Greetings and salutations!

As I’m certain few are surprised, it has been once again far too long since my last update. I could attempt to generate a myriad of reasonable excuses in order to give my laziness some sense of even the least amount of legitimacy, but I think we all know that’s simply not going to happen. With that in mind, on with the show….

Of My Life and Japan

I’m going to break with tradition here by placing my own personal news up front. The first of which is that photos are now beginning to trickle online. I have abandoned Snapfish in order to provide my readers with a hassle-free method of viewing the images through Picassa-Web; check out the latest at http://picasaweb.google.com/joe.armstrong.

Generally, everything continues to go well. There’s no escaping the reality that some days are good and some days are not, but I continue to feel satisfied with the bulk of my present reality. It’s summer now in Osaka and a very hot one at that. The average temperature is in the low 30s but at least it seems the humidity has decreased somewhat. Now if there was a little bit more sun I think we’d be set.

A couple weeks back I won our weekly poker extravaganza so I felt pretty good about that. Aside from that, our new roommate arrived and has proven to be another stand up guy. His name is Dane Ash and he’s another Aussie so I’m pretty much surrounded now. Another new friend of mine is Jewish American (NY) Jon Minkowitz; we’re planning on attending the Tokyo Game Show at the end of September. While in Tokyo I will also be visiting my good friend Keishiro Matayoshi, so I’m really looking forward to that.

In other news, we FINALLY got a router and I no longer have to rely on a super weak wireless signal – this will improve things on a number of fronts – possibly even in regard to blog updates. I’m also waiting on my order of RAM for my laptop.

Work at NOVA is fine though there’s nothing particularly interesting to report there. My probation ends in 3 more weeks which is quite good. I’ve taught dozens and dozens of students now and while I could spend pages and hours reflecting on distinct peculiarities, I’ll simply say that the experience is generally rewarding and that I MUCH prefer teaching the higher level students. The tedium of the job increases inversely to the level of the students. With the router situation I do need to pick up on my contract work projects as well.

Recent Comments

I find the world cult gets thrown about fairly loosely, and most of the time people don't understand the proper context. We have conditioned the term to refer to those fringe groups with radically contradictory ideas to the 'mainstream' and so on, but in all reality, the early church was a cult, as is the current incarnation of the church - http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=SNYI,SNYI:2005-32,SNYI:en&q=define%3Acult

Denominational affiliation and so forth has little to do with it and, eventually, when a 'cult' gets big enough to be accepted into the 'mainstream' it becomes a denomination in itself. Personally, I generally don't give too much thought to such things - frequently the wavering standards of men are hardly the best benchmark by which to measure. All you can do is tell people what you believe and how you act it out, and let them decide on their politics.

Of Entertainment

I am tremendously glad to see that Hollywood continues to be attempting to correct some of its past mistakes by providing us with actually decent films. Apart from The Prestige, I am most looking forward to the following films:

World Trade Centre | The Fountain | The Departed | The Black Dhalia |
Babel | Children of Men | Borat | Fearless | Casino Royale | Pan’s Labyrinth |
The Dark Knight | Indy 4 | Fletch 3 | Spiderman 3 | Pirates of the Caribbean: World’s End | Hellboy 2: The Golden Army

Movies I have queued up include Superman Returns, Clerks and Pirates II, and Thank You for Smoking. I recently watched A Scanner Darkly. I had been looking forward to this film for months but ultimately, while it was most likely the most faithful adaptation of a work by Philip K. Dick yet, it really didn’t do anything for me. The story seemed over thought and under developed; kudos to Robert Downey Jr. though, for essentially stealing the show. For more movie news, check out http://www.comingsoon.net.

Jon Stewart IS Mega Man! Quite possibly one of the funniest, most disturbing ‘trailers’ I have ever come across: http://www.somethingawful.com/index.php?a=3966

Of the World

I am not, at this time, going to get into discussions of Katyusha rockets, Qassam or Farjar missiles and the ethically and morally bankrupt gong show that is presently going on in the Middle East. All I care about is the safety of my friends and the violence coming to an end. I won’t even get started on the blatant incompetence of the media or international groups all around in the affair; it’s sad enough as it is. Do check this article out though as it is pretty bloody funny, as irreverent as it is.

With Hope,
Joseph

Tokyo Game Show | Katyusha Rockets | The Dark Knight