Entries this day: AM Bicycle_shop SF Wende

AM

8:14am JST Wednesday 24 March 2004

My alarm went off at 5:30 (I wonder why I set it that early last week.. oh yeah to go to Fuji-Q Highland!) and I reset it for 7:30 so I could get up and go home on a crowded morning train. It wasn't too crowded; no one was touching me. As I zipped semi-quietly up the stairs, I was amazed/disgusted/saddened by the silent crowd trudging up the stairs. I'm just so glad that isn't my life. _What_ isn't my life??? I don't know. It's just so alien; like a bunch of robots going to work, with no emotions, no talking, no acknowledging others' existence. It's really weird to me.

Bicycle shop

1:22pm JST Wednesday 24 March 2004

Mailed a puzzle to Fred (don't tell Fred, but it only cost 100 yen (though 1200 yen to mail it).) and asked Naomi at the post office (who has good English speaking skill (good enough to work in a Japanese post office) and who said my Japanese kanji was good (for my address),) where I could find a bicycle shop. She suggested Ito Yokado, a big department store type place around these parts.

I doubted their ability to fix my disc brakes, but I figured I could try. They didn't charge anything for their fix, and it didn't do any good, so we were even. I rolled around until I found another bike shop, the proprietor of which directed me to another bike shop (by way of a somewhat accurately drawn map) that could fix disc brakes.

(+ Opposed to my earlier rant, Japanese customer service is almost always way way way above US customer service. We are always greeted upon entering almost any business establishment (except for 100 yen stores), especially restaurants and convenience stores. Service is fast, accurate, polite, prompt, though usually includes no English. We are always thanked for our patronage after leaving the store, whether we bought anything or not. I know I'll miss this when I leave Japan. +)

I thanked the guy profusely and proceeded without incident (good map) directly to the suggested bike shop.

The proprietor of this bike shop apparently lives above the shop. I was like, "sumimasen" (hello?/excuse me) and a little speaker squawked "wakkawakka" so I waited a bit and he came down.

To fix the brakes, he first tried the same thing Ito Yokado did, but quickly aborted that mission (before even saying, "wakka wakka" meaning "try it now") and clipped the brake cable, trimmed the brake cable sleeve, got a new brake cable, zing zang pow.

"Wakkawakka" (try it) and I did. I nearly ate shit flying over the front of the bike. Fortunately I was going really slowly, so tragedy was avoided. The brake was obviously far better than it had been.

After he fixed the front brake, I was like, "koremo" pointing to the back brake. (this, too)

The back brake took much longer, and that was when I began this entry, wanting to hail praises for Japanese customer service. This man has tried a few different fixes, including replacing the brake pads by cannibalizing a new set of brakes he has in stock. When that wouldn't work, he determined that he could just replace the whole thing, but that would be too expensive. I don't know what he ultimately did to fix the brakes, but they work quite well now.

So, newly adjusted front and back brakes. Awesome. I tested it out and noted that the chain would pop in back when I tried to accelerate quickly. He replaced the chain and it still popped, so he unreplaced the chain, and replaced the back sprocket by ganking one from his in-stock Peugeot. The old back sprocket was noticably (*) worn. Zoomzoomzoom on my nearly new bike! Rar.

(*) if one knew what to look for.

SF

4:42pm JST Wednesday 24 March 2004

	To: 	  silent_football@robnugen.com
	From:     Philip
	Subject:  SF
	Date: 	  2004 March 24

Greetings.

I am writing to impart to you my mixed feelings
concerning your web page explicating your rules for
Silent Football, or SF.  I myself have been playing
for years, and certainly feel the unspoken unity of SF
players with you.  I, like you, was trained in the
construct of a church entity through youth
conferences, though by means of a different
denomination.  Before I present to you my concerns, it
first behooves me to present to you at least a very
small fraction of the various and sundry differences
our methods of game play present.
First of all, the moves of our two games concerning
the football, while serving near identical functions,
have very different names.  The methods of my
denomination also contain an entire system of highly
complex rules concerning the entirely separate
function of punishments throughout the game for
various mistakes on the part of the players.    I get
the sense also that the game play of my denomination
is significantly more serious than that of Unitarian
churches.  For example, players are not allowed to
laugh or even giggle except during punishments, no
player under any circumstances is allowed to leave the
room until completion of the game, whenever that may
be, and only actual names are used, though with a
formal and deferential twist.  Finally, and most
importantly, the SF play of my denomination explicitly
states that as the single most important rule of SF,
no one must talk about SF.  From the game's inception,
it has remained in the strictest of confidences, which
is why I take such issue to your website presenting a
written history of the game.  The game's secrecy in
itself is a large part of makes its' execution so fun.
 Since its creation, the game has only been passed
down by oral tradition, as exemplified through the
great works of Homer and Plato.  And especially, under
ANY circumstances, NO GIRLS WHATSOEVER are ever
allowed to know even the existence of the game, much
less the rules, even much less actually be allowed to
play.  A bit extreme, perhaps?  Not when the true
origins of the game are made clear.  Let me thoroughly
express myself, though.  I am not here to judge or
persecute you for your SF play, whatever it and your
tradition entails, and I believe your system of
wormholes and parallel universes is exceedingly clever
and, to my knowledge, unprecedented in the game's
history.
I have the distinct and honorable fortune of being
trained by a mentor who himself was trained through
the direct lineage of the Creators of the game.  Which
is why I'm prepared to make a little deal.  If you
agree to remove the rules of SF from your website,
leaving only the vaguest and obscure references to it,
I will transcribe to you the full and complete history
of the game's creation and development.
Eagerly awaiting your reply,
	Fellow SF player

"no girls" eh? I decided to ignore this and responded thusly:

	To: 	  Mr Philip
	From: 	  Mr Rob
	Subject:  SF
	Date: 	  2004 March 24

Mr Philip

Mr Philip's proposal regarding Silent Football (SF) has been
acknowledged by Mr Rob.  Mr Rob, being curious about Mr Philip's
alleged awareness of the full and complete history of SF's creation
and development, has removed the link to the aforementioned SF
information on Mr Rob's website.  While the information itself is
intact, a fact which Mr Philip may find disheartening, Mr Rob posits
that such information has already been cached by the wonderful web
search engine named, if Mr Rob may, Mr Google (1), which Mr Rob
further believes is how Mr Philip came to find Mr Rob's SF information
in the first place.  Mr Rob therefore suggests that leaving the
information intact on Mr Rob's website while disengaging the links on
Mr Rob's website to Mr Rob's SF information causes Mr Rob's SF
information to be less available than Mr Google's cached copy of Mr
Rob's SF information, and therefore less threatening than Mr Google
toward Mr Philip's beliefs about the importance of not writing the
rules of SF down in any medium.  Mr Rob admits that Mr Rob has
presupposed that Mr Philip does not know Mr Google well enough to
request that Mr Google remove information that Mr Google has already
cached.

Having effectively removed the rules from Mr Rob's website, Mr Rob
requests that Mr Philip effectively present Mr Rob with information
regarding "the full and complete history of the game's creation and
development."  Mr Rob encourages Mr Philip to include sufficient
information so that Mr Rob may truly know that the full and complete
history of SF has been given to Mr Rob via Mr Philip, or Mr Rob may
freely, and without recrimination from Mr Philip or any of Mr Philip's
associates, be allowed to restore the links to Mr Rob's SF information
on Mr Rob's website.

	Mr Rob

(1) http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:bslfsLw73WcJ:www.robnugen.com
/yruu/sf/index.shtml+silent+football+rules&hl=en&lr=lang_en|lang_ja&ie=UTF-8

Wende

10:44pm JST Wednesday 24 March 2004

(posted without permission)

	From: 	  wende
	To: 	  rob@robnugen.com
	Subject:  Re: Malcom in the Middle in Japan 

Hi.

You've written me many times (thank you for the birthday happiness and
the funny comic strip - yay for Lyle Lovett) and I've been terribly
remiss in writing you back.  I miss Taco Bell and Malcom in the
Middle...  I saw a show on how 'they' dub sitcoms into Japanese and it
was pretty interesting.  They have an actual cast and reherse and say
the lines while watching the show...  It was pretty cool.

I've hesitated in writing you back because I have news that makes me
nervous to tell you.  No, I'm not pregnant!  I am engaged though.
Peter is the lucky guy and I'm lucky too.

It's hard for me to tell you first because you are so super special to
me and a soul mate and I love you but we're not getting married but we
were going to get married and it's a hard thing to think about in
relation to my relationship with you.  How's that for a big ol' run on
sentance?  It's also hard because I know you've 'moved on' and so have
I, but this pretty much makes it official with no going back.  Also a
little hard to put out there.  Then *also*, it's hard becuase you're
not here and I'm not there and I can't judge your reaction or really
let you hear how right this feels.  But it does feel right and I'll
still always love you.

I wonder if you'll even be able to come.  We're talking about next
April or maybe even this September (!).  Just know you're invited.  It
will be in Texas, but not in Hunt.  I told mom & Mike that I'd like to
have all or part of it at their house.  We'll see how that works out.

At any rate, Peter is moving in to my apartment (as we speak) and
we'll live here until my lease is up.  I still intend to move back to
Texas but I still don't know when.  I think I'll give work another
year or so and then if they don't find a place for me, I'll have to
move myself.  Stacy and Roddrick are going to have another baby at the
end of July and Karston is THREE and Julie is going to leave for TEXAS
A&M in the fall and my heart is still there.

So I guess that's it.  Actually, there's more to my life, of course,
but I kind of want to hear your reaction before I go on forever.

I really miss you, Rob.  I miss your hugs and your voice and your
perspective and your bunny energy...  I hope this finds you well and
happy.  Are you in your new apartment and your new job yet?  I look
forward to hearing from you.

Love from here to there!!!

 - Wende

--- Rob Nugen  wrote:
HI Bear

I just saw a preview of Malcom in the middle dubbed over into
Japanese.

  It was weird.  I thought of you, and the good times we had eating
Taco Bell and watching Malcom.  Thank you for buying Taco Bell all
those times.  I really appreciate the love.

	And More Love
	- Rob

- - - -

	From: 	  rob@robnugen.com
	To: 	  wende
	Subject:  Re: Malcom in the Middle in Japan 

Wende!!

Wow.   I've wondered why you weren't writing back.  I'm glad you are okay.

I hear your hesitation, and I understand.  Yes, it does mean there's
no going back.  Yes, there have been times that I've wondered if we
could get back together.  I'm really glad for you.  I'm glad for you
and I'm glad to be the one that was able to break your cycle of big
relationships ending and then the male running off and getting
married.  I just ran off.  Completely different.  [happy]

Yesterday (this is a true story), *yesterday* a man brought Taco Bell
to work.  He lives on/near the US Navy base in southsouth Tokyo.  Mmmm
Taco Bell.  Erg Navy Base.  [distraction]

I invite you to release any guilt/concern/bad feelings you've had
around telling me.  I feel more happy for you than sad for me/us at
this moment.  I'm -+= really =+- rooting for you to have the best best
marriage *ever*.  Better than Irene and Nick.  And I hope they have
the best marriage in the southern hemisphere.  I can't bear the idea
of my Bear being broken hearted again.  [highest point I can reach now]

I still feel a lot of guilt feelings.   [guilt]

I love you tons.  Thank you for all we shared and all the continued
emails and stories and goodness.  [truth.  hope]

Another true story is Steve Feinstein's song "Time and Time Again"
just came up on my computer.  It's an original song of his.  [YRUU]

I love you, Wende.  I always will.  Maybe next time we can hook it up. [tears]

	- Rob   [me]



On 2004/03/24, at 14:03, Wende wrote:

Hi.

I am engaged