Yesterday I took a two hour train ride out to Yokohama to see the Nano Mugen Festival, a two day rock festival put on by the Asian Kung Fu Generation and many other bands they invited. Yesterday's line up included Ash, Space Cowboy, hellogoodbye, Third Eye Blind, Ellegarden and of course AKFG. I mainly went to see Ellegarden, but I also wante to see AKFG. However, in order to catch the last train home I ended up having to leave half way through AKFG's gig when it was just getting really good... :( But at least I got to get down in the crowd with Ellegarden's fans and jump around to Space Sonic and Make a Wish one last time before the band goes on an hiatus of indeterminate length. This year is the last time they will play lives for awhile... but they do sound hopeful that they will come back together again someday...

I don't remember noticing it so much at the concert last year, but I think Japanese concerts are quite different from American concerts. In particular the hellogoodbye band had their mind's blown by the strange reactions from the audience... well partly the audience can't understand their English, and probably doesn't know most of their songs... but, for example during the breaks in between songs the Japanese get really quiet and stop cheering. Just waiting I guess for the band to speak or start the next song. But the lead singer seemed really uncomfortable about it and kept saying things like "this is so weird. it is so f*cking quiet in here..." which I can understand must have seemed particularly strange from his point of view looking out at this enormous arena filled to the brim with people, and it was, literally dead silent. At one point during a song of theirs it got to a slow quiet point, and everyone began clapping slowly in sync with the beat and he muttered with a chuckle in the microphone "what is this shit?" hehe... certainly it must have been interesting for them. The quietness of the Japanese and their unwillingness to scream and cheer, even though they are at a rock concert reminded me of my class. Trying to teach the upperclassmen where no matter what I say they all just stare at me. Even when I speak in Japanese they just look at me like I'm retarded or as if my words don't make any sense. But, when I talk to them after class, or read their impressions of the day's class in their notes/journal I realize that they are paying attention, and some of them even really enjoy class even though they show absolutely nothing when they are gathered in a group.

The girl in the seat next to me sat in her seat from noon until 8pm checking her cell phone from time to time and generally looking pissed off. I wondered if her date had stood her up or something... or maybe he had left her in the bleachers so he could rock out with is cack out in the standing area... A couple of times like during 3rd eye blind, I saw her clap or tap her feet a little bit... but otherwise I would have thought she was completely miserable to be here. However! When, at the very end, Asian Kung Fu Generation came out, everyone in the bleachers stood up (for the first time all day) and she did too. Not only did she stand and cheer, she danced and jumped and waved around having a grand old time. It seemed like a different person, it totally surprised me... But I guess AKFG, being the main event, had that power on the whole arena. I have to say, looking out on the whole stadium it was really a spectacular sight to see everyone shaking their fists together or waving their hands. There were so many people, and while the previous bands had only got that response from the people in the front row of the floor, AKFG got the whole studium up on their feet cheering.

I bought lots of goods, and I had to ride the bullet train back part way in order to make the last train... so I ended up spending a lot of money on the whole trip... It makes me think I don't want to go to Rock in Japan after all.. It is so far, and it will be crowded like this, but it will be outside in the burning sun... uhg... it doesn't sound so great after all..

Oh one more thing about the Japanese concerts. At least this one... the standing area sucks! They had these fences up in various places that basically made little pens in various sections of the floor. To get into the pens you had to file in through one entrance and when they started to get full (which was not very crowded at all) the staff would close off the entrance. So if you didn't get there ahead of time then you wouldn't be able to bounce with the crowd in the front row, and once you got in, you couldn't leave for fear that you might not be able to get back. The result is that people who wanted to see Ellegarden up close had to get their 2 or 3, even 4 bands ahead of time and stand and wait. That kind of sucks, especially if you need to go to the bathroom or get a drink to keep you from dehydrating in that nasty hot pressure cooker. I guess maybe it is necessary to ensure safety or prevent people from being so crammed together they all faint from the heat... but it seems like another example of the Japanese needing someone to take care of them rather than taking care of themselves. In other concerts I've gone to you can go up front, get hot to the point of exhaustion then move back and relax until you are ready to go back up again. This creates a natural flow that people move in and out allowing lots of people the chance to get as close as they want, while the people who don't want to be smashed and sweaty stay a few steps back. The people who are up front then are naturally the ones who have the most energy and want to be there jumping. Anyway, I guess it wasn't all that bad... but it is just frustrating that you have to wait in line to get up front and then get locked out of the closer gates while people who aren't even dancing stand in there waiting for the next band. Perhaps this isn't so much a piece of Japanese culture though, as it is a necessity of the enormous crowds. Have you guys ever been to American concerts like this?

By the way, Summer Break started! :D Next weekend I am going to an Obon Dance with my host mother Haruchan, then next month I will be going to a summer camp with some of the town kids at a camp near Mt. Fuji. It's nice to be able to relax now and have a month off... This job certainly has its perks. :D

Uhg, no one commented about my last Obama post, but apparently I was mistaken. Obama had said that he would not support the bill, but ultimately he voted for it... So I guess he really is just another politician... Uhg.

I'm so depressed.

I was just reading about some political stuff and I had an interesting thought.

The people who lead the political movements in America... like the heads of the Republican Party or the Democratic Party... there are really interesting people... because they are trying to influence the future of the country. I think many people see elections as this idea that you can vote for what you believe in and the majority will win therefore causing the country to take the shape of prominently excepted view. However, the people who run these parties and decide the views of the parties aren't concerned with trying to get the most accepted view to be law. They are trying to get THEIR view to be law. They are trying to get other people to agree with them. They are trying to sway other people's beliefs. They use tricks and attacks and facts and lies and whatever they can to convince other people that they are the "righter" choice... but in reality they don't care about the views of the people. And yet, in pandering for votes the candidates have to make it look like they actually do care. They have to convince people that they are looking out for the people's interests. But ultimately, they are really just following the party's interests... which is particularly unfortunate since our democratic system has degraded into a two party system. To accept one view you have to accept every view that goes a long with it. An over simplification of the complex thing that morals and government should be.

What a shame...

Consequently, I had an interesting idea... You see, originally the U.S. came up with the idea of politicians and representatives to represent a segment of the population because it is simply unrealistic to manage a system where everyone could vote on everything and all those votes could be counted and managed.... However... in the age of information technology, this idea is not far from our reach. In fact, it seems to me that it is very possible. Some people might argue that the average person doesn't have time to research all of the topics and vote on them... well that may be true, but they could vote for the ones they care about... and besides, if the common person is seen as unfit to vote on individual issues, then why are they allowed to vote at all? It's too bad the government is to fixed in tradition a change like this will probably never happen... but think how radical it could be... of course we would need open source voting systems to ensure there is no voter fraud...

Update: I was mistaken about this... Obama voted for the FISA even though he said he wouldn't support it. What a faggot.

Well, I decided. I was on the fence about it for a long time. Maybe I don't agree with some of Obama's positions regarding same sex marraige or abortion or even universal health care... but at least he will fight to protect our Civil Liberties. John McCain missed what I consider to be one of the most important votes this year by not voting against the telecommunications immunity act. He just didn't show up. What the hell was he doing that is more important than his job protecting the rights of Americans? Meanwhile, Obama was there and voted against the bill. Unfortunately, the bill passed regardless... granting the telecommunication companies immunity for breaking the law in the past and giving them permission to do it in the future as long as the wiretaps are "requested by the President". When the fuck did the President become the all powerful king of the United States? Why does one man get to power to monitor the American people without any sort of verification. American politics make me so angry... Because of the stupid two party system that everyone believes in we are locked into voting for a group of values we don't believe in based on one or two key issues that we care about. This is great of politicians because they just have to pick subset of those values that most people will be concerned about... the problem is that those things end up being things that don't even matter. Things like gay marriage, and abortion. Hey guess what, whether gays are married or not they are still out there and they are still having butt sex. Whether Christians like it or not they are already being accepted by the main stream society and passing laws against it will only make people fight for more acceptance. Abortion is also a terrible thing but making it illegal will only stop the nice law-abiding girls who probably were unlikely to have an abortion anyway. The ones who want to do it will just find another way as sad as that is. Instead of passing laws about these things Christians should be promoting social programs to educate people and offer other alternatives. Then our politicians could focus on more important issues like protecting the integrity of our balanced three-sided government... remember the one we had before the President had absolute power? What a joke America has become, no wonder we are the laughing stock of the rest of the world. Being in Japan I recently came to appreciate my country a lot more and feel proud to be an American, but seeing the values of America undermined by stuff like this makes me so sad. I don't know if Obama can really fix this, after all he is just a politician too. He's just playing the game also, right? But... at least based on his words and his past votes it sounds like he will try.

I caved! I bought a Playstation 3 so I could play my beloved Snake. I'm not very far yet, but so far I am very impressed. The levels are large with lots to explore and sneak around. The controls have been slightly refined over MGS3, and though it took a little getting used to, now that I have I think I like them. The level of detail is incredible, you can view models of items and weapons on the menu and the detail in the models and textures just blows my mind.

I also bought Devil May Cry 4 as a bundle with my PS3. So far I only played the first stage of that, so more on it later... but I did like it so far and if the first stage is any indication, the action scenes should be very entertaining.

I was reading a post from last year at this time where I talked about not having a car yet and not having a girlfriend... I mentioned that if I still didnt have a car by this time next year it would be quite a shame... I don't think I imagined that this time next year, not only would I have a car AND a girlfriend, but that I would be living in Japan! Unfortunately my car and girlfriend are still in the US... well... I have a temporary car here in Japan, though... but I don't have a temporary girlfriend here. I don't think Kristies would be too keen on that somehow... :P Come to think of it, I hope Matsu-chan doesn't mind me driving around in this Estima... Matsu-chan! She doesn't mean anything to me! I swear! It was strictly transportation!

Lia made a comment that she doesn't read my posts cause they are too long... awww... well, to be fair I can understand. It is a pain for me to read long Japanese posts too... but yea... I guess I write too much usually... :)