Hello there!  I hope that you are having a happy day.  I have lots of odds-and-ends to write about.  I apologize to the casual readers who may have just stumbled onto this article.  I doubt that it'll be very interesting. The big news in Minnesota baseball is that Doug Mientkiewicz was traded to Boston.  In exchange, the Twins received a minor-league pitching prospect. I have mixed-feelings about the Mientkiewicz trade.  Traditionally, first base isn't a place...

I enjoy using JoeUser.  I like writing articles and having other people comment on them. Every once-in-a-while, I read other people's politically-related blogs.  Those are really disturbing. Personally, I hate to discuss politics with anyone who doesn't agree with me.  -It isn't likely that anyone's position will change by a pointless argument between diametrically opposed positions.- But some of the articles/comments that represent the opposite of my personal beliefs are of...

In Japanese, there is an adjective (which can be used by itself as a sentence) "Nadsukashii."  It translates something like: "Something which brings back memories," or "Something that hasn't been thought of for a long time." I'd compare the phrase to "Walking down memory lane" or "That rings a bell." To change Japanese adjectives to nouns, one has to add a -sa to the adjective.  This is the story of my "Nadsukashii-sa Tour." Today, Kazuko and Kenny had plans with one of Kazuko...

Recently the news has been airing reports that a typhoon is heading for Central/ Southern Japan.  Apparently, we will be enjoying a typhoon some time between tomorrow afternoon and Saturday. When I used to live in Japan I always enjoyed typhoons.  They are the equivalent to the "snow days" that we have once or twice a year in Minnesota.  An unscheduled holiday from work.  I'd stock up on snack foods and rental videos (my satellite would go out), and enjoy the day. Now t...

Major radio markets in the United States feature dozens of channels, each specializing on one genre of music or talk, with the advertising focused on the segment of the population that will most likely be reached by that type of music or talk.  As a potential advertiser, that is a good way to focus on a potential market. I am currently in Japan.  When I lived here, and when I have visited other countries, I was always surprised at the limited number of radio stations a...

This afternoon as my wife and I were listening to the radio, we heard ONJ and ELO's song: "Xanadu." That got me thinking:  In the movie "Xanadu," a downtrodden storefront album cover painter, Sonny Malone (played by Michael Beck), receives divine intervention to help open an extra-fancy roller-rink/nightclub.  Considering that that roller-rink/ nightclub opened in 1980 (the year of the film's theatrical release,) I wonder what the prospects would be of it still being open today?...

Soon after I started blogging here, I found myself in the top-ten for both "user score" and "Joe's top-ten."  I had spent most of the past year in Joe's top-ten (usually between number 2 and 5), and I have remained steadily within the top-twenty users. Recently, my "Joe's" ranking has fallen out of the top-ten.  In a way, I am relieved.  From now on, I can be as boring as I want to be without worrying whether I can at least occasionally publish a popular article.  (Ma...

Over the past few days, my wife and watched an eleven-episode Japanese television drama from 1993 called "Ko-Ko Kyoushi" (High School Teacher.) While watching, it was hard to find a place to stop because we got really involved in the characters and their problems.  It is really fun to get involved in characters and stories.  It gives us something to think of as we go to sleep at night. The first few episodes are a bit sweet.  The focus is on a high school stud...

A few minutes ago I was playing with baby Kenny.  I felt that he has a tooth coming out.  It is a bottom-center tooth.  Cute! I suppose that would explain his irritability and fever over the last few days. Fellow blogger, TrinaP wrote a similar article about her baby teething. I prematurely answered to her blog that our baby (of a similar age) hadn't broken a tooth yet.  I suppose that was true up to a few minutes ago. Cute.  Now we'll have toothy babies. ...

Last night I went to sing karaoke with my mother in-law and father in-law. That was fun.  I always like singing karaoke.  I hope that I will be able to do it a few more times while I am in Japan this time. Here's otoo-san: Here's me (I'm not as photogenic as dad is...)  

Hello friends.  I hope that you're having a happy evening! I have just returned from an evening of karaoke with my mother and father in-law.  That was fun.  Looking through the karaoke catalog, I was impressed to see how much the selection of songs has increased since I lived in Japan three years ago. I am looking forward to the next time that I have a chance to sing karaoke. ************** Before leaving to sing karaoke, I was watching a baseball game on television.&n...

The Nagoya Grand Sumo Tournament is over.  The winner of the whole thing was Yokozuna Asashoryu.  It was a fun tournament to watch. (As a side note: I read in the newspaper that Aerosmith's Joe Perry was at the sumo matches on the same day that my family was.  Had I known, I would have kept an eye open for him.) As well as watching the tournament on television, I enjoyed playing a fantasy football-type game on line.  Link   (My "ring name" is Daijobu.)  Eac...

Hello there!  I hope that all of you are having a happy day. Yesterday I went to see professional sumo in Nagoya with my wife, my son, and my wife's parents.  We had really good seats, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves very much.  We got lots of souvenirs and took lots of nice pictures. Among the pictures that we took was one of baby Kenny being held by a sumo wrestler.  I found some wrestlers outside of the stadium and asked them if they could take a picture with...

I am a regular blogger here on JoeUser.  I write fairly often, and I read about ten-or-so blogs each day. A lot of blog entries feature poetry.  I see that the poems are well-received and commented upon.  That is good for the poet and his or her audience. The deal is that personally, I just don't "get" poetry.  There aren't many poems that I can read from beginning to end without getting immediately disinterested.  Sometimes it amazes me how popular written poetry ...

Hello there friends. Today is our third day here in Japan.  It has been nice to see our relatives (we haven't met with friends quite yet.) It seems that we're finally getting over the 14 hour time difference.  We went to bed at around ten PM, and we were sleeping during the night, but the three of us all woke up at 4:20.  (Almost a full night's sleep...) Baby Kenny seemed to have the most difficult time acclimating himself to the time difference.  He was sl...