Oh, sure, I make fun of the people who design stage costumes for Hello!Project. It’s the least I can do, given the insane amount of effort they expend to overdecorate their helpless victims.

So when they do something simple, with just two colors and no feathers or tulle or ruffles or rhinestones, I think it’s only fair to say something nice. I mean, it’s even age-appropriate!

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I realize that Ayumi Shibata and the rest of Melon Kinenbi are being kicked out of the agency along with all of the other adults, but do you really think this is a viable option for her post-H!P career, or did you do it to satisfy certain personal needs?

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Tuesday night, I managed to scrape together enough time to finish the novel I’ve been reading in Japanese. I was a bit disappointed in the ending, not so much in how the kids defeated the evil witch as in why it worked. But that’s a blog entry for another day.

Tonight, I’m going back through it, looking for the words and phrases that I didn’t find in my pocket dictionary (aka, “DS Lite running Kanji Sonomama”). Some of it I still can’t find (particularly mimetic expressions), but there are some fun ones.

First up, 「へそを曲げる」, which JMdict translates as “to get angry; to become perverse”, but it literally means “to bend your belly-button”. The impudent young warlock who says “heso o mageru na yo, baachan” to the cranky old witch clearly means “calm down, granny”, but since the thing she’s upset about is his lack of respect, it doesn’t really work.

Ordinarily, if someone said, “there’s a grill in your office”, I’d consider it a feature.

[Another depressing song, this time performed by Yuuko Nakazawa on her debut album. It wasn’t released as a single, so there’s no complete performance on video, but a trimmed version can be found here. The translation is mostly literal, and I’ve tried to preserve the original line breaks rather than rewrite it as smooth English.]

捨てないでよ

“Don’t throw me away”

作詞：つんく　作曲：つんく　編曲：川口　真

(lyrics and music by Tsunku, arrangement by Makoto Kawaguchi)

知らないふり　いつもしてる
あなたの他の女性を

I’m always pretending I don’t know about your other women.

ダメな女　苦しいのに
あなたをまた許してる

I’m a hopeless woman. Even though it’s painful, I’m forgiving you again.

今日は帰るの　明日は来るの
ねぇ　ひとこと　「ごめん」と
言わせてみたいけど

Are you going home tonight? Will you come back tomorrow? Oh, one single thing, “I’m sorry”, I wish I could make you say it, but…

でも　待ってるばかり
でも　泣いてるの見せない
でも　待ってるばかり
でも　愚痴なんて言わない

Instead, I’m just waiting. Instead, I won’t show you that I’m crying. Instead, I’m just waiting. Instead, I won’t even grumble.

いつかはあなた　好きな女性できても
捨てないでよ

Even if someday you fall in love with someone else, don’t throw me away.

知らないふり　いつもしてる
香水の残り香も

I’m always pretending I don’t know, even with the lingering scent of their perfume.

いい女よ　全てそうよ
あなたの邪魔はしない

I’m a good woman, I won’t intrude on everything you do.

明日は来ない　電話もかけない
ねぇ　ひとこと「好きだ」と
言わせてみたいだけ

You won’t come over tomorrow, and you won’t call. Oh, one single thing, “I love you”, is all I try to make you say.

でも　待ってるばかり
でも　淋しいと言わない
でも　待ってるばかり
でも　待ってると淋しい

Instead, I’m just waiting. Instead, I won’t say I’m lonely. Instead, I’m just waiting. Instead, when I’m waiting, I’m lonely.

いつかはあなた　好きな女性できても
捨てないでよ

Even if someday you fall in love with someone else, don’t throw me away.

でも　待ってるばかり
でも　泣いてるの見せない
でも　待ってるばかり
でも　愚痴なんて言わない

Instead, I’m just waiting. Instead, I won’t show you that I’m crying. Instead, I’m just waiting. Instead, I won’t even grumble.

いつかはあなた　好きな女性できても
捨てないでよ
捨てないでよ

Even if someday you fall in love with someone else, don’t throw me away. Don’t throw me away.

As a general rule, one does not expect to find that replacing a single server with several significantly faster ones has reduced performance by a factor of four. On reflection, however, perhaps it is inevitable that the word “cluster” must be followed by the word “fuck”.

Design note: do not assemble laptops with screws that are precisely the correct size to fall into the DVI adapter’s screw holes.

…on the bright side, once I found a strong magnet, I was able to finish installing my new 7200rpm 320GB drive (Amazon, free shipping, $90), giving me the delicious luxury of 200GB of (briefly-)free space.

…and I’m apparently better at putting MacBook Pros back together than the folks at the Apple Store, since the locking mechanism actually works properly again.

For once, my Japanese spam isn’t about how to find beautiful younger women who’ll pay you for sex:

アメリカのネイティブスピーカーのようなライティングも夢ではありません

[update: oh, good grief:

このソフトは、あなたの英文を向上させます

英語スキルをアップグレードしましょう

]

[Update: …and two more today, with completely different subject lines. The thing I find interesting is that this is all of the Japanese spam I’m getting right now. Nothing about getting laid, finding women, male enhancement, just “improve your English”. It’s a worrying economic sign when the bottom-feeders of the ad world think that Japanese men are more likely to spend money on career skills than on mercenary schoolgirls and horny housewives.]

[Update: Ah, that’s better; it took a few days, but now I’m getting things that start off with phrases like 「女をマインドコントロールして自由に…」. I guess there’s hope for the Japanese economy after all.]