imisstony.com

I attempted to find a bus to Mt Fuji last night but when I arrived at Fujinomiya Station I couldn't make heads or tails out of the bus signs. Everything was in Kanji. I asked some local youth if there was a bus to Fujisan's 5th Station and after consulting with each other for five minutes in hushed Japanese they replied, "No bus". The JR officials were equally as helpful due to their lack of English. I felt a little frustrated because I couldn't find the schedules for the southern stations on the net and I was sure there would be some sort of guidance for us foreign souls who just like to show up to places unprepared. In the end, the weather seemed a bit too harsh to do any hiking anyhow. No worries though, with the JR pass, I didn't lose any extra money on this exploratory mission to Fujinomiya. I tried to catch a film instead but I arrived too late for the last shows at 9pm here. By the way, my two reasons for stopping in Japan are to climb Mt. Fuji, which is done at night so you can catch the sunrise at the summit, and to see Pin, which is usually done at night because he works in the day. (Pin, there's a gay joke I could have made about rising but I'll keep that humor off the blog) The bonus to visiting Japan is the excellent food, meeting Pin's friends, the comfy bathroom, and hopefully meeting up with a few other friends from Cali.

This morning I found myself getting caught up in web surfing again. It actually started last night when I watched at least a dozen Human Giant skits on YouTube. I'd never heard of this show on MTV. Aziz Ansari, awesome. So this morning I got up and spent at least an hour watching videos at Collegehumor.com which led me to the Amir/Streeter Prank War on Vimeo.com. So painfully fun to watch. I also watched a technology video on CH that led me to TED.com

Finding TED was like finding an undiscovered tomb in Egypt. I have no idea if there will be anything of value in it but it is so full of seemingly valuable 'stuff' I'm overwhelmed. I can't believe I'd never heard of this Technology, Entertainment, and Design conference held annually in Monterey, California since 1984.

The annual conference now brings together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).

Now many of these amazing talks are available on this website for free. The best part, they're downloadable and ipod ready! I've been downloading random talks on the topics of culture, environment, technology... talks by people like Tony Robbins, Al Gore, Dean Kamen, Hans Rosling, Blaise Aguera y Arcas. It's incredible and I think it'll be amazing to watch these lectures while I travel the world. If I had a lot on my mind before, this is going to make me bleed from the ears. Scott, this is the kind of web site I'm sure you've stumbled upon. If not, check it out. I just downloaded a talk by Will Wright talking about his new game.

I'm downloading furiously... it'd be awesome if I could just get the whole website zipped. In my "if I was a wicked rich and could do this trip over again" fantasy, I'd have a staff of college students who would just sit and download material like this for me, rip new films with handbrake, and put together a top 100 of international music. It'd all be loaded onto my ipod for flights and train rides, waiting in lines, and insomnia. I wonder if there's a market out there for 'pre-loaded' media players. There has to be. For instance, I go to "Tonyisagenius.com" and punch in that I'm taking a trip to Japan. For a hefty fee, I get an ipod shipped to me with JPop music picks, a Japanese phrase audio program, maybe a Murakami audio or e-book, and heck, a couple of Kurosawa films or the Ring horror series. Similarly, I could ask for the 'global consciousness' pack which would give me a series of talks from TED on relevant topics. I doubt there's a service like that. The licensing issues and costs would be complicated. But like I said, if you're rich enough, I'm sure there's someone who could put it together.

You see how I got off on a tangent here, just telling you about finding a website?

I wish I had figured out how to increase my learning capacity. I admit I have a problem focusing. It's my imagination, it's out of control sometimes. It takes me twice as much time to read things because every interesting new tidbit makes me think about the past, the present, and/or the future in reality and make-believe.

I should go now. I have emails to reply to. A wonderful land of culture and beauty, just a train ride away and I'm stuck on the net!

Labels: Japan