Rocking in Hakata

I have a weird name. It comes up a lot. I like it, personally. It fits me rather well. Anyway, I recently discovered some cool information about it. A timewaster site had a bunch of information that I’d not seen before. Forgive the odd formatting. You’ll get the gist anyway.

DEAS is the 18,096th most popular name in USA (… 18094.caudell , 18095.vernetta , 18096.deas , 18097.malkin , 18098.debbi …). One in every 351,102 Americans are named DEAS and the popularity of name DEAS is 2.85 people per million.

If we compare the popularity statistics of DEAS to USA’s population statistics, we can estimate that as of December.19.2008 01:30 there are 871 people named as DEAS in the United States and the number of DEAS’s are increasing by 7 people every year.

Courtesy of PokeMyName.com

This site reminds me of similar weird things that go around the Japanese net. Sites like Nounai-Meekaa and its English counterpart BrainScannr, etc. Fun. Probably totally useless, but fun.

Deas Customary Drivel

Awwww! Warms the heart.

Deas Customary Drivel, Media, Video

I jokingly mentioned never having posted about my experience at the Matsuyama Chuo High School Summer Camp in a recent post. (I have, however, ceaselessly carry on about the physics class I taught there earlier in the summer at the English Day event. Being on TV does that to you, I guess.) Well, I decided that I should get it together and try to at least show you some quick pictures from it in the midst of the winter chill. Perhaps these pictures will help you warm up, just like a good mug full of hot cocoa – with tobasco and cinnamon, obviously. Love it.

Derry is freakin’ tall. Seriously. Ha ha. Hope you enjoyed them! Questions in the comments section will be answered when I’m home!

Deas Customary Drivel, Media, Photos

Deasさんのこのエントリー、面白いなぁと思って、昨日、夕飯の時に我が家の子供たちにも話してみました。

子供たちが出した結論は…∴サンタさんは一人ではない。でした。
サンタ村のようなところに大勢のサンタさんが住んでいて、クリスマスの夜はみんなで一斉に配りに歩くんだそうです。（ちなみに「サンタ」と呼び捨てにすると、「サンタさんに失礼だろう！」と怒られました。(^^;)「ママがそんな失礼なことを言っていると怒ってこの家には来てくれないかもしれない」と心配もしているようでした。）

“1秒間に900軒以上配らなければいけない”のところで、私が、「もしかしたら、サンタさんは魔法みたいなものをつかって、一度に900軒分のプレゼントを煙突から入れることができるのかもしれない」と言ったら、上の息子(9歳）は「うーん…そうかもしれないけど、ぼくの考えでは、サンタさんはちゃんと一人ずつ、”一年間いい子だったね”って寝てる顔を見て、置いて行ってくれると思う」とまじめに悩みながら言ってました。(^^)

みんなでわいわいと、それぞれの自論を披露し合って、楽しい夕飯になりました。楽しい話題をありがとうございました。(^^)/

-English translation-

I thought your entry was interesting, so last night during dinner at our house, I brought it up in conversation with my children.

The children’s conclusion seemed to be that…Santa Claus is not one person.
They posited that many Santas live in a place like a Santa-village, and each Christmas night they all walk around to distribute presents at the same time. (By the way, when I just called him “Santa” [presumably without the "Claus" or "-san" suffix], they became angry, saying “isn’t that rude to Santa?” (^^;) It was as though they were worried that “If Mama says such rude things Santa will be angry and he might not visit our house!”)

When I explained that “in 1 second’s time, Santa must distribute presents to more than 900 houses” I said, “Maybe Santa is using some sort of magic to put 900 presents at one time into various chimneys.” My oldest son, who is 9 years old, said, “Yeah, that might be true, but I think that Santa visits each child one by one, looks upon their sleeping faces that convey that they have ‘been a good child for a whole year,’ carefully lays down the present, and goes.” He seemed serious and distressed as he said it. (^^)

It became a fun dinner, with everyone being lively and making their own arguments about it. Thanks very much for the fun topic. (^^)/

marukoさんのコメントDec 20th 2008 07:57

This warmed my heart. I submitted my translation of the Santa Claus: From An Engineer’s Perspective piece to Lang-8 for revision – see the entry on Lang-8 here. Not only did I get super-fast corrections, like usual, but I also go this comment. Made me smile.

Deas Customary Drivel, Humor, 日本語

Hey, check this out. It’s the profile of Ken Hoang, Survivor: Gabon contestant.

Yes, it really says: “Nobody would look at him and believe he climbed Mt. Fuji at the age of 20.” *snort*

For those who are lost…while it’s pretty dadgum steep at times, Mt. Fuji is nowhere near Everest or K2 in difficulty or prestige. At all. TV personalities do it. Children do it. My friends do it hilariously. Really really old people do it. Ken, I’m sorry, but…seriously? WHY would nobody believe that he did it when he was 20?

*Disclaimer: I haven’t watched Survivor since the first or second season, so I don’t know this guy or this season’s drama. Can’t comment on it. This was brought to my attention by an avid fan of the show who will probably claim credit in the comments.

Deas Customary Drivel, Humor, Unsolicited Commentary

If you live in Japan, then Christmas to you means hearing Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas is You and Wham’s Last Christmas (pop-up video!) about seven million times apiece in the month of December. But this year is different. EXILE has released a cover of Wham’s seasonal tune, in Japanese. What to do with that? How about learn all the words and sing it at karaoke? I mean, you’re going to hear it seven million times anyway – why not make it educational? Below you’ll find a karaoke-style video (also still currently available on YouTube thanks to user ghislain03091981), the full text of the Japanese lyrics AND a reasonable translation, as well as links to the iKnow video list that I created. And I tried to make it good – there are 30 vocabulary words, they all have lyrics from the song associated with them, and I even recorded myself speaking the lyrics so that you can do dictation practice if you want to. Go try it out and rate it. Then let us know how you performed at the karaoke box in the comments. Of course, all other comments are welcome, too. Oh – and yes, this post was also submitted to the special Christmas 2008 edition of the Japan Blog Matsuri, hosted by the community driven JapanSoc Blog! While you’re over there, check out the main page of JapanSoc, the Digg-style social network for the English-speaking Japan-related web.

Last Christmas 今はまだ思い出になんてできないよ
でも愛はもう ここにはいない this year
Last Christmas ふたりなら 願いはかなうと信じてた
まだ越えられない 君は今でも special

Last Christmas – I still can’t call it a mere memory
But love – you’re already not here this year
Last Christmas – if we were together, I believed my wish would be fulfilled
I still can’t get over it – you’re still special, even now

出会って気づいたよ 本当は僕も淋しがりやだと
ねぇ君は覚えてるかい？ ふたりで交わした初めてのキス
思えば僕は 君にはたぶん重すぎたよね
わかったふりの強がり 張り裂けそうな my beating heart

We met and I noticed, the truth is that I’m a lonely person too
Hey, do you remember? The first kiss that we shared
When I think about it, maybe it was too serious for you
You pretended like you knew, it was as though my beating heart would burst

Last Christmas 今はまだ思い出になんてできないよ
でも愛はもう ここにはいない this year
Last Christmas ふたりなら 願いはかなうと信じてた
まだ越えられない 君は今でも special

Last Christmas – I still can’t call it a mere memory
But love – you’re already not here this year
Last Christmas – if we were together, I believed my wish would be fulfilled
I still can’t get over it – you’re still special, even now

悲しみもせつなさも 僕たちが生きてる証
失ってみて 初めて知った 大切なもの 大切なひと
もうあの頃には戻れない 君のほほ笑みは戻らない
(Show me your smile)
Ooh ooh この胸の痛みを覚えてる

Our grief and pain are evidence of being alive
When I tried to lose it, I realized for the first time, that it was important, that you are important
I can’t go back to that time, your smile will not return
Ooh ooh – I remember the ache in this chest of mine

Last Christmas 今はまだ思い出になんてできないよ
でも愛はもう ここにはいない this year
Last Christmas ふたりなら 願いはかなうと信じてた
まだ越えられない 君は今でも special

Last Christmas – I still can’t call it a mere memory
But love – you’re already not here this year
Last Christmas – if we were together, I believed my wish would be fulfilled
I still can’t get over it – you’re still special, even now

もうあの頃には戻れない 君のほほ笑みは戻らない
Maybe, next year!
だけど今でも 君は今でも special

I can’t go back to that time, your smile will not return
Maybe, next year!
But even now – you are special even now.

Ok – now that you’ve seen the goods, go try out the iKnow video list! If you want to jump right in and you’re already an iKnow user, you can click one of the buttons below to start the iKnow study application or the iKnow dictation application immediately. DO IT!

This was my first attempt at making a list, and I think I botched at least one thing. There are an equal number of sentences to words, which is messed up. In total there are really only 12 sentences. I pulled the 30 words from them. But I wanted to link the sentences to the words, so I created sentences on each one. It works for studying, but the Dictation gets really repetitive really fast…which might be good if you’re attempting to memorize the song. Yeah….that’s the ticket… But seriously, if you have any list-building experience in iKnow, and you want to help me out, please let me know how I can avoid this problem in the future. Thanks!

Deas Customary Drivel, JBMatsuri, Media, Music, RIH Entries, Video, 日本語