View from the 9th floor of my school.

The college where I work is located in Shinjuku, about 15 minute’s walk from the JR station. Our building is situated on a large “block,” and the interior of this block used to house a golf driving range and a model home tract. The land was owned by NTV, the television station.

About a year ago, NTV decided that the land was going to waste and they needed some serious income, so they sold the land to the Urban Development Corporation, which presumably will build high-rise apartments there.

However, the site turns out to be a rich archaeology deposit. The first excavation, closer to my school, had remains of the foundation of a yashiki, or country home, for a wealthy Edo-period family. The building was owned by Matsudaira Sado-no-kami, or the Daimyo of Sado, now Ishikawa prefecture; I believe this was the site of their residence while living in the capital Edo.

But the current dig, on the other side of the lot (in photos), has a rich find of 9,000-year-old Jomon pottery, with a WWII bomb shelter thrown in. Some of our classes have visited the site, and we may get more chances still–it looks like the construction of the new buildings will be on hold for a while yet before they get all they can from this valuable dig.

Here is a web page detailing the dig.

To find out more about the status of the possible repeal of the FEIE (Foreign Earned Income Exclusion), visit the web site for Democrats Abroad, which has a special page concerning the FEIE repeal. They also have a page telling you how to contact your representatives, a better guide than the few links I posted below.

Interestingly enough, the web site for Republicans Abroad has no information about any of this. In fact, their web site, in holding with conservative values, I guess, is primarily members-only. There’s a bit of information on how to vote Republican, but if you want anything more, it’ll cost you $100 a year for the entry-level package (other rates: “Envoy,” $250; “Diplomat,” $500; “Ambassador,” $1,000; and “Presidential Advisory Committee,” $5,000).

Democrats Abroad, in contrast, offers cost-free membership, and the web site provides a good deal more resources, including news stories like this FEIE repeal.

Interestingly, the Republicans Abroad site also mentions the FEIE, but not the recent news about it. On their “Benefits of Membership” page, they claim that one benefit is for them to lobby to “dramatically increase the Section 911 Tax Exemption.” Despite the fact that the repeal is being pushed for by Republicans, as it has before in the past. I guess they need more “Diplomats” and “Ambassadors” to join, as they’re not doing too hot a job of getting their party to go along with even keeping the FEIE that we have now….

I have been told that there is a possible ameliorating factor in the repeal of the foreign earned income exclusion. Apparently, there is another layer of protection, the Foreign Tax Credit.

I do not understand it fully yet, but it seems to be a formula which allows foreign taxes (paid to Japan) to be deducted from your net U.S. taxes. In effect, they would tax you in the U.S. only if the taxes you pay to the host country are lesser than your U.S. taxes.

Instead of the new changes adding ten thousand dollars a year to your tax bill, it may only be several hundred dollars.

I have yet to confirm this completely. My father and I ran it through his TurboTax program, and we got my taxes due down to about $400, but then we ran into some problems with the software. I am not certain if the tax credit can completely erase your U.S. tax debt if the foreign tax is greater, or if a minimum alternative tax applies.

I also don’t know if the tax credit only applies to national income tax, or to other taxes as well. The forms I have read seem to talk about “income-related” taxes being creditable, but does that include prefecture and city taxes? How about National Health Insurance, which is tied to your income?

I will try to contact the IRS office at the embassy tomorrow and see what they say.

Here’s a fairly detailed report on your double-tax hike, and according to this, it’s coming very soon–Republicans hope to ram this through Congress within the next ten days so people won’t have a chance to react to it before it hits them full in the face:

“As reported in the IAS Global Watch dated May 9, 2003, the Senate Finance Committee approved a tax package May 8 that includes a provision to repeal the foreign earned income exclusion and housing exclusion or deduction under Section 911 of the Internal Revenue Code. This repeal provision passed an important hurdle on May 15th when the Senate voted to retain the provision in its revenue reconciliation tax package, despite a proposed amendment by Senator John Breaux (D-La) to strike the provision which was voted against by a vote of 51 to 49. The provision to repeal Section 911 is reportedly the largest among revenue-raisers contained in the bill.

The bill is now expected to be negotiated at a conference between the House and Senate, with hopes to complete a finalized bill that may be sent to the President for signature. Lawmakers hope to complete negotiations prior to Memorial Day weekend.”

Source: IAS Global Watch.

To Contact your Congressional Representatives:

You can find a Congressional committee member at Congress.org’s page. This Contact the Congress web page can help you look up addresses as well. Here is a Congressional Email Directory. In addition, this web page has White House email addresses, and here are some tips on how to write a letter to your representatives.

Be sure to mention that this is related to Section 350 of Senate bill 1054 (S. 1054). According to the Senate web site, “The Senate incorporated S. 1054 in H.R. 2 as an amendment and passed H.R. 2 in lieu of S. 1054.” Be sure to mention the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion (IRC Section 911) when you write.

Write to them now! There’s not much time–they may pass this bill by Memorial Day, that’s only a little more than a week away!

As if it isn’t enough to have the clown we have occupying the White House and making a hash of things…

Now he wants to not just raise my taxes, but to DOUBLE them.

You heard me. In order to find some way to partially pay for Bush’s second Tax Cut For The Rich, Republicans in Congress are now seriously pushing for an end to the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion.

You see, the U.S. is perhaps the only country in the world that taxes its citizens living abroad, but fortunately right now there is an exclusion which allows Americans abroad to deduct $80,000, which means that us poor saps making an honest living can get away with paying taxes only once (to Japan) instead of paying double taxes (to Japan and America both). And Japan’s taxes are higher than America’s.

Read the story here in the Washington Post. Another story is here.

From time to time, we expats have been easy potential targets for this kind of tax hike, which would cripple us economically, because we are taxed without representation, as far as Congress is concerned. Yes, we can vote for presidents, but if you come from a state which has state and local taxes, the state forbids you from voting in any congressional races unless you pay full state and local taxes–despite the fact that we pay full federal, prefectural and city taxes here in Japan.

So the GOP doesn’t care if it cripples us, because we can’t vote for or against them, anyway.

One of the main reasons I am really pissed off is that the tax break Bush wants to give to wealthy people on dividends is because, get this, he claims it is double taxation. So how will he pay for it? By double-taxing hard-working middle-class Americans overseas! How’s that for irony?!

And it’s also stupid. How many Americans will be willing to work for American companies overseas if their salary gets ravaged by double taxation? How many business will be hurt by this? How many Americans will lose jobs? And for what? So that we can have another useless, ineffective tax cut for people so well off that their income is comprised of interest and dividends on substantial wealth??

Contact all relevant Senators and Representatives immediately and voice your opinion! Email them, send them letters, telegrams, whatever you can.

Names and email contacts for Senators are here:

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Names and email contacts for Representatives can be looked up here:

http://www.house.gov/writerep/

When I find more addresses, I will post them.

Here we go again with conservatives trying to smother all dissenting voices. Michael Moore is producing a new film called “Farenheit 911,” a film reportedly focusing on the ties between the Bush and bin Laden families. Disney, only a few days after picking up the film (via Miramax) after Mel Gibson dumped it, is already the target of massive conservative publicity and mail-in campaigns, threatening to boycott and smear the company if it dares allow Moore a voice.

Go Disney. And boo to Gibson for chickening out.

If, like me, you get lots of spam, here are a few key tips to cut it down, perhaps tips that are not very well-known.

First of all, search all web sites to make sure your email address is not listed anywhere. Marketers have Internet bots that constantly scan any web pages they can access, sweeping them for any email addresses people list. If your email address is on a page, the bots will find it, and you will find yourself on spam lists, fast. So get rid of those references.

If you absolutely need to have an email address posted on a web page, you might try to disguise it–for example, say name[at]domain.com, name@nospam-domain.com (with a note to delete the “nospam”), or something to that effect. However, net bots might be set to recognize these patterns as well. If you own your own domain (if you don’t, why not?), I would suggest setting up throwaway email accounts. These would be temporary junk accounts (like contactme@blogd.com, for example–not a real address, by the way). Then set these up so they forward all their mail to your real account. When spam starts getting into your box, trash the throwaway account and start a new one. Thus your real email address stays off the web pages, and you can select only people you want to hear from and give them the true address.

You should know that most spam is addressed to non-existent email addresses; some spammers even send email to millions of random combinations of letters and numbers hoping that a few will be real (this is called “dictionary spamming”). Spammers love to know if an email address is in use–that address will be far more valuable to them, especially for resale to other spammers. They have ways to trick you into revealing that you read their junk mail.

Do you get emails with images and text that look like web pages? If you do, then you’re probably telling spammers to send you more email, just by opening the messages. Email can contain links to images just like web pages. When you open the spam and see the image, that means your computer just sent a message to the spammer’s web site asking for the image. If the spammer set it up right, they can tell that the user at your email address opened the spam message. That means that they know you are reading their mail, which is a valuable thing to them.

How to avoid this? Check your preferences/options/settings for an option that mentions HTML images or graphics, and set it so the images are not downloaded. This will avoid tipping your hand to the spammers.

Even more insidious is the “opt out” gambit. At the end of most spam emails, they “kindly” give you the option to have your name “removed” from their email lists. They’re lying. You see, if you email them to “opt out,” this is just confirmation that (a) your email address is active, and (b) you open junk mail. That makes your address a valuable commodity to them, and you will be guaranteed even more spam. One way to see that it’s a ploy is to note when they say that “This is NOT unsolicited email. Please accept our apologies if you have been sent this email in error,” and yet the email was titled so as to trick you into opening it (for example, “order confirmation,” or even just “Hi!”). Or if the “opt out” message is worded strangely (to “discontinue,” “be extracted”) or disguised (“o*p*t – – o*u*t”), which means it’s trying to evade spam filters. These people have no shame. The idiots who actually buy from them have no pride, and are the only ones who really perpetuate this whole mess.

Other protection can include spam filters offered in most email programs nowadays, but unfortunately, sometimes it catches real email, so you have to wade through the spam mailbox every few days anyway. Also, much spam is designed to side-step the filters; some spam does not even have any text, but rather depends on graphics that spam filters can’t read.

Apple’s free Mail software has a neat feature that I am testing to see if it lessens the load. Their tool is a “bounce” option. If you get spam, you can choose to “bounce” the message; the Mail program will then send the spam back to the sender as if the email address was not valid. Unfortunately, this may not work as well as it sounds–as I mentioned, most spammers know that most of their messages will bounce. Some even go further and set up their spam so that if it bounces, it bounces back to an innocent third party, some sap who then gets zillions of bouncing spam clogging up their mailboxes. So I doubt that the spammers will get the bounce, much less take the trouble to revise their lists if they do. But still, there is visceral fun in hitting that bounce button. Take THAT, you spam devils!

This June, at the World Wide Developer’s Conference, we should get treated to a better view of what has been widely discussed in the rumor web sites, namely the new line of Power Macintosh computers, with the next upgrade to OS X, version 10.3, aka “Panther.”

First, the machines: as Motorola has left Apple without a strong processor for some time now, and in fact is dropping out of the market, IBM picks up the slack with a new chip called the PPC 970. The chip has three major advantages. First, it is a 64-bit CPU, which means that it can double the amount of data handled by the processor. Second, it has a new system bus, which carries the data to and from the processor; until now, Apple’s bus has been notoriously slow, creating a speed bottleneck. The new bus will be much faster than any Wintel chip. And third, unlike the current G3 and G4 chips which have almost maxed out their speeds, the new 970 will start in the 1.4 to 2.0 GHz range, moving up from there. The next generation 980 chip should go up to 2.5 GHz within a year or so.

That may not sound like much, as the Pentium 4 chip is currently pushing over 3 GHz, but there are two factors to be considered in that comparison. First, the Pentium 4 gets a higher hertz rating by compromising actual performance, like a car that revs like crazy but doesn’t go as fast; therefore, a 2.0 GHz 970 chip may well match up to a 3.0 GHz P4. Second, Macs usually come with multiple processors, especially at the high end. So when you look at a dual-2GHz 970 vs. a single-3.2GHz P4, suddenly the Pentium doesn’t look so hot.

Also look for a redesigned case; the new motherboard is said to be longer and thinner than it is now. USB 2 and Firewire 800 will be supported.

Next, we get Panther. The upgrade’s major improvement will be to take full advantage of the PPC 970’s 64-bit architecture, speeding performance considerably. Apple’s iApps will get upgrades across the board; iChat should finally come of age, with full videoconferencing support, iPhoto will get new photo enhancement tools, Quicktime will get another update and Apple’s new web browser, Safari, will end its beta release and come out stronger and more fully-featured. Another project, tentatively dubbed iWorks, may come out. Apple’s Keynote presentation software was seen as a partial answer to Microsoft’s monolithic Office package (Word, Excel, Powerpoint), and Apple may hit them head on with a new word processor called “Document,” and, it is expected, a good spreadsheet program as well. This combined with an upgraded Mail program could offer Mac users a way to ditch Microsoft products altogether on the Mac platform. This could be crucial for Apple, as MS has been rumored to be end-of-lifing it’s Mac version of Office. iWorks would be fully Office-compatible.

Another improvement in Panther would be a new file handling resource called “piles” (I personally think “stacks” would have been a much better name). Piles are supposed to be quasi-folders, a way to organize and group related documents for easy access. Should be interesting to see how they work.

Some believe that 10.3 will be accompanied by 9.3 Classic. If so, 9.3 may only work in Classic mode, and may not be used to boot older computers.

PPC 970 Macs with OS X 10.3 may be released as early as this August.

More as it comes out.

This has got to be the most-misspelled word on the Internet. I cannot count the times I have seen “definate” or “definatly” on posts and web pages.

In case you are interested on the fully documented record on Bush’s crimes and misdemeanors, I have a page listing them. The list is too long to include in the blog directly. Note that all entries speak of facts, not gossip or rumors. After reading this, it is hard to believe that we elected this person president, and that people actually think that he’s a decent person.

Today in the Yomiuri there were some Washington Post articles, as there are every week. As I read some of these gems from what is supposed to be the bastion of “the liberal media,” I wondered how anyone could believe in such an outrageous mischaracterization. The media have become shills for the government, driven by the success of conservative networks, good ratings for being flag-waving patriots, and the knowledge that conservatives back telecommunications laws and policies that benefit media conglomerates.

This morning’s examples include three articles. One was a “reproach” against Bush’s honesty, but it’s kind of hard to see it. While calling Clinton and Gore outright “liars,” the story goes soft on Bush, saying he is “flexible on leveling with the public,” and saying things that are “not exactly true,” but “necessary.” Ooooh, that’s biting. Bush’s record on lying makes Clinton and Gore look like George Washington with the Cherry Tree.

The other two articles refer to the so far not-found WMD (weapons of mass destruction) in Iraq. But instead of asking where they are and why did you lie to us, the articles basically speak of ways we might be able to uncover them better, and if we don’t, it doesn’t matter anyway. I got a very different perspective in Europe on my Spain trip, when I picked up a copy of Britain’s “The Independent,”, which had the banner headline, “So where are they, Mr. Blair? Not one illegal warhead. Not one drum of chemicals. Not one incriminating document. Not one shred of evidence that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction in more than a month of war and occupation.”

A slight difference, wouldn’t you say? Something most Americans are unaware of or are unwilling to accept is that we are being systematically lied to and misled. No, this is not paranoid conspiracy-buff territory. The evidence is pretty glaring, especially if you have an international viewpoint.

Take, for instance, the April 9th toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statue in Baghdad’s al-Fardos Square. First we were told that it was Iraqi’s but when the pictures came in showing marines draping the U.S. flag over the statue’s head and using a winch to pull it down, the story got revised. Still, news reports told us that huge throngs of Iraqis watched, cheered and danced when the statue was pulled down, and we saw tight shots (left) of the crowds that made it look true. ABC News reported that “hundreds of Iraqis then cheered and waved an Iraqi flag as a Marine tank tow truck pulled the statue to the ground. A frenzied mob roared and jumped and danced on the fallen statue.”

This was repeated again and again over the major networks, seen everywhere by everyone. Pretty convincing stuff. Except that later on, if you were diligent enough to leave the networks and get on the Internet, you would have found out a few galling facts. First of all, the tight shots were framed so as to hide the fact that only a hundred or so people–many of whom were marines and reporters–populated the large square; the photograph below shows the whole square, and as you can see, it looks rather deserted in reality.

Next, we learned more about the staging of the event. The flag marines draped over the statue’s head turns out to have been the same flag that flew at the Pentagon on 9-11. Flags like that one don’t just happen to pop up at places like that. And as it turns out, neither do “frenzied mobs” of Iraqis. One photo shown widely in the press of a jubilant Iraqi turned out to be none other that Ahmed Chalabi, a U.S. military chosen puppet leader. Other Iraqis who “spontaneously” appeared at the scene have been photographed with Chalabi in the past.

Remember how we saw frenzied mobs of Floridians in the 2000 election aftermath who succeeded in shutting down the recounting process in some parts? Remember that we later found out that they were not only not Floridians, but they were paid staff of Washington D.C. Republicans sent down to disrupt legal state processes? the Iraq statue story is the same kind of thing. And again, the fake image gets broadcast everywhere, while the truth, learned later, is barely heard anywhere. But with the Baghdad incident, the press was without doubt a willing accomplice to the fraud.

But that’s not an isolated incident. Here’s another recent example. Last March, Bush held a sham “press conference” that was effectively scripted. Reporters were not allowed to filter in, but rather were escorted in one by one, to demonstrate White House control. Reporters unwilling to throw softballs were relegated to the back rows, and even Helen Thomas, for the first time in more than 30 years, was not seated front row and was not allowed to ask any questions. White House Communication director Dan Bartlett announced publicly that he knew what the questions were going to be and that only those reporters would be called upon; Bush had a list of 17 reporters whom he knew would ask questions he wanted to answer, and stuck tightly to the list when calling on reporters. No one was allowed to stray from approved topics, and no follow-up questions were permitted; when one reported tried to, Bush shut him up, blurting out, “This is a scripted–” and then stopped short, after which the press corps, mostly in the back of the room, laughed (Listen for yourself).

And the press sucking up to Bush not just because of the war–otherwise how come the press was so light on Bush even before the war? Especially during the election process. Remember how we were scandalized when we read incessant coverage of Clinton saying he “didn’t inhale”? The endless stories on Whitewater which turned out to be nothing? The incredible number of stories about Monica? Small-time stuff compared to Bush.

Get this: Bush is a convicted drunk driver, has a reputation for being a long-time coke addict which he accentuated by claiming he’s been drug-free since 1974, just after, coincidentally, he went AWOL from the National Guard where his dad got him into a celebrity unit and was trained on a jet that had been taken out of service and would never be used in Vietnam. He has three felony SEC violations that were never prosecuted (his father was president at the time), and “borrowed” $180,000 from one of his companies, which later forgave about $340,000 in debts to “unnamed executives.” And to top it off, as Governor of Texas, he lied under oath–not about an affair, but about an investigation into one of Bush’s cronies, a Robert L. Waltrip, owner of a chain of funeral homes. Bush himself was named as a defendant, and he signed the affidavit to avoid being involved in the trial–and he lied. There are at least half a dozen other skeletons in his closet that are less blatant, each one more around the level of Whitewater.

If Clinton had even a fraction of this kind of dirt, the media would have gone into frenzy mode. He was impeached in the Senate and pilloried in the press for lying under oath about an affair, and yet Bush has not been touched by the media despite the fact that it has been proven that he lied under oath in a serious case of political and financial corruption.

This does not happen with an impartial press.

I just got through pointing out the flawed reasoning in two Yomiuri articles, and now on their web site I find a third. The article caught my attention because of the title: “Tokyo traffic fatalities plunge to 50-year low.” Either that’s a horrid pun, or a very badly considered title.

In the article, the following thesis is presented: The low traffic death toll was attributed “to a crackdown on bag-snatchers riding two-wheeled vehicles.”

Huh?

It gets better: they said that two-wheeled vehicles are responsible for 30% of traffic deaths in Tokyo, which is more than the national average of 20%. However, the article fails to show that any traffic deaths were caused by these snatchers, so we can only assume that bag-snatchers on scooters somehow get into traffic accidents. In turn, we have to believe that if the police crack down on them, the death toll gets lower. (Which goes contrary to the general policy the police have for not stopping noisy bosozoku bike gangs, namely that they flee and cause accidents.)

But the article then states that bag-snatchers “have struck an average of almost 20 times a day this year, much more than the average 15 times a day they attacked last year.”

Huh?

Stopping bag snatchers was supposed to bring down the death toll, but snatchings are up? How does that account for the lower death toll? Further, the article says that part of the crackdown involved “questioning all people riding two-wheeled vehicles within a three-kilometer radius of the scene of a bag-snatching.” This has got to be the most ludicrous thing I have ever heard of. A scooter can go 3 kilometers in 6 minutes even in slow traffic. Are we to believe that the police can stop and question all of the hundreds of two-wheeled vehicle riders in an area 6 kilometers across within six minutes of the crime? That’s quite a feat! Frankly, I would be astounded if the Japanese police could get interested in a crime in six minutes, given their reputation for not jumping into action, rather simply telling victims that nothing can be done about it.

What we have here is an extremely badly written article based on an unbelievably faulty premise. Pretty standard for the Yomiuri.

That’s what one Men’s store call its “Big and Tall” section. But for those of you who want a good selection of oversize clothes, both formal and casual, try Sakazen. The web site does not seem to show the Shinkuku store, but it’s there, on Yasukuni Blvd. just past Meiji Blvd., coming from Shinjuku Station. Five floors of clothes, the 4th and 5th floors dedicated to larger sizes (formal wear on the 4th, casual on the 5th). The phone number for the store is (03) 3354-1641.

Right across the street there’s what looks to be a good oversize shoe shop, carrying sizes over 27cm. Tennies, dress shoes, sandals, the whole lot. The shop is called Hikari Shinjuku, phone number (03) 3351-0192.

Both shops are located much closer to the Shinjuku Sanchome stations for the Shinjuku and Marunouchi subway lines; take exit C7, they’re right around the corner from there.

A couple stories in the Daily Yomiuri caught my eye. All too often these stories are badly written, coming to incorrect conclusions by missing crucial information. One story concerned the “unpopular” 2,000 yen bills. In my experience, they are not unpopular, it is just that they are very poorly distributed. The story claims that people don’t like them because they can’t use them in vending machines. Well, you can’t use a 10,000 yen bill in vending machines, either. Another stated reason was that bank tellers are afraid they might confuse them with 5,000 yen bills–a possible reason, but it hardly explains why you never see the bills. One time I tried to get a whole bunch of them, because I like the convenience as well as the design of the bills–and was made to wait more than ten minutes at the bank because they apparently had to get the notes out of the vault. I don’t think the public has had the chance to dislike them–I have only been given one once at a store–it is just that they are badly distributed by the banks. Oh, and the lack of enough drawers in most cash registers might be a reason merchants don’t like them….

Another story on the same page deals with high-speed Internet access, where consternation is expressed as to why only 305,000 subscriptions to fiber-optic lines exist, when more than 16 million households have access. It astounds me that the writer of the article did not seem to know that due to the type of cables used, fiber-optic connections can only be made to households with specific construction that allows the cables in–so of course only a few buy the service. Are the people at NTT really scratching their heads, unable to figure this one out? I’d love to get the service–the “high price” the story mentions for subscription is the same as many people in the U.S. pay for 1.5 megabit DSL, yet the Japanese service is 100 megabits. But my apartment building is unable to accept the wiring. NTT, you want to sell more subscriptions? Invest in new wiring technology that doesn’t exclude the vast majority of possible customers!

The real-time Hi-Net seismograph network page reports the quake as being 4.9, at 45.2 km deep.

Another site, tenki.jp, still says 5.1.

I was just wrapping things up for the night, and then the whole place started shaking, with structure-creaking sounds and all. Started at 12:57 a.m., and the news stations are calling it a 5.1 Magnitude quake (Japanese scale, not Richter) centered in northwest Chiba–but it definitely felt like a 4-pointer locally (though news reports say it was a “3” west of central Tokyo).

That’ll wake you right up.

Sorry for the hiatus… On to Day 4.

In the morning, we took some time to shop, looking mostly in the old town. Karen and Dad wanted to find a silver spoon for Mom. Having heard we were looking for something like this, the cousins had picked one up for us–but it was a souvenir spoon with the Pontevedra crest on it, and Mom wanted something simpler. So we went to a few silver stores (there seemed to be quite a lot of them), and found something nice. In addition, we went to a pottery store where we picked up a nice coffee set, as well as some pins. The pins said “Non a Guerra” (“No to the War”) and “Nunca Maís” (“Never Again”).

Afterwards, we walked around town for about an hour before we went back to the hotel to meet Charo. Charo is another cousin; his father was jailed after the Spanish Civil War, and my grandfather helped support their family, sending money whenever he could. Charo said that one of his early memories was when Papa Hernan came to visit, and bought the family a lobster meal–an extravagance he had never seen before.

We ate lunch at another restaurant near the estuary, this time closer in to town; during that time, we enjoyed conversation and again, very good food. Charo told us about how we could get to the cathedral at Santiago, then showed us the way back into town before saying goodbye.

So off we went to the north, pretty much clueless about our destination beyond knowing that a big, old stone cathedral was somewhere in the town we were driving to. Naturally, we got kind of lost in the town, but as usual, the locals were very friendly and helpful, and pointed us in the right direction. By this time, the rain that had been predicted for our whole stay (which we had been lucky enough to avoid so far) caught up with us–but not too badly. We walked down the old-yet-touristy streets to the cathedral.

When we got there, we first looked around the square, appreciating the majesty of the cathedral and the surrounding architecture. When we approached the building, there was a guy dressed in what looked to be some quasi-Celtic gard, with a tray hanging from his shoulders, apparently selling the hard-to-identify items. I tried to wave him off when he approached me with his spiel, but he recognized that we were Americans and switched to English–and I still did not understand what he was selling. As I politely declined and tried to walk away, I caught the only sentence I understood: “You’re going in there looking like that?” I still have no idea what he was about.

As it was, we couldn’t get inside–a mass had just started, and no one was allowed to tour the cathdral until it was over. So we headed to one of the side streets to find a place to wait the hour. We found a little hole-in-the-wall cafe and had some churros and hot chocolate. The hot chocolate was like the kind my grandmother made for my father when he was a kid–very thick. We finished and headed back to the cathedral.

We got there and went in just as the mass was ending. It would be hard to explain what we saw, so I will leave you to view the photos in the photo page (see the end of this post). Suffice it to say, it was not hard to be impressed by the opulence of the interior. Sam and Will, not surprisingly, were most impressed by a certain metal grate protecting a display; the grate was mildly electrified, and by placing your hands in particular places, you could feel a low-level shock. They loved it.

At the end of the day, we headed back for Pontevedra, to make our way back to Madrid the next day. We had light all the way back–since Spain is both on daylight savings time and on the western edge of a time zone, it stays light out until 9:00 pm.

— Photos from the day are thumbnailed on the Day 4 Photo Page.

Coming Soon: Day Five: Back to Madrid, with a spectacular lunch on the way.

Here’s a story you won’t want to miss. A college student in New Orleans sold his Macintosh Powerbook computer system for close to $3000 on eBay, and got cheated–the man he sold it to sent him a forged check, putting him in a very bad financial position.

Sounds like all too many stories you hear about online fraud, right? Except this guy decided not to be a victim; in his words, “you just shouldn’t mess with Mac people.” So he went into high gear to catch the con man who stole his computer. Not only did he go to all sorts of amazing lengths to catch the culprit, but a great many people in the Mac community who read his story on Mac web sites and discussion groups volunteered their help. Despite having done all the work and practically serving this criminal up on a platter, the Chicago police, FBI, and Secret Service, all who could have claimed jurisdiction, brushed him off. All seemed to no avail, until…

Well, read the story here. [ Editor’s update : the site seems to have been sold, so I reproduced the story here.] It is a lot of fun. And there is a happy ending, too–although this guy will probably never see his computer again, an authorized Mac seller called General Cybernetics gave him a 12″ iBook gratis, the computer he wanted to buy after selling his Powerbook. And an indie producer has bought the rights to make a movie about his experience.

Update: As the site the story was hosted on seems to have been reset, and perhaps sold, I reproduced the story, sans a few things. One thing I could not find was a copy of his driver’s license, which was originally in the post on the web site of the guy who tracked him down.

However, I did find a mug shot for a Melvin Christmas from Chicago—from 2011. He seemed to have been arrested in March 2011, and convicted several months later, on multiple charges of forgery, theft, and credit card fraud. Sure sounds like the same guy.

The report cites his projected parole date as having been 9/19/2013.

Interestingly enough, his name also turned up a Facebook page—one that was active until January 2011, and then stayed quiet until July 2013, when he started posting again. He looks like the same guy in the mug shots. Considering that he studied computer repair in college in 2000, it kind of fits that this was the guy who was stealing computers as reported in the story from 2003. The charges in 2011 are fairly similar to what he was apparently caught doing in 2003. In 2010, he mentioned being back in school to be a computer technician. Then the 2011 arrest on theft, forgery, and credit card fraud. After getting out in summer 2013, he posted in August that he “fell,” but it “wasn’t my fault.” Um, OK. He posts all the time about Christ and God–but more recently posted a photo taken of an overweight person from behind with a less-than-kind comment. So, go figure.

Got my tickets to see “The Matrix Reloaded” today. It opens on June 7th in Japan, but as is the case with big releases here, the movie will have special screenings on Saturdays for a few weeks before the official opening. Why, I have no idea. So I’m going to the May 24th showing at 5pm; had to get to the theater in Minami Ozawa (not far from where I live) before 9am to get good tickets.

As with many other things in Japan, Movie theaters have changed somewhat over the past 20 years. They are still expensive–1,800 yen (about $15) per full price ticket, no bargain matinees per se, but advance discount “picture tickets” are sold for as little as 1,300 yen (about $11), but only at special ticket shops. But now foreign chains have entered the market, most notably Warner Bros. and Virgin. Both have features that vastly improve on traditional Japanese theaters.

First of all, most Japanese theaters still have general seating, and in fact they do not even limit attendance to the theater capacity–which means you sometimes have to stand in the back to see a popular movie. The new chains sell tickets for specific seats, meaning not only that you are assured a seat, but you can see which seat it will be before you pay for the ticket. Very nice–this also means you don’t have to wait in lines for hours, just buy the ticket in advance, then return just before the show. Some Japanese theaters will do this, but in a negative way–they cordon off the best seats in the house, and only people who pay in excess of $20 can sit in them.

I got choice seats for the Matrix Reloaded–center of the theater, but the next row up is about 8 feet away to create an aisle. that means good leg room, and it’s easy to get up if I want to get a snack or rush for the men’s room.

Second, the foreign chains’ snacks are much better than most Japanese theaters. Japanese theaters are famous for stale popcorn, a strange assortnment of packaged junk food, and drinks from overpriced vending machines. The new chains serve freshly popped popcorn, and offer butter (OK, butter flavoring–um, OK, flavored anhydrous butterfat, but it still tastes good). Hot dogs and nachos and the like are also there. And interestingly, the prices are lower than they are in the states. A large popcorn (a big thing which would be called “small” in U.S. theaters) and two medium drinks cost 1,000 yen, about $8. In the U.S., the same thing would likely cost more than $10.

Another advantage is the multiplex concept. Japanese theaters tend to have no more than three screens, and even that is only in the big theater districts. The new chains have 8 or more screens, meaning you don’t have to walk a ways to see your second choice of films if the first is sold out–or if there are no seats left that you would want to sit in.

And finally, there is the Late Show. Most Japanese theaters never have matinees, as I mentioned. Instead, they reduce prices to just 1,000 yen ($8!) on the first day of every third month–just four days each year. Whoopee. The foreign chains offer Late Show prices, 1,200 yen for every show starting after 9:00pm. Not as good a deal as afternoon matinees in the U.S., but better than the local alternative!

I still find it cheaper, in most cases, to just get the DVD. I can buy them from Amazon.com usually for around $20, which is less than the ticket and popcorn price–and I get the special DVD features and get to see the movie whenever I want. But some flicks you just have to see at the theater.

You can locate a theater and get show times at the Virgin or Warner MyCal web sites.

I’ve seen the Fuji blimp over Tokyo every once in a great while, but until today, never the Goodyear Blimp. That was a bit of a mental jar…. But there it was, circling over Shinjuku. Don’t have photo art, sorry.

Wonder what they’re doing here…