, one by one, and we finally end up with a flexible web: able to react almost instantaneously to changes in the world; able to keep up with the ever-quickening pace of globalization.

A bunch of interesting stories in the news related to copyright and patent law recently...

Sklyarov's company seems to be interested in selling a new application to allow circumvention of Microsoft's ebook format. He's the one who was arrested by the FBI when he came to the U.S. for a conference, because his company sold software to circumvent the protection on PDF files...

A great long article on the implication of expanding copyright protections for the future of our society. I hope we can find some way of overcoming these problems soon — the disconnect between mega-corporations and citizens is getting bigger by the day.

BT Group thought it had a patent on hyperlinking! Luckily, they've lost their suit against Prodigy, although Prodigy had to pay millions to defend themselves against this trash... Being discussed on slashdot, along with another catch-all story with a bunch of copyright infringement news...

I found a great article on Shift about an Iranian guy living in Canada who started a blog, and has brought the revolution of blogging to Iranians across the world. He was a columnist in Iran before moving, so he already had a readership, who quickly became interested in the potential of this new medium.

So Hoder set up a bunch of FAQs in Farsi, and they all seem to have gone wild with their newfound ability to express their views. He says he is now aware of over 600 Iranian blogs, and they're (of course) still growing.

I found his site extremely interesting: I've always felt that Iran was quite different, more thoughtful a country than its neighbors, and this seems to have its root in Shiite Islam and its particular philosophies with regard to discussion and argument.

Shiites believe that argument over interpretations of the Koran and Sharia law are essential. Unlike in the madrassas promoted by the Saudis, in Iranian religious schools and institutions you find healthy debate of a variety of issues, curtailed only by the current Islamic Republic... But the tradition seems to run extremely deep.

There has also been a stark demographic shift in Iran since the Iran-Iraq war in the '80s in which millions were killed — the vast majority of the population is under 25 years old. I think that if the right events come to pass, Iran could eventually become a real modern dynamo, equal to or greater in strength than Turkey at present.

This weekend we went to West Virginia to do some whitewater rafting with a bunch of friends on the New River, about 5 hours away from D.C. We used a company called ACE — they were pretty great, but unfortunately the water is really low this year, and the rapids weren't quite as impressive as usual.

Still, I almost got chucked out of the raft once, and was luckily pulled back in. :) We surfed a couple of the holes, and it was pretty fun altogether... Last night we got home at 5pm and crashed, woke up at 8 for some pizza, and crashed again pretty hard. :)

I want to do the lower Gauley next though. :) It's supposed to be a lot bigger and better. I'd also like to do the upper Gauley, but I think it's much more difficult, and you need to have some experience first... ;)

I love to read the Economist. They almost always have quite in-depth articles on international relations, much longer pieces than you find in almost any other periodical...

I've been sort of put off lately by the lack of progress in Israel, but this is still a good article.

The really interesting article is here though. It's about the changing demographics between Europe and the U.S. This really makes you wonder where all these nations will be in 50 to 100 years. According to this article, it seems that the U.S. will only continue to strengthen, while Europe and most other nations will grow less populous and less influential.

I constantly wonder how long such a gross imbalance of power can be maintained. I've felt on numerous occasions since September 11, and even much earlier, that terrorism could cause the U.S. to lose its world-wide hegemony. I see one major aspect of this problem as the failure of the U.S. to heed the lessons of Taoism, which are made quite apparent the game of Go.

Can every last terrorist be kept out of the U.S.? Of course not. The U.S. is such a huge area that this would be impossible. But people still seem to think it's not only possible but necessary! Sometimes, as in Go, you need to face the reality that you must sacrifice something in order to gain security. The only way the U.S. can gain real security is by either obliterating all muslim countries, or by appeasing some of the extremists. And we know the former is ridiculous.

Chinese strategists know that by appeasing your enemy you can make them lazy, taking away their will to fight. Then, you can take advantage of the opportunity to extend your influence. It's not giving in, it's just being very very cunning.... A cunning I'm afraid is sorely lacking in the upper eschelons of the over-politicized U.S. defense establishment.

A couple of new movie trailers that are pretty cool came out recently: Spirited Away (千と千尋の神隠し), and X-Men 2. We just got the DVD for 千と千尋の神隠し, and now I can't wait to watch it (in Japanese) since seeing the trailer... It looks awesome. I also am surprised by the quality of the dubbing on the American Disney release. It actually sounds pretty cool. :)

I've been thinking a lot about blogging recently, since I started this project a couple of months ago. A story on Joichi Ito's blog gave me a lot of food for thought recently, as well. (BTW, he also went to Nishimachi ;)...

I have begun to want to blog everything cool that I see in my life, and I don't have nearly enough time to do it. I can't imagine how all these bloggers out there of working age manage to find the time to post stuff every day... I guess a lot of it is not that interesting, but it still takes time...

My plan is basically to get this blog working the way I want it before I start law school next year, so I'll be able to write about all the issues I encounter. It should be pretty interesting... I just hope that I can manage to get on the Uberman's sleep schedule prior to law school. Having 4 extra hours each day would seriously ameliorate my need for time to fuel my obsessions... :)

Sunday we went to chinatown in New York again, and hung out with Yuki's sister Christine... She had never been there despite living an hour outside the city her whole life. What is it about people that prevents them from exploring the area around where they grow up...?

Anyway, I love chinatown. Especially the pork buns and bubble tea... ;) If you're not familiar with it, they have tea shops all around chinatown that sell different flavors of these drinks with big tapioca balls in them... The balls are about 1cm in diameter, so you need a huge fat straw to suck them up... ;) They're really good though. I wonder if they have this stuff in Japan now...? I've heard it's really popular in Taipei and Hong Kong...

We hung out in one teahouse for a while... I love that place. You can order really good gyoza, spring rolls, shumai, and all sorts of funky drinks. ;) They had an awesome deal for lunch — $6 for a bubble drink, 2 appetizers, and a lunch entree... Ahhh. :)

So I spoke some Chinese, got a couple of magazines, and bought a used pre-modded PS2!! :P I've been wanting to play Final Fantasy X for about a year, but kept putting off getting a PS2 because I wanted to play the Japanese version... Well, at a store in chinatown, they sell used boxes with a pre-installed modchip, so you can play US and Japanese games. ^_^

I got it at a place called J&L Game Trading, at 28 Elizabeth St, right in the heart of Chinatown... They sell used and modded PS2s, which play original imports as well as US games. They also have a good selection of Japanese games for sale... :) Their phone number is (212) 233-3399, and you can email them here...

I'll upload some pics I took when I get a chance.

It's amazing. I lived in Japan during the peak years of the so-called 'Bubble Economy', from '86 to '89. I came to believe during that time that many aspects of Japanese culture and philosophy were superior to those in the U.S. I wasn't necessarily wrong, but I didn't see the whole picture either. Busy being assimilated by the economic juggernaut, I hadn't noticed the fact that America had superiority where it really counts — in its political and cultural system.

A recent story in the New York Times is titled "As Tokyo Loses Luster, Foreign Media Move On." A couple of choice excerpts:

In the last few months, newspapers closing their Tokyo bureaus included The Chicago Tribune, The Christian Science Monitor, The Independent of London, Dagens Nyheter of Sweden and Corriere della Sera of Italy.

Given the choice between covering a stalled Japan and a developing China that will probably overtake Japan economically by the middle of the century, editors choose the more dynamic country.

An even harsher note is struck in this opinion article from the same paper:

Japan is returning to its rightful place in the world, that of a middling country of vastly diminished and still declining importance in world affairs.

So what is the story? It seems that after over 10 years of stagnation, the global herd, as Thomas Friedman likes to call it in The Lexus and the Olive Tree, has collectively realized that Japan lacks the ability to deal with its crisis. Its political system is stuck, and no one can un-stick it. No one can bear the thought of changing the old-boy network, of becoming less reliant on cozy relationships and more reliant on efficiency and results.

And what, you may ask, is so superior about the U.S. political and cultural system? What's special about it is that it supports the economy. It is flexible, able to change quickly, reacting to the sentiments of citizens and investors. It is this flexibility which allowed the U.S. to grow after the Savings & Loan scandals of the early '90s, and which will allow us to (eventually) bring the global economy out of recession this time as well... Japan not only seems to lack such flexibility, it seems to have rigor mortis.

So now we come to the crux of the matter: which languages should I teach my children, in addition to English? Yuki and I both speak Japanese, and our Chinese is medium-well... I used to think that Japanese won hands-down, but I'm not so sure now. It's clear that Chinese will be an extremely important language. Maybe all three?? ;) Or would they burst a nodule and murder me?

If you can watch this without completely cracking up, you've definitely been in Japan too long!!! I found this on Japander, where they have tons of videos of celebrities doing Japanese commercials... I thought the 'hops' beer ad in particular was insanely hilarious... ;-)

When I think about all these crazy Japanese commercials, I always remember the one that Mike Tyson did in his heyday, for Suntory Dry... "Hi, I'm Mike Tyson, and I like Suntory Dry!"... It was hilarious too, but I guess you had to be there. There's another one Schwarzenegger did for ramen, in which his eyes pop out like some sort of whacko... hehe... I'm sure most of you have seen it, but you should also check out Engrish. I think there are only two things that make me laugh until I'm seriously in pain. One is the South Park movie, and one is that site. :)

Welp, a blast from the past. I got in touch with Maya Ravindranath, back from years in the jungles of Belize... Hopefully, I'll be able to get in touch with Tetsu and Taro and some of the other guys we knew back in Nishimachi... hehe... Too bad I lost touch with them before, but such are the mistakes of youth... ;) I noticed that a bunch of Nishimachi people have blogs now. Mostly from the class of '94, my sister Ainsley's class... It would be cool to get together with all the people in NYC and DC... I think there are a bunch now. :)

Friday, we had a pretty interesting night. Started out great, had a big challenge, and ended up 'ok' but not stupendous... We went to the Freer Gallery to see a film called "Twelve Nights", part of their annual Hong-Kong film festival. It was pretty cool... A funny story about a typically neurotic couple in a big Asian city... ;) You should definitely see it if you get a chance.

Afterwards, we went over to Adams Morgan on the subway to hang out. On the subway there were 4 or 5 black kids (13 or 14 years old) screwing around, and acting incredibly obnoxious. They were screaming, laughing, yelling, and one girl was running up and down the car swinging on the bars... It was not an empty car, this being a Friday night, and all the other passengers were pretty angry. So finally, I said to one kid "Why don't you guys just try to chill out a bit, ok?" And guess what? Of course, he starts threatening me. The girl started into some rant about me attempting to "talk black" (apparently because I used the word 'chill'), and they began to make racist comments about me and my wife Yuki (Korean descent).

Unfortunately, Yuki got angry at them too, and said some things that probably made them even more antagonistic, but when we were about to leave the subway, and one kid rudely pushed past my wife to get out, while threatening to smack her, I got pretty angry myself. I got up in his face and repeatedly asked him who he thought he was going to smack.

He was about a head taller than me (I'm 5'10"), and I'm sure he didn't realize I have been practicing various martial arts for 8 years, on and off, but he saw that I was serious and they backed off, resorting to immature insults from a distance.

Regardless of your confidence level, this sort of thing will always give you a shot of adrenaline, and it can be hard to deal with... Yuki was fine after a while, but it was a crummy experience. We agreed that it's sad these kids don't have any discipline. Their minds are so closed that they fail to realize the effect their behavior has on the other passengers. This is Washington, D.C. -- the capital of the U.S. Tourists see this sort of behavior and think that D.C. is dangerous, uncivilized, etc, and these people have no clue that it's because of them. Argh. Not only that, but it gives more than a bit of fuel to racism. A lot of people here would see that and decide that they should just never venture into D.C. The problem isn't that they're black, though -- the problem is that they are poor, uneducated, and undisciplined, and that they often live in an insular culture where these attributes are tolerated if not accepted...

Luckily, we got to Adams Morgan, and after relaxing at an Ethiopian restaurant for a while, began to feel better. We got some drinks at Tryst, and headed home having eaten a bit too much, but it was a good time altogether... :)

For those of you who don't know what this picture is, it's the subway map of Tokyo. I am nursing a serious case of wanting to be back there right now... It comes and goes, but it's back today. Why? I think it's because we're starting to do more stuff here in D.C., and it's reminding me of what a fucking cool city Tokyo is. At least a third of my self is shaped by my life there, and moulded by my connections to Japan... That part never leaves, of course, but vehemently reasserts itself periodically.

I miss the insanely groovy places that exist only there. The cafés that have furniture that's way too expensive, and play wacky jazz, and somehow manage to make money because everyone is willing to pay way too much money for a latte and a place to feel a slightly different vibe that night, while they chill with their friends...

And right now, even though I would usually bitch about it, I actually miss the blade-runner bitterness of superficial friendships you find there. The anonymity of knowing that maybe people are gossipping about you today, maybe someone else tomorrrow, but never so seriously that you should actually care. The mental space that everyone has around them, as a given, can be strangely liberating. To Americans it can seem cold and unfeeling, and it is sometimes... but it also allows you to cool off, just like the gray sky and cool concrete of a Tokyo afternoon in September. Your Black-Black and Oronamin-C are all yours, as you walk along the street, but you know that a pseudo-deep conversation is only a cellfone away... and you could meet in a new café every night in Shibuya if you wanted, and just hang out and feel that slightly different vibe...

Well, we're beginning to make some friends in the Washington area again. :) Yuki and I met a bunch of cool people at a party for the summer associates at Finnegan Henderson, my Dad's firm. One was actually a guy that I was on a swim team with for years when we were little kids... hehe... We also got together with my friend Andy (singer in a band called Virginia Coalition) and his girlfriend Lacey... I've known Andy since preschool, but we still get along swimmingly... hehe. Pretty crazy to see all these people from so long ago, and renew our friendships... It's very nice :)

I'm also getting to know the area. There is a really cool movie theater near Dupont Circle called Visions... There's also a cool theater in Bethesda, etc...

Now, I just have to do all my applications for law school, and help Yuki find an apartment for us... :)

I finally got back my LSAT score a few weeks ago. I did pretty well, but not quite as well as I'd hoped - I never do - but you always have to aim for the top... ;) I got a score good enough to get into the top 10 schools, which is good, but my undergraduate grades were not as indicative of my abilities (read: not as good), so I probably don't have such a great chance at the very best schools... I guess I'm happy though. :) I did well enough... :)