Back in the Saddle Again

iPod morning commute music: Elvis Costello, King of America (1986)
As I've mentioned before, I had my son, Tatsu, dump all the music off my iPod and put in his choice of playlists. He has always been appalled that I hadn't put any Elvis Costello onto the computer, a problem he rectified when programming his own iPod at Christmas. King of America is supposedly Costello's personal favorite. I can see why. It's low-key, personal, and explores country, folk and blues. The lyrics are terrific as well. I believe I have the British version with a bonus disc, but I need to check it out when I get home to be sure.

Sorry I haven't posted of late. We had our senior high entrance exam on Friday and Saturday, and our 9th grade students who didn't do well had to come in of Monday to be scolded (the rest of the school had the day off, as this was considered part of the entrance exam). Yesterday was graduation for our seniors, at an auditorium outside our school. Both Monday and Tuesday were half days, so Kaoru was happy that I could cook dinner two nights in a row (meat loaf and honey-mustard chicken, nothing too fancy).

We've been watching the Winter Olympics (for my kids, anything is better than CNN, and they know I can't complain about the Olympics, as I do when they are watching Japanese MTV or, even worse, quiz shows). Yesterday I got home early and watched, of all things, Curling, Japan vs Russia, as I decided on and started dinner. I actually got into it. I enjoyed the slowness of the sport (I'm a big baseball fan, so perhaps that makes sense), the fact that the team members could take the time to talk about and decide strategy. I felt sorry that the Japanese women lost, but it was a good match.

Japan basically shows only events which have Japanese competitors. I guess that's to be expected. I generally root for Americans first and Japanese second. While it's pretty much a given that the US will do well, Japan is a bit more problematic. They've been getting a lot of 4th place finishes it seems to me. Hopefully they'll do better in figure skating.