You know that you've been awake too long when it takes you upwards of twenty minutes to notice that people are driving on the left-hand side of the road.

I'm in Tokyo (I can tell because there was an earthquake last night). I'd like to say that it's because I'm the newest contestant on The Amazing Race, but I don't have enough personality quirks for that to be the case; I'm here for a database conference.

Girls in sailor outfits... check.

Dance, ASIMO, dance!
Like a monkey, entertain!
Please don't kill mankind.

The National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation is one of the more impressive science centres I've visited (and I visit a lot). Particularly impressive are the hand-dryers in the men's rooms. When I write ``hand-dryers,'' you may be thinking of the feeble North American devices under which you wring your hands futilely; these are not those. These are machines where you are grateful to get your hands back in one piece after every molecule of water has been blasted off them by winds of fury.

According to legend,
Head-bite by lion brings luck;
Not counting head wound.

The conference banquet was last night, and although student attendees were not invited, I managed to finagle a ticket. The dinner was sponsored, and if food quality is any indicator of business competency, I urge you all to purchase an Oracle product immediately.

Even though we were repeatedly urged to place our tickets in front of us on the table, the waiters kept providing food for the three empty places at our table. This, combined with our general lack of shame, kept us in high quality sashimi well into the evening.

Along with the food, entertainment was provided; a Japanese folk dancing and drumming group performed a series of pieces, including one which extolled the fortune-bringing virtues of being bitten in the head by a lion. For one of the songs, they called up volunteers from the audience to drum; as well as drumsticks, the volunteers were loaned snappy Japanese jackets. This morning, an announcement was made that some of the jackets had not been returned, and they should be turned in at reception immediately (see lack of shame, above).

Girls in big socks... check.

I've seen the mountain.
I guess it's time to go home -
I'm out of money.

With the conference over, and having no further official reason to stay in town, I went to the Fujigoko region, climbed some hills, did a little light spelunking, and generally enjoyed the outdoors. Mt. Fuji... check.

Now I'm implementing my standard travel policy of:

• Spend remaining money on all the Pocky you can carry


• Flee the country

For those of you who have been waiting, I can now safely say that the Rutgers Men's Ultimate team can't be that bad. This weekend saw us win the Metro NY (New Jersey and New York up to Poughkeepsie) College Sectionals tournament, earning a spot at Regionals.

Although we qualified for Regionals last year, we did so from second place. This is the first tournament that we have actually won since I joined the team. So now I have something with which to compare defeat.