I’m off to spend New Year’s with a Japanese friend and her family. I consider this quite an honor, since I’m not her boyfriend and how often does some random gaijin get to hang out with a Japanese family for three days?

Oh, and did I mention that they don’t speak English? It’s gonna be interesting…

Recently, I gave blood here in Tokyo for the first time. It was an altogether painless and quick experience, if a bit too sterile. (Do we really need a vaccuum pump to suck my lifeforce away? Can’t I just make a fist and squeeze?)

I’ve been giving at least once a year since I was 16. Coincidentally, the same day I donated I discovered that an American comic book writer named Jason Henderson was giving original pages of the art by Greg Scott for their “Sword of Dracula” comic to people giving blood.

This has got to be one of the best trades I’ve ever encountered. I don’t know how many of you have given blood before. I don’t even know how many of you there are reading this. I don’t know your politics, your backgrounds.

Those things are important, but their not relevent. Please, please, please, whatever country you’re in, whether you’re used to giving time, money or nothing at all, please give blood.

I can’t offer you original artwork, or in my case, stories or photos. I’m just not that accomplished yet. But please give blood, because somebody is counting on you.

By the way, Mr. Henderson can be reached here, if anybody’s interested in receiving a piece of comic book art for a blood donation.

Just completed making a few changes here at BIJ Central, since I finally have the time. Or stopped procrastinating, for those of you who know me better.

A quick run-down: All links from the main page to the gallery have been removed, pending further notice. Obviously, I’m not going to go through the archives to fix what will wind up being only a temporary problem.

The titles on the sidebars are more prominent, but most importantly, there’s a “Recent Comments” section on the left sidebar. I’ll probably add in the next few days what entry the new comment belongs to, but for now I was just happy to get the damn code working.

Also, the pugnacious kid sister site to BIJ, the Inch-High Thoughts moblog, has received a site that’s suitable for public viewing. By my standards, at any rate.

Last night, my mother’s sister’s daughter’s cousin’s dog’s brother’s gardner’s florist’s uncle’s hair dresser’s chicken’s former roomate’s polka punk band had a concert.

Okay, so I fibbed a bit. Bite me. My friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s non-polka playing punk band had a show at a live house in Harajuku. “Live house” is Japanese English for “rock club.” I’d tell you the name of the place, but it was one of the more interesting concerts I’ve been to.

About six or seven punk bands played, one right after the other. No 15 to 30 minute set breaks, these guys got their gear up, played hard and fast, and then got the hell out of our sight.

It’s hard to say exactly how many played, because after three amateur punkers it gets mighty difficult to tell them apart. Overall, I’d have to say that Jackin’ Boxes, the band I was there to see, was one of the better ones. Their playing was tight, hard and fast, just like a proper punk band.

Their songs were… unfocused? A bit alcoholic? It was hard to tell, and not so relevent. We’re talking about people who play because they love to play, not because they have some pretentious notion of music-as-art.

However, I nearly walked out when one of the lesser bands ended their set with a cover of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” I mean, really. At a punk show, who does that?

I hope everybody is having a joyful winter season gift-giving holiday.

Right there, that’s about as politically correct as I can get. Hold on while I go take a scalding shower to get rid of that dirty feeling.

I’ve finally caught up with all the entries I had started over the past few months and took my time to complete. Some of them are even worth reading, so if you’re interested, check out the archives for Novemeber and December.

Also, there are some serious problems with the photo gallery. I won’t go into details here, but please please please be patient, and as soon as the gallery is running again, I’ll let you know.

Be safe, all.

Sometimes I find the Japanese language limiting. When you talk about food, it’s oishii. That’s it. Delicious. No “tasty.” No “good.” Conversationally, you’ve got “delicious,” and that’s all she wrote, folks.

Then again, the language can be expansive. Bounenkai is a word that means, “end-of-the-year party where everybody gets annihilated.”

Big shock: It’s become my favorite Japanese word of the season.

Tonight I went to my dojo’s bounenkai. End-of-the-year parties in American dojo – in my experience, at least – have involved everybody going out for some sort of affordable Asian food. There’s a little bit of drinking, maybe some beer to wash down the pork fried rice, but not much beyond that.

Here, we brought McDonald’s into the dojo, along with some more traditional Japanese convenience store munchies. I didn’t want to appear rude, so I ate the Mickey D’s, but… well, it was just really, really peculiar. Cheap food is cheap food, I guess.

Of course, there was severe liver conditioning going on, too. We started with beer, then went on to sake, and finished with rum. And it wasn’t just me drinking: everybody, including the sensei, was nine sheets to the wind. Cooked. Toasted. Blitzed.

It was good to see everybody relax and let their hair down, though.

Winter is here. It’s cold outside, although the sky remains clear and crisp. The blue is so utterly blue, it’s almost painful – like looking directly into a blue sun.

People are bundled up beneath layers, but young Japanese women and girls still wear their mini-skirts. Coffee seems to cost Y 400 a cup, and hot Chinese pastry buns with Japanese twists, an-mon and pizza-mon, call to me from the inside of convenience stores.

And even though none of the chaos of Tokyo has slowed down yet, it seems like somebody has turned the dial down from 11.