My friendly confines

Unless they have some first-hand experience with the city, mentioning Tokyo to those in the general populace evokes a certain handful of images. Expensive? Sure. Tons of people? You bet. Raw fish, fast trains, and all manner of assorted weirdness? You could say that.

Another topic sure to come up is Tokyo's cramped spaces and the challenges they pose in finding housing. We're not all crammed into capsule hotels, thankfully, but admittedly there is a kernel of truth to this, too. I'm getting my first taste of this as I settle into what will be my home for at least the first few months of my time as a Tokyoite.

Stop me if you've heard this one...

...but New Year's resolutions are bunk. What, other than the turning of the calendar and the end of the holiday season, makes this a better time than any other to undertake self-improvement?

Then there's the resolutions themselves. For all the fuss about making them, it seems it's taken as a fait accompli that they will come up short, as though a New Year's resolution carries all the weight of your average political campaign promise.

Given all this, Mark Twain perhaps best summed up the occasion in his 1863 New Year's Day editorial in the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise:

Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual. Yesterday, everybody smoked his last cigar, took his last drink, and swore his last oath. To-day, we are a pious and exemplary community. Thirty days from now, we shall have cast our reformation to the winds and gone to cutting our ancient short comings considerably shorter than ever. We shall also reflect pleasantly upon how we did the same old thing last year about this time. However, go in, community. New Year's is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls, and humbug resolutions, and we wish you to enjoy it with a looseness suited to the greatness of the occasion.

Happy 2016 to everyone. If you're not already living the life you want to live, here's hoping this is the year you start.

On the road again, again

I've noticed something of an ebb and flow during my recent moves. See if you can spot the trend.

A holiday playlist for the rest of us

It's Christmas again, that time of year when the shmaltz is turned up to 11 and songs dripping with seasonal sentiment are as difficult to escape as marketing for the new Star Wars movie. If, like me, sentimentality isn't your strong suit, here's a playlist to help get you through the last day of the Christmas season and keep you safe until Halloween 2016, when the drumbeat from the North Pole begins anew.

Scarf update

One of the minor perks of coming back home is having a rare chance to consolidate the stuff I've collected and see how much I actually have. Usually this is a sobering experience, reminding me I'm not nearly as good at avoiding accumulating stuff as I think I am, but it has its high points, too.

For example, I recently got all my scarves in one place for the first time. I do my best to get a scarf when I see a team play live as it serves both as a nice keepsake and, depending on the scarf, a useful garment in the cold. It also provides something of an informal travelogue amid all my globe-trotting.

The fruits of said globe-trotting are below the jump.