Year 28, Day 1

"We've gone too far to turn back, we're just too close to quit" - Gin Blossoms

And how did Year 27 go?

• saw some amazing stuff
• found one potential place where I'd like to build a big house someday
• discovered eating cabbage isn't that bad
• got tired of being a showman
• reaffirmed desire to become, well, an actual teacher
  
• risked everything on one move to Tokyo

Next twelve months should be fun.

Just finished watching "the interview"

You know, the much-hyped interview everyone's been spending a whole week to ramp up for. And it was worth every second watching.

I'm not much of a player in the markets, but I know enough to remember that Cramer was sorta Kudlow's foil and vice versa when they co-hosted the same show, and "the enemy of my enemy" rule is always in effect. So I like the guy. I know he voted for Obama and insisted that, while economically he leaned toward the right, he was more centrist than a lot of the business commentators you'll listen to (look how Lou Dobbs Tonight turned into CNN's most conservative show; "neutral" business commentators were, overnight, turned into immigrant bashers), and socially he was liberal as they come. So I like the guy.

Which makes me sad, because he should've never gone on TDS. He shouldn't have been the face of CNBC last night. But once he took on that role, Jon Stewart had every right to take Jim Cramer to school with the business end of a baseball bat.

Just to brag

I am scheduled to present "Random Elements in the Language Classroom" at the N.E.A.R. Language Education Conference in Niigata on Saturday, May 30th. This will be an abbreviated talk of the long-form presentation I gave last September to the JALT Fukui Chapter. Information from that presentation can be found on inDef. I will be making additions and revisions to that presentation in the coming weeks.

Information on the N.E.A.R. conference can be found at their website.

H*** L***** ****

I have defended MLS time and time again, but today...

**** ****.

Are the Galaxy and the league serious? Europe got what they wanted. The rest of us, well, we got played like a cheap kazoo.