I'm... disappointed?

I just received this:

Dear Benjamin,

Interac Co., Ltd. takes great pleasure in offering you a position as a
Language Instructor. Detailed instructions about how to proceed from this
point are outlined below.

PROCEDURE... blah blah blah blah

The letter then goes ON AND ON about what I have to do next. While I'm happy that they've offered me a job, it isn't the job I wanted anymore. The letter says my start date is April 2008, not December of this year like I wanted. The job is for their base salary of 250,000 yen/month, not the 260,000 yen/mo like I requested at the interview (which isn't a problem but I'm WORTH it). My salary could still increase a little bit if I get placed in a 'hard to fill' location. That means the boonies from what I was told, but I would be fine with that...

So! I've set the very arbitrary goal for myself of speaking fluent Japanese. That means that I should take this job and get back to Japan. But I don't know how excited I am at the prospect of returning to Japan to teach. I mean, it's not terrible or anything, but I don't think its preferable to anything else I could be doing either. It's just a job.

Sigh.

How much does 0% cost anyway?

I downloaded this weekend's Meet the Press podcast, which was an interview with presidential candidate Chris Dodd. For those who don't know, Chris Dodd is the senior Senator from Connecticut who has more than a passing resemblance to Boss Nass. It's really in the eyebrows and chin in my opinion...

Anywho, thanks to the interview, I now know how much of an asshole Chris Dodd is. Luckily he's polling 0% nationally according to Public Opinion Strategies (cited in the show). When Tim Russert asked him about his numbers, he said "there's room to grow" and then explained that success really depends on how much money you're able to raise, etc; Valid points. However, Russert should have pointed out that according to that same poll, Stephen Colbert, who's currently spending nothing and is only running in South Carolina, is currently whipping his ass with 2.3% of the potential vote.

That's not why he's an asshole though (although indicative). When Tim Russert asked him about his voting record, he came up with nothing but lame excuses and contradictory statements. Tim asked him why, since he now wants to withdraw our troops by 2009, he voted for the war in the first place. Tim then played his speech before Congress on Oct 9, 2002 (before the war vote), where he said: "there's no question that Iraq poses biological and chemical weapons, that's not in doubt, and that he seeks to acquire additional weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons. That's not in debate. I also agree with President Bush that Saddam Hussein is a threat to peace and must be disarmed." Dodd defended himself by saying that his focus in that speech was on searching for the weapons. He added that he regretted that vote and wished he could take it back. Fine. So Tim asked him why then, in July of 2005, he was still giving speeches supporting the president and the war? And why in February of 2006, he said he didn't want to impose deadlines on the president. Dodd defended himself by saying that on September 28, 2004 he said just the opposite. That was supposed to exculpate him I suppose. He said that NOW he thinks its going very poorly and he wants to "change direction." Riiiight. So, in 2002 war was good, in 2004 it wasn't, in 2005 and 2006 it was, and now it isn't again.

Tim asked him if the troops had all died in vain and he said of course not. Then Tim again played a clip from some speech he gave where he said: "all that loss for WHAT?" Tim again put the question to him, and he said that the soldiers have "create[d] some space... in Iraq... for them to come together so that the nation has a chance in succeeding." And are they reconciling their differences? Nope.

He then played a clip from April of 2007 where Dodd said the war was about oil. Tim said he thought it was interesting that he had never said that publicly before 2007 and asked him if he always thought that was true. Yes, he thought it was true. "Why then did you wait until this year to say that?" Replied Dodd: "... good question."

He also threw out the number of Iraqi casualties at 80-100,000. Where the fuck did he come up with that? Even the president's own conservative estimates are higher than 200,000. Who the fuck is this guy?

I guess it just comes back to the fact that Connecticut sucks. And not, as Luke pointed out, that northwestern part of Connecticut that looks a lot like western Massachusetts. The part of Connecticut that the rest of us just drive through on our way to New York and probably elected Chris Dodd. You guys suck.

Work in progress...

OK. Haloscan ate my title and Technorati isn't pinging my site. On the plus side, I am now using Haloscan for my comments and it doesn't require you to register with Blogger first. I expect problems with spam and old comments don't show up anymore.

If you click on the post heading, you can open a unique page for that post along with all of its comments.

Let me know if this is worse or better.

haloscan problems...

anyone have any success with installing haloscan comments? it's eating my header...

Maintenance...

Technorati Profile

Alright. Spiders on their way...

My endorsement

Well, the primaries are quickly approaching and its about time that the good people at my blog (me) handed down their (my) endorsement. Since I don't live in South Carolina, my options aren't that great. My real favorite in this campaign is Ron Paul, the Republican from Texas. In addition to being adorable, he wants to reduce the government to half its size and eliminate, among other things, the departments of homeland security and education, and the IRS. But Ron Paul, like Ralph Nader, doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell. That didn't stop me from voting for Nader in 2000 (that's right mother fuckers. And as a Massachusetts voter, I didn't cost anyone the election), but right now I'm not voting. Only endorsing.

So, I'm endorsing Bill Clinton as Ambassador to the World. I don't really give a shit about Hillary but it's clear that without really fucking up somewhere, she's gonna trounce Obama in the primaries. In a recent trip to the UK, Clinton said he thought his best role in a Hillary administration would be to be "ambassador to the world." I like the sound of that.

Clinton said "I'd be of most use to [Hillary] doing something to try to help restore America's standing in the world and build more allies and get us to work together again." Amen. I guess when it comes down to it, the things I care most about are:

1. Getting US troops home as fast as possible (that includes from places like South Korea, Japan, and wherever the fuck else we happen to have them).

2. Improving our relationship with the rest of planet Earth, who, right now, happen to hate us.

3. Reducing the size and scope of the government.

4. Promoting very liberal social values.

5. Finding a cheap flight to Japan.

Bill and Hillary can promote that liberal social agenda, as well as improve our relationship with the rest of the world. Hillary isn't pulling those troops out of Iraq anytime soon and she's probably gonna increase what the government can do (Hillarycare 2.0?). But, I'm only really endorsing Bill right now, not Hillary. I think in light of a Turkish invasion of northern Iraq, a tactical air strike by Israel inside of Syria, a Putin visit to Iran where he said they should watch each other's backs, a Taiwanese bid to join the UN as an independent country, a nuclear and untrustworthy North Korea, the current war in Iraq, a planned invasion of Iran (is that going to happen or what?), and a planned anti-missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, someone needs to handle our international affairs a little bit better.

I'm Pro-Monkey Murder

I'm not, you understand, pro-murdering monkeys. I'm pro-monkey murder. Murdering monkeys are what they apparently have in India. Taking the monkeys in India and murdering them is what I'm advocating.

According to this article, as well as the BBC World Service podcast, a top politician in New Delhi was murdered by monkeys on Saturday. What the world service reported was that he was likely trying to scare the monkeys away and fell to his death. The online version however, said he was "trying to fight off the monkeys," who at that point had probably armed themselves with utensils from his house and tied up his family. The monkeys were probably looking for drug money and valuables they could carry away, but became unreasonable when he tried to negotiate with them.

Now, I'm not advocating monkey murder because I just so happen to be the victim of an isolated monkey attack AND mugging, ... actually, that's exactly why I'm advocating monkey murder. Yes. Other than that I don't think I would have a single problem with monkeys. They could have murdered and eaten every politician in Asia without a response from me, but they have crossed a line. When that monkey went screeching berserk and clawed at my leg, I screamed out and completely embarrassed myself. A family of Indian people behind me started laughing and Luke probably considered me a total pussy. I won't be happy until there is a pile of burning monkey bodies SOMEWHERE in the world. But I digress.

The article makes it sound like the authorities in India, and especially in New Delhi, are wringing their hands over how to get rid of all these monkeys. Monkey catchers have been employed to little effect. Poisoning them has only led to poison-resistant strains of killer monkeys. If the article on the BBC website is to be believed, they have even considered training "bands of larger, more ferocious langur monkeys to go after the smaller groups of Rhesus macaques." That's not a joke by the way. That's what the BBC actually reported. India, I beg you: do not go down that road.

Langur monkeys, pictured here:


raise their own set of problems. First of all, power-sharing. You think these ferocious langurs are going to work for bananas? You think they haven't already figured out what you'll do with them when the job is done? These guys aren't as dumb as they look. Secondly, like it or not, occupying armies rape things. After World War II, Japan actually had government-sponsored whore houses (the famous comfort women) to discourage American GIs from rape. That's not funny at all. That's just a fact. Now picture an army of sex-crazed violent monkey-murdering langurs running around New Delhi with unlimited access to Cocaine and pornography. I don't even wanna think about it.

My advice to India: do what your forebears did. Chop off their little monkey heads and make brain stew. You can even throw a party for visiting heads of state and serve it as a local delicacy. Its gotta be true, they did it in Indiana Jones: Temple of Doom. Harrison Mother Fucking Ford. Or, create a Ministry of Monkey Murder in the government answerable directly to the president, with a modest budget and a small group of reliable people.

Mr. Singh: Hey. A fucking monkey shit on the hood of my car again.
Minister of MM: We're on it sir.
Mr. Singh: I shouldn't even have to ask. You know this.
Minister of MM: We could do a little better with some more pornography sir. Those monkeys love that pornography.

"My God, what have I become?"
If you want to see more blog posts about this exact same thing that aren't funny, try this guy's modest effort. You suck guy. Also, someone who can't spell 'marauding' and loves alliteration posted here. They did not find this nearly as funny as I did.

Technorati tags: New Delhi, Monkeys, Murder, S.S. Bajwa

*Very* well, thanks for asking

I had my interview with Interac on Saturday afternoon. Daniela and I were able to borrow Louisa's car (thanks again Lou) the night before, which made getting all the way out to Revere quite easy. I guess Interac really goes out of its way to save a few bucks, because it was quite an inconvenient location. If you depend on public transportation, then you would have been disappointed to find out that no bus, subway or commuter rail line goes anywhere near the Marriott in Revere (although after emailing the hotel, I found out they have a free shuttle service to the airport).

The people I was interviewing with were pretty green. There were four guys, including myself, and a girl who seemed pretty smart. I don't know how she would be as an English teacher, but she seemed much brighter than the other guys there. When asked 'Why Japan?' the other three guys gave very generic and lame answers ('No I've never been to Japan and no, I don't speak any Japanese, but I'm REALLY interested in Japan.' or 'Well, I want to teach English in Japan because I come from a family of teachers'), but she said that she had been studying Japanese on her own for a little while, had been there on vacation before, and wanted to be in a big city where she could soak up the funky Japanese fashion (she had chosen fashion as a career). For the record, I said that I wanted to go back to Japan because I had loved living there and felt like immersion was the only way I was going to get my Japanese to a high enough level.

The interview took about 4 hours and looked something like this:

8:50am - Meet in the lobby of the hotel
9:00 - 12:00pm - General information session, grammar and personality tests
12:00 - 12:30pm - Short break before the personal interviews
12:30 - 1:15pm - Interview slot 1
1:30 - 2:15pm - Interview slot 2
2:30 - 3:15pm - Interview slot 3
3:30 - 4:15pm - Interview slot 4
4:30 - 5:15pm - Interview slot 5

The information session lasted about 3 hours, but included a personality test (15 min.) and a grammar test (15 min.). After that, we had to schedule personal interviews in one of 5 time slots, which were about 45 minutes in length. Because I had been the first person to show up that day, I got to pick my time slot first. That was huge. Daniela had dropped me off just before 9am and the last personal interview was scheduled for 4:30pm. I felt bad for the kid that showed up to the interview 5 minutes late, because thanks to that, he had to find something to do for 4 hours before he could finish his interview. I was done and on my way back home with D by 1:15 or 1:30pm.

Oh yeah! That reminds me of something Daniela noticed. Why is there a toll on the Tobin bridge only for inbound traffic? It's like the city of Boston is trying to discourage people from the North Shore from coming downtown.

Because of all the NOVA employees who are jumping ship right now, getting back to Japan is going to be a little harder than I thought. While I'm pretty confident that I'll be offered this job, there may not be any openings in December like I wanted. I may have to wait until April, in which case I should apply to JET as well, which would be the exact same job and start date but with a slightly larger paycheck (from 260,000 to 300,000 yen a month). I know Brucie is having problems with NOVA. They offered him a job and then pushed back his start date thanks to all the problems they're having right now. One of the guys I interviewed with at Interac is going through the same thing. Good luck to everyone who is dealing with that. And I'll say again that I predict NOVA bounces back. I'm sticking to my guns.

Technorati tags: Interac, Interview, Japan, Teaching English

An objective comparison

While still a student in middle school, my aunt Monique bought me a Hole CD (which she was NOT happy about, understandably, as Hole is shit) that I had wanted for my birthday. I've occasionally had lapses in my better judgment, but one CD that I bought around the same time and recently rediscovered was Marilyn Manson's 1996 album antichrist svperstar. It's not that particular album that I want to defend right now, but Marilyn Manson as an artist. After listening to antichrist svperstar again, I realized that I hadn't actually seen or heard anything from Manson in a long time. It probably doesn't help that I don't watch TV anymore, but I think it's fair to assume that he has fallen off the radar for most of us. So I decided to catch up a little bit on this lovely Columbus Day and found that Marilyn Manson rocks harder than ever.

While I like the band's original material, I prefer their covers. "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" is what got Manson into our collective consciousness in the first place, and I still think that their version is great. What made the strongest impression on me when I first heard it back in middle school, was the juxtaposition of the whispered parts with the angst-ridden screaming. It was completely haunting. I distinctly remember watching top 10 countdowns on MTV (a thing of the past) before going on a bike ride with my friend Mike, and then repeating over and over in my head parts of the song. Specifically the part of the song where he is under a bright green light with clocks fastened to his head, and he's whispering the chorus in a very guttural way. The Manson sound is powerful (even if you find him and his presentation corny) and I think it's more than just a way to steal the song away into your brain.

So that brings me to what this post is about. I found two Manson covers (from 2001 and 2004) that I hadn't previously heard. In 2001, for the Not Another Teen Movie soundtrack, Manson recorded a cover of "Tainted Love" by Soft Cell, and in 2004 Manson covered Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus." I've now listened to these two songs about a dozen times each (just today) and I'm prepared to defend one of them against the original and its other versions. I think I like "Tainted Love" better and until watching that video I had never really understood Marilyn Manson's sex appeal. After all, I don't think there's anything particularly sexy or sexual in his earlier stuff. Manson's more recent videos have a lot more sex in them, and for the same reasons that I find gothic chicks hot I find Manson himself,... well, hot, I guess. The more so because he does that look particularly well. Despite how much I like the song, I'll use "Personal Jesus" instead because there are four versions that are available on YouTube, and I've included two of them below.

Depeche Mode wrote the song for their 1989 album Violator, and it became their 23rd single in the UK. The song was inspired by Priscilla Presley's book "Elvis and Me" and according to writer Martin Gore: "It's a song about being a Jesus for somebody else, someone to give you hope and care. It's about how Elvis was her man and her mentor and how often that happens in love relationships; how everybody's heart is like a god in some way, and that's not a very balanced view of someone, is it?" It had fantastic success and has since been covered by (among others): Lollipop Lust Kill, Tori Amos, Johnny Cash, and Marilyn Manson.

The focus in the Depeche Mode video is clearly on the sexual nature of the song, like Martin Gore points out. The band rides into a dusty town on horses, and then fucks down at the local whorehouse. The panting during the bridge in the video is a personal highlight.

Now, the focus in the Manson video (co-directed by Manson) changes quite a bit. You can't deny that there are a lot of sexual images (including a woman masturbating in a confessional, and nipples! [3:00]), but there seems to be more going on than in the Depeche Mode version. If Gore is right about love relationships, then Manson is expanding that to include hero-worship (especially of politicians), littering his video with images of Stalin, Hitler, Gandhi, Mussolini, and Kennedy (as well as much lesser figures like George W. Bush [0:56]). I think he kind of beats us over the head with his point, and the essential message remains the same. The fact that it's Manson covering this song is perfect though. While I think Manson rocks, and I would throw my vagina at him (like he implied Lindsay Lohan did in a recent interview), who honestly would be prepared to make him their Jesus? The fact that he casts himself in the role of your personal Jesus is great for reasons that should be obvious.

Aside from the addition of distortion, little of the actual song was changed in the Manson version. The instruments do change the overall feel of the song and I love those single high guitar chords. In the same way, Johnny Cash truly made it his own, but unlike the Depeche Mode and Manson versions, the Johnny Cash one is just boring. That goes double for the Lollipop Lust Kill version. All the notes are there, but it sounds like noise.

I have more to say but it's already 9:49 here in Massachusetts and I'm bored of writing about this song. Manson remains busy. Click on the following link for a live cover of Justin Timberlake's What Goes Around Comes Around for Radio 1. Not sure if I like it yet. I don't think so.

Technorati tags: Marilyn Manson, Depeche Mode, Personal Jesus, Cover songs

Depeche Mode - Personal Jesus

Marilyn Manson - Personal Jesus