Sept. 23rd Weekend

This weekend held some promise, but turned out to be mostly a bust. I had to visit the International Center, down by the Reimeikan history museum, on Thursday, and I saw workers putting up the stage and food booths for some kind of event for the coming weekend. I had one English class on Friday, so afterward I swung by the Center again to see if I could find the schedule for the stage show, and identify which event it was. Turns out this is for KTS TV's regular announcements of their new TV season line-up. I've seen this thing enough to know that most of the supporting activities held inside the center, and at the open area near Yamakataya in Tenmonkan, are pretty much all the same from year to year. I've taken photos and video from past events and didn't really feel like taking more shots this time of stuff that doesn't really change. When I arrived at the front lawn to the building, I discovered that the TV crew was blocking out the camera shots for one of the larger group events (each of the staff members on stage had name tags on identifying the personality they were standing in for).

Now, the event only ran from 10:30 AM to 5 PM on Saturday and Sunday, and the live portion mostly consisted of people talking about the upcoming TV shows. There were some song and dance numbers, most of which I actively intended to avoid, including manzai (the Japanese attempt at two-man stand-up comedy), a stage play by the local foamhead mascots, and three musical performances - one by a female karaoke singer, and then two trios. I don't know anything about the first trio, other than that the picture showed a woman and two guys in formal wear. The second trio is a Japanese hip hop group calling themselves Berry Goodman (possibly a joke on "very good, man", but more likely a rip-off of "Benny Goodman"), and I saw them last year. I dislike Japanese hiphop because the songs are stupid, but Goodman has a very strong, very vocal fan base, so they are popular here. I don't like them, though.

Anyway, I didn't have to work until 6 PM on Saturday, but it was raining all day, and most of Sunday. There wasn't much I had any interest in, and I had several projects at home that I wanted to get as much work on over the weekend as I could (one of which is shooting video for a little robot vehicle kit I bought some time ago). Because it's about a 1-mile walk to the Center from the apartment, I didn't want to go there in the rain unless there was a good reason for it (like, having to get to my job). Instead, I stayed home most of the weekend, although I did get up to Amu Plaza and the main train station (which is in the opposite direction from the Center) on Sunday for a few minutes to see if there was anything going on there. They had the Ai-paku event (booths and tables selling upscale ice cream), but that was it. Otherwise an uneventful time. (Although, after the Amu Plaza trip, I got to read a little Sherlock Holmes - The Hound of the Baskervilles - which was good, and I reread parts of the Cerebus Jaka's Story and Melmoth books, which are also good.)