autumn tactics

Obon is the Festival of the Dead. Though obon traditionally fell in July, it varies from region to region, and the generally accepted period is now three days in the middle of August. Nearly all corporations offer their employees obon break, though it isn’t a national holiday. Obon is one of the two big family vacation times, the other being New Year’s, when people usually tend to return to their parents’ house. This returning to one’s origins is not for only the living, but the deceased as well. Families’ ancestors’ spirits return the their graves, and their kin assemble to pay respects. At the end is a lovely festival of lights to help lead the departed back to the world of the afterlife.

I don’t have any blood relations in Japan but when I first started out here I met some very dear people that to me were family, so traditionally every summer for obon I would go back to the beginning, to Nara, and visit with them.

But times change and people move on. All of the people I grew up with in Kansai are moved or estranged, so going back now has become little more visiting with ghosts in another victim of urban sprawl and over development. It’s just as well because in recent years I’ve been working too much to really notice.

So the saying goes, “Obon mo shigoto da ze!“, which means “Obon is also work!” This is a play on a classic drama Hisatsu shigotonin where the original saying goes　something along the lines of, “Shigoto no ato wa shigoto da ze!“, which means “After work comes work!” This tongue-in-cheek line is comedy that rubs the wrong way, since so many of us in Tokyo are bound and chained to this work-centric lifestyle anyway. Nowadays the particular place it I notice it though is on pachinko ads in the trains.

2008 marks the fortieth anniversary of film series “Otoko wa tsurai yo” (It’s Tough Being a Man). The protagonist, Tora-san, deserves a proper post to himself, but here’s a shot from the Yamanote line platform at Shibuya displaying the cool countenance of Japan’s perennial hard luck lover.

My cherry tomatoes have also come of age the last couple weeks, though for the most part it hasn’t been a good harvest at the Ventura farm this year. I didn’t do any cultivation research in advance so I guess this is what I get. I know I can get more out of my crop; things have just been so hectic I don’t have time to do much more than water at midnight and in the morning. The tomatoes tasted okay; not superb, but passable. When steamed the carrots were half-decent as well.

The summer that never was continues and life passes me as I sit in a puddle of convenience store sandwiches, canned coffee, and unshaved Fridays.

I will be working like this for probably another five weeks. I am stalling on using the GPU to export pixel shader contents directly to memory. Thread safety and frame rates follow me into my dreams where I ask my artists once again, are they _sure_ that the alpha is cleanly feathered in all of the UI textures?

Sample photographs are back from the ST801, and unfortunately it seems that the iris blades will not close, leaving the camera perpetually locked at F1.8. This did cost me a roll of Centuria 400 and I should have checked the mechanics of the camera before taking any pictures. Now I have the task of dismantling the lens in hopes of repairing the aperture control.

I am going to try very, very, hard to get to a highly talked of party at the end of the month, which as my good friend Futoshi says will provide, “some really great photographic material.” It is the weekend before _the_ milestone though, so my hopes of making it are waning.

A significant period off is rumored to occur in the next two months. The thought I could stop working and actually go somewhere seems unreal; I am hesitant to believe and even if it did manifest it would most certainly fall dramatically short of my expectations for the fabled multi week time off game developers supposedly get after a big project. Nevertheless, I am starting to study Italian again…my first instinct was a multi-country crawl through central Europe.

Today I am going out to the east side of town to get some precision tools for the Fujinon lens, and see an exhibition of the Japanese master painters. I also need some honest to goodness epiphany for planning my next collaborative show. We meet today and hopefully will make some significant headway towards a concept we can be invigorated by.

So…tired…natsubate.

It’s very, very late. And I am very, very tired. But, I’ve been meaning to introduce you to my flatmates, and I finally had the chance to get both of their photographs together.

This is Cliff, he’s lived with me ever since my last apartment back in Honmachi. I didn’t intentionally try to bring him with me, but somehow he got into one of the moving boxes and came along. This photograph is misleading because it’s a crop. Think about half the size of your pinky fingernail.

He likes to jump, and makes rounds all through the apartment each day. Sometimes you find him behind the AV center, sometimes in the kitchen, sometimes by my loft. We have an understanding built on mutual respect– I’ve never charged him for rent, and he’s never bitten me. So we live in peace. He actually has a wife now, but I’ve never seen a web.

And this is Spiffy, my salamander (or is he a gecko?). One of his brothers lived near my last apartment and frequently got trapped in the windows during summer. It was a real pain to get him back outside without either crushing him between the panes or having him scurry indoors. Anyway, this Spiffy takes advantage of my many planters, which are thankfully far away from the sliding glass doors. Here we see him taking a midnight stroll through the carrots.

I left work today at four because I have a cold. I have a cold and I’m tired. I also had a planned holiday for working a couple weekends ago.

It’s raining, and still light outside, much warmer than before but I can still see my breath in front of the window. Today feels, surreal. Whether its the drugs or the rare circumstance of leaving the office before it’s pitch black, I feel sleepy and incredibly excited at once. So much beauty to record now…

お久しぶりです。日記には、最近あまり書いていないけど、それより表示されていなかったでしょう。長い間僕は何をやっていただろうか。

とにかく、見えるからのぞき見興味ある方心から喜んでください。ちょっとずつ環境も更新しています。今一番目立つは壁紙でしょう。それと左にあるサイドバーにランダム写真が表示されます。全部は素敵なギャラリーに入っています。どうぞクリックして、見て、暇なら良き昔の思い出に連絡してください。

ではまた、

Unexpectedly receiving single serving size soy milk boxes from first time acquaintances at bars.

Elementary school children waving to you from bus windows while on the way to work.

Talking with your co-worker about how his newborn still cannot provide much help in Halo 3 co-op.

But most of all, happiness is

a refrigerator full of Kirin Autumn Lager and discontinued Konica-Minolta Centuria.

This week I will be cleaning house as far as posting goes. I’m a couple raves behind and looking at the drafts folder in WordPress I have two from summer and one very important reflection from April to get through. After this I will be able to resume with the normal flow of comments, which I have a good deal of considering the rounds I’ve been making the past few weeks.

There’s just something about autumn that breaks me out of the do-nothing weak doldrums of summer… I thrive in cold weather. Let me flourish. Make sure you read the backlog.

お疲れ様です。風邪です。緊張です。明日は年に1度の研修会です。色々なプレゼンをしないとだめだし、一番気になるはレコーダー演奏大会です。うちのチームは「上を向いて歩こう」（スキヤキ）を演じます。

さらに、本日は個人評価でしたので、いつもよりもちょっとした頭が混乱しています。明日神奈川の奥まで通勤しないとだめですから、強制早起きです。体調大丈夫かな。まだ荷造りが残っていますけどさあ、

とにかく、今週末までいないです。皆さん、幸運を願いってね。

And whoever the hell keeps calling me from a payphone when I’m not around… leave a damn message, or send me mail. You’re never going to reach me this way, just piss me off.

Night.

The heat has finally broken, and tonight, coming in to my house, it was the first time I walked in the door and felt good in a long time. I am detail oriented, and try to keep a clean house. However, a household with the windows open in constant humidity ruins any valiant efforts to the contrary.

But today it was cool, though far from needing a jacket, but the first night I didn’t break a sweat coming home. Maybe it was the temperature, maybe the waiting at the railroad crossing for five minutes, but I cooled off more than just physically. First I went to 7-11 thinking about dinner, but with a few taut qualms about eating anything with preservatives in it. So halfway down the aisle I changed my mind and went to Sunkus, hoping for some penne arrabiata, but they were sold out, of course. So then I thought Ritz for the red cheddar in my refrigerator, but of course they didn’t stock those either. So, I backtracked to the kimchi store by the 7-11. The old woman that works there is fantastic in that she’s so not your stereotypically normal, cuddly Japanese senior citizen. She is polite, and kind, but there is a certain solemnness about her; a strength from experience, and an edge in her eyes. I always enjoy talking to her, almost as much as I do patronizing independent business.

So tonight dinner is simple. Lemon Water, red cheddar, and hakusai kimchi; made with aplomb.

I know the server has been down a lot recently, I’m sorry. Please write your local congressman and tell him to vote through the appropriations bill I put together to move AT to a dedicated server with a different host. But first we have to straighten out domain registration ownership.

This sign has been in my office a long time, longer than I have, in fact. It’s origin can only be told by probably three people in the company, but I didn’t feel it was prudent to ask them about it before I rescued it off of the “disposal heap” from last week’s spring cleaning. Someone might remember where it came from and get nostalgic, someone with seniority over me.

But now, it’s mine, bestowed with hardly masked indifference by our operations officer. Though it’s been a long time since I’ve had Abercrombie girls up on my walls, and in general one could say I have been moving towards a more adult-contemporary decor (well, aside from the Love Hina collector’s wall clock), I think this is a much needed step back to my roots. Call it a mid-life crisis regression, thirteen years early. In any case, it’s here now, glowing blithely on top of my dish carts, until it’s properly installed on the wall.

Look forward to seeing it for when you eventually come to visit, because as they say at Motel 6, “We’ll leave a light on for you.“

MAN I just got the craving for a slice of Barbara Fritchie’s coconut cream pie!!

Yes, two for one (…day that is)!

Well, the weather here is probably several orders of magnitude more enjoyable than back west…it can’t be more than 66 degrees outside now, tops. I’d say it’s more like 64. It’s wonderful. This is a far cry from last summer, whenever I was here it had to have been 90 with humidity bad enough to make the Snuggle Bear look like a drowned rat. The only thing one could gripe about is that it has been Pittsburgh-esque overcast nearly 24 hours a day. The sun breaks through every now and then. During yesterevening’s run in the park I got to see the golden rays streaming through the cracks peeking through the financial skyline of west Shinjuku, about 6 kilometers or so away.

So the weather was brisk today, just the way I like it. Happy as a clam I got off the train at Shinjuku and strolled through minami gate and the Takashimaya area for the long (15 min) walk home. To take advantage of this self-inflicted 130 yen windfall I bought a weekly businessman manga for 100 yen from a street vendor. Always cheaper than the mini-mart kiosks….it didn’t occur to me until this evening that it’s probably because these are the same guys I’ve seen digging discarded issues out of the paper recycle bins at the train platforms. Not that I really mind. I’ll pay a fraction of the price for someone else to do the unseemly chore of rummaging through the paper rubbish. Of course, I almost always pay a fraction of the price for everything if I can help it, so it’s no big surprise. They’re a great boon, businessman manga. Each one is a worn, pulpy treasure-trove of learning. I get a) reference material for my drawing, b) practice reading the more colloquial language, c) an insight into what appeals (or the media thinks should appeal) to most men 17-60, and d) the occasional glimpse into the understood conceptions of sexual expectation (fantasy or actual). All that for 83 cents? Who says Tokyo is an expensive place to live?

So, like another of my financially enabled brethern, I’ve started planning little trips with my money. In the next two months I have lined up: (1) weekend rave in the forest about 3 hours away, (1) trip ‘home’ to my native Nara for summer vacation via the incomprehensibly-hip 200mph bullet train, and (1) concert in an amphitheater for a local feathery-voiced songstress whom I’m quite fond of. But that’s just the stuff I have tickets for now. I think the secretary at work told me I should take the single guys to the beach in Yokohama and pick up some chicks. And I have a rave and club list a mile long so I’m sure I’ll be doing that often. Now if only dog chew-toy quality rubber footballs didn’t cost 25.00$….

I’m not quite sure, but it is entirely possible that I love living in this city more than my job itself. That may be biased though only because I can’t really think of any drawbacks to living where I do. Some might say “…but you’re paying 700$ a month for 49 square feet!!” Ah yes, true. But as I taught myself a long time ago, if you don’t know what you’re missing (or have a deep rooted desire to live simply and close to your art), you can be quite pleased with low expectations. I haven’t really been at any kind of home in the last two years other than to occasionally get drunk and make an ass out of myself in front of friends, so this whole “being away from work and having a balanced life” is kind of a foreign thing to me.

May fortune favor the foolish.

PS - Today’s recommended dosage of enlightenment is DJ Tiesto - Nyana.

It’s Friday. It’s 8:30pm. I’m at work. Why? Ok, here’s your options: a) I have work that needs to be done, b) my apartment was taken over by a gang of Siamese cats, c) I really have nothing better to do. Answer: d) all of the the above (but replace ‘gang of Siamese cats’ with ‘laundry basket suffering from stack overflow’).

So I should probably get some friends. I have a couple, two. And you have to reserve them about 2+ weeks in advance. There’s lots of things I’d probably enjoy doing (in boredom I made a list of things that make me happy), but not by myself. The only things I really like doing by myself are taking photographs and thinking. So I’ve been doing a lot of those lately (in addition to the requisite downloaded anime’ and movie watching). The TV I bought comes tomorrow morning. 213.48 USD. I wanted to spend less, but my boss was with me and he told me what a fantastic deal it was. It really is. It’s 21-inch flat screen with S-Video and digital inputs. Which is nice, because I can hook up the ever-amazing multimedia demigod of a laptop I possess. That in additon to the Playstation and Super Famicom (currently sans power cable). I have a digital cable jack in my room, but I’m not sure I want to use it. As enlightening it may be to bathe myself in the fountain of local culture that may spring from there, I think I should be focusing on more esoteric and soul-serving forms of recreation right now. Damn kharmic imbalance.

But I want to go to the beach. A lot. I want to go to Tokyo Disney Sea. Very much a lot. But these sorts of things usually aren’t done alone (at least not without the sepia-toned shade of voyeuristic pursuits). I have three days off in the middle of August for summer vacation. That with a weekend is five (thank you Math Rabbit). I’d like to do something relaxing, fun, a little extravagant, and maybe even with someone else. We’ll see. It may very well manifest itself as a 5-day jaunt into the country to write poems, take pictures and think a lot about mankind’s fate to live a life of suffering. Or I could just stay in bed and eat lots of convenience store food.

I’m pretty tired….think I’ll go home now.

Hiding sun, like the hiding sun
Feels like it’s just begun

My name is David Ventura, though a lot of people call me Rusty. After finishing graduate school in the spring of 2003, I packed up shop and moved to Japan to embark on an adventure both inwards and out, for both glory and peace; though I admit I probably won’t find the latter without acquiescing to the truthful insignificance of the former.

I used to enjoy bourbon and pizza, now I appreciate green tea and raw tuna. I play a lot of video games, ride a beat-up commuter bicycle, listen to electronic music, and try to take a lot of pictures of things that interest me. Professionally I make commercial video games, though I have a history of research and drama. The most important thing I hope for each day is continual growth and to learn from my mistakes.

In this journal I keep a running account of my thoughts about myself, about humanity, and the things I see. I occasionally create a photo collection, but for the most part it’s just a random shot here and there that I may or may not make the time to edit on the computer. Sometimes what I write about is rather personal, and it may be offensive or depressing, but mostly it’s pedestrian and quite boring. Whatever I do write about though, it’s honest, it’s what I think and what I feel; it’s not for posturing or obligation. If it’s of interest then all the better. But to look back and remember with nostalgia the times both rough and smooth, I’m confident I won’t soon forget what mattered to me and how much I tried to make it work out, so perhaps a little wiser in the long run.

Always moving onwards,
David “Rusty” Ventura

Deep river runs its course
To a warm horizon
Shadows of falling leaves
October moon and rusty skies
Ever changing feelings
The seeds of autumn in my mind

Hiding sun, like the hiding sun
Feels like it’s just begun
Hiding sun, like the hiding sun
Waiting for summer sun
Hiding sun, like the hiding sun
Feels like it’s just begun
Hiding sun, like the hiding sun
Waiting for summer sun
Hiding sun, like the hiding sun
Feels like it’s just begun