citizen of the planet

This likely doesn’t qualify as animal cruelty.  It’s actually kind of cute.  Notice how the first dog is drooling heavily.  Poor guy.  I like how the chimpanzee is poking and pawing at his fortress as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noRyPlDo2WI

OK, so I can’t claim the award because I’m not going to post this to seven other bloggers. Sorry, no dice. That being said, since it was requested and I don’t seem to mind, I’m going to post seven quick tidbits about myself.

1. I am a Scorpio and the sign rising over the horizon at my birth was also Scorpio. So my inner and outer self have that characteristic. My moon was in Pisces meaning my emotional nature is Pisces-like (whatever that means). Yes, my vitals are all in water-signs. Would indicate that my emotions play a big role in my life. Very true.
2. I have helped to organize and emcee orientation week at university. Time leading up to it was probably one of the hardest years of my life. The week itself was completely hellish. Those people that I’ve ushered in have since graduated.
3. I’ve had three cars: an Oldsmobile Cutless Ciera, a Pontiac Sunfire, and a Toyota Corolla. They all had spoilers. I now can’t picture myself with a spoiler-less car. Such cars kind of look bare, don’t they?
4. I have notoriously flat feet. I always used that as an excuse as to why I just wasn’t meant to run. Who knew that I’d be running half marathons?
5. I bake relatively frequently. I often take pictures of what I made. I’m really not that bad of a baker. I’ve gotten good reviews for a lot of stuff that I’ve come up with.
6. I’ve been to Japan twice. I’m pretty sure I won’t be heading back any time soon. That being said, I find the memorization of Kanji to be fascinating. I’d like to take on Mandarin Chinese as my next challenge.
7. According to Last.fm, my music tastes tend to be: rock, indie, female vocalists, pop, alternative, Canadian artists. I really like quirky stuff, hence my propensity for Alanis and Björk.

Oh LORD. You might have trouble getting this one out of your head after a few plays. Kaera Kimura and Snoopy characters appearing in a commercial for Hot Pepper.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=868LSMWKyLo

Once again, hat tip to JapanProbe.

Just another lazy Sunday today.  Back on Thursday, at the end of the work day I emailed a document I was working on to myself in hopes that I’d work on it some point between Friday and today.  Well…at least I had good intentions.  Thing is, I know very well that I was unlikely to spend time at home working on it.  It would have been a different story if I was far from being finished, but no, the document has decent progress on it.  There are also some open questions against the project that need to be answered before I write about them, so I would have been stalled anyway

Funny how I seem to be attempting to justify it.

Anyway, since I’ve got nothing much I figure I’d pick a picture that showed up in the “Random from Viewport” widget on the right and give a few words on it.  I ended up choosing a picture from my trip to Japan in June 2006.  On one of my first days in Tokyo, me and a couple of travel companions headed over to the beautiful Meiji Shrine complex on the west side of the city.  If I recall, it’s pretty much adjacent to Harajuku station and a short walk to Takeshita-dōri which is that fashion forward place that Gwen was going on about in her pop albums. It’s accessible from the JR Yamanote line via Harajuku station, or the Tokyo Metro Chiyoda line from Meiji-Jingūmae station, which can be translated as “in front of Meiji Shrine.”  How descriptive.

Anyway, Meiji Shrine is a Shinto shrine.  This is where you would go to pay respects to Emperor Meiji and Empress Shōken.  What’s pictured here is a part of the complex where there are a huge number of these wooden plaques.  These are called ema.  You would buy these ema prayer boards and then write a prayer or a wish or some form of thanks on them.  You then hang these boards on a designated rack.  Now, what’s pictured here is just one rack, but at the Shrine there are many more racks right next to this one.  These are meant to communicate with the spirits.  Now, when you consider the fact that these boards hold what amount to the hopes, dreams, and wishes of thousands of people, it’s an extremely powerful symbol.

I’m not planning on heading back to Tokyo anytime soon.  However, if I somehow found myself there again at the big Meiji Shrine I would buy an ema.  What would I write on it?  I would pray for peace.  I would wish for someone to come into my life to change my life for the better.  Most of all, I would give thanks for all of the blessings I have in my life: family, a place of my own, a job, and nice things.  I wonder if that’d all fit.  Guess I’d just have to write smaller.

Hey, so what would you write on an ema prayer board?