Today, James Doohan, more known as the original Star Trek series Scotty (you know, the Scottish engineer? "Beam me up, Scotty?"), passed away at age 85. I was never a fan of the original series. Star Trek TNG (The Next Generation) was more my cup of tea. Nevertheless, he was a very charismatic actor and he will be missed.

In our house, it gets kinda hot upstairs, where our bedroom is. This means we have to sleep with a bunch of windows open. The last couple of nights, we’ve had three windows open the whole night. This morning, I woke up around 3:30am to the sound of little "feet" walking around outside the window. "It must be a bird", I thought to myself. I turned around, yawned and tried to get back to sleep. Just a few seconds later the bird sits on our bedroom floor looking a bit surprised. No doubt, I looked equally as surprised as I sat up in bed to observe the little fellow.

Obviously confused, it proceeded to walk around for a bit. I opened the window wide and hoped it would fly out again. At the same time it jumped behind the bedroom door, which was open. We closed the door, trapping the bird inside that room. After a while it jumped closer to the window and eventually onto the window ledge. It turned around and looked at me. I had to get up, walk to the window and literally push him outside.

After that little adventure I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I took a shower, shaved and got to work. At 4:30am. Some days start out strange for sure.

[Update Jun 22] The little rascal tried to get in again last night but my significant other rushed up from bed and closed the window.

First, I don’t have anything against Japanese people. Nothing at all. Actually, I’m quite fascinated by eastern philosophy. I practiced martial arts for about five years when I was younger (and no, I didn’t "want to learn how to fight", I did it because I liked the discipline and the search for perfection).

OK, now when that’s out of the way. Japanese people are insane! Yes, they are. My first encounter with the strangeness displayed by this culture must have been some five or six years ago (or something, I forget) when I first visited the excellent web site engrish.com. It’s a site dedicated to "the humorous English mistakes that appear in Japanese advertising and product design". It’s hilarious from time to time. One of my favorites is this clothing store.

This site site has photos of some interesting vending machines that can be found in Japan. I especially like the one which sells, and I quote, "used schoolgirl panties". Say no more!

Today a co-worker showed me this site which tells the story of an american working as an assistant language teacher in three Japanese junior high schools. Not yet convinced that the Japanese are insane? Read this guy’s stories and you’ll become a believer. Hilarious stuff. Some of it made laugh so hard I almost fainted.