Huh. Get this – Botchan themed cow’s milk. Excellent. Will my prefecture’s pride and joy (fixation / abuse) ever get to rest? Methinks not. Wonder if someone in Matsuyama cooked this up, or if the milk company is localizing its product to feed off of regionalism elsewhere, too. Hmmm. Nothing sells milk like trains and nostalgic traditionalist moral fiber. Well, except maybe cow-related themes – or name dropping Hokkaido, probably. Ha ha.
Deas Culinary, Customary Drivel, Media, Photos
The six images above are the official school seals (or “badges”) for the six schools where I currently teach. I couldn’t find the seal for the branch school on Iwagi where I taught with my buddy Luke King last year, and that’s fitting since it doesn’t exist anymore. Anyway, I think these are really cool. The top row, from left to right, represent Imabari South High School, Imabari West High School, and Yuge High School. The bottom row, again from left to right, represent Omishima High School, Hakata High School, and Oshima High School. (Oshima’s is hand-drawn…aaaaw…)
These seals are really neat – they appear everywhere. They are on all of the stationery and letterhead, naturally. They are embossed on every button of the school uniforms at some schools, they are replicated in the form of gardens at some schools. (You wouldn’t know it until you climbed to the fourth floor and looked down on a garden, at which point you realize what shape it is in.) There are fountains created after them as well. I’ve even seen paperweights, manhole covers, and ventilation grills that feature these seals. In short, they are a big part of a school’s identity. And I think that they are neat pieces of design work as well.
My favorite seal above is definitely Yuge High School’s. The design elements leap out at me. The school is one of my 4 island schools, so the surf shapes surrounding the seal are pretty obvious. The zig-zag shape that forms a Superman-like triangle is actually the first kanji character in the school’s name. It’s the “yu” in Yuge. Looks like this: 弓. Stylized, obviously. But cool! You may also have noticed that in 5 out of the above 6, the kanji character 高 appears. That represents the “high” in “High School,” or the first “kou” in “koukou” (高校). I have a theory that Imabari West’s seal shape is related to their school philosophy on a very esoteric level (the kanji for firefly is used in their slogan, and the Rorschach-like blob in the middle could be a firefly…maybe…). Yeah, it’s a stretch. I dunno. Just thought I’d share. I find them interesting.
Deas Customary Drivel
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This problem comes into play when you’ve studied a language for a bit. You begin to imagine hearing it in places where it isn’t. Or at least, where it probably isn’t. Today I was listening (too closely) to the song called Sing Along from the Blue Man Group’s album The Complex, featuring Dave Matthews on vocals. There’s a part towards the end of the song – approximately 2 minutes, 51 seconds in – where I distinctly heard 「そうだ、そうだ。」 (Sou da, sou da.) or “That’s right, that’s right.” It fit contextually, so I let it breeze by – only when the song was over did I think – wait – as far as I know, Dave Matthews doesn’t speak Japanese. Ha ha. What the? He must be scatting jazz-style, and it just phonetically matched. This is less common than me thinking I heard Japanese words in Korean, for instance. Ha ha.
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By the way – just for giggles – I also had another song that I listened way too closely to by accident recently. Live and Let Die, the Bond film theme song by Paul McCartney’s post-Beatles group, Wings, has a goof included. The lead guitar totally blows a riff at one point in the song, but depending on your listening, you can go right by it without hearing it – it is a very full, chaotic, vibrant song after all. It’s my favorite Bond theme, I think. Why do I pick this stuff up? It’s at the 1 minute 46 second mark. And lasts less than a second. Good luck!
Deas Customary Drivel, Media, Music
Awesome. This is a Japanese fan-made translation of Jonathan Coulton’s humorous closing credits song for the new Valve game Portal. It has been run through a popular Japanese text-to-speech (singing voice) program, Vocaloid 2. I found it on YouTube, but am hosting a copy here just in case. Anyway, I’m just going to list the lyrics, in original English text, translated Japanese text, and retranslated English text, for comparison’s sake, after the “fold.” I hope you enjoy it. Read more…
Deas Customary Drivel, Humor, Media, Music, Video, 日本語
I’ve got that conference today and tomorrow – sorry for the sparse posting. Back on Thursday, wish me luck!
Deas Customary Drivel
Um…I am uncomfortable that these two particular worlds have collided. Here we have a screenshot (snagged from Kotaku’s article, but hosted here) from Street Fighter Online: Mouse Generations. And I bet you thought it was weird when Mr. Kojima turned out to be an English teacher.
That is definitely Ryu aping Yoshio Kojima’s trademark line. What the heck? According to Kotaku, “That’s part of the game’s ‘cut-in system’ that delivers user-added images and biting smack-talk during @$$-kicking moments.” Hmmm. Add seriously overworked one-liners to that. Man, this guy’s side jobs are starting to add up. (He was even featured prominently on last year’s Sports Day shirt for my base high school…in all his speedo-clad glory.) To quote the character “Hippie” from The Abyss, “I’ve got to tell you, I give this whole thing a sphincter-factor of about 9.5.” 
Deas Customary Drivel, Humor, Unsolicited Commentary
