Miki's Fat City

One of my buddies Ernie asked me for help a couple of weeks ago. He is writing a text for SHOJO BEAT magazine about Japanese traditional yokai (scary creatures). I was incredibly busy at that time and it became a nice escape and had fun researching it on the internet. Thanks, Ernie!! I didn't know anything about the magazine but it looks interesting. You can take a look at http://www.shojobeat.com When I was a kid, my family lived in an old farm house. My great-grandparents had it built, so it was pretty scary at night. Our restroom was at the edge of west side of the house and you had to walk through a roofed dirt floor, one small dim light hanging from the roof, to get there. For a 3-4 year old girl, the dim dirt floor looked pretty big and it was just like the entrance to devildom especially at night. I couldn't go to the loo without my mother when it grew dark. She sometimes left there while I was in the restroom, so I had to keep asking her "Mom, are you the...

Not real chipmunks because we don't see them in this country. At least I haven't seen them anywhere I have lived in Japan so far. It's the movie "Alvin and The Chipmunks" that helps me feel better and get back into my swing this month. I got a DVD copy on US Amazon along with a movie "transamerica" in mid May. "transamerica" is also a great movie that makes me want to say "I love you" to all my favorite people. A nice story about a conservative transgender Bree and her son Toby who see each other for the first time in 17 years. At first Bree looks ugly but within 10 minutes you start loving her. Believe me! I don't remember seeing the cartoon version of Alvin and The Chipmunks when I was little but probably saw it some times with my friends' kids in Colorado back in '85. I didn't know much about it before I saw the movie but their singing voices reminded me of one of my favorite songs when I was a kid called ...

I went to visit my friends in Germany in March and stayed at their place for a week. It coincided with Easter holidays and I was absolutely relaxed - 100% out of touch with my coworkers. It was my first true vacation in 4-5 years and I realized I really needed it!! Really wanted to be surrounded by my favorite people who don't hesitate to show love and friendship, which is one of important things you just can hardly get in my country most of time. Such a precious time! Extremely comfortable to be there even if I don't speak German at all. All the people I met in Wiesensteig gave me so much energy for sure. My friends Elizabeth and Ulf are really good at spoiling me and treated me just like their sister or daughter. Elizabeth kept telling me every day that she is happy to have me there as well as how happy she is living with her husband Ulf in that town. Elizabeth, I feel very happy about your wonderful life with Ulf. You guys are awesome!! I LOVE YOU!!!! I got back in my o...

I worked for an interview with Steve Ferrone for Rhythm & Drums Magazine about 10 days ago. The interview as initially scheduled on February 10 but he was still jet-lagged that he couldn't do it that day. I know how hard it is to be jet-lagged since I had a hard time getting my biological clock back to Tokyo time at the end of January after my trip to winter NAMM show. Anyway, we had an hour to interview him before he flew from Narita. He is really open and funny. We just kept laughing during the interview. Teruyo, the interviewer, says she was fascinated by his smile. Unfortunately I didn't have a chance to see him play live with Yosuke Onuma, one of excellent Japanese young guitarists, but could imagine how he enjoyed the shows in Japan from what he told us that day. The thing I thought funny was about the project he participated, Burning for Buddy. Neil Peart from Rush produced it. Steve played with a big band and he says it worked very well. He was happy with it. B...

On Valentine's Day, I found tons of spams with subjects such as "Love you," "I Like You," "I Find You Interesting," etc. when I logged-in my work email account in my office. Wow! So many secret admirers!! ;-) Since I sometimes receive emails from strangers who are actually business associates, I don't basically filter spams to go directly to my spam box. I certainly delete obvious spams when reading subjects. But I had an experience of deleting a few important emails by accident a couple of years ago, so I don't trust the filtering system in my email software. 98% of spams I receive are in English. It's because I often go to English websites to get information. Not many Japanese spams come to me. But when I got those "I like you" spams that day, I asked my coworkers about Japanese spams they got. Voila! They are much more interesting than mine!! I mean, the text in those emails is like cheap porno dialogues but it seems they ...

I had a chance to chat with one of my fellow photographers Yoshika at work yesterday. Actually the planned interview with Steve Ferrone was cancelled because of him being jet-lagged. He was too sleepy to do it and went back to his hotel for a nap right before we arrived at the venue. Yoshika and I had about a couple of hours to chat before Steve returned to the venue for performance and we caught him on the way to the dressing room to take some photos of him. Thank goodness, the interview was rescheduled. Girls just love to talk about Love Life for no reason and we started talking about it in the course of nature. She said that her boyfriend is young, which is a bit of problem for her because she wants to get married but he doesn't. Well, she is 2-3 years younger than me and I understand it when she said so. I mean, I don't see the importance of marriage as long as I'm happy with the relationship with my partner. But for some girls, they certainly long for marriage especi...

I found a copy of Firehouse's "Hold Your Fire" CD on my coworker Kondo's desk a week ago and told him I had the same one. It was released in 1992 when he was a high school student and I was already working in this business. I don't remember how I got that album but do remember listening to it a lot at that time. I tried to find that album in the huge pile of my CD collection that evening when I was back home. And it took me a week to find it! When I found it this morning, it felt like seeing an old friend again for the first time in 15 years. Then, I went to YouTube to find a video of my favorite song "Get In Touch" but all I could find is videos of other songs. Anyway, here is a nice ballad from "Hold Your FIre" album called "When I Look Into Your Eyes." I actually don't know much about Firehouse. All I know is music on this album. Just like I only know Dokken's song "Alone Again" regarding Dokken. The reason ...